Sitting of 17 February 1948

Preamble
The House met at Half past Two o'Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
NEW WRIT
For the Borough of Wigan, in the room of William Foster, Esquire, deceased.—[Mr. Whiteley.]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  IPSWICH CORPORATION BILL (By Order)
  Read a Second time, and committed.
  MERTHYR TYDFIL CORPORATION BILL (By Order)
  Second Reading deferred till Thursday.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  MINISTRY OF PENSIONS

    Disabled Persons (Employment)
    Mr. Geoffrey Cooperasked the Minister of Pensions what proportion of 100 per cent. disabled pensioners are in full employment in jobs governed by trade union rates of pay and not in work specially devised for disabled men; and whether he will cause to be made a cross-sectional inquiry to show approximately what proportion of pensioners over 50 per cent. and less than 100 per cent. disabled are in full employment in jobs governed by trade union rates of pay.
    The Minister of Pensions (Mr. Buchanan): I regret I have no statistics showing the proportion of pensioners whose disablement is assessed at 100 per cent., or between 50 per cent. and 100
    962
    per cent., and who are in full employment in occupations governed by trade union rates of pay. In assessing the degree of disablement for war pension, no account is taken of earnings, a principle which is jealously guarded, and I could not, therefore, undertake to make inquiries on the lines suggested. I shall, however, be pleased to discuss with my hon. Friend ways and means of obtaining any information which may be of use to him.
    Mr. Cooper: Since considerations of earning capacity seem to be the chief ones used in the Minister's argument against increasing the basic rate, does he not feel that it is a reasonable request, even if it causes some trouble, to obtain the figures for which I have asked, as it might prompt a fresh review on this matter?
    Mr. Buchanan: The point is that I am sure the House would resent my beginning to examine people's individual earnings and wages, and I am not anxious in these days, when we have enough inquiring into people's affairs, to start a new inquiry.
    Sir William Darling: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many disabled pensioners are quite willing to place the information which he wants at his disposal and would not resent an inquiry because they feel that such an inquiry would be to their advantage?
    Mr. Buchanan: I think the hon. Member wants to have it both ways. If I started to probe, he would make an American broadcast attacking me. If I do not make a probe, he attacks me. I am sorry I cannot please the hon. Member.

    Medical Re-survey Boards
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Pensions whether, in the interests of the war disabled, he will consider extending the period between medical re-survey boards in those cases where a conditional award of pension is current.
    Mr. Buchanan: I have decided that, in future, the award of pension following a re-survey board will normally be for a period of two years.
    Mr. Rankin: If it should happen that there are any pensioners from the first

    963
    world war who might come under this re-survey, will they be covered by that answer.
    Mr. Buchanan: The answer is that it will cover all pensioners, whether of the 1914 war or of the 1939 war.

    Invalid Children's Allowances
    Mr. Championasked the Minister of Pensions whether the allowances of invalid children of disability pensioners and widows of the 1914–18 war which now cease when the child attains the age of 21 may be extended beyond that age in the same way as the allowances of similar children of pensioners of the recent war.
    Mr. Buchanan: Yes, Sir. As a result of representations made to me by my hon. Friend, for which I am extremely grateful to him, I have decided that as from the first pay day in March, 1948, a disablement pensioner or widow of the 1914–18 War who has received an allowance for an invalid child up to the age of 21 will continue to receive an allowance or will have it resumed subject to the conditions applicable in cases of the recent war.
    I am particularly pleased to announce this improvement because it will benefit among others the distressing case of the widow who has in her care an invalid son or daughter for whom she drew an allowance up to the age of 21 but for whom she now draws nothing from my Department. In addition to an allowance for her child she will receive a rent allowance if her rent and rates exceed 8s. a week. Application will be necessary.
    Mr. Champion: May I thank my right hon. Friend for the consideration he has given to this class of people, and ask him whether this announcement covers the type of case in which the invalid child has had the allowance stopped at 21 years of age and the parent has since died?
    Mr. Buchanan: Yes, it will cover that case. In that case the pension of 26s. per week will be payable to the guardian.
    Miss Bacon: Does the announcement include the child of 21 who was born after the end of the father's war service, and who up to now has had no pension whatever?
    Mr. Buchanan: Yes, we shall pay, provided the child was an invalid on attaining the normal age limit. We shall certainly pay in that particular case.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Is one of the stipulations connected with this most welcome increase, that the child must be living with the mother—the widow?
    Mr. Buchanan: No, it cannot be, because we shall pay it in the case of the widow who dies; so that stipulation cannot operate. We are paying 26s. a week. I hope that the Department will continue to look after the child's interests and see it is properly cared for.

    Royal Warrants, 1919 and 1943
    Mr. Heathcoat Amoryasked the Minister of Pensions which of the following current benefits to disability pensioners were not included, in principle, in the 1919 or the 1943 Royal Warrants, namely, allowances for wives and children, constant attendance allowance, education grants, unemployability allowance and hardship allowance.
    Mr. Buchanan: Of the allowances mentioned by the hon. Member, the special hardship allowance was not included in the 1919 or 1943 Royal Warrants. The other allowances mentioned were included in these Warrants, but considerable improvements have been made in the conditions governing the award of allowances for wives and children and in respect of constant attendance.

    Special Hardship Allowances
    Mr. Amoryasked the Minister of Pensions at what age pensioners unable to compete in industry are entitled to an extra allowance of 11 per cent.; what are the qualifications; of what sum is such an allowance a percentage; how many pensioners of the 1914–18 war are receiving such allowance; and at what annual cost.
    Mr. Buchanan: The hon. Member's Question apparently arises out of an erroneous statement which I made during the Debate on the Adjournment on 18th December last, and I am glad to have this opportunity of correcting it.
    A special hardship allowance of 11s. 3d. a week—not 11 per cent., as I then stated—is payable, irrespective of age, to the partial disablement pensioner of the recent war who, because of his disablement, is

    965
    permanently incapable of resuming the occupation he followed before his war service or of following one of equivalent standard.
    This allowance is not payable to the 1914–18 war pensioner for the reason given to the hon. Member by my hon. Friend in reply to a Question on 10th February. The pensioner of the 1914–18 war who, because of his pensioned disablement, has ceased to be able to compete in industry received an unemployability supplement up to 20s. a week, together with an increased allowance for his wife. About 6,500 such supplements are in payment to pensioners of the 1914–18 war at an annual cost of £345,000.
    Mr. Amory: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that very clear explanation, may I ask him to bear in mind that the hardship allowance is not really of very much use to ageing pensioners, because it does not apply to those of the 1914–18 war?
    Mr. Buchanan: I have a great deal of sympathy with that perfectly fair point. I am looking at it. I have met ex-Service people and Members on both sides of the House about it. There are certain administrative difficulties. If I can overcome them, I shall certainly look at this matter with a very great deal of sympathy.

    Appeals
    Mr. Amoryasked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware of the delay which sometimes occurs between the submission of an appeal and its hearing in the case of disability pensions; and whether he will take action to reduce the waiting period to the minimum possible.
    Mr. Buchanan: I am aware that owing to a variety of factors, including the procedure laid down in the relevant statutory rules, a considerable period must necessarily elapse between the submission of an appeal and its hearing by the Pensions Appeal Tribunal. It will continue to be my constant endeavour to reduce this period to a minimum.
    Mr. Willisasked the Minister of Pensions what changes have been made concerning loss of remunerative time by claimants and appellants appearing for medical examination in connection with assessment appeals and other claims.
    Mr. Buchanan: Prior to 10th December last, compensation for loss of remunerative time caused by attendance at a medical examination carried out solely in consequence of a claim or appeal to the Ministry was paid only if the claim or appeal was successful. As from that date, such compensation is payable whether the claim or appeal is successful or not.
    Mr. Willis: Will my right hon. Friend say whether or not there are any grounds on which an appellant may possibly be disqualified?
    Mr. Buchanan: That was considered by my officials this morning. The ground would exist only in very isolated cases, such as I can hardly expect to arise, in which the circumstances were very frivolous. Outside of that, the compensation will be paid in full.

    Personal Cases
    Mr. Norman Bowerasked the Minister of Pensions if he is aware that Mr. George Oliver, of 5, Greenway, Pinner Hill, who has been in receipt of a disability pension of £1 10s. 8d. per week since 1945 has only been able to do a few weeks' work during the last two years and has had to expend his entire savings of £300 in order to maintain himself and his family; and if, in view of the foregoing circumstances, a 100 per cent. disability pension, which was awarded to him on 1st January, 1948, will be made retrospective to the date on which he was originally awarded a pension.
    Mr. Buchanan: I am extremely sorry there has been delay in dealing with Mr. Oliver's case. A substantial sum in respect of arrears of treatment allowances has now been paid to him, and his pension assessment will be reviewed immediately he leaves hospital.
    Miss Jennie Leeasked the Minister of Pensions if he is aware that the sole income of Mr. Arthur Richards, of Wolverhampton, a seriously disabled ex-airman, is £2 11s. 6d. a week plus a wife's allowance of 16s.; and if he will take action in the matter.
    Mr. Buchanan: I have seen a recent newspaper account of an interview with the pensioner's wife in which these amounts were quoted, but my hon. Friend

    967
    will be glad to learn that in fact Mr. Richards has since May, 1947, been receiving from my Department by way of disablement pension and wife's allowance, constant attendance allowance and unemployability supplement, a total of £6 7s. 8d. a week.
    Miss Lee: I am grateful to the Minister for his reply, from which I notice that the sum of the income is almost double. Will my right hon. Friend do anything in his power to prevent these Press reports which cause a great deal of distress, and which I do not think the journalists would write deliberately if the House impressed upon them that such reports are a treacherous disservice to ex-Service men?
    Mr. Buchanan: We get a good deal of this. My attention was called to this matter. I thought the sum terribly insufficient, and went into the matter. It is a bit hard—not on me, because I am used to knocks, and have given them—but on officials who are doing a decent job and doing it kindly. I would say that my officials, when they are doing well, as in this case, are deserving of praise from all of us, and deserve to be upheld. Of course, we are all of us prepared to criticise them if and when they do anything wrong.

  BRITISH ARMY

    Military Camps (Minister's Visit)
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Mooreasked the Secretary of State for War what were the reasons which justified him employing motor-cycle outriders on the occasion of his visit to military camps on 5th January; and what was the amount of petrol consumed by this escort on the journey.
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Shinwell): The motor-cycle outriders were provided for traffic control in order that I could visit the maximum number of Anti-Aircraft Command units in the limited time available. Approximately four gallons of petrol were used.
    Sir T. Moore: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that it was somewhat unwise to associate himself with this rather extravagant and ostentatious display, when so many of the public are suffering
    968
    much hardship through the abolition of the basic petrol ration?
    Mr. Shinwell: The point is that it associated itself with me.

    Recruits (Educational Standard)
    Sir Ralph Glynasked the Secretary of State for War whether the standard of education of recruits for the Army indicates that a percentage is not qualified for normal instruction, being unable to read or write; whether he can give any figures that will show in what subjects recruits seem backward; and whether he is taking any steps to remedy this condition.
    Mr. Shinwell: On average, rather less than 1 per cent. of recent intakes has been unable to read or write. There are no records of their proficiency or backwardness in subjects other than reading, writing and elementary calculation. The men who lack these fundamental skills receive an intensive full-time course, of six weeks' duration, in reading, writing and elementary calculation at a Preliminary Education Centre before they begin their military training. Provision is also made for "follow-up" instruction after the man has left the Preliminary Education Centre. In addition, other backward men who require courses of instruction attend Preliminary Education Centres The total percentage of the intake proceeding to Preliminary Education Centres is about 2 per cent. at present.
    Sir R. Glyn: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why a report was current that in one command the percentage of illiterates was very much higher?
    Mr. Shinwell: It is possible to apply a certain percentage to a particular unit, but that does not indicate its generality.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: The Minister did not mention history in his answer. In his opinion, would the history of the period between the last two wars be likely to encourage recruits?
    Mrs. Leah Manning: Does my right hon. Friend realise that his statement will give great pleasure to people who were much pained by the recent irresponsible statements in this House as to the degree of illiteracy in the Army?
    Mr. Shinwell: Those statements, responsible or otherwise, were not made by us.
    Mr. Amory: Will the right hon. Gentleman take full advantage of the opportunity offered by the National Service Act of checking up on the results of national education on young men; and will he confer with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Education on how best that can be done?
    Mr. Shinwell: That is a much wider question.

    Stores and Ammunition (Clearance)
    Sir R. Glynasked the Secretary of State for War how many troops at home are being employed in sorting stores and dealing with unwanted ammunition; what is the position in the various commands as regards the clearing of land for agricultural use by removing unexploded bombs, etc.; and by what date is it contemplated that this task will be completed.
    Mr. Shinwell: As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:
    There are about 1,800 troops employed on sorting unwanted stores for disposal, and 4,600 in dealing with unwanted ammunition. As regards the second and third parts of the Question, 139,480 acres of land used for training during the war and now earmarked for release are still held awaiting clearance of unexploded missiles: in Northern Command, 54,250 acres; in Eastern Command, 3,700 acres; in Southern Command, 8,500 acres; and in Western Command, 73,030 acres. Most of the land is heathland of little agricultural value. Because of the shortage of troops in the United Kingdom only a very small number can be employed continuously on clearance, but every opportunity is taken to use any men available. I am unable to forecast when the task will be completed.

    Military Prisoners (Handcuffs)
    Dr. Segalasked the Secretary of State for War on what grounds military prisoners are still being marched handcuffed under escort along some streets of our large cities in full view of the public gaze; and when he proposes to put a stop to this practice.
    Mr. Shinwell: In normal circumstances, military prisoners are not
    970
    marched handcuffed, under escort, along public streets. But if a prisoner had broken away from his escort and had been recaptured, or if his conduct was such that an attempted breakaway was feared, the escort would correctly handcuff him and, if no suitable Army transport was immediately available, the prisoner would have to be marched handcuffed in public. I do not propose to alter this practice.
    Dr. Segal: In view of the unfavourable impression which this creates, would it not be easier for the right hon. Gentleman to charter a "Black Maria"?
    Mr. Shinwell: It is quite impossible for military escorts to anticipate the movements of every prisoner and to have a "Black Maria" there available.
    Mr. Fernyhough: Is my right hon. Friend aware that recently, on a train in which I travelled, a handcuffed soldier was sitting in the same compartment as civilians, and that this caused distress to the civilians; and will he take steps to see that it does not happen again?
    Mr. Shinwell: I should like a little more information about that incident. If military escorts anticipate their prisoners' intentions, they have to try to prevent the prisoners from escaping.
    Wing-Commander Hulbert: Is the Minister aware that the civil police do not adopt this practice; that it is a common occurrence at big railway stations to see young soldiers handcuffed to escorts; and will he take some steps to deal with it?
    Mr. Shinwell: That is not my information. In normal circumstances handcuffs are not used.
    Mr. Shurmer: In view of the fact that in all large cities there are military police with transport, would it not be possible to make it compulsory for these men to be taken from the lock-up in military police transport, without having to put handcuffs on them?
    Mr. Shinwell: It is not as easy as all that. We do not deal with large numbers at a time.
    Dr. Segal: Is the Minister aware that my Question points, not to instances of prisoners trying to escape, but to the fact that in some parts of the country handcuffing in public is used as part of the

    971
    normal method of transport? In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I give notice that I intend to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Young Soldiers (Overseas Service)
    Dr. Segalasked the Secretary of State for War what percentages of our troops at present serving in each of the Army commands overseas consist of short-term conscripts under 20 years of age.
    Mr. Shinwell: It would be contrary to the public interest to disclose the information requested, nor is the information readily available. I can state, however, that about 9 per cent. of British troops overseas consist of men called up since 31st December, 1946, the majority of whom are still under 20 years of age.
    Dr. Segal: In view of the great moral dangers to which many of these young lads are exposed, would it not be possible to confine their service overseas to commands in which these dangers are reduced to a minimum?
    Mr. Shinwell: No, Sir.

    Released Men's Accounts (Debts)
    Mr. Sutcliffeasked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that men are being released from the Forces without being informed until afterwards that they are in debt; and, in view of the fact that requests for details are not answered for months in some cases, he will make some investigations.
    Mr. Shinwell: Where a debit balance on a soldier's account does not become apparent until shortly before he is released, it is not always possible to notify his commanding officer in time to adjust pay issues before the soldier leaves the Army. The soldier's pay book, which contains a record of his rate of pay and cash payments, provides him, however, with a guide to the approximate position of his account at any time. The preparation of a long statement of account takes considerable time and some delay is inevitable. Investigations will be made if details of cases of undue delay are notified.
    Mr. Sutcliffe: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that there are great
    972
    delays in obtaining answers from paymasters' offices; and will he do his best to expedite these answers as a good deal of anxiety is caused?
    Mr. Shinwell: Certainly I will do the best I can, but some delays are inevitable.
    Mr. Lipson: Is the Minister aware that repayment of these debts causes very great financial hardship; and will he consider wiping them all out when a man leaves the Service?
    Mr. Shinwell: It is quite impossible to agree to that.
    Sir W. Darling: Will the Minister consider the application of the Pay-As-You-Earn system, which civilians are able to carry out with great success, and which carries with it no debts?
    Mr. Shinwell: That is a question which should be addressed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    Mr. John Hynd: Will the Minister consider the difficulties caused in a number of cases when men come out of the Army without any clear knowledge of how they stand; and will he examine closely the accounting methods in the Army and endeavour to establish some form of accounting which will assure serving men precisely how they stand from period to period?
    Mr. Shinwell: If my hon. Friend has any specific instances in which exceptional delays have occurred, I shall be only too glad to hear of them and to inquire into them.

    Requisitioned Property Claims
    Mr. Medlicottasked the Secretary of State for War how many claims in respect of requisitioned properties have been agreed but not paid; and what is the total amount still owing to owners of property in respect of or consequent upon military use or occupation.
    Mr. Shinwell: The average number of claims which have been finally agreed and are in process of payment at any given current date is about 500, and this on the average represents a sum due to claimants of approximately £250,000.
    Mr. Medlicott: Is the Minister aware that there is often a delay of several months between the agreeing of the claim

    973
    and the receipt of the cheque by the owner of the property; and will he do everything possible, in consultation with the Treasury, to speed up the machinery of payment?
    Mr. Shinwell: I am informed that, generally speaking, the time taken between final agreement and the payment of the claim is about two and a half weeks, which does not seem unduly long. However, if it is thought that some further action should be taken, I will inquire further into the matter.

    Huts, Plymouth Sound
    Mr. Medlandasked the Secretary of State for War when the huts above Stoke Point, Bigbury Bay, and the huts above Penlee Point on the west side of Plymouth Sound, will be transferred to the Ministry of Works for disposal, in view of the fact that they have not been in use for over two years.
    Mr. Shinwell: The huts above Stoke Point are occupied by a care and maintenance party as there is a peacetime requirement for this land. Those above Penlee Point are being sold.
    Mr. Medland: Will they be placed at the disposal of the local authority before they are sold to private enterprise?
    Mr. Shinwell: There is no question of selling these sites.

    Houses, Longtown
    Mr. Wilfrid Robertsasked the Secretary of State for War why he has decided to take proceedings with a view to evicting the occupiers of houses at C.A.D., Longtown, Cumberland; and whether he will reconsider his decision.
    Mr. Shinwell: The quarters are urgently required for allocation to War Department constables, whose duties require them to live in the depot, and their families. Preliminary proceedings have been started to obtain a court order for possession. It will be some time after such an order, if it is granted and not complied with, before eviction proceedings are commenced. I regret that I cannot agree to further delay of the proceedings.
    Mr. Roberts: Are not the present occupants employees of the War Department; and does the Minister consider that a private landlord would be justified in taking the action he proposes to take?
    Mr. Shinwell: We require this accommodation for our own Departmental servants, and it is quite unfair for them to be deprived of accommodation if other and irregular occupants are in possession.
    Mr. Roberts: May I have an answer to the first part of my supplementary question: are these not employees of the War Department?
    Mr. Shinwell: I am not aware of that.

    Herr Werner Kleindienst (Interrogation)
    Mr. Dribergasked the Secretary of State for War if he is now able to state what disciplinary action was taken against the British officer and N.C.O.'s involved in the interrogation and beating-up of Herr Werner Kleindienst; and if he will circulate in HANSARD a full account of the incidents which led to this action.
    Mr. Benn Levyasked the Secretary of State for War if he will name the officer responsible for the bruta es practised upon Herr Werner Kleindienst last October; and disclose the nature of the punishment that this officer received.
    Mr. Shinwell: I am having further inquiries made about this case, and I will communicate with my hon. Friends.
    Mr. Driberg: Will my right hon. Friend also say whether the "undesirable methods" of the interrogation that he referred to last week included the holding of the interrogation at 2.30 in the morning, and the beating of this innocent witness with a rubber truncheon on the scars of his war wounds?
    Mr. Shinwell: I have no such detailed information. No doubt further information will be forthcoming.
    Mr. Levy: Will the Minister now tell the House what is the reason for still withholding the nature of the disciplinary action taken against the officer responsible for this bestiality?
    Mr. Shinwell: Because further inquiries have to be made.
    Mr. Hynd: Can the Minister tell us whether the officer and N.C.O.s responsible for this incident are still serving in Germany?
    Mr. Shinwell: I am not certain about that. That is precisely why I want full inquiries made.
    Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Will he also take into account the fact that three other Germans were beaten up in this incident, when these British thugs, trying to show the British way of life to the Germans, behaved so disgracefully?
    Mr. Shinwell: On the information in my possession, I regard what my hon. Friend has said as a gross exaggeration.

    Class "Z" Reserve
    Mr. Scollanasked the Secretary of State for War what are the obligations of men discharged from the Services into Class "Z" Reserve; are these men debarred from emigrating; and have steps been taken to inform them of their position.
    Mr. Shinwell: Men released from the Service to Class "Z" of the Reserve are liable to recall in an emergency. They are not barred from emigrating, but permission to do so has, in the first place, to be obtained from their record office. I know of no case of this permission being withheld. The whole position is explained to the men when they pass through their release centre on demobilisation.
    Mr. Scollan: Is the Minister aware that a young man was quite recently charged with trying to leave the country without getting the necessary permission, and that he stated in open court that neither he nor any other soldier knew when they were being discharged that they had to get permission before they could emigrate?
    Mr. Shinwell: He may not have known about it, but that is the law as it stands. All he requires to do is to make application, and then, no doubt, in normal circumstances the application will be granted.
    Squadron-Leader Fleming: Would it not be advisable to state the position on the release papers?
    Mr. Shinwell: That is a suggestion which is worthy of consideration.

    Officers' Houses, Austria (Rent)
    Sir Jocelyn Lucasasked the Secretary of State for War if the rent charged to officers in the B.A.O.R. in Austria for houses requisitioned as married quarters goes to the Treasury or to the owners of the houses in question.
    Mr. Shinwell: The sums paid are taken as appropriations in aid to Army funds.

    Reinforcements, Palestine
    Mrs. Manningasked the Secretary of State for War after what length of training young soldiers are being sent to Palestine.
    Mr. Shinwell: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) on 3rd February as to the method of sending reinforcements to Palestine. As regards length of training, young soldiers sent as reinforcements to the Middle East would normally have done at least four months' training.
    Mrs. Manning: In view of the inflammable situation existing in Palestine, does not my right hon. Friend think it would be much wiser to send there disciplined and well-trained soldiers?
    Mr. Shinwell: We do not send them directly to Palestine. We send reinforcements, in normal circumstances, to the Middle East. As to their disposal from the Middle East, that is a matter for those in authority.
    Mr. Wilson Harris: Are reinforcements still being sent to Palestine from any source in view of the approaching withdrawal from that country?
    Mr. Shinwell: I have said that we do not send reinforcements direct from the United Kingdom to Palestine. Reinforcements are sent to the Middle East.
    Mrs. Manning: Does that answer mean that dispersal of these men is not a matter of policy for the War Office, and that it is in the hands of the officers in command in the Middle East?
    Mr. Shinwell: Those in command in the Middle East have to decide how to fill up units where demobilisation has occurred. Units have to be kept up to strength. That is not necessarily a matter of high policy, but a matter of administration.
    Mr. A. R. W. Low: Surely the right hon. Gentleman told me a short time ago that he had issued instructions to the effect that, so far as possible, young men should not be sent to Palestine? Has he not sent those instructions to the G.O.C.s, Middle East?
    Mr. Shinwell: I understand that as far as practicable they are not sent to Palestine. It is a matter which has to be dealt with on the spot by those in charge of administration.
    Mr. Eden: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree to this as a matter of principle, that it is very desirable that a soldier with only four month's service should be sent to less exacting duties than the duties must be in Palestine at the moment?
    Mr. Shinwell: It depends on the situation and the circumstances prevailing at the time whether or not it is desirable to send persons under 19 to these places. I should not feel inclined to interfere with the administration.

    Release Groups, East Africa (Transport Delay)
    Mr. Price-Whiteasked the Secretary of State for War if Groups 65 and 66, all arms, and Groups 66 to 72, other specified arms, have now left Nairobi Transit Camp for demobilisation in the United Kingdom; how long have such groups been awaiting repatriation from that camp; on how many occasions the arrival of H.M.T. "Ascanius" in East Africa to embark such groups has been delayed; and what were the reasons for such delays.
    Mr. Shinwell: The information asked for in the first two parts of the Question is not available in the War Office. My Department was informed by the Command concerned on 9th January that the repatriation of men due for release in Age and Service Groups 66 and 67 in certain arms would be held up owing to the delay of H.M.T. "Ascanius." Those affected by the delay are due to arrive in this country on 10th February. I understand that H.M.T. "Ascanius" was delayed by repairs at Durban, taking longer than had been anticipated.
    Mr. Price-White: Is the Minister aware that this is not the first time there has been a delay in the arrival of transport at East Africa Command? Is he aware that this has been happening over the past two years, that it has caused considerable dissatisfaction and has accentuated the manpower problem in that command? Will he look into the matter a little more closely?
    Mr. Shinwell: I am very much concerned about the transport position, and I inquired into the matter quite recently, visiting some of the transports to find out the cause of the trouble, which is partly due to the difficulties in effecting repairs in foreign seaports, and partly due to the shortage of ships. We are doing all we can to expedite the movements.

    Soldiers' Graves (Information)
    Mr. H. Hyndasked the Secretary of State for War why people who inquire about the location of a soldier's grave are told that the information supplied must not be communicated to anyone in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Shinwell: There is no ban on communicating to anyone in the United Kingdom information regarding the location of a soldier's grave when the information is supplied by the War Office. Where, however, as sometimes happens, the information is obtained direct from a graves service unit in the field, it is necessary, as final records have not been checked, that the information should be given with the reservation mentioned, to avoid the risk of mistakes pending official notification to the next-of-kin by the War Office.

    Connaught Hospital, Bramshott (Military Patient)
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Secretary of State for War whether he has now completed his inquiries into the assault on a military patient at the Connaught Hospital, Bramshott, details of which were forwarded on 19th January last; and what disciplinary action has been taken.
    Mr. Shinwell: My hon. and gallant Friend will by now have received a letter from my hon. Friend.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Can the Minister give an assurance that my letter would have been answered yesterday if this Question had not been put down?
    Mr. Shinwell: That is a very improper reflection on the War Office.

  PRISONERS OF WAR

    Field-Marshal Von Rundstedt
    Mr. Fitzroy Macleanasked the Secretary of State for War for how much longer it is proposed to keep Field-Marshal Von Rundstedt in confinement in

    979
    this country; and what charges are to be, or have been, preferred against him.
    Mr. Shinwell: I am consulting with my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Attorney-General regarding the action to be taken in this prisoner's case.
    Sir Ronald Ross: Has this prisoner been held beyond his normal repatriation date?
    Mr. Shinwell: It is not a question of normal repatriation in a matter of this sort.
    Sir R. Ross: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this officer was the only officer of the German Army who was reported never to have given the Hitler salute?
    Mr. Shinwell: I should think there may be other misdemeanours.

    Specially Detained Prisoners
    Mr. Skeffington-Lodgeasked the Secretary of State for War for what reasons some hundreds of prisoners of war, formerly enrolled in the Waffen S.S. or who are ex-parachutists, are being held beyond their normal repatriation date.
    Mr. Shinwell: Prisoners of war who are to be tried as members of criminal organisations, or who are to be interned as security suspects, have been specially detained both in the United Kingdom and Middle East; a number of these belonged to the Waffen S.S., and no doubt some are ex-parachutists.
    Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Can the Minister tell me whether there are real political reasons for retaining these men beyond their repatriation date? Will he also take into account the fact that in some cases their war service records appear to be the deciding factor in the matter?
    Mr. Shinwell: I do not know about political reasons, but I understand that the reasons are substantial.

  TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

    City of Westminster Plan
    Mr. Dribergasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning if he has yet considered the City of Westminster Plan,
    980
    and in particular that part envisaging the demolition of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and its rebuilding in Kensington or Belgravia; and if he will give an assurance that he will not sanction a plan which does not preserve the existing building on its present site.
    The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Silkin): No, Sir. The City of Westminster Plan has not been submitted to me for approval, although a copy has been sent to me for information. The plan has, I understand, been prepared for the City Council to assist them in framing their comments on the County of London Plan. It will be for the London County Council, as the responsible planning authority, to submit to me in due course a plan for the area. In these circumstances, the second part of the Question does not arise.
    Mr. Driberg: While fully realising that this plan is not yet official or approved by any body, will my right hon. Friend be forewarned against any suggestion to demolish this magnificent opera house?
    Mr. Silkin: I was, of course, forewarned by this Question, but no such suggestion has in fact been made.
    Mr. Keeling: Will the Minister make clear that this so-called City of Westminster Plan, containing even more startling proposals, has not even been considered by the Westminster City Council?
    Mr. Silkin: I am much obliged for the information.

    The Grotto, Oatlands Park, Weybridge
    Mr. Keelingasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning whether he is aware that while discussions were going on between the Surrey County Council and other interested parties about the future of The Grotto, Oatlands Park, Weybridge, a building of architectural and historic interest, the Walton and Weybridge Urban District Council licensed its demolition; and whether he will accelerate the issue of lists of such buildings under Section 42 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1944, in order to prevent further ignorant demolitions.
    Mr. Silkin: The licence to demolish the building referred to was issued not by the

    981
    urban district council, but by the Ministry of Works in view of representations by the surveyor to the district council that the building was dangerous. I understand that the Surrey County Council learned about the proposed demolition too late for any representations to be made. Every effort is being made to expedite the issue of lists.
    Mr. Keeling: Should not the Minister of Works have consulted the planning authority before doing anything about it?
    Mr. Silkin: It was the planning authority which informed the Ministry of Works of the dangerous condition of this building.
    Mr. Sidney Marshall: Is the Minister aware that, in spite of the fact that the urban district council had given an undertaking to consult with the county council before any action was taken, no consultation in fact has taken place?
    Mr. Silkin: Yes, Sir. I have learned of that, and I am very sorry about it.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE (MINISTRY'S STAFF)
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Minister of National Insurance what instructions have been issued to the staff of his Department affecting or limiting their right to communicate with Members of Parliament.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. Steele): No such instructions have been issued other than the general Civil Service rule prohibiting attempts to bring political or other outside influence to support personal claims. This is included in paragraph 40 of the staff rules of this Department, of which I am sending a copy to the hon. Member.
  Mr. Grimston: May we be assured that there is nothing in the rules which precludes, say, an officer who has been transferred from one of the friendly societies from taking a personal complaint to his Member of Parliament?
  Mr. Steele: It depends entirely on the circumstances. For instance, a complaint against the grading by the Civil Service Commission is a matter for the applicant and the Civil Service Commission, and the applicant has the right of appeal to the Civil Service Commission.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In view of the assurance which was given when the National Insurance Act was before the House as to the treatment of such people, is it not desirable that such persons, if they feel themselves aggrieved, should be free to communicate with their Members of Parliament?
  Mr. Steele: There are the ordinary channels by which this matter may be dealt with. The whole question was considered by my right hon. Friend. He knew that this would be a difficult problem; that is why he set up the advisory committee which advised him on this matter, and the machinery of the Civil Service Commission was brought into operation.
  Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Is the hon. Gentleman trying to make it clear that in certain circumstances employees of the State have no right to communicate with Members of Parliament?
  Mr. Steele: There is an instruction, a copy of which I am sending to the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter). The effect of the instruction is that no civil servant should write to his Member of Parliament with a view to getting advancement in the Civil Service. I am sure hon. Members opposite do not want any political patronage in this matter. On general questions, a civil servant has the same right as any other individual.
  Mr. Grimston: Is the Minister aware that an officer of a friendly society who, willy-nilly, has been transferred to the Civil Service, is in a different position from that of someone who has joined the Civil Service at the outset of his career, and if he feels himself aggrieved he should not be denied the right of every British citizen to approach his Member of Parliament?
  Mr. Steele: We are dealing with a hypothetical case. What I have said applies to a particular case. If a man from an approved society feels that his grading is not what it should be, he can appeal to the Civil Service Commission—the machinery which was set up for this purpose—to deal with the matter. As to other matters of general interest to all citizens, a civil servant has the same right as any other citizen. If the hon. Gentleman is aware of a particular case in which

  983
  difficulty arises, perhaps he will consult with me and I will see how far the complaint can be met.
  Mr. Turton: Would the Minister publish in HANSARD the instruction to which he referred?

  NATIONAL SERVICE (LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN)
  Mr. Proctorasked the Minister of Labour if, in view of the shortage of locomotive firemen at the Patricroft British Railway Depot, he will take steps to release the 17 locomotive firemen from this depot, now serving in His Majesty's Forces.
  The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): No, Sir. The Class B release scheme has come to an end, and there is no provision for the out-of-turn release of men called up in 1947 and 1948 for fixed periods.
  Mr. Proctor: In view of the difficulty that has arisen in connection with railway transport, would my right hon. Friend consult with the Secretary of State for War to see whether some new arrangement can be made?
  Mr. Isaacs: These matters are being examined, and whatever easement is possible will be given.

  EMPLOYMENT

    Disabled Persons, Manchester
    Squadron-Leader Flemingasked the Minister of Labour the numbers of insured workers employed by firms having quota obligations under the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act in Manchester; the numbers of registered disabled persons and the numbers of such persons unemployed in the Manchester district; and the quota which would need to be observed to reduce unemployment amongst the disabled to that obtaining for all insured workers in the Manchester district.
    Mr. Isaacs: The information requested in the first part of the Question is not available. The number of persons registered as disabled in Manchester is 21,456, of whom 1,508 were unemployed on 19th January last. It is not possible to make the calculation asked for in the last pat t of the Question.
    Squadron-Leader Fleming: Would the Minister agree that if the quota were increased from 3 per cent. to 4 per cent. it would absorb the thousand-odd unemployed in this category?
    Mr. Isaacs: That is purely a hypothetical question, but upon that hypothesis I am sure that the answer would be "No."
    Mr. Mikardo: Before considering whether the quota ought to be increased, will my right hon. Friend say whether he is satisfied that all those who are obligated under the existing arrangements to employ 3 per cent. are, in fact, carrying out their obligations; and, if the answer in some cases is in the negative, what steps does he propose to take to ensure that they do?
    Mr. Isaacs: The examination of these cases is proceeding extensively. We find that, in the main, the quota is maintained, but it must be borne in mind that a firm cannot be compelled to make up the number required by the quota until there is a vacancy. A firm is not expected to dismiss a capable man to make way for a disabled man, but when a vacancy occurs we insist upon firms meeting their obligations in this respect.

    Ex-Service men (Education Grants)
    Mr. Beswickasked the Minister of Labour why grants, paid by his Department to ex-Service men studying under the Further Education Scheme, are less than similar grants paid by the Ministry of Education; and whether, in view of the dissatisfaction among students on this point, he will adjust these grants to a scale conforming to that of the Ministry of Education.
    Mr. Isaacs: The grants paid by the Ministry of Education are calculated in relation to university costs, which do not affect the courses for which I am responsible. They also include the cost of books, for which payment is made separately by my Department. Any adjustments to meet the occasional anomalies which arise would only produce further anomalies.
    Mr. Beswick: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that in certain cases men receiving grants from his Department go to universities? Will he consider the case

    985
    of a constituent of mine who sits next to a man in one of the London colleges, one man receiving a grant from the Ministry of Labour and the other man receiving a grant from the Ministry of Education, both with identical family commitments, one of whom receives £70 a year more than the other? Does he not agree that that sort of case is bound to cause dissatisfaction?
    Mr. Isaacs: There are other circumstances. For example, I am not quite sure whether both men have to pay for their books or not. However, if my hon. Friend will let me have a specific case, I will give him a specific answer.
    Mr. Wilson Harris: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider that the grants given by the Ministry of Education are barely adequate to cover a student's necessary obligations, and will he give serious attention to the question of raising his Ministry's grants to that level, because nothing less than the Ministry of Education grant is adequate for them?
    Mr. Isaacs: I promise to look into any cases submitted to me to see whether there is any injustice.
    Mr. H. Hynd: Will my right hon. Friend examine the case, which is well known to his Department and to the Ministry of Education, concerning the College of Estate Management just across the road?
    Mr. Isaacs: Yes, if my hon. Friend will tell me what that specific case is.

  MINISTRIES OF FOOD AND TRANSPORT (TRADING ACCOUNTS)
  Sir Waldron Smithersasked the Prime Minister, in view of the fact that supplementary sums of £47,000,000 and £40,000,000 are required for the Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Transport if he will publish as a White Paper a profit and loss account of the trading accounts of these two Ministries for the calendar year 1947.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): Arrangements have been made to publish trading and profit and loss accounts covering the trading operations of the Ministry of Food. Publication will commence with the accounts for the financial
  986
  year 1946–47 which are expected to be presented to Parliament in the near future.
  The Ministry of Transport will in due course present to Parliament a White Paper covering the Government control of railways during the calendar year 1947; this will be similar to White Papers published for previous years. It is impracticable to produce a statement of this kind covering shipping operations but the question of publishing trading and profit and loss accounts for such shipping operations as are continuing is under consideration.
  Sir W. Smithers: Is the Prime Minister aware that his statement will be received with great satisfaction, because it will show the results of gambling with the taxpayers' money by the various Ministers under his command?
  Mr. Speaker: Is that a question? I do not think that it is.
  Major Legge-Bourke: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the total Supplementary Estimate for this year to date amounts to £145 million, and in view of the Government's call in the White Paper on prices and wages, will he consider—
  Mr. Speaker: What is in the White Paper is not a general statement for supplementary questions.
  Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: The right hon. Gentleman said with regard to the Ministry of Transport's activities, that having a balance sheet and profit and loss account published is under consideration. Will he go so far as to say that he will accept the principle of the desirability of such publication?
  The Prime Minister: I did not say that. I said that the Ministry of Transport would, in due course, produce a White Paper about the Government control of railways for the year 1947. I said that it was impracticable to produce a statement of this kind covering shipping operations.
  Mr. Nicholson: Is the question of publication in regard to certain limited shipping operations under consideration?
  The Prime Minister: I did not say that. I said that the issue of trading and profit

  987
  and loss accounts for "such shipping operations as are continuing" was under consideration.
  Mr. Nicholson: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether, in principle, he accepts the desirability of that being published?
  The Prime Minister: I will see whether it is practicable or not.
  Sir W. Smithers: Will the Prime Minister take steps to ensure that all these accounts go before the Public Accounts Committee?

  NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES

    Officers' Press Statements
    Air-Commodore Harveyasked the Prime Minister what is the Government's ruling regarding high executives of nationalised industries making statements to the Press.
    The Prime Minister: It is for the Board of a Corporation to determine the conditions under which its officers may communicate with the Press on matters affecting the Corporation.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: May we take it from the reply that the statement made by Air Vice-Marshal Bennett to the "Daily Express" was not the cause of his dismissal, and that it was something about which we have not yet been told?
    The Prime Minister: I do not understand. I understand that the Corporation did dismiss Air Vice-Marshal Bennett.
    Mr. Mikardo: In view of the fact that boards of directors of private companies would never permit individual members to make Press statements contrary to the policy of the boards, can my right hon. Friend think of any reason why boards of directors of publicy-owned companies should do so?
    The Prime Minister: No.

    Questions to Ministers
    Mr. Bossomasked the Prime Minister if he will introduce legislation to secure that the governing bodies of those industries which have already been nationalised should be so subordinated to the appropriate Minister as to enable
    988
    Members of this House to obtain information in the House of Commons on matters pertaining to nationalised industries.
    The Prime-Minister: No, Sir.
    Mr. Bossom: Does not the Prime Minister recognise that everyone in this House is elected to safeguard the interests of the people of this nation, and are we not, therefore, under an obligation to investigate as far as possible this vast amount of property owned by these various nationalised industries?
    The Prime Minister: That is, of course, a very general statement. The policy of this House in setting up these Corporations was to take away from Parliament control of the day-to-day operations and to confine it to the Corporations. Therefore, there is a limit put by these Acts on the extent to which it is desirable for hon. Members to ask for details about the day-to-day operations of these Corporations.
    Mr. Bossom: Will the Prime Minister state what we can ask, if we cannot ask about day-to-day matters?
    The Prime Minister: That is a question for Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. George Thomas: Will the Prime Minister give an assurance to the House that in matters of the policy of these Corporations, hon. Members will be able to question the responsible Minister?
    The Prime Minister: That has been made perfectly plain from time to time. The question of general policy is different from that of the specific every-day running of a Corporation.
    Mr. Driberg: In order to define the "limit" referred to by the Prime Minister—which has been the cause of some difficulty in the House—will he consider the desirability of having the promised Debate on this subject soon?
    The Prime Minister: That will, no doubt, be arranged, if so desired, through the usual channels. The specific question that I was asked was whether I would introduce legislation. The answer is, "No, Sir."

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Japanese Reparations
    Mr. William Teelingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can make any statement on the present position of reparations from Japan; how much has already been paid back to the United Kingdom and to the Colonies; whether in kind, and if he will give details; what percentage of the total payment these advance payments are considered to be; and whether liquid assets are being handed to us as well as to other Allies.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Cripps): There has not been so far any effective discussion at the Far Eastern Commission of the division among the claimant countries, of reparations as a whole, nor of liquid assets in particular; but only of industrial assets available for reparations. Of these, 30 per cent. is to be distributed under an Interim Reparations Removals programme, authorised by the issue by the United States Government of an interim directive to the Supreme Commander. One-sixth of this distribution has been allotted to the United Kingdom for immediate relief and rehabilitation requirements of Burma and the Far Eastern Colonies. The first deliveries, consisting of machine tools, are expected shortly. It is not possible to say what percentage this distribution will represent of the total eventually to be paid as reparations.

    Tourist Travel
    Mr. Teeingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether any monthly quota system has been agreed with Switzerland or other countries for tourist travel, or whether he will consider it.
    Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir. The detailed arrangements for tourist travel have not yet been worked out with the countries concerned. I do not rule out a monthly quota system as a possibility in exceptional cases.

    Unemployment Fund (Investments)
    Mr. Asshetonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) since when it has become the practice to invest the Unemployment Fund in stocks without a definite date of redemption in view of the possibility of serious loss resulting from such an investment;
    990
    (2) how much money the Unemployment Fund has lost by investing in 2½ per cent. Treasury Stock; and how he propose to deal with this loss in the books of the Fund;
    (3) on what grounds the investment of part of the Unemployment Fund in £24,668,613 Treasury 2½ per cent. Stock was authorised.
    Sir S. Cripps: Under the National Insurance Act, 1946, the bulk of the assets of the Unemployment Fund Investment Account will, together with other assets, be transferred on the appointed day to the National Insurance (Reserve) Fund. Adequate liquid investments are already available for the purpose of the National Insurance Funds, and in the interest of insured persons the Reserve Fund will be invested to secure the maximum yield. With this object, various long-term stocks, including 2½ per cent. Treasury Stock 1975 or after, have been purchased since the passing of the Act and in anticipation of the appointed day. There is nothing unsuitable in the choice of an irredeemable stock for a reasonable proportion of the holdings of the Reserve Fund. There will be no loss to account for unless and until this stock is sold.
    Mr. Assheton: Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to tell us how much depreciation this particular investment is at current prices?
    Sir S. Cripps: I cannot say. It is only a very small proportion of the total holding.
    Mr. Assheton: Would it not run into some millions of pounds?
    Sir S. Cripps: No, it certainly would not do that. It is only a small number of millions held altogether.
    Mr. Assheton: As the number of millions is 24 and the depreciation on two-and-a-half per cent. stock is something like 20 per cent., it might easily be four or five millions.

    National Coal Board's Magazine
    Sir John Mellorasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the contract between the Treasury and the National Coal Board was made concerning the preparation and publication of the magazine entitled "Coal"; what were its terms; and when and to what extent was the contract altered.
    Sir S. Cripps: There is no contract between the Treasury and the National Coal Board. Since 30th September last the magazine has been produced for the National Coal Board on the terms normally applicable to transactions between Exchequer Departments and non-Exchequer bodies, namely, repayment of the full cost.
    Sir J. Mellor: Was it understood as part of this extraordinary arrangement that this magazine should boost Ministers? Has the Chancellor, for instance, seen the picture of the Minister of Fuel and Power sitting beside his empty grate—a touching sequel to his empty bath?
    Sir S. Cripps: There are a great many pictures of Ministers in a great many papers.

    Linseed Oil Imports
    Mr. Fitzroy Macleanasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is now in a position to state the amount of linseed oil imported into this country in 1947; and how it was allocated as between industries.
    Sir S. Cripps: One hundred and eleven thousand, seven hundred and thirty-two tons of linseed oil were imported in 1947, and in addition 40,198 tons of linseed, of which the oil equivalent was 13,399 tons. It would not be in the public interest to give details of the allocations of linseed oil as between industries.
    Mr. De la Bère: Why not?
    Mr. Maclean: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what possible objection there would be to giving this information?
    Sir S. Cripps: The objection which has been accepted by all Governments in the past, that it is liable to arouse rivalries between particular industries without doing any good.
    Mr. De la Bère: What about the farmers?

    Betting Tax, Eire
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider the betting tax methods used in
    992
    Eire, a description of which has been sent to him, where the collection of the tax is undertaken by the Tote Board and the profits shared by the Government and racing itself, with a view to their adoption here.
    Sir S. Cripps: I will certainly consider this suggestion but, of course, my hon. Friend will not expect me to anticipate my Budget statement.
    Mr. Davies: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that answer may I ask is he aware that since 1926 Eire has introduced this method of taxation, which has (1) benefited the country; (2) benefited industry; and will he look to a betting tax as a means of keeping the food subsidies for the mass of the workers in the future?
    Sir S. Cripps: I will bear all those matters in mind.

    United Kingdom Debt (U.S.A.)
    Mr. Chaterasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to state, in sterling, the known or estimated total of debt owed by the United Kingdom to the United States of America.
    Sir S. Cripps: Apart from indebtedness arising out of the 1914–18 war, the total due by His Majesty's Government was £1,059 millions on 31st December, 1947.

    Income Tax (Limbless Men)
    Colonel Wheatleyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider granting Income Tax relief to limbless men not in receipt of pensions, who have to bear the cost of supply and maintenance of limbs and accessories, including stump socks.
    Sir S. Cripps: The hon. and gallant Member will not expect me to anticipate my Budget statement.
    Colonel Wheatley: Although I do not expect the Chancellor to divulge the secrets of his Budget, will he consider the point I have made on behalf of these unfortunate people?
    Sir S. Cripps: I will certainly consider it.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  PRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL
  Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate, [16th February] on Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  Question again proposed.
  3.32 p.m.
  Mr. Yates: I am sorry that I was unable to complete my argument when the Ten o'Clock Rule operated last night, and I will try not to detain the House for many minutes. I was referring to the redistribution of seats in England, and I made reference to the fact that in the large Borough of Birmingham, a constituency in which I have the honour to represent, there have been no prior consultations nor any response to a letter received from the Town Clerk by the Commissioners to the effect that the City of Birmingham had never been allowed to submit its objections and that there had been no inquiry.
  I want to put a further point. If it had been only a question of consultation that would not have been an absolutely valid reason for an additional seat in Birmingham. I should like to tell the Home Secretary, in regard to remarks which I made about the Boundary Commission not having given the right to Birmingham to submit its objections, that I was not in any way casting a reflection upon him or upon the Government. I have been a critic of Government Departments for the way they have sometimes dealt with their correspondence, but my right hon. Friend has always dealt with us in a most courteous manner, and I have not the slightest doubt that if he had been entirely responsible for the actions of the Commissioners, certainly a city like Birmingham would have been given an opportunity to state its case.
  We were not able to make any representations to the Commissioners and we were not in a position to tell the Commissioners that the rule which they themselves laid down was never applied to Birmingham. On page 145 of this Bill the rules will be found, and Rule 5A (1) makes it quite clear that
  994
  "the electorate of any constituency shall be as near the electoral quota as is practicable having regard to the foregoing rules."
  The rule says later:
  "The expression 'electoral quota means.. a number obtained by dividing the electorate for Great Britain,"
  which in this case would be 57,697. The Boundary Commission in their Report in paragraph 10 made this statement:
  "Our general aim was the creation of constituencies as near the electoral quota as practicable consistent with the preservation of local unities."
  I submit that in the case of Birmingham, as in the case of some other cities, that rule was not applied—a rule that the Commissioners themselves had drawn up. Furthermore, they state in paragraph 11:
  "As a general guide to the formulation of our provisional recommendations we adopted a rough working rule, under which electorates within a range of 50,000 to 70,000 were treated as normal."
  If Birmingham had been given 13 seats we should be within that range, because the average would be over 58,000 for England and certainly more than the electoral quota in the country.
  Earlier I made reference to Scotland, and I can only think that there is one city that is absolutely comparable with Birmingham, and that is Glasgow. I notice that the electorate of Glasgow amounts to 787,258. The electorate of Birmingham is 759,690, so that Glasgow on the date in question had a surplus of electors over Birmingham of 27,568. Yet Glasgow has 15 Members of Parliament as against Birmingham's 12. I am not attacking at all the number of seats which Glasgow has. Good luck to them. I am merely suggesting that this is not quite a fair position so far as Birmingham is concerned. I submit that important industrial constituencies ought to have been consulted, and in the case of Birmingham, Liverpool, Bradford and some others, the rule was not actually applied. We are entitled to ask the Government to apply the rule to us. We are not objecting to the rule. Parliament laid down the rules, and we believe we ought to be brought within them.
  I should like to make one reference to the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill). I notice that he devoted practically the whale of his speech yesterday to a defence of privilege—a privilege of a minority.
  Mr. Churchill: No, to a breach of faith by an arrogant majority.
  Mr. Yates: The right hon. Gentleman said that brains did not matter on this side of the House, and that intellect and education need not apply, as though in centres like Birmingham we were intellectually inferior to the universities. He was pleading for a special privilege for a small section of the population, numbering 228,769, and he argued that they have a right to votes. He never said a word about Birmingham or any other places, where the constituencies were so arranged as to disfranchise, in the case of Birmingham, for instance, 47,000 electors, and many more in other cities. He never said anything about a city like Birmingham being entitled to 13 Members and being given only 12. Throughout the country there were something approaching three quarters of a million electors who were surplus to the electoral quota. The right hon. Gentleman never said a word about those people. He never said a word about a constituency which had 87,000 electors. No, they might be herded together in a great—
  Mr. Churchill: The hon. Member is now attacking His Majesty's Government who have carried out the workings of the four Boundary Commissions over which Mr. Speaker presided.
  Mr. Yates: Yes, Sir, I am well aware that the right hon. Gentleman was attacking the Government. I am pointing out to him that his defence was for a privileged minority and that he omitted to think about the large number of constituencies which are over-populated. When these large constituencies are made, we are entitled to consideration. After hearing the right hon. Gentleman, I could not help thinking of the almost classical reply that Tom Paine made to Edmund Burke. In the "Rights of Man" at the time of the French Revolution, Tom Paine said that Burke thought of the plumage but forgot the dying bird. He was thinking of the plumage of privilege.
  Mr. Churchill: Which is the plumage and which is the dying bird?
  Mr. Yates: We are not quite dead yet. The right hon. Gentleman came to Birmingham during the war and exhorted the people of Birmingham and the country
  996
  to do their best in the war effort. Today those people are entitled to a better reward than to have their Parliamentary representation interfered with in this way.
  I sincerely trust that as a result of the few words I have uttered the right hon. Gentleman opposite and his hon. Friends will see their way to support those of us on this side of the House who are asking for a fairer representation. I submit these points to the Home Secretary. It was a difficult task for the Boundary Commission to plan the country on the basis of the rules set out, but they can arrive at a fairer proposition by enabling those large constituencies with an excess over the quota of electors to have additional representation. We are entitled to it, and I trust that the Government will pay due heed to the representations of such large cities.
  3.44 p.m.
  Mr. Osbert Peake: No one will take any very strong exception to the main purpose of this Bill, which is to bring about a redistribution of electoral areas and to put an end to the very wide disparities between the numbers of voters in different constituencies which have grown up as a result of the shift of population since the last redistribution in 1918. The necessity for redistribution has long been recognised. In the General Election in 1945 there were numerous constituencies which contained only one-third or one-quarter—in some cases only one-sixth—of the number of voters in the larger constituencies. At the same time it is generally accepted that precise mathematical equality is unattainable and undesirable, and that substantial variations from the quota must be permitted on account of the sparse population in certain areas, and because it is essential to have regard to local sentiment and tradition. As the Lord President of the Council said in moving the Second Reading of the House of Commons (Redistribution) Bill in 1944:
  "Members of Parliament do not represent mere aggregations of individuals, bundled together in mathematically equal groups. They seek to represent areas which are identifiable and, if possible, have their own traditions."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th October, 1944; Vol. 403, c. 1611.]
  I fully subscribe to the sentiment there expressed by the right hon. Gentleman.

  997
  In the redistribution of 1918 the limits of variation above and below the quota were fixed at 70 per cent. and 30 per cent. respectively. The four Boundary Commissions established under your chairmanship, Mr. Speaker, in 1944, were instructed on the strength of Resolution No. 10 in the first Report of Mr. Speaker's Conference to work to a limit of 25 per cent. only on each side of the electoral quota. That would have given for England constituencies varying between about 75,000 on the high side and 45,000 on the low side, but, as the House is aware, the Commission found these limits too narrow, and the Home Secretary had to come to the House just before Christmas, 1946, to secure an amending Bill which gave the Commissioners a much wider discretion. I am, therefore, a little surprised that the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton), speaking last night at about 9.30 p.m., should now object that the Commission had exercised their powers too widely, because he was a Member of the Government which introduced the amending Bill of 1947 which swept away the 25 per cent. limitations from the quota which were put into the Act of 1944.
  I should like to join in the tributes which have been paid to the work of the Boundary Commissions over which Mr. Speaker presided and to say that taking their Reports as a whole, I think they have produced as good a plan as could have been devised. The schemes, if adopted, will result in a much greater approximation to the unattainable ideal of "one vote one value," but disparities will of course continue to exist and some of the smaller Welsh county seats will contain 30,000 electors or thereabouts compared with over 80,000 for some of the larger boroughs. We on this side of the House can also give our approval to those parts of the Bill dealing with corrupt and illegal practices, the decision to revert to the pre-war system of registration, to which we attach great importance, and those parts of the Bill which provide for local government elections being held at a more convenient season of the year. There will of course be many minor points upon which we shall move Amendments in Committee.
  There are, however, three major points upon which for reasons which I shall now
  998
  try to develop, we shall seek to secure, if possible by voluntary action on the part of the Government, amendment of the Bill during the Committee stage. These are university representation, the continuance of the City of London as a separate constituency, and, a point which is inseparably bound up with the representation of the City of London, the retention of the business premises qualification. I do not intend today to argue the merits of these issues in detail. We shall be able to go more fully into them in Committee.
  With regard to the question of the retention of the City of London as a separate constituency, I would remind the House of the solution of this question which was put forward by the Labour Party in Mr. Clynes' Bill of 1931. With a tremendous eulogy of the City of London, its history and traditions, Mr. Clynes proposed that the City should continue to return two Members, and that the business premises vote should be retained for this purpose, and for this purpose alone, as an alternative to the residential qualification. Because I feel that this should be on the record before we get to the Committee stage, I will refer in passing to the statements of the Lord President of the Council with regard to the City of London. Speaking on the Second Reading of the Bill of 1944, he said:
  "That brings me to the ancient City of London … It is always possible to get excited about the City of London … the City of London has a great place in municipal history. It has a great place in Parliamentary history also, and on the issue of the abolition of the City as a separate indentifiable Parliamentary constituency … the Government think it right that it should be preserved."
  He went on to add:
  "It is felt that to merge the City—and I think I shall carry the House generally with me—or any part of the City, with adjoining constituencies, is not a proposal likely to receive wide support."
  Mr. Fernyhough: He was speaking for the Coalition.
  Mr. Peake: On the Committee stage he went even further. An Amendment had been moved to ensure that there should be no representation of the City after the next General Election. He ended up about a column and a half of HANSARD in praise of the City with these words:
  "As for the other issue which arises on this Amendment—the proposal that the City

  999
  should be abolished as a Parliamentary constituency—I think it is emotionally, historically and Parliamentary objectionable, and I hope the Committee will not agree to the Amendment which has been moved."
  I hope the right hon. Gentleman will study carefully his speeches on that Bill before we get to the Committee stage of this Bill.
  The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I have been doing it.
  Mr. Peake: He was followed in that Debate by an hon. Gentleman who addressed the House last night, the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) who was also a member of Mr. Speaker's Conference and on the National Executive of the Labour Party at the time that Conference was held. Having heard the speech of the Lord President, the hon. Member for Dagenham endorsed it in these words:
  "I would like to say, on behalf of the Labour Party, straight away, that we support the views which have been put forward by the Home Secretary."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th and 12th October, 1944, Vol. 403. c. 1618, 1619, 1994 and 2007.]
  There was the authentic voice of the Labour Party in the year 1944. I will not weary the House with other quotations from Socialist Members who supported the then Home Secretary both by speech and by vote on that occasion, but these things should be on record, because they will play a part when we discuss in detail this question of the City of London on the Committee stage. However, the case I put forward in regard to these three matters—universities, the City, and the business premises qualification—rests on much higher ground than those of mere merit.
  Ever since 1885, when extension of the franchise and redistribution of seats were effected by agreement between the Conservative and Liberal leaders of the day, it has become accepted practice that great Measures of redistribution and reform should be brought forward only after agreement, or attempt to secure agreement, between the political parties. Examples of this are the Speaker's Conference of 1916, the abortive Ullswater Conference of 1930, and Mr. Speaker's Conference of 1944. In all three conferences the Socialist Party was a willing and active participant. We attach the
  1000
  greatest importance to this constitutional practice, which has grown up, of securing agreement between the parties for major changes in the electoral law. We have seen too many examples in other countries during the last generation of parties securing a majority in a democratic assembly and then proceeding, by unilateral action, to change the system of representation to their own advantage.
  The Conference of 1944 consisted of 32 Members presided over by Mr. Speaker. There were 15 Conservatives and 11 Socialists, if one includes the late Mr. James Maxton amongst the latter. Most of the Socialist representatives were men of eminence, men who are liked and trusted on all sides of the House, and who are either now or have been until recently, Ministers in His Majesty's Socialist administration. They include the Minister of National Insurance, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Lord Ammon—who is Chief Whip in another place—Lord PethickLawrence—whom we knew well in this House as Vice-Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party—the hon. Member for Dagenham, and the late Mr. Foster who represented Wigan.
  The Conference came unanimously to four important conclusions. If anybody questions the word "unanimous" I will refer them to speeches by the Lord President of the Council in which he so describes their recommendations. These four conclusions were: first, that the local government franchise should be assimilated with the Parliamentary franchise; secondly, that the business premises qualification be maintained, subject to the elimination of the right of the spouse of the business voter to cast a vote—that alone would have removed 140,000 business voters from the 1939 register, at which time the business register totalled 355,000 voters. At the present time the business premises voters on the register number only 55,000 The third matter on which agreement was reached was that university representation should continue, with a new provision for automatic registration without the payment of any fee. The fourth was that the City of London should continue to be represented, at any rate by a single Member, as a separate constituency.
  It is perfectly clear from the concluding sentences of Mr. Speaker's letter, in

  1001
  which he reported to the Prime Minister the results of the Conference, that these unanimous conclusions were the result of a bargain, by no means dishonourable to those who participated in it. May I, Mr. Speaker, quote your words?
  "The conclusions set out in this Report, and the amount of general agreement that we have achieved undoubtedly represent for all a subordination of opinions sincerely held which would not have been possible unless all Members of the Conference had been determined from the first to tackle without bias the thorny problems which confronted us."
  It now appears that it is admitted by some right hon. Gentlemen opposite, but denied by others, that there was a bargain. The Lord President of the Council, in an interjection yesterday when my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) was addressing the House, said:
  "There was no bargain, either at the Speaker's Conference, or in the Government."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 16th February, 1948; Vol. 447, c. 867.]
  That was the declaration of the Lord President yesterday, but I would refer him to his attitude on this matter when the Caretaker Government was in office. The right hon. Gentleman waxed very indignant about this matter at that time. A question was asked on 29th May, 1945, about carrying out the recommendations of the Speaker's Conference. At that time the right hon. Gentleman was sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, and he knew perfectly well that there was going to be a general election in a matter of weeks. Sir Geoffrey Mander asked the Prime Minister whether it was proposed to introduce legislation to implement the recommendations of the Speaker's Conference. The Prime Minister said there was no question of getting the Bill before the election. The right hon. Gentleman rose in his place and said:
  "Are we to take it from the Prime Minister's answer that the labours through which the Speaker's Conference went, when they reached a large measure of unanimous agreement, are to be set aside, and that this Election is to be fought by means which the Speaker's Conference condemned as wrong, merely because the Government will not find the time to carry through these elementary reforms, including the poll card?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th May, 1945; Vol. 411, c. 28.]
  It surprises me now that the right hon. Gentleman should come forward and state that there was never any agreement, either in the Conference or in the Government,
  1002
  that these recommendations should be carried out.
  Mr. H. Morrison: The argument yesterday, which was provoked by the rather fervid speech of the Leader of the Opposition, was that it was a bargain which committed any Government and the Parliamentary parties in this present Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman has not adequately quoted what I said. What I said yesterday, after having bridged the conversational gap between the Leader of the Opposition and myself, was:
  "… but to imply by that that any party which was returned was obligated to carry out every one of those recommendations in the next Parliament"—
  that is this Parliament—
  "is sheer nonsense. There was no bargain, either at the Speaker's Conference or in the Government."
  Clearly there is a connection between the general argument running through that and in the last argument which the right hon. Gentleman has quoted when I was on the other side of the House and the Caretaker Government were in office. There was a complaint that certain recommendations of the Speaker's Conference to be applied in that Parliament were not so carried out by the Caretaker Government in that Parliament.
  Mr. Peake: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. He would make things clearer if he would state categorically now whether he admits there was a bargain and agreement in the Speaker's Conference in 1944. Does he agree to that?
  Mr. Morrison: Certainly, in the Speaker's Conference in 1944 there were compromises, there were accommodations, that were reached, and the consequence was that I had to defend some of these compromises and agreements in the legislation on behalf of the Government of the day. I have no grievances. I did my duty. There was compromise in the Government, but it all related to action in the Parliament which ended in the middle of 1945.
  Mr. Peake: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. He has made it clear that yesterday, when he said there was no bargain, he was saying that there was no bargain that would extend beyond the life of that Parliament.
  Mr. Morrison indicated assent.
  Mr. Peake: I am much obliged, because in an interjection only three minutes earlier the Secretary of State for Scotland said this—I will not quote it all:
  "But, since the election, the Conservatives have broken that agreement by using the university vote to send back to this House Conservatives whom, at the General Election, the electors rejected at the polls."
  I will repeat it:
  "since the election the Conservatives have broken that agreement"—
  Mr. George Thomas: What agreement?
  Mr. Peake: The agreement reached in the Speaker's Conference, to which reference has been made. The right hon. Gentleman sitting beside the Secretary of State said just now that the agreement was for the duration of that Parliament, and that Parliament alone—
  The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Woodburn): I have not said anything different.
  Mr. Peake: The right hon. Gentleman has. I will read it once more, as the right hon. Gentleman cannot take it in.
  "Since the election, the Conservatives have broken that agreement"—
  That was a year after the election. The Secretary of State for Scotland accepts the position that there was an agreement and that the agreement continued to operate after the general election?
  Mr. Woodburn: No.
  Mr. Peake: But the right hon. Gentleman did. When he speaks later he must explain what his words meant. They were plain:
  "Since the election, the Conservatives have broken that agreement by using the university vote to send back to this House Conservatives whom, at the General Election, the electors rejected at the polls."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th February, 1948; Vol. 447, c. 865–867.]
  Hon. Members: Got him.
  Sir Arthur Salter: Will the right hon. Gentleman complete the argument by referring to the apparent acceptance and endorsement of the agreement by a statement in another place in October last, which was quoted by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition?
  Mr. Peake: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. Is it not perfectly
  1004
  clear that there is a difference between the Lord President of the Council, who says that any agreement made was automatically dissolved by the intervention of the election, and the Secretary of State for Scotland, who accuses the Conservatives of having broken the agreement 18 months after the election was over? Clearly, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland takes a precisely opposite view from that expressed by the Lord President of the Council. I will leave other hon. Members on this side of the House to address themselves to the implications, the curious implications, of this statement that we ought to deprive the universities of representation because they have had the impudence to send back one or two Conservatives who had been defeated in other constituencies at the general election. That seems to come very nearly within the laws relating to intimidation at general elections.
  Mr. Medland: Pocket boroughs?
  Mr. Peake: It is perfectly clear, despite what the Lord President of the Council said yesterday that there was an agreement. The next issue is, whom did that agreement bind? I submit with equal confidence that it bound not only the individual hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who attended the Conference on behalf of the Socialist Party, but that it bound the Socialist Party itself as a whole.
  Hon. Members: No.
  Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to put a question?
  Mr. Bowles: Does the right hon. Gentleman think it bound hon. Members of the Socialist Party at the last election who voted against it?
  Mr. Peake: There was never a Division in the last Parliament on the recommendations of the Speaker's Conference as a whole.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Never?"] On individual items, of course, there were Divisions, but not on the general issue.
  Mr. Skeffington-Lodge rose—
  Mr. Peake: No, I cannot give way.
  Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: I was going to be helpful. I wished to ask if the right hon. Gentleman would get away from scoring, or trying to score, party points, and

  1005
  put the positive case for the retention of university representation in some modified form, because I think there is a case. I hope that if I have an opportunity I might put that case.
  Mr. Peake: I certainly do not intend to get away from a subject which is so extremely inconvenient to hon. Members opposite. I say that those 11 gentlemen who attended that Conference, Socialist Members of this House, did not go there only in their capacity as individuals. I have not the slightest doubt that they went in a representative capacity. That is, in fact, clear from Mr. Speaker's letter to the Prime Minister of 24th May, in which he said:
  "Invitations were issued roughly in proportion to party strength in the House of Commons, and we also intended to secure as far as possible representation of the various shades of opinion, different types of constituency, and all parts of the country."
  Who were some of these 11 gentlemen? There were two members of the National Executive of the Labour Party, the Minister of National Insurance and the hon. Member for Dagenham. There was the Vice-Chairman of the Labour Party in the House of Commons, Lord Pethick-Lawrence; there was Lord Ammon, Chief Whip of the Labour Party in another place, and there was the Secretary of State of Scotland, who is described, I have no doubt accurately, in "Dod's Parliamentary Companion," as the "Scottish Secretary of the Labour Party."
  Can it be believed that they went into this Conference merely as individuals, that they went without any instructions from the headquarters to which they themselves belonged? Is it not ridiculous to suppose that they were not acting in that Conference on behalf of the Socialist Party as a whole? I submit, therefore, that any agreement made—and it is now admitted that an agreement was made—was binding on the Socialist Party as a whole, as well as upon those individuals who attended the Conference—[An HON. MEMBER: "In the last Parliament."] Surely, the next question to which we have to address ourselves is this: If there was an agreement, which it is admitted bound both the individuals who made it and the parties they represented—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—what was the intended duration of the agreement?
  Mr. Piratin: As long as convenient.
  Mr. Peake: I think that is the conclusion we shall all come to in the course of a few minutes—
  Mr. Piratin: I made an intervention just now which I believe, in the light of my experience in this House, of both sides of the House.
  Mr. Peake: I do not follow the precise relevance of that interruption. On this question of the duration for which it was intended this agreement should be operative, we have, first of all, the interpretation given of it at the time, or within a few weeks of the termination of the Conference, by the Vice-Chairman of the Labour Party Mr. Pethick-Lawrence, as he then was, in this House. On 12th October of that year, he said—the quotation has already been given to the House by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford yesterday:
  "The agreements were satisfactory as agreements, and in my view they met the situation by arriving at a solution which we thought would survive."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 12th October, 1944; Vol. 403, c. 2045–6.]
  Did Lord Pethick-Lawrence mean "survive for another six or 12 months"? Does anybody really imagine that that is what he meant by those words at that time?
  Moreover, the Lord President of the Council introduced the Representation of the People Bill in December, 1944, when we all knew that the war was drawing to an end and that a general election was bound to follow. That Bill, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows, and as the House is well aware, added seven million new voters to the municipal franchise and took 140,000 spouses off the business premises qualification. The right hon. Gentleman, in introducing that Bill, told the House that time did not permit of dealing with the other recommendations of Mr. Speaker's Conference, and he spoke of "the forthcoming General Election." It is very difficult for me, knowing the Lord President as I do, to believe that when he introduced that Bill he was saying to himself as follows: "If we lose the forthcoming General Election we have secured the benefits under the bargain which was made at the Speaker's Conference, which we need, and if we win the General Election we shall be completely free to repudiate our liabilities." Was that the attitude of mind in which the right hon. Gentleman introduced the

  1007
  Bill on 19th December, 1944? Was that what was in his mind at that time? I do not believe that the right hon. Gentleman was so mean as that.
  In fact, I have always entertained hitherto a high opinion of the honourable nature of the conduct and character of the right hon. Gentleman; but I do not believe for a moment he would have got that Bill, which added seven million new voters to the municipal franchise, through a predominantly Conservative House of Commons, if he had said, "This bargain holds good only until the forthcoming General Election. After that, if we win the election, we shall hold ourselves free to repudiate anything in the agreement made at the Speaker's Conference which we do not like."
  Mr. Bowles: The right hon. Gentleman's argument can be a powerful one. I have no doubt that compromises on the Education Act, which was introduced by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Butler) were reached between various interests, sectional and political as well. Would the right hon. Gentleman think that this Government were bound by the agreement reached in the Coalition Government on the Education Act?
  Mr. Peake: I cannot now concern myself with the Education Act. Here was a Speaker's Conference. The settlement which was arrived at by the Speaker's Conference of 1916 lasted for a generation. Lord Pethick-Lawrence, when he spoke of arriving at an agreement which he trusted would survive was, I am quite sure, not speaking of a settlement which was to last only for six, 12 or 18 months. It should, of course, last either until all parts of the bargain have been implemented, or a new Speaker's Conference has been assembled to express a different view.
  What would the Lord President of the Council have said, supposing we had won the 1945 election, and had come forward at this time with a Bill to disfranchise seven million municipal voters, and had said, "Oh, yes, the agreement made at the Speaker's Conference was only binding until the end of that Parliament. Parliament is completely free"? The right hon. Gentleman says that every new Parliament is completely free. Of course, Parliament is always free, but parties are
  1008
  not free, nor are individual Members. If individual Members of parties are freed by the mere fact of a general election, from all their past pledges and promises, what on earth is the good of election addresses and party manifestos?
  I think that by now I have satisfied the House, first, that there was a bargain; secondly, that the bargain bound not only individuals but the Socialist Party as a whole— [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] It did not of course bind every person in the Socialist Party, but it did bind the party.
  Mr. H. Morrison: For all time?
  Mr. Peake: Of course not for all time. Mr. H. Morrison: How long?
  Mr. Peake: Either until the bargain was implemented, or until a new Speaker's Conference had assembled and had agreed upon something different.
  Mr. Mitchison: How do you implement a bargain to leave things as they are?
  Mr. Henry Strauss: By leaving things as they are.
  Mr. Mitchison: The right hon. Gentleman says this agreement was to continue until the bargain was implemented. The bargain at this point, according to him, was to leave things as they were. How do you arrive at a time limit to leave things as they are, and to leave the university franchise in its existing condition?
  Mr. Peake: That does not really seem to me a very intelligent interruption. The bargain was perfectly clearly set out in the letter of Mr. Speaker in May, 1944. It decided that the business premises qualifications should be retained, subject to an alteration with regard to spouses. It decided that the university representation should be retained subject to automatic registration without payment of fees. It is perfectly obvious that the recommendations of the Conference on this matter could, and should, be implemented, and it is obvious, also, that this agreement should not be varied without consent amongst the great political parties.
  I think I have established three propositions. First, there was the bargain; secondly, by virtue of their representation on the Conference, the Socialist Party are bound by it; and, thirdly, in the minds

  1009
  of those who made it the bargain would not cease to be operative through the intervention of a general election, and any change of Government which might result therefrom. If this agreement binds the Socialist Party, it clearly binds the Members of His Majesty's Government, who are the leaders of the Socialist Party. It more especially binds those Members of the Government who were Members of the Government in 1944 which established the Speaker's Conference, and which accepted the recommendations of that Conference. I have been waiting throughout this Debate for somebody to unfold a defence to the very grave charges of breach of faith, made yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford. The case of the Lord President appeared to be—or was yesterday—that no agreement had been made, but that point, I gather, he has conceded in the course of my speech this afternoon. Secondly, he says the dissolution of Parliament in 1945 dissolved the agreement made, and absolved the parties to it from its further fulfilment. I hope he will tell us how that can be so, when part of the agreement—the part he wanted to secure—had already been carried out. Moreover, if it is claimed that the dissolution of Parliament put an end to this agreement, surely that claim should have been made immediately after the General Election? We should not have had to wait two and a half years for this claim that the agreement reached in the Speaker's Conference was dissolved in July, 1945.
  How came it that the Lord Chancellor was allowed to make a statement in another place, only three months ago, that the Bill to be introduced would contain the recommendations of Mr. Speaker's Conference? Is it not clear that what has happened is that large numbers of the Socialist Members of this House, newly elected in 1945, have failed adequately to appreciate the extent to which their party had been committed in 1944 by their representatives on the Conference and by the action of the Lord President, in 1945, in securing the fulfilment of his part of the bargain? As I have said, parties, just as much as individuals, can be bound by promises and bargains made in the course of political life. I therefore make this plea, in all sincerity, to the supporters of His Majesty's Government, because I believe that they, and not Ministers, are the masters now. I feel
  1010
  sure that they have inadequately appreciated the extent to which they were committed in 1944.
  Is there not time to think again about these matters before Committee stage? Would it not be to the credit of our democratic system if this bargain were to be honoured, even at the prospect of some slight political disadvantage to the Socialist Party? What, in fact, does it amount to? Honour would be quite satisfied if one Member were left to the City of London, whose electorate has been substantially—I hope only temporarily—diminished by the great amount of damage done there during the war years. So far as the universities are concerned, a majority of their representatives, I believe, are independent, but I honestly do not know why the party opposite should so despair of ever securing the return of Socialist Members by the most educated section of our electorate.
  Let me make it clear that, in my opinion, honour would not be satisfied by leaving these great issues in Committee to a free vote of the House. That would merely afford a way out of their personal difficulties to those individuals who represented the Socialist Party on Mr. Speaker's Conference. It would not discharge the obligations of honour under which the Socialist Party and the Government stand. So far, we have not had any reply to the serious charges made yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford. It surprised me that the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, who spoke almost immediately after the right hon. Gentleman the senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A Salter)—who repeated these grave charges—should have made no reference to them of any sort or kind. The only observation of the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland was that the senior Burgess for Oxford University seemed to be making rather heavy weather. I hope that before this Debate concludes we shall have some clear statement, from the two Government spokesmen still to take part in it, as to the reasons which have driven the Government to take this course, of which we so strongly disapprove.
  We cannot, and we shall not, vote against the Second Reading of this Bill, whose main purpose is to secure more accurate representation of the will of the people at the next Election. We earnestly

  1011
  hope, however, that between now and the Committee stage the Government themselves will consider introducing Amendments to give effect to the bargain struck in 1944. Nothing could be more injurious to the future of democracy than that in each Parliament changes should be made in the franchise without agreement, or attempts to secure agreement, between the great political parties. One thing is certain. If the Bill is pushed through without these vital Amendments there will remain for all time a lasting and an indelible stain upon the honour of the Socialist Party.
  4.29 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Woodburn): I listened yesterday to the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), and today to the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake), and I am still not clear as to what is the justification for the retention of the university vote or the City of London vote, except—
  Mr. Churchill: Be careful you do not go wrong again today.
  Mr. Woodburn: —except that they seem to claim that there was an agreement made during the Speaker's Conference which binds the Labour Party, and this Parliament, to carry out all the recommendations of that Conference. I had not intended to deal with this point, but since I was a member of the Speaker's Conference, clearly I can speak with some intimate knowledge of what happened. Both the right hon. Gentlemen opposite have referred to bargains, and to give and take. I gathered from both that what the Conservatives were prepared to give was something in the way of the spouses' vote and manhood suffrage in local elections, and what they seemed to think they had got was the university vote and the City of London vote. But I am not aware that the City of London or the university vote can be considered as counters. If the party opposite are admitting that they are counters, they are admitting that both are pocket boroughs for the Conservatives to use. There is no advantage in our giving the City of London or the university votes unless they are claiming that they are privileged pocket boroughs into which they can bring in Members whenever they please. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] Otherwise, the argument about
  1012
  a bargain does not arise. If people are making a bargain there must be give and take. They give something and expect something else in return.
  Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: I am peculiarly disinterested in this point, but surely this is a question of principle. It is not a question of pocket boroughs. It is perfectly possible that there might have been half a dozen Members of Parliament at present who were strong sympathisers with this Government. The question is one of principle.
  Mr. Woodburn: The hon. Gentleman is dealing with a different point. He is dealing with the merit of the university vote. I am dealing with the fact that right hon. Gentlemen opposite are claiming that they have made a bargain with regard to the university vote and the City of London vote. If they are able to make bargains like that, then the universities are not fulfilling their proper function as constituencies of a special character.
  What happened about the manhood suffrage vote at the Speaker's Conference was not connected with any bargain. It was a perfectly logical development from the discussions which took place. Unless we gave manhood suffrage, none of the men who were fighting in the war, who were not married and did not have houses, would be able to vote in the town in which they went to live when they came home. The first reason, therefore, was to give soldiers a vote in their home town or county. Secondly, the reason was that if we did not have the Parliamentary register used for the municipal elections, we could not have an election immediately, for there was no register at that time, except the Parliamentary register, on which an election could be held. It was also recognised then, although right hon. Gentlemen seem to have forgotten since, that it would be many years before the people of this country were housed, and that for a long time large numbers of the population would be living in other people's houses and would be disfranchised in local authority elections. Therefore, three great sections were required to be provided with votes, and this could only be done by manhood suffrage.

  1013
  The argument was made yesterday that these people did not pay rates. Hon. Gentlemen who put forward that argument were gravely mistaken. Though these people may not pay rates directly, nobody can live in another person's house and make a contribution to that house without paying rates vicariously. If a person purchases in shops, he is paying rates indirectly. But one of the things which governed us was that nearly 50 per cent. of some local services are paid for by national taxation. Every young man, even though he may not be a householder, has to pay national taxation, and, therefore, he is also a contributor to local rates. These were perfectly legitimate arguments for the granting of manhood suffrage. I cannot understand why the Conservatives should now try to introduce the question of a bargain, because their representatives on the Conference behaved perfectly reasonably about this. They argued the matters on their merits and this conclusion was reached on the merit, of the case.
  Sir Arthur Salter: I am trying to follow the right hon. Gentleman's argument. Does he say that any agreement is not binding unless it has been exclusively constructed on the basis of competing party interests?
  Mr. Woodburn: I will come to that later. There was a question which was completely party, and that was the redistribution of seats. The Labour Party Members, and I think the Liberals, held that there should be complete redistribution of the seats. The Conservatives wanted a partial redistribution. The pundits on both sides considered that in a partial redistribution the Conservatives would gain 30 seats. Of course, the election proved them to be wrong, but that was the general conclusion. That was agreed by the pundits of both sides, and it was certainly something upon which we might have had a bargaining point. The Labour Party gave up its demand for a complete redistribution largely on practical grounds. Eventually there was a compromise in the dividing up of the abnormal constituencies. It was a limited redistribution, but it was clearly a thing which affected the parties considerably.
  The Speaker's Conference met under peculiar conditions. The right hon.
  1014
  Gentleman the Member for Woodford was Prime Minister at the time. He laid it down that for that Parliament no legislation which was controversial should be introduced. The Speaker's Conference was appointed with that guidance. We were asked to give agreed recommendations to the Government of the day. The Conference came to agreed recommendations. As both right hon. Gentlemen opposite have said, one cannot have agreed recommendations without agreement. We admit that right away. The Lord President of the Council has admitted, that we agreed at that Conference. There is no doubt about that fact. The point is that none of the arguments which the right hon. Gentlemen opposite have deduced from that follow at all. It is a non sequitur. The right hon. Member for Woodford yesterday made the case that there was a breach of that agreement. Since there was an agreement he said we had broken it. I simply point out that the Conservatives have broken that agreement—
  Mr. Churchill: How?
  Mr. Woodburn: I am coming to that point. It might surprise everybody to know that at that Conference the Labour Party, by a majority, agreed to support the retention of the university vote. They did that because they had become convinced—
  Mr. Peake: I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the Socialist representatives, by a majority, agreed to accept university representation. Surely, it was a unanimous recommendation?
  Mr. Woodburn: Let me put it another way. The Labour Party representatives were not unanimous that the university vote should be retained, but a majority of them had been persuaded that they ought to agree to it.
  Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: At a private meeting?
  Mr. Woodburn: No. In their individual capacity they had become convinced at the Conference. The reason was that during the war it had become apparent that the university vote was being used for the purpose for which it was destined. One of the factors which largely contributed was the wonderful contribution which Miss Eleanor Rathbone made in

  1015
  the House of Commons. There were also Professor A. V. Hill and Sir John Boyd Orr. From time to time they contributed most expert knowledge. In addition to that, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson) at that time could be regarded as a non-party man contributing to the nation in its distress from his long Government experience. The senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) was regarded to some extent as not quite a Conservative and, to some extent, as a non-party Member.
  During that time there was a prima facie case that the universities were, for the first time, using their votes for the purpose for which they were destined. The Labour Party, therefore, were almost convinced that the universities were going to use the vote as it was intended to be used. Since the general election, the university elections have reverted to prewar form; in other words, they have become pocket boroughs where Conservatives who could not get seats at the general election can be seated at their convenience.
  Sir A. Salter: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say, on behalf of himself and the Government, that the reason—or the principal reason—for introducing a proposal to abolish the 12 university seats permanently is that, in the last year or two, two university constituencies have elected two Conservative Members?
  Mr. Woodburn: No. I am entitled to comment upon this claim that the university vote is to be used for carrying out the purpose of providing non-party contributions to the House of Commons. Regarding those who were returned at the general election as Conservatives, such as the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson), immediately after the election took place, he took his scat alongside the Conservative Opposition and has been there ever since. The right hon. Gentleman the senior Burgess for Oxford University, so far as I can see, is indistinguishable from a Conservative.
  Sir A. Salter: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not the case that I voted and spoke against a Conservative Government when the Conservatives were
  1016
  in power as often as I have voted and spoken against the Labour Government, and, naturally, is not a middle-of-the-way Independent likely to be more often than not opposed to any Government, whether of the Right or the Left?
  Mr. Woodburn: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that it is not a strange phenomenon that somebody starts out by being progressive and ends up by being reactionary. It is nothing new at all.
  Mr. Churchill: Before we leave this important point, I should like to have clearly established the point which the Secretary of State for Scotland is making. He says there was an agreement about the universities, because he was of the opinion that the university Members in the last Parliament were non-party, but that, since the election, because two Conservatives have been elected, he considers there has been a breach of that agreement. He wants, therefore, to abolish the representation of the universities. [Interruption.] Surely, that is the position which he has taken up? Is not this an attempt to affront, and even intimidate, the free voting in very large constituencies of men who have had the advantage of graduating at a university, and can this be the basis of such a change?
  Mr. Woodburn: The right hon. Gentleman has been using the word "agreement." It can be one of various forms. He said yesterday that there was a definite agreement, a definite bargain. There was no such thing as a definite bargain at the Speaker's Conference, which discussed these things in the main, on their merits, and came to decisions on the merits, with the exception of the one question about redistribution and partial redistribution, and of the other question of the abolition of the spouse's vote, because, clearly, there could be no agreement on the business vote. The Labour Party is opposed to it, and the Conservatives are in favour of it, and, clearly, no agreement was possible. So far as agreement was concerned before the general election, it was clearly confined to that one item which I have mentioned.
  Mr. K. Lindsay: I would like to get this point absolutely clear. Does my right hon. Friend say that the bargain or agreement at this Conference was based on the assumption that Members elected for universities would be of a special order?

  1017
  That is very important. The right hon. Gentleman has said that today, and he said it yesterday.
  Mr. Woodburn: The point is that at the Speaker's Conference people were discussing these things on their merits. I was pointing out that, although the Labour Party was normally opposed to university representation, they had become, to some extent, almost persuaded about its virtues by the example of Miss Eleanor Rathbone and some other distinguished people who represented the universities during that period, and, had they continued—
  Mr. H. Strauss: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman a simple question? Is it his case that, at the postwar by-election following the death of Miss Rathbone, the Combined English Universities ought not to have been allowed to have a Tory candidate, or ought not to have been allowed to let him win?
  Mr. Woodburn: I think I have made my point. [Interruption.] I do not expect the right hon. Gentleman to agree with it; I have made it, that is all. There was no bargain in the sense which was suggested yesterday, and no agreement in the sense suggested yesterday. The Conference was composed of representatives, and I would point out that they were representatives and not delegates sent with instructions. They met as individuals to discuss the matter, to agree to recommendations to submit to the Speaker's Conference. Obviously, they could not bind all the people outside to accept this agreement, though they were able to get their party colleagues to support the decisions which had been reached.
  Mr. Peake: Would the right hon. Gentleman clarify this point, which is of vital importance? Would he agree, regarding the Socialist representatives on the Conference, that whatever they agreed to was binding in honour upon the Socialist Party?
  Mr. Woodburn: No. We had no power to come back and command the rest of the Members of the House of Commons. We did, in our turn, try to persuade them that what we had agreed to was reasonable, and, with the exception of the City of London, we persuaded them to agree with the conclusions we had come to.
  1018
  If I might conclude this point about the universities, I want to refer to one misunderstanding which appeared yesterday in confusing literacy with intelligence. Merely because a person gets scholastic training does not increase that person's intelligence. Doctors may be good doctors, scientists may be qualified for science, teachers qualified to teach and dentists qualified in dentistry, but it does not necessarily make them of superior intelligence to the miners, the engineers or the black-faced workers in this country, and that suggestion of superior intelligence cannot be sustained for a moment.
  Mr. Churchill: It has been going on for 350 years.
  Mr. Woodburn: I want to deal now with the relation of this Bill to Scotland, though I will not go into great detail. I would like to begin by thanking Mr. Speaker, Lord Mackintosh and Sir Robert Nimmo for the admirable way in which they conducted the Boundary Commission for Scotland. It is understood that they will keep the constituencies under review, and, as was the case with the Act passed in the last Parliament, the Scottish constituencies will retain the 71 seats, although the three university seats will go, as they are going in England. We maintain that that is a reasonable minimum. We do not object, and we cannot raise any objection, if England thinks it is under represented, because we maintain that our representation is a reasonable minimum whereby a great and large country like Scotland, which wants to play its part as a nation in this Parliament, can be adequately represented.
  Some criticism was made about the smaller quota which we have for each seat in Scotland. At that Speaker's Conference, this matter was discussed in regard to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and we came to the conclusion—and this was one of the reasons for rejecting proportional representation—that this was not a matter of a mere mathematical calculation to send a body of persons here representing a mathematical number. We hold that, under the democracy of this country, the constituencies of this country should he living entities, and that, if it is a town, it wants to have a representative as a town and not a representative of 36,400 individuals. If it is a county, it has a corporate

  1019
  entity as a county, as well as being a number of divisions and a number of people.
  If we try to expand the great areas of Scotland in order to introduce a quota, they become physically impossible to work and completely detached from their Members. I am quite sure that hon. Members do not appreciate the distances that exist in Scotland. The area of Scotland is three-fifths that of England. Yet we have only about one-seventh of the Members of Parliament to cover that enormous area. Scotland has, on an average, 264,000 acres in each constituency, as against 66,000 acres in England and Wales. As a whole, of course, it has about 30,000 square miles, as against 50,000 for England.
  When we come to some of the smaller constituencies, such as the Western Isles and Argyll, hon. Members who have been there will realise that one cannot talk about those parts as one can about a part of Yorkshire. I remember, at the Ross and Cromarty by-election, one of our colleagues from South of the Border was trying to arrange for somebody to go from one meeting to another. He looked at the map and calculated that the distance of 26 miles could be covered in half an hour; but that road was one of the highest in Scotland, and passed over to Applecross, apart from the fact that, at the time, it was blocked with snow. Finally, he had to go in a fishing boat round the point. That shows that anybody thinking in terms of electioneering cannot judge it by London and the Southern parts of this country. Moreover, many places in Scotland can only be covered by water transit, and while the aeroplane is performing a great service in developing that part of the country, it does not cover all the spots. I am quite sure that hon. Members representing these parts could tell some interesting stories about electioneering there.
  During the Ross and Cromarty election we were away for three days and could not get in touch with the election headquarters because we were snowed up. The son of the right hon. Member for Woodford had to come along with his car in the middle of the night, and try to pull us out of the snowdrifts. Electioneering in that part of the country is entirely different from what it is in any other part.
  1020
  Nobody will welcome more than the people living in those parts the date for electioneering being changed to the summer. The counties of Caithness and Sutherland alone have 1,750,000 acres, and one elector to every 65 acres. Ross and Cromarty have 1,500,000 acres with one elector to every 40 acres. I am quite sure that hon. Members who think in terms of Scotland having too big a representation will realise that, if representation is to be intimate and connected with the territory, then it must be made workable and left in a convenient form from the point of view of such representation.
  The local elections in Scotland will be changed for the county and district councils from the second Tuesday in November to the second Tuesday in May, and for the town councils from the first Tuesday in November to the first Tuesday in May. No election of local authorities, of course, will be held until May, 1949, and those who are already members of councils and holding office will carry on until that date.
  Mr. Maclay: I hope I am not taking the words out of the right hon. Gentleman's mouth, but I should like him to say whether there were consultations between the local government authorities in Scotland before the change was made.
  Mr. Woodburn: There were consultations, but they were not so successful as the Speaker's Conference, and we did not get absolute agreement. That is what the hon. Gentleman is concerned to ask.
  Mr. Carmichael: My right hon. Friend has said that those holding office on local authorities in Scotland will continue to do so until May. If a provost, a lord provost, or a treasurer was elected to office in November under this Measure, and not by the conduct of the council itself, will he retain office?
  Mr. Woodburn: The Bill automatically carries him on until May, 1949.
  This Bill is a culmination of the development begun 100 years ago of complete suffrage and "one man, one vote." As I have said, we shall regret, on personal grounds, the passing of many persons who have represented constituencies which may be abolished by this Bill. Nevertheless, on grounds of equity and of proper representation, the Government have come to the conclusion that, in the framing of the new electoral registers, the university

  1021
  and City of London votes should go. Naturally, there will not be complete agreement on that. This proposal is put forward in a Parliament which is different from the last, inasmuch as it is not bound by any non-controversial legislation, although we recognise, to some extent, that that fact may be controversial.
  When we come to the Committee stage, the right hon. Gentleman opposite will be able to put forward his arguments in favour of the suggestion he advanced today because, so far, no arguments have been put forward to justify a retention either of the university vote or of the City of London vote. There have been arguments about something which happened in the last Parliament, but we are dealing with this matter on its merits. If there are any merits, they have not been advanced in this Debate so far, either yesterday or today. We do not want arguments to convince us of the Government's demerits, but of the merits of the case, for only by that means can they be justified. I am not convinced that there are merits in the case; I subscribe to the view that the City of London has a historic background which is going to be perpetuated in the perpetuation of the name. But, as I have said, there was no contract and no bargain made at the Speaker's Conference to the effect that the present constituencies were going to he perpetuated and that the agreements were going to be perpetuated forever, because the world is moving quicker today than ever before, and this Parliament must move with it.
  4.57 p.m.
  Mr. Wilson Harris: I will not follow the Secretary of State for Scotland in the remarks he made about Scotland, because that dependency lies outside my purview. I will also not follow in his remarks about the bargain at the Speaker's Conference, because I am not prepared to regard university representation as a mere counter in a bargain. That was dealt with by my right hon. Friend the senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter), and most unanswerably by the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake).
  Mr. Maclay: The hon. Member referred to Scotland as a "dependency." I can hardly believe my ears, that such a remark should come from an hon. Member of the status and standing of the junior
  1022
  Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Wilson Harris). If he proposes to proceed with that kind of argument, one might begin to wonder whether Independents should be allowed at all.
  Mr. Harris: I will withdraw that characterisation unreservedly and accept any substitute the hon. Member may offer. The implication emerges from the Secretary of State's speech that university Members must undergo some form of de-Nazification, in the matter of their political affiliations. I will, therefore, endeavour to establish my own credentials. I was invited to stand as an independent Member by a Committee formed at Cambridge in 1938 to endeavour to secure the return of independent Members to Parliament. For 30 years, I have not been associated with any political party. In that period I have voted alternately for Conservative, Liberal, and Labour Members. For 15 years I have edited an independent political journal, and since I have been in this House I have sometimes voted in one Lobby and sometimes in the other. If that does not constitute independence, I should like to know what further qualification I can acquire.
  Like the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), I deeply sympathised with the Home Secretary yesterday in the unwelcome and distasteful task he found thrust upon him. I am especially distressed that one who has had an honorary degree conferred on him by Cambridge University should rise to propose the disfranchisement of that university.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that that was in the nature of a bribe?
  Mr. Harris: No, it took place at a time when it was never credible that the disfranchisement of the universities would be proposed. But all that is a matter between the right hon. Gentleman and his conscience. I know that at one time the right hon. Gentleman had a conscience because, in the distant past, our lines first crossed in the terse and exhilarating atmosphere of the Cambridge University Nonconformist Union. As everyone knows, a Nonconformist conscience is something of a peculiarly high quality—
  Mr. Medland: And elasticity.
  Mr. Harris: Both the right hon. Gentleman and I possessed one. I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman's is a good deal atrophied; mine, I am glad to say is still in active operation. If the right hon. Gentleman retains any of the scriptural knowledge which I know he possessed in those days he will remember the figure in the Gospels out of whom seven devils were cast. The right hon. Gentleman is trying to improve on that by casting out 12 at a single stroke. As one of them, I have a certain personal interest in this matter, but in view of the remarks made by Mr. Speaker yesterday, about the undesirability of bandying personal Questions in the House, I will not pursue that particular theme.
  I do, however, appeal to the House not to view this matter from a personal aspect. I was sorry that the Secretary of State for Scotland felt it necessary to analyse, rather surprisingly, the political character of so many of my colleagues in the representation of the universities. Let it be admitted, if you will, that anyone coming to this House, and surveying well the present university Members, would decide at once that university representation had not a leg to stand on. Let us admit all that. But it is not a question of the university Members of this Parliament. The Secretary of State for Scotland himself paid a warm tribute to the university Members of the last Parliament. We must view the whole of this matter in a larger framework. We must consider the Members who have represented the universities decade beyond decade for centuries in the past, and who, when the Government have made the graceful concession which I am confident they will make on the Committee stage, will continue to represent them for further decades through more centuries still. It is in that broad setting that we must consider this question.
  Listening to the speeches by the Home Secretary and others on the opposite side of the House, I endeavoured to discover what was the real reason for seeking to abolish university representation. So far as I could understand it, it came down to one principle—to the abolition of the plural vote and the establishment of the principle of one man, one vote. Surely, that is a rather slavish adhesion to a mere formula. Is it suggested that a Govern-
  1024
  ment which can nationalise coal and transport, which can bend the medical profession to their will, which can issue 2,916 Statutory Rules and Orders in a year, cannot say, "We will abolish plural voting with the single exception of the university vote"? Are we, out of a mere slavish adhesion to logical consistency, to avoid doing a thing which may be good in itself?
  The question to which I want to address myself is precisely that—whether university representation in this House is or is not a good thing in itself? The only question we have to consider today is whether the House is better off with university Members—not necessarily with the present university Members—or without them? I believe that it is better off with them. After all, we are too few to do any harm, but we are enough to do a certain amount of good. We are too few to do any harm; for what are 12 in a House of 620, even if all the 12 are of one political colour? At the last General Election, out of the 12 university Members elected, seven were elected as Independents, and I think it is safe to predict that we shall never have all 12 university Members of one political colour, and that about 50 per cent. of that number will always be independent.
  As to whether the House is better off with university Members, never was there a time more inopportune for the advancement of the proposal which is contained in this Bill. Whatever the material difficulties may be, we ate in the midst of an immense expansion of our educational system. There is the whole of the very important Education Act of 1944 to implement; there is the question of the development and coordination of the grammar, modern, and technical schools; there is pressing—and will be for a long time—the grave question of staff shortage, and the difficulties arising from the competition of more lucrative employment which draws away from the schools the men they so urgently need; there is the question of the intake of primary school children into the public schools, in regard to which I may observe that the public schools are making every effort to carry out that principle, and that the difficulty rather lies on the other side.
  All these questions intimately concern university Members, although I am not suggesting for one moment that university

  1025
  Members have any monopoly of education. For instance, the hon. Member for York (Mr. Corlett), the hon. Member for Southampton (Mr. Morley), my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) and the Home Secretary himself are evidence that the interest in education is widely spread. At the same time the pressure upon a Member who represents a constituency of 60,000 voters is very heavy. He has every kind of preoccupation, and it is difficult for him to concentrate on pursuing the progress of educational effort in different fields. The university Member is left free to do that, and, to the best of his ability, he does it. Further, graduates who are teaching in various schools—there are far too few of them, and I hope the number will increase rapidly—naturally and rightly turn to their university Member in any difficulty which confronts them in the pursuit of their profession. From that point of view alone, there is an important service which university representatives can and should perform in this House.
  But let us take the universities themselves. I do not intend to follow the Home Secretary, in his excavations into history yesterday, whether with the assistance of the Dictionary of National Biography or of articles by the junior Burgess for Cambridge University in the lesser Press. It is a matter not merely of historical interest but of some practical significance that Parliament and the universities should have grown up so much side by side, that the first Parliament should have been summoned and the first colleges in Oxford and Cambridge taken shape almost simultaneously in the latter half of the 13th century. Throughout history the universities have done much to make the work of this House possible. The business of the House is to carry on the Government of the country, and the universities provide the store of human material by which that Government can he carried on and the administration staffed. In the ancient Bidding prayer which precedes the University Sermon every Sunday at Cambridge—and, I fancy, also at Oxford—there occurs the passage:
  "that there may never be wanting a supply of persons qualified to serve God in Church and State, let us pray for a blessing on all seminaries of sound learning and religious education, particularly the universities of this land."
  Shorten that, if you will, by eliminating God—and a good many people seem able
  1026
  to eliminate God nowadays. Shorten it further if you will by eliminating the Church. It still remains true that the universities are today providing a supply of persons qualified to serve the State—civil servants, scientists, doctors, Labour Members and Conservative Members in this House. The association of the universities with the Government and with this House has, throughout history, been close and beneficial to both.
  It is not unimportant to remember that times are changing rapidly in regard to the universities. The wheel has almost come full circle. When the universities came into being it was because a few poor scholars gathered round gifted lecturers in Oxford and Cambridge, before even the colleges of either university had taken shape. Oxford and Cambridge began by being poor men's universities. In the meantime, it may be admitted, to a large extent they became the abode of privilege, but today that is not the case. I listened yesterday to the impressive words spoken in this House by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) when he told us how much he had hoped in his youth for the benefits to be derived from study at the University of Oxford. I gathered that the obstacle in his case was financial, but that obstacle has practically vanished. We are certainly very near the time, if we have not reached it yet, when any boy or girl whose abilities justify a university education will not be deprived of it merely because of lack of means. If university representation continues, as I hope it may, it will be from trade unionist homes that many of the university Members will come.
  The universities are now facing new demands put forward in particular in the Barlow Report which laid down that the interest of the country demanded that the numbers of students at the universities should be increased from 50,000 to 100,000. That is a very serious proposition involving questions of finance, buildings and staffing, all of which concern not only the universities but this House and the respective Ministers. Let me revert to the claim which was made by the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) that, while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had served the universities well in the matter of finance. I desire to endorse that claim to the utmost. I would like to assure the right hon. Gentleman of the appreciation that was

  1027
  by the universities at the broadminded and generous way he met any request from the universities for funds.
  Sir A. Salter: Would the hon. Member allow me to interject? I believe that the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) made that statement in a reference to me, because I said I thought the Government's blow at the universities a surprising one, in view of their previous record in regard to the universities. I would not like the House to think that I differ from my hon. Friend in this matter.
  Mr. Harris: I only desire to record my personal opinion not that of my university in regard to the action of the late Chancellor and the way in which he dealt with university matters. Let it be remembered that even if the number of students at the universities is doubled, they will still stand in a far smaller proportion to the population than is the case in the United States and other countries. In all these matters the State and the universities must go hand in hand. Financial assistance from the State is needed to supplement the immense generosity of pious benefactors of the past, and of men of public spirit in the present. Let us remember what Bristol owes to the Wills family, Reading to the Palmer family, Hull to the Reckitt family, and Oxford in respect of the new college endowed by Lord Nuffield.
  Both public and private effort are needed in this supremely important field of education. It is because universities play so large a part in our national life and because their destiny has been so closely associated with the destiny of Parliament that I submit it is in the public interest and in the interest of this House that that association should be continued, as the Speaker's Conference proposed. This Debate was opened by the Home Secretary. It is to be wound up by an ex-Home Secretary. No function, I believe, which has to be carried out by those who occupy the office of Home Secretary can give them so much satisfaction as does the power to grant a reprieve. I trust that the Home Secretary and the Lord President of the Council will give themselves the satisfaction of reprieving university representation from the sentence which it is receiving in the Bill.
  5.16 p.m.
  Mr. Medland: I understand, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that the subject for discussion is the Representation of the People Bill. I have sat through the Debate and listened to a great many speeches and I have begun to think that the Debate had something to do with 12 particular representatives who, under the Bill, were being displaced from their seats. The Bill deals not only with the representation of the people, but with the redistribution of seats, and it applies to something between 600 and 620 constituencies. From the Debate so far it would appear that all the important people live in 14 constituencies, of which 12 are the universities and two are in the City of London.
  I support the Bill, not because I have any objection to university representation in Parliament, but because I think that the proper place for university representation is not the House of Commons but the more secluded, sheltered and quiet habitation known as "the other place."
  Mr. Wilson Harris: Is the hon. Gentleman prepared, in that case, to agree that the Minister of Education, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and other Members of the Government should be provided with places in the House of Lords?
  Mr. Medland: They have been elected for other constituencies, and not by unisersities. The discussion has been almost entirely around vested interests and their representation in this House. I would like to take it for a few minutes to the question of redistribution, as outlined in the Bill, and as it affects the ordinary people. We must, in the first place, make it very clear that more seats will be lost in the big cities and the large county boroughs by the operation of the Bill than in the universities or in the City of London. If the Bill goes through Parliament as it is, the result will be that thousands of men and women will have to accept as their representative one individual, whereas they previously had two or more representatives.
  Generally speaking, this Bill will carry on the process of democracy which has been in operation ever since my grandfather walked from a country town to Exeter to demand the vote. He did not live in a house which was rented at more than £10. The process has gone on from

  1029
  that stage, in those radical days when the Liberals fought this battle, and I remember the talk in the homes in those days about the right of ordinary folk to have a voice in the control and the destinies of their country. This Bill has brought us to the position where every man and every woman who has come to man's and woman's estate will be allowed to take part in all national and municipal elections, through their place of residence. That is a great advance from the days I can remember, and the days which my fattier can remember before me, and it is because of the fact that the Bill deals with ordinary people that I want to give it all the support I possibly can.
  There are one or two instances in which I hope the Home Secretary will, when we come to the Committee stage, have some regard to the proposals as outlined by the Boundary Commission. The Boundary Commission were given certain rules to which they should work. I particularly ask for some consideration in the application of these rules to devastated and blitzed cities. I am very grateful to the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) for the assistance which he rendered in this House yesterday; his words will carry much more weight than mine with the Front Bench. The right hon. Member had been to see a really devastated city. We take great exception in Plymouth to the fact that, because we were wounded and devastated, we have to lose some of our representation in this House. I am sure this House will be very sorry to part with my very distinguished fellow townsmen who represent Cambridge University, but I, too, am on the way out, according to this Bill, and personally I think that is a greater calamity.
  I want to appeal to the Home Secretary to have some regard to the position of towns like my own. In the rules which are issued, in page 145 of the Bill, it is stated:
  "The electorate of any constituency shall be as near the electoral quota as is practicable having regard to the foregoing rules; and a Boundary Commission may depart from the strict application of the last foregoing rule if it appears to them that a departure is desirable to avoid an excessive disparity between the electorate of any constituency and the electoral quota, or between the electorate thereof and that of neighbouring constituencies in the part of the United Kingdom with which they are concerned."
  1030
  That means where there is a discrepancy between the quota in one constituency and that of its adjoining constituency. What does this Bill do? In the two counties of Devon and Cornwall, the most southwesterly counties of the country, where we have rather a fraternity of our own—Cornishmen are proud of their peculiarities and their county, as is the county of Devon—there are 15 seats according to this distribution. These 15 seats are approximately divided into 11 for county constituencies and four for urban constituencies. In Devon, the county seats have an average of 50,000 electors for one representative, but the urban seats require an average of 66,520 to elect one representative—or 16,000 more voters than in the county area. In Cornwall, where there are five seats—all of them county and not very urbanised—the average required is 50,860 electors to elect one representative. Situated between these two counties is a city which, I suppose, after what I have heard today, is next to London as a famous city—I am not sure whether that is quite correct. It has loomed large in the history of this country; it has a very proud record on land and sea, and in every other respect, and in its past representatives in this House. Situated between two small rivers is this city which I am very proud to represent.
  Because the population of that city in four short weeks, and as a result of enemy action, dropped from 208,000 to 125,000; because, owing to the devastation there were no homes and people had to go over the borders into the county areas, the Boundary Commission now propose to take away one of the representatives from my city, leaving us with an electorate of over 70,000 in the two constituencies which are left; and that in spite of the fact that, since the date upon which the division was made and the electorate was based, the population has increased in only 12 months from about 170,000 to 187,000—an increase of over 17,000 people in 12 months, indicating that the population is returning to its normal habitation.
  My object in addressing the House and the Home Secretary tonight is to put up a very urgent plea that in Committee the Home Secretary will reconsider the position of a town like my own, and of other similar towns, so that we may have our

  1031
  representation restored, because our population will have returned. Within 12 months the electorate of the city's constituencies will be more than 158,000, if the process of the former population returning into the city goes on, and as the number of houses we have there increases; that is, two constituencies of some 70,000 electors each; or if we retained the old three, there would be 50,000 electors in each. It is for this reason that I make this appeal to the Home Secretary and to my other right hon. Friends. I do not know that there is any special virtue in having 615 Members of Parliament or 620. I hope that when we come to the Committee stage we shall be able to adjust these differences. Whether we include university seats or one or two for the City of London, I do not mind very much. What I am concerned about is that there should be at least one more representative from my own City of Plymouth.
  5.31 p.m.
  Mr. Henry Strauss: I must inform the hon. Member for the Drake Division of Plymouth (Mr. Medland), to whom I have often listened here and upstairs in the Committee rooms with pleasure, that I shall deal with the question of university representation. He need not be surprised that this has occupied so much of this Debate on Second Reading. Most of the other matters in which he is interested can be raised in Committee, but this matter raises a great point of principle which must be raised on Second Reading. It is wholly unnecessary for me to admit my own personal interest. It could not be greater. I agree that this proposal which I oppose may wipe me out. I shall not pretend that I do not mind. It would be insincere if I made any such pretence. Nevertheless I ask hon. Members in all quarters of the House to believe me when I say that I do not believe that that consideration is uppermost in my mind today. I believe that if they will listen to me with open minds I can persuade a number of Members in all quarters of the House that this is a foolish proposal, that it will not help in any way, and that it is, indeed, liable to injure many good causes which I hope command their assent and allegiance as well as ours on this side. I hope they will forget me and my shortcomings and
  1032
  consider only the universities which it is now proposed to disfranchise
  I admit that I love my own University of Oxford more than I have loved any other human institution. But that love is not exclusive: it extends to all universities and to the idea of a university. Universities really are unique communities, and they and their graduates have a unique contribution to make today to every part of our national life and to our prospects of survival. The eight universities which I now represent contain schools of science, of medicine, of architecture, and of the humanities which already are famous throughout the world. Yet, these eight universities are still in the full vigour of their youth. I hope to persuade the House that they ought to continue to have representation in this House.
  I think it was the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. W. Wells) who, in his speech yesterday, raised the question of the onus of proof. He thought the onus of proof in this matter rested on those Members who wished to retain the university seats. I think otherwise. I believe that, in view of the representation they have had in this House for three and a half centuries, in view of the unopposed recommendation of the Speaker's Conference, and in view of two decisions of the House in the last Parliament, one of which has been frequently mentioned in this Debate, and an earlier one from which I propose to quote later—I believe that, in view of all those considerations, the onus of proof really lies on those who would abolish these seats. I personally am not going to make a great deal of the onus of proof. I believe that, if the onus of proof rests where the hon. Member for Walsall said it rested, it is possible to discharge that onus. I shall say very little of the origin of these seats. Students, the more they study it, will conclude that there is some value in keeping this last survival of the representation of corporations. Originally, the rural corporations were the counties, the urban corporations were the boroughs, and King James I added the learned corporations or the universities.
  I shall say little of the fame and distinction of these seats and the Members they have brought to this House, though if hon. Members make a list at random it will be a remarkable list, containing

  1033
  such names as Bacon, Newton, Pitt, Palmerston, Peel, Gladstone, Anson, Hugh Cecil, Eleanor Rathbone, to mention a few. The Home Secretary yesterday said that many of these men, after having sat for universities, were rejected by their universities. That is true. It may happen in any seat. Surely, however, the point is that these great men served in this House for these universities, and the House was thus enriched. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis), the whole constitution of these seats was very much altered in 1918.
  I would, before I pass from this general point about this franchise, answer one or two arguments that were made by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen yesterday and today. I think both the Home Secretary and the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) spoke as though it was greatly to the discredit of the universities that the whole body of graduates have sometimes reversed the opinions of the residents. I do not share that view. I believe that if university representation is to continue the right people to elect Members for the university seats are the graduates—the whole body of graduates; and that, hitherto, has also been the view of the Socialist Party, as long as and to the extent that they have approved of university seats. I do not think that, on the whole, they would differ even today, if the universities were to be represented. I think it is quite right that the whole body of the graduates should be the electors.
  There was one small point made by the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland that I should like to mention. He said that what he liked about universities was the youth—the young men—in the universities, and went on to suggest that the voting was by a lot of elderly men, a clergyman here, a stockbroker there, and so on. I think he ought to have informed the House of what is the most obvious fact about university electorates—that they are younger electorates on the average than any other; they are youthful electorates. They are also rapidly growing electorates, with many young men and young women being added year by year.
  May I mention another matter of which I have had experience when travelling abroad? It was also mentioned by my hon. Friend the junior Burgess for Oxford
  1034
  University (Sir A. Herbert) in an earlier Debate. I refer to the opinion held abroad about the wisdom of our democracy in having these university seats. I experienced this in a curious way, as, indeed, did the junior Burgess who recounted his story in a Debate at the end of the last Parliament. He said that when he was on a mission abroad—I think in France—they learned that he was a Member of the English Parliament. That made very little impression. Then they asked, "For what constituency do you sit?" and he replied, "Oxford University." That thrilled them. The interesting point was that they thought this admirable tribute to the universities and to education was not some old institution that we had had through the centuries, but was part of the reconstruction then taking place.
  Mr. Keenan: Oh!
  Mr. Strauss: If the hon. Member likes to think it funny he is perfectly at liberty so to do. I am putting forward a case in which I believe, and I shall not be diverted by the frivolity of the hon. Member opposite.
  Mr. Jennings: He does not think at all.
  Mr. Strauss: I sometimes think that there are hon. Members opposite who cannot forgive their country for being great.
  Those who oppose the continuance of the university franchise have done so generally for one of two reasons. The first reason is one which is completely disreputable: dislike of the particular men whom the universities send to this House. The Secretary of State for Scotland must be included here. He seems to think that he or his party should have a veto as to those whom university electors may think fit to return to this House. When I heard the Secretary of State for Scotland use, as the justification for the alteration of policy incorporated in this Bill, the fact that the Scottish Universities and the English Universities had returned my right hon. and gallant Friend and myself respectively since the last election, I wondered whether the universities were being disfranchised to punish us or to punish the universities. I will pass from what I think hon. Members in all quarters of the

  1035
  House will agree is a completely disreputable argument for the abolition of the university franchise.
  I come to the argument which I believe convinces many hon. Members opposite, quite genuinely, that university representation is objectionable, and which they regard as a point of principle. I believe those hon. Members object to the university seats because their existence conflicts with the hon. Members' theory of Parliamentary representation. Now, that is a ground of principle. I believe the view to be shallow and confused, and I shall try to refute it; but I admit that there are many hon. Members who sincerely believe that to be the case. Let me address to them an argument which I ask them to consider carefully. If I understand their case on this point it is based on their belief that a fair and accurate representation of the people is secured automatically by a sort of electoral machine. A lot of fairly equal geographical constituencies, each returning one Member, are provided, and they believe that that will produce automatically at Westminster a microcosm of the nation. That is the theory. Unfortunately, it is quite untrue, and will not work. That result simply does not happen.
  Let me deal with the principle one man, one vote. We all admit that that would be a most admirable principle were we taking a plebiscite of the whole people on some particular question; then nobody would suggest any other mode of counting than one man, one vote. But that principle is quite unable, by itself, to secure a representative Parliament. It is quite possible to have geographical constituencies of approximately equal size, each returning a single Member; but minorities may be completely wiped out and not represented in this House at all, and some functions of the community may remain entirely unrepresented. That, of course, is why the one man, one vote principle is not even theoretically sound, unless it is accompanied by the principle one vote, one value. That latter principle cannot be secured merely by making geographical constituencies with approximately equal numbers of electors, each returning one Member. That has always been the theoretical case, and it is a strong case, for proportional representation. That is the only way in which large constituencies returning many Members could
  1036
  secure the one vote, one value principle. The great majority of the House—in which, I admit, I include myself—rejects, for reasons it believes to be good, the principle of proportional representation, with large constituencies each returning several Members.
  Once proportional representation is rejected, the question on any particular subject such as the university vote is simply this, which I commend to the consideration of all quarters of the House: is this House with university representation a better microcosm of the whole nation than this House would be without university representation? That is the honest question which hon. Members should put to themselves if they wish to discover whether or not the abolition of the university constituencies is a good thing. I wish this question could be discussed, not from the point of view of the privilege of graduates, but from the point of view of the benefit to the community. Let me dispose at once of two misunderstandings which I think often cause people to take a certain line on this question, which they might otherwise not take. Nobody would be such an intellectual snob as to suggest that graduates are the only educated men. Nor, so far as I know, would anybody suggest that university Members are any better than other Members. I do not for a moment suggest either of those two propositions. The proposition on which I base my case is that the universities and their graduates can, by returning Members to this House, benefit both the universities and this House, and can render this House a better microcosm of the nation.
  I particularly wish to refer hon. Members to a Debate in this House about 12 years ago, which I very well remember. I had only recently made my maiden speech, and was most anxious to take part in the Debate, although I was not so fortunate as to catch Mr. Speaker's eye. It was a Debate on the abolition of the university franchise, and took place on a Private Member's motion, lasting only from a quarter to four to half-past seven. In that Debate three university Members took part: Lord Hugh Cecil, Miss Eleanor Rathbone, and my hon. Friend the present senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn). I am sure the House will agree that they

  1037
  had three very dissimilar minds. But they were all completely united in their opposition to this proposal—[Laughter.] Certainly—and they all objected to it on the same ground. If there were time I should like to quote from that Debate, which took place on 26th February, 1936.
  Mr. Bing: I hope that the hon. and learned Member will also mention that amongst those who voted for the abolition of the university vote was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd George). He was, I think, a member of the hon. and learned Member's party, and now sits on the Front Opposition Bench.
  Mr. Strauss: He was not a member of my party. I was addressing my argument to the merits of the case, and I am not in the least interested how the right hon. and gallant Gentleman then voted. Lord Hugh Cecil so well expressed the point I am making on the microcosm of the nation that I want to read this passage:
  "The real thing is that the House of Commons is a body representing the community. It is really the mind of the Commonality of the Realm which is spoken by this House, and from that point of view there is a good deal to be said for university representation. If we were to change our representative system at all, it would be better to pursue the model of university representation and divide our constituencies, not according to geography, but according to vocation. There is much to be said for the view that different professions, different classes of labour and so on, should each send their representatives to Parliament."
  He then pointed out that we should have a better microcosm of the nation, but explained that it was impracticable. I now come to the speech of my predecessor, Miss Eleanor Rathbone. It was a brilliant speech, so well expressing what I believe is the true case for this franchise, that I hope the House will bear with me if I quote what she said. She pointed out, after pouring ridicule on the so-called progressives who were so illiberal as to wish to abolish the university seats, that the professional classes would not be certain of any representation in this House if the university vote were abolished. It is perfectly true, of course, that a large number of graduates, lawyers and so on, are elected for other constituencies, but they are not elected by graduates. Let me read from the passage, because I think it puts the point very well:
  "This helps to conceal from the public a fact, which is nevertheless a fact, that except
  1038
  through the university franchise, the present Constitution provides no security at all for the direct representation in this House of what are sometimes called the middle and upper classes, but are much more the professional grades and the upper grades in industry and commerce, which are mainly recruited from university graduates.
  Members of the professions, lawyers, doctors and people very high up in commerce, are in this House, and plenty of them, perhaps in too large numbers, but they are not elected by members of their own class, but are here by favour of the proletariat, and at any time that favour may be withdrawn. It is often argued that because the majority of the voters do return plenty of professional people, plenty of members of the learned professions and the upper grades, that we ought to be satisfied that those professions and those grades do not need any security from direct representation I am a woman and I belonged for the greater part of my life to a grade that had not at that time either votes or anything except its influence to depend upon We were always told that it was all right because we could influence men, and from men we could get all we wanted. In the same way, the middle and upper classes and the learned professions are told that they do not need the security of direct representation, because they can get representation enough through the favour of the proletarians. I suggest, if we take a broad view, if we really think of the theory of democracy, that that is not satisfactory.
  What we want is a Parliament which represents all the grades of the community, which represents them, not because they are wealthy, but represents every aspect that can contribute something important to the structure of society. If you have a Parliament which only represents one class, even if it is the majority class, I say that that Parliament is not a true picture, is not a true mirror of the people. It is just about as much the mirror of the people as—I remember saying this here once before—a pot of Bovril is a true representation of an ox"
  A little later on she says:
  "Because the members of the professional occupations are so scattered, they cannot secure even a single direct representative of their own, except through the university votes. I agree with the statement of the noble Lord that in this Parliament we want something of functional representation. I should like to see more of it; though I detest Fascism in every other respect. I think this House would be a very imperfect representation of the real people if it were not for the accident, to which I have alluded, that most of the big occupations are localised, and, therefore, can get representation without direct functional representation, but the learned professions and middle and upper grades can only get direct representation through the university vote."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, z6th February, 1936; Vol. 309, c. 485, 508–510.]
  The question was asked yesterday: "What about the miners? Do they not need representation as much as university

  1039
  graduates?" The answer is, "Certainly," and if the miners were unable to return a single Member in any constituency, there would be much to be said for their functional representation.
  Mr. Leslie Hale rose—
  Mr. Strauss: I do not want to detain the House too long, so perhaps the hon. Member will forgive me for not giving way. I want to put this argument.
  Dr. Santo Jeger: Mussolini put it all right—the argument for a corporate State.
  Mr. Strauss: If the hon. Member really believes that there is any resemblance between Mussolini and the late Miss Eleanor Rathbone, he is welcome to his view, but it is so fantastically silly that I will not deal with it.
  The next point with which I will deal is the method of election. It was referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson), and it should be in the minds of hon. Members. The election for the university seats depends almost entirely on the written word. No other method is possible, because the electors are scattered throughout the world. It depends entirely on the written word, and on a continuous and reasoned argument. The candidate for a university seat can state his beliefs and his views on politics in a document running from 2,000 to 3,000 words with the knowledge that his electors will read it. The election address is his only substantial expense. There is something rather splendid in the fact that a man who has something to say can be nominated, and by putting his beliefs into a reasoned document stands a good chance of election. It is perfectly true that it enables Members to get into this House who might not be willing to stand in any other circumstances, as in the well-known case of my hon. Friend the junior Burgess for Oxford University.
  Some people say that because a man of no party can enter this House by this method a man who does belong to a party should therefore not be elected to this House by that same method. If hon. Members will consider the argument for a moment, they will see that that is not really the case. I agree, of course, that a man is not fit to be a Member of Parliament unless he is capable of forming his
  1040
  own judgment on events and on the main issues of politics and bases his actions on principle. But is it impossible for such a man to belong to a political party?
  There is no reason whatsoever to suppose that a man who belongs to no party will have a more independent mind or judgment, or show himself capable of more integrity of purpose than a man who does belong to one of our parties and tells the electors to which party he belongs. If there is anybody in any quarter who thinks that, I beg him to ask himself four simple questions: Does he wish his representative to be a man who has never thought about politics at all? Does he wish his representative to be a man who has thought about politics, but has been unable to make up his mind? Does he want his representative to be a man who has thought about politics, has made up his mind, but has never found any other men who agreed with him? Lastly, does he wish his representative to be a man who has thought about politics, has made up his mind, has found a party of men who agree with him, but thinks it better not to tell the electors who they are?
  The Secretary of State for Scotland and the Home Secretary yesterday said that I had been returned as a Conservative and that I hold the same views as I held in the last Parliament. That is quite true. I was a Conservative in the last Parliament. I stood as a Conservative for my present seat, and it was as a Conservative that I won it.
  The same applies to my right hon. and gallant Friend who won his seat for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot). His case was really such that the House ought to consider it. The universities for which he stood desired his return so overwhelmingly that every other candidate forfeited his deposit. Is there any hon. Member in any quarter of the House who thinks either that the Scottish Universities ought not to be allowed to return to Parliament the man they so much wanted, or that he ought not to have been allowed to say to what party he belonged? Really, this new democracy uttered by the Secretary of State for Scotland, and implied by the Home Secretary yesterday, this doctrine that anybody outside the constituency is entitled to tell the constituents whom they shall and whom they shall not elect, implies fantastic exercise of tyranny unworthy to be put

  1041
  forward from the Front Bench. One hon. Member talked about these university constituencies as pocket boroughs of the Conservative Party. Do hon. Members opposite think that a pocket borough of the Conservative Party would return Eleanor Rathbone and Mr. Harvey?
  I must say a word about the constitutional position. I shall add little to what was said this afternoon from the Opposition Front Bench, except that it must be absolutely obvious that if we do not proceed by attempting to get agreement in a Speaker's Conference and carrying such agreement out, the result must be that after every general election there may be a constitutional revolution. The Leader of the House the other day and the Home Secretary yesterday taunted the university Members and the universities with not having seen what was coming to them and for not having noted this threat in the papers. Several speakers have mentioned the statement by the Lord Chancellor in another place, and I do not need to refer to that again, but I wish to refer to what was said on the same day in this House. My right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) questioned the Prime Minister about the words contained in the Gracious Speech, and expressed the hope that the recommendations of the Speaker's Conference would be followed. In answer, the Prime Minister used these words:
  "The right hon. Gentleman raised some points with regard to the Redistribution of Seats Bill. That is brought forward from the Speaker's Conference, and I am sure he will await the Bill before he passes any comments on the details of it.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st October, 1947; Vol. 443, c 33.]
  On the 21st of that month the Prime Minister said "await the Bill," and the Lord Chancellor in another place said that the report of the Speaker's Conference and two other documents showed precisely what it was proposed to do. Subsequently we read rumours in the Press that the seats would be abolished.
  One of the graduate bodies of the universities that I represent then wrote to me and said, "You see these threats in the papers. Ought we not to take action?" In reply, I called their attention to the recommendations of the Speaker's Conference and to the answer given by the Prime Minister here and the Lord Chancellor in another place, and I said that I believed that the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor and the Home
  1042
  Secretary, who was going to conduct the Bill, were all honourable men, and that I thought it would be intolerable to believe, and act on, Press rumours. Now the Leader of the House and the Home Secretary taunt the universities and their representatives because we had some faith in their colleagues. Last Saturday the graduate body of one of the universities I represent invited graduates of that and all other universities, and, at their invitation, I addressed them on this proposal. Socialists were present and proclaimed themselves Socialists. With an insignificant minority, they were unanimously against this proposal.
  I feel passionately about this matter. [Laughter.] I know hon. Members opposite think it is amusing to feel passionately about anything. I believe this threat to the university franchise is an injury to the universities and to this House; but, apart from the injury which it can do to those two institutions, I believe, above all, that the proposal is completely stupid. It is not only Tories and Liberals who now realise the threat to freedom in this country. [Laughter.] I thought it was not only the Tories and the Liberals, but perhaps it is. I thought from some recent speeches of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he, too, held that view. The last people in most countries to go down before totalitarian ideas and threats to freedom are the universities. When one is very busy nationalising the production and distribution of most other things, it is very easy to be tempted to go on to nationalise the production and distribution of ideas. Against that the universities will always stand, in the interests of the public and of the nation, and, above all, in the interests of truth.
  There are many grounds on which this proposal to abolish the universities is disastrous. I beg hon. Members, in whatever quarter of the House they sit, to realise that not only are these reasons which I have given reasons that deserve consideration, but that, if these seats remain, by no possibility can they ever seriously affect the distribution of parties in this House. By the system of proportional representation, in force in Oxford, Cambridge and the Combined English Universities, any body of opinion that can win one third of the first choices of those voting plus one automatically get their man elected to this House.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): The hon. and learned Gentleman is really going into far too much detail. Many of the points which he has been raising are Committee points, including the point which he is raising now.
  Mr. Strauss: With great respect, Major Milner, with the Bill as it stands, that point cannot be raised in Committee. However, I have only one other sentence to add on that point. In the Scottish universities—[Interruption.] I do not know if hon. Members opposite think it decent to abolish the franchise of all the universities and not even to give a decent hearing to someone who is stating their case? I will tell the House exactly what it is doing. If it is determined to abolish the university seats, a future Parliament will restore them. Then the position in the universities will be that it will go down to history that the Socialists swept their franchise away and another party had to restore it. In spite of the advantage to us, I do not want that to happen.
  At the present moment, in the Scottish universities, any body of opinion that can win one-quarter of the first choices of those voting plus one gets its man into Parliament. Is there anyone in this House who believes that there is any great party in the State that cannot confidently hope to win some of those seats? Of course, if they continue, seats will from time to time be won by all parties and by Members who do not belong to any party. It is not true to say that no Socialist ever won a university seat. I believe that the Welsh university seat was once won by a Socialist. Nor is it true that no one sympathetic to the creed of hon. Members opposite has ever been elected. Sir John Boyd Orr was not unsympathetic on many points; neither was Miss Eleanor Rathbone.
  Mr. McKinlay: Who was it that drove Sir John Boyd Orr out of this House?
  Mr. Strauss: Who drove him out? He took another job and then resigned his seat. The point I was dealing with was whether there was any hope of a person sympathetic to the views of hon. Members opposite winning a university seat—[Interruption.] I am sorry if hon. Members opposite consider all these matters unimportant. I assure them that they are not. The contributions that the universities and their graduates can now make
  1044
  to the survival of this country are invaluable. They wish to make them. This attack on the university seats is interpreted in the universities to my knowledge as an insult to higher education, as an insult to the universities, and as a final undeserved blow to the professional classes.
  6.12 p.m.
  Mr. Ronald Mackay: I think the House has listened for sufficiently long, particularly during the last 50 minutes, to the case put forward with regard to the university seats, so I do not propose to proceed with that argument. I think that the way this Debate has swung to one side in regard to the university seats is out of all proportion to the merits of the Bill as a whole, and to the many other important questions that have to be considered in connection with it.
  I would like at the beginning of my speech to refer to the speech made by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) yesterday, and to deal with some of the points that have been followed up as the result of what he said. We have heard a lot about the idea of "one vote, one value." I am all for showing that we get the best of what we can in a representative way in this House. The idea of "one vote, one value," is a complete illusion, as it must be when an election takes place. In Alice in Wonderland, "one vote, one value" may have a meaning because every one wins the race, but in an election every one does not win the race. If there are a hundred voting to elect two people and those two people get 35 votes each, there are 30 votes that must inevitably be wasted.
  It is fantastic to listen to the speeches made today and yesterday, particularly from the other side—and I re-read the speech of the Leader of the Opposition—and to be told that the Tory policy is "one vote, one value." What does this phrase mean? Are we not, at a time like this, with so many reform Bills and so much discussion of this whole problem, entitled to have something better as a banner thrown at us? In any election that takes place there must be a number of votes that are wasted. That is the whole reason for an election taking place. If there were

  1045
  not a number of votes wasted, there would be no election.
  The second proposition which the Leader of the Opposition put forward was, of course, the principle which the Tories delight in today, and which I say in all seriousness is completely dishonest. That is the principle that this Government is not representative of the people because they were returned on a minority vote in the general election of 1945. The Leader of the Opposition, in his broadcast last Saturday, said that the Government represent only a minority of the electors. He said yesterday that it took 30,000 votes in 1945 to elect a Labour Member of Parliament and 45,000 votes to elect a Conservative Member of Parliament. In all seriousness I ask hon. Members opposite to consider this matter properly and to recognise that the whole basis of government in this country has been that the party which gets the largest number of votes and Members is the party which governs the country. It is not a question of whether the party gets a majority of votes.
  I suggest that this quibbling and dishonesty ought to be given up. It is bad for the democracy of this country and for people who take a responsible position in the politics of the country to tell the country that the Government do not in fact represent the people as a whole. Why should the Tory Party complain in 1947–48 when they have lived and benefited by this system for the 25 years between the two wars? In 1918, a Tory Member was elected on 13,000 votes to 51,000 which a Labour Member needed to get elected. In 1922, it was 18,000 for a Tory Member and 30,000 for a Labour Member. In 1924, 19,000 for a Tory Member and 38,000 for a Labour Member. In 1929, 34,000 for a Tory Member as against 29,000 for a Labour Member. Then we had a change. In 1931, it was 29,000 for a Tory Member and 144,000 for a Labour Member. In 1935, 29,000 for a Tory Member as against 59,000 for a Labour Member. The average for the parties, including the 1945 election, taking the eight elections since the first world war, was 27,000 votes for a Tory Member elected and 51,000 votes for a Labour Member elected. I think that it is sheer dishonesty for people who take part in Debates in this House not to recognize
  1046
  that the whole basis of Parliamentary government in this House has been that the party which gets the greatest number of votes is the majority party and carries on. It is wrong that the position should be misrepresented.
  If hon. Gentlemen want to take it further, let us look at the results. The results are that in 1918 the Conservatives had a majority of 272 more than they should have had in Parliament. In 1922, the majority was 171 more than they should have had; in 1923, the majority was not so large, only 14 more than they should have had; in 1924 it was 242 more; in 1929, it was 45 more; in 1931, 246 more, and in 1935, 190 more, with an average for the last seven Parliaments of a majority of 155 greater than they should have had if the votes cast had been correctly representative of this House. I think it is time that they gave up that sort of argument.
  There is a third point which I want to deal with shortly, and that is the argument put forward about a breach of faith. I find this point exceedingly difficult to follow. We have heard arguments on the matter from both sides of the House, and it has been adequately dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland this afternoon. What is the position of an hon. Member like myself who had not the honour to be a Member of the last Parliament, and, therefore, did not have any part in those arrangements. The majority of the Members on this side of the House were not in that position either. At the time of the Speaker's Conference, I wrote an article in the Press, not with any disrespect to Mr. Speaker, criticising the decisions which were made. I thought they were monstrous decisions, and they were decisions which were made by a House of Commons which had long outlive its usefulness. It was a Parliament which did not represent the people of this country in 1944, as the elections of 1945 showed. To suggest that we should be bound by any decisions arrived at then seems to me completely to undermine the whole basis of the Parliamentary system, and particularly is that so when it is suggested that this Parliament should be bound by the actions of the previous Parliament, when the majority of the present Members were not in that Parliament.

  1047
  The Labour Party have stood for the proposals in this Bill for many years. They put forward the suggestion for the abolition of the university seats in the Ullswater Committee of 1930. It was include in the electoral Bill of that year. As I have said, they have stood for the whole of the things in this Bill and they have campaigned up and down the country against plural voting as such. I wish that the Home Secretary had not included these things in this Bill, and some of us back benchers would then have been in a position to move an Amendment. Should we then have been accused of a breach of faith, because of things done in the last Parliament to which we were not parties. The whole position is a completely ridiculous one.
  Sir A. Salter: I did not accuse the hon. Member of a breach of faith, nor those other private Members of this Parliament who were not Members of Parliament at the time of these transactions. But surely the hon. Member would not apply his argument to the Ministers now in the Government who were in the Government of this country at the relevant time, and especially he would not apply his argument to the Ministers in this Government who were Members of the Speaker's Conference?
  Mr. Mackay: I am obliged to the senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter), for whom I have very great respect, but I think the point which he has made illustrates the point that I wanted to make. There are two distinctions. The first distinction has been made from the Front Bench this afternoon, that the decisions of the Speaker's Conference were only for that Parliament. In point of fact, if hon. Members opposite will look at the Representation of the People Act, 1945, they will see that the provisions of the Speaker's Conference with regard to university seats are embodied. Other recommendations from that Conference, such as changes in the fee paid by university voters, were also abolished. I want to suggest quite definitely that the Speaker's Conference came to decisions which were embodied in a Bill passed through this House, but to suggest that the Members of the Coalition Government who were parties to the Speaker's Conference are bound in this Parliament seems to me to be absolutely wrong. Whatever
  1048
  was binding at that time does not extend from that Parliament to this. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), for whom also I have a deep respect, suggests that we took an advantage.
  Mr. Churchill: I did not mean that hon. Members opposite took an unfair advantage but an advantage given by the arrangements, without having any recognition of the other part. That does not apply to the hon. Member, for North-West Hull (Mr. R. Mackay), but to those hon. Gentlemen who were parties to it.
  Mr. Mackay: That is unworthy of the intelligence of the right hon. Member for Woodford. Let us follow it out. The suggestion is that because a group of people, Conservative, Labour and Liberal, got round a table to discuss problems, including the problem of giving the vote to the people in local elections and it was decided to extend the franchise for local elections, that that was the only part of the bargain from which we got any advantage. As the Secretary of State for Scotland showed very clearly this afternoon—[Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but perhaps some of us looked at it more simply than hon. Members opposite.
  My right hon. Friend made the point that we were confronted with the fact that people coming home from the war were without homes, and we all realised that they had got to have a vote in local elections. It was generally agreed on both sides of this House that this was a sensible, fair and proper thing to do. In so far as a large amount of the taxation which we all pay goes to the local authorities in grants, the old idea of a ratepaying qualification is completely out-of-date. I had more respect for the intelligence of the Tory Party than to think that they believed that in the fourth or fifth decade of the 20th century in local government elections the privilege of money should remain. I do not think that that goes down at all.
  There was another interesting point in the speech of the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake), when he argued that constitutional changes of importance should be considered by an all-party conference before the changes take place. I do not want to go through the whole of the recent constitutional changes,

  1049
  but the fact remains that the Tory Government of 1925 to 1929 introduced a substantial change without any Parliamentary Conference when they extended the franchise for women from 30 years of age to 21. That was not done as a result of a party conference, and, therefore, there cannot be one rule for one set of circumstances and conditions and an entirely different one for another set.
  Let hon. Gentlemen opposite look at the Speaker's Conference which was held during the last war, and they will see in the Act which was passed as a result of that Conference the changes that were recommended. Moreover, they will see that the noble Tory Lords in another place voted against the things agreed to at the Speaker's Conference. These are things which should be remembered. It is all very well to say that this is a breach of faith on the part of the Labour Party and its Members, but the Tory Party Members have been doing this for many years. I do not want to argue that the Ullswater Committee was a case on all fours with the recent Speaker's Conference. It is important to bear in mind that decisions were arrived at in that Conference by majority votes, and were subsequently put into a Bill, which again was turned down by Conservative Peers in another place.
  Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe: The hon. Member for North-West Hull must face the facts. The Ullswater Conference broke down and Viscount Ullswater told the House that it was impossible for the Conference to go on. How can the hon. Gentleman suggest, as he did, that the conclusions of a Conference which broke down were incorporated in a Bill?
  Mr. Mackay: The right hon. and learned Gentleman should listen to what I was saying. May I go back and repeat what I did say, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has misinterpreted me. I said that I could quite agree that the Ullswater Conference was not on a par with the Speaker's Conference because of the fact that the decisions were majority decisions. Those decisions were made. The Conference only broke down on other matters. The Conference came to four decisions and four resolutions were passed, and I indicated that the resolutions were carried by majority votes. There were other matters on which the Chairman said, "I
  1050
  do not think it is worth while going on." That is why the Conference broke down.
  Mr. Churchill: I understand that the hon. Gentleman said that that a Conference, which ends in disagreement, is not on a par with a Conference which ends in agreement. We are all in agreement with him on that.
  Mr. Mackay: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman and I are agreed on something. In regard to this question all I was trying to put was that even in the last Speaker's Conference decisions were arrived at by a majority. There were votes of 29 to five and 25 to four as well as other votes of that kind. I am not asking for a moment that the Conservative Party should be bound by the majority or minority decisions arrived at in the Ullswater Report. What I am saying is, firstly, that, there have been constitutional changes in the past without an all-party conference, and the initiative in carrying them through has been taken by the Conservative Party. Secondly I am arguing that the Speaker's Conference does not bind those who have not been a party to the decisions arrived at.
  Mr. Churchill: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy. Is his point that because one part of the decisions are accepted which suit one party, the other part of the decisions, which are correlated and simultaneous, but which do not suit this party, should be rejected?
  Mr. Mackay: I should have thought that the whole position over P.R. in the 1918 Parliament came completely within that category. The decision was made at that time and the Bill even went through, but subsequently it was not given effect to and was scrapped. That was within the same Parliament. Here we have a completely different Parliament considering entirely new matters, and in no way are we bound. I did not intend to spend so much time on the preliminaries, but one has had a certain amount of welcome interruption from the other side.
  I want to look at the fundamental point of the Bill and to make some suggestions which the Home Secretary will be able to consider in the course of time. The Ullswater Report, although it was not agreed, contained a phrase which suggests the basis on which our Parliamentary system should work. It is:

  1051
  "The aim of an electoral that the composition of properly reflect the views electors."
  In support of that I will quote from the Vivian Report, which in many ways is better than the other Reports referred to by the Home Secretary. The Vivian Report says:
  "The essential basis of representative government in this country is that the main representative body of the legislature should consist of persons elected under conditions which confer upon them an equal representative status."
  We have had sufficient figures to show that during the last 20 or 30 years we have never had that sort of thing in this country. One of the great problems which we must really tackle is getting a better representative Parliament in that way. There are a number of reasons why we have never got that equal representative status. One factor is the university franchise, which the Home Secretary is dealing with in the Bill. The occupation vote is another, and that is being dealt with, and I welcome it. The unequal size of constituencies is another factor and that is being dealt with within the recommendations of the Boundary Commission's Report, but I suggest to the Home Secretary that it is not being dealt with adequately.
  Many cases should be brought under review. I will not go into details now because they are matters for the Committee stage. I will not argue the point which the Secretary of State for Scotland raised this afternoon, which was a very pertinent one in regard to the sizes of constituencies, but if it is right that 56,000 should be the average representation for Scottish hon. Members, why should England not have exactly the same sort of representation? On that basis England is being denied 91 seats by this Bill. If the representatives of English constituencies in this House were on the same basis as the average for the Scottish constituencies, there would be 91 more Members.
  There is a second aspect. The City of Norwich has 86,000 electors and one representative under this Bill. The constituency adjoining it at the south has 42,000 electors and one representative and the constituency adjoining it at the southwest has 44,000 electors and one representative. Therefore, the two constituencies to the south of Norwich with a total
  1052
  of 86,000 electors have two representatives in this House while the City of Norwich has only one representative. We ought to do better about representation of that sort. We could achieve something better than that, particularly as the new House will be the smallest House of Commons we have had for 100 years. One hundred years ago with one million electors we had 658 Members and today with 34 million electors we shall have 608. Surely there is nothing sacrosanct about 608.
  Mr. Ede: I said yesterday that there was nothing magical about it.
  Mr. Mackay: If there is nothing magical about it, perhaps the Home Secretary will meet us in the Committee stage in changing the representation in England so that that sort of inequality does not continue. The real problem, which has not yet been tackled, is that of the single-Member constituency. We cannot get a House that is representative if it is always to be on the basis of a single-Member constituency.
  I know that hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House at one time voted for a Commission for proportional representation. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford has been very eloquent on the subject on many occasions and with all of it I agree. I know that, on the other hand, there are grave disadvantages in proportional representation.
  Mr. Churchill: The hon. Member says that I have been eloquent on the subject of proportional representation. It is quite true that I expressed a view many years ago, which I have not seen any reason to dismiss from the region of theoretical principle, in favour of proportional representation in great cities. I have not expressed any views in favour of proportional representation as a whole, on account of the proved ill effects it has had on so many Parliaments.
  Mr. Mackay: I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman says. What he said in 1931 he put in general terms; in 1935 he put it in more specific terms. The point I want to raise is that many of us are apt to think that proportional representation has had a very bad result in other countries. In the main we get those views without looking at what has happened in other countries. The late Mr. Lees-Smith,

  1053
  in this House on the occasion of the Debate during the war on electoral reform, said that France and Germany were examples of countries whose system of representative government had failed because of proportional representation. That is completely incorrect. France has never had proportional representation. She had a block vote system in which the party which got the greatest number of votes got all the seats. In 1928 that statute was repealed and a single-Member constituency system was introduced, and the French elections before the last war were on that basis. Germany's system was a list system.
  This matter might be reviewed on the lines which have been suggested, that it should be confined to cities. I have the honour to represent a part of the City of Kingston-upon-Hull where there are four constituencies. On the vote cast at the general election the Conservative Party should be represented in this House. I can speak quite objectively, because if that had happened I would not be here, but I still think that is the right thing to do. Because the Conservative Party polled one-third of the vote in that city, they should have one representative. As it is, they have none because of the single-Member constituency system.
  We can look at this from the other extreme. In 1935 in the eleven counties in the south of England from Kent to Cornwall, the total vote for the Tories was 2 million, for Labour 800,000 and for the Liberals 300,000. The Tories got 77 seats, the Labour Party none and the Liberals two. No one on either side of the House can justify that system of representation; yet that can come back at any future election. It will be argued, and has been argued—I hesitate to take the point at this stage in view of the fact that one has had a little Liberal support—that only small parties will get back into Parliament and that we shall create an opportunity for small groups. That is not in accordance with the facts. I took the trouble last weekend to look through the voting in the 1945 election to see whether, if proportional representation had been in operation, the smaller groups would have gained, but in no case would that have happened. In Hull, where the Liberal candidates in each constituency did not receive sufficient votes to get them in, the Liberals would not
  1054
  have polled enough votes to be represented under proportional representation. The same principle applies to Bradford, Birmingham, Newcastle and all the other cities of the country.
  The day has gone by when in this country a system of this kind could give any assistance in three-Member or five-Member constituencies to small groups. The only effect of proportional representation at present would be to make the division between the Tory Party and the Labour Party at elections much more clear-cut and defined than it is, and to give them both fairer representation, and the more that happens the better for the politics of this country. So I want to suggest to the Home Secretary that he might consider this: you could have proportional representation in the cities, keeping the single-Member constituency, and if that were done, we would have a fairer system of representation than under this Bill.
  One of the most striking facts to anyone looking at the electoral system in this country is the large number of people who do not vote. There is a by-election taking place shortly in North Croydon, and the Conservative Member who represented that constituency in this House won it on a poll of 22,000, but 21,000 did not vote. At the last general election in 1945, out of 34 million, eight million did not vote. That may be due to the fact that people could not get on to the register for one reason or another, but it is a problem that should be tackled. We cannot work a democracy properly if eight million people are either not interested or are not able to vote Anyone who produces his registration card to the returning officer should be entitled to vote after making a declaration if, by some mistake, he has been left off the register. However, I want to take the matter a stage further.
  I want the Home Secretary to think about the introduction of what is called, quite wrongly, compulsory voting. This operates in our Dominions in most cases. The provision is not that someone has to vote, but that someone has to perform a specific act. He can go and vote or he can make a declaration saying he does not want to do so for conscientious reasons or because he does not like the face of the candidate, but he must perform a civic

  1055
  act because he is a member of the community and must take part in its political life. The result is that in perfectly free countries like Australia and New Zealand, you get a vote of 98 per cent. not by any totalitarian methods of force, but because the duty of seeing that everybody votes is thrown on to the returning officer and so is brought home to people in a way in which it is not in the ordinary methods of electioneering.
  Sir A. Salter: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that, on the whole, the value of votes is increased by self-selective elimination of those who do not trouble to go to the polling booth?
  Mr. Mackay: I do not think so, because the question is really one of getting people to know that there is an election and getting them to take part in it, throwing the responsibility not only on the parties to see that everybody knows about it, but on to the returning officer to see that everybody takes part. That is the effect it has in the countries where it is operated. I have lived in two of them. I have seen it work there. I have never found that there was any interference with the freedom of the individual; and it was more satisfactory to see a large poll.
  So I ask the Home Secretary to think about this. The machinery of government is very important. We have seen many countries with democracies in a form in which the machinery of government has been defective. The Home Secretary said yesterday that this was the final attempt to bring about full and complete democracy in this country. With respect, I do not think that is true. We have to go quite a way yet. Democracy is not a possession we enjoy, it is a kingdom we have yet to win. Government by the people cannot mean government by 34 million people, so it means representative government. The figures I have quoted this afternoon show quite conclusively that in the main this Parliament has never been representative of the votes cast, otherwise we would not have had the large Tory majorities we have had in the past. While I realise the enormous difficulties that can be found in some methods of proportional representation, there is a case for exploring the retention of single-Member constituencies and the
  1056
  combining of those together for voting purposes to get a fairer representation in this House. Without that, we shall not have a full and complete representative democracy.
  6.45 p.m.
  Lady Megan Lloyd George: I hope later to follow the hon. Member for North-West Hull (Mr. Mackay) in the very interesting speech he has just made, but before I do so, may I say that I do not intend to follow the very temperate speech made by the junior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Wilson Harris) and the not so temperate speech made by the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) in defence of university representation. I believe that the moment has come for the abolition of university representation. I am sure that hon. Members in all parts of the House will feel sympathy for the potential casualties, and that they will think it unfortunate that the guillotine should have fallen on their heads. At the same time, I believe, there is a place for university representation in Parliament, for the representation of men of science and of letters, for educationists apart from pure politicians—and I use the word advisedly—but the appropriate place for them is in a reformed Second Chamber, and I hope that they may some time in the near future find their place there.
  I listened with great interest to the allegations of bad faith made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) yesterday against Labour Members of the Speaker's Conference and the Government, allegations which were repeated today by the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) and which were, in some sense, refuted by the Secretary of State for Scotland. But I do not think that his speech clarified the issue very much. I happened to be a member of the Speaker's Conference of 1944, and I think the facts and the recommendations speak for themselves. What are those facts? First, there is the fact that the Conservatives assented to the assimilation of the municipal and Parliamentary franchise. The Secretary of State for Scotland said today that they did it out of conviction; but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford said yesterday that it was distasteful to the Conservative Party and greatly to their

  1057
  disadvantage, but they accepted it. No one will suggest that they accepted it from any altruistic motive.
  The second fact is that the Labour Party who, throughout their history have been hostile to university representation, did not challenge its retention at the Conference. The Secretary of State for Scotland said today that he and his colleagues had suddenly become convinced at the Speaker's Conference of the value of university representation, and that they had come to that judgment out of conviction. Well, it was a very sudden change—[An HON. MEMBER: "A sudden conversion."] Yes, perhaps more sudden than any since that which took place on the road to Damascus. But what happened then? The Secretary of State for Scotland then asked us to believe that because two university Members were returned to this House on a party label, he changed his mind back again, and became again convinced that there was no value in university representation.
  May I remind him that there was another recommendation made at that Conference to which no reference has been made at all in this Debate, that is the question of the abolition of plural voting. The motion was that no person at any election should vote more than once That recommendation was voted upon, and the result is incorporated in the letter which the Speaker sent to the then Prime Minister. That motion was defeated by six votes to 25. I would remind the House that there were only 15 Conservatives on that Conference. It becomes perfectly plain, therefore, that Labour Members must have voted against the abolition of plural voting. Is the Secretary of State for Scotland going to tell me that although they had always been unalterably opposed to that principle, they suddenly became convinced of the rightness of plural voting at the Speaker's Conference? I suggest that they had not changed their minds; I do not say they abandoned their principles but I do say that they struck a bargain. It certainly looks like it from the facts and from the recommendations. It looks as though a quid pro quo bargain had been made.
  The question has been asked, if there were a bargain what should have been its duration? It has been said in the
  1058
  Debate that the election of a new Parliament cancelled out that bargain. Surely, in the circumstances of the case, a new Speaker's Conference should have been called to consider the whole situation. I was a member of the Speaker's Conference, but I am still completely in the dark as to the nature of the agreement. It is important that the position should be clarified and I hope that the Lord President of the Council will make a statement to clear up the matter tonight.
  The right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) said last night that many constituencies were much too large, even under this Bill in its present form, and many great cities were underrepresented. That point has been made again by the hon. Member for Ladywood (Mr. Yates) and the hon. Member for the Drake Division of Plymouth (Mr. Medland). It has been pointed out, on the other hand, that Scotland and Wales have more than their share. If so, it is a new thing in their history. No doubt it will be put to us that a Welsh vote counts for 14 per cent. more than an English vote. I would point out that there is more justification for that than meets the Anglo-Saxon eye. The Scottish vote is of even more value, 19 per cent. There is no doubt from the figures that England in this matter is not being given a fair deal, but I am sure no Scottish or Welsh Member would have the least objection to England being given just treatment, so long as it is not at the expense of Wales or Scotland.
  A very substantial point was made by the hon. Member for North-West Hull, who asked why we should not increase the total number of seats? The Home Secretary said yesterday that there was no magic about the figure of 608, and there is nothing sacred about the figure of 615. It is really fantastic that the average number of seats for the past 47 years has been 655 and that in 1801, when there were one million electors, we had 655 seats, whereas now, with 32 million electors we are to have a House of 608 Members. I do not believe that can be justified under any circumstances, and I strongly support hon. Members who have made that complaint about under-representation of great cities and industrial centres.
  The hon. Member for North-West Hull quite rightly said that the fundamental point of the Bill is to see that we secure

  1059
  a representative Parliament. Are we going to get that under this Bill? The Speaker's Conference condemned, and I think quite rightly, circumstances in which we have small electorates of 32,000 or 42,000 returning one Member, whilst in another part of the country 100,000 or more also return one Member. Hon. Members in all parts of the House are agreed that that is indefensible, and it is the main reason for this Bill. We agree that it is indefensible, except in unique places like Anglesey.
  Whilst we condemn that as inequitable, how can we possibly accept, without any attempt to amend it, a system which means that 29,000 votes return a Labour Member, while 47,000 are required to return a Conservative, and 187,000 to return a Liberal? That surely is equally indefensible. Of course it has the advantage that it proves statistically that every Liberal Member is worth two and a half times a Labour Member. This matter affects all parties alike in one election or another. The hon. Member for North-West Hull pointed out how this system works, and how it affects every party in certain areas. He gave one instance and I will give another. Before the last election, 320,000 voters in Glamorgan returned three Labour Members, but 160,000 Conservatives had no representation in the House at all. The hon. Member also gave remarkable figures about the South of England, where Labour polled 136,000 votes and a single Member was returned, whereas the Liberals, with less than half their vote, secured the return of two Members. That is unfair. It is not just a hard luck story of the Liberal Party; it is much more than that.
  I am not pretending that this is not a matter of importance to a minority party, and we happen to be in that position today. But I believe it has a wider significance than that. After all, fair representation of the views of minorities is one of the acid tests of democracy, and the squeezing out of minorities is, unfortunately, one of the first signs of totalitarianism. This has a significance for Conservatives as well as for Socialists, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for North-West Hull. Both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party in turn have been the victims of this incalculable system, and they will be again. Unfor-
  1060
  tunately, all political parties forget that, and only remember it when they are in opposition, when the dice are loaded against them and it is too late. For 20 years, 20 disastrous years, the Conservative Party were in power in this country, but at the last election this system told against them unfairly. Today the Labour Party is still almost on the crest of the wave. Next time, or the time after, it may be its turn.
  I think it is much more than a purely party matter. I hope that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen are prepared to consider this question from a non-party point of view—[An HON. MEMBER: "No."] We have it now perfectly clearly that the Conservative Party is only interested in the electoral system from a party point of view. It has more than a party significance. If we consider the history of the last 20 years, and the sweeping majorities which have governed this country—Governments with large Parliamentary majorities but with a minority of votes in the country—we must surely agree that that cannot make for sound representative government.
  I would like to take as an illustration one election—the 1935 Election. It resulted in the Conservatives having 431 Members, the Labour Party 154, and the Liberals 21. If the number of seats in that Parliament had borne any relation to the votes cast in the country, the Conservatives would only have had 332 Members, Labour would have had 234 instead of 154, and we should have had 43. If that Parliament—and this is where the national significance becomes apparent—had been more representative of the nation, the whole history of those fateful years might have been changed, and I think would have been changed. Is that only a matter of academic interest, only a matter of interest to the Liberal Party, or has it wider significance?
  I believe that the present system weakens the effective working of democracy. I wish to quote in this regard an authority who I am sure will appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite, that is, the authority of Mr. Middleton, the former secretary of the Labour Party, who has said:
  "No one reviewing further electoral developments can afford to disregard the possibility of a recurrence of this distortion of democratic representation with all the consequences it may involve."

  1061
  Certainly the consequences involved by the election in 1935 were extremely serious and disastrous for this country. In the last 30 years there have been three major Bills on electoral reform, with smaller Bills intervening. This is the only one in which no attempt has been made to rectify the position. In 1931—and I encourage the right hon. Gentlemen the Lord President of the Council and the Prime Minister to recall this admirable part of their past—the Labour Government provided for a measure of reform in their Bill by the use of the alternative vote. Of course, the Lord President may say, and I have no doubt will say, that that was not put into the Bill because of conviction; he will say that it was put in because a pistol was being held to the heads of the Labour Government at that time, a pistol fully charged, held in a purposeful and relentless hand.
  Under the present system we have had a succession of Governments with large majorities but representing only a minority of electors in the country, with Socialists, Conservatives and Liberals in large sections of the country with no representation and a large body of minority opinion in this country inadequately represented. We have a system which cannot be held to represent the opinions of the electorate. I ask the Lord President of the Council if he will tell us tonight when he replies, whether he defends the present system, whether he thinks it equitable and just and whether he thinks it is even an approximate reflection of the electorate. I hope he will say it is not. He will do so if he is still the good democrat which I hope he is.
  I do not intend to commend to the House or to the Government any particular system. I will only ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will undertake to institute an inquiry, either by Royal Commission or by any other method which the Government prefer, to see whether any system based either on proportional representation or on the alternative vote, or a modified system of either, more adapted to our peculiar circumstances and national characteristics, could be evolved. I would beg him in all earnestness not to turn down such proposals. but at any rate to have an inquiry into this, because after all, in these days, when democratic government is on trial
  1062
  in all parts of the world, it is vital that this most ancient democracy of all should have a Parliament which adequately reflects the will of the people.
  7.6 p.m.
  Mr. Assheton: The hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) always delights the House with her speeches, and on this occasion I was sorry that the Prime Minister was not here during the early part of her speech. I hope that he will find time tomorrow to read what she said on the subject of the Speaker's Conference, of which she was a Member.
  I hope that the House will not think it unreasonable for me to intervene for a short time to say a word about the City of London, incomparably the greatest city in the world, a city which I am proud to represent and the city in which I have earned my living for a quarter of a century. Before I say anything else I wish to make some reference to the wounding, and if I may say so frivolous speech, made last night by the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr Bing) in which he attacked my colleague the senior Member for the City of London (Sir A. Duncan) who, I am sorry to say, is on a bed of sickness today and therefore cannot speak for himself. I do not need to remind this House that the influence and the value of a Member are not to be judged by the number of speeches he makes or the number of times he takes part in Divisions on Committee points. Not many Members of the House will have forgotten the speech which my right hon. Friend made on the occasion of the Debate on the iron and steel industry. I venture to suggest to the hon. Member for Hornchurch that the influence and effect of that speech on the well-being and the history of this country compares at any rate favourably with all the interesting contributions to which the House has had the honour to listen from the hon. Member for Horn-church. I do not need to add anything to what was said so well by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Sir D. Robertson) last night about my right hon. Friend's services to this country, because they are so well known to this House.
  The House yesterday had the experience of a visit from the Sheriffs of the City of London. Very few Members in this House

  1063
  have seen it happen before. I do not know what impression it made upon the House, but certainly the points which the petition made were of substance and ought to be given attention by the honourable House to which they addressed them.
  I shall not try to make a case for the City of London merely on the grounds of history, sentiment and tradition, though I suggest that all these things are important and should be taken into account. This House should remember the great part which the City of London played in the 17th century in support of Parliament in its great struggle with the Crown. The House should remember also that it was largely due to the City of London that later on, General Monk was able to rally the forces of democracy and restore the Parliamentary system. It is useful that the House should remember that it was the City of London that secured the freedom of the Press to report the Debates of Parliament. It is interesting that the House should remember, particularly some Members of it, that it was pressure from the City of London that resulted in Jews being admitted to full citizenship and to membership of this House. The House, I think, should remember all these things. It should remember also that the whole history of local givernment in this country derives from the history of the City of London, which established, as a separate entity, an independent unit of government at a time when such a thing seemed almost impossible in this country.
  The City has, of course, been represented here since the earliest days of Parliament. It has been represented 300 years longer than any of the universities whose position also is challenged, alas, under this Bill. Quite apart from the tradition, what is the position today? London is the capital city of England, and of the Empire. It is still the greatest financial and business centre of the world. I would quote some words from a right hon. Gentleman much distinguished in this House. He said:
  "Great new countries have been opened up very largely through the action of just this one square mile which surrounds the Mansion House. Just this little spot has had more to do as an instrument in developing these great new countries than any other country under the sun. More solid and substantial wealth throughout the world has been built up very largely by the action of this great
  1064
  City:"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th March, 1931; Vol. 249, c. 679.]
  Those were the words of the right hon. Gentleman the then Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. He was not a Member of my party or that opposite. Those were his views as to the importance of the City of London and its work.
  Today we are in a great financial and economic crisis. I would suggest to the Government that the need for invisible exports is greater today than it has ever been. We are very short of dollars, and it is the dollars which the City of London has earned in the past that are missing at the present time—largely owing to the restrictive action of the present Government. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Oh yes, certainly. It is the present Government who are preventing the restoration of the trade of the City of London. Hon. Gentlemen opposite supported the abolition of the Cotton Exchange in Liverpool. All I am suggesting is that never was the need for the restoration of these services greater than it is today.
  Is this the moment to deprive the City, with its experience, of the opportunity at any rate, to express itself in the councils of this House? Is it unreasonable that there should be one Member to represent the commercial and financial interests of the country? I would suggest to the House that it is not unreasonable that one Member should be retained and although I do not press that any man should have two votes, I do suggest that there should be a business qualification for the City of London and those who choose to take advantage of it should be registered upon the electoral roll of the City. Under the Bill as it stands the electorate will be confined to a small number of shopkeepers and caretakers. Under the Bill, as it is at present, the spokesman for the City of London as it is to be reconstituted and renamed, would hardly have a claim to speak for the interests for which the City stands in the eyes of the world. I do not think that any hon. Member opposite would really dispute that.
  The small size of the electorate of the City of London has been referred to. May I remind hon. Members that a very large part of the City of London has been destroyed by the enemy and the very great reduction in the number of electors is partly due to that cause. What is more, during the time of war a new system of registration was introduced,

  1065
  which made it far more unlikely that the business votes, on which the City franchise had been largely based, would be registered; because, under the present system which comes to an end under this Bill each voter had to claim his vote. Knowing what most voters are, is it to be wondered at that a certain number of them did not exercise their claim in time? I am suggesting that, had that not been in operation, there would have been a considerably larger electorate than there is at present.
  The Members for the City of London speak not only for those who are on the electoral roll. They speak also for 500,000 people who work in the City. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Oh. yes, they do. Believe me, I have considerable correspondence from those who work in die City, and who have no votes, but who are interested in what goes on, because it is their bread and butter. It is where they earn their living; and 500,000 people is 10 times the size of an ordinary constituency. Therefore, in one sense, the City of London can be said to be 10 times the size of an ordinary constituency. I would welcome a better plan for establishing the electoral roll of the City than the plan which has operated in the past. If such a plan could be devised I should be glad of it.
  What is the position today? I would refer once again to the vexed subject of the Speaker's Conference, about which much has been said. I think the speech which my right hon. Friend the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) made earlier in the Debate had a very powerful influence upon the House. I have before me the initial report of the Boundary Commission for England. I would draw the attention of the House to the fact that this report which, of course, is made by independent Commissioners under Mr. Speaker, was issued on 24th October of last year, within a day or two of the occasion when the Lord Chancellor expressed, in another place, his views on what was likely to be in the coming Bill—views which have proved to be so sadly at fault. I do not suggest that the Lord Chancellor was trying to mislead people. I think he must have been completely ignorant of what was proposed. About the same time, however, this Report of yours, Mr. Speaker, was issued. In it we read in Section 9 these words:
  1066
  "Before we could proceed with the formulation of our proposals on this basis, however, it became necessary to consider the effect of Rule 7 which excludes the City of London, from the redistribution procedure and leaves the decision whether its allotment shall be two seats or one to be determined by Parliament."
  That was the Speaker's Conference. That was what they interpreted these requirements to be, and what they stated on the 24th October, 1947.
  I do not wish to go into detail on the question of the bargain that was struck. That case has been admirably put by my right hon. Friends. I would say that when the matter came to be debated in this House in 1944, as a result of that Speaker's Conference, the line which the official Labour Party took then was to support the retention of one Member, at any rate, for the City of London. Whether there should be two Members or one was left to the decision of this Parliament but one Member, at any rate, was to be left. Reference to the record in HANSARD at that time will show what the Lord President of the Council said, and also what many other Members of the party opposite said, including the Secretary of State for Scotland.
  Mr. H. Morrison: I had a rough passage.
  Mr. Assheton: The right hon. Gentleman says he had a rough passage. I am certain he often does, but what he said in the House at that time, I am sure, represented what he thought then and, I believe, what he still thinks; he will have the opportunity of telling us tonight. He said then:
  "The City of London has a great place in municipal history. It has a great place in Parliamentary history also, and on the issue of the abolition of the City as a separate identifiable Parliamentary constituency—I am not talking about one or two Members at this point—the Government think it right that it should be preserved. I, as a good Londoner and a student of the City's history—centuries ago, the City of London played a great part in the establishment of British constitutional usage—would be sorry to see the separate Parliamentary representation abolished, even though the figures make a strong case for consideration the other way. We therefore lay it down that the City of London as a constituency shall be preserved."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th October. 1944; Vol. 403, c. 1618.]
  There are a great many other quotations from the right hon. Gentleman's speeches which I could make and I know he has taken the trouble to refresh his memory about them. Therefore, I will not worry

  1067
  him or weary the House with more of them.
  It surprises me to find Ministers adopting the attitude they are now adopting. To say, as some Ministers have said that the arrangement then made is not binding on this Parliament, seems to me to make utter nonsense of the idea of the Speaker's Conference. Why on earth have a Conference to carry us on for just a few months? There was no need because the Government of that time had the power to introduce whatever they liked. A Speaker's Conference is obviously for the purpose of trying to achieve some form of agreement among the principal parties of this House; I do not think it can be regarded in any other way.
  I would like to tell the House what I, personally, thought about this. A month or two ago, one or two hon. Members told me that they had heard that the universities and the City of London were going to be disfranchised. I said I did not believe it.
  Mr. H. Morrison: When was that?
  Mr. Assheton: A month or two ago, just before this Bill was issued. I said that I did not believe that was possible. I knew then that right hon. Gentlemen opposite had pledged themselves to this arrangement, and it never occurred to me for one moment that they would break faith. I had the privilege and honour of working with right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and with the Prime Minister and other Labour Ministers during the war. I came into close contact with them, and, though I differed from them on more than one occasion, on this or that, I had no reason then, nor have I till now to doubt their word. Quite frankly, it came to me as a grave personal shoc—
  Mr. Skeffington-Lodge rose—
  Mr. Assheton: I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman—to think this could have happened. I was reinforced in my view by what the Lord Chancellor had said in another place. I do not, for one moment, believe that he would have misled the Members of another place; I cannot understand how it happened. These confessions were made, and agreement was reached, but, now, all is thrown over by those Ministers. Although they are bound in personal honour to respect the
  1068
  agreement, they appear, nevertheless, to have been unable to resist pressure from some quarter. To me, it is a very sorry matter, and I cannot help hoping that on reflection, they will repent.
  I have put forward these considerations, and I trust that the fact that I am personally interested in this decision will not lead hon. Members to suppose that the views I have been putting forward are not seriously held, because they certainly are. It has been my duty, as one of the City Members, to put forward these views, and it is my belief that their acceptance would be in the interests, not only of the City of London and of the country, but of this House itself.
  7.26 p.m.
  Mr. Thurtle: I only wish to make a small point, but, in fairness to my constituency of Shoreditch, it is one which I think ought to be made. It concerns the proposal that the Boroughs of Shoreditch and Finsbury should be amalgamated with the City of London. You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that yesterday you had a Petition before you from the Common Council of the City. In the course of that Petition they said that there was not much community of interest between Shoreditch and the City of London. I think they were telling us in polite language that they did not want the City to be connected with Shoreditch. I wish to say on behalf of Shoreditch that that borough has no desire at all to he connected with the City of London.
  Mr. Assheton: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I would like to say that a point which I think has struck the City as very strange is that Shoreditch should seek to adopt the City of London, and. also, apparently, seek to purloin the historic name of its prospective adopted child.
  Mr. Thurtle: Shoreditch may not be as rich as the City, and may not have as much gold as the City, but it has a great deal more humanity. I also think that, if we look at the history of Shoreditch, we shall find that it is quite a long and honourable history. It does not want to have its identity submerged by amalgamation with the City of London. Of course, as Londoners, and as residents of Shoreditch, I admit that we are all proud of the history of the City of London.
  Mr. Assheton rose—
  Hon. Members: Do not give way.
  Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: The right hon. Gentleman would not give way to me when he was making his speech.
  Mr. Thurtle: I was saying that I hope the right hon. Gentleman the junior Member for the City of London (Mr. Assheton) will appreciate the fact that we are all proud of the City. But that sort of pride relates more to the past than to the present. We are proud, as he said, that the City was once the defender of the rights of Parliament. We are also proud of the fact that the City once made an excellent stand for the freedom of the Press. We have not forgotten John Wilkes and the way the City stood behind him. But those are things which happened long ago, and, since that time, the City of London has changed; the political outlook of the City has also changed.
  I can only speak from my own experience, but, in my political life, I think it is fair to say that I have found the City more concerned—and I say this with regret—with the power and interests of finance than with the rights of democracy. As far as the great social issues of our time are concerned, especially the issue of lessening the margin between extreme wealth, on the one hand, and extreme poverty, on the other, I have found a singular lack of enthusiasm on the part of the City of London. Nevertheless, I want to be fair to the City. It is entitled, in spite of the fact that it is now going to have only a small electorate, to play its part in the political democracy of our country. But it is not entitled, in my judgment, to have anything in the shape of privileges. It is not entitled, for example, to refer to the suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman the junior Member for the City of London—to expect that when the whole electoral system of the country is being changed, and the business vote is being abolished, if there is one single exception to be made it should be that of the City vote, so as to be able to return a City Member to this House I think that is asking for an extraordinary privilege. The City is entitled to its rights, but not to privileges, and there is nothing in the record of the City in the last too years—I do not go back further than that—which justifies such a claim.
  1070
  I have said that the Borough of Shore-ditch is not anxious to be identified with the City, nor is it anxious to have its name obliterated from the Parliamentary register, but, having said that, I must correct the City Sheriffs on a point which they made yesterday and to which I have already referred. They said that there was no large community of interest between Shoreditch and the City of London. I would agree with them to a certain extent. There is not much community of interest between the industrial, hardworking population of Shoreditch and the merchants, bankers, financiers, stockbrokers and company promoters of the City of London. There is not much community of interest between the workers of Shoreditch and those people, but that is only part of the story.
  The City petitioners were wrong in thinking that there is not a community of interest between the workers of Shore-ditch and what will be the new electorate of the City, because this new electorate will not be composed of the classes of people to which I have referred, but will be composed of watchmen, caretakers, firemen, policemen and the general hewers of wood and drawers of water in this great agglomeration of offices and warehouses. That is the new electorate of the City of London, and I think that between them and the industrial workers of Shore-ditch there will be a very strong community of interest, and I venture to predict—and it is always rash to predict—that, when the voting comes to take place, that community of interest between the new City of London and the workers of Shoreditch and Finsbury will be reflected in that voting.
  7.33 p.m.
  Mr. Maclay: It would ill become a Scottish Member representing a constituency so far North as mine to follow up the discussions between the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Assheton) and the hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle). I have felt that one cannot regret that so much time has been expended in this Debate on university votes and representation. Obviously, it is a matter of the greatest importance, and the whole question of good faith and the other points which have been raised were bound to take up a great deal of time. I would say, however, that it seems to

  1071
  me a great pity that we have not got another day for this Debate, because I know how many hon. Members wish to speak, and there is a great deal in this Bill which is of more importance than mere Committee points and which should be ventilated now. I had hoped to cover a certain number of such points, but I will cut them down, because I know how many hon. Members still wish to speak.
  The first point which I would like to raise is one of fairly major importance. There is no doubt that this Bill carries a good deal further the tendency which has been observed for some time past to merge, progressively, industrial interests with agricultural interests. It comes up in various ways, but, particularly over the last 50 years, in the progressive disappearance of constituencies such as my own, which is a group of burghs. There is another very good example of that in the Eddisbury Division, which is held by another Member of my party, and I would like to point out what has happened there, because I am quite certain that it is not in the best interests of the country particularly at a time like this when agriculture is of the first importance. Eddisbury, in its present form, is completely agricultural. Under the Bill, it will be split into three or four pieces, and each of these very small pieces will be dominated entirely, or very substantially, by the industrial vote. In my own constituency, the situation is exactly the opposite, and I only give this as an illustration of this major principle to which I am calling attention.
  The Montrose District of Burghs, as a constituency, has existed in this precise form since 1832, and, as a burgh constituency, for 100 years before that. It is now to be merged with large areas of the county, and the point I want to make is this. I am not sure whether anything can be done under this Bill or not, but it should be considered. Today, there is great importance in increasing agricultural production, and it is equally extremely important that we should try to draw population away from the heavily industrialised areas into the small country towns. Look at the problem facing the Member for a constituency such as mine, which wants to get more industries into the smaller towns. We have been fairly successful in recent months, but, if the constituency had been in its new form
  1072
  as it will be under this Bill, consider the problem that faces the Member.
  When it comes to moving industry and population, the interest of town and country are not identical. It may be argued that the best way to bring those interests closer together is to have one Member representing both, but I doubt if that is really the case. Some of the decisions which a Member has to make on whether to give full assistance to a town trying to introduce new industries are bound to be much more difficult if there is realisation that there may be substantial opposition from agricultural interests. There is the question of land and also that of changing the whole balance of labour in the district.
  I am quite convinced that it is infinitely better if industrial interests are represented by one Member who can see their point of view and press their case, and to have another Member who can produce and argue with equal emphasis the other point of view representing agriculture. I think the advantage there is that there is more chance of getting the correct answer, but there is a very real danger if this job is left to one man to serve both interests that he will have to shirk taking a decision at all, because he has the very difficult problem of holding the balance between the agricultural and industrial elements in his constituency.
  There is another general point on this Bill which has particular reference to Scotland. We have heard a great deal in the last few days about "one man, one vote; one vote, one value." I am wondering whether this is, in fact a sound democratic principle. I am assuming that one is not attempting to be completely logical in regard to our democratic constitution, because one must be clear that our system is not logical, and there is a great deal to be said for it never becoming completely logical. What is happening in Scotland now as a result of trying to be strictly logical is that we find the industrial area of Scotland—the Industrial Belt, as it is sometimes called—has no fewer than 45 hon. Members, of whom 22 are for the County of Lanark. There are four hon. Members for Fife, and I separate them because Fife is a kingdom of its own, and is likely to become more and more industrialised as the result of coal development. Then, for the whole of the

  1073
  rest of Scotland, there are only 22 Members. That must be wrong. This Bill has made a difference of one. My own constituency has gone, and the extra constituency has gone to the industrial belt.
  Many of us have been saying for a long time that we want a redistribution of the industrial belt population; but to reduce the number of Members for other areas is the wrong way to go about it. It is a difficult matter to correct this by Amendment unless there is substantial agreement that the tendencies I have described are harmful. I would be glad if the Secretary of State for Scotland would follow up the point I have made, and see whether there is any hope of an agreement which will prevent this over-emphasis on the industrial belt of Scotland at the expense of the non-industrial areas. I admit, however, that it is not strictly logical or in conformity with the "one vote, one value" argument about which we have heard so much.
  I turn to two minor points. Much to our surprise and consternation, we find that under this Bill it will once again be possible to make:
  "… contracts for payments on account of bands of music, torches, flags, banners, cockades, ribbons and other marks of distinction."
  The Home Secretary rather brushed this aside yesterday saying, "Well, anyway, the election expenditure is so small that people are not likely to pay very much for a band." In that case, I wonder why it has been allowed. Now that it is allowed, somebody may do it. If someone hires a band he will start a very bad and dangerous habit. There are many minor points which arise. Will one be allowed to make use of an organ in a hall? I hope that we may be told about that. One could hire bagpipes. There are all sorts of possibilities. I know that at the moment, if one is having a meeting in a big hall, one is not allowed to pay anyone to play the organ or, I think, to allow him to play it without payment. This may seem to be a minor point, but matters of great importance could arise from it. What do these words sound like:
  "bands of music, torches, flags, banners, cockades. …
  It sounds to me remarkably like Nuremberg before the war. I am endeavouring to be serious about this. We may start having this kind of show at an election,
  1074
  and it may be great fun for the first few occasions. But it has been a technique for working up some very ugly enthusiasm when things are difficult. For instance, one can do some very awkward things with torches. It has been one of our prides that our elections are fought on a sensible, sane basis. I hope that this permission will be withdrawn when we come to the Committee stage. There is a real danger which may not appear on the surface.
  Clause 35 deals with broadcasting from foreign stations. I do not know whether I will be popular with anyone when I say what I have to say. I seriously wonder whether something ought not to be done to stop altogether broadcasting during general elections, or certainly to limit the amount of broadcasting. There is a constitutional reason for this. It may become extremely dangerous if the appeal to the people is made direct by one or two, or three or four, big names. The efforts of the ordinary candidate at elections to fight the election, possibly on a party programme, and to get his views over to his constituents may be completely vitiated by the fact that at five minutes to nine his meeting empties, if anyone has come at all, because the people want to go home to hear a broadcast. If we get into the habit of allowing the main election speeches to be made over the wireless, it could easily make nonsense of our system of bothering to have candidates at all. We could easily end up with merely a lot of lists of party candidates for an election fought over the wireless. Also the question of party broadcasts during general elections raises extremely difficult problems of who should broadcast on behalf of what parties. I can think of no fair way of deciding on what basis that should be determined. If one is trying to be logical—the Government argue in this Bill in certain other respects that they are trying to be logical—I commend hon. Members to consider most carefully the dangers implicit in broadcasting.
  I have mentioned logic once or twice. I have not attempted to deal with the university or the City of London seats. Other hon. Members have dealt with those subjects extremely well. I do not think that one word too much has been said on those topics. I appeal to hon. Members not to try to be too logical. I

  1075
  think it is the great vice of the Socialist Party that it applies logic to things which are not capable of being solved by logic. If we try to create an electoral system or Constitution for this country which is entirely logical, I believe that ultimately we will destroy everything which has made this country great. That applies, most certainly, to the abolition of the university Members for whom, in pure logic, I am inclined to say that there is very little case; but that does not make it anything but disastrous to abolish the university seats.
  7.48 p. m.
  Miss Herbison: It seems abundantly clear that the arguments directed by hon. Members opposite against this Bill arise mainly from their intense dislike of the abolition of the plural vote and, particularly, of university seats. That has not surprised me in the least. I have noted in the past two and a half years that they have opposed almost every Measure which has made an attempt to abolish privilege in one form or another. The right to vote is greatly cherished. It is not something that has come to our people as manna from Heaven. It is something for which we have had to struggle and fight through the generations. We people of Britain are proud of our democratic Constitution. We are proud that since the time of Simon de Montfort's Parliament we have been able to build up a Constitution which is one of the finest in the world. I say advisedly that the abolition of university seats is one further step in the progress we have made over the years.
  I want to deal with two arguments which have been advanced in support of university suffrage. The right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) said yesterday that he had thought of an inscription to put on that casket of social democracy to which the Prime Minister had alluded some days before. What was the inscription? Here it is, in his own words:
  "Intellect and education need not apply."
  Later in his speech the right hon. Gentleman said:
  "'No brains wanted'—this is the declaration of the Socialist Party."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th February, 1948; Vol. 447; c. 871.]
  Surely, the right hon. Gentleman does not believe—or does he—that intellect
  1076
  and education and brains are the prerogative only of university graduates? If he does, I say to him, "Stuff and nonsense." What a travesty of the truth. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman was merely oratorical humbug. What an insult to those people who are not university graduates.
  Let us examine for a moment or two what the gaining of a university degree means in terms of education in its widest sense. I know from my experience in a university that, apart from the arts degree, almost every other degree, particularly that of medicine and of science, provides a purely vocational training. So absorbed is the student in obtaining that degree that he has little time, if any, to get education in its best sense—cultural education. There are many people who have never been inside a university who have a much greater cultural education than many university graduates possess today. I have had the privilege of knowing men and women who have left school at the age of 14 and who, because of their brains and intellect and desire for education, have a knowledge and a love of the classics in literature, art, and music that would put many graduates to shame.
  If there is anything at all in the representation of people of intellect, why should people of that sort be left out? Many people, instead of going to a university go to music, art or technical colleges. If the privilege of a second vote depends on having letters after one's name, why not apply that suffrage to these people, too? Yesterday, the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson) said:
  "… there cannot be anything undemocratic in classifying voters according to their personal and individual quality."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th February, 1948; Vol. 447, c. 887.]
  How different are his ideas of democracy from mine. Does he seriously suggest that the university vote provides for this classification?
  An argument which is often used to support university suffrage is that it gives to this House men and women of independent views. Yesterday, the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) said that the Speaker's Conference of 1918 had chosen to destroy what was to some extent the closed corporate body, and had set up a body especially designed to return

  1077
  to the House of Commons men of exceptionally independent views. I cannot pass an opinion on those who represented the universities in past Parliaments, but I can pass an opinion on those who are representing the universities in this Parliament. Surely, no one would say that they are all men of independent views, far less exceptionally independent views. No, the university vote has not always lived up to the lofty ideals that were expressed in the Speaker's Conference of 1918. At times, it has been used to get into this House men who have been rejected by the people in ordinary constituencies. We in Scotland were very annoyed indeed that that was done in the case of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, when he could not get himself returned to this House in his own constituency.
  I have also in mind two other examples of present Members—two men, not independent, not even claiming to be independent, who were turned down by their own constituencies, yet found a place in this House. I was glad that one of my hon. Friends on this side asked the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) who got rid of Sir John Boyd Orr, who did, indeed, take an independent point of view. It was not the supporters of Sir John Boyd Orr. The hon. and learned Member might get an answer to that question if he tried to find out what were the workings of the Central Office of the Tory Party who made Sir John Boyd Orr's life so miserable that he had to get out.
  We have, however, an excellent example of an independent Member of this House in the person of the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson). When I consider the three Members who now represent the Scottish Universities, and I try to compare them with the hon. Member for Cheltenham, I find that there is no comparison. Have the three representatives of the Scottish Universities, who sit on the opposite benches, ever, during the past two and a half years, on any business of real importance, found themselves on any occasion in any Lobby except that of the Opposition Lobby? In making this point I am not trying to say that I want to abolish university representation because it does not return Socialists. I want to abolish such representation because I think it is most undemocratic.
  1078
  The hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities implied that men and women who represent university seats in the House take a great interest in education. Is it not the case that the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson), who spoke yesterday, so far forgot his interest in education and the famous seat of learning which he represents, as to deprecate the raising of the school-leaving age for children? Indeed, from the Front Bench opposite he made out the Opposition's case against granting an extra year of learning to the mass of Britain's children. Surely, that was not what a university Member in this House would be expected to do. That is only one instance to show that if at one time there might have been a reason for granting university suffrage, those who have come here on university vote have failed to live up to the high motives of those who made it possible for them to be here. Because of that, I say to our Front Bench that I believe they are doing the correct thing in abolishing the university vote in this country. As I said at the beginning, I believe that this is one other stage towards making our Constitution, of which we are proud, more democratic still.
  8.1 p.m.
  Lieut. - Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I have always been in favour of the university constituencies, but having heard the length of time taken by some university Members in making their speeches today, I am beginning to be opposed to them. I am asking for some favour for Northern Ireland from the House and from the Home Secretary, and I shall have to be very careful not to make the same mistake as some of the university Members have done.
  I will start my speech by referring to the withdrawal of the seat for Queen's University, Belfast. In Northern Ireland we have only 13 seats. The loss of one of them will have a very serious effect upon our representation here. During the time I have been in this House, and before, the work done by university Members has been very good. Let me take, as an example, the Member for Queen's University (Professor Savory). As we all know, he has espoused the cause of Poland. He has asked Questions upon the subject and he has spoken for those poor people. He has done his best; he

  1079
  has done what he could, and that is not very much, I admit. [Laughter.] Yes, he has tried to represent their case before this House and not to let it fall from the want of somebody to speak about it. We know that the Foreign Secretary has not been able to save those people from persecution, but the activities of the hon. Member for Queen's University have at any rate brought a little daylight to bear upon the subject.
  The subject of Poland would not really interest the people in my constituency of County Down, or most hon. Members here. I doubt very much whether the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. E. Porter), for instance, could interest voters in his constituency in Polish affairs very much; nevertheless it is a subject in which this House should take an interest and it is probably only a university Member who could devote so much time and interest to that subject.
  The hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) mentioned Queen's University in his speech, and he made what I think was a slip. He said there were only 500 voters in Queen's University. As a matter of fact, there are nearly 8,000. That correction should be put on record. Certain figures have been mentioned in this House already. In Wales, 51,000 votes return a Member. In Scotland, it is 57,000 votes, in England 59,000 votes, but in Northern Ireland it takes 71,000 votes to return a Member of Parliament. I do not know the reason for that disparity, but it may have something to do with the fact that, prior to 1914, Irish Members of Parliament were very troublesome in this House and the House took the opportunity, at that time, to reduce their number. I think that we are under-represented in this House, and I hope that this is a matter which we shall push during the Committee stage. If extra seats were given to us, I do not know whether they would be Nationalist or Unionist. Nationalist Members hold their views just as conscientiously and determinedly as the Unionist Members, but whether Nationalist or Unionist Members are concerned, Northern Ireland is underrepresented at the present time.
  It is proposed that there should be two overhauls of the register every year, but in Northern Ireland both the Nationalist Party and the Unionist Party are
  1080
  opposed to two registers during the year. Those who represent registration officers oppose it also. We think that one would be quite enough for us. Another point is that I would like to see British-born subjects only eligible to be Members of this House. The United States has a law of that kind. I have a young brother who has become a naturalised American citizen. He told me that he could never become President of the United States, but his son, who was born in the United States, could become President.
  Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Would the hon. and gallant Member apply that principle to the son of an American mother becoming a British Prime Minister?
  Sir W. Smiles: I understand that the Prime Minister in question was born a British subject. At the present time, any British subject born in a Dominion could sit here. Mr. Jinnah or Mr. Nehru could be a Member of this House, and so could Mr. Bustamente from Jamaica. I am not quite sure on that point when I come to Eire. I can never quite make out whether the people in Eire are British subjects or not. Mr. de Valera is extremely clever. When any advantage is to be gained by declaring himself or the people of Eire British, he does so, as he did over their passports.
  Professor Savory: Mr. de Valera said most distinctly that it was an insult to call citizens of Eire British subjects.
  Sir W. Smiles: No doubt my hon. Friend the Member for Queen's University will admit that citizens of Eire are at times in possession of British passports. Mr. de Valera being so clever, let us consider his views upon proportional representation. When the Parliaments of Ireland, one in the South and one in the North started, they both enjoyed—or did not enjoy—proportional representation. Northern Ireland abolished it first. Then we had a lot of attacks from the South for having done so. At the last election, or just before it, Mr. de Valera himself said that he was not in favour of proportional representation. It was a case of what Northern Ireland thinks today, Eire will think tomorrow.
  Mr. Mulvey: Mr. de Valera did not say that he would

  1081
  Abolish proportional representation. I quite disagree with the hon. Member. Mr. de Valera said that it was a matter for consideration.
  Sir W. Smiles: My hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and Tyrone (Mr. Mulvey) may be right, but if—
  Professor Savory: Surely, Mr. de Valera has attacked it on every occasion.
  Sir W. Smiles: If Mr. de Valera considers anything, well, he is in power and he will very soon make it the law.
  I heard the hon. Member for North-West Hull (Mr. Mackay) speak about compulsory voting. I think it would be I very good principle to introduce into this island. It is a very good thing in Australia and Canada where every voter, I understand, must turn up at the polling booth. He need not vote if he does not want to, but 98 per cent. of them turn up. Only a doctor's certificate excuses them and there is a fine of £5 or £10 if they do not attend. Such a measure would encourage the people of this country to take an interest in their own Constitution, would make democracy stronger and not weaker, and would be more likely to unite than to divide.
  8.9 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I hope the hon. and gallant Member for Down (Sir W. Smiles) will excuse me if I do not carry on the discussion upon the points which he raised. The time at my disposal is somewhat limited, and I want to avoid party polemics and to state very simply a point which should command general support. That point is the extent to which motorcars can be used in elections by any political party. It has been touched on only lightly in this Debate by the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker), and I think it is appropriate to raise it at this stage and to remind Members of the Government that it is a matter on which we, on this side of the House, have always felt very strongly indeed. They should have an opportunity of realising that before the Committee stage in the hope that perhaps before then they will be able to meet us on the points we make.
  I think my case is strengthened by the fact that, so far as I understand it, the law on this matter has not been altered
  1082
  since 1883, when this House passed the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act, and the only restriction which that placed on the use of conveyances at elections was on the use of hackney carriages. The only use to which hackney carriages could be put was for the conveyance of the owner and members of his family to and from the place of voting. When that Bill was before the House, it was suggested that it might tend to prejudice the less well-to-do candidates as against the more prosperous ones, and that the effect of the Bill would be to penalise men who could only afford two guineas to hire a carriage and not those who could afford 200 guineas to buy one. It will be generally admitted by hon. Members of this House who have fairly extensive election experience that, in fact, the Bill has tended to operate to the detriment of parties with very few prosperous or upper-class supporters.
  I do not want to stress that too much, but most hon. Members on this side will be able to recall instances when, in fact, an election was lost by a very small majority because the unfortunate party to which we belong did not have the same resources in the way of cars as the party on the other side of the House. At the same time, it is only fair to state that there was one occasion when the Conservative Party was placed at an equal disadvantage. Some of my hon. Friends will remember a by-election in Lancashire in the 1924–29 Government when the Leader of the Opposition was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He made a suggestion that there should be a tax on betting and the result was, when the by-election took place, "bookies" from all over the country sent cars to support the Labour candidate, who was somewhat surprisingly elected at the head of the poll.
  This is a point which is capable of affecting all the political parties in this country, and I suggest that there is no self-respecting Member of this House who would want to feel he was elected to represent a constituency either because his financial resources were greater than those of his opponent, or because he had more friends with cars, but rather that he was returned because he had some personal qualities which attracted his constituents or because the policy he was advocating was a policy of merit which commanded their support. Because I believe all hon. Members would wish to feel they had not

  1083
  been elected on those other grounds, I believe this is a matter which should receive general support and merit the attention of the Government spokesman tonight.
  I do not want to go into detail on the various Measures to make the change I am suggesting, but I wish to recall to the memory of my right hon. Friends, that the present Deputy-Speaker introduced a Bill on these lines in 1938, seconded by the Secretary of State for Air, and supported by the Minister of Education and many Members of the party on this side of the House. Perhaps one of the most convincing arguments in its support was that it was opposed by the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) and the present hon. Member for Wavertree (Mr. Raikes). The matter was also discussed by the Speaker's Conference and by the Departmental Committee on electoral reform, and it is perfectly clear from their reports that, although this proposal was turned down, it was turned down by a very narrow majority in the case of the Speaker's Conference and, in the case of the Departmental Committee, there was obviously a substantial body of opinion in support of placing some limitation on the use of cars at election time.
  I am glad an Amendment has been put on the Order Paper along these lines, but I would prefer the Government tonight to state that they accepted in principle the suggestion that either the use of cars at elections should be abolished altogether, or that cars should be used only for conveying people to the poll under the control of the returning officer. That would be the view of hon. Members at least on this side of the House, and I hope it would command the support of hon. Members opposite.
  8.15 p.m.
  Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: At this late hour I do not wish to speak for more than a few minutes, for I realise that other hon. Members wish to speak. I had no intention of speaking on this Bill until I heard some of the other speeches which had been made in its defence and in opposition to it. If I may say so, I cannot support a great many of the arguments which have already been used in favour of university representation. I
  1084
  agree with nearly every word of the hon. Member for North Lanark (Miss Herbison), especially when she disagreed with the Secretary of State for Scotland in the reasons he gave for its abolition. Quite frankly, there is no case logically or arithmetically for university representation at all, and it is quite absurd to make heavy weather out of this fairly simple case, although I think it is a case which is extremely difficult to state. I am in a little different position from some of the other Members because I have fought a great many elections as an ordinary Member, but I have fought them as a party person. I have not fought my university constituency as a party man, nor tried to represent it as such.
  There have been speeches from the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis), the hon. Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) and the hon. Member for North-West Hull (Mr. R. Mackay) which I thought all gave reasons for better representation of minorities, although some of them were against university representation, like the hon. Member for Anglesey. I have a duty to 40,000 constituents and I have had many telegrams and a large number of letters, and I have to put before the House the opinion of my constituents. I am only third in the very short list from H. A. L. Fisher and Miss Eleanor Rath-bone, to represent the provincial universities, but I can see that it is possible, however, that there are two views on the representation of the universities. The Home Secretary has been logical in the past, for he has always been opposed to it.
  There appears to be a difference of opinion, in announcing the decision, between the Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, and I am not quite sure—I was not at the Speaker's Conference, although I was in the last Parliament—which are the true facts. I expect to find the Lord President of the Council making some better statement tonight, after the very interesting cross-examination which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake), made today, and which I thought was convincing. Like many Members, however, I still do not know the answer.
  The Secretary of State for Scotland said openly, what I have heard from other Members more quietly, that the decision has

  1085
  been affected by the views of those Members elected, and I do not think that statement has done his case any good, because anybody connected with university franchise knows perfectly well that Mrs. Stocks or Lord Simon might be sitting in this House at the present time. It was a split vote which got my colleague in. Others who might be here are Sir John Boyd-Orr, J. B. Priestley, Gilbert Murray, Lord Lindsay, or others whose views, like mine, are much more sympathetic to the present Government. If we are going to discuss the question on that basis, discussion of principle is valueless.
  The Clerk of the Liverpool Convocation has sent me a telegram saying that, up to date, 758 members of the Convocation are protesting against the Bill and there are 85 in favour of it. If the rest of the universities continue on this basis, there will be 30,000 people protesting. The Lord President was quite wrong. I beg him to believe me. I had no notion about the abolition of the university representation until only the other day, although I did know about the Speaker's Conference; and it has been quite impossible to go to eight convocations and find the views of all those people within only two or three weeks. I can but report the opinions expressed in letters I have had from graduates and others. They say they would prefer to exercise their university franchise rather than their geographical franchise. My late colleague, Miss Rathbone, made the university vote a very special thing, and there are literally thousands of men and women—a very large number of women—who exercise that vote. Many of them are moving about from place to place. Some have written to me and said that they have never once exercised the geographical vote. They feel very strongly on this point.
  I was to have been in Sheffield and Leeds Universities today and tomorrow, and to appear at Manchester Convocation where we have what we used to have in Scotland—an annual meeting where we, the Members of Parliament for the universities, render an account of our stewardship in this House. I appear there with views utterly different from those of the junior Burgess for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss), and they hear us both. I am in fairly close touch with many aspects of university and student life, and I have made it my business to foster the principle of exchanges
  1086
  between students in this country and universities in Western Europe. Indeed, I have recently brought back two scholarships to enable students to go to Middle Western universities.
  There are 640 ways of being a Member of Parliament. That is the glory of it all. I happen to be more interested in the whole field of education than in anything else. I may be a crank about it, but that is my interest; and I know perfectly well that I can pursue that interest and do my work for it better through the comparative freedom that a university Member enjoys, because he has a smaller amount of correspondence than Members from other constituencies. I know, because I have been a Member for a pretty tough burgh in Scotland, as the Secretary of State for Scotland knows, where the correspondence and the other demands were heavy, as they are, generally speaking, heavier in geographical constituencies than they are in university constituencies.
  The geographical franchise is the basis of our representation, but in many cases there is also a very close watch being kept on the matters of interest that hon. Members generally raise—on mining, on transport, on finance, on Post Office matters, on teachers' questions, on farmers' questions and agricultural matters. There is seldom a Debate in this House in which an hon. Member does not declare his interest, but there are nevertheless interests besides financial interests. Geography and function are very closely interwoven. I remember a discussion I had once with Mussolini, who asked me, "How many people do you represent in your constituency?" I said, "Forty thousand." He said, "What do they do?" I replied, "They do 100 different things, from making 'Johnny Walker' to the best cheese in Scotland." Then he asked me, "How can you represent people who do 100 different things?" My answer was, "In our country a man is a citizen first and a miner, or whatever else he maybe, second." That is the basis of our franchise.
  Mr. George Porter: If a man is a citizen first, is not a student a citizen first? Does it not follow that he requires only one vote?
  Mr. Lindsay: It very nearly does. I was aware of that. It very nearly does, and if our franchise were based on pure

  1087
  mathematics, it undoubtedly would. But what I am trying to say is that this particular function is not of less value for that. Nobody could welcome more than I do—in fact, I have written about it—a much larger number of persons on the Government side of the House who are not only distinguished academically but who have done educational work in the W.E.A. or the tutorial classes in this country. There is no monopoly here. Anybody who thinks there is any special qualification about a university Member as such is obviously missing the whole point. Anybody who thinks that there is anything special in a man having been to a university is equally missing the point. But there is a close connection between Parliament and the universities which can be represented much better by hon. Members of the House than through the official channels of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Vice-Chancellor's Committee.
  It has been said that the universities are tending to become a mere addition to party interest, instead of preserving nominal independence. My own view is that graduates who exercise the double franchise—and they do not by any means all do so—prefer to vote on personal rather than party lines. I do not claim any special merit for university Members. I prefer not to discuss the personal aspects. I would add only this point. Even with the reduced maximum expenditure which this Bill introduces, it would be increasingly difficult for any but party members to enter this House.
  The right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) does not think this is a good thing. I thought, with great respect, that he over-stated an obvious case last night, namely, that without organised parties our system would not work. On that we are all agreed. But there is no question that the university franchise offers a much cheaper method of election. I know from my previous experience in six elections. It is a cheaper method for persons of independent views without being men of independent means. I remember a discussion I had with some Germans, when I said I did not understand how they could have only one party. I always remember their reply: "What we cannot understand is how you can always have two. What is the
  1088
  merit of that?" The same point was put by the hon. Member for Devizes.
  I think that universities will become more and more important. The problems of finance, and of recruiting, of careers and of National Service, the problems in connection with the development of the Colonial Empire and Colonial enterprises, in relation to U.N.E.S.C.O. and various other things, and of how they may be related to public policy in the future, are all matters on which university members can make a contribution. For two years we have tried to have a Debate on university education, without much success. We have had three Debates on Friday adjournments. I have initiated two, and I spoke in all three. One was about graduate salaries and one was about students' grants. I give the Government credit for the large contributions they have made to universities and to increased scholarships, but these very contributions raise in turn scores of other problems which ought to have been discussed.
  In my view, the mathematics of the franchise are not important. I look to the Senate of the United States of America. That body is no worse for having two Senators from each State irrespective of the populations of the States—so that Nevada has two Senators although its population is 100,000 and New York has two though it has a population of 15 million. The Fulbright Act and many others are due to men coming from Arkansas, Idaho, and other small States. The mathematical approach can only be approximate at the best.
  I ask the Lord President, in his reply tonight, to say three things. Was not the Speaker's Conference morally binding on successive Parliaments until a further Conference was held? What was the actual agreement or bargain made between the two main parties? What steps does he propose to take to retain the organic relationship between the universities and Parliament? In the process of reforming and in some cases liquidating time-honoured institutions, there is one principle which I learned at the feet of Radicals by whom I was brought up, and which was, "Do not destroy any good and growing thing merely for the sake of reform." Because institutions are made by men, they can be unmade by men. But the second process is swift and easy compared to the process of construction. I think there are ways of reforming the

  1089
  university franchise and of making it part of our Constitution. I doubt whether wholesale abolition will add anything good to our democracy—except to make it conform more closely to arithmetic. Is that a sufficient reason? Parties and democracies were made for man not the reverse. The spirit of man as expressed in minorities is not always wrong. Even democracy can get lost in a very special form of red tape, and the challenge of an occasional Eleanor Rath-bone against the arrayed forces is not to be dismissed lightly.
  "When silence falls on such a voice some everlasting echo still haunts the world to break its sleep of habit or despair."
  So wrote the Hammonds of Lord Shaftesbury in that great concluding passage and so may the present biographer write of my late colleague who, perhaps more than anyone else, found her seat in this House but elevated it to a forum for denouncing human selfishness. There is a case for university representation, but it has not yet been answered.
  8.31 p.m.
  Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: It is indeed a great pleasure to follow the senior Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. K Lindsay), because I so largely agree with most of what he said. I want to put in a plea, in a moderate and objective way from this side of the House, for the continuance, in some form, of university representation My case would normally take me some 20 minutes, so I ask the House to bear with me if I rather compress it, in view of the tact that I understand the right hon. and learned Member opposite is due to commence his speech in 10 minutes' time.
  It is not easy to deal with this matter moderately aid objectively, as I wish to do, because of the partisanship injected into it, most notably by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) in his speech yesterday. Charges of breaches of faith and the stress he laid on the findings of the Speaker's Conference in 1944, as if they must necessarily be binding on a new Parliament, are not the best means of developing a spirit of sweet reasonableness—the spirit which in these few minutes, I should like to invoke. I recognise that most of my hon. Friends will be unlikely to endorse
  1090
  all I say, or to recognise sweet reasonableness in it, but I must risk their displeasure.
  I regard myself as something of a traditionalist—although not, I hope a blind or a prejudiced one. In approaching this question of university representation I find that one's reason and feelings are inclined to take opposite sides. Reason says: iron out all anomalies and stand four-square for even and equal electoral rights. It also appears at times—as in the case of the Home Secretary's speech yesterday—to dwell somewhat mistakenly on persons and their qualities. Due regard for long-established institutions, on the other hand, dictates that one should take into account the benefits resulting from the innovation of King James I in 1603, and consider the contribution that its continuance might make to this House and to this country in the future. Perhaps I might put it another way round. The logicians seem too apt to regard the proposed change as just a neat, statistical tidying up of what they regard as the absurdity of a small block of 12 Members of this House representing 19,000 electors each, while all other Members have constituencies averaging 57,000 voters
  The traditionalists ranged against them have been silly enough, in some cases, in the speeches they have made in this Debate, to use arguments for preserving the present system by throwing at our heads a list of famous figures who, they assert, would never have been here but for the university seats. I think, myself, that the approach of both these sections of opinion is the wrong one, though in preferring the latter—that is the approach of the traditionalists—I cannot forego mentioning tonight that I was privileged to he congratulated on my maiden speech in this House by the late Miss Eleanor Rathbone.
  What is the context in which the two arguments I have mentioned are actually joined? What is the pictureframe into which the silly idea which seeks to equate university seats with the "Old Sarums," which long ago disappeared from the political map, is matched only by the stupidity of trying to prove that the highest talents have been invariably brought into public life and service through university representation? In the first place, as the right hon. Member for

  1091
  the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson) said yesterday, university franchise has been very greatly widened in the last century, and is no longer almost exclusively confined to parsons and schoolmasters, as it was in those days. Secondly, the increasing ease of access to the universities has so democratised them as to make it more than likely that before long one of them may have the common sense to return a Labour Member to this House.
  I would like to see a compromise solution of the present impasse. Abolish the plural vote, by all means; reduce the number of university representatives if you like; and, despite the difficulties put forward by the Home Secretary, allow the electors affected to exercise an optional vote based on a residential qualification. The machinery to arrange this might be involved and complex and I know it is asserted that this would lead to Members of Parliament representing a ridiculously small number of voters.
  I am not sure that that would necessarily happen. At least the idea which I commend to the Government tonight might well be tried out for one election—namely the next election. For, you know, we do want some people in this House who have a relative freedom from pressure groups, and also a freedom from the day to day claims of coping with the mass of correspondence and work, by which all Members for ordinary seats are overwhelmed in these days. For myself, since I appeared here at Westminster I have read hardly one book; and it becomes increasingly hard to give to the affairs of State that single-minded attention which those outside the party machine can, as I see it, more easily give.
  As long as the present electoral system maintained under this Bill continues the series of major anomalies which will undoubtedly be preserved under it, why, I ask, should we boggle at the preservation of this particular and smaller anomaly? For example, this Bill leaves England utterly unrepresented compared with Scotland and Wales. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I think that has been proved in the course of the Debate. There have been complaints from other English Members besides myself that that is so. Also, this Bill does not provide for a fair reflection of opinion in the provincial cities, as was pointed out by the right hon. Member
  1092
  for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) in his contribution last night. Again this Bill maintains a system by which, at present, a Labour Member speaks for only some 30,000 voters, whereas a Liberal speaks for nearly 200,000.
  Professor Savory: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: I do not want all this encouragement from the other side of the House. It is quite embarrassing. I think that I might at least be afforded a quiet hearing so far as hon. Members opposite are concerned.
  This Bill also makes possible a return to this House of a huge majority party with a minority of votes in the country. These are all very big anomalies. Let us be very careful not to impoverish the quality of Parliament by removing what can become, even if it is not now—and I do not think it is—a real patch of vocational representations to break the dull monotony of an otherwise uniform pattern. Dead levelling is not the Socialism in which I believe. Rather do I agree with Milton when he wrote:
  "Neither can every piece of the building be of one form Nay, rather, the perfection consists in this—that out of many moderate varieties arises the goodly and graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure."
  8.41 p.m.
  Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe: It is my pleasing duty to express my gratitude to the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. SkeffingtonLodge) for having so scrupulous a regard for my interests in the matter of time, and also for the entirely unexpected support which I received from him on a section of my argument. I am very conscious that many Members feel that certain subjects have received an undue proportion of time. They will agree, I think, that when a debate centres on certain subjects, those who have to wind it up are bound to deal with them and try to give a picture of the arguments which have been presented.
  I must for a moment recall the series of questions, which were put forward with great force by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake), in regard to what we consider to be not only a serious breach of faith, but an invasion of one of the most important and hardworking elements in our Constitution. The

  1093
  Secretary of State for Scotland has very much simplified this part of my task, because he, with an intervention from the Lord President of the Council, removed any misapprehension as to the question of whether or not there was agreement at the Speaker's Conference. There is no doubt about the matter, if we add to his remarks today two of the most pregnant sentences made by the Secretary of State for Scotland contemporaneously. He will remember that on 10th October, 1944, he said, in referring to the Ullswater Conference:
  "The last Speaker's Conference was abortive, because the Members and parties which took part in it, took the view that they must have all or nothing, and this philosophy of 'all or nothing' is really the philosophy behind dictatorship That is that, whether it is a majority or a minority, it is going to bind its will on the rest of the people It is an essential of democracy that there should be consideration of and acceptance of the reasonable propositions of minorities, and that compromise is the essential result of discussion. Our discussions would be quite futile if the majority were always to dictate its will and suppress the minority. We might as well abolish the Parliamentary system."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th October, 1944; Vol. 403. c. 1623.]
  It is that mild cooing of the Opposition dove that I recall to the House, rather than the totalitarian roaring which the right hon. Gentleman has been led to in the balmy air of office. We start from that clear exposition. It is an admission of an agreement and a compromise, and it is a justification of the importance of compromise in the give and take of our national life.
  The second point which was raised is that those distinguished and formidable persons who represented the Socialist Party at the Speaker's Conference—the Secretary of State, the Minister of National Insurance, the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker), Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Lord Ammon and so on—were not representative of the Socialist Party in the sense that they were chosen because of the position and influence they had in that party, and that the results of what they did were approved by that party when they came back from the Conference. I would remind hon. Members that Lord Pethick-Lawrence at that time was not only a vice-chairman of the Labour Party, but he was the Member of the Labour Party who was in charge of the Bill for his party. The Lord President of the Council
  1094
  will remember that he opened the Second Reading of that Bill, and that I finished, and that we were greatly assisted by the information and argument which Lord Pethick-Lawrence brought to bear on the Bill.
  There can be no question that he was in a position, with the colleagues I have mentioned, to bind in every way which honour and political decency dictate the party of which he was so distinguished a Member. I would remind the House of the way in which Lord Pethick-Lawrence approached these matters. He said:
  "The agreements were satisfactory as agreements, and in my view they met the situation by arriving at a solution"—
  I ask the House to note the next words—
  "which we thought would survive.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th October, 1944; Vol. 403, c. 2045.]
  Lord Pethick-Lawrence was not speaking for himself or expressing a personal opinion. He was expressing the opinion of his party, that by fair discussion and by the methods which the Secretary of State has so fairly commended, they had arrived at a lasting solution which would carry our Constitution and this country fairly on until the next time when a discussion of these points became necessary again.
  It was not only a question of the fact being stressed again and again, that we were dealing with an agreed compromise which was to take us from that conference, just as in the past compromises had carried on for varying periods through our political life; but, as far as I have been able to find—and I am sure I shall be corrected if I am wrong—there was not a word in "Let Us Face the Future," although that book was published in April, 1945, which suggested that these conclusions to which the party opposite had pledged themselves were going to be upset in any way. In fact, there was not a word of any change of view right up till October of last year when the pronouncement was made, which has been referred to, that the proceedings at the Sneaker's Conference would tell us precisely what the Government were going to do.
  I venture to put forward five principles of constitutional action and procedure which this country has not only followed but has found useful during the last 60 years and more. For over 60 years the practice has been that there

  1095
  has been a conference on electoral matters at varying intervals; secondly, at these conferences an effort has been made to reach agreement; thirdly, when the representatives of a party have come to agreement they have not, and should not, go back on that agreement without a further conference being held; fourthly, where a party have got concessions by not pushing a view at one of these conferences there is all the more reason that they should not go back upon it. The fifth proposition, which I suggest is not only consistent with history but is right and just in the working of human relations, is that if a party want to differ from a view that has been agreed at such a conference it is their bounden duty to make clear that that would he a matter of difference and something which they would take the first opportunity of reversing.
  These are the constitutional conditions on which our country has made the party system work, and has avoided the squalid tit-for-tat of one party succeeding another in office, which would have made the political working of this country greatly degraded from what it has been in the past. When part of agreed conditions have been implemented in one Parliament, and the remainder postponed through lack of time, to say that these decisions do not bind the party in the Parliament in which they are implemented, is to make a futility not only of honour between parties but of the whole idea of a party conference as an instrument of State. I have put these points from the constitutional point of view. The argument can be summed up according to whether one accepts the contemporary statement of Lord Pethick-Lawrence, supported by the Secretary of State for Scotland, or whether one accepts the somewhat irritable and ill-considered interruptions which were made in the House yesterday by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State. I find that all compulsion is on the side of accepting the contemporary statements.
  I want to turn—and here the hon. Member for Bedford who has just spoken has made my argument easy—for a moment to the arguments on the university seats. We start there from the unanimous recommendation of the Speaker's Conference. Again, one is greatly assisted as to the view that was held by the representatives of the party
  1096
  opposite on this issue by that personified quarry of information the Secretary of State for Scotland, who, on this point, said:
  "The Speaker's Conference came to a decision which it was not worth while breaking any bones or heads about, and it was not worth while causing disagreement on these little points because we were satisfied that although the universities have not achieved the distinction I have suggested, there has been in recent years an improvement in the Members which they have sent to the House, and we are hoping the best for the future."
  At the end of the day we are left with this reason for the abolition—the disappointment of the Secretary of State and his colleages that his own doctrine has receded from the university opinion and that there has been, as there is in undoubted truth, a swing in the intelligentsia towards the party to which I have the honour to belong. That is the only reason.
  Let us examine for a moment—because hon. Gentlemen have asked that this should be done and I am anxious to do what they have asked—some of the arguments on their merits. I think that we are all agreed that, whatever differences the working out makes in our minds, the franchise should represent all the people and all the interests in the country. If hon. Members will bear with me for a moment I want to make clear what I have in mind. In this House on the geographical basis, broadly, we have great interests represented which are in contact with the living organisations of the time. This is not a party point. It is true, say, of agriculture; it is true of trade unions. With regard to the miners we do not need any corporate activity. We have 60 or 70 constituencies which return those who know, represent and are fully familiar with miners and their work through their trade union activities.
  Similarly, with regard to the leaders of industry; and, if the House will not think me very conceited, the profession of the law is usually quite well represented in the House. In all these cases—and I could give many others—the argument is developed most brilliantly by Mr. Ivor Jennings in his book on Parliament and, as hon. Members opposite know, he is one of their number. The argument is sound that we do get at the moment all these various interests and aspects of our life

  1097
  represented. The aspect which we shall not get represented, if the universities are not represented, is the living contact with the current university organisation, administration and thought. I ask hon. Gentlemen, again looking at it broadly, whether that would not be a real impoverishment of the representation in the House. It is a remarkable achievement that, starting with an over 90 per cent. geographical franchise, we do manage to get cogent, dynamic representation. We have at the present time interests of all kinds.
  A point I wish to mention, because it is a fair one, is that the electorate at universities has changed immensely in the last 50 years. The old restrictions under which, at my own university, for example, only masters of arts could vote, have been swept away, and graduates come in as soon as they have qualified for a degree. In the present day, especially since we have people coming to the universities in greater numbers, university graduates have become a real cross-section of the community. Through their occupational activities they bring to hear opinions formed in all parts of the country and the world, through their having been brought into contact with an unusual variety of interests and views. Again, at the end of the day, one must conclude that the anxiety to destroy these constituencies is based on the desire, first of all, to extinguish hon. Members whose political views are opposed to those held by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and also—and this is in many ways more worrying—there is the desire to depreciate great centres of intelligence in order to flatter the less well educated voters.
  I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to face this point I fail to understand and I cannot reconcile, the extreme enthusiasm for education which is shown by every one on the opposite side of the House, with the utter disregard for the opinion of educated people. The right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) last night quoted the lines of Macaulay:
  "Where none were for a Party and all were fur the State."
  I go further than the right hon. Gentleman in the abuse of that sentiment. I say it is an entirely false antithesis. I believe that the party is a vehicle of the State. I am sure that most hon. Gentlemen who, like myself, are party politi-
  1098
  cians, would agree with that modest view. I put this to the House as one who stands unashamedly glorying in the fact that he is a good party man. The only thing I hope is that no cynic will add to my tombstone—if they put on it the inscription "Here lies a good party man"—the words "as usual" or something of that kind. I take my stand as a good party man. I would like to put this to the hon. Gentlemen who are in the same position as myself, and who have spent all their adult life trying to inculcate the doctrines of their party all over this country. Is it not a good thing that there should be the limited approach in this House of those who do not take the same lines as appeal to us, and who are, therefore, able to view the great problems of the day from a different angle, and, it may be, in a new way? I put this to the party opposite because they ought to bear it in mind.
  Let us take the people who have represented the universities in this decade. I will not speak of those who are still in the House because that would he an invidious matter and the House can form its own opinion. Let us take those who have left—Eleanor Rathbone, Mr. Harvey, Sir John Boyd-Orr and Professor A. V. Hill.
  Mr. Fernyhough: And Ramsay MacDonald.
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am taking the last 10 years, and those are the four who have gone. As it happens—let the right hon. Gentleman note it—three of them were more inclined to the Left and only one to the Right. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that he ought not to be tinkering with representation. He ought to be improving his doctrine, and then tie would get the people that he wants from that representation.
  I only want for a moment to deal with the general arguments, because my time is short, on the question of the business vote. Despite the eloquent quotation of the Home Secretary, there cannot be any great matter of principle involved in this point because—let me remind him—four at least of that high-powered Socialist representation must have voted against the view at Mr. Speaker's Conference that no person at any election should vote more than once. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that that was carried

  1099
  by 26 to five in a Conference of 32, so that even if we allow the one who did not vote to have been a Socialist and allow the five to have been Socialists, it means, if my arithmetic is right, that at least four Socialists must have voted for it. As the noble Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) pointed out, only 15 Conservatives could have voted. There can, therefore, be no matter of principle. The right hon. Gentleman cannot for a moment be impliedly representing to the House that Mr. Pethick-Lawrence and his colleagues abandoned their principles. It is, therefore, only a matter of practice and this problem has not become any more acute since the Socialist Party supported the majority of the Conference.
  The problem is this. There are some 15,000 business qualified electors left. There are seven constituencies with between 500 and 1,000 and nine constituencies with 1,000. The House is therefore free, following the Socialist Party at Mr. Speaker's Conference, to consider this on its merits. Again, I ask them to consider that a man with a business will, in the constituency where that business exists, have a great many social, charitable, club, trade and various voluntary associations of that kind to which he belongs. Is it not irrational—I confess that I have tried to appreciate the enormity which hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to find in the view—that that minute fraction of political power which is given by one vote should be denied to the person who creates and runs a business while it is given in the same area to the caretaker or watchman who minds his door?
  That is the argument, and it applies with far greater force to the City of London because on this point the party opposite nave not merely to face the precedent of their Bill in 1931 which abolished the business franchise for everywhere else, but maintained it for the City of London, but they have to face these flowers of eloquence unparalleled even in his long life of oratory which the Lord President has strewn round this aspect of our political life. The one I liked best, if the House will allow me to remind them of the fairest flower in the chaplet, is where the local patriotism burst forth and he said:
  "I as a good Londoner and student of the City's history would be sorry to see the separate Parliamentary representation
  1100
  of the City abolished even though figures make a strong case for consideration the other way"
  And he went on to say in more measured but none the less compelling tones:
  "… to merge the City … or any part of the City with adjoining constituencies, is not a proposal likely to receive wide support."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th October, 1944; Vol. 403, cc. 1618 and 1619.]
  I ask him where has his missionary spirit gone? Where is the heart which did so much in London's politics so that the serried ranks behind him have not rallied to that cri de coeur with which he moved a previous House? Again I admit the right hon. Gentleman was quite right—I do not admit that often—but when he said the words I have quoted, he was quite right. He was catching the great beat of the history of London for which the City has stood, and he was also catching the importance, which I am sure at this moment in his heart of hearts he does not under-value today, of what the City of London still stands for throughout the Commonwealth and Empire and the world in the financial and commercial history and living present of our life. He is not the first, he will not be the last, of us politicians to express contrary views. The only consolation, when you have expressed contrary views, is that you are perfectly entitled to choose which of them you will pick when you come to speak for the third time. It is open to the right hon. Gentleman tonight, and I hope I have given him a clear indication of how he should speak.
  I have only two minutes more, and I should be the last to prevent the House from hearing the right hon. Gentleman make this great re-recantation for which I hope, but an hon. Gentleman sitting behind him asked why we were not dividing against this Bill if, as we have made perfectly clear, we say there has been a breach of faith and a betrayal of constitutional practice? I want to make it quite clear that we believe, and are committed to, and therefore we stand by, continual re-distribution to secure the representation required by changes of population. I do not want hon. Gentlemen to think that I have not heard their speeches with great interest—I have heard practically every speech that has been delivered. We appreciate the difficulties of co-ordinating, on the one hand, the representation of large and widespread country areas without those points of

  1101
  contact I have mentioned in the city areas and the votes in other places. We realise that the Boundary Commission had a difficult task and displayed great labour in it. We think, despite the blemishes, despite these breaches which I have mentioned, a great step forward has been made towards better representation. We shall demonstrate by our votes in Committee exactly where we stand. We have demonstrated our support for what is good, we have also made clear our abhorrence for what we think is morally, politically and constitutionally bad.
  9.16 p.m.
  The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe). It is always a pleasure to hear the arguments he puts before the House. He reminded me and the House of the fact, which I confess I had forgotten, that on an earlier occasion when I moved the Second Reading of one of the Bills of this class, although it was of somewhat briefer content than this one, he was good enough to wind up the Debate. As colleagues in the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), the right hon. and learned Gentleman and I had a lot to do with each other in various ways. He was a valued collaborator, not only on legal matters, but on constitutional questions and matters of Parliamentary organisation and procedure. Therefore, if tonight I cross swords with him and disagree with him, it is not without looking back with appreciation and gratitude to the co-operation and assistance which he extended to me in my capacity as Home Secretary in the war Government.
  I was, therefore, the more sorry to be a little late in getting here and in arriving a little after the right hon. and learned Gentleman had begun. I regret very much having missed a few minutes of his speech. He has drawn attention to a number of points to which attention had been otherwise drawn, and in the course of my observations I think I shall comment on all the points, or practically all the points, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has raised. I thought he was a little unjust in accusing my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I of ill-considered and ill-mannered interruption—
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: Irritable.
  Mr. Morrison: I beg the right hon. and learned Gentleman's pardon—irritable interruptions of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford yesterday. I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman must have been influenced by Conservative headlines and by the reports of the Debate by sketch writers in certain of this morning's newspapers which seem to have scourged us into a white heat of which neither I nor my hon. Friends were conscious. When the Leader of the Opposition openly accused the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Home Secretary and myself—after all, I always thought all of us honourable and upright men—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I did, and still do—of being associated with the conduct of crooks and cads—
  Mr. Churchill: I did not say that.
  Mr. Morrison: —of being associated with such conduct, I said.
  Mr. Churchill: The right hon. Gentleman need not begin with needless misquotation. I said, illustrating the sovereign power of Parliament, that a Parliament might behave like a gentleman, or a cad. I did not say that right hon. Gentlemen opposite ever had such an option open to them.
  Mr. Morrison: If the right hon. Gentleman argued, as he did yesterday, that the course which we are recommending Parliament to adopt was committing Parliament to act in the capacity of a cad and a crook, then surely the Government and in particular the Prime Minister and myself were associated with the caddish and the crooked conduct. I only say that the Leader of the Opposition has recourse, from time to time, to a certain degree of frankness, even of extreme observation, which beats all the stuff that I learned at the street corner years ago. And if we get up and politely intervene—and he was remarkably obtuse about agreeing to give way and sit down and let us intervene—he really must not complain, nor must his right hon. and learned Friend. After all, the Leader of the Opposition is an old warrior in Parliament. He believes in Parliamentary battle. If I may say so, he is absolutely right. This is the place where fights and struggles

  1103
  about matters of principle should take place, it is largely what Parliament is for, and if in the process we knock each other about a bit, it is a good thing.
  Mr. Churchill: To make it absolutely clear, as it was to everyone who heard what I said and who read the report, I never suggested that the right hon. Gentleman or the Prime Minister was behaving either like a cad or a crook. I used that phrase to illustrate the wide latitude which is given to Parliament to answer the claim that one Parliament cannot bind another.
  Mr. Morrison: That observation is not quite what I would have wished, but the right hon. Gentleman has come a long way in absolving my right hon. Friend and myself of the charges which we thought had been made, and I would be ungracious to pursue the matter. I let it drop with gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman for discharging us with a caution. I would complete the observation which I was making by saying that the right hon. Gentleman believes in Parliamentary fighting. So do I, and, therefore, if we have a bit of a scrap now and again, or an argument, the House enjoys it, and so does the country.
  It has been argued that my noble Friend Lord Pethick-Lawrence, in the course of the Debates on the legislation of 1944, made statements which, either by what he said or by implication, made it clear that he was committing the Labour Party as a permanent matter to certain decisions of the Speaker's Conference, if not all the decisions of the Speaker's Conference generally. I am bound to say that I do not so read the observations of my noble Friend; and I did not at the time. I am perfectly sure that he was speaking within the limitations of what the Speaker's Conference had recommended for application by that Parliament which was then sitting. I am perfectly certain it never dawned on my noble Friend. it certainly did not dawn on me, and the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Scotland have assured me that it did not dawn on them—how could it dawn upon any of us?—that we were making an agreement which would commit the Members of a Parliament which was not yet elected.
  1104
  This is an enormously changed Parliament compared with the last Parliament. I think it is much improved, and hon. Members opposite think the reverse, What would my hon. Friends in this Parliament say if the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary or I were to get up and say, "You cannot abolish the university representation; you cannot interfere with the City of London; you cannot interfere with the business vote, in so far as part of the business vote has survived, because we made an agreement with the Conservative and Liberal Parties in the last Parliament?"
  Mr. Churchill: Not "you cannot"; but "you ought not to."
  Mr. Morrison: This doctrine which is being laid down by the right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition, is typical of his conception of himself as perpetual Prime Minister of Great Britain. In short, he is trying to impose from the last Parliament when he was Prime Minister—and a great Prime Minister in those days, as we all agree—he is trying to impose, from the very powerful position which he then exercised in the Government and in the country, a veto upon this Parliament. Sir, one Molotov in the world is enough.
  Mr. Peake: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman what he thinks Lord Pethick-Lawrence meant when he said that he thought we had reached agreement which would survive? Did he mean that it would survive only for six months?
  Mr. Morrison: I am always glad to see the right hon. Gentleman who has just intervened. He was a most valued Under-Secretary of mine at the Home Office during the war. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Oh, yes, he was. Why should I not say so? I will go on saying so. Neither the right hon. Gentleman, nor the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby, appears to have read the evening papers. Really, they ought to read them more quickly than they have done tonight, because Lord Pethick-Lawrence himself has spoken. I call him into the box—an absolutely brand new witness. I quote him from the diary of that newspaper which is very useful to us from time to time—Lord Beaverbrook's evening newspaper, the "Evening Standard." It is only fair to

  1105
  say that it quotes Sir Herbert Williams the other way—not with very great conviction; but I will not bother about Sir Herbert Williams. Lord Pethick-Lawrence will do for me because, after all, he is accused of having made this statement. This evening newspaper, having asked him for his views, says:
  "Lord Pethick-Lawrence today admitted to me there was a gentlemen's agreement, but says it applied to the Parliament of the time. He said, 'There was never any mention in the Conference, or in any of the pourparlers connected with it, of any understandings as to what the attitude of the parties should be in any future Parliament.'"
  Mr. Quintin Hogg: Read on.
  Mr. Morrison: That is all.
  Mr. Hogg: Read on.
  Mr. Morrison: All right. There are another two lines. I cannot see the sense of them myself, but I will read them. This is not Lord Pethick-Lawrence; this is "The Londoner," whoever he is. He says that he, "The Londoner," does not see
  "… why the Socialists squawked last night."
  I cannot see what the Tories have been squawking about all this time. Well, Sir, that finishes that. That disposes of the efforts of the Opposition to cause my noble Friend to turn King's evidence on this matter. He said exactly what I would have thought of him as saying because, honestly, why should it occur to any Member of the Speaker's Conference, in the war Government, in the Parliamentary Labour Party at the time, that we were entering into agreements of a more or less permanent character until we were released by the Conservative Party? It would be constitutionally wrong for that to be done—a denial of the rights of the electors, a denial of the rights of a free Parliament.
  Mr. Churchill: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. Our case is that his party took, in the past, when we had the power—and we gladly conceded it—their part of the bargain, which was necessary to the local elections, and when they gained the power they brushed aside all the rest of it.
  Mr. Morrison: That, at any rate, has disposed of the point about Lord Pethick-Lawrence which was raised—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."]—on the evidence of
  1106
  the witness himself. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition intervened, and will persist in claiming that these 7,000,000 additional local government electors were an exchange for some sort of bargain that we would permanently, or substantially permanently, maintain the university constituencies and the City of London. There never was any such bargain. Whether bargaining is the right word I do not know, because I was not a member of the Speaker's Conference, but there were, of course, accommodations made between the parties in the Speaker's Conference.
  Mr. Churchill: Agreements.
  Mr. Morrison: Yes, certainly. The Conservatives made concessions, and the Labour people made concessions, both ways, and it is perfectly true that the same process had to happen, if I am permitted to say so, in the war Government itself; it was inevitable in the circumstances of the Coalition. That is all perfectly true; and whether it was the case that this was given on the understanding that something else was or was not pressed—may well be, because—there is nothing wrong about it—one lives by bargains and by making concessions here and there. All these concessions and all these accommodations were within the political circumstances and the political facts of the Parliament of the day, and could not be within the political circumstances and the political facts of any other Parliament.
  As a matter of fact, as the Secretary of State for Scotland has said, the Government of the day would have been in the most difficult physical circumstances to have run the local government elections in any other way than they did. There was not the manpower to have made a canvass for local government elections. It could not have been done. I admit I liked it, because I thought it was right; the local government franchise had become something of a farce; anybody could walk round the law and get on the registers with a little bit of care; and I thought the action was right. But to say this was an enormous gift by the Conservative Party when, in the administrative circumstances of the time it could harldy help itself, and when there was nothing very terrible about it, is going too far. The right hon. Gentleman has said that these 7,000,000 voters enabled

  1107
  the Labour Party to win the municipal elections which followed the general election—
  Mr. Churchill: And might have preceded it
  Mr. Morrison: If it enabled the Labour Party to win the election which followed the Parliamentary general election of 1945, how are we to explain all the paeans of triumph and the shouts of victory which went up from Lord Woolton and the Conservative Central Office last year when the same 7,000,000 apparently went wrong?
  Mr. Churchill: Their eyes were opened.
  Mr. Morrison: By now the right hon. Gentleman can be comforted in this act of generosity which he committed as Prime Minister—and I can say he took an awful lot of interest in this business. The trouble with the right hon. Gentleman is that he is always getting on the verge of Cabinet secrets and I nearly trip into them as a consequence. The right hon. Gentleman said to the House yesterday that he was an innocent chap running around, running the war, and that he did not know much about this political business, but that I knew all about it and out-manoeuvred him.
  Mr. Churchill: I devoted quite a large portion of my speech to explaining how worried I was when this report about assimilating the local and national franchises came up. Far from concealing the fact that I took an interest in it, I devoted two or three minutes of my speech to talking of it. I did not conceal my interest from the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Morrison: The right hon. Gentleman knows what he said; I know what he said; and the House knows what he said; and the implication is very clear in my mind that he was the virtuous citizen concentrating on the war. It is perfectly true that he asked Lord Margesson about it and that Lord Margesson explained it; hut his attitude yesterday was that he was not over-interested in it: that he had not the time to be; but that I, on the other hand, was not too much involved in the war, and that I was involved in all this It is all untrue. The right hon. Gentleman has been very generous to me from time to time, testifying that I had an awkward part to play in the war.
  Mr. Churchill: The right hon. Gentleman played a gallant part.
  Mr. Morrison: I am obliged. The right hon. Gentleman took a very lively interest in all this business. He was perfectly right to do it. He had his eyes on the matter all the time, and had vigorous assistance from a colleague who shall be nameless. It may be argued in some quarters—it could be argued I admit, and the noble Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) did argue—that if we do not regard ourselves in this Government as bound by the unanimous conclusions of the Speaker's Conference in the last Parliament, we ought to have had another Speaker's Conference before this Bill was introduced. Indeed, it was implied, I think, by the right hon and learned Gentleman the Member for the West Derby, as it was also yesterday in the Debate, that when such changes in the law have been contemplated there has been a universal practice of having something in the nature of a Speaker's Conference to precede them. I follow that argument; but it is a false argument. I will not say it has been the practice only in times of war or of Coalition, because I am not quite sure; but the answer to this claim, if it be made—and it has been made—is in the words of the late Lord Baldwin, before he was made a peer, and when he was Prime Minister. He used the words in relation to the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act. He said:
  "It is quite true that it was our intention to call a conference, and the Government approached Mr. Speaker asking if he would preside at such a conference, and I have his permission to say that he decided—and I have no quarrel with his decision—that as party controversy had been renewed since 1918 he felt that, in order to preserve the impartial position of the Chair, he would prefer not to preside at such a conference."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th March, 1928; Vol. 215. c 1471.]
  That disposes of that. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Surely. I cannot answer for what Mr. Speaker of this time would do, but I can quite follow the position which was adopted by the Speaker at that time in the reply which he gave to Mr. Baldwin. I think it is the case that, when we have the party system fully and vigorously working, Mr. Speaker would be in a difficult position in presiding over a conference to seek agreement on matters of this kind. At any rate, that was the view of Mr. Speaker at that time, and

  1109
  that was reported to the House of Commons by Mr. Baldwin, who had evidently had to meet the point.
  The right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) said that the Opposition would not divide; that in Committee they would seek amendment on three main and important matters: university elections, the position of the City of London, and the business vote. The business vote was a new one, because up to now there has been no great criticism of the complete abolition of the business vote. In fact, I recall hardly a speech during the Debate which has upheld the preservation of the business vote.
  Well, it is perfectly competent, of course, for these matters to be raised in Committee; but in view of the furore which has taken place in the Conservative Press, and the sharp attacks on the Bill that have been made by the Leader of the Opposition and by others, I am bound to say it is a shocking anti-climax to me that tonight the Bill should go through without a Division, and with the general assent of the House. However, it is not for me to complain; but I am bound to say that it is a little undramatic in the circumstances, in view of the speeches that were made yesterday.
  I have, I think, dealt adequately with the observations of the Leader of the Opposition on the Speaker's Conference and the so-called bargaining—in which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman himself believes. True, there was an agreement, but it was an agreement which operated within the time of that Parliament. The noble Lady the Member for Anglesey said that she was completely in the dark about what the agreement meant, and what it was about. If she is in the dark I do not know that I can help her, because she was a member of Mr. Speaker's Conference and I was not. If she was mystified about what happened at the Speaker's Conference—and, after all, she is a lady of considerable political knowledge and experience—I really cannot help her, and I think it would be impudent on my part to try.
  Lady Megan Lloyd George: The only point on which I was in the dark was about the bargain made between the party opposite and the Conservative Party.
  Mr. Morrison: What about it?
  Lady Megan Lloyd George: The Liberal Party was not included in it at all
  Mr. Morrison: Ah!
  Lady Megan Lloyd George: Therefore, I hoped the right hon. Member would make it clearer
  Mr. Morrison: Let the hon. Lady be thankful. Think of the embarrassment she has saved herself. She is outside all this strong argument which has been proceeding, and once more the Liberal Party emerges—
  Mr. Clement Davies: Pure.
  Mr. Morrison: Yes—pure, white and absolutely above the battle. I think that is a fine state of affairs, even if there are not many of them to enjoy the situation. Of course she did rather pull our legs about the compromise we made with regard to plural voting, and accused Labour Members on the Speaker's Conference of actually having voted for plural voting. I remember that, and this leg-pull has been going on ever since. But the explanation is perfectly simple. They got the business vote cut down by 50 per cent., and in order to get it down to 50 per cent. they voted for the retention of the other 50 per cent. Now my noble Friend will have the great privilege and honour of voting for the abolition of the remaining 50 per cent. under this Bill
  She and others referred to 1931, with regard to certain proposals made in a Bill introduced by the Labour Government. She has referred also, to the alternative voting provision contained in that Bill. The right hon. and learned Member for West Derby, and the right hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. Assheton) referred to provisions for the preservation of the business vote in the City of London. I hope nobody will charge us with moral turpitude in connection with 1931. I was not Leader of the House of Commons at the time, and I am very grateful that I was not, for it must have taken a bit of leading in those days. There was no majority for anybody, and the poor Government had to move from one expedient to another day by day. Of course, the noble Lady put her finger on the point. Her distinguished father, whom I always remember with great respect and admiration, was a very determined man; he went with a

  1111
  gun to the Ministers of the day—I was not high up enough to have dealings with him in this kind of business—and the result was that they produced this not very logical nor very streamlined Bill Well, poor things, they were the subjects of force majeure That is the only defence I can make—that they had to do the best they could. But to hold up that experience against this Government is a bit rough It ought not to be done.
  The noble Lady asked, as she had every right to ask, whether the Government were determined to resist proportional representation or the alternative vote. Believe me, I do not say this out of mere partisan considerations, neither does the Labour Party, but our honest view is that proportional representation is not conducive to the best form of Parliamentary government. We have come really to believe that after years of argument. There used to be a strong body of opinion in the Labour Party in favour of it, but after years of argument that is our conclusion.
  The alternative vote is somewhat better, but that, on the other hand, would lead to not too pleasant bargaining between political competitors, which is not to the good. It is much better that the parties should fight, and that the party which gets the most votes, let us hope, should come out on top. I admit that that does not necessarily follow. I admit all the mathematical criticisms against the existing system. I admit that a mathematical case and a theoretical case can be made against it. I admit that governments do not always represent the majority of the electorate. That happens to both sides. On the whole, the Left have had the worst of it up to now, although at the moment we are not doing badly. It happens both ways, but, broadly speaking, the system works. I would sooner have governments with strength and power behind them—even though I do not agree with them—so long as they observe the democratic forms, than a Parliament which can only live by the making and unmaking and remaking of Coalitions and bargains of all sorts.
  I am sorry to tell the noble Lady this, because I know she fervently believes in another point of view. Having said so, it would be rather hypocritical on our part
  1112
  to promise that the Government would be willing that there should be some sort of investigation and inquiry, because at the end of the day we should not be prepared to implement it. That, I am afraid, must also apply to the rather more modified proposition of my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hull (Mr. R. Mackay).
  Now I come to the subject of the City of London, which was raised in a rather moving speech by the right hon. the junior Member for the City of London (Mr. Assheton). He has referred, as he had every right to do, to the speech that I made in 1944 on the Bill which was then under discussion. Others have also referred to it. Indeed, I am grateful for the fact that I have not heard more about this speech than I have. I thought I would hear much more about it. Well, the speech stands. It is on the record, and I cannot help it. There it is.
  But I would like to say—and I am not ashamed to say it—that I am a Londoner who was brought up in the civic government of London in one way and another—the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney and the London County Council. I have read its civic history. I have read of the struggles of its civic political parties. I love this city with a deep sincerity and a deep profundity. I like its history. I said then, and I say now, that despite all the faults and criticisms that can be brought against it, I can never think of the ancient City of London, with all its history in relation to the development of our Parliamentary freedom, the limitations of the powers of monarchs, the freedom of the Press and the liberty of the individual, without having in my veins some degree of emotion and in my heart gratitude and respect for the work which that body did many years ago.
  I do not like to see the independent Parliamentary representation of the City of London go. I am sorry, but I just cannot think of an argument for preserving the City's separate representation. The electorate will be between four and five thousand. Around the City there are blitzed boroughs, all of which, under my right hon. Friend's Bill, are materially injured in their Parliamentary representation. My right hon. Friend cannot help it. Bethnal Green, with over 40,000 electors is being cut from two Members to one. Stepney, including Limehouse, which my

  1113
  right hon. Friend the Prime Minister so worthily represents, and with which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford used to be associated through the father of the noble Lady the Member for Anglesey, is cut from three Members to one. Finsbury and Shoreditch would have been merged under the Boundary Commission's Report.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Shore-ditch (Mr. Thurtle), whom I hope to see here for many years, is apprehensive about having the City being added to his territory. Westminster was to become mixed up with the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea, Holborn gets merged with part of St. Pancras, Southwark, on the south side of the river, which has long association with the City, loses its three Members and gets one. All have electorates materially larger in number than the surviving electorate of the City of London before the changes were made in 1944. Heavens knows what is the future of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour. I am sorry for all these London Members, and it is going to be an awkward personal matter to settle who is to survive and who is to be liquidated in the process.
  How can I and my colleagues say that we will pick out the City of London for survival when it has only between four to five thousand electors, in view of what has been happening to contiguous constituencies, and to constituencies in the North of England and elsewhere? I am sorry, I regret it, but I have no choice. I came to the conclusion, and my colleagues came to the conclusion, that there was nothing for it but to merge the City of London with someone else. I can only say that that speech of mine in 1944 was saved by one sentence—you never know; you may have a bit of luck on these occasions. I did say that:
  "It may be that in the future the day will come when the question will have to be looked at."—OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th October, 1944; Vol. 403, c. 1993.]
  Sir, the day has come. Here, again, I am sorry about it, but I am, at any rate, technically safe and legally safe by that sentence which was in my speech. While I am concerned with this volume, there are some other things which I said at this point about the validity of the argument that the Speaker's Conference was binding on a future Parliament. There was raised the question of the degree of representation of Scotland and
  1114
  Wales, and my Scottish and Welsh friends were pressing for an undertaking that this guaranteed minimum of theirs in representation should be conceded to them for all time. I said "No, this time; not for all time." In the course of my speech I said that:
  "so far as this Bill was concerned, we accepted that recommendation of the Speaker's Conference, but I could not give any undertaking about what future Governments or Parliaments might do in further legislation. I do not know whether that is regarded as carrying out the recommendations of the Speaker's Conference or not."
  This is not particularly relevant, but the other point is perfectly clear. I specifically stated that that Parliament and that Government could not bind future Governments. I went on to say that
  "The only thing which I thought it right to tell the House was that future Parliaments and Governments must be free to consider this matter upon its merits."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th October, 1947; Vol. 403, c 2054.]
  Mr. Churchill: Which matter?
  Mr. Morrison: This is on the question of the representation of Scotland and Wales.
  Mr. Churchill: That raises no party issue. Here was an agreement between the parties. Scotland and Wales are a national matter. It is certainly on a different footing. This was a question agreed between the two great parties of the State.
  Mr. Morrison: Scotland and Wales can be party matters, and if they are not, they could be something very much worse than party matters, and we ought to be very grateful to get back to party matters. That observation and others in that speech, including the observation about the City, are consistent with the view which we have insisted upon all along, that we have a right to deal with these matters.
  On the question of university representation, I noticed that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby said that there might be a claim for special representation of lawyers. A plausible case could be argued for that. This House makes law and it watches the action of the Government in administering the law. Lawyers could argue that they have a special case for representation of the Inns of Court in this House, and they would

  1115
  have as good a case to argue as the universities. What would the answer be? The answer would be in the case of lawyers the same as the right hon. and learned Gentleman gave himself, namely, that the House would say, "Good gracious, we have plenty of lawyers here. There is no need to give them special facilities." If that is true of the lawyers, we do not need to give special representation of the universities, because there are plenty of university graduates in all quarters of the House.
  As to the university Members, some of them are definitely partisan. The attendance of the bulk of them is shocking. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] It is. The attendance of a high proportion of the
  university Members is shocking, and the attendance of the hon. Member for the University of London (Sir E. Graham-Little) is not merely shocking, it is scandalous. Therefore, I say that the case for university representation is not made, and that the Government are reasonable in abolishing it. I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading, and we shall, as expeditiously as may be, carry this further chapter of democracy forward to the Statute Book. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the honour he has had in putting it before the House.
  Question put, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  The House divided: Ayes, 318; Noes, 6.

  Division No. 78.]

  AYES.

  [10.0 p.m.

  Acland, Sir R

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

  Gunter, R. J.

  Adams, Richard (Balham)

  Corlett, Dr J

  Guy, W. H.

  Alexander, Rt Hon A V.

  Cove, W G.

  Haire, John E. (Wycombe)

  Alpass J H

  Crawley, A

  Hale, Leslie

  Anderson, A. (Motherwell)

  Crossman, R H S

  Hall, Rt Hon. Glenvil

  Anderson, F (Whitehaven)

  Cunningham, P

  Hamilton, Lieut.-Col R.

  Atewell, H. C

  Daggar, G

  Hardman, D R

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C R.

  Daines, P.

  Hardy, E. A

  Austin, H. Lewis

  Davies, Edward (Burslem)

  Harrison, J.

  Ayles, W H

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield)

  Hastings, Dr Somerville

  Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Henderson, Rt. Hn A (Kingswinford)

  Bacon, M.ss A

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

  Henderson, Joseph (Ardwick)

  Baird, J.

  Davies, S O. (Merthyr)

  Herbison, Miss M.

  Barlour, A.

  Deer, G

  Hewitson, Capt M.

  Barnes, Rt Hon. A. J

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Hicks, G

  Barstow, P G.

  Delargy, H J

  Hobson, C R

  Barton, C

  Diamond, J

  Holman, P

  Buchervaise, A. E

  Doobie, W

  Holmes, H E. (Hemswerth)

  Benson, G

  Dodds, N. N

  House G

  Berry, H

  Donovan, T

  Hoy, J.

  Beswick, F

  Driberg, T E. N

  Hudson, J H (Ealing, W.)

  Bing G. H C

  Dugdale, J (W Bromwich)

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

  Binns, J

  Dumpleton, C W

  Hynd, H (Hackney, C.)

  Blackburn, A. R

  Durbin, E F M

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Blenkinsop, A

  Dye, S.

  Irvine, A J (Liverpool)

  Blyton, W. R

  Ede, Rt Hon. J. C.

  Isaacs, Rt Hon. G A.

  Boardman, H

  Edelman, M

  Janner, B

  Bottomley, A G

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

  Jay D P T

  Bowden, Flg.-Offr. H. W

  Edwards, John (Blackburn)

  Jeger, G (Winchester)

  Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)

  Edwards, W J (Whitechapel)

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

  Braddock, Mrs E M (L'pl, Exch'ge)

  Evans. A (Islington, W.)

  Jones, D T (Hartlepools)

  Bramall, E A.

  Evans, E (Lowestoft)

  Jones, Elwyn (Plaistow)

  Brook, D (Halifax)

  Evans, John (Ogmore)

  Jones, J H (Bolton)

  Brooks, T. J (Rothwell)

  Evans, S N (Wednesbury)

  Jones, P Asterley (Hitchin)

  Brown, George (Belper)

  Ewart, R

  Keenan, W

  Brown, T J (Ince)

  Fairhurst, F

  Kenyon, C

  Bruce, Maj. D W T

  Farthing, W J

  Key, C W.

  Burke, W A.

  Fernyhough, E

  King, E M

  Butler, H W (Hackney, S.)

  Field, Capt W J.

  Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E.

  Carmichael, James

  Fletcher, E G M (Islington, E.)

  Kinley, J

  Chamberlain, R A.

  Foot, M M

  Lang. G

  Champion A J

  Fraser, T (Hamilton)

  Lawson Rt Hon J J.

  Chater, D

  Freeman, Peter (Newport)

  Lee, F (Hulme)

  Chelwynd. G R

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon H T N

  Lee, Miss J (Cannock)

  Cluse. W S

  Ganley, Mrs. C S

  Leslie, J R

  Cobb, F A

  Gibbins, J

  Levy, B W

  Cocks, F S

  Gibson, C W

  Lewis, A W J (Upton)

  Coldrick, W

  Glanville, J E (Consett)

  Lewis, T (Southampton)

  Collick, P

  Goooch, E G.

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Coll ndridge F.

  Greenwood A. W. J. (Heywood)

  Lipson, D L

  Collins, V J

  Grenfell, D R

  Lipton, Lt.-Col. M

  Colman, M.ss G M

  Grey. C F

  Longdeob/>n. F

  Comyns, Dr. L

  Grierson, E

  Lyne, A W

  Cook, T. F.

  Griffiths, D (Rother Valley)

  McAdam, W.

  Cooper, Wing-Comdr G.

  Guest, Dr L. Haden

  McEntee, V. La T

  McGhee, H G.

  Perrins. W

  Taylor, H B (Mansfield)

  Mack, J. D

  Platts-Mills, J F F

  Taylor, R J (Morpeth)

  McKay, J (Wallsend)

  Popplewell, E

  Taylor, Dr S. (Barnet)

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

  Porter, E. (Warrington)

  Thomas. D E Aberdare)

  McKinlay, A S

  Porter, G. (Leeds)

  Thomas, I O. (Wrekin)

  Maclean, N (Govan)

  Price, M Philips

  Thomas, John R. (Dover)

  McLeavy, F.

  Pritt, D. N.

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  MacMillan, M K (Western Isles)

  Proctor, W. T

  Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)

  McNeil, Rt. Hon H

  Pryde, D. J

  Thurtle Ernest

  Macpherson, T (Romford)

  Pursey, Cmdr. H.

  Timmons, J

  Mainwaring, W H

  Randall, H. E.

  Titterington, M F

  Mallalieu, J P. W.

  Ranger, J

  Tolley, L

  Mann, Mrs J.

  Rankin, J

  Tomlinson, Rt Hon. G.

  Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)

  Rees-Williams, D. R.

  Turner-Samuels, M

  Marshall, F. (Brightside)

  Reeves, J.

  Ungoed-Thomas, L.

  Mathers, Rt Hon. G

  Reid, T (Swindon)

  Vernon, Maj W F

  Medland, H M

  Richards, R.

  Viant, S. P

  Mellish, R J

  Ridealgh, Mrs. M

  Walkden, E.

  Messer, F

  Robens, A

  Walker, G H.

  Middleten, Mrs. L.

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)

  Warbey, W. N

  Mikardo, Ian

  Robertson, J J (Berwick)

  Watkins, T E

  Mitchison, G R

  Rogers, G. H. R

  Watson, W M

  Monslow, W

  Ross, William (Kilmarnock)

  Webb, M (Bradford, C.)

  Moody, A S.

  Reyle, C

  Wells, P L (Faversham)

  Morley, R.

  Sargood, R.

  Wells. W T (Walsall)

  Morgan, Dr H. B.

  Scollan, T

  West, D. G.

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

  Scott Elliet, W.

  Westwood, Rt. Hon. J

  Morris, P (Swansea, W.)

  Segal, Dr S

  Wheatley, J T (Edinburgh E.)

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

  Sharp, Granville

  White, C F (Derbyshire, W.)

  Mort, D. L.

  Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)

  White, H (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  Mort, A

  Shawcross, Rt Hn. Sir H. (St. Helens)

  Whitely, Rt. Hon W.

  Mulvey, A

  Shurmer, P.

  Wilcock, Group-Capt C A B

  Murray, J D.

  Silkin, Rt. Hon L.

  Wilkes, L

  Nally, W

  Silverman, J (Erdington)

  Wilkins, W A

  Naylor T E.

  Simmons, C. J

  Willey, F T (Sunderland)

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

  Skeffington, A M

  Willey, O G. (Cleveland)

  Nicholls. H R (Stratford)

  Skinnard, F W

  Williams. D J (Neath)

  Noel-Baker, Capt F E (Brentford)

  Smith, C (Colchester)

  Williams. J. L (Kelvingrove)

  O'Brien, T

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke)

  Williams. Rt Hon. T (Don Valley)

  Oliver, G H.

  Smith, H N (Nottingham, S.)

  Williams, W R (Heston)

  Orbach, M.

  Smith, S H (Hull, S.W.)

  Williamson, T

  Paget, R. T

  Solley L J

  Willis, E

  Paling, Rt Hon Wilfred (Wentworth)

  Sorensen. R W

  Wills, Mrs E. A

  Paling, Will T (Dewsbury)

  Soskics, Sir Frank

  Wilson Rt Hon. J H.

  Palmer, A M. F

  Stamford, W

  Wise, Major F. J

  Pargiter, G A.

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)

  Woodburn, A

  Parker, J

  Stokes, R R.

  Wyatt, W

  Parkin, B T

  Stross, Dr B

  Yates, V F

  Paton, Mrs F (Rushcliffe)

  Stubos A E

  Younger, Hon Kenneth

  Paton, J (Norwich)

  Swingler, S

  Zilliacus. K

  Pearson, A.

  Sylvester, G O.

  Symonds, A. L

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Mr. Snow and Mr. G. Wallace

  NOES.

  Bowen, R

  Harris, H Wilson

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Davies, Clement (Montgomery)

  Morris, Hopkin (Carmarthen)

  Mr. F, Byers and

  George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)

  Salter, Rt Hon. Sir J A

  Mr. Wilfrid Roberts.

  Resolution agreed to.

  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House for Monday next.—[Mr. Popplewell.]

  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE [MONEY]
  Considered in Committee under Standing Order Number 69.—(King's Recommendation signified.)
  [Major MILNER in the Chair]
  Resolved:
  "That, for the purposes of any Act of the Act of the present Session to amend the law relating to parliamentary and local government elections and to corrupt and illegal practices,
  1118
  and for purposes connected therewith, it is expedient to authorise—

  (i) the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of any charges in respect of services rendered and expenses incurred for the purposes of or in connection with parliamentary elections by the returning officer;

  (ii) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

  (a) sums equal to one half or, as respects Northern Ireland, the whole of any expenses under that Act in connection with the registration of electors and the performance of his other duties by the registration officer, and

  (b) any remuneration payable und that Act to a deputy appointed by a county court judge in a case where the judge would otherwise have been unable, owing to the necessity of dealing with appeals from

  1119
  registration officers, to transact the business of his court with proper despatch;

  (iii) the payment into the Exchequer of sums equal to one half or, as respects Northern Ireland, the whole of any fees or other sums received by a registration officer under that Act, other than sums paid to him in respect of his expenses in the performance of his duties."—[Mr. Ede.]

  Resolution to be reported tomorrow

  FOREIGN SERVICE
  Resolved:
  "That the Draft Foreign Service Order, 1948, a copy of which was presented on 5th February, be approved "—[Mr. McNeil.]

  GAS [MONEY]
  Resolution reported:
  "That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide, amongst other things, for the establishment of Area Gas Boards and a Gas Council and for the exercise and performance by those Boards and that Council of functions relating to the supply of gas it is expedient to authorise—

  (a) the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of such sums as may be required to fulfil any guarantee by the Treasury of the principal of and interest on stock issued by the said Council or the principal of and interest on moneys temporarily borrowed by the said Council or any Area Gas Board so, however, that the amounts outstanding in respect of the principal of the stock so issued, otherwise than for the purpose of paying compensation under the said Act, and in respect of any moneys temporarily borrowed as aforesaid do not at any time exceed the sum of two hundred and fifty million pounds, excluding amounts outstanding in respect of stock issued or moneys temporarily borrowed for the purpose of redeeming stock or repaying moneys temporarily borrowed;

  (b) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

  (i) remuneration and allowances to, and expenses of, stockholders' representatives appointed under the said Act;

  (ii) remuneration and allowances to any auditor appointed under the said Act in connection with the final payment of dividends and interest to holders of securities of gas undertakers;

  (iii) remuneration and allowances to, and pensions to or in respect of, persons appointed under the said Act to examine gas meters or to test gas;

  (iv) compensation in respect of the vesting in the Minister under the said Art of apparatus and equipment used for examining and stamping gas meters;

  (iv) tees and allowances to any referee or board of referees appointed under the
  1120
  said Act to decide questions relating to pension rights or compensation of or in respect of officers, and allowances to witnesses appearing before any referee or board;

  (vi) remuneration and allowances to members and officers of the arbitration tribunal appointed under the said Act and to persons to whom proceedings are referred by that tribunal, and any other expenses of that tribunal;

  (vii) the administrative expenses incurred under the said Act by any Minister of the Crown or Government Department;

  (c) the payment into the Exchequer of—

  (i) any moneys standing on the vesting date under the said Act to the credit of the gas fund established under the Gas Regulation Act, 1920;

  (ii) any sums received under or by virtue of the said first-mentioned Act by any Minister of the Crown or Government Department."

  PORT OF GLASGOW
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—
  [Mr. Popplewell.]
  10.16 p.m.
  Mr. Rankin: I desire to call the attention of the House to the general position at the Port of Glasgow in so far as it relates to shipping and to the movement of goods. It one views this question in terms of finance and takes note of the fact that the financial accounts of the Clyde Trustees for the six months ending December, 1947, show, as compared with the same period for 1946, an increase in revenue of £183,000, one is inclined to say that the situation at the Port of Glasgow is a healthy one; but, as has often been argued from these benches, the financial result is not a sure indication of a healthy economic state of affairs, and if we view this problem from the point of view of the dock worker, we get a somewhat different approach and appreciation.
  The labour force at the docks numbers 3,400, and of that number today 2,200 are fully employed. Eleven hundred are only partly employed, and 100 are not employed at all. That gives a somewhat different picture from that which is presented merely by the financial returns of the Clyde Trust. If one looks at the picture from the point of view of the ship-owners or the merchants, we find they are continually troubled by the fear of

  1121
  a depression or slump setting in. I think it is the business of the Government to say that, with a Labour Government in power, there ought to be no fear of a depression or a slump.
  I wish to emphasise that we do not feel that there is a deliberate discrimination against the Port of Glasgow, yet if we look at the tonnage carried inwards and outwards at the port we find that in 1938 7,250,000 tons were carried either in or out. In 1946 that had fallen to 6,250,000 tons, and up to the end of December it had fallen to 5,250,000 tons. These figures cause us to think, because these are the docks, and this is the port, which during the war moved 50 million tons of cargo, and 500 million tons of shipping without mishap, and all the facilities which were there for that work are still there, and have, in fact, been expanded We recognise at the same time that the world's trade has deteriorated. That is natural. We do not attribute the fall in imports either to the bulk-buying policy of the Government or to the flat rate for freightage on the railways. But there is a fairly widespread feeling on the Clyde today that this situation is largely due to bad organisation.
  I wish to submit one or two examples to the House of the type of organisation which could and should be improved. First, I am assured it is the fact that today we have berths at Glasgow lying empty waiting for liners to unload, while at the same time, at Liverpool, liners are waiting for two or three days to be unloaded, and are unable to get berths. Secondly, I am assured that there is far too much berth accommodation being given to repair work at the expense of carrying, and I am told that twice the amount of space in berthage is being given to repair work as compared with cargoes. Thirdly, the attention of the House has already been directed to the fact that ships are coming to the Port of Glasgow after they have been unloaded at other ports in the south. Their cargoes have been transferred to coasters and brought round in that way, or sometimes by rail, and often by land. We had the grotesque case of a ship which unloaded at a port in the South and came round light to the Clyde, in front of coasters which were carrying a Glasgow cargo from that Southern port. I do not suggest that, in itself, is a disease, but it is the symptom of something which is wrong.
  1122
  So far as surface haulage is concerned, a good deal of the cargo which is unloaded at southern ports comes either by road or by rail, and up to Saturday of last week—roughly for the first six weeks of this year—6,000 tons of bacon, meat and butter unloaded at Liverpool came to Scotland either by road or rail. That is a rate of 52,000 tons a year, which represents to the Port of Glasgow 17 large ocean-going liners which could come in with cargo and which would go out with exports to other parts of the world.
  But the most serious feature of that aspect of the case is that these goods are being carried by railways which already are overburdened and which, in addition, as my right hon. Friend himself said when dealing with the Transport Bill, have rolling stock which today is not up to date. So far as the freezing vans are concerned, in some cases they are so bad that the meat being carried deteriorates, especially in the summer, and the consumer in Scotland is, as a consequence, getting inferior meat. Further, when it is transported by rail from the steamer it means that the cargo is being handled four times, instead of only twice, as would be the case if it were taken direct to the Port of Glasgow.
  With regard to the cargo which comes by road, that means that in a time when petrol is short we are using petrol for purposes which could be avoided. It is a national wastage, and I am sure my right hon. Friend will give his serious attention to that aspect of the case which I put before him. I quite agree that it is difficult to get an overall picture: I am giving examples, and to get a complete picture of what is happening today I am asking my right hon. Friend to answer now the question which I put this afternoon to his Department. Will he tell the House how much is being paid in freight for moving goods from English ports to Scotland by coaster, including chartered vessels, and by road or by rail? I suggest that an answer to that question will give the House a complete picture of the situation as it affects Glasgow and Scotland.
  I suggested that the organisation was one that might be improved, and I suggest that one or two methods could be employed. First, that cargoes should be allocated before shipment. Secondly, I

  1123
  suggest that shipowners and merchants should get together in order to make the best use of space. For instance, if a ship is being sent to Liverpool and later might call at Glasgow, why should the Glasgow cargo be put in last so that it must be cleared away before the Liverpool cargo can be reached? That has happened. That sort of thing leads automatically to road or rail transport. It should be kept clearly in mind that every ship that comes into the Port of Glasgow with cargo is a ship which will leave the port with cargo, thereby helping Scottish exporters to send their goods abroad.
  Another aspect of the question to which I wish to direct attention is that of passenger transport. There was a time in the history of the Clyde when we used to have five Anchor liners, two United States liners and six Cunard White Star liners sailing every month, each of those ships affording accommodation for 1,400 passengers. That was on the United States route. On the Canadian route we had the Donaldson, the Cunard White Star and the C.P.R. liners which had weekly sailings all the year round. The position in the Clyde now is that there are three motor vessels, each capable of carrying 12 passengers fortnightly on the United States run, and three motor vessels each capable of carrying six passengers on the Canadian run. Where is "the glory that was Greece"—or Glasgow? The result is that Scottish passengers must proceed from Southern ports. I say emphatically that that is wrong.
  If this can only be made right by means of a subsidy, then a subsidy should be given. This would be one subsidy to which there would be no opposition from the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. I am told that the Americans are out to capture the Atlantic trade. They are prepared to subsidise their shippers for that purpose. If we are to stand up to that, then we must be prepared to subsidise our passenger services. I have tried to present to my right hon. Friend a case which is agitating Glasgow, the West of Scotland, and indeed the whole of Scotland. I am sure that he will he able to give an answer which will satisfy us.
  10.29 p.m.
  Mr. J. L. Williams: I am very glad that my hon. Friend has been able to raise this question. I do not propose to weary the
  1124
  House with figures, but I can testify to the fact that the fears expressed among his constituents on the southern side of the Clyde are also expressed by people on the northern side who are engaged in this industry. Great concern has been felt for many months about the policy of the Government in bringing commodities from abroad to be discharged in English ports and distributed from one centre. It has been suggested that storing and warehousing in Glasgow may be a problem, but against that there is suggested very strongly that the allocation for Glasgow and the West of Scotland at least could be left in ships coming to the Clyde. By so doing, you would save unloading in the first place and loading in coasters again. It would be merely a problem then of allocation before the whole cargo is dispatched.
  One explanation, I understand, is that there is need to economise in shipping tonnage. The reply I get from my constituency is that, even allowing for this, the outcome is very harsh on Clyde shipping traffic. Here is the fact that greater pressure is brought to bear upon railroad traffic and consequently, looking at it from many angles, I believe, like my hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin), there are questions to answer. Great concern is felt among people who have suffered in the past and who fear they are going to suffer in the future.
  10.32 p.m.
  Mr. Maclay: I want to say very quickly that the House should be very grateful to both hon. Members who have spoken for putting a very reasonable case before the House about a problem which I know is worrying very many people. One point I should like to make, in case the Minister does not reach it, is: What is the function of the shipowner in this matter? The shipowner has two main jobs to do. He has to take the cargo to the destination that the merchant wants to send it to, and I think that the Minister on the Bench tonight should be the Minister of Food rather than the Minister of Transport, because he is a very big merchant these days so far as shipments into this country are concerned. The shipowner is also concerned—and I think both my hon. Friends had this in mind—with the speed of the turn-round at port. While on the face of it, it may seem wasteful that ships

  1125
  may have to come up empty, with coasters going ahead with small portions of cargo to be put out at other ports, in fact the ship will save substantial time in port by proceeding immediately to bunkering berth. I wish to make the point dead clear. I think the person to get after this is the merchant and perhaps the Minister of Food.
  Mr. Rankin: I realise that. As my right hon. Friend perhaps knows, I did suggest to his Department this afternoon that some points of the Debate would touch the Ministry of Food and therefore he might perhaps ask them for answers.
  10.34 p.m.
  The Minister of Transport (Mr. Barnes): I would like to associate myself with the first remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Montrose Burghs (Mr. Maclay) of appreciation to the hon. Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin) for raising this matter tonight. I do not think we can regret giving time to studying the problems of an important port like Glasgow and if, as my hon. Friend suggests, I happen to be in a position of liaison responsibility rather than of direct responsibility, nevertheless, that is a responsibility which I gladly accept. I should like to give assurances to my hon. Friends who raised this matter that both I as Minister and my Department will continue to give attention to this matter, because we do realise that many adjustments of this character that flow from the circumstances of the war need careful attention in the postwar period.
  There is one point, however, which my hon. Friend made that rather caused me some concern. He appeared to deprecate the fact that a good proportion of the berthing accommodation in Glasgow is used for repair work. I should have thought that would have been welcomed on the Clyde. It appears to me that there has been a great and outstanding contribution by the Clyde which is pre-eminent and unchallenged in the quantity and quality of its ship construction. The very organisation, experience, and skill which resides up and down that great river and port surely are bound to attract a good proportion of the repair work which is going on at the present time.
  Mr. Rankin: I would like to make myself perfectly clear, and to say that
  1126
  not only can we undertake the repairs, but we will take the cargo, too.
  Mr. Barnes: I can well understand that Scotland might want the lot, but if I may relapse into talking about my own constituency I would point out that I represent an East London constituency, and the people there say that all the repair work is going to the North and not, consequently, being retained in London. But I think we have adjusted that position.
  Now I come to my second subject, and I say there is not much point in stressing, as has been done, the enormous volume of traffic which certain ports handled during the war years. We all appreciate that, and I should be the first to acknowledge the remarkable service which the Clyde—and if I may say so here, the South Wales ports and the Western ports—gave in that terrific struggle. But that was because other important ports and harbours were closed down and the traffic at the other ports was abnormal. Regarding the hon. Gentleman's references to adjustments which followed, the problem of the South Wales ports occupied the attention of this House some time ago and as a result of the co-operation which my Department secured from the interests concerned, we were led to certain improvements.
  I am not indicating that we were able to solve the basic problem of reconciling peace-time trade and war-time trade. I would remind my hon. Friend that the Ministry of Transport has been, and is, engaged in offering the same services and the same machinery to the Clyde shipping and industrial interests But, first of all, let me get this question of the peace-time and the war-time trade in its proper perspective. It has to be remembered that many factors have intervened to affect the shipping trade and that figures can be very misleading. We are discussing as a complete problem the imports and the foreign trade of the Clyde. The facilities for exports are largely determined by how far cargo vessels are available.
  I will deal with passenger services separately, although in view of shortage of time, hon. Members may like me to deal with the passenger problem in a sentence, because that does not affect the trade problem. The position is entirely unsatisfactory I agree, but one cannot lay the blame on any particular quarter, and it cannot be remedied at the

  1127
  moment. The Ministry of Transport is handing, and has handed, back shipping as rapidly as it possibly can to the shipowning interests, but the passenger liners have suffered in this respect more than any other class of shipping. Practically all our passenger liners were requisitioned during the war, and completely converted to military service. Even when they are derequisitioned by my Department, a long period must elapse before they can be restored to their normal service. The Donaldson Line suffered very severely during the war. The majority of their vessels were sunk or destroyed, and passenger liners have been released more slowly than any other type of ship. The House is aware of the big evacuation problems, of the demobilisation of the Services, of the evacuation of Indian troops and civil servants, and of the Palestine problem. The owners of lines running passenger ships have suffered more than any other section of industry in this respect.
  Coming back to the problem of trade, Board of Trade volume index figures show that in 1947 U.K. imports into the port of Glasgow were 75 per cent. of the 1938 imports. If you take the trade of our ports generally, Glasgow does not compare unfavourably with that majority of the English ports. If I may direct attention to the practical measures for dealing with a situation of this character, I think it was in October, 1947, that the Scottish Board for Industry, the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, and the
  1128
  Clyde Navigation Trust, the three bodies primarily concerned, began to take an interest in this matter, because of the growing concern which prevailed about this situation in Scotland. The Clyde Navigation Trust, very wisely I think, started out to collect what evidence it could from traders, industrialists, and commercialists. On 4th December, they submitted the first evidence to my Department of the experience of Scottish industrialists. On 30th December, further information came along, and my Department then circulated it to all the Supply Departments and importing Departments, which my hon. Friend had indicated can play an important part in the solution of this difficulty.
  After examination—and I should like to say they have shown a willing spirit of co-operation in this, although there are really serious problems of economy involved — the Supply Departments responded to my invitation to meet on an official level. On 11th February, a conference was held in my Department with all those Departments of State which were interested, together with the officers and advisers of the Clyde Navigation Trust. At that meeting, there emerged a suggestion from the Ministry of Transport that the Clyde Navigation Trust—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'Clock, and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Fourteen Minutes to Eleven o'Clock.

BRITISH ARMY
  Edgerton House, Shrewsbury
  Edgerton House, Shrewsbury
  Wellington Barracks (Condition)
  Wellington Barracks (Condition)
  Nutrition Commission
  Nutrition Commission
  Troops, Kenya (Concessions)
  Troops, Kenya (Concessions)
  PRISONERS OF WAR (FAMILY VISITS)
  PRISONERS OF WAR (FAMILY VISITS)
  TERRITORIAL AND AUXILIARY FORCES ASSOCIATIONS
  TERRITORIAL AND AUXILIARY FORCES ASSOCIATIONS
  NEW TOWNS
  NEW TOWNS
NATIONAL INSURANCE
  Spinsters (Pensions)
  Spinsters (Pensions)
  Staff Recruitment
  Staff Recruitment
  Supplementary Pension Rates
  Supplementary Pension Rates
EMPLOYMENT
  European Volunteer Workers
  European Volunteer Workers
  Cotton Industry (Labour Force)
  Cotton Industry (Labour Force)
  Engineering Industry (Wage Rates)
  Engineering Industry (Wage Rates)
  Vocational Training, Salford
  Vocational Training, Salford
  Prisoners of War (Bakers)
  Prisoners of War (Bakers)
  Whitehaven and Cleator Moor
  Whitehaven and Cleator Moor
  South Wales
  South Wales
  Textile Machinery Makers, Oldham and Barton
  Textile Machinery Makers, Oldham and Barton
  Collinges Mill, Oldham
  Collinges Mill, Oldham
  Disabled Persons, Birkenhead
  Disabled Persons, Birkenhead
  URBAN DISTRICT COUNCILS (REPRESENTATIONS)
  URBAN DISTRICT COUNCILS (REPRESENTATIONS)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Personal Incomes
  Personal Incomes
  Revenue and Expenditure Returns
  Revenue and Expenditure Returns
  Purchase Tax
  Purchase Tax
  External Debt
  External Debt
  Road Maintenance (Expenditure)
  Road Maintenance (Expenditure)
  Foreign Travel (Students)
  Foreign Travel (Students)
  Military Expenditure Abroad
  Military Expenditure Abroad
  Advertising Report No. 6
  Advertising Report No. 6
  Public Boards (Executive Salaries)
  Public Boards (Executive Salaries)
  Entertainments Duty
  Entertainments Duty
  Cupro-Nickel Coins
  Cupro-Nickel Coins
  Unnecessary Expenditure
  Unnecessary Expenditure
  Capital Goods
  Capital Goods
  African Colonies (Paymaster-General's Visit)
  African Colonies (Paymaster-General's Visit)
  Customs and Excise (Transit Passenger)
  Customs and Excise (Transit Passenger)
  Subsidies
  Subsidies
  Officials (Powers of Entry)
  Officials (Powers of Entry)
  Transit of Animals (Amendment) Order
  Transit of Animals (Amendment) Order
  Captured German State Documents (Publication)
  Captured German State Documents (Publication)
  Government Advertising
  Government Advertising
  Imported Fruit
  Imported Fruit
  University Expansion (Capital Grants)
  University Expansion (Capital Grants)
  Business Visits, Japan
  Business Visits, Japan
  CROWN PROCEEDINGS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND)
  CROWN PROCEEDINGS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND)
  ARMED FORCES PROJECTS, SCOTLAND (LABOUR)
  ARMED FORCES PROJECTS, SCOTLAND (LABOUR)
  SOCIALISED UNDERTAKINGS (LIST OF BOARDS)
  SOCIALISED UNDERTAKINGS (LIST OF BOARDS)
CIVIL SERVICE
  Staff Representations
  Staff Representations
  Temporary Clerks and Messengers
  Temporary Clerks and Messengers
  Ex-Service Candidates
  Ex-Service Candidates
  Superannuation Act, 1834 (Revision)
  Superannuation Act, 1834 (Revision)
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Home Market (Limited Sales)
  Home Market (Limited Sales)
  Argyrol (Imports)
  Argyrol (Imports)
  Women's Clothing (Export)
  Women's Clothing (Export)
  Cloth (Re-imports)
  Cloth (Re-imports)
  Footwear and Clothing (Prices)
  Footwear and Clothing (Prices)
  Salvage
  Salvage
  Home Flay Production
  Home Flay Production
  Soda Ash
  Soda Ash
  Imports
  Imports
  Anglo-Yugoslav Negotiations
  Anglo-Yugoslav Negotiations
  Cosmetics and Shampoos
  Cosmetics and Shampoos
  Utility Goods (Prices)
  Utility Goods (Prices)
  Anglo-Soviet Trade
  Anglo-Soviet Trade
  Text Books (Imports)
  Text Books (Imports)
  Sole Leather
  Sole Leather
  Overseas Gift Clothing (Coupons)
  Overseas Gift Clothing (Coupons)
  Cotton Linters (Imports)
  Cotton Linters (Imports)
  Factories, Scotland (U.S.A. Ownership)
  Factories, Scotland (U.S.A. Ownership)
  Utility Furniture (Infestation)
  Utility Furniture (Infestation)
  Imperial Preferences
  Imperial Preferences
  Plain Net Machines
  Plain Net Machines
  SCOTLAND (SEED POTATOES)
  SCOTLAND (SEED POTATOES)
HOUSING (SCOTLAND)
  Overcrowded Dwelling, Muirkirk
  Overcrowded Dwelling, Muirkirk
  Composition Floor Covering
  Composition Floor Covering
  Ground Floors (Timber)
  Ground Floors (Timber)
  Lindsey Houses
  Lindsey Houses
  RIVER FORTH (FERRY SERVICE)
  RIVER FORTH (FERRY SERVICE)
  FLETTON BRICKS (ROAD TRANSPORT)
  FLETTON BRICKS (ROAD TRANSPORT)
  COAL EXPORTS (QUALITY)
  COAL EXPORTS (QUALITY)
FUEL AND POWER
  Bunker Oil
  Bunker Oil
  Electricity Supply, Ayrshire
  Electricity Supply, Ayrshire
  PENSIONS (APPEALS)
  PENSIONS (APPEALS)
  POPULATION AND ROADS (STATISTICS)
  POPULATION AND ROADS (STATISTICS)
  SEWERAGE, LLANGATTOCK
  SEWERAGE, LLANGATTOCK
  BACON AND EGGS (SUBSIDIES)
  BACON AND EGGS (SUBSIDIES)
  POST OFFICE PROJECTS SCOTLAND (LABOUR)
  POST OFFICE PROJECTS SCOTLAND (LABOUR)
Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack.
Prayers.
  LORD CHANCELLOR'S VISIT TO PARIS.
  The Lord CHANCELLOR (Viscount Jowitt): My Lords, at the end of last week I had occasion, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, to visit Paris where I had the honour of being received by the President of the French Republic. I also had the honour of being received by Monsieur Monnerville, the President of the Second Chamber in France. Monsieur Monnerville was good enough to say that my visit to Paris was a further illustration of the intimacy of the relations between the Parliamentary institutions of our two great democracies which last year had united their destinies in solemn alliance, and he asked me particularly to transmit to your Lordships a cordial message of good will from his Chamber to your Lordships' House.

BRITISH NATIONALITY BILL. [H.L.]
2.36 p.m.
The Lord CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to make provision for British nationality and for citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, and to move that the Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL. [H.L.]
Lord WALKDEN: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to amend the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Acts relating to matters affected by certain International Conventions adopted at Seattle in the year nineteen hundred and

1077
forty-six, and to move that the Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

CONVICTIONS FOR ATTEMPTED RAPE.
Lord LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many convictions there have been in England and Wales for attempted rape as contrasted with convictions for rape in the years from 1938 to 1947 respectively.]
The Lord CHANCELLOR: My Lords, separate figures for offences of attempted rape dealt with by the courts are not available, as the figures are compiled upon returns which do not distinguish between rape and attempted rape. The number of persons convicted and sentenced for rape or attempted rape during the years 1938 to 1946 is as follows: 1938, forty; 1939, thirty-six; 1940, thirty-two; 1941, thirty-six; 1942, fifty; 1943, sixty-four; 1944, seventy-seven; 1945, 100; 1946, sixty-five.

CENTRAL ELECTRICITY BOARD (KEADBY GENERATING LANDS) ORDER, 1947.
Lord CHORLEY: I beg to move that the Special Orders, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Tuesday last, be approved.
Moved, That the Special Orders, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Tuesday last, be approved.—(Lord Chorley.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

BRIGHTON CORPORATION ACT, 1931, MODIFICATION ORDER, 1947.
Lord WALKDEN: My Lords, I beg to move that this Order, as reported from
1078
the Special Orders Committee on Tuesday last, be approved.
Moved, That the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Tuesday last, be approved.—(Lord Walkden.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (SCOTLAND) (SUPERANNUATION) REGULATIONS, 1948.
Lord MORRISON: My Lords, I beg to move that the Special Order, as approved by the Special Orders Committee on Tuesday last, be approved.
Moved, That the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Tuesday last, be approved.—(Lord Morrison.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ATTEMPTED RAPE BILL.
2.38 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
The Lord CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I rise to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is an anomaly in our Criminal Law, to which His Majesty's Judges have for many years past called attention, that whereas for rape the punishment on conviction can be imprisonment for life, in attempted rape the maximum punishment is only two years. Of course, it is obvious that the offence of attempted rape is just as bad—or may be just as bad from the point of view of the offender—as rape itself, because frequently it is only owing to the gallantry or the strength of the woman that the full offence is prevented. It is an odd thought that for an attempt to commit robbery, the punishment may be five years' penal servitude, and for an attempt to commit robbery with violence it can be penal servitude for life, whereas for an attempt to commit rape the maximum punishment which can be awarded is two years.
In this respect the law of Scotland is different from our own. Under the law of Scotland an attempt to ravage, as they call it, is subject to no such limitations, and I am told that in half the cases which have been tried in Scotland in the

1079
last ten years where a man has been found guilty of this offence the punishment awarded has been in excess of the punishment which is allowed by the law of England. I have just given some figures to the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, which, it may be thought, are an index of the assaults which are made on our women and girls. We all know, however, that not infrequently a jury will find an accused not guilty of either rape or attempted rape, but guilty of indecent assault. The noble Lord will realize that the figures I have given him do not and cannot include that aspect of the matter.
I should have thought that it was beyond argument that everybody would support this measure, had it not been for the fact that some half-dozen people in another place took the contrary view, apparently on the odd principle that nobody sets out to attempt to commit rape but that he sets out, if he is so minded, to commit rape and that circumstances prevent him carrying through the offence—it may be that the girl is able to resist, or that help comes to her, or her cries attract somebody or whatever it may be, and therefore the offence is not completed. It seems to me quite illogical to say that because a man does not set out to commit the attempt therefore there should not be a punishment, or a right to inflict a punishment, because he does not complete the offence. I suppose that no one ever sets out to attempt to commit murder, but if he has murder in his heart his design may possibly miscarry. Notwithstanding that, the punishment for attempted murder may be penal servitude for life.
We must remember that this is not a case where we are saying this is the punishment which must be inflicted. We are merely saying that there may be cases—and in the experience of His Majesty's Judges there have been such cases—in which, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, a punishment of more than two years is the appropriate punishment. It is that simple matter with which this Bill sets out to deal. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
Lord LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I was frankly a little surprised when the noble and learned Viscount could not give me
1080
the different figures for convictions for rape and convictions for attempted rape, because one knows quite well that when a man comes before a court the various previous crimes he may have committed are exactly set out, and in those cases one would be told that the man had been convicted of attempted rape or of rape, as the case may be. I make this comment on the figures that the noble and learned Viscount has been good enough to give me, as I believe that if there had been more extensive research in the Home Office it would have been possible to get the comparison in numbers between convictions for rape and for attempted rape, not perhaps by just looking up the published criminal statistics, but by looking up the cases—and there are not many of them.
Having said that, I am not going to add that we, on these Benches, welcome this Bill, because I do not think anyone welcomes a Bill that puts up the maximum penalty for any crime. I think that most noble Lords are sorry that there has to be such a measure and that over recent years the numbers of convictions for rape, or for attempted rape, or, at any rate, for the two together, have shown an unfortunately marked increase. It is true, as the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, has said, that it does not lie in the hands of the offender as to whether the crime amounts to rape or to attempted rape. It is usually the fact that he is disturbed, that one particular woman struggles for longer than another, or that one woman is stronger than another, that differentiates normally between the offences of rape and of attempted rape. In essence, the man ought to be punished, and in most cases severely punished, either for the attempt or for actual rape. He set out to violate a woman without her consent, and that is one of the most horrible crimes, I think, that can be committed. Often the effect on the woman to whom it happens is a lasting one.
This is obviously the kind of offence that every right-minded man should try, if possible, to get stamped out. Therefore, if the Judges have recommended that they should be permitted, in appropriate cases, to pass sentence of more than two years, I think we should support them. We should endeavour to do anything that lies in our power to ensure that cases of this

1081
sort, whether of rape or of attempted rape, decrease considerably, if only because of the deterrent effect on those men who may be minded to commit such crimes of the knowledge of what will happen to them if they start. For that reason this Bill will certainly not meet with opposition from us. Indeed, coming as it does with a strong recommendation from the Judges, I think it should have the support of your Lordships' House as a whole.
2.44 p.m.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I do not rise to oppose the Bill, and most certainly not on the grounds which the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, has stated were grounds on which it was opposed in another place. I think it would be fair to say that the opposition in another place arose over certain remarks which were not unlike those passed just now by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, to the effect that there should be a greater deterrent than a punishment of two years in prison. I think it was felt that in this particular crime probably the punishment of imprisonment could not, in any case, be regarded as a deterrent. On the other hand, I do, I confess, view the Bill with a complete lack of enthusiasm. That is not because I do not consider it is entirely unreasonable that there should be this comparatively small punishment for attempted rape and a very severe punishment for rape. Indeed, as the Lord Chancellor says, in essence, there is no difference between the crime of rape and that of attempted rape, and I was glad that the noble and learned Viscount drew attention to the rule in Scotland which seems to me very much more reasonable.
Why I regard this Bill with a lack of enthusiasm, is because it seems to me to show no appreciation of the modern views on crime and punishment. This particular crime is one for which, I believe, punishment cannot be a deterrent. Whatever the punishment inflicted may be, I do not think that it has any effect on the frequency with which this particular crime is committed. It is probably true that at least 90 per cent. of, and possibly all, these cases arise really from a psychological maladjustment. I could wish that this Bill had shown the Government's awareness of the need for special treatment of offenders in cases of this sort. I would not have been dismayed if the Bill had provided that the criminal could be
1082
detained during His Majesty's pleasure for the whole of his life.
I am not complaining that the punishment which is now provided is excessive—far from it. It seems to me, however, that in order to protect society—and that I presume is the aim of all punishment—it must be recognized that it may well be that a criminal of this kind is a danger to society owing to something in his psychological make-up, and therefore he requires treatment if he is ever to be released into society again. I believe that unless those responsible for this particular crime are treated in this way, it is no better to confine a man for seven years than to confine him for two years. I would wish rather that he should be confined indefinitely, and subjected to treatment until competent medical authorities were prepared to take the responsibility for his release, or that otherwise he should still be secluded from society. As I say, I regret that this Bill does not seem to show that His Majesty's Government and their advisers are really alive to the most modern thought on this kind of subject.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

POST OFFICE AND TELEGRAPH (MONEY) BILL.
Read. 3a (according to Order), and passed.

REQUISITIONED LAND AND WAR WORKS BILL.
2.49 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Chorley.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The Earl of Drogheda in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:
Highways.
"(2) For the purposes of the said section fifteen, and of sections sixteen and twenty-one of the Act of 1945 (which provide for the retention of railways, cables and pipes where a highway is not stopped up and for the temporary continuation of orders for the stop-

1083
ping up or diversion of highways), the expression "war period" in the Act of 1945 shall include any period during which the Transitional Powers Act is in force."
The Earl of MUNSTER The Earl of MUNSTER moved, in subsection (2) to omit "the said section fifteen, and of." The noble Earl said: The Requisitioned Land Act of 1945 states that the Minister can close permanently highways which have been closed temporarily. The Supplies and Services Act of the same year, which extended certain powers until the year 1952, deliberately terminated the powers of temporary closure on February 24, this year—that is to say, to-day week. The fact that temporary closure is now to be extended to land held by the Services does not, in fact, affect the principle. In this Amendment I am not trying to hold the Government to the promise made by the Secretary of State in another place in 1945, to give up the permanent closure powers on February 24 this year, because, as I see it, they have discovered a snag which exists and which is set out in subsection (1) of this particular clause. The clause seeks to legalize it. All I propose is to allow the Government until the end of 1949 to deal with cases which become legalized by subsection (1) of this clause. It seems to me that to extend the principle of subsection (1) for a further period of twelve months would be sufficient to enable the Service Departments—and I suppose the Government—to say quite clearly and definitely whether they require this or that highway to be closed permanently or whether it can be left open. There is very little in it, but it is an important point. I have seen fit to put down this Amendment in order to extract from the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, a statement of the Government's proposal.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 19, leave out from the first ("of") to ("sections").—(The Earl of Munster.)
Lord CHORLEY: I regret that I am not able to accept the Amendment which the noble Earl has moved. Its object, as he has explained, is to restrict the period during which, on the acquisition of a piece of land, a footpath running across it can be stopped up in accordance with the provisions of the Act of 1945. If this Amendment were accepted it would largely destroy the value of the extension of
1084
time, provided by Clause 1 of the Bill, from February 23 this year to 1952. Suppose that we had a piece of land which the Government found necessary to acquire under the terms of this Bill as amended, and there was a footpath running across it which could not be dealt with after February 24, 1949. That would in effect mean that the use of the extension provided by Clause 1 would be cut down from four years to one year.
It necessarily follows, from the extension which is given under Clause 1, that the powers to stop up a footpath running across such a piece of land must also be extended to the same period. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that this Amendment ought not to be accepted.
The Earl of MUNSTER: I regret that the noble Lord cannot see his way to accept my Amendment. I suppose he is perfectly right in saying that since the Bill extends to 1952 the powers under Clause 1, the power which the Government seek under Clause 3 should be extended for a similar period. Nevertheless, I regret this, and I should like it to go on record that there are powers which the Government seek in this Bill to close—if necessary for ever—a highway which at the present moment the public use and enjoy. I think that is regrettable. I do not think it is a reason for extending Clause 3 to 1952. In the circumstances, it is no good my pursuing my object further, and I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clauses 4 to 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
Amount of rental compensation for requisitioned land.
7.—(1) In relation to rental compensation in respect of the taking possession of land, that is to say compensation calculated in accordance with paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of Section two of the Act of 1939 by reference to the rent which might reasonably be expected to be payable by a tenant in occupation of the land, the said Section two shall have effect, as respects any period after the commencement of this Act, subject to the provisions of this section.
(2) So such of proviso (i) to subsection (1) of the said Section two as provides, in relation to rental compensation, for disregarding any appreciation of values due to the emergency shall not have effect, but—

1085
(a) rental compensation shall not in any case exceed the maximum applicable in that case under the next following section;
The Earl of MUNSTER The Earl of MUNSTER moved, in subsection (2) (a) to omit "maximum applicable in that case under the next following section" and to insert:
"rental payable in respect of such an interest in the land as is defined in Section fifty-two of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, provided that any references in the said Section fifty-two to the date of the notice to treat shall be construed for the purposes of this section as references to the date on which possession of the land was taken."
The noble Earl said: This Amendment deals with rental compensation and raises a matter of some considerable importance. During the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill, I drew the attention of your Lordships to the fact that this clause has again brought into operation the 1939 basis of valuation. Noble Lords will remember that under the Town and Country Planning Act of last year the 1939 basis of valuation was abolished for property which was compulsorily acquired; here we are now seeking to introduce a new arrangement which has never before appeared in any Bill dealing with rental compensation. The basis of valuation for compulsory acquisition under the Town and Country Planning Act was the assumption of a lease terminating no earlier than 1954, from which the capital value to be paid was to be deduced. All I am asking is that the same lease as appears in the Town and Country Planning Act should be assumed for the purpose of rental compensation in this Bill, and that the rental compensation should, in point of fact, be the annual value of the house.
Let me explain to your Lordships, if I can, by giving a concrete case: Suppose that a house with an annual rent payable of £100 is requisitioned, and that that house has a lease which terminates not later than 1954. I maintain that in that case the owner should receive a similar annual rental; that is, a figure of £100 a year. What the Government seek to do, under Clause 7 of the Bill, is to take the 1939 annual value, add 60 per cent. and pay the resultant sum to the owner of the house. Let us assume that the 1939 annual value of the house was £50 a year. Add 60 per cent. and
1086
we find that the renal is £80, compared with the £100 now paid. What my Amendment seeks to do is to lay down that when the Government seek to take a house,, such as I have mentioned, they should pay the rent which the owner is paying to-day. That seems to me to be fair and equitable, and I hope that the noble Lord has given this very serious consideration and will now be able to accept this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 22, leave out from beginning to the end of line 23 and insert the said new words.—(The Earl of Munster.)
Lord CHORLEY: I regret that I am unable to accept this Amendment also. The noble Earl, in moving it, has given an illustration which certainly would be a hard case, but unfortunately the form of words which he has moved is so wide that in effect it removes the ceiling which the clause as proposed lays down. Take the terms under the Town and Country Planning Act of last year, which deals with "rental payable in respect of such an interest"—the very words which the noble Earl uses. That rental is no different from the ordinary market rental prevailing at the time and the effect of this Amendment would be to remove the ceiling altogether. This is an exceedingly difficult problem to deal with. Noble Lords opposite have always taken the view that there should not be any ceiling and they argued this over the Town and Country Planning Act. They objected to the method put forward by the Government at that time, which was to get over the scarcity period by means of a notional lease which went on to 1954. at the end of which time the scarcity would have come to an end. The Government are not able to accept that method in this case. I quite agree that the method of going back to 1939 and adding 60 per cent. is not an entirely satisfactory one. On the Second Reading of the Bill I indicated that if the noble Earl could produce a method which was satisfactory without asking the Government to accept the principle of unqualified current values, which they have consistently refused to accept, we should be very glad to look at it. But the noble Earl has not, in fact, produced any such Amendment. As I say, the Amendment which he has produced really means taking the current value.

1087
The Government have considered various methods, and a method which was mentioned on the previous occasion was to take 5 per cent. of the capital value. That would have been a possible method if one had been dealing with a certain type of property. But one has to remember that many different kinds of property have been requisitioned, and will be requisitioned, under the provisions of this Bill—even to isolated floors in buildings, and sections of houses. That method of taking 5 per cent. of the capital value cannot effectively be applied in such cases. The result has been that we have been driven back to this 1939 value, plus 60 per cent. The 60 per cent. has been agreed as a reasonable figure of increase. Your Lordships will remember that, after it was decided that the 1939 figure could no longer be maintained, and increases were given in connexion with certain types of war-damaged property, and others, the 60 per cent. was agreed as being a reasonable figure. The Government have now adopted that basis. I think your Lordships will agree there is a substantial concession here over the position as it existed before this Bill was introduced. I hope that your Lordships will be satisfied with that concession and will reject this Amendment.
The Marquess of READING: May I say one word on this? I thought that the noble Earl made a powerful case in submitting his Amendment to your Lordships' House. What surprises me a little is the attitude which has now been taken up by the noble Lord in the sentences which he has just uttered. As I gather from what he said, the position is that on the Second Reading of the Bill he intimated to the noble Earl that if from the noble Earl's side of the House an Amendment were produced the Government would consider it favourably, if it commended itself. Surely, that means that the Government are not satisfied with the position as it stands now, and recognize that some Amendment is required. If that be the position, even if the noble Earl's Amendment does not commend itself to them, surely it is their duty as a Government to produce an Amendment themselves which will rectify the position which they themselves recognized on Second Reading to require further consideration and Amendment.
The Marquess of SALISBURY: Are the Government not prepared to consider the matter, in view of what the noble Earl and the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, have said? We do not want to press the matter, of course. It is a matter for consideration. But it is clearly evident to the whole Committee that the Government themselves do not regard this as an ideal basis. I should have thought the right thing to do was for them to see if they can think of anything better.
Lord CHORLEY: We have been thinking very hard about this ever since the Bill was introduced, and it may well be that the best practicable scheme is not an ideal scheme. As I pointed out, the noble Earl's Amendment is quite unacceptable. It is practically the Amendment which was introduced in another place, and which was negatived there. Neither the noble Earl nor anyone else has been able to suggest any form of words which gives a really practicable solution to the problem. I suggest that the Government's own solution, while not ideal, is a fairly good one, in that if does give the 1939 value, plus 60 per cent., which will in fact give a reasonable compensation in the vast majority of cases of this kind. One of the difficulties is that we have very little time to consider this matter. If even between now and to-morrow the noble Earl can, in fact, produce something—
Several Noble Lords Several Noble Lords: Why not the Government?
Lord CHORLEY: The draftsman has been trying his best over a substantial period. It is not only between last Thursday and to-day that this matter has been under consideration; it has been under consideration for many months. I am sure that noble Lords will appreciate that the draftsman and his advisers at the Treasury have been discussing and thinking about this matter over the last weeks and months. In the circumstances, I am sorry that I cannot do anything more to meet the noble Earl.
The Earl of MUNSTER: Draftsmen usually accept their advice from the Government, and "where there's a will there's a way." I believe that it is possible to achieve what we seek in this Amendment. The words which I have put down on the Order Paper may be quite impos-

1089
sible of acceptance, and, indeed, may not make sense. Nevertheless, the noble Lord has understood exactly what I am out to achieve. As the noble Lord has said, the vast majority of these cases will not be hard hit, but I am concerned with the small owner whose property—possibly his only asset in the world—has been requisitioned, who will receive a very raw deal. If I understand the noble Lord correctly, he wishes it to go out from this House that the Government believe that the small owner should, in point of fact, receive a raw deal; and that is the policy which they have pursued. I do not know when the Third Reading of this Bill is to be taken. I hope that it will not be taken, in any event, until Thursday. There is a Royal Commission at half-past five on that day, and there will be ample time for the noble Lord, with my noble friend Lord Llewellin and myself, to discuss the prospects of finding a suitable Amendment which will cover the point in question. On that understanding, and on the understanding that the Bill will not be read a third time until Thursday, I am now prepared to withdraw the Amendment. If, in the meantime, a suitable Amendment can be found, it can be inserted in the Bill on Third Reading. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Lord CHORLEY: I am very pleased to give the noble Earl the assurance for which he asks. I shall be only too glad to discuss the matter with him and the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. If we can find something better than what is proposed in the Bill at present I shall be happy to insert it in the Bill.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 agreed to.
3.10 p.m.
Clause 8:
Maxima for rental compensation.
(4) In this section the following expressions have the meanings hereby respectively assigned to them is to say:—
"rent-restricted property" means a property (whether or not the subject of a tenancy) in the ease of which the following conditions are fulfilled, that is to say—

(a) that immediately before the time when possession was taken of the pro-
1090
perty or part thereof in question the property or part was being used for residential purposes, or if it was not then being used that it had been used for residential purposes when last used before that time, and

(b) that if an unfurnished tenancy of the property had been granted immediately before the said time the amount of the rent recoverable under the tenancy would have been restricted by the Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions Acts, 1920 to 1939;

The Earl of MUNSTER The Earl of MUNSTER moved, in subsection (4), to add to the definition of "rent-restricted property."
"Provided that a property shall not be deemed to be a rent-restricted property for the purposes of this section notwithstanding that the foregoing conditions are fulfilled if at or immediately before the time when possession was taken of the property the owner thereof was himself in occupation of the same."
The noble Earl said: This Amendment is one of which I gave notice to the noble Lord on the Second Reading of the Bill. Its purpose is to exclude owner-occupied rent-restricted property from the limitation of rental compensation which is contained in subsection (1) of this clause. Here I would say that on Second Reading I made a mistake. I told your Lordships that a house which perhaps had never been the subject of a tenancy would, in point of fact, come within the restrictions. It has now been pointed out to me that that is not so. In drafting this Amendment, therefore, I have disregarded that particular point which I made on Second Reading, and I have confined my Amendment to providing that a rent-restricted property which is occupied by the owner shall be eligible for the "1939 plus 60 per cent." rental.
As the Bill now stands, it is very unjust to owner-occupiers. A house may have been let in 1912 for a sum of £30 a year. It may have been bought long before the war by a person wishing to occupy it himself and if he purchased that property with vacant possession he would have had to pay a price greatly in excess of the value represented by the pre-1914 rent. If the house is requisitioned, then, notwithstanding the fact that the owner has paid this high price and will probably have to pay an even higher price or a rent greatly in excess of £30 a year in order to rehouse himself, the compensation rental which he receives will be

1091
limited, as I understand it, by virtue of the Rent Restrictions Acts, to the 1914 war rent of £30 a year. In addition, there is the particular case of Davis and Warwick, to which I would draw the attention of the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor. I have looked at that case, and I think that anyone who has read those proceedings will agree that the scheme is a remarkably hard one. I have placed this Amendment on the Paper to achieve the object which I have mentioned, and which I set out more fully on the Second Reading of the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 43, at end insert the said proviso.—(The Earl of Munster.)
Lord CHORLEY: I regret that I cannot accept this Amendment. The position of the owner of a house which is within the Rent Restrictions Acts, and in respect of which the standard rent became fixed a substantial time ago, is always an exceedingly difficult one, because where he is forced to let the house to somebody else he cannot get more than this very low standard rent except, of course, the permitted increases. There are permitted increases, and I am sure the noble Earl is aware of that, although he did not mention them.
Under this Bill the position of such an owner is no better and no worse. The Government have set their face against a man being able to do better on rental compensation under this Bill than he would if he were letting the house in the market; that is why the restriction has in fact been laid down. Actually, there is very little chance of the hardship occurring to which the noble Earl refers, because it is not the policy of the Government to requisition houses which are actually the residences of owner-occupiers. If it were the policy of the Government to requisition houses in which people were living and carrying on their life, obviously, in a case of that kind, there would be a grievance; but in actual fact that is not the policy. It is quite true that during the war, under the great stress of the conditions which then prevailed, it was found necessary to requisition houses in which people were living.
The Earl of MUNSTER: Are there none requisitioned now?
Lord CHORLEY: I cannot give the noble Earl a categorical statement that in no case since the termination of hostilities has there ever been requisitioning of a house in which somebody was living. In an exceptional case it might be necessary, and it would be quite unfair to try to tie the Government down to some kind of declaration that they would never, in any circumstances, requisition a house in which somebody was residing. But the policy is not to requisition such houses, and I am advised that it is unlikely that a hard case of the kind to which the noble Earl has drawn attention would, in practice, arise. What he is trying to do, in effect, is to drive the thin end of the wedge into this principle, which the Government have maintained through all these cases—namely, that the Government must not be made to pay a larger price in the way of compensation than the owner could get if he were letting the house in the market. That is what the noble Earl is asking your Lordships to sanction.
The Earl of MUNSTER: It is not quite the same. I do not think the noble Lord has quite understood my point. It is all very well to say that if the owner puts the house in the market he should not get a larger rent than that provided under the Rent Restrictions Acts. But here is something totally different. The Government, an all-powerful machine, requisition his house and he has not the right of refusal. They say to him: "We are going to take this house from such and such a date and you must go and find another similar house." The noble Lord knows as well as I do that that occupier cannot find a house at the 1914 rent.
Lord CHORLEY: With great respect, I pointed out that we do not come in and say: "Get out of your house and find another house."
The Earl of MUNSTER: Of course you do.
Lord LLEWELLIN: I did not quite follow the noble Lord opposite when he said that these houses came within the Rent Restrictions Acts. At the moment when they were requisitioned—I am envisaging the position in my noble friend's Amendment—the owner was occupying the house himself, which there-

1093
fore was completely outside the purview of the Rent Restrictions Acts, because the owner was the occupier. Now what happens? I remember a case in the very early stages of the war in which I had to intervene myself, and in which I must say I was glad I did intervene. There was a big factory, and the people who were taking that factory area thought that the roads would make a nice boundary. All along the side of the road they were taking cottages in which people were living, which in my view was quite unnecessary, and I made them alter it. Some of those people had to be turned out of their houses, but I got many of them reprieved. It docs work in that way.
Take a case where the owner-occupier is living in a small house, a house that will come under the Rent Restrictions Acts. What are you doing to that man? You take his house. If you are not going to requisition his house at all, then my noble friend's Amendment does no harm, because the matter never arises. But the Government have power to requisition a house even if it is occupied, and therefore this man who is living in his own house is turned out. The noble Lord cannot tell me that that man will be able easily to get another house at the restricted rent—it cannot be done. That is why there is the other subsection of this very clause, subsection (2) which says:
"Where the requisitioned land includes no rent-restricted land, the rental compensation shall not exceed one hundred and sixty per cent. … "
The reason for that provision is that everyone knows that the man will have to pay somewhere about that rental for his new place. But if he is a wretched owner-occupier of one of these small houses, his house, under the definition clause of this Bill, comes into the category of a rent-restricted house. Yet the man is living there and all he wants to do is to go on living there.
Lord CHORLEY: We are not turning him out.
Lord LLEWELLIN: But you can turn him out; that is my point. My noble friend's Amendment is merely to add a proviso which reads as follows:
"Provided that a property shall not be deemed to be a rent-restricted property for the purposes of this section notwithstanding that the foregoing conditions are fulfilled if
1094
at or immediately before the time when possession was taken of the property the owner thereof was himself in occupation of the same."
Therefore, if there is no case where these powers are to be used to turn a man out of his own property no harm can be done to the Government by accepting this Amendment. On the other hand, if this Amendment is not made in the Bill and it does happen that one of the Departments requisitions a small house occupied by the owner, the Government cannot pay full compensation to that man because, by the terms of the Statute, it would be more than the restricted rent. We all know perfectly well that he ought to get 60 per cent. more than the 1939 rent, if he is to get another home.
Those are the facts; and it is obviously unfair if such people are to be turned out and be told, "This is your compensation." The man may say to the rent requisitioning officer, "Where can I get another house to live in at this moment?" The requisitioning officer will not be able to answer that question. That is the position in which these people are going to be. I suggest, therefore, that the Government should accept this Amendment—which is even stronger than the one they have said they would consider, because in that Amendment these people would get 1939 rate plus 60 per cent. Some people live in houses which are subject to 1914 rate plus 40 per cent. I would sooner have 1939 rate plus 60 per cent., than 1914 rate plus 40 per cent.—and that is the basis to which we are putting these people back. Therefore I press the Government to think again, lest some injustice be done.
Lord CHORLEY: We will certainly have another look at it, but I cannot hold out to the noble Lord any prospect of our accepting this Amendment. It would not be right that I should do so. But we will certainly took at it again and consider it with the Minister.
The Marquess of SALISBURY: We are grateful to the noble Lord for the promise to look at the matter again. But we have now been told in two successive Amendments that the Government recognize the need for a solution, but all they say is that they will look at the matter again, and that they cannot hold out any hope that they can make the matter any more just. I suggest that if

1095
they are going to. look at these Amendments they should look at them properly, with a view to helping. I recognize that it is not the noble Lord himself who is responsible, but I hope he will try to get the Government to do their job, which is to secure justice for the small man in this country.
The Earl of MUNSTER: If the noble Lord is going to look at the matter again, I hope he will really consider the point and see if he can get something definite done and put down an Amendment agreeable to us all. In the existing circumstances, and seeing that discussions are to be held, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clause 10:
Amount of compensation in respect of making good requisitioned land.
10.—(1) Proviso (ii) to subsection (1) of Section two of the Act of 1939 (which provides that the compensation payable under paragraph (b) of that subsection in respect of damage to land occurring during the period of requisition shall not exceed the value of the land at the time when possession thereof was taken, no account being taken of any appreciation in the value thereof due to the emergency) shall not have effect as respects compensation under the said paragraph (b) accruing due after the commencement of this Act, but subject to the provisions of subsection (4) of this section such compensation shall not exceed the amount by which the compulsory purchase price of the land in the state in which it was when the compensation accrued due falls short of what would have been the compulsory purchase price of the land if it had then been in the state in which it was when possession of the land was taken.
The Earl of MUNSTER The Earl of MUNSTER moved to add to subsection (1):
"or the amount of any sums reasonably expended, or so to be expended, in the rehabilitation of the land, whichever is the greater."
The noble Earl said: The first Amendment which I have on Clause 10 is to line 28, on page 8. As the noble Lord properly observed, this and the Third Amendment which I have put down to this clause are very similar. Being good-natured, I have put them both down, in the hope that if the noble Lord cannot accept one he will probably accept the other. These Amendments are of an ex-
1096
ploratory nature. I should appreciate some Government assurance on the restoration of land, which might take a considerable period of time. I had at the back of my mind the question of opencast coal mining land. During the Committee stage in another place the Financial Secretary gave an undertaking that the Government would restore this land, without any words in the Act requiring them so to do, and that any charges or any duties which fell on the Government could be made in the Appropriation Act. I should like that story extended, and for those reasons I have put down this Amendment and the next. I believe that for the purposes of my argument it would be proper that one or other of these Amendments should be inserted, in order to make it perfectly clear that the Government have the power so to put the land back again into good heart, and that they will not then refer to another Act, the Appropriation Act. In these circumstances, I move the first Amendment standing in my name.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 28, at end insert the said new words.—(The Earl of Munster.)
Lord CHORLEY: I am very glad indeed to testify to the good nature of the noble Earl, and I hope that he will return the compliment—but I am afraid that I cannot accept his Amendment. Indeed, I do not think he suggested that the Amendment should be taken very seriously, because its effect would be to remove the ceiling altogether. What the noble Earl is concerned with getting is an undertaking from the Government that the particular type of hard case to which he has referred will be fairly dealt with. I think the noble Earl will agree that the Government's proposals for dealing with terminal compensation are fair and just. But the difficulty arises in cases where the rehabilitation will take a long time, particularly in the case of open-cast coal mining where actual damage had been great but had not become apparent for some time, and especially in regard to the drainage system. We appreciate that this is a difficult case. I hope, when I say that, that the noble Marquess will not return to the charge and say, because I have admitted that there are hard cases, that we should immediately produce some form of words which will effectively deal with them in the Statute: because we cannot do it. But we are asking for

1097
powers to give us this extended period under the 1945 Act so that the Government may be able to rehabilitate this land. It is quite obvious that in the present difficult labour situation the landowner will not be able to do it and the Government are taking that responsibility on their own shoulders. They will hand back to the owner the land brought to the grazing level. In addition, an assurance has been given—and it is an assurance which I am happy to repeat here and now—that the Government, where necessary, will assume responsibility for restoring the drainage, whether the Government themselves undertake the work or provide the finance for the landowner to undertake it. The Government will restore the land to grazing standard and will be financially responsible for restoring the drainage. I hope the noble Earl will agree that this is a satisfactory answer to the one Amendment or the other.
Lord LLEWELLIN: Do I understand that the Government themselves intend, and give a pledge, to restore the drainage of the land, not absolutely promptly but in due course, out of public monies, and to restore the land to the condition in which it was before the surface mining took place? That is very good, so far as it goes, but there is no statutory obligation on the Government to do it. Ministers come and Ministers go; some take one view and some take another. However, it might be a difficult thing to put into a Statute. In this case, I suppose, the Minister would just show it on his estimate and that is how the work would receive Parliamentary sanction in the year in which it was done. If I am right in that, that is as far as we can press the noble Lord. The noble Lord, having testified to the good nature of the noble Earl, asks for the compliment to be returned. I agree that the noble Lord opposite is very good-natured, but my complaint is that he is too good-natured. When you know that there is a point of justice involved, you do not want to be good-natured with the Civil Service; you need to be a little stronger than that. I hope that the noble Lord will forget his good nature and will try to see that justice is done in these cases which we have pressed so hard. Good nature alone will not do it.
The Earl of MUNSTER: I am grateful to the noble Lord for his assurance, which certainly meets the point. There is little difference between us on this. I was not certain whether there was any statutory obligation on the Government in these matters. If the noble Lord tells me that he is satisfied on that point, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of MUNSTER The Earl of MUNSTER moved to add to subsection (1):
"or, where the land is comprised in a lease determining after the date when possession of the land was given up, the amount of the damages payable in respect of a breach of any repairing covenant contained in the said lease, less any amount so payable in respect of any breach which occurred before the date when possession of the land was taken, whichever is the greater."
The noble Earl said: This is an Amendment of which I gave your Lordships some indication during the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill. The question I am concerned with here is this. If a local authority requisitioned a house and turned it into flats for homeless people and, at the end of the period of requisition, returned it to the owner, the tenant might be under an obligation to restore that house at the end of the lease to the condition in which he found it when he took the lease. I am not satisfied in my own mind that, under the terms of the Bill, that case is met. On the other hand, I know that the case which I mentioned on the Second Reading is met. That is the case where a local authority requisition a property and turn it into flats for homeless people, and the lease, in the course of time, runs out but runs out during the period of requisition. That case is met by the Landlord and Tenant (Requisitioned Land) Act, 1944, and I should not be unduly concerned or worried about the tenant. However, I am concerned with the position as it would be in the first type of case that I have mentioned. It seems to me to be particularly hard on the tenant of a building who may have had it requisitioned and turned into flats that, when that building is returned to him, and without any obligation on the local authority or His Majesty's Government, the tenant before the expiration of the lease will have to convert that building back to the state in which it was when he took the house. I think I have a very clear

1099
and just case. For that reason, I have moved this Amendment in the hope that the noble Lord will be able to give me some information which will show that the case I have mentioned is met either by the local authority or by His Majesty's Government.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 28, at end insert the said words.—(The Earl of Munster.)
Lord CHORLEY: The case about which the noble Earl is thinking is again not a case in which any alteration in the Bill is required. It is a case where the value of the property has, in fact, been considerably increased. It is most unlikely that the owner, whose house has at great expense been turned into a block of fiats during the requisition, will try to insist on its being restored to the condition in which it was when it was taken over. However, if he were so unreasonable as to do that, I am advised that his only remedy would be to apply to the court, which might award damages for the loss which he has sustained; but ex hypothesi he would not have sustained any damages at all, because the value of the property, now returned to him as a block of flats instead of as a single dwellinghouse, would be so much greater than it was before.
The Earl of MUNSTER: Not to the leaseholder; to the freeholder, yes.
Lord CHORLEY: To either the leaseholder or the freeholder.
The Earl of MUNSTER: No. If the leaseholder is subject to a tenancy in which he has to put the building back into the state in which it originally was, then I agree that the freeholder will be better off; but the leaseholder will be forced to convert property back to the state in which he found it.
Lord CHORLEY: The leaseholder can be forced to restore it to the state in which he first of all had it only under a mandatory injunction from the court. I am advised that it is inconceivable that a court would make a mandatory order in a case of this kind. An injunction is entirely a discretionary remedy, and if the situation can be met effectively by monetary compensation, the court will award monetary compensation. This case
1100
ex hypothesi is a case where the value of the property has been substantially increased by being converted from a dwellinghouse into a block of flats, and therefore the court would say: "This is not a case for the discretionary remedy of the mandatory injunction; no damages will be awarded because no damages have been sustained." I suggest that this Amendment is misconceived and I hope that the noble Earl will withdraw it.
The Earl of MUNSTER: I am advised that that is the best answer we have received so far to any of these Amendments. Possibly in this case I am wrong—although I am certain that the noble Lord was in the wrong on the previous two Amendments. In those circumstances I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 10, agreed to.
Clauses 11 to 13 agreed to.
Clause 14:
Registration of rights as to government oil pipe-lines.
14.—(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, Section twelve of this Act shall not after the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and forty-nine, apply to any pipe-line, or works accessory thereto, unless the rights conferred by subsection (1) of that section have been registered in the prescribed manner in the appropriate register of local land charges.
The Earl of MUNSTER: My next Amendment deals with the pipe-line. As I mentioned this point on the Second Reading of the Bill, I need not refer to it again, because I gather that the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, has some statement or guarantee to make on this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 16, at end insert ("and notice has been served in the prescribed manner on the owner or occupier of any land to which the said rights apply").—(The Earl of Munster.)
Lord CHORLEY: The noble Earl and, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, on the Second Reading of the Bill very properly drew attention to the difficulty in which the owner or the occupier might be placed in the event of the pipe-line going under his land without his being aware of it. A new owner might have

1101
purchased the land since the time when the pipe-line was established, or a new occupier might have taken it over. We had a word together on this point, and I was able to assure the noble Earl that the Minister of Works and Buildings, who will be the appropriate Minister for dealing with this type of case, has already been in touch, so far as has been practicable and possible, with owners and occupiers in every case. We are very anxious indeed that there should be no hardship in a case of this kind. I am prepared to give an undertaking that in every known case written notice will be served upon the occupier and that, in all cases where it is possible to find the owner, a similar notice will be served upon him. I hope that those assurances will satisfy the noble Earl and that he will see his way to withdraw this Amendment.
Lord LLEWELLIN: We are much obliged to the noble Lord. All we wanted to make quite clear was that these people should not have to go and look at the land register, but that the Department which knows where this pipe-line goes should get in touch with these people and show them. I do not know whether the noble Lord's undertaking went so far as that. He mentioned serving a notice, but I would like to see the Department showing the people concerned where it is. They will always be able to find some occupier of the land; that is pretty clear, just as I agree that the owner sometimes may not be easy to find. It is not just a notice that I want. I want the occupier shown where the actual pipeline runs under his land. This will prevent him erecting a cowshed, or something else, which will eventually have to be pulled down, on or near the pipe-line, which would be a waste of labour, money and everything else. I would like to see—and I am quite certain that the noble Lord will do this—the officer of the Department explaining to the man where the line runs under his land, and so enable him to mark it out on his estate plan. I would like to ask whether that is the intention.
Lord CHORLEY: I am much obliged to the noble Lord for raising that question. Of course, the notice would not have much value unless in some way the precise spot on the land were indicated to the occupier or owner, as the case may be, and I am quite prepared to assure
1102
him that, wherever possible, the precise spot will be indicated.
The Earl of MUNSTER: I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 agreed to.
Remaining clauses and Schedule agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment.

COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS.
3.45 P.m.
Viscount BRUCE of MELBOURNE Viscount BRUCE of MELBOURNE rose to move to resolve, That this House is of the opinion that the closest relations within the Commonwealth and Empire are essential. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I have placed on the Order Paper the Motion that stands in my name, because I feel that there is no question of greater importance in the difficult and even perilous times through which we are passing than the question of relations within the Commonwealth and Empire. I think it is the general feeling throughout all British countries that Commonwealth and Empire relations, cooperation and consultation, are of the greatest importance. We have got to clear our minds, however—and clear them very definitely—on these three issues: Why are those relations so vitally important to all British people? What is the present position with regard to consultation and co-operation between the various British countries? And if the position at the present moment is not really a satisfactory one, what should we do in order to put the matter right? I propose to deal with those three points separately.
I will take first the question: Why is the closest possible consultation and cooperation between all the great British countries so essential? To see the picture clearly, we have to cast our minds into the future and try and visualize what sort of a world we are likely to live in. So far as I can see, there are three broad possibilities. The first is that we are going to live in a world in which there will be full international co-operation in dealing with all the great political and economic problems that confront us, a world in which the ideals of the United Nations will be achieved and all its

1103
specialized agencies will operate effectively and play their respective parts. The second world that I visualize, if we cannot obtain that full co-operation, is one in which there will be groupings of nations on a regional or other basis, in which the United Nations organization will operate to some extent but will not achieve all that we hoped of it, and in which the specialized agencies will play a limited part. The third and most disastrous world I visualize is one in which it is impossible to get any real co-operation, in which all attempts to achieve it break down and all our present ideals disappear—a world dominated by power politics and by the ruthless ideals that some nations seem now to hold.
If we are going to achieve that first and best world of real international cooperation, surely it is vital that we, the British peoples, should unitedly make our great contribution to it. If it is going to be the second world, in which there will be the grouping of nations, then surely there is no more natural group than that of all the great British nations scattered throughout the world. If it is going to be the third world, where there will be no real international co-operation, then we shall need each other in order to maintain our individual integrity and safeguard our existing position. We shall need to co-operate together if we are to save our whole economic life and maintain the standards of living of our people. I venture to suggest that we should project our minds into the future. But whatever sort of world we are going to get, I suggest that it is imperative that we, the British people, with our ideals and all the things we stand for, should consult, co-operate and work together.
I come now to my second point. What is the present position? Have we the machinery necessary for that consultation and co-operation? Are we to-day really consulting and co-operating? I venture to say that we are not, and I will give my reasons for it. Before I do that, however, I think we should arrive at some exact definition of what we mean by consultation and co-operation. I suggest that what it should mean is consultation between all the great self-governing nations of the Empire and Commonwealth during the period while policy is in formulation, and then, if
1104
agreement as to what that policy should be is achieved, full co-operation in its implementation. That is the objective for which we ought to be aiming.
I now turn to examine how far we have got along the road towards that goal. There are some people who believe we have been progressing so well that we are now getting very much more consultation; that we have devised a machine for effective and adequate Empire consultation and co-operation and that the machine is functioning effectively. Out of a long experience, now extending over some twenty-five years, during which I have been closely associated with this question of Empire and Commonwealth co-operation, I say that this is not so. We have not achieved that position. The past twenty-five years have been years of advance and progress. We have improved our methods of co-operation and consultation. But the stage which we have now reached leaves a great deal to be desired.
There is one possible exception to that somewhat general statement, and that is in respect of defence. Prior to the war we had a Committee of Imperial Defence—a very great conception for which, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, is entitled to the greatest measure of praise. That Committee did good work. On it sat the representatives of the Dominions. When war came, naturally, owing to the exigencies of the war, a really close military co-operation—in the widest sense of the word "military"—was established and continued throughout hostilities. Up to October, 1945, when I ceased to be High Commissioner for Australia, I did everything in my power to ensure that that co-operation with regard to defence, established in war, would continue in peace. In the autumn of 1945, when I left, the plans were moving forward well, and my hope to-day is that what one anticipated in 1945 was going to happen has continued and has improved, and that we are really getting full co-operation with regard to defence. Of that matter I have no knowledge, but I hope that His Majesty's Government during this discussion will give us some indication of the present position.
There are, however, many other vitally important subjects, apart from defence, on which we should have consultation and co-operation. As all noble Lords may not be completely familiar with the stage

1105
which we have now attained, I would] ike to indicate what is happening at the present time. What I have to say will, I think, be relatively up to date, though I cannot speak with any authority with regard to the last year or so. I can, however, speak with some authority as to what happened up to 1945. At the present time a vast mass of information is available to the Governments of the Dominions and an almost unlimited flow of cables—dealing mainly with international affairs—is going to the Dominions. There are also masses of despatches and cables passing to and from United Kingdom representatives abroad, all of which are available to the Dominions and their representatives. In addition there is a considerable flow of reports, despatches and other documents going out from the Commonwealth Relations Office—the Department which has now taken the place of the Dominions Office—to the Dominions. All the Dominions and the United Kingdom now exchange High Commissioners and the flow of information is increased thereby, the extent of the addition made by the High Commissioners depending almost entirely upon the personalities of the individual High Commissioners concerned.
But this is a point which has to be borne in mind. Nearly all the information is going from the United Kingdom to the Dominions. I would put the proportion as high as 90 per cent. All that information originates in the United Kingdom and goes out to the Dominions. The flow from the Dominions to the United Kingdom is very small and fragmentary, and the exchanges between the Dominions themselves are practically negligible. That is the broad position. But there is one matter which we have to recognize—namely, that practically all the information supplied is purely factual. I can say from bitter experience how impossible it is to get any official indication of policy—the United Kingdom's policy on any great question—during the formulative period when that policy is being created. It is only after it is finalized, agreed and almost unalterable that one can find out anything. Information which is of such a character that it does not give an opportunity for consultation and consideration during the period of the formulation of the policy is really of very little value.
I think we must all be agreed that it is essential that there should be that con-
1106
sultation. But would anyone suggest that early, adequate consultation takes place or is taking place on any of these subjects—the Peace Treaties, Palestine, the Marshall Plan, the financial and economic situation, overseas development and many other important problems? I venture to suggest to your Lordships that that consultation is not taking place and has not been taking place. Yet it is imperative that it should do so.
The Lord PRIVY SEAL (Viscount Addison): Would the noble Viscount mind giving me that list of subjects again.
Viscount BRUCE of MELBOURNE: Certainly—the Peace Treaties, Palestine, the Marshall Plan, the financial and economic situation and overseas development. I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting that there has been No information given about most of these subjects. What I am saying is that there is no opportunity for full consultation with regard to them. I will indicate some small measure of consultation on some of them in a minute or so. What generally happens is that there is what I would describe as last-minute consultation, which generally means that after weeks—in one case which I have in mind, almost years—of consideration of policy, His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom suddenly reconcile their ideas and get agreement upon the matter. Then a cable is sent to the Dominions, or a meeting of Dominion representatives with United Kingdom representatives at an international conference is held, the decision is announced and probably action has to be taken the next day. I suggest that that is not very satisfactory, and I also suggest that a number of unfortunate situations have arisen as a consequence of it, but I do not think there is any point in dwelling on those things. It seems to me that what is needed to put the position right is some method by which we shall have consultation based on adequate information during the period of the formulation of a policy, so that if we are all agreed on that policy we can co-operate in implementing it; or, in certain cases, that those who are agreed can co-operate. But we must have the consultation while the policy is being formed.
In 1943, Mr. Curtin, the then Prime Minister of Australia, put forward certain proposals which, I suggest, would have met that requirement. I was very closely

1107
associated with Mr. Curtin in the formulation of these proposals, as was Mr. Shedden—who might be described as the Lord Hankey of Australia—in his old capacity as Secretary of the Cabinet, and of the Imperial War Committee of Australia. The proposals Mr. Curtin put forward were rejected, but I want to make it quite clear that while I propose to put in my own language the suggestions I wish to make, they do not differ in conception very greatly from what was put forward by Mr. Curtin in 1943. The suggestion I make is that we require a Council of British Nations—and I quite deliberately leave out any "Imperial Council" or anything of that sort. In the evolution of this marvellous thing, the British Empire, we have reached the stage when what we really require is a Council of British Nations, a meeting of Governments which are self-governing inside the great British Commonwealth. That Council should be based on the Prime Ministers of the great self-governing parts of the Empire, and should be known as the Council of British Nations.
I also suggest that that Council must have a secretariat with picked personnel drawn from all over the different countries which are members of the Council. The tasks of that secretariat would be to keep all major questions under constant review, to furnish information and reports to all Governments who are members, and to prepare the documents and agendas for meetings of the Council. Meetings of the Council, in what I would call plenary session, with the Prime Ministers themselves, should be held as and when required. They would take the place of the old Imperial Conferences. In addition, I suggest that meetings of the Council, to be known as special meetings, could be held at any time to consider special questions as they arise—finance, transport, communications, or whatever the issue might be. A special meeting could be held in whatever part of the Empire was most convenient, but representation would probably be by the Ministers primarily concerned with the particular subject. The final thing needed is what I would call the ordinary meeting, which I suggest should be held in London once a month, under the presidency of the Prime Minister of this United Kingdom. In the ordinary way the representatives of the Dominions would be their High
1108
Commissioners, but no doubt from time to time the High Commissioners would be supplemented by Ministers who were over in this country on a special mission. In addition, the secretariat could arrange for meetings of experts of the Empire on particular problems, and could also take over the responsibilities for arranging meetings held at the non-ministerial level. I understand that in the past two years, since I left—and they were being held before that—quite a number of meetings have been held at the non-ministerial level. Senior civil servants have met to discuss their special subjects, and I believe that very satisfactory results have accrued. But ad hoc meetings are not enough. Where they break down is that there is no follow-up for the individual meetings on special subjects. There must be some sort of secretariat to give continuity to the whole picture.
I have tried to put forward what I think are practical suggestions as to the method of consultation, but the thing I want to press—and to press as deeply as I can—is that we should also allow for flexibility in the method and extent of co-operation. We have to draw a clear distinction between consultation and co-operation, and we must have the maximum flexibility with regard to co-operation. There are such differing circumstances in the different Dominions. We have to recognize that in some cases we are going to get bilateral decisions. Do not get the idea that everybody is to be in on everything and that we are going to get complete agreement on every subject. We may have a bilateral decision or a multilateral decision—all that will work itself out in the process. I am trying to indicate the absolute necessity for action; but for Heaven's sake do not get the impression that I am suggesting we should now prepare a blue-print for a magnificent secretariat of the Empire or try to indicate a sealed pattern for consultation and cooperation. I am doing nothing of the sort. I am trying to suggest that we recognize the necessity for action; we should then progressively try to create the machinery which will enable that action to he effective.
The ways and means of doing that will suggest themselves to us as we go along. In these days we have a new problem almost every day and there is hardly one of these problems which is not of vital interest to every one of the British com-

1109
munity of nations. We must not imagine that we can build anything of this sort over-night. We have to appreciate that quite possibly there will be much more rapid progress on the economic side than on the political side. To my mind that is immaterial, provided that we are going forward all the time to our objective. I suggest that we have not made a complete job in the past. We might have done better. A very natural question to ask, if I am right in that contention, is: Why has this not been put straight long ago? To find the answer, we have to delve a little bit into past history, and we must always keep in mind that as a political organism this British Commonwealth and Empire is unique.
In 1914, when the war broke out, the four great Dominions—Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa—had all reached the stage of development where theoretically there was no possible question that they were self-governing peoples, subject to no interference from anybody. In practice, however, that was not completely recognized in this country at that time, and there were quite a number of people—and quite a number of people concerned with Whitehall—who still regarded them as Colonies. That created in the Dominions a degree of resentment, the depth of which few people appreciated. There grew up the idea, very pronounced in some Dominions, that the one thing they would never put up with was "Whitehall dominance." That became almost a fetish in some Dominions. I go so far as to say that it is still there, though there is not the slightest reason for it. In the 1914-18 war the unparalleled efforts of the great Dominions convinced everybody that they had reached the point where self-government, without interference from anybody, was obviously their portion.
The whole situation was cleared up in the Balfour Declaration of 1926, which, in. dealing with the relations between the United Kingdom and the four great Dominions—Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa—declared:
"They are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations."
That was supplemented in 1931 by the Statute of Westminster. In that Statute
1110
effect was given to every principle laid down in the Balfour Declaration. The Statute went further, and provision was made for the removal of all restrictions on the legislative autonomy of the Dominions. One would imagine that the Balfour Declaration and the Statute of Westminster would have removed all doubts and suspicions in the minds of any of the Dominions, and that it would have been followed by the creation of the necessary machinery to ensure adequate consultation and co-operation. Unfortunately that did not happen. The old mentality, for some reason or another, persisted in some parts of the Empire and, I regret to say, still does.
It is only fair to say with regard to the United Kingdom that, over the long period during which I have been associated with this question, there have been many United Kingdom Governments, and they have come from all the political Parties, but I have found in every one of them a real desire to go forward and to try and complete the necessary machinery to ensure adequate consultation and co-operation. Where I do slightly quarrel with alt United Kingdom Governments, of whatever colour, is that they never showed the necessary leadership for achieving this objective; and the reason with all of them—I say it after having talked, and talked, and talked—was timidity arising from fear of offending the Dominions. I have had a little to do with the Dominions, and I believe that if some British Government had been a little more flat-footed and had said what they really thought, we would have got on a good deal faster. That is an expression of a personal view only as to what the Dominions prefer.
The argument is sometimes used to me that it is no good embarking on this sort of plan: the representatives of some of the Dominions would never co-operate, because of the obligations it would impose upon them. I cannot make any sense of that statement. No conceivable obligation would be imposed on anybody, save an obligation freely undertaken in a discussion amongst equals trying to evolve a policy and to determine whether co-operation is or is not possible. The point that must be remembered is that this would be a meeting of equals. The mentality still persists in some places, despite the Balfour Declaration, that we are not

1111
all equals. We are all equals in these great self-governing British nations. If we meet as equals, then, as is ever the case amongst equals, leadership will come sometimes from one and sometimes from another.
If this Council were ever to operate, I visualize it working on regional lines. In respect of any question concerning Europe, probably the United Kingdom would give the lead. In respect to anything concerning the North American Continent, Canada, with her geographical position and her close links with the United States of America, would probably make the greatest contribution. Australia and New Zealand, the two great outposts of a wide civilization in the Pacific, with their vital interests in the whole of that vast region, would surely make the greatest contribution to questions concerning that area. It seems to me that if we had a Council of that sort all the Dominions could make a tremendous contribution in respect of their own geographical areas. To my mind, however, these times are so fraught with danger and the need for our acting together in a united way, after full consultation, is so urgent, that even if any self-governing part of the Empire is not prepared immediately to participate in the creation of the necessary machinery, those who are should still go forward. I am certain that the results that would flow from that going forward would soon convince any Dominion that was outside as to the desirability and wisdom of coming in and co-operating fully.
It is interesting to contrast the attitude that has been adopted towards any thought of British co-operation with that adopted in regard to international cooperation. All the self-governing members of the Empire were members of the old League of Nations. When the conception of the United Nations was put forward at San Francisco, every self-governing member of the Empire welcomed it; every member of the British Group became a member of the United Nations Organization and all its specialized agencies. All the British nations now accept the Secretariat of the United Nations, and their vast organization; they all contribute towards the very heavy expense of maintaining those organizations and the Secretariats, and they all compete for places on their committees and coun-
1112
cils. Yet the moment one talks of British co-operation, somebody seems to think that there is something mysteriously vicious about it. That cannot be on the ground that such co-operation is opposed to the ideals we all subscribe to in the United Nations.
Throw your minds back to the old League of Nations. Take the case of the Little Entente and the Balkan Confederation—all were welcomed, all were encouraged and regarded as contributing to the great ideals for which the League stood. Look at the present position with regard to the Marshall Plan: sixteen nations have to come closer together and co-operate, even to the point of forming a Customs Union. There are many good and influential friends of the United Nations who are to-day advocating a United States of Europe. It cannot be that by co-operating together we would be doing something contrary to the spirit of the United Nations Charter. Indeed, I say we would be doing something that was completely and absolutely in line with it.
The evolution of the British Empire over the last 150 years is regarded by the world, and rightly regarded, as the greatest expression of political wisdom the world has ever seen. Under that system we have granted to each of the maturing British communities, when they came to the appropriate stage of development, complete self-governing rights. But the genius has not lain in having the enlightened view of granting those self-governing rights; the genius has lain in the fact that we have granted those rights to these diverse peoples across the world and yet have held them all together under a common allegiance to the Throne. I venture to say that unless we take the next step forward, the creation of the machinery required for co-operation and consultation, then that unity will not be maintained and the benefits of this great political achievement will be lost.
If that happened it would be a tragedy, not only to the British peoples but to the world, because we have to recognize to-day that the future of the world and of mankind depends upon three nations, the United States of America, Russia and Britain. The United States has a population of 130,000,000, and Russia has 170,000,000; and both have unlimited natural resources. Britain has 47,000,000 people, with practically no natural

1113
resources, and in two global wars has stripped herself bare, economically and financially, by her unparalleled efforts to save the world. Besides those other two great nations Britain, by herself, is a pigmy. In co-operation with the rest of the Commonwealth and Empire she is their equal and can give unparalleled leadership. It is vital that Britain's voice should be the voice of an equal in the councils of the world, because in the past she has been the bulwark of justice and liberty. She has been the spearhead against tyranny and aggression; she has led the world in the development of all democratic processes; and she has led the world in economic and social progress. I suggest that, with that experience behind her, out of her vast knowledge, through practice of what she has done, reinforced—and, if you like, reinvigorated—with the strength and the outlook of the young virile British peoples overseas, the contribution that Britain can make to the problems confronting mankind to-day is incalculable. Because I so believe, I move this Resolution.
Moved to resolve, That this House is of the opinion that the closest relations within the Commonwealth and Empire are essential.—(Viscount Bruce of Melbourne.)
4.24 p.m.
Lord ALTRINCHAM: My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords in every quarter of the House will agree that we have listened to a profoundly impressive and inspiring speech. It is well for us, and I think for the Commonwealth, that we should have in this House a man who can speak with the experience, the authority and the wisdom which has been shown by the noble Viscount this afternoon. He is, after all, an ex-Prime Minister; he was a High Commissioner for many years; he was closely associated with the inner councils of the United Kingdom throughout the war, and nobody can speak with greater authority than he. We are fortunate that we in this House can hear the conclusions of a mind so clear, so representative, so experienced and so wise. I agree entirely with the noble Viscount that progress now depends upon leadership from this country, and particularly on the formation of co-operative groups. That, I think, is unquestionably the next stage in Commonwealth development. I could not agree with him more that our present
1114
methods of co-operation are unsatisfactory. What in fact is holding us up? I would venture to suggest, delving a little into history, that we are still being held up by a set of ideas which belong to the past and by a certain rigidity which still circumscribes our ways of thought about the Commonwealth.
For an example I would take the very conception which governs the whole position at the present moment, the conception of Dominion status. That is a very broad conception, as laid down in the Statute of Westminster, but the difficulty about it—a difficulty which has always produced a certain reaction against it—is that it does imply a difference of status between a mother country and its child, even the completely grown-up child. It was originally derived from the Dominion of Canada, because that was the first of the younger nations to achieve complete independence and Sovereign national status. The term, therefore, has 'definite historical associations reflecting an obsolete condition of the past. Its very origin led to over-emphasis upon one aspect—and I am sure the noble Viscount, Lord Addison, will agree with me on this. There was always emphasis on the aspect of the complete independence of the Dominions and far too little emphasis on the obverse of that—namely, the responsibilities appertaining to membership of the Commonwealth. In the whole period between the wars that was the situation. I think the conception contained in Dominion status was unfortunate, particularly in the case of Eire. I am sure the noble Viscount the Leader of the House will agree on this. In Eire, from the moment the Treaty was signed, there was a constant effort to get away from Dominion status, which was never accepted by the Irish and which was regarded as unsuited to a mother country, as Ireland always was.
The influence of Ireland in the Conferences of 1926 and 1930 was undoubtedly very great. The idea of Dominion status was finally replaced by that of external association—with emphasis on the first, rather than the second, word. We made no objection when that final interpretation was given by the Constitution of 1937 to the association of Ireland with the Commonwealth. But the conception has always had its effect—and here I entirely agree with the noble Vis-

1115
count who moved this Motion—in the United Kingdom. We are still sometimes inhibited by the idea that all that the other members of the Commonwealth require is information, and that so long as they receive information that is all they can properly ask of us. In point of fact, they should come in on the formative stage and should take their share in making a policy. That policy, as I well know, is faced in the United Kingdom with the difficulty—which is perhaps inherent in our position—of an unwillingness on the part of the Dominions to take responsibility. One has often felt that that was the case. But I think it was due also to a certain retrograde character in our own thought, and to an unwillingness to give leadership to which the Dominions would undoubtedly have responded.
As an example of that, take the relation of the High Commissioners to the Government of the United Kingdom. A foreign ambassador has always had the right to go straight to the Foreign Secretary, the fountain head of external policy. The High Commissioner of the Dominion has taken it, at second hand, from the Secretary of State for the Dominions.
Viscount ADDISON: That is the Minister.
Lord ALTRINCHAM: Yes, exactly; but the High Commissioner of the Dominion gets at second hand what a foreign ambassador gets at first hand from the member of the British Cabinet especially responsible for the formulation of foreign policy. I cite that as an example of the fact that there is something inherent in Dominion status which does not correspond to the realities of the present hour. I am glad that the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, suggested that future Conferences should be held in this country under the chairmanship of the United Kingdom Prime Minister, because that is undoubtedly what ought to be done. It is essential to break down in the Dominions the fetish which the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, described—the idea that there is still in Whitehall a desire to dominate. The idea still exists, though more in some Dominions than in others. To eliminate it means some change in our methods here at home.
1116
I suggest that the most important thing is to get rid of the terminology which dates from the past. I am glad indeed that the title of "Secretary of State for the Dominions" has now been changed to "Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations." It corresponds much better, I think, to the nature of his duties at the present time. Let us forget "Dominion status." If, by chance, Australia had been the first great federation to come into being, and to attain nationhood, we might never have had the phrase "Dominion status" and how much happier the phrase "Commonwealth status" would have been—taken as it was, historically, from Canada. I think that that idea is worth emphasizing at the present time, because of the new situation in Asia. India and Pakistan are not grownup Colonies. They would not recognize in any way the historical association connected with the phrase "Dominion status"; and it is quite certain that the idea of Dominion status has never had a special appeal to the Indian mind. I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Halifax, will agree with that. He was responsible for using the phrase "Dominion status" in relation to India, and the effect on the Indian mind was much less than we hoped at the time. It never has had a strong effect at all. Similarly, Burma has opted for going outside the Commonwealth, rather than for accepting Dominion status. Burma is related to the Commonwealth by treaty, but she is now, in fact, a foreign State—a situation which is unhappy for us, and may be unhappier for her. I think, therefore, that it is desirable that in Asia we should embark on a new line of thought and find some new method of association with the Commonwealth, some via media other than the rigid choice between Dominion status and the status of a completely foreign Power.
In any case, so far as the British nations, properly so-called, are concerned, it is not the Statute of Westminster or definitions of status which have kept us what we are. It was mortal peril and the instinct for unity in peril which constitutional discussion had not destroyed. The first example of getting back to unity, under the pressure of facts, was the economic Agreements at Ottawa. It is well to remember that they enabled us to hold out so effectively in the years before the war. Then came September,

1117
1939, and the terrible events of 1940 which welded us; in united and unbreakable resolve. It is often said that at that time—1940 and 1941—Britain stood alone. That is a dangerous and misleading perversion of fact. It is a phrase which ought not to be used. It was not Britain which stood alone; it was the Commonwealth. Britain could never have stood without the support of the Commonwealth. Everybody recognizes that fact. After all, the three factors which saved us are not in doubt. One was our island position: we could not be overwhelmed unless we were invaded across the sea. The second was, by tradition and character, our capacity for national unity in peril. Fortunate was it for us that there was no sign in this country of the factions which undermined the strength of our great neighbour, France. Yet neither of those things would have saved us if there had not been the same unity and resolve, and a staunch support for us, throughout the Commonwealth.
As an example of that, I ask your Lordships to remember—because it bears very much on the situation—the immense importance of Canada's part, not only in the provision of training grounds for the Forces which were absolutely essential to our survival; and not only by her material and financial assistance on an enormous scale; but by her refusal to consider the alternative of neutrality. From the beginning Canada made neutrality much more difficult in the United States. If Canada had been neutral it would have reinforced the argument for neutrality in the United States. I am glad to see that the noble Earl, Lord Halifax, agrees that that was a decisive part which Canada played. The other Dominions played an equally important rô le in proportion to their strength. Those factors, I think, are worth remembering in peace, because—as the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, said—our freedom and security depend as much now upon unity of thought and purpose as they did then.
The Motion is, therefore, a timely one, and I regret only that we no longer have in this House to speak on such a theme the noble Viscount, Lord Bennett, another ex-Prime Minister, whose death was a very great loss to us. As the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, said, the situation manifestly calls now for more close and frequent conference. Major
1118
decisions lie ahead, both in foreign and economic policy, which imperatively demand discussion in conference. I hope that Ministers will be prepared to go to other Commonwealth capitals for discussion and will not merely invite Commonwealth Ministers to come here. The recent visit which the noble Viscount the Leader of the House paid to Australia was a most welcome demonstration that Ministers in this country are ready to give their time to go overseas. What I hope most is chat the rigidity of thought to which I have called attention will be abandoned, not only in regard to status but in the matter of function. And here I would like to refer to what the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, said about national sovereignty within the Commonwealth. The key to our free system, our Empire democratic system, is Parliament. Manifestly Parliaments must always have the last word. They have the sovereign and supreme responsibility. But they have different preoccupations and responsibilities in different parts of the world.
As the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, said, Canada, in the North American Continent, must enjoy very special relations with the United States of America and must look eastwards and northwards when considering the question of security. Obviously, the voice of Canada should have especial weight in all matters relating to British policy in that part of the globe. South Africa is concerned in the security and development of the whole African Continent and of the Middle East. Australia and New Zealand are concerned with the Pacific, Asia and also the Middle East. I am sure that your Lordships would all like to send a message of good will this week to Ceylon, wishing her prosperity in every way. The three new Asiatic Dominions—India, Pakistan and Ceylon—are also deeply interested in the Pacific and the Middle East. It may very well be that, while arrangements are made for every consideration of Commonwealth policy, special arrangements may be desirable in regard to special regions. Therefore, regional organization does seem to me vital at the present time.
The machinery of co-operation which is set up may differ from one region to another. Britain herself has a special regional problem at the present moment. She must play a part of leadership in the unity of Western Europe. Everyone is agreed that that is absolutely indispen-

1119
sable. Britain is essential to the strength and recovery of Western Europe, but her own strength and value now, as in 1940-41, depend on the support of the Commonwealth. Therefore, the Commonwealth should be brought into all discussions that we have in Europe, and the United Kingdom must, in all things, even if associated with a regional union in Europe, put the Commonwealth first. I believe that that principle is equally true with every member of the Commonwealth. In each case, their security, their value to others and their power for freedom and peace, are immeasurably enhanced by the strength of the great political system of which they are part.
Therefore, I submit that, in this dangerous age, when all our freedoms are still at stake, four established principles should govern our Commonwealth relationship. The first is the absolute sovereignty and supremacy of national Parliaments. Their Ministers may and must confer and consult together, but Parliaments must control the machinery of consultation and see that it corresponds with their views, for, in the last resort, they themselves must decide upon their own course of action. The second principle is unity of purpose and policy on main world issues, and especially on those issues which govern the future of freedom and peace and the future of the United Nations organization. It is indeed true that the Commonwealth, by holding together, may assure the future of that larger world organization. I do not believe it would have any hope of survival if the Commonwealth itself failed. In the years before the Second World War we were inclined to think, as the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, has said, that we could rely upon the League of Nations rather than upon the Commonwealth. It was the Commonwealth which held, and not the League of Nations. The Commonwealth is now one essential element in that world organization and one of the pillars upon which it rests, and I do not believe that the organization has any hope of survival without the support of the Commonwealth.
The third principle—and here I only echo what was said by the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce—is regional responsibility and the building up by regions of the Commonwealth's strength.
1120
That is a matter of economic policy, migration, and systems of defence, all of which might be discussed in detail. In regard to defence, I believe that a great deal is being done—I doubt if as much is being done in the economic or the political field. Let us make all the progress we can in the economic field but let us develop regional responsibility and grouping as one of our main constructive ideas. Finally, I would re-emphasize what the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, said about flexibility of method to suit the needs and the character of the different member-States of the Commonwealth.
It is a mistaken idea that the same machinery necessarily corresponds to the needs of every member of the Commonwealth. If one wants machinery for closer organization than does another, let us set it up. I believe that if that machinery were found to work, it would in due course be welcomed and adopted by the rest of the Commonwealth. In particular, those who want to see some sort of common secretariat set up should not be denied their wish and their need because others are unwilling to take that step at the present moment. If we base ourselves upon these principles, we can disperse responsibility so far as possible and, if we set ourselves now to create a machine which suits the different groups and helps them to play their part, not only in defending the Commonwealth when the Commonwealth is in danger but in creating and shaping the policy by which the Commonwealth is to live, I believe that this great political system, about which the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, spoke so eloquently at the end of his speech, will prove of inestimable service to the world in the future as it has done in the past.
4.48 p.m.
Lord RENNELL: My Lords, the magnificent speech made by the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, is one that any person in the Empire would have been glad to make, but few other than he could have made it. He has drawn attention not only to one or two difficulties, but also to something which I think is especially important in this country. We are always too prone to say that because a thing has worked up to date it requires no modification or improvement. That is a confession of deadness. It is the confession of one who cannot see any further ahead. It is well for us that a man like

1121
the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, should remind us, in whatever condition we are, that we must continue to look ahead, as everyone in your Lordships' House agrees that he does. The particular difficulty to which he referred seems to me one that touches us perhaps more than most of the members of the Commonwealth. The point I have in mind is, of course, that of consultation. The noble Viscount made a. distinction between consultation and cooperation. It is clear that co-operation without consultation becomes difficult, and consultation becomes useless if it is limited—he suggested has been too much the case—merely to passing on facts.
In discussing the relations between the constituent parts of the Commonwealth we are faced, especially in your Lordships' House, with the great difficulty of knowing what we can say and what we ought to do in regard to other people's affairs. The noble Lord who has just sat down spoke very rightly of the absolute sovereignty of the Parliaments of the several parts of this Commonwealth. It is, therefore, difficult for your Lordships' House, as part of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, not to make suggestions which may be misinterpreted, or which may even lead to misunderstanding or cause offence in other Parliaments in constituent parts of the Commonwealth. Therefore, if there is a suggestion to be made from your Lordships' House, it seems to me that that suggestion should, in the first place, bear upon what we can do in the United Kingdom to remedy any faults which may have arisen or to produce the development and progress which are inherent in any live community. From what Lord Bruce has said we are clearly at fault in failing to communicate facts and documents. Then if we are at fault in failing to discuss the consequences of those facts and documents, let us remedy that error in the first place, and leave to others the remedying of the fault of failing to pass on to us facts to which we also are entitled.
But when we come to the machinery for doing this, I have doubts about even the proposal which Lord Bruce made. The real difficulty seems to be that, in dealing with Commonwealth affairs, we ought to know what we are talking about. The noble Lord spoke of the Balfour Declaration and the consequences of it in the Statute of Westminster. At that time
1122
it seemed fairly clear—or at any rate it was more clear than it had been for many years—what the Commonwealth was. But since 1930 or 1931 a good deal has happened. The Commonwealth itself, being a living and growing organism which is self-developed, is clearly to-day no longer what it was in the days of the Statute of Westminster. Indeed, one of the real difficulties in discussing the whole problem, whether here or elsewhere, is, as I have said, to know exactly what it is we are discussing. The expression "the Commonwealth of British Nations" is virtually indefinable to-day. I think we all know what it means, but it is extremely difficult to put into words what it means, either as a political entity, an economic entity, or even—if it matters—a racial entity.
No one to-day can say where the Commonwealth begins and where it ends. There are parts within the Commonwealth that are in less close relationship with this country than are countries which are obviously not within the Commonwealth. Economically there are parts of the Commonwealth that are extraneous to the major part of the rest. I will take one instance on the economic side alone. The sterling area is not co-terminous with the Commonwealth; the Commonwealth is not a sterling area. The single connexion which was reputed to exist between the several parts of the Commonwealth is not wholly accepted everywhere within the Commonwealth. Why is it that we can feel what the Commonwealth is and yet cannot describe it? I think the explanation is fairly clear. The Commonwealth is like all the great conceptions of the world that live; it is an idea, it is not a material thing. True, it was born out of a material thing. The British people went to the four corners of the earth and settled it, and they ruled themselves and others, and they did so, in most cases, with a material object in view.
But, with all that material side, there grew up an idea which, in the course of a hundred years, has developed into something that the world has never seen. Can you, my Lords, harness an idea to a machine? No, on the contrary; you must harness a machine to an idea. You cannot reduce an idea to something visible; if you try to do so, you kill it. That has been the history of all dogma and all heresy. Whenever there has

1123
been an idea that people have tried to define and relate into a machine of government or of discipline that could be reduced to writing, there have come heresies and division. I suggest that it is because we have never tried to harness the idea of the Commonwealth to a machine that the Commonwealth, with its indefinable border, is still a living and a growing thing. How much it has grown since 1931 is clear, because the definitions of 1931 are to-day already matters of history and are no longer applicable.
If that be right, should any one part create a machine and risk destroying an idea which is so real that it has survived two wars without any machine (except perhaps the Committee of Imperial Defence), and certainly without any semblance of the machine to which Lord Bruce referred? That is not to say that something has not to take the place of the Committee of Imperial Defence. That is not to say that progress is not required. But I think it does mean that it is only with grave danger that we, in your Lordships' House, can suggest a machine to others who may not be ready for it. If it be true that we have done our best, but have not completed our part in disseminating information and providing the facts, if we have failed to consult in the formative stages of policy, let us remedy the fault which lies at our own door; but let us wait for other parts of the Commonwealth to make those proposals to us which will best suit their needs. Those proposals may very likely take the form, as Lord Altrincham has suggested, of a different type of mechanism for each part of the Commonwealth, without producing the rigidity of a central secretariat, which, even if some members joined and others did not, would inevitably produce among those who did not wish to join a feeling of being outside; and that would tend to disintegrate, instead of integrating, and impede progress. In the last two or three years Commonwealth relations have been immensely complicated, if one may so put it, by such events as the accession to independent status in the Commonwealth of Cevlon, India and Pakistan, by the growth of self-government in other parts of the world and, indeed, by the coming closer to us of countries which are not within the Commonwealth but which, believing as they do in the same ideas that
1124
we have, might almost be considered to be related members of the Commonwealth. But with the growth at the same time of communications which have made personal exchanges of views easier, is it not better to keep those ideas fresh and young in our minds, to let machinery of contact and consultation develop separately along different channels and not through the same channels?
There is another reason. Channels of communication and methods of corresponding and meeting and talking to one another are very fine on paper; but, as we all know only too well, they do not always work out in practice if the individuals involved are not sympathetic to them. On the other hand, where there is no recognized channel but where there are individuals who by their personal contacts are able to exchange ideas on the same level, we find more fruitful consultation than will ever come out of a machine, however ingeniously devised and however much support it may have. It seems to me, therefore, that while the unanimous desire in your Lordships' House is clearly to see inter-Commonwealth relations grow closer and easier, and while it is certainly our wish to remedy any faults of which we may be guilty, I would not like it to be thought that we have made suggestions which others in the Commonwealth would feel obliged either to accept or not to accept, so creating divisions. If we can keep this one thing before us, that the Commonwealth is an idea born primarily of the British people, and that that idea is a living thing, I believe that we shall do better than by trying to devise a machine for general closer consultation.
The world in general, and all great thinkers, have always made this distinction between what may be called the material and the spiritual things. I believe that here we are talking about a great and deep spiritual reality which must not be injured or set back by having a material appendix hung on to it. I think that no people in the world are more capable than the British in the Commonwealth, and those other races who have assimilated these ideas, of making an idea fruitful and making it great. I believe they also think as I do in this, and I would like them to feel that we will do whatever they wish, that we will seek to set our house in order

1125
and hope that through our doing so they may, in our regard, do the same thing. In this connexion, I would conclude by quoting something that seems to me to be appropriate to this idea which I have tried to develop. Almost without altering a word, I would refer to two of the greatest verses ever written. They appear in the First Epistle to the Corinthians:
"It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.
There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
The first … is of the earth earthy, the second … is of the spirit."
That, my Lords, I believe to be the British Commonwealth.
5.8 p.m.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, I must say that the speech of the noble Viscount has made me feel a trifle pedestrian and it has so completely dislocated the notes of what I had intended to say that I have to take advantage of my privilege to speak from this Bench instead of from the Cross Benches, in order to find my way about. I am sure that your Lordships must all have been tremendously impressed by the very high note which was struck by the noble Viscount and by the deep earnestness with which he addressed us on this difficult subject. It is difficult to reach that note. I happened yesterday to be walking through a Paris street, and in the window of a bookseller's shop there I saw the title of a French book which I think has recently appeared. It seemed to me to be singularly appropriate to this debate. Translated into English it means: "History of the British Empire: Extraordinary lesson of the tenacity of a. people down the centuries." I note that the author credits us with the great quality of tenacity. It was that tenacity which, in spite of defective machinery—certainly it was defective in the First World War and it was not perfected in the Second—saw us through two great wars as the last speaker has mentioned.
Another point I note is that the friendly foreign writer speaks of the British Empire. He does not speak of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, nor does he even speak of the Commonwealth of Nations—that term, I fancy, is almost untranslatable as a striking phrase. What impresses the foreign nations, and what impressed the author of that book, was the British Empire. I
1126
see that there is a tendency in some quarters to run away from the good old words, "Empire" and "Imperial." In the councils of the world we are known by only one title—the British Empire.
I come to the noble Viscount's proposals. I take a higher view than he did of the pre-war machinery. I think it was not half so bad as he seems to feel. The Imperial Conferences got together, sometimes the Prime Ministers sat amongst themselves and they discussed all these questions of policy. The broad lines of policy were known; information (as the noble Viscount said) was passed in a great stream, and views—perhaps not enough views, but there could have been views—were given. It often happened that His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom had to give very short notice to ask whether the Dominions agreed. That will always happen. A crisis arises, and action has to be taken at once. An ultimatum is received and has to be answered immediately. We always did give notice, or nearly always—I believe there is one case where we did not. From where did we get the quickest answers? I say without hesitation, and it has been said publicly before, that the quickest answers came from Australia and New Zealand. In the case of Australia, that was because the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, had in his time appointed a special liaison officer, Major Casey, known to nearly all of your Lordships, who was in my office and who had access to the whole of the information. Major Casey always kept the noble Viscount and his successors as Prime Minister of Australia completely informed. That gave a more personal touch than the stream of information which the Dominions Office were sending out. That is the system we have now and it is the system from which we have to start.
I should like to ask, what are the main differences between the pre-war system and the noble Viscount's system, which is almost the same as Mr. Chifley's proposals?
Viscount BRUCE OF MELBOURNE: Mr. Curtin's.
Lord HANKEY: Mr. Curtin's proposals which were adopted by Mr. Chifley—the Council of British Nations. That is a new and very important body, but I do not quite know exactly what is intended by that. To my mind, perhaps

1127
because of my own former profession, the big change that is proposed is the secretariat. That has never frightened me at all. After the Imperial War Cabinet, of which I had been the Secretary, the Dominions members went with their own delegations to the Paris Peace Conferences, and the Imperial War Cabinet was continued under the name of the British Empire Delegation. I was to have been the Secretary, but almost as soon as I reached Paris I was given great responsibilities in connexion with the Conference and I had to ask for help. Where could I turn? Everybody was as busy as they could be. I turned to the Prime Ministers of the Dominions, and with Mr. Lloyd George's permission went round to see each of them and asked if he could give help to form an Imperial secretariat for the conferences which took place daily before the meetings of the Peace Conference. They lent me their own private secretaries, some of whom became very famous men.
We worked it out so that there was a United Kingdom day—Sir Clement Jones, who still works with me, took that—a Canadian day, an Australian day, and so on, through the week. That worked extremely well. The Dominions secretaries came to my office, took charge of all arrangements, agenda papers, minutes, and all the minute details that the secretariat had to carry out in order to run the Conference successfully. I always thought that when the Conference came to an end we should get the secretariat permanently reproduced in London. We were always dining together and I talked of it again and again with all the Dominions Prime Ministers. All were favourable to it. But, of course, when the Conference dispersed everybody wanted to go home, and I could not get anybody allotted. Then there were elections; Governments began to change, and the chance was lost. I do not think it was my fault: it was just the cussedness of the times.
We revived the secretariat at the Imperial Conference in 1921 and we revived the Dominions secretariat at every Imperial Conference right up to 1937. We revived it very successfully at the Washington Conference, where the Canadian Secretary became the British Secretary at the Conference as a result. But owing to
1128
changes in personalities, internal politics and one thing and another, I never could pull off this Imperial secretariat. I never had a single doubt, and I have not one single doubt now, that an Imperial secretariat could be worked perfectly well, on one condition: that there is somebody to control it. My suggestion is that it should be linked with the meetings between the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and the Dominions High Commissioners which have taken place for a great many years, and that, broadly speaking, it should be in their charge. I suggest this because there is just the risk, if you get a very powerful personality in charge of a body like that, that the tail may wag the dog; but that difficulty is easily controlled. Look how I have been controlled, my Lords—many of you have controlled me! I am quite sure that this is a feasible part of the proposals if the Dominions can be induced to see it in that way.
As I said just now, we have got to take off from the present position. I have defended the other scheme, but I am in favour of something on the lines of the plan of the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce. I would not, however, commit myself to detail, and neither, I suppose, would anybody else without further examination of the position. But it seems to me that there is a very strong case for an Imperial Conference of some sort—an Imperial meeting of Prime Ministers, or whatever is the right form. As was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, it is a little complicated by the fact that there are different kinds of Dominions, and it might have to be achieved by some special method. The noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, gave a list of some seven questions that could be considered. I myself made a list of twelve on foreign policy alone (I will not burden your Lordships with them, as most of them are contained in the list of the noble Viscount) to say nothing of modern weapons—atomic bombs, rockets, and so forth—and economic policy. I must interpolate something here. The word "economic" has put it into my mind. I do not think that we have thanked the Dominions enough for the wonderful help they have been giving us in these post-war days. The spontaneous flow of presents, for which the ladies are so much responsible, is the best example of the powerful intangibles which I believe are the strongest

1129
link we have. I have said that, and I hope that other speakers will echo it.
I come back for a moment to a possible Imperial Conference. I believe that more progress would be made by not necessarily putting on the agenda en bloc the whole of the Curtin-Chifley-Bruce proposals. I think it would be better if they were brought up piecemeal in the course of the discussions that would take place. It is true that we have fought two wars, successfully and with great tenacity, but in both nothing was proved so strongly as that the whole Empire hangs together, and that we are all dependent on outside supplies. I think everybody agrees that while war may not be imminent, the situation is menacing. I believe that it will be found necessary to have a certain amount of organization in order that each one of us may get the best out of the others, and a good start may be made by an examination of the admirable proposals which have been put forward by the noble Viscount, Lord Brace.
5.24 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I am sure we are all very grateful indeed to the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, for putting down his Motion this afternoon. He has not only reminded us of the vital importance of the strength and unity of the British Commonwealth of Nations, but has also suggested a plan as to how that strength and unity can be maintained. I think we all realize when we look about the world to-day that the chief barrier against anarchy and chaos is the British Commonwealth of Nations, and that on the strength and unity of that Commonwealth the future of our civilization and, to a great extent, the peace of the world will depend. So it is obviously very important indeed that we should consider these problems carefully. In their earlier days the problems of the young Dominions and Colonies were not very difficult or complicated; they were local problems, domestic problems and economic problems which they could settle themselves. But the problems of the British Commonwealth of Nations to-day are tremendous problems—international problems. They can be considered and decided upon only after close consultation and after arrangements have been made with all the component parts of the Empire. I cannot help thinking, as the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, has suggested, that the time has now come when we should take stock and over-
1130
haul our machinery to make sure that we are not wandering off in the wrong direction.
There is one point which, in my humble opinion, is perhaps the most urgent of all and on which other things will mainly depend—namely, the better distribution of the British race. After all, if our outposts are weak, the citadel may fall; and the strength of the chain depends upon the strength of its weakest link. I think that in any consultations that take place the question of the distribution of the British race is one that should receive urgent consideration. If we have any doubts on the importance of that question we have only to remind ourselves of the narrow escape that Australia had during the last war. I do not think it is quite realized how narrow that escape was. After the fall of Singapore and Java, Australia had very little left; nearly all her trained men were still fighting in the Middle East or were stranded at Singapore. The Japanese had command of the sea and air, and Australia had 10,000 miles of coast line to defend. In my own mind, I have no doubt whatever that if Japan had chosen to land and form a base of operations on the Australian coast, we could not possibly have stopped her. I do not think it requires a great stretch of imagination to appreciate what a Japanese base in Australia would have meant to the war operations in the Pacific.
Fortunately, Japan made a great mistake. She thought it would be easy and convenient to land in New Guinea, and to attack Australia from there. So she landed on the northern coast of New Guinea. That entailed for her a march of several hundred miles across the most appalling country you can possibly imagine. There are no roads in New Guinea; there are unscalable mountains and impenetrable jungles, and diseases such as malaria are rife. That is the task which Japan set herself. When that became evident we raised all the men we could—oldish men, and young partly-trained soldiers—and pushed them into Port Moresby, which was the key of the whole situation. There they hung on, lighting under most appalling conditions. Eighty per cent. of them were down with malaria at one time, but they managed to hold the fort until the Americans came in force. Then, under the brilliant leadership of General Douglas MacArthur,

1131
they pushed the enemy back and recovered most of the lost ground.
Here I would like to mention the attitude of the natives of New Guinea during those days. They were loyal to us, they took enormous risks, they gave us most valuable information and they acted as carriers for our sick, our wounded and our supplies. I think the attitude of the natives at that time was due, to a great extent, to the wonderfully tactful administration of the late Sir Hubert Murray. He handled those men in a wonderful way and we owe him a deep debt of gratitude. I think there is no doubt whatever that Australia survived by the mistakes of her enemy. But we cannot always rely on those mistakes being repeated in the future. At any rate, it has brought home to Australia the realization that she cannot hope to hold indefinitely a vast Continent of 3,000,000 square miles with a handful of 7,000,000 people. Unless she opens her doors far wider in the future than she has in the past, the day will come when she will find herself compelled to entertain uninvited and unwelcome guests.
I think the time has come when we have to reconsider this question of the better distribution of the British race without unduly denuding the Mother country. The best solution we can make to the world to-day is to set our house in order and strengthen our weakest spots. A British Commonwealth of Nations as a united Commonwealth, with a strongly developed Commonwealth spirit, Commonwealth outlook and Commonwealth sentiment, will achieve much, and will be in a position to make her influence felt in the councils of the great nations of the world. But a British Commonwealth of Nations which is merely a collection of communities working in water-tight compartments, with a narrow and parochial outlook and lacking the Commonwealth spirit, will achieve little, and will remain indefinitely in the "B" grade of the nations of the world.
I hope very much that the plan which the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, has put forward to-day will prevent that situation occurring. Of course, from time to time there will be differences of opinion among the component parts of this Commonwealth; there will be economic questions, domestic questions and so on. The various countries may even go so far as
1132
to have divergent views on absolutely vital and fundamental issues, like body-line bowling, leg theory cricket, and things such as those! But I am quite sure that if those questions are handled properly, the sentimental factor will always be the dominating factor and the one which, in the end, will turn the scale and decide the issue. We have to recognize the fact that the eyes of the world are on the British Commonwealth of Nations to-day. A great deal is expected from us, and I do not think we shall fail.
5.34 p.m.
Lord MILVERTON: My Lords, I have listened with the deepest admiration to the eloquent speech of the noble Viscount who moved this Motion, and my admiration is none the less in that I have the temerity to differ from him and to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, in his approach to this important question. There are many ways of looking at a question like this, political, economic and cultural, and I have noticed that although the terms of the Motion are that "the closest relations between the Commonwealth and Empire are essential," practically nothing has yet been said about the Colonial Empire. It is, perhaps, permissible for me to represent that "still small voice" from the Colonies, because I think it has to be listened to, just as has the "still small voice" of conscience.
One who has lived in various parts of the distant and remoter outskirts of the Empire gets an impression of the relationship of the component parts of the Commonwealth and Empire, not only with London, but also with one another. The relationship between the full partners of the Commonwealth—if I may call them that—is obviously in a very different category from that between the still adolescent nations of the Commonwealth Empire. I would only say in regard to the first that I should view with great apprehension any attempt to tie down to formal channels the fluid relationship of the full partners. I feel deeply with the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, that there is a risk in tampering with a great and a vital idea which is growing steadily, and I am afraid that the impious hands of a secretariat may do damage to that great idea. After all, secretariats—most of us have known them—once formed, have a way of growing and of extending their tentacles in all directions in their search for more power and for a wider scope. It is true, as the

1133
noble Viscount said, that we do not want a blue-print Commonwealth, but, if I may say so with great respect, I fear that the scheme which be sketched would be precisely that. I would urge that we do not need a secretariat to emphasize a relationship which is based on kindred interests and common ideals. I suggest, with respect, that the closest relationship can be maintained to-day, and is in fact being maintained, not in all perfection but in vital points, without any permanent specific machinery for that purpose.
If your Lordships will permit me, I will now attempt to deal for one moment in. this connexion with the Colonies which are in various stages of adolescence and are still specifically tied to London. Our aim with the Colonial Empire from the political angle is surely precisely the reverse of that which is indicated in this Motion. Our aim is the gradual loosening and the ultimate elimination of those ties which at present bind them to London, until the time comes when, with their ability to manage their own affairs and stand on their own feet, they will be free to exercise the adult choice of voluntary partnership in the Commonwealth. There is, I suggest, only one way in which closer relationship may be achieved in the Colonial Empire, and that is by the federation of small groups of smaller Colonies whose common interests are sufficiently great to warrant their federating in order that they may speak in the Councils of the Commonwealth and Empire with a louder voice.
May I now turn to the economic side for one moment? I think that everything possible should be done to foster the idea of the Commonwealth and Empire as one economic family. Trade within the family and economic self-sufficiency within that family should certainly, I suggest, be planned for and worked for. Speaking particularly of the Colonies, I feel that the term "closest relations" requires a more restricted interpretation. Whether or not the Dominions should or could do more to establish closer direct relations with each other is a matter for them to decide. Much has already been done by them economically, as I know. When I was in Fiji, I was able to see the delegations, trade and otherwise, going to and fro between Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and I had the opportunity of noticing that their relations were quietly
1134
developing with each other. But of one thing I am quite certain, and that is that much more might be done—and in my view ought to be done—to encourage and to improve closer direct relationship between the Colonies and the Dominions.
Most of the Colonies are so placed that one or other of the Dominions is its natural foster-mother. Examples spring to one's mind: the West Indies and Canada; Malaya and Australia, and Canada too; and the greatest group of them all, Australia and New Zealand, with their own Colonial dependencies, and Fiji and the whole group or groups of islands in the Western Pacific, right the way clown to Australia, as well as Borneo and Malaya. I feel that economically everything possible should be done to increase their joint interests. Economically, the Colonies are still tied to London. Indeed, the Crown Agents for the Colonies represent the apex of one of the greatest examples of the system of "tied houses" that the world has ever seen. I am well aware of the advantages which might accrue through having the business of Colonial government dealt with solely through the Crown Agents; but need this bond be so tight and so all-sufficing? Is it really necessary that if the Government of Fiji want a tooth brush they should order it through London? Would it not be ultimately to the benefit of the Empire if closer economic relationships were encouraged between the Dominions and the Colonies?
In the course of my Colonial residence I have travelled in all the Dominions except one. I have talked to officials and non-officials, and I have found universally an anxiety to know more about the Colonies, and a very surprising lack of knowledge about them. It would be so easy to encourage that knowledge. I am not, of course, overlooking the present abnormal conditions, both of currency and of supply, which obviously necessitate a great deal of regulation and a great deal of direction of trade and relationships of that sort through approved channels; but I am looking forward to a greater and freer future, when trade within the Commonwealth and Empire will be as free as culture is. May I say, in passing, that I attach the very greatest importance to the encouragement and fostering of a mutual knowledge of each other in that way by the spread of what is known (for

1135
want of a better phrase) as "British culture"? I think the education of West Indians in Canada, and of Fijians in Australia and New Zealand can do nothing but good. If one looks at a map of the world, or turns the globe in your Lordships' library, one cannot help being struck by the fact, which has been mentioned already this afternoon, that the Colonies and the Dominions fall naturally into certain defence groups: Canada and the West Indies; South Africa and certain African Colonies. Malaya, Australia, New Zealand and Borneo, and the groups of the Western Pacific, are all tied up. I feel that the calls of trade and commerce and defence are all in favour of a closer relationship of that kind.
May I conclude with one other point? That is, that we hear a great deal to-day of the Four Freedoms. I think we do not hear half enough of the Four Fallacies. They are, as I understand them: that political independence and individual freedom are synonymous terms; that Colonial administration necessarily implies exploitation, in the bad sense of that word; and that sovereign status is a sovereign remedy for all ills. I will not deal with these three fallacies, for it would take too long, and they are not strictly relevant to this debate. But the fourth fallacy is very relevant. It is what I would call "the salt water fallacy." I have never been able to understand why it is that if a nation extends overland and occupies large territories with other races of peoples in them, so long as the extension is overland it is a very laudable and praiseworthy extension of jurisdiction; but if the jurisdiction is extended over sea, then it is the worst form of Imperialism and oppression of subject peoples. I feel that we should never at any time, in private or in public, subscribe to this fallacy. I have never understood how it could possibly be argued that the British Colonial Empire, for instance, is any less of an international entity than, shall we say, the Soviet Union. So far as I understand it, one of the things said is that there are different races. That is very true. Yet I understand that the people of Moscow are not the same race as the people, shall we say, of Vladivostok. Of course, if I were able to place an area of sea between Moscow and Vladivostok, the whole position would be altered. For these reasons, with the reservations which I
1136
have made—which are, in my view, very important reservations—and to that extent, I support the Motion moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce.
5.48 p.m.
Lord TWEEDSMUIR: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, has raised a matter that we all agree is of prime importance. He brings to it a rich experience which has been supplemented by the experience of other noble Lords who have spoken. He has stated three courses, as he sees them, for the nations of the world. They are that free and frank co-operation will come to extend, nation by nation, the world over; that the nations of the world will resolve themselves into groups and we shall have cooperation as between groups; or that there will come about the utter failure of cooperation between nations. As the noble Viscount rightly pointed out, whichever of these courses is followed, the British Commonwealth and Empire, covering as it does more than a quarter of the world's surface, will have a decisive part and a special role to play. The noble Viscount went on to say that our present modus operandi, adequate as it may have been in the past, is now no longer adequate for the present time; and he made what I consider the very interesting suggestion of a British Council of the Nations. Before I say a word or two on that specific suggestion, I would like to try to analyze our present relations within the British Commonwealth as I see them. We are a collection of nations to whom government by consent is as precious as life itself. We are a collection of nations who possess complete independence of decision, thought and government, blended with a strong admixture of interdependence in many material things. As the more formal Imperial ties have loosened, the closer have become our ties in strategic and economic matters. Above all, we have evolved—and have been the pioneers in evolving—such a degree of co-operation as the rest of the world has never before seen. What is it that makes such co-operation possible? It is this: that we are a group of nations who have absolute confidence in each other, nations whose interests are compatible, nations who all fully realize that hurt to one is hurt to all; and thus, where a clash of interest is likely to arise, it is our first instinct to approach the other nations concerned and in free and friendly dis-

1137
cussion to try to obviate that clash or, if we cannot obviate it, to mitigate its effects.
As I have said, it is a relationship without precedent in the annals of the world, because it is a form of service—a service which implies no servitude but which is almost perfect freedom. The world is just discovering the potentialities of what we discovered long ago, and is trying to take cuttings from this hardy tree that took root so many centuries ago. The point has been brought up most persuasively by the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, to-day, that we are in need of drastic revision in our methods of consultation to implement and extend our co-operation. I have heard it argued that our present system has won two wars in this century, but has at the same time failed to prevent them; and that though it has won two wars it has won them by a rather slim margin.
That small band of people, who once maintained the idea of a formal and rigid federal hierarchy of Commonwealth, has now dwindled into almost complete insignificance. The few who are left are huddled together to escape from the very bleak weakness of their own doctrine. But they have based their ideas upon the entirely wrong premise that we could separate the internal economy and policy of a nation from its external functioning, and take those external functions and pool them into one entity. That may have been possible once, but it is no longer possible. There is another much more cogent reason, that a hierarchy of that kind would not be acceptable to any substantial number of citizens bred in our tradition. The other day I was reading an excerpt from a speech on Commonwealth affairs made by the grandfather of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury. I have not the exact wording with me but it ran something like this: "The justification of any association is that the bundle is stronger than the sticks that compose it, and if that is not the case, then this bundle is not truly and rightly bound." If the bundle is not truly and rightly bound at this moment how can we set about improving it?
I am convinced that it would be by no formal commitment or machinery. I believe that one of the principal reasons for our sturdy survival is that we have always refused to commit ourselves to any
1138
paper solution of a problem, however attractive it might appear at the time. People search in vain, not only in this country but also in the Commonwealth, for a written Constitution. By far the most important and binding of our understandings and agreements within the Commonwealth are unwritten. The written part is much less important. We have always shied away from what is formal and rigid, and however untidy the picture has been, we have always resisted those who would have tidied it up, lest we should lose the substance for the form. I confess that I find the idea of the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, a most interesting one, though it seems to me to smack rather dangerously, if I may say so, of that same tidying-up process. Our strength and unique arrangements have been an eternal puzzle to other nations, both friend and foe alike. Twice in this century we have overthrown an aggressor who was quite confident of beating us, because he could not see that one can have unity without formality—a unity which goes far deeper than the ink on any document, an anvil that has worn out many hammers, and will wear out many more, a unity which perhaps might be greatly endangered by any attempt to add to its formality.
The formal documents that we have are few. Even the Balfour Report and the Statute of Westminster, which the noble Earl quoted, were only recognition of what had long been an established fact. They did not give the Dominions their freedom, as some people appear to think. Freedom is not a thing that one can give in that sense; it is something that one party achieves and another recognizes. The Commonwealth countries had for long past been strong, powerful and independent peoples. This document, the Statute of Westminster, merely gave that written acknowledgment. We have had in the past, and we have at the present time, joint committees and joint councils of many sorts. They are committees and councils brought together in order to discuss or deal with some specific purpose. It has always been our practice that when that purpose came to an end those same councils would be dissolved. Some have been dissolved because the terms of their operation grew somewhat out of date. The noble Lord, Lord Hankey, spoke so interestingly about his experience on the

1139
Committee of Imperial Defence, as did the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce. I think I am right in saying that the Committee on Imperial Defence really lost the substance which its name implied and, once that substance was lost, it would have been unreal to maintain the form.
I am not in the habit of reading long extracts, and I will not read one now, but I have here an extract from a speech made by Mr. Mackenzie King, when in 1944 he addressed both Houses of this Parliament. He said:
"From time to time it is suggested that we should seek new methods of communication and consultation. I believe very strongly in close consultation, close co-operation and the effective co-ordination of policies. What more effective means of co-operation could have been found than those which, despite all the handicaps of war, have worked with such complete success?"
Then, omitting two paragraphs:
"Let us by all means seek to improve where we can, but in considering the new methods of organization we cannot be too careful to see that to our own people the new methods will not appear as an attempt to limit their freedom of decision."
Those words are well worth noting.
I listened with the greatest interest to Lord Bruce's sketch of the Council which he suggested. Three times in this century the nations of the Commonwealth have come together to plan, and to take counsel at all levels—twice to fight world wars and once to fight economic chaos. They came with an absolutely clear mandate from their peoples. I submit that on such a Council as Lord Bruce has suggested the representatives of the different Commonwealth countries would feel tied and constrained by the knowledge that any decision they took, or any action to which they committed themselves, would have to be justified, through their own Parliaments, to their own people when they returned.
Can you then, in those circumstances, have the real substance that such a Council ought to have? I quite understand and entirely appreciate what the noble Viscount said when he suggested that what was wanted was not a sealed pattern, and not a blue-print. I rather question—in fact I strongly question—whether this is an approach to the subject from the right angle. About two years ago I put down a Motion on Commonwealth affairs, in which I pressed very
1140
strongly for something not unlike the secretariat that Lord Bruce has mentioned. Looking back on it, I have considerable misgivings about what I then spoke so hotly in favour of. I cannot help feeling that a secretariat like this would labour under a terrible handicap, in that it would not be specifically responsible to any specific authority. The noble Lord, Lord Hankey, said that if such an authority could be found, this secretariat could be made to function properly. Well, that may be, but I think you would have difficulty in finding it. Also, my Lords, one is really putting under one roof in London what at the moment exists in its components under the several roofs of the offices of the Dominions High Commissioners and the Department of State in a square mile in this city. It is with the greatest deference that I disagree with the noble Lord on this matter.
I would like to end by putting forward one or two of my own ideas. Just after hostilities ceased we had an Imperial Conference in London, and the paucity of results, so far as the public could discern any, was striking, if not downright disappointing, to most people. It was not, of course, a Conference to take binding decisions; it was a Conference for the exchange of views and, no doubt, was extremely successful in that respect. It came at rather a difficult time, perhaps, when the United Nations Organization had just started, and I think a lot of people felt that the two bodies might be conflicting in allegiance, whereas, in actual fact, if you perfect a court of appeal you in no way abrogate the dignity or the powers of a court of first instance. I heard many people at that time say: "What will the Dominions view be?" Of course, to say that is to show a deep misunderstanding of the whole relationship. There is no Dominions view. They each have their own views. Sometimes they coincide, sometimes they do not. But I would strongly urge that, so far as we have initiative in this matter, the next Conference should be held, not in London, but in the capitals of the Commonwealth countries, with the Prime Minister of that country in the chair; and then I believe such meetings may be productive of a great deal of good.
My next point is this. The noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, and one or two other noble Lords, have spoken of the concept

1141
of regionalization. One of the things that the First World War showed clearly, and this Second World War has underlined, is that Europe is no longer the sole maker and unmaker of human destiny. London is the capital of Britain, the capital of the metropolitan Dominion; but the Commonwealth is scattered over the length and breadth of the world, and issues often arise which touch only one nation or perhaps not more than two. I believe the whole future strength of the Commonwealth must depend on something which embodies this idea of regional grouping, where those countries which are grouped by position and are warmed by the same suns and washed by the same seas, can bring the powerful forces of common interest to bear on common problems. So we may one day see a great maritime community falling into those natural groups, with Britain acting, not as a controlling, but as a unifying force. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, and others who have stressed the need of leadership. Because not only the nations of the Commonwealth, but other nations of the world as well, have always looked to us for one thing, and that is leadership in ideas.
My Lords, there is a third point. We must be ever mindful to do all in our power to promote a true understanding. Let us have all the arguments and all the disputes which firm friends will always have amongst themselves, but let us take every step within our power to avoid misunderstanding. Many, I think, are apt to imagine that the justice of a just cause is still evident on its merits. We have now entered an era in which if you do not make a case it is assumed you have no case to make. Some noble Lords to-day have mentioned the extraordinary difficulties and prejudices that still exist within the Commonwealth of Nations, which are, of course, as nothing to the ones that exist outside. There is bitter criticism of the Commonwealth by ignorant but otherwise well-meaning people. There is evil calumny from people who do not wish us well; and those who think that vicious propaganda against the Commonwealth was buried amongst the rubble of Fascism delude themselves.
If the closest of friends take up their abode several thousands of miles apart, they will inevitably become strangers and
1142
fall out of sympathy. We must, by our free flow of ideas, a free flow of our peoples, and, I think, by a re-destribution of the British race, which has been mentioned to-day, see that we keep these links of understanding bright, so that we maintain true friendship based on true understanding; which is not a passive state, but an ever-active force. Now let us take this question of the technique of consultation. There is, of course, no excuse for sitting back and saying that it requires no improvement. We must see that this technique keeps up with the baffling speed of world events as they are to-day. As the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, said, this is not just a question of making one's views known; it is a question of consultation while policy is being made, so that time will allow for steps to be taken. On one or two recent occasions which I can think of this system has broken down. I do not believe it was the fault of the system; I believe it was the fault of those who operated it.
This concept of co-operation is spreading throughout the world. Unless we can help it to spread beyond the borders of the Commonwealth and to embrace those nations of Western Europe who are the co-trustees of Western civilization, and to our friends of the United States and beyond, I see little hope of stability for the world. Let us, at all costs, be a shining example by improving it wherever we can. My Lords, in sitting down I would say this: the twentieth century is sometimes said to be a century of this and that. Looking back on the history of the Commonwealth since 1900, I would say that we have put in no mean half-hundred years of service to mankind as a whole. Among all nations of the Commonwealth you will find a feeling that our joint efforts are likely to increase in significance, rather than to diminish, in the years that come. If we can spread this doctrine of co-operation by our example, I think we may claim to have earned, perhaps, the same epithet as was applied to a certain young Royalist in the Civil War:
"Whose singular praise it was, to have done the best things in the worst times, and hoped them in the most calamitous."
6.10 p.m.
Lord WAKEHURST: My Lords, like everyone else who has taken part in this debate this afternoon, I join in thanking the noble Viscount for introducing this

1143
Motion. There is not a noble Lord in this House, I am sure, who will not give his support to its intent. The only matter upon which we might find a difference of opinion is that of the means whereby the object of developing closer relations within the British Commonwealth is to be attained. Certainly, one thing seems to have emerged from the debate this afternoon, for I do not think that anyone has expressed complete satisfaction with the way in which the affairs of the Commonwealth are ordered at the present time. I hope, however, that this subject will not take on a similarity to that of the reform of your Lordships' House. It is almost a case of plus ç a change, plus c'est la m^me chose; or, rather, the more we discuss change, the more we seem to be inclined to let well alone.
Certainly we have had some valuable and constructive suggestions made to-day, but it seems almost as difficult for us, by taking thought, to remodel these curious institutions of ours as it is to add a cubit to our stature—and perhaps for the very same reason. That reason was, I think, the one referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rennell—namely, that we are not dealing here with a bit of machinery which we can take to pieces and put together again at will but with an organism each one of whose components has a will of its own. No one could speak with greater knowledge and with greater authority than the noble Viscount who introduced this Motion and the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, who also took part in the debate. If their experience has led them to the conclusions which they have placed before your Lordships, then it is because they have very practical grounds for the justification of those conclusions. But it is, I think, the extent to which the methods of co-operation that have been suggested are generally applicable which comes into question. I feel that in the speech of the noble Viscount, and in that of Lord Hankey, certain very significant limitations were placed upon their suggestions.
I presume that everyone knows that there is no general willingness to submit to the judgment of some central organ of policy. I took it that the noble Viscount did not mean to imply that there should be any question of the Council which he mentioned being able to come to binding decisions but that, as Lord
1144
Altrincham said, the final decision must rest with each Parliament. But need this worry us? Need the relations with one part of the Commonwealth be exactly the same as with every other part? It has never been so in the past, and I am sure that in these days no one would contemplate trying to fit this complex organism—I prefer to call it organism rather than organisation—into the strait-jacket of any particular constitutional framework. The terms on which each part of the Commonwealth is associated with another are, in practice, a matter of arrangement between them; we have even got to the stage when Dominions are making arrangements of that kind between themselves. There was, for instance, an arrangement made between Australia and New Zealand at some time during the war which was of very great importance. If there are people who say that an association as loose as this hardly deserves the name of "Commonwealth," I think that one's only answer is to point to the actual results which have beeen achieved—si monumentum requiris, circumspice.
I believe that there is one thing we can build on which few other associations possess—that is, contact on the administrative level which can go a long way to bridging the difficulty in establishing any formal machinery of co-operation on the policy level. The noble Viscount mentioned the enormous amount of information that was made available to the Dominions. That information, so far as it is purely factual, needs interpretation, needs humanizing; and it is now becoming more and more the practice for representatives of various Government Departments to be associated with their opposite numbers from a Dominion, or attached to the staff of a High Commissioner. Representatives of such Government Departments as the Foreign Office the Treasury, the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Food, the Service Departments, and so on have all been used in that way. This, I think, produces very valuable personal contact. It also makes possible the use of common methods and common equipment, and prepares the way for joint action.
I do not want to say much about the question of regional co-operation, because that is a subject which has already been pretty well covered, but I

1145
think it is something to which a great deal more attention ought to be paid than has been paid hitherto, particularly from the United Kingdom point of view. It always struck me, in the only part of the world of which I have had recent experience, the Pacific, that it must have been very difficult for the United Kingdom Government to get any information about the area as a whole. We have United Kingdom High Commissioners in Australia and New Zealand who report through the Commonwealth Relations Office. We have also the Governor of Fiji. That is a position which, as we know, was most ably filled by the noble Lord, Lord Milverton. He did not mention in his speech, an additional appointment which must have been very exacting—that of High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. That post must have led him into many tortuous bypaths. The responsible Government Department here is the Colonial Office. Then there are Dutch and French possessions in that part of the world, which bring in the Foreign Office; yet the United Kingdom Government have no single local source of advice and information which covers the whole of that region. I cannot help thinking there is something to be said for giving someone, either an existing officer or someone appointed, a sort of all-over commission to act with the representatives of the Dominions on the spot as the United Kingdom representative for Commonwealth—and indeed United Nations—affairs in that particular region. I do not know whether that is what is happening in South-east Asia, but the Governor-General of Malaya, I understand, is taking over the duties of Special Commissioner and it rather looks as if something of that sort was in the Government's mind in that region. Perhaps that is a precedent which may apply to other regions.
One more point on this regional question. There is a tendency, and a very proper one—it has been mentioned today—to suggest that the part of the Commonwealth which has the closest connexion with a particular region should have the principal say, or at any rate should take the lead, in that region, particularly in the overseeing of subordinate territories and in its problems generally. I am not at all sure that the question is quite as simple as it appears. I think it is doubtful whether the United Kingdom should divest itself of its direct responsi-
1146
bilities in any part of the globe. For one thing, these direct responsibilities bring home to people in this country the fact that we have interests in the more remote regions of the globe. Without them, I am afraid, public opinion is rather too prone to neglect the administrative and defence services in distant parts of the world where there are no obvious commitments. I think that those territories offer valuable opportunities of a real working partnership between different members of the Commonwealth, opportunities which have not yet been utilized to the full.
There is one more aspect of Commonwealth co-operation I should like to bring forward. There are certain common problems which the whole Commonwealth ought to join together to study. Take a question like the Tropics. The noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, very rightly stressed the importance of the redistribution of population; and nowhere is that more important than in Australia's northern tropical territories, one of the regions in which "uninvited and unwelcome guests" are most likely to arrive. The question whether Europeans can make their homes from generation to generation in this area is one of vital importance to the Commonwealth as a whole. And there, in Northern Australia, we have one place where we can make the experiments necessary without any outside factor to complicate things. The indigenous population, for all practical purposes, play very little part. There we can find out whether building with air conditioning can make housing tolerable for Europeans, and so on, without any other extraneous factors.
These are all examples of the various aspects of consultation and co-operation which illustrate the multifarious ways in which the different components of the Commonwealth can and ought to get together much more closely than they do now, to see whether we cannot devise a closer system permeating the whole Commonwealth. I am quite sure that the only wise thing to do is to build up from the bottom, and I think the noble Viscount who introduced this Motion also had that ides. He specifically dissociated himself from any idea of a blue print or any attempt to impose a hard and fast scheme from the top. I am sure that he would be the first to think these developments should come slowly, step by step, as practical opportunities offer.

1147
He would certainly be a bold man who would predict what form the British Commonwealth might take in time to come, although we would all agree that it has not only a part but a major part to play in the difficult times through which the world is at present passing. We may, however, be wise to remember some words of Disraeli to which my attention was called the other day. With these words I shall conclude. He said:
"The day is coming, if it has not yet already come, when the question of the balance of power cannot be confined to Europe alone … You have on the other side of the Atlantic vigorous and powerful communities … The Australian colonies, though now in their youth, but in the youth of giants, have already, as it were, thrown their colossal shadow over Europe … England, though she is bound to Europe by tradition, by affection, by great similarity of habits, and all those ties which time alone can create and consecrate, is not a mere power of the Old World. Her geographical position, her laws, her language and religion, connect her as much with the New World as with the Old. And although she has occupied an eminent position among European nations for ages, still, if ever Europe by her short-sightedness falls into an inferior and exhausted state, for England there will remain an illustrious future. We are bound to the communities of the New World, and those great States which our own planting and colonizing energies have created, by ties and interests which will sustain our power and enable us to play as great a part in the times yet to come as we do in these days and we have done in the past."
6.28 p.m.
The Marquess of SALISBURY: My Lords, to intervene in a debate on so delicate a subject as this requires, as I know well from past experience, not only courage but a measure of temerity. One has such an uneasy feeling all the time that one is likely to do more harm than good. I would, however, like to say a few words. As the noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, said, in the admirable speech which he delivered to your Lordships, the problem which has been raised by Lord Bruce in the impressive utterance with which he opened the debate, has led to a valuable and extremely authoritative debate by men who, without exception, are recognized authorities on the subject on which they speak. And indeed there is no subject more worthy of thought than this problem of Commonwealth relations.
Many interesting points have been made to-day. There was the point made, I think, by the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie,
1148
of the importance of the exchange of populations within the Empire. That is of the utmost importance. I remember it once being said that what we wanted to create between the Empire countries was a relationship not so much like a breastplate as a coat of mail, formed with innumerable small links, flexible and strong. That is the real importance of migration, and the more we can foster it the better I believe it will be for all the Empire countries. Then there was the point of a closer relationship between His Majesty's Dominions and Colonies in certain regions, which was mentioned, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, and also by the noble Lord, Lord Wakchurst. That is a subject we used to study very much when I was at the Dominions Office, and I have no doubt the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has had the same experience. There was also Lord Milverton's admirable phrase about "the salt-water fallacy." That came home very much to me; I suffered under that fallacy during the San Francisco Conference.
But the main debate has circled, as the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, intended that it should, round devising some machinery to ensure that there shall be the closest consultation and co-operation between the nations of the British Commonwealth. That I believe to be vital, not only to the Commonwealth itself, but to the world, for, as I think Lord Bruce himself indicated, the British Commonwealth is one of the three legs of the tripod upon which the main weight of the United Nations stands. With the United States and Soviet Russia, it holds the keys of peace and war. Though materially, I suppose, it is not nearly so strong as the United States or Soviet Russia, in some respects I believe it is the most important of the three legs; for territorially it sprawls right across the globe. Whatever happens anywhere affects the British Commonwealth somewhere. Therefore, it is particularly sensitive to all developments in the international sphere, even at the earliest stage before they begin to affect other countries. Isolationism, which has in its time been a feature of United States policy, and is now, I am afraid, a feature of Soviet Russia's policy, would be quite impossible for the British Commonwealth.
Moreover, as a result, perhaps, of our extremely wide interests, we have a ripe

1149
experience which enables us to look ahead and exert an influence in the councils of the world on international problems at an early stage, before they become acute, and when possibly something can be done to find a peaceful solution. But at present I think the fact must be faced (and here I am in agreement with what the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, said this afternoon) that this immense potential influence is, to a certain extent, impaired by the absence of any adequate machinery to enable the nations of the Commonwealth to discuss their attitude to world problems together; not only on specified occasions, but to keep a running discussion going, so that they may be able to agree on a common line of approach to the solution of these problems.
The great nations of the Commonwealth, of course, are all sovereign States; we all know that. No one for a moment would suggest here, or I hope anywhere else, that any one of them, or, indeed, a majority of them, should impose their will on the others. That is entirely opposed to the whole spirit of the British Commonwealth, as it has grown up. But that is realty no reason why we should not have some more effective machinery, on a purely consultative basis, to enable the views of the various Empire countries, where possible, to be harmonized. There is no reason why we should not get the best machinery we can get for that purpose. It is not a question—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, feared—of a written Constitution. Nobody wants a written Constitution. Lord Bruce himself never suggested a written Constitution. As I see it, it is a question of a gradual evolution of the existing structure of consultation, in accordance with our own British tradition by which we accommodate ourselves to changing needs and changing conditions.
The noble Lord, Lord Rennell, spoke of the spiritual aspect, to which he attached great importance. In that I would respectfully agree with him; but I think he went a little too far. The impression he made upon me was that he thought there was no practical machinery of consultation at present in existence, except possibly the Committee of Imperial Defence, and the whole of the rest of the relationship between the Commonwealth nations was a pure matter of spirit. That,
1150
surely, is not correct or reasonable. If I may respectfully say so, even St. Paul, whom the noble Lord quoted with great effect at the end of his speech, did not suggest that the importance of a spiritual body entirely eliminated the necessity for a material body. In fact, there is already within the Commonwealth a most elaborate system of international consultation. As I think Lord Bruce pointed out, there are constant meetings between Ministers, and, at a lower level, between officials. There is a steady flow of telegrams going to and fro between all parts of the Commonwealth. That is apart altogether from more spectacular links like Imperial Conferences.
The actual question before us is really this: Can that machinery which already exists be in any way improved? It is a purely practical problem. I would say this. From the little experience I have had of this subject, I am conscious that the absence of prior understanding between the nations of the Commonwealth before, say, international conferences or international meetings, is deleterious in its effect on the influence which they can exert. Undoubtedly that is so, for it often leads to an impression in other countries, who do not know us so well as we know ourselves, that we differ fundamentally on some issues, whereas, as a matter of fact, we are only exercising our right to come to our own decisions, and perhaps rather unduly underlining that fact.
My Lords, it is not, perhaps, surprising that this machinery of consultation and co-operation has been so slow in coming into existence, for we are all aware that during the last century the movement was in the other direction. The Daughter countries, which had many generations ago been mere Colonies, were all growing up and, like all children as they grew up they were engaged in emancipating themselves from their parents. During that period the complaint all the time was that too paternal an attitude was adopted by the Government in London. But that phase has now ended and, I should think, has ended once and for all. The Daughter countries to-day are as adult as we are; they might be regarded as becoming almost middle-aged. They have—and we all recognize it—exactly the same status as we have, so far as the Commonwealth is concerned.

1151
It is for that reason, if I may differ for one moment from the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, who spoke earlier (I do not know if he is still here) that I was a little disturbed at one thing which he said. I agreed with the greater part of his speech most heartily, but there was a portion of his remarks which dealt with Dominion status which worried me a little, for I was afraid it might tend to perpetuate an error which is already prevalent in some quarters. There is an impression—which do doubt unintentionally the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, may have seemed to foster—that there is an element of inferiority inherent in the expression "Dominion status." Now I personally do not agree with that view at all, and I believe it comes from a misconception as to the nature of the word "Dominion." There are some, I am sorry to say—not, of course, the noble Lord himself—who have the impression that these Dominions are the Dominions of Great Britain. That would indeed be an inferior position. But of course they are not the Dominions of Great Britain at all. They are the Dominions of His Majesty the King. We are the Metropolitan Dominion of His Majesty and they are the Overseas Dominions of His Majesty.
When you get that in its proper perspective, it will be seen that our status is exactly the same as that of the other Empire countries. I do not myself at present quite see what other status we can devise which will preserve our family relationship, for the main link between us is the Crown, and the word "Dominion" is the recognition of the fact that we are all subjects of the King. There may be some better word than "Dominion." I know that it has rather lost caste, and there are people who feel that it has lost its former prestige. But I do not think it should, and I feel that our job here ought to be to explain what the word really does mean, and that we should concentrate on raising the standard of currency rather than allowing it to become debased.
Lord ALTRINCHAM: I hesitate to interrupt my Leader, but since he has referred to what I said, I feel I should. I agree entirely with him about the actual meaning of the condition of Dominion status, but I do not think anything we can say here is going to alter the belief
1152
in the Dominions that there is still something parental in the relation of a Mother Country to a Dominion. If that exists even in the British nations, it exists much more in the others.
The Marquess of SALISBURY: I was anxious only that we should not lend ourselves to that fallacy, and that is why I wanted to make the position clear. I am not meaning that the fallacy was enunciated by the noble Lord himself, but I thought that his remarks might perhaps tend to give that impression to people outside this House. Nor do I agree with him on one other point, when he said that the Empire countries, under our present system, get their information "at second-hand." I think that was the phrase he used. I do not think they do. After all, the information which High Commissioners get here, as the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, knows as well as I do, is information as to the decisions of the United Kingdom Government, just as they give to the Dominions Secretary here information as to the decisions of the Governments of the other Empire countries. The decisions of the British Government have to be transmitted both to the other Empire countries and to our Allies. There are two channels. To the members of the family, they are transmitted by the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations; and by the Foreign Secretary to foreign countries. I do not feel that the fact that information on a question of foreign policy is transmitted to the Dominions by the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, instead of by the Foreign Secretary, means that it is transmitted at second-hand. It is merely that a different channel is used.
Indeed, the High Commissioners are told far more of our policy than ambassadors are ever told. I know—and I expect the noble Viscount the Leader of the House had the same experience—that when I was Dominions Secretary, as the office was then called, I used to take the most elaborate notes at the Cabinet of matters which might be of interest to the High Commissioners, and I would tell them after the meeting what had transpired on questions of foreign and Imperial policy. Everything that I could tell them, I did tell them. Equally, the most secret telegrams which came in from

1153
our envoys in foreign countries were read out to the High Commissioners, so that they might know for background exactly what the position was. That is not quite the same attitude as is adopted by the Foreign Secretary to foreign Powers, however friendly those Powers may be.
I am sure that if the Commonwealth Relations Office were to be done away with, as is sometimes suggested, and its functions relegated to the Foreign Office, the Empire countries would undeniably be the losers. To-day, they are regarded as members of the family, and the object is to take them into our confidence to the fullest possible degree. It seems to me that what we have to drum into everybody concerned is the fact that the nations of the Commonwealth—our kinsmen—are, in all respects, equal to ourselves. And we must get this thing on a right basis: that the Commonwealth is an association of free and equal nations, with each of those nations working out its own destiny.
The essential question for the Empire countries, as for us, is whether we can exert more influence together or in isolation, and whether a more continuous system of consultation, at all levels, would make our joint efforts in the international sphere more effective. To that, I should have thought there was only one answer. Whether the specific proposals put forward by the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, this afternoon—extremely interesting as they are—provide an ideal solution, or whether they are susceptible—as I expect he himself would say—to amendment and improvement; whether in particular the idea of a secretariat will be acceptable or not to all the countries of the Empire, or, finally, whether it is in fact possible to get complete uniformity in our relationship with each other, I really do not know. But what I do know is this: that the noble Viscount has done a notable service by raising this question this afternoon, and that his general thesis is undeniable. I hope, if I may say so with all deference, that what he has said will be widely considered, not only in this House but throughout the Commonwealth, for it is only by discarding our prejudices and examining new ideas objectively that we shall move forward, by a smooth evolution, to the better organization to which we are all looking.
6.48 p.m.
Viscount ADDISON: My Lords, I would like in the first place to associate myself with what the noble Marquess said in emphasizing the exceptional character of this debate. I have been looking at the list of speakers we have had to-day, and it really is a remarkable list. I do not think any other Assembly in the world could beat it. We have a former Prime Minister, a Minister Resident in the Middle East, another in Africa, the Secretary of the Imperial War Cabinet for many years, a Governor-General of Australia, one of our most distinguished Colonial Governors, another Australian Governor, a citizen of one of our Colonies, one who knows Canada from end to end, and two former Secretaries of State. That seems to me a very remarkable list. If we cannot hammer out something sensible between us, it must be very unusual.
I should like to pay a tribute, if I may, to the very unusual speech of the noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, which impressed me exceedingly. As the noble Marquess and I know, he could not have understood some of our vicissitudes better if he had had the job of presiding over a meeting. He spoke as if he must have been there. I myself would be the last to suggest that we cannot improve upon our methods. None of us would be backward, I should hope, in admitting that, and any improvement that we can make we should desire to promote.
I shall have a word to say later on what I think is rather a reactionary suggestion by the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, because it does to some extent straitjacket the arrangements, which I do not think would be altogether good. For all that, I am conscious—as is every one of your Lordships who has had anything to do with this business—that sometimes the method of consultation, or at all events of communicating information with a view to eliciting another opinion, is not perhaps as good as we should like it to be. I frankly recognize that sometimes, in practice, on these occasions we are impelled by the force of circumstances to which the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, referred, to take decisions at short notice. One cannot avoid it, though we do our best to give the fullest possible information; but it does happen sometimes unavoidably that one has to take a decision one way or the other before one

1155
has an opportunity of getting the responses as fully as could be wished. I am afraid that sometimes that is inevitable; but I think that we are gradually improving the machinery, and perhaps far more rapidly than the noble Viscount realizes.
I took down the list of instances which the noble Viscount mentioned. I am not saying that the machinery could not be improved, but I am just correcting him in something which he thought had not been dealt with. He thought that the machinery of consultation had not been adequate, and he mentioned certain cases. The first was the Peace Treaties which we hope will be completed one day. I have for very many hours, over several weeks, presided at meetings of Dominion representatives, where long beforehand we discussed the issues before going on to form a point of view. These were reported on regularly by the representatives from the Commonwealth, and I can assure the noble Viscount that even quite lately, in the case of the Commission that is now visiting the Italian colonies—which was appointed by the Deputies—the Dominions representatives have been informed and week by week their reactions solicited to the very difficult issues which arise. That is one good case. I assure the noble Viscount that they were fully consulted. I was one of those who did the consulting over a long period of time, and it is still going on. With regard to Palestine, the same thing applies. We are all painfully aware of the long period of difficulties over that issue, but I assure the noble Viscount that the opinions of the different Dominions have been taken into account on the great issues connected with that question time after time.
Another point was the financial and economic situation. It is a fact—although of course we do not advertise these things in the papers—that for a long time last year important representatives of the Commonwealth countries in London conferred on these anxious problems, and many of our Ministers went abroad to attend Conferences. Last year an exceptional number of Ministers of all the Commonwealth Governments were in London and conferred with us. As to the other point, connected with the Peace Treaties, I cannot refrain from referring
1156
to a Conference for which I myself had a large measure of responsibility—namely, the Conference at Canberra. This was a new departure. I am sure the noble Viscount would and did welcome it. What were we discussing—for, of course, we were discussing, and were not "lining up" against anybody? We discussed the issues that will arise in connexion with the Japanese Peace Treaty. There were many issues. All the Commonwealth countries were most strongly represented. Ministers of the highest rank were there from Canada, New Zealand and South Africa: in one case it was a Prime Minister. For the first time India and Pakistan were also represented—and I should like to pay a tribute to the character of the representatives whom they sent. I believe, if I may say so, that the proceedings of the Canberra Conference had a very valuable effect upon the representatives, both of India and Pakistan. It is difficult for me to imagine a more elaborate and complete system of consultation on the issues that will arise out of a Peace Treaty than that Conference presented. It does indicate a considerable advance.
There is another aspect of the economic question which perhaps I may mention. As your Lordships are aware, the Commonwealth countries are at this time making an exceptional effort to increase their production for the United Kingdom. It is a very exceptional effort. In some cases they are imposing upon themselves rationing of goods which they have in abundance, in order that they may send more to us. It is difficult to imagine a more eloquent and effective occasion of Empire solidarity than action of that kind, with New Zealanders daily depriving themselves of butter in order that we may have it; but that is what is happening. I should like to associate myself with what the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, said about the necessity of developing closer relations and a better scheme of development in many of our Colonial territories. As your Lordships well know, we are surveying, in common with Commonwealth countries, the possibility of developing even more our sources of food supplies in some parts of the Pacific and Africa. As a matter of fact, at this very moment our representatives from the Ministry of Food are in Australia, conferring with the Australians and getting

1157
their advice and help as to how we can make better progress with respect to some of these food production schemes.
I must say that I am a little timid, for the reasons that one noble Lord stated, about the idea of establishing a secretariat. All these things are going on, and I should not like a secretariat to insist on handling them all; I should begin to be rather afraid of the secretariat. Let me mention two or three other things that went on last year. We had in London a Conference of all the Commonwealth countries which discussed for about six weeks the problems affecting common citizenship. Your Lordships will have before you soon a Bill which is the United Kingdom expression of the agreement arrived at in that Conference.
Viscount SAMUEL: The United Kingdom or the Commonwealth expression?
Viscount ADDISON: The Bill will be the United Kingdom response. There will shortly be before this Parliament a Bill which will represent the United Kingdom expression of the agreement which was there arrived at, and there will also be Bills of the other Commonwealth partners. I am only mentioning the fact that this Conference of high representatives from all the Commonwealth countries sat in London for several weeks. Almost whilst it was sitting, there was another Conference going on dealing with the problems that would arise over the; tariff negotiations at Geneva. I am glad to say that we tried, and with a very exceptional measure of success, to arrive at a common understanding of the point of view to be put forward at Geneva. After their return from Geneva, the whole body of experienced persons met again before they went further afield. I am not quite sure where their next port of call is.
Viscount BRUCE: Havana.
Viscount ADDISON: We have so many of these International Conferences with queer initials that one is apt to become a little mixed. This is my point. There was this collection of Dominion representatives on quite different subjects assembled in London, more or less at the same time last year, with a body of Ministers coming and going. I am rather
1158
shy of arrangements of that kind being in the hands of some sort of secretariat. I confess that I am rather afraid that such a secretariat might follow the habit of other secretariats and attach to itself greater staffs and gradually assume greater authority. Anyhow, I do know this—and here I am speaking from firsthand knowledge—that an organization of that kind would not be acceptable, and would be strongly resented, in some countries of the Commonwealth for the very reason that I have indicated. They would be apprehensive that an organisation of that kind might not in the first place be sufficiently elastic or adaptable to take a share in all these different activities to which I have referred. It is only fair to say that. There is also the reason that it might get into the habit of wanting to exercise authorities which the Commonwealth countries would insist upon exercising through their own Governments. At all events, it would be looked upon shyly.
Another illustration of these developments which are going on is quite in accord with what the noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, and the noble Viscount, Lord Bruce, said with reference to the development of regional relations. The noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, was quite right when he said that in matters of defence considerable progress has been made. There again, the regional influence upon the aspect of defence is becoming inevitable; it finds its expression in the kind of organization which we have to bring into being. Pacific and South-East Pacific problems clearly affect Australia and New Zealand more than they affect others. I am glad to say that we have growing up, by common understanding and mutual arrangement, what I believe will develop into a very useful organization. We have liaison officers between us now in being. I think there has been considerable extension in what might be called the regional field. However, it depends upon the topic. Some things are more readily amenable to regional treatment than are others.
Let me come to another matter which is now the subject of considerable regional development on very successful lines. The activities of the food production Missions and the Missions in Malaya and that part of the world have now clearly become closely related to Governmental problems. It is fair to say that in the new federal system which has been agreed

1159
upon we have, after initial troubles, achieved a useful system which promises well. I put it no higher than that. We are bringing together under one Governor-Generalship, if I may so describe it, a system of both economic and political federalism which represents a very substantial and important regional development. That is the point I make. However, it is because of the character of the place and the character of the products which it yields, and so on. Quite frankly, there are all these things going on to-day in different forms all over the Commonwealth. It makes me shy of agreeing to any sort of semi-rigid secretarial system which might seem to have charge of them. I am quite sure that the Commonwealth countries themselves would not regard such a system as acceptable.
For all that, no one can fail to be conscious of the need for improving, by every practical means, our methods of consultation. I prefer the word "consultation" to the word "communication"; communication is easy. We have to learn as we go along. I feel sure, both from my own experience and from the rapid development that is taking place—because it is very rapid indeed—that it is not right to approach this problem with some preconceived plan. Development in various directions is rapid and, with our strange British adaptability, we invent methods for dealing with it as we go along. Finally, as has been said by every one of your Lordships, the things that bind us together, and that help us to work together, are our belief in the same ideals and our love of the same things and of one another. I accept the Motion.
7.8 p.m.
Viscount BRUCE of MELBOURNE: My Lords, whilst I am very appreciative of the discussion that has taken place this afternoon, and certainly of the extremely courteous things that have been said by several noble Lords with regard to my introduction of this Motion, I want to try to remove one or two misconceptions. I think that, broadly speaking, everybody who has spoken has been in favour of the maximum co-operation that we can achieve between the various parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire. I was interested to hear everything that the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has said about how well everything
1160
is progressing, but I just cannot believe that quite such wonderful miracles have happened in the period of a couple of years. Whilst I believe that the position will improve and that all the time we are getting on to a better basis, I suggest that, if the present position were as good as the picture which the noble Viscount drew, then it would he the most marvellous revolution that has ever happened in a period of something like two years. But I pay every tribute to the Leader of the House because I believe he is doing everything in his power to foster ever closer and better and more intimate relations. Above all, we should have a great feeling of gratitude to him for. his odyssey to Australia last year, and the great work he did there, because I believe it was an invaluable visit.
The other point, on which I disagree a little more, is that I really do not want to have fastened on to me the suggestion that I have produced something and said, "There, that is the way to do it. There must be no departure from this admirable suggestion I have made." I do not do anything of the sort. I believe fundamentally that three points arise, and they were the first three that I put forward. You must have meetings now and again between the head men of the different Governments inside the Commonwealth. As to whether you call it an Imperial Conference or a meeting of the Council of British Nations, I am indifferent. I had an idea that in this rapidly moving world, where people get strange ideas, there were some people in revolt against the word "Imperial," just as they rebelled against the word "Empire." Therefore, to try and save their troubled feelings, I thought perhaps we might call it the Council of British Nations. But what in the name of heaven does it matter what you call it if you can get them all to come together?
Another point concerns the holding of special conferences, at whatever place in the Empire is most convenient, to discuss specific questions. The third point, and one to which I attach great importance—and my view is formed entirely as a result of my own experience during nearly fourteen years here—concerns attendance at the admirable meetings we used to have between High Commissioners and the Dominions Secretary, now the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations.

1161
My suggestion was that a meeting with the Prime Minister should be held once a month. I make that suggestion because of what the noble Marquess did to keep us informed when he was at the Dominions Office. It was admirable, and I cannot pay too high a tribute to him for it. But if these meetings are to be held once a month, the Dominions High Commissioners ought to have a chance of posing questions to the Prime Minister. That is the essential thing. We had an arrangement for a period whereby we could ask to see the Prime Minister at any time, and we could ask for a Committee of the Cabinet, but that is not the same thing as having a specific arrangement of a meeting once a month.
The reason why I emphasize that so strongly is because it would give an opportunity to the High Commissioners. If you are here a very long time, you get a very good underground service. Towards the end of my period as High Commissioner, nothing used to happen in the political arena of this great city which I did not hear of. but I could not use the information. If we could have had a meeting with the Prime Minister, I might have used it. I wanted to try to get something done in order that more rapid consultation could be held with the Dominions. The head of the Government here could have tossed any question of mine out and pushed me aside at the first meeting; but he would not have done it more than two or three times.
I have in my mind a specific instance where we wanted to get information to the Dominions so that there could be parallel consideration of the subject. The United Kingdom was in one of the greatest difficulties the world has ever seen, and I wanted to get the matter into the ring of the Empire, so that those who were considering it here could get the reinforcement of the Dominions' point of view. I knew all about it. But nearly two years elapsed before the United Kingdom Government, in desperation, summoned the High Commissioners and almost asked us, "What would you do about it?" We said we had never heard of the matter before. Therefore, I attach some importance to a monthly meeting with the Prime Minister. I do not think anyone need worry very much about those meetings.
What everybody is concerned about is the running of the secretariat. The matter
1162
has been approached from different angles. It is thought that it is going to become such an overwhelming, all-powerful body that everybody will be frightened of it. Get the thing started and put somebody in charge. Previously we have had bodies that were supposed to be responsible to the whole of the Governments of the Dominions, and not just to one. There was the War Graves Commission. If they could not prevent the secretariat from bolting, that was their fault. But we do not want a secretariat in that form. We want something which can be left to develop once it is established, and when we can see what we want. We have heard a good deal about the sort of things that always make an appeal to a British audience—that we never have hard and fast rules, we never have a written Constitution, and that we do these things gradually and progressively and they always work. Nobody can pay greater tribute than I can to that idea. It is perhaps something of the spirit, as Lord Rennell said, and not something entirely material Of course it is not material. It is the spirit that is behind all this. But, as Lord Salisbury remarked, even St. Paul said that there must be a body as well; you must really have both body and spirit.
I do not reel back with the horror that everybody else does when it is suggested that that would be binding and would be something new. I have never suggested that we should put one word on paper; therefore it could not be a written Constitution. But I do suggest that we are going to evolve something more on these lines, something that will make for real security and not merely closer working together. Call it the Economic Chiefs-of-Staff Organization; call it anything you like. What I want to emphasize is that during the period of the war we had this intensive working together and co-operation in the military machine. Nobody complains about that. Because we might lose a war and all become subject to some other nation, we get together; and we work completely and closely together. My opinion is that at the present time we are involved in something just as dangerous as any war in which we ever found ourselves engaged. And I think that at this period in our history we have to adopt very much the same course with regard to the economic question as we did during the

1163
war. That was why I purposely said that I would not be surprised to see the scheme go ahead on the economic side much more rapidly than on the other side, although to my mind that is immaterial.
I am most appreciative of the interest which noble Lords have taken in this Motion. I would emphasize to them that I believe the importance of this subject almost transcends anything we are up against to-day. I beseech noble Lords not to go away with the impression that I am saying that we have to get some rigid unchangeable scheme. I do not mind how it is done, provided that we go on and resolutely recognize the dangers of this hour, taking action (which I am sure the noble Viscount is doing) to get us out of any danger, so that we may weather the very difficult times we have ahead of us.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CERTIFICATES FROM EXAMINERS.
The Lord Chancellor The Lord Chancellor acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:
South Lancashire Transport. [H.L.]:
Also the Certificate that no further Standing Order is applicable to the following Bill:
Sutton's Hospital in Charterhouse Charity Scheme Confirmation.
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932.
Orders made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department extending Section 1 of the Act to the Borough of Tewkesbury;

Borough of Thetford;

Urban District of Litherland;

Urban District of Tavistock:

Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution, and ordered to lie on the Table.

MIDDLESBROUGH GAS ORDER, 1948.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the County Borough of Middlesbrough:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

SOUTH YORKSHIRE AND DERBYSHIRE GAS ORDER, 1948.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the South Yorkshire and Derbyshire Gas Company:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution, and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

  HEARING AIDS.
  HEARING AIDS.
  NAZI-SOVIET RELATIONS, 1939–41.
  NAZI-SOVIET RELATIONS, 1939–41.