Sitting of 16 October 1946

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

    Old Palace, Johore Bahru
    Mr. Rees-Williamsasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the cost of making the Old Palace at Johore Bahru ready for occupation by His Excellency the Governor-General of Malaya; and from what funds is the expense to be met.
    The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Creech Jones): The question does not arise as there is no intention at present that the Governor-General should be accommodated in the Old Palace at Johore Bahru.
    Mr. Rees-Williams: In view of our long connection with the Settlement of Penang, could my right hon. Friend say whether it is intended that the Governor-General should have his residence in that Settlement?
    Mr. Creech Jones: The whole problem of the residence of the Governor-General is now under discussion.

    Industrial Conciliation Machinery
    Mr. Rees-Williamsasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the need for conciliation machinery and for the employment of persons skilled in industrial conciliation in British Malaya, he will set up a labour relations division in the Malayan Union and Singapore with the necessary small but expert staff.
    Mr. Creech Jones: Conciliation machinery is provided by the Industrial Courts Enactments of 1940 and its operation is the responsibility of officers of the Labour Departments, who are trained in the languages and psychology of the local races and are skilled in local industrial conciliation. They are assisted in this task by experienced trade unionists from the United Kingdom, whose duties include the formulation of arrangements for the settlement of disputes by conciliation or arbitration, they also bring to the attention of officers of the Labour Departments any grievances of the workers which might impair labour relations on matters affecting conditions of employment. The present organisation thus covers much of the work of a Labour Relations Division, but the formal addition of such a division to the Labour Departments of the two territories may be found necessary before long.

    Economic Affairs
    Mr. Rees-Williamsasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that there is confusion and lack of decision in the handling of industrial and economic affairs by the Government of the Malayan Union; and whether he will take steps in order that a single department of economic affairs may be set up to replace the present trade and industry department and to absorb the economic functions now being performed by administrative officers in the secretariat.
    Mr. Creech Jones: I am not aware that there has been any such confusion or lack of decision on the part of the Government of the Malayan Union, in spite of the unprecedented economic problems with which that Government has to deal. But I am bringing to the notice of the Governor the suggestion which my hon. Friend has made.
    Sir Stanley Reed: Can the right hon. Gentleman inform us what the Malayan Union actually is at the present time?
    Mr. Creech Jones: I think the hon. Gentleman is fully aware that discussions on that problem are going on at the present time.
    Mr. Walter Fletcher: Does not the Minister think that the considerable degree of confusion that exists arises from the fact

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    that there is a high commissioner, two governors and an economic adviser—a sort of "four ring circus"—all trying to work in different directions?

    Shipping Congestion
    Sir Waldron Smithersasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he has considered the details sent him about the congestion of shipping at Singapore; and, in view of the importance of our export trade, if he has any statement to make.
    Mr. Creech Jones: I am aware of the past congestion at Singapore, but I am informed that the position there has recently been very substantially improved. In this connection I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given him on 14th October by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport.
    Sir W. Smithers: In view of the fact that there are several Government Departments involved, will the right hon. Gentleman try to institute an interdepartmental inquiry into the disgraceful state of affairs in Singapore, including shipping, pilfering and empty cargo space?
    Mr. Creech Jones: The facts are pretty well known. We have had inquiries made, and I think the situation is now very much better than it was.

    Rubber Industry
    Mr. Gammansasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a. statement on the rubber situation in Malaya and define the Government's policy with regard to the purchase of rubber.
    Mr. Creech Jones: As the reply is long and contains a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Gammans: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what will be the loss in millions of pounds to the British taxpayer arising from this disastrous experiment of State trading?
    Mr. Creech Jones: The matter of buying rubber is obviously one for the Board of Trade, and the question should be addressed to the President of the Board of Trade.
    Mr. W. Fletcher: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain the difference in price between that in Malaya of Is. and that in Ceylon of Is. 2d., and the fact that there is a difference of 2d. a pound in the price which the Americans have to pay and the price which the British manufacturer has to pay?
    Mr. Creech Jones: I imagine that a sufficient explanation of the differences of prices has been afforded to the House, but in regard to recent negotiations I submit that this matter of buying is one for the Board of Trade, and a question should be put to them.
    Following is the answer:
    I am glad to say that the recovery of the rubber industry in Malaya has been more rapid than was expected. The amount of rubber available in the second half of the year is considerably greater than was estimated. This has however caused certain difficulties in marketing. The Rubber Development Corporation in the United States agreed in June last to purchase 95,000 tons of rubber from Malaya during the second half of the year at Is. 2d. per lb. f.o.b., but these purchases were completed by September. The Board of Trade have also been purchasing rubber since 1st July last at the same price to the extent which shipping was available to transport it to the United Kingdom. They have now completed their purchases for November and December shipment and in all have taken substantial quantities from the Malayan market.
    The cessation of American buying and the slowness of other countries in taking up the allocations made to them by the Combined Rubber Committee led to some accumulation of rubber in Malaya. Recently, however, the United States have agreed to purchase as much rubber as can be shipped before the end of the year up to 200,000 tons from Malaya at approximately Is. per lb. It is hoped that other countries will take up their allocations promptly and that in this way any accumulation in Malaya will be avoided. As regards future arrangements for the marketing of rubber, I understand that my right hon. and learned Friend the President of the Board of Trade hopes to be in a position to make a statement shortly.

  GIBRALTAR (CIGARETTES DUTY)
  Mr. Ernest Daviesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the excise and customs duties charged on cigarettes imported for sale into Gibraltar; and how this compares with the same duties charged in the United Kingdom.
  Mr. Creech Jones: The rate of duty in Gibraltar is Is. per lb. British preferential and is. bd. per lb. general with, in addition, Is. 3d. in each case per 100 cigarettes or part thereof. I understand that the rate of duty in the United Kingdom is £1 18s. 2½d. per lb. British preferential at £2 os. 7d. per lb. general.
  Mr. Davies: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this negligible tax on the import of tobacco into Gibraltar has enabled it to be used as a very large base for dealings in the black market in Spain, to which country there is a very large smuggling trade?
  Mr. Creech Jones: I have heard that allegation and am looking into it.
  Sir Ronald Ross: Is it not hard on the Gibraltarians now in Northern Ireland, and will he allow them to go back and enjoy cheap tobacco?

  COLONIAL EMPIRE

    Development Council
    Mr. Rankinasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what considerations guided him in selecting the personnel for the recently appointed Colonial Development Council.
    Mr. Creech Jones: The main consideration by which my predecessor was guided was the need to assemble, within a small and workmanlike body, men who between them would command wide experience of practical affairs. With the additional appointments which I hope to announce shortly, I trust the Council will be fully equipped for its task.
    Major Cecil Poole: Is the Minister aware that the appointment of people who are opposed to Socialism to implement a Socialist policy is causing grave concern amongst many people?
    Mr. Pickthorn: The one-party State.
    Colonel Ponsonby: If there are any additional appointments will the Minister consider people with business training who have knowledge of the Colonies?
    Mr. Creech Jones: That is very much in my mind.

    Broadcast Talks
    Mr. Gammansasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if any recommendations have been made by his Ministry to the B.B.C. that there should be a weekly commentary on Colonial Empire affairs on the Home Service in the same way as there is an American commentary.
    Mr. Creech Jones: I am not sure that anything exactly analogous to the American commentary would be the most appropriate means of representing Colonial affairs in the several broadcast services, but this matter is at present the subject of discussion between the Colonial Office and the B.B.C. and I understand that the latter are hoping to introduce a regular series of talks about developments in the Colonial Empire.
    Mr. Gammans: Will the Minister make definite recommendations that it is the wish of the vast majority of people in this country that they should hear something about the Colonial Empire and not merely about foreign countries?
    Mr. Creech Jones: I think the hon. Gentleman may take it that those representations have been made.

    Emergency Legislation
    Mr. Baldwinasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the action of the Government of Kenya in setting up a committee to keep under constant review those defence regulations which have been retained, and to advise the Kenya Government on their revocation or amendment; and whether he will bring this example to the notice of other Colonies.
    Mr. Creech Jones: Instructions have been sent to all Colonial Governments to keep all emergency legislation under regular and careful review. The question whether this can best be done by setting up a committee as in Kenya is a matter for decision according to local circumstances in each territory.

  PALESTINE

    Terrorists (Arrival in Paris)
    Major Legge-Bourkeasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how it is that known terrorist leaders in Palestine are able to arrive in Paris.
    Mr. Creech Jones: I am not in a position to control the arrival in Paris of terrorist leaders who may evade the frontier control in Palestine.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Would the Minister say whether it was known in Palestine that the leader of the Stern Gang had got out, and if it is known where he now is?
    Mr. Creech Jones: I am not in a position to answer that question today.
    Sir W. Smithers: Will the Minister inquire whether passports for these terrorists are being obtained through the good offices of U.N.R.R.A.?

    Acts of Violence
    Mr. Stokesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies who are the persons referred to as "NWBW" and "WLSLY" in telegram No. 2 on page four of Command Paper No. 6873.
    Mr. Creech Jones: I am not in a position to state with certainty the identity of these persons. To make public the various speculations on the subject might be unfair to individuals in fact not concerned, and I am not prepared to do so.
    Mr. Stokes: As it has already been made perfectly clear by the predecessor of my right hon. Friend that the first person mentioned in the telegram is Dr. Weizmann, surely it is possible to tell us who the other two are?
    Mr. Creech Jones: I am quite aware that my predecessor as Secretary of State did make that statement, but I fear I personally have nothing to add to what I have already said.
    Mr. Stokesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his legal advisers have considered criminal proceedings against any or all of the persons mentioned or indicated by the telegrams printed in the White Paper on the Statement of Information relating to Acts of Violence in Palestine, Command Paper No. 6873; and what legal action has been taken.
    Mr. Creech Jones: The question whether criminal proceedings should be taken is a matter for the Palestine authorities. I understand that it has been considered but that it is not proposed, on grounds of public interest, to take any action in that direction at the present time.
    Mr. Stokes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that less dreadful happenings than this occurred due to action by the Arabs, and that severe measures have been taken; and as all this can be laid at the door of the Jewish Agency is not it about time that Agency was wound up?
    Mr. Pickthorn: When the Secretary of State says he understands that this has been considered by the local government does he mean to tell us that the local government have so informed him?
    Mr. Creech Jones: Yes.
    Mr. Scollan: Could the Minister tell us if the letters "NWBW" mean "Not worth bothering with"?

    Lord President's Statement (Publication)
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why, and by whom, was publication prohibited in Palestine of the full text of the statement made in the House of Commons by the Lord President of the Council on 30th July last.
    Mr. Creech Jones: My hon. and gallant Friend is misinformed. Publication of the full text of the statement was not prohibited in Palestine.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Has the attention of my right hon. Friend been directed to the frequently reiterated statement that certain portions of this speech have been prohibited from publication in the Palestine Press?
    Mr. Creech Jones: Yes, Sir. Some misapprehension seems to have arisen. I think it was due to the fact that Reuter's message reproduced the statement with the omission of what they felt were the less significant passages.

  CEYLON (GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTS)
  Mr. Thomas Reidasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why the

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  recent auditor's report on the Ceylon Government's accounts was not published as usual as a Sessional Paper; and why the accounts report of the Ceylon Civil Defence Department was not published.
  Mr. Creech Jones: I am informed by the Governor of Ceylon that the reports to which my hon. Friend refers were published on 26th September and 3rd October respectively as Sessional Paper No. XVI and Sessional Paper No. XVIII.
  Mr. Reid: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there has been great delay in the publication of the Sessional Paper?
  Mr. Creech Jones: There was a delay, due to the fact that the Governor required the advice of a legal secretary and also of the Minister regarding policy.

  SEYCHELLES (COCONUT PRODUCE)
  Mr. T. Reidasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if a lower price is still being paid for Seychelles coconut produce than that paid for Ceylon coconut produce.
  Mr. Creech Jones: No, Sir. The price paid by the Ministry of Food for Seychelles coconut produce is now equivalent to that paid for Ceylon, after allowing for the small quality differential in favour of the latter.
  Mr. W. Fletcher: Would the Minister say when that change took place?
  Mr. Creech Jones: 7th August, I believe.

  WEST AFRICA

    Cocoa Marketing
    Major Legge-Bourkeasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies when the White Paper on the marketing of West African cocoa will be published.
    Mr. Creech Jones: I hope to make a statement on this matter very shortly.

    Gold Coast (Elections)
    Lady Noel-Buxtonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a statement on the result of the recent Gold Coast elections and give details of how many chiefs were elected; what parties or groups were successful in the elections; and what interests are represented by the nominated members.
    Mr. Creech Jones: Of the 18 members, all Africans, who were returned at the Gold Coast election on 17th June, eight are chiefs. The election was not contested on party lines, and none of the 18 members was elected to represent a party or group. Of the six nominated members, three are Africans and three are Europeans. They are not chosen to represent particular interests, but two have long experience in municipal affairs, and one in the missionary field, two were chosen from the commercial and mining communities, while the sixth, who was a welfare officer in the Army, can speak for the ex-Service-men.
    Lady Noel-Buxtonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what proportion of the population that was entitled to vote used its vote in the recent Gold Coast elections.
    Mr. Creech Jones: The complete returns have not yet reached me. I am asking the Acting Governor to supply the information, and will communicate with my hon. Friend on receipt of his reply.

    Higher Education
    Lady Noel-Buxtonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps have been taken, so far, to implement his final decision in regard to higher education in West Africa.
    Mr. Creech Jones: Two replies are still awaited to my predecessor's despatch inviting the views of the West African Governments on the practical methods of implementing his proposals. In the Gold Coast, that question is under close examination by a special local committee.

  NORTHERN RHODESIA

    Industrial Adviser
    Colonel Ponsonbyasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is proposed to publish the report of the official who recently visited Northern Rhodesia to inquire into labour questions.
    Commander Nobleasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is proposed to publish the report of the Ministry of Labour official who recently visited Northern Rhodesia.
    Mr. Creech Jones: The official mentioned was not sent out to make special

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    inquiries into labour questions in Northern Rhodesia, but to act for a period as industrial adviser to the Government. He was not called upon to furnish a general report.

    Legislative Council (Speaker)
    Commander Nobleasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to a resolution of the Legislative Council of Northern Rhodesia favouring the appointment of a Speaker to take the place of the Governor as President of the Council; whether he proposes to act on this resolution; and whether the procedure suggested will be adopted in other colonies.
    Mr. Creech Jones: The appointment of a Speaker as President of the Legislative Council in Northern Rhodesia was one of a number of constitutional matters discussed recently with the Governor and certain unofficial members of the Council who visited this country. The proposal was accepted in principle by my predecessor. The timing of the change has been left for the Governor to consider further with the unofficial members, with a view to determining whether it can be made at the same time as other changes in the constitution which are to be introduced in 1948. This development is naturally one which will be kept in mind when other Colonial constitutions are under consideration.

  EAST AFRICA

    Education
    Mr. Baldwinasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he accepts the statement made by Sir Wilfred Woods in his fiscal survey of East Africa to the effect that none of the East African territories has, or is likely for a long period to have, sufficient taxable capacity to provide more than a fraction of the funds required for universal African education; and what action he proposes to take to improve African education in those countries.
    Mr. Creech Jones: I am well aware of the serious nature of the problem of establishing a comprehensive system of African education. The report is at present under examination by the East African Governments, and I should prefer to await their views before making a considered statement on Sir Wilfred Wood's Report.
    Mr. Baldwin: In view of the statement in that report that 90 per cent, of the Income Tax paid in Kenya is collected from the European population, will the Minister say whether active steps are being taken to see that the whole of the community contribute their fair share?
    Mr. Creech Jones: One of the purposes of the inquiry was to discover the taxable resources of Kenya. Now the report has been published, I think an opportunity must be given to the local government to consider it. Obviously the problem of evasion of taxation is certainly in the minds of the local government.
    Mr. Baldwin: Is the Minister aware that this report has been discussed in the Legislature?

    Kenya (Kipande System)
    Mr. Wilkesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will state the composition of the sub-committee set up to examine the operation of Kipande system in Kenya; and, in particular, how many Africans had been appointed.
    Mr. Creech Jones: The sub-committee of the Kenya Labour Advisory Committee at present examining the Kipande system is sitting under the chairmanship of the Labour Commissioner, and is composed of two Europeans, one Indian and two Africans.
    Mr. W. J. Brown: What is the Kipande system?
    Mr. Creech Jones: It is a kind of pass which Africans are supposed to produce as they move about the territory.

  WEST INDIES

    Tourist Trade (Jamaica)
    Sir Peter Macdonaldasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what sum the Government of Jamaica proposes to spend on tourist publicity; whether existing hotels can provide sufficient accommodation to meet increased demands; and whether local enterprise has shown any evidence of wishing to build additional accommodation.
    Mr. Creech Jones: The Jamaica Estimates for the current year provided £5,881 for expenditure by the Tourist Trade Development Board. In the revised

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    development plan now under consideration it is proposed to provide £30,000 a year for the first five years on the understanding that private enterprise will contribute a further amount equivalent to two-thirds of that sum. The Governor has recently indicated to the Legislature that in his view the provision of more hotel accommodation is a first essential. The Hotels Aid Law (Law 55 of 1944) has provided for tax concessions and customs drawbacks to encourage the building of new hotels and the extension of existing ones, but with one or two exceptions local enterprise has not yet taken advantage of the Act.

    Jamaica (U.K. Sugar Contract)
    Sir P. Macdonaldasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what representations have been received from the Government of Jamaica that the period for which the Ministry of Food have guaranteed to purchase Jamaican sugar, which is up to the end of 1948, is insufficient to enable the sugar planters to plan ahead and to attain the maximum production of which their estates are capable.
    Mr. Creech Jones: I have recently received from the Governor of Jamaica a copy of a communication from the Sugar Manufacturers' Association of Jamaica to the West India Committee expressing dissatisfaction at the limitation of the present Ministry of Food's contract to the period ending with the 1949 sugar crop, and I am consulting my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food on the subject.

    Currency Unification
    Sir P. Macdonaldasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what conclusions were reached by the Currency Conference in Barbados regarding the unification of currency in part of the British West Indies; and whether it is proposed to accept their recommendations.
    Mr. Creech Jones: The principal recommendation of the Conference was that mentioned in the reply to the hon. Member's Question on 5th June, namely, that currency in British Guiana, Trinidad, Barbados and the Leeward and Windward Islands should be unified, with the British West Indian dollar of the value of four shillings and twopence sterling as a basis. The Conference recommended
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    also that a Regional Currency Board should be established with headquarters in Trinidad. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the Report. The Conference recommendations are being considered by the Colonial Governments concerned, and I am still awaiting the views of some of them.

    St. Kitts-Nevis (Executive Council)
    Mr. Skinnardasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that a clergyman has been appointed as a member of the Executive Council of the Presidency of St. Christopher-Nevis contrary to the constitution of the Presidency; and what steps he proposes to take to regularise the position.
    Mr. Creech Jones: I am aware that a minister of the Methodist Church has been appointed to be a member of the Executive Council of the Presidency of St. Kitts-Nevis. I am not aware of any constitutional reason why such an appointment should not be made.
    Mr. Skinnard: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been drawn to the fact that, owing to the recent federation move in these islands, it was regarded as unfortunate that this opportunity of seeing that a representative of organised opinion in the Colony was appointed was not taken?

  POLAND

    Elections
    Major Tufton Beamishasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if, in view of the fact that a recent British Note to the Polish Provisional Government contained allegations of irregularities involving Government falsification of the results of the June Referendum, and of the fact that the Polish Provisional Government accepted the obligation of holding free and unfettered election as a basic condition of their recognition, he will now reconsider his decision not to initiate arrangements for a party of observers, including representatives of the U.S.S.R., U.S.A. and Great Britain to be present in Poland during the forthcoming elections.
    The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ernest Bevin): All aspects of

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    the projected Polish elections are receiving consideration, but I should prefer to make no statement on the subject at the present time.
    Vice-Admiral Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to what date the elections in Poland have been postponed; and if he is satisfied that the conditions laid down for these elections will ensure that they will be of a free and democratic nature.
    Mr. Bevin: I have nothing to add to my hon. Friend's reply to the hon. Member for Belfast University (Professor Savory) on 14th October.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: In view of our pledges given for free elections in Poland—and to which we are pledged—will the right hon. Gentleman take special steps to see that the elections will, in fact, be free, especially in view of the gross irregularities that occurred when the voting took place on the referendum?

    Resettlement Corps (Polish Citizenship)
    Vice-Admiral Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that the National Provisional Government of Poland is withdrawing Polish citizenship from officers and men who served under British command, on the grounds that by entering the Polish Resettlement Corps they are accepting military service with a foreign power; and if he will make a statement as to how far this corps is a military organisation, and what obligations are entered into by the officers and men joining it.
    Mr. Bevin: The Polish Provisional Government have deprived General Anders and certain other senior Polish officers of Polish nationality, for substantially the reason given by the hon. and gallant Member. The Polish Resettlement Corps is under the control of the British Service Departments and is administered under British military law. But while the Resettlement Corps comes under British military law, I should make it clear that its whole object is essentially non military, its sole purpose being the dispersal of its members into civil life. The training and employment provided in the Corps will be directed as far as possible to this end, and the Corps will be an unarmed body.
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    As regards the last part of the Question, enlistment in the Corps is for a period of two years, because, when men are enlisted into a British formation, a definite period of enlistment has to be stated. We hope, however, that men will pass out of the Corps as soon as possible. As soon as a suitable job has been found for any member of the Corps not wishing to emigrate overseas or to return to Poland, he will take it up as a civilian. He will then receive civilian clothing, his Resettlement Corps pay will cease, and he will be entitled to the appropriate civilian pay from the employer.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: In view of the fact that the Polish Provisional Government are making this matter an excuse for the victimisation of officers and men in the Polish Army who were fighting on our side, will the Secretary of State communicate with the Polish Government and make the views of His Majesty's Government perfectly clear to them, in order that they may remove this injustice to Polish officers and men?
    Mr. Bevin: We have already done that.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: With what result?
    Major Bramall: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us what reason prevents these men of the Resettlement Corps being placed under civilian control, thereby removing any reason or excuse for the Polish Government to take this action?
    Mr. Bevin: It is extremely difficult to take men who do not know our language and throw them on the labour market to fend for themselves. I, personally, when I had to study this case in the first instance, was totally against introducing any method of conscript law to apply to civilians in industry. Therefore, this was intended as a temporary means of transition, in order that it could be wound up, and I did not introduce any new principle into British civil law.
    Professor Savory: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether special representations could not be made to the Polish Government against the deprivation of Polish citizenship of General Anders, in view of his distinguished services to this country and to the Allied cause.
    Mr. Bevin: I cannot distinguish General Anders from the other men who are affected. Really, these Polish men fought with us. and we cannot let them down. We are not going to let them down. But I do not think I ought to single out a general as against a private.

  MEXICO (DEPORTED GERMANS)
  Mr. Dribergasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what representations have been made by His Majesty's Government to the Mexico Government with regard to the deportation from Mexico of German Nazis; and how many such deportations have been carried out.
  Mr. Bevin: In December last the Allied Control Council in Germany requested the Governments of the United Nations to expel all German officials and agents and other obnoxious Germans from their territories. On 15th August, 1946, a ship provided by the United States Government embarked 13 obnoxious Germans and 63 German seamen from Mexico for return to Germany. This is the only deportation from Mexico which has so far taken place.
  Mr. Driberg: Is my right hon. Friend aware that large numbers of Germans have dodged deportation whose names were on the original United States list, and would he look further into this, and especially into the activities of Señ or Enrique Schondube, the business man who fixed up the bribes for the high officials concerned?
  Mr. Bevin: I am sorry, I have never heard of him. It the Allied Control Council make representations to me I will certainly look into them.

  U.N.R.R.A.
  Colonel Gomme-Duncanasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why it has been decided that no public inquiry will be held into the working and methods of U.N.R.R.A.; and whether His Majesty's Government concurred in such decision.
  Mr. Bevin: I am unaware of any such decision. The second part of the Question consequently does not arise.

  GERMANY

    Nuremberg Trials (Acquitted Prisoners)
    Mr. Skeffington-Lodgeasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of their acquittal at Nuremberg, he will take steps to ensure that Schacht, Papen and Fritsche are given safe conduct to, and sanctuary in, a place where their victimisation by their own fellow-countrymen or others will be impossible.
    Mr. Bevin: These three men are understood to be at present in the American zone of Germany, and His Majesty's Government have therefore no responsibility for their disposal.
    Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Yes, but would not the Minister use his very vital influence to secure that these men are not chased up on new charges until passions have died down, this being both vindictive and, in my judgment, indecent?
    Mr. Bevin: I think we must leave it to the American authorities.
    Mr. McKinlay: Would the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that he will place nothing in the way of the persons mentioned joining their fellow countrymen in hell?
    Mr. Stokes: Is it not in fact the responsibility of the four Powers to protect people whom they have already tried and acquitted, and that they cannot shed their responsibility?
    Mr. Bevin: I do not think there is any accusation that the American Government, who are responsible for the zone in which they are residing, are doing anything else.

    Control Commission (Personnel)
    Mr. William Shepherdasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many British personnel were employed by the Control Commission, British element, on 1st May and on 1st September, respectively.
    The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Hynd): I assume the hon. Member refers to the Control Commission for Germany. The number of British personnel employed on 1st May was 22,265, and on 1st September 25,381.
    Mr. Shepherd: How does the hon. Gentleman reconcile the figures he has just given with the statement he made in reply to a Question by me on Monday, when he said that reductions had already taken place?
    Mr. Hynd: The House will remember that when the Estimates were presented last May it was pointed out that the establishment had been cut down approximately 33 per cent., from a total figure of 42,000 to 28,500, and we are still below the new establishment figure.
    Mr. W. J. Brown: Do not these figures suggest that what we have got in Germany is a force which is far too large for control and far too small for administration, and will he say something on this matter?
    Mr. Hynd: I could say quite a lot, but it would take me far beyond the time available in Questions. The simple fact is that there is a considerable amount of work still to be done in Germany, and, as I stated in the House on Monday in reply to a supplementary question, we are already taking steps to apply further reductions in the staff because we are fully aware of the importance of such reductions being made as soon as possible.

  GREECE (ARMY REORGANISATION)
  Mr. Wilkesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the re-organisation and re-equipment of the Greek Army has now been completed by the British Military Mission.
  Mr. Bevin: No, Sir.
  Mr. Wilkes: In view of the fact that the Foreign Secretary's Department on 10th August last issued a statement showing that 228 ex-members of the Quisling security battalions in Greece are now on active service as officers with the Greek Army—a number in excess of those who are ex-members of the Resistance—would not the Foreign Secretary consider making representations to the British Military Mission asking them to ensure a wider and fairer recruiting for the Greek Army, more in conformity with democratic principles?
  Mr. Bevin: That does not arise on this Question.

  FOOD SUPPLIES

    Jam (Fruit Standard)
    Mr. Keelingasked the Minister of Food what proportion of each of the different British jams made this year was fresh fruit; and what proportion consisted of other ingredients besides sugar.
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Minister of Food what is meant by special fruit standard and full fruit standard; what other categories of jam are made in this country by commercial manufacturers; and what is the actual percentage of fresh fruit in each case.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Edith Summerskill): The fruit content of each variety of jam is set out in Part II of the Schedule to the Food Standards (Preserves) Order of which I am sending each hon Member a copy The fruit may be fresh fruit (fresh fruit standard jam) or pulp (full fruit standard jam). There is no "special" fruit standard for jam; it applies only to certain types of marmalade. The only other permissible ingredients are pectin and, in some cases, colouring or preserving matter.
    Mr. Keeling: Is the hon. Lady aware that much British jam is pretty poor stuff and fully bears out her statement about pulp? Before the next jam-making season would she consider offering higher rates to school children for picking blackberries and other wild fruit, the vast bulk of which at present is wasted?
    Dr. Summerskill: I would remind the hon. Gentleman that pulp is fruit. As regards the other matter, we will certainly consider it.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: Can the hon. Lady state the proportion of turnip?
    Dr. Summerskill: There is no turnip in any of our jam.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: Is the hon. Lady aware that the Government jam made this year has not been by any means confined to fresh fruit?

    Corrected Circular
    Sir John Mellorasked the Minister of Food the number of amending notices, G. 1569A, issued to correct errors in G. 1569; and what was the approximate cost of printing and postage, respectively.
    Dr. Summerskill: Approximately 285,300 copies. The cost of printing was £54. I regret I cannot state the exact cost of postage; wherever possible the Circular was included with other matter which was being sent to the trader.
    Sir J. Mellor: Will the hon. Lady say what would have been the cost for postage at commercial rates?
    Dr. Summerskill: I will let the hon. Member know that.
    Sir J. Mellor: Would the hon. Lady agree that she has already given it in the form of a letter, and will she not give it to the House?
    Dr. Summerskill: Certainly. I had forgotten I had already given it to the hon. Member. I wonder, therefore, why he asked me the question, but I will remind him that the cost was £920.
    Major Poole: Does the hon. Lady know whether the hon. Member who asked this Question has ever made a mistake?

    Ministry Staff
    Sir J. Mellorasked the Minister of Food what number of persons he now employs; and the annual cost of their salaries.
    Dr. Summerskill: The total number of civil servants employed in my Department on 1st September, 1946, the latest date for which figures are available, was 46,886. The annual cost of their salaries is estimated to be £13,570,000 a year.

    Grain Allocation (Holland and Denmark)
    Sir J. Mellorasked the Minister of Food if he is aware that beer is being exported from Holland and Denmark; whether the British Government have agreed to the allocation by the International Emergency Food Council to Holland and Denmark of grain in excess of their domestic requirements; and whether he will propose the re-allocation of any surplus.
    Dr. Summerskill: Small quantities of beer are being exported from Holland and Denmark. I understand that Denmark's imports of cereals are almost balanced by her exports, and that although Holland has been receiving substantial imports, these have not exceeded her requirements
    890
    as ascertained by the I.E.F.C. Cereals Committee. In any case we estimate that she will only have needed some 300 tons of barley to brew the beer she exported in the first half of 1946.
    Sir J. Mellor: If anyone is going to make beer out of this grain, why should we not do it in Britain?
    Dr. Summerskill: We cannot dictate to Holland and Denmark what they shall do. They are sovereign countries.

    Broadcasting House
    Sir W. Smithersasked the Minister of Food whether the B.B.C. have a catering licence at Broadcasting House, Langham Place; how many visits his inspectors have made there; on what dates and with what results; and if he is satisfied that the rationing regulations are being complied with at this institution.
    Dr. Summerskill: The B.B.C. Broadcasting House, Langham Place, is licensed as a catering establishment. Inspections made in May, 1943, and July, 1946, showed the recording of meals and of purchases of foods to be excellent. My right hon. Friend is satisfied that rationing regulations are complied with.
    Sir W. Smithers: Is the hon. Lady aware that on my one visit there, so far as I could tell, the regulations were being flagrantly broken?
    Dr. Summerskill: If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the infringement of the Bread Order, I would remind him that that Order was made the day before he visited the B.B.C., and probably the B.B.C. were not then aware of the regulation.
    Mr. McGovern: Is it not a strange proceeding for Conservatives to want more snoopers?

    Bread Rationing (Flour Saving)
    Mr. Gammansasked the Minister of Food when he expects to be able to make a general statement on the savings effected by bread rationing; and if he will give an approximate date when bread rationing is likely to cease.
    Mr. Wyattasked the Minister of Food whether he is yet in a position to give the date of the termination of bread

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    rationing; or what facts still remain to be ascertained before such a decision can be made.
    Dr. Summerskill: My right hon. Friend gave particulars of the savings in flour offtake effected during the first 10 weeks of bread rationing in his reply of 9th October to Questions by the hon. Members for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) and Newport (Mr. Peter Freeman), of which I am sending the hon. Members a copy. Bread rationing will be abolished the moment the Government are satisfied that it is safe to do so.
    Mr. Gammans: In view of the fact that the figures which have been given by the Minister have been more than once challenged by the baking industry, does the hon. Lady not feel that a White Paper ought to be issued on this subject, giving further data than have been given to the House?
    Dr. Summerskill: It is for the hon. Member to choose between the bakers and the Minister.
    Mr. Keeling: Would the hon. Lady say whether the "saving in flour offtake" means the saving of flour, or something, quite different?
    Dr. Summerskill: It is the same.
    Mr. Keeling: Then why use such jargon?

    Dumped Herrings
    Air-Commodore Harveyasked the Minister of Food what steps have been taken to prevent the recurrence of dumping fresh herrings into the sea.
    Dr. Summerskill: Herrings dumped during the present season to date account for about 0.2 per cent. of landings, and were mostly of poor quality. My right hon. Friend has encouraged the consumption of herrings in this country by a reduction in price, by advertising, by a relaxation of restrictions on their use in catering establishments, by improved transport for distribution and by means of providing "Drikold" refrigerators in the railway waggons. These measures have not been without effect, for this season consumption in (he home market has gone up by 38 per cent. over 1945. In association with the fisheries Ministers and the Herring Industry Board,
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    arrangements have been made for the export of large quantities of cured and klondyked herrings; and, during the East-Anglian season a start will be made with turning surplus herrings into oil and meal.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: In the event of exceptionally heavy landings of catches this autumn, will the hon. Lady consider sending vessels direct to Hamburg, or other German ports, to land their herrings there?
    Dr. Summerskill: We have been doing that to a great extent this year.
    Mr. Henderson Stewart: Is the hon. Lady satisfied that her Department are doing all they can to help in the more scientific methods of processing herrings where they are landed?
    Dr. Summerskill: We are doing everything possible, but the hon. Member must realise that there is another Department concerned in this, namely, the Scottish Department.

    Sugar Rationing
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Minister of Food whether, in view of the increased supplies of sugar which are available in this country, he will consider increasing the sugar ration from half a pound per head per week to one pound.
    Mr. T. Reidasked the Minister of Food if there is now any prospect of abolishing sugar rationing in the near future.
    Dr. Summerskill: There is no prospect of my right hon. Friend being able to abolish sugar rationing in the near future, and I regret to say that supplies available to this country in 1946 do not permit of any increase in the domestic ration. Until the allocations for 1947 have been decided, it is not possible to say whether any improvement will be possible next year.
    Mr. De la Bère: Are the Government aware of the obvious truth that the lack of sugar and fats is responsible for the acute tiredness of many people throughout the country? Will the Government abandon their campaign of self-persuasion against the obvious truth?

    Tubercular Patients
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Minister of Food what action he proposes

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    to take in view of the resolution of the Kingston-upon-Thames Food Control Committee relating to extra allocation of rations for tubercular patients which was forwarded to him on 13th September.
    Dr. Summerskill: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to a similar Question put by the hon. and gallant Member for Dumfries (Major N. Macpherson) on 31st July, 1946, of which I will send him a copy.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In view of the fact that this recommendation has also been made by several food control committees, including that of Battersea, and in view of the fact that medical opinion nearly as eminent as that of the hon. Lady herself regards the food ration for tubercular persons as quite inadequate, will she appoint a committee which is independent of the Ministry to consider this?
    Dr. Summerskill: I am afraid that the hon. Member is under a misapprehension. He does not appreciate that the most eminent opinion in this country in the Medical Research Council has advised against this grant.

    Social Functions
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Minister of Food whether he is aware of the hardship caused to church and other charitable organisations by the refusal of his Department to permit the issue of food for the purpose of functions organised by these bodies; and whether he is prepared to take action to permit such issue in appropriate cases.
    Dr. Summerskill: My right hon. Friend would very much like to be helpful in this matter, but he regrets that he is not yet able to relax the restrictions on special issues of rationed foods for functions organised by churches and charitable organisations.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In view of the hardship caused, particularly to certain Nonconformist churches, by this ban, will the hon. Lady give the earliest possible priority to this matter?
    Dr. Summerskill: I should have thought that the churches, and charitable organisations, would be the first to recognise that available food should not be used for social functions.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the hon. lady aware, in me case to which I drew attention, that the objection to the issue of food was not that it was to be used by the churches, but that the Department said that they should employ professional caterers? In the circumstances, will she abate her enthusiasm for private profit?
    Dr. Summerskill: I should like the House to be clear on this question, in case it might be thought that my Department is being a little cruel and unjust. The only social gatherings for which we authorise special supplies of controlled food, are weddings and funerals, and entertainments organised by reputable bodies for the sick, wounded, disabled, aged, the poor, the blind, children and young people under 19 years of age.

    Milk
    Mr. George Wallaceasked the Minister of Food if he will now consider granting an extra allowance of milk to people over the age of 65.
    Dr. Summerskill: My right hon. Friend very much regrets that he cannot grant extra milk for elderly people at the present time. It could only be done at the expense of other sections of the community, and he would not be justified in reducing their allowances still further.
    Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Will the hon. Lady consider saving some of the immense waste which is going on with' school-children's milk, and allocate it to people who need it, such as old people?
    Dr. Summerskill: It the hon. and gallant Member will give details of such waste we will certainly make inquiries, but I would remind him that there are five million people who are over 65 years of age.
    Mr. Frank Byers: How much milk is being allocated for the manufacture of plastics?
    Dr. Summerskill: Not one pint.
    Mr. G. Wallaceasked the Minister of Food if he will make a statement on the milk position in the country; to what extent milk is being poured down drains by farmers because they are unable to dispose of it; and what percentage of the milk production of this country is being used in industrial manufacture.
    Dr. Summerskill: Production of milk in England and Wales during the week ending 5th October, the latest date for which figures are available, is estimated at 21.7 million gallons, and liquid sales at 21.05 million gallons. The surplus of 0.65 million gallons is being used mainly for the manufacture of baby food and cheese. It is quite untrue that any is used for industrial manufacture.
    Mr. Wallace: Is the hon. Lady aware that the implied statement in the second part of my Question has not been answered? Is she further aware that this statement was made at a public meeting in my division by the national chairman of the British Housewives' League?
    Dr. Summerskill: I thought that I had dealt with the question of milk being used for industrial purposes.
    Hon. Members: Milk "being poured down drains."
    Sir Henry Morris-Jonesasked the Minister of Food whether he will review the whole position of the present allocation of milk as between priority and non-priority consumers.
    Mr. Heathcoat Amoryasked the Minister of Food whether he is aware of the hardship imposed on elderly people and others who live alone arising from the present reduced supplies of milk; and whether he will arrange for a fairer distribution of existing supplies between priority and non-priority consumers.
    Dr. Summerskill: I have recently reviewed the allocation of milk as between priority and non-priority consumers, after consultation with the Standing Committee on Medical and Nutritional Problems. I hope it will not be necessary to reduce the supply to non-priority adults below two pints per week during the winter, and I shall increase it above that figure so soon as the output rises in the spring. I am not prepared to reduce the quantities supplied to mothers and children below the present amounts, which my medical advisers recommend as essential. I am sorry that I cannot make special arrangements in the case of the elderly and people living alone.
    Sir H. Morris-Jones: Is the hon. Lady aware that the present ration of two pints of milk is completely insufficient, especi-
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    ally for single people and those in humble circumstances?
    Dr. Summerskill: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have never pretended that the present figure is the maximum which we would like people to have.
    Sir H. Morris-Jones: In view of the unsatisfactory position in regard to milk distribution, I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment at the first opportunity.

    Potatoes (Reserves)
    Major Legge-Bourkeasked the Minister of Food why private potato merchants are not allowed to deal with stock reserves for their clients; and why these reserves have to be handled by merchants acting for his Department.
    Dr. Summerskill: There is nothing to prevent a potato merchant maintaining a stock reserve. In order to provide adequately against shortages between seasons, however, there must be a national reserve centrally controlled so that supplies can be sent where they are needed. Merchants are employed by my Department as agents for the purchase of the national reserve in order that full use may be made of trade facilities for this purpose.
    Major Legge-Bourke: If I bring a special case to the attention of the hon. Lady, will she look into it? What is happening is that the merchants who are supplying private individuals are not able to supply stock reserves.
    Dr. Summerskill: Yes, Sir.

    Tea Rationing
    Mr. Sidney Shephardasked the Minister of Food if he will now put an end to tea rationing.
    Dr. Summerskill: I have nothing to add to the reply given the, hon. Member to his similar Question on 17th July.
    Mr. Shephard: Is it not a fact that the stocks of tea in this country are greater than they were before the war? If that is so, is there any reason why tea rationing should be continued?
    Dr. Summerskill: I do not think that the hon. Member is quite sure of his facts. We are consuming tea today at 89 per cent. of our pre-wax consumption.
    Mr. David Eccles: Will the hon. Lady issue some statistics about world tea production and consumption? Many of us think that some of the markets where tea was consumed have been cut off. Is it not a fact that production is the same as before the war? If so, why cannot we have an abolition of tea rationing?
    Dr. Summerskill: I would not agree that production is the same as before the war. I would remind the hon. Member of conditions in the Far East, where they have not yet rehabilitated themselves, and that we used to get a good deal of tea from Japan.
    Mr. Eccles: Will the hon. Lady issue statistics about Indian tea, and other statistics, showing what the position really is?
    Dr. Summerskill: If the hon. Member likes to put down a Question for next week, I will give him a detailed answer.

    Low Grade Cattle (Slaughter)
    Mr. Alpassasked the Minister of Food if he is aware that a large amount of meat has been condemned at the Westerleigh abattoir; and if he will review the position with the object of disposing of poor quality beasts in a more satisfactory manner.
    Dr. Summerskill: Yes, Sir. My Department has made arrangements to slaughter low grade cattle at a few specialised abattoirs, of which Westerleigh is one. It is easier to safeguard the quality of the meat supplies distributed against the ration if the beasts which are apparently unsuitable for that purpose are slaughtered separately. The meat which is fit for human consumption from these low grade beasts is allocated for manufacturing purposes. Because the abattoir specialises in the slaughter of low grade cattle it is inevitable that the amount of meat condemned is high. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that this arrangement is in the public interest.

    Biscuits
    Mr. Wardasked the Minister of Food what steps he is taking to increase the supply of biscuits for private consumption.
    Dr. Summerskill: My right hon. Friend has found it possible to authorise a small but useful increase in sugar allocations to
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    manufacturers, and to allow them to use more flour on current licences to help the Christmas trade. He is also investigating the possibilities of importing biscuits to help in meeting the consumer demand. I am afraid it will not be possible to secure any large scale increase in home production until larger supplies of ingredients are forthcoming.
    Mr. Ward: Will the hon. Lady look into the proportion of biscuits allocated to Service canteens, as against the proportion allocated to shops, because I can assure her that supplies of biscuits for Service canteens are unlimited while the housewife has often to go without?
    Dr. Summerskill: We try to maintain a fair balance, but I will look into the matter.

    Bird Seed
    Mr. Oliver Pooleasked the Minister of Food when increased supplies of bird seed are likely to be available.
    Dr. Summerskill: My right hon. Friend would like to increase supplies of bird seed and hopes to do so, but there are certain difficulties to be overcome and he cannot yet say when he will be able to make increased supplies available.
    Mr. Poole: Is the hon. Lady aware that only a small increase is needed, and that that would make a great deal of difference to the ruling prices?
    Dr. Summerskill: We feel that this is a luxury and, moreover, we do not want to prejudice the transport of cereals in favour of bird seed.
    Sir Ronald Ross: Is the hon. Lady aware that the keeping of small birds is an alleviation in the lives of many people in humble circumstances, and that the present prices of bird seed are exorbitant?

    Food Offices, Scotland
    Major Guy Lloydasked the Minister of Food whether he is aware of the necessity for the establishment of sub food-offices in the Royal burgh of Renfrew, the burgh of Barrhead and in the populous centres of East Renfrewshire such as Newton Mearns and Giffnock; and what steps he proposes to take to meet this demand.
    Dr. Summerskill: I can only confirm, as stated in correspondence with the hon. and gallant Member, that my right hon.

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    Friend is not prepared to open sub-food offices at Renfrew, Barrhead and Newton Mearns. There is already such an office at Giffnock.

    Food Parcels (Europe)
    Mr. Stokesasked the Minister of Food at what date the dispatch of food parcels to starving people in Europe will be permitted; and whether he will give a broad outline of his scheme.
    Dr. Summerskill: My right hon. Friend is not yet able to state when he will be able to sanction the sending of food parcels abroad.
    Mr. Stokes: Is it not a fact that at the time bread rationing was introduced it was the intention of His Majesty's Government to allow such a scheme? In view of the great anxiety which is felt by many people in this country, who want voluntarily to abstain in order to send parcels, could my hon. Friend say that such a scheme will be permitted when bread rationing ceases?
    Dr. Summerskill: I could not make a promise of that kind. I asked the hon. Gentleman two months ago to put down this Question, and I must apologise for not having a satisfactory answer. Perhaps he will wait another two months.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Will the hon. Lady consider the case of people who have been separated from their families in Central Europe, particularly Germany, for many years, and who are trying to get their families to this country, or to get to see them? Will she enable those people to do something for their own families?
    Dr. Summerskill: It is difficult to draw the line; we either have to allow it or continue the present restriction.

    Lecture Hall, Enfield
    Mr. Ernest Daviesasked the Minister of Food when it is proposed to release the Lecture Hall, Chase Side, Enfield, which has been unoccupied and unused since October, 1945.
    Dr. Summerskill: These premises will be released immediately. I understand that the owners have agreed to the part-time use of the Church hall for school meals.
    Mr. Davies: As the release is now to take place, will my hon. Friend say why it could not have been done sooner, instead of leaving the premises empty for a year, and action being taken only after this Question was put down?
    Dr. Summerskill: I cannot agree with my hon. Friend. The premises were needed for school meals, and have been used for that purpose.
    Mr. Davies: Not since October last.

    Cereal Distribution
    Colonel Gomme-Duncanasked the Minister of Food if he is now in a position to give information regarding the distribution of cereals from the 1944–45 harvests by the Combined Food Board to the various countries concerned, together with estimates of the amounts available from their respective domestic production.
    Dr. Summerskill: Not yet. As and when the information becomes available my right hon. Friend will circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Would the hon. Lady give a reason for the delay? Surely the Combined Food Board was set up in the public interest, and should be able to give the information without any difficulty?
    Dr. Summerskill: We have not the full figures, but I will let the hon. and gallant Gentleman have them as soon as we get them.

    Wheat Imports
    Mr. Byersasked the Minister of Food the total quantity of wheat required to be imported in the next 12 months to satisfy the full requirements of the British human and animal consumption; and what efforts have been made to achieve this amount.
    Dr. Summerskill: The quantity of wheat and flour required to be imported into the United Kingdom during the crop year August, 1046, to July, 1947, to satisfy the full estimated requirements for human consumption is 206½ million bushels (5,531,000 tons) wheat equivalent. A substantial part of this quantity has been secured, and I am making every endeavour to obtain the balance with due regard to the needs of other wheat importing countries. No wheat is imported for animal feeding.
    Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: I assume that in arriving at that figure the hon. Lady has estimated the precise wheat harvest in this country. Can she say what that figure is?
    Dr. Smnmerskill: We have not exactly estimated it; this is a rough estimate.
    Mr. Byers: Is the hon. Lady making any effort at all to increase importation, in order to allow for an increase in the allocation of pig and poultry feeding-stuffs in this country?
    Dr. Summerskill: The total secured to date is made up as follows: Canada, 160 million bushels; Australia, 28 million; Argentine, 0.6 million; the United States, 14.4 million. I hope I have been able to satisfy the hon. Gentleman that we are trying.

    Catering Licences, Sheffield
    Major Peter Robertsasked the Minister of Food why he has hindered disabled ex-Servicemen, having cooking qualifications, from opening catering establishments in Sheffield by withholding licences through his Department's offices.
    Dr. Summerskill: I am not aware that any applicant in Sheffield, ex-Service or otherwise, has been finally refused a licence in circumstances where there was a public need for a proposed business. If the hon. and gallant Member will let me have details of any case he has in mind, I shall be glad to look into it.
    Major Roberts: Is the hon. Lady aware that I sent evidence of this kind to her Ministry a week ago?
    Dr. Summerskill: I would remind the hon. and gallant Gentleman that I said that no final decision had been made. If he is referring to Mr. Brown, he must tell him that his next step is to appeal.

    Flour Extraction Rate
    Mrs. Castleasked the Minister of Food if he will give an assurance that when wheat supplies improve he will lower the extraction of flour to 80 per cent. before abolishing bread rationing.
    Dr. Summerskill: My right hon. Friend cannot give the assurance asked for, but I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply on this matter given on 8th October to the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling), of which I am sending my hon. Friend a copy.
    Mrs. Castle: In view of the fact that bread rationing has not caused the hardship so gloomily prognosticated by the Opposition, and that poultry-keepers and fanners generally are urgently in need of foodstuffs, would the hon. Lady give consideration to this suggestion with a view first to bringing relief to where it is most needed?
    Dr. Summerskill: As the hon. Lady knows, we have recently reduced the extraction rate, and, of course, we shall consider this again when bread rationing is abolished.
    Mr. Walkden: Will the hon. Lady give an assurance to the House that the conditions which prevail in certain European countries, where they are able to enjoy a very white loaf indeed by comparison with ours, will be restored here without delay?

PERSIA (CHARGES AGAINST BRITISH OFFICIALS)
Mr. Bevin: I wish, with the permission of the House, to make the following statement regarding recent events in Persia affecting relations between His Majesty's Government and the Persian Government.
In connection with the recent arrest by the Persian authorities of tribal leaders in South Persia and the disturbances which have occurred in that area, the Persian Government, in the light of certain information which they had obtained, came to the conclusion that His Majesty's Consul-General at Ahwaz, Mr. Trott, had been implicated in a plan for a tribal rising. His Majesty's Government, after a full investigation of the matter, have assured the Persian Government that there is no justification whatever for the charges against Mr. Trott. The Persian Government have accepted His Majesty's Government's assurances with good will and the case, therefore, may be regarded as closed.
In this connection, and in answer to allegations which have been made in public statements and in certain organs of the Persian Press, His Majesty's Government wish to make it clear that British diplomatic and consular officers in Persia have categorical instructions not to interfere in the internal affairs of that country. His Majesty's Government have satisfied themselves that no British official

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in Persia has contravened or is contravening these instructions in any way, and that no British official has given subversive elements any reason to suppose that they could hope for British support. They have no hesitation in stating that all allegations and insinuations which have been made about the complicity of British officials in subversive activities against the Persian Government, are entirely without foundation.
His Majesty's Government hope to see a steady and constant improvement in their relations with the Persian Government. They reiterate their desire to see Persia strong, prosperous, and independent and free from foreign interference in her internal affairs.
His Majesty's Government have noted the way in which both the Soviet Press and Soviet broadcasts to Persia have given considerable prominence to the baseless allegations made against British officials in Persia. His Majesty's Government are taking steps to ensure that the true facts of the situation are brought to the knowledge of the Persian people.
Mr. Thomas Reid: Is my right hon. Friend quite certain that other Governments are not interfering in the internal affairs of Persia?

GOVERNMENT BORROWING (NEW PROPOSALS)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): With the permission of the House, I wish to announce an important
904
development in the Government's borrowing programme.
As the House is aware, £429 million of local loans stock have been outstanding for many years. The rate of interest on this stock is 3 per cent., which is more than can be justified by this Government's credit as it stands today. I have, therefore, decided to exercise the powers granted by Parliament 11 years ago to meet this contingency, and I give notice that local loans stock will be redeemed at par on the next interest date on 5th January, 1947.
At the same time, I propose to make a new Government issue of 2½ per cent. Treasury stock. This stock will not carry a final redemption date, but will be redeemable at the option of the Government on or at any time after 1st April, 1975. This new issue will be made at par: it will open on 28th October and will be available for a limited period to investors generally and to holders of local loans stock, who will be invited to reinvest their redemption money in this new security.
This is an event for which Parliament provided by legislation enacted in 1935. At that time, there was no practical possibility of action; but Parliament made due provision, in the belief that the time might come when these powers could be used. That belief has now been fulfilled through the steady advance of the national credit. A landmark has been reached. For the first time in the history of the National Debt, His Majesty's Government are able to issue, for cash, an irredeemable security yielding ½ per cent. at par.

COAL SITUATION
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn." [Mr. William Whiteley.]
3.36 p.m.
Captain Crookshank: Perhaps it is unusual for a Member of this House to be surprised at anything, but, quite frankly, I am surprised that the Minister of Fuel and Power has not thought fit to start this Debate with an explanatory statement. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition asked that an opportunity should be given in this remaining part of the Session, to look once again at the coal situation, and I thought that the Minister would be the first to welcome such an opportunity, and be grateful for a chance of explaining to us what is the position today. After all, we are in the same position as the Lord President of the Council who stated that he was worried about coal. We are also in the same position as the President of the Board of Trade who, a few days ago, said exactly the same thing. I imagine that both those right hon. Gentlemen, like ourselves, are completely confused by the speeches which the Minister of Fuel and Power has recently made. They were speeches which, whatever else may be said about them, certainly reached a world record in self-contradiction.
However, as the Minister has not seen fit to open the Debate, I shall proceed to put the usual questions. But, first, I should like to remind the House of what we, and the public, think must be the situation, judging from what the right hon. Gentleman has said. Three months ago, before we rose for the Summer Recess, on the 18th Allotted Supply Day, the Minister said
"that there may be some stoppages in industrial undertakings in the course of the winter."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th July, 1946; Vol. 426, c. 68.]
That, of course, was a great shock to all of us. We had anticipated that he would have to say something of the kind, owing to the general trend of production and consumption during earlier months. The Minister feared, in July, that there might be some stoppages. Fortunately, perhaps, for everybody concerned, during the month of August the Minister kept quiet, but by 13th September he was making a speech in which he said:
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"There is a danger that next winter industrial production will be seriously curtailed"—
from which one deduced that he was getting a little more worried, but by 26th September, only 13 days later, he was saying, in a rather airy way:
"What stands between us and success this winter? A matter of 5 million tons of coal. That is what all the fuss is about. Things are not as bad as some people think."
Therefore, hopes rose again, but dear me, by 8th October he was saying:
"We run a very grave risk of breakdown."
Probably the Minister remembers the effect of that speech. It caused considerable discouragement in industrial circles. The Stock Exchange, and those who follow these affairs, found some lack of confidence in the Minister; and share values dropped. Then, two days later, the Minister went to the Connaught Rooms, where he hoped to have dinner, but only managed, in spite of the fact that he was photographed in full evening dress, to eat, rather like Henry VIII in the film, some chicken in one hand and a biscuit in the other; he told a reporter, as it appeared in the "Daily Mail" the next day:
"I had intended, before I knew of the contretemps"—
a very pretty word to use about the lack of fuel—
"to make a really serious speech, the kind of speech that would have skyrocketed the Stock Exchange."
What did the Minister mean? He is a Cabinet Minister, and a responsible person in this country. Did he really mean that he was playing about, or wanted his friends to play about, on the Stock Exchange? If he makes one speech in which he says:
"We run a very grave risk of a breakdown";
and then says:
"I had intended to make a speech which would have skyrocketed the Stock Exchange,"
What are we to deduce from that? Is it perhaps that in point of fact—I wish I could think it were possible—he has some more consoling news to give us today, and that things are really better than we had feared from his previous speeches? I do not know why the Minister makes so many speeches. He is not paid by piecerates nowadays. He seems to have adopted the technique of comedians, who mix up pathos with comedy, and get results; but the Minister

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is not Tommy Handley or George Formby, he is a Member of the Cabinet, and as, so far, we have had no Press relations officer reporting that any jocularity was intended from the Minister, we can only take it that he is completely confused about what is happening in the industry for which he bears responsibility today. Is the situation still serious? Is there a risk of breakdown, and if so, what can be done about it? With what stocks are we beginning the winter? I must admit I am not quite certain when the winter does begin, because we seem to have had it most of the summer, but technically in the coal trade—at any rate, before the war—I think it used to be 1st October. Is that still so?
The Minister of Fuel and Power (Mr. Shinwell): 1st November.
Captain Crookshank: Then, perhaps, the Minister's chances are a little better. In July, the Minister estimated in the Debate that we would start the winter, not with 16 million tons in stock, which was considered the minimum requirement, but with 11 million tons in stock. The figures for the end of August, according to the Statistical Digest, show that on 31st August we had 9,300,000 tons in stock. Will he be able, in September and October, to change that 9,300,000 into 11 million? I should have thought the chances were somewhat remote, and to the extent that he fails to begin the winter with what he calls 5 million tons less than what is really necessary, we get some picture of the gap, and of the danger into which we are running, because let it be borne in mind that, when the Minister was saying in July, in this House, that there might be some stoppages in industrial undertakings in the course of the winter, he was saying that in the light of his statement that there might be 5 million tons missing. To the extent that, in September and October, he does not bring the stocks up to 11 millions tons, the risk is therefore the greater. Does the Minister think it is likely to happen that we shall have a considerable industrial breakdown? When the Minister said, as he did in September—
"There are only 5 million tons between success and failure. What is all this fuss about? Things are not as bad as some people think."—
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does he agree with the statement made by another distinguished person in the industry, Mr. Horner, with whom in my time at the Mines Department I had the most agreeable relations, and whose judgment in these matters is perfectly sound? Mr. Horner said to a coal production conference in Edinburgh, on 6th October:
"We are unable to give a firm guarantee that existing factories will continue to function through this coming winter. For each 5 million tons—
that is, the 5 million tons in regard to which the right hon. Gentleman says, "What is all the fuss about?"—
"of coal of which the industry might be short, there will be a consequential loss of employment to more than one million people."
Who is right of these two spokesmen for the industry? While Mr. Horner has not the responsibility and authority of the Minister of Fuel and Power, he is the secretary of a great union, he is a person of some consequence, and his words must be heeded. I hope, therefore, that on this issue, in such forecasts as the Minister can give us today he will be perfectly explicit. It was regrettably the case that the Minister did go to one of these conferences recently in London and call for a voluntary cut of 10 per cent. in fuel consumption. I dare say that people who read the statement casually merely thought he was talking about a domestic cut, but he was not, for he said:
"This saving of 10 per cent. which is needed in coal, gas, and electricity, must apply to all consumers, not only in industry, but also in the home."
Surely, a 10 per cent. cut in fuel for industry must lead to a tremendous dislocation and disruption of industrial production. Surely, a 10 per cent. cut in industry is something that is very large indeed, and if that is the position, it is all the more alarming. If one looks at specific industries, the future does not seem to be any too good.
Take, again, the end of August stocks, and consider the position in the electricity industry. It is all set out in this admirable "Monthly Digest of Statistics," so that I do not think anyone can contradict what I say. At that date, the electricity stocks were given at 1,800,000 tons, and the corresponding figure in the previous year was 3 million tons. As the Minister pointed out in the last Debate on this subject, and as we all know, electricity consumption

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has been going up all the time in this country. To be on anything like a comparable basis with 1945, instead of being 3 million tons at that time, they ought to have been considerably more, whereas they were less than two-thirds of 3 million tons. The Minister earlier, had some self-made trouble about the possibility of restrictions because the spokesman of the electricity industry warned the country that there might have to be some form of rationing. The Minister pinned on that word, and said it was quite out of the question, that there was a most villainous campaign, and that a lot of nonsense was being talked. That was merely because he was taking the narrow word "rationing" instead of the more general word "restriction." I do not suppose that whoever made that speech had in mind the technical difference between rationing, and restriction, or voluntary reduction in consumption, but he meant to imply somehow or other less would have to be consumed during this winter, if we were to get through.
Take iron and steel; their stocks were 440,000 tons instead of the 550,000 tons they had in the previous year. Take all other industries as a whole; at the end of August this year stocks were 2,500,000 tons instead of 3,500,000 tons in the previous year and—what is rather ominous from the point of view of all of us, as consumers and individuals—the Government dumps had stocks of 420,000 tons instead of just under 1,000,000 tons. I imagine that the dumps are the last cushion or the last reserve to which the housewife and householders generally look in time of difficulty. Over and above that, not only are the dumps and the stocks so much down—at least they were at the end of August although if the Minister can say that in September and October there has been such an increase of production that things have righted themselves, so much the better—but we have to remember the very awkward fact that quality also is down. Electricity undertakings have said publicly that they require 2,000,000 more tons to generate the same quantity of electricity because of the bad nature of the coal. We know also that the same applies in the case of the railways, the Great Western Railway, for example, today use 54 lbs. of coal per engine mile, whereas before the war they consumed 43 lbs. We are faced with this inferior quality and the demand for
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greater quantities just at the moment when production is getting less.
Yesterday in the Press we saw that the motor industry is worried over the fuel position. One firm, I believe, said that there might even be a 40 per cent. reduction in production next year. That, of course, is largely governed by the coal situation. This morning the newspapers—with what truth I cannot check but no doubt the right hon. Gentleman will tell the House—are reported to have only about one week's supply of coal in sight. That is in the Press and it is in order to give the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity to deal with these problems that my right hon. Friend asked for this Debate, and I think it is all the more unfortunate therefore that we had not had the authentic information before we discussed the matter. I am told that in Cardiff now, bunkers are only taken on ships sufficient to enable them to reach the first foreign port of call where they can buy coal. Is that true? It is not because we are exporting anything, because Lord Hyndley, in answer to protests, had to tell the National Union of Manufacturers that we were not exporting coal. That is, I suppose, the greatest tragedy industrially that this country could suffer. Among other things, the hand of the Foreign Secretary would be much strengthened in his international discussions, if he knew that something like a million tons of coal were being exported a week, as was the case as recently as 1937. And when one looks at all the smaller countries that used to rely upon us, the Scandinavian countries, the Low Countries, and even France who used to draw from us a great deal of coal in those days, it is deplorable, apart from the loss of foreign exchange, that the Chairman of the Coal Board has to say in public to the angry customers that we are not exporting any coal. I do not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman can give us today any consolation on that part of the picture, or that he will be able to say that we are going ahead very shortly with the export of coal.
What is the domestic situation? Are we safe there through the winter? In one of his September speeches the right hon. Gentleman said that although he knew that some were going short of coal, people today over the whole field of domestic consumption were getting more

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coal now than before the war. I must say that I was astounded at that statement because to the best of my recollection before the war, in 1938 when I had to do with these matters, the domestic consumption was about 46,000,000 tons. Last year it was only 32,000,000 tons. By what kind of machination 32 can be more than 46 I do not know, but, whatever the figure, is the right hon. Gentleman reasonably satisfied that in spite of his fears of industrial stoppages, there will be coal in all the households of the country through the winter months? I am sorry, but I warned him that there would be the usual questions and these are the usual questions, although they may be dressed up a little differently. Is he satisfied about the manpower position? If he has been confusing on the industrial issue, he has been absolutely confounding on the manpower problem. In the Debate in July he said:
"On this subject of manpower, I am bound to say that it is a very distressing story."
A little later in the same Debate he said:
"We must have more men at the coal face, and have them as soon as possible."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th July, 1946; Vol. 426. c. 63 and 66.]
That, we thought, was the situation, but in a speech on 26th September the right hon. Gentleman said:
"It is an entirely erroneous conception that more men are required."
Where are we, and what is more important, where are the men? At the railway tribunal's investigation, I understand the right hon. Gentleman's Department estimated that by 1948 the manpower in the industry would total 665,000. Today it is just a little under 700,000 so there is apparently a prospective gap within the next 18 months. How is that gap to be filled and how is the coal which would have been produced by these men to be made good? The right hon. Gentleman was a little vague in July with regard to the prospects of making use of any considerable number, or indeed of any at all, of the Poles in this country. I hope that in the meantime he has looked at this problem again. These Polish soldiers who are now here, deserve well of us. They have a most wonderful record. It is a very romantic story how, having been imprisoned in Russia for months, if not years, and then having almost circumnavigated the globe, they were retrained and re-equipped to become one of the
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spears of our advance all through Italy. Now, because for reasons of their own they are unwilling or unable to go back to their own country, they are here, and it seems incredible that out of these tens of thousands of men, there are not some or many who could be employed in this way.
They may not have been miners in the past, but the right hon. Gentleman has all sorts of training arrangements—or at least he has told us he has—and I do not see any reason why these could not be extended. And let the Minister remember that when there was a corresponding deficit in the French coalfields in 1919, a great number of Poles went to France to the great advantage of the French mining industry, and so far as I know, they or their sons are still there. Is there a possibility that these men will be employed? I do hope that that step is being favourably considered by His Majesty's Government. After all, when we have been discussing manpower the right hon. Gentleman has had some advantages in that there have been remarkably few industrial stoppages. Yet production is not good with the existing manpower. As I understand it, one of the things the Minister had in mind was to upgrade as far as possible at the coal face. How is that proceeding, and are the incentives, monetary or otherwise, sufficient to bring forward the required number of men? What is happening about the question of more meat? The question was raised whether miners should not be given more meat and I believe a favourable decision has been taken, but I think this decision might have been taken a bit sooner, in view of the lamentable drop in production.
What is happening about the five-day week? When the right hon. Gentleman spoke in July, he said that the matter was being discussed. That is now three months ago. Have the Government come to any other conclusion? Do they think that if there was a five-day week there would be greater production? If so, and if that is their reasoned decision, why. do they not set about putting it into force? Are they delaying for purely political window-dressing reasons? Are they hoping to make it come into force under nationalisation itself, on the vesting date?-Are they "playing politics," in other words? That is the sort of question to which we would like to know the answer.

913
Has the right hon. Gentleman any ideas or views about how to get output back to what it was in the not so very dim past? According to his own Statistical Digest—which we are very glad to have, however belated, for 1945—in the two quarters of this year the output per man shift was 1.02 tons. Yet, in the years immediately before the war, in 1938–39, the output was 1.14. Has he any hope of getting the output back to that figure? If it did get back there, most of our problems, excepting the export trade, our internal problems, about coal would be settled. What has the right hon. Gentleman to tell us about absenteeism?
I do not want to delay the House upon a subject which we have discussed so often, but I want to call attention to one rather striking figure. On page 26 of his Digest, we see that during 1945 and the two first quarters of this year there was a drop in absenteeism over all. In the second quarter of 1946, absenteeism was 15 per cent. That is a high figure, but it was lower than it had been. What is striking in this column is that, for the first time, voluntary absenteeism is higher in percentage than involuntary. That has never happened before till the second quarter of this year. What is the explanation of that? We all know the definition of absenteeism, because it is written here:
"Voluntary absenteeism means absence for which no satisfactory reason is given."
We take no account in this figure of
"recognised holidays, disputes, accidents, transport difficulties, etc."
"Etc." may cover a lot of things, too. Would the right hon. Gentleman like to give us any view of what has happened? It seems very remarkable that, for the first time, voluntary absenteeism has gone above all the absenteeism which is due to accidents, sickness, transport difficulties, and all the rest of it. I hope the right hon. Gentleman can say something about that matter.
I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will expect this question, so I might as well put it: What, if any, progress has been made with regard to the major recommendations of the Reid Committee's Report? More particularly, what has happened about the comprehensive survey which my right hon. and gallant Friend the former Minister put in hand before he left office? Are all those great problems, in the pigeon-hole waiting for
914
the National Coal Board to take over? I hope not. I assume not, from what the right hon. Gentleman used to tell us when we were discussing his Coal Nationalisation Bill in Committee. Our general impression was that everything would go forward full speed ahead, in spite of the fact that those great structural changes were to take place. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can tell us something about that matter.
If we are in a parlous position, and if there is grave risk of breakdown—to use the right hon. Gentleman's phrase—while I know that they would not necessarily make very much difference in the tonnage, there are things which could have been done and which would very clearly have brought home the difficulties psychologically to the public. Did the Government ever consider postponing the end of Summer Time? I am glad they did not do so because I am an agricultural Member. Why, among the many Orders one gets, are we given Nos. 1645 and 1646, which this year allow central heating to begin on 13th October instead of 31st October? Things may be bad, but that kind of thing makes people think that they cannot be so serious after all. How much, if anything, are the Government doing to try to bring the situation home to the people most concerned? I have another interesting document, received no doubt by hon. Members as I got it, from the Government, printed and issued by them. It states:
"Extra effort now means better living sooner."
We hope so. The headings are:
"The Start from Behind Scratch. The efforts of the past. Two tasks of the future."
I looked eagerly to see what sort of appeal was going to be made about coal. This is all I found:
"Lastly"—
It comes last, if you please, instead of first—
"it"—
that is the Government—
"calls for a special response from the great mining industry, the source of industrial power."
How frightfully platitudinous.
"Coal production in 1945 was 182 million tons, compared with 226 millions in 1938."
I am sorry they did not put down what I may call one of my other years, 1937, when it was 240 million tons.

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That would have made it even more clear. The document goes on:
"Unless output rises, there is real danger that coal shortage may act as a brake on reconversion "
There does not seem much sense of crisis and urgency about that tepid sentiment. If it is necessary—and I hope we shall learn from the exposition which the right hon. Gentleman is to give us, and for which we are all waiting with such eagerness, that it will not be necessary—I trust that steps will be taken to drive home to the country the difficulties in which we appear to be standing. I hope that the Government will do all they can to bring the seriousness home to all concerned. Of course, the way in which influence can best be exercised is in trying to find ways and means by which the miner can produce more. After all, there has been a great increase in mechanisation and there have been many aids and changes. The right hon. Gentleman boasts about it from time to time, and so much the better, but I am afraid that the trouble goes deeper than that.
I am afraid that all the forecasts that we made and all the comments which came from my hon. and right hon. Friends on this side of the House were right. The Government have spent 1946 playing politics in the mining industry. We told the right hon. Gentleman time and time again that instead of spending his own time, his officials' time, the time of the leaders of industry and of Members of Parliament, discussing the changes which his party wished to see brought about in the structure of the industry through nationalisation, they should devote the earlier years in which they were in power to getting the industry right and looking after the problems of reconversion. They must have known that in the great export drive we should need the maximum fuel production. Instead, they have, in point of fact, by all their actions, been doing the very opposite. Many people in the industry and in the Department must obviously be spending all their time thinking out the programme of structural change, how nationalisation is to work, and setting up the board and its organisation, instead of devoting their full time to the fundamental question of getting more coal now.
As a final point—if I may be allowed one more—I would express the hope that
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the Minister may give us some views of the Government's intention about the vesting date under the Act. I know that contrary views are expressed. Some people tell me that an early date would be very desirable because everybody is uncertain and does not know where things are. Other people tell me that a later date will be better because there is so much work to be done before it can happen. There is condemnation of the Minister because, after all, he let the cat out of the bag when he said they were going in for nationalisation without having made any plan to carry it out. To the extent that that is true, obviously, they want more and more months to make the plan. But it would be a good thing if the right hon. Gentleman could say, one way or the other, if not today, very soon, what are the Government's intentions.
I do not know, in all this welter of contradictory expressions of opinion, exactly what we are to make of the present situation, but certainly, statistically it looks as if we are in a bad way. Mr. Horner, speaking in Birmingham, and reported in "The Times" of 23rd September, said:
"The nation was heading for bankruptcy. Without a solution of the coal problem the whole structure of British economy must fall. That was the responsibility which rested on the mining community."
If Mr. Horner was right, if it rests on the mining community, it rests in a sense in which it has never rested before on the shoulders of the Minister himself, because he has got responsibilities now. He has not taken them all over, because the vesting date has not come, but they are very near, and he is, therefore, the spokesman of the mining industry, and the mining community—the word Mr. Horner used—in a sense in which none of his predecessors have been its spokesman. Let us hope that he can give us some words of consolation, because, if not, I am afraid that he will go down in history as the Minister without fuel, and without power.
4.12 p.m.
The Minister of Fuel and Power (Mr. Shinwell): The right hon. and gallant Gentleman began with a complaint about the procedure associated with this Debate. In his view the Government should have made a statement on the coal position which, no doubt, the Opposition would have devoured in due course. But on

917
24th July, on the occasion of the Debate in Supply, I requested the Opposition to allow me to give an account of my stewardship at the Ministry of Fuel and Power on which, as I assumed, the House could raise a Debate and express an opinion, but the Opposition then declined to allow me to begin the Debate. They insisted that they must begin; of course, we concurred, and now the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, who was associated with the demand that the Opposition should begin operations on the last occasion, suggests that we should have-assumed that role in this Debate.
For several weeks and months, in contrast to the right hon. Gentleman's speech. which I must say was temperate and reasonable in tone, and about which I make no complaint, the Tory Press in the most scurrilous and, indeed, disgusting fashion, which is on the whole customary and which should not have surprised us, has attacked the Ministry of Fuel and Power and the whole range of Government policy. [Interruption.] If any evidence is required, consult those organs of unimpeachable veracity. Naturally we assumed that some day there would emerge a demand from the Opposition for a Debate—[HON. MEMBERS: "For coal"]— and that, consistent with the expressions of opinion that were common to the Tory Press, they would have stated their case. That is what we would have expected and that is exactly what has happened, except, as I say, that the case, as put today, is not scurrilous in character but is temperate, moderate and, apart from inaccuracies, very reasonable indeed.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has asked many questions, and he has a right to ask questions. What is an Opposition for, anyway? And Heaven knows this Opposition has not too many luxuries. Even after its sojourn at Blackpool, it is entitled to ask questions, but, be it noted, there will be answers, and these answers in the nature of the case may take up a little of the time of the House. I take it that hon. Members in all quarters of the House are seriously concerned about the coal position, that is to say, they are all anxious to assist the Government in procuring more coal. Or are hon. Members on the Opposition Benches more concerned about lambasting the Government, for, after all, if we should secure all the coal we need, then there will be no case for the Opposition at all? That
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would be fatal to their interests, and I sometimes wonder whether the Opposition are as anxious that the Government should secure the coal as they pretend to be. At any rate, there will be answers to the questions which have been put.
What is the case against me, as Minister? It amounts to this—that there have been contradictions in the speeches I have made in the last eight or nine months, that there has been no consistency in my utterances, as a result of which the Opposition have been confused and bewildered—as if it required my speeches to do that. Let us consider the evidence. The evidence is all to be found precisely where one would expect it to be—in the speeches themselves, not in the snippets, the excerpts that have appeared recently in the Tory Press, divorced in almost every case from the context. It is an old trick with which we are quite familiar. We have even tried it ourselves and we are under no illusion about it. But let us glance at some of these utterances, not because it matters personally, for, after all, personal considerations are of no consequence at all, but because it has a bearing on the whole situation. "The Times"—a very reputable, respectable paper indeed—has itself engaged in this controversy. In a series of ponderous leading articles, it has occasionally assailed the Minister of Fuel and Power. In a leader on nth October—only the other day—it said:
"On Tuesday Mr. Shin well made for the first time"—
note "for the first time"—
"a serious and specific appeal to the public to reduce fuel consumption during the months ahead by at least a tenth."
It goes on in the same strain, indicating that the action I took was belated, that I appeared to be unaware of the true state of affairs. Yet, strangely enough, on nth February of this year, many months before, there appeared a leading article in the same paper in reference to "Mr. Shinwell's Appeal" in which these words appear:
"The complaint cannot indeed be made against Mr. Shinwell, as it has been made against Sir Ben Smith, that he has given them inadequate warning of the impending crisis. He has been vehement in exhortation to the mining industry for many months past."
Make your choice. But that is not all: the same applies to leading newspapers, like the "Daily Telegraph," the "York-

919
shire Post" and many others. Why is it that these newspapers have occasionally directed attention to what is a fact, namely, that I have regarded the coal situation as very grave indeed? It is because throughout all the speeches I have made, wherever I happened to be, since I became Minister of Fuel and Power, there has been a constant theme running through them all. namely, that as a result of steady deterioration in the coalmining industry, the decline in the manpower position, and above all, rising consumption of all forms of fuel, the position was very grave. I have made that statement over and over again. I have made it, as the evidence will reveal, at miners' conferences, speaking to my friends the miners in the most forthright fashion. I have made the same statement to the persons associated with the electricity supply industry, and I have made the same statement in the House on more than one occasion. Never, at any time, have we at the Ministry of Fuel and Power endeavoured to conceal from the public or the House the facts of the situation. There has been no inconsistency whatever.
Of course, it is perfectly true—and I make the ready and frank admission—that when one is speaking to a miners' meeting in an area where the men have, by their efforts, produced more coal than before, one speaks in an encouraging fashion. I have had to address letters to various coal districts when they have achieved their target figure, and the substance of those letters has appeared in the newspapers, and the leading articles of the newspapers convey the impression that the Minister of Fuel and Power is satisfied with the situation. On the contrary, every time I have suggested an encouraging view and an appreciation of the efforts of the miners, I have, at the same time, indicated that the position was far from satisfactory and that we wanted a greater effort still.
I will not occupy the time of hon. Members further by dilating on these personal matters. It is customary for the Opposition to oppose and criticise and it is usual for the Government to defend themselves, but on this occasion I propose to do a little more than to defend the position of the Government. We must put this mining problem in its proper perspective, and I begin with what is undoubtedly the most vital issue of all. The right hon. Gentle-
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man, quite properly, addressed himself to that aspect of the problem—I refer to the manpower position. You cannot produce coal, it is obvious, unless you have the requisite amount of manpower. Consider the position in which I found myself when I arrived at the Ministry of Fuel and Power. In 1940, as a result of the French collapse, thousands of British miners were disemployed. I am making no complaint against the Coalition Government. Of those who at the time happened to be at the Department of Mines, as it was called—the Ministry of Fuel and Power as it subsequently became—I make no complaint at all. They were faced with unpleasant facts and they took a certain course of action, but that divested the mining industry of some of its youngest, most lusty and vigorous miners. Hon. Members who were in the last Parliament will recall how often attention was directed to the state of the manpower position. My hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Grenfell) was obsessed with this problem, and frequently, speaking from this Box, demanded that more manpower should be provided to enable him to provide the coal.
What happened? As a result of pressure exerted by the House, and because of the facts of the situation, the Coalition Government decided to liberate a number of men from the Forces, in all about 60,000. However, the position became so serious that in 1943, 43,000 Bevin boys were introduced into the industry. If I may say so—and here again I make no complaints but we have to face facts—the introduction of Bevin boys untrained, frustrated from the beginning, discontented, capable of causing serious trouble in the pits, was perhaps the most serious aspect of the deterioration to which I am referring. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has spoken about absenteeism. Are hon. Members aware of this fact: that the absenteeism among Bevin boys has been more than twice as high as the absenteeism among regular miners? Some time ago I made a speech in connection with the Bevin boys' position, and said how glad I would be to release them. Even now, it is not possible to release them all. I am bound to say in parenthesis—although it is exceedingly important—that many of the Bevin boys have done exceptionally well and they will remain in the industry. Some of them are training as mining engineers, and more

921
power to their elbows. Surely we shall not always rely upon boys from mining villages.
However, the position has been so bad that we are now engaged in the process of shaking out the undesirable elements, and I beg hon. Members to note this. In the last five weeks we have lost nearly 5,000 men from the coalmining industry. Many of them have been dismissed because of the modification of the Essential Work Order, as incorrigibles, that is to say, regular absentees. One would suppose with this declining manpower, due to the shake-out of these undesirable elements, that production was declining. On the contrary, in those five weeks, although the manpower was less, production increased. I will give the House some figures which are conclusive in this regard. In the week ended 14th September, the output was 3,440,000 tons; in the week ended 21st September it was 3,538,000 tons; in the week ended 28th September, 3,631,000 tons; in the week ended 5th October, 3,657,000 tons, and in the week ended 12th October, with actually 5,000 fewer men than for the comparable week of 1945, 3,687,000 tons. Some 100,000 tons more than last year were produced. The output per man shift has gone up, absenteeism has declined.
My critics can make the most of this, because it is an apparent inconsistency, the kind of inconsistency of which I have been constantly accused. While I appreciate the improvement in those figures, I say at the same time that I am far from satisfied. All along—hon. Members are aware of this—I have demanded another 100,000 tons a week at the very least. Not that 100,000 tons more weekly would enable us to revive exports, not that it would give the domestic consumer all the coal we are anxious to give the domestic consumer, not that it would make us completely secure, but that it would enable us to face the winter with a real prospect of survival, and without any dislocation of our industry. I have been supported in this—there has been no lack of cooperation—by the National Union of Mineworkers, who have spoken in precisely the same terms. It might be argued, and I can understand this as quite reasonable in the circumstances, that if this is the best we can do, it is a very serious matter, because it means a shortage of stocks, and a serious
922
situation for the electricity and gas companies, and for industry.
Here I come to the bones of the question. However anxious we are to promote the export trade—and we are certainly anxious to give the domestic consumer more coal because they have gone long enough without their full quantity—the last thing we want to do is to impose any restrictions of any sort or kind on electricity and gas consumers. We want these amenities; we want more of them. But if this is to be achieved, it is not merely a question of manpower. It is much more a question of reorganisation in the pits. Whether we like it or not, that is a long term problem. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman referred to what the right hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd-George), my predecessor at the Ministry of Fuel, had done in the preparation of some reorganisation schemes. Whether we accept those reorganisation schemes or the schemes propounded by Sir Charles Reid, and now under review by the National Coal Board, they cannot be applied at once. At the same time, we are proceeding with a substantial measure of mechanisation, and this has a bearing on the subject of manpower.
The other night I attended a function at Nottingham, about which there has been quite a fuss. What was the nature of the function? We had gone there to celebrate the production of the millionth ton of coal by the Meco-Moore machine, the most modern piece of machinery in the mining industry, and a British machine, be it noted, probably the best in the world. Those machines are coming along at the rate of about three a month. That is very small, and we would like to step up the production. What is the position about these machines, and the effect on output? Where the Meco-Moore machine is in operation output has gone up to 13 tons per manshift, as against an average of six tons per manshift. It has doubled the output and it can do better still. It has yet to be utilised in the thin seams of which there are far too many in this country. I am informed on the highest authority that before long, a machine will be produced capable of tackling the thin seams, and we shall get a much higher output. The sooner these machines come along, the better it will be. It is not merely a question of manpower. Sometimes there is

923
not pit room. Sometimes we try to up-grade men from the surface and haulage to the coalface, and there is not room for them. Sometimes there is, but very often there is not. It is a question of machinery plus better haulage arrangements. Are hon. Members aware that in some of the most modern pits men are walking three miles to work, and three miles back again underground? Consider the waste of time, the coal lost, and consider the effect on output, and the effect on the health of the men.
All these problems have to be resolved, and it takes time to resolve them. I could spend a great deal of time castigating those who were responsible for this neglect. But what is the use? We have to address ourselves to the future. That is what we are doing. The right hon. Gentleman asked me what was being done in regard to reorganisation. I can tell him that Sir Charles Reid and Mr. Eric Young, two of the highest experts in the country, are busily engaged with technicians considering the layout of pits. I have ventured to suggest to them—in a friendly way, not directing them as that is not my function—that we have to consider not only the long term problem, but the short term problem, because if we do not solve the short term problem, we may never have an opportunity of solving the long term problem. But we are not relying entirely on the deep mine coal position.
We believe that the output will increase; the trend is in the right direction, and we are making up to some extent the weekly wastage, although not as rapidly as we would like. One of the reasons is that the mining industry is not an attractive industry. Boys are not rushing to join the mines. We have had a high powered propaganda campaign for some time, a lot of money has been spent, and a great deal of work done, to induce boys to come in. A great many are coming in, but not as many as we would like. We have been attracting men from other industries, and as we attract them there is a manpower shortage in those industries. Our efforts are being related with the efforts of other Government Departments. We have tried to enlist Irish labour, and have had some considerable success, but the amount of untrained, green labour that can be absorbed into
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the mining industry is, to some extent, contingent upon training facilities and hostel accommodation. These matters are being dealt with as rapidly as possible. Nothing is being overlooked.
On the subject of manpower, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman asked about the Poles. I can assure hon. Members that the question of Polish labour in the mines has been under review for many months, I will not seek to deny it. Unfortunately, as it appears to me, the National Union of Mineworkers are not willing to have the Poles in the pits. I will not go so far as to say that the matter is finalised, but up to now, we have not succeeded in convincing the National Union of Mineworkers that the small body of Poles who are now available, and who are mineworkers, should be absorbed. Hon. Members opposite may say, "Why not force them, why not put them in the pits?" There is one achievement to the credit of the Government in connection with the coal problem. It is that there has been no serious industrial disturbance since the Election. The amount of coal that has been lost through disputes is infinitesimal. Where unofficial disputes have occurred, I have taken drastic action, for which I have been censured. I have closed down pits and said frankly that I would stand no nonsense, and I have acted in cooperation with the National Union of Mineworkers. There must be discipline, there must be the acceptance of leadership, otherwise the whole industry would go into chaos.
Therefore, when I was faced with a problem of whether I should force into the pits 200 trained Polish miners, who were all that were available, or defer, at any rate for the time being, to the views of the National Union of Mineworkers, what would hon. Members expect me to do? Take the risk of a dispute, by splitting the mineworkers from stem to stern? I will do nothing of the sort. We might have been able to find another 1,000 or so more Poles who could have been trained, but it does not seem that this can be done. Might I correct an impression which seems to have gained considerable ground in the country? Newspapers have been talking and writing about Polish labour in the mines as if every Pole were a miner. They talk about 40,000 or 50,000 Poles. The percentage of miners in Poland was always

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low. There is not a big mining industry there in proportion to the population—nothing like ours. As it happens, after the closest possible analysis and investigation, I have discovered that there are not a great many of these Poles.
At the same time I would be glad to have more labour. On the question of whether I have been inconsistent in saying that 700,000 men in the industry would be adequate, in view of what I had previously said about our needs in respect of labour, I have only this to say: Give me 700,000 miners with an effective employment—not 700,000, because there are always some absenteeism, some compensation cases, and difficulties, that lead to men remaining away from work, but an effective employment of round about 660,000 men, who will attend their work regularly—and with, not complete reorganisation but some measure of reorganisation, we will produce all the coal the country needs. If hon. Members doubt my views on this subject—I have long held those views—I direct their attention to what has been said by Mr. Joseph Hall, the President of the Yorkshire area of the National Union of Mineworkers. Hon. Members may be interested to know Mr. Hall's views on this subject. He said, only the other day—a report appeared in the "Sheffield Telegraph," of 7th October—
"he had always contended that there was sufficient manpower in the industry. The Minister had said 700,000 men were required, but he contended that 550,000 could give this country all the coal it needed."
He was thinking, of course, in terms of mechanisation. Mr. Horner has expressed the opinion that a minimum of 700,000 men would be sufficient for our purpose. What I want to do is to repair the weekly wastage, a most difficult problem. We have to make the industry more attractive. That is why we talk about statutory holidays with pay. That is why we talk about a five-day week, which will come into operation before very long; the conditions are now being negotiated between the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers. That is why we talk about incentives. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman spoke about incentives. When there is an unattractive and an unpleasant industry, which men dislike, when even at the best it is not a congenial industry in which to work, it has to be made more attractive. We have
926
done everything possible in that direction.
May I say this about the miners? One cannot generalise about them. Much of this industry is incalculable. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) knew something about it when he was at the Ministry. So did the right hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd George). It changes from day to day.
Like the seams in the pits, it varies, and one runs up against faults time and again. But I do say that 80 per cent. of the men in the mining industry have done a really good job. There is a minority who have not been doing so well, but I detect an improvement. We have waited for it for many months. I have talked about it and hoped for it. I thought we had it in May last. I direct attention to another apparent inconsistency. Last winter, we were in the throes of trouble just as now. I was hoping for the best. All the facts and figures were against me, but I said that we would get through the winter. I am not saying that it was easy for consumers, but we got through with a minimum of disturbance. I have here the actual facts and figures about stoppages of industry. In the month of May a remarkable thing happened. The weekly average for the five weeks in May was 3,700,000 tons, the highest for a considerable time and in a period of declining manpower. I thought that at last the trend was in the right direction. Then came June, July, August and nearly the whole of September, and I hope my miner friends will excuse the term, an orgy of holidays. The miners—and who are more entitled to holidays?—have had better and longer holidays than they have ever had previously; they have had more money and enjoyed themselves. Now they are coming back to work, and I can see that the trend is again in the upward direction.
It is not enough. We have to get open cast coal. We are working as hard as we can to step up its production. We have been hampered by lack of machinery. Many of the machines came from America. Many were no use, there were no spare parts, they broke down frequently. All sorts of difficulties and handicaps have been encountered, but we have recently been getting about 200,000 tons a week.

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Open cast coal, apart from that on the perimeter of the sites, is coal of the best quality. We want more of it. It may be that we shall require to continue with open cast operations in order to supplement the production of deep mine coal so that we might assist in the slow revival of our export trade. That is the idea.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman asked several questions and shortly I will endeavour to give him replies. He asked me about evening dress. [HON. MEMBERS: "And the chicken."] I was not aware that the Tory Opposition had a monopoly of evening dress. They have had a monopoly of so many things in the past that they think they are always going to hold on to them. They had a monopoly of the Union Jack. The day of Tory monopoly has passed—even extending to the subject of evening dress and chicken, if indeed it was chicken, and I have my doubts. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman talked about the effect of my speech on the Stock Exchange. If the Stock Exchange is such a tender plant that it can be disturbed by an utterance of the Minister of Fuel and Power then the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is not entitled to say, as he did at the end of his speech, that I have no power. I have remarkable power even if I have very little fuel. I understand, however, that the Stock Exchange has revived. Of course, I know the right hon. and gallant Gentleman too well. He was not serious when he suggested that I was anxious to effect fluctuations on the Stock Exchange for personal reasons. He did not mean that, I know.
Captain Crookshank: Of course not.
Mr. Shinwell: He did not mean it any more than I would suggest he would be guilty of a misdemeanour of that kind. These things we do not do in whatever party we reside. Otherwise, we ought not to be in this House. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman asked me, quite properly, what are our stocks for the winter. I am not happy about them any more than he is, but they are better than we thought they would be. It will be remembered that I produced a Budget in July. There was some confusion about the figures, but on analysis we find the figures were quite sound. The position remains pretty much as it was except for
928
two factors, one of which is disturbing and the other encouraging.
I will be frank with the House. The disturbing factor is that our estimate of the savings to be effected by converting boiler plant from coal to oil is somewhat out. We expected to save round about 3,000,000 tons. There is ample fuel oil and there is no difficulty about purchase. The rebates have been effected and that is all in train. Nevertheless, we have our difficulties about plant. The railways have had difficulty about tanks and the like, and it looks now as though we will not do any better. I hope we shall do better but it appears that we shall not do any better than effect a saving in the coal year, ending in April, of 1,000,000 tons. However, the saving is progressive in character and we shall accelerate the rate of progress in the summer months. That is the discouraging factor. The encouraging factor is that our estimate of output was too low. We expect to get 2,000,000 tons more, so these factors are balanced. The stock position, the position of all stock, is this. It was 9,300,000 at the end of August. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman doubted whether it would come up to 11,000,000. In September it was 10,320,000, and we expect that at the end of this month it will be 11,000,000. I will admit that it is 3,000,000 short of what it was last year and, in fact, 5,000,000 short of what I wanted it to be at the end of October when I spoke about 16,000,000 tons stock. That was perhaps an extravagant figure I doubted whether that was possible.
Mr. Jennings: If the Minister does not get this 3,000,000 tons, will that put industry out of balance?
Mr. Shinwell: As the hon. Member will understand, I am bound to say something on the topic before I sit down. That is the position. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman asked me about the state of electricity stocks. They are very bad. I should like them to have been five weeks at this time. They are running into four weeks. What we are aiming at is a cushion at the end of the year of an amount, which need not be stated because it is merely an assumption, which will carry the electricity companies through the rest of the winter period; but whether we can do that or not I am not certain. We have met the Central Electricity Board

929
and the Electricity Commissioners and taken soundings on this matter. Consumption is excessive, far in excess of last year and far in excess of what it was before the war. We have considered whether it would be possible to adopt a restriction scheme. A rationing scheme is out of the question and quite impracticable, but the matter has not been finally settled. I spoke of a 10 per cent. cut and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman expressed the view that it was a little bewildering as to what was meant. I will tell him. Of course, if there was a 10 per cent. voluntary cut on the part of all consumers, it would mean a difference of about 17,000,000 tons of coal, and that is not intended. Many consumers have economised to the limit and we expect no more from them. Many industrial consumers have adopted fuel efficiency methods and effected a considerable coal saving. We expect no more from them. But if the remainder of the industrial concerns and domestic consumers economised or promoted fuel efficiency methods, as the case may be, to the same extent that others have done, we should save sufficient coal to enable us to get through the winter without any disturbance whatever.
Broadly, therefore, the problem amounts to this. We shall have a gap, as I said in July, of about 5,000,000 tons. It may be less than that. Some of my advisers think that it will be 3,500,000 tons, but I prefer to say 5,000,000 tons. How can we meet it? We can meet it (1) by increased output, and we are doing our best in that direction; or (2) by asking consumers to economise. If we find in the course of the next month or so that our appeal for the promotion of further fuel efficiency methods and economies has not resulted in further saving, we may have to come and tell the House of further more drastic steps, for the one thing we must avoid at all costs—and this is our full intention—is any dislocation of our industrial activities in the coming months. I believe that additional savings can be effected. The recent fuel efficiency conference in London, which was the greatest conference of its kind yet held, proved conclusively that much can be done in that direction. I will not enter into that subject this evening.
On the question of iron and steel, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was a little inaccurate. The position about iron and steel is that on 28th September there
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was stock for 2.4 weeks as compared with 2.2 weeks last year; but I am advised that iron and steel never stock on a higher level than about two weeks. The position is not quite so bad as it seems, yet, at the same time, we should like to see—and I beg hon. Members to understand this, in spite of what I said—iron and steel, engineering, general industry and the merchant yards more fully stocked than they are.
Captain Crookshank: I accept what the right hon. Gentleman says, but I hope he will not charge me with inaccuracy, because the figures I gave were quoted from the Statistical Digest.
Mr. Shinwell: If anything is wrong, I will communicate with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, but I am advised that that is the position. I have endeavoured to put the case plainly. There have been no inconsistencies. We have drawn attention to the gravity of the situation. We have warned the mineworkers when necessary, and we have encouraged them when we felt it was right so to do. We shall escape from this problem, not in the next few months, though we shall do our best to mitigate the harsh details, but we shall escape from this mining problem for the first time—because it is no new problem but one which has faced this country for many years—when we have, as a result of nationalisation and the establishment of the National Coal Board with its technical staff, secured full co-operation between mineworkers and management in the organisation of the mining industry. What I have said is pretty much what I said on the first occasion, though perhaps it is a little more emphasised. I hope that, now I have explained these matters, hon. Members will feel convinced that, even if the position is still grave, at any rate, nothing has been overlooked by the Ministry of Fuel and Power in correcting the position.
5.2 p.m.
Colonel Lancaster: We are in some difficulty this afternoon in debating this matter without the advantage of the quarterly figures at our disposal. It is important that the House should note what the Minister said about the stock situation, and, indeed, the recent figures he has given of production. The crux of the situation, however, is whether or not we can strike a balance between production and consumption, and I want to give

931
the Minister a few figures in regard to this very important matter.
At the present moment, production is running slightly ahead of consumption. That is to be expected during the summer months but, if we are to take last year as a fair analogy with what is likely to occur during the winter months, I think it is fair to say that consumption, including that very small figure of exports which we are at present sending abroad, is likely to rise in a gradual curve to a figure of about 4¼ million tons by next March. Even if we take the very best month of this year, to which the Minister referred, the month of May, and we attain the same figures, and I hope we shall, nevertheless, we must budget for a monthly deficit of about 2½ million tons. It is unnecessary to over-emphasise the gravity of that figure. About a year ago, the Minister was appealing for 8 million tons. I never expected him to get it and I told him so, and, on 24th July, he disclosed to the House that he had not succeeded. His words were, "Of course he did not get 8 million tons; he only got 2 million tons." I hope that all the Minister's calculations are not based on wishful thinking. This is much too serious a matter, and we must try to take a balanced view of it.
If the figures I have given prove to be correct, we shall face a crisis in February of next year. One of two things will happen. Either we shall have to discontinue entirely our exports, or some considerable sections of our industry will have to go on slow time and there will be a great deal of domestic distress. It is profitless to attribute blame for this situation wholly to the Government. There are all sorts of factors, to which the Minister has referred, which impinge on this situation. I do not want to go into questions of absenteeism or the fall in production. There are a whole number of reasons why the situation is what it is today. I think, however, that there is one satisfactory aspect, to which the Minister also referred, and that is the effect of the withdrawal of the Essential Work Order, which has enabled managements to make certain adjustments from which results are beginning to be seen. There is no doubt that the difficulties encountered in the transitional period are aggravating the position. It was in-
932
evitable, if this change over was to occur. Quite naturally, certain steps had to be taken by the Coal Board and by the new divisional boards. They had to staff the central board and set up their organisations on a divisional level. It has been necessary for them to call upon the senior members of the staffs of undertakings to fill these positions. Some of these men have already gone and others are going shortly. This results in a very real gap in the administrative staffs of their undertakings. The industry does not know from one month to the next who is going next and where, and, meanwhile, additional work falls upon the remaining members of the staff.
It seems to me that one of two decisions has now to be taken. Either the Minister is going to take his courage in both hands and say "Although we are not, administratively, in a position to take over the industry at this moment, nevertheless, all this upset is such that, on balance, and with the improvement which I may reasonably expect, psychologically, from the men, I think it worth while bringing forward the vesting date and announcing it immediately," or he will have to say, "We are in no position at present, administratively, to take over this industry. What is happening meanwhile is causing such disturbance that if the vesting date should coincide with that period of the year when we shall be approaching the crisis, the disruption will be such that I see no alternative to putting it back to some date further on next year." On balance, I believe that would be a wise course, and I shall attempt to indicate why I think so. At one time I was of the opinion that it was in the national interest that this transitional period should be cut down drastically. I anticipated that the National Coal Board would come into being and would set about its task. It would create the divisional boards and they, in turn, would set up their staffs. That was feasible.
I did not anticipate that any attempt would be made to reorganise the entire framework of the industry at this juncture; I did not think that was possible. I thought that, having accomplished those first two tasks, the setting up of the National Coal Board and the divisional boards, there would be a period during which the position would be assessed and that some time would elapse before the next stage was undertaken. Apparently

933
I was wrong, for the further stage is being embarked upon. In the time that elapses between now and the end of the year, I do not consider that there is the slightest chance of the organisation being in a fit condition to take over the industry. It seems to me that the only wise course is to call a halt at this moment to any further withdrawals from the industry, and to allow existing managements to carry on, at any rate until the crisis is over. There is a great quantity of work for the Board to do meanwhile in perfecting their organisation, in active consultation with existing managements, in the preparation of plans to which the Minister referred, and in the dissemination of their policy.
What is the present position? Although the Board have been in active existence for three months and most of the divisional boards are formed, no indication of an immediate policy has been vouchsafed to existing managements. However anxious they are to cooperate, and to ease the difficulties of the changeover they have not so far been taken into the confidence of the National Coal Board or the divisional coal boards. How can they attune their policy to that of the new control? That is something which I feel should have the immediate attention of the Minister. In my opinion, the administrative aspect of this matter has, all along, presented us with the biggest problem. The Minister and the Coal Board will have at their disposal a fair number of men of real technical ability to deal with the problems of production. Where the gap will arise will be in regard to men confronted with the problem of integrating a number of separate entities which, in the interest of tidy planning, have been hastily thrown together and require to be coalesced into a workable whole. It is a most delicate problem, and one which can be solved only by the soundest administrative methods.
What are the immediate possibilities in regard to the improvement of production? It is the duty of the Opposition to be constructive, and I want to put forward four general lines of endeavour which I feel can profitably be pursued at this moment. The first is planning. The Minister has referred to that, and, in my opinion, it is the most important of all. If the country is to get value for what it is paying for this industry, and if we are
934
going to see that the £150 million of immediate capital wisely spent, plans must be prepared throughout the industry. All that can he done before the vesting date. The Reid recommendation should be in the blueprint stage now. I wonder how much we have achieved? In that connection, as the Minister mentioned, the question of haulage must loom very large. Plans in regard to haulage—after all, all underground plans are, to a great extent, based on haulage—are, at present, being held up in certain directions while awaiting decisions in regard to the various types of motive power which can be used underground.
Power loading shows an encouraging story in regard to the particular development to which the Minister referred, but if we look at the Statistical Digest, the figures are still deplorably low. In August, 1942, when Mr. Watson Smith returned from America, having carried out his survey on behalf of the Minister of Supply, he gave as his opinion that 25 per cent. of the conditions in this country lent themselves to the application of power loading. Subsequent to that, technical opinion was inclined to raise that figure even higher, and something in the neighbourhood of 50 to 80 million tons was eventually visualised. We have gone but a very little way down that road. The manipulation of these machines does not present us with the main difficulty. Continuous experiment is needed to find how this technique can be applied to our varying conditions. There is no standard method; it varies from seam to seam, and until managements are familiar with the use of the machines and the effect they have on the various problems of roof control and the like they cannot expect to make any headway. Unless a most vigorous campaign of education of managements is undertaken and they are encouraged to experiment with these new methods, we shall not make the strides that are so necessary. In my opinion and, no doubt, in that of the Minister also, the most immediate result we could obtain at the coal face lies in the direction of the introduction of these power loading machines.
The third point which I think merits immediate attention and one which need not await the vesting date before it is embarked upon, is that of personnel management. The Parliamentary Secretary

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has, I know, been investigating the problems of education, training, men management—call it what you will. Here is a wide field to be surveyed and cultivated. In that regard, I would point out that, meanwhile, welfare schemes are pretty well at a standstill throughout the country; and we would like to see this matter got under way again. My fourth point lies in the direction of proving our unrecorded coal resources. Boring for coal and subsequently sinking is, inevitably, a slow process. But if we are to develop our resources and find both pit room and face room to take the place of measures which are gradually being exhausted in various parts of the country, we cannot lose any further time.
I have dealt with these points because I felt that the value of today's Debate lay in the short term approach to this problem. In view of what we are confronted with this winter, we are bound to take a short term view. But there are other matters which we cannot ignore. Some of them have already been mentioned, others will doubtless receive the attention they deserve in the course of this Debate. The hectic nature of the Minister's pronouncements on production is not really very important. They vary from one week to another, but he has his reasons and, although they are not convincing ones, I do not think they will mean the difference between success or failure.
The disturbing fact for me is the lack of clear thinking. It seems that we are living in a world in which we move from one week to the next, on a basis of improvisation. Why does State planning, of which we have heard so much, stop at the national level? Can it not descend to the level of industry itself? The thing seems so pointless. No guidance is forthcoming. The necessity for sound administration appears to be overlooked. I will give the House a simple illustration of my point, in which the Minister has innocently taken part. A few days ago, the Minister decided to send a letter to each of the men in the industry. He is quite entitled to do so, and I have no quarrel with that, although I do not think he was very wise to go over the heads of the Coal Board at this moment. But see how the thing is done. Instead of sending these letters through the normal channels these are ignored.
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Now Field-Marshal Montgomery very often wanted a personal message to go out to his men and, quite properly, he made use of his commanding officers to distribute those messages. But the commanding officers received their instructions through the normal chain of command—brigade, division, corps and Army. Not so the Minister. He sent this letter direct to the colliery manager with a note asking him to insert the letter in the men's pay packets. The colliery managers are not concerned with the men's pay packets. Pay is a function of control which is administered through the costing and accounts department. What happened was that the colliery managers had to send those letters to the accounts department where the matter had to be referred back to the general managers and through them to the agents.
It may be thought that this is a small matter not worth bothering about. But is it a small matter? As long ago as 1942 there was set up a very definite chain of control in the industry, through the regions to the appointed person of each undertaking, the appointed person usually being the managing director or the manager. Administration was geared accordingly. If we cut across that machinery it means additional work for all sorts of people. It may be a very small matter on this occasion. It is the inefficiency of the method that matters. Without sound administration the system simply does not work. At the bottom of all our problems is the application of sound principles; if we ignore them we shall not see the improvement which nobody wants more than the Minister. There is at the moment a sense of hurry which operates against the very efficiency which the Minister seeks to secure.
Mr. Platt-Mills: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman suggest that the Minister should get the permission of the "gaffer" every time he wants to speak to a miner?
Colonel Lancaster: No, it is not a case of asking permission. It is a case of sending the letter to the appropriate authority. If it is sent to the wrong person, it has to go through additional hands and causes additional work. The Minister is entitled to take what course he likes. He need not contact the "gaffer" if he does not want to. The hon. Gentleman

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could not have been listening very carefully. I was trying to show that the Minister cut across the very system of control set up by his own Ministry.
Mr. Platts-Mills: I was following the hon. and gallant Gentleman's remarks very carefully, but I have no conception of what the comparison is between Field-Marshal Montgomery and the Minister. One is concerned with miners, and the other with soldiers.
Colonel Lancaster: The commanding officer in a like case would receive his instructions through the normal chain of command—brigade, division, corps, and Army. In this case, had the letter been sent direct through the normal channel to the appointed person, the appointed person would have sent that letter to the accounts department who would then have advised the colliery manager of what was occurring. In fact, as the result of what did occur a great deal of extra work was caused. It is only a matter of the method of chain of control, and I will not take up the time of the House any longer on that point. I feel, as does the Minister, no doubt, that discrepancies in administration lie at the root of so many of our problems. The reason I spent so long on that point was because I thought I should elaborate my thesis that the Government are not in a position to institute an early vesting date. I think it will have to be postponed. If we ignore first principles and if we go on with this lack of plan and purpose neither the sincerity of the Minister, nor the good will of this House, neither the cooperation of the present managements nor the efforts of the Coal Board will avail. If true it be that the men in the industry sense a new Jerusalem as a result of this Measure and the nation expects coal in abundance, both are on the brink of a bitter awakening.
5.28 p.m.
Mr. Douglas Jay: I ask the indulgence of the House today not merely as one addressing it for the first time, but also as one who cannot, like so many hon. Members, claim to represent a coal mining constituency or to have any specially intimate knowledge of the industry. I do, however, speak as one who first joined the Labour Party out of resentment at the way in which the coal miners in this country were treated in 1926 by the coal owners and by the
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Conservative Government of that day. I think now, however, that we have had enough argument about the past and the responsibilities for the past. What we ought to do today is to survey the present dispassionately and lay constructive plans for the future. It was, I think, the present Minister of Health in his Opposition days, when the Coalition Government were in power, who said that that Government had performed at least one miracle; they had created a coal shortage in Great Britain. I think it would have been a miracle indeed if the present Government had overcome that shortage in no more than 15 months. Therefore, I do not think the most dispassionate survey of the present serious situation need imply any reflection or blame on anyone. The Minister himself said that everybody in this House was seriously concerned about the coal shortage, and he hoped that all would approach the problem in an endeavour to assist the Government. It is in that spirit that I approach it.
We must admit that the situation has serious elements. It has serious elements both internally and internationally. I think the simplest way to measure the seriousness of the internal situation is to look at the figures—some of which have already been quoted today—of distributed coal stocks as they appear in the "Monthly Digest of Statistics." Two years ago at the seasonal high point, August—that is to say, August, 1944—stocks stood at about 17,000,000 tons. They fell by the subsequent May to 10,000,000 tons, and recovered in August a year ago to 12,000,000 tons. From that figure they had fallen, by the present spring, to only 7,000,000 tons. The recovery this August took us, as we have been told today, to only 9,300,000 tons. The Minister has informed us that there has been a normal recovery since then to something like 11,000,000 tons by August. Nevertheless, I am afraid it follows from simple arithmetic, if we assume a normal level of consumption this winter, that is, a level of consumption similar to that of last winter, and the present level of production, that stocks will fall by next spring to something like 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 tons. That, of course, is not much more than one week's consumption at that time of the year. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to assure us that measures are being taken to economise

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stocks this winter, and perhaps even that there are some hidden stocks not revealed in the figures. Even so, I find few experts—and I think my right hon. Friend implied agreement with this—who think that we could operate at all easily on stocks of not much more than one week's consumption without some sort of breakdown. That, I suggest, is the internal situation.
Unfortunately, however, the present British coal shortage is not merely a British problem, but is also an international problem. As we all know, the disappearance of 40,000,000 tons or so a year of British coal exports, which was normal before the war, is one of the factors—one of the main factors, I think—hampering the recovery of France. It is, in turn, compelling the British zone of Germany to export coal to France, so giving rise to many of the troubles which this House has recently discussed in relation to Germany—the shortage of coal, the shortage of steel, the shortage of food and so on in Germany. Our failure to export is also causing unemployment in Italy; it is interfering with the proper use of timber supplies in Scandinavia, grain supplies from Argentina, and so forth. Whatever the cause—and, of course, the war is one of the most obvious causes of all this—the plain fact is that the collapse of British coal exports is causing a vicious circle of evil repercussions all round the world. The Minister and the Government have already taken many measures to correct that vicious circle. I think the question to which we should all address our minds is: what further measures are there which we can take?
I would like to suggest, first, that we should not take refuge in the counsel of despair, of abandoning all hope of reviving our export trade altogether, and of converting British industry and the British railways on to an oil-burning basis, or even on to the basis of imported coal. The present Minister of Fuel and Power is a person of originality, and not bound by convention. But I am sure he would not wish to be remembered by posterity as the man who not merely had to have coal carried to Newcastle, but had it hauled there in an oil-burning locomotive. What we want is not less consumption of coal, but more production. And it seems to me that the first essential short-term route to more production is an
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increase in the labour strength in the industry. As I understand it, the Minister today accepted that view of the short-term problem. I believe that to some extent harm has been done by an over-concentration on the long-term problem. That is a natural reaction from the past. However, I believe that to some extent too much concentration on mechanisation, modernisation, higher output per head, and so on has diverted attention from the plain, simple fact that we cannot, in the short-term, get a lot more coal with a lot fewer men. The fact that the present labour force ought to, or perhaps might, produce more coal is no reason—and I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will agree—why we should not attempt also to have more men. Surely it is possible to do both. Therefore, I think Mr. Arthur Homer is perfectly right when he states, as he has again stated in the past week, that we need more manpower in the industry.
What, then, are the immediate facts of the manpower situation? Throughout the summer months the industry was running on a labour force of 699,000 men. That has now dropped, owing to the abandonment—and the quite right abandonment—of the Essential Work Order to about 695,000, or 696,000 in the last few weeks. The normal weekly wastage in this industry is somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 men. That is a low figure compared with other industries, and one which I am convinced it is not possible seriously to cut down. It therefore follows, if we are to build up a labour strength in the short-term, we have to achieve an intake into the industry of about 2,000 men per week at least. Unfortunately, in the last four or five weeks although we are extremely glad to hear that production has been going up—and obviously that is a very encouraging sign—the labour force has been dropping by 800 or 900 men per week. We also have it on the authority of an official of the Ministry of Fuel and Power, speaking publicly before the Railway Charges Committee the other day, that the strength is likely to fall to 687,000 men by the end of this year. That is the immediate manpower prospect, and, we must agree, it is not a very encouraging one.
What further steps can be taken to check this fall and to set an increase in motion? I would like to suggest, first of all, that some definite targets might be

941
set in the middle-term, as it were, both for production and for manpower in this industry. The very attempt to set targets is salutary, because it brings home to one how serious the outlook is. I would suggest we should set targets for the end of 1947 of exports at the not very ambitious rate of, say, 10,000,000 tons a year. That would require a total output of about 215,000,000 tons; and that, in turn, would need a labour force, even allowing quite liberally for increased efficiency, of something like 730,000 or 740,000 men. That, in turn, would, of course, require an intake into the industry, from now until the end of next year, of something like 2,500 men per week. That, I admit, is going to be a very difficult task, but I suggest that that is the sort of target that we should set ourselves, and the sort of criterion by which success should be measured in the short-term.
What other steps are there which can help us to achieve that figure? I should like to express here a view which, I think, is considered unpopular and, perhaps, even eccentric. That view is that we shall never wholly solve this problem as long as the wage level in the coal industry remains where it is now. In my opinion the root cause of the coal shortage in Great Britain today is that wages and earnings are uneconomically low. I know they are higher than they were before the war, and I know they are higher than in some other industries; but I suggest that the margin over other industries is not high enough at present to induce young men willingly to enter the industry in preference to other industries. As long as that remains true, I do not myself see how all the other measures can be completely successful. I do not pretend to be able to say how that difficulty can be overcome, except, perhaps, to observe that the introduction of the five-day week and of other improvements and conditions contained in the Miners' Charter, with the maintenance of weekly earnings, would, of course, amount, in fact, to an improvement in wages in the industry.
Next, I should like to say that when we look at this problem of recruitment, undoubtedly, the nationalisation of the industry has been the most essential psychological condition of success. I am convinced, myself, that we could not have avoided disaster, and an almost complete collapse of recruitment, if
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the Minister had not already taken that step. The Minister has also announced—and I take this to be a definite Government decision—that an increased meat ration is to be given to underground workers in the coal industry. We should warmly congratulate the Government on that decision. The underground worker has a particular claim, over and above the obvious arduousness of his job, for an increased ration, for the reason that he is not able, like the ordinary factory worker, to eat his canteen meal in the middle of his shift; and that gives him a strong claim to an extra ration of the kind that has been given. I was also glad to hear from the Minister that his Department have now organised the recruitment of men for this industry both from Northern and from Southern Ireland. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary may be able to tell us that that is being pushed forward energetically, and that it is yielding some results. We should not despise any of these individual lines of attack, even though it may be said that the number of men each one separately is yielding may not be very large. We really want all the fit men we can get from almost any source.
I should also hope that the Parliamentary Secretary can assure us that the whole Ministry of Labour machine is being geared up as a top priority job to accelerate recruitment into the coal industry, and, in doing that, it is supplementing the excellent recruitment drives which the Ministry of Fuel and Power have been carrying out. I believe that the Ministry of Labour machine, when it is really geared up to a job like that, even without the wartime powers of compulsion, can be a very powerful machine, with its exchanges in every part of the country and with all sorts of opportunities for encouraging the right type of man to enter a vital national industry like that of coal.
Finally, we have had mentioned today the question of the Polish workers in this country. I do not think anybody would dispute the Minister's statement that there can be no question of the Government trying to force any Polish ex-coalminers or other Poles into the industry except in agreement with the representatives of the industry. I was sorry to hear that that agreement had not been reached yet. I understand that it is part of the Government's policy to get some of these men. at

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any rate, to work in the industry; and, again, however few they are, I suggest that they should not be despised. The difficulties in this particular field are obvious, but, surely, the plain fact is that some hundreds or, perhaps, some thousands of these men are living in this country, in any case—are going to live here and be supported by the British community—and it seems plain common-sense, in the end, that they should be allowed to work in their own trade as members, of course, of the appropriate trade union, earning the usual full rates of pay, and, after a period, as I should hope, learning to talk English, and to absorb English ideas, and to contribute to the recovery of the country and of our national prosperity.
There is the problem as I see it. There are some possible targets, and there are some steps that may be taken. When all is said and done, we have the coal in this country; we have the pits; and we have the men. It will, surely, be only a failure of organisation if we cannot somehow bring the three together, and do it before the short-term is over. I think my right hon. Friend and the House as a whole will agree that what we all want to see is a steady flow of fit, young, willing workers entering this industry at a sufficient rate to restore home production to the level of home demand, and, also, to restore a really thriving export trade.
5.48 p.m.
Major Lloyd-George: It falls to my lot—and I am very glad it does—to congratulate the hon. Member for North Battersea (Mr. Jay) on the speech he has just delivered to the House. I am certain that every Member of this House will agree with me that it was a very valuable contribution to this Debate. Those who have known him, or have known of him, have not been surprised at that. I am happy to be in the position of congratulating the hon. Member because with a very great deal of what he said I thoroughly agree. There were one or two things said by him with which I do not agree, but I shall not discuss those at the moment. He departed from what is nearly always the practice in this House in Debates on coal, of confining one's remarks to the home industry. He showed the international repercussions of any failure of the coal industry within our
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boundaries. I am certain that the House will agree with me in saying that we look forward to hearing the hon. Gentleman again in future Debates.
I do not propose to be very long tonight, because a great deal of the ground has already been covered. But I must recall that the last time we discussed this question, the temperature was not such as tended to bring home to people the urgency of the fuel position. A very different story can be told today, and not only with regard to temperature. We are within 14 days or so of the beginning of what is always regarded in the industry as the "coal winter," and the closer we come to it, the more vividly stands out the seriousness of the position.
I shall not be critical of the Minister or the Ministry, except to this extent, that I want, even at the risk of wearying the House, to examine very carefully the budget which was prepared and given to us last July and which the Minister said today, he still regarded as sound. Figures are rather wearying, but it is essential, especially in relation to this industry, to know at the beginning of the winter exactly what is likely to be the intake and what is likely to be the output—or, I should put it the other way round, and say what will be the output and the consumption. Of course, it is impossible to give an exact figure, but I can say, after all my experience, that it is remarkable how accurately the officials within the Ministry are able to forecast production and the various forms of consumption.
I, therefore, want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry to follow me through the budget. My own recollection is that mined coal was then expected to bring in 177,000,000 tons. There has been an alteration today, but I will deal with that in a minute. Open cast mining was to bring in 8½ plus 1½, that is 10,000,000 tons. Then 2,100,000 tons was to be recovered from the pit banks and the various open cast dumps, and 400,000 tons from briquettes. That brought it up to 189,500,000 tons. Now a very extraordinary bit of accounting, if I may so call it, appears. The stocks left at the end of last winter were added, to bring the production figure up to 196,300,000 tons. All the stocks on the ground were put in, and made to appear as part of the actual production. Having reached that figure, the consumption is

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estimated at 196,000,000 tons, and on that basis, there is, therefore, a surplus of 300,000 tons. Those are the figures we got. I hope I am quoting them correctly.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Mr. Gaitskell): If I may interrupt the right hon. and gallant Gentleman on one point, I think he has confused two things. He was taking the stocks from pit banks as 2,000,000 tons, but actually it was the net reduction in stocks as a whole that was put at 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 tons, which included all that came from the pit banks. There would not be enough, as he can readily see from the figures, from the pit banks alone.
Major Lloyd-George: Could the hon. Gentleman explain how this figure was made up then, because there were 6,800,000 tons left in stock at the end of the last coal year? The total amount of production is 189,500,000 tons, yet the figure which the Minister used, reported in HANSARD last July, comes up to 1156,300,000. If the hon. Gentleman looks at HANSARD, he will find that the 6,800,000 tons of stocks are taken in for the purposes of accountancy—
Mr. Gaitskell: Yes, we take it off the other side.
Major Lloyd-George: Certainly. That gives a balance of something like 300,000 tons, which does not matter. We then come to the measures to be taken by the Ministry.
Mr. Gaitskell: I think I understand what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is getting at. To that 300,000 tons, of course, is to be added the stock it is thought essential to have at the end of the coal winter, which amounted, even on our expectation that we should get below 6,800,000, to about 5,000,000 tons, and that was the gap—a 5,000,000 ton gap.
Major Lloyd-George: It is only a question of how the accounting is done. I think the way the Ministry have done it is a little peculiar. It has never been done before. I have been responsible for many of these accountings myself, and stocks on the ground have never been added to the assets side of the year.
Mr. Gaitskell: But so long as they are put on the other side—
Major Lloyd-George: But they are not. The hon. Gentleman has done something here which is a little bit naughty from the accounting point of view. We then come to certain savings which can be made. The saving effected by the change from coal to oil was 3,000,000, and may now only be 1,000,000, but I am not surprised to hear it, because I have definitely suspected that there would be none for a very long time. Less benzole from gas was to produce 1,000,000. Then there was the extraordinary figure, which the Minister referred to in the last budget, of 1,500,000 by better distribution, and when he was asked by an hon. Gentleman below the Gangway what he meant by that, he said that it meant a running down of stocks left, by 1,500,000. But the whole of the stocks have already been taken into the budget figure.
Mr. Gaitskell Mr. Gaitskell indicated dissent.
Major Lloyd-George: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but believe me it is in HANSARD, in the Minister's own speech—6,800,000 tons put down and included to make the total available production of 196 millions. It is there. I estimate, therefore, that if you took these figures out altogether and made a simple calculation, you would have a deficit. I know the hon. Gentleman's point of view is that the deficit, offset against stocks, would leave so much. In the end we come back to the same thing. Leaving out for the moment the 2,000,000 tons likely to be got by increased production, which is cancelled by the 2,000,000 tons less from conversion to oil, the situation will be that we shall come out of this winter with something less than 4,300,000 tons. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman agrees or not, but a situation in which a total of 4,300,000 tons is left in stock at the end of the year is disastrous. It is not only not distributed; it is not difficult to distribute it, and it will mean industries and public utilities all over the country going out, because there is not an even distribution of the 4,000,000 throughout the country, as the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well. If he can say that my calculation, forgetting for the moment the Minister's 2,000,000 for and against this afternoon, does not bring him down to something like 4,300,000 tons at the end of the year, I should be very glad to see where I have gone wrong. In any case,

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even if it is back to 6,000,000, it is an extremely serious position, in view of the possibility that we may not be as lucky as we have most fortunately been for so many years.
I think the position was put, if anything, rather too optimistically. On the question of this 2,000,000 tons extra output, the Minister today gave us figures which show a very happy increase; quite rightly he said it was not enough, though it was a substantial increase. Is he satisfied that, having the output he has had up to now with that increase, he will get his 177,000,000 tons, remembering that from now to Christmas is the best period of the year but that we shall then come to the difficult period of January, when there may be sickness and weather difficulties? There are two holidays to be overcome,, and I should think he would be very fortunate to get 177,000,000. I think he would be far better advised to stick to that figure and err on the conservative side, rather than be too optimistic in such a situation.
The only other thing I want to ask about is open cast coal. In his budget the right hon. Gentleman said he hoped to get 1,500,000 tons extra, making 10,000,000 in all this year, and that they had reached 200,000 tons recently. I want to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the average for open cast production up to now has been only 140,000 tons a week. Therefore, to get his 10,000,000, he must average 190,000 tons a week to the end of the coal year. But the same thing applies here to an even greater degree than it does to mined coal—I mean the weather. After January you generally get a very serious decline, because so much of it has to be transported in wagons, and bulldozers and scrapers and so on are in difficulties. I am bound to say that as far as that is concerned I think he is being slightly optimistic, in view of the difficulty, in winter weather in this country, of keeping output up to that level. If he looks at the figures he will find that very rarely, from the end of January to the end of the coal year, does output approach the figure he must have, if he is to get his 10,000,000 tons.
I pointed out during the last Debate that hitherto, though there was a seriously declining output, it had not been manifest because distribution had greatly
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improved. We had pretty considerable stocks and also emergency stocks into which we could and did dip. When the right hon. Gentleman came in, the stocks were lower than they had ever been before the war. What is the solution for this admittedly terribly serious position? We all know about the long term policy, and that the only possible solution is a complete reorganisation of the industry. The question is, What are we going to do now? It is not only during this winter, but next winter that we shall be up against it? There are two possibilities, and two only, to get over this difficulty referred to by the Minister this afternoon. One is to decrease consumption, and the other to increase production. It is very easy to say that, but what are the chances of a decrease in consumption this winter? The Minister referred to industry, and rightly referred to the fact that a great deal had been done by industry under very great difficulties—the difficulty of getting materials, and particularly of getting instruments for gauging heat. A great deal has been done, and the fuel saving committees of the Ministry deserve great credit for the organisation. I am inclined to agree with him that there is not much to be looked for there on a short term policy.
We come to the domestic consumer. As far as domestic saving is concerned, I am entirely in favour of it, but I am doubtful about its achievement. The Minister has not been terribly helpful on this point, and showed himself a little impatient of criticism. There is no one in this House who can land out better than the Minister, and occasionally he must expect to get one or two back. I am bound to say that his speeches have been inconsistent. He says that he has always sounded a warning note, but it has not been a persistent warning note. One day it is this, another day it is that. The warning is rather like the siren during the war—the warbling note is sometimes up and sometimes down.
Mr. Shinwell: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give any evidence of that?
Major Lloyd-George: I could give plenty. The right hon. Gentleman is talking to the public, and they may not be initiated in these things. He said, for instance:

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"I recognise that industry is under great difficulties, but I am not so alarmed about coal supplies as some people. One might imagine from what one reads that they are getting no coal at all. We are getting quite a lot of coal."
No one is suggesting that we are not getting any coal.
Mr. Shinwell: At no time have I said that I was satisfied with the position.
Major Lloyd-George: I did not say that the Minister said that.
Mr. Shinwell: All I have done, when I have addressed the miners, has been occasionally to encourage them. I have expressed the view in some districts that they have done very well, especially when output was rather on the high side, and when there seemed to be an improvement in the position. At no time have I expressed the view that I was satisfied with the position.
Major Lloyd-George: That is a different thing from the Minister saying that he is not so alarmed about coal supplies as some people. Imagine the effect on a person who knows nothing about coal output. Of course the Minister has to go to a colliery, and congratulate the miners when output goes up, but that is a very different thing from saying to the electricity industry about rationing, "It is a lot of nonsense." It is not a lot of nonsense. If he had appreciated that, he would have realised that they were trying to save trouble. Does he not appreciate that this winter it may be necessary to ration supplies? He has said tonight that it may be necessary—
Mr. Shinwell: What I denied on that occasion was that we were contemplating adopting a rationing system. As for the private electricity supply companies being helpful, I am bound to say that I have yet to notice any desire on their part to help the Minister of Fuel and Power.
Major Lloyd-George: It depends what the right hon. Gentleman is talking about. If he is talking about politics, I agree, but speaking with three years' experience as Minister of this industry which ran machines which should have been scrapped ten years ago and achieved what it did in getting electricity for the war effort, no one can say that there was not the utmost cooperation. If the right hon. Gentleman is talking about what he is
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going to do politically, that is a matter into which I do not propose to enter. At any rate they are alarmed about the position, and I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would have been delighted to have their assistance. As usual he went in at the deep end.
The domestic consumer before the war had 45 million tons of coal. That includes coal for offices and for other purposes below 100 tons. For our purpose of comparison, 45 million tons is the figure. By the end of 1945, that figure was down to 32 million tons. That is a cut of 30 per cent. While it is true that it affects different people in different ways, it is a tremendous cut for domestic consumers to have to make in solid fuel at their disposal. They have done it, and they have done it with tremendous courage and very little complaint. It explains, of course, the alarming increase in the consumption of gas and electricity. Gas is essentially a domestic fuel, and the increase in the consumption of gas at this moment is most alarming. We are told that the stock position for gas and electricity is something like four weeks. That is a serious thing. In London, with tens of thousands of houses destroyed, the increase in consumption is something in the nature of 7 per cent. compared with prewar figures, and it is likely to rise very much higher. I ask the Minister whether he will be in a position at the beginning of the coal winter, to say that he has more than four weeks' stocks for gas and electricity. I should like also to have some encouragement from the Parliamentary Secretary in regard to the labour necessary for the repair and maintenance of plant in both industries. It is one of the greatest troubles we had during the war. I know that there are hundreds of men wanted for repair work, and I should like to know what steps the Government are taking to put this right.
I am not going to repeat the remarks that have been made about what will add greatly to the difficulties of the Minister this winter, and that is the reversal of the policy of previous years which allowed people to stock up in the summer when transport was easy. I think it will be found that this winter there will be more people on the market for coal than the normal number, and that there will be great difficulties in supplying them,

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despite the fact that the stocks in merchants' hands are slightly improved over last year. The Minister would have been better advised to have done what I suggested in July—delivered as much coal as possible in the summer in order to get people off the market in the winter.
What is the other alternative to lower consumption? It is more production. Obviously, more coal will eventually be produced through mechanisation, but it is now that it is wanted. Everybody is agreed that, in time, we shall be able to produce all the coal we need with far fewer men. But what I am concerned about is this winter, next winter, and, possibly, the winter after that. What is to be the policy of the Government? The Minister said something which rather staggered me, that he thought 700,000 men would be sufficient. That brings his absenteeism to a rate which has never been recorded, including voluntary and involuntary absenteeism. It brings him near that figure of 5,000,000 which he has talked about such a lot. Is he satisfied that the figure of 700,000 men is sufficient? I suggest that we ought to be looking for something in the neighbourhood of 720,000. I am sure that he does not need reminding that the figure was 780,000 just before the war. Is that figure of 700,000 the figure which has been fixed by the Government for the coal industry? This is an important point, because the problem of manpower is not confined to the coal industry alone. Coal happens to be the basis of the prosperity of our people, but the manpower problem spreads far beyond the coalfields—to the Army and Air Force for instance. Despite the fact that we are not fighting anybody—I agree on the need for occupying places—conscription still exists to keep the Army and Air Force alive. But when it comes to the mines—and the problem there is our real enemy—what happens?
It is true that the Minister has had more men back from the Services, but that is not something which can be repeated. His juvenile intake is slightly better than that of the previous quarter, but the Minister has lost, in one quarter alone, 11,000 workers, including those who came from Government training centres, Bevin boys. I thought the right hon. Gentleman was a little unfair on the Bevin boys. I know that he has had trouble, but I think that
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the matter could have been handled a little more firmly—
Mr. Shinwell: By whom?
Major Lloyd George: By the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Shinwell: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman is a little presumptuous. He was in control of the Bevin boys long before I took them over. They were my legacy from him.
Major Lloyd George: I did not have the trouble that the right hon. Gentleman has had. How many thousands have disappeared since he took office? I did not have that trouble. When I did they were prosecuted. Thousands have disappeared. Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that? He has said so himself. What did he do about that? He has treated the Bevin boys today as if they had not done very much for the industry. So far as working at the coal face is concerned, that may be true of many, but those boys were useful to us in keeping up the percentage of workers at the coal face in relation to the total number employed. We used Bevin boys on the roadways, and they were a tremendous help in keeping the percentage at the coal face at a high level. That has lost the right hon. Gentleman so many thousand intakes. He will not get a repetition of his Service intakes. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman is altogether responsible, but I should like to know what is his policy. This is a matter which concerns the Government, and we ought to have a Government statement about it. What do they intend to do to face the immediate manpower problem in the mines? We are entitled to ask for a statement about the position. Everybody is agreed on the long-term policy, but it is important that the whole question of manpower, not only for the coal industry but for the Services and everything else, should be stated by the Government.
I do not think anybody will accuse me of exaggeration when I say that the problem facing the coal industry today is one of the most urgent which this country has ever had to face. It is so urgent that if it is not solved, our whole future wealth and prosperity may suffer a lasting blow. It is vital that at this time we should get from the Government a statement on how they propose to get the necessary men

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for the coal industry, so that we can survive the winter with some degree of comfort to our people, and without too much interruption of our industries, and can start the following year on that recovery of industry which will lead us to the position we occupied in the old days.
6.17 p.m.
Mr. Murray: For a long time now every Member of Parliament interested in mining has been faced with the question: What is wrong with the mining industry? It is a fair question, and needs an answer. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power is an eloquent and brilliant man, a very clever debater, I think a good Minister, and I enjoy listening to him whenever I get the opportunity. I know he has a colossal task and a tremendous responsibility and I do not envy him in the least. I believe he can do many wonderful things, but I am positive that he cannot make small mines into large mines, or thin seams into thick seams; nor can he make old mines into new mines. Even if he had a magic wand, he would not be able to accomplish that.
The Minister has inherited 823 small mines, which produce only 10,000,000 tons of coal a year, and employ 40,494 people. In 1943, the Ministry of Fuel and Power revealed that there were 615 collieries employing 250 men or more, and that of that number 407 had no facilities for riding men to their work at the coal face. Those men have had to walk and carry their own gear. On many occasions—I have done it myself—they have had to strip at the shaft, and walk two or three miles. Further, the Ministry's survey revealed that out of the seven and a half hour shift, two and a half hours were spent in travelling, crawling, to the coal face.
For that one-third of a shift of wasted energy we have no production, and not a thing to show for all the efforts of the men in the bowels of the earth. The Reid Report says that it is not unusual for a man to spend as short a time as five hours at the coal face. These are staggering facts and very difficult to get over. Let us remember that this survey was in 1943 and that the pits today are three years older; not only that, but the working places are further from the shafts. That means of necessity that haulage and maintenance costs will be higher, and that men will have less time at the coal face to pro-
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duce coal. As the pits travel from the shafts, one is bound to have a reduction in output and an increase in cost.
The Minister's difficulties are very definite. In this country 1,230 mines provide no riding facilities, and only 208 mines, or one in six, give the men a ride. I doubt whether the Minister of Fuel and Power, or even the Coal Board, can overcome that difficulty at the present time, and it is a great handicap for the Minister. When I was in the pit, I thought that some of these roads were made for caterpillars and not for men, because one had nearly to crawl on one's belly to get in. We may put the best British machines on to the coal face, but if we have no method of transport to get the coal out, we may as well save our money. It is terribly difficult for anyone to make a new road into an old mine, especially if that mine has been worked on the advancing system as we know it in this country. It is uneconomic; the cost is absolutely prohibitive. If a surface contractor carried on like that, and walked his men to and from a job, wasting two or three hours in a shift, he would be considered "cracked," and very soon he would be out of business. Yet, every day in 1,230 British mines the energy of miners is wasted in travelling, in a greater or lesser degree, on foot to their places of work. The Minister cannot make old men young again. During the last 14 years, 162,000 young men between the ages of 14 and 35 have left the mining industry, driven out, in many instances, by members of the Party opposite.
I need not remind the House that at this age men are strong and vigorous, and that those are the most important producing years in the coal mining industry. The loss of such men to the industry is a tragedy of the first order. In 1931, we had 335,000 men between the ages of 36 and 60 years in the mining industry, but in 1945, we had 345,000 men of that age. In other words, we have 10,000 older men in the industry. From 61 years to 65 years, there is another increase of 5,000, over a period of four years, and it gets worse. From 65 years and over—I do not know how much over—there is an increase, during the four years period, of 6,000 men, making a grand total of 21,000 older men in the industry, and 162,000 younger men have gone out of the industry; and then we ask the Minister of Fuel and

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Power to give us all the coal we need. The Minister needs a lot of sympathy instead of a lot of the things that are being said about him.
I shall be glad to give the Minister all the help I can, and he will need it, before he gets through these difficult days. I think that he ought to be encouraged not only by hon. Members on this side of the House, but by Members opposite. This is not a party question; it is a national question, and the sooner we realise that, the better for everyone. I am not suggesting that there is any disgrace in old age. I have a great reverence for old age, and these older men have done a great job of work in the industry. Some of them are prepared to go on doing it, but they have never been adequately rewarded for all the services that they have given to the industry. Many of these men have worked in the mine for 50 years and longer and have gone out of the industry with nothing except the paltry 10s. a week old age pension. There is an old saying in Durham to the effect no person can beat a good "old 'un" better than a good "young' un."
There is not an hon. Member on this side of the House who ever thought, or said, that when nationalisation of the mines became law, the miners' Eldorado had come, but during the previous Debate on this subject I heard a reference to that effect from an hon. Member on the opposite side. Anyone who talks like that is talking sheer nonsense. The miner is an intelligent human being. He knows that nationalisation will not cure all the ills of the industry, and, on a short-term policy, will cure none at all. He knows that a coal mine under nationalisation will still be a coal mine; that water will still be wet; and that a fault will still be difficult to overcome. He also knows that production cannot be increased by touching an electric button. He knows that however good the Minister or the Coal Board may be, a coal mine will still be a dark, dirty place where hard work has still to be done.
I have recited a few of the things which the Minister cannot do. I now suggest one or two things that I think he can do, and which I hope he will do. I hope that he will adopt the miners' charter of the National Union of Mineworkers, because
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I believe that there is nothing too good for the men who work in the mines. I would remind the House, if that is necessary, that the man who goes down the mine every day is at war with nature all the time. He must be encouraged to become an evangelist for his own industry and not for an industry that belongs to someone else. I believe that if we can persuade men in the industry to become our advertising agents, they will do more good than all the speeches of trade union leaders, politicians or anyone else. There is one thing which, I think, needs doing, although I may be wrong. I understand that we have spent a lot of money on recruiting, but I still think that now that we cannot have machines readily, it forces us back to the one problem, that of manpower.
I think we need a whirlwind recruiting campaign to get more men. We ought to have pamphlets printed and distributed, particularly among young men up to the age of 35 years, for these are the men we have lost, and who ought to come back. We ought to print large posters and display them on every hoarding. What ought we to put on those posters? What have we to offer? What can we put in our shop window? We have been too quiet about the mining industry. Everybody in this country wants coal, and everybody ought to help to get coal. In this recruiting campaign we ought to endeavour to bring in churches and chapels, clubs and pubs, cinemas and theatres, and every other organisation it is possible to bring in. We ought to make it a really live issue for everybody in the country. We must display our goods in our own shop window. What can we display?
I believe I am speaking truthfully when I say that the miners today have better wages than they have ever had before in the history of coalmining in this country. They have better canteens, better compensation rates, and better educational and training facilities attached to the mines. There are fewer disputes in the industry. There is to be an extra meat ration—not before time. It is long overdue. It is four years since I asked for it in this House. The miners want something more than the meat ration. They want greater variety of diet in the mining industry, such as tinned fruit, etc.; they want more consumers' goods in the shops,

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they want something on which to spend their money. Moreover, they have had their Income Tax reduced. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been very reasonable in this matter. The Minister has conceded the principle of a five-day week. Great efforts have been made in the very important matter of safety in mines. The Minister of Fuel and Power need not be ashamed of the figures. In 1945, there was a reduction of 308 in the number of fatal accidents in the mining, industry, and there was a reduction of 804 in the number of seriously injured miners. Surely, these are good things to display in our shop window in order to encourage young men to come into the industry? These are some of the dreams, gradually coming true, of some of us who have been in the industry since the day after we were 13 years of age.
How different the story after the last war. Then there were strikes and disputes, and massive wage reductions. There was mass unemployment during which I had four years of signing on the dotted line, not because I could not work, for I was considered to be as good a worker as any in the pit, but because I was one of those agitators, a union leader. I was kept off for four years. However, all that has changed now. But hon. Members opposite have some responsibility for what happened after the last war. They are not free from blame by any means. I ask the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to examine again the Statistical Digest. During the first six months of this year, only 6,192 young men came into the industry, whereas 33,233 men of all ages have gone out of the industry. These figures show that the recruiting campaign must be stepped up, for without young men it will be impossible to succeed. We must help them to realise that in the mining industry there is a life of adventure. We must help them also to realise that there are marvellous revelations awaiting the scientific mind down in the bowels of the earth. I want to pay a tribute to the miners' leaders. They get more kicks than ha'pence. The loss of tonnage as a result of trade disputes has been tremendous in this country at different times, but in 1944 we lost, through trade disputes, 662,000 tons, in 1945, 215,000 tons, and in the first six months of this year, 104,000 tons, so that the trend is in the right direction—it is
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going down—and, therefore, we ought to say to these men that we appreciate their efforts in keeping peace in the industry, for without peace there can be no production.
I understand, with regard to the meat ration, that in the Ruhr the German miners have had their rations increased, and not only have they had their rations increased, but I understand that in return they have given an increased production of coal. That is a grand thing. I do not believe the British miner will be beaten by any German miner. As we have beaten the Germans in war, so we will beat them in the pits. But will the Minister have a talk with the Minister of Food and endeavour to get for the workers in other heavy industries an increased meat ration as soon as it is possible to give it? When the Parliamentary Secretary replies will he also deal with the fact that in 1945 there was an increase of 45,071, compared with 1938, in the number of persons injured and disabled for three days or more? Will the Parliamentary Secretary note that there was a severe increase for every one of the last seven years? These figures are very disturbing and disquietening. Can the Parliamentary Secretary tell us why there has been this increase? If not, will the Minister set up a committee of inquiry, because the resulting loss of production must be tremendous?
I ask the Minister—I was glad to hear him say something about this—when we shall commence operations in a new large area of surveyed coal? I long to see the day when the shaft is placed in the most economic position of the coal area, where large haulage costs underground can be balanced, where good seams and poor seams can be worked together. I do not want to see coal extremely cheap today and uneconomic tomorrow. That is one of the legacies of the past from which the Minister, the miners, and the country are suffering. There are millions of tons of waste coal lying in the bowels of the earth, lost for ever because of the silly position that has been taken up by the mineowners. I long to see a perfect system of ventilation. I long to see the day when British machines, and plenty of them, will be installed in the mines, when large modern wagons will be there to take away the coal, when plant for the manufacture of by-products will be established at the pithead, with plastic industries, the gas

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industry, and the electricity industry. I long for the day when we shall have an opportunity of comparing a real example of nationalisation with the past system, the old with the new. The old seams are fast running out, and new seams with high productive powers are greatly needed. I hope the Minister and the Coal Board will treat this as a matter of great urgency, for delay is not only dangerous, but disastrous.
I should like to say to the Minister, as kindly as I can, that there are many miners who are very disturbed about some of the appointments which are being made in the areas near the coalfields. We do not want a disturbance of that kind. I will cover myself by saying that we do not know whether the Minister or the Coal Board is responsible for this. If it is the Coal Board, then we ask the Minister to deal with the Coal Board, for we cannot have this shuffling about, or "passing the buck" as we sometimes say. I mention this matter and I hope it will be noted. It is causing disquiet among the miners, because they are terrified that, as the result of such appointments, they may get some of the "hangers on" into these positions who know nothing about the industry. We do not want this, and we are not going to have it. We intend to get rid of all the "hangers on" and we hope that the Minister will very shortly deal with the question.
Finally, I would ask the Minister to note that in Durham the area managers are being informed that they have to take on Irish labour. We know of collieries where men are still unemployed and we want the Minister to make certain that we shall have no disturbance at any colliery in the county of Durham on account of the acceptance of Irish labour into the mining industry while British miners are signing on at the employment exchange.
6.42 p.m.
Mr. Bowen: I do not share either the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Murray) or his admiration for the Minister of Fuel and Power.
Mr. Murray: We would not expect that.
Mr. Bowen: Those of us who are extremely worried over the present fuel situation have derived very cold comfort indeed from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman today. The hon. Mem-
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ber for Spennymoor told the House that this was not a party question; the Minister said something quite to the contrary. For myself, I take strong exception to the suggestion which he made that those of us who are concerned over the coal situation derive any satisfaction from gloating over it. The Minister has given us figures of increased production during the last few weeks, and I am sure we were all particularly delighted to hear them. But do they amount to anything like the improvement which we can reasonably expect and which would be sufficient to meet the immediate danger ahead of us? I venture to think that the Minister's statement will not inspire very much confidence as to the possibility of diverting industrial dislocation or domestic discomfort. He gave us figures, as I have said, for increased production during the last few weeks. I ask the House to compare those figures with those for 1941, because I think the situation today is as grave as it was then from the domestic point of view. Whatever statistics one looks at, whether it be of the average number of shifts worked, average output per man shift, or the amount of absenteeism—whatever test one applies—the best figures the Minister has been able to produce today, compare very unfavourably with those for 1941.
I thought the hon. Member for Spennymoor did far less than justice to the older men in the industry. The truth is that the improved figures have been largely brought about by the efforts of the older men, and it is equally true that the immediate problem would be met if the younger men in the industry were doing their share. [An HON. MEMBER: "Shame."] An hon. Member says "Shame." The present absentee figures of something like 15 or 16 per cent. are largely contributed to by men under 30 years of age. I am informed that absenteeism is three times as high among men under 30, as it is among those of 30 and over. As a young man, I think I should give these facts. In January of this year the Minister was talking about the coal situation being better. At that time the absentee figure was 19 per cent. I respectfully suggest that the only immediate solution of the coal problem is the tapping of the potential output reserve in the industry—that is increased production.
Why are we not getting that increased production? One obvious reason is the

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lack of manpower and I suggest that there is no immediate prospect of improving the position in that regard. If this industry is to survive, indeed, if the whole of our industry is to survive, the problem of obtaining additional recruits for the mines will have to be solved, but it will take time to get those men, and train them. What is to happen in the meantime? The only solution I can see is increased output in the mines in their present conditions. How is that to be brought about?
I believe that the problem is a psychological one and that the immediate answer to it is confidence in the Minister and in the Coal Board. Do the statistics today suggest that that confidence exists? They indicate the opposite. The country has no confidence in the Minister nor, I suggest, have the colliers.
Captain Peart: Has the hon. Member any evidence that there is no confidence in the Minister? Does he know organised mining opinion? I venture to suggest that he does not.
Mr. Bowen: I will give one indication. Have the young men who contribute so largely to the absentee figures in the industry confidence in the Minister? If they had faith in the Coal Board and the Minister, would they be working an average of only two shifts a week? Would they be behaving in that fashion if they realised that they were contributing to a national disaster?
Mr. Kirkwood: The hon. Member should go down the pit and give them an example.
Mr. Osborne: It is a long time since the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) was there.
Mr. Bowen: It has been said that these comments are due to political bias. Is it suggested that when Mr. Horner talks about what is at stake as being the fate of a great part of the British people he does so from political motives? I do not think he does, and it is not right to suggest that any one else does either.
Captain Peart: The hon. Member should answer that.
Mr. Bowen: I am a member of the Opposition.
Captain Peart: A crypto-Tory.
Mr. Bowen: I do not want to repeat myself, although I could find a precedent in today's Debate for doing so, but the only immediate prospect that I can see of a solution of our coal difficulties is a better spirit, a spirit of cooperation, in the industry. I do not think that the Minister is contributing towards that spirit. The criticism of the hon. Member for Spennymoor, with regard to the Coal Board, will create difficulties. Miners in South Wales are already, rightly or wrongly, making up their minds that the Coal Board is an unhappy marriage between the boys of the old brigade, and unwanted ex-Ministers of the Socialist Government. One of the factors that contribute to the absence of faith in the coal industry is that there is not yet—I know the time has not been long—any evidence of the implementation of the promises which have been given to the mining industry. I want to see the five-day week introduced as soon as possible. I do not know that any industry which has introduced the five-day week has suffered from a drop in production. I do not know, but I am told, that the union was prepared to accept Polish labour if the miners' charter had been implemented.
Mr. Shinwell: How does the hon. Member know that?
Mr. Bowen: I will accept the Minister's correction.
Mr. Shinwell: Why does the hon. Member make a statement for which he has no evidence? Does he know what is going on inside? Has he any inside information? If not, why does he make such statements?
Mr. Bowen: I made my statement in qualified form. I certainly was told. If my information was incorrect, I apologise; but is it true? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] Is the statement incorrect?
Mr. Shinwell: Most of the statements made by the hon. Member have been incorrect.
Mr. Bowen: Will the Minister deal with this particular one?
Mr. Shinwell: It is more than incorrect. It is quite inaccurate.
Mr. Bowen: As I understand it, this is the position. A number of trained Polish miners—not a large number, certainly a

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very small number—are at present available for the mines. Their services are not being used. In my constituency, a week last Saturday, I visited a camp where there are 500 Poles. I understand that very shortly there will be 1,500. They are strong, able-bodied, and well behaved men. Those men are eating British rations. They are on the British payroll, and they have nothing to do from week to week, except to play football and learn English. I suggest that in the circumstances a great effort should be made to train those men who are suitable for the mining industry. The Minister has said about the Bevin boys one of the few things in which I agree with him. Why not bring the whole scheme to an end as soon as possible? It is easy to be wise after the event, but it is clear now that the whole Bevin Boy scheme was a great mistake. Why not get these boys back into their civilian jobs, or into the Army? They are only causing discontent and dissatisfaction in the industry.
In the last coal Debate, in July, I ventured to suggest that one of the great problems was the absence of consumer goods in the shops. I suggested that there were low output and low figures of production because the miner earning good money had nothing on which to spend it. What I said then is certainly true today. There is low output because of the absence of consumer goods, and not sufficient goods because of low output. The whole thing is a vicious circle. In that respect I now venture to make a suggestion which is of a wider character. It applies not to the coal industry only but generally. I have just been examining figures of direct taxation upon wages. Figures were recently supplied to me by the Government, showing that in 1938 the total amount of direct taxation by way of Income Tax deducted from wages amounted to £2 million. In 1945, the total was £241 millions. In 1941, the total amount was only £28 millions. That is to say, deductions in respect of direct taxation have gone up from £2 millions to £241 millions since 1938.
I think that that is one of the deterrents to greater production. Miners feel—it may be illogical and inaccurate but it is certainly disastrous—that after a certain stage they are no longer working for themselves but to provide funds for the Chan-
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cellor of the Exchequer. I respectfully ask the Minister to examine, in conjunction with other people responsible, the possibility of treating wages, from the point of view of direct taxation, on a different line from that adopted at present. I do not wish to pursue this topic, as you might well say, Mr. Speaker, that it is outside the scope of the Debate. But I suggest that the question of increased consumer goods, and the loss of incentive due to the Pay-as-you-earn system which results in a heavy direct taxation on wages, are related to the immediate problem of under-production which the Minister has to face.
Before I close, I would mention one other matter. The speech of the Minister was particularly depressing to one who comes from South Wales. He made hardly a reference to the export trade. His speech was a picture in which people were urged to cut their consumption of fuel by 10 per cent. and to switch over from coal to oil. I hope that the efforts of the Minister to obtain the good will of the industry will be more successful in the future and that the result of his efforts will be marked not only by a solution of the coal problem but by a substantial contribution to our future export trade.
7.0 p.m.
Mr. West: I rise to address the House for the first time, and I crave that indulgence which I have observed is so generously accorded to one who is making his maiden speech. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for North Battersea (Mr. Jay), I have some associations with the mining industry. My earliest association was gained from my life in a miner's home in a mining valley. My knowledge is of the experiences of father and brothers and friends who have suffered much—experiences which have resulted in such bitterness in the past. Unlike the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen), who said he was of the opinion that the country had no confidence in the Minister of Fuel and Power, I can say with some evidence that the country has confidence in the Minister. That confidence was enthusiastically and decisively shown in July last in the by-election at Pontypool when the issue of nationalisation loomed large in the campaign.
I am glad to be able to take part in this Debate because the constituency I represent is a mining constituency. It

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has experienced the evils of low wages, the suffering caused by unemployment and the bitterness engendered by depression. I suggest, in common with many who have already spoken, that the problem with which we are confronted today is indeed a problem of manpower and of output. The difficulty is that the roots of the present lie deep in the past, and as coal is vital to our national well being it is the key that can open the door to industrial prosperity. We realise that without it, we cannot hope to succeed in maintaining or increasing our export and home trade upon which depend the great schemes of social security, full employment and unproved standards of life, which the Government have taken such active steps to promote. Coal is not the concern of the miner alone. It is the concern of every person in this country. Yet although it is of such paramount importance to the national wealth, and the provision of decent standards of living for the people, the coal industry has declined steadily over the years, particularly over the years between the wars. This fall in manpower and loss of output is revealed in the fact that the number of workers on colliery books declined from 1,227,000 in 1920 to 709,000 in 1945. I was a fairly constant drop over the whole period. In my view, this can be explained partially by the fact that the industry has a black record. It was an industry in which only a precarious livelihood was given to the miner for the hazards of his heavy and dangerous occupation His wages averaged, in 1926, no more than £2 4s. 5d. a week.
Furthermore, the coal industry has always reacted sensitively to general trade fluctuations, and the miner was the first to feel the cold blast of trade depression. The industry was unable to hold its own against the increasing productivity of its American and Continental competitors for its owners lacked the courage or the vision or the resources to maintain, develop and improve it. In my own Division, a large productive colliery, with mineral resources estimated to last for 80 years, was closed down and the machinery dismantled, smashed and sold for scrap. The miner had no security. Long periods of unemployment, great distress and hardship were experienced by the whole community in mining areas, and large numbers were forced to leave the coalfield to seek employment in other fields of
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labour. No fewer than 400,000 left South Wales alone.
The wastage of manpower in the industry has been enormous. Last year the outflow was 66,019. of which 3,206 represented deaths, and 39,780 the excess of new compensation and medical cases over old cases recovered and returned to work. In the same year the intake was 48,668. a loss of 17,351. The recruitment of juveniles under 18 amounted to 9,571 as against 30,000 in 1934. This problem of juvenile recruitment is a serious and difficult one. It was dealt with in the first Report of the Committee on the Recruitment of Juveniles in the Coalmining Industry. This report emphasised that the drop in the recruitment was due to the sad record of unemployment, the lower wage levels of the coal industry as compared with other industries, the uncongenial conditions of work, the high accident rate prevailing and the influence of parents who encouraged their boys to seek employment in other spheres which became possible through the development of transport facilities.
The output of coal in 1945 was 183 million tons, a reduction of 10 million tons from 1944. The loss in output can be explained in part but not entirely by the reduction in manpower. The Reid Committee inquired into this and other problems relating to the industry and its report exposes the inefficiency of the industry. The committee found that the chief causes of the loss of output were the inadequate financial resources, diffiused ownership, circuitous roadways, lack of locomotive haulage, lack of standardisation of qualities and sizes of coal, lack of cooperation between owners and men, shortsighted employers, and conservative or handicapped engineers, Some of the mines are over 100 years old and the distance from the coal face to the shaft is long, requiring large numbers of men to work on haulage and repair work. Workers employed on haulage and tub loading in 1944 were 25 per cent. of all the underground workers, and the saleable coal handled per haulage and tub loading worker was under five tons.
It is therefore clear that the industry is in a parlous state and that a most serious situation faces the nation. Our export trade, once of great importance and benefit, has largely disappeared, while home requirements are not being met. The total available coal for inland

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consumption for 1945 amounted to 175 million tons compared with 187 millions for 1944, 191 millions for 1943, and 197 millions for 1939. At the same time our home requirements were increasing while the level of consumption of public utilities remained high, partly due to the continuing high demand from industry for gas and electricity. How is the situation to be dealt with? There is, as the Minister has said, the long-term view and the short-term view. The Government have brought the mines under national ownership, and South Wales and Monmouthshire, from which I come, have had the bitter experience of economic distress during the interwar years. I am glad to say that in spite of those experiences, the constituency of Pontypool decisively endorsed the policy of this Government.
The effect of public ownership of the mines is that it at once removes the fear of unemployment and oppression. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Fuel and Power has stated that there is work for 30 years without unemployment. In regard to the long view, the right hon. Gentleman the Minister in the Debate on the Second Reading of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Bill said that a complete reorganisation of the industry was contemplated, and for this purpose advances are to be made up to £150 million for the first five years in respect of capital expenditure and the provision of working capital. Vast sums are rendered necessary because reorganisation of the industry is essential and new pits must be sunk. Machinery of the most modern kind must be installed. Haulage facilities at almost all the pits must be remodelled, and the ventilating and lighting arrangements must be vastly improved. Better mines, safer mines, mean more production and happier and more contented workers. If the National Coal Board makes an early start in the great schemes of reorganisation, it will give great encouragement to all. Both the Committee on the Recruitment of Juveniles and the Reid Committee expressed the view that it was essential to have proper initial training of new entrants, general wage levels for underground workers at least as high as in other industries demanding an equal degree of skill and effort, security of employment, and the exercise of proper care for safety and health.
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The future of the mining industry is bright. The miner's status is being raised considerably. He can now see that his employment is contributing greatly towards the prosperity of the nation and the raising of the standards of life for the whole community. His labour and his efforts give him a position ranking high in status and in quality. He must be assured of his five-day week. He must be assured of his longer holidays and of conditions that will compare favourably with employment in any other industries. There is a shortage of manpower and a shortage of coal. These are vital problems. We need the coal now. The country needs that great spirit of willing cooperation of all people which characterised the British nation in the time of greatest peril. During the war years the miner, no less than other citizens, played his full part in Civil Defence and the Home Guard in addition to performing his heavy daily work. The great efforts he put forward then, sustained over long years on inadequate rations, were bound to result in fatigue. I suggest to the Minister that if the five-day week, which he has already approved in principle, is put into immediate operation, it will have a stimulating effect on the miner, who will be able to restore that strength and energy which his heavy labours sap. Furthermore, steps should be taken to place the industry in a position as regards wages and conditions equal to the best of other industries. In this way, I feel the recommendations of the Committee on Juvenile Recruitment on this point will be accepted, at any rate in spirit, with the result that new entrants will be attracted to the mining industry. Security of employment is assured, proper initial training is given, and I am glad to know that from next January every colliery will have its own basic training course, by which new entrants will be taught the elements of their work, and the care of their health and safety.
I believe that if the policy is immediately put into operation of improving the present conditions of the miner, if he has the opportunity of knowing now that the five-day week is given to him, he will be stimulated to great efforts, we shall have that increase in production to which we are looking forward, and we shall have those new entrants into the industry. I appeal, therefore, for the five-day week

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and for the improvement of general working conditions at the present time. It that is done, I feel we can look forward to a bright future for the industry.
7.15 p.m.
Colonel Clarke: We have all listened with great interest and attention to the speech of the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. West). I think we all appreciate his reasoned scholarly approach to these problems, because we know that it is only by studying the history of the industry that the reason for some of the things that have happened and are happening will become apparent. I congratulate the hon. Member on his excellent maiden speech, and hope that on many occasions in future he will join in our Debates.
I want also to refer to one or two other speeches made from the other side. The hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Murray) and other hon. Members mentioned haulage in the mines and lack of locomotives for haulage. They rather suggested that this was the fault of the owners and the managements, but I understand that on certain occasions the managers have asked the Ministry to be allowed to use locomotives for haulage and have been refused. Therefore I do not think they can altogether be blamed for that. Also, I want to refer to something which was said by the Minister. Not content with being asked a great number of questions, he propounded one himself. He asked whether we on this side were more bent on "lambasting" the Government or helping them to get coal. I do not think he realised that those two processes work together. They are indeed two stages in an industrial process; unless we "lambasting" the Government, there is no chance that they will get the coal. Also I was not quite clear on one thing he said, which was that during the current year since his party have been in power there has been a considerable reduction in the number of industrial disputes. I think that was what he indicated. However, I understand from the "Ministry of Labour Gazette" that between January and August, 1946, there were 899 stoppages involving 162,000 odd workers, and in the corresponding period of 1945 there were 788 stoppages involving 173,800 workers, so that there were rather more stoppages though they did not involve
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quite so many workers in the first half of this year as compared with the first half of last year when the Coalition Government was in power.
Before going further I think I ought to declare all interest in this subject since I am a director of a company concerned in the coal industry. I want to take up in detail the question of stocks, which has been dealt with only broadly, first, from the point of the household consumer. Judging from merchants' stocks, the position is better than it was last year, but that is to a certain extent illusory because it is due to coal having been kept in merchants' yards instead of being sold. That gives a little more flexibility, but at the same time if the coal of each town could be put into a heap, I do not think those heaps would be as big this year as they were last year. Consumers of house coal are also a little worried because while gas, electricity and fuel oil are all unrestricted, their fuel is very much restricted and they know that when extra coal is wanted for gas or the railways and some industries, that will come off the allocation of house coal. I think the merchants have warned the Ministry on some occasions about this. It is a matter which is giving a good deal of anxiety. Again it has been easy enough to get all kinds of gas and electricity consumer appliances and that probably has added unnecessarily to the problem. If one wants to get an alarm clock so that one may save daylight one finds the utmost difficulty. I spent a long time the other morning trying to do so, but the Board of Trade are sending them all abroad.
The Minister referred to electricity and I am glad that he is anxious about the stock position. He says that the position is that the companies have about four weeks' stock. I thought that in London and the neighbouring part of the country the stocks were rather shorter, the average being somewhere between three and three and a half weeks. Stocks are rather larger on the South coast, but some companies in the south of England have even less. Some are down to two weeks. The seriousness of the position is that most of those companies take the greater part of their supply by seaborne means and it is not so easy to help them in an emergency as it is to help companies who are supplied by railborne means. At this time of the year we have fog and storm and other natural conditions to endure and the

971
stoppages involve units, sometimes, of 4,000 tons and often of 2,000 tons. Some of the companies take coal in ships of 4,000 tons.
I am glad to see that stocks have been increasing in the last month or two, and we still have a few weeks in which they might increase, judging by other years, but there is not a long time. When one reflects that before the war those companies thought six weeks' stock a minimum for safety and now some have only two-thirds of that, one realises that the position is grave. I know that ships can turn round quicker now that there is no export to speak of, but the Ministry have exhausted another safeguard which they used to have. With the gas companies when stocks ran low water-gas plant was put into operation, but now, by order of the Ministry, that plant is being used practically all the time. If I may put it that way, we have one life boat already in use. I have spoken of the difficulties of rapid stocking and discharging plant is, of course, a limiting factor. Also the effect of fog or storm continues for sometime after the fog or storm has passed away. Once the normal sequence of the running of ships is interfered with, they cannot get back into a smooth running sequence for some time afterwards.
I wish to make one or two constructive suggestions. We hope that science and machinery and organisation will solve our problem in a certain number of years. I hope that time may be rather shorter than was anticipated. I think that seven years was perhaps longer than the time we need envisage. When we reflect on some of the great engineering feats, such as the "Mulberry," during the war it should not take us so long. On medium length planning, this winter and the next, it is hoped to increase open cast coal production. It is hoped that in two or three years the output by open cast mining will rise to 15 million tons. I hope that other Ministries will help with systems of district heating and in other ways make really large comprehensive schemes of economy.
Taking the short term policy, I am sorry there is this difficulty about Polish labour. In the past in this country we have benefited very greatly by foreign labour coming in to help us. In the textile industries the Flemish and French people have helped us. Irishmen have come in for a great many years, and
972
Dutchmen helped in digging drains which put the Fens into cultivation. We have benefited in the past, and I thought we might have benefited again. I am wondering whether as the public utilities are short, imports might be of some help. We do not want to pay a lot of money for coal from America, which costs about twice as much as our present coal, but if, on the other hand, we have to go short of coal for factories making goods for export, their output is reduced, and we lose sterling anyway. I should have thought that possibly some import of highest quality fuel suitable for public utilities might be considered.
I fear that the voluntary 10 per cent. cut which has been asked for, will not really be obtained. I feel that the spirit of voluntary rationing has been rather seriously discouraged by six long lean years of war and the present regime of enforced austerity and regulation. I hope I am wrong, but I rather fear that is the case. I fear that today's attitude is more one of sailing as near the wind of regulation as can be managed, or unblushingly taking advantage of the ever increasing black market. I do not think that enforced Fabian Socialism, which might raise our ideals, is having a good effect on the practical morals of this country. It is a great pity, because we used to have a reputation for being a law abiding and honest race. I believe that there are still in some parts of the country old dumps of small coal, some in the Black Country. They are hidden away beneath trees and other places, but coal could be obtained from them.
Our danger is clear, stocks and anticipated output are short, and there is a grave danger that heating, lighting and power may have to be reduced during this winter. That will mean suffering and unemployment, and a set-back to our exports. I have suggested some possible ways, and the Minister suggested others. But I am not really satisfied in my mind that we have yet found a way of replacing the 3 million odd tons of which we seem to be short. We want immediate relief over the next two months, up to Christmas when we reach the peak consumption and stocking is so difficult, when in fact all stocks are on the down grade. I believe there is one remedy which really transcends all others. That is if we can get a change of heart in the approach and attitude of the miners

973
themselves to the service, the national service, in which they are now engaged because today they are engaged in a national service, not just an employment. We were led to believe, though some of us did not believe it, that the change from private ownership to a State industry would bring about that change of heart. If one reads the Second Reading Debates on the Coal Nationalisation Act one finds that referred to a great many times—that the miners would not be working any longer under private enterprise, and that nationalisation would produce more willing, more cheerful and more industrious workers. I will not read any of those quotations. We all remember those Debates, and to my mind there is nothing more boring than a Member reading long extracts from other people's speeches in this House. We can all look them up if we wish to do so, as I did last night.
Have those hopes been realised? After all, we have practically had nationalisation from July, 1945, when this Government came into office with their enormous majority and stated that they intended to nationalise the industry. It was quite obvious that unless something unforeseen happened they would do so. We did our best to prevent it. I went through the Division lobbies at least 40 times in that effort, but it was inevitable from that date that nationalisation would take place. The men knew that the industry was as good as nationalised. After all, if they had been worrying about it so much previously, they were rather like a girl who wants to get married and is nervy because she is not allowed to, but once she is told that she can be engaged she is all right at once. In this case nationalisation was promised on the day the present Government came in. Has there been less absenteeism since July, 1945? Has there been asking for a great deal and offering little or nothing in return? Has the number of those involved in disputes dwindled?
I rather dispute the figures which the Minister put forward on that subject. I do not think that one can escape from the fact that the moral effect, or the effect on the moral of the workers, produced by nationalisation has made no difference to output at all. The idea that it would was a pure illusion. I agree that possibly there are other benefits to be found in nationalisation, many of them are long term ones, but psychologically there are
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none. That is the great central factor that arises from this first experiment in nationalisation. It applies not only to this industry but to others the nationalisation of which is contemplated. There is no great psychological improvement to be derived by workers from the performance of work in a nationalised service in place of private employment.
I am not trying to blame the miners for everything. I am trying to speak dispassionately. If I blame anybody, it is those who misjudged human nature, and thought that this was possible. Many of us had grave doubts about it, and these doubts have been realised. Many of the men appear not to have had explained to them what nationalisation meant. Even today some of them rather think of the mines as belonging to them, in the sense of belonging to the workers in the mines and not to the nation as a whole—a Syndicalist point of view—and are wanting more of the share in the management. Many of them feel that they are no nearer to that than they were. In the old days, in certain pits, it was possible for any man to see his chairman, or one of the directors, quite frequently, not in all but in a certain number of pits, mostly small ones. Now, the opportunity which a man will get to talk to one of the mine members of the Board will be rare. Once they started doing that it would never end.
I hope that the Minister will continue his efforts to get some change of heart. I agree that some kind of inducements would be a help also. I am glad that the meat ration has been increased. I hope that consumer goods will also be provided in greater quantity in mining areas. I do not know whether anything can be done about taxation. That is perhaps a little too difficult, but I feel that in these days, when the young men are all turning to pleasanter, cleaner, lighter occupations, and when people do not want to use their muscles, to sweat and get their hands dirty, those who are prepared to do it should have some advantages, perhaps the physical advantages of more food and other things that are definitely required. I think that they will have to be given. Other men who are not working so hard get advantages in other ways.
I do not see why, if we can get that change of heart, we cannot get 5 million

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tons or more this winter. I base that on the following argument; in the first six months of 1946 the output was 89,500,000 tons, of which just over 4,250,000 tons were open cast. In 1941, which was a year after we had lost a great many men to the Army, they having been allowed to go there when our export trade had gone, conditions were not so different to those of today. Almost the same number of men were engaged in the pits as in the first half of this year, and 206 million tons of deep mine coal were produced—no open cast at all. Over the whole of 1946 the output, therefore, looks like being some 25 million tons lower than in 1941, including open cast. Why is this? Mechanisation has increased, if anything. Some war troubles such as the blackout have been reduced. Why, with the same number of men, can we not get the same output today? I think we know the answer. It is largely due, in fact, almost entirely due, to the factors we have spoken of—absenteeism, lack of discipline, a decline in morale. Moral is to physical as is three to one, Field Service Regulations say in one of their early paragraphs. I think that that applies to mining as much as to anything else. I appreciate the immense burden which rests on the Minister—no less than the economic future of this country for the next decade. The Coal Board have not yet taken charge, and will not do so until the vesting day. The owners have been more or less pushed into the background, as was inevitable after the Act was passed. It is the Minister's responsibility alone. I do not want to be unduly controversial. This is a matter of such seriousness that it transcends party politics. I hope that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary will now, and hereafter, in other speeches, not be unduly defensive, that they will take people into their confidence as much as they can, put the cards on the table, to use the old hackneyed phrase. If they do that I believe that everybody in this country will do a lot to help them, when they learn of the seriousness of the situation.
7.49 p.m.
Mr. Timmons: Unlike most hon. Members on the other side of the House, I have spent all my life, since I was 12 years of age until June, 1945. in the mining industry. I do not like to hear my workmates being assailed in the
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fashion that we have heard on the Floor of the House tonight. When I look back to see what has taken place, and see what is taking place, I have also to remember that the state of the industry today is such as it is because of private enterprise. Twelve years ago I could see that the present state of affairs was approaching. I had a discussion on the matter with our colliery manager and we envisaged the situation as it is today. Young men are not entering the industry to be trained. The reason why is simply that those young fellows know what happened in 1926 when all the forces of the Government of that time were arrayed against the miners, and after eight long, weary months of bitter struggle they were compelled to capitulate by sheer force of circumstances. The conditions that were imposed at that time continued to operate in the industry until 1939. Hon. Members opposite cannot be exonerated from blame for the state of the industry today. I note that there has been an increase in output of approximately 100 tons per week. Unlike most hon. Members who are pessimistic about the future, I am optimistic. I think that the new spirit in the industry is beginning to manifest itself, and confidence has been inspired in the minds of the men. I have not the slightest doubt that we will overcome our difficulties.
Recruitment is a problem which raises more difficulties than most hon. Members appear to realise. In the past manpower for the mining industry was recruited from mining families. That is a fact which should not be forgotten. I had four boys and I have always said that I would sacrifice anything rather than allow any of my boys to enter the industry and undergo the experiences which I and my father endured. Other miners and their wives also made up their minds that the time had come when their sons had to break with the mining industry and that those who are planning to take the coal out must make some contribution in the way of manpower towards achieving the necessary output. Consequently over a period of years, and particularly since 1926, the sons of miners, instead of drifting to the mining industry automatically, have gone into other professions and trades with the result that we are faced today with this serious problem of manpower.

977
I do not envy the people who have taken on the job of trying to recruit workers for the industry. No encouragement was given to miners in the past. When I left school slightly over 12 years of age, I drifted into the mining industry. I wanted to keep pace with progress in the industry and, as I knew I had to continue to earn my livelihood at that work, I wanted to make myself efficient. I spent weary nights after coming from the pit—remember there was no such thing as an eight hour day then—in studying at a technical college. What was the result? What reward did I get? Whenever I tried to claim justice for my fellow workmates I was kicked out. I want the Parliamentary Secretary to note that young men who show an aptitude for the technical side of the industry should be given encouragement and allowed to attend colleges during the day and have their training at the expense of the industry.
Mr. Erroll: Would the hon. Member say whether he was thrown out of work because he went to a training college, or because he was an agitator?
Mr. Timmons: I thought I had made that clear. I was kicked out because I was not prepared to give my technical ability to the employers. I gave it for the benefit of my workmates in the industry, and because I claimed justice for them, I was kicked out. There is one factor which has been overlooked during this Debate. I refer to the fact that 20 per cent. of the manpower is over 50 years of age. Those hon. Members who have had experience should know what it means when we have men aged 45 to 50 trying to carry on at the pace which is expected.
I also wish to draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to some of the problems with which we are faced in the Scottish coalfields. In that part of Lanarkshire which I represent, the mining industry is more or less on the decline. As a result, large numbers of our men have been uprooted and transferred to other parts of the coalfield. A number have been transferred to Fife and East Lothian. Many are young married men with small families from whom they have been separated for a year and a half or more. At the moment nothing can be done in order to prepare houses for them. Consequently, a number of these young men are
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drifting back to Lanarkshire and entering other industries. In 1939 when the war started, the Ministry of Aircraft Production set up factories in various parts of the country. In my area the Ministry obtained compulsory powers and requisitioned houses to accommodate the workers. Something like that ought to be done in order to house the men who work in the mines. In a short-term policy, these are facts which would help to some extent to stimulate production.
Another difficulty in Lanarkshire is that there are men who have to travel over 20 miles a day to work. They work on varying shifts and last Sunday I was approached by a number of these men. They travel from Lanarkshire to West Lothian at a cost of 7s. 6d. a week for a weekly ticket which does not include Sunday. On Sundays they have to pay an additional 2s. 9d. to get to work. That sort of thing is fairly general. Other men travel from Bellshill to Stirling under similar circumstances. These men ask, not unreasonably, whether it is fair that they should lose 10s. or more per week because of the long distance they have to travel. There was an arrangement during the war in which a maximum price was introduced. I think it was about 3s., or whatever was the cost of the fare before 1939, and the balance was paid by the Ministry. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to consider whether some arrangement can be made to assist these men.
I now wish to discuss the question of our immediate programme. For some time before I became a Member of Parliament, I had occasion to visit a number of pits, and I am in constant touch with miners in all parts of Lanarkshire. One general complaint is that there are not sufficient transport facilities for the removal of the coal. It is bordering on the miraculous to see colliers, as I have seen them, taking 300 or 400 tons a day out of a road not much more than four feet high. A sum of £150 million is to be spent in the re-equipment and reorganisation of the industry, and quite a lot of that money could be spent now to help to give us transport facilities in order to take away the coal from the coal-face to the pit bottom. I have spent whole days stacking coal near the coal face because there were no facilities for taking it away from the coal face to the bottom. That is one thing that could be done immediately.

979
In conclusion, I want to say that, to some extent, a factor which has been militating against improvement and has been upsetting the young men considerably is the question—and it is one, perhaps, for the Chancellor of the Exchequer—of Income Tax. Do hon. Members think that young miners, who are called upon to work overtime, possibly at night in order to clear the coal face and secure the complete cycle of work the next day, or, probably, have to go on duty on Sundays, should be taxed to the extent of about 50 per cent. of what they get? These are some of the things that are irritating them, and I believe that, if some consideration was given by the Chancellor to the question of relieving these lads from the tax on their overtime, it would stimulate and inspire them to do their very best.
Mr. Osborne: Is the hon. Member pleading that this should be given only to young miners and not to everybody?
Mr. Timmons: No, generally, but coal is the lifeblood of this nation, and we have got to deal with first things first. If we have to help to stimulate production, we are at least entitled to give consideration to the problem of overtime and to the conditions under which these lads work overtime. It is quite a different thing working overtime in a spacious factory to working overtime in a pit. I do not think it is unreasonable to clear these lads of the Income Tax on the overtime they work. But, when they do get their wages, and wages are inclined to be good just now, better, in fact, than ever, what is the use of these wages when they take them home to find that there is nothing to purchase? I believe that austerity can be carried too far, more especially in the mining villages, where life is drab at the best of times, and I think that some encouragement ought to be given to these men in the way of a better distribution of consumer goods in mining areas. That, in itself, will help and will give the younger men opportunities of spending their money in their best interests. On the whole, I have not the slightest doubt that the miners will respond. This nation has been up against it many a time. We have had our backs to the wall, as we had in 1939–40, and no one in this country responded better to the call of the nation than did the miners, and they will do it again.
7.55 p.m.
Mr. Baker White: The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen), in his speech, made some reference to the problem of absenteeism. I want to say straight away that I do not approach this question in any reproachful or critical spirit, but I wish to say that the real problem for the Minister is how to find an additional 10 million tons of coal before April. To put it the other way round, the right hon. Gentleman would be very thankful if output went up by 10 million tons in the period between now and the 1st April next. If the National Coal Board, the Minister and the miners' officials could do away with avoidable absenteeism at the coal face, they would not only get that 10 million tons of coal but would have something to spare for export. One per cent. of avoidable absenteeism at the coal face means a loss of 2¼ million tons a year. In the month of August, the rate of avoidable absenteeism was 11.11, which would mean a loss of 24 million tons a year if it went on. I believe that, since then, the rate has gone down, and I am very glad that it has.
I suggest that this is a human problem—a problem of human desires and human frailties. I have been connected with the mining industry for 22 years, and, on the basis of that experience, I venture to say that the four major causes of avoidable absenteeism are: first, shortage of consumer goods; second, the cumulative effect of seven years of food rationing; third, Pay-as-you-earn; and fourth, lack of discipline among some of the younger miners.
Mr. Platts-Mills: Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that the main cause is 100 years of the hideous history of the hon. Gentleman's supporters?
Mr. Baker White: The hon. Member has forgotten the advice of the Minister in the last coal Debate. I put those four causes in the order of their importance. I wonder if this Government realise the tremendous factor which the shortage of consumer goods constitutes in restricting output in the mining industry. The miners and their families want new household goods, new furniture, and, above all, new clothes for themselves. But if it can be made possible for the miners' wives to buy new curtains, new linoleum, new kitchen things, new dresses for themselves and new suits for the miners, absenteeism would go down

981
with a bang.—[Laughter.]—Hon. Members laugh, but that is exactly what is the trouble. A beginning has been made. The Government are releasing quantities of sport jackets and flannel trousers for the mining areas, and that is a sound move, though I have a small grievance in connection with it. I come from Kent, where we are very proud of our coalfields. No allocation of these clothes has been made to either Canterbury or Ramsgate, which are the main shopping areas in my part of Kent. I am afraid that the Board of Trade has forgotten the Kent coalfields.
Then, the miner's work means a considerable and continual expenditure of physical energy, and the only way in which they can put back that energy is by more meat, fresh vegetables, sugar and fats. There is no other way of doing it. Miners are to get more meat. Well and good, but there are other things to be done which, though small in themselves, have a considerable effect. I would ask the Minister of Food to increase the allocation of frying oil in the mining villages. At present many fish shops can only fry on two or three nights a week because they have insufficient oil. If they could fry on five or six nights a week, the miners would be able to get more fish. After all, they get tired of boiled fish. I would also like to see a ration of bananas given to miners. I think I am right in saying that before the war the miner was the biggest individual consumer of bananas in the country. Bananas are filling, nutritious and fit well into the snack tin. There should be a better distribution of imported and home-grown fruits and tomatoes in the mining villages. They go to the big towns, but the miners are unable to buy them. I hope that I shall not be out of Order when I say that I believe an equally good case could be made out for giving the same increased ration to farm workers. Miners produce the fuel for industry, but the farm workers produce the fuel for our bodies.
I do not agree that Pay-as-you-earn is such a big factor in absenteeism as some hon. Members try to make out. I believe it is a factor, but a decreasing one. As regards indiscipline among young miners, the cure for that is leadership, and the responsibility rests on the miners' leaders, not on a national level, but on a local level. After all, they have got what they have demanded for half a century—nationalisation. They are now responsible
982
to the nation, and on them lies the heavy duty of seeing that the nation does not lose coal through indiscipline. If a union official said to me that this could not be done, my reply would be that they say in the Army that there are no bad soldiers, only bad officers. The first step should be to tackle the question of consumer goods in mining towns and villages and then to tackle the question of food. If this were done, I am certain that the result would be beyond expectation. In Kent production is going up, and the miners are nearing the target figure. One of the reasons for this is that the Kent miners have an increasing access to consumer goods, fruits and other foods.
8.4 p.m.
Mr. William Paling: In the opening speeches of this Debate a number of questions were put to the Minister and the House waited very anxiously to see how he was going to deal with them. After hearing his reply, I believe that the majority of hon. Members accepted what he had to say, and were pleased to know that he had such a hold on the situation and had done and was doing all he possibly could to meet the seriousness of the situation. But since the Minister's statement was made, there have been a number of speeches dealing with such matters as co-operation, change of heart, psychology and a host of other things. It is very interesting to hear about these matters, but when one has argued and discussed them, one must come back to the pit, for it is there the problem lies, and it is upon the situation in the pit, that I am going to base my few remarks.
One of the criticisms made was that of absenteeism. I would say, first, that absenteeism in the mining industry is no greater than in any other, and that, approximately, only half of the absenteeism in that industry is avoidable. Therefore, it is not such a great factor as some people and some newspapers try to make out. Are not the miners entitled to take the same pleasures as other people in the country? If we are going to criticise them for attending race meetings, football matches, dog meetings, or anything else, and are going to tell them that they cannot do so, then we should close down these sports altogether and prevent other people from enjoying such pleasures which the miners think they have a right to share.

983
As regards indiscipline among the young miners, my belief is that they are as well disciplined as the youngsters in any other industry. The young miner is doing his job well, and feels that he is entitled to the same pleasures of life as other young people. He feels that he is entitled to have a half day holiday on Saturday such as the other youths and girls in his village enjoy. He has to forgo that pleasure in order to work at the pit. That state of things must be altered. If there is to be more cooperation, that must come from the other side. For years past the miners have been prepared to cooperate on the question of producing coal and have cooperated very fully. They have attempted to pull their weight, but they have not found an equal response from the owners.
One of the big difficulties is that, in most of the pits at the present time, the old-fashioned method is still being carried into effect. Whatever happens, costs must not rise beyond a certain figure. If there is a danger of their doing so, the likelihood is that when they receive their pay packets at the weekend a good many miners find that certain kinds of work have been left off. Quite a lot of this kind of thing has gone on from time to time and cooperation is impossible when there is pinpricking of that sort. In order to balance the cost sheet, items are cut out at the expense of men who have earned the money. That must cease.
We also hear of grievances arising out of the fact that in a coal mine where men have been earning good wages, the contract is broken and a lower price offered. Perhaps there may be a faulty face, and men are asked to go in and clean it up so that coal production can be started, and when they have done the job they are paid far less than the wage which they were earning previously. These are all pinpricks which eventually turn into sores. If the men wish to get these matters rectified they often have to go through a very long process. In many of the collieries, including those in Yorkshire, if a man has a grievance he first goes to the over-man. The over-man cannot do anything, so he goes to the under-manager, and as he cannot do anything the matter is reported to the union. The union contacts the manager, but the
984
manager cannot accommodate them. It goes from the manager to the agent, and from the agent to the general manager, and sometimes to the managing director. The whole thing is a farce. If the manager had the power to manage a mine, he could get through the majority of these complaints very quickly. That is what I mean when I say that on the managerial side of the mining industry there is no cooperation to the same extent as there is on the men's side. Until we get an equal response from the managerial side, there will not be much pulling together.
It has been said that this is a psychological question. It certainly is psychological. If the men continually have grievances and suffer from these pinpricks, of course it is psychological. It has the psychological effect of making the men kick. All these problems of a change of heart, lack of cooperation and psychological questions should be surveyed from a new angle. Those who are so fond of criticising should try to look at !:he matter from the new angle which I have explained. If the managerial side pull with the same weight as that with which the men are prepared to pull, we snail be able to make some progress in obtaining the extra coal required. During the last 12 months the coalowners have been aware that the country needs coal desperately. Yet, despite that fact, and despite the experience of last winter, a number of coal-owners in the country are refusing to put into their pits new machinery which is available.
Mr. Enroll: May I interrupt the hon. Member, and ask him whether he will specify a single undertaking to which his remarks can be applied?
Mr. Paling: Yes, and the Minister can have it too.
Mr. Erroll: Will the hon. Member specify one undertaking by name?
Mr. Paling: I do not think it is customary to give names in this House. Colliery owners are refusing to put new machinery into the pits, first, because there are only a few more months to run before the collieries change from private to national ownership, and, therefore, they will not pay the price.
Major Peter Roberts: Does the hon. Member not

985
know that the Ministry of Fuel and Power are, at the moment, paying for this machinery?
Mr. Paling: secondly, the makers of this machinery which we want in our pits are exporting it. That is probably news to some hon. Members. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to look into this question and ensure that machinery which is required in our pits is not exported from this country but is installed in our pits so that the miners may obtain the output which is so badly needed here.
There are hosts of other questions equally important, but when hon. Members opposite put the whole of the blame on the miners, I ask them to remember that the Minister is carrying a legacy which is inherited not from those on this side but from those on the other side of the House. If hon. Members opposite want to help the country and the Minister to get the extra coal, they should study the whole of the facts and get the people they are supporting to pull their full weight in the corporate effort.
8.15 p.m.
Mr. JenningsI rise to speak for a short time in this Debate because I am very concerned about the immediate future of this industry. We must not deal with this question in a heated or an impassioned way, if we are to get the best out of the material we have with which we are dealing. The mining industry has been thrown about for so many years—I will not say by any one particular party—it has been thrown into the political arena for far too long, and the present situation was the only possible outcome. If hon. Members on both sides of the House have the interests of the country at heart, they will fling aside all political and party interests in this matter and view it in a perfectly fair and impartial manner. I have lived in a mining county near pitheads for 52 years, so that I have seen the game from all sides. There are faults on both sides. I want hon. Members opposite to realise that when any criticism is made of their people, that criticism is not always wrong. Some of the criticism may be perfectly right. I would like to correct something said by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. William Paling), when he said that certain colliery undertakings were refusing to put new machinery into
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the pits so that the production would not be achieved I beg of the parliamentary Secretary, when he replies, to answer that charge specifically because if it is taking place it is a tremendous slur on the Minister of Furl and Power. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] He is in charge of the show; it is his affair, and he must know where this machinery is going. If that is untrue, let the Parliamentary Secretary deny it straight away so that a false impression does not go out to the country, that the wicked Tories are again doing all they can to stop the industry. What a grand political stunt.
Let us stick to the businesslike situation with which we are faced today, a situation for which I feel I need not apologise. The position on the coal front in this country today is very black indeed. It is due to a variety of circumstances. What we have to try to do is to offer some constructive criticisms. One item of constructive criticism I would like to suggest to all hon. Members is this: If new recruits are wanted for the mining industry hon. Members should not go up and down the country running down that industry from top to bottom. If I were a young man and heard some of the criticisms being levelled at this industry—and the Minister himself, from time to time, is not guiltless when he takes it into his head—I would say to myself: "That is an industry I am not going to enter. They do not even know how many men they want to produce the coal needed in this country." Today we have heard three estimates—650,000 men, 700,000 men, and 500,000 men. If I were a young man looking for a career I should look at those figures, and I should wonder which Solomon was right and wonder, "Am I going to be wanted if the number is 550,000? I do not think I shall go into that industry."
Why cannot hon. Members go out telling the country of all these benefits these young men are to get? I make no apology for saying—the Minister has said it today—that miners are now enjoying better holidays than they have ever enjoyed. Talk about it in the country. Tell the people that if they go into this industry they will get guaranteed holidays. Tell them the miners are getting more money than they have ever had in their lives. Let us put it across in the proper way, that the mining industry is the best paid industry, on an hourly productive basis, in this country. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is not true."] Hon.

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Members can compare the pay, and I see the Parliamentary Secretary confirming me. Hon. Members should accept his nod, and I say that it is the best paid industry, on an hourly productive basis, in the country. Tell that to the young men, and tell them there is a chance of better conditions in the mines generally. Do not run the industry down from top to bottom. Then we shall get the recruits.
I want to say one or two things with regard to what the Minister said. I am very concerned indeed about full employment in the industries in Sheffield, where coal is a very important raw material. I want to feel certain—and I am far from feeling certain today after what the Minister said—I want to feel reasonably, certain that those industries are going to keep the men employed. But for that the supply of coal must be there, and I want to feel certain that it will be there. Another of my chief concerns—and it is a grave concern indeed—is the position of the domestic consumer, who looks like having to take a back seat in the supply of coal this winter. I raised the question of the supply of coal with the Minister last winter, and he told me that Sheffield was getting a fair share of what was going. I can assure the Parliamentary Secretary that some very sad cases were brought to me of people who were going without fires. I advised them to see the regional officer, and they did, and it was almost impossible for them to get coal—even, in one case, where there was sickness in the house. I do beg of the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with this matter now, and to take every possible step they can to avoid any undue hardship to the domestic consumer, and, particularly, to the old people of the country. All these people have stood a very great deal, and I think we ought not to ask them to undergo any more hardships, if we can avoid it.
I was concerned because the Minister said that the steelworks had on stock about a week's supply of coal.
Mr. Jack Jones: They are wasting plenty.
Mr. Jennings: He said they had about a week's supply.
Mr. J. Jones: I said they were wasting plenty.
Mr. Jennings: I hope the hon. Member will put his knowledge at the disposal of the Minister of Fuel and Power, so that he may benefit from it, and put some of the hon. Member's propositions into effect. If I were the hon. Member and thought such a thing I should not sit down here, but go straight away to the Minister of Fuel and Power, because this is very important. I was speaking to a man in the steel industry last night, and he told me with regard to stocking—I will not quote him, but I am assured the information is authentic—that in three steelworks, in particular, there was only one day's supply. If that is so, I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will cause inquiries to be made. It may be that these are merely isolated cases arising from transport difficulties, or some other cause, and that the coal is available. But if there are any steelworks in this country with only one day's supply, the position is precarious, undoubtedly. So I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to give us an assurance on that, because I am particularly interested in that side of the picture. The Minister said that steelworks usually carried a fortnight's stock, but that now they were allowed to carry only a week's stock, so I think that hon. Members on all sides of the House will agree, that if a week's stock is being carried, it is low enough, and that if there are any steelworks with only a day's stock, then we are in a very sad position. I hope it is not true. There is another and psychological side to this.
Mr. J. Jones: Would the hon. Member allow me, before he leaves the subject of steel—
Mr. Jennings: No, you cannot, you must make a speech if you want to make one. I cannot give way all the time. I thought I would allow you one "go." I gave you one "go," and I do not intend to stand down.
Mr. J. Jones: No, because you know where you have gone to.
Mr. Jennings: I know where I have got you.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): I wish hon. Members would not bring me into the picture so often.
Mr. Jennings: I apologise for my lack of courtesy, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was

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carried away by the great fervour of the hon. Gentleman opposite. I apologise.
There is another side, I feel, that must be viewed, without heat and in a proper, businesslike manner. That is the question of absenteeism, and I make no apology for mentioning it. There is absenteeism in most industries, but it is absenteeism in the collieries that is drawing the limelight. I do not agree that it is not higher in the collieries than in other industries; in the engineering industry it is very small indeed, very much smaller than in the mining industry. We have to be sensible. People who criticise absenteeism have not vicious party views about it; they want to see if they can do something in a constructive way, and I believe that the percentages which have been quoted with regard to absenteeism have meant very little to the people in the colliery districts. I think the time has now arrived when we must speak in terms of manpower, the number of men who are absent from a particular colliery. I heard of a case—I speak subject to correction—of a colliery company where 6,500 men are employed.
Mr. David Griffiths: There is not one.
Mr. Jennings: Of course, it is a group of collieries; surely the hon. Member understands what I mean.
Mr. D. Griffiths: The hon. Gentleman does not, but I do.
Mr. Jennings: The hon. Member is one of the clever ones. This group of colliery companies employs 6,500 men, and I put this to the Parliamentary Secretary as a specific case. The absenteeism on a Monday was not very high in percentage. On Tuesday it was less, on Wednesday and Thursday it tended to get a little higher, and on Friday and Saturday there were very alarming figures. I want to be fair to the industry, and I admit that there was unavoidable absence through sickness and so on, but the effect of it all was that, out of a total of 6,500 men, there were on an average, 1,000 men per day who did not go to work for one reason or another. I believe that if the miners themselves saw these comparative figures they would realise what a grave loss they are to the industry; and I think the miners' wives, particularly those of the miners who are good, hard, solid men,
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doing a good job of work—and there are many tens of thousands of them in the mining industry—would turn round and argue with the wives or sisters of the men who are doing an injustice to their job, because they are doing an injustice to the other men's job as well, I believe that would have a psychological effect on a certain number of people, because the limelight would be turned on to them. Today the figures are just shuffled out in percentages. Let us know exactly where the bad districts are. Let us see how many men are staying away from one particular group of collieries or one particular pit-head as compared with another, so that we can get the culprits coming out into the limelight. I think that would have a psychological effect.
If we review the incidence of absenteeism, it will give us some idea of the remedy. If absenteeism is largely on a Saturday, we should see what the attraction is in the area, and deal with the area as a whole—do not let us have flesh for one and not the other. I am pretty certain that if we threatened to close down some of the attractions, they would go to work. I feel that a strong line has not been taken with them in the past. I think we have been far too lenient with them. It has been suggested that they might be sent into the Army. These are hard facts for Members on the other side of the House. They have the medicine to take, because they have now got the industry. They have taken the industry willy-nilly, and now their answer to lack of production is past history.
I was particularly interested in the maiden speech of the hon. Member for North Battersea (Mr. Jay). The sincerity with which the hon. Member put his difficulties could not but have touched the hearts of all Members. We sympathise with the difficulties, but talking about past difficulties and past evils will not get the coal. It is coal we want today, and the Government have to deal with the situation in a proper businesslike way, otherwise they will not get it. They should look at the position psychologically, and give the miners more consumer goods; give them something upon which they can spend their money. What have they got today? Pots and pans, and things which do not interest the men. It is all wrapped up with the ambitious Socialist policy. It will do them down in the end. It is having a snowball effect. I hope that

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before they have any more acrobatic plans in the shape of iron and steel, they will have had a very good lesson on the fallacy of their theoretical policy, which will bring them down 100 per cent. and dissatisfy the whole country.
8.33 p.m.
Mr. D. J. Williams: The speech of the hon. Member for Hallam (Mr. Jennings) strikes me as being a distorted echo from Victorian times. It is pretty evident that it is precisely the philosophy behind that speech, which has brought this industry to its present state. This is the second Debate we have had on coal in a period of four Parliamentary weeks. On 24th July, a few days before the House adjourned for the Summer Recess, we had a very full and frank discussion upon the mining problem. Today, a few days after our reassembling, we are debating the same ever-recurring theme. This indicates that coal remains the most serious of our domestic problems. The frequency with which the subject is ventilated in this House is a measure, both of the seriousness of the position, and of the concern which is felt on all sides of the House about the affairs of the mining industry. These frequent Debates help to throw some light on the problems. They give us facts, but unfortunately they do not give us more coal. Coal is not produced in this House, nor is it produced in Millbank just across the road. Coal is produced at collieries, and unless those collieries are reorganised, and placed on a proper foundation, the coal crisis will go from bad to worse.
During the last 25 years, coal has been the theme of innumerable Debates in this House. I listened to many of them from the Gallery long before I became a Member of Parliament. I believe it is true to say that no other industry has received so much attention here. In addition, coal has been the subject of investigation, inquiry, and recommendations by Commissions and committees of all kinds. In spite of this, however, the condition of the mining industry, over a long period, has continued to decline. It has moved from crisis to crisis and from crisis to the verge of catastrophe. The position today is desperately serious, from whichever angle we look at it. The present crisis, however, is basically different from all the other crises-through which the indus-
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try has passed during the last 25 years. The history of the mining industry has been a succession of crises of varying periods of duration and varying degrees of intensity. But none of the crises of the past has been quite like this one; this is different in character, and in form, from all its predecessors. It is unique in the history of the mining industry, and something entirely new in the economics of British coal mining.
All the old crises sprang from overproduction of coal in relation to home and overseas demands. The problem in the past was that we had too much coal; today, there is not enough coal. The country is now facing a really critical winter, because of a possible shortage of coal. Acts of Parliament were passed to encourage and facilitate the selling of coal. Today, we are looking for means to save coal. Then we were alarmed because oil was displacing coal as fuel. I still have very vivid recollections of the consternation which spread throughout South Wales when some of the capital ships of the Navy went over to oil burning. It meant disaster for South Wales: the closing of collieries, derelict villages, and unemployment for thousands of our people. In the past we had too many miners. In every mining village and town in Britain we had long queues of men whom the industry did not require. Indeed, between the two wars the mining industry had the highest incidence of unemployment. Skilled men lined up outside employment exchanges, because the industry and the nation did not require their services. Now, there are too few miners. We are trying to find miners all over Europe.
A great deal of nonsense has been talked about the use of Polish miners in the industry. One might have imagined that every Pole is a potential miner, anxious to come into the British mining industry. When we examine the position, the actual potentialities and possibilities of Polish labour in the mining industry are infinitesimal The German, Englishman, Welshman, Scotsman or Irishman has to be a skilled miner before he is of any immediate use in the mining industry. It is no use bringing a peasant from Poland to work in a Welsh colliery. When we have sifted out the Polish workers who can speak English, those who are skilled miners, and those who are prepared to join the miners' union, there are left not more than 200. I do not know where you

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are going to put them. There are no homes for thorn in the Welsh villages You cannot expect a Welsh miner, a Scottish miner, or an English miner to accept them as lodgers, The introduction into the old-fashioned mining communities of these Polish miners will do more harm than good. Two hundred Polish miners will not mean a tremendous increase in production. If a stoppage in a colliery, employing 1,000 men, is brought about through that, we shall lose more coal in one day than 200 Polish miners could produce in a week.
One of the main difficulties of the mining industry now is that we cannot recruit boys. In every crisis which afflicted this industry in the past, we had too many recruits; there were too many boys, and nobody wanted them. In my own district it was a common sight to see 40, 50 or 60 boys outside a colliery office every morning asking for jobs. The parents begged colliery managers to give their boys a start. The industry did not require them. Now we are desperately short of boys, and the Government have to employ a team of officials, with varying degrees of success, to get schoolboys and other juveniles to go into the industry. They will not go into the industry; they do not want to go into the industry. In the old days, there was always keen competition for jobs in the mining industry at very low rates of wages. There was always a queue outside the colliery gates, even though a niggardly, miserable wage was paid. Today, although mining wages are practically doubled, there is no competition for jobs. No one wants the jobs. The increase in wages brought about by legislation and negotiations has failed to provide the attraction necessary to bring more labour into the mining industry.
In the old days, there was the difficulty of the price of coal. The coal owners were always arguing that the price of coal was too high to enable them to sell it; the miners complained that the price of coal was too low to give them a living wage; and the general consumer always complained that the price of coal was too high. Today, no one worries about the price of coal. Everyone is concerned about getting the coal. If we can get the coal that is the only thing that matters. In the present situation, therefore, all the prewar problems of the mining industry are standing on their heads. We are now meeting in reverse all the old traditional
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difficulties associated with this industry. Instead of too much coal, there is too little; instead of too many men, there are too few; instead of a surplus of recruits, there is none, it is not simply the case that the wheel has turned full cycle; it has almost ceased to turn at all.
The present crisis has continued for some time. All the authoritative statements which we have had from the Minister, the Parliamentary Secretary, and other people indicate that there is no improvement in the situation. There are no encouraging signs from any direction that the position is better than it was. We have to face the fact that the situation in the mining industry is deteriorating very rapidly. Only the other day, the secretary of the miners' union warned us that the whole of British economy is delicately poised on the razor edge of the coal crisis. A fortnight's stoppage in the British mining industry from any cause—an epidemic, a breakdown in transport, or climatic conditions—will bring the whole of British industry to a standstill. That is the measure of the crisis that is upon us.
I want to say a few words about the causes of this crisis. It is no use blaming the miners. This crisis is too deep and too serious to find scapegoats to take the blame. We have to find the causes of the crisis in the organisation, structure and history of the industry. First, the British mining industry is an old industry. It is a 19th century industry, and it is incapable of meeting the needs and requirements of the 20th century. The overwhelming majority of our pits were sunk and developed in the 19th century. I represent a mining constituency in which there are about 33 pits. Only three of those pits were sunk and developed in the 20th century. All the rest belong to the 19th century, and some of them to the very early days of that century. I remember that some time ago, in the Debate on the steel industry, the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred to some of the tinplate mills in my Division as simply old junk. That same description might with equal truth apply to most of the collieries in my Division. It is characteristic of all the collieries in the anthracite area of South Wales.
Secondly, the industry is technically backward. In my lifetime we have lived through a second industrial revolution.

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This second industrial revolution has bypassed the mining industry; it has had no effect upon it, and the mining industry has had none of the benefits of the enormous technical advances that have been made by science in the last 25 years. More than half the manpower employed in British mines is employed in collieries where the output per manshift is under one ton. When we talk about the output per manshift we have to remember that output is determined not simply by brawn and brain; it is determined by technique and machinery. Only one per cent. of the entire manpower of the British mining industry is employed in collieries where the output is two tons or more. That is the measure of the serious technical backwardness of this industry.
Thirdly, there is the age of the miners. The miner is at his best between 25 and 45 years of age, and yet more than half the manpower in the British mining industry is outside that age group. Only 42 per cent. of British manpower comes within the age group 25 to 45; 158,000 miners—22 per cent.—are over 50 years of age. When we expect miners to produce coal, we have to remember that men of 50 or over are not so efficient, not so energetic and not so capable as men between 25 and 40. One of the main problems facing the industry is to increase the number of miners in the age group 25 to 45.
Fourthly, there is the question of wastage, which is really an alarming problem. I am sorry to bore the House with these figures but I think they indicate the core and kernel of the crisis in this industry. Wastage is caused by deaths, retirements through old age, accidents, and disease. I come from the death pool of the mining industry as far as disease is concerned, where we lose thousands of men every year because of chest complaints caused by dust. In 1942 the industry lost 32,441 men; in 1943, 37,998; in 1944, 44,175; in 1945, 66,019 and in the first half of 1946, 33,223, or at the rate of 66,446 for the year. In other words, in four and a half years the mining industry has lost 213,856 men, skilled men experienced men, good men. Let us see how that position is balanced by the inflow into the pits. According to the Minister's own figures, the recruitment of juveniles under 18 falls far below the requirements
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of the industry and below the figures for wastage in the industry. In 1942, 12,945 juveniles under 18 came into the industry; in 1943, 12,139; in 1944, 10,389; in 1945, 9,571 and in the first half of 1946, 6,192 or at the rate of 12,384 for the year. In other words, in 4½ years we have gained 51,236 juveniles.
Now let us make a balance sheet of the position. In the last 18 months this industry has lost 99,242 or nearly 100,000 men, and it has recruited juveniles to the number of 15,743. Each week 1,334 miners go out of the industry, or 222 per day; and each week 210 lads come in to take their place, or 35 per day. That is the appalling and alarming arithmetic of the mining problem from the standpoint of manpower. If the present rate of wastage continues, we shall have no miners left in ten years. That is the magnitude of the crisis and the measure of our responsibility in this present mining situation. I agree that it is a gloomy picture, but it is true, and it is borne out by the Minister's own statistics and confirmed, I believe, by the experience of everybody who has lived in a mining community in the last 25 years. The causes of this calamity are very well known and I need not deal with them here. I only wish to say that there has been a tendency in much of the criticism of the Minister and of the new Coal Board set up to assume that all the ills and evils from which the industry is suffering date from 5th July, 1945. The Minister is taken as a scapegoat. The miner is regarded as a scapegoat. Nationalisation seems to be the new omnibus term to explain all the troubles of the mining industry.
The tragedy of this industry is that it was not nationalised 25 years ago. That, too, is the tragedy for this nation. Then, at least, the Minister would have had a live body to take over. Now I do not know whether he is taking over a patient on the way to hospital or a corpse on the way to the cemetery. In any case it will need a miracle or a major operation to put it on its feet again. And not only a major operation; it will need too a long period of convalescence. There is no single, simple solution to this mining industry problem. There is no universal panacea. Now that the mines have been nationalised—I hope that the vesting date will be speeded up—there is the possibility of dealing with the problem

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as a national one. It is a national problem. There is now the possibility of applying a comprehensive plan for the whole situation. It is a big job. How can it be done?
First of all, it cannot be done by threatening the miners. That sort of philosophy is dead, and any attempt to revive it will simply cause further disaster. It is well known that youngsters remained tied to the industry during the war because of the Essential Work Order. Most of them would have left the industry to join the Forces if they had been allowed to do so. I remember my own experience on a pit production committee. A young lad who was a persistent absentee was brought before the committee. He was warned, censured and lectured. I met him one day, and I told him, "Unless you attend work you will have to go into the Army." His reply was, "Good Heavens! I have been trying to get into the Army for the last two years but the manager won't let me." If you threaten the young miners with the Army today they will certainly say "We will accept." That is no solution. The miners are sick and tired of lectures and exhortations. The policy of the Coal Board of getting managers and miners together in conference to discuss and analyse the position is sensible, and I welcome it. By all means let us examine the position, but let us not regard the miners as children. There is an unfortunate psychology prevailing now in the pit and outside the pit. There has been a revolution in mining psychology. In place of the old pride of craft, and pride in the industry, a revulsion of feeling has taken place against colliery life and colliery work. The gigantic task facing the Minister and the Coal Board is to create a new psychology in the mining communities and a new attitude towards the industry, a new spirit. We must make the mines more attractive.
I would utter a word of warning, however. Mining can never be made a physically attractive job. You can whitewash it, streamline it or gild it. It will still be mining and coal will still be black, dirty and dusty. The suggestion has been made that we can make it attractive by machinery. I do not accept that, for it is a remarkable fact that in areas which are technically advanced there is the same reluctance on the part of the youngsters
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to go into the industry as there is in my own district which is technically, the most backward in Europe. Under certain conditions, machinery can make a colliery a mechanised hell. I have seen a few of them. To make it attractive, we must make it attractive from the outside. The attraction has to be social. We have to give the miners a five-day week, and later, a six-hour day. We must revive pride in the industry. We must improve the social amenities of the mining communities. Above all, every section of the British public bears a responsibility for finding the manpower for the pits. Miners no longer accept that responsibility. For generations miners came from miners' families, but that cannot go on. This House has the responsibility of impressing on the entire British nation that everybody has a responsibility for making up the serious deficiency in manpower now facing this industry.
9.1 p.m.
Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: Speaking on 24th June Mr. Will Lawther remarked that the present situation had all the elements of industrial catastrophe. These are grave words, and nothing that has been said in this Debate today has in any way reduced their importance or gravity. The Debate has, on the whole, been remarkably free from past recriminations. When a ship is sailing the sea rudderless, only fools stand on the deck and argue about who is to blame. The nation requires something more serious from us today than to waste our time on past history and past recrimination. Hon. Members on the other side should realise that both sides can cast stones and elevate one contributory cause to look as if it were the whole cause. I believe that the country is looking to this House today to arrange, in common, remedies for the whole of the community. The less heat we generate in this Debate, the more heat are we likely to get in the country.
This question is surrounded by a mass of statistics, dull things to which we cannot avoid some reference in a Debate of this kind. I have here some figures given in the Statistical Digest which has just made its appearance, and it is to this I want to refer throughout. We have heard figures given, but figures thrown to us across the Floor of the House without comparison with previous years are difficult to assimilate and it is difficult to

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adduce an argument on them. In this Statistical Digest I find that the production in 1945 was 183 million tons. Of that, 8 million went in export. The consumption during the same period was between 187 and 188 million tons, leaving this famous gap of 5 million, or as the Minister has frequently referred to it, 100,000 tons a week. This was partially made up during the past winter by a reduction of stocks from 15 million to 9 million tons. I say "partially," because we were informed earlier in this Session of Parliament, in reply to a Question by the hon. and gallant Member for Fylde (Colonel Lancaster) that already in the first three months of this year, no less than 100,000 tons of steel production has been lost owing to insufficient coal supplies. We have also heard that already there have been periods when, to employ a euphemism which the Minister has himself used, power stations have shed their load and gas companies have reduced their pressure. So while this gap exists, a gap the subject of which has been in all our considerations and in all the speeches today, we are already suffering from a measure of industrial starvation. The Minister has told us that at present we are running at the rate of 100,000 tons a week more than last year. That is good hearing, but I ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether it is not an historical fact that in the months of September and October, there is always, normally, an increase in production.
I want to deal for a moment with the general export trade of the country, not with the coal export trade. We heard the other day from the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, that the export trade of this country has already attained its pre-war volume. That is a considerable achievement, let us admit it; but he went on to say that if we are to make ends meet and if we are to be able to pay for the imports necessary for this country, those must be stepped up to 75 per cent. over what we have already attained. How can that be done unless we get a further increase in the production of coal? There again the gap widens, and this 5 million tons minimum gap which we are facing now may easily swell to something like 25 million tons or, if not, the whole of our industrial economy is, as Mr. Lawther has said, gravely threatened. How are we to meet
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this gap in the requirement for exports of our general merchandise? Is it possible to take anything from the already denuded and limited consumption which is available to our own people? Clearly that is not so. One speaker after another on all sides of the House has united in urging that so far from the present consumer goods in the shops being sufficient we ought, if we want to cut down absenteeism, to increase them very considerably. So we shall not find any solution of the problem of this extra 75 per cent. export trade in plundering the small supplies available to our own people at present.
Now a word on unemployment. We have already heard the grave words which the General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers has used in that connection, to which I would like to draw the attention of the House once again, namely, that each 5 million tons of coal short for industry this winter will lead to a consequential loss of employment of more than a million people. I cannot quite believe in that figure, but if it is only half true, just think what a grave unemployment situation is facing the Government.
What then are the prospects of closing this gap? It is clear there is nothing to be drawn from the coal export trade, because that great trade, which once was the pride of our country, which once contributed so enormously to the general welfare and industry of Britain, has in fact dwindled until it is insignificant. In the first six months of this year our total exports were 2.6 million tons, and those 2.6 million tons consisted of the poorest possible quality of coal—of slack, of duff, of coke breeze. I have just returned from the Continent and people there ask, "What has happened to the British export trade? Here we are crying out to re-establish our industries. We are in urgent need of coal, and what do we find? We ask for coal; you give us a few stones. Is this a plot to keep down the industry of the Continental countries?" I think it has had mild international repercussions. I heard them myself only a few days ago.
Then let me draw the attention of the Minister and the House to one other grave feature in a trade with which I was connected, the question of ships' bunkers. Ships are sailing from the Clyde, and no

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doubt from other port?, with only sufficient bunkers to take them on the first half of their voyage and, when they get to the River Plate, they are there forced to pay £6 a ton for the same quality of South African coal that they buy in this country for £3 a ton. That involves not only the loss, since there is no coal to carry, of the outward freight—and consequently the homeward cargo has to bear the whole cost of the voyage—but it increases the cost of bunkering the ship by an estimated sum of £3,000 a voyage. I do not need to ask anyone in this House upon whose pockets ultimately that increase falls when the maize or chilled meat from the Argentine eventually reaches this country. The Clyde is stagnating and I have no doubt that every other port which in the past—the bad old days we hear so much about—was accustomed to ship cargoes of coal from this country, is stagnating likewise.
Mr. Shurmer: The miners were not benefiting.
Colonel Hutchison: May I quote some words from the Principal Assistant Secretary to the Ministry?
"The estimated output in 1947 is 186,000,000 tons, that is, 3,000,000 more than in the previous year."
He went on to say that these figures had now been readjusted to between 187,000,000 tons and 200,000,000 tons. That readjustment is immensely important. I urge the Parliamentary Secretary, when he replies, to say whether he can confirm those higher figures which, in effect, would solve our immediate problem, although not the long-distance problem. Would he also say by what black magic they are to be brought about?
Where else can we look for some partial alleviation or solution of this question? We have heard a great deal about absenteeism and the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. William Paling) says that it is not so bad as elsewhere and is really not serious. I do not know, but I would like to call the attention of the House to the extent to which some reduction in absenteeism would bring in production of coal. In July, according to the same statistical digest, it was 14.76 per cent., and its history is that it has risen from 6.4 per cent. in 1938 to 16.3 per cent. in 1945. That is a very serious increase. If hon. Members tend to argue that
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absenteeism is normal and that the miners are entitled to it, I would ask what was happening to 6.4 per cent. in 1938? I wonder if the House realises that a reduction of 6.8 per cent. in absenteeism would mean an extra 15,000,000 tons of coal for the country? Surely, this is not a very good advertisement for nationalisation? It may be said that full nationalisation has not yet been brought about, but all these constant promises and hopes that were held out and the political aims which were preached, culminated in the Act, which was passed by the House of Commons not long ago. One would imagine that if by that the miner was going to be satisfied, and would see the whole of his horizon changed, he would have reacted in such a way as to bring about something more than he has in fact brought about. A reduction of 50 per cent. in the voluntary absenteeism at present would increase production of coal from 7,000,000 to 8,000,000 tons. Surely, their ears are prepared to listen, in the gravity of the situation, to these figures, or are they closed to such persuasion, and only open to darker and more sinister counsels?
We have heard from the Minister that long-term production machinery will help and we all realise that that is so. But he goes on to say that power loading is in its infancy, and will take some years to come into full play. We hope that he will see that this infant gets all the possible nourishment which he can give it. It is a little surprising to find—and he may be able to remedy this in the not far distant future—that the proportion of machine-cut coal in thick seams is lower than in thinner seams. As an outside layman, I would have expected the contrary to have been the case.
I would like to deal for a moment with the vexed question of manpower. I find it difficult, as I think the House and the country have found it difficult, to reconcile the optimistic and pessimistic sides of the Minister's mind. He reminds me of the man who looks at a glass of wine one day and says, "It is half full," and who sees the same glass the next day and says, "No, it is half empty." The question of manpower has been fairly clearly dealt with, again by the Principal Assistant Secretary to the Ministry in his recent reported statement. There he estimates that by the year end the net wastage of manpower will be 9,000, leaving in the industry 687,000 men. He goes

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on to say—and these are the significant, pregnant words—that during 1947 the figure will have fallen to 665,000. At the same time he estimates that the output per, manshift may be expected to rise from one ton to 1.02 tons. If the manpower is, in fact, going to fall by these considerable figures, and the output per manshift is to rise by that very inconsiderable figure, it does not look as though the Principal Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Fuel and Power has a very good basis for having stepped up the production of coal to between 187,000,000 tons and 200,000,000 tons.
Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to enlighten me. The Minister has said, and it is almost a famous remark—I do not apologise for mentioning it again because it is a statement of such tremendous significance:
"It is an erroneous conception that more men are required in the industry. Only 5,000,000 tons stand between us and success this winter. Things are not so bad as people think they are."
Whichever way one looks at that, knowing the circumstances, and knowing the views of the mildly increasing output which have been mentioned by the Principal Assistant Secretary, that must be a farrago of nonsense. If our export trade is to be revived at all, if our industry is to be able to expand at all, how can the Minister expect that with those manpower figures and without a tremendous increase in manshift output, we do not require a very much greater number of men in the industry.
The numbers in the industry have fallen steadily since 1937, and the Minister finally, on 8th October, settles down in his mind as to the need for further manpower. He delivers himself of this remark:
"Without emergency measures to secure recruitment the decline must continue."
I would like to ask the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary just what emergency measures he has in mind. Clearly, those words would not have been used lightheartedly. I believe that they mean something more than ordinary recruitment facilities. As has been said on many occasions, the problem is a psychological one of reversing the preaching of almost a generation of which the theme song has been, in fact, "Don't go down the mine,
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sonny." That is the whole problem which the Minister has to solve.
The hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Murray), in a whirlwind speech, counselled a whirlwind campaign. I have no doubt that that would help tremendously, but if the Minister is to embark on this campaign, I beg of him to remember two factors of great importance. The first is the question of pithead baths. Only 40 per cent. of the pits of this country are, in fact, equipped, although they are the larger pits, and consequently the number of miners making use of them is greater than that proportion. The second is the question of housing. I know of young men who would come into the mining industry in Scotland if only they could be assured of a house. It all comes back to the housing question. There is no bait which the Minister could dangle so successfully before prospective recruits for the mining industry, or for any other industry, as the assurance that the recruit will get a proper house to live in.
I want to refer to one remark made by the Minister upon the Polish question. I would like to be quite clear on the words he used. I understood the Minister to say that hon. Members might perhaps have advocated that the Poles should be forced down the mines. If that is intended as a piece of propaganda against hon. Members on this side of the House, I wish to get equal publicity for the reply that no such advocacy has ever been preached by any hon. Member to my knowledge. It may be that the Minister was taking an imaginary, and perhaps rather useful, illustration. I would like to know if that is so, or whether he definitely stated that that had been said by members of my party.
Then there is the question of conversion from coal to oil. It is a tragedy almost equally great to that of the complete loss of our export trade, that we should have to consider the purchase and installation of oil burning machinery in order to replace our natural product of coal. What does it cost the Chancellor of the Exchequer in foreign exchange? What I know is that it costs the industrialist who tries to produce steam from oil instead of coal a very much greater sum, even at today's prices, than it would to produce that steam by coal. There, with some darker patches which one might add to the picture, is the whole sombre outlook.

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What then are the remedies? In my view they are entirely psychological. There have been eulogies offered to the Minister by one of his. adherents. He has been equally violently criticised by the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen). I should be inclined, if I had to take sides, to side with the hon. Member for Cardigan when he said that on the whole the nation have lost confidence in the Minister of Fuel and Power. They have lost confidence. I can understand it and I can sympathise with him in his unenviable task of trying to make an unworkable scheme work; but the fact remains that the nation who have expected coal to be produced by his Ministry finds that the coal is not being produced. While, of course, it may be necessary for the Minister to add certain nuances to truth and fact according to the audience to whom he has to speak, I beg him to realise that that is not very clearly understood in the country, and that what looks like optimism on Monday—hot on Monday and cold on Tuesday—is not the sort of thing that adds confidence to the minds of the people. Violent swings from optimism to pessimism do not create confidence. If the Minister will learn something from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill)— and there is much that he could learn—he would at least learn that this nation, miners and all, if they have put before them truthfully and clearly a situation of emergency and an appeal is made to them, will react. That has been proved time and time again. The nation will play their part. The Minister intends to ask for a ten per cent. voluntary reduction in the consumption of coal. I beg him to remember that it is the patriotic and unselfish who respond to these appeals. He will get that response from the patriotic and unselfish if there is a proper appeal to them.
The Minister appeals also to industrialists to modernise their coal burning plant. That is all very fine, but who is going to take that step when, all the time, there is the threat of nationalisation, and, not only that, but when many hon. Members of the Opposition are parading the country saying that the compensation which has already been given is far too high? If they do instal this new plant and save coal, and also make profits, round the corner comes the sinister figure
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of the Chancellor to take the profits away in penalising taxation. If we are to be able to compete in the world market, which today is a sellers market, but which will not continue, I beg the Minister to realise that he must instil some spirit of confidence into industry. I urge him to consider seriously a five year plan for leaving industry alone.
Then there is the psychological question of the men themselves. Do the men really know what they want? Is the Minister satisfied that he knows what they are now asking? They have their national representatives on the Coal Board, they have their labour representatives on the divisional boards, and they have the nationalisation of their industry. In my view, the men are extremely unsettled", and, from what I have been able to find out about them in Scotland, they are not themselves clear on what they want. Nor are we, nor is the nation. Further, I would like an interpretation of the enigmatic words pronounced by the Secretary of the Mineworkers' Union: "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat." Also, some explanation is needed of the statement that the situation "requires the implementation of the Government's policy of full employment for every willing and unwilling pair of hands." May I underline the words "unwilling pair of hands"? Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell us what is meant by them, because they constitute an extremely uncertain factor in the nation's mind. My final question to the Parliamentary Secretary, to which I hope he will reply, is the question which was put earlier in the Debate: "When is the vesting date going to be?"
We hear a lot about the mandate of hon. Members on the Benches opposite. They have received one clear and obvious mandate, and that is to govern, and that no caucus, committee or congress shall deprive them of that right and duty. I would wager that there is not one voice from these benches which would be withheld from the support of the Government in the carrying out of that higher duty, and, when they do carry it out, I beg them to remember the famous last words of one whose name they, no doubt, well know:
"Danton, no weakness."
9.29 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Mr. Gaitskell): The hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow (Colonel Hutchison) began his speech with the declaration of his intention to refrain from controversy. I am afraid the hon. and gallant Gentleman was not able to stick to that admirable resolution, and if in the course of my speech, I feel bound to defend the Minister, the Ministry and myself, I hope he will not object.
Colonel Hutchison: I do not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman but I said "past recriminations" and not "controversy."
Mr. Gaitskell: The hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke) said it would be a good thing if we put our cards on the table. That is exactly what we have done, and what we are proposing to do. There is no doubt that it is desirable, in view of the gravity of the situation, that the country should know exactly where it stands, because it can be said with confidence that the British people, when faced with a difficult and dangerous situation, and when told of that situation, will always respond.
I believe that to be the case, and that is why I want, once more, to make perfectly clear what the present position is. We have had a good deal of figures thrown about today, and I make no apology for reiterating what the position is as we see it in response to requests from the right hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd George) and to references made by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow. When my right hon. Friend presented last July what has come to be known as the "coal budget," he estimated first of all, consumption plus exports at 196 million tons, and, secondly, to meet that, production of deep mined coal at 177 million and open cast and briquetting at a further 9 million, making 186 million in all, thus leaving an initial gap of 10 million tons. He then proceeded to outline the measures to be taken to close that gap and, without specifying in every case how much he expected to get from this, he repeated at the end that there would still be a gap of, perhaps, 5 million tons. In the light of what has transpired in the last few
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months, can we now revise those estimates?
My right hon. Friend has already given the answer. On the production side we are very pleased to be able to announce that we consider we have under-estimated the production figure for the year, and that an increase of at least 2 million tons is now reasonable. In a moment or two, I propose to explain, in response to the request of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, just why we think that increase which he called "black magic"—which I do not think was particularly appropriate—is reasonable. We also admit that on the economy side—the measures taken to close the gap—we cannot now expect so large a saving from oil conversion this winter as we had hoped for, and we have put that down from 3 million to one million. The upshot is that we are left with a gap of perhaps 5 million tons.
I say "perhaps" because, as my right hon. Friend mentioned, some people think that it is only 3,500,000 tons and others that it may only be 2 million tons. I agree with the right hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke that, however good those who estimate them may be at their job, we cannot be exactly precise in these figures. However, something between 2 million and 5 million is still left as a gap. I must make it quite plain that that includes some further running down of stocks at the end of this winter as compared with the end of last winter. It allows for a reduction of something like 1,500,000 tons. I quite agree with some comments that have been made that it will certainly not be easy to manage, even at the end of the winter, with the level of stocks as low as 5,500,000 tons. That is the position, and I wish it be clearly understood that even when we allow for that we still face a gap. The country must realise that.
Major Roberts: The gap, I understand, was 10 million tons, of which 5 million was closed by increased production. That is what was said in July. What I want to know is whether the increase of 100,000 tons a week, which adds up to 2 million tons, is an increase in production. Is it going to make the figure 7 million or only 3 million tons?
Mr. Gaitskell: I am not sure what the hon. and gallant Member means when he

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refers to the 5 million tons. The 5 million tons was due to a series of measures—an increase in open-cast production, the conversion to oil fuel, the running down of stocks, some changes in the production of gas which economised coal, and so on. It did not involve any allowance for increased production, and I would like to make that perfectly clear. That is the situation. Of course, in those circumstances stocks are bound to be low. Reference has been made to coal stocks for steel. There was some dispute about the figures. I am advised that, in fact, the stocks for the steel industry at the moment, on the average, are just under 2½ weeks. They were three weeks last year. I think the hon. Member for Hallam (Mr. Jennings) quoted a case in which there was only one day's stocks available. I can assure him that, if that is the case, it is exceptional. The position is not as bad as that, but of course the stocks are low. We are starting this winter with 11 million tons compared with about 13½ million or 14 million last winter, against 16 million tons which we would like.
I said just now that I would explain why we estimate an increased production. One reason is based on the experience we have had up to now. The results of the summer months have been better than we expected. There has been a lot of gloomy talk about the failure of the miners. On the whole, the output that they are now making is a good deal better than we might have expected. I notice that the hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow spoke in what I thought were somewhat disparaging terms of the miners' efforts. He might be interested to know that in Lanarkshire this week the miners beat their target.
What do we assume when we say that there will be a gap of say 3½ million tons? I will take that figure, if I may. We assume, on the production side, that the average manpower for this winter will be 680,000. That is to say, we are assuming a drop of some 20,000 men in the industry over the full winter. Hon. Members may say that that is unduly gloomy, but we have to recognise that we have removed the Essential Work Order, and, although there is a ring fence around the industry, it does not apply, for example, to lads under 18, and we have to recognise that there will be some Bevin boys who
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will be released, and so on. It may be too gloomy, but there is another aspect to be considered. Much of the labour which will go, as my right hon. Friend said, is not particularly good quality labour. It is probably desirable that it should go. A man who does not want to be in the industry, who is longing to get out of it and hates the whole business, is probably more a source of trouble than of value. I think, on the whole, there is every reason to be satisfied, even though of course when one sees that the net loss to the industry at the moment is running at somewhere round about 1,000 men a week, one is bound to be anxious.
Secondly, we assume that during this winter absenteeism will be running at about 14½ per cent. That is a lower figure than that at which it stands at the moment. During the last week, for instance, it was at 15.3 per cent. But we believe that that was a reasonable estimate to make, for the reason given by my right hon. Friend that the people who are leaving the industry are, on the whole, the bad attenders, and secondly because the trend at the moment certainly is towards a reduction in absenteeism. Thirdly, we assume an output per manshift of 1.035 tons. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow spoke of the output per manshift as being I ton at the moment. I do not know where he got that figure. Last week it was 1.04.
Colonel Hutchison rose—
Mr. Gaitskell: It is not really relevant to the argument. Last week it was 1.04 which, incidentally, is only 10 per cent. below what it was before the war, compared with 15 per cent. a year ago. Hon. Members may say that we are optimistic with that figure of 1.035. [Interruption.] The right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) says he cannot follow the figures. I am trying to be as plain as possible. Even if he cannot follow them, perhaps some hon. Members can. Perhaps he will be able to study them in quiet afterwards.
Those are the assumptions we make. I think that on the whole they are reasonable ones. Some may be more optimistic, some may be more pessimistic, but on balance I think they are fair. The next point is this. How can this 3½ million gap be closed? What is necessary in order that it can be closed? We can take the three factors again. Obviously,

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it depends on manpower, it depends on absenteeism, and it depends upon the output per manshift. Suppose we take the assumptions I have made here on absenteeism and on output per manshift, to close that gap we would need 26,000 more men. If we could get that, instead of having 680,000 men, we would have over 700,000 and the gap is closed. Suppose the manpower was what we have assumed it would be, 680,000 on the average, and that the output per manshift was what we have assumed, then, if the absenteeism falls to 11 per cent. and no other change is made, again the gap is closed. Finally, if the manpower and the absenteeism are what we have assumed, and the output per manshift rises to 1.075—still, I may say, well below the prewar level—the gap will be closed. My right hon. Friend has been accused of being inconsistent because he said the gap was a small one. It is a small one. In a sense, that is the tragedy of the situation: it needs such a little effort from all concerned to put us out of danger. I think he really cannot be fairly criticised for pointing that-out.
What can we do about it on the production side? There are three factors again; output per manshift, absenteeism and manpower. Let me take them each in turn. First, output per manshift. Here we must face the fact—as my hon. Friend the Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Murray) in his very invigorating and penetrating speech made clear—that this industry is an ageing industry, that there are certain physical and technical factors working against us. There is the percentage of thin seams, contained in the Statistical Digest, 26 per cent. under 3 feet compared with only 19 per cent. in 1913. On the whole it is harder to get coal out from a thin seam than from a thick seam; it is more expensive and needs more manpower. Only 6 per cent. of the output now comes from shafts sunk in the last 20 years; the vast amount comes from old pits. There has been a continuous increase in the number of miles of underground roadway per ton raised; which means, in other words, that all the time we are moving further away from the pit bottom. Finally, as several hon. Members have said, there is the age distribution. All these are working against us. Output per manshift has not
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merely fallen since the war—still less since the Labour Government took office. It began to fall in 1936, a fact we cannot overlook—and which, incidentally, even the Reid Report was scarcely able to explain satisfactorily. There is a second major factor in this declining output per manshift and that is this: the influence of the war. We had better face this. What happened last time, after the 1914– 18 war? Output per manshift fell by 25 per cent. between 1914 and 1921. It did not reach the 1913 figure again until 1927, nine years after the end of the war. This time we have done better. It has only fallen 15 per cent. and it has gone up; it went up in the autumn of 1945, and, as I have said, just now it is only 10 per cent. below.
That is at least something by which to be encouraged in what is, as we all recognise, a very difficult situation. What is the reason for it? Everybody can have their own views: war strain, physiological factors, lack of food, labour turnover—which is, I think, immensely important in both cases, but it is there. It is all very well to speak about control and nationalisation, or lack of control, or lack of nationalisation. I think there is something more fundamental than any of those things. It is the war situation that is behind this, plus the earlier factors I mentioned. There is one other thing which, I think, must be mentioned in connection with this fall in output per manshift, and that is this. It is quite clear that this time, at any rate, it is very much tied up with the declining percentage of workers at the face. That is a natural result. We take men away from the face. We have to keep a certain minimum number on haulage and on the surface, and so, in the last resort, they come off the face.
What can be done to raise the output per manshift? It has been said many times that there is a long run solution. We all know it and we all agree. The Reid Report lays it down, and nationalisation will carry it out. I do not want to be controversial tonight, but we believe nationalisation can carry it out. We also believe that there must be a better spirit in the industry, and better welfare conditions. That will all take time.
The hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow twitted the miners and twitted us with the fact that they had not responded so rapidly to nationalisation. Why should they? They have got to

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learn what nationalisation will mean. They are suspicious, after 20 or 30 years of the treatment they have had. Of course they are. One cannot overcome that sort of feeling in a night or a week. But nationalisation lays down the right foundations for the new spirit to be developed upon, and already it is developing. Can anybody suppose that trade union leaders would have spoken, as they have lately spoken, if the industry had remained in private hands? Can we imagine the "get-together conferences" with managing directors, and all the same old people in the industry—all coming together with the miners? Has it ever happened before? Of course it has not. It will be some time before the results are achieved. We must emphasise that. People must realise that. It takes time to reorganise the pits. As to the additional power-loading machinery, we shall do all we can to speed it up, but it is no good expecting speedy results.
What can be done in the short period? As I say, we are already one-third of the way back to the prewar level. Output per manshift at the face is only 3 per cent. or 4 per cent. below the prewar level—a very good figure. We need, certainly, one thing that can be done, and to which everybody in the industry should contribute, and get together to help forward. We need up-grading to the face. Everything that can be done to overcome the men's reluctance and the managers' reluctance must be done in that direction. We need to encourage cooperation. The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. William Paling) referred to the difficulties there were, the pinpricks. It is perfectly true, that some managers have not yet learned to manage the men. Some do. They vary greatly. But we must ask all those responsible, in these coming months, to exercise the utmost possible restraint and tact in handling these difficult problems of friction which so easily arise in the mining industry. Perhaps the outsider—I do not feel myself any longer to be an outsider in this matter—does not realise how, in the conditions in which the men work in the mining industry, friction can arise. It is inevitable. We must ask both sides to do everything they can to exercise restraint to prevent friction developing.
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Now for absenteeism. Well, here again, we see an improvement. Recent figures show some reduction. Let us remember this, too. When we speak of absenteeism percentages we are apt to forget that the actual number of shifts worked, on the average, is very nearly the same as before the war. What has increased is the number of possible shifts. Now, the causes have been referred to by many hon. Members today, and I do not propose to go into each of them in detail. P.A.Y.E., certainly, I am ready to admit, does very likely have some influence. Shortage of consumer goods have been mentioned by several hon. Members. I want to tell the House what we have done about that. Six months ago we asked the Board of Trade to look into the matter and they did so. We asked them to put additional goods into the mining areas and they have done so. I can assure hon. Members that that is exactly what has happened. The various trade associations, and the firms and wholesalers, have been asked to increase the rate of supply of docket-free consumer goods to the mining areas. Government surplus clothing, to which the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Baker White) referred, is being sent in large quantities to those areas. Indeed, the mining areas are getting all the surplus boots, coats, trousers and raincoats from the demobilisation programme at the moment, and as regards food—I entirely agree it is important—the Ministry of Food have already been asked, and have agreed, to increase as far as they possibly can the variety and quantity of goods on points.
Mr. Baker White: May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman for one moment? Since I spoke this afternoon I have received a letter from the Board of Trade in which they have refused to send clothes to the Kent mining areas.
Mr. Gaitskell: Obviously there are certain difficulties. Kent is not purely a mining area, as I am sure the hon. Member realises, but I am prepared to look into that later on.
Thirdly, I turn to manpower, and I would like first of all to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Batter-sea (Mr. Jay) on his admirable maiden speech. His hon. Friends on this side fully expected that he would make most valuable contributions to our Debates, and

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he certainly started by making one this afternoon. First of all, what are the difficulties? We all know what the difficulties are in the way of recruitment to the mining industry. There are the inherent defects—the three "D's," darkness, danger and dirt. We cannot get over those. We can reduce the danger, certainly, we can introduce main road lighting, which we are doing, and we can improve conditions, but we cannot get round them. Secondly, there is the past history of the industry. Many hon. Members on this side of the House have referred to it, and it does have an effect. Of course it does. The ordinary miner still feels very bitterly about this industry, and he is not prepared, in many cases, to advise his children to go down the mines.
But there is something even deeper than that. There is the whole question of status. In this country we are, I believe, encouraging too much what one must call a "white collar snobbery." We are raising on a pedestal, through our educational system and through our attitude, the white collar worker, with his clean conditions and, shall I say, relatively easy life. One would think it would be exactly the opposite. Here is coalmining; it is a dangerous job, a hard and dirty job, and precisely for that reason the community ought to value the men in that industry very highly. We have got to have a revolution in our attitude to these things. I heard a trade Union leader say this, and I think it is profoundly true: "When a woman says, 'My daughter is going to marry a collier' with the same pride as she says 'My daughter is going to marry a teacher,' we shall have solved the problem." We are doing as much as we possibly can, and I wish I had time to tell the House in detail of what we have done, but I can honestly say that the Recruitment Department in the Ministry of Fuel and Power is doing a first-class job, and has produced results. The increase in juvenile recruitment is 50 per cent. above last year. It is still too low, I agree, but it is well above last year, and the Department is doing its best to overcome the prejudices and wrong ideas which are very prevalent about the coal industry.
I was asked about Irish labour. From Northern Ireland and Eire, we have now placed about 1,100 men. We expect and hope to get about 250 men a week over
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the next three months. That is largely the result of a cooperative effort on the part of the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Fuel and Power, and I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for North Battersea that we are working very closely and very well with the Ministry of Labour on this whole business. If I had time, again I could go into much greater detail.
Captain Crookshank: The vesting date?
Mr. Gaitskell: My right hon. Friend proposes at the end of this month to announce the vesting date. He is not in a position to do so tonight.
May I now turn from production to consumption. We have, I think, the right to ask consumers, not so much to impose a hardship upon themselves, although we may have to do that, but that they shall not waste. I am not thinking so much of the domestic consumer, because, frankly, I think that the allocations which they receive are sufficient to make them economical in their use of fuel. It is a fact, however, that in industry there is a great deal of ground to be gained here. We must ask every industrial firm to make quite certain, in its own interest, that it is using fuel in the most efficient manner possible. I can say, with the full authority of the Minister, that those firms who will not make themselves efficient will be forced to, and if cuts have to be made, the cuts will be imposed on them, and not on firms which are efficient. We have a lot of information in our office, and I hope that that will be taken seriously.
Earl Winterton: Are the Ministry taking particular steps to safeguard the supply of coal to hospitals? As one connected with hospitals, I warn the Parliamentary Secretary that in some cases stocks are extremely low, and that it is extremely difficult to obtain new stocks.
Mr. Gaitskell: I can assure the noble Lord that we are watching that situation very carefully, and that we have a machine fully adequate to cope with a situation of that kind.
We are inheriting in this industry at this time an extraordinarily difficult problem. We can argue about the responsibility, and other Members have done so, but, frankly, I do not think it is worth going over that ground, so long

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as there is no attempt made by the other side to put the responsibility on this side. If hon. Members opposite think that they can get away with it by trying to make us responsible for their misdeeds in the past, we are not going to stand for that. It will take years to put the situation right. It is comparable, in some ways, to the situation at the time of Dunkirk, when we knew that we could not turn out vast bomber fleets over night, and when we knew it would be two or three years before the munitions were really being turned out. There was not a great deal of argument then about responsibility for the past. Just as then we had to improvise, and improvise, and improvise, so we have to improvise today, and that is my right hon. Friend's answer, and my answer, to the accusations that there is a lack of clear thinking.
Major Roberts: With regard to the question of clear thinking, the figure which was given of 177 million tons, which I have here, was for the ensuing year. For the last year, on which I am basing my argument, the figure is 172 million tons. The point is that there are five million tons missing, and that is a frightfully important point.
Mr. Gaitskell: Believe me, I know the figures backwards. I thought that I had made them perfectly clear. There are only two minutes left, and I am not going to be drawn into an argument now about figures, because I really have more important things to say. What are we doing in the circumstances? I have listened to pretty well every speech in this Debate. I have listened to them with interest, and to the suggestions which have been made. I can only say that no constructive suggestions have been made which have not been considered, and in many cases already adopted. I am not blaming anyone, because I doubt whether there are any easy solutions to this problem. We must rely here, in this question of closing the gap, on the British people who are concerned, on the British people as consumers, and the British people as producers in the industry. We have seen signs of hopeful development.
The output per manshift has been rising, and absenteeism has been falling. If we can only keep that up, if miners can continue to respond as they have been responding, we shall get through this winter. On the production side, I urge,
1018
once more, that every man, whether he be a miner at the coat face or on haulage work, or whether he be a manager, agent, or member of the regional board, should consider one thing, and one thing only, irrespective of cost, and everything else—how can we get more output? Every decision must be governed by that, and that alone. If consumers realise that the coal they burn so easily is bought at great expense of physical labour then I am sure that we shall get through the winter.
It being Ten o'Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

ARMY EDUCATION
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Michael Stewart.]
10.1 p.m.
Mr. Swingler: I am very glad to have the opportunity tonight to raise the subject of Army education, which I believe to be of vital importance. There is, today, a great deal of concern about the future of the Army, which is failing to get the recruits it requires. Indeed, military conscription is continuing, and may have to continue for much longer than some people think. Some of the present conditions of service in the Army are cause for grave disquiet. Despite the rosy forecasts, which have been given in recent times, of Army life, with prospects of softer beds and additional leave, it is still plain that Colonel Blimp is by no means dead, and that blimpish attitude is still displayed—the attitude of "Their's not to reason why"—by spokesmen of the War Office, even to Members of this House.
If the Army is to be reformed—and I believe it must be if it is to get the recruits it requires—the provision of educational opportunity is fundamental. It is fundamental to efficiency, morale, and the cultivation of a democratic spirit in the Army. When, in 1939, the National Service Bill was before this House, the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Secretary of State for the Colonies moved a new Clause to make it a duty of the Army Council to provide educational and social facilities for persons called up, and to do it in conjunction with the then

1019
Board of Education and national organisations interested in adult education. In so doing, he was merely taking up the threads of the work of the Adult Education Committee of the Ministry of Reconstruction in 1919, which arose out of spontaneous and improvised movements of education in the Army in the first world war.
I do not want to bore the House with quotations from the volumes of recommendations of that Committee, on which certain right hon. Members, now on the Front Bench, sat, but simply to say that their conclusion was this:
"In our opinion it is greatly to be desired that in the standing Army of the future continuation education of a general kind should be a normal part of the training provided."
But, after 1919, that was not done. Those recommendations were, in the main, financially "axed." Certain educational provision was made, with the foundation of the Army Educational Board in 1920, but it was meagre and had little or nothing to do with adult education as we now understand it.
So 20 years later, in 1939, the work was started again, not only by what was done by hon. Members of this House on the issue of conscription being presented, but also by spontaneous movements in the universities and national educational organisations in the country. Most Members of this House, who are interested in these developments, are acquainted with the tremendous movement to which that gave rise, with the massive development of educational provisions, of lectures, of classes, of libraries, and musical concerts and other things of that kind, on a very comprehensive scale, in the early years of the war. That led in 1941 to the establishment of the Army Bureau of Current Affairs, to the issue of the publications known as "The British Way and Purpose," and to the foundations of schools, and what came to be known as formation colleges.
Many of these educational movements were, in the beginning, quite spontaneous, improvised, and uncoordinated, but they amounted in sum, at the end of the war, to what has been called the greatest experiment in adult education in the history of this country. Some of that work was, I know, from an educational point of view useless and even farcical. I speak from
1020
personal experience, as one who knew it on the educational side at the beginning of the war, and later on as a consumer of education in the ranks and as a commissioned officer in the Royal Tank Regiment. In a great many places there was untrammelled discussion of the issues involved in the war, there was general freedom of expression in an atmosphere of adult education, the soldiers' needs as citizens were seriously considered, and, to a very few, an opportunity was presented of having something which approached university standards and university methods in education. It provided, moreover, for many soldiers a link with civil life, and it gave birth to the release scheme of vocational and general adult education which has, I believe, considerably assisted the comparatively smooth process of demobilisation up to now. Fourteen months have passed since the end of the war, and, just as the Army has been running down in the process of demobilisation, so has the provision of education in the Army also been fast running down. Many of us, on this side of the House at least, are very anxious to know what the War Office is going to do about it. During those 14 months, we have had nothing better from the Secretary of State than vague generalities on this subject, the mention of paper schemes and of paper returns. What about the question of opportunities of technical education for the young men being called up now? We were told that they may have classes for proceeding with their careers and studies, or they may not. So far as my information goes on this matter, they may not. We were told that there were no teachers because of civil needs, but I do not accept that excuse, because, during the war, we had precisely the same kind of situation, or a worse situation, and men were found who could do the job.
There is in the War Office today an advisory body which is charged with the function of making recommendations to the Army Council and the Secretary of State about this question. What consultation has there been during the past year with the universities and educational bodies, and what has that advisory board achieved? I received from a man who has sacrificed a great deal in the development of Army education, and who is still concerned with it, a letter like this—and

1021
I could quote many other letters which I have received. He writes:
"I think that the Army has done a splendid job during the war with A.B.C.A. and B.W.P., but what of the new intake? In a certain group"—
He mentions it by name—
"where I believe that educational schemes are fostered with more fervour than elsewhere, there teems to be no planning for those just coming into the Army, the boys who need it most of all. Can you do something about it? I imagined I was doing a good job for the country, and so I was, until recently. At the War Office and high levels there is great interest and keenness, but in units there just is not any education, except on paper and in monthly returns."
I hope that the Financial Secretary, who is to reply, and whom we are glad to see on the Front Bench, may be able, 14 months after the end of the war, to offer us something better than the vague generalities that we have had on the subject of Army education up to now from the Secretary of State.
10.12 p.m.
Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: I do not want to go over the ground that has been so accurately described by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Swingler), but I remember very vividly the right hon. Gentleman who is now Secretary of State for the Colonies making that speech to which he referred; indeed, I, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, was sitting next to Mr. Hore-Belisha, the former Member for Devonport, when he replied. The reply was jointly from the two Ministries. That was in the early days when conscription was started. Very largely due to the late Adjutant-General, Sir Ronald Adam, and to Sir Philip Morris, as he now is, the Army produced a scheme during the war which has been the admiration of the whole world. The Army drew upon a very remarkable group of men and women from among assistant directors of education—who were wanted at their posts and who had no need to leave—and from a large number of teachers from secondary and other schools. A big organisation was built up. There was also an enormous amount of voluntary work done by people helping with lectures and by technical colleges. Then came the release period, with the E.V.T. scheme and the formation colleges.
1022
But now something quite new has happened. Young men are going into the Army at the ages of 18 and 19—I have seen something of them in the last two months—who, a few years ago, I remember going out with gasmasks and iron rations on trains from the main stations of this city to unknown destinations. These men are the victims of evacuation, wartime education, and overtime in industry when they left school, and it is no disrespect to them that I say that there is a large amount of illiteracy among them at the present time, and also a mental reading age, for a proportion of them, of about 11. What are we doing to meet this? These young men want basic education. They want civic training. I say this with no disrespect to their main job, which is military training to make them efficient as soldiers, sailors and airmen. It is vital that they should have this basic education and civic training, and it is our responsibility to see that they get it, since they are conscripts. At the present time there is not a serjeant in the theatre from which I have just come who has anything above the school certificate. The Army Education Corps has gone back to what it was before the war. They are the old Army schoolmasters, very largely; they are not the people who alone can possibly tackle this new problem.
I ask the Financial Secretary, who is sympathetic on this matter, when the new plan for this brand-new Army is to be produced. Is it intended to retain this vital connection with civilian life, because the Army belongs to the nation—that is not just a phrase? If we separated the Army from the nation no good would result either to the Army or to the nation. We want to be assured that the Advisory Committee presided over by Sir Walter Moberly and the Board under Sir Philip Morris are going to be kept closely in touch and to develop for these young men an absolutely first-class scheme. We have not yet had the details except very vaguely in a statement by the former Secretary of State for War. We should like to know more details about it and to be assured that the men who are to be responsible for this new task really understand their job: there is the greatest opportunity presented to the Army with the group of young men who have now gone into it. I beg the hon. Gentleman to take this matter far

1023
more seriously than it has been taken during the last 14 months and I assure him that the majority of hon. Members in this House will support him.
10.16 p.m.
Colonel Wigg: I am sure everyone inside and outside this House, who has at heart the interests of the Army and of those who serve in it, will be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Swingler) for having raised this issue tonight. He quotes in support of his case statements made in this House by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies, but I want to call additional witnesses in the persons of the right hon. Gentlemen the Foreign Secretary and the Lord Privy Seal. They were members of the Committee which made a very comprehensive report at the end of the last war. One of their main recommendations then was that if education in the Army was to be anything really worth while, both from the point of view of the Service and of the individual, it must have connection with the educational world outside. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, by the early twenties the painter was cut and education in the Army had no contact either with the universities or with the Board of Education.
It is very regrettable indeed that a Labour Government has taken precisely the same steps that were taken at the end of the last war because if there is one pledge which the party sitting on these benches has to fulfil it is to democratise the Army and give those who serve in the ranks the opportunity of equipping themselves for the task of earning a living and the task of citizenship. It is very clear that little or nothing has been done. Indeed I would say that at the present time 90 per cent. of the resources of the Army Educational Corps are devoted not to providing education for British Forces but to teaching English to General Anders' Army. It may be essential that that task should be undertaken but I say that it is a shame and a crime against the young men who are called to give two of the formative years of their lives to the service of their country that they should be denied educational opportunities because of the calls of the Poles. I hope, therefore, that when the Financial Secretary replies he will give us a great deal more
1024
encouragement than we were given by the statement made by the Secretary of State for War yesterday.
10.19 p.m.
The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. John Freeman): My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Swingler) has stated his case with great clarity and he has been considerably reinforced by the senior Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay) and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Dudley (Colonel Wigg), both of whom are recognised experts in this field. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford, in opening this Debate, referred to the presence of Colonel Blimp at the War Office. I hope to satisfy the House that that gentleman is no longer present at the War Office. At any rate I have not yet encountered him, and if it is judged that he is still there, at least I hope it will be agreed that he has passed through a course of rejuvenation since he used to be caricatured before the war.
There are two problems here. One is the question of what is happening at this moment to keep the educational scheme going while the release scheme is running. The other is the far more important problem of what the permanent system of education which we are to build up in the postwar Army is to be. I do not want to waste too much of the time of the House on the first point. The difficulties at the moment are enormous. Manpower is running out of the Services like sand out of an hourglass, and what, in spite of the difficulties, may have been comparatively easy in wartime when the Services were gorged with manpower, including many people with high technical qualifications in education, has become a matter of great difficulty at the present moment. We are doing the best we possibly can to carry on the educational scheme in present circumstances. Unit education and correspondence courses are being maintained as effectively as possible. We have at the moment six formation colleges still operating. I should like to assure hon. Gentlemen who have spoken that we are doing the very best we can over this short but immensely difficult period, when the old machine is running out and before the new machine has really got going, to prevent the standard falling at any rate to an irreparably low level.

1025
What is much more important is what we propose to do in the future. It is fully accepted by my right hon. Friend, and indeed by the Government as a whole, that education for the future is an absolutely integral part of Army life. There is no question of going back on that pledge which has been freely given: "No Army, no education; no education, no Army." The Army and education will go on together. That, in itself, should be a considerable inducement to recruits. We are all worried how to get voluntary recruitment at the moment. We are all thinking what the advantages of the voluntary recruit are over the conscripted one. I am going to suggest to the House that at least one advantage will be the opportunity to make use of what I hope will be a great and unparalleled scheme of adult education.
In working out the scheme there are three stages. First, the scheme has to be planned in the War Office That is the period which we are accustomed to hear described in this House as the period of doing nothing. That is a bad description. I was taught in the Army that time spent in reconnaissance and in making plans was not time wasted. I do indeed believe that to be true. [HON. MEMBERS: "Seldom wasted."] Hon. Gentlemen opposite who have had experience once or twice of ineffectual planning would prefer me to say, "Seldom." Broadly speaking, the principle which I have stated is good. In the second stage, when the framework of the plan has been drafted, steps are taken to make it administratively practicable. The third stage is that of definitely carrying it out.
We are making reasonably good progress in stage one of this plan. I wish to give the House an idea of what is being done. It is intended that the permanent scheme of education in the Army shall come under four heads. First of all, there is what we call universal community education. That means, roughly, the extension of secondary education, which will be taken by every soldier and will include the general coverage of subjects like current affairs, English, mathematics, history, geography, and so on. That will be done in King's time and the supervision of it will be in the hands of the Army Educational Corps. Secondly, there will be voluntary individual education, which, as its name suggests, will be
1026
done largely in the soldier's spare time. It will enable him to follow any particular pursuits that he desires or is qualified for, and it will include of course the formation college, which has come to stay.
Thirdly, we have resettlement education for the regular soldier who, before he goes out into civilian life, must be given the best possible chance of finding suitable employment. As to whether that will be done in his working hours or not, I prefer not to commit myself at this moment because it is still undecided whether it should be done while he is in the Army or immediately after he has come out. Whichever way that goes, it is an integral part of the scheme. Fourthly, there is the education of' illiterates and semi-literates.
Earl Winterton: Would the Financial Secretary say whether the negotiations are still in progress with the trade unions to enable men who have been given technical training which would fit them to become highly skilled workmen to be immediately accepted as members of the union?
Mr. Freeman: That is hardly a question for me to answer here. If the noble Lord would care to put a Question down, either I or one of the Ministers from the Ministry of Labour would answer him. I could not answer without notice.
Earl Winterton: But is it not the responsibility of the War Office? I understand the scheme is in operation under the War Office.
Mr. Freeman: Since we are debating at the present moment Army education, the noble Lord is entitled to ask his question, but, with great respect, it would be wasting the time of the House if I attempted to answer without an accurate answer in my head. I say again that if he will put down a Question he shall have a perfectly fair answer. The hon. Member for the Combined English Universities talked about a high proportion of illiteracy in the Army. In fact the proportion is one per cent. at the moment. It is perfectly true that there is a higher percentage of men whom we call semi-literate—not illiterates—who are only partly literate. These two categories will be catered for under the last head—
Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: I was not trying to misrepresent. I merely sought to get the figure.
Mr. Freeman: The figure is one per cent. Having planned the outline, the scheme must be made administratively practical. It appears to us that the scheme should be fully drafted in a matter of months from now—by the end of this year, let us say. Thereafter come the real difficulties of tackling the priorities of both manpower and material in making it work. The House will not expect the Army to have the highest priorities in these affairs at the moment. We have to take our turn with the innumerable other needs which the country has in both manpower and materials, but we shall do the best within the priorities which are allotted to us to see that the educational scheme is not left behind.
Lastly, the question of making the scheme actually work when it has been planned and has been possible is something we cannot discuss at the moment. I would only say this in regard to the Army Educational Corps, which was criticised to some extent by one of the hon. Members. We have recently made it possible to take a limited number—300—short-term commissions into the Army Educational Corps, which is only a start and without prejudice to the final establishment of that Corps. We received about 1,500 applications for those 300 posts from very highly qualified people indeed, and we do not regard that as being unsatisfactory as far as it goes.
In the two minutes now available to me may I 'say to my hon. Friends, that
1028
perhaps they will accept that I have acquired my present status of gamekeeper sufficiently recently to be allowed to address them as old poacher comrades of not many days ago. I do not apologise unduly nor do I admit any undue delay. This scheme is infinitely bigger in its ramifications than most people not connected with it would imagine. If we take hasty decisions and patch it up now, it will not come into effect as we intend it should. We have every intention of planning this scheme really carefully and introducing it when we are certain that it can and will work. We are phasing the present Army education scheme in such a way that it gradually modifies itself to the outlines of the new scheme as they become firm. I hope it will be accepted that we are planning this carefully. I suggest that if some hon. Member cares to raise the subject again in four or five months' time it will be possible to report very substantial progress in that period. In the meantime, I ask the House to believe that we have the subject very much at heart at the War Office. Hon. Members must not believe there has been undue delay, but must accept it that planning is done behind closed doors to begin with and that when we produce results they will be regarded as good.
It being Half past Ten o'Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

MALAYA
  Colonial Pensions
  Colonial Pensions
  Licensed Pleaders
  Licensed Pleaders
  War Damage Claims
  War Damage Claims
COLONIAL EMPIRE
  Trade Union Legislation
  Trade Union Legislation
  Surplus Military Wireless Sets
  Surplus Military Wireless Sets
  Ex-Servicemen (Employment)
  Ex-Servicemen (Employment)
  Emergency Legislation
  Emergency Legislation
  Scientific and Veterinary Staffs
  Scientific and Veterinary Staffs
  Returned Officers (Employment)
  Returned Officers (Employment)
  Further Education and Training
  Further Education and Training
SEYCHELLES
  Cattle Disease
  Cattle Disease
  Sugar Importation
  Sugar Importation
  GIBRALTARIAN EVACUEES
  GIBRALTARIAN EVACUEES
AFRICAN COLONIES
  Nigeria (Cost of Living Commission)
  Nigeria (Cost of Living Commission)
  Labour Recruitment (Nigeria)
  Labour Recruitment (Nigeria)
  MAURITIUS (CONSTITUTION)
  MAURITIUS (CONSTITUTION)
  PALESTINE (DETENTION POWER)
  PALESTINE (DETENTION POWER)
  AUSTRIA ("WELTPRESSE", CONTROL)
  AUSTRIA ("WELTPRESSE", CONTROL)
FOOD SUPPLIES
  Potatoes (Blight)
  Potatoes (Blight)
  Bread Units (Points, Conversion)
  Bread Units (Points, Conversion)
  Extra Rations (Groundsmen)
  Extra Rations (Groundsmen)
  Eggs
  Eggs
  Butchery Businesses (Licences)
  Butchery Businesses (Licences)
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Rubber (Government Purchases)
  Rubber (Government Purchases)
  St. Erik's Fair (British Exhibits)
  St. Erik's Fair (British Exhibits)
  Children's Shoes
  Children's Shoes
  Preserving Jars
  Preserving Jars
  Tyres (Commercial Vehicles)
  Tyres (Commercial Vehicles)
  Umbrellas
  Umbrellas
  Clothing Coupons
  Clothing Coupons
  Narrow Fabrics
  Narrow Fabrics
  Cycle Racks
  Cycle Racks
  Football Pools (Paper)
  Football Pools (Paper)
  Mining Areas (Commodity Supplies)
  Mining Areas (Commodity Supplies)
  Scottish Development Area
  Scottish Development Area
  Pottery Working Party
  Pottery Working Party
GREECE
  Trade Union Movement
  Trade Union Movement
  Plebiscite (Observers' Report)
  Plebiscite (Observers' Report)
  Arms Supplies
  Arms Supplies
  YUGOSLAVIA (BRITISH OFFICIAL'S ARREST)
  YUGOSLAVIA (BRITISH OFFICIAL'S ARREST)
  PEACE CONFERENCE, PARIS (REPORTS)
  PEACE CONFERENCE, PARIS (REPORTS)
  INDONESIA (MEDICAL SUPPLIES)
  INDONESIA (MEDICAL SUPPLIES)
  PERSIA (CHARGES AGAINST BRITISH OFFICIALS)
  PERSIA (CHARGES AGAINST BRITISH OFFICIALS)
ROYAL NAVY
  Royal Marine Volunteer Reserve
  Royal Marine Volunteer Reserve
  Chemists
  Chemists
  Petty Officers (Re-engagement)
  Petty Officers (Re-engagement)
  Recruitment
  Recruitment
  Vehicle Dump, Plymouth
  Vehicle Dump, Plymouth
  Postwar Credits and Gratuities (Regulars)
  Postwar Credits and Gratuities (Regulars)
  SERVICE DIVORCES (EXPEDITED PROCEDURE)
  SERVICE DIVORCES (EXPEDITED PROCEDURE)
  CROWN SERVANTS (ACTIONS FOR DAMAGES)
  CROWN SERVANTS (ACTIONS FOR DAMAGES)
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Permanent Commissions
  Permanent Commissions
  Married Regulars (Oversea Service)
  Married Regulars (Oversea Service)
  Redundant Aircrew N.C.Os.
  Redundant Aircrew N.C.Os.
  Aerodromes
  Aerodromes
  Prisoners' Letters
  Prisoners' Letters
  Demobilisation
  Demobilisation
  Electricians and Wireless Mechanics (Release)
  Electricians and Wireless Mechanics (Release)
  Education and Vocational Training
  Education and Vocational Training
  Shipyard, Oban
  Shipyard, Oban
  Personal Case
  Personal Case
  Tour-Expired Men, Southern Rhodesia
  Tour-Expired Men, Southern Rhodesia
  Accident Casualties (Notification)
  Accident Casualties (Notification)
CIVIL AVIATION
  Accident, Belgian Coast
  Accident, Belgian Coast
  Aberdeen-London
  Aberdeen-London
  Nottingham
  Nottingham
  Pilots (Examinations and Flying Tests)
  Pilots (Examinations and Flying Tests)
  North-Eastern Airport (Site)
  North-Eastern Airport (Site)
  B.E.A.C. (Scottish Division)
  B.E.A.C. (Scottish Division)
  Aerodromes, Scotland (Management)
  Aerodromes, Scotland (Management)
  Flying Clubs
  Flying Clubs
  POLICE (RECRUITMENT)
  POLICE (RECRUITMENT)
  MINISTERS' VISITS ABROAD
  MINISTERS' VISITS ABROAD
NATIONAL FINANCE
  War Damage Payments (Reconstruction Areas)
  War Damage Payments (Reconstruction Areas)
  Derequisitioned Premises (Surveyors' Costs)
  Derequisitioned Premises (Surveyors' Costs)
  Government Borrowings
  Government Borrowings
  Bretton Woods Scheme
  Bretton Woods Scheme
  Stamp Duty (Receipts)
  Stamp Duty (Receipts)
  CENTRAL OFFICE OF INFORMATION (SOCIAL SURVEY)
  CENTRAL OFFICE OF INFORMATION (SOCIAL SURVEY)
  SCHOOL MILK (WASTE PREVENTION)
  SCHOOL MILK (WASTE PREVENTION)
MINISTRY OF SUPPLY
  Factory, Linwood
  Factory, Linwood
  Lead
  Lead
  OLD AGE PENSIONERS (RELIEF)
  OLD AGE PENSIONERS (RELIEF)
AGRICULTURE
  Advisory Service and County Committees
  Advisory Service and County Committees
  INFECTIOUS DISEASES
  INFECTIOUS DISEASES
  Feedingstuffs (Chick Rearing)
  Feedingstuffs (Chick Rearing)
BRITISH ARMY
  Regulars (Section B Reserve)
  Regulars (Section B Reserve)
  Dorset Regiment (Commission Applications)
  Dorset Regiment (Commission Applications)
  Mutiny Charges, Malaya
  Mutiny Charges, Malaya
  Legal Aid Officers
  Legal Aid Officers
  LOCAL TELEPHONE DIRECTORIES (LONDON)
  LOCAL TELEPHONE DIRECTORIES (LONDON)

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

ABERDEEN HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
LORD WESTWOOD: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, relating to Aberdeen harbour, to be proceeded with under Section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936; and to move that the Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Westwood.)
On Question. Bill read 1a, and to be printed, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936), deemed to have been read 2a, and to have been reported from the Committee.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932 (URBAN DISTRICT OF EAST GRINSTEAD ORDER).
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Paper.
Moved, That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, and laid before the House on Friday last, be approved.—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932 (URBAN DISTRICT OF CHEPSTOW ORDER).
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion in my name.
Moved, That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Sunday Entertain-
276
ments Act, 1932, and laid before the House on Friday last, be approved.—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932 (BOROUGH OF CHARD ORDER).
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, I beg to move the last Motion in my name.
Moved, That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, and laid before the House on Friday last, be approved.—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (NORWICH) BILL.
Amendment reported (according to Order).
ARDROSSAN GAS PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL BILL.
Order of the Day for the consideration of Commons Message of yesterday, read.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT ADDISON): My Lords, I beg to move the Resolution which stands in my name. I am sure that the appointment of these very distinguished members of this House will meet with your Lordships' approval.
Moved, That a Committee of six Lords be appointed to join with the Committee of the House of Commons to consider the said Bill as Mentioned in the said Message, and that the Lords following be named of the Committee:

E. Halifax.

V. Samuel.

V. Simon.

V. Stansgate.

L. Cecil (V. Cranborne).

L. Ammon.

ߞ(Viscount Addison).
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Ordered, That such Committee have power to agree with the Committee of the Commons in the appointment of a Chairman. Then a Message was ordered to be sent to the Commons to inform them of the appointment of the said Committee, and to propose that the Joint Committee should meet in Committee Room A on Friday the 25th inst. at half-past eleven o'clock.
Leave given to the Joint Committee to hear parties interested by themselves, their counsel, agents and witnesses, so far as the Committee think fit. Evidence taken before the Joint Committee from time to time to be printed, but no copies to be delivered out except to members of the Committee and to such other persons as the Committee shall think fit until further order.

DEFENCE ORGANIZATION.
2.37 p.m.
LORD CHATFIELD LORD CHATFIELD rose to call attention to the White Paper on Central Organization for Defence and in particular to the lack of adequate Imperial organization in defence matters; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion which I am to move to-day is slightly different from that which has stood on the Order Paper for the last two or three months I owe it to those whom the change may have inconvenienced to say that it was due to the introduction of the White Paper on Central Organization for Defence so recently. After consulting with the Leader of the House, it seemed desirable that a debate on that Paper, which would be inevitable, had better take place on the same occasion as that on which I moved my Motion, and that thus a day would be saved for the business of the House. I hope that I have not inconvenienced anybody by this sudden decision to debate the White Paper. This White Paper is, in my view, one of the most important Command Papers that have been issued in my time in your Lordships' House. It is divided (apart from the introduction) into four sections. Sections II, III and IV deal with the administration of the United Kingdom defence, and the last section deals with imperial defence, or, as it is called, "collective defence."
I should like, briefly, to run through the early sections. As regards the last
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section, I shall have a good deal to say, but there is also something to be said on the first three. I should like to express my humble congratulations to the Government for those sections and for the new plan for administering the defence of the United Kingdom. I think that it is an able attempt to improve matters. I have moved in this House, as your Lordships know, many Motions on the subject of defence in the course of two or three years, and I have made, I hope, what were considered practical suggestions as to how we could avoid the disasters into which we fell seven years ago. It is very satisfactory to me to note that, in their analysis of deliberations on the problem, the Government have come to very much the same conclusions as those to which I came myself and which I have explained to your Lordships on one or two occasions. As regards the historical review, which is contained in Section II of the White Paper, I should have nothing to say if it were called a "General Review," but when the State writes history it is necessary to be a little bit more particular about the wording of what is to be passed on to the future. An example of what I mean occurs in paragraph 7 on page 3, where there is a desrciption of how the Defence Committee (Operations) and the Defence Committee (Supply) were set up "when Mr. Churchill became Prime Minister."
The actual facts are a little different. Those Committees did not come suddenly into existence in that way. In 1939, the Committee of Imperial Defence set up what was called a Policy Committee. It was a first attempt to separate for the studies of the C.I.D. matters of high policy and strategy from those of supply and production. Shortly after that, when the Policy Committee had sat to discuss very long and many-paragraphed reports of the Chiefs of the Staff on what we should do if we went to war with Germany or Japan, we found that with the Prime Minister in the chair, as he was, the work was too laborious for even the Policy Committee. So we set up a sub-committee which consisted of the Minister for Co-ordination, the three Service Ministers, the three Chiefs of Staff and the Foreign Secretary. That was in very much the same position as the Defence Committee which is referred to. It was the duty of that Committee to review all these war plans, and then report to the main Policy Committee what they recommended should be

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done and whether the Chiefs of Staff's action was satisfactory and complete. When war started and the C.I.D. was abolished, of course, this Committee went with it.
In October, 1939, exactly the same position arose in the War Cabinet. The work that had to be done was so enormous, there was so much detail to be considered on military questions as to how the Army should be composed and equipped, its strength and so on, that it was again suggested to the Prime Minister that we should set up the same sort of Committee that we had had in peace, and that was done. It was on that basis, and with that Committee in existence in 1940 that the final Defence Committees, which only differed by having the Ministers of Production and Supply on them, came into being in 1940 when Mr. Churchill became Prime Minister.
There is another point to which, for historical accuracy, I would like to refer. Paragraph 6 states:
"The Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, who had been appointed in 1936 to assist in the task of overseeing the rearmament programme, at first remained in office as a member of the War Cabinet …."
In point of fact, the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence was by means set up merely for that task. He had an enormous amount of work put on his shoulders. He was Deputy Chairman of the Committee of Imperial Defence, with a vast amount of work of all kinds devolving on him, and he was also Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in certain circumstances—in fact the same circumstances as I envisage from the Paper which we have before us to-day.
Paragraph 8 also states:
"… the Chiefs of Staff in their corporate capacity became the authority which issued to Commanders-in-Chief united operational instructions and strategical guidance on the conduct of the war."
I would point out to your Lordships, however, that the Chiefs of Staff always had been the authority for these instructions. When the Abyssinia crisis arose in 1935 the Chiefs of Staff issued instructions to the Commanders-in-Chief and indicated their wishes for their guidance after, of course, they had been approved by the Cabinet. I have nothing else to say about the historical section, and I mention these
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points only in the interests of extreme accuracy in a State document.
I turn next to Section III, the Commentary, where paragraph 11 says:
"This part of the work of the Committee of Imperial Defence had been well done, and the transition from peace to war was smoothly made."
I am very glad that that has been said because it is a tribute to the remarkable Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, at that time Sir Hastings Ismay, to whom an enormous amount is due, following the wise lines set by his predecessor, Sir Maurice Hankey. A similar tribute is also due to many others. In paragraph 12 there is a rather remarkable, almost astonishing, statement, that
"Qualitatively our Navy and Air Force were not badly equipped, …"
I am not speaking for the Royal Air Force—judging by the Battle of Britain the Royal Air Force were very well equipped with certain types of aircraft—but the Navy was certainly not well equipped qualitatively. Only three of the fifteen capital ships of which the Navy consisted had not fought in the previous war, twenty years before. That was hardly good quality; at least, it was ancient quality. There was only one modern aircraft carrier in the Royal Navy at that time. I think, therefore, that it is an exaggerated statement to say that "qualitatively our Navy and Air Force were not badly equipped." There are many other things to which I would like to refer. I mention those two only, as examples.
In paragraph 13 there is another rather remarkable statement:
"This failure to equip our Forces on an adequate scale was mainly due to the political and economic circumstances of the decade before 1939, …"
There, one is skating on rather thin ice. Those few words would have been better left out because you cannot describe the situation which led to the subsequent state of affairs as:
"postponing until far too late the start of an effective programme of rearmament."
Actually, it was not economic circumstances which had anything to do with it. There was nothing wrong with the economic circumstances. It may have been due to financial circumstances, in that the delay in rearming was due to the nation and Parliament not wishing to

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spend the money in that way. There was plenty of money. After all, four years later, in 1936, Parliament passed the Defence Loan for £1,000,000,000, and it was subsequently increased to £1,500,000,000. When the war started, we had plenty of money to build up great Armies and Navies without any difficulty. I submit, therefore, that economic circumstances had nothing to do with failure to rearm. I do not know much about the political circumstances. Perhaps there is something in that. If it were due to political circumstances, I can see nothing in this White Paper to ensure that exactly the same political circumstances may not occur in ten, fifteen or twenty years time. I have urged in your Lordships' House that we should take defence, just as we take foreign policy, out of political Party strife. When I made that proposal two years ago it was refused by the National Government. I am sorry that that strife exists, but as long as we have uncertainty we can never be very safe.
With the rest of paragraph 13, and paragraphs 14, 15, 16 and 17, I am in entire agreement. They are all very wise and sound. Paragraph 15 is an important one. It concerns the complete amalgamation of the three Services, which "could not and should not be taken here and now." With that I fully agree. Whether we ever amalgamate the three Services remains for a younger generation to determine, but I do say that everything short of complete amalgamation should be sought by the Government. Then we come to paragraph 16, which deals with a "Combined General Staff"—a subject on which we have had some interesting and important debates in this House, as several noble Lords here this afternoon will remember. I never believed that a Combined General Staff was very practicable, for the reasons given in the White Paper and for the reasons I have mentioned before. You cannot have one set of men planning operations and another set responsible for carrying them out. You must have the same people responsible for both. That is my opinion.
May I turn next to Section IV of the White Paper, which is headed: "Proposals"? I will deal with these only in a very sketchy way, as I want to leave time for subsequent discussion on Imperial defence. As regards the proposals, I think
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I agree with them all. They are good; they are sound. The new post of Minister of Defence is one which is of the utmost importance, and one which I have always recommended should exist. It is interesting to note in paragraphs 25 and 26, in which some of the duties of this Minister are described, that he is to be a senior-Minister. That, too, I think, is of the greatest importance. If you are to combine the fate of the three Services largely in the hands of one man, it is absolutely essential that that man should be a strong man—a man who will be able to stand up against all the many and the necessary and proper fights that he will have, for money and so on, in sticking up for the three Services. A good strong Defence Minister may save the defence situation. A weak one can ruin the whole of the three Services. Therefore, I welcome the statement that he is to be a senior Minister, which can only mean that he is to be a Minister of great experience and one whose word will carry the greatest weight in the Cabinet—not less than that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Another paragraph of great importance is paragraph 27 which describes the arrangement for what is called "The Apportionment of Resources." I do not like that expression. It is difficult to see what it means. Does it mean apportionment of the money that it is convenient to spend? Or what does it mean? I do not know. It looks very much like the old ration plan when the Treasury said: "There you are. There is so much money for the three Services. Take it. Scramble for it and divide it between you." Is, that what is meant? I hope that the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, when he conies to reply, will be able to say something on the question of what is meant by the "apportionment of resources."
The functions of the Minister are described in paragraph 26 (a). The part: of paragraph 27, dealing with the means of forming Estimates for the three Services, of reviewing them in the Defence Committee with Service Ministers and Chiefs of Staff, and then presenting to the Cabinet their combined advice is absolutely right and sound. It will prevent any idea that the Services are fighting each other for the money, and will ensure, as it says, that the expenditure is that which will give the country the forces and the equipment in a properly-balanced proportion, based on the advice and the

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strategic ideas of the Chiefs of Staff. That is absolutely right and sound. The Defence Minister, in his general duty of representing in Parliament everything of a combined nature between the Services, will present the Finance Bill for defence in the House of Commons.
The only other thing on the proposals to which I wish to refer is the position of the Chiefs of Staff, which is mentioned in paragraph 31. I think that is a very satisfactory paragraph. I am glad that the position of the Chiefs of Staff is satisfactorily regularized. The old position was never a happy one. As those former Service Ministers who are here to-day will remember, the Service Ministers were divorced from strategic problems. It was rather a touchy point if the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence went to approach the Chiefs of Staff together and the Service Ministers were not included. It was really for that reason that we introduced in 1939 what I call the pseudo-Defence Committee, to bring the Service Ministers into the picture, and give them an opportunity of knowing what their own Chiefs of Staff thought in combination. That is now regularized and it is made quite clear that the Chiefs of Staff are to have two sides to their work. First, they are to have their collective responsibility as a joint inter-Service body to the Defence Minister; and, secondly, they will retain their individual responsibility in their Departments as members of the Board or Council to which they belong, and for which they are responsible to their Service Ministers. This makes it quite clear where they are. There can be no doubt it is perfectly sound and logical, and, in fact, the best arrangement that could be made when you want to get the three Services together.
I come now to Section V, dealing with "Organization for Collective Defence." I am sorry that the term "collective defence" has been given to this paragraph. To me the term "collective" has an unhappy past. It reminds one of "collective security" and all that that stood for, uncertainty, lack of organization, no planning, no forces and disaster when the time came. I am very sorry that that name has been given to it. Why not call it Imperial Defence or if you do not like the term "Imperial," why not call it "Organization for Defence of the
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Dominions and Colonies"? I do not like the term "collective defence." I think it is a pity that we should come back to that old term, which has such an un-savoury past. I feel the bad point in this section is that it separates too markedly the defence of the United Kingdom from the defence of the Empire. I do not mind actually changing the Committee of Imperial Defence to the Defence Committee, but I think it is a misfortune to do away with the word "Imperial." Of course, as it says in paragraph 35, the Defence Committee mainly deals with the responsibility for organizing the defence of the United Kingdom, though it says that we cannot view our defence problems in isolation. We must be ready to play our part in any measures which may be organized under the ægis of the United Nations; and we must maintain and develop our machinery for collaboration in the defence of the British Commonwealth and Empire. So far as I can see in the White Paper, we have neither maintained nor developed that machinery.
I feel the connexion with Imperial defence in this paper is weaker than it was, and it was never very strong. There is no mention of the High Commissioners who, in peace, used to play some part in the Committee of Imperial Defence, so that they could keep their Dominions in touch with our own thoughts on defence and give us their ideas. They are not mentioned at all. Instead, we are to have liaison officers. "Liaison officers," I think, has an unsatisfactory implication. What is to be the rank and position of these officers? Are they to be young Service men or are they to be civilians? What are they going to be? There must result a general weakening of the Imperial link. If I may refer your Lordships to paragraph 40, which is called "Colonial Defence" and which is to be found on the last page of the White Paper, in the middle of that paragraph you will see these words:
"The security of the Colonies rests mainly upon the maintenance by the Imperial Forces of command of the sea"—
please note the words "Imperial Forces"—
"and air approaches and of the freedom of the lines of communication between the different parts of the Empire."
If the word "Dominions" is substituted for "Colonies" the statement is equally

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true. Why not state it also with regard to the Dominions?
I feel that the whole of Section V is very casual and unconvincing. Let me refer you to one or two other points with regard to paragraphs 36 and 37. There we read that co-operation has always taken the practical form of promoting the closest possible touch between the Staffs. There was not the closest possible touch between the Staffs in peace. Very often there was no touch at all between the Staffs of some of the Dominions. When we came to discuss in the Committee of Imperial Defence certain matters of a really secret nature, you could not have the closest possible touch. As I have said in your Lordships' House before, you could not discuss very secret things, such as your war plans, or some new secret weapon which you were developing, even with a High Commissioner, whose Dominion, as far as you knew, might not come into the war with you. You could not do that. It was impossible and we did not do it. So to say that there was the closest possible touch in the past is incorrect. There was not. In the same way in paragraph 37 your Lordships will see that it says:
"In this way, it was possible to make common plans for military action"—
that is referring to the war period—
"for the co-ordination of munitions production …"
But in peace there were no common plans in the past for military action. That was our weakness. There were no common plans. It led to anxiety. I do remember the anxiety always felt by the Dominions as to what the Mother Country was going to do about defence and the extent to which they could rely on the Mother Country to come and help them in certain unpleasant situations that they dreamed about.
Then, in the communiqué issued by the Governments of the Commonwealth which appears in the middle of the page, this sentence occurs in inverted commas:
"The existing methods of consultation have proved their worth."
Well, I think that will not bear examination. And so we come to the last paragraph in that communiqué, which begins:
"They are peculiarly appropriate to the character of the British Commonwealth, …"—
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and goes on to say:
"while all are willing to consider and adopt practical proposals for developing the existing system, it is agreed that the methods now practised are preferable to any rigid centralized machinery."
Now the noble Viscount, Lord Addison, speaking in a debate initiated, I think, last March by Lord Croft, when he referred to what I had myself proposed, used very much the same words as to the undesirability of having a rigid machinery. But there is no need to have a rigid machinery. There is a great deal of space between rigidity and no organization at all. Nobody wants rigidity. What we want is organized consultation and planning in peace on a high level. There can be no rigidity in that. Whatever is decided has to go to the Parliaments of the Dominions for approval and ratification. It is not issuing orders to the Dominions by some centralized body sitting in Whitehall. It is merely organizing ourselves by agreement, by talking things over and going back to the Dominions and discussing what has been said, and coming back again and getting some mutual agreement. Surely that can be done without rigidity.
I am glad the Government did say that all are willing to consider and adopt practical proposals. I am sure there is a great deal that can be done. I realize, of course, the Government's difficulties. They are not in command of the Empire. It is quite natural, perhaps, that there should be a wish in the Dominions to get the best of both worlds—to be free and yet to be safe. What we have to consider is whether it is possible. Surely Imperial defence must be recognized to-day as a combined operation. So long as the world remains in its present state of disorganization we cannot be sure that wars will not return. While we can hope that the United Nations Organization with their machinery will delay the next war as long as possible, if they endeavour to find possible solution to the international rivalries, grievances, and ambitions they will do well, but that is about all they will be able to do.
Imperial defence remains a serious problem. The present fear of war which one hears everywhere is much better than the complaisant attitude that we got into in 1920 and 1920 when we were told that

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there was never to be another war. If everybody is expecting war it is the most hopeful chance that we do not get it, because the aggressor will not start a war when everybody is expecting it. He starts it when he hopes everybody has gone to sleep and he can steal a march on them—as Hitler did. The true position is that the British Empire has proved to be highly vulnerable, liable to attack by every weapon and difficult to defend. The main responsibility for the defence has lain on the Mother Country. If Great Britain was destroyed, as she so nearly was, then the whole keystone of defence would crash and bring the Empire to the ground. The Dominions know that. Every unit of the Empire depends upon the strength of the United Kingdom Forces and their efficiency. The burden on the British taxpayer is immense and affects his standard of living. If you want to improve your standard of living, and you ease the defence burden to do it so as to provide money for other purposes, then not only the United Kingdom but the whole Empire runs into danger, and yet no part of the Empire can do anything to save that situation or to change it.
If Imperial defence is to be recognized in principle, it must bring confidence with it. If there is no Imperial defence organized in peace, no planning how the responsibility is to be shared, then the Empire will collapse in a future war as it nearly did in the last one. The problem as I see it is this. Can the people of this country, even if they are willing to do so, continue to bear such a giant's share in future of the cost of Imperial defence? Do the Dominions recognize their dependence on the Mother Country at the present time? The balance of responsibility between the United Kingdom and the Empire is not a wise or business-like or satisfactory one. It can be said that, even if there were no Empire at all, the United Kingdom would have to spend just as much, or nearly as much money on its own defence because of our economic situation and the way in which we live. But the fact is that the world nature of wars has changed our combined defence problem, and it has increased the difficulties and the cost of Imperial defence. In the old days the United Kingdom Forces were sufficient to control the Seven Seas and the air routes, and to garrison
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all our bases all over the world, but the United Kingdom Forces alone cannot do that to-day. The security of the Dominions is not what it was, and parts of the Empire depend far more now on their own exertions which must, consequently, be far more considerable than in the past. Moreover, a future war may be won in an instant or won in the first round, so we want to have immediate readiness.
Surely the Empire must make up its mind afresh. Is it going to prepare to defend itself as an independent whole or as a series of independent forces which may or may not join together in time of war? I know it is a delicate question. Some people think it best not to talk about it, but I feel it is right that we should. That very weakness tempted Japan to attack us in the Pacific in 1941. There is, of course, the sovereign freedom of action given to the Dominions by the Statute of Westminster, and we all recognize that this freedom of action is the basis of the unique and wonderful spirit upon which the Empire is constructed. We must keep that spirit, but it is no good having a strong soul only. It is worthy of a strong body, and such a marvellous spirit as we have in the Empire is surely worth some sacrifice. As regards defence, freedom of action is absolutely incompatible with full Imperial security today. It is no good talking about regional defence in a world war. One unit of the Empire might, by being too weak, or by standing aside in war, vitally endanger the strategical security of the remainder. If even one large unit remains neutral when war comes the loss of military forces, productive capacity, sea, air and land bases may be of vital consequence to all. Ireland is one historic example, though we luckily avoided the greater disaster of having alongside us a country whose ports and aerodromes had been made available to our enemy.
Take the wonderful part played by South Africa in the war. South Africa is a country where I have many relations and, therefore, I am closely in touch with all they did. If it had not been for that wonderful man Field-Marshal Smuts, a kind of godfather to the British Empire, South Africa might have been neutral. What would have been our Imperial position in 1942 if that had happened, with the Mediterranean closed to shipping and the Suez Canal full of mines? If the

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friendly bases in South Africa had not been available to our convoys there would have been disaster not only to our home fortress, not only to our Armies in Africa, but to India, Australia and New Zealand. We hear of the development of making munitions in our Dominions, but how can yon afford to trust to munitions supplied from the Dominions if we do not know whether in war those supplies will be available?
It is easy to understand that the Dominions in the past did not wish to be tied to British foreign policy and to wars which might lead from that policy. But we do not live in those days. Times have changed, and future conflicts, so far as we can see, will not be national conflicts but world conflicts brought about by great world issues which will have defied the efforts of the United Nations Organization. It will not be national but international policy that will have failed. British and Dominion foreign policy are alike tied to U.N.O., and we have all pledged our Forces to support U.N.O. and its decisions. So long as U.N.O. succeeds there will be no war, but if U.N.O. fails it will be because of disunity between the strong nations. Can it be doubted that in such circumstances all parts of the Empire will have the same outlook in what would be a world grouping of nations on irreconcilable principles, ideologies and ambitions? If such a calamitous possibility can be envisaged, it will not be a matter of regional action but a moment for combining our full Imperial strength together. Surely, then, we should organize for that possible danger; organize that strength and broadly agree on what is to be the general strength of the important units of the Empire and the Forces of each of the Dominions and of the United Kingdom. We need confidence that our Forces will be adequate and properly composed, and that the Mother Country will not have to bear a burden which she may be unable to fulfil. It is not enough to say in a blithe way: "All will be well. We shall be in the ranks again together." That is not sufficient. It will not all be well unless there is agreed strength based on realities and study, unless there is a common strategic plan, common tactics kept up to date year by year and a supply of weapons well assured.
All thinking men know that if collective defence, as it is called, is to be a reality
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then it must, in the days of scientific warfare, with new weapons always being developed, be an organized defence. I see no assurance whatever from the White Paper that there is to be any organized Imperial defence at all; it is all left in an uncertain state. I ask the Government: Is there really no hope of getting greater planned unity in defence in peace? Certain we must be that most of us will have to join in a common task. In the past Great Britain seemed to be the only danger point, but now any unit, however far away, may be in danger and will need the help of the others. It is a consequence of the new international road that all parts of the Commonwealth are journeying along together. We cannot afford to muddle along as before, hoping that all will be well. We ought to make up our minds now how we shall act together, the Government of the United Kingdom giving a lead, so that if war comes again we shall act in loyalty to each other and organize our combined strength, ready if need be to meet such a world misfortune. I beg to move for Papers.
3.23 p.m.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, I think the whole House will be grateful to the noble Lord who has just spoken for giving us the earliest possible opportunity for this debate in a House where there are many who can speak with great and responsible experience on the subject of the organization of defence. I agree with the noble Lord that in the welter of White Papers which we have received there has not been one in recent months, or perhaps since the Government came into office, of more importance than this White Paper covering the whole organization and machinery of defence. I happen to recall that just over ten years ago it fell to me in this House to announce the measures which we were then taking to try to make effective plans for co-operation. So much that is regarded as obvious and much that is accepted as axiomatic to-day was then tentative and contentious. The campaign for co-operation as against self-sufficiency was a very hard-fought one, and it is indeed agreeable to hear to-day my noble friend who has just spoken, who was in those days the chief apostle of autarchy, confessing with such obvious and deep sincerity the full creed of co-operation. We mere mortals may presume to share in the joy in heaven. But to-day we all so much

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agree that co-operation is the accepted rule and practice, and we have all the war-time experience to build on. The result is that the Government give us this White Paper.
I think I speak for most on this side of the House when I say that we find this White Paper very sound in many respects. First and foremost, I have no doubt at all that the continuation of the office of Minister of Defence is absolutely necessary; all war experience reinforces that. The growing interdependence of the Services and of all strategy makes it a necessity—a necessity which is so obvious to-day that we are even coining new and not very pleasant words to describe this new trinity in unity. I have no doubt at all that there must be a Minister of Defence, and that that Minister must have effective powers to ensure that strategy and planning are the best that the combined organization and the combined mind can produce, and to ensure also that those combined plans are made effective in action. I shall have a word to say in a moment about the relationship of the Minister to the Chiefs of Staff. The Minister must have the necessary powers and he must exercise the necessary powers, but I entirely agree that he should not have the detailed responsibility—the administrative responsibility—for the three Services. He should be a planning Minister. It is important that he should have time to think, just as it is most important that a Chief of Staff should have time to think. He must not get his table littered up with things which ought to be done by a general manager. Therefore it is absolutely vital that this Minister, who is to evoke the best from this organization, should not find himself cluttered up with a mass of administrative detail.
There is another thing. If you gave to this Minister the responsibility to Parliament for the three Services by making him the responsible Minister for those three Services in all respects, thereby making the Service Ministers in effect, if not in name, Under-Secretaries of State or Deputy Ministers, I am quite certain the result would be this. Inevitably—and I think rightly—if that Minister was responsible to Parliament for everything which went on in those Services, Parliament would insist that the responsible senior
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Minister should take part in almost every debate. I believe his position would become quite impossible and I am sure it is right that he should not have that detailed responsibility.
Given a Minister of Defence, who should he be? In war, I am quite certain that that Minister can be nobody except the Prime Minister, and I am inclined to think that even in peace that would be the ideal. Certainly I am sure—and I think the Leader of the House will agree with me—that nothing can relieve the Prime Minister of his very special responsibility for defence policy. That is closer—and must be closer—even than his supervision of foreign affairs. It is essential—and I am glad it is provided here—that the Prime Minister should be the Chairman of the Defence Committee. I regret the departure of the name and of some of the reality of the old title, the Committee of Imperial Defence. He must be, I think—and I hope the Leader of the House will assure us that he will be—not only the Chairman in name but the Chairman in fact. If the Prime Minister is not to be the Minister of Defence himself—and I can quite well see that with so much upon his shoulders the position would be difficult—then the Minister of Defence must really be his alter ego; he must be completely in his confidence and he must be working to him with much more than what we ordinarily call collective responsibility. There must be the most intimate daily partnership between the Prime Minister and the man who is in fact his deputy Minister of Defence.
Then the combined organization. I have no doubt at all that this must centre upon the Chiefs of Staff Committee—the Chiefs of Staff in their corporate capacity. I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Chatfield—and I have always maintained this—that it is impossible to divorce the responsibility for planning strategy from the responsibility for carrying it out. The Chiefs of Staff, the professional heads of the Services, must have a dual function. In their corporate Capacity they are the supreme General Staff and in their individual capacities they are the professional heads of their Services. The joint organization—joint planning, joint intelligence and the like—must work to them in their corporate capacity.
When I was speaking for the Government ten years ago I emphasized that, and that was when suggestions were, I think,

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more current than they are to-day that what ought to be done was to set up some organization working in parallel with the Chiefs of Staff. I am sure that is impossible. I was sure of it then and I am sure that all war-time experience, whether it be our own or that of the Germans, bears it out. You cannot escape from the position that the supreme advice given to the Government must be that of the men who are going to carry the responsibility. I am perfectly certain that no other system will work. I am sure we all agree that the success of co-operation—of joint planning—depends upon two things. It depends on the right form of organization and on the right frame of mind. I am not sure that the right frame of mind is not even more important than the right organization—indeed I am sure. Unless you have the right frame of mind, the best organization will fail; but if you have the right frame of mind and the right approach, that will ensure that the organization is the right organization to give effect to its faith and purpose. I believe the right organization is laid down in this White Paper, and I believe that the right frame of mind—the really combined mind—has been so present in belief and practice in the war that that is assured. What do we mean by the right frame of mind? Surely we mean the combination of the individual experience of each Service, together with a collective outlook. I am sure we are all delighted to see the Imperial Defence College in being, with officers, from the Dominions there again. That is most important, because the Imperial Defence College is all the time breeding that right combined frame of mind.
What should be the relationship of the Minister to the Chiefs of Staff? He will be the Chairman of the Committee. I think it right that he should not preside always, but I think it equally right that he should preside not only when they want him to but when he thinks he ought to. I am sure that that is right. What is his function? As I see it, it certainly is not to dictate strategy to the Chiefs of Staff, but to evoke the best from them and to make quite sure that what emerges from their deliberations (in the course of which there will be divisions of opinion) shall be the highest common factor of efficiency and never the lowest common denominator of compromise. I believe that the Chiefs of Staff themselves will be greatly
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helped to give of their best, greatly helped in their corporate capacity and greatly helped vis-à-vis their own individual services, where particular views may be rather strongly held, by an association with an experienced and impartial Minister.
I am very glad there is a paragraph in this White Paper which deals with the collaboration of the scientists in the strategy and planning of defence research as a whole. It is so important that these scientists should be used in the right way, and I do speak here from very close personal experience. I am sure you will not get the best out of the scientists unless they are really at the heart of operational planning. They must not be men to be consulted when it is thought desirable; they must be at the very heart of the business. When I went to the Air Ministry there was nothing new in using scientists. All the Ministries were using them, and they were associated with the Committee of Imperial Defence. They themselves told me that what was new was that they were treated from the very start as an integral part of the operational staff and were at the heart of operational planning. Within a few weeks the problem was put: What would be the greatest revolution that we could make in the air? Somebody said: "If we only knew where an aircraft was a quarter of an hour before it got here." The imagination of the Air Staff and the scientists together was seized by that. We said: "Gentlemen, there is your problem." There was the deliberate approach, the strategical problem which put the scientists in at the birth. They deliberately set out to find the solution of Radar, which in an incredibly short space of time they found. That solution would have come sooner or later, but I am quite certain that it would not have come half as soon or have been half as effective. Thank God England was ringed with the whole system before the war came. Unless there had been that intimate association between staff and scientists, and they had been as much part of the General Staff as the most senior officer, that would not have come about. I am sure the Leader of the House and the Government will not dissent from that.
May I say a word now about finance? I think that is to be found in paragraph 27, to which the noble Lord, Lord

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Chatfield, referred. I do not think I am as frightened of that paragraph as he is, but perhaps we read it rather differently. Personally, I do not believe that the Services will suffer individually by the formulation of a combined defence, and a carefully considered and co-ordinated plan or plans as to how it should be carried out. I think the Services are much more likely to suffer—and I speak from some experience of this—if each of them presents unco-ordinated demands. If some Department—do not let us specify too minutely—in order to defer the necessary expenditure can say: "Look at these Fighting Services, they are not agreed, this has not been co-ordinated and that has not been completely thought out." Sometimes this kind of delaying action may come from Ministers who have their own particular projects, not related to defence, and want to have their hand in the till, and they think of how they can defer expenditure. I do not mean their personal hands in the till but their professional hand! They will think that they will have a better chance if these Defence Services, are not dealt with by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am quite certain there will be a better chance for the Services if there is a real considered plan. But again the approach must be right. Of course finance is very important and it may be that you cannot always be 100 per cent. insured at every point, although it is going to be easier, cheaper and more efficient to get defence under a co-ordinated plan.
I am sure the fatal attitude would be—and this is what the noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, was nervous of—that the Cabinet or the Chancellor of the Exchequer should say: "This is the amount of money which we are going to allow to defence. Now you, the Minister of Defence, and the Defence Committee can say how it ought to be shared out." That would be a fatal approach, and I would like to have an assurance from the Government that that will not be the approach. The approach, of course, should be that the Minister, the Chiefs of Staffs and the Defence Committee formulate what is the right and necessary defence and translate that into terms of cost. Of course, that has got to come before the Cabinet, but in that way the Cabinet will be fully informed. It will have the most carefully considered plan of what is
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necessary and will take a heavy responsibility if it turns it down.
From what I have said it will be clear that there is much that I and my friends will agree with in this White Paper. I am less happy about paragraph 35, relative to collective defence. I do realize the difficulties, which are very great. Decisions must be taken by Commonwealth Governments individually, whether it is the Government of the United Kingdom or the Government of each of the Dominions. A central executive authority is, I believe, impracticable. I do not know any responsible statesman who has had to deal with these matters in practice who has ever suggested that, and I think it is very important when we plead for closer co-operation that it should be made plain beyond peradventure what we are not asking for when we try to get at closer co-operation. The decisions of each Government must be individual decisions. The central executive is impossible. I think this is also true, that a Prime Minister, whether in this country or in the Dominions, will probably want to take his decisions in and with his Cabinet.
But take another side of it. I am sure you cannot divide strategy and planning into watertight geographical compartments, any more than you can divide the three Services or the combined strategy of the three Services. I do not believe that that has been possible for many years past, and less than ever is it possible to-day with the flexibility of the air and with the infinite variety and range of modern weapons and of weapons yet to come. A Defence Committee cannot possibly review strategy in watertight compartments, Home and Colonial, Commonwealth and UNO. The whole thing is a contradiction in terms. It must be a comprehensive review. I attach much more importance to the value of the Imperial Defence Committee in the past than the noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, has. I think it was of infinite value that High Commissioners and visiting Cabinet Ministers from the Dominions regularly attended meetings of the Committee of Imperial Defence. They were not committed nor were His Majesty's Ministers here committed in the Committee of Imperial Defence. The decisions were taken by the Cabinet. Lord Balfour to whom we owe

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the creation of the Committee of Imperial Defence, with extraordinarily wise foresight, saw that decisions had to be taken by the Cabinet. But here was a strategic planning committee; it was not an executive body; it was an advisory body.
As I say, those attending its meetings were not committed. They were in at the heart of things, continually acquiring and continually contributing knowledge on the highest plane. Of course, decisions must be taken by Governments, but these decisions should be taken in the light of the fullest information acquired at first hand, on an agreed assessment of that information and, so far as possible, on agreement as to what is the right defence, what is the right action and what are the right plans in the different contingencies, whoever accepts the responsibility for putting them into action. I cannot think that, in this respect, the proposed new liaison is a good substitute even for the old, and I hope that on Imperial co-operation this is not the last word.
3.43 p.m.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, one could imagine some detached observer listening to this debate, or to a similar debate, such as one of those which are taking place in other Parliaments in various parts of the world, taking a somewhat cynical and sceptical view of the whole of these proceedings. He would say: "Here is the greatest war in history only recently over; it has caused immeasurable suffering and incalculable loss and it should have been a sufficient lesson in itself to all the peoples. Here are the aggressors utterly defeated, completely disarmed. Here are all or almost all the nations of mankind agreed on a world-wide organization for the guarantee of peace, with its Security Council and International Armed Force. And yet, at the same moment, they are all busy looking to their own separate armaments."
Here in the British House of Lords, two days ago, we had a discussion on how to secure a sufficient number of recruits for the Fighting Services. To-day we are discussing future organization for possible wars. Next week, on one day, we are to discuss the atomic bomb, and, on another day, terms of service for the Armed Forces. It reminds me of what was said about a Government of France in the earlier part of the nineteenth cen-
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tury: "It is not a Government of liberté, egalité, fraternité, it is a Government of infantry, cavalry and artillery." But it must be obvious to all of us, that, unhappily, the time has not yet come when we can regard as unimportant questions of armament, strategy, overseas bases, Government organization for defence and the like. The time has not yet come when, with simple faith, we can put our trust absolutely in the United Nations, for the experience of the League of Nations and its Disarmament Conference shows that that would be utterly unsafe. Particularly is this so now that the veto in the hands of any one of the major Powers would enable any one of them to immobilize the activities of the United Nations altogether. Britain cannot stake her all, including the security of her own people, on the success of the United Nations, and be irretrievably ruined if it should fail. And all other nations are in the same mood and recognize the same necessities.
Lord Pakenham, two days ago in what, if I may be permitted to say so, seemed to me an exceedingly able speech, transcended the immediate questions at issue and put the matter then under discussion, the means of recruitment to the Forces, in relation to broad national policy. He said that the old controversy between those who might be called the militarists and the non-militarists was now a thing altogether of the past, and that the present Labour Government had adopted definitely as their policy the maintenance of adequate armaments for this country, armaments adequate, that is, to all probable needs. But the Government have also stated, and stated very emphatically, on many occasions that the keynote of their policy is loyal support for the United Nations. These two aspects of policy are not inconsistent with one another. They are, in fact, complementary. It is a dual policy, but duality does not imply duplicity. This dual policy of complete support for the United Nations, on the one hand, and adequate armaments of our own—at all events in the present stage of international affairs—on the other, is a policy which can be, and has been, adopted by all three of the principal Parties of this country, and can be regarded as the national policy of the British people. But the same reasons which lead us to see the absolute necessity of maintaining

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adequate armaments must also lead us to realize the necessity of our Government at the centre being sufficiently well organized for the purpose which it is to perform.
For my own part, speaking on this Motion to-day, I shall not venture to follow into many of the questions which have been dealt with by Lord Chatfield and Viscount Swinton, because they have been into many questions dealing with the relationship between the three Services and questions of somewhat technical organization, matters on which they have intimate and long experience such as I cannot claim. I shall limit myself, in the observations I shall make—which I hope will not be too lengthy—to the more political aspects of this matter. In the first place, this White Paper marks an exceedingly important and valuable development in the evolution of the Cabinet system. Now, the three Service Ministers are no longer to be normal members of the Cabinet itself. They will hold Cabinet rank, they will, of course, be Privy Councillors, they can be summoned to attend meetings whenever necessary. But the week-by-week, month-by-month spokesman in the Cabinet for the three Services will be the Minister of Defence. That, of course, is adopting the plan which was set out in the Haldane Report as long ago as 1918. That is, perhaps, to be expected, for our experience is that a period of from twenty to thirty years is about the time that usually elapses before something that is obviously right is put into practical effect in this country.
Now this system of a smaller Cabinet, several members of which represent grouped Departments, is, apparently being adopted more extensively by the present Government. I observe that the New Statesman, which is a newspaper in close touch with the present Administration, towards which it displays an uneasy balance of devoted loyalty and stringent criticism, has pointed out that such groups of Departments are now in process of formation. That paper has written that Ministries dealing with economic planning are all being co-ordinated by Mr. Morrison; those dealing with social services by Mr. Greenwood; those dealing with external affairs by Mr. Bevin; and now the Defence Services are to be brought together by Mr. Alexander. I
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think that that is a very advisable and correct development. A Cabinet of over twenty, such as we have, is too large for effective government and with our more complex system of government a somewhat larger number of Ministries is inevitable. This enlarged Cabinet is apparently now going through a quiet and silent chrysalis stage; later it will emerge into a fully developed and brilliant butterfly of the Haldane species.
This proposal to make permanent the war-time expedient of a Ministry of Defence is one which has received the approval of the noble Viscount and the noble Lord who have preceded me, and it is one which we on this Bench strongly support. Speaking from these Benches for the Liberals of your Lordships' House, in a debate on this subject a few months ago, the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, propounded a plan which was almost precisely the same as that embodied in this White Paper. He rejected the alternative of the Combined Staff and advocated a Ministry of Defence and, in general, the proposals contained here. We on these Benches, therefore, have announced in advance our approval of these proposals. The noble Lord, Lord Rennell, pointed out a very significant and interesting fact, that the other plan, that for the Combined Staff, was the one which had been adopted in Germany and had failed. That is also pointed out in the White Paper. Germany, the militarist country par excellence,
which had for generations concentrated its mind and thought on the subject, had attempted, at the very heart of its organization, a plan which failed. We British people, who take pride in not being military and who do things in a much less methodical way, have happened upon the right course, one which proved eminently successful under test and which helped this democracy to join in bringing victory over the militarist countries.
In the past there have been frequent arguments in this House as between the proposal for a Combined Staff and a Defence Ministry. A decision has now been given—and I think rightly given—in favour of the Defence Ministry. Whether the Defence Ministry should be permanently separated from the Premiership is a matter which I think that it

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would be a mistake to determine too definitely beforehand, one way or the other. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, has just said that in war-time he thought the Minister of Defence must also always he the Prime Minister. I am not quite so sure as to that. It must depend very largely on the personality of the Prime Minister. If he were a Chatham, a Palmerston or a Churchill, no doubt that would be so. If he were a Peel or a Gladstone, or any one of the Prime Ministers who held office in the years from 1922 to 1940, it might be very inexpedient. It would also not be the right alternative to say that such a Prime Minister must necessarily resign, and give place to somebody else who also has the aptitudes and the temperament and the interests—as Mr. Churchill had—of a war leader. It might be that the political situation would demand that the Prime Minister should remain, but that the actual conduct of the war should be in the hands of a colleague. I think that it would be better to wait for the occasion—which I sincerely trust will never come—to decide what would be the proper decision in the circumstances. We have an elastic and adaptable Constitution which can fit itself to whatever the circumstance of the time may be.
The only observations which I have to make, other than those which I have already offered, relate to the supersession of the Committee of Imperial Defence by the new Defence Committee. I do not demur at that, but one wants to be sure that the virtues of the old system are carried on into the new. The White Paper recalls the history of the C.I.D. as it was generally known. It was created in 1904, mainly on the initiative of the then Prime Minister, Mr. Arthur Balfour, who thereby rendered one of the greatest of the many services which he rendered to the State. It was welcomed by the Ministry that came into office immediately after, by Mr. Asquith (as Prime Minister), and Mr. Haldanelas Secretary of State for War) and perhaps I may be allowed, in pious memory of that Administration, to quote the words used in the White Paper now before us. Paragraph 4 says:
"In the decade before the war of 1914–1918 the Committee of Imperial Defence was engaged ill formulating the principles to govern our defence policy and in planning the transition from peace to war. These tasks
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were accomplished with success; and at the outbreak of war in 1914 we had well-laid plans for the transition from peace to war and better machinery than we had ever had before for concerting the actions of Government Departments in war."
This declaration of 1946 with regard to the years between 1906 and 1914 may perhaps be allowed to stand as an epitaph to that Administration.
There are two questions which I should like to put to the Government in this connexion. Amongst other things the Committee of Imperial Defence was designed to ensure continuity when Party changes brought about a change of Governments. It was the vehicle which allowed consultation between the Government of the day and the Opposition Party or Parties. That machinery was used by Mr. Balfour himself on not a few occasions, when he was Leader of the Opposition, and he attended meetings of the Committee of Imperial Defence when grave matters of State were under discussion. I do not find any suggestion in this White Paper that similar consultations could be continued; yet it is of very great importance that matters of defence should be regarded as national, and not Party, matters. If that is to be so, then the leaders of Opposition Parties must be kept informed of the state of affairs, and must be brought into consultation on the proper occasions. No reference is made to that in this White Paper. I find in paragraph 24 only that persons outside the Government service altogether may be asked to attend meetings of Sub-Committees of the Committee of Imperial Defence. That paragraph, however, appears to relate solely to Sub-Committees, and also to people on what is usually known as the official level. I should be grateful if my noble friend the Leader of the House, to whom I have given notice of this question, would say something today on this question.
Let me say, in regard to the new Committee of Defence, how glad I am to see the new position given to scientists. It is stated that among the Sub-Committees to be formed under the Committee of Defence is one for Research with a scientist of the first rank as Chairman. That is a very welcome announcement. In the old days, war was a matter of the Army and the Navy, for them and for them alone. The War Office and the Admiralty conducted it. Then came the third Service, the Air Force, which had almo4 to fight for equality of position within that hierarchy.

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Then it was realized that questions of supply were as important as any question of the Fighting Forces themselves, and the Ministry of Supply—so belatedly brought into existence before the last war—has been given almost equal status. We now have four factors—the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and Supply. Science is really a fifth factor not less important in the long run than any of the others, for the achievements and developments of science really, in the long run, determine the whole course of military operations.
My other question with regard to the Committee of Imperial Defence is one to which attention has been drawn by both the previous speakers. As one of its main purposes, the Committee of Imperial Defence was also designed to bring all the elements of the British Commonwealth together. That purpose is expressed in its name. It was called the Committee of Imperial Defence for that very reason. But I find no suggestion, or very little suggestion, in the White Paper that such functions are to be continued by the new Committee which is to replace it. We all understand the feelings of the Dominions with regard to their political independence and we most cordially sympathize with them, approve of them and would do nothing in any degree to detract from that position on any occasion. And of course, the Dominions do not wish to be committed in advance to support any particular policy, as it might be they would disapprove of some policy in some part of the world which was being adopted by His Majesty's Government in Great Britain. As has been shown in recent diplomatic conferences, they are entirely free to form their own views on all matters of international policy. Therefore, they do not want to be tied up with the British administration of defence for fear they might themselves be committed in advance to certain measures. They want to retain their freedom.
That is the position on the one side. On the other side is the fact that, of the white population in the whole of the British Empire, one-third is now in the Dominions. For every two white members of the British Commonwealth in this island there is a third somewhere in the Dominions. No doubt, the United Kingdom has more than two-thirds of the wealth of the Empire but certainly less
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than two-thirds of the resources, and in a global war the fact that our geographical area is almost insignificant compared with the Commonwealth as a whole is a factor of immense importance, for geography now determines the situation. Therefore, whether it is from the question of manpower or the question of finance or the question of geographical planning, the unity and simultaneity of action of the whole Commonwealth is of the very first importance, and we are entitled to point out to them that the people of this country, heavily burdened as they are, and heavily pressed in many directions, cannot, without assistance, bear the burden of the immense armaments which still appear to be necessary.
Then there is the question of military training. We had a debate in this House a few weeks ago on the retention by the War Office of very large areas of land in many parts of the country, of land which is of a particularly desirable character from the point of view of amenities, of national parks, holidays and the general aspect of this island as a place in which to live. All those considerations no doubt must give way, if it is necessary, to the purposes of national defence, which is superior and which must be given a higher value than any of those. But is it necessary that all this training with long-range weapons, in artillery, aircraft, tanks and so forth should be conducted within this small island? I ventured to suggest in that debate, as did other noble Lords, that the precedent in the last war by which the Air Force was trained mainly in Canada was a very desirable one, and might be extended in other directions. However, the Government replied very curtly that it was not intended to conduct any training of the military forces in the Dominions. A brief statement was made. I forget whether it was in that debate or a statement in answer to a question asked in another place.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Viscount, but I should be very glad if he could give me a reference.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: I am afraid I have not got it with me. I ought to have looked it up, I agree. I felt personally rather hurt that a flat negative was given. Some other noble Lords may remember it. I cannot recollect whether it was in this House in that debate or in answer to a

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question in another place. But I am quite certain of the fact that that answer was given, that there was no intention to continue military training in the Dominions. However, if that is not so, I shall be only too glad to hear the fact from the noble Lord. I usually do verify my references but I must confess that on this occasion I neglected to do so.
With regard to the last section in the White Paper, I very fully share the view that has been expressed both by Lord Chatfield and Viscount Swinton that these paragraphs are somewhat disappointing. They are somewhat disappointing. I know how difficult and delicate the position is. I do not press the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, to make any definite statement to-day if it would be inexpedient to do so. I know that discussions are still proceeding with the Dominions. Everyone knows that on this side there would be no unwillingness to have the closest and most continuous consultation with the Dominions on all these matters. We recognize to the full our obligations to ensure the security of the Dominions, even as our own security, to the very utmost of our power, and conversely no doubt the Dominions share in spirit that position, and, whether through the Committee of Defence or through some other means, I have no doubt that opportunities will be found for adequate consultation. Perhaps if the noble Viscount could give us a little reassurance on that it might remove the impression that has been left by the somewhat limited phraseology of the last section of the White Paper. So long as the will is there, the means will be found. Certain it is that the combined strength and influence of the whole British Commonwealth as a unit is not only essential to its own security and welfare, but it is valuable and indeed indispensable for the peace and tranquillity of that one world of which we are all members.
4.10 p.m.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, every speaker in this debate, from Lord Chatfield onwards, seems to be in a conspiracy to take the wind out of my sails; and they covered the ground so fully that I am going to abstain from any detailed comment on the first thirty-four paragraphs. It is sufficient to say that, in my opinion, up to that point the scheme as a whole is impressive, though I do reserve my right to make a few comments possibly
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on some future occasion. I especially welcome the principle of "steady evolution" and no drastic break with the past as laid down in the first paragraph. I shall, therefore, turn at once to the question of co-operation with the Dominions on defence on which I make four main criticisms.
First, the principle of "steady evolution" is departed from, and there is a "drastic break with the past"—more drastic, perhaps, than Ministers realize. My other criticisms provide illustrations of this. My second criticism is the change of title from Committee of Imperial Defence to Defence Committee. That is a black blot on the White Paper, and on the fine Empire record of the Party in office. It is not good administration to change titles affecting works of reference all over the world, directories, and so forth. It irritates public servants, including Service staffs. It will irritate many people in the Dominions. Speaking of Service staffs, their aim is to serve all Governments equally well, and it will strain their loyalty. It will not appease those people—who, I believe, are not unfriendly people at the bottom—across the Atlantic who like to twist the lion's tail every two years or so. It will not increase our prestige abroad where, as is constantly borne in on me on my bi-monthly visit to Paris where I meet people of all nations, the reputation of the Committee of Imperial Defence is extraordinarily high. It is an invitation to the Government's eventual successors in office, whoever they may be, to change the name back again. It destroys a living monument to Lord Balfour, our greatest Empire statesman, who founded the Committee as a focus of Empire co-operation, and watched over its destinies for nearly thirty years.
My third criticism is that the Dominions Secretary is not included in the permanent nucleus of the Defence Committee, as he always has been in the past. In conjunction with the absence of any provision for continuous high level Dominion representation, that is an extraordinary omission. The Dominions Secretary, of course, cannot represent the Dominions, and would not pretend to, but he knows infinitely more about the Dominions than any other member of the Cabinet. Whether the Dominions are represented directly or not, there is to question that in peace-time the Committee ought to

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have his guidance in order to avoid mistakes. Fancy taking right out of the Defence Committee the Minister who sees all the Dominions' High Commissioners pretty well every day and discusses foreign policy with them. The two subjects of foreign policy and defence are inextricably intermingled. The Dominions Secretary must be fully on the inside of defence. You might as well withdraw the Foreign Secretary from the Defence Committee. I am sorry the Lord Chancellor is not here. I cannot appeal to my noble friend, the Leader of the House, on this subject because he is Dominions Secretary, but I should have liked to have appealed to the Lord Chancellor to beg the Prime Minister to reconsider this point. I hope that the approbation of many of your Lordships will be noted.
My fourth criticism is the weakening in the availability of the Committee of Imperial Defence in the future for continuous Commonwealth co-operation. These criticisms, I am afraid, I can only develop by telling you the true story of the foundation and development of the Committee of Imperial Defence in relation to Empire defence, hardly any of which appears in the White Paper. The quotation from the Esher Report in paragraph 2 of the White Paper gives the key reason for the Committee's foundation. It was founded because, as the Report says,
"The British Empire is pre-eminently a great naval, Indian, and Colonial Power …."
and lacked any means for central co-ordination of defence. Now the Dominions were not mentioned because Dominion status had not yet been reached, and they were still described as self-governing Colonies.
There is not the slightest doubt it was Mr. Balfour's hope to include them eventually, and that is shown by the following prophetic passage in his speech introducing the Committee to the House of Commons in 1904:
"I think that this is specially valuable from a point of view not yet touched upon—namely, the relations between the Defence Committee and those self-governing Colonies of the Empire over which no office in this country has any control at all. I hope that when any problem of defence which touches them comes up, and even when they take a closer interest in the problems of Imperial defence as a whole, we may have the advantage of their assistance in our Councils. But I am certain that the self-governing Colonies will never allow any representatives of theirs to come to the
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Defence Committee if the Defence Committee, with that addition, had the smallest authority to impose obligations, financial, political, military or naval, on the Colonies which they represent."
That explains the title of Committee of Imperial Defence. The Committee was to cover the whole Empire and provided eventual co-operation with the Dominions if they wished to co-operate.
Incidentally, that passage gives one of the main reasons for the advisory character of the Committee, which is omitted from the historical summary in the White Paper. The Dominions' co-operation came slowly, as Mr. Balfour expected; it was only after seven years during the Imperial Conference in 1911, when the German threat to peace was obvious, that the first big advance began. Advance always comes when there is danger, and the position always recedes when the danger recedes. On that occasion the Dominions' Prime Ministers attended the Committee to hear Sir Edward Grey's famous statement on the foreign situation and Mr. Asquith's account of the Committee. At this meeting also, and I think few people realize this, an important resolution was passed giving the Dominions the right to send representatives to the Committee of Imperial Defence when questions interesting them were under consideration. Now that resolution, according to C.I.D. practice of that day, was not published at once, and indeed, it was not published until Mr. Baldwin mentioned it in the Imperial Conference in 1926. However, although it was not published, the Dominions at once began to exercise their right because from 1912 Sir Robert Borden, who had taken Sir Wilfred Laurier's place, attended the Committee with several colleagues, and, as a direct result, in 1914 he designated Sir George Perley, Canadian Minister, as his permanent representative on the Committee of Imperial Defence. Other Canadian Ministers came over in 1913, as did the New Zealand Minister of Defence, and I think I am right in saying that two representatives from South Africa also attended the Committee on various occasions before the first war.
Our defensive arrangements were communicated to the Dominions and they, of their own volition, prepared war books somewhat on the same lines. Actually the first gunshot of that war was fired from a fort at Port Phillip Heads, Melbourne, in execution of one of the C.I.D. schemes

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which Australia had adopted. During the first half of the Great War, as in the recent war, there were no Imperial gatherings, although one or two Prime Ministers came over and attended either the Cabinet or the War Committee. In the second half, however, the C.I.D. system reached its zenith in the Imperial War Cabinets of 1917 and 1918 and later at the British Empire Delegations of the Paris Peace Conference and the Washington Conference On Disarmament.
Immediately after the war there was the usual slight slump in the development of Empire co-operation in defence Nevertheless the principles of Empire co-operation were concerted and the larger issues on defence policy were discussed at the Imperial Conferences of 1921, 1923 and 1926. And between those conferences many important matters affecting the Dominions, notably the revision of their coast defences, were referred by the Dominions themselves and dealt with by the Committee of Imperial Defence and its sub-committees, often with Dominion representation. Exchanges of documents increased and we had many useful suggestions on our reports from the Dominions. The Statute of Westminster of 1931 did not interrupt this steady evolution of co-operation on the lines I am describing, and in the 1030's, as the international situation became threatening and Imperial Conferences less frequent because all Governments were so busy, the pace was increased. There was no need then, and there is no need now, of any rigid uniformity of method. The key-note of the C.I.D. system has always been adaptability and flexibility.
At the Imperial Conference in 1926, Mr. Baldwin had invited each Dominion to use the facilities of the Committee to whatever extent and in whatever manner they considered appropriate. That is just what they did. The more distant Dominions made too per cent. use of their right of representation by sending their High Commissioners to a high proportion of the meetings of the full Committee, while subcommittees were attended by Dominion liaison officers. And, of course, all this time, as there is to-day, there was a tremendous transmission of documents by the Dominions Office, which included those of the Imperial Defence Committee; and all the Dominions had mutatis mutandis some central council, committee or department
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for co-ordination of defence. The result was that in matters of defence policy and preparation, all the Dominions were fully informed on what we were doing at all levels to meet the growing threat to peace, and in the case of most of them that knowledge was enlightened by the comments of a representative—Mr. Bruce, for example—who had taken part in the proceedings and could cross the t's and dot the i's and draw his Government's attention to points of importance.
I only wish I were free to indicate some of the really outstanding results. All I can say is that when I visited the Dominions in 1934, and was everywhere consulted by the authorities responsible for defence at all levels, although I had no official capacity, I realized how valuable these contacts had been in establishing a common doctrine and outlook on defence. The Dominions had influenced us and we had influenced the Dominions, and we all spoke the same language in more ways than one. Between meetings of the Imperial Conference or of Empire Prime Ministers that system fulfilled exactly the same function in relation to defence as did the invaluable meetings of the Dominions Secretary with the High Commissioners in the political field, and it is vitally important that both should continue because they are complementary.
I digress for one moment to say that I think my noble friend Lord Chatfield took rather too low a view of the extent of the knowledge of the Dominions. He was there for a good part of the time, but I was there all the time from 1901 to 1942—I was in the background, at any rate, and inside mostly. Lord Chatfield spoke of the value of Capetown and the ports in South Africa. Why had the South Africans made those big docks at Cape-town, and why had they defended their ports and made all the provision they could? The reason, of course, was that they had been over here to attend the Committee of Imperial Defence and had discussed these things and been given a picture. Why did South Africa come to Central Africa, Abyssinia and Egypt? They came because they knew. They did not know the detailed, intimate, secret plans, perhaps, but they knew the appreciation, and they knew that because of this system. Why did Australia and New Zealand come to those places? Why did Australia build a Navy? Why did New Zealand make a tremendous

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contribution to Singapore? They made the contribution because they knew; they had been in those consultations and they had made their own representations. They knew, as I say, everything except absolutely secret plans. I was there and I kept a record. I cannot say what the record was, but it is obvious what the reason was. Those are just two examples that come to my mind as I stand here. It is quite obvious that that happened as a result of the system. Even the suggestions in the White Paper for future progress in Commonwealth defence—namely, the direction of regional association, and United Kingdom liaison officers in the Dominion capitals and the Dominions' liaison officers in London—increase the need to preserve the system I have described.
I have been reading Mr. Chifley's report on the meeting of Prime Ministers to the Commonwealth Department, dated 19th June, 1946. These Australian reports are usually more revealing than ours and I always get them if I can. This reveals that these suggestions were Australian in origin, having been put forward by Mr. Curtin at the Prime Ministers' Conference in 1944, although in 1946 Mr. Chifley, in renewing his predecessor's proposals, was very careful to say that opinion in the United Kingdom and Australia had been moving along the same lines in this respect. But please note that Mr. Curtin's original proposals for regional defence and liaison officers were preceded by the following principle:
"It is fundamental to future arrangements for co-operation in defence that appropriate machinery should be created to provide for an effective voice by the Governments concerned in policy and in the higher control of planning on the official level."
Of course it is fundamental, because the different regional arrangements, admirable in themselves, will give rise to all kinds of questions of priority within the larger scheme of Imperial defence—priorities for reinforcements, supply, transport, escorts, communications, air forces and so forth. They only render more important the continuous high level contacts such as existed before the war.
I am not quite sure that everyone agrees with this, but I think there is much to be said for the statement quoted in paragraph 37 of the White Paper to the effect that the existing flexible methods
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of consultation—meetings of Prime Ministers, continuous exchange of information and so forth—are preferable to any rigid centralized machinery. I do not ask for any rigid centralized machinery; it is the last thing I should ask for. But visits of Prime Ministers are unfortunately rare, fleeting and overcrowded with urgent business and hospitality, so that in between them some continuous high-level personal contact on defence, such as already exists in foreign policy, is necessary. All I ask, then, is the revival of the infinitely flexible system that existed for nearly thirty years before the war. All I ask is that the Dominions, who already have free access on the Staff level to the Service Departments and the Imperial Defence College, may again have the same free access as in the past on the high level, to such extent as they like to use it, to our Central Organization for defence. In conclusion, I would add that surely at a time when the power of the British Commonwealth of Nations and Empire is relatively less than it was before the war, it is most undesirable to weaken, or to give any appearance of weakening, our machinery for that unity of thought and action which staggered the world in two successive wars.
4.34 p.m.
VISCOUNT TRENCHARD: My Lords, I should like to say at once that I welcome this White Paper on Central Organization for Defence. It is certainly a move in a direction which has been advocated in this House two or three times before. There are, however, one or two points which I wish to mention. I will not go into the historical survey except to say that to me there are three great dates. The first one is 1904, when the C.I.D. was set up under a Treasury Minute. The second one is 1923 when the Salisbury Committee reviewed the whole question of defence owing to the coming of the third Service, and as a consequence of which the Chiefs of Staff Committee was set up in 1924. Those are two great dates, and I think a third is the year of issue of this White Paper.
There is one point in the White Paper which I would like the Government really seriously to consider. In paragraph 30 reference is made to the question of what the Minister of Defence is going to take into his Ministry and it is said:

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"A study is being made, however, of the possible advantages of drawing together certain administrative services which are now provided separately for each of the three fighting Services, e.g., the medical services, and forming a combined organization which would provide those services in common for all branches of the Armed Forces."
If I read that correctly, it means that one day this Minister of Defence will take over some of these administrative services.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: Would the noble Viscount give me the precise reference? I cannot find the passage.
VISCOUNT TRENCHARD: Page 9, paragraph 30. If the Minister of Defence is going to take over services such as the medical, supply and dental services, he will be cluttered up with a whole lot of administrative work and that will detract from the real object of setting up this Ministry. I think it is frightfully dangerous. I have been in the Service for a very long time. I will not go into all that I saw, but I do remember the Committees which were set up to see if it would not be more economical to set up a combined medical service, combined spiritual service, combined supply service and everything else. It was always proved—and proved by capable business men outside the Services—that it would be uneconomical and inefficient. I say that if you collect all those services in this Ministry of Defence you will wreck this very great step forward which you are taking to-day.
Then I come to another point. I am a little frightened lest the organization set out here should prove to be a little too rigid, although it is not meant to be. It talks about a lot of Committees being set up. The great advantage of the Committee of Imperial Defence is its flexibility. If you put down on paper that a Committee is going to be started again and is going to function, I suppose you will not be able to alter that without coming to the House and explaining the position, but I feel you ought to have the freedom to set up half a dozen Committees, if you like, and to knock them on the head the next day, if necessary. I am really frightened of this becoming a great bureaucratic Ministry in the same way as some of the others have become, instead of being a really good Ministry with a head man free from a lot of these restrictions. I ask the Government to reconsider
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this and to make it plain that they do not want to set up a rigid organization.
There is one other point which I should like to mention. It is implied in the White Paper, and it is certainly said in the Services a good deal—although I personally disagree entirely—that you must have an organization in peace which will carry straight on into war. A very great man said to me in the 1914–18 war: "It does not matter what organization you have; the man who is put in charge of it"—either the Commander-in-Chief or the Minister, whether it is a Winston Churchill or anybody else—"will alter it. It must be so flexible that it will not break down when it is developed and altered by the new man responsible for the conduct of the whole war." All these organizations depend on the man and it is no good using cheap phrases about an organization which can carry straight on into war.
There is one question which I would ask the noble Viscount specifically. Paragraph 31 refers to the Chiefs of Staff committee and says that it
"will continue as at present, together with the Joint Staffs for strategic planning, intelligence and administrative planning."
On the same page, paragraph 30 says:
"The Minister of Defence will assume control of inter-Service organizations such as Combined Operations Headquarters, the Joint Intelligence Bureau. …"
I would like to ask whether that is not a little contradictory. It seems to me that it may be so. Are the three Services each going to keep their Intelligence Departments, and is there in addition going to be a Joint Intelligence Bureau under the Minister of Defence? Again, it all depends upon who is the Minister of Defence. In war there is no doubt it may be the Prime Minister. There is a great deal in the point the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, raised, that you may not always get a Prime Minister who would be capable of being the Minister of Defence in war, and I am perfectly certain that that is correct. Therefore, I would ask the noble Lord to remember that it is essential to keep your organization flexible so that the position may be filled by the Prime Minister or someone else. It also depends upon whom you choose as Minister of Defence. I feel that he has a very difficult task in dealing with the argument and contention about what are the best weapons and their order of priority. Friction nearly always arises on the best

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weapons and their priority. This is a point which I feel will come again and again to the Cabinet from the Minister of Defence, and that is the time when I feel that the Chiefs of Staff must be able to put their views straight to the Cabinet.
In conclusion, I cannot do better than quote the words of General Arnold in America who wrote in The National Geographical Magazine in February of this year, amongst other things, this:
"Air power for peace. It is our obligation, now and in the future, to organize our Armed Forces with the most modern weapons to secure the most powerful striking force at the least expense to the taxpayer. We must do this not to prepare for another war … we must do this to prevent another war—to perpetuate peace."
I say that that is the task of the Minister of Defence.
4.43 p.m.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, it is two years since I had an opportunity of addressing your Lordships' House, because I have been absent in Australia on the staff of the British Pacific Fleet. I should like to pay a tribute to my Commander-in-Chief, Lord Fraser, under whom I had the honour of serving during those two years. I am very delighted to see him in his place to-day. It is perhaps because I have been residing in one of our Dominions for the past two years that I feel possibly more strongly than anyone, that insufficient emphasis has been placed on the Imperial aspect of events in the White Paper. I feel with the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, that that grand title, "The Committee of Imperial Defence," which has meant so much throughout the Empire, should remain. I know that His Majesty's Government may have had difficulty at the present time in getting real decisions on defence matters from our Dominions Govern-merits and, in particular, from the Dominion where I have been serving, which has been in the throes of a General Election and which has been very fully occupied, like all other Governments, with internal matters such as housing. I feel that if His Majesty's Government had pressed strongly enough, and there had been sufficient propaganda, this Imperial aspect could have been much more emphasized.
If we want universal support throughout the Empire for an Imperial scheme
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of defence we should do something dramatic, something that would capture the imagination not only of the Governments but of the peoples of the Dominions. I have asked myself if anything can be done now, and I think the answer is undoubtedly "Yes." I then asked myself where we should begin, and I think the answer is in the area where I have been serving, the Pacific. I wonder if your Lordships realize how vast an area it is. I certainly did not do so until I went to serve there two years ago. I well remember our Chief of Staff at the first Staff Conference asking us to transpose the theatre of war to the other side of the world. He mentioned that our main base would be at Aden, our defence base would be at Gibraltar, the fuelling area of the Fleet would be near the Azores, and we should be fighting the enemy in the St. Lawrence River of Canada.
My proposal is that as a first step to real Imperial defence in that area we should form our Forces in that area into a body known as the Empire Pacific Fleet, and that we should invite the Dominion Navies of the three Dominions whose shores abut on the Pacific, Canada, Australia and New Zealand—while naturally they would wish to keep the separate identity of their Navies—to become part of that great Empire Pacific Fleet. That is something which I imagine would capture the imagination of the Empire, and from time to time one would hope that an officer from one of these Dominions would command that Fleet. There are a number of officers in the Australian Navy who are already nearly senior enough, and one would hope to see the other Dominions commanding it later on. I put to His Majesty's Government that consideration should be given to forming an Empire Pacific Fleet.
4.48 p.m.
LORD ALTRINCHAM: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Swinton has already spoken from this Bench, and the noble Lord, Lord Croft, is going to wind up the debate on our behalf. I feel, therefore, that I am making rather a heavy draught upon the patience of the House by intervening. I would not have intervened at all had it not been that I feel very deeply that I would have been false to the convictions of a lifetime if I had not risen in my place in the House to-day to say what I felt about the Commonwealth

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aspect of this White Paper. Like everybody else, I welcome it in so far as it deals with the organization and control of defence in the United Kingdom. But like many other speakers, and not least like my noble friend Lord Gifford, who spoke with such freshness and inspiration after his recent experience in the Pacific, I feel very strongly that the White Paper is a definite reaction and retrogression, having regard to the progress which has been made over a period of thirty years. That feeling should be registered in this House, and I hope that suitable correction will be made before this organization is completed by His Majesty's Government.
Reading this White Paper one constantly comes upon the phrase "national defence." To my mind, "national defence" is a reactionary phrase. We are concerned not with national defence, but with a much wider thing of which national defence is but a part—the defence of the Commonwealth, the association of the regions vital to the defence of the Commonwealth, and the working out of the regional organizations which are necessary for the ultimate success of the United Nations Organization, as laid down in the Charter and stated there to be very desirable in the interest of world security. Not only is there this insistence on and repetition of the phrase "national defence," which, as I say, I regard as reactionary, but there is also—and in this I agree with my noble friend Viscount Trenchard—a most unfortunate tendency in one part of the Paper to turn the Minister of Defence, not into a directing Minister, but into a man at the head of an Administrative Department. That, it seems to me, would be a disaster. It would be grotesque that the man who is going to be responsible for the over-all planning and strategy necessary to our security system throughout the world, should be at the same time asked to administer what are really going to be minor departments. Surely some other means can be found of dealing with these things, even if it is sound, as may very well be the case, that they should be common to all three Services. But to hamper the Minister by giving him administrative duties of a secondary order instead of leaving him absolutely free to cope with one of the most responsible tasks in the higher ranks of the Cabinet, does seem to me a most unfortunate suggestion.
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Like the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, I regret deeply the change in the name of the Committee. Why has it been changed? It is still the Committee of Imperial Defence. Why is it not to be so called? That mere fact of the change will be noticed all over the Empire and it is possible that it will be supposed that we are becoming an isolationist nation, falling back on ourselves at the very moment when our standing in the world depends more than ever on the associations which we have and must keep. Everything in connexion with our world influence depends, as I am sure noble Lords opposite will agree, upon our kinships, our friendships and our associations. To appear to degrade the tradition of this great Committee seems to me to be most unfortunate.
Let me add that, like other speakers, I too greatly regret that the Secretary of State for the Dominions should not be named as a regular member of this Committee. How can that have come about? I know that it will be difficult for the noble Leader of this House to speak very freely upon that subject, and I wish that the noble and learned Lord Chancellor were in his place in order that representation might be made to him and that: he might be asked to deal with this. I hope that the noble Lords opposite will report our very strong feeling on this question. I believe that it is shared intensely in all quarters of the House.
Now what is the meaning of the words "regular members"? That, in itself, seems to be a departure from the tradition of the Committee of Imperial Defence. It appears to indicate a change in its character to that of an ordinary Cabinet Committee. The great principle was that there were no regular members except the Prime Minister but, if there are to be regular members now, then surely the Secretary of State for the Dominions ought to be one of them. Why should the Foreign Secretary be a member and not the Secretary of State who deals with and is responsible for the other great branch of our world policy, that branch which is a vital element in our standing as a Great Power—just as vital as anything for which the Foreign Secretary is responsible? I is a branch of our policy which has been responsible, by reason of the friendships which it kept for us, for our survival to-day. Where would we have

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been if those friendships had not been true and deep? It is a branch of policy which exemplifies that relationship between sovereign nations upon which the future of the whole of the United Nations depends. Really it is an incredibly reactionary idea that if there are to be regular members of the Committee the Secretary of State for the Dominions should not be one of them.
Incidentally, I think we are entitled to ask who is going to represent this Committee upon the Bench opposite in this House. We surely are entitled in this House, where we do not lack authoritative experience of these great questions of defence, to ask that when the great responsibilities of this Committee are debated in this House the debate should be dealt with by a member of the Cabinet who has been in regular and constant touch with the deliberations of the Committee. I think that we are entitled to insist on that, and I hope that that feeling also will be conveyed very strongly to His Majesty's Government.
Nor is that all. I profoundly regret—though I admit that I do not quite understand the paragraph concerned and hope that I have misread it—the apparent decision that representatives of the Dominion are no longer to be free to attend sittings of this Committee when and if they choose to do so. The language which is used is not very clear about that. I should like to be quite certain what is meant by paragraph 39 which, after dealing with the general liaison officers and all the rest of it, seems to suggest that the arrangements are still flexible. I do not know whether that applies to participation in the deliberations of the Committee of Defence. I should like to feel that there is going to be no alteration in that matter. It is, after all, for the Dominions to choose whether they wish to attend meetings of the Committee or not. It has always been so; it has always been at their discretion.
Now paragraph 39 states:
"There is reason to suppose that in the main they will prove acceptable,"—
that means to the Dominions—
"and that they will pave the way for machinery which, while giving full play to the independence of the Member States of the Commonwealth, will be effective as a means of consultation and collaboration."
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I do not know why they should be paving the way for new things when they are abandoning something which already is most effective. I do not in the least understand why there is apparently to be a throwing away of a means of collaboration and consultation which is most effective and an announcement about paving the way for something or other which apparently is not going to be equally effective, and the character of which is not indicated. I say that it must always be a question for the Dominions, it must always be left entirely to their discretion to what extent they take part in the deliberations of this Committee. It would be lamentable if any Dominion were excluded which was anxious to maintain its old connexion with this body. The invitation should always remain open to those who desire to avail themselves of it. Let us welcome them in the future as we did in the past.
I notice that in the White Paper, regional organization is actually used as an argument—or it appears to be so used—against participation of the Dominions in the deliberations of the Defence Committee. I am totally unable to understand how such an argument can be advanced. Regional organization is not an argument against participation of the Dominions but a strong argument for it. After all, we are going to play our part in regional defence. No system of regional defence in the different parts of the Commonwealth would be of much avail unless we took a considerable part in it. And the part which we are able to take in it—in the Pacific, the Middle East or elsewhere—must depend on the general strategic concept accepted by the Committee of Defence and on the allocation of resources based on that concept. If the Dominions are to understand fully why we cannot do more in a particular region—and this is pretty sure to be the main ground for argument—it is far better that the representatives of the Dominions should be able to see the whole picture, as presented to the Committee of Defence. They will then be able to understand why it is that our world commitments prevent us from doing more than a certain amount in a particular region.
I would echo what the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, said about training. Of course, there should be training in all parts of the Empire. I hope that we

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shall have a contradiction of the statement which he quoted on that matter—without giving his authority—and which surprised me profoundly. I hope that we shall have an assurance from the noble Viscount who leads the House, and who is to wind up the debate, that the High Commissioners of those Dominions who wish to attend the Committee may still always do so, and that visiting Ministers from the Dominions may, of course, do the same. There may be some Dominions who do not desire to attend, but why have a rigid uniformity? There is no necessity for it. Let those who want to participate do so; and let those who do not, abstain. There is no reason for putting a damper on those who are keen, because others are less enthusiastic.
The argument is sometimes used that members of the Commonwealth will be sufficiently united in defence affairs if they all regard themselves as loyal to the United Nations. It is suggested that somehow loyalty to the United Nations should supersede loyalty to the Commonwealth as a higher loyalty, but I am sure that you will all agree that that is a profoundly misleading conception. In the years between the two great world wars we were perpetually told that the British Empire could rely on the League of Nations. What did the war prove? It proved that the League could survive only if the British Empire were behind it. It was not the Empire which relied on the League, but the League on the Empire. That has been proved to be true, and it is still true in the world to-day. Let us be realists, and recognize that this argument, that there is in some way a conflict between loyalty to U.N.O. and loyalty to the Commonwealth, is grossly inconsistent with realities. Field-Marshal Smuts himself, who cannot be regarded as inadequately enthusiastic about the ideals of the League, has quite recently warned us against too much reliance upon the United Nations in the earlier stages, and upon the vast importance of the kinship of the Commonwealth and the proper development of regional organization for security. The truth is, that the Commonwealth relationship between sovereign States is the model for the United Nations; the United Nations will get nowhere unless that model is proved successful. We must not weaken it. Still less must we dissolve it prematurely; and we must never seem
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tepid about it here, or in the Dominions we shall be regarded as indifferent.
There was a passage in the speech of my noble friend Lord Hankey which I thought may have given an impression which he did not intend, that there should, of course, be no secrets between those attending the Committee of Imperial Defence. I do not think that the noble Lord quite meant to suggest that, when he said that the whole of the plans were not communicated to South Africa in regard to the defence of the northern parts of that Continent. Of course derailed plans are matters for the technical staff; what must be fully assured, without withholding anything, is the broad over-all appreciation, the strategic appreciation, of the strategic plans.
LORD HANKEY: The noble Lord has exactly interpreted my intention. I had to improvise that point because of something that the noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, said.
LORD ALTRINCHAM: I am glad to hear that, as I was certain that the noble Lord did not mean what he appeared to say. If our maximum collaboration is never to be more than the minimum to which all would agree at any given moment, will that not always fall far short of what the keenest and the most right-minded among us would desire? There is an old saying that you can calculate the strength of a chain by its weakest link. That is not true of the human or political chain. The strength of that chain is based on its strongest link. If the strength of the British Empire were that of the weakest link what would its position have been, judged by the part which Eire played in the recent war? In these things, it is the man with enthusiasm and spirit who should be followed, and not always the man with doubts and hesitations. The right principle is to arrange for each Dominion to do what it desires, whether other Dominions desire it or not, and not always to decline on the lowest common denominator.
5.8 p.m.
LORD CROFT: My Lords, we have had so many well-informed speeches, of such great interest, that I do not propose to detain your Lordships for more than a short time. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, is pleased with the effect of his tabling of this Motion, because I

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am sure that he will agree that the debate which has arisen has been worthy of this House. I hope, indeed, that the speeches may be very widely read, not only in this country, but throughout His Majesty's Dominions. The noble Lord may congratulate himself that he has the support of practically every subsequent speaker in his commendations of the White Paper, and he also had the support of practically every other speaker in his condemnations of one of the concluding paragraphs of that Paper.
I think I am speaking for others on these Benches—as has been said so well by the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton—when I say that, broadly speaking, we welcome the proposals of the White Paper with regard to the future system of controlling defence. I think we all realize that what His Majesty's Government have done is to make permanent the supremely successful machinery which saw us through to victory. The machinery then set up, which included the Chiefs of Staff, with the Minister of Imperial Defence, who in an emergency imposed himself on this country in the dual capacity of Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, is to be made permanent. There is this difference: that the Minister of Defence is now to be part of our permanent machinery. I think that that is right. The only thing about which I have a little doubt is whether he should not hold a position more similar to that of the Minister of Defence in the last Great War. I am rather nervous of building up under him a big Ministry which will cause him to deflect his mind from the supreme purpose of this vitally important duty to be carried out by him in the future, of representing as their spokesman in the Cabinet all the combined Services.
I have only one very minor comment to make as to the possible effects of this scheme. We have got to realize that under the new scheme there will only be one statesman in the Cabinet speaking for the defences of this country, instead of three as heretofore. Some of us may regard that new arrangement as somewhat dangerous, because unless you have a Minister of Defence of great personality—and here I need hardly say that I am not making any reflection on the Government's
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choice of Minister of Defence; from the ranks of the Party which is now controlling the destinies of this country, I think no better choice could be made—the pressure of peace conditions with the almost inevitable pacifism which comes after a war, and the war weariness which we know has followed almost every war that one can remember, is brought to bear upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to cut down at the expense of the Defence Services. That has happened again and again. We can only hope that the Minister of Defence will be a Minister of authority and persuasiveness. I am sure we all realize that it will be more important than ever in these somewhat changed circumstances for both Houses of Parliament—your Lordships' House in particular, because it can speak with such great authority—to assist the Minister in seeing that matters of high importance are always brought to the notice of our countrymen.
I promise to be very brief, but I want to say that I most cordially agree with that part of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, dealing with the last part of the White Paper, which is so encouraging and so hopeful for all of us, but which peters out in the platitudes of the last few paragraphs. I have never hesitated to declare that we could not have won the war of 1914–18 without Dominion, Colonial and Indian help—which just turned the scales—and I am again prepared to declare that we could not have won the last war without the marvellous contributions in man-power, material and foodstuffs from all the Dominions overseas. Every Dominion and Colony in the same way swill realize that they could not have survived without the immense determination, power and strength of the people of this old Island, and all they did to support them. Who can doubt that but for British determination, grit and courage in holding the fort one or two Dominions—almost certainly India and several of the Colonies—would have fallen into the hands of the conqueror and have suffered the ruin and misery which, alas! was inflicted on Malaya and Burma? That being so, it makes me sad to read these concluding paragraphs of the White Paper, and every noble Lord who has spoken seems to share this feeling.
I am distressed to see that we have actually gone back on the machinery of

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the past. Like my noble friend Lord Altrincham, who has just asked the question, I ask why have we abandoned the name "Committee of Imperial Defence"? It was understood by the people in every part of the British Commonwealth. The mere removal of the word "Imperial" surely indicates that you are narrowing the machinery and deliberately getting: more and more to the position described—rightly, I think—by the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, as one of isolation apart from the Dominions and Colonies overseas. If we are wrong about that I do hope we shall be corrected. It seems from what one reads in the White Paper that, in fact, the Dominions in the future will not be so closely associated with us as they were in the past by the fact of their High Commissioners being able to attend the Committee of Imperial Defence. If I am wrong—and I hope I am—I trust that the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, will correct me. If I am right, I can only say, it is a most disturbing factor.
I want to say only one or two words with regard to the future. We all desire more and more collaboration and co-operation between the three Services in this country. Throughout the war the Chiefs of the Imperial General Staff hardly ever put a foot wrong, and our strategy was supremely successful. We set up certain machinery, and that machinery, apparently, is not now to be at the same free disposal of the Dominions as it was in the past. We have seen a marvellous comradeship in the field. I suppose there has never been anything like it in the history of the world. There has never been anything like the spirit shown in Alexander's Army, and Montgomery's Eighth Army. It surely is an example for all humanity as to how people should get together. It was truly marvellous. In every theatre of war, in the air, on the sea, indeed everywhere, you found this truly remarkable comradeship in arms. Then the War Council hold a conference in London and for some mysterious reason we have no more the words "Committee of Imperial Defence," and apparently a diminution in the degree of co-operation which formerly existed.
Speaking for myself, I cannot help feeling that we should be wise if we gave a lead to the Dominions. Surely, the young nations of the British Commonwealth were looking to us for a lead on defence? In
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the past we have never been very much worse for having great alliances. We have had great alliances; we have had ententes with other countries. Here was the greatest alliance we have ever had, proved in the field of battle, in the air, and on the seas, and suddenly it is suggested it would be almost immoral to advocate a continuance of that system. I say deliberately this evening that mere consultation and liaison is not enough. If we realize the menace of affairs owing to the scientific advances of the nations, it is surely our bounden duty to do everything in our power not to get weaker in our co-operative methods than we were before, but to get stronger and to have something as nearly as possible approaching a defensive pact between all parts of His Majesty's Dominions, so that each one knows definitely that, if one is attacked, as in recent wars, the whole Empire stands absolutely together.
I have only one other word to add, and that is with regard to the Colonial Empire. When I went to the War Office at the time of Dunkirk I remember it was impressed on my mind that: man-power was going to be the absolutely decisive factor in this war. As one who has had great interest in the Colonial Empire for some thirty-five years, where I have had contact with native peoples, I cannot understand why we did not set up the machinery for a far greater expansion of Colonial troops than was extant at the time when the war broke out. Now none of us can hope—unless a miracle happens—that India, with the best will in the world, is going to make anything like the same stupendous contribution that her people made in the last war. Her volunteers numbered, I think, in total something like three million men. They were a very decisive factor in the last war. We cannot quite hope that India will make so great a contribution. I hope very much the spirit may move India along Dominion co-operation lines. I trust that may be possible, but we can hardly hope for anything like that again.
It may be that we shall not have the same vast resources of in in-power to rely on in time of possible trouble as in the past. If that is so, we should surely do everything in our power to recognize the contribution of the African natives and natives in other parts of the Colonial Empire, and to give them the opportunity

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of being associated with the defence of their countries. I cannot help thinking that if we had faced up to this subject—I know there were political reasons why we did not at that time, but I believe these political reasons do not hold now in any section of the country—had we had the power and the expansion and the organization of the native regiments in Malaya and in Burma, we very likely might have saved those countries which were ultimately liberated only after so much bloodshed and suffering by the full power of all arms of the British service.
In conclusion, I hope that the concluding paragraphs of this White Paper do not represent the last word of His Majesty's Government's opinion for the future. In size of population we are only a small people now amongst the nations of the world, and our small country can only survive if we go hand in hand with the great brotherhood who stand round us. I hope the Leader of the House will be able to give us some encouragement to believe that we have these wretched paragraphs at the end of this admirable White Paper because they have not come to any final decision, and that there is yet hope for something more appropriate to the situation of the world as we find it.
5.24 p.m.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, before the Leader of the House replies may I intervene for a moment to give him the reference for which he asked earlier in the debate, with my apologies that I did not have it at the time. The statement was made by Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and formed part of the statement issued to the Press prior to the conference of General Officers which he held at the Camberley Staff College. It appears in The Times of August 7. After referring to the training of the Regular Army for some time to come in Germany, Lord Montgomery said:
"There is no intention—and there never has been—of training British troops in the Dominions. Basic training and such unit exercises as are needed to practise the use of weapons and the co-ordination of services will continue in this country."
5.26 p.m.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, I am sure we have had a very valuable and encouraging debate, although the criticism has, for the most part at all events, concentrated
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itself upon the concluding portion of the White Paper. Before I come to some of the criticisms made in respect of that part of the White Paper, I might perhaps say a little from the inside as to the production of the White Paper, and the deliberations which accompanied its production. Before I do so, I should like to associate myself with what the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, said as to the strange position in which we find ourselves of doing everything we can—and quite rightly and quite sincerely—to support the United Nations Organization, and, at the same time, spending time, as we have done, in close deliberation upon how we should improve our own defensive arrangements. There is, as he very clearly and properly pointed out, no contradiction whatever between these two. It was to the end that we should secure that our own defence arrangements, as a quite necessary and proper national safeguard, were as well established and as perfect as we could make them, that the prolonged consultation which went on with the Staffs, and which went to the production of this White Paper, were initiated.
In view of what has been said by some of the speakers, I do not know that I need go over the history of the development of Staff co-operation as set out in the White Paper, but I would remind noble Lords of one or two points with regard to the Committee of Imperial Defence. When it was established in 1904 the state of the British Commonwealth was very different from what it is now, and our general outlook was clearly very different. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, as one who has had intimate acquaintance with the machinery and work of the Dominions Department, realizes very clearly that the central control, or the measure of central control in these matters which might have been possible or acceptable in 1904, has for long been out of the question in the way the British Commonwealth has developed. There were very substantial developments after the C.I.D. came into being as a result of the very important Salisbury Report in 1923, and I would like to associate myself with what the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, said about the importance of that Committee's work. I am in full accord with all that noble Lords have said as to the high value of the developments which took place, and which have been explained to your Lordships by mare

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than one speaker, and particularly by Lord Hankey, who has an unequalled knowledge from the inside of the whole of the development that took place.
Nevertheless, I must ask your Lordships to look at paragraph 12 of the White Paper, which contains a very vital statement and with which those of us who were concerned with the discussions of a very intimate character which led to the formulation of the White Paper were confronted. It states:
"In many respects, however, we were in 1939 dangerously unprepared for war."
That is notwithstanding all that had happened and all that had been fashioned.
"Qualitatively, our Navy and Air Force were not badly equipped …"
But I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, did not quite accept that statement with regard to the Navy. He thought it was badly equipped, at all events in some respects, which only reinforces the point I am going to make. The paragraph continues:
"but there were serious gaps. We were dangerously short of destroyers and other escort vessels. We were inadequately supplied with aircraft and anti-aircraft artillery. Our Army was small and badly equipped"—
and so on. That was the position which we had to recognize, and naturally we had to ask ourselves how it came about and how we could fashion arrangements which would, so far as humanly possible, prevent it happening in the future. That is the reason, to a great extent, for the form of proposals which you find in the White Paper.
Paragraph 13 of the White Paper refers to a central defect in our machinery. It refers to political and economic circumstances. I have nothing to say on the political side, but it also deals, as has been pointed out, with the lack of sustained supervision by somebody or some organization with authority, having in view the needs of all the Services. In the first great war, as Lord Hankey and I both know from intimate association with it, a War Cabinet was instituted, although it had not at that time any machinery to help it, as is here suggested, or as was developed later on.
LORD HANKEY: If I may interrupt for a moment, there was enormous machinery. There were about 160 committees, some very important ones and some going right down to details just as
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they did in the late war. There was huge machinery. I had not time to pick up that historical part, but it is full of omissions.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: I am well aware of the size of the machinery, but I am discussing its effectiveness. You may easily be cluttered up with too much machinery. The point is that it was true at that time, and it was true in 1939, that we were not provided with a standing organization which took account of the needs of all the Seri ices, which married that up with the plans of the General Staffs and presented the considerations arising out of it to the responsible Ministers. There was no machinery of that kind.
LORD HANKEY: I am very sorry to interrupt again, but if the noble Viscount will have the records of that day searched he will find exactly the same sort of joint reports which came from the First Sea Lord and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff—that is the Chiefs of Staff of those days—as you have had in the late war from the three services; and I think in a later part of the war from the three Services.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: I am sorry to differ completely from the noble Lord. I was in it just as much as he was, and I know, fur example, taking the question of the supply of munitions, the character of munitions and those who would require them, that there was not any adequate provision for sufficient foresight, and it was because of that that many of our disasters occurred. I do not want to enter into controversy with the noble Lord on those things, but my statement as to the absence of effective machinery to have foresight over the whole of our requirements, in the light of the advice of a Combined General Staff, is correct, and it was also correct at the beginning at the last war. That is why the paragraph which I read is there.
We had to consider—and noble Lords who know much more about it than I do said a word about one or two of them—all the methods which were appropriate to try and improve our machinery for meeting national requirements. It is pointed out in the White Paper that one possibility which was explored was the unification of all the three Services. If

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you look at paragraph 15 you will see that that is referred to. As more than one noble Lord has said, I think we took the right course in deciding against that expedient, at all events for the present. However, it is said that His Majesty's Government do not wholly reject this conception, and it may be that at some stage in the future amalgamation it will be found to be desirable. It has been decided, however, that this is a step that should not be taken here and now, and that, I think, is agreed to by everyone.
Another expedient was the expedient adopted by the Germans with their Combined General Staff; and more than one noble Lord has pointed out the difficulties of the German system whereby you had a higher staff dissociated from those who had the responsibility for conducting operations, with resulting disaster to the Germans. Then there is the possibility of expanding and developing our own system, associated with some central planning authority, and that is how it is that the Defence Committee which is set out in the White Paper was proposed.
I would just remind your Lordships of the summary of the form of the new organization in paragraph 20, set out there under five headings which are of course very carefully drawn up. I shall come later on to the organization in a little detail, but let me just say a word as to the membership of the Defence Committee. I entirely agree with more than one noble Lord who have said that the responsibility of the Prime Minister cannot be diminished. He finally must be fully responsible. It is, however, clear that the Minister who is to be responsible for the combination of Services, set out under the functions of the Minister of Defence in paragraph 26, must be a Minister of very high standing. Here I would like to give the assurance that more than one noble Lord asked for, that that Minister, who will be the Chairman, will be a Minister of very high standing and next to the Prime Minister so far as this part of the work of government is concerned.
But it must be remembered that in these days, as war has developed, we have to take into account that modern war involves not simply the equipment of Services but the life of the whole nation. You have to take account of the complete
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dislocation of the life of the whole nation, and the need for the co-operation of the whole nation in the event of this terrible misfortune. Therefore it is necessary to marry up to the Service considerations which would come before the Ministry of Defence those Departments which would have to take account of the civil requirements which would emerge on the onset of war. That is why it is that, after the Chancellor of the Exchequer (whom you must have because he has to provide the money) and the Foreign Affairs Minister, the Lord President of the Council, under whom are collected the Departments particularly concerned with civil affairs, must be a member of the Committee. Here I would like to say how interested I was in what the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, said as to what this indicates as to the development of the Cabinet system of government. I agree with him that at long last some notice has been taken of some of the recommendations of the Haldane Committee. Speaking as one who has had a fairly long experience of Cabinets, this is, I think, a development entirely of a wholesome type. The major responsibility relating to the defence question will be dealt with by the Defence Minister, and he will present the work of that Committee and reports to the Cabinet. In addition, as this Paper sets out, he will have responsibilities to Parliament.
Here, if I may remind the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, is a very substantial and vital difference between this organization and the Committee of Imperial Defence. This is a body which is intimately concerned with plans affecting the whole life of the nation and with a Minister responsible to Parliament for certain functions which are set out here. That is clearly something much beyond, and entirely different from, the original conception of the Committee of Imperial Defence, which, after all, was an advisory body with no executive powers at all. It was a completely different conception, so far as this particular department of defence is concerned, from this effective ministerial body which will have certain responsibilities to Parliament.
May I say a word regarding one or two questions which were asked of me as to the relationship of the Minister of Defence with the Service organizations, particularly because I think the House will be

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very interested to know of certain developments which have taken place. The Minister will have with him on the Staff side the inter-Service organizations. There will be the Combined Operations Headquarters. That is not new, and I am glad to say it has been developed and continued in the light of war experience. There is now a joint Intelligence Bureau, which has been established since the end of the war and which is formed by an amalgamation of the different bodies which grew up for the collection of intelligence and information during the war. That is another Department which has recently been brought into being to serve the Staff side of the work. As the House is well aware, we are redeveloping the Imperial Defence College. Let me say here—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Croft, and perhaps other noble Lords have lost sight of the fact—that as a part of the new plan of development, high Dominion officers will regularly be at the Imperial Defence College.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: They always were.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: And they are in fact there to-day. Arrangements have been set on foot for increasing and extending those facilities. In addition to that, I am glad to say that a new branch of this work which has been continued or reorganized as war experience indicated is the establishment of the Defence Research Committee. We have a scientist of very high authority already there as Chairman—close to the Minister of Defence and complete]y in the confidence of the whole staff organization, as more than one noble Lord has suggested was necessary. If you look at paragraph 34 of this White Paper you will see that a very important observation is made there to which attention has not hitherto been drawn but of which I would like to remind your Lordships. It speaks of the Minister of Defence having as his principal advisers a Permanent Secretary, a Chief Staff Officer, the Chairman of the Joint War Production Staff and the Chairman of the Committee on Defence Research Policy. Those are the four principal officers of the Minister, so you will see that we have brought research right into the forefront of the whole scheme of operations.
LORD CHERWELL: Will the noble Viscount tell us the name of the scientist?
VISCOUNT ADDISON: I think I had better not. I am sure the noble Lord would welcome his name, and is well acquainted with him. In addition to that, another thing connected with the Defence Committee is the establishment of the Joint War Production Board, bringing the requirements of supplies right into the inner councils of the Committee, and with them, of course, the Minister of Labour, who supplies the necessary labour, and the Minister of Supply, who supplies the goods. The establishment of a Ministry of Supply was one of the things which some of us here, I remember, contended for more than once at the beginning of the last war. It seems very strange that one should have had to recall an elementary fact of that kind, but there it was; we were some considerable time, as we well remember, before that elementary requirement was provided. Now, however, as you will see, in this scheme of operations the specification of supplies, the whole planning of the staff to submit requirements and all things related thereto are an essential part of the duties of the Minister of Defence, and the supply organization is an integral part of the whole scheme.
Now I come to some of the other criticisms. Perhaps it will be more convenient to your Lordships if I go as well as I can through the notes I have of the points made by different speakers before I deal with what seems to have been the chief ground of criticism of this Paper and which is, I am quite sure, founded to a great extent on a complete misconception of what is being aimed at. The noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, did not like the word "collective." So far as I am concerned, I do not mind his objection to that word. So long as we get the thing we want—namely, a collective effort—I do not mind in the least what he calls it. That is the thing we are aiming at.
I think the noble Lord made one or two observations, whether unwittingly or not I do not know, which seemed to me to be the main justification for the scheme we are now discussing. He said that there was not in existence prior to the war that close contact between the Staffs which was necessary. Owing to Mr. Churchill's efforts that was brought about during the war, and established by him, and he was very anxious that that should be secured. Well, I think this plan does secure it. I

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would also like to reassure him that the financial provisions—and the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, made this point to some extent—will not be dealt with, shall we say, by the statement of a sum by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the consequent haggling as to how much each individual is to get out of it. It will not be approached in that way at all. It will be approached by the presentation of an analysis and reports by the Defence Committee to the Cabinet, and we shall see at the same time how they relate to our financial ability. But those will be presented in the first place in the form of a statement of requirements in the proper way from the Defence Committee.
Most of the other speakers referred to co-operation with the Dominions. I would like to associate myself with what the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, said about the danger of cluttering this Ministry up with too many detailed departments. I entirely agree with him. It was one of the purposes we had in mind when we discussed this at great length, to keep the functions as restricted as we could to avoid that very danger. It is a danger which will have to be guarded against. We do know how apt it is for a Department to gather to itself a few more functions, which means more officers, more details and more papers. I entirely agree with the noble Lord that it is a danger we should guard against. I have not a word of criticism there, because I agree with him absolutely. The same applies to his observations warning us against it being too rigid or unadaptable. I am quite sure that that point is equally borne in mind.
Although I did not hear the whole of his speech, I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, for his very helpful and friendly remarks. I would also like to say this—and this relates to the comments of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel—that arrangements will be made no doubt from time to time as necessity arises, to take into counsel members of other Parties and to receive visitors from our Dominions. There is nothing to preclude the continuation of the kind of conferences which have been our practice for many years past, and the value of which every Party recognizes. There is nothing in any of
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this, either intentional or otherwise, to leave out that sort of thing.
I think it is fair to say that the statement in the Paper, in paragraph 37, about which the noble Lord, Lord Croft, was rather severe in his comments, was put out deliberately by the meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers after the most careful scrutiny of the texts which we had submitted to them. It was, as you might well imagine, a deliberate statement, and it is a true statement. They came to the conclusion, if you look at the last paragraph, that the methods now practised are preferable to any rigid centralized machinery. The Dominions and their point of view are in a different world from that in which they were in 1904. The Dominions have their own problems, different, some of them, from ours. I would ask your Lordships to notice that we do not pretend that this is the last word, and we deliberately say so in the Paper. We deliberately say that it is being developed, and I can assure your Lordships that we are now busy and anxious developing on the widest possible scale, and in the most intimate possible manner, the consultation and co-operation with the Dominions. I should like to say that I do not think that ever in the history of the British Commonwealth—and I am not saying it on my own authority but on the authority of the men who were at that meeting—has there been more intimate and continuous consultation with the Dominions, or with the members of the Commonwealth, than there is to-day. It is absolutely intimate from day to day, not only on general problems but upon all the kind of problems that are related to the issues in this Paper.
May I for example point to three indications of the way in which things are developing? You notice that the Chief of the Imperial General Staff has been visiting the Dominions, and whilst I am sure we all hope that he derived physical benefits from his visit, you may be sure that he went as a serious visitor, anxious to get in touch with the Staffs in the Dominions and to do what he could to promote and improve co-operation with them. It is a very significant event on which I need not comment any further. You will also have noticed, because it has been in the papers, that we are discussing arrangements with Australia for the carrying on of certain experiments

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on a large scale in that country for which this country is not suited. That is only another indication of the practical co-operation which is being developed. I received only yesterday a very high tribute for what had been done in Paris during the recent Conference. There we have a group of officers from the Dominions Office whose business it was to establish close liaison all the time between the Dominions representatives and our own. They have succeeded beyond my best expectations, and the tributes to them are very high indeed. That is not a thing you put on paper, but it is actually happening.
Then there are the regional problems which have developed completely differently since 1904. For example, the experiences and methods of modern warfare clearly make certain problems affecting, say, Canada, of a very special character. Nor does this apply to Canada only. Similarly we have groups of problems which require, and are receiving, special attention, in the south of the Pacific. I am not going into details, for it is not desirable that I should do so. But we are well aware of them and are doing all we can to deal with them in the most intimate and practical fashion. These liaison officers, who, quite mistakenly, are spoken of rather scornfully, will be officers of high standing and it will be their function to promote daily contact between Staff officers from the Dominions here and our Staff officers as a very vital part of that close consultation and collaboration which we are developing. I can assure noble Lords that so far from going back we are going forward in the promotion of this collaboration.
I sought, the other day, for an expression of opinion as to how the thing was working. Now this is not my opinion, it is the opinion of an exceedingly experienced Staff officer as to how we are developing the new machinery for consultation and collaboration and how it is succeeding. He says:
"Provided the Dominion Governments confirm the arrangements drawn up at the recent meeting of Dominion Prime Ministers in London the resultant tie-up on the military plane will be very much closer and more effective than that which existed in the prewar Committee of Imperial Defence."
I am quite certain that that is true. To noble Lords who have expressed—they have done so quite properly, I do not
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blame them—serious misgivings in this respect, I am happy to say with complete confidence that they need not entertain misgivings. Matters are developing exceedingly happily and there is the most complete confidence between us. I am sure that the present scheme—recognizing as it does that the British Commonwealth is made up of a number of independent nations—is well adapted to the changes of our time and to the interests of the Commonwealth.
LORD CHATFIELD: My Lords, before I reply may I ask the noble Lord if he will give an answer to one question, of which, amongst a great many others, I gave him notice? That is the question as to whether anything is to be done to regulate on a better footing the sharing of the cost of Imperial Defence.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: I must tell the noble Lord that I purposely did not answer that question. It is not for us to say how much Canada, for instance, will pay. That is for Canada to say. Similarly it is for Australia to say what she will pay. But I will tell the noble Lord this. At the recent conference in London the view was volunteered—indeed I may say that an anxious desire in this direction was expressed—that the Commonwealth countries would pay more in the future.
LORD ALTRINCHAM: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask for information on one point which I mentioned in my speech and with which the noble Viscount has not dealt. I put a question about representation of the Committee of Defence in this House. I pointed out that, after all, debates in this House on these topics are of some importance, and that they should be dealt with, in my view, on behalf of the Government, by a member of the Government who is in constant touch with the deliberations of the Committee of Defence. It may not be possible for the noble Viscount to reply to that now but I hope that he will bear it in mind.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: I must admit that I have not discussed that particular point with the Prime Minister. But perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to say that I think that very likely the Minister will be myself.
LORD ALTRINCHAM: That is what I suggested.
6.6 p.m.
LORD CHATFIELD: My Lords, I am going to withdraw my Motion, after the interesting debate which we have had. I am sure you would all wish to thank the noble Viscount who has replied for the Government for the great effort which he has made to convince us that all is well. I hope that it is, but it is a strange thing that seven or eight noble Lords who have spoken on this White Paper have all felt very considerable disturbance in their minds as the result of reading the last section—the section which deals with collective defence. None of them seems to think that, judging by the wording of the Paper as it is written, the proposals are going to give the Empire the organization and the security which we all want it to have. The noble Viscount, Lord Addison, tells us that all is well. Then either we have misread the White Paper or the White Paper has not expressed itself in the way which was intended.
There is only one other point to which I wish to refer. It was made in the debate, I think by Lord Croft, and as it is a matter of some interest I would like to say a few words about it. I refer to the question whether or not the Prime Minister should be Minister of Defence in time of war. That question arose only at the beginning of this war. At that time the three Service Ministers were in the War Cabinet. They had behind them the whole of their vast organizations. At their sides sat the Chiefs of Staff. The Minister of Defence, therefore, had no position, no Ministry and no information. He was, in fact, unnecessary and, at my suggestion, he was abolished. In these circumstances, the Prime Minister took over the duties of Minister of Defence, because there was no one else who could do it, and he was the obvious man to co-ordinate discussions and make decisions in the Cabinet when the three Service Ministers and Chiefs of Staffs were there.
This White Paper makes a change. It does away with the Service Ministers in the Cabinet, and, therefore, the Minister of Defence in the Cabinet will have an entirely enhanced and authoritative position. There is no earthly reason why, so long as the Minister retains that position in the Cabinet, he should not remain Minister of Defence in war as in peace. In the Proposals section of the White Paper paragraph 20 (a) says:
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"The Prime Minister will retain the supreme responsibility for defence."
It is just as easy in war-time for the Prime Minister to retain supreme authority for defence and to have an energetic and knowledgeable Defence Minister under him, if necessary, to organize defence machinery and conduct, as it is for him to do so in peace-time. You can have it either way—whichever you like. That is all I wish to say and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

POLISH MINEWORKERS.
6.10 p.m.
LORD BARNBY LORD BARNBY had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government whether in view of the latest report of the Minister of Fuel and Power on the critical state of nearby coal supplies, they propose forthwith to ensure appropriate opportunity of employment in mines for those of Polish nationality in or due to arrive in this country, for whom as our most gallant Allies past declarations of His Majesty's Government recorded intentions of benevolent assistance.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Barnby I beg to ask the question standing in his name.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, His Majesty's Government are desirous of enlisting the aid of these Polish workmen in agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers. As no doubt your Lordships are aware, discussions have, in fact, been going on for some months now with a view to bringing 200 Polish workmen who are both experienced and efficient men into the mines for work underground. These discussions have led to the suggestion by the national executive committee of the National Union of Mineworkers that the whole question of introducing foreign workmen into the mines should be postponed until agreement had been reached as to the main heads, and until satisfactory assurances were given on the various points raised by the Union in their proposals for a Miners' Charter. On August 27 they communicated their views to that effect to the Minister of Fuel and Power. Further discussions have been going on, and as recently as October 9 they reaffirmed their views on that matter.

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Negotiations are going on and it is hoped that a satisfactory result will be achieved. The Government are naturally anxious that proper safeguards should be provided, and during the course of these discussions assurances have been given by the Minister of Fuel and Power to the National Union of Mineworkers on a number of points. In particular, it has been laid down that the following conditions must be observed. First of all, any Polish workers introduced into the mines must become members of the National Union of Mineworkers. If any of them refuse to do so they will be discharged. Secondly, in the event of redundancy arising in the mines—not very likely in the near future, at any rate—the Polish workers will be put off before British workers. Finally, no Polish workers will be introduced into any particular pit except after discussions and by agreement with the lodge officials concerned.

  SCOTTISH JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.
  SCOTTISH JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.
  COST OF HOUSE BUILDING.
  COST OF HOUSE BUILDING.