Sitting of 12 May 1948

Preamble
The House met at Half past Two o'Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  Darlington Corporation Trolley Vehicles (Additional Routes) Provisional Order Bill,
  "to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Minister of Transport under the Darlington Corporation (Transport, & c.) Act, 1925, relating to Darlington Corporation trolley vehicles," presented by Mr. Barnes; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 96.]
  PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (REDCAR) BILL,
  "to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Minister of Transport under the General Pier and Harbour Act, 1861, relating to Redcar," presented by Mr. Barnes; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 97.]
  PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (SWANAGE) BILL,
  "to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Minister of Transport under the General Pier and Harbour Act, 1861, relating to Swanage," presented by Mr. Barnes; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 98.]
  PORTSMOUTH CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL,
  "to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Minister of Transport under the Portsmouth Corporation Act, 1930, relating to Portsmouth Corporation trolley vehicles," presented by Mr. Barnes; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 99.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  ROYAL NAVY

    Requisitioned Accommodation, Shotley
    Mr. J. H. Hareasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty when he intends to release accommodation requisitioned at Broadwater Gardens, Shotley, Suffolk, which is required for civilian housing purposes.
    The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Walter Edwards): As I recently informed the hon. Member in correspondence, I regret that I can hold out no hope of de-requisitioning this property.
    Mr. Hare: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are 41 families in this particular village on the council's waiting list for new housing accommodation and the retention of this building is denying accommodation to 28 families?
    Mr. Edgar Granville: For what purpose is this accommodation being held? Is there any alternative accommodation in the same area by the use of which this accommodation could be released?
    Mr. Edwards: I am not aware of the number of families on the waiting list for housing accommodation. These premises are occupied by W.R.N.S., for whom we cannot find alternative accommodation in the district.
    Mr. Hare: Can the hon. Gentleman give no hope at all that this housing accommodation, which is civilian and has been requisitioned by the Admiralty, will not be released in the next year, or in two years? Has he no plans at all?
    Mr. Edwards: I cannot give any hope of early release, even in two years. The fact is that it has never been used for housing by civilian people, and it is essential for the accommodation of the W.R.N.S. Until we can find better accommodation, or similar accommodation, for the W.R.N.S., we cannot de-requisition it.
    Mr. Hare: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall try to raise the matter again at the earliest opportunity.

    Palestine Patrol
    Commander Nobleasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty how many ships carrying illegal immigrants to Palestine have been intercepted by the Royal Navy since VE-day.
    Mr. W. Edwards: Forty-eight, Sir.
    Commander Noble: Can the hon. Gentleman give any indication of the long periods at sea which this must have necessitated and the great strain which these boarding operations must have imposed on all concerned?
    Mr. Edwards: I am very happy to be given the opportunity of informing the House of something of what has been done by the Navy in these difficult times. I can say that the average monthly mileage of ships in the Palestine Patrol has been not less than 5,100 miles per ship. Several ships have served under very arduous conditions there, and I mention two, H.M.S. "Widemouth Bay," which served at sea for no less than 41 days out of 43 in 1947 and the destroyer, "Virago," which served at sea 52 days out of 56. I am pleased to be able to draw the attention of the House to what the Navy has been doing in connection with this matter.
    Mr. Eden: In view of the characteristic manner in which the Royal Navy have discharged what, I am sure the whole House will agree, was a very onerous task, will the hon. Gentleman convey the thanks of the whole House to them for what they have done?
    Mr. Edwards: I will do that, certainly.

    Officers (Widows' Pensions)
    Mr. Douglas Marshallasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, since provision was made under the Appendix to the Navy List, page 93, paragraph 5 (f), for widows pensions in certain circumstances granted prior to 17th December, 1929, to cover the period of the first world war, when he will consider re-introducing these measures for retired officers re-employed in the second world war.
    Mr. W. Edwards: The future arrangements which will govern the award of pensions to widows of officers of the three Services are still under review, but this review has now reached an advanced stage and I hope that it will be possible to make a statement before very long.
    Mr. Marshall: Is the Minister aware that I raised this point over two years ago, and an assurance was given by His Majesty's Government, but in the meantime a constituent of mine has died, leaving a widow without a pension? Will the legislation proposed be retrospective?
    Mr. Edwards: I cannot deal with the question of retrospective legislation, as this is a matter which affects the three Services and until there is common agreement between the three Services and the Treasury, I cannot make an announcement in that direction.

    Scientific Posts
    Colonel Wheatleyasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty if he has now decided upon the scientific complement for the R.N.P.F.; what number of higher posts there will be; and from what date the staff will receive the new salary scales.
    Mr. W. Edwards: An interim post-war complement of chemists at the Royal Naval Propellant Factory, Caerwent, has been approved and the number of higher posts will be three. Scales of salary for these posts are under consideration.
    Colonel Wheatley: May I ask the Minister when there will be any likelihood of putting an end to this very long drawn out affair which is under consideration? When will the end of this consideration come?
    Mr. Edwards: I am very happy to be able to say that we have made what might be termed rapid progress during the last month or so, and I am hopeful that the end will come along very soon, but I cannot give a definite date.

  B.B.C. NEWS BULLETINS (ADVERTISING)
  Mr. Irvingasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the B.B.C. has on several occasions given publicity in its news bulletins to a new dairy erected by the Milk Marketing Board for producer retailers at Langley Bridge, County Durham; and if he will take steps to prevent the Corporation using news bulletins to advertise business concerns which are of a competitive nature in violation of the terms of its licence.
  The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Hobson): The B.B.C. state that on 14th

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  April a single report in a Northern News Bulletin was broadcast about this new creamery, which does not compete with any private business and represents an important advance in dairy organisation. My right hon. Friend does not regard this as commercial advertising in the ordinary sense and sees no reason to intervene.
  Mr. Irving: Is the Minister aware that there are competitors of the Milk Marketing Board in this area, and that these competitors are complaining very bitterly about it?
  Mr. Hobson: I may say that reference to this has been made only once. As far as this new creamery is concerned, notice has already been given that the Minister of Agriculture will open it.
  Mr. Vane: Would the hon. Gentleman tell the House who these competitors are? Are they Co-operatives?
  Mr. Hobson: If I gave the names, I should be accused of advertising.

  POST OFFICE

    Dismissals, Glasgow
    Mr. J. S. C. Reidasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that a number of temporary sorting clerks in Glasgow, aged over 55 years are being, or have recently been, dismissed; that they are being replaced by younger men; and what steps have been- taken to ascertain whether other work is available for the dismissed men.
    Mr. Hobson: Yes, Sir. Sixteen temporary men at Glasgow between 64 and 69 years of age, employed on indoor postal duties proper to be filled by the promotion of permanent postmen, are now being displaced by qualified postmen in accordance with an agreement reached in 1946 with the Union of Post Office Workers. I regret that no further suitable employment is available for the men in the Post Office, but the local Employment Exchange has been advised of the position.
    Mr. Reid: How does it come about that the Government lend themselves to an agreement under which men who are perfectly fit but cannot take on other productive jobs are to be replaced by men
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    who, otherwise, would be available for production?
    Mr. Hobson: The position is that, even if they were regular postmen, which they are not, they would retire at 60, though they are, in certain cases, kept on until 62. In regard to the position in Glasgow, we have Regular ex-Service men waiting for jobs in the postal service.
    Commander Galbraith: Can the Minister say how long men have been employed temporarily?
    Mr. Hobson: My information is, seven years.
    Mr. Reid: I am told that a number of them run from eight to 20 years, and that they are veterans of the First World War. Is that so?
    Mr. Hobson: I have no knowledge of that.

    Air Mail, Pakistan
    Commander Nobleasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the delays in air mail from Pakistan; and what is the average time taken.
    Mr. Hobson: Air mails from Pakistan reach this country on average within three days of despatch from Karachi, and letters are delivered as soon as possible thereafter. If the hon. and gallant Member will let me have particulars of any cases where air mail letters appear to have been delayed in transmission, I will gladly have inquiry made.

  CIVIL AVIATION

    Aircraft (Purchase)
    Air-Commodore Harveyasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation what negotiations have taken place with the Irish air line companies regarding the purchase of Constellation aircraft; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (Mr. Lindgren): I am not in a position to make any statement beyond saying that B.O.A.C. have been authorised to submit a tender for the purchase of the five Constellation aircraft belonging to the Eire Company Aerlinte.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: Can the Parliamentary Secretary give an assurance that a price no higher, and preferably less, than the latest will be paid for these aircraft? Can he also say, if they are purchased, on what routes they will be operated?
    Mr. Lindgren: I would prefer that we did not proceed further with this Question today. The negotiations are delicate. In so far as the route is concerned, if they are purchased, they will be used in parallel with the Quantas service to Australia.
    Air-Commodore Harveyasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation if British Overseas Airways Corporation still intend to purchase six Boeing Stratocruiser aircraft; when these aircraft are to be delivered; and how much has been paid on account.
    Mr. Lindgren: The Government approved the purchase of these aircraft in 1946, and the contract subsequently placed by B.O.A.C. is still in force. The remainder of the Question relates to matters of management reserved to the Corporation.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: While I cannot accept what the Parliamentary Secretary says, does he realise that it is common knowledge that the trial flights of the Boeing Stratocruiser have been most disappointing, and that one of the Swedish air lines is endeavouring to cancel its order? As there is a large sum of the taxpayers' money involved— about £2,500,000—will be explain what is the intention?
    Mr. Lindgren: The intention is, so far as I am aware, for the continuation of the contract. I am not aware of the information which the hon. and gallant Member has given to the House.
    Mr. Granville: When is it expected that these Boeing aircraft will be delivered, and is it not increasing the tremendous overhead costs of B.O.A.C. to carry maintenance for other aircraft?
    Mr. Lindgren: The first delivery date was given as May, 1948. The present indication is that it will be in the early part of January, 1949.
    Mr. Gallacher: Would the Minister consider advising the B.O.A.C. to purchase Scottish-built aircraft, and cannot arrange-
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    ments be made for the Government to set up a factory for building them in Scotland?
    Mr. George Ward: Is the Minister aware that the Americans are not very keen to sell these aircraft to us? Will he seriously consider transfering this order from Boeings to Lockheeds for more Constellations?
    Mr. Lindgren: Much depends upon the terms of the original contracts entered into.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: As this matter concerns a very large sum of money, I beg to give notice that I shall endeavour to raise it on the Motion for the Adjournment at a very early opportunity.

    Feeder Service, Edinburgh—Aberdeen
    Lady Grantasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation whether he will direct B.E.A.C. to run a feeder air service with small aircraft daily between Edinburgh and Aberdeen to connect with the existing daily return service from Edinburgh to London.
    Mr. Lindgren: No, Sir.
    Lady Grant: Why not?
    Mr. Lindgren: Because the service which has been withdrawn was not patronised and was uneconomic.
    Lady Grant: Although we are all aware that the service did not pay for Dakotas, nevertheless, the suggestion is that small aircraft should be used as feeder aircraft between Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Cannot the Minister, therefore, reconsider the matter very carefully?
    Mr. Lindgren: The only alternative is the D.H. 89, and I am informed that it would be equally uneconomic.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Is my hon. Friend aware that business people in the North of Scotland require a direct service between Aberdeen and London, and will he take steps to restore it?
    Mr. Lindgren: They had the opportunity of showing their enthusiasm for a period of six months, and did not take it.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: May I ask whether there was a service before nationalisation, and, in any case, will the Minister allow a private company to operate this much-needed service?
    Mr. Lindgren: There was no prewar service. The question of operation by a private company is a matter for arrangement and negotiation with the Corporation under the appropriate Section of the Civil Aviation Act.
    Mr. J. S. C. Reid: Does it come to this —that, as B.E.A.C. are unable to ran their services economically, and those who can are not allowed to do so, the result is that Scotland has to suffer?
    Mr. Lindgren: It does not mean that at all. It does mean that where there is an alternative means of surface transport which is an effective competitor with air transport, the opportunities of profit are limited.
    Mr. Speaker: The original Question was whether there was to be a feeder air service, but we are now getting very wide of the mark.

    Charter Service, London—Bahrein
    Mr. Lennox-Boydasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation when B.O.A.C. proposes to start charter services between London and the Persian Gulf.
    Mr. Lindgren: I am informed by the British Overseas Airways Corporation that the first of a series of weekly flights on charter to them left the United Kingdom for Bahrein on 9th May.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: What was wrong, if anything, which is very doubtful, with the existing charter service run by a private company to Abadan?
    Mr. Lindgren: This is a variation of an agreement which has been in operation between Skyways and B.O.A.C. since 1946, and is a rationalisation of services, including this private charter sponsored by the B.O.A.C. and the regular scheduled services.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Does it come to this —that, as soon as a private company makes a success and makes a profit, the Government come in and take the trade?
    Mr. Lindgren: No, Sir. It does mean that, where there is an opportunity for rationalisation for the public good, the Corporation accepts the opportunity.
    Lady Grant: If it is possible to run a charter service between this country and
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    Persia, why cannot it be done between London and Aberdeen?
    Mr. Lindgren: The former route is a little more difficult.
    Mr. Assheton: Is another reason that we have not got a railway interest between here and Persia which we have to protect?

  GERMANY

    Prisoner of War (Re-classification)
    Mr. Stokesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why Reinhard Bluhm, born on 31st July, 1920, near Danzig and taken prisoner by the American Army after being de-Nazified at Darmstadt, given the benefit of the Youth Amnesty and placed in Category 5, has now been re-classified in Category 3 without a trial; whether he is aware that this decision was promulgated over the signature of a British officer at 117 Mil. Gov., Hildesheim, with orders that he was not to be employed by any British unit; and that the British unit with whom this man was working was satisfied with his work and is anxious to re-employ him.
    The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ernest Bevin): Bluhm was an officer in the S.S. for seven years and a non-commissioned officer in the Hitler Youth for four years. When the United States authorities became aware of his long Nazi record they quashed his exoneration under the Youth Amnesty. The German Denazification Panel in the British zone, which considered his case, decided, after consulting the denazification authorities in the United States zone, to place him in Category 3 on the grounds that he was politically exceptionally dangerous. Bluhm was given the opportunity of appearing before the Panel but did not do so. The Panel's decision was confirmed by the British authorities. It is clearly undesirable on security grounds that Germans whose political record is unsatisfactory should be retained in Military Government employment.
    Mr. Stokes: Can my right hon. Friend give the date on which the Americans quashed the release under the Youth Amnesty?
    Mr. Bevin: I am sorry; I have no information on that.
    Mr. Stokes: If I put a Question down, will the right hon. Gentleman give that information?
    Mr. Bevin: Certainly.

    Banned Newspapers
    Mr. Gallacherasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will give the text of the offending passages from the "Volksstimme" in Cologne, and the "Westdeutsches Volksecho" in Dortmund, which caused the British authorities again to ban these two German papers.
    Mr. Bevin: As the answer is long and contains quotations, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Gallacher: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that an arrangement has been reached that all opinions opposing capitalist restabilisation in the British and American zones have to be suppressed at all costs?
    Mr. Bevin: I do not agree at all. I just ask for decency, that is all.
    Following is the answer:
    Of the two newspapers referred to in the hon. Member's Question, "Volksstimme" has not previously been banned by the Military Government although it has been reprimanded three times and on the last occasion, three months ago, warned that this would be the last warning. "Westdeutsches Volksecho" has been suspended twice in the last ten months, once for a period of one month in June, 1947, and once for six weeks in February, 1948, for a continued campaign of malicious, biased and inaccurate statements directed against the British and United States Governments. The specific passages on which action was taken in the case of "Westdeutsches Volksecho" are comments on Italian elections published on 23rd April, 1948, and a syndicated article published on 27th April, 1948. The first comment read:
    "The big capitalists, large landowners, the Vatican and the gentlemen of Wall Street have succeeded by their hunger policy, mental terrors and intimidation, detachments of police, rumours of civil war, and American warships and bombers, in leading the lower classes of Italy and also a large number of women into the Christian Democrat Camp."
    The second comment read:
    "Ever since the collapse of the Hitler regime the German people have longed for a
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    just peace. Instead of this it is forced to accept a Marshall Plan, which, operating behind the mask of philanthropy, threatens to transform Western Germany info a colony of American monopoly capitalism and destroy German unity. The ruins of the second world war have not yet been cleared away, the tears of the widows and orphans have not yet been dried, and once again new warmongers are attempting to make the West German industrial area the cause of Imperialist quarrels and the battleground of a third world war."
    This comment also appeared in "Volksstimme" on 26th April. In view of its previous record, the licence of "Westdeutsches Volksecho" has been withdrawn, for repeated violation of paragraph 5 of the policy instructions accompanying its licence, which lays down that nothing shall be published which intentionally tends to provoke disunity among the Allied Powers and their Forces of Occupation. Other legislation which has been infringed are Control Council Directive No. 40 and Military Government Ordinance No. 1. "Volksstimme" has been suspended for one month under the same legislation.

  ARRESTED BRITISH SUBJECT, BELGIUM (TRIAL)
  Mr. Solleyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact that it is nearly twelve months since Mr. Stevens, of Grays, Essex, has been imprisoned in Belgium awaiting his trial on a charge of murder, he will take steps to impress upon the Belgian authorities the desirability of securing the trial of this British subject as soon as possible.
  Mr. Bevin: I have received a full report on this matter from His Majesty's Consul-General at Antwerp who has been watching this case closely from the beginning. Mr. Stevens has been in detention since early last July. It has been necessary for the Belgian judicial authorities to arrange for documents to be translated into Flemish from English, and to give time to the defence to collect evidence from England. I am satisfied that the case is taking a normal course, and that Mr. Stevens is receiving the same treatment as would be accorded to a Belgian subject in similar circumstances. It was hoped that the trial would take place in March, but the court concerned only holds four sessions a year and it may not be possible for the case to be heard until September.
  Mr. Solley: Whilst thanking my right hon. Friend for his long and detailed reply, may I ask him if he could make representations to the Belgian authorities that a delay of what will be over one year and a quarter is much too long in the circumstances, and secondly, would he personally satisfy himself that this delay is not due in part to the lack of competent legal assistance for this British subject; and, if so, could he take steps to see that Mr. Stevens gets every possible help from our own representatives in Belgium?
  Mr. Bevin: I have given every possible help I can, but I will take note of the supplementary question and will look into it very closely.

  NORTHERN RHODESIA

    Civil Service Salaries
    Mr. Thomas Reidasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the inquiry into the salaries of Northern Rhodesian civil servants, which inquiry was made about a year ago.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Rees-Williams): This report has been presented and will be published shortly, but I am not yet in a position to make any statement about it.
    Mr. Reid: Can the hon. Gentleman say if this report is to await the consideration of the reports on other Colonies now being prepared?
    Mr. Rees-Williams: No, Sir. It is actually in the printers' hands and we hope it will be printed within the next couple of weeks. It will then go by sea mail to the Colony concerned, and we hope it will be simultaneously published here and in the Colony.

    Taxation
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that Europeans in Nyasaland pay a poll tax of £4 per annum; and if he will consider the introduction of a similar tax in Northern Rhodesia which would remedy the present position in which all Africans are subject to direct taxation but Europeans with incomes below a certain figure pay no direct taxation.
    Mr. Rees-Williams: Legislation imposing an annual tax of £1 on all residents of Northern Rhodesia other than Africans was repealed in 1945. A Committee, including one African member, which reviewed taxation in 1946 did not recommend the reintroduction of this tax, and the Governor is of the opinion that there is no adequate reason for changing the existing system of taxation in this respect.
    Mr. Sorensen: Would the hon. Gentleman see that the same principle, as far as practicable, is applicable to white settlers in Nyasaland and Rhodesia as is applicable to the Africans?
    Mr. Rees-Williams: Taxation is a matter for the Government of Nyasaland and for the Legislative Council of Northern Rhodesia, and it is not desirable that we should interfere in taxation matters.
    Mr. Scollan: Have we not an obligation in this country to see that there is no differentiation against natives in their own lands?
    Mr. Rees-Williams: We can always make suggestions, but our record in the past of interfering in taxation matters has not always been a happy one.

  MALAYA AND SINGAPORE

    Trade Union Mission
    Mr. Gallacherasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies when the report of the Trade Union Mission to Malaya will be published.
    Mr. Rees-Williams: The report is still in course of preparation. I am not, therefore, able as yet to give the date of publication.

    Government Service (Asiatics)
    Mr. Skinnardasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many locally recruited officers are serving in administrative position in Government service in the Federation of Malaya and in Singapore; and what provision exists for the holding of entrance examinations locally for the recruitment of Asiatics of the same standard as Europeans.
    Mr. Rees-Williams: I am in communication with the Malayan Governments on this matter, and will write to my hon. Friend as soon as I have the necessary information.

  CYPRUS (JEWISH REFUGEES)
  Dr. Barnett Strossasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the illegal Jewish immigrants, at present detained in Cyprus, will be at liberty to leave the island after 15th May.
  Air-Commodore Harveyasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what arrangements are being made for the transfer of Jewish refugees, interned in Cyprus, to Palestine.
  Mr. Rees-Williams: It has already been made clear that these persons must be removed from British territory before the final withdrawal from Palestine. The precise arrangements to be made after termination of the Mandate are now under discussion and I am not at present in a position to make a further statement.
  Air-Commodore Harvey: Can the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that no cost will be borne by the British taxpayer in transferring these people back to Palestine?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: The responsibility is on the people who wish to take them away. I do not anticipate that there will be any cost to the British taxpayer.
  Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Would the hon. Gentleman also give an assurance that no British ships will be involved in this process.
  Mr. Rees-Williams: I cannot give that assurance at the moment.
  Squadron-Leader Fleming: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether, when he deals with these illegal immigrants from Cyprus, he will also consider those detained in Kenya and in other parts of Africa?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: That is a matter which is under consideration at the moment.
  Mr. Vane: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that no arms are concealed in these camps, and will he be sure that when
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  these people do leave for Palestine they will be searched for arms?
  Mr. Hare: Would the hon. Gentleman say what is the intention with regard to those people who do not wish to leave Cyprus? What are the Government going to do about them?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: I am not aware that there are any. So far as I am aware they all wish to leave, and that question may not, therefore, arise.

  TRINIDAD (INSTITUTES)
  Mr. Baldwinasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what progress is being made in the erection of the Central Training Institute for Teachers and a farm institute at Centeno, Trinidad.
  Mr. Rees-Williams: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which my right hon. Friend the Minister of State gave to my hon. Friend the Member for East Harrow (Mr. Skinnard) on 14th April.
  Mr. Baldwin: Is it a fact that the Standing Finance Committee of the Legislature refused to vote the necessary funds in order to erect these buildings, and is it not true to say that a training and a farm institute are very necessary, not only for Trinidad but for the Windward and Leeward Islands?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: I think it is desirable that the matter should be proceeded with. I was rather surprised that it has not been proceeded with, but the Legislative Council has decided that the cost involved is too great for the Colony's finances to bear; that is the reason for the decision.
  Mr. Baldwin: Will the hon. Gentleman say what is going to be done with the unfinished buildings, on which a large sum of money has been spent, and is it a fact that a principal has been appointed to the farm institute?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: That is another question. We are looking into that.

  BRITISH HONDURAS (FARMING PLANS)
  Mr. Skinnardasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that details of plans made by the Government of British Honduras for the

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  fostering of sound farming practice have not yet been released locally; that requests by farmers to the Department of Agriculture have elicited no information; and whether he will take steps to ensure local publication of the plans at the earliest possible opportunity.
  Mr. Rees-Williams: Detailed plans for agriculture in British Honduras await the report of the British Guiana-British Honduras Settlement Commission, which I expect to receive shortly. An outline policy has, however, been prepared by the Director of Agriculture; this will be considered by a Committee of the Legislative Council which will commence sitting next month. Meanwhile attention is being concentrated on increased production of foodstuffs and improving local marketing facilities.
  Mr. Skinnard: Is the Minister aware, in connection with this proposed increase in the production of foodstuffs about which an answer was given to me in the House late last year, the British Honduras Chamber of Commerce has categorically stated that no details of these plans at all have been published in the Colonies?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: That is so. I do not think any detailed policy has been published, but that must await the report of the Commission to which I have referred. The outline policy has been framed by the Director of Agriculture, and that is being considered. Until we get the report no detailed policy can be published.

  KENYA (TRAINING SCHEMES)
  Mr. Skinnardasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what facilities at present exist in Nairobi for technical training for Africans; and whether the Government of Kenya will consider approaching leading business firms with a view to the institution of training schemes for Africans in technical work.
  Mr. Rees-Williams: There is a Government Training Centre for ex-Service men at which carpentry, masonry, tailoring, shoemaking and other crafts are taught. From 1st January next the centre will be open to African civilians. In addition, evening continuation classes, which Afri-
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  cans are encouraged to join, exist in Nairobi for several subjects including plumbing, drainlaying, book-keeping and accountancy. Classes in several other' subjects have had to be closed for lack of present support from Africans. A special Committee on which business firms are represented is at present considering the expansion of evening classes into a technical institute and the institution of industrial apprenticeship.
  Mr. Skinnard: Are business firms prepared to co-operate in providing technical assistance to the classes, trained staff and so on?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: So far as limited resources allow, I believe they are.
  Mr. Wilson Harris: During his recent visit did the Minister find that Africans would settle down satisfactorily to regular training schemes?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: I had an opportunity to visit the Government training centre referred to here, and I found that the Africans settled down particularly well. They were all ex-Service men, of course, and they ran their own discipline, and the instructors had nothing but praise for the way in which they had settled down to their studies. I believe we have great hopes here.
  Mr. John Hynd: Could the hon. Gentleman say whether it is the Government's intention to release the central technical training institute taken over by the military authorities at the beginning of the war, which could take 600 to 700 Africans a year?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: We are looking into that matter.
  Brigadier Rayner: Is it true that the Indian technicians now in the Colony are to be repatriated at the end of their contracts?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: That is another question.
  Mr. Niall Macpherson: Are training facilities to be made available to civilians free of charge or are there to be some conditions?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: We are in the process of framing the scheme, and we will take the matter up.

  WEST AFRICAN COLONIES

    Groundnuts
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what progress has been made in respect of the improvement of quality and the sale of West African groundnuts; and to what extent plans for the expansion of groundnut cultivation have been implemented.
    Mr. Rees-Williams: An expert visited West Africa last year to study ways of improving the quality of groundnuts by preventing deterioration in store. He has now returned to Nigeria with a team of chemists to carry out large scale experiments. The sale of groundnuts will be put into the hands of local marketing boards as soon as possible. A representative of the West African Produce Control Board is now in West Africa advising on the technical problems involved. Apart from a possible further expansion of peasant production, I am now considering, in consultation with the local Governments, the recommendations of the West African Oilseeds Mission which will be published before the end of the month. These envisage increased groundnut cultivation on a mechanised basis. Soil and water surveys of suitable areas have already been made.
    Mr. Sorensen: Is there any store of groundnuts undisposed of in West Africa? If so, for how long has it been there? Can it be used in some way in the near future?
    Mr. Rees-Williams: Very large stores have been accumulated at Kano. According to my last information, we have 280,000 tons awaiting transit; and there are about 50,000 tons in Gambia, which will be moved in a short time. The reason for our inability to move a large quantity of groundnuts as quickly as we should like from Kano is the shortage of rolling stock on the railway. We are dealing with that situation. I think 20 engines are now on the way.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Can the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that rolling stock is not diverted from West Africa to East Africa, because it is desperately needed for the existing requirements?
    Mr. Rees-Williams: I can give that assurance.
    Mr. A. Edward Davies: Will it not have a very depressing effect upon producers if they see these continuing accumulations without any hope of their disposal? Is it not a waste of time to talk about expansion of cultivation in such circumstances?
    Mr. Rees-Williams: Accumulation only arises during the season, and when the season is over the groundnuts rapidly decrease in store. We are tackling this matter with great energy, and are getting the engines and wagons out there. The difficulty has arisen because of the war.
    Mr. Bossom: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether there is a full complement of the chemists needed?
    Mr. Rees-Williams: We have sent a team out. I have not heard any more.
    Mr. Sorensen: Can we take it that as much attention is given to the extension of this industry in West Africa as is being given to it in East Africa?
    Mr. Rees-Williams: Yes, certainly.

    Education
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the approximate number of children in the West African Colonies receiving education, respectively, in mission and non-mission primary and secondary schools; and how many teachers there are with and without adequate qualifications.
    Mr. Rees-Williams: I have asked for the information from West Africa, and will send it to my hon. Friend as soon as it is received.

  PALESTINE (HOLY PLACES)
  Sir Patrick Hannonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can now state the precise nature of the arrangements made for the safeguarding of the Holy Places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem on the termination of the mandate.
  Mr. Rees-Williams: The safety of the Holy Places in Jerusalem depends on the maintenance of order in the City. Negotiations are now being conducted by the High Commissioner with the Arabs and Jews for a truce to cover the Jerusalem town planning area. Bethlehem lies outside this area, but it seems likely that if

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  peace is maintained in the City of Jerusalem no threat will develop to the Holy Places in Bethlehem. As the terms of the truce are still the subject of negotiation, I cannot state their precise nature at the moment.
  Sir P. Harmon: Has any officer yet been appointed? Is there one on the eve of being appointed to take charge of this difficult office of safeguarding the Holy Places in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem? Have the Government succeeded in getting an appropriate officer to take charge?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: I have no more information on that. Not so far as I am aware.
  Squadron-Leader Fleming: If the truce negotiations break down, what steps will be taken to safeguard the Holy places?
  Mr. Speaker: That is a hypothetical question.

  BERMUDA (LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS)
  Mr. Dribergasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what action he proposes to take as a result of the Report of the Joint Committee of the Legislative Council and House of Assembly in Bermuda, which recommends a limited extension of the franchise on the basis of ownership of real estate, the maintenance of local trade union legislation in its present form, and the maintenance of separate schools for white and coloured children; and, in particular, if he will take steps to repair the omission from this report of recommendations for the introduction of Income Tax, the opening of the public services to coloured candidates, and the provision of free elementary education.
  Mr. Rees-Williams: The Report of the Joint Committee is at present under consideration by the Bermuda Legislature by whom the Committee was appointed. As stated in the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for East Harrow (Mr. Skinnard) on 28th January, my right hon. Friend will give this matter early consideration as soon as the proceedings of the Legislature are complete and he has received the Governor's comments.
  Mr. Driberg: Is my hon. Friend aware that this matter was discussed in the Bermuda House of Assembly last week, and that, on the whole, approval seems to have been given to this Report? In view of the gravely inadequate and backward nature of the Report, will the Government consider acceding to the original request, which was for a Royal Commission?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: My hon. Friend talks of the House of Assembly. However, the Legislative Council, so far as I know, have not yet finally considered; the matter, and we are waiting for their report as well as the Report of the House of Assembly. I think I should point out that the House of Assembly, by 15 votes to five, agreed to provisions for free elementary education.
  Commander Noble: Could the hon. Gentleman give us some idea of the value of the real estate required by this extension, in relation to the general value of property in Bermuda? Is it not the fact that the public services are open to both white and black people?
  Mr. Rees-Williams: Those are other questions.

  HOUSE OF LORDS (COMPOSITION)
  Mr. Ronald Chamberlainasked the Prime Minister if he will now state the Government's policy in regard to reform of the composition of the House of Lords.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): Paragraph 5 of the White Paper on the Parliament Bill summarises certain general proposals for reforming the composition of the House of Lords. These I should have been prepared to commend in principle to the Labour Party if it had been possible to find a basis for agreement between the Parties covering both the composition and the powers of a Second Chamber.
  Mr. Chamberlain: While thanking the Prime Minister for that information, may I ask him if he is aware that the clear intention of the Government to introduce women into the House of Lords and to abolish the hereditary principle has given great satisfaction to the country?
  Mr. Lipson: Will the Government consider continuing their efforts to try to bridge the gap following the conference between the parties?
  The Prime Minister: We have given a great deal of time and consideration to try to come to an agreement, and we have failed. I do not think it would be useful to reopen the matter at the present moment.

  ARMED FORCES (MODERN WEAPONS)
  Mr. George Jegerasked the Minister of Defence whether he is satisfied that adequate progress is being made in the development of the most modern types of weapon.
  The Minister of Defence (Mr. A. V. Alexander): Yes, Sir. As was made clear in the Statement Relating to Defence, 1948 (Command 7327), research and development continue to receive the highest priority in the defence field, and all types of modern weapons, including atomic weapons, are being developed.
  Mr. Jeger: Can the Minister give any further information on the development of atomic weapons?
  Mr. Alexander: No. I do not think it would be in the public interest to do that.

  FOOD SUPPLIES

    Danish Beef (Quality)
    Mr. Gammansasked the Minister of Food if he is aware of the widespread complaints of the quality of the Danish beef being sold in the shops; and what action he is taking.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Edith Summerskill): I am aware that there have been some complaints. Danish beef does not rank with the best of our supplies, but none that has been issued was unfit for consumption. We are giving the Danes all the help we can to secure an improvement in preparing the meat, and any which is not suitable for the ration is issued for manufacturing.
    Mr. Gammans: Is it not a fact that this cow beef was sold to this country by the Danes only for manufacturing purposes, and that they have objected most strongly to its being sold for any other purpose, because of the bad name it thus gives to Danish products generally?
    Dr. Summerskill: No, not at all. It was quite understood that this was going to be used for the ration.

    Meat Importation (Regulation)
    Captain John Crowderasked the Minister of Food if he will make a statement as to what is the purpose of Statutory Instrument No. 886 of 1948.
    Dr. Summerskill: The new regulation has been made to permit the importation of carcases of mutton and lamb from which a lymphatic gland has been removed. Our regulations as now amended are in line with those in the Southern Dominions and other exporting countries where such meat is used in the ordinary course for human consumption.
    Captain Crowder: Am I to understand that this Order does not apply to beef?
    Dr. Summerskill: Experts tell me that it can be found in beef, but it very rarely is; it is generally found in mutton.
    Dr. Barnett Stross: Can the Minister tell the House what steps are taken in the way of inspection of these carcases in order to make quite certain that they are fit for human beings to eat?
    Dr. Summerskill: Yes, Sir. I am only too prepared to reassure the House. A very careful inspection is made, and I understand that the prescapular, superficial inguinal, supra mammary and precrural lymphatic glands are all removed. In addition, if a state of emaciation is found and the glands are affected, then the carcase is destroyed.
    Mr. Butcher: Is it not a fact that the steps now taken by the Minister have been urged upon him for many months past by the Dominions and other people interested in increasing the meat supply?
    Dr. Summerskill: I was with the hon. Gentleman in Australia in 1945, when we examined some of these carcases, and I took a special interest in the matter then. We wanted to be quite sure that this complaint was not communicable to human beings, and that is why we have delayed in making this amendment.
    Mr. Scollan: Can my hon. Friend say what steps are being taken to let the people know that this kind of meat is being supplied to them in the butchers'

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    shops? Will districts have it imposed upon them without their knowledge?
    Dr. Summerskill: I have already made it clear that the meat that will be used will be quite as sound as any other meat that has not had the lymphatic gland removed from it.

    Fresh Meat Exports
    Mr. A. R. W. Lowasked the Minister of Food for what reasons fresh meat has been exported from the United Kingdom during the last 12 months; and whether he will name the countries of destination not specified in the trade returns.
    Dr. Summerskill: The bulk of the meat exported was for consumption by our Forces overseas, for ships' stores in the Channel Islands and for the civilian population. In the case of Belgium meat was bought and owned by that country, but was stored in the United Kingdom. The countries of destination not specified in the trade accounts are: Malta, St. Helena, Falkland Islands, Burma, Palestine, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Hungary and Austria. The quantities sent to most of these places were very small.

  SOAP SUPPLIES (SCHOOLS)
  Mr. Peter Freemanasked the Minister of Food whether he is aware of the shortage of soap for children in schools; whether he will issue a special month's supply that can be held as reserve and by being stored for one month will last longer and this will enable schools to have supplies available all the time which cannot be managed at present.
  Dr. Summerskill: I know of ho general shortage of soap for school children, but I will gladly look into any particular case if my hon. Friend will send me details. I regret that the difficult supply position will not admit of a special reserve for schools.

  NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (PAMPHLET)
  Sir John Mellorasked the Minister of Health why his pamphlet on the new National Health Service contains a para-
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  graph headed "Choose your doctor now," in view of the inability of executive councils to supply a choice of doctors as promised in the pamphlet.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): I need hardly say that a scheme of this magnitude involves an enormous amount of detailed organisation in the background, and if both doctor and patient are to be able to take advantage of the new arrangements as from 5th July it is essential that they help us to make an early start. In view of the increasing number of doctors applying to participate in the Service, executive councils should soon have no difficulty in putting in touch with such doctors patients who cannot find one themselves.
  Sir J. Mellor: Is not this paragraph at the present time completely meaningless, and is the Minister aware that the London Executive Council are advising inquirers to call again in a month's time, when they anticipate that the difficulties will be removed? Does the right hon. Gentleman share that view?
  Mr. Bevan: I will make inquiries at once to find out whether the London Executive Council is giving that advice, but I am fairly certain that it is untrue, and that the hon. Gentleman is misinformed about it. At any rate, I think that all Members of this House are now anxious that we should facilitate the starting of this Act on 5th July, and I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will be as helpful in this matter as other people are trying to be.
  Mr. Assheton: Does the right hon. Gentleman know that, whereas some of the propaganda put forward by his Department advises the public that there will be lists of doctors found in the post offices, in fact, they cannot be found there at present?
  Mr. Bevan: There will be lists in the post offices and in the town halls as the lists are filled up by the doctors who are applying to join the service. There is obviously some delay among certain doctors at the present time, but they are participating in larger and larger numbers. Indeed, it is to the financial interest of the doctors to get these lists filled up as early as possible.
  Mr. Assheton: The lists are not now in the post offices, and can we be assured that they will be in the post offices?
  Mr. Bevan: As soon as the doctors have indicated their intention of participating in the service their names will be put in the various places indicated in the leaflet. We must have the support of the public and medical profession unless great inconvenience is to be caused to millions of people.
  Mr. Driberg: Is my right hon. Friend aware that public spirited doctors in many places such as Maldon, Essex, have already made public their intention of coming in to help operate this great service, and the only difficulty is that the supply of actual application forms keeps on running out at the post offices because of the enthusiasm of the public?
  Mr. Bevan: I am very glad to hear of it, and I will see to it that the supplies of leaflets march with the mounting enthusiasm.
  Squadron-Leader Fleming: Ought it not to be made clear to the public that when the Minister speaks of people choosing their own doctor, he is referring to general practitioners and not to specialists?
  Mr. Bevan: That is made perfectly clear in the leaflet itself. We are speaking all the while about the general practitioners and not about specialists and consultants, who are attached to the regional boards and teaching hospitals.

  PRISONERS OF WAR (REPATRIATION)
  Mr. Stokesasked the Secretary of State for War how many prisoners of war are still held in No. 186 Camp, Bury St. Edmunds, pending their return to Berlin; and when he expects arrangements to be made for Berlin transport.
  The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Michael Stewart): Ninety-nine prisoners of war have been temporarily delayed in this camp. Repatriation to Berlin has now been resumed.
  Mr. Stokes: Does this mean that the hold up of prisoners of war at Munster Lager due for Berlin has been removed, too?
  Mr. Stewart: These difficulties arise owing to the problem of sending military trains to Berlin, and arrangements are now made to send prisoners of war by civilian trains.

  HOSTEL, FEATHERSTONE (FURNITURE)
  Mr. Swinglerasked the Minister of Supply why he has ordered the removal of dining room furniture and all easy chairs from his Department's hostel at Brinsford Lodge, Featherstone, in the County of Stafford; why he proposes to have all the beds removed and replaced with wooden bunks; what consultation representatives of his Department had with the residents before these decisions were taken; and whether he will reconsider them.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Mr. Jack Jones): The dining room furniture was not suitable for a hostel of this type and has therefore been replaced by the type used at similar hostels. We do not intend to make any other changes, but the hostel is shortly to be transferred to the Ministry of Labour and National Service, who will be responsible for deciding whether further changes should be made in furnishing.
  Mr. Swingler: Is my hon. Friend aware that this furniture has been in this hostel for some years and that the residents have enjoyed the present standard of comfort by paying certain charges for it. Why cannot this furniture be handed over to the Ministry of Labour who are taking over the hostel?
  Mr. Jones: The intention is to replace this furniture with furniture similar to that used in other hostels and we are getting in place thereof furniture which lends itself to comfort and hygiene—60 fireside chairs, 20 armchairs, 12 settees, etc. It is only the dining room furniture, which was not considered suitable, that has been removed.
  Mr. Frank Byers: Is it not rather stupid to carry standardisation to this length?
  Mr. Jones: It may appear to be stupid, but in the interests of hygiene and good service, particularly in the dining room, it is necessary to have standardisation.
  Mr. Swingler: Would not my hon. Friend agree that when changes are to be made it would be better to consult the residents before, rather than after, taking the decision?
  Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend can rest assured that consultations did take place.

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  There is appropriate machinery where these domestic matters are discussed, and agreement was arrived at. If he wants further information as to the nature of the discussion, I shall be pleased to furnish it.
  Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: What is unhygienic about dining room furniture?
  Mr. Jones: This furniture was old and decrepit and not suitable to remain in its present position.

  MALTA (KEROSENE SUPPLIES)
  The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of COMMANDER MAITLAND:
  62. To ask the Minister of Fuel and Power what supplies of kerosene are at present in Malta; and what arrangements have been made to ensure that there is no diminuation in supplies owing to the closing down of the Haifa Refinery.
  Commander Maitland: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. May I have an answer to Question No. 62? May I have your guidance?
  Mr. Speaker: If the Minister is not here, he cannot give an answer. Perhaps the answer will be sent to the hon. and gallant Member.
  Commander Maitland: This Question affects Malta. If I cannot get this Question in again before the Recess how long shall I have to wait?
  Mr. Assheton: Is it possible that the Minister of Fuel and Power is taking the rare opportunity of having a bath?
  Mr. Speaker: As we have not finished the hour for Questions yet, and as there is a Private Notice Question down, I hope the answer will have arrived by the time it is answered, and then the hon. and gallant Member can ask his Question.
  Later—
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Mr. Robens): I hope the House will accept my apology for not having been here when Question No. 62 was originally called.
  It would not be desirable on security grounds to state what stocks of kerosene
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  exist in Malta. As regards the second part of the Question, I am informed that the supplying companies have arranged to provision Malta from sources in the Persian Gulf.
  Commander Maitland: Does the Minister realise that about 90 per cent, of the cooking in Malta is done by kerosene? It is, indeed, the lifeblood of the island. Will he take particular care to see that the Island gets its full supply in all circumstances?
  Mr. Robens: We are well aware of those facts. We have no reason to believe that the oil companies are not meeting the essential requirements of the Island.
  Mr. Hector Hughes: Is the Minister aware of the serious effect this diminution will have upon unemployment, which is already a very serious problem in Malta?
  Mr. Robens: Yes, Sir.

  U.S.A. AND SOVIET UNION

    Exchange of Notes
    Mr. Eden(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has yet received any communication with respect to the conversations reported to be about to take place between the United States and Soviet Governments.
    Mr. Bevin: Yes, Sir. The United States Government have now informed me fully of these exchanges. The House will have seen the documents published in the Press, as well as President Truman's statement, and I have no additional information.
    Naturally, I have to give careful thought to all that occurs in the international field, but at present I would prefer not to make any statement, although I would like to remind the House that His Majesty's Government always have been, and remain, anxious for a general solution on a world-wide basis, if that is possible. In view, however, of the references to the European Recovery Programme and to the Five Power Treaty by the Soviet Government, I wish to make it clear that nothing that has happened can affect the development and execution of those policies, which, as I explained to the House in my speech of 4th May, are not directed against anyone, but are legitimate developments necessary alike for our own and European prosperity and security.
    Mr. Lipson: Will the Foreign Secretary make it clear that he welcomes these exchanges between representatives of the Governments of the Soviet Union and the United States of America?
    Mr. Bevin: I want to be quite frank in this answer. I am not anxious to enter into further conferences until the ground has been cleared. I have had too many failures. It is absolutely essential that a good deal of preparatory work is done, and a good deal of what I once called "putting the cards on the table face upwards" has to take place, and then we can possibly get a chance of making a conference for peace really successful. That is the approach—with careful thought, careful action and, I hope, a studious approach, with good will—I shall make to this problem.
    Mr. Gallacher: Would it not be possible for the Foreign Secretary of this country to act independently of the United States, to put a few cards on the table, and then invite representatives of the Soviet Union to put down two or three of their cards and have quite frank and open discussions on any questions between them?
    Mr. Bevin: Why should I put down all my cards, and the Soviet only two or three? I do not understand that. The fact is that our cards have been on the table from the moment I took office, and in the discussions on Germany I put forward a long document on the further development of European unity, German unity. Unfortunately, I have been unable to get agreement. Really I stand where I stood on 4th May. The evidence all goes to show that the peoples of the world want peace. If the peoples are allowed to meet, they can have peace. It is only the Communists who stand in the way of it.
    Mr. Wilson Harris: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that if these conversations between the United States and the Soviet Union succeed, they might form part of that preparation for the larger discussion which he has in mind?
    Mr. Bevin: I really think that to have a conference and to have it break down again would cause terrible disappointment in the world. I still believe that a great deal of the ground can be cleared by a diplomatic approach, by the exchange of views, and by trying to understand what
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    it is that everybody is trying to get. If we can do that, then the preparatory work for the conference can be effective, but I suggest that merely to call a conference again on the basis of generalities, without precise preparatory work, will land us exactly where we were with the Four Power Conference, and the public have been disappointed so many times. I must be forgiven if I say to this House and to the world that I am so anxious for peace, so anxious for a settlement with Soviet Russia, that I want to remove any possible ground for misunderstanding by clearing the ground as far as I humanly can.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Will the Minister give due consideration to the warning given to the world by Sir John Boyd-Orr in his recent speech, and will he, in his approach to this question, consider the broad economic outlook and try his best to negotiate with the Soviet Union in order to break the tension to which Sir John Boyd-Orr referred?
    Mr. Bevin: No one has done more than I have done on the economic field since I have held this office. I think the work I described on 4th May in the Far East and in South-East Asia was an evidence of that. All this is based on the assumption that we are holding up the thing. If I can get the idea out of the heads of our friends that it is we who have been holding up peace—I have had no idea of it, I have had nothing to fit in at all, all I want is peace. I emphasise that. All I want is peace, but I cannot get peace in the world if I have to ask the Western Powers, and Powers in other parts of the world, to sacrifice their principles and their spiritual beliefs in order to fit in with something with which they do not agree.
    Mr. Scollan: May I ask the Foreign Secretary to clear up one point? Was the right hon. Gentleman aware of, or informed of these negotiations which have now been forced on the public, that obviously have a tremendous propaganda value from the Soviet point of view? Was the Foreign Secretary aware that these negotiations were going on?
    Mr. Bevin: No, I was not. I did not know anything about them until I heard about them on the radio on Monday morning. But this is one of the problems, as I understand it. The Ambassador of the United States was instructed to

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    have an exchange of views with the Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union. That is the normal thing, but before the United States received the reply, it was published over the Tass Agency. I suggest to this House that while that diplomatic usage goes on, that clearing of the ground and understanding is almost impossible, because if an ambassador cannot go to a Foreign Minister in another country and discuss quite frankly and ask questions, and then send back to his government the opinions of the Foreign Minister without publication—this is not secret diplomacy; it is an attempt to ascertain views—if he cannot do that, in order to bring the parties together, then the situation is not only intolerable but peace is impossible.

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  NATIONAL ASSISTANCE BILL
  Lords Amendments considered.

Clause 2.—(The National Assistance Board.)
Lords Amendment: In page 2, line 5, at the beginning, insert:
"For the purpose of securing the prompt discharge of their functions under this Act."
3.30 p.m.
The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
With permission I will refer at the same time to the Amendment to line 6. Both are designed to carry out an undertaking which I gave during Committee stage.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I understand that all these Amendments were agreed to mostly without a Division in the other place and that these two in particular were in pursuit of an undertaking given by the right hon. Gentleman.
Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 3.—(Advisory committees.)
Lord's Amendment: In page 2, line 21, after "securing" insert "that full use is made of."
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. Steele): I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
We have emphasised on more than one occasion that we should make full use of people with local knowledge and experience. The Amendment is designed for this purpose.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I understand that this Amendment was moved in another place by a noble Lord who was a Member of the Opposition and that it was accepted by the Government. I commend it to the House.
Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 5.—(Determination of need for assistance.)
Lords Amendment: In page 2, line 47, leave out from "Act" to first "the" in line 1 on page 3, and insert:
"and as to the decision of any such question as aforesaid, and."
Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This is a Government Amendment. It is designed to secure that the regulations to be made for the purposes of the Clause, shall deal, amongst other matters, with how a person's need shall be determined.
Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 9.—(Disqualifications for assistance grants.)
Lords Amendment: In page 5, line 11, after "not" insert:
"where regulations of the Board so provide, apply until the expiration of such time from the beginning of the engagement as may be prescribed by the regulations.
(2) The last foregoing Subsection shall not."
Mr. Steele: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Amendment is designed to overcome a difficulty incidental to the general principle of the Clause that assistance is not to be granted to a person in respect of any period during which he is in full-time work. The difficulty arises from the general presumption that assistance is granted in advance, whereas wages are paid in arrear. I will give an illustration. Assistance to able-bodied persons is often paid on Fridays. A man who is starting full-time work on a Monday cannot expect to draw any wages until the following Saturday. If the man is maintained by assistance during his unemployment it is desirable, therefore, that he should receive a full week's assistance on the Friday before he starts work. As the assistance must be presumed to be paid in advance, the period for which the assistance is paid would be, at any rate in part, a period during which the man is in full-time work. The assistance would thus contravene the provisions of the Clause as at present drafted.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I understand it is hoped to secure this end by means of regulations and that the Government believe that this rather complicated matter can be dealt with on that basis. It is, so to speak, a payment in advance, and the man is deemed to be a fit subject for relief until he has been in work for a full week. I understand this Amendment was passed in another place without Debate. This seems a satisfactory way of dealing with this admittedly complicated problem. We shall
2130
be interested to see the regulations and trust that the Minister will be able to let us have a copy. If he can do so in advance it will be helpful.
Mrs. Braddock: Can the Parliamentary Secretary explain the position of the man whose employer keeps a week's wages in hand? In many cases a person who commences work after receiving unemployment pay and public assistance has to work a week in hand, so does not obtain any payment for a fortnight. What will be the position of such a man?
Mr. Steele: That is the kind of situation this Amendment is designed to meet.
Question put, and agreed to.

New Clause "A."—(Accommodation in reception centres in special cases.)
Lords Amendment: In page 9, line 37, at end insert new Clause "A":
"—(1) This Section applies to reception centres (hereinafter referred to as 'designated reception centres') designated by the Minister of National Insurance for the purposes of this Section on the application of the Board.
(2) Where a person seeks lodging in a designated reception centre and it appears to the Board, or if the centre is being provided by a local authority to the local authority, that the said person persistently resorts to reception centres when capable of maintaining himself, the Board or local authority may direct that he shall only be received into the centre subject to the conditions specified in Subsection (4) of this Section.
(3) On a direction being given under the last foregoing Subsection the person to whom it relates may require that the matter shall be referred to the Appeal Tribunal, and if he so requires—

(a) the direction shall not have effect until the matter has been determined by the Tribunal, and

(b) on any such reference the Tribunal may either quash the direction or order that during such period as may be specified in the order he shall only be admitted to a designated reception centre subject to the conditions specified in the next following Subsection.

(4) The conditions hereinbefore referred to are—

(a) that the person in question shall remain at the centre for at least such period from the time he entered it, not exceeding forty-eight hours, as the Board or the local authority providing the centre may require, and

(b) that while the person in question is at the centre he shall do such suitable work within the curtilage thereof as the Board or local authority may require.

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(5) A person received into a centre subject to the said conditions shall, if he fails to comply therewith, be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding ten pounds or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one month."
Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That the House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Clause was drafted after consultation with the London County Council. When the system of casual wards was in operation—as it was until the outbreak of war in 1939—casuals entering wards were subject to detention for up to 48 hours and were required to do certain work. The casual ward system is at present suspended. The new arrangements propose that casuals entering reception centres, provided under Clause 17, will not be subject to detention. The only work they will be required to do will be a share of the housework of the centre. Recent experience of the L.C.C., to which our attention has been called, suggests that a number of persons are ready to settle down indefinitely in a centre if they are not subject to some form of discipline. We are reluctant to take any action in such cases except where there is full justification. Our investigations show that in particular cases there is justification, and the Clause is designed to meet such cases. It will be seen that the operation of the Clause is subject to the authority of the Minister being obtained for each particular set of premises to which it is proposed to apply it. This safeguard will be retained by the Minister.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: In each particular centre, or in certain cases only?
Mr. Griffiths: In each particular centre. Subsection (3) gives a right of appeal to the person with whom it is proposed to deal under the Clause. If such a person indicates his intention to appeal the operation of the Clause is suspended until his appeal has been heard. I thought it was essential to insert those two protections, first, to retain for the Minister the right to designate any particular premises and, secondly, to protect people who seek accommodation by giving them the right of appeal and making any order unenforceable until their appeal has been heard. The Board were satisfied that some arrangements of this kind were required for a particular centre. We do
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not think there are very many in the whole of the country, but we have amply covered ourselves. The London County Council made out a case that it was essential and desirable and that is why we agreed to this proposal.
Lieut. Colonel Elliot: This is admittedly a thorny problem. When it was considered by Standing Committee it caused a great deal of heart-searching. It was common agreement that some provisions of the kind were necessary. Admittedly the Committee were very desirous that they should be surrounded with due safeguards, and in the other place the provisions here were accepted unanimously without a vote after a brief Debate. This is obviously a case where we shall proceed by trial and error, but we should move cautiously. On this side of the House we believe that these powers are necessary and the Minister has taken them to safeguard his position and the position of those who come under the powers of the Measure and under the new Clause.
Mr. S. Silverman: I hope the Minister will assure the House that the powers in this new Clause, if they are used at all, will be used with very great caution. Obviously, they open the back door to the restoration of a great deal that it is the object of this Bill to sweep away. I know that the Minister is satisfied that he needs some kind of powers, and I would not take the responsibility of opposing them here, but I should like him to say a word or two about the way in which the powers will be exercised. For instance, the Clause does not give us very much information as to the kind of person to whom this direction will, in fact, be applied; what will be the basis of an appeal to the tribunal; what kind of direction will be given to the tribunal in order to adjudicate; how long will it take a tribunal to decide upon such a case; what happens in the meantime; or what kind of work will be asked for, in what place, between what hours and under what conditions? It seems to me a pity that the Minister felt obliged to accept this Clause at all. I hope he will give us a little more information about it before he asks us to add it to the Bill.
Mr. Berry: The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman)

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draws attention to the difficulties of this new Clause. We are all one with my hon. Friend in what he says, for none of us wants to see the restoration of the conditions that this Bill is designed to abolish once and for all. If we lived in a perfect world—and some of us are doubtful whether we could live in a perfect world—
Mr. S. Silverman: We should not need any of these reception centres in a perfect world.
Mr. Berry: Nor should we need the safeguards. We do not live in a perfect world and since the war the world has become increasingly difficult. Speaking on behalf of the London County Council, I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for including this Clause. I agree that this thing requires greater safeguards, but we can leave the regulations safely in the hands of the Minister. On behalf of the County Council I can assure the Minister and the House that we do not intend that there should be any harsh enforcement of these regulations.
3.45 p.m.
Mr. J. Griffiths: In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), I should like to say that I was reluctant to accept any provision of this kind. Our attention was called to one institution in London by the London County Council, and we took particular steps to find out whether the problem required some power and authority in the Bill. This problem is one of people using these homes for a permanent residence when they are not intended for any such purpose. Only one institution has been brought to my notice and I do not want to name it. Indeed, I do not think it would be wise to do so, and so I hope I will not be pressed on that score. We took careful steps to find out that there was a problem which required the powers provided in the Clause. Having decided there was, we were anxious to follow out the purpose and the spirit of the scheme and so we laid it down that first, these regulations were not to apply to any single institution unless I gave authority for it; and, secondly, if it should be applied to any particular centre and imposed on any individual he or she can appeal, and pending that appeal the powers in the
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Clause will not be enforced against that person. We have safeguarded ourselves in every possible way, but this new Clause is designed to deal with particular circumstances. It is our hope that there are no other such institutions in the country, but it is essential that in the Bill we should try to protect ourselves while at the same time carrying through the spirit and purpose of the Bill.
Mrs. Braddock: I am still not quite satisfied. I should like to know what type of work is being suggested in Subsection 4 (b). If this is a question of a deterrent in order to get somebody out of a reception centre, what sort of work is it suggested that he ought to be given, because if it is the ordinary type of work, I should not think that that would be the sort of thing to prevent someone remaining at a reception centre. On the other hand, if it is suggested that some other sort of work ought to be applied or insisted upon, then we are getting dangerously near the type of task work we objected so strongly to in the years after the last war. This is a matter about which I am not very happy. I do not think that the type of reception centre that we suggest here is going to be anything like the workhouse where certain sorts of work could be suggested for people to do. I should like the Minister to say something further than has been said up to now about this position, particularly in reference to the sort of work that is going to be suggested and whether it will be the sort of work which will prevent people staying at a reception centre if they desire to do so.
Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 18.—(Management of re-estab- lishment and reception centres.)
Lords Amendment: In page 9, line 43, leave out from "thereof" to "shall" in line 44.
Mr. Steele: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Amendment was decided upon by the Government in consultation with the London County Council. The Clause, as amended, makes it possible to deal with persons who refuse to comply with the provisions of the regulation which requires

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them to assist with the domestic work of the institution.
Question put, and agreed to.
Lords Amendment: In page 10, line 2, to leave out from "month" to end of line 3.
Mr. Steele: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Clause as it stood made it possible for a person who infringes the regulations to be fined £10 or sent to prison for not more than a month, or both. The effect of the Amendment makes it impossible to impose both.
Question put, and agreed to.
Lords Amendment: In page 10, line 3, at end, insert:
"(2) Regulations under the last foregoing Subsection may include provision requiring persons accommodated or received in centres, or specified classes of such persons, to do such work for assisting in the running of the centres as may be specified by or under the regulations."
Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
The Amendment is designed to ensure that the assistance required from the inmates of the centre would ordinarily be limited to work which can be completed by midday and will not be exacted where there is a good reason why inmates should leave earlier.
Question put, and agreed to.
Lords Amendment: In page 10, line 13, leave out from "aforesaid" to end of line 14.
Mr. Steele: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This follows an Amendment which I have already moved. It amends Subsection (2) of Clause 18 in the same way as we have already amended Subsection (1).
Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 36—(Registration of disabled persons' and old persons' homes.)
Lords Amendment: In page 24, line 33, leave out "at the home" and insert:
"in the management of the home or any part thereof."
The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
The language of the Bill before this Amendment would have enabled the Minister to lay down conditions controlling the appointment of any person at any old persons' home or disabled persons' home which will now be liable to be inspected under the Act. We felt that was rather wide and that we really only wanted to concern ourselves with the management of the home and not with individual members of the staff. We are therefore restricting this provision.
Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 40.—(Registration of charities for disabled persons.)
Lords Amendment: In page 29, line 4, at end, insert:
(e) paragraph (e) of Subsection (1) of the said Section four (under which regulations may require appeals and advertisements to state that a charity is registered under the said Act of 1940) shall have effect as if for the words 'under this Act' there were substituted the words 'in accordance with the National Assistance Act, 1948.'"
Mr. Bevan: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
Hon. Members will recall that it is intended to make use of voluntary organisations to carry out a certain amount of welfare work under the supervision and control of the local authorities. These voluntary organisations do not like to register under the War Charities Act and so we are allowing them to register under this Bill.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: This is an admirable Amendment. It is the desire of both sides of the House that voluntary organisations should be brought into this work wherever possible and that their amour propre should be consulted in regard to their disinclination to be registered as war charities. That is a reasonable request, and I commend it to the House.
Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 41.—(Liability to maintain wife or husband, and children.)
Lords Amendment: In line 27 leave out from "The" to end of line 29 and insert:
"reference in paragraph (a) of the last foregoing subsection to a man's children includes a reference to children of whom he has been

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adjudged to be the putative father, and the reference in paragraph (b) of that subsection to a woman's children includes a reference to her illegitimate children."
Mr. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Amendment is remedial. It would appear that the provisions of the Bill as it left this House would have enabled us to require from the putative father maintenance for his child before the matter had been decided in the courts. The Amendment is designed to ensure that we cannot do this until paternity has been established.
Question put, and agreed to.
Lords Amendment: In line 29, at end, insert:
"(3) In the application of Subsection (2) of this Section to Scotland for the reference to children of whom a man has been adjudged to be the putative father there shall be substituted a reference to children his paternity of whom has been admitted or otherwise established."
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. J. Robertson): I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
The immediately preceding Amendment limits a man's liability for the maintenance of his illegitimate children to the children of whom he has been adjudged the putative father, the object being to bring the Clause into accordance with the English law. In Scotland a man is liable for the maintenance of his illegitimate child. Section 80 of the Poor Law (Scotland) Act, 1845, authorises the prosecution of a putative father failing to maintain his illegitimate child if the paternity has been admitted or otherwise established. It is felt that the principle established in Scottish law should be safeguarded as indicated in the Amendment.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: It is desirable that the Scottish law should be maintained here. The Under-Secretary and I seem to be seing a great deal of each other just now, having spent all yesterday, the whole of last night and all this forenoon together in the Committee room upstairs and shortly to adjourn there again. It is therefore undesirable to prolong our discussions on this relatively uncontroversial matter. I would only say that on this occasion both he and I are at one.
Question put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 43.—(Affiliation orders.)
Lords Amendment: In page 30, line 44, at end insert:
"and the provisions of the last foregoing Section shall not apply in relation to the father of the child."
Mr. Bevan: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
The purpose is to enable the putative father who is concerned under this Act to have the benefit of the Bastardy Acts in general and not be limited in his rights.
Question put, and agreed to.
Lords Amendment: In page 31, line 31, after "Scotland" insert:
"Subsection (1) shall have effect as if all the words after 'Part III of this Act' were omitted and"
4.0 p.m.
Mr. Robertson: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Scottish Amendment will omit the words of the previous Amendment in the application of the Subsection to Scotland. Clause 43 gives the Assistance Board and the local authorities in Scotland power to raise action of affiliation and aliment where assistance is granted in respect of an illegitimate child. Clause 42 enables the Board or local authority to seek a maintenance order against anyone liable to maintain a person who is being assisted. It appears that in England it would be appropriate to take civil proceedings against the putative father under Clause 43 only. There is no reason why in Scotland it should not remain possible, as in the Bill as printed, for proceedings to be taken against the putative father under either Clause 42 or Clause 43 as appropriate. For example. Clause 42 might be the more appropriate provision where the mother was for any reason not available and the father had already admitted paternity.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I understand that in Scotland we prefer the Bill as it is printed and do not feel the need for the previous Amendment and therefore the Under-Secretary is moving that that Amendment should not apply in the case of Scotland. That is the desire of the Scottish authorities and those connected with these questions in Scotland, and I commend this to the House.
Question put, and agreed to.

New Clause "B."—(Expenses of council officers acting as Receivers.)
Lords Amendment: In page 36, line 29, insert new Clause "B":
Where an officer of the council of a county or county borough with the permission of the council applies for appointment under Section one of the Lunacy Act, 1908, to exercise the powers of management of property referred to in that section, the council may defray any expenses incurred by him in connection with the application or the exercise of the said powers, in so far as those expenses are not recoverable by him from any other source.
Mr. Bevan: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
It is the prerogative of public assistance authorities to designate a senior officer to take charge of the possessions of a lunatic, and also to set their charges against the estate of the insane person. In the future, they will not be able to make any charges whatsoever, except in respect of the actual work they do in discharging the estate, because detention in a mental institution will be free. However, unless we put into the Bill the authority contained in the proposed new Clause, it will not be possible for a local authority to designate a senior officer to look after the estate of an insane person.
Question put, and agreed to.

Sixth Schedule.—(Transitional provisions.)
Lords Amendment: In page 56, line 13, after "chairman," insert:" or other appointed member."
Mr. Steele: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
The Schedule here provides that chairmen of tribunals and panels of workpeople shall continue in office for the purpose of the new tribunals until the Minister makes other nominations. The Amendment, and one which follows in similar terms to line 16, are designed to secure that the remaining members of the existing tribunals who were appointed by the Board to represent the Board shall act as additional appointees of the Minister on the new tribunals until my right hon. Friend makes the other appointments. I think the House will readily understand that, owing to the shortage of time between now and the appointed day, my right hon. Friend does not feel able to make the necessary
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appointments before that day. He therefore wants to use this method until he has sufficient time to make new appointments with the necessary care.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The practical step of making a clean cut, which was desired by the Committee, is perhaps being pressed a little far. Nevertheless, the change-over will require a certain amount of shading from the old into the new. We may take it that the Act will be administered with charity and kindness and that the decision of the Minister in this regard will be welcomed by the people chiefly concerned.
Question put, and agreed to.
Lords Amendment: In page 60, line 40, to leave out from "in," to "shall" in line 44, and insert:
"the lunatic ward of a poorhouse within the meaning of the said Act, and the poorhouse as a whole was mainly being used for purpose other than hospital purposes.
(i) the ward"
Mr. Robertson: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
Paragraphs 7 and 9 of this Schedule provide that a poorhouse in which provision is made for the sick shall go over to the regional hospital board or shall remain with the local authority, according to whether the poorhouse is mainly used for hospital purposes or not. Some of the poorhouses contain wards specially licensed for the accommodation of lunatics. The question in determining if a poorhouse is mainly used for hospital purposes, has been whether such licensed wards are used for such purposes. Doubt arises because the Lunacy (Scotland) Act, 1862, authorises the licensing of those wards only for the accommodation of lunatics who do not require curative treatment, while "hospital purposes" is defined in the Schedule as the provision of medical treatment. The Amendment is designed to remove the doubt which exists, and it is consequential upon the Amendment which follows it on the Paper.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: In Scotland, emphasis has generally been laid on the curative treatment of lunacy. Our laws differ in some most important respects from those of England. I understand that the provisions now being discussed are intended to preserve that difference and to remove a doubt referred to by the

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Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. We have also an example before us of how a consequential Amendment can come before the matter to which it is the consequence. In these days, when Time is regarded as only a mode of thought we must get accustomed to consequences coming before the facts. It is a somewhat remarkable case and I thought it desirable that some notice should be taken of it, if not upon the Journal of the House, then in our Official Report.
Question put, and agreed to.

Seventh Schedule.—(Enactments repealed.)
Lords Amendment: In page 70, to leave out lines 51 and 52.
Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
We thought at first we could repeal Section 15 of the Family Allowances Act, but we find that we shall have to preserve it until the cases it covers are discontinued.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: This Amendment derives from the fact that upon a careful review it was found that the extremely clean cut which was made was not quite as necessary as the Committee thought it to be at the time.
Question put, and agreed to.
Remaining Lords Amendments agreed to [Several with special entries].

NATIONAL INSURANCE (INDUSTRIAL INJURIES) BILL
Order for Second Reading read.
4.10 p.m.
The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): I beg to move," That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This small but important Bill is intended to remedy what we regard as a defect in the main Act. The defect was brought to light in the course of the discussion of the Act and in working out the details of it in order to bring it into force on 5th July. We thought that an amending Bill was desirable.
Hon. Members may recall that in Committee on the main Act I introduced a new Clause to make Fuller provision for Persons assessed for Partial disability who
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were prevented by their injuries from returning to their old occupation. When introducing the Clause I said that we had had a number of very hard cases cited to us, discussed matters such as the engineman's eye. The problem is a difficult one. We gave it the best consideration we could and we discussed the matter with the T.U.C. and other people interested. We hoped that the proposals which we put forward at the time would meet the case.
Those proposals eventually became Section 14 of the Act. It is a fairly long Section but the essence of it is to provide for increasing the weekly rates of a disablement pension by us. 3d. if two conditions are fulfilled. The first condition is that as a result of loss of faculties arising from his injury, the man is incapable, and likely to remain permanently incapable, of following his regular occupation. The second condition is that he is incapable of following employment of an equivalent standard suitable in his case. There are various provisions dealing with what is meant by "regular occupation," and for a provision for a ceiling of 45s. The points to which I wish to direct special attention concerns the 11s. 3d., and the conditions governing the grant of allowances, especially the first condition with its reference to the man's being likely to remain permanently incapable. The Bill proposes to increase the amount of that allowance.
First, as regards the amount. In the course of our examination of the problems relating to the introduction of the new scheme, we have examined a number of cases in which workmen's compensation has been granted for what might be regarded as minor injuries but of a kind which prevent a man from returning to his old job. We hoped, on the basis of information available at the time when we introduced the Clause, that the allowance of us. 3d. would prove sufficient to deal fairly with such cases. We find now that that amount might not be enough in an important number of cases. We propose to substitute for us. 3d. an amount not exceeding 20s. According to information we have gained now, we think that that sum is about the right amount.
Hon. Members may ask: "Why not as flat rate of 20s.? "Perhaps I might explain why we propose to make an adjust-persons to make an adjust able scale up to a maximum of 20s. Where

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the injured man is unable to get anything like an equivalent job, the amount will be 20s., but with an allowance of as much as £1 per week we feel that if it was a flat rate in every case, there might be cases in which the hardship allowance would give the man a total sum which would be more than his earnings in his old job. We think that might create anomalies. As this allowance is designed to prevent hardship, we believe that having regard to the information which has come to our knowledge, it is better to provide for it to be adjustable. There are really two stages in deciding a claim to hardship allowance. First of all, to decide whether an allowance is payable or not, and to do that we have to compare the general standard of the claimant's regular job before the accident and the standard of the job which he is doing or is capable of doing after the accident. In particular, we have to compare the standards of remuneration of the two jobs. If the new standard is lower than the old, he will get the allowance and the amount of the allowance must not exceed the difference between the two.
I can best explain this by giving an example. Let us assume that a man has been in a job where the standard rate was £6 a week, and that after the accident he is capable of doing a job for which the standard rate is £5 10s. a week. The hardship would be a hardship as expressed by the difference of 10s., and the allowance would be 10s. If the alternative job is worth £5, whereas the regular job before the accident is worth £6, the allowance will be 20s. That is a simple example. I am sure hon. Members in every part of the House will appreciate that it is wise to make it an adjustable amount up to a maximum of 20s. From the information which we have got, we believe that an adjustable scale of that kind will fill the need.
I now come to the conditions for granting the allowance. The Clause as amended will still deal, as did the original Clause, with hardship suffered by a man who as the result of the accident is unable to return to his old job. It is still open to the criticism that was made by many hon. Members opposite, and notably the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) to the original Clause, namely, that it impairs one of the main features of the new scheme which was to get away from all considerations of earning capacity
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and replace it by loss of faculty. I think, we air recognise that the change-over from the old to the new scheme will not be easy. I am sure we all want to do what we can to make the change as smooth as possible. The main condition of the existing Section is that a man should not only be incapable of following his regular occupation—that is a matter which will not be difficult to determine—but also that he is likely to remain permanently incapable of doing so. It is about this requirement that the man must be permanently incapable of following his job, that our further inquiries have given rise to some doubts with which we thought it was desirable to deal before the new scheme begins on 5th July.
Rehabilitation, I am thankful to say, is making very great strides in this country. Nowadays, as we have all seen, men are being restored to full capability for work after sustaining injuries which only a few years ago would have left them crippled for life. We are very glad that this is so, because to get men fit and well again to do their old job is the greatest service that we can render them. I hope that on and after 5th July when the new scheme comes into operation, my Department, by the use of the powers which are vested in us by the Act to promote research into the causes and prevention of accidents, will be able to link up with the rehabilitation work that is going on, and thus make a real contribution towards getting rid of the causes and results of industrial accidents and disease.
In the meantime, improvements in methods of rehabilitation are likely to have the effect of making doctors, quite naturally, reluctant to certify that a man is likely to be permanently incapable of following his old occupation—at any rate, not until all the possibilities of rehabilitation have been fully tried and have failed. Therefore, unless we make this amendment, there is a real risk that rehabilitation schemes may make the Section a dead letter by making it too difficult for a doctor to certify that a man is permanently incapacitated. A doctor would say, "Send the man to the rehabilitation centre and see whether something can be done to assist him." There have been many successes, and I appreciate that doctors will become increasingly reluctant to pronounce that a man is permanently unfit. If we reached the stage where we could not get doctors to pronounce

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that a man was permanently incapable of going back to his old job, it would mean that the Section would become a dead letter.
We are adding in this new Bill an alternative condition to the condition of permanent incapacity, to provide that if a man at the end of the injury benefit period—that is, the first six months during which he will get his injury benefit —is for the time being incapable of resuming his regular job, a claim will lie under the Section. This will enable us to grant an allowance for the period while the possibilities of treatment are being considered. Once a man has been found capable of rehabilitation, resuming his old occupation or taking up one of equivalent standard, he will cease to be entitled to the allowance. We realise, however, that many people will have to try themselves out after an accident and, by practical experience, find out if they have recovered sufficiently to carry on or not.
I know how important it is to say to a man "Go and try your old job. If you feel you cannot do it, come back to us." As the Section was originally constructed, we found that if a man went back to his old job and did it for a week or two, it would have been impossible for us to restore the hardship allowance to him. Accordingly we provide in Subsection (2, a) for regulations to be made to disregard periods of trial or training in deciding whether the man has been incapable at all times, since the end of the injury benefit period, of doing his old job or one of equivalent standard.
The regulations which I will make under this provision will have to be submitted in due course to the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council. In a case of this kind it is wise for the Minister to seek the advice and assistance of an experienced body of men, such as I have been fortunate indeed to get together on the Council, who can work out the best arrangements for carrying out the new provision. I therefore propose to make this a regulation-making Clause, and to submit the regulations to the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council and get their help. A man who is likely to remain permanently incapable without any question will still be entitled to an allowance under the original provision, which we are preserving, in paragraph (1) (a) of the Schedule.
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I do not think I need say much about the remaining provisions of the Bill. The new wording at the beginning of paragraph (3) of the Schedule is necessary, because while at the old rate of IIs. 3d. an unemployability supplement would always have been better than the hardship allowance, and it was therefore right to say the unemployability supplement would always be paid instead of an allowance under this section; with the new rate of 20s. a juvenile might be better off with the hardship allowance than with the unemployability supplement. He will, of course, get the more favourable of the two.
This, as I have said, is a small Bill. It deals with a difficult problem which I realise is one to which we shall have to give a good deal of time and thought, especially in the early days of the new scheme before men get accustomed to the advantages of a permanent pension payable irrespective of earning capacity, as compared with workmen's compensation, and partial payments in particular, which are liable at any time to be withdrawn or reduced a?, soon as a man is found to be capable of work. It will be very difficult for the ordinary man to make up his mind which is best—£2 partial compensation subject to the whims of the Workmen's Compensation Act, or a disablement pension of perhaps less than that. It is essential to have a provision of this kind in this difficult transition stage. This Clause is something betwixt and between the old and the new plans, and I hope and believe that it will prove a useful bridge, and will enable us to make the change from one to the other more smoothly than we could hope to do without it.
Now for a word as to the cost. The Actuary has not been able to give an accurate estimate of the ultimate cost of the new provision; he has advised me that in the early days of the scheme it will be unlikely to exceed £500,000 a year, but that it may ultimately rise to £1 million or £2 million a year. In the circumstances, it is not thought necessary to increase the contribution in order to make this new provision.
Mr. Osbert Peake: Could the right hon. Gentlemen tell us what relation this figure of £1 million or £2 million per annum which this Bill may

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cost the Fund, bears to the total annual outgoings of the Fund?
Mr. Griffiths: It will be about £1 million or £2 million to about £30 million to £32 million. There are only about eight weeks left before we introduce this new scheme, the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act. We shall be introducing it with the National Insurance Act and the National Health Service Act. May I mention one point? In many respects, the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act is—I use the word in its technical sense—the most revolutionary of all these Measures, and makes the biggest break with the past. We believe it is right to break with the past. We think it will be to the advantage of everybody. We are all very anxious that this new scheme shall work. It is because I fear that without a provision of this kind that there may be difficulties in the transitional period that I thought it was desirable that I should bring this Bill before the House and ask the House to agree to it and make it a part of the main Act so that it can come into operation on 5th July. I believe that this small but important Bill will help us to bridge the transitional stage and make it a smooth one, and will help to make the industrial injuries scheme a success which we all want. For those reasons, I ask the House to give this Bill a Second Reading.
4.28 p.m.
Mr. Peake: Having spent more than half of my working time as a junior Minister for something like three years in working on both the principles and the details of the new scheme of industrial injuries insurance, I can well appreciate the difficulty which the right hon. Gentleman has had in dealing with this problem. Believing as we did that in practically every respect the new scheme would be immensely superior to the old scheme of workmen's compensation, we always realised that there would be a comparatively small number of cases where a man might fare worse financially when his pension was assessed in terms of percentage disability than he would have fared under the old Workmen's Compensation Acts when his pension was measured in terms of loss of earning capacity. That is one of the points which, I think, made certain Members of the right hon. Gentleman's
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party a little dubious about the new scheme when it was discussed in this House in 1944.
During the Committee stage of the Bill in 1945, the right hon. Gentleman introduced Section 14, which had not been contemplated in the proposals set out by the Coalition Government earlier, in an attempt to deal with this special problem. The provisions were that there should be a hardship allowance, where the loss of earnings was greater than it would have been under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, of a fixed sum of us. 3d. a week in the case of the adult employee. I cannot remember, but I imagine that that was to be scaled down in the case of juveniles.
Mr. J. Griffiths: No, that is one of the reasons we have to make the adjustment now. It is us. 3d. for all classes and for juveniles.
Mr. Peake: I thank the right hon. Member; my mind was not clear on that point. It was experimental in character, and certain conditions had to be imposed. In the first place, a condition had to be imposed that the addition would not bring up the amount to more than 45s. and that the hardship allowance and the unem-ployability allowance should be mutually exclusive. I am inclined to think that the modifications of Section 14 which are now proposed are necessary and desirable. I am a little doubtful, however, about the drafting of Subsection (1) of Section 14 as it will be after it has been amended by this Bill. Subsection (1) in the reprint in the Schedule says:
"The weekly rate of a disablement pension shall, subject to the following provisions of this Section, be increased by an amount not exceeding twenty shillings, if as the result of the relevant loss of faculty the beneficiary—

(a) is incapable and likely to remain permanently incapable of following his regular occupation; and

(b) is incapable of following employment of an equivalent standard which is suitable in his case;"

Then we get the new provision:
"or if as the result of the relevant loss of faculty the beneficiary is and has at all times since the end of the injury benefit period been incapable of following the said occupation or any such employment as aforesaid."
What is intended is that this new alternative shall be alternative to the two conditions which have been fulfilled in the

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Clause as originally set out; that is to say, the claimant has either to fulfil both conditions (a) and (b), or to fulfil the conditions in the new alternative. I am not at all sure that anyone reading this as it now stands might not read the new alternative as an alternative only to the words contained in condition (b). I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman might consider inserting after the word "beneficiary" in the fourth line "either," which would make it perfectly clear that the new alternative was an alternative to the two conditions which had to be fulfilled as the Clause originally stood.
There is another new feature to which the right hon. Gentleman drew attention. Whereas the old hardship allowance was a fixed sum in all cases of us. 3d., the new hardship allowance is to be a sum not exceeding 20s. Therefore, we get back, in a very limited field of cases, to a relationship between benefit on the one hand and loss of earning capacity on the other. It was one of the great advantages of the new plan, as compared with the old, that we got away altogether from the calculation of loss of earning capacity. I appreciate that it might have been difficult for the right hon. Gentleman to have made the 20s. hardship allowance a fixed sum in all cases. That would have led to serious anomalies, particularly in the case of juvenile workers and, no doubt for that reason, he has introduced this element of the calculation of loss of earning capacity. I am not disposed to quarrel with the right hon. Gentleman on that score, but I think it is right that the attention of the House should be drawn to the point that, to a limited extent, we are going back to a calculation of the loss of earning capacity.
There is another point with which I would like the right hon. Gentleman or the Parliamentary Secretary to deal. We on this side of the House have always attached the greatest importance to Service casualties being treated no worse than persons disabled in the course of industrial employment. Many of my hon. Friends think there is a strong case for a man disabled in the service of the Crown, whether in the Army, Air Force or Navy, being treated to some extent better than the industrial casualty. One thing that is quite certain is that no one would tolerate industrial casualties being treated more generously than those who
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have been disabled in the service of their country. I would like the right hon. Gentleman or the Parliamentary Secretary to make clear that a corresponding provision to this has been, or will be, made—
Mr. J. Griffiths: It has been made already.
Mr. Peake: —in the Royal Warrant which governs the payment of pensions to Service cases. With that assurance, we will give the Second Reading of this Bill an unobstructed passage.
4.37 p.m.
Mr. Thomas Brown: I wish to express thanks to the Minister and his Department for the discovery of this anomaly before the Act became fully operative. There will, however, still be a large number of cases to which we shall have to give some thought, and I am sure the Minister knows what is in my mind. I refer to the pre-1924 cases. I want to know whether the improvement in this Bill will be applicable to the pre-1924 cases. If the hardship allowance does not apply to them, I am afraid that a large number of persons who were injured in industry prior to the passing of the 1925 Act will remain dissatisfied.
Under the principal Act, which becomes operative on 5th July, only two benefits will be applicable to the pre-1924 cases. They will be entitled, if they sustain their claim, to the unemployability allowance and the constant medical attention allowance. They have to prove their cases before they get the benefit of the Act which becomes operative on 5th July. I want to know whether the improvement which is the object of this Bill will be applicable to them. Those of us who have spent a lifetime in dealing with such cases, particularly in the mining industry, know full well that men who met with accidents before 1924 have never had advances on their pensions since that date. In my constituency, as I pointed out in an earlier Debate, there are two such men. One is totally blind, and the amount of compensation he has received since his accident is 21s. 11d. I know that he will get the benefit of the unemployability allowance, which is a step in the right direction, but there are many other cases in which no advance has been given. I am concerned that the objective of this Bill shall be applicable to the pre-1924 cases and

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I wish to have an assurance from the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary on that matter.
While the Bill does not go as far as I would like it to go, it makes a tremendous step towards improving the conditions of those who have suffered great hardship, although, as the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) said, it is going very near to the old system for the calculation of compensation. In the Act, which this Bill seeks to amend, we have gone a long way, but unfortunately it was difficult to escape some of the complexities of the old Compensation Acts, 1893 to 1925. As I have spent a great deal of my lifetime in dealing with compensation, I express gratitude to the Minister and his Department for having discovered this anomaly before the Act becomes operative, but I hope he will pay serious regard to the position of the pre-1924 cases.
4.43 p.m.
Mr. Blyton: I wish to add my congratulations to the Minister on having brought forward this Bill on his own initiative. It has been said by the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) that this is the resurrection, in a limited sense, of the loss of earning capacity fixed in the 1944 Act. There is, however, a marked difference. If a man gets the 20s. hardship allowance suggested in the Bill and his wages are higher than his pre-accident wages, he will still have the disability pension under the Act, which he did not enjoy under the old Compensation Acts. There is a tremendous difference in comparing the new with the old. I would like to see the pre-1924 cases covered, but that is not part of this Bill. I hope the employers of this country, who will get no insurance for the liability they carry, will come to an agreement with the Treasury so that all these things can be brought within the ambit of the new Measure.
This Bill is an improvement to the Bill which we discussed in Standing Committee "A." In the discussion that took place in the Standing Committee, many of us on this side were very much disturbed by the figure of us. 3d. in the Bill, and we were disturbed because of the fact that the loss of earning capacity in the Bill where wages are high will now act to the benefit of compensation cases. We remember 1926, when it acted the
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other way, when wages were low, and when a man who had lost an arm, an eye, or a leg and who happened to go to another job, found that he had no compensation because there was no loss of earning capacity. If they did get anything, it was a very small amount, because the disparity in wages between the pre-accident and post-accident earnings was very small.
Under the rule about the loss of earning capacity, some men got no compensation at all, and the reason was that, after a certain period of total disability, they went back to their pre-accident employment, and after a few weeks there came out again. The fact that they had been back to their pre-accident employment after their accident prevented them from ever coming back into compensation again. This Bill will mean that these people will get a much better chance in regard to that situation. If a man suffers an accident and cannot follow his pre-accident employment, he will have 38s. a week on top of his post-accident employment earnings, and that makes a considerable difference to his compensation.
The greatest feature in this Bill, in my opinion, is the fact that, after 26 weeks of disability, a man can go to another job with a view to recovering his strength in order to go back to his pre-accident employment. If a man has a fractured pelvis or a broken leg, we cannot expect him, at the end of 26 weeks' disability, immediately to go back to the coalface unless he has had a period in which to get accustomed, in his worsened condition, to conditions in the pit. This Bill will provide that, during the period when he is regaining his strength after his period of total incapacity, and until he actually regains his strength, he will get his hardship allowance and his income will not be diminished to such an extent at it would have been if this provision had not been made. Because this provision affects rehabilitation, particularly in the mining industry, we extend our grateful thanks and compliment the Minister on this Bill.
4.48 p.m.
Mr. Bowles: I wish to support my hon. Friends the Members for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) and Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) in one thing—the request which they made to the Minister about the pre-1924 cases. I have

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the honour to represent a mining division, and, at every meeting, as we explain the new terms of the law which will come into force on 5th July next, we get questions on these matters. I do not know if the Minister has any idea how many people are still suffering from that anomaly with which he has not managed to catch up in this Bill. It may be outside the Title of this Bill, but, at meetings which my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks) and I attended recently, we were cross-examined on this matter. I have been busy on other Bills, and I must confess that I am not aware why there is this discrimination between men injured before 1924 and those who have sustained injuries since. Perhaps the Minister, when he is replying, will speak about this discrimination, and will also say whether he can hold out any prospect of it being removed soon.
4.50 p.m.
Mr. J. Griffiths: May I thank those hon. Members who have spoken in this Debate for their very kind references to the Bill, to myself and to my Department? Let me deal first with the detailed points that have been made. In regard to the point made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) about the wording, I shall make sure that the construction which he has placed upon it is not the right one. I will look up the matter, and, if his fears are well-founded, I will take steps to see that the words are changed. It has been announced already —and this is a Government that works together, not in compartments—that similar provisions will apply to Service casualties. When we make provisions for one section, we do it for others as well.
May I explain the position about the old cases? The Act enables us to make two payments to those who are injured and are rendered unemployable by injury or disease, even though the injury or disablement takes place before 5th July. First, there is a condition that must be fulfilled. They must be in receipt of weekly compensation. If they have commuted their weekly compensation for a lump sum, the case has been finally settled, and that disposes of it. If, however, they are in receipt of weekly payments, and if as a result of injury or disease they are rendered unemployable, they can apply to us for the unemployability supplement, and we can give them a supplement of 20s. from the new indus-
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trial injuries fund, in addition to their weekly compensation, whatever it is.
Mr. Harrison: Would the means test be a part of that?
Mr. Griffiths: No, there is no means test. If a man is injured by accident or disabled by disease and rendered unemployable as a consequence, and he is in receipt of weekly compensation, we will pay him 20s. unemployability supplement in addition to the weekly compensation which he receives. Furthermore, if the man, in addition to being rendered unemployable, sustains injuries which are of such a character that he needs constant attendance, we can pay him an additional allowance up to 20s. a week, and, in very serious cases, up to 40s. a week. These two provisions apply to those in receipt of weekly compensation on 5th July and who satisfy these conditions, and they apply to the pre-1924 cases as well.
I expressed the view two years ago that it was my desire and that of the Government, if we could, before 5th July, when the new Act comes into operation, to make arrangements by which the old cases could be brought entirely within the scope of the new Measure. That involves two things—the responsibility for the old cases and the responsibilities of the employers. I am sure that no hon. Member or the House would ask me to accept responsibility for paying old cases out of the industrial injuries fund when the employers discharge their liability by means of a lump sum. Many people after an accident have decided to take a lump sum settlement, and that is not the difficulty in one case, but in thousands of cases. That is the first problem, and experts have been working on it for some time, but there is also another. If we bring all the old cases into the new scheme, on what terms are we to convert their workmen's compensation payments into a proper disablement pension? I am very anxious that, when we do bring it forward, we shall bring it forward in such a way as to provide general satisfaction. The problem is that of the weekly payments, and the difficulty of getting over the loss of earning capacity is not an easy one.
It is most desirable, before we come to to a final statement on this matter, that we shall have had experience of the working of the new scheme. I therefore met

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representatives of the workers in the trade unions, and put to them the view that we ought to wait until we have had a few months' experience of the new scheme and then examine the problem still further to see whether, in the light of the experience of the new scheme, it would be possible for us to arrive at a method by which we could arrange to take over the old cases. I have given a further undertaking that we shall come to a final conclusion one way or the other within 12 months of the operative date of 5th July. In the very near future, we shall be inviting the old cases—the people who believe they are entitled to the unemployability allowance—to make application, and we shall deal with them as soon as we can and make these payments available to them.
Mr. Bowles: I imagine that the great mass of employers are insured against workmen's compensation claims. When 5th July comes along, what happens to their funds, which they have kept against unsettled claims under the Compensation Acts? Are they to be allowed to keep them, or is the Ministry entitled to them? Could we have some consultation in order to arrive at some figure at which to commute the lot?
Mr. Griffiths: That is one of the difficulties. When I entered negotiations, I thought there was a nest-egg, but, as a matter of fact, the growing practice has been to finance workmen's compensation payments, not on a day-to-day basis, but on a fortnightly basis. It is difficult to arrive at any arrangements in a way that is fair to all. It is very difficult for a man to make up his mind what is the best for him—whether to accept x pounds, subject to deduction and withdrawal as a result of post-accident earnings, or a fixed sum to be paid to him for the rest of his life without having any effect on his earnings. That is the problem we have to face, and, when we have had experience of the new scheme, we shall be in a better position to face it. I am just as anxious as anyone to do it, but I am also anxious to do it in the right way.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Tomorrow.—[Mr. Richard Adams.]

RIVER BOARDS BILL
As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

New Clause.—(Publicity for proceedings of river boards.)
(1) The minutes of proceedings of meetings of a river board shall be open to the inspection of any local government elector for any part of the river board area, on payment of a fee not exceeding one shilling, and any such local government elector may make a copy thereof or on extract therefrom.
(2) Notwithstanding anything in this Section any such part of the minutes of proceedings of a river board as contains information with respect to any manufacturing process or trade secret obtained in the exercise of powers under this Act shall not be open to the inspection of a local government elector.
(3) In this Section, the expression "local government elector" means a person registered as a local government elector in the register of lectors in accordance with the provisions of the Representation of the People Acts —[Sir T. Dugdale.]
Brought up, and read the First time.
4.58 p.m.
Major Sir Thomas Dugdale: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
Would it be for the convenience of the House if we discussed this new Clause together with the next one on the Order Paper—(Attendance of representatives of the press at meetings of river boards.) I think they both cover the same point.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): That will be convenient.
Sir T. Dugdale: The purpose of this new Clause is to fill a gap which we believe exists in the machinery set up in the Bill for the establishment of river boards. During the discussion of this Bill in the Committee, it was agreed on all sides that, if these boards are to function in a smooth and efficient manner, it is of the greatest possible importance that as many people as possible living in the area of a river board should know about the activities of that board. River boards, as we envisage their composition and the area which they cover, will be rather different from the present local authorities, because they will cover the whole of the water-sheds from where the river rises in the hills to where it flows out to sea at

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the mouth. There may be an entirely different set of circumstances, in the hills, where the river rises, from those in the plains.
5.0 p.m.
We believe that it is very important that the people who live in those areas should know as much about the activities of the boards as is convenient for the administration of the Act. We have given very careful consideration to this problem and we feel that, at any rate, the future river boards, when they are set up, should be in line with local authorities as they exist today. The present state of the law on this matter of meetings of local authorities is that local government electors, in any local authority area, are permitted to inspect the minutes of the meetings of that local authority, but not of its committees, on payment of a fee of is. This privilege is provided for under the Local Government Act, 1936.
The new Clause which I have moved on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends introduces this provision in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) also has on the Order Paper a new Clause which deals with the attendance of representatives of the Press at meetings of river boards. The present position, as we are advised, is that the Press are admitted to all meetings of a local authority—but not to meetings of its committees—unless they are excluded from a particular meeting by a resolution passed by the majority of the council members present at the meeting. This privilege is provided under the Local Authorities (Admission of Press to Meetings) Act, 1908. In this regard we are under the impression that the Clause put down in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon is not necessary, but we should like to have the assurance of the Minister that we are correct in this surmise; and in that case I do not think my hon. Friend will move the Clause which is down in his name.
When we were considering this point further we went very carefully into the recommendations of the Consultative Committee on Local Government and the interim report of that Committee, which was presided over by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, and we considered the advisability of even
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going further than the provisions set out in this new Clause. Having reviewed the interim report we came to the conclusion that the right course for this House to adopt at this stage was to put the river board in precisely the same position as other local authorities throughout the country. The final sentence in this report reads:
"What is now required, in the view of the Consultative Committee, is that every authority should take steps to review all its channels of communication with the public of the area and consider how these can be improved and extended."
We feel that should cover the whole field of local government authorities at the same time, and we feel the river boards will no doubt take this report into consideration when they are set up. This new Clause puts the river board in exactly the same position, both as regards the ratepayer and the admission of the Press, as that at present enjoyed by a local authority. We hope the Minister will see fit to accept this new Clause in the spirit in which it is moved.
Major Legge-Bourke: I hope the Minister will not only accept this new Clause but will emphasise the fact that the river board will be a local authority. I think there is some misunderstanding about that in the country districts, and I do not think it is always realised that the catchment boards are local authorities and rank as such. It seems to me that what goes for the rural district council and the urban district council should also go for the river boards, and should go, too, for the catchment boards at the present moment.
I would remind the Minister that in the third report of the Central Advisory Water Committee, paragraph 90, mention is made of safeguards, such as complaints being made by local authorities or by interested persons, and it is recommended that the Ministry should have power to hold an inquiry should these complaints be lodged. It was the intention of the Central Advisory Water Committee that there should be considerable safeguards and, obviously, if there are to be complaints, it is as well for those complaints to be fully informed and not the result merely of rash judgment, I believe that if the Minister could accept the new Clause it would be far more likely that complaints, if ever they are made, will

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be real complaints and not merely trumped-up charges for which there is no evidence.
The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Thomas Williams): I can assure the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for Richmond (Sir T. Dugdale) that his assumption is correct and that the second new Clause to which he referred is not necessary, since that matter is already covered by the Bill as it stands. There is nothing in the Bill to exclude it from the 1908 Act; consequently, the 1908 Act automatically applies to this particular Measure. Turning to the first new Clause, it is one which I readily accept. It was never our intention that Local Government electors should not have permission to inspect the minutes of any river board if they felt so disposed to do. I welcome the new Clause on the Order Paper and gladly accept it.
Turning to the request of the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) that I should emphasise the point that river boards will become local authorities, I could not emphasise it too strongly and if at this moment I do not emphasise it as strongly as the hon. and gallant Member would desire, I shall be further emphasising it soon when a later Amendment is moved. These river boards will be very important bodies, affecting a wide variety of interests, and I hope all the constituents within the river boards' areas will recognise that the boards are a very important new local government in this country.
Question put, and agreed to.
Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

Clause 2.— [Definition of river board areas and constitution of river boards.)
Sir T. Dugdale: I beg to move, in page 2, line 14 to leave out "three-fifths," and to insert "one-half."
I am afraid that the House now comes to more controversial issues; in fact, I think I am correct in saying that this is the only issue which divides the two sides of the House. The purpose of this Amendment is to restore the Bill to the form in which it originally came to this House from another place. During the prolonged debate we had on this point during the Committee stage, the Minister emphasised
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that he and his Department were probably in a better position to know what was the right proportion for members of a river board than were Members of another place. We took the contrary view and although we were not successful in our arguments, having reviewed the whole position we are still of the opinion that the Bill would be improved if we could leave out three-fifths and insert one-half.
This deals with local authority representatives on a river board, and as the issue has been debated at great length on more than one occasion, I do not propose to weary the House this afternoon by going into all the detailed arguments again. I want to make my final appeal to the Minister, who in so many ways is a reasonable man, to see whether he cannot take his courage in both hands and have better administration of the river boards by accepting this Amendment. I ask him to do it on the grounds of flexibility of administration. This hidebound theory of administration seems to us on this side to be all wrong. The Amendment gives the Minister more freedom of choice and more discretion, and surely any Minister of the Crown should welcome an offer from the Opposition to have more discretion and freedom of choice in the selection of his river boards?
As the Bill is drafted—and this is a point I want to bring to the notice of the House—assuming that the river board consists of a maximum number of 40 members, the Minister's discretion will be limited to a maximum variation of two out of 40. That is all his discretion can be when he comes to decide on local government representation. That is the difference between 26 members appointed by local authorities, which is a maximum of two-thirds out of 40, and 24 local authority representatives, which is a minimum of three-fifths representation of local authorities.
In our Amendment, all we are giving the Minister—and we are literally giving it to him—is a discretion of his own free will of six instead of two. That does not seem to be a very great deal to ask of him. We attach considerable importance to it because of the representation of the other partners in these river boards—land drainage and fishery interests. Land drainage authorities in certain areas—and I do not propose to go again through the

2161
detailed areas—are providing up to two-thirds of the revenue of certain catchment boards. I do not say that they are the majority. They are not; they are a minority; but they do exist. Under the Bill as it is at present drafted, they will not even get their two-fifths of the membership of the board.
5.15 p.m.
We must not forget the fishery interests. In our Debates in Committee the Minister conceded the point that it was probable that the fishery interests on any river board would be likely to have a minimum of three. Where the drainage interests are in the preponderance from the financial point of view, it will probably be in large rural areas, and there it is probable that, on the particular river boards, it would be advisable to have the greatest number of representatives of fishery interests. The drainage and fishery interests on that particular type of river board would be the two most important elements.
Yet under the Bill, tightly drawn as it is, the Minister has only a discretion for two. We want to give him discretion for six, to give him a present of four members, without compelling him to do anything. We say only, "We trust him and his judgment, but do let us force him to accede to a discretion of six instead of a discretion of two." Taking all these facts into account, it is, surely, foolish to suppose that adequate representation in accordance with contribution can be given to both land drainage and fishery interests if the Minister insists on refusing to accept the Amendment which I have moved.
Major Legge-Bourke: I beg to second the Amendment.
I think the Minister knows what my feelings are about this. I think, however, he is under the impression that I am looking at the matter simply from a fenman's point of view, and that I am inclined to grow web feet rather too fast. I hope he will realise that we have Yorkshire interests also at heart. This is not in any way an Amendment for local purposes. I do not know who it is that the Minister thinks is likely seriously to object to the Amendment, unless he is thinking of the county boroughs. I think he has over-estimated the objection of the county councils to it. I have here a letter from the Secretary of the County
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Councils Association to the chairman of the Association of Drainage Authorities. In that letter he says that although he cannot go so far as to say that his Association have no objection to the Amendment, nevertheless,
"I shall certainly let the Minister of Agriculture know that we do not propose to seek its alteration "—
that is, alteration of the Bill. They have no rooted objection sufficient to make them want to amend the Bill as it came to this House from another place. Nevertheless, the Minister has seen fit to amend it.
I can only suppose that the objection comes from the county boroughs. I am rather surprised to hear that the Minister thinks that that is a substantial case, because the county boroughs are assured of what is virtually a majority representation, with the Minister's representatives, who probably will be kindly disposed towards the county boroughs. I do not think they have anything to worry about. I realise that there are some county boroughs that have subscribed considerably to catchment boards, and I think that it is highly commendable that they have done so. On the other hand, what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander, and we know that there are some drainage boards that have contributed largely to catchment boards. That applies not only to those in the Fens, although an outstanding example that I would mention happens to be one from the Fens. To the Witham and Steeping Rivers Catchment Board the internal drainage boards from 1943 to 1947 subscribed 67 per cent., 70 per cent., 70 per cent., 75 per cent., and 65 per cent. It seems to me that if there is a very strong case for saying that, because a county borough has subscribed more to a catchment board than any other interest, it should therefore get good representation, the same argument should apply to the internal drainage boards.
I am convinced myself that the Minister does not appreciate what effect this is going to have where there are considerable land drainage and fishery interests in the same area, because their representation has to be shared according to the proportion in the Bill, and the more that the one gets the less the other gets, and vice versa. Both interests are important. The Minister would be well advised, for the

2163
happiness of some of these boards—I do not say of all of them—to accept the Amendment.
Mr. T. Williams: As the hon. and gallant Member for Richmond (Sir T. DUgdale) said, the arguments against the Amendment have been put forward at very great length at every stage of the Bill, and I think it would be tormenting the House to attempt to repeat them now. Since the river boards are to be important local authorities—I warn the hon. and gallant Gentleman that I emphasise that —administering functions directly or indirectly affecting a very wide variety of interests, I think it is essential that an effective majority of local authority members should be appointed to the boards. The Government are fully aware of the wide variety of circumstances amongst the boards, but that in no way affects the argument I advanced on Second Reading, and that I repeated, I think very effectively, in Committee, namely, that with a board of 40 members the drainage and fishery representatives would have a minimum of 13 members. They would have their 13 members if the contribution from the drainage authorities were very tiny.
The hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) asked, Who would object to this Amendment, who is the authority or body of authorities to object? The person who objects most profoundly is myself, because I am more anxious than the hon. and gallant Member, apparently, to give representation to drainage interests and fishery interests in those areas where their contribution to the exchequer of the river boards will be very small.
As the hon. and gallant Member for Richmond generously and kindly wanted to place power in my hands which I myself do not wish to exercise, I want to remind him of the complaint that has been made when we have been considering other Measures, the complaint to the effect that power proposed to be given to Ministers may be all right for present Ministers, but not for others in the future, when there* has been a change of Ministers. Well, there may be a change in this instance. Therefore, I do not want this power thrust upon me. I should rather be modest, and be content with the power I have given myself in the Bill.
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So long as the fishery and drainage interests retain 13 out of 40 members on a river board their specialist interests can be fully expressed and looked after. The Amendment, if accepted, would mean only an addition here or there of an odd two drainage members. I do not think that that can be justified, except on the ground of voting power. However, we have not thought of that; we have always thought, not of voting power, but of men or women coming together to do a fine piece of public work as a team, not as separate entities voting against each other. I would remind hon. Members that most of our very best drainage representatives are members of local authorities. Indeed, in my own county, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where we have a first-class catchment board at present, the first chairman of the catchment board was a farmer who was a county councillor with first-class knowledge of drainage; his successor, now chairman of the catchment board, is a representative of a county borough, but he has a first-class knowledge of all drainage matters.
Therefore, apart altogether from the 13 guaranteed members for drainage and fishery interests, there will be on the catchment boards many local authority representatives who will also be a first-class addition to the specialist body representing fishery and drainage interests. I do not think I ought to be called upon to go over the whole of the arguments once again that were put so effectively before. Thanks to my compromising attitude in all things, and my generosity on occasion, I think we have a fairly balanced representation. It is a compromise that most have wanted. I think that if there had been no such thing as the Isle of Ely it would have been unanimously accepted. I have with sympathy and, I hope, with understanding reviewed the whole of the circumstances again. I regret that I have not found sufficient justification for accepting the Amendment. I hope the House will agree with me that we ought to stand by the very balanced compromise we have in the Bill.
Mr. York: It is really wrong of the Minister to cite Yorkshire as an example. He knows as well as I do that things are run so exceptionally well in that part of the country that it is difficult for the management of affairs in other

2165
parts to be compared with the management of affairs in Yorkshire, about which he and I know a good deal. But, the Minister is not meeting the considerable amount of heart-burning going on in the Internal Drainage Boards Association. Even in such a progressive and well run county as Yorkshire—although the Isle of Ely is more seriously affected—where things have run very smoothly for many years, even there, the internal drainage boards consider that the principle behind this amended Bill is wrong; and I do not think that the Minister has recognised or shown a sufficient degree of sympathy with their outlook. We admit fully the case of the county boroughs where they are providing a very large part of the money which is required. I cannot see why the county boroughs are not prepared to admit the same degree of justice to the internal drainage board in these minority of cases where the internal drainage board provide by far the largest amount of money.
5.30 p.m.
The Minister said that he had no thought of voting power in his mind when drafting the Bill. He might not have had, but someone had, and that thought alone was in their heads when they made representations to the Minister. I cannot but think, and my hon. Friends cannot but think, that the main reason why the Minister has had to stand so firm—and there has been no compromise from him on this Bill—is because the county boroughs refuse to allow any of their voting power to be in any way endangered. I do not believe that is at all necessary, and I believe that it works against the principle of flexibility which we all want to see in the Bill. I believe that far from cementing the co-operation between the towns and the rural areas in those parts of the country where drainage is the main burden, it will work in exactly the opposite direction. I regret that the Minister has remained so determined on this subject, as I believe that he is working inevitably against the interests of the drainage of the country. It is an interest of which he ought to be the chief guardian. I, therefore, very much regret the attitude which he has taken.
Mr. Harrison: I am quite sure that the county boroughs would be definitely against this Clause. I think that quite a number of the county
2166
council authorities would also be against it. I cannot see the purpose behind the Amendment in view of the statements that were made by the mover and seconder of the first Amendment today. They primarily wish the river boards to be substantial local authorities. In view of that, I cannot imagine the purpose behind the Amendment. The county boroughs are quite willing, I believe, if I interpret their wishes correctly, to accept three-fifths, but I am quite sure that in their hearts they think that there ought to be more than a representation of three-fifths. In view of what hon. Members opposite have stated on the previous Amendment, that these river boards must be substantial local authorities, that really takes some understanding, and I think that the Minister is right to oppose this suggestion.
Mr. Berry: There seems to be some misconception of the functions of members of authorities of this character. If we interpret rightly the views of hon. Members opposite, they appear to be that when people are appointed to these bodies they are appointed as mere delegates of the bodies of which they are members, that they are mere delegates from drainage boards and county boroughs. Such an attitude is utterly contrary to the facts. I have been a member of several joint authorities. In one or two cases, I have been appointed by a substantial local authority, and I have never regarded myself as a mere delegate of that authority. On more than one occasion on the joint authority of which I have been a member, I have led the voting against my own appointing board. I believe that to be an individual is the proper position. There are people who think that Members of this House are mere delegates sent here to carry out the wishes of other people. That is utterly wrong. We are Members of this House, and in my submission members of river boards should be members of and elected from important local authorities.
I hope for the sake of the river boards that that will be recognised. I have no fear concerning the duties of the representatives of county boroughs or other local authorities on these river boards. The fear has been expressed in some quarters that these representatives would be prepared to condone the fouling of rivers by their own authorities. Such is

2167
utterly contrary to my own experience. Only last Monday, I was "pulling the leg" of a member of an important county borough about the action he was going to take against his own authority as a member of a joint authority. While I can appreciate that the amour proper of some of the internal drainage boards is touched in this matter, and while it may be that the fishery interests would like to have more representation and while I know that another very important section
of our national life, which is not mentioned at all, ought' to be represented, nevertheless it seems to me that the variant principle is not one which would help the efficiency of these bodies, and I am glad the Minister is not agreeing to the Amendment.
Question put, "That 'three-fifths' stand part of the Bill."
The House divided: Ayes, 222; Noes, 91.

Division No. 150.]

AYES.

[5.37 p.m.

Acland, Sir Richard

Dodds, N. N.

McAdam, W.

Adams, Richard (Balham)

Driberg, T. E. N.

McAllister, G.

Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)

Dumpleton, C. W.

McGhee, H. G

Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)

Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough, E.)

McGovern, J.

Alpass, J. H.

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

McKay, J. (Wallsend)

Austin, H. Lewis

Edwards, John (Blackburn)

McKinlay, A. S.

Ayles, W. H.

Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)

McLeavy, F.

Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.

Evans, Albert (Islington, W.)

Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield)

Bacon, Miss A.

Evans, John (Ogmore)

Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)

Balfour, A.

Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)

Mellish, R. J.

Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J

Ewart, R.

Middleton, Mrs. L

Barton, C.

Fairhurst, F.

Mitchison, G. R.

Battley, J. R.

Farthing, W. J.

Monslow, W.

Bechervaise, A. E.

Fernyhough, E.

Moody, A. S.

Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

Foot, M. M.

Morley, R.

Benson, G

Forman, J. C.

Morris, P. (Swansea W.)

Berry, H.

Fraser, T. (Hamilton)

Mort, D. L.

Bevan, Rt. Hon. A (Ebbw Vale)

Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N

Mulvey, A.

Blenkinsop, A.

Gallacher, W.

Murray, J. D.

Blyton, W. R.

Ganley, Mrs. C. S.

Natty, W.

Boardman, H.

George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)

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

Bowden, Flg. Offr. H. W

Gibbins, J.

Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)

Bowen, R.

Gilzean, A.

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

Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)

Gtanville, J. E. (Consett)

Oldfield, W. H.

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

Gordon-Walker, P. C.

Oliver, G. H.

Braddock, T. (Mitcham)

Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)

Orbach, M.

Bramall, E. A.

Grenfell, D. R.

Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

Brook, D. (Halifax)

Grey, C. F.

Palmer, A. M. F.

Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)

Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)

Parkin, B. T.

Brown, George (Belper)

Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)

Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)

Brown, T. J. (Ince)

Guy, W H.

Paton, J. (Norwich)

Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.

Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil

Pearl, T. F.

Buchanan, Rt. Hon. G

Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.

Porter, G. (Leeds)

Burden, T. W.

Hardy, E. A.

Pryde, D. J.

Burke, W. A.

Harrison, J.

Pursey, Cmdr. H.

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

Hastings, Dr. Somerville

Reeves, J.

Byers, Frank

Herbison, Miss M.

Reid, T. (Swindon)

Callaghan, James

Hewitson, Capt. M.

Ridealgh, Mrs. M.

Castle, Mrs. B. A.

Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)

Robens, A.

Chamberlain, R. A

House, G.

Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)

Champion, A. J.

Hoy, J.

Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)

Chetwynd, G. R.

Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

Royle, C.

Cluse, W, S.

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

Sargood, R.

Cobb, F. A.

Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)

Scollan, T.

Cocks, F. S.

Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

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

Collick, P.

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

Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

Collindridge, F

Jenkins, R. H.

Shurmer, P.

Collins, V. J.

Johnston, Douglas

Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)

Colman, Miss G. M.

Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)

Simmons, C. J.

Comyns, Dr. L.

Jones, P. Astertey (Hitchin)

Skeffington-Lodge, T. C

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

Keenan, W.

Skinnard, F. W.

Corlett, Dr. J

Kenyon, C.

Smith, Ellis (Stoke)

Cove, W. G.

Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E

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

Crawley, A.

Kinley, J.

Snow, J. W.

Daggar, G.

Lee, F. (Hulme)

Sorensen, R. W.

Daines, P.

Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)

Soskice, Sir Frank

Davies, Edward (Burslem)

Leonard, W.

Steele, T.

Davies, Ernest (Enfield)

Leslie, J. R.

Stross, Dr. B.

Davies, Harold (Leek)

Levy, B. W.

Stubbs, A. E.

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

Lewis, T. (Southampton)

Summerskill, Dr. Edith

Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

Sylvester, G. O.

Deer, G.

Logan, D. G.

Symonds, A. L.

Diamond, J.

Lyne, A. W

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

Taylor, Dr S. (Barnet)

Walkden, E.

Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)

Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)

Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)

Williams, R. W. (Wigan)

Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)

Warbey, W. N

Williams, Rt. Hon. T (Don Valley)

Thomas, George (Cardiff)

Watkins, T. E

Willis, E.

Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)

Watson, W. M

Wills, Mrs. E. A

Thurtle, Ernest

Wells, P. L. (Faversham)

Woodburn, A.

Tiffany, S.

Wells, W. T. (Walsall)

Woods, G. S.

Timmons, J.

Wheatley, Rt. Hn. J. T. (Edinb'gh, E.)

Yates, V. F.

Titterington, M. F

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

Young, Sir R. (Newton)

Tolley, L.

Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

Ungoed-Thomas, L

Wigg, George

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Viant, S. P.

Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)

Mr. Joseph Henderson and

Mr. Hannan.

NOES.

Amory, D. Heathcoat

Henderson, John (Cathcart)

Raikes, H. V.

Assheton, Rt. Hon. R

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

Ramsay, Maj. S.

Baldwin, A. E.

Hulbert, Wing-Cdr. N. J.

Rayner, Brig. R.

Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.

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

Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)

Birch, Nigel

Jeffreys, General Sir G

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

Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.

Jennings, R

Renton, D.

Bracken, Rt. Hon. Brendan

Keeling, E. H.

Roberts, P. G. (Ecclesall)

Braithwaite, Lt.-Comdr. J. G

Lambert, Hon. G.

Robinson, Roland

Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T

Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.

Scott, Lord W.

Butcher, H. W.

Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H

Spence, H. R.

Carson, E.

Lindsay, M. (Solihull)

Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

Clarke, Col. R. S.

Linstead, H. N

Strauss, H. G. (English Universities)

Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G.

Lloyd,, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)

Studholme, H. G.

Cooper-Key, E. M

Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)

Sutcliffe, H.

Crowder, Capt. John E.

Low, A. R. W.

Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

Cuthbert, W. N.

Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.

Teeling, William

Dower, E. L. G. (Caithness)

Lytlelton, Rt. Hon. O.

Thorneycroft, G. E. P. (Monmouth)

Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)

Macdonald, Sir P. (I. of Wight)

Thornton-Kemsley, C. N

Duthie, W. S.

Mackeson, Brig. H. R.

Touche, G. C.

Eden, Rt. Hon, A.

Maclay, Hon. J. S.

Turton, R. H.

Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter

Macpherson, N. (Dumfries)

Vane, W. M. F.

Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D

Maitland, Comdr. J. W

Watt, Sir G. S. Harvie

Gates, Maj. E. E.

Marsden, Capt. A.

Wheatley, Colonel M. J. (Dorset, E.)

George, Maj. Rt. Hn. G Lloyd (P'ke)

Mellor, Sir J.

White, J. B. (Canterbury)

Glyn, Sir R.

Morris-Jones, Sir H.

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Gomme-Duncan, Col. A

Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)

Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

Grant, Lady

Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.

York, C

Grimston, R. V.

O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)

Peake, Rt. Hon. O.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Harden, J. R. E.

Pitman, I. J.

Sir Arthur Young and

Harris, H. Wilson (Cambridge Univ.)

Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

Major Conant.

Head, Brig. A. H

Poole, O. B. S (Oswestry)

5.45 P.m.
Major Legge-Bourke: I beg to move, in page 2, line 33, at the end, to insert:
"Provided that where the Ministers after consultation with all the interests concerned are satisfied that an interest specified in paragraphs (b) and (c) of this Subsection bears a risk exceptionally greater than that borne by any other of the interests represented on a River Board, they may by regulations so vary the representation of such interests as are specified in paragraphs (b) and (c) of this Subsection as to ensure a reasonable representation to that interest bearing the exceptional risk and provided that any such regulation shall be made upon an affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament."
It may be that some hon. Members will see very little difference in this Amendment and the one we have just been discussing, but perhaps I may describe briefly its effect. Where the three Ministers concerned with this Bill came to the conclusion that an exceptional risk was borne by one of the interests mentioned in Clause 2 (2, b and c) the Minister could so alter the composition of that river
2170
board as to ensure that the particular authority had a reasonably fair representation. This may be a solution of the Minister's difficulties in accepting our Amendment. I believe it can be, because he has been acting as a drainage authority trying to dam up an irrepressible current, so far as our Amendment is concerned, to put the Bill back into the original form in which it came to this House. We have failed to find one route to avoid that dam, and I hope this will be the solution, because it gives the Minister wide scope. On his own admission he has shown that he objects to putting the Clause back to its original form, and this should fit in nicely with that view in that it would be up to him largely as to whether or not any action was taken under this Amendment.
It is a permissive Amendment, and it is also subject to an affirmative Resolution of both Houses of Parliament. The Minister has been most reluctant to take

2171
undue power upon his own shoulders, or in any way to become a dictator of land drainage or river boards. We welcome that, and we realise that this Amendment gives him and his colleagues considerable powers, but we feel that by making it subject to an affirmative Resolution, there should be considerable Parliamentary safeguards, so that all interests, if they have any objection to take to any action of the Minister, can fully ventilate them in this House and in another place.
I hope, therefore, that the Minister will be prepared to accept this Amendment. I do not want an assurance that he will use the powers given under this Amendment because I hope it will not be necessary, but it will be useful to him in the event that his wishful thinking about the future of the river boards does not materialise. I am sure he is hoping for rather too much if he expects all river boards to work beautifully smoothly, and that no members appointed to them will tend to act as delegates. I agree with the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Mr. Berry) that no member of a river board should be a delegate in any way but should realise that, once he becomes a member of that board he should serve the best interests of the river.
Let us face the fact, however, that there will be county councils or county borough councils who occasionally will tend to put on to a river board a person they know will never vote for any increase in the precept. It has happened in the past, and we have no doubt that it will happen again, although neither we nor the Minister want it to happen. In the event that it does happen, this Amendment gives the Minister an opportunity to put the matter right, and he may be glad of it in the days to come, to ensure that whereas an exceptional risk is borne by one interest which is not properly represented, he can so vary the composition of a board as to ensure that the interest is properly represented.
Mr. York: I beg to second the Amendment.
This is a new and quite different approach to the problem we have been discussing recently, and I think the Minister will agree that it obviates the main objection he put forward while defending the Clause. If we accept risk as a major consideration in drainage matters, it fol-
2172
lows that exceptional risk should have exceptional consideration. I am quite certain that as the Bill now stands, if it is applied in the catchment areas, the Minister or his successor will find coming into the open just those difficulties which we have been putting forward during the Committee stage of this Bill, if he so ties himself down by the inflexibility of this Clause no suitable variations are possible
Here we offer the Minister something which he ought to welcome, a suggestion which will give him that flexibility without altering any of the neatly balanced negotiations and agreements which he has achieved during the time the Bill has been under consideration. If the county boroughs are in any way nervous about what the Minister or some future Minister may do, then there is the additional safeguard that, before any Minister can make any variation, he has to come to the House with an affirmative Resolution. Hon. Members will know that that is a form of procedure which no Minister would care to adopt unless he had a cast-iron case.
We are only asking that in those cast-iron cases where exceptional risk has been proved, the Minister should allow himself the discretion, if he at that time decides that discretion is necessary, to come to the House and ask for powers to vary. This makes no alteration in the representation in the Bill, and it is on those grounds that I feel that county boroughs who were against altering the main fraction in the Clause will not have the same objection. I hope the Minister will give this Amendment a more sympathetic and reasonable answer than he gave to the last one.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. George Brown): I think this Amendment arises from a series of misunderstandings of the set-up and standing of the various bodies who will be on these river boards. The hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) talked as though a local authority has in this respect a precise interest on the board. The local authority is on the board as a social entity with a general interest in all the matters that are likely to arise and concern the river board during its deliberation. The drainage and fishery interests are there with a specialised interest in certain functions which the

2173
river board needs to have, but it does not mean, because the fishery and the drainage people are thought to have a special interest in those two functions of the board, that we are then to assume that the local authority representatives have not an interest in those functions. The local authority representatives have a general interest in all the functions of the board, and the other people are there, not to measure their interest in the particular function, but because they can bring a special contribution to the board which we think we ought to have.
In this Bill we have tried to maintain a fair balance between, on the one hand, these local authorities with their general interest in all the functions, and the specialised interests with their interest in one or two functions. I am not quite sure whether I misunderstood the hon. and gallant Gentleman, but I thought he suggested that if the balance of membership is heavy in the interests of the local authorities, in the case where there is undue risk in one of the other functions, the local authorities might refuse to vote the necessary precept. May I make it clear that his Amendment would do nothing about that, since it is the local authority representation on the board which will decide by its vote the size of the precept that is to be levied for the purpose of raising money for the functions?
Major Legge-Bourke: Surely the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that where internal drainage boards are contributing most, and a decision is taken as a result of the set-up in the Bill which is absolutely detrimental to the interests of land drainage, the internal drainage runs exceptional risk in such a case?
Mr. Brown: It is to me quite inconceivable that one of these river boards will take a decision completely detrimental to land drainage. If they do, however, they will be abrogating one of their main functions, and we must assume that these substantial local authorities will act in a reasonable way. Unduly weighting the representation of one of the specialised interests would not prevent that happening; indeed, it might have the opposite effect. I have used this argument before in our deliberations on this principle. Giving what was thought by the local authorities, who are providing so much of the money, to be undue weighting of membership to one of the specialised interests,
2174
might well lead to such a lack of harmony, such a sense of grievance, that much more risk would be run of getting decisions taken about drainage which would not be as helpful as we would like, than if we leave the Clause as it is.
6.0 p.m.
The hon. Member for Ripon (Mr. York) said we might need additional members from the specialist interests to make sure that those interests were adequately catered for. We on this side of the House do not believe that. We believe what was said by the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Mr. Berry) that the people who go on to these boards, from whatever interest they are drawn, will have a definite interest in all the functions of the board. Merely to add to the representation of any particular interest will not mean that the work of the board in respect of that interest will be done any better. Those who argue that the greater the risk, the greater the contribution or representation, must face the other half of their own argument: presumably the smaller the risk the smaller the representation. We have taken the view that, because of the great specialist contribution which they can make, there should be an irreducible minimum of representation from the fishery and drainage interests. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have been loud in their anxieties that fishery interests in particular are never reduced below the provisions made for them in the Bill. If this argument were to be admitted it might well be difficult in certain areas to maintain the representation we have given to these two specialist interests. As far as fisheries are concerned there should not be any whittling down.
We are achieving nothing in pursuing the argument that the greater the risk, the greater the representation. We have tried to hold a balance with the local authority people who will provide so much of the committee and who will take a general interest in all the functions of the board. At the same time they will maintain a fair representation for the specialist interests who can bring a constructive contribution to the two functions of the board. I hope that, in view of what I have said, the House will not press this Amendment. We are unable to accept it; we believe it would be wrong to do so and that it might even be harmful if the issue were forced to a Division.
Lord Willoughby de Eresby: The Parliamentary Secretary has made an excellent speech, but it was really about an Amendment which has already been considered. The desire of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) is to give the Minister a permissive power to alter the representation if it does not work properly. He is not concerned whether the Minister should appoint one half, or whether the local authority should have a three-fifths membership, of the board. That has already been decided. He wants to ensure that if the scheme does not work properly or smoothly—if, for instance, the drainage boards do not have a fair representation —the Minister has power to make alteration after coming before Parliament with an affirmative Resolution. That is not a big concession to make since the previous Amendment was defeated. If the Government cannot accept the Amendment I hope that reasons will be given why the Minister does not want this permissive power or does not think he should have it.
Sir T. Dugdale: I support entirely the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) and the hon. Member for Ripon (Mr. York). On the grounds of flexibility we want the Minister to have the best river board in every case. This is an entirely new
departure in local government administration; a river board may well be a very powerful local government body centred in a particular rural or urban area covering the length of a river. When the Minister sets up the river boards, we want them to comprise the best possible representation. For this reason we want to give the Minister more flexibility. I shall ask my hon. Friends to go into the Division Lobby in support of the Amendment because we are so certain that flexibility of administration is a very important part of the whole structure of the river boards.
Mr. Baldwin: I wish to support what has been said on this side of the House. In speaking on the previous Amendment the Minister said that he did not want to be totalitarian, but that is how he is acting in not giving way to this reasonable Amendment. We know of the hopes expressed by the Parliamentary Secretary and the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Mr. Berry) that the members of the Boards will be delegates and will act in a certain way. That may be so; but, equally, it may not be so. We are asking only for something in the way of a compromise which I should have thought the Minister could accept.
Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."
The House divided: Ayes, 95; Noes, 239.
6.15 p.m.
Mr. Harrison: I beg to move, in page 2, line 37, to leave out "having regard," and to insert:
"and shall, as nearly as may be, be in proportion."
This Amendment is designed to substitute a more precise wording for the permissive wording at present in the Bill. I suggest that the Minister should look at this Amendment very closely, because the words we propose secure without any doubt whatever that the representation of the county boroughs and the county councils shall be on the basis of the moneys contributed. I suggest that the Minister should receive this recommendation favourably, and with brevity I am moving it.
Mr. Deer: I beg to second the Amendment.
I should like to imitate the brevity of my hon. Friend the Member for East Nottingham (Mr. Harrison). I merely point out that this is an alteration which will remove a great deal of the anxiety which the county boroughs have felt in the past, when they had to pay large proportions of the money and received very little representation in comparison with other local authorities. We ought to be knocking at an open door on this matter.
Mr. G. Brown: This is a case where instead of being urged to take greater flexibility, my right hon. Friend is being urged to adopt more rigidity. I should like to tell my hon. Friends that they are, in fact, knocking at an open door. The intention which my right hon. Friend has in this matter, which is clearly envisaged in the wording we have put in the Bill, is that representation in these cases shall, in fact, follow the financial contribution of the various authorities. The fear which my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. Deer) expressed, about some of the authorities providing the greater part of the money and having little representation will not happen under the present wording of the Clause. My right hon. Friend would like to accept the Amendment, which has been pressed with such commendable brevity. We have examined it very carefully, but the difficulty is if we lost the slight degree of flexibility which the present wording gives us, it is possible to envisage a situation in which we would be prevented from doing something in the way of repre-
2180
sentation, which would put the individual authority in the position which my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln has in mind.
Apart from other considerations, we should run into trouble with fractions of representation. "Having regard" seems to us to be a form of words which most nearly meets the intention of my hon. Friend the Member for East Nottingham, and at the same time affords to the Minister sufficient flexibility for avoiding getting into difficulties. My hon. Friends are here on a good point, but we think that they would be well advised to leave the matter as it is. We feel that the point which they have in mind is covered, and I hope they will accept my assurance that it is the intention of my right hon. Friend to act in accordance with the principle laid down in the Clause. In those circumstances I suggest that they withdraw the Amendment.
Mr. Turton: I am very worried by the words the Parliamentary Secretary has used on this Amendment. It is made clear that what the Minister intends to do under this Bill is to see that urban interests get undue weightage. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I will now explain what I mean by that. In 1930, the last time when we were plagued with a Socialist Government, Lord Noel Buxton and Lord Addison brought in a Land Drainage Bill. That gave far more weightage to urban and rural areas and the county boroughs could not have more than 50 per cent, representation.
Mr. T. Williams: On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) not on the wrong Amendment? Surely he is speaking to the previous Amendment.
Mr. Turton: If the Minister would listen to what I am saying instead of being unduly touchy when reminded of his illustrious predecessors, it would be better for the progress of the Debate. We have got the position that instead of having this 50 per cent., the county boroughs are to have a proportion in representation provided it is actuarily correct. That means that on a river board, where the river for the greater part goes through a poor county but where there are one or two rich county boroughs, they are to have undue representation. I

2181
hope the Minister will construe the words "having regard" rather differently. I want him to have regard to the estimated amount of the contributions to be paid and also to other relevant factors. I should have thought that that would have been the way to approach the matter. As it is, in the words of the Parliamentary Secretary, although this Amendment is being rejected the sense of it is being accepted, and it is a dangerous sense.
Mr. York: The point which makes me intervene is that raised by the Parliamentary Secretary that representation shall, in fact, follow the amount of contribution. If I understood his argument aright, it seems to me to be very little short of being hypocritical to advance that argument on this Amendment when he was opposing us for advancing the same argument on a former Amendment. On the former Amendment we were discussing the risk, the amount of contribution and perhaps some other things which were advanced by us as reasons for weighting the catchment boards in a certain proportion. Now we come to an Amendment put forward by county borough representatives, and we find the Government accepting that argument. Although they are not expressly providing for it in the Bill, they are going to use the weight of contributions to assess the amount of representation. Are the Government satisfied with that? They do not seem to have made up their minds about this, and if it is the case that they are going to use the weight of their contribution as between the county boroughs and the county councils, why do they refuse to accept the weight of contributions in the case of these internal drainage boards, which have a far higher amount of contributions to the catchment board than either the county council or the county borough?
Mr. T. Williams: I can answer the hon. Gentleman very simply. There are 18 catchment boards where the drainage authorities do not make any contribution at all, and still we give them and the fishery interests at least 13 representatives.
Mr. York: The Minister has missed my point. The point I was making was, where the internal drainage board has a greater proportion than the county council or the county borough why is there
2182
no weight there? Why does the Minister merely defend the case where a private board does not contribute at all? That is no answer to my case. We have already said we are willing to give the Minister that side of the case. He has not made his case either on this Amendment or on the former Amendment.
Mr. Harrison: In view of the assurance which has been given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

DOMESTIC COAL ALLOWANCES
7.35 P.m.
Sir John Mellor: I beg to move,
"That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Direction, dated 23rd April, 1948, entitled the Coal Distribution Order, 1943, General Direction (Restriction of Supplies) No. 17 (S.I., 1948, No. 833), a copy of which was presented on 26th April, be annulled."
This general direction is one of a number of general directions made under the Coal Distribution Order, 1943. These general directions affect all controlled premises, and controlled premises, as defined in the principal order, are all premises, excepting only those industrial premises, whose basic consumption, as defined in that order, exceeded 100 tons a year. It has been customary, since the war, to make an annual general direction prescribing the overall maximum amount of fuel which could be supplied to controlled premises. It is interesting to note that this general direction is substantially a repetition of the previous general directions which have been made anually in April since April, 1945.
It seems rather surprising that there has been no variation since April, 1945, in the overall maximum amounts of fuel which could be supplied to controlled premises. The amounts differ according to the locality. In the Midlands, North and Scotland, 50 cwt. of coal and 40 cwt. of coke are the maximum amounts which can be supplied in any one year to any particular controlled premises. In the South of England, the East and South-West, only 34 cwt. of coal and 40 cwt. of coke may be supplied. These overall

2203
maximum amounts have remained fixed ever since April, 1945, with one very slight exception. In 1947, the maximum permissible amount of coke was reduced by five cwt. It is rather astonishing that, in the three years after the war, the fuel ration for all ordinary households has remained unchanged. It is characteristic of the stagnation into which this Government has brought the country.
Last winter was famously mild, and it was of great assistance in helping to build up stocks. Having regard to the stocks which have been accumulated, it is high time that the allowances were increased. It may well be that, thanks to the mild winter, there was no exceptional measure of suffering through cold, but it must not be forgotten that many people are entirely dependent on coal for cooking and hot water and, whatever the weather may be like, their demands for those purposes remain virtually unaffected. If we have a severe winter there will undoubtedly be grave suffering through cold.
I think the experience of the winter before last should be a warning to the Government. They were found completely unprepared at that time and grave dislocation and hardship ensued. They ought to proceed on the assumption that next winter will be equally severe. They ought to be on the safe side, and not expose the unfortunate householder to the risk of grave hardship. It will be remembered how many households were afflicted with burst pipes which it was difficult to have repaired and that great wastage was consequent upon that. Surely this is an appropriate time to review that position —coming, as it does after a mild winter when there has been a chance of building up stocks. This order ought not automatically to repeat the figures which have appeared in previous Directions. It seems to have become a habit with the Government to go on prescribing an overall maximum of 50 cwt. of coal for the more northern parts of the country and 34 cwt. for the more southern parts. There should be an explanation from the Government why these precise figures are repeated.
My objection to this order is also because of its rigidity. Premises receive a certain fixed allowance, irrespective of the number of rooms or the number of people occupying those premises. The allowance takes no account whatever of
2204
quality, and surely in this matter quantity cannot be dissociated from quality. People have had to pay for all sorts of inferior stuff; they have been supplied with very inferior stuff, which has had very little combustible value, and yet they have been unable to obtain an increase in their allowances.
The Minister has admitted that the quality supplied is often inferior and has excused that on the ground of shortage of cleaning plant at the pit head. I do not think it can be disputed that there have been masses of complaints about the quality of coal. I received a complaint from one of my constituents today in a letter from the hon. secretary of the Sutton Coldfield Housewives' League, in which she says:
"I am sending you by parcel post on Wednesday next a sample taken from a delivery of coal made to one of our members."
I am sorry it has not arrived, because I might have hurled it across the House in support of my argument. The letter continues:
"This member has an elderly husband and is in rather poor circumstances, so it seems to us doubly hard for her to have to pay for absolute rubbish. As you know, we have made frequent complaints about the quality of the coal at the present day to the Minister of Fuel and Power through you, but the quality seems to be getting worse instead of better."
Letters of that sort are received frequently by hon. Members, and I am sure they reflect the great discontent in the country at the quality of the coal which is supplied.
Another point is that the Minister has recently agreed that a sub-tenant should count his quarters as separate premises for the purposes of the allocation of coal, conditional upon there being not less than two persons in the sub-tenanted premises. Why should it be necessary for there to be two persons? It takes just as much coal to keep one person warm as it takes to keep two warm. I think it is unreasonable that that stipulation should be made.
I criticise this order, again, in that it prescribes, as previous orders have done, that the overall maximum should be apportioned between the Summer and Winter periods, so that only a certain amount can be taken during the Summer and only a certain amount during the Winter. I cannot see the sense of that.

2205
I should have thought it desirable that people should stock up as early in the fuel year as they possibly can, because small deliveries of fuel must be most uneconomic and wasteful of transport resources. If people with storage capacity can stock up early it must make it easier to supply, during the Winter, those who have very little storage space.
The Minister made an order early this year saying that people who had not yet succeeded in obtaining their maximum allowance might take what would have been due to them during the Summer up to the end of April. Why should the carry-over have been permitted only during the last fuel year? Why should that carry-over not continue? Why should not, in fact, the maximum overall allowance be cumulative and be satisfied as soon as it can be satisfied? It seems absurd that these periods should be kept in their watertight compartments, and that people should be allowed to obtain only a certain amount in the Summer and a certain amount in the Winter, within the total overall maximum in the year. Surely, if they have not obtained the total they are allowed, they should be able to get it later on, whether in that particular period, or that particular year, or not. An overall maximum allowance should definitely be cumulative, irrespective of period of time.
A very serious grievance is the difficulty which people have in transferring their registration from one merchant to another, because very often they may find the quality of coal from a merchant is not what they desire. I say that they should be allowed to transfer to another merchant if they think they can thus obtain better service or better quality. What is the Minister's reason for making it so difficult to transfer a registration? All sorts of permits and licences have to be obtained. Why cannot people transfer at will from one merchant to another? The Ministry of Food has agreed to permit milk registrations to be changed; why cannot the Ministry of Fuel similarly agree about coal?
I was rather surprised the other day when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power, in answer to a Question from my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) said:
"We can give no guarantee that delivery of the maximum permitted quantity will
2206
everywhere be possible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd April, 1948; Vol. 449, c. 1999.]
That is a most astonishing statement. Surely it is not disputed that stocks at the moment are quite adequate? Why cannot the Ministry at least guarantee that the maximum allowance will be available? Do the Ministry anticipate that stocks are likely to be inadequate? Why not say definitely that in all circumstances the maximum allowance will be supplied? I complain that the maximum allowance is not nearly large enough. Surely, the small amount that people are entitled to should be supplied to them as of right.
I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary what plans the Ministry have made for next winter, supposing we have another very severe winter. Have they made plans, or are they going to leave everything to chance, and gamble again, as they did the winter before last? The public have a right to know what the Ministry have in mind, because the allowances provided in this general direction will at best be only very poor allowances. If we have a severe winter, what steps will the Ministry take to protect people from the cold? I have an uncomfortable feeling that the Ministry are not making plans, that they are marking time, that they are accumulating stocks as much as they can, and that their policy is going to be influenced, not primarily by the needs of the community, but very largely by the political situation. As with other commodities, they are hoping to accumulate coal so that they can release larger quantities and increase the allowances as the time of the next General Election approaches.
Mr. Follick: Very good strategy.
Sir J. Mellor: The Parliamentary Secretary regards my suggestion with amusement.
Mr. Julius Silverman: We all do.
Sir J. Mellor: I hope that when the hon. Gentleman replies he will say what the Government plans are and rebut my suggestion, but unless he does I shall hold to my suggestion that the policy of the Government, not only in fuel but in other stocks as well, is to accumulate stocks so that they will be in a favourable position,

2207
when they decide to go to the country, to release stocks and then claim all possible credit for providing more fuel and other commodities. That, I believe, is the only plan they have. So I consider that this order is profoundly unsatisfactory, that it is very ungenerous, that it will inflict unnecessary hardships, especially if we should have a severe winter, and that it should be annulled.
7.53 p.m.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I beg to second the Motion.
I think that all hon. Members on all sides will feel that a very considerable public service has been done by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor) in enabling this matter to be debated. I think I should begin by offering an expression of sympathy to the Parliamentary Secretary. I understand he has been somewhat busily engaged elsewhere, and I think it is rather hard lines on him that we should have to deal with a matter of this importance when he cannot possibly be feeling at his best. When I first saw the Home Secretary sitting beside him, I thought that the right hon. Gentleman had come in to sustain him in the battle, rather as Aaron sustained Moses on a former occasion. When my hon. Friend referred to throwing stones across the Floor of the House, I thought that perhaps that provided a reason for the Home Secretary to be there.
I propose to examine this order on its merits for a few moments. In its basic form it may be a repetition of others. I confess quite frankly that I have not had time to review all the orders which have gone before it: one has a sufficient task in trying to keep up to date with the new productions. The first two matters I wish to raise are, I admit, only small matters of drafting. I observe that in paragraph 1 of this direction there is the phrase "furnished or acquired." I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell the House what exactly is the difference between the two expressions. For example, how can coal be "furnished" without its being "acquired"? I think one is entitled to know, in scrutinising this matter, what was the purpose of the draftsman in drafting the order in that form.
The second drafting matter with which I want the Parliamentary Secretary to deal
2208
is that of the use of the term "actual consumption." The term is used on two occasions, in the first paragraph and in the second paragraph. Then, for some unknown reason, the word "consumption" is used in paragraph 3 (2), the word "actual" being missed out. It may seem a small point, but I do think it is one about which we are entitled to have some explanation. Perhaps the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) will also take an interest in this accurate and definite use of the English language.
Mr. Turner-Samuels: I can see a clear distinction between the words "furnished" and "acquired." Coal may be "furnished" from our own mines, whereas coal "acquired" may quite probably be coal which is purchased.
Mr. Lloyd: I thought the position of the Government at the present time was that they were no longer acquiring coal from overseas.
Mr. Turner-Samuels: That may be the policy, but that is my construction.
Mr. Lloyd: The hon. and learned Gentleman has given his construction. I have no doubt the Parliamentary Secretary will be appropriately fortified thereby. However, I am certain the House will welcome a re-statement of the fact that it is not proposed to acquire more coal from overseas. The hon. and learned Gentleman in his characteristic manner, has come to the assistance of the House about the meaning of the phrase "furnished or acquired," but has not yet vouchsafed an opinion on the term "actual consumption." I cannot see how it is possible to have consumption which is not actual, but if there is any purpose in using the phrase "actual consumption," why is it not used also in paragraph 3 (2) as well as in the first two paragraphs? These are minor points, but I should like to have some gratification of my curiosity why these phrases are so used.
The substantive points to be made in regard to this direction are these. First, what is the point of putting in again this expression "whether or not for a consideration"? I understand that it means that if one member of a family takes along to another member of a family a bag of coal, because the former member of the

2209
family has not used all his ration or allowance, he is committing an offence. Why should that be so? Is there any real reason why that provision should continue? That is the meaning and effect of the reservation in brackets in the direction. I suggest to the House that it is pure nonsense that we should continue to have that sort of restriction upon ordinary individual liberty. I have known of cases in which a person with a small house has tried to help a member of the family with a big house, by taking along to the big house a portion of his coal allowance. Why should that be illegal?
The next matter is that of quality. I am not going to deal with the question of quantity because my hon. Friend has dealt with that. With regard to quality, it seems to me that an important comment to be made upon this order is that it is completely rigid in regard to the quality of the coal which can be supplied. In my constituency I have 116,000 electors, and I am continually being bombarded with complaints about the quality of the coal that is being supplied in that region. They are justified. I give the Parliamentary Secretary full credit for one fact. In one case I have succeeded in securing from him a rebate of 6s. 11d. for one of my constituents. I express appropriate gratitude for that fact.
With regard to the great majority of the complaints put forward, there has been no rebate allowance. One is in this position. One has to advise constituents that the ordinary rules of the law of contract apply, and that when they are provided with coal of poor quality they can proceed against their coal merchant, and the coal merchant, in turn, can proceed against the regional board, or whoever it may be. If the coal merchant is put in that position of having to take legal proceedings against the appropriate authority, it obviously prejudices his chances in the future. The customer is unwilling to put that sort of pressure on the merchant, and the merchant is naturally unwilling to have trouble with his sole source of supply. I seriously suggest to the Minister that there is unnecessary rigidity being exercised by the fuel overseers or whoever the appropriate persons may be. I was told within the last hour of a case which happened in the Lewisham district where the fuel overseer told a complaining customer that he could not do anything about the quality
2210
of coal he had supplied. That is quite wrong.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, in his last speech when moving the Third Reading of the Bill which has just received the approval of the House, said "Labour gets things done." One thing which they do not seem to succeed in getting done is convincing the people of this country that stone burns as well as coal I suggest that in this order there should have been some reservation with regard to quality. Quite recently I had left in my house a large parcel containing stone and slate. I sent it on to the Minister, without, I regret to say, receiving any acknowledgment from him of the sample that had been left upon me. Although one may laugh about this matter, it is in fact a very real problem.
I am not blaming the Minister for this fact, because we all know that through lack of washing and cleaning facilities we have in the present circumstances more stone with our coal than is ordinarily the case; but the fact is that consumers are getting a great deal of stone in their coal. I do not know if it has any political significance, but my constituency appears to be as bad as anywhere else in that regard. I think that a more liberal instruction could be given to the fuel overseers about the way in which they should deal with that matter. I criticise this order on the ground that there is complete rigidity of the supply that can be given and there is no question of a rebate or extra allowance if coal is of poor quality. What matters to the average householder is the calorific value of the coal. If the calorific value is very poor, I suggest that it should be supplemented in quantity.
My next point is of a similar nature. It is with regard to the rigidity of the period. I should have thought that the Minister would have been advised to take some power to vary the Winter period and the Summer period. Even under Socialism, it does not seem to be possible to have complete command of the weather in this country, and, under this order, if we have a very cold October there appears to be no power for the Minister to accelerate increased supplies. I do not think that even the hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt), who keeps up a running conversation sotto voce, can control that matter. That is the second point on which I

2211
suggest that the Minister would have been wiser to have taken greater freedom of action.
The third matter I wish to raise is with regard to the size of the premises. It seems that there is no discretion at all for the authorities to deal with very large premises under this order. I should have thought that there were certain houses where, from the very nature of the thing, the present allowance is nothing like adequate for the purpose of heating. I should have thought that there should have been a reservation to the Minister to make powers to deal with those cases. It may be that in the present circumstances some system of control is still necessary, but the criticism that I make of this order is that it is a very clear example of over-control.
8.6 p.m.
Mr. Turner-Samuels: I do not want to make this discussion a lawyers' holiday, but the hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn-Lloyd) appeared to base one of his main objections to this order upon certain words which are used in it. The words which he referred to were "furnish or acquired," and also the word "consumption." I have been looking at the order, and, so far as I can see, its object is to create an offence if the order is not observed. That offence, of course, is one which concerns two people. It concerns the person who supplies the coal and also the person who acquires the coal, and that is why the two expressions are used "furnished or acquired."
If we only used the word "acquired," then the only charge one could bring would be against the consumer who had acquired the coal for purposes in contravention of the order. It is also essential that one should be able to deal with the supplier, the person who supplies the coal, and in order to do that it is essential to use the word "furnish," because that is an apt expression which would apply to the supplier, and, in that way, we get a fair and balanced situation in which both parties—the party supplying and the person consuming—who break this order are amenable to the law. I think that is perfectly clear. I am quite sure that now that the hon. and learned Member for Wirral has heard what I have said, he accepts it.
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The other words about which there seems to have been some obscurity are "actual consumption" and they are equally clear. What they mean is perfectly plain in the text of the order itself. "Consumption" means consumption, and it means that the person who supplies or acquires the coal has supplied or acquired it for the purpose of actual consumption. The order goes on to say:
"in any controlled premises"
That is to say, it earmarks the locality where the consumption is to occur, and it goes on to qualify the matter beyond any doubt, for it says:
"and not for resale, during the current period."
I should have thought that as a matter of construction between lawyer and lawyer that renders the wording of that particular paragraph quite clear. Of course, these words occur throughout the order in various paragraphs, and in each paragraph they have exactly the same construction.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I am greatly indebted for the very clear explanation given by the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels). Can he explain why, on page 2 of this order, the word "actual" is missed out, and will he also say when consumption is not actual?
Mr. Turner-Samuels: It is quite obvious, because it is not there. If one takes the text of the order and the context of the construction, it is perfectly clear that where the word "consumption" is used, it gets its dictionary from the earlier expression and it means "actual consumption."
Mr. Lloyd: Then may I ask the hon. and learned Gentleman why, the second time it is used, in paragraph 2, the words "actual consumption" are repeated, whereas the third time "actual" is not used?
Mr. Turner-Samuels: The third time it is so well known what the word "consumption" means that it is unnecessary to use it again. It may be purely a slip, but whether it is a slip or not, it is perfectly clear from the context that "consumption" means exactly the same as "actual consumption." That seems to be the gravamen of the objection which the hon. and learned Member has raised, and now that has been cleared up, there seems to

2213
be no reason why the time of the House should be taken up any further with this order.
8.11 p.m.
Mr. Lambert: I have listened with great care to the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) but I am more confused than ever. I am not a lawyer and I shall not try to emulate his legal arguments, but I would like to say how grateful I am to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor) for raising this matter tonight. During the past year we have seen in the papers and elsewhere that more and more coal is being produced, and my constituents expected to have an increase in their allocation of coal during the coming year. It is with considerable disappointment that they find that the ration is only to be maintained at the scale of the last three or four years.
It is particularly difficult for people in country districts to manage on the ration because, more often than not, they have no other form of heating in their house, and not only have they to heat the house but do the cooking as well, and the ration does not last the full period. The position is made even more difficult because the quality of the coal is extremely poor. Many people tell me that they get no less than 25 per cent, dirt and slate in the coal, which means that instead of getting two tons a year, they get one and three quarter tons. Two old age pensioners in a small town in my constituency find that they require at least one cwt. a week, or 2 tons 12 cwts. a year. The husband is 87 and the wife is 84. They find the greatest difficulty in filling in the necessary forms to get the coal, with the result that for a portion of the time they have to remain cold.
Another complaint is that one cannot get the type of fuel one orders. Many farmers have put in fuel saving stoves which require anthracite, and when they ask for anthracite, they are told that only coke is available. Coke does not burn so economically and it puts a great deal more work on the farmer's wife, because the stove needs more attention if the wrong sort of fuel is used. Again, there is considerable discontent in a rural constituency because the farm workers find, if they are short of coal, that they have to buy wood, and they hear that the miners get extra coal. I should be
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interested to hear from the Parliamentary Secretary how much coal a miner gets a year. It is, I believe, considerably more than the prevailing ration.
Mr. Shurmer: Does not the shop keeper have the best goods from his shop?
Mr. Lambert: I am grateful for the interruption because what makes the farmer and farm worker particularly enraged in Devonshire—a county renowned for producing the best beef in the world—
Colonel Gomme-Duncan: No, Scottish beef is the best.
Mr. Lambert: Possibly Scottish beef is nearly as good, but I maintain that Devon beef is really the best.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): I find nothing in the order about beef.
Mr. Lambert: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy. Speaker, I was merely saying that Devon produced fine beef in order to—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not want any county antagonisms to be developed.
Mr. Lambert: Then may I put it this way: In agricultural areas that produce good beef—
Mr. Turner-Samuels: What about coal?
Mr. Lambert: —the beef is often, especially in Devonshire, sent to mining districts. The farm worker who is responsible for the production of this good beef sees it go to other workers while he gets beef of poor quality—
Mr. Shurmer: The farmers keep the best.
Mr. Lambert: —which causes even greater discontent. I hope that this Debate will have the effect of increasing the ration.
8.17 p.m.
Mr. Blyton: I did not intend to intervene in this Debate, but hearing the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor) and the hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) has brought me to my feet. The question is whether we are to continue with a ration and use all the available coal

2215
for export to bring in raw materials and the food and, at the same time, maintain our industries in full production, or whether we should increase the ration and thereby reduce the export of coal by that figure. Stocks are accumulating, and it is essential that stocks should accumulate so that, if a severe winter comes, we shall be able to maintain the industries of this country in full employment and not face what we faced last year, when factories had to close down due to shortage of stocks.
Therefore, I suggest that the Government are wise in again fixing the amount, leaving stocks available, and also increasing our commitment of 13 million tons to a minimum of 16 million tons this year to help the country win the fight of the gap. I put it to the House that the Prayer may be motivated by a meeting which has taken place elsewhere. Another point is that a target of 211 million tons is fixed for the mining industry this year. I speak as one who has spent 32 years in the pit, and I say frankly that 211 million tons from pit and opencast coal this year is a formidable figure for the miners to attain.
Lord William Scott: Is that coal, or what we get now, which is coal and stone?
Mr. Blyton: I will answer the question about quality if the hon. Member will wait. If 211 million tons are attained, we shall be able to get by export the extra raw materials that we need. It is such a formidable figure that the manpower problem is again rearing its ugly head in the mining industry. If we are to build up a bigger export trade people must recognise that their supplies are limited to the present quantities not because we like to keep them at this figure, but because it is essential, if we are to get the maximum food and raw material to keep our people in employment, to get the largest possible export of coal this year.
A lot has been said about the quality of coal. Under private enterprise this was always a burning question. One would think that complaints of the quality of coal have arisen only since the National Coal Board took over the pits. There have always been complaints, especially in the days of private enterprise. We
2216
cannot argue about increasing mechanisation and at the same time expect to get better quality coal when private enterprise, in the development of mechanisation, failed to build the washeries for mechanised mining.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I particularly did not mention private or public enterprise. I was not blaming anyone. I only gave reasons, including the lack of facilities, and suggested that where there is bad coal an allowance should be made. That is quite a different story.
Mr. Blyton: That issue was not raised by the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor). I listened attentively to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) but he did not say what he now suggests he said. Unless we build sufficient washeries in our pits and have intensive mechanisation, the problem will be difficult for years to come. We cannot avoid that issue. We have gone from higher seams to lower seams. They are dirty and that is bound to affect the quality of the coal.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am sorry to have to interrupt the hon. Member. He is now getting on to a discussion of general coal matters. We must deal with what is contained in the order.
Mr. Blyton: I was trying to explain the question of quality which has arisen tonight and I am speaking of these technical matters in their relation to mining. I shall, however, accede to that request.
Sir J. Mellor: What I said was that the Minister had admitted that the quality was inferior because of a lack of cleaning plant. I did not go into the question of whether the cause could have been removed.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I must, however, point out to hon. Members that the order deals not with the quality but with the quantity of coal.
Sir J. Mellor: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. With great respect, I do not think one can dissociate quality from quantity in this matter. If there is a maximum allowance, the combustibility of the fuel supply must be closely related to the adequacy of the quantity.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I can understand the point of Order which the hon. Member has made, but this order deals with quantity. I admit that in passing a reference can be made to quality, but that is not the burden of the Debate.
Mr. Blyton: I accept the Ruling. I got up only to challenge the view of the Opposition.
Another question which has been raised is the amount of coal which miners receive. If any hon. Member would like to go down a pit, where there are plenty of jobs to be done, he can get his free coal. It is not correct, however, to say that it is free.
Mr. Lambert: If the farm labourer goes down a pit he will not be able to do his proper job and there will be no food. We want both food and coal. The miner is getting a large quantity of coal but the farm labourer does not benefit in the same way.
Mr. Blyton: The farmer gets things that miners do not get. It is a reciprocal argument. The miner's coal is part of his wages. Not even the National Coal Board dared to stop the miner's coal; they did not even attempt to do so. Much has been shouted in Parliament because the coal position has been difficult and that the miner who has had his coal since 1879 should have it abolished in 1948. If ever the Opposition get back to power and tackle this question they will find themselves in difficult waters. The miner gets coal as part of his wages and conditions of employment. A miner sometimes has to work in water or in bad conditions. There may be a family with three sons, all going to work in multiple shifts at different times of the day; the miner's wife is up from morning till night getting them to work. As regards the miner's coal, the least said the soonest mended. The order should be continued in the interests of our export trade. It should be pointed out to the people that, because we are trying to build up maximum exports to obtain food and raw materials, this order must be maintained for the next 12 months.
8.28 p.m.
Colonel Gomme-Duncan: The House will have recognised the sincerity and interest of the
2218
hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) whose knowledge of his subject began with his youth. No one would attempt to laugh at or to water down what he has said, but I do not think—I trust I will not be out of Order—he has got the proper comparison between farmworker and mineworker.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. and gallant Member is quite right. If he continues that line he will definitely be out of Order.
Colonel Gomme-Duncan: I apologise, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. This order, coming after three years of Socialist Government, is a perfect example to the whole world of the abject failure of the nationalisation policy. I do not want to go into the many details which have already been touched upon by my hon. Friends, but I can emphasise from the northern kingdom that the question of controlled premises getting the same amount of coal, whether large or small, makes a very great deal of difference to the citizen. If I lived in a large house which unfortunately had been left to me, it would not make it any easier to run it to have only the same amount of coal as the person with a small house. More consideration should be given to the actual area of a house which a person occupies, and which he cannot leave, even if he wanted to, because there is nowhere else to go. This aspect should be reasonably considered by the Minister.
I am afraid that this miserable allowance of coal for the people will go on until the matter is put on a better footing. Nobody denies the immense importance to this country of the mining industry. Nobody has a greater admiration for the miner than I have. In my own regiment we had Fife miners always in large numbers. I have been associated with them for years and have no greater respect for anybody than I have for the Fife miner. I wish the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) were present to hear me say this, but I shall tell him as soon as I see him. I recall the General Election and remember clearly big posters saying, "Vote Labour and fill your scuttle." It did not say what the scuttle was to be filled with, but I presume that it meant coal. As the poet said,
"For dead as last year's golden leaves
Are last year's golden promises."

2219
I am afraid that has come to pass and this order is a confession of failure on the part of the Government. I most sincerely hope that the House will agree to annul the order and let something come out that will show the Government's policy to be working better than this order shows that it is.
8.30 p.m.
Mr. Hugh Fraser: I do not want to enter into an agriculture versus mineralogy controversy, but to come to the problem before us. I want to ask the question—is there sufficient coal to provide an additional ration? That is a very difficult question to answer. I know that in North Staffordshire at the moment there is considerable over-stocking of coal slack. There are some factories which have 22 weeks' supply of coal and others with 10 to 12 weeks' supply. Power stations in the North Midlands have as much as nine weeks' supply. This is a very complicated question, and I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will give us some indication, if he is not too exhausted, of the overall position. It is a difficult position on which to reach a clear conclusion.
In other areas there may be a shortage of coal, but it seems to me that the speech made by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton), to which we all listened with interest and respect, indicated one thing, which was that the quality of coal, owing to mechanisation and a variety of other things, is at the moment below saleable quality. We have to face the fact that this country is finding it difficult now because of the price to export coal abroad. We have heard rumours of coal shipments being refused, but the position was brought home to me by information about one of the small coal mines in Scotland which was sending coal to Norway or Sweden—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member is now quite out of Order. This Order is simply dealing with the distribution of coal in this, country.
Mr. Fraser: While bowing to your Ruling, Sir, may I say that the case I am trying to establish—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I cannot allow the hon. Gentleman to attempt to establish any case, because it would be out of Order for him to do so.
Mr. Fraser: There seems to be a sufficiency of coal in this country to allow for an increase in the ration. The rate laid down in this order creates extreme difficulty and hardship for many people. On the other hand, there are cases where the coal cannot be disposed of, and if it cannot be disposed of by selling abroad, the domestic ration could be slightly increased by it. We have the announcement that 4,000 men are going out of employment in small mines. They were producing something like one million tons a year, and that coal could be used for giving a hundredweight or two to the householders of this country. It is not wonderful coal, but it is as good as the coal which is being produced by opencast mining.
In considering this order, let us remember that there may be certain areas where there are over-stocks of coal, while in others there may be less than is needed to meet local demands. However, the point which I hope the Minister will consider is the possibility of a better distribution, possibly on a regional basis. After all, the present order works on a regional basis. The northern householder gets more coal than does the southern householder. There is more coal available in Staffordshire than in other areas, and surely the local people should be allowed to have some of this extra coal. The Minister should look at this very carefully. There is the difficulty of selling our coal abroad because of the high price, and we have also the information that there is not sufficient washing machinery to produce first-rate coal; so that there is an inevitable building up of stocks, which could be distributed to our people on a regional basis. I urge the Minister to take some steps in order that our people may be warm in the difficult times that lie ahead.
8.38 p.m.
Colonel Wheatley: I am sorry that the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) is not present at the moment, because he made a suggestion that this Prayer was put down for some reason connected with something that is going on elsewhere, but that is not correct. I should like to assure the House that this Prayer was put down because of the importance of it to our constituents all over the country and as far as I am concerned particularly to the

2221
people of Southern England. They feel that after all the promises that were given at the time of the General Election as to what they would get when the mines were nationalised, and the bright prospects which were held out after the war, they would be getting more coal than they are allowed under this order. They feel it is harsh that this order should keep the coal ration at the same figure as it has been for the past year. In the South of England the people feel that they are being unfairly treated, because of the discrimination between them and the people of Northern England. If a study is made of the isotherm charts, London appears to be quite a cold place whereas Blackpool away in the North has quite a moderate and even climate.
In the South we feel that there is no reason why those in the North should be given such a much greater supply. England is a comparatively small country, and there cannot be a very great variation of climate except on the hills. Presumably all the people in the North do not live on the hills. We in the South feel that there should not be this discrimination. We feel that more coal should be distributed to us in the South. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor) mentioned the question of families living in the same house. I cannot believe that the Minister of Fuel and Power has taken into consideration the unfortunate and we hope abnormal housing conditions that prevail in this country at the present time. One often gets a case where there is a young wife, her husband and baby living with her parents who are old people. That young couple are not allowed to have their own supply of coal, because they are all of the same family. Young people do not want to spend their evenings at the same fire in the sitting room as the old people. They want their own fire in their own room. They ought to have their own quarters and their own quota of coal. After all, it is hard enough that they cannot have their own house which is the fault of the Government. [Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite jeer at that, but I would remind them that they are in power and that they have the Minister of Health. He does not sit on this side of the House.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The Minister of Health has nothing to do with this Order.
Colonel Wheatley: I will bow to your Ruling, but I will excuse myself by putting my digression down to the jeers of hon. Members on the other side. To continue this question, it is important that these families should get a share of the coal, and if they cannot have a house of their own and they have to share living quarters with their relatives, they should be given a coal ration. It is unfair, in view of the impossibility of them getting their own houses at the present time, that they should be made to share the same fire the whole time. We may get the reverse. We may get a grandmother sharing a house. She may not want to sit with the young people and the babies all the time; she probably wants her own fire. The Minister should consider these hardships and see if he can give his fuel overseers directions and power to deal more sympathetically with these cases.
Mr. Stubbs: On a point of Order. What have babies to do with coal?
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not a point of Order. The hon. and gallant Member for Eastern Dorset (Colonel Wheatley) is not quite out of Order but is getting very close to it.
Colonel Wheatley: I dare say that the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Stubbs) realises that babies have to be kept warm and require more coal for the drying of their clothes than the hon. Member probably needs. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield also mentioned a very burning point, the fact that householders are not allowed to change their supplier. For various reasons the coal may not be of good quality or they may not be able to get their supplies. It is very difficult in some cases because the supplier has a monopoly and as long as he gets rid of his coal, he does not worry very much whether he delivers it to everybody who needs it.
The instances I have given are founded on cases with which I have had to deal. In many instances the local fuel overseer has done his best to help, but all the time he has to say that he cannot go outside the regulations. The Minister should consider these points and see if he can widen his regulations in order to help these deserving cases. Hon. Gentlemen opposite may jeer at them, but these are genuine cases which have been brought

2223
to my notice. I would stress the importance which is attached to this Prayer by my constituents. They will look very intently at the Minister's reply.
8.43 p.m.
Lord William Scott: I want to address certain points to the Minister before he replies. He has doubtless read the Economic Survey for 1948. In paragraph 88 there appears the very interesting sentence which concludes:
"And in a successful effort to hold back home consumption to a reasonable level."
When they read that sentence, a number of my constituents rather suspected that their coal ration would be reduced a little further, and they will be relieved if the Minister can tell us that in the year ahead their ration will not be reduced. Several other matters worry my constituents. The most important is that coal has to be conveyed a considerable distance by rail to my area in the South of Scotland. My constituents are unable to understand why in this third year of Socialist administration the Government should bother to cart about hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of tons of stone. A very large proportion of the coal brought to the six burghs on the Scottish border consists of stone, a far greater proportion than in the years before the Government controlled the mines. My constituents would like to know whether there is any chance of getting a bigger percentage of combustible coal and a smaller proportion of stone—
Mr. Stubbs: On a point of Order. Are we talking about quantities of coal or quality? Exactly what are we on?
Lord William Scott: The distribution of coal.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Perhaps the hon. Member will leave it to the Chair to control the Debate.
Lord William Scott: As there seems to be doubt, this order is entitled, "Coal Distribution… General Direction." Copies can be found outside if hon. Members need them. I am dealing with the distribution of coal, and not only the coal but the stone which goes with it. The coal and stone having been brought a considerable distance to these border towns, much of it has then to be carried a further distance into the long valleys which we
2224
see in Scotland. It is an awful waste of road and rail transport with the amount of stone which is at present included. That is one of the matters—
Mr. Thomas Brown: One of the reasons there is an excessive amount of foreign substance in coal now is that only 42 per cent, of the screening plant is capable of cleaning coal because the coal owners neglected to bring it up-to-date.
Lord William Scott: In the days before 1939 the difficulty of the coal companies was to sell the excessive stocks of coal at the pitheads. It is only since the Government took control of the mines that there have been shortages of coal.
Mr. T. Brown Mr. T. Brown rose—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I cannot let this go any further. We are now getting on to something entirely outside the order. I would remind all hon. Members that we are dealing with quantity and not necessarily with quality.
Lord William Scott: It is "Coal Distribution…General Direction." Another point which worries a very great number of people throughout England as well as Scotland is whether anything of this restriction will be felt in Government offices. A large proportion of the population of Britain at one time or another every winter go into a Government office, and one of the first things they discover is that there is a great deal more warmth and apparently far more coal available in Government offices than in private houses. It would be interesting to know whether this restriction will be applied to Government-controlled offices. A lot of citizens would like to know that.
I would take the opportunity of saying what extraordinarily fine service the Ministry have had from their coal overseers in what must be very difficult work. I have nothing but the highest regard for the services which they have given. I cannot imagine how they have managed to give as much satisfaction as they have, when their allocations of coal have had to be the same whether to a large or a small family or to a large or a small house. It seems strange that when these new orders have come out, no attention should have been paid to an arrangement which seems hardly calculated to give satisfaction, or to the number of in-

2225
dividuals who are supposed to benefit by any allocation of coal. The amount allocated is the same, irrespective of whether the number of individuals is a couple or 20.
8.52 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Mr. Robens): You have been more than generous, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, in permitting this discussion to range fairly widely. I will not trespass upon your generosity but will keep to the issue, which is the Prayer against this order. I would, however, express my thanks to the hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) who sympathised with me for having been in and around this House for the past 32 hours, engaged at this Box on oil, upstairs on gas and now tonight on coal.
I accept immediately the statement made by one of his hon. Friends, in answer to some very wicked allegations by one of my hon. Friends, that this Debate had been deliberately designed to keep me out of the Gas Committee tonight. I accept immediately from the hon. Gentleman that there was no such intention. I cannot say that my hon. Friends will accept the same attitude. I imagine that they will have noticed that because the Tory Party are standing tonight for the right of the people to be free, to take the lid off and let the coal go unrationed and unallocated, there have not been more than six or seven Members of that party on the benches opposite. They may have deduced from that fact that there was possibly something in the contention of my hon. Friend suggesting that the Prayer had been put down to keep me or my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power from the Gas Committee this evening.
I assure hon. Members that I do not personally take that view. I know that they have come here in complete honesty and sincerity because they believe this order of ours to be a pernicious and bad order and one that ought to be prayed against. I have no doubt that they will take this matter to a Division. We recognise how strongly they feel about it.
Many questions have been raised by hon. Members opposite. I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) and
2226
to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels), who dealt so excellently with the legal points that were put up. We have listened to a legal argument between two hon. and learned Gentlemen and we have all benefited from it. I certainly have, and it has saved me having to deal with the same point. I would not presume to put myself on anything like so high a level as my hon. and learned Friend. Before I pass to the main theme I must say something about the hon. Baronet the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor).
He showed a pathetic eagerness to believe that childish delusion that the Government would be so wicked as to store up coal and then wait till within six months of a General Election. I do not think the Home Secretary, who has just come in, heard this argument suggesting that the Government would like to store up coal to within six months of a General Election and would then let it go free in order that they might win power for another five years. All I can say to the hon. Baronet is that this Government will win power next time on the strength of its achievements this time. I will go further and tell him that this Government never has and never will seek to bribe the electors. The trouble with hon. Members opposite is that for the first time in their political lives they have seen a Government come to power and carry out the promises it made at the General Election.
Sir J. Mellor Sir J. Mellor rose—
Mr. Robens: I feel certain that if I were to proceed further along those lines that you would call me to Order. If I were to give way to the hon. Baronet I would start another row. I am most anxious to get back to the Gas Committee. I think I can satisfy the noble Lord who was so eager to come in just now. Provided that we are back again at about 10 o'clock, nothing will have gone awry. If he feels disposed to come along and help the Committee by his cheery disposition and the smiling face that he always shows to the House he might come along.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I must indicate to the hon. Member that there is nothing in the order dealing with the Gas Committee.
Mr. Robens: I apologise, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I thought that would have been

2227
useful information for the hon. Baronet to know that we shall be sitting all night tonight and that he might like to come along. It would make it about 64 hours of still having had no sleep, but, coming fresh into it—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member may have given us information, but it has nothing to do with the order.
Mr. Robens: I must apologise. I have been driven off the proper path, as you will have observed, by the way in which I have been maliciously attacked by hon. Members opposite when I sat so peacefully and did not interrupt a single time, but had to listen to most awful imputations against my Department. However, Mr. Deputy-Speaker—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member said that he had been driven off the proper path. I have not yet observed him on the path.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: On a point of Order. If the hon. Member cannot regain the path may he be sent back to the gas-chamber as quickly as possible?
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It is not for me to send anybody anywhere.
Mr. Robens: We are dealing with an order that my right hon. Friend signed and which is described as Order No. 17. I ought perhaps to describe this order. It is given under the Coal Distribution Order, 1943, and it prescribes the maximum quantities of coal fuels which may be supplied without licence to premises controlled under the order. The premises include all the domestic and non-industrial premises, and the smallest industrial premises. It may interest hon. Members to know that there are something like 15,250,000 premises, of which 14,500,000 are domestic premises. The maximum annual quantities for the house coal group are 50 cwt. in the northern regions, Wales and Scotland, and 34 cwt. in the southern regions. In all regions not more than 20 cwt. may be supplied during the summer period from May to October. Of course there is a second group, known as the boiler fuel group, for which a separate maximum of 40 cwt. of fuel can be supplied with not more than 20 cwt. in each half year. Fuels in this group are obtainable in addition to supplies in the house coal group.
2228
The annual maximum for the house coal group is the same as for the past three years. For the second group the maximum is 5 cwt. more than last year, but I agree the year before it was 5 cwt. less, so we are back to the original position.
Consumers who have need of larger quantities than the general maxima should apply to the local fuel overseer, who has full power under Article 6 of the Coal Distribution Order to license additional supplies according to need. In the case of certain categories of consumers, such as consumers with larger domestic premises and those relying on solid fuel for heating as well as cooking, the overseers have been instructed as to the scale on which additional supplies should be licensed. To give one example, consumers in the north who rely on solid fuel for cooking and heating are licensed to receive an additional 10 cwt. during the year making a total of 60 cwt., and in the south they can receive an additional 20 cwt. making a total of 54 cwt.
Some comment has been made in relation to the increased production of coal and to the fact that we have not increased allowances for the domestic user here at home. My right hon. Friend spent some time on this matter when he spoke on the Budget proposals and dealt with some aspects of the Economic Survey. It may suffice to recall that in his speech of 13th April he pointed out that as a result of increased production and the fact that, consumption had been held down to about 3 per cent, more than last winter we were in the happy position of having very substantial stocks. I am glad to tell the House tonight the latest stock figure which at the end of April amounted to 13,098,000 tons—a great tribute to the industry and the miners who have produced it.
The Minister also informed the House that because of the high level of stocks he had given anxious consideration to the possibility of distributing more coal to the domestic consumer. As is made clear in the Economic Survey, however, the first call upon our coal supplies must be to meet industrial needs, and the second must be to take full advantage of the bargaining power of coal exports in trade negotiations. We must increase our exports as rapidly as possible in order to secure food and raw material to help the Chancellor of the Exchequer balance our foreign payments. The real question is

2229
whether we can do better for the houswife by exporting coal and so getting bacon, meat, and eggs which she and all of us need even more than a few hundredweight of coal for domestic consumption.
In the result, it becomes clear that any substantial improvement in supplies to domestic consumers must depend upon the overall output from the pits. We have, therefore, fixed a domestic programme on a basis which should provide deliveries at approximately the same level as during the last coal year, after taking into account the expected increase in registrations arising from the building of new houses and the concession announced recently in allowing separate registration of all sub-tenant families of two or more persons. This programme allows for house coal disposals of approximately 30 million tons during the year, and that compares with from 29 million to 29½million tons during the three previous years. It may interest hon. Members to observe the figure for pre-war years which was 44 million tons, so that there is not a very wide margin between the present allocation for the domestic user and that which was available during the pre-war years.
What would happen if this Prayer to annul this order were carried?
Lord William Scott: Get a new one.
Mr. Robens: No, we should not get a new one at all. If this Prayer were annulled, coal would be allowed on the market without restriction—
Lord William Scott: Then bring in a better Bill.
Mr. Robens: —and it would depend upon the capacity of the people to pay as to who got the coal and who went without. I think the Government are right. Much as it may annoy hon. Members opposite, the Government are right in doing with coal what they do with all other goods in short supply; that is, to ensure, in so far as is humanly possible, that there is a fair do all round. I am certain that the Government will not depart from that principle, no matter how long hon. Members opposite may want to pray in this House or elsewhere.
Lord William Scott Lord William Scott rose—
Mr. Robens: I cannot give way; I have got to get back to the Committee which is considering the Gas Bill. The Ministry
2230
of Fuel and Power have gradually built up and improved a system of control which has functioned with a very substantial measure of success, even during the severe winter of 1946. I think hon. Members are aware of the way in which that operates, and I will not weary the House with the details.
I have been asked what is the policy on relaxation. I think I have said sufficient to make it perfectly clear that at present we cannot relax controls to any material extent. The position, however, is kept under constant review, and whenever we are able to do so we allow some relaxation of the restrictions. At the beginning of March last, owing to the very satisfactory position of merchants' stocks, my right hon. Friend was able to make a concession to domestic consumers by abolishing for March and April the restrictions under which consumers who had received less than the maximum quantity in the earlier part of the year were prevented from carrying forward the deficiency, and from thus increasing the maximum they might purchase later in the year. Although this concession involved no guarantee that deliveries to this extent would be possible everywhere, it did permit merchants to deliver rather more to those consumers who had suffered from low deliveries earlier in the year.
In the general direction under discussion provision has been made for consumers in the South to obtain up to 20 cwt. during the Summer instead of 15 cwt. as last year. This will have a double effect, as far as supplies are available, of allowing consumers who want a ton during the summer to stock up their cellars to a greater extent than last year, and at the same time it will help to relieve the strain of winter distribution by merchants. We have also eliminated the quarterly restriction periods during the winter and substituted one half-yearly period, thus permitting greater elasticity in distribution during the winter.
At the same time, we have instructed local fuel overseers to permit separate registration during the current coal year to all sub-tenancies of two or more persons, and have thus moved an irritating restriction which formed a constant source of complaint, particularly for young married couples living in rooms, or with parents, because they could not obtain

2231
separate accommodation. We shall continue to keep the supply position under review, in order to make such further relaxations as may be possible from time to time in the light of the special position and the export programme.
In relation to the comment made about the ability of the consumer to change his merchant, the right exists at present if the consumer moves his residence, or it the business of the merchant is transferred to another owner. Change of registration is also permitted when there has been unsatisfactory service, for which the merchant can be held responsible. In regard to the larger problem of complete changing of registrations, all I can say is that that matter is under consideration. I am sorry I have been so long and have possibly wearied the House with a long explanation of this Order, and matters arising from it. I hope, however, that from what I have said the House will readily come to a decision, and if this is pressed to a Division, that my hon. Friends will support me in the Lobby, for the freedom of the people of this country to have a fair deal in regard to coal against the method by which only those who have large cellars can stock up to the limit.
9.12 p.m.
Brigadier Medlicott: Will the Minister direct attention to one particular injustice which arises out of the geographical position of the line dividing these two areas of England? As the line is at present drawn, the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, which are exposed to inclement and cold weather in the winter, come into the Southern half, with the result that the allocation of coal for Norfolk and Suffolk is the same as for Torquay and Bournemouth. I gather that the line was drawn as a result of reference to a very ancient document. I beg the Minister to have a look into the matter, as it has resulted in serious injustice to people living on that part of the coast.
9.13 p.m.
Sir J. Mellor: I listened with gratitude to a number of explanations the Parliamentary Secretary has given and I listened with interest. But he has not satisfied me that this is a good order. Indeed, I am more and more convinced as a result of this Debate that it is a thoroughly bad order. If this order were annulled, the
2232
Parliamentary Secretary knows perfectly well that another order, a better order, could be made tomorrow. The Parliamentary Secretary said nothing about the rigidity of the order in that it prescribes a maximum which is irrespective of the number of rooms in the premises and the number of persons involved. He said nothing about the relation between quality and quantity. He said nothing to justify the apportionment of maximum allowances between Summer and Winter, and while referring to the very considerable stocks now in hand he gave no explanation why the maximum allowances could not be guaranteed.
Surely if stocks are as ample as he described, the Minister could perfectly well guarantee those very meagre allowances. Why could we not have that assurance from him tonight? He said nothing about the plans of his Ministry and this is a point on which I particularly asked for an assurance. He said nothing about the plans of his Ministry in the event of next Winter being as severe as the Winter before last. Apparently, the Ministry is going to gamble again on the weather.
Lastly, I should like an assurance on this point. When I said that his Ministry, in my view, was deliberately accumulating stocks with a view to releasing them and increasing the allowances just before the next General Election, I was not making an assertion which would affect his Ministry only. I say that it is the deliberate policy of every Department in this Government which controls any commodity—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I cannot allow the hon. Member to pursue that argument. It has nothing whatever to do with the Motion.
Sir J. Mellor: I must then confine the point to the Ministry of Fuel and Power, and I assert that it is the policy of that Ministry deliberately to accumulate stocks in order to release them shortly before the next General Election. In the circumstances, I propose to divide the House.
Question put,
"That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Direction, dated 23rd April, 1948, entitled the Coal Distribution Order, 1943, General Direction (Restriction of Supplies) No. 17 (S.I., 1948, No. 833), a copy of which was presented on 26th April, be annulled."
The House divided: Ayes, 55; Noes. 227.

Division No. 151.]

AYES

[6.10 p.m.

Amory, D. Heathcoat

Harden, J. R E

Poole, O. B. S. (Oswestry)

Assheton, Rt. Hon. R.

Head, Brig. A. H.

Prior-Palmer, Brig. O.

Baldwin, A. E.

Henderson, John (Cathcart)

Ramsay, Maj. S.

Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.

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

Rayner, Brig. R.

Bennett, Sir P.

Hulbert, Wing-Cdr. N. J.

Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)

Birch, Nigel

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

Renton, D.

Bossom, A. C.

Jeffreys, General Sir G.

Roberts, P. G. (Ecclesall)

Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.

Jennings, R.

Robinson, Roland

Bracken, Rt. Hon. Brendan

Keeling, E. H.

Ropner, Col. L.

Braithwaite, Lt.-Comdr. J. G.

Lambert, Hon. G.

Scott, Lord W.

Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.

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

Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)

Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (S'ffr'n W'ld'n)

Lindsay, M. (Solihull)

Snadden, W. M.

Carson, E.

Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)

Spearman, A. C. M.

Clarke, Col. R. S.

Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)

Spence, H. R.

Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G.

Low, A. R. W.

Strauss, H. G. (English Universities)

Cole, T. L.

Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.

Sutcliffe, H.

Conant, Maj. R. J. E.

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.

Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

Cooper-Key, E. M.

Macdonald, Sir P. (I. of Wight)

Teeling, William

Crowder, Capt. John E.

Mackeson, Brig. H. R.

Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

Davidson, Viscountess

MacLeod, J.

Touche, G. C.

Dodds-Parker, A. D.

Macpherson, N. (Dumfries)

Turton, R. H.

Dower, E. L. G. (Caithness)

Maitland, Comdr. J. W.

Vane, W. M. F.

Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)

Marlowe, A. A. H.

Watt, Sir G. S. Harvie

Duthie, W. S.

Marshall, D. (Bodmin)

Wheatley, Colonel M. J. (Dorset, E.)

Eden, Rt. Hon. A.

Mellor, Sir J.

White, Sir D. (Fareham)

Elliot, RI. Hon. Walter

Morris-Jones, Sir H.

White, J. B. (Canterbury)

Fraser, H. C. P. (Stone)

Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir D. P. M.

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

Winterton, Rt. Hon Earl

Glyn, Sir R.

Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.

York, C.

Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.

Grant, Lady

O'Neill, Rt. Hon Sir H.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Grimston, R. V.

Pitman, I. J.

Sir Arthur Young and

Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)

Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

Mr. Studholme.

NOES.

Acland, Sir Richard

Foot, M. M.

Oldfield, W. H.

Adams, Richard (Balham)

Forman, J. C.

Oliver, G. H.

Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)

Fraser, T. (Hamilton)

Orbach, M.

Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)

Gaitskell, Rt. Hon H. T. N.

Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

Alpass, J. H.

Gallacher, W.

Palmer, A. M. F

Austin, H. Lewis

Ganley, Mrs. C. S.

Parkin, B. T.

Awbery, S. S.

George, Lady M Lloyd (Anglesey)

Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)

Ayles, W. H.

Gibbins, J.

Paton, J (Norwich)

Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.

Gilzean, A.

Peart, T. F.

Bacon, Miss A.

Glanville, J. E. (Consett)

Porter, G. (Leeds)

Baird, J.

Gordon-Walker, P. C.

Pryde, D. J.

Balfour, A.

Granville, E. (Eye)

Pursey, Cmdr. H.

Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.

Greenwood, A. W J. (Heywood)

Reeves, J.

Barstow, P. G.

Grenfell, D. R.

Reid, T. (Swindon)

Barton, C.

Grey, C. F.

Ridealgh, Mrs. M.

Battley, J. R.

Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)

Robens, A.

Bechervaise, A. E.

Griffiths, Rt. Hon J. (Llanelly)

Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)

Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

Gunter, R. J.

Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)

Berry, H.

Hale, Leslie

Royle, C.

Beswick, F.

Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil

Sargood, R.

Blenkinsop, A.

Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.

Scollan, T.

Blyton, W. R.

Hardy, E. A.

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

Boardman, H.

Harrison, J.

Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

Bowden, Flg. Offr H. W.

Hastings, Dr. Somerville

Shurmer, P.

Bowen, R

Herbison, Miss M.

Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)

Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)

Hewitson, Captain M.

Simmons, C. J.

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

Hobson, C. R.

Skeffington, A. M.

Braddock, T. (Mitcham)

Holmes, H. E (Hemsworth)

Skeffington-Lodge, T. C.

Brook, D. (Halifax)

House, G.

Skinnard, F. W.

Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)

Hoy, J.

Smith, C. (Colchester)

Brown, George (Belper)

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

Smith, Ellis (Stoke)

Brown, T. J. (Ince)

Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

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

Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.

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

Snow, J. W.

Buchanan, Rt. Hon. G.

Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)

Sorensen, R. W.

Burden, T. W.

Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

Soskice, Sir Frank

Burke, W. A.

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

Steele, T.

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

Jenkins, R. H.

Stross, Dr. B.

Byers, Frank

Johnston, Douglas

Stubbs, A. E.

Callaghan, James

Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)

Summerskill, Dr. Edith

Castle, Mrs. B. A.

Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)

Sylvester, G. O.

Chamberlain, R. A.

Keenan, W.

Symonds, A. L.

Champion, A. J.

Kenyon, C

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

Chetwynd, G. R.

King, E. M.

Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)

Cluse, W. S.

Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr E.

Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)

Cobb, F. A.

Kinley, J.

Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)

Cocks, F. S.

Lee, F. (Hulme)

Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)

Collick, P.

Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)

Thomas, John R. (Dover)

Collindridge, F.

Leonard, W.

Thomas, George (Cardiff)

Collins, V. J.

Leslie, J. R.

Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)

Colman, Miss G. M.

Levy, B. W.

Tiffany, S.

Comyns, Dr. L.

Lewis, J. (Bolton)

Timmons, J.

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

Lewis, T. (Southampton)

Titterington, M. F.

Corlett, Dr. J.

Lipson, D. L.

Tolley, L.

Cove, W. G.

Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

Ungoed-Thomas, L.

Crawley, A

Logan, D. G.

Viant, S. P.

Daggar, G.

Lyne, A. W.

Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)

Daines, P.

McAdam, W.

Watkins, T. E.

Davies, Rt. Hn. Clement (Montgomery)

McAllister, G.

Watson, W. M.

Davies, Edward (Burslem)

McEntee, V. La T.

Wells, P. L. (Faversham)

Davies, Ernest (Enfield)

McGhee, H. G.

Wells, W. T. (Walsall)

Davies, Harold (Leek)

McGovern, J.

Wheatley, Rt. Hn. J. T. (Edinb'gh, E.)

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

McKay, J. (Wallsend)

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

Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

McKinlay, A. S.

Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

Deer, G.

McLeavy, F.

Wigg, George

de Freitas, Geoffrey

Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield)

Wilcock, Group-Capt. C. A. B

Diamond, J.

Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)

Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)

Driberg, T. E. N.

Mellish, R. J.

Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)

Dumpleton, C. W.

Middleton, Mrs. L.

Williams, R. W. (Wigan)

Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

Millington, Wing-Comdr. E. R.

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

Edelman, M.

Mitchison, G. R.

Willis, E.

Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough, E.)

Monslow, W.

Wills, Mrs. E. A.

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

Moody, A. S.

Woodburn, A.

Edwards, John (Blackburn)

Morley, R.

Woods, G. S.

Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)

Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)

Wyatt, W.

Evans, Albert (Islington, W.)

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

Yates, V. F.

Evans, John (Ogmore)

Mort, D. L.

Young, Sir R. (Newton)

Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)

Murray, J. D.

Younger, Hon. Kenneth

Ewart, R.

Nally, W.

Fairhurst, F.

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

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Farthing, W J.

Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)

Mr. Joseph Henderson and

Fernyhough, E.

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

Mr. Hannan.

Resolution agreed to.

Division No. 152.

AYES

[9.15 p.m.

Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.

Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)

Smith, E. P. (Ashford)

Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.

Lucas, Major Sir J.

Snadden, W. M.

Butcher, H. W.

Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.

Spearman, A. C. M.

Challen, C.

McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.

Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

Clarke, Col. R. S.

Mackeson, Brig. H. R.

Studholme, H. G.

Conant, Maj. R. J. E.

Macpherson, N. (Dumfries)

Sutcliffe, H.

Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E

Maitland, Comdr, J. W

Thorneycroft, G. E P (Monmouth)

Dower, E. L. G. (Caithness)

Medlicott, Brigadier F.

Turton, R. H.

Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter

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

Wakefield, Sir W. W.

Foster, J, G. (Northwich)

Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.

Walker-Smith, D.

Fox Sir G.

Nield, B. (Chester)

Wheatley, Colonel M. J. (Dorset, E.)

Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir D. P. M.

Odey, G. W.

White, Sir D. (Fareham)

Gage, C.

Orr-Ewing, I. L.

Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

Grimston, R. V.

Pitman, I. J.

York, C.

Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)

Prior-Palmer, Brig. O.

Young, Sir A S L (Partick)

Hogg, Hon. Q.

Raikes, H. V.

Howard, Hon. A.

Ramsay, Maj. S.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Jennings, R.

Renton, D.

Colonel Gemme-Duncan and

Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.

Roberts, P. G. (Ecclesall)

Sir John Mellor.

Lambert, Hon. G.

Scott, Lord W.

NOES

Adams, Richard (Balham)

Evans, John (Ogmore)

Lewis, A. W. J. (Upton)

Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith South)

Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)

Lewis, T. (Southampton)

Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

Fairhurst, F.

Lipson, D. L.

Alpass, J. H.

Farthing, W. J.

Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

Austin, H. Lewis

Fernyhough, E.

Logan, D. G.

Awbery, S. S.

Field, Capt. W. J.

Lyne, A. W.

Ayles, W. H.

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

McAdam, W.

Bacon, Miss. A.

Follick, M.

McAllister, G.

Baird, J.

Forman, J. C.

McEntee, V. La T.

Balfour, A.

Fraser, T. (Hamilton)

McGhee, H. G.

Barton, C.

Gaitskell, Rt. Hon H. I. N.

McKay, J. (Wallsend)

Battley, J. R

Gallacher, W.

McKinlay, A. S

Bechervaise, A. E.

Ganley, Mrs. C. S.

McLeavy, F.

Berry, H.

Gibbins, J.

Mallalieu, J. P W. (Huddersfield)

Bing, G. H. C.

Gilzean, A.

Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)

Binns, J.

Glanville, J. E. (Consett)

Mellish, R. J.

Blackburn, A R.

Grenfell, D. R.

Middleton, Mrs. L.

Blenkinsop, A.

Grey, C. F.

Mikardo, Ian

Blyton, W. R.

Griffiths, D (Rother Valley)

Mitchison, G. R.

Boardman, H.

Griffiths, Rt. Hon J. (Llanelly)

Moody, A. S.

Bottomley, A. G.

Gunter, R. J.

Morley, R.

Bowden, Flg. Offr. H. W.

Haire, John E. (Wycombe)

Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)

Bowen, R.

Hale, Leslie

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

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

Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil

Mort, D. L.

Braddock, T. (Mitcham)

Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.

Moyle, A.

Bramall, E. A.

Hannan, W. (Maryhill)

Mulvey, A.

Brook, D. (Halifax)

Hardy, E. A.

Murray, J. D.

Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)

Harrison, J.

Nally, W.

Brown, George (Belper)

Hastings, Dr. Somerville

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

Brown, T. J. (Ince)

Henderson, Joseph (Ardwick)

Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)

Buchanan, Rt. Hon. G.

Herbison, Miss. M.

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

Burden, T. W.

Hewitson, Capt. M.

Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P J (Derby)

Burke, W. A.

Holman, P.

O'Brien, T.

Castle, Mrs. B. A.

Holmes, H. E (Hemsworth)

Oldfield, W. H.

Champion, A J.

Hoy, J.

Oliver, G. H.

Chetwynd, G. R.

Hubbard, T.

Orbach, M.

Cobb, F. A.

Hudson, J. H (Ealing, W.)

Paget, R. T.

Cocks, F. S.

Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayr)

Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

Collindridge, F.

Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

Palmer, A. M. F.

Collins, V. J.

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

Pargiter, G. A.

Colman, Miss G. M.

Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)

Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)

Cooper, Wing-Comdr. G.

Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)

Paton, J. (Norwich)

Corlett, Dr. J.

Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

Pearson, A.

Daggar, G.

Irvine, A. J. (Liverpool)

Poole, Cecil (Lichfield)

Daines, P.

Jeger, G. (Winchester)

Popplewell, E.

Davies, Edward (Burslem)

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

Porter, G. (Leeds)

Davies, Harold (Leek)

Jenkins, R. H.

Price, M. Philips

Deer, G.

Johnston, Douglas

Pritt, D. N.

Diamond, J.

Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)

Pryde, D. J.

Dobbie, W.

Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)

Pursey, Cmdr. H.

Driberg, T. E. N.

Keenan, W.

Ranger, J.

Dumpleton, C. W.

Kendall, W. D.

Rankin, J.

Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

Kenyon, C

Reeves, J.

Edelman, M.

King, E. M.

Reid, T. (Swindon)

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

Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr E.

Rhodes, H.

Edwards, John (Blackburn)

Kinley, J.

Ridealgh, Mrs. M.

Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)

Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)

Robens, A.

Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)

Leonard, W.

Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)

Evans, E. (Lowestoft)

Levy, B. W.

Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)

2234

2235

Royle, C.

Sylvester, G. O.

Wells, W. T. (Walsall)

Scollan, T.

Symonds, A. L.

Wheatley, Rt. Hn. J. T. (Edinb'gh, E.)

Shackleton, E. A. A.

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

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

Sharp, Granville

Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)

Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)

Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)

Wilkes, L.

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

Thomas, John R, (Dover)

Williams, J. L (Kelvingrove)

Shurmer, P.

Thomas, George (Cardiff)

Williams, R. W. (Wigan)

Silverman, J. (Erdington)

Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)

Willis, E.

Skeffington, A. M.

Tiffany, S.

Wills, Mrs. E. A.

Skinnard, F. W.

Timmons, J.

Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. H.

Smith, C. (Colchester)

Titterington, M. F.

Wise, Major F. J.

Smith, Ellis (Stoke)

Tolley, L.

Woodburn, A.

Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S)

Turner-Samuels, M.

Woods, G. S.

Snow, J. W.

Ungoed-Thomas, L.

Yates, V. F.

Sorensen, R. W.

Vernon, Maj. W. F.

Soskice, Sir Frank

Viant, S. P.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Sparks, J. A.

Walkden, E.

Mr. Simmons and

Stross, Dr. B.

Weitzman, D.

Mr. G. Wallace.

THIRD SCHEDULE.—(Application of enact- ments in relation to river board areas.)
Sir T. Dugdale: I beg to move, in page 40, line 1, after "apply," to insert:
"and so much of Section six of that Act as provides that a person against whom proceedings are proposed to be taken under Part III of that Act may object to such proceedings being taken, and requires that a sanitary authority shall afford such a person an opportunity of being heard against such proceedings being taken, and provides for matters incidental to such hearing, shall not apply to proceedings which are proposed to be taken by a River Board."
This Amendment is designed to simplify the machinery of the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 1876, where river boards are desirous of taking proceedings to stop pollution. It is agreed by both sides of the House that this Act is very unsatisfactory and out of date. The procedure to be adopted under it can be divided into four different steps. The first is that if action is proposed under the Act an application must be made to the Minister of Health for permission to prosecute. If that has been received the next step is the investigation of the case by the Ministry followed by either permission or refusal for the prosecution to be commenced. The third stage is that where permission to prosecute has been granted, a period of two months must elapse during which time the offender may require the authority proposing to prosecute to hear him in public why it should not do so. The Amendment proposes to delete that stage in order to simplify the machinery. The fourth stage is, following that period, the bringing of proceedings before the county court assisted by skilled assessors.
6.30 p.m.
The Amendment does not in any way alter the incidence of existing pollution legislation but merely expedites the pro-

2183
ceedings where the Minister himself has agreed that a good case exists to be brought before the courts. We realise that at this stage it would be wrong to recommend any change in the law because we are aware that a sub-committee of the Central Advisory Water Committee is considering the whole question of pollution and that this Bill is a machinery Bill. A river board will be set up and its success or failure to do its job will depend upon future legislation dealing with the ever-increasing evil of pollution. However, pending legislation, we feel that we ought, to make certain suggestions in order to simplify the procedure, which appears to be cumbersome.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give us some guidance on this point. I would like to hear him say that the Central Advisory Water Committee are likely to report in the immediate future and that he is prepared to have the report published and made available to hon. Members immediately. It would be very helpful to the House and the country if we could know that he hopes that the report will be in our hands during 1948. We had only a short discussion on this point during the Committee stage because we hoped that when we got to this stage in the proceedings the Parliamentary Secretary might have further information to give us about the future activities of that sub-committee. Meanwhile, we suggest in this Amendment that the present method of approaching this problem under the 1876 Act be reviewed and simplified.
Mr. John Morrison: I beg to second the Amendment.
I do not want to take up the time of the House, for a great deal has been said on the subject of pollution. The Amendment is a step towards dealing with the matter.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. J. Edwards): I do not want to follow the hon. Baronet the Member for Richmond (Sir T. Dugdale) into a discussion about the procedure which has to be followed because, in resisting this Amendment, I take my stand, as I did in Standing Committee, on a matter of considerable principle. We have already instituted through a subcommittee of the Central Advisory Water
2184
Committee a comprehensive investigation of the law in relation to the prevention of pollution. This sub-committee comprises persons who have a first-hand knowledge of the problem. They have been given a free hand. They are being assisted by expert assessors from all the interested Government Departments. They have taken written and oral evidence from every interest concerned and are, I am confident, examining all the problems, including the very question of the procedure covered by the Amendment. I put it to the hon. Baronet and his hon. Friends that it would be most unfair to the subcommittee if we were to pre-judge their deliberations in this manner. Nevertheless, I would be the last person to want to deter the House from doing something about pollution if I thought that something in this way could be done, or if I thought that not doing this would impair the work of the river boards.
The sub-committee are at work. They are considering the terms in which they shall report. I have every reason to expect that the report will be made this year, and certainly as soon as it is available we shall proceed with its publication. If it were possible to single out procedures or things of that kind there might be something to be said for taking this step today, but we have a well conceived programme for dealing with the whole matter in which we have carried hon. Members on both sides of the House with us. The programme is that, first, we should form the river boards—authorities with comprehensive powers who will be responsible for the whole river system—and get rid, by so doing, of the present patchwork of piecemeal administration, which is commonly agreed to be the greatest defect in our present system; and then, as closely afterwards as possible, give new powers to the boards and have a large programme of new works of sewerage, sewage disposal and so on as circumstances permit.
It is on the grounds that I am most reluctant to accept isolated amendments of the law while the whole matter is being reviewed that I resist the Amendment. I am quite sure that the time it will take after this Bill has become law to get the river boards set up and working will be ample for us to consider the report of the sub-committee, have it properly discussed with all the interested parties and, in due course, to confer the necessary powers on the river boards. I

2185
hope that the hon. Baronet will feel that in the light of this explanation he need not press his Amendment. I assure him that we are as concerned as he is about pollution, but we do not want to prejudge the issue and embarrass these distinguished people who are giving their time and energy to a complete survey of the problems involved in the law relating to water pollution.
Mr. Turton: The Parliamentary Secretary said that to accept the Amendment would not be fair to the sub-committee but by denying the acceptance of the Amendment he is not being fair to the rivers. Let us admit that the whole law of pollution must be remedied, but it will take many years before we get a Pollution Bill before the House of Commons. What hope has the Minister of Agriculture of getting a Pollution Bill into next Session's programme? If it is likely that there will be no Pollution Bill before Parliament in the near future, surely that is a strong reason for wiping out one archaic feature of the present law. Nobody on the sub-committee or in this House can defend the position that, having obtained the Minister's approval to prosecute and having held the local inquiry, there should be two months' delay while we haggle with the sanitary authorities. Surely we might remove the two months? That will mean that the rivers will be less polluted than they will otherwise be and our mechanism will be that much speedier. I agree that it now takes some 10 months from the time the nuisance first occurs until proceedings are taken in the county court. All we are doing is reducing the 10 months by two months but that is a great advantage. That is an interim measure, and after a few years when the Minister of Agriculture—I expect that he will be a Minister of Agriculture of a different political complexion—brings in—
Mr. Stubbs: Some hopes.
Mr. Turton: The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Stubbs) says that he has some hopes. I can tell him that his hopes are very probable expectations and he may well think about the future with little complacency. I am at one with the Parliamentary Secretary in wanting to get the whole of the pollution law into the melting
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pot and devising a new and up-to-date method of procedure, but let us not have this non possumus attitude that until that happens the Government will do everything to retain the archaic features of the system which our ancestors have handed to us simply because they feel that we must not do something piecemeal for fear of offending some sub-committee. I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend will press his Amendment to a Division.
Mr. David Kenton: Again I find the Government's attitude quite incomprehensible. Several times through the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary the Government have agreed that the present situation is most unsatisfactory, and they have told us in the plainest possible terms that nothing can be done about it very soon. If the subcommittee were reporting next month and the Report being implemented by legislation this Session, I would agree with the Parliamentary Secretary that it would be rather offensive to the sub-committee to pass this Amendment now, but the position is very different. The position is that the report may be available this year and we do not know whether there will be legislation even in the next Session. I asked the Parliamentary Secretary in Committee if there was any chance of it and he said that he could give no undertaking.
Bearing in mind that there is to be this very considerable gap before matters are improved, I should have thought the sub-committee could not possibly have been offended if the Government said, "We are not trying to hustle you or to prejudice your findings but, bearing in mind that your recommendations cannot be carried out for quite a long time, would you, entirely without prejudice, accept this stop-gap Measure in order to prevent delays until something more satisfactory can be arranged?" A committee of reasonable men could not possibly be offended by an approach in that manner, and for that reason, I invite the House entirely to disregard what the Parliamentary Secretary said about the feelings of the sub-committee.
Amendment negatived.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
6.47 p.m.
Mr. G. Brown: I am glad to have the opportunity of speaking on the Third Reading of this important Measure. We have heard speeches telling us that the Bill is in many ways a small one, but it is a step forward, and an important step forward. It has been welcomed from every side of the House. The welcome from the Opposition side of the House was, it seemed to me, a little lukewarm, but I gathered that their enthusiasm for the Bill developed as they were the more convinced that we were not going to operate it as Conservative Governments in the past would have done. I am not sure that we have fully convinced them about it, but it is clear that they ate more keen and enthusiastic about the Bill than they were when it was first introduced.
The Bill is an important step forward in the development of machinery and in the unification of control of our rural drainage systems. We have heard speeches referring to the archaic customs of our ancestors, and other such rolling phrases, but the fact is that we have been talking about unification of this control for very nearly a century, certainly for well over half a century. I might be forgiven therefore for saying how proud and glad I am that it has been left to this Labour Government to take this opportunity to proceed to the next step from the first step which was taken by the previous Labour Government, as a result of which land drainage has been in a very much better condition than it would otherwise have been. The River Boards Bill carries on that great work. It has been well said in other connections that Labour gets things done. The Bill bears out the truth of that well-known statement.
I have said that this is an important Bill. We recognise it as only a step forward. We have to complete that step forward. We have now to proceed to set up river boards. I would like to assure the House that we shall lose as little time as we can in carrying out the most important part of that step. Getting the river boards set up will involve considerable consultation with all sorts of people. Quite a lot of work will be involved, but no time will be lost. It is the intention of my right hon. Friend to
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proceed immediately with the completion of this step. The next step is the modernisation of the pollution and drain age legislation of this country generally. Sub-committees of the Central Water Advisory Committee are hard at work on the subject. In passing this Bill on its way I want to say how much one hopes, and is sure, that it will fall to the lot of a Labour Government, perhaps even of this Labour Government, to carry the whole thing a step forward by introducing important legislation for modernising our attitude on these matters If this task does not fall to a Labour Government then, unless the whole history of this country for the last century or two is to be falsified, the task will not be done at all.
The Bill is very largely a compromise Measure. It has involved taking into account the views of a variety of interests and keeping a firm and fair balance among those interests. It has followed, because of that, that my right hon. Friend has had to resist a number of Amendments which have had as their purpose the advancement of sectional interests. He has had to preserve the balance, in spite of the blandishments, and sometimes the accusations, which have come from the other side of the House. The result is that there will be a much happier atmosphere for the commencement of the operation of the Bill than if we had allowed ourselves to be persuaded to disturb the balance which had been so painfully reached. I am sure that the House will be in full agreement with the attitude that my right hon. Friend has adopted on that point. During its passage through the House the Bill has been improved in many ways. We would like to thank hon. Members for the very calm and careful consideration which the Bill has had. There was only one time when the calm was disturbed, and that was when an hon. Baronet opposite physically assaulted his right hon. and gallant Friend by heaving his glasses at him. On that occasion, my sympathies were equally divided between the hon. Baronet and his right hon. Friend. Otherwise we have had a very calm discussion.
The Opposition have suggested at various stages that the Bill showed an undue partiality for the interests of urban districts generally. It was suggested even that it was somehow a little indecent that

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my right hon. Friend, as Minister of Agriculture, should be concerned with urban interests in the way that has been alleged. We think it is wrong to suggest that the Bill shows partiality in any way to urban interests. The countryside cannot simultaneously get the assistance of townsfolk in dealing with these problems and at the same time expect to hold the townsfolk at arms length. It is important that we should get this point clear. We think that the townsfolk and the urban districts have to accept their share of responsibility for things which might seem primarily to be a countryman's interest but which are an important part of the general life of the country. If that is so, those who claim to have the interests of the countryside at heart must not try to keep alive all the antagonisms many of which are quite artificial and have the effect 'of divorcing and dividing that important community of interest.
The Bill seeks to give, and I believe it does give, to urban areas a representation which emphasises the responsibility which they are now being asked to accept. We believe that to be a fair and a very important principle, if the new river boards are to get off to a good start. For half a century or more we have overlooked the importance to our river systems of unification of control. When the Bill finally leaves us we believe it will lead to cleaner rivers and better sport for anglers, something which is very much the concern of hon. Members all round the House. We believe it will lead to much greater development of drainage work. Many of the older authorities, the Catchment Boards and the even older one, the Fishery Boards, have done extremely good work, but they have been cruelly handicapped very often by lack of support and facilities. We believe that the support and facilities given by the Bill will enable their work to be carried very much further. When the river boards are established and as their work develops, we believe that much that now shames us about our rivers will be gone for ever. It is in that spirit that the Bill marks an important step forward in this highly desirable, very necessary and overdue work of unifying the control of our rivers.
6.55 p.m.
Sir T. Dugdale: I know that I can associate myself and my hon. Friends on this side of the House with the closing
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words of the Parliamentary Secretary's speech. We welcome the Bill in the main as being a step forward in setting up a comprehensive authority for all functions connected with rivers. We hope that the improvements that the river boards will be able to accomplish in their areas will be very marked from every point of view. We consider that the Bill is only a machinery Bill, although it is a very necessary bit of machinery. Its success or otherwise, as I said earlier in the evening, must depend upon future legislation dealing with pollution, which some Government of some complexion will have to carry through this House. I would not agree with the Parliamentary Secretary in his assumption that it must be a Labour administration.
During the passage of the Bill we have emphasised at all stages the overdue representation of the urban areas. We do not seek in any way—to use the Parliamentary Secretary's term—to keep old antagonisms alive. We take the view that urban areas with a high rateable value have been given undue representation as compared with rural areas, which are much more intimately associated and concerned with river problems of drainage, fisheries and pollution. They have had more experience in these matters. We therefore feel that urban representation has been overdone.
The Government have insisted that, irrespective of the financial contribution, local authorities should never nominate fewer than three-fifths of the total membership of any river board. We consider that proportion to be wrong and that is why we have argued that point through all the stages of the Bill. We admit that the number of cases where land drainage provides, say, three-quarters of the total income of an existing catchment board, must be very small, but this is the place in this country where minorities are protected. This House is the guardian of minority interests. On these benches we have done our utmost to safeguard the interests of these catchment boards and have tried to convince the Government that they should give further consideration to this aspect of the matter.
The Minister has tried to meet the point that we raised on Clause 2 in connection with fishery interests. We do not consider that he has gone far enough and we are sorry that he was not able to meet us by appointing a fishery committee for regu-

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lating matters connected with fisheries. The fishery interests of this country have done a great deal in all the river board areas under the Salmon and Fresh Water Fisheries Act, 1923. They feel very strongly that what they gained through that Act is now being taken away from them under this Bill. They have made a great contribution to improving the cleanliness of our river system, and we wish the Minister had been able to go further in that regard.
I want to raise one other point which I do not think has been discussed to any great extent during the passage of this Bill, that is, the taking of water from rivers. I urge the Minister to lose no time in setting up these river boards. The sooner they are set up the better. We may be faced—I think we shall—with the prospect of a severe drought in parts of the country during the Summer. This will mean that water authorities will have much pressure put on them to abstract water from rivers. I believe this to be a disastrous policy in the long run. You cannot keep on taking water from rivers and expect the flow to continue indefinitely. When more and more water is wanted in the country and in the great cities, I trust that the river boards will be strong enough and important enough to resist such pressure from water undertakings, and will be able to encourage the full exploration of possible alternative supplies, such as deep wells and other sources, before acceding to abstraction from rivers. As the usages of water, which are growing, expand still further, we shall find ourselves short of water unless definite measures are taken to watch the water supply. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary, when he is dealing with that aspect of the matter, will take note of this point. Finally, I would wish, as I know my hon. Friends on this side wish, success to every river board when it is established. Each river board will have to do a very difficult job, a very important job, and a very necessary job for the wellbeing of the countryside and the nation.
7.4 p.m.
Mr. Renton: Generally at this stage of a Bill we are able to rejoice that, by the efforts of Members on both sides, the Bill has been improved since it was introduced. On this occasion, however, I regret to
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have to place on record my view that this Bill is not now as good as when it first came here. I say that mainly because the representation on river boards has been altered, and because I believe the Minister has adopted an attitude there which is not likely, in the long run, to produce the best results. Bearing in mind the importance of angling and fishing interests—and it was not until I came to study this Bill, and heard it talked about, that I realised the difference between angling and fishing, and even now only realise that angling is fishing writ large—it seems to me that their representation by only two members is not enough. As the hon. Baronet has mentioned, it is most important that the interests of minorities should be protected in a democracy, and I do not feel that we have sufficiently represented on the river boards that very worthy minority of people who in their leisure time engage in angling and fishing.
The Parliamentary Secretary welcomed the support he had had from both sides of the House, but I felt that his welcome was a little besmirched by the party capital he tried to make at the expense of my hon. Friends above the gangway, as to the competence of one party or the other to make these river boards function well. I should have thought that, if we wanted them to function well, that was the wrong way to start off. In conclusion, may I ask the Minister when he intends to set up the river boards? If it is not in the nature of a red-herring, I should like also to have enlightenment on one further point: that is, if and when a river which is at present polluted is again purified, will the river board have power to re-stock the river with fish? Nature has wonderful ways of bringing fish to places where fish can thrive, but nature works very slowly, and it will obviously be necessary to consider the possibility of re-stocking the rivers. I should like to know whether river boards will have power to do so.
7.8 p.m.
Mr. Ivor Thomas: This subject is of deep interest to my constituents, many of whose homes were flooded in 1946, and to many others who are obliged to pay drainage rates although they cannot possibly derive any benefit from them, and in spite of the provisions in the Land Drainage Act of 1930, Section 1 (5). This

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is a good Bill, introduced by a good Minister—one of the best in the Government I should say—and I intervene only to urge him not to be weary in well doing but to go on with his good work. He knows there are many difficulties in the existing law, still embodied in this Bill, which need to be put right.
The operation of the drainage boards is one of them. On the lower slopes of Ilkley Moor, although well above the flood level, there are many dauntless Hampdens in militant mood who are very reluctant to pay their drainage rates. I know he will attend to this problem, because he has stated that a sub-committee of the Central Water Advisory Committee is studying this problem and he hopes that legislation will follow. I hope it will fall to him to introduce that legislation at an early date. I have only one other matter to refer to, and that is the question of representation on river boards which has been raised by several hon. Members. We feel, in my part of the world, that the rural interests are very well represented, and so are the large urban interests; but I can see no provision for representation of non-county boroughs. I did not feel it proper to put down an Amendment on this point, but when the Minister constitutes these bodies I hope he will use them to ensure that these areas are properly represented. With those few words, I give my full blessing to this Measure.
7.10 p.m.
Mr. Lambert: I think hon. Members in all quarters of the House are in agreement with the general intention of this Bill, which is to ensure that our rivers are cleaner and our land is better drained. However, as one who has the honour to represent an agricultural and rural constituency, I feel that the rural interests have been sacrificed for the urban interests. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) who expressed disagreement with the representation of the river boards. In my constituency, and in fact all over Devonshire, there is considerable apprehension among the fishery interests. They are wondering how they will fare under the Bill. I urge the Minister, in administering this Bill, to let them see that they will fare well, because they represent a considerable proportion of the community, and without their good
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will the working of the Bill cannot be as good as it might be.
In conclusion, I would like to put in the claim of Devonshire to have two river boards when the Minister draws them up. It is a large county and has many rivers —admittedly small ones, but they are of considerable importance locally. In addition, the county is divided by Dartmoor, and the people north of Dartmoor have little or no identity of interests with the people south of Dartmoor. Therefore, I urge the Minister to see that Devon is well represented.
7.12 p.m.
Mr. Cherwynd: I hope the hon. Member for South Molton (Mr. Lambert) will not mind if I do not follow him in his allusions to the inhabitants of Dartmoor. I think some of them would welcome an opportunity of doing a little fishing now and again. I want only to make a brief intervention to express the hope that my right hon. Friend will set up these river boards as soon as possible, and that in a reasonable time he will give us some idea of the geographical areas of the river boards. There is bound to be a good deal of local wrangling as to which areas should be allotted to any particular board.
In my own part of the country I do not think we shall have much trouble with the River Tees, because it makes a homogeneous unit for a single river board administration. We have heard so much about the differences of rural and urban areas as regards river boards, but we ought to stop regarding this as a kind of dog fight between the two. The river should be a unifying force, and not one which divides one community from another. It is the same water which starts at the source and finishes in the sea. We ought to look on the river as a unit and not as an interest to be fought over between rural and urban districts.
The hon. and gallant Member for Richmond (Sir T. Dugdale) said that this was a machinery Bill. I agree entirely. Then he said that it would not be of much use unless further legislation ensued. It will not be of much use unless we have the right men to work it. We want men with vision and foresight, men who feel that they have a mission to make our rivers really worth while. If we have those people now, we need not wait until further legis-

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lation ensues, because they can ensure by vigorous action that the best possible use is made of our rivers. I hope, whether it is a Labour Government or any other Government, that our deliberations will result in much bigger and better fishing for many anglers all over the country.
7.15 p.m.
Dr. Barnett Stress: As one who represents an urban constituency, I express my approval of this Bill. The River Trent runs through my Division of Hanley, rising two or three miles away, and for some time we have been suffering from great pollution of this river. We are also aware that a change has occurred, for certain reasons, which makes us the keenest advocates of a Bill of this kind which will help to clean up our own river. This evening there has been reference to the tension that exists between urban and rural interests. I do not agree that that tension really does exist today. With very little encouragement we can abolish this tension, because our interests are now becoming the same. The days of indiscriminate and licentious use of our rivers are now passing; great masses of our people, certainly in my constituency, want to see our own river cleaned up, and that must apply to the whole of the country.
We are particularly conscious that we gained a great advantage through the pollution of this river where it runs through my own area. We have near us a great estate where the Dukes of Sutherland and Trentham have lived. It virtually belongs to the city now, but we doubt very much whether we would have been allowed to use it if it had not been that by pollution of the river we drove the original owners out. We made it very offensive. We made it almost impossible for anyone who was sensitive to smell to live on the estate. We are, as it were, poachers who are now likely to become gamekeepers. Having obtained some privilege, we want to see it perpetuated, and we would like the original conditions to be brought back. That does not mean that we would welcome back the original owner, because 60 or 70 years' usage have made us so accustomed to the amenities of one of the loveliest estates and parks, particularly the Italian Park, that anyone has ever seen.
Anything that is done to allow simple, clean sport for urban dwellers is bound
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to have the fullest support of those who have to live in our cities. Therefore, anything that will help us in this direction must receive our support. There is no difference between the interests of those who live in the countryside and those who live in the cities.
7.18 p.m.
Mr. T. Williams: Before we reach the final chapter of this Bill, I would like to express my thanks to hon. Members in all parts of the House, and particularly those who have followed the Bill through the Second Reading, Committee and Report stages. I believe the Bill may, perhaps, be slightly improved, compared with what it was when it first arrived in this House. As the hon. and gallant Member for Richmond (Sir T. Dugdale) truly said, this is a machinery Bill, but I think it is a Bill of great importance nevertheless. Once we can have the report of the sub-committee dealing with pollution and drainage, and we can clothe the machinery with the right powers, this Bill will be the foundation stone upon which we can build cleaner rivers, better drainage, agriculture, and fishing, and better sport all round.
I have about three points to reply to. I would like, first, to reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Richmond and the hon. Members for South Molton (Mr. Lambert) and Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) who said that the rural areas were let down in this Bill. They seem to have forgotten, because they wanted to forget, that if there is a balance of advantage at all in this Bill with regard to urban or rural representation, the rural areas have got it. May I remind those hon. Members that in 42 of 52 catchment boards, drainage boards pay less than one-third of the revenue, and yet we give them at least one-third of the representation? In 18 catchment areas, drainage boards did not pay a penny, yet we give them at least one-third of the representation. I think it is right that that should be so, but it is utterly contrary to the suggestion that rural Britain is left out. In fact, in this Bill rural areas have been given a fairly big piece of the pie.
The hon. Member for Huntingdon referred to minorities and to anglers in particular. He will perhaps be happier when he knows that the main fishery boards, who have been operating very successfully, particularly in the West

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Riding of Yorkshire and Lancashire, are quite happy with the Bill as it stands. The anglers' national association are quite pleased with the assurance given them in Committee. Since then there has been no representation from them, but they are satisfied that we mean well and will fulfil our pledges and that minorities are safeguarded within the Bill. The hon. Member also asked when the river boards will be set up. I am afraid that before the last is set up one or two years, or even more, will have passed. I can assure him, however, that no time will be lost. Catchment boards are very anxious that the transformation shall take place so that they can start tomorrow where they leave off today. They are anxious to accept and fulfil their new obligations. No time will be lost in setting up river boards. The hon. Member also asked about restocking rivers with fresh fish. Presumably that will be an obligation on the part of the river boards to decide where anglers wish to fish and to seek to satisfy their desires as nearly as practicable.
I am thankful to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Ivor Thomas) for his personal observations. He can rest assured that we are fully conscious of the drainage problems in many parts of the country where, unfortunately, remedies have not been found for periodic floods. I know how unpleasant it is when people are called upon to pay drainage rates and yet know that from time to time they are not protected from floods. Wherever it is possible for a river board to use their power and ingenuity to resolve problems which have been with us for a long time, I hope the boards will not hesitate to spend the money and do the job.
With every other Member, I want to see those millions of anglers enjoying themselves and agriculture improved because of better drainage. If this drainage problem had been dealt with 20 or 30 years ago in as determined a fashion as it is now being dealt with through the catchment boards, it would have been a very minor problem today. I hope this small but very important machinery Bill, which has been welcomed in every part of the House, will lay the foundation stone for better drainage throughout the country.
Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed with Amendments.

ELECTORAL REGISTER (PRINTING)
The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Younger): I beg to move:
"That the Electoral Registration Regulations, 1948, dated 28th April, 1948, a copy of which was presented on 29th April, be approved."
Only one very short point is involved here. The purpose of this small Amendment to the existing regulations is to give three more days to the printers in which to prepare the annual register. The regulations achieves this by bringing forward by three days the date on which the lists have to be published, and that gives three more days to the printers in England and Wales only. Only in England and Wales has it been found necessary to make the adjustment, and I do not think anyone loses at the other end of the period.

HOUSE OF COMMONS MEMBERS' FUND BILL
As amended, considered.

CLAUSE 5.—(Acceptance of property by the Trustees.)
7.25 p.m.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): I beg to move, at the end, to insert:
"(2) Any property, other than money or authorised investments, accepted by the trustees under the said Subsection (2) shall be held upon trust for sale:
Provided that the trustees may in their discretion postpone the sale and conversion of any such property for such time as they think fit."
This Amendment follows an Amendment which I accepted the other night when we were discussing the Bill in Committee. I indicated that it would be necessary when we reached a further stage in the Bill to make provision in order to see that when property was left it could be adequately dealt with. The hon. and gallant Member for Ayr and Northern Bute (Sir C. MacAndrew) was anxious that trustees should be allowed to accept

2199
and to hold, if so minded, property either given to them, or which came to them under a will as a bequest. In this Amendment we have provided for that. In addition, by the proviso, we have safeguarded the trustees—it may be theoretical, but nevertheless we think it essential—against any investments they desire to hold depreciating in their hands.
Mr. Viant: The trustees of this Fund will appreciate the spirit in which the Government have put this forward. They have met the general request. It would be unfair to let this pass without expressing our appreciation at the manner in which the Amendment has been tabled, and I hope that the House will accept it.
Amendment agreed to.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."—[Mr. Glenvil Hall.]
7.27 p.m.
Sir Henry Morris-Jones: I wish to utter a sentence or two before this Bill is given a Third Reading. Clearly there is a misconception in the country in regard to this Bill. I know that newspapers are now short of space and have much to deal with, but there is an idea in the country, which was expressed to me last week, that by this Bill hon. Members are securing a pension towards which the State contributes. I think it should be made perfectly clear that not one penny of State funds goes towards this Fund. It comes entirely from the contributions of Members of Parliament, and that is the only source from which it does come. This Bill, undoubtedly, is a concession, and I am glad that the Lord President acted so quickly upon the representations made to the Government on the report presented to the House by the Committee led by the Financial Secretary. It will bring some measure of relief to many old hon. Members of this House and their wives, and, in some cases, to their orphan children. It does not go as far as I would have wished, nor as far as some other hon. Members would have wished.
I think I am now the only one of the original members of the trustees, although the time is very short—only some 10 years
2200
—but I have been continuously a Member of the House through those years, and the need for some system of pension has impressed me very considerably. I am only expressing my own point of view, but I think that the day may come, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will take note of this, when pensions of moderate character should be given to Members of Parliament without any means test whatever, and subscribed to by themselves, though possibly with some little assistance from the Treasury. I hope that time will come.
The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I am much obliged to the House for the kindly reception given to this Bill, and for the expeditious way in which it has been dealt with. It arose out of representations which we received from various quarters of the House and from Members of various parties, and we thought that it was right to meet their points and produce a Measure under which allowances could be made and under which we could get a greater degree of elasticity in administration. I would like to emphasise what has just been said by the hon. Member for Denbigh (Sir H. Morris-Jones) in pointing out that this Fund is entirely financed by the contributions of hon. Members of the House of Commons, apart from any benevolent donations that people outside might like to make, which would be welcome. Otherwise, it is entirely financed by Members of the House of Commons, and there is no public money in the Fund at all.
I think it is a sensible and public-spirited action by hon. Members of this House to do what they can to assist former hon. Members who are in financial difficulties after a given period of service to the House. It is the case that a large number of hon. Members can never expect or hope to get any personal advantage from this Fund. That is probably true of the great majority, and that is a tribute to the public spirit of hon. Members and to their love of this great Parliamentary institution. Therefore, I would like to pay my tribute to their public spirit, and to reinforce the point made by the hon. Gentleman that there is no public money in this Fund at all. I only wish in conclusion, to thank hon. Members for their assistance.

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This is eminently a co-operative enterprise in relation to all parties in the House, and I thank the House as a whole for the kindly spirit in which this Bill has been received.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

CHILDREN [MONEY]
Resolution reported:
"That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision for the care or welfare of boys and girls when they are without parents or living away from their parents, and for other purposes, it is expedient to authorise the following payments out of moneys provided by Parliament:

A. Payments to local authorities of not more than fifty per cent, of their expenditure in the discharge of their functions under the enactments hereinafter specified, together with their appropriate share of receipts under the provisions of any of the said enactments as to contributions towards expenses and as to affiliation orders and decrees for aliment.

B. Grants in respect of the fees and expenses of persons undergoing training in connection with their employment or future employment either for the purposes of any of the said enactments or by voluntary organisations for similar purposes, in respect of the cost of maintenance of persons undergoing such training, and in respect of the cost of providing such training.

C. Grants in respect of voluntary homes

D. Payments in respect of the travelling, subsistence and other expenses of members of advisory councils and committees thereof.

E. Payments in respect of the expenses of appeal tribunals and the fees and allowances of members of appeal tribunals.

F. The payment of any increase in the sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament—

(i) under the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, or the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act, 1937, being an increase attributable to provisions of the said Act of the present Session relating to inspectors;

(ii) under the Family Allowances Act, 1945, being an increase attributable to provisions of the said Act of the present Session as to the inclusion in a family of certain children.

G. Payment of the administrative expenses of the Secretary of State.

The enactments hereinbefore referred to are the said Act of the present Session, Parts III and IV of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, the provisions relating to child life protection of Part VII of the Public Health Act, 1936, and the provisions of Part XIII
2202
of the Public Health (London) Act, 1936, Parts I. IV and V of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland), Act, 1937, and the Adoption of Children (Regulation) Act, 1939."

SUNDAY CINEMATOGRAPH ENTERTAINMENTS
Ordered:
"That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Rural District of Ely, a copy of which Order was presented on 10th May, be approved."—[Mr. Younger.]

COTTON FIBRE (PRICES)
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn." — (Mr. Popplewell.)
9.26 p.m.
Mr. Harrison: It is my desire to draw the attention of the House tonight to the widespread concern caused in the cotton spinning industry and in the cotton consuming industries by the increasing prices of cotton fibre. There are quite a number of internal and external prices that are governed almost completely by the prices of raw cotton fibre. The most disconcerting feature of the whole position is the terrific rise that has taken place this year since January. We find that since January the price of raw cotton fibre, particularly staple varieties of Egyptian type has risen 4s. 6d. a pound. Had it been the case that the price of cotton fibre before the war had risen to the extent of a halfpenny we should have had loud complaints in the trade, saying they could not possibly manage under the increased price. Here, however, we have since January an increase in the price of cotton fibre to the extent of 4s. 6d., and this price increase is still going on. I hope that when the President of the Board of Trade replies he will be able to reassure the people concerned with the trade, not only in cotton spinning but also in the yarn consuming industries, of which there are so many in and around Nottingham.
There are important aspects of the position caused by this phenomenal rise which I wish to emphasise. Nottingham is one of the greatest yarn consuming parts of the country. We have concentrated there quite a number of industries that depend solely on the consumption of cotton yarn. I refer to industries such as
2236
the lace industry, the clothing industry, and the hosiery industry. I ought to say first that, from the information I have sought, the facts do not support the contention that the continuance of the Liverpool Cotton Exchange could have materially altered the position. No amount of price straddling by the Liverpool brokers would have enabled us to-avert the present position. They could not have stretched so far. No doubt, individual brokers would have profited considerably from the rising market to the disadvantage of the trade in general.
Another general complaint I do not feel inclined to support is that about the incidence of bulk buying—that this bulk buying is the substance of the trouble. I have examined that position, and from what I can see of the matter, over-all bulk buying in cotton has resulted in the purchase of the fibre as cheaply as demand and supply and the availability of dollar currency would permit. There are matters, apart from these generalisations, of detail connected with the Cotton Commission treatment of transactions which I should like the Minister to examine. It is only by the examination of the details of this crisis that the cotton consuming trade can overcome its present difficulties. I say the cotton consuming trade because that it is these trades which come directly in touch with the individual consumers whether at home or abroad, and it is in that particular trade that we see the phenomenal rise in the price of cotton reflected in the price of made-up articles.
I will take the Nottingham lace trade as an example. The export target side for this particular trade is £12 million, this being double the 1946 figure. It means that nearly every bit of cotton or lace produced will be earmarked for export. This particular industry uses almost entirely

2237
Egyptian types of yarn. The machinery operating in the finer counts cannot possibly use the American types of yarn. There are no prospects whatever, so far as we can see, of Egyptian cotton being substituted by cotton from other countries, even of the Egyptian type. That means that we must face in that particular trade the increased prices which are considerable and, to some extent, alarming unless the Minister can assist us.
Speaking of the spinning industry for a moment, they were encouraged to use soft currency area cotton, especially Ashmunei and Zagora types which were substitutes for the American, and this change-over was operationally simple. In February, the Ashmunei type was 22.25 pence per pound and American 23 pence per pound. With prices approximating, the change-over was a comparatively simple matter. Today, the position is considerably different, and if we could change over now it would mean that the price ranges would be, Ashmunei 44.75 pence against American 26 pence. That grave disparity of prices makes the change-over a very serious matter indeed. This trade is told that it can substitute Egyptian grown cotton by Egyptian types, but it is difficult to see from where four or five million spindles that can use both types, can be supplied. I would like the Minister to give some information on that particularly grave position so far as the spinning trade is concerned.
There are today certain types of American fibres of fine quality that could be bought at reasonable prices if only we could use the necessary dollars. It seems to us that it would be a good investment on this occasion to invest in this alternative supply of fine fibres. By so doing we could hold off the Egyptian market for some time and they would face the possibility of losing one of their biggest customers for fine Egyptian cotton, which is, of course, this country. Those are matters of great importance which affect a considerable portion of our national trade. Our ability to sell abroad is affected considerably by these rising prices, and also the stability of our prices at home for thousands of commodities are affected because of this rise in the price of cotton fibre.
In addition to the difficulties of the rising price of cotton yarn, we have another difficulty which I hope the Minister will take into consideration when con-
2238
sidering the position generally. That is the effect of the devaluation of the franc. This position can best be illustrated from the following extracts from letters from our agents in Venezuela who deal with cotton laces. The first is dated 31st March, 1948:
"We regret to inform you that the possibilities of selling British laces seems to be definitely over, due to the very active French competition. There is already sold a very large quantity of their fine and well known quality at prices far below the British. This situation has come to a point when importers do not show any more interest in Nottingham lace."
The second letter, dated 2nd May, 1948, included this particular reference to our products in that country:
"Deliveries from France are quick, and prices cheaper than the English."
I would not suggest for a minute that those two letters indicate the general position in all markets, but I suggest that they indicate another difficulty from which we are suffering in the cotton yarn industry in our endeavour to sell not only at home but abroad.
I asked the Minister on 4th May this year if he would peg the price of our cotton, utilising for that purpose some of the trading reserves or profits which the Cotton Commission have made during its period of operation. He refused to peg those prices and utilise those resources. I now ask him, as an alternative, to agree to the removal of the 12½ per cent, spinners' surcharge for export industries. I also want to ask him a series of questions which I hope he will do his best to-answer when he replies to the Debate, because these things are extremely important to us. Is he aware of the fact, or is it a fact, that the raw cotton commission prices for Egyptian cotton are in some cases higher than the Egyptian new crop prices?
Secondly, are the reports true that the Cotton Commission have bought Sudan Sakel yarn fibre at an average of 38 pence, and are they selling it at 48 pence, that is at an increase of 10d. per lb. on each lb. that they sell in this country? Those reports appeared in the Sudanese Press, and such reports should be corrected at the earliest opportunity because they are an encouragement to the Sudanese and the Egyptian dealers to' raise the price of this important commodity still further. Thirdly, is he aware that in advancing all Egyptian prices to

2239
the level of the Alexandria prices, the Cotton Commission have put the Egyptians in a position to dictate world prices for such fibres, and increase thereby the difficulties of the Cotton Commissions over any future purchases they wish to make.
Then I suggest that in all these matters we have to take into consideration the possibility of reducing considerably in, some cases, and in other cases we have to take into consideration the possibility of stabilising the prices of our exports. Unless the Minister can assist us at this juncture, any substantial contribution that we can make towards the national exports of this country will be jeopardised seriously. I want the Minister to bear in mind that in the Government's policy of stabilisation of prices and wages the factor of this continuously rising price of cotton not by 1d. or 2d. but by a 1s. will seriously affect the price of every commodity into which cotton enters, and those commodities number thousands and thousands and are used in this country by ordinary people. I have put my case as briefly as I can. There has been some substance in the questions I have put to the President of the Board of Trade, and I am sure he can assist us at this particular stage, for which we shall be grateful, especially if that assistance will contribute still more to our prosperity and to our national recovery for which we are all working so earnestly.
9.41 p.m.
Mr. Edgar Granville: I do not intend to stand between the hon. Member for East Nottingham (Mr. Harrison), who has made a very able case, and the reply which he is to receive from the President of the Board of Trade, but I should like to support what he said about the spinner's surcharge. I have no intention of following into all the arguments with regard to the Liverpool Cotton Exchange which may be somewhat irrelevant to this question. I should, however, like to support him on this factor of rising prices, which has been felt already in this industry both at home and abroad. The right hon. Gentleman has made various pleas to increase exports to the dollar area. With a reasonable knowledge of the dollar area, I can tell him that in that market the most important thing of all is to maintain a steady service. Any fluctuations
2240
caused are going to impair the orders coming from the particular area.
The general tendency of the importers there is that they like to be assured that the price will be a stable price and without constant fluctuations. I warned the President of the Board of Trade before about this, and I believe it is going to be a vital factor in the dollar market. I know from experience that the increase in price has already hit the home market, and it is endangering our prospects in the dollar market. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give us some assurance that these high prices are not going to continue, and that the exporters from this country are going to be able to plan their course for some months ahead with the knowledge that there is going to be some stability in the existing market.
9.43 p.m.
Mr. Sparks: There is one point I would like to add to what my hon. Friend the Member for East Nottingham (Mr. Harrison) said in opening the Debate, and that is in regard to the international aspect of this question, particularly as to the supply of raw cotton in various parts of the world and of our export trade in cotton and cotton piece goods. I am wondering to what extent the International Trade Organisation has given consideration to this matter, because it seems rather clear to me that if we are to have a stabilised price level for raw cotton we can only hope to achieve it by international agreement. Therefore, I feel that the International Trade Organisation has a special responsibility to ourselves and to other countries concerned in the production and marketing of raw cotton, which is the raw material with which we are concerned at the present time.
I am surprised to learn that there is difficulty with the export of cotton piece goods. International trade organisation has an important part to play in this respect. Why should there be difficulty in our supplying the world with cotton piece goods? There are large concentrated areas of population—particularly in India and China, for example—where many millions of people have very little clothing to wear. We need to organise the vast potential market which exists in the world for the products of our factories in Nottingham and elsewhere. I can see no adequate

2241
method of organisation except by international action through the appropriate trade organisation. That we should be lamenting the difficulty of stabilising the price of our raw material, and the difficulty of securing markets abroad for one of our main essential industries, brings home the fact that we have not yet organised the international development of the raw material of this industry and the export of its finished goods.
A number of questions has been put to the President of the Board of Trade which he will need to answer with as much detail as he can. It would help considerably if he could touch upon the international aspect. We have been working hard through the International Trade Organisation which has recently concluded a number of its findings, particularly in regard to the tariff question and reciprocal trade agreements between the various countries. It would be useful to know to what extent the difficulties that have been voiced tonight have been dealt with in the international field. The solution to many of these problems must lie in international agreement between all the countries concerned to maintain a stable price level for both our raw materials and our finished goods.
Mr. Granville: The hon. Member referred to certain markets. Does he realise that the vital policy of the Government is to export to countries which will supply us with food and raw materials?
Mr. Sparks: I am in agreement on that point. I want to emphasise the vast potential market which exists in all parts of the world. Whilst we may have to divert our exports to the areas from which we can get food and other vital necessities, we should bear in mind the wider picture and realise that there is a vast potential market for everything we can produce. We must ask ourselves, therefore, why there should be any difficulty in exporting. It is not easy to solve the problem within a short time; taking the long view, our main hope lies in developing our policy through international trade organisation to maintain stable world prices for raw materials and finished articles.
9.49 p.m.
Mr. Champion: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for East Nottingham (Mr. Harrison) for rais-
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ing this important matter. It is important also to my own constituency where there is a large lace manufacturing industry which, I fear, is likely to be gravely affected by the rise in cotton prices. It is scarcely necessary to stress here the value of that industry to our export trade. The President of the Board of Trade must consider the effect upon this industry, particularly as lace is one of those exports which we have managed to get to a very large extent into the dollar countries, something so vital to our economy. It also happens to be one of these exports which are of high value because the amount of raw material purchased from abroad which goes into the final product is so comparatively small.
Undoubtedly this price rise of raw cotton will have a bad effect. My hon. Friend the Member for East Nottingham (Mr. Harrison) has already told us how this will affect our competitive selling of lace, and particularly our competition with the great French lace exporting industries. For these reasons, I strongly support the plea of my hon. Friends that the President of the Board of Trade should give careful consideration to this recent rise in the price of the raw material and do everything in his power to secure a reduction. If he does that, he will not only help the industry in my constituency but considerably assist the country in the export drive.
9.51 p.m.
The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Harold Wilson): I agree with my hon. Friends that this matter is one which must cause us all very considerable concern. The effect of the rise in cotton prices, chiefly the Egyptian prices, on for instance our cotton exports, particularly exports of the finer types of cottons, on lace, which has been referred to, on hosiery and one or two other industries such as rubber tyres, has undoubtedly been serious and we are at present encountering a very strong buyers' resistance abroad to paying the prices which our industries must charge owing to the prices they must pay in their turn for the Egyptian cotton.
There are one or two things I would like to say about the way the Raw Cotton Commission operates in its price policy. The price at which raw cotton is sold to the spinners is not fixed by the Government; it is not a question of assurances on my part, but it is the Raw Cotton Commission which has the duty under the Act of selling its cotton at such prices

2243
as seem to it best calculated to further the public interest in all respects and, so far as it is compatible with that, to sell as cheaply as possible consistent with securing that their revenues are sufficient to meet their expenditure on an average over a period of good and bad years together.
The Commission, throughout the period of their existence—it was also true of the Control—have been selling Egyptian cotton below replacement cost, and even after the recent changes in price in the last few weeks, it is still true that the selling price is substantially below the market replacement price. The Commission have so far been able to sell below cost because they have had very large stocks of cotton bought at a period when the price was considerably lower than in the last year or so. It would be most unreasonable to ask the Cotton Commission—I could, of course; I have the powers but I do not intend to use them—to incur heavy trading losses for the sake of subsidising the industries using raw cotton. That would cut both ways.
As soon as world prices fall—we must all hope that world prices will take a turn down in the near future—obviously the selling policy of the Commission must be to follow them very quickly, otherwise the Commission and I will be attacked on the ground that our export trade efforts will be made abortive by the fact that the Commission will be charging a higher price than the replacement price which other countries are paying in world markets. Unless we are prepared to have the cotton sold below the world market price we must face the point at which the Commission must follow the market upward. That is their recently announced policy and it provides the answer to one of the questions which my hon. Friend the Member for East Nottingham asked. The answer to his question is undoubtedly "Yes." The Commission are selling at the replacement price and not at the price when it got in before the market rose last autumn.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Is the Commission hedging on any of its purchases?
Mr. Wilson: I will give an answer to that question in a moment. Egyptian prices have doubled in the last few months. I will take the example of Ashmouni type 4, which is a representa-
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tive grade to take as an example. It stood at is. 10¼d. last July, but it is 3s. 8¾d. today. The present replacement cost of getting the cotton into the warehouse is 3s. 10.6d. I think my hon. Friend will agree that the Commission are today selling even slightly below replacement cost. Another striking example is Karnak type 155. The price charged has increased from 2s. I¼d. to 4s. 9¼d. since last July. There again the price of supplies into the warehouse runs out at the rate of about 5s. 3.14d.
My hon. Friends are anxious to know why the price increases have occurred. There are various reasons. It is not true that bulk buying is one of them. If the Liverpool Cotton Market had been operating on the pre-war model it would have had all the difficulties which the Commission have had to face.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: And it would have earned a good many dollars.
Mr. Wilson: I do not know what the hon. and learned Member is talking about. We could not get any more dollars by the free market than by the Cotton Commission.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that if the market had been opened it would have earned a good many dollars?
Mr. Wilson: I do deny it. We debated that matter fully in the House. I do not accept that there would be any difference in the amount of dollars available to the Liverpool private cotton merchant than could have been made available—
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Is the President of the Board of Trade really suggesting that if the Liverpool Market had been open there would be no earnings by way of arbitrations?
Mr. Wilson: The earnings would have been negligible. The hon. and learned Member will realise that very great troubles have been run into in getting qualified arbitrators. The biggest problem the Cotton Commission have today is to train new arbitrators.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Does the right hon. Gentleman dispute the estimate which the late Chancellor of the Exchequer gave of earnings equivalent to £1 million a year.
Mr. Wilson: Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will put a question

2245
down, and I will go into the matter. I have not the exact statement by me made by my right hon. Friend, and I am not going to be drawn into any argument on the subject tonight.
It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn." — [Mr. Pearson.]
Mr. Wilson: It is very arguable indeed as to what earnings might have been gained in a free market under present conditions, and possibly it might have operated in the opposite direction so that without a close control over dollar expenditure by Liverpool merchants we might have lost a great deal of dollars in a free market.
I was dealing with the reasons for the rise in price of Egyptian cotton. I said it was not due to bulk buying because in point of fact we were not in the market at the time. Much of the buying had been done at a period before the actual increase referred to. There were a number of reasons for this. One was that the exportable surplus from Egypt, in spite of the increased demands, was only two-thirds of pre-war figures. In addition there are certain new countries which have come into the Egyptian market in the course of the past few weeks. For instance, the Soviet Union have made heavy purchases of cotton in Egypt thus helping further to push up the price. Certain European countries, starved of cotton, have tried to meet their needs in Egypt and have also pushed up the price. Another reason was that the Egyptians have themselves switched over from the longer staple grades to shorter staple grades and that has accentuated the shortage.
Yet another reason is the fact that most of the Karnak supplies are held by the Egyptian Government who have been feeding supplies into the market during this period in extremely small quantities. We have not in this country, although paying these high prices, been at a disadvantage as compared with other countries which are paying the same price for Egyptian cotton as the price now being charged by our Cotton Commission. In fact they are paying slightly higher. I admit that is not true of the American cotton and certainly the point
2246
made by the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Granville) about the difficulty this is causing in exports to our dollar markets is a very real one in so far as in the conditions we have to meet in the Canadian market we are competing with an industry which can get its cotton at a lower price.
Mr. Harrison: When the President of the Board of Trade speaks of the price we are paying as compared with other countries could he take note of this particular and supposed fact? Is he aware that Switzerland has been buying pieces of Lima Peruvian at 30d. a pound while our Commission quotes 51d. per pound. There is a difference of 21d. per pound of Egyptian type cotton which is being bought by Switzerland, and Russia has entered the market now.
Mr. Wilson: I think that one of the most helpful factors is that considerable Peruvian supplies will be arriving in this country in the course of the summer which will not only help us but ease the world pressure on cotton from Egypt. This will help to bring prices down considerably. We have had to reach agreement in Peru on the difficult problem of the method of payment.
The hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) raised the question of the International Trade Organisation and asked what that might do in dealing with this problem. I need not remind him that the International Trade Organisation is not yet established. A charter is now being drawn up, but the I.T.O. is not in operation. I agree with him that it will have a most important part to play in preventing fluctuation in prices of cotton and many commodities, including foodstuffs and raw materials. We hope that the violent fluctuations we have seen recently, and the equally violent fluctuations between the two wars, will come under some measure of international control. I agree with him entirely, also, when he points to the importance of developing markets for cotton goods in undeveloped countries such as India, China and Africa. There again the International Trade Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation have an important part to play in the immediate future. As the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Granville) said in an interjection, the problem is to push our exports to those countries from which we buy the larger part of our food and raw materials.

2247
I entirely agree that the problems with which the cotton export industry are faced, and with which other industries are faced, are greatly accentuated by the rise in the price of Egyptian cotton. My hon. Friend mentioned the hosiery industry which has become one of our major exporting industries. Before the war exports were negligible, but recently they have increased from £2,500,000 in 1945 to more than £14,000,000 in 1947. That is a very big increase, and we have a bigger target for them this year. I agree that the industry is faced with great difficulties owing to price of yarns following the rise in the price of Egyptian cotton.
On the question of lace my hon. Friend mentioned French competition, and we have been well aware of that following the devaluation of the franc. I have been asked what are the prospects about the future of Egyptian cotton prices, because it is certainly a fact that at present some of our exporting industries are faced with a halt in buying. I think that may be only temporary. It has always been a natural reaction whenever our prices have increased for buyers overseas to stop their purchases, at least for a time, but, when they see, as they now see, our competitors, with the exception of the United States, also having to raise prices because of the increase of Egyptian cotton prices, the halt in buying may be only temporary. The position might improve in the Summer, when Peruvian supplies become available, but I cannot express anything except the concern that the Government feel at present on the subject of Egyptian cotton prices.
Mr. Granville: The right hon. Gentleman said that the Commission are not passing on the new price to the industry at the present time. The time will come when they will have to pass on the buying price to the industry, the alternative being that the Government will have to subsidise it. I realise that the right hon. Gentleman cannot give a reply tonight, but perhaps he will consider doing so in the near future.
Mr. Wilson: I think the hon. Member could not have understood what I said. Recently, for the last two months or so, it has been the policy of the Cotton Commission to charge according to replacement price. In other words, if they bought cotton at a certain price and the
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price has risen in the market since that time, they base on the new price and not on the original buying price. Therefore the question does not arise. Although that is the declared policy of the Commission, they are selling a little below market price, although considerably over the price at which they bought.
I should like to deal with the point raised by my hon. Friend. I cannot give him a satisfactory assurance now, but I will look into it. He raised the question of the 12½ per cent, surcharge. The diversion between the price charged to the industry for the home market and that for exports is, I believe, a very serious problem for the industry, far more serious than it is for the cotton manufacturing industry. I recently gave the industry when I met its representatives an assurance that I would go carefully into the question of this diversion between home and export prices. I think the recent action of the Hosiery Control in equalising prices of hosiery supplies will help, but, on the general question of the surcharge, there is very little I can say at the present time, apart from what I have said to the industry.
Before I close, I want to say—and I am quite sure hon. Members will support me—that we must give a quite clear warning to Egypt and other countries which, not to put too fine a point on it, are exploiting the world shortage with the prices charged at present. There will be a day of reckoning; there is bound to be, and I think that the sooner it is realised in one or two of these countries in which the price policy has gone on these lines, the better it will be.
Mr. Sparks: Could my right hon. Friend say anything about the production of raw cotton substitutes? I read the other day of a wood fibre with which experiments are being made. Has anything been done in the field of research to find substitutes?
Mr. Wilson: There is nothing better than high prices to develop the use of substitutes, and there are new fibres being produced, to one of which some publicity has been given in the last few days, by one of the major industries in this country, which is using as the raw material some waste products from groundnuts. Apart from that, we have the rayon industry, which is most important in this connection. The effect on the amount of cotton

2249
bought and the increase in Egyptian cotton is bound to be considerable, and is bound to drive the consumer away from cotton and into rayon. The demand for cotton is not so fixed and inelastic as all that. Our rayon industry is expanding just as fast as increased capacity can come into operation. It is bound to help the cotton industry which has been using Egyptian cotton, and our production of rayon is away up above the pre-war figure. In fact, with some of the basic fibres, production is up to 74 per cent, above that of the pre-war peak year.
Now that many of the countries of the world, as a result of the European Recovery Programme, will be in a position to buy American cotton again, the pressure on Egyptian supplies will be falling away considerably. Since the new Egyptian cotton prices hit Lancashire, our Cotton Commission immediately announced its readiness, so far as practicable, to supply American cotton in place of Egyptian to all the British industries dependent on this cotton, though I know that the limits to which they can replace it are much more circumscribed in certain industries than others. I want to say, I am sure with the support of the House, the industry and consumers in all parts of the world, that, if the Egyptians think that they are assured for ever of a market for all their cotton at present prices, sooner or later they are going to have a rude awakening.
10.15 p.m.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I must apologise for the fact that I was not here when the hon. Member for Nottingham, East (Mr. Harrison), who raised this matter on the Adjournment, made his speech. I was unable to be present because I was taking part in the previous Debate on the Prayer. I think the hon. Member has raised a matter of extreme importance in which we must all be vitally concerned, irrespective of party. We are all very much concerned to see that the export drive, particularly in connection with textiles, is a real success.
I feel it would be inappropriate to turn this Adjournment Debate into a consideration of the merits and demerits of the Liverpool Cotton Market. I suspect I might have difficulty, Sir, in going very far along those lines, but I may in passing
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—because it was mentioned by the Minister—register my astonishment at the Minister's apparent ignorance of the dollar earning capacity of the Liverpool market, and the foreign currency earnings of the Liverpool market, in the days before the war. I admit that the right hon. Gentleman did not occupy the position he now occupies at the time when this House was concerned in that matter, but even the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton), admitted that owing to the operation of the Liverpool cotton market—which was the only world market through which we had, say, an Indian spinner buying Egyptian cotton on the Liverpool Market—it thereby brought to this country a great deal of foreign currency earnings, which he estimated then at the equivalent of about £1 million, which would be a very substantial assistance today to our balance of payments.
Mr. Wilson: I did not admit to any ignorance about this at all, except the ignorance which is shared by the citizens of this country who, in this connection as in other connections, are faced with a complete absence of statistics relating to the period before the war. There were no reliable figures to give the exchange earnings in the period before the war. It is true that the former Chancellor of the Exchequer went so far as to commit himself to an estimate which many other people have since contested, and when he made the estimate to which the hon. and learned Member has referred, he was referring to earnings from all sources and not only dollars. What I was asked and what I could not answer—and I do not think any one could answer it—was what would have been the dollar earnings of the Liverpool Market if it had been in operation today, not in operation in 1937 or 1938 or at any other time. It is impossible to say that, and it is even more impossible to say how many of those additional dollars, if any, we could have allocated for the purchase of American cotton and the effect that would have had in enabling the cotton buyers of this country to keep out of Egypt and get into the American market. It is not a question of ignorance. Had I tried to enter into it, it would have been pure speculation and imagination.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman conducts his withdrawal with great skill. I adhere to my point that had the Liverpool Market been operating there would have been substantial dollar earnings, but that is not a point I was deliberately wishing to make, but a point to which I was drawn by the right hon. Gentleman's statement. My first point is a question of the use of the merchants in Liverpool. In that connection-I notice that the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) is sitting in a significant position in relation to the right hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member in the former Debates differed from the majority of the members of his party in conceding the useful service performed by the Liverpool merchants. The point I wish to make is the use that has been made of those who have grown up in this business. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is using every endeavour to see that the maximum possible use is made of these people who have had long experience. As the right hon. Gentleman is well aware, these gentlemen have a substantial function to perform in connection with the purchase of American cotton. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider their position in connection with Egyptian cotton.
Mr. Wilson: I take it that the hon. and learned Member is referring to the C.I.F. agents as well as the functions of the L.C.A. merchants on arbitration. If he is referring to them, I can tell him—I am sure he knows—that of course very full use is being made of them at the present time.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: With regard to American cotton, I agree. I am suggesting that that example should be followed with regard to the Egyptian market. I am not making a party point on this.
Mr. Wilson: I quite understand.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I have not tried to argue this on the merits of bulk purchase, the policy having been decided; but I say that a great deal of use could be made of the merchants formerly on the Liverpool market to the great advantage of this country. I am not in the least surprised that this Debate should be taking place, because the great reason given for the abolition of the Liverpool market was that bulk purchase was to result in the stabilisation of prices. That was the
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theme song of those who, including the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, urged this as a great progressive step for the House and the country. Now we are seeing that, in fact, stabilisation does not exist, and that fluctuations are just as wide as they used to be, and, though they may not be just as frequent, are very much more violent than they used to be under the old system.
I do not expect that the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me on this at all, but I believe that until we get free operation of the price mechanism in regard to the supply of raw cotton we shall not have the cotton industry exporting successfully. I know that I am speaking to a closed mind on this matter, and that what I say will not have the slightest effect on those who sit at the present time on the benches opposite, but it is my firm belief that the condition precedent to the real and permanent success of the cotton trade of this country is the restoration of the free market in raw cotton and the free operation of the Liverpool cotton market; because only in those circumstances shall we be able to protect ourselves, and to insure against the fluctuations which are bound to occur in the production of a commodity which depends on nature, which depends upon insects, disease, the weather, and so on. There must be a system of insurance against variations in supply, an insurance which can be provided only by the free operation of a market such as the Liverpool market.
Mr. Tiffany: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman say there is a free operation of the price mechanism in Egypt at present to cause fluctuations?
Mr. Lloyd: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman if I have not made myself clear, but my point was that the whole value of the Liverpool market was that it was a world market, and that these various fluctuations in the various countries could be dealt with by a mechanism registering world opinion, world supply and demand. That is what we are missing, and until we get back to that quite unique barometer with regard to the supply of raw cotton, this country will suffer.
Question put, and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-four Minutes past Ten o'Clock.

ROYAL NAVY
  Prize Money (Applications)
  Prize Money (Applications)
  Pay and Allowances
  Pay and Allowances
POST OFFICE
  Savings Accounts (Service Personnel)
  Savings Accounts (Service Personnel)
  Savings Bank (Investigation)
  Savings Bank (Investigation)
  Government Departments (Postage)
  Government Departments (Postage)
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Restrictions, Germany
  Restrictions, Germany
  Burtonwood Camp
  Burtonwood Camp
  Air Training Corps
  Air Training Corps
  Pay and Allowances
  Pay and Allowances
  MARSHALL AID (EXCHANGE OF LETTERS)
  MARSHALL AID (EXCHANGE OF LETTERS)
  POLISH RESETTLEMENT CORPS
  POLISH RESETTLEMENT CORPS
PALESTINE
  Casualties
  Casualties
  Armed Iraqis
  Armed Iraqis
  COMBINED CHIEFS OF STAFF BOARD, WASHINGTON
  COMBINED CHIEFS OF STAFF BOARD, WASHINGTON
FOOD SUPPLIES
  Potatoes
  Potatoes
  Bread Rationing
  Bread Rationing
  Milk Retailer, Sawbridgeworth
  Milk Retailer, Sawbridgeworth
  Welfare Foods Service (Overclaims)
  Welfare Foods Service (Overclaims)
  Pigs Scheme (Inspectors)
  Pigs Scheme (Inspectors)
  Swedes (Department's Transactions)
  Swedes (Department's Transactions)
  Fried Fish Shop, Edgworth
  Fried Fish Shop, Edgworth
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Emigrants, U.S.A. (Capital Transfers)
  Emigrants, U.S.A. (Capital Transfers)
  Inland Revenue Department (Letters)
  Inland Revenue Department (Letters)
  Betting Tax
  Betting Tax
  Tobacco Duty Relief Tokens
  Tobacco Duty Relief Tokens
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Utility Clothing (Price Increases)
  Utility Clothing (Price Increases)
  Sheeting Prices
  Sheeting Prices
  Pyrethrum Flowers
  Pyrethrum Flowers
  GRAZING LAND, DARTMOOR
  GRAZING LAND, DARTMOOR
  GAS TURBINE AERO-ENGINES
  GAS TURBINE AERO-ENGINES

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

RAILWAY CLEARING SYSTEM SUPERANNUATION FUND BILL
Read 2ª, and committed.
CARDIFF CORPORATION (EXTENSION OF TIME) BILL.
Read 2ª, and committed.
WARWICK CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3ª, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

NEW CHAMBER: LAYING OF FOUNDATION STONE.
2.35 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT JOWITT): My Lords, before we deal with the business on the Order Paper I should like, if I may, to repeat to your Lordships an announcement made by Mr. Speaker in another place. I will use his own words. He said:
" The Ceremony of the Laying of the Foundation Stone of the New Chamber will take place on Wednesday, May 26, at 12 noon in Star Chamber Court. I am in some difficulty owing to the very limited space available, therefore I regret that it will not be possible to find accommodation for the wives of Members or guests. Some Members of the previous Parliament may wish to attend and they will be welcome as far as room permits."
I read Mr. Speaker's words because I feel that it is only too clear that the difficulty to which he referred will apply certainly in no less degree to members of your Lordships' House.

TRANSPORT OF NIGERIAN GROUND-NUTS.
2.37 p.m.
LORD HAILEY: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government the question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government, whether in view of the very large amount of ground-nuts still awaiting transport in Northern Nigeria, they have taken steps to furnish additional engines and wagons for the Nigerian Railways.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, His Majesty's Government are extremely anxious to facilitate the removal of existing stocks of ground-nuts in Nigeria, and an improvement in the delivery dates of certain orders has been secured. I am glad to be able to inform the noble Lord that twenty locomotives are being shipped from this country during this week, and that seventy wagons are scheduled for delivery during the course of the current year. Other locomotives and wagons are on order, and everything possible is being done to expedite the execution of the orders.
LORD HAILEY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his reply, I hope that I may be in order in saying that, when I left Nigeria about a month ago, there were estimated to be as much as 250,000 tons of ground-nuts awaiting removal, and it was calculated that at the existing rate of removal it would take nearly a year, or perhaps eighteen months, to get them down to the port.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, can the Minister say exactly what proportion of the 300,000 tons crop of ground-nuts have not been shifted, and whether he estimates that the whole of the existing overhang will have been shifted before the new crop has to be dealt with in the late autumn of this year?
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, before the Minister replies, I would like to ask this question: Are we to understand that these twenty locomotives are the first to be shipped to Nigeria after all this time? Has nothing yet reached there?
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, the answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, is: No; that is not the case. This is an instalment which is being sent out as a result of a special inquiry which was made at the end of last year during the visit to the Colony of Major-General Feilden, Vice-Quarter-Master-General, who was asked to inquire into the problem of the accumulation of ground-nuts. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, asked two questions to which I am afraid that I cannot reply, since I was not given Notice and they were not covered by the original question put down.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I beg leave to ask one more supplementary question, which does arise directly out of what the Minister has just said about Major-General Feilden having made a special inquiry. Is it not a fact that the Nigerian Government, even before the end of the war, had warned His Majesty's Government of the urgent need for replenishing the rolling stock, wagons and engines on that railway if this great ground-nut crop was to be shifted, and were not all the plans and needs before His Majesty's Government right back in 1945?
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I will gladly reply to the noble Viscount, giving him the details for which he has asked, as soon as I have been able to refer the matter to my advisers.
LORD HARLECH: May I ask whether, in view of this appalling position—only seventy wagons to go out now, when we want hundreds—it would be possible to reorganise the river services and use the short haul from Kano to Baro down the Niger, so that ships may be available to shift this vast quantity of oil seeds? If the nuts are not shifted, will it not have a most discouraging effect on native production for many years to come?
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I can assure the noble Lord that we have carefully examined the possibility of river transport, but the result of this examination has not encouraged us to adopt the view that the method is practicable.

POLITICAL REFUGEES.
2.43 p.m.
LORD AILWYN: 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, whether they consider that the publicity given to the arrival in this country of political refugees (as instanced recently in the case of the Soviet Army officer, Colonel J. D. Tassoev) is in the best interests of all concerned; whether this publicity is not liable to prejudice the asylum granted to such refugees; and whether they will consider taking steps to ensure a greater reticence in these matters in future.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am entirely in favour of reticence, both in these matters and generally. Indeed, I consider that the absence of due reticence is one of the most unfortunate tendencies of the present age. In particular, I agree that it is not normally desirable to give publicity to the arrival in this country of political refugees, and His Majesty's Government do not make a practice of it. In the case to which the noble Lord refers it was thought necessary to issue a statement to the Press, in view of the conflicting reports circulating in Germany and elsewhere and the assertion that this officer had been kidnapped by the Americans.
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble and learned Viscount for his reply. Arising from that reply, I should like to ask whether it is not true that a general prerequisite of effective asylum in this country is a minimum of publicity concerning the individual concerned, and whether any failure by the Government to ensure reticence in the future will not, unwittingly and unwillingly, be one more burden placed on the shoulders of our splendid but overworked and understaffed police and security officers.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the Third Report from the Select Committee.
The Committee reported as follows:
1.—PALACE OF WESTMINISTER.
The Committee approved the re-allocation of accommodation in the Palace of Westminster necessitated by alterations in the arrangements for the hearing of Appeals.
2.—CLOSING OF LIBRARY.
The Committee decided to limit the numbers of visitors to the library to six in any party, except by special permission.
3.—PROVISION OF UNIFORMS FOR DOOR-KEEPERS.
The Committee authorised the provision of a dress suit to Doorkeepers, in lieu of the existing allowance, on appointment; and the payment of half the cost of subsequent renewals, when necessary, after a minimum period of three years.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DROGHEDA): My Lords, there is nothing in this Report to which I need draw your Lordships' special attention, and I beg to move that the Report be considered and agreed to.
Moved, That the Report be considered and agreed to.—(The Earl of Drogheda.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
2.46 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT ADDISON): My Lords, before we start on the Second Reading of the Motor Spirit (Regulation) Bill, may I intervene to indicate what we propose for the later stages, after consultation with noble Lords opposite? As your Lordships are aware, if the basic ration is to be restored on June 1 next, this Bill must be on the Statute Book before that date. With these limitations of time in front of us, we suggest that the House should deal with the Committee stage of this Bill as first Order when we reassemble after Whitsun on Tuesday, May 25. We shall postpone the Committee stage of the British Nationality Bill about which some of your Lordships expressed a desire for a little more time after the Second Reading yesterday until Monday, May 31. We shall leave where it is the other business now standing on the Order Paper for Tuesday, May 25 and shall hope to be able to deal with it after the Committee stage of the Motor Spirit (Regulation) Bill has been completed.
As it will be necessary to send the Bill back to another place as quickly as possible for consideration of any Amendments which we may have made we shall take the Report and Third Reading stages of the Motor Spirit Bill on the day after the Committee stage—namely, on Wednesday, May 26. I sincerely hope that,
816
in the entirely exceptional circumstances, your Lordships will forgive this exceptional haste in dealing with the further stages of this Bill.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, I feel sure the whole House will fall in with the arrangements which the Leader of the House has proposed. It means taking the Bill very quickly, but the reasons for doing so are urgent. At the same time, as the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has indicated, the postponement of another important Bill will give us the ample time which we must have for the consideration in Committee of the Motor Spirit Bill. Not only are there Amendments which your Lordships will wish to put down, but I understand that the Government, very properly, are also utilising this House not for purposes in connection with the character of the Bill but for their own purposes. If we have a full debate, and full consideration in Committee, one result may be that the Report and Third Reading will be quite short. I appreciate how inconvenient it is to impinge upon the time of private members on a Wednesday, but in this particular case, if the Bill is to pass, I do not see what else we can do.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I quite agree. But does it mean that we shall have the Committee stage of the Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill on the same day as we are taking the Committee stage of this Bill? If so, I do not know how late we shall sit.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: I understood that the other matters on the Order Paper for that day were not likely to occupy any considerable time. However, in view of what the noble Earl has said, I will look into the position again and let him know.
VISCOUNT SIMON: Will the arrangements and dates now indicated and accepted interfere in any way with what I think was the arrangement, that the Committee stage of the Criminal Justice Bill should be taken on June 1?
VISCOUNT ADDISON: I have not the list of Bills before me but I think that that stands where it is. If it does not, I will certainly inform the noble and learned Viscount.
VISCOUNT SIMON: I think it is still on the Paper.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: For the convenience of the House, perhaps in view of the great interest taken in the British Nationality Bill, the noble Viscount, Lord Addison, will make a statement. I understand that the Committee stage of that Bill would have been taken on Tuesday. Can it now be taken on the following Monday, May 31? If we could have it on record, we would be prepared to agree to that.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: I think I have said that in order to allow ample time for that Bill, we shall adopt that course. Noble Lords wanted a little longer between Second Reading and Committee stage, and that is why the programme has been arranged in this way.

MOTOR SPIRIT (REGULATION) BILL.
2.53 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, this Bill is designed to promote the Government scheme for the restoration of private motoring by the grant of a modest ration of petrol to private motorists. Your Lordships will recollect that in a statement made on April 8 the Lord Chancellor explained to the House the general proposals of the Government in this respect. I do not think that it would be your Lordships' wish that I should again go over the whole of that ground in detail. I will merely indicate some of the points, in order to provide a background for consideration of the Bill of which I am moving the Second Reading.
Your Lordships will recollect that the basic petrol ration was removed last autumn owing to the difficulties which had arisen in connection with the balance of payments situation. The course which the Government took in connection with that has been amply justified, in that a saving of over 500,000 tons of petrol has already been effected. Unfortunately, although the production drive has been going ahead, the balance of payments situation does not yet make it possible to restore the basic petrol ration as it previously existed. The Government
818
have felt great sympathy with the difficulties of the private motorist as a result of his being deprived of this basic petrol ration. Indeed, many of us, if not most of us, enjoy our motoring when we can get it. From the very time when the basic ration had to be removed in that way, the Minister of Fuel and Power has been casting abort for a method of restoring private motoring. There was one possible source of supply of petrol which, if it could be tapped, so to speak, would enable some restoration to take place without in any way being a drain on our foreign exchange. As your Lordships are no doubt already aware, that was the black market in petrol. It was obvious that a substantial amount of petrol was going into the black market. There were different estimates as to how much it was. An authoritative estimate, to which I shall refer again in a moment, was that even after the cuts of last autumn the amount going into the black market was at the rate of some 100,000 tons per annum. It is estimated that in 1947, before the cuts, while the basic ration was still in existence, the amount was as much as 160,000 tons—a vary substantial quantity.
The Minister of Fuel and Power estimated that if this black market petrol could be diverted into the tanks of the honest private motorist, and could be supplemented by economies which it was thought might be made, it would be possible to restore a modicum of petrol to the private motorist. The Minister appointed a Committee on the Evasion of Petrol Rationing Control, under the Chairmanship of Mr. Russell Vick, K.C. I am sure that your Lordships would wish to pay tribute to the rapid and industrious way in which that Committee handled their difficult problem, and made their recommendations to the Minister. The substance of the Russell Vick Report has been accepted by the Government and, as the noble and learned Viscount informed the House, it is proposed as from June 1 next to restore an amount of petrol to be private motorist which will enable him to do something like 90 miles per month. Small as that amount may be, I think it is, as your Lordships may agree, a distinct contribution to the general comfort of that important class of road users.
The continuance of the new ration depends upon the effectiveness of the Russell Vick recommendations. If they fail,

819
then undoubtedly private motoring will again be in extreme jeopardy. It will rest largely with the motoring public itself as to whether in fact they are successful. The Russell Vick Committee make it quite clear that they regard as the most important element in this situation, so far as the general body of motorists is concerned, what one might call the moral aspect of it. Unfortunately, black marketeering has come to be regarded by large sections of the public as a venial offence, and nowhere is that more true than in connection with motoring. This impression, unfortunately, has a fairly lengthy history, because motoring offences under the Acts in existence before the Second World War—offences such as failing to light up at the right time, exceeding the speed limit and matters of that kind—have come to be regarded by motorists as rather venial. There has undoubtedly been an extension of this feeling into the field of the black market; and many motorists have been obtaining additional supplies in that way, without feeling any remorse of conscience but, indeed, thinking they were being rather clever in so doing. Unfortunately, that kind of attitude has been encouraged by the less responsible sections of the Press. Even reputable newspapers have suggested that there is something rather useful, so to speak, in challenging the Government's control policy in this regard—and, indeed, the speeches of some public men have rather supported that point of view. It will be seen, therefore, that there is a considerable resistance to be broken down if morale is to be re-established on the sort of basis that is necessary to get rid of this black market. Motorists must understand that if they do not adopt a different attitude in this regard they will bring the whole of this scheme into grave jeopardy. They must understand that for a motorist to go into the black market to increase his supplies in this way is definitely dishonest and, if he is not concerned about dishonesty, that it is not playing the game as regards his fellow motorists, because it will mean that they will not receive their supplies.
The Russell Vick Committee found that the black market is essentially due to the illicit demands of the motoring public; that the supplies of petrol which go into the black market are derived almost entirely from commercial users, to whom, as your Lordships are of course aware, the rationing
820
system never applied. Owing to the essentiality—to use the rather curious word which appears in the Report—of commercial road haulage, petrol has always been allocated to the road haulage interests and not rationed under the ordinary scheme; so that the petrol comes from the commercial users. The Committee found that the main problem in connection with preventing this leakage of petrol from commercial users into the tanks of the private motorist was the inadequacy of the arrangements made for enforcing the rules which exist in order to prevent this and, in addition, the complete inadequacy of the penalties.
The substance of the analysis of the problem is set out in paragraph 46 of the Report at page 15, where the three points which I have just indicated are made. Paragraph 47 goes on to say:
"It follows that, short of introducing fundamentally different principles of rationing, the broad lines of solution must be

(a) to regain the respect and co-operation of the public in general and of road users in particular;

(b) to deprive the commercial coupons of their value to the motorist;

(c) to simplify enforcement and provide a penalty which fits the crime."

The Government have accepted the main lines of the solution proposed by the Russell Vick Committee, and the recommendations which are contained in paragraph 4 of their Report. The Committee propose that commercial petrol should be coloured and should have chemicals dissolved in it, so that it would be possible to test and discover whether the petrol in use was or was not petrol which had been provided for commercial vehicles. The problem of preventing this coloured or chemically treated petrol finding its way into the tanks of the private motor car has to be dealt with by means of an enforcement system, buttressed by substantial penalties, and the Committee recommended that very stringent penalties should be enacted to enable this scheme to be carried through effectively.
They set out their recommendations in regard to these penalties in paragraph 49 of their Report. By and large they found that the only really effective penalty for the offending motorist is deprivation of petrol and of the use of the road. The Government agree with that view of the situation, and it is because its implementation requires the establishment of

821
new offences that the Bill which is before your Lordships' House this afternoon has been introduced. The arrangements for enforcement in the Bill are found at the beginning and, if your Lordships will turn to it, I will endeavour to deal with some of the more important points. Your Lordships will see that in Clauses 1, 2 and 3 a series of new offences are established, or are proposed, and they fall into three main groups, In Clause 1 there are the offences by the retailer of motor spirit, the garage proprietor, who will be required to keep his commercial petrol separate from his private petrol by marking his pumps in the prescribed manner with the word "Commercial" or the word "Private"; that is, as it were, a condition precedent to the following provisions. Then, that having been established, it becomes an offence for the retailer of motor spirit to have in any of his pumps the wrong sort of petrol. If he is found with private petrol in his commercial pump, or vice versa, that is an offence. Again, if he supplies commercial petrol into the tank of a private vehicle, that is an offence. Those are the two main offences—the one having the wrong petrol in the pump, and the other supplying it into the tank of the wrong type of motor vehicle. Of course, in the litter regard it is one-way petrol, because it is only commercial petrol which will get into the tank of the private car.
So far as the private motorist is concerned, there are two offences. They are established in Clause 2, and correspond with those to which I have already drawn your Lordships' attention. The one is having commercial petrol in the tank, and the other is acquiring commercial petrol in order to put it into the tank. In Clause 3, there are established what might be called consequential offences, aimed for example at covering an offence by a third party—the man who puts the wrong petrol into the pump; or the garage hand, perhaps, who puts the wrong petrol from the pump into the tank of the motor vehicle; or the very serious offence of tampering with the petrol in order to remove the colouring and to pass off as private spirit what was issued as commercial spirit. Those are the sort of consequential offences which are established in Clause 3. Your Lordships will therefore see that there are
822
these three new heads of offences. You will appreciate—and considerable play has been made in regard to this matter—that the mere discovery of the wrong petrol in the tank of the motor vehicle, or in the pump of the garage proprietor, is prima facie an offence, and it is important that the man who is accused of such an offence should have the means of defending himself.
Your Lordships will see that under both heads, in Clause 1 and. Clause 2, it is a defence for the person concerned to show that the petrol got into the pump or into the tank, as the case may be, without his consent or connivance. In the case of the retailer, he also has to show that he did not know that it was in the pump, and that he exercised "all reasonable diligence," having regard to all the circumstances, to prevent the petrol being there. In the case of the private motorist, the defence is on the same sort of lines, though it is not quite so stringent. He has to show that the petrol did not get into the tank with his consent or connivance:
"that he did not afterwards discover that the petrol was commercial petrol or had no reasonably convenient opportunity after such discovery of removing the petrol from the tank; and
"that he did not neglect to take any step which in the circumstances he might reasonably have been expected to take to prevent the petrol being in the tank."
If he can satisfy the court on those heads he will have successfully defended himself against the charge.
The penalties, which are undoubtedly severe, were perhaps the most important element in the Russell Vick recommendations. Certain penalties are laid down in Clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill, and they consist substantially in disqualification provisions, disqualification being the only effective way, as I am sure your Lordships will agree, of implementing the policy by which a man who has broken the law is to be kept off the road. These disqualification provisions are automatic; they must be applied on conviction by the court. Let me refer first to the case of the guilty retailer: the disqualification there is in respect of retailing petrol at the premises where the offence occurred during the succeeding twelve months. In other words, the person concerned will not be allowed to carry on his business as a petrol retailer at those premises

823
during the next twelve months. In the case of a more serious type of offence, such as tampering with the colour of the commercial petrol or with the chemicals which have been put into it, the disqualification is more complete, because it not only applies to the premises at which the offence was committed, but also disqualifies him from carrying on the business of petrol distribution anywhere.
The private motorist is dealt with in Clause 5. On conviction he is disqualified, in the first place, from driving for a period of twelve months, and in addition to that there is a new provision for disqualification of the car. This latter is a new type of sanction. The disqualification will go with the car, even if it passes into the hands of another person; and it will persist for the twelve months' period. In a sense it is, if one may use such a comparison, rather like a maritime lien—it clings to the ship.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: You can hardly say that it runs with the car.
LORD CHORLEY: The disqualification clings to the car during the period in question, but, of course, the position which will arise between the commission of the offence and the hearing of the charge by the court has to be considered. Obviously, during that time, the man who is guilty and who knows that he is guilty, and who feels that he is almost certain to be convicted, is likely to dispose of the car. In order to deal with that situation, the court which eventually hears the case, on finding that the car has been disposed of in that way, will impose a forfeit to the amount of half the value of the car. That will be a very considerable sanction against a man disposing of a car in that way. If he does so he will have to pay half the value of the car when he is convicted.
Clearly, again, it is essential that he should be prevented from using the car during the period, and if the disqualification is to attach to the car, notwithstanding the fact that it comes into the hands of a new owner, then obviously it is necessary that steps should be taken to enable the man who is proposing to purchase the car to discover whether it is subject to such disqualification. It is therefore provided that the court which imposes the sanction shall see that the road book is handed into court and is suitably endorsed in such a
824
way that it will be impossible for the new purchaser to be oblivious of the imposition of a sentence of this kind. The man who is convicted will have to give up his licence and produce his road book to the court in order that it may be endorsed in that way.
Finally, I would remind your Lordships that the use of a car while disqualified is an offence under Section 13 of the Roads Act of 1920, which, I think, establishes a triple penalty in cases where motor vehicles are being used without a proper road licence. Those are the main disqualifications contained in these clauses of the Bill. In addition, there are penalties of the more usual kind provided in Clause 6, which your Lordships will see divides offences under the Bill into two main types. There is what I might perhaps call the rather less serious type of offences—though they are serious enough—which are dealt with in Clauses 1 and 2, such as, having wrong petrol in a pump or a tank. Offences such as tampering with the colouring or the chemicals in petrol, or being convicted on a second occasion, and matters of that kind, are classed as more serious offences. The first type of offence is subject to a penalty of a fine up to £500 or three months' imprisonment. The more serious type of offence, while it may be dealt with on those lines, may also be dealt with by indictment, in which case the amount of the fine may be up to £1,000 and the period of imprisonment may be up to two years.
I ought perhaps to draw the attention of your Lordships to the fact that in the case of limited companies and bodies corporate, which are dealt with in subsections (3) and (4) of Clause 6, a particularly onerous situation is brought into existence. It is clearly essential to have a very watertight system in respect of a body corporate, and so it is provided that:
"If the person convicted on indictment of any offence under this Act is a body corporate, the amount of the fine that may be imposed on that body corporate in respect of the offence shall not be limited …."
It is not limited to £1,000. Under the next subsection, where there is an offence, directors and officers will be under a pretty substantial obligation. In order to defend himself such a person has to show:
"that the offence was committed without his consent or connivance and that he exercised an such diligence to prevent the commission of

825
the offence as he ought to have exercised having regard to the nature of his functions in that capacity and to all the circumstances."
So they are put in much the same position as retailers in connection with their defence under Clause 1.
The remaining clauses deal with a number of miscellaneous matters, such as the institution of proceedings, the necessary power of entry and taking samples, which the police must have, and the provision of regulations. There are a number of rather difficult points, such as the definition of private car, which will have to be dealt with by regulation, and the Bill gives power to the Minister to make regulations. How important and how difficult this may be is indicated by the discussion in another place on the position of a car carrying plates which can be used both for private and for commercial vehicles when changing hands—trade plates, as they are called. In answer to a question, the learned Attorney-General said that it would be sufficient, where a car was carrying trade plates, whether it was private or commercial, that it should contain commercial spirit in its tank. The Ministry wish it to be made clear that that is not quite so. If a car carrying trade plates is a private car, then it must contain private petrol; if a commercial car carries trade plates, it must contain commercial petrol.
There are a number of differences between the scheme set out in the Bill and the proposals made by the Russell Vick Committee. I need not go into these in any detail. The Committee did not propose that there should be this defence for garage proprietors, and in that respect I think your Lordships will agree that the rather more liberal attitude taken in the Bill is an improvement. The Committee recommended that no further petrol should be issued for a vehicle in respect of the driving of which an offence had been committed. The approach of the Bill here is rather different, but substantially it comes to the same thing. The Committee did not deal with the disposal of a car before conviction, and I think your Lordships will agree that this was perhaps a loophole. They recommended that the driver of a vehicle should keep a record sheet. That recommendation is more of an administrative question than a matter to be incorporated in the Bill. The Minister will discuss that with his
826
advisory committee, and it may well be that the matter will be dealt with in regulations.
One problem which has given rise to a good deal of discussion is the single-pump garage, which obviously presents a difficulty, especially in isolated rural districts. If the Bill did not apply to single-pump garage, there would be a large gap through which a coach and pair—or rather, in this case, a Rolls Royce car—could be driven. A special permit is therefore to be issued to the proprietor of a single-pump garage enabling him to provide private petrol for commercial vehicles. In that way I think the difficulty can almost certainly be surmounted.
It only remains for me to try to deal with some of the more important criticisms which have been advanced against the Bill. It has been argued that the penalties should not be automatic. The Russell Vick Committee considered that they ought to be automatic. Of course, that is not an overwhelming argument, but it is important that this Committee, which gave so much careful consideration to the matter, felt that automatic disqualifications are advisable. Your Lordships will agree that it is important that a uniform policy should be followed in all the courts in regard to infractions of this important law. We all know that some magistrates take a more generous view than others, and if the courts in some parts of the country are more lenient than in other parts, it will lead to consider able heart-searching and difficulty. It seems advisable that these disqualifications should be automatic. Of course, the fine or imprisonment is always at the discretion of the Court.
There is the question of the onus of proof which is put on the defendant. It has been said, by a number of lawyers in particular, that that is a reversal of the ordinary course of English law, in which the onus of proof is on the prosecution. That is the ordinary rule in English law; but it has been English law for a very long time that in certain types of offence, where the offence is peculiarly in the knowledge of the defendant, the onus of proof is shifted on to him. Certainly for a hundred years it has been the rule that, where a man has been found in possession of goods which have been recently stolen, it is his duty to show that he came by them honestly. If he gives reasonable

827
evidence that he received them honestly, then he discharges that burden of proof. I am sure that your Lordships, after thinking about this matter, will agree that there is no alternative. Suppose, for instance, that a policeman takes samples in the car park of a cinema and finds coloured petrol in a private car. If the burden of showing that that petrol was dishonestly obtained was on the policeman, surely there is no way of discharging the burden of proof, because clearly the policeman could not tell where the motorist got the petrol. Your Lordships will agree that it is only sensible and reasonable that the motorist should explain where the petrol came from; and if he can do that, obviously a court will find him not guilty of an offence. The shifting of the onus of proof is not peculiar to receiving; it applies also to cases where a person is found by night with implements of housebreaking in his possession, and where explosives are found in a man's house. Even under the Companies Act, which was before your Lordships' House not long ago, there is a number of instances where the burden of proof is put on the man who is particularly qualified to give evidence on how a certain state of affairs arose. In these circumstances, I think your Lordships will agree that there is here no infraction of the general principle of English law in regard to the onus of proof.
The disqualification of the vehicle has been criticised. It has been suggested, for example, that where a man dies and leaves a widow, it is very unfair that the widow, who is quite innocent, should be deprived of the use of the car for twelve months. This criticism, frankly, is one which appeals to me more than any of the others. It is possible that there may be hard cases, and in another place the Attorney-General gave an undertaking that he would consider the possibility of enabling an application to be made to the court for the removal of the disqualification, say at the end of six months. We hope it may be possible to do something on those lines, which would obviously reduce the burden of criticism which has been made.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: Do you mean by amendment here?
LORD CHORLEY: Yes, by amendment here.
VISCOUNT SIMON: The Attorney-General is not in the House of Lords.
LORD CHORLEY: The Attorney-General gave an undertaking that the Minister would consider this problem.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: Does that mean by amendment before the Bill leaves us, and not by regulation?
LORD CHORLEY: Yes, by amendment of the Bill. I am not in a position to give a definite promise to your Lordships in that respect this afternoon, or I would be very glad to do so.
The final criticism which has been made is that disqualification of the vehicle deprives a man for a period of twelve months of his occupation, may be as a driver of a car, or as the owner of a garage. Undoubtedly that is so. But this is a serious matter with which we are dealing, and if a man deliberately commits an offence of this kind I am sure your Lordships will agree that he ought to be dealt with severely. It does not prevent him from selling his garage, of course, if he is a garage owner. He may do that and go into some other walk of life, or possibly obtain a garage elsewhere, because if his offence is an offence under the first clause of the Bill he is disqualified only in respect of the particular garage. We do not pretend for a moment that the penalties in the Bill are not substantial penalties. This is a very serious situation which is being dealt with, and it can be dealt with only by substantial penalties. With the aid of this enforcement, and with these penalties, the Government have every hope that they will be able to crush out this black market. With the assistance of the general motoring public—which assistance they are so eminently qualified to give—we hope it will be possible to administer the petrol placed at the disposal of the private motorist over the next months in such a way as to make this scheme a success, and we hope it may not be necessary to have recourse to the grave penal provisions of the Bill. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Chorley.)
3.34 p.m.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, whatever view may be taken in different quarters of the House about this Bill, there

829
is one thing upon which I think we can all agree—namely, that it is a very odd Bill. I do not think the oldest or the most learned member of this House has ever seen anything quite like it. I am sure even the most hard-hearted of your Lordships could not withhold a meed of sympathy from the noble Lord as he picked his way delicately, if somewhat nervously, through this minefield of pains and penalties. He said, in effect, that this is a now rule of law. Well, it is. I can think of only one parallel, not drawn from a jurist but from a poet. The noble Lord will possibly remember the passage from Browning, where he says, if I remember rightly:
"There's a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails."
That might be a good introduction to this Bill.
Why must we have this Bill? No one has the least sympathy with the black market, though the Government must take their share of blame for its creation—I do not mean by criminal intent, but by what is nearly as bad, mismanagement and negligence. We have this Bill as the price of an exiguous, unfairly distributed basic ration. I say it is an exiguous ration, and nobody can pretend that it is anything but a very small one. We have the Bill largely because of the muddle and neglect of the Government in handling the petrol situation. We have it as a result of the Government allowing sterling petrol to go in almost unlimited quantities to soft currency areas, where the rationing, if it exists at all, is a great deal more liberal than the 80 or 90 miles a month, or whatever it is, that some of us are to have here. We have it also because little progress is being made with refineries, and little foresight has been shown in the provision of tankers. The noble Lord mentioned that the great production programme for petroleum was getting under way. I am interested to hear that remark. As that subject has been introduced, perhaps the noble Lord who will reply on behalf of the Government will supply us with a little more definite information in regard to that matter. I understood that, owing to shortage of steel (that very odd shortage which seems to become greater as the output of steel goes up month after month) work on carrying out the great plans for
830
the refineries had not started at all; that although the Shell Company, I think, raised £30,000,000 or more the other day, no start had been made. The noble Lord said that, in spite of the great progress in the production plans, we must still have this Bill. I would like to know what that progress is.
The ration, in addition to being exiguous, is unfair, and I do not believe that anybody on either side of the House will dispute that statement. I say it is unfair because those of us who have been given, a special allocation for proved needs are to get no benefit at all. As so often happens with this Government, people who have managed to get round the rules get away with it and receive a premium, and those of us who try to play the game are penalised. I am quite certain that all your Lordships when putting in applications for a petrol ration have been absolutely sincere and have cut down on what you previously had in order to meet the appeal. That not only applies to your Lordships; I believe it applies to the bulk of the people in this country, because, for all these pains and penalties, the bulk of the people are honest and want to play the game. Yet every one who has been given a ration because of proved need is to be penalised as a consequence of this Bill, and will receive no extra petrol to take his wife and family out on a summer evening. It is not even one law for the rich and another for the poor, which I know is one of the new rules of law. This Bill tits the rich and the poor equally.
We shall have to deal in Committee much more closely with some of the very odd provisions of this Bill and, what is even more important, to elucidate what the provisions in the Bill mean. I believe that everybody would be ready to put out of business and to put off the road the real offenders. What worries me about this Bill are two things. The first is that you are treating almost equally drastically the man who plans and carries out a racket, and the absent owner (who may be completely guiltless) unless he proves a whole series of negatives. I always understood that that was the hardest thing to do and was the thing, therefore, that wise lawyers and wise draftsmen always try to avoid.
The other point that worries me is that the maximum of inconvenience is being created for the unoffending public—and I am going to come to one or two instances

831
of that. The noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor is to reply, and I would like to ask for one or two explanations. The noble Lord who introduced the Bill very fairly drew attention to subsection (4) of Clause 6, which imposes drastic penalties on every person who is a director or officer of a body corporate convicted of an offence. I am glad to know that the Government—at least, I understand that this is so—are going to propose in this House an Amendment to make it plain that a nationalised corporation, its officers and directors, or whatever they are called, will be treated in exactly the same way as any other public company. That is obviously right and necessary, but I would like to ask the Lord Chancellor this question: What is the diligence which a director of a company, nationalised or free, has to exercise in order to avoid these enormous and automatic penalties? He is
"deemed to be guilty of that offence unless he proves that the offence was committed without his consent or connivance and that he exercised all such diligence to prevent the commission of the offence as he ought to have exercised having regard to the nature of his functions in that capacity and to all the circumstances."
Let me take one of the national enterprises, the Transport Commission, who are now, I suppose, by far the largest owners of vehicles in this country. They must have tens of thousands of vehicles. If one of the drivers of those vehicles commits an offence, every member of the Transport Commission will be liable unless he proves those negatives. I thought those gentlemen had a good deal to do, but if whenever one of their employees has committed an indiscretion or taken part in a private racket anywhere from Land's End to John o'Groats, the whole Board—Sir Cyril Hurcomb and all his other band of knights—have to attend any police court where that individual is being prosecuted, they will have even more to do than I thought. I am in favour of prosecuting the guilty party, but one ought to have some sense of proportion in these matters. If it is necessary to do that—and it has never been done before in this kind of case—I ask the Lord Chancellor how Sir Cyril Hurcomb and his colleagues can prove, not only that they did not know about it (which is, of course, what every director would say, and in 999 cases out of every 1,000 in perfect truth,
832
because he would not know what was being done by someone at the other end of the country) but also that they have exercised all such diligence to prevent the commission of the offence in all the circumstances?
The noble Lord who introduced the Bill said, in effect, "Of course we have to lay down these penalties and give no discretion to magistrates, because you could not trust the magistrates to give the right kind of penalty, and it must be equal all round." But surely the magistrates have to exercise a discretion in this, and have to make up their minds as to what, in all the circumstances, is the particular discretion a particular individual ought to have exercised. We ought to know all about this and where we stand, because it is a serious matter to impose these penalties without making it quite clear what the offence is. I should have thought that that was an elementary rule of law.
I now come to the more modest persons, like myself. What has the owner of a private car to prove, if he has lent his car to a friend? The first thing, I suppose, is that he does not know anything about it; but that is not enough. The noble Lord spoke, in introducing the Bill, as if that were enough. If your Lordships look at Clause 2 the man has to prove three sets of things. The only thing he can say, presumably, is: "I really know nothing about this"; but that is not enough- If your Lordships look at Clause 2 (1) (a), (b) and (c), you will see that he has to prove three things, which seems to me to be very hard. These are the kind of things—and I have no doubt there are many others—which will have to be considered in Committee; and, fortunately, as the Lord Chancellor said yesterday, there is in this House a unique and unbiased legal talent which can be brought to bear.
May I now turn for one moment to Clause 5, which of all the odd clauses seems to me perhaps the oddest? This is the clause which says that if a man commits an offence, not only is he to be put off the road—which is quite right—fined, and all the rest of it, but that his motor car has to be attainted. The motor car has not committed an offence. Why on earth should the motor car be attainted—and for a year? I think in this matter there is some slight glimmering of sympathy

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from the Government, because I am sure—although it was more than the noble Lord's place was worth to give a promise, to use his own expression—he hoped that by the time we re-assembled he might be in a position to propose to us some modification of this proposal. What is the sense in saying that the motor car has to suffer this ban and penalty? The noble Lord said that the object was to deny the road to the offending person. Nobody objects to that. But why should you deny the road to the unoffending motor car, in the hands of some perfectly honest person? All your Lordships know that to-day, thanks to the export drive—and it is very necessary that we should have that export drive—it is almost impossible to buy a motor car. People in this House and outside are told they will have to wait four or five years before they can get a chance to buy a motor car, unless they give some tremendous price for a second-hand car, which may fall to pieces. I should have thought, with that shortage of cars, that the sensible thing was to say that although the offending motorist shall not drive the car for a year, the motor car may be sold and some decent person who is looking for a car may drive it.
Take the case of a much more serious offence, that of manslaughter by a motorist who is drunk when driving a car. He is, very properly, sent to prison; but the car is not sent to prison with him. I suggest that we might do something about this. I am not making an appeal in the interests of the criminal; I am making these appeals in the interests of the great bulk of the non-offending public. Take the case of the farmer or the commercial traveller, for instance, who uses his car for a dual purpose. In future, he is to be allowed, to the extent of 80 or 90 miles a month, to take his family out for a few treats. The farmer, perhaps, uses the trailer behind his car six days a week for conveying pigs or other livestock; and on the seventh day, after he has been to church or chapel, he takes his wife in the car and perhaps some of his family, if it is a large one, in the trailer. Similarly, of course, the commercial traveller, uses his car for both business and private purposes. What kind of petrol are these men to get—red or white? There is undoubtedly much misunderstanding about this.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Red petrol will be issued to every vehicle licensed as a goods vehicle for the carrying of goods. That is different from a private motor car which is used for business or commercial purposes.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I thought I understood—until the noble Lord added his last few remarks to his statement. I really do not know how we are to adjust this difficulty. The farmer's or commercial traveller's car is surely licensed as a commercial vehicle.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: No.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: Well, I really do not know how it will operate. There is surely a distinction between going on a joy-ride and going on what might be called one's lawful occasions. As I understand it, to-day we may go only on our lawful occasions; after June 1 we shall be able to go for 90 miles on a joy-ride. If a man is using his car for both purposes, business and pleasure, how can anybody decide whether the whole of his time is spent on pleasure or on business?
Now I come to what puzzles me still more, and that is the single-pump garage. I am perfectly certain that whoever drafted this Bill does not get to the country very often, or at any rate does not know how the countryman lives. Suppose there is only one pump in a village: is it to be a red pump or a white pump? And if you cannot buy the kind of petrol you want, presumably you will have to go somewhere else, where there is a pump of the right colour. That is going to be extremely inconvenient. Those of us who will be lucky enough to have this basic ration to go 80 or 90 miles will not want to go twenty miles out of our way in order to get the right-coloured petrol. I hope we shall have this point made clear in the Bill. If we have to wait for regulations, we may have to wait more than nine months. I hope we shall be given a little clearer information about this single pump. So far as I can see, if it contains the kind of petrol which I am not allowed to use, either I must fill up with the kind of petrol which renders me liable to imprisonment and the loss of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has left me of my modest fortune, or I shall have to go twenty or thirty miles to find a pump of the colour corresponding, not to my

835
political badge, but to my classification. It is a most extraordinary business.
Then I come to another point. If the owner of a pump commits one of these offences he goes out of business, and the pump shuts down. It is quite true that someone else may come along and buy that pump, though he may not buy the car. That seems to me an extremely odd arrangement. No innocent person may buy the car, but he may buy the pump—although the car and the pump have been equally guilty. The noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, who is as just as he is ingenious, will perhaps explain to us when he replies why the pump is saleable and the car is not. But there are not people waiting round the corner to buy pumps; at least, not to buy pumps for a year or for less than a year. Incidentally, I was shocked by one of the noble Lord's explanations in connection with penalties. He said that although a man convicted of a pump offence may not operate that pump again for a year, he may go next door and acquire another pump. Such a man might go on committing a series of pump offences. He might roll down from pump to pump, and enjoy what might be called a revolving credit. I have heard of pub crawling: we look like having another peripatetic exercise, pump crawling, in the future.
Suppose that you put such pumps out of action in a country district. I am sure that I need not explain to your Lordships—although apparently this was not quite so clear to the Members of another place—what would happen. There are a great many country districts in England, Scotland and Wales where this may be more serious. There are quite a number of places with only one pump. If a particular man commits an offence, the pump is shut unless somebody else comes to take it over. I am not complaining of putting that particular man out of business, as a suitable penalty for his offence; I am thinking about all the innocent people in the country districts who can obtain their petrol only from that one pump, unless they go miles to some other place. In the public interest, that is a very wrong state of affairs. Surely, in these exceptional cases where there is a single pump, there ought to be a discretion permitting an alternative penalty. In the one-pump case, instead of automatically
836
putting that man out of business and thus causing, possibly, tremendous inconvenience to all the people in that neighbourhood, we should be able, when we deal with this in Committee, to provide for an alternative penalty: for instance, fining the man twice as much, but allowing him to carry on in business, if that is in the public interest.
There are many such examples I could quote, but I have cited only some, and they show how fantastic this Bill is. But not only is it fantastic; it looks as if it will do a tremendous amount of harm if we leave it as it is. It will create a maximum of inconvenience at a time when we are all sufficiently inconvenienced. It seems to proceed on the assumption that the only things possible are control, control and more control, and the more passive resistance which comes when people do not regard control as necessary. One of the dangers of excessive control is that it brings all control into disrepute. Everybody knows how in the United States, when nine people out of ten thought that Prohibition was utterly wrong, it was entirely disregarded. The United States, great country though it is, has never recovered from the shock to general morality that Prohibition brought about.
If we go on at this rate, assuming everybody to be a criminal, making controls more complicated and making offences all the time more complicated to meet the more complicated controls, we shall not only cause the maximum of inconvenience to the people of this country but we shall be going counter to the spirit and the good sense of a very law-abiding country—in fact, the most law-abiding country in the whole world. We are a law abiding country because we believe our laws are just, and we have an enormous respect for our Judiciary. We may now be bringing law into disrepute, and I hope that we can simplify this. No one has the least sympathy with the racketeer. I am all out to suppress black markets and to suppress racketeers, but is all this really necessary? May the indirect result not be worse than what we are trying to stop? It has been said:
"Woe unto the world because of offences."
But that condemnation goes on to condemn him
"by whom the offence cometh."

837
I am bound to say that, by what they have done and by what they have left undone in this petrol muddle, and by this extraordinary Bill, the Government cannot escape their share of condemnation.
4.6 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: My Lords, I think I might perhaps clear up one point as regards the use of commercial vehicles, by reference to a semi-official document which I have here. The present practice, which does not appear to be generally appreciated, is that petrol coupons for goods vehicles are issued by the Minister of Transport and not by the Minister of Fuel and Power. If this procedure is followed, part of the difficulty will disappear; in fact I think that a great deal of the difficulty will disappear if this is understood. I must say that I listened to the debate on this Bill in Committee in another place, and the more I listened the more puzzled I became and the more I admired the gallant fight put up by a Back Bencher on the Government side in favour of the most radical alteration of the Bill. Instructions were apparently issued to the effect that if the Bill was not passed and did not come to this House within a certain time, nobody would receive his small ration of petrol for his summer holiday this year. One person who appears not to be receiving it is the strictly honest user of three to five supplementary coupons. I pray your Lordships to right that intolerable injustice. The man who has filled in his application with deadly honesty has done all he can to save petrol, but he will not enjoy a single mile of private motoring during this holiday season.
The second point, which I think has already been sufficiently mentioned, both here and in another place, is, of course, the onus of proof. This House surely cannot accept that the onus of proof should be placed on the motorist. Frankly, I cannot believe that if any member of your Lordships' House were stopped and had his tank examined, and it were found that pink petrol was inside it, he would dream of giving away the person who supplied it. The majority of people never see petrol enter their tanks at all. The majority of people put their car into a public garage—if they are lucky enough to find one. Private garages are seldom used. Public garages served us during
838
the blitz, through good times and tad times. When we hand in our coupons we say, "please have my tank filed up for Monday morning." I am perfectly certain that if we were asked to do so, none of us would consider exposing the name of the garage that supplied the petrol. I cannot tolerate this practice of being asked to snoop on other people, and I do not believe that the public, as a whole, are going to give away, possibly a relation to whom they have lent the car or the garage which has, in all innocence, supplied the petrol. Possibly a practical joker has put something into the tank after a late party. Those two points should be seriously considered, even at the risk of delaying the Bill. The real sufferer is the man holding three to five supplementary coupons, who will get no pleasure motoring at all this year.
There are two or three more technical points which I should like to mention. Possibly the answer to them may be available to-day. The first is in regard to a car which we are endeavouring to popularise for the export trade in this country, and which has already been popularised in the United States, the newest model there being known as the "Town and Country." In England it is called the "utility van" or the "station wagon" and there are one or two other trade names. Could we be told to-day what coloured petrol is going into that type of vehicle? It is certainly a dual purpose car, and is recognised as such. It is commercial in the sense that it is not allowed to travel beyond thirty miles an hour; it is non-commercial in the sense that three extra seats can be put down and it can be used as a pleasure vehicle, or what is known as a shooting-brake or station wagon. There is no ruling whatsoever in the Bill about that particular vehicle, which is becoming more and more popular and is progressively helping our export trade. The second point on which, so far as I can see, there is no ruling at all, and in regard to which a ruling is even more essential, is what might be called the "manufacturers' pump." The tank of every motor vehicle which is dual purpose, with one engine—that is, the utility van or the ten, fifteen or twenty horse power motor car—is filled with petrol as the vehicle comes off the production lines. Will that petrol be commercial petrol, or will it be private? No regard at all seems to be taken of those

839
questions in relation to cars which are being produced in hundreds.
My third point is this. I noticed from the Attorney-General's remarks in another place that he still seems to think we pay 1s. 2d. tax on petrol. We do not; we are paying 9d. tax. As was so ably asked by Mr. Schwartz in the Sunday Times, what is to prevent petrol rationing taking its place in taxation? Every man pays, if he likes, a certain amount of indirect taxation. A man may prefer motoring to greyhound racing or the theatre or to going overseas. Why cannot he purchase his coupons, thereby paying an additional tax? There are certain people who prefer motoring to other forms of pleasure.
I would like to support as strongly as I can what the noble Viscount has said about the responsibility for propaganda in the saving of petrol when rationing first came before your Lordships' House. A few of us knew about the facts, and a few of us asked questions. If we are told it was not so much the dollar position but the actual shortage of petrol which made rationing necessary, I do not believe that the black market could have been so effective. Many of us knew that the price of crude oil was rising; the majority of us knew of the shortage of tankers and of the statistics of consumption in the United States, which was certainly underestimated; but the British public, as a whole, did not know. I believe that if that point had been put more forcibly before the British public, the black market would have been discouraged to a great extent. There is no better fellow than the British transport driver and if he had appreciated that we had to save petrol, and if some help in that saving had been given us by the Government and their officials, I believe that the black market would not have reached the tremendous proportions it now has reached.
I have been away for three or four months and I have come back alarmed at the encouragement in the use of petrol which seems to be given by the Government and various Departments. There are the men in motor cars who call on you in the country and ask whether you or your elderly relatives will help by filling in the month's ration cards; or they offer to slaughter rooks or advise you as to the patch of chalk land to plough up. Then we were told that the parking of cars was
840
to be simplified. I think that after one day's experience your Lordships would find that that is not so. Four months ago a man engaged on legitimate business could park his car in Finsbury Circus. Now 25 per cent. of Finsbury Circus is an open space reserved entirely for the use of the Taxi-drivers' Association. No taxi has been seen in Finsbury Circus since 1938. The City Police Commissioner has done all he can, but there is still a parking space for only fifty cars. During the last three months your Lordships have not been able to park your car outside Westminster Abbey; and you are moved away if you go to Church House. If your residence faces on to one of the Royal Parks you are not allowed to park a car outside, even in daylight and in the luncheon interval, unless it is accompanied or unless the car is one belonging to the Board of Trade.
If the parking in this and other great cities were organised as promised, by the proper use of blitzed sites, petrol consumption in this city alone could, I believe, be decreased by 5 to 10 per cent. We all know that it is the starting and stopping, the changing gear and going round to parking places which wastes a good deal of petrol. Finally, I beg the Government to give this very unfair Bill further thought, and to yield to the pleas of the members of their own Party both here and in another place. I beg them also to make of this Bill a more national effort to save petrol and not to bully the man who is only too willing to help his country.
4.17 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I cannot pretend that this Bill excites within me the slightest enthusiasm. I deplore the reasons which have prompted its introduction. I must confess that I find it difficult to escape the conclusion that wiser administration would have made it unnecessary for the Bill ever to have been brought before your Lordships' House. But while the basic source of the black market is perpetuated, this Bill is necessary. This Bill does nothing whatsoever to eradicate the source of the black market, and I would address myself to the problem of eradicating the cause, rather than to building up a structure which, without the use of extravagant language, must result in

841
British justice not receiving the respect which we desire that it should receive.
This Bill is based upon the recommendations of the Russell Vick Committee. So far as your Lordships' House is concerned, it was never necessary to have a Russell Vick Committee to tell your Lordships the facts. In the debate on November 5 of last year, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, the facts of the position were put before your Lordships' House by people who were fortunate enough to find themselves in the position of knowing the facts. May I ask your Lordships' indulgence while I repeat, from the OFFICIAL REPORT, what I said upon that occasion:
"Comment has been made upon, and great publicity given to, the black market. I am not going to waste your Lordships' time by saying whether in my opinion it has been exaggerated or not; but I am satisfied that it is substantially of such a figure as to be alarming, and I would invite your Lordships to consider where it comes from. Bear in mind that, unlike a lot of other rationed commodities seeping into a black market, not one gallon of petrol leaves the distributing company without the surrender of a coupon, so if there is a black market in either coupons or petrol, it is proof that there is an over-generous allocation of coupons to users. And the amount of that black market is the measure of the surplus which is given to users over and above their requirements."
The Russell Vick Committee found out nothing different from that. They merely dotted the i's and crossed the t's and gave some figures.
I would like to quote those figures to your Lordships' House, because they are the basis of my contention that, with wiser administration, this Bill would never have been necessary. In 1947, the period covered by this Report, 118,000,000 gallons of petrol (or coupons equivalent to 118,000,000 gallons) more than the total consumption, including the black market, were issued. Some 165,000,000 gallons (or 550,000 tons) more than was used in legitimate consumption were issued. The black market could, therefore, have had 148,000,000 gallons. That was the potential black market, offered to anyone who wished to exploit it, by the number of coupons issued over the requirements. Instead, the Russell Vick Committee state that their estimate of the black market was 47,000,000 gallons. I think we were fortunate that the black market was not more than that, when its total potential could have been 148,000,000 gallons. The Report states
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that only 17,000,000 gallons were returned as surplus to the users' requirements, and that brings the figure that could have been sold in the black market to about 148,000,000 gallons. There is not a sprit-up as to how these coupons were issued as between the various types of users. It would have been an impossibility for the Russell Vick Committee to find out, with regard to the 165,000,000 gallons issued surplus to requirement, how many were issued surplus to commercial users and how many to private motorists. But there were 17,000,000 gallons returned, and it would have been possible to say where they came from.
But the Committee came to the very definite conclusion, which some members of your Lordships' House reached in November last, that by far the main source of leakage into the black market was the over-generous allowance to commercial users. It is safe to assume that approximately 165,000,000 gallons was about the amount issued to commercial users of this country, over and above what they could reasonably require and reasonably use. That makes it difficult for me to appreciate the statement made in paragraph 36 of the Russell Vick Committee's Report which says:
"For the reasons already noted earlier, namely, the importance of ensuring that essential services are not seriously hampered by shortage of petrol, coupled with the impossibility of assessing precise requirements in advance, it seems to us that over-issues of coupons to these users … cannot be prevented."
I find it difficult to accept that statement when, on their own showing in this Report, of the 583,000,000 gallons of petrol, or 42 per cent. of the total usage of this country, that goes to commercial users, you cannot estimate potential usage more accurately than with a margin of error of over 25 per cent. As a commercial man with some industrial experience, I cannot accept that statement.
I would suggest that it would have been better if, in his wisdom, the Minister, instead of setting up a Committee to find out the leakages into the black market, and how to punish those who made use of it, had set up a committee of commercial experts to overhaul the rationing system, to devise a system that did marry up nearer to commercial practice and to find and devise means to ensure that a black market was not brought into

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existence. For whatever polite and kind language one uses, it is clear that the noble Viscount opposite must have been right when he said that it was the over-allowance of coupons that brought the black market into existence. I would suggest that it should not be beyond the wit of man to find a better allocation system, a system whereby petrol does not have to be allocated in such an extravagant manner, because, as my noble friend who presented this Bill for the Second Reading has said, the commercial user in this country is not rationed for petrol; he is allocated petrol upon the basis of his own estimation of his requirements. Does not common sense, or at least elementary knowledge of human nature, suggest that if you are asked to estimate your requirements for anything, knowing that you are not going to get all you ask for, you ask for more than you want, realising that you may get a little less than you ask for? That, I suggest, is precisely what is happening.
It is only right for me to say that there is also a source of black market petrol in existence to-day, in spite of the 10 per cent. cut, because of fluctuations of trade. People with practical experience of these matters know that in large parts of this country haulage fleets, or some proportion of them, are lying idle. The amount of petrol issued to those fleets is exactly the same as if full use is made of them. I suggest that if it were possible, even at this late hour, to set up a committee, a committee of, say, three commercial experts would be sufficient. After all there is a precedent, for this Government have set up many committees to find out how controls can be simplified. A committee of astute business brains and, with great respect to noble and learned Lords, not lawyers, might have made the need for the Bill non-existent.
I have another comment to make on the reason why the Russell Vick Committee consider it necessary to have this system of over-allowance. It had "to keep the wheels of industry turning." It is also advisable to keep in good heart and good humour the human individuals, who are just as important in industry as the mechanical wheels. I do not know any section of the community which has had such a raw deal over the last two or three years as the man who has found
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himself to be the possessor of a piece of individual transport. It must be brought home to those in authority that the whole fabric of this country, our whole social life, has been built around the individual unit of transport over the last thirty years; and when the basic ration was withdrawn, the economic and social life of many rural districts came to a standstill. I would seriously ask the Government to address themselves to the question whether all this huge penal machine is really necessary. I do not wish to go into the arguments that have been raised regarding whether or not dollar saving will accrue in the end. That might be outside even the indulgence which your Lordships usually allow in debates in this House.
On the economic argument, if the scheme is 100 per cent. successful, and we make this mythical dollar saving, will it in the end really result in a net saving? There are sound arguments, which have been argued by some sound brains, that after people have been put to the inconvenience imposed upon them by a measure like this (which I am sure must shake to his foundations a man like the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack, who has such a regard for the dignity of the law) it is doubtful whether we shall really save anything in the end. Even the Russell Vick Committee say that one of the prerequisites is "to regain the respect and co-operation of the public in general and road users in particular." I may be mistaken, but I suggest that the imposition of some of the penalties in this Bill is the wrong way to do that. I suggest that the way in which the petrol scheme is being administered to-day is the wrong way to do it. I will give your Lordships one instance to illustrate what I mean. When the basic ration was stopped and a gallonage was allowed for essential purposes, it only required some outcry from the medical profession and all doctors were allowed to use their motor cars for pleasure. The car parks of golf courses were full of doctors' cars. Can you imagine anything more calculated to infuriate the man who was not a doctor and who had to walk or cycle to his sport and pleasure? That is not the way to get the co-operation of the ordinary man in the street. If a great effort were made to eradicate the source of the black market, I think we would be able to find a way of giving everybody an allowance of petrol and letting him use it for the purposes which he thinks best.

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Can we afford to police a scheme like this at the present time? I have listened in your Lordships' House to debates on the police force, and heard it strongly argued that one of the reasons why we could not do away with capital punishment was the inadequacy of the police force. How are we going to police a system which—and I do not think I am being guilty of extravagant language—puts on the roads two million potential criminals? I have no sympathy with the black marketeer, but I have every sympathy with the ordinary man who tries to be a law-abiding citizen. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack will forgive me if I repeat something I said in the debate to which I referred. According to the dictum of a great man in his profession, justice will hold good in this country only when the rule is that not only must justice be done, but it must always be apparent that justice is being done.
There are one or two points I want to make on the Bill itself. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, dealt with the question of the burden of proof in a most charming and humorous way, to the amusement of us all. I do not think my noble friend, Lord Chorley, was quite right when he cited the Companies Act. The noble Viscount, who had so much to do with that Act, will remember that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, argued about the liability of a director who had gone to Australia. I think I am right in saying that the Companies Act limits a director's liability to this: that he must prove an offence was committed "without his knowledge or consent." That is a very different thing from having to prove that he took all reasonable steps to see that it was not committed. Let us take the case of the widow of the proprietor of a petrol filling station who goes to live in the country. Knowing nothing about business, she forms the concern into a limited liability company, engages two men and leaves them to run it. As soon as an offence is committed she is guilty, under subsection (4) of Clause 6. How is she to take reasonable precautions? If, on the day after the passing of this Bill into law, a board meeting is called and it is laid down that no employee of that firm must dc anything, or cause anything to be done to contravene any section of this Act, and that is put on a notice board, is that taking reasonable precautions?
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Has she to come up from the country and appear in a police court to say that that is what she did, and that that is what she thought was a reasonable precaution? I do not know. Perhaps at some later stage I shall be told.
I have to support this Bill because it is the only way of stopping a black market that exists. But I suggest to His Majesty's Government, with great respect, that steps should be taken, on the lines I have already indicated, to eradicate the source of the black market, or to bring it down to such infinitesimal proportions that once again the motorists of this country will be able to use their cars for pleasure as well as for business purposes. After all, there is no crime in pleasure, yet. If everyone can be given an allowance of petrol, with freedom to use it for the purpose for which he thinks it most essential, and that if he uses it for pleasure he will have to deny himself the efficiency of his business, this country is likely to be a far happier place than it will be with this unfortunate instrument hanging over our heads.
4.42 p.m.
LORD SELSDON: My Lords, I would like to welcome this Bill, because it as going to give a little pleasure to a great many people. But I do not find myself in a position to welcome anything that starts its life by accusing a vast section of the people of being potential criminals. I am going to speak, first of all, on a rather different line, about the single pump owner. A garage owner does not get his living from selling petrol; that is a very small part of his income. Let us take the case (I think I am right here) that in fairly remote areas the single pump owner is one in two; and in not-so-remote areas, perhaps, one in four. His Majesty's Government have promised that in remote areas there will be the possibility of a permit to sell red petrol without coupons. What about the not-so-remote areas? Take the man who goes to his pet garage, finds that his single pump now has red petrol in it, and is told to go up the road. He then goes up the road. When he is there the new proprietor says to him: "Can I sell you any oil? Can I sell you a sponge? Can I sell you a leather? Can I sell you some Bluebell? "If he receives good service there, he will go back to that garage for his

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repairs. The pump owner where he used to go before will lose that business, and it is doubtful whether he will get it back again. That is a great hardship, and I do not see how it is to be overcome.
Next we have this question of onus of proof of innocence. The type of person who is going to commit an offence is the man who is cunning; and he will have a good lawyer in court if he is caught. He will lie very convincingly. He will say: "It all happened when I was in the cinema; I knew nothing about it." And ten to one he will get away with it! The poor, innocent, meek and mild person lives in the country. If he has read this Bill, he will not have understood it; and probably he does not read a newspaper. He goes along and finds he has run out of petrol. He says: "Joe, give me a gallon to get home." Then out from behind the hedge pops the representative of the law, and says: "George, what have you got in your tank?" He says: "I have got some petrol." Then says the policeman: "Ah, it is the wrong colour." George is then pulled up before the local magistrate. He is petrified at being in a police court; he does not know what to say, and stutters and stammers, and immediately a bad impression is created.
Similarly, the police are now empowered to take samples from a motor car. I am intrigued with this. You have a car park—say, Wembley Stadium on Cup Final day, where next year we hope there will be hundreds of private cars. A policeman going round finds a petrol tank is locked. That is not an offence. What does he do? He hangs around and waits for the owner to come back. Perhaps the owner does not come back for a very long time. Is that policeman to be forced to waste his time, wondering whether somebody is going to appear, leap into the car and drive off? Or are we to have the sight of the entire police force rushing round Wembley Stadium looking for these potential criminals, and when they find them, find them with white petrol? Suppose that the officer does find a car where the petrol tank is not locked. He puts in his little syringe and takes out some petrol. Does he put it into three different bottles, seal them up, and put a label on them, keeping one for himself, giving one to the
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owner and one to somebody else? Or what?
What I am frightened of is the fact that even the arm of the law can err sometimes. He has taken his sample, and he has gone off. Two or three weeks later, or two or three days later—I do not know how long it will be—the police will have to trace the owner of that motor car, presumably through the registration. A little bottle arrives which, it is said, contains petrol "taken from your car on such and such a date." It is conceivable that the label could have fallen off; the police-man could have put on the wrong label; or he could have mixed up his samples. What proof has such a driver, three weeks later, when a little bottle of red petrol arrives? Then he is "for it." He cannot do anything. All he can say is that he does not know anything about it. But he is told that that is not enough. It is rather ridiculous, but apparently it is quite true.
Noble Lords have already said that you can go and kill somebody, or be drunk in charge and knock over a lamp-post, and it can cost you only £100. But if you have half a pint of red petrol in your tank (and the Minister said in another place that a very weak solution was detectable) that half pint can cost you £500. By all means let us stamp out the black market. I notice, however, that many people who voted for these heavy penalties on this Bill, for something which is not so very serious, took great pleasure in voting against the death penalty. If you take away the licence from somebody, that is an excellent idea; it stops him from getting on the road. The motor car, as noble Lords have already said, is a poor unfortunate thing; it has to stay idle. And in the case of somebody selling it between committing the offence and the prosecution, then he has to forfeit half the price. What I would like to know is how the court is going to arrive at the price of that motor car. To-day the price of a second-hand motor car is utterly fictitious. You can take two 1939 Morris motor cars, both delivered in August. One has been carefully looked after and carefully laid up during the war, while the other has covered a great deal of mileage. They are both the same year and month, but there can be a difference in price of £250. Take the case of somebody who might have a new Rolls Royce. That car to-day, if the

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covenant was off, might fetch £8,000. How is a court to arrive at a car's value.
There is one further point I would like to put. We have heard something about trade plates. As a car manufacturer in a small way, if I deliver a brand new car to London on general trade plates, which are commercial plates, I am told that I can put white petrol in that car. Am I contravening the law by using my commercial plates for so-called private purposes? Have I to use red petrol when I use those trade plates? While we are on the question of trade plates, there is one use being made of them which I would like to point out, and I do not know how the Government could stop it. One sees, during week-ends, a remarkable number of motor cars running round on trade plates. If they are stopped, they say: "We are giving a demonstration run," but everybody knows that probably they have the entire family in the car, and are just out for a spin. I do not say that it is done regularly, but it is done by the type of person who has no works but who has a little second-hand car sales place tucked away somewhere and therefore has his trade plates. He is the person who is largely responsible for this black market, because he is deliberately wasting petrol. I do not know whether something can be done about that, but I feel that that is the type of person who gets the motorist a bad name. After all, the motorist is not a bad fellow, and we all like to have a drive around. I think that if instead of this—what shall I say?—monstrosity of a Bill, the Government had appealed to the British public, as they used to appeal during the war, to play the game, a great deal of this trouble and a great deal of time could have been saved. I should think the black marketeers must be laughing, because never have so few caused so much trouble and wasted so much time of such a distinguished House of Parliament.
4.54 p.m.
LORD WALERAN: My Lords, like all your Lordships who have so far spoken—apart from the noble Lord who moved the Second Reading of this Bill—I dislike it intensely. But there is no doubt that we have to pass this Bill through all its stages, and see that it receives the Royal Assent before the end of the month; otherwise 1,250,000 people will not be able to get on the roads for their holidays. I would like to say here that I find myself
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entirely in agreement with all that my noble friend Lord Lucas said. I hope the Government will take particular notice of what he said, because I feel that he is approaching the problem from the right angle. If we remove the potentiality of the black market, it will not exist.
I would like now to say a little about what the motoring organisations did in connection with this plan, because judging from reports in the Press and from the speeches in another place that I have read, I feel that they have been misunderstood. The Minister said that he had adopted this plan in consultation with the motoring organisations, or that they had concurred in it. That leads one to think that they are entirely in agreement with the Bill and with the system of rationing. I believe that that is a travesty of the facts. Your Lordships know that the joint secretaries of the standing joint committee of the motoring organisations—in other words, the Royal Automobile Club, the Royal Scottish Automobile Club and the Automobile Association—had audiences and consultations with the Minister. They produced a plan, and they produced figures. Eventually the Minister released his plan. Up to the time of the release of the plan they did rot know that "E" and "S" coupon holders were not to receive an extra private allowance. Although they had given evidence before the Russell Vick Committee, they did not know what were to be the recommendations of the Committee until those recommendations were published. Therefore, I think—and I hope the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack will bear me out on this point when he replies—the public in general are misled if they think that the motoring organisations were fully aware of what the plan was or how it was to be operated.
I do not wish to go in detail through all the clauses of the Bill, but with regard to Clause 5 I am reminded of a story of the 1914–18 war. A certain dog in Belgium had been trained by its master to show at a word of command how the Germans were going to leave the country. It went flat down on its tummy and crawled out of the room ventre à terre. The Germans court martialled the dog and put it in prison! That was an animate object. Under Clause 5 we are arresting and putting

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in prison an inanimate object. I do not know whether that would be considered to be a shining light of British jurisprudence to-day. I have one further word to say in conclusion, and a suggestion to make. I think all your Lordships agree that this Bill is not at all what we desire, but that we have no time in which to go thoroughly into it in order to produce something better. My suggestion is that a clause be inserted at the end of the Bill to limit the time it shall operate to a year, and then let it be re-enacted or a new Bill produced. The advantages would appear to me to be twofold. First, in eight months' time the Minister of Fuel and Power will have a far better knowledge of the future petrol position, not only in the United States but as to whether production from new refineries is taking place. Secondly, we will have seen how the provisions work, and we can make recommendations and have time to think them out. I think that would be a safeguard and a reasonable thing to do, and it would show good faith on the part of all concerned.
4.58 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I am very glad to say that I shall not have to detain your Lordships long, because a great deal of what I would have liked to say has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, much better than I could say it, much more forcibly and with greater knowledge, and I am not less grateful to him for that fact than are your Lordships. As it is customary to declare an interest, I am afraid that on similar and parallel reasoning I must declare an offence, because I have learnt from the Attorney-General's speech in another place that for a long time I have been committing an offence against what I think, in some cases, are absurd regulations. As my car has not a secondary tank, I have always kept a tin of petrol in the back in order to get home in an emergency. Until I read his speech I never knew that that was an offence. I think the fact that the Attorney-General differs quite clearly from the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor shows how difficult these questions are.
I want to read three extracts from the Russell Vick Report which will, as it were, lay out my canvas and paint the situation. On page 6 it says:
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"We have learnt of one garage which was prepared to supply petrol to a private motorist against coupons issued to goods vehicles, but of another garage in the same city which refused to do so; of one garage in a country town which refused to buy commercial coupons from lorry drivers under threat of losing their custom although another garage in the same town was apparently prepared to buy them. The Motor Agents' Association have told us that other garages, which tried to hold out against this pressure but finally gave in, have expressed their earnest desire to see the whole business cleaned up throughout the trade."
Then again, on page 13, paragraph 34, the Report says:
"Although much of the information which we have received and reviewed above has necessarily been hearsay, the conclusion is inescapable that the petrol allowances for goods vehicles provide the main source of black market supplies."
Then in paragraph 40 it says:
"… factual evidence on a sufficient scale is lacking, but we have heard no suggestions that the belief is incorrect and we accept it."
Here you have a racket, to which there are three parties: there are the commercial drivers, the motor dealers who buy their coupons, and the private motor users who eventually get this petrol.
Clause 1 of the Bill deals very heavily with the pump owners, the middle men in this transaction; Clause 2 deals extremely heavily with the private motor users. But I see in the Bill absolutely no word at all which touches the source of black market petrol or makes it an offence to sell commercial coupons. If the Bill is to be fair, and if this is a racket, it certainly should be the case that the primary party in the transaction should be condemned in the Bill: but the Bill is absolutely silent; it leaves him out. The people who may be innocent and who most likely are innocent are the private motor users. A very heavy burden has been put by this Bill upon the private user, in that he has to account for the whole of his time for the whole twenty-four hours; and he has to be in a position to prove that the wrong petrol did not get into his car at any time with his consent. The same thing applies to the middleman in this transaction. Thousands of citizens are exposed to mischief or malice. A man may get his petrol from a pump marked "Private Motor Spirit" but he does not see the petrol; the nozzle is thrust right into his tank—as a safeguard, of course, against

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contamination by rain or otherwise. For my own part, it is many years since I last saw the petrol that went into my tank. There may well be a small portion of commercial petrol intermixed, perhaps by an error already reported by the boy in charge of the petrol; but the motorist is none the less liable to prosecution.
I would rather not see this Bill at all and have no petrol, I would rather walk, than see the principle introduced that is being introduced in Clauses 2 and 3. Moreover, the Russell Vick report gives the impression that the traders of this country are in favour of the measure now under discussion. But I can tell your Lordships that a short time ago the Metropolitan Division of the Motor Agents' Association met and received a report from their officers as to the measures proposed by the Government, which had been agreed to by those officers, very reluctantly. That Association promptly passed a resolution condemning the action of their officers and saying that it by no means had their support; and adding exactly what I say myself: that it would be better for the country not to have the petrol than to have it at the price of a Bill of this nature, which makes such a tremendous and terrible precedent in the legal practices of this country. After all, it is not the case that a receiver has the burden of proof of innocence on him. Until the last moment in the trial of an accused person, every possibility of the case not having been proved against him is kept before the jury. That practice is reversed in this Bill.
There is another portion of the Bill which I think deserves close attention from your Lordships, and that is the proviso to Clause 3, which says:
"Provided that anything done by a person authorised by the Minister of Fuel and Power or the Petroleum Board or done for the purposes of enforcement of this Act or in connection with any proceedings in respect of an offence under this Act shall not constitute any such offence as is mentioned in paragraph (c), paragraph (d), or paragraph (e) hereof."
What does that mean? I think it needs a good deal of explanation. Are the Government going one better than the Borough of Holborn, and is this going to cover the introduction of the agent provocateur? I hope not. There is one offence which will certainly be facilitated and that is a very old offence: the stealing of petrol from tanks of private cars by people who may pose as officials of
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the Ministry of Fuel and Power locking for offences. Such people will have a good chance of getting away with a considerable amount of petrol from private cars. In ordinary circumstances I should have felt I could not but register a vote against this Bill, but I realise the pressure of the times and that some Bill of the kind must necessarily be passed. I sincerely hope that by the time the Bill reaches the Committee stage we shall get some Amendment to Clauses 1 and 2, and also, I hope, to the proviso to Clause 3.
5.9 p.m.
LORD CLYDESMUIR: My Lords, I want to make a plea for Scotland, a part of the Kingdom for which at one time I held a certain measure of responsibility. The remote parts of that country have felt great anxiety about the question of the single-pump garage. The Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and the Lowlands, are very sparsely populated and have always presented a great problem to successive Secretaries of State. A great part of that problem relates to transport, which is a vital consideration in those parts. I do not say how it is to be done, but what I do say is that it is quite essential—and I use the word deliberately, in its fullest sense—that in those areas the garages should be able to supply the two kinds of petrol; otherwise, there will be administrative chaos. I trust that the Ministry responsible for this Bill are keeping in touch with the Secretary of State for Scotland in framing their measure. I strongly urge that there should be the two kinds of petrol available in those garages, either in tins or in some other form. That it should be so is essential.
The other plea I have to make is that, if an offence is committed and a garage proprietor is put out of business, the special circumstances of these remote areas should be seriously considered. I need not stress to your Lordships what I mean by a remote area. In the Highlands and Islands, extremely long distances are involved. If a garage proprietor should be the only purveyor of petrol in one of those remote areas, and should happen to be put out of business, a chaotic condition will ensue. In the interests of the saving of petrol alone, it would be desirable to see that petrol was again brought quickly to that point and that motor cars did not have to be run 15, 20, 30, or 40

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miles to these remote areas on a return journey to obtain petrol. Those are two of my points relating to Scotland. My third point is that I hope the Government will not sterilise or immobilise the guilty motor cars.
5.13 p.m.
LORD AMMON: My Lords, we have had an interesting, not to say at times amusing, debate. The vision that the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, summed up, of a pump dancing from village to village, and the vision of the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, of police lurking behind hedges and pouncing out upon people, and all the other ideas that have been advanced, while adding to the gaiety of the discussion do not go far towards dealing with the problem itself. The real point of the Bill seems largely to have escaped observation, or at any rate has not evoked much comment. I, like my noble friend, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, have no great enthusiasm for the Bill, but, nevertheless, I realise that it is essential. A check has to be made. It imposes a disagreeable duty which arises out of economic stress and also, unfortunately, out of the dishonesty of many people. That is really the problem with which this Bill is concerned. Much else that has been said concerns matters of detail, which will be considered when we come to the Committee stage.
It is unfortunate that the dishonest use of petrol makes it necessary to resort to the methods that this Bill brings forward. One must remember, also, that we are to a large extent following the Report of the Russell Vick Committee who have gone into this problem. I know a little of Mr. Russell Vick, and that he is a very able and competent lawyer. The Committee have gone into this problem with a great deal of care, having before them many of the problems that we now have firmly in mind. Until the moral standard improves and there is a respect for the law, I am afraid that we have to resort to this sort of measure. While some of your Lordships have talked about its application bringing the law into disrepute, I venture to say that the law cannot be brought into greater disrespect than it is by the constant violation of it by what is neither more nor less than plain thieving on the part of people who ought to know better. In that respect,
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I was shocked when the noble Marquess, Lord Willingdon, indicated that if he had had the advantage of service from one of those garages, he would not think it his duty to disclose who they were. Of course, that is not the general view of the House itself with regard to these matters.
The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, in his interesting, vigorous, and sometimes amusing speech, asked for certain information regarding some points in the Bill. To some of his questions I hope I shall be able to give him an answer, if not wholly satisfactory, at least going some way in that direction. I think I am right in saying that his first question was what was being done with regard to refineries, and their production. I can tell the noble Viscount that all the plans submitted by the oil companies for expanding the refining capacity of the United Kingdom have been approved by the Government. I am able to say that work has started on schemes equivalent to at least one-quarter of the total programme. A war-time plant has also been adapted to produce petrol and other fuels at a rate of 1,500,000 tons a year. It has to be remembered that the British oil companies also have very large refinery projects abroad; and they are considerably larger in total than the companies' building programme at home. Production depends largely on the steel that can be made available, but refinery schemes are proceeding as rapidly as the companies can achieve them.
Then there was a point raised about the dual purpose car. The dual purpose car may have coupons for private or commercial petrol according to the use to which it is put. But, for the purposes of the Bill, it would not be an offence to put red petrol into it, since it is not a vehicle constructed solely for the carriage of passengers. With regard to the farmers, there was also a point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton. Farmers will receive the red petrol for their tractors and for other vehicles concerned for use on the farm itself. For the rest, they are like other people, who will have to get the white petrol for their private car. With regard to the question of the one pump, all that one can say really at this stage—as the noble Lord said, in the main these small garages are in the country—is that the motorists using

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them are often within a fair distance of a town, and can find other sources of supply. Turning from that to the sale of the car—a point raised by a noble Lord who has just spoken and, earlier, by the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton—I would remind the House that that is following a distinct recommendation of the Russell Vick Report. It seems to me obvious, as it may seem to your Lordships, that the only means whereby they can make a disqualification effective is that the car itself shall not be used and the people escape the penalties by some other means.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I am sure that the noble Lord is right, but would he kindly refer me to the passage in the Russell Vick Report which says that the car cannot be sold? I cannot find it in the summary of Recommendations.
LORD AMMON: I will endeavour to find that out for the noble Viscount. There is another point of which I have been reminded. The noble Lord raised a question concerning the position of directors, and so on, under Clause 6. I am glad to tell him that in another place a definite promise was given by the Attorney-General that a clause would be drafted to cover that particular case. When the matter was raised by the Opposition his exact words were that he thought the point was eminently reasonable. In the Vick Report the paragraph is on page 18. Sub-paragraph (12) reads:
" That the owner of a motor-car (whether or not its driver) convicted of having ' commercial ' petrol in the tank should be required to surrender all unused coupons to the Court, and that no further petrol should be allowed for that car for 12 months notwithstanding any change of ownership during that period."
Is that the point?
VISCOUNT SWINTON: Yes.
LORD AMMON: The Attorney-General has given a promise that Clause 6 will be re-drafted. On another point which I believe concerned the words "reasonable diligence" he also gave a promise that he would look into the matter again. Further than that I am unable to go on those particular points, but I think I have answered all the main points that the noble Viscount raised.
I have already touched on the one outstanding point which Lord Willingdon
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raised. He raised the question of the station car and a variety of other vehicles. They were, of course, dealt with by my noble friend Lord Chorley, and they are commercial vehicles. The noble Marquess said he cannot believe that the black market is so large. Unfortunately, we have evidence that it is. He also raised the question of parking, which is not a matter for the Ministry of Fuel and Power, but which belongs to a number of other Departments. I can assure him, however, that the opportunity will be taken to consult with them as to whether or not any improvements can be made in that direction. My noble friend, Lord Lucas, in a very helpful and informative speech, drew attention to a number of points which he thought required some consideration. His main point was that he thought the black market largely draws its supply from the excess issue of commercial petrol. I put it to him: What does he think should happen in these cases? Were we to limit the supply to farmers? What would lave been said in this House if we had had the vehicle associations rising up in wrath because we were restricting the allowance of petrol to commercial vehicles and preventing their carrying on their road haulage work? After all, we had to trust to the honesty and co-operation of the persons concerned. As the noble Lord said, it was better some time ago; but let us look at what happened. Under the Ministry of War Transport there were no fewer than 5,000 voluntary workers, largely recruited by the trade themselves, who inspected and saw that the right amount was supplied. It is absolutely impossible, in the present circumstances, to continue that system. If there is any-thing in this matter it is sheer dishonesty, and this Bill is brought forward to meet that. On the other hand, where it is possible to keep a proper check on it—say in the omnibuses and public service vehicles—supplies are based strictly according to needs.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Does my noble friend accept my point that, if an independent committee of business men could devise a system whereby allowance usage could be kept within a narrower margin than a 25 per cent. error, which is the cause of the black market, it would be more satisfactory? At least let us be satisfied that the present system

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is the only possible one. Frankly, I am not so satisfied.
LORD AMMON: That is the noble Lord's own opinion. I have already indicated that where it was possible to get the requisite number of people to help in this, it was possible to see that the supply of commercial petrol was based only on actual needs. Where it is possible, even now, so far as service vehicles are concerned, that system is being adopted. What one might do in other and different circumstances I do not know. I am concerned only with this Bill, which deals with the circumstances as they are, and as we have to meet them at present. The noble Lord went on to say that he was very much concerned about the ordinary man—that he should not be victimised, and so forth. We, too, are concerned about the ordinary man, and while there is a lot of dishonesty, the ordinary man is always under suspicion. Anybody who has had anything to do with any large industry, and knows where there is a certain amount of thieving, knows that there is a feeling of discomfort everywhere: everybody is more or less under suspicion. This Bill does something to protect the ordinary man; it brings about a greater equality of distribution, and helps us somewhat in these matters. All reasonable steps are being taken, and this Bill has been introduced in an endeavour to bring these reasonable steps more into line, in order that we may eradicate the source of the black market.
There is another point. I for one rejoice in this Bill, if only for the fact that it allows me to come to this House now without fear that I may be pulled up because I have come over Westminster Bridge instead of over Vauxhall Bridge; and it enables us to use whatever amount of petrol we have as and when we like, without being directed. Surely that is something worth having and is an advantage to more people.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: Would the noble Lord point out how the Westminster Bridge problem affects a man with only three supplementary coupons a month?
LORD AMMON: It may affect him a good deal. He has the right to use his
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petrol as he likes, and as the three supplementary coupons will be given according to the power of the particular motorcar he has equal rations with other people.
There is one other point, to which Lord Clydesmuir and also other noble Lords referred—namely, that this Bill did not receive the approval of, or there was no discussion with, the motoring associations. I have a copy of a brief statement issued jointly by the Minister and the Chairmen of the Royal Automobile Club, the Automobile Association and the Royal Scottish Automobile Club, in which they say this:
"While the motoring associations consider that the measures taken will achieve a saving greater than the 120,000 tons of petrol envisaged by the Minister, given that the saving is found to be no greater, they accept the present arrangement as being, in all the circumstances, the fairest possible one."
I ask your Lordships to give this Bill a Second Reading—
LORD WALERAN: I do not think I said, or I did not intend to say, that there had been no consultation; I intended merely to say that they did not know, after their consultation with the Minister, the exact provisions that were coming out, at the time when they came out. They had the Minister's statement only about five minutes earlier and the Russell Vick Committee Report a few months before. They were put into the position of saying, "Well, presumably this is the best that we can get."
LORD AMMON: I do not know whether the noble Lord is saying that the people to whom he refers were incompetent, and that they did not know to what it was they were parties. I am resting on what I have here—this statement, signed by representatives of those organisations, which admits that the steps suggested are the fairest that can be taken in the circumstances. I leave the noble Lord to work out with his friends the question whether or not they knew exactly what it was to which they were putting their signatures.
Many points have been made in today's discussion, and many more will, no doubt, be made in Committee. But, looking at this Bill honestly, as one who is not wholly in love with it, as one who has to suffer and submit to the same privations as other motorists, I say that this is a genuine attempt to stamp out

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something which is a disgrace to our community. Particularly, is the black market a disgrace to those people who resort to it. But one of the tragedies that we have to recognise is that since the war there has been an almost utter collapse of moral standards and ordinary honesty. This is one of the clear examples of what can result from that collapse. A great industry, and, indeed, the whole community at large, has suffered under it. If this Bill fails in its purpose, it will fail in an honest endeavour to deal with a most difficult problem. I ask your Lordships not merely to acknowledge the work done by Mr. Russell Vick and his colleagues, but to help to give effect to it. They had no interest whatever except to use their brains with a view to recommending some means to ensure that such petrol as is available should be fairly shared out. This is just another illustration of the rationing system, the system which we have with regard to our food supplies and so many other things. The principle of rationing is to ensure that, so far as possible, people will have fair shares, and I think that this Bill is going to help to ensure that that happens with regard to petrol, I therefore ask your Lordships to give this Bill a Second Reading.
5.32 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I do not think that even the most enthusiastic supporter of the Government can feel that this Bill has had any great welcome from any side of this House—including the Government side. Indeed, a most forceful and critical speech was made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and I was interested to hear Lord Amman's description of it—rather a new description of a critical speech—as being "helpful and informative." The only real measure of welcome accorded to the Bill was that given by the noble Lord, Lord Ammon, himself when, I think, he spoke under a complete misapprehension. He said that he welcomed this Bill in that it would allow him now to use his petrol where and how he liked. Then he mentioned coming to this House. Presumably, he was referring to the supplementary "E" coupons which are given to noble Lords to enable them to carry out their Parliamentary duties, when he spoke of using his petrol where and how he liked. Let me assure him that if he is going to do that he may
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find himself in considerable trouble. Let us assume that the noble Lord gets twelve gallons of petrol a month. He is not entitled to use it how and when he likes; he is entitled to use the margin of that twelve gallons which represents the basic ration he would have had for that particular car according to its appropriate horse power, had he not been entitled to supplementary coupons. Therefore the noble Lord will find himself in great trouble if he is not careful. I point that out, because we would not like to see him get into trouble.
To return to the Bill, I repeat that the only measure of praise which it has received has come from the noble Lord, speaking under a misapprehension as to its contents. I think I hat the proper title for the Bill should realty be, not a Bill "to create certain offences," but a Bill "for the creation of new offences and for mitigating errors of His Majesty's Government." We, on this side of the House, have never admitted that the petrol rationing system was necessary, and have always maintained that the necessary dollar saving could have been obtained by other means; that there could have been savings in other directions and that the cost to the community and the dislocation caused by this experiment in maladministration could have been avoided. I think that the Bill is objectionable to most citizens of this country because, fundamentally, we are a law-abiding people, not excepting motorists. As a class, motorists feel that under the Bill they are being pilloried and treated as if they were actual or, alternatively, potential black marketeers.
We say that if the black market had been tackled eighteen months ago instead of at this late hour, it would not have grown to the dimensions that the Russell Vick Committee have described, and the whole motoring community would not have to be put, as it were, in the corner, and told that they are a wicked and anti-social section of me population. I think people resent this Bill because of the provocation it offers, and because of the sense of unfairness to which it gives rise. They feel that there is a lack of necessity for the Bill and that if he Government had administered their affairs better at an earlier date it would not be needed. There is also a feeling that he new conditions laid clown in this Bill do

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not in any way remove the many anomalies and unfair circumstances in the rationing system from which the motoring public has suffered during recent years.
Speaking in another place, the Minister called the black market "an unfortunate moral lapse." But, finally, compliance with the law must depend on the good will and the confidence in the law of the citizens who have to live under it and who are affected by particular Statutes. If feelings of resentment and frustration such as exist to-day are in the minds of motorists, while one must not condone in any way and can only condemn black marketing offences, it is to be said in mitigation of such offences that the Government are partly responsible for the creation of a state of mind that has encouraged citizens to go morally wrong. This Bill seems to me to be likely to add to our bureaucracy. Either it will add to the bureaucracy by the creation of new officials to carry out the work of inspection necessary under the Bill, or, alternatively, we shall have to divert a certain proportion of our police and put them to that task. There are certain new duties imposed by the Bill upon the Executive, and those duties must be fulfilled. Later on we hope that we shall hear who is to fulfil them. Is there to be augmentation of Government staffs, or diversion of our already overworked police? It is possible, indeed, that some members of the police force would rather welcome being taken away from the work of hunting murderers if the Bill which provides for the abolition of capital punishment passes, and being put on the duty of hunting black marketeers. Indeed, I think they would be the only section of the community who might possibly welcome such a diversion, and one could hardly blame them. But how is the work going to be carried out—by diversion or increase of staff?
We have had this measure before us for a very short time. We admit that we have been forced into a position in which the Bill must become law by June 1. Therefore, it is just as well that we should mention now some of the points with which we propose to deal in Committee. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, has already said that we are going to tackle such questions as to why the poor dumb servant of mankind, the
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inanimate motor-car, should be penalised and prevented from going on the road when it is in such demand to-day by the community.
We are going to put down an Amendment ourselves, in case the Amendment does not cover the point, or the Government are forgetful, to see that directors of nationalised corporations come within the scope of the Bill. I hope that later on we can have some assurance that subsection (2) of Clause 10, whereby the Minister may make regulations to define what are private cars, will not be used so that the Minister can provide that all the cars used by the national corporations are not recognised as private cars.
LORD AMMON: Perhaps I did not make it quite clear. The learned Attorney-General said:
"The Clause as drafted covers not only directors but other similar officers. I have no doubt that it is sufficiently wide to embrace the members of these statutory corporations … I think the principle underlying this Amendment is reasonable."
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I am sure the Amendment will be sufficiently wide, but we would like to make sure that the regulations are not to be sufficiently wide to offset the provision in the Bill. If the noble Lord will look at subsection (2), he will see that it says:
"Regulations made for the purpose of defining the vehicles which are to be private motor vehicles for the purposes of this Act may provide for excluding therefrom any vehicles of a prescribed class or description."
I think we need some safeguard that those regulatory powers are not to be used to offset concessions given in another part of the Bill. I do not think it unreasonable for us to ask the Government to give some assurance on that point.
The noble Lord, Lord Clydesmuir, raised a point regarding the introduction of words to prevent rural communities from suffering when the one man who provides their petrol goes wrong, falls within the law, and is forced to close his petrol selling business. It is manifestly unfair that the whole community should suffer for the crime of one man, and I am sure the Government do not want that to happen. Finally, I hope that the discretion of the courts to suspend the penalty of prohibiting the sale of petrol, if they think fit, pending an appeal, will

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be turned into a provision whereby the court shall suspend it if an appeal is made; because if the court do not exercise that discretion the man may be suspended from his livelihood until the appeal comes up, and he will suffer, and the community in which he lives will suffer also. I thought it better that I should refer briefly to the main points, so that the Minister and his advisers can start thinking about them. We do not like the Bill, but though we think the Bill is unnecessary, when we do part with it we want it to be a better Bill than when it first came before us.
5.55 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, having listened to this debate, I have come to the conclusion that a good time has been had by all. Everybody has thoroughly enjoyed himself and the only point on which everybody is agreed is that this Bill should get a Second Reading. I am sure that all the arguments will be most carefully attended to on Committee stage. Though I regard to-day as a day off for me, it looks as if there will not be a day off when the Committee stage comes along. The noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, admits that he has been guilty of some horrible crimes, and the noble Lord, Lord Ammon, was warned to watch his step. It seems that both noble Lords are relying on the fact that the Criminal Justice Bill may be passed shortly.
I believe that everybody, with the exception of the noble Lord who spoke last, thinks that in view of our circumstances we must limit the amount of petrol which we consume in this country.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: I can assure the noble and learned Viscount that I never intended to give, and I hope I did not give, the impression, either to-day or during the debate last October, that I did not realise that dollar saving was essential, but I said that there might be other ways.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is just that phrase, "there might be other ways "which is dangerous. We must save dollars in other ways as well as in this way. It is no good denying that we are living in a fool's paradise if we do not realise that we are in a grim situation. If there are other ways in which we can make a saving in dollars, and you will tell me what they are, I will convey them
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at once to my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and if we can use those other dollar savings without doing hardship to the people of this country such as by further cuts in foods or raw materials, we shall most certainly use them. But I think we shall find that we shall not hear further from the noble Lord on that topic. Even though we have other dollar savings, we must having savings on petrol too. We cannot afford the luxury of using as much petrol as we should like.
Therefore, we must have some ratio ling system, and the only question is, what rationing system? Any rationing system brings in hardship. It is no answer, to my mind, to say that the Government have been foolish to allow too much petrol to go to soft currency areas. Perhaps we have. The need to sell every gallon we can for dollars or dollar equivalents is no reason why we should leave out altogether the soft currency areas. I would earnestly suggest to your Lordships that in deciding what to do in this particular matter, we must have some regard to the wishes of the petrol companies who have certain connections they desire to keep up. For myself, I would be exceedingly reluctant to do anything at the present time that would be severe towards, for instance, France. We may be right or we may be wrong with regard to that matter.
If somebody on Committee stage suggests a better rationing system, then I will gladly consider it. So far as the genuine commercial users, are concerned—the users of farm implements and the carriers of goods on the roads—we must allow them to have enough petrol. If you cut them down you will do more harm than good. It is difficult to say what is enough for them. If we set a rigid quantity, their requirements may quite well outstrip that amount. Having carefully considered the question, we have come to the conclusion that the only thing to do is, to speak broadly, to differentiate between two classes of petrol—red petrol and white. From this it follows that if we get people utilising red petrol for certain purposes we must have most severe punishment. That is the basis of this scheme. When we reach Committee stage, I am prepared to see whether we can mitigate or modify some of the provisions, without disturbing the real sanction that lies behind the scheme. I think that the

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shortage of petrol and a rationing system produces great hardship. It is not the first time I have said that. But I think that a reduction in food would produce still greater hardship. We must watch our step in this country and so organise things that when the time comes when American aid is no longer forthcoming, we do not have to suffer from a lack of food.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CONDITIONS IN COLONIAL SERVICE.
5.50 p.m.
LORD TWEEDSMUIR LORD TWEEDSMUIR rose to call attention to conditions in His Majesty's Colonial Service; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, although I consider the Motion which I have down on the Paper to be of pressing importance I can still make my points very briefly. I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, is down to speak. Fourteen years ago, in very different capacities and very different parts of the world, we were colleagues in the Colonial Service, at a time when the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, and later the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, presided over the Colonial Office. We are spending millions, and tens of millions, of pounds in the Colonial Empire, but unless we make a wise and judicious investment of our human capital those millions will count for nothing.
These are days of considerable uncertainty. He would be a very brave man who would foretell exactly what the shape of the Colonial Empire will be in the year 1960. But at this moment we have 60,000,000 people who are entirely dependent upon us for their good guidance, for, their protection and for their future well being. If you count all the employees, in all the territories, who come within the sphere of the Secretary of State, they number 300,000. But the administrative service, to which I shall principally address myself, numbers about 1,700. It is a shrinking service, and we always intended that it should be. We have just speeded Ceylon, with all our good wishes, past the milestone, from a Colonial territory to Dominion status. There will be more Ceylons as time goes on, and more
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British-born officials will-be replaced by those born in the territories themselves. We can maintain what we have built up, and can discharge our responsibility to the people of those territories, only if we attract the best personnel into the Colonial Service. It is the best or nothing. I think that a young man on the threshold of his career to-day, looking at the picture in front of him, might well feel that perhaps he was investing the capital of his career in a gold mine which he knew was largely worked out. We must have the best people. How can we continue to get them? That is why I am asking His Majesty's Government (and this is the purpose of the Motion) what plans they have made to ensure that we shall continue to attract the type of people who have built up the Colonial Empire to its present strength.
I would like to let drop one thought. At the present moment, I believe, the Secretary of State for the Colonies is overworked to the point when he cannot possibly do his job. If you do a short division sum, you will find that he can devote less than a week of his time in any one year to the affairs of any one territory. He has so much to do that he cannot travel about the Colonial Empire, as he should. I believe that if we had a Secretary of State for Africa, or perhaps an Under-Secretary of State, it would do a great deal of good to remedy that particular point.
Fourteen years ago, when I was a colonial servant, the prospects were indeed inviting. The reputation of the Colonial Service was built up, not entirely by men like Lord Lugard, who earned such great distinction, but also by many thousands whose names will never reach the history books, but who did a splendid job. If we are to continue to attract the best, we must be able to offer three things—prospects, reasonable security of employment and reasonable terms of service. As short a time as fourteen years ago, if one served in the Colonial Service, one was, in most territories, serving in a kind of enclave which was to a great extent insulated from the rest of the world. But now most of these Colonies and territories are so coupled with world politics and world economy that a knowledge of these subjects is necessary to attain the highest positions. The district officer, who bears the heat and burden of the day, is the

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front-line soldier of the Colonial Service. We cannot attract the best people unless they feel, if they go in at the bottom, that they have a reasonable chance one day of rising to the top. On the question of ordinary promotion (on this I would like to question His Majesty's Government) so often in a single territory there is a local bottleneck in promotion. The principle of inter-territorial grouping is gaining ground. It was contemplated in the East African territories that inter-territorial posting should take place. The Montego Bay Conference in the West Indies proposed it. It has been adopted to a limited extent in the South Pacific Health Service, between New Zealand, Fiji and one or two territories in the West Pacific. I understand that it is also in force between certain departments in Gambia and Sierra Leone. I would like the noble Earl to give us what information he can as to the development of this trend.
I do not know how many of your Lordships have studied a publication known as the Devonshire Report which came out in 1946. In that it was suggested that Colonial servants should undertake three courses, the first before they took up their position in their particular territory. I imagine that that is not dissimilar to the one which I myself took in 1934. The second course was to be for officers of all branches of the Colonial Service, after an early tour of duty. Those of us who have been in the Army know how often in big formations the General Staff become insulated from the other services, with whom they are completely inter-dependent. The same thing is rather apt to happen in the Colonial Service. An administrative officer is often not quite sure what the members of other services do, and he is rather apt to discount them. This second course was to be for officers of all branches, where they could meet in the light of some experience and talk over common problems.
The third course, later on, at a suitable time, was to be for selected officers, who could study specialist subjects and broaden their knowledge to the point where they could take up the highest posts. I would ask His Majesty's Government whether they can tell us to what extent effect has been given to that Report. Such courses, if they were effective in the Service as a whole, would
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mean a rather larger staff. To have three officers active there would probably have to be four on the establishment; conditions are now changing so fast. The future of nearly all the Colonial territories lies in the sphere of secondary industry; and, what never existed in my day, trade unions are growing up all over the Colonial Empire. A knowledge of industry and of trade unions is now a vital necessity for a senior Colonial officer. Those courses which I have mentioned—particularly that third selective course—will give an official marked for promotion some chance to master them.
My second point is security. If an officer has spent much of his life in a territory, and that territory passes from the sphere of the Colonial Office, what is to happen to him? Ceylon and Palestine, I believe, will be the touchstone for many people now considering making this Service their career. In Ceylon, I understand, the British-born members of the Administration were reduced progressively, and when the changeover came some were pensioned and some were taken on by the Ceylon Government. The noble Earl will be able to correct me if I am wrong about that I would like to know from him what prevision is being made for the Colonial servants in Palestine, where years of effort on our part have finally ended in blood and bitterness.
My third point is reasonable terms; and this is my last big point. A great deal of cant is talked, and much more written, about white man's countries. A white man's country may be so, for a young and strong man, but not so much for his wife or his family. A Colonial servant badly needs his leave. In most cases he has a paid leave passage home to England at certain stated periods, but I regard it as a scandal that officers serving in the notably unhealthy climate of British Guiana, should not be able to return home on leave unless they pay their own passage. There is another matter. Those officers whose homes and domicile lie outside the United Kingdom have their passage paid home only every alternate leave. It may be argued that that affects only a small number of people. It is not surprising. With that poor inducement few people who were domiciled outside this country would be attracted to the Service.
The next point is education. An overwhelming number of British-born officials will want their children educated in this country. There is no provision that I know of for giving them any assistance to that end; and if their children are sent home to be educated it means maintaining two establishments—a costly course to adopt. I have heard it said that allowance is made for that in their salaries. If you remove from their salaries everything which is supposed to be a hidden allowance, there is a pretty "skinny" remainder left. Then I would say a word with regard to pensions. They are paid, as contributory amounts from the officials' salaries. In most territories, salaries are rising, or will rise in the near future, and pensions will rise with them. That gets the man who is now enjoying a pension exactly nowhere. If salaries are rising—and the pensions are part of salary—then those who are pensioned at this moment are entitled to some rise in their pension, because those pensions are paid from the funds of the Colony, whose ability to pay larger salaries is in part due to the pensioner himself.
I am now coming to an end. I have made these points, and I would be grateful to the noble Earl if he would address himself to them in his reply. We built this Colonial Empire up by quality. Quality is the only measure of value; quantity is a mere measure of volume. I believe that we have come to a turning point, and unless we can offer to the Colonial Service of the future some prospects, some security and some really reasonable terms of service, we shall not get the people who built the Colonial Empire to what it is, and who maintained it to this day. And the millions we have spent, are spending, and intend to spend in the Colonies will be as nothing, if we cannot make a prudent and reasonable investment of our human capital. I beg to move for Papers.
6.4 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, I wish to make a very brief intervention in this debate, because I think that perhaps out of my personal experience I may be able to supplement one or two of the points which the noble Lord has just made. May I say that I shall not attempt in any way to answer some of the questions which he has asked, because Obviously that
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would not be the function of a Back Bencher; it is the function of the noble Lord who will reply on behalf of the Government at the end of this debate. The fact that I do not mention certain things for which the noble Lord has asked does not mean that I have any doubts about the desirability that the best that this country can give should be given for the Colonial Civil Service. As we all know to-day, much depends in the future upon the way in which the Colonial Empire is administered and is led along the path which has been marked out for it by our policy, and therefore it is necessary to secure the best.
I should like to say one or two things about the quality of the Colonial Service. It is my experience—and I can say this safely, without fear of contradiction from anybody who knows the subject—that we are to-day, for whatever the reasons may be (and it would be easy to give the reasons) attracting to the Colonial Service a better type of man than we have ever attracted before. The new recruits to the Colonial Service give great cause for hope for the future to anybody who has the welfare of that Service at heart. Heaven knows that the task which they have to face is a far more difficult one than, say, the task I had to face when I entered the Service many years ago, or the noble Lord who moved this Motion had to face when he entered it at a much later date. There never has been a time like the present when we need, and must have, the best, and for the moment we are getting the best. May I say, too, that the method of training which has been instituted by the Colonial Office is now of a far higher grade, far more carefully thought out, more carefully prepared and followed up than has ever been the case before. The Colonial civil servant of to-day goes to meet the difficulties of his task a far better trained man. In the past we were rather thrown out to our job. We went there and had to make the best we could of it and hope that we could find a senior officer who would take enough personal interest to assist in teaching us. I remember saying in days gone by that it was rather like taking a medical student of a year or two's standing, throwing him out and telling him to learn to be a doctor. Those days have gone, and there is a systemised series of arrangements for fitting our officers for the jobs which they have to face.

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The noble Lord referred to the Colonial Administrative Service as a diminishing body. In point of fact, at the present moment it probably is not a diminishing body. There were appalling wastages and arrears to be made up through all the war years, during which a diminishing body of men bore incredible burdens, and from which they emerged very tired and much in need of a rest. Those wastages are now being made good, but it is true, on a broad outlook, that the natural corollary of our policy is that the Colonial Administrative Service, recruited from this country, should be a diminishing body, because as they train the people of those countries to administer their own affairs it is obvious that the need for so many will slowly diminish.
I would like to correct any impression there may be that this is—to use the noble Lord's expression—" putting one's capital into a gold mine which is largely worked out." Personally, I regard the future of the Colonial Empire as likely to be an even more brilliant one than it has ever been in the past. Anyone who has known it—as so many of your Lordships have, all over the world—will realise the immense possibilities which are still left, and the great work which there is to be done in increasing collaboration with the various inhabitants of those countries. May I say, too, that that collaboration is being freely given. One is apt to get too coloured an impression by the stress which is laid upon occasional difficulties and troubles which occur in the Colonies, but the moment the Colonial civil servant goes out to a Colony, wherever it may be, the first thing that he learns—if he ever had any doubt about it before—is that his presence there is welcome and that he belongs to a body of men who are deeply respected by ninety-nine out of every hundred of the community in which he works. I hope that the day will never come when he will cease to be regarded as their friend.
I remember—if I may indulge in a personal reminiscence for a moment—taking an American Consul General across the middle of Nigeria on one occasion. Even he, representing a type of man who was well informed in every respect, was amazed at what he saw. He turned to me at the end of a fortnight of this journeying and said: "Do you know, it has occurred to me that if your presence
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was not welcomed in this country, it would be quite impossible for a handful of Englishmen to carry on this work as they do." That is the impression on every honest observer who goes about our Colonies. I stress these points because I want to encourage the recruit to the Colonial Service, in every way I can, to realise that he has a great prospect before him. One has, of course, to realise that the aim in the distant future is that has presence will not be required; but that is not at present. No person who knows anything of the subject can believe that in the life-time of anybody joining the service to-day that service will not provide an ample career; there is a long way to go before these Colonies will be able to do without the advice, help, and support of the British services.
I made one or two notes as the noble Lord proceeded, but I do not propose to make any comment; obviously, it is net for me to do so. He made some remarks about Ceylon and Palestine, but they do not provide much of a parallel to many of the other Colonies with which we are dealing at the moment. I should like, however, to say a word about his remarks on the subject of promotion and the methods of promotion. It is quite true to say that the district officer is, and always has been, the backbone of the Colonial Service. And, if I may say so, I think it is desirable, if possible, that people who rise to the high position of Governor should in their earlier days have been a district officer. I spent the first ten years of my career doing that sort of work and it is an experience which I am sure is necessary before one rises to the highest position, in order to be able to put oneself in the position of the man who is doing that kind of work. But it is also true to say that many of the best district officers are men whose capacity is limited to that type of work. Under out system to-day those who have responsibility for promotion to higher posts are constantly reviewing the list of the younger district officers, and if they see a man who might obviously rise to a higher position, where he has to deal with policy he is given every opportunity and is tried out for those positions. Every prudent Administration know for many years ahead who are the prospective leaders of that service—always provided, of course that they continue to show the promise which they have exhibited at the time.

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That is all I wish to contribute to this debate, except to say that there never was a time when the young man had to realise more clearly that, whatever he does, he cannot find to-day what used to be called the security of the Home Civil Service. No man can hope to live to-day, just as no nation can hope to live, other than dangerously. We live in a present and look to a future where risks have to be taken. But I can think of no finer career, and no better way of spending one's ability, than in taking the risks and the great promise which are to be found in the work of the Colonial Civil Service.
6.15 p.m.
LORD HARLECH: My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord who introduced this Motion will agree that it has been amply justified by its having given rise to the speech to which we have just listened. Lord Milverton comes among us after a remarkably varied career in different parts of the Colonial Empire, and what he has said to us this afternoon is the fruit of his most wise and successful experience. I rise this afternon merely to dot the i's and cross the t's of some of the things he has said. I am quite sure we ought not to appeal to the young man of to-day for either the administrative or any other of the Colonial services on the ground that he is going to a safe or an easy job. The people who have built up the Colonial Empire have been people with a sense of adventure, and it is essential that that idea of adventure should always be kept in mind.
The pace of the development of all the peoples of the Colonial Empire, both economically and educationally, is of course increasing year by year, because we are spreading education; we are giving to these people access to university education, either in their own country or here; and it is quite right and indeed inevitable that in the future in all the Colonial Services men from universities in this country, who may never before have been out of this country, will find themselves having to work alongside Africans, Malays, Chinese, and all sorts of people, on terms of absolute equality, social and otherwise.
Now let me say something about training. The Government have done a good deal to put into force the recommendations of the first part of the Devonshire
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Committee Report; and, as Chairman of the governing body of the London School of Oriental and African Languages, I have seen something of the new post-war entry that has recently been trained. I am quite satisfied that there has never been an entry better in quality than I saw last year at that school. Moreover, the quality of their training before they go out has also been immensely improved compared to what it was when I entered the Colonial Office and we started the courses at Oxford and Cambridge. I still attach the utmost importance to language. I am quite sure that any officer, not only an administrative officer but an agricultural or educational officer, even if he does not have to use the native vernacular nearly so much in the future as in the past, must know something of that vernacular.
Remember, my Lords, the basic fact about Africa and the African. Until his contact with us, the African had never invented or known a written language. His whole means of communication was phonetic, being entirely by ear. Everything was handed on from generation to generation orally, and not by written tradition and communication. I am quite sure that we can never begin to understand the African mind unless we have a knowledge of the form of thought by which the African thinks. I do not attach great importance to one being an expert linguist, grammatically and orthographically correct in a number of local vernaculars, but I do say that anybody going to Bantu Africa who cannot understand the Bantu language and speaks it only a little will not really get into touch with the great mass of the people. If one does know one Bantu language, one at least has a key to the form of thought of other peoples speaking another form of Bantu. It is the same with the Sudanic language in West Africa. Therefore, language is very important.
Looking back on the story of Britain in India, we can see that we overdid the attempt to Anglicise everything. I have said before in this House that Lord Macaulay's ideas of education and of imposing English traditions of education upon another people and another culture have not been wholly successful. It is true that it gave them something immensely valuable which they had not before, but it had its bad side; we cannot get away from it. We do not go to these Colonies to de-nationalise them and to impose our ideas of culture

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and civilisation upon them, but merely to facilitate those people developing their own characteristics according to their own traditions in a very difficult world, often possessing only primitive standards and primitive narrow ideas, to a level where they can live and hold their own among the other peoples of mankind.
Preliminary training is all-important, and I hope that the further recommendations—I do not say in every detail but in broad outline—for refresher courses, or whatever you like to call them, will later on also be carried forward, if only to bring together for a long period young Colonial officers of all services, and not only the administrative service, to interchange their own experiences over their first years of life and provide them with a higher staff education. In fact, what we need is a staff college for the Colonial services just as we have staff colleges at Camberley for the Army and at Greenwich for the Navy. I am quite convinced that that is absolutely essential. I have seen most of the Colonial Empire in the course of the last thirty years and from my experience I am not unduly worried about the administrative service. I am much more worried about the other services being up to the necessary standards, or even to the standard of the administrative service. It is no use having a brilliant engineer, a brilliant agriculturist or a good "vet," and certainly a good schoolmaster, unless he has the same approach in adapting his science as the administrative officer has in applying the fundamentals of the law and order of politics and the basis and structure of government among the people whom he is serving. Too often the technical services have lagged behind the administrative service in their contacts with the people. Also, they have tended more than the administrative service to get into a groove. If one goes to single crop countries, or to places where there is one particular type of agriculture, it is perhaps inevitable that the tendency seems to be in this direction.
That brings me to another point, and that is that, apart from staff courses later in their career, there should be interchange. It was often said to me when at the Colonial Office I used to harp on the importance of more interchange at all stages: "Oh, but you are a great advocate of knowledge of the vernacular, and surely that is contradictory to what you are now advocating." There I think that the
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language question can be overstressed and one can attach too much importance to it, particularly among the technical officers and the middle and certainly the higher ranks of the administrative service. Once they know one vernacular they need not necessarily learn another; but at least they know that there is a problem in the fact that we are dealing with a people who do not naturally speak our language, and they have some idea of their processes of thought. I am convinced that, in the interests of all officers, but particularly in the interests of technical officers, more interchange of experience is necessary for their efficiency and their growth, and fiat more movement about the Colonial Empire is desirable in the interests of each and every part of it.
I come now to the question of the Promotions Committee. There is the problem of selecting people who are to be trained to be the leaders. There again we have to be very careful. The original selection is, quite rightly, based on collecting men of character with a good standard of education, but not all of an equally high standard of mere intellectual education. Obviously, for the people who are going to be Colonial Secretaries and Chief Secretaries, the people who are to run the Secretariats, we must have those who can hold their own with the home civil servants and write the despatches and deal with the paper work of government. Those people are, of course, necessary but they are not always the most successful administrative officers or technical officers in the field in contact with the indigenous populations. We want to give both kinds a chance of promotion.
The truth about promotion, of course, is that at the Colonial Office we are dependent for interchange from one Colonial administration to another almost entirely on the confidential reports sent in by various Governors. When I was in the Colonial Office and I had a confidential report on an officer sent up to me, I used to ask, "Who wrote that report?" Frankly, there are some people whose reports are worth a great deal more than others. It is the same in the Army and in nearly every other Service. Some people can tell you fearlessly and objectively the whole truth, the good, the bad, and the indifferent about an individual, without any offence; and others cannot do that. On the whole, just as there is in the Army, I think there is a

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little danger lest Governors and Colonial Secretaries who draw up these reports are frightened of telling the whole truth. They always say: "Well, this confidential report will get out, and if I say this, that and the other about a man, it may not be absolutely fair to him. I will give him another chance." But it is in the interests of the man himself, as well as of the Service and of the Empire as a whole, that those confidential reports should be as objective and truthful as possible. I feel that great importance should be attached to that.
I cannot talk on this subject without paying my tribute to one outstanding man in the history of the Colonial Empire in the last thirty years; I refer to Sir Ralph Furse. The Colonial Empire owes more to him—and I say this frankly, as an ex-Colonial Secretary—than to any Colonial Secretary, and to many another person whose name is known in connection with him. The amount of work that he and his staff have done, quietly and unostentatiously, in the recruiting, the training and the follow-up of the Service is tremendous. Only one who has seen it, and knows of it, can realise the great debt of gratitude that we owe to that man and his staff. It has been a quite outstanding service; to that I can testify.
I have only one small point of my own to make. It has been my lot, in addition to spending a lot of time in the Colonial Empire and in the Colonial Office, to be High Commissioner in South Africa, and I had under me three territories where one is virtually in the position of a Colonial Governor. They are not under the Colonial Office, but under the Dominions Office—the only territories that are under what is now the Commonwealth Relations Office; and, of course, they are dependent upon borrowing the necessary staff from the Colonial Service. I am quite sure that the interests of the officers whom we send out from this country to those three territories in South Africa under the Commonwealth Relations Office, demand that they be given equal chances of promotion and interchange with those who are under the Colonial Office in the rest of the Colonial Service. For one reason or another, it has been inevitable recently that the senior officer there, the Resident Commissioner, should almost invariably be taken from the senior ranks of the administrative
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side of the Colonial Service. Consequently, there is an impression in those three territories that the members of the service can never get ahead; that they are in a blind alley, and are "nobody's child." That is unfortunate, though I would remind the House that I think Sir Robert Correndon started there and eventually earned distinction as Governor of Uganda and Kenya. There are several others who have climbed the ladder, but more by good luck than good management.
The complete integration of the staff and policy, not only in the administrative, but in the medical and other services, with the three High Commission territories in South Africa is, to my mind, vital both in the interests of the officers concerned and in the interests of those three territories and of our future relations with the Union of South Africa. For in the Union of South Africa they judge our Colonial policy, and our work in the rest of Africa, by what they see in the three territories in their midst. Unless our standard of personnel, our standard of achievement and our policy in those three territories is kept up to the best standards that we have in East or West Africa we are not doing what we should do vis-à-vis the Union and our future relations with the Union in Africa. I want to make that very special point because, certainly from my experience, it stood out as a most essential factor in the whole business.
I would like to express regret that Lord Hailey has not been able to stay, as he has just returned from Africa. Apart from the change in political and educational standards, we are now living in entirely new economic circumstances, and of course inevitably the administrative officer, dealing with the indigenous peoples there, now has to face not only private corporations, but these great Government organisations like the Food Commission and those responsible for schemes such as the ground-nuts scheme in Tanganyika. I want to see the Colonial Office supporting the local Governor, the local native Commissioner, and the local officers who know the people of that country; I want to see them protecting those people against exploitation by the large capitalist undertakings, whether they belong to or are managed by the State or by an individual corporation. I regard that as absolutely vital. It is no use we in this country saying that every step will be taken to prevent any exploitation

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of the native. Unless the local native has the administrative officer to keep his end up when he has a grievance vis-à-vis a powerful, mechanised, highly organised body—a sort of separate entity of the British Government, sent out to develop his country—I know that under the whole circumstances of the set-up injustice will be done to the native—not intentionally, but inevitably.
For that reason, I would like to see these men in other experiments, such as the ground-nuts scheme, which the Government may have in mind (it may be oil palms in Nigeria, or another crop somewhere else) for which, with the economic stresses of the world, there is much to be said, effectively placed under the local Chief Native Commissioner, or whatever he may be called (perhaps the Secretary for Native Affairs), and under the local Governor, who is an experienced Colonial administrator; they should not be run from London by the orders of a board. That is absolutely vital, if we are not to have, with disastrous results for native progress and relations, a dichotomy and a diarchy in the midst of every one of those Colonies where that kind of scheme is in force. I hope the noble Earl who is to reply will assure us that some further instalments of the Devonshire proposals are in store, and that the Government are sympathetic to the views that have been expressed by all three speakers so far this afternoon.
6.39 p.m.
LORD RENNELL: My Lords, I hope it will not be thought that I am in any way striking a discordant note after the speeches that have been made, which must leave the impression that in the Colonial Service (especially the Colonial Service in so far as it has been recruited since the war) everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. The noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, spoke of the terms of service, and I think he meant to draw particular attention to the material terms of service—namely, pay, pensions, leave passages and matters of that kind. I would like to address myself not to the material side of the terms of the Colonial Service, but to their morale or spirit. By a curious coincidence, not knowing that this Motion was going to be tabled, I happen in the course of the last two months to have had a number
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of communications from, and to have seen, a number of people from both Last African and West African Colonies. From five separate persons I have, unfortunately, heard the same story, which leads me to a feeling of rather considerable anxiety about the frame of mind in which many of our Colonial civil servants in Africa are at the present time.
I had, during the war, a large number of Colonial civil servants serving under me, both in Africa and elsewhere. I have no partisan view about any one Colony or any one service, nor are the cases to which I refer—except in two instances—cases of officers who served under ma. What I say is quite unprejudiced; I am in no way personally concerned. These men have all brought back the same story. One can see how the situation has arisen, and I would like to draw the attention of noble Lords opposite to it, in the hope that some remedy may be found. The complaint which is made is not by any means, or in the first place, in regard to terms of service. There are, it is true, difficulties about salaries, allowances, pay, pension rights, and so on, which are, doubtless, being looked into. Indeed, I know that they are being looked into, and I have no doubt that they will be remedied. The difficulty which I see is engendered by a feeling about their work on the part of the best of these men. How good they are has been told by the noble Lord who has just sat down, and I should be the first to agree with everything that both he and the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, have said about the quality of the men involved. They are, however, not happy in many cases, not on account of pay and conditions, but because of the work they are called upon to do.
The men of whom I speak are each unknown to the others. Two administrative officers, and one officer in departmental or specialised service in West Africa have all complained about being unable to do the work that they feel they were sent to Africa to do. Administrative officers are finding themselves tied, up in their offices with not enough time to get around their districts and with no time at all to get into contact with the people whose affairs they are supposed to be administering. They are inundated with paper. They are inundated with calls for returns from the Secretariat. They find themselves

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exasperated by having questions addressed to them not once but twice or three times in a slightly different form from offices the occupants of which, they feel, ought to be able to answer the questions themselves, instead of just passing paper and files along to the unfortunate district officer. In one particular case of which I have heard—and I shall be glad to furnish an appropriate extract from a long letter which I have had on precisely these lines from a fairly senior officer in West Africa, provided his identity can be concealed—the officer concerned has gone so far as to hand in his resignation from the administrative service owing to his feeling that he cannot get on and do the job for which he is paid. It is not for the purpose of getting out of the Colonial Service that he has handed in his resignation. He is an unmarried man with sufficient money of his own and property in England to enable him to return at any time he washes, but he is asking to be transferred out of the administrative service into another department, because he feels that he cannot do the job which he is paid to do. He has had to rely, in the last three or four years, in the Province to which he has been posted, on departmental officers, on officers who are sent out on temporary contracts—I believe for development purposes and in connection with special plans—for the contact with the people which he ought to be having and which he is unable to obtain on account of the office work and the table work that he has to do.
Here in the case of this officer and two others, we have examples of men who are not complaining about the material terms of their service. They are devoted to their work, and rather than return here they would prefer to stay in another capacity out in Africa. They desire to take up appointments in which they feel they can be useful rather than to continue in the administrative service where they are exasperated and obstructed by the amount of paper work which they are called upon to do. This information has come to me from both West Africa and East Africa and from men whose quality is quite beyond a per-adventure—it is undoubtedly of the highest. It has also come from men who do not wish to resign, men who are not, as the common saying has it, disgruntled
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but who feel there is something wrong in their particular service and wish to show by their own departure where things have gone wrong. If we are to continue to have the best men, as we have now—and may I say here how profoundly I agree with Lord Harlech in what he said about the work Sir Ralph Furse has done for recruiting for the Colonial Services—and if we are to use those men to the best advantage, they must be happy in their work. They must be happy not only with regard to pay but in the spirit in which they perform their work.
The situation is one which I believe to be somewhat serious. I know of young men who have been sent out to the Colonies since the war, through Sir Ralph Furse's organisation, and who have come home and have resigned. I asked the noble Earl who is going to reply on behalf of the Government, when I spoke to him about this matter yesterday, whether he has any data and whether he has been able to ascertain how many young men who have gone out since the war have already resigned and come back for reasons of the sort which I have mentioned—namely, that they are not happy about the work they have been called upon to do. I know two particular cases of men who have come back and who say they have done so because they consider they were taken into the Colonial Service under false pretences. When they told me this I said to them: "What do you mean by false pretences? Are the terms not what you expected?" They replied: "Yes, the material terms are all that we expected. But we thought we were sent out to administer and govern Colonies, and not to be underpaid and overworked accountants, doing accounting work in offices for seven days a week." One can see how such a situation has arisen, but one of the remedies is fairly clear. It is that the district officer should not be condemned to doing accountant's work; he should be allowed to administer, and an accountant should be provided for him. I think that, in many instances, accountants could be recruited from among Africans to a greater extent than has been the practice up to date.
It is a waste of man-power to take a man from England, send him out there, pay his passage, pay his leave, and put him to keeping native administration

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treasury records. That is what has been going on. One man found himself exasperated to such an extent that he left, because the Secretariat in the Colony in which he was situated called for three revisions and three redrafts on small points of a native administration budget. There was no one else there to do it. He ought to have been doing his own job, but instead of that he was condemned to sitting, metaphorically speaking, with wet towels round his head, in an office, in a not very salubrious climate, trying to work out budget after budget and having them sent back. Finally he was asked his opinion about something, knowing that the decision relevant to that matter had already been given in the Secretariat. That sort of thing does not promote a high morale even among this very high quality human material.
Why that has arisen is fairly clear. It has arisen from the great development schemes in the Colonies. Colonial Governments are now being called upon to do a great deal more than was ever conceived before the war. Moreover, with the facility of communication and the greater contact that exists between many African Colonies and people in this country, there are many more people interested in asking questions; more work is thrown on local Governments, and all the way down the line to the administrative officer, in the need for providing data in case somebody asks a question. That is not a criticism of this or any other Government, but it is a criticism that it should affect the morale of Colonial civil servants. Between the people who ask for informal ion in Westminster and the unfortunate administrative officer there must be placed a screen, to protect him and allow him to get on with his job. At present, he suffers from being used for purposes outside the terms of his contract.
I should like to deal with another point which arises out of what the noble Lords, Lord Tweedsmuir and Lord Harlech, have said about training, refresher courses and interchange between Colonies and between Services. In spite of having the largest Colonial Empire in the world, we in this country, curiously enough, have little in the way of institutional organisation for the study of the Colonies. The schools in France and Belgium are both of longer standing and far more elaborate than anything we have in England. A scheme for training and refresher courses is long
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overdue, and I hope very much that that will be instituted as soon as possible, even if it requires additional personnel. I would go one stage farther. In the course of some experience of the African territories, not only of British territories, but of French and Belgian and other territories, the thing that struck me forcibly was that every major Colonial territory have their foreign relations, their local domestic foreign relations, which require consider-able co-ordination between contiguous territories—between the four British territories in West Africa and the intervening French Colonies, for example; and between Uganda, Tanganyika and he Portuguese Colonies.
The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, knows this far better than I do, because he was mainly responsible for instituting this in West Africa. In the major centres of the foreign Colonial territories we have a British representation, in the form of Consulates and Consulates General, staffed, in the main, by personnel from the Foreign Office. I have found—and I think the noble Viscount and those who have some direct personal experience of this will agree with me—that there is a great deal lacking in the knowledge possessed by the Foreign Service of administrative and Colonial matters. Possibly a certain amount can be said on the other side as well. Has the time not come to institute, within a limited number of people, an interchange of personnel between our Foreign Service and the Colonial Service? I believe some proposal of this sort has been under discussion. Would it not be desirable in certain British Colonies—for their own foreign problems, say of labour, subversive activities and so on—to attach to the headquarters of the Government one or more officers from the Foreign Service? Even in the highest ranks of both the Foreign and Colonial Services I found a very great degree of ignorance. Frankly, our ambassadors know little about our Colonies; in many cases, they know virtually nothing. Perhaps some of our Colonial Governors do not know very much of how our Foreign Service run the Embassies.
In Africa, with this hotchpotch of territories which has happened, instead of being carefully devised, we cannot afford to have our Colonial and Foreign Services working in watertight compartments. I regret to say that I have sometimes seen them look at one another sideways. I

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urge that the training and refresher courses and interchange should now be extended to include inter-Service exchanges without loss of seniority, even if only on an experimental basis. I believe the new ideas that will be brought in by this interchange will go some way to provide that broader attitude of mind to which the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, referred as being one of the consequences which he hoped would follow the refresher courses. That interchange could be extended within limits to our home Civil Service on technical and departmental problems, again in both directions. To summarise my remarks: I hope that the morale in the African Service is better than the evidence I have lately had leads me to believe. If we are to conserve the best men it is important to have them right in mind as well as solvent in pocket. Without both these things, we shall not get the best. We can get one by giving good pay and pensions, but we cannot get the other without looking into the secretarial and paper work which the officers are condemned to do. My second point is on interchange, but I have spoken on that so recently that I will not repeat it. I should like to ask the noble Earl who is to reply whether a scheme of that sort is possible.
6.59 p.m.
LORD ALTRINCHAM: My Lords, I assure you at once that I shall not commit the enormity of addressing you for many minutes. But as one who spent five years in the Colonial Service in Africa, I am most anxious to make one or two points in this discussion and to support my noble friend behind me who introduced this Motion. Let me speak exclusively on the welfare of the Colonial Service. As warmly as any of those who have already spoken, I would wish to pay my tribute to the work of Sir Ralph Furse. Over a long period his success, his judgment and his dignity have been of inestimable value to the Government, to all Colonial territories and to the whole Commonwealth. I am glad his name has been mentioned. Secondly, I should like to register my agreement with the noble Lord who has just spoken as to the state, I will not say of discontent, but of malaise in the Colonial Service at the present time. Of course, there are material grievances in regard to which improvements can be made. If I speak for a moment about
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this matter it is to mention only one point—namely, the education of children. I feel that we might do more to assist our officers overseas to get their children well educated in this country, and to help them in the great difficulty they have in finding places for them in the holidays. It is a desperate affair for those who have not relations in this country who are practically prepared to undertake the work of parents on their behalf. That, I think, is one of the most important of the material considerations.
But it is not on the material side that I feel the situation to be serious at the present moment; it is on the moral and spiriual side. Like the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, I have had letters from both East Africa and West Africa. I have had one from each territory, from officers of whom I have never heard, who, I suppose, have written to me because they believe I am interested in these things. It is obvious from their letters that they are officers whose hearts are absolutely in their work. Nobody could call them grousers. They are officers who are all out to serve the people in whose countries they are posted. They tell me that they feel inhibited from doing the work they ought to be doing, and they are losing touch with the people they ought to be serving. That is a terrible position to which to reduce an officer who is heart and soul desiring to do his best for the native peoples. It is little use our saying in this House and elsewhere that in setting up these great schemes of development in the Colonial Empire we count upon the co-operation of the Colonial peoples, if, in fact, we are moving into a method of administration which prevents the district officers from keeping touch as they should.
There are two difficulties for the district officer. The first is that described by the noble Lord, Lord Rennell. It is that there is too much paper work—the everlasting answering of questions, and all the rest of it. While that can be remedied to some extent by more staff, I think the only real remedy is more decentralisation. Yet there is a growing desire for centralisation, a growing refusal to give the district officer his head. I am sure that is a fatal mistake if you are going to have good men in this work. There is another aspect which we must bear in mind. It is that many of these officers are most anxious

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about the schemes of development. My noble friend Lord Harlech spoke about that subject. They think we are losing touch; that we are getting divided in our purpose as to these countries; and that while we say that we intend to develop the Colonial Empire entirely in the interests of their own peoples, there is a growing note in all our argument as to the tremendous advantage it is going to be to ourselves. They are very much afraid, as administrative officers, as my noble friend Lord Harlech said, that they will find themselves up against powerful organisations with the whole weight of Government behind them, and unable to give adequate protection to the African peoples. Those are two matters which I hope the noble Earl will agree are of very great importance and which ought to be investigated. If we are to take our responsibility for the Colonial peoples seriously, we should not neglect impressions of this kind, which are derived by people who certainly have no desire to appear merely as malcontents and bad officers. One of these letters, as a matter of fact, came from an officer I know very well. He was in the Kenya Government when I was there, and he has now retired and settled in Kenya. But, with all his experience, he said the same thing. It does want watching.
One other point which I would like to make may sound partly in conflict with the great desire I have for the advancement of the interests of the Colonial Service. I believe that the recruits the Service is getting are as good as they can be. I have a profound admiration for the Colonial Service and a confidence in its future if we treat it properly. I am very doubtful about a consideration which has not been urged in this debate, but which is often urged in this connection. I am doubtful whether it is wise always to insist that the topmost positions, the Governorships, should go to the Colonial Service, and that the Colonial Service are wronged if they do not get those positions. After all, in this country, to use Bagehot's phrase, we put the parrot on the donkey's back. We put in charge of Government Departments Ministers who are amateurs, but who can judge broadly and who can tell the public what is needed. They are the parrots. They have at their disposal the donkeys, who are the permanent civil servants. That is not a flattering description
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of either, and no doubt less flattering to the politician than the civil servant
Nevertheless, having given that description, Bagehot said that this is the soundest method ever devised. Put the non-professional at the top of a great professional organisation and you will get the best results. I think that applies absolutely to Governorships. Often what is wanted is a man completely free from the sort of growth of rigid opinion about the Service and what it should do which necesarily grows up in any Service. There is always an esprit de corps; there is always a doctrine of the Service, and it is better at times to have somebody quite independent. It is also better to have somebody who carries more influence in this country than any civil servant who has been out of the country for most of his life can possibly have. It is, further, sometimes very important to send to those places a man known to have that influence. That is a matter that may be of great importance in securing the content of the Colonial people themselves. Therefore, while I am all out for the welfare of the Colonial service, for its dignity and its advancement in every way, I hope that that condition which is often insisted upon will, at my rate, be dispassionately reconsidered.
There is one other consideration which we must not forget. All the services, when the process of promotion goes entirely within the charmed circle of the service itself, tend to make it a matter of routine. The late Lord Fisher invented a splendid term for that. He said that he always expected to wake up one morning and find that we had lost the British Empire because it was "Buggins's turn." Admiral Buggins happened to be the next for that job, and he got it, but not because he was fitted for it. That is a tendency in every service, and we must guard against it. The best way to guard against it is to make it clear when the higher posts are filled that the consideration is not merely the interests of the Service but the interests of the territory and the people there, and the interests of the Empire. That should be the first consideration. If that is always kept to the fore, then Buggins, happily, will never get his turn unless he deserves it.
Finally, let me add my warm support to what the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, said about the future of the Service. I

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do not think my noble friend Lord Tweedsmuir meant what he said in the sense that this is a worked-out mine. It is the greatest Service to which young Englishmen, Scotsmen, Welshmen and Irishmen can devote themselves. I am delighted at the entry which we are getting at the present time, and I hope it will continue. I believe that this Service will justify itself to the Commonwealth and to the world, if we treat it with sympathy and understanding.
7.10 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I think the number of noble Lords present in the Chamber is quite often no true measure of the interest taken by your Lordships in the subject under discussion, because what may be a feast to the experts is apt to become caviare to the general. I shall cater for the Colonial epicures, in the shape of former Secretaries of State and Colonial Governors, by giving them as full a reply as I can and taking the risk of being blamed for speaking at such length at this hour of the evening. I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, for giving the House this opportunity to discuss the Colonial Service, and I know that my gratitude is shared by all those connected with the Colonies. It is not often that public attention is directed to the fine work—as has been acknowledged by every speaker—that is being carried out by public servants in the Colonies and Protectorates of our Commonwealth. Throughout those territories they are maintaining the high standards of administration of which this country is justly proud, and which represent an essential part of the contribution of British political genius to the progress of mankind. The noble Lord the mover of the Motion, has himself served as a member of the Colonial Administrative Service in Uganda, and speaks with first-hand knowledge of conditions in East Africa.
The noble Lord said, among other things, that we ought to have a Secretary of State for Africa, because the Secretary of State for the Colonies is overworked, and he needs someone to share his burden. I agree that he is overworked—all Cabinet Ministers are overworked. I am not a Cabinet Minister myself, so I can say that without inviting sympathy. I should like to point out two things to the noble
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Lord, because I think they show that my right honourable friend's burden has been lightened; and quite recently. A Minister of State at the Colonial Office was appointed in January of this year, and I know from personal experience that my right honourable friend has been able to farm out a lot of the work he has hitherto been obliged to do himself. Secondly, we have decided to surrender the Mandate for Palestine. I do not think anyone who has not been in the Colonial Office realises how much the time of the Secretary of State has been occupied by only one of the territories for which he has had responsibility. The surrender of the Mandate will relieve him of a considerable part of the work he has had to do lately. May I answer some of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, before I get on to the substance of what I have to say? The noble Lord complained that the district officers are pinned down to their offices by paper work. But, of course, that is a direct responsibility of Colonial Governments, rather than the Colonial Office.
LORD ALTRINCHAM: Will the noble Earl allow me to interrupt? I have been a Colonial Governor—twenty years ago—and a great deal of this work was caused by questions from the Colonial Office and, in particular, by questions asked in Parliament.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: What I desire to say is that the Colonial Governments should see that their district officers are not snowed under by paper work.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: Set them an example!
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I assure your Lordships that they are aware of the vital importance of district officers being able to circulate freely in their district. If the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, will let me have any specific complaints, I will see that they are brought to the attention of the Governors in the Colonies concerned. The other point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, was about resignations from the Colonial Service. I can tell him only that we have no figures at the Colonial Office for the number of resignations among those who have actually gone out to the Colonies.
LORD RENNELL: Since the war?
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: Since the war. But I can tell him that if there had been any large or significant number of resignations in any territory that fact would certainly have come to our ears. I hope that that will reassure the noble Lord that this has not become a serious problem in any of the Colonies.
The first point I should like to make is rather obvious, but it is sometimes overlooked. The Colonies, Protectorates and Trust territories for which we are responsible are separate units of the Administration, each with its own public service. It is true that we often speak of the Colonial Service as though it were one body, like the Foreign Service or the Home Civil Service. This expression is, in fact, a label for the aggregate of the staffs of some thirty-four separate Governments. The Colonial Service is the sum of the public Services operating in each of these territories. I say this to make it absolutely plain how much can be done by Ministers here at the Colonial Office. It is the duty of the Secretary of State to advise Colonial Governments about the conditions of service which they should offer if they are to attract Government servants of the right type and quality. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State, however, has never been able to prescribe conditions for the whole Service and to require Colonial Governments to conform to them. These people are the servants of the Government of the territory in which they work; and who pay their salaries.
My next point is this. It is a commonplace, of course, and I will not labour it, that the aim of our Colonial policy is the progressive advancement of all the Colonial peoples along the road to self-government, within the framework of the British Commonwealth of Nations. It follows from this that the public Services of the Colonies must be adjusted to local requirements, and they must be staffed to a large and ever-increasing extent by locally recruited people. It is equally important to recognise, frankly and openly—and this was stated by the noble Lord, Lord Milverton—that for a long time to come most of the Colonies will not be able to find among their own inhabitants enough suitably qualified staff to fill all the posts required by an efficient and up-to-date Administration. It is one of the chief aims of our educational policy to make young people of both sexes competent to
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take an active part, when they grow up, in the work of their own Governments throughout the whole Colonial field. But pending the availability of a sufficient number of locally trained personnel to staff their public services, the Colonies will Continue to look to the rest of the Commonwealth, and especially to the United Kingdom, to provide suitably qualified individuals for key posts in their administrative and technical services.
But already the vast majority of those employed by Colonial Governments are of local origin. It is estimated that the figure is about 96 per cent. of the total which, to all those who continue to think of the Colonial Service in terms of the young men who go out from the United Kingdom to the Colonies, is a striking proportion. It is extremely satisfactory—as I am sure your Lordships will agree—that so many of the indigenous population of the Colonies are now engaged in Government service. Of course, there is no bar, in whatever Colony they may work, to their promotion to the highest Government appointments in their own communities. It is true that at this moment the remaining 4 per cent. are people from this country and the Dominions; and, of course, they occupy most of the leading positions. Nevertheless, no effort is being spared to promote the advancement of locally born people in every grade to their technical and administrative services, and in the next few years we hope to see an even larger number of responsible posts held by men and women of local origin. As a practical contribution to the achievement of this aim we have set aside £1,000,000 of Colonial Development and Welfare money to provide scholarships for Colonial people who wish to obtain the academic or professional qualifications required for the higher branches of the Colonial Service. So far, nearly 200 of these scholarships have been awarded to candidates from a wide range of Colonies. This scheme will ensure that the public services of the Colonies in the next ten years will be reinforced by at least several hundred fully qualified men and women, drawn from the Colonial communities themselves.
I now turn to the recruitment and training of the Colonial Service. I will say about recruitment only that there has been a large and satisfactory expansion in the two years immediately following the war. I was delighted to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, said, speaking

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from his own experience, about the quality of the new recruits. The total number of recruits to the technical and administrative services during this period was equivalent to seven and a half years' normal intake. I think that says a lot for the popularity of the Colonial Service and the sense of responsibility and high adventure that still prevails among young people in this country.
But of course the work of the Colonial Office does not stop by any means at recruitment. We must equip the Colonial Service thoroughly for its task; and this means better and broader training than before the war, both on first appointment and later. Several noble Lords were interested in the subject of training and I will try to give them a brief review of the situation. Before the war, training had to be reduced or suspended, and could not begin again until the first urgently-needed post-war reinforcements had been hurried out to the Colonies. But a new start was made in the autumn of 1946, and since then there has been much progress and the field of training has been widened. In accordance with the recommendations of the Devonshire Committee, the training courses are held, not in the isolation of a staff college—there was considerable discussion of the respective merits of staff colleges and universities in this House, which many of your Lordships will remember—but in the main stream of English education. For this purpose the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London form the present team and between them account for a high proportion of the courses. In so far as improved Colonial Service training requires increased contact between experts in this country and those with Colonial experience, it is probable that increasing use will also be made of the training facilities provided by Government Departments such as the Ministry of Labour.
The chief object of preliminary training is to instruct the recruit in the Colonial aspect of his work, administrative or otherwise. The first training course for some 120 administrative probationers has already been completed at Oxford, Cambridge and London; and the second one, with 150 probationers, has been running since last autumn. Another large batch will be starting the third course in the series next October. Alongside of it there have been special courses for agricultural
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education, fisheries, forestry, survey and veterinary probationers and for technical people whom we have to send out. This year it is hoped that probationers for the engineering and legal services also will be brought within the training arrangements.
The Devonshire Committee's most novel proposal was for a combined further course in this country for officers of all branches after some years of Colonial service. The first of these courses finished in March of this year. Nearly 100 officers from a wide range of Colonial territories attended it, and some 150 more have been put forward by their Governments for the next course. At the same time the special one-year post-service course at the Imperial Forestry Institute, Oxford, has been continued, and new courses in road research have been started for engineers. Training for labour officers is to begin in 1949, under the auspices of the Ministry of Labour. Four short Colonial Service Conferences have been held since the war: at Oxford in 1946, at the London School of Economics and Cambridge in 1947, and at St. Andrews in 1948. It is hoped that such Conferences will be held regularly in the future. They should fulfil two functions: a quick refresher for the officer on leave, who will be able to enjoy the chance to exchange ideas with men and women from other territories; and an opportunity of discussion of special problems common to the officers concerned. One significant aspect of post-war training courses is that Colonial-born officers have been taking them along with expatriate officers. We have mixed these classes as completely as we can. The numbers of the local men will, of course, grow as more qualify for appointment to the higher grades of the Service.
Now let me say a word about pay and other conditions of the Service. We have to remember that the rise in prices that has taken place all over the world has hit the Colonies as hard as any other territory. That has been the experience all over the Colonial territories. The main pressing concern of Colonial Governments in matters affecting pay and terms of service during the post-war years has been to adjust salaries to meet current conditions, including as a rule this general rise in prices. That need has been experienced throughout the Colonies, and a whole series of salary revisions has been undertaken since the end of the war. In many

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cases the need has supplied the opportunity for a comprehensive review of pay, grading and terms of service in the light of the general principles set out in the White Paper of 1946. To aid Colonial Governments in this my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has been able to enlist the services of several experienced Special Commissioners, and with this assistance comprehensive reviews have been either concluded or initiated in most of the main Colonial regions. Those reviews already concluded and made effective include the four West African colonies which were dealt with by a single Commission; and Hong Kong, Fiji, Cyprus, British Honduras and Mauritius. The reports of three other Commissions have recently been presented and are now under consideration by the Governments concerned. These reports are for East Africa, covering Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar; for Central Africa, covering Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland; and for Malaya, together with Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo. Similar reviews at differing stages of progress are being carried out for Aden, Somaliland, Barbados, Seychelles, and the Western Pacific territories.
As regards pay structure, perhaps the most noteworthy general principle advocated in the White Paper of 1946 was the adoption of expatriation pay for officers from overseas where salaries fixed in relation to local circumstances at rates applicable to locally recruited staff are insufficient to attract those officers who have to be obtained from overseas. Formerly the system of expatriation pay has been applied only in Palestine; now it has been adopted in the four West African Colonies, in Hong Kong, Cyprus and Gibraltar, and it has been recommended for Malaya. Another measure of comparative novelty in the Colonies to which attention was called in the White Paper of 1946 was the establishment of Public Service Commissions, so composed as to command the confidence of the Service and the public, to advise the Governor of the Colony in the selection and appointment of candidates in the Colony to posts in the local Service. This suggestion has been generally welcomed by Colonial Governments, and detailed proposals have been put forward by several of the Salaries Commissions I have mentioned.
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I am grateful to the noble Lord opposite for drawing attention to the difficulty of guaranteeing a career to young men and women in a Service which is admittedly bound to have its activities reduced as different Dependencies draw nearer and nearer to self-government, Ceylon has already achieved self-rule, and we are about to relinquish our Mandate for Palestine. But it is well to note that in Ceylon there was no question of the British staff being shown the door. Their numbers have steadily fallen as the Constitution of Ceylon advanced towards self-government, and the few British officers who remained were offered a choice between continuing in the service of the Ceylon Government and retiring on specially favourable terms; they had two years in which to make their choice. As regards Palestine, all expatriate officers have been asked whether they wish to be considered for transfer to similar work in other parts of the Colonial Empire, or whether they prefer to retire on the specially favourable pension terms which have been arranged and guaranteed by His Majesty's Government. A good deal of progress has already been made in considering the placing elsewhere of those officers who desire to continue in the Colonial Service, but of course we have had to be careful not to give those who have already come out preference over those officers who had to remain in Palestine almost up to the last moment.
I think it is clear from these two recent examples that His Majesty's Government recognise the duty which they owe to officers of the Colonial Service to meet their wishes in the event of their being thrown out of employment for reasons beyond their control. But at the same time, I do not think that any prospective candidates for the Colonial Service to-day need unduly concern themselves with the question of security of tenure. For all practical purposes, the appointments offered by Colonial Governments are as permanent as those offered by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom to candidates for the home Civil Service. It is true that the avowed at of our policy is that the local people, should provide their own Civil Service, and that it is the job of the men and women whom we send out to help then to do so. But, as has been emphasised over and over again, it is equally true that the process is bound to be slow. An acorn does not become an oak tree overnight,

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although, given favourable conditions, its progress is continuous. It is, therefore, likely that, as the process of political evolution develops, recruitment for the Colonial Service from outside the Colonies will gradually diminish. Candidates who are selected to-day may reasonably assume that they would not be asked to join the Service if it were not highly probable that they would enjoy a lifetime of service in one of the great ventures which are part of our British heritage. It is not for me to give an absolute guarantee that every career will be uninterrupted, but how often can such a guarantee be given in any form of employment, in a business or even a profession?
The noble Lord, Lord Milverton, spoke of the risks that must be taken to-day, whatever career a man may choose. I think the noble Lord said very truly that the risks taken by a man who goes into the Colonial Service are pre-eminently worth while on account of the immense importance and value of the work he undertakes. What I can guarantee is the opportunity to play a part in forming and welding together this great family of nations, whose members are at different stages of political and economic development, but each of whom is contributing something to a world-wide association of peoples which we believe to be the biggest single factor making for stability and ordered progress in every part of the habitable globe. I cannot leave this subject without paying my tribute, following the noble Lords who have already paid their tributes, to the exemplary and devoted work of the Colonial Service over the past years. Palestine, of course, is much in our minds to-day. The British staff who have served there—and let me emphasise that these were ordinary men and women from every walk of life in this country—have earned our deep admiration for their loyal service, their devotion to duty and their high standards of conduct and administration, often in the face of calumny and violence. But what of the territories which are not front-page news? In the Far East, as I have recently seen for myself, they are recovering with surprising speed from the ravages of war, and are rehabilitating with remarkable energy and competence the territories recovered from the Japanese.
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The noble Lord, Lord Harlech, was no doubt glad to hear that, because he was the last Minister from the Colonial Office to visit that part of the Empire before I went there. Over the vast Continent of Africa, the men and women of the Colonial Service are administering justice, guiding the people in the ways of social progress, educating the young, curing the sick, providing the bases of law and order needed for the development of trade and commerce and gradually building up institutions of democratic self-government on a secure economic foundation. In the West Indies and in the islands of the seven seas it is the same story. Everywhere you will find devoted members of His Majesty's Colonial Service, giving all that they can to promote the happiness and well-being of the peoples whom they serve. We owe them all a deep debt of gratitude for their selfless service. I am sure that those of your Lordships who have not already congratulated them will wish to join with me now in congratulating them on their record of achievement, and in encouraging them to go forward with the good wishes and high esteeem of their fellow countrymen in their great adventure.
I should like to thank the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate for the sound and constructive advice which they have offered. I can assure them that it will receive the close and serious attention of my Department. I should like to thank them also for the encouraging things they have said about the Colonial Service. I can assure them that what has been said will be immensely appreciated by those concerned.
7.18 p.m.
LORD TWEEDSMUIR: My Lords, we have had a very interesting debate this evening. I am only sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hailey, could not have been present to give your Lordships the benefit of his great fund of experience in these matters. The noble Lord, Lord Milverton, speaks with years of accumulated knowledge on these affairs. I listened to his speech with great interest. I would like to correct a slight misapprehension which arose from my speech. I never intended to give the impression that I personally thought that the Colonial Service was a gold mine that was almost worked out. I said that that impression might appear, and that we must be vigilant to correct it when it does, as we

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must be vigilant to provide that ample career which the noble Lord mentioned. I have also listened to the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, speaking from a long career, distinguished in Imperial matters. When I advocated security, and harped on the word, I meant to imply not a slavish devotion to it but rather a reasoned measure of it, such as a prudent man might take into account in selecting a career. The noble Lord, Lord Rennell, stressed the point of how important it is to believe in what one does, and that the mere adequacy of material things is not enough. I asked His Majesty's Government certain questions and I received answers in general terms on all of them. There is just one small point. With regard to scholarships, I should like to see some of those scholarships going to the sons of Colonial servants. I am glad to hear that some progress has been made with the courses which were recommended by the Devonshire Report. I have received an assurance upon that point. Upon those terms, I am prepared to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SALFORD CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
The King's Consent signified, and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with amendments.
SHOREHAM HARBOUR BILL.
Reported, with amendments.

DUDLEY BRIERLEY HILL AND DISTRICT GAS ORDER, 1948.
TIVERTON GAS ORDER, 1948.
BANGOR GAS ORDER, 1948.
Report from the Special Orders Committee, That no Petitions have been presented praying to be heard against the Special Orders, and that there is nothing in these Orders to which they think it necessary to call the attention of the House: Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

ELECTORAL REGISTRATION REGULATIONS, 1948.
Report from the Special Orders Committee, That they have examined the Special Order as required by the Standing Orders of the House; That in
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their opinion the Order does not raise important questions of policy or principle; That the Order is founded on precedent; That in the opinion of the Committee the Order can be passed by the House without special attention, and that no further inquiry is necessary before the House proceeds to a decision on the Resolution to approve the said Order: Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (DEVELOPMENT CHARGE) REGU- LATIONS, 1948.
TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (DEVELOPMENT CHARGE) (EXEMPTIONS) REGULATIONS, 1948
TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (DEVELOPMENT CHARGE) (SCOTLAND) REGULATIONS, 1948.
TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (DEVELOPMENT CHARGE EXEMPTIONS) (SCOTLAND) REGULATIONS, 1948.
Report from the Special Orders Committee, That they have examined the Special Orders as required by the Standing Orders of the House; That in their opinion the Orders raise questions of policy and principle of exceptional importance; That the Orders are not founded on precedent; That in the opinion of the Committee the Orders cannot be passed by the House without special attention, but that no further inquiry is necessary before the House proceeds to a decision on the Resolution to approve the said Orders: Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

COMPANIES BILL. [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee or Consolidation Bills, with amendments and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.
First Report from the Joint Committee, being the Report on the Companies Bill [H.L.], made, and to be printed, the Minutes of Evidence (together with the Proceedings of the Joint Committee): Laid upon the Table and to be delivered out.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before eight o'clock.