I will explain to the Committee the reasons which have led to this Supplementary Estimate. With regard to Sub-head A, the greater part of the additional expenditure is in consequence of the efforts of the Government in connection with certain aspects of unemployment. The original Estimates for the administrative cost of road works were calculated on the then foreseen requirements, and, so far as I know, no special provision was made definite for acceleration in connection with unemployment relief works. As the Committee will know, as soon as the new Government came into office, a programme of additional works was brought forward, with the consequence that the expenditure upon staff, salaries and wages at the head office of the Ministry of Transport and at the divisional offices had to be increased. The expenditure which is now before the Committee is not in respect of roads themselves, but only in respect of staffs, wages and salaries necessarily consequent upon the programme which has been approved in connection with unemployment by the present Government, and by far the greater part of the £16,000 odd under this Subhead is accounted for in that way. In addition, however, to increased work in connection with the preparation of road schemes, it is the duty of the Ministry of Transport to advise the Committees under the Development Act as to schemes submitted by railway companies, electricity undertakings, and harbour and canal undertakings. Each one of those schemes which is considered by the Committee under the Development Act, is reported upon by the appropriate department, which, in all these cases, is the Ministry of Transport. Therefore, it was necessary for us to engage additional technical and clerical assistance, and that, in part, accounts for the Supplementary Estimate which is now before the Committee. There is a further reason for additional expenditure, and that is the establishment of an experimental station in connection with road construction at Harmondsworth in Middlesex. That expenditure is recoverable from the Road Fund, as indeed, is the expenditure in connection with the road programme, but it has to pass in and out of the Exchequer, and, therefore, it is included in the Supplementary Estimate this afternoon. That accounts for the £16,652, and I am quite sure the Committee will readily understand that the money is necessary consequent upon departmental work in connection with unemployment.

I pass to sub-head C, which deals with "Special Services and Inquiries." This expenditure is accounted for by one inquiry which has been before us, namely, the inquiry in connection with a Channel tunnel. It was necessary, in connection with the technical inquiries as to the possibilities of a Channel tunnel, to engage eminent consulting engineers, who were requested to make a report on the technical problems involved in any scheme for the construction of a Channel tunnel. The fee to be paid for this service was 5,000 guineas, and the Supplementary Estimate makes provision for this sum. I may inform the Committee—and it is the only information that I can give, or that the Government can give at this stage—that the engineers duly reported to the sub-committee of the Committee of Civil Research, and it is understood that the sub-committee's report was received by the Prime Minister a day or two ago, but the Government have not yet had an opportunity of considering the report or the action to be taken upon it.

The hon. Gentleman says that the fee to be paid was 5,000 guineas. What services did the £4,200 in the original Estimate include?

I am sorry, but the original estimate is not before the Committee. The only expenditure with which I am dealing this afternoon, or which, I think, the Committee would be in order in discussing, is the additional expenditure which, as the right hon. Gentleman will see in this estimate, is £5,250 or 5,000 guineas.

What portion of this £5,250 is a new service, and what portion is additional to an under-estimate for the service contained in the original Vote?

The House has voted various sums of money for Special Services and Inquiries. Presumably, as the year went on, it was found necessary to incur this expenditure of 5,000 guineas in respect of the Channel tunnel, which, probably, had not been foreseen, and it is that 5,000 guineas, and only that, which is included in this Supplementary Estimate.

May I put this for the sake of shortening the Debate later? In the original Estimate I see "Fees and Expenses of Consulting Accountants, Engineers, etc.," £3,000. Surely it cannot be that the under-estimate on that one' item was 5,000 guineas—the difference on one scheme between £8,000 and £3,000? Surely the Minister must be in error there?

Perhaps I had better state at the beginning that, naturally, none of these Votes affirm a principle which has not previously been approved by the House, and we cannot discuss the question of principle now, but the Committee will be perfectly entitled to discuss the reason for the increase in the Estimate itself.

That is precisely what I am trying to find out. The original Estimate speaks of "Departmental Committees and Special Inquiries," and it goes on to say, "Fees and Expenses of Consulting Accountants, Engineers, etc." Then the Supplementary Estimate says, on the same point (c), that the increase is 5,000 guineas. Now the Minister tells us that that is only one scheme. Surely there must be some mistake there?

It is not my function to answer on behalf of Ministers. All I can say is that where these Votes are not entirely new Votes—and these are Supplementary—we cannot discuss the principle, but the Committee is perfectly entitled to ask the reason for the Supplementary Estimate.

Is it not the point that since the original Estimate was drawn up by the former Minister of Transport, there has been an agitation for a Channel tunnel, and a special committee of inquiry has been set up?

Really the hon. Gentleman must be thinking of other things. That committee was set up in the latter part of last year.

You said we could not discuss the question of principle, Mr. Dunnico. There has been no question of principle in this Vote, because the money originally voted was for special services and inquiries, and surely the Committee is entitled to find out exactly what are the inquiries? It is very mysterious that 5,000 guineas excess should be exactly the sum that this particular inquiry involves, when an Estimate was apparently taken in the main Estimate for some sort of technical Committee in regard to it.

May I ask whether it is not the custom for this Committee to deal with what is contained in the last two lines on page 20, beginning with the words, "Add—Sum now required, £16,392"? Is the argument in Debate not confined to that?

The total sum is divided up amongst various services. The Committee is entitled only to ask why an increased sum is required for any specific purpose.

I am sure I am right in coming to the Committee ready to defend a Supplementary Esti- mate, and not to defend an original Estimate of the right hon. Gentleman opposite.

With all respect—

With all respect, I think the Committee had better get on. This is a perfectly simple issue. It is quite true, as the right hon. Gentleman has indicated, that the Channel tunnel has been under discussion for some time, and I am not concerned as Minister of Transport with the discussions, at any rate, until the money may be involved. Presumably, it was not contemplated by the framers of the original Estimate that it would be necessary in the financial year to employ consulting engineers. Subsequently it did become necessary, as the figure of £5,250 shows. It is that figure which I am now submitting to the Committee. It seems to me that it is perfectly clear, and I am at a little loss why it should involve anything else.

Surely, of the original sum, one-half must have been spent, with the result that the original sum is partly for the Channel tunnel and partly for the original purposes, and the new sum is partly for the original purposes and partly for the Channel tunnel, so that the whole things is absolutely mixed up.

We want to know whether this sum of 5,000 guineas is in addition to any sums already paid?

Has not the Lord Privy Seal informed the House that further sums will be required for further investigation? Is this sum of 5,000 guineas not to meet that?

The fee agreed to be paid for the consulting engineers is 5,000 guineas exactly. Why I should mix it up with the original Estimate, I do not know; nor should I be in order in going into the original Estimate. I am concerned with the Estimate now before the Committee, which is the 5,000 guineas for consulting engineers, and nothing else, and it is exactly that sum. I hope that I have made that point perfectly clear. That is my version, and hon. Members will have an opportunity of putting me right afterwards; but I do not think that they will succeed in putting me wrong. That accounts for sub-head C.

I come to sub-head H, which deals with Ramsgate Harbour, one of the State institutions of which the Minister of Transport is the possessor. It became necessary, some months ago, to overhaul the dredger, which was specially designed to serve the peculiar needs of the harbour at Ramsgate. The sum of £3,500 was included in the original Estimate to cover part of this expenditure, and it was hoped that the balance of the sum payable during the course of the coming financial year could be found from other sources. That has not proved practicable, and, therefore, a further provision of £2,400 is required for expenditure on reconditioning the dredger, which is expected to come in course of payment during the present financial year. The original Estimate, I am afraid, was pretty finely cut when framed. The result was that it did not altogether cover the expenditure of the dredger, and the additional expenditure has become necessary. That practically explains the entire expenditure in respect of Ramsgate Harbour.

I then come to another of my unprofitable possessions—the Caledonian Canal. Previous Governments have not left us much in the way of undertakings out of which any money could be made. They have been very careful to leave us institutions where money was not to be made. So far as the Caledonian Canal is concerned, the explanation is as follows: On 22nd February, by one of the accidents that flesh is heir to, a steam drifter broke through three pairs of lock gates at Banavie, doing very considerable damage. The canal, in consequence, had to be closed from 22nd February to 15th May. It re-opened in time for the election, as far as I can see. It is estimated that the receipts from the undertaking in the current financial year will be about £1,700 less than was originally expected, after allowing for the sum of £690 recovered from the owners of the vessel. The amount which we can recover under the Merchant Shipping Acts from the owners of the vessel that did the damage is limited to £8 per ton of the gross registered tonnage, with the consequence that the cost of the damage to the Ministry was greatly in excess of the amount that we could recover. In addition to providing for the loss of revenue arising out of this accident, it is estimated that a sum of £500 will be required to make good the damage, part of the cost of which was met from the previous Vote. That deals with the Supplementary Estimate of £2,200 required in respect of the Caledonian Canal.

Now I come to sub-head L, the Severn barrage investigation. The sum provided in the original Estimate was in respect of the maintenance of the tide gauge and the maintenance of the model, and fees and expenses. Since the original Estimate was passed at the beginning of the financial year, the Committee of Civil Research has accepted the conclusions of the Severn Barrage Sub-Committee in regard to the preliminary investigation begun in 1925 as to the practicability of a scheme for the construction of the barrage, and recommended the preparation of a complete tidal power scheme, with an estimate of the cost of the necessary work. The second part of the investigation has now been put in hand, and it is estimated that a sum of £2,650 will be required to meet expenditure falling due before 31st March. The whole cost of this second stage of the investigation is estimated at £17,000, and provision is proposed to be made in the Ministry's Estimates next year for that proportion of the charge which is expected to fall due in 1930–31. In 1925, the Government authorised certain inquiries, which reached a, certain point. We were satisfied, on the Report of a Committee, that it was worth going further, and it is for the purpose of going further and for the necessary engineering assistance, the preparation of models, and so on, that this expenditure is required. It does not mean that the Government have yet come to any conclusion whether it will be wise or not to erect the power station. It merely means that the result of the first stage of the inquiry was sufficiently encouraging to warrant us going a little further, and we hope for a valuable Report in due course.

The only other item I am called upon to explain is sub-head N in connection with Appropriations-in-Aid. The additional sum to be recovered from the Road Fund in connection with increased staff in that Department, and in the Finance branch, amounts to £13,950. In so far as expenditure on the Roads programme, which has been increased in connection with unemployment, involves expenditure on the administration of that Fund, it ultimately comes out of the Road Fund. The greater part of this sub-head N, Appropriations-in-Aid, is money coming back out of the Road Fund after it had gone into the Road Fund via the Exchequer, and that accounts for the greater part of the Appropriation-in-Aid item. Apart from that, and modifying that figure, are sundry minor adjustments which are necessary in respect of sums to be recovered from other sources, with the result that the net addition to the sub-head amounts to £12,760. There were one or two minor adjustments that had to be made, which accounts for that change. The principal adjustments are that the expenses of the Railway Rates Tribunal, which recovers its expenses from the railway companies, were over-estimated at the beginning of the financial year to the extent of approximately £1,000 and that the actual receipts from fees and the sale of documents are also likely to be less than estimated. Those two items between them account for the difference and, together with the Appropriation-in-Aid in connection with Road Fund expenditure, account for the item of £12,760. That explains the total amount of this Supplemental sum, but I shall be glad to give any other information that the Committee may desire.

The heading of this Vote gives the Committee very varied fare, and almost enables us, as I see it, to survey mankind from China to Peru, Here we have salaries of the Ministry, expenses of the Railway Rates Tribunal, expenses under the London Traffic Act, expenses in respect of advances under the Light Railways Act, Holyhead Harbour, Ramsgate Harbour, and the Caledonian and Crinan Canals. Of course, the main items will be those with which the Minister dealt, but he carefully omitted to give us any information on one or two very important matters which you, Sir, have read out from the Chair, and which I should like to know something about, namely, the expenses under the London Traffic Act, 1924, and expenses in respect of advances under the Light Railways Act, 1896. Let me take the last first. This is a non-con- tentious matter, but I am under the impression that during recent years advances under the Light Railways Act have very much diminished, and that you would expect, because the light railway is a thing that came before the motor omnibus. Now that you have the motor omnibus, I take it that Light Railway Orders are very sparingly given.

I ought to inform the right hon. Gentleman that this title of the Estimate is a carry-on of the original title of the Vote. I presumed I should not be allowed to refer to the Light Railways Act or to expenditure under the London Traffic Act.

I am willing to be called to order by the Chairman, but it is not for the Minister to point out to the Chairman what his business is.

I meant nothing discourteous to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. He asked me why I did not refer to expenditure under two Statutes. If I thought I could have done so, I would have got the information, but I was anxious not to go outside the Rules of Order.

On examining the Estimate, I cannot see any figures bearing on the points raised by the right hon. Gentleman, and I am afraid that we cannot discuss them.

Is it not a fact that in this, as in all other Estimates, some extra money has to be taken owing to the Government having adopted a higher scale of bonus for all civil servants, and is it not in order to refer to the staff of the Ministry, which includes an officer for light railway work, and to that extent would come within the ambit of the Estimate?

The matter came up only a few nights ago, and I pointed out then that it comes up on almost every Supplementary Estimate. We cannot go on discussing the same thing on every Supplementary Estimate. To be strictly in order, it could only be raised on a Treasury Vote. After all, the Minister is only responsible for the Acts of his Department, and he cannot be expected to answer for matters for which his Department is not responsible.

Surely, a Minister is entirely responsible for the salaries on the Vote which he presents to Parliament.

The Minister is not responsible for the action of the Treasury.

May I then draw attention to Sub-head A, Salaries, Wages and allowances? The Minister informed us that this extra sum of £16,652 is really necessary because of additional work imposed on the Department in connection with Measures adopted for the relief of unemployment. May I draw attention to the rather significant phrase,

"Measures adopted for the relief of unemployment."

Up to now we have always used the words,

"works expedited for the relief of unemployment,"

which is a different thing altogether. The Coalition Government quite legitimately said, "Here we have unemployment. We hope and believe it is merely temporary. Let us, therefore, put in hand road works under the Ministry of Transport and water and drainage works under the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, before the time when we should normally do so. This will keep some of the unemployed at work, and we shall, having expedited certain necessary works, have the benefit of them." That seemed to me a not unreasonable attitude to take up, but this is quite different. It is not a question of taking things that are desirable and doing them before they are really needed, but of adopting Measures simply to relieve the unemployed, apparently without any consideration whatever as to whether they are necessary works. I should like an assurance that it is definitely the policy of the Department to expedite useful works and not to adopt works, good or bad, simply in order to find employment for those who are out of work.

There is another point I should like to raise. Can the hon. Gentleman assure me that this extra sum of money is really needed? I know the extreme economy which has always characterised the Minister of Transport, but I cannot close my eyes to certain facts. We had from 1921 down to 1924–25 a great employment programme similar to the programme with which we are dealing here under part of the scheme of the Lord Privy Seal. There is a great similarity between the totals voted by Parliament or out of the Road Fund in those years and the amount of money which, I understand, is provided under the Lord Privy Seal's plan and which really comes out of the Road Fund, the administration of which is being secured by this Vote of £16,652. In those five years, no less a sum than £45,000,000 was voted, and I understand that the sum which has now been arranged is in the neighbourhood of £42,000,000. When the first programme was initiated, extra staff were taken on, and properly taken on, and I want to know if that extra staff has accomplished its work. Has not that extra staff finished administrating that £45,000,000 by 1930? I do not know, but it may be that some of that staff may have recently been dismissed and are now going to be taken on again. If that be so, it shows a want of foresight. Why cannot that staff which was brought in to look after £45,000,000, giving work to 40,000 be equally available and capable of looking after this new programme of £42,000,000, giving work to 38,000? It should be remembered that the whole of this £42,000,000 is not to be used for Ministry of Transport business.

This is not a Vote for £42,000,000, but for £16,000. This is a Supplementary Estimate, and it is beside the question to discuss the sum of £42,000,000.

Your Ruling, Mr. Young, restricts the discussion. May I point out that this £16,652, if you look at Item A, is for Salaries, Wages and Allowances of extra staff. It is required

"to meet the cost of performing additional work imposed on the Department in connection with measures adopted for the relief of unemployment."

Surely, I am entitled to ask whether, if the sum be £42,000,000, £25,000,000, or £35,000,000 in respect of work to be done, the hon. Gentleman is satisfied that it is necessary to have this extra staff when there was a large staff dealing with these matters many years ago.

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman is in order is asking questions dealing with the additional staff, but I do not think it is in order to discuss the £45,000,000 or £42,000,000 at this stage. The Supplementary Estimate is a sum of £16,000. If he desires to show that there ought to be no necessity for this expenditure then it will become another matter.

I should like to know whether this extra staff is really needed and whether it is necessary to expend this £16,652 in view of the fact that not long ago the staff of the Ministry was able to deal with a programme very similar to the programme which is being adopted at the present moment. I come to Item "C," Special Services and Inquiries. That is really a very important item indeed, namely,

"Fees to consulting engineers for report on Channel Tunnel Scheme."

I think it is extremely fortunate that we should have this Supplementary Estimate to-day, in view of the fact that from what I see in the public Press, we are to be asked to listen to a statement on the part of the Government to-morrow telling us something about the report on the Channel Tunnel Scheme. The Committee is entitled to know something about the report of these engineers. We are going to find £5,250 in connection with this report, and surely we are entitled to know what the engineers have reported. Have they reported that it is practical from a technical point o£ view to make the Channel tunnel? Why should we spend £5,000 without knowing whether we are going to get our money's worth. Can the tunnel be constructed? How long will it be? Did they discover from their borings whether there were any fissures.

The Department were merely seeking the advice of consulting engineers. I suppose that they would have to call in consulting engineers before they could have a tunnel. We are not considering here whether we should have a tunnel or not. This sum merely relates to the fees of consulting engineers brought in at the beginning.

Are we not to know whether the consulting engineers have done their work, and have we simply to vote money without discussion? If you think so, I have nothing more to say.

They must have done their work, because they have sent in their report. Whether it is decided to go on any further with the scheme is another matter.

I note that there are further advances to assist the working of Ramsgate Harbour. Is the hon. Gentleman making any renewed efforts to get rid of Ramsgate Harbour, which is one of the unprofitable undertakings which belong to the Ministry of Transport. Two or three years ago the Ministry made a great effort to get rid of this very onerous burden, and the Corporation if, I recollect correctly, endeavoured to get the town to agree to take over Ramsgate Harbour. Eventually, the proposal was turned down. We do not want to have these extra Votes in respect of Ramsgate Harbour brought forward year after year. Is the hon. Gentleman making any efforts to get rid of it, and, if so, in what direction? If this is regarded as a successful effort in nationalisation, it is one which we should not wish to see further extended.

The Caledonian Canal, in respect of which further advances are required to assist the working of the undertaking, has been an unsuccessful enterprise. I will not say that it has been an unsuccessful "Scottish enterprise," because that would be casting an aspersion upon Scottish ability, but it is an undertaking which occurs in Scotland. It is really a canal which has not brought great profits to the Department or, indeed, great honour in later years to Scotland itself. It is unfortunate that we should always have to be spending this money. I understand that the trawlers, now being larger, are more inclined to go round the North of Scotland and do not use the canal as they used to do, and consequently the receipts are not so large. I should like to ask the Minister a question which is of some importance from the point of view of the working of the canal, and even of greater importance from the point of view of those who live in that part of Scotland. Is it his intention when the Road Traffic Bill passes to put into force Clause 54, Sub-sections (1) and (3)? At the present moment the Minister of Transport is in a very unfortunate position regarding this enterprise which he has on his hands. The bridges over the Caledonian Canal are in a shocking state and will not take more than three or four tons. Traffic is held up practically across the whole of the North of Scotland and, although the Minister must come to Parliament for a certain amount of money, he really cannot like always to be asking for Supplementary Votes. Grants are made from the Road Fund for various purposes, and it seems to me that charity ought to begin at home, and that the Minister of Transport should be able to make grants for these purposes. If the Traffic Bill becomes law, he will be enabled to do so. I would suggest to him, if, and when, this Bill becomes law, that he should try to put weighbridges at convenient places to catch the traffic as it crosses the Caledonian Canal, to protect the existing bridges.

Item "L" is by far the most important item in the whole Vote, and indeed it would be an important item in any Vote. It is the "Severn Barrage Investigation." We are asked to give an extra sum of money—not the whole amount for which we shall be asked in due course—amounting to £2,650 for

"experiments on existing model and construction of new model and fees to consulting engineers."

I was very glad indeed to hear the Minister say that the preliminary investigations and reports, and the tentative model, which has been working for the best part of a year now, have turned out to be a success; that the very complicated model, with water and sand, working to a scale of the Severn Estuary, has been successful from a technical point of view, and that the Committee of Research have decided to go still further. I take it that what the Minister indicated was that the committee are satisfied that it is possible to build the barrage—that there is sufficient foundation—and that, as far as they can see, there is nothing technically impossible in regard to building the barrage. That is a very great advance, because before that decision there were many difficulties and doubts as to whether it could be built there at all. That bridge having been crossed, we can proceed to the next step with confidence—the next step in respect of which we are asked to spend a sum of £2,650.

I should like to know whether the proposed new model is to be on a larger scale and will show the effect of the tides and the barrage upon navigation? We know now that it can be done. The next stage is whether it will injure the naviga- tion of the ports of Avonmouth and other ports on the Severn, and whether it can be done without any danger of silting up and like troubles? Can the hon. Gentleman say how long this next stage will last? I should grudge no money within reason for this experiment, because the possibilities of the undertaking are so enormous and so overwhelming if the barrage really came to full fruition in the course of a few years that I do not think even in these days of economy we should be chary of giving any reasonable sum, or even any unreasonable sum, in making this experiment a thorough success. I hope that the Minister will get more information about the Severn barrage, and let us have it as soon as possible.

I should like to draw the attention of the Minister of Transport to the last sub-head in the Estimate, N—Appropriations-in-Aid, amounting to £12,760 which is brought in as an offset against an increase of £16,652 under Sub-head A—Salaries, Wages and Allowances. I should like it to be made clear that that sum can only be brought in against the first sub-head and that it cannot be brought in against the subsequent sub-heads. If we were quite clear on that point it might save a certain amount of time in future discussion. If the Minister is unable to tell us at the moment, perhaps he will be able to tell us at a later stage of the discussion. I must assume that it is not perfectly clear and that it may be that the Sub-head Appropriations-in-Aid, is brought in also against some of the sub-heads following Sub-head A. If that be so, it seems to me very strange that you should take an Appropriation-in-Aid from the Road Fund and put it against such accounts as Ramsgate Harbour, the Caledonian Canal and the Severn Barrage investigation. Possibly, when the Minister clears up the matter he may be able to assure us that Sub-head N is only brought in against Sub-head A, Salaries, Wages and Allowances. That would seem to be more appropriate. Assuming that that is what we ought to understand and that it cannot be brought in against Sub-heads C, H, J and L, where it would seem to be very curiously placed as an Appropriation-in-Aid, I think there is some comment to be made on the form in which the Estimate has been presented.

The Appropriation-in-Aid is only in respect of the first sub-head. It is an appropriation from the Road Fund, and the Road Fund cannot be used for the other purposes mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman.

I am glad of that assurance. That puts the matter upon a clear basis and confines my comment to the form in which the Estimate has been presented. The Minister will observe that, in form, it is made to seem as if the Appropriation-in-Aid is brought in against the total, including sub-heads C, H, J and L, against which it could not really be set off. It would be of assistance to the Committee and would be a clearer presentation of the Estimate if in such a case as this the Appropriation-in-Aid was shown definitely as set off against the sub-head against which it can in fact be set off. I should like also to make what appears to me to be a more serious comment upon the principle involved in voting such an Appropriation-in-Aid as we are asked to vote upon this Supplementary Estimate. I should have been glad had it been possible to address my observations to a Treasury Minister because, although the Minister of Transport is presenting the Estimate, my criticism is a matter which finally should be brought to the attention of the Treasury, who prepare the form of Estimate which the Minister presents.

Upon this Estimate there is an expenditure amounting to £29,000, which is fresh expenditure by the Government Department, and has to be found out of public money. Then we have an Appropriation-in-Aid of £12,760 brought in against it. By bringing in that amount against the total expenditure of £29,000 it is made to appear in our total annual accounts as if we had been spending only £16,392. If the Appropriation-in-Aid had been of the sort of receipt which is characteristically described as an Appropriation-in-Aid, this is, small profits or fees in the Department, that would have been quite proper, and that is well recognised in our general system of finance, but in this case it is not so. The Appropriations-in-Aid under Sub-head N are from the Road Fund, and the Road Fund is taxpayers' money it is taxpayers' money that is being brought in to pay for public expenditure. I think the Committee will see the point at once that, under these conditions, when we have a perfectly normal case of expenditure met by taxpayers' money, to cut down the total amount spent by pretending that there is an Appropriation-in-Aid, is really falsifying national accounts. I am aware that the Minister of Transport cannot deal with this matter and put it right, because the Treasury has, no doubt, authorised this method, but perhaps he will bring my criticism before the appropriate Treasury Minister.

I should like to call attention to Sub-head C—Fees for consulting engineers for report on Channel Tunnel scheme. I am not quite clear on that point. Is this Supplementary Estimate for a further sum in addition to the sum which was originally provided for work in connection with the Channel Tunnel scheme? If so, the consulting engineers will have received, not £4,200, but £9,450. It is important to know the actual sum that is being paid and whether the original consulting engineers have done work other than work associated with the Channel Tunnel. With regard to the Severn Barrage investigations, they have been on the tapis during the 10 years that I have been a Member of this House. I agree with the late Minister of Transport that this is a matter of such importance that the question of a few hundred pounds or a few thousand pounds does not seriously matter, but I do submit that the question of years does matter. It was in the year 1920 that a report was first made in regard to this scheme, and in 1924 the question was first seriously taken up by the Government. Six years have passed, and to-day the Minister of Transport has stated that the sum now voted is part of a sum of £17,000 which it is intended to spend. At this rate, it may mean another eight or 10 years before the extra sum is spent.

This is one of the things that ought not to be allowed to drift on indefinitely. We ought to ask those who are responsible to tell us by a definite date next year what is to be done. In the intervening years the Free State Government in Ireland have carried out a very big scheme in connection with the river Shannon. They have not shilly-shallied as we have in regard to this question. They have got the whole thing through in four or five years. I do not know whether the two schemes are comparable, but there seems to be a certain amount of similarity, and those who are looking to the matter ought to get a move on. In regard to the Caledonian Canal, as one who has much enjoyed the amenities of that canal, I agree that this extra sum cannot be avoided. I congratulate our Scottish friends on getting the British taxpayers to be responsible for this expenditure. We are told that it is an example of the advantage of State industry that these losses fall upon the taxpayers as a whole. Our Scottish friends are getting the Anglo-Saxon taxpayers to bear nine-tenths of this particular charge. I hope that when there is Home Rule for Scotland this is an item which we shall not see on the Estimates in future.

The Minister of Transport is to be congratulated on the manner in which he has introduced this Supplementary Estimate, but I can hardly believe that, to use a colloquialism, he expected to get away with it, after such little explanation as he gave. His attitude was that such sums as are set down here must be perfectly clear to anybody, and that no explanation was required. I would draw attention to item A, which deals with a sum of £16,652 for salaries, wages and allowances. In the original Estimate, on page 123, it is there stated that this sum is required for "additional provision for work in connection with relief of unemployment." The Minister of Transport when he dealt with this part of the Estimate merely repeated that statement, but did not give us any details. He can hardly expect us to vote this money without knowing definitely what it is for and to whom the money is to go.

I do not want to deal with the matters that have been mentioned by previous speakers, but I would like to turn to item H, in respect of Ramsgate Harbour—further advances to assist the working of the undertaking. The sum of £2,400 may not appear to be a great deal of money, at first sight, but if hon. Members will turn to the trading profit and loss account of the harbour they will see that there is a continuous reduction in the income, and I think it is a natural question to ask the Minister what he expects in the future.

Is the hon. Member referring to the accounts in the original Estimates, which have been approved, or to the new figure in the Supplementary Estimate?

By that inquiry does the Minister mean that I am out of order?

No. I was asking for my own information.

I am referring to the original Estimate, of which this Supplementary Estimate represents an additional grant. As it is an additional grant, I am asking the Minister whether, seeing that the undertaking is steadily losing a small sum, and perhaps an increasing sum, every year, he could tell us what in his opinion is the future of this undertaking, and what he thinks the State should do about it. The Committee is entitled to consider whether we shall have to make further grants in the future. The Minister said that he had inherited certain nationalised industries. I realise that he did not mean it seriously, but lest for a moment it should be suggested that there was any serious tendency in that remark, let me say that this is not a nationalised industry at all. The fact is that the State took this over, as I see by the statement in front of the accounts, in 1861, or, rather, in 1861 the State stopped the possibility of the harbour getting any of the dues to which it had been originally entitled, and it was taken over in 1862 by the Board of Trade. The harbour was built under conditions which have entirely passed away, and, that being so, it is natural to ask to what extent the harbour is used, whether it is necessary in the national interest to keep what is largely a fishing harbour there now, and what the Minister thinks are likely to be in future the money requirements from the State to keep the harbour in existence. I do not put these questions with any idea that the Minister should have done something else. I only want to get an idea of what he thinks should be done in the future in this connection.

The same remarks apply to some extent to the Caledonian Canal. I realise that this particular Estimate may be due to the accident to which the hon. Gentleman referred, but again I would remind him that the Estimates we are asked to pass are

"further advances to assist the working of the undertaking."

Although there may be many who regret very much the passing of the Caledonian Canal, we have to face the fact that conditions in connection with transport have entirely changed since the canal was built, and if this is, as I suppose it is, a matter which we may have to face from year to year by being called upon to make additional payments, it becomes of value to know whether, in the interests of the fishing industry, for example, or of local trade, it is worth keeping the Caledonian Canal under the conditions which now exist. The hon. Gentleman gave no indication as to what is his policy in connection with these matters, and I think we are entitled to have a little more information.

There are a couple of items about which I should like to ask some questions, and they are principally of the quasi-nautical type. One is the report on a Channel tunnel, and the other is the Caledonian Canal. As to the former, there is no question but that that question must have the most careful inquiry before any work is started upon it, because there is not only the question of policy, but also the question of engineering difficulties in the construction of such a work. What is to be the scope of the report which the engineers are now making? I should be out of order, and it would be improper, to suggest that we should now have the result of that report, but I think the Committee is entitled to know what the terms of reference were. I am wondering whether this report will be of value as regards channel tunnels generally, or whether it is purely ad hoc, dealing only with a tunnel to France. For instance, would this report be of value on the question of a tunnel between Scotland and Northern Ireland?

I think the hon. and gallant Member must wait till the report appears. The reference is to a "report on Channel Tunnel Scheme."

That is the point I wish to find out—whether it is a report dealing only with the Channel tunnel, or whether it is a report dealing with channel tunnels.

I think the hon. and gallant Member must in all these cases look at the document in his hand. If he does that, he will see that it is a "report on Channel Tunnel Scheme."

It says "Channel Tunnel." That question is a general question, as to whether there can be a tunnel under a channel, and I submit that I am quite in order on this point. If it had been a report on a Channel tunnel to France—

I think the hon. and gallant Member, and people throughout the length and breadth of the land, know what is meant by the Channel Tunnel Scheme.

As one who is, I hope, a patriotic Member for Northern Ireland, I would like to say that to us the Channel tunnel is not one to France, but one from Great Britain to a portion of the United Kingdom which is very anxious to be united more closely than it is now, and I must ask you, Mr. Chairman, to excuse me if my feelings on this point are different from yours. However, I have made my point, which is to ask whether this is a technical report dealing only with geographical affairs connected with a tunnel to France, or whether it would be useful with regard to all tunnels.

With reference to the Caledonian Canal, as I understand from the Minister's speech this expenditure was occasioned principally by a minor catastrophe, in the course of which a drifter carried away two pairs of lock gates. That is an occurrence which has thrown considerable expense upon this somewhat unprofitable nationalised enterprise; and has not the time come, before paying this increased amount to the Caledonian Canal, to consider whether one of two courses must not be taken? Must the canal not be either abandoned altogether and allowed to sink into a state of picturesque dilapidation, in the course of which it would no doubt add something to the attractions of that part of the country from the point of view of tourist traffic, or has not the time come when it should be brought up to modern needs and so enlarged as to enable the modern type of fishing vessel to go through?

As I understand, many of the more recently built fishing vessels wishing to traverse Scotland go north about and not through the canal. Has it, been considered by the Ministry whether it would not be well to bring in a scheme, which would be of assistance from the point of view of unemployment, to bring the canal thoroughly up to date, or whether it would not be well to let the canal, as such, be abandoned, so that we should not be called upon to spend any further money on an undertaking which seems, by all accounts, to be a most unprofitable one?

With reference to Sub-head A, "Salaries, Wages, and Allowances," the Minister of Transport said that a certain portion of this money was being spent at Harmondsworth, where experiments are being carried out in regard to road surfaces, and apparently they are preparing new experiments in order to meet the difficulties that we have all experienced on these new arterial roads under various weather conditions. Up to a few years ago, if my information is correct, we had spent in this country nearly £100,000,000 on road development, without having spent anything on experiments as to what kind of surface was most suitable for these roads. I believe I am correct in that, and, so far as I am informed, a few years ago a certain sum of money was voted for experiments in this matter. On a subject of that kind, which is of general interest, I think the Minister might perhaps give us some further information as to what experiments are taking place, and—

The Minister is not entitled to give an explanation of anything outside the Estimates.

The Minister has already told the Committee that some of this money was being spent on experiments, and perhaps it would be in order for him to say how much is being spent on these experiments, so that we could judge for ourselves whether fit and proper progress is being made on this very necessary aspect of arterial road development in this country.

I remember that the Minister during his speech referred to the increased technical assistance which was being given to the production of new roads in this country as part of these Estimates. I imagine that that would come either under Subhead A, where additional work is imposed on the department for the relief of unemployment, or under Appropriations-in-Aid, which is £12,760. I agree entirely with the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir H. Young) in that connection. We must remember that the real amount of money that has been spent is not the lesser sum of £16,392, but the gross amount of £29,152, because, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, £12,760 of additional receipts came from the Road Fund itself, and that money, of course, is public money which has been paid by the taxpayers of this country.

I should like to know how this money has been expended and whether the hon. Gentleman has arranged for special inspectors as to the kind of roads and road materials that are going to be used. Up to the present, as far as I have been able to make out in travelling over the country, these new arterial roads are not very good—the surface is not very good—and if we are going to vote money for this increased technical assistance for road making, we should inquire of the Minister the sort of inspectors that he is going to use for this purpose. Would they, for instance, look into the road surface? I ask because the road surface has a great deal to do with whether or not a road is going to be durable and whether or not it will be a dangerous kind of road. I suggest that with the assistance of the technical experts tests should be carried out as to the skidding qualities of these roads. If we are going to spend this money on getting this advice we ought to know whether we are going to get full value for the expenditure.

Then there is the question of the Channel Tunnel. The additional expenditure under this head is £5,250. The original estimate was £4,200; and it seems to me that we should be discussing not merely an addition to the old expenditure which has already been passed by the Committee of this House but a new service altogether. Possibly I should not be in order in discussing it as a new service, but it is a moot question as to whether it is not really a new service. The same remark applies to the expenditure on the Severn Barrage Scheme, where you also have a considerable increase. The original estimate was for only £975. Now the Minister requires an additional £2,650; more than double the original amount granted. There again we might almost claim it to be a new service. The sum of £5,250 is to pay the fees of consulting engineers for their Report on the Channel Tunnel. Is not this what has happened? We granted a sum of £4,200 for experiments on these lines, but now the Government have come to the conclusion that, as this is a very important matter indeed, they will call in somebody new and pay them a fee of 5,000 guineas for their advice? I think we should first decide whether we are going to have a Channel Tunnel or not. If we are, then an expenditure of 5,000 guineas on expert advice and consulting engineers is justifiable. If not, then the only thing we are doing in voting this 5,000 guineas is to waste public money. We ought to know why these extra consulting engineers have been called in.

As far as the Severn Barrage Scheme is concerned, if we can make a success of it I should be most thankful. We are lagging behind in this country in the production of electricity by water power. We have not the advantage of mountains like they have in Switzerland and France, and if we can use the tides—it is a feasible scheme—we should do all we can in that way. I have nothing to say against that proposal, but I should like to know the size of the model, whether it is a large one or not. I hope the Minister of Transport will be able to answer these few questions.

I should not have intervened in the Debate at all but for the fact that two hon. Members above the Gangway have cast some aspersions on the Caledonian Canal. They advocated it being closed. I hope we shall be told before the Debate is ended that there is no such intention on the part of the Government. The Caledonian Canal—this is the only historical reference I shall make to it—was the great unemployment scheme in Scotland after the Napoleonic wars. It was built by the troops who returned after Waterloo to their native hills, and it has served a useful purpose up to the present day. It goes through one of the most beautiful parts in Scotland, and serves a useful industrial purpose. To shut up the Canal would mean that the Minister of Transport would have to find £10,000,000 or £15,000,000 more for a substitute road up through the hillsides. I do not know why this £2,000 is necessary at the moment. Perhaps we shall get a reply from the Minister of Transport.

I have already given the reason; and it has nothing to do with the observations of the right hon. Gentleman.

I am sorry I missed the explanation, and I should be much obliged if I could have it again. At any rate, I shall see it in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow. I only desire to protest against the observations which were made by hon. Members above the Gangway.

There are just a few questions I desire to put to the Minister of Transport, but before doing so I think it is well to remind the Committee that when we have passed this supplementary Estimate we shall have brought up the total of supplementary Estimates to nearly £11,500,000. That is a matter which the Committee should view with considerable seriousness. I think the Minister of Transport inadvertently omitted something from his description of what was covered by the additional estimate under the head of "salaries, wages and allowances." He said that it was an additional provision with regard to the work imposed by the relief of unemployment. Is the hon. Gentleman quite right? Is it not the fact that under this supplementary Estimate comes the salary of the Parliamentary Secretary?

In part it does.

I am glad to hear that.

But the hon. and gallant Member must not misrepresent what I say. I said that it was in respect of unemployment work schemes.

I do not thing the hon. Gentleman was quite fair to the Committee. The much more important part of this Supplementary Estimate, which we want to discuss, is the policy of re-establishing a post in the Government which, for reasons of economy, the late Prime Minister abolished. He did not abolish it because the holder of that post was not the most capable of his junior Ministers. He was a right hon. Gentleman who above all others was fitted to fill that position. The late Prime Minister abolished the post because the work had decreased so much. Now the present Prime Minister has re-created the post. Lord Russell was the first holder and then, owing to the unfortunate misunderstanding in regard to the number of Under-Secretaries who could sit in this House, there was a reshuffling of junior posts and we lost the hon. Member for Brightside, who blossomed out as Lord Ponsonby and the holder of this office.

Unemployed.

He was unemployed; and perhaps he was the Minister chosen for unemployment. I am sorry it is the Minister of Transport who has to reply because he is not in a position to criticise his colleague and he cannot tell us whether he thinks the office is redundant. The Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Financial Secretary to the Treasury should be here to give us the Treasury view in regard to this additional post in the Government service. Perhaps the Minister can tell me whether this Supplementary Estimate covers any part of the salary for the new post which has been created, "Principal Assistant Secretary."

No.

He is a person who comes in after the 31st of March this year? If the Minister cannot tell me now, perhaps he will find out. I should like to know whether any part of this new official work will come into this financial year? The right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir H. Young) raised an important point when he touched upon Appropriations-in-Aid; and I must warn the Government that this point will be raised on a great many occasions in connection with these Estimates, mostly from the Liberal benches. The right hon. Member for Camborne (Mr. Leif Jones) has made a special study of this point and I warn Ministers, in a friendly fashion, on this matter. I am not working in collusion with the right hon. Member for Camborne, but I am following his views on this subject with great interest. This is a good example. The Minister said that the reason why this extra money was required for the Caledonian Canal was that certain fees had not been paid because a certain part of the Canal, owing to an accident, had not been used; a certain amount of money which was expected had not come in. That is, I think, what the Minister said?

I think it would be better if we could discuss this in the usual way. I will deal with the points put forward by the hon. Member at the end of the discussion. He is putting a series of questions to me and wants me to answer them as he goes along.

I am quite prepared to wait until the Minister replies. I thought it would be more convenient if the Minister replied at once. We have extracted from him information about the Parliamentary Secretary. In that case any suspicions were right and his explanation wrong. In this case, certain fees have not come in because of an accident by which a certain part of the Canal was not in use. Therefore, more money is to be granted to make up the deficiency in fees. I should have thought under an ordinary system, Appropriations-in-Aid in regard to the Caledonian Canal would have been put in as a side-head under Appropriations-in-Aid.

The hon. Gentleman has explained to the Committee that the whole of these Appropriations-in-Aid refer only to Salaries, Wages and Allowances.

Exactly, but I am questioning why it should increase Sub-head J, instead of decreasing Subhead A. The fees did not come in, and, therefore, we have to find more money. If they are entered under sub-head Appropriations-in-Aid it would mean that the Appropriations-in-Aid was less that it otherwise would be. I think that that would give the Committee a fairer picture of what happens. It has nothing to do, I understand, with the actual running of the canal. The point to which the Minister referred was the fact that certain fees were expected to come in and did not come in. If what I have said correctly represents the situation I hope that the Minister will at any rate consider the point, and see whether on some other occasion this question of the fees of the Caledonian Canal had not better come under Appropriations-in-Aid. I am glad that the hon. Member for Camborne (Mr. Leif Jones) has now arrived. Perhaps he will reinforce what I have said.

There is another point. Could the Minister guarantee to the Committee that the expenditure for the consulting engineers under the Sub-head C is the sole expenditure which has been incurred by the investigation into the Channel Tunnel Scheme? Is there other expenditure? Is it the only expenditure? The Minister shakes his head, and then wags it the other way. Without asking him to rise now I want to make sure that the clerical staff—I imagine that the Committee would require something of that kind—does not come under Sub-head A, but is paid for out of some other Vote. I said in opening my speech that this brings up the total of Supplementary Estimates for the year to over £11,000,000. The Committee should also remember the very serious figures which follow those which we are discussing. Under Subhead L, the Severn barrage investigation, the original Estimate was £975, the revised estimate, taking this Supplementary Estimate into account, is £3,600, and in the ensuing year that is rising to £14,650. Though at the moment the Committee is only discussing the extra amount required for the current year it must envisage the fact that this is a growing and a very expensive service. There is exactly the same thing under Subhead J in reference to the Caledonian Canal. The original Estimate was over £5,000. There was an increase of £2,200, making a total of £7,300, and in the ensuing year it rises to £15,000.

The hon. and gallant Member must leave out the ensuing year. We cannot have the discussion widening out to next year's Estimate.

I am not discussing it at all. I merely wanted to warn the Committee that we are starting on another line of very considerable expenditure, and that if we are to accept these Supplementary Estimates we should do so with our eyes open, knowing that in future they will involve us in more expenditure.

It is not in order to pursue that subject.

The Minister did not expatiate at all on what the existing model or the new model really was, and as he was not kind enough to tell us the amount of money involved, I thought there might be no harm in just pointing it out. As the Prime Minister is now present he may wish to intervene and answer the question with which I opened my speech. As the right hon. Gentleman does not know what it was, I will briefly tell him. It raised a very difficult question for the Transport Minister to answer. It is quite true that this Vote covers part of the salary of the Parliamentary Secretary. Can the Prime Minister tell us why it was that the present Government found it necessary to revive a post which the previous Government, on the ground of economy, abolished? I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity of his very happy coming into the House now to let us know what were the reasons.

I wish to refer to the sum included under the heading "Appropriations-in-Aid," and to put a definite question regarding it. Will this sum go through the Consolidated Fund or will it not? In recent times we are continually getting Supplementary Estimates with large sums deducted from them, as in this case, as Appropriations-in-Aid. The Committee will remember that Appropriations-in-Aid used always to be regarded as merely sums of money received by Departments and off-set against a Vote. There is a point of principle involved. If this sum goes to the Consolidated Fund I have nothing more to say, because we shall have an opportunity on the Consolidated Fund Bill of discussing the matter.

Any savings under Appropriations-in-Aid are not discussable.

I agree. It is just because of your ruling that I have put my question. The modern custom of putting large sums in Supplementary Estimates as Appropriations-in-Aid, if they do not go through the Consolidated Fund, has the effect of withdrawing millions of the taxpayers' money from all chance of Parliamentary discussion.

That may be a good point to raise on the original Estimate, and when discussing things from the beginning. My experience extends over 11 years, and I always remember these Supplementary Estimates and Appropriations-in-Aid.

My point is a very important one. In the 11 years to which you have referred I think you would not find continuous Supplementary Estimates with large sums of this kind of the taxpayers' money. My point is that the old Appropriation-in-Aid was a definite sum received by way of fee or something of the kind by a Department. This is not that; it is a sum of the taxpayers' money received from the Road Fund. If this sum does not go to the Consolidated Fund, is it in order for it to be brought in with Supplementary Estimates with which it has no connection whatever? On the surface there does not appear to be any connection between the Supplementary Estimate and this £12,000 from the Road Fund. On the original Estimate there is a definite repayment of two sums, A and B amounting to £138,000. With that we can deal, but this £12,000 is not in that Estimate, and therefore when the Estimate comes up we cannot discuss it. On the other hand if the sum does pass through the Consolidated Fund I have nothing more to say.

My information is that these Appropriations-in-Aid are governed by Statute. Therefore, if there is any objection to the way in which the matter is carried out it must be raised on the Treasury Vote when that comes up.

That ruling will enable us to clear the matter up on the Treasury Vote. In connection with the sum under Sub-head A for provision of employment, does anything refer to schemes on the East Coast of Scotland, to the Tay and Forth Bridges, or the ferries there?

I find here a further advance to assist the working of the Caledonian and Crinan Canal. I want a more definite explanation from the Minister regarding this sum. Why was the work outlined not proceeded with to help unemployment? I am not satisfied with the description of canals as an unprofitable possession and as obsolete institutions. My contention is that Governments have never taken the trouble to develop them.

A large number of points have been raised, and I will endeavour to reply to them briefly. The right hon. Member for Christchurch (Colonel Ashley) noted a change of the word "expedited" to "adopted." I do not know the reason for the change, but the right hon. Gentleman may be sure that no reason of policy actuated the change. Many of the works with which Sub-head A is concerned are expedited works. Some of them are works which even at this time are perfectly sound works to do, whether or not any question of expediting them arises. But there is no particular significance to be applied to the change of the wording. It is true that there have been fluctuations in the staff of the Ministry, but the Committee may be sure that all the money for which we have asked in connection with the expansion of staff is really necessary. Expansion of staff did not take place immediately the policy of developing works to assist unemployment was adopted, but only as and when staffs really became necessary in order to discharge the liabilities which had arisen. It is a little difficult to make comparison between one year and another, owing to the fluctuations of policy which have affected the Ministry of Transport. Early on there was a very big staff, then there was a reaction, and then there were periodic unemployment pushes which involved temporary expansions of staff, but I am satisfied that there is no staff at the Ministry which is needless or beyond requirements.

In so far as some of the staff which comes under this Estimate is concerned, a great deal of the increase is temporary and can be contracted as and when contraction is required. Of course, it must be remembered that the staff was needed not only in connection with road work, but part of it in connection with services which did not exist before, namely, advising the Committees under the Development Act, which have a whole series of schemes, including those of railway companies, electricity companies, and canal companies, many of which were not eligible for assistance under previous Statutes. To that extent a new service actually does exist. With regard to the Channel tunnel I am afraid I can add nothing to what I have said. It will be remembered that the Committee dealing with the Channel tunnel is a sub-committee of the Committee of Civil Research, and that the Prime Minister is concerned with the supervision of that Committee. It is to the Prime Minister that the Committee reports. A Report has been made to the Prime Minister as the Minister concerned with the Committee of Civil Research, but as I have not yet seen the Report, which has only just been received by the Prime Minister, I cannot deal further with the Channel tunnel. I understand that questions are to be put to the Lord Privy Seal on the subject to-morrow, and possibly further information may then be forthcoming.

With regard to Ramsgate Harbour, I hesitate to say that we are energetically engaged in trying to get rid of it because we do not like it—that would not be a recommendation in the eyes of any possible purchaser—but the view of the Government is, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman knows, that Ramsgate Harbour, by its nature, would be better under some kind of local body rather than under a State Department. [Interruption.] I said "some kind of local body." We are still of that opinion, and we are willing to discuss it with any body which may desire the transfer of the undertaking. It has come into our hands and we are doing the best we can with the harbour, which undoubtedly has proved very useful for local services. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman will be glad to know, regarding the point which he made as to Clause 54 of the Road Traffic Bill, that that Clause will enable us to deal with the bridges on the two canals in Scotland, and preliminary steps have been taken so that we can be in a position to deal with the matter when that Clause goes through. Discussions are taking place with the county councils concerned, and I hope that suitable arrangements will he made and that in connection with that matter the new Clause will be of value. I have no recollection that we have yet discussed the question of weigh-bridges on these bridges, but I have noted the point which the right hon. Gentleman has made and it will be given consideration.

With regard to the Severn Barrage, it is difficult, in the middle of an inquiry, to give all the particulars that one would like to give, but I quite agree that the proposal is a matter of very great interest. As the Committee know the practicability of constructing a Severn Barrage has been under continuous examination by a sub-committee of the Committee of Civil Research since October, 1925. I believe there was a reference to them by the previous Labour Government and early in 1926, on the recommendation of the sub-committee, steps were taken to initiate the first stage of investigations which included a survey of the proposed site by the hydrographic department of the Admiralty and the construction and operation of a large-scale model. The supervision of that investigation was entrusted to a small expert co-ordination committee and the preliminary investigations are being completed. As I have already explained, the sub-committee made a Report that they were satisfied regarding the practicability of constructing a barrage across the Severn estuary at English Stones; they recommended that arrangements should be made for the preparation of a complete tidal power scheme and it is at this point that the money with which this Estimate is concerned, is involved. We had to be satisfied that there was a prima facie case for going ahead. We are so satisfied, and, as I say, the Committee recommended that arrangements should now be made for the preparation of a complete tidal power scheme, an estimate of the total capital cost based on the data obtained when they first made inquiries, the total amount of electricity which may be expected to be generated and the approximate cost of the electricity. These recommendations have been approved by the Government; steps have been taken to prepare a scheme, and it is anticipated that that stage will be completed in about two years.

This is a matter which affects the port of Bristol very seriously indeed, and there are grave apprehensions that any barrage constructed across the Severn may possibly have an injurious effect upon the entrance to our docks at Avonmouth. It is to be presumed that the views of the people who are concerned with the Avonmouth docks, will have due consideration before the Government are committed to any scheme.

The hon. Member may be assured that we are a very long way off that stage of the discussion. The Government are not committed to doing anything. All we say is that if the possibilities are what some people think they are, then a proposition of great importance in connection with the generation of electricity has arisen, and we are bound, as a Government, to consider it and to consider it seriously. But we have not yet got to the stage of conclusions as to the desirability or otherwise of a scheme. We have only got to the stage of being satisfied that further investigations ought to take place and the hon. Member may be sure that before any final conclusions are come to—which in any case cannot be for some time unfortunately—the opinions of local bodies such as the corporation and the dock authorities will be taken fully into consideration. It is true that this business has taken some time and we are all very sorry that that should be so, but the Committee probably know that this is an exceedingly complicated and difficult subject and it would be a thousand pities if we made a false step in regard to a question of this magnitude. Therefore I think this Government and the previous Labour Government have been justified in conducting the most elaborate investigations in order to be sure that what we do, if and when we do anything, is the right thing to be done in the circumstances of the case.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir II. Young) raised matters which he agreed were matters of form for the Treasury rather than for myself, but he may be certain that his points will be considered. As he knows, from his Treasury experience the Road Fund is in a rather exceptional position. That is to say, it is exceptionally treated as compared with other forms of expenditure. But I should be the last to think, or to encourage the Committee to think, where there is a gross expenditure of a certain amount and Appropriations-in-Aid for a substantial amount materially reducing the gross sum, that therefore this Committee or the Minister need only worry about the net amount required. I agree that both the Committee and the Minister must worry about the gross figure of expenditure and I regard it as my duty to watch all expenditure, irrespective of the source from which it is made. Whether it is out of the Road Fund or direct from the Exchequer, it is my duty to be economical and careful in regard to that expenditure.

Can the hon. Gentleman say what opportunity the House of Commons will have of discussing this £12,760, the precise sum which was taken out of the Road Fund, and used for purposes absolutely irrelevant to the Road Fund?

I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that his last point is not correct, but as far as the question which he raises is one concerning the business of the House, I am afraid I cannot undertake responsibility in that matter. With regard to the question put by the hon. and gallant Member for Lewisham (Sir A. Pownall) I can explain that the entire sum of 5,000 guineas is in respect of payments to consulting engineers. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Wardlaw-Milne) raised several points regarding the Caledonian Canal, but I think I had covered them in my opening speech and if not they will be covered before I conclude. The hon. and gallant Member for Londonderry (Major Ross) tried to tempt me into a discussion on a Channel tunnel between England and Ireland, but I am perfectly certain that you, Mr. Young, would not allow me to go into that matter, and I am afraid I must leave it at that. The hon. and gallant Member for Chippenham (Captain Cazalet) raised a question regarding the experimental station at Harmondsworth. That is a purely new development and is concerned with experimental work in connection with roads. We are trying to do certain things there and to carry out research work. A pamphlet in regard to the work of the experimental station has just been published and in view of the interest of the hon. and gallant Member in the matter I will send him a copy. The hon. and gallant Member for Clitheroe (Sir W. Brass) wanted to know whether the inspectors appointed under sub-head A inspected materials and so on. I do not know whether the inspectors deal meticulously with that particular point but they have to be satisfied generally that the quality of the materials is adequate and that the work is being properly carried out. I cannot give the hon. and gallant Member any further information about the Channel tunnel for reasons which I have already stated.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) wanted some information, which I have already given in regard to the Caledonian Canal and, as he is not here, I need only say that if he looks in the OFFICIAL REPORT I think he will be fully informed on the points which he raised. With regard to the numerous questions which were asked by the hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) regarding the staff of the Department, I wish to say that it is certainly not what I should regard as a small matter. It is perfectly true that there have been certain changes, first as regards the appointment of a Parliamentary Secretary and, secondly, changes necessary in the Department, consequent upon works for dealing with unemployment which have given rise to a new state of affairs. It was necessary to release the Assistant Secretary for Roads in order to make him Deputy-Secretary to the Ministry, and, therefore, it was necessary to substitute somebody for him which in due course would mean some addition to the staff. But with regard to the salary of the officer concerned there has been no change. There has been a change of designation but no change of salary. With regard to the Parliamentary Secretary, I do not wish to impinge on the responsibilities of the Prime Minister but from my own experience of the Ministry I am fully convinced that under present conditions, when we have so many things in hand, when considerable road works are in progress, when interesting experiments are being conducted and important reports are coming along, when we have all sorts of problems in connection with traffic and other matters, it is necessary that there should be a Parliamentary Secretary.

It is true that the last Government at one time were going to kill the Department altogether. I believe that that is so of a previous Conservative or Coalition Government and those who take the view that there is no need for a Ministry of Transport, would certainly hold that there was no need for a Parliamentary Secretary. Personally nobody regretted more than I did when Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon, who was a very efficient Parliamentary Secretary, went from the Department. Of course, it was no busi- ness of mine, but I think everybody was sorry when such an able man went from the Department and I am perfectly satisfied that the responsibilities of that Department are bound to grow as time goes on and that it is absolutely necessary that there should be a Parliamentary Secretary. Anybody who has been Minister will agree that, except when times are particularly slack, it is desirable that there should be a Parliamentary Secretary if the Minister himself is not to be over-burdened. The hon. and gallant Member who raised this matter may be assured that I am not afraid of work. I rather like work, but in order to do it efficiently and effectively, it is desirable that the Government and the House of Commons should provide me with the necessary assistance.

6.0 p.m.

Regarding the point raised as to appropriations-in-aid that is a matter partly for the Treasury and partly for myself, and it will be taken into account, as will also the observations as to whether the receipts from the Caledonian Canal should be brought into account or not. If I remember rightly, the point of the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown) was answered as he went along, and therefore nothing further arises on that matter. As regards the question of the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten), I cannot answer for previous Governments as to the Caledonian Canal, but we ourselves have spent what money we could in order to keep that canal in an efficient condition, notwithstanding its not altogether happy financial results. If we were always actuated by pure finance, whether in regard to the Caledonian Canal or some other things, including a well-known contract in Scotland for some forms of transport—if, I say, we were solely guided by finance, many of these things would be closed down, and if they were closed down I am afraid that hon. Members representing Scottish constituencies would make their voices heard and there would be excitement in the House of Commons for some time to come. When we are dealing with areas—particularly Highland areas—which are sparsely populated, we have as taxpayers to bear things which we should not undertake as commercial propositions, and, on the whole, we think that the expenditure on the Caledonian Canal is reasonable. With few exceptions the only time when, as far as I can gather, any anti-Labour Government has nationalised anything has been when it was losing money, and the only time when they have refused to nationalise has been when there was money to be made out of it. I refer to that only as a matter of historical interest. I consider that the maintenance of the Caledonian Canal is of interest and importance in connection with the services of Scotland. I have tried to give all possible information in response to the points that have been raised, and I hope that the Committee will now give me the Supplementary Estimate.

I was astonished to hear the deprecating reference which the hon. Gentleman the Minister of Transport made in his opening remarks to the Caledonian Canal. In his second speech he did something to take the bitter taste out of the mouths of people who admire the canal, but there is not the least doubt that in his opening remarks he spoke of the canal in the most disrespectful way. Though the canal, as he said, might not be remunerative, it is one of Scotland's great national assets. It is a highway of unrivalled beauty from one end of Scotland to the other, and it is a matter of astonishment to me to hear an hon. Gentleman who bears a Scottish name refer to it in the terms in which he did. It is an unusual thing to hear a Scotsman decry any of the natural beauties of his native country.

I should like to know whether the hon. Gentleman has taken the best possible legal advice with regard to the accident which he described at Banavie last year, when a drifter charged through the lock gates and appeared not to be liable for the damage that occurred. I am not at all sure that he is right in saying that the owner of the drifter is not liable. The owner of a sea-going vessel in a sea-way is liable only for damage up to £8 per gross registered ton, but does that apply to inland waters? A barge on a canal is liable for the full amount of the damage which it does. This drifter commenced her career of destruction in canal waters above Banavie, although she may have finished it in the tidal waters of the loch. If the destruction commenced in inland waters, it seems to me that it is possible that the owners of the vessel were liable for the damage. Perhaps the Attorney-General will enlighten the Committee as to whether there is anything in the argument which I have advanced in the endeavour to save money for the taxpayers in general, and the Minister of Transport in particular.

I must enter a vigorous protest against money being spent on the Channel tunnel in the way suggested in Sub-head C. Not long ago I attended a deputation to the Minister of Transport with regard to the Humber tunnel, and he promised that investigations should be made. There is nothing in this Estimate about investigations for the Humber tunnel; it is confined to the less important undertaking known as the Channel tunnel. A really important undertaking like the Humber tunnel is left to wait for some future Estimate. With regard to the investigations of the Severn Barrage, is the model which is mentioned in this Estimate on show, and could the Minister allow Members of the Committee to inspect it? Further, can he tell me whether the model shows to any extent the effect which the barrage will have on the tides of the Severn, and is it likely to influence in any way the silt in the lower reaches of the river? On the lower reaches are one or two important tidal harbours—

The hon. Gentleman must keep to the point.

May I not refer to the effect which this barrage is likely to have?

When the discussion on the barrage comes on, it will be time to do that.

I will then not enlarge on that question. As the Minister admitted that part of Subhead A was his own salary—

It is not for my salary; my salary is safe anyway.

I am very glad to hear that, when we consider the efficient way in which the hon. Gentleman performs his duties, and the courteous replies which he gives to all Members, even when they make mistakes, as I have unfortunately done. It is the Parliamentary Secretary's salary which is in question under that Sub-head, and as there was no Parliamentary Secretary when the original Estimate was introduced, and it seems to me that that is a new service, I should like to say one or two words on the policy of the Government which has actuated that appointment. It shows more than anything else that it requires two Socialist Ministers to do the work which has hitherto been done by one Conservative, and it shows, what everybody who studies the question knew, how Government expenditure would increase directly a Socialist Government came into power. I admit the great efficiency of the Minister of Transport in the last Government, but it shows up the state of affairs on the other side when it takes twice the number of men to do the work. The hon. Gentleman said that he worked very hard and that he liked it, and it only accentuates the state of affairs when the Government have to appoint two of these hard, energetic workers to do the work of one hard, energetic worker in the last Government.

Again under Sub-head A, this additional expenditure is required to deal with measures for the relief of unemployment. There, again, everybody knew that unemployment would increase under a Socialist Government, and that consequently additional expenditure and measures would be required to deal with it. I think that I have said all I have to say—[Interruption.] If hon. Members on the back Benches have not quite understood the force of my arguments, and if they want me to say it all over again, I shall be only too glad to oblige them.

The hon. and gallant Member is not entitled to say it all over again.

I do not want to prevent the hon. Gentleman from getting his vote, but I want to express my surprise and regret that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has not been on the Bench during the discussion. It used to be the custom, whenever a Supplementary Estimate was under discussion, for the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to be there in order to explain those financial points with which the Minister is very often not familiar. To-day, a first-class financial point has arisen during the dis- cussion of this Vote. I do not know how far it is in order to discuss this Appropriation-in-Aid. I gather not very far, but we want an explanation as to how a sum of £12,760 drawn from the Road Fund finds its way into this particular Vote. The Secretary to the Treasury might explain it to us. Had this represented the growth of the Appropriation-in-Aid—increase in fees and so on—it would have been in order.

The right hon. Gentleman cannot discuss Appropriation-in-Aid. The total amount asked for is reduced by the Appropriation-in-Aid. The discussion of the total amount is in order.

On this particular Vote, when we are dealing with an Appropriation-in-Aid from the Road Fund, the amount of the Appropriation-in-Aid actually depends upon the amount of expenditure; the two are linked together, and the one is proportionate to the other. Therefore, I venture to invite your Ruling whether, in these circumstances, it is possible to make an arbitrary distinction in the discussion between the expenditure and the Appropriation-in-Aid?

The Appropriations-in-Aid cannot be discussed nor can the question of savings which may go to make up an Appropriation-in-Aid be discussed. All that we can discuss is the fact that the Government have asked for a larger amount than was stated in the original Estimate. That larger amount, and questions regarding what savings the Appropriations-in-Aid are made up of, are in order.

Does that mean that I may not ask the Secretary to the Treasury how it comes about that this sum of money has been allocated by the Treasury to be taken out of the Road Fund? That is the real point which is worrying us. The hon. Gentleman said that schemes may be held up by pure finance. They are not upheld by impure finance; bad things happen to a country where that is allowed. I must express my astonishment that the Treasury has allowed this to be done and—

The right hon. Gentleman must raise that on the Treasury Vote.

I shall take the first opportunity on the Treasury Vote to raise that matter with some severity, and a great deal of surprise, astonishment and indignation.

This Vote deals with a simple matter, and I think the Committee can readily agree with the Estimate. The £100,000 is a re-vote of the unexpended balance of the amount voted in 1928–29. The Committee will remember that, in anticipation of the statutory rate relief scheme, rebates from railway carriage charges in respect of certain selected traffics were allowed by the railway companies from 1st December, 1928, and, in consideration of such rebates, it was agreed that the sum of £3,333,333, that is to say, ten-twelfths of the £4,000,000 which was the estimated rate relief for a full year, should be paid to the Railway Freights Rebates (Anticipation) Fund. Payments to the fund were to be made in such amounts and at such times as might be necessary to enable the Railway Clearing House to make payments out of it. It was expected that £1,000,000 would have been required for this purpose up to 31st March, 1929, but, in fact, up to that date the Railway Clearing House, who administer the fund, required only £900,000. The result was that £100,000 remained unused at the end of last financial year and had to be surrendered in the normal course of financial procedure. We are now asking for this £100,000 to be re-voted.

I am glad to see the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in his place, because, no doubt, he listened to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Camborne (Mr. Leif Jones) in criticism of his absence while the previous Vote was under discussion; but I am afraid he has not arrived on that bench because of the criticisms of the right hon. Gentleman but in response to a note which I sent him this morning saying that I proposed to draw attention to certain inconsistencies between his conduct now and on previous occasions. It will be noticed that the authorisation of the whole of these Supplementary Estimates is covered by the signature of the hon. Member himself on page 2. That signature indicates, I take it, that he expresses his approval of the various items in the Supplementary Estimates, wishes Parliament to give effect to the Votes, and, generally, wishes success to the various Ministers who have put their Estimates before the Committee. Without going deeply into the matter, I think we are entitled to ask the hon. Gentleman how it can be consistent with continuity of political policy now to ask the Committee to pass this Vote for £100,000 seeing that he denounced the scheme when it came up for consideration two years ago? I will not proceed any further on that point, because it would not be in order, but I am sure the hon. Member will not deny that he then said this scheme was bad from beginning to end and seriously affected the fortunes of the country. Perhaps he will later inform us how it is that he can now put his name to this Vote and ask the Committee to pass it.

I pass, now, to the consideration of the Vote itself, and would like the Minister to tell us how the scheme has worked. If hon. Members will turn to Command Paper 3215 they will see that important Regulations are laid down for the administration of this very important fund, which runs into about £4,000,000 a year. It is confided to the Railway Clearing House, which is an institution of such well-known financial rectitude, and in which everybody has such confidence, that it was considered that it might be given a certain latitude in the matter. In this White Paper £16,667 was taken as the administrative expenses for one year. That is a large sum of money, but, on the other hand, there is a tremendous amount of bookkeeping in connection with this scheme. I would like to know whether the £16,667 has been found sufficient, or whether a further grant had to be made out of the gross receipts towards the expenses. At the bottom of page 27 of the Supplementary Estimates there is this statement:

"The expenditure out of this Grant-in-Aid will not be audited in detail by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, nor will any balance of the sums issued remaining unexpended at the close of the financial year be liable to surrender."

Those are two very important observations. It is my recollection that audit in detail was not insisted on when the Fund was started, because of the high position occupied by the Railway Clearing House. It was felt that it would be a work of supererogation to have the Comptroller and Auditor-General going into all these small details, and it would involve considerable expense; but in order to maintain proper inspection it was provided, as hon. Members will see on page 4 of the White Paper, that the accounts of the Fund should be kept in a form to be approved by the Minister and subject to such audit as he might direct. I would like to know the form of accounts approved by the Minister. Obviously, I am not asking him to give us specimens of the accounts, but I would like some idea of the form decided on. Even more important than that is the question of the form of audit. As it is not a Government audit by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, has the Minister got a well-known private firm to carry out the work, or is it being done by the railway companies themselves?

Then there is the question as to what has happened to the railway companies under this scheme. An arrangement was arrived at which, I think, was very advantageous to the taxpayer. If at the end of the ten months in which this anticipatory scheme was to work before the permanent scheme came into existence there was a deficiency in the Fund, the railway companies had to make up out of their own pockets the amount of the deficiency; but, if there was a balance, then the one bright spot was that the Treasury were not to have the money, but that it was to be carried over as a Fund to start the scheme which came into operation on 1st October last. Did the railway companies have to find any money on 30th September last; or was there a surplus, and did the permanent Fund start to the good on 1st October?

For the information of hon. Members who were not in the last Parliament, I would like to say that this scheme, for what it was worth, was instituted to help the basic industries, which were suffering badly, and it was applied to three classes of traffics—industrial, agricultural and coal traffics. The rebates given by the railways in the case of industrial and agricultural traffics amounted to 10 per cent., and in the case of coal to no lees than 30 per cent., equivalent to 7d. or 7½d. per ton on coal taken from the colliery to the port of embarkation. I hope to be able to give the Committee some information, from what I have been able to glean from the public Press and other places, as to what has happened with coal, but I am absolutely in the dark as to what has occurred in the case of iron And steel and agriculture. In the case of agriculture there was a rebate of 10 per cent. on the carriage of feeding-stuffs, potatoes, manures and other items. Unfortunately, owing to the inevitable lag in the returns of public departments, the last returns we have for industry and agriculture are for 1928; but perhaps the Minister may have some information in his Department, and I ask him specifically to tell me what has been the result of this scheme during the anticipatory period and the three months of its permanent working, on industrial traffics and on agricultural traffics.

Has it had a beneficial effect on the coal trade? The increase in the export of coal is due not to this cause alone, but to many causes. The eight-hour day in the coal trade has helped to increase the export trade. This scheme of railway freight rebates is a most important secondary cause. Whereas in 1928 we exported only 50,000,000 tons of coal from this country, in 1929 we exported 60,000,000 tons. If you take bunkers, which are included in this scheme, bunkers and export trade together increased from 67,000,000 tons to 77,000,000 tons, and that is a very considerable increase. If we have increased the export of coal for ordinary consumption abroad and for foreign bunkers by 10,000,000 tons, that is a very considerable asset to this country. In 1920 there were on the average 35,000 more people employed in the mining industry than in 1928. Not only do we sell more coal abroad and in foreign bunkers, but there has been a very substantial increase in employment given to the people of this country. I do not want to press the Financial Secretary too far, but I should like him to give us some explanation on this point. I was, perhaps, misinformed as to the effects of the scheme. At first blush it did not seem to be so good, but now I am in a position of more responsibility than I was then and I really think this scheme is quite a sound one. It has given good results, and I hope the Financial Secretary will give his assistance to the Minister of Transport in carrying it out.

I do not know that I wish to raise any more points on this scheme as a whole, and perhaps I may be allowed to say that this scheme of anticipation for the 10 months from 30th December, 1928, to 30th September, 1929, has been a marked success. It is also greatly to the credit of the officials of the Ministry of Transport that their Estimate of £4,000,000 came within £100,000 of being accurate. It is not easy to make a guess of this kind, and it is marvellous that in their Estimate they came so near as they did. In October, 1928, we were not sure what the de-rating authorities would de-rate the hereditaments as in 1929, and we are fortunate in only having to find £100,000. I think I may congratulate the advisers of the Minister of Transport on their guessing. Finally, as this anticipatory scheme has been such a success, I hope the Government will continue it as a permanent scheme for what it is worth, because it has given a little more ginger to the export of coal, and I trust that the Ministry will make this scheme a permanent part of their machinery.

I quite agree with what was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for New Forest and Christ-church (Colonel Ashley) in regard to the necessity for the presence of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and I am glad to see the hon. Gentleman in his place. When this question was under discussion in the last Parliament, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said:

"This scheme, on the contrary, is a pettifogging scheme, a muddling scheme, differentiating capriciously between one and the other in a way which is bound to be detrimental to many interests."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd November. 1928; col 1976, Vol. 222.]

That was the view of the Financial Secretary during the last Parliament, and I ask him if he still holds those views about this scheme. In the last Parliament the Financial Secretary moved a reduction of the Vote. Now we find that he is supporting the very able Minister of Transport, and he is giving the Minister that moral and personal assistance to which, I think, he is entitled under this scheme. In these circumstances, I think that the Financial Secretary ought to withdraw those words in which he described this as a pettifogging and a muddling scheme. It may be that it is not necessary for the hon. Member to withdraw those words, because he has been convinced by experience that he was wrong, and perhaps he will be the first to say that this scheme has been very properly worked by the Railway Clearing House.

It will be agreed, in fact it has been proved, that the Railway Clearing House has worked admirably. It ought to be mentioned that the railway companies will have to contribute, approximately, £66,000, and the railway companies have no intention of operating on that in any grudging sense. The idea was that it would help certain basic industries, and some interesting figures which I have obtained show that the export coal trade has been helped by this scheme to the extent of 52,500,000 tons and the rebate on that amounted to £1,637,000. Those figures seem to me to prove that the scheme which was attacked so strongly by the Financial Secretary has proved to be a great success, and it has shown that the policy of the late Government was justified when they brought the scheme before the House.

With regard to the agricultural community, there is one thing which I am very anxious to say. The farmers of this country do not seem to realise that they are themselves entitled to this assistance if they will use the machinery which has been laid down. It is extremely difficult to get this fact known to farmers. I am not saying a word against the dealers or the manufacturers of fertilisers. It is the dealer who makes the claim for the rebate on the railways. When the farmer consigns his produce to the market, he does it through the dealer, and the dealer claims the rebate. The farmer himself could get the rebate if he would consign it himself. The farmer has only to go to the stationmaster and ask for the particulars, and he will get them. What happens when the produce goes the other way? You find that the dealers who deal in manures and seeds again take charge and consign it to the farmer, and get the rebate. Of course the farmer is credited with that. We want to encourage rural traffic in regard to the agricultural industry. It is of the utmost importance that that excellent object should be made known to the farmer, and I hope that the Minister of Transport, in his reply, will emphasise the importance of providing working machinery to assist agriculture, and if he does that I am sure a great deal of good will result.

I want to mention one other fact. Since the Measure with which we are dealing was introduced, a great change has come over the transportation of milk in glass-lined railway tanks. That is a most important matter for the health of the nation, and for the distribution of clean milk. I hope that the Minister and his able advisers at Whitehall. Gardens will make the advantages of this form of traffic widely known, and then I am sure a great deal of good will be done as far as the health of the country is concerned, and it will be a great advantage to the milk producers of this country. Under the scheme I have mentioned, 178,000,000 gallons of milk have been conveyed, and there has been a rebate of £107,125 paid in respect of that traffic passing. If we can do a little more to assist the bulk transport of clean milk, it will reduce the cost of milk. The scheme is justified by that fact alone. I am sure that the hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) will be the first to recognise that instead of this being a pettifogging and a muddling scheme, it is one of the most beneficial Measures that was ever passed by a wise administration. I hope that when the Financial Secretary replies to this Debate he will not only withdraw the words I have quoted, but will give this scheme his blessing, and promise to give his colleague all the support he can in carrying it out.

I will not follow what has been said on this subject by previous speakers further than to say that I shall do all I can to supplement the request for information in order to enable us to understand what is the progress of the scheme in respect of which we are voting money to-day. I wish to raise a question which appears on the face of the Supplementary Estimate which, I think, ought to be raised, and that is the use which has been made of the Civil Contingencies Fund. Perhaps the Financial Secretary will be able to assist us in understanding this somewhat technical Treasury matter. The Committee will understand the importance of exercising a sharp control over the use of the Civil Contingencies Fund, which is a reserve fund by which the Government are able to escape for a time from the restrictions of Parliamentary control over their expenditure. We should always raise this question whenever it is not perfectly clear on the face of the Estimate that the use of this fund has been resorted to. On the face of this Estimate it is not clear at all what use has been made of the Civil Contingencies Fund. It seems to have been an elaborate transaction, and one in regard to which the Note gives us no information. We are dealing with two years, 1928 and 1929, and we are repaying £100,000 which was short of the sum voted in 1928.

The first point I want to put is if it was known that this sum would ultimately be required for repayment of Civil Contingencies advances, why was it not included in the Estimates for 1929, and why has it come into a Supplementary Estimate? The first principle, as the hon. Gentleman is well aware, of the use of the Civil Contingencies Fund, is that, whenever an advance is made from that Fund, it should be legitimated and repaid at the earliest possible opportunity, and it would certainly seem that the earliest possible opportunity for a legitimisation of that advance was in the Estimates for the year 1929, but we only get it now in a Supplementary Estimate at the end of the year. In order to assist us in understanding what we are being asked to do when we are asked to authorise this advance from the Fund, let me ask a question. When was the advance made? Was it made in the original year, 1928, and, if so, why was only £900,000 advanced, and not the full amount of £1,000,000? In the second place, included in this question of the time is the question of the amount, and I should like to ask what was the amount advanced? Was it only an advance of £100,000 from the Fund in the year 1929? If so, that would put a totally different complexion on the matter.

I ask these questions in order that we may judge as to the following points. The Vote was £1,000,000. What was the advance from the Civil Contingencies Fund? We do not get that from the Vote, and we want to know in order that we may judge as to the following points, on which the Committee is entitled to have information which will enable it to judge. In the first place, we ought to be assured that not a penny more was advanced from the Civil Contingencies Fund than was absolutely essential to carry out the purpose of the Government; and, in the second place, that not a penny was advanced from the Civil Contingencies Fund for any purpose for which Parliamentary authority had not been already received. That is the second great principle in the restriction of the rather dangerous powers which this Fund confers. In the third place, we want to know the amount and date of the advance, in order that we may know whether the Government have exercised the appropriately high standard of regularity in the use of the Civil Contingencies Fund, and whether they have come to Parliament to put the matter right at the earliest possible moment. Finally, I sincerely hope that the Financial Secretary will not be tempted—I am sure he will not—to ride off on any cheap party score by saying that this was an Act passed by the previous Government, or anything of that sort. I am sure that he will not attempt to do that, because he recognises as much as we do that in such a matter as this, whatever Government may be in office, the Committee is entitled to insist upon a high standard of regularity.

I do not think that I need take up the time of the Committee by going at any length into the question raised by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who was Minister of Transport in the late administration, and by the hon. and gallant Member for Abingdon (Major Glyn)—

You ought to say something!

I am going to say something, but I was not proposing to take up a great deal of time. The position is perfectly simple and straightforward. I made a speech two years ago, and, as a result of the letter which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman sent to me, I have spent a very pleasant 10 minutes reading that very excellent speech again. In it I was attacking the whole policy of the De-rating Act, and this proposal in particular. I should be out of order if I were to go into the whole question of the De-rating Act or this particular scheme now, but any approval that I give to paying this £100,000 must not in the least be taken to commit me to any alteration of opinion regarding the whole policy which that Act of the late Government involves. This particular proposal for railway rebates involves a sum of £4,000,000, and it is hardly necessary to say that, if you spend £4,000,000, somebody will get the benefit of it. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman gave illustrations to prove that, but I should have thought that it was not necessary to prove that very great benefits have arisen from an expenditure of £4,000,000. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Certainly. Whether the disadvantage of paying £4,000,000 by the people who have to pay it exceeds the advantages to the people who get the £4,000,000 is quite another question, and lies outside this particular Vote entirely. The late Government having carried the De-rating Act, and it having become a Statute, this particular sum is going through, and I, naturally, have to sec that it is administered correctly; and in that sense I fully support my hon. Friend the Minister of Transport. There is nothing in the least inconsistent in that. [Interruption.] I am quite capable of enjoying the joke which hon. Gentlemen opposite have put to the Committee, and they know quite as well as I do that there is no real substance behind the joke which they have so charmingly put forward.

With regard to the serious point which was put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir H. Young), I do not think he quite understands what exactly took place. The House of Commons did decide quite definitely that this money was to be spent in this way, and, therefore, there is no question at all of the general approval of the House of Commons not having been given. The House of Commons went through the ordinary procedure, culminating in the Appropriation Act, in deciding perfectly definitely that this money was to be spent in this way, and the only question involved is that, as the £1,000,000 voted for the previous year was not all spent, £100,000 had to be surrendered to the Treasury, and, therefore, it was necessary for the House to re-vote that £100,000 in order to implement the intention of Parliament. At the time when the Estimate for 1929 was drawn up by the late Government, it could not be foreseen whether the whole of the £1,000,000 would be spent before the 31st March, 1929. It was not possible to include in the Estimate for 1929–30 the balance of £100,000 which was not spent, and we have now to introduce a Supplementary Estimate for the purpose.

The right hon. Gentleman asked why the Civil Contingencies Fund was brought in. The Civil Contingencies Fund is brought in because, the sanction of Parliament for the spending of the necessary money having been obtained in the original Resolution passed during the last Parliament, the Treasury was perfectly entitled to allow the money to go out, and to introduce at the earliest available opportunity a Supplementary Estimate to reimburse the Civil Contingencies Fund, that is to say, to pay the money which Parliament had authorised, though the specific amount had not been voted. The time has now come to refund this £100,000 to the Civil Contingencies Fund. The money has not been needed until comparatively late in the year.

Can the hon. Gentleman say what was the amount of the advance, and the time?

I cannot say exactly. This covers the whole year ending on the 31st March, and before this Vote is finally through the House some part of it will have been encroached upon. I cannot say what is the exact amount at this moment, but the principle has been carried out meticulously according to the constitutional practice.

Will the hon. Gentleman or the Minister of Transport deal with the point that I raised as to whether any money will be handed over for a permanent fund at the end of the year 1930?

I will deal with that point.

The Financial Secretary, especially in the first part of his speech, made some most interesting observations and expressed some very novel ideas about Ministerial and personal responsibility. I remember very well that one of the first questions put to the Government when they came into office was with regard to this particular scheme and to the Act generally. In view of the unmeasured denunciation which it had received from hon. Gentlemen opposite, including the Financial Secretary, they were asked whether they were going to repeal the Measure, because we naturally expected that, being men of their word and honest of purpose, inasmuch as this scheme was, as they used to tell us, a fraud, the first thing they would do would be to bring in an early one-Clause Bill repealing the whole Measure. But that was not the reply at all; the reply was that they had not the least intention of doing that. The Financial Secretary was then put in a great difficulty. He had been saying that this scheme, not only on this particular point but on many others also, was going to ruin the country and the trades affected, but, to the surprise of everyone who knew him as a man of purpose, he still remained Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Has he never heard of such a thing as Ministerial resignation when such a grave difference arises between a Minister and the Government of the day I Does he really think that he can brush it all on one side in the way that he has done this evening? The hon. Gentleman went much further than was mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Abingdon (Major Glyn). He actually said that this particular scheme which we are now discussing was going to be a failure. He was a prophet, like most hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House, and yet we find them actually coming to ask the House for further support in connection with that Measure, and the most prominent among them is the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will ponder over my words to-night, and we shall see whether or not there is an interesting announcement in the papers in the morning.

This particular matter is of considerable interest to me because I had the pleasure of supporting my right hon. and gallant Friend the late Minister of Transport in bringing forward the scheme, and I remember very well how hon. Members opposite used to come round to the then Minister of Transport and myself in the morning and ask that the scheme might be continued, while in the evening they used to denounce it very fiercely in the House. I think the questions that I am going to put to the Minister of Transport will elicit, if he answers them fairly, as I know he will, that this amount which we are asked to add to the sum already voted by the House has been fully justified. The scheme itself, which was a matter of some debate in the House, was anticipated in a White Paper entitled "Railway Freight Rebates (Anticipation)," and it came in for a good deal of criticism. Can the Minister of Transport, in justifying this particular amount, give us a little more information about the working of the scheme as a whole? For instance, can he tell me how many of the railway companies have sent in written notice accepting the scheme, because there was some doubt expressed as to whether this scheme would be accepted generally.

7.0 p.m.

There was also a criticism directed to that part of the scheme which stated that it was to be administered by the Railway Clearing House, and hon. Members suggested all sorts of alternatives and all sorts of bodies who were to be in control of this particular scheme. Has the administration of this scheme by the Railway Clearing House been found satisfactory, and is it a good tribunal? What have been the expenses of the Clearing House? Another criticism was that this was going to be a most expensive way of dealing with the matter. We were also told, in the words of the Financial Secretary, that the scheme was going to be a failure and that traders would not bother with it, because it was such a small amount. How many traders have had rebates under the scheme? Again, we made provision in the scheme for disputes arising, and provided that they were to be referred to the Minister under paragraph 8. Have any disputes been referred to the Minister and is there any provision in this Vote under that head? My right hon. Friend has put a question about the form of accounts. Has that form been now finally approved to the satisfaction of all the parties concerned? Has the information necessary under the scheme been given by the Railway Clearing House in that connection? In other words, is the scheme working well and is the machinery going as well as complicated machinery of this kind can be expected to work?

Obviously, in a scheme like this there may be a number of errors and irregularities, and we made provision for them in paragraph 10. In fact, we were told that there would be a very great number of errors. Have there been any of these errors and irregularities discovered for which we made provision? Under paragraph 12 provision was made for any deficiency which might arise. What has happened so far as that particular aspect of the scheme is concerned? The answers to these questions which I have put would elicit whether, apart from the undoubted benefits the scheme gives to certain traders, the machinery designed at that time is working well. We shall hear no one in the Committee this afternoon, except the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in the halting words he uttered, get up and say that this scheme ought to be repealed. It was the policy of the late Government to give some relief to the traders in this way; it is the policy of the present Government to add to their burdens. You have there the distinction between the policy of the two Governments.

It was a pleasure to us to hear the Financial Secretary to the Treasury this afternoon. We can remember the speeches which he used to make in opposition merely carping and criticising the hard work of the Government of the day. It was a real pleasure, therefore, to-night, instead of a speech of that kind, to hear him tell us with all the zeal of a recent convert that there was something here of real value. He did not put it in that way but that was the tenor of his speech. My object is to ask the Minister of Transport a few questions on the administrative side of this sum of £100,000. He took the line that there was not very much in it, that it was just £100,000 that might have been spent earlier, but was not spent and had come up for discussion to-day. Earlier, the late Minister of Transport pointed out that the expenses of this scheme were very high indeed. Are those expenses tending to rise or to fall? Obviously, as a great scheme of this sort becomes better known, it ought to be possible to cut down the administrative expenses. This scheme is carried out by means of a Government grant, and I would therefore ask, if you succeed in lowering those expenses considerably, whether that means that the Government prosper or that the railways prosper, or does it mean that the agriculturist and the coal trade will get a further reduction in wages? That is a very pertinent question in connection with these expenses, because it leads one to believe that there is an opening for a further improvement in this respect.

When we were originally debating these sums, we were told, as is stated in the first paragraph, that this money was for certain selected traffics. Those traffics deal in the main with agriculture, coal and certain other heavy industries. What proportion of this sum goes to these different classes? It is of vital interest to the Committee to know which of them is getting most of the money. It is no use saying that one section gets a certain amount and another section gets another sum, because it is quite clear that during the last 12 months there must have been some change in the proportion of these goods carried by the railways. It is quite conceivable that there has been no very great increase of agricultural produce carried at the present time, and I should like to know if we are having to find an increased proportion for agriculture. Agricultural manures come under this, so it is a vital question, because, if there is a decrease, it means more land is going into bad cultivation. We are entitled, therefore, to an answer on that point.

I presume the increase in this sum is caused by a great increase in the amount of coal carried, and we are entitled to know what increase there has been in the amount of coal carried. If that is so, the Minister of Transport and some of his colleagues would be the first to say: "Yes, there has been a lot more coal carried under this scheme, and we, as members of the present Government, are once again only too glad to follow in the footsteps of our predecessors." They could show their wisdom in one small point, at any rate, by following out what has been done before.

Another point has exercised my mind considerably. During the Debates about this rebate there is always an idea in the minds of some people that a certain amount of this money may be going for the building of new trucks. I believe I am right in saying that none of it is used for that purpose, but, as some people are not clear on that matter, perhaps the Minister would make it clear that this money is only being used for rebates on certain classes of heavy goods. I would like to put a further point which has not been dealt with. Now that he has had time to find that he wants more money for this scheme, has the hon. Gentleman, in considering what additional sum he has had to find, made up his mind in any way that that sum is justified to such a degree that he will have to find it again in the future? I am giving him an easy way of saying whether he will make this permanent or not. After all, we are voting for a given sum now, and we ought to know whether it is temporary or whether the hon. Gentleman has anything else in his mind in this respect.

It is stated here that the expenditure out of this Grant-in-Aid will not be audited in detail. This question was raised by the late Minister of Transport, and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury did not make the least attempt to answer it. Of course, he has not acquired that skill in answering questions which comes with long practice to some people, like some of my right hon. Friends below me. But I think in a matter of this kind, where there is a very large sum involved, we should have clearly explained why it is that this sum is not fully audited. From what was said earlier, it looked to me as if this was handed over to the railways, and that in due course it was paid out by these various reductions. We ought to be told whether the scheme is working in such a way that we are getting real value for the expenditure and that too much of it is not going in administration.

This sum goes in proportion to various railways. I do not ask the Minister tonight to tell us how much goes to each of the four great railways, but I should like to know approximately what proportion of it goes over the border. I should not like it to be thought that we were neglecting one part of the United Kingdom, and I think I am entitled to ask what proportion goes to the various countries. I should like to protest against the system by which we have an Estimate of this kind. It is a very great pity that this comes as one in a large series of Supplementary Estimates, all of which are thoroughly bad, although this happens, through the circumstances of the case, to be considerably more excusable than some of the others.

I have been asked whether the administration expenses have been paid out or not, and whether there is a surplus or a deficit. If the right hon. Gentleman will look at the White Paper, paragraph 5(a), there is no argument about the point at all. It says there was to be paid out of funds so provided in respect of administrative expenses, in giving effect to the provisions of the scheme, £16,667, and that sum was to be divided between the Railway Clearing House and the individual railway companies. As far as I can see, that was a fixed payment. If, in fact, the railway companies have been paid more than they ought to have been paid, it is not I but the previous Government, that is responsible. If, on the other hand, they have been paid less than they have actually incurred in the administration of the scheme, the last Government made a good arrangement. The point is that it was a fixed sum provided for in the scheme, and I am afraid that is conclusive. The form of audit is a running audit of the accounts as they come along by the officers of the Ministry of Transport. That is the arrangement that was come to.

The late Minister of Transport asked how things had worked out. The final accounts of the Anticipation Fund, which should be kept in mind separately from the Permanent Fund which exists under the Statute subsequently passed, have not yet been audited, but we are informed by the Railway Clearing House that the rebates allowed in respect of traffic passing up to 30th September, 1929, after which the arrangements under the Local Government Act, 1929, came into force, exceed the sum to be paid by the Government by £78,000. As the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has said, if there was a deficit in the fund it had to be borne by the railway companies, and, therefore, that £78,000, if such proves to be the amount, will be a charge against the railway companies and not against the Government. Had it been the other way, had it been a surplus, it would have been credited to the permanent fund and carried forward. There is a deficit to the extent of £78,000. I think it can be said fairly that the scheme has worked smoothly and, substantially it has been adopted by the Railway Rates Tribunal who are the body concerned with the permanent scheme under the Local Government Act, 1929. The scheme has worked smoothly, and I think the officers of the Ministry of Transport deserve great credit, and I am sure they would acknowledge the willing co-operation they have received from the officers of the railway companies and others who cooperated in order that the scheme should be effectively administered in accordance with the intentions of the Statute. It is no part of my duty to defend or criticise the Statute. Unlike my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, I was not a Member of the last Parliament. I have never sat in opposition in any Parliament, and, therefore, I have nothing to answer for. My record is a blameless one. Nothing said in opposition can be quoted against me. May it ever be so. I am not concerned with defending or criticising the system of de-rating and rebates and so on. The Act was passed, and we have to administer it as we find it.

Certain figures have been requested as to the actual rebates that have been made. The latest information available is substantially in correspondence with the predictions that were made by the late Minister of Transport, and the Committee will be delighted, as I am sure will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman himself, to hear that it has worked out very much in accordance with the statistical predictions of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am sure that will be accounted to his credit by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. The latest information available shows that there were allowed under the scheme rebates averaging approximately as follows: Agricultural traffics, except livestock and milk, 1s. 2¼d. a ton; exported coal, 7½d. a ton; coal for iron or steel works, 9.6d.; other selected traffics, 4.6d. Now I will indicate the prophecies that were made. In a Debate on 24th July, 1928, on unemployment, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer said the relief would amount to 7½d. per ton on export coal, and 10½d. per ton on coal for iron and steel works. On 1st February, 1929, when the Local Government Bill was being considered in Committee, the late President of the Board of Trade stated that the relief on coal would be anything from 7d. to 9d. per ton. It will be seen that these estimates were generally, if not exactly, realised.

I gave figures which I thought were accurate showing that it had been successful in stimulating the export of coal and coal for bunkers. I wanted to know whether the hon. Gentleman had any information to show that this anticipatory scheme had helped industrial and agricultural traffics.

I am sorry I did not come prepared to deal with that point, which possibly would be more properly put to the President of the Board of Trade. There was a point put to the Financial Secretary as to the date when the £100,000 was paid into the appropriate account from the Civil Contingencies Fund. The date was 16th December, 1929, when the whole of the £100,000 was paid over. I do not think I need deal with the point raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood). It was a speech in defence of consistency when in and out of office. Consistency is a desirable thing, but, from what I have seen of the right hon. Gentleman, I should not choose him as a model of consistency. He frequently puts questions in opposition pressing Ministers to do things which he steadily refused to do when in office. But that is the ordinary by-play of debate which we need not be serious about.

The Minister has given the amount of relief on coal. Can he tell us whether it has had any definite effect in increasing the amount raised for export, and can he state the proportions in which this £100,000 is spent as between coal and agricultural produce and other forms of food?

I am sorry I cannot state that.

The hon. Gentleman said that the relief accorded to agricultural freights was 1s. 2¼d. a ton, ex- cluding milk and livestock. Can he tell us what was the relief per ton on milk and livestock? Those are two very important traffics which were entitled to rebates under the scheme, and I do not understand why he specifically excluded them.

The exact comparative figures could not be given at that point in that form, but the particulars as to milk and livestock are as follow: There was a rebate of 10 per cent. off the carriage charges on livestock conveyed by freight trains, and the sum amounted to £141,000. As regards milk, rebates were allowed on 180,000,000 gallons, and the average rebate was equivalent to 14d. per gallon.

Can the hon. Gentleman tell us what the agricultural industry has received altogether in rebates as the result of the working of the scheme up to 30th September last? If we knew the amount of tonnage carried, we could do the sum ourselves from the figures he has given, but I cannot help feeling that he must have the information, and it would be a convenience to the Committee if he could tell us.

I cannot give it in money values. The figures apparently are not recorded. Of agricultural selected traffics, except livestock and milk, the tonnage was 5,948,907, and the rebate per ton was 14.27d. on the average. The figures can be arrived at by multiplying the tonnage by the amount.

I think it is a little unfortunate that the hon. Gentleman did not make a full statement in that respect both in regard to agriculture and to the heavy industries. My right hon. Friend gave us the figures about coal and they have not been challenged. It would have been very much for the convenience of the Committee to know in round figures what the relief for these great industries for which it was designed amounted to. Perhaps after I have had an opportunity of reading the hon. Gentleman's speech in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow, and if I have not, by the aid of multiplication, been able to extract all the information which I want in that respect, he will allow me to put down some questions, which I am sure he will be able to answer.

Hon. Members will find this Supplementary Estimate dealt with in pages 18 and 19 of the larger of the two White Papers on Supplementary Estimates. This Supplementary Estimate, which is one of £100,000, is due to the extension and speeding-up by the present Government of the Forestry programme. Forestry, unlike the subject which formed the discussion which has just been completed, has never been a controversial subject. All parties in the House have approved of expenditure on forestry, and it has only been a question of the amount and of the extension of the work which is taking place. The forestry work started some years ago, and an arrangement was made for a number of years. In July, 1928, the late Government sketched out a programme for the following decade from 1929 to 1938, and they proposed to spend over that period of 10 years a sum of £5,500,000, and they expected to be able to afforest 225,000 acres, replant 12,000 acres of woodland, and provide holdings amounting altogether to 1,500. In September of last year, after the present Government came into office, it was decided to extend and to speed up this programme, and to spend, instead of £5,500,000 over 10 years, £9,000,000 over 10 years, and they think that they will be able, on that programme, to plant 330,000 acres as against 225,000, to replant 23,000 acres of woodland as against 12,000 acres, and to provide 3,000 holdings in place of 1,500.

This programme was estimated to involve an additional expenditure of £126,000 in the course of the current financial year. The reason why only £100,000 is being asked for in this Supplementary Estimate is, that of the £126,000, £26,000 is available from the following source. When the Estimates for the current year were drawn up, it was anticipated that there would be a certain sum over—in this particular fund—which has not to be surrendered to the Treasury. The balance actually in hand on the 31st March last was £26,000 more than was anticipated. Therefore, we have not had to come to this Committee to ask for a vote of £126,000, but only for £100,000. I would only say this for the further information of the Committee. Of the additional sum required, £22,000, in round figures, will be spent in wages, and £48,000 in providing holdings. It is anticipated that we shall provide 225 holdings in the current year in place of 137 as was estimated. No doubt there will be a few other points upon which hon. Members will require information, and as far as it is in my power, I shall be glad to answer them.

Will the hon. Gentleman inform the Committee how many extra persons will be employed?

The extra amount in wages is £22,000.

The hon. Gentleman has given the extra amount in wages. Can he tell the Committee what is the extra number of persons now employed?

The original Estimate was for £222,000 and the new Estimate is for £245,000. It is a gradual increase. We hope gradually to increase the number of employés from 3,500 in the winter and 2,700 in the summer to 6,700 in the winter and 5,200 in the summer, and in addition to settle some 2,500 additional families in holdings.

Will the hon. Gentleman give the difference in the numbers employed, because I do not think that his explanation is very clear? I wish to know before I speak on the subject exactly how the matter stands. What is the difference to-day between the numbers employed by the Forestry Commission and those employed at this time last year or when the Government came into office or whatever date is convenient?

I will look into that matter and see what is the actual figure. I understand that what the Noble Lord wants is the number employed at the present moment as against the number employed when the Government came into office. I will endeavour to obtain that information.

The hon. Member spoke of increased operations, and we would like to know the actual increase in employment which these operations involve.

I understand that the answer is 450 in the course of the last 12 months.

I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £100.

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's remarks in presenting this Supplementary Estimate will satisfy this Committee that he has given a sufficiently clear explanation as to why the money is required. As a member of the old Estimates Committee of which the hon. Gentleman was at one time a very distinguished member, I do not think that he can possibly have read the report furnished to the Committee on the Forestry Commission which was published last Session. The question of the Forestry Commission was gone into in April last and a great many points with which the hon. Gentleman dealt came out in evidence there. Anyone who has any knowledge of the subject realises that it is highly desirable, in view of the vacant spaces of this country and the bad system of woodland cultivation, that there should be some improvement, but at the same time I cannot help thinking that forestry improvement is very often, what I might call, a rich man's luxury. This consideration applies equally to a country. When a country has plenty of money, it may be desirable to expend it in this direction, but when times are hard the results, both with regard to the reduction of unemployment and the economic returns, are such that it makes one wonder whether it is desirable to extend the operations dealt with by this Vote.

The hon. Gentleman gave several figures, and I am afraid that I shall have to bother the Committee with a few more, in order to prove the case which I hope to make. Information was put before the Estimates Committee last year that the Government had purchased an area of 558,000 acres, of which 342,000 acres were plantable, leaving a balance of 216,000 acres which were not plantable. Since 1920 down to the beginning of the present forestry year, I understand that 125,000 acres had been planted, and the Commission therefore had in hand no fewer than 217,000 plantable acres. I want to ask the hon. Gentleman why, if he has 217,000 plantable acres, in times of financial stringency, he wants to buy a further £45,000 worth. I want to know how many more deer forests have been bought. One of the favourite hobbies of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland in the past had been to suggest a great many people could be placed on to the deer forests of Scotland, and also that they could be made to produce timber. We went into that matter very carefully in the Committee, and we had the position clearly stated in evidence. I will read it:

"The Commission spent a substantial amount of money in acquiring deer forests in Scotland for afforestation. Your Committee were informed that the experiment has so far proved unsuccessful and unremunerative. Speaking generally, less than 15 per cent. of the land can be classed as plantable and even this entails a disproportionate cost in fencing, and the results are doubtful."

That brings me to the point of asking the hon. Gentleman if he will give us some details of how much of this extra sum of £45,400 represents the purchase of deer forests, and also why it is necessary to spend any money at all when they have over 200,000 acres in hand available for planting. I think that, in dealing with an extra sum of £100,000, we ought to give some consideration to the return the country may get from its investment. This is not a charitable business at all, but is intended to be run as a commercial proposition. When one goes into the details of the case, the commercial aspect seems to be lamentably absent. The Forestry Commission are mixing up a business deal with such things as research and education, and they estimate the return on the capital expended only on the money actually employed in the planting of trees. They wash out the whole of the other expenditure altogether, and in their estimate they calculate that at the end of the operation the country will get a return of 3.7 per cent. on the money which has been expended. That return is only on 60 per cent. of the gross expenditure. On 40 per cent. of the total cost there will be no return, or practically no return, on the amount of money that the State has paid in order to encourage the planting of trees. The Financial Secretary alluded to the question of employment, and wanted us to be attracted by the prospect of a large increase in the number of people to be employed on these forestry undertakings. One thing that came out very clearly was that, so far as employment is concerned, curious as it may seem, forestry operations are extremely disappointing. I understand that the average number employed on Government forestry operations has been about 3,000, and that number has been employed only in the first two years of planting operations. After two years the number of men who are or will be employed amounts to only 1 per cent. per 100 acres. Without touching on policy, it does seem to me rather unwise to be spending an extra £100,000 this year when you are not really benefiting the situation of the country with regard to employment.

I pass to Sub-head L. The revised Estimate for cottages and out-buildings &c. for forest workers' holdings amounts to £130,000, an increase of £48,000 over the original Estimate. I understand that in April last some 537 holdings had been completed, and 266 were in progress. I should like the Financial Secretary to give us some idea of the number of holdings which are completed now, how many are contemplated and what is the cost of these holdings, on the average. It is all very well to give us an Estimate of this kind, but it practically means asking for a signature to a blank cheque, when we are not told the full facts as to numbers and cost. Before we agree to this Vote, a more detailed statement ought to be made by someone representing the Government. In nearly all Estimates there is an Appropriation-in-Aid. Not one word is mentioned in this Supplementary Estimate about an Appropriation-in-Aid.

There is none.

There must be.

There is none on the Paper.

I am asking why there is no mention of an Appropriation-in-Aid.

The hon. and gallant Member may ask a question, but he cannot debate it.

On a point of Order. It has been held that when there is no Appropriation-in-Aid in a Vote an hon. Member is entitled to ask the reason. That was all that my hon. and gallant Friend was doing. Am I to understand that he is out of order in referring to the fact that there is no Appropriation-in-Aid on this Supplementary Estimate?

He can ask a question, but he cannot discuss the matter by anticipation. If there is no Appropriation-in-Aid, there can be no discussion on it.

May I ask if there is any Appropriation-in-Aid? Surely, in connection with the deer forests rents are being received for fishing &c. It is obvious that, unless the Government in their great generosity are handing out thousands of acres to people for stalking and other purposes, there must be Appropriations-in-Aid, and very considerable ones. I want to know what rents have been received for grouse shooting, stalking and fishing?

In the main Estimate there are no Appropriations-in-Aid, but there are receipts.

They are the same thing.

They are exactly the same thing as Appropriations-in-Aid. Receipts are Appropriations-in-Aid.

I do not think there can be Appropriations-in-Aid.

At any rate, there are receipts, and I think the receipts will be large, and I should like to know how much they amount to annually, and what receipts are expected to be got from this increased expenditure. The Government ought to take some notice of the work which unfortunate Members do on the Estimates Committee. Having regard to the time that Members and permanent officials devote to the work of the Estimates Committee, it seems to me that if Ministers are not going to take the trouble to read the Report of the Committee when it is presented, we on the Estimates Committee are wasting our time just as the Government are wasting money at the present time. For these reasons, I move to reduce the Vote by £100.

The fact that the discussion of Supplementary Estimates does not create much interest outside the House ought not to obscure the fact that we are in this Vote discussing, and it is one of the few opportunities that we have of discussing, what ought to be a very important principle of national activity. I regret very much that it is not possible to get a rather more clear cut issue on this Supplementary Estimate. We know the views of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland about the Government having complete charge of forestry operations. I do not say that I share his views, but it is obvious that the Government, in view of the sum of money that we are asked to vote on this Supplementary Estimate and the amount involved in the Forestry Estimates generally, must assume full responsibility for answering questions in this House. The position, as I understand it, is that they delegate powers to the Forestry Commission—anything that I say must not be taken as reflecting in the slightest degree upon the conduct of affairs by the Forestry Commission—but it is obvious that when we have to vote these sums of money, the Government must come prepared to answer every question that is put to them on the subject.

Yes, as far as possible.

In other words, we on this Committee, within the limits imposed by the Rules of Order, are entitled on this Vote to put a catechism in respect of the Vote as if we were doing it on a Vote for which the Government have full responsibility, without having delegated their authority.

Hear, hear!

I am glad to have that assurance. I want to put a few questions, not necessarily of a hostile character. I am glad that my hon. and gallant Friend has moved the reduction of the Vote, in order to call attention to the fact that, apparently, many things to which attention has been called by the Estimates Committee have been ignored by the Government. Under the first Subhead of the Vote there is a provision for the acquisitions of land, buildings and standing timber by purchase, amounting to £45,000. I want to say a few words about the acquisition of standing timber. I want to ask the representatives of the Government whether steps are taken to market this timber in the proper way, and whether there is any liaison between the officers of the Forestry Commission when they have timber to market and private individuals who are equally concerned in the marketing of timber. The reason why I ask this question is, as everyone familiar with this subject is aware, that one of the great difficulties in connection with the British grown timber industry is to get a proper market for home grown timber. Owing to certain matters which I cannot go into now, foreign grown timber is much more easily marketed than home grown timber.

8.0 p.m.

The Forestry Commission must have today, or will have in future, a far larger amount of timber to market than any private individual, and here is a great opportunity for steps to be taken to bring about proper marketing methods. Assuming that the land to be purchased under this Sub-head contains timber which is ripe for marketing and which they desire to cut, in order that they may start planting operations, will any steps be taken by them to notify other owners of timber in the neighbourhood, will any attempt be made to sell the timber as a whole in that area and what will be the method by which the timber will be disposed of? If, through the agency of the Forestry Commission, a better system for marketing timber can be brought about and a better price for home grown timber can be secured, a great benefit will be conferred upon forestry in this country. In many parts of the country, including that with which I am familiar in Sussex, Surrey and the southern counties generally, there are lands which have been acquired by the Forestry Commission, to which this Vote refers, on which there are coppices. In connection with these coppice lands there have been for generations a number of subsidiary industries, many of which are suffering from depression for various reasons, foreign competition and so on. There is hoop making, there is the making of what is known as chestnut paling, splitting up chestnut wood and making it into fencing, which is one of the few of these subsidiary woodland industries which is not depressed to-day; there is the provision of wood for walking sticks, faggots for brick making, and the provision of a large and growing quatity of wood for gardens in the suburbs for the purposes of trellis work, bean sticks, etc. These subsidiary trades of the woodland industry in the old days were valuable, but to-day they are less valuable. Are steps being taken by the Forestry Commission, prior to the coppice land being planted, to carry on these trades to which I have referred? That question is pertinent, because, as has been pointed out by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Lieut.-Colonel Spender-Clay), the Forestry Commission have purchased a very large area of land which they have not yet planted, and in many parts of the counties to which I have referred these trades have been carried on for a long time past, and there is no reason why they should not be carried on to-day if they can be made profitable. One of the difficulties is to get labour. Another is the difficulty of getting a market, and here comes in the proposal, which I have already made, that the Government should pay attention to the question of marketing these forest products.

As those hon. Members of the Committee who have studied the subject are aware, a great deal of the success or failure of afforestation in this country in the future depends upon whether or not it is possible to keep the trees free from disease. There is a disease which has the unpleasant name of the larch canker disease, which has been responsible for destroying hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of trees in other countries, and in the comparatively limited forest area of this country also it has done a great deal of mischief. I suppose the Forestry Commission's officers are working in full co-operation with the authorities at Kew, and that valuable information is being gained each year. There are other diseases to which I might refer, such as the disease which affects the oak. A great deal of damage is done by the caterpillar moth, and I should like to know whether the research part of the work is being increased and is allowed for under this Vote.

There is a very important matter here, which was hardly referred to by the Financial Secretary, and that is the question of forestry workers' holdings. We have been told there is going to be a great extension of the provision of holdings for forestry workers and that it is being allowed for under one of these subheads. I should like to know how that is progressing. As I understand the situation, the idea is to provide a house and a holding of something like five acres, which is not intended to support the forestry worker, but is meant to assist him during the period of the year when he will not be fully employed by the Forestry Commission, and that even when he is employed by the Commission he will have a holding on which he can keep a cow or a goat, have a large garden, and so on. I think everyone is in favour of that principle, but we are entitled to know whether it is being carried out on reasonably economic lines; that is to say, what is the cost of acquiring and equipping these holdings, and what is the rent received for them when they have been so provided and equipped.

I should like to know whether the people employed on these holdings are mainly from agricultural districts or whether they are unemployed people from the towns. In the part of England with which I am familiar, on the borders of Sussex and Surrey, there has been a considerable acquisition of land by the Forestry Commission in the last few years, and I think that each year, at any rate till this year, they have been adding to those areas, but, so far as I know, no forestry workers' holdings have yet been created on them, and I should like to ask a specific question on that point. Is it intended to bring unemployed men from the towns or from the Government's training camps, or are these holdings intended for local people? My own view is, again to speak of the area held by the Commission which has come under my personal observation, that it would be possible to employ considerably more than are employed now, and so to accelerate the process of afforestation. I make myself responsible for that opinion because I know of one case in particular where the Forestry Commission have had some land in their occupation for a considerable period, and nothing has been done there. It is impossible, or rather difficult, to get more local labour—most of the local labour is fully employed—and would it not be possible to have half a dozen or a dozen holdings and bring men there who have been trained in these training camps to do this sort of work? Though it is only a small matter, I think that is a suggestion worth consideration.

Further, I should like to ask what wages are being paid, and I think that is rather important. I think it was suggested at question time that these men should be paid higher wages than the prevailing agricultural rates of wages. Is it suggested that the Government could pay uneconomic wages? [An HON. MEMBER: "A living wage."] Is it suggested that they should pay a living wage, quite apart from whether it is an economic wage? We all know that the question of what constitutes a living wage is one that is very difficult to decide, but I think hon. Members opposite would be rather loath to suggest that a living wage should be less than 50s. or 60s. a week, whereas the Forestry Commission are paying between 30s. and 40s. I think, therefore, that the views of the Government on this question would be of some interest. My own view is that the Government should not pay less than private individuals are paying, and perhaps that they should give slightly better wages, and if you are going to pay forestry workers a much larger sum of money than the prevailing rates for agricultural work, or for forestry work by private individuals, I think we are entitled to ask about the £ s. d. of the transaction and to know how far those figures will affect the very moderate return which it has been estimated the Forestry Vote will bring back to the taxpayer eventually.

That is only a partial estimate. The Noble Lord knows very well that it takes no account of the saving to the nation in unemployment benefit, Poor Law benefit, and so on.

This is a very interesting point. What are the numbers employed? I wanted to know what the actual reduction in unemployment was that this Vote brought about, and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury was unable to tell me. He was unable to tell me the numbers employed and how they compared with the figures of a year ago.

I gave the Noble Lord that information. I told him that the increase now, as compared with a year ago, was 450.

If it is only 450 extra men employed, I am afraid the Government are not making a very great inroad on an unemployment aggregate of something over 1,500,000.

It affects the financial results at the end of the season.

You have to consider the effect on the finances of the country and the effect on the unemployment position, and I say that the effect on the unemployment position is negligible. According to the hon. Gentleman, there are 450 extra men employed, and if that is all the Labour party can do, their schemes in this regard are as poor as in every other regard.

If the effect on unemployment is negligible, so is the effect of the increased Estimate.

It is a matter of proportion.

The proportion remains the same whether it is 450 or 4,500.

From the point of view of unemployment, 450 more men are employed. Assuming that the Commission's operations are greatly extended and, instead of 450, some 4,000 or 400,000 extra are employed, the economic effect of the wages becomes of the highest importance. I am not arguing against the wages, but asking for information, and I want to know whether there is any means of finding out the cost per man year, to use the fashionable phrase, of this labour, which is not employed throughout the year.

They have not got half as long a holiday as the Duke of Westminster.

It is no good the hon. Member being sarcastic or showing indignation. Before hon. Members opposite can convince the country of the value of schemes which are being carried out by the Government, they have got to prove whether or not they are economic, and no one knows that better than the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I want to know what are the wages paid. [Interruption.] It is no good being impatient. I do not mean that the Government are impatient, but their followers behind them, who are so anxious to be on the Front Bench and to take their place and answer for them.

God help them if I was on the Front Bench!

I rather agree, and I may go further, and say, "God help the House." But I am sure the Under-Secretary will give me an answer as to the prevailing wages and as to the actual increase in employment that is likely to result from this work. Then I want to ask what is the exact acreage in the hands of the Forestry Commission to-day which has not yet been planted, and how much of it is likely to be planted under this Vote. Further, will he answer the point, put by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ton-bridge, as to why in this Vote there are not shown any receipts or Appopriations-in-Aid? I have referred to the subsidiary industries which are being carried on in the Forestry Commission's areas, and I should like to know where they are accounted for and whether they will be accounted for in the main Estimate. I assume that the roads referred to in the Estimate are mainly those being made in Scotland and Wales, because in the South and West and Midlands of England no roads are required for afforestation operations. I also assume that repairs and renewals to buildings refer to the buildings of forestry holders, or do they refer to the buildings which the Commission use for its own purposes?

I desire to put a point in connection with this Vote that perhaps has not been raised in this House before except in a question, but before dealing with it may I refer to the remarks of the Noble Earl who has just spoken. Those engaged by the Forestry Commission, when they read his speech, will wonder whether he has any knowledge of the work which is being done by the Commission under The present Government. The question as to whether the wages paid are economic or uneconomic has been raised before, but the people in my Division who are working close to my own residence consider that it certainly is not a living wage. On this point I desire to ask whether the Forestry Commission are prepared to adopt the policy of other Departments, that is, of allowing a week's holiday to their employés with pay. As the hon. Member for Burslem (Mr. MacLaren) has said, they do not get half as long holidays as the Duke of Westminster, and without a honeymoon thrown in. The Forestry Commission has a very large estate in the North of England called the Chopwell Woods. For years people living in the district have been allowed to make use of certain bridle paths, but during the last two years the Commissioners have thought fit to prevent them traversing these paths, although they have allowed representatives of the class of hon. Members opposite to make use of them when they are enjoying themselves fox hunting. The Forestry Commission should at least deal fairly with both sides. Either the people of the district who have used these bridle paths from time immemorial should be allowed to traverse them or fox hunting should cease.

Some two years ago a question was asked in this House on this matter, and the reply of the hon. Member who then represented the Forestry Commission was that fox hunters could at least find their way through the woods while the people were not able to keep to the paths. In regard to lands under their jurisdiction the Commissioners should see that fair treatment is meted out all round. If the people of the district are not allowed to travel these paths then fox hunting should cease. It is certainly not an economic industry. No wages are paid. I would also suggest to the Forestry Commission that they ought to provide better dwellings and better facilities for their employés who are transferred into other areas; that they should erect up-to-date dwellings for them. There is no doubt that the work of the Forestry Commission should be developed to a larger extent, though the Noble Lord is apparently unaware that under the short regime of the present Government the workers under the Forestry Commission are much more satisfied by the way their claims have been met than they were under the last administration.

This Estimate is very welcome to some of us on these benches. That is not only because forestry is an interesting trade, and a fascinating trade, or because it has a special interest by reason of the fact that we are trying slowly and painfully to build up a new and vital industry. Hon. Members like myself who sit for agricultural constituencies have not yet been able to say one word in debate about the things which most concern us, and we welcome this opportunity on this Vote of getting as near as we can to the great industry of agriculture. Forestry is an allied trade to farming, and in any true policy for getting the best out of the land we should see a great deal more afforestation going on than is the case at the present moment. In the opinion of hon. Members on the Liberal benches there is not sufficient afforestation going on in the country. Before the late administration died of sleepy sickness they made a death bed repentance of a kind and said that the tenants who should follow them should at least plant a few more acres than they themselves had planted. The tenants who succeeded them have incurred a heavier liability, and it is that liability, or a portion of it, which we are now discussing in this Estimate.

It would not be fitting for an hon. Member in his first speech, or even just for any hon. Member in any speech, to blame the Forestry Commission for the shortcoming. The Forestry Commission can only do as much as is possible with the limited money put at their disposal, and I very much doubt whether any body of men could get better value than the Forestry Commission. During the last Parliament hon. Members opposite used to denounce the constitution of the Commission. They said it was typical of the wicked Coalition Government which set it up and took the control of our timber reserves out of the hands of Parliament. In those days I was younger than I am now and, if possible, more innocent, but I should have thought hon. Members opposite would not have complained very much that they were taken out of the control of the last Parliament. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the Forestry Commission was set up, and in the past 10 or 11 years it has done very valuable work in starting a new industry and putting it on its feet. In fact, it did so well that even the last administration which was disposed to economy in this direction, persuaded the House to grant them another £2,000,000, and now the present Government have persuaded this House to grant them another £4,500,000. But in the opinion of those who sit on these benches even that extended programme is not enough.

The last census of woodland, taken in 1924, showed that although we have 3,000,000 acres of woods in this country less than half were now being used to increase the timber wealth of this country. That was due to the fact that they were owned, nine-tenths, privately. Landlords who own estates containing timber have had to cut and sell it in order to meet heavy taxation and Death Duties. To-day they have not sufficient money to afford the outlay upon replanting— [HON. MEMBERS: "The War!"] The War, of course. Even the very generous grant which has been offered by the Forestry Commission has not persuaded sufficient private landlords to sink their money in an investment which can give a return only after a very long period. I dare say hon. Members know that some landlords still continue to-day to plant trees because, as they say, "they want to do their duty by the estate." They go on planting as their fathers planted before them, although many of them realise that hon. Gentlemen now on the Government side will never allow their sons to profit by it. The truth is that the private landowner cannot any longer undertake this national service, and that unless the State steps in and steps in vigorously forestry in this country is likely to perish.

I do not believe that the 23,000 acres which the Forestry Commissioners are now to plant yearly, rising after a time to even 44,000 acres yearly, is going to meet the need. We shall be told, and indeed have been told in this House, that there is more planting going on in this country now than in any other country in the world. Well there may be, for we have a greater leeway to make up. Against our 3,000,000 acres of timber here, one half of which is not economic, Germany has 36,000,000 acres, France 26,000,000 acres, and I believe that Sweden has something like 55,000,000 acres. In those countries there are many thousands of men employed on the forest holdings and in the allied industries. In this country at the moment we have only something like 3,000 men employed by the Commission that is directed by the State, although we are told that in time 7,000 will be employed. Yet this is a time when it is estimated that for every 100 acres that is planted seven men are given employment for a whole year, and that in the cost of planting one acre £7 goes directly in wages. If we had a real programme of afforestation such as we need, thousands of men would be receiving wages, thousands of new acres would be planted and thousands of families would have their purchasing power raised. That is a policy of many thinking Members on the Labour benches, and I can assure the Committee that it is the policy of many Members on the Liberal benches too.

When I looked up the report of the Debate held in this House in March, 1927, I was very interested to read what the hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) said. I hope that he still means it. He was supported in his speech by the present First Commissioner of Works and the Minister of Agriculture. I hope that they are making the same admirable speeches in the Cabinet as they made in this House at that time. The hon. Member for West Stirling made a very interesting calculation, that at the end of 60 years you could recover £45 upon every acre planted, that you could employ a great number of men at 40s. a week and save the State £l a week in respect of each one, and that at the end of the period you would be able to clear a huge profit. That seems to be a very reasonable calculation and a very sound argument; at least on that occasion no one contradicted the hon. Member. But if the argument was sound on that occasion, how much more sound is it today when the Government, with the collaboration of the Liberals, have raised the unemployment benefit even higher than it was at that time?

It is not only a matter of sound business; it is a matter of national necessity because, as those who are interested in forestry know, a world timber famine is already in view. Of course this country is in exactly the same position as it always has been in with relation to what is grown on the land: we are utterly dependent on the foreigner. We import 90 per cent. of the timber that we use, and we pay an annual bill to the foreigner of something over £50,000,000. In Wales alone we import the yield of 20,000 acres for our pit props. They come from Gascony and the Baltic, and we could grow the lot upon our own hillsides. In 30 years time we shall be faced with a real shortage. It is only if we start now to grow that timber that we shall be in a position to meet the demand. If we do not do it now it will be too late, and we shall be faced in this country with steadily rising prices in the timber market. I can only hope that, for the sake of our enlightenment, Lord Beaver-brook has made ample provision for his wood pulp. We should very much resent having the price of the true gospel raised every morning.

In my opinion the Forestry Commission is not the most suitable body for dealing with a problem of this magnitude. It is certain that continuity is very necessary in a business of this kind, where you are dealing with slow growth and a very slow turnover of capital. But it is possible to have too much of continuity. It is often said that it is not right that a great and vital industry should be left to the mercy of whatever Government happens to be in power at the moment. But if you push continuity to its conclusion you are going to arrive at a very much worse position. You are merely going to say that the end of every 10 years' programame is the only time when the Government is to interfere in the activities of the Commission; you are going to say that only at the end of the tenth year is this House to be able to expedite the growing of timber in this country. That would be a very good idea if every 10 years you could guarantee that there would be a Liberal Government or a Labour Government in power. But what if you have not that guarantee? What if you have a Conservative Government in power at the end of the next period? That is a misfortune which may fall upon this country, and it would mean the putting of afforestation into a strait-jacket for another ten years.

It seems to me very unsatisfactory that the Forestry Commission should be in charge of a great national programme of this kind. It is unsatisfactory for many reasons. It is unsatisfactory because we in this House have no responsible Minister at whom we can get when we want redress, and that is very necessary in the internal conditions of the industry. Take wages, a matter which has been raised to-day. What do you find? Here you have an industry, a great State industry, with all the defects of nationalisation and none of its advantages, and you have the State paying its skilled workers the same miserable pittance as is paid to the privately-employed labourer on the farm. Surely the State should lead the way and not drag behind in the wake of the farmer. The wage that the farm labourer gets is a national disgrace. The farmer will tell you so himself, and will say that if he could only raise the wage he would, but that it is the duty of the State to help him to raise it. That is a principle to which many Members of this House would subscribe. But what about the State which is hiding behind the distresses of the farmer. I should say that it is a piece of despicable meanness for the State to pay the same miserable pittance to its workers as the lowest-paid worker on the land is receiving to-day.

You have foremen in the woods in charge of thousands and thousands of pounds' worth of national wealth earning 50s. a week. I know that piece-workers sometimes earn £3, and I have known men earn less than 30s. when private owners were paying a flat rate of 50s. to their timber fellers for the same work. Then there is the question of tools. I know that it has been denied by the forest authorities that these men still have to provide their own tools. The cost of these tools is considerable. They have to provide an axe, very often two kinds of saw, a cross-cut and a fiddle, a hacker, a billhook, spades, and, if there is any fencing to be done, a brace and bit; and the cost of these tools runs up to something like 50s. or £3. I know from my own experience that men in the woods who are employed by the Commission are to-day still required to provide their own tools. It seems to me that that is a wrong principle. An agricultural labourer is not required to provide his own tools, and a forest worker ought not to be required to do so. These forest workers suffer from another disability, and that is in respect of their insurance. Because the State will not pay its quota of the insurance, the workmen do not pay their quota, and, when these men leave their jobs, they cannot claim any kind of unemployment benefit. I know that unem- ployment in the woods is rare, but I have known cases of men being "stood off" for considerable periods during slack times, and forest workers are only guaranteed 150 days' work in the year.

Then there is the question of time lost in the woods. I believe that men no longer lose wages in respect of time wasted through wet weather, but in some parts of the Crown woods men are required to stay out in the woods on wet days until 3 o'clock in the afternoon in order to get their wages. There are some shelters in the nurseries, but very few in the woods, and the men stand about smoking and talking and keeping as dry as they can. They generally go home wet through, and have to dry their clothes at what is probably the only fire in the cottage, and then they must be out again in the woods at 6 o'clock in the morning. That is a condition of things which might be altered. In regard to forest holdings, it has been said that they are very dear, but I believe it will be shown that they are very cheap. They are let to the people who settle in those holdings at about 7s. a week, which seems to be a very fair return on an outlay of about £400. I should like to know if any calculation has been made of the cost of building timber houses on a standardised plan, if extensive building of that kind were carried out. I have seen some timber-built houses in Herefordshire which were warm and comfortable. They were built of three-inch elm upon a concrete bed, and were built much more cheaply than they could have been built of stone or brick. It seems to me that if this question were investigated it might be found possible to bring the rents of forest holdings even lower than they are.

Let me return to my main point. The Government need not be bound by the very modest programme which the Forestry Commission has laid down, or indeed which they laid down for themselves at the beginning of the year. I am convinced that there is a great majority in the House of Commons who believe that it is time that the people of England took in hand the woods and forests of England. It is time that we looked to our own woods—not only to the trees which we need for timber, not only to the soft woods which are used in industry, but also to the hard-wood trees like the elms and the great oaks, which are growing old to-day while there are no saplings round about them to take their place as the giants of the forest. Those, above all, are the trees which the State should plant and tend and care for, because they will only come to maturity and beauty long after we in this House of Commons and our Forestry Commissions and our Governments have been forgotten. We are only tenants in this great estate of England, and we ought to preserve and increase the heritage of our woods for those who come after us.

It is with pleasure that I rise to reply to some of the points raised in this discussion because it gives me the opportunity of congratulating the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Owen) upon a very excellent maiden effort in this Assembly. We have been accustomed, more or less frequently, to listen to the Father of the House on these occasions; but, if the hon. Member for Hereford will permit me to use the term, we have been exceedingly pleased and interested this evening to listen to one who is, I believe, the baby of the House. I think I am expressing the views of all hon. Members present when I say that if the speech which we have just heard represents his first effort as a young Member, there will be a desire on all sides of the Committee to hear him again on other subjects. May I answer some of the questions which he raised in that very interesting speech? In the first place, his claim for an increased programme is one which we welcome on this side and is in happy contrast to the speech of the hon. and gallant Member who initiated this Debate. Then the matter about timber houses has not been overlooked. There has been a certain amount of experiment in this direction, but we have not been able to come to the conclusion that it is possible to build timber houses any more economically than to build the houses which are already being provided.

As regards the point about 150 days work in the year, that is more a matter of theory than of practice. A guarantee is given that not less than 150 days will be provided, but, in fact, those who are definitely engaged in the Commission's service are almost entirely engaged full time. Of course in the planting season a number of extra men are engaged because more labour is required then. Criticism regarding unemployment insurance cannot be levelled against the Forestry Commission because, as I said in reply to a question the other day, that matter has been determined by Parliament. If the forest workers came within the Insurance Acts they would have to be insured whether the Government had any views on the matter or not; but they are classified in that respect the same as agricultural labourers, and are therefore excluded from the Insurance Acts. As regards the cost of the provision of tools the regulation of the Commission is and has been for some time, that all tools are provided with the exception of axes. The reason why axes are not provided is because the men who use them are very largely engaged on piece-work and each man likes to use his own axe because the swinging of the axe enters very largely into the efficiency of his work. But as regards other tools, if they are not being supplied in particular cases it must be due to some oversight, because they are bought in bulk and can be drawn by the workers as required.

On the question of acreage I would like to explain that the acreage in the next year or two will be somewhat below the figure which will ultimately be planted within the present 10 year period. It is not possible suddenly to jump ahead with your programme as it were. The plants have to be prepared generally three years in advance, and for the first part of the 10 year period the acreage is lower than that which will be planted at the end of the period. It is necessary to wait until the requisite plants can be provided in the nurseries for the larger acreage. In that respect I may mention that the amount provided for the first 10 years was £3,500,000. The late Government made arrangements for £5,500,000 for the second 10 years, but the present Government, on coming into office, reviewed the situation and increased that amount to £9,000,000; and I think it will be agreed that £9,000,000 for the second 10 years, compared with £3,500,000 for the first 10 years, represents a considerable advance even though it may fall short of what the hon. Member for Hereford would desire. As time goes on and as land becomes available it may be possible to increase the programme which has already been provided in that respect.

I will deal with one or two questions which have been raised by other speakers. There is the question as to the amount of land that we hold. The total amount of plantable land that has been acquired is 375,000 acres; out of that 150,000 has been planted, leaving 225,000 in hand. The question was raised as to why, with all that land in hand, it is necessary to go on acquiring land. If all the land were in one patch, and if we were dealing with it as a unit, the situation might be different, although I am certain that even then we could not refrain from having to acquire other land in order to carry out our programme. This land, however, is scattered all over the country, and the Forestry Commission, in making their arrangements, have to plant gradually so that the programme extends over a period of years. It is necessary to have supplies coming in year by year, and it is undesirable to develop a policy in regard to forestry which would lead to casual labour. Therefore, the programme is planned on the basis that will give permanent employment as far as possible to the men whom we have in our service. The planting period is roughly 15 years, when the thinning would begin, so that the labour would pass automatically from planting to thinning. That means that, as far as is humanly possible, regular employment is provided for those whom we have engaged in our service.

The question was asked, how many forest holdings have been completed? The number is 670, and 222 are in progress. The average cost is under £600. Another question was, what were the receipts?

I should be glad, before the hon. Gentleman leaves the question of forest holdings, if he will say how many of these holdings are held by people living in the locality, and how many by trainees from depressed areas.

I will come to that point. On the question of receipts, it is not possible to put them in this Estimate because the question does not arise, but the total of receipts from sales of timber is £55,000 per annum. The Noble Lord referred to the marketing of the timber. Most of the marketing is from the old Crown woods. In the plantations which the Commission has been responsible for creating, obviously the timber is not sufficiently advanced—

I understand that the Commission purchased some land in places where the timber is ripe for cut ting, with a view to planting.

The policy of the Commission is not to purchase standing timber if it can be avoided, but sometimes in an estate which is acquired, there is a small part with some timber upon it, and, rather than lose the acquisition of the whole of the estate, we take over the standing timber. That has to be done by the consent of the Treasury, because we are not really supposed to do it. We are supposed to plant timber, and not to acquire it in that way. The means adopted towards marketing the timber depends on the district in which it exists and for what purpose it can be used. The wood suitable for pea sticks and bean sticks, and the chestnut for palings is marketed in the best way possible. The timber is marketed in a way that would bring the best results to the Commission. Sometimes, I believe that it is sold standing, but the policy which we usually adopt is to sell it in the rough.

Is it sold to a Government Department?

I do not recall anything of that description coming before the Commission, and the quantity is too small to enable that sort of thing to be done. It is the intention of the Commission, and it will be their duty as time goes on, to consider the whole question of marketing from the financial and business point of view, but we have not yet reached the stage when the quantity of timber available for sale is of the nature that requires that specific organisation being established. I may say, on behalf of the Commission—and I am speaking as a Commissioner—that they consider it their duty to give serious attention to this matter in order to secure the best results possible for the State on whose behalf they are functioning. A definite work is going on with regard to research. We have a research department in which the diseases that affect trees are investigated, and we are in close consultation and collaboration with the universities which have departments for this work, and whose services we utilise. The question was raised as to who the forest workers' holdings are held by. Up to 12 months ago, they were all held by people in the employ of the Commission. Generally speaking, the policy is to select suitable men who may be available as permanent workers in the service of the Commission, but, following the consideration of the question of transferred labour 12 months ago, a number of miners were transferred, and have been established in forest workers' holdings. I have not the exact number but naturally out of the number involved, it would not be very large. None of the trainees to whom the Noble Lord referred has been transferred, but miners have.

About how many?

I would not like to give a figure.

The number is 83.

Are the Government friendly to transferring more of these men if they are willing to go?

The Forestry Commission, as soon as this question was raised, at once applied themselves to it, and in a few weeks some of these miners had been transferred. They looked upon it with sympathy, but there are practical issues which have to be watched. It is not always easy, when the Commission have people of their own who are waiting for holdings, to put somebody else in, but 83 ex-miners have been placed in holdings. With regard to wages, the Treasury regulations, which very largely govern these, have fixed the rate as being that paid to agricultural workers of the district. Therefore the wage which has been paid to the workers in the forests has been that which has been fixed by the wages board of the area in which they are employed. The net result of that is that the average wage in England is between 31s. and 32s. In Scotland, where there are no wages boards, and where the wage is related in a similar way to the agricultural wage, the figure is 39s.

Recently it was decided to give a shilling increase to all the workers in England and Wales, and an examination by the Commission of the whole question of wages of the workers in their employ is now going on. At the moment, no definite decision has been come to but I think that I am entitled to say that the whole tendency of the examination is from the standpoint of some improvement being made. I think I shall be expressing the general feeling of the Committee when I say that nobody can view with satisfaction the idea of taking the agricultural workers' wages as a standard in this matter. Theirs is a stringency wage which nobody has ever attempted to defend as fair and adequate for the services given, and it is only accepted because the state of agriculture prevents more being paid. I am expressing my own personal opinion here, because I have no right to commit the Commission to anything, especially having regard to the fact that the whole question is now under examination, but I think it is the view of the Committee that, as far as possible, those wages ought to be increased, and the standard ought not to be taken from an industry which is not in a position to give a reasonable return to those whose services it gets. The question of a week's holiday, which was raised by an hon. Member, has not yet been dealt with by the Commission. I suppose that what my hon. Friend has in mind is that if all Government employés are to have a week's holiday, in accordance with the decision recently given, the workers of the Forestry Commission ought to be included. Most probably that will also be considered in the examination which is now taking place.

As far as the Chopwell Woods are concerned, I am afraid I cannot say anything as to the details, but I am certain that it would be the wish of the Forestry Commission to treat all people in the district equally, regardless of class or circumstances. I do not think it would be the policy of the Commission to allow bridle paths to be used by one section of the community and not by another; always, of course, with the proviso that we must take care that no damage is done to young trees which may be planted there. [Interruption.] It may be something more than a bridle path. I think I can say on behalf of the Commission that it is their desire to give as great facilities as possible for access to our woods and forests, possibly equal to the facilities which exist on the Continent. That must, however, be subject to the qualification which I have mentioned, because of the danger of fire, and it may be that certain members of the public will require to be better educated in regard to the danger of throwing down matches, and so on, because great damage may result from any carelessness of that kind. I think I have covered all the points raised, and if there should be any further points possibly the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will be able to deal with them.

I do not think the hon. Member said how much of the extra land purchased was deer forest.

It would be quite impossible for us to say how much deer forest has been acquired, because we do not buy land of any particular character. Some of the land we have bought may have been used as deer forest, but we do not particularly want deer forest land, because deer are not altogether suitable animals to have about where young trees are growing.

I find myself in rather an invidious position in speaking in this Debate, because I am one of the Forestry Commissioners, and it is not my duty, from this side of the House, to add anything to the answers which my hon. Friend has just given from the Treasury Bench. But I have two motives in wishing to speak. One is to try to correct what I regard as an entirely erroneous picture of the work and future aspirations of the Forestry Commission given by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Lieut.-Colonel Spender-Clay); and I also want to make a suggestion to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury which I hope that he and his colleagues will turn over in their spare moments, if they ever have any. With regard to the effort which the Forestry Commission are making to build Up reasonably economic forestry in this country, if we could always be sure when we started on one area of, say, 1,000 acres in a particular spot that in each of the next 15 or 20 years we could get another 1,000 acres adjoining, there would be no need, as there is at present, to buy land in advance. If we are to make the Crown forests economic propositions, we must so arrange the work that, having built up an organisation, we can employ it to the best advantage. Take the case of a forest where a working plan has been devised on the basis of a 60-year rotation. The ideal plan is that one-sixtieth part of the forest shall come in for felling every year and one sixtieth part for replanting, so that eventually the whole forest will be in sixty sections, each section one year older than the last one. By that means one gets the maximum amount of employment and a regularity of output. We cannot always do that, but we are able to make plans, by buying ahead, to enable us to give regular employment, or nearly uniform employment, to the workers in preparing land for planting up to the time when the thinning begins and work of another kind is provided.

It is an interesting fact that as a forest becomes more mature so does the ratio of employment increase. In our most highly organised forests we are able—or we were, the last time I looked at the figures—to employ one whole-time man for every 39 acres of the whole forest, whereas in comparatively new forests it may only be one man for every 150 or 200 acres. As forests get to maturity so employment increases and becomes more regular. I think we may claim that forest workers' holdings have been a tremendous success, and if in every smallholdings scheme there were a definite prospect of an earned wage for the man for part of the year they would have a much better chance of success than they have at present. Some people have asked why we do not create more of them, but it would be uneconomic and futile to make them faster than the rate at which we can provide regular employment. The scheme of the Commission is gradually to build up a regular forest population, who may look to the forests around them for their livelihood and their regular employment, without the prospect that in a few years, when the planting of the new ground is finished, they will have to seek work elsewhere.

Perhaps I may now make a suggestion. I am afraid it is a very unorthodox question that I want to put to the Financial Secretary. Many criticisms have been made to the effect that the work of the Forestry Commissioners is uneconomic in several respects. May I point out that to begin with the Forestry Commissioners have to consider not only the ties and regulations which the Treasury has made, such as the limitation in the amount we can pay for an acre of land, but we have to take into consideration many other things. Our job is to try to make trees grow on land which will grow nothing else, and I think we should show a better financial return if we were allowed to pay more for our land instead of buying land incapable of producing foodstuffs. It is not our job to replace food production with trees, and thus the possibilities of achievement in the matter of forestry are limited by the factor of general national interest.

There is a further limitation. The Forestry Commissioners have embarked upon a tremendous undertaking which must take a number of years before it really brings in any revenue. It is only 10 years since we made our first plantations, and it will be another 40 or 50 years before they come to full maturity. During the whole of that time the State, through the Forestry Commissioners, is investing capital which will have to wait a long time before there is any return upon it, and they are doing all this out of revenue. I think it is simply ludicrous that such should be the case. The State does not even extend to itself the opportunities which it provides for private enterprise in this matter. A year or two ago we set up the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation which provides that when a private owner wants to buy land he can borrow money to the extent of two-thirds of the agricultural value and spread repayment over a period of 60 years, and he can get another loan under the Land Improvement Scheme to pay for the initial cost of planting. He can spread his purchase instalments over 60 years and his planting over 40 years and by the end of that time he has his revenue coming in regularly from the forest.

I think the Treasury should consider whether it might not make its investments go a great deal further by some system of credit instead of insisting that the revenue of each year should pay for the whole of the land acquired. I know that what I have suggested is contrary to Treasury practice, but I believe it would be sound, and I am sure a sound scheme would be welcomed by all parties because it would enable the Commissioners, for money expended every year, to provide so much more in the shape of forest area. Taking the long view, I believe that the planting of these large areas of forest is going to be a sound investment, quite apart from being an insurance in times of emergency. I am tremendously impressed and convinced that we shall have to face a really acute shortage of commercial soft wood timbers before many years have passed which will greatly enhance the value of any steps we take to build up new forests at the present time.

There is only one other matter I wish to bring before the attention of the Committee, and it has been referred to by one speaker and that very indirectly. The hon. Member I refer to asked why pedestrians should not be allowed to wander more freely through the woods and along footpaths through the forests. I hope this Committee will help the Forestry Commissioners to make the public realise how difficult it is to protect our forests from the public. I have in my hand the particulars of destruction by forest fires last year. During the year we had 409 forest fires which destroyed over 4,500 acres of forests. May I point out incidentally that 68 per cent. of those fires occurred in the months of March and April, but the important point is that out of 409 forest fires 149 were definitely traced beyond all doubt to the carelessness of members of the general public. The throwing of matches, cigarette ends, and the like destroy hundreds and thousands of acres of valuable property of this kind. Therefore, it is necessary for the protection of this State investment, which the Forestry Commission is asked to make, that they should make such reasonable regulations as will limit the likelihood of the public destroying this valuable investment by carelessness with matches and things of that kind. Anything that the members of this House can do to assist the Commissioners in protecting this investment will be very welcome and valuable during the few weeks which are immediately in front of us.

I should like to put a point to the Parliamentary Secretary which I think is one of some importance. I think the point I am going to raise ought to have been covered by the previous speaker. My question is whether sub-head E7 includes the sum for the planting of firebelts. The risks we undergo by forest fires have been clearly put before the Committee by the last speaker, and it is possibly a new thing in Great Britain to treat forestry fires as a serious thing. In view of the possibility of a dry summer, and the fact that 4,500 acres of forests were destroyed last year, this question of providing fire-belts is something to which I wish to call the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary. The best method is to provide belts of hard wood—Canadian alder as the hon. Gentleman is probably aware is the best. I am not sure whether the soft wood policy which is being carried out by the Commissioners should not be rather mitigated—[Interruption.]—but it is very largely soft wood to-day. I am quite aware that there is mixed coppice and so on, but every nine or 10 years we have these very dry years in the ordinary rotation, and these appalling fires will occur. I sincerely trust that some money will be included under sub-head E7 for this purpose.

Another question to which I should like to refer, and which was mentioned very briefly by the Parliamentary Secretary, is the question of research. I think that perhaps the Committee do not fully realise how important this question of research is. I would venture to remind the Committee of what was said in the House some little time ago, namely, that for every cubic foot of timber that goes into commerce and industry in Canada, four cubic feet are lost by disease and pests. This, therefore, may be quite the most important of the Forestry Commission's activities, looking at the matter from the commercial point of view, in the future. I should like also to draw the attention of the Financial Secretary to another point. If he could be persuaded to allow the Forestry Commission's planting to be done on a credit basis, as has already been suggested, and as private planters are now allowed to do, we should get several great advantages.

In the first place, the Commission would be allowed to purchase better class land than they are allowed to buy today. To-day, £4 an acre is the limit, and that practically debars them from growing ash, which is about the most remunerative timber that can be planted to-day. If the value is more than £4 an acre, special Treasury sanction has to be obtained, and it is only granted in isolated cases, such as where a block of standing timber has to be taken. If permission were given to spread the planting costs on, I can assure the Financial Secretary, a strictly business basis of credits, they would be enabled to buy better class land, and the same amount of money utilised in that way would enable them to show a very much better financial return in the near future. At present they are practically debarred from buying land that is good enough to grow ash, which, I would venture to remind the Committee, is the one and only timber that has held its price steadily, and is still rising in value to-day. If the Financial Secretary can see his way to consider this suggestion in, shall I say, a favourable frame of mind, I can commend it to him as a very sound investment, which would enable the Forestry Commission to make much greater use of the money which they are now allowed to have, and, therefore, would be of immense benefit to forestry.

I rise to make a very brief reply on one or two of the points that have been raised, because we are getting a little wide of the Supplementary Estimate, and are really discussing a somewhat comprehensive matter of forestry. I have listened with very great interest and attention to the hon. and gallant Member for Henley (Captain It. Henderson), and to the hon. and gallant Member for Eye (Sir G. Courthope), whose great knowledge of this question commands the respect of the Committee. With regard to the Treasury point which they put to me, I can only say that I will give it my very careful attention and consideration. With regard to the question of planting fire belts, I would point out that the planting is not confined to softwoods, but that hardwoods also are planted. With regard to the question of research, the fact that the Commission is in close touch with the Forest Products Research Laboratory will, I think, cover that point, and I would appeal to the Committee now to give us this Estimate. We have had a most interesting and valuable Debate, which has covered a great deal of ground, but, as it is only a Supplementary Estimate, I hope that we may now be allowed to have the Vote.

Although this is only a Supplementary Estimate, quite a number of questions arise on it which have not been touched upon. Such questions, as the hon. Gentleman himself has said, are very interesting and important, and I am sure he will agree with me that every moment of the time which has been spent on this Debate so far has been, well occupied. If I may say so, I entirely disagree with the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. F. Owen), who made a very interesting and eloquent speech, in his statement that the Forestry Commission are not properly constituted for their function. I think that their constitution is a very much better one for their purpose than would be the case if they had Ministers responsible for them to Parliament—

The Noble Lord, I know, will excuse me for interrupting him, but the hon. Member for Hereford was making a maiden speech, and I allowed him to say some things which otherwise he would not have been allowed to say.

I quite understand. I will not follow the hon. Member for Hereford in detail, although, perhaps the Committee will bear with me if I say that he did raise some very big questions. I am sure that in this matter of forestry we all desire to see continuity of policy, and there ought not to be any political issue dividing us. I very much regret that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade spoke so early in the Debate, because I should like to put to him a number of questions, and I think that he is the right person to answer them, and not the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who, if I may say so without any offence, is not an expert on this question, and has not the same technical knowledge as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade has.

With regard to the wages paid to forestry workers, I understood from what the hon. Gentleman said that the Forestry Commission were paying the ordinary agricultural wage of 31s. or 32s., and the hon. Gentleman found great difficulty, as a good trade unionist, in justifying a wage like that for a highly skilled artisan, such as the forestry worker is. If, however, you are going to pay agricultural workers employed by the State higher wages than other agricultural labourers can earn, as a result of the condition of their industry, you will be inflicting a very great injustice upon these men—[HON. MEMBERS: "Which men?"]—the ordinary agricultural labourers. You will be taxing the ordinary agricultural labourer in order to pay the more favoured man higher wages for doing precisely the same job, and I can assure hon. Members opposite that that is the way in which agricultural labourers will look at this question. I am always struck by the way in which the conscience of hon. Members opposite appears to be touched when you can point to a direct responsibility in a matter of this sort, and ask how it is possible to justify the Forestry Commission's not paying higher wages than 32s., but their consciences appear to be entirely unaffected by the fact that the state of the agricultural industry is such that other agricultural labourers cannot get better wages. I hope that, when hon. Gentlemen opposite take steps to remedy the wages of the men working under the Forestry Commission, they will also take steps to enable other agricultural employers to pay their agricultural workers better wages. That is a point on which I cannot enlarge now.

I was very much interested by what the hon. Gentleman said with regard to the 600 holdings which have been established and the 225, I think he said, which are in course of establishment. I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman some questions on that point. I understand that as a matter of policy these holdings are being grouped together in colonies—that they are not isolated, but are organised; and that that is the reason, or one of the reasons—it is not the only reason, no doubt—why this system of small holdings which has been inaugurated by the Forestry Commissioners has been such a signal and outstanding success. Most hon. Members with a knowledge of the matter will agree with me that it has been far the most successful part of the small holdings' movement in the last 15 years. One of the reasons for that is the fact that these holdings are organised in colonies or groups. I wonder if the hon. Gentleman can tell us how many such groups there are, what is the average number of holdings in a group, and what is the average size of the holdings? I know, of course, that the holdings are not uniform in size, and vary according to the nature of the soil, the capacity of the man who has to work it and the amount of land available, but it would be interesting to have an idea of the principles, at any rate, on which the Forestry Commissioners are conducting their small holdings policy. I believe it is the case that they always arrange that one or two of the holders in every colony shall have a very much bigger holding than the rest, in order that they may be able to employ a horse, or a horse and cart, and let out that horse-labour to their fellow-holders.

I am afraid we have covered a very wide field of discussion, but the Noble Lord must remember this is a Supplementary Estimate, and we cannot have a general Debate as on the original Estimate.

Surely I may point out the fact that under Sub-head L there is a Vote of £20,000 which is partly going to be spent in the creation of 3,000 holdings? We are surely entitled to ask the Government for information as to the principles on which these holdings are going to be set up, and what policy they are going to follow? I am not in the least atempting to obstruct, but I do think it is very important that we should draw attention to the work of the small holdings' settlement which is going on under the Forestry Commission, because it has been so signally successful. I want