Sitting of 5 November 1946

Preamble
The House met at Half past Two o'Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

MESSAGE FROM THE KING
THE VICE-CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD (CAPTAIN SNOW) reported His Majesty's Answer to the Addresses, as followeth:
I have received your Addresses praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Canada) Order, 1946: the Double Taxation Relief (Estate Duty) (Canada) Order, 1946: and the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Southern Rhodesia) Order, 1946, be made in the form of the respective drafts laid before Parliament.
I will comply with your request.
GEORGE R.I.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  HOUSING

    Bricks, Orpington
    Sir Waldron Smithersasked the Minister of Works whether he has considered the details which have been sent to him concerning the lack of bricks at Nos. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12, Malvern Road, Orpington; when delivery of the bricks can be expected; and whether he has any statement to make on the matter.
    The Minister of Works (Mr. Tomlinson): The final consignment of bricks required for this work was delivered early in October.
    Sir W. Smithers: Can the Minister say how many months' delay there was? Is he not aware that this attempt to run
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    private industry from Whitehall leads to awful delays, especially in the putting up of houses in badly bombed areas? Why were these bricks not sent by rail?

    Building Materials and Housing Fund
    Mr. Sparksasked the Minister of Works (1) if he will make a statement showing the progress made in carrying out the functions of Section 1 (1) of the Building Materials and Housing Act, 1945;
    (2) if he will state to the nearest convenient date the amounts paid into, and paid out of, the Building Materials and Housing Fund showing, separately, the amounts allocated in accordance with Section 2 (2) of the Building Materials and Housing Act, 1945.
    Mr. Tomlinson: I would ask my hon. Friend to await the first statement of accounts of the Building Materials and Housing Fund, which will be published shortly.
    Mr. Sparks: In regard to Question No. 2, could my right hon. Friend indicate to what extent he is able to assist local authorities to carry out the work undertaken under Section 5 of the Housing Act, 1936? Is that assistance mainly confined to temporary housing, or is it to assist the undertaking of permanent housing development?
    Mr. Tomlinson: I cannot give details without notice, but it applies, I think, to both.

    Distribution of Building Materials
    Mr. John Lewisasked the Minister of Works if he is aware that the distribution of building materials is unsatisfactory at the moment and whether he will give consideration to transferring the functions of control, allocation and distribution of building materials to local authorities.
    Mr. Tomlinson: No, Sir. I have retained the control of distribution in my Department in order that the entire national output of materials may be available to satisfy priority demands in any part of the country. A piecemeal division of the responsibility would, in my opinion, aggravate the effect of any production deficiencies.
    Sir W. Smithers: Is not the Minister aware that Question No. I, which I asked,

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    and this Question, both ask for much the same thing? The distribution from Whitehall is awful.

    Derequisitioned Premises
    Commander Nobleasked the Minister of Works how many hotels, large houses, small houses and flats, respectively, in the London Civil Defence region have been derequisitioned by the Government for use as dwelling accommodation since 30th April, 1946.
    Mr. Tomlinson: The total number of hotels, large houses, small houses and flats derequisitioned in the London Civil Defence region between 1st May and 30th September, 1946, was 3,129, made up as follows: 35 hotels, 168 large houses, 2,037 small houses, 889 flats. In addition, requisitioning departments have transferred to the Ministry of Health for housing 283 properties, consisting of: I hotel, 120 large houses, 130 small houses, 32 flats.
    Commander Noble: Could the Minister say how many flats are still held?
    Mr. Tomlinson: Not without notice.
    Commander Nobleasked the Minister of Works when it is expected to derequisition the 27 empty houses in Chelsea held by Government Departments on 30th September.
    Mr. Tomlinson: Of the 27 houses concerned, four have been derequisitioned and two placed at the disposal of the housing authorities. The remaining 21 are being re-used and cannot be released.

    Aluminium Houses, South-West Region
    Mr. Alpassasked the Minister of Works what progress is being made with the delivery of Airoh houses in the South-Western region, particularly in the Sodbury and Thornbury Rural District Councils' areas.
    Mr. Tomlinson: About 5,200 aluminium houses have been allocated to the South-Western region. To date 2,767 slab foundations have been completed and 1,332 houses have been handed over for occupation. One hundred and eighty temporary houses have been allocated to Sodbury Rural District Council and the aluminium type has been allotted to the
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    sites for 100 houses which have so far been made available. Work on foundations has been completed at all available sites and 73 houses have been delivered, of which 59 have been completed and handed over to the Council. At Thorn-bury, which has an allocation of 50 aluminium houses, all foundation work has been completed and it is expected that all houses will be delivered by the end of this month.
    Mr. Alpass: Will the Minister see that every possible step is taken to expedite the delivery of these houses in these districts and thus relieve to some extent the very acute housing shortage which exists there?
    Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, Sir. I think if the hon. Member will study the answer he will find that we are keeping up the programme in these districts.

  MINISTRY OF WORKS

    Building Licences
    Mr. Ronald Chamberlainasked the Minister of Works why it has been found impracticable to require the exhibition in public places of all licences granted for the execution of building work.
    Mr. Tomlinson: It is not possible to state shortly all the difficulties and objections to the proposal. Some of the difficulties are: The method of displaying and inspecting the licence, the confusion and distress likely to be caused by reports from common informers of the work being done where no licence is required, and the difficulty of enforcing in the courts any condition requiring the licensee to exhibit the licence. I am considering other alternatives which may meet the object which this proposal is intended to achieve.
    Mr. Chamberlain: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that this matter of black market building is so serious that he ought to try to overcome these technical difficulties?
    Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, Sir. I would point out that for months we have been trying to find a method of overcoming these difficulties, but they seem to be insuperable so far as posting notices of licences is concerned.
    Mrs. Castle: Would not one of the ways of overcoming the difficulty be to make

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    all repair work subject to licence, thus making it possible to insist on the display of a licence in every case?
    Mr. Piratinasked the Minister of Works how many allegations of black-market building were investigated by his Department in July, August and September; how many cases arising from these investigations were referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions; and the number of prosecutions which were made.
    Mr. Tomlinson: During July, August and September, 2,679 allegations of contravention of Defence Regulation 56A were investigated. The investigations are not all complete but during this period 71 cases were referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Crown Office. In the same period there were 48 prosecutions, the majority in cases investigated before July.
    Mr. Piratin: If one is to take the figures which the Minister has just given as being appropriate for the period, because there may be a continuity, is the Minister satisfied with the fact that of 2,679 allegations only 71 have been referred to the Public Prosecutor?
    Mr. Tomlinson: No, Sir, I am not satisfied. At the moment we are discussing with local authorities the possibility of their having power of prosecution themselves.
    Mrs. Leah Manning: Can the Minister say whether, when the material is sent to the Public Prosecutor, any steps are taken to prevent a continuation of building by the same contractor on the same site?
    Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, Sir. When inquiries are being made, in most instances a stop is put to the licence under which the work is being carried out.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Can the Minister say in how many of the 48 cases where there was a prosecution a conviction was secured; and will he take steps to secure power to have the sentences in such cases increased?
    Mr. Tomlinson: I ought to point out that it is not for the Minister to determine what the sentences should be. In the 48 cases where proceedings were taken, 47 convictions were secured.
    Mr. Bowles: Is the Minister aware that a mere fine is no deterrent and that imprisonment is the only remedy?
    Mr. Tomlinson: It was for that reason that on the last occasion when an order was brought before the House it was made possible to take away a builder's licence.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: May I make it clear that I did not wish to suggest that the Minister could have these sentences increased but that he should give power to increase them in future cases?

    Requisitioned Hotels
    Sir Frank Sandersonasked the Minister of Works the total number of hotels still requisitioned in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Tomlinson: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) on 29th October.
    Sir F. Sanderson: In view of the shortage of hotel accommodation will the Minister give an assurance that he will release the maximum number of hotels in the minimum amount of time?
    Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, Sir, that is being done.

    Business Premises, Liverpool (Requisition)
    Mrs. Braddockasked the Minister of Works the number of business premises still under requisition in Liverpool, giving the owners in each case and the present users; and how long it will be, in each case, before the premises are restored to their prewar users.
    Mr. Tomlinson: This Question entails inquiries from a number of Government Departments and it has not been possible to obtain the information in the time available. I will send the information to my hon. Friend as soon as possible.
    Mrs. Braddock: Does that mean that there is no centralised Department of the Government which keeps a record of property requisitioned by the various Departments; and is the Minister aware that the fact that these premises remain requisitioned for such a long time is, in the opinion of the people of Liverpool, one of the reasons why there is such a terrific increase in unemployment in the Liverpool area?
    Mr. Tomlinson: In answer to the first part of the question, I would point out that my Ministry is not the only Ministry that

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    requisitions. Other Ministries can requisition property and, therefore, it is necessary to consult them with regard to the property they hold. We have a register of the properties for which we are responsible, and it is because of our sympathy with what is stated in the latter part of the Question that we are attempting to take action as quickly as possible.
    Mr. Keenan: Will the Minister undertake to continue the work started by his Parliamentary Secretary recently, because he apparently knows, or knew, the details, and made certain promises in the locality about two months ago?
    Mr. Tomlinson: That work is proceeding.
    Mr. Nally: Can we have an assurance from my right hon. Friend that, whether it concerns Liverpool or elsewhere, so far as his Department is concerned they will not yield to the mass pressure tactics now being adopted by football pool organisations to secure a release of premises which can much better be used in the public interest for other purposes?
    Mr. Tomlinson: The purpose for which premises are to be used is not one of the things that we can take into consideration.

    Welsh Slates
    Mr. Price-Whiteasked the Minister of Works why he has directed that completion, of roof repairs to war-damaged properties in the London area shall be with Portuguese slate where Welsh slate is not available; and if he will take steps to ensure that a sufficiency of Welsh slate is in future available for the completion of such repairs in place of Portuguese slate which has only an average expectation of three years' life.
    Mr. Tomlinson: I have given no such direction as the hon. Member suggests. Efforts are being made to secure as high a production of Welsh slates as possible.
    Mr. Price-White: Is the Minister aware that in the Ministry of Health Direction No. 203 an indication was given of the availability of foreign slates to be obtained through the Ministry of Works, and is that compatible with the right hon. Gentleman's answer?
    Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, Sir. That is not in any sense a direction. As everybody
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    knows, there is a shortage of Welsh slates and we have arranged for the importation of some foreign slates in order to meet the difficulty. That is what was pointed out by the Ministry of Health.

    Steel Scaffolding, Poole
    Colonel Wheatleyasked the Minister of Works if he is aware that the contractor removing the steel scaffolding from the shore of Poole Bay is cutting off the posts at beach level, a method which, with the endless shifting of the sands, results in the exposure of stubs of metal. causing danger to bathers and fishing boats; and if he will give instructions for this method of clearance to be changed.
    Mr. Tomlinson: New arrangements have been made to ensure the complete removal of the steel scaffolding.

    Building Workers (Mobile Canteens)
    Mr. Chamberlainasked the Minister of Works what arrangements are in force for a service of mobile canteens for building trade operatives working in localities in which no other meals service is available.
    Mr. Tomlinson: There is no general service of mobile canteens operative throughout the building industry and contractors-make their own arrangements for providing meals for men in isolated areas by means of mobile canteens or otherwise.
    Mr. Chamberlain: Will the Minister bear in mind the very great difficulties under which these men work in isolated conditions of this kind, and will he use his good offices to encourage contractors to give this very necessary service?
    Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, Sir. We have been doing that through the Consultative Committee.

    PARAFFIN OIL
    Mr. Digbyasked the Minister of Fuel and Power what steps he is taking to increase supplies of paraffin in Dorset, the shortage of which is causing hardship to those living in dwellings without electric light.
    The Minister of Fuel and Power (Mr. Shinwell): From 1st October, the monthly

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    allocation of paraffin oil to all dealers was increased by 10 per cent. on the allocations to them in the corresponding months a year ago, and more oil will, therefore, be available in Dorset and other parts of the country. Persons who are solely dependent on paraffin oil for lighting, heating and cooking, are already assured of the necessary quantities of oil each month under the Kerosene (Paraffin Oil) Priority Scheme.

  COAL INDUSTRY

    Bus Strike, Wales (Lost Tonnage)
    Sir W. Smithersasked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he will give an estimate of the tonnage of coal lost through the recent strike of omnibus workers in Wales.
    Mr. Shinwell: The estimated loss of coal through the recent dispute affecting bus services in Wales was 34,000 tons.
    Sir W. Smithers: Will the Minister publicly denounce this selfish and unwarranted action by the bus drivers—
    Mr. Speaker: The Question asked was what was the tonnage, and the answer was given.

    Pensions Fund (Contributions)
    Sir John Mellorasked the Minister of Fuel and Power in what districts deductions for the benefit of local pensions funds are still made without consent from the wages of men tied to the coal industry under the Control of Engagement Orders; and to what extent will contributions be refunded to those who leave the industry when the orders are revoked.
    Mr. Shinwell: None, so far as I am aware. The question of a refund to men leaving the industry is governed by the terms of the trust deed under which a pension fund is established and will not be affected by the revocation of the Control of Engagement Orders.
    Sir J. Mellor: Is not this a further instance of the injustice of tying men to the industry under the Control of Engagement Orders?
    Mr. Shinwell: No, Sir. It is working out quite well.

    Production Rally (Cancellation)
    Mr. Baker Whiteasked the Minister of Fuel and Power the circumstances that led to the cancellation, at a late date and short notice, of the coal production rally fixed to be held at Sandwich, Kent, on Saturday, 26th October.
    Mr. Shinwell: I understand that the meeting in question was one of those planned by the National Coal Board. This is a domestic affair of the Coal Board and does not concern my Department.

    Mining Subsidence (Committee of Inquiry)
    Mr. Daggarasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is now in a position to state the names and terms of reference of the committee to deal with the question of mining subsidence.
    Mr. Shinwell: When this matter was raised during the Debate in Committee on the Coal Industry Nationalisation Bill, I had in mind an inquiry limited to certain aspects of the subsidence problem, and accordingly I gave the Committee an assurance that I would consult hon. Members on both sides as to the terms of reference. On further consideration, however, I came to the conclusion that the inquiry should not be so limited, but should cover the whole field. Accordingly, I propose the following very wide terms of reference:
    "To examine the law of support and the problem of damage caused by mining subsidence in the light of the nationalisation of coal and the coalmining industry, and to make recommendations."
    Mr. T. F. Turner, K.C., has consented to act as chairman of the Committee and I hope to announce the names of the remaining members very shortly.

    Export Trade
    Mr. Henry Straussasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether his plans for the coal industry include the intention to restore the export trade in coal; and, if so within what period.
    Mr. Shinwell: Yes, Sir. With regard to the second part of the Question, I am unable to add anything at present to the statement which I made to the House on 24th July.

    FUEL OIL SUBSIDY
    Sir Patrick Hannonasked the Minister of Fuel and Power when the details of the subsidy scheme of £1 per ton on fuel oil used in this country will be made available; and if the Petroleum Board has yet completed the plan for rebate to large consumers.
    Mr. Shinwell: Details of the subsidy scheme were published in the daily and technical Press on or about 1st October, 1946, the date from which the subsidy became payable. At the same time, it was announced that the normal peacetime system of zonal pricing of black oils, and of the granting of quantity rebates to all consumers buying more than 100 tons of oil per annum, was being reintroduced. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the Press announcement giving the details.
    Sir P. Hannon: Does that mean that the functions of the Petroleum Board are now in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman?
    Mr. Shinwell: I would not go so far as that, but there is very close liaison between the two parties.

  PETROL

    Ration Books (Printing)
    Mr. Errollasked the Minister of Fuel and Power how many motor-fuel ration books for the six months period, March, 1947, to August, 1947, will be printed; when printing is expected to start; and what the total cost is expected to be.
    Mr. Shinwell: Three million nine hundred and ninety-eight thousand motor fuel ration books have been ordered for the period March, 1947, to August, 1947; printing has already started and the total cost will be approximately £10,500.
    Mr. Erroll: Does that mean that we are going to be afflicted with petrol rationing for the greater part of 1947?
    Mr. Shinwell: I have always assumed that the hon. Member could draw his own conclusions from an answer.

    Rationing
    Mr. Jannerasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware that
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    one consequence of the continuance of petrol rationing is that many people maintain more than one motor car in order to obtain more than one basic petrol ration, which increases the shortage and price of motor cars and tyres and other spare parts; and whether he will consider, as long as rationing continues, increasing the allowance to those who maintain one motor car for themselves or their family.
    Mr. Shinwell: It would not be practicable to make special arrangements for owners of one car. A basic petrol ration is issued in respect of all motor cars currently licensed, on production of the registration book of the vehicle, but the name which appears in the registration book does not necessarily mean that the person named is the actual owner of the vehicle or that it will, in fact, be used by that person.
    Mr. Janner: Will my right hon. Friend consider this matter again, in view of the fact that it is common knowledge that people are purchasing more than one motor car in order to obtain the additional basic ration?
    Mr. Shinwell: That may be, but there would be very great administrative difficulties involved in the change which the hon. Member suggests.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: As the Minister has so frequently said that it is his earnest desire to remove petrol rationing, and as we all know that there is more petrol in the country today than ever in our history, will he not take his courage in both hands and make a clean sweep of this order forthwith?
    Mr. Shinwell: I am still as anxious as ever to abolish petrol rationing.

    Professional Men (Allowances)
    Mr. J. Lewisasked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he will now raise the maximum scale of petrol allocation to professional men who are holders of S coupons.
    Mr. Shinwell: The supplementary petrol allowances of professional men who receive S coupons for business journeys were increased by 50 per cent. on the 1st August. A further increase of approximately 33⅓ per cent. was granted on 1st November to commercial travellers; other business and professional men in the S category who can show real need to use a car

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    or motor-cycle for home to business travel, for which the use of alternative transport is not reasonably practicable, as well as for necessary business journeys can also obtain this higher rate. My hon. Friend will appreciate, therefore, that, where professional men qualify for the higher rate mentioned, the allowance represents an increase of 100 per cent. above the rate granted prior to 1st August, and I regret that I am not in a position to authorise any further increase at present.
    Mr. Lewis: In view of the fact that it has been made clear on many occasions that the maintenance of petrol rationing is not due to the shortage of fuel but to a shortage of tyres, why does my right hon. Friend still fix some arbitrary maximum to the requirements of professional people who have to carry out their duties?
    Mr. Shinwell: I have never said, in this House in reply to Questions or at any other time, that the continuance of petrol rationing was not associated with the shortage of petrol. I never said anything to that effect. It may have been associated with some difficulties about tyres, but there are other reasons why we have to continue petrol rationing at the present time. [HON. MEMBERS: "What are they?"] I am not being asked that Question at the moment. As regards the question of supplementary allowances, as I have indicated in my answer, much has been done in this direction.

    WOOD FUEL (PRICES)
    Sir Ian Fraserasked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he will fix maximum prices, at all stages, for logs sold for firewood.
    Mr. Shinwell: Maximum wholesale prices for wood fuel are fixed under the Wood Fuel Prices (Wholesale) Order, 1946. As regards the control of retail prices, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 5th June to the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin), of which I am sending him a copy.
    Sir I. Fraser: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, even if there is a fixed price, it is being evaded, and the result is that certain rural industries, such as bobbin making, cannot get all the timber needed to carry on their most important work?
    Mr. Shinwell: As regards the first part of the supplementary question, if these allegations of evasion can be substantiated by reference to the local fuel overseer, I have power to take action, but I must be informed about these allegations before I can take it.

    ELECTRICITY SCHEMES (MATERIALS)
    Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicksasked the Minister of Fuel and Power in how many cases the provision of new electricity supply schemes are now being held up through lack of materials; and how many people are consequently being deprived of a supply of electricity.
    Mr. Shinwell: This information is not available, and could only be obtained by asking 570 electricity undertakings to submit detailed returns.
    Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks: In the interests of good planning, will not the Minister ask for this information?
    Mr. Shinwell: I hardly think that I am justified in imposing this burden on the electricity undertakings, but, even if I did obtain the information, I am not sure that it would be of much value.

    STATUTORY ORDER (MISPRINT)
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether his attention has been drawn to a misprint in S.R.&O. 1673, of 1946, which purports to have been made by him on 9th October, 1946; how many copies of this Order have been printed and distributed; and whether he is satisfied that manuscript amendment of the printing error has been effected in respect of all copies issued.
    Mr. Shinwell: Yes, Sir. 1,000 copies of this Order were printed, but I cannot say how many have been sold. I am informed that all copies have been corrected in manuscript by His Majesty's Stationery Office.
    Sir J. Mellor: Was the copy which was laid before Parliament correct before it was laid?
    Mr. Shinwell: The copy presented by my Department was in order, duly signed and with everything above board and

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    everything constitutional, but, when it was printed, there happened to be a misprint, and it was left to the Stationery Office to decide whether it was correct to issue it.
    Sir J. Mellor: I did not ask the Minister about the copy he signed. I asked him about the copy which was presented to Parliament.
    Mr. Shinwell: There was a misprint in that copy not attributable to the Minister of Fuel and Power, but to the Stationery Office.

  EMPLOYMENT

    Forty-Hour Week
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Minister of Labour if he will make a statement on the Government's plans regarding the adoption of a 40-hour week in industry, so that all concerned can look forward to the date or dates that are to be fixed.
    The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): The question of the length of the working week is a matter to be settled by the two sides of each industry, in the light of all the circumstances of the industry and the economic position of the country.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Do the Government accept the principle of the 40-hour week?
    Mr. Isaacs: The Government are confident that, in any discussions between the two sides on this question, there will be a mutual realisation both of the desirability of securing the maximum amount of leisure to the workers for recreation and social activities and of the vital importance of increasing production in the interest of our export trade and in the furthering of our prosperity campaign.
    Sir I. Fraser: On a point of Order. Is it in Order for a Minister so far to anticipate a supplementary question as to have it written down?
    Mr. Henry Strauss: Have not His Majesty's Government themselves any views whatsoever on the merits of this question?
    Mr. Isaacs: I have nothing to add to the answer I have already given.

    Polish Forces
    Mr Heathcoat Amoryasked the Minister of Labour what steps he is taking
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    to hasten the absorption, into those industries where serious manpower shortage exists, of the large numbers of Polish soldiers and airmen now in this country who have no work whatever to do.
    Mr. Isaacs: Arrangements have been made for members of the Polish Forces who enrol in the Polish Resettlement Corps to be registered for employment at local offices immediately after joining the Corps: Those suitable for employment in British industry will be considered for suitable vacancies for which there is no suitable and willing British worker on the local office registers. Where it seems probable that appreciable numbers of Poles could be employed in a particular industry, the national representatives of employers and workers are being consulted on the arrangements for this. Consultations have been, or are shortly to be, initiated with a number of industries, and agreement has already been reached with some of them.
    Mr. Amory: Does not the right hon. Gentleman feel that, in the case of men who were our comrades in war, this situation amounts to most ungenerous treatment, quite foreign to our traditions, and that it is a shocking waste of manpower?
    Mr. Isaacs: I cannot agree that it is ungenerous treatment. We are making every effort to secure that these men are employed, but, until enrolment in the corps is completed, it is difficult to say how many men will be available. We are receiving cooperation from the industries in trying to place the men.
    Earl Winterton: Could the Minister say what steps a private employer who wishes to hire labour for the purpose of land reclamation and forestry should take and with what part of the Polish Army he should be put into touch? Why should he have to go to the employment exchange?
    Mr. Isaacs: The employment exchange is the appropriate place through which employment is arranged, and we feel that it is most suitable for the purpose as, otherwise, we might find there was a great deal of employment of Poles to the detriment of unemployed British people.
    Mr. Wilfrid Roberts: Can the Minister say whether any of these men have been placed in employment?
    Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir, but that is not the question I have been asked. However, I will get further information. The gas industry and the unions concerned with it have been most helpful in this matter.
    Mr. Martin Lindsay: Can the Minister give any indication of how long he anticipates that this absorption will take?
    Mr. Isaacs: Not the slightest.
    Lieut.-Colonel Clifton-Brown: Can the Minister state what action he is taking to expedite enlistment in the Corps? At the present moment it takes at least half an hour to enlist each man as there are only six inspectors.
    Mr. Isaacs: The question of enlistment is not under my direction.

    Resettlement Advice Offices
    Mr. Errollasked the Minister of Labour how many resettlement advice centres there are at present in Great Britain; how the volume of work which they are doing at present compares with the volume six months ago; and how much the centres are costing at the present time.
    Mr. Isaacs: There are at present 367 resettlement advice offices in Great Britain, the cost of which is estimated at roughly £340,780 per annum. In the four weeks ended 27th September, 1946 (the latest period for which figures are available), 115,407 inquiries were dealt with at resettlement advice offices, that is, about 28,850 per week. This compares with about 38,190 per week six months ago.
    Mr. Erroll: Can the Minister say how long he thinks that the need for the service will exist?
    Mr. Isaacs: I cannot say how long these offices will exist, but I hope that the service provided by these offices will continue to be a part of the employment exchange service.

    Alien Domestic Workers
    Sir Ralph Glynasked the Minister of Labour how many applications have been received from British housewives and secretaries of institutions asking that Austrians, willing to undertake domestic service, shall be examined and provided with exit permits from Austria so as to take up positions in the United Kingdom;
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    how long does the process take; and how many Austrians have reached this country as a result of this procedure.
    Mr. Isaacs: The answer to the first part of the Question is 481. The average time taken to clear applications in Vienna has, hitherto, been six to eight weeks. As regards the last part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to him on 24th October. I cannot say how many of these for whom permits have been issued have reached this country.
    Sir R. Glyn: Would the right hon. Gentleman consult with the five Departments concerned in this matter in order to speed up the arrival of these people in view of the extreme shortage of labour in hospitals and other institutions, which do not know where to turn for labour because there is, apparently, no British labour available?
    Mr. Isaacs: Such consultations have taken place and are continuing. We are hopeful that the period of four months which elapses from the beginning to the end of procuring permits will be considerably reduced, but there is a great deal of difficulty in the matter of transportation itself and, very often, some difficulty in getting the countries concerned to allow their nationals to leave.
    Earl Winterton: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult the British Hospitals Association on this question in order that he may realise the desperate need of hospitals for this labour which his Department is deliberately holding up?
    Mr. Isaacs: In regard to the first part of that supplementary question, I would inform the noble Lord that we are fully seized with the great importance of this matter. As to the second part, the noble Lord is wrong in thinking that there is any deliberate holding up of this labour.
    Mr. Gallacher: May I ask the Minister to see that every precaution is taken to ensure that these Austrians will not be brought to this country and used to cut down the wages of British workers?
    Mr. Isaacs: The answer is that such steps have already been taken; I have already refused applications for people to be brought in to provide service as sweated labour.
    Mr. Sidney Silverman: With regard to the last part of the original Question, can my right hon. Friend say whether, in fact, anybody has arrived so far?
    Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir. I think I have another Question on that later on and I will not answer it at the moment. I will say, however, that quite a considerable number have arrived and they have proved very suitable people for the job.
    Mr. Jannerasked the Minister of Labour how many aliens have been permitted to enter this country during the current year to take up domestic service; and, in view of the shortage of domestic servants, what further steps are being taken by his Department to encourage the further admission of suitable aliens for this work.
    Mr. Isaacs: Under official schemes of recruitment, 181 Belgian women and 300 women of Baltic origin from displaced persons camps in the British Zone in Germany have been brought to this country during 1946 for domestic work in hospitals. The recruitment of displaced persons is still proceeding. Under the individual permit system which was reintroduced during April, 5,500 permits have been issued. My Department is already taking all the steps open to it under both schemes.
    Mr. Janner: Can the Minister say in respect of persons for whom permits have been granted, how many have arrived?
    Mr. Isaacs: I have already told the House. The number is 181 Belgian women and 300 women of Baltic origin who have arrived. Another 5,500 permits have been issued, but how many of these persons are in process of arriving I cannot say.
    Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Would my right hon. Friend consider the formation of a pool of potential recruits overseas, with which individuals here could be put in touch, because individual inquiry does not seem to work out very satisfactorily?
    Mr. Isaacs: That point has repeatedly been raised. We are making efforts first to secure the satisfaction of the urgent needs of hospitals and institutions and then, if the demand looks as if it will grow, we can turn to the question of giving such assistance as we can to individual applicants.
    Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Is it not a fact that prospective employers have to promise in advance to pay expenses and matters of that sort? What remedy have these prospective employers if the foreign domestics leave within a week or two and seek other employment or leave the country?
    Mr. Isaacs: That is another question, but it is a question of importance, and if the hon. Gentleman will put it down I will look into it.
    Mr. Janner: Would my right hon. Friend state the reason why such a small proportion of the number for whom permits have been granted has arrived?
    Mr. Isaacs: I thought my hon. Friend was aware of some of the upset conditions on the Continent. I have no detailed information. My job is to see that we sort them out, check them and find places in which to put them when they come here, but I do not know the reasons which delay them.
    Mr. Sparksasked the Minister of Labour how many aliens have been admitted to this country to take up nursing and domestic duties in hospitals; whether their rates of pay and conditions of service are similar to the rest of the staff; and what are their nationalities.
    Mr. Isaacs: One hundred and eighty-seven for nursing duties and 611 for domestic duties The rates of pay and conditions of service are the same as for British workers. Three hundred of the domestic workers are Baltic displaced persons, and 181 are Belgians. The nurses are mainly Dutch, Danish, Belgian and Norwegian.
    Mr. S. Silverman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the figures which he gave in answer to this Question and to Question No. 40, no Austrians are mentioned, and are we, therefore, to draw the inference that no Austrians have yet reached this country?
    Mr. Isaacs: Evidently, under this scheme none have reached this country, because they are not in my list. My hon. Friend has made the point about Austria, and I will look into it and see if there is any special difficulty in that connection.
    Major Guy Lloyd: On a point of Order. Surely, unwittingly, the right hon. Gentle-

    1205
    man misled the House just now, because I gathered that he definitely said that a number of Austrians had come in.
    Sir R. Glynasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many applications have been made by Austrians in the two British Zones of Austria for permission to come to this country and engage in domestic work; and whether it is the intention of the Control Commission to use every endeavour to give assistance to such persons, in cooperation with the Ministry of Labour, and thus relieve the present difficulties confronting hospitals and other institutions as well as provide individuals desirous of obtaining domestic help.
    The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Hynd): The number of applications from Austrians under the approved scheme is 34. This number relates to the whole of Austria, and separate figures are not available for the British Zone. Every endeavour is being made to expedite the handling of such applications.
    Sir R. Glyn: Is it not a fact that 14,000 persons of that type in Austria wish to come here? Is not the difficulty one of transportation as much as anything else, and will the hon. Gentleman do his utmost to speed it up?
    Mr. Hynd: I am not aware of the number who are anxious to come here, and I do not know how anybody could be. This scheme is different from that for displaced persons who are ready to be moved in bulk for these purposes. The Austrian scheme is part of the other scheme for alien employees, which is under the Ministry of Labour, in respect of which individual applications have to be made and individual assent given on the other side, and it has to go through the Austrian procedure as well as our own.
    Mr. Boothby: Is not the figure given by the hon. Gentleman proof that this scheme as it stands is a complete farce?
    Captain Crookshank: As we have been informed that none have arrived, can the hon. Gentleman say whether any of the 34 have left Austria?
    Mr. Hynd: I am not in a position to say that. All I can say is that visas have been issued.
    Mr. S. Silverman: Can my right hon. Friend explain why it takes so very much longer, in a scheme designed for an exactly similar purpose, to take people from Austria to England than it does to take them from a Baltic province to England? Does it indicate the lack of a sense of urgency in the Control Commission in Germany and Austria?
    Mr. Hynd: I am not aware that we are getting people from the Baltic provinces. What we are getting, as far as I understand it, are Baltic nationals from the displaced persons camps in Germany, which is a different proposition, and that is under the direct control of the British authorities. In the other case, we have to find out from the Austrian authorities whether these people are available, whether they can be traced and whether they are prepared to come over; and then they have to be released by the Austrian labour machine.

    Hospital Staffs
    Mr. Hardyasked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the fact that the London Provincial Council have failed to implement the recommendations of the National Joint Council for Hospital and Institution Staffs, he will give an assurance that any decisions reached by the Provincial Council will date from the pay week in which 1st April, 1946, fell.
    Mr. Isaacs: The date from which any decisions of the London Provincial Council should operate would be a matter for the council. I have no authority to intervene.
    Mr. Hardy: In view of the widespread complaints of shortage of hospital staffs, is the Minister aware that such staffs in this country are seething with discontent because of the failure of the National Joint Council, which was set up in 1945, and that, despite the recommendations made in March this year that it should operate from 1st April, nothing has been done so far as the London Provincial Council is concerned? They have never had a meeting. Is the Minister further aware that the rates being paid vary from 86s. to 96s. for men and from 64s. to 71s. for women? The people concerned complain bitterly of these conditions, and strongly object to the employment of aliens for domestic service when we already have suitable people available in

    1207
    this country. If conditions were made more satisfactory, we should obtain the necessary staffs in this country.
    Mr. Isaacs: The supplementary speech of my hon. Friend goes a long way outside the original Question, which related to the London Provincial Council. That Council is in some difficulty as to its constitution, and I have no power to intervene, although I am exercising what little influence I possess to speed up its establishment.
    Mr. Eden: Is it true that this council has never even met?
    Mr. Isaacs: The London Provincial Council has not met because there is an argument as to the basis of its constitution.

    Liverpool
    Mrs. Braddockasked the Minister of Labour the number of men, women and juveniles registered as unemployed in Liverpool on the latest available date, giving the trade classification in which they are registered.
    Mr. Isaacs: I am having the figures extracted and will send them to my hon. Friend.
    Mrs. Braddock: Cannot we have the figures given to us? If the Minister has the figures, I think I am entitled to have them.
    Mr. Isaacs: I have not got the figures; I am having them got out, and will send them to the hon. Member. If there is a desire for us to do so, we will publish them in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mrs. Braddock: Is the Minister aware that it is now seven months since the first request for this classification was made, and can he say how long it will take to get the figures?
    Mr. Isaacs: I hope to have the figures prepared by the end of this week.
    Mr. York: Does that figure include the 9,000 unemployed cotton operatives?
    Mr. Isaacs: I could not say until I have seen the figures.
    Mr. Nally: Irrespective of what the figures may be, and on the assumption that they are still high, can we have a definite assurance that where these pockets
    1208
    of unemployment exist, whether in Liverpool, Cardiff, Manchester or Glasgow, in no case will the right hon. Gentleman's Department provide special labour facilities for football pools and that sort of thing?
    Mr. Isaacs: I would hesitate to give an assurance on an assumption.
    Sir Wavell Wakefield: When these figures are available, could they be printed in the OFFICIAL REPORT?
    Mr. Isaacs indicated assent.

    Business Training Scheme
    Mr. Stubbsasked the Minister of Labour what proportion of ex-Service students in the Government's Business Training Scheme have remained unplaced in business for substantial periods after the completion of the three months' general business course; and if he is satisfied that the arrangements made by the appointments department for placing business trainees in further training or in suitable employment are adequate and effective.
    Mr. Isaacs: Up to 12th October, 788 students had completed the general business course under the Business Training Scheme. Only 36 out of this number have remained unplaced after one month from the completion of the general business course. In every one of these cases the men have been submitted to one or more potential employers. These results show that the placing arrangements have been remarkably effective and are evidence of the genuine way in which business has cooperated in the scheme. We need that cooperation to be continued for some time to come. At 12th October a further 1,892 students were in training or had been allocated to training, and it is to employers everywhere that we must look to supply opportunities for these trainees when they have completed their general business course.

    Industrial Returns
    Mr. Murrayasked the Minister of Labour for what industries apart from mining, are particulars published of the average number of shifts, both worked and possible, per wage earner per week; and the percentage of absentees.
    Mr. Isaacs: Information on these subjects, similar to that which is available for mining, is not published for other industries.

    RHEUMATIC DISEASES (RESEARCH)
    Mr. Sutcliffeasked the Lord President of the Council the estimated expenditure in Great Britain at the present time on research into the chronic rheumatic diseases; what proportion of this work is fostered by the Medical Research Council; and whether any increase or acceleration of such research can be achieved in the near future.
    The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I have no figures of expenditure from private sources such as the Empire Rheumatism Council and the Nuffield Foundation. Expenditure by the Medical Research Council directly on this problem is estimated at £3,500 per annum at the present moment, but the figure is subject to considerable fluctuation as new lines of approach to the subject are opened up. It also takes no account of fundamental research of a more general kind of which may indirectly throw light upon the problem.
    Mr. Sutcliffe: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is no type of disease in connection with which further research is more urgently needed just now, and is not the contribution by the Medical Research Council altogether insignificant?
    Mr. Morrison: No, Sir, I do not agree. There is plenty of research being done otherwise, and the mere amount of money spent is not necessarily a guide to success. I have a feeling that probably the solution to this problem will be found some day by a sheer fluke when somebody is looking at something else which has nothing whatever to do with this particular problem.
    Sir W. Wakefield: Could the right hon. Gentleman arrange for greater publicity to be given to the very valuable work done by the Medical Research Council? A good deal of ignorance of some of this work could be dispelled by such publicity.
    Mr. Morrison: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman, and I think there is a lot in what he says, but it is very difficult to train scientists to adopt a proper and appropriate sense of publicity. I expect they get a bit frightened by the Opposition who object to any sort of publicity about anything.
    Mr. Eden: Could not the Government lend them one of their numerous public relations officers?
    Mr. Morrison: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman recalls that this Government has not got so many at its disposal as the Government of which he and I were Members.

    BRITISH CONTROL COMMISSION (STAFF)
    Air-Commodore Harveyasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many personnel were employed by the British Control Commission in Germany and Austria on 1st April, 1946, and on the most recent date for which figures are available.
    Mr. J. Hynd: The respective figures for 1st April and late October are: Germany 25,586 and 25,270; Austria 3,016 and 2,027. The April figures have been adjusted to include staffs now in the Control Commissions which were at that time still part of the Armies of Occupation.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: Will the Minister undertake to overhaul the whole question of personnel employed in Germany with a view to the utmost efficiency?
    Mr. Hynd: As I have said on many occasions, that is perpetually being done, and the recent developments with regard to the appointment and election of German authorities, the handing over of responsibility to the Germans and the inter-zonal arrangements with the Americans enable us to make still further plans for drastic reduction.

  GERMANY

    Civilians (Russian Detentions)
    Mr. Gammansasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the seizure by the Russians of German civilians travelling on high priority passes from a British train from Bad Oeynhausen to Berlin.
    Mr. J. Hynd: No Germans have been seized by Soviet soldiers from the train travelling from Bad Oeynhausen to Berlin, but on the night of 18th-19th October Soviet soldiers entered the train from Berlin to Bad Oeynhausen at Marienborn station and removed 12 Germans, on the ground that they were not in possession of inter-zonal passes signed by the Soviet authorities. After

    1211
    search and interrogation the Germans were released, and arrived back in Berlin on 23rd October. Inter-zonal passes are not required when persons are travelling in a specially sealed portion of this train. Instructions have been issued to prevent any similar incident in future.

    Workers (Removal to Soviet)
    Mr. Gammansasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if any representations have been made to the Soviet Government regarding the deportation to the U.S.S.R. of German civilians in Berlin and other parts of the Soviet zone.
    Mr. J. Hynd: At the meeting of the Coordinating Committee of the Allied Control Commission on 29th October the British representative asked the Russian representative for full information on this subject. He was supported by the American representative. The matter is to be considered again on Saturday next, when the Russian member will be pressed to make a report.
    Mr. Gammans: Is it not a fact that these deportations are contrary both to the letter and to the spirit of the Potsdam Agreement?
    Mr. Hynd: Until we have the reply from the Soviet authorities as to the extent to which and the conditions under which any German worker may have been removed from the Russian zone to any other part of Europe it would be difficult for me to give an answer.
    Mr. Molson: Will the Chancellor of the Duchy say what reply was given on the last occasion, and whether the Russian representative asked for time to send for instructions from Moscow, or that the matter should not be dealt with then?
    Mr. Hynd: The answer, so far as I recall, was that he had not sufficient information to answer the various specific questions that were put before him by the British representative and by the American representative.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Pound (Purchasing Power)
    The following Question stood upon the-Order Paper:
    SIR W. SMITHERS—TO ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the pur-
    1212
    chasing power of the at the latest available date as compared with 1900, taking into consideration the £334 million of food subsidy.
    Sir W. Smithers: In asking this Question, may I say that since it was put down the amount of the food subsidy has increased to £350 million?
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): Forty-five on 1st September, on the cost-of-living basis.
    Sir W. Smithers: Will the Chancellor inform the people of this country quite clearly that unless there is more production, and at world competitive prices, the pound will go to nothing?
    Mr. Walkden: Will my right hon. Friend also give us an idea of the size of the pay packet in 1900, the unemployment and the miserable standard of life of the people?
    Mr. Dalton: This is going much wider than the original Question. I have been asked for a percentage, and the answer is, 45 per cent. of 1900.

    Purchase Tax
    Air-Commodore Harveyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that evasion of Purchase Tax on paper is practised in some instances by the method of purchasing large sizes of paper, not subject to tax, and cutting it down to the usual commercial sizes, and that this gives an unfair advantage over traders who deal honestly and pay the full tax on the smaller sizes; and what steps he is taking to deal with this.
    Mr. Dalton: There may be some avoidance of tax in this way, but not enough, I think, to justify any special measures at present.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, apart from business firms, corporations are resorting to the practice, and it would be in the general interests that it be looked into further?
    Mr. Dalton: We are keeping an eye on these things, but I doubt whether it is big enough to act yet.
    Brigadier Raynerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider the removal of the Purchase Tax from toys.
    Mr. Dalton: I will bear this suggestion in mind, but the hon. and gallant Member will not expect me to anticipate my Budget statement.
    Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Could the right hon. Gentleman anticipate Christmas?
    Mr. Dalton: No, not yet.

    Anglo-Canadian Investments
    Sir P. Hannonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the estimated amount of British investments in the Dominion of Canada and of Canadian investments in Great Britain; and whether the volume of Canadian investments in the U.S.A. before and at the close of the recent war can be made available for the information of the House.
    Mr. Dalton: About 1,500 million and 150 million Canadian dollars respectively. I could not give figures of Canadian investments in the U.S.A.

    Forestry Grants (Taxation)
    Major Wiseasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the Government planting grants of £10 per acre payable under the proposed dedication scheme to landowners for afforestation will be subject to taxation; and, if so, in what manner the appropriate tax will be collected where landowners are already assessable under Schedule B as occupiers of the lands replanted or to be newly planted.
    Mr. Dalton: Such grants do not affect assessments under Schedule B. Under Schedule D the grant may be treated as a trading receipt, but the corresponding expenditure will then be allowed as a deduction.

    Government Workmen (Compensation)
    Mr. Hicksasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider amending the terms of the Government Scheme of Compensation (No. 133), to enable disputes arising between an injured workman or his representatives and the Government Department by whom he was employed to be referred to an independent arbitrator and medical referee, to be appointed by agreement between the parties, in substitution for the present system whereby such ques-
    1214
    tions are referred to another Government Department, namely the Treasury, and medical referees appointed by the Treasury.
    Mr. Dalton: This scheme, like others, will soon be replaced by the provisions of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, and I doubt if it is worth while considering amendments now.

    Anglo-Argentine Agreement
    Mr. Boothbyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what provisions of the Anglo-Argentine Economic Agreement the U.S. Government have objected and on what grounds.
    Mr. Hollisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations have been received from the U.S. Government concerning the clause in the Anglo-Argentinian Agreement empowering the Argentinian Government to dispose of sterling balances within the sterling area if the balance of payments within the sterling area should in any year be unfavourable to the Argentine; and on what date the first oral representations from the U.S. Government were received on this subject.
    Mr. Dalton: I have received no representations on this subject, but I am, of course, always ready to discuss with our American friends any matters of common interest.
    Mr. Boothby: Does the Chancellor still maintain that no understanding was reached between this country and the United States as to how we were to deal with our sterling obligations?
    Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir. I am quite tired of telling the hon. Member and the House that.
    Mr. Hollis: In view of the statement made by the American Secretary of State, that there were some American officials who thought parts of the agreement might be in conflict with the British Loan Agreement, is the Chancellor prepared to tell the House what were the points upon which these American officials expressed that opinion?
    Mr. Dalton: In this country, and I think also in the United States, it is not officials but Ministers who govern. What Mr. Byrnes, the Secretary of State, said at

    1215
    his Press conference—and I am obliged for the opportunity of giving the quotation—was:
    The United States has followed the negotiations with interest"—
    that is the Anglo-Argentine negotiations—
    "and there were some American officials who thought that parts of the Agreement might be in conflict with the British Loan Agreement. They were not, however, regarded as serious."
    Mr. H. Strauss: Does that mean the officials?

    Civil Service Pensions (Unestablished Service)
    Mr. James Callaghanasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make a further statement on counting unestablished service in Government Departments for pension purposes and the granting of Civil Service pensions to the age-barred officers.
    Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir. I have now received from the Civil Service National Whitley Council a unanimous report with recommendations, which I have accepted, on the measures to give effect to the concession which I announced on 28th May. This report is being published today as a White Paper. Age-barred officers, who have already retired, and who think they may now be eligible for a pension, should apply to the Department in which they were working at the time of retirement, in order that their claim may be investigated.
    Mr. Callaghan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the spirit in which these negotiations have been conducted will give the deepest satisfaction to civil servants; and that we hope he will have as much luck in clearing up a number of other cesspools left by the party opposite?
    Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir. We advance from cesspool to cesspool, doing our best with our inheritance. I am much obliged to my hon. Friend for the question; it has been a very good job, and great credit is due to all parties concerned.
    Mr. W. J. Brown: Is the Chancellor aware that even the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rugby feels a certain sense of benevolence towards the Government?

    Savings Committee (Staff)
    Sir J. Mellorasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer by whom the officials
    1216
    of the National Savings Committee are appointed; by whom the expenses of the committee is paid; to what extent, is the committee responsible to the Treasury; and to what extent is it an independent body.
    Mr. Dalton: The National Savings Committee itself is appointed by the Treasury, and consists mainly of voluntary unpaid workers. Its executive staff are civil servants. The committee is part of an independent and voluntary movement, which works in complete harmony with the Government.
    Sir J. Mellor: How does the Chancellor reconcile the independence he has described with the first part of his answer?
    Mr. Dalton: I do not understand the question.
    Sir J. Mellor: Will the Chancellor explain how this committee can be independent when it is appointed and paid by the Treasury, and consists of civil servants?
    Mr. Dalton: I should be horrified to think that being paid by the Treasury to do a job would deprive even the hon. Member opposite of his independence of judgment.

    Travellers' Currency
    Mr. McEnteeasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that about 90 British passengers were unable to travel on the Swedish m.v. "Saga," which sailed from the Thames to the Mediterranean on 30th October, on the ground that the fare was over £75, the maximum sum that the Government allows one person to take out of the country; and, in view of this, if he proposes to stop foreign racehorse owners who win money stakes or bets, and foreign boxers who win prize money or side bets exceeding the £75 limit, taking the money out of England.
    Mr. Dalton: The limit of £75 is imposed to conserve foreign exchange. Prize money, being earned income, may be remitted home by foreigners; but betting winnings, being capital gains, may not.
    Mr. McEntee: Am I right in saying that the money spent on the bookings by the booked passengers in this Swedish ship should not be allowed to go out because this is a foreign ship and the money goes to foreign exchange? Is it not equally

    1217
    true that the industries of horse racing and horse breeding referred to in the Question are foreign industries? Why is there this discrepancy?
    Mr. Dalton: In both cases we desire to conserve our foreign exchange to the utmost extent possible.
    Mr. Oliver Stanley: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is right in a planned economy that French horses should be allowed to win these races?
    Mr. Dalton: These fortuitous arrangements are for the benefit of international good feeling, and that is part of our plan.
    Mr. McEntee: Is it not one of the things that will be attributed to the Labour Party because it is in power?

    UNIVERSITY POPULATION
    Mr. Jannerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the present university population of this country; and how many of the students are science students.
    Mr. Dalton: I hope to have this information soon, and will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

    EQUAL PAY (COMMISSION'S REPORT)
    Mrs. Manningasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the reason for the continued delay in the publication of the Asquith Report.
    Mr. Dalton: This report, which was only completed last week, and is very long, will be available tomorrow afternoon.

    COURT MARTIAL SYSTEM (COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY)
    The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
    Mr. MANNINGHAM-BULLER,—TO ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the names of those appointed to serve on the committee to inquire into the court martial system; and the terms of reference of that committee.
    At the end of Questions—
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Bellenger): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and if the House will permit me, I should like to reply to Question 102, referring to the committee of inquiry into the court martial system.
    The composition of the committee is as follows:
    Chairman: The Hon. Mr. Justice Lewis, O.B.E.;
    Members: my hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Leicester (Mr. Donovan);
    the hon. and learned Member for Exeter (Mr. Maude);
    my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton (Mr. Blackburn);
    the hon. and gallant Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Lieut.-Colonel Thorp);
    Sir Theobald Mathew, K.B.E., M.C., Director of Public Prosecutions;
    Major-General the Viscount Bridgeman, C.B., D.S.O., M.C.;
    a retired senior R.A.F. officer.
    The terms of reference are:
    "To bring under review, in the light of the experience gained in the late war and of the composition of the Army and the Royal Air Force, the recommendations of the Army and Air Force Courts-Martial Committee, 1938 (Cmd. 6200) with special reference to the question whether it is desirable to provide any, and if so what, form of appeal from the findings or sentences of courts-martial; to investigate the powers of courts-martial and of commanding officers to award punishment and the nature and scale of such punishment; and to make recommendations upon these and kindred matters."
    Earl Winterton: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is intended that this committee, as far as possible—I recognise that it is a matter for the chairman—should sit in public; and will the various Service Departments assist the chairman of the committee by sending him a list of the names of the many distinguished men who, during the war, served in the Judge Advocate's Department, who were not previously officers?
    Mr. Bellenger: I am afraid I could not give a specific answer at the moment, but I will bear those two points in mind. Of course, I shall have to consult the chairman of the committee.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Could the Secretary of State say whether it is intended that the committee should take into account any existing sentences, with a view to reconsidering them?
    Hon. Members: No.
    Mr. Bellenger: I think that had better be left to the committee.
    Mr. Eden: I should like to be clear about this, because it raises an important new issue. As I understand it, the committee's task is as outlined by the right hon. Gentleman, a task which has the approval of the House, but there is nothing in that about dealing with the revision of existing sentences.
    Mr. Bellenger: No, Sir, but I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Oliver Committee, which sat in 1938, and to whose report I referred in my statement, did consider certain court-martial cases that had taken place, and I think that the present committee would be willing to consider any cases that were brought to their attention. Obviously, they cannot revise them now.
    Mr. H. D. Hughes: Whether or not the committee sits in public, can we have an assurance that their report will be made public?
    Mr. Bellenger: Yes, Sir.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: Could the right hon. Gentleman give us the name of the retired Royal Air Force officer?
    Mr. Bellenger: No, Sir, not at the moment. My right hon. Friend had an officer in view, but he is unable to accept the invitation, and we are now engaged in trying to find an officer.
    Mr. Janner: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether the terms of reference are sufficiently wide to include the question of the release of men from detention between the time of trial and the time of appeal?
    Mr. Bellenger: I should not like to say off hand, but I think the House will agree that the terms of reference have been very widely drawn.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Would the right hon. Gentleman say why, in view of the fact that this committee was originally appointed to deal with court-martial procedure, he has now decided to widen the field to include the summary powers of commanding officers?
    Mr. Bellenger: Yes, Sir. I thought—and so did my right hon. Friend the
    1220
    Secretary of State for Air—that this would be the appropriate moment to investigate these things.
    Earl Winterton: In view of some of the right hon. Gentleman's answers, would he make it clear that, in accordance with precedent, it is for the chairman of the committee to interpret the terms of reference, and not for any Minister to give directions to the committee?
    Mr. Bellenger: I think that that is an interpretation which I am not able to give at the moment. Obviously, if that is the case, then the chairman will interpret those terms of reference.
    Mr. Wyatt: As this matter is a very urgent one, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he has asked the committee to report by any particular time?
    Mr. Bellenger: No, Sir. I do not think it would be wise to do that. All these gentlemen serving on the committee, including the learned judge, are very busy men, and we must leave it to them.
    Mr. Walkden: Has the right hon. Gentleman paid particular attention, in sending out the invitations, to the circumstances surrounding the ranker, or the particular experience, as a ranker, of any individual who is to serve on the committee?
    Mr. Bellenger: I think that if my hon. Friend will examine the names of the committee, he will find that some of them, at any rate, have other rank experience.

    U.N.E.S.C.O. CONFERENCE
    The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
    132. Mr. KENNETH LINDSAY,—To ask the Minister of Education whether she has any statement to make on the forthcoming U.N.E.S.C.O. Conference in Paris; who are the British delegates; and how many times the British national cooperating bodies have met previous to the conference.
    At the end of Questions—
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Hardman): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and with the consent of the House, I should like to make a statement in reply to Question No. 132.

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    The first General Conference of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation will be held in Paris from 19th November to l0th December. It will be preceded by meetings of the Executive Committee and of the Preparatory Commission. The general aims and purposes of U.N.E.S.C.O. which will already be well known to the House, may be summarised as follows: to devise and establish method of international cooperation in the fields of learning and the arts, to work for the raising of the standards of education all over the world, and to help in rebuilding the intellectual life of those countries where it suffered during the war. A large programme of work designed for these purposes has been prepared for the Conference. His Majesty's Government have been closely associated with the work of U.N.E.S.C.O. since its inception, and they regard it as a most important element in the establishing of international harmony.
    The British delegates to the Conference will be Sir. John Maud, Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Education, who will lead the British delegation, Sir Philip Morris, Vice-Chancellor of Bristol University, Sir Ernest Pooley, Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain, Mr. J. B. Priestley and Sir Robert Robinson, President of the Royal Society. The alternate delegates also attending the Conference will be General Sir Ronald Adam, Chairman of the British Council, Professor P. M. S. Blackett, Mr. Ronald Gould, General Secretary Designate of the National Union of Teachers, and Dr. Margaret Read, head of the Colonial Department of the Institute of Education in London University.
    The British delegation will also include a number of experts and advisers, who have experience in various branches of education, science and culture, both in the United Kingdom and in the Colonial Empire. Since the list is rather long, I will circulate the names of the experts and advisers in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: Engage the "Queen Mary."
    Mr. Hardman: Five cooperating bodies have been specially constituted and will meet before the Conference. In addition the Royal Society, the British Academy and the Royal Institute of British Architects have undertaken to act as cooperating bodies. I should like to take this
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    opportunity, which I am sure the House would wish to share, of saying how glad we are that these bodies, whose great distinction is universally acknowledged and respected, are cooperating with us in this work.
    I will Circulate in the OFFICIAL. REPORT a document setting out the arrangements for meetings of the national cooperating bodies before the Conference begins.
    Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: While regretting that this important delegation is not being led by a Minister of the Crown—in view of the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer a few minutes ago—may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether the national cooperating body on education has yet been constituted; and secondly, whether the Government's policy will be to concentrate on the practical problems facing Europe at present, as of first priority?
    Mr. Hardman: In answer to the first part of the supplementary question, I am sorry to say that the establishment of the education cooperating body has been delayed, and I am afraid it is impossible for it to be constituted before the Conference. My hon. Friend will, however, be glad to know that conversations have been taking place for some time with prominent representatives of the educational world, in order to take their advice on some of the problems that are to be discussed. In regard to the second part of the question, I think I can say that all the participating delegations are determined that the results of this Conference shall be along the most practical lines possible.
    Mr. R. A. Butler: While appreciating to the full the merits and value of the delegations enumerated by the hon. Gentleman, may I ask him whether a Member of His Majesty's Government will not go to this very important Conference? We on this side of the House think it very important that a Minister should attend.
    Mr. Hardman: There have been complaints from hon. Members opposite about Ministers being abroad, and all kinds of articles have appeared in the Press of the party opposite asserting that we do not do our jobs properly. In reply to the right hon. Gentleman, I would like to say that the right hon. Lady the Minister and myself feel that at this very important

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    juncture in the preparations for the raising of the school-leaving age to 15 on 1st April, our duty is certainly at home.
    Mr. Butler: Is it not the case, then, that if it is so important to concentrate on administration the services of the Permanent Secretary of the Department would be equally important at home; and, would it not be reasonable for at least one Member of His Majesty's Government to head this very important delegation, the importance of which I fully realise as I myself presided over the meetings of the Ministers of Education of the United Nations for many years before U.N.E.S.C.O. was set up?
    Mr. Hardman: In reply to that question I would say that hon. Members opposite cannot have it both ways. They would like to have it both ways, but the Ministers feel that they should be at home.
    Mrs. Leah Manning: In view of the fact that there is great disorganisation, especially on the Continent, in the education of young children, would it not have been possible for the Government to select at least one practising teacher, as a member of the delegation?
    Mr. Henry Strauss: Since the hon. Gentleman has apparently some knowledge of the subjects to be discussed at this Conference and desires it to have practical results, can he assure the House that one of those subjects will be the shortage of books in this country, which is causing the most appalling difficulties in education?
    Mr. Hardman: Yes, Sir. That question will be discussed, not only as it applies to this country but as it applies to the whole of Europe.
    Mrs. Manning: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Is there to be no answer to my question?
    Mr. Hardman: In reply to the hon. Lady, I would point out that a State may not send more than five delegates, but if my hon. Friend reads the list of advisers when it is published tomorrow, she will see that all sides of educational work in this country are very well represented, including teachers.
    Mr. Eden: May I ask the Government to consider the question of the leadership
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    of the delegation? The hon. Gentleman has emphasised the importance of this subject by singling out this Question, quite rightly, for answer. A large number of administrators are going on the delegation, and in view of some of the other journeys on which some Ministers have gone, I do not think it is unreasonable to ask the Government to think again as to whether there should not be a Minister on this delegation.
    Mr. Hardman: I have already replied to the point raised by the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Lipson: As no Member of the Government is available to leave at this time, might not a Member of the Opposition be invited?
    Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: While appreciating that it may be impossible for the Minister of Education or the Parliamentary Secretary to attend this Conference, could not the Lord Privy Seal add this task to his other mysterious activities?
    Mr. Pickthorn: Since the Parliamentary Secretary has assured us that the question of book supply will be one of those considered, will he suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that much more might be done by allowing English individuals to buy French, German, Italian and other books, and vice versa, as on balance there could not be much loss of exchange and there might even be some gain?
    Mr. Hardman: I am quite sure my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will read the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: In view of the representations which have been made, and as this country initiated the whole business, and as thousands of teachers have been looking forward for about 40 years to this Conference which has at last been established, cannot the question be reconsidered?
    Mr. Hardman: I can only say that we do realise the importance of this Conference, and the importance of the part the British delegation has to play, but we have had to weigh our responsibilities in the balance and we have come to this conclusion.
    Sir Arthur Salter: Will the hon. Gentleman attach more importance to this consideration: on the one hand he has a negotiating and diplomatic part to play at the Conference, and on the other he has a purely administrative part in making the arrangements required for raising the school age? Is it not anomalous that for the first duty, the permanent head of the Department, the official, should go, while for the second, both Ministers stay here?
    Mr. Speaker: We cannot have a Debate on the question now. Hon. Gentlemen are now going rather wide.
    Following is the list of the experts, and advisers:
    UNITED KINGDOM DELEGATION TO U.N.E.S.C.O. GENERAL CONFERENCE
    Experts and Advisers.
    Mr. A. C. F. Beales, King's College, University of London.
    Sir Alexander M. Carr-Saunders, Director, London School of Economics.
    Mr. Ritchie Calder, "The News Chronicle."
    Miss L. E. Charlesworth, Head Mistress, The High School, Sutton, Surrey.
    Mr. Evan T. Davis, Director of Education, West Sussex.
    Mr. C. H. Dobinson, Reader in Education, Oxford University.
    Mr. R. Gardiner, Vice-Principal of Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone.
    Mr. John Grierson.
    Mr. R. H. Hill, Librarian, National Central Library.
    Mr. T. D. Jayasuriya, Deputy Director of Education, Ceylon.
    Mr. B. Kennedy-Cooke, Head of Production Department, British Council.
    Mr. W. W. McClelland, National Committee for the Training of Teachers (Edinburgh).
    Mr. R. D. Marriott, British Broadcasting Corporation.
    Miss N. Parkinson, Head of Home Division, British Council.
    Professor A. D. Ritchie, University of Edinburgh.
    Mr. Paul Rotha.
    Professor Sir Charles Webster, K.C.M.G., University of London.
    Mr. Basil Wright.
    Experts and advisers from Government Departments.
    Mr. Leigh Ashton, Director, Victoria and Albert Museum.
    Daw Mya Fein, Government of Burma.
    Mr. A. Gore, Director, Secretariat Division, Central Office of Information.
    Miss Helen de Mouilpied, Films Division, Central Office of Information.
    Mr. W. E. F. Ward, C.M.G., Deputy Educational Adviser, Colonial Office.
    Mr. F. A. Vallat, Assistant Legal Adviser, Foreign Office.
    Mr. B. B. Thomas, Permanent Secretary of Welsh Department, Ministry of Education.
    Mr. W. R. Richardson, Principal Assistant Secretary, Ministry of Education.
    Mr. F. R. Cowell, Assistant Secretary, Ministry of Education.
    Mr. G. T. Hankin, Ministry of Education.
    Mr. A. B. Roberts, Adviser, Ministry of Education.
    Mr. P. Wilson, H.M. Inspector of Schools, Ministry of Education. (Staff Inspector for English.)
    Miss K. Kennedy-Fraser, Private Secretary to Sir John Maud.
    Miss S. Guiton, Ministry of Education, Secretary to the Delegation.
    Following are the arrangements for meetings of the National Cooperating Bodies:
    Date and Cooperating Body
    Thursday, October 24th—Museums.
    Tuesday, October 29th—Social Sciences.
    Thursday, October 31st—Fine Arts.
    Friday, November 1st—Libraries.
    Tuesday, November 5th—Mass Media.

PALESTINE (DETAINEES, RELEASE)
The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Creech Jones): The Government recently had conversations with representatives of the Jewish Agency on the serious state of affairs in Palestine and the possibility of reducing the present tension. These conversations were reported by the Agency representatives to the Inner Zionist Council meeting in Palestine on 29th October. One of the resolutions subsequently issued by that body was in the following terms:
"The Inner Zionist Council declares that the Zionist Movement has always rejected and continues to reject terrorist bloodshed as an instrument of political struggle. The banner of Zionism must be kept pure and unbesmirched. The Inner Zionist Council denounces without reservation the bloodshed caused by groups of terrorists who defy national discipline and thereby place themselves outside the ranks of the organised community. These deeds defile the struggle of the Jewish people and distort its character; they strengthen the hands of the opponents of Zionism and the enemies of the Jewish people. The Council calls upon the Yishuv to isolate these groups and to deny them all encouragement, support and assistance."
With this resolution in mind and the declarations of other leaders in the past few weeks, the Government have considered the continued detention of the Jewish leaders and have decided to authorise the High Commissioner to release them. Their decision is being announced in the following communique, which is being issued in Jerusalem this afternoon:

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"In view of the condemnation of terrorism embodied in the resolutions announced at the meeting on the 29th October of the Inner Zionist Council, which is accepted as an earnest of the intention of the Jewish Agency and of representative Jewish institutions in Palestine to dissociate themselves entirely from the campaign of violence and to do their utmost to root out this evil, His Majesty's Government have concurred in the release by the Palestine Government of the detained Jewish leaders."
The House will share my hope that this action will lead to an improvement in the security situation in Palestine, and help to restore conditions in which progress can be made towards a general settlement, which is so urgently necessary.
I take this opportunity to inform the House that the release has also been approved of certain Palestinian Arabs who have been undergoing detention. The following announcement is being made this afternoon by the High Commissioner:
"His Majesty's Government have now fully considered representations made to them by the Arab delegates to the Palestine Conference on the subject of the Palestinian Arabs detained in the Seychelles. In the light of these representations, and as a gesture of good will at this time, when important decisions on the future of Palestine are in the balance, they have decided to release these detainees and to permit their return to Palestine along with two other Arabs formerly detained in the Seychelles, but already released on health grounds. In addition, an amnesty is being granted by the Palestine Government to certain other Arabs."
Mr. Oliver Stanley: I am sure that my hon. Friends on this side of the House will watch with great interest to see whether this exemplary statement by the Inner Zionist Council is followed by definite active steps of cooperation in putting an end to this terrorism. Will the right hon. Gentleman make plain to the House, what I believe to be the case, that this is not the result of any bargain, but has been done by His Majesty's Government as being what they think is the best course for security in Palestine? Will he assure us
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that no one is included among the leaders to be released, against whom active complicity in any terrorist outrage can be proved in any court of law?
Mr. Creech Jones: On the second point, I can give a complete assurance to my right hon. Friend. In regard to the first part of the question, law and order are not matters to be bargained about. This has been done by the Government in the hope of securing closer cooperation between the Jewish Agency and the Administration in Palestine.
Mr. Mikardo: In view of the Minister's reply to the first question of the right hon. Gentleman, does his statement mean that every person, Jew or Arab, who is detained without having been charged with any offence, is to be released; and does this apply to persons detained outside Palestine, in Eritrea, for example, as well as to those detained in Palestine?
Mr. Creech Jones: This statement does not apply to Eritrea. In regard to the first part of the question, I think it should be understood that there are certain persons at the moment detained under the Defence Regulations of Palestine who have been closely associated with the terrorist movement. In these cases, a most careful examination is being made of their record, and they will appear in due course before the appropriate committee under the Regulations.
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Are the releases to be entirely unconditional; and will any of those persons of either side, Jew or Arab, require to maintain touch with the authorities and report their localities?
Mr. Creech Jones: No, Sir. The releases are unconditional. Those involved have, of course, been most carefully screened, and there is no requirement that they should be in close touch with the authorities.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: Will the Secretary of State bear in mind that many of us who have been saddened and anxious about the policy of the Government in Palestine would like to congratulate him on this wise and statesmanlike step, and echo his hope that it may be the beginning of a new cooperation between the Jewish Agency and the Mandatory Power.
Mr. Pickthorn: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether his first supplementary answer and the answer given just now using the word "screened" mean that it was decided as a purely legal question, that there was no prima facie case for bringing a charge of the use of violence against any of the persons now released and implicated by the White Paper issued in July, 1946?
Mr. Creech Jones: No, Sir, the answer is that the leaders of the Jewish Agency who were arrested then, will be released under this arrangement. There have been a large number of other arrests connected with different episodes, and these will be screened by the authorities. Those who obviously have not been connected with any act of violence are now being released.
Mr. Gallacher: Is it not the case that this statement means that none of these people committed any offences and that they should never have been arrested? Was it not an act of terrorism on the part of the Government, sweeping up these people who had committed no offences of any kind, and will any compensation be paid to them?
Major Legge-Bourke rose—
Mr. Gallacher: Can I have an answer?
Major Legge-Bourke: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the desirability of trying to deal with the originators of the offences who are not necessarily the
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perpetrators? Will he also bear in mind the desirability of considering the feelings of the relatives of those killed as a result of terrorist activities? As he has mentioned his desire for an improvement in security, can he now inform the House of the whereabouts of the leaders of the Stern gang, and how they got out?
Mr. Creech Jones: I am unable to answer the last part of the question. The answers to the first two parts are in the affirmative.
Mr. Janner: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that among those at present detained are many who fought in the Allied cause during the war, and that the leaders he is now releasing recruited some 28,000 to 30,000 Palestinian Jews and Jewesses to fight for us in the course of that war? Will he take steps speedily to release those against whom there is no cause for detention?
Mr. Creech Jones: The High Commissioner, through the appropriate committee, is examining the cases of everyone detained at the present time, and already, in the case of those who were suspected of activities with the Haganah, no less than 2,550 have been released, and in connection with those arrested at the time of the King David Hotel outrage, no less than 779 have been released.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: I think we should get on to the next Business.

HOME AND OVERSEAS TRADE
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. William Whiteley.]
3.58 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Belcher): In normal circumstances this Debate would have been opened by my right hon. and learned Friend, the President of the Board of Trade. I am quite certain that all hon. Members will share my regret that he is unable to be here today, particularly as the cause of his absence is illness, and that they will join with me in the hope that it will not be long before he is back with us. The subject matter of the Debate is very broad. It is so broad that it is utterly impossible to cover it in any kind of detail, without occupying undue time, and I think it may be for the convenience of the House if I try to give a broad picture of what we in the Board of Trade have been aiming at over the last year since the end of hostilities, and some indication of how far we have succeeded in our objective, and of what yet remains to be done.
The problems facing this country at the end of the war were so different in quantity and in size from those which followed the first world war that they are, in fact, different in quality. During the last war, there was a far greater concentration on war manufacturing, a much more rigid shutting down of peacetime activities and, of course, a far greater destruction of our capital resources. In addition, our balance of payments position has been more adversely affected by wholesale borrowing and disinvestment abroad. Moreover, the economic destruction and dislocation this time have been more world wide than possibly we realised, with the result that practically the whole world today is faced with a grave shortage of food and raw materials—shortages which particularly affect us in view of our position as a country which, almost peculiarly, has to depend upon imports of both food and raw materials.
In the Board of Trade, we are concerned with two major aspects of trade and commerce. First, we are directly concerned with a large number of industries supplying consumer needs. We are responsible, in general, for industrial questions and of these export is, of course, of the highest importance. With the exception of food it
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is the Board of Trade which is responsible for the import programme, and of the Board of Trade which operates the import licensing machinery. I shall try to say something about most of these things, and those with which I do not deal will, I hope, be dealt with by my hon. Friend the Secretary for Overseas Trade, later in the Debate.
I take, first, the question of the industries supplying consumer needs. It was these civilian industries which the Board of Trade, during the war, were compelled to concentrate or shut, and which, consequently, started the postwar period with heavy handicaps. Let me give one or two examples. The furniture industry in June, 1945, was employing only 62,400 workers, as compared with 138,400 in June, 1939. The hosiery industry employed in June, 1945, 62,700, and in June, 1939, 126,400 workers. In the carpet manufacturing industry, there has been a reduction of something like 80 per cent. of the labour force, and in the cotton spinning industry—one of the industries about which we are now so much concerned—the reduction of workers has been from 184,900 in June, 1939, to 113,600 in June, 1945. These figures indicate the difficulties confronting these consumer needs industries at the moment, and there are others. These industries, at the end of the war, had a treble demand to meet. They had to meet the normal consumption level, the normal requirements of the population; they had to meet the arrears of wartime, six years of postponed purchases; and they had to meet the increased demand due to higher wages being paid generally throughout industry and commerce, through demobilisation allowances, and the virtual abolition of unemployment, except for some well defined areas. Therefore, it was not merely a question of getting back to prewar production.
Something more was demanded if the shortage of goods was to disappear. It is easy to appreciate that with our consumer goods supplies, during the war, running at about 50 per cent. of the prewar level, and with the tremendous destruction of household commodities and things of that kind in the blitz—one example comes to mind—the aluminium saucepans of housewives which were so recklessly taken away during the war, and which had to be made up at the end of the war—all this meant that there was a tremendous accumulation of demand.

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We had to meet this with less than 50 per cent. of the pre-war labour force, and with a labour force of a much higher average age, since there had been virtually no recruitment for six years. Many factories, also, were war damaged or evacuated; there was no new machinery; there was lack of maintenance or repair of the old; there was no young staff, and there was a lack of apprentices. These conditions were ruling a little over one year ago. Even during the war, when young men were directed, and every kind of machinery was available, when priorities were put forward, and things could be done almost regardless of cost, it took months, indeed years, to build up productive industry, such as the aircraft production industry. In the more difficult competitive conditions of the postwar world the expansion of the consumer need industries is a task of even greater difficulty.
The problem is fourfold. First, there is the question of factory space; second, labour supply; third, the supply of machinery; and fourth, the location of industry. As to factory space, there was occupied for war purposes, at the end of the war, 150 million square feet of space, most of which came from the concentrated industries. The first task was to shut down ordinary wartime manufacture, release, repair, and re-equip premises, or remove the stores in them to a more suitable location. A special section was set up in the Board of Trade to deal with this job, and a target was fixed to complete all clearance of industrial space by the end of this year. That target will, I believe, be achieved. In the course of it priorities have been arranged to release, first, the premises most urgently required from the national point of view.
Labour supply is more difficult. After the war, we wisely abandoned the direction of labour, and that meant that we could not, except by persuasion, get people into the industries where they were most urgently needed. The Ministry of Labour and Service Departments effected demobilisation with precision, smoothness and fairness, and, similarly, the Supply Departments reduced the strength of the munitions industries with promptitude. [HON. MEMBERS: "0h."] Well, it was a shaky start perhaps, but there was a very good recovery. We did not achieve, nor did we expect to achieve, a perfect
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balance in the distribution of labour. The swollen wartime industries, particularly the engineering industry, retained a greater labour force than prewar days by some 350,000 more people, many of them women.
As demobilisation progressed, more and more people entered civilian industries, but very seldom in the balanced numbers required. There has been, and still is, an acute shortage of women workers, although many more women are now employed. But that did not mean that those sections of industry most hardly pressed for production got their fair share. The labour went where it wanted to go and so far, from our point of view, it has not chosen to go wholly in accord with consumer needs. We shall have to consider the problem of these industries. They showed themselves to be, for one reason or another unpopular, because they were unable to recruit labour at a time when labour was not being directed. The unpopular industries have, by now, become clearly defined. The conditions in these industries have to be investigated, and steps have to be taken to try to make them more attractive for the labour they require—whether it is in regard to the wage level, the conditions of work, or the disagreeable nature of the work itself. In these industries steps have to be taken to try to improve matters so as to give them greater drawing power on the available labour. Compulsion having gone, something else has to be put in its place.
Mr. William Shepherd: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what steps are to be taken?
Mr. Belcher: There is constant consultation going on between the Board of Trade and both sides of industry, with a view to improving conditions, so far as is possible, in the various industries affected; and I think that the hon. Member must be aware of the activity which is going on in connection with the cotton trade to secure some improvement.
We come to the machinery side. There had been, of course, during the war a complete drying-up of the provision of peacetime machinery. The machine-makers had gone over to war production, and their factories have had to be re-equipped. In some cases, there had to be re-tooling before they could start to manufacture machinery to go into the factories—
Mr. Oliver Lyttelton: Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear that he is not referring to the supply of machine tools?
Mr. Belcher: I am referring to the supply of machines. Machine tools may be included
Mr. Lyttelton: But are they included?
Mr. Belcher: Yes, of course, they are.
Mr. Lyttelton: That is a very remarkable statement.
Mr. Belcher: We had to consider the apportionment of this machinery between our home and our export trade. I shall, in a moment, say something about that. One of the difficulties was the small amount of information available about what was going to our consumer industries. This was one of the reasons why the working parties were set up. That information is now coming in, and discussions are taking place with both sides of industry and with other people affected.
On the fourth subject of allocation, we came up against the old problem of the development areas. As my right hon. and learned Friend spoke at some length on this subject to the House in last week's Debate, I shall not repeat what he said. But we had these large areas in which there was an excess of labour. Our policy was to take the work to this labour, and that could be only done by a large programme of factory building, running into several millions of pounds. That takes time, especially in the circumstances existing today, when we are trying to build all the houses we can. In those areas we tried to get a diversity to balance the supply to new industries on a scale sufficient ultimately to absorb the amount of labour likely to be spared from existing industries. These new factories will largely make consumer goods of the widest possible variety. In this way, we hoped by the autumn of this year to reestablish the labour forces so that the manufacture of home market orders was equal to that of mid-1939. That we have succeeded in doing. But that does not mean that every individual industry is up to prewar level—not by a long way. Most of the consumer goods industries have lagged behind because of their initial handicaps, and the capital goods industries are ahead of them. But in some consumer goods industries we are already
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ahead of the prewar figure. This is true of rayon, toys, hollow-ware, brushes, brooms, gloves and toilet preparations. In some, such as cutlery, we are not far below; while in others, especially textiles, we have come up against the utmost difficulty in their re-expansion.
There seems to be a popular idea that very little has been done to expand the supply of consumer goods. That, of course, is contrary to the facts. It is easy to see that the enormously increased demands—for the reasons which I have given—give the impression that the shortage continues as great as ever. I would like to give a few facts to show what is really the position. Retail sales, other than food, rose by 28 per cent. during the third quarter of 1946, as compared with the same period of 1945. [An HON. MEMBER: "Volume or price?"] That is volume. If we take the 1935 level of supplies as equal to 100, and compare with that base the figures for May-June, 1945, and May-June, 1946, respectively, we get these figures: Footwear, 1945, 58, 1946, 75; other clothing, 1945, 48, 1946, 65; furniture and furnishings, 1945, 26, 1946, 61; hardware, 1945, 45, 1946, 98. In all these cases, as hon. Members can see, there is room for improvement. A great deal more needs to be done, but there has been this increase in the supply of these very necessary consumer goods. These figures are the volume not the price and they do not include any element for quality. I am quite sure that in clothing, the average quality, since rationing and the utility range of goods came in, has been much improved. The factors which I have mentioned have not been the only difficulties.
In many industries, today, we are up against a world shortage of raw materials. This has reached a stage, in some industries, which may hamper any further expansion of production, and may cause a diminution. Apart from steel, there are lead, timber, leather, linseed oil and other materials which we cannot, at present, purchase from anywhere in the world. Furniture, for instance, is now limited to present production, even if that can be maintained, by shortage of plywood and hardwood. It is still 60 per cent. below prewar at a time of greatly increased demand.
Sir Arthur Salter: Is the hon. Gentleman speaking of goods available for the home market, or is he including what is available for export?
Mr. Belcher: The figures which I am giving relate to production as a whole.
Sir A. Salter: If there has been an increase in exports, it means that the movement to the home market is not as great as the figures themselves suggest.
Mr. Belcher: That depends on what proportion of the production of the commodities I am talking about has been exported. I was talking about furniture, of which none at all is exported. Linoleum production is seriously affected.
Mr. Orr-Ewing: The hon. Gentleman is talking about production of footwear. Surely, he has the figures of the export of footwear? And, therefore, surely he can give us the residue left for the home market? In that case we should get a clear picture.
Mr. Belcher: I have not discussed the footwear industry in detail. I have been discussing the furniture industry, but, without having the exact figures in mind I can assure the hon. Member that, so far as footwear is concerned, our exports are extremely limited. I was referring to the linoleum industry, an industry which is obviously most important at the present time, when so many people are setting up home for the first time, or setting up home again after their original homes were knocked out in the blitz. Because there are not adequate supplies of linseed obtainable, the linoleum industry has to remain restricted.
There is one further difficulty which affects all our industries, and that is the shortage of fuel and power. We hope we may get through this winter without any serious disturbance of production, but we can only be assured on that if we can secure a greater output from the mines. We are discussing with the National Production Advisory Council for Industry ways and means of dealing with this situation in respect of solid fuel, gas and electricity in case, unhappily, there should be a threat of interrupted production. Therefore, today our two main difficulties, apart from the fuel and power situation, are shortage of labour, particularly in the textile industries, and shortage of raw materials, particularly in steel, timber, leather, and linseed oil. We sought to alleviate these difficulties by substitution of raw materials, and the search is still going on, but sometimes by so doing we
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find that new shortages are created. We substituted steel for timber, and then we found that there was a shortage of steel. We proceeded to substitute aluminium for steel, and now we are up against a shortage of capacity for fabricating aluminium.
I now turn to the question of our overseas trade. That trade was delibertely sacrificed during the war for the purpose of making our maximum contribution to the winning of the war. It was obvious that when the war ended, first of all it would be necessary to re-establish ourselves in our old markets and to gain as many new ones as possible, and to do it quickly, so as to take the fullest advantage of the immediate sellers' market. We did not know, and we do not know now, how long it will last. What is certain is that if we lost that opportunity, it might never recur in time to enable us to rebuild our export trade. But there was another compelling reason. We had largely lost our overseas investments and the free imports they yielded before the war; and, on the other side, we had piled up a great sterling debt which will have to be paid off by the export of goods and services. This is one of our major difficulties at the present time. I would like to say a few more words about it, because, as it reveals the position in which we found ourselves in respect of our overseas assets by the end of the war, it reveals the very great contribution made by this country in that way.
We, who had been for so long the great creditor country, deliberately turned ourselves into a debtor country, and made our job much more difficult in the future. For many years before the war began, we had maintained in this country a standard of living higher than in most other places. It may not have been equitably distributed, but over all the standard of living in this country was higher than in most other places. That was due, to a very considerable extent, to the work of the industries of this country throughout the 19th Century, when they were the first in the field, and when they made investments abroad which brought, year by year, a considerable income of free imports, hundreds of millions of pounds worth of goods for which we did not have to pay by exporting out of the country. That, and the earnings of the merchant navy, were responsible for quite a large slice of our prewar imports. In fact, we could say that, setting one set of figures

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against another, all our wheat, all our meat, all our wool, all our cotton and all our tobacco came into this country for nothing; in other words, the total volume of the interest on overseas assets was sufficient to have paid for the whole of that import programme.
What has happened? We have disinvested quite a large part of those assets, and, on the other hand, we have accumulated enormous debts which will have to be served. Obviously, it was impossible for us to balance our overseas payments at once, and so we had to resort to the temporary expedient of loans from the United States of America and Canada, to help us to import our food and raw materials while we are building up our own industries and our exports again, thus working all the time towards a balance of overseas payments. We wanted to get our trade going again with as many countries as possible, and to help in the rehabilitation of the war-devastated countries from whom we might hope in return in the future to draw needed supplies. To that end we have had many negotiations. We are now, once again, beginning to get into normal trade relations with many of our old customers. The Argentine agreement, the interim agreement we have been able to make with the Soviet Union, and our current negotiations with France, are three typical examples of our activities in that direction. Then, of course, and even more important, there are the talks now proceeding in London as a preliminary to the international conference on worldwide trade generally, which we hope will take place in the spring. As the House knows, these discussions are directed towards securing agreement on a code of trade policy which will lead to a continuous expansion in the total world trade, which is the one thing we must always be seeking if we are to secure an improved standard of living for ourselves, for the citizens of the Empire, and for other people.
We are now having to buy a very large proportion of our requirements from dollar sources, since production in Europe and other areas has not yet sufficiently recovered to enable us to obtain the goods we want from those areas, but as far as exports are concerned, there is a continual pressure upon us to help in the rehabilitation of the devastated countries and to
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help in the development of Africa, India, and the Dominions. This means that our outgoings are largely in dollars, and the great part of our receipts are in currencies which are not exchangeable for dollars, and indeed, to a considerable extent, are not immediately exchangeable for goods. This is placing a very heavy drain on our dollar resources, and we must exercise the greatest care to see that we do not get our dollar funds exhausted before we have any chance of renewing them, either through exports to the dollar areas, or by obtaining for our exports currencies that are freely convertible. Whereas about 50 per cent. of our imports come from the American continent, only about 14 per cent. of our exports go there. So that within the general problem of the balance of trade there is, therefore, this further very critical problem of our dollar balance.
One thing, I am sure, is quite clear to the House, and that is, that exports are just as essential to a high standard of living as are consumer goods for the home market. We are continually being pressed to import goods of all kinds—manufactured goods, raw materials, food—so that our own people may have more of them, but that is quite impossible, beyond a certain very limited volume covered by our dollar loans, unless we pay for them by exports sent in exchange. We have fixed the target required to balance our overseas payments, and so to get us back to our 1939 standard of living, as 75 per cent. more exports in volume than before the war, and that target must be achieved before the dollar loans are exhausted. The earlier we can achieve it, the less of the dollar loans we shall have to take up, and the easier, therefore, will be their ultimate repayment.
That is the target at which the Board of Trade is aiming in export policy, but in so doing we are trying to see that both in capital and consumer goods our own people get the fullest possible consideration. I would like to assure the House of our desire and our determination to see that our own people do get the fullest consideration. We have not done badly at all so far, and I think both managements and workers are to be complimented on their achievements in very difficult circumstances.
It is interesting to compare our effort with that after the 1914–18 war. In 1919 the volume of British exports was only

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55 per cent. of that of 1913, and in 1920 it was only 71 per cent. We have already passed the 1939 volume of exports in the third quarter of this year, and although there was a deep decline during August and September from the July peak, the October figures will show that the effect of the holiday period is past and that we are on the increase again. We now have 1,344,000 workers engaged in the export industries, a figure 45 per cent. above that of prewar which, considering the time lag between the beginning of manufacture and the export of the finished article, does not accord badly with our increased employment in exports. So far as machinery and equipment are concerned nearly every kind is subject to direction as to the division between the home and export markets. This division is under constant review in the light of changing circumstances. Some people seem to think that we could export all our production of these capital goods, but we must maintain a proper balance between the needs of our home industries and our export orders.
For instance, in the case of textile machinery, whereas two-thirds of the orders are for exports, only half the production is allowed to go for export, thus giving a larger proportion for the home market. In pottery machinery, another example where urgent re-equipment is necessary, according to the working party report, only token exports are allowed. The same could be said of other lines of manufacture, although each case must be determined on its own merits and circumstances and there can be no general rule. Hon. Members appreciate that if we were to give way to pressure in either direction—and there is plenty from both—to increase or stop exports, we should very soon run into an entirely impossible situation either for the home or overseas markets or both. One other factor to be borne in mind is that this country is traditionally the supplier of many commodities to our Dominions and Colonies, and to other countries which themselves have no such supplies. We cannot in this case leave them completely denuded; we must try to maintain a minimum export to meet their most urgent needs. This applies particularly to such commodities as textile goods of all kinds So, too, in cases where we want to obtain food or raw materials from overseas countries, we have frequently to supply packing materials,
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transport supplies of various kinds, and, in some cases, some consumer goods in order to stimulate and induce production.
I am aware of the desire of some hon. Members to discuss the future of Japanese trade, but in view of the outline of Government policy given to the House by my right hon. and learned Friend on 28th October I do not propose to add anything to what was then said. My hon. Friend the Secretary for Overseas Trade will be prepared to deal with such questions as may arise in the course of the Debate.
So much then for our objective and how we have tried to progress towards it. It must be clear to all of us that in 12 months we cannot expect to make a complete recovery from the disturbances of six years of war. Indeed, with the manpower available it is difficult to see how it is possible for us to do all these many jobs and a good deal more, like building houses, expanding our social services, and so on. We cannot, therefore, have all we want now.
Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Why did not hon. Members opposite tell the people that at the General Election?
Mr. Belcher: Someone must wait. Some things must be done later. The hon. and gallant Gentleman just interjected to ask why we did not tell the people this at the General Election. I can assure him that I did, and I am prepared to prove it to him if he wishes. If we had tried to satisfy everyone at once it would have led us to inflation. It is only by looking at the problem as a whole and not taking isolated instances that we can arrive at a wise division of our resources of manpower, machinery and materials. We have all got to hold back while production is built up by avoiding unnecessary expenditure—national savings come well into the picture there, and I, personally, shall be very grateful for all the help any hon. Member can give in this direction—and by not pressing for higher wages or increased prices. We cannot get through our difficulties if we are all going to look upon this as a golden opportunity of a shortage all round in which we can feather our own nests at the expense of the community as a whole.
One of the very important factors in this overall situation and in the fight

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against inflation is the price control policy. The Board of Trade in one way or another—some ways more satisfactory than others—controls the prices of nearly all non-food consumer goods. The strictest controls are exercised, naturally, over the most essential goods, and in this work the Central Price Regulation Committee and the local price regulation committees have played a vitally important part. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking all those who have helped in this work—many of them volunteers without payment—for they are the people responsible for the very great measure of success of this policy of price control in this country. Its success can be gauged by a comparison with the sequel to the first world war. After that war clothing, for example, rose to a price level of 300 per cent. above prewar, whereas now it is only 67 per cent. higher than in 1939.
Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite: There is not any.
Mr. Belcher: Part of this has been achieved by direct subsidies of utility cloths, but apart from these, the increase would be still well below 100 per cent. and it is by this machinery, coupled with the subsidies, that the cost of living has been held and the danger of a runaway inflationary advance of salaries and wages reduced.
I now come to what I regard, in the light of experience and of the facts which I have placed before the House, as the most important part of our whole programme. It is clear from these facts that we must very largely increase our production, if we are to satisfy the needs both of our own consuming public and the minimum exports which we must achieve as rapidly as possible. It is equally clear that, apart from comparatively small numbers in the development areas, we have no further resources of manpower that we can enlist once the demobilisation is complete. The only way out, therefore, is to increase our output per man hour throughout all our productive field, and at the same time avoid wasteful drawing off of manpower for other purposes.
The main factor which I feel sure is standing in the way of this increase is the psychology of unemployment for which we are not responsible but which was inflicted on this country during the last
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century, and particularly between the two wars. We must convince ourselves now that we have abolished unemployment, and then we must convince the public, and particularly the workers in industry, that full employment has become a fact, and will be continued and maintained by the authority and with the help of this House, and that the danger today is not of mass unemployment, but of lower standards of living due to the slow advances of the productivity of labour. It was in order to point the way to the achievement of this higher productivity that the working parties were set up, and I am sure the whole country is grateful to those men and women who have voluntarily laboured for many months at this task, and who have produced and will produce some very valuable reports pointing the way to improvements which can yield fuller production in the various industries examined.
This increase in productivity is equally the task of management and labour. Both have a contribution to make. What is essential is that both sides of the industry should be prepared to put behind them the methods and ideas which were associated with the era of mass unemployment and tackle this new era of full employment with open minds freed from all inhibitions. In a period of full employment, management needs to be more highly skilled and more conscious of the importance of the human element in the labour force. Greater attention must be paid to reequipment with modern machinery and the use of up to date methods. On the side of labour, all restrictions and the idea of spinning out the job to prevent unemployment later on—perfectly understandable with those who have come into contact with the long period of unemployment many of our people endured—have to go, in a time of full employment. However short or long the hours, all voluntary absenteeism during work hours must become a most exceptional occurrence.
On the Government side—for we come into this, because we regard the problem as tripartite—we are doing all we can to foster and encourage efficiency in every field, including that of Government administration. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh. I merely state the facts. It is for those reasons that we offered to assist the British Institute of Management

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and that we have set up in the Board of Trade, a Production Efficiency Section, which is becoming the Mecca of many worried industrialists. [Laughter.] Oh, yes. Industrialists have told me themselves what they think about it. Hon. Members may laugh, but when one is adducing facts, the facts are not answered by laughter. A large number of industries, far larger than we can cope with at the present time because we have not a force big enough to deal with them, ask us for assistance and advice how they can improve their production efficiency. We are now examining the reports of the working parties in association with both sides of industry. We have already started to implement the recommendations in some cases. Others, of course, must wait for legislation, when that becomes possible.
Sir Frank Sanderson: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say how many reports have been received from working parties?
Mr. Belcher: I am not quite sure of the exact number. I think it is in the region of five or six. Through the National Production Advisory Council on Industry, and the regional boards, and in consultation with the National Joint Advisory Council, we are constantly discussing all kinds of ideas aimed at increasing production and efficiency. I would like to make it clear that it is idle to think of raising our standard of living unless we raise our productivity. If we merely increase wages, salaries and profits without a corresponding increase in productivity we shall be widening still more the already existing gap between purchasing power and available commodities, and will enter the wage-price spiral, in which wages never in any conditions catch up with prices. Money loses its value unless we make the goods it can purchase. That is today a very great danger, and that is why I say that we must hold back, on the one hand, with our money demands, and at the same time we must lay the foundations for a further advance in our standard of living by an increase in our standards of production.
I have no doubt that the job which lies before us is one which we can tackle. As a nation, and as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations it is not beyond our power, but we can achieve
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our aims only if we realise that someone else cannot do it for us. It is a question of every shoulder to the wheel, an all out effort by every team in all our industries, a putting aside of any tendency to selfish opportunism, and a concentration on the problem of national recovery. There was a slogan during the war which might very well be carried into our civilian effort now. It was, "It all depends on me." It does, indeed, depend upon an intelligent, open-minded contribution by all three parties in the enterprise. The Board of Trade are anxious and willing to fulfil their obligations to that partnership of effort.
4.45 p.m.
Mr. Frank Byers: I am extremely sorry that the President of the Board of Trade is ill and unable to be with us today. I am sure that we all wish him a speedy recovery. May I add that I am grateful to the Government for putting up the two subordinate Ministers rather than a Cabinet Minister who would know very little about the subject?
We have listened to a speech which, by a series of careful omissions, has produced a very reasonable statement of aims, with the absence, the refreshing absence, of theoretical Socialism. I think the speech has commanded a good deal of agreement and support in all parts of the House. I could wish that the hon. Gentleman had paid a little more attention to the international economic set-up, as it is at the moment. I agree with him that the scope of this job is extremely wide. I hope that when his colleague, the Secretary for Overseas Trade, replies, he may say a few words on this aspect of the matter. Perhaps we are not paying enough attention to the actual economic set-up in which we are attempting to achieve our production and export drive.
The greatest bugbear in the field of international economics in the past has surely always been a fear of world depression. Even now we see, overshadowing so many of our discussions, that fear of world slump. It is well to realise that since the last world slump and the fiasco of the London Conference we have made great, and even revolutionary, strides in the machinery for countering world depression and world slump. We have the International Monetary Fund to provide a cushion, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to undertake public works throughout the world,

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the F.A.O. the international organisation which is discussing the question of buffer stocks. We have fairly comprehensive machinery for countering world depression. What I am afraid of is that in this country, on that side of the House and on this, we are still living in an atmosphere of rather narrow economic nationalism, or economic imperialism, which will not fit in with that international structure. I was delighted to have the assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary that the Government would support the international machinery to the full. But I wonder whether the Government really mean that, or are we just playing the old game of paying lip-service to international projects, without wanting or being willing to pursue a policy of give and take? I do not believe that any amount of national planning, nationalisation or Government ownership, or rigid centralised control, will prevent this country from being seriously affected by world depression. We may try to isolate ourselves, but we shall not insulate ourselves, from its effects. Our sole insurance against the tendency to world depression, is to support those international projects which create the necessary machinery, and to support them to the full.
I would like to be assured by the Secretary for Overseas Trade that we are quite willing to take the lead in supporting those international projects. We have to define our objective in peace just as much as in war. Our objective is not just national and international trade; it is a much higher one than that. It is the improvement of the standard of living of mankind throughout the world. We do it by achieving an increase in international trade. Let us keep the objective well in the forefront of our minds. We have the machinery which will guarantee us full employment if it is used properly, and the maintenance of a satisfactory income, and, through the buffer stocks, a system of keeping up the production of primary producers. We have all the machinery. I hope that the Government will support those projects to the full. It means give and take. It means that in this country we must be prepared to reduce the barriers to world trade. Do we mean business on that? The Americans, even with their high protectionist history, through the influence of President Roosevelt, Cordell Hull and others have committed
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themselves to the reduction of tariff barriers under the Mutual Aid Agreement and the Loan Agreement. Are we prepared to do the same? Are we prepared to give a lead in reducing barriers to world trade in order to make this international machinery work, and to increase and expand world trade, thus improving the standard of living of people throughout the world?
One thing we must remember is that if we want to achieve full employment through international cooperation, everybody must be in the scheme. We cannot admit exceptions. Everybody must play their part in this international machinery. I think that was the idea of the originators of this scheme. There is the case of Russia. We must do our utmost to get every nation into the machine. I am afraid we shall meet with some resistance on the part of countries not as highly industrialised as ours. They will say that they want high protection, at any rate for a short time. That will not assist this machinery. What those countries want is not high protection, but assistance in industrial techniques and industrial "know-how." Empire Preference, which is a form of discrimination by certain countries against others, will do a great disservice to this international machinery. I do not think it is compatible with this international machinery. We can assist the Colonies and the Dominions in industrial techniques and "know-hows." We can show them how to build up their industries as quickly as possible so that they can contribute to an expansion of world trade. I know this is not going to be acceptable to hon. Members above the Gangway, but this is the modern conception, and I believe that they are totally out of date. Many hon. Members on the other side of the House will probably agree with me. In the Chancellor of the Exchequer we have a declared advocate of Imperial Preference —[Interruption.] If proof were required from hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway of what I have said, there it is. I say to those hon. Members most seriously, that this is not just an election point. It is not just party capital on their side or anybody else's. While they have been out of office a whole new set of international projects has come into being as a result of a freer trade attitude very largely on the part of the Americans, with some support from this country. It is

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into that new set-up, that we have to fit ourselves in the future.
I turn to a matter to which I attach tremendous importance, the question of the production drive and the export drive. We have little to quarrel about in the Parliamentary Secretary's statement. All parties support the production drive and the export drive. We realise the position as it is today, that we have lost 25 per cent. of our national wealth during the war and have to pay back the American and Canadian loans and our foreign debts. We know we have to do all that, but is it sufficiently realised throughout the country that we have to do that to maintain our standard of living, not to improve it? It ought to be emphasised that we are, in fact, in danger of a reduction of our standard of living unless we can achieve the tremendous targets which we have set ourselves.
I want to deal with a few of the ingredients of this production drive, because I feel that our national survival depends on its success First, there is manpower. As we have been told today, and on many other occasions, the supply of manpower does not equal the demand, and unless supply and demand can be equated, we are told by the President of the Board of Trade we shall reduce our standard of living. In those circumstances, this does not make sense. We are short of manpower, and yet we have at the Home Office the epitome of Conservatism pursuing a very Tory policy of immigration, one which is not designed to attract skilled workers into this country. It is a policy under which, when one asks if German ex-prisoners of war who are "white" and are prepared to work here in the agricultural industry, may be permitted to do so, one gets a rude answer. In fact, the history of the pressure which has had to be brought to bear on the Home Office by hon. Members of this House to get any relaxation in immigration ought to be written up, because it is a staggering example of the progressive mind having to fight tooth and nail against Conservatism—the sort of thing we were used to before the war. I am glad to say that there are a number of more progressive hon. Members opposite who are supporting this drive to get more skilled workers into the country. It is on the Front Bench today that one finds the Conservative attitude which is preventing us employing the skilled manpower which could be avail-
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able. Surely it is possible to make more use of foreign workers who wish to come here, and who can be employed in this country without affecting the situation of our own people?
What about the actual demand for manpower? I agree entirely with the Parliamentary Secretary that we must cut down our demands, but I suggest sincerely that the Government themselves are among the worst offenders. We have still about 400,000 more people employed by Government Departments than we had in 1939. Surely, it is not Blimpish to suggest that that number could be reduced considerably. I am not suggesting that we could get down to the 1939 level. Of course we cannot. There have been great extensions of Government responsibilities in the meantime. But is there any review going on at the present time to try to prune these staffs? After all, in the war we had to prune very seriously what we called our administrative tail, in order to increase the teeth of the Armed Forces. We want more teeth in the production drive. Is anything being done to reduce the number of people employed in Government Departments today?
I do not know whether we can get any information on this, but I understand that a manpower survey has recently been made by the Cabinet. Is the result of that to be given to the House? Are we to know the conclusions which have been drawn from that survey? It would be of the utmost importance to all hon. Members to know what that survey produced. The Parliamentary Secretary also referred to output per man-hour, and it is reasonable to ask whether we are getting the maximum output possible. Although there are today as many people employed in the manufacturing industry on home market orders, as there were in 1939, even allowing for the increased demands, I do not believe that the volume of goods is as great as it was in 1939. I may have misunderstood the Parliamentary Secretary, but my own feeling is that there is, in fact, a considerable amount of inefficiency, waste of time, voluntary absenteeism and so forth, all of which is affecting the production drive and must be stopped. I do not pretend that any one man in this country has got the answer, but provided we can expose that as a situation, I think we shall have gone a long way towards altering it.

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On this question of output per manhour I would like to say a word on the question of incentive, and of the main incentives I agree that consumer goods are important. Taxation reliefs are equally important, and an increase in real wages is absolutely vital. I am not suggesting money wages, but real wages.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: You cannot eat it and export it as well.
Mr. Byers: Perhaps I might be able to answer that point. I would like to ask for this assurance, that as soon as we get into our export pipeline sufficient consumer goods to attract some sort of a balance of imports and exports, we should then consider seriously increasing very rapidly the allocation of certain classes of consumer goods to the home market. I feel that there are certain categories of consumer goods which are likely to provide a bigger incentive to the worker than others. I do not know how one would find this out, but I could make a guess. I may be entirely wrong, but things like labour saving devices, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, perhaps small cars—is it possible to place these consumer goods in certain incentive categories? Is it possible, for instance, to use the Gallup poll technique, to find out what people are really wanting; or does the Board of Trade know? Having done that, is it possible to give first priority to the diversion of that type of incentive goods into the home market as soon as we are approaching some sort of balance in our imports and exports?
As far as taxation is concerned, I will not dwell on that, but I hope that the President of the Board of Trade will bring pressure to bear upon the Chancellor, even to the extent of taking the risk of increasing the bottom limit of tax and a general reduction of taxation all round. My hon. Friends put this up in the last Budget Debate, and we shall continue to do so because we feel that taxation should be looked at, not merely from the point of view of revenue, but from the point of view of incentive. By the Chancellor it is looked at from the point of view of revenue, while the President of the Board of Trade looks at it from incentive. There is a case for coordination. I say quite frankly—and I think we are in agreement on this—that, as the Parliamentary Sec-
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retary said, no solution to the problem of incentive is to be found in a further increase in money wages. What we now require, if we can get it, is an increase in real wages by reducing prices to increase efficiency and increase output per manhour. That is perhaps not appreciated as much as it should be.
In this connection there is one thing which appears to me to be keeping prices at an artificially high level, and that is the action of the price rings and the very large monopolies and trade associations with restrictive tendencies. The existence of those things today after a year of a so-called progressive Government seems to me a shocking thing As far as I can see, no action whatever has been taken to break down these price rings, and we have a situation where the Government are not only doing nothing but, in certain cases, are actively conniving at the existence of the practices of these price rings. It is most difficult to expose these price rings because, if you ask a Parliamentary Question, you get an answer that it would be improper to give the allocation to individual firms, and so forth.
Let me give one example. The Accumulator Manufacturers Association, who make batteries for cars, receive an allocation from the Ministry of Supply of lead which is in short supply. The Ministry of Supply have evidence that the members of this trade association, when quoting prices for tenders, quote about 30 per cent. to 40 per cent. higher prices than non-members of the price ring. It is a usual practice but the non-members of the price ring cannot get lead. The Ministry of Supply is continuing to hand out the lead to the people who are in the price ring, and I say that that is prima facie evidence of a racket. I have brought it to the attention of the Board of Trade and to the Ministry of Supply. If that sort of thing is allowed, surely it will have a very damaging effect upon the whole production drive. Any tendencies which keep up prices artificially are not assisting the production drive at all. I hope it will not be long before some strong action is taken to deal with the question of these price rings which are keeping prices artificially high, and which must be acting as a brake upon the production drive.
As far as the export drive is concerned, I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary that we must support it to the full, but

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what I am slightly worried about is this: Are we making sufficient and detailed plans now to cope with the end of the sellers' market? That seems to me to be vital. We could live in a fool's paradise for three years and then discover that we were not ready to compete with lower prices, higher quality goods, increased efficiency, and so forth, at the end of the sellers' market and the beginning of the buyers' market. Again, I say that the whole question of restrictive practices in big business and in the trade union movement must be tackled. I am not for one moment blaming the trade union movement for these restrictive practices. I agree entirely that in the interwar years they were legitimate practices when there was fear of unemployment. I think they were a normal reaction to the type of Government which we had in power for a number of years, but we must now change that attitude and the attitude must surely be one not of fear of unemployment but of confidence in full employment. I hope that the Prime Minister is having some effect today with the Trade Union Congress, and that he will be able to persuade them to play their full part in inspiring confidence in the workers. I do not speak as a worker or as an employer, but it seems to me that there is a psychological problem to be overcome and the best people to do it are the trade union officials themselves. Once they show that they have confidence in the full employment policy, then I believe that these restrictive practices will certainly be reduced, and may well cease.
As the Parliamentary Secretary said, the scope of this Debate is very wide, and I do not propose to cover any more points. I hope that we shall recognise the magnitude and complexity of the task which is facing us. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I was slightly heartened by the almost Liberal approach of the Parliamentary Secretary in his statement. I hope that will not embarrass him with his own supporters, but it is only by a courageous approach to this problem, and by leaving out doctrinaire considerations which are likely to intrude themselves and to cause uncertainty when we want stability, that we shall find the solution to this problem which we require.
5.9 p.m.
Sir Peter Bennett: Like the hon. Member for
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North Dorset (Mr. Byers), I commence by saying how much I regret the absence of the President of the Board of Trade today through indisposition. It is always a pleasure to listen to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's voice although one may not agree with his matter. There was a time when I was cross-examined by him and I did not like his voice on that occasion, but, since I have come here, I have come to admire the beautiful way in which he expresses his thoughts, even though I do not like the thoughts.
Before I deal with the remarks of the Parliamentary Secretary, I cannot allow the one main difference between my hon. Friend on the Liberal benches and myself to pass unnoticed. Of course, one expects a difference between the people who are on this side of the Gangway and those who sit with him. With me, for instance, Free Trade and Protection and preferences are not matters of religion; they are purely matters of expediency, and I do not hold to any dogmatic view; I am willing to look at any case in the light of the circumstances. When the hon. Member says that he knows of some radical change in the point of view of the United States, I wonder where he has got that information. I went over only two years ago to the international conference at Rye. I heard those American manufacturers say, "We are prepared to consider a reduction in tariffs." There were great cheers, and then we asked them what they meant, and they said, "We could take off 10 per cent. without it hurting us."
Mr. Byers: Will the hon. Member not agree that there has been a remarkable change in the attitude of the American Trade Department? How is it possible to get this international machinery set up, if the Americans are against us?
Sir P. Bennett: The American Administration are trying to lead their people, but I have had to deal with American manufacturers all my life. When I read the papers which, I think, were issued with the approval of the Administration, I found that before any changes could be made in tariffs, there must be a full inquiry with an opportunity for all interested people to bring forward their views. If I know anything of those inquiries, that will take a long time. I hope the Government, in answer to the appeal of the hon. Member for North Dorset to

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give a lead, will be very careful in seeing what is meant by the Government giving a lead. We do not mean any more unilateral disarmament, I hope. My friends and I have always been prepared to discuss with the Americans, or with anyone else, on the basis of something for something. But we object to being asked to do something for nothing, to make a gesture to show how broad minded we are, and then sit down to see what other people do.
Having left that controversial point, I would like to go on to questions on which we are more or less agreed. The present productive position in this country is misunderstood in many ways. There is an idea that because we are in a sellers' market, industry must be very prosperous and that we can get any price we like. That, of course, is not so. The Minister dealt with the dislocation caused in many industries, some of which were concentrated, while others wrecked their organisations in order to make something entirely different from that for which they had been planned. They are slowly getting back. There were industries, such as the chemical industries and others, which were fortunate enough to be on a continual process basis. They could go on making more or less what they had made before the war, and could extend their production. But the fabricating industries, and those which made munitions of war of a totally different nature from their normal production, are going through a difficult stage. Many are still working in "red ink"—which means that they are making a loss. They have the difficulties of intermittent sources of supply, and continual shortages. They have to search round the country for little bits of material to keep their factories going. There is waiting time, and lack of production. Motor cars are a case in point. Prices have been based on a higher output, but difficulty is found in attaining it.
When the Minister was talking about the "hard luck story," of dislocation and difficulty, I could not help thinking what a commentary it was on the position in which we find ourselves today. Supposing my business was in the difficult situation in which the Minister pictured our industries, what would he said of me if I chose that particular moment to make some drastic and rather difficult experi-
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ment? Suppose I considered that now was the time to give up manufacturing, and become a farmer, or something of that sort. Yet the Government have taken this moment, when industry is going through the most difficult period we have ever had in our history, to make experiments in nationalisation. We cannot get reorganisation without a flow. Our first effort ought to be to get the flow back. Then, if Socialism is to be tried, that would be the time to try it. I am not arguing its merits, or demerits, at the moment, although it must be known that I agree with the late Sir Alfred Mond, who said in this House that there was only one objection to Socialism—that it would not work. We should have waited until our industries were in a decent state of health, and every effort should have been concentrated on getting a production flow. But, instead of that, we are delaying our return to normality.
Mr. Belcher: I would like to ask the hon. Member if anyone has yet told him that the reason for nationalisation of certain basic industries is precisely to get the flow started, to which he referred.
Sir P. Bennett: That is a matter on which the hon. Gentleman and I must agree to differ. There have been matters on which we agreed this week, but that is one on which, as I think I told him, we have to differ. Let me come to the question of planning. I believe in planning, but I would point out that there are two varieties of planning. There is the slide rule method, known vulgarly as the "penny in the slot"—you put something in and wait for the results. There is also the business type of planning. When we make our plans in business, we always know that those plans will very seldom be carried out exactly as they are laid down in the first instance. So we lay our plans in such a way as to provide for alterations which the difficulties of the situation, human nature, and mistakes which people are bound to make will necessitate. The difficulty with planning by a Government Department, or by the State, is that it cannot be done in that elastic manner. The plan is laid down, and has to go through. In some businesses people lay down the plan, and leave it to the initiative of others to carry it out. In other cases the head man insists in doing everything himself. He sits on a stool, and opens every letter

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for fear one might get slipped under the pad, if he did not open it. In one business I know of, the boss has gone overseas, and there is complete stagnation because he is away.
I believe in giving general freedom to those who are doing the work; giving them general guidance, and leaving them to work out their own salvation in their own way. I believe we want more of that in the methods by which Government planning is carried out. It may be said that that is all right for business, but it cannot be done in a Government Department. During the war I was a temporary civil servant for five years, and I tried it out. We called the people together from different parts of the country and told them, "There is the problem, and these are the guiding principles. Carry the work out in your own way. Birmingham is doing it this way, London that way; what about Manchester coming and seeing what they are doing? "Those who know Manchester will know that if I had taken the Birmingham plan and said that that was the scheme they would have to adopt we would not have got far. It is difficult to expect Manchester to copy anyone. We got the results, each place doing its organisation in different ways, and we got the results with no Parliamentary Questions being asked about the problem we had in hand. When I was appointed chairman of the Automatic Gun Board, the Minister told me I had better get some independent people on it. I said, "No, sir," and he asked "Who are you going to get?" I said, "I am going to get the gun-makers." They were a difficult team, but we got them together and divided the job up and told one "You have that section," and another" You have this section." We used their idiosyncrasies and their awkwardnesses, and no Parliamentary Question was asked about the supply of weapons we had in hand.
Many of the difficulties from which we are suffering are not foreseen. There is lack of experience. Business planning is a very skilled job. It is not picked up in a few minutes by anyone who comes along. It is not even the ordinary civil servant's job. In saying that I have the authority of some of the best civil servants I have known. They have said "That is your job." It needs many years of experience, gained in a hard school. Why do the top executives in
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industry receive big salaries? Not because people like them or want to pay them those big salaries, but because they are the people who take the responsibility for big plans and for carrying them out from beginning to end. Remember, they are the people who take the risks. The manager who has a failure runs the risk of the sack. Proprietors and directors who make mistakes run the risk of ruin. We cannot expect civil servants, using our money and appointed by the Treasury, to take risks of that sort. Yet without that sort of risk, we shall never get business running again in the way we want to see it and need to see it.
It is a question not of control but of the rigidity of control. Take the steel shortage. The motor manufacturers were asked to take over shadow factories. They were told that the Aero labour, which was being displaced, was to be employed in them. That was stated in the "Board of Trade Gazette." In articles in the Press, and speeches by Ministers, it was stated that here was an example of what could be done. Yet within a short period, we find that these facilities cannot be fully used, because there is not enough sheet steel. Why? Other people are calling for their quota. But surely, when new schemes were being prepared, when programmes were being made out for other purposes, somebody might have added up the supplies and said, "There is only this amount of production in the country. We have asked these people to use so much in these factories, and we are allocating so much more, and if we add up the figures and they exceed the production figure which we can attain, someone will run into production trouble later." We get to the position where factories are laid out and men are ready to work in them, and we are told there is a shortage of sheet steel. There will be unemployment in some districts this winter, and men will be put out of work, because there is not enough sheet steel. We in business, have to take these risks and plan to meet them. I know that it is said that we hoped to get supplies from America, but in business we dare not lay a factory down on such a hope. We dare not do it without having a contract signed and sealed, and seeing that supplies would be available. One of the first things we do, is to see that we have a guaranteed source of supply before we start.

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That is only an example. An hon. Member mentioned lead. I will tell a story about lead. The Government are, today, allocating lead to various factories, and are saying, "Get your scrap back." But if one gets the scrap back, and cannot remelt it oneself—and everyone is not in a position to do that—one sends it to a smelter. He smelts it and sends it back, and the Government deduct from one's allocation the amount one has recovered from the waste lead. What sort of incentive is that to economy? A story told to me the other day by a builder sounds apocryphal, but he swears it is true. He got an order for some repair work and went with his licence to obtain wood. He found that there was not the wood available, so he said, "I can make use of some of that wood in that corner." The official said "You cannot do that. It is firewood. If you have a permit for firewood, you can have it but not otherwise." That sounds ludicrous, but from what I have seen of some officials, and the way they carry out instructions, I can believe it.
Of course, it is not all the Government's fault. Mistakes are made by whatever Government is in power, but different people make different mistakes. What has concerned me for a long time, during the later days of the war, and during the Election has been the way people were misled by the very rosy pictures that were drawn of the new heaven and earth that was follow. The Minister has said "How can we expect higher standards of living under present conditions?" Yet our people were led to expect higher standards of living. What we ought to do first is to take every step to ensure the present standard of living is maintained. That is what is worrying me. A great war is not a method by which we shall increase the standard of living. We wasted our effort, through the necessity of turning it into weapons of destruction, and we smashed up and devastated the lands of some of our old customers. We are bound to have a difficult period, and at the present moment we are living on an overdraft. We in business know that an overdraft is valuable so long as one uses it wisely, and gets on one's feet while one has it, so that one is in a position to earn the interest and sinking fund on it. I am very much concerned because, at the moment, we are not doing that.
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It may be said that I am a pessimist, but I believe that the people of this country are entitled to have the full truth told to them. Tell our people that we have lost our 19th century lead. We are no longer the workshop of the world, with the rest of the word as the "hewers of wood and drawers of water." We have largely reduced our forefathers' savings, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. We have few natural resources in this country. Coal is expensive. If we are to live, we have to export, some people say 50 per cent. others 75 per cent. more than prewar, and there was an estimate the other day that we have to export double what we did before the war. I think that is nearly true. We have keen competitors. There is the United States, with its enormous and closed market. Their manufacturers do not have any of the worry about preferences. They have that vast Continent of their own. In another part of the world we have heard, and shall hear again, of cheap labour.
We have no easy time ahead. It seems to me that this is no time to hold out hopes of an easier and rosier time. I do not intend to argue whether the 40 hour week is a good thing or not. If it means higher costs and lower production, it is a bad thing. If it will increase production and wages, we will look at it; but if it will make our goods expensive, the time is coming when the sellers' market will be over, and we shall have to fight against American, Japanese, and Continental competition, and people will be striving to keep alive, let alone have an easy time. The Minister referred to the development areas. I agree with the general tenor of his remarks. I think I can be allowed to do so, because we supported the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he was at the Board of Trade, in getting that Bill through. My own organisation, before the war, went into South Wales and to Lancashire, employing thousands of people, and we hope to employ more. That is one way of helping, but do not let us reckon that that will answer the question.
The time will come when if we want the job we shall have to go for the job. That is inherent in the world's history. We cannot provide a job for every man at a particular place, just because he happens to live there. The migration which took place when the wells dried up and

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people went from one place to another, is one example of what I mean. In this country today we have inherited that tradition. We are a restless people, we are an amalgamation of all sorts of races that crossed Europe, that came from the Mediterranean, from Central Europe, from across the Narrow Seas, who were not content with the life they lived in other lands, and who came to this country and settled here because they could not get any further. We have the adventurous spirit. When America was discovered, some of our people went there, and when Australia was developed, many of our people went there. We have in our blood a spirit of adventure and restlessness. If we are to recover we must not say that every man will have a job found for him near the place where he lives. We must encourage them to move about when necessity makes it essential that they should. I do not believe that we have lost the spirit of adventure. I think today it is that spirit of adventure and initiative in our people which will put us right and, therefore, we must encourage and develop it. I believe in the future of this country. We have a great work to do, probably the greatest that we have ever done. We were saved from the edge of the abyss and I firmly believe that there was a divine purpose in that. We were saved in order to do something in the world, and to help other nations who are not as favoured, and who have not had our advantages in the past. We have inherited a very great tradition and, in the words which Shakespeare put into the mouth of Henry V before Agincourt:
"Now attest That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you!"
5.31 p.m.
Mr. Wyatt: I congratulate the right hon. and learned Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade upon the progress which his Department has made in the recovery of industry and in the increase of our export trade. Unlike the hon. Member for Edgbaston (Sir P. Bennett), I regard what has happened as evidence in favour of Socialist planning and not as an indication that this is a dangerous time to try Socialist experiments. I would like to follow the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Byers) in his remarks about incentives for production and the importance of the export drive. I agree with
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him that as a general rule most of the people in this country do not fully understand the need for the export drive. I think that they are working as hard as they did before the war. I do not believe they are working as hard as they did during the war, because that necessary extra incentive provided by the war simply does not exist today and, so far, the Government have not succeeded in replacing the war incentive by a peacetime incentive.
It is all very well for Members of the Cabinet and important Ministers to make speeches about the need for the export drive and increased production. I am afraid that Ministers, however well-intentioned, do not realise that their remarks do not reach to the lowest level. The general public do not read the speeches as carefully as the Ministers would like them to do nor as carefully as the Ministers themselves would think justified. What is necessary is a continual plugging home of the fact that if people work harder they will benefit them-solves and not merely produce extra profits for shareholders. There is a great misconception in many industries that working harder merely puts money into the pockets of the shareholders and does not do the workers any good at all. It would be comparatively simple for the Board of Trade to undertake the same sort of campaigns that were undertaken by Government Departments during the war. It could be done pictorially. In every industrial town, every street should be filled with posters explaining the need for the export drive. It could be done in a series of posters which would explain the situation in a way that would come home to everybody, making it clear beyond any possible mistake. There could be a poster showing the relation between our imports and exports together with overseas investments before the war. Then we could have a series of posters showing how the loss of overseas investments had led to the necessity of an increase of 75 per cent. in our export trade. It could be demonstrated that it was impossible to secure a 75 per cent. increase in the labour force although we need a 75 per cent. increase in exports. Then there could be a final series of posters showing exactly what Britain and the ordinary man gets in return for the finished export goods—what it means in terms of food, boots, shoes, clothes, furniture, and all the other goods

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we need. We could show what it would mean to Joe Smith and Bill Jones and everybody else in industry if they worked harder.
The people just do not understand these rows of figures, noughts, percentages and so on, which are quoted by Ministers, unless they are explained in very simple terms. I think the remarkable success of the "Britain Can Make It" Exhibition is confirmation of my argument. The public have taken a very keen interest in that exhibition because there is something which can be understood easily, something which is on view showing what is being produced and which the workers will get soon. I am sorry that the President of the Board of Trade did not feel able to take that exhibition on tour, even if only in part, to provincial centres. But having made it clear to everyone exactly why it is necessary to work harder, the central problem still remains. It is impossible to increase the labour force by 75 per cent. Consequently, new methods of production resulting in increased output must be introduced. The obvious ones are the application of time study and motion study. Around both these methods of increasing production the most acute controversy is raging in industry at the moment. Very little is said about it in the open but amongst workpeople there is a great deal of violent feeling, both pro and anti, about time study and motion study. But whatever the workpeople may think about the situation, managements are getting ready to extend the application of those systems.
Even though the industrial workers as a whole may not like them, managements are certainly going to try to extend them. To deal with time study first, there are a number of obvious disadvantages attached to its application. First, there are different systems of timing in different factories, which makes for an uneven incidence, and varying methods of payment and work. The chief objection, however, is the unscrupulous way in which this method was used before the war to lower wages, to sweat labour, and, incidentally, to increase unemployment. In fact, the origin of time study, the Bedaux system, was regarded in most industrial centres as one of the most inhuman systems of work ever perpetrated by employers anywhere.
Mr. Lyttelton: I do not think the hon. Gentleman intends to mislead us. I hope
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he is not confusing the Bedaux system with time and motion study. These are distinct things and I do not think that some of the objections which he is raising to the former apply to the latter.
Mr. Wyatt: I hope the right hon. Gentleman is not confusing time study with motion study. Certainly I am not confusing either of them with the Bedaux system. All forms of time study are based on some form of the Bedaux system. They have a similar origin or background.
Mr. Lyttelton: No.
Mr. Wyatt: Time study, despite the right hon. Gentleman's interruption, springs originally from the system originated by Mr. Bedaux. Because it has been used in an inhuman way, workers and trade unions are highly suspicious of it, and I would be suspicious also. At present there are no common standards laid down in industry for the application of this system. Nevertheless, managements intend to extend its application and workers intend to resist any extension. When we reach the point at which there can be no more accommodation by either side on the present footing, there must be a "blow up." The mention of time study or motion study in a factory will cause a strike and obviously that will have a very bad effect on production. It is quite clear that we cannot remove the suspicions of time study unless the Government lay down authoritative standards, timing standards which cannot be avoided or overcome in any way without a "come back." As I understand the position of the Government on this issue, it is that they do not want to take any action by which they will appear to be interfering with the workers' pay packets. They think that it is a matter for the trade unions and individual workers.
On the other hand, there is an argument that many workers, once time study is introduced, find they like it. All the same, this problem still remains. Even though one may be inclined to dismiss the money incentive, it cannot be dismissed completely. There must be something in it. If somebody offers me 15 guineas to write an article, I respond far more favourably than if they offer me 10 guineas. I am sure that must apply to

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everybody—however much they are getting. This question is going to cause a lot of trouble, and I urge on the Government that it is high time that they held an impartial survey on all aspects of time study, and particularly the psychological effects on workers. Many reports have been written in the past, and they have concentrated on how great an increase of output per man hour is achieved by the application of time study. Very little has been done in the way of studying the psychological effect of the operation of time study over a long period, and I suggest that the Government should institute an inquiry of a very wide kind and go into every aspect of the situation. They should then lay down common standards for timing in industry and also make a regulation which would make it impossible for anybody to be a rate-fixer in a factory unless they had a Board of Trade certificate, in exactly the same way that the master of a ship cannot go to sea unless he has a Board of Trade certificate. If the master of a ship behaves in any way contrary to professional standards, he loses his ticket, and, in precisely the same way, the rate-fixer who behaves similarly would also lose his ticket, and that would be a guarantee that the management would not be able to "swing" anything over the workers. That would, very largely, tend to remove suspicion.
Motion study does present less difficulty, though it may be rather more inhuman if taken to its logical conclusion than time study, but I think that motion study should be included in a similar sort of inquiry. If the whole of this matter is brought out into the open, I am sure that both workers and management would welcome it, because, whatever other methods are used for increasing production, it may be that a fusion of one or both of these systems will have to be brought in. If we cannot raise the labour force by 75 per cent., we must raise the amount of output per man hour. The only way to do that is by scientific study of the whole problem, and I urge the Government to bring the whole thing within the scope of a proper inquiry, so that we shall all know where we stand. We shall know Which trade unions are for it and which are against it and which managements are for and against. Then the Government can give a lead which will give us common standards of work.
5.43 p.m.
Sir Arnold Gridley: I want to make only one observation about the speech to which we have just listened from the hon. Member for the Aston Division of Birmingham (Mr. Wyatt). His remarks were founded much more on theory than on practice, and, if he will allow me to do so without disrespect, I would make one suggestion to him, and that is that he takes the earliest possible opportunity of conferring on the points he has raised with his colleague from another Birmingham Division—the hon. Member for Edgbaston (Sir P. Bennett)—when I think he will learn a great deal that will be of more practical use to him for the future.
With others, I regret the absence of the President of the Board of Trade. Whatever our views may be, every one of us hopes that the right hon. and learned Gentleman's recovery will be speedy, and that he will soon be able to get back to his very responsible duties. I do not propose to make a long contribution to this Debate, but I have a few suggestions which I want to put, particularly before the Secretary for Overseas Trade, because my remarks are going to be addressed to that aspect of the problem in which our trade and industry are involved. I do not think that among those who are in any degree responsible for the employment of labour, whether on a large or small scale, there is any difference of view about the tremendous importance of endeavouring to secure, as far as humanly possible, full employment. I dislike the term "full employment." I think it is very misleading and may well mislead the workers as a mass, because full employment—that is, continued employment for every man and woman who wishes to work in industry—is something that not one of us, if we are honest, can possibly promise. What we should endeavour to get across to the workers in industry is that those of us who are in Government or management are anxious to do together all that it is possible to do to secure the highest level of employment, and that is by far the saner point of view. We may use all our collective wisdom to secure our foreign trade, and we may do everything we can do here, but we are dealing with an international question, and it does not depend solely on our efforts in Great Britain whether we are able to secure for our

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own people the highest possible level of employment.
The Government, with other Governments, at the moment, are engaged in discussions of the highest importance with some 16 other nations, and we do not yet know the result of their deliberations. Presumably, before the end of the year, a statement will be made informing Parliament and the country of the general conclusions which have been arrived at as a result of those deliberations which are now going on, but next year, there will be international discussions on trade and industry on the other side of the water, and much will depend upon our own employment here and upon a high level of employment in other countries whether the United States is going to be prepared to play with us or not. Therefore, I think it is as well that the Government should know—so far as I have been able to collect the views of industry in this country—what we expect our representatives, who will take part in these discussions next year, to endeavour to secure in the agreements which will have to be made.
First of all, we have heard a few words today about tariffs. We do not yet know what view the Government propose to take in response to the request from the United States that the elimination of tariff preferences should be agreed to. I profoundly hope, and I hope that every hon. Member of the party behind me agrees, from the point of view of the continuation of the British Empire and of the agreements between the Dominions and Colonies and the Mother Country, that there will be no question of the elimination of these tariffs. We may be prepared to consider some reduction in preferences, provided we get a quid pro quo from the United States, whose barriers against us and other countries are much higher than those between the Mother Country and our own Dominions. I hope that our own Government's representatives will agree that reciprocal tariff reductions are absolutely essential if we are to discuss that particular type of tariff, and that any reduction, once agreed to, must on no account be raised again a year or two later. Then, I think it must be pointed out most emphatically to the United States—a creditor nation, now that she has all the countries of the
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world in the palm of her hand, and with her tremendous monetary power—that, as a creditor nation, she must be prepared freely to accept imports in payment for exports, and in payment of the interest on the loans which she has given to us and to other countries.
The United States, with 40 or 50 States in one combination, wishes to be treated, presumably, as one economic unit. The U.S.S.R., with its huge expanse of territory and the satellite countries which have now, in some shape or form, been combined with it, will also expect to be treated as an economic unit. If that be so, then the British Empire with her Dominions and Colonies overseas has just as much right to ask to be treated as an economic unit. There is one very interesting sentence on the third page of Command Paper 6709, which says:
"No nation will seek to maintain employment through measures which are likely to create unemployment in other countries or which are incompatible with international undertakings designed to promote an expanding volume of international trade and investment in accordance with comparative efficiencies of production."
What do the words:
"in accordance with comparative efficiencies of production"
mean? Are wage rates, hours of labour and working conditions to be disregarded or compared with ours? If they are disregarded and international trade becomes but a question of price where are we going to be with our standard of living which we are anxious, not only to maintain, but to raise in the years to come? That question has not been discussed. We do not know what those words mean, and it will be for the Government representatives, in the discussions which are to take place, to clear up, beyond any peradventure, any doubt there may be with regard to their meaning.
An International Trade Organisation is to be set up. It has been asked in this House this afternoon, what would happen if one country were to keep out. I presume that what the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Byers) had in mind was that one really important industrial country might keep out. That raises a question of vital importance. Supposing one major trading nation refuses to come into the International Trade Organisation, would Great Britain be justified in coming

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into the organisation, having regard to the fact that our very existence depends on our overseas trade? That raises a very great question which will have to be faced.
One other point. Are there to be continuing subsidies, hidden or otherwise, which may be used by one nation to enable it to invade other nations' markets? That is another important question to be hammered out. In regard to the International Monetary Fund—if I am correctly informed—neither Russia, India nor Australia are yet signatories to it. The question arises, Are non-signatory nations to enjoy the benefits without the corresponding obligations of membership of that fund? There is a favoured nation clause to be considered. Are the existing favoured nation clauses between one nation and another to be allowed to continue even though the countries concerned keep out of the International Monetary Fund?
There is one final point to which I believe we all attach great importance because of the sad experiences which the world has suffered in the past. It is in regard to commodity surpluses. Supposing we have in the future, as we have in the past, enormous surpluses of products like coffee or maize, which, it will be remembered, had either to be dumped into the sea or used as feel instead of being utilised for human consumption, those surpluses will again threaten world and international trade. I hope that, when the nations discuss that particular point next year, they will make some provision whereby, when this threat arises, foresight will be exercised so that the country which is threatened with a surplus production and the country which is threatened with insufficient consumption, may be able to get together in order that, between them, these problems can be solved by efforts made to meet them before they arise.
I hope that we shall not have so much exhortation from Government quarters to the workpeople of this country to increase production. They know, as well as we who are concerned in management, of the tremendous importance of continuing to work hard, of the management as well as the workers working six days a week, and not going off to play golf at the weekend, leaving the workers to get on with their job. As the Parliamentary Secretary has
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said, we have all got to put our shoulders to the wheel. But it should be remembered that, in many works, a great deal more output could be obtained from the existing personnel, who are anxious and willing to produce it, but who are frustrated, like managements, by the fact that essential raw materials, such as castings from the foundries and sheet steel, which should be coming into the works to enable a steady flow of production to be maintained, are not forthcoming, which delays their work in consequence. Can we expect good work in such circumstances? The big problem which this Government have to face at the moment is the removal of these bottlenecks which are the biggest cause of diminishing production. If they would only apply their minds to that instead of paying so much attention to nationalising this or that industry, we should get back to prosperity much more quickly.
5.58 p.m.
Mr. Benson: I hope that the attitude of the hon. Member for Stockport (Sir A. Gridley), with regard to the necessity of every important nation in the world being a member of the World Trade Organisation, does not represent the opinion of the Opposition or of the Government. There is no real need why the World Trade Organisation should be completely embracing. That position, of course, is highly desirable, but there are really only two nations concerned—Britain and the United States, whose adherance is imperative. Prior to the war, they had between them something like 30 per cent. of the world's trade, and no other nation came anywhere near 10 per cent. If there are defections, it will be unfortunate, but unless there is defection of a very large number of nations, it is certainly going to be worth while to build up the World Trade Organisation. There is another point. If the hon. Gentleman will read the White Paper, he will find that unless a nation is a member of the Monetary Fund it cannot get any of the benefits. There is one further point of correction which I would like to make concerning the hon. Gentleman's speech. America is not a creditor nation but a debtor nation. She is in debt to the rest of the world to the tune of about a billion dollars, mainly on short account. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the "Economic Review" he will see that the figures were set out very care-

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fully by the late Lord Keynes in his last article. It shows that America is in debt to the rest of the world on short account to the extent of about five million dollars and that she is a creditor for about four million dollars on balances of a long term nature. It is rather an astonishing fact.
Sir A. Gridley: She has got all the gold in the world.
Mr. Benson: Yes, she has got all the gold in the world, or most of it, but it is gold that was sent in, not as payment for American favourable balances but as hot money, and just as hot money was sent in from France to this country in 1926 and 1927 and was withdrawn, so the hot money that has gone to the United States in 1936, 1937, 1938 and 1939 can be withdrawn. It is not American gold. It is being held in America in safe keeping, and it is a liability and not an asset. However, all these matters are set out in great detail by the late Lord Keynes in his last article.
Reverting to the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, I suppose it is rather natural that he should have spent most of his time dealing with what has been done, although I think what we are more concerned with is the future, and very much so. Frankly, unpleasant and inconvenient as are our home shortages, what cause me a great deal more worry are the possible future shortages in our exports. Reference has been made to most of the points of trouble and difficulty. Sooner or later, of course, there will be a change from the sellers' to the buyers' market. Unfortunately, all these troubles seem to be likely to come on at the same time. Just about the time when a buyers' market arrives, we shall be faced with the problems of the amortization and service of our sterling balances and the American and Canadian debts. This can only be done by the export of goods. It must be remembered that additional exports mean additional imports, because our exports depend very largely for their raw materials on our imports. Therefore, we have a kind of vicious circle. To increase our exports we have to increase our imports, and then again increase our exports still further. Again, if we are to raise the standard of living of our people, we must increase our imports and so our exports. I think the 70 per cent. increase on 1939,
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as the hon. Member for Edgbaston (Sir P. Bennett) said, is a gross underestimate.
There is another point of difficulty which will become cumulative, and that is the inevitable loss of certain markets. It is suggested by the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Byers) that it is our duty to industrialise the backward countries of the world. I will not pursue that point on moral grounds, but whether we do it or not, the industrialisation will take place. It is inevitable. Mention has been made of the speech of the President of the Board of Trade with regard to Japan—Japan being the bogy man. It does not matter much whether Japan's trade is rehabilitated or not. Japan has a population of about 80 millions There are 700 million Indians and Chinese who will ultimately be industrialised. The fact we have to face is that the industrialisation will take place, and it will do so at a steadily accelerating rate. It started generations ago. It was accelerated in the 1914–18 war. It has been accelerated in the present war and is continuing. But hitherto that industrialisation has taken place very largely as a result of blind economic forces. From now onwards it will take place as a result of a definite policy of the governments of the countries concerned, and that means that it will take place very much more rapidly. When industrialisation begins in a backward country, it generally affects textiles, iron and steel, if there are the adequate raw materials there, and simple engineering. One thing that is quite certain is that those" Dread and butter" exports—textiles, and iron and steel products—which have been the backbone of British exports, certainly up to 1929, will be lost to us in a short time, if they are not already lost. We cannot hope to compete in the home market of an industrialising country with cheap labour and the absence of long haulage. Japan competed with our exports of the cheaper textiles in the Far East. Whether Japan comes back or not I do not know, but in the next 10 years India and China will take that cheap textile market
Mr. Spearman: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that in the last 20 years the industrialisation of Australia and Japan has led to far greater imports in those countries?
Mr. Benson: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will wait a few moments, because I see that the next point in my notes is "Bright spot." Although, as I say, industrialisation is going to hit certain specific "bread and butter" exports, it does have the effect of increasing considerably the income of a country, and a country's imports are largely a function of its national income. That does not alter the fact that it is going to blot out for us certain types of exports, and it means that we have got to shift our type of exports. It means that we have to leave the secondary type and get on to the tertiary type. We must get on to the more complex exports and those which hitherto have been more expensive. This country has specialised in high quality complex goods, but that specialisation has been in small quantities. In future we have got to change that practically to mass production. What we have to export will mean, in effect, luxuries to the newly industrialised countries, and luxury demand is very elastic as to price. It means we have to reduce radically the prices of what have hitherto been rather expensive specialities, and we have got to do it rapidly.
It is perfectly true, as hon. Members have said, that we must increase our industrial efficiency. Of course, we must. Any increase in our standard of living depends upon our industrial efficiency. However, although an increase in our standard of living is highly desirable, I would suggest that the fact that we have to meet a very heavy adverse trade balance, with the need for a continuous increase and expansion in our exports, means that expansion of exports is not only highly desirable, but absolutely imperative. Time is of the essence of the contract, and if we are to meet this colossal need for exports I do not believe we shall do it with our present industrial set-up. I do not believe our industrial set-up is adequately flexible enough to allow of that development taking place as a result of blind chance. The Board of Trade will have to do a very large amount of thinking and planning on this matter. I do not want the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Dorset to think that at the present moment I am being, as he said, ideological.
Mr. Byers: "Doctrinaire" was the word.
Mr. Benson: I am not now concerned with who are the owners of the export trade. I am concerned solely with its organisation. If it remains in private hands it will still require a tremendous amount of pressure and guidance from the Board of Trade if it is to adapt itself in the rather short time that we have. It means a development of a considerably larger industrial unit than is common in this country; it means an industrial unit with very much greater financial resources than the average industrial unit has at the present time; it means a very high standard of research and design; it means a complete reorganisation of our whole marketing system; it means that instead of the prewar individualistic marketing, if we are to break new ground—because the supply of new products means creating new markets—we must have cooperative marketing to an extent that we have never dreamed of before. Quite frankly, whether the export industries become publicly owned or whether they remain in private hands, I do not see that that adjustment will take place unless the Board of Trade contributes very much to planning, to guidance and to pressure.
I do not know whether the Secretary for Overseas Trade will have anything to say upon this, but I do hope that the Board of Trade is visualising problems of this kind, because now that we are re-equipping industry we are setting a pattern of British industry for the next 10 or 15 years. We are at a very crucial point, and we cannot afford haphazard re-equipment of industry. There is a colossal shortage of capital goods. The production of capital goods—which must be the outcome of saving—will be a very great strain upon our production, and we cannot afford the waste involved in haphazard re-equipment. It seems to me that there will have to be some planned economy. I am using that expression in a very moderate sense. I shall be very pleased to hear from the Board of Trade that it is not merely taking the short view, and regarding the closing of the present gap in our balance of payments as the be-all and end-all of its existence. The tendency for Government Departments to take the short view is unfortunate, but true. I do not know what other hon. Members have thought about it, but when readjustment of motor taxation took place I got a very bad shock. At

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the present moment the motor industry is undoubtedly contributing very materially to our exports. How much will it contribute when the American car comes into the market? We shall not then be able to sell our "buzz wagon" at the same price at which the Americans will be able to sell a great big saloon. However, the small engine has been already riveted upon this country, just at a time when we had the opportunity of making a complete change. It was riveted on this country by vested interests. Not all the manufacturers were guilty; some of them were enlightened and wanted the large engine and a different method of taxation, but the majority stuck to their vested interest in the small engine, which gives them very great protection. The Treasury had a vested interest in motor taxation, and was not prepared to give up temporarily a certain amount of its yield.
Mr. Alfred Edwards: If the hon. Gentleman reads the former Debate on this subject he will find that I made a statement—which I am prepared to repeat now—that only one manufacturer, Morris Motors, stood out against it. All the others were prepared to take the progressive step.
Mr. Benson: I know that certain of them were, but the statement of the Chancellor was that they were hopelessly divided. I can hardly conceive of the motor industry being hopelessly divided if it was Morris Motors versus the rest. Be that as it may, the small engine is with us. From the short-term point of view of the manufacturers, of immediate exports and of the Treasury, it may have been the best policy, but from the long-term point of view, I think it was a grievous blunder. I hope that at the present moment the Board of Trade recognises that there is a long-term policy as well as a short-term policy. The skilled bridge player sometimes "ducks" a trick in order to take two tricks later on. The planning that we want from the Board of Trade is planning which will judiciously hold the balance between the needs of the present and the needs of the future. The needs of the present, so far as the home market is concerned, are very largely matters of very considerable inconvenience. Let me repeat, that the needs of the overseas market in the future are vital to the stability and foundations of this country.
6.19 p.m.
Sir John Barlow: I have a certain amount in common with the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson), in that he laid great stress on the export position. I, too, feel that is of the utmost importance at the present time. When considering this whole question we must remember the present compared with the 1938 figures, which are so often quoted by the Board of Trade. In 1938 the total exports were £532,000,000; the shipping income was about £100,000,000; the overseas investments, some £200,000,000, which we have been told are now halved owing to wartime sales, and other invisible exports amounting to £35 million. The whole of that total showed a deficit, as against the imports, of some £55 million. I regard it as unsatisfactory that we should base our target on the 1938 figures when they showed a deficit of £55 million. Looking back, one sees that the last year in which there was a favourable trade balance was 1935, and it amounted to only £33 million. In spite of the possibility of the trade figures being nearly balanced this year—that, no doubt, is what the Government are hoping for—we must take into consideration that exports to U.N.R.R.A. and to N.A.A.F.I., and certain shipments for rehabilitation and relief services, which are, I believe, included in the export figures. The 1938 figures are entirely unsatisfactory because, as I say, there was a deficit at the time.
Now the present figures, as has been admitted by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, are on an inflated value. To give one instance, the amount of cotton textiles exported is, I believe, larger in value, according to the last returns, than in the 1938 period. But if we look at the yardage, we shall find that reduced to about a third of the yardage in 1938. It is useless to think that all may be well if we balance our trade figures this year, because of the very high values which, we know, disappear very largely, at short notice; and also because of the very restricted imports. We all know we should like to import a vast amount of more raw materials and finished goods, but we have to try to balance imports and exports. Undoubtedly, more imports will have to be brought in, in course of time, but it is important to remember that they are very restricted at present.

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Another thing we have to remember is the presence of empty shelves in the shops. The population of this country are crying out for more goods, but they cannot have them because of the utmost necessity of supplying exports to all parts of the world. I should like to throw out one suggestion, which has been mentioned before when there was a discussion in this House on agriculture. I should like to point out to the Board of Trade that, although the output of agriculture has increased substantially during the war£it has been increased by anything from 30 per cent. to 8o per cent. in this country, according to the method of computation—I have little doubt that that production can be increased very much more still. That would save most valuable foreign exchange. Not only could agricultural produce be increased by adequate action on the part of the Ministry of Agriculture, but, I feel sure, considerable trade could be done by exporting certain livestock from this country to other countries urgently requiring it, and that would bring in foreign exchange.
The hon. Member for Chesterfield made reference to the cotton industry. I happen to have been concerned with that industry for many years. He described, very briefly, how it had fallen in size. I have looked up a few figures, and will quote some to show the diminution of the textile industry in the past few years. I see that if 1912 the production of cotton textiles was about 8,050 million linear yards. In 1924 that was reduced to about three quarters, to about 6,026 million square yards. A square yard is very little less than a linear yard in these computations. By 1937 production was down to 3,806 million. So, from 1912 to 1937, the production of cotton textiles was halved. It is important to see how the export trade suffered during that period as well. In 1912, 86 per cent. of textile production in this country was exported; in 1924, only 74 per cent.; and it went down until, in 1937, only 53 per cent. of production was exported, which is a very small figure, indeed. That industry supplied our great single export in most of the important years between the two wars. If it is true that other countries are building up to compete against us, so that we cannot recover the basic textile export business again I hope the Board of Trade
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are making quickly their arrangements to go into other business.
I shall be interested to hear tonight what the Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade has to say about the Japanese competition which, we understand, may be expected in the years to come. In the early 'thirties I travelled to the East repeatedly, trying to sell goods in competition with the Japanese, and, to a less extent, with the Chinese textiles, and with their standards of living it was absolutely impossible, on level terms, for Lancashire to compete. That was a very serious thing to the whole of our exports, and to Lancashire, in particular, between the wars. I hope that we shall be told that when this Japanese competition comes again, the Japanese will not be allowed to sell textiles under world value prices. If they are—
Mr. Benson: Could the hon. Gentleman tell us what is the world value price?
Sir J. Barlow: Well, the price is, I should say, that at which the principal exporters of the world can produce and sell, for this purpose.
Mr. Benson: Does the hon. Gentleman really suggest that no country shall sell as the cheapest seller on any market of any article? Or do his remarks merely apply to Japan?
Sir J. Barlow: In this case, I should say that, as a defeated nation, this should apply to Japan. We in this country have suffered very materially, indeed, for many years from that competition. It was suggested that all their armament industries and their potential armament industries should be suppressed; and it has been suggested that this one industry, which can be so severe to us, shall be allowed to continue. I suggest that, possibly, our American friends are getting the best of the bargain in that case, and I am only saying that we should do our very utmost to protect what was one of our most important national industries. There is no doubt in my mind that the basic industries on which we have relied so much in the past are the cotton industry and the coal industry. the exports of which have practically disappeared, and that if they cannot be resuscitated the Board of Trade must have alternative schemes for, possibly, high class exports to take their place in the very near future. The present world demand, and the seller's market, are

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likely to disappear at an early date, and for that reason I hope the Government are planning suitably, so that there may be other materials of a more permanent nature to take their place.
I feel that the economics of the situation are often insufficiently understood by people in this country. In the very early days, if a man did not go out hunting and get his food, he very soon went hungry, and he knew the remedy. Nowadays, with ultra-civilisation and the very greatest division in industry, it is sometimes difficult perhaps for the producer of coal to understand that he must produce not only enough coal to supply the requirements of this country, both individual and industrial, but that there should also be enough to send perhaps to the Argentine to exchange for beef, on which will depend the size of his Sunday joint. In the same way the textile worker not only has to provide enough clothes for homes in this country, but a surplus to exchange possibly for rubber from Malaya, wheat from Canada or butter from New Zealand. These are very simple and crude economics, but owing to the great diversification of industry I feel that that point could be brought home better to the working people of this country and made more understandable to them than it has been up to the present time.
6.32 p.m.
Mr. Edelman: The hon. Member for Eddisbury (Sir J. Barlow) has very properly emphasised that British trade does not exist in a vacuum, but has a definite relation to markets and foreign competition. Already in this Debate reference has been made to competition in America, and I would therefore like to quote what an American business man said to me in the Middle West a month ago. He said, "American trade, like the American Navy, will go wherever it pleases." He meant by that that U.S. trade will use all the resources of American industry, undamaged as it was by the war and undiverted as it was to any great extent from home production to war production, in order to compete in foreign markets. During the war many of us saw in foreign countries American carpet-baggers in uniform following in the wake of the armies, for the purpose of staking their commercial claims in postwar markets. We know equally, that once American industry has fulfilled the de-
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mands of the domestic market—I see in the "New York Herald Tribune" this morning that it is anticipated that this will take place in 1947—it will want to erupt into the European market and those other markets which we in the past have considered to be ours.
It is true that United States business men may be disposed to lower tariffs; but what tariffs would they wish to lower? They will lower tariffs on certain raw materials, which they themselves want to convert into manufactured goods to assist their projected drive into the markets of the world. Although very properly we want to protect those markets with which we are concerned, and although I very strongly support the hon. Member opposite who said that we should not relax our Imperial preferences without a proper quid pro quo from the Americans, we will have very great difficulty in resisting American pressure if they produce a flood of cheap goods from abundant raw materials. We with a smaller amount of raw materials and relatively high labour costs may find it difficult to resist them, even with the aid of tariffs and preferential agreements.
If we turn from America to Russia, we see that Russia is also a rival of Great Britain in world markets, not so much in quantity of exports but rather in what she excludes. We know that Russia has been making bilateral trade agreements with many of the countries on her frontiers, and with other countries even beyond those frontiers. She has bilateral trade agreements with Denmark, with Czechoslovakia and with Poland, and on the Danube she has formed, with the riparian States, joint trading corporations in which she has 50 per cent. of the shares and the countries concerned 50 per cent. The effect of these trade agreements is to exclude both Britain and America. As we know, Russia, ideally, would like to have an autarkic economy, but if she cannot achieve that, she is anxious to obtain the greatest possible measure of economic autarky by means of such bilateral trade agreements. We cannot go very far economically with those countries, since we lack the political and military influence which the Soviet Union has. Nor have we the capacity to give (or withhold) liberal credits, which is the counter of American economic diplomacy to the economic diplomacy of the Soviet Union.

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We may very properly ask, therefore, What are we to do faced with this competition, on the one side from the great capitalist industry of America and on the other side from the Communist exclusiveness of the Soviet Union and its satellite States? Clearly in the first place we, who have a mixed capitalist and Socialist economy, must concern ourselves with basic production and get that right. Various hon. Members have made reference to productivity, and here again I would most emphatically agree with the hon. Member opposite who said that workers are sick and tired of exhortations. One of the reasons why they are sick of prods and slaps on the back is that they are fully aware that increased productivity does not depend merely on the worker working harder; productivity is a function of management, and unless managements recognise that they have as large a part to play in increasing productivity as have the workers, we shall not get that extra spurt forward which we should have and which we vitally need.
Some time ago, I went down a coal mine, in order to see at the coal face what was described as a highly developed system of mechanised coal production. There I saw a coal cutter standing idle. The conveyor belt was in motion and was being loaded manually by a group of three miners. That illustrates how an inept management and, if I may say so, a lopsided development of mechanisation in coal mining, have resulted in a condition in which however hard the miner works physically, his increased output will be proportionately small compared with the potential increase in output if mechanisation were properly and scientifically applied. Today, 72 per cent. of coal is cut mechanically and 71 per cent. is conveyed mechanically, but the intermediate process of loading, the process which should be mechanised in order to get the full benefit of mechanical cutting and conveying, is only mechanised to the extent of approximately 1.5 per cent. A great deal of the advantage of mechanical cutting is lost through the time-lag in manual loading. No amount of chivvying these miners would compensate for an ounce of commonsense which requires that mechanisation in mine or in factory must be properly balanced. This is an illustration of how managements must modernise their ideas and use modern equipment
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efficiently in order to play a full part in the production drive and thus increase output.
I referred before to America, and I do so again because an hon. Member opposite mentioned bottlenecks which he felt the Board of Trade should clear in order to assist industry. He referred in particular to the question of foundry workers. Why cannot we get an adequate supply of workers? There are many foundries in the constituency which I represent, and the reason for the shortage of workers is that, for the most part, our foundries are dirty, old and backward, and still have a 19th century tradition of organisation. In contrast, I should like to refer to the foundry of the Cincinatti Machine Tool Corporation which I visited and where I saw a modern mechanised electrical foundry. In that foundry, nothing of any substantial quantity was raised by hand if mechanical means could be used. And the works manager wore a white shirt and collar which remained white till the end of the day, owing to an excellent system of dust extraction in the workshops. If we are to compete with America, on their terms, we must modernise our ideas of management; we must modernise our ideas of factory organisation. And if we are to use the American Loan to the best advantage, we must see that we modernise our whole system of production with the purchase of up-to-date equipment.
I now turn to the question of the purchases which we are making from abroad. I feel that I detected a certain note of satisfaction in the references which have been made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the question of trade with the Soviet Union. This is a subject to which I have referred in the past in this House, because I consider that it is of vital importance, not merely to good relations between our two countries, but even more practically, to the success of our building programme, on the one hand, and on the other, the success of our machine tool industry of which Russia has been an excellent customer in the past and will again be in the future.
Mr. Belcher: I hope that the hon. Member will acquit me of any self-satisfaction about our negotiations with the Soviet Union. I am well aware of the enormous need of this country for the

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products of the Soviet Union and of their need for our products. I am not satisfied that everything that could have been done has been done, or that the negotiations have reached the stage when anyone could be satisfied.
Mr. Edelman: I welcome the acknowledgment of the Parliamentary Secretary that everything which could have been done has not been done. It has taken over a year to arrive at a situation in which we have given the Russians a discount of £5 million on the £40 million of equipment outstanding and lying idle for the whole year. I suggest that the depreciation in value of these goods during that period has amounted to something in the order of £5 million. In return for that we have extracted a promise from Russia of 25,000 standards of timber, which is sufficient for approximately 10,000 houses, but it is very unlikely that we shall get this timber before the Baltic ports are closed by ice. I do not intend to advance any criticism of the Board of Trade in the sense that they have been dilatory or unwilling to get on with the job of doing trade with Russia. I am well familiar with the Russians, because for many years before the war I negotiated with them for prolonged periods on behalf of my employers for timber, both in this country and in Russia. I am acquainted with their intransigence, and with the difficulty of getting any Soviet representative in this country to make a decision without prior reference to Moscow. It is precisely for that reason that I feel the Board of Trade should have sent a trade delegation to Russia to do business there much earlier in the year. America, which is a country capitalistic in its whole structure and outlook, has been willing to do trade with Russia; and I believe that unless we advance far more rapidly towards a comprehensive trade agreement with the Soviet Union than has been the case in the past, we may find ourselves in the position in which we shall try to repurchase timber from America which America has purchased from the Soviet Union. In enlarging the trade agreement which we have already made, I hope that the Board of Trade will recognise that Russia has the timber which we need to make a success of our housing programme, and that in turn we have the machine tools, the mechanical and electrical equipment, of which the Soviet Union is in such urgent
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need. In these respects our trade is complementary. I hope that everything will be done to stimulate reciprocal movements of trade between our two countries.
Finally, I wish to refer to the question of cooperation between the countries of the world for their mutual economic benefit, and also in the interests of goodwill which can only emerge as a result of that cooperation. During the war we had cooperation between ourselves and the Americans—and even between ourselves, the Americans and the Russians—through various agencies which we jointly established to win the war. We had the Middle East Supply Council and the Lend-Lease Organisation, and after the war the European Coal Organisation from which, unfortunately, the Russians abstained. These organisations brought the countries of the world together for the purpose of common planning for their individual and general interest during the war, and everybody hoped that when the war came to an end we would be able to use precisely similar organisations in order to have a planned economy in the world as a whole. I recognise that with America's reluctance to enter into boards, organisations and corporations of this kind it will be difficult, and in certain cases, may be impossible to make a success of them.
I feel that the Government should use every effort to induce the Americans to enter these organisations. One which I have particularly in mind is the World Food Board. I believe that we can persuade them to enter it. Surely Britain, one of the world's great markets and producers, is not without her bargaining power. Surely we have something which we can contribute to the pool whereby each of the contributors, not merely ourselves, may derive benefit. I believe that it is only through the revival of this kind of joint functional cooperation between ourselves, America, Russia and other countries of Europe and Asia, that we can create the reality of "one world." I feel that if in Palestine, for example, in the Negeb, there was a Joint Corporation consisting of Jews, Americans, British and Arabs, we could have an experiment in cooperation, which would not only benefit those who participated but would be a model to mankind. Trade is a basis of goodwill between nations. It we can foster international trade organisations,

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individually and collectively benefitting the nations, we shall have made not only an effective contribution to our own trade and economic security but to the peace of the world.
6.50 p.m.
Major Haughton: The Debate has ranged over such a vast field of trade happenings, possibilities and probabilities, that I do not imagine that the Minister who replies will be able to do more than answer a few of the points which have been raised, and if he is human—and I take him to be a very human person—he will choose easy ones. I hope that he will take courage and answer the challenge coming from different parts of the country, that Great Britain at this time is exporting too many machine tools, too much textile machinery, too many agricultural engines, implements and parts, and too much printing machinery. It is not so easy to get a the exact figures, but looking at the Statistical Digest, I see in Table 58 figures for the printing and bookbinding machinery which is being exported in ever-growing volume, and is running at about 33ቓ per cent. of the total now being manufactured. It is not so easy to get the figures for the others—the machine tools, textile machinery, agricultural engines and parts—but I am told that the general direction to the manufacturers making diesel engines and agricultural machinery is 65 per cent. for export and 35 per cent. for home trade.
No one in his right senses wants to cramp international trade. We all want international trade to expand, and we want it to expand rapidly, but is this allocation of British output as between export and home trade nicely balanced at this moment? As the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) has said, home trade is the very essence of this contract. This problem is a very urgent one. It seems to me that by exporting all this machinery we are not so much doling out rope with which our foreign competitors can, if they are so minded, hang themselves, as launching a jet-propelled boomerang which may come back and deeply injure our British trade. I am old enough to remember the beginning of this century when our textile machines were competing very bitterly with the German machines and manufacturers for trade in Japan
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They had to fight very hard for that, but we went a great deal further. I remember how Japanese students not only came to our universities, but were welcomed into our mills and weaving sheds. We know what the result of that was between the wars, when Japanese competition swamped British trade in India and the Middle East. I am not taking a narrow-minded point of view about this, I am looking at it from a realistic point of view, because I believe that at this time, when we are trying to move as rapidly as we can from war to peace production, this matter is worthy of great consideration.
I want to ask the Minister whether he is satisfied that the issue of export licences for this type of producing machinery is sufficiently well supervised, and whether the licences are sufficiently scrutinised. Many of the main arguments for the American Loan were that it would enable us to get dollars with which to purchase certain types of high-speed automatic looms, automatic machinery, and agricultural implements. That seems contradictory. Is our motto to be, "Sell to the foreigner, and let him finish the job"? We all want to implement the policy of full employment, and that should not be difficult to do today, in a sellers' market. The oddest thing I have met lately comes in the shape of an extraordinary letter from a Dutchman, who evidently has knowledge of negotiations that are brewing with the British Government, and of plans that are being considered for the manufacture of steel windows in Holland. This involves the steel sections being shipped, in the first place, from this country. Surely, we have enough constructional engineers in Britain to undertake work of this kind without getting it done on the Continent. So, I ask the Minister to consider these points, and to say whether the proportion of textile machinery which is being exported, is in fair balance with that which is being offered to the home trade.
6.57 p.m.
Mr. Alfred Edwards: In order to emphasise one of his points a recent speaker in the Debate showed how a certain mine was incompletely mechanised and the money spent on mechanisation had been largely wasted because there had been no saving resulting from the original capital which had

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been invested. That seems to bear on what I want to say tonight. Downstairs, we have a public cafeteria in which we invested a certain amount of money to speed up the service so that, in the rush hour, people would be able to get their food quickly. It is well known that in cafeterias it is possible to serve 16 people per minute, yet we sometimes find that Members and their guests have to wait 16 minutes in our cafeteria to get what they want. One of the criticisms which I wish to bring against the Board of Trade is that there is no overall view of our industrial system which will prevent this kind of bottleneck arising. Some illustrations have been given today—and I want to give one or two others—about these bottlenecks, some of them very disastrous.
I want to support what the Parliamentary Secretary said about the need for quick exports, and perhaps what I might call prestige exports. I do not think that the Board of Trade had much time to decide which would be our best goods for export, but only which could be exported quickest. They must now learn the lesson that some wrong goods and articles are being exported. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year fixed on the motor industry a small engine—and, after all, he had the last say—there was a willingness among manufacturers to make a serious change at that time. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) pointed out that we are now determining the design of motor cars and other things for generations. Last time we discussed this question of motor taxation which determined the size of the engine there was only one manufacturer who stood out against the acceptance of a petrol tax. I believe that that manufacturer now realises that he made a very serious mistake. The Chancellor should now reverse that grievous error and establish, in his next Budget, a petrol tax which would free manufacturers and designers for all time by enabling them to make the most efficient engine, and not one which merely fits into a fiscal system.
Who of us who travel abroad ever saw an English car where it was possible to get an American car? Where in our Colonies are they going to accept these small cars of ours, when the larger
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American cars are available? Who abroad is going to pay the ridiculous price put on our small cars today when America has the cars to export? We are going to lose that market; we cannot possibly retain it. I agree that we had to export cars because that was one of the industries which we could get going quickly, and we could export quickly to bring in the necessary money, and show the world that we could pay our way. I know that the good done is incalculable, but, if we continue, the harm done will also be incalculable. Without these silly tax restrictions, we could build a car in this country equal to the American car.
Many great men have had to change their minds and admit they have made a mistake, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had better do so while he has the opportunity, before he definitely fixes on this great industry of ours this ridiculous limitation. While on the question of motor cars I would say this: I was driven by a friend in one of our cars, which has a very high reputation in this country and abroad. I said, "It is very nice to be in a good English car again, isn't it?" He said, "Yes, it is a very good car. I have just come from Switzerland and there they sell a tremendous lot. They have a fine reputation. This is a very good car but—" and he put his hand on a little door cover on the dashboard. It came off. He waved it at me. He then turned to the sunshade where the cover of felt was just falling away. He said, "How do you like my cigarette tray?" That came off—and about 10 things which that man showed me in a few minutes were of absolutely shoddy workmanship. "And that," he said, "will lose the goodwill which these people have built up over many years in Switzerland." I mention that because there is a tendency today, in rushing the things for export abroad, to forget that we have built up our reputation abroad on quality.
An hon. Member said that it is quality which has built up our industry, and he went on to say that we shall, in future, have to go into mass production. But we cannot mass produce quality goods. It is a contradiction in terms. America will always have an advantage over us in mass production. In quality goods, we shall always have an advantage over America. If we build on that, we shall build for all

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time. It is this lack of vision in the Board of Trade which really troubles me. When did we discover that there was a shortage of steel? Our manufacturers are now not able to continue their programmes and have to cut them down. Some industries, with which I am associated, have been told recently: "All your steel allocations are now withdrawn." One of my colleagues who spent three months in South Africa came home with a wonderful bag of orders. He had allocations and had begun to deliver, and everything was going beautifully and a magnificent trade was developin. The last time we put in our application for allocations to fulfil the increased orders that had come in, there was none at all. We were told that there were only allocations for the orders which we had in hand. That means that, instead of giving quick deliveries for all the orders coming in week by week from South Africa, we now have to say, "We cannot give delivery for 12 months." The result will be that we shall not get the business.
There is no one who is looking at the whole of our industrial system, and saying what goods must be produced at a certain time. We know our productive capacity in steel. We know how much we shall require for building factories, reconditioning our railways and building ships. We can determine all those things. I, and one or two of my colleagues, and hon. Members opposite, went to see Lord Woolton when he was the Minister dealing with reconstruction, and we asked, "What are your plans?" He admitted to us that not only did he have no plans, but that he did not have a Department. There has not been a serious effort to look at our industrial system, weigh up our capacities and make allocations. That has to be done. Can one imagine some of the great organisers in America allowing their immense output to be held up even for a small screw The whole organisation would be stopped, and they would be bankrupt in no time. What we want is a scientific find, which can map out all these things, so that everything comes together at the right time. No one should think of budgeting for more motor cars than there is steel with which to produce them. We have almost lost a very wonderful trade which we had built up in South Africa, just through allocations being withheld.
Earl Winterton: Is not one reason why we cannot get steel because we are not getting the right type of coal to produce the steel?
Mr. Edwards: I think that has a considerable amount to do with it. But if we had a scientific system of planning, we would never go beyond the coal stage in making our plans. It is necessary to determine what coal will be available, and to plan what quantity of steel that will produce. Otherwise, it is just a waste of time. We have to face that in the first stage and not in the last, or the loss is going to be the greater. Mistakes have been made. I am only concerned as to whether we are seeing those mistakes, and whether we are rectifying them now. We exported too much steel in the early days, and enabled foreign manufacturers to manufacture goods and compete with us in the foreign markets, while the people at home were held up, and starved. It would have paid us to have exported more manufactured goods. I remember the time when a manufacturer had every available machine held up for fractional motors. There seems to be no one to say, "Have we all the parts with which to make the machines?" We are wasting time, and we shall come to ruin, if we cannot do that. I am emphasising what is a great fear in my mind. This is not a Party matter, and I do not care who delivers the goods, so long as we can deliver them. I want to emphasise the common ground and not magnify our differences. Important Members of my party have said that only 20 per cent. of our industries are to be nationalised. Hon. Gentlemen opposite should not go around the country saying that there is wholesale nationalisation. That is false. [Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite will know next week what is anticipated in the very near future. If there is more than 20 per cent., that will be the time for them to cry.
Sir F. Sanderson: It will be too late then.
Mr. Edwards: Hon. Members will know within another week what will come before the House next Session. The point I wish to make is that if 80 per cent. of industries continue under private enterprise, we must not mess about with the rules of private enterprise. It is important that that should be realised. We cannot have it both ways. If we nationalise

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20 per cent. of industries, and improve the productive capacity of the steel industry and other industries which are taken over, we shall do a tremendous amount to make more efficient those industries which are left under private enterprise. That will be a great service, even to hon. Members opposite who do not agree with our policy. If we can make this 20 per cent., the great industries, more efficient, we shall do a great service to the whole of industry. I agree that we shall have to stand or fall on the question of efficiency.
What frightens me is that when one goes into Government Departments, one finds there are many people in those Departments who think they are going to run our industries. They cannot do it. I see that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary nods his head. I take it he agrees with me. He will have to knock out of the heads of these people their belief that they can do that; otherwise, it will be too late. To give an example of a recent case, in connection with a company with which I am associated, I negotiated a contract with an American concern in Chicago to use one of their designs in this country. The proposition was to make the machines in this country instead of importing them from America. We said, "We will pay you for the design and manufacture them in this country." We obtained the rights on very reasonable terms, and after six weary months spent in trying to get a permit to do that, from the Treasury, the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Supply and everybody else, we were told we could not do it because it would involve a payment in dollars. It was a question of a royalty of five per cent. It took me a long time to convince even Treasury officials that a royalty of five per cent. would save 95 per cent. of the dollars that otherwise would have to be paid. Whatever Department I go to, in the end it always comes back to the Treasury. I would not say these things if I were not prepared to invite my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to investigate the matter and find out that what I am telling the House is true. In the end, in trying to track down the man responsible for doing that in the Department, it was discovered that it was done by a comparatively young girl who looked over the catalogues, and so on, and saw that
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that kind of machine was made in this country and thought it was not necessary to bring it from America. That sort of thing would be bad enough if it were the result of a short and snappy decision, but it ought not to have resulted in wasting six months of our time. This is not a criticism of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary or the President of the Board of Trade, but of the system—
Earl Winterton: It is not even a criticism of Socialism, of course.
Mr. Edwards: It is not. The noble Lord has been in the House during the period in which that Department has been built up. Was it built by Socialists? It was built by Governments of the noble Lord's own party, but I do not recall that he ever criticised it.
Earl Winterton: The hon. Gentleman is talking complete nonsense. Nobody criticised some of the actions of the last Government more than I did. The regrettable thing is that some of those who formerly criticised now meekly vote tor every Socialist Measure.
Mr. Edwards: I sat on the opposite side of the House long enough to know what one got for daring to say anything about Government Departments. I have even seen the noble Lord do some meek things when called into the Division Lobby. He has not always been so heroic as in these latter days.
Earl Winterton: I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that the three principal critics of the late Government were the Minister of Health, the Minister of Fuel and Power, and myself.
Mr. Shurmer: What company the noble Lord used to keep.
Mr. Edwards: I have one more criticism to make, and I would not make it if I did not think it was vital to do so. An American company recently wanted to set up a factory in this country, and the Treasury were willing to assist them. This is not a question of the Socialist Government; it is about a Department which I have never heard the noble Lord criticise. The Treasury wanted to make one condition, which was that the company, if they put up a factory, should use our new Finance Corporation for financing the

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business. I had to put it to them that I thought we wanted dollars, and that what they were doing, in effect, was to say that this great American concern, which wanted to put a factory in this country, should not bring dollars over here, but should borrow our money. I had a little correspondence with the Chancellor and he promised to look into the matter again, and I assume that, with his brain, he will see that that condition is quickly reversed.
How are we to get this industrial system of ours, a remnant of the organisation of the party opposite, transformed? It is a method which the party opposite built up. It is the party opposite which left this kind of organisation to us. We had to begin with what was there. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and the President of the Board of Trade could not do very much in the first 12 months. They had to get the whole machine working. During the next 12 months we must radically reform this organisation. We must not let the people in the Departments get hold of industry, or we shall never regain the position we held before the war. If we are to recover the trade which, quite rightly, we deliberately sacrificed during the war, we must face the fact that the Americans had their commercial travellers in uniform throughout the war. If anybody questions that, let him read the interesting reports put out from Washington, boasting about how they had established American machinery and a desire for American products, how a whole range of them were not sold, but given away, in order to establish this wonderful market for American goods after the war. We shall not meet that kind of competition by sitting down quietly. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to point out to his chief that we will not float into this prosperity, but must have a very powerful drive, which I have not yet seen. He should stop giving "pep" talks to the workers, and give a few "pep" talks to the people in the Departments.
7.20 p.m.
Mr. William Shepherd: After listening so far, to what I think has been a very interesting Debate, and particularly the statement of the Parliamentary Secretary on the present position of the trade of the country, I am afraid that few industrialists, had they been in the galleries this afternoon, would be able to
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reconcile the position as outlined by the Parliamentary Secretary, with the everyday duties which they have to perform and the everyday difficulties which they are meeting. In so far as that picture was accurate it was a testimony to the employers and to private enterprise, but it did not represent in any way the complete sense of frustration which is pervading almost the entire industry of this country. The economics of the situation are important, but in a state of affairs such as that with which we are confronted, the spirit of the nation, and particularly the spirit of its industrial leaders, is just as important. In that respect I believe that it is possible to indict this Government very seriously indeed. I should like some hon. and right hon. Members to go over to a country such as, say, Belgium, and to sense the difference between the spirit which obtains there and that which obtains in this country.
Mr. Skeffington: Is the hon. Gentleman referring to the widespread black market there?
Mr. W. Shepherd: I think that is an irrelevant observation. What is more important is that the Belgian industrialists and the Belgian people feel that they are going somewhere; they know where they are going, and they are on their way. That is not a position which exists in this country. I think there is at the present time a need for drive and energy which never existed before; yet all the Government do is to discourage those who must, to the greatest extent, display energy and drive. A great industrial nation so precariously balanced as ours relies more upon the energy and drive of its industrialists than upon any other section of the community. If we discourage those industrialists, if we frustrate them as we are doing at the present time, we cannot make progress in face of the difficulties with which we are now confronted.
I am not attempting today to blame the workers for everything that is going wrong: I am not attempting to blame them for the lack of output which we know does exist, because it is extraordinarily difficult to get output in the present set-up. I know myself how many times during these past 12 months I have said, "Next week we are going to get this output up to the right level." Next week we get it up, but the week after, the supply of materials falls off, and we are

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down again. That happens for two, three, or four weeks more, and we start all over again, but once output has dropped it is difficult to pick it up again. Workers and employers alike are all "fed up" with the present position, and until the Board of Trade can see that there is an adequate supply of materials available, we shall not get production. When I have said that, it is not the entire picture. The workers, in the main, in this country are not doing as good a production job as they could, and the problem is: How are we to overcome that?
The deathbed conversion of hon. Members opposite is not very helpful. For 30 years they have tried to poison the wells of industry and now that they have become the drawers of water they are realising what damage they have done. One cannot tell the workers for 30 years that the boss is a thieving scoundrel, who waxes fat at their expense, and then, overnight, turn round and say, "You really will have to put your backs into it, chaps. The boss is not such a bad fellow after all." What is more, the right hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot control their own organisation. Can they for one moment tell this House that the shop stewards are carrying out the policy advocated by the Parliamentary Secretary this afternoon? And what good is it to exhort the workers in this House, if at the factory level nothing happens at all? That is precisely what is taking place; the factory level is not operating, and the words of the Parliamentary Secretary today and those of the Prime Minister mean nothing at that level.
I turn for a moment to the question of exports in order to—if I may use an American phrase—"debunk" what the Parliamentary Secretary said about them today and what has been said about them for a long time. In the 12 months ended May, 1946, we exported £597 million worth of goods: in 1919 we exported £799 million worth.
Mr. S. Silverman: What did we export in 1921?
Mr. Shepherd: In considering the difference between those figures we have to take into account three other factors which I notice the Government never stress when putting these figures before the House. First, that in 1919 trade
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with Southern Ireland was internal, so that 5 per cent. has to be allowed for that. Of the figure for 1946, 3 per cent. went in supplies to U.N.R.R.A. and probably about 5 per cent. was accounted for by N.A.A.F.I. supplies. In this way the difference is magnified in a very considerable measure. In fact, the extra effort in 1946, when the total volume of production was probably two-thirds what it was in 1919, is very poor indeed. Should any hon. Member say, "Well, there is a difference between figures and volume," let me point out that the calculated difference in volume is that in 1946 the total volume of exports was only three quarters of the total volume in 1919, and that before making allowances for the N.A.A.F.I. supplies, the U.N.R.R.A. supplies, and the Southern Ireland trade.
Mr. Belcher: I think the hon. Gentleman is under what appears to be a common misapprehension. No one is attempting to make a comparison between the figures for export in 1919, and those in 1946. What one is doing is to compare performance in 1946, based on a target which is allied to the 1939 figure, with performance in 1919, based on a target allied to the 1913 figure, and that is quite a legitimate thing to do.
Mr. Shepherd: I think that has no relevance. What is true is that in 1946, with a total production very much higher than that of 1919, and with a situation which demanded more effort than the position of 1919, we are exporting only three-quarters of the total volume, and even less, since we have to make those allowances for various items which I have mentioned. Again, if one looks at the next year one finds that in 1920, the total value of exports was £1,334 million. When the Secretary for Overseas Trade replies I should like him to set a target figure and let us see whether he hopes to reach that figure in 1947. I only say these things because the Government have tried to mislead the country as to the alleged success of this export drive. We all want exports, and we all know the difficulties connected with them, but we are not getting the results we should, and we are certainly not doing as well as we did in the despised year of 1919.
I want to refer now to the question of quality. I have been very concerned about it, and I wrote a letter to the

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"Daily Telegraph" some six months ago, about the shoddiness of goods which were being exported from this country. It is doing immeasurable harm to a nation which has established what industrial supremacy it had on the basis of quality, and I hope the Board of Trade may take steps to see that the quality of goods which we export is the best possible in the circumstances. Secondly, the question of design is of paramount importance. In the past, while our quality was very high, we somewhat neglected the external appearance of many of the articles we sent abroad. Time spent on design is always well repaid. I look to the Government to set a lead giving every possible encouragement to those who are attempting to stimulate design.
I do not want to make too many unfavourable criticisms, and would rather make constructive suggestions. There are industries which could be assisted by the Government, if the Government were so minded. We have to face a difficult position, in which our aim should be to make the country as self-sufficient as possible. Industries such as those which make machine tools and farming implements and typewriters should be given some assistance. In nearly all the manufactured items we have to buy from abroad we are behind only because countries with large internal markets have built up a production level preventing our people from competing. The Government should take advantage of cheap capital to encourage firms to start industries in goods where our lack of an internal market prevents our establishing a successful industry because of the strongly entrenched foreign position.
I want to end by saying that hon. Members on all sides of the House have placed too much reliance upon getting some kind of ideal, international, economic set-up. The danger which seems obvious is that we are putting as much reliance upon some sort of international organisation to secure an economic level, as we did in 1919 on world peace. We are tending to make exactly the same kind of mistake in the economic field, as we then did in the international political field. We cannot secure our position, precarious as it is, by means of these international organisations, because of conflict within them. That conflict already exists, and means that those organisations will not operate effectively.
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Our job is to secure our own economy, to regard the Empire as an integral economic unit, to stand for Imperial preference, and to make our own industry as self-supporting as we possibly can.
7.33 p.m.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: I hope that the hon. Member for Bucklow (Mr. W. Shepherd) will not mind if I suggest to him that this is not the proper occasion for a funeral oration. Listening to him, one would think that this country had done very badly since the end of the war, had lagged behind, had not taken advantage of its opportunities, had not buckled to, had not been realist and had not attempted to recover some part of the tremendous price that it paid for victory. There is not a word of truth in that. The country has done extremely well. The Government are to be congratulated on the really amazing success they have had in so short a time in rebuilding the export trade, upon which, everybody is agreed, our standard of living must ultimately depend.
The hon. Member drew a comparison between 1919 and 1946. I wonder why. The year 1919 was the first after the end of the first world war, and 1946 is the first year after the end of the second world war, both difficult periods, both years in which it was not easy to show good results at once. The hon. Member says that the first difficult year after the end of the first world war was better than the first difficult year after the end of the recent world war. Suppose he is right—I do not know whether he is or not. How long did it last? How long did the boom last that was created in the first 12 or 18 months after the end of the first war? There were years between the two wars when no-one could have said that they were still paying the price of previous wars, when the first difficult years had been overcome. Hon. Members opposite seem to have a great passion for production nowadays. They say that we must bend all our efforts toward increasing production. What did they do in the 21 years between 1919 and 1939 about production? They kept unemployed, for 20 years, an average of two million of our best workers. Throughout the whole period there was never fewer than one million workers unemployed. Sometimes there were as many as three million—one million when trade was good and three

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million when it was bad, or an average of two million, throughout the whole of the 20 years. Was that because hon. Members believed in production, because they wanted to use all our resources?
Mr. Sidney Shephard: Is the hon. Member suggesting that the Conservative Party kept those people unemployed deliberately?
Mr. Shurmer: Yes.
Mr. Silverman: I could hardly be as uncharitable as that, but sometimes when one listens to Conservative defences of policies during those 21 years one would almost think they did. I do not think they did. I think they could not help it, and that, on their principles, no one could have helped it. If we are to have a completely unplanned economic society I do not think we can expect to get full employment at the same time. Hon. Members opposite must make up their minds. They must decide, not we, whether those people were unemployed all that time because on the hon. Members' system they were not employed, though they could have been employed, or because hon. Members did not know how to employ them. I am taking the more charitable view of saying that hon. Members opposite could not have done it, given their economic and social outlook. The fact remains, as I say, that, during the whole of the period of over 20 years, two million people on the average remained unemployed. It was not because there was not a demand for the things that they could have made. Hon. Members in those days did not talk about the need for production. They talked about overproduction. They deliberately adopted a policy of restriction. Their Governments paid subsidies to people not to produce things.
Mr. W. Shepherd: If we are prepared to admit that the general view of an expansionist economy was not accepted, between the wars, will the hon. Gentleman say that his party also were guilty of the same error?
Mr. Silverman: No, Sir. Our party was never guilty of that error.
Mr. W. Shepherd: Will the hon. Gentleman say why the highest figure of
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unemployment between the wars occurred when his party was in office?
Mr. Silverman: Yes, because the party was never in power. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am not trying to give the House echoes of a long-dead policy. I am giving the honest facts, and I am sure the hon. Member will give me credit for doing so.
Mr. A. Edwards rose—
Mr. Silverman: Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to finish my argument. No doubt the hon. Member who asked the question will remember that in the period of 20 odd years there was, for 18 months, a minority Labour Government in office, at a time when the whole world was dragged down by the economic catastrophe which followed the failure of jungle economics. I am sure the hon. Member would not, in his calmer moments, attempt to say that you can judge an economic or a social era by taking out a small period of time in those conditions. If it were to happen again, the hon. Member would have a case. I am told that the actual highest figure was in 1932 under the so-called National Government, and then it was over three million.
I do not want, however, to dwell too much upon that point. What I am saying to hon. Members is that they really must make up their minds. In view of the actual experience that we have had of a completely unplanned society, are they now prepared to agree that if we are to get full employment, demobilise all our resources and get the maximum possible production out of such resources as we have, we can only do it by having a national plan strictly adhered to and strictly followed through? If they are not prepared to admit that, it is quite useless for them to exhort the Government to do this, that or the other. If they do admit that, they must cease these completely fatuous attempts to ridicule every effort the Government make to introduce order into the economic society.
I will say this for the Government, that in this field they have courageously and honestly resisted the temptation to do the cheap and popular thing. Anyone could have yielded to the desire of the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Byers) and increased real wages, but one cannot increase real wages and increase exports at the same time. We cannot eat it and

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export it too. No doubt the Government would have got a cheap and easy popularity by restricting the development of export trade and devoting their energies to improving the standard of living at home. What would hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite have said about that? They would have said that in order to redeem flashy promises made during the General Election, the Government were sacrificing the future happiness and prosperity of the country. I congratulate the Government on, more than anything else, their honesty and courage in their economic planning. The results do much to justify the efforts which have been made. When people talk about the standard of living, let them remember that the standard of living of the vast majority of the working class of this country has been very much higher between 1914 and 1918 and 1939 and 1946, than it ever was in the so-called days of prosperity and plenty between 1919 and 1939. That is one of the hard, unpleasant facts which hon. Members opposite will do well to remember.
I asked leave to intervene in this Debate, because I want the Government to give further enlightenment, if they can, on a subject which is causing the greatest anxiety in what is now the principal export trade of this country. There was a day when coal was our principal export. That is so no longer. In these days our principal exports are the textile exports from Lancashire. They were deliberately sacrificed during the war for war purposes. That trade depends upon an export market, and it has been repeated by almost every speaker that the critical and key period in the rebuilding of our export trade is the next few years. What was the competition that Lancashire had to fear, and in fact, suffered from, during the years before the war? What would she have to fear in a normal world? In the first place, she would have to fear the technicological competition of America. America's textile industry is vastly better organised and more efficient technicologically than ours will be for many years to come. It is all very well to talk about having quality instead of mass production, but we cannot even maintain our superior quality unless the Lancashire cotton and textile industry can be completely re-equipped, re-tooled and re-machined. In its present condition it cannot compete for long in building up
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a new export trade. There is no way of protecting it from that. We will have to do our best and Lancashire will do its best, and I daresay that Lancashire will win.
But there is another form of competition we had to face in the old days, which we hoped we would never have to face again—the competition of what virtually amounted to slave labour in Japan. We had to compete in world markets with a Japanese textile industry which was able always to undersell and to capture ordinary markets because of the exceedingly low standards of labour obtaining in its industry. According to the statement made by the President of the Board of Trade last week, the Japanese textile industry is to be reconstructed. I have no complaint about that—none at all. I certainly do not share the view which was, I understand, expressed by an hon. Member opposite—I did not hear it myself—that because Japan had lost the war, the Japanese textile industry ought never to be reconstituted. That is not merely a wholly immoral point of view but also thoroughly bad economically—
Air Commodore Harvey: My hon. Friend who is supposed to have made that remark is not in the House and in fact he did not say that at all. I would ask the hon. Member to check up on the quotations he uses.
Mr. Silverman: If the hon. and gallant Member's hon. Friend did not say that, then I was not referring to that hon. Member's remarks—
Mr. Lyttelton: Perhaps it was a hypothetical man.
Mr. Silverman: I do not know whether I would call him a hypothetical man. It may very well be that my information was mistaken. If it was, I withdraw and apologise for any imputation in what I have said, but I was informed that the view had been expressed that the Japanese textile industry ought not to be reconstituted because, after all, they were responsible for the war and had lost it. If that was not said, I am very glad. We can, therefore, all agree together that the Japanese textile industry ought to be reconstituted. In that case, we can take it as common ground in all sections of the House that there is no complaint to be made about reconstituting the Japanese textile industry. For my part, I make

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none, but I feel entitled to complain, and I do complain, that in the plans for reconstituting that industry, the Government are apparently doing nothing whatever to protect the labour standards of the Japanese. I make no apology at all for speaking from Socialist benches in this House in defence of the labour standards of workers in Japan or China or India or anywhere else in the world. One is entitled to make that claim and defence irrespective of other considerations. I do not think it is wrong to say that that claim may rightly be reinforced by saying that our own economic welfare demands it too. Our Lancashire cotton industry ought to be protected from unfair competition by low wage standards in Japan or anywhere else in the world. If I understood the President of the Board of Trade correctly, nothing whatever is being done about that. He was pressed on the point by myself and other hon. Members and he said:
"Japan, like ourselves is an industrial country, ill-endowed with raw materials and fundamentally dependent upon its export trade. It has lost its overseas assets and Empire, and its total population of 80 million will henceforward be concentrated in the home islands. The economic recovery of the country will therefore be beset by acute difficulties. His Majesty s Government are fully aware of the damaging effects which low-priced Japanese competition had on our export trade in many fields before the war. This competition derived much of its effectiveness from low labour standards and from Government manipulation of exchange, subsidies and other methods which can be regarded as inconsistent with proper commercial standards."
That is all right, but what is proposed to be done about it?
"It will be His Majesty's Government's policy to endeavour to eliminate such unfair competition, not only in Japan but wherever it arises, by international agreement and in any way that offers."
That is very cold comfort—" in any way that offers." But what way does offer? By international agreement? Is there any such international agreement? Have any proposals been made for any such international agreement? Is there any prospect whatever that in this key period, Lancashire will be protected against unfair competition of this kind by international agreement?
Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: Nothing whatever.
Mr. Silverman: What international agreement is there? And do not let hon. Members opposite talk too loudly about it. After the last war there was the Washington Convention on Hours which this country, under years of Conservative Government, failed to ratify and, having failed to ratify it, they used competition by low labour standards in Japan in order to depress still further the low labour standards in Lancashire. Where are the steps now for international agreement? Our export trade must be recaptured in these next few years and the Japanese textile industry is to be rebuilt for export purposes, if I understand it correctly, in these next few years. Unless, therefore, we are to govern the industrial conditions in these next few years with that kind of protection, what is to become of Lancashire?
Apparently the right hon. and learned Gentleman was himself not altogether satisfied with the "international agreement" or "any way that offers" which was contained in this statement because, when he was pressed in supplementary questions, he said first:
"We hope that, as part of the reconstruction of Japan, such standards of labour will be introduced."
But are they doing anything to implement the hope? Lancashire cannot live merely by hope. We want to see something. We do not want to have to face unfair competition. We do not want our labour in Lancashire to have a kind of competition with labour in Japan, to see who can live on least, in order to sell the cheapest in some foreign market. It will not do merely to hope. When the right hon. Gentleman was pressed to state whether proper standards of living would be imposed as a condition of the reconstruction of Japanese industry, he said:
"It is not the intention, at the present time, at any rate, so far as any decision has been taken to impose any particular wage standards in Japan. The intention is to try to develop a Japanese Government such as will itself impose certain standards."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th October, 1946; Vol. 428, c 270 and 271.]
How long will that take?
Mr. Lyttelton: Ten years.
Mr. Silverman: We are dealing with this critical period in which our export industry has to be rebuilt. I know perfectly well that we are only one party to

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the bargain, and that we cannot dictate the conditions. I quite understand that, and I do not suppose for a moment that this lack of protection would have been chosen by His Majesty's Government, if they had been able to dictate. I recognise that they cannot dictate but only negotiate. But surely they would have been entitled to say to their partners in this matter, "We, too, in Lancashire, have an export industry that has lost something during the war and needs to be reconstructed. While we are ready and anxious to meet fair competition from anybody in any part of the world, it must be fair competition, and we must be protected now, when you are reconstructing this destroyed industry in Japan." Surely we would have been entitled to say that, and if we did, who would resist it? In whose interests is it that no proper labour standards are to be imposed on the Japanese when this industry is rebuilt? Who stood in the way? Who resisted and rejected whatever representations His Majesty's Government made on that matter? While I am on that subject, would it be indiscreet to ask who is to reconstruct the Japanese textile industry? Who is to provide the capital? Who is to provide the machines? Who is to provide the raw materials? Japan is not. Presumably we are not, because we are complaining that we have not enough to ourselves.
Mr. Erroll: Surely Japan has very considerable textile machinery capacity in her own country? Has she not plenty of looms of her own, that might come over to this country?
Mr. Silverman: I do not know, I have not been there. However, I understood from the general tenor of the statement which the President of the Board of Trade read to the House the other day, that there had been great destruction in Japan, and that it would be necessary not merely to allow an export trade to be built up, but to reconstruct the industry. I do not know whether I am wrong, but I assume from that statement that it was the actual mills, looms and machinery that needed to be reconstructed, and that the people's houses and raw materials would have to be supplied and living provided while the goods were being made, while they were being exported, and while they were being sold, and that some of it was to be used for exacting reparation payments in due
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course. I am asking, Who is to provide the initial capital? Is it America? If it is, if the United States of America are to rebuild the textile industry of Japan, is it America who is refusing to have proper labour standards imposed during the rebuilding of that industry? Surely the United States of America are not going to play the same game as was played by the Conservatives in this country in the second part of the 19th century? They built up a great export textile industry on child labour—
Sir Patrick Hannon: No, no.
Mr. Silverman: Do not say that. Children used to go to the mills at the age of six and work 10 and 12 hours a day.
Sir P. Hannon: That was a century ago.
Mr. Silverman: No, it was not a century ago. The hon. Gentleman must find out. It was not a century ago when they had halftime labour from the age of 12. Halftime in the mills and halftime in the factories was not abolished in Lancashire until the middle of 1920—
Mr. Lyttelton: What about Magna Carta?
Mr. Silverman: —after the last war. When Lord Shaftesbury, a great Conservative Prime Minister, at the expense of the industrialists of Lancashire made the first tentative efforts to have proper factory laws, what was done? We sent our machines to Japan and our skilled workers to Japan where there were no labour standards, and built up in Japan by British capital the very competition that we complained of in all the years that followed. Is America going to do that? Are they waiting for the collapse that will some day come to America unless they learn to control and plan their affairs as we are learning to control and plan ours?
Sir P. Hannon: Will the hon. Member forgive me? It has been the policy of the Conservative Party for years to prevent child labour being employed in factories. Has not the Conservative Party made the supreme contribution in that problem?
Mr. Silverman: The hon. Member really knows better than that, and must not assume that I do not. I know he has been at this game a lot longer than I have; but

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I am not nearly as innocent as he seems to assume. It certainly is not true. But it would be disquieting in Lancashire if a Socialist Government in this country were to acquiesce in the building up of a textile industry in Japan without proper labour standards and protection against unfair competition, particularly if it were to be built up by American capitalism in a further attempt to depress labour standards in the rest of the world, especially in Britain.
I have been longer than I ought to have been—perhaps I have been led away a little. I hope my hon. Friend who is to reply will be able to say something to relieve the growing anxieties of those in the textile industry of this country. They are very real anxieties. We have been through very hard times between the wars, when textile workers went home after a 48 hours week with 10s. or 12s. in their pay packet, with no unemployment relief, and no relief from the Poor Law because the Poor Law had been used to subsidise rating. Owing to antedeluvian methods of assessing wages, they were kept idle in the factories, and went home with very pitiful amounts in their wage packets. They had a very bad time indeed, and they hope that they will not have a bad time again for those reasons. They are looking to this Government, which they have elected, to see to it that they are protected from that kind of thing. They know that in insisting that they shall be protected, they are not only striking a blow for good economics at home, but striking a blow for good morals everywhere in the world.
8.3 p.m.
Lord Willoughby de Eresby: The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) has occupied some of the time of this House explaining how he and his friends, as saintly Socialists, have done so very much better than the wicked Tories during the period between the two wars. If he gets any cold comfort from that, I certainly do not grudge it to him. I suggest that possibly all of us would do better to consider the problems of the moment. I cannot see that any useful comparison can be made between the conditions of today and those which prevailed in the 1930's. The problem then was that of over-production, and under-consumption. The problem
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with which we are faced today is that of under-production and over-consumption.
Mr. S. Silverman: Over-consumption?
Lord Willoughby de Eresby: Overconsumption of the amount of goods coming on to the market. Before, it was a question of too many goods coming on the market, and not a big enough measure of consumption. Today it is exactly the reverse. There are not enough goods coming into the market for the money which is in the hands of the people. I would be the first to congratulate hon. Members opposite if they had solved the difficult problem of over-production and under-consumption, with its unemployment and many other horrible features. I suggest, however, that before they start crowing that they have solved that difficult problem, they should wait until they have to face it in its full severity as we had it before the war, and they should direct their attention at the moment to the very different problem which faces us today.
My reason for intervening in this Debate is because I believe the ratio at present fixed by the Government between goods made available for export and those made available for the home market, is wrong. I believe it is economically unsound, and bad in its psychological effect on the country. May I say to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne that I pay full tribute to the President of the Board of Trade for what one might call his policy of self-denial or self-mortification. I think it is a brave thing to sacrifice a very great deal for the export trade, instead of letting it go on to the home market. But I am afraid that does not prevent me from saying that, in my opinion, it is wrong. I know the percentage which is available for exports varies as between one industry and another. In my constituency, firms are working on a basis of 65 per cent. for export, and 35 per cent. for the home market. I know also that farmers alongside those factories are held up in their work for lack of implements, the selfsame implements which are sent abroad for the benefit for foreign countries. We are all too familiar, unfortunately, with queues and the answer of the empty handed salesman that he cannot meet our needs because what we require has to be sent to help the export drive. I do not believe we can ever build up the export trade except on the sound basis of the home market, and satisfied home demand. I

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believe there is a very intimate connection between the unsatisfied home demand and the unfortunately low figures of production per man-hour throughout industry.
The latest figures in my possession, which were largely confirmed by the Parliamentary Secretary this afternoon, show that the volume of exports from manufacturing industries stands now at 117, or 17 per cent. higher than in 1938. At the same time, the labour force employed in the manufacturing industries dealing with exports, is 50 per cent. greater than was employed in 1938. I am sure the Government, and everyone in the House, will agree that it is far from a satisfactory state of affairs that our export should be only up by 17 per cent. on the 1938 figures, while the number employed is 50 per cent. more.
Mr. Marquand (Secretary for Overseas Trade): Has the hon. Member realised that there must necessarily be a time lag between the taking in of labour, and the output of the export industries?
Lord Willoughby de Eresby: Of course I have realised that, and I think that the figures as they have been quoted by the Parliamentary Secretary are somewhat alarming at this moment, more than 12 months after the end of the war. We are in a kind of vicious circle today. On the one hand we have the Government saying to the productive workers of this country, in the words of the Lord President of the Council, "Go to it, boys. Work harder; earn more money," and we find the productive worker saying in return, possibly in less polite language, "I am bothered if I do. If I earn more money it is taken from me, or a large measure of it, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If I save more money, I am merely offered a beggarly 2½ per cent. on a Government security."
So—possibly not unnaturally—every now and again he takes a day off in the open air, goes to the dog races or some other place where, with luck and good judgment, he can invest his money to show a tax-free return considerably higher than 2½ per cent. Thus we seem to go round in this circle, the Government, on the one hand, screaming for greater production, the President of the Board of Trade, in more measured terms, asking for more goods to help him in his export drive, while the worker remains reluctant
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to work harder without some tangible reward, in the form of goods in the shops, in return for his extra effort.
Somehow or other we have to break this vicious circle. Otherwise, there is no question, in my opinion—a fear which has been indicated by other speakers in this Debate—that sooner or later we shall have to reduce our standard of living in this country. I believe that this vicious circle can only be broken by a revision of our present export policy, and allowing more goods to find their way into our shops and new machinery to find its way into the factories, fields and mines in this country. I recognise that such a revision in our export policy, at the present time, involves an element of risk. It is taking a gamble, but I think it is a gamble which we can take today, and which we shall not be able to take in the years immediately ahead.
The Parliamentary Secretary and other speakers have referred to the American Loan. I do not intend to argue whether we were right or wrong to accept the Loan on the terms on which it was offered. That is a question which has already been decided, and, rightly or wrongly, we have purchased a breathing space for a few years, at the expense of the future. I would, however, like to make this point. Whatever may be the material, or even monetary, benefits which we have derived, or which have resulted from this Loan—and I would not in any way attempt to minimise them; they are very great indeed—the psychological effect on this country has, unfortunately, been deplorable. The sense of urgency has unfortunately gone, and the crisis with which we were faced at the termination of Lend-Lease has now been postponed until 1950, when we have to start payment instead of drawing on this Loan. To my mind, no number of "pep" talks at this moment from the Lord President of the Council or anybody else, or appeals for the "Dunkirk spirit," will convince the country of the seriousness of our economic position, or stimulate the output of those engaged in production. As I have already said, we have bought a momentary relief at the expense of the future. I hope I am wrong, but as I see it, the crisis still lies ahead of us, and may well have to be faced by this country in trade conditions which will be

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less favourable than those which exist today.
The President of the Board of Trade undoubtedly has his difficulties to get the necessary amount of exports, but they are difficulties mainly of an internal nature, and, as we know, never before has there been such a demand from foreign markets for British goods. When 1950 arrives, when we have to start payment on the American Loan, we may well be faced, not only with high costs of production and low output at home, but also with the full blast of foreign competition in the world markets just at that crucial moment. I feel that we should today be using this breathing space, which we have bought at the expense of the future, not merely to boost our exports, but to build up the energy and vitality of our own people, to re-equip our own industries and factories to face the trials and tribulations which, I think, lie ahead. We can only build up the energy of our people and increase our output by pouring more goods into our own shops. Possibly I am supported in this contention by what was said only last Friday by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in the Adjournment Debate. He said:
"It I were asked why some people today may not be working as long hours as they might I would say that one reason is that there is very little to buy in the shops."
He then gives two other reasons—war weariness and the monotony of our diet—and he ends by saying:
"All these things combined to suggest to them. ."
that is the productive workers—
". . in some cases, that at the moment at any rate, it is not worth while working too hard or earning more than they need to keep their home going because after all there is very little on which to spend the money"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st November, 1946; Vol. 428, C. 1017.]
I feel also that we should re-equip our industries by giving them first call on all the machinery which we are producing and not allowing it to go overseas to reequip factories abroad which may in time become our competitors. I implore the Government in all seriousness not to ignore the human side of this problem. I know it is very easy for the Treasury or the President of the Board of Trade to assess our reserves of foreign exchange, and to plan on paper how much we should today export to pay for our essential
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imports and, again, how much we must export in 1950 not only to pay for our essential imports then but also to meet the interest on our debts. I have no doubt that the President of the Board of Trade with his very fine brain has got it all "buttoned up," and planned out on paper, but in my experience what always breaks down or kills economic planning, or even paper planning, is the psychological effect. The fact remains that we shall not secure increased production on which any plans can be based, if the Government continue to deny goods to the shops for the workers. That is the only acceptable reward today for extra work and harder labour. We shall not get increased production if we deny industry the new machinery which is needed for its re-equipment, after the overstrain and overwork of six years of war.
I readily admit that to revise our export trade policy, and put the emphasis rather on the home market, is a gamble. I think that there are times in life when a bold decision must be taken if we are to win ultimate victory. That time has now arrived. I think it must be abundantly clear to all that neither nationalisation, the prospects of nationalisation, nor even "pep talks" from a member of the Government, will cause the desired increase in production. Let the Government have the courage now to modify their present export policy, laying the emphasis on the home market. When this is done, I am confident that British workmen and British industry, properly equipped, will rise to the occasion, as they have done in the past, and see us not only through our present difficulties but also through the crisis which, to my mind, lies ahead.
8.20 p.m.
Mr. Frederick Lee: I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) did the House a great service when he brought us back from the doleful atmosphere which several hon. Members had introduced as far as our accomplishments in the postwar period are concerned. I read with very great satisfaction the statement made by the Leader of the House at a Press conference the other day about our production in heavy industry. I felt that it is altogether appropriate for us to be shown that the productive levels of industry are running at a far higher figure than ever before in

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very many of the more important products. The fact that these levels are still quite inadequate, against even our own domestic demands, mainly owing to the cost of steel being prohibitive, constitutes a tremendous challenge both to Government and industry. I feel that these figures reveal a most remarkable recovery—certainly, in my opinion, a recovery which cannot be competed against by any other country throughout the whole world.
I am not only concerned, however, with the actual figures of recovery—the actual physical amounts now being produced. I am concerned in asking my hon. Friend whether we are, in fact, using the restricted amount of material which is available to the best purpose. That has been questioned in this Debate, so far as the motor industry is concerned. Are we really sure that a concentration on motor production is, in fact, the best type of production, either in the interests of world recovery or of our own economic future? Are we sure that, by using up a large percentage of our restricted fuel supplies on the production of such things as motor cars, we are going to serve our own better interests on a long-term policy? I feel certain that those hon. Members who have spoken of the export of machine tools are on a pretty good line. I know something of the engineering industry, and it is no exaggeration to say that the engineering industry of this country today is stocked with American machine tools, and it is altogether unbelievable that a nation such as we are, with a great industrial background and a background of highly skilled craftsmanship, should have to depend for a large percentage of our machine tools on imports either from the United States or anywhere else.
Sir P. Hannon: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, in this country today, we are producing some of the finest machine tools in the world?
Mr. Lee: I think that, if the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I said, he would have found that I pointed out that, in this country, where we have, perhaps, the greatest reserve of skill and craftsmanship in the world, machine tools for our own industry—though it does seem paradoxical against that background—are coming from abroad. I suggest that we should concentrate upon the production, so far as steel is concerned, of things
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which are going to be creative—rather than upon motor cars and commodities of that type which will bring no return as far as we are concerned.
Sir P. Hannon: They bring American dollars.
Mr. Lee: This question of the reserve of craftsmanship in this country should not be overlooked when we find that the machine tools which are being imported into this country are designed, in the main, because of the chain interest in productivity in the United States. The large engineering factories in this country that I know do not, and never could, depend upon mass production. One can readily remember fitters who for 40 years have been engaged in producing, say, switchboards, and so on, and who have never produced the same switchboard twice in all that time. We rely implicitly upon retaining this degree of craftsmanship on which we in this country pride ourselves.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne spoke about textiles. I was going to cover that point, but my time is too short. Much of the equipment in the Lancashire cotton industry is obsolete, some of it having been made before 1900. In the last few months, I went to Southern Persia with a Parliamentary Delegation and visited a textile factory in Abadan where the average age of the worker was 13 or 14. Every piece of equipment in that factory was a 1938 or 1939 model, and yet we are asking our textile workers, with their obsolete machinery, to compete with such factories. When the Parliamentary Secretary refers to more space, and so on, which is desirable in order to increase our production, is he satisfied with the manner in which the royal ordnance factories of the war are being used at the present moment? I know that not only at factory level, but at executive level, very many of the important trade unions in the engineering industry are much concerned at what they feel is the lack of policy and the waste, not only of floor space, but of batteries of modern machines which could help us considerably in many of our lines of production.
I think I can say with some certainty that much of the trouble which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power is now finding in trying to get mining gear could be solved by the use of the royal ordnance factories for that purpose. It was regrettable that our idea of

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burning more oil had to be curtailed because we could not get sufficient oil burning equipment in the short space of time. Oil-burning equipment does not take a lot of producing and our experience shows that during the miners' strike, when firms turned over to oil-burning, this was done in a very short space of time. If my hon. Friend would consult with the Minister of Supply in order to get more priority in the use of our royal ordnance factories instead of using them as at present, he could get a greater degree of productivity from that source also. I believe that much of the work which, at the present time, is being put out to private contractors is being sub-let to the royal ordnance factories because it does not yield the average rate of profit. In my opinion, much of our housing parts could be made in that way.
I agree with what has been said about exhortations to workers in industry. I had to do that sort of thing for five or six years, and I know that the workers are sick and tired of it. It is necessary that we should tell the workers that the time when an increase in production, whether by the introduction of new machinery or new methods, meant unemployment for a vast number of them has now gone. We should show them that they can give of their best and reach their productivity maximum without having any fear that, as a result of that position, they will find themselves drawing unemployment pay within a week or two. That is a fear which many of us have experienced, and often it meant many months of unemployment. I suggest that the Government should consider setting up production boards to run these great industries on which the trade unions and the employers federations should be represented. I believe that along those lines we can bring confidence to our workers and assure them that their production effort will mean, in the earliest possible time, not a few hundred thousand unemployed, but to all of them a shorter working week.
8.30 p.m.
Mr. Oliver Lyttelton: I would very much like to refer later on, if I have time, to the very interesting speech of the hon. Member for Hulme (Mr. Lee). He has a wide experience and knowledge of the subject on which he spoke. I must begin however by express-
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ing my very sincere sympathy with the President of the Board of Trade at having been laid low by influenza, and I am very glad to hear that that indisposition is not likely to be of long duration. I would like to express my still deeper sympathy with the Parliamentary Secretary for having to make a speech on the Board of Trade brief. I have been President of the Board of Trade twice during the last six years, and I hope it will not be considered offensive or indiscreet if I say that large parts of that brief were very familiar to me. They have been lying in the archives of the Board of Trade for many years, and I think it would have been very much better if they had remained there instead of having been brought to light. We had a very jejune exposition of the position of this country and of our dependence upon exports and so forth. We must not complain, but I had hoped that all that stuff which I have seen so often would not be trotted out.
There were one or two points in the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, who I am sorry to see is not in his place at the moment, to which I would like to refer. There was one point about machine tools to which he referred, when he was discoursing, with a sob in his voice and not a song in his heart, about all the difficulties of reconversion. He mentioned the difficulty of what he called machinery and machines. He mentioned machine tools and I interrupted him. He misunderstood me, I think, but for some reason which I have never been able to fathom, the present Government have removed the engineering industry from under the control or from under the wing of the Board of Trade, and they have put it under the Ministry of Supply. If there ever was an industry which ought to remain in the ambit of the Board of Trade, it is the engineering industry, because it supplies tools with which so many other industries work. However, that is by the way. But the Parliamentary Secretary must realise that one of the exceptions to his statement about reconversion is that of machine tools. We have derived great benefit in our reconversion programme from the large number of machine tools, many of which, as the hon. Member for Hulme has mentioned, are of American manufacture and were supplied under Lend-Lease.

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When the Parliamentary Secretary got to that part of the typescript which dealt with the cases which are good for the Board of Trade, he mentioned the production of various consumer goods which he said was improving. But, of course, as he is fully entitled to do, he left out or was completely silent about those parts of the case which are not so good. I do not complain; that is quite a legitimate Parliamentary tactic. No mention was made of the black area of household textiles. I am thinking particularly of sheets and carpets. In the matter of sheets, for example, the Statistical Digest—the "Seagreen Incorruptible"—from which I am quoting, maintains a complete silence on this question. I expect they are very difficult to get. One of the most crying needs, as I am informed on all sides, of the consumer today is for household textiles such as sheets. People get priority dockets, but one cannot go to sleep under a priority docket. One must have something more substantial than that. Then there is cutlery, of which supplies for this market are running at about 45 per cent. of the prewar figures; forks and spoons, 31 per cent. and radio 46 per cent. Therefore, I hope hon. Members will not be deluded by what the Parliamentary Secretary said into supposing that the position of consumer goods is, in any sense, satisfactory. It is very far from being so. The only part of the Parliamentary Secretary's gloomy recital from the Board of Trade brief was when he got on to one or two of these consumer goods. He also mentioned, as did my noble Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Lord Willoughby de Eresby), that the level of the workers in the export trade was 145 per cent., and the volume of exports, I think I am right in saying, was 97.6 per cent. during the quarter ended June. Well, of course, the Secretary for Overseas Trade found it necessary to intervene with a genteel interruption saying, "Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that there is some lag between the entry of workers into a particular industry and what they produce?"—one of those blinding flashes of the obvious to which we are sometimes treated. We are aware of the fact. But is the Secretary for Overseas Trade aware that that will not serve to explain the 145 per cent. level in the export trade and the 97.6 per cent. volume of exports?
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However, I do not wish to dwell on that point too long.
I now turn to the production drive, and I want to divide my remarks into a very short dissertation on the production drive and on the export drive and a few remarks about Imperial Preference. I have not had an opportunity of seeing the evening papers, but I suppose that at a meeting this afternoon the Prime Minister has been exhorting the trade unions that greater effort is required if we are to reach a higher standard of living. He is now doing exactly what I said he would do about six months ago, going away from Government by planning and starting to enter that very dubious area of government by exhortation. Politicians as a whole, when their plans fall down, resort to exhortation of other people rather than exhorting themselves to do some of the things that are necessary. However, I hope it is successful. I think that once again we see a Saul amongst the prophets. This afternoon we have seen other Sauls, notably the hon Member for East Middlesbrough (Mr. A. Edwards), who made an extremely fine defence of private enterprise, and showed how the Government were falling down in all features of their national plan. There was another Saul who had found the profit motive; he was a different kind of Saul, namely, the hon. Member who informed us, in another blinding flash of the obvious, that he would rather write an article for £15 than an article for £10. I do not think that for the moment the profit motive was found wanting.
Of course, the Government have taken fright over the level of production. Some months ago in the House I produced figures about the disturbingly low rate of output per man week, and I have received no satisfactory explanation whatever of the causes to which the Government attribute this very serious falling off. I am glad the hon. Gentleman the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) has just come into the Chamber, because one of the striking things about this Debate—and I am sure he hopes it is not a feature which will be oft repeated—is that I find myself in a very large measure of agreement with what he said. I am sorry to digress from my main point but he emphasised, I think quite rightly. that the export trades of defeated countries cannot be just wiped off the map if they are not to be

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permanently on our charge. At the same time, the hon. Member expressed the gravest apprehension, which I share, lest their standard of life and standard of working conditions should be depressed so low that the competition coming from those countries would be grossly unfair. I took the opportunity when the hon. Member came into the House of acquainting him with the very unpleasant piece of news, that I very largely agreed with what he said.
The hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Byers), in his very thoughtful speech attributed some of the serious falling off of output, as I do, to the lack of incentive. I should say, in parenthesis, that my own experience is that output per man week is somewhat better than it was; but it still falling far short of what we should like to see. There are no goods in the shops for men and women to buy. If the Government would be a little less theoretical and a little more human, they would realise that the paradox is true, that by giving a little more for home consumption, we should actually improve the amount which we have available for export—not very much perhaps, but they really ought to look into this more closely. I do not want to deal with the subject of incentive any further.
I turn to the matter of the Government's production drive again, and their plans for bringing it about. It is the Government's own planning in many commodities, which is leading to the serious industrial hold-up. I naturally look, first, to the non-ferrous metals, in which trade I spent a large part of my life. If we look at lead, for example, we find the allocations of lead are about 50 per cent. of the manufacturers' requirements today. For example, the production of lead-covered cables is governed by the amount of lead which is available to the cable industry, and no amount of exhortation, even made with the eloquence which the Parliamentary Secretary displayed towards the end of his speech, is going to get up the production of lead covered cables—often a most valuable export. The lead is not there. The Government, of course, made a mess of the lead business. They refused to renew contracts at the end of the war, and found themselves in a very weak negotiating position with the Combined Raw Materials Board. Here
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was an instance where the planners were wrong. If we look at zinc, we find that in this matter the Government "havered" between August, 1945, and February, 1946, with the result that the whole of the surplus zinc went to the United States. The reason why the Government "havered" was because their economic planning section informed them that zinc was going to be plentiful; but, actually, it turned out to be scarce, and the economic planners were wrong. Very sad. The same is true of copper. The Government thought that copper was going to be plentiful. They got that out of the Cabinet Secretariat, I suppose. But, actually, it turned out to be scarce, and if there had not been one or two serious strikes in Canada, the copper using industries would have been in the greatest difficulties. All along—even now—the supplies of copper have been extremely marginal, and this hand to mouth position has been a serious bar to increased production. The planners were wrong.
These instances have great significance in relation to the policy of block purchase. I have shown that in the instances of these three metals the Government read the state of supply and demand entirely wrong. They read the state of supply and demand wrong in cotton, because they chose to raise the prices the day before the American market collapsed, and prices reached the statutory limit at which dealings are automatically suspended. They read it entirely wrong in the case of linseed. Or if they did not, what is the explanation of the sudden and violent rise which followed the Government's negotiations? Again, the planners were wrong. I said in the Debate on the closing of the Liverpool Cotton Exchange that financial retribution would dog the Government's footsteps if they pursued the system of block purchase, but I little thought, even at that time, that that retribution would follow so closely on my words.
I do not want to go deeply into these subjects. We shall choose another opportunity, and we shall probe to the very bottom the cost to the taxpayer of these frivolous and foolish policies. But this is not the time. I would refer rather to the very welcome reopening of the rubber exchange, which seems to show that the Government are beginning to have an inkling of their past mistakes. I was

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much interested to notice that the Secretary for Overseas Trade confessed that the plentiful supplies of rubber were a surprise to him. Here again we see that the planner has read the market entirely wrongly; in fact there are very few occasions when he is likely to read it aright. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because one man's opinion, or one bureau's opinion, is the worst possible judge of the state of an international commodity. I warn the Government Front Bench, who are now wagging their heads, that in cotton and rubber their epitaph will be:
"Oh what a surprise, Two lovely black eyes."
This motto will be written over the desk of many other civil servants who are engaged in trying to read the vagaries of supply and demand in an international market.
I turn now to one of the great bottlenecks which is causing a hold-up in production. I refer to castings. Everywhere the manufacturing industries are seriously perturbed about the short supply of castings. Why is there a shortage? It is because labour cannot be induced to go back into the foundry industry. [HON. MEMBERS: "Bad conditions."] I am glad hon. Members are following my argument so closely. The men will not go into this industry, because they have seen the advantages of working in the light industries where conditions are much better. They do not go back into what will always be a heavy and dirty industry, however much the conditions are improved—and they ought to be improved. I am not making an argument, I am talking facts, and the fact remains that the foundry industry is short of labour.
Dr. Morgan: Is it not short of labour because the men suffer from a dangerous disease, which, so far, has never been recognised in this industry for the purpose of claiming compensation?
Mr. Lyttelton: I am saying that the conditions in the foundry industry should be improved, but I am dealing with facts, and the fact is that labour cannot be induced to go back into the foundry industry. This, like many other cases, proves the contention which I have frequently made in this House, that it is impossible to plan priorities of production unless one is willing to direct labour, and it is our opinion on this side of the House,
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as it is upon the other side, that that is socially undesirable, even if it is not politically impossible. On both points I am sure the Government agree; in fact the Parliamentary Secretary used the words—he will correct me if I am wrong—"When we wisely abandoned the direction of labour." I agree with that. It is wise to abandon the direction of labour, but unless the Government are going to direct labour, a national production plan is quite impossible. You collect a number of raw materials, and you are not willing to put in the labour to make them into things. So you cannot have planned production unless you are willing—and I do not think you should be willing—to direct labour. The Socialist general in the battle has got the ports and the railways, he has got the ships and the ammunition, the only thing he cannot do is to tell the troops whether to advance or retreat.
Mr. S. Silverman: This new-found agreement between the right non. Gentleman and myself has not lasted long. I should like to know whether he is saying that there ought to be or ought not to be a national plan.
Mr. Lyttelton: I do not think there ought to be a national plan in this detail.
Mr. Silverman: That begs the question.
Mr. LytteltonIt does not beg the question at all. I really cannot go into all of it. What I really meant was that there should be a national policy, but that no attempt should be made to pull industries about by the nose and fit them into a sort of Government mosaic. If that is the Government's idea I think it is absolutely necessary that the human element, which alone can make production live, should also be directed. And I have said that that is socially undesirable and politically impossible.
We have the spectacle today of various Ministers being concerned in this question, and in particular the Prime Minister, the President of the Board of Trade, and the Lord President of the Council. We are very much bewildered on this side to know who is really responsible for the trade of the country, whether it is the right hon. and learned Gentleman, the President of the Board or Trade, or the Lord President of the Council—they both say a great deal, but it is unfortunate that

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what they say is seldom in harmony and still more seldom in unison. It would be a great advantage to know who is in charge, and perhaps the Secretary for Overseas Trade will tell us when he replies. The two main causes of the lag in production are, firstly, the Government's action in not getting enough goods for home consumption—they should look at that again, because too much theory and too little humanity—
Mr. Belcher: Would the right hon. Gentleman indicate just which consumer goods he has in mind, when he says we are not keeping sufficient here?
Mr. Lyttelton: I will answer that question with a counter-question. [HON. MEMBERS:" Oh."] It is perfectly clear. I will not take advantage—I would never shoot a sitting rabbit. When the hon. Member in his heartening figures gives the proportions which have been exported, I will give him an answer. But he said that he would not give us the figures, except in two cases.
The other thing which is causing lack of production, exhortation or none, is the tragic bungling and mishandling of raw materials. In many cases, that makes the exhortations merely vague. We all welcome the Government exhorting us to produce more, and I am sure that they will not take it amiss if we exhort them to do some obvious things which will help production. They should provide more consumer goods, more incentive, more free markets run by people who understand commodities, and who make fewer mistakes than those who do not understand them, and give more attention to the need for getting rid of bottlenecks, rather than launching out on new plans of nationalisation which will only increase the area of anxiety and dislocation.
I turn to the export drive. I am much disappointed by its results. The Government have publicised the results as if they were a Government achievement. They have not much achievement to publicise. We are very far away from our target. That is the stark fact we have to face. We are far away from our target in the strongest sellers' market that the world has ever seen. Total imports have been running at £107 million per month, and total exports—I am talking about the last six months—are of the order of
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£77 million. My hon. Friend the Member for Bucklow (Mr. Shepherd), in an excellent speech, reminded the House that the export figures are swollen by the sellers' market, and by the inclusion of supplies to U.N.R.R.A. and other importers who are really ourselves in another shape. I think it is necessary to stress the export of capital goods. I am thinking particularly of textile machinery, printing machinery, and locomotives. I do not want to overstate the case, but I suggest that at this time we are, by our reorganisation and reversion, allowing too much machinery to go abroad. This is dictated by the Government's desire to swell the export figures at almost any cost. It is a shortsighted policy.
Yesterday, we had some remarkable figures about locomotives. Locomotive production is one of the causes of our difficulties on the railways today, not wagons so much, as was suggested. I ask the Government to watch carefully whether the export of locomotives is not being overdone. As for textile machinery, everyone knows that much of the re-equipment of our mills is being held up by the long delivery dates which are quoted by the manufacturers of that machinery. Yet exports of textile machinery have been running at well over 3,000 tons a month, and rose to as high as 5,000 tons not longer ago than last August. These figures are approaching the prewar figures. We are extremely short of printing and bookbinding machinery, as any university Member of the House will confirm. In August, our total production amounted to £342,000 worth, of which £135,000 worth was exported. In June, the production was £408,000 worth, of which £188,000 worth was exported. The proportion appears to be rising. I think the emphasis is a little out of balance. No one on this side of the House would defend the idea that we should keep all our own machinery for our own use. Later, we shall have to export more machinery. But what I am suggesting is that, at the moment, we are swelling the export figures at the expense of our ability to export consumer goods later.
Before I sit down I want to refer to the international trading organisation, and the suggested charter. This point has been raised by more than one Member, and I think there was a suggestion that we on this side have no cause for any

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anxiety on this subject. So far as I know, negotiations are taking place on the suggested charter for an international trading organisation of the United Nations. In a document which was issued by the United States Department of State our anxieties are pointed by a paragraph which reads thus:
"Each member other than a member subject to the provisions of Article 28, shall, on the request of any other member or members, enter into reciprocal and mutually advantageous negotiations with such other member or members directed to the substantial reduction of tariffs, or to margins of protection afforded by State trading on imports and exports, and to the elimination of import tariff preference. These negotiations shall proceed in accordance with the following rule. …"
I would draw the attention of the House to the juxtaposition of the two phrases, "the substantial reduction of tariffs," and "the elimination of import tariff preference." That is a serious matter, and we should like to have some definite undertaking from the Government that they will not close these negotiations, and face the House with a fait accompli—not become bound—until we have had an opportunity of discussing the bargain which is contemplated. There are some of us on this side of the House who think that in this matter we want not only a quid pro quo; we want about 30s. for every "quid," and we regard, with the greatest apprehension, discussions taking place, without the knowledge of the House, on subjects involving these very significant words. I hope that the Secretary for Overseas Trade will renew the pledges which we had given us, and will give us a further pledge that no conclusion in these matters will be reached without an opportunity of full discussion in this House. We have had an interesting Debate tonight. It has ranged over a very wide field, and it is high time that I sat down, before I get on to another subject.
9.1 p.m.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: It is not a matter of very great surprise that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) finds himself in agreement with the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). Very often my hon. Friends and myself are invited, in these days, to join the party above the gangway or the party across the Floor of the House.
Mr. S. Silverman: Now the hon. and learned Gentleman can join both.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: This very important Debate has provided a very good reason for my joining neither. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne, in one part of his speech, favoured protection for the Lancashire cotton industry in certain circumstances. In the other part of his speech, he charged the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway with responsibility for the high figure of unemployment between the two wars. He charged them with a figure of unemployment, ranging from 1,000,000 at its best to 3,000,000 at its worst. There is a very easy analysis of the period between the two wars; I think, a completely mistaken analysis.
Mr. Silverman: What is the mistake about it?
Mr. Hopkin Morris: The mistake which arises from the agreement between you both. At the end of the first world war, all that we had to do in order to see the striking contrast between the position before 1914 and the position after 1918 was to compare the two maps of Europe. Take the map of Europe before 1914 and the map of Europe after the war, and compare the two, and the first thing that strikes the eye is that there is scarcely a frontier on the postwar map in the same position as on the prewar map, with the exception of the North-West and the South-West corner of Europe. Moreover, upon the postwar map, there are seven countries which do not appear upon the prewar map. What do these countries do in the postwar period? What every one of these countries, ourselves included—and that is the responsibility of hon. Members above the Gangway—did was to seek to make themselves self-sufficient and self-satisfied.
Mr. Silverman: The hon. and learned Member did not hear my speech.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: Yes, I did.
Mr. Silverman: Then the hon. and learned Member will, no doubt, remember that the only kind of protection which I sought was protection from unfair competition, not by means of any tariff or restriction of trade, but only by having such sanctions as would make the altered standards in the competing countries comparable with our own.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: It does not matter what form the sanctions take; they are still sanctions and still restrictions on trade. I am against that.
Mr. Silverman: Is the hon, and learned Gentleman saying that, speaking for his party, he is against a common international endeavour to maintain proper standards of wages and labour conditions all over the world? Has the Liberal Party sunk to that?
Mr. Hopkin Morris: The hon. Member must understand what I am trying to say. I am not opposing good international standards. What the hon. Member was saying, if his words had any meaning, is that if there is low wage competition on the part of Japan, there must be protection for the Lancashire cotton industry.
Mr. Silverman: I did not say anything of the kind. I devoted a considerable part of my speech to saying that I had no complaint of any kind about the reconstruction of the Japanese textile industry and its exports, too. What I asked for was that labour conditions in Japan should be such as to make the competition fair. I still want to know whether the Liberal Party are against that.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: In that case I fail to understand what agreement there is between the right hon. Member for Aldershot and the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne. The misunderstanding is between them. The present interpretation which the hon. Member puts upon his speech is very different from the interpretation put upon it by the right hon. Member for Aldershot. I was dealing with the postwar position. Every one of those countries tried to make itself self-sufficient and self-contained. The fault which I find with hon. Members of the Conservative Party is that they diagnosed the case wrongly. They thought they could get over the unemployment difficulty and meet the situation in Europe by imposing a series of duties of one kind and another, quotas, licences, and what not, all of them a restriction on trade and all of them contributing to the unemployment problem. What they failed to realise, and what everybody, perhaps, in every party failed to realise, was that they were dealing with a Europe that was preparing for war, and war alone. When such a situation arises, it ought to be taken as the first warning of war. I have
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been a Member of the House for a long time, and an eminent Conservative, Lord Hugh Cecil, as he then was, one of the acutest brains in the House, spoke time and again from the Conservative benches warning the Government of his own party what they were leading to. It was a warning which time has shown to have been true.
We have heard tonight two very noteworthy speeches from the benches opposite, the speech of the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) and the speech of the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Mr. A. Edwards). Their speeches contained a warning which the Government should note carefully. The hon. Member for East Middlesbrough complained that hon. Members on this side were charging the Government with endeavouring to nationalise every industry. He said that that was not true. He said that the Government did not intend to nationalise more than 20 per cent. of the industries of this country, the other 80 per cent. being left to free enterprise.
What is important about that is that if that is made clear industry and trade will know exactly where they are. The first essential thing about a tariff and a free trade system is not that a tariff might not be sound enough provided it is kept uniform over a long period. I do not believe that it is good at any time, but if it is kept at a uniform level on the same goods over a long period of time so as to cover the long contracts, it does not disturb the market very much. It then has the same operation.
Mr. James Hudson: It ceases to protect.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: It hampers industry and manpower when we change the level of the tariff and the length of its reign. That is the sign of a war economy. The hon. Member for East Middlesborough made the same point tonight with regard to nationalisation. If 80 per cent. of industry is reserved for free enterprise we cannot, as the hon. Member said, play about with the rules of free enterprise. That is a very important point to remember. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne congratulated the Government upon, their achievement after this war. Let us test that achievement. I am not complaining, because there are great difficulties in their way, but the Government themselves are not satisfied. The speech of

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the Parliamentary Secretary this afternoon was not that of a satisfied man. He went out of his way to make that expressly clear in terms. The complaint of the President of the Board of Trade is about production, as was that of the Prime Minister earlier.
There is one thing to be said about production that needs to be remembered. Production for the sake of production is not to be demanded. I place the emphasis upon production. In the inter-war years the emphasis was placed on trade, and what was the result? The agricultural countries over produced and could not sell their produce in a world market; it did not reach the consumer and the result was that they had to destroy it.
Earl Winterton: I had a long experience of this when I was at the India Office. The hon. and learned Gentleman has the argument completely wrong. The point was that the industrial countries were not prepared to give a price for goods produced by the peasants in India and elsewhere which enabled those wretched peasants to live. That was what was wrong.
Mr. S. Silverman: Before the hon. and learned Gentleman replies to that point may I say that we are now right back to the argument we had a few minutes ago about maintaining international standards of living?
Mr. Hopkin Morris: I will answer the noble Lord's point first. The agricultural countries, first of all, over produced.
Sir Wavell Wakefield: Under consumption was the trouble.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: That is another way of saying the same thing. In the industrial countries the position was met, as has been said by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne, by one, two, or three million unemployed. This arose from the whole position of the restriction of trade imposed by every country. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne asks about international standards. This is the only point upon which I am in agreement with him.
Mr. Silverman: Everyone agrees with me at some time.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: The trouble is that the hon. Member does not agree with himself. When one comes to international
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standards there was a complete absence of international understanding. Trade is not merely a question of production. A country must produce so that its goods reach the consumer, and the consumer must be able to buy in the cheapest market. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne raises his eyebrows. Why else should the producer produce goods?
Mr. Silverman: He might produce not only to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest, but because people needed the products of his labour.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: Let me take coal. People need the product of the labour of the miner. Coal in the earth is no use at all. It may be potential wealth, but it is not wealth. Coal becomes wealth only when the consumer puts it on his fire.
Mr. Scollan: When the miner digs it out.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: When he puts it, as a consumer, on his fire. The miner is a consumer of other goods also. Coal is wealth only when the consumer uses it, and when it has reached the consumer. Therefore, the sole purpose of production is to produce an adequate amount for the consumer in the cheapest market. That is the importance of the international market. Say what you will, Nature has distributed the raw materials of the world unevenly. Nature has distributed agricultural resources unevenly. We must have international understanding in order to meet that situation. The whole position in the inter-war period grew up because there was no international understanding. There was a complete absence of it, every country playing for its own hand.
Earl Winterton: May I ask the hon. and learned Member one further question? Were not his party in power with an enormous majority, before 1914? Does he say that there was no unemployment then, and no international understanding?
Mr. Hopkin Morris: Does the noble Lord compare the unemployment between the two wars with the unemployment in the nineteenth century?
Earl Winterton: It was terrible.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: The noble Lord may say that it was terrible, but between the two wars there was unemployment, not only in this country, but in every

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country in the civilised world, on a scale that was not comparable with anything in the nineteenth century. That is the situation I am talking about when I refer to unemployment; not unemployment as the result of the trade cycles of the nineteenth century but unemployment created by the mental outlook that existed. Trade is not merely a matter of exchange. It involves a good deal more than that. Trade involves the social and mental outlook, the various legal systems affecting contract in various countries; in fact, it involves the whole social and political outlook.
We are faced with a situation in which States are taking a much greater measure of control over industries than they ever did at any time before. I am not entering into the merits of that process at the moment. I want to keep within my time. It raises the importance of one thing. I am glad, for personal reasons, of the great achievements of the Secretary for Overseas Trade. He has been visiting various countries and, I understand, has been successful in obtaining understandings and agreements. It is important that those international understandings should not be bilateral. They should be multilateral agreements. All countries should be brought in. Bilateral agreements create suspicion. They may be successful for a time but they create suspicion in all those areas which are outside it. That is the Liberal case for inter-independence. I know it is unfashionable to talk of Liberal doctrine, in the twentieth century.
Major Cecil Poole: It is not profitable, by the sound of it.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: No, it is not, and it is not popular, but Europe is a shambles because Liberalism and the Liberal way of thought are unpopular. It is not merely in this country that the Liberal voice is not heard. It is not merely this country that it does not influence. Liberals are exiles in Spain. They do not influence affairs in Russia. Unfortunately, they do not influence affairs in Asiatic countries either. It is a tragedy, I admit, but has anyone any delusions and is anyone proud of the result and the resulting state of every grade of society in the different countries of Europe? Does anyone expect to re-establish trade and industry to give employment to the maximum number
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of people throughout the world, unless we first of all establish peace and a liberal way of life—
Sir P. Hannon: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman tell the House whether the Ottawa Resolutions of 1932 did not make a substantial contribution to full employment?
Mr. S. Silverman: A substantial contribution to the war.
Mr. Hopkin Morris: I have not touched on Imperial preferences, in view of the time at my disposal, but it is a great fallacy to believe that they cement the Empire.
9.21 p.m.
Mr. Marquand (Secretary for Overseas Trade): I greatly appreciate the gesture of the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hopkin Morris) in sitting down before he had quite finished his speech in order to give me an opportunity to reply to the large numbers of points that have been raised. I also thank him for the courteous references to myself. It is very difficult to reply to everything that has been mentioned tonight—indeed, it would be quite impossible in the time at my disposal. I shall resist the temptation to cross swords with the right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. O. Lyttelton) on the question of bulk buying. I hope, too, that another occasion will arise when I shall be able to tell him about the advice offered to me during the rubber negotiations about the prices we ought to fix for rubber.
I hope that this Debate will have served one purpose. Hon. Members of both sides of the House thought we were not fully discharging our duty to tell our people. The hon. Member for Edgbaston (Sir P. Bennett) said we ought to tell our people what the situation was. I hope that this Debate—reports of which may appear in the Press—will contribute to that job of telling our people, which we certainly want to do. Have the people ever been told so much before? There is this green book, called the Digest of Statistics, which even the right hon. Member for Aldershot, with his vast acquaintance with trade and industry and his well known ability to handle statistics, finds essential at the present time. That never existed before the war, nor anything like it. Those accustomed to deal

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with statistics in those days had the greatest possible difficulty in finding all sorts of information which is now available—
Mr. Lyttelton: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would wish to acknowledge that the origin of that book was during the life of the Coalition Government.
Mr. Marquand: Certainly, but it is going on, and in it is now printed a great deal of information which was not given at that time and which I know could not be given for reasons of secrecy and so on. My point is nothing to do with competition between one side of the House and the other. The point is that that information is available. This sort of information is not food for the general public. It must be translated into simpler terms and taken to the people. I hope that hon. Members on all sides of the House, even though they may disagree with us in detail in some of the things which we are doing, may undertake that task. We have sent out large amounts of information to hon. Members on both sides, and I hope they find it useful. We are anxious to carry on this business of explaining to the people the present economic situation as far as is reasonably possible by the cooperation of both sides of the House. I would remind the hon. Member for Edgbaston and the hon. Member for Aston (Mr. Wyatt)—as they did not appear to know it—that we are undertaking a very considerable effort along the line of trying to make the facts known. I wondered whether they had seen our advertisements in the newspapers. They over-simplified the position, but we have to over-simplify it for the general public which cannot be expert in these things. I would invite hon. Members to come to the Board of Trade as soon as they conveniently can to see the posters. The hon. Member for Aston mentioned posters. We have posters to explain these things, we have all kinds of attractive pictorial publicity in the form of charts and pictures in order to explain—
Mr. Wyatt: My complaint was not that there were not any posters but that they were not sufficiently displayed in the streets of industrial towns or in the factories.
Mr. Marquand: I am sorry; I misunderstood my hon. Friend. We are certainly trying to display them, but I
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will draw the attention of those responsible to the need for a wider display. However, I would like to draw the attention of hon. Members to the fact that these are to be seen, and I would be glad if hon. Members would give us any helpful criticism they can.
If I may summarise it in a sentence, I have the feeling that the substance of this Debate was that we were adjured to plan for the future. We were told that the past is all very well, and all very interesting, but what about the future? I agree, of course, that the future is more important than the past, but I do say that the performance in the past is some evidence of our ability to plan for the future, and I claim again that the performance to date in our export drive, is a proof of our ability to plan and see ahead. The achievement for the month of July was 120 per cent. of the average monthly volume of the year 1938. The figures for August and September, as my hon. Friend said, went down, but the figure for October was £90,800,000 on our nearest estimate. It was £92 million in July, £91 million in October, showing a recovery from the holiday period which my hon. Friend mentioned. That represents a substantial achievement.
We have been criticised for using the year 1938 as the basis for our figures, but we are not doing that. Our target is calculated on what we require to bring our balance of payments into equilibrium. There is a difference of opinion as to whether the target is sufficient. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) thought we ought to have said 200 per cent. instead of 175 per cent. That may be, but those who calculate these targets are, after all, in possession of a very wide range of information which is not always available to private Members of this House. The target is calculated on an estimation of what is required to bring the balance of payments back into equilibrium, and it is expressed in terms of the export trade for 1938. The target itself is not based on the 1938 figure. If we took the 1919 exports or the 1928 exports it would make no difference; what we are doing is expressing what we wish to achieve in terms of a particular base year, and we measure our achievement in relation to that particular base year. Any base year would do for which we had a reliable figure to put our figure against.

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I think it was the noble Lord the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Lord Willoughby de Eresby) who went further into detail about these figures. and suggested that an achievement of something over l00 per cent. of the volume of export was not satisfactory in view of the fact that the quantity of labour engaged had increased to 135 per cent.
Mr. Lyttelton: One hundred and forty-five per cent.
Mr. Marquand: I beg pardon, 145 per cent. I would like to point out in explaining that, not merely that there is a lag between the intake of labour and the production of goods by that labour; not merely that. When we claim 100 or 120 per cent. volume of exports, we are taking our total exports, including coal, in the base year when coal exports were fairly substantial, including coal in the present year when coal exports were fairly negligible. The export figures include coal, but the labour figures do not. The labour figures refer to manufacturing industry only. That is a point that hon. Members might like to bear in mind when they criticise these figures in future. I would like hon. Members to see the graph, and will undertake to try to display it in some convenient place in the House, so that hon. Members might see the remarkable way in which the curve of intake of labour is followed or paralleled—if I may use that term in relation to a curve—by the output of goods. The time lag is three, four, or six months and all the way through, as the intake of labour is increased, so, after a given period, the output of exports is also increased.
I watch these figures extremely carefully and I do know what I am talking about. Every piece of our present export trade is planned in detail, and the proportion between home and export trade is worked out for every commodity exported. It is discussed with the trade concerned and, in the case of important capital goods, like machinery, the opinion of the consumer is also taken into account before the export target is fixed. These export targets for machinery are fixed by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply, and his advisers, and not by the Board of Trade, although, of course, the Board of Trade advice is taken into account. If the Board of Trade have, perhaps, a bias in favour of exporting too
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many of these capital goods, because of their natural anxiety to increase exports, the Ministry of Supply are not likely to have that bias, because their anxiety is for home production. The views of consumer industries are taken into account, as well as the opinions of producing and exporting industries.
I can understand hon. Members wanting to know—and it is a very reasonable question—whether we are carefully balancing the needs of our home industry in machine tools, and capital plant generally, against the needs of the export trade. I can only assure them that we are. I cannot go into the details of every one of these things. But when they suggest that there may be too much exporting of machinery or machine tools, I ask them to be very careful and very accurate—more accurate than some hon. Members have been tonight—about precisely what they mean by those words. The right hon. Member for Aldershot says that surely the Government cannot be in difficulty about machine tools, because of the great production that took place during the war. There was a great production, and there was a large surplus of machine tools of some kinds. There is, nevertheless, a shortage, and a difficult production position of some others—not very many, but nevertheless, of some. So my hon. Friend was perfectly correct when he said that machine tools are included in the problem.
I will tell the right hon. Member for Aldershot what they are. He may suggest that they are relatively unimportant. Woodworking machinery, as he knows very well, was not produced in quantity during the war, because it was very little required for war production. The whole of the woodworking industry was a problem, and it was difficult to know what to do with its labour and capacity. Woodworking machinery is needed now for furniture production. Our metal working industries require machine tools of kinds which we found were not available, and they had to be increased, or supplemented, by imports. More striking still is that we need die presses for making motorcar bodies, which are very necessary at the present time. So there are pockets in machine-tool production in which we have a problem. In some cases we are supplementing our own supply by import. I am sure that no one on any side of the House is going to criticise us for that. But when hon.

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and right hon. Gentlemen including the right hon. Member for Aldershot, criticise us for exporting too much machinery and products of this kind, and in the next breath criticise us for exporting too much of consumer goods, where do they expect us to get the necessary volume of export trade?
Someone referred to steel sections being sent to Holland. It is very regrettable in a sense that all the steel sections available cannot be used in the housing programme in Great Britain. If hon. Members could come with me on some of my visits abroad to negotiate these trade agreements which we have to make from time to time, and heard what our foreign suppliers say to us, they would know why it is necessary sometimes to send exports which we can only barely spare from our own home needs. If they came to Holland or to Denmark, and asked the Dutch for cheese or the Danes for bacon, they would get the answer, as we got it, "Where are the textiles, where is the steel?" and "We are not interested very much in your fountain pens or your toys," or some other exports of that kind which perhaps hon. Members might be willing to let them have—though no one in any quarter of the House who has criticised the policy has suggested what he would export instead. If they are not going to suggest something else which may be exported, the only way out is to borrow more.
I hope it will be possible to leave tonight in the minds of hon. Members, and in the minds of the public who may read this Debate, the extreme seriousness of our position. We borrowed money from the United States of America to buy time. But the value of that money has dropped since we borrowed it, and that is a very serious factor in our present situation, which makes the situation tonight a good deal more serious than we thought it would be when we debated that Loan in this House 12 months ago. The situation today is more serious, because, as I have said, of the rise in prices in the United States of America, and of our dollar imports, which are larger now than they were before the war—I mean larger in proportion to our total imports—necessarily so, because stricken Europe is unable to supply us with the old quantities. That, as I say, is a very serious position indeed, and it makes it necessary, whether we like it or not, not to relax but to intensify the export drive. That is the present posi-
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tion. We cannot avoid it, and I believe that no Government could avoid that choice.
May I say a word or two more about some consumer goods? Of our present exports, about two-thirds consist of goods which never appear in the shops at all—chemicals, iron and steel machinery and a lot of things of that kind, and one-third only of consumer goods. Those consumer goods which are exported are worked out down to the smallest thing by the export target method which the right hon. Member for Aldershot, I think, invented while he was President of the Board of Trade during the period of the "caretaker" Government. The right hon. Gentleman incidentally, at that time, when he invented and brought forward this idea of an export target, said he hoped that, as time went on, the sights would be raised. I hope he is not moving from that position tonight, though something of what he said sounded suspiciously like it.
Mr. Lyttelton: No.
Mr. Marquand: Each one is fixed with careful regard to the needs of the home consumer. They are constantly varied and reviewed. They are being changed all the time. With regard to the necessity for incentives to production, the greatest incentive throughout the world, and not only in this country, is textiles. People feel the need for replenishing their wardrobes perhaps more acutely than anything else except the need for shelter. Our exports, not of clothing, but of textiles, from which clothing is made, are running, in the case of wool, as has been stated often enough, at about 18 per cent. of total production, and in the case of cotton at about 16 per cent. of total production.
We dare not put them lower. If we took the whole of the 16 or 18 per cent. and put it into the home market, how many more coupons would that involve? It would be very few indeed. To add 8 per cent. to 82 per cent. would not increase the total amount available to the home consumer by a very large proportion. It would be roughly one-fifth, and that would not help the home market very much. It would be absolutely fatal to take those textiles away from the export trade now, because textiles are what we need to induce producers overseas to send us foodstuffs. We have made special drives and a special effort to send textiles

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recently to Siam, of all places. We did that because, if we send textiles, we might get rice. That was the only way we could get rice from the Siamese producers. Why did we need rice? We are not eating rice at home, as everyone knows. We needed rice to send to Malaya because we get rubber from Malaya. These may be elementary demonstrations, but they need to be made in view of what has been said tonight. If we take the question of crockery, the export target for decorated crockery is one hundred per cent. No decorated crockery is sold on the home market today. Why? Because any housewife in this country, if offered the choice, would rather have a white plate with bread and butter on it, than on a decorated plate with nothing on it.
I must press on to wider and less detailed questions than export targets. I come to the question of competition from the low wage countries—from Japan in particular—with special reference to the textile industry. Fortunately, this problem is not so immediate as some of my hon. Friends are inclined to think. It is a serious problem which I do not wish to minimise, but I will give hon. Members this reassurance: Perhaps the problem is not so urgent as they might imagine. The effects of the war upon Japanese industry are very severe indeed, and it is bound to be some time before Japanese production can be increased to proportions which hon. Members might regard as threatening. Current production assessed for the months May to August, 1946, which is the highest level that Japanese production has reached since the end of the war, expressed as a percentage of the production of 1936, was for cotton yarn, 7 per cent. Today they are producing 7 per cent. of the quantity they produced in 1936. They are producing 4 per cent. of rayon, and 2.7 per cent. of cotton piece goods. I could quote other figures about coal, soda ash and caustic soda but there is not time. I want to make the point that the problem is not pressing on us so fast and so hard as might be expected from some of the remarks made tonight.
Mr. S. Silverman: Of course, these are the figures before the foreshadowed reconstruction had begun.
Mr. Marquand: Certainly. I merely wish to make the point about the length
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of time which we have, in which to prepare for the eventual restoration of the Japanese textile industry. The time we have in which to lay our plans may be a little longer than the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) thought. That is the point.
How should we deal with this problem? I wish to make some remarks about the Lancashire cotton industry. First, there is a most significant fact, which was not mentioned during this Debate, that that industry today has only two-thirds of its prewar number of workers, and that the cotton working party, composed of experts representative of both sides of that industry and knowing it very thoroughly, scratching their heads, as it were, and trying to find a solution to this problem, cannot point to any way in which that number is likely to be increased very substantially for years to come. I hope, indeed, I am sure, that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne is doing his best to encourage the people of Lancashire to go into that industry, but it is a fact that the workers have gone into engineering and aircraft factories, so that the war has accentuated a tendency, which existed before the war, for labour and resources to shift away from the older staple industries and the comparatively simple or crude industries to the newer, more complicated and highly finished industries. It is impossible that we shall be able to get the prewar quantity of textiles for a very long time to come unless we can, as we are trying to do, mechanise the industry and increase the output per worker. If we can do that, not only do we increase the quantity of output, but its competitive power. Do not let us get the idea that low wage industries are necessarily competitors to be feared. The high wage industries of the world are the best exporters in the world, in many cases. Consider the United States automobile industry, situated a thousand miles from the seaboard in Detroit. drawing its iron ore from places further away, even getting some raw materials from the coast, involving long hauls, and, nevertheless, being able to compete in the markets of the world with anybody else's production, and pay some of the highest wages ever paid in history.
I would like to see the Lancashire textile industry getting into that sort of stride—an organisation in which it was a high-wage, highly efficient industry able to

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meet competition from low-wage industry which may not be so efficient. We ought, at the present time—I wish we could—to concentrate much more on exports in textiles to the dollar markets. I have to refuse the most tempting offers from important business undertakings—great chain stores in the United States—who want to buy more of our textiles. I have to turn all these down and send them empty away, and it is very disheartening for a Secretary for Overseas Trade to do that kind of thing. I have to do it, because there is not sufficient output coming along, and we cannot raise the export target in textiles at present without injuring our own people, and because we have to share out this paltry 16 per cent. of total output with various markets of the world, such as Siam, which I have mentioned. I very much regret it—
Mr. Rees-Williams: Surely, the danger as we see it is that this highly mechanised American industry will combine with the Japanese, equally mechanised, and with its slave labour, and that that will be a competition, which we shall not be able to face?
Mr. Marquand: I have not quite finished what I wanted to say about this. I want also to say that what the critics complain of is unfair competition. They do not complain, I take it, of fair competition, but of the competition by depreciated exchange, competition by placing false labels on the products, such as took place before the war and was done by the Japanese. That sort of competition we certainly hope will be entirely ruled out by the rules of the new trading organisation, and we hope it will be possible, when the time comes to make the Peace Treaty with Japan, to ensure that she abides by the rules of the new trading organisation. Unfair competition by very low wage standards and exploitation of labour, can best be dealt with, as the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne said, by an international convention through the agency of the International Labour Office, and I hope that my hon. Friend has sufficient trust in the present Government to know that we, at any rate, would see to it that that Convention would be finally endorsed by the British Government. It must be remembered that, in the long run, we cannot raise the real wages of the Japanese except by giving them the opportunity to sell their goods in
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the world markets. We cannot envisage that future in which, by refusing the Japanese all export opportunities, we condemn them to starvation, or, by refusing those opportunities, we condemn ourselves to subsidise them for ever in a state of semi-starvation. Neither of those alternatives is tolerable to a civilised community and so we must face the re-entry of Japan, but, as I have already tried to indicate, we will take all the safeguards that lie within our power. I hope to be able to say something before I sit down about our proposals in regard to the International Trade Organisation.
I was going to say something about the danger that British industry might suffer from a world depression, but I am afraid there is no time to do so. If I may put the point briefly, I think that what we might have to anticipate in the near future may be something like the slump we experienced in 1921. We are getting near to 1921, as it were, at the end of the second world war—a situation not unlike it, though in many respects unlike what it was in 1921 when we had a brief depression. I believe that British economy, controlled as it is at the moment, with our better understanding of an expansionist policy, our greater technique for dealing with these things, our superior position in having a central economic plan and much greater economic information than we had in those days, could resist the effects of a temporary depression such as we had in 1921. In 1921, the rest of the world climbed out of that depression pretty quickly, but we did not, because we adopted the policy of deflation and so got ourselves into a sort of morass from which we did not really escape at all until the lately finished war came upon us.
I believe that our whole system of economic planning and control is sufficiently good and that our industry has proved its resilience sufficiently well to enable us to cope with a depression of the 1921 type. We must be prepared for the possibility, at some later date, of a world depression of a much more fundamental type, such as we had in 1929. I, personally, cannot see a big depression of that kind occurring in the world for some years to come in view of the acute shortage of goods all over the world. The 1929 depression was one of scarcity in the midst of plenty. But we have not yet reached the stage of plenty. Therefore, I believe that we still have a little breathing space

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in which to make our plans for meeting the dangers of a real depression. I wish to assure the House and hon. Members who are anxious about this that we are devoting a good deal of the time of expert staffs to research on these problems, to considering where the demand for our exports will be likely to come from when the sellers' market disappears, to considering what markets it will be best to cultivate and to considering what types of production have the best opportunity of producing the goods which will sell in the markets of the world.
I regret to find that, on the whole, manufacturers and businessmen at the present time are not sufficiently alive to the need for looking ahead at these problems. We have found a certain frigidity on their part in regard to business forecasting and market research. Businessmen in this country should be a little more prepared than some seem to be to take advantage of the modern technique of market research.
Mr. Lyttelton indicated dissent.
Mr. Marquand: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head scornfully, but why he should wish to take up an antedeluvian attitude in these matters, I do not know; I should have thought that this was a piece of modernity which would have appealed to his heart.
Mr. Lyttelton: This is most interesting, but why one should be lectured about the need for market research when every large business devotes a very great part of its activities to this thing, I find it difficult to understand.
Mr. Marquand: I see; it is the right hon. Gentleman's dislike of the obvious. I am sorry to have misunderstood the toss of the head. I think that is all I can say on that point.
I must now pass to the subject of the International Trade Organisation talks. I was going to say something about our general approach to this problem, about the reasons why we feel that multilateral trade is more desirable and essential to the interests of this country than bilateral trade negotiations. However, I will pass that over because, after all, it was dealt with fairly fully in the Debate on the American loan. We did say when we endorsed in principle the American
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proposals, that we did so on the understanding that we would consider the views anti observations of other Governments when the time came. The present conference being held in London is a preparatory committee appointed by the Economic and Social Council to prepare an annotated agenda for a larger conference of countries which will meet in the spring. We are beginning to take the opinions of the other countries, as we undertook to do when we gave our endorsements to those proposals. Let me make it clear that there is no discussion going on at the present time in any way like detailed tariff bargaining. There is not at this time in London any question of bartering preferences against tariffs. In regard to the question of preferences which has been mentioned tonight, I can, of course, repeat without any qualification whatsoever the undertaking which was given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. We are not departing in any way from what the Prime Minister said, and there is no need for me to remind the House of what he said.
I might clear up a possible misconception about the Draft Charter which the United States Government have circulated among the delegates to this conference. The Draft Charter is one of the working documents in use at the present conference in London. It is not the main agenda of that conference. It is an American document. It is not a British Government document at all; we took no part in framing it, and so we are not necessarily committed to any single word in that charter. It is a very useful working document which the conference is finding extremely interesting and valuable in the course of their discussions. We are discussing the general principles which should govern international trade. We are discussing the general principles of commodity policy, commercial policy, tariffs, quotas, subsidies and industrial development in under - developed countries. We are discussing those matters with countries like India, China and some of the Latin-American countries which are vitally interested in the problem, and we are seeking to reach agreement with those countries as to the ways of diversifying their economies and the way of raising the standard of living of their peoples, which, I submit, is the best way to approach this problem of the competition of the less developed countries

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in the world with our own industry. That is the kind of consideration which we are raising in this discussion. We are also discussing the question of State trading.
That is an outline, and I have time to give no more than an outline of what the conference is about. It is not yet the main conference, but I do say that this matter is an urgent one, and we feel satisfied already by the conversations so far as they have gone, that we have found such a good measure of agreement between us that we are looking forward with some optimism to the main conference when it meets next year. We are trying in the conference to make constructive proposals of our own. The British Government are presenting to the conference proposals on full employment because, in our view, the most important approach to the problem of wider international trade is not so much the removal of the barriers, though that is necessary, as the constructive effort to provide full employment and a rising standard of living for the peoples of the world.
It being Ten o'Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

BANANA TRADE, JAMAICA (SHIPS)
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Michael Stewart.]
10.1 p.m.
Mr. Rees-Williams: I beg to draw the attention of the House to the case of four motor vessels, "Empire Wharfe," "Empire Aide," "Empire Mowddach," and "Empire Mole." They were re-named by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and I cannot say I care for his choice. But there is a more serious matter than names at issue and that is the disposal of these vessels which will have very serious repercussions in Jamaica. I regret the necessity of bringing this matter before the House. In fact, two Government Departments are concerned, and they have apparently had different policies all through. As Jamaica now knows she is not going to have these vessels, I feel sure there will be a certain loss of confidence in the British Government over this matter, and it is right that the House should know about it. My interest is that I am a member of the
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Jamaica Banana Producers Board in London. That is an advisory board, and not an office of profit. The other members are Sir Edward Stubbs, an ex-Governor of Jamaica, and Sir Austin Hudson, who was a well known Member of this House for 20 years. Lately we have had the assistance of the hon. Member for East Harrow (Mr. Skinnard), who has recently paid a visit to Jamaica. None of us has any pecuniary interest in the banana trade. We are simply there to advise the small men in Jamaica who are members of this Association, as to how they might best serve their interests in this country.
The history of the conflict is one of big business against the small men. A Jamaica Banana Producers Association was formed, largely by Sir Edward Stubbs, in order to break the monopoly of the big business company, the United Fruit Company of Boston, Massachussetts, of the island trade. It was formed in 1929, but in 1936 it was forced by the United Fruit Company to abandon the cooperative basis as a result of certain negotiations with the British Government. That was, of course, years before the recent Blackpool conference, and the interest shown there by the leaders of the Tory Party in the small man, a touching but somewhat belated interest, as their effect on Jamaica shows. The Association also had to cease marketing in the U.S.A. and in Canada, and their only alternative was to market here and in Europe. They had to agree to these most lamentable proposals because, otherwise, there was no alternative hurricane supply. They were also interested in the Cameroons, in the Afrikanische Company, whose bananas were marketed by the Jamaica producers and sold for them in this country. It was a very important source of supply, because it was the only free source in the off-season in Jamaica. At the outbreak of war, however, this source was taken away by the Tory Government, and henceforward contracts were made, and are still made, with the United Fruit Company of Boston and not with the Jamaica producers.
In, I think, 1942, but at any rate during the war, the United Fruit Company took advantage of the conditions to break their agreement as regards the alternative supply of bananas in South America. Therefore, the Jamaica producers are now in the lamentable position of having no alternative supply anywhere in the world.

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At the beginning of the war the Association had five ships, four of which were owned by them, the other one being on charter. They lost all but one on war service for the British Government. Thus, the British Government have a moral responsibility to these people who lost four ships during the war. Banana ships, as the House knows, are special vessels in that they are refrigerator ships, the idea being that the bananas, if they are not in a refrigerator ship, ripen on the voyage. Most people think, of course, that it is the other way about, that they are brought over in heated ships. In fact, the idea is to keep them in refrigerator ships so that they do not ripen too quickly on the voyage. There are no banana refrigerating ships in the world except those owned by the United Fruit Company and its subsidiary, Elder and Fyffe, and five ships which were lying at Hamburg.
Early in March this year I drew the attention of the Ministry of Transport to those five ships lying at Hamburg. I have no doubt they knew about them all the time, but I did not risk that; and I asked them to get the five ships, or a substantial proportion of those ships, for this Jamaican trade, pointing out the seriousness of the position at that moment in Jamaica. My letter was acknowledged, and, in fact, I received a letter from the Ministry of Transport, which said they would do their best to get these ships, or a substantial proportion of them, for the British flag. Then, on 21st March, I sent letters to the Ministry of Transport and to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, again pointing out the position, and I had a letter on 29th March from the Colonial Secretary, saying:
"With regard to the letter you have received from the Minister of War Transport, the ball at the moment lies with the British Delegation to the Inter-Allied Reparations Agency Conference in Brussels. They have been fully briefed about the Association's interests in the disposal of the ex-German boats, and I have written personally to the Minister of War Transport on the point."
I want the House to watch that closely, because as the House will see, the Secretary of State then specially mentioned that the Association's interests were being used, or would be used, as an argument by the Minister to obtain the ships at the Inter-Allied Conference.
Finally, the Minister did obtain four of those ships, and I give him fall credit
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for that. It is only a pity that he is going to hand them to the Americans. But I give him full credit for obtaining four. I think one went to the Norwegians. We were asked to put quotations in for these ships, and we did, and it was understood, certainly by me, both from the Minister of Transport and the Secretary of State for the Colonies—the late Secretary of State, of course, not the present one—that there was no question but that we would have two of the ships. The only argument was about the other two. There is no doubt about that at all in my mind. It was quite clear that two ships were given to the Association definitely; the other two ships were a matter of argument; and we were to use the Colonial Secretary as a sort of friend at court to persuade the Minister of Transport to try to give us one, at least, of the other two ships.
Unfortunately, it did not work out that way. Tenders were put in, and we were then told, afterwards, that the tenders were far too low, and that the United Fruit Company's tender through Elder and Fyffe, their subsidiary—this company is owned entirely, except for directors' shares, by the United Fruit Company—was much greater than our tender, and that the United Fruit Company's tender was accepted. Well, this to me was a very great blow. In fact, I felt quite stunned by it, although, as I say, I have no personal financial interest in the matter at all. But I can quite understand what must be the feelings of the unfortunate people of Jamaica, whose very existence depends upon this banana trade; and, also, the feelings of the people in this country who have not had so many bananas up to the present that they can cheerfully afford to throw away an opportunity of getting more. That is the position. The ships are now, apparently, sold, and sold to the Americans, leaving the British company, the only British company really, handling bananas, without any ships, except one, a relic of the past, an old ship; the "Jamaica Producer," and no others at all.
I am asking the Secretary of State tonight what explanation he has to offer for this proceeding, and what suggestions he can make to get us out of the difficulty.
Dr. Morgan: Was the tender too low?
Mr. Rees-Williams: Yes.
Mr. Scollan: Could the hon. Gentleman say what the difference was per ton between his tender and the tender of Elder and Fyffe?
Mr. Rees-Williams: Quite frankly, I do not even know what the tenders were, because as I say this was a matter for the business side, and not for the Advisory Board, but the Secretary of State will be able to say what the tenders were. I was told by the Secretary of State that ours was a little less than half of theirs. But I am not arguing or resting my case on that at all. My point is that they should never have been put out to tender. They should have come to us, at any rate with regard to the two ships, and said, "We consider a fair value of these ships is so much. We know that you have so many pounds as a result of the insurance of those ships which were lost on British service, are you prepared to pay us the amount you have had in compensation for the ships that were lost?" That would have done, and I think it would have been a perfectly fair argument. Certain ships were lost on British service, a certain amount of money was obtained from Lloyds as a result of insurance—set that money off against these four ships and one has a fair bargain. It should be remembered that the ships did not cost the British Government anything; they were obtained from the Germans as reparations, and in my view therefore the right hon. Gentleman has a very strong case to answer. However, I am not merely concerned with trying to get explanations of the past; what I want the Minister to do is to make suggestions as to how he will overcome the difficulties which he has created in the future.
10.12 p.m.
Mr. Skinnard: I would like to reinforce very strongly the appeal made by the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams). I have recently been in Jamaica, and I have noticed that in every village there are three sheds, one for the United Fruit Company, one for the Standard Company, and one for the Jamaica Banana Producers' Association. I investigated the structure by which those sheds were filled, and I found that, very largely, the Jamaica Banana Producers' Association was composed of literally thousands of small
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growers, peasants, whose only cash crop is the banana. There is a very intimate connection, which perhaps the hon. Member for South Croydon did not have time to bring out, between the Cameroons and Jamaica with respect to bananas. They are, generally speaking, the only sources of bananas within the Empire, and they are complementary in the sense that the major production period for Jamaica is between March and November and for the Cameroons is between November and March.
The Jamaica Banana Producers' Association was very largely the creation of the British and Jamaican Governments. We must remember that by 1919 the United Fruit Company of Boston had acquired a dominating position in the world's markets with respect to bananas; they were producers, buyers and distributors, and they included Jamaica in what has been rightly dubbed their "banana empire." According to the report of the Jamaica Banana Commission of 1936:
"The United Fruit Company, rightly or wrongly, has in the past had a reputation which goes beyond Jamaica for arbitrary behaviour when it finds itself in a position of mastery, and there is an almost universal fear of its domination."
I found that myself in talking to citizens of practically every country in the Caribbean-Central American area. Early in the century, following the disastrous hurricane of 1903, the United Fruit Company acquired two businesses, the Direct Fruit Line, which ran between Jamaica and Britain, and the old-established fruit importing company of Elder and Fyffe, and combined the two into a European marketing company and shipping line to act as its agents in Britain and in Europe. There was dissatisfaction with the United Fruit Company's methods once it had established a practical monopoly, although as I have said there is the Standard Company, which is so closely linked with it as to be indistinguishable. Their refusal, for instance, to make firm contracts with small growers, their attempts to make such contracts only with those who grew more than 50 acres of bananas, which would have wiped out almost the whole of the peasantry who depended on the sale of bananas, their rejection of fruit which fell below an arbitrary standard fixed by themselves, caused considerable propaganda in favour of a co-operative association of growers. In 1926, the report of the Imperial Economic Com-

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mittee, here in London, recommended the establishment of such an organisation, and on a direct shipping line between Jamaica and Britain. As a result of that, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, the Jamaica banana producers established a co-operative organisation. Owing to the incidence of hurricanes in the Caribbean area, it became necessary for the association to establish an alternative source of supply. They had to turn to the United Fruit Company, which was the only company which could guarantee them shipments of bananas. What did the company do? It virtually refused to do business with the co-operative enterprise, and the Jamaica Banana Commission of 1936 had to make certain recommendations for structural alterations to the Jamaica Banana Producers Association, turning it into a marketing company instead of a cooperative company.
Now comes this blow. We do not know yet whether these ships have yet been sold outright, and we are asking whether they have been sold, and whether there is no possibility of getting a share of them for this small struggling Jamaican enterprise. The Jamaica Banana Producers' Association have had an intimate connection with the Cameroons, because of the complementary nature of the crops. They operated, as my hon. Friend has said, the marketing side as far as Europe was concerned until the outbreak of the war. The Cameroons were then the only source of supply which was not dominated by the United Fruit Company, just as the Jamaica Banana Producers' Association was the only United Fruit Company competitor to survive, and it survived very largely by the encouragement of the British and Jamaican Governments.
The British Conservative Government, in 1936, allowed the United Fruit Company to force the Jamaica Banana Producers' Association to abandon their cooperative structure. Is a British Socialist Government, in 1946, going to allocate these four ships to a subsidiary of the United Fruit Company, and thus strengthen the American monopoly in the Cameroons, which is a British trusteeship territory, which we are endeavouring to rehabilitate by a cooperative structure to deal not only with bananas, but with all the other products of the Colony? What will happen to the small people of Jamaica
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who have been encouraged to join an association on a communal basis? They cannot compete against Elder and Fyffe with the illimitable resources of the United Fruit Company behind that firm. I believe that the United Fruit Company have allocated 21 ships to the European trade, and the Jamaica Banana Producers are left with only one ship. It was understood in Jamaica, as my hon. Friend has told the House, that they would get a share of these refrigerator ships, which were the only free refrigerator ships. If this news goes out that, irrevocably, they are to get none, then I am afraid that a very worthy attempt to keep Jamaica out of monopoly domination is doomed to die, and to die almost immediately. Have the Jamaican Government been consulted, and what are their reactions? These are some of the things which we would like to know, and I plead with the Minister that this action should not be final, and that even at this late hour he will see that this small association of producers gets some ships to set itself on its feet again.
10.20 p.m.
The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Creech Jones): I appreciate the moderation with which the case has been put by my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams) and the hon. Member for East Harrow (Mr. Skinnard). I appreciate equally the importance to Jamaica of the banana industry and understand their apprehensions that shipping deficiencies might injure the basis of the Jamaican economy. The problem tonight is one for the Colonial Office no less than the Ministry of Transport, and our common interest is shown by the presence tonight of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport. Both of us regret, of course, the shipping difficulties connected with our Colonies and are determined to meet them to the best of our ability.
In the matter under consideration, my noble Friend who was my predecessor in this office felt that he had to have regard to the best interests not only of Jamaica but of the Cameroons. In the few minutes left to me tonight, I have no time to cover the whole of the ground, but I have, of course, considerable sympathy with the effort in Jamaica to safeguard the small producer and to protect the fruit trade and the small producer from mono-

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poly interests. I can only explain to the House the considerations which caused my noble Friend to agree that, in all the circumstances, the four ships in question should be made available to Messrs. Elder and Fyffe and the Cameroons trade. It is true that my noble Friend was anxious that at least two of the four boats should be considered for the Jamaican producers, but all along the producers were told that the Ministry of Transport could sell only at a reasonable price, and when the four ships became available, it was not tenders which were invited, but the two firms concerned were invited to make offers for the boats.
This arrangement left the Ministry of Transport to negotiate in regard to the disposal of the ships and to have regard, of course, to public interests in the decision which they took. The Jamaican producers' offers were out of account on most public considerations, and my predecessor, when he consulted the Ministry of Transport, felt that the figure which was offered by the producers was absurdly low. Secondly, he felt that these ships really belonged to the Cameroons trade, were derived from the Cameroons, and accounted as a reparations payment. Further, they had been designed for the Cameroons trade. They were shallow draught ships which could use the estuaries of that part of West Africa, and they were less suitable for the heavy Atlantic weather. But here there emerged the claims for consideration, in regard to the boats, of the Nigerian Government, owing to the creation by them of a public corporation for developing the Cameroons resources, and my noble Friend felt that there was specific need for this public corporation to have the ships for their fruit trade from the Cameroons, and that perhaps an alternative arrangement might prove possible for the Jamaican producers, either by extending control or meeting their requirements in other ways.
After all, Elder and Fyffe, who during the war lost no fewer than 14 of their 21 vessels in the service of Britain, did at least fly the Red Ensign. They were in a special position regarding the Cameroons trade, and, so far as the Cameroons banana industry was concerned under the new corporation, there was no other firm immediately available which could carry on the necessary trade. So the net advantage seemed to my predecessor to be with the Nigerian position,
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and, accordingly, he made known to the Ministry of Transport, even though the Jamaica producers had made another offer, that the public corporation of the Cameroons—as soon as they have concluded a satisfactory arrangement with Elder and Fyffe, to act as their agents for a limited period, to manage the banana estates until they were ready themselves to undertake the responsibility—should have these vessels. The Minister had not bound himself to accept any particular tender, and, in all the circumstances, Elder and Fyffe were notified of the position that the four boats could be made available to them to assist them in the Cameroons trade.
Mr. Scollan: Who are the owners?
Mr. Creech Jones: I know the struggle of the Jamaica producers, the difficulties through which they have gone, the difficulties which confront them, and the losses and sacrifices which they have incurred during the war.
I want to make it clear that the transfer of these ships to Elder & Fyffe will not affect the export of bananas from Jamaica to this country, so long as the control over shipping is maintained. My right hon. Friend has also asked me to say that the existing ships will continue to be employed, together with ships belonging to Elder and Fyffe, as long as may be necessary for meeting the pressure of the trade; and also that it is possible, with the insurance money which has become available, for Jamaica producers now to construct one or more vessels.
The Jamaica producers have an organisation in Jamaica for the purchase of fruit from the growers and a marketing company in this country, and, at the producer end, they can, through their selling agency, do a great work in building up a strong organisation among the growers; whereas, at this end, we can, I think, negotiate or give them some aid in regard to securing at least the continuance of the present arrangement, so that 20 per cent. of the banana shipping to this country may continue to be invoiced to the Association.
I believe that Elder & Fyffe are prepared to continue this arrangement, and I hope that with what help my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and I can give, the difficulties can be overcome, the

1355
apprehensions removed, and the Jamaica producers can go forward, not only with their work in Jamaica in organising the small growers, but in finding shipment for the fruits and a ready market in this country.
Mr. Skinnard: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why, since there is a
1356
limited period during which U.F.C. and Elder & Fyffe are rehabilitating the Cameroons plantation, these ships should not have been chartered to them for that period?
It being half-past Ten o'Clock. MR. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

  AGRICULTURAL HOSTEL, ASHFORD
  AGRICULTURAL HOSTEL, ASHFORD
  LUBRICATING OILS (PRICES)
  LUBRICATING OILS (PRICES)
  NATIONAL COAL BOARD (MEMBERS' EXPENSES)
  NATIONAL COAL BOARD (MEMBERS' EXPENSES)
  FUEL ECONOMY (SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE)
  FUEL ECONOMY (SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE)
  RURAL ELECTRICITY SUPPLIES (CAPITAL CHARGE)
  RURAL ELECTRICITY SUPPLIES (CAPITAL CHARGE)
EMPLOYMENT
  Licensed Premises (Wages Regulations)
  Licensed Premises (Wages Regulations)
  Disabled Persons
  Disabled Persons
  Bricklayers, Northern Region
  Bricklayers, Northern Region
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Silver Currency
  Silver Currency
  National Expenditure
  National Expenditure
  Northern Ireland (Imperial Contribution)
  Northern Ireland (Imperial Contribution)
  Loan Stock, Birmingham
  Loan Stock, Birmingham
  Anglo-Argentine Agreement
  Anglo-Argentine Agreement
  Fiduciary Issue
  Fiduciary Issue
  Colonial Development (Loans)
  Colonial Development (Loans)
  CIVIL SERVICE (ADMINISTRATIVE GRADE)
  CIVIL SERVICE (ADMINISTRATIVE GRADE)
  OVERSEAS GIFT PARCELS
  OVERSEAS GIFT PARCELS
HOUSING (SCOTLAND)
  Returns
  Returns
  Licences, Edinburgh
  Licences, Edinburgh
SCOTLAND
  Rating System (Legislation)
  Rating System (Legislation)
  Legal Aid (Committee's Report)
  Legal Aid (Committee's Report)
  Prisons (Punishments)
  Prisons (Punishments)
  PRISONERS OF WAR (REPATRIATION)
  PRISONERS OF WAR (REPATRIATION)
BRITISH ARMY
  Requisitioned Land (Highfield)
  Requisitioned Land (Highfield)
  Engineering Cadetships (Candidates)
  Engineering Cadetships (Candidates)
  Married Quarters
  Married Quarters
  Surplus Huts, St. Paul's Cray
  Surplus Huts, St. Paul's Cray
  Personal Cases
  Personal Cases
  Reservists (Pensions)
  Reservists (Pensions)
  Ammunition Stores (Perthshire and Stirling)
  Ammunition Stores (Perthshire and Stirling)
  Demobilisation
  Demobilisation
  Leave Accommodation, Derby
  Leave Accommodation, Derby
  Release Deferment
  Release Deferment
  Training Areas
  Training Areas
  Christmas Leave
  Christmas Leave
  Requisitioned Premises (Compensation)
  Requisitioned Premises (Compensation)
  Courts Martial
  Courts Martial
  Signal Units, B.A.O.R.
  Signal Units, B.A.O.R.
  Patients (Relatives' Visits)
  Patients (Relatives' Visits)
  Dartmoor (Military Use)
  Dartmoor (Military Use)
  Rifle Range, Worcester
  Rifle Range, Worcester
  Overseas Stations (Conditions)
  Overseas Stations (Conditions)
  Polish Units, Scotland (Petrol)
  Polish Units, Scotland (Petrol)
  Compassionate Leave
  Compassionate Leave
  Postwar Casualties
  Postwar Casualties
  Japan
  Japan
  Pay (Income Tax)
  Pay (Income Tax)
  POLISH RESETTLEMENT CORPS
  POLISH RESETTLEMENT CORPS
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Japanese Textile Exports
  Japanese Textile Exports
  International Conference (Preparations)
  International Conference (Preparations)
  Cotton Control (Purchasing System)
  Cotton Control (Purchasing System)
  Clothing Coupons (Investigators)
  Clothing Coupons (Investigators)
  N.A.A.F.I. DEPOT, LOUTH
  N.A.A.F.I. DEPOT, LOUTH
PUBLIC HEALTH
  Patent Medicines
  Patent Medicines
  Rag Flock
  Rag Flock
  FLOODS, SALFORD (LIABILITY)
  FLOODS, SALFORD (LIABILITY)
  HOUSE PRICES
  HOUSE PRICES
  PENSIONS (PERSONAL CASES)
  PENSIONS (PERSONAL CASES)
  LATVIAN REFUGEES
  LATVIAN REFUGEES
  ALIENS (NATURALISATION)
  ALIENS (NATURALISATION)
  DR. NUNN MAY (SENTENCE)
  DR. NUNN MAY (SENTENCE)
  JUVENILE OFFENDERS
  JUVENILE OFFENDERS
  POLICE RECRUITMENT
  POLICE RECRUITMENT
MINISTRY OF SUPPLY
  Ordnance Factory, Glascoed
  Ordnance Factory, Glascoed
  Surplus Tools
  Surplus Tools
  Marine Diesel Engines
  Marine Diesel Engines
  Midwifery Forceps
  Midwifery Forceps
ROYAL NAVY
  Singapore Dockyard Staff (Families)
  Singapore Dockyard Staff (Families)
  R.N.V.R. (Recruiting Conditions)
  R.N.V.R. (Recruiting Conditions)
SHIPPING
  Breaking-up (Foreign Concerns)
  Breaking-up (Foreign Concerns)
  Timber Importation (Rafts)
  Timber Importation (Rafts)
  L.P.T.B. FARES (INCREASES)
  L.P.T.B. FARES (INCREASES)
AGRICULTURE
  County Executive Committees (Activities)
  County Executive Committees (Activities)
  Flood Prevention
  Flood Prevention
TANGANYIKA
  Road Policy
  Road Policy
  Diamond Smuggling
  Diamond Smuggling
  Sisal Transport
  Sisal Transport
  GIBRALTARIAN EVACUEES
  GIBRALTARIAN EVACUEES
  AFRICAN COLONIES (TRUSTEESHIP)
  AFRICAN COLONIES (TRUSTEESHIP)
  WEST MIDLANDS DEVELOPMENT PLAN
  WEST MIDLANDS DEVELOPMENT PLAN
  R.A.F. (PREMISES, LONDON)
  R.A.F. (PREMISES, LONDON)

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers.

INDIA.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I beg your Lordships' leave to ask a question of which I have given private notice to the Secretary of State for India and Burma. May I say that my appearance in other than my usual seat implies nothing beyond the infirmity of my eyes. I desire to ask the noble Lord how soon further Papers will be laid on the Table as to events in India since the last statement was presented in July. These Papers should set out the correspondence and negotiations leading up to the formation of the Interim Government, and in particular show what guarantees have been given by Pandit Nehru for the protection of minorities. They further should also set out what have been the nature and extent of the recent riots in India, how far British troops have been used to intervene, and whether that has been done on the direct authority of the Viceroy. I beg to put the question.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE): My Lords, the negotiations which have led to the setting up of the present Interim Government in India necessarily involved a large number of interviews between the Viceroy and the leaders of the two major parties. These interviews were interspersed with correspondence. There were also correspondence and discussions between the Party leaders themselves.
The negotiations were of a confidential character and agreed records of the interviews do not exist. The correspondence alone would not give a complete picture of the negotiations. It is true that part of this correspondence has been published in India on the initiative of the Party leaders, but the publication of these documents as a White Paper would obviously
958
be a very incomplete compilation and would not give to Parliament a full picture on which to base any considered conclusion. I can, however, inform your Lordships that nothing which has passed in this correspondence between the Viceroy and the Party leaders involves any departure from the previous intentions of His Majesty's Government as to the constitutional position of the Interim Government. In these circumstances His Majesty's Government do not propose to publish a White Paper setting out the details of the correspondence and negotiations which preceded the formation of the Interim Government. The Viceroy concurred.
With regard to the other matters on which the noble Marquess asks for information, these do not seem to His Majesty's Government to be suitable for inclusion in a White Paper, but so far as practicable and in accord with the public interest I will endeavour to answer any questions in regard to them which noble Lords may wish to put to me.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I am, of course, obliged to the noble Lord for the courtesy of his reply, but he will not be surprised to learn that your Lordships are not likely to be satisfied with it. I would not desire—I am sure your Lordships will believe it—to press the noble Lord at the present time, but undoubtedly further questions will be asked of him as soon as possible, and I hope that the noble Lord will be in a position to answer far more fully than he has answered this afternoon.

RICE SHORTAGE IN MALAYA.
2.41 p.m.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to ask your Lordships' leave to ask a question of His Majesty's Government of which I have given them private notice. The question is: To ask His Majesty's Government, having regard to the very grave shortage of rice in Malaya and to the fact that there is a large surplus of rice estimated at 1,500,000 tons in the adjacent country of Siam, which can be purchased and exported, what steps they are taking to see that Malaya is provided immediately from this surplus rice.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (VISCOUNT HALL): My Lords, the Malayan Union and Singapore

959
Colony have been importing rice from the exportable surplus of Siam to which the noble Viscount refers. The exports from Siam and the imports into Malaya are made in accordance with allocations by the International Emergency Food Council. The rice from Siam is required in many countries and the need in many areas is urgent. Recent exports from Siam however have fallen short of estimates on which allocations to Malaya and other countries were made. In the case of Malaya, that country also received allocations of rice from French Indo-China, Brazil and Australia. Moreover, because of Siam's short fall, Malaya and Singapore have, in addition, received supplies from Burma through the operation of the South East Asia pool. Other supplies are now on the high seas from Brazil and a part of the supplies from Australia has also been received.
I should also add that, under the tripartite rice agreement between the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Siam, all rice for export from Siam is bought by the Siamese Government and resold to various exporting agencies at a fixed price. My noble friend can be assured that His Majesty's Government are doing everything possible to increase supplies of rice from all producing areas. In the case of Siam they have among other things, facilitated the export of consumer goods to that country to encourage the export of rice.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Viscount for the courtesy of his reply and for the fullness with which he has given it; but I would like to ask him whether it is not a fact that exchange difficulties have arisen in regard to providing the funds for the purchase of this rice. I should also like to ask whether transport difficulties have arisen, because, as I understand it—and I ask the noble Lord whether this is so—there are a great many Army lorries in Malaya which could be sent to transport this rice from Siam to Malaya. I feel that as Malaya is adjacent to Siam, its needs ought to be dealt with more speedily than those of other countries which he has mentioned. I beg to ask those supplementary questions.
VISCOUNT HALL: My Lords, the noble Viscount will realize that the greatest diffi-
960
culty in all rice-consuming countries is the world scarcity of rice. I am not suggesting that there are not other difficulties, but if there were a plentiful production and supply, then I think the other difficulties would be very speedily overcome.

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (CIRCUIT OFFICERS) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments.
PUBLIC NOTARIES (WAR SERVICE OF ARTICLED CLERKS) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE BILL.
Returned from the Commons with several of the Lords Amendments agreed to and several others disagreed to, with Reasons for such disagreement. The said Reasons to be printed and to be considered to-morrow.
ATOMIC ENERGY BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.

DERBYSHIRE AND NOTTINGHAM SHIRE ELECTRIC POWER SPECIAL ORDER, 1946.
LORD AMMON: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last, be approved.—(Lord Ammon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LANCASHIRE ELECTRIC POWER SPECIAL ORDER, 1946.
LORD AMMON: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last, be approved.—(Lord Ammon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COLCHESTER GAS ORDER.
LORD AMMON: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last, be approved.—(Lord Ammon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MARGATE, BROADSTAIRS AND DISTRICT ELECTRICITY SPECIAL ORDER, 1946.
LORD AMMON: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last, be approved.—(Lord Ammon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL BILL.
2.48 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid on the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that no further Standing Orders are applicable to the Bill. The same was ordered to lie on the Table.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT ADDISON): My Lords, in the Bill before us we are afforded an opportunity of paying tribute and making possible a memorial in London to the late President Roosevelt. It is an opportunity which I feel sure will be welcomed from the heart by everyone of us. Never in history, I think, has there been such a desire by all the people of one nation to honour and to express their affectionate regard for the head of another. His voice and messages were eagerly listened to by well-nigh every family in the land. He gave us encouragement in the hour of danger and he inspired us all by the strong leadership he was giving to the American nation that was beside us in the struggle to save their liberties and ours.
We can never forget that even in the days before the United States came into the war and when our purchasing power
962
in that country was becoming exhausted, his original expedient of Lease-Lend made the gigantic sum of £7,000,000,000 available for aid to countries resisting oppression. It was a characteristic example of the boldness of his character and vision that will make him famous in history. We can never forget, either, that, under his leadership, as early as November, 1939, the embargo on the purchase of arms in the United States was lifted in favour of the United Kingdom and France; that in the time of our dire peril after the fall of France in June, 1940, guns were rushed over to this country to help in our defence, and that in September of that year a great fleet of destroyers was transferred to us to help to safeguard our vital supplies.
I make no apology, therefore, for quoting once more in your Lordships' House from his historic speech of March 17, 1941. He said:
"Humanity will never permanently accept a system imposed by conquest and based on slavery. These modern tyrants find it necessary for their plans to eliminate all Democracies, eliminate them one by one. The nations of Europe, and indeed we ourselves, did not appreciate that purpose. We do now. The process of the elimination of the European nations proceeded according to plan through 1939 and well into 1940, until the schedule was shot to pieces by the unbeatable defenders of Britain … So our country is going to be what our people have proclaimed it to be, the arsenal of democracy. Our country is going to play its full part, and when the dictatorships disintegrate, then our country must continue to play its great part in the period of world reconstruction for the good of humanity."
We know how well he lived up to it. What an unspeakable relief his speeches and actions were to us; how staunch a friend he was even before he became our ally. He was also, with Mr. Churchill, one of the architects of the Atlantic Charter. It is true that the world has not yet risen to the inspiration of that great document, and many year may pass before international rivalries are so abated that nations will be willing to co-operate sincerely in the endeavour to realize its ideals.
The fact that he is not here to-day to share in the work only makes our sense of loss the more poignant and increases our sense of the debt the world owes to him. The part that he played in the many conferences that gave direction to the war effort is fresh in all our minds. In all of them there was on his part the

963
same boldness of conception and warm-hearted friendliness. It is difficult for us to estimate what his skilled guidance and masterly handling of affairs meant in his own country. He welded together in an unexampled unity of effort a great nation composed of people derived from many races with deep differences of tradition and interest. I think the greatness of this achievement has not yet been fully realized, but we cannot wonder that, despite strong tradition, he was the first man to be elected three times President of the United States, and we do not forget that in all this he provided mankind with a wonderful example of how character and mind can overcome bodily infirmity. The British people, as well as his own, loved him. We are glad that the provision of this memorial in a place so well-known to multitudes of his fellow country-men is to be one in which, by the aid of the Pilgrims Society, the men and women throughout the land can take their share together. He lives in our hearts and will live in history. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Addison.)
2.55 p.m.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, I should like, on behalf of my friends on this side of the House, to support most whole-heartedly what has been so well said by the noble Viscount the Leader of the House. Sometimes we have before us in this House legislation which may be said to be of a somewhat controversial character. I can imagine nothing less controversial than this measure with which we are now concerned. There is one thing which is quite certain. There is not one man or woman in this country, to whatever Party he or she may belong, who will not wish to do honour to the memory of President Roosevelt, that faithful friend of freedom and of this country, who never lost faith in us even when things were blackest. It is a commonplace nowadays to speak of President Roosevelt as one of the truly great men of this century, and possibly of all history, but what constitutes greatness? Some men are great merely by virtue of the posit.on which they occupy; others are great by the sheer force of their own personality. President Roosevelt, I suggest, was one of those rather rare cases in which both those two elements of great-
964
ness were combined. He was a great man in a great position at a great moment.
It was one of the supreme strokes of good fortune for humanity at large that one of the most momentous crises with which the civilized world has ever been faced found at the helm of the United States, a man not only vigorous and courageous, but a man of transcendent vision. From the moment the battle was joined between the Axis and the Western Powers he recognized the fundamental character of the issues with which the United States, as Britain, was faced. As he said in one of the most famous and moving of his utterances at that time:
"The British people are braced for invasion. Whether such an attempt comes to-morrow, next week or next month, the essence of their superb morale is in the masses of the British people who are completely clear in their minds about the one central fact that they would rather die as free men than live as slaves."
That is what President Roosevelt said to his own people, and that was his confident view. As the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has already pointed out this afternoon, he so guided his country that even before it entered the war it gave the fullest measure of help to the forces of liberty. Had it not been for President Roosevelt the result of the war might well have been very different from what it was. This memorial which it is proposed to set up in London commemorates not only the man but the greatness of the human spirit of which he was so predominant in example, and we on this side of the House are proud to be associated with it.
3.0 p.m.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, when President Roosevelt died so suddenly eighteen months ago, the news came as a shock to all of us, and it left behind something of a heartache. For it was not as though some public personage had died, respected but remote; we felt it as the death of a friend, and a dear friend. That was so not only with those of us who had the privilege of knowing him personally but with everyone. At that time there was a general feeling that there ought to be, in due course, some public memorial, here, in this capital city, so that posterity might be continually reminded of the honour in which President Roosevelt was held by his contemporaries.
The Government, in this Bill, have rightly interpreted the wishes of the nation and of Parliament, and your Lordships will

965
surely welcome it whole-heartedly. In that welcome, we on these Benches fully share. The proposal, itself, is, I think, well conceived. It would have been easy to have come to Parliament for a vote to defray the financial charges, a vote that would readily have been granted; but it is better to give the people at large an opportunity of participating by means of a general subscription. It would have been easy to have chosen some more accustomed site, side by side, perhaps, with many existing memorials, but it is a greater distinction to give to this memorial a location of its own, especially one, such as in this instance, which is so closely associated with persons and events in Anglo-American history. The City of West-minster, now, will have the honour of possessing memorials to the three Presidents of the United States whom history is likely to account the most illustrious—Washington, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. They were the Presidents who were called upon to deal with the three greatest crises in the history of their country and all of them rose to the full height of the occasion.
Not only will this memorial symbolize our respect and admiration for President Roosevelt as a statesman but also our gratitude for the help which, in the hour of our greatest danger, under his leadership and at his appeal, the people of the United States afforded to us. We can never forget how, as previous speakers have said, before direct attack brought the American people into the war, President Roosevelt, grasping the realities of the situation, used all his executive powers and sent us ships, munitions, materials, and food in great abundance and on easy terms. And they arrived just in the nick of time. We may be sure that every effort will be made to render this memorial a worthy one to a man honourable and lovable, to an allv loyal and staunch and to a statesman among the greatest men of the modern world.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
Then Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended (in pursuance of the Resolution of October 17):
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, I beg to move the Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Viscount Addison.)
3.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, may I say a few words at this point? I wish to make a suggestion which I would rather have put to the Leader of the House before, but I never read the Bill until this morning. I am not quite sure that there is not a trivial legal point upon which the Bill is not effective. I have had some experience, during the last six years, of what happens to squares when they are not enclosed by railings. Now I see no reason why this square should not be enclosed by a railing—the existing railing. And I would add this: I am not quite certain that, on the Bill as it stands, there would be authority in the Minister to shut the doors at night, and that will make a very great difference to the amenities of the garden. The Bill says at line 22 on page I
"that the Square shall be opened for the use and enjoyment of the public and kept open for ever for that purpose."
It may be argued that that does not mean that you cannot shut it at night, but the matter ought not to be left in doubt.
That is not the only thing which I should like the Government to consider. The next matter is this. Ownership of the site of the garden will remain where it is now. It is not transferred to the Crown; or the surface is not conveyed to the Crown, which I should have thought would have been the best plan. But, at any rate, what we know about the garden in the future is that it is to be managed and maintained by the Minister for the use and enjoyment of the public. I venture to think—and as a lawyer I hold this view rather strongly—that there ought also to be a few words added here to say that he shall be entitled to make by-laws for that purpose, and to authorize him to take proceedings against malefactors—by that I mean misusers of the square—and, if necessary, to take them before a magistrate. That I do not think would be possible under the words in the Bill as they stand. All I want to suggest is that that point should be considered. I did not know, unfortunately, that it was hoped to get through all the stages of the Bill to-day. If the noble Viscount the Leader of the House tells me that this has been considered, then I am content. But as, I am afraid, a very old lawyer, I have a feeling that you might have trouble here-after with regard to the management of

967
the square, which would be a disastrous misfortune. Nobody is more keen than I am not only that this memorial should be worthy of the great man who has passed on but that the garden should be one of the best in the country.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, I can say, from the memoranda which has been supplied to me, that I think all the circumstances mentioned by the noble Viscount have been taken into consideration. It is understood that by the word "open" we mean open. The garden will be safely guarded and well looked after. I feel sure that we can rely upon our fellow countrymen to see that this is done and to look upon it and treat it with all respect.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

OFFICE OF THE JUDGE ADVOCATE- GENERAL.
3.8 p.m.
LORD MORRIS LORD MORRIS rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they are now prepared to implement the long promised and long overdue reforms in the office of the Judge Advocate-General; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion standing on the Paper in my name this afternoon may, I think, be said to have misfired in two respects. In the first place, it was no sooner in the hands of the printers, some weeks ago, than the Secretary of State for War rose in another place and undertook that a Committee would be appointed immediately to inquire into the matters which form the subject matter of my Motion. The second respect in which the Motion may be said to have misfired—if I may use that expression—is that the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has been kind enough to tell me that this afternoon he proposes in reply to me to announce to your Lordships the constitution of the Committee in question and its terms of reference. I shall listen with hated breath to the terms of reference and the constitution of the Committee.
Until this morning, I had intended not to take up your Lordships' time, except to withdraw my question, having obtained an answer in advance by putting the question down on the Paper. In all the circumstances, however, I think that perhaps the best course—if your Lordships
968
approve—will be for me to move for Papers. Then the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, can speak in reply, and I will very briefly and formally ask your Lordships for leave to withdraw—as I have done before, and even been refused. If I may detain your Lordships for just two or three minutes, I would make one or two observations, mainly in the nature of pious hopes concerning this Committee to be appointed and its functions. I am sure that your Lordships—some of you from bitter experience—will share my feeling and my view that sometimes those of us who move for Papers in this House labour under a considerable handicap in not knowing what is to be said by the Minister who replies for the Crown. For example, had I known some of the terms of reference of this Committee which is to be appointed and, even more important, its personnel, it may well be that some of the things I propose to say need not be said; or it may be that they will be conceived to be misguided. But on that, I must take my chance, because those of us who move for Papers do labour under this handicap. I have often thought that in the ten years in which I have had the honour to be a member of this House.
What I feel very strongly is that in this country—I do not care whether it is the Judge Advocate-General's office, or a lay Bench, or coroners, or the conduct of children's homes—it is frequently the case that no inquiry is made until there has been some particularly flagrant case which arouses public indignation to such a pitch that an inquiry is demanded and, in due course, granted. That is the point I would like to make this afternoon, and I think your Lordships would agree that had it not been for the case of the 250 paratroopers in Malaya, this matter would probably not have come to a head at all. One can dismiss the case of the paratroopers by simply quoting the leader of The Times which said that the Judge Advocate-General could not very well pass over responsibility for his share in the matter by saying that the papers had been submitted to him, and that therefore he had advised His Majesty's Government that the only proper course would be to quash the proceedings. That is not good enough.
The point is that there has been a long, grave and public trial of no fewer than 250 people, and it has been conducted in such a way that it has been necessary for

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the authorities to advise the Crown to quash the proceedings. The result of that, as The Times leader to which I have referred pointed out, is either, on the one hand, that you have a body of men who should never have been convicted at all, convicted of the grave offence of mutiny, although innocent; or, alternatively, you have a body of men who should either have been shot, or who should be serving long terms of imprisonment, for a very grave offence going about free. The Judge Advocate-General cannot have it both ways. I do not know if it is true that his deputy in the Far East was called to the Bar at the beginning of this year. That is what I read in the Evening Standard. I have not had the time or the inclination to check that, but it is unfortunate that this should have got around.
If I may delve for a moment or two into slightly ancient history, the Oliver Committee was appointed (as your Lordships will remember) to look into these grave matters—they are certainly grave to soldiers, sailors and airmen—as long ago as 1940. In due course, the Committee reported and to the best of my knowledge and belief—and I. have the misfortune to have some inside knowledge of the Judge Advocate-General's office for three and a half years—nothing has been done in any shape or form to implement those reforms. Hence my Motion this afternoon. The specious excuse was put forward that there was a war on, and that they could not do that sort of thing. On the contrary, I should have thought that that was just the time to do it, when you have more soldiers, sailors and airmen than you have normally in peacetime. Yet nothing was done.
The Oliver Report made a number of recommendations, with most of which I whole-heartedly agree. I hope that many of them will be carried out and followed up by the new Committee which is to be appointed. With great respect to the learned Judge who presided over the Oliver Committee, however, I would say that in some respects that Committee did not go nearly far enough. It was just pawing at the thing; it did not tackle the problem at all. Yet in other respects it was much too far-reaching, and ranged over the whole history of courts-martial and whether trial by courts-martial was in itself a good thing. Of course, it is
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a good thing. It has been accepted by the Services for a very long time as being good. What the Committee should have done, and what I suggest the new Committee should—and must do, is to probe very carefully into the interior running and internal organization of the Judge Advocate-General's office, a place in my humble opinion which is nothing more nor less than a nest of incompetence and intrigue. To my mind, that probe should be the main purpose of the Committee to be appointed in response to what is neither more nor less than public clamour. When the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, replies, I hope he will be able to give some sort of assurance that the gentlemen who are appointed not only by reason of their qulaifications but for their integrity and determination, will really probe into these matters, and will be able to tell Parliament and the public, or the Secretary of State for War, who appoints them, exactly what they have found, and exactly what they recommend.
It is idle to pretend that the present state of affairs in that office is satisfactory. For a long time prosecutors and judges, Army and Air Force have all been mixed up and reform is long over due. As I said, this is a long overdue reform, and I do hope that very speedily I shall be able to withdraw my Motion, confident that the terms of reference and the names of the Committee to be appointed by the Government will inspire in your Lordships, and in the public, confidence that this very important matter will be properly investigated. I have finished but for one final word. I did think it a little novel that the Judge Advocate-General himself was appointed as a member of the Oliver Committee. Surely, it was a little invidious to ask him to be a member, and a little curious that he should have aceepted the invitation. I should like to think, and I hope, that he will have no part in the deliberations of the new Committee.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: May I interrupt? The noble Lord just said that the Judge Advocate-General was himself a member of the Oliver Committee. Is he not making a mistake, being a little out of date? Is it not the case that Sir Felix Cassel was not the judge Advocate-General at that time, but in fact had retired many years before?
LORD MORRIS: I think not. It may well be that Sir Henry MacGeagh was not really a member of the Committee.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: No.
LORD MORRIS: I think I am right in saying—surely my recollection is correct in saying—the paper ought to be available, anyway.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD PAKENHAM): Here it is.
LORD MORRIS: May I see it?
LORD PAKENHAM: Certainly.
LORD MORRIS: Yes, with permission, I entirely withdraw. That is incorrect. Sir Henry MacGeagh was not himself a member of the Committee, but, as the noble Marquess very rightly points out, his predecessor in office was. In this document, as the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, knows better than I do, there are recommendations made, from some of which the then Judge Advocate-General, Sir Henry MacGeagh, dissented. I beg to move.
3.21 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, if the observations which fell from the noble Lord, Lord Morris, had fallen from any other member of your Lordships' House, they would, I think, have required a full and careful reply! I do not intend to say anything about them, except that they were inaccurate, ill-conditioned, and most unwelcome in this House.
I have a statement, I think, of some interest to the House to make this afternoon. The reforms to which the noble Lord's Motion refers are presumably the changes relating to the appointment, constitution, and functions of the Judge Advocate-General and his office, which were recommended by the Oliver Committee in their report on court-martial procedure in 1938. The noble Lord, Lord Morris, said it was in 1940. That was one of his smaller inaccuracies.
LORD MORRIS: Reported in 1940.
LORD PAKENHAM: 1938. The recommendations of that Committee were under consideration at the outbreak of war, in 1939, but the action to put into effect those recommendations, which were acceptable to the Government of the day, was suspended, as it was impossible
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during the war to carry out any far-reaching reorganization of the office of the Judge Advocate-General. As my right honourable friend announced in another place, a fresh Committee is being set up, which will include in its deliberations a review, in the light of war experience, of the recommendations of the Oliver Committee. Until this new Committee has reported, and decisions have been reached upon its recommendations, I am sure the House would agree that it would be premature to alter the existing structure.
The composition of the Committee is as follows: Chairman, Hon. Mr. Justice Lewis, O.B.E. Members, Major-General the Right Hon. Viscount Bridgeman, C.B., D.S.O., M.C., A. R. Blackburn, Esq., M.P., T. N. Donovan, Esq., K.C., M.P., Sir Theobald Mathew K.B.E., M.C., Director of Public Prosecutions, J. C. Maude, Esq., K.C., M.P., Lieut.-Colonel R. A. F. Thorp, O.B.E., M.P., and also a retired senior R.A.F. officer. The terms of reference are these:
"To bring under review, in the light of the experience gained in the late war and of the composition of the Army and the Royal Air Force, the recommendations of the Army and Air Force Courts-Martial Committee, 1938 (Cmd. 6200), with special reference to the question whether it is desirable to provide any, and if so what, form of appeal from the findings or sentences of courts-martial; to investigate the powers of courts-martial and of Commanding Officers to award punishment, and the nature and scale of such punishment; and to make recommendations upon these and kindred matters."
I hope that that statement will be satisfactory to the House.
LORD MORRIS: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

PETROL RATIONING.
3.24 p.m.
EARL HOWE EARL HOWE had given notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government whether they are now in a position to indicate when it is proposed to bring the rationing of petrol to an end, and if not, whether they will state clearly the reasons for its continuance. The noble Earl said: My Lords, the question which I desire to ask His Majesty's Government this afternoon is one which goes a very great deal further than just the personal convenience

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of any one of your Lordships. So far the question of petrol rationing has never been very clearly stated in either House. There have been a number of questions relating to it in another place, but, in so far as your Lordships' House is concerned, I think I am perhaps right in saying that no very clear answer has been given.
What a number of people in the country desire to know is, first of all, what is really the reason for petrol rationing. Is it intended to continue petrol rationing? If so, for how long? If these questions could be answered clearly, so that everybody could understand, I think it would help the ordinary man and woman very much. But the trouble is that the replies which the Government have so far been able to give about this question have not been clear and have not taken us very far. Therefore I wish to ask His Majesty's Government a few questions with which I would like them to deal if they can. It has been suggested, of course, that you do not want to remove petrol rationing because you have got a large staff employed. Some people have put that number as high as 20,000 but, according to an answer in another place, it is much lower than that, though the total is still appreciable.
It has also been stated from time to time that petrol rationing is still necessary because of a shortage of tankers. I wonder if that is really so. I wonder if that is the reason, and, if it is so, whether it is a fact—and this I would like to ask His Majesty's Government particularly—that tankers have been lying in the harbours for as long as three weeks, because they have been unable to discharge their cargo. My information is that that state of affairs has occurred in the past. If the Government could lay that ghost, no one would be more pleased than I. Further, it has been said that the Government are exporting oil, that oil is one of our greatest exports. Well, if oil is being exported, would it not help us all to appreciate the problem in all its implications if we could be told to what places oil is being exported and on what terms?
Another argument is that the demands of the Services are so great that petrol rationing cannot be removed. I should like to ask the Government: Are efforts really made in the Services to effect economies? I have here a statement made
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in a responsible organ of the Press, which states that the writer is serving in Italy, and that he was told that the Army in Italy were burning petrol because they did not know how to get rid of it. He did not believe it, but he did go to a place where this was supposed to be happening, and found that that was the fact, that petrol was being burnt because the Army did not know how to get rid of it, and being burnt at a very appropriate place, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. Again, is there any hanging back on the part of the Government because they consider the possession of a motor car a luxury? That has been suggested by many people, and if in any answer given for the Government that point could be dealt with, no one would be more grateful than I. May I observe also that what is one man's luxury is another man's necessity? I therefore hope that His Majesty's Government will be able to lay that ghost.
There was, I believe, a Committee on Public Safety set up by the police and the Ministry of Transport, which included representatives of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. That Committee sat in 1944. Amongst its recommendations was one which suggested that the return of motor vehicles to the roads should be regulated and controlled by means of petrol rationing. Is that what we are really enduring at the present time? Lots of other people suggest, quite wrongly as I am sure they would be the first to realize if the Government would make it clear, that the Government are keen on control for control's sake. Is there some mystery about it? At any rate let us know what the facts are.
Then I would like to point out the sort of thing that happens. I am told you can go anywhere in London and for five shillings buy a petrol coupon. In other words, so long as this system of petrol rationing continues it gives rise to a flourishing black market. I feel that such a state of affairs is most undesirable, but at the same time it is understandable because people are being restricted in the gratification of their desires and that sort of thing. Far be it from me to defend the black market but I can quite understand how it arises, and if the Government would only give us some sort of hope that they will increase the ration—if they cannot do away with it in one go—they would do much to do away with

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this black market. It must be remembered that at the present time small traders with delivery vans are hopelessly constricted in their movements. Several have told me that if only their allowance of petrol were greater they could do much to abolish queues. We are surely in favour of anything that does away with queues. It seems to me there may be something in that point. If the traders were able to give faster and better delivery and if they could extend their deliveries, that might do something to do away with queues. I do not feel I need say very much about that.
Suggestions have been made in the Press and elsewhere that we should go in for an extension of the Fido system at airfields for the landing of aircraft. I believe I am right in saying there is only one airfield at present using the Fido system, and that is at Manston. I understand that the consumption of the Fido system is 80,000 gallons of petrol an hour; in other words, enough petrol to run a 10 h.p. car for 280 years. If only the Government would consider these points and also turn their mind to what is going on abroad! I understand that Franco's Spain has done away with petrol rationing and I am sure His Majesty's Government will be anxious to follow that good example. I understand that Belgium, the Channel Islands, Sweden, and Switzerland—I cannot say about Portugal and Holland—have done away with petrol rationing. I was in France the other day and I happened to be talking with a certain member of the French Government. He informed me that there was a great urge in France to do away with petrol rationing, as there is here, but the authorities in France were holding their hand because they wanted to see what was going to be done here. I am informed that New Zealand has also done away with petrol rationing.
Would the Government say quite clearly what our petrol stocks are? We get a return which comes out from time to time. I have the latest published figures here but I will not weary your Lordships with them. They seem to me to show there are vast quantities of petrol being imported into this country. I cannot for the life of me see why the continuance of petrol rationing should be necessary. One feature of our petrol rationing is that
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which involves the use of Pool petrol. Those of you on both sides of the House who are acquainted with the running of motor vehicles will know the effect of Pool petrol. You find your engine pinking, or if you leave your engine for a sufficiently long time you find the petrol pipes choked up and a gummy deposit in the petrol tank which will take any repairer quite a long time to get rid of. The whole thing is a thorough nuisance from the word "Go." If we could get back to branded petrol that would be something gained. I do not know if the noble Lord who is to reply can give us some hope there. What those of us who are interested in the matter feel is that the alleged shortage of petrol is artificial. We feel that there is any amount of petrol in the British Empire, and that there are ample supplies available largely to increase the ration or even to do away with it altogether. We feel that if the Government had really got their will behind it they could do this.
It must be remembered that the motor vehicle industry is really being knocked in a number of ways at the present time. The manufacturers find it difficult to produce new cars because they are told they cannot have the steel. I belong to a firm which makes heavy motor cars and at the moment we have difficulty in getting steel to make wheels for our vehicles. We have enormous orders from South America, South Africa, and all over the world, and yet very shortly we are not going to be able to get the steel to make the wheels to complete the orders. And again, the motor world is suffering from severe taxation. I am not going to dogmatize upon what the basis of taxation should be; but I want to say it is almost time that the motor vehicle owner got a break. Give him a little hope, show him a little blue sky, show him that the clouds have some sort of a lining—I will not say silver or cupro-nickel. Give him some sort of hope and he will be much better able to put up with the tiresome restrictions.
3.38 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, my noble friend has put up a very powerful case, as he always does, and I am sure your Lordships will await with interest the reply for the Government. I understand this is to be in the hands of my noble friend Lord Chorley, and I take

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this opportunity of congratulating him on his elevation to the status of spokesman for the Government. I have always understood that one of the reasons why this restriction of petrol has obtained is that there is a shortage of rubber and a shortage of tyres. There may not be a shortage of rubber because I understand the rubber plantations are resuming again, but the shortage of tyres will surely prove an understandable reason. It was in order to deal with that situation that the petrol restriction was put on. My noble friend does not, I believe, speak for the Ministry of Transport on this, so I will address my remarks to the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, who does speak for that Minister.
If you are going to remove the restrictions upon petrol and tyres you are going to have a great influx of cars on the market. What is going to happen to the streets of our cities and to the roads leading thereto? That question is far more urgent than doing anything to increase the number of cars already on the roads, which are already too many for the capacity of the roads. I returned to London at the end of last week after being away for only seven weeks. To see a child grow you have to be away from it for some time and then come back. After these seven weeks—and all your Lordships who have been away for the same time will also have this experience—I noticed an extraordinary increase in the traffic in and around London. It is appalling. I could hardly get to my first engagement in the House this morning owing to a terriffic traffic block in Parliament Square, and there are traffic blocks of that sort all over this city of London. What is even more tragic is that I can see no signs of anything having been done during those seven weeks to open up the bottlenecks and to improve the means of communication. I do suggest that this is a very apposite subject to that raised by the noble Earl, Lord Howe. If you are going to have petrol rationing removed, more cars on the road and motoring facilities greatly encouraged, then you will really have to do something about the traffic facilities in this city of London and in other great cities.
During the Recess many of your Lordships took the opportunity of crossing the Atlantic. I went back to New York City after an absence of some twelve years, and I must say that I was astonished at the tremendous improvement that had
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been made in those twelve years to the means of communication in that city. London has hardly changed, apart from war damage; very few new outlets, new exits or through roads have been made. I think in those twelve years we have had improvements made to the North Circular Road, and we have opened out Western Avenue, but within the confines of the city itself practically nothing has been done. Since I was in New York City last magnificent wide riverside drives have been put down which are linked up with a series of through roads, and there are no cross-tracks at all. The result is that they have practically solved a far worse traffic problem than we have here, because New York City for its size is a more congested area than this beautiful but sprawling city of London. They have built tunnels under the roads and bridges over the roads, all for motor traffic; they have built new bridges across the rivers, also for motor traffic, and fast roads radiate in all directions from that great city. I think they have done a wonderful job. I have already privately suggested to my right honourable friend the Minister for Transport, Mr. Barnes, in the other place, that he should send a small expert committee over there, with representatives of course of the city of London, the city of Manchester and other great cities, to see what has been done in New York. If that can be done in New York in war time, why have not we done more in the city of London?
This is not a matter for which any responsibility can be placed on the shoulders of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, or on the shoulders of the noble Lord, Lord Walkden. I do in the most friendly manner make the suggestion that as soon as we possibly can we have got to quicken up the improvements to our communication systems within the city of London and other big cities. I know the difficulties of labour and material, but if we do not do that we will have the most appalling blockages of traffic as soon as the happy state of affairs envisaged by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, comes about. There are many complaints from the public, but I myself would suggest with great diffidence that we should think twice about encouraging a greater volume of motor traffic on the roads until we have, at any rate, begun to tackle this growing evil in all our great cities.
3.43 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I am afraid the noble Earl, Lord Howe, may be a little disappointed at the answer which I am going to give to his question. He spoke about the hopes which he entertains. Well, hope is always doomed to be disappointed, or largely disappointed. On the other hand, my noble friend Lord Strabolgi will not be disappointed, because he was apparently afraid of what might happen on the immediate withdrawal of these restrictions on the issue of petrol. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, covered a great deal of ground at a very rapid rate. Those of us who know him are perhaps rather accustomed to the speed at which he traverses a considerable area of ground and are not therefore in any way surprised. A number of the matters which the noble Earl mentioned are matters which I can assure him are very much in the mind of my right honourable friend the Minister of Fuel and Power. Other observations which he made to your Lordships were in regard to the difficulties which inevitably, to a greater or lesser extent, follow every system of rationing. We all hope that all these rationing systems may be abolished before long. He also drew attention to difficulties which crop up from time to time in this sort of connexion. Some of them are present to the mind of my right honourable friend, and I can assure the noble Earl I will bring the others to his notice.
With regard to the general question of relaxation, a statement was made on the subject of petrol rationing by my right honourable friend the Minister of Fuel and Power in another place on July 16, and as I am afraid there is no.' very much to add to that, perhaps with your Lordships' permission I may refer to what was then said. The statement is rather a long one. I do not propose to read it verbatim to your Lordships, but perhaps with your Lordships' permission I might be allowed to summarize what the Minister said. In the first place, he made it very clear that the problem was to a large extent bound up with difficulties of currency and foreign exchange. He pointed out that, although the American Loan had been ratified, we had to utilize the additional dollar credits which it has brought to us in a number of different directions, only one of which was the provision of greater quantities of petrol
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for the users of motor vehicles in this country. He had, however, endeavoured to spread the relaxation in petrol rationing over as wide an area as possible, and he had decided to increase the basic ration by 50 per cent. Although the noble Earl suggests that there was a complete absence of blue sky, I can assure him that, during the holiday season, at any rate, many motorists regarded that as a very useful break in the clouds and profited by it to that extent. The Minister pointed out that this concession would absorb more than half the additional supplies which he was able to make available.
In regard to motor cycles the Minister was able to promise a larger increase in the case of the smaller and more economical machines. In regard to what are called the semi-essential class, to which the noble Earl made special reference, that is to say, some 330,000 cars which are used by people like commercial travellers, insurance agents and business men making deliveries, there he agreed that there had been a severe rationing of that type of user. The administrative problem of making larger supplies available for them was a somewhat difficult one, but what he had done was to increase the current issue of the S unit coupons to a value of 50 per cent., and he would consider whether he would not be able to increase the maximum allowances so as to help those categories in the greatest need. The Minister then dealt with the position of the owners of hire cars and taxi-cabs and mentioned the restrictions to which they have been subjected, of which your Lordships are aware. He said that he proposed to remove the restrictions completely and to give increased allowances of 25 per cent. in fuel—a very considerable concession.
Finally, he dealt with what is called the essential class, pointing out that very many users of vehicles in this class had received as much petrol as they required but that in other cases there had been a certain stringency in the allocation of the petrol, and that he, especially having regard to industrial requirements, was giving instructions to the regional petrol officers to make rather more generous allowances where those could be justified. That is the substance of the statement which my right honourable friend made on July 16 in another place. Since then the position has been constantly under

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review by the Government. The importance of the matter is very clearly understood and recognized, but in present circumstances the Government are not yet able to announce any further relaxation.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, I wonder whether, with the leave of the House, I may be allowed to ask one question of the noble Lord, after thanking him very much for his reply. The question is whether he can give us any sort of forecast in regard to the future.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I am afraid I am quite unable to add anything to the answer which I have given to the noble Earl.
LORD REA: My Lords, will the noble Lord explain how it is, if all these considerations which he has put before us apply, that there are these huge quantities on the black market?
LORD CHORLEY: It the noble Lord will give me specific details about any huge quantities of petrol on the black market, I shall be very glad to take steps to absorb some of it. The noble Earl referred to a supply of petrol which would be sufficient to run a 10 h.p. car for 280 years. I am the proud possessor of a rather old 10 h.p. car, but I can assure your Lordships that I have no intention of trying to run it for 280 years.

DRIVING EXAMINERS.
3.53 p.m.
EARL HOWE EARL HOWE had the following question on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government what instructions are given to driving examiners; how many Ministry of Transport driving examiners have been sent on courses to police driving schools; the average percentage of marks obtained at the end of the course; the number who failed to satisfy the examiners that they were competent themselves to act as examiners, and the steps taken to ensure that they do not in fact become examiners.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government the question standing in my name. I do so because, many years ago now, I was a member of the Public Safety Committee which was set up under the Ministry of Transport, just about the time that examinations
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for drivers were first instituted. One of the points I endeavoured to make as a member of that Committee was that, as far as the usefulness of the examinations were concerned, everything depended upon the instructions given to examiners. I am sure it has been the frequent experience of many members of your Lordships' House to see the type of driver who 'holds out his hand, like the taxi driver in London, or who puts out an arrow—a trafficator—and without any more ado, without looking to see what is happening on the rest of the road, simply starts to make his turn. What I want to know is whether in examining the various, applicants for driving licences, the examiners insist on the applicants using their mirrors to satisfy themselves that somebody is not overtaking them at the precise moment when they begin their manœuvre. That is one point.
Then with regard to position on the road, in these days of congested traffic—the sort of conditions that were referred to so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi—if our crowded roads are to be used with safety by all road users alike it is essential, to use the words of the Government, that there should be "fair shares"—that there should be ample room for all. At the present time many of the roads in our country are 30 ft. roads, and they are often divided into three 10-ft. widths, delineated by white lines along the road. If any of your Lordships would care to go along such a road as Western Avenue and watch the traffic, you would see a lot of small cars, no matter what the traffic conditions were, straddling the near-side white line instead of keeping to the left of it, thus creating a very dangerous condition indeed. If they happen to meet another vehicle doing the same thing and if there is another car trying to overtake in one direction or the other, it is quite obvious that there is the risk of a severe accident occuring. Are any instructions given to the examiners to be particularly careful to note the sort of position that the applicant for the driving licence takes up on the road? Are they asked to note whether he goes steadily, like a chicken, down a line in the road, or whether he keeps, as he should do, as close to the near side as is reasonably practicable and safe, having regard to all other considerations?
Your Lordships will no doubt have noticed many drivers—and I do not exempt Service drivers—who, when they are going to turn to the left, start the manœuvre by turning first of all to the right, and any vehicle coming along behind imagines they are going to turn somewhere to the right or to pull over to the offside of the road. But not at all; when the driver of the vehicle behind is wondering whether he had better go by under the stern of the vehicle in front, he finds the driver ahead sometimes turns right across his bows and goes over to the left. Alternatively, it may be a turn to the right, in which case the driver—and this is a much more dangerous manœuvre—turns first of all to the left. Naturally the driver of the car behind thinks he is going to stop on the near side of the road and accordingly starts to pass him, but suddenly the car in front turns across him, and a position of danger is created at once.
How far are points of that kind covered by the instructions to examiners? We were told on the Committee on which I sat that everything depended upon the instructions to examiners and that all these points would be covered. For all I know, they may have been covered, but there is no obvious evidence of it yet. In these days it is very often the fashion for various people, motor drivers and the like, to blame everybody except themselves, but the motor vehicle world ought to set its own house in order. I am sure I shall take all your Lordships with me in that and I am perfectly certain that every reasonable motorist agrees. So long as points of this sort are covered by the instructions of the examiners and the examiners insist on them when they are conducting their tests, I am perfectly certain they can do quite a lot to improve the general standard of behaviour on the road. I hope His Majesty's Government will be able to give me an answer.
3.58 p.m.
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, I am rather afraid that my answer will be, at any rate should be, restricted to the terms of the question which the noble Earl entered on the Order Paper. He has made a circuitous run right round that question and has expanded it somewhat. Perhaps I might inform him, as he has probably been away recently, that the
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whole question of road safety, operation on the roads and so forth, is, we hope, to be debated some time this month, in the new Session of Parliament. We shall then have a better chance of going into all those points with which I am not really prepared to deal this afternoon.
I think I might say broadly that all the queer vagaries of motorists, mostly inexperienced, to which the noble Lord has referred, are covered in the regulations he has in mind. I am sorry he is not now on the Road Traffic Advisory Committee which has dealt with these matters recently. The regulations are ample, and they are going to be carried into operation. The noble Earl will know, of course, that testing was restarted as recently as November 1. We have had great difficulty in getting the staff together to do the work. We have obtained quite a good number of men who were in the Forces, men who were examiners and drivers before, and we are likely to add to their number appreciably in the near future.
The instructions given to examiners are based on the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) Regulations, 1937. I should imagine that is what the noble Lord was referring to. It is a ten-page document which he can easily obtain, and it would give him very full information in that regard. These regulations are designed to secure a uniform test and a uniform standard of competence for the purpose of the issue of a pass certificate. One hundred and fifty-two driving examiners have completed a refresher course in the police driving schools and the remaining twenty-five are taking their course now. These courses are not intended as driving tests, and no marks are awarded. They are designed solely to enable examiners—all of whom are experienced drivers and trained examiners—to refresh their knowledge of driving which may have grown stale owing to lack of practice during the war, and for them to benefit from the knowledge and experience of the police instructors who are, of course, highly competent and very experienced. Additional driving examiners will be appointed in the near future. Any confirmation of their appointments will depend inter alia on a satisfactory completion of a driving course at a police driving school. They will have to be thoroughly competent in driving and in

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all the qualifications necessary in respect to the issue of a licence. I am afraid I cannot add to that at the present moment.
EARL HOWE: May I ask whether there are any figures with regard to failures, people who are rejects and people who do not prove suitable?
LORD WALKDEN: There are no failures in the three groups to which I have referred. Those who have gone through the course are all competent. They were examiners before, and they are refreshing their driving knowledge. The twenty-five who are now passing through the course are fully qualified, but there will be further men to come and they will be very carefully tested. We will certainly take the utmost precautions to see that none become examiners who are not competent.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: May I ask whether competence in that sense includes knowledge of the recently revised Highway Code?
LORD WALKDEN: Yes, the new edition of the Highway Code is the foundation of the knowledge that the examiner must have. He must also see, to it that all applicants for licences have themselves absorbed that knowledge.
LORD GIFFORD: If the police examiner thinks that a man is obviously unsuitable to act as an examiner, would not that be taken into account?
LORD WALKDEN: If he is found unsuitable he will not be appointed.

THE TERRITORIAL ARMY.
4.3 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I beg to ask the question which stands on the Paper in the name of my noble friend Lord Long.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government, what are the overall future conditions of the Territorial Army, especially as they affect officers and N.C.Os.]
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I hope to be able to make a definite statement on this subject within the next two or three weeks. Meanwhile, the Territorial Army and Air Force Associations have already
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been given the broad outline of their future role. The Government are fully alive to the undesirability of further delay in the re-formation of the Territorial Army.
LORD CARRINGTON: I am obliged to the noble Lord.

AGRICULTURAL TRAINING SCHEME.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I beg to ask the first question which appears in my name on the Order Paper.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government, the reasons for the increase of the contributions payable by farmers under the agricultural training scheme for ex-Service men.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON): My Lords, it is a condition of the agricultural training scheme that the training employer should make a contribution in respect of a farm trainee's incidental services. This contribution, which is related to the statutory minimum wage rate for agricultural workers is on a sliding scale, increasing as the trainee gains in experience and thus becomes more proficient. For non-disabled trainees the total contribution payable during the training period is approximate 60 per cent. of the minimum rate. This was arranged after consultation with the representative organizations of farmers and farm workers and on the recommendation of the Agricultural Wages Board. As from July 14 last the minimum wage rate for agricultural workers was increased from 70s. to 80s. per week, and in order to maintain the agreed ratio of 60 per cent. as between the employers contribution and the normal minimum wage, it was necessary to make a proportionate increase in the contributions payable by training employers under the scheme.
At the same time it must be remembered that the agricultural training scheme is only one part of the general Government scheme which embraces many industries. Any increase in allowances to agricultural trainees would require to be associated with a general increase in the scale of allowances applicable to all trainees

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under the scheme and such an increase would not be justified by the rise in wages in agriculture alone. The question of a general increase in allowances is one for the Ministry of Labour and National Service, who keep the position under constànt review in the light of the tendency of wage levels to rise in trades in which training is given under the scheme.
LORD CARRINGTON: While thanking the noble Earl for his answer, may I ask whether he would circulate that answer to the war agricultural executive committees, as the reason for the increase in contributions was not at all realized by any of the farmers who have trainees under this scheme?
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that suggestion. I will certainly look into the matter.

WHEAT PRICES.
4.7 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I beg to ask the next question standing in my name.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government what price per cwt. including acreage payment is being paid for wheat—
(1) Produced in the United Kingdom; and
(2) Delivered to main United Kingdom ports from (a) Canada; (b) U.S.A.; (c) Argentine.]
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, the fixed price ex farm of millable wheat produced in the United Kingdom averages in the current season 145. 10d. per cwt. and the acreage payment represents an addition of 2s. 4d. per cwt. For Canadian No. 1 Manitoba wheat the farmer receives 135 cents per bushel which equals about 12s. 7d. per cwt. He may also receive a further payment from the profits of the Canadian Wheat Board. The amount received by the farmer in the United States is based on the daily quotation of the Chicago Wheat Futures market, or other similar Futures market. The quoted price would include rail and handling charges from the farm to terminal elevators. The current price to the farmer is around 18s. per cwt. The price paid
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to the grower in Argentina is at present about 15s. per cwt.
EARL DE LA WARR: Reading the words of this question I think the noble Lord has misunderstood it. The question is to ask His Majesty's Government what price per cwt. including acreage payment, is being paid for wheat delivered to main United Kingdom ports. He has only told us what is being paid to Canadian, United States and Argentine farmers. Therefore I think he will agree that he has not entirely answered the question in the way in which we had rather hoped.
LORD HENDERSON: The information I have given is the information which is available. I have no checked what difference there is between the price I have given and the price asked for in the specific question which the noble Earl has put to me.
EARL DE LA WARR: Then the noble Lord does recognize that he has not answered the question.

MEAT PRICES.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I beg to ask the third question standing in my name.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government what price per ton is being paid for meat to producers in the United Kingdom, and what is the present price per ton for meat delivered to the main United Kingdom ports from the Argentine under the recent Agreement.]
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, the average price per ton paid to the United Kingdom producers for meat is £126 19s. 3d. I regret that I am unable to supply the information asked for regarding the Argentine meat, the detailed contract for which has not yet been finally signed.

EX-INTERNEES FROM SHANGHAI.
4.11 p.m.
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, I beg to ask the question standing in my name.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government, whether it is a fact that approximately 100 British civilians in Shanghai,

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urgently awaiting repatriation after long years of internment, are being excluded from the "Empress of Australia" which is shortly sailing for this country from China; whether it is true that this ship is carrying 600 Chinese naval cadets for training in this country; and if so, whether immediate steps may be taken to reduce this number of Chinese cadets, postponing their passage to a later date, in order to accommodate these unfortunate British nationals, many of whom are in serious circumstances arising from the economic conditions and extreme financial disturbance now existing in China.]
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, before answering this question I should like to assure the House that its nature is not quite so solemn as it might appear to your Lordships on first reading the text. You will see that according to the Order Paper, it refers apparently to people "awaiting repatriation after long years of interment." The citizens in question, I am glad to say, have not been interred. When I first read the question, I wondered whether such a funereal statement was really meant seriously.
LORD AILWYN: It was not the fault of the questioner.
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, clearly "interment" is a printer's error. It should of course be "internment." The answer to the noble Lord's question is that the Chinese naval personnel referred to comprise the remainder of the crews that are to take over the cruiser "Aurora" and other of His Majesty's ships which are being transferred to the Chinese Navy, and any further delay in their sailing would postpone the release of the British crews that are now manning these ships. Their sailing has already been considerably delayed and cannot be further deferred. I am, however, very glad to state that 118 berths have been allocated in the "Empress of Australia" for ex-internees from Shanghai, and that I have every expectation that shipping space will be provided for the remainder by the end of the year.
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, arising out of that reply—which, as was to be expected, coming as it did from the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, was a very sympathetic reply—may I say that while I am most anxious, as your Lordships will
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appreciate, that no word shall fall from my lips that can be construed as anything but friendliness and warm affection for the Chinese people, I wish to ask whether His Majesty's Government are aware that in a letter dated August 22 of this year, which I have here in my hand, the Ministry of Transport gave a definite assurance to the Chairman of the China Association, on whose behalf I speak today that any accommodation not required for Service personnel on board the two ships, the "Mataroa" and the "Empress of Australia," would be made available for civilian passengers from Hong Kong or Shanghai to the United Kingdom? Can it he contended that it was ever seriously contemplated that the term "Service personnel" should cover such a category as Chinese naval cadets for training in this country? Clearly, it was intended to refer to British and Empire Service men and women. Actually, I have had information only this morning from which it appears that the "Mataroa" never called at Shanghai at all for British personnel.
Are His Majesty's Government further aware of an official announcement by the British Consul-General at Shanghai on September 30, 1946, a copy of which I have here, emphasizing that the "Empress of Australia" would afford the final opportunity for repatriation to the United Kingdom with the assistance of His Britannic Majesty's Government? Finally, are His Majesty's Government aware of the considerable feeling- that has been aroused in the British community in Shanghai by this apparent volte-face on the part of His Majesty's Government, and will they give an assurance that they will accelerate by every means in their power, and assist, the passage home of this 100 odd British civilians, remembering the privations which many of them have undergone during the past five years, and also that they continue to live in most distressing circumstances, many of them having little if any means of livelihood?
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, the Ministry of Transport have really done their best in this matter. As I have told your Lordships, 118 berths have been reserved in the "Empress of Australia." The allocation of space on that ship is not under the control of the Ministry of Transport but is under the control of the military authorities. The

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Minister cannot say "do this" and "do that"—he can only do his best by negotiation. I am also informed that these civilians whom we are now considering did not avail themselves of the special arrangements which were made some months ago for the evacuation of released Allied prisoners or war and internees. Many of them stayed behind, at the request of their firms, in order to try to keep hold of, or to pick up anew, trade relations in Northern China. It was very commendable in them thus to try to think up with or renew old trading arrangements.
Now they wish to come home, and there is every sympathy for them. Every Everything has been done for them and they will be brought home, or they will be able to sail, it is hoped, before the end of the year.
LORD AILWYN: And assisted?
LORD WALKDEN: With regard to the matter of the Chinese personnel, one has to be very careful. The authorities, naturally, wish to keep faith with them as well as with our own civilians. It would never do for us to lay ourselves open to a charge of having in any way broken faith with the Chinese people for whom we have such a high regard and who have, undoubtedly, a great future before them. Any reduction in the number of Chinese cadets taking passage on this occasion would dislocate the whole of the Admiralty training scheme and postpone the date on which British vessels would be transferred to the Chinese Navy. Our own sailors were to come home after being liberated from the ships that are being handed over to China and we have to keep faith with them. Many of them have been deferred again and again. Relatively speaking, I do not think that the citizens whom the noble Lord has in mind have been very unfairly treated in relation to the other groups of people, all of whom have to be given very careful consideration.

  UNITED NATIONS AND NON-SELF-GOVERNING PEOPLES.
  UNITED NATIONS AND NON-SELF-GOVERNING PEOPLES.
  ROAD COMMUNICATIONS.
  ROAD COMMUNICATIONS.
  PRINCESS CHRISTIAN'S CONVALESCENT HOME.
  PRINCESS CHRISTIAN'S CONVALESCENT HOME.