I want to draw attention to a question closely associated with our foreign policy because it concerns the victims of that policy or, shall we say, our lack of policy and our desertion of the principle of collective security. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) said the other day that the attitude of the Government was equivalent to saying "take your gas masks and go away with them" I would like to suggest that we should take something else besides our gas masks, and that is the thought that while we are enjoying ourselves by sea or mountain there are hundreds of thousands of men and women who are wandering about in the utmost destitution, many of them hiding by day many of them already in the hands of the Gestapo and being beaten up daily in concentration camps and prisons. Our degree of responsibility for their misfortunes varies greatly. For some groups there is a very direct responsibility, and I want particularly to draw the attention of the House to that group of these unhappy people for whom our responsibility is undeniable. I refer to the refugees from Czecho-Slovakia. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton East (Mr. Mander) has said something about it. No one is surely going to deny our responsibility. Only last October the Prime Minister said that His Majesty's Government were profoundly conscious of the great public spirit which the Czecho-Slovakian Government had shown, and he expressed the hope that the guaranteed loan of £30,000,000 would meet with a sypathetic and even generous response.

What has been the measure of our acknowledgment of the debt to the people of Czecho-Slovakia? In October the Government promised a guaranteed loan of £10,000,000, described as an advance to meet urgent needs, and quite obviously intending larger sums later. When it became clear that the new Czech Government was quite unable to resist the Berlin Government, His Majesty's Government rightly became anxious to safeguard anything which might be given to Czechoslovakia, and after long negotiations, occupying four months, the promise of a loan was transmuted into an arrangement by which £4,000,000 was to be a free gift earmarked for the use of refugees outside Czecho - Slovakia. The remaining £6,000,000 was to remain earmarked for the use of refugees who had settled inside Czecho-Slovakia, the understanding being that it was likely to be used in the meantime for such purposes as the construction of roads. The £8,000,000 loan and the £4,000,000 gift were to be for the benefit of refugees.

But by the time that arrangement was made it had become clear that it was merely a matter of months before the mutilated State would pass under the control of Berlin. Only six weeks after the arrangement had been made Hitler's army marched into Prague and there were thousands of people whose only offence was that they had stood up to Henlein. Obviously they could not safely remain within what was called the Protectorate. Several thousands of those people have already crossed the Polish Frontier and are living in Poland, to the great annoyance of the Poles, under threat of being sent back. Some are political refugees and some are Jews. What is to become of these people? It has become clear that the £4,000,000 grant is not sufficient to cover the whole number. The Committee responsible for Czecho-Slovakian refugees in this country has already budgeted for as many as it can take. Other countries which have taken Czecho-Slovakian refugees have already received some of that £4,000,000. What is to become of those who cannot be covered by that £4,000,000?

Let us remember that although our Government has no doubt been relieved of its promise to give the loan because there has ceased to be a Czecho-Slovakia and the new Protectorate is no place for sending the refugees, did it absolve them of the moral responsibility for the people to whom the original loan was to be made? We heard some time ago that it was the Chancellor of the Exchequer's intention to repay to the Treasury the £6,000,000, not merely the portion which remained unspent, but the amount which had been spent but which he could recover from Czech assets frozen in London. It appears that the Government intend to make a nice little economy out of the disaster which happened last March, a disaster for which we are not entirely exempt from responsibility, because we guaranteed the frontiers. We were unable to implement that guarantee, and because of that the situation of these new refugees arose—those who could no longer remain in a Bohemia which had. become part of the Reich.

Are the Government going to say, when the Home Office is asked for visas for them or for facilities to get them to Sweden or Canada or wherever it may be, "Very sorry, but we have spent as much as we can afford "? If the Government did that, would it not be exactly like this: It would be as though a rich man had been driving along in a powerful car and to prevent himself falling down a precipice had accidentally run into a crowd of people and killed some and mutilated others. In the first flush of compunction he takes out a £5 note and hands it to the ambulance driver, and says, "Please take these people to the hospital." The ambulance driver returns and says that he wants some more money in order to take the remainder of the mutilated people, but the rich man shrugs his shoulders and replies, "I am sorry I cannot afford any more." That is what we are doing with these refugees in Poland and Bohemia, who would be in safety if it had not been for the action we took over Czecho-Slovakia last year. Who would not be fighting for a country in which he believed rather than hiding in drains and forests, a skulking fugitive without a penny in his pocket, or being beaten up every day by steel rods, rubber truncheons and sandbags in concentration camps? Consider the position of these people. Let us ask ourselves whether we have not a responsibility for them? Can we go away on holiday saying that we have been very generous to Czechoslovakia, and that if a few more refugees are beaten up in concentration camps, we shall be very sorry, but we cannot help it, and cannot afford any more? I cannot believe that the Government and the British people can be happy about it.

I must not enlarge here on all the many aspects of the refugee question, as I would like to do. I will now only mention the question of refugees from Spain. There too we have a special responsibility, though rather different from and not so great perhaps as our responsibility for Czecho-Slovak refugees. Who can deny that the downfall and destruction of the Republican Army was due to our policy which held from them arms for their own defence? After the downfall of Spain nearly 250,000 of these refugees were received in camps in France, where the majority of them are still being retained at great expense to the French. We have made a certain monetary contribution which is trivial compared with what the French are spending. Would it not be a very good thing for ourselves if we did not allow all these men to rot in camps and in prisons. Who are they? They are men who, for 2½; years, have borne the burden of modern warfare. They have had experience of all forms of bombing, air-raid precautions and the rest. They are rotting in these camps in France. What a waste of magnificent material. Six thousand of these men had voluntarily joined the International Brigade because of their hatred of Fascism. If we should have to go to war and fight against Fascism, why should we neglect this reserve of extraordinarily valuable material? We are told that these men in French camps, because of the harsh way in which they were treated when they came over, are not willing to enlist in the French Army. They are being wasted. There are among them surgeons with remarkable experiences of war casualties, and yet all that valuable material is rotting in these French camps.

It is rather hard on the Noble Lord who is to reply to the debate to-day. So far I have dwelt only on the two aspects of the refugee question that least concern him personally. We do not hold him responsible for the treatment of Czechoslovak refugees or Spanish refugees because his particular charge is that of the International Committee, which met in London the other day and which is to meet by deputy in Washington. We were very glad to hear the Prime Minister announce in this House the other day that the Government are contemplating departing from their original attitude that there could be no Government money devoted to refugees, and that they are willing, if other States also agree, to take part in raising the international finances by which alone the problem of the refugees can be settled on a large scale and in a satisfactory manner. We shall watch with interest the course of these negotiations. When the Noble Lord and his colleagues really approach this problem, I hope that they will remember that there are those two particular groups of refugees, perhaps those with the finest qualities of the whole lot, who also have a claim on international funds, but who in the meantime are the responsibility of those countries which put them into their present flight—we ourselves and our ally France.

The most unfortunate thing in the speech of the Prime Minister to-day was his evident reluctance to take economic sanctions against Japan. I would like to put that matter in its true light. He said that we cannot denounce our Treaty with Japan under 12 months' notice. He knows, and the House should know, that this Government at Geneva last November resolved that any country could take action against Japan economically under Article 16, either individually or collectively. So that we are in a position to bring exactly those economic sanctions against Japan. During his speech I had a slight passage of arms with him over the question of the four Chinese accused in Tientsin. He thought that it was a judicial matter and I thought that it was a matter of the honour of this country. If we refused originally, as we did, to hand over those four Chinese, to Japanese justice, it would be infamous to hand them over now because and after Tientsin has been blockaded and our nationals have been scandalously treated. It might have been all right at first, but to do it in order to save ourselves at their expense would, I think, leave a black mark on history which it would be very difficult to wipe out.

This question of honour comes up again when we deal with the Czech refugees. The calls of humanity are equally applicable, I suppose, to all refugees, and indeed to all the other sufferers from the present world war which is going on today, but so far as the Czechs are concerned this Government have a definite responsibility for their condition. I am not going into the general question but intend to give three examples of what is happening to these Czech refugees at the present time. I have heard terrible accounts about 2,000 refugees who fled over the frontier and are still in Poland— swimming over the Oder or climbing over the mountains. I have accounts of what is happening to the refugees in Kakowitz. The position is lightened to some extent by the magnificent conduct of our officials. If it had not been for Claire Hollingworth, of the Friends' organisation, and our Vice-consuls at Kakowitz and Cracow, the conditions would have been far worse. There, at least, we can say that we have realised something of our real responsibilities and are carrying out the decent traditions of the past. There are about 2,000 of these refugees still there. They are being kept alive by contributions from the local Socialists and the local Jews. They are all waiting for permission to come to England. They are under the constant threat of being turned by the Polish Government back under the heel of the Gestapo. Obviously, something must be done for these people without waiting for the next two or three months before the House meets again, otherwise they will starve to death.

There is the case of those who fled in a boat which was burned in the Meditterranean. Desperate people got hold of a ship where they were robbed and housed like cattle. The ship was burnt and they were taken off by the Italians and dumped in Rhodes. There are about 900 men, women and children. There is a very small Jewish population in Rhodes but they cannot keep them alive and the Italian Government is doing nothing for them. These people are actually starving to-day. The accounts that I have had from Rhodes are that people are selling their clothes off their backs in order to buy a little rice. Their future is indeed black. These are all Czech Jew refugees. We cannot allow these people to die of hunger and starvation in Rhodes, when we could let them into Palestine or Cyprus into a concentration camp. They have been there over a month, and it is time that the conscience of Great Britain got to work and we did our duty in saving these people.

The worst case is that of the ship now rotting at Beyrout. There are 650 people on board that ship. I asked a question about it the other day, because it was said that plague had broken out. I was told that it was not plague but that the ship had been deratised, whatever that means, and the people taken ashore. I am told that the rats, over 1,000 of them, were lying on the decks, rotting. The rats had been killed but their carcases were there and still capable of spreading plague. These people left a port on the Danube early in April, and it is now July. Their ship is not an ordinary cargo ship but a derelict, which was fitted out, without any santitary accommodation whatever, without any fresh water for washing, the sort of place in which no civilised Government would ever put prisoners. This ship has been carrying these miserable wretches about for three months.

All they want is to be allowed to go to Palestine. Are we to be held guilty of the murder by disease and slow starvation of these 650 people, because the British Government, responsible for their condition, will not permit them to go to the only place where there is anybody who will look after them and keep them alive?

Some hon. Members may recollect the account from the memoirs of Baron de Marbot, where he tells of French prisoners of war who were starved to death on the hulks lying outside Genoa, when Genoa was beseiged by France. He tells how their howls were heard by day and night, how they fought for the few loaves of bread thrown to them, how the stronger killed the weaker and how, finally, when Genoa was taken, the French took off a few living skeletons who were left alive out of 2,000 prisoners of war. It is one of the most horrible passages of history. To-day we are enacting the same thing in connection with people who are not prisoners of war but whose plight has been brought about by our action, and we are not even allowing these wretches to escape from their prison house to the only land where they could get the care, attention and doctoring they so badly need.

I plead with the Noble Lord. I asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies to be here to-day, but he has not come. I beg the Noble Lord to deal with this problem, whether it be by allowing these poor people into Palestine or allowing them into Cyprus. Do not let us leave them forever to the French, or to the alternative of starvation.

I have not been left much time in which to reply—I make no complaint— on the important refugee questions that have been raised, and I must be as brief as I can because I understand it is desired to deal with another subject. The question of refugees is very vast and complicated, and it is somewhat difficult to deal with it in tabloid form. May I preface my observations by making this statement, which I believe to be wholly accurate? Those who are seeking to aid refugees from various countries in Europe, whether it be myself or the Government, who have a particular responsibility in this matter, or whether it be the refugee organisations outside, have to deal with two entirely different sets of critics. One set of critics hold most sincerely the view which has been expressed in the last two speeches— may I in passing pay a tribute to the hon. Lady and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, little as I agree with them? —that not nearly enough is being done, that the British Government have shown a lack of sympathy and that we ought to bring out these refugees in millions. The other set of critics, though less vocal, are people not confined to any one particular Party—I am not speaking merely of anti-Semitists or Fascists—who say that in view of the great responsibilities we have towards our own people His Majesty's Government are doing as much as they ought to do to rescue people from foreign countries. Therefore, it is the duty of those who have responsibility, as I have as Chairman of the Committee and as in some measure handling refugee questions for the Government, to hold an even balance between the two extremes and to carry on this humanitarian work with the greatest amount of support possible from the general body of the public.

Before dealing with the work of the Committee, I will reply briefly to specific questions that have been raised. The hon. Lady asked me about the Spanish refugees. I can only repeat that the Government have made a substantial contribution towards the relief of suffering which has followed the Spanish civil war. The grants which the Government have made total over £100,000. We have given assistance in other ways and I cannot agree that we have not discharged our responsibilities most fully in that regard. Then there is the question of the assistance which has been given to the Czechs. I think I can best deal with that matter by referring to the statement which I made in this House on the 6th April last. I said:

"It is the intention of the Government that the unexpended balance of £3,250,000 should not be regarded as withdrawn but that by one means or another it should continue to be available for the purpose for which it was originally intended, namely, to provide cost of transport and landing money for Czecho-Slovakian refugees when they go to their final place of settlement overseas. —"[Official Report, 6th April, 1939; col. 30S6, Vol. 345.]

The House gave authority to the Government to guarantee a loan of £8,000,000 to the Czecho-Slovakian Government. The Czech State has now disappeared, and, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said, this sum cannot be regarded as available for refugees. I know that I shall not be able to persuade the hon. Lady or the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) that the course which the Government have taken is the right one. I can only repeat what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said and what the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has said in the course of previous Debates and in reply to questions. There is a distinct difference between the circumstances when the gift was announced to the former Czecho-Slovakian Government and the offer of the loan made in circumstances which do not exist to-day. There is an unexpended balance still of £4,000,000 and that money is being used for the purposes for which it was intended, namely, to get refugees out of Czecho-Slovakia, and I must repeat that His Majesty's Government cannot give any undertaking that they can add to that amount. The right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) raised a specific question about the case of Poland.

There is one question I should like to put on the matter of the unused loan. I am not quite sure whether the noble Lord fully understands the point. Of course we realise that owing to the changed circumstances the loan cannot go on. The question is this. Suppose the Treasury had been asked, as a purely technical matter, whether they would have preferred to have made a loan under the conditions which were contemplated, or alternately to have given a cash loan of £2,000,000 or £3,000,000, would they not have regarded the second alternative as clearly a less obligation, and is there not therefore a moral obligation to regard a sum of that kind as a reasonable addition to the first £4,000,000?

I must not be drawn into a further argument on the question. There are at the present time 600,000 refugees in Germany, and I repeat that there is a distinction to be drawn between the two. I hope the hon. Member will not think me discourteous if I say that I cannot accept the thesis he has just put forward. In regard to the refugees in Poland, I do not think the situation is quite as bad as the right hon. and gallant Member suggests. According to my information 2,000 refugees of Czecho-Slovak origin have been removed from Poland and are now in this country. There remain the 2,000 to which the right hon. and gallant Member referred, but I do not accept his suggestion that their condition is as bad as he thinks, and I can assure him that the question of the future of these refugees is being actively considered by His Majesty's Government at the present time, that is to say, they are endeavouring to see what steps can be taken to find a place for them. I should like to take this opportunity of paying a tribute to the attitude of the Polish Government in this matter which has been most helpful.

Has the noble Lord any reports from British vice-consuls?

Yes, we have constant reports from them, and the Foreign Office is hopeful that it may be possible to find some solution of the problem of the disposal of this 2,000.

The hon. Member for East Wolverhampton put a question to me in regard to the work of the Evian Committee, otherwise known as the London Inter-Governmental Committee. I hope I shall be able to show hon. Members who take an interest in these matters that very considerable progress has been made in the last few months. The main objects of the creation of this committee were to procure the co-operation of the German authorities in the orderly migration of Jewish and non-Aryan people, and to find places of temporary refuge and permanent settlement for these refugees. Its only concern is to find a practical solution of this problem. It is an organisation which is carried on with a minimum of expenditure. It has a small official staff with a distinguished ex-Indian administrator, Sir Herbert Emerson, at its head. The figures have not been given before, but not fewer that 150,000 people have left Germany since the Evian Committee was founded a year ago. Many countries for understandable but regrettable reasons do not publish their intake of refugees, but I will give one or two figures. The United States takes annually under its quota 27,000 German refugees; the actual intake has been a great deal larger because a number of temporary tourists have been allowed to remain on, and it is probably in the neighbourhood of 40,000. We ourselves have 40,000 in this country at present, which is a complete answer to those who say that the British Government are doing nothing for German refugees.

But of that 40,000 at least 10,000 go on to America.

The Colonial Empire, excluding Palestine and Transjordan, has absorbed about 1,700 persons in the six months ending the 31st March and probably the number will be more in the neighbourhood of 2,000 for the year. Australia is taking 5,000 a year for three years, and Brazil has taken 11,000 and will possibly take 8,000 more. It is not known exactly what proportion of the Palestine quota in recent years has consisted of refugees, but the number must be large.

The great majority of these persons are now in temporary refuge or in permanent settlement, and only a comparatively small proportion are floating about the world at present trying to find some place to go to. The absorption has been mainly, but not entirely, by infiltration. Whether this continues on the same scale or not, it will be materially reinforced by schemes of larger-scale settlement. The British Guiana settlement scheme will commence this Autumn. San Domingo appears to offer wide opportunities. The Report of the Philippines has not yet reached this country, but is said to be favourable. There is some scope for settlement in Northern Rhodesia, and other opportunities of settlement are being looked into. It is a mistake to imagine that any one country, Palestine or anywhere else, can possibly absorb all potential refugees. On the contrary, cumulative effort alone can succeed. It is an enormous task and it means the co-operation of many countries, not forgetting the country of origin.

The hon. Lady referred in favourable terms—I was pleased to have that tribute from her—to the invitation which was announced by the Prime Minister, and which I announced to my colleagues of the Evian Committee, to co-operate by direct assistance in a plan to stimulate private subscriptions to an International fund to finance the migration of refugees overseas. I hope there will be a favourable reception to that invitation, but I must again emphasise that the Government could not contemplate, nor would British public opinion tolerate, unilateral action which suggested that the Government had some special and sole responsibility for refugees. In addition to that, there is this important factor, that a far greater responsibility rests upon the expelling Governments than on any of the Governments of reception, and it is for that reason that the Evian Committee has pursued undeviatingly the first of its main objects of trying to induce Germany to agree to an orderly migration of refugees from that country, instead of a disorderly exodus, with all its concomitants of attempts to jump the Frontier and illegal smuggling into Palestine and elsewhere.

I am pleased to be able to tell the House that considerable progress has been made in that regard. I need not recapitulate the offer which the German authorities made, but I think it is material to state that steps have already been taken to regulate and in some respects to ameliorate the conditions of Jews there. Sir Herbert Emerson has had contact with the German authorities on many occasions and I understand that, with the formation of a distinguished private refugee foundation on a broad international basis outside Germany, the way is now clear for the establishment in Germany of an internal trust, the effect of which would be, according to the German statement of intentions, to relieve some of the financial burdens now falling on private refugee bodies. The nominal value of the Trust would run to many millions sterling. If this plan materialises it is not egoistic for me, as Chairman of the London Inter-governmental Committee, to say that it will be a considerable achievement on the part of the director and the Committee, and I have good reason to believe that it will. The International foundation of a voluntary character to which I have referred will have a very distinguished body of trustees, Jew and Gentile, composed of United States and British citizens. I hope that it will include at least one former American Ambassador to this country, together with several names very well known in this country who have experience in refugee work.

The worst service that anyone can do to the refugee movement is to encourage in any way the illicit entry of refugees into any country, including Palestine. There is not a country represented on my Committee which does not condemn most strongly illegal traffic into Palestine, Holland, Belgium or elsewhere. A great deal of trouble has been caused to the Belgian and Dutch authorities—incidentally both Belgium and Holland have done a great deal for refugees—and the French and Swiss have all suffered from this illicit migration. That must be my answer to the right hon. Gentleman about the refugees from Czecho-Slovakia. We cannot for a moment accept any responsibility whatever for the conditions under which assistance was given to the 700 Czech Jews who attempted to get into Palestine. While no British subjects are concerned in or connive in this traffic, big money is being made in certain countries in Europe, with the connivance of certain authorities, in this cruel traffic, which is in some respects comparable to the white slave traffic. They are being asked to give enormous sums of money in order to be smuggled over the Frontier to Holland and Belgium and into Palestine and elsewhere. I should not be doing justice to the interests of the Evian Committee or representing the views of its officers if I did not say that we condemn in the strongest terms this illegal immigration. The figures that I have given, the hopes that arise from the circumstances that I have described and the conversations that have gone on with the German authorities all show that this problem is soluble over the period of the next two or three years, but only if Members of this House and the public outside in every country will approach the matter in a common sense, judicial spirit and try to find a common view point and a common aim.

Are we to understand that nothing is to be done for these Czechs, for whom we are responsible, who have managed to escape to Rhodes and Beyrout, and the Colonial Office do not allow them into Cyprus or Palestine?

I cannot accept the view that we have some particular and sole responsibilty. The Government have made it clear throughout that there are special circumstances concerning conditions in Czecho-Slovakia which have made them willing to give special assistance. The right hon. Gentleman, like so many other critics of the Government, assumes that everything that has happened in Europe is due to some original sin of the British Government, just as critics of the French Government say that it is due to original sin on their part. It is due to the original sin of neither. Certain deplorable circumstances have arisen and, in those circumstances, the Government have done the best they can for these unfortunate refugees.

An hour or two ago we listened to what I regarded as being a wonderful speech by the Prime Minister— wonderful in the sense that it showed the mind of the Prime Minister and the Government in regard to foreign affairs, better even than the regulated despatches which the Prime Minister has read to the House on previous occasions. It was the humane and natural utterance of a man who is oppressed by what he sees in front of him, especially in connection with China and Japan and the treatment of our people there. I wish that there could have been a very full House to listen to the Prime Minister, and certainly, I hope that all his critics will read that speech when it appears in the Official Report, and digest what he said, realise fully what was in his mind, and ask themselves whether they cannot trust the Government properly to conduct its affairs. Following that Debate on China and Japan and foreign affairs generally, there was introduced the subject of refugees and distressed people in many parts of the world. Like every other hon. Member, I have the very deepest sympathy for these people, and I would do everything I could to help to relieve the distress which unfortunately afflicts certain places. We have just heard that the Government have been doing their share; whether or not that share is adequate or not is not a matter for discussion at the moment.

I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that, while there may be, and indeed are, distressed people in many countries of the world, we have here at home 250,000 people of whom at least 100,000 are in circumstances in which we would not like to meet them. On Tuesday last, the Secretary of State for Scotland made a statement in regard to the Highlands and Islands area, where these people are living. That statement, however we may regard it, obviously is the first definite step towards a real attempt to put the situation right. It is a small and halting step. We have to-day as Secretary of State for Scotland a man who is fully cognisant of the position. If I read his mind aright, he is just as determined as I or any other Member can be to put the situation right, but he has very great lions in his path. There is the Treasury, and not only that, there is the preoccupation of the Government with the international situation. Obviously, the dark clouds that are hovering over us make the present a difficult time in which to deal with a problem of this kind.

In so far as my right hon. Friend has taken the first step, however halting we may consider that step to be, we realise that he is making an endeavour to deal with this situation. I congratulate him on having done so and I am deeply grateful to him for having taken that first step. I hope these halting steps will in due course be followed by other measures. I hope that, when the arrangements have been made for the expenditure of the money which my right hon. Friend intimated was to be spent in the first year, he will be able to come to that Box and announce a great step forward and a great advance on the present programme. He has ample material to help him in coming to a conclusion. Major Hilleary, an English gentleman, living in the Island of Skye, who knows the Highlands as intimately, I suppose, as any of us, very kindly agreed to devote his time to the formation, with certain other ladies and gentlemen, of a committee to go into this question. That committee produced the Highlands and Islands Report and all the evidence which the Secretary of State can require is in that report. Indeed there seems little to be done except to give effect to the various recommendations in the report.

One of the difficulties about the report is that a large part of the recommendations takes the form of advice that there should be further examination. The practical suggestions on which action could be taken, form only a relatively small part of the recommendations.

I was coming to that point. The Secretary of State on Tuesday intimated that he intended to hold certain conferences. He did not propose to adopt the specific suggestion in the report that a commissioner should be appointed for the area to make proposals to him. He said he proposed to hold conferences with his own officials. If I heard his correctly, he added that it was his intention to call in other people who were cognisant of the circumstances and that those other people, along with his own officials, would formulate the policy which he could consider and present to the Government for their adoption.

It may be asked: Why should this part of our own country be in such a distressful condition? For the answer we have to go back very far into history. The origins of this problem are dealt with in the historical narrative contained in the report to which I have just referred. It gives a resum6 of the history of the Highlands from about 1750 onwards, and I think it is about the best written and most concise statement on the subject that I have seen. The young man who wrote that historical narrative is to be congratulated on the clearness and accuracy of his statement. He showed there quite conclusively why it is that we are faced with this situation to-day. There were two things. First, there was the iniquitous condition of the land laws. In 1886 an effort was made to put these right, and another effort was made in 1911. Both these efforts were excellent, but they were niggardly. [Interruption.] We have greater hopes for the future than I think we had in the past. Those Acts of 1886 and 1911 did alleviate the position, but they did not put it right, and what I would like to impress upon the Secretary of State is this, that taking niggardly steps, spending a little money now and a little money again, and having a large staff as a consequence to control the expenditure, is really wasting public money. It is far better to have a thorough and drastic scheme at once and to put right the situation than to continue dribbling money into an almost bottomless pit and not get a proper return from it.

I am glad to see my right hon. Colleague the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) in his place, for I was going on to say that Free Trade was one of the major causes of the disaster which overtook the Highlands in the early years of last century. If those effects were a necessity, if it was necessary to impose Free Trade in the Highlands in those days, it was only reasonable that the Government should have said "The effect of our proposals is to put a vast number of people out of work, and if we do, what is to happen?" We all know what did happen. Those people had to emigrate, and they did not even emigrate under the conditions to which an hon. Member referred a few moments ago in regard to refugees. They emigrated very largely to America and Canada, by the tens of thousands, just because of the introduction of Free Trade. The introduction itself might have been quite right, but it was the duty of the Government to see that some step was taken to replace other work, whereby these people could get a living.

Did not the Scottish emigrants take away all the best jobs from the English?

We did the jobs, and they got the money.

Those things that I have mentioned cause a condition in the Highlands which, notwithstanding 1886 and 1911, has not yet been put right. As a consequence, the steps now being taken by the Secretary of State in order to remedy these things are just as vitally necessary as they were at the moment when those effects took place long ago. I could quote specific instances of the niggardly or unfortunate methods adopted in dealing with the problems involved. That country is largely a sheep country. Just after the War sheep stocks were bought and tenants were placed in possession. It is true that they got their sheep stocks at a reduction on what the Government had paid for them, but still the prices were far and away higher than present-day market-values, and as a consequence those tenants, all small people, are paying interest on large sums which bear no real relation to the actual value of the stocks they hold. I did not hear the Secretary of State refer to that particular aspect of the matter on Tuesday, but I hope he will carefully take into consideration the position of the sheep-stock holders throughout the Western Highlands of Scotland. His colleague the Minister of Agriculture has been endeavouring to help sheep farmers by means of a subsidy, but that is a means of saving the really well-to-do farmer from falling into bankruptcy by enabling him to get a price for his sheep which will meet his costs and leave something over for himself. That remedy takes no account whatever of the heavy interest charges which the crofter population have to pay in connection with their sheep stock, and it has to be remembered that they are people in a very small way who feel the weight of this burden more than other classes of sheep farmers.

There is one other matter to which I would ask the Secretary of State to give serious attention. A few years ago I brought to his notice the fact that a certain pier in Skye had fallen into disrepair. It had originally been built—or the extension part, to which I am now referring—ut of funds provided by the Government. Promise after promise that the pier would be repaired has been given and some 11 months ago I understood from the Secretary of State that matters were in train for settlement, yet not a thing has been done up to the moment in the way of starting work.

I said that so far as I was concerned agreement had been reached. It is for the local authorities to carry out the work, and I suggest that the hon. Member should make his representations in that quarter.

It may well be the fault of the local authority, but local authorities have to act under regulations which the Secretary of State controls. Local authorities now have to get a Provisional Order before they can carry out such work, and apparently that takes a long time, and I have no doubt that partly explains the long delay. But there was no such delay in the past when the Government acted through the Congested Districts Board. If it was decided that the money should be spent the work used to be started within a month or two, whereas now there are delays which are sometimes unconscionably long. I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to indicate that this niggardly step is not all that he intends to take, and that a very great programme can be envisaged for the future to put right this grievance.

The last speaker is perfectly right when he says that the problem began early and in the middle of the eighteenth century. Prior to that time we had in the Highlands a kindly civilisation. It was broken up by the purely commercial outlook of the landed system which was then imposed upon them. In those days there was an administration in this country which passed the Septennial Act extending the life of Parliament because they knew that the country was against them. They even increased the number of peers to do it so as to have time during which they could get through laws to cast out those who were opposed to them. They thus created problems which are still facing us in our time. I do not wish to say anything disrespectful to the present regime, but I believe that if the Highlands had succeeded in those days we would never have lost the American Colonies and we should never have had the Great War.

Let me tell the House what they did in regard to land laws. There was no landlord system in the Highlands at all. There were seldom even written titles. There was clan land on which rents were not levied but feudal dues were paid to the chiefs of the clans, to keep up their dignity. It was for the chief to foster the welfare of his clansmen and they did that in a very loyal spirit. Of course they had the right to pit and gallows and occasionally they hanged one or two of their clansmen but only when the clan was of unanimous opinion that the person in question was a bad lot and would be none the worse for hanging. The Government ordained in 1746 that they would put an end to the strength of the clans because the Government have got a proper shock at Prestonpans and Falkirk when Johnny Cope was not up in time. They passed land laws assimilating this primitive and yet much more humane system, far more admirable system of land tenure, to the English land tenure. They ordained that all land must be held by an individual or by a corporation and that the holding of land just as clan land, as the swans hold their pieces of land in the Thames, by the strength of their own right arm—if any other clan invaded them the invaders had to suffer for it— was to be put an end to.

The way it was got round—the clansmen always try to get round this kind of thing—was that they went to Edinburgh where there was a factory for forged titles. They took their leading clansman with them and he conveyed the clan land to the chief. After the chief had been 40 years on the sasine register the land became the chief's in law. It was all very well while the old chiefs were alive because they knew they were really trustees for their people and things went on pretty well but after they died because they had got their sons into the English army or had sent them to English schools to be educated, they spoiled good Scotsmen and did not make Englishmen of them. He got into habits different from those of his ancestors. He got into debt, and then the land was mortgaged and sold. Then the sheep farmers came on the scene. The land was not always used for sheep. It was used for the rearing of black cattle, as you will find if you read Dr. Johnson's "Tour of the Hebrides." There were innumerable cattle in the Highlands in those days, and, if the rearing of cattle could be carried on there now, they could supply enough "baby beef" to keep the towns of Scotland going in a much better way than by buying meat from abroad. [An Hon. Member: "What about the bracken?"] The cattle trample down and destroy the bracken much more than sheep do. Sheep will ruin a pasture, because they just nibble off the fine grasses and leave the coarse grasses to grow. The Highlands have gradually deteriorated more and more under sheep, and no measures should be taken to help the sheep farmers, welcome as they are as far as they go, because such measures will not restore the fertility of the land. The only way to do that is to bring back the cattle.

I have given some of the real causes of the ruin of the Highlands. The people had a national dress, which, owing to the fact that in those days they did not double-dip sheep, was a waterproof costume in which they could stand up to the climate—and it is a terrible climate. Above all, they had the sacred right to make their own refreshment, they had the right of private distillation. Every crofter and fisherman had his own small still, and with his small still, his waterproof kilt, and his chief to look after him, he could laugh at the climate.

Surely my hon. and learned Friend must pay some tribute to modern civilisation? There was then no central heating to help the Highlanders keep warm in their kilts?

They were able to make a far better source of warmth for themselves, and that enabled them to stand up to the climate. It has all been taken from them, which is a perfect outrage. I remember talking with one old Highlander in the Mull of Cantyre, who had just got his old age pension, while still allowed to work on the roads for a wage of 18s. His main complaint had always been the cost of his draw. I asked him what it cost him per week, and he said, "It is only half-a-crown a week now; the pension pays the other 10s. I am ashamed," he said, "to be buying my refreshment out of a shop; when we were young we all made our own, as we baked our own bread. It is far easier to make than to bake good bread. I would do it yet, but the neighbours are so treacherous, and would tell about one I think it must be the education that has corrupted them. I cannot see why I should not do it yet. The food is my own; why cannot I cook it in the way that I want, without the Government interfering?" Is there any Member of the House who can answer that simple question? "Why cannot I cook my own barley in the way that I want to cook it?" It is a monstrous interference with human liberty. When I raise this question, it is made a subject of derision and laughter. The reason is that, under the modern system or education, people do not think for themselves, and are incapable of taking anything back to first principles.

As I have said, the Highlanders lost three important things. They lost the fostering care of their chiefs; they lost their national costume, which has be-come a subject of ridicule; now is only worn by the lairds and factors, and by Englishmen who come North. All these things have been taken from the Highlander, and he had got into a terrible position when the Crofters Act, 1886, was passed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness (Sir M. MacDonald) has said. I was present at the opening of the Glen Albyn road past Loch Ness, where the workmen could not get to work for the char-a-bancs full of people from every part of the world who were watching for the Loch Ness monster. One of the county officials told me that in Inverness there are still what are known as squatters: men who escaped after the "'45," when the Highlands were hunted down in a fashion as bad as anything experienced by the Belgians and almost as bad as was experienced by the Abyssinians. They hid in Inverness, and some of the lairds there, although they had not themselves risen in the "'45" let them squat; and this squatting grew into a definite legal right, as has been decided in the Court of Session. A squatter pays no rent, because he has no lease, and is under no obligations, and the landlord pays no rates or taxes on him because he does not receive any rent; and neither does the squatter pay rates or taxes. I was asked whether I would assist in getting these people brought under taxation, and I said, "No; thank God there are still some places in Scotland where a man can escape these sharks of collectors of rates and taxes. I will not assist you."

Every right that the people had has been taken from them by the processes of economic law, and so you need to go to Canada to find Gaelic newspapers and the best of Gaelic spoken. There are a great many things which can be done. Look at the roads which are built. You put great costly boulevards, like the road to Glencoe, which motors scorch through before they see anything but the speedway in front of them but there are all the little side roads. The Minister for obstructing Transport, whom we call the Minister of Transport, might go to the Islands and see the road to Port-nahaven in Islay and Salen in Mull, where decent 14 foot roads have been cut down to nine feet, so that if two motorists meet each other half way it is a question of who is to give way and difficult to decide at times who is to go back.

Is the hon. And learned Member aware that he is describing the state of hundreds of roads in Wales?

Yes, I think that the state of roads in Wales is pretty bad, but hundreds of Welshmen manage to get out of Wales. Steamers have been running to and between Glasgow and Campbeltown, which was once one of the richest towns in the whole of Scotland It had a coal mine, a shipyard and 24 distilleries. They brought untold millions of pounds to the Treasury. It was the most lucrative industry in the Highlands and the most profitable for the Empire and did much to keep the balance of trade open. It was made in Scotland and they have taken it all away. They have reduced it so much by this savage taxation that most of the distilleries are closed down and now only two are working. The poor people in Campbeltown, to the extent of 50 per cent., have been unemployed for years and years, sitting wondering what has happened. Most of the distillery owners have retired and have become country gentlemen with large fortunes, but the people have been left derelict.

Now the steamers have been taken off, and there appears to be no means of appealing to the Secretary of State about the matter. It will happen unless they can get some sort of subsidy. Why can we not do something for transport in the Highlands as they do in Norway, where they subsidise steamers which call at all the remote ports, no matter how small the place is, because that makes a steamer service and it is better than letting the service be cut down? They are awfully intelligent in Norway. If a man is travelling with his wife they can go for fare and a quarter. There are other little human touches of that sort. I want to urge the Secretary of State to do that kind of thing with the object of getting better and cheaper transport. Let him point out to the Treasury what they are taking out of the Highlands distilleries and the hardship that is being caused to the, Highlands.

I very much regret that my time is limited to four or five minutes because I must give the Secretary of State sufficient time to reply. I hope that we shall be able to make some better arrangements in the future than having only 1½ hours in which to discuss Scottish affairs. Perhaps it might be possible to induce some hon. Members to come to the point rather more rapidly. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten) was very interesting but not too topical in his discussion of Highland affairs. It is a lamentable feature of this House that on almost all Highland occasions we are limited to a' few minutes, and we have made repeated protests on many occasions. This points to the need for greater control by the Scottish people of their own administration and legislation. I say emphatically that there is no other way to solve this problem but for the Scottish people to have full control over their own government in a Scottish parliament. We have had proof of this, year after year when Scottish affairs have to be discussed in a very few hours. We need more control over our own affairs.

I shall not take more than three or four minutes in what I have to say. I am not going to pretend to disagree with the hon. Member for Inverness (Sir M. MacDonald) that the Secretary of State is sincerely anxious to help Scotland, I know that is perfectly true. After experience of three other Secretaries of State I can say that the right hon. Gentleman is by far the most effective of them and I believe the best intentioned. His success with the Treasury must be modified by the fact that he was trained at the Treasury, and therefore the fight with his old colleagues must be softened a little. Even he has come to realise that Scotland is not getting justice from the Treasury. On the question of roads and piers about which the hon. Gentleman for Inverness spoke at some length we are to get only £300,000 in five years. Does the Minister honestly think that that will go very far towards a solution of the problem of the provision of second class roads, parish roads, Department Settlement roads for which the State is directly responsible, and so on? The Minister will have to tackle the Treasury if he is to deal with the problem properly.

With regard to land improvement the Minister should acquire for the purpose as much land as he possibly can for the State. When the Department of Agriculture does acquire lands they should drain them, clear them of bracken, and as soon as possible fence them properly. In many Department estates we lack the water supplies, roads and drainage necessary for successful agricultural settlement.

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman intends to encourage co-operative marketing which I have long advocated as one of the fundamental needs of the Highlands and Islands, especially among the fishermen and that he is going to do something on the question of veterinary services. This is a very important question, especially in some of the southern islands, where they lose a great number of cattle every year owing to the lack of veterinary surgeons whom they have to charter at a cost from Skye. Although it is a very small contribution in relation to the size of the problem, I am glad that he is going to help in the supply of motor boats and engines for the use of the lobster and local fishermen, and I would ask him especially to concentrate upon places like the Island of Eriskay, where the fishing community is almost in ruins to-day; and there are many other places like it in the other Islands about which I shall be glad to give him information.

In regard to agricultural training, I am glad that it is proposed to arrange for a number of demonstration crofts to see what can be done in regard to land and agricultural improvement, in addition to having the existing isolated and rather remote large scale demonstration farms far from the crofters' homes. I would like the right hon. Gentleman to take into consideration the possibility of acquiring 50 or 100 acres of land round certain villages in the rough pastures. I can guarantee that many of the villages will be very anxious to help to improve the land for an experimental period of three or four years, which is the minimum time necessary for such improvements. They cannot afford to do it as it requires fencing; and I suggest he might set up a separate fund of money for fencing.

As to freights, I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has not taken up the idea which was put to himself and the Postmaster-General by me in the MacBrayne debate of the flat rate for goods to and from the Islands for carriage in the subsidised steamer area. With regard to afforestation there has been a number of protests against agricultural land being put under afforestation, but I agree that the extension of scientific and economic afforestation is in the national interest. It can be very useful in connection with land drainage and other agricultural problems. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon producing some proposals.

I should not like to see a non-democratic over-ruling commissioner running the whole of the Islands, and Highlands. I believe that it is impossible to find a man or committee of men who could be made successfully responsible for this work. The local authorities have known and definite responsibilities, and they can, if not efficient, be turned out by the people if they feel like it. They must not be allowed to shirk these responsibilities. But they cannot be expected to undertake the reconstruction of this wide area and deal with its longstanding and difficult problems until the Secretary of State and the Government agree that it is worth while to provide the finance.

The hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) has made, in a few minutes, a very useful contribution and has touched upon a number of practical points in relation to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. I too am sorry we could not have had a longer time to debate this question to-day. If the official Opposition had not staged a Foreign Affairs debate for the third or fourth occasion this week, we could perhaps have taken more interest in subjects nearer home.

Will the right hon. Gentleman try to arrange with the Government to give a day of parliamentary time after the Recess to discuss Highlands and Islands affairs?

That is not a matter with which I can deal, but no doubt the hon. Member's suggestion will be noted. But as I say I should have liked an opportunity for longer discussion to-day. The proposals that I outlined to the House must be reviewed against the background of the present financial situation of the country. We have never at any time in our history had to face such a strain on our finances as we are facing to-day. While some of the critics of the proposals I made have failed to recognise this fact, I am sure that the majority of the people do recognise the background under which we have to consider all our social improvements and advances in these days. It is unfortunate that that is so, but it is true, and it is because of the tremendous expenditure on National Defence that we are bearing.

Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the rehabilitation of Scotland is of far greater importance to the country than the building of a Dreadnought?

The preservation of Scotland as part of the British Empire is also of very great importance.

If we had not plenty of Dreadnoughts we should neither have England nor Scotland.

I must not be drawn away from my point, and that is, the background of the expenditure on National Defence. At the same time we must not forget the amount of money that is being spent at the present time on the Highlands and Islands. There is a population of about 290,000 in the Highlands and Islands, roughly one seventeenth of the total population of Scotland, and undoubtedly per head of population there is much more State money being spent in the seven crofting counties than elsewhere. It has been recognised by successive Governments that the people who live in those countries have certain physical difficulties to contend against, owing to the character of the country in which they live.

Can the right hon. Gentleman give us the figures?

I am going to give figures. The proposals which I outlined the other day were for an additional sum of £65,000 a year to be spent on certain services in the Highland and Islands during the period of five years. I notice that one critic of the Government was reported in the Press to have said that it was not £65,000 a year that was wanted, but £500,000 for 10 years. That is a very modest requirement compared with what is being spent in the Highlands to-day. Far more than £500,000 of State money has been spent in the crofting counties in the last year. The figure was just under £2,000,000 of direct State grants.

Two million pounds?

In the seven crofting counties the amount of State money spent was about £2,000,000, and it will be considerably more this year, because there are certain grants, such as the oats subsidy, which tend to come into our crofting counties. There is for instance the crofting counties road programme. Again, in addition to the Land Settlement and Crofter Housing Schemes the Department of Agriculture paid out last year £58,000 for services which included assistance to local authorities for roads, piers, harbours and other public works. Then the Scottish Education Department paid special grants of £103,000 in the same period to the Highland and Islands Counties. With these special grants and other financial arrangements of the Education Department, the Exchequer meets 72 per cent, of the education expenditure in the Highlands and Islands compared with 51½ per cent, in the rest of the country. Then there is the Highlands and Islands Medical Service scheme, amounting to expenditure annually of over £100,000. In the present year the estimate is for £10,000 more. This scheme will have a very beneficial effect on conditions in the Highlands and Islands and will undoubtedly be of great assistance. I could give many other examples of the practical things that are being done directly as a result of State assistance in the Highlands and Islands. The Island of South Uist, for instance, is being joined to the Island of Benbecula by a bridge and causeway.

I have reckoned up the figures and they do not come to £2,000,000.

I was only giving examples. The bridge between these two islands will be a great boon. The cost of the scheme is £37,000, of which 75 per cent, is being met by the Ministry of Transport and 15 per cent, by the Department of Agriculture. It could not have been undertaken but for that assistance. In the case of another pier which is costing £1,000 this will be provided almost entirely from State funds, and there is the case of another scheme in the Island of Lewis which I announced yesterday, by which the fishing community will be helped. Nobody can dismiss as of no account a proposal to place at the disposal of local authorities £60,000 a year or £300,000 in all, a great part of which is to go for the provision of necessary services which I have been urged to provide, namely, for roads which are not covered already by grants and the provision and repair of piers. There is a good deal of loose speaking as to what can be done to rehabilitate the Highlands and Islands. Some people imagine that they can be covered with towns like Dumbarton, engineering centres, which would bring employment to the Highlands. I do not think anything of that sort is possible. We must work within the conditions in the Highlands for which certain employment only is suitable, and do our best to stimulate enterprises which would give that employment. It is with that end in view that the supplementary programme has been undertaken, towards helping the kind of enterprises in the Highlands which can be developed.

In the realm of agriculture the provision of fertilisers will undoubtedly help, and provision is also made for assistance to township or grazing committees to enable them to undertake field and hill drainage. I have been urged to do something more as regards bracken cutting. It presents a difficult problem, and at one time I thought it would not be possible to do anything but I now have in mind a scheme whereby assistance can be given to the cutting of bracken by hand. We thus hope to give further help to get rid of this dreadful pest. I admit that machine-cutting does not really meet the case in certain types of land. Then there is the provision of training and demonstration in agriculture, to which some prominence is given in the recommendations of the committee. My proposals should effect a considerable advance in this connection. Another proposal is for loans towards the provision of motor boats for lobster fishing and of engines for existing boats. I propose by this means to assist the lobster fishing industry in the Western Isles. I also hope to assist the fishermen in getting their products on the market by arranging a reduction of steamer freights.

I have not found it possible to adopt the recommendation for the appointment of a Commission, but that has not been without a great deal of thought. The Commissioners' function was in the first place to survey conditions and to conduct investigations. I agree that further investigations in certain matters are very necessary, but I would submit that no one can take away responsibility from the Secretary of State and from the local authorities in administration. I propose therefore, to have regular conferences with my Departments and also with other departments concerned, such as the Ministry of Transport and the Post Office, with the concurrence of their Ministers. These conferences should prove most useful in enabling a general picture of the requirements of the Highland area to be made, and in helping to make more fruitful the many measures which the Government are taking for the development of its resources.

In the last minute I want to make a protest and say that it is quite absurd to give us only one hour for the discussion of these most important matters.