Sitting of 19 December 1956

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

    British Subjects (Evacuation and Assistance)
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why British consular representatives in Port Said allowed the troopship "Empire Fowey" to leave Port Said without a full load of passengers on or about 13th November when there were British subjects waiting to leave Egypt who had applied for assistance.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Douglas Dodds-Parker): On 13th November there were very few British subjects wishing at that moment to leave Port Said. The majority of British subjects had expressed a desire to leave only if and when the Allied Forces withdrew. Some passengers who were ready to leave were despatched by the sea transport officer. A few whose final destination had not been decided on 13th November have since been evacuated.
    Mr. Swingler: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there were British citizens, some of whom were Maltese, who had applied to leave and go to the United Kingdom? There were, I am told, more than a hundred places on this ship unfilled. How was it that these citizens who had applied and who wished to leave Egypt because of the tension were not given places on the ship?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: The hon. Gentleman is quite correct. There were a few non-repatriable Maltese who were already anxious to leave by 13th November, and while there were places on the troopship it was not known to Her Majesty's Consul where the Maltese could be accommodated if they were evacuated, as a
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    decision had not been come to at that time. Her Majesty's Consul rightly declined to arrange their evacuation at that stage. They have since been given all facilities for evacuation.
    Mr. Swingler: Were not these Maltese in possession of British passports, and were they not British subjects? Had they not applied to go to the United Kingdom? Why were they not afforded facilities to do so? Why were they denied the right to board the ship? Why were they not entitled, as British subjects, to the same assistance as citizens of United Kingdom origin?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: Because, as has been explained before, a final decision as to their destination had not been arrived at. It was only between 13th November and 30th November that that decision was arrived at. All Maltese who were not going to be repatriated to Malta have been or are being brought to this country.
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why British consular representatives in Port Said, in dealing with applications for assistance, have been discriminating between British subjects of United Kingdom origin and British subjects of Maltese origin.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: Her Majesty's Consul in Port Said has not discriminated between British subjects of United Kingdom origin and British subjects of Maltese origin either as regards the provision of relief or as regards evacuation from Port Said. All British subjects of Maltese origin who wished to leave Port Said have in fact been evacuated and—except for a few who were admitted to Malta—brought to the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Swingler: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that reply is inaccurate, and that his hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary has virtually admitted, in a letter to me a week ago, that there was discrimination? Is it not a fact that there were Maltese, who are British subjects, who had applied to go to the United Kingdom and were refused the right to board a ship that was leaving for the United Kingdom, whereas citizens of United Kingdom origin were given facilities and assistance to do so? Was that not discrimination?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: No, Sir, I cannot accept that. As I have pointed out, arrangements were made where possible to repatriate Maltese, and others, to their home of origin. If they were not repatriable, in this instance to Malta, they have been brought to the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what instructions were sent to British consular representatives in Port Said about granting assistance to British subjects who wished to leave Egypt after the commencement of the bombing of Egyptian airfields.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: The Foreign Office was unable to communicate with Her Majesty's Consul in Port Said between 31st October, before there was any bombing of Egyptian airfields, and the allied occupation of Port Said, after which time there was no urgent necessity for British subjects to leave that part of Egypt. On 1st December, by the time it was clear that the Allied Forces would withdraw from Port Said, and that therefore the evacuation of British subjetcs would be desirable, Her Majesty's Consul was authorised to give any necessary assistance to all British subjects who wished to leave Port Said. All British subjects who wished to leave were, in fact, transported from Port Said to Cyprus on 11th December, and the majority of them have now been brought from Cyprus to the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Swingler: Does not the hon. Gentleman regard it as very wrong that British citizens—I have quoted a case to his Department—who were compelled to leave Egypt at this point, owing to the tension, without any resources whatsoever, and who had to leave their possessions to come to this country, should within 48 hours of arrival in this country —and when they were destitute and in distress—be presented with a bill for £65 for their passage on the ship? Was not that a very bad piece of diplomacy and a disgraceful act on the part of the authorities concerned?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: I cannot accept that—
    Mr. Swingler: But I have quoted a case.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: All arrangements possible have been made by the Home Secretary and the Anglo-Egyptian Aid Society to help these people as they arrived.
    Mr. Wigg: Is it not a fact that British subjects in Egypt who want protection will conceal the fact that they are British subjects?
    Mr. Gibson-Watt: Will my hon. Friend realise that this matter is disturbing the public conscience of this country? Will he do all in his power to impress on the Home Secretary and other authorities responsible that these British nationals should be properly looked after in this country now that they are here?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: I can assure the House that my right hon. and learned Friend is doing what is required, as he himself has announced to the House.
    Miss Vickersasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government will consider allocating a sum of money to the Swiss Government for the relief, through the Swiss Legation in Cairo, of the many British subjects still living in Egypt.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: The Swiss special representative in Egypt has already been given authority to make relief payments to any British subjects there who need them. Funds for this purpose are remitted by Her Majesty's Government to the Swiss Government as required. It would not be practicable to allocate a set sum for the purpose.
    Miss Vickers: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Will he consider giving them extra money for extra personnel, and also empowering them to rent sonic accommodation where the British subjects who do not wish to live in Egypt can remain under some form of protection?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: We are in contact with the Swiss authorities on these points the whole time. I will certainly look into the suggestions which my hon. Friend has made.
    Mrs. Castleasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what arrangements are being made for the speedy evacuation of British civilians from Egypt.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: The Swiss special representative in Egypt has been instructed, and has been given the necessary funds, to arrange for the evacuation of British civilians in Egypt who wish to return to their native countries. He has been asked to report whether scheduled sea and air services are now sufficient to remove, without undue delay, all British subjects who wish to leave. If they are not, Her Majesty's Government will endeavour to arrange extra transport.
    Mrs. Castle: Is the Minister aware that I have sent his Department a letter which I received from a constituent just back from Egypt, who points out that the transport and financial difficulties have not been solved? I am wondering what steps Her Majesty's Government have taken to let British civilians in Egypt—many of whom are under house confinement—know that the services of the Swiss Government are available, and to make sure that they can get in touch with the Swiss authorities.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: We have done all that has been possible to bring these points to the attention of British subjects in Egypt. There have been reports that Egyptians have not been delivering mail to British subjects in that country. I shall willingly look into all the points raised in the letter and let the hon. Lady have answers as soon as possible.

    British Property
    Major Wallasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps he proposes to take to safeguard the businesses and private property of British subjects in Egypt.
    The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): At the request of Her Majesty's Government and with the agreement of the Egyptian Government, the Swiss Government are acting as Protecting Power for British interests in Egypt. I would also refer to the Answer which my hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Remnant) on 17th December.
    Major Wall: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that a large number of British subjects who have returned to this country from Egypt have had confiscated not only their businesses, but personal and private property? Is not
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    that an example of the completely uncivilised behaviour of the Egyptian Government, and will my right hon. and learned Friend press either for restitution or compensation?
    Mr. Lloyd: I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend. This is a matter which causes us grave anxiety. We are trying in a variety of ways to see that the matter is handled properly. One of the difficulties is that the Egyptian Government have not yet agreed to appoint an official agent to take charge of the belongings which British subjects leaving Egypt have been forced to leave behind. I hope that that irregularity will rapidly be put right.
    Mr. Janner: While the right hon. and learned Gentleman is dealing with that matter, will he also deal with the question of the sequestration of the effects and the expulsion of people on the grounds of their race or religion, and raise the matter with the United Nations with a view to seeing that the type of Nazi methods being used now in Egypt should be stopped?
    Mr. Lloyd: I should certainly like to consider that matter.

    Military Operations
    Mr. Bennasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on what date agreement was reached with M. Mollet that the United States Government were not to be consulted about the Anglo-French decision to intervene in Egypt.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I have nothing to add to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal to the hon. Member for Gorton (Mr. Zilliacus) on 12th December.
    Mr. Benn: While thanking the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that Answer, may I ask him if he can help the House? The Prime Minister said on 30th November that we had consulted the United States; on 31st November he said that there was no time to consult the United States; on 9th December M. Mollet said that they had agreed with the British not to consult the United States, and on 12th December the Leader of the House said that there had been no agreement of any kind with regard to consultation. Can the Foreign Secretary advise us which of these stories we should believe?
    Mr. Lloyd: The fact is that there was no consultation because there was no time to have consultation.
    Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Since the Minister of Defence told us that we knew on 26th October that Israel was going to attack Egypt, did we have no consultations with the French Government about the action we should take in that emergency; and, if we had consultations, did we agree not to tell the Americans, with whom we had meetings on 28th October and 29th October?
    Mr. Lloyd: The meetings on 28th and 29th October were tripartite meetings.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: That is precisely the point. Perhaps the Foreign Secretary will answer the first part of my question. Since we knew on 26th October that Israel was going to attack Egypt. did we not consult with the French before 30th October on what we should do?
    Mr. Lloyd: I do not know what my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence did say, but if the right hon. Gentleman will study the speech which I made in the last debate which took place, he will see very precisely set out the extent of our knowledge. Of course, anyone knew—any sensible person knew—that in that situation there was the possibility of an attack. There was a possibility of an attack by Israel against any of these countries: there was a possibility of attack by one of the Arab countries upon Israel. There has been general discussions about these eventualities time and again, both with the United States and France.
    Mr. Benn: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment, to clear the Prime Minister's name.

    Suez Canal
    Mr. du Cannasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it remains the policy of Her Majesty's Government to secure international control of the Suez Canal in the interests of free navigation for all nations in accordance with the negotations initiated to that end at the United Nations; and what progress has been made in furtherance of this policy.
    Mr. Patrick Maitlandasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it remains the policy of Her Majesty's Government to seek a settlement of the Suez Canal problem only on the basis of international control; and when he expects negotiations to be resumed to that end.
    Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what reply the Government of Egypt have now made to the offer of Her Majesty's Government to have fresh discussions' on the Suez Canal on the basis of the six principles.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: There has been no change in the policy of Her Majesty's Government. As to the present state of the exchanges on the subject, I would refer to the statement which I made in the House on 3rd December. Exchanges with the Secretary-General of the United Nations have continued with a view to clarifying the position of the parties concerned. These exchanges are confidential and exploratory, and it would not be in the public interest to make a detailed statement on them at this stage.
    Mr. du Cann: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the first sentence of his reply will have been heard with great satisfaction by everybody in the House and also by the country? Is he further aware that there is really very great anxiety in this country and among the United Nations that these negotiations should be brought to a successful conclusion as quickly as possible? Is he still further aware that there is substantial concern among the people whom I have mentioned as to what Colonel Nasser's attitude may be after the British and French forces are finally withdrawn from Port Said? That lends added weight to the importance of getting the negotiations finished as quickly as possible.
    Mr. Lloyd: I agree with my hon. Friend that it is very desirable to get on as quickly as possible with these negotiations. I understand, in fact, that that is the wish of the Egyptian Government.
    Mr. Henderson: Have the Egyptian Government given any indication that they would be prepared to resume these negotiations on the basis of the six principles, provided that the Anglo-French forces are withdrawn from Port Said?
    Mr. Lloyd: There has been a general indication of their desire to proceed with these negotiations. At the moment the question is really with the SecretaryGeneral—and I think wisely so. We are ready to play our part as quickly as possible.
    Mr. Patrick Maitland: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for the assurance that there has been no change in our policy.
    Hon. Members: Which one?
    Mr. Maitland: Are we to take it that that means that we still stand by international control as our objective? May I further ask my right hon. and learned Friend whether he considers that when it was stated by the Lord Privy Seal, on 22nd November, that we would try to negotiate on the six points put forward by the United Nations, he meant that those six points could be properly met only by international control?
    Mr. Lloyd: The policy of the Government with regard to this matter is exactly as it stood at the end of the Security Council debate, when the Resolution was put forward endorsing the six principles and saying that we considered that the 18-Power proposals were the best method of carrying out the six principles, but that we recognised that alternative methods could be put forward. In the letter sent by the Secretary-General to the Egyptian Government—I believe it was on 24th October—there is set out the broad lines of a scheme which, if properly implemented and worked out in detail, could be regarded as complying with those six principles. We are perfectly ready to examine the alternative methods, but the one essential element of our policy is that we are not prepared to leave the Canal under the unrestristed control of one man or one Government.
    Mr. Bevan: The right hon. and learned Gentleman should understand that hon. Members on this side of the House welcome the revolutionary character of the Government's approach. Having failed to obtain their objective by force they now propose to try to obtain the same objective by negotiation, having reversed the whole procedure of history. One usually uses force when one fails in one's negotiations.
    Mr. Lloyd: I think that the right hon. Gentleman is getting his objectives confused.
    Captain Duncanasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the progress made towards clearing the Suez Canal.
    Mr. Peytonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what information he has received from the Secretary-General of the United Nations concerning the clearance of the Suez Canal; and when he estimates that this will be completed.
    Mr. Lewisasked the Secertary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will refrain from making our offer of the use of British salvage equipment to the United Nations organisation conditional upon such equipment being manned by British crews, in view of the delay in clearing the Canal which will be caused by the insistence upon such a condition.
    Captain Pilkingtonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether work has yet begun on clearing the rest of the Suez Canal.
    Mr. Fortasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what progress the United Nations Committee has made during the past week in clearing the sunken ships from the Suez Canal.
    Mr. John Hallasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a further statement in regard to the date when the clearance of the Suez Canal will continue.
    Mr. E. Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what discussions he has had with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, with General Burns, and with General Wheeler about the use of British ships and crews for clearing the Suez Canal, and about providing for their protection while carrying out this work.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I made a statement with regard to these matters on Monday which dealt with the points raised in certain of these Questions. The offer to which I referred then, that subject to satisfactory security arrangements the Anglo-French salvage vessels now working at Port Said should continue their work there, has been further considered

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    by the Secretary-General. He has given the necessary assurances with regard to the protection of the vessels and the crews. He has also received a formal assurance from the Egyptian Government about the safety of the ships and their crews. It will be necessary, of course, to assure the masters and crews of the vessels on this point. I understand that the United Nations authorities on the spot will endeavour to do this. I am now awaiting confirmation that there are no further difficulties and that the work can continue, that is to say, the work now being done by the Anglo-French fleet in Port Said Harbour.
    In my statement on Monday, I also mentioned certain German vessels. The United Nations authorities have agreed to make the necessary approach to their owners and the masters and crews of those vessels, so I hope that they will continue to be available for salvage work.
    On the question of use of the six other vessels, our offer remains open. I still hope that it will be accepted.
    Captain Duncan: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that that is all very unsatisfactory? Does it not appear to many people in this country that handing this business over to the world authority seems to be leading to giving in to petty dictators while putting to shame those, like this country, who have acted throughout in the interests of peace? is it not about time justice was done, as well as peace?
    Mr. Lloyd: As I indicated in my statement last Monday, I was disappointed with the progress that had been made, but since the statement on Monday I think that a little further progress has been made. It does look as if we have now got a satisfactory arrangement for work to continue in Port Said Harbour, and that is of some importance. It also looks as if there may be a satisfactory arrangement for the use of the two available heavy German lifting vessels and their tugs. That, also, is an improvement on Monday. As regards the use of the other six vessels and ()fir resources to the south of the area at present held by Anglo-French forces, I am in entire agreement with my hon. and gallant Friend. I think it would in the interests of many countries in Asia and
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    Europe if national considerations were not allowed to interfere with this matter, if it were looked at purely as a technical problem. It would be in the interests of the world as a whole if everything available were used as quickly as possible.
    Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Can my right hon. and learned Friend say from any aspect of international law, or indeed our own law, what would be the position of an officer, or man in one of Her Majesty's salvage units—I have had a personal case which I could send to him, if need be—who refused to get into civilian clothes and wear the polyglot arm band of the United Nations? Is he to be disciplined by the United Nations or subject to court martial by the admiral on the spot?
    Mr. Lloyd: I am not sure that I am the right Minister to give an answer to that. I think it is a matter for the First Lord of the Admiralty. I am not clear how far what the noble Lord has suggested is likely to happen. Leaving all these things on one side, the important thing is to try to get as many people on to the job of clearing the Canal as possible.
    Mr. Peyton: I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend would be the first to agree that quite an excessive amount of time has already been wasted. While I certainly support him in the efforts which he has made, may I ask if he will point out to the Secretary-General of the United Nations that the matter is now getting quite out of control and out of proportion, and that there are far greater things at stake than the vanity of a dictator? Will he not insist that the United Nations should now show that it is worthy of being a world authority by ordering that dictator not to act in a way highly damaging to the economy of Western Europe?
    Mr. Lloyd: I hope very much that general pressure will result in this work being done speedily. I also say to my hon. Friend that it is not just the economy of Western Europe which is concerned; the economy of the countries of the Middle East and of Asia are also very much affected. Therefore I hope that we shall get the maximum amount of pressure and influence by all those interested to see that the job is done as quickly as possible.
    Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Was it not always the understanding—which the Foreign Secretary accepted in the Assembly—that clearance work would start when foreign troops were withdrawn from Egypt? Is it not a fact that the delay which has occurred has been due to the fact that the Government took five weeks to make up their mind to withdraw our troops? Further, is it not a fact that while we have 15 ships there General Wheeler has assembled a fleet of 31 ships and tugs, that 10 are already on the spot and another nine will arrive tomorrow?
    Mr. Lloyd: The right hon. Member is completely wrong. The position which he has attributed to Her Majesty's Government was the position taken up by Colonel Nasser. It was our whole endeavour in our negotiations to ensure that work on clearance began as quickly as possible. Towards the achievement of that purpose we did get the Secretary-General to send his representative, General Wheeler, out there. We did get a certain amount of survey work proceeding and speeded steps to try to assemble a United Nations salvage fleet. We have never accepted that this work should be delayed until the last of our troops had been evacuated.
    Mr. Fort: Can my right hon. and learned Friend tell us why the United States are not putting the same pressure on to Egypt, via the United Nations, to get the Canal cleared and thereby forcing the United Nations Resolution on the matter, as they put on this country to force a withdrawal of our troops?
    Mr. Lloyd: This is a matter which I did discuss with Mr. Dulles, both when I saw him in Washington and in Paris. I know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke to the American Secretary to the Treasury about the matter. I believe the United States Government are at present doing their best to bring such pressure as they can upon the United Nations and the Egyptian Government to let this work proceed.
    Mr. Bevan: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman understand that we on this side of the House are equally concerned about clearing the Canal as quickly as possible, and have all along taken the view that if hon. and right hon.
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    Members opposite had not been so stupid the Canal would not be blocked now? Would he please accept from us the assurance that we do not believe the Canal can be cleared either by denigrating the status and conduct of the United Nations representative or by throwing silly insults at the Prime Minister of Egypt, in relation to which hon. Members opposite have got themselves into such a silly position?
    Mr. Hall: Is it not a fact that had this country and France not taken immediate notice of the United Nations the Canal might not be blocked now? Is it not obvious that the United Nations is as powerless to insist on the clearance of the Canal as it is powerless to insist on the removal of Russian troops from Russia. [Laughter.] I meant Russian troops from Hungary. Right hon. and hon. Gentleman know perfectly well what I meant, and it is no laughing matter. In those circumstances, what action can be taken other than turning our White Ensign into a white flag?
    Mr. Lloyd: The authority of the United Nations in this matter comes from a Resolution which was passed by the General Assembly for which we voted, for which Egypt voted and for which all other countries present, I think, voted. I am not quite certain whether there were some abstentions. The authority is a United Nations Resolution. I also received assurances in the course of the discussions which I had that this matter would be governed solely by technical considerations. That is what I think we must try to see is done. If it is not done, then I think that certain of the things which have been said will not have been carried out.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Hynd.

  NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANISATION

    Council Meeting
    Mr. Boydasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps Her Majesty's Government will propose to promote greater unity among the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation nations; and if he will support proposals for more frequent meetings of the Ministerial

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    Council, more mutual consultation in the shaping of policy on matters of common concern, and an elected Consultative Assembly.
    Mr. Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on his recent visit to Paris for the purpose of attending the North Atlantic Pact Council.
    Mr. John Hallasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what agreement has been reached between the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on the right of individual member countries to take such action as may be necessary to defend their vital interests without prior consultation with their fellow members.
    Mr. Dudley Williamsasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what discussions took place at the recent meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Council on the limitations imposed by membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on the actions of member States when their vital interests are affected; and what conclusions resulted therefrom.
    Mr. G. Brownasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to make a statement about the recent meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Council.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The House will have seen the communiqué issued after this meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Council. In approving the recommendation contained in the Report of the Three Wise Men the Council affirmed the importance of consultation on all matters significantly affecting the alliance. It was recognised however, that emergencies might arise in which such consultation would be obviously impossible. National Governments must bear the ultimate responsibility for safeguarding national interests. Subject to that I hope that as a result of this last meeting consultation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Council will be considerably improved.
    The new directive for military planning, which is naturally a secret document, should provide for effective and economic use of resources available With
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    regard to the question of an elected consultative assembly, that was not discussed at these meetings.
    The Council unanimously approved the appointment of the Belgian Foreign Minister, M. Spaak, as Secretary-General in succession to Lord Ismay. I am sure that the House will agree that this is a most happy choice. I would also like to say how deep are our regrets at Lord Ismay's decision to retire. It is impossible to exaggerate the magnitude of his services to the alliance. The House would have been proud to hear the tributes paid to him by our allies.
    Mr. Boyd: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman give us any more information than we have had from the newspapers about his proposal for this grand design for a N.A.T.O. Parliament, including the Council of Europe?
    Mr. Lloyd: It is not easy to do that by way of question and answer. I suggested that the Report of the Three Wise Men should be considered against a wider background in which one would seek to get some rationalisation of all the many organisations, authorities and assemblies now being created in Europe.
    Mr. P. Noel-Baker: May I associate my right hon. and hon. Friends with the tribute which the Foreign Secretary has paid to the great services rendered by Lord Ismay?
    Mr. Ramsdell: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that opinion among our friends in Europe appears to be by no means unanimous about the merits of this proposed new assembly? Will he pay particular regard to what emerges from the debates of the Council of Europe at its forthcoming session in January?
    Mr. Lloyd: I agree with my hon. Friend. At the moment there is the Council of Europe, the W.E.U. Assembly and the Iron and Steel Community Assembly. I think it necessary to have some sort of rationalisation—to see whether we can have one assembly, and not all these numerous organisations.
    Mr. Brown: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that he has only answered Question No. 56. The Minister of Defence, to whom the question was put, seems curiously reluctant to tell us anything about the defence aspect of the

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    talks. The Secretary of State has said that the military directive is a secret document. Can he tell us what sort of direction the military talks in Paris took, and whether our own wide review of defence policy which was promised by the Chancellor comes after the issue of this new directive and, if it does, whether it will override it?
    Mr. Lloyd: I should think the two things must proceed pari passu.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: What does that mean?

    United States Base, Iceland
    Mr. Wiggasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the effect on Britain's North Atlantic Treaty Organisation policy of the recent agreement between the United States of America and Iceland about the use of Icelandic bases.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: Her Majesty's Government welcome this Agreement, which provides for the continued use by the United States of the base at Keflavik. The effect on Her Majesty's Government's policy is unchanged.
    Mr. Wigg: Does it mean that we have facilities to use the Icelandic base? Is Iceland included in our radar warning system?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: Unofficial Press reports to the effect that the new Agreement will exclude the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation from a voice in the future of the base are incorrect. The arrangement by which the North Atlantic Council is required to advise upon any proposal for termination continues.

  UNITED NATIONS

    Middle East (Situation)
    Mr. Zilliacusasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will approach the Powers that met at Geneva last year and propose joint action through the United Nations for a general settlement in the Middle East based on the principles, purposes and obligations of the Charter, with special reference to Arab-Israeli relations and the present position in Syria and Iraq.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No, Sir. An item on the Middle East is already on the
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    agenda of the General Assembly for discussion in the Plenary Session. As my right hon. and gallant Friend told the House on 19th November and 26th November, Her Majesty's Government will play their part as a member of the United Nations in seeking a solution to the Palestine problem on a basis of justice. No doubt the other Powers who met at Geneva will also play their part within the United Nations framework.
    Mr. Zilliacus: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman realise that "playing our part means having a policy? Will he please state what is the policy of the Government in this matter. Do not the Government realise that the whole system of alliances in the Middle East has broken down and that we cannot treat the Soviet Union as a negligible quantity and hope to get anywhere in the Middle East? Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman realise that we cannot settle Arab-Israeli relations so long as the great Powers compete for the favour of the Arabs at the expense of the State of Israel?
    Mr. Lloyd: One of the best ways to try to get a settlement in the Middle East is to preserve peace—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—between the competing parties—
    Mr. Zilliacus: The right hon. and learned Gentleman might have thought of that before.
    Mr. Lloyd: —and we have been sufficiently criticised for doing that very thing.
    Mr. Bevan: Together with the Prime Minister, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said within recent months that the United Nations is what we can make it. My hon. Friends wish to know what initiative has been taken by Her Majesty's Government in presenting a Middle Eastern policy? Are we waiting for someone else to take the initiative now, or are we taking it ourselves? What does the right hon. and learned Gentleman mean by, "playing our part"? Are we waiting for someone else to say something and then we shall react to it, or shall we say something and make others react to what we say?
    Mr. Lloyd: The way to get a settlement of the Middle East problems is to get some agreement between Israel and

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    the Arab States. The right hon. Gentleman really should know that the worst possible way to do that is to propound the sort of settlement to be imposed on the parties. It is a matter of negotiation.
    Mr. Bevan: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I have not asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether he has a policy to impose upon anybody else. The United Nations cannot impose a policy. What we want to know is what initiative Her Majesty's Government themselves take in the United Nations to propose a policy; or are we now sitting back in sulky silence?
    Mr. Lloyd: I do not know about "sulky silence", but the right hon. Gentleman should know that there is a Resolution before the General Assembly in which the suggestion is put forward on behalf of the United States Government that a committee should be appointed by the General Assembly to seek to achieve a solution between the parties. There is not much point in appointing a committee in this matter if individual Governments are going to put forward individual solutions.
    Mr. Bevan: Why not?
    Mr. Lloyd: I say agan to the right hon. Gentleman that public statements are not the best way. So far as public statements are concerned, he knows that the first thing is to have peace on the frontiers. We have suggested an increase in the United Nations element to do that and we have been doing that for nearly two years. Now a United Nations Force is there. The second thing is to get a frontier agreement. Proposals were put forward. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made some in his Guildhall speech, and they were criticised by hon. Members opposite. Thirdly, there is the question of the refugees. Some solution has to be found to the problem of the resettlement of the refugees. The fourth question is with regard to the water problems. There, the proposals put forward by Mr. Johnson are acceptable to Her Majesty's Government. The difficulty is to get the parties to accept them. Clearly designed lines of policy have been indicated again and again; the difficulty is to get the parties to agree to them.
    Dame Irene Ward: Is the right lion. and learned Gentleman aware that in the
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    Middle East the Opposition is known as "Nasser's Party"? Is not it a fact that that is the way in which they have spoken today?

    Palestinian Refugees (Resettlement)
    Dr. Strossasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware of the United Nations plan for the resettlement of Palestinian Arabs in the Suez area; and what action he intends to take to further this and other plans on their behalf.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: The hon. Member is presumably referring to the scheme for the settlement of 60,000 refugees from Gaza in Western Sinai. I understand that the Egyptian Government have informed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency that they are unable to supply the necessary water until the Aswan High Dam is built, and the scheme is therefore in abeyance.
    The only other major scheme under consideration is that for settling 100,000 refugees in the Jordan Valley. This is not practicable until the governments concerned come to an agreement for co-ordinated use of the waters of the Jordan.
    Her Majesty's Government will continue to give all possible support to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in its search for practicable resettlement schemes.
    Dr. Stross: Can the Joint Under-Secretary state whether the excuse given that until the Aswan Dam has been created water would not be available is correct?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: I think it probably is. As hon. Members on both sides of the House know, the extension of irrigation works in Egypt is such that they do require over a period ahead a considerable amount of water, but I cannot give a detailed answer on any particular point.
    Mr. S. Silverman: Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that this question, like so many other relevant questions about this subject, is completely bedevilled by the general political situation which lies behind it, and that we shall never get any satisfactory settlement of this tragic problem except as part of a general political settlement in the area? Does the

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    hon. Gentleman not realise that it is completely impossible to produce any feeling of security between Arabs on the one side and Israelis on the other while all their countries are being periodically played off one against the other by one or other of the great Powers for their own purposes? If that is so, is not it necessary that all the interested parties, without exception, should be got together to make an endeavour to work out an agreed solution.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: While accepting the hon. Member's analysis, I must reject the accusation against Her Majesty's Government either as it affects my right hon. Friends on this Bench or right hon. Gentlemen opposite. I think that we have all done our best since the unhappy days of 1947–48 to reach a settlement.
    Mr. Bevan: May I ask the hon. Gentleman to realise that so far as we on these benches are concerned this is not a matter for scoring over one side of the House or the other? There is anxiety in all parts of the House. May I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider that it seems to us that what is required is a general approach to the question so that the various pieces fall into place. The Yarmuk-Jordan Scheme, the Johnson Scheme, the Lowdermilk Scheme and all the other schemes cannot, so far as we can see, be approached intelligently by the Middle East unless they form part of a general design. We should like to know what general design the Government have in mind to advance.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: The Foreign Secretary has just shown how these various problems do exist and affect the problem of a settlement. Sometimes it looks as if a package agreement might be reached and then it falls to bits. Then there may be a suggestion that one or other of the schemes might be proceeded with individually. The right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that these various approaches have been made, and Her Majesty's present Ministers will do their utmost to reach a settlement by one way or the other.

    British Subjects, Egypt (Property and Assets)
    Dr. Strossasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what representations he proposes to make to the
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    United Nations organisation on behalf of British subjects whose property and assets have been expropriated by the Egyptian Government; and whether he will give an estimate of their total value.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: As the House will be aware, we have made the strongest representations to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on this matter and the Secretary-General has instructed his representative in Cairo to investigate the treatment of foreign nationals in Egypt. The matter was raised in the Assembly yesterday and our representative made clear the great indignation aroused in this country. I have not yet seen the full text of the Egyptian representative's statement but I understand that it did contain certain assurances which I hope indicate that the Egyptian Government are moderating their policy. We shall not let this matter rest until we get satisfactory assurances which are translated into action.
    As regards the second part of the Question. I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Remnant) on 17th December.
    Dr. Stross: While all of us welcome the assurances that appear to be given now by Egypt that they will moderate their original intention, will the Foreign Secretary see that everything possible is done to encourage them in their apparent new policy, for there can be no good future for anyone who embarks upon actions which really might well be called throughout all time barbarous in degree?
    Mr. Lloyd: I entirely agree with what the hon. Member has said.
    Mr. Nairn: Will my right hon. and learned Friend also try to find out from the United Nations what use is being made of British Government property and assets which were in the Canal bases?
    Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir.

    Security Council and General Assembly (Resolutions)
    Mr. H. Hyndasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs which Resolutions of the General Assembly, and

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    Security Council of the United Nations were voted against by our representative during the last three months; on which we abstained; and on which occasions we exercised the veto.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: As the information required is somewhat lengthy, I shall, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT in a form which will enable hon. Members, by reference to the documents in the Library of the House, to see what was covered by those Resolutions for which the United Kingdom did not vote during the period in question.
    Mr. Hynd: Does the Minister realise that our action in vetoing some of these Resolutions has made it practically impossible for our representative at the United Nations to object to other countries taking similar action in future?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: I do not accept that for a moment.
    Following is the information:

    SECURITY COUNCIL
    1. The United Kingdom vetoed the following resolutions:
    Subject, Resolution Number and Sponsoring Country

    Middle East. S. 3710. United States.

    Middle East. S. 3713 Rev. 1. U.S.S,R.

    2. The United Kingdom voted against the following resolutions:
    Subject, Resolution Number and Sponsoring Country

    Middle East. S. Agenda 734 Rev. 1. Yugoslavia.

    Middle East. S. 3719. Yugoslavia.

    3. The United Kingdom abstained on the following resolutions:
    Subject, Resolution Number and Sponsoring country

    Middle East. S. 3624. Australia.

    Middle East. S. 3712. Egypt.

    GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
    1. The United Kingdom voted against the following resolutions:
    Subject, Resolution Number and Sponsoring country

    Middle East. A/RES/390. United States.

    Middle East. A/RES/392. 19-Power.

    Chinese Representation. A/RES/406. India.

    Middle East. A/RES/410. 21-Power.

    2. The United Kingdom abstained on the following resolutions:
    Subject, Resolution Number and Sponsoring country

    Middle East. AIRES/391 Canada.

    Middle East. A/RES/394. Canada and other Powers.

    Middle East. A/RES/396. 19-Power.

    UNKRA. A/RES/415. (Forwarded from Second Committee to Plenary.)

    Hydrogen Bomb Tests
    Mr. Parkinasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what initiative Her Majesty's Government are taking during the current session of the United Nations Assembly to secure an agreement to suspend hydrogen bomb tests.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Her Majesty's Government stand by the Anglo-French comprehensive disarmament plan which provides for the prohibition of tests at an appropriate stage and under proper safeguards. Her Majesty's Government's interest in the limitation of such tests is well known, and that possibility is now being explored.
    Mr. Parkin: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman assure us that Her Majesty's Government are taking the initiative in the current session of the United Nations to press these points of view and to press for an agreement? Will he publicly dissociate himself from those maniacs who are now saying that provided we have a big enough bomb there is no longer any need to worry about alliances or international agreements or even about how we are to earn an honest living in the world?
    Mr. Lloyd: I should like to see the words of the quotation from which I have been asked to dissociate myself.
    Mr. Parkin: In HANSARD today.
    Mr. Lloyd: As for the suggestion for an initiative, I would point out that in answer to an earlier Question in the House I indicated what would happen in the near future about meetings on disarmament. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that our interest in a limitation of the tests will certainly be raised.
    Mr. A. Henderson: In view of the fact that the Russian Government put forward their latest proposals on 17th November and that the United States Government put forward their recent proposals only two or three days ago, do Her Majesty's

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    Government propose to make any statement to the House as to their latest proposals, in view of the fact that we are rising on Friday?
    Mr. Lloyd: No, Sir. I do not think that a statement will be made to the House upon this matter before we rise, because I think these two sets of proposals need careful consideration before we reach our conclusions on them.

    CYPRUS (BROADCASTS)
    Mr. Beanasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on what date his Department began preparing material for transmission from the former Sharq-al-Adna station in Cyprus; what staff are at present engaged in this work; on what previous occasions his Department has undertaken direct broadcasting; and if he will arrange for all the scripts to be made available in the Library of the House of Commons.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: The Foreign Office began preparing material on 30th October. The staff engaged is composed partly of established members of the Foreign Service and partly of unestablished employees. The preparation of broadcasting material and the broadcasting of programmes has always been one of the functions of information officers.
    As regards the hon. Member's request for scripts, I would refer him to the reply given on 17th December to the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart).
    Mr. Benn: In view of the fact that the psychological warfare unit of the Allied Command which did the previous broadcasts over this station did not include anyone who was able to speak Arabic and therefore played, over the "Voice of Britain", as incidental music, Colonel Nasser's own march, composed for Egypt, will he say whether, in his judgment, the Foreign Office is likely to do better? Would it not be better still to give the job to the B.B.C., who are skilled in telling the truth abroad?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: I do not know to which march of Colonel Nasser's the hon. Member is referring, but I understand that there is one which is played on the bagpipes and which includes the phrase:
    "Will ye no' come back?"
    Mrs. Castleasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will hand over to the British Broadcasting Corporation responsibility for the broadcasts now being organised by his Department from the Sharq-al-Adna Broadcasting Station in Cyprus.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: Discussions have been going on with the British Broadcasting Corporation to determine how much the Corporation's contribution to the programmes of this station can be increased. At present the British Broadcasting Corporation contributes four-and-three-quarter hours a day out of a total of fifteen hours which is being broadcast.
    Mrs. Castle: Is the Minister aware that this is not a question of increasing the contribution of the B.B.C. but of deciding whether our propaganda in the Middle East can be done more effectively by the voice of the British nation through the B.B.C., which is recognised as reliable in its facts and impartial, or whether it should be done through a Government agency which is pouring out partial propaganda, which, I must add—having read many of the scripts which have now been made available—is very dull and bad propaganda?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: I cannot accept what the hon. Lady says. The question of the future of this station, as has already been said, is under consideration by my right hon. and hon. Friends. It is not just a question of dull propaganda. If anyone, even one of us in this House, listens for more than two hours a day he knows that there are other things to which people want to listen besides talks and news. One of the things people want to listen to is music, and I would say to the hon. Lady, if she will keep it to herself, that certain investigations are going on north of the Border during hogmanay because they seem to produce the sort of music which people in the Middle East like.

    DISARMAMENT (SOVIET PROPOSALS)
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) when, in view of the fact that the disarmament proposals made by the Soviet Government on 17th November are nearer to those of the Western

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    Powers, he intends to discuss the proposals with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics;
    (2) whether, in view of the proposals of the Soviet Government on aerial inspection, Her Majesty's Government will urgently speed up consideration of the disarmament problem by supporting the Soviet suggestion of a meeting of the heads of Government of the five Powers.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: We believe that the proper forum for the discussion of disarmament is provided by the specialised bodies already established by the United Nations—the Disarmament Commission and its Sub-Committee. Experience shows that the sort of high-level conference such as is proposed by the Russians is unlikely to be any more effective. Nor is disarmament a subject on which Her Majesty's Government would wish to hold bilateral discussions with the, Soviet Government to the exclusion of their Western partners in the Disarmament Sub-Committee.
    Mr. Davies: I realise that the Special Agencies may be the proper bodies to undertake this work. The reason why I am asking the Foreign Secretary this question is to find out whether we have an attitude or policy upon these Russian proposals, which are nearer the Western proposals than those made at any other time. This would be one of the ways of demonstrating to the world that, far from Britain having lost her greatness, she still has the capacity for leadership in real world affairs.
    Mr. Lloyd: I have studied these new Russian proposals. Some of them are very reminiscent of previous proposals put forward, and the extent to which they come nearer to the Western proposals is a matter for doubt. Nevertheless, they are new proposals. Therefore, they are worthy of consideration. The Disarmament Commission is due to meet tomorrow, and I hope that there will be a meeting of the Disarmament Sub-Committee in the near future. There is bound to be a debate in the General Assembly, or at least in the Political Committee of the General Assembly, with regard to disarmament, so there are plenty of opportunities for putting forward our point of view. I think it would be a mistake to have bilateral discussions with the Russians at the moment.

    STRAITS OF GIBRALTAR
    Mr. Collinsasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the dissolution of the International Zone of Tangier, he will take steps to negotiate agreed international control of the Straits of Gibraltar.
    Mr. Usborneasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what treaty arrangements affecting the United Kingdom govern the Straits of Gibraltar since the dissolution of the international zone of Tangier; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: No, Sir.
    In accordance with recognised principles of international law the Straits of Gibraltar are open to unrestricted navigation by the ships of the world. There are not treaty arrangements governing the Straits, nor do I think any are necessary.
    Mr. Collins: Is the Minister aware that the Suez Canal was open to the ships of the world under international agreement? In view of the fact that the new rulers of Morocco may take a different view from the previous controlling Powers about the demilitarisation of the southern coast of the Straits, does he not think that it would be wise now to submit to the United Nations proposals for international control?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: No, Sir, I do not think there is any need for that. The Straits are not comparable with the Suez Canal, which is not the high seas. The narrowest point of the Straits of Gibraltar is 10 miles wide and in our view thus includes some four miles of the high seas.
    Mr. Usborne: In view of what has happened in recent weeks, would the Government not agree that it might be a good idea if at least the fortress of Gibraltar were handed over to the United Nations, so that, along with the Sinai Peninsula, it could provide a permanent base for the United Nations police force?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: I cannot for a moment accept that that would appeal either to Her Majesty's present Ministers or to the people of Gibraltar.
    Mr. C. Jeger: Will the Minister recall that a few weeks ago his right hon. Friend

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    promised that a White Paper would be issued on the present position of Tangier? When may we expect that?
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: I will look into that point, and let the hon. Member know.

    CHINA (TRADE)
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what further progress has been made drastically to reduce the embargo on various exports to China.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: On the substance of the Question. I have nothing to add to the reply given on 29th October to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-lyme (Mr. Swingler) by the then Minister of State. As was foreshadowed in the House on 14th May, more use has been made of the exceptions procedure to permit reasonable exports in appropriate cases to China of goods which are not on the Soviet lists.
    Mr. Davies: While appreciating that answer, may I ask whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not aware that because of the devastating economic and physical position in the Middle East, we have lost a market of about £150 million a year, and that if we could get rid of Cocom in Paris we could now gain some markets in China? Does he not feel that the time has come to look anew at the whole Asiatic world in view of the disastrous position in which this country has now been placed in regard to Asia through the Suez activities of this Government?
    Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Member will not, of course, expect me to agree with the last part of his supplementary question. In this matter we have to try to act with our allies. I think it is better to try to make progress in terms of individual articles or individual transactions, and if the hon. Member has any particular case in mind I shall be very glad to ask my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to consider it.
    Mr. Bevan: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman consider, between now and when the House reassembles after the Recess, presenting the House with a White Paper on this matter, to give us a clearer picture of the situation?
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    Does he realise that there are a large number of business people in this country who feel that very much more trade can be done with China and that, now that the Chinese Government have decided that they cannot proceed with the intensification of industrialisation as quickly as formerly, there will be a larger market for consumer goods that we could provide? Ought we therefore not to consider this matter realistically and with a considerable sense of urgency?
    Mr. Lloyd: I will certainly consider the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion. It might well be that such a White Paper would be valuable.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: Will the Minister bear in mind that there are a considerable number of people on both sides of the House who think that we can greatly increase our trade with China and who think that if we are not very careful we shall find that this large trading unit has become another department of the trading unit of the United States? Will my right hon. and learned Friend do everything he can to ensure that we get an adequate slice of any trade that arises?
    Mr. Lloyd: I can assure my hon. Friend that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I have very much in mind the consideration which he raises. We are, of course, constantly enjoined in these matters to act in consultation with our allies. That we have been doing. In fact, the matter has been put very forcibly to some of our allies more than once during the last few months.

    QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
    The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
    Sir ROBERT GRIMSTON: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, what reports he has received from the Secretary-General of the United Nations on plans for the clearance of the Suez Canal, and the liberation of ships trapped therein.
    Sir R. Grimston: On a point of order. My Question No. 33, Mr. Speaker, deals with ships trapped in the Canal. As that is a very topical Question and one of great interest, would you permit my right hon. and learned Friend to answer it, if he is willing so to do?
    Mr. Speaker: I have had no notice of a request to answer this Question after the normal time, a request which must be made before I can allow it.

    SUEZ CANAL
    Mr. Patrick Maitland: May I seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker? Some of us have been much disturbed by a report in the Press last night about the possibility of Royal Naval officers and men serving out of uniform in the Canal area. May I ask your guidance as to how one could effectively get that matter aired? I understand that we shall be on the Motion for the Adjournment at seven o'clock in any case, so we cannot move the Adjournment to get a discussion on this subject. Could you give me guidance as to how to raise the matter?
    Mr. Speaker: I am afraid that I cannot.

NORTHERN IRELAND (SITUATION)
The Prime Minister (Sir Anthony Eden): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I wish to make a statement on the situation in Northern Ireland.
Her Majesty's Government have the greatest sympathy for the people of Northern Ireland in face of the recent outbreaks of violence to which they have been exposed. We pay tribute, in particular, to the courage and resource of the members of the Royal Ulster Constabularly and the special constables who have borne the brunt of these attacks. Her Majesty's Government recognise that the situation is still fraught with danger, which the people of Northern Ireland have faced and are facing with exemplary restraint.
Immediately after the outbreak of violence on 12th December, Her Majesty's Ambassador in Dublin arranged to see the Republican Minister of External Affairs to obtain further information from him and to express the serious view which Her Majesty's Government would be bound to take of these events.
As the House will know, on 14th December the Republican Government issued a statement on their own initiative in which they said that they had determined to take, in conjunction with the
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police and defence forces of the Republic, such steps as they deemed necessary and appropriate to prevent activities which, if they were allowed to continue, would inevitably cause loss of life. In the light of this, Her Majesty's Government decided to direct Her Majesty's Ambassador to deliver a communication expressing their very great concern at the recent incidents in Northern Ireland, and the hope that the important objective which the Republican Government had proclaimed in their statement would be effectively and successfully secured.
In the Ireland Act, 1949, the Parliament at Westminster declared Northern Ireland to be an integral part of the United Kingdom. This is a declaration which all parties in this House are pledged to support. The safety of Northern Ireland and of its inhabitants is, therefore, a direct responsibility of Her Majesty's Government, which they will, of course, discharge.
Mr. Gaitskell: The Prime Minister has referred, very properly, to the statement issued by the Republican Government of Ireland on 14th December. I wonder whether he could tell the House whether he knows what the Republican Government have actually done in this matter since then?
The Prime Minister: We have been in communication with the Republican Government, but I am afraid that I have no detailed statement that I can make. If the right hon. Gentleman would like to repeat the question tomorrow, I might have further information, which I should be glad to give.
Mr. P. O'Neill: On behalf of myself and my hon. Friends, may I say that we welcome very much the Prime Minister's statement? We should like to associate ourselves with this tribute to the courage and exemplary conduct of the R.U.C. and of the special constabulary in discharging their duties under very trying conditions. But is it not a fact that, if history has taught us anything, it is that Ulstermen—and, for that matter, Irishmen, on whatever side of the border they may dwell—cannot be coerced?
Is my right hon. Friend aware that these senseless outrages are condemned by the overwhelming majority of all classes and creeds on both sides of the border? Is he further aware that to bring

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such outrages to an end, co-operation between the authorities in both the North and the South is essential, and will he continue to work to achieve this so that peace and sanity may be restored? Does he agree that if, unhappily, these outrages continue, every assistance which the Northern Ireland Government may require to restore order and security will immediately be forthcoming?
The Prime Minister: I think that my hon. Friend is absolutely correct when he says that the overwhelming feeling on both sides of the border is against outrages of this character. I have given a full account of the action taken up to date, and I can only tell him that the responsibility mentioned in the last sentence of my statement is one which, I think, any Government of this country would always feel ready to discharge. At the same time, I think that the whole House will agree that we want to try to avoid, if we can, this matter becoming even more serious than it now is. My own feeling, therefore, is that I would rather add nothing more to the statement which I have made to the House this afternoon.

CYPRUS (LORD RADCLIFFE'S PROPOSALS)
The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): Lord Radcliffe's report on a Constitution for Cyprus is being published today as a White Paper in the United Kingdom and in Cyprus. It is a statesmanlike document, and the whole House will, I am sure, be grateful for the vigour with which Lord Radcliffe has carried out his task and the wisdom which he has shown.
The Report is in two parts—the recommendations for the Constitution and a covering note which explains why Lord Radcliffe has preferred his conclusions to other possible arrangements.
Lord Radcliffe recommends a single chamber Assembly with 6 seats reserved for members elected by voters on the Turkish Cypriot roll, 24 for members elected by the rest of the population, and 6 for members nominated by the Governor. Very careful arrangements have been devised to protect the interests of all communities. There will be a Cabinet, with a Chief Minister, respon-
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sible to the Legislative Assembly. These arrangements will give to the people of Cyprus the widest possible measure of autonomy compatible with the reservation to the Governor of defence, external affairs and public security.
Her Majesty's Government have brought these proposals to the attention of the Greek and Turkish Governments, and, as the House knows, I have just visited Greece and Turkey for discussions on them.
Her Majesty's Government, after consultation with the Governor of Cyprus, accept, as a whole, the proposals which Lord Radcliffe has made. In our view, they represent a fair balance between the different and often conflicting interests which are involved.
Her Majesty's Government will be prepared to introduce such a Constitution as soon as we are satisfied that a situation exists in Cyprus in which genuine elections can be held free from violence and intimidation. A start is at once being made with the drafting of the necessary constitutional instruments so that elections may be held as soon as conditions allow.
As the House knows, the terms of reference given to Lord Radcliffe envisaged a Constitution for a self-governing Cyprus under British sovereignty. As regards the eventual status of the island, Her Majesty's Government have already affirmed their recognition of the principle of self-determination. When the international and strategic situation permits, and provided that self-government is working satisfactorily, Her Majesty's Government will be ready to review the question of the application of self-determination.
When the time comes for this review, that is, when these conditions have been fulfilled, it will be the purpose of Her Majesty's Government to ensure that any exercise of self-determination should be effected in such a manner that the Turkish Cypriot community, no less than the Greek Cypriot community, shall, in the special circumstances of Cyprus, be Oven freedom to decide for themselves their future status. In other words, Her Majesty's Government recognise that the exercise of self-determination in such a mixed population must include partition among the eventual options.

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Her Majesty's Government will keep in close touch with the Greek and Turkish Governments on the international aspects of the problem.
I hope that we are on the eve of a new and happy chapter in the long history of Cyprus. It is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to do all that they can to bring this about.
Mr. Callaghan: While we can all join with the Colonial Secretary's hopes that this will open a new chapter, may I ask whether the reports are true that the Constitution provides what might be called built-in guarantees for the Turkish people? if that is so, why has he thought it necessary to introduce at this stage, to "throw into the pot," this irritant of partition? Would it not have been better to have kept the position as far as self-determination is concerned where it stood —namely, in accordance with the statement made by the Prime Minister earlier?
May I also ask whether the Government regard this Constitution as being negotiable? Although it is acceptable to them as a whole, would they be willing to discuss modifications of it with other persons interested?
Finally, can the right hon. Gentleman say what is the position of Archbishop Makarios? Is he not an essential feature here? Would it not be wise to permit him to see persons and the documents concerned so that he can consult them, as he has such great influence in this matter?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The hon. Gentleman is, indeed, right in suggesting that the Constitution provides very careful built-in guarantees for the Turkish community and other communities in Cyprus. I was able to explain this in considerable detail to the Turkish Prime Minister two or three days ago. But I think we must recognise the natural anxiety of the Turkish people in the longer-term future of the island if the principle of self-determination is applied. I cannot see how it is anything other than logical to grant a community with such close interests with Turkey, and only 40 miles away, the same rights as we are prepared to recognise should go to the Greek community.
The hon. Gentleman also asked me about possible amendments of Lord Radcliffe's Constitution. While, of
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course, as I explained to the Greek and Turkish Prime Ministers, we would pay the greatest possible attention to any suggestions which may be made, and the same will apply, of course, to suggestions from the people of Cyprus or from hon. Members of this House, Lord Radcliffe's proposals represent a balanced whole, and it would be difficult to disturb that plan in any very considerable way without spoiling the plan as a whole.
The hon. Gentleman also asked me about Archbishop Makarios. The constitutional proposals and the statement that I have just made are being shown this afternoon to Archbishop Makarios. Tomorrow, Lord Radcliffe's secretary and a senior Greek-speaking officer of the Government of Cyprus will arrive in the Seychelles to explain the proposals to him. Should he wish to talk to someone from Cyprus or from Greece, Her Majesty's Government will provide the necessary facilities.
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Clement Davies.
Mr. Hector Hughes: On a point of order. As the Colonial Secretary's statement was obviously in reply to my Question No. 76, am I not entitled to ask—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The statement was not so expressed.
Mr. Clement Davies: May I say that we all sincerely hope, with the Secretary of State for the Colonies, that this is the beginning of a new and a happier chapter in the history of this island. May I also say that I am sure that all of us will welcome the statement that there is to be an approach to Archbishop Makarios, even at this stage?
May I ask this question? I realise that this matter will have to be considered and debated. There has been consultation between the right hon. Gentleman, the Turkish Government and the Government of Greece. Did Lord Radcliffe have any discussions with any responsible person among the Greek community in Cyprus before drawing up and issuing his Report?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The right hon. and learned Gentleman must not read into what I said about the Archbishop anything more than I did say. I did not say that there was any question of Her Majesty's Government or the Governor

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reopening negotiations with the Archbishop. What I said was that the Archbishop would be free—and that we would provide the necessary facilities if he wanted to do so—tc consult with representatives from Greece or Cyprus.
In reply to the second of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's questions, though there were obvious difficulties in the way, Lord Radcliffe did manage to have some consultations in Cyprus, and, of course, he was left in no doubt at all, through much reading and a great deal of study of the matter, of the views of the Cypriot people on these various problems.
Mr. Bevan: We are unable to express any view about the nature of Lord Radcliffe's recommendations because we have not seen them, but may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he found it absolutely essential to make his reference to the possibility of partition in the island in relation to those recommendations? Is there not a danger that that addendum will once more poison the atmosphere and prevent a settlement in the island?
Is there not a danger that in winning the acquiescence of the Turks the right hon. Gentleman will once more lose the support of the Greeks and we shall once again be where we were? Would it not have been far better to have left it where it was—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—in the sense of self-determination, where we had originally stated it? That is what I meant. I am referring now to self-determination.
Furthermore, in view of the experience which we have had with Cyprus as an effective base, ought not the whole situation to be reconsidered? Ought we not to reconsider it with our N.A.T.O. allies? In other words, do we really want Cyprus as a base? Do we, the British, want it? Could we not have a base on Cyprus with our N.A.T.O. allies without any of the political difficulties involved in the present situation?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: It is still our view, very strongly, that our strategic position in Cyprus remains vital for the performance of our defence obligations in the Middle East.
I hope that there is no misunderstanding about partition as an eventual possibility, an eventual solution among the
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possible solutions. I made it quite clear, I hope, that it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government that there should be this Constitution in Cyprus. After the Constitution has been shown to be working satisfactorily, and when the international and strategic situation permits, then we are prepared to consider the application of self-determination, but during the intervening period there will be a chance for this Constitution, with, I hope, the good will of both sides of the House, to get well under way.
Then, at that later stage, when those circumstances arise, and when the conditions have been fulfilled, there would be a test of the public opinion in Cyprus. If that test was in favour of a change of sovereignty, there would be a second test of the views of the Turkish population, and they would be entitled to the same right to choose their destiny as the majority of the island. I believe that this is the logical consequence of the pleas for self-determination raised on both sides of the House. I cannot believe that any responsible statesman, faced with having to find a solution to this intractable problem, could have come to wiser decisions than have Her Majesty's Government.
Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Would my right hon. Friend say something about the Governor's powers in the proposed Constitution? Am I right in thinking that there are reserved to him only the three topics my right hon. Friend mentioned, or has he wider powers than that?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As the House will see when it reads the Report—it is a very carefully and skilfully presented Report and easy to understand—the powers of the Governor are clearly defined. Any laws made by the Assembly need the Governor's formal assent, but it is formal, given automatically, save in two cases. The first is where a Bill passed might deal with a reserved matter, and the second arises where a Bill is repugnant to the Constitution, provision being made for a reference to the Supreme Court. Otherwise, the Governor's powers are very, very restricted. Indeed, as Lord Radcliffe says, the Ministers responsible to the legislature are intended to be masters in their own, the non-reserved, field.
Mr. Bevan: The only thing we can do at the moment is to consider what the

1273
right hon. Gentleman has said in his statement. We can make no comment about Lord Radcliffe's Report; we have not got it. The question I put to the right hon. Gentleman was this. Was it absolutely essential, in order to obtain the best possible reception that he could obtain for Lord Radcliffe's proposals for a new Constitution, at this stage to make a statement about the character of a future plebiscite which, while it might reconcile the Turks, would offend the Greeks? Would it not have been much wiser to have taken the recommendations on their merits, leaving the future of the island with respect to sovereignty where it was left by the original statement of the Government? Has the right hon. Gentleman not once more prepared the worst kind of atmosphere for the reception of his own proposals?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I must repeat that I cannot see how it could be regarded as unfair to grant to a very important community, only 40 miles away from the Turkish coast, the same rights as we are prepared to recognise for the Greek population. I beg the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), if he ever has any ambition to have to cope with problems of this kind, to study the matter with a sense of responsibility and not with the abandon which can come with opposition.
Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Secretary of State whether the partition proposal was discussed with the Greek and Turkish Governments?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: There is no proposal for partition. I am not suggesting that at this moment there should be the partition of Cyprus, and I think that none of us would regard partition here, or in many other parts of the world, as the best solution of the many problems there. This situation will arise only when the international situation permits, and when the Constitution, the terms of which will be issued this afternoon, has got properly under way. I did, of course, bring to the attention of both the Greek and the Turkish Governments the gist of the statement I have made, and that includes the reference to partition.
Mr. Gaitskell: Was that discussed with them?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: In accordance with normal practice, it was arranged that I should make a statement on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, and the Greek and Turkish Governments, if they so wish, will make their own statements; but I think that it would be very unwise for me to say what form their statements are to take.
Mr. Elliot: Have we not been repeatedly pressed to state whether self-determination would eventually be applied, and would it not have been impossible to bring forward any proposal which did not answer that question? While all of us, in every part of the House, would deplore partition in itself, surely self-determination is obviously one of the solutions, or one of the ends, to which the statement must lead. Our attitude towards that is implicit in any authoritative statement by the Government. As I understand—my right hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong—what is being envisaged is, in fact, the full concession of Enosis with Greece of a large portion of Cyprus and, in those circumstances, a statement as to the position of the minority was inevitable if a full and authoritative statement was to he made here.
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, Sir. I think that my right hon. Friend has expressed the situation.
Mr. Philips Price: Does not the Secretary of State realise the extraordinary difficulty of partitioning the island of Cyprus in such a way as to have the Greeks in one part and the Turks in another? While entirely agreeing with him about the necessity for protecting and guaranteeing the position of the Turkish minority there, may I ask him whether he has considered other methods besides partition? Has he not considered the possibility of keeping the island a unit, say, under United Nations mandate, with this country, Turkey and Greece taking part in the administration, or something like that? Has he not considered that, rather than committing himself right away now to partition?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I hope that the hon. Member, whose interest in these problems I recognise and whose knowledge of Turkey, in particular, has been of great assistance to me, as, also, to the

1275
House, will realise that partition is envisaged as one of the possible solutions, so to speak, at the end of the tunnel. It is not a suggestion that there should be partition now. If the Constitution works very well, and the people of Cyprus find in it an opportunity to express themselves as a unit, then, when the chance comes to ask them what they want to do, they may well decide to continue as they are. I would beg all hon. Members who know the seriousness of this problem to encourage in every way the chance to give this Constitution a fair start, and then, it being given a fair start, quite surprising results may happen as a result of the eventual exercise of their right of self-determination.
Mr. Teeling: Will my right hon. Friend remember a small but very loyal community in Cyprus, not Turkish and certainly not Greek, but which comes from Asia Minor? I refer to the Maronite community. Can he say whether the six members reserved will include one with responsibility for the protection of the Maronites? In view of the fact that they are scattered all over Cyprus, what will happen to them if there is to be partition?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, Sir. Of the six members who will be nominated by the Governor to the Assembly, one will be specially charged with representing and looking after Maronite interests.
Mr. Dugdale: Will the right hon. Gentleman not agree that it is of the utmost importance that there should be a full discussion of these proposals in Cyprus? Does he, therefore, agree that one of the best methods for such a discussion is through the Press, and, if so, will he see that the freedom of the Press is restored in Cyprus at the earliest possible moment?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I hope that the House noticed that yesterday the Governor of Cyprus was able to make very considerable relaxations of the Emergency Regulations. I detest being responsible, and so does he, for Emergency Regulations of any kind. The sooner we can see them all swept away the better pleased we all shall be, the Governor and Her Majesty's Government. Among the regulations which we dislike intensely are any limitations of freedom
1276
of expression. If this Constitution is given a fair chance, and the people of Cyprus respond as we hope they will, and they are encouraged from outside to do so, then we can, I hope, very soon bring Ito an end all these symbols of emergency.
Major Wall: Is not the statement we have just heard a great act of faith in the good sense of the Greek Cypriot cornmunity, who will form the very large majority of the Assembly? May I ask my right hon. Friend to pay a little more attention to the Turkish minority? For instance, are they to have a Minister? Further, could he say something about the British minority, whether they are to be represented on the Legislative Council? Finally, may I ask him about the British schools, the teachers' training college and the technical schools which are now going up? Under whose control will they be?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I was told, when talking to the Archbishop and, incidentally, in this House, that the only thing really seriously dividing people was the question of the Greek elected majority. No hon. Member from the other side of the House has commented on the fact that the inescapable consequence of Lord Radcliffe's recommendations, as I read them, is that there will be a Greek elected majority. It would, I think, have been consistent with a desire to find a settlement if some hon. Member opposite had referred to that fact.
The Turkish rights are very carefully defined. They include provision for a Turkish Minister, who will be a member of the Cabinet; they include six members of the Assembly, and the most rigid protection of their interests both against discrimination by law and discrimiation in administration. I hope that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen will read those provisions very carefully.
As regards the rights of the by no means inconsiderable or unimportant English population, one of those nominated members will be chosen by the Governor to represent that very important interest.
Mrs. L. Jeger: While welcoming the fact that one of the obstacles to the previous settlement—the question of the Greek majority—is met by these proposals, may I ask whether it is not

1277
true that the biggest stumbling block all along has been the question of self-determination? Does the statement that we have had this afternoon really take the matter any further? Is it not still left with Her Majesty's Government alone to be the judge of when this principle may be put into effect? Can we not have some hope that Cyprus will be considered as part of a new policy in the Middle East and the ending of what we have shown to be an impossible unilateral Middle East policy?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As I said, when the international and strategic situation permits, we will review the application of self-determination. If the situation has obviously and dramatically changed, it would be quite impossible for any British Government to pretend that it had not changed.
Mr. F. M. Bennett: My right hon. Friend has rightly, in my view, and in the view, I think, of many hon. Members on this side, stressed that if and when the application of self-determination takes place, it obviously follows that we should, in advance, take the necessary protective steps concerning the Turkish minority. Can my right hon. Friend also say that it will equally be a fundamental purpose at that time, after the application of self-determination takes place, also to safeguard British interests in the island, both strategic and otherwise, afterwards?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes. Sir, most assuredly.
Mr. F. Noel-Baker: May I ask the Secretary of State three questions? First, is he taking any new initiative to try to secure a cessation of acts of violence, on both sides, in Cyprus now as a preliminary to discussions on Lord Radcliffe's proposals? Secondly, while welcoming this very belated recognition of the fact that the Archbishop of Cyprus is an indispensable factor in any political situation, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman where the consultations with the Archbishop will take place, whether he will give the names of the emissaries whom he has sent to meet him and whether he will now lift the ban on communication with the Archbishop, which appears to have applied to everybody, except officials of the Colonial Office, including hon. Members of this House?
1278
Finally, is the Secretary of State aware that his threat of possible partition in the future may be interpreted as meaning that the British Government are not really convinced that Lord Radcliffe's proposals are the basis of a possible settlement? In this respect, did Lord Radcliffe consider the possibility of partition? If so, what were his recommendations as to the feasibility of any form of partition in Cyprus?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The hon. Member asked me what was Her Majesty's Government's initiative in this matter to help to bring an end to the bloodshed. The statement I have made this afternoon should represent a very considerable contribution towards that end Secondly, the hon. Member asked where the consultations with Archbishop Makarios would take place. The answer is that they will take place in the Seychelles, where the Archbishop is now detained.
As to communications, I have myself told the hon. Member that I am quite prepared to pass on his Christmas greetings to the Archbishop, but other letters —long letters and letters which when they are received may mean quite different things from what some of them might generally be thought publicly to mean—not by the hon. Member—must clearly be subject to censorship in the ordinary way.
Thirdly, the hon. Member asked about Lord Radcliffe and partition. When he reads the Report, he will see that Lord Radcliffe expressly says that he was asked to draw up a Constitution for Cyprus under British sovereignty. He was not asked to consider or envisage the possibility of an eventual change of status.
Mr. Callaghan: Can the Colonial Secretary go a little further concerning the status of the Archbishop in this matter? It is all very well to send him Christmas cards, or even a copy of the Radcliffe Report. What is surely of value to Her Majesty's Government and to public opinion, in Cyprus, in Greece and in this country, is that we should know the Archbishop's views. Can we be quite clear that there will be a two-way traffic in this respect, and that the Archbishop will be free to express his opinion upon Lord Radcliffe's proposals?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Certainly, Sir. It would be rather fruitless and a waste of

1279
time for all concerned if either the visits of Lord Radcliffe's secretary and the officer of the Governor of Cyprus, who will arrive there tomorrow—
Mr. F. Noel-Baker: Who are they?
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: —or any later visits by anybody else, should result in the Archbishop not being able to say what he thought about the proposals. It is, however, quite another matter for me to say, which I am not prepared to say, or to accept, that we—either the Government or the Governor—should restart negotiations with the Archbishop.

BILL PRESENTED
  AERIAL ADVERTISING
  Bill to restrict the use of aircraft for commercial advertising and purposes of propaganda, presented by Mr. Braine; supported by Mr. Partridge, Mr. John Harvey, and Mr. Kenneth Thompson; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday 15th February and to be printed. [Bill 40.]
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Proceedings on any Motion for the Adjournment of the House moved by a Minister of the Crown exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House) for One hour after Ten o'clock.—[The Prime Minister.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  HOUSE OF COMMONS DISQUALIFICATION BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.5 p.m.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  Just over a year has elapsed since my right hon. and gallant Friend the Home Secretary moved the Second Reading of a Bill with the same Title as this one. On that occasion he acknowledged, and I would like to repeat that acknowledgment now, the debt of gratitude which we owe to the Herbert Committee of 1941, upon whose recommendations the first version of the Bill—and, indeed, much of the present version—was based.
  The House will recall that the unusual step was taken of committing that Bill to a Select Committee of the House and, subject to a few points of detail to which I shall refer later, it is the Bill as reported by that Committee which is now before the House.
  I am sure that the House would wish me to pay the warmest of tributes to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) who was Chairman of that Committee, and to the other right hon. and hon. Members who served with him on it. I feel sure that it will be agreed on both sides of the House that high praise and our gratitude are due to them for the care, patience and thoroughness with which they went about the very difficult task entrusted to them and that the present Bill, which is the product of their labour, is, in many respects, a marked improvement on its predecessor.
  If I may speak for myself, my only regret is that there was not time for the Bill to be passed into law last Session. That this was not possible is, of course, no fault of the Select Committee. I should also like to say how much Her Majesty's Government appreciate the despatch with which the Select Committee completed its work.
  As I have said, we have thought it right to reintroduce the Bill in almost the identical terms in which it was reported

  1281
  last July. There are a few very minor amendments, one example of which is the removal from Part II of the First Schedule of the references to the Road Haulage Disposal Board, which, as the House will remember, was abolished in August. At a later stage, we may wish to suggest a number of detailed Amendments for the consideration of the House, but I am happy to be able to say that Her Majesty's Government gladly accept all the main recommendations of the Select Committee.
  The Bill now before the House differs in three important respects from the version which was submitted to the Committee last February and the version on which the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) did a great deal of work. It is right that I should say something about the three important respects in which this Bill differs.
  The first and, perhaps, most important, of these is that the Bill substitutes a detailed list of individual disqualifying offices for the former reference to
  "paid offices or places under the Crown".
  The object of this change is to avoid the sort of problem we have been so troubled with in recent years. It should now be possible for any Parliamentary candidate or Member to look at the list of disqualifying offices enacted in the Schedule and made available by virtue of Clause 5 (4) of the Bill and to see quite clearly whether he has incurred, or is likely to incur, disqualification by the acceptance of an office.
  The list, as the House will see, will be kept up to date by Order in Council made in pursuance of a Resolution under Clause 5 of the Bill, and perhaps it will be for the convenience of the House if I explain now that we shall later wish to suggest Amendments designed to simplify and improve this Clause, a Clause which is, perhaps, open to certain criticisms in its present form. As it stands it would not permit the transfer of offices from one part of the First Schedule to another; nor would it permit any addition to the Schedule of any office now in suspense which is revived after the Bill becomes law.
  As the Select Committee pointed out in its Report, under this Clause
  "… substantive changes in the constitutional law of the country will be able to be effected without the need for a new statute."
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  The Government agree with the Select Committee, however, that, in the absence of any satisfactory alternative, the Bill must include some provision on these lines if we are to enjoy the manifest advantage of specifying the disqualifying offices, and we think that the provision whereby an affirmative Resolution of this House must precede any Order in Council will, in practice, constitute an adequate safeguard against improper changes of the constitutional position. It is for this reason that we shall later wish to suggest another Amendment, providing that all Orders in Council under the Clause shall be subject to affirmative Resolution procedure.
  The House will also note that the Committee has recommended that in future the onus shall be placed on candidates of satisfying themselves before nomination that they are not subject to any disqualification. The relevant provision, the House will see, is in Clause 12 of the Bill.
  I have spoken so far of the first important change, namely, the change to a list of disqualifying offices. The second important respect in which this Bill differs from the Bill introduced last Session is the repeal, without replacement, of the existing statutory disqualifications of certain contractors and pensioners. This is achieved by Clause 9 of the Bill. I think that the House will agree that this is a bold step.
  Perhaps the House will allow me the indulgence of quoting from the Memorandum which I submitted to the Select Committee in which I described—I hope accurately—the provisions relating to contractors in the following terms:
  "… the provisions are, in their present form, indefensible: their effect in law is obscure; and their effect in practice is both anomalous and absurd."
  The Government agree, therefore, with the Committee's dislike and rejection of the anomalous and archaic provisions of the present law, and we agree, too, with the Select Committee's conclusion that comprehensive provisions dealing with them would be both impracticable and unnecessary. The House will have seen from the evidence given to the Select Committee by the Clerk of the House that no case involving any sort of scandal in connection with a Government contract has, so far as is known, occurred during the last one hundred years, and that

  1283
  applies to all Crown contracts, whether they fell within the existing law or not
  If that is so, surely this is a matter which the House can deal with itself, should any such scandal, which, in view of the past, is unlikely to arise, arise in future. I should like, therefore, to take this opportunity of saying that we accept the Select Committee's recommendations for reconsideration, with a view to early improvement, of the rules and practice of the House relating to the disclosure by hon. Members of any pecuniary interests when they are speaking or voting. The Select Committee drew attention to this, and we are now considering how best to give effect to its recommendation.
  The third of the three important respects to which I referred is that the Bill no longer disqualifies members of the Reserve and Auxiliary Forces upon their embodiment or recall. We welcome this change for two reasons, both of them, the House may agree with me in hoping, theoretical reasons: the first, that it removes any possibility of abuse of the power of selective recall; the second, that it would leave membership of the House unaffected in the early stages of an emergency when Parliament would be particularly busy with such tasks as emergency legislation.
  Before I turn to the other detailed provisions of the Bill I should like to say a few words about Clause 1 (4). This Clause embodies the recommendation of the Select Committee, expressed in paragraph 4 of its Report, that the Bill should not adopt what it called the reverse method of disqualification, that is to say, the provision, common in a large number of Acts of Parliament, disqualifying Members of this House from holding certain offices instead of disqualifying the holders of those offices from membership of this House.
  We agree with the Committee's recommendation for a number of reasons. One of them is that if the disqualification attached to offices by definition instead of by name it would operate to nullify appointments made by virtue of the Royal Prerogative, for example, by a Royal charter constituting a new body corporate and making the first appointments of its officers.
  That objection would not, of course, apply if the disqualification, the reverse
  1284
  disqualification, were effected, as it is in this Bill, by listing the offices concerned, but even so that system would be of only limited application. It could scarcely, for example, apply to a serving soldier since it would enable him to obtain his discharge by obtaining election to this House.
  Perhaps a still more cogent argument against that suggestion is this, that it would make it impossible for this House to exercise its present jurisdiction to decide questions of disqualification. It is one thing for this House to say that one of its Members should be indemnified for acting as such. It is quite another thing for it to indemnify a man for his acts in the performance of functions outside the House; and if we adopt the system of reverse disqualification we could scarcely give the House a power of the kind conferred by Clause 6 (2) to waive the consequences of an inadvertent disqualification.
  I must, however, make it clear that the Government, while accepting the Committee's rejection of reverse disqualification and the embodiment of its recommendation in Clause 1 (4), do not regard the British general, or that Clause in particular, as derogating from a Minister's right to exclude active supporters of political parties from appointments within his jurisdiction.
  The Bill settles the question whether the holder of a particular office may properly sit as a Member of this House; it does not settle the question whether a Member of this House may properly hold an office, and any decision on an individual's suitability to hold a particular Crown post must clearly remain the responsibility of the Minister concerned, who must be free if he thinks fit to exclude anyone publicly known to be an active supporter of a political party. This object will be achieved in the ordinary case by making the original appointment to the office concerned conditional upon the holder offering his resignation on being nominated as a Parliamentary candidate.
  Clauses 2 and 3 have been simplified as a result of the adoption of the list system. The House may wish to consider whether Clause 10 should be retained in its present form. It was included in the Bill introduced last Session because it was appropriate to the paid office provisions

  1285
  which have now been discarded. It was inserted by the Select Committee in the present Bill with a view to preventing the payment to Crown office holders of unreasonably generous expense allowances, but I submit to the House that it should perhaps consider whether it is really appropriate to include that Clause in the Bill in its present form as the Clause has no effect now, if the Bill is passed as it stands, on the question of disqualification.
  The House will note that the Select Committee took the opportunity of making amendments to the Bill in what are now Clauses 7 and 15, on the lines suggested a year ago by my right hon. and gallant Friend, in order to remove any risk of conflict between the House and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council under Clause 7 and to bring the whole Bill into operation on the date of the Royal Assent.
  Like the original Bill, this Bill is mainly concerned with disqualifications arising from the holding of public appointments. It does not extend to other disqualifications, such as those of aliens, bankrupts and minors. It is limited to those sources of disqualification which have proved most difficult and troublesome in practice to me as Attorney-General and to many of my predecessors and others, and particularly troublesome during the last ten years or so. I do not think it necessary to say any more in warmly commending the Bill to the House. I hope that its passage to the Statute Book will not be long delayed and when that is achieved we shall have done a great deal to clear up a very intricate and involved piece of law which has long required clarification.
  4.22 p.m.
  Mr. G. R. Mitchison: The reason for the Bill is the long-standing anxiety of the House to avoid two things. One is undue patronage and the other is incompatibility between membership of the House and the holding of other offices or the doing of other things, an incompatibility which may be an incompatibility of duty or the physical incompatibility of being unable to perform both functions properly. But the occasion of the Bill is, I think, a considerable number of cases in recent years where persons have been elected to membership of the House and have then been found to hold
  1286
  trivial offices which certainly involved no public mischief as a result of their election, but which were in fact such as to disqualify them.
  The question whether offices of that kind disqualified them has often proved to be a difficult one. If it was answered in the affirmative the result has had to be proceedings of a Select Committee and of the House with which, unfortunately, by now we are only too well acquainted. The substance of the matter in every recent case has been that there was really no conceivable public mischief in the instance involved. To take one case from the other side of the House, I well remember an hon. Member who had become an auditor under the Treasury for a perfectly good charitable purpose, and received a nominal fee, far less than the charitable work he was doing, and had to be indemnified on that account.
  It is because of the existence of that kind of case and the quite frequent occurrence of it that I am sure we shall all welcome the provision in the Bill, following the views of the Select Committee on this matter, to have a list instead of the type of general definition which formerly existed concurrently with the list and gave rise to most of the trouble in these cases.
  It is hound to be a long list, of course, but, at any rate, it is something that a candidate can read and can see quite easily whether or not he comes within it. I cannot regard it as unreasonable that he should be compelled to do that since for a long time those who stand for local government offices have been compelled to declare, even without the existence of a list, that they were qualified to stand and accept the office. We are doing no more, though within a larger field, than has been the practice with local government elections for some time. I am sure that every right hon. and hon. Member would feel that it was a much better alternative to have to read a list carefully and satisfy themselves on that, than to have to incur the risks so often incurred in the past, sometimes with the unfortunate consequences that I have mentioned.
  The second major change, to which the Attorney-General referred, was the question of reverse disqualification, as the Select Committee called it. I was a member of that Select Committee and I

  1287
  have been refreshing my memory by looking through its Report and its proceedings. It is quite true that on this particular question there was a difference of opinion in the Committee, and it so happened that the members of the Committee who sit on this side of the House differed from members of the Committee who sit on the other side of the House. Nevertheless, though, no doubt, principles can be found in it, I feel that in the last analysis this is really a question of convenience of practice.
  There are, no doubt, considerations of principle both ways, and there are conveniences and inconveniences of practice both ways but, as the Select Committee's Report states, this was very fully discussed by the Committee. I am not sure that it was not more fully discussed than any other question, with the possible exception of one to which I shall refer in a moment.
  Certainly, a conclusion was reached, and we on this side of the House would certainly not regard the difference of opinion which arose on that occasion as a reason for dividing against the Bill. Perhaps I am speaking to some extent for myself in this, but I do not regard the distinction between the two methods as substantially more than a question of convenient practice. I agree, however, that arguments of principle can be adduced on both sides, and no doubt some of my hon. and right hon. Friends may well wish to adduce them on this occasion.
  I assure the House that I shall not take long on this subject, because the general matter has been discussed before, but the third point to which I should like to refer is the question of contracts and the quite minor question of pensions. What happened about pensions was that on the evidence it became quite clear that we were dealing in this respect with a very limited class of quite small pensions and there was no possibility of mischief and remarkably little possibility of the question ever arising in practice. It was a quite minor matter.
  Contracts, of course, raise serious questions, and I am well aware that there are differences of opinion on this matter. I state my own opinion in these terms: I, personally, regard the existing provisions as to disqualification on grounds of contract as, to take the words of the right
  1288
  hon. and learned Gentleman himself, anomalous, indefensible and, I think he said, absurd.
  The Attorney-General: Archaic.
  Mr. Mitchison: I would accept all that. They arose, as the epithet "archaic" implies, from particular scandals in the eighteenth century, and the Bill which started them was called the Contractors Bill.
  We have discussed all that before on the previous Bill, so I will not repeat it, but matters have now reached the absurd position that, under the law, an atomic energy station can be built by contract for the Government and—if one may take an absurdly extreme case for the sake of illustration—a single hon. Member of this House might contract to do that and not be disqualified. Yet, if he provided £110 worth of bricks to build it, or furniture to put into it, he would be disqualified. That cannot be right and the distinction arises out of the difference between the sale of goods—I think the phrase is "the sale of wares" in the old legislation—and services rendered in some form or another.
  Now, services rendered are at present not covered, and considerable anxiety has been felt by some of my hon. Friends about the possibilities that this opens. They have directed their particular attention to the legal profession, of which I remain proud to be a member. At the same time, lawyers are not entitled to any particular advantages nor, on the other hand, should they be subject to any particular disabilities. The professional difficulty is, of course, notionally the same as the rather absurd and extreme instance I have just taken, that a man being a Member of this House might act as a lawyer occasion by occasion but not as standing counsel for the Government. Or a man might act as a consulting architect, or in some other professional capacity, and not thereby be disqualified.
  I was much impressed on the merits of the matter by two things that emerged during the evidence given before the Select Committee. One the right hon. and learned Gentleman has already referred to, the complete absence of any occasion during the last century on which this question arose or could possibly have arisen or was supposed to arise. The second was in particular relation to the question of Crown briefs. I hope that

  1289
  the right hon. and learned Gentleman will not mind my mentioning his own evidence, in page 89 of the Report of the Select Committee, which gave the exact figures of the number of Crown briefs allotted to Members of this House over a considerable period. The proportion was very small, and further figures showed that, as between the hon. and learned Members who sit on one side of the House and the other, there was clearly no discrimination.
  We would all accept not only the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but also his predecessors in office, as scrupulously honest in a matter of this kind. I do not expect that it even occurs to them on which side of the House a Member is sitting but, be that as it may, it is always better for the benefit of the outside world that figures should be given and should support that contention in what seems to me to be an almost irrefutable form. That, however, is my own personal opinion, and some of my hon. Friends or hon. Gentlemen opposite may wish to indulge in the national sport of having a crack at the lawyers. There is something to he said for it. It has its advantages as well as disadvantages and it is always great fun, I hope, on both sides.
  Mr. George Wigg: It is, of course, always much more financially rewarding for the lawyers than for those who chase them.
  Mr. Mitchison: Not in this House, I think, and it was this House that I had in mind for the moment. Perhaps we shall be sitting in Committee later.
  I turn for a minute to what I mentioned just now, to what seems to me to be the very serious side of contract; that is, that we are removing existing prohibitions. They may be anomalous and indefensible, but we are putting nothing in their place. That disturbs me, because if it were possible to substitute something practicable, I should dearly like to do it; not because of the existence or of the likely existence of any scandal in the matter. I do not believe that there has been any scandal within reasonable memory—a hundred years or so—or that there is likely to be any, but because I am very anxious—and I am sure every right hon. and hon. Member of the House is equally anxious—that we should not appear to people who do not know an
  1290
  enormous amount about these somewhat technical questions—and I mean people both at home and abroad—to be opening the door to any possibility of undue patronage or to any possibility of the votes of Members of this House being influenced in that way.
  I think that I can speak for all the members of the Select Committee in saying that, because of this anxiety, they searched their individual minds and consciences for a long time as to whether anything practicable could be done, not principally by way of an actual safeguard, but so as to make it quite clear what is the attitude of the House in a matter of this kind and, I repeat, to make it clear both at home and abroad. We failed to find any practicable alternative. I myself put forward an alternative of disclosure. It met with singularly little support from the rest of the Committee and I appreciate fully the strength of the objections which were raised to it. They were based mainly on the ground that it really did not do very much at the end of it all.
  Be that as it may, that is a point which we shall be able to consider in Committee. If any right hon. or hon. Member of the House could suggest anything really practicable on these lines, and anything that would be fair as between one case and another in accordance with the general principles that we all have in mind, I am certain that I carry the Attorney-General with me in saying that we should all look at it with the closest attention, and sympathetically. So far, in my view, a suggestion of that kind has not emerged, though many other suggestions have been made.
  I welcome most sincerely the corollary to what has been done about contracts; that is to say, the Government's acceptance of the recommendations of the Select Committee in connection with disclosure in this House. I will not go into that question now—it is hardly before us at the moment—and I think it sufficient to say that the Committee were, according to paragraph 7, in page lxvi of the Report, not altogether satisfied that the rules and practice as to disclosure were up to date, comprehensive and clear. I cordially agree with that opinion. While, again, I do not believe that there is or has been for a century any scandal in this matter, I think it most advisable that the rules should be made up to date,

  1291
  comprehensive and clear, and that, where there is any doubt on the matter, we should lean on the side of disclosure rather than on the side of non-disclosure.
  What struck me as significant was that, as I understood the rules and practice, the practice had gone far beyond the rules, because hon. Members themselves felt an obligation to disclose in cases where, if they had looked at the matter closely, they might well have come to the conclusion that they were under no strict obligation to do so at all. I feel certain that, there again, I should carry with me the right hon. and learned Gentleman in saying that the bias ought to be that way, and that it is, if I might pat ourselves on the back for a minute, a testimony to the feeling of the House that hon. Members have so carried it out.
  Therefore, the substance of what I have to say today is that there are vary real points upon which individual opinions in the House will no doubt differ, particularly in connection with contracts—I include Crown briefs for this purpose—and perhaps also in connection with the question of reversed disqualification. However, my hon. Friends and I do not regard that second question as a sufficient reason for disputing the giving of a Second Reading to the Bill. As regards contracts and the other minor matters to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred, I understand that the Committee stage of the Bill will take place on the Floor of the House. Accordingly, those matters can be dealt with by right hon. and hon. Members by Amendments and otherwise during the course of those proceedings.
  I hope that in those circumstances we may be able to dispose of this very important Bill with reasonable dispatch today. I trust that I myself shave not taken up too much of the time of the House.
  4.44 p.m.
  Mr. Clement Davies: I regret that more interest is not taken by hon. Members in this very important Bill. If one looks round the Chamber, one finds that the interest is very largely confined to those of us who sat upon the Select Committee. It is true that the Bill, as drafted, re-enacts to a very large extent the law as it is at present and as it has been for many generations, but it concerns a matter of great principle, namely,
  1292
  the membership of this House and its composition, and I should have expected much more interest to be taken in it than apparently is taken in it judging by the attendance.
  I want, shortly, to raise a point referred to by the Attorney-General and by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), namely, which is the right approach to this question. I raise it shortly for two reasons. First, I realise that we want to finish the debate fairly quickly because of the very important one which is to succeed it secondly, it is no good shutting my eyes to the fact that at present it looks to me as if I am alone in strenuously maintaining the position which I held before the Select Committee, which is that the reverse proposal is the preferable one.
  There is one objection that I have to what was said by the hon. and learned Member. He seemed to think that this was a question which could be reduced to a convenience of practice. I do not think so at all. It goes much deeper than that. It is necessary to look at the origin of all this.
  It began when the parties were not divided as we are today and as we have been for practically a couple of centuries. It arose in the days when there were the Monarch's Party, or the King's Party, and those who did not belong to the King's Party. Those who did not belong became frightened that in the course of time they would be in a complete minority and the House would be merely a register of the desires and wishes of the monarch of the time. That being so, they initiated, and succeeded in getting on the Statute Book, the Act of Queen Anne, by which persons holding certain offices were disqualified from being Members of the House. They realised that they had gone too far so far as old offices were concerned and that they were excluding even Ministers and would have spoilt the whole composition of the House and altered our whole Constitution, and they amended it. However, in the main, it has continued down to this day.
  What does that really mean? It is that the House is subordinated to the office. The office is more important than membership of this House. I, on the other hand, take the exact contrary view. To my mind, this House is not only the most

  1293
  important institution in this country, but the most important institution in the democratic world. If his House fails, then democracy fails, and the question whether this House succeeds or fails will depend largely upon the quality of its membership. Therefore, it ought to be drawing its membership from the very widest possible area. The House always gains by the experience that individual Members have had in such offices as they have held, or such work as they have been engaged in before they entered the House, or during the time they have been in the House.
  That being so. I should have thought that the right approach to this was that membership of the House was the important matter, and if perchance it was felt that the holding of a particular office was incompatible with membership of the House, then it ought not to be the membership that goes, as it will be going and as it has been going. It is the office which should go. The office should be subordinate and not the membership. A Member holding an office or being offered an office which is incompatible with his membership of the House would at once realise that he could not hold that office, but could remain here and be a Member of the House.
  Moreover, I should have thought that the Member himself would recognise that. A Member knows the tremendous amount of work which is put in by those who hold the same opinions as he does, and he knows the loyalty which they show towards him. When a man is offered two positions, membership of this House or an office which will be of assistance to himself, he should choose the office and reject the greatest honour that can be paid to a man, namely, that of being elected by his fellow citizens as a Member of the House of Commons.
  It was for that reason, therefore, that I put forward an alternative, with the strong support of right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House—and I thought at one time that I also had with me some of the Members who sit on the other side of the House. We felt so strongly about it that everyone agreed that we should assist by getting a Bill framed in the alternative. That was produced to us, and it is well worth the study of hon. Members so that they can see that it is possible to draft that Bill and, in fact, to work it just as simply as the Bill now being presented
  1294
  to us. It will be found in the first appendix printed immediately after the Select Committee's Report. There it is—a full Bill with all the Schedules and everything else.
  May I, therefore, as I have said that I will be very brief, refer to the two matters of objection which were put forward by the Attorney-General, namely, the Royal Prerogative and that those who were appointed to offices by Royal Prerogative would find themselves in a difficulty. The Attorney-General himself provided the answer immediately. There is no difficulty whasoever in putting those offices which are subject to the Royal Prerogative in the Schedule in just the same way as we have already a schedule which includes, for instance, Her Majesty's judges. The other objection, that it would be depriving the House of its power over its composition and depriving it of its control over individual Members, really surprised me.
  I should have thought that by this time even the House itself would realise the value of putting the composition clearly in the written constitution of an Act of Parliament and of allowing any question that arose of interpretation of that Act to be settled by Her Majesty's courts of justice.
  I would remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman of the troubles which the House got into when it thought that it ought to be controlling the question of who is elected to this House and trying election petitions; but at least we had the wisdom to say that that was sheer nonsense and passed an Act of Parliament that allowed that question to be decided by the courts of justice. In the same way, it would be perfectly easy for any question arising whether a man can take an office, or whether he is to be deprived of the office, to be settled by the courts of justice. That is the point. I think that it is a sound one. I deeply regret that my colleagues did not take the same view.
  While I am on that matter, may I take this opportunity, on behalf of all of us, of adding to the tribute that has been paid by the Attorney-General to the Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kensington, South (Sir W. Spens), who was indefatigable and spared no pains in bringing this matter to a conclusion.

  1295
  There is the principle, and it was for the reason that it could be put in that way that I, as can be seen in the Report which is set out in the appendix and in page lxvii, moved the Amendment. I moved it in the most general terms so as not to take up the time of my colleagues by going into all the details once again. I think that it was better; although I realise that if I had carried it, we would then have had to go into a considerable amount of detail and get a great number of matters changed. I thought it best, so as to bring it to the attention of the House and focus attention on this, to put it in that shortened form.
  It is for that reason that I deeply regret that more support has not been given to what I consider is the true principle, namely, that this House, especially at a time like this, when democracy is on its trial, should not be attracting the best Members it possibly can from every part of the country. That office should be taking the premier position over membership of this House is, to me, the wrong principle of approach.
  4.55 p.m.
  Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth: Although last Session a Bill with a similar Title to the present one received an unopposed Second Reading, I think that there is quite a considerable body of opinion which is inclined to think that it may well be possible to get rid of disqualification altogether; indeed, I myself thought that that was the view of the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies). I thought that that was included in his draft Special Report to which he has just referred. Be that as it may, although I think that all of us have a great deal of sympathy with that view, we cannot bring ourselves to accept that logical conclusion.
  We can say, of course, that if membership of Parliament adversely affects a person's performance of his duties in some other post, then the right remedy is to dismiss him or to release him from that post, or simply to refrain from appointing him to it. Conversely, if a Member of Parliament fails in his duties as such because of his other work, or if he is deflected from the disinterested performance of his duties by consideration of what is generally known as patronage, then the remedy should lie
  1296
  with his constituents. They can refrain from re-electing him.
  No doubt these considerations are generally true but they are not universally true, and in constitutional matters it is the exceptions which are usually the most important. For example, if an official who had fallen foul of his superiors sought to enter Parliament, it might be extremely difficult to dismiss him, it might be over some controversial question, and allegations of penalisation might quite easily be made. I do not say that he would not be dismissed but it would give rise to difficulties of a sort which we should all deprecate. Again, all constituents are not always proof against electing weak and undesirable candidates. Unfortunately, nowadays, the personal character of a candidate counts for much too little in elections. I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House would agree with that proposition. Therefore, it is necessary for us to preserve some part of the law of disqualification. The principle has to be retained. That is what this Bill does.
  As has been said, the Bill differs from its previous form in substituting a precise list of disqualifying offices for a general definition of such offices which was contained in the Third Schedule of the original Bill. However, it is still true that the list is founded upon certain general principles. Indeed, a great deal of the time of the Select Committee was necessarily involved in discussing what should or should not be included in the list in the light of what we thought those principles should be. Reference to the principles is made in page lxiv of the Committee's Report:
  "… Your Committee have recognised that certain offices are incompatible with membership of the House of Commons, sometimes for physical reasons, in cases where a person literally cannot be in two places at once, and sometimes because of a conflict of duties."
  That definition is somewhat vague and somewhat incomplete.
  We certainly had other considerations when we came to formulate what is now the First Schedule to the Bill. It does not very much matter what is said in the Report itself because we have produced the Schedule and it is the Schedule which we have to approve or disapprove. However, the principle on which that Schedule was drawn up will be of the greatest importance to Clause 5.

  1297
  As the House knows, it is Clause 5 which provides for the amendment of the Schedule and that amendment can be made by a simple Resolution of the House of Commons. I was glad to hear the Attorney-General say that he intended to propose certain Amendments. Even so, it will still remain possible, without legislation and merely by the use of Resolutions, to amend the law so that any office under the Crown can be made to disqualify the holder from membership of the House.
  Of course, the expression "Office under the Crown" is nowhere defined and, as we know from past experience, is capable of very wide definition. Therefore the power to amend a part of the Constitution by Resolution will be very wide indeed. It is a power not only to disqualify, but to qualify, because under Clause 5 it will be equally possible to take certain offices out of the Schedule; in other words, to qualify for membership of the House those who would now be disqualified if the Bill became law immediately.
  I am in no sense criticising the machinery of Clause 5. That sort of machinery is absolutely essential if we are to proceed by way of a precise list and not as originally proposed in the Bill introduced last Session. I am sure that that is right. I am saying that it is of the utmost importance that we should be quite clear what will be the principles in accordance with which that machinery will be applied.
  That machinery will not be for occasional use, but something which is constantly used. Nowadays we constantly see a multiplication of State activity and, whichever party is in power, we shall see a continuation of that sort of activity, a continuation of the creation of offices which it may be desirable to make offices which disqualify the holder from membership of Parliament. No doubt after Clause 5 has been used a number of times, a certain case law will be built up, but it is of great importance that when we begin to operate the Clause and begin to build up the case law, we should be clear that it is laid on firm foundations.
  It was for that reason I moved an Amendment to the Report which is set out in page lxviii. The Amendment would have read:
  1298
  "borne in mind four general considerations, namely:—

  (1) that the duties falling to be performed by the holders of certain offices or appointments are incompatible with participation in active politics because the holders ought to be free from any suspicion of bias or prejudice;".

  That, of course, refers primarily to judicial offices:
  "(2) that the duties falling to be performed by the holders of certain offices or appointments demand such a degree of responsibility for decisions on matters of public policy that., if such holders sat in the House of Commons, they would be in an embarrassing position vis-à-vis the responsible ministers,—"
  that refers primarily to civil servants and to holders of offices in national boards, etc.—
  "(3) that the holders of certain offices or appointments may be required to perform duties which are incompatible, as regards either time or place or both, with membership of the House of Commons."
  The obvious example is a Regular soldier, someone serving in the forces:
  "(4) that the power of financial patronage on the part of the Executive, even though not abused, is capable of placing members tinder undue or unfair influence.
  One or more of these considerations is generally present in the case of any public office or appointment, but Your Committee has nevertheless not thought it necessary that the holder should be disqualified in every case: the criterion which they have applied is whether or not there is a substantial degree of incompatability in each case having regard to all the above considerations."
  I have read the Amendment to the House because it is of the highest importance that the House should have in mind that there are definite principles which must he applied, and that it is not open and should not be open to pick and choose these offices as we please. If we do, in time no doubt the tendency will be to warp the Constitution in just the kind of way which the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery fears.
  The Committee itself preferred more general words. I think that it is true to say that it did not reject my Amendment because of what it contained. I hope that when the Government come to take the initiative in formulating their policy about Clause 5, they will either accept some such principles as I have stated, or, if not, will themselves formulate principles and firmly adhere to them.
  5.8 p.m.
  Mr. Ede: I hope that the speeches will not be confined to members of the Select Committee. I therefore apologise for following two other members of the Committee.
  First I would join with the Attorney-General and the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) in saying how much the Committee owed to the self-sacrificing work of its Chairman, who must have given up an enormous amount of time in getting some of these issues put before us so simply that we could deal with them with reasonable dispatch, long as was the time that we took. I very much doubt if we could have completed the job during the last Session unless we had had the great advantage of his assistance in that way.
  I differed on a great many points from the decisions of the Committee, and mainly on the question of contracts. May I follow the bad example of the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) by reading an Amendment that I moved, and which will be found on page 1xx of the Report of the Select Committee? I voted against the deletion of the original Clause dealing with contracts, and was the only member of the Committee who did so. I thought that if we left it in, the Government might be compelled to face the issue, whereas by leaving it out and apparently saying that it did not matter, we relieved the Government of the responsibility.
  I moved an Amendment to paragraph 6 of the Chairman's Report, and was supported in doing so by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles), in the following terms:
  "Nevertheless, the high reputation at home and abroad of the House of Commons for disinterestedness and incorruptibility ought not be put in jeopardy by the seeming indifference to dangers that complete silence in the future law with regard to contracts between the Government and government departments and members might he taken to imply. In the event of the repeal of the existing archaic and anomalous law being enacted, Your Committee recommend that the immediate attention of the House should be given to the framing of legislation to deal (in the light of modern commercial, trade and professional conditions and practices) with the situation thus created."
  I understand that the Government propose to go some part of the way to meeting the points raised there by alterations of the rules and customs of the House
  1300
  with regard to disclosure. I am not quite sure how to deal with the customs of the House.
  During a short stay in America I was struck by the number of occasions on which people interested in public affairs referred, without any inquiry on my part, to what they regarded as the superior standards of this country in the matter of incorruptibility in public affairs, compared with what prevails over there. For instance, there has recently been elected to the State Legislature of Massachusetts a gentleman who, during his previous term of office in that State Legislature, was convicted of making out false Income Tax returns. I am sure that the standards obtaining here would have meant that not only would this House have regarded him as unsuitable but that any constituency would have regarded him as unsuitable to stand for election again.
  This standard that we have maintained can quite easily be lowered, in the altered circumstances that arise through the creation of joint stock companies and similar arrangements. One of the weak features of the previous Bill was the way in which it would have been easy by evasion, and by the formation of companies in which a person would not have a controlling interest but would be very near to having it, through quite obvious devices, to drive not merely a coach-and-four but a modern express train through the Bill in regard to this matter.
  I hope that the Government will have some regard for this matter. I welcome the fact that they have gone a little further than the Committee, and that they propose to bring something before the House which will have regard to the altered circumstances of the House when the old law of contracts, ridiculous and anomalous as it was, will no longer be part of our statute law.
  I hope that when a case of suspicious conduct by an hon. Member is brought before the House it will be possible for something other than discussion to take place, something more definite than anything which appears likely at the moment. Merely to discuss a particular contract and a particular Member seems, in the light of the circumstances of the day, to open up an endless possibility of Select Committee inquiries into the conduct of Members, the kind of Committee that

  1301
  sat, let us say, to consider the Marconi allegations a good many years ago. In the end it certainly did not reflect any great credit on the House, because it was suggested that one lawyer on the Committee was briefed by some of the people whose conduct was under investigation. I hope that there will be something that will enable such a matter to be decided not by a Select Committee of this House but by the courts, for the reason that was given by the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery with regard to the old practice of election petition.
  I am strongly in favour of what is known as the reverse disqualification. I do not intend to labour this at any length because my views were admirably and succinctly stated by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I know there was some feeling among the lawyers, although it was not shared by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that we might have the case of a High Court judge being returned to this House as a Member without anybody having noticed it—neither his electors, the Government or the judiciary. He might go on sentencing people to death and dealing with highly complicated contracts in civil law for a couple of years before it was discovered that he was a judge of the High Court who had been accidentally elected to Parliament. That seems to be stretching matters a very long way.
  There might be cases of minor posts held by people dealing with, say, unemployment benefit, but I am certain that the resources of civilisation are sufficient to enable such an unusual state of affairs to be dealt with. The list should be available and will be available in Government Departments. If they found that a candidate for Parliament on their list of members of any semi-official committee had failed to read the list, one could expect that either before the Election they would see the list of candidates, or certainly upon the Election the person concerned would be informed, if the reverse disqualification existed, that he had ceased to hold office because it was the subject of reverse disqualification.
  I sincerely hope that during the Committee stage we may be able to get this matter dealt with. After all, the Chairman's Report was carried only by three votes to two against the Report of my
  1302
  right hon. and learned Friend, and he and I were the two who so voted. I do not want to make any comparisons with other people, but it seems to me that in a case, where two Privy Councillors, not necessarily always in agreement, came down on one side, their opinion might be given a little weight when it comes to a discussion in the House.
  As one who has had to deal, in one way or another and on one side of the House or the other, with a good many of these cases in recent years, may I say that I hope that this will mean the end of the petty annoyances which good citizens elected to this House have had to endure in recent years because of their discharge of some public duty which did not appear to be in any way detrimental to their office as a Member of this House. I trust that before Elections. Members of Parliament, candidates and party agents will examine the list, and the positions occupied by people who are candidates.
  I proposed the Clause which had been put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) relating to lawyers. I listened to what was said about that proposal by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr., Mitchison). I remain quite unabashed by what he said. It is a good thing for a dog to have fleas, because it enables the, animal occasionally to forget that he is a dog. I hope that when on occasions lawyers in this House are subjected to criticism from those of us who are not lawyers, they will realise that criticising lawyers is not so much a national sport as a national duty, and that it will give them an opportunity to remember that they are very much of the same flesh as the rest of us. I still think that my hon. Friend's Clause was sound, and should the opportunity occur, I hope to join my name with his and put it down again for consideration during the Committee stage discussions.
  5.23 p.m.
  Mr. John Parker: I wish to associate myself with the congratulations extended to the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) on the way in which he presided over the Select Committee. Apart from the one particular issue which has been discussed, the question of the

  1303
  reverse disqualification, the voting was always across the floor. On no other occasion was voting on party lines; for that Committee was dealing with House of Commons problems. Party considerations did not enter into the discussions at all. Their successful outcome owed a great deal to the chairmanship of the right hon. and learned Gentleman.
  As a Member of the Select Committee, I certainly say that this Bill is a much better Measure than the one which was before the House last Session. It has been enormously improved as the result of the Committee discussions. We tried to make the position of the law as clear as possible to anybody desiring to stand for Parliament, and in doing that we also trial to remove as many disqualifications as we could. We used a toothcomb in going through all the possible jobs which might lead to disqualification and we cut out as many as we could. I am certain that was the right way to approach the matter. We endeavoured to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to enter the House of Commons, and to remove any troublesome disqualifications which might prevent them from doing that.
  I do not consider, however, that we have done all that is required to be done. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) said that he would like to see as many people as possible in the House of Commons from the whole range of the nation, and that they should be disqualified only if there existed a special reason for that being done. We have tackled that problem in part but there are two points which at some time will have to be faced and which have not been dealt with in this Bill.
  I wish to refer first to that hoary question of payment of Members. If we are to have the use of all the talent available in the nation the problem of a satisfactory payment to Members must be resolved. Secondly, it should be made as easy as possible for individuals working for private firms to be able to become candidates for Parliament without there being an undue number of obstacles placed in their way. I suggest that sooner or later some kind of code must be drawn up and operated; that all firms employ-
  1304
  ing, shall we say., more than 500 people should enable their employees to stand for Parliament and be able to get their jobs back if they are defeated at a subsequent Election.
  I do not think that in the case of small firms we could insist on such an obligation, but I consider that the general practice now observed by local authorities like the London County Council and organisations like British Railways should become general. They, allow people to stand for Parliament and as their normal turnover of staff is large they can make arrangements to take them back again into employment if they are defeated in an Election. I think that some such code should be drawn up for this purpose similar to that which obtains in regard to National Service at present. It should be accepted by industry as a whole and thus enable ordinary men and women wishing to take part in public life to be in a position to do so without detriment to their normal career.
  There are two small points which are not dealt with in this Measure but which will have to be dealt with at some time. I am sorry that the Committee did not deal with them. One is that the opportunity should be given to persons succeeding to a peerage to be able to continue to sit as Members of this House, if they so wish. That problem does not arise very often, although there have been one or two occasions recently when it has done. It may arise again in the future, and I think that there should have been a Clause included in the Bill to enable Peers to renounce their right to sit in the House of Lords and to retain their seats in this House, if they so desire.
  In the Committee I raised the point about the need to clear away the anomalies regarding clergymen becoming Members of Parliament, and I wish to refer to it again today. I note that the Manchester Guardian, in reviewing our Report, took the point of view that it was a pity that we had not cleared up this matter. I am not enthusiastic about the election of a large number of clergy as Members of this House, but if those of some denominations can become Members I think that the opportunity should be given to all. There exist anomalies in this matter in our present law, particularly with regard to the Church of England. It is in order for

  1305
  an Anglican clergyman in Wales to be elected to this House but he cannot be elected if he holds a benefice in this country, or in Northern Ireland, or, apparently, in Scotland.
  Under the Welsh Disestablishment Act it is in order for an Anglican clergyman to take a curacy in Wales for a few months and then to be elected as a Member of this House, so that an Anglican clergyman can get round the law, if he wishes to do so. Owing to an oversight on the part of Gladstone, when the Irish Church was disestablished Parliament did not remove the disqualification against Anglican clergymen of the Church of Ireland being elected Members of this House. The position would be very awkward if an Anglican clergyman holding a benefice in Southern Ireland were suddenly to be elected to this House.
  An ordinary citizen of the Republic of Ireland can vote in this country and can sit in this House if he happens to he elected, but what is the position of an Anglican clergyman from Southern Ireland? We had a recent decision in the MacManaway case. From that we know that a clergyman holding a benefice in Northern Ireland cannot sit here, but we might well have difficulty in the case of a clergyman from Southern Ireland. The disqualification of clergy of the Roman Church is a hang-over from the anti-Catholic legislation of the past. I suggest that it is a great pity that we did not take the opportunity to sweep away all these anomalies at this time when we are removing others, especially as, when we had a special inquiry in the MacManaway case, it was laid down in the Report on that case that it was desirable not to deal with it as a special case but that it should wait over until the law as a whole was revised. Therefore, when we looked at the law as a whole, we ought to have dealt with these anomalies. I hope that the Government will treat these matters sympathetically if they are raised in Committee.
  In conclusion, I wish to say that I consider that the Bill is a very big improvement, and I hope that it will speedily be put on the Statute Book.
  5.31 p.m.
  Mr. George Wigg: I apologise for addressing the House, especially as I am not a Privy Councillor, not a
  1306
  member of the Select Committee and not a lawyer. I feel that it is almost out of order for me to venture to speak, but I have some responsibility for the Bill.
  I did not intend to speak until I heard the Attorney-General mention the word "principle". When I heard him mention that word it brought back to my mind the circumstances in which the Bill came into being. On 22nd July, 1955, a Friday be it noted, the House of Commons Disqualification Bill was put down as the second Order, and it was the intention of the Government—and may I say their hope—that the Bill should slip through "on the nod".
  Despite protests through what are called the usual channels, the Government, so high was their regard for principle in the composition of the House of Commons, persisted in the attempt to get the Bill through by those dubious underground methods. But, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, there are ways, and the ways were exercised, and the Government did not get their Bill "on the nod". On 9th November, 1955, they were forced to do what they ought to have done in the first instance. They were forced to have a full-dress debate on the principles upon which the Bill is based.
  We had that debate, and subsequently the Government discovered that there was even more in the matter than they thought. Indeed, sonic hon. Members opposite discovered that it was a Bill of high constitutional importance. They did not think so on 22nd July, but by 9th November they had become converted to the fact that this was a matter of high constitutional importance. I will not quote what they said, but their names and statements are to be found in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  We had a full-dress debate, and the Bill was going forward to the Committee stage, when the Government found that that stage was likely to be rather prolonged. It became inconvenient, judged from the point of view of Parliamentary time, so they remitted the Bill to the Select Committee. Now it has come back and, without a word about the past history, the Attorney-General gets up, pats himself on the back and says that this is a better Bill than the one that first saw the light of day on 22nd July. Of course it is, but that is not due to hon. and right hon. Members opposite; it is due to me.

  1307
  If I had my way the next edition of the Bill would be even better than this one, because I do not think very much of this.
  I looked at the composition of the Select Committee. Of course, it would be grossly out of order for me to comment on the composition of the Select Committee, but if it is a national sport to chase lawyers I would say that a lot of lawyers were run to ground on that Committee. They were there in full force. I do not mind if every lawyer in the House earning £10,000, £15,000 or £30,000 a year has all the preferment he wants. The Attorney-General, the Home Office and all the Government Departments can give every lawyer every brief he wants. All I say is that if they have all this preferment the public should know. Contracts can be given to any of these hon. Gentlemen so long as it is known. Then the public can choose.
  What I object to is the giving to hon. Members of this House of recorderships which enable them to deprive other citizens of their liberty, when hon. Members know in their heart of hearts that the persons who have been given these jobs are quite unfitted for the posts. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I said it on the Second Reading of the previous Bill, and I repeat it now. It would be unfair for me to mention names, but there are hon. Gentlemen who hold recorderships which I assert they would never have got had they not been Members of the House of Commons, yet these recorderships enable them to deprive other men of their liberty. To apply my standard of judgment, I would not make them unpaid lance-corporals. That is what I think of them.
  It is quite wrong that membership of the House of Commons should give to one particular class—the lawyers—recorderships which they would never have got had they not been Members, because obviously it is testing human nature to the very breaking point. Do hon. Members think that in the course of the history of this House of Commons there have not been hon. Members whose voices have not been muted, whose opinions have not been influenced, by the thought that one day if they kept quiet they would get a Government brief?
  Let me give the example of one of my friends—I use the word "friend" in an unparliamentary but in a very sincere
  1308
  sense. I refer to Mr. Geoffrey Bing. How many briefs did he get when he was a Member of this House? Any? Yes, he got one in the MacManaway case. They could not help that; but was that because Mr. Geoffrey Bing was not a good lawyer? Of course it was not. He happened to be awkward, so he did not get any jobs. That is the kind of influence to which I object.
  I object even more to this fantastic, hyprocritical use of the word "principle." Let us look again at the question of the clergymen. What principle is involved there? It may be said that way back in antiquity there was some principle known to our forefathers which made them decide, in their wisdom, that it would be improper for clergymen of the Church of England to sit in this House. What are the facts? I beg the pardon of the House, because I propose to quote from a speech which I made myself. On a previous occasion I said that:
  "In 1801. the Government of the day under Prime Minister Addington was most anxious, in his own words, not to 'diminish the purity and impart the independence of the House of Commons'."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th November, 1955; Vol. 545, c. 1897.]
  So he came to the House of Commons and got a Resolution through to upset the election of the well-known Radical, the Rev. Horne Tooke, who had been elected for Old Sarum. He got him disqualified because he did not want him in the House of Commons, and only for that reason. I hold no brief for the Rev. Horne Tooke or the Rev. Tookes of the present day. I want to see in the House of Commons not "yes men", but men of strong opinion. If clergymen can persuade a sufficient number of the electorate to send them here, the House of Commons should have as many Church of England clergymen or any other kind of clergyman as are sent. But if we keep them out, let us not say that we are acting in the name of principle merely because we have not got the guts or because it is inconvenient to make the alteration.
  Look at the hypocrisy involved in this. At the other end of the corridor legislation is carried out and influenced by the bench of bishops, so obviously there is nothing against Anglican clergymen as such. But, as was said by my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), it does not make it right that because bishops should sit there Anglican clergymen should come here. But if Anglican

  1309
  clergy cannot come here bishops should not sit there. All I am saying is that it is rather straining logic or integrity to argue that it is some great principle which keeps Anglican clergy out of the House.
  I want to see a House of Commons which is vigorous, which reflects the life of the nation, and which is in no sense a collection of "yes men". I do not indulge in the national sport of chasing lawyers, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) puts it. I do not value lawyers enough to treat them as an object of sport. They have their place in their offices, or even on the bench, and they can indulge in honest toil, letting the six-and-eightpences roll in. But I object to a House of Commons organised to suit the convenience of the legal profession. I should be out of order to go into this matter in detail now, but before many weeks are out I hope to seek an opportunity of describing, perhaps not in the House of Commons but in Committee, the way in which the new pension schemes have worked out as a result of the concessions made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I shall show how they have worked out for members of the legal profession—the schemes themselves owe their origin to a deputation from the legal profession—and how they have worked out for the rest of the community.
  I charge nobody with doing these things consciously, but after a while they assume a certain pattern, and the Bill, if it does nothing more, illustrates an opportunity which has been lost to the House of Commons of taking steps which would bring some fresh air into the Chamber and tap new sources of membership, rather than depend upon the old ways.
  There was an attempt to slip the Bill through, but it did not come off. We now have the testimony of the Attorney-General that it is a better Bill for that. There is no pressing need for the Bill, because it does not operate in this Parliament. Both sides of the House could have waited, and we could have had a full day in which to debate it. To that extent the Government are doing what people often do when in difficulties, namely, rely upon the decency of hon. Members not to filibuster or drag out the proceedings, because many hon. Members want to speak on the debate on
  1310
  Hungary which follows. Perhaps I can pat myself on the back in that respect.
  I notice that the Government have once again used a Parliamentary device to limit discussion on the Bill. I accept that limitation; indeed, I was not at all sure that I was going to speak, but I was provoked into doing so when the Attorney-General made no reference to the background circumstances. In Committee, perhaps, I can join with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields —the only other radical left in the House besides myself—when, by the application of our radical principles and adherence to our radical faith, we may yet save some of the foundations of what we hope will become, in the not-too-distant future, a radical House of Commons.
  5.43 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Doughty: I rise as a lawyer—an unashemed one—as a member of the Select Committee, and also as a recorder. Certain things have been said about hon. Members on both sides of the House who hold offices in various parts of the country. I only wish to say that none of them—some may be here at the moment and some may not —will pay the slightest attention to what the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has said. They will treat his remarks—if I may say so without undue offence—with the contempt which they deserve.
  Mr. Wigg: You have got the money, so why should you worry?
  Mr. Doughty: The other thing I want to say about the hon. Member's activities on the Bill is that he put down certain Amendments after the Second Reading of the original Bill, and the Select Committee was directed to examine them. All I need say on that matter is that they did not prove attractive to the Committee and were all rejected. If he chooses to think that he brought the Bill to a conclusion he is certainly welcome to do so.
  The important work of the Committee, which took a large number of sittings, was to bring up to date the law on disqualification which, for centuries past, had always held that people should be disqualified from sitting in the House for reasons which varied from time to time, according to changed conditions. Substantially speaking, the conditions in which we are operating in this House,

  1311
  and will be operating until the next Parliament, are those which operated in the reign of Queen Anne.
  Mr. Mitchison: I would assure the hon. and learned Member that personally, as a member of the Select Committee, I valued the observations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). I regarded the Amendments which he put down on the Order Paper as serious questions. If, on balance, they were rejected by the Committee, I none the less regarded them as constituting a really useful contribution to our discussions.
  Mr. Doughty: I say at once, in reply to the hon. and learned Gentleman, that I agree with every word that he has said. I merely said that the hon. Member's suggestions did not prove attractive to the Committee, meaning, by that, the majority of the Committee. They were fully discussed and voted upon, and they were rejected. I have nothing to add upon what the right hon. Gentleman has just said, except to say that I entirely agree with it.
  For the last few years the position has been very unsatisfactory. As hon. Members are aware, a number of cases have brought the old rules almost into contempt. If hon. Members had looked at the Bill, they would have seen that the greater part of it consists of Schedules. The Select Committee spent a great deal of time upon those Schedules in an endeavour to clarify the position for the benefit of those who would seek election in any future Parliament. Every one of a number of positions and offices were gone into to see which should be disqualified and which should not.
  I think that all members of the Select Committee will agree that the Bill represents the best which could be done—and probably the best that ever can be done—to solve that very great difficulty. Future candidates will know that if they hold certain offices on the list they cannot stand for Parliament.
  I have only two more things to say, and I shall mention them briefly because I know that hon. Members wish to discuss the next business. The first point concerns the question of contracts. I agree with hon. Members on both sides who have already expressed doubts about
  1312
  removing the question of Crown and Government contracts altogether. This matter was fully discussed and it has been considered quite impossible, under modern conditions, with limited liability companies and considerations of that sort, to put in words in relation to Members who have contracts with the Crown—especially since the Crown nowadays operates in the commercial field so much more than it used to—which would really have any genuine effect.
  My last point concerns the question of disclosure. My right hon. and learned Friend told us that there were to be new proposals dealing with this matter. I shall read them with great interest. Although the practice of disclosure in the House is well known, it applies only in respect of Members who speak upon a Bill. Other Members may have an interest in the matter under discussion but if they do not speak upon it they do not have to disclose that interest. If that and other difficulties can be overcome I shall certainly view the proposals with interest.
  The Bill is a very great advance upon the present position. It will make the situation far clearer and enable all Members and would-be Members to know their position in the years to come, that is to say, in the years following the present Parliament.
  5.50 p.m.
  Sir Frank Soskice: My only excuse for intervening in this debate is that on a Bill of this importance it is perhaps appropriate that there should be a winding-up speech. As I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) I found myself able to be in cordial agreement with him about one thing, at any rate. That was that many hon. Members are anxious to take part in the debate which is to follow. The inference I draw from that is that I should make my remarks shorter than they would be otherwise.
  This Bill originates from the fundamental difficulty, which has always confronted this House, particularly the lawyer Members, arising from the fact that so important a constitutional principle as we are now considering rests upon words so imprecise in their meaning as
  "office of profit under the Crown".

  1313
  As a former holder of the office at present held by the Attorney-General, I have shared with him over and over again the difficulty of trying to attach any precise meaning to those words and of advising hon. Members whether, in the event of their undertaking office in a most valuable form of public service, they might incur the risk of bringing themselves within the scope of those words.
  The words sound simple, innocent and anodyne enough, but, looking more closely at them, if one considers to what they refer, it becomes apparent perhaps that the word "office" in that context may or may not include a variety of different appointments. For example, we have had to consider before now whether membership of a panel can constitute an office. Equally, difficulty has arisen in construing the words, "of profit". Still more difficulty has constantly arisen in trying to ascertain precisely when an "office", if it is an office, "of profit", if it is of profit, is or is not held "under the Crown". I think that all hon. Members will agree that if we consider closely the implications contained in those words "under the Crown" we may well understand the difficulty which has faced lawyers in particular—and not only lawyers, but members of the public quite apart from the legal profession—who have put to themselves the question whether, in any given circumstances, those words are brought into operation.
  Constantly, hon. Members and would-be hon. Members have been anxious and willing to undertake useful public service and, lest it might be held by a court that by doing so they had infringed the inhibition contained in those words, they have had to refuse to do so. As the House knows, the consequence of a wrong judgment has given rise to many indemnity Bills. It is from that initial but perplexing difficulty that the Government have now brought forward this Bill, which I think the whole House is willing to accept on Second Reading. That is not to say that, in Committee, a number of important points of principle will not be raised for further consideration later on Report and Third Reading.
  Speaking for myself, while I quite recognise the extreme difficulty of drafting, I think that the elimination of reference to contract in the Bill is a subject
  1314
  which will require further consideration. If I may say so, I cordially agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) that when we exclude from the provisions of the Bill reference to contracts, and put nothing in its place, we are perhaps treading on dangerous ground. On the other hand, as he pointed out very clearly in his speech, the provisions which, formerly, were in corporated in the law—indeed, I think the provisions in the Bill examined by the Select Committee—did lead to manifest absurdities. If one wished to eliminate absurdity it perhaps would be necessary to expand inordinately the scope of the words referring to contracts.
  The problem of reverse disqualification has evoked some feeling in speeches made this afternoon. Quite clearly, if it is in order, that is a topic which will require reconsideration in Committee. I would not add further to what has been said on that very important point. Obviously, the House, in Committee, may desire to consider the particular offices as described in the Schedules attached to the Bill. It may desire either to leave out offices or to add others to those Schedules, or to move them from one Schedule to another. As I understand that the Committee stage of the Bill is to be taken on the Floor of the House, interesting debates will no doubt arise on the details of the Bill.
  Looking at the Bill as a whole, I myself welcome its scheme. It removes the words to which I referred:
  "offices of profit under the Crown."
  It substitutes lists of ascertained and described offices for those words. It introduces the necessary elasticity and adaptability into the Bill in Clause 5, which provides that those lists at present included in the Schedule—and, ultimately, we hope, to become part of the Bill when it is enacted—can be added to, can be altered, or diminished in number. That seems to be a very workable scheme and one which is preferable to a retention of the old definition, even if we tried to refurbish it into a new and more intelligible form.
  The provision enabling the House to grant dispensation in certain cases is also an extremely useful provision, which should certainly be retained in the Bill. In cases of inadvertence it will be often—

  1315
  perhaps "often" is rather an optimistic term in this context—occasionally, it will be very useful for the House to be able to grant dispensation to a Member who has inadvertently offended by transgressing the provisions of the Bill when ultimately it becomes law.
  Bearing in mind the advice that I gave to myself, and which my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley gave the House, I feel that I should now bring my remarks to a close and help to make way for the very important debate that we are to have later this evening.
  5.58 p.m.
  The Attorney-General: I speak again, with the leave of the House, to reply to the remarks made in the course of the debate.
  I listened with interest to the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) and I am grateful to him for his observations. But I am disappointed to this extent. Before he spoke I thought I had at last discovered something in common with the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), namely, that he and I were the only two hon. Members who have spoken in this debate who were not members of the Select Committee. The right hon. and learned Member has deprived me of the opportunity of saying that.
  I think it true to say that the Bill has been generally well received. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth), quite rightly, drew attention to the flexible provisions for adding to and taking away from the list. Of course, that is the penalty of having a list—there must be some flexible machinery for doing that.
  One of the other two topics which have been the subject of most consideration and debate was the question of reverse disqualification. The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) put the case very forcibly for that, and was supported by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). I should like to put this argument before them for their consideration. If we had
  1316
  that reverse disqualification it would be very difficult to retain Clause 6 in the Bill. The right hon. and learned Member for Newport attached great importance to the House having power to dispense with disqualification in certain cases. To dispense with disqualification for membership of this House by Resolution is a very different thing from dispensing with disqualification of a member of a board outside this House in circumstances of which the House may not be fully aware.
  In regard to contracts, everyone will agree, I think, that one cannot leave the law as it is. It has either to go or to be replaced. Replacement would involve a great deal of complexity, a great deal of difficulty and would lead to a massive Bill with provisions which might not be wholly effective. That is the choice. I do not think that we are losing anything by getting rid of the archaic law on this subject. I should not like it to be thought that by abolishing that we are getting rid of the standards of conduct expected of Members of Parliament. I believe that the right answer is the opinion of this House.
  As the law stands now, if a scandal arose in relation to a Government contract which did not come within the old provisions of the law, the House, I am certain, would see to it that that scandal was properly dealt with. I would much rather leave it to the House, should such an instance arise, to deal with it as it would than seek to construct a complex code which might not be wholly effective. It has to be borne in mind that we have had no difficulties over that branch of the law for a very long time.
  With those observations, I hope that I shall be thought adequately to have replied to the points which have been raised. We shall have a further opportunity for discussion in Committee.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Godber.]
  Committee Tomorrow.

HUNGARY
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Godber]
6.1 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): We welcome this debate on the situation in Hungary. I know that there are many hon. Members who wish to speak, even though they are not all here at the moment, and accordingly, I shall try to confine my remarks within a certain limit of time.
The struggle in Hungary continues. There has been little change in the situation in the last two weeks. It seems that the mass deportations have stopped. There are reports of large bodies of armed resistance fighters still in the field, but I think that it is probably correct to say that most of the resistance at present is passive.
The Kadar Government have given up all attempts to come to terms and have embarked upon a campaign of severe repression aimed at breaking that resistance. They have outlawed all workers' councils above factory level and are arresting the leading members of such higher councils. House-to-house searches are going on, and reports indicate that, in Budapest at least, indiscriminate arrests are taking place all over the city.
Courts of summary jurisdiction have been set up to try persons on such charges as that of concealment of arms. They have been ordered to pass the death sentence on all found guilty. There is no appeal against the verdict of these courts, and the sentences passed are carried out within two hours.
But the spirit of the people in face of this ruthless oppression remains unshaken. Although there has been some movement back to the factories, very little work is being done, and attempts by Kadar's militia to take control of the factories have been unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the fact must be faced that the Hungarian economy is running down. The mines are reported to be flooded and the oil wells to be out of action. Obviously, there will be a substantial task of reconstruction to be done to get things going again.
1318
There are reports of a movement of some Soviet troops out of Hungary, but I think it would be unwise to 'regard this as the beginning of a withdrawal. It may be due to the need for regrouping or to bring in fresh troops. There is no doubt that power still rests with the Soviet military commander and that Soviet troops are available in large numbers to back up Kadar's militia.
It is now eight weeks since the Hungarian people rose against the Communist tyranny. It is more than six weeks since the beginning of the ferocious attack upon them by upwards of 10 Soviet divisions. It is about five weeks since the Hungarian workers started their passive resistance and general strike. History has few parallels for the courage and endurance of Hungarian national resistance. It has been remarkable for its solidarity, its thoroughness and its versatility. By their bravery, the Hungarian people have shown not only indifference to personal danger in the face even of armoured forces, but also their utter distaste for this Communist régime imposed upon them from without.
There has been much tragedy and suffering. On the other hand, there has been inspiration and ground for hope. The idea that time is always on the side of a Communist régime, an idea which was shaken by what happened in Eastern Germany in June, 1953, has been shattered by recent events in Hungary.
As a consequence of those events, there have, of course, been serious human problems to be tackled. Her Majesty's Government have done all they can to meet the desperate situation which has been caused by these events. Here, I am speaking in a sphere which is really the responsibility of my right hon. and gallant Friend the Home Secretary. Immediate grants were made to the British Red Cross Society to enable it to begin its work in Hungary and Austria. Money has been made available to the United Nations and to the British Council for Aid to Refugees. In accordance with our national tradition, these sums have been much exceeded by voluntary contributions.
The total raised by the four principal funds now stands at £2,076,000. The Lord Mayor of London, supported by local authority appeals throughout the country, has raised £1,600,000. The British Red

1319
Cross Society has raised £315,000, the Save the Children Fund £86,000 and the United Nations Association £75,000.
Perhaps our most important contribution has been to allow 11,500 refugees to enter this country without preliminary examination. This is a greater number than any other country except Austria has been able to take. The position, however, is that, despite the great efforts made to get refugees away from Austria to other countries—between 50,000 and 60,000 have been moved—there are still some 72,000 in Austria The flow into Austria still continues, although it has now slackened off to a rate of about 1,000 a day. The American airlift, which is designed to take 21,500 in all, is only just beginning to get under way.
It is impossible to give any firm estimate of how many of the refugees still in Austria wish to come to the United Kingdom. The experience of those on the spot is that it is probable that about 10 per cent. will express a desire to come to this country. Clearly, therefore, there is still a further contribution that we can make.
In the course of this operation, there have been certain surprises. One is the composition of the refugee parties. Many thought that the refugees would come over in families, or in groups of aged or orphans. In fact, 77 per cent. of the refugees are males, 89 per cent. of them are under the age of 38, and 67 per cent. are between the ages of 18 and 38. There have been hardly any unaccompanied children at all.
Another feature, which was not altogether expected, was the number of refugees who came to this country regarding it as a staging area to go on elsewhere. They do not want to stay here: they want to go on to one of the immigration countries overseas. As a result of the refugees being interviewed by the placing officers of the Ministry of Labour, it is estimated that more than half of those in this country want to go on to another country. No authority here places any obstacle in the way of that. However, they can only go to countries which are willing to receive them, and many receiving countries feel, not unnaturally, that the best contribution they can immediately make is to take refugees from Austria and not from this country.
1320
At present, Canada is the only country which is taking refugees from the United Kingdom. I should like to say something about what Canada is proposing to do, because it affects the position of the refugees in this country. The Canadian authorities have already committed themselves to receive at least 10,000 Hungarian refugees in Canada before the end of January, and in the spring, when the normal requirements for labour in Canada expand rapidly, it will be possible for the Canadian authorities to increase the number of Hungarian refugees, who can be readily absorbed into the Canadian economy, and to do that rapidly, also. They are prepared to take into Canada after 1st April next—perhaps even a little earlier—up to 5,000 of the refugees now in the United Kingdom, a large number of whom, as I said, came here in the hope that it would be possible for them to go on to North America afterwards. It may be that labour conditions in Canada will justify the acceptance of more than that figure of 5,000.
The refugees so accepted will, in effect, be those who wish to go there. There is no question of special selection. I hope that when this becomes known among the refugees it will have a reassuring effect and, in particular, that it will induce them to learn English and to take employment here while they are waiting for re-emigration to Canada. Their taking of employment here will in no way prejudice their chance of going to Canada in due course.
As the congestion in the reception centres has diminished, Her Majesty's Government have decided that it will soon be no longer necessary to suspend the flow of refugees and that it will be possible to receive a further limited number. The Canadian Government's willingness to take up to 5,000 from us will, of course, make it easier for us to take about that number from Austria. Her Majesty's Government accordingly propose that the intake of refugees should be resumed early in the new year.
The precise date of the resumption and the rate of flow will be fixed in consultation with the British Council for Aid to Refugees. The matter will be kept under review from time to time. The situation in Hungary is constantly changing, and none of us can see very far ahead, but I hope that the House will agree that the actions of this country in regard to the

1321
Hungarian refugees have been in accordance with our traditions and are actions of which we can all be proud.
I should like to pay tribute to all the voluntary bodies, which have worked with great energy, led by the Lord Mayor of London, the local authorities, the Red Cross and the British Council for Aid to Refugees. It is also right, I think, that we should pay our tribute to the great efforts made by the Austrian Government and the people of Austria to deal with this situation.
Mr. William Warbey: While the right hon. and learned Gentleman is dealing with the difficult situation in which the Austrian Government, in particular, are placed—with over 70,000 refugees still to deal with, and more coming in—can he say whether any significant proportion of the £2 million or more raised in this country is available, or is likely to be available, for the relief of refugees in Austria itself?
Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that I can, without notice, but I shall certainly see that the hon. Member is given an answer in the course of the debate.
Mr. Peter Remnant: Since they have done a very great deal in connection with the reception of these refugees, would my right hon. and learned Friend feel disposed to include the Women's Voluntary Services in his thanks?
Mr. Lloyd: Certainly. I apologise for that omission.
My right hon. and gallant Friend the Home Secretary has given me the answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Warbey). The answer is that 33⅓ per cent. of the fund is available for use in Austria or in Hungary.
So much for the present situation in regard to the refugees.
Mr. Arthur Henderson: Does the Foreign Secretary know the number of people who have been deported by Russia?
Mr. Lloyd: No, I have no information that I can give the right hon. and learned Gentleman now. A certain amount of information has come in, and I will see
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whether it can be assessed in terms of numbers.
Dealing with the future of Hungary, it is a matter of speculation as to how soon the Soviet rulers will realise that their troops have won only a pyrrhic victory, because they will not succeed in imposing on a country of 9 million inhabitants—who have behaved as the Hungarian people have—a system which it clearly has no intention of accepting. Meanwhile the Soviet Union has sustained a tremendous political defeat. The decision which it has to take is whether it proposes to hold the Hungarians down by brute force or to accept the principle of self-determintion, to which it so frequently gives lip-service, particularly in criticism of ourselves, and whether it is prepared to accept the principle of competitive co-existence.
Much has been said recently about the efficacy of United Nations action in a variety of fields. The events in Hungary have been much discussed in the United Nations. They were first raised in the Security Council on 28th October, and, after a rather protracted discussion, a Resolution calling upon the Soviet Union to desist from intervention and to withdraw their troops was vetoed on 3rd November. The voting was 10 in favour, with one abstention —Yugoslavia— and the vote against was that of the Soviet Union, which amounted to the veto.
At a special session of the General Assembly, on 4th November, the abortive Security Council Resolution was put forward again, with the addition of clauses requesting the Secretary-General to investigate, to appoint observers and to report back with suggestions of measures to end Soviet intervention. All members of the United Nations were called upon to assist him. That Resolution was passed by 50 votes to 8 against, with 15 abstentions.
On 9th November, two further Resolutions were passed. The first expressed deep concern at the non-observance of the Soviet Union of the previous Resolution. This was passed by 48 votes to 11, with 16 abstentions. The second Resolution on that day called upon the Soviet Union to cease illegal action against the Hungarian people, and dealt with the relief measures for refugees. It was passed by 53 votes to 9, with 13 abstentions.

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On 21st November, in the ordinary session of the General Assembly, a Resolution was put forward calling for the immediate withdrawal of Soviet forces, the admission of United Nations observers, and an end to the deportations. That was carried by 55 votes to 10, with 14 abstentions. Another Resolution was passed on that same date, urging Hungary to permit observers to enter its territory. That went through by 57 votes to 8, with 14 abstentions.
On 4th December, a Resolution calling upon the Soviet Union and Hungary to admit observers to Hungary by 7th December was passed by 54 votes to 10, with 14 abstentions. Finally, on 12th December, a Resolution condemning the Soviet Union, calling upon it to desist from intervention and to make immediate arrangements for withdrawal, and requesting the Secretary-General to take any initiative which he might deem helpful, was passed by 55 votes to 8, with 13 abstentions.
The voting on many of these Resolutions has shown a double standard as compared with the votes on Suez. Some of those very anxious to condemn Great Britain and France have been singularly reluctant to show themselves opposed to the action of the Soviet Union in Hungary.
In the face of this record, no one can deny that there has been great activity by the United Nations in debating this matter and in seeking to bring pressure to bear upon the Soviet Union and the present authorities in Hungary, but their activity has not yet had any impact on events because, unfortunately, not the slightest respect has been shown to any of these Resolutions by the Soviet Union or by the Hungarian authorities. I really must say this, even if it causes offence to hon. Members opposite. France and Britain are keeping faith with We United Nations by effecting the withdrawal from Port Said. We are entitled to demand that the Soviet Union should pay the same regard to these Resolutions of the United Nations, passed by such large majorities.
It has been suggested that the present would be a suitable time to seek Russian agreement on a European settlement. We are ready to explore any possibilities which may exist of obtaining a satisfactory settlement, and have this very much
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in mind in considering the Soviet Note of 17th November, in which certain proposals were made about disarmament and a reduction of forces in Europe. Although these proposals were prefaced by a violent attack on our policy, which suggests that they were intended primarily for propaganda purposes, we would not, on that account, ignore them. They are, as I have said, being studied to see whether they contain any new constructive ideas which might usefully be followed up. So far, however, the Soviet Union stands in flagrant breach of all Resolutions in the United Nations calling on them to desist from intervention and to admit observers.
Dame Irene Ward: With all these Resolutions and masses of paper, was it not possible for the United Nations to have sent—I do not say an armed force—a properly constituted committee to the frontiers of Hungary and to have demanded admission? They are too mealy-mouthed for words. I do not know why they do not get on and do something effective.
Mr. Lloyd: That was a suggestion which was considered. It was suggested, I think, when I was in New York, that United Nations observers should be sent to Hungary, whether or not they received permission to go there from the Hungarian Government. But the responsibility in that matter was not ours. The responsibility was that of the Secretary-General, and it must be for him to take that sort of decision.
If, in spite of the attitude of the Soviet Union towards these Resolutions, it is nevertheless urged that a new offer on Germany might be made as a bargain for Soviet withdrawal from Hungary, I would ask the House to consider what this would imply. In Hungary, the Russians intervened because the population claimed the right to choose their own Government and independence for their country. That is exactly what we proposed for Germany, in Berlin in 1954, and in Geneva in 1955.
We want to see a freely elected all-German Government which is free to conduct its own foreign and domestic policies. If the Russians considered that such a Government would be a threat to their security, we have offered guarantees to them to reassure them; but it can hardly be contemplated that, to secure freedom for the Hungarians, we should be willing to consider restrictions on the

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freedom to which the Germans are equally entitled and which we are pledged to secure.
I can, however, assure the House that Her Majesty's Government would be ready to consider carefully, and in consultation with our allies, any further proposals which the Soviet Government put forward, which represent a genuine and constructive contribution towards a general European settlement.
Mr. Christopher Mayhew: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman mean that he is not proposing to discuss with our N.A.T.O. allies the Note of 17th November?
Mr. Lloyd: I meant just the contrary, and I think I made it clear at Question Time, too. It is certainly a matter which must be discussed, and discussed, also, in connection with the new United States disarmament proposals.
As I was saying, to discuss these sorts of possibilities today, or to put them forward as alternatives to compliance with the United Nations Resolutions seems to me to undermine the position of the United Nations in this matter. I think it would be highly dangerous to say that one set of rules exist for people who are prepared to pay attention to the views of the United Nations, and another for those who do quite the reverse.
Therefore, I hope that the message which will go forth from all quarters of the House this evening will be admiration for the grave resistance of the people of Hungary; sympathy with them in their terrible plight; determination to do all we can to alleviate their sufferings; determination to help the refugees to the utmost of our capacity; and, finally, a demand for compliance with the Resolutions of the United Nations, which we have consistently supported.
6.23 p.m.
Mr. Hugh Gaitskell: I am glad that the Leader of the House, taking into account the obviously strong feeling existing in all quarters of the House, was able to rearrange the business for this week so that we could have this debate. It would, indeed have been very wrong if we had departed for our Christmas Recess without having several hours' discussion on what I think most would agree is one of if not the most
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significant developments in Europe since 1945.
Whatever differences may exist between us about the exact circumstances in which the Russians intervened in Hungary with armed forces, or however much we may differ on what should now be done, I am sure that there is general agreement, first, that the courage and endurance, pertinacity and faith of the Hungarian people is worthy of the highest admiration; and, secondly, that we cannot but condemn utterly the ruthless action of Soviet Russia. With that we must couple, also, the action now being taken by the Kadar Government in setting up tribunals, imposing the death sentence and engaging in an internal repression programme which certainly seems very sinister.
On the causes of this matter, and, in particular, on the impact, such as it may have been, of the Suez situation on Hungary, I do not propose to speak this evening. I would assure the Foreign Secretary that he need not have apologised in any way to us when he said that there was a striking contrast between the agreement of the British and French Governments eventually, at any rate, to the cease-fire and to the withdrawal of their forces, and the utter refusal of the Soviet Government to take the slightest notice of the United Nations. I would say that we who pressed the Government very strongly to agree to the cease-fire and the withdrawal have both the right and duty to emphasise this contrast.
I should like to say a few things, but very few, about the nature of this rising. The facts, I think, are known to all of us and there is no need to repeat them, but two characteristics seem to me worth singling out. First, it is quite evident that this was a spontaneous revolution, and that all the propaganda about it being inspired from outside sources, or that it was a carefully laid Fascist plot, is just propaganda.
I do not think that there is any doubt at all that behind it lay a very great deal of economic distress. All the evidence that is coming out of Hungary now shows that the extent to which Russia has exploited Hungary in these post-war years is very great indeed. The standard of living of the Hungarian people obviously has been kept down in the most ruthless manner. But as for the rising itself, I do not think there is the

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slightest doubt that it was provoked on 23rd October by the fact that the police opened fire on a peaceful demonstration in Budapest. From then onwards what had been merely a demonstration developed swiftly into a revolution.
The second characteristic of the rising is the extraordinary part played in it by young people, by the youth of Hungary. It has been led by students and factory workers, the very classes of the community whom one would suppose might have most easily fallen to Communist propaganda. One can add, too, as further evidence that not only the students but the factory workers have themselves been right in the van of this movement, the extraordinary courage shown by the workers' councils in recent weeks. So let nobody say that this is something which comes from outside. It is something which comes from the Hungarians themselves, and it has been led by their youth.
Whatever we may feel about what might or might not have been done—and I shall have something to say about that in a few moments—let us at least record these consequences of the extraordinary developments of the last two months. Many of us in this House, and, indeed, in the country generally, have, in the past few years, felt a sense of profound depression about the situation of people living under totalitarian dictatorships.
We have been influenced by literature on the subject, notably by that very remarkable novel "1984." We have been influenced by what we have heard from others. We have been influenced by the apparently complete suppression of the 1953 rising in East Germany, and we came to the conclusion, perhaps wrongly even at the time, that it was almost impossible for a free people to resist the enormous power of a totalitarian dictatorship.
The great thing that the Hungarian rising has done is to remove that burden of depression from our minds. We now know that whatever the régime, however ruthless the dictatorship, however tight its control over propaganda, it cannot suppress the flame of freedom, it cannot suppress the demand for liberty. The fact that young people, not only in Hungary but, so one understands, in Soviet
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Russia itself, are demanding a greater degree of freedom is an immensely encouraging fact for those who believe, as all of us here believe, in democratic institutions.
The second consequence is, of course, that behind the Iron Curtain itself, in the other satellite countries, what has happened in Hungary is bound to have, and I do not doubt is already having, a most profound influence. The situation there is a completely new one. It is a situation which, I must admit, I did not, a few years ago, expect to develop so rapidly, if at all. We had the rising in East Germany, as I said just now, which was suppressed. There were the Poznan riots and the developments in Poland. Now we have the rising in Hungary, in addition to all that. It is quite clear that everywhere behind the Iron Curtain there is a ferment of new developments, a changing situation, and all of that has been given a tremendous impetus by the Hungarian revolution.
The third consequence is the devastating effect which these events have had upon the reputation and position of Communist parties everywhere else in the world. I will quote but one extract, if I may, to illustrate this. It is an extract from something written by Mr. Fryer, who was employed on the staff of the Daily Worker, but who resigned from that newspaper. This is what he wrote in the New Statesman about Hungary:
"The Stalinists put their faith in T54 tanks and a four-day bombardment of Budapest; they support the export of socialism in high-explosive form. I preferred and I still prefer to put my faith in the Hungarian people… From start to finish the Daily Worker—or rather the Stalinists who control it—have lied, lied, lied about Hungary…Shame on a newspaper which can spit on a nation's anguish and grief. Shame on party leaders who can justify with smooth clichés and lies the massacre and martyrdom of a proud and indomitable people."
That is very well expressed, and perhaps all the better for coming from an ex-Communist.
I now turn to the question of what more might have been done. For our part, of course, we entirely support the action of the Government in letting in the Hungarian refugees, the action of the Home Secretary in relaxing the rules which normally apply, the help which has been given in relief work, and the support given to the demands of the United

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Nations. But there is the question—we have to face it—could more have been done? Here, with respect, I feel that attacks upon the United Nations for failing to do this are misplaced. They are misplaced for this reason, that nobody is proposing any alternative. There is no suggestion that N.A.T.O. might have been able to act if the United Nations were not involved. As far as I know, Her Majesty's Government have not proposed, either in the United Nations or outside, any other course of action.
That being so, it is obviously highly superficial to criticise the United Nations in this matter.
Mr. Denis Healey: And dishonest.
Mr. Gaitskell: There is no proposal that we should have acted on our own, as there was in the case of the Middle East.
The reason, which we must face, is that, as we all know, a proposal to intervene by force would have involved a very great risk of the third world war. It may be regrettable, but we must simply say that; and it is that which has inhibited the United Nations, N.A.T.O., Her Majesty's Government, and every other country in the free world. The fact is that none of us was prepared to take that risk.
I know that some people have suggested, as I think Señor de Madariaga argued, that, after all, the Russians, also, are frightened of the third world war. It may be so. But the fact is that there are certain situations in which we would be prepared to take that risk, ghastly as it is, and there are other situations in which, frankly, we are not prepared to take the risk; and this happens to be one of them.
What else can now be done? I venture to put forward a few suggestions to the Government, and I very much hope that a member of the Government will be able to answer one or two of these proposals. My first suggestion may seem a comparatively small one. We had the privilege recently of welcoming the Leader of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party, Anna Kethly. I myself was fortunate to hear her speak, and to speak with her, in Copenhagen. Later, she
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addressed a meeting of our party in the House of Commons.
At present, Anna Kethly is in New York. She wishes to address the Assembly of the United Nations. I ask the Government to support that request. There are precedents for this, and I cannot really see that any harm can be done by lending our support to her demand.
As regards the question of United Nations observers, there is, I think, much to be said for the Motion on the Order Paper—
[That this House notes with distress the refusal of the Kadar Government to admit the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Hungary; supports the efforts of the United Nations to secure the entry of observers and the Secretary-General into Hungary; and urges Her Majesty's Government, if these efforts should not be promptly successful, to suggest that the members of the United Nations which have voted for the dispatch of observers to Hungary should instruct their diplomatic representatives in Budapest to meet and agree a report on events and conditions in Hungary for submission to the General Assembly of the United Nations.]
—which supports the demand of the United Nations to secure the entry of observers, but adds that, if these efforts are not promptly successful, members of the United Nations which have voted for the despatch of observers should instruct their diplomatic representatives in Budapest to agree a report on events and conditions in Hungary and submit it to the General Assembly of the United Nations.
I ask the Government to support that proposal in the United Nations. Again, it may seem a small thing, but I do not think we shall handle this matter successfully by any one single dramatic move. We must think in terms of many different things which, taken together, may sufficiently influence the Soviet Government.
I was very glad to hear the announcement of the Foreign Secretary that the temporary ban on refugees is to be lifted early in the new year. I am sure that will give widespread satisfaction in the country. There are, however, two other matters which I think we must consider. I happened to meet quite recently some

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people who were associated with the Hungarian doctors who had escaped to England. I believe that there are 30 or 40 of them. The persons concerned have lived here for a long time, and they were much distressed to find that, under the normal rule, these Hungarian medical men, and perhaps, women, who were, of course, fully qualified, may not practise in this country for three years. They are refugees. They have no money, they have nothing. They have no means of studying. They feel, not unreasonably, that since they have been practising in Hungary, they might be allowed a concession here.
I would ask the Government to look again at these restrictions on the professions. I have never felt very happy about them. I remember the way they operated before the war, when applied to refugees from Nazi Germany. I feel that, in the special circumstances of these Hungarian doctors, something might be done to help; perhaps the period could be shortened, or perhaps the Government could make free grants available for them to study. I do ask that the matter he looked into.
I now turn to the position of Austria itself. The Foreign Secretary rightly gave full praise to the Austrian Government, and I certainly associate myself with what he said. Here we have a situation where there are 72,000 refugees still in Austria and, as I understand, it is the plan of the United Nations that about 60,000 should remain there. There is a financial problem. How are the Austrian Government to pay for the housing, feeding and general care of these 60,000 refugees?
The United Nations is, in fact, asking for cash contributions. I would ask the Government to say what they are prepared to do in the matter. What are they prepared to offer in the United Nations, on behalf of the United Kingdom, to finance the maintenance of the refugees in Austria?
The most recent report to the Assembly of the United Nations deals in some detail with what the International Committee of the Red Cross is doing in Hungary. I will not read it all, but in a sense it is rather encouraging. Three different assistance programmes, I believe, are actually operating. One is
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for about 173,000 children under the age of six, another is for about 50,000 children between the ages of six and 16, and from the middle of December there will be the distribution of food packages to 100,000 persons who are, broadly speaking, without means of support or are living in particularly difficult conditions. It is, however, clear from the report to the United Nations that the supplies now available for this work will last only until 15th January. In other words, if assistance is not given by then, either in cash or in kind, presumably this work will have to come to an end.
I want to ask, first, that the Government should undertake that they will give full support to the maintenance at least of the International Red Cross programme in Hungary and that they will do everything they can to see that additional supplies are available. But I would go even further than that. In Hungary the people are facing a pretty grim prospect. Winter is upon them and it may well be that cold and starvation are what they face. Here, surely, is an opportunity for the outside world to help. The International Red Cross is there. It has these relief programmes They could be extended very widely indeed. Surely this is an occasion when we want a big, imaginative gesture.
I appeal to the Government to go to the United Nations, to take the initiative and say that we will put down—I do not know what the exactly appropriate figure would be—say, £1 or £5 million for this relief work. It would make a tremendous impression and I have not the slightest doubt that we would find other members of the United Nations being prepared to pay in as well.
If, through the United Nations and the International Red Cross, we can really come to the help of the Hungarian people in these ways during this winter, it would also have an enormous political significance.
Mr. Cyril Osborne: Does the right hon. Gentleman know whether the United Nations has the people trained and ready to do the work as well as giving the money? Money of itself would not do the job.
Mr. Gaitskell: The Red Cross is actually doing the job, but is doing it for the United Nations. That is the

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position. I understand from the report that the work certainly could be expanded. As to how fast it could be expanded, I hope that the hon. Member will not press me. He probably agrees with the general idea and I urge the Government to push ahead with it.
The last point to which I want to refer is the question of policy, to which the Foreign Secretary also referred. I said, earlier, that there is undoubtedly a new situation in Central and Eastern Europe. I can sum it up in a phrase. Only the Red Army, it is clear, now maintains the Communist régimes in Central and Eastern Europe. That is a new situation. and it seems to me that in the light of that situation we really ought not to be, say, legalistic—I hope that the Foreign Secretary does not mind that word—thinking in terms that we ought not to do something outside the United Nations. [Laughter.] I hope that hon. Members will listen first to what I am suggesting.
The Foreign Secretary was inclined to say, "Well, so long as the United Nations was there, no other initiative of any kind was possible." We have never said that—[Interruption.] I hope that hon. Members will not try to draw me into saying once again what we have said, because I do not want to do that this evening.
What I want to suggest is this. There is a new situation in Central and Eastern Europe. Undoubtedly, that is a much more awkward and difficult situation for the Russians than anything they have had in the past. Undoubtedly, that being so, they are likely to look afresh on proposals which, so long as they give them adequate security, may involve the withdrawal of Soviet forces from these countries. They face a dilemma, either to stay there and use the power of their armies and repress everything, or to risk a serious loss of face in the defeat by popular risings of the Communist régimes.
It may be that, faced with this dilemma, the Russians will consider now proposals which they would not have considered at all a year or two ago. That is why some of us suggest—we do not, of course, ask for an immediate reply—a new look at this problem. We suggest that the idea of a large neutral area, which would be guaranteed by a security pact and
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from which armed forces would be withdrawn, both on the Russian side and on our side, is something which really offers a considerable opportunity for achieving two things at the same time: the freedom of the peoples in the satellite countries and the security of that part of Europe.
That may be ambitious and I shall not ask for a precise answer tonight, but I beg the Government not simply to sit back and say that they will look at anything that the Russians propose. Is it not time that we took the initiative here? Is it not time, at least, that we discussed in N.A.T.O. plans of this kind? This is probably the most important and effective proposal that can be made.
It has been suggested by the French Foreign Minister that Hungary might be given the same neutral status that Austria has. That is part of the same idea and at least, if that could be achieved—if we could say to the Russians that we were prepared to include Hungary in a treaty similar to the Austrian Treaty—I would certainly be glad. I hope, therefore, that the Government will proceed, either in that more limited field or in the wider field which I have suggested, to see what can be done.
In short, my feeling is this. In paying very sincere tribute and honour, as we all do, to the amazing courage and endurance of the Hungarian people, let us not content ourselves with mere expressions of sympathy and praise. Let us try to combine these expressions with something a little more concrete. That is why I have made these various proposals and I hope that the Government will respond to them in the spirit in which they are put forward.
6.48 p.m.
Sir Lionel Heald: I should like briefly to refer to two specific points. The first is in some ways a personal one but it is a matter to which I think it is proper to make reference. The House may be aware that a suggestion has been made by the three legal societies associated with the three parties that legal observers should be allowed to go and witness the trials at present taking place in Hungary.
It is notable that this is the first occasion in history when those three bodies have worked together. It is even more notable that it is the news from Hungary which

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has brought them together for united action. That is a perfectly genuine and serious proposal. It has, I believe, been described in one quarter as being by way of a stunt. It is quite wrong to say that. We have every intention of going, if we have the opportunity, and I know that I have the support of my two predecessors in the office of Attorney-General in saying that.
While it may be very optimistic indeed to suppose that there is the slightest chance of the request being granted, I can say that the Hungarian Legation in London is taking the proposal quite seriously and that I do not at all despair of something coming of it. That being the case, it would be wrong for me this evening to prejudge the trials and what is going on in Hungary. After all, we ought to adopt our own principles and say that if we are going there to see what happens we ought at least to reserve final judgment until we know more about it.
I think, however, it is right to say that reliable reports suggest quite definitely that justice may not be being done according in any way to what we in this country or other civilised countries regard as justice. If that is not so, it is very easy for the Hungarian Government to say, "We will let you examine the matter. Come and see what is going on and judge for yourselves." If they refuse our offer, the world will be able to draw its own conclusion.
The second specific consideration that I want to mention is the importance and value at the present time of the British Broadcasting Corporation's European Service. From the information which is available, there is no doubt at all that that service is doing most valuable work again now, as it did during the war, and that it has appealed particularly to the younger people in places like Hungary. There is clear evidence that it is being listened to by them, and I think we may well say that it has contributed in part to what they have done. I hope that we may be able to have an assurance from the Government tonight that they appreciate the importance of that service and that they intend to support it.
There are well-informed people who at the present time are concerned that the Government do not appreciate the importance of the B.B.C.'s European Service. It is even suggested that at
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this very moment, which one would have thought a very inappropriate moment, the Treasury and the Foreign Office are planning to cut it down drastically. I hope that we shall be assured that that is not so. A few days ago there was a debate here on information services. I understand, for I was, unfortunately, not present, that debate was limited in such a way that the B.B.C.'s services of that kind were not comprehended in it. I think that it has, therefore, been suggested that the views which were expressed in that debate, as to the importance of information services at the present time, did not extend to the B.B.C.'s European Service. The only reason why they did not was, I understand, that it would not have been in order to have discussed that service in that debate.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: There is no question of cutting the B.B.C.'s overseas service to Hungary or the satellite countries.
Sir L. Heald: I am much obliged to my right hon. and learned Friend, but we are afraid that the cutting down in other directions may, at some future time, be equally disastrous. Suppose, for instance, trouble arose in the far North. It might well be that in Sweden, Finland, places of that kind, the reception of good advice and encouragement from here might be very important indeed. Therefore, I am wondering whether, if we are only not cutting down the service to Hungary, we are considering the matter in a rather shortsighted way.
Some people say we cannot do anything practical to help Hungary. I think that is one thing we can do. We can give them help and ecouragement through our B.B.C. services, which, whatever anyone who does not know about them says, are regarded by the people in those countries themselves as of real value. I understand that the B.B.C.'s European Service comes under the Foreign Office Vote. I am not speaking from any personal knowledge of the matter, but I remember having heard in the past that there is a little tendency there to regard it as the ugly duckling, and there are people who think that the present Postmaster-General would be an admirable person to co-operate with the B.B.C. European Service as well as with other people—
Sir Robert Boothby: This is a really vital question. Is my right hon. and learned Friend seriously suggesting to the House that we should, through the B.B.C., encourage the Hungarians to continue fighting, without being able ourselves to give them any assistance? That is frightfully important. My right hon. and learned Friend's speech may be interpreted in that way.
Sir L. Heald: I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend. He is certainly quite right in raising that question and giving me an opportunity of making it perfectly clear that I would be, I hope, the last person in the world to suggest that we should encourage people to set up a hopeless resistance.
What I have in mind is quite different. Where people are behaving in a heroic way, where they are undergoing great suffering, where they may be, as it appears, undergoing injustices as well, it is surely an admirable thing that they should be able to know that people outside know that they are brave, know that they are suffering. I cannot believe that that is not a good thing. It is certainly a fact that there is the strongest evidence coming back from Hungary that it does do an enormous amount of good.
I would, however, certainly accept the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby) and make it perfectly clear that the stirring up of insurrection or anything of that kind is quite a different thing altogether. I believe we can trust those doing the job to understand that.
I understand that at the present time the Poles are doing more broadcasting to Europe than we are. It seems to be a reason for being wary before we cut down our European Service. I believe that at the moment Russia is doing more broadcasting to Europe than is any other country. The order of those broadcasting the most to Europe is Russia first, the "Voice of America" second, Poland third, and the B.B.C. fourth.
Finally, I would suggest that in the reorganisation of N.A.T.O. at the present time there should be recognition of the importance of a service of that kind. Its immense importance should be recognised, because it is of enormous help to have a connection created between countries by services of that kind, along-
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side their military alliances and cooperation. I hope, therefore, that the Government appreciate the importance of the broadcasting system in relation not only to Hungary but also to all the other countries which may be affected by it, and I hope that they will give it careful attention.
6.57 p.m.
Mr. Arthur Henderson: All the speeches which have been made in this debate have been commendably brief, and I intend that mine shall not be an exception. I desire to speak mainly because I have some knowledge of the Hungarian people. I visited their country frequently up to September, 1939. Like others, I came to admire their spirit of independence and their rugged personal qualities. Certainly the Hungarian people are not the sort of people who will submit indefinitely to the foreign yoke.
It is quite evident, I think, that the Russians have based their Iron Curtain policy on a profound under-estimation of the fundamental qualities, not only of the Hungarian people, but of the other satellite nations. The uprisings of both the Polish and the Hungarian peoples must indeed have come as a most unpleasant shock to the Russians. Ten years of suffering and hardship exhausted the patience of the Hungarian people, as indeed it would have exhausted that of any other nation in similar circumstances. It may well be that the Russian miscalculation accounts for the brutal manner in which they set about smashing the Hungarian freedom forces, composed, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition indicated a few minutes ago, virtually of the whole of the Hungarian nation, the workers, the students, the armed forces, with a ruthless and relentless lack of restraint, including the mass deportation of thousands of young men and women.
That action on the part of the Russian authorities has created a most appalling refugee problem. Nearly 150,000 men, women and children have had to flee from possible death and imprisonment at home to an uncertain life abroad. The tragic fate of these people, as the Foreign Secretary and my right hon. Friend agreed, has become a responsibility of the entire civilised world.

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A great deal has been done, of course. The efforts of the Red Cross societies and of thousands of voluntary workers in this and in other countries have done a great deal to alleviate the sufferings of these people, but a great deal remains to be done. I hope that the Government will give very serious consideration to the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that we should do much more to rebuild the shattered economy of that unhappy country. I hope that they will give the most earnest consideration to his concrete proposal that this country should be prepared to provide anything up to £5 million as an example to other countries in the United Nations.
I believe that a great deal could be done in due course, by the provision of raw materials and credits and other forms of economic aid, in order to enable the Hungarians to rehabilitate their country. The hon. Member for Louth (Mr. C. Osborne), asked whether the United Nations have the experience and the officials to carry out this work of rehabilitation. I am not sure whether U.N.R.R.A. was actually wound up, but certainly it had plenty of experience in rehabilitating countries. As we all know, it did a wonderful job in the post-war years. I hope that it will be possible for the United Nations either to revivify U.N.R.R.A. or to establish some other similar type of international organisation for that purpose. I am sure that all hon. Members will agree that it should not be left to a small country like Austria to have to meet the main burden, although we know that she has not hesitated to strain her resources almost to breaking point.
We are often asked what the United Nations will do in the face of the obstinate refusal of the Soviet Union to respond to the Resolutions passed at the General Assembly. I hope that the United Nations will continue to insist that the Secretary-General as well as United Nations observers should be allowed to visit Hungary in the near future so that they may see conditions as they are and report to the General Assembly so that the General Assembly can be fully informed of both the political and humanitarian aspects of the problem.
I know that there are hon. Members opposite who seem to sneer whenever anyone mentions the United Nations, but
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what is the alternative to the United Nations, with all its weaknesses and all its deficiencies, none of which can be placed at the threshold of the United Nations itself but at the threshold of the Governments which compose the United Nations, including our own?
I would face this question of what the United Nations should do. I hope that in addition to insisting upon the Secretary-General and United Nations observers being admitted into Hungary it will be possible, pending that, for Her Majesty's Government to consider sending a senior Minister to Austria to co-operate with Vice-President Nixon in ascertaining as many of the facts as possible about the tragic situation, not only in Austria itself, but across the border in Hungary.
If I am asked what the United Nations can do, more than pass resolutions, I would submit that Article 41 of the Charter should be implemented if the Soviet Union continues to defy the United Nations. As hon. Members know, Article 41 provides for sanctions other than military sanctions to be employed against any country which is in defiance of the United Nations. At any rate, I hope that we can rely on Her Majesty's Government to support any proposal which may be carried at the General Assembly to impose sanctions under Article 41.
Mr. K. Zilliacus: Is it not the fact that under the Charter only the Security Council can decree sanctions and that the recommendations of the Assembly are not binding on the members of the United Nations?
Mr. Henderson: It is quite true that Article 41 provides for a decision by the Security Council, and it is equally true that the Charter provides that a permanent member, such as Russia, could veto a decision by the Security Council. It is equally true that the General Assembly, under the "Uniting for Peace" Resolution, has authority to come to a decision. Hon. Members can call it a recommendation if they like, but it would be in effect a decision if carried by two-thirds of those voting in the General Assembly calling upon member States of the United Nations to implement the provisions of Article 41.
Mr. Zilliacus: No obligation.
Mr. Anthony Kershaw: Can the right hon. and learned Member deal with the difficulty that sanctions might do more harm to Hungary than to Russia?
Mr. Henderson: I do not think that it necessarily follows that if economic sanctions, complete or partial, were employed against the Soviet Union, or if the diplomatic representatives of perhaps 60 nations were withdrawn from Russia, there would be any hardship on Hungary. [An HON. MEMBER: "There might be on us."] It depends whether we are prepared to avoid taking over our responsibilities under the Charter because it might be embarrassing to us. That is not the way to make the United Nations work.
As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said, we now face a new situation in Europe. We must continue our efforts to solve the European problem. As I read events in Eastern Europe, it seems to me that whilst Soviet Russia is prepared to give a large measure of independence to her satellites and to countenance an increasing measure of internal freedom and allow more than one road to what they regard as Socialism, she will not tolerate any breach of her security arrangements under the Warsaw Pact.
Incidentally, it is interesting to remember that in the constitution of the Soviet Union provision is made for full self-determination for the benefit of all the people who compose Soviet Russia, and that it was only some months ago that the present Russian leaders agreed with Mr. Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, that every nation was entitled to the right of self-determination. But to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and to adopt a status of neutrality is forbidden by the Soviet Union, and it would be repressed by force—overwhelming force, if necessary, as we have seen in Hungary. Nevertheless, it may be that recent tragic events will provide a new opportunity for the West to help the cause of national independence and human rights. It must be obvious to the Russians that they cannot rely on the 100 million people in the satellite countries as potential allies in the event of war.
I should like to make some practical suggestions. I very much hope that a meeting between President Eisenhower,
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the French Prime Minister and our own Prime Minister will take place in the near future so that we can once again restore Western union. In addition, as soon as conditions are favourable, I hope that this meeting will be followed by a five-power conference, to include the Indian Prime Minister. It is particularly important that the Asian communities should be represented at such an important high-level conference.
It is with such a five-Power conference in mind that I endorse what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition suggested, that the time has now come for collective consideration by the West of policies that take into account, first, Russian security, and, second, national independence for the satellite countries. believe that we need to proceed with our efforts to bring about an acceptable system of security for Europe, within which there could be provision to achieve the two objectives that I have just mentioned.
Western thinking, to my mind, should be directed to the following related matters, upon which some progress might be possible as time develops. First. I suggest that Western Germany should reaffirm that force will never he used by a reunited Germany to change the Oder-Neisse frontiers. It is interesting that in the recent communiqué issued in Warsaw reference was made to the need to keep Russian troops in Poland because of a possible threat to those frontiers.
Secondly, there should he a N.A.T.O. declaration that it will not allow force to be used from the West to change the Oder-Neisse frontiers. Thirdly, the satellite countries should become independent and neutral, free from any military alliance if they so desire, and with their neutrality guaranteed by Russia in the East and N.A.T.O. in the West. Fourthly, there should be a more flexible approach to the question of German reunification and its relationship to N.A.T.O.
I want to make one reference to disarmament. It seems to me that the other key to the solution of the European problem lies through a drastic reduction of armaments. It is particularly encouraging, therefore, that the United States has recently indicated that it is no longer insisting on a complete system of aerial inspection. The recent offer of 17th November by the Soviet Union to agree

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to a limited scheme of aerial inspection, extending 500 miles on each side of the East-West German border, if accepted, would to my mind be a useful step in the right direction. I think that we should also welcome the American readiness to begin a parallel examination of both arms control and a European political settlement. This might well lead to a solution of the European political problem which for many years has proved so intractable.
My last word is this. History has shown that no nation will tolerate indefinitely being deprived of its individual freedom and national independence. It may be that the Russians will crush the physical resistance of the Hungarian people; I do not believe that it will destroy their minds or their aspirations.
7.11 p.m.
Lieut.-Commander S. L. C. Maydon: I shall confine my remarks to the refugees themselves, and particularly to the part that the Council of Europe has played in this matter, a part which is in great contrast in its immediate effectiveness compared with what has been done by other international bodies which apparently are impotent in this matter.
One of the earliest actions taken after the black Sunday of 4th November was that the Committee on Population and Refugees was called to meet in Vienna to discuss the problem and to see for itself on the spot what was going on. At the first meeting on Monday, 12th November, a telegram was sent to the Committee of Ministers' Deputies who were known to be meeting on that day in Strasbourg. It was known that there was a surplus from the Council of Europe Budget for 1955 amounting to well over 100 million French francs. A telegram was sent urgently requesting the Ministers' Deputies to set aside all, or a large part, of that sum of money for Hungarian relief work, and to turn it over either to the Austrian Government or to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
We were somewhat horrified when we received a reply that this matter was under consideration and would be reconsidered on 3rd December. We felt that
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such a delay in such an urgent matter was quite unjustifiable. At any rate, on 3rd December the Committee of Ministers set aside 100 million French francs from the surplus of the Council of Europe Budget and it is to be paid to the Austrian Government to use for relief work.
One of the recommendations made by the Committee on Population and Refugees to the Committee of Ministers, which has since been endorsed by the Standing Committee of the Council of Europe, reads as follows:
"To invite member States to negotiate agreement with the United States Government, the Governments of Australia, Canada and other governments overseas, which have undertaken to receive Hungarian refugees, to ensure that refugees who have been selected for asylum in European countries other than Austria will not be prejudiced thereby from final resettlement in the United States, Australia, Canada or elsewhere overseas."
The point behind that recommendation is that it was our experience, speaking to refugees themselves and to officials of the United Nations High Commission, the International Committee for European Migration and other responsible bodies on the spot, that a great many refugees were reluctant to choose to go to Britain, to Sweden, to France or any other European country because they felt that by so doing their chances of eventual emigration overseas would be prejudiced. This was because they knew that other countries in Europe were subjected to a quota system for immigration, certainly into the United States and also into many Commonwealth countries. So that recommendation was deliberately added to the list of recommendations to be made to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
Somewhat to my dismay, on Monday this week I saw a letter in The Times written by a man who is a Hungarian interpreter and apparently has been doing considerable work in refugee camps in this country. He writes that in the course of those duties he has worked in a camp which has temporarily housed 850 Hungarian people. It is a small sample, but what he states is significant. He endorses what we all knew in Austria when we were there, that a large majority of these Hungarian refugees want to get overseas into Canada,

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other Commonwealth countries, the United States and elsewhere, in fact as far away from Europe as they can possibly get.
This person also says that a number of these people carry pamphlets issued by the I.C.E.M. organisation saying that acceptance of temporary asylum in England or elsewhere does not prejudice their further chances. In fact, a translation of one of the pamphlets would lead anybody to believe that the recipient of the pamphlet, the Hungarian to whom it had been given, would within a few days be sent on from Britain to Canada, the United States or wherever he wished to go. That, of course, is not the case, and there are very considerable delays.
The letter in The Times goes on to say that:
"To pacify these sentiments the camp officials contacted the United States Embassy in London, but the only information they were able to obtain was that nothing can be done for these Hungarian refugees in England until Congress meets in January."
At the same time, they know that at least 3,000 Hungarian refugees have left Austria and have been flown direct to the United States and to Canada, and it is not surprising that these people who were persuaded, in order to relieve the pressure on Austria, to accept their first asylum in Britain, are becoming a little uneasy, particularly if they already have overseas relatives whom they want to join.
I should like to ask the Minister of State whether Her Majesty's Government will emphasise this difficulty, to the Commonwealth Governments particularly, and will also notify the United States Government officially that this attitude is creating very real difficulty in the process of relieving the strain on Austria by dispersing refugees, at least temporarily, to other countries in Europe.
With reference to the Commonwealth side of this matter, I should like to quote a paragraph from a letter written by a man whose family has given shelter to two Hungarian refugees. He says:
"We have two refugees with us who want to go on to Australia but find—I have a letter from the Australian High Commissioner—that they must pay their own passage."
That cannot be right. There must be some mistake in that case, because international bodies have already undertaken
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to pay the passages of people from Hungary who wish to emigrate. It is obvious that a misunderstanding has occurred, and the sooner it is cleared up the better for all concerned, for the Hungarians themselves, for the Austrian people who have been very hard put to it to find accommodation for this enormous flood of refugees, and for our own good reputation in this country and in the Commonwealth.
7.24 p.m.
Mr. Ron Ledger: Looking around, I see many experts on foreign affairs. I must say immediately that I can make no claim to such a qualification. However, there is one important reason why I take part in this debate, and that is that three weeks before the revolution began in Hungary I returned to this country after having spent seven weeks there. During the time I was there I had an opportunity to speak to politicians, leaders of the co-operative movement, leaders of industry and trade union organisations in factories, and, on the last day but one, their society of lawyers.
During that time we discussed many things concerned with Hungary's economic problems and with the new attitude to freedom and it is because of those discussions and because of what I discovered that I want to make one point tonight. It relates to the question of the use of refugees for propaganda purposes. It seems to me that there is a danger that we may use the refugees here for propaganda purposes, which will not help those in Hungary who are still fighting, not necessarily with guns, for democracy, for greater freedom, and to get the Russians out of Hungary.
From all that I saw in Hungary I can say that uppermost in the minds of the Hungarians was the desire to get rid of the Russians. Their hatred of the Russians and of any nation occupying Hungary is something that we do not know. I have never encountered a hatred like it. Here I want to qualify a statement by an hon. Member who referred to the "ten years of suffering" of the Hungarians. Most Hungarians talk of "a lifetime of suffering" under various dictators. Very few could understand freedom as we understand it.

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We ought to have clearly in our minds exactly what we are aiming to do through the debate, through this country, through the Government, through N.A.T.O., and through the United Nations to help these people, not the refugees, who are being helped materially, but those Hungarians who have stayed behind to fight the battle for freedom in whatever way they can.
I want to give an example of what I describe as dangerous and unhelpful propaganda. My attention was drawn to a report in a local newspaper about a Hungarian family consisting of a man, his wife and two children. According to the report, the wife said that she would rather have bacon and eggs in England than chicken in Budapest, though not that there was any chicken in Budapest, because she had existed mostly on dry bread.
One thing that struck me in Hungary it struck the tourists that I met there, and there were about eleven coachloads from this country, and it has also struck British businessmen in Hungary—was the almost magnificent appearance of the children. My own wife commented on it, saying that we were proud enough of the children in England but the people of Hungary had every right to be proud of their care for their children. Indeed, I did not see a hungry person in Hungary, and I think that people will agree with me that on television and in the cinemas they have not seen a picture of a Hungarian who looks really hungry.
In order to make sure, I interviewed last night the lady to whom I have referred. I did not want to tell the House that I did not think it right that a person should say that she lived on dry bread unless I was sure that the facts were correct. The lady agreed that she had forgotten that vegetables were cheap and plentiful in Budapest, but she had not thought it important to mention that. However, I feel that if the newspaper report had said that she lived on plenty of vegetables and dry bread, even that would have presented a different picture.
I mention that because those who are still in Hungary fighting for democracy may hear of such reports and propaganda. If they do, they will not believe that we are their friends or that we are trying to help them in their democratic aims. They may come to believe that all we seek to do is to establish something like
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their pre-war régime, and I found nobody who wanted that. Even the most ardent opponents of Communism, and there were plenty of them, stressed that they did not want to return to the landlordism of the past and the old type of capitalism. They made that quite clear. At the same time, I think that of all the people we spoke to, not one in ten professed to be an ardent Communist and certainly very few of them were members of the Communist Party.
I feel that within the Communist Party in Hungary there were many men and women who were working hard for democracy, who were opposed to Stalinism, and who were glad to see the back of Rakosi and Gero, but who were pleased that the Twentieth Congress had allowed them a greater measure of freedom and given them a chance to fight for it.
While I was there, I read a number of reports in their papers criticising the privileges given to the Communist Party leaders and the trade union leaders, and calling for greater freedom. Indeed, before I left, I wrote an article for a paper in which I warned the Government there that although they talked of freedom, they were failing to impress the people of Hungary that they were intending to give them freedom, and I suggested that there might be trouble unless they could get the full co-operation of the people, which they could only do by proving that their intentions were good.
It is my belief—and this appears to be backed up by the refugees whom I have met here, who include a doctor friend whom I met whilst I was in Hungary—that this revolution, which started with a demonstration by students and workers, became, in the main, a revolution against the Russians. That was the main objective —to get the Russians out. If we start to make this an economic issue, I believe that we are really on the wrong road and we shall not help these people. Of course, their standard of living was not as good as ours. Certainly, not everyone in Budapest could have a chicken or meat; but it will be a disastrous thing if these refugees are being told, as the one whom I saw last night was told, that every family in England has a joint of meat every day on the table. This lady, here for

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the first time, did not know that we have things like slums in this country and houses without water and without bathrooms.
That recalls an incident which occurred to me when I was in a shop in Budapest. I was buying apples, and a lady touched me on the arm and said, in good English, "I understand from the way you speak that you are English." I said, "Yes."—She said, "I do not suppose that this sort of thing happens in England." I said, "What sort of thing?" "Here", she said, "they put all the best fruit in the front, but when they serve you they take it from the back". They simply do not believe that these things can happen in England.
My doctor friend who is in this country is going to be very surprised at some of the things that he will find. Nevertheless, our standards are indeed much higher than theirs; one has to admit that. We have to be careful not to imagine for one moment that any pretence is being made there that they ever had the highest standard of living. There were plenty of people who told me that their standards were low, but there were those, like some of the doctors whom I met, who said that they had qualified before the war and had only been able to get a job as a bus conductor before the war.
We must not pretend that everything there that was bad was the result of the régime which they recently had. I think that we ought to assist these refugees in every way and help them to understand our conception of freedom, but we should do it in such a way that we convey to the Hungarians who have stayed at home that we will really help them in their fight for democracy, but we leave them quite free to choose the type of democracy they want. We do not want to suggest the terms under which our aid will be given, that there must be no Socialism, that the landlords must be given their land back, because in that we shall fail. It is significant that the revolutionaries, who have been an extraordinary mixture from the extreme Left to the extreme Right, in their call for a change of Government have called for Communists as Prime Ministers of those Governments.
Mr. Frederick Willey: Surely the hon. Gentleman recognises that in 1946 Hungary had free elections and elected a Coalition Government which had a policy of wide agrarian reform. So far as we know, that expressed the wishes of the Hungarian people.
Mr. Ledger: I am not denying that they had free elections, but there were free elections before the war in many parts of the world, yet apparently the interpretation on "free" varied from one part of the world to another. I am not suggesting that we should leave them to their old type of election. Indeed, there was plenty of talk while I was there of their having a choice of candidates. I do not want to make comparisons since 1946 and to suggest that the present régime is better than that in 1946. I have said, "Let them choose themselves", but let them be absolutely certain that it is our intention to leave them to choose the type of Government which they want and not lay down the condition that they must return to capitalism or landlordism, which is something that they definitely told me they did not want.
Mr. Philip Bell: Neither are they bound to be Socialists.
Mr. Ledger: Of course they are not. So long as one stays away fom Hungary one can rest fairly contented in one's mind on that fact, but when one goes there one finds that the tendency is rather towards Socialism. I am certain that whatever happens and however much freedom they are given, they will still remain a Socialist society.
I am not an expert in foreign affairs, and I do not know a great deal about treaties and the big Power meetings that take place, neither have I a considerable amount of faith in them. My heart does not give a leap when the Big Four or Big Five meet to discuss the future of the smaller Powers. Indeed, I tremble for the smaller Powers, and I think that the course of history has shown that we should tremble for them.
I believe that an opportunity is opening up for the Government of this country to take a lead in bringing peace to Europe. I think that we should make it quite clear that we can act outside the U.N. without acting contrary to it. That is important. I cannot understand why Members on the

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Government side laugh when the Opposition mention this fact. We can act outside it, and here I think there is a wonderful opportunity for the Government giving a lead, possibly through N.A.T.O., in creating in Europe a neutral zone which will include these European States.
I think that will go as far as it is possible to go towards giving these people the independence they want and the right to choose their own form of Government. Further, I think that it gives a greater opportunity for a lasting peace in Europe. I sincerely hope that the Government will not lose the opportunity which has been presented to them.
7.40 p.m.
Sir Robert Boothby: I will be brief. The hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Ledger) suggested that we should tell the Hungarians that we will help them in their fight for freedom. How? That is what I ask. That is what I asked of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald).
I think, as this tragedy unfolds before our eyes, that most of us on both sides of the House suffer from an almost unendurable sense of frustration. I am the last person to jeer at the United Nations; but the fact remains that Resolutions passed by the General Assembly, and persistently ignored by the Soviet Union, lose effect with repetition.
The Assembly has passed Resolution after Resolution and each has been less valuable than the one before, so that they are now almost a source of embarrassment. The fact must be faced—and it is better to face it, especially on the part of those who believe in the ultimate destiny of the United Nations—that so far it has proved far less successful than the old League of Nations, which did much better work in many respects before the war, even in the case of Abyssinia. The Resolutions which the Foreign Secretary enumerated have liberated no one, have stopped neither the terror nor the deportations, have done nothing to relax the tension, and have failed to get observers or the Secretary-General himself into Hungary.
About charity there is a very much better story to tell, and we were all glad to hear from the Foreign Secretary what is being done. It has been great, and
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it has done much good; but it remains charity. No long-term solution of the problem with which we are now confronted will be found merely by accepting refugees from their native land. That is a salvage operation. That is a charity operation. It is no solution.
I think that the present danger is acute. It is now apparent that the Hungarian rising is no flash in the pan, and that guerilla warfare is likely to continue and expand on a massive scale. There has never been anything quite like this in history, as an epic of human resistance to physical terror. It shows, as hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, that in certain circumstances the driven human spirit can rise above everything: and that is a source of encouragement.
At the same time it is formidable and really dangerous, and we must not run away from the danger. In his famous tract on the subject of guerilla warfare Mao Tse-tung said:
"Guerillas are like fish; and the people are the water in which the fish swim. If the temperature of the water is right, the fish will multiply and flourish."
That is what he wrote about guerilla warfare in China. The temperature of the water in Hungary is right. We have to face the possibility that this resistance, this guerilla warfare, may go on for a long time; and, if it does, the danger will mount. If it continues, the Russians may be driven to a policy of total frightfulness, because half measures will no longer do, and it is not merely a question of seizing key points in cities, at crossroads and railroads, etc.
If that happens, can the West simply write off Hungary, and stand on the sidelines until all Hungarian resistance is finally crushed by brutal force, over what may be quite a long period? I think not. If the Hungarian resistance asks for arms when its own supply is exhausted, which is not yet, can we refuse? I do not know. But I am sure of one thing; it would place the West in a fearful dilemma, because if we stand aside and say, "We will do nothing; we have encouraged you, and offered to help you, but we will do nothing", that will be terrible. If, on the other hand, we supply the Hungarians with arms, immediately the risk of a third world war comes over the horizon.

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In this affair we have an inescapable responsibility which we must face. It arises, not only from the decisions taken at Yalta and Potsdam immediately after the war, but from our own propaganda. Some of it, although not all, may have been unofficial. The fact remains that since the war we have encouraged rebellion against Soviet oppression in the satellite countries of Europe. It may have been ill-advised—I am not arguing that—but that it has taken place there can be no doubt. That is what gave rise to the frightful sense of disillusionment and bitterness after the East German rising, when the East Germans felt that they had been completely let down.
Does the choice really lie between moral force alone, becoming increasingly ineffective; and military force, carrying the appalling risk of total war? I do not think that that is the choice. The alternative to war is negotiation. That has been mentioned on both sides of the House this evening, and it is something which no statesman should be allowed to forget.
What should the methods be? We must face the fact that the Security Council of the United Nations is not an effective instrument of collective security today, and in my opinion it never will be so long as the veto power remains. While the United Nations does valuable work and is a moral force in the world, as an instrument of collective security it will fail, and is bound to fail, so long as the veto power exists. Neither is any purely national policy any longer any good. We cannot "go it alone" any more. The events of recent weeks have surely taught us that. We cannot go it with France. The truth is that even the United States can no longer go it alone. What remains? There remains N.A.T.O.
Here I take slight issue with the Leader of the Opposition. I do not think that to put some burden of responsibility on N.A.T.O. is in the least derogatory to the United Nations, because N.A.T.O. is a legitimate regional group or organisation within the United Nations, for which the Charter specifically provides. For two years N.A.T.O. has been largely immobile. We have talked a lot about German reunification. We have talked a lot about the liberation of the satellite countries of Europe. And we have done absolutely nothing. Our policy, if such it can be
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called, has been to accept in practice the division of Europe by the Iron Curtain; and to assume that the withdrawal of Russian troops from Eastern Europe would make no difference. That assumption has been proved to be fallacious by the events of the past few weeks. It makes a tremendous difference when those Russian troops are withdrawn.
The suggestion I want to put forward this evening is that we should evolve, in N.A.T.O., a common constructive policy for Europe as a whole, because Europe is the direct concern of N.A.T.O., and such a policy has hitherto been conspicuous by its absence. Here again, as in the Middle East, we have failed to act together in advance of events, and have reacted separately as events have caught up on us.
Yesterday it was Poland. The result of that was encouraging, but it took us completely by surprise, and we had nothing to do with it. Today it is Hungary—at the moment total tragedy. Tomorrow it could quite easily be East Germany. Supposing a situation arises in East Germany, as it easily could—and this is why I say the present position is so inflammable, explosive and dangerous—comparable to that in Hungary: does anybody suppose that West Germany would do nothing, would sit back? It is extremely likely that the West Germans would not.
We must therefore seek, together, a negotiated solution for the whole problem of European security. That is the issue which has been raised on both sides of the House this evening. I suggest that the proposal of the Prime Minister for a demilitarised zone in Central Europe should be revived and re-examined. He put it forward at the time of the summit Conference. I thought it was a good proposal at the time, and I still think it is. It might at least result in a withdrawal of Russian troops which would enable Hungary to achieve a position comparable to that of Yugoslavia or Poland; not necessarily to that of Austria at the moment—that might be too ambitious—but certainly to that of Yugoslavia or Poland. What an advance, and what a colossal relief, that would be.
Here I am trying only to put forward some proposals which are constructive because we can pass endless resolutions,

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and groan and sigh and accept refugees, but none of those things is the real answer. We must really strive to do something effective.
What is the alternative? It is a situation of explosive danger, continuing indefinitely. That is what frightens me. I ask myself whether this is what the Russians really want. I hardly think so. The post-Stalinist policy was beginning to be rather a success; then events which led to the reversal of that policy turned it into a miserable failure. It surely cannot please the Kremlin when they survey the scene that now confronts them. They have received the moral condemnation of the world, and their strategic position in Eastern Europe has been undermined to an extent to which it has never been undermined since the war. Can that please them? The answer must be "No."
If a settlement negotiated by the West, from strength and not weakness, could be achieved, I believe that in it would lie the best and, perhaps, the only hope of Hungary, and of world peace. Therefore, I suggest that proposals for such a settlement should be made by the N.A.T.O. Powers. I do not see why we should wait, as my right hon. and learned Friend seemed to imply in his admirable speech, upon Russian proposals. It seems to me that we should submit our own proposals for a security pact for Europe, including the withdrawal of forces on both sides of a defined line. In other words, we should go back to the Prime Minister's original suggestion, which I have always thought to be a very good one.
At all events, it is up to the N.A.T.O. Powers to work the thing out together, and then put forward proposals for submission to the Soviet Union. They may fail. If they do, what will have been the harm in trying? If they fail, we must not disguise from ourselves any longer the shattering fact that a third world war will have been brought within the bounds of possibility. It may come to that. In the meantime, is it not worth making a real effort to see if we can produce proposals which will result in the alleviation of the Hungarian agony; and ultimately, perhaps, lead to peace Europe?
7.52 p.m.
Mr. K. Zilliacus: I wish to express a great measure of agreement with the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby). I do not agree that the instrument should be N.A.T.O. but that is a mere technical difference, and not really important. If it works, so much the better.
I very much agree with the hon. Member's proposition that we have three alternatives—force, which means war, which means suicide; the conducting of a cold war with hot air, which is a perfectly futile proceedings; or negotiation. This negotiation should look to a European settlement and to the freeing of Hungary as part of a general European settlement.
I should like to contribute to the debate an account of some of the things that I learnt when I was in the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, during the last half of October and first half of November. In Poland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia I spent a great deal of time discussing with the leaders of those countries what was happening in Hungary. In Poland and Yugoslavia, at any rate, the leaders are just as passionately opposed to Soviet policy in Hungary as any of us. They, too, regard it as a crime against humanity, a violation of the Charter and a gigantic blunder on the part of the Soviet Government. The one thing that they are anxious for is to get the Russians out of Hungary.
Before I suggest what should be done I should like hon. Members to consider for a short time why the Russians have taken this action. First, the Soviet Government are largely responsible for the Rakosi régime and all the horrors committed by it. They are also responsible for Rakosi being succeeded by Geroe—a carbon copy of Rakosi.
They are responsible for listening to Geroe's appeal to use Soviet troops against a demonstration of the Hungarian people which was peaceful to start with, on 23rd October, and turned hostile only after a criminal speech by Geroe telling the crowd that they were counterrevolutionary scum—of which they took rather a dim view. However, the situation was not irreparable even then. The Nagy Government was formed; it became

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a coalition Government and formulated a programme of neutrality, withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and departure of Soviet forces and the institution of free elections—which everyone knew would result in a non-Communist Hungary.
For a time the Russians wavered, and it looked as though they would swallow it, as they had swallowed the events that had happened in Poland. They did not like them, but they did so, and, when they did, they did it handsomely and in a big way. There were two factors which turned the balance the other way on this occasion. First, the Nagy Government was crumbling. It could not hold the situation. It was clear that there might be considerable disorder and throat cutting in Hungary.
There then came into operation the Soviet conditioned reflex. I do not mean what I am about to say to be taken in a party sense, but the Soviet leaders are, quite literally, the Conservatives of Communism, because their society is forty years old and there is hardly anybody left except the old people who know of any different society. They find it almost impossible to envisage that the Communist order of things can be so unpopular among the peoples of other countries that it can lead to large scale popular revolt. They immediately jump to the conclusion that it is due to infiltration and subversion by foreign agents, and that it must therefore be counterrevolutionary, Fascist and the rest.
The second thing that altered the situation was the Anglo-French military action in Egypt. From the Russian point of view this changed the international context of their dilemma and made their security risks very much greater if they left Hungary to work out her own destiny. It seemed to the Russians like a collapse of the whole policy of the moderates of trying to come to terms with the Western Powers. It looked to them like a gesture of defiance from Britain and France—as though we were saying, "We shall treat you as a negligible quantity and a potential enemy in the Middle East. We shall carry on and take the law into our own hands and impose our own will".
In those circumstances, the Russians said to themselves, "If we let Hungary go, what guarantee have we, first, against
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it becoming a hostile Hungary and, secondly, against it joining the Western alliance? Thirdly, even if Hungary remained neutral, what if the next event were a similar upheaval in Germany?" That is one of the factors which bulked very large in the situation. There was a great ferment in East Germany at the beginning of these events, and Dr. Adenauer used all his influence to exert a calming effect upon the East Germans and their supporters in Western Germany. The Russians thought, "If the East Germans go the same way we shall have a united Germany, still allied to the West, and still rearming, and the whole balance of power will be decisively changed against us".
These two calculations—first, the security calculation and, secondly, the conditioned reflex of the Russians about upheavals in Communist countries—were due to the fact, as Tito said, that they have much too little faith in the Socialist forces among the peoples of these countries and much too great faith in what they can accomplish by force.
Why is this policy a blunder as well as a crime? Those people, who are so misguided by their own propaganda and conditioned reflexes as really to believe that they were merely putting down counter revolutionary bands in Hungary, in aid of the Hungarian people, must, by this time, realise that this is a classic case of the old Russian saying "miedviezhaia usluga" or, in other words, "The bear's good deed".
One of Krylov's fables has become a proverb in Russia. It is about a bear which became friendly with a man. One day it found the man asleep with a fly sitting on his nose. The bear said, "I cannot have my Hungarian friend bothered by this counter-revolutionary fly," so he raised his paw, swatted the fly and crushed the man's skull. That, more or less, is what the position must look like to those simple-minded enough —and believe me, there are people in Moscow simple-minded enough—to believe that they were merely putting down counter-revolutionary bands on behalf of the Hungarian people.
From a strategic point of view, various people, including the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East, have said that the Russians have wrecked their strategic

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position and the whole system of alliances and know now that there is nothing left of the old hold of the Soviet leaders over the minds of the Communist leaders in the satellite States. They can appeal to their national interests to maintain the alliances as they have in the case of the Czechs and, still more, in the case of the Poles, who are bound to the Russian alliance as long as we go on arming Western Germany and do not recognise—let alone guarantee—their frontiers with Germany. Politically, they have started a first-class crisis inside the Communist world and there is a tremendous controversy going on and getting hotter and hotter, in which Tito has taken the lead. I would call this almost Tito v. Stalin, round 2.
Thirdly, but not least, the Soviet Government have at a stroke lost the position they have been building up for three years. They had the moral and diplomatic initiative in the business of peacemaking and disarmament offers. They have gone a long way down in that. Yet I am absolutely convinced from the things I saw and heard in Moscow that the) genuinely want to come to terms with the West. They do not want the arms race; they do not want the cold war. They would like to negotiate settlements and this policy, from their point of view, is a fearful blunder into which they have slid without quite knowing what they were starting and out of which they would like to get if they could do so without losing face and producing even worse consequences. The conclusion, of course, is that we should try to negotiate a settlement that will get the Russians out of Hungary.
At this point, I will say a word about the United Nations in relation to the use of force. The whole Charter is based on the principle that we cannot legally, within the Charter, order or decree sanctions against a great Power which is a permanent member of the Security Council. The Foreign Office Commentary on the Charter says quite plainly that the reason for that is that otherwise we might find the majority of the United Nations committed to fighting a great Power, which would start a world war and go counter to the purpose of the United Nations. That. I think, is a plain, elemental, fact.
It is no use trying to get round it by talking about economic sanctions through
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the Assembly, which has no power to commit anyone to apply them. The whole point is, "Do you want to start a world war, or do you not?" The Charter says," No, you cannot coerce a great Power. You have to rely on the great Powers in the long run finding that it is a lesser evil to negotiate compromises with each other than to have eternal deadlock and, still more, than to have a war."
The point is that since, in Europe, we cannot hydrogen-bomb the Russians out of Hungary, nor cold-war them out of Hungary, we have to negotiate them out of Hungary. Since the position in Hungary is very closely linked with what happens about the unification of Germany and about the whole alliance system in Europe, we shall have to tackle the problem of Hungary as part of a general political settlement in Europe.
From that point of view, I am very glad to see that the Americans have put forward reasoned proposals in reply to the Soviet proposals of 17th November The Soviet Government then made proposals for disarmament, control and withdrawal of forces. The Americans have come up with counter-proposals which go a long way to agreement on that basis and also, according to The Times correspondent in Washington, on 17th December, the Americans are prepared to work for a single package agreement by "parallel examination of both arms control and a European political settlement." Mr. Dulles is reported in the same sense in today's Press.
This country is still a great Power in Europe. I believe that we should contribute to this discussion by putting forward some proposals of our own for a political settlement in Europe. I should like to propose that we should suggest to the Security Council a resolution giving instructions to the United Nations Secretariat to prepare a basis for a four-Power conference. That basis should be prepared by the Secretariat. It is important to get a technically competent, impartial, all-round preparation—calling in national ad hoc experts by all means, but having the thing done primarily on an international objective basis—and have them bring in as elements in working out this agreement, first, the Soviet proposals of 17th November and, then, the American counter proposals and, thirdly, I should

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like to see British proposals for a political settlement in Europe.
I would recall what my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) said in the House on 27th February. We all regret his absence today, owing to illness. My right hon. Friend said:
"I do not believe that the choice before Germany should be neutrality or continued division. Nor do I think that the choice before Germany should be to join one bloc or the other. I should like to see a unified Germany, as a result of free elections, admitted to the United Nations and becoming a party to a European regional agreement with the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union.… Such a European agreement must be conditional upon control, limitation and inspection of arms,…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th February, 1956 Vol. 549, c. 848.]
The Labour Party, at its Blackpool Conference, adopted a very similar proposal calling for:
"A general security pact for the whole of Europe, designed within the framework of the United Nations Charter …"
within which Germany should be united
"by free and democratic elections",
with
"Progressive withdrawal of N.A.T.O. and Soviet-controlled forces from Germany.…"
The conclusion of an agreement on those lines through four-Power negotiations
"could well be the starting point for agreement on a policy of general disarmament and could provide a hopeful basis for the free development of democratic institutions in Eastern European countries."
I hope that in exchange for getting an agreement, through the Security Council preferably, through N.A.T.O., or any other way, between the Western Powers and the Soviet Union on this kind of basis of negotiation, we could reasonably ask the Soviet Government to take unilateral action in the matter of Hungary on lines which would not run counter to their various declarations, but merely suggest that they take those declarations seriously and carry them out.
We should suggest, for instance, that the Soviet Government should be willing to declare that, while they would not accept unilateral denunciation of the Warsaw Pact, it would be quite proper to go ahead with negotiating a European Treaty, plus disarmament, plus withdrawal of forces, within which Hungary could take her place on the same terms
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as Germany, that is, outside the rival alliances, which in any case should be subordinated to the working of the treaty and the obligations of the Charter. In the meantime, they should recall their 30th October declaration about the withdrawal of troops from countries which did not want them to be there and say that they were quite prepared to act on that on request.
As far as Hungary was concerned, they should negotiate with those immediately responsible for the formation of a coalition Government headed by Nagy on the one hand, and, on the other, for the withdrawal of all or most of the Soviet forces and their replacement by units taken from countries acceptable to the Hungarians as well as to the Russians themselves—for instance, Finland, Poland. Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. They should then invite United Nations observers, and take the initiative in an international scheme for economic aid to Hungary. The Hungarian coalition Government would then get on with having free elections and, as soon as this general treaty had been negotiated, there should be withdrawals of forces both to the East and West, and Hungary would be free.
Those, roughly, are the lines on which this problem ought to be tackled. We cannot tackle it piecemeal, or in terms only of propaganda and denunciation. although I agree with all the denunciation, for this is a terrible business. Above all, let us take a political initiative in this country and through our Government. Let us make a constructive contribution. Time is against us in this matter. One more incident and we have "had it"; we can take no more incidents. We must work for the negotiation of a settlement, and I beg the Government to show some realisation of this. I ask them to take some initiative and to put forward a policy for negotiating an agreement.
8.11 p.m.
Sir Thomas Moore: In discussing the tragedy of Hungary our minds almost inevitably turn to the heroic courage and the endurance shown by the Hungarian people. That is very natural. It seems to me, however, that the Hungarians have many more qualities than pure heroism, tenacity and endurance. I visited Hungary many times between the wars, travelled over most of the country and met many of her people. One or two

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incidents stand out in my mind which showed me the quality of the people more than anything else.
Before the First World War some golf enthusiasts in Budapest decided to build themselves a golf course above that lovely city. Not unnaturally, they obtained a golf professional from Scotland. The only name by which I ever knew him was "John Willie". Shortly after that, the war broke out and the Germans ordered the unfortunate Hungarians, who had been dragged in against us, to intern all British people in Hungary. "John Willie" was duly interned, he was interned in the golf club, and throughout the war he was treated as a welcome guest. Little extra rations of tobacco and sugar, for instance, found their way to "John Willie". That showed something of the generous heart of these people whose dreadful predicament today we so much deplore.
I remember, too, the death of a young Hungarian who was in an official position in this country and who grew to love Britain. He was on leave in Budapest when the Second World War broke out. He could not face the prospect of fighting against his British friends, so he chose the highest building in Budapest and threw himself from the top storey. He was killed.
I could give many other instances of their qualities—their admiration for Britain, which everyone finds on visits there, their admiration and imitation of our institutions and even our houses of Parliament, and their intense love of freedom which, as we have seen from the incidents of the last few weeks, still persists. Oddly enough, it persists, as right hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, among the young, who have never known anything but tyranny.
What can we do for them and how can we help? The kindly, generous, hospitable, understanding British people have done and are doing a great deal through the International Red Cross and other reputable agencies for those who escape from Hungary, but what about the country itself, which was referred to many times by the hon. Member for Gorton (Mr. Zilliacus), and what about the people who are still left in Hungary to carry on the struggle?
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Whatever may be said of the United Nations, it has proved itself useless on this occasion. Some of us expected that, some of us have grieved for it, but it remains a fact that the United Nations has proved itself useless. Resolutions and condemnations are no substitute for military strength and moral courage. We have now found to our cost that no nation, or group of nations, is willing to provoke the possibility of a third world war when either very powerful or very ruthless nations—either America or Russia—are concerned. They are prepared to do so only when they are dealing with nations like France and Britain, which have a civilised view of the rule of law, or possibly with Colonel Nasser, whose military strength they do not fear.
I agree with the hon. Member for Gorton that in considering how to help Hungary we are driven inescapably to the problem of what to do about Russia. I am flattered by the fact that in an article in The Times this morning the distinguished leader writer more or less set out the ideas and views which I have about the problem of Russia. We must have both set them down about the same time. Off and on, I have spent nearly three-and-a-half years in Russia and I believe that I know something about the Russian people, their mentality and certainly their Government. The people themselves are intensely kind, hospitable and generous to a degree. They know nothing except what they are told and they are frightened to believe anything else.
While the people may be frightened—and this is an important fact—their Government are frightened, too. Ever since 1917, when they won power almost by a miracle, they have been frightened of losing it. This was confirmed during the last war, when, again, they emerged almost by a miracle or, rather, by a combination of two factors: the assistance given by blood and tears from Britain during the war and the unbelievable stupidity and brutality of Hitler's behaviour after the invasion. The Russians were ready to greet their deliverers with open arms, but instead of generous treatment they were given a treatment which they found a shade worse than the tyranny they were then enduring.
Major H. Legge-Bourke: Would not my hon. Friend agree that there are Russians and Russians? As for their kindly disposition, it would be hard to find any Hungarian refugee in this country who thought the Mongolian troops who came to Hungary had any kindly instincts at all.
Sir T. Moore: It is, of course, difficult to decide who the Russians really are. As a generic term, "Russian" includes 20 or 30 different races of different degrees of civilisation and different degrees of humanity. I was trying to concentrate my argument rather than to talk about the different kinds of Russians.
The Russian Government know, I think, that, internally, their régime literally depends on the terror power of the gun, on the terror threat of Siberia and on the terror control of wages, of food and the roofs over the heads of their people—for that is about all they can expect. They know, equally, that externally, their regime depends on their overwhelming military strength and on the vague attractive idealism inherent in the philosophy of Communism.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby) said the Russians may be driven to initiate a third world war. I do not believe they will ever do so of their own volition, unless through the madness of a drunken dictator. There are two simple reasons to justify that belief. There are two kinds of war—a nuclear war and a war with traditional weapons. The Russians know that a nuclear war involves instant retaliation, as General Gruenther very properly pointed out the other day and as Field Marshal Lord Montgomery has repeated. A war of traditional weapons involves lines of communication, and our experience of the last few weeks shows that when those lines of communication are exposed to the determination of the satellite States, with the goal of freedom facing them, it will be very difficult to maintain them or, indeed, to maintain them in Russia itself.
Russia knows that she is practically universally detested by all civilised communities and is therefore driven to maintain this satellite buffer to ward off a feared military onslaught. To help Hungary, to help Poland, to help the Ukraine —and all those other satellite prisoners who are waiting and watching for an
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opportunity to escape from their prison—we are forced back to considering the problem of Russia. At the moment, our Western policy seems to be based on preserving equal if not superior strength in both nuclear and traditional weapons as a constant threat—or as a constant source of defence. There is, however, this other policy which Mr. Nehru advocates, and to which President Eisenhower is now, apparently, being persuaded—the policy of what might be termed conciliation.
Let us consider those two alternatives. My own opinion is that conciliation has failed. In one form or another it has been tried for the last twelve years—practically since Yalta. We therefore have to consider the other. As far as I can see, neither side can stand indefinitely the economic and financial strain of constantly mounting and competing costs. It cannot go on indefinitely, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East has said. If it does go on we here shall certainly wreck our Welfare State, endanger full employment and all those other requirements of the civilised life which we have come to value. I am doubtful, too, whether the United States is prepared to shoulder the burden much longer, especially as there is a growing isolationist movement there.
On the Russian side, as I know—and as all hon. Members who have visited it know—her agriculture and her factories are denuded of the minimum manpower necessary to bring about that Utopia which those in power constantly offer to their people as a sort of carrot. They want those men from the army and from the great forces stationed in the satellite countries—they want them on the land and in the factories and the yards. They want them in order to carry out, if they can, the constant promises of a better standard of living which they have given to the people.
What are we to do? East and West are being driven into this economic struggle, the end of which might easily be as fatal as physical destruction by arms. There is only one way, though I do not say that it might be any more successful than have the other efforts. That way would be for the N.A.T.O. countries to say to Russia, in effect, "We want peace, not self-destruction. We imagine that you want the same thing. If you are so fearful of attack, we are prepared to guarantee to come to your assistance

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with all the force and power at our disposal if you are attacked, provided that that attack comes from outside the satellite States; and, of course, we would expect reciprocal treatment."
Mr. H. Hynd: We said that to Israel, and then bombed the side that was attacked.
Sir T. Moore: I do not see that that is relevant at the moment.
That approach would inevitably be accompanied by an agreed measure of disarmament, both nuclear and traditional, by the withdrawal of Russian troops from the satellite States—including the Baltic States. We, in turn, would undertake to withdraw all forces from Western Germany and other N.A.T.O. bastions and forts in Europe, although it would, of course, be necessary for each country to maintain an adequate force for its own internal security and for overseas commitments.
That is one possible suggestion that might meet with success, but it must be put in hand quickly. The foundations of Soviet power are beginning to crumble, not alone in the satellite States, but, as we have been told, in Russia itself. If that is true, it may well be that, in terror at falling, the Russian rulers may, like the maddened Hitler, try to bring down the world with them. That is why urgency is the most important factor in all this business. I hope that Her Majesty's Government, as one of the chief components of N.A.T.O., will take steps to bring these suggestions to the notice of their colleagues.
8.26 p.m.
Mr. William Hamilton: The hon. Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) has spoken of the existence of military blocs. In particular, he referred to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. I should have thought that one of the lessons to be learned from the Hungarian tragedy is the complete obsolescence of the idea that international policy can be furthered by means of military blocs. However, I will deal with that point in a few minutes.
We are all agreed that the tragedy now being enacted in Hungary is all the more appalling because of the feeling of helplessness experienced on all sides of the
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House. In the main, this debate has so far been harmonious and constructive. I hope that I will not disturb that atmosphere too much, but I must make some reference to the link, which, on this side, it is agreed there is, between what has happened in Suez and what has happened in Hungary.
Before dealing with that, may I say that as, I think, a known opponent of Communism I am glad that the events in Hungary have now stripped Communism naked of any pretence of belief in freedom, democracy, or even the elementary human decencies. What has happened, and is happening, there is an overwhelming defeat for the Soviet Union. especially in the uncommitted areas of the world. It has been amazing—and here I might get some support from the other side of the House—to note how India, after what I believe to have been some prevarication on this issue, has been compelled, through the force of public opinion in India, to denounce what has happened in Hungary.
For that reason, profound importance attaches to the present visit of Mr. Nehru to the United States. Those facts must have been apparent to the leaders of the Soviet Union when they went into Hungary. Their amazing stupidity in the face of those facts must have its explanation in the deep divisions that must exist internally in the Soviet Union, and we in this House should do and say nothing which would tend to discourage the emergence of any moderating influences that might be trying to gain power in the Kremlin.
I want now to refer to the point that I made at the outset, namely, the fact that this development in Hungary has exposed in the most brutal way the obsolescence of military force as an instrument of national policy. That is the painful and humiliating but, nevertheless, salutary lesson that has been given to both Britain in Suez and the Soviet Union in Hungary, and if that is sufficiently realised in the Soviet Union and by our own Conservative Government, it will obviously give a new impetus to the new proposals for disarmament.
One of the basic reasons for the unrest not only in Hungary, but in Eastern Europe as a whole, and indeed, elsewhere, has been the tendency to combine too rapid industrialisation with a too heavy

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armaments programme. The Russians have confessed as much on this point. More consumer goods have been promised. For those reasons, I think that the prospects of a further advance on the disarmament front are promising.
I want for a few moments to try to put my finger on some of the origins of the tragedy in Hungary. If we trace the origins from the very beginning, from the end of the war, I think we find them in the misplaced optimism of Hungary and of other countries, as well as the misplaced optimism of the Western Powers in the immediate post-war years, concerning the aims and objectives of Stalin's policy. We allowed the Russians to get a foothold in Eastern Europe, and we found, too late, a Red Army of occupation, plus an admittedly brilliant and dedicated Rakosi, the Communist leader in Hungary, plus a divided opposition in Hungary, and, ironically enough, generous American economic aid, which had a tremendous influence in Hungary in stabilising the currency and allowing the Communists to cash in economically. All those things helped the consolidation of Communist Party power.
In July, 1950, there were 4,000 Social Democrats and trade unionists arrested in two days in Hungary. None of them was tried. All were accused of collaborating with the Labour Party in Britain and with the American Federation of Labour. The Hungarian National Council of Trade Unions was set up, and the right to strike was denied to the workers. Piece rates and work competition were the order of the day. The chief functionary of that trade union organisation, Antal Apro, said that the only function assigned to the trade unions was to intensify work competition and to do everything possible to protect the party leadership against attack.
I was interested in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Ledger), who sought to emphasise the need not to over-exaggerate the situation, but if he had heard Anna Kethly speaking at our party meeting the other night he would realise that it is impossible to overpaint the picture of the exploitation of the workers in Hungary.
After Stalin's death in 1953, there was a change in Hungary. It was, indeed, a turning point. There is any amount of
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evidence to support that contention, in Hungary and elsewhere. We had all kinds of manifestations. There was the Austrian Peace Treaty, the healing of the breach with Tito, exchange visits here there and everywhere, and no lack of confessions of shortcomings and promises of better things. That. I think, is the explanation of the difference between what happened in Poland and what happened in Hungary.
I wish to link, and make no apologies for doing so, what happened in Eastern Europe and what happened in Egypt. On 30th October the Soviet Government promised the withdrawal of Soviet tanks from Budapest and to examine the possibility of withdrawing Russian troops from the other countries signatory to the Warsaw Pact. On 3rd November came the Soviet order to occupy Hungary.
The question I ask, to which I should like an answer or, at least, the Government's estimate of what the answer is, is this: what happened between 30th October, when the Russians agreed to withdraw their troops, and 3rd November, when the Soviet order came to occupy Hungary? It is very significant that the only international event of world-shaking importance which happened between those dates was the British and French bombing of Egypt.
The Government were extremely sensitive about this point when it was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker); they were extremely sensitive to the charge that the two incidents were related. Whatever the truth might be about that—and this is no time to debate that particular issue—it is undoubtedly true that our action in Egypt served to blur the differences between ourselves and Soviet imperialism at a time when they should have been glaringly clear to the whole world.
We were then morally bankrupt and politically disunited from our allies at a time when moral rectitude—which was scorned by the Minister of Defence—and political unity with our friends might have done a great deal to prevent the cruel march of events in Hungary. I believe that time will prove that that was the greatest tragedy of our adventure in Egypt. Yet, paradoxically enough, events in Hungary might have done something

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to repair the damage done by our stupidity in Egypt. Soviet barbarism in Hungary might have caused the Arab world to hesitate a great deal before seeking the embraces of that particular bear.
Internationally, both Britain and the Soviet Union have suffered humiliating defeats. Both have sought by military means, with guns and bombs, to solve their problems. It has been proved for all the world to see that military blocs are outmoded weapons in the solution of international problems. Colonel Nasser has thumbed his nose at thousands of millions of pounds worth of British arms, and the Hungarian people have spat at Soviet tanks.
That is the lesson we must learn. As a result of the use of Soviet tanks, bombs and artillery in Hungary, and our use of them in Egypt, there is now more turbulence in Central Europe and more turbulence in the Middle East than there was when we started out. We have still, in the event, to get round to negotiation.
This is the message we are trying to give the Government. It is up to them now to take the initiative, to give a lead on disarmament. Before these events came, a reduction in our defence expenditure was imminent, and it is now more than ever necessary. If we can get agreement among all the Powers to cut armaments and spend every penny of the money saved on economic rehabilitation in the underdeveloped areas of the world, that will do much more to safeguard world peace than anything else we could possibly do.
I end on this domestic note. We still have a tiny minority in this country who tend to apologise for and to pander to the Soviet Union and all its doings in Hungary and elsewhere. This tragedy in Hungary will have done a good deal if it has served to open the eyes of those people. Let me say this, brutally and frankly, to the small minority in my own party who have been wont to pander to that particular doctrine. If this tragedy has served to dispel that tendency, if it has served to get rid of the apathy in the trade union movement, which has allowed Communists to get control in vitally important parts of it, good will have come out of a wretched evil.
8.42 p.m.
Mr. John Peyton: With much of what the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) said one could not possibly disagree. I welcome particularly what he said in summing up his impressions of this terrible tragedy in Hungary, that it had stripped Communism of any pretence of belief in freedom or even in human decency. I join issue strongly with the hon. Member, however, when he went on to suggest that our action in Egypt had been responsible for Soviet action in Hungary.
Mr. Hamilton Mr. Hamilton indicated dissent.
Mr. Peyton: Perhaps I am putting it too strongly. I hope I do not put it too strongly in saying that the hon. Member suggested that it had at least given the Russians the excuse.
I would say to the hon. Member that the methods employed by the Soviet Union in Hungary have been wholly different from ours in the Egyptian issue. If the Soviet Union had been in any way influenced by the action which we took in the Middle East it would at least be reasonable to ask that they should follow the same standards as we have subsequently set. They have refused to have any regard for Resolutions of the United Nations and have maintained a refusal to admit United Nations representatives. Those points alone distinguish this whole action entirely from anything that we did in the Middle East.
I want to revert to a point which was made by the hon. Member for Gorton (Mr. Zilliacus), who, I regret, is no longer present. Indeed, he was in some part echoing what my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby) had said—namely, that we must negotiate. Of course we must negotiate. It is, however, only right and fair that we should assert that the Western nations have together for years been trying desperately to negotiate.
At the end of the war, we in the West all hoped that we might continue, as we did during the war, to co-operate with the Russians. Throughout this past gloomy decade, those hopes have been constantly disappointed by the ruthless and cynical policies which have been persistently pursued by the Soviet Union.

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The House will perhaps forgive me if I say how I welcome the difference in tone of this debate in contrast to those other rather barren debates which we had upon the Middle East. I realise, of course, that feelings were very strong on both sides of the House and I do not wish to go into the issues which were then discussed. I differ very strongly from the views which were held by hon. Members opposite, but I wonder how much the nation is indebted to the House of Commons for its conduct over those six weeks. The Opposition has undoubtedly privileges and rights in this matter, and I do not challenge them, but how far is it wise for an Opposition to pin Ministers down to the Government Front Bench? How far is it right and wise for the Opposition of any party to pin Ministers down at a time when very great affairs are in process?
Mr. Warbey: Will the hon. Member at least pay some attention to the views expressed by the Prime Minister of Ceylon, the Prime Minister of India and the Prime Minister of Canada showing how the Opposition clearly played its part in helping to save the Commonwealth from dissolution?
Mr. Peyton: I am afraid that the hon. Member has misunderstood my point. Certainly all the arguments can be made clear, but I do not know whether the House of Commons is ever wise to engage in a policy of attrition against Ministers. I think that that is an issue. Hon. and right hon. Members opposite hope eventually to be on this side of the House.
Mr. Aneurin Bevan rose—
Mr. Peyton: The right hon. Gentleman is no doubt full of hopes that it will not be very long until he is sitting on this side of the House. Very well, I do not believe that it is right for any Opposition, regardless of party, to make it impossible for Ministers to carry out the business of Government.
Mr. Bevan: This seems to me to be rather irrelevant to what we have been discussing and it is quite out of accord with the gratification which the hon. Member expressed about the previous part of the debate. What he is really suggesting is that whereas dictatorships
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destroy Parliament by armed force we should be allowed to destroy it by acquiescence. There is always the argument, whenever there is high feeling, that the Opposition should not pin the Government down. The same argument was used against Charles James Fox when the Government threw away the American Colonies.
Mr. Peyton: I am not saying that anybody should destroy discussion but that the House of Commons, and particularly the Opposition, should not abuse the rights which accompany its responsibilities.
The point that I seek to make in the debate is that we made a mistake during the Middle East debate, and that perhaps we would make a mistake now if we attempted too much to look at one event in one place, taken out of both its geographical context and its time context. I think that we all admit that we are facing all over the world the problem of militant Communism. It may well be good to suggest negotiation. We must all he prepared to accept the alternative of negotiation rather than resort to force. Nevertheless, it has at no time been made sufficiently clear that in Eastern Europe, as in the Middle East, we are facing the undoubted menace of militant Russian Communism and we, in the Western nations, are constantly finding ourselves at a disadvantage.
The Communist policy is at all times clear. The policy of the West has never been sufficiently clear or sufficiently concerted between the various Powers. We have a more or less agreed policy in Western Europe, but only in Western Europe. In the Middle East there was a lamentable lack of any concerted policy between ourselves and our allies, and in these tragic events in Eastern Europe again there is that same lack of any substantial agreement.
What will happen if the events of Hungary spread? What will happen if they are repeated, as is only too likely, because it is historically the Nemesis of tyrants that they cannot relax the pressure on the people whom they control. History is full of examples showing that when a tyrant relaxes pressure is the time when an outbreak will take place. I do not suggest that it is more than a possibility that events in Hungary will be

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repeated in Poland and in Eastern Germany. But can any of us on either side of the House say that we in this country are agreed, let alone agreed with our allies in the West, as to the policy which the West should properly pursue under those circumstances?
The right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) has said on one or two occasions, with telling effect, that he believes that opinions are stirring and changing in Russia. He believes also that it is impossible ultimately—and this must be the root of our common faith —for the Russians to win in Hungary, in other words, to defeat the human spirit. I share that belief with the right hon. Gentleman, but that is no comfort to the Hungarian people. It offers no relief to the Poles or the East Germans, should they find themselves in the same tragic circumstances as Hungary is now passing through.
Affairs in We Middle East and this appalling series of circumstances in Hungary have one common root, and that is the terrible Communist conspiracy which has been torturing the world ever since the war. Here I want to make a point relating to the suggestion made by the right hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson). He suggested that we on this side of the House were constantly sneering at the United Nations. I want to say clearly that it is not my desire 10 sneer at the United Nations, and I am certain that it is not the desire of my hon. Friends. Undoubtedly that impression has been given simply because we have thought that hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House have been too ready to place a glib reliance on the United Nations which neither the events nor the facts have warranted.
We are in a dilemma here. Let us face it. There is the Communist bloc in the United Nations, and the Communists now stand revealed absolutely naked without any pretence of any belief in either freedom or human decencies. That is the great dilemma for us and for the United Nations to face. Let us also recall that the United Nations is a human institution. It will take many years before it grows in tradition and strength and prestige, as we all hope it will, and we have to be patient with it.
Mr. H. Hynd: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves that point, does he not recall that in the case of the trouble in Egypt the United Nations passed a Resolution asking both sides to withdraw, and thereby stop the fighting, and that we vetoed it?
Mr. Peyton: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I do not want to go into that now. Instead I want to call the attention of the House to a masterly article written by Professor Gilbert Murray in the Sunday Times last week, which he ended by saying that the great danger is that we shall all look on and see the civilised world rebarbarised. I have said before that we must attempt to negotiate, but let us remember as a fact that the record of Communism is an evil one. It is one of bad faith throughout its history.
Consequently, I would say to the Government that we should by all means seek a new initiative by negotiation, but before we do that—I apportion no blame whatever here—let us establish a measure of agreement, urgently necessary in circumstances of great peril, among the nations of the West who share a common faith and common ideal. If we do not, it will be to our peril.
Also, in seeking negotiations, agreement and, from this cloudy future, the elusive prize of peace, let us remember that we are here dealing with something which has revealed itself to be evil, and that if one seeks to compromise with evil, one does not in that way do anything to establish or strengthen the cause of what is right and just.
8.56 p.m.
Mr. Donald Wade: While I was one of those who pressed for a debate on Hungary, and while I should have had a very uneasy conscience if we had dispersed for the Christmas Recess without having debated the subject, I am well aware that there is precious little that we can actually do. Mere words are tragically inadequate. However, the least we can do is to try to ascertain whether all practicable steps are being taken. I wish merely to put a few questions to elicit what is being done and what might be done.
Throughout the debate one theme has been the obvious desire for a settlement

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of the Eastern European problem by negotiation. I do not know whether the Soviet Union is willing or anxious to negotiate, but I should have thought that the chances would be increased if the Soviet Union found that she was losing, and continuing to lose, the diplomatic war, and that public opinion was continuing to turn against her in the uncommitted countries of the world as a consequence of her aggression in Hungary. If that be so, then any steps which, while not having an immediate material effect on conditions in Hungary, help in the war of ideas are worth consideration.
A number of proposals have been put forward. The first may seem to some hon. Members to he impracticable. I understand that the Secretary-General of the United Nations was authorised to go to Hungary himself. I believe that he is a brave man and anxious to do anything possible to uphold the authority of the United Nations, but what he can do is greatly limited by the Resolutions passed and by the fact that he has no executive power. He cannot go unless the country is willing to accept him.
However, I cannot find anything in the Charter to prevent a resolution being passed authorising the Secretary-General to go to Hungary whether the Government there wishes it or not. I do not know what would happen. Presumably he would land there. I doubt whether even the present Government of Hungary would use physical force against him. It may well be that they would send him away again. However, the incident would help to focus attention upon the way in which the United Nations has been defied. The effect would have been more dramatic if it had been done immediately upon defiance of the first United Nations Resolution, but even now I do not think it is too late.
There is also something to be said for the proposals contained in the Motion on the Order Paper suggesting that diplomatic representatives in Hungary should be asked to prepare their own report, as Hungary has refused to accept observers. The report could be brought before the United Nations Assembly. That would also help to focus attention, and it would have its effect upon countries like India and other so-called uncommitted countries.
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If those proposals fail, we may have to consider Article 41. I should like to know what is the attitude of the Government on the subject of Article 41, and whether discussions are taking place with other Governments represented at the United Nations. That Article was drawn up specifically to deal with the case where measures should be taken not involving the use of armed force. Whilst I concede the many difficulties involved, I should like to be satisfied that Article 41 is not being ignored merely because it might do us economic harm.
On the subject of the B.B.C. broadcasts, I do not believe that the Soviet Union is entirely insensible to public opinion, and I support wholeheartedly the remarks of the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald). If I may say so, the comment of the Foreign Secretary during his speech appeared to indicate that the Foreign Secretary had missed, or partly missed, the point. If I understood him rightly, he said that broadcasts would continue to the Eastern European countries. But that is not the whole point; it is to the other countries of the world that the overseas broadcasts are so important.
If we believe in this war of ideas at all, it is not sufficient merely to continue our broadcasts to Eastern European countries. The effect on the Soviet Union would be just as great if we had the right kind of broadcasts to Russia and other countries throughout the world, particularly to the countries of the Middle East and India. I am convinced that we should increase and not lessen this policy of making known the stark facts on what has been happening in Hungary and that we should continue to do so until there is a change of policy.
I wish to say a few words on the humanitarian subject of the refugees. A great deal has been done, and is being done, by the Government and by various voluntary organisations, but I should like to be satisfied that everything possible is being done. The problem for Austria is almost overwhelming. Can we not give her more financial aid and step up the work of bringing refugees out of Austria? I am not entirely satisfied that the fullest possible use has been made of voluntary offers in this country to take refugees. I am not sure that the fullest possible use has been made of the local authorities.

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I gain the impression—I hope that I am wrong—that in France this subject has been dealt with rather more enthusiastically and realistically than it has been in this country. My hon. Friends and myself saw the Home Secretary on this subject. I will not go into that in detail, but I hope that something will be said about the steps that have been taken to deal with the bottleneck and the other problems that have led to curtailment of the acceptance of refugees from Austria.
I know that places are being found for a considerable number of refugee students at the universities, but I should like to know whether the numbers are limited as the result of the financial circumstances of the universities. Are the necessary grants being made to enable the students to be taken and places found for them at the universities, because this is a very exceptional wave of refugees and the proportion of young people is very much higher than in any other case that we have known since the war?
Finally, on the subject of refugees, I should like to refer to a point made earlier in the debate. Unfortunately, there has arisen the impression that refugees who come to this country will thereby forfeit the chance of moving on elsewhere, Many of these refugees want to get as far away from Eastern Europe as they can and hope to go to the United States or various countries in the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, there is the impression that if they come to England or another European country, they will have less chance of moving on.
It is most important that something should be done to correct that. I want to refer to a letter which was quoted earlier in the debate, that from Dr. Kellerman which was published in The Times on Monday. The conclusion of the letter was:
"I am quite certain that nothing would contribute more towards easing the present misery of the Hungarian refugees in this country than a clear-cut and precise statement from the United States Government, translated into Hungarian and distributed in every refugee camp, setting out the United States Government's policy as regards the admission of Hungarian refugees into the United States.
If this is not done, and done quickly, the officials in charge of these camps will have an extremely difficult task on their hands and our prestige and reputation for being an honest and trustworthy nation will be damaged beyond repair, because I have heard already many a voice to the effect that 11,000 people have been lured to England under false pretences."
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If that disturbing observation is at all justified—and I hope it is not—what steps are being taken to correct that unfortunate impression?
In conclusion, this is not an occasion on which we should count the cost. The long-term effect of the heroism of the Hungarians is very difficult to calculate. The extent to which they have been willing to go to achieve self-determination and to gain personal liberty is beyond estimation, and it is clear that our indebtedness to the people of Hungary cannot easily he repaid.
9.8 p.m.
Major H. Legge-Bourke: We have all approached the debate with heavy hearts and very conscious that above all else we must be beware of pity, unless we are certain that we can translate it into action. The contributions to the debate have been constructive throughout, and I hope that I shall follow the example. Before referring to what the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) said. I want to make a few comments about what has happened.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) referred to the kindly nature of the Russians in their own country, I could not help but interrupt him, because last Saturday evening I spent about four and half hours with sonic of the refugees now residing in my constituency. The behaviour of the Mongolian troops which the Russians moved in to replace those Russians who had handed their arms to the freedom fighters—which is apparently what the first lot did—beggars description. I should like to recount one incident which might illustrate as well as anything the sort of thing which the Hungarian refugees have been suffering.
There was apparently a group of several hundred women walking down a road. In the opposite direction came a line of tanks. Those tanks could have avoided the women with the greatest of ease by going on either side of them. They did not; they ploughed straight through them. That is the sort of thing that has been going on. The Russian troops had been indoctrinated with the idea that they were defeating a wicked Fascist plan of the West to prevent the Hungarian revolution. They honestly believe that in five years' time they will control the whole of Europe.

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I never knew before what the phrase "fighting mad" really meant until I heard what the refugees had to say. Who can blame them for being fighting mad, for believing that what they tried to do was to stop a great wave of tyranny from sweeping right across Europe, and for begging us to act now before it is too late and before that happens? The eldest of the people to whom I spoke was 47 years of age and the youngest 18. The average age of a group of twenty or so of them was 27. Many of them were girls. There are only two married couples in the whole camp, which has some 250 people in it. The girls fought side by side with the men.
Those refugees believe that what happened to them is going to happen in every other European country. They even go so far as to say that unless the West acts now Europe will be over-run and that these islands will be threatened. They say that they would be proud to see all their relatives in Hungary destroyed rather than that we should do nothing. Through an interpreter I spoke to these people. He was one of the most excellent interpreters I have ever come across. He was a young Hungarian who left Hungary some years ago and whose parents now live in France. He has given up the whole of his Christmas vacation from Cambridge University to be with these people and to try to help them. Through him I tried to convey to these Hungarians the following problem.
Are we right, in an endeavour to save Hungary, to risk humanity in Europe? That seems to me to be the question that hangs over the whole of this debate, and that is why I say, let us beware of pity unless we are certain that we can implement it. The problem that faces us is whether or not we should dare say to the Soviet Union, now or at any other time. "Unless you not only stop what you are doing and get out of all the satellite States and back into your own territory we are prepared to drop a hydrogen bomb on you." Unless we are prepared to say that, then we had better say nothing at all.
The compassion that we have for these refugees is a matter about which we can do something, and I want to say a word or two about it in a moment.
Mr. Arthur Moyle: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman really trying to convince the House that in view of what has happened in Poland and Hungary the Russians would attempt, in face of those risings, to over-run Europe?
Major Legge-Bourke: No, I am not. What I am trying to convey is what these young refugees themselves think. I am trying to tell the House the spirit that is running through these people and to emphasise the difficulty that we are going to have in making them understand our approach to the problem which confronts them.
If the free world wants to remain free it must make up its mind whether it believes that there is the slightest chance of negotiations ever succeeding in stopping this process. Once every so often. as Lord Rosebery, a former Prime Minister, once said, the Russian Empire feels the desire for expansion, and the action taken by the Western Powers to try to prevent that has much the same effect as pruning has upon a healthy young tree. Time means less to them than to us. We tend to see things in terms of our generation only t they look further ahead. They do not mind if it takes a century, so long as it happens in the end.
I do not know whether the right ethic for us to accept is:
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof"
or whether we should say. "Rather than see our posterity condemned to be overrun by these brutes we in this generation should take the supreme risk." None of us in this House—certainly no one who has not the advantages of the Government, with all the advice that only a Government can have—is really qualified to judge, but I would say that the duty of the Western world is to make up its mind here and now whether it has forever banished the idea of using military force to stop the Russians coming any further West or spreading into any territories which they are not entitled to occupy, or whether it should concentrate now and for always upon negotiations.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby) made a great plea for reopening negotiations. I agree with him. I personally believe that the other alternative is a risk that the world cannot afford to take.

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But if the Government said tonight that the Americans had agreed to take what we would all regard as appropriate action I should back the Government, because I believe that they have information which would entitle them to say that. But my own guess is that no British Government will dare to say that, certainly if the American tradition is carried on in the way in which it has always been carried on before. The Americans never act until it is too late, and they never take action in time to prevent a catastrophe. They never have done so yet and I do not believe that they ever will it is not in their nature. I hope that no one will think that I am screaming at the Americans by saying that, but we must face the facts.
Neither country likes war. We are sometimes prepared to take action to prevent a war or to stop a war. The Americans themselves usually join in a war much too late, and on the winning side. We might as well face these facts and not pretend that they are otherwise.
I now turn to the actual condition of the refugees themselves. They have three great needs at the moment. The first is for Hungarian literature, especially newspapers. I do not know what is amusing hon. Members opposite. If the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) would carry on his conversation somewhere else, if he does not want to listen to me. I should be very grateful.
Mr. Bevan: I was merely making some admiring expressions about the hon. and gallant Member's style.
Major Legge-Bourke: The right hon. Gentleman has never paid me a compliment before. I am beginning to wonder whether he is coming over to this side or whether I shall be going over there.
I would make a special plea to the Government to see whether anything can be done to provide the Hungarians here with newspapers printed in their own language. They are experiencing a great lack of information as to what has been happening since they left Hungary, and they are totally unable to have newspapers printed in their own language. It would be a great help if the Foreign Office or some other Department could make some arrangements in this matter.
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I understand that the organisation of the camp to which I have referred is, roughly, that the British Council is paying £3 a week per head for subsistence, with is. 6d. a day pocket money. That pocket money, paid on a Friday, has usually vanished by Tuesday. Until they get into profitable work again, these people are going to be at a loose end for most of the week.
In addition to needing newspapers, they have a very great need for sports and gymnasium equipment to give them exercise. We want to avoid people who are collected together in camps with nothing to do having little opportunity of taking physical exercise. Those of us who from time to time during the war had to experience periods in base area camps know how easy it was to become what we called "browned off". No doubt the Hungarians have a more descriptive word.
It would be a great help if we could do something about providing cigarettes which would be more to their choice than those manufactured in this country. This is a great difficulty as they are used to rather strong tobacco—probably Balkan or even Russian tobacco, I do not know. They find that the cigarettes they get here very insipid and their pocket money does not permit them to buy very many after the weekend.
These are minor details, but they refer to a few of the creature comforts about which we can do something. Tribute has already been paid to the W.V.S. and its work in providing clothing, but some camps still have not two towels per refugee. As I gather from the Foreign Secretary that we are prepared to take in more refugees, these things have to be realised. The voluntary organisations have to be relied upon, but encouragement from the Government would help.
The camp in my constituency, which belongs to a growers' co-operative, is already tending to run into debt as a result of the slowness with which funds come through. I am not blaming anyone about the slowness of the funds coming in. I hope that the Express newspapers will be a little more charitable to the British Council over this matter of refugees. The British Council deserves commendation for what it is trying to do. It is important that voluntary associations should not be put in an embarrassing position if that can be avoided. I hope

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that the funds which are being raised will not all be spent in Austria or in sending supplies to Hungary, but that we shall not forget the great need for them in this country.
I conclude on a rather different note. I am afraid that ever since the decision was taken to set up the State of Israel, the United Nations was, in my eyes, virtually discredited. At that time I made a speech in this House. I have never quoted myself in this House before, but I feel that tonight I must do so. On that occasion I said:
"The longer we remain members of the Security Council the longer our prestige is going to go down in the world. The time has now come when we have to take very rapid and decisive steps to try and bring the Western countries and the British Commonwealth and Empire together, We should accept the fact that so long as we remain members of the United Nations, we shall do nothing but harm to ourselves, very little good to anybody else and only serve the ends of the Soviet Union which is determined to split the world into two."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 10th December, 1948; Vol. 459, c. 763.]
I said that in a speech on 10th December, 1948. Later the Korean trouble came, and obviously one could not have attacked the United Nations while that campaign was running.
In the light of what the United Nations has been able to do politically over Hungary, I feel that the time has come when this country ought seriously to consider whether or not we should remain a member of that organisation. The welfare work of the United Nations ought to go on and there must be an international body for that, but I believe that politically the United Nations is as dead as a doornail. The sooner we face that and concentrate on making N.A.T.O. into something, the better.
9.25 p.m.
Miss Jennie Lee: At one time in his speech I thought that the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) was going to declare war simultaneosuly on the Soviet Union and on the United States.
Apart from temporary aberrations of that kind, taking us back to earlier centuries, I feel that the mood of the debate has been a sad one and that all of us are trying to think, in contemporary terms, whether there is anything we can do to help in the Hungarian situation.
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I know of nothing which has more stirred the conscience, the sympathy and the imagination of millions of people in this country, unless I go back a long way to the days of the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Civil War was the prelude to the Second World War, and the questions which we are asking now are: what is happening in Hungary, and what winds are blowing over the world at the present time? We know that this is something affecting far more than Hungary.
I have just returned from the Balkans. In fact, I have been in Belgrade. Our reactions to the Hungarian situation are very vivid, but when one finds onself in Yugoslavia, a territory adjoining Hungary, the awareness which one has becomes sensitised a hundredfold.
This is a very complicated tragedy which the world faces. In visiting Yugoslavia, one finds not only that tensions between nations are increasing but, also, that tensions within nations are often taking ugly forms. We are all delighted that Marshal Tito and his Government should say that the workers' councils in Hungary must be supported, but it is a sad thing—and one must try to understand its meaning—that rigid monolithic Communism is being insisted upon not only inside the Soviet Union but inside Yugoslavia, for Marshal Tito is applying the same rules inside his country.
It is true, as the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby) said, that the Soviet bloc is not yet accepting the authority of the United Nations. It is also a fact that, in the end, France and Britain accepted its authority in the Suez Canal dispute. One point which those who try to understand how the Communist mind works must realise is that the Suez adventure is related in the Communist mind to the Hungarian situation. It was impossible for an orthodox Soviet leader to believe that France and Britain would go into the Suez area without the United States being indirectly informed. The Soviet leaders did not know how devoted to private enterprise are hon. Members opposite. We know, and we know how capricious they can be.
Although there was no open agreement with the United States we must accept the fact that the Soviet Union said, "Of course, N.A.T.O. is involved. Of course,

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the whole West is involved." They were trying to think out, on rigid theoretical grounds, what would come next. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Aberdeen. Shire, East, when he makes his usual speeches, not to damn the United Nations with faint praise so completely, because the United Nations made a considerable contribution in at least stopping that part of the damage and bringing a hope that we could start thinking again.
When the news of the Hungarian revolution first crossed the frontier there was terrific excitement, as we all know. For instance, a former vice-president of Yugoslavia who found that his country, with Czechoslovakia and Roumania, had refused to agree to United Nations observers visiting Hungary, took his political life in his hands. He was already in conflict with the Government, but he sent out to the world an article protesting against Yugoslav policy at that time. As it is a crime for a citizen in Yugoslavia to disagree effectively with the Government's international policy, he has just been sentenced to three years' solitary confinement. The indictment was made in public—the trial was held in private.
We have to ask ourselves: what is happening in the world, not only in relation to tensions between nations but to the tension within a nation? We all regard Yugoslavia as being a much milder Communist State than is Soviet Russia. What is the fear? Is not the fear now abroad, hunger—and there is plenty of material not only of men and women driven by hardship—but of men and women everywhere hungering for liberty, and it is contagious?
What can we do to make, not only the Russians less afraid, but the Marshal Titos less afraid'? What can we do to stand by the best spirits in every country who have tried to match the courage of the Hungarians by taking every risk themselves? Knowing the agonies, what can we do? I hope that Her Majesty's Government will take the initiative immediately on one specific point that we have talked about in this House scores of times, though nothing immediate or vivid enough has been done.
We have to get in contact with Western Germany. To that end we have to use national relations and party relations. It may be that there are some hon. Members opposite who have friends among
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Conservative Germans, and there are probably those on this side with friends among Socialist Germans. If only we can be absolutely certain that Western Germany would agree to be part of a neutralised zone we could begin clearing that up ourselves. But we have to take the initiative and say to Soviet Russia. "Will you accept this as a starting point —that you will have a unified Germany and a neutralised Germany?"
The importance of this is that we must give Khrushchev a victory somewhere. Behind Khrushchev, behind those elements in the Soviet Union that have been tentatively seeking to thaw the cold war, there are other Russians. There are the military Russians, who think solely in terms of military power. There are the Zhukovs, and the others. Their type exists, not only in Russia, but in all countries. I am sometimes terrified, when I hear hon. Members opposite talking of international affairs, at the thought that they still think that anything can be solved not with a cruiser or a tank, but with a bomb.
There are Russians who are like that, too, those whose case against Khrushchev and Malenkov is that they tried to ease the tensions, and, by trying to ease the tensions, brought on the sequence of events—Poland, Hungary, the theoretical and ideological quarrel with Marshal Tito. We have to get rid of the illiterate notion that everyone inside Russia thinks alike. First, there is the Khrushchev group, trying a policy of easement. Immediately behind that group one finds not the liberal Russians but the 100 per cent. military Russians, who are the greatest danger of all. But behind them, again, there are other Russians.
There is no sense in imagining that all the blood baths that took place under Stalin resulted simply because he was a madman. On that point I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Gorton (Mr. Zilliacus). I apologise if I misunderstood him, but I got the impression that he thought that everyone inside Russia had been so conditioned by forty years of Communist values that when they looked outside and saw, for instance, a rising in Hungary, they were convinced that it was merely counter-revolutionary.
Mr. Zilliacus: I was trying to make the point that there was a struggle precisely between the moderates and the

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Stalinists who acted on conditioned reflexes, and the two events, the crumbling of the Nagy Government and the Anglo-French invasion or bombing of Egypt, produced a situation in which the conditioned reflexes of the Stalinists came out on top.
Miss Lee: I am glad that it was not quite as I understood it to be.
The important thing is that people talk inside Russia as well as in this country, and we should make the first move from the West—ourselves, perhaps with our American friends, but let us get it started so that, inside Russia, the conversation changes and the people begin to say. "Look, there is the possibility of a neutralised, a united Germany." We can then begin to proceed from this nightmare world of fear into which we have got.
Then we can ask the Russians whether they will make a counter-move. I think we are all agreed on that. That is the practical way to meet the problem of the Hungarian people. We have got to think of a world policy, and we have got to begin it somewhere. I am certain that Germany is the place where we can begin it, in order that the great majority of people in Soviet Russia, Hungary and everywhere else, who so desperately want peace, can be given the beginning of hope that their Governments will negotiate instead of fighting one another.
9.37 p.m.
Mr. Grant-Ferris: During the ten years in which I have had the honour to sit in this House, spread over about twenty years, I have hardly ever spoken in a foreign affairs debate, and I certainly would not do so now if I did not feel an irresistable urge to say something about this desperate situation in Hungary today.
The perfidy of Russia and the Russian army needs no description, but we must try—indeed, I think that this is the great purpose of this debate—to offer a few constructive points which might help. I should like to say something which I do not think has been said in so many words, and that is that I hope that nothing in the existing situation will induce the Government to weaken in any way the forces of N.A.T.O. or of the British Army as they are in Germany today. It would
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be the greatest possible mistake, at a time when Russia is under the greatest internal pressure, for us to show any weakness of that kind at all.
I hope that we shall go most carefully into the suggestions which have been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby) about the further and better use of N.A.T.O. As the Hungarian nation fights on, it will become increasingly apparent that something will have to be done beyond the mere offering of first aid. The United Nations ought at once to expel from its membership the Kadar Government, which is a treacherous and unconstitutional Government. I should like that to be done with the utmost despatch. After all, if the Secretary-General is not allowed to enter Budapest, why should the Hungarian Government be tolerated at the United Nations at all?
Beyond that—and I am taking the line which my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) adopted earlier—I should like to see the Secretary-General present himself, dramatically, with a large body of supporters at the frontier of Hungary, and demand admittance. If that were done, it would be very difficult indeed for the Hungarians to refuse admission. One knows how it is; when the prospective guest writes and asks if he may come and stay, there is plenty of time to find reasons for saying. "No"; but if he knocks at the door and asks to come in, it is very difficult to refuse him. The neighbours are apt to hear of it and think badly of one. I believe that the effort really should be made.
The Communist Party in this country is trying to discredit the great Hungarian leader Cardinal Mindszenty and make it appear that he is a reactionary and Fascist influence. The House may be surprised that I should detain it by any mention of this matter, because I do not imagine that any hon. Member thinks that any such allegation is true. Nevertheless, what we say here has a profound effect and goes far beyond these walls, and I should like to take the opportunity to refute the suggestion most categorically.
On 3rd November the Cardinal, before he had to seek refuge in the American

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Embassy, made a very important broadcast, which, most fortunately, the B.B.C. and other people were careful to monitor. In the course of that broadcast, he said:
"I, in accordance with my position, am outside parties and will stand above parties. I hereby warn everyone not to indulge in factional strife and divergencies after the splendid unity of the October days."
There was something else the Cardinal said which I think may give help to the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Ledger), whom I thank for his courtesy in remaining here throughout the debate, after having spoken some time ago. These next words from the Cardinal may ease the hon. Gentleman's mind:
"We want a classless society and a State where law prevails, a country developing democratic achievements based on private ownership correctly restricted by the interests of society and by justice."
Those are not the words of a Fascist reactionary. They are the words of one who has proved himself to be one of the greatest and most devoted leaders that any nation could wish to have.
Let us remember that it is eight years ago on Boxing Day that Cardinal Mindszenty was imprisoned and suffered the living martyrdom about which we know so much. It is not without significance that Boxing Day is the feast day of the first martyr of the Christian era, St. Stephen, the Patron of Hungary. I hope that by those few words I have given the lie to any suggestion that Cardinal Mindszenty is a Fascist reactionary.
I now wish to ask my right hon. Friend whether he could do something which would be of assistance, I think, to everyone. Could he have published a Blue Book, similar to what was arranged, I believe, with regard to Poland and Rumania, which would set out all the various declarations on the subject of Hungary which have been made since the beginning of the insurrection? It would be of great help to us all in dealing with these matters to have something in chronological order. In considering a subject like this, about which there is not the constant clash of party opinion to keep the details always in the forefront of our minds, it is difficult, after going away for a month, as we shall soon, to pick up all the points of importance when we come back. I believe that it would be most helpful if such a publication could be issued.
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I do not propose to keep the House any longer, except to say a word of thanks to Austria for the magnificent neighbourliness which she has shown to Hungary in this terrible time. We do not always realise that Austria is a country which knows the jackboot of Russia, and knew it only very recently. Austria can see the Russian tanks patrolling the frontier from her own land, and she knows only too well how easy it would be for the Russians to enter and occupy her land again if they chose. Notwithstanding that, she has shown the most admirable courage to do what she has done for her poor, prostrate neighbour. I hope we shall not forget that and I rejoice that a great deal of the money which is available for the refugees will be spent in easing what must be an almost intolerable burden on the economy of such a small country.
We are all about to depart for the Christmas holidays, some of us to our comfortable homes, others to the winter sports and others to sunny climes. There will not be much sunshine or comfort in Hungary, but there is no need to give up hope. I believe that Hungary will fight on. No matter how difficult we think it is to act, we should keep on trying and never for one moment let up in our attempts to do our best to find a solution to her porblems. I believe that with the unquenchable spirit of the Hungarians and the determination of the rest of the world to make the United Nations really act, we shall, in the end, achieve a good solution in Hungary.
9.46 p.m.
Mr. W. T. Proctor: This has been a very interesting debate, and the House has found itself united in its sorrow at the present situation in Europe and in its desire to do something constructive. My own feeling is that our first need is that the Russians should follow exactly the course that has been followed by us in the matter of Egypt, and obey the United Nations.
The first real thing that could be done is to appeal for a cease-fire. What we want is an immediate ending of the killing in Hungary. No better message could go out to the Russian Government from the House of Commons than an appeal for that and an appeal to both sides—because there are two sides in this conflict—to try to settle this matter by something better than the gun.

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Several disasters have happened to the world in the last few months. The most tragic is undoubtedly the tragedy in Hungary. Death has overtaken a number of thousands of people—Hungarians, Russians, Egyptians, British and Israelis. We can do nothing to restore those lives, but we can be very sorrowful that in this twentieth century that is the kind of society that we have on an international plane. We must devote ourselves to trying to create something better.
Great material damage has been done in Hungary, to the City of Budapest, and to the war-scarred cities in the Middle East. That can be repaired. If the world would only act as one great society, it would be possible for us quickly to restore all the material damage that has been done and to enjoy greater prosperity than we have ever seen. It is, however, necessary to recognise that we must get a world society in order to be able to do that.
One hon. Member opposite seemed to indicate that the only course open to us was to threaten Russia with an atomic war. I say that that would be a great disaster. We must, above everything else, try to make sure that humanity does not commit suicide in these present painful circumstances.
Having lived throughout the period from the Russian Revolution in 1917, I can remember the tremendous thrill that there was in this country when the Tsarist regime finished. Many great changes have taken place in Russia. We saw the rise of Stalin, and many of us spent the greater part of our political lives denouncing his dictatorship and all his works. I never dreamed that I should live to see the day when I should hear from Russian leaders the denunciation of Stalin and all that he stood for, more absolute than any that I had heard from anybody else in the world. I feel that we have not made the best of our opportunities to take advantage of these changes in Russia.
There is an immortal story of the time when Khrushchev denounced Stalin. It is said that when Khrushchev was speaking and detailing all the wicked things that Stalin had done someone in the audience sent up a question which read, "What were you doing when Stalin was doing all these things?" Khrushchev
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read the question out and said, "Will the questioner come to the platform?" No one moved. In order to make certain that he was understood he moved to the front of the platform and read the question again, and again asked, "Will the questioner come to the platform?" No one moved, and Khrushchev said, "That is what I was doing when Stalin was doing all these things."
That story illustrates exactly the point that the Russian Communists and Communists in the satellite countries were in great danger of their lives during all those years, but what the Russian leaders forgot when they denounced Stalin was that there are Communists in the outside world who are under no compulsion and no fear and who yet gave Stalin the most enthusiastic support throughout that period. The denunciation of Stalin by Khrushchev undermined the position of every Communist in the free world. Outside, in the free countries, Communism is absolutely discredited, and Russian actions in Hungary have of course increased the horror which is felt.
What are we to do in these circumstances? War is not the solution. War is the immediate, complete suicide of all humanity. I feel that we must try to make contact with the Russian leaders. They are not in such a strong position as they were. It is a revelation to all of us that if the satellite countries were free tomorrow they would not be supporting the Communist regime in the same fashion as Stalin was able to get Communists throughout the world to support it. We should try to negotiate with the Russians in the present circumstances.
One great step which I believe would be a solution to many of our problems is the unity of Europe, and I do not exclude Russia from a united Europe. But we have to face the prospect of being ready to give up our own sovereignty to secure a bigger and more workable area than we have at present. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) suggested that we should negotiate on the basis of a neutral Germany. I would regard that as absolutely disastrous.
I believe that we should negotiate on the basis that there should be a united Germany inside a united Europe, which I think would be of less potential danger to Russia than a neutralised Germany

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with the right to an army, an air force, a navy and all the paraphernalia of war on her own again. I think that the solution is E.D.C. with Britain inside it. It should be possible for us to ask the Russians to sit down with us and to ask them what forces there shall be in the whole of Europe, detailing where they should be and who should control them.
We should do everything we can to remove from the minds of the Russians the fear which they have of attack from outside. I believe that that is the only feasible explanation of the tragic action which they have committed in Hungary, namely, that they fear that it might be a base for the capitalist world. So we should try to convince the Russians that we have no evil intentions towards them and no aggressive intentions whatever.
I believe that one of the great tragedies of history was when Lenin decided that he would not accept the Social Democrats as representatives of the working class. As a result Hitler slipped between the Communists and the Social Democrats in Germany. One of the most disastrous decisions in history was to create Communist parties throughout the world. Today, however, they are discredited, and I would like my hon. Friends on this side of the House to consider whether it is not possible to negotiate with the Russians on the basis of the Social Democrats being recognised as the true representatives of the working class in Western Europe.
Whilst the Government have responsibility for making every effort to contact the Russians about a settlement—because all the problems of Europe could be settled in Moscow, provided that Moscow had the right spirit—this duty is shared by the Opposition. I have never been over-enthusiastic about the delegations that we have been sending to Russia. The Labour movement has just made a general decision not to send any delegations there. I believe, however, that this is just the time when we ought to send delegations to Russia. I beg my hon. Friends to consider whether or not we should not contact the Russian party on behalf of representatives of the working class, putting the humanitarian case for a change of policy on their part and for co-operative existence instead of competitive co-existence throughout the world.
9.58 p.m.
Mr. Humphrey Atkins: I must be brief at this time of night and, therefore, I hope that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Eccles (Mr. Proctor) will forgive me if I do not follow him into the outcome of the issues in Europe. Instead, I will confine myself to making one suggestion, touched upon by the Leader of the Opposition and one other hon. Gentleman opposite during the course of this debate.
During the last few weeks I have felt conscious, as I think everybody else in this country has, of two emotions about Hungary. One has been the admiration, which has been expressed far better than I can express it, of the magnificent struggle which the Hungarian people have put up. The second is the sense of frustration in that we would all like to do something to help, but do not know what to do.
It is there that I want to enlarge on a suggestion made already. In his opening remarks, my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary enumerated the ways in which this country is helping in a practical way the unfortunate victims of the troubles in Hungary. Where, with great respect, I must join issue with him is when he said that everything possible was being done. I do not agree. Of course, I agree that we have been generous in our acceptance of refugees, and that we have contributed money to be used both within and without this country to help the victims of those troubles, but I do not think that we have done nearly enough in that direction, by which I mean the direction of helping not the people who have escaped from terror, but those who are still suffering in Hungary.
I heard my right hon. and learned Friend say that the International Red Cross was distributing food parcels and other necessities to the people in Hungary. I was horrified to hear him say that there were only about 100 grown-up people—he mentioned the number of children, but I have forgotten it—who were receiving assistance from the International Red Cross. I have no idea how many people in Budapest or anywhere else need assistance, but I am sure it runs into hundreds of thousands.
Mr. Gaitskell: I think it was I who referred to the International Red Cross.

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I am not sure whether the Foreign Secretary did or not. I mentioned the figure of 100,000. Perhaps I might help the hon. Gentleman by saying that, even so, that total is only about 4 per cent. of the population, so it is not very much.
Mr. Atkins: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not suppose that anybody in this country knows how many people there are in Hungary needing the very necessities of life. The Hungarian economy has been dislocated to a tremendous extent. We have heard of coal mines being flooded and transport being disorganised. It is clear that the unfortunate people who have not managed to escape stand in dire need of food and clothing, and I am sure that we could do more to ensure that help gets to them.
I do not mean that we should place at the disposal of the Hungarian Government a large sum of money as a gift. I mean that we should organise the arrival in Hungary of large quantities of goods in kind. It may be said that if we tried to do this either through the International Red Cross, or by joining with other nations, the goods might be refused entry when they arrived. I admit that that is a risk but it is a risk which we should take. The goods might also be admitted and then misappropriated; that is also a risk. The most hopeful prospect is that they might be admitted and distributed to people who need them. Whatever happened, we should have shown that we were prepared to do something to help the victims of the terror in Hungary.
If the affair could be well managed and publicity were given to it, then, to borrow the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Nantwich (Mr. Grant-Ferris), when we came to knock at the door with our gifts, it would be very difficult for them to be refused entry, and the people in Hungary would take as much care as they could to ensure that they were not misappropriated.
Whatever the fate of any help that we managed to send, we should have shown that we were not going to sit idly by while people were in need but that this country, and others who, I am sure, would join with it, were capable of helping in an act which is nothing more than
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Christian charity to people who are in great need and deserve what help we can give them.
10.4 p.m.
Mr. Aneurin Bevan: We are reaching, probably, the end of our discussions about foreign policy before the Christmas Recess. For my part— I expect that I am also expressing the views of the right hon. and learned Gentleman—I am heartily glad that it is so. If the Foreign Secretary gets the permission of the House, as I am sure he will, he will be winding up the debate with a great sense of relief.
There are some aspects of this subject which are not as melancholy as others. For example, those of us who are defenders of Parliamentary institutions can take comfort from the thought that dictatorships find it very difficult indeed to change from one form of Government to another, which must give a great sense of relief to the patriots on the other side of the House in their private agonies at the present time, for they know full well that if they find the burden too heavy for them it will be taken up by someone else who will be able to carry it on a little better and a little longer. That might reconcile hon. Members to the existence of the usual channels. That we sometimes find very irritating, because if the channels were blocked up we should have to fight our way through to some other form of government. So that is perhaps a minor satisfactory reflection that we can cling to this evening.
There is another aspect of it that I should like to mention before coming to the main subject. We were taken to task, as we have been on several occasions within the last few months, not only by newspapers but by hon. Members on the other side of the House, about the way in which the Opposition have conducted themselves in this crisis. We were taken to task again this evening, by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton). He said, "We pinned Ministers down." It was a sombre thought. I agree that we never pin them up. He said that we harass them and make it impossible for them to do their public duty. This comes very strange from hon. Members opposite —very, very strange indeed. I have been through many crises in this House and I have never yet complained of being

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pinned down or harassed. The hon. Member must realise, when he reads the newspapers tomorrow morning, that another explanation has been given for what happened over the Suez crisis.
It has just been given by the Foreign Secretary of the French Government, in the French Chamber, and it adds another chapter to the serial story which unfolds itself in more and more melancholy fashion to hon. Members opposite. M. Pineau told the National Assembly today that the profound split in British Parliamentary and public opinion was the main reason for the abrupt Anglo-French decision to stop military operations in Suez. One could not have it from a better source. It is not only that they did not have a victory—I am sorry that the right hon. and gallant Member for Leicester, South-East (Captain Waterhouse) is not in his seat, because even that has been snatched from him now.
We now have it on the authority of the French Foreign Minister that the war in Egypt was concluded because of the insistence of Her Majesty's Opposition that it should be brought to an end. I suppose that we shall have some more revelations as time goes on. Unfortunately, the House will be in Recess when the next part of the serial story comes out. It may be that by the time we resume after the Recess we shall have the story almost complete. We shall not have it from the Prime Minister. He probably will not be here then, but we shall probably have before the end of it the full story about collusion. But now we know, and I hope that hon. Members opposite realise—
An Hon. Member: On a point of order. Is it in order, Mr. Speaker, for the right hon. Gentleman to conduct a debate on the Middle East?
Mr. Speaker: The Question before the House is, "That this House do now adjourn."
Mr. Bevan: If the hon. Member had heard the whole of the debate he would have learned that a number of hon. Members have taken up this point.
Mr. Peyton: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that when I was speaking rather more briefly on this topic than he has done, he observed very
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sharply that what I was saying was wholly irrelevant. I hope that he will forgive me if I now say the same to him.
Mr. Bevan: On the contrary, if the hon. Member will study HANSARD tomorrow, he will find that he is mistaken. What I did say to him was that it was foolish to rebuke the Opposition for doing their duty by the House of Commons. Every time there have been crises in British history, Oppositions have been rebuked for the same reason, and if the Oppositions had been more frequently listened to then we should be better off. If Charles Fox had been listened to, we might still have had allies across the Atlantic.
However, I know that this is unpleasant to listen to. I am trying to put it as pleasantly as possible. Hon. Members opposite will now be able to realise that they did not come out of Egypt because of the United Nations, or because there was a United Nations Emergency Force, or for any of the other recondite reasons which have emerged from time to time from harassed hon. Members opposite, but because the Opposition would not agree to their staying. It was a split in British Parliamentary and English public opinion and, of course, very properly so.
One of the truths that has to be recognised is that in a society and democracy like Great Britain a country really cannot go to war unless it has the people behind it, and it cannot sustain a war unless it has the people behind it. Wars are no longer fought by mercenaries over the heads of the mass of the people and have not been so fought since the American Civil War. If we are to have a war, it has to be a popular war, and, of course, we would not have agreed with it.
It is quite apparent that if the Government entered upon an adventure of this sort without first making sure that they enjoyed the support of the vast mass of the population, it was bound to fail. It is, therefore, true, and I make no more of it, that it was the Opposition, the "sharp division of opinion," which made Her Majesty's Government sensitive to the Resolution of the United Nations and which, eventually, led to our having to pull out of Egypt.

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I can see the pained expressions coming across the faces of hon. Members opposite, but I am bound to make one more reference to it, to put it on the record. The Lord Privy Seal, winding up the debate on 6th December, made a statement which is strictly relevant to Hungary. The charge has been made on several occasions that the Russians were given the excuse, or the cover, to do what they did in Hungary because of what we did in Egypt. To what extent what we did led them to do what they did will continue to be a matter of speculation.
The Lord Privy Seal made a defence which is one of the most extraordinary to which I have ever listened. I want to read it to the House. He said:
"However, I should like to remind him"—
that is, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker)—
"that there is no connection whatever between the Russian assault on Hungary and our own action in Egypt.
I have again checked the speech which I made in the House on this subject, and to which he made no allusion in his speech, and in which I gave our own information, which was that long before we decided on our action "—
that is, the landing in Egypt—
"or took our action … the Soviets had themselves decided, by a statement of their Foreign Minister and by the moving of their own tanks to subdue Hungary. I would tell the right hon. Gentleman that on 24th October the Soviet tanks intervened at 4.30 a.m. On 26th October Soviet tanks crossed the border from Russia—not from Roumania only, but also from Russia. I have checked from our own Intelligence that during the following days, by 29th October, there were no fewer than tour Soviet divisions in Hungary in addition to the two which we originally estimated."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th December, 1956; Vol. 561, c. 1575.]
So the charge is reversed. It is not now that Russia went into Hungary because we went into Egypt, but, rather, that we went into Egypt because we knew that the Russians were going into Hungary. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] That is the argument. Let me finish the argument. The situation is this. If we knew —and that is the Government's case here —that it was the Russian intention at that time not to pursue the policy of withdrawal that up till then they had announced and that the Russians intended to invade Hungary, then why did the Government not drive the Russians into
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moral isolation by not taking the action in Egypt?
The Government cannot have it both ways. This has been the whole difficulty in which the House has found itself all the evening. The difficulty we are in is that we are, unfortunately, not able to condemn the Russians wholeheartedly in such round terms as we should like because of the blood guilt on our own hands in Egypt. In fact, this has been brought out in the debate. Is not the main case of hon. Members on both sides of the House that the only weapon we are left with to assist Hungary at present is that of morally isolating the Soviet Union? Is that not what has been said?
Most hon. Members have said that it is no use, of course, trying to liberate the Hungarians by war because no nation wants to be liberated today; they want to liberate themselves. They do not want to be liberated from outside because nations have had experience of being so liberated. Like Private Angelo, they do not want to be liberated again.
Mr. Osborne: What about the French, in 1944? They were glad to be liberated from outside.
Mr. Bevan: Hon. Members know very well that not a single one of them would rise in his place this evening and tell the House that, in his view, what we should do is to intervene militarily in Hungary for the purpose of rescuing the Hungarians.
Therefore, what we desire to do is to bring the full force of world opinion to bear upon the Russians because of their behaviour in Hungary, and the case I am making is that the full force of that public opinion has been muted, if not mutilated, by the fact that we are not able to speak in the same tones as other nations are able to employ. We have had it from the Lord Privy Seal himself that, with the knowledge that the Russians were going to do this, we took the action we did in Egypt. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about Hungary?"] I am speaking about Hungary. That is the whole point. What the hon. Member wants to do is to start history where his own guilt ended, and not where it began.
Hon. Members on this side of the House, without any qualification whatsoever, condemn Russian policy in Hungary. We consider that it is wholly unforgivable.

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I have always found it extremely difficult to understand how the Russian Communists reconciled their complete disregard for the welfare and life of the individual with even the tenets of their own philosophy. It has always seemed to me to he fundamental to the Socialist faith—and this is shared to some extent by Communism—that the individual member of society is frequently the victim of social circumstances; is not by any means the master of his fate in society; is born into under-privileged and under-educated classes; is born illiterate and is prevented becoming literate; is born poor, suffers because of his poverty and dies earlier because of it; and others are better off because they happen to be born of rich parents.
If this be the case—and it has always been central in Communism—I have never been able to understand why it is not accompanied by a sense of pity for the individual. I have never been able to reconcile the obscene conduct of the Russian Communists under Stalin—the assassinations, tortures, imprisonments and the impounding of helpless people in camps—with their philosophy, and I have never understood how the Russians could do so. The only explanation is that it is not part of their Communism at all, but of Byzantinism.
Mr. Osborne: Power corrupts Socialists, like everyone else.
Mr. Bevan: Power corrupts everybody, and we are trying to exempt hon. Members opposite from corruption. In fact, it looks as though they are going to lead pure lives for a long time.
It has always seemed to us that the conditions which now exist in Poland and Hungary were bound to arise. It is like seeing unfolded a film which one has already seen made. In 1944 and 1945 the Red Army went beyond its sociological frontiers. Where it conquered it stopped; but what it conquered it could not hold. It has always been clear that it could not hold it. Those Central European nations were too much a part of Europe, and had themselves—if the Russians want to use the words—been tainted by bourgeoisdom. Some of them inherited the institutions of Western democracy and, therefore, it was quite impossible for them permanently to be
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reconciled to the kind of Communism that Stalin practised in Russia.
I have always held the view—and have expressed it more than once—that the time would come when the Russians would find that these areas were socially indigestible. It is not true to say that they have been held down by the Red Army. The Eastern European Communist countries which are most stable are those where there is no Red Army. The fact is that it is the existence of the Red Army which renders Communism intolerable in those nations where it exists.
It is the physical presence of Soviet troops that makes the people of Hungary light so bitterly; not only Communism, but the fact that their national pride and independence is affronted by the presence of Russian troops on their soil. We have only to look across Europe to see that there is greater stability in those Communist countries from which the Red Army has retreated than in those countries where the Red Army has stayed.
It seems to me that in those circumstances the best kind of service we can render to Hungary is to try to find a way by which this whole thing can be unlocked. Hon. Members opposite have inclined to be very defeatist these last few weeks. They think that they have come to the end of their glory. They say, "England is now a second-class nation. We have demonstrated to the world, by the futility of our conduct in Egypt, that the flame has passed from us and been taken up by someone else, but now we have to consider ourselves as a second-class Power and shelter under a higher wall than our own."
I do not take that view. I do not take the view that Great Britain is a second-class Power. On the contrary, I take the view that this country is a depository of probably more concentrated experience and skill than any other country in the world. I may be wrong, it may be that I am looking at the facts slightly askew, but I do not see that what is called the extinction of the British Empire is necessarily followed by the rise of another empire, that we are a second-class Power and now have to defer to first-class Powers, because the fact is there are no great Powers—there are only frustrated Powers.
We are not in a situation where great empires are quarrelling about spoil and

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inheriting the corpses of those they have extinguished. It is not true. It is not correct. The great Powers of the world today, as they look at the armaments they have built up, find themselves hopelessly frustrated. If that be the case, what is the use of speaking about first-class, second-class, and third-class Powers? That is surely the wrong language to use. It does not comply with contemporary reality. What we have to seek are new ways of being great, new modes of pioneering, new fashions of thought, new means of inspiring and igniting the minds of mankind. We can do so.
That is why I rather deplored the barren speech we had from the Foreign Secretary, at least that part towards the end, this afternoon. He talked as though we could make no general suggestions about settling the European situation because that might appear as though we were giving prizes to the Russians for being wrong. In other words, he said, "Why should we think of bartering anything at all in Europe in exchange for Russian retirement from the Eastern States?" I have been convinced for some time that a great deal of Russian opinion has been moving in this direction. It is fairly obvious from the situation in Poland that there is no decision in Russia to over-run all the satellites by armed force if they do not give in to her.
The Polish settlement itself is evidence, if not of uncertainty in the Soviet Union, at least of no monolithic attitude towards all the satellites. When I was in Moscow, some years ago, I said to some of the Soviet leaders that I thought that their policy of holding down the Eastern European States would not pay dividends either in terms of safety or in terms of influence.
The cordon sanitaire that Stalin created around himself becomes increasingly irrelevant when one considers modern weapons and that one no longer has to deal with the possibility of massed marching armies, but projectiles and heavy bombers. Therefore, the cordon sanitaire, as a cushion between Russia and the rest of the world, has now become irrelevant. If this be true, and if it is also true, as it is, that the Russians are bound to meet increasing embarrassment in those areas, the essence of diplomatic wisdom is to find it possible for them to do so as quickly as possible.
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It is no use, therefore, saying that we must not bargain. Of course we must. I would be delighted, indeed I would be proud, if the initiative came from here. If it does not come from here, it will come from somewhere, and, once more, we shall be reacting to somebody else's initiative instead of making them react to our initiative.
For example, I believe that the first new idea which will emerge from this reassessment of Suez is not necessarily the same thing as Prime Minister Nehru has been advancing—the policy of neutralisation—but another conception which might be called the policy of disinvolvement, the policy of disengaging. Up till the Suez crisis we were building up our alliances right up to the Russian threshold, in Europe and in the Middle East, and the nearer we reached her, or the nearer she reached us—because it was a reciprocal operation—the more and more points of friction we created.
What is infinitely more serious is that we tried to build our forward positions in those parts of the world which are most politically, economically and socially unstable. That is obviously a foolish thing to do, because, as the populations in those areas are disturbed by a variety of influences, some coming from us and some coming from the Russians, naturally those forward positions become uncertain and our own prestige becomes involved.
Thus the Bagdad Pact involved a complete change of relationships in the Middle East and—here I may be on controversial ground—our attempts over four or five years to build an armed Western Germany into N.A.T.O., in my view, produced an area of disturbance, of fear, of social dislocation, where we ought to have been building up serenity and stability.
What I am asking the Government to do is to see whether we can approach this problem from a new angle, not to push the cold war up against each other but to try to establish cool areas between each other, to try to sec whether it is possible for the great Powers to agree that there shall be nations who would have to agree about this themselves quite independently. We should not impose it upon them. I should imagine that there are a number of nations now which would rather have the tranquillity of disinvolvment than have the fear of being involved.

1407
It seems to me that the Central European countries are just the areas where we can start. It has been mentioned by Shepilov, it has been blurted out by Khruschev. Let us find out how much there is in it. Let us explore how far the Russians are prepared to go in this matter. Let us assume that not only is Russian policy malignant, but, also, that it might be stupid, not only that the Russians have misbehaved themselves in Hungary but that they might not have understood the Hungarian situation. Whenever I meet Russian representatives, the thing that impresses me about them is not their infallibility, not their wide knowledge, but their sheer ignorance of what is happening in other parts of the world.
It is now clear that they were ignorant of what was happening in nations on their own doorstep. It is quite clear that they did not for one moment estimate the extent to which their own conduct had undermined their influence and prestige in Hungary. They could not possibly have weighed the extent to which Hungarians would resent them if they went on as they had been doing.
What does it all add up to? It does not add up to the apocalyptic conclusion that we are dealing with someone who is 100 per cent. evil, against whom we are to pit our policies, so that the angels of light are fighting the angels of darkness. All history would be simpler if it were always merely a quarrel between right and wrong. Unfortunately, quite often it is a quarrel between two sets of rights.
I would ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his colleagues now to take the initiative in this matter, to see whether it is not possible for us to "feel out" the Russians, by any means they like, either through N.A.T.O. or the United Nations, or by any other means, to discover whether the Russians are not now prepared to come to terms with us that would be satisfactory and honourable to both countries and contribute to the peace of the world.
10.37 p.m.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I ask the leave of the House to speak again. After 74 Foreign Office Questions being on the Order Paper today and after having made the opening speech in this debate, I am not at all sure that if permission were refused I should be greatly disturbed.
1408
However, I think it can be said that we have had no great party controversy during this debate, at all events, not on the scale of other debates during the past few weeks. The right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) did towards the end of his speech try to revive the flickering flame, to use the bellows to warm things up to a sort of Yuletide atmosphere; but I am not quite certain that even he succeeded. He did give us a lecture on the duties of Government in paying attention to the Opposition. I do not recollect that during the years 1945 to 1950 he really paid so much respect himself to that duty. In these matters, example is better than precept, and some of us on this side remember what happened during those years.
Mr. Bevan: Attention, but hardly ever respect.
Mr. Lloyd: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman ever paid attention or respect. And I am not sure that we shall do very much better either.
He did say that he would seek to liberate us from the corruption of power. I seem to remember another prophecy he made, I think, in the year 1949 or 1950, the prophecy that never again would there be another Tory Government. Really, his prophecies do not disturb us perhaps as much as he would wish.
He made a reference to the situation in Egypt and the question of a connection between our action there and what happened in Hungary. That might perhaps lead one into an area of controversy, and I can only say what my own belief is upon that matter. I do not believe that, once the Nagy Government had declared for neutrality, for withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, and for free elections, there was any chance of their ever being preserved from the fate which met them. I do not believe that anything which was happening anywhere else in the rest of the globe had any effect upon that consequence.
I turn to some of the points which were raised during the course of the debate. The right hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson) asked if I could give him some figure about the number of deportees. The best that I can give him is that the number runs into some thousands.

1409
The Leader of the Opposition asked about Anna Kethly addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations. My information is that a resolution would be required for that to be possible. There is the point about the precedent that it might involve. I understand that there is some support from at least two countries for that, and as far as we are concerned we certainly would have no objection to that happening. Indeed, we would give it our support. The right hon. Gentleman's second point concerned the report to the United Nations by diplomatic representatives in Budapest. That idea had already occurred to us, and I would prefer if the right hon. Gentleman would leave it at that for the moment.
He raised the question of assistance for refugees in Austria. We have already contributed to the Secretary-General's fund—not very much I think, some £15,000—but one of the disappointing facts is that only two other countries have followed our example. The United States and Canada are the only two other countries who have contributed to the Secretary-General's fund.
We have also been able to give some small assistance to the Austrian Government, but one must face the fact that the largest help is that which comes from the Lord Mayor's Fund, one-third of which is available. The Lord Mayor has already sent £150,000 to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Austria.
The suggestion was made that we should take some bold initiative and contribute large sums to the International Red Cross for its programme in Hungary. We are helping by our contributions to the British Red Cross and by the funds which have been raised, but I will certainly consider the possibility of further help so that the programme does not suffer.
A suggestion came from another hon. Member regarding a reconstruction programme, and the example of U.N.R.R.A, was put forward. It is rather too early for us to think in terms of another U.N.R.R.A. programme, because I do not think the conditions yet exist in Hungary in which it would be possible to carry through such a programme, and I am not at all certain that that would be accepted there by the powers that be.
The Leader of the Opposition mentioned the question of doctors. My right
1410
hon. and gallant Friend the Home Secretary will examine that with the Minister of Health. I think that we shall be broadly sympathetic to the view put forward by the right hon. Gentleman.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) mentioned the question of broadcasting. I want to say again that there is no question of reducing the broadcasts of the B.B.C. to the satellite countries. In fact, over the past few weeks there has been a slight increase in the broadcasts to Hungary. I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend that although it may be possible to make economies elsewhere with regard to the overseas services of the B.B.C., it would be wrong to make them in broadcasts to that part of Europe.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wells (Lieut.-Commander May-don) spoke of the misunderstanding under which certain of the refugees have come to this country during the past few weeks. We have been into that matter and I think it is quite true that some were led to believe that by coming here they could go on almost at once automatically to the United States of America. That misapprehension was not due to anything that we have said. We are doing our best to correct that idea, because the United States, as I have said earlier, is giving preference to the refugees coming direct from Austria.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nantwich (Mr. Grant-Ferris) suggested that a Blue Book should be published dealing with the chronology and statements on these matters. I will certainly consider that. His points of detail will receive attention.
I come now to what I consider the most interesting part of the debate. It does not detract in any way from the sympathy which we feel about what has happened in Hungary and the desire of all sides of the House to do everything that we can to alleviate the lot of Hungarians in Hungary and those who are refugees. Although what I am now going to say does not in any way detract from that desire, that real feeling which is the feeling of the British House of Commons, I think that, for us, the most interesting part of the debate has been the look into the future to attempt to decide what policies we should seek to adopt.

1411
Her Majesty's Government have repeatedly put forward plans designed to procure a settlement of the German question and thus greater stability in Central Europe. The Prime Minister took a large part in this at the Berlin Conference in 1954 and the Geneva Conference in 1955, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer did so at the second Geneva Conference in 1955. Her Majesty's Government have repeatedly taken the initiative in putting forward plans designed to procure a settlement in Europe. I gave a quite false impression in my opening speech if hon. Members thought that we were going to confine our activities simply to the examination of the proposals put forward either by the Soviet Union or by the United States.
I think that the timing of each initiative must be left to the Government of the day in consultation with their allies, and I am not going tonight to commit Her Majesty's Government to any sort of timetable in this matter. I agree, however, with much of what has been said about the choices which lie before us. In my opening speech, I emphasised the importance of not undermining the position of the United Nations. I felt that might be a thought which would receive some support from the other side of the House.
I thought that, because of recent events, the United Nations had acquired new authority, and I was anxious for an opportunity for that authority to be tested in the Hungarian situation. I was not being cynical with regard to that. I felt that, perhaps because of what we had done, it might be said that the United Nations had received new authority. I thought that, before one started negotiating away the position, it was important that the Soviet Union should be faced quite straight with its disobedience to the mass of Resolutions of the United Nations. However, I agree that, although that is one side of the matter, that does not mean that we should abstain from the contemplation of initiatives outside the United Nations.
I think that the discussion today about developments in the post-Stalin era has been extremely interesting. I thought that there were indications earlier in the year, arising out of internal developments in the Soviet Union, of a certain move towards a more liberal structure of
1412
society within the Soviet Union. I think there was a debate in July in which the Prime Minister indicated some of the respects in which that was taking place.
I think that we got certain evidence of reforms in their judicial procedures. Confessions were no longer to be used in evidence. There was the right to change employment. There was the right to own property. There was the right to talk more freely with foreigners. There was the development of certain personal freedoms. There was the development of a new professional class. All these things indicated a certain movement in the structure of society in the Soviet Union which gave hope of a more general liberalisation.
It was only the beginning. There was only some evidence that that was taking place, and there was no evidence at all that it was extending to political thought. It was confined to other matters. Nevertheless, I think that it gave one ground for greater expectations. I felt, as I believe many people felt, that that would have its effect in turn upon the satellites, that it was impossible to have that sort of development within the Soviet Union without its having a corresponding effect upon developments within the satellites. Six months or so ago one thought that the auguries for a gradual détente were good.
One matter which one did not take sufficiently into account at that time was the consequence of Soviet meddling in the Middle East and its decision more than a year ago to sell arms to Egypt, the progressive demonstrations of its intentions to make trouble in that area, its arming of Syria, etc. All that was probably a factor, a danger, which was not sufficiently realised. It was of a much greater extent than we had thought, and without doubt that has been one of the major causes of the setback to the improvement in international relations which six or nine months ago we felt we were entitled to expect. It was that Soviet meddling, mischief making, trouble making in the Middle East which produced the situation in which the Prime Minister of Egypt acted as he did and the Government of Israel acted as they did.
The other factor which could not have been foreseen and which has had an impact on the debate has been that the development in the satellites took place

1413
rather more quickly than had been expected or foreseen, that instead of there being a gradual process towards liberalisation, freedom and self-determination, as soon as there came signs of a change in the Soviet Union, the satellites began very quickly to desire to cast off the oppression which they had borne until then.
In Poland it was done one way, in Hungary, owing to the circumstances to which reference has already been made—it may be personalities, it may be the actual fact that a particular incident was suddenly aroused into something worse than intended—that process has resulted in the tragedy that we have all seen. There has been this setback due to those two factors, but that is no reason for longterm pessimism.
I believe that the political weakness of Soviet control of the satellites has been proved. Its military strength is as great as ever. I am not much impressed by the argument about its strategic weakness having been shown up. We would make a great mistake if we underestimated the military strength of the Soviet Union at the present time. In war, however reluctant populations are to conform, they usually do so if there is sufficient military power at hand. We should make a great mistake if we believed that Soviet military strength had been greatly sapped by what has happened. Nevertheless, I believe that its political strength has been enormously weakened.
Some very pointed questions were asked about what would happen if we came into a phase of prolonged guerrilla warfare and about who would be willing to supply arms and who would not. I believe that further progress is still pos-
1414
sible, but I am absolutely certain that the one thing which it would be folly to do would be to dismantle the N.A.T.O. alliance or N.A.T.O. defence at the present time. If we were to do that, or be manœuvred into something which would result in the dismantling of N.A.T.O., we should be dismantling the structure which has produced the present position in which, on the whole, Western Europe is more secure than it has ever been before and the Soviet Union is weaker in Europe than it has ever been before.
One error we must avoid is believing a solution lies in dismantling the N.A.T.O. alliance and discarding the policy which has checked the Soviet advance and helped to preserve the European desire for liberty.
I say again that it does not rule out further initiatives. Her Majesty's Government will certainly bear in mind the opinions which have been expressed, in what I believe has been a very thoughtful and helpful debate, about what are the possible and desirable initiatives.
Mr. J. B. Godber: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

SUNDAY CINEMATOGRAPH ENTERTAINMENTS
Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Urban District of Milford Haven [copy laid before the House, 12th December], approved.—[Mr. Deedes.]

UNITED NATIONS
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Godber]
10.55 p.m.
Mr. Grime Finlay: After the debate to which we have just listened, it is in a spirit of deep humility that I rise to debate the many-dimensioned and mondial issues connected with strengthening the United Nations. This evening's debate on the torture of Hungary will, I think, only more deeply impress upon all of us the essential conditions which are precedent to a civilised world order. These were very clearly stipulated last Sunday in an eminent article in the Sunday Times by Professor Gilbert Murray. First, he said, there must be a general willingness to obey the law; and secondly, he said, there must be the absence of any one Power ambitious enough and strong enough to wreck it.
In regarding world problems, I think we must recognise that the Soviet Union is not generally willing to obey the law and is, moreover, strong enough either to ignore it or to wreck it. We must therefore, I think, shape our attitude towards world institutions accordingly and realise that there are severe limitations imposed upon the effectiveness of the United Nations. Any other course is merely dangerous escapism. That, of course, is not to say that we should do nothing at all. There are certain steps which we should take, and should do all we can to encourage, in strengthening the United Nations.
There has been much talk in recent times about teeth—better and sharper teeth—for the United Nations. Teeth are certainly important; indeed, they are essential. But much more significant, I submit, are the impartial principles on the basis of which any such teeth are to be applied. If the United Nations is to have real moral force, its decisions must be just decisions.
Anyone will agree in this matter, I think, that whatever else they may be, the decisions of the Security Council and of the General Assembly are not judicial decisions. In no sense are they the decisions of some great mondial supreme court. No evidence is called, examined and cross-examined, no authorities or precedents are cited. No reasoned judg-
1416
ment, based upon accepted judicial principles, is delivered by judges.
On the contrary, the decisions are made from a very mixed assortment of motives of political expediency. Some nations plainly regard their own interests as top priority. Racial, economic and religious blocs are found to support those interests and bargains are reached between the groups. Still other nations are content or have, perforce, to follow in the orbit of some major nation of which they are the satellites. There is something distinctly unseemly, moreover, and I would almost say indecent, in nations which have consistently broken the spirit of the United Nations Charter, set at naught its Resolutions and defied their obligations under international treaties, taking part in the proceedings of the United Nations and exercising their vote and their membership against other nations.
It should be obvious that if the Assembly is really to count as representing the conscience of the civilised world, its decisions should be reached impartially and on the basis of civilised judicial principles. A more judicial instrument is called for, and when Charter revision is considered this year disqualifications for members infringing the code should be introduced. Indeed, it should be considered whether they should not be expelled altogether.
Unfortunately, public international law is still a far from complete code, although considerable progress has been made towards this development. The judgments of the International Court are not yet enforceable and even if they were it is difficult to see what the means of enforcement would be in many cases, short of armed conflict. I need only recall the two unfortunate experiences of the Corfu judgment and the recourse to the Court in respect of the nationalisation of the oil interests by the Government of Iran. In the Corfu judgment, the British Government got judgment for over £800,000 in respect of the lives of our seamen and the loss of our destroyers in the Corfu Channel, not one penny of which has been recovered. If one applies that situation to our domestic procedure in relation to court judgments, we know that one can go and put the bailiffs in and one can get execution. But one cannot put in the bailiffs when the Government of Albania are concerned, and distrain on their chattels and pro-

1417
perty. In fact, there is nothing short of armed action by which one can enforce justice.
Many members of the United Nations organisation even refuse to accept as compulsory the judgment of the International Court, thereby exposing either their bad faith or their lack of confidence in its machinery. I think the first task of the International Law Commission must be to extend its work in completing and restating the code of international law. This, I think, should include the law as to international waterways, and the rights of transit through them, and steps should be taken to make compulsory the jurisdiction of the public International Court.
Turning to the question of the Charter and amendment of it, I come to the definition of "aggression." The International Law Commission has for some years past been trying to get a clearer definition of that expression, but little advance has been made, due to the deep divisions of opinion. We all probably think that we have a pretty good idea of when one country has committed an aggression upon another. We think that in terms of common sense. But some members think that a clearer definition would only encourage the evil which it was intended to prevent. Others are divided regarding the type of definition to be adopted, and a special committee has, I understand, been considering these matters exclusively.
What I have in mind, however, is not a comprehensive and exclusive definition of aggression but the laying down of a series of considerations which should be taken into account before it is decided that an aggression has been committed. In view of recent events which have taken place in the Middle East, these considerations could, I suggest, clearly include the following factors: previous threats; hostile military or economic dispositions: previous record of aggressions; declarations as to a state of war between the parties. All those four factors are guides which could enable a court, exercising its mind judicially, to reach a conclusion.
Another obvious common-sense consideration, if one wants to weigh this question of aggression, is the relevant military strengths of the nations concerned. It is in the highest degree unlikely that a weak nation will be guilty of aggression against a strong nation.
1418
While principles of this kind should not be conclusive, they should afford a guide in enabling a decision to be reached on the issues of aggression or of self-defence. I should be interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary has to say in reply. Obviously, considerable complexities are involved, and there are many forms of preparation, practice and penetration which can cover aggression.
It is normally regarded as a virtue, I should have thought, for the law to be clear. Very often in this House we define crimes, and I do not remember hearing the Law Officers of the Crown say that that enables a potential criminal more easily to cloak his evil desires. I think that we have to try to do something about this.
As to sharper teeth, the absolute condition precedent is that the principles of their application must be sound before they are supplied. Only if that requirement is satisfied should we aim at the following improvements.
First, we want more rapid and judicial machinery for determining an aggression, otherwise the situation may be changed so rapidly that it is irretrievable save at the cost of a major war. Of course, such machinery involves very considerable difficulties. For example, it is impossible to have a satisfactory interim procedure upon the lines of our English interim injunction procedure. Rights of appeal have to go by the board because of the inevitable delay involved.
What should this judicial instrument for deciding aggression be? I suggest that we want something in the nature of a security court, and that it should be composed and presided over by international jurists of the highest learning and the most exceptional integrity that we can find. They should be supported by military, naval and air assessors, and they should have as well a staff of military observers who should have at their disposal all possible air facilities which would enable them to reconnoitre any dispositions which had a bearing on the question of aggression.
Secondly, I submit that an effective standing force should be immediately available, and I stress "immediately." We know that for various reasons those Articles of the Charter providing for instantly available armed forces have not

1419
been fulfilled, and, in particular, that national air force contingents have not been provided under Article 45. If possible, steps should be taken to remedy that. Properly equipped troops, perhaps two divisions of all arms, should be established before the crisis occurs and not weeks after, as in the case of the Middle East.
Those troops should receive practice and training in United Nations police and liaison duties and be instantly available. Military training manuals ought to have some new chapters written upon the tactics and methods of effective intervention. The troops should be provided with their own transport and their own air arm, and should not have to rely upon the disputants themselves for those facilities, as has been the case in the Middle East. Can one imagine anything more derogatory to the dignity and effectiveness of any police force than having to rely upon those who are the parties to the dispute for their transport? That is something which must be put right.
If it is not possible to raise the necessary personnel by direct recruitment to the United Nations organisation, which is the best course, or by seconding from national forces, then it should be the responsibility of members to earmark certain of their forces for the purposes of United Nations duties, and they should receive training in them, and carry out joint exercises. I want to see the cohesion and the discipline of these forces effectively arranged, and they should be in no way inferior to national contingents.
I doubt very much whether, as things are organised at present in the Middle East, the disciplinary arrangements under General Burns are effective. We shall have to see, but I doubt whether they are. I feel that in training, in discipline and in turn-out the United Nations should seek to set an absolutely exceptional example and build up an outstanding type of esprit de corps quite its own.
History provides many examples of efficient mercenary forces, whether it be the Swiss or the Scots in mediaeval times. In the present time, what about the Brigade of Gurkhas, or the French Foreign Legion? We do not need to have purely national contingents to show good fighting qualities. We can look to
1420
some of these examples for those qualities. In addition, the United Nations forces will have an extra opportunity of acting in accordance with the highest international ideals.
As things are ordered at present I do not think that those forces can hope to serve anything more than a strictly limited purpose. They can act only as a police force by consent of the disputants, as in the Middle East, or as a military force against a small and relatively weak opponent. I am quite certain that in existing circumstances they could not tackle a heavily armed world Power. In these matters we must be patient and content with progress which is limited, but which, on the other hand, is real progress. We must not expect too much but try to make a start.
Today the United Nations is being put to a real test. The world is watching how it carries out its duties in supervising the withdrawal of the various forces and securing freedom of transit in the Suez Canal. I am certain all of us devoutly hope we are going to learn the lessons of the past anxious months, and that we shall, out of these small beginnings, see a system emerge more effectively to preserve the peace of the world.
11.12 p.m.
Mr. Christopher Boyd: If I understood him correctly, I certainly agreed with the last part of the speech of the hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Finlay) about the building up of a United Nations police force. I shall not repeat what he said.
During the early part of his speech I had what must be an unusual feeling for an hon. Member on this side of the House about an hon. Member opposite, that he was being a great deal too idealistic and perfectionist in his ideas of how the United Nations ought to work and how it ought to be changed. Personally I welcome the realistic approach of the United Nations towards international political parties, growing like national parties, representing interests, not just points of view, based on realities and solid, common interests, which bind groups of nations together.
I should have thought that the fact that the members of our Commonwealth are often able to work together is a very good thing. It is also good that India is able to lead a party of its own, a

1421
group of nations which is often able to mediate between the two major blocs of Powers. I should have thought that the United Nations is far more likely to be successful if it works in the existing setup, in the real world, with a realistic relationship to what is going on. I should not object to that. I do not agree with the idea of trying to turn the United Nations machinery into a judicial set-up. There is already an International Court at The Hague, to which legal issues can be referred, and indeed Britain often does refer disputes of that kind to that Court.
The hon. Member suggested that members of the United Nations which misbehaved should be expelled. Surely if that were the case we should all be expelled eventually. No human being is perfect, and sooner or later every human being would be expelled from an organisation, if expulsion were the penalty for misbehaviour. We should all help the police in catching a law breaker even though a nation assisting the police had misbehaved in the past or might do so in future. To get peace, or to try to get it, all available resources have to be used to stop the law breaker when breaking the law occurs.
I think that it would probably be useful to pursue the discussions which the hon. Gentleman suggests should be held in an effort to define aggression. He had some useful things to suggest, but I do say that it has to be made clear that provocation is not an excuse for aggression, although that is not always accepted today. I agree that the sort of rule of thumb which is useful is that of an attack by a large Power on a small one. But another thing which can help is to find out which side advances, because the aggressor will have chosen the time favourable to himself, and will be reasonably certain to be able to get the better of the fight in the earlier stages. Of course, what will happen later is where the aggressor's calculations may go wrong.
I would conclude by saying that I think it is a pity to spend too much time talking of the form of the Charter. Too many people seem to think too readily that there are deficiencies and defects in the Charter as it exists today. Let us examine ways and means of improving it; and in doing that, I think that we shall find the merits of the Charter as it stands. Let us use the machinery of the United Nations
1422
as it exists; let us learn to make the best use of the Charter and the organisation that we can.
11.17 p.m.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. David Ormsby-Gore): The hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Boyd) described the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Finlay) as too idealistic; I hope that neither hon. Gentleman will misunderstand me if I say that I thought it too legalistic. For example, I thought that the idea of a court, with military assessors, was going rather far, because by the time that the court had sat and heard the views of those assessors the aggressor would have gone a long way. However, I thought that his idea of a United Nations armed force was interesting, but I cannot go into detail about that tonight.
The other interesting part of his speech—and the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West also referred to it—was the definition of aggression. I have already spoken on that subject in a former Adjournment debate, and I dealt with it at some length during Question Time last week; but it is worth going into in some detail.
The real trouble is that the attempt to define aggression—and it has not been much encouraged by Her Majesty's Government—has been going on at the United Nations since 1951. There has been a very wide divergence of views as to the type and scope of a satisfactory definition. Some member States have been in favour of a very general formula. Others have pressed for an exhaustive and detailed definition which would list as many manifestations of aggression as possible. Others again have favoured a "mixed" definition, which would include the other two varieties. There have also been arguments as to whether the definition should include economic aggression, ideological aggression, and indirect aggression. It has even been suggested that any definition should be wide enough to include any sort of interference in the internal affairs of another State.
As a result of these seemingly endless discussions, member States are coming more and more to share our view, which is that it is not possible to reach a definition which will serve all practical purposes, and that a defective definition

1423
might very well be dangerous. When we look at the various types of definition which have been put forward we find difficulties in each case. A general definition could leave such an important point as self-defence unelaborated, while, on the other hand, a definition which enumerated various types of aggression would appear to single out certain kinds of aggression for special emphasis. In a word, a general definition would almost certainly be too wide, while a more detailed definition would inevitably leave gaps.
I have mentioned this at some length because I should like to make it clear that it is not merely our traditional empirical approach which makes us chary of attempts to define aggression. We in fact remain very doubtful whether it is possible to find a satisfactory definition covering all those cases which are truly in the nature of aggression without at the same time prejudicing necessary measures which might have to be taken in order to resist aggression.
There is a real danger, we feel, that a definition could be distorted by would-be aggressors who could take advantage of loopholes. Thus the innocent might be trapped while the aggressors were allowed to escape.
Another point that was raised by my hon. Friend—
Mr. Eric Fletcher rose —
Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I am sorry not to give way, but I have not got much time. I must deal with the points which have already been raised.
Many people have approached the question of the strengthening of the United Nations primarily from a legal point of view, by revision of the Charter, by agreement on the definition of aggression, etc. I think, however, that we should all agree that the best way of strengthening the organisation would be to find a means of giving it at least some of the teeth that those who drafted the Charter in San Francisco in 1945 contemplated that it should have.
The Prime Minister said, on 17th November:
"If the result of our action"—
in Egypt—
"is to equip the United Nations with effective means to enforce its resolutions, then we
1424
shall be well rewarded. More important still, the United Nations would then emerge strengthened from the test which it is now undergoing."
There is no need for me to rehearse here how Soviet opposition frustrated the efforts that were made, shortly after the founding of the United Nations, to give effect to the provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter, which concerned the organisation of a force to be at the disposal of the Security Council; nor need I do more than refer in passing to what happened over Korea and to the establishment of the "Uniting for Peace" procedure.
Attempts under the machinery set up thereby to organise arrangements for an armed force to be at the disposal of the United Nations proved equally abortive, though that was not for want of support on the part of Her Majesty's Government. The United Nations Emergency Force is in being in Egypt, and many traditionally neutral countries, such as Switzerland, Sweden and India, have helped to make it a reality. We do not yet know whether that force will be successful, though we all hope it will be.
The question is whether it can give us some indication of the manner in which we might organise a permanent United Nations force which could be readily on call. The difficulties in the way of establishing such a force are, of course, formidable, but in the present world situation it seems worth trying.
We are, therefore, considering whether there are any practical proposals that we can put forward for the organisation of a readily available force in a form which would be acceptable to the majority of the members of the United Nations. It is not, of course, possible at this stage to give any details of the way in which our minds are working. The point is that a study has been put in hand. The issues which is exposes will need very careful consideration, and consultation with our friends will also be necessary before we can come forward with public proposals.
I am afraid that I have had time to answer only the two main points which my hon. Friend raised—the question of the definition of aggression, and the possibilities of setting up some kind of permanent force. I think I have been able to indicate what our point of view is on both those main topics.
11.24 p.m.
Mr. Stan Awbery: I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Finlay) that the time has come when the United Nations organisation should be revised. We have had it in existence now since 1945, and very little has been done to strengthen it. In the light of the experiences of the past few months, the Government should take note of what the hon. Member for Epping has said regarding the necessity for the revision of the Charter, particularly having regard to some of the arguments which we have heard in the House this evening.
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Some hon. Members opposite have argued against the United Nations, saying definitely that it is of no use. I am not of that opinion. I believe its organisation could be revised, and that it could be used for our—
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 twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock.

UNITED NATIONS
  Tanganyika
  Tanganyika
  British Somaliland (Reserved Area and Haud)
  British Somaliland (Reserved Area and Haud)
  British Delegation
  British Delegation
  Hungary
  Hungary
  Technical Assistance Programme (U.K. Contribution)
  Technical Assistance Programme (U.K. Contribution)
  BAGDAD PACT
  BAGDAD PACT
  PERSIAN GULF AREA (BRITISH INTERESTS)
  PERSIAN GULF AREA (BRITISH INTERESTS)
EGYPT
  Aswan Dam
  Aswan Dam
  Suez Canal
  Suez Canal
  British Subjects
  British Subjects
  United Nations Force
  United Nations Force
  Salvage Vessels (Suez Canal Area)
  Salvage Vessels (Suez Canal Area)
  Military Operations
  Military Operations
  Israeli Aircraft Markings
  Israeli Aircraft Markings
  Port Said (Film)
  Port Said (Film)
  BRITISH COUNCIL (MIDDLE EAST)
  BRITISH COUNCIL (MIDDLE EAST)
  CONSULAR POSTS (ECONOMIES)
  CONSULAR POSTS (ECONOMIES)
  EUROPEAN COMMON MARKET (N.A.T.O. DISCUSSIONS)
  EUROPEAN COMMON MARKET (N.A.T.O. DISCUSSIONS)
  HUNGARIAN REFUGEES
  HUNGARIAN REFUGEES
  TRIPARTITE DECLARATION
  TRIPARTITE DECLARATION
  MUTUAL DEFENCE AGREEMENTS
  MUTUAL DEFENCE AGREEMENTS
  ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION
  ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION
HUNGARY
  Relief
  Relief
  Soviet Forces
  Soviet Forces
  MIDDLE EAST (WHITE PAPER)
  MIDDLE EAST (WHITE PAPER)
  ANGLO-GERMAN DISCUSSION CENTRE, WILTON PARK
  ANGLO-GERMAN DISCUSSION CENTRE, WILTON PARK
  GENEVA CONFERENCE POWERS (HUNGARY)
  GENEVA CONFERENCE POWERS (HUNGARY)
  DISARMAMENT
  DISARMAMENT
  N.A.T.O. (CYPRUS)
  N.A.T.O. (CYPRUS)
  REFUGEES, EUROPE
  REFUGEES, EUROPE
COLONIAL TERRITORIES
  Uranium and Thorium Supplies
  Uranium and Thorium Supplies
CYPRUS
  Lord Radcliffe's Proposals
  Lord Radcliffe's Proposals
  Prosecutions
  Prosecutions
  British Community (Representations)
  British Community (Representations)
  Police and Civilians (Protection)
  Police and Civilians (Protection)
  Newspaper Editor (Charges)
  Newspaper Editor (Charges)
  Emergency Regulations
  Emergency Regulations
BRITISH GUIANA
  Public Meetings (Loudspeaker Advertisements)
  Public Meetings (Loudspeaker Advertisements)
SINGAPORE
  Detained Persons
  Detained Persons
  Education
  Education
KENYA
  Emergency Legislation
  Emergency Legislation
  Detained Persons
  Detained Persons
  International Red Cross
  International Red Cross
  Legislative Council Elections (African Franchise)
  Legislative Council Elections (African Franchise)
TANGANYIKA
  African Labourers (Wages and Conditions)
  African Labourers (Wages and Conditions)
  Mining Industry (Wages)
  Mining Industry (Wages)
  Extra-Mural Education
  Extra-Mural Education
NORTHERN RHODESIA
  Mufulira Copper Miners (Housing)
  Mufulira Copper Miners (Housing)
  African Mineworkers (Restriction Orders)
  African Mineworkers (Restriction Orders)
  Petauke Co-operative Marketing Union
  Petauke Co-operative Marketing Union
SEYCHELLES
  Education
  Education
HONG KONG
  Refugees
  Refugees
  Roof-top Dwellers
  Roof-top Dwellers
NIGERIA
  African Continental Bank (Inquiry Costs)
  African Continental Bank (Inquiry Costs)
JAMAICA
  Passports
  Passports
SARAWAK
  Constitution
  Constitution
UGANDA
  Elections (Committee)
  Elections (Committee)
  Toro Constitution
  Toro Constitution
TRINIDAD
  Trinidad Oil Company (Discussions)
  Trinidad Oil Company (Discussions)
BERMUDA
  United States Forces (Facilities)
  United States Forces (Facilities)
  Ferry Point Bridge
  Ferry Point Bridge
BAHAMAS
  Franchise and Taxation Reform
  Franchise and Taxation Reform
ETHIOPIA
  Haud and Reserved Area (British Somalis)
  Haud and Reserved Area (British Somalis)
SIERRA LEONE
  Illicit Diamond Mining (Control)
  Illicit Diamond Mining (Control)
  Airfields
  Airfields
  Alluvial Diamond Mining Order (Prosecutions)
  Alluvial Diamond Mining Order (Prosecutions)
MALTA
  Egypt (Expelled British Subjects)
  Egypt (Expelled British Subjects)
  Constitution (British Immigrants)
  Constitution (British Immigrants)
BRITISH HONDURAS
  Financial Assistance (Delegation)
  Financial Assistance (Delegation)
AFRICAN TERRITORIES
  Passports (Refused Applications)
  Passports (Refused Applications)
NYASALAND
  Seditious Publications
  Seditious Publications
ROYAL NAVY
  Ordnance Design and Inspection Pool
  Ordnance Design and Inspection Pool
  H.M.S. "Crane" (Aircraft Attack)
  H.M.S. "Crane" (Aircraft Attack)
  Personal Case
  Personal Case
  British Base, Bermuda
  British Base, Bermuda
  Allied Forces, Mediterranean (Command)
  Allied Forces, Mediterranean (Command)
  Suez Canal (Clearance)
  Suez Canal (Clearance)
  British Shipyards (Steel Supplies)
  British Shipyards (Steel Supplies)
  New Tanker Tonnage
  New Tanker Tonnage
  Dockyard and Repair Facilities
  Dockyard and Repair Facilities
  First Lord of the Admiralty (Visit to Port Said)
  First Lord of the Admiralty (Visit to Port Said)
WIRELESS AND TELEVISION
  B.B.C. (Alleged Bias)
  B.B.C. (Alleged Bias)
  Transmitting Station, Londonderry (Operation)
  Transmitting Station, Londonderry (Operation)
POST OFFICE
  Fuel Oils (Increased Costs)
  Fuel Oils (Increased Costs)
  Installations and Property (Protection)
  Installations and Property (Protection)
  Overseas Mailbags (Loss)
  Overseas Mailbags (Loss)
  Forces Mail, Cyprus (Delay)
  Forces Mail, Cyprus (Delay)
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Second Hollinghurst Committee (Implementation of Recommendations)
  Second Hollinghurst Committee (Implementation of Recommendations)
  Egyptian Operations (Aircraft)
  Egyptian Operations (Aircraft)
  French Air Force, Middle East (British Supplies)
  French Air Force, Middle East (British Supplies)
  Stations, Jordan (Conditions)
  Stations, Jordan (Conditions)
  Station Sports Funds
  Station Sports Funds
CIVIL AVIATION
  Air Crews (Shortage)
  Air Crews (Shortage)
ROADS
  Pedestrian Crossing, Framwellgate Moor
  Pedestrian Crossing, Framwellgate Moor
  Programme
  Programme
  Roundabout, Barnet By-pass
  Roundabout, Barnet By-pass
  Traffic Lights (Installation and Upkeep Costs)
  Traffic Lights (Installation and Upkeep Costs)
  Congestion Areas, London (Redesign)
  Congestion Areas, London (Redesign)
  Horsham St. Faith Airfield (Public Highways)
  Horsham St. Faith Airfield (Public Highways)
  Street Name-plates
  Street Name-plates
SHIPPING
  British Ships (Transfer of Flag)
  British Ships (Transfer of Flag)
  Tankers
  Tankers
  m.v. "Scottish Trader" (Requisition)
  m.v. "Scottish Trader" (Requisition)
TRANSPORT
  Fares (Pensioners)
  Fares (Pensioners)
  Motor Fuel Rationing
  Motor Fuel Rationing
  Hungarian Refugees (Transport to Commonwealth Countries)
  Hungarian Refugees (Transport to Commonwealth Countries)
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
  C.O.I. Films (Middle East Operations)
  C.O.I. Films (Middle East Operations)
  Egyptian Operations (Cyprus Troops)
  Egyptian Operations (Cyprus Troops)
  British Forces, Egypt (Post-Cease-Fire Casualties)
  British Forces, Egypt (Post-Cease-Fire Casualties)
BRITISH ARMY
  Russian Rifle (Performance)
  Russian Rifle (Performance)
  Smuggling Incident, Port Said (Captured Ammunition)
  Smuggling Incident, Port Said (Captured Ammunition)
  Government Property, Suez (Value)
  Government Property, Suez (Value)
  Egypt (Interned British Subjects)
  Egypt (Interned British Subjects)
  Personal Case
  Personal Case
HOSPITALS
  Mental Patients
  Mental Patients
SOUTHERN RHODESIA
  Native Councils Bill
  Native Councils Bill
  "PYGMALION" (PRODUCTIONS)
  "PYGMALION" (PRODUCTIONS)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Civil Service Superannuation
  Civil Service Superannuation
  Statistical Digest (Salaries and Wages)
  Statistical Digest (Salaries and Wages)
PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE
  Death, West Bromwich (Pneumoconiosis)
  Death, West Bromwich (Pneumoconiosis)
  Foundry Workers, West Bromwich
  Foundry Workers, West Bromwich
  Reciprocal Agreements (German Federal Republic)
  Reciprocal Agreements (German Federal Republic)
SCOTLAND
  Nuclear Power Stations
  Nuclear Power Stations
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Herbs (Import Duty)
  Herbs (Import Duty)
MINISTRY OF WORKS
  Buckingham Palace (Commemorative Gates and Pillars)
  Buckingham Palace (Commemorative Gates and Pillars)

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

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN
2.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF SCARBROUGH: My Lords, I have the honour to present a Message from Her Majesty the Queen signed by her own hand. The Message is as follows:
"I have received your Address praying that the Pensions (Increase) Act (Extension) Order, 1956, be made in the form of the draft laid before your House on the 22nd November.
"I will comply with your request."

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, before we begin the Business of the day, I should like to inform your Lordships that my noble friend the Lord President of the Council will be making a statement on Northern Ireland shortly after 3.30 p.m., and following that statement my noble friend Lord Lloyd will make a statement on Cyprus.

DIVERSION OF WILMSLOW— ALTRINCHAM ROAD
2.37 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider putting the Wilmsow— Altrincham road, A.538, in a tunnel under the proposed extension of the runway at Manchester Ringway airport, in view of the fact that it is reported that the cost will be comparable with that of diverting the road, will avoid adding appreciably to the distance travelled by road traffic, and will permit a possible extension of the runway up to 10,000 feet in length.]
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (THE EARL OF SELKIRK): My Lords, recent estimates indicate that it would cost about £200,000 more to put that section of the Wilmslow—Altrincham road, A.538, which will be affected by an extended runway at Manchester, into a tunnel, compared with the diversionary road agreed by the Corporation and my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation. Her Majesty's Government are not heavy extra cost would be justified.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his reply, may I ask him the distance of the diversionary road and whether, if at some later date the runway again has to be extended, a second diversionary road will have to be built?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I very much regret that I have not available at this moment the distance of the diversionary road. I will certainly secure it for the noble Lord and let him know in due course. In regard to the second part of the noble Lord's supplementary question, I am not quite certain whether any further diversion of the road is possible. I think that, as the noble Lord is aware, the diversionary road will be along the edge of a deep gorge where the river Bollin runs. I think it is extremely improbable that any runway could be extended beyond that point.

BROADCASTS TO BAHRAIN
2.40 p.m.
LORD RENNELL: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that the only effective broadcast services at Bahrain are those emanating from Moscow and Cairo and that no other sources of news of Western origin are available to the local population; and whether the appropriate departments of Her Majesty's Government can be instructed to take immediate steps to counteract the pernicious propaganda from Moscow which includes incitement to renewed violence.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF READING): My Lords, I cannot accept the noble Lord's statement that the only effective broadcast services at Bahrain emanate from Moscow and Cairo. Bahrain receives the B.B.C. and the Voice of Britain on both short and medium waves from Cyprus. Of these broadcasts, 4¾ hours are given to B.B.C. programmes and l0¼ hours to the Voice of Britain. The B.B.C. Arabic services arc also clearly heard direct from the United Kingdom. Reports indicate that they are widely listened to. The Bahrain Government maintains its own radio station with excellent reception locally. The Voice of America's Arabic Service from Tangiers is also listened to.
Apart from the radio, there is a daily distribution of London Press Service bulletins to clubs and other key points. British Information Office hand-outs are distributed in the streets several times a week. British newspapers, which arrive in Bahrain one day after publication, are bought by many educated Arabs, and they are always available in the British reading rooms.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess whether he considers that the Voice of Britain can be compared in its efficiency with Cairo Radio, observing that there have been reports that Cairo Radio is infinitely better suited to the Arab population?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: We can do no more than give a choice of programmes to these people. As I say, it may be that Cairo Radio which, shall I say, putting it mildly, gives itself rather more scope and rather more flexibility in handling the truth than do our programmes, may certainly appeal to some of the population. At the same time, my information is genuinely that the B.B.C. and the Voice of Britain are very considerably listened to in Bahrain.
LORD RENNELL: I thank the noble Marquess for his Answer. May I inquire whether any of those many hours employed by the Voice of Britain and the B.B.C. were employed in replying to the incitement by Moscow Radio at
1240
the beginning of this month, the text of which I have before me? My information is that no attempt was made to reply to this incitement to violence.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, without seeing the specific item in the Moscow programme to which the noble Lord refers, and which he tells us that he has in his possession, I cannot, of course, say whether any reply has been made to it. If he is willing to let me have the item in question, I will certainly have the matter looked into and will let him know whether a reply was made.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: Can the noble Marquess tell us whether Moscow and Cairo Radios are regularly monitored?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I am not quite sure whether monitoring is done regularly, but a pretty careful watch is kept on them. I think I am right in saying that monitoring is done regularly.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, the Government have appointed the Postmaster General as their chief of publicity. May I ask the noble Marquess whether the answer he has just given and the effects in regard to the Government can be referred to the Postmaster General for careful consideration, to see whether something further might not be possible in order to improve the Voice of Britain?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, the whole of that aspect is being carefully looked into, and I can tell the noble Earl that that would be within the field of the Postmaster General's inquiries.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, could the noble Marquess say—because I am not quite clear—whether in fact these Moscow and Cairo broadcasts are monitored or not?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, just asked me that question. I said at first that I was not quite sure, but on information conveyed to me by one of my colleagues, I then added that I thought it was right to say that they were regularly monitored.

DISORDERS IN BAHRAIN
2.44 p.m.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government—

(1) Whether they can make a statement in regard to the disorders in Bahrain during the first week in November;

(2) Whether they can explain why permission was given by the Bahrain Government on Friday, November 2, for an anti-Anglo-French procession to take place;

(3) Why, despite the most urgent and pressing representations of British firms that the civil authorities had lost control, British military protection, so readily available, was refused, with the result of great damage to British property, let alone serious danger to British life and limb;

(4) To whom application should be made for financial compensation for damage sustained by British subjects owing to the failure of the authorities to maintain law and order.]

THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, as regards the first two parts of the Question, I refer to the statement which I made on November 20 on the situation in Bahrain. Her Majesty's Government are not responsible for the internal affairs of Bahrain, and the procession which took place on November 2 was licensed by the Bahrain authorities within the exercise of their normal and undoubted powers. In reply to the third part, the British authorities were clearly confronted with a very difficult decision, involving a number of conflicting considerations. Certainly there had been incidents resulting in damage to British property before British troops intervened, but according to all my information it is not correct to say that in general the civil authorities had at that stage lost control of the situation. The local police handled it with courage and determination. I am satisfied that in all the circumstances, and in spite of these very unfortunate incidents, the British authorities were filly justified in not calling upon
1242
British troops until requested by the Ruler to do so.
In the matter of compensation for damage, it is not possible to lay down any general principle, in view of the rapidly changing course of events on the day in question. But if the noble Lord will send me details of any cases of damage to British interests of which he has knowledge, I will gladly consider them and examine what advice might be given in each case.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, thank the noble Marquess for his Answer. I understand from it that Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that the matter was properly handled by the competent authorities and that nothing further is to be done in way of inquiry.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, I said in my original statement that we were satisfied that the decision of the authorities on the spot had been right.

GHANA INDEPENDENCE BILL
Brought from the Commons; read lª, and to be printed.

ROAD CONSTRUCTION PROGRAMME
2.47 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH rose to draw attention to the inadequacy of the road system of the country, and in particular to the urgency of completing the road construction programme already announced by the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, there is an old doggerel rhyme which, if my memory serves me correctly, runs like this:
"Twice armed is he who hath his quarrel just:
Thrice armed is he who gets his blow in fust".
I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that my quarrel with Her Majesty's Government this afternoon is just. I am hoping— it is a faint hope, because in talking about roads and road programmes hope is about the only thing we ever have on which to cling— that I may extract from the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, who is, as usual, to reply for Her Majesty's

1243
Government, that in spite of all the cuts which inevitably will have to be made in Government expenditure, in view of our serious economic position, the cuts in road expenditure will be the last. I hope that at least the cuts will not mortgage the efficiency of our industries, if we have not mortgaged all of them, by having in future a more inefficient road system.
I have separated the Motion that I am moving this afternoon into two parts. The first draws attention to the inadequacy of the road system of this country. I do that because I feel that a number of noble Lords are far from satisfied that the road programme as set forth by the Government is, first, adequate, and secondly, what it is supposed to be. Whereas in 1939, immediately before the war, there were 3 million motor vehicles on the roads, the number in 1956 had risen to close on 7 million; and, upon the Government's own admission, 80 per cent. of the private motor cars in that 7 million are used for business and industrial purposes. Not only that: three-quarters of the total merchandise of our industries, by weight, in this country is carried by road. In spite of this, when the present road programme reaches its peak, expenditure on new construction and major improvement will be little more, in terms of work done, than was undertaken immediately prewar. The total expenditure on roads— new construction, major improvements, minor improvements, maintenance and administration— when the programmme is at its peak will not be as much, in terms of money, as was spent in the middle of the 1920's, thirty years ago.
If we conjure up all those figures in our minds and review the road programme since the post-war period of the First World War— as many noble Lords can review it—I suppose that those of us who have any cynicism in our make-up will be tempted to say that the only time we had a road programme was when we had an unemployment problem to solve. Taking all those facts and figures, I suppose one cannot be surprised that Mr. Boyd-Carpenter, when he was Minister of Transport, should say that between 1939 and 1955 no major road improvements or road construction were undertaken in this country. The present Minister of Transport said, not long ago— I suppose it is a statement that has been quoted against him with such monotonous
1244
regularity that he wishes the day had never dawned when he said it— that we have completely underestimated road traffic in this country.
I come now to deal with what this road programme is. What are we talking about? I think the Government have grossly misled the people of this country. Figures are quoted and requoted, and to the uninitiated, the ordinary citizens of this country, they are fixed in their minds. As a result, there is not one ordinary citizen of this country who takes an interest in road construction who is not of the fixed idea that the Government have stated, without equivocation, that they are to spend £380 million on new roads. Indeed, the evidence that I shall offer to your Lordships is what was stated by the Minister of Transport at the Conservative Party Conference in October. Ordinarily I should not hold against any Minister of the Crown, whether present or past, statements made at Party Conferences; but this is a serious matter.
LORD DERWENT: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. I follow his argument, and I agree with it: but did he not, in fact, say that £350 to £370 million had been spent in the last three years?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: No. What I say is that the popular supposition is that the Government intend to spend, on the present announced road programme, £ 380 million. The right honourable gentleman, Mr. Watkinson, at the Conservative Party Conference in October last, said:
"In the three years since this new road programme was first announced by Mr. Lennox-Boyd and reinforced by Mr. Boyd-Carpenter, let us add up and see the sum of money we are already committed to, much of which has been spent and much more of which will have been spent in the next twelve months.
"The sum of our capital assets is £ 350 million and that is the capital assets we have now committed to the roads programme since 1954. The least I would put to you is that it is not a bad beginning towards what everyone must recognise as a large and difficult problem."
Mr. Watkinson having said that, it was repeated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and by the Prime Minister as emphasising to the country what importance the present Government put upon an expanding road programme; and the years to which Mr. Watkinson was referring were 1954–55, 1955–56 and 1956–57.

1245
That statement is quite untrue and totally misleading, because the £350 million is made up in this way. It includes £ 270 million on maintenance and minor improvements, and of this sum £ 90 million was contributed by the Exchequer and £180 million by the local authorities. That leaves a balance, from the £350 million, of £80 million. But that £80 million is not expenditure; it is money authorised to be spent. The actual money spent on major improvements and new construction during the three years 1954-55 to the end of the financial year 1957 is £29 million. That is a vastly different sum from £350 million.
I admit—I want to be fair to the Government that I always seek to do, although sometimes I may be critical— that there is a projected expenditure over and above this in 1957-58 of £ 30 million, arid in 1958–59 of £42 million. But the amount of money actually spent in those three years, 1954 to 1957, on major construction and major improvements of roads in this country is £29 million, and not £350 million. That, I would suggest to your Lordships, is a totally inadequate sum. When we have weathered this present crisis— which the people of this country will weather, in spite of Her Majesty's Government—we shall once again have to turn our attention to how the industries of this country are going to earn for us our daily bread. There are many of your Lordships who are knowledgeable about this subject. Here are we, in a time of crisis, doing everything we can to conserve, bolster, underpin, or whatever the Chancellor of the Exchequer's expression for it is, a precious liquid, and because of an antiquated road system we are pouring it down the drains of this country.
Can we learn one lesson? If we had a road system to complete the conveyor lines of our industry, as, with any foresight in the past, we could have had now, the petrol consumption of this country at a time like this would be nearly 50 percent less than it is. That is my indictment, set out in the first part of my Motion as to the adequacy of our road system. I could quote every authority from the employers and trade unions pointing this out, but I have a shrewd suspicion that the noble Earl who is to reply on behalf of Her Majesty's Government knows all those quotations as well as I do.
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I now come to the second part of my Motion, and if I am rather critical in my approach to this matter, may I say that I bear no ill will against a Ministry in which I served for two years— two of the most troublesome, but, at the same time, the most enjoyable years of my life. In the prosecution of the programme that has already been set, there does not appear to be a sense of urgency. I believe that we have reached a time when we must consider whether we can afford the expensive, cumbrous machinery that we have set up. I am fully aware that this conflict between local authority and central Government is not peculiar to matters of roads. But, in my view, the time has come when Her Majesty's Government have to make up their minds whether we, as a country, can afford the excessive time lag, the duplication, the waste of brains and the waste of money that arises through having highly competent highway authorities and a central Government Department sitting above them. In my view, that is one of the greatest drawbacks to any prosecution of a sensible road programme, because the delay goes on and on— procrastination, circumlocution, check upon check of one expert on top of another. In the days in which we live, our road schemes can be delayed so long that the cost mounts up. The cost of a road pan be increased 50 per cent from the time it takes for the Minister to issue an order for a new road project until the first sod has been turned by the contractor who is to carry out the work.
I will give your Lordships one or two examples, merely to illustrate my point. I have here a file full of examples that have come to me from all over the country. I will quote two of them because they happen to be within my certain knowledge. The first is the Oxford ring road. I am not going to venture into the Motion which still stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, upon whether or not there should be a road through Christ Church Meadow. I do not know whether the noble Lord is going to bring this Motion forward in the near future, or whether he is going to wait and see whether the Minister of Housing and Local Government is hauled off to one of Her Majesty's Prisons. I would venture this opinion, and it is only a tentative venture at most: I should think that, taking all

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the circumstances into consideration, and the national economy as it is at the present time, the Christ Church Meadow Road will have to be relegated to those lost causes for which the City of Oxford is legitimately famous.
My point is this. If Her Majesty's Government think that that project is going to add one tithe to the solution of the problem with which I am dealing today—that is, the transport of the essential goods and services of this country upon the country's main highways— then I am going to tell them that they are completely wrong. On February 15, 1955, I asked Her Majesty's Government a Question in this House as to when the order was to be published for the completion of the Western bypass round Oxford— that is what is commonly called the Botley-Wolvercote section of the ring road. The noble Lord, Lord Hawke, who then spoke for Her Majesty's Government, said that the order was to be published in the early summer. As the early summer had gone, and midsummer had gone, and your Lordships were going away for your summer holidays, on July 26 I put down a Question to ask Her Majesty's Government when the order was going to be signed. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, had forestalled me by three days, and his answer was that the order was published on July 22. I would not call July 22 early summer, but that gives an illustration of some delay.
Now there had to be a statutory three months to preserve the rights of democracy—of which I have no complaint— so that objections could be taken. But, in point of fact, the local inquiry which had naturally to follow any objections was not held until May 27. 1956— ten months after the publication of the original order. The report of the inspector who held the public inquiry was received by the Minister on June 7, and since then silence has reigned supreme. Now, my Lords, why? When the Minister does make the order, there will be the laborious and time-wasting process of land acquisition— and this is a typical example of how a major road project of this country laboriously goes through the official machine. There are, of course, good reasons for some delay, but they are long enough, in all conscience.
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I would beg the Government to overhaul this machine to see that delays that can be avoided are rigorously avoided.
The original project for this road was in 1948. This is interesting, because the Government or the Ministry, or successive Ministers, do not appear to have any policy. In 1948, plans were submitted for a road 120 ft. wide with dual carriageways. By 1953, all that was thrown overboard and plans were requested for a road 51 ft. wide, with a single 30 ft. carriageway. The present proposal is for a road 88 ft. wide with 24 ft. dual carriageways. Surely, my Lords, there is some policy, and surely the engineers of this country should have come to some conclusion as to what is the correct width for a trunk road, and whether it should have three carriageways or two carriageways, or what it should have.
The other case I am going to cite is the Maidenhead by-pass, one of the principal road projects for the transport of our traffic from the metropolis to the West of England. The proposals under the Special Roads Act, 1945, were sent to the Ministry on October 31, 1955. The proposals were published six months later. This is an intricate job; it involved a large number of side road proposals and plans. These proposals were sent to the Minister on January 3, 1956. On October 1, 1956, nine months afterwards, the Ministry wrote to the county surveyor to say "We do not like the way you have drawn these plans. Will you submit some more" That was nine months later. The plans were submitted nineteen days afterwards. Since then, there has been complete and utter silence, in spite of the fact that the Ministry are understood to have given an undertaking to the Berkshire County Council that the proposals would be published for the whole of this project within three months of the original proposals going in. How can we expect to get the highway system of this country in proper shape when this kind of thing goes on?
I am going to give your Lordships another case, just as an example of what is happening throughout the length and breadth of the land. Here you get dual carriageways put in on main trunk routes, yet by their very site, and because there is overlapping between one highway authority and another, they cause more

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danger on the roads than they cure. Let me give an example. On the A.40, which is just outside Oxford, the highway authority, the Oxfordshire County Council, made a dual carriageway, The Oxfordshire county boundary is 700 yards from the Headington roundabout, where that very fine road, the North Oxford by-pass, starts. The Oxfordshire County Council begged and prayed the Ministry that, while they were doing that dual carriageway, they should continue it a further 700 yards, otherwise they would be creating a worse bottleneck than they were eliminating by the two miles of dual carriageway. But that 700 yards came into another scheme, under another highway authority. What has happened? The dual carriageway is completed, and the 700 yards from the dual carriageway to the Headington roundabout is the worst danger-spot that has ever been created in that district.
Surely that is not good planning. Surely we must come to the conclusion that something must be done, in the interests of getting this road project completed in a sensible time, at a sensible cost. We cannot go on dilly-dallying with professional jealousy here and professional jealousy there. I do not for one moment admit that the expert technical personnel of a highway authority like a county council in this country are in any way second to any of the personnel at the Ministry. But surely we have arrived at a stage where the manpower problem and the financial problem are such that we should at least be able to say that either the highway authority or the Central Government authority is the right authority. You get this by-passing of each other, and there are plenty of cases — I could cite them; I have them all here, but I am not going to bore your Lordships by repeating them— where time goes on and a project which was originally going to cost half a million pounds is now going to cost a million pounds; it slips out of that category, and is lost, I expect, for all time.
That is the burden of the Motion I submit to your Lordships. I thought it right to put this Motion down on those two grounds. I do not expect the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, to be able to answer the questions or the problems I have posed to him this afternoon, but if he will undertake to see that there is some
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investigation, so that we can streamline the procedure and save this country many thousands of pounds, and also save industry millions of pounds in efficiency, then I think the debate this afternoon will have been worth while. I bog to move for Papers.
3.20 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CARLISLE: My Lords, I want to associate myself with the general contention that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has made in introducing this Motion. I do not intend to speak in a general way on the Motion but propose to restrict myself to a limited part of the second section, in which he proclaims that there is great urgency in the completion of the road programme as announced by the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation. I am not going to speak at length about the problem as a whole, but will confine myself, if I may, to a particular part of the country, the district in which I live and which I know well— I refer to Cumberland, part of North Lancashire and Westmorland.
I am speaking about it, first of all because I know it so well, having motored at least 12,000 miles a year over the roads for the past ten years, and, secondly, because I believe that the future welfare of part of the district and the well-being of the people in it depend to a great extent upon the provision of an adequate road transport system. The third reason why I want to speak about it is that the district is very far away from London, perhaps farther from London than any other county or counties in England. It is believed in Cumberland, at any rate, that the farther away you are from London the more often must you speak and the more loudly must you proclaim your needs; and there is a widespread opinion that, even when you do proclaim your needs concerning roads, no matter how clearly you speak, it will not be heard in the office of the Minister of Transport unless someone provides a very effective and sensitive artificial hearing aid.
I will direct attention, first of all, to trunk road A.6, on which I here is a continuous stream of traffic pretty well day and night, and on which I think there are more heavy lorries passing to and fro than on any other road in England.

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For it is the one main road, indeed almost the only road, between the great industrial Midlands and the whole of Scotland. Consequently, day and night, over that mountainous road over Shap, there is this continuous stream of private and commercial vehicles; and along that road there are two particularly bad bottlenecks, one at Penrith and one at Carlisle. Both are recognised as bad spots, and in the Minister's plan there is a by-pass to be made at Penrith, and also one at Carlisle. But, although they are in the plan, there was no mention of them when the Minister made his announcement in February, 1955, and there was great local disappointment. Again, in July, 1955, when the Minister made a further statement, there was no mention of these two new by-pass roads; nor in 1956, 1957, 1958 or 1959.
Considerable work has been done on the road, widening it and improving it, but still these bottlenecks remain. I should have thought it was only ordinary sense to get rid of the bottlenecks before the great highways were extended or widened. I cannot help wondering why we go in for widening intervening roads between two bottlenecks, for all it does is to create fast motoring in between the two bottlenecks, as there is always the temptation to try to get to the head of the queue. This is particularly noticeable and dangerous between these two places. We have an eighteen-mile road between Penrith and Carlisle, a very good road with three lanes, but it is one of the most dangerous roads in the country: it has a very bad record for accidents. I cannot help thinking that these bottlenecks I have named have a bearing upon the number of accidents, because they are a continuous temptation, as I say, to anyone to try to get ahead so that he will not be held up. Also in the Minister's plan there is provision for a double carriageway north of Carlisle, the whole way to Glasgow, yet there does not seem to be any provision for a double carriageway south of Carlisle, where the traffic is greater than it is north of the city. I should hope that that is something to which attention might be given.
I turn from that main trunk road to West Cumberland. West Cumberland, as many of your Lordships well know and rejoice to hear, from being a depressed
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area before the war, has now become one of the most prosperous parts of this country. It is indeed a most encouraging sight for anyone who has seen it during the past ten years to note how villages that were beaten and baffled have taken on a new look and are now painted and fresh. There is a new look, too, on people's faces, just because industry has been established there and is flourishing. It has been established, to a great extent, through one mighty vigorous personality, a Member of your Lordships' House, Lord Adams, a man who never takes "No" for an answer except when he wants "No". There is the atomic energy plant below Seascale, and there are the anhydrite works at Kells, as well as dozens of light industries established all over that countryside; so that West Cumberland is a hive of industry. The roads, however, are quite inadequate, and there is a danger that they may threaten the success of some of these industries.
In so far as I am concerned, I want to raise in your Lordships' House a plea that consideration should be given to this particular part of the country which is so far away from the centre but which needs and deserves attention. I know that a conference between the local authorities of Cumberland, Westmorland and North Lancashire was held some months ago, and that representations were sent to the Minister concerning road development in the southern part of Cumberland through to Lancashire. I do not know any of the details, and therefore I am not going to speak of them, but there is some disappointment that there has been nothing more heard from the Minister than a formal acknowledgement of these representations. Some of the people in that area are becoming greatly concerned and would like to have at least a letter indicating that the matter was receiving immediate attention. If I concentrate purely on roads for utility purposes, and those in a particular locality, I should not like your Lordships to assume that I am merely interested in this problem parochially; I am interested in it as a whole. But I think there should be in this House opportunity for a speaker to express local concern and also local loyalty within a given rule.
Before I sit down I should also like to say that there is an aspect of this problem which I do not want to intrude to-day

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but which I cannot separate in my mind from the provision of adequate roads— that is, road safety. I am not going to enlarge upon that aspect, but I cannot separate the provision of an adequate road system from the problem of road safety. I am also a little concerned about another aspect, upon which I shall not enlarge but shall just voice—namely, how far is it justifiable to go on increasing the number of vehicles on the roads, knowing that to some extent we are thereby endangering the lives of men and women on the Queen's Highway. How far are we morally justified in increasing the number of licences, and taking revenue from them, without putting enough of it back to ensure that the improvement in the roads is commensurate with the increase in the amount of traffic they have to carry?

NORTHERN IRELAND
3.32 p.m.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, with the permission of the House, I beg leave to intervene in order to make a statement on the situation in Northern Ireland. Her Majesty's Government have the greatest sympathy for the people of Northern Ireland in face of the recent outbreaks of violence to which they have been exposed, We pay tribute, in particular, to the courage and resource of the members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the special constables who have borne the brunt of these attacks. Her Majesty's Government recognise that the situation is still fraught with danger, which the people of Northern Ireland have faced and are facing with exemplary restraint.
Immediately after the outbreak of violence on December 12, Her Majesty's Ambassador in Dublin arranged to see the Republican Minister of External Affairs to obtain further information from him and to express the serious view which Her Majesty's Government would be bound to take of these events. As the House will know, on December 14, the Republican Government issued a statement on their own initiative, in which
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they said that they had determined to take, in conjunction with the police and defence forces of the Republic, such steps as they deemed necessary and appropriate to prevent activities which, if they were allowed to continue, would inevitably cause loss of life.
In the light of this, Her Majesty's Government decided to direct Her Majesty's Ambassador to deliver a communication expressing their very great concern at the recent incidents in Northern Ireland, and the hope that the important objective which the Republican Government had proclaimed in their statement would he effectively and successfully secured. In the Ireland Act, 1949 the Parliament at Westminster declared Northern Ireland to be an integral part of the United Kingdom. That is a declaration which all Parties in this House are pledged to support. The safely of Northern Ireland and of its inhabitants is, therefore, a direct responsibility of Her Majesty's Government, which they will, of course, discharge.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, we on this side of the House, should like to be identified with the statement that the noble Marquess has made. We are entirely satisfied that these violent outbreaks can do no possible good, and may do a great deal of harm. We rejoice to notice that the Republican Government of Ireland have expressed their view. We are satisfied that peaceful solutions should be sought, and that it is no earthly use attempting to deal with these problems by violence. We hope that the restraint which the Government of Northern Ireland have hitherto very wisely shown will be continued, and we devoutly hope that the efforts of the two Governments will put this violence, which has nothing to commend it at all, to an end. We entirely agree with the action which Her Majesty's Government have taken in making representations to the Republican Government to use their best endeavours to put an end to this most unhappy state of affairs.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl very much for what he has said on behalf of the official Opposition.

CYPRUS
5 p.m.
LIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (LORD LLOYD): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to make a statement on Cyprus. The statement is as follows. Lord Radcliffe's report on a Constitution for Cyprus is being published to-day as a White Paper in the United Kingdom and in Cyprus. It is a statesmanlike document and the whole House will, I am sure, be grateful for the vigour with which Lord Radcliffe has carried out his task and the wisdom which he has shown.
The Report is in two parts: the recommendations for the Constitution and a covering note which explains why Lord Radcliffe has preferred his conclusions to other possible arrangements. Lord Radcliffe recommends a single chamber Assembly with 6 seats reserved for members elected by voters on the Turkish Cypriot roll, 24 for members elected by the rest of the population and 6 for members nominated by the Governor. Very careful arrangements have been devised to protect the interests of all communities. There will be a Cabinet with a Chief Minister, responsible to the Legislative Assembly. These arrangements will give to the people of Cyprus the widest possible measure of autonomy compatible with the reservation to the Governor of defence, external affairs and public security.
Her Majesty's Government have brought these proposals to the attention of the Greek and Turkish Governments, and, as the House knows, my right honourable friend has just visited Greece and Turkey for discussions on them. Her Majesty's Government, after consultation with the Governor of Cyprus, accept, as a whole, the proposals which Lord Radcliffe has made. In our view they represent a fair balance between the different and often conflicting interests which are involved.
Her Majesty's Government will be prepared to introduce such a Constitution as soon as we are satisfied that a situation exists in Cyprus in which genuine elections can be held free from violence and intimidation. A start is at once being made with the drafting of the necessary
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constitutional instruments so that elections may be held as soon as conditions allow.
As the House knows, the Terms of Reference given to Lord Radcliffe envisaged a Constitution for a self-governing Cyprus under British sovereignty. As regards the eventual status of the Island, Her Majesty's Government have already affirmed their recognition of the principle of self-determination. When the international and strategic situation permits, and provided that self-government is working satisfactorily, Her Majesty's Government will be ready to review the question of the application of self-determination.
When the time comes for this review — that is, when these conditions have been fulfilled— it will be the purpose of Her Majesty's Government to ensure that any exercise of self-determination should be effected in such a manner that the Turkish Cypriot community no less than the Greek Cypriot community shall, in the special circumstances of Cyprus, be given freedom to decide for themselves their future status. In other words, Her Majesty's Government recognise that the exercise of self-determination in such a mixed population must include partition among the eventual options.
Her Majesty's Government will keep in close touch with the Greek and Turkish Governments on the international aspects of the problem. I hope that we are on the eve of a new and happy chapter in the long history of Cyprus. It is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to do all that it can to bring this about.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, we on this side of the House should like to be associated with everything the noble Lord opposite said by way of thanks to Lord Radcliffe for drafting, this Report, which is certainly a great public service. Furthermore, we share with him from the bottom of our hearts the hope that these proposals will lead to the end of the bloodshed and violence that have been going on in Cyprus for nearly two years. This state of affairs could be ended by an honourable agreement based on these proposals, and we sincerely hope that all concerned, whether Her Majesty's Government in London, or persons in Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, or the Seychelles, will do

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their utmost to see that such an honourable agreement is reached about the political future of Cyprus.
So far as the question of a debate in your Lordships' House is concerned, I think that we should wish to wait until we have had time to digest these proposals, and, indeed, until the delicate discussions which, clearly, will be taking place have had a chance to bear fruit. I should like to ask the noble Lord one or two questions. The first question concerns Archbishop Makarios. Will the Archbishop be informed of the contents of Lord Radcliffe's Report? If so, will he be allowed to discuss the Report with persons with whom he may wish to discuss it, whether they be members of the Ethnarchy Council or representatives of the Government of Greece? Further, when the Archbishop has made up his mind, will the Government consult his view about the Report, or is it being submitted to him as a matter for his own information and examination? Finally, I should like to know whether the Constitution set out in the Report, which Her Majesty's Government have accepted, is a "negotiable instrument", in whole or in part, or whether it has to be accepted or rejected in its entirety? I might add that I should prefer the noble Lord not to answer any of these questions if the answers are likely to be in the least embarrassing or prejudicial, in view of the discussions which are likely to take place.
3.41 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, I should like to associate noble Lords on these Benches with what the noble Earl who has just spoken has said to Her Majesty's Government. We particularly appreciate, as does the Party of the noble Earl, the valuable work which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Radcliffe, has done, and we should like an expression of our gratitude to him to go on record. As for the actual Report it is a remarkable document, but at present it is too early to have any debate upon its contents. I hope that the noble Lord who is in charge of this matter will give us an opportunity fairly soon to discuss it in detail.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, two questions? The first is whether the proposed Constitution lays down that certain
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Ministerial posts in the future government of Cyprus shall be reserved for members of the Turkish community? The second question is whether the Government have considered sending this Constitution out to the Seychelles by a person of high calibre who would be able to have preliminary discussions with the Archbishop, with a view to arriving at a degree of agreement, that would enable the Archbishop to express his disapproval of any more terrorism, and who would then be able to bring the Archbishop back to Cyprus and conduct final negotiations about the Constitution in the island?
3.43 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, I should like to associate myself, on behalf of my Party, once more with the expressions of gratitude which have been tendered to Lord Radcliffe for his efforts in arriving at some kind of a plan. One is forced to say that that is said without prejudice, because we have not actually seen the plan. But we in this House all recognise how long and how sincere have been the efforts of Lord Radcliffe to arrive at some plan which would be acceptable to both parties. I am sure that no-one is better qualified than Lord Radcliffe to put forward such proposals. I should also like to express appreciation of the fact that Mr. Lennox-Boyd went out personally to discuss these proposals with all the parties interested. Further, I should like to ask whether the Government could not consider making some real gesture to the people of Cyprus. I realise that they have withdrawn some of the more objectionable regulations which we on this side of the House criticised a week or two ago. That is all to the good. But if it were possible to discuss this matter in a happier and more friendly atmosphere by making a real gesture to the people of Cyprus, it might well make for a more satisfactory solution of these problems.
I notice that the question of partition is mentioned in the statement. I do not expect that the noble Lord can say any thing more upon that matter. To me that is a new idea. I do not know whether other noble Lords have had occasion to consider the possibility of the partition of Cyprus. It seems rather an extraordinary and revolutionary idea in the case of a small island like this. I must

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say that my first reaction was rather sceptical, having regard to the experience of partition in connection with another island with which we have been closely associated and about which the noble Marquess has just made a statement. But we will wait and see. Finally, it will, of course, be desirable. I am sure, to have a discussion on this subject, and I imagine that this will take place soon after we return after the Christmas Recess. In the meantime, may I ask whether any discussions arc taking place with both Greece and Turkey following on the visit of Mr. Lennox-Boyd?
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, I should like to put a further question with regard to the matter which has been referred to by my noble friend. Before doing so, however, I should like to associate myself with what the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has said, speaking from these Benches. I do not press this question if it in any way embarrasses the Government, or if it should be thought that it could possibly be to the prejudice of negotiations. The word "partition" was a word in the statement which struck me particularly. I should be interested to know whether I am right in thinking that "partition" as it is used there means "geographical partition". I should like to be clear that that is the meaning.
3.47 p.m.
LORD LLOYD: My Lords, may I begin my reply by thanking all noble Lords who have spoken for their helpful approach to this problem, and also for what they have said about the noble Lord, Lord Radcliffe, who has devoted an enormous amount of time and all his exceptional talents to producing what I think all your Lordships will consider, when you have read it, a brilliant Report. The matter is one of enormous complexity, and I think that the Report is a very remarkable document. I know that your Lordships— as you always do in such cases— will study it with great care. I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and others were right in saying it would be a great mistake to have further discussion until people have had time to digest this document, not merely in your Lordships' House but elsewhere also. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for the tribute which he paid to my right honourable friend.
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I will try to deal with the various questions which have been put to me. First, the noble Earl asked me whether Archbishop Makarios would be informed of this Report. The constitutional proposals and the statement which I have just read are being shown this afternoon to the Archbishop in the Seychelles. To-morrow Lord Radcliffe's secretary and a senior Greek-speaking officer of the Government of Cyprus will arrive in the Seychelles to explain the proposals to him in greater detail and answer questions which he may raise upon matters about which he may wish to be further informed. Furthermore, should the Archbishop wish to have discussions with someone from Cyprus or from Greece, Her Majesty Government are prepared to provide the necessary facilities.
The noble Earl asked me whether the Constitution was negotiable. I should have thought it would be almost impossible that it should be, because I think that when the noble Earl has read it he will see that it is a very finely balanced document, and I should doubt whether, if you began negotiating on bits of it, you would not destroy the whole thing. I should therefore hesitate to say that one could negotiate about it. The noble Lord, Lord Winster, asked me whether, under the Constitution there would be a Turkish Minister. If the noble Lord looks at the document he will see that there is provision for a Minister for Turkish Affairs, who will deal with all Turkish matters. I think I have already answered his question about consultation with the Archbishop; I hope I have dealt with it to his satisfaction.
The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, asked whether we could not make a gesture to the people of Cyprus. We are very anxious to make a gesture to the people of Cyprus. The difficulty is to make a gesture to the people of Cyprus without making a gesture to the terrorists. As I think your Lordships have seen, the Governor has removed a number of restrictions recently in an endeavour to make a gesture at this time. I hope that the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, has seen that already one point which he raised only last week has been dealt with. It is very difficult to make gestures where people's lives are at stake, and I could not go further than to say that the Governor will, at all times, have regard to the preservation of law and order and the

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security of the ordinary citizen of Cyprus, and that I do not think that gestures which would expose them to further risk would be justified even at the present time.
I was asked several questions about partition. At the moment partition is a hypothetical question. The noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, asked whether it would be geographical. I think that any partition, if there were to be such a thing, would have to be geographical. All that my statement says is that the conception of partition as one of the eventual options must inevitably flow from the conception of self-determination for the Turkish as well as for the Greek Cypriots. If one conception is conceded, the other automatically flows from it. Finally, I was asked whether discussions were continuing with Greece and Turkey. I have already said that Her Majesty's Government are keeping in close touch with the Greek and Turkish Governments on the international aspects of the proposals. My right honourable friend has just been visiting Athens and Ankara to explain these proposals to the Governments concerned, and until their reactions are known I do not think that any further discussions would be useful.

ROAD CONSTRUCTION PROGRAMME
3.53 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, I rise to continue the debate on the Motion on the Order Paper. I think that my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth has done well to raise once again in your Lordships' House the question of our road system, if indeed it can be accurately called a system at all. In my view, my noble friend's timing has been quite right, for our desperate shortage of oil, following the consequences of the disastrous Suez adventure, highlights once again the wastage of oil, among other things, flowing from the failure in the past to tackle our road system. It is no doubt true that rationing has reduced, and may well increasingly reduce, road congestion; nevertheless, there will continue to be a vast wastage of oil, due to the circuitous routes which have to be followed by motor vehicles and to the many obstructive
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bottlenecks in our urban and, indeed, in our rural areas also.
I propose to limit my remarks to one aspect only of this problem of road construction, and I should say that I am voicing my own personal opinions. It may well be that some of my colleagues on these Benches do not altogether agree with me. In his remarks in the debate in March, 1954, my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth indicated that he was not greatly in favour of financing road construction expenditure by way of loan. So be it! Of course, there is always the hope of conversion. I consider that the proposal has solid merits, which I shall seek to indicate.
No informed person now contests the imperative and urgent need for the reconstruction and development of our highway system. It is probably the most worn-out and inadequate clement in the whole of our national economy, as it is certainly one of the most wasteful. Surely it is a Gilbertian reflection that, at the very time we are introducing automation into our factories and offices, we should also he actively engaged in promoting "auto-congestion" on our roads and are content to muddle along with a road system suffering from fifty years of obsolescence. I do not propose this afternoon to argue the case of the need for a modern highway system, but will examine by which means it can best be provided, and provided speedily, before we succeed in achieving almost complete immobility on our roads as a reward for the bounty of science and man's mechanical ingenuity.
It is all too clear, from the present and rapidly worsening conditions on our roads, that the ways of the past, and indeed of the present, have failed. In my submission, we cannot hope to build the worthy and adequate new highway system we so urgently need if we continue to rely on financing it from annual budgets, for under this method the prime essential of ordered, long-term planning is absent, and in its place we have a sort of day-to-day practice of relatively little done and much postponed. Clearly, this is a real job for planning. It ought no longer to be left to the exigencies and uncertainties of an annual budget, with the finance provision determined in. competition with other claims, jostling, as it were, in the scramble of priorities and

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normally coming out with a consolation allocation which is derisory in its inadequacy. Thus, instead of a co-ordinated plan, properly phased and programmed, we have insufficiency of expenditure in fits and starts— I must confess that I think too many fits and too few starts — with the plans of yesterday reduced to the frustrated hopes of a tomorrow which never seems to arrive. Local authorities which are highway authorities are sick and tired of these ups and downs, these postponements and deferments, what time the congestion on our roads is steadily and relentlessly outstripping even the plans which are postponed.
The amount of expenditure on our roads, I submit, should be determined not by what can be spared in the Budget but by what manpower and materials can be made available out of the national resources of both, always on the footing that road expenditure moves up in the scale of priorities from being a Cinderella to become one of the principal claimants. Nor, I think, should road-works be regarded as an ultimate means of providing full employment when employment is in danger of falling below what is regarded as a satisfactory national level. In this connection, it may be observed that with the credit squeeze, now accentuated by the results of the unhappy Suez adventure, the future outlook for employment in the constructural trades is, I understand, none too promising.
But even in 1955 when employment in these trades was at full, Sir George Burt, the then President of the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors, said, in February of that year:
"I am quite sure that our industry could construct the 800 miles of new motorways needed without undue strain upon its resources".
That is a pretty definitive and responsible statement. But assuming that larger expenditure on roads did divert some labour and materials from other national activities. I cannot persuade myself that this would necessarily be to the detriment of the overall national economy, or would lead to any appreciable damage to our balance of payments. On the contrary, it should make for avoidance of the lamentable waste of our resources arising from our obsolete highway system—
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though not immediately, of course. But then, as we know from unpleasant experience, our balance of payments problem is not susceptible of immediate solution: nor can the planning of our economy be based upon immediate results. This also is a fairly long-term problem.
Thus, I suggest that the Government should give earnest consideration to the proposal which has been ventilated in many informed quarters that we should finance our new road construction and our major road improvements by way of loan capital, and not by way of grant out of revenue. The only annual charge would be the service of the debt, and that would need to be provided out of budgetary revenue. After all, this is what is done by the local authorities who are highway authorities: they pay their contributions, which range from 25 to 50 per cent of the cost of road expenditure other than maintenance, out of loan capital, not out of the rate income. Of course, they charge to their rate accounts the annual service of the loans raised.
If it is proper, then, for local authorities to do this, why is it wrong for the Government to look likewise? Government spokesmen have not yet advanced, in my submission, any sustainable reasons why this should not be done, but have seemed to brush aside the proposal in a somewhat cavalier manner, which normally, I think, betokens the absence of both good reasons and sound conviction. At the present time the Government are promoting legislation to enable the British Transport Commission to borrow money in order to meet anticipated deficits. This is not the time to discuss that proposal, and I will content myself with saying en passant that, in the circumstances which face the Commission, the proposal, in my view, seems to have merits. But if it is right to borrow to liquidate deficits, can it be wrong to borrow to create an asset such as an efficient, economical and essential highway system, which will pay handsome, continuing and, I submit, growing dividends for the benefit of the nation and the nation's economy?
On of the difficulties in this connection which has been advanced in some quarters is propounded by the questions: Who borrows the money? Who spends the money? Who is accountable for the

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money? Of course, in the case of local highway authorities who borrow for their contribution towards highway expenditure, they exist as statutory bodies accountable to the electorate and to the related Minister. The nationalised industry Corporations are, in the ultimate, responsible to a Minister. I would say, in passing, that I think that some advocates of a national road authority sometimes press too closely the analogy between the nationalised industries and a national authority for the construction of roads. In the context which I am discussing, there seems to be no close analogy; for the nationalised industries provide a specific, measurable service to specific and known individuals, based upon ascertainable user; whereas this is not the case with the road users, who cannot be identified, nor their user measured. Nor can they be charged on the basis of user, except by the introduction of toll charges, which I think it is generally agreed would be a reactionary proposal, and which, in any case, could be applied only to stretches of new road and not to the major improvements which are just as necessary and, in many cases, no less costly: indeed, major improvements can be more costly per mile when they lie in congested built-up areas.
Leaving aside these analogies, there is, I consider, a good case, on this and other grounds, to be made out for the setting up of a national highways authority charged with the duty of carrying out a long-term planned and programmed scheme of road improvements, including new roads, such as the conception formulated in the 1946 Plan for 800 miles of motorways, plus (and this is no less important) major road improvements, which usually consist in the removal of major bottlenecks, linked up with such new roads. The national authority should be required to survey the whole country in terms of need and urgency and, in association with the Ministry and the local highway authorities, prepare, say, a ten-year plan, properly phased and programmed for each year in relation to what is practicable in terms of labour and materials. The authority should be responsible for providing either the full cost, as is now the case with trunk roads, or the proportion of the cost of other projects which at present is borne by the Government, the local highway authorities continuing, as now, to provide their
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proportions. The authority should be empowered to borrow money with Government guarantee.
It has been suggested in informed circles that some £750 million would be the cost of an adequate plan spread over ten years. It might be more, or it might be less—that is a matter of ascertainment. The authority should borrow by a succession of tranches, as it were, as the needs require: needs for, first, the cost of trunk roads, for which the authority would pay 100 per cent., as the Government now do; and, second, for the grants to be made to local highway authorities on the basis now in operation, which grants range from 75 per cent. for Class III roads to 50 per cent. for Class III roads. The Government would be responsible for the annual service of the debt thus created by the authority. This annual charge would not be likely greatly to exceed what the Government at present provide over a series of years in the Budget. In any case, it could not be in excess of what the Government ought to provide out of the immense proceeds of present motor taxation.
The authority would plan and initiate proposals for new trunk roads, using, as now, the local highway authorities as agents for their construction. The authority would also consider and approve individual projects submitted by local highway authorities as the responsible bodies, and in the absence of such projects should itself initiate for consideration improvement and other projects necessary as a part of and fitting into, the overall national plan. The authority would, of course, be required to work in close association with the local highway authorities and with the Minister of Transport. Especially should this be the case as regards major road improvements in built-up areas, where considerations of planning and of housing often arise.
It is of the utmost importance, I submit, that the constitution, powers, functions and actions of this authority should not impair or impinge upon the autonomy and rights of local highway authorities. That would be fatal. I am a local government man, and I fully share the zeal and determination with which local authorities seek to guard their rights and their autonomy. Nor need these rights and this autonomy be endangered by the scheme I am envisaging. As I have indicated,

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the local highway authorities would submit their proposals and problems to the authority, instead of, as at present, to the Minister of Transport, and the authority itself would submit them, when approved by it, to the Minister for his approval. In the case of disagreement between the authority and the local highway authority, the latter would have the right of appeal to the Minister I do not think, as might be objected, that the authority would be a fifth wheel to the coach. At present, the vehicle of getting things done on our roads moves so slowly and so unevenly that one is sometimes in doubt whether it has any moving wheels at all.
I believe that the bringing into existence of an authority such as I have indicated, financed in the way suggested, and working in close co-operation with local highway authorities, would greatly speed up the work of road construction and would go far to dissipate the feeling of frustration which, from past experience of the present procedures, pervades these local authorities in this important field of their responsibility. The authority would, of course, be appointed by the Minister of Transport, and would be responsible to him on matters of policy and principle.
It would submit its long-term plan to him, including the elements of the plan which consisted of the proposals of the local authorities. It would also submit its yearly programme of works to be commenced, with the estimated yearly expenditure. The total of that programme, naturally, would be closely related to the total money which the authority proposed to borrow, if necessary, during that respective year. Issues of loan stock by the authority would be subject to the approval of the Treasury, through the Minister. Whilst the authority would be responsible to the Minister, and he to Parliament for the authority, the rights of interference by the Minister should, in my respectful view, be the minimum necessary to enable him to meet his Parliamentary responsibility. The work of actual construction of roads and improvements should, as now, be in the hands of local highway authorities either as agents for the authority itself, or as principals themselves, and the authority should have the function of planning initiation, approval and supervision. The
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authority might also, and, I suggest, with benefit, take over the existing agencies for road research which might well lead to the needed extension of research in many related but important fields.
The question of the constitution of this national highways authority, I approach with some hesitation, but, if I may continue to think aloud, as I have been doing in this discourse, I suggest that it should not be composed of representatives of any interests as such. What is required is a body which can look at the problems of providing an efficient and adequate national highway system as a whole, objectively and without regard to sectional, local or other considerations — a body which will command general confidence and respect from the status, knowledge, experience and quality of its members. There I willingly leave this paramount element of this proposal, for I am aware of the welter of differing opinion as to the composition of bodies of this kind.
I will conclude by saying that, whilst I have ventured to sketch in broad outline what might be the functions, duties and structure of a national highways authority, I readily concede that there is room for more than one opinion as to them. But the main proposal for loan financing which I have submitted (and which is by no means original to myself, although I did mention it at the end of a speech I made in your Lordships' House in March, 1954), that expenditure on highways, other than that on maintenance, should be provided out of loan money, and for that purpose, as well as for many other important purposes, there should be established a national highways authority, has, I submit, merits that go deeper than has apparently, up to the present, been conceded by Her Majesty's Government. I hope that, as a result of the debate this afternoon, the Government may see fit to give earnest and careful consideration to the proposals which I have ventured to submit to your Lordships.
LORD WOLVERTON: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I should like to ask him a question, because I am interested in the proposals he has been putting to the House. Is he intending that this proposed new authority would take over all the roads, classified and unclassified, from local authorities, or only

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the new projected roads, the trunk roads, leaving the local authorities to deal with their own classified roads?
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, I am not proposing any change in the present procedure as regards the classified roads. Both the building and maintenance of those are the function of local highway authorities. At present, of course, it is the Government who actually build the trunk roads, using the local highway authorities as their agents. I do not propose any disturbance of those relations. It may well be that, in working out the constitution, functions and powers of a national highways authority, some adjustment and alteration might be necessary.
4.20 p.m.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, it would be very difficult for anybody to follow adequately the speech which the noble Lord opposite has just made, but I should like to say at this stage how entirely I agree with him with regard to the question of a national highways authority. In saying that, I should like to add to what he said in reply to the noble Lord. Lord Wolverton. I am strongly in favour of a national highways board, and I consider that that national highways board should take over all the functions at present discharged by the Ministry of Transport in connection with trunk roads. Only in that way can I see any hope of continuity in the road programme of this country in the future. Continuity is the thing that matters. The local authorities are all crying out for continuity. They simply cannot know what sort of ceiling they can go up to. One year it may be quite high; another year the needs of a needy Chancellor of the Exchequer may impose severe restrictions.
I consider that we should certainly have a national highways board which would go in for a period of long-term planning, as emphasised by the noble Lord opposite—a ten-year programme financed by road loans. I would go further than merely financing by road loans. I would include a system of repayment by tolls on those roads. Some of your Lordships may consider this is a rather revolutionary suggestion, but it is the Government's own suggestion. Only a short time ago—I do not know the date— the Secretary of State for Scotland met all those interested in the provision
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of a road bridge across the Firth of Forth, and, so far as I would gather from the report of the proceedings, the proposal was as follows: that the local authorities should pay a sum exceeding £4 million— think £4,700,000— towards the project; the Government would supply £500,000, and the balance would be found by road loans, the interest and amortisation to be provided by a system to tolls. So that the principle which the noble Lord opposite has been talking about and which many of us on this side have advocated, as he has, for years, is apparently accepted by the Secretary of State for Scotland. Therefore I should like to urge as strongly as I can that further consideration should be given by the Government to the whole proposal.
The noble Lord who opened this debate told us that there were 3 million vehicles on the roads in 1939 and there are 7 million to-day. The last thing I wish to do is to try to score a debating point over the noble Lord, but I should like to point out that in the days when Mr. Alfred Barnes was Minister of Transport he brought in a grand scheme for 800 miles of new roads. That is still sitting somewhere in the pigeonholes in Berkeley Square, and nothing whatever has been done by any Government, either by the Government of the Party opposite or the Conservative Government, to amplify that magnificent scheme; and that is part of our problem to-day.
With regard to our problem to-day, may I read a cutting which I made from The Times newspaper:
"Congestion at Preston, with traffic from the Lake District and Blackpool, was the worst for many years, said the R.A.C. Queues were six miles long. Between Harrogate and Leeds a patrol described conditions as 'two hours of standstill'. On the road from Chester to Manchester the A.A. reported that over a distance of 18 miles cars were moving slowly bumper to bumper.
"Outside Guildford, Surrey, there was a queue of almost stationary vehicles four miles long. There was a line of crawling cars 10 miles long on the A.5 road between Shrewsbury and Wellington as the full weight of the traffic returning to the Midlands from Wales passed through Shropshire.
"Cars and coaches, in places three lines abreast, jammed the Medway towns. For over two hours there was an almost continuous line of vehicles on the road between Sitting bourne and Strood. It took nearly two hours to travel the nine miles through the Medway towns.
"Traffic on ten main roads into London was at the rate of 24,000 vehicles an hour."

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There is the problem. What is the use of the Government telling us that all is well, that the problem is well in hand, and that we have this programme of £ 350 million, the mathematics of which are completely and absolutely wrong. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth; if the figures quoted by the Minister at the Conservative Conference are broken down, it will be found that they resolve themselves into exactly what the noble Lord says.
Recently the Minister of Transport was addressing the students of the Imperial College of Science. He said:
"I do not build roads for private motoring. I build roads for commercial traffic, and the motorists will get no sympathy from me."
What an utterance from a Minister who is supposed to be a statesman, when he can refer to the problems with which he is dealing in terms like that— and. incidentally, in terms of the personal pronoun the whole time! I cannot help feeling that the Minister was very ill-advised in making such a speech. He goes further. He has made other statements. This is one of his statements—I am not exactly sure of the date of it, but that is easily ascertained. After listing five major road schemes to which he said
"we are aiming to give overriding priority in our road construction in the next year or two",
Mr. Watkinson said:
"We shall go on planning a completely new road network based on the recent traffic census. We completely underestimated the growth of road traffic."
My Lords, what an utterance! What a real confession, I would almost go so far as to say, of incompetence!
This is what the report of the Road Research Board for 1955 says. It is on page 1, paragraph 3:
"Whilst, therefore, we are glad to note the Government has agreed that the present programme of road construction is to proceed despite restrictions on capital expenditure, our investigations indicate that the programme is out of scale with the needs, and we feel that it has no hope of even keeping pace with the general increase in the number of vehicles which we have noted."
They give the figures of the increase in the number of vehicles. That is a document produced for the benefit of the Ministry of Transport, presumably by the Road Research Board, the highest authority on such questions that could be
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referred to. The Minister said he misjudged the growth. But there has been debate after debate in this House. Has not the Minister of Transport troubled to read Hansard? Many of us have done our best to try to explain to your Lordships the trouble to which we were certainly coming, and the Minister says, "We have underestimated the growth of traffic". If the Minister has underestimated the growth of traffic, and if that is really so, the sooner the Minister makes way for somebody who will arrive at a correct estimate the better, it seems to me.
In 1952 Lord Leathers replied for the Ministry of Transport in this House, and this is what he said then:
"We shall be ready to proceed"—
this referred to the road programme—
"as soon as we get the green light."
In 1952, the noble Viscount, Lord Leathers, knew something about it, even if Mr. Harold Watkinson did not. It seems to me extraordinary that the present Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation should be allowed to make such a statement. It simply means that the public have been misled in the past or that the Ministry of Transport were not allowed to proceed when they saw the green light, as the noble Viscount. Lord Leathers, stated they would.
This is a question which concerns many of us. The Road Research Laboratory the other day sent representatives to the Highways Congress at Stresa, and the British representatives, again from the Road Research Board, said:
"Many roads in Great Britain are seriously overloaded at the present time."
We all know that; there is no secret about it. Here is an acknowledgement from the Government's principal advisers on the subject. In 1954— in case the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation may not have read it the Road Research Board said that they were
"perturbed at the absence of a comprehensive programme that would provide for future traffic and the safety of the road user."
Surely, the safety of the road user ought to come somewhere into the considerations. I submit to your Lordships that little enough has been heard on the question of road safety, though we know perfectly well that if you establish a motorway in place of an existing arterial

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or busy trunk road casualties will be reduced automatically by 30 per cent., and possibly more.
In September, 1956, the Trades Union Congress passed a resolution, unanimously as it seems, as follows:
"Congress notes the inadequacy of Britain's roads to cope with present-day traffic and is particularly alarmed at the scale of fatalities which are due to the deficiencies of the road system."
I hope that that passage was noted by the Government. It continues:
"It calls on the General Council to press the Government to initiate immediately a prograrnme of road construction to provide safe and efficient motorways",
and so on. Then we come to various other bodies. For instance, the British Productivity Council stated in May, 1956:
"Whatever improvements have taken place and continue to he introduced by members of the road goods transport industry, whether by the British Transport Commission or by owners of privately-operated vehicles, the beneficial effect continues to be nearly nullified by the condition of the roads themselves."
I hope that the noble Earl, when he comes to reply to the debate, will deal with some of these questions and utterances by bodies which I am sure everybody respects.
Why is it that we have all these delays? Why is it that we cannot get ahead with the business? Is it the fault of the Government as a whole? Is it the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Is it the Ministry of Transport? Is it insufficient appreciation by the Government? Or is it another desperate attempt to make the traffic fit the roads? I should like to ask each noble Lord sitting on the Front Bench whether he, in fact, drives his own motor car; whether he has personal experience of these things. The reason why I ask that is because, just prior to the last Election, I thought I would find out what the position was. I asked a certain Cabinet Minister, "Do you ever drive yourself? Have you first-hand experience of what is going on?" He replied, "No, I do not" I said, "You depend on the Government pool of motor cars whenever you want to get about?" He said, "Yes, I do". I said, "Therefore, your views of road conditions are formed at secondhand, or even from your chauffeur or driver?" He replied, "Yes".
There you are. Do members of the Government actually experience what all the rest of us have to go through when
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we venture on to the roads of this country? I hope that Her Majesty's Government will try to do something about this matter. Do not let us forget that, whenever a national crisis arises, it is the motor world that gets a raw deal. Take the present situation that we are all in: we have to undergo this petrol rationing and all the rest of it. Motoring is the first thing that a Government turns to. It was the same in the last war. Let us remember the enormous sun which the Government are taking out of the motor world every year in taxation of one sort or another. The possession or use of a motor car will soon be absolutely impossible if the Government go on not giving us proper roads on which to run and imposing the highest taxation of any country in the world— for our motor cars and motor users are taxed in this country more highly than in any other country in the world— while at the same time we seem to get a raw deal on every hand with regard to the day-to-day problems of the industry.
"Stop and Go" is no good as a policy for road construction. I submit to the noble Earl who is going to reply that we must have a steady and properly coordinated programme of construction, subject to the considerations so well put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Latham, on the subject of material and resources generally. To deal with it, we must have continuity. I submit that the only way we shall get it is by having a national highways body. Therefore I hope that the noble Earl, when he comes to reply to this debate, will be able to give us a little news. Do not tell us the same old story; we have heard it before. Let us have something fresh this time. I beg to support the Motion.
4.38 p.m.
LORD FORBES: My Lords, I should like to join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, for introducing this extremely important Motion. There are, of course, cogent reasons why a large amount of capital should be expended on our very inadequate roads to-day, if only as an attempt—or, should I say, one of many attempts— to stop the present rise in the cost of living, which is due, in part, to rising freight charges. For these, we must blame our quite inadequate roads. Moreover, rising freight charges endanger our exports, for these

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are liable to be priced out of world markets. There is little wonder that we have high freight charges in this country when one finds that for every twenty minutes a 15-ton lorry is delayed on the roads the cost of the goods on that lorry goes up by 7d. a ton. That calculation was made before the present rise in the cost of fuel.
To-day, I am not going into the question of whether or not our road programme should be expanded. What I want to consider is whether the money that is being spent on our roads to-day is being spent wisely. Is it being spent to the best advantage? Here, I am afraid, the answer is, "No". We have in this country some of the finest technicians for road construction, but because the planning of our roads is at present at fault their skill is being completely wasted. I would say, without the slightest hesitation, that many of our road planners, from the top to the bottom, are lacking in foresight: they simply cannot see round the bend into the straight, and into the future.
One of the worst features of our road planning to-day is in the reconstruction of roads. Many of our roads are to-day being reconstructed to make travel in the piston-engined car relatively safe; but this work will be out-of-date almost before it is completed. Why cannot our road planners, like other people with foresight, envisage the time, which is not far distant, when all cars will be fitted with much more powerful engines? There will be turbo engines or atomic engines, for which the roads that we are planning to-day will be entirely inadequate, and which will make the roads even more dangerous than they are now. In my opinion, the road reconstruction work that is being carried out now will, in all probability, have to be bulldozed out of the way during the next ten years to make room for further reconstruction. Our road planning to-day appears to envisage cars travelling in comparative safety at about 50 miles per hour, but we must have comparative safety for at least double that speed.
Another illustration of the lack of foresight is that, because money is limited—or should I say "very limited"?—there is a tendency for expenditure to be spread over many small schemes, with the result that the larger schemes, which are by far
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and away the most important, get deferred. They do not just get deferred once, they get deferred time and again —every time this country is hit with a financial storm. Why, for instance, are many corners on our county class 1 roads being altered, at vast expense, into bends to suit the cars of to-day? They will be inadequate for the cars of to-morrow.
There is a county class 1 road that I know extremely well. The part that I know best is twenty-five miles long, and during the last two or three years three small improvement schemes have been carried out on this road. Each scheme has been practically the same as the last —a bend has been substituted for one or two sharp corners. Each of these projects has cost between £8,000 and £10,000. And what is the result? I suppose that one can travel the 25 miles in about half a minute less than before. But road safety has not improved; in fact it has got worse. The road can now take faster moving cars, but there are still the same number of road junctions. Until unrestricted access is removed from the roads there will be unrestricted danger. In my humble opinion, the money that is being spent on our county class 1 roads is being entirely wasted—and 75 per cent. of this money is being put up by the Government.
My Lords, first and foremost we should concentrate on our trunk roads, which, with our motorways, are going to carry a vast amount of traffic and which, with our railways, have got to be the life-line for our industry. Until all trunk roads have been made capable of carrying the cars of tomorrow, I would suggest that only maintenance and absolutely vital improvement work should be carried out on our county class 1 roads. It seems to be utterly ridiculous to spend vast sums of money carrying out relatively useless improvements on these county roads when only last year, on our trunk roads, there were no fewer than 106 level crossings, each forcing traffic to come to a complete standstill at some time of the day or night.
I am certain that much thought has been given to the construction of the motorways of the future, but I doubt whether the efficient working of these

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motorways has been sufficiently considered. The first essential is to keep the wheels turning, to keep the traffic moving, if possible at a uniform speed. We cannot have vehicles stopping on the highway. What I might call the motorised blackberry-picker simply cannot be tolerated—I refer to the person who leaves his car at the side of the road and wanders off into the countryside. Of course there are the awkward moments, when the dog or the child in the back of the oar feels sick—but perhaps this problem could be left to the ingenuity of the car designers. If a vehicle breaks down, there is only one answer—it must be put off the highway by some means. So as to maintain an even flow of traffic we must ensure that vehicles are not continually pulling on and pulling off the highway. For this I would suggest that revictualling areas might be provided about every twenty-five miles along a motorway. In these areas there Should be large parking facilities and facilities for cars, as well as drivers, to be refuelled.
Then, do not let us forget that it will be an absolute, physical impossibility for the driver who will be travelling at, say, 100 miles per hour, more than 1½miles a minute, to read all the signs that one sees dotted along the sides of our trunk roads to-day. We simply cannot permit advertisements to be put up along the sides of our motorways. The only signs that can be put up are those giving instructions to the drivers. Let us ensure that money which is spent on our roads is spent wisely. The first essential for this is that our road planners must have foresight to envisage not only the problems of the future but also the problems of to-day.
4.48 p.m.
LORD JEFFREYS: My Lords, if I intervene for a brief period in your Lordships' debate it is simply because I am a humble member of a highway authority, the County Council of Hampshire. Unless I am mistaken the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, to whom we are indebted for this Motion to-day, said, amongst other things, that the public are too satisfied that the road programme is adequate and that the money devoted to it is being properly spent. After the debate in this House this afternoon, however, I am quite sure that the
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noble Lord will not think that the Members of your Lordships' House are satisfied in any sort of way.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Would the noble Lord forgive me for interrupting him? If I conveyed that impression to him, it must have been my fault. What I said was that I thought the Government had misled the public; that the public were under the impression that £350 million was going to be spent on new road construction, when in fact it was not, because the total amount to be spent was only £29 million.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: As the noble Lord has again mentioned this point, may I say that there is really no ground for saying that there is anything misleading in what the Minister of Transport has said. Anyone who took the trouble to read the speech saw perfectly well that he said that £80 million was committed for new roads, and that the £350 million was for our general road programme
LORD JEFFREYS: I will not endeavour to labour that point. I was under the impression that the noble Lord opposite had stated that the public were too satisfied. I repeat that I am quite sure, after what has been said in your Lordships' House this afternoon, it is clear that certainly Members of your Lordships' House are not satisfied. I would point out, in the first place, that the Road Fund was supposed to be maintained—and I believe is still supposed to be maintained—by the motor licence duties. But there is an immense difference between the amounts received from licence duties and the amounts actually devoted by the Government (and this has applied to all Governments) to the roads. Could not a considerably larger portion of the receipts be given to the Road Fund? Surely, even in these times when we are hard up, this might be done.
Then I would suggest that the most urgent need is not so much for new trunk roads as the maintenance and improvement of existing roads. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forbes in what he has said about trunk roads and their maintenance. Although a great deal is said about making new trunk roads in this country, I feel that the emphasis should be on maintenance and improvement of existing roads, which is

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very urgently required. In many places new by-passes are an urgent necessity, both to eliminate, so far as possible, those bottlenecks to which reference has been made and also to facilitate traffic round built-up areas. Staines is, I think, an obvious example which nearly everyone knows, and one which ought to be dealt with very quickly.
In the United States and in other new countries (if I may so call them) it is a simple matter to construct a new trunk road because, there, land and space are nearly always available. It is a very different matter here. We have to consider not only agriculture but gardens and amenities of one kind and another, and it is difficult to get a line of route for a new trunk road which will neither injure the countryside nor injure individuals. But it is not so difficult to widen greatly and to improve greatly existing main roads and trunk roads. Nor is it so difficult to construct by-passes which are so urgently needed in many places. I am well aware that that is not always easy, but it is possible, in spite of the fact that it is always expensive.
In some cases, I would suggest (this is a small matter, I know) that railway tracks on which services have been suspended—and there are getting to he quite a good many of them in this country now—might he used for roads. On the other hand, it is questionable whether, with changed methods, many of these lines might not still be profitably used to relieve the roads of heavy traffic—for instance by using diesel trains, with frequent halts, with a conductor-guard issuing tickets on the train, instead of the whole panacea of driver, fireman, guard, as well as station-master, ticket clerks, porters, and so on as used on these old railways. A daily goods train each way, too, might relieve the roads of quite a lot of heavy traffic.
One of the difficulties is the fall in the value of money, which is a difficulty in every way. There is also the heavy rise in expenses. Yet the money allowed to country councils by the Government has not been increased lately. What that money will cover in the way of expenses is very much less than it was a comparatively short time ago. And since, as I say, all expenses, costs of materials and wages have increased very largely, this
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must mean not only less maintenance and improvement on the roads but even some deterioration of existing conditions. And it is not good business to allow a road which has been improved to a certain point to deteriorate simply through failure to spend money upon it.
As regards the proposed highway authority, which it has been suggested by Lord Latham and by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, should assume the existing Ministry's powers, I personally should be very much in favour of that change, if it could be made. But I submit that one of the things which is needed, not only as regards trunk roads, main roads and other highways, is more devolution of authority. At present, the county authority, which deals very largely with main roads and other roads, has, on an enormous number of small matters, to go to the present authority, the Ministry in London. Often it is merely a case of asking for permission for very small alterations to the roads—sometimes for such trivial work as putting up some notice indicating a dangerous corner or something of that kind. Surely on matters like that the local people have the best knowledge. It seems a very great waste of time and manpower that they should have to apply again and again to the Ministry in respect of what are comparatively trivial matters.
With regard to country roads, I think that the increasing use of tractors and heavy mechanical implements by farmers is causing a considerable amount of damage, not only by cutting the roads but also by spreading (certainly at this time of the year) great quantities of sticky mud over them. This certainly does not improve them from the point of view of accident prevention. It is said that straight wide trunk roads do not necessarily make for safety, and I understand that in the United States, where there are many miles of wide straight roads, and where everyone travels on the average very much faster than in England, the accident rate is much higher. I would say that even here in Britain, many people travel too fast. I would not for a moment maintain that when there is a clear open road, and you have a car which is capable of a high rate of speed, you should not travel fast: of course, you are perfectly right to do so. But some people cannot resist trying to go very fast where there

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is a lot of traffic about and where the road may not be a straight or open one.
There are many people who, even in London, as one can see almost any day, go much too fast round sharp corners, and many who cannot resist what I would say is the worst fault of all, cutting in. That is a really bad fault. There are people who will insist on trying to make up a few yards where there is a lot of traffic about. That is a dangerous thing, which I think, from some experience in the police courts, produces more accidents than anything else. If it is asked why more cases are not reported, I would say that a driver who is looking after his own car and trying to avoid accidents, to avoid being struck by or striking another car which is in fault, often has no time to look at the number of the other car; and in that way a great many people who are in fault get away. I know of actual cases where that has happened.
I venture to say only these few words to your Lordships. I hope that something will be done, that more money will be devoted to the roads, that whatever form of highway authority we have there will be more devolution and less necessity to apply on often trifling matters to the Ministry or whatever authority there may be in London. If we can get such matters attended to and, what I believe to be almost the biggest thing required, if we can make by-passes round the big centres of population to avoid bottleneck; and hold-ups, I am sure that we shall be a good deal farther on the road we all desire.
5.2 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I am sure that we should all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, for putting down this motion. For myself, I am grateful to him for covering so fully the whole ground. As soon as he had finished speaking, I tore up half my notes. I should like to refer briefly to the second part of the Motion, which deals, in effect, with the lack of urgency. I would put forward two matters which I believe the Ministry could put right quite quickly. I am always receiving complaints from local authorities that although they have a scheme ready in great detail several years ahead, they can never get the Ministry to discuss that scheme until just before they are ready
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to authorise it. The result is that, when the authorisation has either just been given or is about to he given, the scheme has not been discussed fully in detail between the local authority engineers and surveyors and the Ministry, and sometimes many months are taken up with discussions at that point, whereas if the discussions had taken place at an earlier date there would be Far less delay when the Ministry were ready to go ahead.
I suggest that there is one principal reason for this state of affairs. At the Ministry, there is a chief engineer who has round him other qualified engineers. He has under him eight divisional road engineers, each of whom deals with three, four or more counties. They are the men who are in continuous touch, one way or another, with the local authority engineers. In so far as their rank in the Minister is concerned, they are junior to the chief engineer, but in so far as their technical qualifications are concerned, they are on exactly the same footing as the chief engineer and the local authority engineers. My suggestion is that much of this delay in the discussion of schemes could be overcome by giving proper authority to the divisional road engineers. They are always in touch with the local authority engineers and over many years have discussed with them the schemes that have been prepared by the local authorities. When the Minister says that: is ready to authorise a scheme, I think it would be sufficient for the divisional road engineer to approve it or disapprove it. He will have argued out the points before that stage is reached. In my view, if the divisional road engineer has given a scheme his approval, the actual ministerial approval, through his chief engineer, should be a formality. I believe that if that were done, it would save months of discussion at much too late a date.
My other point on speeding up is about the way contracts are presented for tender. I regret to say that we take far too long a period to construct a given length of road, compared with some of our poorer neighbours on the Continent. One of the reasons, I believe, is that when tenders are asked for the Ministry put in much too long a period in which the work has to be completed, if they ask a contractor to tender for completing a given stretch of road in eighteen months, he will tender for that period; but if they insist on six

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months, he will tender for six months, believe that that is the cause of great delay. Moreover, as wages have been going steadily up over the last few years, and there are usually wage clauses in a contract, the work eventually costs much more if it takes eighteen months than it would have done had it taken six months.
Let me give one example of how this lack of planning, in not putting in an earlier date and giving too long a period for contracts, works out in practice. I quote the case of the Markyate By-pass, on A.5. I think that it illustrates both points. It was officially supposed to be authorised in 1954–55. It was afterwards divulged that the Minister had decided to proceed early in 1955. A Press release was issued by the Ministry on December 8, 1955, which said that work would be started two days later, on December 10, and that the work would take twelve months. Two months later, in February, 1956, the Ministry announced that the estimated date of the completion was June, 1957. Although work had started, it became known within the first two months that the work was going to take 50 per cent. more time— six months longer —than had been originally estimated. Either preliminary planning had been rushed, because it had not been started early enough, or (what I suspect happened) the Ministry did not bother too much about the time factor, and the tender they eventually gave was given because the contractor said he would do it more cheaply if they gave him eighteen months. I do not know whether that was the reason, but it seems to me to be a likely one.
In any case, what we are trying to do is to get roads built, and to give an extra six months after a contract is started, so that it takes eighteen months—if the work had been in France or Holland, it would have been completed in nine months—makes the thing absolute nonsense. It is completely incomprehensible to me how the Ministry, the contract having been placed and the work started, can, in the space of two months, extend the time for the contract by six months. In these two respects, I suggest that the Minister could put matters right quite easily: that is to say, by giving more power to the divisional road engineers to come to decisions, and in seeing that, when tenders are asked
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for, the period of the contract is cut to a minimum.
The authorisation and expenditure on the present road programme is, so far, keeping pace with the road programme—something which I do not believe has ever happened before: indeed, I am not sure that in recent years there has been a road programme. But, as has been said by many noble Lords this afternoon, the programme is inadequate. We are not keeping pace with the increase of traffic, let alone getting ahead of it. Various noble Lords—particularly the noble Earl, Lord Howe—have quoted official bodies who have said that our programme is quite inadequate. The Central Transport Consultative Committee, set up by the Ministry in 1954; the Road Research Board on several occasions; the Trades Union Council and the Trades Union Congress all agree that the programme is quite inadequate. But it is noticeable that in Government circles (if I may use such a loose term) it seems to be generally agreed that the road programme is inadequate until one comes to the Treasury, where there always seem to be second thoughts.
What is particularly noticeable is that on July 26, 1955, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a statement in another place on the economic situation—and it was five months after the new road programme had been announced—spoke of
"inevitable and very desirable additions to the programme."
So he was in favour of what had been announced. The previous day he said that
"serious damage could be caused to industry as a whole by inadequacies in the supply of transport.…"
That is a little stronger. On October 26, in his Budget Statement it was an Autumn Budget, then—he referred to the road programme and described it as
"already insufficient to deal with the industrial needs of the country."
Then I suppose somebody at the Treasury interfered, because in the same month, at the Conservative Party Conference, speaking on Government economic policy, he did not include the expanded road programme in what he called "first priority expenditure." Either a thing is urgent, or it is not, and to say one day that industry will suffer and in the same

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month not to include it in priority expenditure is absurd.
What is the real reason why we do not get ahead quickly enough? Is it finance, or is it materials? It always seems to me that the Minister of Transport cannot make up his mind which it is. Mr. Boyd Carpenter, the late Minister of Transport, said this on television:
"In the end, is it not always a question or finance?"
The present Minister of Transport, in the Financial Times, stated:
"It is net a problem primarily of finance but of the allocation of scarce national asset in men and materials."
That last statement is denied by all the contractors.
I was most interested in the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Latham; and, by and large, I agreed with him. There is one point, however, that he did not make. When we have been fighting this battle with the Ministry, and with the financial section of the Ministry, we have always received the answer: "What does it matter? This is a non-profit, making concern. You are asking us to raise road loans, and out of general revenue pay the service of the loan; but that can be done just as easily by budgetary ways as by raising loans. It is simply for the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day to decide how he will raise the money." But there is this difference, which has not been mentioned. If the public are asked to subscribe to a Road Loan, he will be a brave Chancellor of the Exchequer who uses that money for some other purpose. He may prevent a certain amount of money from being used in a particular year, owing to financial stringency, but for him to use it for gas, electricity, building ships or anything like that would, I maintain, be impossible.
It is for that reason that I believe we must have some sort of Road Loan, because the public will have subscribed and no Chancellor of the Exchequer would dare to touch that money for other purposes. As I trust no Chancellor of the Exchequer, when it comes to being short of cash, I think that is the only way of having, year by year, a source of money to build the roads we need. I am always being accused of not trusting Chancellors of the Exchequer, but we have seen this happen so often: funds have been raided
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unless it is public money subscribed for a particular purpose. For years, for various reasons, it always seemed that power got the first "whack", and transport was not looked after at all. We hoped that we had got past that, and that transport was now going to have a share in some of the money.
I was somewhat disturbed by a statement made the day before yesterday in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of Fuel and Power, on the Second Reading of the Electricity Bill, when he said this [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 562 (No. 31) col. 944]:
"…if we are to obtain all the benefits of nuclear power, we as a country must be prepared to undergo the sacrifice which the tremendous investment necessary for nuclear power requires."
We are all in agreement with that. But we who have dealt with road matters for many years have always been somewhat frightened by that type of statement, because if there is a sacrifice to be made, it usually seems to fall on transport, fuel or something of that kind. I would merely say this: that should such sacrifices be asked of roads, road transport and fuel, it is quite obviously absurd. What is the point of using the great benefits and powers of atomic energy in nine years' time if, when we have manufactured our goods with this new form of power, we cannot carry them to the ports, and therefore cannot compete? I quote that merely so that we can all remind the Government of it when they cut down expenditure on roads, or try to, in the future to finance this other project.
5.19 p.m.
LORD WOLVERTON: My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, for putting down this important Motion and so giving us an opportunity once more of reviewing the progress of the road programme under the direction of Her Majesty's Government. I should like to congratulate the Government on the progress that has been made in the last two years. Progress has been made on both major road improvements and maintenance, although little has been done in the way of providing new roads, but I am still one of those who are far from satisfied that the progress is sufficient. When one analyses the reasons why the progress is not sufficient—and many reasons have been given this afternoon; land acquisition in

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a small and overcrowded country, labour and materials—one still comes down to one of the most difficult reasons; and that is the matter of finance. I think it is finance that we are most short of. If only we could have more finance for this road programme we could go a little faster.
There are two points that I should like to bring out. If I quote a few figures, I hope your Lordships will be tolerant with me, because it is impossible to develop my point on finance without bringing out a few figures. I asked a Question of Her Majesty's Government on December 5, 1956, about the improvements to the Great North Road from London to Edinburgh which, as your Lordships know, is about 400 miles long. I asked that Question purposely for this debate to-day, and I asked for the answer to be given for four 100-mile sections. The Question was answered by my noble friend Lord Hawke, and I should like to quote the Answer again to your Lordships.
On the whole length of the road from London to Edinburgh, the most important road in this country, £2,600,000 is being spent at the moment. That has nothing to do with maintenance. The work comprises twenty-three schemes, and if you divide up the total expenditure it comes to about £100,000 on each. That is an improvement, but there are large stretches of that road, especially in the southern counties—and I have twice driven up and down it myself—of Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Rutland and Lincolnshire, where there are large stretches of two-lane traffic; and yet only £500,000 is being spent in that first section from London to Stamford, and from Stamford to Doncaster about £700,000. Your Lordships have only to study the figures supplied by the Ministry of Transport in their annual accounts to see that a road-widening scheme from a two-lane road to a three-lane road costs something in the neighbourhood of £80,000 per mile, and from a two-lane to a four-lane road something in the neighbourhood of £150,000 per mile. So we shall not get many improvements on the Great North Road for £2,600,000.
I have taken the trouble to extract a few figures to try to prove my point. In the Civil Estimates of the Ministry of Transport (Class 9) for England and Wales, for the year 1956, compared with
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the year 1955, on trunk road new construction and major improvements, expenditure went up from £3,600,000 to £6 million, and the maintenance from £10,090,000 to £10,151,000, making a total of from £13 million to £16 million on the trunk roads, of which there are now, I should say, something like 8,000 miles. On the classified roads (again I am quoting from the Ministry of Transport's own figures), in the year 1955–56 expenditure on new construction and major improvements went up from £3 million to £7 million a year, and the maintenance from £20,385,000 to £20,564,000. So the total went up from £24 million to £27 million. Major road improvements and maintenance on classified roads went up only about £6 million in two years.
I was interested in the speech made to-day by the noble Lord, Lord Latham, again suggesting to your Lordships that we should seriously consider having a Road Loan. I have been one of those who have supported that idea for a long time, and I feel that we should have a Road Loan for these new road constructions. As a humble member of the County Council of West Suffolk I think it would be much better to leave the county roads and unclassified roads alone, but where we are going to have these new motorways I think we shall have to have something in the nature of what the noble Lord suggested—a Road Board raising a Road Loan, the principal and interest being guaranteed by Her Majesty's Government. Otherwise, with the figures which I have given to your Lordships this afternoon, I cannot see that we can go much faster with the amount of money allowed.
I thought it would be of interest to put before your Lordships figures which were published at the November meeting of the West Suffolk County Council, a typical small rural council, which has about 1,200 miles of roads to look after, of which 55 miles are urban roads, 1,100 miles rural roads, and 30 miles trunk roads. That authority last year spent £563,000 on all roads, of which £378,000 was spent in maintenance and minor improvements of the classified roads; £43,000 on improvements to those roads, and £59,000 on maintenance and improvements on the 30 miles of trunk roads. Of course, it is a great struggle, because costs are going up every year, and we

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have not been able to get any more money from the Ministry for maintenance during the last few years. We had a little more money for doing the special works—cutting off corners, and minor improvements—but very little more on maintenance.
In a county such as West Suffolk—and I wish to make the plea for West Suffolk arid other counties similarly affected —we have no fewer than six major airfields. Most of those airfields are situated on minor roads. Out of the 1,200 miles of road in the county, about 500 miles do not get any classification grant at all. Her Majesty's Government have lately been doing a tremendous reconstruction work on these airfields, work costing millions of pounds. I think that reconstruction of the runways costs about £1 million each. They have been carting a vast amount of granite chippings from the Midlands on eight-wheeled lorries, which have been cutting up our third-class roads to a great degree. I am putting forward to Her Majesty's Government to-day the plea that we in Suffolk, together with the County Councils in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, who also have many airfields in their area, have some special consideration for a little more grant for these unclassified roads.
We have only just started the first important motor by-pass (Preston), which is nine miles long and is going to cost, I think, £3 million. That is the first one in this country to be started. There is this other programme, or proposed programme, of the London-Yorkshire motorway, as well as important improvements, not only on A.1. which I have quoted, but also, as the right reverend Prelate mentioned, A.6. And another noble Lord referred to A.5, the London-Holyhead road. They are both roads I know, extremely narrow in places, and carrying tremendous traffic. At many points they are only two-lane roads. They should be widened, and by-passes to the towns should be constructed in the next few years. Her Majesty's Government are making a contribution of £38 million, out of about £80 million which they collect annually from road licence fees. I think we should have a little more of that, and if the county councils are given the chance, I believe that they will show in the future, as they have done in the past, that they will get on with the work. While we are getting only little "drabs",
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which are subject every year to budgetary control, I do not think we can go further than we have gone to-day. With those words, my Lords, I support the Motion.
5.31 p.m.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, when I spoke on the subject of roads about a year ago, I advocated a policy of "make do and mend," and in that context I must, alone among your Lordships so far, congratulate the Minister of. Transport on at least having made sporting attempt to solve this very difficult problem. What I want to do now is to ask whether the Minister of Transport could not look at the programme in the context of the conditions in which we now find ourselves. All these road works in themselves create a traffic hazard. They slow up traffic and while they are going on create a bottleneck which, in itself, restricts the number of places at which work can be done on a road when the traffic flow is heavy. Now, unfortunately, the traffic is not as heavy as normally. It is in particular the joining of road improvements into existing roads which dislocates traffic to a large extent. If it is possible to speed up that work and take advantage of our misfortune, it will be a very great thing.
Moreover, there will be a certain amount of displaced labour which would become available for the roads, and the arguments about lack of materials owing to their being required for the export market are—again, temporarily—not as valid as they were. I think this position should be exploited to the full. One other word: we should not look on the black side only. I think we should realise that owing to petrol rationing and the number of cars off the road, there will be a direct proportionate decrease in the deaths caused by those cars. We should be thankful for any small mercy we can obtain.
The question of road junctions is one which I consider has been neglected, probably owing to its great difficulty. Take, for instance, the Kingston By-pass: that is a road where, at the intersections, nine traffic lanes are constricted by a roundabout into two. One does not have to be a mathematician to work out that although that road is constructed as a six-lane road, the capacity is governed by the two lanes round the roundabout.

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Therefore, it is a complete waste of the expense of the road unless a fly-over of some sort or other is provided. If three fly-overs could be constructed in the north-south roads —I do not mean a full, clover-leaf intersection: there is no room for that; but a pure fly-over with the right and left turns three streets away, or something of that sort—it might increase the capacity of that road to its full constructed capacity. Traffic islands or roundabouts are admirable from the point of view of preventing accidents, but from the point of view of traffic flow they are bottlenecks, and I think the two things should be weighed up together very carefully indeed in any future programme.
I wish to urge the possibility of having an advanced programme of by-passes for culverts and bridges, the things which take a long time if difficult foundation conditions, which sometimes exist, are met. It takes a long time to construct that relatively small structure, when the road could be built far more quickly. If it were possible to get those things constructed ahead of the main programme, one might speed things up without great dislocation from the financial point of view.
Again, the Government Road Research Institute produces correct figures and a lot of the data on which these new road designs are calculated. I think they should be helped in any necessary way, and urged to conduct a comprehensive survey of traffic conditions as they are now or shortly will exist. For example, it has been stated that if London buses could be speeded up by half-a-mile an hour, some fantastic saving of fuel would result. The buses will be speeded up now because the traffic is not in London; anybody can see that to-day. If that is true, what is the necessity for raising the fares? If they are going to save fuel by this traffic decrease, I do not see the necessity of raising the fares. I think these matters should definitely be checked up, and now that we have the opportunity before us, whether we like it or not, it should not be let go by default.
There is another aspect of that subject. Private cars are not coming into London for all-day parking as they did, and after Christmas there will be fewer still. I feel that after four or five months of this state of affairs—which is obviously
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before us—people will get out of the habit of using their cars in that way. If a really thorough publicity drive could be instituted now, there might be permanent benefit from stopping these people—one driver, one car—blocking the whole place up. London is becoming quite pleasant; one can almost walk across the street now. If a lot of publicity could be given to the benefits which accrue from the lesser amount of traffic, how much easier it is to get about London, and so on, permanent good might result from our present misfortune.
The question which Lord Derwent raised about the divisional road engineers and the county road engineers is one that interests me. In my own local authority's small county, our road surveyor has one aim and object, and it is very right and proper from his point of view, and that is to see that he gets the best roads he possibly can in the county. That is all very well. He discusses the matter with the divisional road engineer, but it is purely on an engineering basis, and the conclusions they come to are excellent from that point of view. But, so far as I can see, there is no central planning authority that says, "Roads are far more important, or improvements are far more important, in other counties than they are in your county, where the roads are quite adequate"—they are not perfect but they are adequate for the traffic on them. Nobody says, "You are not going to get a grant". You are "dished out" with your quota of grant: it is whittled down a little for this and that—that is normal. But there is no controlling authority to give priorities to work done. Every county gets its little bit. If money is limited, as undoubtedly it must be, that method is not in the general interest. I do not know whether it could be looked into.
So far as a Road Loan is concerned, one must remember that it could be an inflationary measure, because, naturally enough, if a lot of money is spent on building roads, thus diverting labour and materials from the export industries, a great deal of cash is produced for people who spend it at home on goods which, again, ought to be kept for the export market. Therefore, a Road Loan, desirable as it may be, cannot be considered without taking into account the other aspect of the whole problem.
5.41 p.m.
LORD KINNAIRD: My Lords, I wonder whether I might say one word on the point which has been raised by my noble friend Lord Stonehaven and which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, mentioned. I understood him to say that he thought that between the Minister and the local authority there was a lot of delay. But in Scotland, as your Lordships know, our roads have been handed over to the Secretary of State, and, from what I hear from our own local authority, that system is working very well. Like most counties, we have big sections of trunk roads in the county, 100 per cent. paid for, of course, by the Minister. I understood the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, to say that he would like to hand those roads over to the local authority. As the Minister or the Secretary of State pays 100 per cent., I cannot see him getting complete control for the local authority.
The alternative is that the Minister takes complete control. I want to say a word of warning about that. I agree with what my noble friend Lord Stonehaven has said, that the present system of the county surveyor carrying out the work for the Minister is very satisfactory. We share staff, we share equipment. All these are things which a county by itself would not be able to have. Because we do the trunk roads, we share these things between the Minister and the local authority. I think great care should be taken here. I should Like to urge upon the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, a word of warning before any change is made in that system.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I had not intended to intervene in this debate, but I have been rather worried by a few things. However, I can assure your Lordships that my intervention will be of a short nature. I am one of those, I am afraid in the minority, who feel that the Government should not spend vast quantities of money at the moment on building an adequate road system. I do not think that anyone would dispute the sentiments which prompted the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, to move this Motion, or indeed what he said. I believe that every intelligent-minded person would agree that, fundamentally, our roads ought to be highly improved. But I do not believe that we are in an adequate financial position to spend a lot of money
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on them at the moment. Again, what is an adequate road system? Does anyone know? I do not know what is meant by an "adequate road system." One can only guess. I cannot help feeling that in that respect an adequate road system rather corresponds to adequate wages. If one has got used to what one has, one deems that it is inadequate and so one asks for more. I should be most grateful if any noble Lord could tell me what an adequate road system is.
Before I would be willing to encourage the Government to spend a lot of money on roads, I should like to know three main facts which it may be the noble Earl. Lord Selkirk, can give us. The first is, how much will it cost to provide an adequate road system? Has any figure ever been arrived at? If it has, I for one should be grateful to know what it would cost. The second is, is there any estimate of what such an expenditure would save us on ordinary running costs of vehicles? The third question is, how could we pay for it? I feel that if we had those three facts, we should at any rate have something on which we could work. They would avoid a lot of guesswork. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, said that if we had an adequate road system we should save, I think he said, 50 per cent. of petrol. Maybe we should but should we save 75 per cent. or 25 per cent.? Who knows? It is all just guesswork. Therefore, if the noble Earl could give us any indication of these figures, I should be grateful, but I somehow doubt that he will be able to do so.
I should like to give an illustration of something I consider rather futile. One talks about the vast quantities of money that must he spent on the repairing of roads. There is a bad stretch of road near Bungay where I live, which is absolutely treacherous, for the simple reason that the bend is very sharp and the camber is in the wrong direction. Every winter people go into the ditch, about half a dozen each winter. I myself have been shot round 180 degrees. I have written to the county surveyor of the Norfolk County Council on three occasions. The reply I received was, "We are very sorry, but we cannot afford to put up the notices." A couple of notices at either end of the bend would cost only £10. Instead of that, they have put road studs all the way along the

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road. No-one has yet had an accident there through not seeing the middle of the road, but there are plenty of people who have had accidents through going round a bad corner. Yet nothing, apparently, can be done to improve that corner, least of all by erecting two notices. I cannot help feeling that such instances as that must surely show up at least a certain amount of futility in the system as it is at the moment.
5.48 p.m.
LORD WISE: My Lords, I feel sure that all noble Lords who have spoken will be anxious to hear what the noble Earl who is to reply to this debate will have to say about the various complaints which they have lodged. So I want to be very brief and will raise only one or two minor matters. First of all, I must apologise to my noble friend who opened the debate that I did not hear his speech. I am afraid that British Railways let me down, for once, by keeping me in a train for one and a half hours longer than their time table said they would. So I was late in arriving. As I came in, I heard the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Carlisle talking about the local interest in road affairs. He was excusing himself, I thought, for dealing with local matters. During the course of the debate, many noble Lords have mentioned local points of interest. I want, therefore, to deal with one or two more.
The first point which I want to make is the question of co-operation between the local residents and the county council, or whoever may happen to be the highway or the road authority. Recently. I have met two cases in which the county council have been absolutely adamant as to what road improvements they would make, going much against the wishes of the parish council, the local inhabitants, the rural district council and others, but at long last the county council concerned have seen fit to scrap completely their original intentions and have agreed that in future the improvements which the local folks require shall be carried out. I think that that position of dispute should not arise, because people who live in villages and rural districts have a pretty good knowledge of what is wrong with the local roads. I therefore hope that in future the road authorities will co-operate with local
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people. This state of affairs may not be general—I hope it is not. The noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, was speaking of his connection with county council matters, as was the noble Lord, Lord Wolverton. I am making just a quiet plea for the greatest co-operation between county council representatives and officials and local folk.
The right reverend Prelate referred also to the question of road safety. We who live in country areas are much concerned with the safety of children who have to walk backwards and forwards to school, using what may be narrow main roads. It often happens that children have to walk anything up to two miles to school. In these days of fast-moving and heavy traffic, many of our roads are definitely dangerous. I hope, therefore, that the county council or highway authority, while not turning their attention too much from taking out corners or bends, may see fit to make improvements upon what, quite often, are main roads between small country towns or large villages. I know one village, quite close to my own home, where the situation is quite impossible. There is a single main road between two large towns, and it is impossible for two lorries to pass comfortably when they converge on that road. It has been my experience to have to stay behind a lorry while another lorry coming from the other direction has had to back into a gateway in order to allow the lorry in front of me to pass. Noble Lords will realise that in country areas roads of that sort are absolutely alive with risk to children and others who have to walk along them.
The noble Lord, Lord Latham, and other speakers have referred to bottlenecks. There is one particular piece of road construction to which I should like to refer, in concluding my short speech. At the moment the Norfolk County Council are attempting to improve the road between King's Lynn and Hunstanton. It is a road which carries a good deal of Sunday traffic, particularly in the summertime, when there is traffic from the Midlands to the sea villages and the sea coast of Norfolk. Some improvements have already been made, but the main improvement, which would assist users of that road and avoid the bottleneck which arises at King's Lynn, is the provision of a by-pass for King's Lynn.
At the moment, the main road from the Midlands goes over a level-crossing

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at Lynn. Nearly fifty years ago, the railway company were considering plans either to put a bridge over this level-crossing or to put a subway underneath it. Throughout the intervening years those plans have never materialised, and the project now is that a by-pass should be constructed around one side of King's Lynn to connect with the main road to Hunstanton. I hope that the position will be dealt with by the Ministry, and that, if ever the by-pass materialises, the same trouble which now arises in regard to the level-crossing—because the railway has to be crossed—will not be perpetuated, and that some other system of crossing may be devised.
On a Sunday evening in the summer, a considerable amount of shunting takes place at this level-crossing and I have seen cars standing bumper to bumper as far back as Sandringham, which is a matter of five or six miles. It may be said that on the Brighton road, or some other roads, the car queue is even longer; but this is a serious state of affairs, and I hope that the Ministry can now give some assurance that this project, which has been "on the boards" for so long, will be brought into Operation. I am certain that it would give satisfaction to many people who have to use the road and to those people who, as I say, come, particularly at week-ends, to the Norfolk sea coast. My Lords, I hope that those noble Lords who have raised questions will have complete satisfaction—I do not think I shall myself, but others may—from the noble Earl when he winds up. I leave the matter there.
5.56 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, this is one of the series of debates which we have from time to time in this House on the subject of roads, and I date them from the forceful speech which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, made in 1952. Since then, we have had at least four debates on this subject—it may be more. In December, 1953, the Government announced their initial road plan for three years. No doubt that was a modest beginning. In 1955, they announced a four-year plan; and that is the position we have arrived at.
There is no doubt that there is a growing pressure among what I might call a pressure group for better roads, arid I do not blame the British Road Federation
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at all for bringing their important subject, to the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But may I venture to deal with one or two words which were put into the mouth of my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, or, as I suspect, by the British Road Federation, saying that he was not interested in private motoring? I am told that there is no justification for saying that at all.
EARL HOWE: I quoted his words.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I am sure the noble Earl did; but I wonder whether he was correct in the words that were put into the Minister's mouth. What I am given to understand he did say is that resources are limited, and that priority in building new roads must be given to industrial traffic, with pleasure travel taking second place. I think that is a view with which we must all agree.
EARL HOWE: I do not want to interrupt the noble Earl, but in this connection (I have handed all my notes over to Hansard) I quoted the occasion when those remarks were made, and I read the remarks as they were published in the papers. I cannot do more than that.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I am making no complaint against the noble Earl: I am sure the information was given to him. But I am advised that this is, in fact, the true rendering of what he said.
EARL HOWE: He said he had no sympathy with private motorists.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I am advised that the rendering which I have given is the true rendering of what he said.
LORD LATHAM: Do I understand the noble Earl to say the true words or the true rendering?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I am told that those are the true words; that that is what he said.
I do not think that I differ greatly from what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has said, to the effect that the present situation with regard to our roads is not entirely satisfactory. I do not differ from him in some senses. But no Government stands entirely in a white sheet, though I think I can claim that my clothes are much cleaner than those of the noble

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Lord. However, that is by the way. What I think it is fair to say is that if we really want to increase capital equipment in this country we must bear in mind other calls which we have to face, do not want to run through them, but if your Lordships would only consider for a moment what needs to be done, particularly in regard to housing, school buildings, hospitals, factory development, atomic energy establishments, railway modernisation, coal mines and so on, you will realise that there is an immense programme to be carried through. Frankly, at the present time we cannot do it as quickly as we should wish.
There is, of course, a perfectly simple solution, and that is, to reduce consumption and increase savings. It is quite a simple proposition. But that sort of proposition is not helped a great deal by speeches such as that which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, made yesterday afternoon. Frankly, it does not help very much. Lord Brabazon of Tara made a similar speech. I see he has been wise enough not to come here to-day. Frankly, if you talk about capital investment and talk also about reduced taxation, abolishing credit restrictions, abolishing hire purchase restrictions, freer lending and reduction of bank rate, it does not add up at all. If we want to go in for these big programmes we must recognise that there are economic problems to face up to. I found the words of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, very refreshing. He went to the heart of the matter. He asked questions which he rightly said that I would not answer—I could not, as a matter of fact. The British Road Federation, I think, said that an expenditure of £750 million would make a better road system possible. I do not know whether they say that it would make an adequate road system or not. Perhaps they will say.
I should like now to try to deal with some of the points raised in the course of the debate, and perhaps I might say this at the outset. We are spending £100 million a year on our roads—that includes maintenance in one form or another. I do not think it is desirable to underestimate the importance of maintenance. In fact it is a very important matter indeed. We are to-day nearing the end of a three-year period, in which, as Lord Lucas of Chilworth has said, we
1300
have committed ourselves to an expenditure of about £81 million. We have already spent about £29 million, as he said. Measured in terms of work done, the actual figure lies somewhere between those two. The commitments are too high and the payments are too little. I think it is fair to say, roughly, that in the last three years we have increased the volume of work on major improvements by about five or six times. So I think we can claim that we have at least made a start.
May I next say a word or two about the interesting speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Latham? He made two suggestions: one dealt with loans and the other was for a national road board. They are really two separate questions, but they arc sometimes associated. Before dealing with them, however, I should like just to recall that the noble Lord spoke of wastage of oil on the roads. Does he not think that if we had better roads, we should have more cars, and therefore be more dependent upon oil? I am not arguing the point. I am merely pointing out the other side to the question.
LORD LATHAM: If the noble Earl will forgive my interrupting him, does it follow that he would desire to restrict the number of cars on the roads?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I was not saying that for a moment. I was only taking up the noble Lord's argument that we were wasting oil to-day. He talked of jostling in the scramble for priorities. Those are pleasant words—
LORD LATHAM: Rather nice, I thought.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: They were very pleasant words, but what do they mean? Do they not, in the simplest terminology, mean going a little further away from Parliamentary control? If those words mean anything, surely that is what they amount to. The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, never trusts any Chancellor of the Exchequer. He wants something that no Chancellor of the Exchequer would dare to touch. That is, of course, exactly the position in which some noble Lords would like to have the Road Fund—that is, to have public money to spend without quite the measure of Parliamentary control which exists at the present time.
LORD LATHAM: If I may say so, I do not think the noble Earl can fairly draw that deduction. What I suggested was that there should be recognition that road expenditure keeps a higher position in the list of priorities, riot that it should he without public control.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I appreciated that point. But that could be done without a loan, without a Road Fund. What I am dealing with objectively is the problem which is raised by the noble Lord's suggestion of a Road Loan. It is not so much a question of money as a question of manpower and materials. That is the real problem. It is all very well for Lord Derwent to say that the contractors could manage this without strain. I should not like to say that contractors are quite impartial judges in this matter. After all, the real problem we faced last year was that our resources were over-stretched in capital investment. That is the problem we have had to try to straighten out. We try to put our commitments over a number of years. As the House knows, we started with a three-year plan. Now from 1955 to 1959, we have a four-year plan. So we have tried to ensure continuity since this programme started. I do not think it is fair to say that the local authorities have had great deferments and postponements. It is true that they have not had all their schemes agreed to. They have not gone ahead, perhaps, as quickly as they wanted. But I think that since development has been taking place, there has been a steady move forward.
The other point which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, raised was the question of a national highway authority. That is really an administrative question. I am not certain where the advantages lie. To have the roads administered by an independent body seemed to me, if I may say so, a trifle like the National Assistance Board. I do not know whether that is the sort of picture which is in the noble Lord's mind, but that is the sort of picture which is in my mind.
LORD LATHAM: I should have thought that it would have had a more colourful status than that.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I believe that the National Assistance Board do very valuable work. The noble Lord, of course, would have a body of people of
1302
great status, great independence, greatly respected—a sort of gathering of Archangels Gabriel, and, I am certain, first-class administrators. I wonder whether with such a body, isolated, in a sense, from Parliamentary pressure, you would really get satisfactory results. After all, what your Lordships are doing to-day is trying to make things as uncomfortable for me as possible—that is applying Parliamentary pressure. That is what this debate is for.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, we should devise means of doing that, even if the national highway authority existed.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: This body would be one stage away from Parliamentary control and the Minister would be able to say: "This is the responsibility of the national highway authority". I do not want to exclude this idea, but I am not convinced that it is the best way of doing it. It might be a way of decentralisation. But let me make two points on this matter. First, this body would have to issue orders for compulsory acquisition and matters of that kind. These are very sensitive matters which Parliament generally likes to watch closely. Secondly, this body would have to be responsible in certain respects for giving money to the local authorities. I do not know that local authorities would like to receive money from a national highways authority, rather than from the Ministry. I only throw that thought out, but in some respects it would have to be done in that way.
I entirely agree with the noble Lord, and with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Jeffreys, that local authorities must retain their autonomy, but in matters for which Parliament pay 100 per cent. or 75 per cent. of the money, we must have a measure of control. I am sure that the noble Lord recognises that and that it would be difficult to leave this matter entirely in the hands of the divisional road engineers or the highway authority or some other body of that sort. On the whole, I think that the present system between the Department and local authorities works fairly well. I know that there are certain difficulties which arise, in the sense that everyone does not get his own way, but I think that in the majority of cases the work is carried through smoothly and fairly easily.

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I would say one word more on the question of maintenance. The noble Lord, Lord Wolverton, said that secondary roads—county roads, he called them—did not get much attention. Generally we are not doing maintenance to so high a standard as it was done prewar. I am told that it has never been higher than 80 per cent. of pre-war standard and that at present it is running at about 70 per cent., though it is probably a completely false economy to allow maintenance to deteriorate, as it may mean that the foundations of the roads themselves will be undermined, and that would be an extremely expensive business to repair. One noble Lord frightened me a little about the speeds for to-morrow. He suggested that we should have 50 m.p.h. now and double that in the future. I hope he did not mean that 15-ton lorries would go at double the present speed. I can assure the noble Lord that in our plan we are concentrating on trunk and Class I roads. Generally, two-thirds of the money will be spent on trunk roads and motorways, rather less on urban reads and comparatively small amounts on rural roads. I would also assure the noble Lord. Lord Forbes, that in the motorways shoulders will be provided where cars can draw out of the way, clear of the motorway itself. In regard to the complaint that local authorities are not able to put up signs, I am unable at the moment to ascertain how this difficulty arises.
The noble Lord, Lord Wise, said that local people know what is wrong with the roads. I am afraid that I do not entirely agree with that view, because a road looks very different when one is travelling in a motor car from what it does when one sees it from one's back garden. That is the trouble when the noble Lord. Lord Lucas of Chilworth, says that the Department should proceed along quicker lines. I admit that in the examples which he has given me about Oxford, about the Botley—Wolvercote road, three years have been taken from the time the discussions began; but when the noble Lord asks the Department to go faster, he is really saying that we should remove the protection of the individual in his own property, because that is the effect.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I particularly stressed that point. If the noble Earl will recall my words, he will remember that I said that I did not want to interfere with the proper course of democracy. That is what I said specifically.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I am grateful to hear the noble Lord say that, because I was wondering whether any noble Lord would suggest that we should speed up the system of compulsory purchase. It sounds good to "have a go" at the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, but the real answer is that the Ministry are applying the statutory procedure laid down for a new road, taking into account all the implications that has on private property, on the roads and houses in the district. Whilst I admit that it seems to take a long time to get through in many cases, it really is a vast job of planning. If I may refer to the Maidenhead case, which the noble Lord mentioned, 1 would inform your Lordships that that will come into the programme about the year 1958–59. When it comes into the programme, then it can be gone ahead with straight away. In regard to the Oxford case that the noble Lord mentioned, it would be quite unusual for the county council to start building roads in the City of Oxford, which is what the suggestion comes to. If the road were continued, then it would go into the City of Oxford.
The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, raised one or two questions in regard to public tender. I will certainly look carefully into what he said. I am a little doubtful whether there is a great deal in that point, because, generally speaking, we try to invite public tenders for what seems to be a convenient period for the work to be carried out economically and efficiently; and, so far as I know, it generally is.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, does the noble Earl mean that it is essential not to shorten the tender period because it may not come into the Government's financial year?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: What I really meant is that it is no good trying to get a contractor to go more quickly than he can conveniently go. A contract may be made for nine months or twelve months; if you ask the contractor to do the job in six months, you have to pay more for it. That is really what I am saying.
LORD DERWENT: Is the noble Earl certain? Because wages go up during a long-period contract, and there is usually a wages clause.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: You will have to pay more if you try to get the work done quickly. As regards the announcement about the Markyate road, which the noble Lord mentioned, that was due to a most regrettable, but none the less significant, clerical error, in giving the wrong date in the first place. It is notable that this happens rarely—not, of course, that it should have happened in this particular case. I have not been asked a great many questions about individual cases—
EARL HOWE: My Lords, can the noble Earl give the reply to the paragraph in the Report on Road Research for 1955 which I quoted to him?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: Of course, the noble Earl is aware that the programme was increased in the year in which this Report was made. I have never hidden from him, as I have never hidden from the House, that I think the position of our roads is not entirely satisfactory. I have made no hones about it. What I have explained is that because something is not satisfactory—as, I may say, the slums in Manchester or Glasgow are unsatisfactory—it does not mean that we can immediately and forthwith put it right. What is said here is that it is not adequate. That is their view. But it does not alter the fact that we are proceeding, within the limits of our economy, to make it stronger and better. A certain amount of work has been completed. The impression given by some noble Lords was that very little had been done. However, he fact is that a good deal has been started, There is, not much that I can quote as having been completed, though I would mention the dual carriageway of the Great Cambridge Road, the Loughton by-pass, the Cromwell Road extension, the Stafford—Stoke Road—perhaps not very well known but of great importance industrially—and the Oxford City boundary to Islip Turn.
What I think is worth remembering is that there were 1,100 schemes designated major improvements which had been started in the course of the financial year up to March, 1956. A further 800 schemes have been started since then. I
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know that some of these are not very large, but if I go to another figure, of schemes costing £100,000, I find that there are forty-four such schemes which have already been started, and these include substantial schemes like the Runcorn—Widnes Bridge in Lancashire, £2million; Cromwell Road, £5million; Dartford—Purtleet Tunnel, £10 million; Notting Hill Gate, Kensington, nearly £1,500,000; the Inner Ring Road, Birmingham, just over £1 million; the Glasgow—Stirling Road, over £1 million; the Preston by-pass, £3 million; the Conway Bridge, and so on. I mention these because I think it is wrong to give the impression that a real start has not been made, although perhaps there is not a lot to show at the moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Wise, asked me a question about Kings Lynn. I feel great sympathy for the people who live in Kings Lynn. There are no fewer than four level crossings that you go through to get to the town, and if you want to avoid one, you go through a main road described as "narrow and tortuous". That seems to me to be a strong case. However, I am advised—I mention this only to show the position we are in to-day—that the proposed by-pass from A.47 and A.10 to A.149 has not yet been included in the proposals of the Norfolk County Council. I believe they may include it for the year 1957–58, but they have not yet put forward a proposal for the consideration of the Minister. While it is not for me to form any judgment of what the Minister will decide, I am informed that there are many problems which, so far as he knows, must be considered at least as urgent as that one. I am afraid that is not very warm comfort to the noble Lord, and I apologise for it. I say only that it is an example of the problem that exists there and elsewhere.
The noble Lord, Lord Kinnaird, mentioned in his speech that the responsibility for road transport for Scotland had been transferred to the Scottish Office, and I am glad to hear that it appears to be working well. The two major schemes there are the Whiteinch Tunnel, for which tenders have already been received and on which it is hoped work will start soon, and, as I have already mentioned, the Glasgow-Stirling Road, on which work is under way. The right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Carlisle, spoke of

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local affairs, making perhaps a slightly constituency speech, although of course there is nothing wrong in that. Bishops are Lords of Parliament like other noble Lords, and we are glad when they deal with our secular affairs. While I appreciate that Penrith needs improving, I hope the right reverend Prelate did not imply thereby that the rest of the main road should be reduced to the bad condition of the middle of Penrith. Whether he wished to clear the bottleneck, or whether he wished to bottle the clear stretches, I was not quite clear.
There has been some discussion about urban areas. We have endeavoured to relieve some of the most urgent problems of urban areas at the present time. No noble Lord raised today the question of urban motor roads, though a good deal of emphasis has been put on it. All I would say is that at the moment we are not convinced that the high cost of urban motorways is justified, when compared with relieving the congestion generally and finding parking spaces to enable traffic to circulate inside our cities.
One noble Lord—I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Forbes—said that we should concentrate more on big schemes and leave the smaller ones. The answer is that there are a certain number of small schemes which in themselves are fairly costly and which are of great urgency. What we have sought to do is to meet the most urgent schemes, while keeping the broad picture in our minds. We have also tried to meet some of the outlying schemes; that is to say, those in the more remote parts of the country, such as the Bridgwater relief road, in Somerset, the Handcross by-pass, in Sussex, and the North Ford Causeway, which runs from Benbecula to North Uist, on which preliminary work has been begun and which should be completed in about two years. There is also the Glenfinnan-Lochailort road, running from Mallaig to Fort William, on which work will be authorised to commence next year.
If I may give a broader picture, and not confine myself to patchwork, the Minister has recently outlined what he calls the main channels in the country, and I think it is worth referring to them, because we do want to see a road system which reasonably covers the country.
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The first is the Great North Road, which he hopes one day to make into a dual carriageway almost all the way to Edinburgh, and so worthy of its historic name. Secondly, there are the motorways from London to Birmingham, Preston and on to Shap. Thirdly, there is the extension of the Cromwell Road, past London Airport, which we hope will one day incorporate the Severn Bridge. Fourthly, there is a connection between Birmingham and South Wales, called the Ross Spur. Fifthly, there are the two roads from London which will go down to the Channel ports of Dover and Folkestone. Sixthly, there is the road leading North from Carlisle to Glasgow, and thereafter from Glasgow on to Stirling. I think this gives some idea that, eventually, we shall have a system which, if not adequate, will at least face up to the traffic that is coming to this country.
I have not said anything about safety because the Motion does not mention it. We do not claim for a moment that this is more than a start, and as yet there is comparatively little to show. But I do think that when the commitments begin to take form it will be realised that they are not entirely inconsiderable. What we have to do is to defend our ability to provide capital resources, and I can give an absolute assurance that within the strength of the economy the programme will proceed and expand.
6.29 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I must confess to feeling rather hurt that the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, at the outset of his most courteous reply to my Motion, had to call into question the cleanliness of my linen. I would say this. Whenever I engage in debate with the noble Earl I pay him the compliment of always putting on a clean shirt and a clean collar. It might interest him to know that the debates we have had on this subject are now getting into double figures, and on every occasion my linen has been as clean after the debate as it was before. I thought, too, that it was rather "below the belt"—it is not a habit of the noble Earl and it is something for which I hope the noble Marquess the Leader of the House will admonish him most seriously—for him to answer yesterday's debate in his winding up of to-day's, which, of course, does not afford me any opportunity of

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replying to him. But no doubt when we have an economic debate in your Lordships' House at some future date, I shall be able to return to the subject and the criticism.
The last thing the noble Earl said was most interesting, and made this debate worth while. He will remember that I opened my speech by saying that I was going to "get my blow in" first, because I was hoping that he would bring forth a Government pronouncement that, whatever happened in the economic stress which will face us in the months to come, at least the road programme would remain intact. That is what the noble Earl has said.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: No; I am not going to he carried away quite so far as that. What I said was that, within the limits of our economic strength, the programme will proceed and will expand.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: If the programme as set down is going to proceed, I must say that it is going to remain intact. At least, I hope Hansard will have that down, because we shall be able to repeat that on many occasions.
I thank the noble Earl for his reply. I would underline the point of excusable delay, because in my original speech I said that I would not interfere with any course set down by the Statutes to preserve the individual rights of the citizen. But that is no excuse for taking nine months for plans to be considered and then returned to the county surveyor of Berkshire for two or three trivial alterations, which took nine days to make. There is no excuse for the delay on the Oxford by-pass. There is no excuse for not having heard anything further after the public inquiry which was held in May last—not a murmer since. Yet no liberty of the subject is involved in that.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I think I am correct in saying that the order about the by-pass is being signed and sealed to-day or to-morrow.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: The noble Earl always does that. He waits for me either to put down a Question or a Motion. That is the only way to get any progress. If we did not have these debates on roads, believe me, we should not have a road in this country. That is what we are here for—to enthuse the
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noble Earl so that he can get his Department, or the Department for which he is responsible in your Lordships' House, to get a move on.
The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, asked the noble Earl, the question: What is "adequate"? The noble Earl said that our roads are quite inadequate, and I say that they are quite inadequate. My definition, of a road system which is adequate is one that will carry the vehicles which use the roads at the speeds the law allows.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, if I might interrupt: the noble Lord for a moment, my purpose in asking that question was to find out what the cost of making an adequate road system was. That is the whole crux of the matter.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I have given a definition of "adequate". I am quite unable to say what the cost would be, because if the cost could be computed to-day, the figure would be obsolete to-morrow. But that is what we want, and nobody with any sense expects any Government to wave a magic wand and convert the road system of this courttry from absolute chaos, as it is to-day, into something which is completely adequate to-morrow. What we want is an assurance that sufficient money will be spent on the roads so as to allow the industrial and private traffic of this country to proceed along them at the speed which the public, through the Government and legislation, think it right and proper for it so to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Kinnaird, rather questioned that what I was trying to get at was a desire to have a better working arrangement between the central Government and the local authority. I should not expect for one moment that, when public funds are at stake, the central Government would divorce itself from responsibility. I would never suggest that. But do not forget that the highway authorities of this country act as agents for the construction of the highways, for their maintenance and their lighting. Therefore, they have to carry a competent staff. Where the highway authorities of the country have a far greater advantage than the central Government is that they have chairmen of highway committees who are always sitting on top of them; and they do their job extremely well.

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I have a great admiration for the county councils, and especially the highway committees. They are usually enthusiastic and progressive. The Minister cannot do that. The Minister is at the mercy of his civil servants, just as the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, is at the mercy of his advisers, who made such a terrible faux pas when the noble Earl said that I wanted the Oxfordshire County Council to go 700 yards outside their territory, within the city boundary, to complete a road. I did not. The Oxfordshire County Council wanted to do it at the same time and to utilise the same labour, plant and equipment, so that the twin carriageway on the A.40 could be carried the extra 700 yards to the Headington roundabout—
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: The Oxford City invited the County Council?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: The Oxford City wanted to get the authority to do it.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: And the Department forbade them?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: The Department would not listen to the scheme. That is procrastination. The plant has gone, and the labour has gone. To collect it all again at some future date to make 710 yards of road is a public scandal. That was my point, and I do not see why, when the local authorities of the country have expert staff, duplicated by the Ministry—and they are all qualified civil engineers and surveyors; there is not a pin's point to choose between the surveyors in Berkeley House and the surveyors in the county halls—every pernickety little thing has to be subjected to cross-examination and microscopic
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examination, because "the gentleman in Whitehall always knows best".
My noble friend Lord Latham chided me about my lack of enthusiasm of years ago for the road authority or the proposed Road Loan: he said that I could be "converted". I shall be converted when someone can convince me that it is possible to stop an impecunious Chancellor of the Exchequer putting his hands on the funds, as impecunious Chancellors of the Exchequer have done ever since Mr. Winston Churchill (as he then was) started the "racket", if I may so call it, in 1926. I am grateful to the noble Earl for his reply. It is the type of reply that I expected from him. He has never come to your Lordships' House and said, "Everything is fine: the Department is beyond criticism, and so are the Government." Will he please see that some of these avoidable delays are overcome? They can be, and if that were done I should say that, in time, the road plan of this country could be speeded up by quite 20 to 25 per cent. If that could be achieved, it would save hundreds of thousands of pounds, because the longer we delay the higher the cost. I am grateful to all your Lordships for contributing to what I think has been a helpful and useful debate. With those words I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

HYDROCARBON OIL DUTIES (TEMPORARY INCREASE) BILL
6.39 p.m.
Read 3ª (according to Order), and passed.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before seven o'clock.