Sitting of 9 March 1955

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  COLONIAL TERRITORIES

    Grapefruit (Exports)
    Mr. Russellasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what proportion of exportable grapefruit, both fresh and canned, produced in the Colonial Territories, came to the United Kingdom in 1954; and how far the price obtained was affected by foreign competition.
    The Minister of State for Colonial Affairs (Mr. Henry Hopkinson): The United Kingdom market took about 90 per cent by value of the grapefruit exported by Colonial Territories in all forms. The prices of some grapefruit products declined during 1954, but there are a number of factors involved and it is not possible to determine how much of this decline has been due to foreign competition.
    Mr. Russell:Can my right hon. Friend say whether, when it is possible to determine how much is due to foreign competition, steps will be taken to remedy the effect of that competition?
    Mr. Hopkinson:I think the best thing that I can do is to remind my hon. Friend of what was said yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Board of Trade, in reply to a Question about the result of the G.A.T.T. conference which will be published as a White Paper on 22nd of this month. Meanwhile, I think that I ought to reserve comment, except to say that obviously the position of this industry will be looked at again in the light of those decisions and, of course, the recommendations of the fact-finding commission on the citrus industry which is meeting in the West Indies.
    Mr. J. Griffiths:Is the Minister satisfied that the result of that conference will not be adverse to the interests of the citrus industry?
    Mr. Hopkinson: I think that generally one might say entirely the reverse.
    Mr. Dugdale:Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I went into a West End shop recently to buy grapefruit and was informed that I could get West Indian grapefruit if I wanted it but that it was better to have canned American grapefruit, which was infinitely superior? Is it right that shops should take that kind of line?
    Mr. Hopkinson: I think that the right hon. Gentleman went into the wrong shop.

    Africa (Rural Water Supplies)
    Mr. Braineasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will indicate what steps have been taken in recent years in each of the African Territories to develop rural water supplies.
    Mr. Hopkinson: I am obtaining detailed information from all African Territories, and willsend my hon. Friend a full report shortly.
    Mr. Alport:Is my right hon. Friend aware of the great success which has attended the experiment, undertaken in the Southern Province of Tanganyika, in associating Africans, on a co-operative basis, with the provision of a public water supply, and whether this principle can be extended to other territories?
    Mr. Hopkinson: My right hon. Friend has noted that very successful experiment, and he will certainly bear the point in mind.

    United States Farm Produce (Disposal)
    Mr. Russellasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is satisfied that the export from the United States of America of surplus farm produce and its processed products have no harmful effect on the sale of colonial produce; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): I assume that my hon. Friend is referring to the present programmes of disposals of United States farm produce under Public Laws 665 and 480 to a number of countries. The United

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    States authorities have given assurances that their exports under these programmes will not impair the traditional competitive position of friendly countries. Her Majesty's Government, while welcoming this assurance, have been and continue to be vigilant in their scrutiny of the programmes so as to ensure as far as they can that the programmes are carried out without prejudice to the interests of the Colonies.
    Mr. Russell:I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Can he say whether a great deal of United States produce competes, from a seasonal point of view, with that of the West Indies?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd:A certain amount does, but the only products in respect of which concern has been expressed to us are citrus products and soft oils. I can assure my hon. Friend that we shall watch the position very carefully.
    Mr. Bottomley: The policy of Her Majesty's Government has already damaged the economy of the United Kingdom. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his policy is also damaging the economy of the Colonies? Will not he again consider my suggestion that long-term trade agreements negotiated with the Colonies are the best means of developing trade between them and the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I can accept neither of the simple summaries of the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. J. Hynd:May I ask how the right hon. Gentleman interprets the interests of the Colonies in his first answer? Does he interpret them in terms of the standard of living of the native population, or merely in terms of the interests of the local traders?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd:Of course not. I am not one of those who think that the interests of the traders are opposed to those of the people among whom they trade. Our duty is to see that as far as possible there is a profitable market in the United Kingdom for the primary products of British Colonial Territories.

    Military Operations (United Kingdom Expenditure)
    Mr. T. Reidasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies in what British Dependencies, excluding India and
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    Pakistan before they became independent, Britain has, since the end of the war, expended sums of money on military operations to suppress disorders; the territories concerned; and how much money has been spent or pledged up to date on each in respect to these emergencies.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As the information is not all readily available and is bound to contain a number of figures, I will, with permission, write to the hon. Member.

  WESTERN PACIFIC DEPENDENCIES (COPRA AND COCOA)
  Mr. Braineasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps are being taken to expand copra and cocoa production in the Western Pacific Dependencies.
  Mr. Hopkinson: As the answer is long, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Mr. Braine: In that connection, can my right hon. Friend also say whether any special difficulties are being encountered by way of recruitment of agricultural staff? I do not necessarily desire an answer now.
  Mr. Hopkinson: I do not think so. I have had no complaint about difficulties of staff. There are a number of problems arising out there, both in regard to copra and cocoa, such as the declining productivity of some trees. But, on the whole, I think we can say that a good recovery has been made since the war.
  Following is the information:
  Fiji
  Although copra production is somewhat higher than before the war many of the trees are near the age of declining productivity. The Government are considering the recommendations of a committee appointed to prepare a plan for the effective rehabilitation of coconut areas. A Rhinoceros Beetle Eradication Board was set up in 1953, and Government also contributes to the cost of investigations into control methods which are being carried out by the South Pacific Commission.
  The Colony's development budget for 1955 provides for capital expenditure of £F.14,500 on a pilot scheme for cocoa development. Many of the best varieties and strains have been established, and progress has been made in propagation and distribution. About 40 acres were to be planted in 1954.
  Soil surveys have been carried out, and new roads now being built and projected will open up further land for development.
  British Solomon Islands Protectorate
  The rehabilitation of the copra industry has been one of the main tasks since the war, and steady progress has been made. In the first two years after the war only 700 tons of copra were produced, but by 1954 exports had reached 18,000 tons a year, compared with the pre-war production of around 22,000 tons. The Protectorate Copra Board has devised a cheap hot-air drier suitable for use by small producers and arrangements are being made for essential parts to be made locally for sale to producers.
  The Copra Board, in association with the Agricultural Department, proposes to reorganise the extension service in the districts to provide advice and technical assistance to producers. A copra improvement officer has been posted to the Western District and the posting of an agricultural officer to Malaita should improve the quality of native-produced copra there. The Board also hopes to stimulate the production of better quality copra by widening the price spread between hot-air dried and smoke-dried copra.
  The cause of the coconut disease known as early nut-fall is the subject of an entomological research scheme financed jointly by colonial development and welfare funds and by the Copra Board.
  A cocoa survey was carried out in 1951, and trial blocks have been planted in Malaita and Guadalcanal. A scheme for the production of cocoa on a commercial scale in the Western Solomons, in which Government would participate with Levers Pacific Plantations Proprietary Ltd., is being investigated. Interest in native cocoa production on Malaita is increasing, and seed is being distributed to growers under a scheme in which the Department of Agriculture and the Malaita Council are collaborating.
  An Agricultural and Industrial Loans Board which is being set up will, it is hoped, assist the production of cocoa and copra by making loans to planters for purchase of equipment and planting of new land.
  Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony
  Production of copra rose steadily during 1953 and 1954, and now averages around 8,000 tons, compared with about 6,000 tons before the war. Efforts to improve production are directed mainly at encouraging landowners to pay more attention to the care of their land and to cut more copra. It is hoped to train a Gilbertese agricultural assistant to assist the improvement of coconut plantations, but land shortage will preclude any significant increase in copra production.
  New Hebrides
  Shortage of labour has caused some neglect of cocoa plantations in favour of copra. The Condominium Agricultural Department, established in 1952, has concentrated on the selection and propagation of suitable strains of local cocoa, fertiliser trials and pest control. It has received expert advice in recent years on both cocoa and copra from the South Pacific Commission.

  WEST INDIES

    British Guiana (Social and Economic Development)
    Mr. Braineasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will publish a brief report showing what has been achieved in social and economic development during the period of office of the interim Government of British Guiana.
    Sir R. Robinsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what progress has been made in the carrying out of the economic development plan for British Guiana announced by his predecessor on 8th February, 1954.
    Mr. Hopkinson: Many schemes are now under way, but, broadly speaking, 1954 was a year of preparation. Nevertheless, expenditure totalled over £1,875,000, and the foundation laid should ensure substantial progress in the period which lies ahead. The British Guiana Government are about to publish an illustrated booklet on achievements in the social and economic fields in 1954, and I am arranging for copies to be placed in the Library of the House.
    Mr. Braine:While it is satisfactory that a booklet is to be published, can my right hon. Friend say whether he is satisfied that the Guianese are being kept fully in the picture as these developments proceed?
    Mr. Hopkinson:From what I saw in British Guiana when I was out there last autumn, I think that the information services are particularly well organised. It seemed to me that, through radio broadcasts, and also pamphlets, a good deal was being done to keep the people informed.

    Uniform Currency
    Sir R. Robinsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps have now been taken towards a common currency for the British West Indies.
    Mr. Hopkinson:Territorial currency notes in the West Indies have been demonetised (except in Jamaica and British Honduras) and replaced by a uniform note issue. Orders have been placed for the minting of a uniform coinage. Preliminary steps have recently been taken to extend the uniform note issue to Jamaica, while retaining the pound sterling as the Jamaican unit of account.
    Sir R. Robinson: What difficulties are preventing a final solution of the problem?
    Mr. Hopkinson: The problem in Jamaica is well on the way to solution. It has been agreed that there shall be a uniform note, which shall carry the usual dollar West Indian currency on one side and the Jamaican pound sterling on the other.
    Mr. Stokes: Will the right hon. Gentleman get away from the nonsensical jargon of the economists and say in plain English what he means by "demonetised"?
    Mr. Hopkinson:I might ask the right hon. Gentleman what other word he would suggest for that? It means that the value of these particular currency

    Territory

    Amount paid into sugar industry welfare funds

    Amount spent from funds on improved housing for sugar workers

    1953

    1954

    1953

    1954

    £

    £

    £

    £

    Antigua

    …

    20,805

    39,669

    20,783

    15,481

    Barbados

    …

    384,522

    210,656

    120,592

    142,180

    British Guiana (a)

    …

    700,114

    128,546

    168,341

    347,588

    British Honduras (b)

    …

    Nil

    452

    Nil

    Nil

    Jamaica

    …

    50,166

    62,562

    22,471

    10,344

    St. Kitts-Nevis

    …

    54,487

    61,430

    100,531

    67,495

    St. Lucia

    …

    6,481

    13,065

    4,565

    4,659

    St. Vincent

    …

    1,502

    556

    Nil

    Nil

    Trinidad

    …

    61,940

    76,632

    180,141

    143,584

    Total

    …

    1,280,017

    593,568

    617,424

    731,331

    (a) Includes £487,166 transferred from other sugar funds.

    (b) A Labour Welfare Fund has only recently been set up in British Honduras.

    Citrus Industry (Report)
    Sir R. Robinsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has now received the Report from the fact-finding mission of inquiry into the West Indian citrus industry; whether he proposes to publish the Report; and what action he proposes to take on it.
    Mr. Hopkinson:The Report has just been received and will be published I hope in three or four weeks. Careful consideration is being given to it in consultation with the Governments of the West Indian Territories concerned, but the issues involved are complex and far-reaching, and my right hon. Friend is not in a position to make a statement at the present time.
    notes will cease to exist because after a certain date they will be withdrawn. If the right hon. Gentleman can put that into one word, I shall be glad to hear it.

    Sugar Industry Welfare Funds
    Mr. D. Jonesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what amount was paid into the West Indian sugar industry welfare funds in 1953 and 1954, showing each year and territory separately; and what amounts have been spent from the funds in each year on improved housing for the workers.
    Mr. Hopkinson: I will, with permission, circulate the information required in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the information:

    Trinidad (Cost of Living)
    Mr. D. Jonesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the removal of control from the price of flour in Trinidad caused the 12 cent loaf to go up in price to 15 cents and the 24 cent loaf to go up to 30 cents; and what compensating increase in salaries and wages have been made to the lower income groups to maintain the standard of living.
    Mr. Hopkinson: There has been no increase in the price of the 12 cent and 24 cent loaves since the Trinidad Government ceased subsidising flour on 1st January, 1955, but the weight of the loaves has been decreased from 13½oz. to 13 oz. and from 27 oz. to 26 oz. respectively.

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    As a result of a rise of three points in the cost of living index, the cost of living allowance for organised labour was increased by 4 cents a day from 1st February and by another 4 cents a day from 1st March. Unorganised labour in agricultural employment has had wage increases of from 10 cents to 20cents a day since the decontrol of flour.
    Mr. Jones:Is it not misleading to suggest that there has not been any increase in price, when the actual weight of the loaf has been decreased although it costs the same amount of money?
    Mr. Hopkinson: I thought I made that clear. I said that there has been no actual increase in price but there has been a decrease in the weight.

    TANGANYIKA

      Trusteeship Council's Report
      Mr. Beresford Craddockasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make arrangements to supply to members of the Government and to the public of Tanganyika copies of the Report made by the delegation of the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations which recently visited Tanganyika.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: This Report was released as a United Nations document in New York for official use on 24th January. It has not yet been printed for sale to the general public. Arrangements have been made for the Tanganyika Government to be supplied with sufficient copies for free distribution to leaders of public opinion in the Territory, and to members of its Government.
      Mr. Craddock:Would my right hon. Friend not agree that it is the duty of the Trusteeship Council to make available copies of this Report to the Territory affected as quickly as possible, particularly when, as in this case, the Report contains many controversial recommendations and observations?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd:The Government have very strong views indeed about the contents of this Report, but, in fairness to those who drew it up, I must say that the normal procedure in regard to release
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      was scrupulously followed by the Trusteeship Council. None the less, we recognise the disadvantages as pointed out by my hon. Friend. Our delegates are approaching their colleagues on the Council to see whether some different procedure can be devised.
      Mr. J. Griffiths:In view of the public interest aroused by Press reports containing some of the statements in this Report, will the right hon. Gentleman make it possible for Members of the House to obtain copies of the Report in the House, because I think it would be of value to all of us to read it in full?
      Mr. Braine: Can my right hon. Friend say whether it is true that the Chairman of this mission dissented from all the major recommendations in the Report?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd:Yes, and, of course, that is a very significant fact, as my hon. Friend says. With regard to the point raised by the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), there are two copies in the Library, the United Nations Office in Tavistock Square has others, and the printing of others is, I hope, proceeding speedily. It is, of course, the responsibility of the United Nations and not of Her Majesty's Government, but we are putting forward suggestions for a possible change in procedure, and I will do all that I can to see that Members of Parliament are able to collect copies from U.N.O. as soon as possible.
      Mr. J. Griffiths: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider whether the time has not come when Members of Parliament ought to be able to obtain all these Reports, as that is essential to our deliberations? Will the Minister take up the matter with his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am taking up, through the United Kingdom delegation, the question of a proposed new procedure in regard to this matter. I have very much sympathy with what the right hon. Gentleman says.
      Mr. Beresford Craddockasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what proportion of their time the delegates of the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations organisation, during their recent

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      visit to Tanganyika, devoted to the hearing of evidence from witnesses representing the Tanganyika African National Union.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I cannot say how the Mission apportioned its time. Its Report, however, gives disproportionate emphasis to the views of the Union, and makes comparatively little reference to the much larger body of African opinion that exists outside it.
      Mr. T. Reidasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the names and countries of the members of the Trusteeship Council Committee which recently reported on Tanganyika; and what proposals of theirs were objected to by the British representatives at the United Nations organisation.
      Mr. Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards the 'recommendations made in the Report of the United Nations Mission to Tanganyika.
      Mr. Anthony Greenwoodasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) what changes Her Majesty's Government propose to make in the constitutional advance of Tanganyika, so as to attain self-government within the period indicated by the United Nations Visiting Mission, in paragraph 30 of its Report.
      (2) if Her Majesty's Government has accepted the recommendations on educational reform contained in paragraphs 656 to 663 in the Report of the United Nations Visiting Mission to Tanganyika.
      (3) if he will accept the recommendations of the United Nations Visiting Mission to Tanganyika, made in paragraphs 533 to 535 of its Report, regarding the training of Africans for higher grades of the Civil Service and for all grades of the local government services.
      Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies; if Her Majesty's Government has accepted the recommendation of the United Nations Visiting Mission to Tanganyika, made in paragraphs 470 to 474 of its Report, that an elective system be adopted as an early step in constitutional reform.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The United Nations Visiting Mission to Tanganyika had the
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      following members:—Mr. Reid of New Zealand as Chairman, Mr. Eguizabal of El Salvador, Mr. Jaipal of India and Mr. Sears of the United States. The Mission reported to the Trusteeship Council, which is now debating its recommendations. The views of Her Majesty's Government on these recommendations are fully set out in the detailed observations which have been submitted to the Trusteeship Council. A copy of these observations has been placed in the Library of the House.
      In general, I fear that Her Majesty's Government do not regard the Mission's main recommendations, from which the Chairman dissented, as helpful or realistic. In particular they regard as wholly unacceptable the proposal to establish a time-table for political advance in Tanganyika.
      Mr. Reid:Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with me that the Chairman, bearing the name of Reid, did not do anything wrong? But in regard to others, would the right hon. Gentleman suggest in future that the United Nations appoint responsible people to the Trusteeship Council?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: It might be a little improper for me to make a suggestion of that kind, but when Her Majesty's Government feel moved to say of the inaccuracies and wrong assumptions in this Report
      "The accumulated substructure of error tends to vitiate the whole report and to deprive its recommendations of any claim to authority,"
      I hope that fact will not be lost sight of in the proper quarter.
      Mr. Brockway:Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many hon. Members will repudiate the suggestion that representatives from America, India and El Salvador on this Visiting Mission are irresponsible? Is it not a fact that this country administers Tanganyika under the Trusteeship Council and ought to pay more serious attention to a report from this Visiting Mission?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd:Naturally, what I had in mind were not the countries of origin of these various people but the way in which they discharged then-responsibility. It is, of course, open to U.N.O. to inquire into the administration of the trust territory. It is the duty of

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      the administering authority to give them every facility to do so, but the decision on what, if any, of the Mission's recommendations should be carried out, is one for Her Majesty's Government alone on whom alone lies the responsibility for administration.
      Mr. Beresford Craddock:Would my right hon. Friend not agree that the Trusteeship Council should pay more serious attention to the excellent work that the British Administration has done in Tanganyika for many years?
      Mr. Greenwood: While appreciating that the right hon. Gentleman has placed the Government's proposal in the Library, could he say now, for the purpose of the OFFICIAL REPORT, what are the Government's proposals for training Africans to occupy local government and Civil Service positions, and for extending educational opportunities?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I think it is generally understood by the mass of Africans themselves that we are in favour of progressive extensions of education opportunities in Tanganyika. On the question of the employment of Africans in the Civil Service, we do not dissent from the recommendations of the Mission, which broadly correspond to our intentions, except that we do not intend to lower administrative standards or to direct educated Africans into the Civil Service.
      Mr. Harold Davies: Is the right hon. Gentleman seriously damning this Report because it seems to disagree with the point of view of the present Government? Does he appreciate that the Report itself says that more positive and immediate steps should be taken, and practice is the best and only test of local administration? Let us learn from the mistakes we made in Malaya.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I think that had it fallen to my predecessor the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) to write the comments of Her Majesty's Government, they would have been broadly similar to my own.
      Mr. Alport: Is my right hon. Friend aware that responsible Asian and African opinion in Tanganyika views this Report with just as much concern and regards it as being just as unrealistic as does responsible opinion in this country?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, Sir, I think that is certainly so. That so much attention should have been paid to the views of one particular body while very little regard was paid to the views of educated African chiefs, elected either traditionally or by ordinary election, and of elected councils, is a sufficient answer.
      Mr. J. Griffiths: Will the right hon. Gentleman make available to us, in addition to the Report, the comments, if any, made by the Legislative Council? Ought we not to be informed of their considered view on these recommendations so that we may have a balanced view to consider in this House?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: That is a reasonable suggestion, and I will try to do that, although I cannot give an undertaking.

      United Nations (Financial Aid)
      Mr. Beresford Craddockasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what financial aid has now been received by Tanganyika from the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: None, Sir, though we have had some help from the United Nations Specialised Agencies.
      Mr. Craddock: Can my right hon. Friend say how much financial aid has been given by the United Kingdom to this Territory during a comparable period?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: In the years 1945–55, the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund provided about £5¼million for Tanganyika, and a further substantial sum will be available as a result of the Bill which was recently before the House. In addition, since 1949 investments from the United Kingdom in Tanganyika Government loans have totalled some £7 million.
      Mr. Fenner Brockway: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is a function of the Trusteeship Council to make financial grants, and whether it is not the function of other United Nations Agencies, and, if so, what is the total amount of grants which United Nations Agencies have made to Tanganyika?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I will circulate the answer to the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I would say that it

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      is the one function of a visiting mission to get a fair picture of the Territory as a whole.

      Meru Families (Transfers)
      Mr. J. Hyndasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the transfer of Meru families from the Mount Meru district has been satisfactorily completed; and whether he is satisfied that the new European farmers are finding their farms viable.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: No move of the Meru has taken place since the transfer of certain families from the Sanya area of Mount Meru, which was completed in 1951. I understand that of the 19 farming units created in the area as a result of this move, all but four have proved sound economic units.
      Mr. Hynd:While there is no doubt that the idea of the scheme is a good one, and has brought advantages to African farmers, is it not a fact that a number of Africans have not accepted the scheme, and, therefore, have not been moved, and a number of European farmers find it impossible to work these farms satisfactorily? Will the Minister not consider re-examining the scheme in the light of past experience, particularly if there is no confidence in the United Nations Visiting Mission?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd:I would ask the hon. Gentleman to read our comments on the Meru recommendations of the United Nations Mission. Of the four farming units not found economic, two have had their rights of occupancy revoked and their future is now before the Government of Tanganyika.

    WEST AFRICA

      Gold Coast (Ashanti Dispute)
      Mr. John Hallasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether a meeting has yet taken place between the Prime Minister of the Gold Coast and representatives of the Asanteman Council and the National Liberation Movement; and what agreement has been reached.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: No, Sir. The position is still as given in my statement of 16th February. I take this opportunity
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      to correct an error in the statement which was circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT. In the last sentence but one I said that Dr. Nkrumah was writing to the Ashanti leaders noting that the different views expressed were irreconcilable. Dr. Nkrumah, in fact, wrote "not irreconcilable." I greatly regret this error, which arose from a mistake in the transmission of a telegram.
      Mr. Hall:Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the continuation of this dispute is causing serious harm to the continued orderly development of democratic Government in the Gold Coast, and would he use his good offices as best he can to try to influence a settlement? Would he not also agree that one of the reasons for this dispute probably arises from the lack of any real opposition party to the present Government?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I should certainly welcome a solution of this problem in a peaceful and constitutional manner, and I am inclined to think that it would be well if I confined my observations at this stage to that comment.

      Colonial Civil Servants (Pension Additions)
      Mr. John Hallasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what additions have been made to the pensions of officers of the administrative and executive grades of the Colonial Civil Service who retired from service in West Africa in 1946.
      Mr. Hopkinson: Additions have not been made except in cases where the pension would otherwise be less than it would have been if based on the pre-1946 rate of salary and supplemented by the pensions increase applicable to officers who retired before that date.
      Mr. Hall: I find it rather difficult to follow that rather complicated answer. Can my right hon. Friend say, first, whether other Colonies treat their pensioners rather more generously? Secondly, would he not agree that the present pension system for colonial civil servants is excessively complicated, and that efforts should be made to simplify it?
      Mr. Hopkinson: Regarding the first part of that supplementary, in most overseas Territories the basic pensions are the

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      same and are awarded on a uniform basis. Each Government decides such matters as pension increase schemes, and I think it is true to say that the West African Governments are a little less generous than certain other colonial Governments in these matters. As a matter of fact, my right hon. Friend has drawn their attention to this point. In general, I agree that the Colonial Civil Service pension schemes are complicated, but we are constantly looking at them to see where we can improve them. They are difficult.
      Mr. J. Johnson: Do the Minister's observations apply only to Europeans, because the African civil servants also have a grievance in this matter?
      Mr. Hopkinson: I think that is so, but I have not had my attention drawn to it.

      Sierra Leone (Illicit Diamond Mining)
      Mr. John Hallasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps are being taken to prevent illicit mining of diamonds in Sierra Leone.
      Mr. Hopkinson:The growth of illicit diamond mining and an illegal traffic in diamonds in Sierra Leone is causing the Sierra Leone Government grave concern. In March last year, heavier penalties were imposed for the illegal possession of diamonds. Measures taken by the police and Customs authorities to prevent the smuggling out of the Territory have been intensified, and a number of seizures have been made. The police force is being expanded for this purpose. Because diamonds are found in many parts of the Territory, while the frontiers are long and the country often difficult, these measures have not proved effective. The Sierra Leone Government are now considering urgently what further measures can be taken.
      Mr. Hall:I am sure that the House will be glad to hear about the measures that are being taken, but may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware that the measures so far taken do not seem to be very effective, that it is estimated that about 30,000 workers have been diverted from the agricultural industry in Sierra Leone to take part in illicit diamond mining, and that that is having a very
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      serious effect indeed upon the revenue and the prosperity of the country as a whole?
      Mr. Hopkinson:I think the trouble is that diamonds are scattered so plentifully in all areas of Sierra Leone that it is very difficult to impose an effective control over illicit mining. It is certainly not possible to effect a full control.
      Mr. Rankin: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the diamonds belong to the Government of Sierra Leone?
      Mr. Hopkinson: The right to mine diamonds actually belongs to the Government of Sierra Leone, but it is on a long lease to the Selection Trust.
      Mr. Alport:Can my right hon. Friend say what is the estimated value of the production of diamonds in Sierra Leone at the present time?
      Mr. Hopkinson: I am afraid that I should have to have notice of that question.
      Mr. Stokes: Does this really mean that Mr. Oppenheimer has the lot?

      Nigeria (Imports)
      Mr. Russellasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the reasons for the fall in imports into Nigeria from the United Kingdom in 1954 compared with 1953 and the increase of imports into Nigeria from Japan in the same period.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd:The main reason was the removal by the Nigerian Government of import restrictions against Japanese goods when these restrictions were no longer justifiable on balance of payments grounds.
      Mr. Russell: As this country buys a very large percentage of the exports of Nigeria, is not there at any rate a moral obligation upon Nigeria to buy a very great proportion of the exports of this country instead of those of the Japanese?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I know that my hon. Friend—who has often stood with me in battles for inter-Imperial trade—will agree that it has been the long-standing policy of Her Majesty's Government to invite colonial Governments to restrict imports only where it is necessary on balance of payments grounds. It is for them to take this or any other action on their own.

    GIBRALTAR

      Port Development Scheme (Report)
      Lieut.-Commander Maydonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is in a position to make a statement on the port development plan for Gibraltar.
      Mr. G. Jegerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what progress has been made on the development of the port at Gibraltar.
      Mr. Hopkinson:Sir Eric Millbourn, the Honorary Ports Adviser to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, recently visited Gibraltar, and his Report recommended that an engineering survey should be made as the first step. The detailed report by a consulting engineer has now been received and is being studied in Gibraltar and here.
      Lieut.-Commander Maydon: Can my hon. Friend tell me what the approximate cost of this scheme is likely to be; what proportion of that cost will be borne by the Colony itself, and what proportion by United Kingdom grant?
      Mr. Hopkinson: The estimate for the scheme varies between £1,250,000 and £1,800,000. The financing of the project will need to be studied so that we can decide what part will be paid for by allocation from the new colonial development and welfare funds, if they receive Parliamentary approval, and it will also depend upon a number of other factors, including the economics of the scheme itself.
      Mr. Jeger: Will the hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that this matter will be treated as one of urgency, in view of the necessity for maintaining the economic independence of Gibraltar and extending its port facilities to that end?
      Mr. Hopkinson: Yes. My right hon. Friend is entirely convinced upon that point.

      School Places (Shortage)
      Lieut.-Commander Maydonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how far provisions for schools and teachers during the financial year 1955–56 for Gibraltar will improve the present shortage of school places in the Colony.
      Mr. Hopkinson:Temporary arrangements have already been made by the Gibraltar Government to make good all shortages of school places until September, 1956. Plans for a permanent solution have also now been prepared for submission to the local Legislature.
      Lieut.-Commander Maydon: Can my hon. Friend tell the House how many children at present have schooling on a staggered hours basis, which, I understand, is the present basis for dealing with the shortage of school places?
      Mr. Hopkinson:I am afraid that I cannot answer that question without notice.
      Mr. G. Jeger: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that when we were in Gibraltar we were informed that there were 150 five-year-old children for whom there were no places in the schools? Is any action been taken within the present year to provide places for those children?
      Mr. Hopkinson: If the hon. Member will look at the reply which I gave he will see that temporary arrangements have been made to make good all shortages until September, 1956. We are well aware of the difficulties which have arisen. They are due to the fact that a very large number of children were born in 1945, when the population moved back after its removal during the war.

    KENYA

      Mau Mau Adherents (Surrenders)
      Mr. Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many Mau Mau adherents have surrendered since the surrender terms were announced in Kenya on 8th January; and in how many instances charges against members of the Forces, the police, and the Home Guard have been withdrawn since that date.
      Mr. Collinsasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many Mau Mau supporters have now surrendered under the amnesty; and, of this number, how many are held in confinement.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Between 18th January and 5th March, 147 Mau Mau adherents have surrendered. All of these are held in confinement. No charges against members of the Forces or police have been withdrawn since 18th January;

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      charges against three members of the Home Guard have been withdrawn by the prosecution.
      Mr. Brockway: Does not the right hon. Gentleman now think that a wiser approach might have been made to the whole question of surrenders, in view of the fact that the Africans lost trust in those offers after what happened in the "General China" negotiations last year? Does not he think that it would have been better to have had preparatory talks, through the agency of a trusted European and a trusted African, so as to win the confidence of the African people, and will he not even now revert to that proposal?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd:As I have explained on other occasions, there was no central organisation which was approachable, and an approach of that kind was really not feasible. Instead of harking back to the limited success of previous experiences, I think that much the best thing we can do is to look to the future with confidence. That is much better than looking back to the "General China" episode which, I regret, failed in its object.
      Mr. J. Griffiths: I do not wish for a moment to hark back to past happenings, and I also regret what has happened, but may I ask the right hon. Gentleman about the future? As I understand it, the surrender offer is open until April. If, at the time it closes, there is no prospect of an end to the emergency in the near future—and since time is running out—will not the right hon. Gentleman consider going to Kenya himself and making contact with the African leaders in order to discover how, in the short time remaining, it may be possible to secure the full support and co-operation of the people? Will he also consider whether he should not go there, in the time available, to see what further can be done to make this surrender policy a success?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that at all times I hold myself in readiness to pay another visit to Kenya, when I feel that it would be to the public advantage. With regard to making contact with the responsible leaders of the Africans, they have been co-operating with us loyally in this matter, and they approved of the surrender terms. I think that that is a sufficient answer to that part of the supplementary question.
      Mr. Griffiths:I appreciate all that the right hon. Gentleman has said, but there is less than a month remaining before the surrender offer closes. I do not ask him to reply now, but will he not consider whether a good purpose would be served if he consulted the African leaders as to what steps could be taken to make the surrender terms better known to Mau Mau? In view of what happened before, might it not be possible that, if the co-operation of the African leaders is secured, the success that hon. Members on both sides of the House all desire may be secured?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd:It cannot be too often pointed out that the co-operation of the loyal African leaders has already been secured, and they, as much as we, have every cause to realise the harm which is being brought to their country by the Mau Mau atrocities. I am prepared to consider going to Kenya at the appropriate moment, but I do not think it would help if I added further to my answer at this stage.
      Mr. Collins: In view of the obvious difficulties of the situation, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether men who surrender or are taken prisoner during the military operations will have the amnesty applied to them?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The conditions under which people who surrender would come under the protection of the amnesty offer were made quite clear. I do not think that it would be wise for me to go into details of how individuals would be affected, but anybody who surrenders in consequence of the surrender offer would not be penalised for offences committed before the relevant date—which is, I believe, 18th January. For offences committed after that date, however, a surrender cannot be held to have been in consequence of the surrender offer.

      Africans (Screening Conditions)
      Mr. Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what provision is made to feed Africans when caged for screening in Kenya; what shelter is provided against rain; how far hooded interrogators are employed; and at what speed the individual screenings take place.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd:A balanced diet, prescribed by the medical authorities, is provided for Africans held for screening.

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      They live in huts or barracks. Hooded interrogators are employed infrequently. According to the circumstances of each case, screening may be a brief and simple process lasting a few minutes or long and complicated, involving exhaustive crosschecking of information.
      Mr. Brockway:Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have a letter in my hand from a British officer serving with the Forces who describes what happened at Nanyuki on 6th February? Is he aware that he states that
      "Hundreds of men, women and children were in a stockade without shelter for 36 hours of continuous rain, with no food and a few drums of water."
      He states that they went past the hooded interrogators at one a minute, 1,000 being classed as black.
      Will the right hon. Gentleman make an inquiry in that case?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Having already read that letter in last week's "Tribune," I was wondering when the hon. Gentleman was going to let me see it. I will certainly look into it.

    MALAYA AND SINGAPORE

      Students (Communist Activities)
      Mr. G. Longdenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that the Malayan Communist Party is attempting to indoctrinate students in schools in the Federation of Malaya with Communist ideas; and what action he is taking to combat this.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd:Yes, Sir. The Government of the Federation are warning the managers and teachers of the schools, and the parents of students of the nature of the Malayan Communist Party's activities. As it is rather long I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement on these activities.
      Mr. Longden: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that one of the tactics of the Communist Party is to accuse the Federation Government of seeking to suppress the teaching of Chinese culture in Chinese schools? Is there any truth in that accusation?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am aware of that charge. There is no truth whatever in it. While we are desirous of building up a united Malayan nation, we have no
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      wish to break the cultural links that unite Chinese all over the world.
      Mr. Awbery: What effective steps have been taken to prove to the Malayan people that our democratic system is far better than the Communist system? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that what we do in Malaya will have a far greater effect upon the people than what we say?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am quite aware of that, although I also know the disadvantages that sometimes follow from what is said about Malaya. I should have thought, having regard to the good will of the Malayan people, and as showing the sincerity of our democratic approaches, the forthcoming elections in Malaya and Singapore should be sufficient evidence.
      Mr. Hale:Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Tory Party in Oldham is attempting to indoctrinate the youth of Oldham in Tory principles by circulating a pamphlet entitled "Britain Strong and Free"? Will he consult his noble Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to see what can be done about it?
      Following is the statement:
      Communist parties in all countries give priority to the indoctrination of youth. In the Federation of Malaya the Malayan Communist Party's special interest in schools arises from a decision in 1951 to resume development of the underground movement, which lost most of its workers in 1948 when they took to the jungle, where they are forced to remain because of fear of detection. The M.C.P. is, therefore, attempting to recruit and train a new cadre of party underground workers, and in this attempt has turned to the schools because of the susceptibility of youth and in the hope that it may find available a sufficient number of fellow traveller school teachers to assist in organisation and infiltration.
      This policy of infiltration into schools has recently been intensified, and the methods to be employed were clearly set out in a document issued by the Malayan Communist Party's South Malaya Bureau in March, 1954. A translated extract from the document reads:
      "Regarding the students and children, they are generally the potential force of our revolutionary power whom we cannot afford to ignore. They are pure in heart and can easily accept the teaching of the Party. For the sake of improving the work concerning the students and children, we should first of all make a thorough investigation on the number of students in schools at various places, especially those who are studying in junior, middle and higher primary, second year grades and the children who have no chance of schooling."
      Evidence of intensified effort in the indoctrination of youth is provided by documents captured in August, 1954. These documents were recovered from the body of a member of the South Johore Regional Committee who had been killed in the Pontian area, and revealed the existence of an underground party branch in Pontian Town. The documents include progress reports of the branch for 1953 and the first half of 1954. These reports indicated that the organisation had expanded rapidly and proved quite clearly that it was centred in a Pontian school and had well-established connections in several other Chinese schools in the general area. As a result of a study of the documents and subsequent investigations, the police were able to disrupt this organisation.
      Amongst the documents found were directives issued by the local district committee of the Pontian branch. The following extracts from these instructions are of particular significance, demonstrating clearly the Malayan Communist Party's plan to exploit the innocent activities of schoolchildren and to undermine discipline.
      "At present, the branch should concentrate all its attention on improving the student organisation. To achieve this we are to set up lawful public organisations which are acceptable to the masses, such as Old Boys' Associations, Basketball teams, a theatrical club, a singing club and a literary society. All these are to be outside the ordinary school organisation."
      "We should encourage students to voice their demands; for example, if they are not pleased with the school administration or with the conduct of a teacher, we are to seize the opportunity to urge them to oppose the school authority or the teacher."
      The Government of the Federation recognises their responsibility to protect schoolchildren from exploitation of this nature, and believes that parents, school-teachers, school managers and community leaders all wish to assist in preventing children from being duped and led astray by subversive organisations. Further means are being considered to bring to the notice of parents and school authorities the extent and urgency of the danger, and to enlist their active help in combating it.
      The Government of the Federation have always encouraged, and will continue to encourage, schoolchildren to be happily interested in those activities which are properly associated with education—their lessons, their games, their hobbies, their own social occasions and their own school societies—and are determined to ensure that these activities and any valuable youth organisations are not to be abused by evilly-disposed persons as a cover under which young minds may be corrupted and boys and girls subjected to such subversive influences as will prevent them from developing into useful and responsible citizens of Malaya.
      Mr. G. Longdenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the Malayan Communist Party is attempting to organise students in Singapore to serve its own purposes;
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      and what steps are being taken to deal with these activities.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd:Yes, Sir. As the answer is rather long I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
      Mr. Longden: Does my right hon. Friend know how many of those students are believed to be Communists?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: No. They are a relatively small proportion, and the remainder of them are being led along the garden path.
      Following is the answer:
      The Singapore Government have on several recent occasions drawn the attention of the public to the danger to the body politic of Singapore inherent in the way in which a student movement is developing. There is no room for doubt that there is close connection between the Malayan Communist Party and this development.
      The Malayan Communist Party has made no secret of its intention to penetrate schools and to use the students for its own ends. Documents in the Singapore Government's possession reveal the careful plans and preparations made by the party, including explicit and detailed instructions on the methods to be employed to stir up students against the Singapore Government. It has never been the Singapore Government's contention that all these misguided students are Communists. The vast majority are potentially just as good citizens as any others, but there are undoubtedly small cells of individual Communists inside the student bodies.
      The methods of the Malayan Communist Party have already been described in some detail in various Singapore Government statements. One indication of the general intention of the party to infiltrate into the schools is that since 13th May, 1954, eight students have been detained under Emergency Regulations, five of whom have admitted having had M.C.P. connections, and one has been convicted in court of the possession of terrorist documents and sentenced to three years' imprisonment.
      The leader of the M.C.P. organisation in Singapore was found on his detention last year to have been a student of the Chinese High School who had been expelled for undesirable activities in 1950. He had admitted that as long ago as 1950 it was the practice of the M.C.P. to organise subversion in Chinese middle schools, and he himself was the leader of his school's party organisation at the time of his expulsion.
      It is quite clear from the course of events that the so-called "Student Movement" in Singapore is attempting to develop along the classic lines followed by Communist-instigated movements in other countries. These movements invariably select motives and aims that are, on the face of them, plausible and praiseworthy, but the underlying intention is subversive. It should also be emphasised that

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      the actual instruments chosen for carrying out this policy are more often than not unaware of the true ulterior motives of the prime instigators.
      It recently came to the notice of. the Singapore Government that a body of persons calling themselves the "Fifty-five Man Students Exemption from National Service Registration Delegation" proposed to organise a "Tea Party."It was announced that this tea party would last some five hours, and it was to have been one more in a series of such gatherings organised over the past months on various pretexts.
      In order to protect those students who are being duped and not infrequently intimidated into participation in the "Student Movement," the Singapore Government have decided that they can no longer tolerate such assemblies or mass meetings of students, whether they are under the guise of "Tea Parties" or not, and instructions have been given to prevent them from gathering or to disperse them if they succeed in doing so.
      I am confident that the Singapore Government will have the support of the public in this stand, and that responsible leaders, parents and teachers will use their influence to prevent their children becoming further involved in these mischievous activities.

      Voting (Registration)
      Mr. Willeyasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many persons in Malaya, qualified to vote, have not been registered and so are unable to vote in the forthcoming elections.
      Mr. Hopkinson:It is estimated that of those qualified to vote, between 250,000 and 450,000 did not register.
      Mr. Willey: While fully recognising the work of the officers who compiled the register in difficult circumstances, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman does not agree that it is disturbing that such a large number of people will be, in effect, disfranchised? Would it not be possible in these cases, with the existence of identity cards, to allow automatic registration?
      Mr. Hopkinson:I must say that I was disturbed myself when I saw the size of the figures involved, but in fact every effort was made to give publicity to the registration of voters. As to the suggestion that they should be registered automatically, I would point out that although this is the case in Singapore, the opposite decision was taken by the Federal Legislature of Malaya on the recommendation of the Elections Committee. It is scarcely a matter in which we could interfere.

    CYPRUS

      Social Improvement Measures
      Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what measures of social improvement are at present being considered by the Cyprus Government.
      Mr. Hopkinson: Measures of social improvement under consideration or in hand include a social insurance scheme, legislation covering factories and women's employment, and a Children's Bill. Improvements in the health services include the completion of two new hospitals and the extension of one, the building of a new mental hospital, the formation of a district nursing service for the whole island, and a vaccination campaign against T.B. A rehabilitation centre for disabled persons is to be established and three new children's homes opened. Improvements in education include a new teachers' training college and extension of technical education.
      Mr. Swingler: While thanking the Minister for that very full reply, may I ask whether these measures are ever proceeded with? Is he aware that certain measures are being withheld as bargaining counters in the constitutional negotiations? In view of the uncertainty that has been created, is the Minister aware that far more good will would be created by going ahead with those measures than by with holding them?
      Mr. Hopkinson: All these measures are going ahead, except the social insurance scheme, about which the hon. Gentleman put a Question on a previous occasion. It was held up because it was thought better if a constitutional measure to deal with a scheme of that sort were introduced with the assent and approval of the elected representatives of the people. I think I informed the hon. Gentleman on 15th December that if the Constitution were held up we should have to consider getting on with the scheme quite apart from any constitutional developments. There is no question of measures being held up as bargaining counters.

      Riots
      Mr. Grimondasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies on what evidence he reached the conclusion that the riots in

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      Cyprus last December were Communist inspired.
      Mr. Hopkinson: As my right hon. Friend explained in his reply on 20th December to the right hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale), the Centrial Committee of the Cyprus Communist Party played a leading rôle in organising the one-day general strike which set the scene for these riots. As my right hon. Friend also said, the rioters were mainly secondary school students in the beginning, but they were afterwards joined by hooligans, some of whom were undoubtedly Communists or who had been instigated by Communists.
      Mr. Grimond:Has any concrete evidence come to light indicating that the mainspring of the riots were Nationalists? Is it not largely due to the Government's policy of refusing even to contemplate any possible self-government in Cyprus that the Communist Party has such power as it has?
      Mr. Hopkinson:No. The general strike was largely organised by the Communist Party. Of course, we know that Nationalists also took part in those riots, but there was reason to believe that the Communists played a very large part.
      Mr. S. Silverman:Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that he does a very poor service indeed to democracy all over the world by these constant endeavours to make people believe, what is certainly not true, that the Communists are the only supporters of good causes all over the world?

    NORTHERN RHODESIA

      African Congress Leaders (Imprisonment)
      Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies on what grounds Mr. Harry Nkumbula and Mr. Kenneth Kaonde, president and secretary, respectively, of the North Rhodesian African Congress, have been imprisoned.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: They were convicted of being in possession of prohibited publications.
      Mr. Swingler: Of what publications and quantities of publications were they in possession? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, as I understand it, they
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      were in possession of certain specimen copies of Communist literature which had been sent from this country, and of certain other literature from this country which is on the prohibited list in Northern Rhodesia? Is he also aware that the upshot of all this has been enormously to increase the membership of the African Congress?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As to the second part of that question, I have no reason to believe that that is so. The next Question on the Paper, which I am answering, deals with the first part.
      Mr. J. Johnson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the case of these two gentlemen raises the whole matter of the movement of African leaders inside the Federation? Not only were these two gentlemen stopped from going to Salisbury but even people like Mr. Joseph Sangala is not allowed to leave Nyasaland to go to Northern Rhodesia. Is that a sensible policy to carry out in Central Africa?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: That is quite another question.

      Books and Journals (Prohibited List)
      Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of the books and journals which are on the prohibited list in Northern Rhodesia.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, Sir.
      Mr. Swingler:Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that he will personally examine this list and inquire whether there is any appeal against this arbitrary censorship which exists in the Colonial Territories in Africa, and into the system whereby those who publish these publications that are put on the prohibited list are notified that their publications have been prohibited?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I will look into the latter point. In regard to the former, I have examined this list and I am satisfied that it is a matter entirely within the discretion of the Governor who, knowing all the local circumstances, is in the best position to decide which publications to prohibit.
      Following is the list:

      Deliverance.

      World Recovery.

      Prophecy.

      The Kingdom.

      Government.

      Who shall rule the World.

      Supremacy.

      The Final War.

      His Vengeance.

      World Distress, Why? The Remedy.

      Home and Happiness.

      The End of the World.

      Vindication, Volumes I and II.

      Preparation.

      Light.

      Jehovah.

      The Crisis.

      Pa Masinthiro.

      Vindication—Book III.

      Who is God?

      What is Truth?

      Keys of Heaven.

      Government Hiding the Truth, Why?

      Assured Prosperity.

      War or Peace.

      Warning.

      Refugees.

      What You Need.

      Dividing the People.

      The Return of Christ.

      Oppression.

      Creation.

      Righteous Ruler.

      Escape to the Kingdom.

      Beyond the Grave.

      1933 Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses.

      1934 Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses.

      1935 Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses.

      1936 Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses.

      The Golden Age Magazine.

      The Watch Tower Magazine (issues published prior to 1st August, 1949).

      Mbendera Ya Anthu.

      The Harp of God.

      Angels.

      Riches. (By J. F. Rutherford and published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.)

      Fascism or Freedom. Religion.

      Crimes and Calamaties.

      Face the Facts.

      Safety Comfort.

      Liberty.

      Health and Life.

      Adani.

      Where are the Dead?

      The Kingdom is at Hand.

      Children.

      Safety.

      The Truth shall make you free.

      Let God be true.

      Universal War near Reconciliation.

      Protection.

      (Published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.)

      Jungle Comics.

      (Published by the Glen-Kel Publishing Co., Inc., New York.)

      Jumbo Comics.

      (Published by the Real Adventures Publishing Co., Inc., New York.)

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      The Black Terror.

      (Published by the Nedor Publishing Co., New York.)

      Fight Comics.

      (Published by Fight Stories Inc., New York.)

      The catalogue of Navjivan Pharmaceutical Works, Ltd., for a Pan-African Trade Union Conference.

      (Published by the secretariat of an organisation styled the World Federation of Trade Unions.)

      New Times.

      (A journal published by the newspaper "Trud" of Moscow.)

      The catalogue of the Indo-British Stores, 3B, Wellesley Street, Calcutta.

      Health and Power.

      (A journal published by All India Occult House, 3B, Wellesley Street, Calcutta.)

      African Newsletter and reprints therefrom.

      (Published by the Communist Party of Great Britain.)

      And any translation into any language whatsoever of any of the above-mentioned books.

      All publications issued by the Indo-African Literary Society of Mombasa;

      All publications issued by S. T. Shah on behalf of the Kutub Publishers, Ltd., Bombay;

      All literature published by or on behalf of the World Federation of Trade Unions;

      All literature published by or on behalf of the Women's International Democratic Federation;

      The following works by Sri Aurobindo:

      (a) "Sri Aurobindo and his Ashram,"published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondi-cherry.

      (b) "Sri Aurobindo Speeches."

      (c) "The Doctrine of Passive Resistance," published by T. Patro, of the Arya Publishing House, Calcutta;

      All issues of "Spotlight on Africa," published by the Council of African Affairs in New York;
      "The Mask is Off" by Jack Woddis, published by Thames Publications in England;
      All issues of the periodical publications known as "The African and Colonial World" and "The African and Colonial World and the Indian," published by the Independent Publishing Co. of London.

      Native Trust Lands
      Mr. J. Hyndasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has now received the recommendations from the Governor of Northern Rhodesia for modification of the regulations governing Native Trust Land; and if he will make a statement.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The Governor has sought the views of the African Representative Council but it has been unable

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      to make any suggestions for improving the safeguards under the Native Trust Land Order in Council.
      I am satisfied that it would not be in the interests of Northern Rhodesia to accede to their demand that all native trust land should become native reserves.
      Mr. Hynd: Is the Secretary of State aware that there is a great deal of disquiet about the operation of the Governor's powers to transfer natives from trust land by Orders in Council, as has already been done in the case of the sugar scheme on the Zambesi; and will he not give some assurance to the House, and so to the Africans, that these powers will be operated with the maximum consideration for African interests?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I can certainly give that assurance.
      Sir L. Plummerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what efforts were made by Her Majesty's Government to consult the Native Authority before the Northern Rhodesia (Native Trust Land) Amendment No. 2 Order in Council, 1954, was enacted; and what power of appeal is allowed to Africans whose land may be alienated under this Order.
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) on 2nd March.
      Sir L. Plummer: Is there to be inquiry held before land is alienated, and can private interests take over land without paying compensation?
      Mr. Lennox-Boyd:Of course, proper regard would be paid before any such action was taken. The wording of the ordinance is that
      "Before any native trust land in any area over which a native authority has been established is disposed of the Native Authority shall be consulted."
      If the hon. Gentleman has in mind the proposed Kariba scheme, I hope he will recognise that while protecting African interests to the full we are sure that there is real value to the Africans in power developments of this kind.

    MAURITIUS (EDUCATION)
    Mr. J. Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware of the anxiety felt in Mauritius over the changed educational policy in this Colony, resulting in 10,000 children being refused admission to the schools in January, 1955; if he is aware that English, formerly taught in infant classes and first standard, has been abolished and replaced by French; and what steps he proposes in these matters.
    Mr. Hopkinson: I am informed that there is no evidence of general anxiety. The reorganisation of the primary school course was unanimously approved by the fully representative education committee. There is no foundation for the suggestion that 10,000 children were refused admission; 10,000 is the number of new pupils admitted to primary schools in January, 1955, which represents an increase of 2,400 over the corresponding intake in January, 1954. The replacement of the English syllabus previously used in infants and standard I classes by oral work in English is a change of method to meet the difficulties experienced by very young children in attempting to study three languages on their entry to school.
    Mr. Johnson: While not accepting some of the Minister's statistics, may I ask if he is aware that there is the keenest feeling on these and many other matters, including constitutional advance? Does he not think that it is time he invited to London a deputation or a delegation from the Legislative Council to discuss these topics?
    Mr. Hopkinson: My information is that there is no general dissatisfaction at these new arrangements, but that it is limited to one or two people. In fact, the matter has been very clearly explained to the population by the director of education. It is certainly in the best interests of the children themselves that these new arrangements have been brought into force.

    NYASALAND (CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES)
    Mrs. Whiteasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the basis of representation at the conference on constitutional changes in Nyasaland.
    Mr. J. Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the arrangements for the discussions at Zomba regarding constitutional changes in Nyasaland.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The discussions on constitutional change in Nyasaland are being held between the Governor and five representatives each of the European, African and Asian communities in Nyasaland, together with the nominated member of Legislative Council representing African interests.
    Mrs. White: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the advisability of bringing in direct representatives of such political organisations as exist, following the precedent set by Lord Chandos in Nigeria, so as to give them a feeling of responsibility for any conclusions reached?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I shall certainly bear that in mind in the future, but conditions are not the same in Nyasaland and Nigeria, and I think that the conference convened by the Governor was wisely held, and I am awaiting his full report.
    Mr. Johnson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the chief matter is that of the parity of numbers on the Legislative Council? There are six Africans as opposed to six Europeans and Asians. Does he think that enough to ask for, in view of the fact that it is an African State with a population of 2½ million Africans and only a few thousand Europeans and Asians?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I think I had better await the Governor's report.
    Mr. J. Griffiths:Since this will be a substantial change in the Constitution of Nyasaland since Federation, and since under the Federal Constitution what remain to the territorial Governments are, in substance, those matters which concern the Africans most intimately, will the right hon. Gentleman give serious consideration to the views put forward by the Africans that, in that setting, they should now have parity? Will full consideration be given to that, in view of the changed circumstances?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I shall certainly bear in mind what the right hon. Gentleman says, but I think I must await the Governor's report.
    Mr. Rankinasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what answer he
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    has given to the request of the Nyasaland African Congress that he should visit the Protectorate to deal with the deadlock caused by the Africans' rejection of the new constitutional proposals.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I have not received such a request.
    Mr. Rankin:If he does receive such a request will the right hon. Gentleman give it very favourable consideration indeed in view of the fact that this new Constitution is going to cause serious trouble in Nyasaland? Does he believe that proposals whereby 5,000 Europeans and 7,000 Asians are going to have six representatives on the Legislative Council [HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] while 2 million Africans have five [HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] and at the same time℄
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member's question is really very long. It is more like a speech, and would require a speech to reply to it, I think.
    Mr. Rankin:With due respect, Mr. Speaker, it is not as long as some of the answers. There are, at the same time, no representatives on the Executive Council. [HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] Does the right hon. Gentleman approve of that?
    Mr. Stokes: May I ask whether in fact the real trouble in Nyasaland is that the African bosses are now to be deprived of their power to persecute their brethren?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd:I am not quite certain what the right hon. Gentleman means. This I do know, that the future of Nyasaland and of the other two Territories in the Federation would have been a much poorer one had this Government not resolutely taken this step, which the last Government wanted to take but did not dare to undertake.
    Mr. Rankin: On a point of order. Is it in order for Tory back benchers to try to prevent us from putting proper questions to the Secretary of State on matters of public importance?
    Mr. Speaker:I cannot prevent the House from occasionally showing its opinion of questions and answers, or of sentiments which are uttered. That is beyond my control. Hon. Members can choose the right way to avoid demonstrations of that sort.

    HONG KONG (MENTAL HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION)
    Mr. K. Robinsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) if he is aware of the overcrowding and unsatisfactory conditions in the Hong Kong Mental Hospital; and what steps he is taking to improve the position at this hospital;
    (2) what plans he has for additional mental hospital accommodation in Hong Kong; and when these are likely to be implemented.
    Mr. Hopkinson: A new mental hospital is planned with accommodation for 500 patients. The first stage, consisting of a custodial home of 120 beds, should be completed by March, 1956, and will reduce overcrowding in the present hospital.
    Mr. Robinson: Is it not a fact that the intended hospital is about 20miles away from the centre of population? Is it not essential that there should be provision where the main body of the population is—in Hong Kong?
    Mr. Hopkinson: I think we are all well aware of the state of overcrowding in the hospitals in Hong Kong. It is a matter which we are considering. I shall bear in mind the point the hon. Gentleman has made.

    QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
    Mr. Nicholson: On a point of order. It will not have escaped your notice, Mr. Speaker, that 88 Questions have today been addressed to the first Minister down to reply to Questions. This is rather hard on hon. Members who have put down Questions to other Ministers. I am not involved in this, but I wondered whether you would be good enough to give thought to the matter to see whether the House cannot be assisted in preventing this sort of thing happening.
    Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Member repeat the last part of his remarks? He dropped his voice, and I could not hear him.
    Mr. Nicholson: I wondered whether you would be good enough to give some thought to the matter, Mr. Speaker, in order to assist the House by preventing
    446
    the crowding out of Questions addressed by hon. Members to other Ministers.
    Mr. Braine: Further to the point of order. In view of the very great importance of the responsibilities of the House to the Colonial Territories, I hope that no suggestion will be made that Questions to the Secretary of State for the Colonies should be interfered with.
    Several Hon. Members—
    Mr. Brockway: Further to the point of order—
    Mr. Speaker:I am about to reply to the point of order. It really is not a matter for me. If hon. Members are dissatisfied with the arrangements for Questions, they should make proper representations through the usual channels, and then perhaps something can be done. However, it is obvious from the short exchange that has taken place that the House is by no means of one mind on the matter.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS
  LAND AND PROPERTY (COMPULSORY ACQUISITION)
  Mr. G. Longden: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 25th March, I shall call attention to various powers for compulsory acquisition of land and property, and move a Resolution.
  WORLD DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY
  Mr. Hale: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 25th March, I shall call attention to the necessity for a world development authority to assist the under-developed regions of the world, and move a Resolution.
  DOCK LABOUR SCHEME
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 25th March, I shall call attention to the operation of the Dock Labour Scheme, and move a Resolution.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Crookshank.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [5TH ALLOTTED DAY]
  REPORT [24th February]

  CIVIL ESTIMATES, ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS AND ESTIMATE FOR MINISTRY OF DEFENCE, 1955–56 (VOTE ON ACCOUNT)
  Resolution reported,
  That a sum, not exceeding £953,224,000, be granted to Her Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the charges for the following Civil and Revenue Departments and for the Ministry of Defence for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1956.
  [For details of Vote on Account see OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th February, 1955; Vol. 537, c. 1464–7.]
  Resolution agreed to.

  COTTON INDUSTRY
  3.33 p.m.
  Mr. Harold Wilson: I beg to move,
  That this House notes with concern the serious situation which is developing in the cotton industry, and regrets the failure of Her Majesty's Government to take effective action to remedy the position.
  Before I come to the terms of the Motion, I am sure we should all like to welcome back the President of the Board of Trade, in a state, if not of health, at any rate of convalescence, and express the hope that the strain of the debate will not be too much for him. On so important a debate, we certainly welcome his return. It has the additional advantage that it spares the House the ordeal of a winding-up speech by the Parliamentary Secretary. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] If hon. Members opposite think it is a shame, they should have put pressure on the Government to ensure that the Parliamentary Secretary wound up the Monopolies Commission debate instead of the right hon. Gentleman having to speak twice, thus endangering his health.
  I understand that there is some controversy about the second part of the Motion, which says that we regret:
  "… the failure of Her Majesty's Government to take effective action to remedy the position."
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  I am rather surprised about the controversy on this subject in view of the fiery speeches which have been made by hon. Gentlemen opposite with constituencies in Lancashire. If they are today going to make speeches half as fiery as they have done, I should have thought that there would be no alternative for them but to vote for the Motion.
  Whatever disagreement there may be about that part of the Motion, I am sure the House will agree on the first part, which says:
  "That this House notes with concern the serious situation which is developing in the cotton industry. …"
  All hon. Members in all parts of the House with cotton constituencies will have been very anxious for a long period about the position which is developing.
  Perhaps at this stage it is right that I should make a disclaimer of interest in this matter. I noticed one or two newspapers and financial journals suggesting that the line that I took on the subject of calico printing a fortnight ago was dictated by the fact that I represent a marginal Lancashire seat and that this would be a popular line in getting me votes. That shows the ignorance about geography of the "Economist, "which is almost equal to its ignorance about economics. All hon. Members know that Liverpool is not famous for the presence there of the cotton industry. I have no textile mills, much less calico printing establishments, in my division. I have no cotton textile workers there so far as I know, and any reference to cotton there is received with almost as much boredom as a reference to the editor of the "Economist. "Nevertheless, I think that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that anyone who has had the honour to hold the office which he at present holds must inevitably be concerned about the present position and the future of the cotton industry.
  We on this side of the House have been very restrained in not pressing for a debate on this subject a great deal earlier. It was 8th July last year when the Cotton Board sent an appeal for help to the Board of Trade. All hon. Members in all parties were informed of the appeal. After eight months nothing has come from the President, except a number of suggestions to the effect that Lancashire was squealing before she was hurt.

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  We have had no direct action whatsoever from the Government. We have, indeed, shown restraint in not pressing for a debate.
  I have no doubt at all that the right hon. Gentleman will say that we should not be having a debate now because the matter is being considered by the Cotton Board and that he has just asked the Board to do that. I hope he will not suggest that the Board is a kind of inverted B.B.C. and that the House is not allowed to discuss any matter which is liable to be discussed by the Cotton Board in the next 14 days. The fact is that he referred the matter to the Cotton Board for advice only after a number of hon. Members from this side of the House, and some from the other side, started pressing him very hard on the question of Indian imports.
  We shall be told that the Prime Minister, whose indisposition we all regret, is to see representatives of the cotton industry and that it is, therefore, perhaps untimely for us to debate the matter. However, the Prime Minister, who sat on the invitation that he had from the cotton industry for well over a fortnight, only replied to the cotton industry agreeing to the meeting after the Motion was put down.
  I have a very high regard for the Cotton Board, and a far higher regard for development councils in general than the right hon. Gentleman has, and I think we should all want to pay tribute to the very statesmanlike work that Sir Raymond Streat has done as Chairman of the Board for many years. I tend to feel that why the President has specifically summoned the Board to this meeting rather than the producers' organisations is that he would naturally assume that there would be divided counsels on the Board. The Board includes representatives of the merchants and converters, and one can assume that their strength will to some extent balance the views of the trade unions and the producers' organisationson that body. It may very well be that no agreed proposals will come out of the Cotton Board and that all the President of the Board of Trade will have gained from it will have been time.
  I said that we have shown restraint in not asking for this debate before. I think we have also shown restraint in the fact
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  that no one, on this side of the House at any rate, has been suggesting that we should tackle this problem on the basis of simple protectionism. There was, of course, that snarl in the "Manchester Guardian" on Monday morning suggesting that for the sake of some votes in Lancashire we were throwing over all our fiscal ideas about tariffs and quotas. I hope to deal with that comment in a few moments.
  Incidentally, it is rather significant that for once the "Manchester Guardian" has made no proposals itself about how this problem should be dealt with. Usually we get a lot of advice, whether Government, Opposition, or industry, from the "Manchester Guardian" about how to deal with our problems. It is remarkable that that newspaper has not put forward any suggestions this time.
  We have not adopted, as would have been easy for an Opposition to adopt, the cry of many interests in Lancashire for protectionism. That contrasts very markedly with the attitude of a number of Tory newspapers and candidates in 1951 when we were the Government and there was the problem arising from Hong Kong goods coming to this country. In some Lancashire constituencies the Election was fought on that question, and candidates and newspapers missed no opportunity to advocate that the problem could be dealt with only by a quota. The right hon. Gentleman has shown reluctance to deal with the problem by quota in the case of the Indian imports.
  I hope the debate will be dealt with in a constructive manner. Certainly we shall not impugn the right hon. Gentleman's motives for his treatment of Lancashire. I am not going to repeat the charge frequently levelled at him by many employers, as well as trade union representatives, that the Government have written off Lancashire. I admit that all the evidence points to the suggestion, but I do not believe it. [Laughter.] No, I accept the assurances of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this, despite the evidence. The Chancellor is very touchy about this charge. Recently he was in Manchester and repeated it, and, after denying it, said that he had been brought up on the doctrine, "Never believe more than half you are told." Therefore, I accept his assurance that the Government have only half written off Lancashire.

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  However that may be, the Government have certainly dealt some very serious blows to Lancashire's prosperity over the past year. About a year ago we had a series of debates in this House about three blows which fell in a matter of weeks. The first was the decision of the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to remove Purchase Tax. The harm that has been done to the industry by Purchase Tax has been argued many times from this side of the House when debating the D scheme. In the "Manchester Guardian" this morning a very powerfully argued article appeared on that question.
  The second blow the Government dealt the industry was the Japanese Trade Agreement, and the events of the past year have gone a long way to confirm the warnings we gave from this side of the House at the time of the signing of that Agreement. The third blow was the decision of the Government to abolish the Raw Cotton Commission and to restore the Liverpool Futures Market. While not all the disasters we then forecast have yet happened, for the very obvious reason that the Liverpool cotton market has been operating against a favourable economic background, we warned the Government then that if another dollar crisis came it would have a very serious effect on Lancashire and the Liverpool cotton market. Now we must ask the President what will be the position of the Liverpool cotton market if the Chancellor's Bank Rate gamble and confidence trick fail to come off and they have to restrict the dollars available to the market.
  Figures given in this House have shown that imports from Commonwealth countries were 34·9 per cent. of the total in 1953 and 26·7 per cent. in 1954, which is what we said would happen. Imports from the dollar area have risen from 28·3 per cent. to 34·6 per cent., and long-term contracts with Colonial Territories have been wound up. That is a very serious state of affairs, particularly if a dollar crisis is on the way. We always said that a free enterprise raw cotton market was a fair weather ship; it would probably function pretty well so long as storms did not blow up, but I am not sure that it is functioning well now. We have had some very serious comments made in Lancashire about the futures market, for
  452
  instance, by the Chairman of the District Bank a few weeks ago.
  I also notice that "The Times Review of Industry" says that there is some anxiety about the smallness of business passing through the Liverpool Futures Market. It says:
  "Transactions have become fewer than they were in the first two or three months after the market reopened, and now there are not enough of the small sales or purchases from occasionally producing disproportionately large effects on prices. Many traders are clearly fighting shy of the Liverpool market and transacting their futures business at New York."
  It goes on to say that no spot stock of any dimensions has been built up. Indeed, our cotton stocks today are lower than they were during the Battle of the Atlantic. They are lower than at any time since the American Civil War. I ask the Government what position that puts us in if we have to face any kind of emergency, including, for instance, a dock strike? The Liverpool market is not being used by the big spinning interests and is becoming only a shadow of what the President intended it should be. "The Times" also says:
  "Some change is needed if the market is not to sink into inanition."
  I have referred to the very serious contribution of the Government a year ago to Lancashire's depression. Certainly since last year the position has very seriously worsened. At Christmas very many mills had extended holidays as a means of allocating and spreading work and disguising short time. A very large proportion of mills are not actually closing or going on short time but are keeping their operatives because they fear they will not be able to get them back if they let them go; and they are all on a guaranteed week. I ask the President of the Board of Trade how many mills are at present on a guaranteed week? I have heard it stated that between 10 and 15 are on a guaranteed week. I should like him to tell us whether that figure is correct, or whether it is higher or lower. I expect he has seen the figures in the Ministry of Labour Gazette.
  I know that the Government will say that the last short-time figures only show the industry as a whole, but these figures were collected in August and November—
  The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft)The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft) indicated dissent.
  Mr. Wilson: Yes, if the right hon. Gentleman looks in the Ministry of Labour Gazette he will find that fact. I have been looking at the figures for those temporarily stopped, men and women still on the books of the mills but not working on the day of the count. We know that those figures are not exhaustive and are only a small proportion of the numbers on short-time working. The Ministry of Labour Gazette used to say, before the war, that figures of short-time working did not, for example, include underemployment often brought about by weavers working two or three looms instead of four, five, or six; and they do not come into the "temporarily stopped" figures either. Very often mills working a four-day week close on Friday but not on Monday, and since the figures are collected on Monday, again it is an under-estimate. But if one takes the numbers of those temporarily stopped as an index of what is happening, one finds that in the spinning industry in January, 1954, there were 69 and in January, 1955, there were 661. That is nearly 10 times as many.
  These figures are not exhaustive, but they are an indication of a forthcoming slump. In the weaving industry the figures were 93 in January, 1954, and 169 in January this year. In February, 1954, the number in the spinning industry was 102, and in February this year 1,249, more than 10 times as many, and in the weaving industry in February, 1954, there were 148 and in February this year 399. If the President looks at the figures, he will see that the latest figures available show that the numbers temporarily out of work in the spinning sections is 1,249, which is higher than in January, 1952; and the numbers temporarily stopped in weaving are 399, which is one higher than in January, 1952. We all know what happened with such disastrous rapidity in 1952.
  There is certainly very widespread anxiety in Lancashire about the position. There was a meeting recently in Manchester. The Minister of State went there, and I gather that he was treated to some rather picturesque language, which I should be out of order in repeating in this House, particularly from the employers. This meeting passed this resolution:
  "This meeting affirms its grave concern at the immediate and potentially increasing threat
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  to employment, stability and confidence in the cotton industry from the imports of cloth. It expresses profound dissatisfaction"—
  much stronger words than we have used in our Motion—
  "at the Government's unwillingness to take action to safeguard the vital interests of workpeople and employers in the Lancashire cotton industry, and urges that strong representation be made direct to the Prime Minister."
  I understand that the diplomacy of Sir Raymond Streat has been used to ensure that the strong representations made to the Prime Minister are in rather different language to the representations made to the right hon. Gentleman, but they will, nevertheless, be strong and come from both sides of the industry—the weaving employers, the spinning employers and the trade unions.
  Why has there been this worsening in the position in the last year? First, there is the decline in exports. I think that the President of the Board of Trade on one occasion said that he was more concerned about the export position than the home market position. He has every reason to be concerned. The exports of piece goods last year were the lowest since 1947, a year when we had barely recovered from the war. If we look at the figures for the whole period since they were first collected, we find that, apart from what I will call the war years of 1942 to 1947, exports last year were lower than at any time since 1840, lower than at any time since the American Civil War.
  The Prime Minister may or may not have been elected to preside over the dissolution of the British Empire, but the right hon. Gentleman certainly may regard himself as having been elected to preside over the dissolution of our export cotton trade. When we look at figures of this kind, we begin to see why the "Conservative Freedom Works" posters are looking a little fly-blown in Lancashire. If one were able to trace the figures back, one would probably find that they are the lowest since the Tory Administration of Lord Liverpool, an Administration which was only distinguished from that of the present Front Bench by the fact that in the person of Huskisson it had at least a good President of the Board of Trade.
  Mr. William Shepherd: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the figures for 1952, 53 and 54, so that the House may have an idea of what is the actual decline.
  Mr. Wilson: I have not the figures before me but they are available in Tattersall's which, as the hon. Member knows, is compulsory reading for a President of the Board of Trade and for M.Ps. interested in the cotton industry. He probably never sees it.
  The reasons for this decline in exports are, first, the Janpanese Trade Agreement. I do not think that the President will really deny that. If he looks at Tattersall's he will find the statement month by month, and if he reads the trade comments in the "Manchester Guardian" he will see day-by-day statements which show that our export trade in West Africa and elsewhere is being seriously interfered with as a result of the Japanese Trade Agreement.
  The second reason why there has been this serious decline in exports is the fact that there has been great uncertainty in the world about the future level of raw cotton prices. We know that prices are artificially maintained today as a result of the American price support system, and there is great anxiety that there may be an export subsidy or a collapse in prices.
  But the reason for this country losing ground compared with other countries is, of course, the Purchase Tax on Lancashire quality textiles. We have put questions to the Chancellor of the Exchequer about two-fold poplins. There is not only the question of our losing our export markets, but the manufacture of these things has almost stopped. There are a few mills in Lancashire making these things today because they cannot sell them on the home market. In today's "Manchester Guardian" there is a detailed and expert survey of this particular problem.
  The real anxiety in Lancashire is arising from what is happening in the home market and not in the export market. We all remember the debate on textiles about three years ago, which was the occasion of the last intervention in our debates of George Tomlinson. Many of us who heard him speak from this Box on that occasion felt that that would probably be his last speech, and I think that he himself felt that it would be his last speech. It is some consolation that the Farnworth tradition in this House has been so splendidly carried on by my hon. Friend who succeeded him and who, if he is successful in catching your eye, Mr. Speaker, will be winding up the debate for this side of the House.
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  I remember George Tomlinson telling us in that speech that when he first started as a part-timer the mills of Lancashire used to provide all the needs of the home market before the breakfast break on Monday morning and spent the rest of the week manufacturing for the export trade. All those conditions have gone a long time ago. For the last few years more than three-quarters of the production has been for the home trade.
  We have now the very serious and, to many people unexpected, intervention in the home trade of the Indian imports. We are all familiar with that problem. What I think is sometimes forgotten, especially in some of the answers which we get from the Front Bench opposite, is that although imports of Indian cloth are confined to a fairly narrow range of qualities, the effect on Lancashire is much wider than that because great uncertainty is being created in the production of many other types of cloth, and market values are being utterly destroyed by the fact that these Indian imports are coming in.
  The difficulty about this, of course, is presented not merely by the absolute size of the imports, but by the fear that they may go on increasing. The House knows the figures—16 million yards imported in 1953 and 133 million in 1954, a very large increase, although the President of the Board of Trade did on one occasion describe it as a slight increase.
  Mr. P. Thorneycroft Mr. P. Thorneycroft indicated dissent.
  Mr. Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman has only to look at HANSARD.
  Mr. Thorneycroft: I think that the right hon. Gentleman has got his two lots of statistics rather muddled. It is a slight increase on the average over the previous six years
  Mr. Wilson: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was going to say that. He knows perfectly well that that is a completely phoney use of statistics. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Oh, yes, and I will now proceed to prove it. The high import figures which he quoted in 1949–50 were coming in at a time when Lancashire could not meet anything like the orders. The high orders which came in in 1951–52 were connected with the rearmament programme and were only placed abroad when the Government had satisfied themselves that Lancashire could not meet them. Therefore, to take the

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  average over six years is a completely inappropriate way of looking at this problem.
  Mr. Thorneycroft: What I was pointing out was that the right hon. Gentleman took the increase in the Indian imports over one year, and he said that I described that as a "slight increase." I never did so. What I described as a slight increase was taking the figure of all foreign grey cloth imports against the average over six years. That is, if I may say so, a false use of statistics.
  Mr. Wilson: That is what I am saying. Comparing it with the average over six years certainly was a false use of statistics. If the right hon. Gentleman will look at HANSARD of 3rd February he will find what he did say on that occasion. But let us take it that the right hon. Gentleman was meaning something else than the House thought he meant because the question related to Indian imports. I think that he will agree that an increase from 16 million yards to 133 million is a very serious increase, and most of the anxiety in Lancashire is connected with the fear that it may go to 266 million or even higher next year. There are, of course, many people in Lancashire who say it would not be so bad if it were stabilised at the present level, harmful though that would be.
  What has the right hon. Gentleman been doing since the appeal made to him by the Cotton Board eight months ago? He has made speeches and the Minister of State has been to Manchester. It is apparently the policy of the Government that they wait to see things getting a lot worse before they take action. The right hon. Gentleman wants to be absolutely satisfied that all the horses have bolted from the stable before he considers setting up a committee with the Cotton Board to take what the Government Amendment calls
  "such safeguarding action on imports as may prove to be essential and appropriate"
  to make sure that the stable door is finally closed. But things happen quickly in Lancashire and when the rot starts it may develop at a speedy rate.
  One reason why we fear that it may get worse is that many Manchester merchants think that they are on a good thing in buying this cloth and are apparently advertising in India for supplies. I
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  am sure that hon. Members on both sides will want to say to the merchants that this is very foolish, even so far as their own interests are concerned. Surely, there are more important things for them than quick profits on Indian imports. If as a result of their action a section of the industry goes into a serious slump, it may not recover. There has been enough difficulty in getting operatives back to the mills after the slump of 1952. There is a shortage of operatives. Vacancies are notified to the employment exchanges at the very time when we have short-time working and anxiety about the future. [An HON. MEMBER: "Remarkable."] That is not very remarkable.
  Mr. Arthur Holt: Would the right hon. Gentleman like to explain it?
  Mr. Wilson: Certainly. I am surprised that the hon. Member, representing a Lancashire constituency, does not know what is going on. There are many mills which are under strength as far as their permanent establishment is concerned, yet they are living from hand to mouth for orders and having to go on short-time, but they are still seeking in the employment exchanges for more workers because they hope for a better time in the future.
  Mr. Holt: Why has there been a net increase in the number of employees in the weaving industry in January?
  Mr. Wilson: There was a decline in the first part of February, as the figures showed last week. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Thornton) will be able to deal better with that point. [Laughter.] My hon. Friend has more experience of the weavers' amalgamation than hon. Members opposite. My own impression is that there has been a good deal more short-time in spinning than in weaving; as it is in spinning that orders first begin to contract. Figures indicate that there are more on short-time and more people temporarily stopped in spinning, but many weaving employers are holding on to their workers in the interest of having them if better times come.
  I am sure that the whole House would agree, and certainly Lancashire does, that Indian imports cannot be described as fair competition. The "Manchester Guardian," in a leading article on 6th December, made that clear when it said

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  that it was unfair competition. It is unfair for two reasons. The first is the lack of reciprocity in the matter of British exports to India and Indian exports to Britain. Whereas Indian manufactured goods come into this country duty free, because of the pre-war Agreement, we are paying tariffs of some 60 to 80 per cent. on some of our staple lines of exports. Before the war, no one thought that this country would be importing large quantities of manufactured goods from India or that our exports would fall to 3 million yards a year to India whilst their imports into this country were coming in duty free. While we all support the Government's attempts to get Indian tariffs down, and no one expects that the trade to India will come to balance trade from India at the present time—
  Mr. Leslie Hale: If I may interrupt my right hon. Friend, he referred to what the President of the Board of Trade said in the House on 3rd February. It was precisely as my right hon. Friend correctly indicated. The President said;
  "I have given careful consideration to the need for introducing further restrictions on imports of cotton grey cloth but in the circumstances to which I have referred I do not consider that at this stage the slight increase which has taken place in imports justifies such action."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February. 1955; Vol. 536, c. 1254.]
  Mr. Wilson: At any rate, the President has been made aware this afternoon that the comparison of figures with six years ago was irrelevant.
  Mr. Thorneycroft:As the right hon. Gentleman is searching for accuracy, the comparison was not with figures six years ago but with an average over six years, which is quite different.
  Mr. Wilson: I think that the right hon. Gentleman will still be prepared to recognise that the real comparison for this House and for Lancashire is the increase in 1954 compared with 1953.
  I am sure that the House will agree that the real element in this unfair competition results from the fact that Indian exports are produced from raw cotton which is a good deal cheaper than the cotton available to the Lancashire mills. World prices are kept up artificially by American action. The consequences are
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  that we have to pay world prices whereas Indian mills get controlled prices which are much lower, and any cotton imported into India for processing and re-export is free of the import duty, which is a very serious discrimination. The difference between the two is 10d. to 1s. per lb., which represents 3d. a yard on the grey cloth. Indeed, the weaving industry of Lancashire has to pay more for its yarn than the price of Indian cloth. Even if weavers of Lancashire worked for no wages at all they still could not compete.
  Lancashire does not seek old-fashioned protection in this respect. It is not afraid of Indian competition on fair terms. Although wages are lower in India, Indian productivity is lower as well. It is unfair competition that Lancashire seeks to prevent. A suggestion was made that there should be an approach to the Indian Government. The "Manchester Guardian" said that in December, and I do not apologise for quoting the "Manchester Guardian" leaders of December so often. It shows that some of us do read them. If the editor of the "Manchester Guardian" would read his own leaders more often he would not be so guilty of unwisdom and error as those for instance in Monday's paper. The "Manchester Guardian" said in December that perhaps the right thing would be to approach the Indian Government and that we should ask the Indian Government if they would agree to place a voluntary limitation on exports, since India would not feel it very greatly but it would make a difference to Lancashire.
  The Minister of State has been to India and has had discussions with the Indian Government. According to all the accounts that I have received from Delhi about his visit, it appears that as far as most of his representations were concerned his visit was highly successful. He went down very well and did a good job in indicating to the Indian Government and to trade and industry there what this country was prepared to do in the shipment of capital goods for the development of that country.
  The trip seems to have been well worth while but, nevertheless, I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman would think that his representations on cotton had been particularly successful, because he and Lancashire received a very dusty answer 10 days ago when Sir Chintaman

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  Deshmukh presented his Budget to the Indian Parliament. He cut the export duty and took certain internal measures designed to increase the flow of textile goods abroad. It is suggested this morning that he is having second thoughts on the latter point, but we cannot count on that. Therefore, any approach to the Indian Government seems to have ended in a blind alley, and the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister did not even discuss the problem with Mr. Nehru when he visited this country.
  What is the answer to the problem? The President has rightly said that it raises issues far wider than that of cotton, and if we go blundering in with tariffs and things of that kind it may have a serious effect on our exports. There is a very serious objection to the use of quotas and tariffs in this connection. It would mean denouncing the Anglo-Indian Trade Agreement, it would be a breach of Ottawa and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade which is to have its name altered to O.T.C.
  We sympathise with the reluctance of the Government to do that. That is why my hon. Friends and I jointly with the Council of the Textile Factory Workers' Union have produced another scheme which we think would be simple and effective. It was to set up a Government buying agency for cotton yarns and cotton piece goods, this agency to be given the exclusive rights of these things with the idea that it would then restrict goods that come into this country on the basis of unfair competition. It would obviously import continental cloths which come in under the O.E.E.C. liberalisation policy and unlimited Indian cloth for processing and re-export, but as far as unfairly-made cotton cloths are concerned, there would be a strict limitation on what was coming into the country.
  I have mentioned yarns because we know there is a problem affecting a number of constituencies and of certain sections of the industry, particularly Portuguese and Egyptian yarn. This is coming in under conditions which amount to dumping. I have never said it was dumping, but I think it would be right for any such body as we propose to have the right to restrict such imports.
  In HANSARD this morning we see the answer to a Question put by my hon.
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  Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn) which gives the figures of these yarn imports, and although they are on a much smaller scale than the cloth imports, there has been a very serious increase between 1953 and 1954. Any hon. Member who looks up those figures will share my hon. Friend's concern about them. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with them as well.
  I think the President will confirm that the proposal which we make is not contrary to our international obligations. Indeed, he would find it difficult to say it was, because he is doing precisely the same thing in relation to the import of jute in order to provide protection for the Dundee jute industry. I am not criticising what he is doing, but he is maintaining the public buying of jute goods, although no one suggests that jute goods are produced under conditions which are as unfair as apply to Indian cotton goods. I do not think he will deny that this will not offend against the principle of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which says that State trading must be carried on on the basis of commercial principles. None of us believes that commercial principles mean that a buyer must always buy in the cheapest market regardless of other considerations. It would not be good commercial principles for Britain to buy cheap imported goods if it means losing one of the principal sources of supply, which is the Lancashire cotton industry itself.
  The right hon. Gentleman will tell us that this matter is before the Cotton Board. I do not know whether the Cotton Board will produce an agreed recommendation to put before the Government, but I would guess that if it does its proposal will be a system of quotas. If the President decides to accept a proposal from the Board to impose quotas, we would support it with the utmost reluctance. We think it would be a very serious step for the Government to take, and we would only support it if we were satisfied there were no other scheme available. We believe our own proposal is one which meets the problem, and I hope the Government are going to approach it with an open mind, because they certainly have not put forward any other proposal. I hope they are not going to turn this one down on purely doctrinaire laissez faire grounds. If they do, there will be no

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  doubt in Lancashire where the responsibility for the crisis lies. I hope they will approach this with an open mind and will tell us that they will agree to this as it avoids the difficulties of quotas ant tariffs.
  Before I sit down, I want to remind the right hon. Gentleman—I am sure he does not need reminding—that this problem which to many is a short-run problem and has risen very quickly, is having a serious effect on the long-term development of the cotton industry. For yean since the war all of us hoped that some thing would be done about re-equipment, and some firms have a progressive record in this matter. But all our hopes for re-equipment, modernisation, mechanization, re-deployment and all these other things which are essential to increased productivity in the industry will receive a great setback if something is not done immediately about the problem of Indian imports.
  There can never be a progressive attitude in Lancashire when men on both sides of the industry are dominated by the fear of an approaching slump, want to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he agrees that this is a very serious situation, although so far we have not seen anything like the depths of depression of 1952, but a serious depression might be upon us in a matter of months, or even weeks. I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell us whether he is going to take action. There is nothing in the Amendment which suggests that the Government have any ideas about taking action. I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell us what is the Government's attitude to this problem, and to say that he will give consideration to the scheme which we announced in Manchester recently.
  I want finally to say to the right hon. Gentleman—I am sure this will be supported from both sides of the House—that this is not just an economic problem; it is a social problem as well. Speaking as a Yorkshire man, I say we cannot look on the problems of the Lancashire textile industry as though it was just one other industry. If this industry is destroyed, it will not merely be the destruction of a segment of our economic system; it will be the destruction of a community, a community which in the
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  past has served this country, not only industrially but in many other ways, and can do so again in the future.
  It is wrong to look at Lancashire simply as a nursery of fast bowlers and wet weather. It has produced some very great statesmen in industry and, indeed, in this House. It is utterly wrong, like some of the sneering financial journals of the City, to suggest that Lancashire goes all protectionist every time a problem arises and wants Government aid. Lancashire's record in this matter over many years is remarkable. In the American Civil War when many people were calling for the removal of the blockade on the trade with the Southern States, and when no one would have gained more from the removal of that blockade than Lancashire, it was Lancashire who held firm because of its belief in the Tightness of the cause of the Northern States.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: It was the Lancashire working classes.
  Hon. Members: Oh.
  Mr. Wilson:I think there is a lot of evidence to support what my hon. Friend said. That attitude was being adopted even at the time when journalists and M.P.'s in London were calling for support for the South. In the 30's when there was mass unemployment through the Indian boycott of cotton goods, Lancashire workers stood in the streets and cheered Gandhi. Their approach to this problem goes deeper than economic self-interest. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to do something about this problem. Do not write Lancashire off.
  4.18 p.m.
  The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): I beg to move to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  "noting the diverse character of the problems confronting the cotton textile industry, supports the representations made to the Government of India on the level of import duty on United Kingdom cotton textile exports to India, and approves the declared intention of Her Majesty's Government to take such safeguarding action on imports as may prove to be essential and appropriate having regard to the position of the United Kingdom as a worldwide trading nation; and welcomes the steps which Her Majesty's Government have taken to obtain from the Cotton Board their detailed views of the problems and their specific proposals for action."

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  This debate takes place on an Opposition Motion which criticises the Government for inaction. All of us on all sides of the House share the same concern about certain trends which have been developing in Lancashire. But we for our part reject the criticisms which the right hon. Gentleman has made, and in particular we reject, for reasons which I shall elaborate a little later, the specific proposal which he made. We do, however, welcome the debate. We in the board of Trade always welcome debates. There is no aspect of our policy which we ever fear being raised at any time in the House of Commons. Any week the right hon. Gentleman chooses, he can put down any Motion he likes, and we shall be happy to debate it with him.
  Mr. H. Wilson: Did that apply to the Development of Industry Bill, which remained on the Order Paper of the House for a long time?
  Mr. Thorneycroft: Yes, it applies to all Bills and to all aspects of debate.
  This one, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly says, raises wide issues not only of cotton policy but also of commercial policy, and particularly Commonwealth commercial policy. As our Amendment indicates, this is not the time to make final judgments on this matter. Some weeks ago we invited the Cotton Board, representing the whole industry, to meet the Government. That meeting will take place shortly. At that meeting wide issues of policy will be discussed, and it will be attended by my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as by myself.
  The purpose of such a meeting is to obtain the up-to-date industrial view about these problems. The Cotton Board will give us an opportunity of discussing these matters with merchants as well as with manufacturers, with exporters as well as with importers. I am not so concerned, as is the right hon. Gentleman, that there might be some difference of opinion. Why should there not be? It would be a remarkable thing if, in a matter as complex and difficult as this one, there were not room for at any rate two shades of opinion about some of the points that will be raised. We hope to have, with the industry as a whole, a detailed analysis of the particular problems arising, and a detailed account of the kind of action
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  which might appear, to the industry at any rate, to be desirable.
  I hope to be able to convince the House of two things: first, that the nature of these problems is much wider and more complex than from some reports so far might be supposed; secondly, that it would be wise that both the Cotton Board and the Government should reflect upon and discuss some of these matters further before deciding whether, and if so, what specific action should be taken. What this debate enables me to do is to state in reasonably unvarnished terms the nature of the problem as I see it, and to examine some of the various solutions, including the proposal to establish a State purchasing commission for textiles, which has been put forward from various quarters.
  I start by saying two things. First, the fact that I seek to put some of these problems into perspective does not mean that I am indifferent to them. I am not. The problems with which we are concerned are real, are serious and are urgent, and are of considerable variety. Industry is perfectly right to draw attention to them. Secondly, the fact that I shall indicate the difficulties of certain types of action—difficulties which I think are acknowledged on both sides of the House—does not mean that I rule action out. I do not.
  These are, indeed, the very matters which we are proposing to discuss with the Cotton Board. However, it is necessary to indicate some of the perils into which British interests, including textile interests, might. easily run if certain courses were unwisely or precipitately followed.
  I want first to give the background to this problem, which is well known to Lancashire Members, and it is a somber one. As the right hon. Gentleman reminded us, Lancashire remembers the world textile revolution which took place between the two world wars, which reduced the number of workers employed by about 200,000, which cut the yardage output by a half and exports by two-thirds. Today Lancashire watches these new perils with the past very much in her memory.
  Lancashire wants to know—and I want to face this fairly and squarely—whether she must face another textile revolution. She wants to know whether there will be

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  another drastic reduction in her activity. She asks whether the losses she has sustained already in her export markets are to be matched by further losses, not only in exports but in her home trade. That is what Lancashire is asking at the present time.
  Now as to the causes for concern. The year which has just ended, 1954, was a good year for textiles. Production was sustained at a high level. Profits were sustained at a high level. Employment was high. Wages and earnings increased. Only in the latter months did a small amount of short-time working develop. Those are the facts. It is much better that we should get the facts absolutely straight.
  The perils and the anxieties lie not in what happened last year but in what might happen if certain trends, which have shown a marked development in recent months, continue. Let me summarise those trends. Briefly, the present problem consists in high production and rising imports, on the one hand, and declining exports coupled with a slight pause in home demand upon the other. That is the gist of the problem, and I propose to deal with these factors one by one.
  I shall start with the question of the declining exports. For clarity, I refer to exports of cotton cloth in any figures that I quote. Last year, a reduction of 70 million yards took place in Lancashire exports. In 1954, the annual rate was nearly 270 million square yards less than in 1949, and that trend continues. The latest figures available—I ask the House to note this because it is important and serious—indicate that the volume of export orders is running at one-third lower than a year ago.
  The loss of exports is due to a number of factors. In the Colonies it is largely due to Indian and Japanese competition. In the Commonwealth it is due to domestic productive capacity and tariff barriers, which have shown a slow but steady increase.
  I mention these matters because it is important to recognise that the loss of exports, though far less publicised, is every bit as important as any increase in imports. Indeed, in some respects, this is more of an export than an import problem. I will deal with imports a little
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  later on. I merely want to say now that no measure taken to limit imports is likely to help, though some measures might well hamper, the export situation.
  I will not deal with the whole field of exports, but there are two aspects of it with which I think the House would like me to deal for a moment—exports to India and exports to the Commonwealth, including the colonial markets. I will start by dealing with exports to India.
  I would say about these exports that the problems are not confined to Indian trade or Governmental policy. The basic fact is that India is now a textile exporter, whereas she was a textile importer. That is the basic alteration in the textile position which has taken place in the last 25 years. It is, of course, not something new.
  I will now say a word about the Indian tariff. The Indian tariff rate of 60–80 per cent., which is still a preferential rate, compared with the most favoured nation rate of 80–100 per cent., is too high, and we have consistently represented that to the Indian Government, and we have repeated our representations since the Budget statement to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. I would only add this comment at this stage. It is, of course, easy to link the argument that the 60–80 per cent. is too high compared with the free entry which we accord to India here, but it is not necessary to argue against a 60 to 80 per cent. rate on that basis. It is too high even if we did not accord India free entry here. The point about 60–80 per cent. is that in those ranges we are getting to a frustrating or prohibitive rate of tariff, and it is upon that basis that we have put this case to the Indian Government.
  Secondly, as regards Commonwealth trade, we have been suffering from Indian and Japanese competition. Whatever may be said about protection against Indian goods in the home market, I think it is absolutely plain to everybody that we cannot contrive tariffs against Indian goods in third markets. That is not a proposition which is open to us.
  What, then, about the Japanese situation? The Commonwealth countries have been buying increasing quantities of Japanese textiles. That is true of Australia, for example, who is a big market of our own. It is, of course, in Australia's interests to maintain trade with

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  Japan. Australia sells wool in large quantities to Japan, and it is in her interests to maintain trade between the sterling area and Japan at a high level. It is not within the power of the United Kingdom Government to inhibit trade between sovereign countries in that field.
  It is sometimes suggested that, while that is true of Australia, we should somehow inhibit the Colonies from importing from Japan. In the second half of the 20th century, it is not open to us to inhibit colonial trade in that way. It is the case that the Colonies' trade is now largely a great world trade, and not confined to the very valuable trade that they do with the rest of the sterling area.
  The Japanese Sterling Payments Agreement is neither an original document nor an original idea. The balance of payments criteria incorporated in the document were incorporated by the previous Government. The balance of payments argument was used by hon. Members opposite when they were in office, and it cannot be honourably abandoned by them when they are in opposition.
  So much for exports. Now what of the import situation?
  Mr. H. Wilson: Apart from what the right hon. Gentleman has said about Japan, with which we do not agree, I am sure the House is indebted to him for this very useful, objective account of what is going on and for some new information which he has given to the House. However, before he leaves the subject of exports, he will agree, I take it, with what I said about insecurity in relation to raw cotton prices. Will he say something to the House about the effect of Purchase Tax on our export trade?
  Mr. Thorneycroft:Plainly, I do not propose to embark upon a discussion of Purchase Tax in this debate, for reasons which the whole House will fully appreciate.
  Mr. Hale:Will the right hon. Gentleman permit me to suggest that one thing that can be done to assist Lancashire is to stimulate purchasing power in the Colonies, and that if it were not for the retrograde wage policy in many Colonial Territories, Lancashire could be supplying much-needed cotton goods to the whole of our Colonial Territories?
  Mr. Thorneycroft: Naturally, I appreciate the tribute which the hon. Gentleman pays to the efforts at Colonial development which have taken place under successive Governments.
  With regard to the import situation, we import from Japan, Europe, India and Hong Kong, and I think it is worth while to state certain general facts about these imports at once. First, these imports can, for the purpose of clarity, be taken as being wholly grey cloth. So far as we can judge, more than half of them are processed and re-exported. They are cheap grey cloth brought in for processing by the finishers and then sold abroad. If we stop the import of this grey cloth which is re-exported, we are likely to lose more exports, which certainly cannot help us against the background that I have just been describing.
  Secondly, I turn to the total amounts involved. In view of what the right hon. Gentleman said earlier, I will try to state these figures as impartially as possible. The total imports of grey cloth, mainly from India, increased largely in 1954 over the imports in 1953. They increased only marginally over the average of the previous six years, but—I think this is the most important point—in the concluding months of 1954, and particularly in January this year—I do not want to put too much stress on one month—the import rate from India and Hong Kong increased substantially.
  It is not easy to assess the impact of these imports on the home market. Leaving aside re-exports, the total amount of foreign and Commonwealth grey cloth retained here was probably between 80 million and 100 million square yards in 1954. That compares with a United Kingdom production of 2,000 million square yards. Lancashire's share of the home market is over 90 per cent., although, of course—I want to be fair—the impact on certain sections must inevitably be much heavier than upon others.
  The real upsurge of imports, however, comes from two places—in both cases free of duty and free of quota—India and Hong Kong. In the case of India, though not of Hong Kong, the suggestion of subsidy has been made. That case cannot, in fact be substantiated. India is not wrong in selling her own raw material

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  to domestic industry below the world price. Incidentally, in this case it is a world price sustained by American policies.
  If we claimed the right to retaliate on those grounds, our engineering exports would be vulnerable throughout the world on the basis of differential steel and coal prices. We do it; many other people do it, too. This problem must not be based on some technical ground of subsidy. The fact is that both Indian and Hong Kong cheap cloth are coming in free of duty. Those are the facts of the case, and it is much better that we should face them.
  Mr. Holt: Is the right hon. Gentleman arguing the case that because we did something wrong over coal and steel, it is all right?
  Mr. Thorneycroft: I say it is not wrong. If one goes round the world one sees a number of countries which, by one means or another, are probably providing their domestic industries with locally-produced raw materials cheaper than at world prices. I think that a great deal of the pattern of world trade is built on that. If one is to start alleging that this is a special form of subsidy, one will have a very wide reaction over a large field. At any rate, it is an argument which I do not choose to use in the case of India.
  These goods are cheap and are coming in duty free. What Lancashire can and does say is that her exports are hindered by quotas and high tariffs, which are thrown up by countries developing new textile industries, while her home trade is suffering from duty-free imports arranged at a time when Commonwealth countries had no appreciable production capacity. That is the situation of which Lancashire is complaining and is the problem which faces her from both India and Hong Kong.
  I want to emphasise something that the right hon. Gentleman said. This is not a claim by Lancashire for unqualified protection. We are all familiar with that type of claim, which is made from time to time. It is to our great credit that I have seldom heard this argument advanced from either side of the House.
  It is argued by those who claim 100 per cent. protection for Lancashire in the home market and the right to dictate colonial purchasing, irrespective of the
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  balance of payments position. No party will ever support that case in office and no party would be wise even to pay lip service to it in opposition. This is a different case. It can be and no doubt will be put forward on a more substantial foundation, and it arises from the impact of cheap duty-free imports at a time when exports are in decline.
  Now, as to the remedies which are being canvassed: I make no final judgment on them, but I will briefly enumerate them. The first is to reduce imports of Japanese cloth into the United Kingdom market. But Japanese cloth is already severely limited under the Japanese Payments Agreement. In fact that Agreement provides—though imposed on balance of payments grounds—a very substantial protective safeguard for Lancashire in the home market. There is virtually not a yard of Japanese grey cloth retained here in the United Kingdom home market. Any action taken here against the quota of Japanese cloth allowed in for re-export would tend to exacerbate rather than solve the problem. So much for the Japanese solution.
  The second is the argument for action against Europe. Very small quantities of European grey cloth—subject to the 17½ per cent. most favoured nation rate—are retained at home, something less than 5 million square yards. Action here could affect the liberalisation of the textile trade in Europe. It might well threaten—and seriously threaten—openings for our other industries including, for example, the woollen textile industry, or motor cars in Europe. That is the kind of consequence which could arise if we restricted imports from Europe and elsewhere on a non-discriminatory basis under Article XIX of the G.A.T.T. Action of that kind would certainly have to be justified in Europe and outside it.
  The introduction of world-wide quota restrictions by this country would certainly not pass unnoticed by industries other than textiles. Other countries suffer from the impact of our competition in manufactured goods. Many of them probably retain less than 90 per cent. of their home market, and the unemployment figures in those industries abroad may well be higher than we could show in Lancashire today. Such action—I am not making a final judgment—would be likely to damage our export trade.

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  Lastly, there is the possibility of import duty, or quota restriction, on India and Hong Kong cloth. I will not elaborate all the problems here. They are pretty familiar to both sides of the House. The free entry of Indian cloth is assured to India under the Trade Agreement of 1939. There is nothing in the G.A.T.T. which prevents us putting an import duty on it, nothing at all, up to the most-favoured-nation rate; the free entry is assured to India under the Indian Trade Agreement.
  We do, however, carry on an export trade of over £100 million a year with India. We want to proceed with discretion and caution and good sense in dealing with trade figures of this character. Free entry of colonial goods is deeply embedded in our commercial policy and tradition, and, indeed, is reflected in our statute law.
  Last but not least, there is the right hon. Gentleman's own solution—a textile buying commission, associated presumably with price control. I will simply say this about it. It does not evade any of the problems listed above, but adds a few more of its own. One does not evade one's responsibilities, nor avoid retaliation against one's goods, by setting up some other body to do the job of restricting imports for one. State trading for the purposes of protection—and there could be no other reason—is dealt with under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade negotiated by the right hon. Gentleman himself. It is specifically provided for and dealt with in various articles, particularly Articles IV, XVII and XI.
  One cannot use it for the purpose of adding to the bound rates, or effectively adding to the bound rates of duty, which one has negotiated; nor can one use it effectively to bring about the same result as a quota which the Agreement would not allow one to impose in other circumstances; nor for the purpose of operation on the basis of countervailing duties in a way other than that provided under the general Agreement. Therefore, all I would say to the right hon. Gentleman is that if we are to impose new restrictions on imports, let us do it openly. Let us say what we are doing to what imports, and why.
  Mr. H. Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman has not yet understood that we are
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  proposing special action in the case of India, because we believe the competition to be unfair, as do some of the right hon. Gentleman's supporters. We are not suggesting general protection. But if all that the right hon. Gentleman has just said about his interpretation of G.A.T.T. and all the rest of it is true, will he tell the House how he justifies action taken by this Government to protect the jute industry by using State trading to assist the jute industry? Will he, secondly, say why this Government have used State trading for the protection of the bacon-producing industry in this country?
  Mr. Thorneycroft: I thought that I had already dealt with Indian trade and with the question of whether it is unfair. It does not matter whether one thinks it is unfair or not. If one thinks it is unfair, one could use a quota against it. Even if one does not think it is unfair, one could still use aquota. One does not avoid one iota of one's difficulty by getting some one else to do it for one. The commercial policy of a great nation cannot be conducted by means of subterfuge. If one decides, as a matter of high policy, that a particular form of protection is necessary, then the Government of the day must take the responsibility for introducing it. The right hon. Gentleman comes out with a plan to set up a State body which, "we imagine" he says—he does not seem to have given it very specific terms of reference—"we imagine would probably allow fairly free import" from one lot of countries, and, "would probably feel free to import substantial quantities … for finishing. "We cannot conduct trade in that way, and if we once started to do so, the retaliation which would follow would be far greater than if we had the courage to take, where necessary, any specific measures of our own.
  The right hon. Gentleman mentioned jute. In fact, there could be differentiation in the same way. The jute duty is not bound and so that particular difficulty does not arise. But in any event, the right hon. Gentleman knows the jute story every bit as well as I do. The idea that we should take these arrangements for jute, which are a hang-over of the wartime control, and are maintained there for convenience—and which, incidentally, afford a certain protection for Dundee—and use them as an argument for a principle of general policy, as a method

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  to be introduced as a matter of general conduct in commercial arrangements, is an argument which I am astonished to hear from a previous President of the Board of Trade.
  Mr. H. Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman described it as a hangover from wartime control. Since he has removed many other controls—some of which he ought not to have removed—will he tell us why he has not removed this particular hangover? Is it for one reason only, in order to maintain this "deceptive subterfuge"—to use his own phrase? If he will do that for jute why cannot he do it in the special case of Indian cotton, where there is unfair competition? We are not elevating this into a principle of commercial policy.
  Mr. Thorneycroft: The right hon. hon. Gentleman did not even suggest Indian cotton. I have his suggestions here. In the case of European cloth they may feel that they could let in "fairly free imports." Who this great body is I do not know. But the idea that we could find a body of gentlemen and establish them, and then that the Government of the day could sit back and say, "We have got rid of that particular problem at any rate, let them carry on with it," is a proposition which, coming from anyone with any industrial or Governmental experience, seems to me to be quite astonishing.
  I have indicated the problems confronting us, not for the purpose of ruling out action—except the latter action—but for the purpose of demonstrating that we are likely to pay a high price for any action that we take. The choice here, not for the first time in public affairs, is not between right and wrong, but between a number of extremely difficult and dangerous courses. In such circumstances, I am sure that we are right to hold detailed discussions with the industry concerned.
  It would be right to do that even for a straightforward tariff application, indeed it would be essential; but this is something which in some ways is more complex and far-reaching in its consequences than any ordinary tariff application. It is with these thoughts in mind that we and the Cotton Board propose to hold certain conversations. The question which we shall discuss, against the background which I have described, is whether any,
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  and, if so, what form of protection should be provided.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: The right hon. Gentleman has dealt very fully with all the proposals which have so far been made, and he has not had a single favourable word to say about any one of them. Now he says that he is to have discussions, or conversations, with the Cotton Board. Does he propose to say anything to the Cotton Board or is he merely proposing to invite it to make other suggestions different from those which he has already rejected? If the Government really have any proposals of their own to make, either to the Cotton Board or to anyone else, would the right hon. Gentleman kindly tell us what they are?
  Mr. Thorneycroft: I am having conversations with the Cotton Board, and not with the hon. Gentleman.
  I prefer in this case, and I think that it would be normal, to have detailed proposals from the industry. That is appreciated by the men in the industry, who have great experience and wisdom in these matters. I wish now to enumerate the kind of questions which we shall discuss together. First, we have to get the industrial view about whether this is a short-term or a long-term problem. If what is sought is a temporary expedient, is a quota the right answer, and, if so, at what level and against whom?
  What is the view of the industry as a whole about this question of re-exports, that is, cloth which is brought into this country and finished and re-exported? Should that cloth in any event be free? Should a quota apply only to retained imports? If it is a long-term solution, do the industry propose some form of tariff, and if so at what level? Above all, what are the views and proposals of the industry about the present export situation?
  These are not questions which can be answered in the clamour of public controversy. They are detailed, complex and technical. They affect many sections of the textile industry, and the answer to them will have effects which are wider still. I would, therefore, say just this in conclusion. There is no series of problems in the Board of Trade—which has many problems—which has a higher priority

  477
  than this group of problems associated with the textile industry.
  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is himself meeting the Cotton Board for discussions—
  Mr. S. Silverman: What does he know about it?
  Mr. Cyril Osborne: Far more than the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman).
  Mr. Thorneycroft: A good deal more than the hon. Gentleman.
  My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Board of Trade, has only recently returned from India. This is a matter of day-to-day consideration in the Board of Trade. The problem confronting us is one of very great difficulty in the field of commercial policy. I repeat again that the problem is far wider than is sometimes supposed. It is an export as well as an import problem, and the decision to stop, or to partially stop, some imports would still leave us with a major problem in the export field which might even have been exacerbated. In such circumstances I judge that the Government are wise to discuss the problem, not in general, but in detail, with the industry, and to examine specific proposals before reaching a final decision on what action, if any, should be taken.
  4.58 p.m.
  Mr. H. Rhodes: When the President of the Board of Trade was saying how good they in the Board of Trade were in replying to debate, and how they would take on anybody at any time, he rather reminded me of Bruce Woodcock on the day before he fought Baksi. If I remember rightly, the "result was that Bruce Woodcock was knocked out in about the third or fourth round. Whether the President is fighting his third or fourth round, I do not know, and neither does he, but on his performance today I do not think that it will be very long delayed. All he has told the House today are facts which most of us know. He has brought a few small new features into the discussion, but that is all.
  With reference to his remarks about the repercussions of quotas upon European goods, surely he cannot be unaware of what is happening in the wool trade today. I draw his attention to that trade,
  478
  because he mentioned it specifically. I should like to send him on his way with a little bag, trying to sell something in competition with the stuff which is being sent in by the Italians, to see how he would get on. Circumstances today are such that even if we had the labour and all our overheads—fixed and variable-given to us, we should not be able to produce at the same price as certain cloths for winter wear which are coming in from abroad.
  I am sure that the President did not intend to slur over the question of jute as he did. If he had given a better explanation the House would probably have received it quite properly from him, but he just side-tracked the question. He knows perfectly well that the jute industry has the kind of organisation which has been proposed from this side of the House. It stems directly from the days when the jute industry of Dundee was very depressed. I think that the President will agree about that, and I hope that the Minister of State will have something to say about it later.
  All those who live in Lancashire are affected in some way or other by this situation. Hon. Members are affected according to the number of their constituents who are engaged in the cotton industry. In my constituency the proportion is about one-third. It is an area which was very badly hit during the 1920's and 1930's, but I shall not elaborate. Everybody knows the circumstances and the history of that period. We know what is in the minds of the folk who have been engaged in the cotton industry for so long and who, in later years, have persuaded their children to go into the industry and are now faced with the possibility of a recession.
  One mill in my constituency has closed down; three mills are now on short time, and I understand that several more are considering whether they ought to go on short time. The cotton industry has a fairly long pipeline, because its structure is horizontal. With a vertical structure it is possible to have a shorter pipeline and so be able to respond quickly to markets for fashionable goods, but that does not apply to the cotton industry. In my industry a five weeks' order book is very good, and we must be on our toes to get the stuff out just when it is wanted, but that is not so in the cotton industry.

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  If a spinning mill has no more than six weeks' orders it goes on short time, because the necessary pipeline is so much longer.
  The President said that export orders are running at a rate which is one-third lower than it was a year ago. Practically everything he said in building up his reply reinforces my argument about a positive step which should be taken. The one thing the President would not talk about was Purchase Tax. I ask him now what is his view about Purchase Tax. Would its removal help Lancashire? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I am asking the President for an answer. Would the remission of Purchase Tax help Lancashire trade? I ask him to answer now.
  Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I shall tell the hon. Gentleman something which ought to be within his knowledge. I can think of no single thing which would do more damage to Lancashire than if I started to make incautious statements about Purchase Tax now.
  Mr. Rhodes: No; that is no answer. The damage has been done already. No statement which he can make at the Dispatch Box this afternoon can do more damage than he has done already.
  Mr. Thorneycroft Mr. Thorneycroft indicated dissent.
  Mr. Rhodes:Yes—more damage than he has done already, simply because of the uncertainty which exists. It is that uncertainty, and the delay in the placing of orders, with which I want to deal briefly. There is a complex on the part of the customer not to buy taxed goods. The obvious reason is the cost of living. There is a complex on the part of the retailer not to sell taxed goods. He does not want them upon his shelves, because they are not easy to sell. If he has them in stock and there is a reduction in the price of cotton he loses not only the amount of the reduction but the proportion of Purchase Tax he has paid. In consequence, the manufacturer is forced to make lines which do not bear Purchase Tax.
  This is a very serious matter, and it is about time that the detrimental effects of Purchase Tax in Lancashire were remedied. I hope that the Minister of State will refer to the tax indirectly, even if he
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  cannot say whether he agrees with its remission altogether. We all know the evidence which has accumulated over the years about manufacturers who make less and less of certain lines of cloth, such as poplins and really first-class furnishings. We have evidence that one firm now makes only one-tenth of the amount of furnishings it made two years ago. If the President can exert any influence whatever upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer on behalf of Lancashire I appeal to him to do so on Purchase Tax, because a remission would be in Lancashire's interests.
  During the discussions upon the Finance Act, we heard several reasons why the Chancellor should remit Purchase Tax upon goods made in Lancashire. One was that unless we have a reasonably good home trade in a certain line of cloth we cannot develop it in the export market.
  I have experienced this with fashion goods running in the home market, some at very high prices. If we were not running them in the home market we should be very diffident about trying to sell them in the export market for, if we made them for export only and anything went wrong in the export market, it is certain that we should not be able to get rid of them in the home market. I ask the President of the Board of Trade to consider this aspect of the matter. There is the question of the craftsmen engaged in the industry, too.
  Mr. Osborne:Before the hon. Member leaves the question of Purchase Tax, will he say to what extent a reduction or the abolition of Purchase Tax would help him in his business to compete with the Italians on the very lines that he says he cannot touch at the moment?
  Mr. Rhodes:It would be nothing at all, because it would not be enough to enable me to compete against the remissions of taxation that the Italians get on their cloth before it comes here.
  Mr. Osborne:Therefore, to meet the hon. Gentleman's second plea, that Purchase Tax should be reduced or abolished, would not help him one iota in his problem with Italian imports.
  Mr. Rhodes: Not with mine. I was illustrating my own case only as an example of how the market works. It

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  would not make any difference to me, but I am certain that it would to Lancashire as a whole, because we have had much evidence from people who are in the industry and who know very well the problems that it faces. There must be a home market. If there is no sale in the home market for a lot of goods, the risk is too great to consider making special lines for the export trade.
  There is nothing against abolition of Purchase Tax. The help that abolition would give to Lancashire would be considerable, and its psychological value would be even more so. It would not contribute to inflation, as it would not influence a man to buy two shirts instead of one or a woman to buy two sets of curtains instead of one. It might enable the man to buy one shirt or the woman one curtain of better quality.
  Thereby the manufacturer would be helped to do exactly what the President of the Board of Trade and the Minister of State for the Board of Trade want Lancashire to do, spur on the export trade. The admonition or advice given to Lancashire by the Minister of State was that it was an export as well as an import problem. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has also said that it is in high quality goods that we must pursue our endeavours. We are under a tremendous handicap, but if we can get Purchase Tax off this year it will be a step forward in helping Lancashire's trade.
  5.14 p.m.
  Lieut.-Colonel Wentworth Schofield: In view of the worsening positioning of the cotton trade and of the fact that many people in my constituency depend for their livelihood on the cotton industry, I thank you very much indeed, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to participate in this debate.
  As the President of the Board of Trade has pointed out, the cause of the deterioration in the position is two-fold: a decline in exports, and an increase in the import of Commonwealth and foreign-made cloth. Both these things have synchronised. For the past four or five years the demands of the home market have provided an off take of approximately 75 per cent. of the total production of the Lancashire industry. The other 25 per cent. has gone to export.
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  Last year the industry was still busy, but in the fourth quarter of the year ominous signs started to show themselves. The total exports for 1954 were 637 million square yards, of which 550 million square yards were home-produced. The balance of 87 million square yards was made up of imported textiles finished in this country and re-exported.
  By the end quarter of 1954, our export figures had fallen to a rate of approximately 440 million square yards per year. Unfortunately, during the period when our exports were falling there was a very steep rise in the imports of foreign and Commonwealth cloth. As the year proceeded, the volume of the imports increased until, at the end of the year, they were coming in at the rate of 350 million square yards a year. More than half of the imported cloth finds it way into our own home market at exceedingly low prices, and most of it enters this country duty free.
  Lancashire is worrying today because there appears to be no limit to the amount of these imports that can come in. With such a threat of cheap imports overhanging the market, it is not surprising that there has been a general loss of confidence and that, in fear of a further fall in prices, dealers buy from to hand to mouth or not at all. I do not want to dwell on the unemployment that we experienced in Lancashire before the war because of the unfair and unfettered competition from Japan, except to say that memories of those days are not easily eradicated from the minds of those who have to earn their livings in the Lancashire cotton industry.
  Before the war, Japan was the menace that Lancashire feared most, but today an even greater bogy is raising its head in the shape of India. I say "greater" because India, enjoying the privileges of Commonwealth membership, is in the very happy position of being able to send her goods into this country duty free and at prices so low as to defy competition from our own cotton industry in our own home market. This in itself is bad enough, but because of the action of the Indian Government, Indian cotton spinners are enabled to buy their raw cotton at about 10d. a lb. lower than the price which spinners in the rest of the world have to pay.

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  Whether this is right or wrong, the fact remains that it makes the selling price of the finished article at least 10d. a lb. less than it would otherwise be, if the Indian spinners had to pay the same price as other spinners. The total labour costs for spinning and weaving one lb. weight of cotton drill cloth, which is the bulk of the Indian cloth coming into this country, is about 11d. a lb. It will therefore be seen that the start given to the Indian spinners in their costs of production is so great that no degree of improved efficiency can possibly span the gap. Indeed, British producers would have to spin and weave for nothing at all before they could compete with goods of that character.
  Mr. Edward Shackleton: Do I gather from the hon. and gallant Gentleman's remarks that he does not agree with his right hon. Friend's view that this aspect of the matter is a mere technical consideration?
  Lieut.-Colonel Schofield:I do not see that that point is very relevant to my remarks. I am stating the case as I see it, as the representative of a constituency which depends for its livelihood upon the cotton industry.
  It must not be thought that Lancashire's inability to compete for these cheap imported cotton cloths is due to any inefficiency on the part of the industry. That is certainly not the case. As a matter of fact, if it were not for the assistance which is given to the Indian spinners in buying their raw cotton, Lancashire could effectively hold her own in spite of the other advantage which the Indians have in the shape of lower wages.
  Since the war vast sums of money have been expended in the cotton industry on re-equipping and modernising mill plants in Lancashire. Although the level of efficiency is by no means the same throughout the industry, even so, a great many of the mills in Lancashire today have reached a very high pitch of efficiency. But however efficient a mill may be, it could not hope to counter-balance the advantage which the Indians receive in the purchase of their raw materials.
  Let me give an example of a mill which I know very well indeed, and which has been wholly engaged in the production of cotton drill cloth for the
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  boiler-suit trade. The mill to which I refer is equipped throughout with automatic looms working double-shifts, looms which have been installed since the end of the war and are therefore completely modern. Not only does the manufacturer weave the cloth but he shrinks and dyes it himself and eventually makes it into the boiler suits which he then sells to the retailers.
  There is no such thing as a middle man's profit. But in spite of that most economical set-up, he is still beaten by no less than 5½d. a yard which, in a boiler suit taking six yards, amounts to 2s. 9d. a boiler suit. The tragedy is that in order to keep his connections in this boiler-suit trade which he has built up, that manufacturer has been compelled to stop production of that cloth from those automatic looms and buy the cheap Indian cloth which he processes and makes into the cotton drill boiler suits, in order to compete with others who buy these cheap goods.
  The thing which has upset members of the Lancashire cotton industry today, probably more than anything else, is the obvious unfairness of an arrangement which allows the duty-free entry into this country of cotton goods which in many cases are regarded as State-aided textiles from India in particular—a country which imposes insurmountable duties against the importation of any of our cotton goods.
  There is another aspect of the problem which hon. Members should not ignore, and that is the strategic value of this cotton industry in this Island of ours, and its importance in the event of war. During the last war the industry was concentrated to save manpower. The result of that concentration was that the industry was unable completely to satisfy the demands of this country for its Forces and its civilian uses, and large quantities of cotton textiles had to be imported into this country during the war and run the hazards of war at sea.
  I am informed on very good authority that even on the present output of the industry, the industry would have difficulty on its present size in completely satisfying the requirements of this country in war conditions. Therefore, I submit that we cannot possibly afford to allow this industry to dwindle so that it could not meet those needs. In the recession

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  of 1952 the industry lost about 58,000 of its labour force. If there is another recession it will lose more, and if the labour force declines too far there will be a wholesale scrapping of looms and spindles. Just as it is necessary to keep other industries intact in case of war, so it is necessary that we should rely on our own cotton textile industry to meet the needs of this country if by some mischance it is involved in war.
  The question which Lancashire is asking today is: What kind of safeguarding action do the Government envisage when they decide to take it? Whatever that may be, I hope the Government will not wait too long, or they may find that the very position which they want to avoid will be upon them.
  The most encouraging feature, I consider, is that we now know that the Prime Minister has asked to meet a delegation representative of the industry as a whole and to receive from them their proposals regarding the steps which the industry thinks should be taken. For my part, I shall wait to see what those proposals are before forming an opinion, but in any case I personally am grateful, and I am sure that Lancashire as a whole is grateful, for the action which the Prime Minister is taking.
  5.28 p.m.
  Mr. W. A. Burke: I hope to be brief because I know that many other speakers want to take part in this debate. I wish to try to show the President of the Board of Trade that while we agree with him that a rise in exports would be desirable, that is not possible because of the world difficulties of today, and therefore it is more and more imperative that steps should be taken to preserve the home trade, since it is the basis of Lancashire's future. If I refer to difficulties in the export market, it does not mean that I want tariffs or anything of that description; it is just to show the President of the Board of Trade that those difficulties are at present insurmountable.
  I am sorry that we did not get one word of advice or any suggestion from the President of the Board of Trade as to what he intends to do, except that he intends to ask the Cotton Board what it thinks about the situation. He ought to know what the Cotton Board thinks about it. It sent him word in July last year in
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  a telegram, a copy of which I have with me. The Cotton Board said that it was greatly impressed by the alarming increase in the imports of cotton cloth from India; it asked for the application of import licensing to cotton goods from India and requested that thereafter a long-term policy should be discussed with the Indian Government.
  I do not know who is coming from the Cotton Board, but the President of the Board of Trade will know Sir John Grey and Sir Frank Platt who, on the weaving and spinning side, probably know as much about cotton as any two men in Lancashire. If Sir John Grey comes, as I hope he does, I can tell the President of the Board of Trade in advance what he will say. I had put down a Question to the Minister a short time ago, and in his answer he gave a lot of figures. He had to admit that the imports from India showed an eightfold increase.
  This is what Sir John Grey said about it:
  "Mr. Burke only got evasion—and that is all you seem to be able to get from the members of this Government. They can point out that there have been big profits … but all that is based on the past working of the industry."
  That is what the Government are doing. Sir John went on:
  "It would appear to be that they will take no action until there are so many people unemployed that they cannot afford any longer to ignore it. But that is no solution for the people in the cotton industry—we all know the folly of locking stable doors after horses have gone."
  That is all we shall get, except, licences.
  It seems to us that, in view of the very rapid increase in this menace from India, the Government ought by now to have made up their mind what they are going to do about it. The employers have told them about it, and what they ought to do. The trade unions have told them. The mill managers in April last year sent a telegram to them and told them that the position was desperate. It is going from bad to worse. The T.U.C. has been warned about it, and will probably ask for a deputation to be received. I do not know whether the Prime Minister will meet that deputation, but whoever meets it can make no difference to this—that all the facts of this situation are very well known, and that it is the desire of Lancashire at the present time that something should be done.

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  When I asked the Minister of State, Board of Trade a question about the mills that had stopped in Burnley he wrote to me and questioned the suggestion that there was anything significant in the stopping of those mills. I am not going to quote the letter because I know—
  The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. A. R. W. Low): I think that the hon. Gentleman is misrepresenting me, though by mistake, I am sure. I wrote to ask to which mills he was referring in a supplementary question that he had asked me. That is all I asked.
  Mr. Burke: Then the right hon. Gentleman wrote another letter telling me that the mills I had mentioned had not really stopped. He said one of them had only had extended holidays at different times, and that the other had stopped for some reason I was asked not to mention.
  Both mills stopped because of bad trade. One of the mills stopped, and had extended holidays in September and at Christmas. The point is that even if there were extended holidays, extended holidays are a sign of short order lists. It is no answer to say that only a number of people are on short time. There are thousands of people on short time, although the fact does not show so clearly in Lancashire as in other industries in other parts of the country. The reason for that is that people are working two looms instead of four.
  The amount of unemployment is very great. In September last year, at my own labour exchange alone there were 669 unemployed people and, in addition to them, there were 204 on short time. In the area represented by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield), close to my own home, Nelson's Mill, as he will know, went on short time this week, as did also the Balderstone Mill and the Facit Mill. The Whitefield Mill at Nelson has closed, and the Bolton mills are going on short time.
  The deterioration of the situation is growing rapidly. Lancashire has told the Government over and over again that the situation is growing worse rapidly. It is now really serious. The Minister of State told us the figures for Indian imports to this country, and he said they had leaped from 16 million yards in 1953
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  to 133 million in 1954. That increase in imports has not stopped. The average was about 12½ million yards per month last year. What is it now? In the first month of 1955 the amount was 15¼ million yards. The position is getting steadily worse this year.
  The Government allowed 15¼ million yards to be imported from India and 33 million yards to be imported from all quarters in January. Do the Government know that that means the production of 45,000 looms for that month, or that such quantities would put all the mills of Burnley out of action for six weeks? That is the kind of problem which, Lancashire people say, the Government are not facing up to.
  If half of our imports from India stayed at home and the other half went abroad as exports after being processed, that would be a good move, we should thoroughly agree. It is the half that stops at home that is important. Let the Government notice this. While the amount of imports from India increased by eight times during the years 1953 and 1954, although they represented half the total volume of imports, they represented only a quarter of the value in sterling, which means that a lot of stuff is coming in here at very cheap prices. That is the sort of difficulty which Lancashire is up against.
  Lancashire needs a better break than it is having at the present time. In this House we hear a great deal of talk from time to time about Scotland's woes and Scottish Home Rule, and Welsh Home Rule as well. There are more people in Lancashire than there are in Wales—twice as many; and there are as many in Lancashire as there are in Scotland; and within 25 miles of Manchester Town Hall there is the biggest concentration of industrial population in the world, numbering five million people. It is about time their voice was heard, and it is about time the Government told them exactly what they are going to do.
  Lancashire has made a great contribution in the past. It was Lancashire's industry that first built up our country's world trade. We were the first great exporters. It is not true that Lancashire cotton trade has not adapted itself. Years ago our great markets were in India and other Far Eastern countries, but in recent years those countries have built up their

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  own domestic industries. Lancashire did not remain idle as those markets disappeared, but switched over to trading with other countries, and today half of our Lancashire cotton exports go to the Dominions and to Europe. There has been a complete change. That shows that Lancashire is ready to do the kind of thing that the right hon. Gentleman has said it should do—adapt itself.
  However, things are getting worse now. In India our competitors start with a price 10d. per lb. lower. There is competition from Hong Kong. Last year, 64 million yards came from Hong Kong. The population of Hong Kong has jumped from 800,000 before the war to over 2 million, mostly Chinese refugees working at rice bowl wages in the textile mills there. That is the sort of thing against which Lancashire cannot compete for exports. That is the kind of thing Lancashire cannot be expected to overcome in world markets.
  We say that if we cannot do any better in the markets of the world, in view of all these circumstances, of which we know the complexities, we expect the Government to do all they possibly can to protect the home trade. We expect them to do that at once—if not before.
  5.40 p.m.
  Sir Ian Horobin: Before I come to the points which I want principally to put to the House, I should like to comment on two matters which have come from the benches opposite.
  First, if the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes), who mentioned Purchase Tax, would bear with me for a second, not for the first time I find myself in almost complete agreement with him. While we all appreciate that it is impossible for anyone usefully to make statements about taxes at this season of the year, I hope the Government, while rightly impressing upon Lancashire that our hope is in quality goods, will appreciate that no industry in the country, for technical reasons into which I need not go, is worse hit by Purchase Tax in quality goods than the cotton industry.
  I do not want to make too much of a party political speech, but it does not come too well from some hon. Members opposite for them always to be harping on Purchase Tax. When they came into power Purchase Tax was bringing in less
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  than £100 million a year. By the time we got rid of them they had boosted it up to nearly £350 million a year. We have at least halved the Purchase Tax on cotton, although the sooner we get rid of it, unanimously, the better for Lancashire.
  I want to make a reference to the little interchange between the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) and the President of the Board of Trade on the proposals for a purchasing monopoly and its relation to G.A.T.T. Of course, the objections to the proposals are not confined to its relation to G.A.T.T., but so many people talk about G.A.T.T. and so few read it that I feel that I should take the point up. More people ought to do what I do, for my sins—keep it under my pillow when I go to bed. I am, of course, a bachelor.
  As hon. Members made such a point of G.A.T.T., I think it would be worth while for me to read Article XVII (a):
  "Each contracting party undertakes that if it establishes or maintains a state enterprise, wherever located, or grants to any enterprise, formally or in effect, exclusive or special privileges, such enterprise shall, in its purchases or sales involving either imports or exports, act in a manner consistent with the general principles of non-discriminatory treatment prescribed in this Agreement for governmental measures affecting imports or exports by private traders."
  If that does not explicitly make it impossible to do what the right hon. Member for Huyton proposed to do, then I do not know what would.
  I come to the only point which the right hon. Gentleman was able to make and which was chanted at intervals—jute. I am not an expert in jute, but surely the short answer is that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was drawn up at Geneva in October, 1947. The jute scheme preceded that, and all who have studied the problem will be well aware that things are tolerated under G.A.T.T. if they were in existence when the contracting parties acceded to the agreement but are afterwards explicitly and intentionally refused. I think that completely disposes both of the argument that G.A.T.T. does not make it impossible to do what the Opposition have suggested and of the argument that the jute exception invalidates the case which the President put forward.
  Having disposed shortly of that, I want to come to a more general point. It is

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  not necessary to spend much time on the background, for the Minister impressed on the House what must be borne in mind—that 1954 was a very good year. Broadly speaking, all sections of the industry were running about 90 per cent. of the 1951 boom year.
  The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Burke), who is not in his place, emphasised the difficulty in which I believe some Lancanshire Members are placed—the difficulty that very exaggerated statements have been made. He quoted from somebody—a prominent manufacturer—who said last April that the position was desperate. But the position was not desperate in April. If we are not careful—and I am not accusing hon. Members opposite, because this comes more from the employers than from the employees—we shall be faced with the fact that some members of the industry have cried Wolf so often that now, when the position is beginning slightly to deteriorate, we may have lost sympathy and shall get nothing done.
  I hope the Minister will bear with me in this because, although it has not been a popular line in the county, I have pointed out this danger more than once and have pointed out the further danger into which these members were running in making worse their principal problem, which is that of recruitment. To go out of our way to talk as though the industry were permanently in a state of desperation is not the best way of getting recruits into it.
  There has, however, been a slight deterioration recently. It is not yet anything very serious, as was candidly stated by the right hon. Member for Huyton. I should say that activity is running about 3 per cent. less than it was last year. Stocks may be going up. It is difficult to get figures, but there may be three weeks' spinners stocks held instead of two weeks'. Some mills have closed. About 15 closed last year, most of them nothing whatever to do with imports of Indian cotton cloth. It is curious, and shows the complexity of the problem, that more have closed in the fine end of the trade than in the coarse end of the trade, which shows that over-simplifications in this matter are dangerous.
  I shall have a word to say later about short time, which has increased but we
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  must again keep some sense of proportion. The latest figures are only about 2 per cent.—something like 5,000 in an industry which employs about 300,000.
  Mr. H. Hynd: That is registered short time.
  Sir I. Horobin: We can all say that; it is like the quarrel on the cost of living figures. Efforts now being made to bring the figures up to date are far more extensive than any ever made by the Board of Trade in previous Administrations, and, although I stand to be corrected when the debate is wound up, the best figures which anybody can obtain suggest that the percentage is 2 per cent. That in itself is something to which industries up and down the country are quite accustomed. We should prefer it to be the purely nominal figure which existed for a large part of last year, but it is not in itself a very great problem.
  It is well to put on record, in view of the importance of recruitment, that it is very encouraging to see that the proportion of school-leavers entering the cotton industry is holding up very well. It is not quite as high as last year, but it is very much higher than the year before. The number of places filled is also going up. It is true that there are no longer six vacancies to one application, but there are still many more vacancies than applicants—and they are not bogus vacancies, for the figures have gone up every week in the last few weeks. The vacancies are being filled.
  It is important that we should not panic in this matter and go from one extreme to the other. If that is so, why are we, moderate people in the county, getting worried? The reason is perfectly clear. We are worried not about anything which has happened hitherto but, as the right hon. Member for Huyton rightly said, about the rate of increase in these imports of grey cloth and the recent but very serious falling off in export orders. If that continues it will produce a very serious situation.
  Even there, I think we must get one or two figures right for the record. It has been said that imports of Indian grey cloth increased by six to eight times last year. That is true. But total imports have increased by less than three times. A large part of the Indian imports are

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  replacing those from other people. Nevertheless, an increase by three times is serious enough.
  The President has given the figure showing that export orders have fallen off recently in an already difficult market by about one-third, but that again shows the complexity, bcause the latest figures, the January figures, for exports are extremely good and the best for nearly a year. The January exports, both in yarn and in cloth, were higher than the average for 1954, although we must be careful about any deductions which we draw.
  Mr. Anthony Greenwood: The hon. Member would agree that large exports in January were partly accounted for by the dock strike at the end of last year?
  Sir I. Horobin:I was coming to that, but of course it works both ways; the deterioration in the last month or two of last year was partly due to the dock strike and the boost up afterwards. The reaction, I am merely putting the point, which runs through all my observations, not that there is no ground for anxiety, but that no case has been made out for panic action.
  We have already had reference to the essential need for a large part of these grey cloth imports for re-export. I must draw attention to that again, because it shows how very ill-conceived has been a great deal of the propaganda of the industry in the past. The whole of the Japanese imports are re-exported. If we did not have those and a very substantial proportion of the Indian imports, our export markets in Africa would have gone even worse than at present. The Japanese Sterling Payments Agreement, although it was not made for that reason, is the best piece of protection Lancashire has at present. Accusations of the "Black Pact," "The Sacrifice of Lancashire," look very silly at the moment. What the position of Japanese imports into our home market would be but for the Japanese Sterling Payments Agreement I shudder to think. But the right hon. Member for Huyton has been attacking us and has said that that Agreement was one of three things in one week which had produced such a serious situation.
  Mr. H. Wilson:The President of the Board of Trade made some play with the fact that in certain respects his Agreement last year followed the one we had.
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  So far as the home market was concerned, our payments Agreement also provided the protection to which the hon. Member is referring. All our pacts were in respect of the colonial market, not the home market.
  Sir I. Horobin: What has that to do with the discussion? It has already been shown—I thought it elementary and that it was admitted by the right hon. Member for Huyton and his friends when they were in office—that the Colonial Governments are now sovereign in this matter. Anglo-Japanese Sterling Payments Agreement or not, nothing can be done against the will of the Colonial Governments to stop imports there. Therefore, all the Agreement does is to affect Japanese exports to England. As the right hon. Member singled out the Japanese Agreement as one of the three deadly blows in one week, it is fair to remind him of the fact that the only influence it has is to prevent Japan doing what India is doing in our home market.
  Mr. S. Silverman: That is not its only effect.
  Sir I. Horobin: I will not pursue that matter. If the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) catches Mr. Speaker's eye, no doubt he will be able to pursue it. I think I have carried some of the House with me in that while there is reason for anxiety there is no reason for panic and that some previous proposals on the part of the industry have been ill-conceived. Before coming to the specific suggestion I want to make, may I say that Lancashire must bear in mind that all this discussion must be looked at as the background to something much wider than the Lancashire economic problem. In Lancashire it is partly a social problem as well as an economic problem, but that is equally true of the country as a whole.
  We have to look at the matter from two points of view. Firstly, there is its relation to the problem of the Foreign Secretary and, secondly, there is its relation to the problem of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. With regard to the first problem, I do not think that public opinion in this country has yet altogether woken up to the desperate salvage operation we are endeavouring to carry out in the whole of East Asia. From Japan, Siam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Indonesia right round to India we are

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  faced with a situation in which our position is almost impossible. Great Britain has enormous influence in that part of the world largely because—rightly or wrongly—they feel we are less selfishly concerned than our American friends—
  Mr. M. Follick: Because we are more honest.
  Sir I. Horobin:That may be, but the fact remains that in that part of the world we run the danger of losing the support of the whole of the remaining free part of Asia. Anything which would put this country into a head-on collision with Japan at one end of the crescent and India at the other end would make the position of the Foreign Secretary absolutely impossible. In all we recommend to Her Majesty's Government in dealing with this grave problem of Lancashire, we must bear in mind that overriding interest which may decide whether or not World War III breaks out.
  So much for the interest of the Foreign Secretary in this problem of how we treat Japan and India, but there is the Chancellor's problem which falls into two halves. It has already been pointed out that we have to pay regard to the 1939 Trade Agreement with India and to the Ottawa Agreements Act, 1932. I am convinced the more I think of this problem that anything in the nature of discriminatory action against India might have the most serious effect on our trade with India. It must be borne in mind that that affects Lancashire just as much as the rest of the country. We export very substantially. We export about five times as much machinery and electrical equipment to India as our imports of grey cloth and a lot of that is made in Preston. We export approximately the same value of vehicles to India as we export grey cloth, and a lot of that is made in Leyland. We must see that we do not go into head-on collision with the Indian Government.
  The problem goes further than that. Once, with the ill-will of the Indian Government, we reopen the 1939 Treaty and the whole of the Ottawa settlement, there will be others to be considered. The biggest single export market for Great Britain at the moment is Australia. The biggest export for cotton textiles is Australia, and Australia would welcome an opportunity of reopening the Ottawa
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  Agreements because she says she is not getting as much out of them as she used to get and that we are getting more. We have to think very carefully before reopening those Agreements or we may hear something which Lancashire will not like at all.
  It does not even stop there. I do not expect hon. Members opposite to go so far as I go on the matter of convertibility, but those of us on this side of the House who feel that convertibility is important will appreciate the importance of what I am now about to say. There is no country in the world which would have so much to gain by increasing the amount of freer trade—free to move as it will—as this country. At present—I give only one figure, because I do not want to detain the House for too long—40 per cent. of the cotton exports of this country going to foreign countries go across tariffs which are bound under G.A.T.T.
  So cotton has a specific interest, which of course is much wider in many other parts, in preserving and strengthening freer trade for which the general policy of G.A.T.T. stands. It would be a disaster if instead of 90 per cent. of liberalised European trade we went back to the 56 per cent. of four years ago. We must be careful in anything we do to meet this very genuine danger which faces Lancashire not to lose more than we gain.
  Apart from the question of Purchase Tax, we have heard of all the difficulties and warnings. What does it all amount to? I think that the President of the Board of Trade was very wise not to give his suggestions for dealing with the problem until he is in a position to give them the force of law. Let us suppose that he suggested approval for a quota. Can we imagine anything more likely to produce a flood of imports until it was actually in force? That seems a valid reason for him to wait until he can give a decision. There is no reason why back benchers who are not irresponsible in the bad sense of the word but have enough irresponsibility to make their suggestions should not make them. The more one thinks of this matter, the more one is convinced that we must avoid anything in the nature of discrimination.
  I am glad to see the right hon. Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. J. Edwards), who was with me in Japan not long ago, in his place. I think he will

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  agree with me that, taking Japan first, disappointed as Japan would be if we had to invoke Article XXXV and continue, as we are now, under the Payments Agreement—and Japan would be very disappointed—it would have nothing like the bad effects that anything discriminatory against Japan specifically would have. The Japanese are peculiarly and naturally sensitive, and the same applies to the Indians.
  If we have to do something in the nature of limitation, we stand a much better chance if we make it general and do not attempt, in the case of either Japan or India, to reopen agreements on a discriminatory basis against them in particular. My own feeling is that what Lancashire mainly needs—and in this, I think, I am not far different from the right hon. Member for Huyton—is some assurance that the present sudden increase will not go on without any limit at all. It is a question of psychology and confidence. The quantity of cotton now coming into this country, although it is a nuisance and is hurting some firms, is probably not much more than they ought to be prepared to face. What they cannot face is the prospect that it can multiply, perhaps, six times this year and again next year.
  The sort of policy which seems to me to hold out much the most hope is, not to set up complicated machinery such as is suggested by hon. Members opposite, to move by a subterfuge and to get all the disadvantages as well as any advantages, but, either by invoking Article XIX or leaving out the foreign countries and simply by a quota against Commonwealth goods, to limit temporarily the total of imports into this country from all sources which are to be retained here at something like the figure of last year.
  The sky should be the limit, as far as I can see, for imports which are to be re-exported—and I was glad to get some support in that from the hon. Member for Burnley; but for retained imports, which have increased by something like three times in a year, it does not seem unreasonable that we should say, either by Article XIX generally or by purely a Commonwealth quota, that they should be held at something like last year's figure. And while we hold them at that level, we must have discussions with the
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  Colonies and with India and Australia on this whole matter.
  One part of his speech in which I could not altogether follow my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade was in his treatment of the Indian export duty. I cannot—
  Mr. H. Wilson: Three-quarters of the hon. Member's speech has been against doing anything on Indian imports. Now he suggests general Commonwealth quotas, but would that not be denouncing the Anglo-Indian Agreement?
  Sir I. Horobin:No. There is nothing in the 1939 Agreement which deals with quotas. The 1939 Trade Agreement gives free entry as regards tariffs but—I speak subject to legal correction—I believe, not about quotas. It certainly does not refer to them. It deals with tariffs. And my suggestion is for a global oversea quota, not a quota against one country.
  This is the proposition which I am putting to the House. If we come to the conclusion that we must reassure Lancashire that there shall be no further increase in imports which are retained here on the scale of the increase which took place last year, the way which would do the least damage, both to our relations with India and Japan and to the general freer trade policy of the Government, is either to invoke Article XIX, as we are entitled to do, or, if the Government in their wisdom think it better to leave the foreign imports—which it is agreed are small—alone, impose a purely Commonwealth quota; and to call together the Indians and Australians and the Colonies and to discuss thoroughly this, what seems to me—I am bound to agree with the hon. Member for Burnley—an unfair advantage which the Indian mills have with the rest of the Commonwealth over Lancashire.
  By doing that, we might not satisfy everybody. On the other hand, nobody would have the feeling of being completely hopelessly dealt with. Japan, after all, is in a sterling surplus and does not have a real grouse if she continues as she is now for another year. India would have free import into this country for re-exports and, therefore, would have substantial trade with this country. The finishing side of the industry would not feel that it was put in a position in which it would have to lose its exports because it

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  could not buy cheaply enough; and the spinners and weavers would at least feel that they had over 90 per cent. of their home trade secured to them and would have something like a bottom in the market. The right hon. Member for Huyton said that no solution would satisfy everybody, this is a choice of evils and my suggestion seems to me to be the least evil and one which is worth well considering.
  6.6 p.m.
  Mr. H. Hynd: Lancashire has been waiting for this debate and for a gleam of hope from the President of the Board of Trade, but I very much fear that Lancashire will feel disappointed tomorrow morning when it reads the right hon. Gentleman's speech. In my opinion, his whole approach to the problem was unsatisfactory. When he has a weak case, he gets more aggressive, and perhaps his aggressive attitude prejudiced me against him in the way that he approached the matter today. Yet, when we examine what the right hon. Gentleman said, it is obvious that he realises the gravity of the situation.
  The President of the Board of Trade told us that the problems are real, serious and urgent—which, incidentally, was not quite in accordance with the speech which we have just heard from the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Sir I. Horobin). The President did, however, indicate that he was well aware of the real facts of the situation. He told us that the volume of export orders was one-third lower than a year ago. He gave the startling information in regard to the importation of grey cloth, mainly from India, that the import rate in January was still increasing; he said that it had "increased substantially." It is obvious, therefore, that the President of the Board of Trade cannot plead ignorance of the facts which have been put forward by other hon. Members since he spoke; but it is equally obvious that he does not have a clue as to a possible solution of the problem.
  I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) when he said that there should be complete unanimity as regards the first part of the Motion—
  "That this House notes with concern the serious situation which is developing in the cotton industry …"
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  —because the situation is so well known to all hon. Members. Indeed, there has been a procession of Ministers up to Lancashire in the last few weeks. We have had the three Ministers from the Board of Trade and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and now, we are told—and I am glad to hear it—the Prime Minister himself is to take an interest in the matter. I am glad that the Prime Minister is taking it out of the hands of the Board of Trade and that it will therefore be dealt with at the highest possible level.
  Mr. P. Thorneycroft: My right hon. Friend is a member of the Board.
  Mr. Hynd:We know that there are several people in the background who are technically members of the Board. If we examine far enough, I may be a member of the Board. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] At any rate, those people play just as little practical part in the working of the Board of Trade as I do.
  The fact is, and it is not too much of a flight in oratory to say it, that the cotton textile industry in Lancashire is bleeding to death. The number of spindles is steadily being reduced and everybody is getting apprehensive, as even the hon. Member for Oldham, East admitted in the latter portion of his speech. Therefore, I regard as the first victory achieved by this side of the House in having put down the Motion today the fact that at last the Prime Minister himself is to meet the Cotton Board and discuss the situation.
  We have had this double blow, first to the export market, and secondly to the import market. It is no good the President of the Board of Trade treating very lightly the effect of the Japanese Trade Agreement on the export market and making the debating point, as, no doubt, he is entitled to do, that the Japanese Trade Agreement was originally negotiated by a Labour Government. The Agreement was re-endorsed last year. At that time there was a debate in this House when some pessimistic forecasts were made and certain warnings were given. We then received assurances from the other side of the House that we were far too pessimistic about the possible effects of that Agreement. Now we are told that not only has it had a devastating effect on our export trade, but that there is very

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  little we can do about it and that the Colonies and other people have a perfect right to choose where they will buy their goods.
  We suggested at that time that the opportunity should have been taken when the Japanese Trade Agreement came up for reconsideration to look at some of those possible consequences and try to forestall them. That is exactly what we are trying to do again today. It is perfectly true, as some hon. Members have said, that the situation in Lancashire has not reached anything like the position in 1952, and still less that of pre-war, but all the signs are there for the world to read. The writing is on the wall, and I submit that the industry and others who are interested in Lancashire are perfectly entitled to ask the Government now to take measures before things get too bad. That is the whole object of this debate.
  "The Times" on the 14th of last month told us that last year the imports of Indian grey cloth reached a total of 128 million square yards, an eight-fold increase as already mentioned today, and it pointed out that this was the equivalent in Lancashire of three to four weeks' production. The article went on to say that:
  Lancashire
  "has always assumed a stable home market absorbing about three-quarters of its total production. That position is now threatened."
  That is a serious situation with which we are faced, and "The Times" told us, in the same article, that:
  "Lancashire feels mutinous. … There is now a lack of confidence in the Government, because of the rapidly rising imports of Indian grey cloth into the home market. … Already some nine cotton employers have resigned office in their local Conservative associations."
  I am not suggesting that that is a disaster either to Lancashire or the country, but it may be taken into consideration by the Government. The Government cannot now shelter behind treaties, because, as the hon. and gallant Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) pointed out, they have since the war encouraged the industry to invest a considerable amount of money in modern machinery and, therefore, there is a moral responsibility on the Government to pursue a policy which will enable the industry to indulge in fair trading.
  In my own division, I have been making inquiries among the trade unions
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  concerned, and they all indicate that there is a general slow-down. May I give one instance of a spinning mill which has a capacity of 100,000lb. per week, and which has been deliberately slowing down to the rate of 80,000 lb. per week in order to retain its workers? Not only is this mill slowing down its production but it is having to change over from coloured yarns to white because dealers are becoming nervous about laying in stocks of coloured materials. That is all resulting in a reduction in the earnings of the workers. It is also significant that the reduction is not being put fully into effect in accordance with the price lists. The employers dare not put the full reduction of wages into effect because they would lose their workers to other industries, so, in order to retain these workers, they are paying them more than they are actually entitled to pay on the agreed list.
  That kind of thing, multiplied throughout the various constituencies, is obviously having a very detrimental effect. I should like to give some evidence of that, not from this side of the House at all, but from the presidential address of the President of the Blackburn and District Incorporated Chamber of Commerce. I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Blackburn, West (Mr. Assheton) has just left the Chamber. I do not suppose that the President of the Chamber, Mr. T. Guy Aspden, is a supporter of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, East (Mrs. Castle)—[HON. MEMBERS; "Why not?"]. I should be very surprised if he is. This is what he says in his presidential address.
  "Lancashire's textile people are angry, and anxious at the delay in an announcement of the future policy of the Government. We seek no unreasonable protection …"
  He says that the complaint is with regard to the import of so-called "British" cloth.
  "This cloth is imported under Open General License, and there is no restriction whatsoever on the quantity which can come in … but imports of cloth are increasing every month … Lancashire asks the Government, what is your long-term policy?"
  We had a policy suggested by my right hon. Friend this afternoon. The President of the Board of Trade poured scorn on it, but I noticed that he did not produce an alternative policy of his own, and I suggest that until he can produce a better policy he should not be quite so contemptuous of what I consider to be the

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  practical suggestions made by my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. Aspden, in his address, went on to say:
  "Can the nation afford to allow this large industry to run down? … The industry will never tolerate a repetition of such conditions …"
  This is really an indictment of the Government by people who would normally be their most faithful supporters, and when that kind of thing is being said from Conservative quarters in the county, I suggest that the Government ought to sit up and take notice.
  In fact, since this Motion was tabled I have had a telegram, as no doubt other hon. Members have had, from the Blackburn Chamber of Commerce inviting me to consider voting against the Government if effective action is not announced. [Laughter] As effective action has not been announced, I am sorely tempted to accept this invitation.
  We do not want to concentrate this debate entirely upon the subject of Indian cloth. The aspect of Purchase Tax is an important one. As it has already been dealt with, I will say no more about it. The aspect of the import of yarns from various countries, as revealed in a written answer yesterday, has been mentioned, and it ought to be taken seriously into consideration. I will content myself by saying that I hope that the Government will not take refuge in the fact that figures at the employment exchanges and elsewhere do not reveal a situation as bad as it was years ago. Let them rather look at all the evidence which has been laid before them from both sides of the industry to see if they cannot prevent us going back to 1952, and, still worse, going back to those bad old days before the war.
  6.19 p.m.
  Sir Harold Sutcliffe: The telegram which the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) has quoted blends very well, I think, with the atmosphere generally in this House during the debate. It makes all the more nonsensical the idea that we are debating a Motion of censure. I cannot recall that any speaker so far, including the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), has said anything which is in anyway a censure on the Government's
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  action or inaction. The point is, of course, that the debate is taking place far too soon; the Opposition have stepped in too early. No wonder the right hon. Gentleman was distressed at Monday's leading article in the "Manchester Guardian," a newspaper which he was at pains to quote once or twice. It said:
  "This, like the other censure debate that went wrong a fortnight ago, illustrates how the party has lost its moorings. It is trying so hard to think of things that will catch votes."
  That is obviously the reason for this Motion of censure, but that reason has been very largely demolished during the first two hours of the debate by what has been said by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and others.
  The fact that a conference will be held very shortly with the Cotton Board, the trade union representatives and others connected with the industry, at which the Prime Minister himself will take the chair, surely shows that the Government intend to do all they possibly can in this matter. They have been active in their consideration of the subject for many months past, as everybody knows.
  The difficulties are in some ways almost insuperable. We live in a very different world from that in which we lived before 1939. Our hands are tied in many respects by trade agreements and agreements of one kind or another. Any Government in this country have a very different task now compared with the tasks which faced Governments then, when dealing with the difficulties of an industry like the cotton industry. My right hon. Friend dealt most effectively with the ideas of the Opposition that there should be Government control, imports, such as is now being operated in the jute industry. There is no need therefore for me to go further into that matter. My right hon. Friend demolished the argument completely. The jute industry is on a totally different footing.
  I want to make one or two points about the general situation. It has been said in some quarters that over the industry as a whole trade is not at all bad, and therefore the difficulties may be exaggerated. But that is certainly not the case with regard to many of the smaller towns. I am thinking of towns like Roy-ton, which has 20 spinning mills, and Shaw, in my constituency, which has a

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  similar number and very little employment outside the cotton industry.
  It is in places like that that the pinch will be, and, indeed, already is being, felt. There is not in those towns the diversity of industries or the large engineering works which now employ so many in the county. We have to consider places like that where all the people have been nurtured in the cotton industry for generations, and undoubtedly order books are very low at present.
  One or two factors especially hurt the trade. One is the 3d. per yard Indian subsidy on the raw material. When that is applied to a yard which costs Is. 3d., it makes it quite impossible for the industry in this country to compete. The shops are afraid to buy our goods in case the cheaper Indian goods come in later. Exports are described as scrappy and an important contract is quite an event. The quantities that are being ordered are modest in the extreme. The majority of the mills are stocking up because they cannot sell their production. That is a very serious matter indeed.
  The doubling section of the industry is not affected by Indian competition but this section is greatly affected by another factor in present conditions. One mill has been mentioned already. Another mill in the same valley of Whitworth is closing down very shortly because it cannot sell the yarn which it produces at the rate of 15,000 lbs. per week. Imports from Portugal, Belgium and Holland are the reason for this state of affairs. Portugal is the chief offender. This is a real tragedy and it is unconnected with the other events of which we have heard today. The condition of the home industry is due to what really amounts to dumping. I think, as indeed the Government have possibly been considering, that a quota should be applied on the grounds that this is dumping and as such should be stopped.
  I see that 764 people left the cotton industry last year although it was in many ways a prosperous year. I believe that these people came largely from the doubling section of the industry. We are, therefore, losing some of our best workers and our best production in the finer counts. They are goods which we particularly want because it is in those counts that we hope to capture export markets again. I hope, therefore, that my right
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  hon. Friend will pay special attention to this section of the trade.
  As the President of the Board of Trade mentioned, quotas will be among the subjects which will come before the proposed conference. I believe that we shall have to consider seriously the application of quotas against India. Has any real pressure been applied already against India to make, or cajole, her to alter the present scheme of things?
  Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: I am sure that my hon. Friend will remember last July, I think, when he and I and one or two other of our colleagues on this side of the House at about 2 a.m. were pressing the then Minister of State, Board of Trade, now the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, who replied that a great deal of pressure had been put on India even then. I do not think, therefore, that my hon. Friend needs to inquire whether pressure has been put on India in this connection.
  Sir H. Sutcliffe: I am very much obliged for the assistance of my hon. Friend, and I am glad to have a reassurance on that point. If I may say so, one could not use too much pressure in connection with this matter, and I think it is a point that should be mentioned.
  I want to reinforce what has been said by one or two hon. Members on both sides of the House, and to draw the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to this question of Purchase Tax. I agree that steps cannot be taken immediately for reasons which we all know, but it is penalising good quality cloth and good quality goods. The public is resisting it, the shopkeepers are resisting it—there is a tremendous amount of clerical work concerned with it—and altogether, it is depressing the class of goods that are being sold.
  It is true to say that it is not likely to increase inflation because people will not buy two shirts or two frocks where they now buy one. They will buy a rather better quality shirt or frock. We are more or less compelling a large number of people to buy inferior goods in order to save Purchase Tax, because people will not pay and shopkeepers will not stock goods which bear Purchase Tax. We are depreciating a whole range of cotton goods by a continuation of the tax.

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  I know that the financial results are good and it has probably been essential, but I urge my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to give this subject very special consideration. I know that the total abolition of the tax on textiles would cost some £80 million, but if my right hon. Friend could go part of the way it would help considerably. It would stimulate demand in the home market, and, therefore, it would increase our ability to compete in markets abroad, because it would enable mills to make the "long runs," as they are called, which mean continuous production, in better goods. That is the only way of making goods at the lowest price.
  I was very glad to have the assurance of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade that the Government are doing much more than watching the situation. The time has gone past for watching situations. The time has arrived for some action to be taken if and where such action is possible. We all want the same thing, but we do not want to do anything rash, because we may do more harm than good. We all stand for the good of the industry and for every person employed in it. I welcome what has been said today and I hope that the most active steps will be taken at the earliest opportunity.
  6.33 p.m.
  Mr. F. Blackburn: One has some difficulty in realising from the last three speeches we have heard from the other side of the House that they came from Members of the same party representing the same county. I thought at one stage that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Heywood and Roy ton (Sir H. Sutcliffe) was deciding that there was no emergency at all and that the anxiety was merely on the part of hon. Members on this side of the House. I think that he will find that our anxieties are shared by many of his hon. Friends and even by Conservative organisations in Lancashire, to one of which I shall make reference in a moment.
  There are two points on which I shall be following the hon. Gentleman. The first is the question of Purchase Tax and the other the question of the doubling trade. I shall come to both of them later, because I want to make my own speech in my own way.
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  My complaint against the Government is that they seem to think that they have solved a problem if they express their sympathy, say that they are keeping a close watch on events and then try to minimise the seriousness of the situation. I am sure that we are all glad that the President of the Board of Trade is sufficiently well to come here to be shot at, but I suggest that if he wants to feel sympathy for the cotton industry he should change constituencies with one of his hon. Friends and should mix with our people and learn at first hand of their anxieties about the present trend of events.
  I am always sceptical when I hear the Government say that they are keeping a close watch on events. It usually means that unless there is some catastrophic change they intend to take no action. A mere gradual deterioration seems to mean nothing to them. I would remind the President that it is no comfort to those who are unemployed or on short time to be told that others are in full work.
  In replies given in this House by the right hon. Gentleman and the Minister of State, Board of Trade, and in the correspondence which I have had with the Minister of State, there has been a continual attempt to minimise the seriousness of the situation. That is precisely the charge made by the "Manchester Guardian"—we can call the "Manchester Guardian" to our side this time—in its Trade Notes on 4th February. I should like to read what it said on the day following the answers given in the House by the President of the Board of Trade. It said:
  "In his replies in the House of Commons yesterday to questions about the imports of Indian grey cotton cloth, Mr. Peter Thorneycroft, the President of the Board of Trade, was careful to give figures and comparisons which minimised the growth and size of those imports and the seriousness of the danger which they represent to the cotton industry in Lancashire. His treatment of the subject has made a very bad impression among traders, who had hoped for some indication of remedial action but who were given instead only quibbles about statistics."
  I am glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman has returned to the Chamber, because I intend to make some reference to the interchange which took place between him and my right hon. Friend about what the President actually said in the House on the subject of the increase

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  in imports. Perhaps it would be better not to use my own words, but to refer to this article on the subject in the "Manchester Guardian":
  "To speak, as Mr. Thorneycroft did, of a 'slight increase,' when the imports from India rose in fact from less than 16 million yards in 1953 to an annual rate of 130 million yards in 1954 is to suggest that he is trying to evade the issue. To state, as he also did, that total imports of grey cloth in 1954, which were 236 million yards, were only 'slightly above the average for the previous six years' is to conceal that the average for the previous two years was only 110 million yards and to ignore that in the four years before that the imports were needed to supplement the supplies for export by an industry which could not otherwise have met all the home and overseas demands which were put on it."
  The President of the Board of Trade is well aware that it is misleading to compare the position today with that of a year or two prior to 1951; and to say that the increase in imports of foreign grey cloth was less than I per cent. of the total cloth production of Lancashire—he will persist in forgetting Cheshire—is incorrect. The increase in imports of foreign grey cloth in 1954 compared with 1953 was 160 million yards, which represents 8 per cent. of a total production here of 1,993 million yards. The 1 per cent. refers to the average for the previous six years.
  Then the President seems to think that there is little unemployment or short time. I will quote from a letter sent by the managing director of a firm in my constituency, and in doing so I would point out that I received this letter four months after the first letter sent by this gentleman. He wrote:
  "We are still running only four days per week and unfortunately we have also had to stop a third of our machinery; our total production being thus somewhat under 50 per cent., and from the information I can get from other Doublers, this situation is pretty general throughout the trade. Some firms being infinitely worse off than us, some being slightly better off. …I notice from the Press that, according to Mr. Thorneycroft, there is very little unemployment or short-time working in the Cotton Trade. This is rather staggering when, if you will take Stalybridge alone"—
  As all hon. Members know, Stalybridge is rather a small town but its importance far exceeds its size—
  "I know of one Spinning Mill which has been on three days a week and is now closed for a week or a fortnight and another Spinning Mill is on three days a week as well as ourselves being on four days a week with some machinery stopped. Another Doubling Mill in
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  Stalybridge has some operatives working only a three or four day week."
  In pressing the Government to take some action to relieve the present position, I am not overlooking the fact that there is action which the industry would take. But whatever is done by the industry itself, it could never compete with the cheap cloths and yarns which are being brought into this country. The merchants, of course, are only taking advantage of a policy of laissez faire. If the Government set the people free to put profits first and foremost, they must anticipate the results, and the results in this case are somewhat disastrous for the cotton industry.
  The President of the Board of Trade has told us, and the Amendment hints at the fact, that whilst the cotton industry may be suffering in our trade agreements there are compensations to other sections of our economy. We do not dispute that, but if the cotton industry is expected to carry the burden for the rest of the country, we have the right to expect special consideration and help from the Government.
  Reference has already been made to Purchase Tax and it is not necessary for me to stress the importance of that aspect. If the President of the Board of Trade has been too busy preparing for this debate to read the article in today's "Manchester Guardian," I suggest that he makes a special study of it. The abolition of the Purchase Tax would stimulate sales and would increase the production of quality goods, with beneficial effects on our export trade, as has already been pointed out.
  The difficulties of the cotton trade are not peculiar to our own country. I realise that other countries have their difficulties also. I have recently been in Japan and therefore I can fully appreciate the difficulties with which she is faced. Some 35 per cent. of her economy is dependent upon textiles. She has lost her former markets in China, Manchuria and Korea and she has a pressing problem to provide for her huge population, which is increasing at the rate of 13 million persons per year. Therefore Japan is anxious for our help, but while we have every sympathy for her, we cannot be expected to solve her problems at the expense of unemployment for our own people.

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  I shall say little about the problem of Indian cloth because that aspect is being dealt with fully by other speakers. However, in emphasising the major problem of cloth, there is a danger of overlooking the serious situation facing our spinning and doubling trade through the importation of cheap foreign yarn, as the hon. Member for Heywood and Royton said. I have had some correspondence with the Minister of State, Board of Trade, on this subject and I do not think he will be surprised when I tell him that I have found his replies completely unsatisfactory.
  In answer to a Parliamentary Question yesterday the right hon Gentleman gave me the figures of imports of cotton yarns for 1953 and 1954. These were, from Egypt in 1953, 33,000 lb., in 1954, 1,539,000 lb.; from Portugal, none in 1953, 1,753,000 lb. in 1954; from Italy, 1,404,000 lb. in 1953, 2,080,000 lb. in 1954; from Belgium, 377,000 lb. in 1953, 1,679,000 lb. in 1954; from the Netherlands, in 1953, 319,000 lb. and in 1954, 1,205,000 lb.; from the Irish Republic in 1953, 84,000 lb. and in 1954, 328,000 lb., making a total for 1953 of 2,217,000 lb. and in1954, 8,584,000 lb.—practically a fourfold increase.
  Although these figures may represent a small proportion of our production, a fourfold increase in one year must have an unsettling effect and create fears for future trends. I am not suggesting that all the difficulties of the doubling trade are caused by these increased imports, but obviously they are having a serious effect, particularly since the yarn is being sold at prices with which we could not compete unless our operatives worked without wages.
  I am informed that the price at which the imported yarn is sold is between 20d. and 25d. a lb. below the price at which it can be produced in this country, and 12d. per lb. below the price at which a similar yarn could be sold if made from a shorter stapled single yarn spun from American cotton.
  In his last letter to me the Minister of State, Board of Trade, wrote:
  "Certain schemes operated by the Egyptian Government, the sterling entitlement account in particular, might be enabling yarn exporters to quote particularly low prices. We have made strong representations to the Egyptian Govern-
  512
  ment with a view to getting them to end at any rate the sterling entitlement account, and the Trade Mission which has just left Egypt had the opportunity of pressing the matter directly."
  When the Minister replies to the debate I shall be glad if he will say whether there has been any result from those representations.
  In his attempts to minimise the difficulties of the doubling trade, the Minister of State informed me that the output of doubled yarn for the week ended 22nd January was above the average for 1954. That may well be, but it could mean much or little. We should need to know the counts of yarn being produced because, if they are very coarse counts, the weight is naturally higher.
  I should like to go into more detail about the imported yarns but I shall curtail my remarks because many other hon. Members wish to speak and in any case I have made my point.
  Interest in this House in the position of the industry is not confined to Labour Members; supporters of the Government are also seriously concerned about it. I have in my hand a report of the annual meeting of the Middleton Conservative Association which was addressed by the hon. Baronet the Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Sir J. Barlow). I am glad the hon. Baronet is in his place, because I had informed him that I would refer to the report of that meeting and I shall read a resolution which it passed unanimously. In his speech the hon. Baronet said:
  "We have officers of the Conservative Party in the division who have resigned from the party because they were so dissatisfied with the action of the Government in this matter. That is going to extremes. But I have a right to criticise the Government for the insufficient attention they have paid to textiles."
  I hope that all hon. Members opposite will agree with what the hon. Baronet said.
  I should like now to call attention to the resolution which was passed at the meeting:
  "The Middleton Conservative Association at its annual meeting, after discussing the textile industry, has come to the conclusion that the present recession in trade is not in the nature of the normal ebb and flow of trade but is the beginning of a definite change in the textile trade unless the Government take immediate steps to counteract this trend.
  This meeting further records its disappointment in view of the visit of the Chancellor of

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  the Exchequer, the President of the Board of Trade and the Minister of State, that apparently nothing tangible is being done to support the textile trade against cheap overseas competition."
  Mr. S. Silverman: Have they been expelled yet?
  Mr. Blackburn: The resolution went on:
  "This meeting further records that such inaction is likely to lead to unemployment."
  It is quite obvious that the hon. Baronet cannot vote for the Government's Amendment, which asks us to approve intentions. It would appear that if he came into the Lobby with us, he would have the support of the Middleton Conservative Association.
  I have a final quotation which, I am afraid, will worry Lord Woolton. One of the speakers at the meeting said:
  "… that canvassers had found that old subscribers would not subscribe again until the Government did something about the cotton trade."
  I call special attention to his next sentence:
  "What value did the Government place on Lancashire folks?"
  The question is, indeed: "What value do the Government place on Lancashire and Cheshire folk?"
  So far, the Government have done nothing to help the industry. I wish that I had time to deal with the Amendment in detail, but it is time I finished speaking. My right hon. Friend has put forward a scheme; obviously, the President is against it. We shall be satisfied if the President of the Board of Trade will himself bring forward a better scheme, for he will then have the support of this side of the House, but immediate action is called for.
  6.53 p.m.
  Mr. F. J. Erroll: I am sure that we all very much enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn), particularly inasmuch as he spoke for Cheshire as well as for Lancashire. I will not try to go with him into his examination of the affairs of the Middleton Conservative Association, because I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Sir J. Barlow) will be able to explain matters if he is successful in catching Mr. Speaker's eye.
  Mr. Blackburn:I am sure that the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich would agree entirely with everything that was said at the meeting. I do not think there is any quarrel about it. I agree entirely with the hon. Baronet.
  Mr. Erroll: I think we can leave my hon. Friend to develop that theme for himself.
  I wish to refer to the remarks of the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde about short-time working. I am sure we are all very distressed to hear the extent of the short-time working which he has described, particularly in his own constituency, but could he explain whether the operatives who are working short-time are paid only for the short-time or whether those who are working four days a week are being paid for a five-day week, because it makes it much better if it is the latter?
  Mr. Blackburn: It does not make any difference at all to the fact that there is short-time working in the industry. I do not see the hon. Members' point.
  Mr. Erroll: I think that the parties concerned would see the point of whether for doing four days' work they are being paid for four days or five days.
  Mr. Blackburn: Surely what we are discussing is the possible recession in the textile industry. We are not discussing whether men are working four days a week and being paid for five days.
  Mr. Erroll: I will let the point pass, but I am sure it makes a considerable difference to the workers concerned whether they are being paid for a full week or for part-time work.
  Mr. G. Lindgren: No, it does not.
  Mr. Erroll: Before I turn to my main remarks, I should like to refer to the opening speech made by the hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson). We are accustomed to hearing many witty remarks from him, but I thought that this afternoon he was not so witty but rather more waspish than usual. I should not like to allow his remarks about the Parliamentary Secretary to pass. My hon. Friends and I have a very high regard for the Parliamentary Secretary. For myself, I always enjoy listening to my

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  hon. and learned Friend's speeches from the Dispatch Box, particularly as they are cogent, lucid and extremely forceful. I cannot agree at all with what the former President of the Board of Trade had to say about my hon. and learned Friend.
  I am sure we all appreciate the concern that has been expressed this afternoon about the problems which beset the cotton textile industry. At the same time, it is as well for us to remember that other industries have their problems too and occasionally suffer from periods of short-time working, shrinkage of export markets, or, indeed, from the flow of cheap imports into the country. The Lancashire textile industry is by no means alone in this matter, but it is almost unique in constantly complaining to the Government for the Government to do something about it. What my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Sir I. Horobin) said is particularly appropriate, that it is a great mistake to complain too much about one's troubles because one only drives away would-be entrants into the industry and brings about an atmosphere of depression and despair out of all proportion to the actual difficulties.
  While difficulties may exist, it is not fair to assume that they all spring, or very largely spring, from the imports of Indian textiles. That will be, and, indeed, is, a factor, but it is not necessarily the only factor. If we are to be mesmerised into concentrating on this factor we may ignore other factors which also have an influence. I do not claim to be able to say what all the factors may be, but I suggest that we should be wrong to concentrate solely on the problem of the importation of Indian textiles.
  I well remember how 18 months ago we were all being told how the agreement with the Japanese, whereby they could make strictly limited imports into the British Colonial Territories, would do a great deal of harm to the Lancashire textile industry. In fact, Japanese imports into Colonial Territories are now running at a lower rate than they were 18 months ago, and so the agreement can hardly be said to have done much harm, although it is one of the bogies which is trotted out against, and in face of, all the facts to illustrate the problems of Lancashire.
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  Certain facts about the industry need to be stated, particularly the very considerable benefits that the industry has received since the war, far greater benefits than most other industries. There was shortly after the war the very extensive spinning re-equipment subsidy which enabled a good deal of re-equipment in the spinning industry to be carried out with the aid of Government money. One of the factors which was going to help in the re-equipment was the introduction of double-shift working. I think it is a great pity that the workers in the industry have not responded in the same way as the employers and the Government in playing their part in making the industry more efficient with the full use of post-war equipment.
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke:Does not my hon. Friend appreciate that in the cotton industry, unlike almost all other industries, the majority of the workers are women and that the question of shift working with women raises social problems different from the problems in other industries?
  Mr. Erroll:I can only say that it is surprising that such points were not made clear at the time when hon. Members on both sides of the House were in favour of double-shift work. There was also a substantial reduction in Purchase Tax rates and the introduction of the D scheme, but we are still told that Purchase Tax is—
  Mr. Richard Fort: The D scheme was forced on the industry in order to raise money for the Revenue and was in no way to benefit the industry.
  Mr. Erroll:I can hardly deal fully with the D scheme without taking too long, but it was the gap in quality between Utility goods and Purchase Tax goods that led to Lancashire's pressing for the D scheme, or its equivalent. I can only say that if Lancashire did not like the D scheme I have heard no complaints about it, or any demand that the D scheme should be removed and the old scheme reintroduced. That would be infinitely worse.
  While Purchase Tax is a factor, it is by no means a major factor, as one can see by going into a shop. One will find that very rarely is the customer interested in whether an article bears tax or not, and very rarely does the retailer know whether

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  it is taxed or not. The extent to which retailers are shy of taxed goods arises largely because of Lancashire's shouting about Purchase Tax and making everybody wary of it. If Lancashire would use its energies to say that the tax was a relatively small item in the retailer's establishment and could therefore be ignored, it would find that it was far less of an obstacle than it is made out to be.
  On the specific Indian matter, I quite agree with all that has been said about the importance of trying to persuade the Indian Government to lower the tariff on English textiles whichwe are exporting to that country. I hope that further pressure can be brought to bear on the Indian Government to help in that direction. At the same time, we must remember that India takes a large volume of goods from us. If we are going to try to keep her textiles out of England, how is she going to be able to pay for what she takes from us? There must be some degree of reciprocity between the two countries.
  I am quite sure that Lancashire does not want to secure benefits for herself at the expense of the rest of England. Any drastic protection for Lancashire textiles would undoubtedly result in the taking of severe measures against some of our extremely important exports. We export to other countries whose labour costs are higher than ours and we appear to them as the Indian textile producer appears to us. They would just love to have the opportunity of clamping restrictive tariffs or quotas on our exports, if we set them an example by doing the same in respect of Indian textiles coming into this country. We ought to move very carefully before we see our own exports being restricted in that way. I should like to give the House a couple of brief examples, of which the bicycle trade is one.
  We are exporting about £12 million worth of bicycles to the United States of America at present and there have been two applications to the United States Tariff Board for increases in their domestic tariff to keep out British imported bicycles. These applications have been resisted so far, but if we set an example in respect of textiles, we may well find our bicycles are being kept out of America.
  Similar arrangements apply to India, to which country we export some £100
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  million worth of engineering goods and chemicals a year. If we proceed to discriminate against Indian goods coming to this country, we cannot complain if we find discrimination applied to the very much larger volume of British goods going to India. Much the same argument can be used for Australia which has relatively high labour costs compared with this country and in which country there is constant clamour for protective tariffs for their own domestic industries. If we set the example, Australia and other sterling area countries will follow suit.
  In all this we have not heard very much about the British consumer. Surely the British consumer has the right to textiles at the lowest possible cost. Any measure of protection for the Lancashire textile industry is protection secured at the expense of the British housewife and the British consumer of textiles. While in the long run it may be necessary to secure such protection, let us be in no doubt at whose cost it will be achieved.
  7.5 p.m.
  Mrs. Barbara Castle: There has been a remarkable dichotomy in the speeches of hon. Members opposite during the course of the debate. They have obviously been torn between the desire to play down the problem of Lancashire to save the Government's face and the realisation that if they play it down too much, they will be in trouble with their own supporters.
  We had the hon. Member for Heywood and Royton (Sir H. Sutcliffe) telling us that it was ridiculous to call this a Motion of censure. As I listened to him, I began to wonder why he imagined we were having the debate. Did he think that it was invented as a piece of malice and spite by this side of the House? He obviously did not listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) who pointed out that there was strong censure of the Government which had not originated on these benches, but in the firms in Lancashire, among employers and trade unions. This debate has reflected the censure which has been mounting in Lancashire—outside the House.
  I should like to remind the hon. Member of the telegram which my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington read. It was from the President of the Blackburn

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  Chamber of Commerce. I got a similar telegram, too. I am under the same instruction, which I will read:
  "Blackburn and District Chamber of Commerce, considers you should vote against Government if effective action is not announced Wednesday."
  That is clear enough. Reference has already been made to some devastating criticisms of the Government that have been coming not from party opponents of the Government, but from the men in the industry itself, the employers and from people like Mr. Aspden, of the Blackburn Chamber of Commerce, who normally represents a point of view very different from ours. Let me read one paragraph of his speech which is a complete vindication of our action in putting down the Motion. After having elaborated the problems of Lancashire, and the representations that have been made on Purchase Tax and unfair competition and the rest of it, Mr. Aspden says:
  "The only answer to date has been a coordinated chorus of platitudes from Ministers at various levels of importance—intermingled with vague references to the restrictive effects of G.A.T.T., the Ottawa Agreement, and the India Act, 1939—which invokes the thought that there is no policy at all, other than one of drift, and a Micawber-like hope that something will turn up to keep the troublesome Lancashire spinners and manufacturers quiet."
  So we have it on his evidence that it is the Lancashire spinners and the Lancashire manufacturers who are in effect moving the Motion of censure on the Government, and I am very happy to be their instrument on this occasion.
  We were told by the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Sir I. Horobin) that he did not want any panic action. He need not worry, he is not likely to get any action at all from this Government. He told us that all these difficulties—and the hon. Member for Altrincham and sale (Mr. Erroll) echoed this—arose because Lancashire keeps crying, "Wolf, wolf," and creating worse difficulties by her panic propaganda. The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale seems to proceed on the assumption that if we do not talk about the problem, it will not be there.
  Of course it is there. I want quite soberly to give the House the picture that I was given in my constituency last weekend in preparation for this debate, a picture I got after consultation with the local employment exchange, local trade unions
  520
  and local firms. The situation is one with which the Government must deal and with which it must deal rapidly by effective action. I do not suppose that Blackburn is necessarily one of the most seriously affected areas in Lancashire at the moment.
  None the less, in Blackburn, on 4th February, the Longshaw Mill closed down completely. It is not reopening. It was weaving better-class goods like furnishing fabrics and dress cloths. On 11th March, another mill, which had been operating a double day-shift on automatic looms, making twills, drills, plains and tickings for home and export, stopped weaving. The reason given to the operatives was that the firm had no orders on then-books. The firm blames that situation on Indian cloth imports. In another part of the area, a doubling mill has gone on to a four-day week. A spinning mill in the employment exchange area has put 33 women on to a four-day week, until further notice.
  Another mill in Blackburn, which is one of the largest Jacquard weaving units in the country, has been on a four-day week since 28th January. On 18th February, it started laying half its weavers one week off in five, under the local agreement. It is now about to stop almost half its machinery.
  This will mean two things: first there will be the immediate consequence, unemployment; and, secondly, there will be the future difficulties of starting up again when the President of the Board of Trade has been galvanised into action by Members in all parts of the House.
  I have talked to firms in my constituency about the situation. They say that the last mill to which I have referred is not untypical of a large number of firms, which are now beginning to come to the end of the order books which have kept them going, and which had cushioned them from the effects of the increasingly shrinking trade. The directors of the firm to which I have referred associated the crisis which is facing their mill with the importation of foreign cloth, particularly from India. They blame not only present cloth imports but the general degeneration of market confidence which uncertainty as to quantity of imports and the price level at which they will come in has created.

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  While I was in my constituency the executive of the Amalgamated Association of Beamers, Twisters and Drawers met me and talked about the situation. Men from the whole area gave me their views. Hon. Members representing Lancashire constituencies have already given us a very grim and challenging picture for the area. Admittedly, there is no large-scale and obvious unemployment at this stage, but it is a picture of firms who have put up the one week's notice which they have to put up under the local agreement, and who are keeping it up indefinitely so that they can lay off workers when necessary. Firms are stopping for a week here and there, or are on a four-day week. There are firms who frankly admit that they are running on existing orders and that when those orders are exhausted they have no more in prospect.
  I was told that one of the most modern mills in Lancashire, re-equipped recently at a cost of between a quarter to half a million pounds, is stopping next week. The reason given to the operatives is "owing to the difficulty in filling order books."
  In these circumstances, I was astonished to read in "The Times" this morning a leading article which might have come direct from the Board of Trade. It said that
  "there have been no real signs of fresh underemployment in the industry, since the big increase in Indian imports took place."
  I can only suggest that the gentleman who wrote that is not in touch with the facts as we are on this side of the House who know intimately the conditions in our constituencies. I have given evidence from my own constituency which shows that the leader writer is wrong.
  The official employment figures are not a fair and full reflection of what is happening. Part-time workers who are laid off do not report to the employment exchange. Many women in my constituency working on evening shifts prefer, if the mill lays them off, to stay idle for a time. They want to stay with the mill because they are familiar with it. It may be just around the corner and they do not want to register at the employment exchange perhaps to be sent to temporary work elsewhere and miss the chance of going back to the mill. Non-insured married women do not register anyway.
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  Whereas before there were vacancies, now the vacancies list has dried up in a new and alarming fashion. One trade union representative told me, "The uncertainty is eating into the soul of Lancashire again." That is the essence of the situation.
  All we have had from the President of the Board of Trade this afternoon was the statement that this was not the time to make final judgments. The right hon. Gentleman seemed none the less to be making some pretty sweeping judgments, but all were negative. He told us what I expected to hear from him, that this was more of an export than an import problem. That has been the answer to all the representations we have made on unfair competition from Indian imports. We have always had the answer that Lancashire's problem is due to the shrinking of the export trade, and I am not surprised that the right hon. Gentleman stated that in the House once again. It enables him to plead that he cannot take action but must "reflect further" in order not to injure the export trade of other industries in Lancashire.
  That is not the argument that we have met in our constituencies. Employers and trade unionists alike say that Lancashire can adapt itself to the inevitable gradual shrinkage in the export trade but ought not to be expected to take in its stride the sudden undermining of the home market by a flood of imports which are weakening prices all along the line, not merely in the cheaper goods but in the finer goods as well. They are causing market and price uncertainty and the drying up of orders, which create the general shadow of doubt that is once again hanging over Lancashire.
  The Government must make up their minds. If the real difficulty is exports, what can justify the failure to tackle the problem of the Purchase Tax? The Government must have some plan in their minds for the future of Lancashire. That is what we complain about. Lancashire has been given many conflicting stories since the war ended of what her rôle should be. I understand that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been lecturing Lancashire, saying that the main problem was a shortage of export orders and that Lancashire must put its house in order and be ready to meet competition by specialising in high quality goods, by

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  efficiency, and all the rest of it. Lancashire asks the Government, "What about the D scheme which is crippling high-class production all along the line?" as the "Manchester Guardian" shows so devastatingly this morning. We get nothing. There can be reductions of Purchase Tax on furs, jewellery and other things, but not to help one of our major industries.
  The Government have given the impression that they have written Lancashire off, that they have no coherent plan for Lancashire and no place for Lancashire in their economic plan. No one on this side of the House wants to injure our relations with India, and no one wants to injure the economy of that country. We want nothing but friendliness and co-operation with India. Certainly there is no ill will towards her in Lancashire. But I believe that the Indian Government and the Indian people themselves, if they were approached in the right way, with firmness by a Government who knew their own minds on this problem, would be prepared to co-operate with us in curbing the disturbing import trend based on unfair competition.
  I believe that Lancashire's case has never been put, because the Government have a divided mind, which was illustrated by the speech of the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale. The President of the Board of Trade and other hon. Members opposite have said that we must not do anything to deal with this situation because there are other export industries which might be affected. That division in the Government's mind weakens their whole approach to this problem. It is because we have had no announcement of action, and no indication of a basis upon which we can expect any action at all, that I shall vote against the Government.
  7.22 p.m.
  Mr. William Shepherd: There is one characteristic of hon. Members opposite which has been very noticeable today, and that is a complete lack of enthusiasm for the plans put forward by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson). Whatever hon. Members opposite want, they do not want their own official proposal, and, although I may condemn them for some things, I must say that they have my support in that instance. There is, after all, something to be said for the view of my right
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  hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade that it is as well to get the facts right and put into the picture everybody who knows something about the subject, rather than dash into some sort of solution.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn, East (Mrs. Castle) went through the usual performance of all hon. Members opposite who have spoken in saying how bad things were and accusing us of playing down the situation. I hope that no one on this side of the House, or indeed in the country, will attempt to play down the situation. But one thing which is worse than playing it down is to exaggerate it. For instance, I heard the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr.H. Hynd) say that the industry was bleeding to death. That is absolute nonsense, and it cannot be justified by any examination of the facts. Those who try to paint the picture of this industry in over-sombre tones are doing the industry a real disservice.
  I know that this industry is a difficult and sensitive one. It is sensitive because it has a very long pipeline, and when an industry has a very long pipeline it is essential to take evasive action rather early on. Nevertheless, nothing that I have heard today has justified some of the pessimism which has been expressed.
  We have heard talk of the effect of working half-time. Yet the figures show that the production a few weeks ago was only a few per cent. below that in November, 1954. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Sir I. Horobin) said he understood that the stocks held in hand by spinners was two or three weeks. According to my information, that is a gross exaggeration. The stocks held in hand by spinners is much less than two or three weeks; indeed it is not as much as one week. Therefore, we must look at the situation of this industry realistically. It is possible to talk Lancashire into a state of depression. Hon. Members opposite tried to talk America into a state of depression some time ago, but they did not succeed.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: That is a slight exaggeration.
  Mr. Shepherd: It may be an exaggeration, but they made a jolly good effort. They did not succeed. We all know that depressions are 25 per cent. economic and

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  75 per cent. psychological. Therefore, we have a real responsibility to treat this issue with a little more restraint than hon. Members opposite have been doing this afternoon. There is no basic danger in this industry. There may be some unpleasant tendencies, but there is no danger. After all, the total labour force in this industry has come down from 750,000 to 250,000. Let us assure the workers in Lancashire that there is no real prospect of getting a recurrence of the situation which we had between the wars, because the real reduction has already been made.
  Mr. Shackleton: Presumably the last 250,000 do not count.
  Mr. Shepherd: That is the sort of observation I might have expected from the hon. Gentleman. The labour force has undergone a very severe contraction and, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield)said, it is doubtful whether the industry at the present level can fulfil all the needs of this country in an emergency. Therefore, the labour force has been reduced to an almost irreducible level.
  We ought to make it clear that whatever Lancashire is suffering from at present, it has suffered in the past 10 years from too much profit made too easily. While we would naturally prefer to see better conditions than there are today, it is nevertheless true that economic changes that have to be made in Lancashire before she can meet world competition will not be made in feather-bed conditions. I see the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) laughing—
  Mr. S. Silverman: I was laughing at the notion that anybody knowing the conditions of Lancashire today would describe them as feather-bed conditions.
  Mr. Shepherd: I did not say that conditions in Lancashire today were featherbed conditions. All I said was that the conditions necessary to bring about the economic changes which are essential for the long-term success of the industry are not those of a feather-bed. There are more vacancies in Lancashire industry than there are out of work.
  Another item which people tend to overlook is that the present demand for textiles in the home market is very low.
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  The average use of textiles per head of the population in 1937 was 48 square yards. If we take what was available for the home consumer in 1953, we find that the figure had gone down to 39 square yards, and that includes rayon mixtures. Today the consumption of cotton textiles per head of the population is below the normal, and it is to be hoped that the consumption per head of the population will be increased in the next two or three years.
  That can be achieved by a number of methods. One method is by dealing with the Purchase Tax. There is now a very strong case for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider the reduction or abolition of Purchase Tax upon cotton textiles. There is no doubt that that would have a very stimulating effect upon the whole of the industry. We have heard a good deal today about the need to deal with Indian competition. Let me say right away that serious and unfair as that competition is—and no one says that this competition is fair, because it certainly is not—the slackness in the trade cannot be attributed in a substantial measure to imports.
  For one thing—and I am surprised it has not been mentioned today yet—I think that the weather has had as much as anything else to do with the bad state of things in Lancashire. Let hon. Members recall last summer. In the summer we expect normally to sell millions of cotton dresses. Last season we sold few. Now, at this time of year, when normally we have rather good weather, and when we look forward to buying new clothes, and women look forward to buying new frocks, we are greeted by snowstorms and blizzards. The tendency to buy cotton dresses is thus, to say the least of it, somewhat inhibited. I believe that the weather conditions have probably as much to do with the depressed state of the trade today as anything else.
  Briefly, because of the short time I have, I want to mention one or two things I think ought to be done in this situation. I have already said that we ought to try to restore fair conditions of trading so far as India is concerned. It is not my idea of fair conditions to put on quotas. I am wholly against the concept of quotas. What we want is an import tariff which will give our own people a reasonable

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  chance to compete fairly with Indian products. That would be much more satisfactory than a system of quotas, to which there is a great number of very solid objections.
  Secondly, we ought to reduce or even eliminate Purchase Tax upon textiles to encourage the production of better quality goods, because, remember, it is in the case of the better quality goods that we are suffering most. Third, I hope that my right hon. Friend will negotiate with foreign countries bilateral agreements. He should try all he can to push textiles. I know the tendency is in these cases to push textiles out. It is my right hon. Friend's duty to try to push them in.
  Though there are certain things the Government can do there are things which Lancashire can do. I want to state what one or two of them are, because we ought not to cultivate the idea that the solution of the problem lies entirely in the hands of the Government. One of the first things to do is to improve quality in Lancashire. We have done a great deal to improve our quality since the recession in 1952, but there is more to be done than has yet been done, and it is a very bad thing to feel we lose orders because of the quality of the goods. That is something we ought to devote our attention to. I am speaking of faulty production rather than of low standard of production. This is a consideration apart from the incidence of Purchase Tax.
  Secondly, we could improve our selling in certain markets, in the Central and South American markets, for example, and also in some European markets now opening to us. There is a course we ought to pursue. We ought to avoid as much as we can the dangers of monopoly in this industry, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend on accepting the report concerning the calico printers. I am sure that the solution of the real problem of selling overseas will not be assisted by monopolistic practices. It will be assisted by more energetic enterprise in this country.
  There is a good deal to be said for giving protection to the home market in textiles, particularly against unfair competition, but I think that those of us who come from the constituencies mainly concerned with textiles have to recognise the great change that has come about in the pattern of British trade. In 1850 textiles
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  comprised 63 per cent. of our total exports. By 1951 textiles had come down to 19 per cent. of our total exports. Today the selling of our metal goods is the most important factor in our lives.
  I would illustrate that. If we were able—and we certainly cannot do this—to eliminate all our metal exports and replace them with textile exports we should starve. That shows how important metal exports are to this country. They have a very high conversion value against the very low conversion value of textile exports. So I hope that whatever the Government do they will not lose sight of the main fact that no longer are the textile industries responsible for 63 per cent. of our exports, and that even if they were to be we could not then maintain this country's present standard of living, because we depend, absolutely and utterly, upon the high conversion value of metal and machine exports to live.
  That does not mean that Lancashire is not entitled to a fair deal, and I hope the Government will go ahead with getting some reasonable tariff against Indian goods. I hope that Lancashire will realise that, apart from the Government, it, too, has some part to play. It can improve its own position. By cooperation between the Government and the industry the present unfortunate tendency can be eliminated.
  7.36 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I think we are all indebted to the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) for his final cautionary remarks about the general pattern of trade, and I would agree with him in deprecating the hysteria of Middleton and Prestwich Conservatives in the resolution they passed, although its general line, of course, commands the support of hon. Members on this side of the House. I do not agree, however, with hon. Members opposite who complain about what they call the Lancashire tendency to cry, "Wolf, wolf." I think that if there were any tendency in that direction it will now have learnt a lesson from the last time the cry was raised, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was sent in response to it. That would be a salutary lesson, I think, for any industry.
  One of the more lamentable parts of the speech of the President of the Board of Trade was his dramatic conclusion, when,

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  after a pause, he told us what the Government were going to do next, which was that the Prime Minister was going to attend a meeting at which the President and the Cotton Board were to be present. I do not think that is a very substantial contribution to the solution of the difficulties of the industry. It is the less impressive, I think, when hon. Members remember that a letter was sent to the Prime Minister by the industry on 18th February asking for such a meeting. The meeting is to take place only next week, nearly a month after the request was originally transmitted to the Prime Minister. That delay has taken place in spite of the fact that when the letter went from the industry to the Prime Minister he was told that delay might produce "irreparable damage." Yet we have had to wait nearly a month for the conference to take place.
  I should like to emphasise what other hon. Members have said about the extent of the crisis in which the industry now finds itself. I shall not go over the details other hon. Members have given the House, because I do not want to take too long, but want to give time to other hon. Members to take part in the debate. There is certainly anxiety in my own constituency about the shortness of the order books. Residents in the Rossendale Valley are not prone to hysteria or excitement on these subjects, but there is genuine alarm and apprehension about what the future may hold, and there is certainly alarm about the short-time working and closing down of mills in other parts of Lancashire about which we read from time to time in the "Manchester Guardian." The "Manchester Guardian" on 9th February told us that in what it called the last few months a dozen or more spinning, doubling and weaving mills had closed down permanently.
  We cannot escape the fact that, although some workers have gone back to the industry since the recession of 1952, the number employed in the industry is still 30,000 lower than it was before the recession. There has been talk about workers being on short time, and I could not understand the point which was worrying the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) about whether the workers were being paid for short time. Obviously that makes a great difference to the workers concerned, but it makes no difference at all to the relevance of the
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  evidence on the serious state of the industry. The truth of the situation is that many employers, and especially employers who have spent considerable sums on new equipment, are not anxious to disperse their labour force and therefore are continuing to pay their workers even though there is not adequate employment in the mill.
  Mr. Shepherd:The hon. Member has mentioned the closing of mills, but many of these mills do not close because of shortage of orders, but—some of them at any rate—because of financial manipulations, among other things. It is therefore wrong to give the impression that these mills are necessarily closing merely because of the shortage of orders.
  Mr. Greenwood: It is difficult to distinguish between the two. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) rightly suggests that one cause often arises out of the other. But if the trade columns of the "Manchester Guardian" tell us that mills are closing down because of shortage of orders, we can accept that as reliable evidence.
  Perhaps I may return to the question of the workers in the industry. The difficulty is that once employers find that a pool of unemployed labour is available in the industry, they will be less inclined to keep on their books workers who at present are working short time, and what is at the moment a slight recession may at any time turn into a serious avalanche from the point of view of the workers in the industry.
  I am bound to say that I do not think the raising of the Bank Rate has helped the industry towards a solution of its problems. There will be a tendency for people to hold off buying and also a tendency for people to be reluctant to hold stocks.
  We have heard a number of criticisms of the proposal put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), but it seems to me that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite are being a little too negative in this matter. It may be that there are difficulties in what my right hon. Friend proposed—proposed with the full support of the trade unions in the industry—but, on the other hand, we have had criticism by hon. Members opposite in some cases of quotas and in other cases of tariffs.

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  I believe that quotas and tariffs are much too blunt an instrument to use in a situation of this kind. The Government should seriously consider whether they could not devise a plan on the lines which my right hon. Friend suggested, which is flexible and which would not be discriminatory against any one country but could be used from time to time to deal with any serious situation as it arose.
  After all, it is not so much the present level of Indian imports which worries the industry as the fear that this level may continue to rise and that the situation may become more and more serious. In my opinion the Federation of Master Cotton Spinners' Association summed up the situation well on 28th February when it said that a slight recession in world textile trade would be enough to bring subsidised goods from all over the world pouring into Lancashire. That is what is alarming Lancashire and causing uncertainty and instability in the industry—not so much what is happening at the moment but what may happen at any moment unless there is some control over imports of this kind.
  Especially in view of the far-from-positive speeches made this afternoon, I believe that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite bear a heavy responsibility. Frankly, I was shocked to hear the President of the Board of Trade say that he would not be led into discussing the effects of Purchase Tax on this situation. Hon. Members have referred to the article in the "Manchester Guardian" but, in order to put it on record, I want to quote one extract from that article on the effect of Purchase Tax on our export trade. It reads:
  "Examples of troubles in the export markets are as easy to find as examples of difficulties at home. A manufacturer of high-quality bedspreads finding no sale for them at home has had to drop them from his ranges completely, even though there was a keen export demand. A firm making screen-printed poplins has had to reduce its range drastically. At a show in America it was criticised by buyers because it offered only a dozen designs. A maker-up of cotton frocks had to restrict his designs to bring them below the "D" line, and as a consequence their export possibilities were greatly reduced. Comparisons with the conditions under which competitors in other countries work further irritates the British exporter."
  I hope that whoever replies to the debate will be more frank and forthcoming in dealing with the question of the D scheme than was the President.
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  In conclusion, like the hon. Member for Cheadle, I share the feeling which was expressed very forcefully by Mr. Pardoe, President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, the other day—that Lancashire, and the textile industry itself, has a good deal to do to help itself, as well as being fully deserving of any help which the Government can give. We have to do a lot of things and to recognise many of the facts about which the hon. Member for Cheadle spoke.
  We should regard the under-developed areas of the world as being as much a challenge to us as a threat, because in those areas is a tremendous market for the goods which we can produce in this country. The Food and Agriculture Organisation the other day gave these figures of the amount of cotton available per head for home consumption in 1952–53: in the United States, 12…3 kilograms; in the United Kingdom, 5…3 kilograms; and for the 1,300 million Asiatic consumers only 1…7 kilograms.
  Once we can raise the standard of living in the Asiatic countries so that they can buy textile goods on the scale at which we are using them in this country—a modest scale compared with that of the United States—then the export problems of all the textile producing nations in the world will have been solved. It is for those markets that we must fight. Lancashire will fight world competition abroad and Conservative inaction and muddle at home, and I am confident that in both those fights it will be victorious.
  7.47 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Apart from the remarks which the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) sought to put on the record at the end, his speech was a most agreeable one. It was most gallant of him to come to the rescue of his right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) by giving somewhat qualified support to this proposal for State buying—the first support which his right hon. Friend has had so far during the debate.
  But he did not answer the point which my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade put, that in fact this was an illegal scheme. It is no good the right hon. Member for Huyton saying, "What about jute?" because it looks very much to me as if the jute scheme is

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  illegal too. I am glad that this nasty thing has been dragged out in the cold light of day to be examined by everybody, because I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Board of Trade will now seriously consider whether this wartime relic ought not to be ended if it is in conflict with our obligations under various international treaties.
  That brings me to the whole policy of liberalising international trade, because I have come to the conclusion that this worthy object—and worthy it is—is liable to do more harm than good if it is done piecemeal. It is rather like disarmament; if we deal merely with some arms and not with all arms, we simply drive into the sectors with which we have not dealt all these discriminations and inequalities which originally existed. We do not do away with them.
  From a remark made by my right hon. Friend today, it seems to me that we are in danger of doing that in the cotton trade. My right hon. Friend rather dismissed the complaint, which I believe to be a serious complaint, that the Indians and other producers are getting their cotton at an unfairly cheap price because they have a double scale of prices. He said that that is often done elsewhere, that we even do it ourselves; therefore nothing could be done about it. I would ask him to think again about that.
  It seems to me that that is just as much a discrimination, just as much an illiberal action, as a quota, tariff, or any other form of what I think the Americans in their anti-trust laws call "not honestly commercial conduct." If we are going in—as I think we have done, rightly—for a policy of liberalising trade, it is no good taking just one or two instruments of restriction such as quotas or tariffs—we have to take them all. If we deal with the quota, or the tariff, other countries will simply go into another hole if they are driven out of one and use the double price system for the purpose of discriminating in the way that Lancashire undoubtedly is being discriminated against now.
  I do not think it good enough to say that this is a subsidy in the strict sense, in the legal sense, or in the apparent definition of the word "subsidy." Undoubtedly it is a practice which operates most unfairly against a country which buys its raw materials and does not grow
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  them. That is going to become increasingly important in the United Kingdom. Unless we are careful, we shall find that all our attempts at liberalising trade and making things fairer and more equal will merely result in our raw materials being held up to ransom by devices which other countries are getting to understand now and by selling to their own people, or to favoured people, at much lower rates than those at which they are prepared to sell to us. I do not think it is right. I know it is a novel thing which has to be tackled, but tackled it must be.
  This has been a debate about one county of the United Kingdom. As the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Burke) said earlier, we have often heard debates about "lesser" areas such as Scotland or Wales. In those debates one often finds that at some point in them it is proposed that Scotland, Wales, or wherever it may be which has been neglected, should have some measure of home rule. I believe some such suggestion was made last Friday. But they drop that pretty quickly, like a hot brick, when they find that in fact those other areas take more economically out of the common pool than they put in and, therefore, no doubt would suffer considerably economically if any severance occurred.
  I submit that Lancashire is in absolutely the opposite state of affairs. Lancashire puts in more than it takes out. For that reason it is not as any suppliant that Lancashire comes to the Government at the moment. It is asking only for its rights.
  I am bound to say I could not disagree more with the suggestions of my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) who somehow implied that the cotton industry had had tremendous favours since the war and in some way had thrown away those favours and did not deserve any more. To my amazement, he instanced Purchase Tax. There is no doubt that the textile industry, in common with the boot and shoe industry and one or two other relatively small industries, suffers a form of taxation which is peculiarly crippling. It is not just a straight ad valorem cut but a tax which, in its higher reaches, goes into the realms of geometric progression with the result—which has been canvassed in this debate—that ever since the D scheme was introduced quality has been crippled.

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  I am quite sure that the request of the hon. Member for Rossendale that we should hear something about Purchase Tax cannot be answered tonight. He knows the reason as well as I do. But I beg the Government—not only beg—
  Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Insist?
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke:I was not going to use the word "insist," but, if the hon. Member suggests something in between, I shall be happy to adopt it. The time has come when we cannot wait very much longer and the evidence is overwhelming. The advantage would be twofold. This is something which the Government can do quickly. Many of the things which have been proposed, such as changes in quotas and tariffs, owing to binding obligations, cannot be altered quickly. That would involve giving notice and denouncing various obligations, which would take a great deal of time.
  The great merit of the Purchase Tax, if Purchase Tax ever has any merit, is that it could be altered speedily. Secondly, it is what is sometimes called a flexible instrument. Its great exponents who first propounded it claimed as its merit the fact that it would depress an industry which was doing too well, or raise another industry which was doing badly. We can play on it as on a stringed instrument. Therefore I suggest—if that be the verb between begging and insisting—that before the Spring is out this tax on quality must go.
  I am delighted that the Prime Minister is shortly to receive the Cotton Board. I should very much like to be a fly on the wall at that meeting. I can visualise, I can almost hear, the little preliminary exchanges about life in the cotton trade, life in Oldham 60 years ago, or in Northwest Manchester. The Prime Minister knows this industry very well.
  As we have all promised to be short in our speeches tonight, because this is a matter which affects all our constituencies, I will end on this note. The Prime Minister knows that although the industry has contracted in the way my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) described with a wealth of statistics, although the markets have changed, the people have not changed. Although the structure and machinery has been revolutionised, the same unique skill and the
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  same valuable capital in human endeavour remain and always will remain so long as they are given half a chance. They are not asking for more than that. They can beat the world, given a fair field, but they cannot beat a 60 per cent. to 80 per cent. tariff.
  Last July I raised the subject of the Indian import and export position. I think I was the first to do so in this House. I must say this because I think it is relevant in view of the attack which has been delivered by the Opposition today. It was 2 a.m. after a gruelling debate and one or two of my hon. Friends supported me. We talked of the dangers that were threatening then but there was not a single hon. Member of the Opposition—not even an Opposition Whip—who stayed to listen to that debate. I am not blaming the Opposition particularly. All I say is that they have no monopoly in this matter. Then I remember that on 13th July last year the then Minister of State, who is now Minister of Agriculture, said that he had pressed the Indian Government even then, those many months ago, and he was most disappointed with the response.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn, East (Mrs. Casde) said that, given firmness, the Indians would agree. I wish that she were still in the Chamber to tell us what she meant by "given firmness." Nobody, I am sure, could have been firmer than those of my right hon. Friends who have put the matter, not only to the Finance and Trade Ministers of India, but to the Prime Minister of India, with, I regret to say, no apparent result. I do not see how anything other than action, as opposed to mere words, will now have any effect on India, because India's course in this matter is evidently not to be influenced by words, however firm. I am convinced that action will have to be taken.
  I am equally convinced that the action proposed by the right hon. Member for Huyton would be the worst of all the actions so far proposed. I think that it would hide under a somewhat unconstitutional body the sort of definite obstacles to the import of foreign produce which ought to be shown openly. When we face restrictions in trade, what our exporters cannot tolerate is a hidden obstacle, something which they cannot get at and something which they know

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  nothing about. What our exporters find so galling and difficult to deal with are the secret subsidies that, it is thought, some foreign Governments give. What we cannot stand is sending goods to an overseas country and not knowing what the quota will be like until the goods arrive and have to be shipped back.
  All these objections apply a fortiori to the right hon. Gentleman's scheme, because the very merit that he claims for it—its flexibilitiy, which will let in a little bit from one country and a little bit more from another, while letting in none from another country—cannot be published in advance, so that the countries concerned, whether India, Hong Kong or anyone else, cannot know until the last moment what they are up against. That is something that ought not to be put up against a foreign country. If restrictions have to be imposed, they should be put up openly, freely and well in advance by means of a quota or tariff. To my mind, any other method is a most reactionary and restrictive method of conducting our foreign trade.
  8.3 p.m.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: It would be very tempting to follow the hon. Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) in what was for most of it an extremely thoughtful and moderate speech, but we have all imposed upon ourselves a restriction and I do not want to take up any more than my share of the time. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Member will not take it amiss if I do not follow him in any of the points that he made, although; as I say, it requires quite an effort of will not to do so.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), said that this was more than an economic problem: it was a social problem. Perhaps I can most usefully occupy the few minutes which I wish to take up in this debate with some analysis of what the social problem is. I quite appreciate that hon. and right hon. Members opposite think that the Opposition is making too much out of Lancashire's grievances and troubles today for political purposes. I do not think that they would blame us very much even if that were true. That is the pattern and business of politics, and hon. Members opposite did not restrain themselves very much when they were on this side of the House and we on the other side.
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  I suppose it is true also that my hon. and right hon. Friends on this side think that, for the same reason in reverse, hon. Members opposite in debate tend to underplay the situation. But the fact that we are having this debate at all is because Lancashire itself is anxious, unhappy and insecure. There would be no political capital for anybody in this situation if that were not so.
  It is all very well for the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) to say that manpower employed in the industry used to be 750,000 and is only 250,000 now and, therefore, it will never be less; that was the hon. Member's argument. But how is this House to pursuade Lancashire that its manpower figure will not become less? It has been going down during the lifetime of every Member of the House. I do not believe that anyone thinks, either in Lancashire, in the House or anywhere else, that Lancashire's manpower figure will expand much in the years to come.
  The President of the Board of Trade, who spoke first for the Government, made a most depressing speech. I do not know whether he wanted to make a depressing speech or whether he could not help it. I am bound to say that it will be read in Lancashire tomorrow with the deepest disappointment and that the anxieties and uneasiness of Lancashire will be vastly increased by it.
  Why is that so? It is because the right hon. Gentleman had not a single word of hope or encouragement to offer—not one. He examined one by one every proposal that has been made to alleviate the situation, to ward off impending dangers and to take positive, constructive steps to see that the present trend—I agree that it is only a trend so far—does not accelerate or go too far. The right hon. Gentleman had not one favourable word to say about any one of those proposals.
  When the President of the Board of Trade came to the proposals that my right hon. Friend had put up, he was, If possible, even more negative about them. He said that he was going to have a meeting and the Prime Minister was to attend, and that they were to have conversations. I asked the right hon. Gentleman what contribution he and the Prime Minister would make to the conversations, and I got a flippant and not particularly courteous reply. There was no hint of what suggestions the Government

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  would make to the Cotton Board when they met. It is admirable that the Prime Minister should have been made so aware of what the situation has become that he shall go and meet the Cotton Board himself. It does at least show, however belatedly, that some attention is being paid to it in the Government.
  But that will not take us very far. The Prime Minister is, possibly, the greatest Parliamentary orator of our times, but he has the great weakness of all orators in that when he has made a great speech he thinks he has won a battle. It will not be any good making oratorical gestures to the Cotton Board. What are the Government going to suggest to the Board to take the place of their rejection of all the suggestions which the Board has made? Surely, we ought to have some indication in this debate from the Government, if they have anything in their minds at all, so that we too can bring our minds to bear upon their suggestions.
  Mr. Kenneth Thompson: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is not trying to be unfair. He will realise, of course, that the Cotton Board has not yet made any suggestion, and that this meeting is for the purpose of getting the suggestions of the Board.
  Mr. Silverman:If I was inaccurate in my statement, I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for correcting me. A number of suggestions have in fact been made, and we have heard what the Government's reaction has been. If there are other proposals, either by the Government or the Cotton Board, or by anyone else, they should be added to the pool, and we should have an opportunity of considering them. But the Cotton Board is not responsible to me and the Government are. I suggest that if the Government have any suggestions of their own to make, they ought to bring them forward in this debate so that we can see whether they are any better than those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton, if they do not like my right hon. Friend's suggestions.
  Supposing the truth is that no one has any useful suggestions to make at all. I hope that is not the situation, but we must face the facts. No constructive, hopeful or intelligent suggestions have been made as yet. What then are the Government
  540
  to say to the people of Lancashire? I represent a constituency which has virtually nothing in it except cotton. Sixty or 70 per cent. of its industry is concerned with cotton. It earns its living by cotton. There is no part of this country which has more bitter memories of the middle 'thirties and the years between the wars than Nelson and Colne.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Thornton), who is to wind up for this side of the House, knows that better than I know it. I believe that he was born in Nelson and lived there during those years to which I am referring. What was the cry then? It was "Diversify our industries. If you cannot guarantee that we are going to be able to employ all or the greater part of our population for the next generation in this industry on which the town was built, then for heaven's sake give them something else to do." That was not done then when it might have been done.
  We had the depressed areas Act, and we tried year after year to get it applied to this part of Lancashire without success. Then the war came. During the war nothing could be done. When the war came to an end, between 1945 and 1950 we did not need Government help. We could have got all the light industry we wanted. Light industries were clamouring for labour and for factories, and we could have diversified our industries during those years without seeking help from the Government, or special allowances, or special concessions of any kind. I am not blaming the Labour Government for not having assisted us. It was a patriotic act on the part of north-east Lancashire not to bring light industries into that area at that time; that is to say in the days when our export industry was virtually bankrupt, and during those years we depended upon the cotton industry first and foremost for restoring the solvency of this country in the international financial market.
  We did not take this golden opportunity of diversifying our industry. Then came the end of that period and the collapse, or virtual collapse.
  I am not arguing whose fault it was. That does not matter for the purpose of our present discussion. What does matter is that three years ago, at long last, this Government applied the Act dealing with special areas to north-east Lancashire. It

  541
  made it a special area. We rejoiced at it. There was a little jealousy about it. Some of my hon. Friends thought that their areas ought to have been included.I do not think that any of them thought that my area ought to have been excluded, but they thought that other places could have been included, and there was a certain amount of rivalry about it.
  Nelson and Colne has benefited not at all in the three years since an Order under that Act was made. When the President of the Board of Trade is asked about it, he says, "It is all right; we are now building one new factory on the extreme edge of this special area"—that part which, I hope I may be forgiven for saying it, needed it least. But even that factory is not yet in operation. Now we have the debate today. What are we to say to people in Nelson and Colne. What are we to say to the young people? Are we to say: "Come into this industry, invest your lives and your futures and your faith in it. Join the unemployed or half-employed or under-employed labour pool. After all, you will get five days' wages for four days' work; what more do you want?"
  Only a Cheshire Member could have said that about Lancashire.
  Mr. H. Wilson: A Cheshire Tory.
  Mr. Silverman:The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) did not need to go far. He had only to speak to a few Lancashire men and women and he would have known that Lancashire men and women do not like being paid money for nothing. They want the opportunity to work. They want to give a full contribution, and they want proper wages for it. They do not want something for nothing. That prospect does not attract them.
  I say to the Government that if they have nothing better to offer to the cotton trade than they have offered it up to now, if there are no guarantees and if there is no security, they have no right whatever to expect the people of this area to bear the whole of the consequent burden. Let those industries in other parts of the country which say, "Do not apply this remedy or that proposal to Lancashire's difficulties, because it will have a bad effect on our trade" take some of our mills and give us some of their industry. We have no right to expect any part of
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  the country to have all its eggs in one basket if the situation is that we have neither eggs nor basket.
  That is all I want to say. It may be said that I have had nothing useful or constructive to add to the analysis which has been given of Lancashire's present difficulties. I do not pretend to be an industrialist. I have represented my constituency for nearly 20 years, and I have done my best to understand its industrial problems and its industry. How well I have succeeded may be a matter of differing opinion. I have done my best to understand. I do not pretend to be expert about it, but I dare say that my discussion of the present situation has not been profoundly less intelligent than other contributions which I have heard during the debate. What I wanted to do was to beg the Government, and the House if the Government will not do it, to face up to their responsibilities and to the consequences of saying to an area which has lived all these generations on cotton, "We cannot guarantee that you will earn your livelihood ever again."
  8.20 p.m.
  Mr. Arthur Holt: The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) wanted to know what advice he should give to young people in his area on what occupation they should follow. I sometimes feel that one should not try to answer questions which are put to one. If one is a planner par excellence one presents oneself wide open to be asked that kind of question, which I do not think is a proper one to be addressed to a Member of Parliament. A Member working in a free economic system should give his attention to the overall system and let people make up their own minds whether their future lies in the cotton industry or whether they should go into engineering.
  Mr. S. Silverman: I hesitate to believe that the hon. Member is quite so irresponsible a Member of Parliament as he is now pretending to be. Here we have a diminishing population, houses are empty, rateable values are going down and buildings are derelict. Is the hon. Member really saying that a Member of Parliament and the House of Commons have no responsibility in this matter at all?
  Mr. Holt:I thought that I had made it perfectly plain where I think the responsibility lies. The responsibility of a Member of Parliament lies in the overall activity and the prosperity of industry, and not in going into details and deciding whether the cotton industry has a future or not. We have had this trouble in Lancashire. We have had the Cotton Working Party and people outside the cotton industry who could not agree that the cotton industry would grow or could grow to its pre-war size, but in a matter of a few years the industry had taken on another 100,000 workers in spite of the Jeremiahs.
  I suggest that his historical memories of the industry after the war are also false. When Sir Stafford Cripps was President of the Board of Trade, his instruction to the textile industry as a whole was to fulfil the utility programme. Immediately after the war, exports were secondary, as during the war they had not existed at all. It was only in about 1947 that that instruction was altered and the textile industry was told to go all out for exports.
  The reason why the textile industry grew up again in Nelson and Colne after the war was not the patriotic reason of it being a duty to go into the industry. I wish we could get away from the idea of it being patriotic to go into an industry when in fact it is a matter for each person to decide for himself.
  Mr. S. Silverman: Under the initiative of the Board of Trade, committees were formed of employers, unions and local authorities and they held meetings to persuade people to go into the industry, but it is no good saying now, 10 years later, that they should not have, done so. It was done, and the responsibilities then assumed cannot be shuffled off in this light way.
  Mr. Holt:There were recruiting campaigns in Bolton in the cotton and in the engineering industry. Everybody wanted to get more people back into their firms, but to suggest that people went back into cotton as a patriotic duty against their best interests is absolute nonsense.
  Mr. Silverman: I did not say that.
  Mr. Holt: I want to agree with one or two points which were made by the hon.
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  Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) with regard to the piecemeal liberalisation of trade. This is a matter which the Government should consider. We are in danger of getting into a jam about it, and I have drawn the attention of the House to it on one or two previous occasions.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn, East (Mrs.Castle) made a remark which, if I understood her correctly, caused me considerable surprise. I understood her to mean that Lancashire was not worried about the loss of the export trade and that the industry considered that it could adjust itself to that loss but it was worried about the influx of imports. We have heard a great deal about yardage. I should like to draw the attention of the House to some figures of values.
  The exports of cotton yarn and woven piece goods for 1954 were down by £5 million, that is from £117 million worth to £112 million. That is a comparatively small percentage, but it is a reduction. Imports were doubled from just under £11 million to just over £21 million. Therefore, to say that we do not mind losing the export trade, a loss of business of £112 million, and to say that we are very concerned about an increase of imports of £10 million is to get the thing rather upside down. Even if it is true that Lancashire does not mind losing the export trade, and that it could close mills without much disruption to the extent that that implies, I cannot imagine that the present or any other Government would not be concerned about a loss of over £100 million in export trade.
  Bearing those figures in mind, we must remember as the President of the Board of Trade mentioned—and I think he was the only person to do so—that Lancashire production has gone up during the past year. In spinning it is about 1,000,000 lb. a week up on the average over the previous year. This has happened during a year in which our exports have gone down and our imports have gone up, and it is not surprising that there is now a little trouble.
  An examination of the Trade and Navigation Accounts, which show the origin of some of the imports, enables one to build up a picture which is most definitely complicated and certainly does not indicate that even the larger part of the trouble is coming at the moment from

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  India and Hong Kong. There has been a big increase of imports from India and Hong Kong, but the Indian imports last year were less than £7 million worth, which should not be a staggering figure to the cotton trade.
  There has been some talk about imports from Portugal, but that is a comparatively minor case which is not mentioned separately in the Trade and Navigation Accounts. The increases of imports are quite substantial from the Netherlands, Belgium—which in this section is second only to India—France, Grece, Japan, and a group of accounts referred to as "other countries." Be it noted that imports from all those latter countries have to face a 17½per cent. tariff, so when we are talking about slowing down the amount of imports from India we must recognise that some of the increase comes from countries on whose goods there is already a 17½ per cent. tariff.
  If we examine our exports we find that those to the Gold Coast and Nigeria are down while, strangely enough, those to the Belgian Congo are up. There may be a perfectly simple explanation for this of which I am not aware. The exports to Burma, Ceylon, Singapore and Hong Kong are down. We should bear in mind when we worry about imports from Hong Kong, of £1½ million, that our cotton exports to Hong Kong are £1 million a year. On the other hand, exports to Finland, Switzerland, Southern Rhodesia, Australia and New Zealand are up, Australia considerably, by £4½ million, while those to Canada, U.S.A. and Denmark are down. An interesting aspect about the Middle East is that exports to Jordan are down and, for some reason, those to Syria are up. Again, no doubt there is a perfectly simple explanation for that.
  It seems to me that we must approach this matter very carefully, and certainly there must be a close examination by the Government and the representatives of the industry, such as the Cotton Board. What I have tried to show indicates that there are, in fact, two quite separate problems. There is the apparent loss in the over-all competitive ability of the industry in the last 12 months, and then there is the issue of the imports from India in particular. That problem is one that is in the future more than in the past, and we are worried whether it is going to get a great deal bigger.
  546
  I suggest that imports valued at; £7 million from India mean that the problem is not great, but if they continue to increase—and this is why Lancashire is so worried—at the rate at which they have been increasing in recent months, then people see the figures becoming astronomical and hitting the industry for six.
  Mr. Tom Brown: They are doing it.
  Mr. Holt: They are not yet doing it. They may do so, and I do not want to evade the issue, but the first thing the Government are entitled to say, when looking at this problem to see what plan can be developed to help the industry on the special matter of damaging imports from a country which is providing a subsidy for these imports—I just do not accept the attitude of the President of the Board of Trade on that matter—is, "First you have got to do all you can." I do not think that that has been said sufficiently to Lancashire.
  I am quite at one with the people who criticise some of the leaders, both official and otherwise, for crying "Wolf" a long time before it is necessary, and this undoubtedly has had an unsatisfactory impact on other people who are less sympathetic to the troubles Lancashire is now facing than would otherwise be the case.
  What can industry do now? Whatever are the views of people about nationalisation or capitalism or a free economy, the Lancashire cotton industry is operating under a system which is more or less that of a free economy and it must put its house in order accordingly. I was glad to hear a fortnight ago that the President of the Board of Trade had accepted the Report of the Monopolies Commission on the Process of Calico Printing, and I hope that action will soon be taken in that direction. However, there is a price ring in the cotton spinning trade which must also go.
  When the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Thornton) speaks, I hope that he will be able to say that whatever troubles Lancashire is in, the cotton unions are completely behind the trade in doing everything they can to make it efficient once the spinners have dropped then-ring. As long as any employer adopts any restrictive practice whatever, the unions are entitled to keep their old ways,

  547
  but when the employers set an example, I hope that the unions will give the greatest co-operation possible.
  I am not making a great point of this because I believe the cotton unions have been well ahead of many of the other unions in their attitude to new methods, but one or two of the friends of the hon. Member for Farnworth have not been quite as progressive—I am thinking particularly of one union official in the East Lancashire area who retired some while ago. It would be helpful to most of us if the hon. Member could assure the industry that the unions are behind the industry in its efforts to put its own house in order.
  As regards what the Government can do, that is a different problem. I have not been struck by any of the suggestions made so far and I do not think that those hon. Members who have tried to make suggestions have been very happy. Before the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Sir I. Horobin) made his suggestion about quantity restrictions, he seemed to put all the arguments which would show what a bad effect almost any restriction would have.
  I do not accept the view of the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Enroll) who instanced the sales of British bicycles in America and said that, if we put on tariffs or quotas, the rest of the world would follow suit by treating our exports in the same manner. It is one thing to accept dumping from a private firm abroad, since it could not do that indefinitely, but it is quite a different matter to accept large quantities of goods which could only reach us in such quantities as the result of action amounting to a subsidy, however much the President of the Board of Trade tries to talk himself out of it. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman said that we could not challenge this, because we do it in the case of coal and steel, and it is a practice which should be stopped.
  A while ago Germany complained that she was meeting competition in steel on an unfair basis because the steel industry was getting its coal too cheaply. As the hon. Member for Darwen said, we must get our minds clear on what are good practices if we are to liberalise our trade. If we do not, we shall get in a mess, and the industry which will suffer will be the Lancashire cotton industry.
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  I have in my hand Statutory Instrument 1955 No. 33, the Import Duties (Exemptions) (No. 1) Order. It is the first one for 1955. It deals with the exemption of Import Duty for certain products of the steel industry, most of which go to the car industry. This is supposed to be because there is a shortage of materials in the country at the moment and the car industry must not be jeopardised in its endeavours to win export markets. It is said that in order to be able to introduce its cars cheaply into those markets, the car industry must not have to import any of its raw materials subject to a duty. Therefore, the duty is removed until 18th March. What happens then? It is assumed that by then the steel industry will be able to produce more; the imports will then not be required, and so the protective duty will be restored.
  Is there any sense or logic in that when the cotton industry has no protection whatever against its chief competitor? If the cotton industry is to be expected to stand up to world competition it must be able to buy in a world market. It is not doing so; it is buying in a protected market when it is buying in the United Kingdom market at the moment. If it wants to import machinery from abroad it has to pay a tariff. A lot of its other costs are influenced by the fact that other industries are getting protection which it is not getting. The Government must at least see that there is no discrimination against the cotton industry in our attempts to get a greater liberalisation of trade. I hope that the Government will have more to tell us in that respect after they have met the Cotton Board.
  If the industry is given a fair deal there is little chance of its having to contract in any quantity, but if it has to, surely now is a better time than when there is a depression. There is no difficulty now. If a cotton mill wishes to close down, nobody need lose anything, least of all the shareholders. The net liquid assets in most mills meet the value of the share holdings, and the workers at most places can get jobs elsewhere. I do not believe a great problem exists here, but I hope that this will not happen and that the Government will take some action to ensure that it does not.
  8.43 p.m.
  Mr. Richard Fort: Being the last back bench speaker in the debate, I have had the advantage of hearing practically all the themes which have run through the debate, and also the very many contradictions, particularly from hon. Members opposite supporting the Motion.
  Some, like the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), seemed to want simultaneously to diversify the industries of East Lancashire, with which I agree, and at the same time to arrange that all now working in the textile industry should retain their jobs in it, an equally commendable, although contradictory, policy.
  It was much the same with the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn, East (Mrs. Castle). She gave examples of mills working short time or even closing down, examples which all hon. Members from the textile areas of Lancashire could parallel from their own constituencies but, unfortunately, the three or four factories to which she referred seemed to be affected scarcely at all by imports but a great deal more by Purchase Tax, which makes the selling of the high grade goods to which she referred more difficult at home and, consequently, also abroad.
  Then we had another line, on the suggestion that the present anxieties of Lancashire should be got into perspective, In that connection the speech of the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Holt) was very characteristic, as indeed was the speech of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. In using these statistics, speakers have missed what is really affecting all of us who are concerned with the textile industry in Lancashire, and that is a loss of confidence.
  No doubt statistics show that at present there has not so far been too much to worry us, but there is a real loss of confidence about the future. The consequence of that—and it is one of the criticisms which I shall make of the Government—is that the Government have somehow failed to understand that figures about unemployment, or about this or that, do not carry the weight it seems to think they do. The Government have a case, but somehow it has failed to put it across to those who are concerned with the industry.
  550
  Statistics can be used to put things into a right perspective, but when they are repeated as often as these have been they make people suspicious. I have certainly been misled about the figure that only 13 per cent. of Lancashire industry is textile industry. I look at the towns which Lancashire Members all know and see that between 40 and—in the case of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Royton (Sir H. Sutcliffe)—80 per cent. of the population are employed in textiles.
  It may well be that only 13 per cent. of all Lancashire's industries are textile industries, but we all know that there are towns with enormously large proportions, and it is there that we have operatives and employers alike wondering from where the money will come to pay for next week's wages and the machinery ordered a few months ago.
  One should use not only statistics but the more intangible criteria to judge what is happening in the county and the industry. The Government are not solely to blame for their failure, very far from it. I do not believe the industry has told its side of the story as well as it should have done, and as well as I hope it will do when its representatives come to London next week.
  It was very ill-judged that some hon. Members opposite should almost scoff at the Cotton Board because its representatives include more than spinners and weavers. One of the great problems of our industry is that it is enormously diversified. The sooner we get people in London to understand the complications of that diversification so that they are not listening first to this side and then to that side but trying to synthesise what is best for the whole industry, so much the better for it. The Government, whatever their failings may have been in putting their case, were right in insisting that it should be the Cotton Board and not only spinners and weavers whom they met, although my constituents are very much more concerned with the weaving side of the industry than with the industry as a whole.
  Several hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Sir I. Horobin), rightly made a point about the poor publicity put out by the industry. It will convince all who are

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  concerned in the industry, but not those who are outside Lancashire.
  Many hon. Members seem to have no great understanding about the difficulties of Lancashire. One of the reasons is that throughout the agitation we have very seldom heard any leaders of the textile industry, whether on the employers' or on the trade union side, putting the industry in its setting of national industry as a whole. A great many people would have listened more sympathetically if they had had the feeling that sometimes those at the top of the textile industry looked beyond its horizon, desperately important as it is to our constituents, and tried to understand how our industry fitted into the economic life of the nation. It is that which lies at the heart of the inability of the industry to arouse the sympathy which I think it ought to get.
  Mr. Lindgren: The hon. Member's hon. Friends do not seem very interested, to judge by the attendance.
  Mr. Hale:Did the hon. Member see the very excellent publication issued over the years by the Textile Association? He will find many of these problems dealt with there.
  Mr. Fort: In recent months I have read no public discussion of that sort. Hon. Members opposite have been critical of the Government's case and have discussed it with less realism than they ought to have. I will not change King Log for King Stork. The proposals of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) have come in for criticism which, even though he will not agree with it, is well merited. He may think that it requires some answering. I have not time to refer in detail to the criticisms made by my hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke), nor to those which pointed out that there are many simpler ways of avoiding dumping than by the setting up of a nationalised Cotton Cloth Import Commission such as the right hon. Gentleman has suggested.
  I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has in mind how he would control the pricing policy of this scheme? The agency might buy cloth abroad at prices lower than the English prices. Would he try to sell it at the English prices? If so, does he
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  think the organisation would sell much imported cloth? If it sold it at lower prices, than those in the home market, it would be open to the criticism of competing with home industry? If he proposes an importing organisation without discussing its pricing policies it merely shows that the proposal was not considered sufficient for such an occasion as this.
  Mr. H. Wilson: We have thought about that. I answered a number of Press questions on that point, and I will not answer them again today.
  Mr. Fort: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply. I cannot remember seeing the matter fully reported, or being discussed in his own speech to us today.
  I come back to two lines on which I think the Government can take action. The Opposition always hopes that we will forget about these things, but when the industry was in really bad difficulties in the recession of 1952, it was the present Government who spent £20 million or £25 million on Lancashire on Government orders for cloth. It was the party opposite who, just before, had spent nearly £40 million abroad on cloths for rearmament.
  Two things I strongly recommend to the Government. One is Purchase Tax reduction. There is a case for it, and it has been made overwhelmingly. The other thing is a non-discriminatory quota. I am sure that if this were imposed it would do much to remove the difficulties and restore that sense of confidence that all of us want, in the industry which not only clothes all of us as cheaply as in any part of the world, contributing to our high standard of living and providing us with foreign exchange.
  8.55 p.m.
  Mr. Ernest Thornton: This has been an interesting and, in some respects, a remarkable debate, because we have had from the President of the Board of Trade a speech the greater part of which was apparently designed to prepare Lancashire to understand that nothing can be done for its industry at all, that the difficulties were so great that Lancashire must be prepared for a negative answer. Doubtless, the sending for representatives of the Cotton Board by the Prime Minister is a delaying tactic

  553
  in the hope that, Micawber-like, something will turn up to get the Government out of their dilemma.
  I am afraid that Lancashire will have very cold comfort from the speech of the President of the Board of Trade or from the terms of the Amendment. The proposal to delete the words
  "… notes with concern the serious situation which is developing in the cotton industry"
  indicates that, in the opinion of the Government, there is not yet a serious situation developing in that industry. Yet all the experts in the industry, on both the employers' and the trade union sides, are at one that a really serious situation is developing.
  Mr. H. Hynd: So are the Tory back benchers.
  Mr. Thornton: Many of the Tory back benchers have indicated today that they think the situation is serious. But I have noted that the speeches of the Conservative back benchers in the main, with perhaps the exception of the hon. and gallant Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Scholefield), have been much stronger in their constituencies than they have been in this House.
  I feel satisfied that little can be expected from this Government. But I have noticed flutterings in the dovecotes of the Cotton Board, the Board of Trade and, I think, even in the Prime Minister's office, since Monday week and particularly since our Motion went on the Order Paper. There has been a feverish activity to attempt to get some scheme formulated and presented before this debate took place.
  The scheme outlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) has been designed to compel action with a view to getting something done. The scheme is a workable scheme. It is, in fact, the only workable and practicable scheme that has been put forward. The President of the Board of Trade has not dealt with our questions relating to the jute industry situation. The principle that is applied in the jute industry is the very principle that we suggest should apply to the current problems of the textile industry. We contend that if it is good enough for the jute industry, it will be good enough for the cotton industry as well, in similar, if not worse, circumstances.
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  Remember this, that the chief jute imports into this country come through Jute Control, which the Government have kept on. I understand that they have no immediate intention of ending Jute Control. The competition of jute textiles arises only because of cheap labour costs. The competition of cotton products arises, as we have been told repeatedly in the debate, from unfair practices. Therefore, there is a responsibility upon the Government, and if the proposal put forward by my right hon. Friend is not accepted, the Government have the responsibility of finding an alternative proposition.
  It is doubtful whether they can escape from that situation. The Government attempt apparently to put upon the Cotton Board the responsibility for finding a solution of what is essentially a fiscal problem. I am convinced myself, and the cotton textile industry, on the employers' side and on the trade union side, is convinced, that the Government regard the cotton textile industry as expendable in the Government's economic policy. Their conduct and inaction have made that evident. The President of the Board of Trade has protested that that is not true, but in Lancashire the President and the Government have been judged not by what they have said but by what they have not said and by what they have not done in a situation developing so seriously.
  Various remarks have been made on both sides of the House about the degree of unemployment, and concealed unemployment, in the industry at the present time. I think the experts in our industry who have examined this situation would agree that the present position is being maintained very delicately, and mainly on the basis of experience in 1952. The employers are afraid of losing their workpeople, and for the moment are hanging on in a delicately poised position, but if a number of mills are eventually closed, and in consequence the demand for labour is saturated, then there can be precipitated, as there was in 1952, large-scale unemployment in Lancashire. Lancashire wants to know and is entitled to ask what is to be the level of unemployment. Is it 50,000 or is it 100,000? Lancashire is entitled to ask what degree of unemployment the Government will

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  tolerate, and Lancashire is entitled to know what the attitude of the Government is.
  The overriding cause for this threat that overhangs Lancashire at the present time is the Indian imports. We have very seriously to consider whether they should be allowed to threaten serious injury to our domestic producers. During 1954 there were several disturbing influences in our trade and industry. The President of the Board of Trade referred to them and other speakers in the debate also have commented on them. I recount them briefly. There has been a fall in exports—unfortunate, but, I am afraid inevitable. We are all agreed upon the fact that there has been that fall. Without doubt, the D scheme has had its effect upon the quality end of our export trade.
  There has also been an increase in the imports of folded yarn and there has been over-production of synthetic yarns and fabrics. To the critics of our industry, on both sides of the House, who feel that the Lancashire industry has been backward and has not made sufficient effort to adapt itself to and to develop the man-made fibres, it is perhaps as well that I should point out that approximately 25 per cent. of the spindles and looms of Lancashire are now engaged on man-made fibres and synthetic yarn. What happened during 1954, in my opinion, was that the trend to this development was too great. They took too big a risk in that advance and it has resulted in over-production and over-concentration on synthetic yarns and fabrics.
  Next, we had the recent trend of low-priced imports of grey cloth, particularly from India and, in the last quarter of 1954, the rather alarming rise in imports of grey cloth from Hong Kong. The President referred to the figures for 1954, but to assess what is likely to happen in 1955 we should look particularly at the figures over the last quarter of 1954 and at the January and February figures of this year. They give the disturbing picture. The trend of1954 is being carried into 1955 and therein lies the main danger.
  Because of these low-priced imports, there has been a lack of confidence amongst buyers, and I think we must admit that confidence has also been influenced to some extent by the uncertain
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  course which is predicted for American cotton prices.
  But the Government and the President of the Board of Trade must carry a large measure of responsibility for the factors which have influenced and disturbed our industry during 1954. In the first place, there was the Japanese Trade Agreement, to which several of my hon. Friends and the President referred. The Japanese Trade Agreement has opened the floodgates into our colonial markets and it may well be that in 1955 most of our colonial trade will disappear, mainly to the Japanese.
  In the debate on the Japanese Trade Agreement, we did not take the line—indeed, we have never taken the line—that Colonial peoples, with their low living standards and low incomes, should be compelled to continue indefinitely purchasing the higher-priced Lancashire fabrics when cheaper Japanese or Indian goods were available.
  Our claim was that the relaxation would be too rapid. We appealed for gradual opening of the floodgates so that Lancashire could have a better opportunity of adjusting herself to the new trade pattern. Unfortunately, the full impact of this Japanese Trade Agreements will hit us this year when we are also hit by the rising volume of Indian imports and imports from Hong Kong, and if the Government are not worried about the situation, I can assure them that Lancashire is very seriously worried today and has cause to be.
  No industry can adapt itself, without suffering and without mass unemployment and great losses, to rapid and violent change. No industry is more fitted than the cotton industry to adapt itself to gradual change. I contend that by their precipitate action the Government have expended the interest of the cotton industry for the interests of the rest of Britain's export industry. On the broad national picture that might be commendable, but it is no satisfaction to Lancashire—none whatever. Lancashire carries a wholly disproportionate burden in the interests of the economic policy of the Government and Lancashire has awakened to that fact.
  The President has rightly had his attention called to the mounting flow of cheap folded yarns to Portugal and other countries. My hon. Friend the Member

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  for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn) dealt with that problem at considerable length. I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman has tended to dismiss this as unimportant. In consequence, we have had pockets of unemployment in an important sector of the industry—the sector which produces the folded yarn mainly for fine quality goods. The stubborn refusal of the Government to end Purchase Tax under the D scheme on textiles has given a grave blow to Lancashire's export hopes. In this sphere Lancashire can hold its own for a number of years, given fair and reasonable conditions and opportunities.
  I repeat that the over-riding problem is the rising trend of duty-free grey cloth from India at incredibly low prices. In 1954, 133 million yards came to this country from India. To get a proper picture, one must look at the figures for the fourth quarter of 1954 and relate those figures to imports in January this year. In January. 1955, 16 million yards were imported from India. That is an annual rate of nearly 200 million yards. The serious concern to Lancashire at the moment is that if the trend of 1954 is carried through 1955 it is quite possible that 300 million yards will be imported from India.
  The price advantage is so striking that Manchester merchants are pouring orders into India at present. I shall not give many figures, but I will quote the example of a standard cloth. On a standard grey cloth the Lancashire price at present is 13d. per yard and the Indian price is 9·95d. The price advantage of the Indian cloth is 3·05d. or, according to my doubtful arithmetic, 23 per cent. lower than the Lancashire price. It might well be suggested that perhaps Lancashire textile industry production costs are too high. They may be to some extent, but the gap is so large that it could not possibly be bridged, however efficiently our industry were organised.
  I shall give the figures in reference to that cloth. The Lancashire spinning and weaving costs in producing that cloth at 13d. a yard are 6d. The Indian spinning and weaving costs, plus insurance and freight to this country, are 5¾d. Therefore, the advantage in the cost of production for the Indians is ¼d. per yard. The 2¾d. of the 3d. advantage is due entirely to India's access to more favourable raw
  558
  cotton prices. In other words, it is not untrue to say that, due to Lancashire's greater productivity, the labour costs in producing a lb. of yarn or a yard of cloth in Lancashire are very little higher than in India.
  The people of Lancashire are very disturbed and angry, because to them the present position, rightly or wrongly, seems very unfair. I think that by and large both sides of the House have agreed that it is unfair, and I should like to recount, as I see them, the three points of fundamental unfairness.
  The United Kingdom cotton industry is the only cotton industry in the world which has to face competition from duty free imports. That seems to be a rather unfair situation in which Lancashire has to fight in the world as it is today. Secondly, although India has free access to the enormous United Kingdom market, she imposes quite prohibitive duties on our exports of cotton fabrics to India, whose duties on our goods range from 60 per cent. to 80 per cent.
  That is a completely prohibitive duty. Although we have a substantial preference, the duty imposed upon our goods makes it almost impossible for them to enter India, In fact, the exports of Lancashire textile fabrics to India in 1954 totalled 3 million yards, or about 2 per cent. of the yardage of what India sent to us in the reverse direction. Again, Lancashire asks whether this is fair. We must agree that it is very unfair. It is one-way trading.
  Thirdly, as a result of India's dual pricing system for Indian cotton, Indian mills receive their Indian cotton at approximately Is. per lb. cheaper than Lancashire receives comparable grades of United States or other growths or even of Indian cotton. This advantage, as other hon. Members also have indicated, is equal to 2¾d.-3d. per yard of cloth, or approximately 25 per cent. of the value of the cotton fabric. Again, we ask, is this fair? I think everyone must agree that it is a most unfair condition in which an industry is expected to survive.
  I have a lifelong and intimate connection with our once very great cotton industry. I have felt its decline from its peak to its present severely contracted size. I have gone through those periods of violent contraction and have had intimate experience of the strife, struggle and

  559
  suffering, and the mass unemployment and the insecurity and misery that that violent contraction caused. To divide those violent contractions. in to two, the 1920's saw the great contraction due to the loss of the enormous Indian market and the 1930's saw the full impact of unfair cut-throat competition from Japan.
  Because of my personal background of unhappy experience and memories, it may be that I see the problem out of perspective, but I do not think so. I have tried to be fair and objective. The facts that I have produced cannot be refuted. I do not think that the comments and opinions I have expressed have been unbalanced and unreasonable. Therefore, I think that it is legitimate to contend that an impartial observer must agree that the present situation and conditions under which the Lancashire textile industry is functioning are most unfair. It is carrying impossible handicaps which no British industry ought to be asked to bear. I am afraid that the Government, by its continued inaction, has brought the cotton industry of Lancashire to the verge of a third violent contraction in the form of the loss of a substantial part of the home market.
  The House will make a great mistake if it fails to appreciate and take account of the great human problems which are involved by these violent changes in the pattern of trade. Someone once said that the country is richest which has the greatest number of happy and contented human beings. People cannot be happy and contented if insecurity and the spectre of unemployment hangs over them; in other words, if they are in danger of losing their jobs, as they feel they are in Lancashire today.
  There is, of course, always the tendency to think that the other fellow's job is not as important as our own; but to him it is important. To put this human aspect of the problem into correct perspective in the atmosphere of this House, I would say that cotton operatives are as uncertain and as alarmed by these cheap foreign imports as Members of Parliament are uncertain and alarmed by the operations of the Boundary Commission.
  I suggest that one should bear in mind that situation in the attempt to appreciate what is in the minds of the people in our
  560
  textile industry at the present time. This feeling of anxiety and uncertainty which hung over a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House during 1954 and has extended into 1955, has to the same extent hung over cotton operatives.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton made reference to Lancashire 40 years ago producing home requirements in the two hours before breakfast each day. That time has gone. Instead of being an industry in which 80 per cent. of its products were exported and 20 per cent. satisfied the home market, the position has been completely reversed, and now 80 per cent. of its production is needed to satisfy the home market and only 20 per cent. is exported. The question that is being asked in Lancashire particularly is this. Is the home trade to be allowed to go the same way as the export trade? Here we can exercise some control. The great losses in the export markets were due to external factors which we could not possibly control, but in the home market the situation is within our own hands and our own control. Here we can at least influence and determine the rate of decline, if further decline there is to be.
  Should the home trade be protected? This is a legitimate question to be asked. We on this side of the House do not stand for either wholesale protection or for unregulated cut-throat competition. We believe that there should be some flexibility in industry, that some industries should be encouraged to expand and others should be encouraged to contract. Over-rapid expansion can be as fraught with danger and distress as over-rapid contraction. We know this in Lancashire. We have had experience of both during the last half century.
  If something effective is not done at once, the home trade can go the same way as the export trade. I appeal particularly to the Government to devise some scheme whereby the impact of these changes can be gradually absorbed in our industry. Responsible leaders in the cotton industry do not take the view that we should be 100 per cent. protected, but they take the view that we should be given reasonable and fair conditions in which to operate. They contend that if the changes in the pattern of trade which must inevitably occur in achanging world are influenced so as to be gradual.

  561
  our industry better than any other can adapt itself to those changes.
  We have a large labour force, the oldest labour force in any industry. We have also a sex segregation which is rather peculiar. The position of our labour force is roughly, though fairly accurately, as follows—one-third males, one-third single females, and one-third married females. By the nature of this labour force, Lancashire can well fit into an ordered contraction if further contraction there must be.
  In my opinion, for what it is worth, if right and reasonable policies are pursued, our industry at present is not far from right in size. There may be need for further contraction in the overall national interest, but I think that it need only be slight—I should say about 10 per cent. over the next 10 years. One per cent. per year. I believe that it is possible for some ordered development to be introduced. We on this side of the House feel that Her Majesty's present Administration have failed in their responsibilities. We feel that they have been distinctly lacking in their sense of appreciation of the urgency of this problem. Finally, we believe that to them Lancashire as a textile industry is an expendable instrument of their economic policy.
  9.30 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. A. R. W. Low): I am sure that we should all like to congratulate the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Thornton) on his speech. We are all glad that he was chosen to wind up the debate for the Opposition, for we know of his experience, we respect his views and the sincere expressions of feeling which he has conveyed to us this evening.
  I believe that we can all agree that this has been a valuable debate. We have had speeches from hon. Members who have great experience of this industry. I can mention my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) as well as the hon. Member for Farnworth. I personally am sorry—and I know my hon. Friends will join with me—in saying this—that my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, West (Mr. Assheton) has got such a bad cold that he has lost his voice, and I must apologise to the House, too, that I am likewise suffering from a cold. My voice is not quite lost, but
  562
  nearly so, and I hope that the House will be patient with me.
  Many of my hon. Friends who have spoken have reminded us that the problems of Lancashire today, to which all give serious attention and which, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, are a matter of anxious concern to us, raise national issues of the widest importance as well as issues for Lancashire itself. The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Burke) said that it was time that Lancashire's voice was heard. I can assure him that Lancashire's voice has been heard by my right hon. Friend and me for many months, and I would also assure him that we have listened very, very carefully to what Lancashire has had to say, just as we have listened carefully to what hon. Members from both sides of the House representing Lancashire and cotton constituencies have said today.
  I have paid special attention to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Royton (Sir H. Sutcliffe) and by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn) about the smaller towns and the yarn position, to which I do not think I shall have time tonight to reply.
  Mr. Blackburn: Oh.
  Mr. Low: As the hon. Gentleman himself said, I have written him several letters and he was good enough to read one of them to the House.
  Mr. Blackburn: I am waiting for another.
  Mr. Low:Several hon. Members mentioned the subject of Purchase Tax. All I can do about that is to assure the House that everything that has been said on that subject today will be faithfully reported to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and I think I can add that I am sure that he knows all the arguments very well.
  Part of the day's debate has been spent in discussing the facts, in diagnosing the ills and trying to assess them aright. I can assure the House that in giving figures and statistics, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Fort) spoke, we did not try to minimise the seriousness of the issue. Equally we tried to avoid any exaggeration. How wise was my hon. Friend the Member

  563
  for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) in pointing to the dangers of exaggeration in a situation like this.
  There is a tendency in some quarters to blame Indian imports for all Lancashire's present difficulties. The facts as reported to me, and as mentioned by hon. Gentlemen from both sides of the House, indicate that this is not generally correct. Of the short-time reported last week, which certainly was an increase on the previous week, three-quarters of it was in the finer end of the trade, which could hardly be affected by the Indian imports. My hon. Friend the Member for Clitheroe took up this point. Of the seven mills closed this year, five were concerned with the finer end of the trade and of the other two closures, one was a quite normal group reorganisation and the other was due to financial difficulties which had taken place over a period of more than a year. Nevertheless, I think that we are all conscious of the fears for the future which have been expressed in relation to these imports generally and those from India in particular; fears which are expressed by many responsible men, both inside and outside the House. We are also well alive to the point which has been made by several speakers in the debate about the loss of confidence. I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Clitheroe put that point extremely well.
  If we agree that this is a matter both of exports and of imports, we must agree, too, that the complete removal of all imported cloth from the home market of, say, between 80 million and 100 million yards last year would not have solved the problems of Lancashire in the immediate past and would not solve them in the future. Those 80 million to 100 million yards are really not a substantial part of the home market. The fear—and I understand it—is that the imports will rise substantially.
  One of the questions we have to ask ourselves is this: is it possible to contemplate a ban on all imports of cloth to the home market? If it is not—and that, I gather, is not the policy of the hon. Member for Farnworth and other hon. Gentlemen—at what level should we aim if we decide to take action to limit imports? That is one of the points we shall be discussing with the Cotton
  564
  Board. Some hon. Members have suggested that it is unusual that these points should be discussed by a Government with an industrial body, It really is not the slightest bit unusual that industry should come to put its case to the Government when the industry is seeking protection.
  We have heard it argued that action ought to have been taken in the past or ought to be taken at once. Some hon. Members have argued that it is wrong to waste the time of the House in explaining the difficulties of the various forms of protective action which might be taken; but in this matter it is impossible to consider whether to take protective action without considering carefully at the same time what specific action might best be taken. We have to consider the "whether" and the "what"—
  Mr. Lindgren: The weather?
  Mr. Low:I would remind the hon. Gentleman that this is a serious matter which we have been debating. I do not think he can have been here all the time. It is not a matter on which he should talk about the weather outside. Even after this debate it is worth while emphasising the difficulties of various forms of specific action but, if I emphasise them, I hope that the House will understand that I am not saying that it is impossible to surmount these difficulties.
  This point has been covered already but various counter-points have been put in the debate, and it is normal that the Government spokesman should deal with those points in reply. One important issue which has not been dealt with to any extent by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite is this: can we helpfully take action to restrict Indian imports and leave the door wide open to Hong Kong imports? In the four months October to January of this year it is estimated that 26 million yards of Indian cloth and 12 million yards of Hong Kong cloth may have gone on to the home market. If we were to restrict Indian cloth imports alone, it might be said that Hong Kong imports might quickly increase and go a good way to fill the gap.
  Mr. Follick Mr. Follick rose—
  Mr. Low: The hon. Gentleman has not been here throughout the debate. I would gladly give way to anybody who had been.

  565
  Of the various methods that have been discussed, I wish to refer first to the tariff.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle is an advocate of dealing with the matter by tariff. There are considerable difficulties about this, which the right hon. Gentleman knows well. It is contrary to both Article I and Article II of our 1939 agreement with India under which we enjoy valuable preferences on 20 per cent. of our exports to India. It is contrary to the Ottawa Agreements Act, 1932, in respect of India. It is contrary to long-established and traditional principles of our Commonwealth and Empire trading policy.
  If we decided to go for a tariff and to re-negotiate the Indian Trade Agreement, should we apply the tariff to all Commonwealth countries, or do we want to discriminate in trade against India or Hong Kong? Is this the time when we should want to take discriminatory action against India or Hong Kong? These are serious issues which were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East, among other hon. Members. Among other things, we should have to make up our minds whether even the most-favoured nation rate of 17½ per cent. was sufficiently high to achieve the purpose of those who are asking us to apply a tariff.
  It is a good thing to remind the House that trade with India is going well. Last year our exports were £115 million in value, and India's exports to us were of about the same order. My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) took this point and said that India has to earn the sterling with which to pay for our exports.
  When we come to the point, which has been made from time to time during the debate, about goods which are cheap for one reason or another—such as wages or special cotton prices—we must surely keep in mind the fact that our United States friends, our exports to whom we are trying manfully to increase, might well take that point against us if we pressed it too far.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: Especially with the engineers.
  Mr. Low:I note that I have the support of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South.
  566
  The next method discussed was a quota. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Sir I. Horobin) and my hon. Friend the Member for Clitheroe advocated that we should use a quota as a cure for Lancashire's problem. Article XIX of G.A.T.T. has been mentioned; it provides for emergency action. The use of a quota would be a short-term and not a long-term solution. Are we certain at the moment whether the problem which faces Lancashire is a short-term or long-term one? That is one of the questions that we have to consider very carefully and, of course, to discuss with the Cotton Board.
  One of my hon. Friends and one or two other hon. Members suggested not a nondiscriminatory world quota, as it were, but a quota against Commonwealth and colonial manufactures. That certainly is another point that we have to consider. According to the hon. Members who have spoken about it, it could be justified on the ground that other imports are held by the 17½per cent. tariff. However, this departure from free entry raises very big issues of Commonwealth policy, just as a tariff would do. How could we confine our actions merely to cloth? Many other United Kingdom manufacturing industries have recently been affected by imports from Commonwealth and colonial manufactures coming in free of duty, and in nearly every case those industries have already lost a far higher percentage of the home market than the 5 per cent. to 6 per cent. which the cotton textile industry lost last year. Some of these industries have been mentioned on the Floor of the House—carpets, gloves, cutlery. Others have been mentioned in letters to myself, my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend. Great issues of Commonwealth policy are raised by that point.
  The third proposal that has been made was the right hon. Gentleman's State trading importing commission, another monopoly for Lancashire. The right hon. Gentleman is in favour of monopolies for Lancashire, apparently. I am not sure how many of his hon. Friends are in favour of these monopolies for Lancashire. We have yet to find out. He suggested that this commission would buy freely from everywhere for re-export, but would discriminate in its purchases for the home market against India alone,

  567
  because of the unfair competition in the price of Indian cotton.
  We can all express our opinion that the price of Indian cotton is unfair, but, as my right hon. Friend said, whatever our opinion may be, it is not contrary to any international obligation, nor contrary to something we have done ourselves for some time over steel and coal. The right hon. Gentleman seems to think that the behaviour of the Commission in this way would be consistent with our international obligations. How that can really be so in view of Article XVII of the G.A.T.T., which my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East read out, I do not know.
  However, suppose it is, then is he suggesting that other countries can legitimately do the same thing against our engineering goods, just because the domestic price of our steel is cheaper than the world price? The second point about the right hon. Gentleman's proposal is that it is only meant to deal with India—special discrimination against India. That would hardly meet the case of his hon. Friend the Member for Burnley who wants the whole of the home market, or nearly all, reserved for Lancashire. What would the right hon. Gentleman's Commission do about Hong Kong imports, most of them kept for the home market?
  Mr. H. Wilson:The right hon. Gentleman is misrepresenting what I said. So far as Hong Kong is concerned, if these imports were an unfair competition, the same restrictions would apply. I also made it clear this afternoon that they would also have power to deal with yarns coming in under virtually dumping conditions. Will he please tell us why this argument does not apply to jute?
  Mr. Low:If the right hon. Gentleman will give me time, I certainly will. As he has been good enough to draw me on, I will come to it at once. There are some quite important differences between the jute industry on the one hand and the cotton industry on the other. I hope that he will bear that in mind. I hope that he will also bear in mind that the Government do not wish to continue State trading in jute one moment after they have found another method of honouring their undertaking to the jute industry. The jute control was a State control skeleton
  568
  which we found in the cupboard in 1951 and we are not now going to find a companion for it.
  Now for the differences. The jute industry is a relatively small industry employing 19,000 people and concentrated for the most part in or around Dundee in Scotland. The cotton industry is large and employs 300,000 people or more over a large area.
  A second difference is that the cotton industry produces considerably more than the needs of the home market and is a leading exporting industry; some of us seem to forget the important part the cotton industry still plays in the nation's exports. The jute industry produces considerably less than the needs of the home market and its exports are very limited.
  A third and very important difference is that most of the Control's imports of jute goods are confined to a few standard types of yarn and cloth. There are many diverse types of cotton goods for many different purposes and, by their nature, they can best be bought by individual merchants who know the needs of their customers, having carefully studied them, and who know the skill and efficiency of their suppliers.
  The advocates of this State trading proposal put it forward as a wangle to get round what they admit to be a most formidable difficulty of protection by any other means, namely tariff or quota. These formidable difficulties relate to international and commonwealth obligations. The right hon. Gentleman knows all about them and knows that he cannot wangle round them by his State trading proposal.
  When the right hon. Gentleman himself took action in 1947 on the G.A.T.T., he appeared to some of us to be protecting himself from the temptation to which he knew he was otherwise liable to succumb. He agreed to sensible Articles in the G.A.T.T. about State trading and we thought they were specially designed to protect him and those like him from the temptations of the "Idol of State Trading" which he worships. Alas, he seems to have forgotten those sensible Articles, and to have wasted a great deal of his time and the time of his supporters.
  Now let me say something about the representations we have made to the Government of India about the level of import duty. There is a long history of

  569
  these representations, going back to the time before I went to the Board of Trade.
  We have always taken the view that a free licensing policy of cotton textiles on the part of the Government of India would be frustrated by the very high level of their tariff. The Government of India did not accept our view when they introduced free licensing in September last year, but assured us they would reconsider the level of their tariff in the light of evidence of imports after September.
  They repeated that assurance to me when I was in Delhi early in January. I discussed the whole of Lancashire's case with Mr. T. T. Krishnamachari and I made it quite clear to him that we all felt strongly about the disparity between the duty-free treatment we gave to Indian cloth and the preventive level of duty imposed by India on our cotton textiles.
  Since the Indian Budget we have made further representations. There can be no doubt that the Government of India understand our point of view, but they have a point of view too. They are not convinced that it is the level of duty that prevents British textile exports to India. They point to recent applications for licences which are higher; but actual imports into India and the evidence we have of orders from India support our view, which is that trade has not increased as it should have done since the free issue of licences began in September.
  They also say that they are not convinced that Lancashire exporters have an up-to-date knowledge of the Indian market. It is my view, as I told Mr. Krishnamachari, that Lancashire merchants are better informed than any merchants and manufacturers outside India about the Indian market. Nevertheless, the Indian Government told me in January that they would be most easily persuaded that British textile exporters really had taken all possible steps to increase their trade if an exporters' mission was to go out to India.
  This suggestion had first been made by Mr. Neville Wadia, the Chairman of the Bombay Mill Owners Association, in a letter to Sir Raymond Streat before Christmas. It was also suggested that such a mission should visit Delhi and express its point of view to the Government of India. I told the Cotton Board
  570
  of this, and of the importance which the Government of India attached to the Mission, at a meeting which I had with it on 26th January and I repeated it on 15th February in Manchester. I have always made it clear that Her Majesty's Government did not hold the view that Lancashire had not exerted itself to the utmost to increase its exports to India.
  In replying to our recent representations the Government of India have returned to this proposal for a Mission. They thought it was worth while repeating the suggestion made by Mr. Neville Wadia that a team of United Kingdom textile experts should come out to India and study the market conditions, so as to find out what type of United Kingdom goods will appeal to the Indian market. The investigations of such a team may be expected to enable the Government of India to examine the matter on the basis of more precise information than is now available in regard to India's demand for better varieties of textiles, and the United Kingdom's ability to supply them at reasonably competitive prices. The Government of India will examine any suggestions made after such an investigation with sympathy and consideration.
  The Cotton Board have been considering this suggestion, and while it is a matter for the industry to decide, the United Kingdom Government for their part hope very much that the invitation will be accepted.
  We regard the level of the Indian tariff as quite a separate matter from the question of whether and what action should be taken to control imports into the United Kingdom. There is, of course, no question of asking the Indian Government to reduce this tariff as part of a bargain in which we would promise not to restrict imports into the United Kingdom of Indian cloth. We hope that the Government of India will reduce that tariff because we believe that its present level prevents trade and we believe that the Government of India do not wish to prevent trade with us.
  Whatever else this debate will have done, I hope that it will have shown the people of Lancashire's staple industry that this House is aware of the problems they face, and that it is not only aware but, regardless of party, cares very deeply about its problems. We have had in mind

  571
  not only the facts about production, employment, imports and exports as they show themselves today, but also the careful estimates made about the future and the fears which have been expressed.
  I hope, too, that there will be a better understanding of the great issues involved in any of the various methods of safeguarding action which we have discussed. These great issues concern our nation's position as a world-wide trading nation. Mistaken use of protective weapons would damage all exporting industries including woollen textiles, vehicles, machinery, heavy plant and so on, and the cotton textile industry would not escape. That is the difficulty we face.
  If we were to restrict imports, perhaps by a relatively small amount, giving Lancashire a relatively small gain, we might lose freedom and even preferences in other markets over the whole range of our trade, not excluding textiles. That is a substantial risk which I do not say we should not run in any circumstances, but I am saying that it is a risk the very nature of which forces any responsible Government to examine most carefully its disadvantages as well as its advantages.
  This is a changing situation, and the balance of disadvantage and advantage may change from month to month. Let us never forget that whatever is done or not done, the main cause of the reduction in orders to the weavers and spinners is the loss of export orders, and anything
  that might be done to protect the home market by itself will not go even halfway to making up the gap between present orders and orders which Lancashire wants.
  We have been charged by the Opposition with failure to take action, as if to act without care and fullest consideration and without regard to our international and Commonwealth obligations would have best served Lancashire and Britain. We are convinced that if we had in these past few months placed any new restrictions on cotton cloth imports we should have seriously damaged the nation's interest, without contributing very much to Lancashire's.
  It is absolutely certain that if at any time we had taken or were to take the State-trading action proposed by the Opposition, the damage to the national interest would be even greater. Instead, we have kept closely in touch with the industry, who will shortly be letting us have their specific proposals; and we have made our own studies and preparations for action if that were to become essential and appropriate.
  In the next week or two this process will continue. That this is the right way to proceed we have no doubt, and we ask the House to approve it by voting for our Amendment.
  Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 256, Noes 288.

  Division No. 43.

  AYES

  [10.0 p.m

  Acland, Sir Richard

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Adams, Richard

  Callaghan, L. J.

  Edwards, W.J. (Stepney)

  Albu, A. H.

  Castle, Mrs. B. A.

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

  Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)

  Champion, A. J.

  Evans Edward (Lowestoft)

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Chapman, W. D.

  Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)

  Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)

  Chetwynd, G. R.

  Fernyhough, E.

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

  Clunie, J.

  Fienburgh, W.

  Awbery, S. S.

  Coldrick, W.

  Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Collick, P. H.

  Follick, M.

  Baird, J.

  Collins, V. J.

  Foot, M. M.

  Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Forman, J. C.

  Bartley, P.

  Cove, W. G.

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Freeman, John (Watford)

  Bence, C. R.

  Crosland, C. A. R.

  Freeman, Peter (Newport)

  Bonn, Hon. Wedgwood

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.

  Beswick, F.

  Cullen, Mrs. A.

  Gibson, C. W.

  Bing, G. H. C.

  Daines, P.

  Glanville, James

  Blackburn, F.

  Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

  Gooch, E. G.

  Blenkinsop, A.

  Darling, George (Hillsborough)

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  Boardman, H.

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)

  Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

  Bowles, F. G.

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth

  Deer, G.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Lianelly)

  Brock way, A. F.

  Delargy, H. J.

  Griffiths, William (Exchange)

  Brook, Dryden (Halifax)

  Dodds, N.N.

  Hale, Leslie

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Donnelly, D. L.

  Hall, John T. (Gateshead, W.)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)

  Hamilton, W. W.

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  Hannan, W.

  Burke, W. A.

  Edelman, M.

  Hardy, E. A.

  Burton, Miss F. E.

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

  Hargreaves, A.

  Harrison, J. (Nottingham, E.)

  Mellish, R. J.

  Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Messer, Sir F.

  Snow, J. W.

  Healey, Denis (Leeds, S.E.)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Herbison, Miss M.

  Moody A. S.

  Sparks, J. A.

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.

  Steele, T.

  Hobson, C. R.

  Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham. E.)

  Holman, P.

  Morrison,Rt.Hn.Herbert(Lewis'm,S.)

  Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Holmes, Horace

  Moyle, A.

  Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.

  Houghton, Douglas

  Mulley, F. W.

  Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)

  Hoy, J. H.

  Murray, J. D.

  Stross, Dr. Barnett

  Hubbard, T. F.

  Nally, W.

  Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

  Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.

  Swingler, S. T.

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  O'Brien, T.

  Sylvester, G. O.

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Oldfield, W. H.

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Oliver, G. H.

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Orbach, M.

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Oswald, T.

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Owen, W. J.

  Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)

  Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)

  Paget, R. T.

  Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.

  Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

  Thornton, E.

  Janner, B.

  Palmer, A. M. F.

  Turner-Samuels, M.

  Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.

  Panned, Charles

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Usborne, H. C.

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena

  Parker, J.

  Wallace, H. W.

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Parkin, B. T.

  Warbey, W. N.

  Johnson, James (Rugby)

  Paton, J.

  Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradford, C.)

  Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)

  Peart, T. F.

  Weitzman, D.

  Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Creech

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Jones, David (Hartlepool)

  Porter, G.

  Wells, William (Walsall)

  Jones, Frederick Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)

  West, D. G.

  Keenan, W.

  Probert, A. R.

  Wheeldon, W. E.

  Kenyon, C.

  Proctor, W. T.

  White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Pryde, D. J.

  White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  Kinley, J.

  Pursey, Cmdr. H.

  Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

  Lawson, G. M.

  Rankin, John

  Wigg, George

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Reeves, J.

  Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.

  Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)

  Reid, Thomas (Swindon)

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Lewis, Arthur

  Reid, William (Camlachle)

  Willey, F. T.

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Rhodes, H.

  Williams, David (Neath)

  Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

  Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

  Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)

  Logan, D. G.

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

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

  MacColl, J. E.

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)

  McGhee, H. G.

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  McGovern, J.

  Ross, William

  Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)

  McInnes, J.

  Royle, C.

  Willis, E. G.

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Shackleton, E. A. A.

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)

  Shawoross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley

  Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)

  McNeil, Rt. Hon. H.

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Short, E. W.

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Shurmer, P. L. E.

  Wyatt, W. L.

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Silverman, Julius (Erdington)

  Yates, V. F.

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddorefd, E.)

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Younger, Rt. Hon. K.

  Manuel, A. C.

  Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Skeffington, A. M.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Mason, Roy

  Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke-on-Trent)

  Mr. Bowden and Mr. Pearson.

  Mayhew, C. P.

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  NOES

  Aitken, W. T.

  Boothby, Sir Robert

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

  Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)

  Bossom, Sir A. C.

  Crouch, R. F.

  Alport, C. J. M.

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

  Crowder, Sir John (Finohley)

  Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)

  Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)

  Braine, B. R.

  Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)

  Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.

  Braithwalte, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Arbuthnot, John

  Braithwaite, Sir Gurney

  De la Bère, Sir Rupert

  Armstrong, C. W.

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.

  Deedes, W. F.

  Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)

  Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)

  Digby, S. Wingfield

  Assheton, Rt. Hn. R. (Blackburn,W.)

  Brooman-White, R. C.

  Dodds-Parker, A. D.

  Astor, Hon. J. J.

  Browne, Jack (Govan)

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.

  Baldock, Lt.Cmdr. J. M.

  Bullard, D. G.

  Donner, Sir P. W.

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Doughty, C. J. A.

  Banks, Col. C.

  Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Drayson, G. B.

  Barber, Anthony

  Campbell, Sir David

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)

  Barlow, Sir John

  Carr, Robert

  Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.

  Baxter, Sir Beverley

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Duthie, W. S.

  Beach, Maj. Hicks

  Channon, H.

  Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir D. M.

  Beamish, Maj. Tufton

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Sir Winston

  Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (Wrwk & Lgtn)

  Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

  Clarke, Col. Sir Ralph (E. Grinstead)

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

  Cole, Norman

  Erroll, F. J.

  Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

  Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

  Fell, A.

  Biroh, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert

  Finlay, Graeme

  Bishop, F. P.

  Cooper-Key, E. M.

  Fisher, Nigel

  Black, C. W.

  Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.

  574

  575

  Fletcher, Sir Walter (Bury)

  Lindsay, Martin

  Robertson, Sir David

  Fletcher-Cooke, C.

  Linstead, Sir H. N.

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (King's Norton)

  Robson-Brown, W.

  Ford, Mrs. Patricia

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

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Fort, R.

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Roper, Sir Harold

  Foster, John

  Lloyd-George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G.

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.

  Russell, R. S.

  Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe & Lonsdale)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.

  Galbraith, Rt. Hon. T. D. (Pollok)

  Low, Rt. Hon. A. R. W.

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

  Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

  Savory, Prof. Sir Douglas

  Gammans, L. D.

  Lucas, P. B. (Brentford)

  Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.

  Garner-Evans, E. H.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Scott, Sir Donald

  Glover, D.

  McAdden, S. J.

  Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

  Godber, J. B.

  MeCallum, Major D.

  Sharples, Maj. R. C.

  Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

  McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.

  Shepherd, William

  Gough, C.F. H.

  Macdonald, Sir Peter

  Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbr'gh, W.)

  Gower, H. R.

  Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Smithers, Peter (Winchester)

  Graham, Sir Fergus

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Smyth, Brig. J. C. (Norwood)

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Maclean, Fitzroy (Lancaster)

  Snadden, W. McN.

  Grimond, J.

  McLean, Neil (Inverness)

  Soames, Capt. C.

  Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

  Spearman, A. C. M.

  Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

  MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Harold (Bromley)

  Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (K'ns'gt'n S.)

  Hare, Hon. J. H.

  Maopherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)

  Maltland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Hornoastle)

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)

  Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

  Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)

  Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfd)

  Marlowe, A. A. H.

  Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)

  Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)

  Marples, A. E.

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

  Hay, John

  Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)

  Storey, S.

  Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.

  Maude, Angus

  Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Licnel

  Maudling, R.

  Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)

  Heath, Edward

  Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.

  Studholme, H. G.

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Medlicott, Sir Frank

  Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)

  Higgs, J. M. C.

  Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.

  Sutcliffe, Sir Harold

  Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)

  Molson, A. H. E.

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)

  Moore, Sir Thomas

  Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

  Hill, John (S. Norfolk)

  Mott-Radyclyffe, C. E.

  Teeling, W.

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Nabarro, G. D. N.

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Hollis, M. C.

  Neave, Airey

  Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)

  Holt, A. F.

  Nicholls, Harmar

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Hope, Lord John

  Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)

  Thompson, Lt-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)

  Hopkinson, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hn. P. (M'nm'th)

  Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.

  Nield, Basil (Chester)

  Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.

  Horobin, Sir Ian

  Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.

  Touche, Sir Gordon

  Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence

  Nugent, G. R. H.

  Turner, H. F. L.

  Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

  Nutting, Rt. Hon. Anthony

  Turton, R. H.

  Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

  Oakshott, H. D.

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)

  Odey, G. W.

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Hughes Hallet, Vice-Admiral J.

  O'Neill Hon. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

  Vosper, D. F.

  Hulbert, Wing Cmdr. N. J.

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.

  Wade, D. W.

  Hurd, A. R.

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Hutchison, Sir Ian Clark (E'b'gh, W)

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-super-Mare)

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'le'bne)

  Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)

  Osborne, C.

  Walker-Smith, D. C.

  Hyde, Lt.-Col. H. M.

  Page, R. G.

  Wall, Major Patrick

  Hylton-Foster, Sir H. B. H.

  Peake, Rt. Hon. O.

  Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Peto, Brig. C. H. M.

  Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Peyton, J. W. W.

  Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Watkinson, H. A.

  Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)

  Pilkington, Capt. R. A.

  Webbe, Sir H. (L'nd'n & Westm'r)

  Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.

  Pitman, I. J.

  Wellwood, W.

  Kaberry, D.

  Pitt, Miss E. M.

  Kerby, Capt. H. B.

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Williams, Rt. Hn. Charles (Torquay)

  Kerr, H. W.

  Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)

  Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

  Lambert, Hon. G.

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Lambton, Viscount

  Profumo, J. D.

  Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Raikes, Sir Victor

  Wills, G.

  Langford-Holt, J. A.

  Ramsden, J. E.

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Redmayne, M.

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

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

  Remnant, Hon. P.

  Mr. Buchan-Hepburn and

  Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.

  Ridsdale, J. E.

  Sir Cedric Drewe.

  Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

  Proposed words there added.
  Resolved,
  That this House, noting the diverse character of the problems confronting the cotton textile industry, supports the representations made to the Government of India on the level
  576
  of import duty on United Kingdom cotton textile exports to India, and approves the declared intention of Her Majesty's Government to take such safeguarding action on imports as may prove to be essential and appropriate having regard to the position of the United Kingdom as a world-wide trading nation; and welcomes the steps which Her Majesty's Government have taken to obtain from the Cotton Board their detailed views of the problems and their specific proposals for action.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE BENEFITS (OVERSEAS RESIDENCE)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr.Kaberry.]
  10.12 p.m.
  Mr. J. Langford-Holt: Three weeks ago six hon. Members from this House visited the Forces in Germany. During the course of that visit other hon. Members and myself received every courtesy from the British Army of the Rhine. Together with two other hon. Members, I had an opportunity of seeing 20 or 30 wives of serving officers, noncommissioned officers and private soldiers. One of those wives told us a story which at that time I found difficult to believe.
  The story was that her husband—I forget whether he was a non-commissioned officer or a private—serving in Germany, has been informed that he is serving at a home station but that if his widowed mother or mother-in-law went to live with him and his wife she would be informed by the Ministry of National Insurance that she was living abroad. We therefore have the most extraordinary position that a soldier is told he is at home and his mother or mother-in-law, who may be in the next room, is told she is abroad and is not therefore entitled to any pension.
  From the Minister of National Insurance I have received a list of countries in which benefits are payable and the extent to which they are payable. It is a peculiar thing that the only grant which is payable is a death grant. Under certain circumstances, apparently, the death grant is payable in all parts of the world.
  When the National Insurance Scheme was instituted, the Government, I am sure quite rightly, considered that people who left the country of their own free will took the advantages as well as the disadvantages of so doing; but a soldier who is called up under the conscription system in this country and is then sent abroad is in a completely different category from the civilian.
  When I came back from Germany, I made some inquiries, not unnaturally, of the Ministry of Pensions and was in-
  578
  formed that the reason that these dependants of serving men in Germany—and, for that matter, in other parts of the world—were not in receipt of any payments or benefits under the National Insurance Scheme was that it was forbidden under Section 29 (1) of the National Insurance Act, 1946.
  Wishing, as far as a private Member can do, to try to right a wrong, I then introduced into the House a National Insurance (Amendment) Bill which sought to cover this very narrow point. I had hoped that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and his right hon. Friend the Minister might support me in that venture, but I was to be disappointed. It was at that point that the Departmental machinery, which is weird and wonderful in its ways, set out to say "No" in as many and as different ways as possible.
  My Bill, as it was opposed in the House, was prevented from having what we back benchers might term easy access to the Statute Book. What were the reasons which the Department—
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Ernest Marples): On a point of accuracy, can my hon. Friend say when his Bill was opposed and by whom?
  Mr. Langford-Holt:I was careful to say that it was opposed from having an easy access to the Statute Book. By that I mean that what is known as a Second Reading—
  Mr. Marples: My hon. Friend said that his Bill was opposed in this House. All I ask is, by whom and when was it opposed?
  Mr. Langford-Holt:I will put it this way. An unopposed Second Reading was taken exception to by hon. Members on, I regret to say, this side of the House, and the same hon. Members took exception to three Bills, none of which bore any resemblance to each other. I make no further point on that.
  I am sure that the Government could not be opposed to the purpose of the Bill. What were the reasons which my hon. Friend has in mind why the Bill should not be given a Second Reading and why this small point should not be taken any further?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): Is this a discussion of legislation?
  Mr. Langford-Holt: No, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. You will understand shortly why this matter which I am discussing does not involve legislation. We are discussing a historical fact rather than proposed legislation.
  When I put down some Questions on this matter, my right hon. Friend the Minister stated in the House that an agreement was shortly to be reached with the German Federal Government on this matter. If it has taken all this time to reach agreement with the German Federal Government, it is also true to say that since 1945 we have been the occupying Power of the zone of Germany to which I am directing attention. It is also true that since, I think, November, 1946, that area of Germany has been deemed by the War Office to be an area of home service, at any rate to some extent, in the proportion of, I think, either one-third or two-thirds.
  On 28th February, I tried to get from the Minister the exact date on which the negotiations with the German Federal Government were instituted, and I should like my hon. Friend tonight to state the date on which those negotiations were started. I asked my Question but did not get the answer I wanted. I was told when the negotiations might finish but not when they had started.
  A further point is that we have been in occupation of Germany for 8½ years, and during that time the soldiers serving in Germany have been told that they are serving at home and at the same time their wives and families and dependants have been told they are abroad. I do not blame my hon. Friend or his right hon. Friend, or indeed their predecessors, but these are years during which something could have been done and nothing has been done. I should like to know from my hon. Friend what is the present position of troops under N.A.T.O.
  I understand, according to an answer which my right hon. Friend gave me last week, that in France the troops' dependants can get retirement pensions but not widows' pensions. I believe that in Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, should N.A.T.O. decide to send forces there, they would get nothing whatever,
  580
  except, of course, the death benefit under certain circumstances. Supposing—and this is not beyond the bounds of possibility—our troops were sent to any other N.A.T.O. country, what is their position? Have they to wait 8½ years before anything is done?
  Lastly, what about the position in the Channel Islands, which for many purposes are part of the United Kingdom? According to the information given to me, troops sent to the Channel Islands are considered by my hon. Friend's Department to be abroad. The first answer to this problem was that there is an agreement in the course of conclusion with the German Federal Government. The second reason given was that the Bill which I was going to introduce—and I think that this is the point, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, which you had in mind—was not necessary in any case because the powers to make regulations already exist. The answer to that is exactly the same as the one which I have just stated, that these powers must have existed for 8½ years when we had complete sovereignty, certainly in our own zone in Germany. Why have not these powers been used? I am quite sure that if my right hon. Friend and hon. Friend had been aware of this point they would have thought that it was a trifle unfair, to say the least of it.
  Finally, I am a little curious to know, because, I have looked through the reply and the list of countries and the extent to which the provisions of the National Insurance Act apply, what is the position with regard to old-age pensioners. They are very relevant to this argument, and they were not mentioned.
  Mr. Marples:Does my hon. Friend mean retirement pensions under the 1948 Act, or old-age pensions which are non-contributory?
  Mr. Langford-Holt: I mean old-age pensions which are non-contributory. They do not come directly under the Act to which I am referring, but that is a question which I should like my hon. Friend to answer if he can. A further point is this, and I implore my hon. Friend to deal with it. because it was impressed upon us while we were in Germany. One of the greatest difficulties is a sense of injustice in the Army in Germany because the troops feel that they

  581
  should not be regarded as serving in home stations because they do not consider they are serving at home. It may be that from the point of view of posting it is necessary for the Army to consider these soldiers to be serving in home stations, but it passes the bounds of logic when one Government Department says that they are serving at home and another Government Department says they are serving abroad.
  The sense of injustice which results in B.A.O.R. is very real, and I urge my hon. Friend to right it at the earliest opportunity. I implore him not only to introduce regulations to cover B.A.O.R. as and when negotiations are completed, but to consider introducing regulations to cover the whole of Her Majesty's Forces when they are serving in stations overseas through no fault of their own—because they have no desire to serve thousands of miles away from their families.
  I ask my hon. Friend to consider introducing at an early stage regulations covering all these people, and all stations to which they are sent to serve overseas by one of the Service Departments. I ask my hon. Friend to believe that I do not introduce this matter for the sake of introducing it, or for the sake of starting a debate at this time of night. I do so because I and my hon. Friends saw that this was one of the senses of injustice, many of them unreasonable, which were felt by the British Army of the Rhine. This situation was one which I and my colleagues all agree was felt to be illogical by the men. I believe that all my colleagues also feel, as I do, that it is illogical and that something should be done about it.
  10.27 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Ernest Marples): I am sure that the whole House is grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Langford-Holt) for raising this rather complicated subject tonight. I am personally grateful to him because, no matter what Government introduces them, all systems can be improved, and imperfections pointed out form the basis of any improvements that may be made.
  My hon. Friend visited Germany a few weeks ago and found some soldiers suffering under a sense of injustice. My
  582
  right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) has been concerned with this matter, though on a rather broader basis, for some considerable time. The House must get this controversy into its right perspective. I may be slightly out of order in making the first point, which is that no Government action blocked any legislation which was proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury. I want to make that quite clear.
  The second point is the question of what classes of persons are affected in this matter and what classes are not affected. The classes of person who are not affected are the soldier who is sent abroad, wherever he may go, his wife and his children. They are not affected in any way. The benefits of the Welfare State, or their equivalents, are available to them wherever the soldier may be serving. It may be Germany. It may be any place which is classified as an overseas or a home station. For this purpose it does not matter. These benefits are still available to the soldier, his wife or his children, wherever they may be. It could be in the United States, in Korea or in Africa. They receive the equivalent of the National Health services, family allowances and so on. My hon. Friend said that he saw 20 or 30 wives. None of them, nor their husbands or children, were adversely affected because the husbands were serving in that part of the world.
  Mr. Langford-Holt: Can my hon. Friend say, for example, whether the wives who are in that position in Germany receive free milk? I am informed that they do not.
  Mr. Marples:I was speaking generally. They may not receive a particular small section of the welfare services, but broadly they receive the equivalent of the welfare services in this country as far as possible. If my hon. Friend has in mind a case where they do not receive that equivalent, I hope that he will send me details. I promise that I shall look into them.
  Who are the people affected by the observations of my hon. Friend? Not the wife or child but the other relatives of soldiers serving abroad—the uncle, aunt, sister, brother, parent, grand-parent and so on. They are the ones who do not

  583
  get retirement pensions or widows' pensions if they go abroad to some station overseas. That is the point which my hon. Friend has in mind.
  Mr. Langford-Holt:It goes a little further than that, because the Government of which the hon. Member is a member say that the soldier is serving at home. And because it is a home station and the other members of the family are there with him, they are not entitled to anything under the National Insurance Act.
  Mr. Marples: So far as the immediate family of the soldier is concerned, that is, his wife, his children—
  Mr. Ede: Stepchildren?
  Mr. Marples: I do not know about that without notice. I should have thought that if the soldier was responsible for the upkeep of his step-children, he would get the equivalent of the welfare services, but I would not like to commit myself. I will go into it for the right hon. Gentleman if he so desires. So far as the immediate and close family of the soldier is concerned, it does not matter whether he is overseas in Germany or on a home station—he gets the equivalent of the welfare services; the Army children get free milk and meals in the Army schools. I will go into that point and write to my hon. Friend about it and clear up the matter so that there may be no misapprehension.
  Mr. Garner Evans: If I may interrupt, it is only dried milk.
  Mr. Marples:I will go even into the question of the type of the milk provided, but I hope that my hon. Friend will not ask me to go into the category and pedigree of the cow which produces the milk.
  This is a most complicated subject. The welfare State was started in the 20th century and it is difficult to avoid the anomalies that necessarily occur. It is bad enough when a British subject is resident in Britain, when Mr. Smith says that Mr. Jones next door gets something he is not entitled to. It is even more complicated when people go abroad, because they say that they ought to get their pension wherever they go. It is easy to find evidence to prove that a
  584
  certain person is injured. It is just as easy to find other evidence to prove that the same person is not injured, but curiously enough it is not found. I think it would be better if we discussed this problem against the background of the rules and regulations of my right hon. Friend's Department in this connection because a distorted impression is produced if a specific remark is taken out of its context.
  Let me now deal with people in this country who settle abroad for good. First, if they go to any part of the Commonwealth, they get all the benefits. And in "any part of the Commonwealth" I include India, Pakistan and, by special arrangement, the Irish Republic. So, as far as that is concerned, the benefits of National Insurance may be awarded to a citizen who goes to those countries.
  Mr. Ivor Owen Thomas: Does the hon. Gentleman by that mean that by special arrangements with the Governments of these countries their equivalent benefits are granted to these people who go abroad, rather than the benefits payable by our Government?
  Mr. Marples: The benefits are payable because of Regulations made by my right hon. Friend under Section 29 of the National Insurance Act, 1946. The Commonwealth countries are exempted from the normal ban that benefits are not paid when people go abroad. If a person from this country who was entitled to a retirement pension went to Australia, New Zealand, or Canada, he would get the benefit to which he was entitled when he left this country. That is by virtue of the Regulations made by my right hon. Friend and not by reciprocal arrangements between this country and any Commonwealth country.
  If a person from this country goes to a foreign country, two positions may arise. First, if there is a reciprocal arrangement between this country and the foreign country, that arrangement would decide what that person received. For example, we have reciprocal arrangements with Switzerland, France, Italy and the Netherlands, and those arrangements decide what a person receives abroad in those countries.
  If there is no reciprocal arrangement between this country and the foreign country, the person would not get the

  585
  benefits normally payable in this country. There are exceptions which might cover the cases which I believe that my hon. Friend has in mind. If a person goes away for six months and comes back to this country, he can draw his six months' retirement pension on arrival in this country. If he goes away for a year or less, he can draw six months' pension on returning. If he goes away for more than 12 months, he cannot draw anything on returning. For extended holidays it is a very generous provision.
  In the short time that is left to me, I should like to say a word about reciprocal arrangements. I am sorry that I have only a short time in which to deal with what my hon. Friend will agree is a very complicated subject. Foreign countries have nationals living here as we have nationals living in foreign countries. We are always willing to enter into reciprocal arrangements and to try as quickly as we possibly can to start negotiations and conclude them. But it takes two parties to make an agreement and sometimes—
  Mr. Langford-Holt Mr. Langford-Holt rose—
  Mr. Marples: I cannot make a comprehensive reply in such a short time if I am subject to these interruptions. I do not mind interruptions, but my hon. Friend must not complain if I do not make a comprehensive reply.
  One of the first considerations is that we want to pay pensions to our citizens settled in other countries. Negotiations were started with the Federal German Republic in 1950. It is hoped that an agreement will be signed within a matter of weeks. If it is signed, that will give my hon. Friend what he wants. Pensions will be given to all the relatives living in Germany when this agreement with Germany is signed. We have many such
  586
  arrangements with foreign countries. We have them with France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland and—an odd thing—with Australia. It was not necessary to have such an arrangement with Australia, but by it the Australian Government generously agreed to raise the level of pensions that we give in this country to the level of pensions they give in their country.
  We have to pay attention to a tendency which may be seen over all Europe to confine benefits to the country where they are given. If a; person leaves a country, normally he is considered to have left the benefit. Europe is tending to consider the Welfare State as a public service. Countries are saying that they have a duty to look after the people within their own territory. The French call it—and I hate to add another word to the jargon, especially with the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) present—territoriality of social insurance, as against personality of social insurance. In other words, it is the duty of the particular State to look after the people within its boundaries.
  When the agreement with Germany is signed, I hope that my hon. Friend will be satisfied. There have been difficulties—this applies to the previous Government as well as to us because they started the negotiations—and there is bound to be difficulty with Germany. First of all, what is the status of Berlin? Secondly—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at eighteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.

WEST AFRICA
  Apapa and Lagos (Harbour Improvements)
  Apapa and Lagos (Harbour Improvements)
  Airways Corporation
  Airways Corporation
COLONIAL TERRITORIES
  Development and Welfare Contracts
  Development and Welfare Contracts
  Development Corporation Projects
  Development Corporation Projects
  Save The Children Fund
  Save The Children Fund
  Immigrants to United Kingdom (National Service)
  Immigrants to United Kingdom (National Service)
  Welfare and Development (Publicity)
  Welfare and Development (Publicity)
  Pamphlet
  Pamphlet
NYASALAND
  Racial Discrimination
  Racial Discrimination
  Civil Service (Pay Differentials)
  Civil Service (Pay Differentials)
  Students
  Students
NORTHERN RHODESIA
  Racial Discrimination (Railway Travel)
  Racial Discrimination (Railway Travel)
  Poor Persons (Legal Aid)
  Poor Persons (Legal Aid)
GIBRALTAR
  Housing
  Housing
  Technical Education
  Technical Education
  Tourist Industry
  Tourist Industry
  Secretary of State (Visit)
  Secretary of State (Visit)
WEST INDIES
  Jehovah's Witnesses (Trinidad)
  Jehovah's Witnesses (Trinidad)
  British Guiana (Constitution)
  British Guiana (Constitution)
KENYA
  Detainees
  Detainees
  Colonel Young
  Colonel Young
  All-Racial Committee on Wages
  All-Racial Committee on Wages
  Surrender Offer (Police Investigations)
  Surrender Offer (Police Investigations)
  Legislative Council (Delegation)
  Legislative Council (Delegation)
  Masai (Venereal Diseases)
  Masai (Venereal Diseases)
  Arrested Persons (Care of Children)
  Arrested Persons (Care of Children)
  Dock Strike, Mombasa
  Dock Strike, Mombasa
  Civil Servants (Land Ownership)
  Civil Servants (Land Ownership)
  Game Reserves
  Game Reserves
  Arrested Africans (Detentions and Releases)
  Arrested Africans (Detentions and Releases)
GOLD COAST
  Cocoa Farmers
  Cocoa Farmers
  Volta River Project
  Volta River Project
  Foreign Service (Training)
  Foreign Service (Training)
TANGANYIKA
  Masai (Venereal Diseases)
  Masai (Venereal Diseases)
  Legislative Council (Appointments)
  Legislative Council (Appointments)
  Civil Servants (Political Activities)
  Civil Servants (Political Activities)
MALAYA
  Elections
  Elections
  Tuberculosis (Incidence)
  Tuberculosis (Incidence)
  Stateless Persons
  Stateless Persons
  Rubber Industry
  Rubber Industry
  HONG KONG (REFUGEES)
  HONG KONG (REFUGEES)
  BRITISH CARIBBEAN FEDERATION
  BRITISH CARIBBEAN FEDERATION
ROYAL NAVY
  Pay Code
  Pay Code
  Devonport Dockyard (Personal Case)
  Devonport Dockyard (Personal Case)
  New Road, Fareham-Lee
  New Road, Fareham-Lee
  H.M.S. "Montclare" (Helicopter Assistance)
  H.M.S. "Montclare" (Helicopter Assistance)
SHIPBUILDING
  Foreign Orders
  Foreign Orders
  Vacant Berths
  Vacant Berths
  Foreign Competition
  Foreign Competition
TELEPHONE SERVICE
  Portable Coin-Boxes
  Portable Coin-Boxes
  Storm Damage, Northern Ireland
  Storm Damage, Northern Ireland
  Scotland
  Scotland
POST OFFICE
  Deliveries
  Deliveries
  Television Licences
  Television Licences
  Sub-Office, Rumney
  Sub-Office, Rumney
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Regular Commissions (Medical Standards)
  Regular Commissions (Medical Standards)
  Personal Case
  Personal Case
ROADS
  Improvement Schemes
  Improvement Schemes
  Cromwell Road, Middlesex (Extension)
  Cromwell Road, Middlesex (Extension)
  Piccadilly (Widening)
  Piccadilly (Widening)
  Ferry Service, Qneensferry (Improvements)
  Ferry Service, Qneensferry (Improvements)
  Highway Construction (Expenditure)
  Highway Construction (Expenditure)
  Pedestrian Crossings (Accidents)
  Pedestrian Crossings (Accidents)
  Improvements, Crofter Counties
  Improvements, Crofter Counties
  Toll Bridge, Selby
  Toll Bridge, Selby
  Child Accidents, Lincolnshire
  Child Accidents, Lincolnshire
  Dunbar By-Pass
  Dunbar By-Pass
  Relief Roads, Newbury
  Relief Roads, Newbury
  LONDON TRANSPORT (REPORT OF COMMITTEE)
  LONDON TRANSPORT (REPORT OF COMMITTEE)
  SHIPPING (H.M.T. "EMPIRE CLYDE")
  SHIPPING (H.M.T. "EMPIRE CLYDE")
  RAILWAY BRIDGES (INSPECTION)
  RAILWAY BRIDGES (INSPECTION)
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
  Prisoners of War, Korea
  Prisoners of War, Korea
  New Rifle (Production)
  New Rifle (Production)
  Officers' Pensions
  Officers' Pensions
  EGYPTIAN FORCES, GAZA (ISRAELI ATTACK)
  EGYPTIAN FORCES, GAZA (ISRAELI ATTACK)
  U.S. CARGO RULE
  U.S. CARGO RULE
  SAAR AGREEMENT
  SAAR AGREEMENT
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  National Health Service (Charges)
  National Health Service (Charges)
  Water Supplies (Fluoridation)
  Water Supplies (Fluoridation)
  AIRCRAFT RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (EXPENDITURE)
  AIRCRAFT RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (EXPENDITURE)
  UNIVERSITY GRANTS COMMITTEE (MEMBERSHIP)
  UNIVERSITY GRANTS COMMITTEE (MEMBERSHIP)
Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  2.36 p.m.
  EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, a great many of your Lordships have given notice of your intention to take part in the debate this afternoon on the Motion in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. It will be a great advantage to Her Majesty's Government to have so fall an expression of the views of your Lordships' House on the subject of the reform of the House. Over twenty of your Lordships are to speak, and, with this in view, it has been agreed through the usual channels to postpone the Government business which is down for Thursday, March 10, until Tuesday, March 22, so as to allow the debate this afternoon to run over until to-morrow. We hope to adjourn this evening between 7 and 7.30 p.m., and to conclude the debate not later than 6.30 p.m. to- morrow. We shall hope to take the Third Reading of the Road Traffic Bill on Thursday, the 24th.

HOUSE OF LORDS REFORM
2.37 p.m.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL VISCOUNT SAMUEL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they favour the proposals for the reform of the House of Lords which the representatives of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Parties in both Houses unanimously agreed, at the Conference of 1948, might have been the basis for further consideration in detail, with a view to their submission to their respective Parties, had it been possible to achieve general agreement over the whole field of powers and composition; those proposals being as follows:—
(1) The Second Chamber should be complementary to, and not a rival to, the Lower House, and, with this end in view, the reform of the House of Lords should be based on a modification of its existing constitution as opposed to the establishment of a Second
826
Chamber of a completely new type based on some system of election.
(2) The revised constitution of the House of Lords should be such as to secure as far as practicable that a permanent majority is not assured for any one political party.
(3) The present right to attend and vote based solely on heredity should not by itself constitute a qualification for admission to a reformed Second Chamber.
(4) Members of the Second Chamber should be styled "Lords of Parliament" and would be appointed on grounds of personal distinction or public service. They might be drawn either from hereditary Peers, or from commoners who would be created life Peers.
(5) Women should be capable of being appointed Lords of Parliament in like manner as men.
(6) Provision should be made for the inclusion in the Second Chamber of certain descendants of the Sovereign, certain Lords Spiritual and the Law Lords.
(7) In order hat persons without private means should not be excluded, some remuneration would be payable to members of the Second Chamber.
(8) Peers, who were not Lords of Parliament, should be entitled to stand for election to the House of Commons, and also to vote at elections in the same manner as other citizens.
(9) Some provision should be made for the disqualification of a member of the Second Chamber who neglects, or becomes no longer able or fitted, to perform his duties as such: (Cmd. 7380);
and to move for Papers.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, it is an old practice of your Lordships' House that Members who are Privy Counsellors but not in the Government should have the privilege, if they so desire, of speaking from this Box. I desire to-day to avail myself of the amenities of this position, instead of the unsupported isolation of the Front Bench by the Woolsack. My temporary neighbours will not fall into the error of thinking that anything is implied by my present location, in the way of any weakening or shifting of my customary political associations, which have now lasted for quite a long time.
On this question of the reform of the constitution of this House we had a short preliminary discussion a few weeks ago, on January 25, when I put down a Question to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they proposed to take any steps on this matter. The Leader of the House, the noble Marquess. Lord Salisbury, chided me gently for the form in which I had phrased my Question. He said: why should I feel any doubt that the Government were going to take steps, and why

827
should I ask whether they were going to take steps. If anything, he said, I ought to have asked: when and what steps? And the noble Marquess added that, "of course", the answer to my Question was "Yes"—he implied that there could be no doubt about it.
He went on to say that the Government were already engaged in labouring at perfecting the details of a scheme of reform, and he invited me to put down another Question, or Resolution, if I should desire further information. He spoke of this enormously complicated inquiry on which the Government are now engaged. When I ventured to ejaculate the monosyllable "When?" he advised me to "Wait and see." On February 8, in another place, a similar Question was put to the Prime Minister and he referred to, and quoted, the observations made here by the noble Marquess, and said that the Government were actively examining it and would continue to labour at perfecting the details of a scheme of reform.
When someone in the other House put a supplementary question to ask when the Prime Minister anticipated being in a position to make a statement, Sir Winston Churchill said: "The future is veiled in obscurity." That is an observation which no one would challenge, and, in fact, many people have had the same idea for quite a long time now. As a general proposition it is sound; but this particular obscurity, this particular veil, is within the province of the Government themselves. Are they going to remove the veil, or are they going to leave the obscurity as it is and the picture still veiled—as sometimes one would wish that portrait paintings could be.
I do not wish to press the Government to make any premature disclosure of details when they are not ready with their preparations, but I have put down this Motion principally in the hope that it will provide an opportunity for the expression of the Government's views, but also for noble Lords in all parts of the House, and of all opinions, to express their views in order that the Government may be apprised of them when they proceed further to crystallise the proposals they have in view.
From the beginning we on the Liberal Benches have been anxious that whatever is done should be done by general
828
agreement. In my observations the other day I ventured to say that I thought all were of opinion that great constitutional changes in this country should be arrived at, if possible, not after prolonged and bitter controversies, such as we had before the Parliament Act was passed in the year 1911, but, if it can be achieved, with a large measure of agreement and after deliberate and painstaking discussion. On that occasion in January the noble and learned Earl who leads the Opposition, Lord Jowitt, said the same thing. He said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 190 (No. 12), col. 712–3]:
"I feel sure that the noble Marquess who leads this House would, in a matter of this sort, concerning something which is of such importance to us, desire to get the largest possible measure of agreement, or at any rate to reduce the area of disagreement so far as he possibly can."
The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, took the same view. And this is of great importance because, if there is a general atmosphere of agreement in your Lordships' House, it may be that something effective can be done. The noble Marquess said [Vol. 190 (No. 12), col. 717]:
"But clearly it would be very much better, if there is to be a reform of this House, that it should be by agreement. We should all agree that any great constitutional change, or modified constitutional change, is better done with inter-Party agreement than without, and I still hope that that may prove possible."
Therefore, in considering what should be the form of Motion to-day, I thought it better, after consultation with my colleagues, to put down a formal Motion for Papers, but setting out the agreed recommendations—or rather conclusions, I had better call them, of the all-Party Conference that sat seven years ago. I have put down this formal Motion. I do not even propose to press it to a Division, for the sole purpose of this debate is exploratory, and it would be unfair to the House if I were to put down a long and complicated Motion and ask your Lordships to record your opinions for or against it without having had an opportunity of considering it in detail and at leisure. On former occasions, years ago, schemes of reform were put before your Lordships' House from time to time by many statesmen of distinction, and the approval of the House was invited, if necessary in the Division Lobbies. I do not propose to do that to-day. I propose to move my Motion for Papers and then, at the

829
conclusion of the debate, with your Lordships' permission, to withdraw it.
Your Lordships will observe that there is nothing in this Motion, and nothing in the conclusions arrived at by the Conference, which deals with the powers of your Lordships' House. That matter is passed over in silence—and deliberately; because I have no proposal to make, or even to ask your Lordships to consider, with regard to the powers of the House. I think that no Party, and no section of any Party, would regard it as a matter of practical politics to propose any change in the present powers of the House of Lords. It is obvious that, if we are seeking general agreement, it would not be possible to achieve it unless the question of the powers of the House of Lords were left out of the discussion.
Nor did the Conference of seven years ago find itself able to arrive at any conclusion on the question of powers. The difference between the two sides—the Labour Government of the day and the Conservative Party—was exceedingly small. The ultimate point in debate was reached on a compromise that I, as a member of the Conference, had suggested, which reduced the issue merely to a question of three months in the period of delay which would be allowed before a Bill could be passed under the Parliament Act by the House of Commons over the heads of your Lordships' House. But both the other Parties considered that that raised a question of principle. The procedure that might be adopted in the fourth Session of some future Parliament was brought into the discussion, and both Parties declared that they could come to no agreement on that matter. I suggest to-day that that question should not be regarded as essential for any solution of the problem of the reform of the House of Lords constitution at the present time, We should be content to leave it as it stands, as the only means of securing a general measure of reform, and also as a recognition of the realities of the situation, because no Government, I think, in existing circumstances, in view of the general attitude of the country, could possibly raise so highly controversial a question as the restoration of some of the earlier powers of your Lordships' House.
To-day, I have no doubt, various Members will speak on particular points which were raised in the terms of this
830
Resolution embodying the conclusions of the Three-Party Conference; and no doubt they will attract a good deal of attention, and possibly controversy. I do not propose to touch upon any of these points. I think it would be premature to attempt to arrive at any conclusions at this stage: we are still in a very preliminary state of things. My observations to-day will be devoted almost entirely to the point which I feel is uppermost in the minds of a large proportion of your Lordships' House, namely, should anything be done at all—or, as many would wish to put it: why not leave well alone? That is the attitude which is embodied in the Motion on the Order Paper to-day in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on which he will speak—although I understand that he will not actually move his Motion—and it will, I am sure, receive the support of a considerable number of your Lordships.
The case I wish to put before your Lordships is a frank statement of the present situation in this House. The membership of the House today numbers 853. In the last twenty years 256 new Peerages have been created, and in that time 33 have become extinct. At the present rate of increase which was inaugurated at the time of the First World War and has continued ever since, your Lordships' House will soon reach a membership of 1,000, a number almost unheard of in any Legislature in the world. As to attendances, the Clerks of the House maintain lists of all the individual attendances for every day for necessary purposes, and those figures show that last Session, that for 1953–54 (excluding merely formal Sittings which are held from time to time to receive Bills from the other House, or for any such purposes), the daily average attendance was 97. And having obtained the figures for a number of previous years since 1948, I find that that figure was maintained almost exactly, with just a few over or a few under 100 out of 850. But at any one time of the day not all that number are present: Members come and go, or they may come only for a short time; and for the ordinary purposes of debate, those of us who attend your Lordships' House regularly are accustomed to see that, as a rule, some 60 or sometimes 80 Members are present at any one time in the House. To-day, of course, we are privileged to have a much larger attendance.
The reason why only this small proportion of about 10 per cent. of the whole body are regular attenders is well known. Many of your Lordships are engaged in county business; many of you are the mainstays of the local government of your own district, and regard that as having a prior claim. A great number of noble Lords belong to professions or businesses and, out of duty to their colleagues and to their own interests, are prevented from being present, except rarely, in your Lordships' House. It is true that in any particular debate those Members of this House who have expert knowledge are accustomed to attend, if that is at all possible. Therefore, the debates on such occasions, although the attendance may be small, are cogent and influential.
But as a flatter of fact, the great majority of those experts (I hope I may be forgiven for pointing this out) are first creations. The Generals, Admirals and Air Marshals; the former civil servants, diplomats and many other experts; and the representatives of the law, industry and commerce who take part in the debates are, by a great majority, Members who have been nominated and do not sit by hereditary right. There are many brilliant and illustrious exceptions, but that is the general picture that one gets on surveying the House on any particular day. This argument about the value of this House as a centre for experts to express their views is in support of, and not against, the recommendation that was made by the Three Party Conference, that nomination, rather than heredity, should be the principal basis of membership.
In addition, it is right to say that a great deal of Committee work is done by Members of your Lordships' House, who devote much time, attention and skill to dealing with Private Bills and other matters of that kind. On the other hand, I remember the days when each year there used to be in this House and in the other House the appointment of Select Committees for the careful examination of important questions of immediate interest. Select Committees of the House of Commons or the House of Lords, or Joint Select Committees, used every year to be appointed to do the work now done either by Royal Commissions or Departmental Committees. I remember that when I was in the House of Commons
832
and a Minister there, I frequently took a hand in the appointment of such Committees to deal with important questions. I served on some of those Committees, and had the honour of being chairman on one or two occasions.
I have asked the Clerks to give me a list of the matters dealt with in recent years in the period between the two wars, some of them by Joint Committees and some by Committees of your Lordships' House, and they include such questions as the government of India, legislation by Special Orders, nationality of married women, Union of East Africa, protection of birds, damage by rabbits and the prevention of road accidents—the latter a Committee of your Lordships' House presided over by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, which carried great weight in the development of that issue. But in more recent years, since the end of the Second World War, the list shows that there have been four Joint Committees of the two Houses on particular Bills—simply on a Bill that was referred to a Select Committee—and three of your Lordships' House on Standing Orders; and when I asked for a return of the Committees since the war on general topics, the answer was that there had been no such Committees. So there is an important activity that did much public service in former days which has now fallen completely into desuetude.
Some Members of your Lordships' House may say—many of those who never attend and probably the majority who come at most once, twice or perhaps three times in the year—that they feel under no special obligation to attend the House. They are not here of their own choice; many of them take no special interest in public affairs, and we no longer have a leisured class which can afford the time to devote themselves for regular hours, week by week throughout the year, for purposes of legislation. Therefore, when the noble Lord, Lord Elton, says, as he said in his speech the other day, that the composition of your Lordships' House is indefensible in theory but works excellently in practice, many of us cannot agree.
Among those who do not agree is the Leader of the House who, in his own person and his own name and lineage, is a living reminder of some of the greatest days and some of the greatest men in the

833
history of this House. He said, quoting me, that I was convinced of the necessity for some reform of the composition of the House, and he went on to say [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 190 (No. 12), col. 715]:
"… that is at any rate satisfactory to most of us."
The noble Marquess said of me:
"He suggests, too, as I understand it, that if nothing is done to bring any new life to this House it will gradually die, as an effective element in the Constitution. With that, I personally, and I expect mast of us, would agree."
I pause to emphasise that pronouncement from a leading Member of the Conservative Party and the Leader of your Lordships' House—that if we take no action this House will prove to be moribund.
Those who speak with satisfaction of the present composition leave out of mention the fact that we here, by virtue of our sex, are representative, after all, of only one half of the population, and the other half of the population is wholly unrepresented. In 1918 a great measure was passed by general agreement clearing up many of the outstanding questions with regard to the representation of the people, and that Statute introduced women's suffrage. It did not make women eligible for the House of Commons and, as it happened, it fell to me, sitting then on the Front Opposition Bench, to move a Resolution in the House to make women eligible. That was carried without difficulty, and immediately afterwards a Bill was brought in and that reform was carried into effect. But, coming into this House, I find that here the same issue arises. Bills or Resolutions are brought in from time to time that Peeresses in their own right—of whom I think there are twelve, mostly the incumbents of very ancient peerages—should be admitted to your Lordships' House. The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act was passed in 1919, and all the professions for which women are physically fit are open to them; all the local authorities are open to them; the House of Commons is open to them; a Queen may sit upon the Throne; but still your Lordships' House closes its doors to women.
It would not settle the question if those twelve ladies were admitted to your Lordships' House. In the first place, it is by no means certain that they would be the particular ladies whom the womanhood of the country would desire to see here, and secondly, it would introduce great difficulty with regard to all future
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Peerages. When a new Peer is introduced, we are accustomed to hear read his Patent from the Crown, saying that his Peerage shall descend to the
"heirs male or his body lawfully begotten or to be begotten";
but if we abolish the distinction and say that the principle of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act shall be applied, in what form are all future Patents to be? Could that provision in regard to heirs male be maintained? Should we apply the line of succession as in the case of the Crown? That would raise very difficult questions. Far simpler to make this change part of a general reform under which these questions would not arise.
There is also an opposite grievance. While the ladies are clamouring to be let in and appealing to acknowledged principles of justice in their favour, there are in the House of Commons heirs to Peerages who indignantly resent being conscribed and sent to compulsory service, so to speak, in a House to which they do not wish to belong, involving their retirement from the House of which they are already Members and in which they wish to remain. That question has been raised several times. I remember years ago when Lord Curzon and Lord Wolmer, who afterwards became Lord Selborne, and Mr. Brodrick, who became Lord Midleton, raised an agitation to enable heirs to Peerages to decline to avail themselves of their rights of succession. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, has also expressed that view. I see him here to-day, and perhaps he will be speaking on that matter.
There is at this moment a very able young Member of the House of Commons who has there a promising career of useful public service and who is the heir to one of our most esteemed. Members, Lord Stansgate, an incisive and highly charged controversialist but always good-humoured and one of our best beloved colleagues, whom may God long preserve! But the moment when the inevitable day comes and his career in the House of Lords ends, that same moment ends the career also of his son in the House of Commons. His son is not an alien, he is not under age, a lunatic, a bankrupt, or a felon. He is not disqualified in any way from continuing his membership. The House of Commons have passed no Resolution to release him from membership; his constituents in Bristol and the

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Mayor and Corporation are proposing to appeal to the House of Commons to take some step which will allow them not to be deprived of a Member in whom they have confidence. No Act of Parliament obliges him to leave the House of Commons; it is an antiquated provision in the Common Law of the Constitution, and it seems to me a gross infringement of the liberties of the individual subject. It is an infringement of the rights of the electorate, and it is an infringement of the dignity and the privileges of the Representative Chamber.
These are all examples of imperfections, or flaws in the perfection, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, would have it, in the present constitution of this House. The Conference of 1948 did not agree that nothing need be done. On the contrary, it was unanimously of opinion that there ought to be reform, and it prepared a series of proposals, not in any way binding the Parties who were there represented but representing the personal opinions of the accredited representatives of the three Parties, which they would be prepared to submit to their respective Parties if only agreement could be reached with regard to powers. No such agreement was reached with regard to powers, and the whole of the proceedings of the Conference came to an end.
As I said, I do not propose to go into details with regard to them, but I should like to remind your Lordships of the first three of those propositions which embody the essence of the whole matter, the rest being only an application of those principles. They were:
"(1) The Second Chamber should be complementary to, and not a rival to, the Lower House, and, with this end in view, the reform of the House of Lords should be based on a modification of its existing constitution as opposed to the establishment of a Second Chamber of a completely new type based on some system of election.
"(2) The revised constitution of the House of Lords should be such as to secure as far as practicable that a permanent majority is not assured for any one political Party.
"(3) The present right to attend and vote based solely on heredity should not by itself constitute a qualification for admission to a reformed Second Chamber."
The members of that Conference were the accredited leaders of the three Parties. I will remind your Lordships who they were: for the Conservative Party, the present Leader of the House and Lord
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President, Lord Salisbury; the present Lord Chancellor, who was then in the House of Commons as Sir David Maxwell Fyfe; Mr. Anthony Eden (as he then was); and the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton; for the Labour Party, the then Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee; the then Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, who now is the Leader of the Opposition; the then Lord President of the Council (I think he was at that time also the Leader of the House of Commons), Mr. Herbert Morrison; and the Chief Whip, Mr. Whiteley; for the Liberals, Mr. Clement Davies and myself. I submit to your Lordships that proposals which, after several sittings and close deliberation, were approved by all these members are not lightly to be brushed aside as unworthy of your Lordships' consideration.
At this point, I would ask: what are the arguments against that scheme? No doubt, we shall be told that in the course of debate. Some noble Lords—and some people outside, though I think not many—consider that the abolition of heredity as the main principle for admission to your Lordships' House would leave the Monarchy isolated as the only hereditary institution, and that that might bring it into peril; and, since the Monarchy is an institution that commands the confidence, the respect and the affection of the whole nation, that would be a serious argument against any change in the system of appointment here.
But much the same argument was heard when the great reforms took place in the early part of last century, establishing a democratic State: that it would necessarily lead to republicanism. But that has not proved to be so. On the contrary, as, stage by stage, our Constitution has brought the democratic idea to its full completion, the Throne has become more stable and at this day is probably more secure in the confidence and good will of the people than at any previous time. But that is because it has become a constitutional Monarchy. Absolute power does not pass by inheritance. The old metaphysical doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings is obsolete. While it endured, it was for centuries a source of war and revolution in many lands. Now, the monarchies that remain in Europe are secure because they are constitutional, are parliamentary. Our Crown passes

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according to Statute and is for that reason the more stable. The point I would put to your Lordships is that by changes here we can make the Constitution as a whole more acceptable to the nation as a whole; it will become more stable, less liable to upheaval; and thereby the Crown, which is an essential part of that Constitution, will become not less but more secure.
This principle of heredity may be left unique with the Crown because the case is quite exceptional, but who would apply it in any other walk of life? Who would choose, by heredity, his doctor, his lawyer? Who would appoint a judge, a bishop, an engineer or any leader in any profession on that basis? Why, then, should this be the principle on which to choose legislators, to give seats in Parliament to the most responsible, and perhaps the most difficult, of all those many varied occupations?
Then we come to the main argument in opposition, that which was eloquently put forward in his brief speech a few weeks ago by the noble Lord, Lord Elton; that is, antiquity, the appeal to tradition—antiquity for its own sake. Dean Inge, who often said wise, shrewd and pithy things, once wrote:
"There are two kinds of fools. One says 'This is old; therefore, it is good' The other says 'This is new; therefore, it is better.'"
I do not adopt his rather contumelious language—he is responsible for that, not myself—but it is the case. There are those two tendencies. One is the addiction of the aged, the second is the addiction of the very young. Some hold the view that what is old is good for its own sake and it may be (I have no special knowledge of the fact) that some may be found among the Right Wing of the Conservative Party, while those who hold the opposite view may perhaps be found among the Left Wing of the Labour Party. I hope there are none to be found among the Liberals, although of either kind there may be, here and there, perhaps one or two. However that may be, I submit to your Lordships that while this love of antiquity for its own sake—what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, calls the "ancientry" of this House: rather a good word; it is different from "antiquity"; the patina, so to speak, of the House of Lords—might be worth preserving for its own sake if there were no reasons to the contrary, I
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think I have been able to give reasons to the contrary.
However, if there is to be this great change, I think we all would wish that, so far as we can, we should ease the transition from the old system to the new. No one has raised the point of any change in our hereditary titles—that is a matter of the prerogative of the Crown and would not be interfered with. The Members who no longer attended your Lordships' House or were no longer summoned to the House would maintain whatever privileges and rights were otherwise conferred by their Patents. It is intended that the procedure, the forms and ceremonies and the name of this House should continue, and further, that all its present Members who are qualified by service in any branch of life should also be summoned as Lords of Parliament. They already have the qualifications which it is proposed to seek in the new membership, and no doubt—I have no authority to speak—when we came to the actual setting up of the new Chamber, any of your Lordships who are Peers of first creation, and have therefore been appointed already on the ground of personal service and distinction, would, as a matter of course, be summoned as Lords of Parliament.
Furthermore, I think that everyone recognises that one of the great drawbacks of our Chamber, such as it is now, is that it may tend, as years go by, to consist of older and older men. The positions would be held for life; they would often have been conferred upon those who had already had a distinguished career, and therefore one might find the House full of septuagenarians, or even those who have reached the extreme senility of the octogenarian. Therefore, in constituting the new House every effort should be made to cater for younger members of your Lordships' House who are rendering valuable service and are making their names here, and who are expected to be able to render good service in later life. Furthermore, pains should be taken in the new appointments to counteract, so far as possible, this tendency towards increasing age.
There is another kind of appointment which might be made and which would be of extreme value to the State. In February, the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, opened a debate in your Lordships' House on the Colonies. It was then said

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that one of the great difficulties that now face the Commonwealth, and which will grow, is the difficulty of maintaining a link between the self-governing territories in Africa, Asia or wherever they may be, and Westminster. Various suggestions have been made, none of which is fully satisfactory. We have had here some representatives of the great Dominions—Lord Bennett, a former Prime Minister of Canada, and Viscount Bruce of Melbourne, whom I see in his place, from Australia. There was Lord Sinha, from India, who was appointed and who became Under-Secretary of State for a short time; and there have been other examples. But there are none, except Lord Sinha, who belonged to races other than of the white peoples. Surely it might be extremely advantageous for a considerable proportion, not a mere handful, of our Members to be representative of both the white and the coloured territories of the whole Commonwealth, serving as a link with their own peoples. The new House would have immense prestige, and it would be a crowning of their careers for these statesmen from other continents and races to become Members of your Lordships' House. Air travel makes it possible for attendance here without their necessarily breaking their connection with their own countries. In all these ways the new House might be a great advance upon the old.
I come now to one other point, and that is that your Lordships' House as at present constituted belongs overwhelmingly to one Party in the State. At the moment Party controversy is largely in abeyance and that does not greatly matter, but the second paragraph in the Agreed Conclusions emphasised that the new Parliament should be so constituted as not to give a permanent majority to any one Party. At present I do not know how the figures would work out, but I imagine that on no occasion would a Conservative Government or a Conservative Opposition, whenever they wished to exercise their political influence, have any difficulty in obtaining a majority of two to one in your Lordships' House over all other Parties and Independents. I speak now as a member of the Liberal Party. We have a great grievance in that regard, for since 1935—in the last twenty years—out of 256 new Peerages only 6
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have been conferred upon Liberals, although we represent, we believe, a considerable element, and not the least valuable element, in the country at large.
Great pains will have to be taken in the constitution of the first Parliament after the reform, if any reform comes into existence. And since we hope that it will be established by an agreed Statute, similarly it should be started on its way by agreement, and every effort should be taken to ease the transition. Formal appointments would be by the Crown, and the Crown must be advised by the Government of the day. But there could still be a gentleman's agreement with regard to its composition, and (I am only forecasting what may possibly come about in the future) it might be thought advantageous for a Committee of the Privy Council to be specially nominated to supervise the first appointments. I have always held the view that the Privy Council might well be used more than it is. It is one of the most ancient parts of our Constitution and it might be put to good use in many ways, of which this is an example.
These proposals were not in the Conference resolutions and wore not considered at the Conference, but I throw them out for future consideration. In the main it would be advisable not to specify these matters too closely. I should deprecate drawing up a list of qualifications for membership in categories. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, said the other day that he thought that we might be presented with an official ready-made paper reform on the model of the French Revolution. I have no ambition to be cast for the part of the Abbé Sieyès, Who made so many paper constitutions; on the contrary, I am one who has always held that this country is greatly blessed in having, in the main, an unwritten Constitution, and in drafting the Bill I hope that the Government will limit the statutory provisions to a minimum and not attempt to clamp upon posterity the ideas of to-day. You must not seek to fetter the future. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said in the recent debate—I am in the happy position of being able to make my own speech largely out of quotations from his because I can then invoke his authority, which is so much

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greater—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 190 (No. 12); col. 717]—that unless single Chamber Government was in view
"it is surely better to make the Second Chamber as efficient in its composition as it possibly can be made. I believe that no one in this House would dispute that—indeed, it is really common sense."
Yet it is just that which is disputed, and I invite the noble Lord, Lord Elton, to say whether he accepts that dictum of the noble Marquess and, if so, how he reconciles it with his present attitude.
I am one of those who believe that it is essential, as a matter of urgent necessity, to take steps that will help to make democracy efficient and successful, and to take those steps now, in a quiet time, not when the Constitution is under strain, as it may be in some crisis in the not distant future. All of us in our lifetimes, especially all who are old enough to remember the world before the First World War, must have been greatly impressed by the strange and wholly unexpected collapse of the democratic principle over almost the whole of Central, Southern and Eastern Europe during the earlier years of the present century. That was due very largely to the faults of the democrats themselves. It was due to the failure of the Party system. Though I do not very often agree with Disraeli I agree with him wholeheartedly in his view that "Without Party, parliamentary government is impossible." But there are many who think that the Party system, though necessary, is becoming too rigid and too all-pervasive. The collapse of democracy in those various countries was mainly due to the continued intransigence of the rank-and-file of the Parties and the incompetence of the leaders, so that Parliaments lost the respect and admiration of the peoples and were easily tumbled over by some ambitious dictator.
To-day, for the first time in living memory, there is not in the House of Commons one single Independent Member. Let the House of Lords offer a compensating element in our society. At the moment the influence of this House in the country is really very small, although sometimes we flatter ourselves it is considerable. The nation is hardly aware of the existence of the House of Lords except in times of political crisis; and the popular Press—those newspapers which circulate in millions—report our debates only fitfully and occasionally,
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with a few lines here and there perhaps two or three times a month. My Lords, this House is dying of inanition before our eyes. Leave to the representative House the last word and all the substance of power, with the making and unmaking of Governments. But in the nation there are, worth hearing, the voices of many men and women who are unfitted or unwilling to face the strain and turmoil of elections in vast constituencies and the fatigues of Parliamentary life. I believe most firmly that a democracy must create within itself an aristocracy or it will perish—an aristocracy not of wealth or of lineage, but of talent, wisdom and virtue. It would be manifest in both Houses of Parliament and diffused among the people. If your Lordships and your successors within these walls can present to the people a House of Parliament of that character, ennobled by those qualities, then, and only then, will it revive in the modern world its former glories and become again the breeding-ground of great statesmen, fitted and worthy to be the leaders of a great nation. I beg to move for Papers.
3.36 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, the noble Viscount has succeeded once again in securing the interest of noble Lords in all parts of the House, and we are all indebted to him for his most interesting and closely reasoned speech. I could not emulate him, even if I tried—as I have so often learned; but today I am not going to try, because I feel that I can best assist your Lordships' deliberations by giving simply, and I hope shortly, my impressions, from soundings which I have taken since our last debate, of the attitude which my Party would be likely to adopt if this question were once again to become a live political issue. They can only be impressions, for any question of bringing about a change in the composition of this House is clearly a matter which would call for a major decision on policy by all the Parties.
I cannot say with any degree of certainty what would happen if, in present circumstances, my Party were to be called upon to take such a decision. It is true enough that in 1948 some of the Party leaders, of whom I was one, agreed to put forward ad referendum certain proposals now embodied in the Motion of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, for the

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consideration of their Parties. I believe that the noble Viscount overstates the matter in saying as he did in the course of his speech, that these were agreed solutions. They were not agreed solutions but ideas which were to be brought forward for consideration by the respective Parties. These ideas were put forward in an endeavour to secure an agreed passage for the Parliament Bill then under consideration. Those negotiations broke down on the question of powers. That scheme might or might not have proved acceptable to my Party then, but I feel obliged to point out that it is another and wholly different question whether it would be acceptable to my Party today. I ought not to conceal my belief that the present is not a propitious time to put it to the test—that is, if a favourable answer is thought to be a matter of importance.
The problems of the day concerning H-Bombs, European defence and Far Eastern dangers are so clamant and imperative, and there is so little evidence of any public demand for an alteration in the composition of this House, that even those who might be well-disposed would think it better to postpone a decision until we reach (as I hope and pray we shall reach) a calmer atmosphere and more spacious days. Moreover, I feel tolerably certain that my Party, if called upon to pronounce on this topic to-day, would attach more importance to powers than to composition.
With respect, I would say to the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, that one does not begin to deal with this difficulty simply by saying, "Let us leave powers as they stand," for there are those—perhaps unduly suspicious—who would regard an alteration in the composition of this House as a mere curtain-raiser to a subsequent extension of its powers. That is not to say that they would doubt the good faith of the Leader of this House were he to assert that there was no intention of increasing powers. They would rather say that, under our Constitution, no Government—or indeed, Parliament—can bind its successors; and that if we had a House so constituted as to command a wide measure of support it might easily be thought natural by some later Government, or by Parliament, to restore to it those powers of which it had been shorn by successive Parliament Acts.
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Indeed, an alteration in composition—or perhaps even a canvassing of such an alteration—might throw into relief certain questions concerning powers which have hitherto remained quiescent.
May I give an example to your Lordships of what I have in mind? Under modern conditions, every Government must pass a large amount of subordinate legislation depending on Orders in Council, and on the passing of Orders in Council it is, I think, broadly true to say that this House and another place have equal and co-ordinate jurisdictions. If this House were to use its powers unwisely, and were to refuse to pass Orders in Council, the tenure of the Government of the day would become impossible. It has not happened, because this House has used its powers sparingly and with great discretion. But if some new House, differently composed and perhaps not following our traditions, were to be formed, is it not only too possible that these problems would become a lively source of controversy?
Perhaps your Lordships will allow me this personal word. For the last ten years, whether as Lord Chancellor or as Leader of the Opposition, I have been proud to work in your Lordships' House, and I have given to our deliberations the best that is in me. I confess that I have come to regard this House with real affection. I certainly believe—and here I speak for myself alone—that some Second Chamber is desirable. No doubt New Zealand is getting along very well without one, but we have a long history and tradition, and, in my opinion, the pace and pressure of events in this country make some Second Chamber with powers of revision almost inevitable.
But even if this view be accepted—and it is by no means universally accepted—the question remains what that Second Chamber should be and how it should be constituted. In trying to collect views on this matter, I have been reminded of the old saying, quot homines tot sententiae—for there are, in fact, as many cures as there are doctors who may be called in. Of those who desire a Second Chamber at all, some would favour a Second Chamber broadly on the lines of the Norwegian model. That is a system under which a newly elected House of Commons appoints the Second Chamber, so that the Second Chamber tends to reflect the

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opinion of the first Chamber, which itself is elected by the people; and in this way the risk of having a permanent majority against the Parties of the Left is avoided. Moreover, any problem or difficulty about powers is also avoided.
Others (I am giving the result of my soundings) would leave things as they are, whilst exercising a careful vigilance on the powers of the Second Chamber, and the use that it makes of those powers. Others would prefer a system which the late Lord Simon advocated—that is, the appointment of Life Peers. But this system, unless accompanied by other measures, would add still further to our already swollen numbers. These Life Peers would presumably be appointed once and for all, and, having been appointed, would remain with us as long as they lived—and, be it remembered, we cannot all hope to emulate the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, and combine the enthusiasm of youth with the wisdom of age to the very end of our days. Still others would be content with more moderate reforms. They would remove from us the discredit of being the only Assembly which has no women Members, and would remove the obvious anomaly of forcing Members of the House of Commons, sons of Peers, to come up to this House, whether they want to or whether they do not, on the deaths of their fathers. I must say that on that topic I agree with the observations made by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel.
The inquiries I have made confirm me in the view I expressed in a recent debate—that it is quite certain that my Party would not be willing to enter into a preliminary conference on this topic at the present time. If the Government are resolved to bring in proposals for changing the composition of this House, we shall, as becomes an Opposition, reserve our right to subject those proposals to the most searching criticism, and, if we are not satisfied with them, to the most determined opposition. I am sorry if I seem to be unhelpful. I hope that at least, in giving your Lordships frankly my impression of the state of mind which prevails in the Labour Party, I shall not be thought to be ungracious.
3.48 p.m.
LORD ELTON LORD ELTON had given notice of his intention to move to resolve, That it is undesirable to take further steps to alter
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the composition of this House, seeing that it is discharging its duties effectively, and that there is no public demand for a change. The noble Lord said: My Lords, you will have seen the Motion in my name on the Order Paper, but under the rules of your Lordships' House it is, of course, not possible for there to be two Motions on the Paper at the same time. So what I find myself doing now is speaking in a negative sense to Lord Samuel's Motion. Those of us who believe that your Lordships' House, as at present constituted, is not only the most ancient but also, all things considered, the most efficient Second Chamber in the world can only regret that this debate had to take place. With every respect, it was the Party Leaders who wished it on us. For when a Party in power includes some impracticable proposal in its programme, it is common form for the Leader of the Opposition to administer from time to time an unwelcome nudge of reminder. On this occasion, however, it is the Leader of the Liberal Party, in which length of memory serves to compensate to some degree for shortness of numbers, who has constituted himself Official Remembrancer. I gather from the remarks made by the noble and learned Earl who leads the Opposition that he would have been content to let sleeping dogs lie.
But now that the Parties have, half un-intentionally, involved themselves in these dangerous and sterile exchanges, they find themselves compelled half reluctantly to keep them intermittently alive. I say "dangerous" because discussions such as this are capable of reviving among an ill-instructed minority of the public political passions long quiescent and now almost forgotten. And I say "sterile" because discussions of this kind are foredoomed to failure; and for the very same reason which over many decades has rendered nugatory every attempt to reform the composition of your Lordships' House by agreement—the simple reason that those who can be found to agree upon some brand new planned Senate have never been able to agree upon its powers. And that seems to be the case this afternoon.
The noble Marquess the Leader of the House is certainly prepared to take a first step towards a brand new planned Senate, but we all understand that it is in the hope that at some time, if not immediately, more extensive powers will be

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conferred on it. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, is prepared for a new, rationalised, Senate. In fact, in his speech this afternoon he has gone a good deal beyond the nine agreed principles which the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, surprised us a little later by declaring were not agreed at all. As for the noble and learned Earl who leads the Labour Party, he made it quite clear that he will have nothing whatever to do with an extension of powers for your Lordships' House, and I think it would not be far wide of the mark if I said that he would be well content to let sleeping dogs lie. And discussions of this sort are bound to be nugatory for another and deeper reason. For any additional powers which could conceivably be enacted either for your Lordships' present House or for any variant on it would inevitably prove a mere pasteboard defence against a genuinely revolutionary House of Commons, the only eventuality against which, we are told, such powers are really needed. My Motion is concerned only with the composition of the House. But I should like to say, in passing, that I have no objection whatever to one of the proposals contained in Lord Samuel's programme. I think that the remuneration of Members of the House may well be necessary, and not least if the Opposition Benches are to be recruited, as I hope they will be, by future Labour Governments.
I have felt bound to refer to the question of powers only because it was this question of the powers of the House which originally prompted the discussions of its composition; and still, like an unacknowledged skeleton at the feast, it contrives to impart to all discussions of this subject a macabre note of fantasy such as is rarely, if ever, otherwise to be encountered in your Lordships' debates. On this question, as on no other, the wisest have down the years committed themselves to the most resounding prophecies and pronouncements, which have invariably been refuted by the event. It was in a debate thirty years ago that the late Lord Birkenhead said that it was impossible for the House of Lords to continue unaltered any longer; and it was in the same debate that the late Lord Buckmaster prophesied that no member of the Labour Party would ever be persuaded to accept a hereditary Peerage. And with the deepest respect, I
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cannot help feeling that there was a certain suggestion of Alice Through the Looking Glass about the exchanges between the Party Leaders the other day which has led us into the present debate.
"Of course you agree to have a battle,' said Tweedledum.
'I suppose so,' the other sulkily replied as he crawled out of the umbrella ….
So the two brothers went off hand in hand into the wood and returned in a minute with their arms full of things—such as bolsters, blankets, hearth-rugs, tablecloths, dish-covers and coalscuttles."
And they all had to be pinned on to the fraternal combatants, down even to the proposal for women Members of your Lordships' House.
Much of the unreality of the case advanced by those who are anxious to be allowed to plan a new Senate has derived from their persistence in putting up as an Aunt Sally not your Lordships' actual House, but a potential House on which no human being, alive or dead, has ever set eyes. This afternoon the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, referred more than once to a House of Lords of more than 850 members. In an earlier debate he actually used the words:
"A House of 880, of whom three quarters sit by hereditary right."
Now, with all respect, that is little more than a figment of the iconoclast's imagination. Who has ever actually set eyes on a House of 880 Peers, hereditary or otherwise? Your Lordships' House is that characteristic British phenomenon, an institution which, while totally indefensible on paper, works to admiration in practice. It was of the House of Lords that Erskine May wrote these significant words:
"Nothing in the history of our Constitution is more remarkable than the permanence of every institution … while undergoing continual, and often extraordinary, changes in its powers, privileges and influence."
Still with specific reference, to your Lordships' House, and writing—mark you, my Lords!—in 1861, when any gulf which there may be between the House of Lords and the nation was surely much wider than it is to-day, Erskine May went on, in words which are still, every one of them, abundantly true to-day:
"The changes which it has undergone have served to bring this great institution into harmony with other parts of the Constitution and with the social condition of the people, upon which time has worked equal mutations."

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But the changes of which Erskine May was speaking were the changes of natural organic growth, and not what we are discussing this afternoon, the first instalment of an artificial rationalisation of this ancient House.
We all know, and we are reminded when we read Erskine May, that a substantial proportion, and sometimes a majority, of the working Members of your Lordships' House will be found to consist of Peers of the first creation who are not here by hereditary right; and we know also that of the Peers who have inherited the right to sit here very many would have qualified, by public service of various kinds, for membership of any brand new planned Senate which might be devised, although they might not be so ready to devote their time to a new Chamber which might easily lack the prestige of your Lordships' House, tine most ancient Parliamentary assembly in the world.
May we consider for a moment the House in its working reality, as distinct from this bogy of 880 hereditary backwoodsmen, which is so constantly invoked yet has never yet materialised. Consider for a moment its independence, to which the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, referred. At a time when elsewhere independence of the Party machine is becoming more and more impossible, and when, as the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, reminded us, the last independent Member has been extruded from another place, your Lordships' House is both courageously independent of the Party machines and also contains a substantial number of independent Peers.
Then consider the experience of this House. At a time when elsewhere politics are rapidly becoming an affair of whole-time professional politicians, increasingly deprived by their very addiction to politics of contact with the life and work of the country, your Lordships' House contains a rich variety of experience—of industry, both from the managerial and the trade union angle, of commerce and agriculture, of the Navy, Army and Law, of the Church and the universities. I need not pause to remind your Lordships of the minor merits of this House: of the courtesy of debates in the only Parliamentary Assembly in which there has never been a Chairman with disciplinary powers, to keep it in order; of the quality of debates, in which
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nobody feels compelled to speak in order to prove to his constituents that he is still alive; and of the efficiency of debates in which, for example, in the years 1946 and 1947 this House carried 1,222 major Amendments to Government Bills, of which only 50 were rejected in another place.
May I say, in passing, that I was more than surprised to hear the noble Marquess the leader of the House let fall the other day that one of the objects of the changes which he is revolving was to be the restoration of greater life to this House. I am not quite sure whether that meant greater life to the debates, or an infusion of new young membership; but in either case the statement is surprising. Certainly, when I first had the undeserved honour of becoming a Member of your Lordships' House, in 1934, it was rare to see more than three Members on the Labour Opposition Benches; and it is the serried ranks which we see there to-day which have made, not the only but a large contribution to what seems to me to have been the greatly increased vitality—in either sense of the word "vitality"—of your Lordships' House during the last twenty-one years.
I come now to the third, which I believe to be the greatest, of the merits of your Lordships' House, a merit which, like the first two, its independence and experience, would be in the gravest jeopardy if anything remotely like the proposals which we seem to be discussing were ever to be introduced. The very constitution of this House, the fact of which we are constantly being reminded, that it does, potentially and theoretically, consist of a very large number of Members, makes it a great reservoir of experts. Were this House to consist, as every other Parliamentary Assembly in the world does, and as this House would under the proposed changes, of a definite and limited number of Members, there would be many Peers who would feel unable to accept membership of a body which would be bound to expect fairly regular attendance and would consequently compel them to abandon the activities which they were carrying on elsewhere in the country. But just because it is a tradition of your Lord ships' House to draw upon this reservoir of intermittent attendance, it comes about that, whatever subject is under discussion,

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persons of authoritative experience and outstanding distinction are found to give us the benefit of their special knowledge—whether it be an Admiral of the Fleet or the chairman of a county council, or the man who knows how potatoes are grown in Peru, of whom the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, was talking the other day. All these are great merits.
The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, apparently believes that this House is not much respected in the country. I can only say that I believe that the merits which I have described are widely recognised as such. In an earlier debate on this subject, the noble and learned Earl who leads the Labour Party told us that in his travels abroad he had found it to be generally the opinion that this House compares very favourably with any other Second Chamber whatever. This is to compare small things with great—magnis componere parva—but I cannot help recalling that during the late war I found myself frequently discussing controversial political questions, including the House of Lords, before popular audiences of Service men and others, and I never once found a single audience that showed the slightest desire for the reform of your Lordships' House.
Here, then, are three great merits—I think that we might say unique merits—each of which would be gravely prejudiced by the proposals before us: the relative independence of your Lordships' House; its rich and varied experience, deriving from the fact that its membership is not required to devote anything like whole-time attendance here; and the fact that its indeterminate numbers make it an unparalleled pool of experts. All these great characteristic virtues would be in the gravest jeopardy if anything like the proposals we are discussing were introduced. Lords of Parliament—a euphonious title—would be appointed by some process not yet divulged, but which is to ensure that there will be something like a fair balance between the Parties. Any such process directed to any such purpose must make Party allegiance and Party service a major, if not the paramount, consideration. In doing this, we should be taking a long step towards assimilating this House to another place, and the rule of the Party machine.
Again, the House would become more political in another sense. Members appointed to this smaller planned Senate would undoubtedly be expected to attend more regularly, so that its Members would gradually cease to be able, as your Lordships are still able, to play an active part in the life and work of the country. Therefore, you would have destroyed your pool of experts: and not merely because the new planned rationalised senate would consist of a limited, determined and definite number, but also because the chairman of a county council, or the man who has grown potatoes in Peru (and is probably now growing them much more successfully in Norfolk), though ready enough to attend your Lordships' House occasionally, when his own special subject was under consideration, might well be reluctant to say farewell to his local interests and his local influence and commit himself to something like permanent, whole-time attendance at a brand new planned Senate. All these characteristic and ancient virtues are to be jeopardised in order to achieve one great result, a more equitable balance of Parties. But I believe that it would be a precarious and temporary balance, and that in any case a balance of Parties is not of sovereign importance in a Chamber which rarely initiates important legislation, and which has lately proved beyond all cavil that as a revising Chamber it does not abuse its powers.
I am conscious that I may have seemed to speak as though the hereditary principle was in itself an evil. If that is so, it is only because I have temporarily, and for convenience, adopted one of the major premises of the self-styled reformers. For in fact I profoundly believe that it is this unique combination of those who have inherited a seat here and those who have found their own way here that gives your Lordships' House its characteristic virtue. In all ages, and in all times, men have venerated the hereditary principle and have sought to found their civilisations upon it. What does British history not owe to the men who have followed hereditary callings, generation after generation manning the lifeboats or the mines, or serving in the Army or the Navy or the Church? It is as though one lifetime were not sufficient for the mastery of such exacting pursuits and, following his forbears into a traditional calling, a man might count on

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drawing upon the accumulated aptitudes of past generations. It is said, I know not with what truth, that it takes four or five generations to make a diamond cutter. With the illustrious examples of the present Prime Minister and the present Leader of your Lordships' House before us, we may perhaps wonder whether it may not take five generations to make a statesman.
There is an old story that when the Barbarians sacked Rome, and the leading invader burst into the Senate House, he paused for a long minute, awe-struck at the dignity of the silent white-bearded ranks of Senators. White beards are out of fashion now, and the leading invader this afternoon, so far from being a barbarian, is a cultured and deeply respected elder statesman. But before he initiates his massacre of the Senate to-day, let him reflect, and let us all reflect, what great figures have marched upon this stage and what splendid scenes it has witnessed. Above all, let us reflect that from our remotest past, unplanned and unrationalised, but in the natural process of organic growth, this ancient House has adapted itself to the needs of successive generations; and past doubt is still capable of doing so.
4.14 p.m.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, on the last occasion upon which we discussed the reform of your Lordships' House, the House will remember, or may remember, that I made so bold as to describe the question which had been asked by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel as an hors-d'œuvre. I had expected that on the next occasion we might reach what I believe is now described as the "main dish." It seems that we are not quite there even now, and the latest production of the noble Viscount might, I think, more accurately be described as an entrée. In his new Motion the noble Viscount quotes from the communiqué which was issued at the end of the inter-Party talks in 1948. He quotes from that communiqué a list of certain broad principles, and he asks whether Her Majesty's Government favour those. I felt, in spite of what the noble Viscount said, that there was a certain implication in his Motion—whether it was an intentional one or not, I do not know—that the Conservative and other Party leaders in
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effect accepted all those principles in 1948, and that therefore it was perfectly legitimate for him to ask the Conservative leaders, at any rate—who now comprise the membership of the Government in this House—to confirm whether that was still their view. Indeed, he talked of the "conclusions" of this Conference and also mentioned "the proposals which have been approved." Actually—and here I agree with what was said by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt—any such assumption as that would go further than the facts actually warranted.
I would remind the House that the wording of the communiqué was a very cautious wording. Paragraph 5—the paragraph in question—reads as follows:
"If it had been possible to achieve general agreement over the whole field of powers and composition, the Party representatives would have been prepared to give the following proposals further consideration, so as to see whether the necessary details could be worked out, and, if so, to submit them, as part of such an agreement, to their respective Parties."
I think it would be almost impossible to imagine anything more carefully guarded than those words. First, there had to be agreement, not only over composition but over powers; and, as we know, there was at the time of the communiqué—and all who had taken part in that Conference knew it—no agreement on powers. Even if there was that measure of unanimity among the leaders, all they agreed to was to give further consideration to the proposals in detail, with a view to submission to their respective Parties.
What all those engaged in those inter-Party talks did in fact do, as I understand it, was to formulate certain propositions as a basis for a further examination of the problem. I do not say that that was not valuable; I think it was extremely valuable. I consider the work which was done represented a considerable advance. But I think it would be entirely wrong to suggest—and, indeed, I am sure the noble Viscount did not mean to suggest—that any Party or even the leaders of any Party must regard themselves as committed as to future policy by the terms of that communiqué. Moreover, I have always taken the view—I think I have said it in this House—that while the most strenuous efforts were made in those talks to get agreement on something positive, and though all concerned no doubt went as far as they felt

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they properly could to get that agreement, yet once those talks had failed—if I may use such an expression in this House—"all bets were off," and in any new negotiations we had to start again with a clean slate.
That, I am certain, is right, for, after all, any attempt to adapt the exacting conditions of 1948 to the new and in some ways entirely differing conditions of 1955 would, I think, have been doomed to failure. At the same time, I entirely agree with the noble Viscount that paragraph 5 of the communiqué of 1948 does provide us with a valuable jumping-off place for further consideration of the subject. And as he has asked for the views of Her Majesty's Government on the various propositions which are set forth in that paragraph, I will do my very best to give him an answer so far as that is possible at the present stage.
First, I should like to say a word about the powers of the House of Lords, a matter which the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, very properly emphasised in his speech. Her Majesty's Government would certainly not wish now, any more than in 1948, to tie themselves to the proposition that in no circumstances should any House of Lords, however constituted, have any more powers than your Lordships' House has to to-day. That would be a matter for Parliament and the British people to decide, should such a proposition ever be put before them. But I am in a position to say, on behalf of the Government, that Her Majesty's Government consider that it is more immediately necessary to deal with the reform of the composition than with any question of powers of the House, and that any measure which they may have at present in contemplation would, therefore, be limited entirely to composition. That is a question to which I know the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, and others attach considerable importance. I am glad without more ado to give them that answer.
I should like now to come to the nine propositions which were enumerated in the communiqué of 1948 and which are repeated in the Motion of the noble Viscount. I propose to deal with these singly and, so far as I can, to indicate the attitude of the Government to each
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of them. I begin with the first proposition, which states that:
"The Second Chamber should be complementary to, and not a rival to, the Lower House."
I take it that that particular proposition is now universally accepted in all Parties. Certainly, I personally, in the many speeches with which I have wearied your Lordships in this House on this particular subject, have never claimed that this House should be a rival of the House of Commons, which is, after all, elected by the people of this country. Nor, so far as I know, has that claim been made by anyone else from these or any other Benches in recent times. The most we have ever suggested is that the House should, at need, provide a breathing space to enable public opinion to crystallise on matters which had not been before them at the previous General Election. That, I should have thought, was a very necessary safeguard in any democratic constitution. For it is a profound mistake—and I think all constitutional experts would share this view—to suppose that the House of Commons always at every stage in its life certainly represents the views of the electorate. It is a great mistake to suppose that.
The proposal to abolish the death penalty, which passed through the House of Commons in 1948 and which the late Government afterwards had to drop, is a case in point. That particular experience, I should have thought, was a conclusive example to the contrary. The acceptance of the view that the House of Lords is not a rival to the House of Commons seems to me, on the face of it, to rule out any form of popular election to this House, although it would not rule out, I imagine, the election of representative hereditary Peers by their fellows, as is the practice now in the case of Scottish Peers under the Act of Union. So much for proposition (1). I do not think there is any more I need say about that.
Now I come to proposition (2). Here, too, I imagine that there is no real difference of principle between any of the main political Parties. So far as I know, it never has been the policy of the Conservative or of any other Party to make it the basis of any reformed House that there should be a permanent majority of any political Party. We should all regard that as quite

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an impossible position to take up. Indeed, if that had been our aim we on these Benches should presumably be fighting to the death to-day against any reform at all of this House; and that certainly is not our position. No doubt, in practice, as we all know, these things are not entirely under anybody's control. Elderly and distinguished persons always tend to be conservative, with a small if not necessarily with a big "C." Possibly, that may be regarded as a sign of maturity. At the same time, as a general principle, I imagine that, whatever Party we may happen to belong to, we can all accept proposition (2). Her Majesty's Government certainly do.
Now I come to propositions (3) and (4), which raise between them, I think, the main issues in connection with the composition of this House or of any Second Chamber in this country—the question whether it should be hereditary or nonhereditary, or whether it should be a mixture of the two. For that reason, I suggest that I might properly, in examining these proposals, take them together. Over the question of whether the membership should include non-hereditary Peers (as we all know, they are often referred to, generically, as Life Peers, though they need not necessarily be appointed for the full period of their lives), I do not imagine that we should in any part of the House greatly disagree, with the exception perhaps of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I do not know what his view would be.
There were, of course, large numbers of people who used to oppose the idea, but I think it is now evident to most of us that under modern conditions many men who would be most valuable members of a Second Chamber can neither afford to take hereditary Peerages themselves nor wish to impose such Peerages on their successors. That is especially true of the members of the Party of noble Lords opposite, but I suppose there may be examples in every Party. If all these useful and most valuable people are not to be lost to the Second Chamber, the only way out, clearly, is to legalise the creation of non-hereditary Peerages—Lordships of Parliament, as they have been described—who would presumably, if popular election is ruled out, have to be nominated in one way or another. Over this matter, as I say, I do not believe that we should find much division of opinion between us.
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It is over the hereditary right to legislate that the main differences arise. Is there to be any hereditary right at all for membership of your Lordships' House? If so, should that right be absolute or should it be qualified; and, if it is to be qualified, what should be the qualification? That is the main issue raised by any question of the reform of the composition of this House. It was over that question that the main discussions, if I remember aright, ranged in 1948. It is over that, I believe, that the main differences, such as they are, exist between the Parties to-day. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, devoted, very naturally, considerable attention to this particular aspect in his speech this afternoon. Here, for the first time. I find myself, if I may say so, differing fairly strongly, but with all deference, from what he said.
I could not help feeling, as I listened to him, that he remains curiously blind to certain valuable qualities which hereditary Peers, above all, possess. He had a good word for the first creation Peers. He is perhaps the most distinguished example of these, and his attitude may be regarded as what I might term trade union feeling; but, with all deference to the noble Viscount, and with full appreciation of the great distinction of first generation Peers, it is the hereditary Peers, in the fullest sense of the word, I believe, and not the first creation Peers, who give the House that special quality to which the noble Viscount himself referred and which is. I believe, its chief merit. Whether it is possible to defend the hereditary right to legislate on purely logical grounds I do not know, but I am certain—and in saying so I believe that I represent a great many people, not merely those in the Conservative Party—that the retention of the hereditary principle in some form or other is essential if the House is to keep that independent character which is its main merit in the eyes of the world. To my mind, it is far more important than any individual examples of personal or intellectual brilliance.
This House, in that particular sense, in the sense that it is independent-minded, stands. I believe, alone among all the Second Chambers of the world, wherever they may be. We may fairly claim that we are extremely independent, as we saw only the other day in the debate on the

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Committee stage of the Road Traffic Bill. On that Bill, the Party Whip which I thoughtfully sent out to my supporters undoubtedly brought many of them to your Lordships' House, but it certainly did not govern their actions when they got here. Very much the contrary. No doubt Peers in all Parties have a general loyalty to the Party to which they belong, and on the great political issues of the day that loyalty will usually govern their decisions. But that loyalty never entirely overrides the sense that they have of personal responsibility to come to their own decisions on the merits of the case. That particular quality is, I admit, often inconvenient for the Leader of the House, but it is one the value of which I feel should not be underestimated.
Moreover, there is another matter upon which I did not quite agree with the noble Viscount. He compared the intellectual attainments of the hereditary Peers very unfavourably with those of first creation Peers. I would remind him, however, that there are a great many cases where men occupying similar positions have been recruited equally from the ranks of the hereditary Peers and Peers of first creation. As an example, I think that during the war the heads of the five banks were all Peers, and that of those, two or three were hereditary Peers and the others were the opposite. Lord Linlithgow, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Lord Harlech and Lord Aldenham were all hereditary Peers—none of them was a Peer of first creation. Yet they were picked by these great business concerns to be chairmen of the banks. I do not say that they are better than Peers of first creation. All I say is that I do not think they got their full due from the speech of the noble Viscount.
I would therefore make it clear that in the view of Her Majesty's Government it is essential that the hereditary principle should, in some form or another, find a place in any reformed House. But that does not necessarily mean (here I would agree with the noble Viscount) that there should be no limitation at all of this hereditary principle. It does not mean that every single man who inherits a Peerage should always, in all circumstances, by that fact alone, retain a right to legislate (that is my personal view), although the man in question may, over a period of years, never have paid any
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attention to the Writ of Summons he has received, may have no interest in politics, or may never attend the House at all. I should have thought that was an impossible proposition to defend; yet that is the position of a great many Peers at the present time. I do not say that to imply that these Peers, in the vast majority of cases, are merely doing nothing or enjoying themselves. On the contrary, as we all know, most of them are extremely hard-worked men, either in their own part of the country on local work, or maybe, in business or in other spheres. But they do not and cannot attend to their constitutional duties, and in my view, it would be far better—indeed, I believe a great many would infinitely prefer it—that they should not have duties which they are not in a position to perform. Indeed, it would be far better for the reputation of the hereditary Peerage itself that its representation should be limited to those who really can attend their duties.
My Lords, in 1948 the idea which found most favour was that of a House composed partly of hereditary Peers and partly of non-hereditary Peers. There was, the House will remember, a suggestion at that time that hereditary Peers should continue automatically to retain their membership only if they possessed also a second qualification—to take a very simple example, if they were also Privy Counsellors or something of that kind. That is indeed one feasible method of limiting the numbers of hereditary Peers. Personally, however, the more I think of this frightfully difficult and thorny problem, the more I become convinced that that is by no means an ideal method. It has two serious, I might almost say vital, weaknesses.
First, it makes no provision for bringing younger men into the House. I believe, after twelve years' experience as Leader either of the House or of the Opposition, that it is absolutely necessary, as in the House of Commons so in this House, that there should be young Back-Bench Members to do the detailed work of Parliament—to deal with Amendments to Bills and so on, and all that day-to-day humdrum business on which Parliament depends for its very existence. That will never be done by such distinguished persons as retired Field-Marshals, ex-Ambassadors, trade union leaders and so on. I should add, however, that in a House that was partly hereditary and

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partly non-hereditary, young hereditary Peers who did not qualify in the first Category—that is, as possessing the dual qualification—could presumably be selected from among the Life Peers, if they could be identified without previous experience of their work here in this House. That, of course, would be the difficulty, and it might be an insuperable difficulty.
Then, my Lords, there is a second disadvantage to that scheme which we rather liked in 1948. A test like a Privy Counsellorship, though admirable in itself—it is the one unsullied fount of honour, and, I should have thought, the most unsullied fount of honour which could be found—could give no certainty that hereditary Peers would be geographically representative of the country as a whole. For instance, one might find 75 per cent. of Privy Counsellors living in the Home Counties, and large parts of England and Wales and Scotland would be entirely unrepresented. Yet if, to get over this difficulty, we adopted a more elaborate scheme—so many representative of the county councils, so many scientists, so many members of the medical profession, so many with past experience of the House of Commons, and so on—the sort of schemes which people have played about with in the past, I believe that we should never get any agreement at all as to what categories should be represented and what numbers should come from which category. Every single Member of this House would have his own preference and the result would be absolute Babel—at least, that is my view.
There are, of course, numerous possible alternatives to that scheme which I have just tried to discuss. There is, for instance, the extension to the whole of the United Kingdom of the system of Representative Peers elected by their fellow Peers, which already applies to Scottish Peers under the Act of Union. That, at any rate, would give the hereditary Peers an assurance that even if many of them could not sit themselves they could choose certain members of their own order to represent them. I think that a great many of the Members of this House would appreciate a plan on those particular lines. Alternatively, one might adopt—Lord Elton mentioned this—something in the nature of what has come to be known as the Simon scheme, which leaves the hereditary
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Peerage where it is and merely supplements it with the non-hereditary Peerage. No doubt noble Lords may be able to suggest other alternatives.
Finally, there is the idea which has already been discussed in this House, and which originally emanated, I believe, from the noble Marquess, Lord Exeter. The gist of his proposal was that the House should itself take some steps to put its affairs in order, especially in relation to the attendance of Peers, by an amendment of our Standing Orders. I know there are very high authorities who take the view that it would not be within the competence of this House to take action of that character, but there are impressive precedents that have been adduced in its favour. The proposal has obvious attractions from its extreme simplicity. If it is the view of the House that this particular matter should be pursued further, I am in a position to say that Her Majesty's Government would be very happy to propose the setting up of a Select Committee of this House to examine, not, of course, any particular scheme, but whether the competence of the House extends to action of that character. I should much welcome the views of noble Lords who are going to speak this afternoon as to whether they would welcome such a Committee. It would at any rate be valuable, if only because it would clear up what is at present quite an obscure and uncertain position.
It is not for me to-day to come down firmly in favour of any of these schemes—indeed, as the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, anticipated, I am not yet in a position to do so. I would therefore merely state, quite briefly, that Her Majesty's Government are still in favour of a House composed partly of hereditary and partly of non-hereditary Peers. The only proviso I would make with regard to propositions (3) and (4), which I have been discussing is that, for reasons which I hope I have already fully explained, we do not think that the House should be composed merely of old and distinguished persons. It will need a younger element, too, which might well be chosen in one of the ways which I have suggested.
I feel that it is not necessary for me to say very much on the remainder of the noble Viscount's propositions. The question of whether women should be admitted to a reformed House, which I

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agree is an important one, would be a matter to be discussed when the time came. My own views are already known to your Lordships' House. Proposition (6) deals with membership of Royal Dukes, Bishops and Law Lords, and I imagine would be universally acceptable. Proposition (7) deals with the question of remuneration of Peers. At present, as noble Lords know only too well, Members of this House, by the terms of their Writ, are expected to attend to their duties when Parliament is sitting. They receive not one penny in return in respect of their expenses, apart from the bare ticket from their home to London and back. If they happen to travel by road they do not even get that. So far as I know, this is true of no other legislative body in the world; and in these days, when taxation is so much higher than it was in the past, I do not believe that the present position could possibly continue for long without grave injury to the work of the House. That is true of all noble Lords in all parts of the House.
My impression—perhaps I shall be told that I am wrong—is that Peers do not want salaries. I believe Peers would greatly dislike such an idea, as hampering their independence; but I believe they would greatly value some subsistence allowance to cover essential expenses in which they are involved in connection with their Parliamentary duties. Her Majesty's Government believe that this is a matter of great importance if the House of Lords is to function effectively under modern conditions. Proposition (8) requires no further comment from me. If Peers are not selected or do not wish to sit in the House of Lords, then it is clearly only fair that they should be able to stand for election to the House of Commons, as Irish Peers have always done in the past, though I should make the proviso that this would refer only to their own persons and would not affect the constitutional position of the Peerages which they hold. I am unlikely to find violent conflict over proposition (9), for I feel that everyone would agree that there should be a provision in any reformed House for the disqualification of Peers who have behaved in a manner unbefitting the House or who, for health or other reasons, are unable, for long
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periods, to attend to their Parliamentary duties.
I have tried, as briefly as I could but as fully as I am able at present, to give the noble Viscount the information for which he has asked in his Motion. I hope he will agree that I have been as forthcoming as is possible in the circumstances. But I recognise that there are still some persons, both inside and outside this House, who are not really interested in the character of any reformed House, since they are firmly opposed to any change in its present composition. Noble Lords heard what I thought was a most powerful and extremely moving plea to that effect from the noble Lord, Lord Elton, this afternoon. He said, in effect, that the House works admirably, that it has a wealth of talent and experience on every subject, that its reputation is high and that its debates are distinguished. He asked, why should we alter an institution which works so admirably. In reply I would only say, if I may do so without impertinence, that while the noble Lord is a distinguished and highly respected Member of this House and is just the kind of man who ought to be in any Second Chamber, however it is con-constituted, it is possible that he does not wholly realise the full nature and urgency of the problem with which we, who run this House, are faced.
I remember an incident in an earlier debate in this House, long before I became a Member, which seems slightly relevant to what the noble Lord said this afternoon. It occurred during the debate on the Prayer Book [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 69, col. 926]. The Lord Bishop of Norwich made a speech in which he referred to himself, extremely modestly, as "a sparrow on the house-top"; whereupon the Lord Bishop of Durham observed that, while it was, of course, the great merit of the sparrow on the house-top that he could see the whole of the countryside, he was at a great disadvantage in that he was precluded from knowing what was going on in the house.
For Lord Elton, as he rightly said, Parliament is not the main occupation to which his life is devoted; he is engaged on work of the utmost national importance elsewhere. He comes to the House when he can, but his appearances are inevitably fairly sporadic. When the

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noble Lord comes to the House he finds debates going on and speeches being made by men well qualified to speak upon the subject, and it is natural that he should wonder what reason there is for any change. But I believe the noble Lord would look at the position rather differently if he had to attend all our sittings. Yet that is what many Peers have to do if the work of the House is to go on. That is so, not merely of members of Her Majesty's Government, who are, at any rate, paid to come; it is equally true of Back-Bench Peers and members of the Opposition Front Bench, who get nothing. I feel profound admiration for the comparatively small band of Peers, both on these Benches and on the Opposition and Liberal Benches, who come day after day and, by their devotion to duty, keep going the business of the House. It is a remarkable tribute to their sense of public service; but it is a tremendous strain and cannot go on permanently. It is for that reason, above all, that I believe that the question of a reform of this House, however important or unimportant it may have been in the past, has now become a matter of very considerable urgency.
If the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, asks me when Her Majesty's Government are to produce a detailed plan, and what that will contain, I can tell him only that I am not yet in a position to give him or the House a fully considered plan. From his final words, he clearly does not expect me to do so this afternoon. Unhappily, if the reform of this House is important and urgent, that is equally true of a great many other matters with which Parliament to-day has to deal. I can only tell the noble Viscount that, like him, we fully realise that this is a problem to which neither Parliament nor the British people can afford to close their eyes. It is the intention of the present Government, fully recognising, as we all must, the immense complexity and difficulty of the subject, to try to find a solution which will command a wide measure of acceptance throughout the country. I had hoped that a plan could be devised and worked out by agreement between all the main Parties in the State.
I entirely agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, that that would be by far the best plan for a great constitutional change of this kind. The
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speech made by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, on behalf of the Labour Party has unhappily killed that hope, at any rate for the present. Like many other noble Lords, I was extremely sorry to hear what he had to tell the House. He really postponed any reform of the House, so far as he and his Party were concerned, to the Greek kalends. He ignored absolutely the cogent arguments which had been adduced by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, and he seemed quite prepared, in spite of his affection for it, to see the House die. That, I know, is the ardent wish of many of the supporters of his Party. I do not for a moment believe it is his own wish. But it is, I know, the ardent wish of sections of the Labour Party. The noble and learned Earl will not expect me or, indeed, the majority of your Lordships who are present to-day, to accept that view. If we cannot get the co-operation of the Labour Party we shall have to go on without them, just as they went on without us in 1948. In that unhappy event we shall greatly welcome the co-operation and counsel of the Liberal Party and, in particular, of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, himself, in a task on which, as he rightly implied in the closing passages of his speech, the whole future welfare of this country may well depend in the difficult years that lie ahead.
4.51 p.m.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, I so seldom attend debates in your Lordships' House in these days that I am afraid many of your Lordships must wonder what I know about the House at all. Perhaps I may be allowed, therefore, to say that within a few weeks it will be forty-nine years since I first took my seat in your Lordships' House; and I think I may claim that for certainly more than half that time I attended the debates no less regularly than almost any other Member of this House. I have perhaps a further advantage in that, having already passed my three score years and ten, by some years, and being, unfortunately, very hard of hearing, I should not dream of trying to become a Lord of Parliament myself. Nor have I anyone to succeed me. Therefore, I can stand in an absolutely detached position in considering what might be the future constitution of this House.

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I notice that in the proposals which Lord Samuel has brought forward, no mention is made of the thorny question of how these Lords of Parliament are to be appointed. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, suggested that they would be put forward by the Government of the day. That, I imagine, would be the procedure, and after the names had been submitted to the Sovereign they would be appointed as was deemed fitting. Lord Samuel put before us a glittering prospect of what the future House would be under these conditions. It would be composed of people with all the virtues and with knowledge of nearly every subject. I have, I think, heard criticism of appointments to the Episcopal Bench on the ground that they have been made on exactly the same principle, but apparently, from what my noble friend said, the virtues required for future Members of this House would be infinitely superior to those required for the Episcopal Bench.
I turn now to the question of what should be the period of service. Should a Lord of Parliament be elected for a period of years or for life?—because that would make a very great difference with regard to the composition of the House. I notice that in the proposals it is suggested that these Peers should be appointed "on grounds of personal distinction or public service." As the noble Marquess the Leader of the House pointed out, by the time they are recognised in that way they will certainly be past middle age, and probably getting on towards becoming old men. I see no advantage whatever in a House composed absolutely of old men. Not infrequently I read Hansard, and I sometimes read speeches made by the younger Members of this House, which appear to compare by no means unfavourably with those made by older Members. These younger Members bring forward new ideas and a modern point of view. It is true that they may sometimes be inclined to be somewhat critical of the proposals or, as they think, the lack of proposals of the Government of the day; and, perhaps, in some ways they are inclined to be somewhat rebellious. But it seems to me to be rather an advantage that the Back Bench should produce people who are somewhat rebellious—it keeps the Leaders of the various Parties on their toes—though that, I am afraid, is not
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a sentiment which, at the present moment, is likely to appeal to the Party in opposition. It is not unusual for them to go a good deal too far.
If this House is to be composed of older men how is the Leader of a Party to find the younger men required to fill junior posts in the Government? It is all very well for Lord Samuel to say that younger Members would, of course, go on to the new House. But how would they become known? It happens over and over again that a young Peer takes his seat, listens to one or two debates, finds himself, somewhat unexpectedly, becoming interested, and then attends more regularly, and in due course takes part in the debates. He then gets known to the House, and falls under the notice of the Leader of his Party. If he shows ability, distinction and new ideas, he may well be appointed to a junior position in the Government. Numbers of Members on the Front Bench have got there in that way. And I think it is not unfair to say that a great many of the Members of your Lordships' House would never have taken up politics at all had they not come to the House, become interested, and then, realising that they had some bent towards politics, begun to sit regularly in the House and to take part in the proceedings. That is thrown away under any principle under which men are elected simply because they have made their names. Under those conditions, they cannot make their names by speaking in this House.
A further objection, which I think is almost stronger, is this. In my long experience it has often happened (I think that the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, and the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, mentioned it) that Peers who are infrequent in their attendances in the House come here and listen to some debate in which they have some special interest. They take part in the debate, and they give the House the benefit of their advice and their experience. And this has proved, over and over again, to be invaluable. It is that which has won for this House the deserved reputation that, whatever the subject may be, there is always some Member who is an expert upon it and who can give valuable information. The whole of that would be swept away under this proposal.
When this matter was under consideration by the Party Leaders I suggested

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that all Peers should be allowed to come and sit in the House and take part in the debates, but that only Lords of Parliament should be entitled to vote. That is a measure which Lord Exeter tried to get by means of alteration of the Rules of Parliament. I was told that that suggestion was unacceptable because it would give Peers too much influence. What a confession to have to make—that when the House could have expert opinion given to it by someone who really knows his subject, it could not take advantage of that opportunity because it might be carrying too much weight! I venture to think that these are sacrifices which require a good deal of counter-weight.
If it had been possible to get some sort of agreement that this House should be given increased powers, at any rate on matters of grave constitutional concern, then I think the grave sacrifices that would be called for would be readily given. But as I see it, under these proposals this House would get no advantage, apart from getting rid of a large number of Members who, in any event, do not attend. I disagree with my noble friend the Leader of the House, who thought that this would be a disadvantage to the Peerage as a whole. I think the country fully realises that there are a large number of Peers who are not interested in politics, and that will still be true even when they are appointed because they have done public service in other directions. It does not follow that a man who has become highly distinguished in one of the Fighting Services or in diplomacy is well fitted for politics, or that he is particularly interested in them. Therefore, even under these proposals we shall not get a House such as the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, and everybody else, would like to see. I rejoice, therefore, that my noble friend the Leader of the House is advancing on this very thorny subject with due caution, because until we get some quid pro quo for what undoubtedly this House would sacrifice, I do not see much advantage in pressing forward with these proposals.
5.2 p.m.
LORD SAYE AND SELE: My Lords, this is the first time that I have had the honour of addressing your Lordships' House and I ask your Lordships' indulgence, especially as I follow such
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extremely distinquished speakers, and also because I am more accustomed to listen than to speak. I believe that this is not a Party question; it is a question far above Party and is one which should not be settled on any Party line or by any collection of Parties. I think that every Member of your Lordships' House would joyfully accept reform if—and only if—we were absolutely convinced that it was for the good of the country, not only now but in the future.
It is a most fascinating occupation, devising a new Upper Chamber. We get new people, new privileges, new powers, new influence, new ways, and new customs and traditions. But customs and traditions are not bought or got except by growth. We can plant a tradition and in the course of years bring it to fruition, but if we destroy a tradition we have to remember that the next one will not be with us for a very long time. New ways—of course; new House, new ways, as it must be. New influence depends, I will not say entirely but largely, on the powers of the House and its personality. Personality there is in your Lordships' House in very abundant measure. We have been talking about powers this afternoon and we shall have to think a great deal more about them. Privileges—what privileges have your Lordships now, except the privilege of service? And that privilege, of which we are proud, undoubtedly we shall carry on.
Finally, I turn to new people—and here we come to the question of heredity. Without any hesitation, I wish to defend the system of hereadity. None of the speakers to whom I have listened this afternoon has remarked that heredity is the only method of selecting a body of people which is completely unbiased. Any other method, except choice by lottery, which would not be suitable, must depend on somebody's opinion. The selection of Members of your Lordships' House on the hereditary principle depends on nobody's opinion—we just cannot help it. The candidates (if I may so call them) who come forward in the course of nature for the position of hereditary Peers are forewarned and are educated by promise and environment. They have knowledge of their responsibility and they have the tradition. No doubt there are black sheep, but we find the black sheep in every body, and not only among those who belong to

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this House. There, then, are surely very good reasons for sticking to heredity. In this House we have knowledge and wisdom also in ample quantity. Of course, there are many folk outside who have equal knowledge or greater, and equal wisdom or greater. But there is not room for them all in this House, and by our present method of heredity and with the 173 Peers who have been moved up into this House because of their services, we have a sufficient body to provide all the knowledge and all the wisdom which we need.
I believe that the public does not ask for any alteration in your Lordships' House, as is suggested today. It is not for me to say, but as an ordinary Member of your Lordships' House I do not find any particular urge for this alteration. Let me remind the House that if we are going to set about forming a new House of Lords, we have had a full-dress rehearsal on which to work. Ten generations ago the representatives of the noble Marquess's family and mine had a great deal to do with the formation of the Lord Protector's Upper House. That Chamber looked to be successful for a year—no, not for so long as a year. It was chosen by a good man and a man of great ability, and he did it to the best of his ability. Just as is suggested in the Motion before the House, he chose so many Peers, so many landowners and so many representatives of the other estates of England at that time. For a very short time that House was successful; then it was thrown out because the other place did not like it. I cannot believe that any House which any body of men selected again would have any other fate than that. When the next election came along they would no longer be suitable, and down they would go. I believe that thoughtful people throughout the country ask for more authority for the House of Lords as it stands at present.
5.10 p.m.
LORD HYLTON: My Lords, your Lordships have just listened to a maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Saye and Sele, and I am sure you would wish me to congratulate him on so successful a maiden speech. It is some six years since the noble Lord became a member of your Lordships' House, and I am sure your Lordships regret, with me, that he has
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been unable to make his maiden speech earlier. The noble Lord comes from one of the most politically distinguished families in this country, and he has referred to the times of Cromwell and the Commonwealth, when his own ancestors were so prominently involved in politics. I am sure your Lordships will wish to hear the noble Lord many times in future. I would only comment that his views as to the merits or demerits of the hereditary principle are dissimilar from those expressed by his noble Leader this afternoon. I am sure that many of your Lordships will regret that the noble Viscount, the mover of the Motion, expressed considerable dissatisfaction, if not a greater degree of opprobrium, with the working of the hereditary system. I think that is regrettable—and I feel that many of your Lordships will agree with me—owing to the great service that the hereditary Peerage has rendered to the Crown and the country over so many centuries.
It is with great diffidence that I rise to speak in this debate. This problem has exercised the best brains of Parliament and the country for more than forty years. I am not clear in my own mind that it has been very much enlightened this afternoon by the remarks of the two noble Leaders of the Parties opposite. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, said that this was a good time to review the composition of your Lordships' House—I think he was satisfied with the powers. The noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, said that this was a bad time, and one fraught with so many difficulties (and I think he joined his Party with himself in his remarks), that it was an inappropriate time to consider the whole of this problem. That makes it harder for Members of your Lordships' House to arrive at any conclusion, particularly on the proposals contained in the Motion, because they have not been blessed from any side of the House.
Proposals Nos. (3) and (4) have been frowned on in some quarters and only moderately blessed by the noble Marquess, the Leader of the House. Those two proposals are the basis of any new composition of your Lordships' House. I should like to say this on the question of composition. It seems to me and, I believe, to a number of your Lordships, that these two proposals, Nos. (3) and

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(4), are not capable of satisfactory solution as an administrative problem because of the tremendous difficulties in carrying them out. Proposal No. (3) presents the great difficulty, when it comes to making up one's mind, or to a committee or a Government making up their minds, as to who should speak, exercising the hereditary right. Obviously under this proposal there would be the greatest difficulty in selecting younger men. Then there would be difficulty in selecting or excluding those Members of your Lordships' House who are serving the Crown or the country in the Armed Forces, in the Civil Service in the various Government Departments. Is such service to exclude them?—because not many of them will be in this country, but serving abroad, and they will not be able to put in those almost compulsory attendances which must, I believe, be the result of this suggested change.
I wish to emphasise the point made so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that it is the independence of Members of your Lordships' House that is their greatest value. I do not believe it is possible under this suggested method of partly hereditary Peers and partly Lords of Parliament to preserve that independence. I believe the independence of the views of the Members of your Lordships' House to be its greatest asset. In many cases it is not your Lordships' presence in this House that is of value, but your Lordships' absence; because it is while Members of the House are absent that they are acquiring that knowledge and experience throughout the world that is their greatest recommendation to be Members of the House. For the younger Members, that experience cannot be gained in this Chamber but can be gained only by going out into the world, by learning and taking part in a profession, and then, with that acquired knowledge, contributing to the deliberations of your Lordships' House.
If the proposed composition of the House as set out in proposals Nos. (3) and (4) does not find favour, then some method must be found to make Members of your Lordships' House some other type of Peer. I believe there is a solution that would appeal to many noble Lords in the scheme and in the Bill that was read in this House and which had its origin in the proposals of the late Lord Simon. I believe that the proposal for creating a
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number of Life Peers has great advantages and few, if any, disadvantages. I consider that if your Lordships agree to a scheme of this nature, it would be of great advantage to one, if not both, political Parties who sit on the other side of the House, because it provides a method of increasing the numbers sitting on those Benches if they cannot be provided by younger men, such as from time to time come to your Lordships' House and sit on this side. Many men who come to this House and sit on the Labour Benches have spent their lives in industry or in the learned professions and are therefore not able to come here at such an early age as some who sit on this side of the House.
I believe that the system of Life Peerages as suggested by the late Lord Simon's Bill would get over that difficulty. I do not know whether the numbers suggested by the late Lord Simon in his Bill would be sufficient. In Clause 1 of that Bill Lord Simon suggested that ten British subjects in each calendar year should be appointed by Letters Patent to be Lords of Parliament. That might be too small a number to start with, because spread, I suppose, over the three political Parties, it would amount to only a small number for each Party. Therefore it would seem desirable that any initial creation should be on a more generous scale, to make allowances for the difficulties encountered at present by both Parties on the Opposition Benches. I believe that this system has many advantages over the system suggested in propositions (3) and (4) or even (5) of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel.
Finally, I suggest—and this matter was touched upon by the noble Marquess the Leader of the House—that the expenses of attending regularly at your Lordships' House are heavy, both for those who live in London and for those who live in the country. At the present rate of taxation, the expenses are too great for many Peers, and particularly younger Peers, to bear. That is one of the reasons why, in the ordinary course of business in your Lordships' House, there are not larger attendances. I believe it is the cost of attending front the further counties in England that prevents many noble Lords front attending as regularly here as they would wish. It has always seemed to me to be extremely anomalous that, on the

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other hand, any member of a local authority in England is able to receive considerable allowances and remuneration when attending meetings of a local authority or meetings of a committee of a local authority. In the Ministry of Housing and Local Government's latest regulations, which became operative on March 30, 1954, for an overnight absence in London a sum of £2 10s., to cover twenty-four hours, is allowed. In addition there are travelling allowances from the place of residence to London, or wherever the conference is being held, either by road or by rail; and the average mileage allowance is somewhere around 6d. a mile. I have given these figures because I thought they would be of interest to your Lordships. Furthermore, those allowances are payable, not for any given number of sittings, such as at present regulates the travelling allowances of your Lordships, but for any one attendance.
I believe that that principle might well be extended to your Lordships' House—that both travelling allowance and sufficient subsistence allowance should be payable for one sitting on some particular occasion when a noble Lord wishes to attend to give a point of view or express an opinion upon a matter of which he has some special knowledge. If a noble Lord attended one sitting, then I think he should be paid reasonable expenses. I trust that the Government will not only talk about this small financial adjustment but will act, and act fairly rapidly. I have spoken at some length, and I know there are many more speakers who wish to address your Lordships. I would say only this: that in my opinion the House of Lords can well be judged on its past record—a record exceeding 600 years. I believe it is a mistake to limit artificially, even if it can be done, the hereditary principle. I believe we should build on that principle and not limit it, and that by creating a new type of Life Peerage the proper requirements of both Parties opposite could be satisfied. At present they both are suffering from the same difficulties.
5.28 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, my noble friend who has just spoken is justly celebrated as an authority upon local affairs and upon other affairs as well, and I feel certain that the remarks
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which he has made about the remuneration given to members of local authorities for their services will be carefully studied by the Ministers who consider the results of this debate. If I should appear to be somewhat halting in the remarks that I offer this afternoon, I hope your Lordships will think that it is not from any want of respect for your Lordships' House that I speak in this way. I felt strongly that it was useless even to contemplate coming with a prepared speech of any kind until one had heard the speeches of the noble Marquess the Leader of the House and the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and, indeed, of the noble Viscount who proposed this Motion. But, feeling as I do, very strongly indeed, that the noble Marquess the Leader of this House is perfectly right in regarding some measure of House of Lords reform as of urgent public importance, I conceive it my duty to say why it is that after some period of years I have come to this conclusion.
I want to begin with two observations which may at first sight seem to have little to do with the Motion on the Paper. The first is that, as I see it, the reason the hereditary principle is not wholly satisfactory in the present context is not because it has failed the country in the past or because there is anything inherently wrong with it in a suitable social context. It was built up, lived and flourished in an age when there was a leisured class in this country with the legal and effective right of transmitting considerable amounts of property to its children; and the social custom obtained in those days, more especially amongst those whose wealth was in land, of concentrating the legal ownership in an hereditary estate upon the firstborn son, burdening it only with suitable jointures and rent charges in favour of other dependants of the family. It was a perfectly natural and legitimate feature of English social life that the upper strata of a society so formed and the holders of those great hereditary fortunes should have a seat in an hereditary Legislature.
But nowadays it is not, in practice, possible for people to look forward to that kind of future for their sons. Death duties have made a fundamental difference to our social structure. I do not now canvass the question whether it is

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a difference for the better or a difference for the worst, but, in practice, death duties destroy the possibility of a permanently inherited estate, and have inevitably led to the social custom of the division by parents, in more or less equal proportions, of such estates as they can leave to their children, so that the eldest son (or the heir, as he used to be called) is no longer the possessor ever of such wealth as is transmitted. That renders it well-nigh impossible, in practice, for many young men to attend this House of Parliament. They are not paid, as Members of the House of Commons have had to be paid in recent years, something like a subsistence salary—and may I say that I should regard it as a disaster if any serious proposal were made (and I do not think that any serious proposal has been made this afternoon) for a salary or payment of any kind.
I think that whatever virtues we may possess depend upon our financial independence, and have always done so. It would be disastrous if one got out of that difficulty by proposing, or seriously thinking of, payment of remuneration for Peers other than recoupment of their expenses. Let us not in any way deceive ourselves about this matter. No recoupment of expenses will make it possible for young Peers to attend to this House regularly. They will have their livings to earn and their children, if they have any, to educate. It really is not possible, either in Parliament or in local authorities, for young men to take a part in public life to-day. I myself am sufficiently conservative rather to regret that, but, on the other hand, one must face facts about it. In the main; therefore, this House, in its regular service, will not, in practice, whatever we do this afternoon or in the immediate future, be able to look to young men for very great regular attendance. The number of young men with hereditary titles able to perform this service will tend, on the whole, to become progressively less, because neither of the great Parties in this country proposes to alter the burden of taxation in such a way as to restore the situation which enabled them to do it in the past.
May I here say to the Government something else which again, at first sight, has nothing to do with the composition of the House of Lords but which I think has
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a good deal of bearing upon it. Until the war, this House, for constitutional reasons, normally met in the late afternoon. It did so because it was believed at that time that the House of Lords sitting judicially should sit as the House of Lords; and the judicial body took up the ordinary hours of court hearings—that is, between 10.30 a.m. and 4.15 p.m. Since the war, however, for various reasons, of convenience and otherwise, the House has begun and has continued to sit in the early hours of the afternoon. In practice that makes it utterly impossible for somebody who has to earn his living to come to the House in the ordinary course. In the old days he could come, because most business finished about the time when the House began to sit. But, since the war, as a matter of deliberate policy, our sittings have in the main taken place during the ordinary working hours of the day. It is no good complaining that young men do not come to the House of Lords if it sits at hours when they are working for their living.
I well remember only about eighteen months ago I got into terrible trouble with the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, who I am glad to see is here. There was a debate upon this subject and, at very great difficulty, I attended on one day. Then the same thing happened as has happened to-day: it suddenly turned into a two days' debate, with the result that as I had to be present in court on the second day I was not able to hear the Government's reply. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, "tore strips off me" because I had made a speech and then had not listened to the answer. Young men will find that difficulty if the House continues to meet in the early hours of the afternoon. I do not complain that that is so, because I am fairly sure that the Leader in this House is in an awkward dilemma, for, if he were to revert to the late hours of the afternoon, a great number of those who now take the trouble to come day by day would not be able to come at all.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (VISCOUNT SWINTON): They all go away by five.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: With that position, the noble Leader would find that he would not necessarily gain a great body of new young men, but he would lose his existing attendance. That is a

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real difficulty. I only put it forward to the Government as something which is seriously affecting the business of this House and must be seriously considered in the future.
I come now to the actual Motions which stand on the Order Paper. I think that, if I may say so, one of the most well expressed speeches that I have ever listened to was that of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, this afternoon. It was both eloquent and extremely carefully thought out. But, if I may venture a criticism of it, it is that he was really attacking a case which does not exist. Neither the noble Viscount who proposed this Motion nor anybody who has supported it so far has wanted to see what the noble Lord repeatedly described as a brand new, rationalised, limited Second Chamber. One of the solid facts which has emerged from forty years of discussion of this question has been that, if the House of Lords is to be reformed, the one thing which will never happen is the emergence of a Senate. The only way in which a reform of this House can be carried through, if it is to be done at all, is to do what the noble Viscount has put in his first principle—modify its existing constitution. What we shall see if these or any other proposals are brought into effect is something very like what we see this afternoon—a body of approximately the same people observing the same traditions and Rules of Order, with approximately the same power and influence, still calling itself the House of Lords and still referring to one another as noble Lords of Parliament. That is all that is proposed.
Therefore, although the attack which was launched by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was an extremely powerful one, it was upon an entirely imaginary enemy. The question is whether this House requires any change—not whether this House ought to be abolished and another House substituted for it. For my part, I am quite satisfied that substantial changes are needed, and not always for the reasons which are most eagerly put forward. Of course, ideally speaking, I, as a Conservative, should like to see changes take place imperceptively, by evolution; but there come times when rather more definite changes have to be established than can be achieved in that way.
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As Lord Elton said, the large composition of the House of Lords, 800 Members, is largely a bogy, partly because the 800 Members never come together and partly because the rare attendances of many of them are of real value to the House. My attendance, I am afraid, is not as frequent as I should like, for reasons that I have explained: I usually come on "off" days, because I come on days when I am unemployed, rather than on the days when there are debates which are of outstanding importance. But as I see it, the real trouble in the day-to-day business of the House is to get enough people to attend the House regularly. It is not that we have too many Members who do not come, but that we have not enough Members who do and who can come. That is no criticism of anybody, for reasons which I have been trying to explain.
I have already tried to explain why I believe the system of heredity alone cannot supply the deficiency. It is not that there is necessarily anything wrong with the system of heredity; it is that, in practice, it does not supply enough people to man the service of the House from day to day. That is why it needs to be changed. That is why I think, with respect, that the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, and indeed my noble friend who has just spoken, are right when they call for a source of supply other than the hereditary Peers—namely, Life Peers. There is no great difficulty in seeing how they would be appointed. There is an ingenious device called "Letters Patent" which came into being about 800 years ago, and Life Peers would be appointed as Peers are appointed now. The only difference, as I see it, is that the device which was invented by Lord Palmerston in 1855, when he created a Peer called Lord Wensleydale, with a life limitation, should now be held to be legal instead of illegal, as the Committee for Privileges in this House decided under the influence of Lord Lyndhurst about 100 years ago. That is all that is necessary. There is nothing very big about that. It is something which Lord Palmerston would have done had it not been for Lord Lyndhurst about a hundred years ago. That would lead, I think, to a great improvement.
I want now to say a word to members of the Labour Party. There seems to be a real reluctance on the part of members

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of that Party (it is not confined to members of the Labour Party, because I know members of my own Party to whom it applies), people who would otherwise be most suitable as Members of the House of Lords, either in middle or late life, to accept Peerages. I know that to be so. I do not want to give instances because I have not the right to use other people's names, but I know that to be so. That means that if, in fact, there is a shortage of suitable persons ready to undertake the work of this House from day to day, which is the basic thesis that I have tried to express, it must be right to create Life Peers, if that will induce them more readily to accept Peerages. And I am sure that it would.
Just try to put yourselves in the position of a trade unionist with a position in the country or in another place (it does not matter which, because either or both might be equally suitable here) who is approached with a view to his accepting a Peerage. His son may be working at a bench in a factory. It is not that we should not welcome the son as a Peer when he succeeds—we should; he would be made welcome in this House and would probably enrich its debates. But the idea that he could come regularly, or would find it convenient or easy to be called the "Earl of something" when he was working at a factory bench, without incurring a certain amount of ridicule from his friends, is not a realistic one. One has to face the fact that a trade unionist or a member of the Labour Party is, for perfectly honourable reasons, extremely reluctant to accept a hereditary Peerage. I happen to know that in the Labour Party there is the greatest difficulty in getting members for the House of Lords, even when the Labour Party are in power. May I say this to the Government? If, as I hope, the Conservative Government are in office for a considerable period of time, I hope they will give serious attention to the possibility of approaching the Labour Party, whether they make any other reform or not, with a view to the creation of Labour Peers. I say that on the basis of there being a Conservative Government in office.
That leads me to another urgent reform which, as I see it, is required. I do not believe that a Parliamentary
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institution can exist long without a clash of opinion following broadly the general lines of division of opinion in the country. It is the greatest pity that we do not sometimes have stronger clashes in this House, as would be the case with stronger representation of Parties other than the Conservative Party. In saying that I am not in any way suggesting that it is not true that we are an extremely independent body. There is nobody quite so independent as a Conservative Peer, but I am afraid that it is also true that there is nobody quite so conservative as an Independent Peer, and we do independently come more or less to the same sort of opinion about politics. That, if I may say so, is the greatest of pities. I say that not because I have any doubt about the superiority of my own Party, but simply because, in my view, Parliamentary institutions exist for the purpose of canalising and focusing the clash of opinions in the country. I believe that this House will not long continue vigorous if something is not done about the representation of the Labour Party here. I believe that that is intimately bound up with the question of Life Peerages.
I should like now, with respect—I know that here I shall offend many tender consciences—to say a word in favour of the inclusion of women in this House. From the administrative or political point of view, I am not an admirer of the female sex, but this seems to be a point in favour of giving them a chance to compete with us, rather than against it. They have not succeeded in ousting the male sex from the House of Commons, and I feel that we shall hold our own in this House if we look to this important source of recruitment and receive, as we should receive, a number of highly distinguished Members from the opposite sex. That subject, of course, is intimately bound up with the question of Life Peerages. I mean no disrespect, but the Peeresses in their own right, basing their right to sit, if there were such a right, on very old remainders, in very old Writs of Summons, are too anomalous a body to build on. If, in face, we are to have proper female representation in the House, we must have Life Peerages, because I think it would be impossible to devise a remainder for a female Peer which did not produce hereditary anomalies even worse

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than those from which we suffer at the present time.
I believe that the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, and the noble Marquess the Leader of the House, would have managed between them to work out a perfectly satisfactory piecemeal system of reform of this House—a system which would enable it to retain its historical continuity, its independence, its reserve of experts, and, may I add, its indefinite numbers (because I regard that as of the utmost importance from the constitutional point of view)—but for one fact: the attitude of the Labour Party, which I deeply deplore. I would beg noble Lords opposite to try to bring their great influence to bear to alter the views of members of the Labour Party in another place.
The noble and learned Earl, the Leader of that Party in this House, said that he had taken soundings. I too have taken soundings in the Labour Party, and although, of course, I have not the authority of the noble and learned Earl, I believe that members of that Party sometimes express themselves more freely to me than to a man such as the noble Earl, whom they hold in such reverence. Also, although I have sometimes tried to be as publicly outspoken about their policies as I can be, I have at the same time tried to remain personally on good terms with them, so that I believe they express themselves frankly to me. Almost to a man the Labour Party are united behind the present composition of the House of Lords, because they think it is no good. That is the blunt fact, and it is no use trying to deny it. Years ago they were, to a man, united against the composition of the House of Lords because they thought it was no good: they liked to abuse it, and they considered it consistent and honest to abuse that which they thought was no good. Now they have hit upon a much more ingenious device: to keep it as it is because it is no good.
There are two reasons why they wish to keep it as it is because it is no good. There are those who want to see virtual single-Chamber government, and they believe that if we have this imaginary body of phantom Peers, numbering 846, somewhere in our rear, we shall not dare to use our powers even on a case which, on its merits, is irresistible. Indeed, the
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existence of this phantom army is a great practical deterrent to Conservative Peers to exercise their consciences in this matter. It is felt that if we go on long enough not using our powers because of our composition then we shall effectively achieve single-Chamber government in this country without the name of it. I say bluntly that that is politically disreputable. We are a body of people charged with certain constitutional functions. We do our best conscientiously to discharge them and not to overstep the mark; but we must be protected against a situation in which we are afraid to do what we know to be our duty merely through fear of what the Labour Party will say about us in the country, though it is not true. We can do our duty only if they will honestly say that they do not like the present composition of the House of Lords. If the Labour Party are in favour of single-Chamber government, let them say so. But it is not reputable to put this House in the false position of trying to do its duty and then using this imaginary argument against it and hoping that it will die of inanition through not doing its duty. That represents the first body of opinion in the Labour Party.
The second body of opinion wants the composition of the House of Lords to remain unaltered because, although they believe that a Second Chamber is a good thing in itself, they do not want this House to have any more power than it has at the moment. They are afraid that, if a reform were made, the new House would be so excellent, and so deserving of popular support, that it would be tempted to use, or accept, or claim or obtain, greater powers than it at present has. Again, I say that that is politically disreputable. If they think that the Second Chamber, such as it is, ought not to have greater powers than it at present has, let them say so; but let them not hamstring the House of Lords by giving it a composition which they think is bad in order to achieve that result, for that is not honest.
Her Majesty's Government have, so far, and I believe very wisely, refrained from attempting to alter the present powers of this House. As the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, pointed out, those powers are rather greater than noble Lords sometimes suppose. I believe that we have an absolute veto on statutory instruments. We have never yet exercised it,

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and I believe that in the main we can be trusted not to do so. I should be the first to complain if this House tried to abuse its powers in that respect. Similarly, in our delaying and revising powers, I believe we have, in practice, all the powers that we want, because a sufficiently authoritative expression of opinion from this House, coupled with even a slight delay and the support of public opinion, will be able to effect the maximum check which I feel at any time we could effect by any means whatever. We can never hope to challenge or arrest a revolutionary majority in the House of Commons, and I do not believe that any noble Lords seriously believe we could do so, or would desire to do so, even were we able. We can only hope to utter a word of caution, to use (if we possess it) a superior reasoning and to point out obvious mistakes. If, in addition to that, we could achieve a membership fuller than that which, from day to day, we manage to have in our midst for our daily work, I believe that we could go on as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, suggested, proud of our tradition and able to play an effective part in the Constitution of this country.
5.57 p.m.
LORD ELLENBOROUGH: My Lords, despite the many flattering references to younger Peers that are apt to be made in a discussion of this subject, it is nevertheless with considerable hesitation that I rise to my feet amidst such a host of speakers steeped in constitutional reform and with greater knowledge of it than I can ever hope to have. I wish to make a few brief observations arising out of my experience in addressing a number of meetings and audiences in different parts of the country over the past few years. I do not want to give the impression that I have any special knowledge on the subject of the House of Lords or its reform; I speak merely as a Member of this House who has occasionally had some little time available in which to address meetings, some of which have been of a political nature and arranged by a political Party, but the audiences at which have consisted of all shades of political opinion and have therefore been fairly representative.
I found that three points of view existed. First there were the two extremes: there were those who thought that the House of Lords should remain in all circumstances exactly as it is; and
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there were those who, if given half a chance, would try to abolish the House of Lords or to reduce it to a position of complete nullity. Between those two extremes there is, I am convinced, a substantial body of opinion which wants to feel that the House of Lords is carrying out its day-to-day duties effectively. That central body of opinion believes that this House is working at the moment under disadvantages and defects which some limited measure of reform could put right. I believe that many noble Lords overestimate the feeling that the authority of this House is gradually being whittled down over the years and will fade away unless something is done. It seems to me that those who advocate doing absolutely nothing are really playing, perhaps unwittingly, into the hands of Mr. Aneurin Bevan, who has put it on record that it is his wish to see the House of Lords "wither away like an ancient monument." I think we are all well aware that there are many in the extremist section of the Party opposite who think likewise in that connection.
I see that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in his Motion, mentions that the House of Lords is discharging its duties effectively. In my view it is up to us to see that the House of Lords—and this is the important point—shall continue to discharge its duties effectively, if it should ever be put to the acid test. I believe that many of us underestimate the feeling that we are gravely ill-equipped to perform the latent function of this House—which is, after all, the most important function—that of curbing dictatorial tendencies of a majority in another place. We are in an unhappy position in that regard, because of our present entirely unrepresentative character. Whilst, admittedly, the risks may be slight, it seems rather ostrich-like to consider that such a contingency will never arise. Furthermore, there is a feeling in some quarters that the House carries a disability in the very enormity of its membership—that is to say, the enormity of its membership on paper. That may well act as a deterrent to many noble Lords and prevent them from attending debates. I, myself, have sometimes thought that I should like to attend a debate on some afternoon, but perhaps it is slightly inconvenient for me, and I have felt sure that at any rate someone else would turn up instead.

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We may be aware of the many divergent factors that prevent many noble Lords from attending debates to-day, but there is almost certainly a larger number who have no wish to attend, and no special reason to attend either. The existence—or perhaps I should say the nonexistence—of the missing 500 gives rise amongst the public to mistaken notions about this House, which are not easily dispelled. It gives an ideal weapon to those who dislike, or even hate, this House and what it stands for. They are apt to brand us, sometimes, as an object of scorn, or even ridicule, or as a collection of wicked and reactionary backwoodsmen who are lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce out at any given moment and thwart the will of the people. That feeling may be less than it was a generation or so ago, but, nevertheless, it is still there, and it is still sufficient to instil doubt and lack of confidence.
I am not one who would seek any radical measure of reform at all, but, from my limited experience in addressing a few meetings on this subject, I believe the House would be immensely strengthened by, at any rate, a limited measure of reform. I do not think it is even a matter of controversy now that it would be desirable to introduce new blood into the House by creating a number of Life Peers. Further, I am inclined to feel that there would be a case for limiting the membership to, in all, about 250 or 390, which, apart from the Life Peers, would be chosen on much the same basis as that on which the Scottish Peerage to-day elect or choose their allotted Members. This would seem to me to have the advantage of dispelling the fear which still exists to-day of the lurking backwoodsmen. Not only would it include all those who are regular in their attendance in this House, but most, if not all, of those who are able only to attend three or four times a Session, or three or four times a year, but whose counsel when they do attend we value, and whom, naturally, we should not want altogether to lose.
Further, this would seem to have the advantage that there would no longer be an overwhelming majority for one political Party. There would, as I see it, be a far more equitable distribution of Party
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strength—not that I want to give any impression that in any reform Party considerations should be foremost. But there would be more equitable strength all round, and the result of a debate or a Division would not be a completely foregone conclusion as it is to-day. Generally speaking, the House might come to be regarded amongst the public as an assembly of impartial experts, representing all shades of opinion and points of view, and would command a far greater degree of confidence. Again, I do not wish to make out that I feel there is any clamour for reform of this House. It is not a subject which arouses the same indignant interest as the high price of tea, or the hydrogen bomb, or some other issue of that magnitude. But there is a feeling amongst thinking people to-day that something should be done before it is too late and before this House does what we all hope it will never do—"withers away like an ancient monument," as Mr. Bevan put it. At the moment, thank goodness! the House of Lords is very much more than just an ancient monument. But, just as any edifice or building, no matter how magnificent or perfect the structure, cannot for ever escape the erosion of time and the need for renovation, so this House, if it is to retain its full vigour and vitality, cannot for ever escape the need for some strengthening of its fabric.
6.9 p.m.
LORD HADEN-GUEST: My Lords, the Motion on the Order Paper is based on a Conference held in 1948, the proposals of which have been set out by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, on the Order Paper. Since 1948 the world has changed very greatly, and in my view the need for the application of proposals for reform of the House has thereby been greatly strengthened. The House has done a great deal of very valuable work and is still doing it at the present time. The nature and scope of that work are indicated to a large extent in the wording on the Order Paper. But, since 1948, there have been great changes in the organisation of the British Commonwealth of Nations and, indeed, of the world as a whole. If noble Lords will cast their minds back over the not very lengthy period to 1948, they will realise how improved facilities of transport, increased dangers from atomic weapons and a general stirring up of other parts of the

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world, such as we regularly read about in our morning or evening papers, have really changed the world more rapidly in this comparatively short time than has ever happened before. I believe that something more drastic is required than to carry on simply on the old lines. In my view, the House of Lords, changed as it is proposed that it should be by the Resolutions of 1948, would be in a position to make a great contribution to the stability of the Commonwealth and, in consequence, of the world.
I suggest that it would be valuable to make this change in such a way that we could have in your Lordships' House representatives of the Commonwealth overseas. At the present moment, we have three distinguished Commonwealth members, one representing Australia and two representing New Zealand; but we should have other noble Lords representing other parts of the Commonwealth and the Colonial Territories which now are working towards Commonwealth status. By their undoubted knowledge of their own areas these representatives would be able to keep the House in closer touch with the Dominions and Colonial Territories, so that in this aspect of its work the House could be representative of the Commonwealth as a whole. That would be a useful and valuable piece of organisation, which would help us to see world conditions as they are more clearly than we do at the present time. In this House we have the advantage that we have not the weight of detailed legislation that overwhelms another place, and therefore we can give more attention to the larger view of happenings in the world.
Since the end of the last war, I have had occasion to visit many places in the Commonwealth, including all the Dominions except New Zealand, and many Colonial areas including those of the Far East; and may I ask those who take the view that action at the present time is not needed whether a better security for world peace and world development could be devised than such a representation in your Lordships' House? At one time in this House we had Lord Sinha, an Indian, who held office. I think it would be admirable if that practice were extended. The making of your Lordships' House more fully representative of the Commonwealth would strengthen the United Nations. The detailed
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organisation suggested by the 1948 Conference is set out on the Order Paper, and it would certainly be a great advantage to admit women as Lords of Parliament. Certainly it would be desirable to make some arrangement for the payment of remuneration to members of a reformed House. I believe all the questions involved should be given the closest and most careful study. I also think it desirable to make provision for a greater representation of the learned professions. The law is fully represented—indeed, I have heard it murmured, over-represented—in this House; but medicine is certainly not over-represented, though there are a number of distinguished members of the medical profession here. There are a number of distinguished educationists also. But it certainly would be a good thing to have a much fuller representation of parallel classes in other occupations.
I have asked Members of your Lordships' House and of another place what are their views of this question. Some of them staggered me by saying, "Let things drift." I do not believe that this is any time for letting things drift. We ought to take action to see that the Commonwealth plays a greater part in world affairs and that your Lordships' House makes an even greater contribution to these affairs than it does now. Let us forget about feuds and narrow political ideas and beliefs, and act. We have to make a great contribution to the building of a world civilisation which will live in the future. In that work I believe that we can play a greater part than Britain alone has played in the past, because we should be reinforced by the immense wealth and strength of the Commonwealth. I believe that if we are united with Canada, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and all that great range of territories still at a Colonial level, in taking up the work that lies before us, we may establish under the United Nations a world prosperous and at peace. To that the House of Lords, reformed in the way I have proposed, can make a great and worthwhile contribution, of value not only to us but to the world as a whole.
6.16 p.m.
LORD BELSTEAD: My Lords, I greatly appreciate the opportunity of saying something, not at great length, to your Lordships about the proposals which

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are before the House to-day, but I am greatly handicapped in two respects. The first is that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and to a certain extent the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, have already said a great deal of what I wished to say, though I should not like your Lordships to think that I go the whole way with the noble Lord, Lord Elton. The other is the exceedingly bitter pill administered by the noble and learned Earl the Leader of the Opposition. It is true that it was handed out with the usual charm, that remarkable lucidity and in the very beautiful speaking voice which is the envy and admiration of all who hear it, including, I hear, a great many of the tender sex. Nevertheless, it was a bitter pill and requires a good deal of swallowing.
It seems to me rather grievous that, when these proposals are put forward, proposals which are subject to certain safeguards, which have been drawn up after full consideration and apparently having the approval of the Leaders of the Party of which I am a humble member, and which must have given my leaders a great deal of trouble and consideration, both five years ago and again today, they should be met apparently with a blank refusal on the part of the Party opposite, unless, as a condition precedent, everything that they could possibly desire is granted them without question. I said that I was gravely handicapped. I have here in my hand a sheaf of notes, but as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said, this is not a subject upon which a speech can easily be prepared beforehand: what one says depends very much upon what other speakers have said. Here are my notes, and therefore I am not in the position of the famous grandfather of the present Leader of the House of whom, when I was a young candidate for another place, I was told a little story—though one probably wholly unfounded upon fact. When entering your Lordships' House, he dropped his notes upon the threshold and the noble Lord who followed him picked them up. Looking at the top of the front page to see to whom the notes belonged, he saw the words:
"My Lords, when I entered your Lordships' House to-day, nothing was further from my mind than that I should be called upon to address your Lordships."
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I do not propose to reiterate the arguments that have been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, as to why no change is desirable—the wonderful breadth and width of the experience of so many Members of your Lordships' House; the fact that it has stood unaltered over so many centuries and weathered so many storms. But there is one point I should like to add, upon which I think he did not touch. It is that, at any rate at General Election time, the House of Lords has generally been pointed at from time to time by both Parties opposite as an obstacle to democratic legislation. I remember, also, in those early days as a candidate, hearing a distinguished Liberal statesman say that the House of Lords had reduced the Liberal Party to ploughing the sands; and I have no doubt that the other principal Party of today would have said much the same thing had they been of the same importance and prominence at that time. I remember, also, reading at that time a prominent journalist who described this House as "a dead blank wall barring all progress." As a young candidate making his first platform speeches I was rather anxious about this, and I went to that untainted source of pure information, the Conservative Central Office Research Department. They assured me that between the years 1906 and 1910 this House had rejected four measures and had passed 210—hardly a "dead blank wall barring all progress."
Further research by myself (I hope it is correct) leads me to believe that between 1910 and 1914 only two measures were rejected; that is to say, the Welsh Church Bill and the Government of Ireland Bill. From 1914 to the present day, unless I am wrong, only one measure has been rejected, and that was the Parliament Bill of 1948—and it seems to me that if your Lordships had passed that you would really have been committing hara-kiri which is something that can hardly be expected of anybody, let alone your Lordships' House. Moreover, during the time that the Party opposite were in power, this House passed at the first time of asking some six nationalisation Bills. It would therefore appear that there is nothing in the argument that an alteration—I prefer that word to "reform"—of the House of Lords is necessary in order to give the people (without a capital "P") a better chance, or

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to enable a temporary majority in another place to have a fairer chance.
But it would appear—and I am impressed by the argument—that this august House is dying on its feet, or rather, in its seats. Under present conditions the Opposition are numerically unable to raise a solid body of opposition here in the House, while attendances on this side of the House also are not always all that they could be; and for that reason the probability is that something will now be done. If something is now to be done, it is important to be careful what is done. It is perfectly clear to me (I hope I am right) that, so far as the lack of attendance on this side of the House is concerned, it is due to three things that have already been briefly referred to: the truncated powers of the House since 1948, the expense of attending here, and the fact that the younger Members have still all to earn their living. Powers cannot, or will not, be restored; the expense is likely to increase rather than decrease; and our young of both sexes are likely to go on wishing to earn their living, especially since they have tasted independence, in some cases living away from home, earning their own money and spending it as they wish. Those difficulties are likely to get worse rather than better. Therefore, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, I feel that there is a case for doing something.
I personally (I do not want too much "I", but I am putting forward something in order to give other Peers something to cut at, if they wish) should reluctantly agree to the creation of a limited number of Life Peers. Let me say, in order to give a number, that I would suggest the appointment of fifty at once, ten, twelve or a score a year until the number reaches one hundred, and then no more, the number to be kept at one hundred by replacing vacancies. I would agree, still more reluctantly, to some allowance for expenses for those Peers who felt that they ought to claim them. Further, I feel that some way should be found to excuse those Peers who have never taken the Oath and, therefore, have never attended the House or voted, from receiving a Writ of Summons. I agree with all those things, but I am inflexibly opposed to the election or selection of a smaller number of hereditary Peers by the entire body of their fellows. I think
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there are many objections to that proposal. One objection is that I do not see how it can be done in practice. It appears to me that the absent Peers, after they had come across two or three names which appealed to them, would probably be unable to say who should be the remainder of the 200, 250 or 300 to be selected, and probably, in the result, they would either have to appeal to the Whips or to the Leaders of their Party for a list of suitable names.
Another objection that occurs to me is this. Since the war there have been a number of young Peers on the Government side who have been put upon the Front Bench and who have amply justified their promotion. I wonder whether any, or many, or all, of those would have stood the slightest chance of selection as Peers out of the whole body of Peers. In one or two cases I feel quite certain that they would not. Until they had been here two or three years, and had made their weight and their qualities known, there was nothing particular to recommend them: they were not prominent, they were not well advertised or well known, and there was no reason why an absent body of their fellow Peers should have selected them. That would have been a great loss to this House and to the country.
I do not want to labour the subject any further. I think I have made it perfectly clear that my first impulse—and I do not think I speak for myself alone—would be to support the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in his view that it is not necessary for anything to be done, and that there is no public demand for it at the present time. But if it is absolutely essential to maintain a working Opposition, and to maintain proper, dignified and suitable attendances in the House, and if it can be done in no other way, then I have put forward, I hope humbly, some suggestions that might meet the case. Beyond that I should be entirely unwilling to go, and I believe that a great many of my fellow Peers who have not yet spoken agree with me.
6.30 p.m.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, I will try and be brief, because the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has expressed views which almost coincide with my own. I am sure we have all listened with the greatest sympathy and interest to the wonderful speech made by the noble Lord, Lord

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Elton. I think he put all our feelings into words in a most moving way. If it were possible, I think we should like to say with him: "It works well; leave well alone." In moving his Motion the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, said "This House is dying on its feet." I just do not believe that is a fact. At the other end of the scale, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, "This House is vital and alive." Although I believe that is true at the moment, there are good reasons to believe that, if nothing is done, the situation may not be as good in a few years' time as it is to-day.
I should like to congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, on a most eloquent speech, in which he said that the danger to this House is not the backwoodsmen; the danger is a lack of numbers both on these Benches and particularly on the Benches of noble Lords opposite. The reason, of course, is the increasing number of wage-earning Peers who are not their own masters and who cannot come and go to this House as they would wish. I agree with Lord Hailsham that there is no likelihood at all of an invasion of backwoodsmen, and therefore I feel that nothing whatever should be done to curtail the rights of those hereditary Peers who wish to attend to their duties in this House. As the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said, there is no other way in which a young Peer can show his worth except by attending our deliberations and eventually speaking. I hope that nothing will be done to restrict any rights of hereditary Peers. If it is felt that some restriction is essential, I think the way in which it could be done is to withhold their right to vote until such time as they prove themselves. Even that I do not like very much and should much prefer things to remain as they are.
If one accepts the argument that the danger to this House is lack of attendance, then I think there is nothing to be said against the election of Life Peers. The numbers suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, seem to me just about the mark. Among those Life Peerages, I see no objection—in fact, I think it would be a good thing—if ladies were permitted to be appointed as well as Peeresses in their own right. As the noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest, said, one might also recruit some eminent people from the Commonwealth. With the noble Lord, Lord
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Belstead, I feel that something must be done; but let us not make the mistake of going too far. Paragraph 4 in the proposals of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, would effectively prevent young recruits from coming to this House, and I hope it will not be adopted in the way it is now worded. Let us try and keep as far as possible in any reformed House our independence and our reservoir of experts on the Cross-Benches who have no strict Party allegiance. If we can strengthen the numbers on our Benches, both by quantity and quality, and yet keep our traditions and general outlook, I am sure that that will be the right answer.
6.35 p.m.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, who proposes a reform of your Lordships' House, and the noble Lords who have supported him, have set out with great care all the arguments in support of that Motion. On the other hand, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in a speech which the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, has just told your Lordships is one of the most outstanding in his experience, has recommended no change. In declaring myself in full agreement with the suggestions of my noble friend Lord Elton, I, too, express high appreciation of the masterly way in which he has marshalled all the arguments in favour of leaving your Lordships' House as it is.
I will not detain your Lordships by covering the ground again, but I should like to repeat the words which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, used in expressing appreciation of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, when he referred to the noble Viscount as a most cultured and deeply respected elder statesman. Personally, I owe the noble Viscount a real debt of gratitude for all he has taught me about the application of science and technology to the machinery of Government. Like the noble Lord, Lord Elton, I, too, have enjoyed the high privilege of membership of your Lordships' House for some twenty-one years, as one of the elected representatives from Scotland. That is the greatest privilege to which a Scot can aspire. During that time there have been several debates on a similar subject, and my attitude has always been exactly the same as it is to-day. Several of your Lordships have suggested the desirability of Life Peers. I submitted a suggestion

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of that nature to your Lordships some years ago as a way of bringing into the focus of events in your Lordships' House the leaders of science and technology in our country. I then suggested that a system somewhat akin to that of the Scots Law Lords might be applied in this particular case. In my own home in Scotland, just approaching 400 years old, there is a motto which greets everyone who passes through the single door which gives admission to it. It is, "Do not waken sleeping dogs"; and I think this completely applies to the situation as I would submit it to your Lordships.
6.38 p.m.
LORD CALVERLEY: My Lords, I promise that I will not detain your Lordships for long. I have been thinking of what has happened since the 1948 episode, when I had the privilege of seconding a Resolution that the Labour Party should take no further action with regard to the proposals of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. That Resolution was carried. Sometimes I wonder why the noble Viscount did not reform the House of Lords—and it certainly needed reforming when it was rejecting first-class Bills sent up from another place—when he had the power to do so. But, instead of drawing on the past, I want to draw on my own experience since I came here in 1945. I want to say frankly that I disagree with the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, because I believe that since 1945 the House has had a greater sense of responsibility in regard to examining, amending and revising, but not rejecting, Bills which have come to it from another place. Did the noble Viscount wish to interject?
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: I was only saying to my neighbour that it is a question of cause and effect, because the noble Lord came here in 1945.
LORD CALVERLEY: I would not jest on such a matter as that. Without suffering from any feeling that I am a Uriah Heep or anybody such as that, I may say that since I came here I have had a sense of proportion, and if I could do as the noble Viscount has done in a greater degree, I should like to do it. I leave it at that.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: What I said was not meant seriously. The noble Lord overheard what I happened to say.
LORD CALVERLEY: I thought the noble Viscount wanted to interject. I am always ready to give way to interjections.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: Not at all.
LORD CALVERLEY: Then I will continue. When I came here, I found that I had to pay my own railway fare. I thought that was an injustice. I also found that it would be difficult to introduce the same system of paying railway fares as is practised in the House of Commons. A scheme was thought out which has worked very well. In passing, I draw attention to what the noble Marquess the Leader of the House said with regard to proposition (7), on which the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, spoke feelingly. I agree with the noble Viscount that we do not want salaries in this House—at least, I do not. I think that, reform or no reform, the Government should seriously consider the paying of subsistence allowances, even if only on the scale adopted in the case of a Royal Commission. Such an allowance is just sufficient, and nothing else, to keep body and soul together. I hope the noble Marquess the Leader of the House will follow that point up and see whether something can be done, because all it needs is a Resolution of the House of Commons.
I liked the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, who, I believe, has gone. He belonged to the Ancient Society of Simon Pures. I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, and I hope it will be appreciated, that the only Second Chamber in the Commonwealth which has been abolished neck and crop and guillotined out of existence is the Second Chamber in New Zealand, and that was done by their Conservative Party. We do not want drastic steps like that in this country. We believe in slow and gradual evolution.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, confirmed what is my own experience: that the House of Lords as a debating and revising Chamber has risen in the affections, not of the masses of the people but certainly of those who follow what we are trying to do. The noble Lord mentioned that he had been to various places. So have I. I have been to seven prisons. My job was to talk to the prisoners and answer their questions. Quite seriously,

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those men held this House in high esteem. They knew that, so far as justice was concerned, they would get a "square deal." I have been privileged to speak in many sorts of schools, from approved schools to great public schools. The same thing happened there. I suppose that some sort of reform will take place. I am in no hurry for it. I am very content where I am, where the good Lord has placed me. I am content to be in my present position. But when reform does come, I hope it will not lead to a sort of nominated Chamber where the Independents—and there are a few Independents left on the Cross Benches, whom I would deeply regret to see go—will no longer sit in their places.
6.44 p.m.
LORD GRANTCHESTER: My Lords, I should like to support the line which has been taken by the noble Lords, Lord Belstead and Lord Gifford. Surely, there is one overriding question which we must put to ourselves to-day; and that is whether this House would gain in influence and prestige by any generally acceptable reform which can be suggested. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has said, in its present form this House derives prestige from its ancient foundation and long tradition. He referred to Erskine May. I should like to quote a letter which I received a few days ago from Sydney, Australia, which concluded with these words:
"There is no position comparable to membership of the British House of Lords."
I wonder whether anyone in Australia would feel quite the same about a House with a "new look."
The real fear haunting those who advocate reform is that they feel uncomfortable about the hereditary principle. So should I, if hereditary influence were overwhelmingly dominant in this House; but it is not. Even reformers are ready to concede membership to a limited number of representatives of hereditary Peers. We know that selection by any method has its disadvantages. Selection by heredity has produced some significant successes, as we well know in this House, the most striking of which, if I may say so, is the record of the family of the noble Marquess who leads this House. What reformers would have to prove to convince me is that the functions of this
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House are impeded by the method of its composition.
Following what the noble Lords, Lord Gifford and Lord Belstead, said, I should like to make an appeal to Her Majesty's present Government to effect certain changes which would go a long way to avoid the necessity for great constitutional reforms. First, when the Prime Minister is making the recommendations which he is in the habit of making to the Crown, is there any difficulty, particularly if he has the co-operation of the leaders of other Parties in upholding the Constitution and endeavouring to see that the business of this House is efficiently carried on, about his drawing for new creations upon any suitable persons without regard to their Party affiliation? A little common sense, it seems to me, in practice, could meet the point in proposal No. (2). Surely there is no objection to meeting the suggestion as to representation from Colonial members in the same way, without any reform. It needs only a little variation in the present practice. Anyone who could add to the efficient conduct of this House could be approached.
Secondly, the right to abdicate has been established by the Sovereign, and it should not be beyond the prerogative of the Sovereign to allow a Peer who inherits, if he does not wish or feel able to assume the responsibilities of membership of this House, the right of renunciation, provided that it is final. I should prefer that to creating two classes of Peerages, to creating Life Peers as a different class. Once you start on the creation of Life Peers, you will, within a very short time, have no hereditary creations. If the person nominated had the right to choose, that is one thing; but I should hesitate to make a distinction in the suggestions that are made to people who are approached to accept service in this House. If there is any restriction to be placed upon Members because they are deemed to have failed in their duties, I suggest that it is the right to vote, rather than the right to attend or to speak, which should be questioned. As a new Member of your Lordships' House, I may say that I have been greatly impressed by the way in which noble Lords speak on subjects of which they have special knowledge. I

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should hesitate to make this impossible by exclusions.
Thirdly, it is the excessively high rate of taxation which has made it difficult for many noble Lords to give the time that they would wish to the business of this House. Whilst I think it is undesirable for Members of Parliament to give themselves special privileges which are not available to all taxpayers, expenses incurred in the performance of duties are now generally allowed as a deduction from earnings, and by a simple clause in the next Finance Bill Her Majesty's Government could provide that a reasonable sum should be allowed against the private incomes of noble Lords without, or while waiting for, any major reform.
Lastly, as one noble Lord suggested, I should like to see some steps taken by noble Lords themselves. I wonder whether it is impossible to take corporate action by the establishment of a fund built up out of voluntary contributions of, say, three or four pounds a year from each
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member who was willing and able to subscribe to such a fund, for the purpose of helping any noble Lord who was unable to attend to his duties without some such help. Even in the Labour Party they have funds which, by taking private action, might be made available towards meeting the difficulties of those who can contribute to the efficiency of this House but are in straitened circumstances. I think that such a scheme might be worth a trial, and it would show that noble Lords, by positive action on their own initiative and at their own expense, were willing to avoid the necessity for constitutional disturbance.
LORD LAYTON: My Lords, I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Lord Layton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.
House adjourned at seven, minutes before seven o'clock.