Sitting of 2 April 1946

Preamble
The House met at a Quarte past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
NORTIIMET POWER BILL(by Order).
Read a Second time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
INVERNESS WATER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Read the Third time, and passed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  BRITISH ARMY

    Demobilisation
    Mr. Henderson Stewartasked the Secretary of State for War why his Department consistently refused to announce a definite scheme of demobilisation for H.C.T. troops, when a definite scheme was offered to British troops; when the first of these H.C.T. troops were demoblished and reached their homes; how many are still on service in the Middle East; how many are now in transit camps; and when the whole of these troops will be repatriated.
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Lawson): It is not usual for the War Office to announce release programmes for locally enlisted forces, as this is a matter left to the Commander-in-Chief concerned. I understand that the first party of H.C.T. troops to be demobilised reached their homes on 26th August last. All H.C.T. troops have now left the Middle East except for 42 soldiers in hospital or serving sentences of imprisonment. It is expected that these men will have left by the middle of April.
    Mr. Stewart: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the lack of a definite scheme of demobilisation, such as that announced for British troops, is the cause of great unrest among these troops and their friends in their native country, and does the right hon. Gentle man say that it is not the responsibility of the War Office to attend to that matter?
    Mr. Lawson: I realise that there has been some difficulty about this matter, but I am afraid it will have to be left to the Command concerned to deal with it.
    Mr. Ronald Chamberlain: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is considerable evidence that these men are being sent back to their villages without sufficient medical examination and are arriving back home in a deplorable state? Furthermore, is he aware that there is a new recruitment scheme for these men, and does he think such a scheme desirable in view of the shortage of food and manpower in this territory?
    Mr. Lawson: I am sorry to hear the statement made about the conditions under which these men return home. I will certainly have the matter examined, because it would leave a very bad impression.
    Mr. Chamberlain: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the second half of my supplementary question?
    Flight-Lieutenant Crawleyasked the Secretary of State for War why, since the number of men to be released this year has been decided, any slowing up in the speed of that release is necessary.
    Mr. Lawson: The rate of release decided upon for the period up to 30th June, 1946, is the most rapid possible, having regard to current commitments, to bring the Army down to the target figure for that date. The programme of releases for July-December, 1946, is still under consideration, but it, too, will be governed by the extent of commitments during that period.
    Mr. Charles Williams: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if there is any chance of an acceleration, because the men are rather concerned about this matter?
    Mr. Lawson: I am hoping that acceleration will be possible, but the Army has its commitments and one has to be very careful before making a decision.
    Mr. Williams: When are we to have a statement of our commitments?
    Mr. Walkden: If it is true that we are evacuating, or likely to evacuate, our troops from Indonesia, and, possibly, from Greece, and that we may, further still, be bringing our troops out of Italy, would that figure be considerably accelerated by August or September?
    Mr. Lawson: The Secretary of State for War, more than most people, desires to see this fact accomplished and, if it is, there would be no happier person.
    Mrs. Castleasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that difficulties of communication cause delay in the offer of Class B release reaching men serving in S.E.A.C., he will arrange for the offer of block release under this scheme to be extended to higher release groups in the case of men serving in the Far East than in the case of men serving nearer at home.
    Mr. Lawson: I am looking into this matter and will write to my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Vaneasked the Secretary of State for War whether the opportunity of electing Class B release has yet been offered to carpenters in age and service Group 38 under the block scheme; and what is the highest group to which this opportunity has been offered.
    Mr. Lawson: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Warbey) on 12th March.
    Mr. Gaitskellasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the minimum period for which a man must have served before he can be considered for release on compassionate grounds.
    Mr. Lawson: There is no minimum period for which a man must have served before he can be considered for release on compassionate grounds.
    Lieut.-Colonel Clifton-Brownasked the Secretary of State for War, when he will issue directions for all farm workers, who have been in the Forces over 12 months, to be offered Class B release.
    Mr. Hurdasked the Secretary of State for War if he will give an assurance that he has now given instructions to all commands that will ensure that agricul-
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    tural workers with one year's service are offered immediate release under Class B block scheme.
    Commander Maitlandasked the Secretary of State for War to what extent offers of Class B release are being sent by his Department to men with over a year's service in the Army whose Service records show them as agricultural workers.
    The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Bellenģer): No special instructions to commands are necessary'. Individual authorities for the release of all those eligible have been or are being issued. To meet the demands received from the Ministry of Labour and National Service for agricultural workers it has been necessary to offer release to all releaseable men with over a year's service in the occupations concerned.
    Mr. W. J. Brown: Can the hon. Gentleman bring this to the notice of commanding officers, as it does appear that many of them do not know about it?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I think commanding officers know all about this. It has already been brought to their notice.
    Mr. York: Are all release groups sent forward at the same time. or are releases sent forward by demobilisation groups?
    Mr. Bellenģer: No, Sir, each case is dealt with individually.
    Mr. Turton: Can the Minister say whether he has published an Army Council instruction yet?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I shall want notice of that question. Some instructions have been issued to all commands, and therefore to commanding officers of units in those commands.
    Major Leģ ģe-Bourke: In view of his last remark, that all cases are dealt with individually, does the hon. Gentleman mean to say that each individual has to be applied for separately?
    Mr. Bellenģer: No, Sir, but individual instructions are issued by the War Office in each case.
    Briģadier Lowasked the Secretary of State for War what steps have been taken to replace essential specialist officers of R.E., Royal Signals, R.A.S.C. and R.A.O.C. in M.E.F., who are due for Class A release; when these steps arc likely to bear fruit; and whether, as a

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    result, sufficient specialist officers will be available for the needs of this theatre without deferring any releases.
    Mr. Bellenģer: The steps being taken include the transfer of officers to the Middle East from other theatres, the attachment to the technical arms of officers from other arms in which the shortage of officers is not at present so acute, and, in certain arms a reduction in the length of officer cadet training. All these measures are bearing fruit.

    H.C.T. Troops, Palestine(Mutiny)
    Mr. Henderson Stewartasked the Secretary of State for War if he will make a report on the mutiny among H.C.T. troops in Palestine during November; what was the cause of the mutiny; what action was taken; why airborne troops fired over too rounds at the sentenced men while in gaol on the occasion of the court-martial sentence being made public, four men being killed and a number wounded: and if, in view of the magnificent war record of the Basuto Company concerned, he will consider cancelling the sentences of six and nine months' imprisonment imposed on the men and return the men to their homes forthwith.
    Mr. Lawson: I have called for a report and as soon as it is received I will write to the hon. Member.
    Mr. Stewart: Is the right hon. Gentleman asking the House to believe that he knows nothing about the matter? A number of British native troops were shot in November last and this is April; is the right hon. Gentleman really asking us to believe that?
    Mr. Lawson: All I can say is that I have no detailed report to hand.
    Earl Winterton: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether his Department or the Colonial Office is responsible for the welfare of these men, and will he make that plain to the House?
    Mr. Lawson: I could not say at the moment; I have no report.
    Mr. H. Hynd: Could my right hon. Friend explain for the more ignorant section of the House what "H.C.T." troops are?
    Mr. Lawson: The initials stand for "High Commission Territories."
    Mr. Stewart: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of the gravity of the facts I have alleged on the best testimony, he will consider setting up a special public inquiry to look into the matter?
    Mr. Lawson: It has been suggested that it is possible that another Department has received this report. I do not know, but I have no detailed report at the moment. I have called for a report and, as soon as I receive it, I will make a decision.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any court-martial has taken place.?
    Mr. Lawson: Yes, a court-martial did take place.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: Has not the right hon. Gentleman any report of the court-martial's findings?
    Mr. Stewart: In view of the very unsatisfactory reply, I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the very grave accusation made, and I take this opportunity of stating that I intend to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the first opportunity.

    Personal Cases
    Mr. Prittasked the Secretary of State for War why a serving officer with an exemplary military and anti-Fascist record, whose name has been communicated to him, has been suddenly removed from his position as a staff captain in the Military Government of Germany, without explanation or inquiry.
    Mr. Lawson: The temporary employment in Military Government of the officer in question was reviewed in accordance with the normal procedure. As a result it was decided that his services could more appropriately be utilised in another capacity. It was not necessary to explain this as it is the normal reason for the reposting of officers.
    Fliģht-Lieutenant Parkinasked the Secretary of State for War why, when 14450856 Lance-Corporal W. R. C. Hinman, left his reserved occupation to volunteer for the Army. on the death of his brother on active service, he was not offered a duration engagement.
    Mr. Lawson: I regret that I have no information as to whether or not this

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    soldier was offered a duration engagement. He would, however, have been clearly informed of the nature of the engagement he did undertake and must have signed the attestation form voluntarily.
    Fliģht-Lieutenant Parkin: Is the Minister aware that this soldier, and others like him who, under the stress of emotion, left a reserved occupation and volunteered for service in the Forces, are now suffering considerable hardship by being held to that undertaking involving an engagement for a certain number of years? Will he look into the matter again—particularly if he is considering other penalties which have been inflicted on persons during the war—concerning, as it does, those whose only crime was over-enthusiasm?
    Mr. Lawson: I have looked into this matter very carefully and I cannot find any evidence which would justify my taking further action.
    Fliģht-Lieutenant Parkin: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that this is the second time a question of this kind has been raised in this House?
    Mr. Jannerasked the Secretary of State for War why his Department has refused the release from the Army, under Class B, of Lieutenant C. G. Noakes, 292021, R.A.O.C., particulars of whose case have been sent to him, in view of the fact that the Ministry of Labour had approved his release so that he could return to work for Messrs. J. D. Thomson, Limited, Boot Manufacturers, Leicester, of which firm he is the managing director.
    Mr. Bellenģer: The release of this officer under Class B has been refused because it could not be granted without delaying the Class A release of another officer. But my right hon. Friend is looking further into this case.
    Mr. Janner: Would the hon. Gentleman consider the fact that the Ministry of Labour and the Board of Trade recommended the release of this man because of his extreme importance to the shoe industry in Leicester in January, and that in March a letter was received from his Department saying that that application should be made to those Departments in order to get his release?
    Mr. Bellenģer: Yes, Sir. Unfortunately this application, if granted, would have
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    the effect of delaying a Class A officer who has absolute rights to get out.
    Mr. Janner: Will the hon. Gentleman see to it that the industry is not impeded, by putting another person in place of this man who is so urgently needed in that industry?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I have already given the hon. Gentleman an assurance that my right hon. Friend is looking further into it.
    Mr. Driberģ: Is my hon. Friend saying that Class A officers have absolute rights to get out? If so, will he reconsider the case of the officers in Group 26 who are being deferred?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I think that is quite correct. Class A release confers absolute right, subject only to one thing, namely, those who are considered to be operationally vital.
    Mr. Driberģ: Relatively absolute right.
    Mr. Lipsonasked the Secretary of State for War why a soldier, of whose name he has been informed, was refused leave to attend at an interview for a post under the Ministry of Food to which he had been invited; and if he will take steps to prevent leave being refused, in future, for this purpose.
    Mr. Bellenģer: Special leave for such interviews is not allowed. At home or in B.A.O.R. it may often be possible for ordinary leave to be granted so as to enable the interview to take place, but it was evidently not practicable in this case.
    Mr. Lipson: Why cannot leave be granted, in view of the fact that the war is over, and there is a great deal of feeling among Servicemen on this matter?
    Mr. Bellenģer: It is obviously not practical to bring men home from different theatres for special interview. They should try to arrange their privilege leave to coincide with the interview.
    Mr. Lipson: Is the Minister aware that it is hardly within a man's power to know when some appointing body will summon him for an interview? Will he not give more favourable instructions on this matter?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I am afraid we cannot do that. It will not be possible for men in the Far East to come home for special

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    interviews. Men of B.A.O.R. and those at home have some advantage, but that is a geographical advantage.
    Mr. Garry Alliģhanasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that 14425529 Signaller D. C. Laidler, Royal Signals, has been offered B release as an agricultural worker; that this man is a tradesman in another capacity, his only experience in agricultural work being a short period on leaving school; that he has no intention of returning to farm work; and why he is being released ahead of his group.
    Mr. Bellenģer: This man's release was authorised because on his records he was shown as an agricultural worker of an occupation being offered Class B release. The release authorization contains a proviso that the man
    " should state before release if he is not of the occupation quoted and that failure to reveal this will lead to immediate recall."
    In this particular case the man drew attention to the fact that he was not in fact an agricultural worker and the offer of Class B release was therefore cancelled.

    Ex-Prisoners of War, Far East
    Winģ-Commander Roland Robinsonasked the Secretary of State for War what action he proposes to take with regard to the cases of officers and men who were reduced in rank through inefficiency or for other reasons following trial by court martial or summary proceedings whilst prisoners of war in Japanese hands.
    Mr. Lawson: Men who were reduced in rank following trial by court-martial or summary proceedings while in Japanese hands, will have all trace of the trials erased and their reductions in rank will be void.
    Winģ-Commander Robinson: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether that means that men who misbehaved themselves while prisoners of war will have exactly the same chance in the future as the men who behaved themselves well?
    Mr. Lawson: The answer says "Men who were reduced in rank following trial by court-martial or summary proceedings."
    Winģ-Commander Robinsonasked the Secretary of State for War what are the reasons for his decision that all pro-
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    motions of prisoners of war in Japanese hands made by commanding officers should be cancelled; and whether he proposes to take any steps to ensure that those singled out by their commanding officers for good services whilst in captivity should be suitably rewarded.
    Mr. Lawson: As regards the first part of the Question, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answer I gave him on 27th November last. As regards the second part, all recommendations by commanding officers are carefully scrutinised and the names of a large number of ex-prisoners of war are being submitted to His Majesty for appropriate awards. Records of good service as prisoners of war are also noted to the credit of the officer or man concerned.

    Requisitioned Property(Compensation)
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Secretary of State for War whether any variation has been made in the liability of his Department for compensation in respect of requisitioned property as set out in Clause 2 (1) (b) of the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939.
    Mr. Lawson: I know of no recent variation in the liability which, under the Section quoted, rests upon all requisitioning departments other than those incorporated by Parliament in the Requisitioned Land and War Works Act, 1945.
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Secretary of State for War under what authority the War Department Lands Agent, Fareham, has been instructed to base the settlement of claims under Clause 2 (1) (b) of the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939, lodged with, but not settled by, his Department before 1st January, 1946, on the cost of repairs prior to that date.
    Mr. Lawson: I am advised that the compensation under 2 (1) (b) must be assessed on the basis of the cost of making good the damage as at the date of de-requisition. The instructions referred to by the hon. and gallant Member arc framed accordingly.

    Release Deferment
    Mr. Turner-Samuelsasked the Secretary of State for War what are the reasons which have led to the deferment in the M.E.F. of Group 26 until July this

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    year; and why the release dates for this group were given as 10th April to 5th May, 1946.
    Mr. Grimstonasked the Secretary of State for War what block deferments of release have been ordered for officers in the R.A.O.C., serving in the M.E.F., in each of the release Groups 26 to 32 inclusive; and for what periods arc these releases being deferred.
    Mr. Driberģasked the Secretary of State for War, in view of the widespread anxiety caused among officers by the recent deferment of many in release Group 26, what percentage of the total number of officers in this group serving in the Royal Signals, Pioneer Corps, and other corps in the M.E.F. and other theatres, have been so deferred; and if he will give an assurance that active steps are being taken to reduce this deferment, and make similar deferments unnecessary in 27 and later groups.
    Mr. Lawson: There is no question of block deferment of officers in any arm in the Middle East or elsewhere. Deferments on operational grounds can only be made on an individual basis and every case is considered on its merits. Officers in Group 26 are due to be released during the period 10th April to 5th May. It will not therefore be possible until the end of that period to say how many officers in this group will actually have their release deferred, but I am looking into this matter further.
    Fliģht-Lieutenant Beswick: Is it not possible to defer so many individuals that, in the end, it amounts to block deferment?
    Mr. Lawson: That is so, and that is why I am watching this matter very closely. I have taken active steps to get the facts.
    Fliģht-Lieutenant Beswickasked the Secretary of State for War whether, for those officers whose release is being deferred, he will give a definite limit for their deferment.
    Mr. Lawson: All cases are considered by Commanders-in-Chief on their individual merits in the light of local conditions, and I do not consider that I should be justified in interfering with their discretion in this matter. I am, however, constantly impressing on them the im-
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    portance of keeping the period of deferment to the minimum in all such cases.
    Fliģht-Lieutenant Beswick: Would it be possible to impose a definite limit to deferment in the case of very long service men? I know of one case of an officer who has served 6½ years and he is now faced with a period of indefinite deferment. It seems very unfair.
    Mr. Lawson: I realise, of course, that numbers can be deferred to such an extent that they can almost amount to a class by themselves. As to the period of time, that is another matter which is engaging my attention.
    Mr. Kinģ: Could not the number of deferments be reduced if officers were commissioned more quickly from the ranks?
    Mr. Grimstonasked the Secretary of State for War how many officers of No. 5 B.O.D., of age and service Groups 26–32, have been informed that their release will be deferred; and what proportion of the total officer strength of this unit this number represents.
    Mr. Ballenģer: According to my present information, two R.A.O.C. officers out of a total of 28 in this depot have been informed that their release will be compulsorily deferred.

    Kudu Services Club, Nairobi
    Mr. Skeffinģton-Lodģeasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of a proposal to close the Kudu Services Club, Nairobi, in the near future; and whether, owing to the much-valued amenities it provides for British other ranks, he will arrange to maintain it for as long as the strength of His Majesty's Forces in Nairobi requires.
    Mr. Lawson: I am making inquiries, and as soon as they are completed I will write to my hon. Friend.
    Fliģht-Lieutenant Beswick: Would my right hon. Friend have an inquiry made into the whole question of welfare facilities for other ranks in Nairobi? I think he will find there is very considerable dissatisfaction out there.
    Mr. Lawson: I regret to hear that, and I will certainly look into the matter.
    Mr. C. Williams: Why cannot the whole House have an opportunity of learning the information?
    Mr. Lawson: I can circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT if it is desired.

    Coloured Colonial Personnel
    Major Wilkesasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider recruiting for permanent service in the peacetime Army, coloured colonial personnel in the United Kingdom and within the Empire who may wish to join; whether those coloured soldiers already in the Service will be allowed to continue on a regular engagement; whether the relaxation during wartime of King's Regulations to allow Africans to hold the King's Commission will be continued in the future; and whether he will amend A.C.I. 1435 of 1942, para. 5 (B), which constitutes a colour bar on entry into the Service.
    Mr. Lawson: I am discussing this matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
    Major Wilkes: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the relaxation of King's Regulations to allow Africans to hold the King's Commission during the war has worked extremely well? Will he also bear in mind that the Royal Air Force have indicated that they will take coloured personnel on terms of complete equality for the peacetime R.A.F.?
    Mr. Lawson: I know there is considerable feeling on this question, but I think it should be discussed before any decision is taken.

    Troops, Germany (Billetinģ)
    Briģadier Lowasked the Secretary of State for War if he will give an assurance that British troops in Germany arc not billeted in non-residential premises, when residential premises exist in the required area.
    Mr. Lawson: In order to ensure the most satisfactory grouping of units and sub-units, it is necessary to use non-residential premises in some cases. But the policy aimed at is ultimately to house all troops in ex-German barracks.

    R.A.O.C. Officers (R.E. Services)
    Fliģht-Lieutenant Beswickasked the Secretary of State for War how many
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    officers of the R.A.O.C. are now attached for duties with R.E. Services.
    Mr. Lawson: No R.A.O.C. officers are attached for duty with R.E. Services in the United Kingdom. I have no up-to-date detailed information as to the position in overseas commands, but the numbers must be very small, if, indeed, there are any R.A.O.C. officers in this position.
    Fliģht-Lieutenant Beswick: I could give my right hon. Friend six individual cases. Would he look into the question of deferment of R.A.O.C. officers, so many of whom are serving outside their normal duties?
    Mr. Lawson: I will certainly do so, if the hon. and gallant Gentleman's information conflicts with what I have been given to understand.

    War Emerģency Commissions
    General Sir Georģe Jeffreysasked the Secretary of State for War what is the number of officers now serving on War Emergency Commissions; whether there is any establishment of such officers; what is the number of such officers surplus to requirements; and whether the standard of efficiency required before, commissioning has 'been raised or lowered since the cessation of hostilities.
    Mr. Lawson: The number of non-regular officers now serving is approximately 120,000. I regret that a separate figure for Emergency Commissioned officers is not readily available. There is no separate establishment for emergency commissioned officers, and, so far from there being a surplus of such officers, there is an overall deficiency. No change has been made in the standard of efficiency required before commissioning since the end of the war.
    Sir G. Jeffreys: Is it not a fact that the standard of efficiency required is now definitely low, and, in view of the fact that the urgency which prevailed during the war as regards the supply of officers is now at an end, could not the standard be raised?
    Mr. Lawson: That is a matter for consideration on the merits of the case. That is not the original Question which the hon. and gallant Gentleman put to me.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Secretary of State for War what provision is to be made for married quarters for regular soldiers holding emergency commissions who have re-engaged under King's Regulations, Appendix XXVII, paragraph 4.
    Mr. Lawson: On reversion to the ranks all regular soldiers holding War Emergency Commissions will he entitled to married soldiers' quarters on equal terms with other married soldiers.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at Catterick such men are denied officers' quarters on the ground that they have emergency commissions, and are denied warrant officers' quarters on the ground that they are officers? Can he take some steps to right that state of affairs?

    Retired Pay
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider reducing the age at which retired officers become eligible for retired pay up to £300 a year from 6o to 55.
    Mr. Lawson: I assume that the hon. Member has in mind the terms of the Pensions Increase Warrant, 1944. This Warrant follows the statutory provisions in the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1944, and it would, therefore, not be possible to make any special provision in favour of Army officers.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does that answer mean that the right hon. Gentleman is not prepared to take any steps to increase the miserable pittance on which these men who have served their country for 35 years are existing at the moment?
    Mr. Lawson: It would not be possible without an Amendment of the Act.
    Mr. W. J. Brown: Is the Minister not aware that we have been pressing his Government ever since last December to produce an Amendment to the very Act to which he has referred, and will he ask some of his back benchers to propose an Amendment to the Act, rather than plead the unamended Act as a reason for doing nothing when he ought to do something?
    Mr. Lawson: I will be as benevolent as I can in this matter. I was not quite sure whether the hon. Gentleman was asking me about the age or about the
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    amount. I will take note of the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman.
    Sir G. Jeffreys: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is justice and not benevolence that we require, and does he not agree that the Pensions (Increase) Act is very inadequate in its effect on officers' pensions?

    Aģricultural Land (Occupation)
    Mr. Vaneasked the Secretary of State for War how many acres of agricultural land including rough grazings in Westmorland are occupied by his Department; what is the total net Schedule A assessment of such land; to what extent he estimates that normal farming is interfered with through occupation by his Department; and what early plans he has for releasing a substantial proportion of this land to agriculture.
    Mr. Bellenģer: The War Department is in occupation of some 5,200 acres of agricultural land in Westmorland. It is not possible without a great deal of research to give a total net figure for the Schedule A assessment, since the value of the various areas is different and most of the land taken is part only of individual holdings. Where possible arrangements are made to allow parts of any land so occupied to be used for farming purposes, for example, grazing. Some 1,700 acres are in the course of being transferred to the war agricultural executive committee for restoration to full agricultural use.
    Mr. Dyeasked the Secretary of State for War when the battle training area adjoining Thetford will be returned to its agricultural and forestry purposes.
    Mr. Bellenģer: A review is being carried out as quickly as possible of the Army's requirements of land as a whole, and until this review has been completed and discussed with the other Departments concerned I cannot say what the future of any particular area will be.
    Mr. Dye: Is the Minister aware that the trees of the Forestry Commission are deteriorating very rapidly as a result of an incursion of the Army into this area, and furthermore that a large part of agricultural land is still out of production?
    Mr. Bellenģer: Unfortunately, I am afraid that is so and that a considerable proportion of England is out of production for this reason. It makes it all the

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    more necessary to hasten the decision in conjunction with other Departments to release such land as we can.
    Mr. Grimston: When is this review likely to be completed?
    Mr. Bellenģer: This is a very extensive matter, which affects not only my Depart-merit but other Departments as well.
    Mr. R. S. Hudson: Will the Minister bring to the attention of his colleagues, who are considering this matter, the position disclosed in the White Paper recently published?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I am sure that they are well aware of that.

    Compassionate Leave and Release
    Miss Baconasked the Secretary of State for War whose is the final decision in the granting of compassionate leave and compassionate release.
    Mr. Bellenģer: Compassionate leave for personnel serving in this country may be granted by commanding officers up to 28 days. Compassionate reversion to the United Kingdom from overseas is decided by the overseas Command concerned. All cases of release on compassionate grounds, whether definite or indefinite, are decided by the War Office.
    Miss Bacon: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that on many occasions hon. Members receive letters saying that although the War Office recommends compassionate release or compassionate leave the final decision rests with the commanding officer on the spot? Now that the war is over and military requirements are not so urgent, would the hon. Gentleman not agree that the granting of compassionate leave and compassionate release ought to be dependent solely upon the degree of compassion shown in the report of those who investigate the circumstances?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I think my hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. We do not say that all these cases are decided by the commanding officers. What we 'say is, that when the men are overseas it is decided by the commands. It might interest my hon. Friend to know that there are compassionate posting committees, consisting of officers and other ranks, in all commands overseas.
    Mr. Marples: In view of the delay which takes place in deciding these cases, would
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    the hon. Gentleman consider setting up some machinery which would expedite the hearing of such cases?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I can only say that the War Office have been expediting consideration of these cases very considerably, at any rate in the last few weeks.

    Austria and Hungary (Marriaģe Ban)
    Major Symondsasked the Secretary of State for War if marriages are permitted between British soldiers and Hungarian women; and if he will remove the ban on marriages between British soldiers and Austrian women, in view of the fact that Austria is regarded as a liberated country.
    Mr. Bellenģer: No instructions have been issued by the War Office prohibiting marriages between members of His Majesty's Forces and Hungarian subjects, but it is within the discretion of a Commander-in-Chief to refuse facilities for marriages with enemy aliens or to forbid such marriages in the interests of security. The ban on marriages with Austrian subjects is at present under consideration.

    B.A.O.R. (Leave)
    Mr. Garry Alliģhanasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that B.A.O.R. personnel have been granted permission to spend their summer leave in Venice, but are required to pay their own fares; and whether, as the Army provides free travel for men to travel home on leave in this country, he will arrange a similar concession for B.A.O.R. personnel.
    Mr. Bellenģer: Free leave travel for B.A.O.R. personnel at the rate of two journeys a year is allowed to this country or to certain approved leave centres on the Continent. Venice is not at present one of these approved leave centres to which free travel is allowed, because of its distance from the British Zone of occupation in Germany.
    Mr. Alliģhan: Will the Minister explain why he has arrived at that decision, in view of the fact that men in this country travel on British railways at Army expense, whereas the Army run the travel service to Venice, in which case there should be no charge at all?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I have told the hon. Member what is the position at present. I certainly-think the matter wants inquiring into further, and I shall do so.

    Reģular Officers (Retirement)
    Lieut.-Colonel Thorpasked the Secretary of State for War when the restriction is to be raised on the retirement of Regular Army officers.
    Mr. Bellenģer: No decision on this point has yet been reached.

    Hutments, Chiswick
    Captain Francis Noel-Bakerasked the Secretary of State for War for what purpose the hutments in Gunnersbury Park, Chiswick, are being used by his Department; when he will release them; and whether he is aware that these hutments are urgently needed for civilian housing.
    Mr. Bellenģer: The hutments, which are part of an anti-aircraft site, arc being used for housing pioneers employed mainly at a gas works. These troops cannot be accommodated elsewhere without holding up the derequisitioning of high priority property, and I cannot say when it will be possible to release the hutments.
    Captain Noel-Baker: Can the hon. Gentleman give any indication when the War Office is prepared to reconsider this question? Has the local authority to wait indefinitely?
    Mr. Bellenģer: These matters are receiving urgent consideration. This is one of the things which I have under my personal attention, and I will do what I can to expedite it.

    Boys
    Lieut.-Colonel Clifton-Brownasked the Secretary of State for War why young men. on attaining the age of 17, can no longer volunteer for the Army except on a long term engagement.
    Mr. Bellenģer: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) on 19th March. The real need of the Army is now for regular recruits.
    Lieut.-Colonel Clifton-Brown: Does that mean that a boy who is coming under National Service and who is a cadet
    1092
    cannot volunteer and must wait until he is called up to be sent to the Air Force or Navy?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I do not think that that is really the purport of my answer.

    Gold Coast
    Mr. Walker-Smithasked the Secretary of State for War what is the maximum or standard period of service in the Gold Coast.
    Mr. Bellenģer: The normal tour of duty in West Africa is 18 months. After this a period of four weeks recuperative leave is granted in the United Kingdom; or in the case of those returning to West Africa for a further tour the period of recuperative leave is six weeks. For the very small numbers of men who serve three tours in West Africa the period of recuperative leave between the second and third tours is 12 weeks.

  PRISONERS OF WAR

    Plymouth Barracks
    II. Mr. Medlandasked the Secretary of State for War the number of prisoners of war employed by the garrison commander at Plymouth on painting the railings around the barracks; and whether he will arrange for these men to be transferred to the city engineer in order that they may be engaged on preparatory work for the building of houses.
    Mr. Lawson: Ten prisoners of war were employed by the Garrison Engineer at Plymouth, for two days on repairing railings round the barracks. They have since been put back on miscellaneous works services inside the barracks. As they are required by the War Department they cannot be transferred to work under another Department.
    Mr. C. Williams: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman why these men cannot be put to work ouside to help the people of Plymouth who have been so severely mauled by the war?
    Mr. Lawson: That is a matter of negotiation.
    Mr. Williams: Why not have negotiations?

    Rates of Pay (Agriculture)
    Mr. Turtonasked the Secretary of State for War whether, now that farmers

    1093
    are having to pay the rate for the job in respect of prisoners of war, he will review the rates paid to prisoners of war in order to induce a higher output; and what steps he is taking to secure that agriculture is not made liable to pay the full rate for inefficient work or time spent idling.
    Mr. Lawson: I have the remuneration of prisoners of war for work under constant review, but there are certain difficulties about making any increase in their rates of pay. The second part of the Question is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture who decides what farmers should pay.
    Mr. Turton: Will the Minister look again at the second part of the Question which is his sole responsibility, and, whatever the difficulties, will he take steps to ensure that these prisoners of war do produce the food that Britain requires?
    Mr. Lawson: I am discussing this matter this afternoon.

  ARMED FORCES

    Arabs and Jews
    Mrs. Ayrton Gouldasked the Secretary of State for War how many Arabs and Jews, respectively, men and women, served in the Palestinian Forces during the war; and how many in the British Forces, other than in the Palestinian.
    Mr. Lawson: I will, with permission, circulate the figures of enlistments in Palestine in. the British Forces in the OFFICIAL REPORT. These figures include enlistments in the Palestinian Regiment which is a Regiment of the British Army. I regret that no figures are available of the numbers of Arabs and Jews other than from Palestine who served in the British Forces.
    Earl Winterton: Is it not the case that a great number of Arabs are not permitted to serve because they are not British subjects, and that there is a very small Arab population in this country and a considerable Jewish one, especially in some quarters?
    Mr. Lawson: I have no information to that effect.
    Following are the figures:
    The following numbers of Arabs and Jews enlisted in Palestine in the British Forces during the war:
    1094

    JEWS.

    ARABS.

    Men.

    Women.

    Men.

    Women.

    Army

    18,880

    3,125

    8,680

    148

    R.A.F

    1,863

    740

    130

    4

    R.N.

    1,106

    —

    83

    —

    Women's Services(Rations)
    Mr. Henry Usborneasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the world food shortage and consequent cuts in rations, he has now decided to make some reduction in the rations of the W.A.A.F., W.R.N.S. and A.T.S.
    Mr. Lawson: The scales are still under review.
    Mr. Usborne: Does not the Minister agree that it is unfair for girls in uniform to have greater rations than their sisters who are doing similar jobs in a civilian capacity?
    Mr. Lawson: That is a matter for decision by other Departments as well as mine.

    N.A.A.F.I. (Canteen Attendants)
    Mr. Robensasked the Secretary,of State for War whether his attention has been called to a recent advertisement of N.A.A.F.I. appealing for girls to take up work as canteen attendants and offering free board and lodgings when, in fact, a substantial charge is deducted from gross earnings for this purpose; whether he is aware that N.A.A.F.I. are seeking to increase this deduction and if he will take steps to see that advertisements of this character are couched in such terms as to leave no ambiguity in the minds of intending applicants.
    Mr. Bellenģer: Board and accommodation are provided by N.A.A.F.I. for women employed as canteen attendants in addition to the cash wage and no deduction is made on this account.
    Mr. Robens: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that this value is taken into account in computing gross wages, and that the N.A.A.F.I. are, in fact, party to demanding an increase of the value of board and lodgings?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I have said that in these cases of canteen attendants no deduction is made on account of their board and accommodation.

    Scientists (Volunteer Reserve)
    Sir Wavell Wakefieldasked the Lord President of the Council if he will consider the formation of a volunteer scientific reserve of young men and women willing to offer their services in the same way as volunteers offer themselves for service in the R.N.V.R., the T.A., the A.A.F., and the R.A.F.V.R., so that there will be a nucleus volunteer organisation of scientists available to the country in time of national emergency in the same way as a reserve is available in the Armed Forces.
    The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The Government are fully aware of the necessity for ensuring that an adequate number of trained scientists is available to serve the defence Forces in a future emergency, and the possibility of forming a volunteer scientific reserve along the lines suggested by the hon. Member will certainly be considered as one of the possible ways of achieving this end. It must, of course, be remembered that the scientist requires a very different training and works under very different conditions of service from the fighting man.

  DUTCH EAST INDIES

    Forces' Mail
    Lieut.-Colonel Sharpasked the Secretary of State for War why men of the West Yorkshire Regiment, recently transferred to the Lincoln Regiment, and serving in Java, had no mail during January and February; and whether he will immediately make proper arrangements for the redirection and delivery of mail.
    Mr. Bellenģer: The responsibility for redirection of mail in such cases lies with the unit. If my hon. and gallant Friend will let me have full details I will investigate this particular case.

    British Forces (Evacuation)
    Mr. Gallacherasked the Secretary of State for War by what date the British and Indian troops now in Indonesia will have evacuated that country; and how
    1096
    many Dutch troops, it is estimated, will have landed in Indonesia by that date.
    Mr. Bellenģer: It is not possible at this stage to forecast when British and Indian troops will have evacuated Indonesia. Nor is it possible to estimate how many Dutch troops will have landed by then.
    Mr. Gallacher: In view of the talk about independence for Indonesia, can the hon. Gentleman tell me why our troops are holding the wicket for the Dutch in Indonesia and preventing Indonesians from achieving independence?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I think that question would be more appropriately addressed to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: Might I ask the hon. Gentleman if the date might not happily synchronise with the evacuation of Persia by the Russians?
    Mr. Gallacher: Did our troops go into Indonesia to prevent Indonesia from getting independence or to round up the Japanese? What was the object?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I am afraid that is not a question that should be put to the War Office.

    Japanese Troops
    Mr. Gallacherasked the Secretary of State for War for what purpose it is necessary to retain in Indonesia 54,000 Japanese troops under British control under arms as well as 60,000 British and Indian troops and 20,000 Dutch troops, in view of the fact that there only 26,000 unarmed Japanese troops remaining in central Java.
    Mr. Bellenģer: It has not yet been possible to evacuate all the Japanese from Indonesia because of the shortage of shipping. A start has been made, however, using Japanese coastal shipping in which the Japanese are being moved from Java, Sumatra, Bali, Lombok and Madura to islands in the Riouw Archipelago. Some of the Japanese remaining in Indonesia have been allowed to retain their arms because there are not enough Allied troops to guard them, their arms and their stores.
    Mr. Gallacher: Can the hon. Gentleman explain how it is that the Japanese they were going to round up are still bearing arms and using those arms in Indonesia,

    1097
    while our troops are used against the Indonesian people?
    Mr. Bellenģer: Unfortunately there are a lot of Japanese troops still in Indonesia, including 26,000 with whom we are not in contact. We are doing our best to evacuate them, but I am afraid it is going to take a very long time.
    Mr. Pickthorn: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us what is the definition of "Indonesia" for the purpose of these questions?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I think I should want notice of that question. I have referred to some of the places in my answer. I have an idea that the hon. Gentleman opposite knows as well as I do, probably even better.
    Mr. Tiffany: Are the figures given in this Question correct?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I should not like to vouch for them. I have some figures here, if the House wants them. The original total in Sumatra was 70,000 odd, of whom 25,900 odd have been evacuated. In Java there were 68,000 odd, of whom 2,500 have been evacuated.
    Mr. Gallacher: I have a letter from the War Office giving these figures.
    Mr. Pickthorn: My question is not in any sense a catch question. This word is being used in varying senses, and it is quite impossible to debate or question unless we can be certain what is the official meaning attached to it in official pronouncements. I would ask the hon. Gentleman, what is the meaning of the word in relation to this Question, in the view of the War Office?
    Mr. Bellenģer: I think that would be a very appropriate question to put to the Ministry of Information.
    Hon. Members: It does not exist.
    Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: This matter may appear to be rather a joke, but it is treating the House with disrespect if the War Office uses the word "Indonesia" and does not know what it means by it. If that is so, then really it is time for an inquiry into the hon. Gentleman's mental condition.
    Mr. Speaker: I do not think the Financial Secretary to the War Office was the first to use the word. The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher)
    1098
    referred to it in a Question, and thereafter the Financial Secretary has been using it for the purposes of answering.
    Mr. Nicholson: With great respect, I am not criticising anybody's attitude, except that of the War Office. The War Office was asked a Question and answered it. It obviously meant something to the War Office, or the War Office thought it meant something. I understand "Indonesia" has some geographical significance.
    Mr. Speaker: The geographical position of Indonesia is not one we can pursue now.

    British Forces (Political Discussions)
    Mr. Driberģasked the Secretary of State for War why men in the 5th Parachute Brigade, S.E.A.C., have been instructed that no discussion of the political aspect of their mission in Indonesia is allowed; that the writing of letters to the brigade newspaper, expressing concern at the abandonment of British neutrality in the Dutch-Indonesian dispute, is a breach of discipline and that the British purpose in Indonesia is to reinstate the sovereign Dutch power; and if he will instruct those concerned that the primary purposes of British intervention in Indonesia were the recovery of prisoners, and the disarming of the Japanese and that impartiality as between Dutch and Indonesian claims should be maintained, particularly during the present negotiations on the subject of Indonesian independence.
    Mr. Bellenģer: I am making inquiries and as soon as they are completed I will write to my hon. Friend.

    British and Indian Casualties
    Mr. Quintin Hoģ ģasked the Secretary of State for War the number of British and Indian casualties in the Indonesian operations to date.
    Mr. Bellenģer: I will, with permission, circulate the latest figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following are the figures:
    Casual ties reported in Java and Sumatra up to 16th March, 1946, are as follows:

    Killed.

    Wounded.

    Missing.

    Total

    British Army

    34

    70

    10

    114

    Indian Army

    274

    957

    244

    1,475

  BUILDING METHODS (TESTS)
  Mr. William Shepherdasked the Lord President of the Council what tests have been made of the M-L brick which is produced from fly ash.
  Mr. Herbert Morrison: Tests made at the Building Research Station on the suitability of this material for internal wall and partition construction have covered strength, fire-resistance, expansion on wetting and shrinkage on drying and density. The results were discussed with the promoters, and arrangements have recently been made for a further series of tests to be made on an improved material.

  GERMANY

    Miners' International Federation
    Mr. Edelmanasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will authorise a delegation of the Miners' International Federation to visit the Ruhr.
    The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Hynd): I am not aware of any recent application for this body to visit the Ruhr.

    Members' Visits (Information)
    Mr. Edelmanasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether he will cancel Secretariat Instruction No. 41, issued from the office of the Deputy Military Governor, Main Headquarters, Lübbecke, on 5th January, which orders officers of the Control Commission not to give direct replies to written requests for information made by Members of Parliment touring the British zone, but to refer them for their replies to the Control Office for Germany and Austria, Norfolk House, London.
    Mr. J. Hynd: No, Sir. The procedure is in line with normal practice. Its object is to ensure that hon. Members receive considered replies from or on behalf of the responsible Minister.
    Mr. Edelman: Does that reply mean that officers of the Control Commission in a private capacity may not send direct information to a Member of Parliament?
    Mr. Hynd: No, Sir. Written requests for information from Members of Parliament to employees of the Crown should be replied to by the responsible Depart-
    1100
    ments. I believe that that is the procedure laid down in all Departments and is proper in that it makes the Ministers responsible for the replies given.
    Earl Winterton: Could the hon. Gentleman, for the information of the House, state what are the conditions under which Members of the House can visit Germany, in view of the fact that there Was a misleading statement published to the effect that Field-Marshal Montgomery said that Members could not go?
    Mr. Hynd: It was the case that official visits were organised in the last Session. It was at the request of the Control Commission, because of the difficulties of transport during the winter months, which were very considerable, that these visits were suspended. It is hoped it will be possible to renew them.
    Earl Winterton: Can the hon. Gentleman say who is officially responsible? Is it he or Field-Marshal Montgomery?
    Mr. Speaker: That is beyond the scope of the Question, which relates to written communications, not to visits.
    Earl Winterton: I should like to give notice that I shall raise this on the Adjournment.
    Mr. Scollan: Are we to understand—[HON. MEMBERS: Speak up."] Are we to understand from that reply that they are prohibited from having any correspondence of that character with a Member of Parliament?
    Mr. Hynd: I am not very clear that I have heard the question aright. I think it was a repetition of the Question already asked. If so, the answer is that written requests from Members of Parliament for information from the Control Commission in Germany should be addressed to the responsible Minister.
    Mr. Scollan: That is not the point. The hon. Gentleman's reply gave us the impression that they ought to write to the Government for the information, but that if they did write to a member of the Allied Control Commission they would be prohibited from receiving an answer. Is that the position?
    Earl Winterton: On a point of Order. I have already given notice that I am

    1101
    going to raise this matter on the Adjournment. Shall I be precluded from referring to these matters on the Adjournment?
    Mr. Speaker: I was not aware that the Noble Lord had given notice that he would raise the matter on the Adjournment.
    Mr. Sydney Silverman: On that point of Order. I understood that the Noble Lord gave notice to raise on the Adjournment a question which you. Sir, decided he was not entitled to ask.
    Earl Winterton: I gave notice to raise the whole question of the relationship between the Control Commission in Germany and Members of the House.
    Mr. Speaker: I think we had better proceed with the next Question.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    University Grants
    Mrs. Leah Manningasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he is taking with the University Grants Commission to see that there is a greatly increased staff and accommodation, hostels, lecture rooms and laboratories available at the universities before October, 1946, for both ex-Service students and young students direct from the schools.
    Mr. H. Morrison: I have been asked to reply. As my right hon. Friend has already informed the House, he is providing£9,450,000 for the Universities in this coming year, to be distributed through the University Grants Committee. It is up to each university to make the best use of the funds at their disposal, but the University Grants Committee is assisting them, not only financially, but in such matters as the release of staff from the Services and arrangements for the provision of additional accommodation.
    Mrs. Manninģ: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is the shortage of accommodation at the universities which is causing a real conflict of interest between young people in the sixth forms who want to go up to take their degrees and the men in the Forces who want to return to finish taking their degrees? Does he not think that as one of the largest contributors amongst those who pay the piper he has some right to call the tune?
    Mr. Morrison: I have said that the University Grants Committee is examining what help it can give in regard to accommodation. No doubt, note will be taken of what the hon. Lady has said.

    Purchase Tax (Household Fitments)
    Mr. Marplesasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer it Purchase Tax is levied on the following household fitments: bathroom fitments and accessories including mirrors, kitchen sink units or cupboards for the support of sinks, hat and coat racks, splash backs and curtain rails.
    Mr. Morrison: Since the answer is detailed I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:
    Baths, sinks, lavatory basins and water closets discharging into the drainage system are exempt from Purchase Tax as sanitary ware.
    Bathroom mirrors are chargeable with tax at the rate of 100 per cent. of the wholesale value.
    Other bathroom fitments and accessories, such as tumbler and toothbrush holders, shelf and towel brackets; kitchen sink units, or cupboards, for the support of sinks; hat and coat racks; splash backs and curtain rails are chargeable at the rate of 33⅓ per cent. of the wholesale value.
    Mr. Marplesasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Purchase Tax which the building industry is required to pay on housing fitments is also paid by the Ministry of Works and local authorities.
    Mr. H. Morrison: By local authorities, yes; by the Ministry of Works, no; but tax is charged on goods resold by the Ministry to buyers not registered for Purchase Tax.
    Mr. Marples: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that this is rather unfair discrimination against private enterprise, and will it not reduce even more the pitiful number of houses being built?
    Mr. Morrison: There will be no point in charging it against the Crown, because it is merely an in and out book transaction. It is a matter of convenience, and is not a charge.

    Budģet Questions
    Lieut.-Colonel Kingsmillasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider lowering the entertainments tax on outdoor sporting events, such as football matches, in order to encourage people to take their amusements out of doors.
    Mr. Scott-Elliotasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, having regard to the importance of providing the maximum incentive to industry, he will consider the reduction in the rate of Excess Profits Tax in his forthcoming Budget, this to be balanced by some increase in the rate of National Defence contribution.
    Mr. Spenceasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider reducing the rate of Purchase Tax on the equipment for children's playgrounds.
    Mr. I. J. Pitmanasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether income to be received as children's allowance, and treated as income for Income Tax purposes, will be treated as earned or as unearned income.
    Mr. H. Morrison: The hon. Members will not expect my right hon. Friend to anticipate his Budget Statement.
    Mr. Spence: Will the Minister bear in mind that equipments for children's playgrounds are largely paid for out of public funds or out of money publicly subscribed?
    Mr. Morrison: No doubt my right hon. Friend will see that on the record.
    Mr. Bowles: Although we do not expect the Chancellor to anticipate his Budget, cannot the right hon. Gentleman anticipate it a little?
    Mr. Morrison: I am in a still less advantageous position to anticipate anything in the Budget.

    Anģlo-French Financial Aģreement (Transactions)
    Mr. Vaneasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider the possibility of barter by which this country would dispose of surplus military equipment of modern pattern to France in exchange for French wine to be shipped to this country.
    Mr. H. Morrison: No, Sir. We have already been selling military equipment to France and buying French wine within the framework of the Anglo-French Financial Agreement.

    Children's Allowance (Income Tax)
    Mr. I. J. Pitmanasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether income to be received by a mother as children's allowance will be treated as part of any husband's, not being the father or putative father, income for Income Tax purposes.
    Mr. H. Morrison: Yes, Sir, if husband and wife are living together
    Mr. Pitman: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that that is a misunderstanding of the Question? What I am seeking is that he should bear in mind the widows of men killed in this war, who will have children, and who may seek again to marry. Will he sympathetically consider their interests, of the liabilities to which they are likely to be subjected?
    Mr. Morrison: I am sorry if we have misunderstood the point. I will see that that is conveyed to my right hon. Friend.

    War Damaģe Payments
    Mrs. Middletonasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he will arrange that the payment of cheques on behalf of war damage value payments can be made in such a manner as to prevent these being diverted to private accounts and the money they represent used for purposes other than those intended when the payments were made.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Whiteley): I have been asked to reply. No, Sir. It is not proposed, as a general rule, to attach to value payments any conditions as to the purposes for which they shall be used.

  INTERNATIONAL FUND AND BANK (SAVANNAH CONFERENCE)
  Lieut.-Colonel Niģel Birchasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has any statement to make on the meeting of the World Bank and Fund at Savannah.
  Mr. Norman Smithasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has received a report from the British

  1105
  delegation to the meeting at Savannah, Georgia, at which the World Bank and World Fund were set up; and will he make a statement thereon.
  Mr. H. Morrison: I will circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Following is the statement:
  I am glad to be able to tell the House that the new twin institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, were duly inaugurated at the first meeting of the Boards of their Governors, which took place at Savannah, Georgia, from 8th to 18th March under the Chairmanship of the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Mr. Vinson, who is U.S. Governor of both institutions. The United Kingdom Governor is Lord Keynes. The five countries having the largest quotas (or subscriptions), which, in the absence of Russia, are the U.S.A., the United Kingdom, France, China and India, are entitled to nominate their own executive directors. The United Kingdom executive directors have not yet been appointed. The other member countries are entitled to elect seven executive directors between them for each institution. The elections held at Savannah resulted as follows:
  For the Fund, Mr. Rasminsky (Canada), Dr. Bruins (Netherlands), Mr. Mladek (Czechoslovakia), M. Gutt (Belgium), Zaki Bey Saad (Egypt), Mr. Santos Filho (Brazil) and Mr. Gomez (Mexico); for the Bank, Mr. Bryce (Canada), Mr. Beyen (Netherlands), Mr. Baranski (Poland), M. Gutt (Belgium), Mr. Varvaressos (Greece), Mr. Moller (Chile) and Mr. Machado (Cuba).
  It has been provided that the executive directors shall meet and take office about 1st May next, when it is hoped to proceed with the election of a managing director of the Bank and a president for the Fund, who will thereafter proceed to the appointment of other staff. Especially in the case of the Bank it is important that the necessary preliminaries to active operation should be completed as soon as possible, so that the institutions can play their intended part in assisting the problems of world reconstruction.
  Decisions were taken as to their site, which, at the request of the United States, will be at Washington, and also as to the functions and remuneration of the execu-
  1106
  tive directors. Denmark was admitted to both bodies and her quota fixed. The main work of the meetings was concerned with the organisation of the institutions, so that all necessary powers would have been accorded to the executive directors to enable them to proceed at the earliest possible date to bring the institutions into active operation.
  It was also decided that the first annual meeting of the governors should take place in September of this year. Meanwhile a Procedure Committee of twelve governors has been set up under the chairmanship of the Governor for the United States and the vice-chairmanship of the governor for the United Kingdom. to be available until the next annual meeting for consultation about the future business of the governors at the discretion of the Chairman, normally by correspondence, and also, if it proves convenient, by convening immediately before the annual meeting.
  Although the main work of the meetings was thus concerned with organisation, a gathering of this kind of the financial experts of many countries provided a most useful opportunity for informal exchanges of views on many of the problems confronting the countries represented at the meetings. From the reports of the Conference, which the members of the British Delegation have given me, it is clear that the cause of international cooperation over the economic and financial field has been considerably helped forward by the atmosphere and outcome of this Conference.
  I intend shortly to issue a White Paper containing the bye-laws of the two institutions and other significant votes passed by the conference.

  GOVERNMENT TYPING STAFFS (PAY)
  Mr. Butcherasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the salaries paid to shorthand typists and to typists in the Civil Service are equal to those paid to members of the staff of the Bank of England
  Mr. H. Morrison: My right hon. Friend has no direct responsibility for the salaries paid to the shorthand typists and typists of the Bank of England, which, under the Charter, are determined

  1107
  by the Court of Directors. In the circumstances he prefers not to enter into the sort of comparison which the hon Member suggests.
  Mr. Butcher: Will the right hon. Gentleman examine the history of the Bank of England under private enterprise? He will realise that they did not have the same difficulty in regard to staff as the Civil Service has.
  Mr. Morrison: Either the House wants the Chancellor of the Exchequer meticulously to control the Bank of England, or it wants the Bank of England to be free of meticulous political intervention. The House cannot have it both ways.
  Mr. I. J. Pitman: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is not a question of seeking to reduce the pay in the Bank of England, but of seeking to raise the rate of pay to the Civil Service? Surely that is not outside his interest?
  Mr. Morrison: If that is so, then the question had better be put on the Order Paper.
  Mr. W. J. Brown: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware—are not the whole Government aware—that for many months past the Civil Service unions have been doing their best to persuade this Government to make something like reasonable rates of pay to the shorthand typists? Is it not time the Government began to devote a little bit of attention to the people behind them who are doing the job? I can tell him they are getting pretty fed up.
  Mr. Morrison: That is very eloquent, and what I should have expected from the hon. Member, but it has nothing to do with the Question on the Paper, which relates to the comparison between the salaries paid to typists in the Bank of England and the Treasury.

  EQUAL PAY (ROYAL COMMISSION)
  Winģ-Commander Geoffrey Cooperasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the names of the present members of the Commission on equal pay; and when is its report expected.
  Mr. H. Morrison: There has been no change in the membership announced on
  1108
  12th October, 1944; as regards the date of the Report, I cannot at present add to the Reply given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, on 29th January.
  Winģ-Commander Cooper: Is the Minister satisfied with the progress being made by this Commission, and are any changes contemplated in the membership of the Commission in view of the very much altered circumstances which apply now compared with when the Commission was first set up?
  Mr. Morrison: I should have thought it inconvenient to change the composition of the Commission at this stage. So far as I know, no undue delay should take place
  Mrs. Manninģ: In view of the fact that the references to this Commission include the social and economic consequences of making equal pay available for both men and women, will the Minister say whether we are to expect, after the Commission has reported, another long interval of time during which the Government will make up their mind what is to be the outcome?
  Mr. Morrison: I have not the least idea.
  Mrs. Castle: Is it not a fact that this Commission was originally set up by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) largely to gain time when the demand for equal pay had become irresistible?
  Mr. W. J. Brown: Is there any reason whatever to suppose that this Commission will ever report?

  TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

    Power Station, Kinģston
    Mr. Keelinģasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning whether he is aware of the fears felt for the effect on Thames amenities of the power station now under construction on the river bank at Kingston; and whether he will arrange for a public inquiry to be held into the possibility of mitigating damage to such amenities by improving the elevations, altering the method of delivering fuel, and adopting the most efficient method of preventing the discharge of smoke, grit and sulphur into the air of Surrey and Middlesex.
    The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Silkin): I am aware that there is some anxiety about this matter. The power station is now being erected in pursuance of an approval given by the Electricity Commission in 1941, and I have no power to hold a local inquiry into the project as a whole, though I could hold an inquiry into certain extensions which are contemplated. I do not, however, consider that there would be advantage in this since the need to protect amenity is appreciated by all the authorities concerned. Conditions were, in fact, imposed by the Commission to secure that so far as reasonably practicable there should be no injury to amenity; and I am arranging for officers of my Department to confer with those of the Ministry of Fuel and Power and the Electricity Commission in regard to practicable steps to be taken with this object.
    Mr. Keelinģ: May I ask the Minister whether he would consider submitting the elevations to the Royal Fine Arts Commission?
    Mr. Silkin: I will certainly consider that, in so far as I have the power.

    Protected Buildinģs
    Mr. Keelinģasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning how soon he expects to publish the first of the lists of buildings of architectural or historic interest to be protected under Clauses 42 and 43 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1944.
    Mr. Silkin: An expert committee under the chairmanship of Sir Eric Maclagan is advising me on the principles which should govern the compilation of these lists, and I expect their report shortly. In the meantime, a number of local investigators have been appointed and are collecting material. I can assure my hon. Friend that my officers are well aware of the urgency of this matter.
    Mr. Driberģ: Can my right hon. Friend say whether adequate consideration is being given to the greater and smaller masterpieces of the 18th and early 19th centuries?
    Mr. Silkin: I can assure my hon. Friend that that is so.
    Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Are the Committee in question in constant consultation with the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments?
    Mr. Silkin: Yes, Sir, they are in very close touch.
    Captain Crookshank: What does the Minister mean when he says that the committee is busy "collecting materials "? It seems rather sinister.
    Mr. Silkin: I do not think that it is really sinister. Two investigations are going on. One is to provide the principles to be laid down, and side by side with that a number of investigators are looking at the actual buildings.

WORLD FOOD SHORTAGE (WHITE PAPER)
Mr. H. Morrison: Some hon. Members may know and other hon. Members might like to know, in relation to Thursday's Debate, that copies of the White Paper on the World Food Shortage are now available in the Vote Office.

ANGLO-EGYPTIAN TREATY (REVISION NEGOTIATIONS)
The Secretary of State for Foreiģn Affairs (Mr. Ernest Bevin): As the House is aware, the Egyptian Government have invited His Majesty's Government to negotiate with them a revision of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Alliance of 1936; and His Majesty's Government have agreed to undertake such negotiations in the light of our mutual experience, and with due regard to the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations for ensuring international peace and security.
His Majesty's Government are now ready to proceed with discussions in Cairo, and have appointed me to lead the British Delegation, with the assistance of the Secretary of State for Air and of His Majesty's Ambassador in Egypt, Sir Ronald Campbell. It will not be possible for me to be present at the earlier stages of the discussions, but I shall be in close touch with Lord Stansgate and the Ambassador who will be conducting them on my behalf.

1111
His Majesty's Government have also appointed Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, formerly His Majesty's Ambassador at Bagdad and at present Head of the Middle East Secretariat in the Foreign Office, as political adviser, and Sir Arnold Overton, Head of the British Middle East Office in Cairo, as economic adviser. The Commanders-in-Chief of our naval, military and air forces in the Middle East will act as military advisers to the delegation, who will also have the assistance of Major-General Jacob, of the Chiefs of Staff Secretariat.
His Majesty's Government are confident that their choice of a delegation to meet the distinguished delegation appointed by the Egyptian Government will be welcomed in Egypt as an earnest of their desire to lay a firm foundation for the future relationship between the two countries, which realised such a high degree of comradeship during the critical years of the war.
Mr. Richard Law: I do not want to comment on the important statement which the Foreign Secretary has just made, except to say this: I think that the whole House will welcome the opportunity which is afforded by these negotiations for the reaffirmation of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Alliance, which has been of great benefit to both countries, and possibly of even greater value to Egypt than it has been to us. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he hat: informed the Dominion Governments of these impending negotiations and whether he will keep them informed in the course of the negotiations?
Mr. Bevin: The decision to agree to the opening of these negotiations for the revision of this Treaty has been communicated to the Dominions, and I shall communicate today the actual names of the representatives who are going to conduct them.
Major Leģ ģe-Bourke: Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is proposed to recall Lord Killearn for these discussions and does he not think his experience would be of great value?
Mr. Bevin: It is not the intention to recall Lord Killearn. We have put him on to a job which is full time.
BILL PRESENTED
CIVIL AVIATION BILL,
" to make further provision with respect to civil aviation and matters connected therewith, and, in particular, to secure the development of air transport services by corporations operating under public control," presented by Mr. Ivor Thomas; supported by Mr. Herbert Morrison, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Wilmot, the Attorney-General, and Mr. Strachey; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 99.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  TRADE DISPUTES AND TRADE UNIONS BILL
  Order for Third Reading read.
  3.22 p.m.
  The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
  I have not the slightest doubt that many of us are now thoroughly refreshed after the long interval between the Second Reading Debate and the Third Reading, but it is not my intention in my remarks to presume upon that to any extent. There are a few things which I wish to say in connection with this Measure and first I draw the attention of the House to a phrase which appears in this Bill. It is:
  " shall‥have effect as if the Act of 1927 had not been passed."
  That is what we have been striving for for a great number of years—to get back to the position as it would be if the Act of 1927 had not been passed. We have nearly reached our goal. That 1927 Act was intended, in our opinion at any rate —and I do not think it was objected to by the other side of the House although they criticised some parts of it—as a reprisal for the action taken by the trade unions in 1926. It is not my intention to review those proceedings, or to debate the action taken, except to point out that since 1927, the political and industrial organisations of the workers' movement of this country have, year after year, pressed for some repeal, or later for some amendment of that Act. I was one of the members of a trade union delegation which

  1113
  went to see the late Mr. Chamberlain when he was Prime Minister in the early days of the war. We came to ask him once again—we paid almost an annual visit to one Prime Minister after another for some amendment of the Trade Disputes Act—to amend the Act and his reply was, in effect, that we should wait until the war was over and then it would depend upon our action during the war. Those are not his exact words, but they represent in effect what he said. I have not had time in the interval since this morning to look up the actual words.
  We thought then as we have thought since that we were entitled to repeal on the merits of the case—and we have merits despite what the critics say—and not on whether we were going to be good boys (luring the war. That question was raised time and again during the war and ultimately we decided to take the advice of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill). His advice was to go to the electorate and act upon their decision. We have been to the electorate. I do not wish to call it a mandate which we received. I prefer to use the word "directive." That has been given and now we are acting upon it. I think that the decision of the General Election showed that the community in this country appreciated the value of trade unions, not only to the members, to whom they are of great value, but also because of the results of the trade union movement in the life of this country. Apart from that, the trade union movement in many ways encouraged the workers during the war to do everything they could to help the war effort and to set aside their hard-won regulations and liberties for that end. The trade unions have also in many ways given great service to local authorities and Government committees of all kinds and during the last eight or nine years—years of which I have personal knowledge—there has hardly been a committee set up by the Government for any purpose to which the trade union movement has not been asked to send one or two members. Whenever a Royal Commission, a committee, of inquiry or a judicial committee is appointed to investigate some of the circumstances existing in our country we find the trade union movement asked to appoint its representatives. We feel that
  1114
  the country has said to us, "You have done a good service and we will support your claim that the Act, which was passed as a punishment, should be repealed." In other words, it seems that we have clone 20 years' hard labour, and it is now pretty nearly time that there was a revision of the sentence—for we are not prepared to accept a life sentence.
  I want to emphasise this point. Although the old Act deals with intimidation, political levies and so on, I feel that the greatest value in the Bill is that part which gives the Civil Service unions their undoubted right to associate with their fellows in other walks of life in the active industry of the country. Time and again they have come to us and asked for our assistance. They have ever obeyed the law, and we have had to shut out their delegations from our Trades Union Congress. But we always had as honoured guests upon the platform, representatives of the Civil Service, who, at any rate, formed a slender link which the passage of this Bill will forge into strong bonds of unity such as existed before the passing of the 1927 Act and will exist in the future. The Civil Service is a part of the same community with us in the working class movement, seeking remedies for similar problems and, with us, endeavouring to move to a more enlightened future. They share with us the idea that the old parties in the State who thought that they were the governing classes, born to rule, have got to realise that a new governing class had arisen, a governing class which intends to rule.
  Many matters have been dealt with during the Committee stage of the Bill. In fact, I never fully appreciated the Attorney-General's reference to the ninepins method of argument until I saw hon. Gentlemen opposite conduct the Debate in Committee. Especially was that so in regard to some of the legal provisions. The ninepins were set up only to be skilfully knocked down again. There has been talk of intimidation, victimisation and coercion, and even the term "corruption "has been bandied about, and "swindling" was definitely mentioned. There is little evidence of that swindling and there was little evidence of any of the other things. Some of the statements which were made to the House have been swallowed by hon. Members opposite. I do not suggest that Members made such statements out of their heads,

  1115
  but some of them seem to swallow too easily the stories which are brought to them. During that Debate sentences were torn from their context and other methods were used to continue the attack upon this Bill. But in spite of the vigorous, skilful and in most instances, very well arranged attacks of the Opposition we have now reached the Third Reading stage. The Debate has on the whole been carried on with friendliness. There has been hard hitting on both sides, but there has not been—with one little exception, which I still resent—any hitting below the belt, and in a fight in which one wants to give the other fellow a black eye, one has to take the risk of getting a black eye oneself. I have heard somewhere a rhyme to the effect that the fellow is just who gets his blow in first. At any rate, this Bill is another milestone on the road to freedom—
  Colonel Ropner: Would the right hon. Gentleman explain to the House how one can get a black eye, if hit below the belt?
  Mr. Isaacs: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is just as late in that inquiry as he was in trying to explain the word "swindling" last night. There are many here who have lived long enough to recall the great day when the late Keir Hardie first came into this House to work on the Floor, and not on the roof. Some of us who have watched the growth and building up of the great trade union and Labour movement have longed for the day when we would see the party to which we belong given authority to take control of the State. The first milestone was the arrival here of Keir Hardie, and this is another milestone on the broad highway on which we are travelling towards the new freedom for which we have been longing. On that road we intend to travel side by side with those who have been shut out of our councils, but who will join with us now—
  Vice-Admiral Taylor: Oh.
  Mr. Isaacs: The hon. and gallant Gentleman will perhaps have an opportunity to make his own speech a little later. Subject to Mr. Speaker, and the rules of Order, I propose to make my own speech
  1116
  in my own way, and to say what I have to say about this Bill.
  At the end of this morning's discussions an hon. Member opposite drew attention to the fact that the dawn of a new day was coming in through the window This is the dawn of that new day, and in the light of that dawn we shall march forward towards the things we have dreamed of for years past. We shall see that when this Bill gets on to the Statute Book the law will be operated with honesty and sincerity. I am confident that I can give a pledge that the fears of victimisation, intimidation, and prevention of the operation of conscience will not be realised as a result of any action by the trade unions. Our trade unions are big enough, powerful enough and honest enough to be able to put their case to the public and win their case on its merits.
  Squadron-Leader Sir Gifford Fox (Henley): What about illegal strikes?
  Mr. Isaacs: The House may rest assured that the trade unions which have taken a part in helping to put the country on a sound economic basis, and in responding to the appeal from the Government for better production, co-operation and co-ordination will see that that is so. Those who have seen a publication of the Trades Unions Congress within the last day or two, will know that that great organisation, controlled by men of capacity, wisdom, sincerity and patriotism. stands for the kind of things which hon. Members opposite do not seem to recognise as residing in the breast of a worker. I would remind Members opposite of what was once said by the right hon. Gentlemen the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), when he referred to patriotism by the Imperial pint. The trade unions, as I have said, will operate the provisions of this Bill, when it becomes an Act, fairly and honestly. They will see that there is no further justification for making attacks on them. It is in that spirit that I move the Motion for the Third Reading of this Bill. I am confident that when it becomes operative it will be another move towards that understanding which will bring about prosperity for our nation.
  3.35 p.m.
  Mr. Henry Strauss (Combined English Universities): I think I can congratulate

  1117
  the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour at least on this: that despite the comparatively short interval since we were all here together he has all his usual vigour, and the hon. and learned Attorney-General next him shows his characteristic youth. I hope that notwithstanding my lack of sleep I may do justice to our case on this subject. I have no doubt at all—and, possibly, this is one of the few points on which the right hon. Gentleman may agree with me—that this is one of the most fateful Measures which has come before this House for many years.
  Mr. Kirkwood (Dumbarton Burghs): It seals the Tories' fate.
  Mr. Strauss: That is a very interesting view. I have always had a great deal of interest in this subject, and that is why, when I learned that it was proposed, in this present Session, to repeal the Act of 1927, I endeavoured to write a book on the law of the subject in the hope that it might be made a little more comprehensible to laymen. My motive was that I was absolutely convinced then, as I am today, that if the issues involved in this Bill were generally understood the opposition to it would not be in the least confined to my own party, but would excite the enthusiasm of democrats in every party.
  The greatest asset in this controversy which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have is the extreme difficulty of trade union law. There may be many points in my speech on which I shall no doubt find myself in conflict with the learned Attorney-General, but I think that on this, possibly, we can agree. It is possible to concern oneself with the law of a subject without becoming a less keen politician. The fact that one is inevitably concerned with the law on a question of this sort does not mean that one attaches less importance to those questions and aspects which concern non-legal people. When I think of the really great issues involved in the repeal of the 1927 Act, I am a little astonished at the cheap and foolish jeer, twice repeated by the Lord President of the Council, that this Bill is unworthy of long consideration because it contains only one Clause.
  That seems to me to be treating the subject with a frivolity which will be resented by an intelligent electorate. [Interruption.] I can only say that it
  1118
  helped me a great deal. [HON. MEMBERS: "How? "] Hon. Members I may say that I was at the top of the poll while the candidate who expressed most general and universal sympathy with the Government was easily at the bottom, apart from the candidate who forfeited his deposit. [Interruption.] I cannot catch the shafts of brilliant wit from opposite. [HON. MEMBERS: "You were at the bottom."] Hon. Members opposite show a great knowledge of the subject. I have always stated my views On the Bill, and I would point out that my Party has no doubt of the vital importance of the issues it raises. I know that hon. Gentlemen who are Members of the Labour Party also believe it to he so overwhelmingly important that one in 20 actually mentioned it in his election address.
  We regard it as important because some of the greatest principles in which we believe are directly involved—the principle of the rule of law, the principle of the supremacy of Parliament and the freedom of the individual citizen, both in politics and in industry. All those principles are involved in this repeal. The chief support for the repeal is based on a myth, on the elaborate misrepresentation over a period of years that the Act of 1927 was rushed through on the morrow of the general strike. A year elapsed after the general strike, and, so far from being rushed through, the Act occupied 23 clays of Parliamentary time in the House of Commons. [Interruption.] I cannot quite gather the remarks from opposite, but possibly the hon. Member may have an opportunity of intervening more intelligibly later.
  The right. hon. Gentleman who moved the Third Reading mentioned the question of civil servants—quite rightly in my opinion—as being in the forefront of what excited his enthusiasm. I agree with him that that is the one point on which honest differences are obviously possible. I will try later to explain why I think the provisions of the 1927 Act dealing with them are right, and why the repeal is wrong. One looks in vain through the rest of the 1927 Act for the slightest trace of anything that any just man can call vindictive. I was unable to hear from my present position the speech made by the Attorney-General on the Second Reading, but I assure him that I studied it with

  1119
  interest in HANSARD and with sincere admiration for the forensic skill shown in some places on an impossible case. I was much struck by one passage in which the hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of provisions in the 1927 Act which caused "resentment, rightly or wrongly, on the part of a large section of the population." Does he think that it does not matter whether it is rightly or wrongly? I think this indifference between right and wrong falls rather badly from the first Law Officer of the Crown. In my opinion it makes a great deal of difference whether this alleged resentment is right or wrong, and if it is wrong it should not have undue influence on this House.
  I have a good deal of sympathy with the Attorney-General when I think of the difficulty he must have had as a new boy, in trying to teach the elements of the subject to the Foreign Secretary. What enormous difficulty he must have had in trying, quite unsuccessfully, to convince the Foreign Secretary that to repeal a very important Act does, in fact, make a change in the law. The Foreign Secretary committed himself to the view—and it is a statement which defies parody—that
  " The trade union law of this country up to 1927 evoked no complaint, and there has been little difference since. It is the stigma we arc endeavouring to remove, not the law." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th February, 1946: Vol. 419, c. 406.]
  I have no doubt that the Attorney-General tried to explain to him that it really did make a difference to the law, but obviously he failed. It would be difficult and interesting to find out what is the stigma under which the Foreign Secretary thinks he is labouring, and still more difficult to imagine how on earth he thinks it is being removed by this Measure. What does this Measure of repeal achieve? First, it repeals those provisions which introduced some degree of certainty into the law regarding general strikes. The ordinary summary of the first principle in the Measure is that a general strike is illegal and that no man shall be penalised for refusal to take part in one. I say that another equally simple and accurate way of putting the problem is "Who is to rule? "Is it to be a Government responsible to Parliament and a House of Commons elected by the whole people, or is it to
  1120
  be an outside body not so elected? The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour spoke of a new governing class. I do not want a new machine to supersede the House of Commons, whatever name or alias it is given. I say that it is vital to the survival of Parliamentary institutions that no outside body whatsoever should have power to coerce the Government or override the will of Parliament. If an outside body can obtain that result by a general strike that would be the end of Parliamentary Government. It was not a Member of my party but a person whose name, I think, commands respect in all quarters of the House—the great Lord Oxford and Asquith—who truly observed that, if the general strike of 1926 had succeeded, Parliamentary Government would have been at an end.
  A general strike is not something of which we have had no experience. In the numerous allusions that have been made to it in the course of these Debates some hon. Members on the other side of the House have spoken as if all those on this side who condemned it were alleging that there were no fine or generous motives in any of the strikers who took part. That, of course, would be quite false. Equally, it is quite false to suggest that the widespread sympathy with the miners at that time provided any justification whatsoever for the strike. What are the facts which make us on this side of the House say that it was wrong and to be condemned, and quite different from all those other strikes which—whatever hardship they caused and whatever we may think of their wisdom—were undoubtedly lawful? The distinction between the general strike of 1926 and the other type of strike is perfectly simple. It was not a strike to compel employers to do anything at all, but a strike to compel the Government and Parliament to continue a subsidy.
  Mr.Stubbs: The hon. Member knows the difference—
  Mr. Strauss: I am sure hon. Members opposite wish me to develop my argument and to have an opportunity of replying.
  In 1925 when a stoppage in the coal industry was imminent the Government of the day granted a subsidy in order that the Samuel Commission might report

  1121
  on what was required for the industry, and the Government fixed a period of time—nine months—in order that the Commission should have time to report without too much hurry and that Parliament and the industry should be able to consider what should be done in the light of the report.
  Mr. Ivor Owen Thomas (The Wrekin): Could the hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. Strauss: I do not see why I should give way. I would remind the House that the Commission did report early in 1927 and made various recommendations for the reorganisation of the industry. Some, it was said, would take a period of months —others needed years—and they made proposals to deal with the immediate situation.
  Mr. Speaker: I am really getting a little puzzled. The hon. Member is going into the past on the Third Reading of a Bill.
  Mr. Strauss: With respect, I will not elaborate that point. I want to say what the point was I was proposing to develop.
  Mr. Ivor Owen Thomas: On a point of Order. The hon. Gentleman is developing a line of argument, the validity of which you have questioned, Mr. Speaker. If he persists in a line of argument, which you, Sir, say is out of Order, will it be in Order for me or any other Member to put questions on the lines of the argument he was developing?
  Mr. Speaker: That was exactly why I rose to interrupt the hon. Member. He is bringing coal into a Debate which is not concerned with coal. We should really stick to what is in the Bill, and not go into past history on a Third Reading.
  Mr. Strauss: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, but I think I am right in developing the point to this extent. I am entirely in your hands. What I wish to do is to show the origin of the general strike—it needs very little more development—so that we may know whether the repeal of this Measure will make a repetition of the general strike legal or not. That has occupied a great deal of the time of the House on Second Reading and the Committee stage, and—while I follow the indication of your Ruling and shall cut short the part which you have questioned—I think I can keep myself within order
  1122
  and deal with the subject which, I am sure, is vital to Sections I, 2 and 7 of the 1927 Act which this Bill seeks to repeal. It is on those grounds that I submit it would be in Order on Third Reading.
  Mr. Speaker: That as all right, but I must warn the hon. Gentleman to keep the House off the coal Debate.
  Mr. Strauss: I am sorry, Air. Speaker, if I went too far. The general strike was to compel the Government, and not the owners, to do something. It will be sufficient to quote the leader in the "Daily Herald" on the day the strike began:
  " At midnight tonight, unless the Government changes its position on the mining lockout, a great national stoppage of industry will begin."
  Hon. Members: Lockout?
  Mr. Strauss: Yes, there is no dispute about that. I do not think any point arises on that. If we are to argue whether the coal stoppage resembled a strike or a lockout, I always thought that "lockout" was the better expression and I have always called it that.
  Mr. Herbert Butler: Would the hon. Member tell his pals?
  Mr. Strauss: I have always called it so, and so have most of my hon. Friends. The question which is directly raised by Section 1 of the 1927 Act and by this Bill which seeks to repeal it, is this. May I set it out in two sentences? Is a general strike to coerce the Government and override the will of Parliament to be lawful or unlawful? Secondly, if it is to be unlawful, is it to be known to be unlawful by everyone in advance, and is there to be machinery to prevent it? I will address myself to these questions. There is no doubt that, on the evidence, the general strike of 1926 was to compel and coerce the Government to do something which the Government and the House of Commons bad refused to do. In case that is disputed by anybody—and there was a good deal in the Foreign Secretary's speech on Second Reading which seemed to give another version—I think I ought to remind the House, not what was said 20 years afterwards by the leaders who participated, but what was said at the time by one of the principal people who took part—the Industrial Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, Mr. C. T. Cramp, who was

  1123
  one of the small body of people running the strike and giving his orders through the "British Worker," the organ of the T.U.C., on the conduct of that strike. These were his words on 28th August, 1926:
  " In order that the general strike might be successful, it was necessary to enforce the resignation of the Government. In spite, therefore, of the General Council of the T.U.C.'s denials made during the strike, and obviously for the purpose of reassuring the timid, the issue was a Constitutional one. If successful, it did involve a revolutionary change in their methods, and it was as well to face the fact. In the circumstances prevailing during the general strike, there was no half-way house between the ballot box and the machine gun. Whereas we expected food supplies to grow scarce in a couple of days, and business to come to a standstill, nothing of the kind took place."
  That was the same Mr. Cramp who in the "British Worker" of 5th May gave these instructions to the railwaymen:
  " You must handle no traffic of any kind, foodstuffs or otherwise."
  The question I put to the House in deciding whether or not they wish to repeal the Act of 1927 is this—When that Act of 1927 has been repealed, will such a strike be lawful or unlawful? The answer—scandalous and incredible as it may seem—is that the Government does not know and does not care. Let me give the authorities for the rival views as to the legality. There is the well-known judgment of Mr. Justice Astbury in deciding a case just before the end of the general strike, in which he held that it was illegal. That view was, of course, as the hon. and learned Attorney-General knows, supported in an article by a distinguished jurist, the late Sir Frederick Pollock.
  The opposite view that it was legal was expressed by no less a legal authority than the present President of the Board of Trade at the time when he was Solicitor-General in 1931. Speaking and advising the House as a Law Officer of the Crown, he expressed the view that, in the then state of the law, the general strike was lawful, and the view of the present President of the Board of Trade, then Solicitor-General, is taken by another distinguished jurist, Professor Goodhart, well known both at Oxford and Cambridge as a professor of jurisprudence and the learned editor of the Law Quarterly." So there is a fine
  1124
  conflict of judicial authority on whether that strike at that time was lawful or not. That is the law which is about to be restored—utter doubt as to whether that strike is legal or illegal. We on this side of the House say that such a strike ought undoubtedly to be illegal. I can understand some communists saying it ought to be legal. Until the present Government brought forward this Bill, I had never met anyone so lunatic as to think that nobody ought to know whether it was legal or not.
  Who will benefit by this doubt? Is it suggested that trade union leaders or trade unionists benefit by such a doubt? Let me remind the House of a few more things which the President of the Board of Trade, then Solicitor-General, said on that subject in 1931. He said that in his view the primary object of the general strike of 1926 was not the furtherance of a trade dispute. He held that it was not illegal at that time, but since, in his view, the primary object was not the furtherance of a trade dispute, it would have been illegal under the terms of the Socialist Bill which he was then presenting to the House. In other words, he said that the law ought to be such that such a strike would be illegal. In his view it was not illegal at the time, and though it ought to be illegal, it will not be illegal if the Government carries the present Bill to the Statute Book.
  I am not sure which alternative the hon., learned and ingenious Attorney-General will choose on this occasion. If he says that such a general strike—and I have read Mr. Cramp's description of its objects and intentions—will not be illegal after the repeal of this Measure, then at least we know the position in which the Government means to place this country. If, on the other hand, he chooses the other alternative and says that, in his view, notwithstanding his difference from his colleague the President of the Board of Trade—also a very eminent lawyer—such a strike will be illegal, then I ask what method will be available against it?
  I heard in the early hours of this morning a vehement discussion between the hon. and learned Attorney-General and a lawyer on this side, in which the Attorney-General claimed that he was misinterpreted and my hon. Friend did not think he was misinterpreting him. All I can say is that I will do my best not to

  1125
  misinterpret the learned Attorney-General, and if I do, I am sure he will correct me.
  The question is, what methods should be available against an illegal strike, if you hold that it is illegal and presumably wish to stop it? The hon. and learned Attorney-General pointed out the great weakness of relying on criminal procedure alone, and on that I am inclined to think he is right. My own view, for what it is worth, is that we ought to be able to rely both on criminal and on civil law. The hon. and learned Attorney-General mentioned the Emergency Powers Act of 1920 which, as he rightly observed, remains and will remain on the Statute Book, but referred to action under that Statute as executive action. So in a sense it is, but of course it is armed with all the resources of the criminal law, prescribing, as it does, criminal penalties for the breach of any regulations made under that Statute.
  The present provisions which this Bill is repealing certainly provide criminal penalties, not for the man who merely ceases work but for those who instigate and further illegal strikes. There are also very useful civil remedies available under the Act of 1927. First of all, acts done in contemplation and furtherance of an illegal strike or lock out will no longer be protected under Section 3 of the 1875 Act, and Sections I, 2 and 3 of the 1906 Act. The learned Attorney-General may point out that, assuming Mr. justice Astbury's decision to be correct, that will still be the case even after repeal. That again, I think, is right. But there are two other useful provisions in the 1927 Statute which will have gone for good. The only circumstances in which a trade union can lose the absolute immunity for its funds granted by Section 4 of the Act of 1906 is in the event of action in furtherance of an illegal strike or lock out. That is a most useful deterrent. It did not, as a Socialist suggested it would during the debates of 1927, lead to any litigation from that day to this, but it has been a great help in preventing hotheads from even seeking to produce an illegal pike or lock out, since that was the one way in which trade union funds could be endangered.
  There is another point, and that was put by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hillhead (Mr. J. S. C. Reid) in his intervention last night on the
  1126
  Question, "That Clause 1 stand part." I am bound to say that, if the Attorney-General fully understood the point, I think his reply was a little incomplete and disingenuous, because my right hon. and learned Friend pointed out that under Section 7 of the 1927 Act the Attorney-General could move the court to restrain the use of trade union funds in pursuance of an illegal strike or lock-out even if there was no member of the trade union sufficiently concerned, sufficiently interested, or sufficiently patriotic to do so. The hon. and learned Attorney-General replied, accurately in my opinion, that there would be the possibility of the same action that was taken in the case of the National Sailors' and Firemen's Union v. Reed. Of course there would, but that was not a case brought by the Attorney-General. That case we owe to the patriotism of the late Mr. Havelock Wilson. Are we to rely entirely on the patriotism of members of the trade unions?
  Let me say at once that I think it will often be sufficient so to do. I agree with what was said about the patriotism of trade unionists by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour. They are a very patriotic body of men, but I think it is wholly improper to leave the entire risk of stopping a national disaster to the chance of somebody being sufficiently patriotic to move the court. The principal Law Officer of the Crown must not be debarred from having the power to do so. It follows that even if certain strikes remain illegal, as the Attorney-General suggests they do—I do not know whether he would put a strike of the type of 1926 into that category—he will have deprived himself of the principal civil remedies for stopping such a strike though he himself has proclaimed the difficulty of relying on the criminal law. Realising the difficulty of relying on the criminal law alone, he cuts out the support that the civil law at present gives him. I know it was said on Second Reading, by the learned Attorney-General and others, that you cannot legislate against revolutions. That statement, though of course in a sense true—that is to say that an Act of Parliament will not of itself necessarily prevent a revolution—seems to me to be wholly unfair to the patriotism and the decency of the ordinary trade unionist.
  The argument that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour used

  1127
  about the patriotism of trade unionists is against him on this point, because he is asking the House to say that it makes no difference to patriotic men to know that at present certain actions are illegal, and that it will make no difference if in future they do not know whether they are illegal or not. Any of us who have the pleasure of knowing many trade unionists know that a great many would hesitate to indulge in an activity which they knew was against the criminal law, though they might follow leaders who might be foolish, if they thought that the advice given was not illegal. The Attorney-General treats that as extremely funny, I do not know why.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Hartley Shawcross): Let me assure the hon. Member I was not laughing at what he said, but at something quite different. I was listening to what he said, but an incident, which occurred on the other side of the House, caused me to laugh.
  Mr. Strauss: It is unfair to the patriotism of trade unionists to say that legislation on this subject, determining what strikes are illegal, makes no difference. It is also flying in the face of facts. Let me remind the House of three dates. I do not think it is conclusive, but it is suggestive. The general strike begins on 4th May, 1926, on 11th May a High Court judge declares it to be illegal, and on the following day the T.U.C. calls it off. It may be mere chance but it at least suggests that disrespect for the law is not so widely shared by trade unionists as in some more august quarters. Whoever else is entitled to say that the law makes no difference the last people who ought to do so are hon. Members of the House of Commons. The last people who ought to invite the House to do it are those on the Government Front Bench and the last man on the Government Front Bench who should do it is the principal Law Officer of the Crown.
  I dare say it will be said that these arguments are a little academic because now the leaders of the T.U.C. are so eminently respectable that they would never dream of indulging in another general strike. If that were the case, nothing would have been easier than for them to say so. I do not believe it would be a good argument for repealing the law on the subject, but, unfortunately for any
  1128
  such contention, Sir Walter Citrine, who is always frank and honest in these matters, gave an interview published in the Labour Press Service on 9th January, 1946 in which he dealt specifically with the position which would result from the repeal of the 1927 Act. He did not say there would not be another general strike. He said nothing of the kind. He said that in future there must be no law against it, that there ought to be a brake, but no law against it in the future. He said that the trade union movement had a sense of responsibility and would only indulge in it in the most exceptional circumstances. Let me read the exact words:
  " I am convinced that the responsibility devolving on the Trade Union Movement when faced with a contingency like a general strike"—
  That is rather good, "faced with a contingency," when they invented it—
  " is so great that only in the most exceptional circumstances, and when no other remedy appeared possible, would such a method be likely to be employed."
  That is very different from saying that there will never be another general strike. Of course there will not be another general strike while the trade union movement is confident that it has a very obedient Government in power which takes more notice of its secret deliberations than the public deliberations of the House of Commons. But, if at any moment the House of Commons, or the electorate, prove recalcitrant, then this admirable weapon of the general strike remains in their armoury. Let me read what was said by a trade union leader in this House on the Committee stage of the Bill. Let me quote a sentence from the hon. Member for the Walton Division of Liverpool (Mr. Haworth):
  " I can visualise circumstances which might justify or necessitate a stoppage of labour by the trade union movement even against the Government of the day, and if those circumstances arise—a change of Government, a declaration of war against Russia, for instance—it might be necessary to call a stoppage of work. "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th February, 1946: Vol. 419, c. 1789.]
  So now we know what is meant by the "most exceptional circumstances" in Sir Walter Citrine's statement. I leave the question of the general strike, although I am convinced, and make no apology for having dealt with it, that it is the most important issue raised by this Bill. The

  1129
  folly of the Government in repealing these provisions which protect our Parliamentary institutions, and protect the community, will be remembered long after all their other work is forgotten.
  On intimidation, I propose to say little because we debated it yesterday. I would merely call the attention of the House to this. In Section 3 of the Act of 1927, there are four Subsections. It is only to the definition of intimidation in Subsection (2) that the Socialists in the past have exressed any opposition. I am not going to argue whether their objection to Subsection (2) is right or wrong, because, if they thought it wrong, nothing would have been simpler than to introduce an Amendment on that Subsection, and if that Subsection goes, we return to the position that results from the courts' interpretation of the Act of 1875. But what about Subsections (1) and (4)? Is there an hon. Member on the other side of the House, who objects to anything in Subsection (1)? I do not suppose there is. The law as set down in Subsection (1) will remain because that is a statement of the law as it results from the previous Statutes. The only thing is that that convenient statement will no longer be available as an authority for pickets, and those who instruct them. But it is pitiable that we should be invited today to do away with Subsection (4) which protects the home.
  I do not need to repeat arguments used yesterday, but I would remind hon. Members in all quarters of the House of one very significant observation when a lawyer on this side was developing the case against allowing watching and besetting of the home, which we believe will be greatly facilitated after the repeal of this Subsection. There was a cry from the opposite Benches "You are eager to protect blacklegs." I do not know whether it is unworthy, or unchristian, to think that the wife and children even of a blackleg should be protected in their own home, but, if so, I unhesitatingly declare that I am in favour of such protection. But, as a matter of fact, there is no reason to suppose that the man concerned would be a blackleg, even in the vocabulary of hon. Members opposite. If it happens to be an unofficial strike, the so-called blackleg, obeying the orders of the official trade union leaders, should he protected from the pickets of the unofficial
  1130
  strike. Hon. Members opposite are doing the greatest disservice possible to the reputation of the great trade union movement in this country by saying that it is necessary for that movement to retain the right to picket the worker's home.
  To turn to the political levy, again we had a Debate on that subject yesterday. I do not want to repeat arguments that are so recent. I would only remind hon. Members that on that particular issue, taking the Members of this House and the number of electors they represent, there is an actual majority of electors against the course which hon. Members are taking. Let us first consider this: I can understand it being said that contracting out would be a more convenient method than contracting in and, therefore, preferable, if it could also be said that in the result it made no difference. Once you admit that it makes an enormous difference then you are giving away your whole case for asking for the change. I have taken figures from an answer given by the Minister of Labour in the present Session and by the Lord Chancellor when he was Attorney-General in 1931. Taking these two figures together we find that the number of those paying the political levy in the registered trade unions in 1926 was 77 per cent., and in 1943 the percentage was 43. The doctrine of hon. Members opposite appears to be that persuasion cannot reverse these figures, but legislation can. They have had a pretty good success with peaceful picketing; they will now resort to peaceful pocketing.
  Hon. Members opposite sometimes use the argument, "What about a club? Surely, when a majority of a club have decided on something, the minority must fall into line? "The parallel is not a very close one. I do not know of any club to which one is compelled to belong in order to earn one's livelihood. Secondly, if this particular form of club is under a slight disadvantage, that is compensated for by most elaborate privileges, unique in the legislation of this or any other country. I have sometimes heard the example used of what a corporation can do, and have heard the question asked, cannot a minority be bound if the memorandum and articles of association so permit? I am not impressed by that argument, and shall not be, until the trade unions show some willingness to be incorporated. If they decided on incorporation, with all the benefits and all the dis-

  1131
  advantages, I do not think that it is on this side of the House that they would meet with any opposition.
  I pass to the Civil Service. Here, I agree, is far the most arguable case in the whole of the 1927 Act. For many years I have enjoyed the friendship of many civil servants, and still more so since I had the privilege of being a Minister for three years, and many years ago I was, for some years, a temporary civil servant myself. I realise that a civil servant feels at times that he is debarred from certain things which, if he were not a civil servant, he would be able and allowed to do. The question is whether that deprivation is necessarily involved in preserving what is of great value to the reputation of his profession, and to the confidence which it enjoys among the general public. In arguing this matter with civil servants I have found that, when the matter has been put before them, a great many have come to the point of view that there are great advantages in these limitations, in the interest of the reputation of the Civil Service and in the confidence that the public has in it.
  On this particular issue of whether the Civil Service should owe undivided allegiance to the Government I would say that that is quite as much to the advantage of the Socialist Party or the Liberal Party as it is of our party. It is of enormous advantage to every party in the State, and when hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite suggest that there will be no risk to the Civil Service in doing away with these safeguards, I ask them to consider this: Does anyone deny either of these two facts? First, that the T.U.C. frequently discusses matters on which differences between it and the Government of the day are possible? Secondly, that bodies affiliated to the T.U.C. owe a considerable measure of loyalty to the T.U.C.? Once one admits both those facts, and I have not heard anybody dispute either of them, one is driven to the inevitable conclusion that affiliation to the T.U.C. will subject those in the affiliated unions to divided loyalties.
  It is not only civil servants who are under these disadvantages, if they are disadvantages. Exactly similar limitations apply to the police. I do not know whether the Government propose to pro-
  1132
  ceed later to relieve the police of these alleged disadvantages. Of course, the repeal of the 1927 Act will only benefit the Civil Service unions if the new Civil Service regulations are quite different from the present ones. Why will the Government not tell us what the new Civil Service Regulations are to be? I put this question to them: Have they made up their mind what the new Regulations ought to be? If they have not, are they not slightly deceiving the Civil Service unions, in letting them believe that they are to have increased freedom? If, on the other hand, they have made up their mind, have they decided not to tell the House what they intend to do? I hope that these questions will be answered in the course of the Debate.
  I wish now to deal with local and other public authorities. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) yesterday could not understand why we wished to retain Section 6 in the law, and yet he himself said that he was against the trade union being chosen by the employer and not by the man himself. Our doctrine on this side of the House is quite simple. Whether a man joins a,trade union, and whether, if he does, he joins one trade union or another, is a matter for the man himself, and not for his employer. If hon. Members, especially the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne, care to look up the case of the Attorney-General v. Birkenhead Corporation, they will know that that corporation, until it was restrained by the Act which is now being repealed, was favouring one particular trade union as against another.
  On the subject of lightning strikes, the Attorney-General said that he could not understand why this prohibition was limited to local and other public authorities. I should have thought that the short answer is that it is on them that the State has, in the public interest, placed a statutory duty for the maintenance of health and many other statutory duties. If there were a defect in the law in that some kinds of private concerns with similar duties were omitted, the remedy was suggested by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hill-head, namely, to include such further provision, but not to sweep away this existing protection against lightning strikes.

  1133
  I thank the House for the patience with which it has listened. I believe that the greatest of all injuries which this Bill is doing to the State is the injury that it is inflicting on this honourable House. I believe no one can be a Member, as I have been for 10 years, without realising that there is something about the traditions, the procedure, and the methods of this place which makes even ordinary men and women in all parties sometimes rise to greatness on great occasions. I think those conditions are worth preserving. I believe this Bill is a threat to the supremacy of Parliament, a threat to the rule of law and to our liberties. I say that when it is carried the resulting state of the law will be unworthy of this House, arid unworthy of a great political party. After six years of war an heroic and civilised people deserves something better.
  4.31 p.m.
  Mr. W. J. Brown (Ruģby): I must say that I do not take quite the same view of the Bill, in the form in which it has emerged from the Committee, as the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss). I think his view of this Bill is coloured by bad history and groundless misapprehension. A combination of bad history and groundless misapprehension is not a good basis on which to judge the merits or demerits of any Bill. I might add that it is always possible to make history fit one's own view, if one has complete freedom as to the date on which one starts the history. We have had that pointed out to us in discussions on foreign politics in this House. Although I am not going to discuss the merits of the general strike of 1926, I can perfectly well understand that if my hon. Friend started his history from nine months before the date of that strike, he might draw one conclusion. But if he looks, as I think he ought to look, at the whole history of the coal industry and at the responsibility of employers and Governments for what happened in the industry over many decades, then he may well take a different view of the history of the general strike. Therefore, I begin by dissociating myself from the wholesale condemnation of the Bill which has been expressed by my hon. Friend.
  Nevertheless, I wish to repeat briefly what I tried to say both on the Committee stage and on Second Reading, that I profoundly regret that a magnificent oppor-
  1134
  tunity of statesmanship has been lost, in my opinion, in the manner in which this Bill has been brought to us. It is true that the quickest way of getting rid of the matter from the Government point of view, is a one-Clause Bill which undoes everything that was done in 1927. If there is a one-Clause Bill, and an overriding Government majority in the House, they can drive that Bill through in a comparatively short period of time. But I have seen enough of Parliament and of the trade union movement to believe that what is best is what is built best, and that a shoddy building run up in a hurry, is not nearly as good as a building, put up at greater leisure and at a great expenditure in time, but with better lasting qualities.
  Mr. Turner-Samuels: This is getting rid of a shoddy building.
  Mr. Brown: It is restoring the chaos that existed before the shoddy building was erected.
  Mr. Turner-Samuels: What was the chaos?
  Mr. Brown: I wonder whether the hon. Member wishes to make this speech for me. Would he allow me to carry on?
  Mr. Turner-Samuels: I would help the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Brown: I am a man of exemplary patience, but Members opposite must learn that barracking is no substitute for argument. I hope never to have to speak to them again on this subject. If the Government wanted—arid in my opinion it would have been wiser if they had—a settlement which would last not only through this Parliament, and perhaps the next, but as long ahead as we can reasonably foresee, they would have done better to have spent more time upon the matter. I want a settlement which will last, because trade union legislation has been the battledore and shuttlecock of party politics for decade after decade. Nobody knows that better than my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour. The desirable thing in my opinion is a settlement that will endure, even if that settlement gave less than one could get by the automatic exercise of an overwhelming Parliamentary majority in a particular House at a particular time. Therefore, I think it would have been better if the Government had

  1135
  done one of two things. One was to produce their conception of what trade union law ought to be, and give the House the opportunity of discussing it issue by issue, which I agree would have taken more Parliamentary time. The second alternative, if they had to have a one-Clause Bill of the kind they have produced, was to allow reasonable discussion on particular Amendments to that Bill. I must say, and I say this with regret as a trade union leader myself, that they have taken neither of those courses. They have not produced a reasoned Bill on the one hand, and it would be a mockery of truth to say that we have had adequate opportunities to discuss Amendments to this Bill on the other hand.
  The attitude appears to have been "the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill." That incites strong opposition from the "Bill" who sits here. As a result of this attitude, what have we done? We have repealed the provision about the general strike. That is good. I think it ought to go. We have declined to consider any Amendment on the subject of watching and besetting. That, I think is a mistake. I am not going to argue the extent of this. We had a bit of an argument about it yesterday. What I would say is that trade unions are so strong in these days, that they could afford to put themselves completely beyond any kind of suspicion in regard to that particular point. It would have been good politics to have done so.
  What have we done with regard to political funds? What is really happening is that the Government are going to collect the financial increment of inertia. Indeed, they have not waited for the collection to begin; they have already had conferences on how the spoil is to be divided. The sum is a substantial one of £100,000; the claimants are many and vociferous, and already the discussions on the share-out have commenced. I wonder whether five years hence hon. Members opposite will take quite the same view about that Section? Unless a party bases its decision upon what is right, it can always be outbid by somebody on the Left. In view of things that are happening, which we all know of, in the Labour movement, such as the steady penetration of the trade unions by the Communists—that is a fact; we all know it—I wonder who will be collecting the increment of inertia five
  1136
  years hence It may not be the Labour Party. It may be the Communist Party. It might have been as well to have left it to the clear, conscious decision of a man that he would contract into his political fund, rather than to have restored contracting out. I doubt whether we shall be so pleased about that Clause a few years hence.
  Mr. Gallacher: The hon. Gentleman is all wrong about that subject.
  Mr. Brown: It must be a comforting reflection that the hon Member is always so quick to detect that I am wrong. What a comfort it must be for him to reflect on his superiority to me in that respect. But life is not settled by ipse dixits, even when they come from the Communist Party.
  Mr. Gallacher: Will the hon. Member allow me? He can surely understand how the working-class movement has been built up in this country. The trade unions are affiliated to the Labour Party, and there is a consequent relation to a political affiliation, but there is no such thing, and there can be no such thing, as affiliation to the Communist Party.
  Mr. Brown: It is almost with affection that I listen to the hon. Member, but if there is anything more adaptable, adjustable and reversible than Communist Party policy, then it is Communist Party machinery. We know that the present constitution does not admit of affiliation of the unions, but that is a matter that could be put right tomorrow. They need not even have a conference to do it. King Street can give an order and the thing will be suitably arranged. I am glad that Section 5 has gone, because I think it ought to go, and I do not share the apprehensions of my hon. Friend behind me who wants to know what regulations are going to be made about Civil Service unions. I do not know why he raised the point. As I understand it, repeal of this Section will restore the position as it was before 1927. There were no regulations then governing the conditions of the Civil Service trade unions. They were not governed by regulations at all, but by tradition and practice. And the tradition and practice of the Civil Service unions were such that there were no worries about their loyalty to the Government of the day. I see no reason to think that these will arise in the future.

  1137
  I regret that we have knocked out Section 6, because I have a passion for freedom for its own sake, and not necessarily only for those who agree with me. Freedom for me, is not freedom to do what hon. Members opposite want me to do, but freedom for me to do what they do not want me to do. Unless we are quite clear about that profound difference, we do not begin to understand the meaning of freedom.
  Captain Peart (Workington): Freedom to do as the hon. Member likes.
  Mr. Brown: Well, why not? The trouble with some hon. Members is that the only freedom they will give me is the freedom to do what they like.
  Mr. Wilkins: What about freedom under the 1927 Act?
  Mr. Brown: On this issue of local government authorities, I regard it as a monstrous thing that a local government authority should have the right to tell any man that he should not be a member of a trade union. I regarded it as monstrous, in the early days in the Civil Service trade union movement, when there was a refusal of the Government to recognise trade unions. But I also regard it as monstrous that local authorities should have power to tell a man that he must be a member of a union, whether he wants to or not, and as still more monstrous, that they should not only be able to tell him that he should be a member of a union, but should even specify the union to which he must belong. It is just as much tyranny in the one direction as in the other, and I think it is a great pity. I am opposed, from a trade union point of view, to the closed, shop." [An HON MENIBER: "What about the open shop? "] I would rather have an open shop with 70 per cent. of the men in the unions because they wanted to be in, than have a closed shop with 100 per cent. in the unions only because, otherwise, they would not get a job at all. I think we ought to approach all these things on the merits of the case, and have a reasonable argument about them. We have not done that. We have had an automatic closure forced through by an automatic Government majority, with the result that I have had to vote against the Government seven times in the last 24 hours—not because I wanted to, but because I thought they were wrong in resisting Amendments and relying upon their automatic majority.
  1138
  I think this has been a magnificent opportunity for statesmanship, wantonly thrown away. If we are to have the politics of "tit for tat" in Britain, we had better look out. The Government have a giant's strength in this House, but it is a mistake to use it like a giant. They could have afforded to exercise it reasonably on this subject. I shall vote for the Third Reading of the Bill. I want the historic justification which the Bill gives, I want repeal of Section 5, and other alterations which the Bill will give us. But I regret that, in order to vote for some things which I regard as good, I am compelled to vote for many things which I do not regard as good. That would not have been the case if the Government had taken the advice which I gave them in the Second Reading Debate.
  4.46 p.m.
  Mr. Popplewell: I am glad of the opportunity welcoming the Government's attitude on-this Bill. I think the way in which they have dealt with this subject is very good indeed. The hon. Member for the Combined Universities (Mr. H. Strauss), in a speech, for which I give him all credit as the representative of a typical cross-section of the community, produced logic which, as regards the events which led up to this very harsh Act of 1927 being placed on the Statute Book, was very deplorable. The hon. Member admits the fact that this Act was brought about by the mineowners' lockout of the miners, but there his logic ends. When that lockout led to the general strike, the only thing that he could see was the wisdom of bringing in something to stop a general strike. He could not see the wisdom of any effort by the Government to bring something into operation that would stop the lockout. That is the difference between us in our approach.
  We know the actual set-up that led to the 1927 Act being placed on the Statute Book. It was, I think, rightly described as a miners' lockout. Now, we are suggesting that it was wrong altogether to pass that Act to penalise the general strike which arose from that source. We feel that the Government of the day would have shown more statesmanlike qualities in their 20 years of power, had they attempted to deal with the actual seeds that led to the trouble originally in the same way as, I am pleased to say, this

  1139
  Government are now doing by taking control of those industries which are calculated to be likely to lead to general strikes in the future. We on these Benches are not ashamed to say that we are working in close association with the men engaged in the productive side of industry. The difference between us, and right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, for many years has been that they have been working in active association with those people whose primary interest in industry has been the profit that could he derived from it. Consequently we have those two different methods of approach. We get our approach in connection with the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act of 1927.
  The hon. Member for the Combined Universities stressed the fact that he had in his election address emphasised the repeal of the Trade Disputes Act, and suggested that Members on this side of the house made very little reference to it in their election addresses. If he took the trouble to read our addresses, he would find that 90 per cent. of the Members on this side of the House are pledged to the repeal of this Act. Furthermore, not only are we pledged to it in our election addresses, we are pledged through that little document that has been quoted so often, "Let us Face the Future," which has established a fresh record in electioneering promises. [Laughter.] Wait for it—we are actually living up to the promises contained in that document, whereas hon. Gentlemen opposite, who were very glib at promises in days gone by, completely forgot those promises as soon as they were returned to power. If any further witness is needed in corroboration of my statements, the House need only take the promises of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) as far back as after the last war, when in his Dundee electioneering speeches, he promised, if returned to power—
  Mr. Quintin Hoģ ģ: On a point of Order. I had been under the impression that we were discussing the Third Reading of the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Bill. I do not understand how that can be related to a discussion of the election promises of various distinguished statesmen during the last 20 years. I submit that it is wholly irrele
  1140
  vant, and amounts to wearisome repetition.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): Much that hon. Members say is not strictly relevant, but perhaps we might allow the hon. Member to continue, and we will see.
  Mr. McAdam: Is it not in Order for a Member to take up an interjection and reply to it in the course of his speech?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Yes, it relevant and in Order in doing so.
  Mr. Popplewell: I am glad to hear that I am perfectly in Order. The right hon. Member for Woodford, having made certain speeches, when returned to this House did not attempt to put them into operation. We are now doing it for him in this nationalisation Bill. We are working in association with the people actually engaged in industry, and will see to it that no lock-out can arise because a certain section of owners do not play the game with their employees. Since the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act was passed, we in the trade union movement have been very emphatic and it is very interesting to see the interest taken by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite in the trade union movement and to see that, although they profess to have such profound regard for it, they have not been able to quote a single trade union that does not ask for this Act to be repealed.
  Mr. Beverley Baxter (Wood Green): The hon. Gentleman was not a Member of the previous Parliament, but is he aware that hardly one Member of this House, on any side, got any letters asking for the repeal of the Trade Disputes Act of 1927? It never was a public issue. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It never was an election issue, and as for the famous mandate, if everything in that mandate, every item, resulted in the election of the party opposite, it is like ordering one dish in the dining room and giving a verdict on the entire menu. That is what it amounts to.
  Mr. Popplewell: We can quite appreciate that hon. Gentlemen opposite would not receive representations from trade unions, but had it been a question of concern to chambers of commerce, no

  1141
  doubt they would have been inundated. The trade unions preferred to pin their faith to the men who have been tried and trusted on their behalf for so many years. It was consequently rather absurd for hon. Gentlemen opposite to say that this was not an election issue. The Leader of the Opposition himself made it an election issue. He stated very definitely, when approached by the trade unions with regard to the repeal of this Act, that it must wait until such time as an election took place. Possibly the 1922 Committee was responsible for his reaching that verdict, but as he did so the election issue was very clear and definite, and on it a mandate was given. That mandate having been given, we are now to put it into operation, by removing the slur cast upon the trade union movement for so many years. Had hon. Gentlemen opposite been sincere in the lip service they have paid to the trade unions, because of the good work they say the trade unions have done during the war, they would have made the gesture that we arc now asked to make, and they would have suggested certain alterations in the trade union law that might have been beneficial according to their particular outlook. We on our side feel that if we return to the pre-1927 position, which gives to trade unionists as a whole freedom of choice. in every direction, it is quite satisfactory from our particular viewpoint.
  I now turn to the actual Sections of the Act we are about to repeal. One deals with the illegality of strikes and lockouts. Strikes arise many times from lockouts; if we remove the causes that lead to grave unrest amongst a large section of the community by taking control of the industry and running it for the benefit of the country and not for private profit, there is not much danger of general strikes happening in the future. The working association between us and the people engaged in the industry will be great, just as is the working association between hon. Gentlemen opposite and the interest-receiving people who have been running industry in the past. They have not argued the point amongst themselves, one cannot blame them. They have worked in close association, and we on these benches will work in close association with the trade unionists and all men engaged in industry. Therefore, we are not disturbed about many of the grave fore-
  1142
  bodings which have been voiced by hon. Gentlemen on the opposite benches.
  My second point concerns the protection of persons refusing to take part in strikes. As a trade unionist of many years standing, I have always had a very tender regard indeed for those people who have been content to work in an industry and receive all the benefits a trade union can get for them but who refuse to shoulder the responsibility when the call comes. Perhaps my regard for these people has not been quite so tender as that of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. They are the type of people to whom the words of the hon. and gallant Member for Barkston Ash (Colonel Ropner) applied, when he talked about swindling trade unionists, a phrase which he would not repeat last night when challenged on the point. I see that HANSARD reports him as saying:
  " Further, I say that merely quoting cases of this sort does not serve as an excuse for swindling the trade unionists."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, IA April, 1946; Vol. 421, c. 894.]
  I suggest that the people I have mentioned, the blacklegs, are swindling trade unionists the whole of the time.
  Colonel Ropner: I would like to correct one statement which the hon. Member has made. I do not deny the words which he quoted, but he is wrong when he says that I failed to repeat and enlarge, later in the Debate, the accusation which I made.
  Mr. Popplewell: HANSARD proves how far the hon. and gallant Member attempted to enlarge those particular words. It is possible that those are the the people for whom he had such a tender regard. I do not want to labour these matters unduly. Our minds are made up. No matter what may be said on either side, we know how the vote will go.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore (Ayr Burghs): But how does the argument go?
  Mr. Popplewell: I come now to what I regard as the most important matter covered by the Bill, I refer to the trade unions' contributions to the political fund. It would be very difficult to find in history any action which was so much a matter of hitting below the belt by one political party against another as was committed in this respect in the 1927 Act. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are more

  1143
  concerned about this matter than they are about any other. We have all seen the growth of the working-class movement in its industrial and political spheres. There was the first attempt to set up a political party, there was further action in 1873, 1880 and 1890, until finally there was close working cooperation. The trade unionists in industry, realising that it was impossible for them to accomplish much as long as they pinned their faith in either the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party, decided to set up a separate political party and to contribute to it in a way which gives us pride namely, through their halfpennies and pennies. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite have never asked the House to define what portion of the balance sheets of commercial undertakings and revenue producing units may be put to political purposes, as they ask shall he done in regard to trade unions. It is an open secret, of which hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are not ashamed, that industry contributes to their coffers and assists their political machine.
  We on this side are proud that the trade unions assist us in our political actions. We do not ask for action against industrial magnates to prevent them from financing hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, as they seek to curtail the political activities of trade unions. Every attack that has been made on the trade union movement throughout the years has ultimately rebounded to the credit of trade unionists. That applied so much in the case of the attack in 1927 that it has been a contributory factor—one of many—to these Benches being packed with working class folk today.
  Mr. Beverley Baxter: Packed?
  Mr. Popplewell: The hon. Members opposite have talked a great deal about freedom. The 1927 Act is the very negation of freedom. I wonder what meaning hon. Members opposite give to the word "freedom" when they ask for the retention of such Sections as Section 6, which deals with Civil Service unions. They attempt to bolster up their case on Section 6 by suggesting that local authorities will do certain things. The repeal of Section 6 will only put local authorities in the position that they may decide—not that they shall decide—to do
  1144
  certain things. It will give to local authorities the same rights as private employers have, namely; to make a closed shop if they feel it is advisable to do so. It is not suggested that the repeal of the Section will automatically bring about a closed shop for local government employees. Surely, hon. Members opposite ought not to say that a local authority or a public authority should be in any different position, as an employer of labour, from a private enterprise firm. The repeal of this Section will give equality.
  The passage of this Bill will give extreme gratification to a tremendous section of the community. For 20 years the Act has been a source of grievance to that section of the community which has provided the vast mass of the Fighting Forces during the war. The trade unionists have willingly given up some of their hard won rights in order to contribute to victory in the war, and bouquets galore have been paid to them. If hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are sincere in what they have said about their regard for the trade unions, they should cease opposing this Bill. If this section of the community can accomplish what they have accomplished during these last six years, it follows that they have the ordinary common sense and intelligence to wield power, to see that freedom has expression, and to assist in guiding this country on the way to peace and prosperity.
  5.10 p.m.
  Mr. Clement Davies: It is always a matter of deep regret to me that so much heat can be engendered in a discussion about trade union legislation. I have listened to nearly the whole of the Debates which have taken place on the Bill. I am reminded of the heated Debates of 1927, and even of 1913, when the same kind of phrases were thrown across the Floor of the House, and even the same words, in many cases. Surely, in a matter which affects the lives of so many people and the prosperity and welfare of the country, the only voice that should be heard is the voice of reason.
  I would refer to one or two speeches that have been delivered this afternoon which I regard as exaggerated. First, there was the hon. Member for the Combined Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) who said that if the Bill were passed it would be a threat to the liberty of the House,

  1145
  to the rule of law, to freedom and to democracy itself. Does he really believe that? Can he really seriously put forward such a suggestion? On the other hand, there was the Minister of Labour who proposed the Third Reading of the Bill. In his peroration he stated: "This is a milestone on the road to freedom." He hailed it as "the dawn of a new day." Really, is that the language to use about a Bill which simply restores the position as it was in 1913? I should have thought that a milestone on the road to freedom would have to be a progressive Measure and that the dawn of a new day would not be a Measure looking back to a position 33 years ago. That is the kind of exaggerated language which has been used on both sides of the House.
  I would express my deep regret that the Minister of Labour used one phrase. He said there was now a new governing class and that that class would now be governing. If there is one thing I hate more than anything else it is that in a democratic country there should be a class above or below another class. We need to regard ourselves as part of one great community and to make that conception work as fairly as we possibly can. I agree that in the past such words could have been used, but coming from that Bench they made me hope for a finer attitude. They were unfortunate words.
  The speeches yesterday and today seemed to suggest that the Labour Party are not only the protectors but the creators of trade unions. I would point out that trade unions started long before that political party was ever thought of, and that they were protected by law long before that party began. I remember the first Measure which gave the protection which was not given to any other combination. It was passed by a Liberal Government as long ago as 1871. In 1875 came another Act. Possibly the then Government had learned from us, as very often happens in these cases. Outside the House, men whom I can recall with pride and knew as my friends were leaders of the trade union movement. They were men like John Burns, Ben Tillett, and, perhaps greatest of all and the founder of a great party, Keir Hardie. His friendship I also had. I am glad to set, his son-in-law in this House.
  In 1906, the then Liberal Government actually risked splitting the party by bringing in an Act giving further protec-
  1146
  tion to the trade unions. Then came the Act of 1913 to which we are now going back. I do not think that by going back to 1913 there will be any risk to the freedom of this House nor to the sacredness of the rule of law or of democracy in this country. I say, on behalf of myself and my hon. Friends, that the Act of 1927 was brought in as a punitive Act. What it accomplished was not much. It never accomplished what hon. Members said it would nor did it carry out what the then Government thought it might. Some Sections, as the Attorney-General has rightly said, brought nothing really new into the law of the country. They were intended, and were thought by the Labour Party at the time, to rub the noses of the Labour Party into the mess which had been created in 1926. The Liberal Party in 1927 refused its assent to the Bill when it came before the House. I took up exactly the same position on behalf of myself and my colleagues on the Second Reading of this Bill.
  May I now say how disappointed I am? I am disappointed with regard to two things, the first of which is the way in which this Bill has been introduced and carried through the Committee stage. I most sincerely ask hon. Members on the other side of the House to realise today, that democracy does not mean the rule of the majority, and that the minority must accept it. True democracy means the rule by all, for the benefit of all—the majority listening to such arguments as the minority can put forward, and respecting certain feelings which must always be respected on the part of the minority by the majority. Thy majority has no right whatever to press upon the minority, however small it may be, a loss of freedom or a loss of a personal liberty which each man regards as sacred to himself alone. The second thing is that the Party opposite were not elected to this House merely to act as a rubber stamp, and to get the machine moving. I am afraid that many of its hon. Members seem to be impatient, not merely of any criticisms that may be made, but even of criticism of speeches which seem to them to hold up the machinery. I deeply regret that time and again last night—every two hours or so—the Government sought to bring forward a Motion to closure the Debate and stop free discussion. On one particular occasion when I thought it a vital matter—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: This is the Third Reading of the Bill and the hon. Gentleman cannot discuss all these matters which have no relevance to the contents of the Bill.
  Mr. Davies: I am confining myself to a criticism of this Bill and the way in which it has been introduced but, naturally, after your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will content myself by saying only that it has certainly affected my attitude very considerably. There were matters in the 1927 Act which I am glad are being remedied. I am glad that Sections 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 have gone and that civil servants will now have the same rights as they had prior to the passing of that Act. During the whole of the period when they could amalgamate with other unions, the country was just as well governed by the civil servants and they were just as loyal as they have been since this Act. There was one Clause which I and my colleagues thought was a far more democratic and fairer way of dealing with the political levy than the one which was brought in in 1913. I do not want to repeat my arguments, but I still think that was the better method of dealing with that situation. I admitted—as the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour was kind enough to remark—that, under both, the greatest precautions were taken. I admitted that under both systems if there were any danger of any undue pressure being brought, it was just as great in respect to contracting in as to contracting out. I will limit myself to the one single point—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It would be out of Order for the hon. and learned Gentleman to pursue that point further. He must confine himself to what is in the Bill, not what he thinks ought to have been in it.
  Mr. Davies: I am indicating now what effect this has had upon the arguments I put forward in the Second Reading and the position I am in today. What I regarded as fundamental for the future is no longer to continue. This Bill will restore the position to what it was in 1913, and the trade unions will then cash in upon the inertia of the movement. Nobody can say about me or my Party that we have not got the greatest respect and admiration for the trade union movement: some or my greatest and warmest friends are from among them. But I
  1148
  must register my protest against what has taken place, and the only way in which I can do that is in the Lobby.
  Might I end by saying that in the Second Reading Debate I implored the Government—and I was followed by the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Willesden (Mr. Viant) on exactly the same lines—to agree that this Bill was not enough. I am not going to suggest what ought to be in the Bill. Surely, it is not enough with all the changes that are taking place in the affairs of the country, with all the new changes that are bound to take place owing to the legislation that this House is now passing and will pass in the course of the next four years, with the tremendous increase in the numbers and power of the trade unions, and with the changes that are also threatening the trade unions, to leave the matter in the position in which it was 33 years ago. I say to the Government, Introduce your new Charter; make plain what the position has got to be; try to do your utmost to create a machinery whereby we can all settle our differences without having to resort to strikes. As I have said before, nobody likes strikes, least of all the striker and his family. The time has come when I should have thought that from the Box opposite I should have heard: "We are proposing the Third Reading of this Bill, but we are telling this House that we are not content merely with this. We shall be bringing in shortly a new Charter for the trade unions of this country which will leave them in a sane, sensible and unassailable position." But, not hearing that, I repeat, with the deepest regret, that I must register my protest.
  Mr. Alpass (Thornbury): Is it a fact that the hon. and learned Gentleman is in favour of and supports the greater part of the Clauses of the Bill and yet, in order to show that he is not in support of the minor portion, he is going to vote against it?
  Mr. Davies: I made my position as plain as I possibly could.
  5.30 p.m.
  Mr. Beverley Baxter (Wood Green): I would like to say at the beginning of my very few remarks how glad we shall be to welcome the Leader of the Liberal Party in the Lobby tonight. We have missed him, not because of numbers, but because of quality. He used to vote with

  1149
  us, in the Parliament that was elected in 1935, but then he disappeared, and I make this prophecy that now he has put his foot into the water—just his toes—he will come right in with us. [An HON. MEMBER: "He will soon drown."]—and we shall say of him, as we so often say after a maiden speech, that we shall be glad to see him frequently in the Opposition Lobby.
  I would like to make a comment also on the very amiable and admirable speech by the hon. Member for West Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. Popplewell). He spoke like a true trade union delegate. It is true that this is the House of Commons, but we have to take men as we find them, and he spoke to hon. Members as an honest trade union delegate. If I may, I would offer one bit of kindly comment. He said, among other things, that the trade union movement was largely responsible for winning the war. The trade union movement took on a tremendous burden. Nobody is going to deny that. They did everything they could, they gave everything they could, but they themselves did not win the war. [An HON. MEMBER: "Oh, yes they did."] I think it is about time that we had the truth. The trade union movement supplied the greatest number of men, but why not accept that fact as it is, with all its grandeur? Why develop the thing beyond the sense of logic?
  Mr. Alpass: Would not the hon. Member agree that it was a very material contribution to the war effort in producing munitions?
  Mr. Baxter: Any hon. Member would admit that, but I would sometimes suggest to hon. Members opposite—
  Mr. Popplewell rose—
  Mr. Baxter: Well, I give way, but this was going to be a good sentence.
  Mr. Popplewell: I am sure that the hon. Member does not wish to misquote me. The remark that I made was that the trade unions provided a good proportion of the fighting men and of the men in industry. I will stick to that, for the lighting men are members of the community from which the trade unions are recruited, and, being in industry, the automatic consequence is that they are trade unionists.
  Mr. Baxter: The statement is within the recollection of the House, and as a matter of fact, I think the adjective used was the "largest." However, I do not wish to pursue that point, and it is only because of the courtesy of the Party on this side of the House that I do not do so, because of the possible controversy that might arise. There is, however, one thing that ought to be said. In estimating the efforts made by different sections of the community, I suggest that it would be well for hon. Members to recall what was done by those boys who won the Battle of Britain. They came neither from the homes of the workers nor from the very rich. They came from a section of society which has now largely disappeared from England's face. We hear very little about it from hon. Members opposite, this great middle class. There is no legislation for the middle class. It is being legislated out of existence. But in giving credit for the war we forget those boys, who came neither from the cottage nor from the castle, but from the little suburban houses outside the towns. I make this statement, because I suggest that we should attempt to keep the trade union octopus in some kind of relation to the truth.
  It seems to me that in passing this unfortunate repeal Bill, there has been a great deal of hypocrisy in general. We on this side of the House respect the patriotism of the trade unionists; in fact we respect it a little more than the wistful precocity of the Attorney-General who brings to our Debates in this House all the charm and essence of the Cambridge Union. But we do respect the trade union members for the sturdy way in which they put their case, arid also because we trust them. I would, however, put this question to them. Do not the trade union Members realise that the survival and the strengthening of the trade unions is essential to our conception of free enterprise? We are not your enemies. We cannot maintain the position of free enterprise and capitalism, in which we believe, unless across the Table there is the mighty trade union movement. Therefore our purpose is to strengthen and not to weaken that movement. If you like, it is for selfish reasons, but it is also for the broader national reasons which have made the Party on this side of the House always the supporters of the trade union movement.

  1151
  I think the Party opposite, or I should say the Government, have not realised the changing conditions under which we live. The election of July—while the trade union Members of the House may make noises indicating dissent, down in their hearts they know it is true—the election results of last July threatened the survival of the trade union movement. [An HON. MEMBER: "Nothing of the kind."] That was not a very loud cry of dissent, so down in their hearts hon. Members know it is true. It is not only that this Government have a very powerful majority, and majorities go to the heads of Ministers, particularly Cabinet Ministers—
  Mr. Georģe Porter (Leeds, Central): On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Could we know just what this has to do with the Bill before the House?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Perhaps the hon. Member ought to wait and see.
  Mr. Baxter: I will not keep the House waiting long to show hon. Members in what way I link that up with the Bill. It is that the Communist movement is gnawing at the vitals, not only of the Labour Party but of the trade union movement, and it is quite possible that this Government with their immense majority can only be regarded, in essence, as a "caretaker" Government. Sooner or later, perhaps sooner, this Government will have to change its complexion.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I cannot see anything in the Bill which deals with a "caretaker" Government.
  Mr. Baxter: This repeal Bill is getting ready for the incoming Communist administration of this Government. I think that that comment is entirely in Order, but, unfortunately, I shall run into more controversy if I continue the argument, instead of dealing with the hard facts which was my original intention. Last night when we were not being sat upon and told to stop talking, the Attorney-General stated, as did other hon. Members opposite, that allowing the Civil Service unions to affiliate with the T.U.C. could not possibly result in divided allegiance. That was said over and over again, until even we on this side of the House understood it. It is also within
  1152
  the recollection of the House that the Foreign Secretary, speaking on the Second Reading of this Bill, rather excited as he was, said it was a big thing in his life to be making the speech he did make on that occasion after waiting 20 years. Being emotionally roused, the right hon. Gentleman perhaps used some language to which he had not paid careful attention. But he did make the statement that the civil servants, in the months before the general strike, instead of settling the coal strike, were getting ready to break the general strike when it came.
  That is within my recollection, and it is within the recollection of the whole House. What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by that? That they chose their loyalty to the country, their loyalty as civil servants, before their loyalty to the trade unions? That was when they were not affiliated. [An HON. MEMBER: "They were affiliated."] If that is true, when the Civil Service Union becomes affiliated to the T.U.C., what is going to happen if another general strike is called, not by the present leaders of the unions, but perhaps by other sources, or inflamed by other sources, inflamed by the shop stewards, who are against the union? What is going to happen when the double call goes out to the civil servant to stand true to his duty to the State and true to his duty to the T.U.C.? If the repealing of that Section has any meaning at all, it is to bring the civil servant under the influence and virtual control of the T.U.C.
  Mr. McAdam: The hon. Member is making a statement in respect of the position of the Civil Service prior to the general strike, saying that they owed loyalty to the State and also owed loyalty to the T.U.C. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that prior to 1927 the civil servants were affiliated to the T.U.C.?
  Mr. Baxter: Yes. I say there was—
  Mr. Medland: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that at that time the civil servants—and I was one—were affiliated to the T.U.C., and were refused permission to come out on strike by the trade unions, and were ordered to stay in?
  Mr. Pickthorn: That is why they did not strike—because the T.U.C. did not want them to.
  Mr. Medland: They were ordered not to strike.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We cannot have four hon. Members talking at once.
  Mr. Baxter: The very fact that the hon. Member said that in 1926 the T.U.C. ordered the civil servants to stay at their posts—
  Mr. Harry Wallace rose—
  Mr. Baxter: I must be allowed to go on. That very statement puts forward the opposite point of view, that there will come a moment when the T.U.C. will order them out. The hon. Gentleman cannot at one moment—
  Mr. Medland: The hon. Member misrepresented it. They asked to come out and were ordered to stay where they were.
  Mr. Baxter: I am trying to retain some sense of logic, but it is not so easy.
  Mr. Medland: What an example of logic.
  Mr. Baxter: Either the hon. Gentleman's interruption has some meaning or it has no meaning. The very fact that he says the civil servants were told to stay at work, must show that there was also the power to take them away from their work. In the Second Reading Debate on this Bill the Foreign Secretary blamed the civil servants for preparing to break the general strike.
  Mr. Attewell (Harborough): He blamed the Minister for using civil servants.
  Mr. Pickthorn: Yes, for using the civil servants.
  Mr. Harry Wallace: The hon. Member is misrepresenting the Foreign Secretary.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Members cannot speak unless the hon. Member who is addressing the House gives way.
  Mr. Baxter: I am being assisted in a most kindly way. The hon. Gentleman opposite said it was not the civil servants whom the Foreign Secretary blamed but the Minister for using the civil servants. The blame has now passed to the Home Secretary, who is responsible for the safety of the Realm, for using what? For using the Civil Service. What should he use? Some Gestapo? Is he to have storm troops? The Debate which we
  1154
  had yesterday, in rushes of two hours at a time, with a momentary halts when the axe came down, may yet take on an historic significance. Listening last night, as the hours went on, I was greatly struck by what was said by one of my hon. Friends as we went out through the Lobby for the twelfth or thirteenth time. He said "We are seeing the end of the Brüning period of this Government." We are moving towards the corporate State. After that one party: one party in power and one party in gaol. The repeal of this Bill is a definite move towards the corporate State. We saw that while discussing it last night. If the learned Attorney-General, who was not here very long last night, who has not even been in this world very long, has not seen a steady lowering of the dignity and importance of Parliament since last July, then he is even blinder than he looks. This is happening on every side.
  Mr. Gallacher: Wonderful.
  Mr. Baxter: Last night we heard the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) making his nineteenth short speech in the Debate. He said that the Opposition were fortunate to have been allowed four hours to debate the Committee stage. I must say the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) expressed not only what we feel, but what the whole country feels today. The Government are being bemused by their immense dumb majority.—[Interruption.]—I used the word "dumb" in its electoral, not its aural sense. The hon. Member for West Newcastle-upon-Tyne said, in a moment of boredom during his own speech, "Our minds are made up," and he virtually said "I am only doing this, because I happen to be here." Our minds may be made up on the broad principle of things, but in my eleven years in this House I have seen Bill after Bill improved beyond knowledge by Debate on the Committee stage. I would say to hon. Members opposite, with their desire to get things through without discussion—
  Mr. Attewell: Rubbish.
  Mr. Baxter: —that they are paving the way for the corporate State. If that is democracy, I say to the Party opposite—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Before he concludes his speech, I hope the hon. Member will come to the subject under discussion.
  Mr. Baxter: By a strange coincidence, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I was just coming to it. I may say, your patience has been very great. I think I might now consider bringing this speech to a close. [HON. MEMBERS: "Carry on."]' I merely want to say this in conclusion.
  Major Cecil Poole (Lichfield): There is a lot of time yet. Go on.
  Mr. Baxter: I do not think we should allow encores here. Over and over again in this Parliament, as today when considering the Third Reading of this because that is the only subject which interests me—we have heard the phrase, "It was in the mandate." We hear such things as, "It was in the mandate we had from the country, and the country returned us to do away with the Trade Disputes Act." I suggest it is as though "The Scout" in the Daily Express "tomorrow offered every runner in the Lincoln and said, "Pick out one and If somebody picks out the winner all the rest lose." The mandate offered to fix up housing in three weeks. [Interruption.] Hon. Members know what I mean. The impression given in the mandate was that houses would be built very quickly. The mandate included a good many things offering a warm and happy future for all concerned. It was a very good document indeed — [Interruption]. It must have been to get this crowd back. Yet the party opposite picks out a single item and says, ".We were sent back with 57 varieties. This is only No. 3. We were sent back to nationalise the Bank of England "—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): I think the hon. Gentleman also must come to No. 3.
  Mr. Keenan: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me? How long does he think the Second Reading of this Bill should have taken? How long does he think the Third Reading should have taken? Is he aware we spent in Committee 23 hours on what was—
  Hon. Members: Order.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member must not make a speech under the guise of asking a question.
  Mr. Baxter: The Act of 1927 was debated in Committee on the Floor of the House for 24 days, because the Socialist Party were in Opposition and the Tory Government wanted to give them every opportunity to improve the Bill. I conclude with this remark. The Government, in their wisdom, and out of a sense of amour propre,have done away with this Act, which has not agitated the public at all from 1927 until 1945. I put it to hon. Gentlemen opposite who sat in the last Parliament, I put it to them as men of honour: Did they get an appreciable number of letters at any time asking for the repeal of this Act? I will give way to anyone who can say that. I got none, and none of my hon. Friends on this side did.
  Mr. Percy Wells (Faversham): The hon. Gentleman asks whether we received letters—
  Mr. Baxter: Was the hon. Gentleman a Member of the last Parliament?
  Mr. Wells: No. But I should like to say that during the July Election I received more letters asking me if I would support the repeal of the Trade Disputes and Trades Union Act if returned to this House, than on any other subject.
  Mr. Baxter: I want to bring my remarks to a close. I asked any hon. Member who was a Member of the last Parliament if he could say he had had an appreciable number of letters at any time asking for the repeal of the Act. We did not have one who answered.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Gentleman may invite Members to address the House, but it is the Chair that selects.
  Mr. Baxter: I am ignorant of my offence, but I apologise all the same. There were a good many things talked about during the General Election. There were the position of the friendly societies and the question of spinsters' pensions, for example. There were other matters more urgent than this. My last sentence is this. In its wisdom, guided by the hon. and learned Attorney-General, this Government, conscious of the fact that the trade union movement is sound and loyal—as it is—conscious that the Government itself and the Government party are honourable men mostly, conscious that in everything they do well they can have the solid backing of the Opposition, have chosen to

  1157
  repeal an Act making way for the day when the Communists will once more be at their heels. Either that, or this Government will have been driven from the corporate State, to being the National Socialist Party of Britain.
  5.57 P.m.
  Mr. Eric Fletcher: Tempted by the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter), I should like first to deal with the point he was making towards the end of his speech. It is not clear to me whether he was saying that the repeal of the Act of 1927 was or was not an issue at the General Election. I will give him the opportunity of answering that question if he wishes.
  Mr. Baxter: I said over and over again, that I was sure it was not.
  Mr. Fletcher: Then, for the satisfaction of the hon. Member let me say at once that one of the reasons I welcome this opportunity of addressing the House on the Third Reading of this Bill is the fact that, in the electoral contest I fought in East Islington, not only was it quite definitely an issue, but it was one of the most dominant issues of the Election. It was in the forefront of my election address. It was discussed at practically every public meeting I addressed. It was a matter on which I received deputations, and it was a matter which has been of very considerable concern to my constituents for a very long time. I am sure that that experience has been shared by other hon. Members on this side of the House, and it is for that reason that I am particularly glad to be able to contribute a few words in support of this Bill on Third Reading.
  The House will appreciate the difficulty which any hon. Member finds in saying anything that is both new and relevant on the Third Reading, after the very long Debates which we have had in Second Reading and in Committee. May I try to sum up the significance of this Bill, as I see it, taking a long view of the history of the trade union movement? I do not propose on this Third Reading Debate to deal in any detail with the debateable refinements of the law as produced by the various Sections of the Act of 1927. The essential reason why this Bill is brought forward, and is brought forward in this form today, is that the Act of 1927 was an act of social injustice.
  1158
  Indeed, one of the reasons why the Labour Party was returned to power was that the Labour Party is identified in the minds of the electorate with social justice. It is on the broad basis of social justice that this Bill sets out to repeal the vindictive Act of 1927, which was a reactionary Measure, in the sense that it was deliberately calculated to injure and weaken the position of the trade unions.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Did it?
  Mr. Fletcher: Fortunately it did not. It failed in its major object to weaken the trade unions and render then impotent. But it introduced discriminating legislation. The pernicious Section 5 of the Act introduced a novel and unjustifiable discrimination against established civil servants, and their freedom to join trade unions affiliated to the Trades Union Congress. The objectionable Section 6 introduced discriminatory legislation against the rights of local and public authorities compared with those of all other employers throughout the country. These two Sections did not fail in their objective; they succeeded in producing a very considerable sense of injustice and frustration that has rankled ever since. I can readily imagine that the Government, when they came to consider this Bill, were faced with the alternatives of either abolishing Sections 5 and 6, or making a clean sweep of the Act of 1927. I am sure that Members, taking a dispassionate and detached view of the Debate which has taken place, would agree that ultimately it is much better to have a clean sweep than to attempt to reform the Act of 1927.
  Let it be remembered that prior to 1927 there had been worked out, in the Acts of 1875, 1906, and 1913, a code of trade union law with regard to trade unions, strikes, lockouts, and contracting in and contracting out, which code, broadly speaking. had become acceptable to all sections of the community. It was not ideal, but the trade unions have had a long, chequered and unfortunate legal history, which has been full of anomalies, because, being neither corporations nor limited companies. they do not fit easily into the structure of our legal system. They were the sport and plaything for over a century of doubtful legal doctrines, with regard to conspiracy, restraint of trade, combination, and so on, and on more than one

  1159
  occasion they have suffered injuriously from totally unexpected and—I was going to say capricious—legal decisions such as the Osborne decision. The trade unions have had to fight a very uphill battle for the rights which they ultimately acquired and enjoyed prior to the Act of 1927. That Act was not a result of any discussion which had taken place at the preceding general election. It was the result of the general strike, which in turn was the result of the unfortunate return to the gold standard The Act of 1927 was an opportunity seized by the Tory Government for political motives to injure the trade unions, and to weaken their position under the trade union code which more liberal-minded Governments had built up prior to that date. In every Section this Act breeds a spirit of injustice, unfairness and social discrimination, and this House is now called upon to purge and purify the Statute Book by removing an Act which is a disgraceful piece of vindictive legislation.
  I do not wish to go into details on any of the particular Sections, but I should like to refer to Section 1 and the question of a general strike. It is conceded, with a certain amount of truth, that the law on the subject, in 1926, was not renowned for its clarity, and the Act of 1927 did little if anything to clarify the position. In certain realms of the law, in matters of everyday importance to the community, clarification, precision and exact definitions are essential, but when we come to consider whether a general strike is legal or illegal, I submit that there is not the same need for absolute clarity, nor is there the same possibility of obtaining it. A general strike is an event in a lifetime. As the Attorney-General has said, it is not a matter which can be dealt with by criminal law, and, in my submission, the question of whether a general strike is legal or illegal is irrelevant to this Debate. It is as little relevant as the question of whether the revolution of 1649 was legal or whether the revolution of 1688 was legal. Matters of that kind are dealt with by their success.
  Section 4 deals with political funds, and was designed to deprive trade unions of the ordinary rights enjoyed by a majority over a minority in any corporate body. Although that Section was intended to weaken and hamper the trade union move-
  1160
  ment, it must be a source of great satisfaction to Members on this side of the House, to reflect that in spite of those hindrances and drawbacks the trade union movement has gone from strength to strength since 1927, and the Labour Party has been able to build up this electoral majority of 1945 which enables us once and for all, to remove this pernicious act of social injustice from the Statute Book. I regard this Bill as by no means the least important of the many Bills which have been introduced by the Government in this historic session of Parliament.
  Finally, may I say this—is it too much to hope, now that this Bill will shortly be passed by a large majority in this House and will be acclaimed by the country outside with calm satisfaction, that these controversies, which are really controversies of 20 years ago, can now be forgotten, and that in trade union matters we can get back to the atmosphere which prevailed under the code established before this Act, leaving the trade unions. free to continue to perform their historic functions as a great humanising and stabilising factor in the industrial life of the community? Their notable services to the country during the war have earned the approbation of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill). Is it too much to hope that with the passage of this Bill these controversies of a bygone age may now be buried?
  6.11 p.m.
  Mr.Marlowe: The hon. Gentleman the Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher) asserted that the passing of this Bill, bringing with it the repeal of the Trade Disputes Act, 1927, would be acclaimed by the great masses of the people. I personally do not believe that in the "pubs" and places where people gather tonight a great cheer will go up when the news comes out. The hon. Gentleman also described the Act of 1927 as one which had as its objective the making of the trade unions impotent. They do not appear to be very impotent to me, at the moment, and if that was one of its objects it has obviously lamentably failed. It depends on what sense you use those words. If they mean that part of its object was to make one section of the community not in a position to make war against the rest of the community, I agree that it was desirable in

  1161
  that sense to make that section impotent. The hon. Gentleman also said that it was an act of social injustice. I do not know what the hon. Gentleman's standards of social justice are, but I do not regard it as an act of social injustice to leave an Englishman free entry for his wife and children to and from their house. I do not regard that as an act of great social injustice, although the hon. Gentleman opposite appears to do so. He also said that it was an act of discrimination. I do not know who was discriminated against. The hon. Gentleman did not explain that. These arguments do not carry any weight at all.
  The truth about this Bill we are discussing today is this: What is behind this Bill is that the 1927 Act followed the 1926 strike. The 1926 strike showed that in the position of the trade unions, an ever growing and developing formation, there were certain defects in the law and the relationship between the trade unions and the State, and this had to be put right by legislation. There is nothing novel about that. All legislation in this House is something that we learn from experience as we go on. The experience of 1926 showed the desirability of the Act of 1927. Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman opposite chose to regard the Act of 1927 rather in the same spirit in which Hitler regarded the Treaty of Versailles. He took the view that it must be torn up and so today hon. Members opposite are tearing up this Act. That is really all that there is behind the Bill, and it is not surprising that they are using Reichstag methods.
  Mr. McAllister (Rutherglen): The hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter) and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Brighton (Mr. Marlowe) made the offensive suggestion that the Party on this side of the House is guilty of Reichstag methods. Is that kind of thing at all in Order in this House, Mr. Speaker?
  Mr. Speaker: It is not out of Order, but whether it is desirable is another matter.
  Mr. Marlowe: I am glad to see that the learned Attorney-General is here. The House will recall that earlier in these discussions the Attorney-General hoped that this Debate would not be made a lawyer's holiday. I make no apology for being a lawyer, but attending to this matter is
  1162
  not a holiday task. I am not surprised that the Attorney-General wanted to keep the lawyers out, because his own law on this has been so bad that I have no doubt he did not wish it to be commented upon too much. The learned Attorney-General put as his main plank that you cannot legislate for a number of people who are affected by that legislation if they strongly disapprove of it. It would be just as logical for the Attorney-General to say, "I am going to repeal the Larceny Act because it has proved very unpopular among the burglars." That is the logic of the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument. I am not going to take up the matter further because the hon. and learned Gentleman gracefully withdrew yesterday the observation which he had made earlier with regard to the courts of this country. Perhaps it is not necessary to rub his nose further into that now. I am bound to say that it did remind me of the rather self-important young man who was playing bridge at his club with an eminent Lord Chancellor, and when the Lord Chancellor rebuked him for his play the young man replied, "You cannot talk to me like that; you are not in your miserable little police court now."
  I shall only occupy the time of the House for a few moments more. The House will recall the speech of the Foreign Secretary on the Second Reading of the Bill when the right hon. Gentleman, perhaps feeling that the approval of the Tory Party for his foreign policy was too much of a handicap in the House of Commons stakes, descended to entering himself for a selling plate. On that occasion the right hon. Gentleman made some references, in connection with the 1926 strike, to what he called the "Daily Mail" incident. I should like to have the opportunity at some time of dealing with that in detail, but I understand that I have not that opportunity now. If I may have the indulgence of the House, Mr. Speaker, to say one sentence in relation to it, it is this. It was my father who wrote the article in question, and he was the Editor who refused to surrender the freedom of the Press to dictation. I can only say with regard to the Foreign Secretary's account of what took place then, that his version bears not the remotest resemblance to the facts. He says that he has been 20 years waiting for his opportunity. I can only suggest that in those 20 years he might have better employed

  1163
  himself learning what the facts were, or at least in using his imagination in devising a better story than that. Mr. Speaker, I will go no further in that matter and I am most grateful for your indulgence. But when people are no longer alive someone must defend them if a false account of their actions is given. The Minister of Labour said today that this Bill was the dawn of a new era—the dawn of a new day, I think he said. It is going to he a rather ironical dawn when the sun rises and discloses that the party of progress is in a procession headed by a banner which bears the slogan, "Back to 1913."
  6.19 p.m.
  Mr. Christopher Shawcross (Widnes): I am going to take a somewhat different line from that followed by the speakers I have so far heard in this Debate, or in the other Debates which preceded it on this Bill. The purpose of my brief remarks will be to try to persuade hon. Members opposite to come into the Government Lobby tonight to vote for the Third Reading of this Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: Tell us why."] I hope to achieve that purpose by persuading them that it will be in their own interests to do so. One very useful object which has been achieved by this Debate is that it has shown to the Members of the House on this side that the Tory Party is not yet dead. I think hon. Members on this side will let me remind them that because the Tory Party stinks, it is not yet a rotting carcase. I hope that that will not 'b., regarded as unparliamentary language, because I wish to refer to it again. Another matter in which hon. Members on this side might take some comfort is the fact that the writhings and convulsions of a dying reptile only serve to hasten its end and the stale venom ejaculated into the Debate by the hon. Member for Greenford—
  Mr. Baxter: I am constantly being referred to as the Member for Greenford. I am the Member for Wood Green.
  Mr. Shawcross: The hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter) and the hon. and learned Member for Brighton (Mr. Marlowe) who sits beside him, by their ejaculations of stale venom, only serve more rapidly to weaken the present state of the party opposite, while the argu-
  1164
  mentative antics of almost every hon. Member opposite who has spoken in this Debate will serve the supreme purpose of demonstrating to the public at large that if the Tory Party is not yet dead it is condemned to a swift and certain demise. I think there is one matter about which we are entitled to know. What became of the campaign of public protest which was started by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Butler)? As long ago as the beginning of February there was a column in one of the evening papers announcing that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden was about to stump the country, assisted by right hon. and hon. Members opposite speaking at large mass meetings of protest. One of those meetings was reported as having been held at the Constitutional Club, and during its course it was stated that once the trade unions got to know what was the real intention of this Bill, they would be very angry about it, or words to that effect. With the sole exception of that report I have mentioned, not one word appeared in the Press about that campaign. Is the House not entitled to know what was the result of the meetings, what were the resolutions passed by them if any resolutions were passed?
  Mr. Speaker: I think the hon. Member is getting a little outside the scope of the Third Reading of this Bill.
  Mr. Shawcross: I, of course, accept your Ruling, Sir, but I was merely referring to an argument used by an hon. Member opposite that the public did not want this Bill. I would pass from that and deal with certain aspects of this Bill, which I hope will persuade hon. Members opposite to vote with us. In the Debate on the Bill of 1906, Mr. F. E. Smith, as lie was then, said that the opinion of anybody but a lawyer on whether the funds of a trade union could be made liable for damages was not worth a brass farthing. Yesterday we had advice from the Opposition Front Bench and also from our own Front Bench in the opposite sense, but I would suggest that the opinion of lawyers on this. matter is worthy of some consideration, at any rate as far as the lawyers on this side of the House are concerned. Why do I say that? I say it because however eminent, however excellent, a lawyer may be, and of however high an

  1165
  order his brain may be and his powers of oratory, his opinion is not worth two-pence unless he has been properly instructed as to the facts. How can hon. Members opposite be properly instructed?
  Mr. Marlowe: Surely that is a very gross affront to the trade union to which the hon. Member belongs.
  Mr. Shaweross: The hon. and learned Member should wait and hear to what I am referring. I will assert that none of my hon. and learned Friends opposite has had any instruction as to the facts, because they have not one ounce nor one moment of practical experience in the working and in the organisation of a trade union.
  Sir William Darlinģ: I should like to correct a misapprehension of the hon. Gentleman. I have been the President of a trade union.
  Mr. Shaweross: Again I would apologise to the hon. Member, but I was not aware that he was an hon. and learned Member. I am glad to know we are in such good company. Was it not obvious today that hon. Members opposite did not really know what they were talking about, because they kept referring to the general strike as if the general strike were something illegal in itself? The fact of the matter is that what they meant was that a political strike would be illegal, and was not that very well demonstrated by the facts of what occurred in 1926 when some Members of the Party opposite, who are still here, denounced the legality of that strike and when Sir John Simon, as he was then, spoke on behalf of the Tory Party—[HON. MEMBERS: No, no.''] He spoke in a sense which helped the Tory Party because he expressed the very firm and emphatic opinion that the leaders of the movement responsible for the strike were liable to damages to the uttermost farthing of their possessions—a piece of intimidation if ever there was one, I suggest. Not one farthing was recovered or attempted to be recovered. Not one single proceeding was taken against any of those leaders. I suggest that that disposes once for all of the suggestion that the 1926 strike was illegal.
  Mr. H. Strauss: I do not think the hon. Member can dispense with the question of the legality of the general strike in that fashion, because a High Court judgment Tail down that it was illegal.
  Mr. Shawcross: I was referring to a higher authority, if I may say so, in the sense of knowing facts which were not before the court as to whether the strike which we experienced was illegal or not. The proof of the pudding I suggest is in the eating. I am in some embarrassment, because I have mislaid my blue book from which it was my intention to quote throughout this speech, but if hon. Members turn to their copies they will find on page 8 a statement to the effect that in 1875, the first legislation towards organising a trade union was passed by a Conservative Government. I believe that was one of the occasions when that great leader, the only really great leader which the Party opposite has ever had and upon whose reputation it has been living ever since, stole the clothing of the Whigs while they were trying to clean themselves. If hon. Members go a little further they will see that the resolution, according to page 8, which was passed by the T.U.C., was so fulsome in its praise of the Conservative Party that there were one or two isolated protests against the excess of the language. I want to remind hon. Members opposite of that. Let them think what was the position of their Party then, and what it will be today if they vote against the Third Reading of this Bill.
  May I strengthen that argument by referring to an opinion of a prominent member of that party, who, I am sorry to say, is not in his place at the moment, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples), who has stated in public what should now be the policy of that party in regard to the trades unions. He spoke in his constituency a few days ago, and a report appeared in the local Press. The report is headed this way: "Change the word Tory '." "'It stinks ' says Captain Marples." The report says:
  " An outline of the policy which he considered should be adopted by the Conservative Party was given by Captain Marples at a meeting of the students' branch of the Liverpool University Conservative Association yesterday. Sooner or later, the Conservatives would have "—
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: On a point of Order. Is this in Order on the Third Reading of this Bill?
  Mr. Speaker: I am seeking to find what the connection is.
  Mr. Shawcross: I am trying to condense my remarks. I am quoting from this

  1167
  document to show hon. Members opposite what their true policy is and how, to pursue it, they must vote in favour of the Third Reading of this Bill. The report continues:
  " Sooner or later, the Conservatives would have to merge with the Liberal Party, he said. They would have to consider changing their name, as the word ' Tory ' stank in the country.…They would have to broaden the composition of the party. There was a feeling that the Conservatives represented the upper classes and Labour the lower classes. The Conservatives should include more trade unionists and members of the working classes.…They must also improve their propaganda and build up their front and hack benchers."
  I will not finish the quotation. If I did, it would clearly appear from other passages that that is a complete answer to the suggestions made by hon. Gentlemen opposite, time after time, that we are only repealing this Bill in order to serve the political needs of the Labour Party.
  Mr. William Shepherd (Bucklow): So you are.
  Mr. Shawcross: The hon. Member says "So what?" I hope I have explained that hon. Members, in their own best interests, must vote for the Third Reading of this Bill. I do not want to say, in conclusion, more than that hon. Members opposite are quite mistaken in their attitude to the political levy and the political fund. I would refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Brown), who mentioned what he regarded as the infiltration into the trades unions of the Communist element. We think, and other hon. Members opposite will think so also, if they reflect, that the weaker the trade unions are made politically, the more likely it is that the Communist element will gain power.
  Mr. Gallacher: That is just nonsense.
  Mr. W. J. Brown: Has the hon. Member pondered on the alternative possibility that the richer you make them, the more the Communist Party are likely to go after them?
  Mr. Gallacher: Will there be any opportunity for me to say a word in personal protection against very stupid attacks, which are being made by hon. Members who seem to have no understanding of the nature of the trade union and working class movement? I want a chance.
  Mr. Shawcross: The hon. Member for Rugby will hear the answer if he listens a moment.
  Hon. Members opposite who have been arguing on this matter are quite mistaken. I must convince them on this matter, because it is absolutely vital. They are against strikes, particularly against political strikes, and yet they want to have power to keep in its present weak condition the political fund of the party. Can they not see that the more that trade unions can devote from their funds to legitimate political activities, the less likely they are to indulge in political strikes? It seems so obvious to me that I cannot understand why hon. Members opposite have argued, in speech after speech throughout these Debates, that the political levy is something which should be kept very tight, by contracting in and so on. The exact opposite is the case from their point of view. But looking at it from any point of view, why should it be that at this date in 1946 this absurd discrimination should be continued against these great organisations? Why should they not be allowed to do what they like with their own money? Why should they not, if they desire to do so, and decide by a majority decision to do so, have no separate fund, and no separate contributions. There is absolutely no reason, and not a single one has been advanced except the academic one I have mentioned, which has been used by hon. Members opposite. On reflection hon. Members opposite will see that what they regarded as their very strong point goes completely, and that in order to carry out their own policy they must come into the Government Lobby tonight.
  To sum up, this Bill is good but it does not go quite far enough. It is good for the time being and hon. Members will go to vote for the Third Reading tonight, but there is no doubt that further legislation will be required sooner or later to remove the absurd discrimination which I have just mentioned and to make impossible the illegal actions which occurred in 1926, the criminal actions—
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must confine himself to the Bill under discussion, and must not deal with further legislation.
  Mr. Shawross: I accept your Ruling at once, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps I may deal with the matter in this way, and make

  1169
  just one more point to demonstrate to hon. Members opposite that the general strike of 1926, so far from being illegal, was the direct result of the criminal action of others—the lock-out by the mine owners and the activities of the Tory Government at that time. In particular, I would remind the House of the Economy Bill, passed a few weeks before, which was one of the most monstrous pieces of legislation which has ever been passed through this House, and was directly designed to impoverish 15,000,000 people in this country for the relief of the Surtax payers.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is not confining himself to the present Bill.
  Mr. Shawcross: That being the real background behind the 1926 general strike, I suggest that hon. Members on both sides of this House, at this date in 1946, will go unanimously into the Government Lobby to pass the Third Reading of this Bill so that at last the British trade unionist, who since the Trades Union Act of 1913, to which we must now revert, has fought and worked so well in two wars, will receive this small repeal which, by his sacrifices and sufferings in the intervening years, he has earned so richly and so well.
  6.43 p.m.
  Briģadier Fitzroy Maclean: I cannot help agreeing with the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) when he says that a lot of hon. Members opposite seem to be labouring under severe misapprehensions with regard to the real nature of the trade union movement.
  Mr. Gallacher: I was not referring to hon. Members on this side of the House but to those on the other side, and particularly to the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown).
  Briģadier Maclean: The hon. Member for West Fife, to whom I personally would attribute a superior knowledge of these matters, interrupted an hon. Member on that side of the House which led me to suppose that he was seeking to correct those who sat on the same benches as himself. If he was not, in fact, correcting hon. Members on that side, perhaps I might now do so. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour said earlier today that the conduct of the trade unions was and would remain in the future the same as in the past. I suggest that
  1170
  that statement leaves out of account the present trend of events. I should have thought from their behaviour that hon. Members opposite hardly needed reminding of a very important event that occured last year, namely, the return to power with a large majority of a Socialist Government.
  That event has had a fundamental effect on the trades union organisation in this country, which is closely associated with one political party, the Socialist Party. When the Socialist Party comes into power, the functions and status of the trades union organisation change. From being the enemies of established authority the unions become its servants; from championing the demands of the workers, they become the instrument for curtailing those demands. The result is that the workers have the choice of accepting proposals put forward by the Government and backed up by the trade unions, or, if they strike at all, of striking unofficially. That is exactly what they have been doing in recent months, and weeks. There have been large numbers of unofficial strikes and as the result, the Government and the trade unions find themselves faced with a labour situation which is repeatedly getting out of hand. How do they deal with it? They deal with it by rushing through Measures, of the kind now under discussion, tending to strengthen the hands of the trades union leaders and to increase their hold over their members.
  Mr. Monslow (Barrow-in-Furness): On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Will the hon. and gallant Member tell the House how many unofficial strikes took place before the Labour Government came into power?
  Briģadier Maclean: That seems to me to be beside the point. First of all, it is not a point of Order, and, secondly, I am not prepared to be interrupted in the short time at my disposal. It is, in any case, common knowledge that during the past six months there have been a considerable number of unofficial strikes. But, to return to the methods employed by the Government in dealing with them, and the resultant weakening of the whole of the trade union organisation, they are, first of all, rushing through Measures of the kind we are discussing today. Secondly—
  Mr. O'Brien rose—
  Briģadier Maclean: —they are introducing a number of Measures tending to the nationalisation of industry in this country.
  Mr. Speaker: We are not discussing the Government programme. The hon. and gallant Member must confine himself to the contents of the Bill.
  Briģadier Maclean: I was endeavouring to show how the Measure now under discussion was being employed by the Government to meet the very difficult labour situation with which they are faced.
  Mr. O'Brien: Would the hon. and gallant Member give way to allow me to ask a question?
  Briģadier Maclean: The present Measure and other Measures which are being introduced at the same time tend to the establishment of a Socialist State.
  Mr. Speaker: That is right outside the scope of this Debate, which is for the purpose of discussing what is in the Bill and not what it may be intended to do. A discussion of that kind has to take place on the Second Reading. Here we have a Bill which we have discussed and to which we have given a Second Reading, and we can now only deal with what is in the Bill.
  Briģadier Maclean: The present Bill is designed to strengthen the hands of the Government in dealing with this situation and, in order to achieve that end, they are resorting to Measures which savour, as I have said, of the Socialist State, in which trades unions occupy an entirely different position from that which they occupy here.
  6.50 p.m.
  Mr. Gallacher: Behold the enemy behind the arras ready to pounce when the political levy is gathered in. I like the source from which that comes. I am prepared, in considering this question of the political levy and our attitude towards it, to have my finances compared with the finances of the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) Or the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter), and see who is after the cash. The ignorance that is displayed in connection with this question is simply amazing—and
  1172
  from the hon. Member for Rugby, who is such a clever lad. Would I say he is conceited?
  Mr. Kirkwood (Dumbarton Burghs): Not at all.
  Mr. Gallacher: Never have I seen anything like it in all my life. Sir Oracle is an apprentice compared with the hon. Member for Rugby, telling the Front Bench what is going to happen if they pass this Bill, and the political levy. Is there no intelligence applied to this question at all from the other side? The Labour movement has a history associated from the beginning with the trades unions. It was a terrific fight in the trades unions to get them to build up a Labour movement. All the principal trades unions are affiliated to the Labour Party, and because they are affiliated, they pay the political levy. And that will go on unless somebody is prepared to suggest that the trades unions should withdraw from political activities. Utterly absurd. But the hon. Member for Rugby says that the Communists change their policy. What about the hon. Member for Rugby? Who is he to talk about anybody changing? He was in the Labour Party, then he ran around with Mosley, and look where he is now—in his solitary state, but all the time balancing between these Benches and the Tory Benches. Change of policy and change of organisation But if the Communist Party changed its form of organisation, it would cease to be the Communist Party. The Communist Party is a party composed of Communists— [Interruption]. If the Communist Party decided to invite the trades unions to affiliate, obviously, it would not be a party of Communists. What a lot of nonsense. I warn the Government that the Tories are using that bogy of the Communists on this particular question. They are using it on other questions, and while the Government and these benches are not falling for it this time, there is a danger that they will fall for it in other directions. Be very careful. [An HON. MEMBER:" We will."] But the hon. Member for Rugby says this Bill interferes with—
  Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: On a point of Order. Is the hon. Members for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) in the Bill?
  Mr. Gallacher: The hon. Member for Rugby is very much concerned about the

  1173
  Bill. Whether he is in it or out of it, he is very much concerned about it, and so am I. I think it is a good Bill. I like it, and I am all for the Bill, and I am only sorry that it does not go the whole length, to the pre-Osborne period. We are told from the other side that the provision, dealing with local authorities having the power to force men to go into the union, is an interference with freedom. The hon. Member for Rugby says, "Do not tell me what to do. Tell me what I should not do, and that is a thing I will do." If the hon. Member for Rugby is working on that principle, I hope he will remain long here.
  Mr. W. J. Brown: I am delighted T stay here indefinitely with the distant hope of ultimately hearing something about the Bill.
  Mr. Gallacher: I thought when I expressed that hope that it might be sufficient to induce the hon. Member for Rugby to exert his desire for freedom and leave us to carry on with our work. Members say that this Section dealing with local authorities and their power to make men join a particular union, is an interference with freedom. Whose freedom are they thinking of? Here we have men and women, year after year, generation after generation, paying their subscriptions, building up an organisation in order to raise their standard of life and to bring themselves up as far as possible from the lowly conditions that were imposed on them in the past; and, to please the conscience of the hon. Member for Rugby, they are to give up their freedom and let other people come in and destroy all that they have worked for and built up. If the employers can get sufficient men, without joining a union, sooner or later the unions can be destroyed and all the conditions broken down. That is what the Tories and the employers have always been looking for. We have seen it working. When there is unemployment, we have seen the victimisation applied to trade unionists in order to keep as many as possible that are not trades unionists in the job. Men and women who have fought for freedom, and built up an organisation and raised themselves out of a depth of poverty into something like a decent life, have a right to maintain that freedom, and those who work with them must contribute their share. That is the
  1174
  freedom for which I and all trades unionists stand.
  The hon. Member for Rugby says that if the Government do not watch and they carry through this Bill, there is going to be a penetration of the Communists. He says there is a great penetration of the Communists just now. If the leader of a trade union movement is half Tory and half Labour, he is independent, but if the leader of a trades union becomes a Communist, it is penetration. That is nonsense. I do not want to go any further and take up more time, though there are many points with which I would like to deal. The arguments of the hon. Member for Rugby are—[AN HON. MEMBER:" Rotten."]—rotten. That is one thing on which I agree with the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Shawcross), and I am sorry that he was led astray by the hon. Member for Rugby.
  I agree with what he said about the Tory Party, that the arguments in connection with this Bill on the Second Reading and this evening are simply appalling. They do not understand anything about the development of the working class movement in this country. I am glad the Government have taken the necessary steps to get rid of the legislation passed in 1927, and that the trade unions will now have an opportunity of building up great political funds and taking a greater part than ever in building up a labour movement and putting an end for ever to Toryism in this country.
  7.1 p.m.
  Mr. Henderson Stewart: It is noticeable that both the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) and the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. C. Shaw-cross) have taken excessive pains in attacking the Opposition, obviously to win the favour of their newfound friends on those benches. I thought the hon. Member for West Fife made the better job of it. He had an arrangement with his hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) to start off well, and he almost succeeded in convincing us that he was indeed a very good Labour man, and did not think a great deal of the Communists at all. The truth is that neither of those hon. Members seem to recognise the gravamen of the charge which we make against this Bill and against the handling of it in Debate. It has to be put on record that not one

  1175
  single Amendment has been accepted by the Government of all the Amendments on the Order Paper. Why? Let it be recorded that this is the first Bill in my 14 years' experience in the House—with the exception of the emergency Bill we passed at the time of Dunkirk—that has not had a Report stage. Is this what is to happen in the future?
  Mr. Haworth rose—
  Mr. Stewart: May I finish my sentence? Is it the intention of the Government to drive through every Bill this way? Is it the Government's idea and hon. Members' idea that because they have a majority the minority does not count at all? I ask hon. Members who were not in the last House to read some of its history. From 1933 onwards there were excessive efforts to meet the wishes of the Labour Opposition because they were a minority. Those of us on the Government side complained, Sir, as you may very well remember, often to the Chair and to our leaders because the other side seemed to get far too great a share of debate and far too much consideration on Amendments. If this is an indication of how this new Labour Government, with its "new freedom," is to handle Parliamentary business, then it is a bad lookout for this country.
  Mr. Haworth: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to put a question on his statement that this is the first Bill without a Report stage? Does he know of any other instance of a Bill which is a flat repeal of a previous Act?
  Mr. Stewart: I would have to look that up. It is one of our charges against this Measure that it is such a Bill. There was, as the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) has said, a case for amending the 1927 Act, if one did not like this Clause or that Clause. The Liberal Party in years past clearly said that it did not like this Clause and that Clause in the 1927 Act. I am speaking tonight as a Liberal and I say that I would have been ready to consider Amendments to this Bill. Instead of that, you have this Juggernaut car system of abolishing the Act altogether. You get a single Clause Bill so that the big political bosses may drive it through this Parliament.
  1176
  [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite laugh, but perhaps they will not laugh as heartily in five or 10 years' time when the boot is on the other foot. [An HON. MEMBER: "Will you be here? "] Yes, I think I shall still be here to see it.
  The Minister of Labour in his opening speech today, which, if I may say so, was not quite such a cheap-jack performance as his last night's effort, explained to us that this Act was being repealed because it was regarded as a reprisal against the trade unions. Well, we all have our views. I am speaking tonight for Liberals and I say that in our view the principal feature of the 1927 Act was undoubtedly the Clause relating to general strikes. Without any doubt that is the chief Clause. We look upon the 1927 Act rather as a reassurance that such an outrageous attack on the State as we had in 1926 will never happen again. That it was regarded as an outrage by the public at the time was proved by the state of opinion in every section of the community. [An HON. MEMBER: "Rot."] It is no good saying "Rot," I can prove what I have said. Not only were speeches made by prominent political leaders but, as everyone here will remember, hundreds of thousands of men and women of all ages and classes in 1926 rallied to serve those great industries which the Trades Union Congress had brought to a standstill. They rallied in support of the Government, in support of constitutional methods, in opposition to the unconstitutional and irresponsible actions of the Trades Union Congress.
  Mr. Henry White rose—
  Mr. Stewart: May I just finish? That was an indication of the state of public opinion then. It was regarded as an outrage.
  Mr.Leslie: They did not go down the mines.
  Mr. Stewart: There is no doubt how the public felt about it and I think no one epitomised their feelings in fewer words and with more clarity than Lord Oxford when he said that the strike was:
  " a blow not struck by one combatant at the other, but directed, whether in intention or not in intention by its inevitable results at the very vitals of the whole community."

  1177
  That was why the whole community rebelled against it and will always rebel against it.
  Mr. Leslie: There were no volunteers to go down the mines.
  Mr. Stewart: I do not think the hon. Member is quite correct in saying that—
  Mr. Leslie: There were none.
  Mr. Stewart: —and if he will give me time, I can show that he is wrong.
  Mr. Leslie: I am not wrong.
  Mr. Stewart: He is not only wrong but I think he is very wrong.
  Mr. Leslie: No volunteers went down the mines.
  Mr. Stewart: If there was one thing which brought about the end of the general strike it was that public opinion rose and killed it. That is the truth about it, and I think it would be the same on another occasion.
  But that is not all. The strike was confessed to be a mistake by the leaders of the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress themselves. I do not think the House can have recollected the terms of the agreements signed by the trade union leaders in the railway industry, the industry of the Foreign Secretary and others. This is what the railwaymen's trade union leaders, whose names I have here, signed on behalf of their union on 14th May of the year of the strike:
  " The Trade Unions admit that in calling a strike they committed a wrongful act against the Companies,"
  And later on the unions undertook:
  " Not again to instruct their members to strike without previous negotiations with the Companies;"
  Mr. Balfour: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker—
  Mr. Stewart: May I finish the quotation?
  " To give no support of any kind to their members who take any unauthorised action; "
  Mr. Balfour: Does the hon. Gentleman know that there was a strike subsequent to that when the railwaymen refused to accept that ruling?
  Lord John Hope: Do you look with favour, Mr. Speaker, upon hon. Members
  1178
  rising to points of Order in order to get in statements which are not points of Order at all?
  Mr. Speaker: I am afraid that happens occasionally. Hon. Members cannot ask questions by merely saying "On a point of Order."
  Mr. Stewart: The trade union leaders at that time admitted that it was a mistake. The same sort of document was signed by the Foreign Secretary. I have it in front of me and he said that his union undertook:

  " (a) Not in future to instruct their Members to strike either nationally, sectionally or locally for any reason without exhausting the conciliatory machinery of the national agreement".

  " (b) Not to support or encourage any of their members to take individual action contrary to the preceding clause (a)."

  In other words, not to do the very things they had recently been ordered to do by their leaders. So that it was a confessed mistake.
  Mr. Balfour: Does the hon. Member know that that was repudiated by the men, that strikes took place afterwards, and that the terms laid down by the companies were rejected by the men?
  Mr. Speaker: In any I am wondering what this has to do with the Third Reading Debate. Earlier I informed an hon. Member that we could not discuss the coal stoppage as that would be out of Order, and it is quite out of Order on the Third Reading of this Bill to discuss such matters.
  Mr. Stewart: The essential feature of this Act which we are taking from the Statute Book, was the provisions dealing with the general strike. It was condemned by the public, and by the trade union leaders themselves. For that very good reason it seemed to the Liberal Party in 1927 and seems to my hon. Friends now, right and proper to insert in the Act a Clause to clarify the position and to make it plain beyond all doubt that a political or general strike was wrong, illegal, and unconstitutional.
  Hon. Members opposite throughout the Debate, have, with complete justice, spoken of the great part the trade union movement played in this country. They are right. In the speech I made on Second Reading I took the opportunity to pay tribute to what the trade unions

  1179
  have done. We put an Amendment on the Paper expressing our thoughts on the trade union movement and seeking some legislative recognition of their responsible position in the State. I accept completely the assurance of the Minister of Labour that he will see that the trade unions will not carry out any form of intimidation. None of us has any fear of the recognised, authorised trade union leaders. What we are concerned about—and I should have thought what the Government should have been concerned about—are the new leaders who are coming up from behind the accepted trade union leaders and causing all the trouble. It is no use pretending that that does not matter. I am sorry the Minister of Labour is not here tonight, because I wanted to say something on his speech.
  Mr. Speaker: What has this to do with the matter?
  Mr. Stewart: It has to do with the Minister's speech in moving the Third Reading. I was trying to deal with things he said today. I was going to say that the Minister must recall that in recent months his chief concern has not been with established trade union leaders, but with those other leaders who carry through unofficial strikes. I put it to the Government, and to the trade union leaders, that it is incredible that they should seek to destroy this Act of 1927, which gives them the power and authority to curb revolutionary movements within their own organisations. If there is a weakness in the trade union movement, it is the weakness in their own body. The Minister of Labour himself called these strikes illegal strikes a few weeks ago, and was calling upon the House to give him support in condemning their action. I should have thought that the Act of 1927 gave him strength in that process.
  He spoke of the road to freedom, and followed that up by explaining that this was a "new freedom." It is indeed a "new freedom "—it is a freedom which is going to make it very difficult for a man if he wants to contract out from the political levy to do so. [HON. MEMBERS: "Intimidation? "] It is no use hon. Members minimising intimidation. I have been in political life since 1923, having fought English constituencies and constituencies in Scotland throughout the years, and I can assure the House that up to the time of the Act of 1927 constant
  1180
  representations were made to us, with the most complete evidence, of intimidation suffered by men who were not themselves Socialists. It was a subtle intimidation. Nothing criminal was done but it was an intimidation from which these men suffered cruelly. The Act of 1927 did a great deal to ease that.
  The political levy is to be restored. It is a somewhat indecent piece of work on the part of the Government. As an hon. Member said last night—in the midst of these trying, difficult, dangerous, times the Prime Minister and Lord President of the Council and other Members of the Cabinet have thought fit to set aside the greater part of a day to consult with trade union leaders on the division of the booty. That is what it means. There is £100,000 going; Cabinet Ministers spent their time discussing who is to get the "swag." It is only an increase of money because it is extorted from Liberals and Conservatives. If the Labour Party are so assured of the great enthusiasm of the people, why do they object to the system of contracting in? It is an admission that enthusiasm is not there if the funds have to be extorted.
  On the question of civil servants, suppose a Labour Minister finds himself advised by a leading civil servant who has taken a prominent part in a Conservative conference. Will the Minister have confidence in that civil servant? Suppose there is a change of government and a Conservative Government follows, and the Minister finds his chief adviser is the leading man in the Trade Union Congress. Is there confidence between the Minister and the civil servant? It is undermining the historic traditional confidence between civil servant and Minister.
  One other point. My hon. Friends and I stand for a Liberal democracy. I do not regard this Bill as democracy. Indeed, I regard the method by which it has been put through the House as the antithesis of democracy. It invades the liberty and freedom of the subject, and my hon. Friends and who opposed the Second Reading, and who marched against the Government in all the divisions on the Committee stage, propose to oppose them on the Third Reading, because we regard this Bill as an illiberal Measure.
  7.20 p.m.
  Miss Herbison: I had not any intention of intervening in this

  1181
  Debate but, having listened to certain Members of the Opposition, I felt I had to get to my feet and deal with some of the points that have been raised. Members opposite have said that the Government have not given sufficient time for discussion of this important Measure. I listened particularly to the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter)—I am sorry he is not here—and I would like to suggest to him that since the time available was, from his point of view, so short he might have used the period he did occupy to deal with points which were pertinent to the Bill, instead of dealing with points that were outside it. The hon. Member suggested that this Measure was the beginning of the corporate State. The hon. and learned Member for Brighton (Mr. Marlowe) suggested that we were carrying out Reichstag methods, and the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Stewart) said that the Government were adopting juggernaut car methods. I can recall the time when Members on this side of the House, and those who supported us in the country, were the only people who objected to Reichstag methods and the corporate State, in countries against which we had to wage war not so long ago. Members on the other side were the people who held out the hand of friendship to those countries.
  Far from this Measure having anything to do with the Reichstag, or the corporate State, or juggernaut car methods, it is a Measure which will show to the people of Great Britain, who voted solidly for us, that the Government intend to remove one of the grave injustices from which they have suffered for a long time. It has been suggested that people in the country were not really worried about this issue. I made a statement in my Election address. At every one of the 28 different meetings I had in my constituency I was asked a question about the Trade Disputes Act. Every worker wanted to know whether the Government intended to carry out what they had always promised to carry out, the promise to repeal the 1927 Act. Before I came to this House, I was a member of the teaching profession. There was put in front of us the suggestion that we should become civil servants. That suggestion was bitterly opposed by many of us. Why? Because we said that immediately we became civil servants, we would lose those rights of citizenship which we prized so
  1182
  dearly. This Bill, when it becomes an Act, will make civil servants, in very truth, real citizens again. They, combined with every manual worker who has suffered from the 1927 Act, will undoubtedly welcome this Bill.
  The hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) was called to Order when dealing with what he termed political intimidation. I did not agree with, his description. He referred to the Report of the Sankey Commission. It was because the Party opposite failed to carry out one part of the Sankey Commission's Report that the general strike and lockout of miners followed. Every miner in my constituency, every civil servant, who gave us that great mandate in July will welcome the passing of this Bill tonight.
  7.25 p.m.
  Lord John Hope: Throughout the passage of this Bill nothing has been so impressive as the absolute lack of concrete argument, as opposed to sham argument, in favour of the repeal of the 1927 Act, except in one significant respect, to which I shall refer in a few moments. Nothing has been said by Members opposite to show that the trade unions have been harmed by the 1927 Act in any way whatsoever, except in one respect. I refer to Section 4 of that Act and the substitution of contracting out for contracting in. The different reasons given throughout the proceedings on this Bill for the very remarkable decline in the extent of the political levy struck me as very significant.
  I asked the Minister of Labour last night or, possibly, early this morning— I have forgotten which—whether he would tell me to what he attributed this decline, whether he attributed it, as the Attorney-General did, to inertia. I asked him, if he did, would he comment on the question which the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) raised as to the right to capitalise that inertia? In reply, the right hon. Gentleman said that if the Government pursued the form of victimisation which had been alleged there would have been hundreds more members paying contributions. However deeply the right hon. Gentleman may have felt what he said, that was no sort of an answer to my question. One may well suspect that those who do not

  1183
  give a straight answer to a question have not got an answer, or have only an answer that is convenient to them to give. The right hon. Gentleman might just as well have told me what he had backed for the Grand National, because what he said had nothing whatever to do with the question I asked.
  What, in fact, is the reason for this decline? Was it inertia, as the Attorney-General seemed to think, or was it something quite different? I believe it was something quite different and I do not believe that the figures, which Members opposite have not denied, can be said to point to inertia. They are much too significant. Perhaps the reason was not inertia. The hon. Member for the Walton Division of Liverpool (Mr. Haworth) asked if any Member knew of any other organisation where, after having voted and decided on a course of action, it was necessary for every individual to take steps to confirm that action. He asked why it should be, if we were people who believed in democratic rule. If that argument is pursued to its logical conclusion in this instance it means nothing unless it means that hon. Gentlemen opposite who hold that view think that the majority political view should weigh with the political feelings of the minority. I suggest that is absolutely unconstitutional. Nevertheless, it is a menace of the future which will have to be watched.
  I cannot close without a brief reference to the hon. and learned Attorney-General's treatment of the law. To a layman it was a shock, to say the least of it, to hear the Attorney-General pour scorn on the law of England as a sanction against the commission of crime. I quote these words from the Attorney-General's speech in the Second Reading Debate:
  " People were, very properly, naturally and rightly anxious to ensure that there should be no repetition of a general stoppage of that kind in this country, and, accordingly, the Conservative Government at that time took the view, rather I suppose on the King Canute principle, that the proper way to prevent a general strike occurring in future, was to prohibit it by Statute, by an Act of Parliament.''—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th February, 1946; Vol. 419, C. 196.]
  No one would deny that one cannot prevent a man breaking the law if he really means to do so. As has been pointed out already today, on that argument, we might as well have no laws at
  1184
  all. I cannot refrain from suggesting to the Attorney-General that to remove a stigma from the Foreign Secretary of England and to attach that stigma to the Statute law of England is a disgrace. As the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) said very well last night, the learned Attorney-General spoke with two voices, when he got in a mess as to how and what treatment would be meted out to those who cause a general strike in the future. I would, in conclusion, recall to the hon. and learned Gentleman some wards of the poet, J. K. Stephen. I think they sum up very clearly the attitude adopted by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite throughout the passage of this Bill. I make one change in order to meet my point, for which I crave the indulgence of the House:
  " Two voices are there, one is of the deep,
  And one is of an old half-witted sheep
  Which bleats articulate monotony,
  And, Hartley, both are thine."
  7.34 P.m.
  Mr. Walker: I rise to take part in this Debate, as an old trade unionist, one who has been secretary of his branch for a quarter of a century and spent 12 years on the executive council of his union. I joined the union as a young man because I understood, quite rightly, that the fundamental principle of trade unionism, its main object, and its foundation policy, was to raise the standard of life of the worker. Trade unionism has been fighting and striving to improve the economic position of the workers of this country, and in consequence they have gone against all those capitalist forces, all those sections of employers and wage payers who desire to get their work done at the cheapest possible figure.
  In the very early days, in order that they might secure the aims for which they were striving, they had to introduce into this House of Commons their own representatives. Therefore, they had to resort to means whereby their early representatives could be supplied with the wherewithal to pay their expenses while they were fighting on the Floor of this House, for better conditions for the members of the union. I have been struck by the very free admiration for trade unionism that has been expressed by hon. Members opposite. Throughout my lifetime the chief hostility towards trade unionism that I have encountered has been from

  1185
  Members of the party opposite. It has been forthcoming on every conceivable occasion. I look upon all this admiration and these nice things they have said about trade unionism during this Debate, as just a lot of humbug and hypocrisy. I suggest they have their cue from one of their leaders, the man who was really responsible for bringing about the general strike. I refer to Mr. Stanley Baldwin, who is now Lord Baldwin—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): The hon. Member must not go into details about what happens in another place.
  Mr. Walker: I am going to give the opinion of Lord Baldwin on trade unionism. Perhaps Members opposite may be very interested to know what he said about trade unionism. He said—
  Sir Patrick Hannon: May I submit that this is entirely out of Order?
  Mr. Walker: If hon. Members would wait until they have heard what I said—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I cannot allow two hon. Members to speak at the same time.
  Sir P. Hannon: I rose on a point of Order. The hon. Gentleman was quoting from Lord Baldwin. I suggest it is not proper to quote from a speech in another place.
  Mr. Walker: My quotation comes from the Noble Lord when he was the right hon. Stanley Baldwin and it is only in that connection that I am going to quote it. He said:
  " Trade unionism is a peculiarly English growth …"
  Sir P. Hannon: Surely the hon. Member cannot quote from a speech made in another place?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member made it clear that he was not quoting the Noble Lord as having spoken in another place.
  Mr. Walker: This statement was made by Mr. Baldwin long before he went to another place. It is:
  " Trade unionism is a peculiarly English growth. This country is the native soil in which such democratic institutions are indigenous. They are an integral part of the country's life, and they are a great stabilising influence. A free trade union is a bulwark of popular liberty. If trade unionism were
  1186
  destroyed you would be a long way on the road to Communism and via Communism to Fascism. Let anyone who has any knowledge of industry in the industrial regions try to imagine what industry today would be like if there were no unions. There would be absolute chaos, and chaos that would lead to disaster."
  A great deal has been said by hon. Members opposite about the danger of Communism. My reply to that kind of talk is this. If we want to save this country from Communism, or any other "ism," we must have a strong, healthy trade unionism established in our midst. The party opposite had their chance to avoid all this discussion in the House this week, had they not been so absolutely stupid and stubborn in the days gone by. The trade unions' General Council, quite early during the war, appealed to Mr. Chamberlain to give them some kind of recognition. Mr. Chamberlain appealed to his party and asked for co-operation and collaboration with the trade unions for waging war to success. Later on, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) was appealed to by the General Council and was asked if he would, as a compromise, allow Sections 5 and 6 to be 'deleted from the malicious Act of 1927, and he would have granted that request had it not been for hon. Members opposite, who stubbornly refused to agree to that compromise, in order to reach some kind of understanding on this great question. All this has gone on, until today we are faced with this particular trouble. Speaking as a trade unionist, I say that I do not care two hoots about the political levy one way or the other. This party to which I have the honour to belong can spin its own top, and find its own finance without any political levy. But what I do say is that I am not going to stand quietly on one side, and see members of trade unions being stifled and smothered by an Act of this description.
  Now I want to refer to the civil servants and Post Office workers. These people have been actually deprived of their citizenship. During my election campaign, I asked a very loyal supporter belonging to the Post Office workers to come along and help me in my campaign. What happened? The man who was his superior official had given a warning that the men must not take part in any efforts connected with the General Election, and what is that but depriving individuals of

  1187
  their citizenship? It is because of that fact, and also because hon. Members opposite, in their Tory partisanship, refused to make any compromise whatever with the General Council, that we have decided that we will bring this Act to an end. We now have the opportunity of ending an Act passed by hon. Members opposite in 1927 in an attempt not merely to smash the trade unions but the Labour Party. I do not mind that a bit, because I am here, with all my colleagues, to smash them, and, if you think you are stronger than we are—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Gentleman cannot use the word "you," which has reference to the Chair. He must also keep his remarks to what is in the Bill now being read for the Third time.
  Mr. Walker: I am very sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but the temptation is too strong. I was arguing the point that hon. Members opposite could have made a compromise during the days of the war had they so wished. They fully understood, right from those early days up to the present moment, what were the intentions of the party on this side of the House. They knew perfectly well, right through the General Election campaign, that, if we were returned to power, as we have been, this Bill would go west. So we have been discussing this matter for two days, and, when the vote is taken, there will be a substantial majority to repeal this pernicious and wicked Act, which was passed by those people in an attempt to break the trade unions and the Labour Party. We were aiming, in those early days, to build up the British workers, give them a good standard of life and make them into decent, self-respecting citizens. That is still our main idea, and no matter what hon. Members opposite may bring out to remove or upset that idea, it is still our sole purpose. We believe that, in developing that idea, in working for it and in passing this Bill, we are going to lay foundations on which we can build up a citizenship in this country of which not only we ourselves, but the whole world, can be proud, until, in the words of Mr. Baldwin, it becomes a power in the world to fight against all those forces which, in the past, reduced the standard of citizenship of this country. Therefore, I support the Bill, the whole Bill and
  1188
  nothing but the Bill, and I hope that, when the Division takes place, we shall end this miserable business and never hear of it again.
  7.46 p.m.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: This is the first time I have spoken on this Bill, and I do so now with some trepidation, because I have always to keep an eye, and a very wary eye at that, upon the Government Chief Whip. I have a feeling that, deprived of any solid argument in favour of this wretched Bill, he will fall back on the Closure once more and that I will find myself on my seat without having released those thoughts in my mind which have crowded on it during the last few days. There are three charges that I make against this Bill, and, incidentally, I would like to take up a point made by an hon. Member opposite in which he referred to the General Election and the fact that he had received many requests on the question of this Bill. I have been in this House for 21 years. I have fought five General Elections, and I have never, in all that time, received one letter about the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act, 1927, and the matter has never once been referred to during any Election.
  Mr. H. Hynd: May it not be, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that the trade unionists in the hon. and gallant Member's constituency regard him as completely hopeless?
  Sir T. Moore: I do not think I am called upon to reply to that. I have three charges to make against the Bill. The first is that it recreates the vacuum which the 1927 Act filled. The second is that it has not been introduced to benefit any of our people in this country, for the care of which this Government is supposed to have been elected, but it has simply been introduced for the purpose of whitewashing the trade union members of the present Government who were responsible for the general strike. The third charge is that it is a corrupt Bill, because it seeks to augment the political funds of a political party by political methods, and that, I hold, is a charge that every decent trade unionist would find it bitter to have to meet and impossible to answer. Amongst the many things which this Bill does, it re-introduces the nasty, unpleasant ques-

  1189
  tion of intimidation, and I seek the attention of the House for one minute in order to read two letters that were received by a Bevin boy of my acquaintance from the Branch Secretary of his union. The first one said:
  " Dear Sir,—Do you know that this pit is 100 per cent. unionism?
  My Committee have instructed me to inform you that if you do not join the Union at once, your name will he posted as a Union defaulter it the Branch Frame."
  My Bevin boy took no notice of it, because he has some quaint ideas about British freedom, and he reckoned that he had as much right as anybody to join or not to join, but in a few days he received another letter. This is headed with the words "Warning—Nationalisation is nearly here "—like a two-line Whip. That was supposed to put the wind up him all right:
  " With you—one of the few—not in the union—take notice that I have been instructed to inform you that non-unionism at this pit— "
  I am not going to mention the name, but I will give it if necessary—
  " is no longer going to be tolerated. In future, if you wish to avoid any unpleasant decision, or action being taken against you, join at once "
  If that is not intimidation of the worst type, I do not know the meaning of the word. I would ask hon. Members opposite, Do they think that that is British freedom? Do they think that that is real, honest-to-God living as we want to live ourselves, and as we want to see others allowed to live? As far as I can see the effects of this Bill, judged by those two notices, it is a case of "Join the party and get the pickings, or do not and beware of the consequences."
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) was criticised for his radio speech during the Election, but it seems to me that never was a warning more justified. We already have our Ministry of Food provocatcurs, we have our snoopers from the Board of Trade, now we are to have our trade union bullies. These, it seems to me, are the vanguard of those vicious Nazi pimps they claim to hate. Hon. Members opposite are always harping on the word" mandate." How can any party that secured only a 48 per cent. party vote out of a 76 per cent. national poll claim a mandate for anything, since it has less than a 40
  1190
  per cent, vote of the total electorate? The only mandate the Government got out of the last General Election by the vote I have just quoted, was a mandate to guide the country as smoothly as possible from a wartime economy to peacetime prosperity. If this Bill is passed, then, indeed, Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" will have been written in vain. By this Bill the Government are again inviting malcontents in industry to embark on their anti-social activities, of which we have seen quite a lot in the last few months. They are giving a clear indication that they are also making the road to political strikes open and easy. They are attacking the sanctity of family life. I predict that from a disgusted and disillusioned people they will get their general strike. It will be a general strike led by the housewives of this country which will drive them from office—and the sooner the better.
  7.54 p.m.
  Mr. Proctor: I can see that the best way of dealing with a question such as this would be for both sides to state their case logically in front of an impartial tribunal and abide by its verdict. We did that in July of last year. Every member of the Labour Party made it perfectly clear that this was a part of our programme, and the verdict was given. We are here this evening, and we have been here for several days, asking the representatives on the other side if they can show us any good cause why that verdict should not be carried out? So far, I have not heard one argument that could logically be said to be an argument against the proposals of the Government.
  I would describe this Bill as a Bill to clarify the law with regard to strikes. We have a pretty good understanding of what the law was in 1913, but I have yet to hear any lawyer tell us what is the legal position of a trade union with regard to a strike under the 1927 Act. If take my own union, which is the National Union of Railwaymen, I do not think there is a lawyer in this country who would advise us that we could legally strike at all under that Act. Take Section 1, and remember that the railways of this country, despite the fact that our friends opposite, who believe in no control whatever, have had power for so many years, are absolutely bound up with the machinery of Government and

  1191
  are controlled from start to finish. They cannot alter the conditions of the railwaymen unless they can persuade the Government to alter some control or other on the railways. Therefore, any strike by railwaymen could be legitimately described as having an object other than that of a trade dispute, and would be definitely an illegal strike. That is the interpretation that could be placed upon it under the legislation passed in 1927. What happens next? The Attorney-General could go to the courts and could deprive us of the protection of the provisions of the 1906 Act, and the whole of the funds of the National Union of Railwaymen would be subject to sequestration by the State. That is the position; that is an open interpretation of the legal position at the present time.
  Now it is suggested that the legal position of the general strike is in doubt if we wipe out this legislation. I have pointed out that the legal position with regard to an ordinary strike is not in doubt, but I am not so much concerned about the future of a general strike, because I see no sign of the people of this country sending back a Government which would deliberately foment a position such as was fomented in 1926. We are drawing down the curtain tonight on the second greatest political and industrial conspiracy in history. The Tory Party decided, back in 1925 or 1926, that whilst the power of the State was in their hands they would smash the trade union workers in this country industrially, and having smashed them industrially they would next use the 1927 Act to cripple them politically. The scheme has gone wrong, like many other great political and industrial conspiracies, notably the one on which the curtain is being drawn in Nuremberg. It has ended differently from what the conspirators thought.
  Tonight we are going to reverse this Act and go back to the 1913 position. The 1913 position is a compromise; it is not all that the trade unions have a right to expect. The trade union position, logically and legally, should be taken back to the Osborne judgment, where we should be free to utilise our money in exactly the way we thought fit, where there would be no restriction on us that is not on a co-operative society, or on the board of directors of any company in the
  1192
  country. This Government are being very modest in repealing this Act and doing no more. Let us see what the position is, and what the principle is that we are asked to adopt as a final principle with regard to contracting in and contracting out. I submit that even under the Bill with which we are dealing tonight contracting out is still imposed on us. What would be the position of the Government if we adopted the contracting out principle here?
  Suppose it were said that one could contract out of Income Tax in respect of the amount that goes to the social services, suppose that one could contract out of paying for the British Navy; what would be the position? It would be impossible to carry on. I say that it is not a fair position as far as British trade unionism is concerned, and we are entitled to go back to the Osborne judgment; but we are accepting this as a compromise.
  Two notable speeches have been delivered today. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) reminded us that the Labour Party did not start the trade unions. I would remind him, although he is not present at the moment, that it was exactly the reverse. It was the trade unions which started the Labour Party, and they started it for precisely the reason which he indicated in his speech. I have heard the hon. and learned Member make every speech that he has made on this Bill. I thought what a fine, noble and almost religious oration he made on the Second Reading, but he ended up, as all Liberal promises have ended up from the working-class point of view, by telling us that he is going into the Opposition Lobby. That is the reason we have this Bill. The Labour Party is a party which the trade unions can trust. As the hon. and learned Member was speaking, I thought what a good thing it is that we are living in 1946 and not in 1929, when his decision to go into the Lobby against us would have meant that we would have lost the Division.
  I turn now to the speech of the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss). The hon. Member rebuked the Attorney-General for smiling during his oration. I thought there was no need for him to do that, because I never listened to a more grim

  1193
  enunciation of policy than was contained in that speech. The 1927 Act is an instrument which is capable of destroying trade unionism. I never heard an oration that showed me more clearly that if that instrument, in a time of crisis, were in the hands of the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities, trade unionism in this country would be destroyed. I hope that tonight we shall pass the Bill with a Socialist majority.
  8.3 p.m.
  Mr. Maude: I wish briefly to follow the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Proctor) by saying that the legislation that will remain on the Statute Book will still be sufficient to do exactly what he fears. That is not understood. I oppose with all my heart and soul the passage of this Measure, and for the following reason, first and foremost. Early this morning, owing to exhaustion, there was a certain amount of laughter about Regulation 58AA. That is the proper designation of the regulation, and it is a regulation which it is extremely easy to understand. It says:
  " With a view to preventing work being interrupted by trade disputes, the Minister of Labour and National Service may by order make provision … for prohibiting … a strike or lockout in connection with any trade disputc."
  Cannot hon. Members opposite understand that, having done away with all the things in the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act, 1927, many of which are safeguards for the trade unions, safeguards in that the employer is prevented from doing things that he should not do, they are leaving the Government with powers in the future to deal with strikes? if a strike is prohibited by the Minister of Labour, and if somebody is brought before the court, whether the summary court, the court of quarter sessions or the assizes, he will only be able to say, what hon. Members opposite would want to say —" Morally the strike is right; I know it is an annoyance to the Government, but morally I am right. I ought to have the right to strike. I may have struck hastily, but morally I am right." The magistrate will say, without any hesitation, "I cannot listen to that, because this has been prohibited by the Minister of Labour; this thing must be ruthlessly put down." Why cannot hon. Members opposite listen to those who have experience of these matters in the courts, and
  1194
  take heed of what they say? There is a real danger.
  In conclusion, this Bill is a Micawber of administration. It is a sentimental Measure. Sentimentality is an attractive quality sometimes. But it is also an appallingly optimistic Measure. What the administration believes, surely, is that human nature has changed, and not merely the Members of the Government. It is absolutely fatal, to my mind, to abandon the safeguards which are to be found in the Act, and which are being destroyed by this miserable little Bill, a Bill which, though small, will have tremendous repercussions. Instead of coming to the House with a proper constructive Bill, which all hon. Members would have approved, the Government are sweeping away things which will leave the trade unions at the mercy of the Government, a position which they will not approve for very long.
  8.8 p.m.
  Mr. J. S. C. Reid: The first day of the Committee stage of this Bill occurred as long ago as February. At the beginning of March, the Prime Minister made an appeal to the whole nation to recapture the Dunkirk spirit—an appeal for unity. I have always understood that the essence of success in such an appeal is that we should all try to avoid, as a minimum, Measures which are both unnecessary and controversial. I am glad to say that, for some time after that appeal was made, the Government had the decency not to proceed with this Bill. As the weeks passed, I began to think that perhaps they were paying some attention to the Prime Minister's appeal, but it turned out that that was too optimistic an idea on my part, and that they were delaying only because the Government had decided that 1st April was an appropriate date for resuming consideration of the Bill.
  The first thing I wish to put to the House is the question: Why is this Bill being taken in the first Session of the new Parliament, a Session overcrowded with legislation, much of it necessary, and a Session, particularly, in which Ministers are facing vast problems of great complexity, some of them of their own making, but some of them, quite obviously, problems that would have arisen in any case? I cannot help saying that,

  1195
  in those circumstances, to proceed with this Bill at this time is a scandalous waste of the time and energy of Ministers and of the House. No instance has been quoted by any hon. or right hon. Gentleman throughout these Debates of any way in which the activities of any union have been hampered by the 1927 Act over the last 20 years.
  The Attorney-General, in the course of his Second Reading speech, said that it had had no practical effect whatever in interfering with the right to strike. He further told us that, notwithstanding the 1927 Act, the trade unions and the Labour Party had gone from strength to strength, as indeed was obvious without his telling us. Accordingly, there cannot be, on the merits, any urgency about this matter. Why, then, is it being foisted on us? Because the trade unions want it. We know that the trade unions finance the Socialist Party, and that he who pays the piper calls the tune. The reason the trade unions want it is obvious from the statement of Sir Walter Citrine, which was quoted earlier in the day by my hon. Friend the Member for the Combined Universities (Mr. H. Strauss). They want it because, according to Sir Walter Citrine, the Bill will give the Trades Union Congress very great powers. Those are his words. It is a little strange that the Trades Union Congress should think it necessary to have those great additional powers during the tenure of office of the Socialist Government. If the Government really have years of life ahead, what is all the hurry about? I am bound to say that it occurs to me that perhaps the T.U.C. take a somewhat realistic view of the matter, and it may mean that they are not so sure that this Government have a very long life in front of them. They may think it better to get what they are asking for while there is time.
  In the past, Governments of all parties have produced legislation with one other of two objects: either to remedy a hardship or a grievance, or to improve the law. There is no hardship in this case. I have already said that no one has put forward a single grievance over the last 20 years. Of course, there is the stigma. We know all about that. We have heard a lot about it, but it seems to me to be nothing but the imaginative product of an inferiority complex
  Mr. Sparks: Would not the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the Act of 1927 was promoted by the Conservative Party without consultation with any of the interests involved, and that fact alone is bound to cause a large percentage of the feeling that exists?
  Mr. Reid: I cannot agree that an Act of Parliament, no matter what its merits, is not to be binding on anyone who was not consulted before it was brought into operation. That is a very odd constitutional doctrine. [An HON. MEMBER: "Remember that when the Health Bill is brought in."]
  Mr. Turner-Samuels rose—
  Mr. Reid: No, I cannot give way. Certainly the law will not be made clearer by this Bill. The Attorney-General, in a masterly understatement, told us that in future there would be an element of doubt. As we know, there was a rather violent controversy in 1926 as to what the law really was. That was not surprising, because earlier lawmakers never thought about the general strike when the law was being developed, and therefore the law had not been developed with that in view. No provision has been made for it. That controversy must now revive if the Bill passes. If the controversy revives, what matters will not be which side is right but what the leading trade unionists think is the right view of the law. On that view they will act. Those who have spoken in our Debates have gloried in the part which they took in the 1926 general strike. It looks to me as if they thought that the passage of the Bill would make it easy for them to stage another general strike, if they thought that was the proper thing to do. That is what Sir Walter Citrine said in his statement, and seems to be what is in the minds of a great many hon. Members opposite.
  The Government have not helped us much in this respect. The Attorney-General has told us time and again that the revolutionary strike is illegal, but he has not said anything, or very little, about a strike where the motives were mixed, partly political and partly industrial. The President of the Board of Trade has put it on record that the 1926 strike was, in his view, a mixed strike in that sense, the political element prevailing over the industrial element. That has not been contradicted. We are left by the Government

  1197
  with an element of doubt whether a recurrence of the 1926 position would, or would not, be illegal. I pass from this branch of my remarks by giving a quotation from Mr. Cyril Asquith, as he then was. It seems to put the whole matter in a nutshell. He said:
  " A country whose law gives no clear answer to the question whether a general strike is legal or not deserves a succession of general strikes to concentrate its mind."
  I say that the Bill is founded on no principle. I propose during the rest of my remarks to see how its terms and its effects will square with principles to which hon. and right hon. Members opposite are never tired of paying lip service. A principle which always comes first, is democracy. If democracy means anything in this country, it means that the will of the people, as expressed by their representatives in Parliament, shall prevail, and that if you do not like what Parliament is doing, you should try to make the existing Members of Parliament see your point of view and alter their tactics, or wait and turn them out at the next Election. [An HON. MEMBER: "We have done that."] Any general strike which is designed to coerce Parliament or Members of Parliament in any other way than that, is an anti-democratic Measure. Section 1 of the Act embodies the principle which I have just been stating. It is open to anyone to say that they do not like the drafting of Section 1. I have already said that if the Government had chosen to come to the House and say: "The drafting of Section I is unsatisfactory; we propose to alter it, but to maintain the principle," we could have co-operated in that project. When they come and say that there must be a total repeal and nothing be put in its place, I say that their attitude is not consistent with the maintaining of Democracy in this country.
  I pass to another principle about which we often hear, and it is that we should maintain the rule of law and frown on power politics. That is a most admirable principle, but before we can maintain the rule of law we must know what the law is. It is a very strange prelude to the maintenance of the rule of law that, first steps are taken to make the law uncertain, and, having made it uncertain, it is then proclaimed in advance that it will be futile to try to enforce it. That is what the Attorney-General has said. I know there was an argument last night
  1198
  between the hon. and learned Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter). Owing to the way in which the Government had insisted on our conducting our affairs—insisting on our corn-pressing two days' works into one—it was not possible to have a very adequate discussion on this point. It occurred to me that the ending of the discussion was not wholly satisfactory because, so far as I could see, the Attorney-General was reduced to a somewhat peevish silence. It would be a good thing if he tried again to expound what he has in mind. I am bound to say it seems to me, that what he has said is that the law is going to stand aside in this matter. If he has not said that, I do not know what he has said. He says it is futile to put the criminal law into operation and he has refused to retain those parts of the 1927 Act which give him a civil law remedy. Therefore, what kind of law he is going to operate, I really do not know. If the rule of law is put aside, one is left simply with power politics, and I know of no two words more apt to describe the statement by Sir Walter Citrine.
  There is another principle which we are often told is beloved by hon. Members opposite—freedom. We were asked to pass this Bill in order to restore freedom to the trade unions. Freedom to do what? Section 3, or rather its repeal, tells us the answer. That Section, as right hon. and hon. Gentlemen will remember, first extended the definition of intimidation to something wider than violence or the threat of violence. That extension has been taken way. It also prohibited the watching and besetting of a man's house. That, again, has been taken away, although it was kept by the Labour Party in 1931. They must have thought it was of some value then. I cannot go into the niceties of this question because there is no time, but, broadly speaking, I say that freedom ought to be freedom to argue and persuade. If this Section goes, there will be freedom to browbeat and freedom to overawe and bully. Is that the kind of freedom we have been fighting for? That is the kind of freedom the Government are trying to impose upon the people of this country.
  What is the excuse? I presume the excuse is that of course this law will he operated in a good cause and that nobody

  1199
  is going to strike unless they are right. But that has been the excuse of every dictator in history at the beginning of his régime. Every time he encroaches on the freedom of the ordinary man, it is always in a good cause, and because he knows better than the other man what is good for him. I am bound to say it seems very odd to me that this definition of freedom should be introduced. Let me come to another thing which hon. Members opposite are supposed to dislike. They are supposed to dislike privilege, but only, apparently, when it belongs to somebody else. Let us see what happens here.
  Mr. Kirkwood: It is time we had a change.
  Mr. Reid: If the hon. Gentleman agrees with the Minister of Labour that what is being done by this Government is not to try to level out class distinctions, but to instal a new ruling class, then I understand his interjection, but I had not understood before that that was what Socialism meant. However, now we know. I come back to the question of privilege, and I must be a little more detailed here, in order to explain this rather difficult subject. In 1906, the trade unions were given, among others, two privileges quite unique. One was the privilege by virtue of which the funds of trade unions were exempted from all actions of damage. Another was the privilege by which officials of trade unions were exempted from liability if they induced other people to break their contracts. Those were very valuable and very extensive privileges.
  What does the 1927 Act do? I think this is a very good test of the theory that the 1927 Act was vindictive, because, if that Act had been vindictive, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to withdraw those two privileges entirely. There would have been very good authority for doing so. Mr. Sidney Webb had recommended against this privilege and the present Lord Chancellor, while still a Liberal at about that time, certainly animadverted on the second of them. I will not give the passages because they will be well known to the learned Attorney-General. It would have been very easy to justify withdrawing those privileges completely, but what did the Act do? It only withdrew them in one respect. It enabled trade unions to keep
  1200
  those privileges so long as a strike was not an illegal strike in the sense that it was designed to coerce the Government. Trade unions were told that if they started a political general strike, those privileges would not apply.
  Was that an unreasonable thing to do? If a trade union or any body of persons deliberately sets out to act in an unlawful way, is it wrong to say, "We are going to withdraw from you, in that event, privileges which you alone in the whole country hold at the moment "? I should have thought that that was a very justifiable thing to do. But this Bill restores to trade unions complete immunity of their funds, however revolutionary their actions may be. Is not that a very odd thing to do? The learned Attorney-General agrees that there are some subversive or revolutionary strikes and that they will be illegal, and that he must take all steps to cope with them. I am not sure what the steps are, but that is what he said. Then he turns round and says that the unions' funds must be completely free from any liability for what they do. Can anything more absurd be imagined? I do not know what the justification for it can possibly be.
  I turn to another thing which hon. Gentlemen opposite dislike, or say they dislike—monopoly. I know they like State monopolies, but not others. We on this side do not like any monopolies if they can be avoided. How does this fit in with the present Bill? We had a considerable Debate on Section 6, which prohibits public authorities from imposing conditions on their servants about membership of trade unions. That goes. A public authority can impose any conditions it likes. (Interruption.) There is all the difference in the world between a public authority, a nationalised industry and a private employer. The former have a complete monopoly and anybody who works with them must be at a disadvantage because he has no alternative employer. I am perfectly willing to consider the point with regard to private employers, and it would be a perfectly fair thing to argue, but what is not right is that a public authority which is monopolistic over a very large sphere of the nation's trade, is to be allowed to dictate to every worker in that industry that he shall belong to a specific trade union. There was some questioning of that interpretation of the result of this

  1201
  Bill last night, but again, owing to the way the Government allocated their time, there was no proper opportunity for considering that question. I am bound to say that I do think that the Government have been extremely foolish in the way they have dealt with the allocation of time for this Bill.
  Mr. Attewell: On a point of Order. Is it not a reflection upon the Chair to say that the allocation of time was dealt with as the right hon. and learned Gentleman suggests? I suggest that the point is made perfectly clear—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: There is no reflection on the Chair in this instance.
  Mr. Attewell: The point that I want to make is that on 25th May, 1925, a Motion was moved in this House on that very point, and I would ask, Sir, if you would be prepared to look at that particular Ruling.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not think that I shall be able to reply to that tonight, and I should remind hon. Gentlemen that time is marching on.
  Mr. Reid: I must apologise to the Attorney-General for taking a little longer than I intended, but it is due to the various interruptions that have occurred, and I could not refuse to give way because there was a point of Order. I must, however, explain what I was saying. I was criticising the action of the Government last night in not accepting a Motion to report Progress sometime before midnight. If that had been accepted, then we could have discussed these matters under proper conditions, and we could have reached a conclusion about them. But thanks to the Government's attitude in steamrollering this Bill through the House, we have not had the opportunity of getting their point of view properly, and I have had to make my remarks somewhat in the dark. I am bound to say that I think for the Government to give us five days on this Bill, when the Conservative Government 20 years ago gave 23 to 25 days, is a pretty good reflection of the respect which this Government show to the requirements of democratic procedure. If this Government think they are going to get things through by curtailing discussions they will not only impair popular respect for this House, but they will seriously impair popular respect for themselves.
  1202
  If you are going to dictate in a whole industry to what union everyone is to belong, then you are creating a most vicious form of monopoly for one particular big union, and in consequence a most glorious vested interest for the bosses of that union. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are most happy to inveigh against the profit motive as the last word iniquity. What about Section 4? We have had a long specious argument that the unions are entitled to the benefits from human inertia. Everybody agrees that they are going to get some benefit and we have heard the figure of £100,000 mentioned and not denied. The hon. Member for East Woolwich (Mr. Hicks) was quite honest about this. He said "I want to see the money coming in." We know that the Party opposite get about four-fifths of their fees from the trade unions and we know they want more. [Interruption.] They say they have millions of enthusiastic supporters. Why cannot they pay? [HON MEMBERS "They do."] One would have thought that a Party which made that boast and believed in it would have had enough pride to see to it that they got their money from their announced supporters, and that they would have not tried to get it by some devious methods from other people. When it comes to getting money, apparently hon. Members opposite are quite content to pocket their pride. If this Bill does nothing else, it will convince the House and the country that the principles of the Socialist Party are most conveniently elastic. The Attorney-General in his Second Reading speech called this "a modest little Bill." I am bound to say that people's ideas of modesty seem to vary very much. I call this Bill the most shameless Bill that this Government have yet introduced.
  8.38 p.m.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Hartley Shawcross): We have had a long, I do not say a too long, yet a very ample and complete discussion on the principles underlying this Bill, and on the state of the law as it will be when the 1927 Act has been repealed. If I may say so as a very young and junior Member of this House, we are entitled to congratulate ourselves on the whole on the temperate and good-humoured way in which our discussions

  1203
  have been conducted. It was in marked contrast, if one can judge from the OFFICIAL REPORT, with the spirit of the Debates in 1927. There were of course at that time, though I am not going to reopen them, circumstances which led to tempers running high on both sides of the House. But those circumstances have changed now, and as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) said in the speech which was referred to during the Committee stage this morning, the atmosphere now is very different from that which existed on the morrow of 1926–27. Of course Members of the Tory Party have known quite well for 20 years or so, that sooner or later the people of this country were going to insist on the repeal of the 1926–27 Act. Although they have done their best, as they were entitled to do, to oppose this modest little Bill, one cannot help feeling that they have not been able to work up any considerable enthusiasm about the matter.
  Still, one can say of hon. Members opposite, that a good time seems to have been had by all, and not least perhaps by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hoģ ģ), who I regret to see is not at present in his place. When one hears these complaints being put forward, that not enough time has been allowed for this Debate, it is interesting to note on looking through the OFFICIAL REPORT up to 10 o'clock last night that the hon. Member for Oxford performed the action which is described in the words of the OFFICIAL REPORT as "Mr. Hoģ ģ rose—" not less than 27 times. The hon. and gallant Member for Barkston Ash (Colonel Ropner) was a not very close runner-up; he rose 10 times. One sees that so far as hon. Members on the opposite side of the House are concerned, the Debate was largely confined to the same people getting up time after time, and, if I may say so, repeating in different language very much the same sort of thing.
  Colonel Ropner: Would not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that if a speaker is courteous enough to sit down when he is interrupted, he must get up again? As hon. Members on the other side of the House know, when a speaker is interrupted, then, of course, as our record in the House must show, we rise to our feet again.
  The Attorney-General: The hon. and gallant Member may take it that I made appropriate allowance for that. In going through the record in the OFFICIAL REPORT—which I did in the course of some speeches made from the opposite side of the House, which seemed to have little to do with the matter under discussion—I found that he rose on 10 separate occasions, but not because he had been interrupted. He rose, not perhaps to make 10 separate speeches, but either to make a speech directed or not directed towards this Bill, or to raise a point of Order. It was not because he had been interrupted and had to rise again. One felt sometimes that although hon. Members opposite were having a very good time, and enjoying themselves very much, judging by the rather extravagant arguments that they put forward, it might have been of advantage if, just occasionally, they could have infused some slight breath of the fresh air of reality into our discussions, if they could have made some slight attempt to get a little nearer to the atmosphere of the industrial towns and the mining villages, a little nearer to the thoughts and hearts of the people in whose interests we are legislating.
  Lieut.-Colonel Mackeson: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman allow me—
  The Attorney-General: As hon. Members know, as a rule I am as good as anyone can be about giving way. I generally do give way, but I am not proposing to do so more often than the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Mr. Reid), who, very properly, gave way only once. I am sure everybody will acquit me of discourtesy if I do not give way on this occasion. I thought it was such a pity that the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) spoiled a most interesting and reasoned speech, by that extravagant peroration, which was not the less grotesque because apparently it was sincere. It really is grotesque, if I may say so, to talk about this Bill being an attack upon the constitution of this country, and to say that this is threatening the very future of Parliament; that this is an attack on the woman in the home; that this is a further step towards the totalitarian State; that this is something

  1205
  which is going to reduce the rule of law in this country to an absurdity. I would say this about the rule of law. The hon. Member for the Combined English Universities—and, it may be, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hillhead—has been so steeped recently in studying the law relating to trade unions that he has forgotten the elementary principles upon which our law is founded. He has forgotten his Austin; he has forgotten his Dicey. He does not know what the rule of law means any more. He does not remember what Dicey described as the "external limitations to the rule of law." He does not remember that if we are to have a rule of law, we must not only have laws which are understood, but laws which commend themselves, not to everybody, not to every section of the community, but at least to the majority of the people. That is one of the reasons why the 1927 Act did so much harm to the rule of law in this country.
  I am going to examine the various points which have been raised, and to see what this Bill really does, not what hon. Members opposite imagine it does, or try to persuade themselves it does. I am going to see what it really does in relation to the four propositions—I think somebody elevated them to the status of principles—which were enunciated, not indeed for the first time but a little more portentously than on previous occasions, by the hon. Member for Oxford and most appropriately, because they had been first enunciated by his distinguished father in the Debate on the 1927 Act.
  "… a general strike should be illegal, and no one should be penalised for refusing to take part in it.''—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th February, 1946; Vol. 419, C. 290.]
  That was the first proposition which is described as a principle. Of course, that was not the effect of the 1927 Act; not a bit. At that time the Tories, quite deliberately, set out to make a sympathetic strike, on any scale at all, illegal, although it fell far short of a general strike. The public were deceived into thinking that the 1927 Act was concerned only with the general strike which they had recently experienced. The fact is, of course, that the 1927 Act had very little to do with the general strike. We believe that a revolutionary strike, like any other kind of revolutionary action, should he, and is, illegal. Hon. Members opposite, as I
  1206
  ventured to suggest last night, should be the last to talk about revolutionary action, because, as far as I know, in the last 50 years, the only instances of revolutionary action in this country, of the threat of armed force against the State, have come, not from the working people, not from trade unionists, but from distinguished leaders of the Tory Party We believe a revolutionary strike, like any other kind of revolutionary action, should be illegal.
  The hon. Member for the Combined English Universities made great play with what he said were differences of opinion amongst lawyers on what amounted to an illegal strike. He asked a rhetorical question, which he proceeded to answer to his own satisfaction, about the legality or illegality of the stoppage in 1926. I think it is right to say—and if any of the opinions that were given in regard to this matter at that time are examined it will be found that it is so— that the differences of opinion between the lawyers arose, because the lawyers were arrogating to themselves the functions of a tribunal of fact, and were taking different views about the facts. Before one can decide whether a particular strike is illegal or not, one must get the facts. I have said—and my view is set out in my Second Reading speech—that the issue of fact is one for a jury. If there is a borderline case, mixed industrial motive and political motive, it is for a jury to say whether, in that case, a criminal conspiracy has been committed.
  I was asked how, if I thought the facts were such as to constitute a revolutionary strike, I should deal with the situation, and I was asked if I would make use of the machinery of the criminal law. My answer is this. Whether I should prosecute in such a case would depend entirely on the facts existing at that time. But I can imagine no greater folly than to have prosecuted and imprisoned the leaders of the strike in the face of the facts as they were in 1926. I agree with the action which was taken by Mr. Bald-win's Government. The then Prime Minister did not make use of the criminal law. He knew he had ample machinery at his side with which to deal with the situation that faced the country at that time. I am confident that under existing powers any revolutionary action, whether it be on the part of trade unionists or

  1207
  whether, more possibly, it comes from those whom hon. Members opposite represent, will be dealt with, and dealt with adequately and effectively. I do not believe that you can do anything to suppress an illegal strike, to make a revolutionary strike less likely, merely by passing an ineffective Statute which it is apparent can never be enforced.
  Mr. H. Strauss: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman allow me? I am sure he wishes to address his mind to the problem. The question put to him from several Members on this side of the House, including myself, was that if he has this disbelief, with which I sympathise, in relying on the criminal law, why does he cut away all power of relying on the civil law? The general strike of 1926—
  Hon. Members: Speech.
  The Attorney-General: I think I have the point my hon. Friend seeks to make. I was asked and did not answer the point last night, because I did not make a note of it and forgot it. I was asked if the Attorney-General would have any power with regard to trade unions. He will not. I can imagine nothing more dangerous than that the Attorney-General of this country, holding a position quasi judicial, quasi political, as he does, should have this power of intervening in the use of funds of trade unions in the cases where trade unions are striking. I add only this. It is open to the members of a trade union to proceed against the trustees if they think the union's funds are being used in an illegal way. I merely say that if in such proceedings or in any others the courts impound the funds or grant an injunction against their use nothing, probably, could be more in the interests of the unions themselves. They would still have their strike and they would keep theft money. That point was considered on the Second Reading when the hon. Member was not here.
  On the Second Reading I referred to what had been said in connection with the matter by Mr. Lloyd George, as he then was. Nobody imagined the trade unions and, in particular, the miners' union at that time had the money which would enable them to carry on a strike for more than a few weeks. In fact they carried on for six months. Anybody who thinks
  1208
  that the trade unions of this country, if their members got to such a pitch that they wanted to engage in a general strike, would be deterred from that by the fact that strike pay might not be available in the amounts that they anticipated, completely deludes himself.
  Then it is said that intimidation should be illegal and no man should be compelled to abstain from work against his will. Hon. Members are being very obtuse about this. Intimidation, in the ample and sufficient sense in which those words have been understood and applied by the courts for scores of years prior to 1927, will remain illegal. What hon. Members opposite want, and what they are certainly not going to get from this or any future Government, is the power to deny trade unionists the right to canvass their members or others in regard to the circumstances of a general strike or of any trade dispute. The members of trade unions should be in exactly the same position in regard to this matter as, the members of the Carlton Club or the members of any other association, which has the right to be entitled peacefully to persuade others that some particular course of action is right or wrong. Beyond that they cannot go.
  Hon. Members opposite yesterday suggested—I think including the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hillhead—that I had been a little disingenuous in saying the law remained as it stood under the 1875 Act. I do not know whether a Third Reading means that one repeats a thing for the third time. But I am going to do that now. I am going to repeat for the third time the law relating to intimidation as laid down by Sir William Joynson-Hicks. We could not have a better authority. He dealt with this expressly. "Peaceful picketing for the purposes of peaceful persuasion or imparting information is permissible, and the Act of 1926 does not do away with the Act of 1875. What was illegal under the Act of 1875 is still illegal today, except in so far as it is modified by those quite simple words "—those quite simple words which the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir John Anderson) was not able completely to understand:
  " for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information or peacefully persuading any person to work or abstain from work."

  1209
  The Home Secretary of that date said:
  " Under the old Act any form of violence or intimidation is illegal. If a man uses violence or intimidates a person who wants to work, or his wife or his children he is guilty of an offence. If he persistently follows such a person about from place to place, if he watches or besets the house or other place where such a person resides or carries on work, it is a criminal offence today."
  So it will remain when this ineffective part of the 1927 Act is removed.
  Then it is said that no one should be compelled to subscribe to political funds against his will. I am bound to say one would consider that argument a little more seriously if hon. Members opposite would publish accounts of their own funds, would say where they got their money from, what they get it for, and how they dispose of it. So far as trade unions are concerned—I cannot speak for Conservative organisations or other associations of that kind—no one will be compelled to subscribe to political funds against his will. As I listened to the argument put by hon. and learned Members opposite on this matter I certainly thought they really did suffer from a particularly acute degree of mental myopia when they were talking of this matter.
  When the Act of 1927 is repealed there will still remain two lists, a list of those who subscribe and a list of those who do not subscribe. Those who do not wish to subscribe will be entitled by the simple process of obtaining a form, either from the trade union or the registrar—and they can obtain their forms from either source —and sending it in to the union, to obtain complete and permanent exemption. No one will be required to disclose his political convictions, or reasons why he does not wish to subscribe. It may be he does not wish to subscribe because he is a Communist. He is not compelled to disclose it. It may be—and this is very much less likely—that he does not wish to subscribe because he is a Conservative. Nobody will compel him to disclose the fact, and nobody will wish to know. All he has to do is to get a form, by telephone, by sending a postcard, or getting it personally, and fill it in, and he is for ever relieved of his obligation to subscribe.
  Members opposite made the point—and I readily accept at once that it was a good one—that in many cases, indeed, in all, as they said, ballots which had
  1210
  been taken by trade unions to decide whether or not political funds should be established had been taken a long time ago, so that the majorities who voted for them had, as it were, passed away. Let me concede at once that that is a sound point, if it were true. There is nothing, and there will be nothing after this Bill is passed into law, to prevent the existing members of a trade union, if they are so disposed, to hold fresh ballots. There are powers, in certain circumstances, by which they can be required to hold fresh ballots. In fact, a great many trade unions have held ballots in regard to their political funds since 1913, when this requirement was introduced into our law. I do not know whether hon. Members opposite will obtain any consolation from the fact—I have not been able to explore these matters fully—but quite casually today I came across two cases. One concerned the Durham miners. They have had two ballots since 1913, largely because of the activities of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who sits at the end of the Front Opposition Bench, the hon. Member for North Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Sir C. Headlam) who suspected that the political complexion of the members of the trade unions in that part of the country was not perhaps so Socialistic as it turned out to be.
  The Durham miners held a ballot in 1929, and another in 1937. The second they were required to hold by the Registrar of Friendly Societies, and it turned out that in that ballot, taken under the direct supervision of the Registrar so as to ensure that everything should be fair, square, and above board, over 92 per cent. of the total membership were in favour of the political fund. If it is true, as Members seek to suggest, that there are cases in which a majority of the members of a trade union do not desire to have a political fund it is open to them, at any time, to ask for a fresh ballot to be taken. If it turns out that there is not a majority in favour of a political fund no political fund will there be. But if, on the other hand, it turns out, as we are confident from our actual experience of ballots which have been held, that there is a substantial majority in favour of a political fund, we think it right that those who desire not to fall in with their colleagues and comrades—quite properly, as they are entitled to do if they have different political views, or no political views—should

  1211
  at least go to the trouble of filling in a form in order to contract out. There are some who think—and one Member attributed the view to me, but I do not hold it—that the minority in these cases, as in normal cases of clubs, companies and other associations, should toe the line, that if the majority, 92 per cent., think there ought to be subscriptions to a political fund then the minority, the remaining 8 per cent., should subscribe to that fund. We are not suggesting that that should be done but we do say that where there is a majority in favour of a political fund the minority are the ones who must sign a form in order to get exemption. Those who say that this will result in intimidation, and in people having to disclose their political views, are saying something which they must obviously know to be entirely untrue.
  Then it is said that every person entering the Civil Service must give undivided allegiance to the State. That is one of those platitudes which roll sonorously off the lips of hon. Members opposite, but which really mean very little at all. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Nobody really thinks that the 1927 Act was justified by any lack of loyalty or allegiance on the part of civil servants. If they do I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities, who has such special knowledge of these matters. I felt quite sure that nobody would suggest for a moment that there was anything in the attitude of civil servants during the strike of 1926 or at any early period—during which civil servants were entitled, if they so desired, to affiliate themselves to industrial organisations—to suggest that their loyalty had been in any way divided. What happened before the 1927 Act, and what has happened since has not suggested that there is the slightest foundation for this fear that the allegiance of the Civil Service might be divided or their loyalty undermined.
  Their allegiance existed before, it existed after, it exists still. Some of us, as the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities has, if I may say so, very fairly said, have had experience of actual working in association with the Civil Service and know the loyalty and allegiance which can be expected from its members. Our view about the matter is that that loyalty is not going to be in-
  1212
  creased by imposing penal restrictions on their liberty, but that by giving them the same rights as ordinary citizens possess in regard to political or industrial affiliations we can still count with complete confidence on their undivided loyalty and service to the State. It really is complete flapdoodle—if that is a Parliamentary phrase—and complete bunkum if it is not, to suppose that by invading personal and private rights in the way the 1927 Act has done it is possible to compel an allegiance which did not exist before. That, of course, is the Nazi Fascist way of doing it—it is not the way we contemplate doing things. We think the measure of allegiance owing to the State is not in proportion to the degree of restriction placed upon the subjects by the State to whom it is owed.
  I have little more to add. I shall not follow the arguments of hon. Members opposite which in some cases would appear to have been concentrated very largely on that device which I described of putting up their own ninepins and knocking them down. I am not going to follow their example either in repeating arguments which really do not gain much in weight by mere repetition. The plain fact is that this Bill is long overdue. It has been a permanent part of the Labour programme ever since 1927. At every election since that date the repeal of this Bill has been one of the things for which Labour candidates stood. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford, in winding up the Debate on the 1927 Bill, threw out a challenge to the Labour Party as to what would happen if they were unwise enough, in his view, to make this an issue at an election. We accepted the challenge and made it an issue, and we accepted the challenge he threw out later on, in the early part of last year, when he invited us to submit this matter to the verdict of the people, and said that that verdict would govern the way this matter was dealt with in Parliament. I know that that phrase has been referred to many times in the course of this Debate, but I do not know what those words mean unless they mean what they say. I realise that the right hon. Member for Woodford is such a master of the English language that he has put himself very much in the position of Humpty-Dumpty in "Alice." There are other respects, incidentally, in

  1213
  which he resembles Humpty-Dumpty. Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall—
  " When I use a word,' said Humpty-Dumpty" —
  and this must be what hon. Members are saying about these words that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford used in that letter when he said this matter should be submitted to the verdict of the people—
  " ' it means just what I intended it to mean, and neither more nor less.' But,' said Alice, ' the question is whether you can make a word mean different things. ' Not so,' said Humpty-Dumpty, the question is which is to be the master. That's all '."
  We are the masters at the moment, and not only at the moment, but for a very long time to come, and as hon. Members opposite are not prepared to implement the pledge which was given by their leader in regard to this matter at the
  General Election, we are going to implement it for them. The people, having been asked for their verdict, and having given their verdict on this matter, are going to have their verdict put into effect by the representatives of the people upon this side of the House, and this wretched Act—because that is all it is—this bastard product of narrow legalism—[Interruption]—I am using the word that was so well used the other day by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton); I felt I could not choose a more proper expression. This bastard product of narrow legalism and craven politics is now going to be swept for ever from the law of this country.
  Question put, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
  The House divided: Ayes, 349; Noes, 182.

  Division No. 125

  AYES.

  [9.14 p.m.

  Adams, Richard (Balham)

  Chetwynd, Capt. G, R

  Freeman, Maj. J. (Watford)

  Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)

  Clitherow, Dr. R.

  Freeman, Peter (Newport)

  Adamson, Mrs. J. L.

  Cluse, W. S

  Gaitskell, H. T. N.

  Alpass, J. H.

  Cobb, F. A.

  Gallacher, W.

  Anderson, A. (Motherwell)

  Cocks, F. S.

  Ganley, Mrs. C. S

  Attewell, H. C

  Coldrick, W.

  Gibbins, J.

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R

  Collick, P.

  Gibson, C. W

  Austin, H. L.

  Collins, V. J.

  Gilzean, A.

  Awbery, S. S.

  Colman, Miss G. M.

  Glanville, J. E. (Consett)

  Ayles, W. H.

  Comyns, Dr. L.

  Gooch, E. G.

  Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.

  Cook, T. F.

  Goodrich, H. E.

  Bacon, Miss A.

  Cooper, Wing-Comdr. G.

  Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

  Baird, Capt. J.

  Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N.W.)

  Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)

  Balfour, A,

  Corlett, Dr. J.

  Grenfell, D. R

  Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J

  Corvedale, Viscount

  Grey, C. F.

  Barstow, P. G

  Crawley, Flt.-Lieut. A.

  Grierson, E.

  Bartlett, V.

  Daggar, G.

  Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)

  Barton, C.

  Daines, P.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)

  Battley, J. R.

  Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

  Griffiths, Capt. W. D. (Moss Side)

  Bechervaise, A. E.

  Davies, Edward (Burslem)

  Guest, Dr. L. Haden

  Belcher, J. W

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield)

  Gunter, Capt. R. J.

  Bellenger, F. J.

  Davies Harold (Leek)

  Guy, W. H.

  Benson, G.

  Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S.W.)

  Haire, Flt.-Lt. J. (Wycombe)

  Berry, H.

  Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

  Hale, Leslie

  Beswick, Flt.-Lieut. F.

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Hall, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Aberdare)

  Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)

  Deer, G.

  Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)

  Bevin, Rt. Hon. E. (Wandsworth, C.)

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.

  Bing, Capt. G. H. C.

  Delargy, Captain H. J

  Hannan, W. (Maryhill)

  Binns, J.

  Diamond, J.

  Hardman, D. R.

  Blackburn, A. R.

  Dobbie, W.

  Hardy, E. A.

  Blenkinsop, Capt A.

  Dodds, N. N.

  Harrison, J.

  Blyton, W. R.

  Donovan, T.

  Hastings, Dr. Somerville

  Boardman, H.

  Douglas, F. C. R.

  Haworth, J.

  Bottomley, A. G.

  Driberg, T. E. N.

  Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

  Bowden, Flg.-Offr H. W.

  Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)

  Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'p'l, Exch'ge)

  Dumpleton, C. W.

  Herbison, Miss M.

  Braddock, T. (Mitcham)

  Durbin, E. F. M.

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Brook, D. (Halifax)

  Dye, S.

  Hicks, G.

  Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  Hobson, C. R.

  Brown, George (Belper)

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)

  Holman, P.

  Brown, T. J. (Ince)

  Edwards, John (Blackburn)

  Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)

  Brown, W. J. (Rugby)

  Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)

  Horabin, T. L.

  Bruce, Major D. W. T.

  Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)

  House, G.

  Burden, T. W.

  Evans, E. (Lowestoft)

  Hoy, J.

  Burke, W. A.

  Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)

  Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)

  Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)

  Ewart, R.

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayr)

  Callaghan, James

  Farthing, W. J.

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Castle, Mrs. B. A.

  Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)

  Hughes, Lt. H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)

  Chamberlain, R. A

  Follick, M.

  Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)

  Champion, A. J.

  Foster, W. (Wigan)

  Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)

  Chater, D.

  Fraser, T. (Hamilton)

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Irving, W. J.

  Mort, D. L.

  Soskice, Maj. Sir F.

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.

  Moyle, A.

  Sparks, J. A.

  Janner, B.

  Murray, J. D.

  Stamford, W

  Jeger, G. (Winchester)

  Nally, W.

  Steele, T.

  Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)

  Naylor, T. E.

  Stephen, C.

  John, W.

  Neal, H. (Claycross)

  Stewart, Capt. Michael (Fulham, E.)

  Jones, D. T. (Hartlepools)

  Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)

  Strachey, J.

  Jones, J. H. (Bolton)

  Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)

  Strauss, G. R

  Jones, Asterley (Hitchin)

  Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E. (Brentford)

  Stross, Dr. B.

  Keenan, W.

  Noel-Buxton, Lady

  Stubbs, A. E.

  Kendall, W. D.

  O'Brien, T.

  Summerskill, Dr. Edith

  Kenyon, C.

  Oldfield, W. H.

  Symonds, Maj. A. L.

  King, E M.

  Oliver, G. H.

  Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)

  Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E.

  Orbach, M.

  Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

  Kinley, J.

  Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)

  Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)

  Kirby, B. V.

  Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

  Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)

  Kirkwood, D.

  Palmer, A. M. F.

  Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)

  Lang, G.

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Thomas, John R. (Dover)

  Lavers, S.

  Parker, J.

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Lawson, Rt. Hon J. J

  Parkin, Flt.-Lieut. B. T.

  Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Ed'b'gh, E.)

  Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)

  Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)

  Thorneycroft, H.

  Leonard, W.

  Paton, J. (Norwich)

  Thurtle, E.

  Leslie, J. R.

  Peart, Capt. T. F

  Tiffany, S.

  Lever, Fl. Off. N. H.

  Perrins, W.

  Timmons, J.

  Levy, B. W.

  Poole, Major Cecil (Lichfield)

  Titterington, M F

  Lewis, A. W. J. (Upton)

  Popplewell, E.

  Tolley, L.

  Lewis, T. (Southampton)

  Porter, E. (Warrington).

  Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Porter, G. (Leeds).

  Turner-Samuels, M.

  Lipson, D. L.

  Price, M. P.

  Ungoed-Thomas, L.

  Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

  Pritt, D. N.

  Usborne, Henry

  Logan, D. G.

  Proctor, W. T.

  Vernon, Maj W. F

  Longden, F.

  Pursey, Cmdr. H.

  Viant, S. P.

  Lyne, A. W.

  Ranger, J.

  Walkden, E.

  McAdam, W.

  Rankin, J.

  Walker, G. H.

  McAllister, G.

  Rees-Williams, D. R.

  Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)

  McEntee, V. La T.

  Reeves, J.

  Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)

  McGhee, H. G.

  Reid, T. (Swindon)

  Warbey, W. N.

  Mack, J. D.

  Rhodes, H.

  Weitzman, D.

  McKay, J. (Wallsend)

  Richards, R.

  Wells, W. T (Walsall)

  Mackay, R W. G. (Hull, N.W.)

  Ridealgh, Mrs. M.

  White, C. F. (Derbyshire, W.)

  McKinlay, A. S.

  Robens, A.

  White, H. (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  Maclean, N. (Govan)

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)

  Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

  McLeavy, F.

  Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)

  Wigg, Colonel G. E.

  McNeil, H.

  Rogers, G. H. R.

  Wilkes, Maj. L.

  Macpherson, T. (Romford).

  Royle, C.

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Scollan, T.

  Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)

  Mallalieu, J. P. W.

  Scott-Elliot, W.

  Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)

  Manning, C. (Camberwell, N.).

  Segal, Dr. S.

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping).

  Shackleton, Wing-Com. E. A, A.

  Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)

  Marquand, H. A.

  Sharp, Lt.-Col. G. M.

  Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

  Marshall, F. (Brightside)

  Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)

  Williams, W. R. (Heston)

  Martin, J. H.

  Shawcross, Sir H. (St. Helens)

  Williamson, T.

  Mathers, G.

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Willis, E.

  Mayhew, C. P.

  Shurmer, P.

  Wills, Mrs. E A

  Medland, H. M.

  Silkin, Rt. Hon. L.

  Wilson, J. H.

  Messer, F

  Silverman J. (Erdington)

  Wise, Major F. J

  Middleton, Mrs. L.

  Silverman, S S. (Nelson)

  Woodburn, A

  Mikardo, Ian

  Simmons, C. J.

  Woods, G. S

  Mitchison, Maj. G. R.

  Skeffington, A. M.

  Yates, V. F.

  Monslow, W.

  Skeffingtons-Lodge, T. C.

  Young, Sir R. (Newton)

  Montague, F.

  Skinnard, F. W.

  Younger, Hon. Kenneth

  Moody, A. S.

  Smith, Capt. C (Colchester)

  Zilliacus, K.

  Morgan, Dr. H. B.

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke)

  Morley, R.

  Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES

  Morris, Lt.-Col. H. (Sheffield, C.)

  Smith, T. (Normanton)

  Mr. Pearson and

  Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)

  Snow, Capt. J. W.

  Mr. Collindridge

  Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)

  Solley, L. J.

  NOES

  Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

  Bowen, R.

  Corbett, Lt.-Col. U. (Ludlow)

  Aitken, Hon. Max.

  Bower, N.

  Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.

  Amory, D. Heathcoat

  Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Anderson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Scot. Univ.)

  Bracken, Rt. Hon. Brendan

  Crowder, Capt. J. F E.

  Assheton, Rt. Hon. R.

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W

  Guthbert, W. N.

  Astor, Hon. M.

  Bullock, Capt. M.

  Darling, Sir W. Y.

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Butcher, H. W.

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Barlow, Sir J.

  Byers, Lt.-Col. F.

  Davies, Clement (Montgomery)

  Baxter, A. B.

  Carson, E.

  De la Bère, R.

  Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.

  Challen, C.

  Digby, Maj. S. W.

  Bennett, Sir P.

  Channon, H.

  Dodds-Parker, A. D.

  Birch, Lt-Col. Nigel

  Clarke, Col. R. S.

  Donner, Sqn.-Ldr. P. W.

  Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C. (Wells)

  Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G

  Drayson, G. B.

  Boothby, R.

  Conant, Maj. R. J. E.

  Drewe, C.

  Bossom, A. C.

  Cooper-Key, E M.

  Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)

  1216

  1217

  Duncan, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (City of Lond.)

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.

  Robinson, Wing Comdr. Roland

  Eccles, D. M.

  MacAndrew, Col. Sir C.

  Ropner, Col. L.

  Eden, Rt. Hon. A.

  Macdonald, Capt. Sir P. (I. of Wight)

  Ross, Sir R.

  Erroll, F J.

  Mackeson, Lt.-Col. H. R.

  Sanderson, Sir F.

  Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E. L.

  McKie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Savory, Prof. D. L.

  Foster, J. G. (Northwich)

  Maclay, Hon. J. S.

  Scott, Lord W.

  Fox, Sqn.-Ldr. Sir G.

  Maclean, Brig. F. H. R. (Lancaster)

  Shephard, S. (Newark)

  Fraser, Maj. H. C. P (Stone)

  MacLeod, Capt. J.

  Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)

  Gage, Lt.-Col. C.

  Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold

  Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W.

  Glossop, C. W. H.

  Macpherson, Maj. N. (Dumfries)

  Smithers, Sir W.

  Glyn, Sir R.

  Maitland, Comdr. J. W.

  Snadden, W. M.

  Gomme-Duncan, Col. A. G.

  Marlowe, A. A. H.

  Spearman, A. C. M.

  Grimston, R. V

  Marples, A. E.

  Spence, H. R.

  Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)

  Marsden, Capt. A

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. O.

  Hare, Lt.-Col. Hon. J. H. (W'dbridge)

  Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)

  Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

  Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V.

  Maude, J. C.

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

  Headlam, Lieut.-Col Rt. Hon. Sir C.

  Medlicott, Brig. F.

  Stuart, Rt. Hon. J.

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Mellor, Sir J.

  Studholme, H. G.

  Herbert, Sir A. P.

  Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir T.

  Sulcliffe, H.

  Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

  Morris, Hopkin (Carmarthen)

  Strauss, H. G. (Com. Eng. Univ'sities)

  Hogg, Hon Q.

  Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)

  Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

  Hollis, M. C.

  Morrison, Rt. Hn, W. S. (Cirencester)

  Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'dd't'n, S.)

  Holmes, Sir J. Stanley

  Mott-Radclyffe, Maj. C E.

  Teeling, William

  Hope, Lord J.

  Nicholson, G

  Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Howard, Hon. A.

  Noble, Comdr. A. H. P

  Thorneycroft, G. E. P. (Monmouth)

  Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)

  Nutting, Anthony

  Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

  Hulbert, Wing-Comdr. N. J.

  O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

  Thorp, Lt.-Col. R. A. F.

  Hurd, A

  Orr-Ewing, I L

  Touche, G. C

  Hutchison, Lt.-Cdr. Clark (Edin'gh, W.)

  Osborne, C.

  Turton, R. H.

  Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)

  Peake, Rt. Hon. O.

  Vane, W. M. T.

  Jarvis, Sir J.

  Peto, Brig. C. H. M.

  Wakefield, Sir W. W.

  Jeffreys, General Sir G

  Pickthorn, K.

  Ward, Hon. G. R.

  Jennings, R.

  Pitman, I. J.

  Watt, Sir G. S. Harvie

  Keeling, E. H.

  Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

  Webbe, Sir H. (Abbey)

  Kerr, Sir J. Graham

  Poole, O. B. S. (Oswestry)

  Wheatley, Col. M. J.

  Lambert, Hon. G.

  Prior-Palmer, Brig, O.

  White, Sir D. (Farnham)

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Raikes, H. V.

  White, J. B. (Canterbury)

  Langford-Holt, J.

  Ramsay, Maj. S.

  Williams, C. (Torquay)

  Law, Rt. Hon. R. K

  Rayner, Brig. R

  Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)

  Willink, Rt. Hon. H. U.

  Lennox-Boyd, A. T.

  Reid, Rt. Hon. J S. C. (Hillhead)

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Lindsay, M. (Solihull)

  Renton, D.

  Winterton. Rt. Hon. Earl

  Linstead, H. N.

  Roberts, Sqn,-Ldr. Emrys (Merioneth)

  York, C.

  Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)

  Robert, H. (Handsworth)

  Low, Brig. A R. W.

  Roberts, Maj. P G. (Ecclesall)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES

  Lucas, Major Sir J

  Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)

  Sir Arthur Young and

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir H

  Robertson, Sir D. (Streatham)

  Mr. Buchan-Hepburn

  Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

  ADJOURNMENT

  Resolved: "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. R. J. Taylor.]

  Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-seven Minutes past Nine o'Clock.

BRITISH ARMY
  Military College of Science
  Military College of Science
  Retired Officers (Honorary Rank)
  Retired Officers (Honorary Rank)
  Requisitioned Premises, Belģum
  Requisitioned Premises, Belģum
  Shanklin Esplanade (War Damaģe)
  Shanklin Esplanade (War Damaģe)
  Horses and Mules (Mediterranean Area)
  Horses and Mules (Mediterranean Area)
  Personal Cases
  Personal Cases
  Yellow Fever
  Yellow Fever
  Terni Detention Camp (Yugoslav Nationals)
  Terni Detention Camp (Yugoslav Nationals)
  Germans and Austrians (Marriaģe)
  Germans and Austrians (Marriaģe)
  Town Hall, Cromer
  Town Hall, Cromer
  Scrub Typhus Vaccine, Far East
  Scrub Typhus Vaccine, Far East
  Canteen Facilities, Colchester
  Canteen Facilities, Colchester
  Camps, Huntly (Cost)
  Camps, Huntly (Cost)
  Doģs (Transport Accommodation)
  Doģs (Transport Accommodation)
  Surplus Huts
  Surplus Huts
  Cadet Forces
  Cadet Forces
  Enteric Fever Cases
  Enteric Fever Cases
  Land, Merioneth (Correspondence)
  Land, Merioneth (Correspondence)
  Demobilisation
  Demobilisation
  Spread Eaģle Assembly Hall, Thame
  Spread Eaģle Assembly Hall, Thame
  Training Area, County Down
  Training Area, County Down
  Masonic Hall, Thame
  Masonic Hall, Thame
  Students
  Students
  Artillery Ranģe, Merioneth (Explosives)
  Artillery Ranģe, Merioneth (Explosives)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  War Damaģe Commission (Financial Position)
  War Damaģe Commission (Financial Position)
  Public Undertakinģs (War Damaģe)
  Public Undertakinģs (War Damaģe)
  Victory Celebrations
  Victory Celebrations
  Dominions and U.S.A. Taxation
  Dominions and U.S.A. Taxation
  War Damaģe Claims
  War Damaģe Claims
  Government Departments (Staffs)
  Government Departments (Staffs)
  >University Grants
  >University Grants
  Entertainments Tax (Cinemas)
  Entertainments Tax (Cinemas)
  Bank of Enģland and Joint Stock Banks
  Bank of Enģland and Joint Stock Banks
TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING
  Land Acquisition (Inquiries)
  Land Acquisition (Inquiries)
  Breekland Area
  Breekland Area
MINISTRY OF WORKS
  Hyde Park (Closing of Gates)
  Hyde Park (Closing of Gates)
  Royal Parks (Traffic)
  Royal Parks (Traffic)
  Whitinģ
  Whitinģ
  Surplus Hanģars
  Surplus Hanģars
  Ocklynģe Farm House, Eastbourne
  Ocklynģe Farm House, Eastbourne
  Government Buildings (Heatinģ)
  Government Buildings (Heatinģ)
  Buildinģ Industry (Workinģ Rules)
  Buildinģ Industry (Workinģ Rules)
  Holyrood Park
  Holyrood Park
  Faraday Buildinģs, London (Extension)
  Faraday Buildinģs, London (Extension)
  Liverpool Exchanģe (Repairs)
  Liverpool Exchanģe (Repairs)
  Victory Parade (Cost of Preparations)
  Victory Parade (Cost of Preparations)
  Requisitioned Premises
  Requisitioned Premises
  Ibstock Place, Roehampton
  Ibstock Place, Roehampton
  Brick Production
  Brick Production
HOUSING
  Bricklayers (Bonus)
  Bricklayers (Bonus)
  Temporary Houses (Manaģinģ Costs)
  Temporary Houses (Manaģinģ Costs)
  Dunstable
  Dunstable
  Buildinģ Costs
  Buildinģ Costs
  Budbury Circle
  Budbury Circle
FUEL AND POWER
  Rural Areas (Coal Supplies)
  Rural Areas (Coal Supplies)
  Electricity Supplies (Low Voltaģes)
  Electricity Supplies (Low Voltaģes)
  New Hire Car Services (Petrol)
  New Hire Car Services (Petrol)
  Petrol (" L" and "N" Coupons)
  Petrol (" L" and "N" Coupons)
  Street Liģhtinģ, Fulham Road
  Street Liģhtinģ, Fulham Road
  Wood Fuel
  Wood Fuel
  Coal Distribution, Hull
  Coal Distribution, Hull
  Poles (Electricity Mains)
  Poles (Electricity Mains)
  Steam Power Stations (Fuel)
  Steam Power Stations (Fuel)
COAL INDUSTRY
  Cost Per Ton
  Cost Per Ton
  Conveyance Methods
  Conveyance Methods
  American Methods
  American Methods
  Dutch Points System
  Dutch Points System
MILITARY SERVICE
  Personal Case
  Personal Case
  Ponies (Ill-treatment Prosecutions)
  Ponies (Ill-treatment Prosecutions)
  Conscription
  Conscription
  Students
  Students
  Surgical Appliances (Key Workers)
  Surgical Appliances (Key Workers)
  Aģricultural Students
  Aģricultural Students
  Reģistration (Choice of Service)
  Reģistration (Choice of Service)
EMPLOYMENT
  Loch Sloy Hydro-Electric Scheme
  Loch Sloy Hydro-Electric Scheme
  Scheduled Employment
  Scheduled Employment
  Farm Labour (Advertisements)
  Farm Labour (Advertisements)
  Buildinģ Operatives, Wales
  Buildinģ Operatives, Wales
  Resettlement Grants Scheme
  Resettlement Grants Scheme
  Ex-Service Personnel (Placinģ)
  Ex-Service Personnel (Placinģ)
  Laundry Industry (Women)
  Laundry Industry (Women)
  Port Transport Workers (Earninģs)
  Port Transport Workers (Earninģs)
  Scotland
  Scotland
  Glasģow
  Glasģow
  Thanet Coastal Towns
  Thanet Coastal Towns
  Buildinģ and Decoratinģ (Traininģ)
  Buildinģ and Decoratinģ (Traininģ)
  Disabled Persons (Training)
  Disabled Persons (Training)
DEMOBILISATION
  Aģricultural Workers
  Aģricultural Workers
  Aģricultural Students
  Aģricultural Students
  Male Niģht Telephonists
  Male Niģht Telephonists
  Carpenters and Joiners
  Carpenters and Joiners
  Buildinģ and Civil Enģineerinģ Workers
  Buildinģ and Civil Enģineerinģ Workers
  Release Programme
  Release Programme
  HOLIDAY RESORTS (ARRANGEMENTS)
  HOLIDAY RESORTS (ARRANGEMENTS)
SCOTLAND
  Hydro-Electric Board (Chainnan's Allowances)
  Hydro-Electric Board (Chainnan's Allowances)
  War Reserve Police
  War Reserve Police
  Fishinģ Industry
  Fishinģ Industry
  Building Trade Workers (Releases)
  Building Trade Workers (Releases)
  Employment (Ayrshire)
  Employment (Ayrshire)
  Housing (Conversion)
  Housing (Conversion)
  Aģriculture
  Aģriculture
  MARCONI (SUGGESTED MEMORIAL)
  MARCONI (SUGGESTED MEMORIAL)
  HYDROPONIC CULTIVATION
  HYDROPONIC CULTIVATION
  ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPS
  ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPS
EDUCATION
  Wales
  Wales
  Transport, Bidford-on-Avon
  Transport, Bidford-on-Avon
  SMALLPPOX (SHIPS)
  SMALLPPOX (SHIPS)
  MINISTRY OF SUPPLY (MEMBER'S LETTER)
  MINISTRY OF SUPPLY (MEMBER'S LETTER)
  FIRE SERVICE, HODDESDON.
  FIRE SERVICE, HODDESDON.
  NEED ASSESSMENT (DISREGARDS)
  NEED ASSESSMENT (DISREGARDS)
  ROYAL AIR FORCE (PERSONAL CASES)
  ROYAL AIR FORCE (PERSONAL CASES)
  INISTRY OF CIVIL AVIATION (STAFF)
  INISTRY OF CIVIL AVIATION (STAFF)

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack
Prayers.
The Lord Amherst of Hackney—Took the Oath.

THE LATE FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT GORT.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (VISCOUNT STANSGATE): My Lords, in the absence through indisposition of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I have been asked to make some reference to the grievous loss which this House has sustained in the death of Lord Gort, and to express on behalf of the Government our deep sympathy with those he has left behind. In a House so rich in great military commanders it would seem more fitting that one of them should be the first to speak of this dead hero, but the Government, speaking for the nation, claim the privilege of laying the first wreath upon a warrior's tomb. The ordinary people know little of ranks, honours, decorations and distinctions; but with unerring instinct they penetrate to the qualities that lie beneath, and in Lord Gort they perceived three great qualities, those of courage, fortitude and kindness. In this country we always put courage first, and certainly he had no peer in personal courage. But the official citation tells us little; it can only recount the deeds; it says nothing of the inward struggle of which the deeds are the fruit. Then fortitude, Lord Gort's name is associated with Dunkirk, from whose disastrous beaches it required a personal order to persuade him to return.
"Who so beset him round
With dismal stories,
Do but themselves confound.
His strength the more is."
It was on the moral triumph of Dunkirk that the military triumphs of the war were based. His kindness was well known, his constant solicitude and
474
thought for his men. As an example of that, there is the sharing of his rations with the common soldier in starving Malta—the Commander-in-Chief known to all and passing among them with the mien of the Happy Lover. He revealed to us a great truth which is the foundation of all human society—that we are all one clay. These truths endure when, honours are forgotten; they console us in the moment of our sorrow. For him there is no sorrow, only gladness.
"This is the Happy Warrior, this is he
That every man in arms should wish to be."
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, I know that everyone on this side of the House will wish most sincerely to be associated with the moving tribute which the Secretary of State has paid to the memory of a great soldier. As the history of the war comes to be written, I think it will be more and more recognized how much this country and the Allied cause owes to Lord Gort. He was fated never to have a supreme independent command, but there can be no doubt that he was a supremely great leader of men. He proved that beyond a peradventure as a battalion commander in the first Great War. That was confirmed again and again in every command which he held in this last war. In France, up to the time of the retreat he was a: subordinate commander, loyally carrying, out a strategy of which he may at times have doubted the wisdom. He was not his own master until the long testing retreat, when, by his skill and courage, he extricated the British Army, and in so doing probably saved this country. I suppose history will rank that most difficult campaign with the Battle of Britain, as one of the two most critical operations, of the war; indeed, they were chapters of the same epic.
The subsequent course of the war must have brought him disappointment, but he never showed it. He filled successive appointments with selfless devotion to-duty, and with signal success—and they were vitally important. From the day he arrived in Gibraltar he set himself with tireless energy to create an impregnable fortress, and as he excavated and tunnelled those marvellous defences in the Rock, he built the airfield which owes so much to his foresight as well as to his energy—that great airfield which was to stand the liberating forces in such good stead in

475
the North African campaign. Then he went from Gibraltar to Malta, where the same tireless energy and the inspiration of his courage and example did so much to hold the untenable. He was to its people the true and perfect Knight of Malta. When Malta was relieved, another hard task claimed him, Palestine, to which he gave his health as he had so often risked his life. There, by his sincerity, his wisdom, and his transparent fairness, he won, as few other men could have won, the respect and the confidence of Arab and of Jew. Characteristically, he carried on till failing health forced him to give up. So ends a life of service, of comradeship and of example. He was indeed, as the Secretary of State has said, in the very truest sense the Happy Warrior.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, Lord Gort was one of those men of strong and simple character who command universal confidence and who are enabled to show the greatest capacities for leadership. By his gallantry he won the Military Cross, the Distinguished Service Order with two bars, and, finally, the Victoria Cross. Whenever there was a specially hard task to be done, it was Lord Gort who was called upon to do it. Before the outbreak of the recent war, when danger was clearly looming close at hand, it was he who was made Chief of the Imperial General Staff with the task of reorganizing our Army. When war broke out, and a small British force was called upon to face overwhelming odds, it was he who was made its Commander-in-Chief. After Dunkirk, when it appeared that Gibraltar would be the object of a dangerous assault, Lord Gort was sent there to be the General Officer in command. When that danger seemed to have passed away, and it was Malta which was the key point of danger, he again was made its Governor and Commander-in-Chief.
As the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, has just said, when the war was over, and Palestine was perhaps the most difficult of all the immediate and urgent political problems that faced this country, he was sent there to be its High Commissioner. I can fully confirm from my close contacts with Palestine that he won universal esteem and confidence. I believe, so far as I know, no word of criticism of his administration was ever uttered, and his
476
cruel illness deprived Palestine at a moment of crisis of a Government in which the whole country had the greatest confidence. He was a great soldier, a great servant of the country, and we mourn his loss and sympathize with those he has left behind.
LORD CHETWODE: My Lords, I think it would ill befit me as the only Field-Marshal in the House at this moment, and perhaps as one of the few men under whom Lord Gort has personally served, if I did not say a word in addition to what the noble Lords have already said. I knew him well. He was not only one of the bravest men I have met in my life but he was one of the most charming. He served under me in India, and I feel that is where his ill health began. He was Director of Military Training. In addition to his bravery he was a very, very able Staff officer indeed, and perhaps what was even more striking was that you never heard his name mentioned either by a man or a woman in India without the addition of "What a charming man." He was so personally charming. You cannot say he has been lucky in this war. He has had almost every difficult job thrown at his head. He has throughout taken those jobs without question and always done everything that could be done in those jobs and, I think you will agree, a little more besides.
Even when he went to command our troops in France he was one of those most unfortunate men, a British soldier who is put in command of British troops at the beginning of a war. He only had four divisions to deal with the Germans, who then counted their divisions by hundreds, and he had no armour to help him. He never lost heart. I went out to stay with him there. How he managed to get those troops away from Dunkirk will always be to me a complete mystery, but I am quite certain there was one reason for it, and that was his personal gallantry and the way he perpetually showed himself to his troops in the front line and everywhere else. They knew he was there and behind them the whole time. That is really the secret of his success with troops; they knew they could always depend on him. England is the poorer for his loss, and certainly we in the Army are very much the poorer for his loss, because we have not only lost a man almost romantically brave but the sort

477
of man we can only think of as having the qualities of the perfect leader.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I should like to associate myself with the tributes which have been paid to the memory of my old Chief, Lord Gort. Having had many opportunities of serving in close relationship under Lord Gort both in France and Malta I learned to appreciate to the full his unique character. On the beaches of Dunkirk he had resolved to fight with his troops to the last and he would have fulfilled that oft repeated wish had it not been for other calls of a special nature which were made on his services. On his arrival in Malta he brought new inspiration and new hope and it was his indomitable courage and his devotion to the Island and her sorely tried people that earned for him their everlasting gratitude. As has been stated, he was, on occasions, a disappointed man but he continued, after the fall of France and during a period of great personal bereavement and unhappiness, to carry out every task, however difficult, which he was called upon to discharge. In times of mortal peril and great danger he never wavered from his inflexible faith in final victory.
It is well that we should pause for a few moments to pay our respects to this great soldier whose qualities are certain to give him a permanent place in our history. We who knew him and loved him will always carry the memory of a God-fearing man, a true friend, a great Guardsman and a loyal and devoted servant to his King and country.

POLICE (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
LORD WESTWOOD: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to provide for the amalgamation of police forces in Scotland; to provide for the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of grants towards police expenditure in Scotland; to amend the law relating to the provision of buildings and acquisition of land in Scotland for police purposes; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid; and to move that the Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Westwood.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

HOUSING (FINANCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
ARMY AND AIR FORCE (ANNUAL) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

EDUCATION BILL.
2.48 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, you will remember the Education Act of 1944 as the boldest and most far-sighted measure of social reform carried through Parliament during the war years. It was also memorable as a further stage in the development of our collective responsibility for giving an equal educational opportunity and a higher standard of culture to those who lack the advantages of parental affluence. This Bill merely consequential upon the Act of 1944. It seeks to make more effective the policy approved at that time by all Parties represented in the Coalition Government and by both the voluntary and public agencies that together operate our system of education. For this purpose it sets out to qualify existing law and to make a certain number of minor modifications in it. These small amendments are required to bring about the educational advance proposed in 1944 with greater speed and efficiency.
I propose to deal in my remarks on the Bill with the main alterations in existing law needed in our view to complete the job begun by the Education Act 1944. My first example occurs in Clause 1 of the Bill. Under the 1944 Act, local education authorities are responsible for all expenses of maintaining a controlled school, but they cannot pay for the enlargement of such a school if the additional building they have in mind is extensive enough to amount to the provision of a new school. There are many cases, however, where it would be more economical and educationally efficient to enlarge an existing controlled school than to build an entirely new county school or to keep in being a number of small controlled schools.

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Clause 1, therefore, enables local education authorities to pay for such an extension of an existing controlled school provided, of course, that the Minister is satisfied by their reasons in every case.
Under Clause 6 of the Bill the local education authorities would be able to get the work of enlargement and any other building or repairs undertaken carried out by themselves. As I have already mentioned, these authorities are already responsible for the expenses involved in maintaining a controlled school. They ought, therefore, to be in a position to make sure that the work is done as economically as possible. It is also probable that, in these days, with their greater resources they will be able to get this constructional work done more quickly than the school managers or governors. A third clause which is designed to hasten preparation for the raising of the school-leaving age, is Clause 5, which widens the scope of Section 109 of the 1944 Act. That section empowers the local education authorities to provide temporary accommodation for voluntary schools if the Minister is satisfied that it is essential, owing either to difficulties arising from war conditions or to the coming into operation of Part II of the main Act.
These powers, however, can be used only when the permanent accommodation will ultimately be provided by the managers or governors of the school concerned. This limitation is, at present, hampering preparations for the raising of the compulsory school-leaving age which is due to go up on April 1 of next year, and the purpose of the clause is to remove it. Authorities will then be in a position to provide temporary accommodation for a voluntary school whatever the agency may be that will provide permanent accommodation for its pupils. Let me give an example if I may. There are many Church schools of mixed ages from which the senior children will ultimately go to county secondary schools. The clauses which I have mentioned so far are those which are aimed at making available as quickly as possible the increased accommodation which will be needed when we have to cater for a very much larger number of schoolchildren.
I should now like to turn to Clause 7, which will, I believe, be specially appre-
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ciated by those of your Lordships who are keenly interested in the question of religious education. Under the Education Act of 1921 it was a common practice for Church of England and Roman Catholic schools to celebrate religious worship on certain occasions of special significance in Church and not on the school premises. Under the terms of the 1944 Act this practice is no longer possible; the collective act of worship must take place on the school premises, but it was not intended by the authors of the Act that this should be an invariable rule in all types of school. Aided and special agreement schools are clearly in a different position as compared with other schools. Provision is, therefore, made that in these types of school the collective act of worship may, on appropriate occasions of high religious significance, such as the Feast of Title or Ascension Day, take place elsewhere than in a classroom or other part of a school building.
Those who speak in this House for the Church of England and for the other religious denominations in the country will, I am sure, welcome this particular provision. I believe that they will also be pleased to note the provision in paragraph I of the First Schedule of the Bill. It is made clear in this paragraph that the responsibility for providing any additional site which may be needed for an existing voluntary school or a new site to which a voluntary school is transferred under Section 16 of the 1944 Act rests with the local education authority, and not with the managers or governors of the school. This conclusion is, indeed, implied in the 1944 Act, but it is reached there in such a roundabout way that there has already been misunderstanding about the intention of the Act; hence the urgent need for the clarification of the law contained in paragraph 1 of the First Schedule.
The First Schedule further provides, in paragraph 6—and here it does break new ground—that any such site shall be conveyed by the local education authority to the trustees of the school. This is to get over the legal difficulty that in many cases trust moneys cannot be used for erecting buildings on land which does not actually belong to the trust, and which, of course, does not, therefore, offer complete security of tenure. It would, of course, defeat the object of the local authorities in giving this limited assistance to voluntary schools if the managers were then

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unable to put up their school buildings on the land purchased expressly for that purpose. But the obligation of fairness in monetary matters works both ways. It it, of course, mutual as between the trustees of such properties and the local education authorities. In the case of a controlled school, the local education authority will also cover the cost of the erection of any new buildings on the site, and since the trustees may be able to sell the old site or buildings for a considerable sum—quite a likely event in these days—a duty is placed on them by paragraph 7 of the First Schedule of the Bill to pay to the local education authority such sum as the Minister may consider just, as a contribution towards the cost of the new buildings. It would certainly be unreasonable to suggest—and I do not believe that anyone does suggest it—that the trustees should pocket the whole of what may be a considerable windfall.
It is possible that when a piece of land has been provided for a voluntary school by a local education authority, in the way I have just described, and has been conveyed to the trustees, a portion of it may subsequently be acquired by a public authority—for example, by a highway authority for road-widening purposes. A duty is therefore placed upon the trustees by paragraph 8 of the First Schedule of the Bill to pay to the local education authority a fair share of the compensation or purchase money. It is also necessary to safeguard public moneys in the event of the closure of a voluntary school on which capital expenditure has been incurred either by the local education authority or by the Minister. Accordingly, among the miscellaneous amendments in the Second Schedule of the Bill is one to empower the Minister to require the repayment of so much of the expenditure as he thinks just. Alternatively, if the premises in question are still needed for educational purposes, he may require them to be conveyed to the local education authority. Any payment made will be a value payment. It will have regard, of course, to the circumstances existing at the time the transaction takes place, and will take full account of any increase in the value of the site, or any fall in the value of the buildings. Of course, it cuts the other way too. The local education authority will themselves, if they acquire the
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premises, have to make a payment to the school in so far as any part of the buildings or premises concerned was not provided by them, by the local education authorities, in the first instance.
There is one other aspect of the financial relations between public education authorities and the voluntary schools I think I ought to mention. Clause 4 of the Bill provides that the managers or governors of a voluntary school shall pay to the local education authority any proceed from the letting or hiring of any part of the school premises other than school buildings. This means, in effect, that the local education authority are to receive any sums derived from the letting or hiring, out of school hours of course, of playing fields, a caretaker's house, a pavilion, a medical inspection room, or a dining room. The justification for this injunction is that the playing fields and the buildings I have just mentioned are provided entirely at the expense of the local education authorities.
Clause 9 of the Bill is important because it gives local education authorities additional powers to provide clothing. The need for a supply of spare clothing in a nursery school or for children attending nursery classes, is obvious enough, and calls for no explanation; but I would like to say something about the effect of paragraph (a) of this clause, and the reason for its inclusion in the Bill. The powers here conferred on local education authorities are primarily designed for mentally or physically handicapped children attending residential special schools. But they will also be useful when conditions make it possible for local education authorities to provide boarding schools for normal children. Under the 1944 Act, the parent is, in 99 cases out of 100, not required to make any contribution to the cost of boarding his child at a special school, as the child is sent there because it is only in that way that he can be given a suitable education. But under Section 51 of this Act, the 1944 Act, the parent is liable to contribute to the cost of clothing worn by the child. There are two objections to this arrangement. In the first place, a strict application of Section 51 will involve an examination of the wardrobe of each child admitted to a residential special school, the application of a means test to the parent, and the subsequent charge of varying contributions

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according to the parents' financial position and the amount of clothes provided for an individual child.
Apart from the obvious objections to such an inquisitorial procedure, the effort and cost involved would be quite disproportionate to the results achieved. In the second place, it is still not generally realized what very little clothing poor children actually have. They have practically no reserve of clothing to meet an emergency. Their parents, if they are not completely indifferent, get over this difficulty by sending the child to bed while his clothes are being washed; but no public authority can resort to procedure of this kind, nor can it allow the children to go about in the streets in clothes which, being extremely scanty or shabby, might seriously reflect on the good management of the school. Another point I would make is this. Special schools aim at making their pupils as normal-looking as possible, and they are helped in off-setting the visible impression of particular defects if the children's clothing is sufficient and attractive. The Government have therefore decided that it is in the best interests of the defective children to enable authorities to provide the additional clothing free of charge, and without inquiry into the parents' means.
These few remarks have been directed to those provisions of the Bill that were either of outstanding importance in themselves or likely to be of special interest to the House, but of course I will gladly give further explanations if they are asked for by any noble Lords who may speak later in the debate. In the meantime, I do commend this Bill to the House as the humble instrument of a great design, and I beg to move that it be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
3.6 p.m.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, I should like very briefly to congratulate the Minister of Education on producing this Bill, and to thank the noble Earl for the clarity with which he has laid it before us. I noticed that in another place there was complete agreement on almost every detail of the Bill, and that there was agreement throughout the Committee stage when a number of Amendments
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were moved, both by the Minister and by members of other parts of the House. I think that is not surprising when we remember the discussions we had in your Lordships' House during the passage of the Bill of 1944. I have not actually looked up and counted the number of days, but I should be very much surprised if we did not spend more than ten days in Committee with a great number of Amendments. It is not surprising that now, when the Bill is beginning to be examined and put into operation, a number of points should require adjustment. There is only one point I venture to make, which is to support what Mr. Butler said, in another place, in asking the Minister to consider very seriously the early consolidation of this Bill with the Act of 1944. It is most desirable for educational administrators to be able to pick up one Act and really see what is required of them. I can only see one possible argument against taking this action at once, and that is, as is quite possible during the next twelve months or so, that other points still may become apparent; other points may require adjustment. Naturally, if the Minister thinks that is likely to happen, she will desire to postpone any consolidation.
With such considerable degree of agreement on this Bill, I do not think it is necessary to weary your Lordships with reference to particular clauses. I would like, however, to mention Clause I. Clause I undoubtedly may not satisfy all the noble Lords entirely, but I think we should be agreed that it is a very considerable advance on the powers of local authorities in assisting a particular type of voluntary schools—controlled schools, perhaps I should say. It is only another registration of the fact of how far we have outgrown the old religious controversies connected with education, which in the past did so much harm to the general cause.
The noble Lord referred to a considerable number of clauses, but I do not think he mentioned one clause which I particularly welcome. That is Clause 8. There is no doubt that these broken terms have been the cause of an immense amount of disorganization in the schools. The fact that a pupil could leave the school in the middle of a term, on the very day on which he or she attained the school-leaving age, resulted in a considerable

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breaking up of classes and disorganization of school life. I should like to congratulate the Minister on having tackled that problem.
I also welcome Clause 4, which I think one should read with the First Schedule to the Bill. We have here a considerable clarification and strengthening of the obligations of authorities with regard to the provision of facilities for medical inspection, for canteens and for playing fields. As I read the Schedule—perhaps the noble Earl will correct me if I am wrong—it makes the ultimate responsibility of the local authorities with regard to this matter very much clearer than in the past. Indeed, it places the ultimate responsibility upon them with regard to all types of school. These are the only clauses in the Bill to which I would make particular reference. I should like, however, once again to congratulate the Minister on tackling this difficult and most important matter and on making these adjustments.
3.11 p.m.
LORD SOULBURY: My Lords, I should like to add my congratulations to the Minister of Education on this admirable Bill, not only on account of its contents but in having persuaded her colleagues, when there is so much competing legislation, to find time for it. That is no mean achievement. It was of course inevitable in a Bill of the magnitude of the 1944 Act that certain small cracks and flaws should begin to show themselves. The marvel indeed is that not more have been revealed. As my noble friend has pointed out, I think that is largely due not only to the long and patient negotiations which preceded that legislation but to the careful and protracted attention given to it in Committee. It would probably be a very good thing if all our legislation could receive similar care and attention.
There are very few clauses to which I would make reference. Clauses 1 to 5 will I think be of very great help to local authorities in carrying out the class of development which is prescribed for in the 1944 Act. Speaking as a member of a local education authority, I can assure your Lordships that they will be aware of the help which they can receive. I think it is probable that, under the policy of providing secondary education for all, in due course there will be a con-
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siderable discontinuance of the smaller schools, such as the village and voluntary schools. That tendency was already in operation before the war as a result of the policy of reorganization. As noble Lords are aware, local authorities were then busy in building new schools for the children of eleven years of age and over. In the rural districts many of these schools—I think too many—were being sited in the local towns. That was no doubt a convenience to the local authority, and probably there were many points in the favour of such a policy.
With such experience as I had, I formed the opinion that, with regard to what are called the area schools, the East Suffolk authority probably made the best provision for that type of school, which is called a senior school, that could be made in the country. It was not possible to do what this Bill now makes it possible to do, but the Suffolk authority built these new schools in the countryside in a central position reasonably adjacent to a number of village schools and within a practical radius. But they could not do what this Bill now proposes may be done. Nor indeed did the 1944 Act make it possible. It is now possible to take a suitably sited voluntary village school and enlarge it so as to make a central school in the same way as one finds with East Suffolk area schools at present. The result, of which many of your Lordships I am sure will approve, will be to make secondary education available in the countryside without the children having to go into the towns for it. There is only one point which I should like to make with regard to these enlarged schools, and that is that I hope they will not be too large. It is difficult to define what the size of a school should be, just as it is in business or industry or indeed any human undertaking. I would, however, say that where one has the case of a headmaster of a school no longer being able to act, as it were, as the guide, philosopher and friend of the pupils, but mainly as administrator, then that school in my opinion is too large.
Clause 5 will be of very considerable help to local authorities in their task of making provision for the raising of the school-leaving age in about a year's time. Clause 109 of the 1944 Act is certainly unduly restrictive. It is essential to have power to build these temporary classrooms for the new age group, where the

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school permits, where there is room for them. Without that I can see very considerable difficulty indeed in arranging accommodation for the children of the new age group. Of course what we all want are good, permanent school buildings everywhere, but sometimes one could wish that our ancestors had themselves indulged in a bit of temporary building instead of some of the frightful and indestructible buildings which the Victorian age produced for the benefit of the children of that time. With the standard of educational equipment and building changing so rapidly, one might be excused for wondering whether even now it is safe to build a school to last for more than one generation. At any rate, the position is this: unless advantage is taken of this clause to provide this temporary accommodation (which can be quite pleasant and agreeable), and, unless that is provided in considerable quantity, there will be a great danger of producing what is the great bugbear to all teachers—the large class. I notice that in another place the Parliamentary Secretary said in his opinion a good building was as important as a good teacher. I doubt that. With such experience as I have had in opening very fine new schools, I have always formed the opinion that, unless the quality of the teacher was as good as or better than that of the building, the school would not have a successful future.
There is one other clause in respect of which I will say a few words. That is Clause 9, to which the noble Earl referred. That, if I may say so, is an admirable clause. I am, however, wondering whether it goes quite far enough. For instance, so far as I can see, a local authority is to provide clothing free of charge—that is, blazers, gym. costumes, and so forth—for any pupil who is a boarder at any educational institution maintained by the authority, and for the pupils at the nursery schools. So far as I can see, this would not enable the authority to make such provision for a boarder in a direct-grant school or in a school assisted by a local authority. I am also not clear whether such provision would be made for a child in the area of one authority who boards in a school maintained by another authority. Nor, of course, does it presumably apply to children who go to independent schools. I hope the future will see a much larger
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proportion of these poorer children eventually finding their way to these schools. I may have, however, misunderstood the clause, and I should be obliged if the noble Earl in his reply would enlighten me on that point. Otherwise I personally have no criticism and no misgivings about this admirable Bill, and I hope your Lordships will give it your full approval.
3.19 p.m.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I am speaking on this occasion as a Roman Catholic, and not as a member of the Liberal Party. We welcome this Bill, which we think is a clarification of the original Act and will help considerably from an administrative point of view. I confess that when the Bill was introduced in another place we had certain qualms about some of its provisions. These qualms have been largely allayed because the Minister was able to accept the principle of certain Amendments we put forward and gave us also an assurance on one particular point—namely, Clause 14, Schedule 2. But I would ask the noble Earl to note that it is probable, arising out of that assurance, that I shall put down an Amendment at the Committee stage when it comes before your Lordships. It will only be a small Amendment and in line with the assurance to which I have referred. Meanwhile I would like to express to the Minister our thanks for the attention and courtesy she gave to the proposals we placed before her in another place.
Your Lordships will see that, as I have said, we welcome this Bill and we have acquiesced in and generally welcomed the 1944 Act. I feel bound to take this opportunity to remind your Lordships that while the Catholic community has pledged itself to do its utmost to make that Act workable it is by no means satisfied with all the provisions of that Act. We find it is quite intolerable that Catholic parents should be penalized financially for sending their children to Catholic schools. We look upon that not only as a severe burden but as a grave injustice and we intend to do our utmost to get it obliterated as soon as an opportunity arises. Meanwhile we welcome this Bill.
3.23 p.m.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK: My Lords, I want just to add one word of welcome for this Bill. It was a Bill

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necessary to meet a number of difficulties which had arisen in the actual administration., and I think that it is agreed that most of these Amendments do improve the Bill. Perhaps Clause 7 may need a little scrutiny when we come to the Committee stage and I hope that that may be interpreted very liberally on the few occasions on which there may be special services in a building or otherwise actually in the schools. It is possible that later on in the Committee stage the clause may be made clearer. Meanwhile I welcome the Bill and say that it is indeed satisfactory to find that a wide-reaching measure of educational reform can go through without reviving the old controversies which so often hampered education in the past.
3.24 p.m.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, I will only add a very brief word on this Second Reading. I agree with those noble Lords who have congratulated the framers of the Bill upon the Bill, which seems to me on the whole a very desirable measure. The only remark I want to make is this. When a Bill of this kind comes up and I have an opportunity of reading it, I read it with the object of seeing whether as a lawyer I can understand it and whether it is something which the Courts or other people who have to deal with it will be able to understand. On the whole I express the opinion, because I am sometimes a critic on these occasions, that this Bill is very well drafted and is a credit to the draftsman.
The only portion which for my part I cannot construe with any accurate meaning is at line 10 on the first page—namely, Clause 1, subsection (1). That refers to the enlargement of controlled schools. The clause provides that:
"If upon the application of a local education authority and the managers or governors of a controlled school maintained by the authority, the Minister of Education (hereinafter referred to as the Minister) is satisfied"
of something, then he can make a certain order. But he has got to be satisfied of two conditions, first:
"that it is expedient that the premises of the school should be enlarged to such an extent that the enlargement would amount to the establishment of a new school."
I have tried to realize for myself when an enlargement of a building would
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amount to the establishment of a new school. If there is an existing school with an existing building and the enlargement would amount to, we will say, thirty pupils, would that amount to the establishment of a new school, or would fifty pupils he right? There must be something which is in the mind of the draftsman and I cannot quite see why it should not be ten pupils, if necessary. If the meaning is so vague, those who have to advise the Minister as to whether he could be satisfied that the enlargement was equal to the establishment of a new school would have a very difficult task to perform; and if the Minister requires advice he may be told that no advice can be given him and he must make up his own mind. It is not as if it was a question of the number of pupils.
There is also the second condition:
"that the enlargement is wholly or mainly required for the purpose of providing accommodation for pupils for whom accommodation would have been provided in some other voluntary school if that other school had not been discontinued or had not otherwise ceased to be available for the purpose."
So that you have got some pupils who have to be reasonably provided for and of course the enlargement has got to be a fairly substantial one if the order specified in subsection (1) is going to be made, and the expense of giving effect to the proposals has got to be paid by the local education authority. I am only putting this before the noble Earl in charge of the Bill so that he may consider whether it is not desirable to make it a good deal simpler in order to make the clause, which is a perfectly valid and necessary clause, work. Of course, if the Government are satisfied to leave all insoluble conundrums for the future Minister of Education I have nothing more to say, but I think it is a matter which might be considered before the Committee stage.
3.28 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I should like first to thank the House and all the noble Lords who spoke for the extremely cordial welcome that has been given to this Bill. It is indeed gratifying to all who are keen about education

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that neither Party interests nor denominational issues are in these days allowed to impede educational advance. And that fact has emerged very clearly from the discussion we have had this afternoon. There are one or two points raised by noble Lords which I should like to answer immediately. The noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, said he wished that the Education Acts of 1944–46 could be consolidated because that would be greatly to the convenience of the average person who would otherwise have considerable difficulty in understanding the law. Of course, we are entirely in agreement with him on that point. There is a great deal of leeway in consolidation to make up in many different departments of the law, and I am sure the noble Earl appreciates that education has to take its place and that its claims have to be related to those of other branches of the law.
A point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Soulbury, which I think I can also answer at this moment. He wondered whether a local education authority would be able to provide clothing for a child boarded outside the area in which it lived by a neighbouring local education authority. I can assure him on that point that arrangements have been made for a neighbouring authority to recover the cost involved from the education authority in the area of the child's home. I would only say, on the point to which our attention was directed by the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, that it has been the practice since 1921 for the Minister to determine whether or not an enlargement was of the size to constitute a new school, and that decision has been taken regularly without causing criticism, ever since the Minister was given this power. Accordingly, it is to be hoped and expected that it will not involve the Minister in any difficulties in time to come. I should like to thank the House again for its very gratifying attitude towards a Bill of some importance in education, and to say that I shall be of course delighted during the ensuing stages to deal with any of the Amendments which were foreshadowed.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ACQUISITION OF LAND (AUTHORIZATION PROCEDURE) BILL)
3.34 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD JOWITT): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. After the proceedings which have just taken place, when everybody has been complimenting the Minister of Education, and members of the official Opposition, speaking with great authority, have wondered whether we have gone quite far enough in that measure, this Bill may prove a slight contrast. If the other Bill was a case of "Roses, roses all the way," I do not suppose there will be many roses thrown at the Lord Chancellor by the Opposition for this Bill. Perhaps that why the Lord Chancellor is called upon to move it!
On this question of the acquisition by public authorities of private land, if the Tory Party and the Government did not take different views it would indeed be a most surprising thing. That there is room for two points of view I fully realize. On the one hand there is the fear that the individual may be steam-rollered by a lot of bureaucrats into being deprived of his land, and on the other hand there is the point of view that useful public development may in the future, as in the past, be held up by the reluctance of individuals to part with their land on reasonable terms. There are the two points of view, and each is a useful corrective of the other. I always give your Lordships warning as to whether a Bill is a controversial one or not, and with regard to this Bill I start by warning you that, like the curate's egg, it is controversial—highly controversial—in parts, but other parts I believe are good, useful sustenance.
The Bill in another place had a somewhat stormy Second Reading, it had a Committee stage marked by a very large number of Divisions on all sorts of topics, but when it got to the Third Reading it became quite harmonious again. It was almost like the proceedings which have just taken place here. There were many compliments to the Parliamentary Secretary for the way in which he had conducted the Bill and the Amendments he

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had accepted, and Mr. W. S. Morrison, who has a very considerable knowledge of this topic in that he was Minister of Town and Country Planning, said:
"Clause 1 is a very useful piece of codification and an expert piece of draftsmanship. No doubt it was well worth doing. My objection to the Bill, and that of my honourable friends, is centred entirely on Clause 2 and its relevant schedules."
Therefore I need not, I think, spend very much time on Clause 1. As this matter is an exceedingly complicated one, however, I will endeavour, as briefly as I can, to explain to your Lordships what Clause I does. I heard my noble friend Lord Listowel, on the last Bill, talk about codification, and the desirability of codifying, and I heard the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, who speaks with very great authority, express his pleasure that the last Bill was so well drafted that a highly intelligent lawyer could almost understand all its clauses.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: It is very unusual.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not pretend that I could explain with precision all the clauses of this or any other Bill dealing with the acquisition of land, and I do hope that the time may come, and that I may live to see it, when we can really, having got over the feverish rush of legislation, get down to a stage when we can introduce some codification and clear up our Statute Book, and this would be one of the matters to which we might well devote our attention.
This matter really started, I think, in the fifties of the last century. The Local Government Act was passed in 1858, and that Act introduced the startling innovation of the Provisional Order. The Government of the day were determined to deal with the appalling housing conditions, and so they instituted the Provisional Order procedure, under which a local authority could acquire land. Of course, if they acquired the land there had to be a public inquiry. Then if the acquisition was still opposed, the Provisional Order procedure enabled the person opposing it to contest a Bill, and, if it became a contested Private Bill, to oppose the Bill in another place and then oppose it here. So that there was ample opportunity for the private landowner, always provided he had the necessary financial resources, to see that his land was not taken inadvisedly and improperly.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: I think there was a jury then.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think there was.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: It was an expensive matter.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It was a most expensive matter. There was the further difficulty in practice, as your Lordships who have studied this matter know, that unless you had all your procedure ready before February, you could not take the thing at all. It was, therefore, very expensive and a great deal of delay was involved. In the early years of this century a new procedure was devised instead of the Provisional Order procedure: that is the Compulsory Purchase Order procedure. I think I am right in saying that the first Bill which contained Compulsory Purchase Order machinery was the Housing Act of 1909. Under that machinery the order could be approved, not by Parliament but by the Minister. Since then, that procedure has been developed over a good many fields. It is now applicable to housing, town planning, allotments, highways and education. Apart from particular topics and apart from two temporary Acts to which I will refer in a moment, it was still necessary to proceed by Provisional Order and not by Compulsory Purchase Order. For instance, if a local authority wanted to construct a sewage works or a hospital, and in a hundred other cases, they had to proceed by the Provisional Order procedure; Compulsory Purchase Order procedure was not available to them.
So it was that in 1920, after the first Great War, with the idea of relieving unemployment the Government of the day passed an Act—called, I think, the Unemployment (Relief Works) Act, 1920—authorizing the Compulsory Purchase. Order procedure in those cases. In 1930 the Labour Government of the day passed the Public Works Facilities Act of 1930, also extending the Compulsory Purchase Order procedure. At the time the Labour Government introduced that Act we received no bouquets at all; it was thought we were doing something very wicked and in order to get it through we made it a mere temporary Act. It is satisfactory to observe that that Act has been continued under the Expiring Laws

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Continuance Act regularly every year down to the present time. One of the clauses of this Bill repeals that Act as a temporary Act and puts it, with slight amendments and modifications, as a permanent Act on the Statute Book.
Clause 1 provides that where a local authority has compulsory powers of purchase under any Act, then that purchase shall be conducted in accordance with the provisions of the First Schedule to the Bill. The First Schedule to the Bill substantially re-enacts the provisions of the Local Government Act of 1933. The same principles that apply to local authorities are to apply to the Minister of Transport when he comes to operate under the various Acts which are specified in Clause 1 (1) (b) of the Bill. In three respects, and I think only in three respects, is the procedure of the Local Government Act of 1933 modified. In the first place, there can be leave to dispense with referencing at the earliest stage if the confirming authority so directs. Secondly, instead of a public inquiry of a rather formal nature there can be a local hearing. So that anyone who has an objection can come and make his case and it may be done in an informal rather than a formal way.Finally—this is a mere re-enactment of a provision of the Public Works Facilities Act, 1930—it allows possession to be taken after fourteen days' notice at any time after notice to treat has been served. Your Lordships will notice that with regard to three classes of land—that is to say, firstly, land which is the property of a local authority or a statutory undertaker, secondly, commons, open spaces, allotments or land held by the National Trust, and, thirdly, land on which buildings of archeological interest are situated—there are special protections contained in Part III of the First Schedule.
If I may go from the beginning to the end, Clause 9 of the Bill deals with a large number of Acts of Parliament which have in common the fact that they all of them confer powers of compulsory purchase, some under conditions and some without conditions. In some, for instance, the power is granted in default of being able to buy land by agreement at a reasonable price, but the Town and Country Planning Act of 1932 left out the phrase "at a reasonable price" and said in default of being able to buy land by
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agreement. I take it that you can always buy land by agreement if you are prepared to concede a sufficient profit. They are all cases in which compulsory powers are conferred. The draftsmen have gone all through those Acts and have altered them so as to make the whole lot of them conform to the principles which we are now setting up, so that we may have a uniform code for the purchase of land. So much for Clause 1 and Clause 9.
Clause 2 is the trouble, because it gives emergency powers. We believe, and I think noble Lords on all sides of the House believe, that in the future we have to try to effect a planned economy; we have got to have conscious planning and conscious direction. If we were going to plan with supreme wisdom and if unexpected things were not going to upset our plans—if, in short, we had reached an era where the best laid plans of men were not "ganging agley" we should not want Clause 2 at all. But we do not claim to be the recipients of divine wisdom; we shall make a lot of mistakes, as everybody who tries to plan in this world will make a lot of mistakes, and when we find we have made a mistake we shall want some power to enable us quickly to correct it. "Footwork" is the phrase used in playing games—to get your feet in the right position. Most certainly any Government trying to plan for the future of this country will have to be very careful to get its footwork right.
We shall want this power, I have no doubt, to some extent in respect of housing. It is the fact, and I think we all know it, that of all the difficulties in housing at the present moment, speaking broadly, land is the least difficult feature. If only we had as many bricks as we have land and as much timber as we have land it would be much better. But although that is true globally, it is by no means true in every individual case, and particularly is it not true in certain rural areas. Then in areas where we may have prefabricated houses we must not, if there comes a chance of getting those houses, be held up by any difficulty whatever in regard to land. It applies, too, to the Board of Trade under the Distribution of Industry Act, which was passed in 1945. There again, where you are trying to get a manufacturer to go to a particular place everything depends on the speed and the certainty with which you can act. If he knows there are

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going to be many months of argument, discussion and disputation as to whether he is going to be able to go there or not, he will walk off and go somewhere else. Therefore it is essential that you should have these drastic powers which, in the event of an emergency, you can put into force. Also, the Minister of Transport, may sometimes want very quick powers in regard to roads. I concede this readily, that the less we have to resort to Clause 2 the greater the tribute to the efficacy and the efficiency of our planning. I hope that we shall not have to use Clause 2 very much; I hope we shall plan so well and so wisely as to be able to use only Clause r. This I do say, that if that is not the case, if we do find ourselves held up in some scheme or other, and we find it necessary quickly, and with promptitude, to take certain land, then the private interest must be sacrificed to the public good.
The differences, therefore, between Clause I and Clause 2 are as follows. Instead of getting a Compulsory Purchase Order as you do under Clause I, the local authority may apply to the Minister for an authorization in writing. At the same time as they apply they must publish in the local papers a notice saying that there will be fourteen days within which representations can be made. Notices can be served by delivery, by registered post or by posting up on the premises a notice addressed to the owner or occupier. An inquiry is not necessary, although the confirming authority may order one, and the local authority may then enter and use the land seven days after authorization. They must then serve notice to treat and must complete the purchase; that is to say, they cannot withdraw as you can under the Compulsory Purchase Order procedure if you find the compensation is going to be too heavy. Under this procedure, of course, you cannot withdraw. The Minister of Transport and the Board of Trade may also purchase under this clause.
Your Lordships will notice the conditions precedent to operating this clause. The clause says:
"…any authority…having power to authorize the compulsory purchase of land by a local authority for any purpose is satisfied—

(a) that it is expedient that the local authority…should purchase any land for the said purpose, and

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(b) that it is urgently necessary in the public interest that the acquiring authority should be enabled to obtain possession of that land without delay."

Unless the Minister is able to certify that those two conditions are complied with, then the Clause 2 procedure does not apply at all. I would add this. I think this was the result of an Amendment in the Committee stage in another place. This procedure does not apply to any occupied dwelling-house. With regard to that you cannot use the Clause 2 procedure, you must use Clause 1.
I pass from the controversial clause and go to Clause 3, which I think is not controversial. It confers upon the Minister of Town and Country Planning a power to close certain rights of way and the like, other than vehicular rights of way. It takes the place of the other and rather cumbrous power which dates from the Highways Act of 1835, whereby you had to go to Quarter Sessions to get an Order, and now, following the power which have already been given under a Housing Act and the Town and Country Planning Act, it gives this power to the Minister of Town and Country Planning. He must hold a public inquiry if there is objection to the closing. Clause 4 provides for notification to the War Damage Commission. Obviously it may affect the question as to whether the compensation for a damaged building is to be a cost-of-works payment or a value payment. Clause 5 provides for inquiries, and Clause 8 is the Scottish application clause. On all these clauses your Lordships may desire, even at this stage, authoritative guidance, and therefore have fore-armed myself with the very able assistance of my noble friend Lord Pakenham who will reply to the debate. You have no doubt heard him many times, and he will be able to resolve all the difficulties and doubts you may have.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
3.55 p.m.
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, as usual, I think, the House is grateful to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack for his very clear description of this Bill. Perhaps in passing I might just make this comment, that I hope it will in no wise be taken as a precedent that after we have finished our sitting on a Thursday evening we are told that a Bill

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of this magnitude is going to be taken as one of the first Orders for the very next day's sitting of this House. I am making no very large complaint about that, but I feel in the normal course we should be given perhaps a little more time.
As the noble and learned Lord has said, this Bill divides itself mainly into two parts, of which I would take Clause 2 as one part and the rest of the Bill as the other, that being by and large completely uncontroversial. Indeed I think Clause 1 and its consequent Schedules do a good work of codification, and in fact in doing so re-enact what has been the common practice since 1933. Indeed, if your Lordships will excuse a personal experience, my first experience of trying to help codify a local government law was when Mr. Arthur Greenwood, then Minister of Health, set up a Committee for the purpose, I believe, in 1929. I was one of those whom he asked to serve and who consented to serve on that Committee. One of my colleagues was the present Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. I must say it was a somewhat dull and very lengthy task, but. I think worth while in the end. The Local Government Act of 1933 was in part the result of our labours, so I am all out for a codification, especially, if I may say so, when someone else does all the research work and the drafting work involved.
The procedure set out in the first part of this Bill has stood the test of time, but for myself I should have liked to see it varied in at least one respect. Where a public inquiry is held it is almost always an official of the Ministry concerned who is sent down to hold it and it is the invariable rule not to publish his report. No doubt the Minister involved, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, acts in accordance with that report, but of course he need not do so. It seems to me to rob the inquiry of something of its semi-judicial status which it should have if the inquiry is conducted by an official of the Ministry concerned, and especially if that Ministry is directly involved because it is giving a grant in aid and has been involved in the planning of the scheme. I am not making any form of attack upon these high officials who carry out this task. I have myself appeared before them but, as was quoted by Lord Justice Tucker in a report published this morning, it is as
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important that justice should appear to be done as that it should be done.
I remember well being once briefed by a local authority, who were going to acquire land for a main road, to appear on their behalf at the public inquiry. At the conference which took place beforehand, I asked whether the attitude of the inspector who was holding the inquiry was likely to be a nice, friendly attitude. They said: "Well, of course, we have worked out the whole of the plans with the Ministry's engineers. They are paying more than half of the cost, so we think that the hearing ought to be fairly friendly." I went to that inquiry thinking that the case was one from which even I was likely to emerge successfully—and so I did. But I think it is an ideal that we should keep before us that these inquiries should be conducted by an independent panel of inspectors, and I should like to see them acting under the instructions of the Lord Chancellor. Thus, I think, it would in every case appear more clearly that justice was being done. However, no blame, let me add, attaches to the Government on this score, and I am not suggesting that we should attempt to amend this Bill in that respect.
At any rate, under that procedure three things happen. It gives an opportunity to those interested to be heard, it affords an opportunity for local opinion to be ascertained, and it provides an opportunity for publicity to be given. But when one passes from Clause 1 to Clause 2, one notices that those three factors which I have just mentioned are conspicuous by their absence, because, as the Lord Chancellor has told us, Clause 2 gives exceptional powers to four Ministers. It gives exceptional powers to the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland in respect of any land to be acquired by a local authority. It gives exceptional powers to the President of the Board of Trade for purposes of the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, and to the Minister of Transport in respect of land needed for roads under subsection (1) (b) of Clause 1 of the Bill. Now under these exceptional powers, the public inquiry is entirely dispensed with. The owner of the land merely has fourteen days in which to write to the Minister concerned setting forth his objections, and there is no procedure whatever in the Bill for any reply being sent to the man who is making those objections. Other noble Lords, no doubt,

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may quote earlier legislation, but I am not, myself, going back, in my speech today to the long years of the last century, because I prefer to start with 1933. But I feel that during the course of the debate the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act of 1944 may probably be referred to. And it is quite true that as regards a period of a year, I think, until the end of 1945, a provision somewhat similar to this which is contained in Clause 2 was contained in that Act. I can well see that in view of the painfully slow mariner in which temporary houses are being provided, it may well occur to the Government of the day that they cannot provide in one year, as was planned by the Coalition Government, all these temporary houses. It may well need a further five years to do it. It looks as though they are not all going to be provided before a period such as that has elapsed.
But this clause goes much further than the provision of sites for temporary houses. First of all, it applies to sites for permanent houses, and I think that when we are considering giving wide powers like this we should ask what is the case for it. The noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack has stated quite frankly that land is in more plentiful supply for houses than either bricks or timber, and, indeed, the Minister of Town and Country Planning told us, in January of this year, that the Minister of Health had then approved sites for 711,259 houses. Based on the present rate of construction, I do not quite know how many years building those sites will cover. We have not had any disclosure by the present Government as to what their target of house building is, but the Coalition Government had a target of 300,000 houses to be built over the first two years. Wisely, perhaps, from the point of view of prestige, but, I believe, quite wrongly if their aim is to get the maximum number of houses erected, the present Government have announced no target figure. I believe that there should be a target figure to aim at, even if people fall short of it, because it gives something for everybody to work to. It means that you do not have people working on a kind of limitless vision. When work is done in that way, the results are apt to be very limited. But at the present rate of progress in housing there will not be the slightest doubt, I am sure,
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in any quarter of this House, that sites are available for many, many months' building in the future. What time do you save really by adopting the course set out in the Third Schedule as against that set out in the First? [It is about a month and a half—about six weeks. That is the time which you save. The noble Lord, I see, dissents from that observation. I agree it mainly depends on how soon the Ministry can appoint an inspector and send him down to make an inquiry. But if the Ministries are prompt in sending their inspectors down there is no reason why the procedure under Schedule 1 should take more than two months from its initiation, even when the case is contested.
Then the noble and learned Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack—as many others say—says that although globally it is quite true there are plenty of houses some authorities are not getting sites for the houses. It is just as well to inquire how many are not. In November last, in answer to a question in another place, the figures were given. Twenty-nine out of all the county boroughs, all the boroughs, all the urban district councils all the rural district councils—had no housing sites. And of that twenty-nine, my Lords, twenty-five had made no attempt to get them; so those twenty-five could not possibly have been held up by procedural difficulties. So it seems to me a very thin excuse is given for having these exceptional powers for housing purposes at the present time. What about other purposes for which the sites may be needed by local authorities? Education? It is quite true that under the Education Act, which we have just passed with the Second Reading of a supplementary Bill, that a large number of new schools will be necessary, but we all know there is no prospect of starting to build new schools this year; and probably very little next. So there is ample time to acquire sites by the procedure under Clause I for schools.
Now I come to the next Minister who is entitled, or will be entitled, to operate under this Bill—the President of the Board of Trade. In this connexion, if I may use these words in this House, I consider there is a lot of rot being talked on the urgent necessity of new factories. With the immense number of men that it seems necessary still to keep in the

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Armed Forces of the Crown, with the huge number that are now in our Civil Service, we shall have our work cut out fully to man the land, the building and its ancillary industries, and fully to man the factories which we have already got. It is as well for the House to realize that we built an immense number of new factories just before the war, and during the early days of the war, and we have got a far bigger factory production potential in this country now than we had previously in the days of peace. So it seems to me that there is no great necessity for the provision of new factories, when you cannot even man the present productive enterprises of the country. And it does not seem to me, therefore, a matter in which you should give this extra short period of time to the President of the Board of Trade.
As for the Minister of Transport I carefully read what the Parliamentary Secretary to that Ministry had to say in another place, in favour of the inclusion of his Ministry within the purview of this Clause 2. He could only justify it on the ground that a road might be necessary to one of the Board of Trade's new factories. He did not claim the need for the accelerated procedure for any other purpose at all. Indeed, he hardly could—as anyone who has been at the Ministry of Transport, as I happen to have been, will well know.
With such slender reasons for asking for them, what are the new powers for which the Government ask in peacetime? In war, powers such as these are pretty obviously necessary. I remember perfectly well in the very early days of the Ministry of Aircraft Production, when we had the Supermarine works bombed—a direct hit on them, down at Southampton—we had quickly then to requisition churches and chapels and village halls, and even cinemas with their sloping floors, to get that vital production going. Why did we do that, and do it quickly? It was in order to retain our liberties and to be able to continue, and act in, and be governed in, the British way. And the British way, my Lords, is to allow the owner whose land you are taking, the occupier, who is going to be displaced, the right to be heard in public, to put forward his point of view. Now he is going to be deprived of this in every case where Schedule 3 is applied; and quite frankly,
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I do not like the idea of proceeding in this way in time of peace. I relish it less when I find it is exactly on all-fours with the way in which Hitler and the Nazi Government obtained the land to build their trunk roads in Germany. The sooner we get back in this country to our well-tried British ways the better it will be. This way is, in my view, much too much of a hole-in-the-corner method.
I would say that if you want, as the noble and learned Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack said he wanted, to get the footwork right, it is just as well to have careful inquiry and to find out what local opinion is, what all the grievances are, before you start walking off from the stance which you have taken. What will probably happen in the future? The local surveyor will select a site. He is not infallible; no one is. He will then report to the appropriate committee of his council, and may well advise them to apply for the quick procedure. He has every incentive to do so, because if that local authority gets the quick procedure authorized the surveyor's choice of site is unlikely ever to be publicly questioned. The application may come up to the Ministry concerned, where the tendency may well be not to allow the local authority to have any cause for blaming the Ministry for delay, and therefore to give them what they ask and to allow them to acquire by the quick procedure. If we are not careful, grave injustice may be done, and, in any event, many people will think that grave injustice has been done. Small men (because they are not excepted) in some cases are deprived of the buildings which are their very livelihood without themselves having had a say in the matter. It seems to me that it is using the power of the Crown very much in the same way as it was in the days of Naboth.
It is a sad thought that we seem to have won this war against the dictators only to get more dictatorial methods introduced at home than we ever contemplated in the days before the war started. But, when all that is said, as it properly should be said, and when all this is pointed out to the country, as it properly should be pointed out to the country, the fact remains that no one in this House will wish for a moment to impede either the provision of houses or the provision of work for our people. Nor do any of us on this side of the

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House wish to give either the Minister of Health or the President of the Board of Trade any shadow of reason for blaming their coming failures upon us. I believe that the one will fail in his housing because of not using the independent builders to the full and because there has been no proper planning and provision in respect of the raw materials for the trade; and I believe that the other, the President of the Board of Trade, will fail because of the unsettlement which the nationalization policy of the Government is causing throughout industry. Therefore, for very good reasons, we shall not oppose this Bill on Second Reading and shall not disturb the harmony of the proceedings—at any rate at: this stage.
4.25 p.m.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, this Bill is not, of course, the main Bill with respect to land which this House and the country are awaiting. That will deal mainly with questions of compensation. This is a preliminary and limited Bill which, so far as it goes, seems to me to be a useful measure. In the last Parliament we had a great number of debates on town and country planning (I think there were thirteen of them altogether). On more than one occasion I ventured to urge that, instead of producing a series of small Bills touching upon land acquisition, so far as that was concerned the right course would be to pass a simple, comprehensive measure giving to our local authorities general powers, simple and comprehensive, for acquiring land for any purpose for which they had statutory functions. An appeal would be allowed in each case to the Ministry at the head of the Department concerned. That step has not been taken, but this Bill is undoubtedly a measure tending in that direction, although not: so completely as I personally should have desired. So far as it goes, 'however, I give it a cordial welcome.
There is no doubt that the delays and complexities with which local authorities are faced when they endeavour to obtain land for public purposes are sometimes almost heart-rending, due in no small degree to the intricacy of the law which is the result of the long evolution of over one hundred years of legislation, to which the Lord Chancellor has referred, and which in the course of that evolution has become ever more intricate and complex.
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This Bill does something to cut through these entanglements. Furthermore, there is another useful purpose served by this Bill, to which I think the Lord Chancellor did not refer, and that is that it deals in some degree with the application of the procedure by which local authorities are faced in having to communicate simultaneously with several different Whitehall Departments in this matter of land acquisition. They have to deal, for example, in questions of housing with the Ministry of Health, which is the principal Department concerned, and which exercises financial control, with the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, which is vitally interested on a count of the planning of the whole area, and, if agricultural land is concerned, with the Ministry of Agriculture. Of course, it is quite necessary that all three of these Ministries should be consulted and should have a voice in the settlement of the matter, but under this Bill a very useful provision so far as housing is concerned is that the Ministry of Health is the one Department with which the local authority is brought into contact, and it is the business of the Ministry to clear up any point in which the other Ministries of Town and Country Planning and of Agriculture may be interested. That will certainly short-circuit the matter very greatly, and considerably improve the procedure from the point of view of the local authorities. If the matter is one in which the Board of Trade is the principal authority, or the Ministry of Transport, then it would be for the Minister at the head of that Department to clear up any point that arises in which other Ministries are concerned.
As the Lord Chancellor has said, this Bill had a somewhat controversial complexion when it was in the other House. At one stage it was divided upon, although I do not believe that the Liberal Party there gave any cause for trouble to the Minister in charge. After a number of Amendments it appeared on Third Reading in a less controversial form. Some of the reasons were given by the Lord Chancellor himself, although I confess to a considerable feeling of anxiety when I found him quoting, from the debates in the other House, not the words of a Minister making a Ministerial statement, but the words of Mr. W. S. Morrison. I was wondering whether I ought not to draw the attention of the Lord Chancellor to

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the fact that that was not strictly in accordance with the general usages of this House. However, I did not venture to do that.
The part of the Bill which was mainly controversial was Clause 2, to which the noble Lord who has just spoken was particularly referring. These points are, perhaps, rather for the Committee stage than for this stage, and we on these Benches would, I am sure, give careful consideration to any claim that is made that the rights of the individual owner are not sufficiently safeguarded by the Bill as it stands. But that is a point that may be debated on its merits. For the rest, the Bill as a whole proceeds in accordance with the main recommendations of the Uthwatt Committee, whose Report was supported in your Lordships' House, although I think it does not completely carry out all those recommendations. It was a great misfortune in our view that that Report was neglected and put aside by the late Government in the late Parliament, and many of its recommendations which have come forward now will certainly command our very sympathetic consideration. This Bill proceeds in that direction, and for my own part I would offer it cordial support.
4.30 p.m.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, here again my object chiefly is to endeavour to help the passing of this measure in a quite easily intelligible form and as far as it appears to be unjust to remove the injustices in the Bill. I am a little uneasy when reference is made to my experience, because it takes me back over half a century and I begin to think I really should not be addressing your Lordships at all. But I remember in my early days at the Bar having one or two briefs—later I had more briefs—in connexion with this subject of compulsory purchase, and perhaps your Lordships will allow me to tell you, as perhaps it is not altogether without significance, of my experience in the first compensation case I had. I was appearing for a railway company in a case where land was being taken for the widening of the railway and I was, fortunately for my clients, being led by the most eminent leader on that topic in the whole of the Bar—namely, the late Mr. Balfour-Browne.
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I sat there filled with admiration while he was addressing the jury (because the case came before a jury as was common under the Land Clauses Acts). There was an eminent gentleman on the other side and they both addressed the jury in impassioned speeches after two surveyors had given diametrically opposed views as to the value of the land. It was in those days usual and normal for surveyors to differ toto cœlo from each other. It is only a guess as to what land is really worth unless there is a market for a particular piece of land, in which case of course their views are much more certain than they otherwise would be. After they had finished, and the jury had withdrawn, I expressed in halting language to my leader the admiration I felt for his speech and the fact that the jury could not possibly neglect it. He slightly shrugged his shoulders and said, "Do you know what the jury are going to award as their verdict?" "No," I replied. "I will tell you," he said, and he wrote down on a piece of paper the compensation of the surveyors on the one side and on the other, added them together, divided by two and said, "That is what the jury will give." I said that must be wrong and this most experienced advocate said, "Well, they always do it." And sure enough in a quarter of an hour or so, looking very solemn, they gave the figure within a pound or two that Balfour-Browne had assured me they would give.
Well, of course, that was a hopeless method of dealing with a case, and as the years have gone by I have seen measure after measure passed in a much more reasonable and economic way. Therefore in this case I can wholly commend Clause 1 of the Bill and I am quite sure that it will work very well, with possibly some slight amendment, in the ambit it is intended to cover. Then comes Clause 2, which has been so much discussed in another place and with which my noble friend Lord Llewellin has dealt. Like him I agree that it does not and ought not to cover some of the small number of cases where compulsory purchase is necessary, and, when the noble Lord on the Woolsack says in this respect it is perfectly just, I hope it will be found that he was right. But of course it is true that the clause does interfere with the rights of private ownership in a way which has not been the case hitherto. I agree with the noble Lord on the Woolsack that

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the objections to it were very largely removed, in my view, by the provision in the Schedule which removes from the ambit of Clause 2 houses and parts of houses, because I think that to turn a man out of his house under Clause 2 without the advantage of an inquiry would be very regrettable. However, that has gone now and for my part—I am not quite sure whether my noble friend Lord Llewellin agrees or not—I think that Clause 2 in some form or other is necessary and desirable, because I do see that there are cases where speedy acquisition of land is of very great urgency in the particular circumstances at the present time.
I think it should be borne in mind that, after all, the clause is only a temporary one. It will last for five years, which is quite a long time, and in five years we all hope that a large number of houses will be built. On this side of the House we are all afraid the Government are not taking the best course possible for the construction of those houses. What can be done? I think that the Third Schedule is very valuable and it is important to note that under this Schedule before authorization is given under Clause 2 there must be publication in one or more local newspapers and representations can be made according to the published notice to the confirming authority in writing. I think that is a very important provision, but what I am not at all sure about is this—whether something inure could not be done to temper the wind to the lamb about to be shorn by empowering the Minister—and I 'am not quite sure whether it need be compulsory that those representations had been made by the person or persons whose lands are going to be taken—to send down an independent person to interview the objectors and to report to the Minister.
What is the real strength of the case against the clause that my noble friend Lord Llewellin has already mentioned? It is this, that the people whose houses are going to be taken on the ground of expedition under Clause 2, have no opportunity of seeing somebody in person and stating what their particular objections are. I do not believe that they would mind very much if they did not get a public hearing by the persons sent down to inquire so long as they could see some independent person who would listen in a kindly manner and with attention to
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their objections. Then I think most of their grievances at having their land compulsorily purchased would disappear. At any rate I do suggest that after the sympathetic way in which this Bill has been put before the House, the Government might consider whether some step of that sort might not be taken before the Minister gives his authorization in writing and before the acquiring authority has taken possession of the land. And for my part think something of that kind might well be done.
This, of course, is only the Second Reading, and there will be an opportunity hereafter of 'dealing with seine of the objections which may be made to particular points. I would only throw this suggestion out because the law in connexion with the question of compulsory acquisition of land is terribly complex. There are literally hundreds of authorities which deal with it, and there is in particular a point which I want the Government to consider before the Committee stage comes on, because it is almost impossible to deal with some of these matters before your Lordships sitting as a legislative body. The point that worries me is that of easements—easements of passage and of water. I cannot make out, in the time that I have been able to give to this matter, 'whether people having rights of that kind—and of course a right to have water supplied to your premises may be one on which the whole of the value of the land depends—have, under this Bill, any rights at all. I venture to think that the Government have not provided in the Bill as it stands any provision that such a person is to have notice of the intended compulsory purchase.
I might remind the noble Lord on the Woolsack that among the many cases that have dealt with this matter in the past, one of the best known is the decision of this House in Great Western Railway versus Swindon which is reported in 9 Appeal Cases. In that decision this House thought fit to overrule I do not know how many cases that had already been decided in regard to the question of rights under the Land Clauses Act—which was, of course, the usual Act under which these things took place in the old days—as to whether such persons had any rights of compensation for the taking away of their easements, whatever they might be,

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unless their land was also being taken away under a notice to treat. There are all sorts of complications there as to whether the easements in question, if they confer right to compensation, ought to be easements confined to those relating to land, such as a right of way over land, or whether they include also other kinds of easements, such as rights to obtain water, or sporting rights, or other of the numerous easements which may exist. Now I am far from expressing at the moment any opinion at all as to the effect of this Bill on casements, except to say that I cannot think that at present there is any provision for notice being given to people with easements that are going to be interfered with, and I do hope the matter will have the careful attention of the Government before the Committee stage comes before your Lordships. There were some other things I thought I might mention, but I believe I have said enough to show my general view, and I heartily support the Second Reading.
4.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: My Lords, listening to the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, moving the Second Reading of this Bill, one could not help realizing how pleasant it is to have totalitarianism without tears, because that is in fact what, in a small but a quite possible and continuous way, may happen if Clause 2 of this Bill goes through as it stands and remains for five years, with the possibility of its being renewed for another five. I agree almost entirely with everything my noble friend Lord Llewellin said earlier this afternoon in relation to this Bill. I think it is always of the utmost importance, when you are gradually being anæsthetized to the tyranny of the State taking over things in little bits, bit after bit—when we are gradually becoming anaesthetized to that form of possible State tyranny—that every opportunity should be taken to protest against these chances arising. My noble friend Lord Llewellin said that there were twenty-nine cases where local authorities had not acquired housing sites, and of them twenty-five had made no move in the matter last November. If they have not moved and got it done under existing powers to-day, there is very little excuse for them. Therefore we are taking a
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semi-permanent steam hammer to crack an entirely temporary nutshell. In my own experience in Hampshire, local authorities in nearly every case have at least three years' land for carrying on building, if they have got the bricks and mortar and labour. Therefore, except in an infinitesimally small number of cases, it is not a question of the private owner being the obstruction. It always makes bad law to construct a huge legal machine, which can be used for other purposes, to overcome a very small percentage of difficulties.
Now the time limits of fourteen days allowed under Clause 2 and Schedule 3 are entirely insufficient. What small owner, who probably gets his living out of twenty acres and is going to have ten acres taken away from him under this procedure, can protest or have any hope that his case will go through? He has not the knowledge to consult a lawyer, and the time elapses before he has a chance to do so. Again, take the owner of land who is serving His Majesty, as there are still a great many to-day. How is he, whether in India, Egypt, Palestine or Greece, to get an adequate answer in twelve or fourteen days? Again, what is the ordinary man, who may be away for a week when the notice comes, to do? He has to consult his lawyer, who may have very considerable difficulties and doubts on the question of the acquisition of this piece of land. How is he going to manage in fourteen days to make an adequate protest, or hope to get an adequate answer? I do not think there is any member of this House who does not want to see housing progressing as quickly as possible or certainly who does not want to see rural housing being increased and used to the very utmost, but I cannot honestly see that Clause 2 of this Bill is going to get another rural house built a month earlier than it would otherwise be.
When it comes to factory sites, one has only to look to the war period to see the mistakes which can be made by too hasty acquisition of sites for that purpose. As the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, pointed out, there are already quite enough factory sites to occupy our people at the present time. If factories are to be moved to rural districts or from so-called special areas to undepressed areas, there is a great deal to be said for very long and careful consideration as to their siting.

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It is not a matter of months' but a matter of probably two or three years' careful consideration before you settle large industries elsewhere. There has never yet been, to my mind, a proper ecological survey for the siting of industry in relation to the right use of land. You may get a better procedure on that siting, and a certain general survey of town and country planning, but it has not really begun to cover the fundamental necessities of proper planning. While I can quite easily bless most of this Bill, and the codification of its procedure, I do not feel I can let it go by without expressing my personal, and I think many of your Lordships', profound misgivings about the effect of Clause 2 if it stands in its present form.
4.51 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, you may remember in Tom Brown's Schooldays how the squire, Tom Brown's father, when Tom Brown went to school, was wondering whether to tell him to say his prayers, and how he came to the conclusion that it was not worth while to do that, "because," he said, "if he does not do it for his mother's sake he won't do it for mine." If you will not give this Bill a Second Reading for the Lord Chancellor's sake, I do not suppose you will find my charms any more seductive or irresistible! I am glad to find that, so far as I can see at present, this Bill is going to get a Second Reading by an overwhelming majority I feel a good deal more buoyant than I did an hour or so ago. The way lies open ahead.
I expected, of course, a very close scrutiny, such as we have had, of Clause 2. In the later part of my remarks I will consider the general argument presented against it both by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, and the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, who has just spoken, but before doing that I feel it would be proper to attempt to reply to a number of more detailed points raised in the course of the various speeches. There is no need, I am glad to think, to reply to the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. He has said his say—and a very helpful say it was—and he has left us. He can rightly feel that the can rest on his oars. Perhaps I may take up one or two comparatively small points which I feel I should not let pass without comment. I rather think the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, is under a
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misapprehension about Clause 1. I hesitate to mention this, because it may weaken his support for that clause, but as he has just spoken and said he is not going to oppose the Second Reading, I must point out that under Clause I there is no necessity to hold a public inquiry. I rather think that the noble Lord considers that under Clause 1 you necessarily have a public inquiry, and under Clause 2 you do not. The right to a public inquiry is foregone under Clause I, the clause that arouses no controversy. Under Clause 1 you must have a hearing of some kind. The noble Lord referred to publicity. It is a small point, but I feel I must clear that up with the House in case there is a misapprehension.
LORD LLEWELLIN: That public inquiry is going to be by the normal method, and the hearing if the Minister so directs.
LORD PAKENHAM: If he so directs. There is not quite such a big difference between the two procedures. It is not that under Clause I you have a sort of fairy-godmother procedure, all open and above board, and a sort of wicked-uncle procedure under Clause 2, all skulking in corridors. Under Clause I the Minister has the right to hold a private inquiry, an inquiry where his representative sees the gentleman with the complaint.
LORD LLEWELLIN: May I interrupt to say that if the noble Lord would give us that in the Third Schedule, we should be very happy?
LORD PAKENHAM: I am always anxious to oblige, but I must not overstep the limits. I come to another point, a factual point, or you may call it a disagreement of conjecture. The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, suggests that the difference between the two procedures would not be more than a matter of six weeks. It is impossible to say what it will amount to in all cases, but having been into this, not only with my official advisers here, but with some of those who are in touch with local authorities in different parts of the country—and I speak as an old local authority man—I am assured that the difference is expected to be anything between three months and nine months. It is all very well to say," You have just got to hold your inquiry, and as long as you send your inspector down promptly he can hold it

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straight away", but in practice, as the noble Lord with his experience knows, with a limited number of inspectors it is very difficult to get these inquiries held. In the past the total procedure (which, I admit, will be rather speeded up even under Clause 1), has in a great many cases taken up to nine months and sometimes more. Without attempting to convince the noble Lord as I pass along, I would say that six weeks very much under-estimates the difference in speed between the two procedures. If he will accept a difference of three or four months, I will not try to make the difference higher, but I am afraid I must insist on a difference of that order.
LORD LLEWELLIN: You lose seven days on having to have a second publication and you lose seven days by giving a man twenty-one days' minimum notice instead of fourteen days'. So you have lost a fortnight on this Schedule. If you cannot appoint an inspector and get him on the job under a month, sending him down to the most urgent cases first, the powers of human ingenuity are not very strong.
LORD PAKENHAM: I am assured that is the position, and it is based on what has proved to be the experience in the past. There is another slight difference which will save a certain amount of time. The procedure of referencing is a good deal speeded up in Clause 2 as compared with Clause I. To put the matter crudely, under Clause I, if you wish to buy a man's land compulsorily, in all ordinary cases you have to try and discover him. He may not be living there, and you have got to seek him out. Under Clause I, if you cannot find him, or if for some reason the Minister considers it is unnecessary, if you are a local authority you can get permission from the Minister to omit that formality of finding him and simply to put up a notice on a piece of land, but under Clause 2, if you are a local authority, you send your man along, and if the owner is out, or is not resident there, you post up your notice. So there is a gain under that heading which, I am assured, amounts to a good deal in the matter of time. I call the noble Lord's attention to that.
The noble Lord referred, as did the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, to the
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twenty-nine housing authorities of whom we were told that twenty-five were slackers. It may be a small point, but one must make these points as one goes along. We are not to suppose that all these twenty-nine authorities had all the land required, even at the present time; all we are told is that these twenty-nine had no land. We know that these twenty-nine authorities had no land at all, but many other authorities may well have had insufficient land. That is a small correction which must be made. I do not wish to quibble on this point, because we are all agreed in this House, I think, that the number of housing authorities who are seriously short of land at the present time is comparatively small. I am not trying to argue whether it is a very small percentage or a slightly larger one. I thought there might be some slight misunderstanding about the twenty-nine authorities, and I wanted to get that straight.
The noble Lord surprised me very much indeed when he turned to the question of factories. He, as an old President of the Board of Trade, knows a great deal more about the distribution of industry than I know, and perhaps am ever likely to know, but both he and the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, rather staggered me when they assumed that we had got all the factories we wanted. If you look all over the country and add them all up, it may or may not work out that way. The noble Lord, I should have thought, was well aware that unemployment is raising its head already in the old depressed areas, as we used to call them, and which are now called development areas. The noble Lord seemed to have the extraordinary idea that we are trying to move factories away from the old depressed areas. Of course, the object, as the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, knows, under the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, is to persuade employers to go into the old depressed areas, which would otherwise become cesspools as they were before the war. I do seriously ask the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, and the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, to take it from the Government that the question of inducing employers to put up factories in those areas is one that is causing us great concern at the present time. Obviously, when he turns that over in his mind he

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may regard the reasons why we require Clause 2 as rather stronger than when he was speaking to us just now.
LORD WOLVERTON: Were not factories built there during the war?
LORD PAKENHAM: But I think they have got to build a great many more. They have not the factories they require for giving full employment in those areas. That is the position and it is not, I think, open to argument. The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, assumes—and I think the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, is also under this impression—that under Clause 2 there will never be an inquiry held by the Minister. I do not know whether Lord Llewellin did assume that, but I am pretty certain that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, did. May I call the attention of the House to Clause 5, where it is laid down that the Minister may, of course if he chooses, order an inquiry? Perhaps at a later stage we shall hear from Lord Maugham whether that meets the point that he raised.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, who never lets us off without his parting shot, had a few words to say about the prospective failure of certain Ministers. We must wait and see. I have every confidence that they will succeed, but he has grave fears lest they may fail. Without entering on those wider topics now, I would just take him up on the suggestion that this is the procedure of Naboth's vineyard. I do not carry the procedure used on that occasion very clearly in my mind, but I do suggest to noble Lords opposite with great deference that if at times we are inclined to talk as though to indicate that the community is always right and the private owner always wrong, they at times—and perhaps this afternoon—are inclined to suggest that the State is always wrong. When we think it over, we are all agreed that the State is simply the sum of the individuals composing it. The majority have a greater claim on the community than the minority, but when all is said and done there are certain fundamental rights possessed by the minority, which must be balanced against those of the majority.
I only attempt to get the balance straight again because it has been tipped up a little in the other direction in the closing remarks of the noble
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Lord, Lord Llewellin. I do not think I need do much more than thank the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, for his positively enthusiastic support. I was very pleased with that. He raised the question of easements. He is, of course, aware that non-vehicular rights of way are dealt with under Clause 3. This question of easements of water is one to which we will give very great consideration before the next stage of the Bill. If the noble and learned Viscount will not press that further to-day, we shall come down fortified to deal with the most searching questions under that head.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: I must say I was not aware of my enthusiasm.
LORD PAKENHAM: If I may say so, with the greatest respect, the noble Viscount exuded it from every pore.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: Entirely unconscious.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I do not know that I need reply further to the noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, because although he made his points very cogently, some of them have been made in a slightly different form by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. I do not wish to detain the House for more than a minute or two because the whole case has been developed so interestingly by the noble Lord on the Woolsack. I would just like to suggest that we must not over-estimate the constitutional issue which is here involved. It is not a question of whether or not we are going to confer on the State the power of compulsory acquisition of land because, as the noble Lord explained, that was conferred on the State as long ago as 1858. It is not a question of deciding whether or not we are going to allow that power to operate without a Parliamentary supervision because that has been so since the early years of the century. It is not a question of whether we are going to insist upon a public inquiry in all cases because, as I explained earlier, Clause 1, following the procedure of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1944, forgoes the public inquiry if the Minister thinks fit. It is simply this issue of whether or not there will be a hearing in all cases and whether the dispossessed owner will receive some oral hearing. I would say straight away that none of us

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here would regard it as a satisfactory routine procedure that one should forego a hearing of that kind—
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: You do under Clause 2.
LORD PAKENHAM: None of us regard it as satisfactory that we should adopt that as a routine procedure. It is an emergency procedure, as the noble Viscount explained, and it is intended to be temporary. It is intended only to operate under very strict safeguards and within a strict field, as was explained by the noble Lord on the Woolsack. I have been very much struck since I have been here during the last few months at the power of noble Lords in all quarters of the House to put themselves in the shoes of the Government and, even when they cannot hold that power, do their best to play a constructive part in a national task. I would simply ask you once more to put yourselves in our position, because I know that every one here is equally keen on solving the housing problem. I need perhaps hardly beg you to give this Bill a Second Reading—because it is going to receive one I understand—but I would like to thank you for the reception this Bill has had this afternoon.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, may I offer my apologies for my temporary absence at the beginning of the noble Lord's speech in which I understand he made some reference to myself.
LORD PAKENHAM: It was intended to be a very friendly reference and a very complimentary one.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

POLICE BILL.
5.10 p.m.
Amendments reported (according to order).
Clause 11:
Chief Constables.
(2) The chief constable of a non-county borough force shall not be transferred by virtue of this Act to the county force or to the combined force constituted by a county scheme made before the appointed day unless before the date of transfer he agrees to join that force in some capacity other than that
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of a chief constable; and the chief constable of a police force shall not be transferred to the combined force constituted by a scheme under this Act unless he is appointed as the first chief constable of that force or unless before the date of transfer he agrees to join that force in some other capacity.
LORD LLEWELLIN, who had given Notice that he would move an Amendment in subsection (2), before "police force", to insert "county or county borough," said: My Lords, I believe that my Amendment to Clause II differs in little more than a comma from one which stands in the name of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. I understand that the noble and learned Lord intends to move his Amendment, and as it covers the same point as mine in rather a fuller way I do not propose to move my Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "police"—["police force"]—and insert "constituent." The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this touches on a question which was discussed at the Committee stage, when Lord Llewellin and I took, I think, the same view as to what was the right thing to do. This is an odd little clause. It deals with two different things altogether. The first part deals with non-county borough police forces and the second part, beginning on line 30, concerns the chief constable of a police force. The first part of the subsection deals with the special case of the non-county borough, and I naturally assumed, as did Lord Llewellin also, I think, that the second part was dealing with the county borough or county police forces, and that the subsection would be improved if the words suggested by Lord Llewellin were put in. I had discussed this with the Home Office authorities, and they had agreed, but I had omitted to discuss it with the Parliamentary draftsman. Now Parliamentary draftsmen, as your Lordships know, are very ingenious fellows, and this one pointed out that the words of Lord Llewellin's Amendment would not do, anti for this reason.
I will explain it by an illustration. I took before the illustration of Canterbury and Kent, and I may as well use it again. Suppose Canterbury, being a county borough, and Kent, being a county, were combined in a scheme. Then you would have a new police force which would be

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neither a Kent nor a Canterbury force. It would be run by a joint authority instead of by a Standing Joint Committee. And of course it would have a chief constable—let us call him Mr. X. He would be a chief constable, as your Lordships see, of a police force which was not a county borough police force and not a county police force. Now let us assume the next stage. Let us suppose that that police force—this is, of course very unlikely, and indeed it is an impossible illustration but it will serve—wants to combine with Sussex. You would naturally have to consider the position of Mr. Y who is chief constable of Sussex. Mr. Y would be all right because he would be chief constable of a county police force. Mr. X on the other hand would be all wrong because he would be chief constable neither of a county borough police force nor of a county force. Therefore I am moving this Amendment to insert the word "constituent." That word "constituent" will achieve what Lord Llewellin and I both desire, and that is the reason for the Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 30, leave out ("police") and insert ("constituent").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

POLISH FORCES IN BRITAIN.
5.15 p.m.
LORD SALTOUNhad given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government whether they can give an assurance that no pressure will be exercised to induce Poles who have served with the Allied Forces to return to Poland, that they will be left free to exercise their own judgment; and that His Majesty's Government will not derogate from the assurance given to those who do not choose to return that "if everything else fails, here are open the portals of the British Empire"; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in case I forget it a little later on I beg to move the Motion standing on the Paper in my name. In addressing myself to this Motion, I will seek to disarm the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, by saying that references I may make to statements by the Foreign Secretary, in another place, will probably include also mention of published documents that he
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issued. I think that that is always permissible.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: Any Ministerial statement is permissible, I believe.
LORD SALTOUN: I think, my Lords, that I had better recall to your memory the facts as I understand them, and I may mention that this matter has been the subject of correspondence between the noble Viscount, Lord Addison, and myself before these facts came fully to light. On the 20th of last month, the Foreign Secretary made a statement in another place. He informed Parliament that His Majesty's Government had reached an agreement with the Polish Provisional Government as to the conditions on which the members of the Polish Forces in the employ of His Majesty might now return to Poland. He added that no sooner had that agreement been reached than, as I may put it, the Polish Government threw a spanner into the works with a fresh announcement. But after some further discussion the Polish Provisional Government stated that their new statement did not affect the conditions provisionally agreed upon. He therefore addressed a letter to every member of the Polish forces in the service of His Majesty recommending to the members of those forces acceptance of the offer of the Polish Provisional Government, and a copy of the offer accompanied his letter. He stated in Parliament and to all those soldiers, sailors and airmen, that while His Majesty's Government would be willing to give every assistance in their power to those who did not want to accept the offer to start a new life outside Poland, yet he could give no guarantee to these men that they would find a place within the British Empire. He added that he had obtained an undertaking from Polish officers that they would put no pressure upon their men to influence them to return. He also stated that the fair and proper treatment of these men on their return to Poland would very largely determine the relationship between the two countries. Finally, in the course of the debate, he urged members of the other side not to encourage members of the Polish Forces to decline the offer which he had conveyed to them.
The offer of the Polish Provisional Government that accompanied his letter was contained in a document which had no

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signature attached to it, and I understand—I have a copy of it here if the noble Lord would like to see it—that the Polish Government in a broadcast on the 23rd of last month denied the authenticity of that offer. Moreover, if a letter which appeared in The Times of March 25 is to be trusted, that offer contained grammatical errors and errors in syntax in Polish which would lead naturally to the belief that it was a translation into Polish from some other language than Polish. It was not a question of spelling mistakes but there were errors in translation. Moreover, there was a broadcast of an interview by the Polish Foreign Secretary Mr. Rzymowski, in which he said, among other things, that the British Foreign Secretary had no power or right to exercise protection over Polish subjects in Poland. Those are the facts, as I understand them, and I have tried to state them plainly and fairly to your Lordships. Most of them are contained in published documents.
One of the first things I really would like to ask His Majesty's Government is, can they give us some further information as to the origin of this document, this offer that was sent to members of the Polish Forces? The Polish Government has broadcast an explanation of this which I am bound to say leaves me more puzzled than I was before. Therefore I shall not give it to your Lordships, but this will be amongst the Papers I am moving for. My main observation refers to a question asked by Mr. Eden in Parliament—with great deference to the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel—to which, so far as I can see, no answer has yet been given. He asked for an assurance that no pressure would be put on the members of the Polish Forces one way or another, and that they would be left with an unfettered decision. Your Lordships will readily understand that if His Majesty's Government removes all pressure on one side, and then applies overwhelming pressure on the other side, even if the noble Lords take exception to my use of the word "compulsion," a strong measure of propulsion may very easily exist.
His Majesty's Government commenced by obtaining an assurance from Polish officers that they would not seek to influence their men to refuse the offer of the Polish Government which the Foreign Secretary conveyed. Now, my Lords, these men are in a foreign country. They
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are amongst folk who speak a different language, who think different thoughts; and if they want to obtain advice on any matter from men of wider experience and clearer vision, the only people they can have recourse to are their officers. And to that extent, on the statement of the Foreign Secretary, without any further explanation, it looks as if the freedom of advice had been to some extent fettered. The Foreign Secretary said, and said quite clearly, that he could offer no guarantee to these men—and they are not very many—that there would be a place found for all of them in the British Empire. I have seen a document that was circulated by the Polish authorities to some of their men. One paragraph in it reads like this:
"You are again being urged to return to Poland and given a period of several weeks in which to make up your minds. As the British Foreign Secretary has emphasized, your future, if you do not accept this second option, is obscure."
Now the authorities may have received their instructions, but it seems to me that the British Government, having tried to influence these men one way, cannot escape responsibility for that kind of language. Your Lordships will observe that it assumes that the recipient will not want to go back to Poland, and it goes even beyond what the Foreign Secretary said in Parliament: "your future" will be "obscure."
I do not want to give your Lordships a lot of instances, but I will cite the case of one Polish gentleman of my acquaintance. He lived in the part of Poland which is now Russia. He fought the Germans in Warsaw, and was through all that fighting; with great difficulty, and bearing an important mission, he managed to get to this country. He served through the whole of the war until nearly the end, when his health broke down, and he obtained a position with a firm, a British firm, for which he had been working before the war. When the Russians broke into his country they carried off the whole of his family to a camp in Southern Mongolia, and after the Russians became our Allies, these people were ascertained to have died—they are definitely dead—in the camp, which contained 18,000 Poles.
This gentleman received an order to proceed to a camp in the North of Scotland. You will observe that that meant

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abandoning his business, and giving up his lodging. There is one thing I would like to say on that. The camp where he was ordered to go is, on the whole, a fairly comfortable camp, but I understand that the camp at Elie needs very careful investigation, and I would be glad if His Majesty's Government would give some attention to that. This man is suffering from three different complaints. They are very serious complaints, and it is quite impossible for him to travel. He is only able to work occasionally. I have here copies of the medical certificates that were sent to the authorities to explain why he could not travel, and anybody must realize he could not possibly travel. He sent that certificate and stayed where he was. The most recent development in that case is that a new form of pressure appears to be exercised, because he has not received his ration card in the normal course, and now he is without a ration card. I know there are other Poles in the same position. In addition to all this, His Majesty's Government have appealed to Members of Parliament not to encourage Poles not to return. I would like to say here that I have scrupulously observed my loyalty to the Foreign Secretary in that matter, and have not given any advice at all, one way or another.
Finally, His Majesty's Government said in the letter they sent to the men that the fair and proper treatment of these men on their return to Poland would to a large extent determine the future relations between Britain and Poland. To this the Polish Foreign Minister replies that His Majesty's Government have no standing to protect Polish subjects in Poland, and I am going to say that His Majesty's Government here entirely agree with the Polish Foreign Minister on that point. On the 19th of last month my noble friend the Earl of Craven asked His Majesty's Government if they could give any information as to the fate of four men, refugees, who landed at Leith and were sent back to Poland. He asked what had happened to them since. I was in the House when the noble Lord, Lord Ammon, replied. Although I was not sitting in front of him, I observed him very closely, and nothing but his own express assurance will convince me that he did not loathe from the bottom of his soul the answer which, he was compelled to give to that question, because
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he said His Majesty's Government had made no inquiry, and would make no inquiry, as that was a matter for the Polish Government themselves.
Those people had come to our shores and asked for refuge. It is the first time to my knowledge that refuge has been denied in our country to any refugee, yet once they were sent back and had gone to Poland, I am perfectly convinced that the answer given by His Majesty's Government was perfectly correct. If that is so on March 19, then it is equally so on March 20. You cannot change overnight the principle on which foreign affairs are conducted. I am perfectly certain that His Majesty's Government would not assume such an avuncular role towards ignorant men in a matter of this kind, and proceed to persuade them that something is the case which is not. I am sure there must be some explanation. That would apply even although they owed them no debt. But on every occasion when the Polish Forces are mentioned, whatever member of His Majesty's Government is speaking, he pays a very well deserved tribute to their services to us in the war, and I am sure every member of His Majesty's Government and every noble Lord in this House would agree it would be a very wrong thing to persuade people to whom we were so deeply indebted that we could exercise on their behalf powers which we did not possess. I am mentioning that point in the hope of receiving an answer, because I am sure every noble Lord opposite will agree that the position looks rather awkward. I am perfectly certain that it was not intended the way it appears to me, and I should like an explanation.
However that may be, I think I have said enough to establish that in a great variety of ways His Majesty's Government are putting very severe pressure upon the members of the Polish Forces to make in this matter the decision which they desire, and that they have taken some trouble to remove counsel on the other side. It may be said, as I quite recognize, that a recommendation is not a guarantee, and that, whatever happens to these men, if they accept this recommendation, and if they yield to this pressure that is being put upon them, it may be said that after all that closes the matter. But turn the pages of history

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fifty years forward and look back to the difference between the pressure now being exercised and the recommendation made by His Majesty's Government and a guarantee for the security of these men when they return. It is very largely the same as with the colours green and red. The contrast between them disappears in the distance. I would like to remind His Majesty's Government that if they take the course which they appear to be adopting at this moment the considerations which have moved them to that course will also have faded very much, and seem very much less vital.
The repudiation by the Polish Government of the document which was circulated (the broadcast, I take it, was true), and the various other factors which seem to cast doubt upon it, make me feel quite certain that one of two things must have happened. Either His Majesty's Government have been deceived—I do not say intentionally deceived; I am careful about that—or else, in their anxiety to rid themselves of a great embarrassment, they may have believed that they had received assurances which perhaps in fact they had not completely received. But, in any case, it is perfectly clear, as far as I can see, that His Majesty's Government are in a false position. I suggest that the facts I have mentioned, and the undoubted inferences from them, do give them a chance to re-orientate themselves with regard to this question.
My own view has always been—as I have already said I took up this question with the noble Viscount, Lord Addison, when the Foreign Secretary made his statement—that His Majesty's Government should act as a simple messenger. After all, that commits them to nothing. It is the only course that does commit them to nothing. If these men return to Poland they are beyond your responsibility. You cannot exercise protection, and you will not be called upon to do so. But, unless that is done, what will happen? Some of these men will return to Poland, and they may or may not be well received. That we do not know, although we may have our own opinion. Supposing they do not, things being in their present state, some of them may go to Chile, and some to Brazil, and, if they go there, they will do what commonly happens in these countries. They will form a little colony, and I have not
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the smallest doubt that, with the qualities they possess, they will prosper there. Surely it is folly to expel these men in that way, carrying away these memories to hand on to their children, and make yet another spot on the face of the earth where the name of Britain will be for ever odious. For the memory of that will not die or fade in fifty years, nor one hundred years, nor one hundred and fifty years. These men have been promised British citizenship. I am not going to make any distinction between a Parliamentary undertaking and a promise. They were promised British citizenship on March 14 of last year, and that fact was acknowledged by His Majesty's Government at a later date in a debate in another place.
At the beginning of the war, when the resistance of Poland was vital to us, we made many promises to Poland, indeed anything to get them to stiffen their resistance, and help to give us the time needed to draw our sword. These promises have not been fulfilled. It is perfectly fair to say that every Pole I have talked to on the subject says, "We realize that you cannot fulfil them." But this promise of British citizenship is a promise that we can fulfil, and if we fail to fulfil that promise, that failure will infect every promise that we have made to the Poles, and it will then be clearly seen that our failure to keep our word was a defect not of power but of will. A very great Englishman (I do not know if he ever existed, but he was a very great Englishman), Shakespeare's Henry V, said before a battle:
"For he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother;
Be he ne'er so tile, this day shall gentle his condition."
That was said for a single battle on a single day of war. These men have been with us for nearly seven years. They have been our staunchest comrades on many a stricken field. They are the men who, in spite of fearful losses, took Cassino, and held it, and opened for us the path to Rome. Had they not done that, the British casualties might very well have been increased by 150,000, the number, roughly, of the Poles to-day, whom I think ought to be offered British citizenship. Is it too much to ask His Majesty's Government to remove the pressure which I am sure is being placed upon them; to re-address themselves to the problem, and,

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in the words of my own Motion, to assure them, in the words of Mr. Winston Churchill, that "if everything else fails, here are open the portals of the British Empire"? I beg to move for Papers.
5.40 p.m.
THE EARL OF CRAVEN: My Lords, as this is my maiden speech and I am a novice in the arts practised in your Lordships' House, I wilt endeavour to be brief, and beg to claim your indulgence. I speak only in the interests of justice. If Great Britain is to remain great, she must keep her honour and her word. The noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, has spoken in those interests. I reiterate all that he has so very ably said and I wish also to bring to your Lordships' notice several other points that deeply concern this problem. I have no wish to embarrass His Majesty's Government, but while there is still time let us honour our agreement. Let us leave the choice of nationality to the Poles themselves. It is their business. A lot of them have found peace and happiness under our flag. A lot of them wish to remain there. Surely the Poles are the people who know most about their own country. I myself have many Polish friends and have talked to Poles who have come under our protection from almost every quarter of Europe and of Asia. I have come to like them; they are very fine people. I feel quite strongly that they have been very definitely ill-treated by fate in the past and it looks as though it will be the same in the future. The provisional Polish Government thinks in Russian and the biggest illustration of this is to be seen at the U.N.O. conference.
The majority of Poles who do not wish to return to Poland are Poles who at some time or other have been in Russian hands. Those who are going back to Poland are Poles who have never been near the Russians; they have fallen straight into Allied hands as our Armies advanced through France, Germany or wherever they were. They held posts in the high organization of the Germany Army. I have heard it mentioned by certain people that Poland may put the stigma borne by the German people on these Poles. Whether this will happen I do not know. History will reveal that. I would be pleased if His Majesty's Government would tell us if a record has been kept of all those Poles to be repatriated. There have been some cases
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of British girls, some of them Scottish—I once met one—who have tried over and over again to get into touch with their husbands but they cannot find out anything about them. Is there any possible way to help these people? I am just as much concerned about them as probably any of your Lordships here. I am sure you will be very much interested to know what happens to those girls. There are many other reasons why such large numbers of very brave men are asking questions about their country as it stands to-day, though they do not wish to return to it. Some have homes and children there. Some of the reasons are good and some are bad. It is the good reasons in which I wish to interest your Lordships at the moment.
I ask the noble Lord who is going to reply for the Government, if they have been able to get from the Polish Provisional Government any satisfactory answer as to what is going to happen to those men after they return. As the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, has pointed out, in another place it was said that it has not been possible to obtain this. We do not know what the Polish Government is going to do. The Polish Security Police under Russian control, direct or indirect, is still rife throughout Poland and is being used as a political weapon. This can be illustrated by a statement issued by the American Secretary of State on January 31 of this year. I will read Mr. Byrnes's statement to your Lordships:
"In view of these responsibilities assumed by the United States Government at Yalta and Potsdam, looking to the establishment of a democratic representative Government in Poland, this Government must necessarily follow closely Polish political developments. The greatest importance is attached to the fulfilment of Poland's election commitments and the American Ambassador has on several occasions brought to the attention of the Polish Government the fact that activities of the Security Police hinder fulfilment of this commitment.
"I have, therefore, requested the American Embassy in Warsaw to inform the Polish Government that we are relying on the Government to take the necessary steps to assure the freedom and security which are essential to successful holding of free elections."
Members of your Lordships' House will have read of the conditions prevailing in Poland to-day. They have been referred to in a debate which took place in another place on December 7, 1945. These conditions prevail over most of Occupied

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Europe and it is hard to understand any reason existing which can allow such untrammelled brutality and pagan violence to stalk abroad at will over the fair face of Europe. Time does not allow me to go into details on this subject in this debate, because it is an extremely long one. Were I to do so, your Lordships might be shocked at what is taking place. I would also like to mention Major Tufton Beamish's articles which were published in the Daily Telegraph during the last week of February, after he returned from Poland. He was a member of the Parliamentary delegation sent to that country and he knows a lot about it.
The British Empire has always stood for freedom, so how can it now countenance oppression? It is the plight of Poland which first made us take up arms to preserve the four freedoms. If there is a man who doubts the valiant work performed by the Poles during this last and greatest of wars, in this country or wherever they fought, I suggest that he read what Professor Savory said in a speech he made in another place on February 20, 1946. It is an extremely good speech in which mention is made of Cassino. Another member of your Lordships' House has vouched for the magnificent fighting qualities of the Poles. I for one sincerely hope that we shall see detachments of the Polish Forces marching side by side in step with our own brave fighting men in the forthcoming Victory Parade. I think it is our duty to give them a place of honour among our own men:
There have been some Polish comments on the leaflet the men have received from the British Government urging them to return home and I thought it might interest your Lordships to hear just one or two of them. "Why this talk of a general amnesty?" they ask. "What have we done that is wrong?" Another one is: "Why has the leaflet not been signed by the Warsaw Government?" Again, they ask: "Why is it in pigeon Polish?" (as Lord Saltoun pointed out.) Is it not irregular and most highly undesirable that the British Government should promulgate a leaflet which is so open to the criticism of foreign nationals? In the past this country has benefited by the absorption of colonies of foreigners; for instance, the German miners who have
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gone up north and the Dutch and Flemish who have gone into the wool trade.
You would hardly know that they had come into the country; yet they are still here and they have been extremely helpful to the industrial build-up in this country as a whole throughout a long period of time. I suggest also that Italy could be invited to take over some of the Poles of General Anders' Army. I believe it has been expressed in several places that they are willing to do this. Again, could not France be asked or invited to succour some Poles who wish to go to her? I believe it was put forward—in fact, I know it was put forward in the Daily Telegraph this morning—that France is only too willing to take these men; that they are in need of the labour and the brains to set up their towns and industries again after the frightful mauling they have gone through.
I wonder if it is possible for His Majesty's Government to tell us whether these points have been gone into very carefully and thoroughly examined? I ask whether consideration has been given to placing the problem of the repatriation of the Poles before the United Nations Council which is now in America, with the idea in mind that the United Nations Council forms an organization for looking after the repatriated Poles who are now in Poland or who are going there. Great Britain is powerless to aid the Poles once they have been repatriated—that is obvious to everybody and nobody can dispute it. It can only be accomplished by the joint action of all nations. The time has come to take our heads out of the sand and face the problems of Europe as they really exist to-day. If we do not do it now we may find ourselves too late to do so in the future. The Poles are not the only foreigners living within our protection and under our flag, and I suggest to your Lordships that in the future it may come about—in fact it has already started to come about—that other foreigners will all the time be coming under our protection from parts of Europe which we consider to be oppressed. I most certainly consider them oppressed from all I have heard. I ask His Majesty's Government what action has been taken to get over this other problem.
5.54 p.m.
THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE: My Lords, I am sure your

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Lordships will wish me to follow usual custom in offering to the noble Earl who has just sat down the hearty congratulations of your Lordships on the first time that he has addressed the House. I am certain that we have all been impressed by the thoughtfulness and the courage of his speech. Personally I should like co add another word of thanks to him for having taken the opportunity of a maiden speech to address himself to a very important topic and to pay a tribute to that gallant nation of Poland. I cannot help casting my mind back to a similar situation in which I found myself many years ago, soon after I came back from active service in France after the last war, and when I, with great temerity, addressed your Lordships for the first time. Following me, the House was addressed by the noble Viscount who then sat on the Woolsack, and he started his speech with these words: "If the noble Lord who has just sat down had thought for a moment, he would not have said what he has said.' I do feel to-day, however, very forcefully, that the noble Earl who has made this contribution to the debate has served a very great public duty and has done it well.
I should like also to thank the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, for having brought this subject before your Lordships. He, with the Earl of Craven, has covered the ground extremely well. I think the three points they have brought out are these: that we require more facts; that the future of these men is obscure; and that by the recent action of His Majesty's Government pressure has been brought to bear upon them in making their choice. In December, 1942, I had the honour to submit to you a Motion in respect of Poland and of her great contribution to the war effort, and of the pledges which we had given to her. On that occasion your Lordships did me the honour and distinction of accepting my Motion and agreeing to it without any contradiction. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, who replied on that occasion to the debate on behalf of His Majesty's Government, concluded his speech in these words:
"All our pledges to Poland to which the noble Earl referred will be honoured. Great Britain drew the sword to fulfil the first pledge that we gave to Poland. We shall not sheathe our sword until the last pledge has been fulfilled"
A great deal has happened since then. A great many negotiations have taken
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place, and I should like to pay a high tribute to the earnest and solid endeavour of the present Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Bevin. But in spite of these endeavours and the results which they have achieved, there still remains in the minds of many of us—and it has been said by the two noble Lords who have just addressed your Lordships that it is in the minds of the people of this country—a doubt that all is not well and that further effort is required. I am glad, therefore, to have this opportunity of supporting the Motion of my noble friend in which he has expressed, I think in moderate terms, the desire for an assurance that no pressure will be exercised to induce these gallant men who have served with us in almost every theatre of the war to return to Poland, except of their own free will.
I do not wish this to be interpreted as an indication that I, for one, desire to encourage any Pole not to return. My dearest wish, and I believe it is shared by all your Lordships, is that all these men who have shown such gallantry and heroism in the field of battle should return and help in the rebuilding of the land which they love so well. But I think very few of us in this country realize what the Poles have suffered. First, at the hands of the Germans, the population since 1939 has been reduced by approximately 10,000,000. In the same period the losses at the hands of Russia are no less severe: 1,500,000 have been deported to Russia. The Soviet have claimed nearly half the territory which was Poland when the war started, and has included in her citizenship, therefore, about one-third of the then population of Poland. Thus, even with the addition of Danzig and Eastern Prussia, Poland is smaller now than she was before the war.
To illustrate, if I may, by a homely parallel, the difficulties which confront these men, I would put a question to your Lordships. How do you think Lord Saltoun and I would view the removal of the border line between England and Scotland from where it is now to the line of the Forth and Clyde? That is apparently approximately the same as the change-over which Poland has to face. I think you will agree with me that neither Lord Saltoun nor myself would receive that suggestion with open arms, even if it were accompanied by the offer of part

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of Northern Ireland with the port of Belfast.
To return to the serious situation. I have had the honour of being President of the Scottish-Polish Society ever since it was started at the beginning of the war. The society was started to promote friendship between the two countries and to promote cultural relations after the war. Your Lordships will understand that that society has given very careful thought to this subject which we have before us to-day and its bearing on the present situation. A number of communications have passed between the society and the Foreign Office during the past two years in which the society has endeavoured to point out the anxiety of its members in regard to the pitiful plight of Poland and the possible danger which this condition may cause to the peace of the world. We have tried to stress the urgent need for united action on recreating a free and unfettered republic in Poland, and to this end we feel that the British nation has an obligation to do everything in Sts power to ensure a free and secret ballot, and especially a duty to see that the members of the Polish Forces who served with us, and under British command, shall have the full right to record their votes and exercise their free judgment.
I have no wish to embarrass His Majesty's Government any more than either of the previous speakers. Indeed, as I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, I am deeply sensible of, and grateful for, the courageous action which has been taken by the Foreign Secretary. But I should be wrong if I allowed anyone to imagine that I thought all was well, or that by the covering note issued by His Majesty's Government to the Polish troops we fully redeemed the pledge given by Lord Selborne in the name of the Government in 1942. I fully realize and acknowledge that it is difficult to get authentic information. That is our chief difficulty.
In conclusion, may I quote a resolution adopted unanimously at a special general meeting of the Scottish-Polish Society held in Edinburgh on Friday of last week? It was resolved:
"To obtain and publish all possible authentic information regarding the tragic conditions in Poland and, if possible, to arrange to send a Committee under the auspices of His Majesty's Government to visit
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Poland; to continue to represent to his Majesty's Government that on grounds of international justice and humanity it is vital that immediate steps be taken to terminate the Police State at present existing in Poland; that in confirmation of the resolve taken by the society in September, 945, we shall make public our intention to support every effort towards the re-establishment of the sovereignty of the Republic of Poland, and that the peoples of Poland must be given immediate facilities for expressing their desires regarding a future Government by means of an election of representatives nominated by the citizens of Poland, free from pressure and outside influence."
I have tried to sum up our feelings that more facts and information are required and that we require from the Government a further statement, as asked for by the two previous speakers, showing more clearly what was in the mind of the Government when this circular was issued to the Polish troops, and whether they cannot see their way to continue the pledge, given in the name of the country, of British citizenship.
6.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, without following the noble Earl who has just spoken over a very wide field which he tended to cover in the latter part of his speech, I would like to re-enforce the much more limited plea which was made by the mover of this Motion for precise information and precise assurances on a very specific question. In doing so, I should like to congratulate the noble Earl on a very sincere, sympathetic and informed maiden speech. I am very glad that this Motion has been put down by my noble friend, because I think some rather disquieting things have happened—I am sure the Secretary of State will agree—since the Foreign Secretary made his statement in another place and circulated his own statement and its Polish enclosure to the Polish troops. The Secretary of State himself obviously felt some anxiety because in the statement he made on March 20 he said that to his great surprise and regret agreements had hardly been reached upon the text of these documents when the Polish Provisional Government addressed to His Majesty's Government and published a Note in which they declared that they could no longer regard the units of the Polish Armed Forces under British Command as forming part of the Armed Forces of Poland, and asked that those units should be disbanded forthwith, stating that the

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men who wished to return should make individual application to the Polish Consulates abroad. He went on to say that that Note had since been fully discussed with the Polish Provisional Government, and he had received assurances from them that it did not affect the conditions set out in the document which was being issued to the troops. Obviously, the Secretary of State was naturally disconcerted by this half disavowal, or what looked like it, by the Polish Provisional Government.
What I think has exercised all of us is the action taken by the Provisional Government in Poland immediately after the Secretary of State made his plain and clear statement in Parliament. I have only the reports from the Press, but the noble Lord, no doubt, with direct information from the Embassy in Poland, will be able to confirm whether these reports are correct. According to the newspaper reports, which are very specific, there have been a series of broadcasts. On March 21—that is, the very day after the statement made in another place by the Secretary of State—there was a broadcast (which was, I think, fairly summarized in the Press, I read it in the Sunday Times) taking the Foreign Secretary to ask for "presuming to take upon himself to protect Poles in Poland." That was based, apparently, on the very natural and proper statement made by the Foreign Secretary that His Majesty's Government could not disinterest themselves in the future of these. Poles once they got back to Poland. If I may say so, that was a very right and proper statement, although I agree that one has to be extremely careful in making a statement like that to see that you are not giving, or appearing to give, to the people you are addressing a guarantee which it is not within your power to carry out.
That was followed on the following day, March 22, according to the Press, by a further broadcast which denied that the Polish Government had made the statement which was issued in its name. That is the statement which has been referred to in this debate, and which is headed "A Statement by the Polish Provisional Government." What I think we ought to know is what is the authority of that statement. I think we had all assumed when it was published in Hansard that of course it was a statement—and it may
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be it is so—supplied to His Majesty's Government by the Polish Government, and issued with the full authority of the Polish Government, as would be a statement issued by the Secretary of State in this country as far as this. Government was concerned. We really ought to know, because it is entirely upon that statement that the undertakings rest. It does seem a very curious thing that the Polish Government should apparently draw attention to the fact that it is not signed by anybody, and cast doubts upon the Polish Government's authority to issue that statement, although they admit, I am sure, that a number of the things in it are undertakings which they have given from time to time. Surely it is vitally important, when something upon which the whole life and future of these people depend is issued to them, that it should be issued with the absolutely full and unqualified authority and undertaking of the Polish Government.
I am sure that the Government are as anxious as we are to discharge our duty in full to these Poles who have so gallantly served in the Army, Navy and Air Force. They have an absolutely wonderful fighting record, as the Secretary of State in another place said when he paid a very great tribute to them. I observe that the Minister of State, Mr. Noel-Baker, speaking at an U.N.R.R.A. session in America recently, said:
"The British authorities would not think it wise to close their camps if it meant a pressure on people to return to countries to which they did not wish to return."
He was speaking of the Poles. Now I am sure the Government do not mean to put pressure upon these Polish soldiers. I think we all agree that if they can return to Poland under decent conditions they will perhaps be the greatest asset that Poland could have. I am certainly going to be most careful not to say a word which would deter them from giving their services where their services are most needed, in the reconstruction of their own country, but these men themselves, these. Poles, know the conditions in Poland and are able to appraise them far better than we can. It is their fate and their future which is at stake. Their choice should be absolutely free, and not only should that choice be free in fact, but His Majesty's Government should make it abundantly plain to them that that choice is free.
6.15 p.m.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, we have had a most interesting debate and I am sure your Lordships will excuse me if I do not cover quite all the very wide ground which the noble Earl went over. Questions of policy are always most interesting, but it is clear that we cannot discuss general policy in this debate. It is a concise and limited Motion that has been made and I will do my best to answer that. As regards the individual case which the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, mentioned, if he can give me some details I will have it looked into. I should imagine the noble Earl's inquiries about the Scottish women who married Poles will be looked into by the Foreign Office and the Ambassador to Poland and they will be glad to help. I will, however, refer again to the noble Earl's extremely attractive maiden speech later.
I will ask you to treat this not as a political issue but as a practical problem of some moment. Some of these Poles came from France in the early days of the war; some were taken as prisoners to Russia and after the Russians came into the war against Germany they came to us through Persia and were organized in military formations under General Anders. Some came over to us during the fighting in Italy and on the Western fronts. I as an old member of the Royal Air Force and now Secretary of State have nothing but the warmest tributes to pay to their gallantry from the time of the Battle of Britain onwards. During the Battle of Britain I sat once in the control tower of an aerodrome in the north of England and saw a Polish squadron go out with twelve machines. They came back about thirty minutes later doing a victory roll but with only eleven machines. I should be the very last to deny the gallantry of these people. We know they have adopted our ways and worked with us and if we could find a means to keep some of them we should be very very pleased.
Here they are in this country and in Italy, this fine and gallant band, and what are we going to do with them. I want to beg noble Lords not to do anything to dissuade these people from going back to their own country by suggesting sinister possibilities. I think that would render them a very poor service. Some people have talked as if you could
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order Australia and order Canada to take them, but you cannot do that These are independent countries though they regard the problem as sympathetically as we do ourselves. What we have done is this. We first of all urged these people that it is their duty to play their part in the reconstruction of their country, because we believe they are wanted in Poland and there is a future for them in Poland. Mr. Bevin got an authorized statement giving the conditions. I do not know whether your Lordships have read this but it gives a great many answers to the questions which have been asked. It deals with pensions, demobilization, settlement of land and a great many other things, and I do not think anyone would suggest that this statement—it may be in bad Polish because it may be it is difficult to get things translated easily—is a bogus statement. I do not think anybody will suggest this.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: Could the Secretary of State say who drew it up? Was it prepared by the Polish Government or was it prepared by us?
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: It was a statement of what will happen to these men if they go back to Poland. It is published under the authority of the British Government with the agreement of the Polish Government. I have seen reports of recent broadcasts from Warsaw, but I have not seen anything in them which can be considered to undermine or invalidate the statements about the conditions of return that were made in this published document. Nevertheless, there may be some Poles who feel they cannot go back to Poland for one reason or another. I think I am allowed to quote Ministerial statements and in this connexion Mr. Eden said:
"Is it still the fact that the men who want to go back will be given every facility and those who do not want to go back will have no pressure put upon them?"
That is exactly the same question as was asked by Lord Saltoun. He went on to ask whether His Majesty's Government would try to find another way of life for them within the British Empire. That I think really set out precisely the two points that were made by Lord Saltoun. And the answer of the Foreign Secretary was, "I think that correctly states the position." I do not think that I need go beyond that.

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When it comes to working out a means of employing those who decide to remain, whilst it is quite clear that no guarantees can be given, I must say that I was very much moved by what the noble Earl said about profiting by their presence here. We have had examples of that in our past history—as for instance in the case of the Huguenots. And I, myself, well remember how in the "nineties" we derived an enormous industrial advantage out of the flood of aliens that then came over here. But that is another topic, and all I will say is that I entirely agree that the noble Earl's was a really true and sound Liberal sentiment. I hope that the noble Lords who have raised individual points will do me the favour of letting me have particulars so that I may have search made, and that otherwise your Lordships will be satisfied with what I know amounts to no more than a repetition of the assurances given already by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
6.22 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Lord for what he has said, but there are two points upon which I would have liked him to be more precise. One arises out of the fact that, immediately this document was issued, Poles were ordered to proceed from points all over the country to certain camps—I will not call them concentration camps—and to remain there two or three weeks to consider the offer. That, I submit, does amount to pressure. The other point comes up in this connexion. I know that one Pole—and I am told that there are a very large number of others in the same position—has not received a proper issue of ration cards. That is a very serious matter. You cannot allow it to go all over Europe and the world that the British Government—and it will be the British Government who will be accused whoever is in fact responsible—took that course with men whose services were what the noble Lord has so beautifully described. I would like to withdraw my Motion, but I would ask the noble Viscount, if he would be so kind, to say that he will try his best to have some action taken in these particular matters. You cannot go without bread.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: If the noble Lord will give me details of the allegation, I will have them carefully examined and will ascertain the facts. If the facts do not
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support the allegations I hope that the noble Lord will give the same publicity to those facts as he has given to his well-founded fears.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I shall be very happy to do so. I thank the noble Viscount very much for what he has said and in the circumstances I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

EXPORTS TO U.N.R.R.A.
6.24 p.m.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, I beg to ask the question standing in my name.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the Board of Trade export figure for February, 1946, of £59,985,280 includes the value of materials and goods supplied to U.N.R.R.A., and if so, what was the value in sterling of the materials and goods so supplied.]
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, the whole of these goods are included in the export statistics, and the exports to U.N.R.R.A. from this country are not separately recorded. A precise figure cannot, therefore, he given, but the value of such goods in February was, roughly, £2,500,000.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, arising out of that answer, would the noble Lord consider in future keeping these items separate, as they are compared to pre-war figures of export trade which are not really comparable on the same terms?
LORD PAKENHAM: I will certainly convey the suggestion of the noble Lord to the proper quarters.

LEICESTER CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Report from the Committee of Selection that the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select Committee for the consideration of the said Bill—namely:

V. Chelmsford,

L. Saltoun,

L. Dorchester,

L. Merthyr,

L. Belstead (Chairman).

Agreed to, and the said Lords appointed accordingly.
Petition for additional provision of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of the City of Leicester under their common seal, together with the proposed Clauses and Amendment annexed thereto: Read and referred to the Examiners.

STIRLING GAS ORDER, 1946.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the Stirling Gas Light Company laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.
  IMPORTS OF PITPROPS
  IMPORTS OF PITPROPS
  BREAD WHEAT CONTENT.
  BREAD WHEAT CONTENT.
  FINDO-CASK AIRFIELD.
  FINDO-CASK AIRFIELD.