I wish to call the attention of the House to the fact that the great Dominions, especially Australia and Canada, have already made large provision for returning soldiers and sailors after the War, in not only providing land for them, but also in providing capital, and in Australia and Canada the advantages that this provision gives are to be extended to sailors and soldiers from the United Kingdom, as well as sailors and soldiers who belong to the Dominions. Admittedly, we have in this country provided no capital at all, no means of getting any loan of capital for any soldier or sailor, so far as I can make out. I tried the other day to get a loan for a sergeant who has been wounded, and discharged on account of his wounds, and I was told that there was no way of getting land for him, although he was admittedly a skilled cultivator on the intensive system. I think that we certainly, in the Mother Country, ought to be able to do as much, or more, for our returning sailors and soldiers as the great Dominions; and I would draw the attention of the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture to the fact that apparently not only do we not provide land to any extent, and no capital at all, but that when people offer land it is refused by the Local Government Board. There is a lady living in the New Forest who has for years done her best to provide occupation for disabled soldiers. She wrote to the Local Government Board, and said that she could provide a certain amount of land, and I think housing too, and that the land was located by a factory, so that the men could work in the factory and also have a bit of land as well. The land was offered to be given if trustees could be found for it. This is the reply of the Local Government Board: Northcliffe's book I see that they are observing how in France a man lives on a bit of land, and they are all agreed about this land question, and when they come home they will not go as labourers, or even as occupiers, unless they have the chance of owning the land themselves. I put it to the Government that this is not the least like any war in which we have been engaged in our history. There will be an enormous number of ex-Service men coming back, and the Government may remember how Grant's soldiers, the Grand Army of the Republic, dominated the elections for a quarter of a century after the war.

There is likely to be very great difficulty in finding employment for all our soldiers and sailors after the War, and especially for those who are disabled, because those who are disabled cannot as a rule go to the Dominions, since the Dominions will not want those who are disabled. There is another consideration, namely, that the shops and businesses of many of our men who have been at the front have been taken by aliens. Only a short time ago the Mayor of Newington said that within a few months twenty-four British men had to go into the Army and that all their places had been taken by aliens. Those men will have to be found employment somehow if they cannot get back to their businesses or their shops. If the congestion in the towns is not relieved by a big scheme for getting men back on to the land, I venture to warn the Government that they will run very great danger in this country of having a revolution. People are inclined to laugh at that, but I do not think it is a laughing matter at all. I think I have ventured, almost as much as any Member of the House, to warn the Government that Germany meant war, and that there was bound to be war between Germany and this country within a few years. I can tell the Government this, and I have already told the Home Secretary, and I have sent to him copies of leaflets which are being sent to the front. They are given to the men going back to France and to the men who come from France. The leaflet that I have sent to the Home Secretary appeared to me to be distinctly of a revolutionary nature. I heard an officer only the other day complaining very much of those leaflets and saying that they were doing a great deal of harm. What the Home Secretary has done I do not know. He did not remember whether he had the leaflet or not. But that is one of the things which is going on now, and it certainly has a tendency to make the soldiers discontented and to bring revolution when they come home. The men are beginning to ask this, whether an Empire that has raised hundreds of millions for war purposes cannot find sufficient money to provide them with decent homes in which they can live healthy lives and rear the children so necessary to repair the enormous loss of life which the War has entailed. We had from the Prime Minister on the 6th of March of this year a very definite statement when a deputation from the Labour party interviewed the right hon. Gentleman. He said on that occasion that this matter of the provision of employment for soldiers and sailors after the War was a very, very urgent question, and one that could not be delayed. He continued: people bred on the land that the nation must renew its strength. It has been from the tillers of the soil chiefly that France has drawn so much of her strength and endurance during this awful struggle. We in this country have not suffered to anything like the same extent as France. May I point out that the fall of the great Roman Empire was chiefly caused when the conquered provinces were allowed to send in their agricultural produce so cheap that the hardy peasants of Italy were not able to compete, and as a consequence they were driven abroad or became slaves; at all events they disappeared, and then when the barbarians came there were no hardly peasants left to fight, and so the Empire went down.

Surely there is an enormous opportunity to compel any Government to give the people a chance to own some of the land of their own country, and especially to settle on the land the men who have fought for us and saved us? Those who have saved the Empire ought surely to be given a bit of it—if they want it! I refer to the land of Great Britain. I am not talking of Ireland, because that country is to a great extent owned by small holders and farmed by them. But I must say I cannot think that it is right to allow the expense to stand in the way of what I and others suggest when you consider that this country has given to Irishmen a chance of buying and owning their own land. You do not want so much land. You do not want such large farms as you have in Ireland. If you can do this sort of thing for Irishmen you ought to be able to do it for the soldiers and sailors who have saved us, our liberties, and the Empire. The land here has been too much in the hands of rich people. Working people, unfortunately, could not make it pay. There is another thing the Government will have to do. They will have to make it possible for these men to make a living. They must not allow them to be taxed out of existence, nor must they allow the middleman to do as has been done to a considerable extent—as was admitted by a Minister on the bench two or three days ago—you must not allow the middleman to rob both the producer and the consumer. We must give our food producers a chance. It will be very hard if the Mother Country refuses to do as much, or more, than the great Dominions for those who have saved the Empire

Personally, I hope the soldiers and sailors when they come home will insist on justice being done to themselves. I think that small holdings—that is, the actual land—should be given as a gift, free from any taxation. Of course the land would have to be bought, if necessary compulsorily at its fair rental value. After all, there is nothing very revolutionary in that proposal. Before the War I ventured to advocate the necessity of getting more people on the land. The necessity for this is very much more apparent now. I hope the Government will take this matter up, because unless they do, and at once, they will find, like the late Government, that they are "Too late." Houses and land are required as soon as possible—the land provided and the houses built. Thousands— at all events hundreds—of wounded soldiers who are now in the country will be very glad to have small holdings, if they can get them, with the loan of the capital to work them. It is, I feel very strongly, the duty of the Government to provide the land and the houses for the men who have fought for us and for the Empire.

I have a good deal of sympathy with what the hon. and gallant Gentleman Has said with regard to the wisdom and necessity of placing soldiers when they return from the War upon the land. I do not think the hon. Member quite does the Board of Agriculture sufficient justice in recognising what we have done up to now. He has given a case of a lady who was prepared to offer land for this purpose in the New Forest. All I can tell the hon. Member is that this is the very first word I have heard about it. The Board of Agriculture has power to accept gifts of land, and, indeed, we have already accepted one gift of land in the county of Herefordshire. A gentleman desired, in memory of his son who had fallen in the War, to make a presentation to the State of 300 acres, and we allotted that out in small holdings, and I can assure the hon. Member, if he will communicate with me, we will take some steps to see if this lady also cannot place this land at the disposal of the Board of Agriculture. The Act of Parliament passed in 1916 only gave the Board of Agriculture power to secure 8,000 acres for this purpose of colonising soldiers. It was an experimental Act, and, of the 8,000 acres, 1,500 acres were to be in Wales and 2,000 acres in Scotland.

I am pleased to tell the House that we have already secured practically the whole of the land we are able to secure under this Act in England. We have secured a Crown estate in Yorkshire of some 2,300 acres, of which we got possession at Lady Day last. The houses are being erected now on that estate, and a certain number of discharged soldiers are already going down to Yorkshire and being trained for small holders upon that estate. We have also secured from the Crown a lease of 1,000 acres of excellent land in Lincolnshire, some of the finest land in the country, and of that we get possession at Michaelmas. Houses are being erected on that estate. I went down to look at it the other day, and I believe we shall be able to develop a market garden colony where men will get a comfortable living on 10 acres of land. Then, about a fortnight ago, in the hon. Member's own county of Shropshire, we purchased from the Duke of Sutherland an estate of some 1,500 acres, for which the Board of Agriculture gave £40,000. We come into possession of that estate next Lady Day, and the moment we get possession of it we shall proceed to equip it. There are upon that estate excellent houses building now, so that the equipment will not take very long. We are also on the point, I believe, of purchasing an estate in Wales for the Welsh soldiers. So that, before the House meets again in October, we shall probably have exhausted our powers under this Small Holding Colonies Act, but I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman that is only the first step, and I am as anxious as he is that the Government should obtain from this House further powers to get additional land for small holding purposes.

With regard to capital, the Government have not, it is true, made any arrangements to advance capital to these holders, but I may tell my hon. Friend that I have interviewed several of these men, who have already been discharged from the Army, and a good many of them have a little capital already. We believe that, if we put them on these farms in the first instance for a year, and let them work as ordinary workpeople, they will be able, with the small capital they have at their disposal, and in some instances they have pensions as well, they will, with their pensions, be able to take these small holdings. I do not think, therefore, the question of capital is quite such a difficult one as my hon. Friend thinks. Then, with regard to compulsion, I am personally of opinion that we shall not get a sufficient amount of land in this country—for I think we ought to have a colony of this kind in every agricultural county in England—I do not think we shall be able to secure that in the end, unless we have some form of compulsion. At the present time we have none. County councils cannot, of course, put the Small Holdings Act into operation now, because they cannot get the money from the Treasury for the purchase of land, but the Board of Agriculture are taking steps, and hope to be able to persuade the Treasury to withdraw the embargo at present made with regard to loans.

Would it be possible to pay the interest on the land, without actually paying the capital?

Of course it is possible that we might get landowners to sell land now, and make a payment for it after the War. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Board of Agriculture are doing all they possibly can with the limited powers at their disposal at present, and I think that his remarks to-day will serve a useful purpose, and will encourage us to go on with the work.

There is only one question which has been under discussion in the course of this Adjournment Debate to which I wish to refer. During the past fortnight I have put some questions upon the Paper with reference to the relation of Lord Rhondda to the firm of Mitchelson and Company. The only two references I wish to make are these: In the first place, I think the Government— I will not say singularly—but even more than usually, has been disingenuous in its replies to the questions I put, and also to those put by the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil). There is one thing which has been deliberately concealed—a thing which was within the knowledge of the Government, and particularly the knowledge of the Department of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that is the very vital question with regard to this matter whether Lord Rhondda, at the date when Mitchelson and Company made the application to the Treasury Committee, was a partner of Mitchelson and Company. That has been denied in the columns of the "Morning Post," but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, although his Department had information at his disposal, declined to give it to the Noble Lord or myself, and passed over that subject in the course of the Debate last night. The second reference I wish to make is that nothing can be more disquieting and unsavoury than the withdrawal of the banking account from the bank of which the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) was chairman. A statement regarding that action has been made in the Press, and up to the present Lord Rhondda has apparently thought it beneath his dignity to take any notice of it. I think the position cannot be left where it is.

I pass on to a subject of which I gave notice yesterday. At Question time yesterday I put two questions regarding the special report of the Select Committee upon medical re-examination. The first question related to the new arrangements which are to be made with regard to the recruiting policy. I asked who is to be the head of the new Department and I asked also whether the whole duties in connection with recruiting were to be in the hands of this Department. The Leader of the House then informed me that he was unable to make a statement, nor could he hold out any hope that a statement on these very important subjects could be made before the Adjournment. I wish to recall to the House the history of this question. It is now a month since the Secretary of State for War came unsolicited to the Select Committee and stated that he was willing to do far more than the Committee had in its mind and to transfer not only the Department which was being investigated by the Committee, but the whole work of recruiting from the War Office to a civilian authority; that, indeed, this has been the subject nearest his heart during the time he had been at the War Office. The Committee, feeling the urgency of the matter, particularly in respect to the method of medical re-examination, decided to present a special report so as to expedite these changes and to obtain a better system of examination not only for those who in the future have to be examined, but, so far as possible, to obtain redress for those who have been improperly passed in the course of the last few months. That report has now, I think, been presented over a fortnight. A number of questions have been put to the Government regarding its intentions, but up to the present we know no more officially regarding the Government's intentions than was disclosed by the Secretary of State for War in his evidence before the Committee exactly a month ago. I think this is a question which we cannot leave, now that we are adjourning for a matter of eight weeks.

I think it is the duty of this House, as this House appointed the Committee, to insist on a clear and definite announcement of policy from the Government before they adjourn, and I may state for the benefit of my hon. Friend whose, misfortune it is to have to answer for the War Office that unless we have an announcement that a statement will be made on Monday we shall divide the House on the Adjournment Motion. I want to know definitely on these points: who is to be the head of the new Department, what his duties are, what the organisation is to be, and whether it is a Department which will have charge of the whole business of recruiting. Personally, of course, I am only concerned with the aspect of medical examination. I have some doubts of the wisdom of transferring the whole of recruiting from the War Office. I believe it will delay dealing with the medical aspect of the question. I believe you could have had a civilian medical service without transferring the whole Department. The fact that it is going to delay the transfer of the medical service makes it all the more urgent that we should demand information, and that we should see that the Government take action. We know, of course, that the Government has not been of one mind on this subject. The Government is rarely of one mind on any subject. It was not of one mind with regard to Stockholm, and on practically every subject that has been under discussion recently we know the Government has shuffled. We know that there is a conflict of forces even within the small area of this efficient, forceful, do-it-now War Cabinet. As I mention this do-it-now Cabinet, I would like to remind the House that there was, in the days of the late Government, actually a Bill drafted for the purpose of transferring the whole business of recruiting to a civilian Department before that Government fell. The best evidence of the expedition which is associated with the new regime is to be found in the fact that this proposal, which had the whole-hearted support of the Secretary of State for War and the present Prime Minister, is not yet carried out, and it is left to the House of Commons to force their hands in the matter.

There are other matters on which I desire a statement. There were two other recommendations upon which I think it is absolutely necessary that my hon. Friend should be able to say something. In the first place, a recommendation was made that there should be a right of appeal to an Appeal Tribunal on the part of men who allege that they have Been improperly passed, or improperly categorised, in relation to military service Is that appeal to be granted? When is it to be granted and to whom will it apply? The second question relates to men who have been improperly passed into the Army. I am not going into all the evidence regarding the extent to which that has been done. I will only say this, that the evidence of those who represented the War Office and came before the Committee convinced the Committee that this had been done to a large extent, though precisely to what extent the Committee was unable to say. They were so impressed with the extent of it that they recommended that men who had been passed into the Army since 5th April of this year, the date of the passing of the Military Service (Review of Exceptions) Act—that those men who alleged they had been improperly passed should have the right to go before a Standing Invaliding Board, which is a new organisation set up by the War Office since the appointment of a Select Committee. I wish to know whether that recommendation has been accepted by the War Office, whether it is now in operation, and whether it will apply to the men in respect of whom the Committee recommended that it should be applied.

There is something more. My hon. Friend the Member for one of the divisions of Manchester has put down recently a number of questions regarding these Standing Invaliding Boards. They have only, I think, been six weeks in existence, and they are set up in centres in every one of the commands. He has asked questions relating to their composition and to their instructions. My hon. Friend (Mr. Macpherson), with respect to some of those points, has been unable to satisfy his curiosity up to the present time. I think yesterday or the day before he indicated that he was unable to say anything regarding the instructions. I desire to ask my hon. Friend to-day whether he can state particularly the instructions which are given to these Standing Invaliding Boards. I have information which shows that in many oases they have been working with considerable success. There is no doubt that since they came into being many men who are simply wasting their time in the Army, who are a burden to themselves in the Army and a burden to the Army, who are, in fact, being demoralised, have been invalided out. That is a great advantage. I hope, however, that the process will be continued, and that these discharges will be expedited. It is obviously both in the national interest and in the interest of the Army that men in that condition should be restored to civil life as quickly as possible.

There is only one other matter that I would refer to in relation to this Select Committee. Information has come to me of a very serious kind, that one of the members of the Committee, a Member of this House, an hon. and gallant Gentleman who usually sits opposite, who held a commission in His Majesty's Army, has had to resign his commission on account of his action on the Select Committee— the hon. and gallant Member for the Andover Division of Hampshire (Colonel Faber). I think a situation of that kind is extremely serious. We have had discussions in recent days in this House of the difficulty of dual positions. A Member of this House, who also holds a commission in the Army, is in a dual position. Necessarily it is a difficult position. It is a very serious thing, having allowed a man to occupy that dual position, that he should be made on account of the independent action which he takes in this House to give up the commission which he holds. I do not know that my hon. Friend can offer any criticism, but I think the House itself should be very jealous of any pressure of this kind being placed upon the free, independent action of its Members. I do not wish to enter into the controversy which I have already had with my hon. Friend on the very interesting question as to when a secret instruction is not a secret instruction and when it is only a confidential instruction, or as to whether a secret instruction is contradictory to a public instruction or only complementary to it. These are trivialities into which I do not wish to enter now, but I think the House is entitled to ask for an assurance that instructions which are not public instructions, and which my hon. Friend did not place in the Library in order that we might see them—I wish to admit that he knew nothing about them, and if that has not been made clear I wish to make it clear now. I have never suggested that my hon. Friend ever knew anything about it. We have bad a controversy upon the merits, but upon that point there has been no controversy between us—I think we are entitled to ask for an assurance that these secret instructions will be withdrawn, whether the examining authority is a military or a civilian authority.

I wish to refer to another Committee for a few moments. In the course of the Debate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Montgomery (Major David Davies) the other night made a well-informed criticism of the Royal Army Medical Service generally. It is a criticism which has been made in the past by my hon. Friend the Member for the St. Augustine's Division (Mr. R. McNeill), and I think I once much more imperfectly and with far less success tried to do the same thing in 1915. The hon. and gallant Gentleman was more successful this week, and he brought the matter to the stage that the War Office have agreed that there is a necessity for an inquiry. We are anxious to have a full inquiry, not only an inquiry into the way in which doctors are being used in France—that is the only promise up to the present time—but an inquiry into the way doctors are being used in the Army as a whole. It is not only a War Office question. A subject requiring inquiry much more than anything else is how military and civilian needs are being correlated. In respect of this collection of problems, because it is not one problem, we are offered a Departmental Committee. My hon. and gallant Friend yesterday asked for the names of the Committee, but my hon. Friend was unable to give them. It is rather significant in that respect of all these things we cannot get names.

I gave the reason why.

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It does not detract from the significance. With my usual recklessness, I suggested to my hon. Friend that this was intended to be a whitewashing Committee. Personally, I have no faith in Departmental Committees. I do not think the experience of the House during this War gives us any right to have much faith in them. This subject is of sufficient importance to deserve consideration from a Committee appointed by this House, which would be an independent Committee and which would be able to take a full conspectus of the problem. When I suggested to my hon. Friend that it was not to be a bonâ fide Committee, he pointed out to me that the Committee of which I was a member was appointed by the War Office, and had been a bonâ fide inquiry. He unfortunately forgot that Committee was appointed by this House, and, as he shows such a great predeliction for that Committee, as he shares my view as to its independence and value, and as. he is impressed with that precedent, I hope he will follow it and see that the Committee to inquire into the use of doctors, both for military and civilian purposes, will also be a Select Committee appointed by this House. I do not wish to enter into the details of that particular matter, but it is obvious, if the Committee which is to be set up on this matter is simply a Departmental Committee, that it will be judge in its own cause. That particular Department of the War Office is on its trial in this matter. You are expecting the Department which is on its trial to appoint its judges. I suggest that should not be the course adopted, especially as there are very important elements in the problem which are quite outside the purview of the War Office.

I think I have convinced the House, whatever may be thought of the merits of Departmental Committees, that a Departmental Committee is not the appropriate tribunal to deal with this very important problem. It is now two years since it was first raised, but in the interval it has been getting worse. It has become more acute, and every month that the War goes on it will be still further aggravated. There is, therefore, the utmost urgency not only for an independent inquiry but also for an inquiry which will bring about changes and put forward recommendations with the utmost promptitude. I pass from that point to certain other matters in regard to the question of medical examination. The inquiry for which the House of Commons appointed a Select Committee was somewhat narrow and restricted. It only dealt with the medical examination of men under the Military Service Acts. It did not deal with the position of the man once he is in the Army. Men who are in military service are placed in certain cate- gories. I am not going to enumerate them, but it is common knowledge that the two lowest categories are known as B3 and C3. A man passed into B 3 is a man whose physical condition only fits him for sedentary work either in this country or in France and Flanders. Formerly it was only in this country, but by a recently-issued Army Council Instruction, it is now possible to send these men to France. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I think that is right.

B3 has always been service abroad.

I used the wrong letter. I was dealing with C 3. All that I have just said applies to C 3. B 3, on the other hand, is sedentary work, not only here, but in every one of the theatres of War. We have always been informed—it is interesting to remember this in view of the principle which has been laid down in regard to recruiting, that any man who is able to earn his living as a civilian is able to do some kind of work in the Army —that the tribunals who passed men for service understood, in granting or withholding exemption, that the men with whom they were dealing would be set to the work which was represented by the categories into which they were passed. It was the general impression that the duties of C 3 men and B 3 men were in the main clerical in character. I want to know if that is so. I have information that B 3 men and C 3 men are now being set to a considerable amount of drill. That is the first point. I have information that men of that kind, men who have never been allowed to take any kind of athletic exercise, to whom any kind of strain in the past has been impossible, have been set to this form of what is called modified training. It is a very serious thing that men whose physical condition only fits them for clerical duties should be set to this kind of drill, which has now been provided.

I would call attention to a case I received only this morning. The name of the soldier is one who is honoured in this House, it is the name of Gladstone. I have a letter from a Mr. Henry Gladstone, who tells me how his young cousin, who was passed as a C 3 man, who had to go through a variety of operations and had spent a very long period in a hospital, was sent, immediately on reporting himself at Seaforth Barracks, to undergo training that it was quite impossible for him, in his condition, to undergo; that he was kept there for some little time, and then, after an application on the part of his father to the War Office, he was discharged. His father sent on the letter to Mr. Henry Gladstone and asked him to write to me, because he said it was very important that this matter should be brought up in the House of Commons, so that men who have no influence should get equally proper redress for this kind of thing. I do not intend to go into the details of that case, but it was proved by the fact that he was incapable of the training to which he was subjected. He was apparently subjected to that training irrespective of his physical condition. There are large numbers of men being called up from day to day just now—men who suffer from heart trouble, men with various forms of organic disease, who have had various operations, which make it difficult for them to undergo any physical effort. All these men are being subjected to this form of training. Everybody will agree that when a man is passed B 3 or C3 he should only be put to the duties of those classes. If men are only fit for sedentary work, no attempt should be made, especially in the case of anybody suffering from organic disease, to subject them to any other form of military service.

Of course, we all know that the doctors on the medical boards have been since the month of April classifying men, not in accordance with their physical condition at the time at which they were examined, but in accordance with their condition as it will be after four months' training. Obviously that is an extremely difficult problem, but when you remember that not only are you passing them on the basis that after four months' training they may become fit for certain duties, but then you are submitting them to a kind of training which apparently ought not to apply to their category, I think we have reached the moment when the War Office should entirely discontinue this practice. Many of these men have no objection to going into the Army. They are quite willing to give the country the service that they are able to give it. The great majority of these men have offered themselves time and again, and have been turned down time and again. Their only anxiety is that when they are passed they will be passed for what they are fit to do, and that in the process of Army training they will not have their health irretrievably ruined and so become a burden to themselves, a burden to their relatives, and a burden to the country. I hope that on that point we shall receive a clear assurance from the Government that the practice will be discontinued.

That is not all. There is evidence, in regard to what are known as travelling medical boards, that men are having their categories raised without any adequate examination. In many cases in many parts of the country tribunals have exercised great care to see that in cases of doubt men should be examined by the very best doctors available, so that they should be properly classified. These men are called up to the Army and in a few weeks' or a few months' time they may be put before a travelling medical board, which is ignorant of the care that has been exercised in examining and classifying them in the first instance, and which, after the most cursory examination, passes men who are either B 3 or C 3 into B 1 or A 1—that is, for general service. I think we should have clear instructions given to these travelling medical boards that men should have only had their category raised, first of all after a careful examination of their medical history, and secondly, after a careful medical examination. Neither of these things has been done in the past. I have in very many cases received personal information regarding the methods of many of these travelling medical boards. I do not say that action has been uniform, but in many cases they have passed men for general service without even applying a stethoscope to them. My hon. Friend will tell me that I ought to give him cases. I put a question to him the other day as to whether it was not the case that men in the Army were being refused their discharge because they refused to undergo operations. He denied that suggestion, and asked me for cases. It is obviously impossible. These men are forbidden to write to Members of Parliament. Some of them have written to me, but if I gave the name of any man who had written to me he has committed an offence against the King's Regulations and is liable to disciplinary treatment. So it is obviously impossible that I can render these men liable to this action on the part of their superior officer.

I ought to state here, because it is a matter of public interest, that I do not think my hon. Friend or anyone in the House can produce a single instance where a private soldier has written to a Member, who in turn has put a question down on the Paper of the House mentioning the name of the soldier and has been subjected to court-martial or reprimand.

I know a case of that kind, but I know a case of another kind. I know the case of a soldier who wrote to a Select Committee and received ten days C.B. The Committee was appointed by this House to inquire into the matter and put an advertisement in the newspapers asking for information.

I know nothing about that. I was dealing directly with the point of a soldier writing to a Member of Parliament.

Are they forbidden to write?

I do not think so. I am perfectly certain that I have given an answer to say that no action will be taken against any soldier who finds his name in a question in the House if that soldier has written to a Member of Parliament.

Then I understand there is immunity if a question is put on the Paper. That is satisfactory so far as it goes, but would it not be better in these circumstances to withdraw paragraph 439 of the King's Regulations altogether? I will read a notice which is displayed in one of the military hospitals:

"Irregular methods of complaint, either direct to the War Office or to Members of Parliament or through the Press, are strictly forbidden in accordance with King's Regulations, paragraph 439 and Sections 42 and 43 of the Army Act."

My hon. Friend has said that if a soldier's name appears in a question in this House he is free from any penalties under the paragraph. Is not that so?

Yes.

If a Member of Parliament does not put the name in the question and the Commanding Officer discovers that the man has written to the Member of Parliament he is still liable. Would it not be better to give complete immunity? In these days, when we are all so anxious to give soldiers votes, we should surely allow them to write to Members of Parliament. They are going to be our Constituents. I think my hon. Friend has been somewhat rash in making that statement because he will find a great many more questions on the Paper.

I think I have received more letters from soldiers through Members of Parliament in all quarters of the House than any other official. I do not think a single Member of the House can say that in any case has any action, either reprimand or court-martial, been taken.

I am not suggesting it was so, but many letters which I receive are marked "Confidential" because the soldier is afraid, and when he marks it so it is impossible for me to use it here. I thought this was a convenient opportunity for having the matter cleared up, and I am very glad to have had those statements which he has made. I only appeal to him to go further and to give complete immunity.

When I entered into that digression I was dealing with the question of the travelling medical boards, but it does not depend only on the medical board whether a man's category is passed. He may have his category raised by the medical officer of the battalion without any consultation with anyone. The only thing that the medical officer cannot do it to lower the man's category without the consent of the medical board. It even goes further. Even sergeant-majors may temporarily use C 3 or B 3 men for duties which are B 2 and C 2 without any reference to the medical officer at all. A party may be required for a certain kind of work and there may not be a sufficient number of men for it. It has occurred that B 3 and C 3 men who are only fitted for sedentary work and clerical duties have been taken and sent on labour work for which they were entirely unfit. There should be an express instruction preventing anything of that kind occurring, and no man should be sent to duties for which he is not classified without the consent and approval of the medical officer.

These are the main points I wish to raise regarding the examination of men after they come into the Army, but there is another matter which is arousing some disquiet and upon which I think it very important to obtain a statement from the representative of the War Office here. An impression has gone abroad among a certain number of wounded officers and soldiers that they are being now more speedily passed through hospital than in the earlier days of the War. They are not given that full time for recovery which is so important in the case of many wounds and many ailments under the circumstances of military service. I have heard suggestions of that kind. Personally I was unwilling to give any credence to them, but I have had placed in my hands a circular marked "confidential" which is in the form of a memorandum to medical officers. It is issued by the Surgeon-General, D.D.M.S., Scottish Command. There is a great deal of phraseology in it which leaves a vague and misty impression upon my mind, but one clear impression comes from it, and that is that it is intended to-be an instruction to medical officers in hospitals to return wounded men as speedily as possible to the fighting line. I am not in a position to part with the document, but I will give the Under-Secretary of State for War the index number, O.K. 53462.1/M, Circular Memoranda to medical officers, 26th June, 1917. It is issued from the headquarters at Edinburgh. I wish to read two paragraphs, which give the gist of the whole document: in which he suggests that there is a conflict between the ethical and military aspect.

Can the hon. Member inform me whether there is in the Scottish universities a special course for training in politics?

That is rather beyond the point, because it does not come within the sphere of medical officers. I do not think that the deputy director of medical services in Scotland is a Scotsman. Had he been a Scotsman I do not think he would have put in all this loose phraseology:

"It is by the curliest possible return of such cases that the medical service can gain the confidence and approval of the commanders in the field or at home, and can best further the interests of the Army and of the nation at war."

I think it is an extremely serious matter that a man in authority should issue a circular drawing attention to conflict between the ethical and professional view of a medical officer's duties, and what may be called the military duties, suggesting in the plainest terms that everything must give way to military considerations. Ethical and political considerations must give way to military considerations. After a circular like that it is not surprising that one should hear of men whose cure is not complete being discharged from hospital. I have heard of cases where they have found very shortly after leaving hospital, even during the period of leave at home, that they were unfit and had to go back. When you see an instruction of this kind it may mean that medical officers are acting upon it and setting aside their professional views and acting on what is called the military view. I would like to know from my hon. Friend whether there is any confidential instruction from the Director-General of Medical Service upon which this circular has been based. I have had evidence that there is such a circular, but I cannot produce, it. I hope my hon. Friend will inquire whether such a circular is in existence. I think it will be marked "confidential." I hope also that measures will be taken to see that however great the need may be for returning wounded men to the fighting ranks, that at least there will be the utmost assurance that no wounded man goes back who is not absolutely fit for service. These are the main points upon which I ask for information. I understand that my hon. Friend (Mr. Hogge) has other points to raise and some cases to bring forward. I will only point one moral in relation to the whole matter. This is not a matter of machinery altogether. I believe that too great a burden has been placed upon the Army Medical Service and upon the men under forty-one. You have restricted your recruiting to men under forty-one, although you say that any man who is fit for a civilian job is fit for an Army job. If that is your principle you should have no age limit for the Army at all. But you confine that principle to classes under forty-one, and in order to keep up your numbers you are forcing the medical service in the Army and they are unable to do justice to the men under forty-one. It is not a question simply of War Office policy. I do not blame my hon. Friend for that. I do not expect him to make a reply on it. It is a question of Government policy. It is in this matter that the present Government has failed more than in anything else. The one reason why it came into existence was to bring about a complete system of National Service. When the Prime Minister made his first speech in the House he assured us that the new Department was being set up, and that, when we came back from the winter vacation, we would find it in full working order and everybody mobilised. We have had the fraud and the farce of National Service, and I believe that it is to that fraudulent Department that a new system of recruiting is to be entrusted. We have had all these great promises of the mobilisation of man-power. There has been no mobilisation, no substitution, and no effective combing out. You said you would comb 150,000 men out of the munitions. Have you combed out 30,000? The result has been that you have been driven to this cowardly, cruel policy of making impossible, intolerable demands upon the men, particularly the unfit men under forty-one. That is a grave indictment. It is an indictment which is creating great unrest in this country, and until you do something to set it right there will be a progressing weakening of public confidence and a corresponding loss of efficiency in the conduct of the War. The Government are about to have a Recess. It is their duty during that period to adopt some method to remedy the grievances; which have been set forth this afternoon and on other occasions, not only the individual grievances, but the grievances; of the whole people, and to see that an intolerable burden is not placed upon one class, but that some approach to equality of sacrifice, which was the primary object of the Military Service Act, is introduced and that every class in the community should bear its share of the sacrifices of this great War.

I desire to call attention to an important matter relating to the status of a large number of Canadians who are serving with our forces. As an illustration I may mention the case of a Canadian called MacKinlay, who joined a Canadian regiment. These men, wearing Canadian uniform and absolutely believing that they have really joined the Canadian Army, now find with some consternation that an attempt is being made to regard them as belonging to the Imperial Army. As an illustration, I may mention the details of the case which were outlined in my question to the Under-Secretary for War. Private John MacKinlay enlisted at Winnipeg on the 9th of December, 1915, and come to this country in January, 1916, with the 78th Battalion Imperial Motor Transport, Winnipeg, Canadian Draft. From the time he enlisted until his death in July, 1916, he wore the Canadian uniform and the Canadian badges. His pay was 6s. a day and Mrs. MacKinlay's pension was 28s. a week until the 11th of January, 1917—that is for six months after her husband's death—when her pension was reduced to 17s. 6d., which is the Imperial rate of pension for a widow with one child. On MacKinlay's arrival in England he reported at Grove Park, where he passed his test as a motor driver. He was then loaned to the Garrison Artillery. It is claimed by the Canadian authorities that although he enlisted in Canada in December, 1915, he did not attest until January, 1916. On this point the Canadian Paymaster writes:

"The late Private MacKinlay, who attested at Grove Park on the 17th January, and under thin form, including his service from the 9th of December, 1915, up to the date of his death, it would appear that the whole of his service was at the Imperial rate of pay and the allowance and pension to his widow would be at the Imperial rate also."

In contrast to that we have the statement from the officer of the Army Service Corps at Woolwich, which says:

"MacKinlay is taken to have joined at Grove Park in January, 1916, but to have attested on the 9th December, 1915."

It is obvious that if MacKinlay was a soldier in December, 1915, he could only have been attached to an Imperial unit by transfers in January, 1916. A letter from the Canadian Chief Paymaster is to this effect:

"There is no doubt in my mind that this man transferred from the Canadian to the Imperial Forces. If, however, it can be shown that the man was compulsorily transferred, the matter would appear to be one that would be reconsidered."

There is no evidence whatever that the man was transferred either voluntarily or compulsorily, but in a letter from the Ottawa authorities dated the 15th of June last it is stated that the attestation forms used in the attestation of these men were the Regular British Army forms and that the rates of pay and separation allowances were fixed by the British authorities. But there is this remarkable admission in the same letter:

"It is impossible to say whether in every case the men understood the conditions of their enlistment. Presumably, however, they did."

It is inconceivable, to my mind, that the men did understand from it that they were attesting in the Imperial Forces. The two points to which I wish to draw the attention of the Under-Secretary are: Were these men transferred to the Imperial Army, or, if not, did they understand clearly the conditions under which they enlisted? The outcome of this, so far as this man's dependants are concerned, is that while Mrs. MacKinlay received for six months a pension at the rate of 28s. a week for herself and her child, it was then cut down to 17s. 6d. a week—that is, she is now receiving a pension of £45 10s. per annum, whereas according to the Canadian scale she should be receiving something like £72 16s. per annum. This is only one case, but it is illustrative of many others amongst the Canadian soldiers. I have no means of finding out to how many it does relate, but I have evidence that it relates to a very considerable number of Canadian soldiers who are now serving with the forces, and I do beg that the Under-Secretary will pay particular attention to this case and will do all that he possibly can not only to secure justice to this widow, who is in a very weak state of health, who has not been able to do work, and who has consequently found it almost impossible to live on the 17s. 6d. a week, but still more to do justice to the gallant men who have been doing such splended service in our common cause during this great War.

The Adjournment Debate has been marked as much by its omissions as anything else, and before I revert to the subjects which are peculiarly those I want to talk about this afternoon there are one or two other remarks that I desire to make in protest against the way in which the House of Commons is treated by those who are responsible for the government of this country. We had yesterday an arranged speech by the Prime Minister in which he displayed a very intelligent anticipation of the points that were raised by the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Kennedy Jones), who was speaking in this House for the first time. In fact, those of us who have a few years in the House to our credit have seldom seen a maiden effort synchronise so completely with the facts upon which the Prime Minister wished to address the House, and it is that kind of thing that makes one feel that the treatment of the House of Commons by the Government is cavalier and of a nature which is not likely to increase public respect for this institution. The Prime Minister dealt with only two points in the course of a long speech. One of those points was the question of our food supply in this country, and the other was the progress that we are making with regard to getting on the top of the submarine menace. It will occur to everybody who gives any attention to what is being done to carry on the War that a great number of large questions were never even touched upon. We have had, for example, within the past few weeks the removal from the Admiralty of the late First Lord, and the filling up of the Admiralty positions by the present First Lord and every other official who, apparently, could be spared from the running of the North-Eastern Railway. In fact, the Admiralty is now run by the staff of the North-Eastern Railway. We not only have the deputy manager, but we have all his relatives, attached to the Admiralty. One of the complaints made against politicians has always been that there has been a considerable amount of political nepotism in connection with appointments; but one has seen whenever a new Department has been taken hold of by a business man that nepotism apparently extends to business men as well as to politicians. Surely, this House ought to know before it pasess into a Recess of eight weeks what is the meaning of these changes; why it is that the brilliant and successful lawyer who was at the head of the Admiralty, and whose tenure at that post, according to the Solicitor-General, speaking from that Bench, was brilliantly successful, has been removed in the course of a brilliantly successful career at the Admiralty to make way for the officials of the North-Eastern Railway Company. Is it because the Admiralty has not been run well?; is it because the Government are dissatisfied with what is being done at the Admiralty?; is what is wrong wrong on the technical side or on the strategical side?; is it anything to do with the lack of co-operation between the Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps? None of these questions have been answered, although many of them have been put. Yet this House of Commons, which, after all, has some little common sense left, and I hope some intelligence to engage a situation, is left without the slightest particle of information with regard to a radical change in the Admiralty, practically from the top to the bottom. I want to protest against that fact being overlooked and not. being discussed by the Prime Minister, and to suggest that when he arranges again that somebody should speak in front, of him he should propose that the speaker who does speak in front of him should provide more pegs on which he can hang some more ideas.

Then there is another point that has not been mentioned at all in connection with this Adjournment, and that is the question of National Service. We have spent, a tremendous amount of money upon; National Service, with the result that Mr. Neville Chamberlain, after having wasted £10 per head of the nation's money in placing men has followed his brother into political retirement at the present moment. In fact, it is rather curious that while two brothers retire from the political arena, one from the India Office and the other from National Service, two other brothers should be brought from the outside into the Government, one from the Admiralty, and, if all rumours are true another from the, War Office, to take charge of civilian recruiting. I hope the brothers who succeed the brothers who have gone will have better luck than has overtaken the latter. We are going away for eight weeks, and I do not know what is going to happen to National Service at all. The hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Beck) has been put in charge, so far as this House is concerned, of National' Service, and, if all rumours are true, has been attached to that Department in order that he may revivify and make it do useful work. Whether that is true or not I do not know, but at any rate here you have a business Government, run by man who are supposed to be able to do things so very much better than anybody else, who are unable to come to this House and make any apology for the unbusinesslike arrangements with which they have carried out a great service of the State.

Then there is another point that has not been touched upon, and which I think ought to be touched upon, before we part for this Recess. Nothing has been said about the Air Service. We are in the thick of another advance on the Western front, and we will be in the thick of air raids in this country during the Recess. We do not know yet whether there is any attempt going to be made to amalgamate the two Air Services. We do not know whether any attempt is going to be made to control those Services. There are a great many questions that could be put with regard to both of the Services, as to the provision of machines which are being used now on the Western front, being sent over the line on the Western front every day of the fighting, machines which have been described by the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. Billing) as "murder" machines, and "murder" machines many of us believe them to be, despite the fact that he has been criticised so harshly for using that word. There are a great number of facts on which we are given no details with regard to the Air Service. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for War can deal with some of these points, but there is one point I should like some information on about the Air Service, if he could tell us. Why has the German aeroplane so much and such continuous success in destroying our observation balloons on the Western Front? They are behind the lines on the Western Front and they are supposed to be protected by the British Air Service, but if the German has more success in any one thing than another it is his success in bringing down our observation balloons on the Western Front. You can talk to the men returning from the front almost every day of the week, and they will tell you of the numbers of men they have seen in the air at one time descending from these observation balloons by means of parachutes.

Nothing ever seems to be done to remedy the state of affairs, and we shall be in the thick of our autumn campaign while the House is in Recess, taking its holidays, and nothing material being done. In fact, I think it is absurd that this House should rise at all. I do not think this House ought to be away on Recess while some of the most essential things that may happen and that do happen from week to week are occurring. In the middle of next week we may be faced with a crisis between the great mass of the people in this country and the Government with regard to the Stockholm decision. Minds will be made up for us by the Press—which is run by the Prime Minister, instead of his running the War, as he ought to be doing—and we shall not be able to express our views upon it or move anything because we shall be away from this House. There is one other question that has not been dealt with which does seem to me to want dealing with at the present time. These are preliminary points, four already, and this is the fifth and the last which I want to emphasise in order to show the folly of the Government pretending to govern this country at the present time. The last of these preliminary remarks is with regard to the War Cabinet. The War Cabinet, as formed originally, was confined to five Members. It was set up because other Cabinets before were so stupid that they made a mess of the War. This War Cabinet was to put everything right very soon in the best possible way. Well, it has put nothing right. The War to-day is not being run one iota better than it was when the last Government went out of power. The Admiralty is not being run one bit better than when the old Government went out.

2.0 P.M.

All the War Cabinet has done has been to grow, to grow in numbers, so that the War Cabinet to-day is really as large as some of the Cabinets in British history. Outside that War Cabinet you have a plethora of Members of this House who are supposed to be members of the Cabinet, but who, so far as I gather, never seem to meet the Prime Minister in any kind of Cabinet or have their advice taken on any public question. I think we are entitled to know, after eight months of this experiment, whether this alteration in the constitutional habits of this House has been beneficial for running the War or for running this House. One thing it has done is to protect the Prime Minister. One of the most contemptible things in connection with this House is the way in which the Prime Minister refuses to face criticism and the way in which he selects the opportunity on which he wants to speak, comes down a few minutes before he does speak, and disappears immediately after he has spoken. That is one of the most contemptible things on the part of a democratic Prime Minister who is supposed to have gone into office to run this War by businesslike methods. Those are the five points. I do not wish to enlarge on them, but they ought to be put on record in the OFFICIAL REPORT on an occasion of this kind, to show that at least some of us have a huge contempt for the way in which this business Government is supposed to be running the War.

I come now to the subject-matter of the further remarks I want to make. I want to deal first of all with the Report of the Select Committee. I feel no grievance against my hon. Friend the Undersecretary for War for denying to me in this House, when I made the charge that secret instructions did exist, that there were any such things. I know now he had no knowledge of them, and when he told me there were no such things as secret instructions he did not know of them. I understand that, of course, he is sorry he was led into that mistake. I am quite content to leave it there, although I must incidentally say in passing that the celerity with which my hon. Friend apologised in another case where he gave inaccurate information is rather curious, when you consider the information which he gave to me. It does not so much matter that it applies to me as that it applies to the 5,000,000 men it affects outside. As my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Lanarkshire (Mr. Pringle) said, we are going to Divide the House on this Adjournment Motion, however long we have got to stop here to-day, unless we get a definite pledge as to what is going to be done with regard to the future of recruiting. The Select Committee came to certain recommendations which can briefly be divided into two parts—one, that the whole question of recruiting should be handed over to civilians; and, two, that men already taken into the Army under the old conditions with the secret instructions at work, should have the right of appeal to a separate Board which is to be set up, so that they may be taken out of the Army, in which they have been wrongly put. That is the position as we find it at this moment.

If the newspaper accounts are true, and I see no reason to doubt them, we are informed that what the Government propose to do is to appoint Brigadier-General Geddes as the civilian head of a new recruiting department. Who is Brigadier- General Geddes? He is very well known to my hon Friend the Under-Secretary for War and myself. All three of us happened to be at the same university. But Brigadier-General Geddes is the military head of the Recruiting Department in the War Office now; he is the Director-General of Recruiting, and are we to believe for a moment that all that is going to happen is that Brigadier-General Geddes is going to take another office and get into civilian clothes, and that that will be carrying out the promise of the Government that recruiting is to be handed over to civilians? That will be done in the Recess. The Government are always afraid to do things when Parliament is sitting. The Government do everything in Recess. Everything that matters is done in Recess, when criticism cannot be directed towards what they are doing. We must know, and I am sure my hon. Friend will see it is imperative that we should know before this House rises to-day, who it is who is going to have this civilian recruiting to do, and incidentally whether the War Office have made up their minds that this is the best method of doing the recruiting. What I want to say about it is this; I do not care a brass button who does the recruiting. What I do care about is that the medical boards must be civilian boards, and that they must not have any instructions from the War Office with regard to the passing of men into certain categories. All that the medical board is entitled to do with regard to a man who goes to the front is to say whether he is fit or unfit, and to determine the degrees of his fitness or unfitness, and after all that has been determined, apart altogether from the question of military service, the War Office can then use this man as and how they like. I want my hon. Friend to say also, with regard to that, whether he is now prepared to say—because he promised to make inquiries into it—that until military boards are set up he will suspend the calling out of any men at all under the Review of Exceptions Act for re-examination. What is going on to-day is this: I find all over the country that men who can be called up under the Act are being hurried into the lower categories frequently in order that the Army, once it has got hold of them, can by re-examination put them into higher categories. It is obvious that you should make up your mind to suspend the examination of the men until the machinery is prepared by which it can be done rightly. I am not surprised that the War Office is afraid of the decision on this important matter—important to millions of men in this country, important to the physical future of the men of this country. That important decision by Lord Derby and the Prime Minister was come to between a taxi-cab drive and a train moving from a platform. The whole discussion between these two eminent statesmen, on which depends the fate of so many of their fellow citizens, could only have so much reflection as could be given to it by the Prime Minister when catching his train and while Lord Derby was probably carrying his bag to the carriage. That is not the way to treat this House of Commons; it is not the way in which we expect a great war to be won by great men; and if that kind of thing is going on, as we know it is, then the sooner these bubbles are burst the better, and the sooner the public will assess those men to their proper category, and the better realise that they have no more wisdom and no more genius than a great many other much more simple people who are trying to do their duty to this country.

Another point on which I want information is as to granting leave from the front. My hon. Friend knows that on the question of leave there has been a great deal of misunderstanding. Many men have served in France as long as two years without ever having had any leave. We can understand the difficulty with regard to leave when you get to the front at Salonika or Mesopotamia. At these fronts there are certain difficulties of transport, and those cases are very much more difficult than is the case at the front in France or in Flanders. What I cannot understand is the difficulty of ascertaining in France the number of men who have not had leave. I have been in France myself, as a visitor, and I have been in close touch with a great many of our soldiers at the front. I had no difficulty, in the course of five or ten minutes, in discovering men who had not had any leave, and I cannot conceive why the colonel of the battalion should not parade his men, and, by simply ordering all those men who had not had leave to stand forward, thus find out those who had not had leave within a certain period. If they are so hard pressed that they cannot keep a system of books to show what men had been granted leave, surely it would be possible to parade them, some morning, in order to see what men in the battalion had not been granted leave for a year, or eighteen months, or six months, or whatever the period might be. It is a disgrace that there is any man serving in France or in Flanders to-day who has not had leave for over eighteen months. Why not increase the number of leave boats? Only one leave boat comes over to Folkestone at the present time. I believe one has been crossing from Calais to Dover in the past few weeks. But why could not men on leave be brought by ordinary boats which are crossing the Channel? Surely it is possible to bring more men than are being brought on leave from one side to the other in one day. In view of the fact that these men have got to face another winter in France, I think my hon. Friend ought to make sure before he goes on his own holiday—if he is going to get one; I hope he may—that any fighting soldier in France who has not had leave within the last year will be granted leave. My hon. Friend the Member for the College Division (Mr. Watt) reminds me that there are still many men at home who have never served abroad at all. It would not be a bad plan, in a slack time at the front, that the men resting should be changed from the fighting battalions to other battalions. Some of the Scottish battalions have been in twelve, fifteen, and twenty engagements within the last two years. Why not bring some fighting battalions like those home for the winter for six months, replacing them with battalions that have never seen any service? That is the kind of thing to do if you want to put some spirit into the fighting men at the front. They feel these things much more than many other things.

There is a further point on which I want some information—the question of the his charge of men from the Army after being before the medical board and relegated as ready for discharge. My hon. Friend knows what happens in that case. I know of sixteen men of the Royal Engineers at Chatham who have had their discharge for over four months, who were paraded at half-past eight in the morning, and the roll called. They were sent away for rest, to do just as they pleased, because they could not do anything else. These men cannot get away. Where I live in London, parties of men belonging to the Royal Service Corps, awaiting discharge, stroll along the streets of the neighbourhood, and people wonder why they are not inside the Army. They are costing pounds a week to the nation, and they are doing nothing useful to the State or for themselves. These men cannot get away. The most peculiar instance I have seen of how difficult it is for a man who has got his discharge to get away happens to be a case in which my hon. Friend will be interested. A man got his discharge somewhere in the South, and he was sent to a unit in Invergordon, where he had to await his discharge. When he got to Invergordon some medical officer who had got very little to do apparently classed him as A 1 and fit for general service. On the same day, by post, this man, classed as A 1 and fit for general service, received a letter from the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, awarding him a pension of 27s. 6d., on the highest degree of disability. It would be rather interesting to find out who the medical officer was at Invergordon who examined the man, who had already obtained his discharge, and classed him A 1 while on the same day the man received a letter that he had been awarded a total disability pension. It is in my hon. Friend's neighbourhood, and it would be interesting if he made a point of inquiring into this matter. The nation does not want to be put to the expense of maintaining these men in the Army longer than is necessary; and if my hon. Friend wants to do a service to the men who have served their country he will quicken up the machinery by which they can be got out of the Army when they are of no more use to the Army. I asked a question the other day as to whether these men cannot themselves go straight to the invaliding medical board to get out of the Army or whether they have got to depend on going to the officer above them. I will tell him what happens over and over again when it is referred to the officer above them. It simply means that that officer, although he is able to get men out of the Army, cannot make up his mind as to whether the men may be useful for some sort of service if they get a little better, and as a consequence they continue a burden to the Army and to the finances of the country. Let me refer now to the York incident. As my hon. Friend knows some time ago in the City of York a train arrived on the platform with the members of a certain mounted battery. It is a splendid battery, I know all about it fairly well. These men had a very long journey, and, as on all stations in this country, York citizens provided refreshments for the soldiers passing through. The major in charge of this battery when the men were standing on the platform being supplied with coffee, apparently annoyed at something which my hon. Friend has never explained although he promised to send me the report—

I will show it to my hon. Friend.

I have not seen it. The hon. Gentleman says he will show it to me, but a few days ago he said he would send it to me. I do not know whether he has had a confidential instruction that he is only to show it to me, and not send it. I do not mind about that because that is not the point. When those men were about to entrain this major seized a cup of coffee out of the hands of this private soldier and poured it over the head and neck of that soldier. This major said to a lady who remonstrated with him that he wished it had been scalding hot. He finally apologised to that lady. I brought the case up in the House, and the answer of my hon. Friend was that the officer had expressed his regret and there was an end of the whole circumstances. I do not know whether that expression of regret was to the War office or to the private soldier or whether my hon. Friend meant the regret that had been expressed to the lady who had been distributing the coffee. But I am quite sure that the incident cannot be left there. You cannot have a major in charge of a battery treating any of his men in that way. It cannot be done. I want to know from him, and I will not pursue the matter further to-day, but I will pursue it after the Recess if it is not settled, what disciplinary action is being taken with regard to that major. I put a question the other day in which I made what seemed to be a good suggestion on the lines of his answer that all private soldiers who committed any offence should express regret and that the matter should be left there. That would be very popular in the Army if a private soldier did anything such as overstaying his leave for a week or anything of that sort; all he would have to do would be to say to the colonel, "I am very sorry I am a week over my leave," and he would be told, "It is all right, get away into the line." It is quite obvious this matter cannot be left there, and I want to know what is being done.

The next point is the question of war badges for men who have seen service at the front. For a very long time there has been in this country a considerable amount of dissatisfaction with regard to the absence of any tangible indication of a man's service at the front. There are the silver badge men whom we know, and there are many men who ought to be wearing it but cannot get it under the Regulations which exist. In that connection I have suggested more than once that in those cases if they cannot give a silver badge they ought to give some other kind of badge, such as a bronze badge, which at any rate would be a tangible indication that the man might have in his possession to show that he had served. This matter ought to be settled. There is a more important point which ought to be settled. There are many men in this country, well set-up men walking about the streets and they have got no indication to show that they are men who have been two or three years in the trenches at the various fronts. We have the staff officer with some ribbon which he has got from the King of the Belgians or the Russian Government or something of that sort who parades our streets and looks a warrior of some sort or other. But the actual man who has borne the brunt of the fighting and the heat of the day has nothing to show of any kind. His French comrades and his Belgian comrades come over here and you can tell from their badges what service they have done for their country. Why should not our private soldiers at the end of three years have some indication of what he has done. If there is one subject more than another mentioned in my letters amongst the smaller matters, it is from men who took part in the Mons retreat and who have been discharged since and have nothing to show that they took part in one of the most critical annals of the War, and that they served this country better than the present Government is serving it, in fighting at the front. I wonder if my hon. Friend can tell us whether the Mons medal is likely to be distributed soon, and as to whether it cannot be struck at once, so that they may be given to the men who took part in that particular incident. In any case, I hope my hon. Friend is ready to-day to tell us something decisive about what the War Office has agreed to in regard to badges for service. I have only two other points. I would like my hon. Friend to tell me whether anything has been agreed upon with regard to soldiers' pay. We are now about to embark on the fourth year of the War—

We have done so.

My hon. Friend, who is usually more accurate, reminds me that we have actually done so, and that we are now in the fourth year of the War. At home all kinds of war bonuses are being given to all kinds of people who have done less for their country than the soldiers who are fighting at the front. For instance, the railwaymen have had as much as 15s. war bonus on the top of the wages they had when War broke out. The soldier has had nothing, and the ordinary soldier to-day after paying his allowances of one kind or another is left with 6d. in his pocket as pocket-money. Sixpence at the front if you are in the fighting line may be an abundance of wealth, but at home obviously that amount is a hopeless sum to leave to our soldiers in these days of high prices. There has been a Cabinet Committee sitting. In fact, whenever you touch a question at all nowadays you find that the answer to it is that some Committee is sitting. There are as many Cabinet Committees sitting to-day as would hatch more proposals than this House would have time to deal with if it sat during the whole of the Recess. It is not good enough simply to have Committees sitting. What the soldiers want is decision. The soldiers want to know, is it true or untrue that the Government is going to take over the allotment of 3s. 6d. per week that he now provides for his wife's separation allowance so that he himself will have a clear Is. a day of pay, They also want to know whether, if the Government give these war badges to the soldier, any monetary reward is going to go with the badges; if, for instance, the man who has a three years' badge is going to have so much more pay per day because of the amount of service he has rendered to the State? I hope my hon. Friend will be able to answer on these matters. I regret that the Financial Secretary is not well, and, therefore, not able to carry the burden of these questions in reply to a discussion on the Adjournment. I hope my hon. Friend can say something on that. It is a point which is of great interest to the fighting soldier in the held.

Having disposed of these public matters, there is a private matter which I want to bring before my hon. Friend before I sit down—that is the case which is known to the House of Commons as the Gunner Sim case. I do not want to bring it before the House of Commons. I had no idea of so doing, and I will not do so to-day if my hon. Friend will say at once that he is going to grant me an inquiry into the death of this man. My hon. Friend makes no response. He cannot grant me an inquiry. Then I am afraid I must occupy the House for some further minutes in dealing with the case. I should like to recall to the House that this illustrates the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Lanark in regard to the travelling medical boards. The essence of this case, therefore, is this: Gunner Sim was the son of an Edinburgh head master. He was a young man under twenty, who tried voluntarily to join His Majesty's Forces. He was systematically refused in every attempt he made on account of physical disability. His father, seeing what was happening to other boys in the Army, took the trouble to get a very particular medical examination made of his boy. I have seen—as I dare say my hon. Friend has seen—or if he has not, then he can do so whenever he likes—certificates from the highest medical authorities in Scotland saying that this man was suffering from certain things, which are set out, and on no account was he fit for any kind of service. So that before the lad was taken that was the defensive equipment he had from medical men of standing in Edinburgh. I may remind my hon. Friend that he knows one of them. He is known to him, as well as to myself, as a professor in our Alma Mater. Neither he nor I would discount the value of that man's testimony. It was this man's certificate that this lad was equipped with when he was taken into the Army. Sim was put in as a C1 man. I would remind my hon. Friend that Sim was C1 on the Monday of a certain week in Mary-hill Barracks, Glasgow, and he was A 1, fit for general service, in Piershill Barracks, Edinburgh, on the Friday of the same week. That point has not been dealt with in the report. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has got before him the Army report which I have in my hand, but this was the report which was sent to me as an explanation of what had occurred; and this report is not worth the paper on which it is printed. It is a scandalous report. It does not touch the issues of the case at all. For instance, the vital issue in this case was that they altered this man's category from C 1 on the Monday to A1 on the Friday. If these were not the correct days, then it was an interval of five days. There is no word in this report about that. This report begins from the day when that took place. There is not a single word in this Government report about how it was that this young man's category was changed, in spite of the fact that those concerned had all the medical evidence in regard to the man. That is one point showing the hopelessness of this report. Let me read another point to show the House of Commons how we are treated by the hon. Member. He cannot help it. He has far too much to do, and he is not helped by the Secretary of State for War, who is inefficient.

dissented.

My hon. Friend has no help by the Secretary of State for War, and these things were done by his Departmental officers. Here is the report signed by Surgeon-General J. C. Culling, the same man who signed the secret Instruction which was read out by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Lanark in his speech on this subject. The report says:

"Gunner Sim was examined by Captain Pryce, who found there was tenderness in the groin, but no other symptoms or signs. There was no sign or question of rupture on either side."

That is the statement of the War Office. Would this House believe it, that this man Sim was wearing a truss in Piershill? It was handed over to his father by an orderly when he was taken into the hospital, and yet the military doctor could discover no sign or question of rupture on either side, even when a man was wearing a truss. That is the report presented to me, and I am asked to accept it as an explanation of what has happened. What took place in this case? Let me come to another point. I do not want to weary the House by going into too much detail, but here is a letter signed by Captain Underwood, of the 36th Reserve Battery of the Royal Field Artillery. This Captain Underwood makes a considerable point of the fact that all that I have said must be nonsense, because the authorities have a letter at Piershill from the father of Gunner Sim thanking everybody—but I will read the exact terms of the letter:

"Received a letter from Mr. Sim after the funeral is over expressing his wish to inform all the officers, noncommissioned officers and men in the command, his gratitude for the kindness that all ranks had shown toward his son. This letter was placed on my Order paper, but unfortunately cannot now be traced."

I can trace it. I have got it. Here is the letter which was written asking him to thank everybody in the command:

"Mr. and Mrs. H. F. Sim and family return sincere thanks to the officers, non-commissioned officers and men of the 36th Reserve Battery of the R.F.A. for their expression of sympathy and also for the floral tribute sent in memory of their son."

That is the letter that was sent. That is what this precious Captain Underwood writes in this report that has been handed to my hon. Friend, who says that he must take what is given to him by the military authorities.

dissented.

That is one of my points. As I said the hon. Member must take what is given there. My hon. Friend is far too busy to look into these matters, and nobody would expect him to take an individual case of this kind and look into it himself. He is bound to send it down in this way and get a report. I have pointed out what the medical certificate says, that there was no evidence of rupture in this man. I have given further the fact that he was wearing a truss which was handed to his father by the orderly after he had been in hospital. I have produced the official letter in which they say they have a letter of thanks. It is nothing of the kind. It is a letter thanking them for sending a wreath to the lad's funeral. Is the House of Commons going to be humbugged by this kind of thing? I call it pure humbug! I do not call it straight. I consider that that kind of thing is pure bluff. I want an inquiry into this case.

Why?

The lad is dead. Perhaps my hon. Friend does not know the whole story. I must tell it to him briefly. I know my hon. Friend on the Front Bench does not like it to be told, but the oftener this story is told the oftener the incompetence of the men who serve my hon. Friend is revealed. This man Sim, after being A 1 at Piershall Barracks, was inoculated while he had an influenza cold upon him, of which the authorities were warned. He was left over the week-end lying on the floor in the gymnasium unattended by anyone. He got bronchial pneumonia. He was removed from that gymnasium to Edinburgh Castle, and was dead and buried inside the week. Yet in this report all these things are said and a great many more with which I could deal! But I have already taken up the better part of an hour. I did not want to go into the case, because I am quite clear in my own mind about this: This case has got to be settled by inquiry, otherwise the House will have to consider it in detail. I cannot leave this case where it is. On every Adjournment, every Vote connected with the War Office, this case has got to come up until it is settled. You cannot have a reproach of this kind lying upon the administration of the War Office. My hon. Friend himself cannot afford to leave a case of this kind in this state. I suggest that there should be an inquiry in Edinburgh into the circumstances of this, case, that the doctor should be found who is so useless as to pass a C 1 man into A 1 general service inside five days. That man ought to be found and his name published. The public ought to be protected against a man of that kind. He cannot do his work, and it is that kind of thing which brings the War Office into disrepute. There are some men on the travelling board in Scotland who have got the same epithets applied to them as were applied to the Duke of Cumberland. I could give the names of some of those doctors who passed as many as sixty-three men inside twenty-five minutes. These are the points I have raised, and I hope my hon. Friend will not forget to give us the information asked for, and to remember that, unless we do get a pledge with regard to what is going to happen over this civilian recruiting, we are going to divide the House on this Adjournment.

The Debate, which has lasted for some considerable time, has ranged over a very large number of subjects, and I hope to deal with as many as I possibly can, and as fully as I possibly can. Before I deal with the main charges which have been raised against the office I represent, I should like to deal with the solitary point which the hon. Member for Cockermouth (Mr. Bliss) brought to my notice both in a speech and at Question Time to-day. It is one of substance, and concerns not only this Government but the Canadian Government. It will entail a good deal of labour, and take a good deal of time, but I do promise that whenever I do get the facts, and I am able to come to a decision, I shall be most happy to communicate with the hon. Member. I think it is well I should begin with the last point which my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) raised. I do not think he would expect me to deal with the five major points concerning the general policy of the Government; in fact, I do not think he did expect me to deal with them. I propose to leave those main points to be dealt with at another time by some member of the War Cabinet, but I hope to deal as shortly as I can with the points more directly affecting my own office.

It is true my hon. Friend has raised on more than one occasion the case of Gunner Sim. Personally, I have expressed to him on more than one occasion my regret at the unfortunate and regrettable death of this gallant young soldier. I thought that the worst point made against the War Office to-day was that this soldier was transformed from one category, C 1, to another within five days. I have before me the report, and I find that he was first of all attested under the Derby scheme. He was then put back for six months, and the information I get—I telegraphed again last week—is that he reported for duty on the 28th December, 1916, and was at that time, I believe, C 1. He did not enlist at Mary Hill Barracks until 31st January. That was five weeks afterwards, not five days; and he was put into A 2, not A 1. He was transferred to Piershill Barracks, and was put into category A 2 by a new doctor. These are the facts as I have them. I have done my best to get all the information possible for my hon. Friend. I inquired again last week and I had an additional telegram from Edinburgh. The point I addressed to them was whether it was true that he had been transferred from one category to another within the very short time my hon. Friend emphasised. I think I have shown it was not five days, but that it was, in any case, five weeks.

Let us have an inquiry and see.

I am afraid I cannot ask my Department to have an inquiry into this case. I have got all the information which I think it would be possible to get now. Unfortunately Gunner Sim is dead, and the only people of whom I could make inquiries are those people from whom I have had inquiries made, and I do not think for a single moment that they could alter in any way the reports they have sent to me.

But they are not true; they are all lies.

My hon. Friend then went on to deal with what he called the York case. It is true I gave an answer the other day to say it was not proposed at that time to take any further action in the case, but new facts, as I told my hon. Friend the other day, had come to light, and it is proposed to take disciplinary action. I do not know what sort of action that may be, but it did appear to the military authorities on consideration that it was most reprehensible that any officer should have taken a summary and quite an irregular measure of that sort to punish a soldier of His Majesty. I hope my hon. Friend will not press further, as I have indicated to him that we are taking the necessary action. But mean while I know the case is sub judice.

Will you let me know when you have taken action?

Most certainly. In any case I will let my hon. Friend know what the result of the action is, but I would ask him not to press me to discuss the case any further. The hon. Member raised a point which is of great interest, not only to the soldiers who have been serving so gallantly at the front for so long, but to all the households interested in those soldiers. I said I hoped that before the House rose I should be able to make some definite statement about the distinctive marks which we propose to give to soldiers who have served at the front. Of course, the House will recognise that a distinctive mark is purely a temporary mark. It does not affect the question of gold badges, clasps, or medals. Those are permanent, and, of course, require far greater consideration. But my Noble Friend the Secretary of State felt very strongly that soldiers who have served at the front for three, years have no distinctive mark at all, pending the distribution to them of clasps of a permanent nature, to differentiate them from soldiers who have probably only enlisted a week before. I was asked to preside over a small committee and to come to some solution of the difficulty. I am sure that you all realise, all who are interested in these problems realise, how difficult it is to attempt to differentiate between various classes of troops and as to whether you ought to differentiate between a man who has gone out, say, as an officer to one theatre of war, and a man who has been fighting in the trenches in another theatre of war. There are a hundred and one little problems of that kind which do arise, but I think that I should communicate to the House what the proposals of this Committee were, and I think I may say that the Army Council has given its approval to its main points. We felt very strongly that men who had gone abroad with the original Expeditionary Force were in many ways in a class by themselves, but then you had this difficulty—it was very difficult to differentiate between the first divisions of the Expeditionary Force and a division or two which followed almost immediately afterwards, and which, but for reasons of transport, would have gone with the original Expeditionary Force. Then you have the other problem of trying to make any strong differentiation between that Expeditionary Force and the gallant Territorials, who followed four or five weeks afterwards, and we came to the conclusion that no such differentiation could be made among the troops that had left these shores for any theatre of war in 1914. I am sure the House will realise the difference between the temporary marks and the permanent, and whether you are going to have a distinctive and permanent badge for those who were in the retreat from Mons is not the question which I am now dealing with.

The first proposal I put forward was that every soldier of His Majesty's Forces who left these shores for overseas service in any theatre of war and in any capacity should be entitled to a distinctive mark. Then the problem arose, How are you going to deal with the other men? I put forward the proposal, and I think it was a reasonable proposal, though I am open to receive any suggestion from any hon. Members in the House—I put forward the suggestion which I thought was reasonable, that we should take a time limit, a minimum aggregate time limit, and say that if any man served a minimum aggregate of six months in any theatre of war, the six months to include his normal leave and his leave, if any, in hospital, then he should he entitled also to a distinctive mark. I will show you if I may by a concrete case how that would work out. First of all we say that every man who served in 1914 should get his mark. Then supposing a man served in France in 1914, for six months in 1915, and for six months in 1916 that man would be entitled to three marks because he is first of all entitled to his one mark for 1914, even though he does not have an aggregate of service amounting to more than four months—if he were only four days in 1914 in any theatre of war he-has his mark—and then he has his mark in 1915, and if he completes his six months in 1916 he gets another for that. That is one case. Now supposing a man has not been out in 1914, but has been out in 1915, and unfortunately at the end of two months' service he is sent home and is, therefore, not able to complete his aggregate of six months. Well, he is not entitled to any distinctive mark for that, but supposing he goes back, even in that year, for another four months, or even in the next year for another four months, completing in any one year or the other a minimum aggregate of six months, then he would he entitled to his distinctive mark. I think I have made that quite clear.

Will the hon. Gentleman say what kind of mark it is proposed to give.

I am coming to that. That brings us almost to a question of detail, but we took the precaution to find out what they did in France. Of course it is a mistake to suppose that we can adequately or properly compare the British soldier with the French soldier, because, after all, the War zone, the zone of the Armies in France, is quite a different thing—there they are fighting for their own soil. But they have adopted the use of what I think they call chevrons, and we propose to have that sort of mark on the arms or the shoulders. The only other point I want to emphasise is this. We thought that any man going out after 1915, or 1916, or 1917, or 1918, or whenever the War will end, should have a chevron of the same colour. We thought it advisable to give a chevron of a different colour to any man who was there in 1914, and that is one way of emphasising the peculiar nature of the services which were rendered by the Expeditionary Force and the other gallant regiments who served in 1914.

I would like to have one point cleared up. In the case of a man who was serving in Gallipoli, and after perhaps serving there only three months and coming back wounded, or otherwise incapacitated, is there to be no mark for a man of that kind?

Oh, yes, there would be, provided he has got his mini- mum aggregate of service; but supposing he came back wounded, then he has already got his mark.

But take the men who have been taken with dysentery and never able to go back afterwards to complete their minimum aggregate of service.

I quite see my hon. Friend's point, and I am fully confident that there must be cases of very great hardship. So I repeat that I am quite open for any suggestion which may come from any quarters of the House. It is almost impossible to satisfy everybody, but I do think the scheme which I have outlined is one which will give more general satisfaction than any other which could be found. There is another point to be remembered. Supposing a soldier goes out for three weeks to any of the fronts and is wounded. He does not need to complete his six months' minimum aggregate, because he gets his own temporary mark, the gold bar. Supposing he goes out for two or three months and has not completed his six months' minimum aggregate of service and is therefore not entitled to the new distinctive mark, he will be entitled to his silver badge, because he is permanently discharged from the Service, invalided out of the Service, and you have therefore got only a very small number which the hon. Member for Stepney very properly refers to, and he will see that the proposal which I have outlined is one which really would cover 95 per cent. of the British Army.

When is it to become operative?

At once.

I would like to point out that there are many thousands who went to Gallipoli and passed through a strenuous campaign. Some of them, after fighting perhaps for only a month, contracted dysentry, and were sent back. If they are to be deprived of any distinctive mark it is obviously a hardship, and I think there must be some thousands of cases like this.

I quite appreciate what my hon. Friend says. If my hon. Friend can give me a suggestion or any basis upon which I can work to supplement the proposal I have outlined, I shall be glad to consider it.

Why not start the badge from the time the man goes abroad and give him his further badges according to services after that?

I am glad the House, as a whole, does appreciate that the plan I have given is a fair one, and I am only too anixous to make it as fair as possible. I sympathise very much with what the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Glyn-Jones) has said, and I know the case of my hon. Friend's own son would be one of them, because though he has served in Gallipoli he had not the aggregate minimum service. But if any suggestions do come to me which I can act upon I should be quite prepared to act upon them, so that any service should be so recognised. I will not deal with the question of pay because, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated yesterday, it is now being considered by a Committee, and I trust that by the time the Recess is over important reforms will be made and that the House will have a definite statement on the subject.

Do I understand that the hon. Gentleman will bring this before the House—the scheme he has just told us about—or will it come from the War Office?

It was an Army Council Committee presided over by myself, but I promised that I would explain the scheme to the House in the hope that they would be satisfied, or, if not satisfied, that they would give me suggestions. The scheme that we put forward and recommend is not definite nor complete at the present time. I thought, and my Noble Friend thought, that the House should know upon what lines we proposed to act, but we are open to receive any suggestions which would make the scheme as perfect and complete as possible, and, if my hon. and gallant Friend has got any suggestions I shall be very glad to have them. Apart from the question of leave, which I discussed at considerable length the other day, I think that these are all the points that my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) raised.

Cannot you say anything about it now?

I can only say that we have been in communication with all the General Officers Commanding-in-Chief in the theatres of war, and we have pressed, particularly in the case of France, the idea of preferential leave to those soldiers who have been absent longest, or, as somebody else put it the other day in the House, that every man should get leave once before one man gets leave twice. I want to warn the House, however, that it is very difficult to lay down any general proposition which could be applicable to all the theatres of war. You have the difficulties of the military exigencies, and you also have got the tremendous difficulty, particularly in the more remote theatres of war, of the availability of transport. I can assure the House that all the General Officers Commanding-in-Chief are most anxious that men should get leave as quickly and as frequently as possible. The reason is obvious. The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief knows, if his men are kept there continually in the trenches or a little behind, that they are not the same for his purpose. Consequently, whatever can be done by the generals themselves is being done at the present time to bring about the desirable object.

If a man goes into hospital overseas on a remote front, will that period in hospital count as part of his leave?

I believe it does count as part of his leave in one particular theatre of war where my hon. and gallant Friend was serving, but I have endeavoured to make representations that that should not be the case, because it is extremely hard in a theatre of war where the climate is exceedingly bad that a man who is sent to hospital should be deprived of that much leave. The only other point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh was connected with the invaliding boards. I am glad that my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for North-West Lanark (Mr. Pringle) went out of their way to say that these boards were doing, I will not say particularly well, but well, and coming from my two critics I am sure that it is something which will cheer up the invaliding boards.

We have helped to bring them about.

3.0 P.M.

It is really quite immaterial to us who helped to bring them, about provided we are sure that the Army Medical Service has got one branch doing its work even to the satisfaction of my hon. Friends. I have been asked whether it would be possible for me to make any announcement now as to who is to be the new head of the Recruiting Department. I must frankly tell the House that personally I do not know, but I can assure the House that we shall be in a position before Monday to announce who is to be the head of that Department.

Shall I ask a Private Notice question?

It will be a matter for the Leader of the House. I am sorry to hear—and it is the first I have heard of it—that a most gallant and respected Member of this House, the Member for Andover (Captain Faber), has been asked to resign his commission by the War Office.

I did not say the War Office. I said he was resigning his commission—I am quoting his own words— owing to the work that he had done on this Committee.

That was not what I understood my hon. Friend to say. I understood my hon. Friend to say that because of his work on the Committee and because of the independent attitude which he had adopted he was asked to resign his commission. My hon. Friend will forgive me if I place great doubt upon that assertion. I am getting far too cute to say anything definite, and, consequently, while placing very grave doubt upon that assertion, I must ask for time to find out what are the actual and true facts of the case. My hon. Friend has asked me whether I can give an assurance that all the instructions which were issued will be withdrawn. I assume that he means the so-called secret and confidential instructions that have been issued.

Hear, hear!

I do not know whether we have withdrawn these instructions or not, but on Monday morning I hope to place before the authorities concerned all the suggestions which have been put forward by my hon. Friends. The other point was one about which I think the House felt very seriously. My hon. Friend endeavoured to show that we were issuing secret instructions to try to hurry up our medical officers so as to compel them to send men who had been wounded immediately back to the ranks. I listened to my hon. Friend reading that instruction, and frankly I do not think that it could bear the meaning which he placed upon it. Of course, it is a matter of opinion, but the impression left upon my mind by that instruction was that it is one of the first essentials of our medical officers purely in the Army Medical Corps to get an officer or a soldier completely cured as quickly as possible, in order that he may once again take his place in the fighting forces of the Crown. I do not think that there is anything reprehensible in that. Of course, I have not seen the Instruction, but for myself I think it is a highly proper instruction, because everybody knows that at the present moment there is a dearth, not only of officers but of men, and we require those men of experience to go back as soon as possible, thoroughly cured. We do not want to press them into rejoining the Service without being thoroughly cured, but we wish to get them back completely cured for the important work to which they have devoted themselves. I personally, and I am sure the Army Council, would strongly deprecate any Army Council Instruction, secret or otherwise, which had for its immediate object to drive men back to the fighting forces of the Crown before they are completely recovered from their wounds.

Will the hon. Gentleman ascertain whether the Director-General has sent any such circular?

I shall certainly make any inquiries possible, but I am quite certain that the Director-General never issued any circular, secret or otherwise, which meant, as I think my hon. Friend intended it to mean, that we were to drive men who were wounded back before they were completely cured to perform their fighting service in the Forces of the Crown. I am quite sure that no circular has ever been issued with that intention.

I think I was very careful as to what I said about that subject. I did not attach that particular interpretation to it, but I said it was capable of that interpretation, that medical officers had in fact so interpreted it, and that if it was capable of that interpretation it should be withdrawn.

My hon. Friend has stated quite accurately what I thought he did say, but even from the words which I heard him read I should say it was not capable of that interpretation. However, as there is a difference of opinion, even in the House, I quite realise that some medical officers may take that view, consequently I think I ought to bring this matter to the notice of the authorities, because in a matter of this sort; where wounded men's comfort is concerned, there should be no doubt of any sort. One other point was raised which affects Members of this House as well as the soldiers who are fighting. That was the question of the immunity of soldiers who are bold enough, notwithstanding knowledge of the King's Regulations, to write to their Members of Parliament. I cannot help saying that I am somewhat heterodox when, in speaking for the War Office, I say that there is a difference between the Army of the old days and the Army of to-day. In the old days you had a limited number of men who knew that their life for seven or twenty-one years was to be a life of discipline. Far be it from me to discredit that system, but the very fact that the men of our New Armies have so willingly banded themselves to submit to discipline as to make our Army the finest in the world in the shortest time, is really one reason why I should personally like to see a little freedom, provided it is properly used -and not abused, given to these men, who have so willingly submitted themselves to Army discipline. I have always been careful, when any hon. Member has written to me enclosing a letter from a private or noncommissioned officer or even from an officer, to extract a pledge that he should have immunity. When I have had to send a letter on to the Department concerned, I have always made it a stipulation, before I disclosed tie source of information, that no action should be taken. I will say this quite frankly for the military authorities, that they have always agreed not to take it.

There is the other point of a soldier who, whether in breach of the Regulations or with knowledge of the Regulations, writes to his Member of Parliament. After all, whatever people say of us, we always listen to all sorts of grievances of our constituents, and are always a help in time of trouble. A soldier after he has enlisted writes to his Member of Parliament stating his case, and the Member of Parliament puts a question on the Paper. In no case of that kind, I am perfectly certain, has any disciplinary action been taken against the soldier who has confided in his Member of Parliament, who, in turn, has put a question dealing with the subject on the Paper of the House. I think those are all the points which I have been asked to meet. If I have neglected to meet any, I hope my hon. Friends will draw my attention to them, either by correspondence or otherwise, when I shall be very glad to take advantage of the opportunity of answering them. May I conclude with one personal word. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Lanark (Mr. Pringle) and to my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge), because they have publicly told the House that, so far as I am personally concerned, they absolve me from any desire either to deceive them or to mislead the House.

Can the hon. Gentleman say what is going to be done about the further recommendations contained in the Special Report?

I am sorry I did not deal with that point. As a matter of fact, I did not intend to deal with it, because questions have been put down to the Prime Minister and to the Leader of the House. So far as I know, the whole question now has departed from the War Office and has centred itself in the War Cabinet. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated yesterday, the War Cabinet are now considering what is to be done with the recommendations, and my recollection of his reply was that they hoped to be in a position to state definitely what they propose to do within a very short time.

I wish to draw the attention of the House to another subject and especially to go back to the speech made here yesterday by the Prime Minister. The House listened with great interest to that speech, which, so far as the subjects with which it dealt were concerned, gave great satisfaction. It is with regard to subjects with which it did not deal that I now venture to address the House. The House knows that during the last few weeks there have been Conferences between the Allies with reference to their War policy in the Balkans. We have read statements in the Press as to the doings of these Conferences, and we have had speeches made outside this House. It is only fair that before the House adjourns for a Recess of two months, that the Government should give us, if it is possible for them to do so, some indication of the results and of the achievements of those Conferences. The House ought not to be ignored entirely in this matter. From all we hear with regard to questions of foreign policy, so far as it can be done without giving any useful information to the enemy, it would pay the Government to take the House and also the country into its confidence. If we look back over the history of foreign policy and the treatment of questions relating to foreign policy in this country for a considerable period, we find that the House of Commons has been more and more put on one side and treated with less interest than was the case in the time of Mr. Gladstone or of Mr. Disraeli. I believe that in those days—I do not remember them—questions of foreign policy were canvassed on the public platforms in the country. They were questions which were debated keenly at conventions and at elections. This had a very beneficial effect upon the electorate, whom it educated in the principles which underlie our relations with foreign States and upon which the great issues of peace and war depend. We come then to the time, I think, during Lord Rosebery's administration, when the doctrine was laid down that foreign policy was to be treated as a non-party question, and that there should be continuity in our foreign policy. No doubt there is a great deal to be said from that point of view, but on the whole it was carried much too far. It meant that not only was there to be no party discussion, but this House was not encouraged in any shape or form to take an interest in the foreign affairs of the country. That policy was pursued by each Foreign Minister, and in pre-war days it was a scanty attendance which listened to the discussion of the Foreign Office Vote. Foreign policy came to be regarded as the perquisite of the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office surrounds itself in a shroud of mystery. The effect, I believe, was disastrous not only on our diplomacy, but also upon the efficiency of our diplomats. I believe all our public services are made more efficient the more their conduct and their activities are watched and criticised in a friendly way by this House.

We had a rude awakening in 1914. This House has never had a Foreign Affairs Committee. I believe in the French Chamber the deputies know much more on the whole about all questions of foreign policy than is generally the case in this House. I do not know what happens in the Reichstag, but we know that they have a Budget Committee, which is instructed in the foreign policy of the country. How much they are told I cannot say, but the time has come when this House ought to consider very seriously whether ours is the best possible procedure for a proper understanding and a proper link with the foreign policy of the country and the doings of the Foreign Office. We are fighting for a democratic settlement at the end of this War, and it must follow that if we are going to have an intelligent and educated democratic opinion in this country we must know more about our relationship with foreign countries, and more than that, not only must the people be educated, but the House of Commons itself must take a keener interest in all that concerns our foreign policy. Sooner or later the House of Commons will be called upon to discuss and express its opinion with regard to terms of peace, and the recent Debates on this question, and the attendance at those Debates have not altogether encouraged people to think that the House of Commons has yet realised the importance and the urgency of the discussion and the grasp which Members should endeavour to get of those questions. I congratulate the Government on having taken one step in this direction. A War Aims Committee has been established, whose duty it will be to hold meetings and to discuss throughout the country the war aims for which our Allies are fighting. I sincerely hope that the activities of this Committee will be crowned with success, and moreover that the Government will allow to the speakers a certain amount of latitude.

I want to come back again to the point at which I started, and to ask the Foreign Secretary whether he can tell the House what progress has been made in the discussions which have taken place during the last three weeks. The friends of Serbia and Italy were pleased to find that Baron Sonnino and M. Pashitch had met in London, and that there was every prospect of a better understanding being arrived at in regard to certain questions in the near future. I am sure every Member of the House would feel gratified and would applaud every movement and every step to bring these two gallant Allies together who have fought side by side in this great struggle, and to identify their interests in every possible way. If less attention is paid to strategical aims and the agreements are based upon claims of nationality they will be based on true and lasting friendship, which will give us hope for a lasting settlement in the near future. I do not want to go back to the topics which were raised a few weeks ago. Various points were raised with reference to the position of Austria-Hungary. While I do not wish to refer to these points at any length, I do want to say this, in view of certain propaganda that is going on, that I think the Government would be well advised if they always remembered that the Austrian Empire is first and last and primarily a family concern. I believe that the House of Hapsburg has been almost as great a curse to Europe as the House of Hohenzollern.

Greater!

I believe that the foundations of that Empire rest upon two-things. First of all, on the military power of Germany and Prussia, and, secondly, upon the unstable equilibrium and the jarring and warring interests of the different nationalities that compose the Austrian Empire. It is buttressed upon, international finance and upon the ultramontane policy of the Vatican—two sinister and insidious influences which have their ramifications in almost every country and turn up in the most unexpected quarters. Our enemy in Berlin will endeavour to use the Austrian Empire, supported by these influences, as its stalking-horse when the terms of peace come to be discussed. I should like to refer to the speeches which the Prime Minister and the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies made at the luncheon given to M. Pashitch by the Serbian Society in London, and to say on behalf of the friends of Serbia that they are grateful to those two right hon. Gentlemen for the encouraging and stirring speeches which they made with regard to the (Serbian cause. I understand that these speeches have already given great pleasure and have been received with gratification by the Serbians, and especially by the Serbian Army. In yesterday's "Evening Standard" a Corfu telegram was published, which says that

If any hon. Members go to Stockholm I would like them to put certain questions to their German friends. Is Germany prepared to remove her officers who are at present serving in the Turkish Army? Is Germany prepared to take out of Turkey, Bulgaria, and Roumania all her civil commissioners, who are there organising the daily life of the populations in those countries? Is Germany prepared to take away all the financiers and the gentlemen who are engaged at the present moment in developing schemes for the economic production and economic progress in all those countries? These are questions which we might very well put, and to which we must have a satisfactory answer. I am not stating my own views on this subject. I wish to read an extract from a very important speech which President Wilson made some time ago, and which points out the position more clearly than any other speech that has been made or any other document that has been issued. It puts more clearly than any other document which has been issued the position in which Germany would find itself and we should find ourselves at the end of the War unless we thwart the German aims in the Baltic: promises to the Serbians I believe that they will recover that gate. Once they have recovered it, they will hold it to the end. I appeal to the Foreign Secretary on behalf of the Government to give us some indication—I do not want any secrets—that the Serbians are not going to be put off with promises, but that something at last is going to be done. I am sure that the House and the country feel that the time has come not only for promises, even promises of the best kind, but that the time has come for deeds. Remember that Serbia has been let down over and over again by the Allies. Remember that she wanted to attack the Bulgarians before they had mobilised their Army and following our advice I believe she was persuaded not to do so. We promised to arrive in Salonika in time to prevent the Bulgarians coming in and cutting off the Serbian right wing. We arrived two months too late. The Serbians, instead of being able to carry out their original plan of falling back on Monastir were, because the Allies did not arrive in Salonika in time, compelled to fall back on the Albanian Mountains, and the great retreat began which ended in their arrival at Corfu. We owe the Serbians a great debt and hope to see that it is paid. The Allied Armies have been in Salonika for two years. I believe that our enemies describe the Army at Salonika as the Allies internment camp. There has been one brilliant feat of arms during this period. That was when the Serbians captured almost by themselves the town of Monastir. The hero of that great exploit was Field-Marshal Mishitch, who commands the first Serbian Army. [An HON. MEMBER: "The French."] The French also took part in the fight, but the main operations were undertaken by this great Serbian general. He has been engaged in many fights in the Balkans. In the first Balkan War he beat the Turks, in the second he beat the Bulgarians, and in this War he has beaten the Austrians, commanding armies of more than 300,000 men. Therefore I think that this exploit counts as another great victory which can be put down to his credit.

The papers spoke a couple of months ago of another offensive which had taken place on the Balkan front. It is true that we get very little news about operations in the East. Occasionally we see paragraphs in the paper of skirmishes and raids, but the news, taken as a whole, is most scant and un-illuminating. We know that there was an offensive in May. We know that there was a series of isolated attacks. It is not obvious to the lay mind why that offensive took place at that particular time. Apparently it did not synchronise with any other offensive on any of the other fronts. I do not pretend to understand the workings of strategy. It is not proper that we civilians should be endeavouring to discuss these great military problems, but on the face of it it does. seem extraordinary that here, on the Salonika Front, we should have this isolated offensive which consisted, apparently, of a series of attacks, and which, apparently, from the accounts published, did not take us very far. We also know that we suffered a considerable number of casualties, as the result of malaria and sickness in Salonika. We are gratified to know that the rate of sickness has decreased very much during this past nine months. But I should like to know, were preparations made at the outset by the medical authorities—our experts in tropical diseases and conditions? Were those officers ever consulted before those operations were undertaken? Was any attempt made to prevent all these casualties, which unfortunately happened from malaria, and which could have been avoided. It should have been done before the Allied forces went there. This is one: of those disastrous things which happened owing to the fact that the Director-General of Medical Services is not allowed to be a member of the Army Council, and therefore he is not consulted in time, and before these unfortunate occurrences happened.

Then, again, we have a composite force at Salonika, made up of all the Allied countries, and in a composite force one would imagine there would be an Allied staff. I should like to ask the Foreign Secretary whether he can tell the House if there is an Allied staff at Salonika? I should also like to ask whether the War Cabinet are completely satisfied with the arrangements in connection with communications and routes? We were told yesterday that the question of tonnage has been, and is, becoming more acute, and it is obvious that every effort should be made, by substituting overland routes, to economise our tonnage in every possible way. The House would like to be assured that steps are being taken in that direction. Another point is, what steps have we taken to get into touch with the Serbian General Staff? I think it must be generally agreed, it is obvious to everyone, that the fighting in the Balkans is different from the fighting on the other fronts, and that the people who understand the kind of fighting in the Balkans, and who understand the tactics which should be employed, are the Serbians, who have fought in that theatre in many previous wars, who know every inch of the country, and who know the psychology of the enemies they have to fight against. I submit that, at any rate, it is the business of our staff, and the authorities of the War Office, to keep in the closest touch with the Serbian staff, to ascertain their opinions and their views as to what can and what cannot be done in the Balkans. That appears to be only common sense, and does not require any great strategic or military knowledge. I suggest that this is what should have been done all along, and I would like to ask the Government what steps they have taken in the past, and what steps they are taking now, to get into touch with the Serbian command? They are not dealing with officers and staff who have never won a victory. As I have pointed out, the Serbians have fought in this country over and over again; have beaten the Bulgarians, the Turks, and the Austrians, and you had a great military general, who had placed victories to his credit, who is a man with whom our military authorities should consult and find out his views. Has the Government sent a general of high standing to Salonika to consult with the Serbian Staff? Have they ever asked Field-Marshal Misitch to come over here and take part in any consultative discussions? I submit these questions are relevant, and questions upon which the House should have some information, and I thank the Government for giving us a definite assurance, a promise, or a pledge, that something shall be done without any further delay.

I do not want to dwell on the advantages of a successful offensive in the Balkans. It is perfectly obvious it would mean the isolation of Turkey and Bulgaria, and the shutting of the back door of the Central Empires. Nor is it my business to discuss, or attempt to discuss, the comparative merits of offensive actions in other theatres of war in the East—in Palestine or Mesopotamia. We should be told these are great military problems with which we have nothing to do; but I submit this, that it is the business of the War Cabinet to decide what is the decisive front and what is not the de- cisive front. It is common sense that we should invite the views, and learn the views, of the Serbian Staff, who are the best authorities as to what should be done in that theatre. I am afraid, I will not say too much attention, but at any rate that the bulk of the attention of the authorities at the War Office, has been directed to the Western Front. I am not going to enter into a discussion as to the merits of what is called the Eastern and Western schools, but I do say this, that it is up to us, and all the Allies, to restore confidence in the Near East, and to reassure, not only by promises, but also by deeds, the Serbians that we mean business on that front, and to reassure not only the Serbs, but the Greeks as well. M. Venizelos, who has come back to power in Greece, is going to do his best to assist the Allies, and are we giving him all the help, and all the assistance, and all the assurance, we can to encourage and help him in raising a strong and vigorous army in Greece to assist the Allies? I put it to the House, things cannot stand still; we must be progressing or going back. I do not ask the Foreign Secretary to tell the House when we may expect an offensive on the Salonika Front, but what I do urge is this, that whenever that offensive is any preparations ought to be made in plenty of time and not left over until the last moment. I am afraid I have detained the House for a considerable time upon this subject. It is one on which I feel very keenly, and I must apologise for having taken up so much time; but I would ask the House to consider the statement which was made early in the War that, after all, this War might be won or lost in the Balkans, That statement was true then and it is true now, and I sincerely hope that it is there in the Balkans, as well as in Belgium, that we shall find the guarantees for an honourable and lasting peace.

The House is very anxious to hear the answers which the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary will give to the many questions which my hon. and gallant Friend (Major Davies) has just raised, and I certainly do not wish to stand between him and the House more than a few minutes. But I think I am justified in doing so on one matter, and for one special reason. I wish to refer to the position of the British Force in the parts to which my hon. and gallant Friend has referred. There have been some references lately to the Near East, and I always notice in those references that the actual troops engaged in those parts come off rather badly. When this matter was dealt with on one occasion I put a question down immediately to the Prime Minister on the subject. I asked him, in regard to the Salonika Force, whether he could enlighten the public and whether some recognition could be given to them for their services. In the answer that was given the assumption was that I was referring chiefly to honours and awards. I certainly did not wish to raise that matter, because, after all, that is a question this House cannot deal with at all; it is really in the hands of the commanders in the field. I wish for some reply to be given to the statements made by the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden), and others who are not in the House just now, with reference to the troops there. I would first say, with regard to honours and awards, that the troops which originally took part in the fighting in the Balkans to which my hon. and gallant Friend has referred certainly were treated in a somewhat remarkable way, as everybody knows who was out there. At that time the Mediterranean Force was managed from Egypt, and after the retreat of the Serbian Army officers were asked to send in recommendations for honours and awards for their men To the surprise of everybody—it was a common saying out there—the majority of the Orders —they were, I think, the Serbian White Eagle—were sent to Egypt, and Staff officers and others who had served in Egypt, some of whom had never seen a Serbian, received those Orders meant for the troops which had taken part in the fighting in that difficult retreat which has been likened to a miniature Mons. That is by the way. The statement made by the hon. Member for East Mayo in this House on 24th July, was as follows:

I think the use of a phrase like that is very unfair to our Forces. I suppose these gentlemen who speak with regard to that part of the world and also write for the Press—and there have certainly been some very strange references in the Press from time to time about the fighting in the Near East—know all about the position of those troops whom they send forward in their leading articles in newspapers, and in their perorations in speeches, to attack. I say it is very unfair to ask Infantry to go forward to attack in a country like that when they have not got —and I think the public should know this —when they have not got the Artillery support and the Aircraft support that the Infantry have on the Western Front.

Another thing which these gentlemen from their armchairs and platforms discuss with a certain aloofness is the condition of the ground. I do not suppose they all of them know that taking a position for troops in the mountainous position of the Balkans is a very different thing from taking positions on the Western Front, for this reason, that when you have taken a position you cannot dig in in many places owing to the rocky nature of the soil. I will not say more on that point because it would be unwise, unless in a secret debate, to go into detail, but I protest against the statements made, such as "Why don't they make an offensive?" when really offensives have to be carried out in the way they are done. In passing, I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend that these rather isolated attempts which take place about Salonika certainly do not strike one as being very comprehensible, and what is desired, as far as one can see, is greater co-ordination and cohesion. I will end by referring to this last matter. It is an important matter. It is the condition of the troops themselves. In this same speech the hon. Member for East Mayo said he had had a letter from a correspondent, and that this correspondent went on to say he understood there were thousands of other prisoners, British soldiers from Salonika, serving long terms in prison in Malta, Egypt, and other stations for breaches of discipline, the inevitable result of demoralisation. The hon. Member was answered by the Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, and he said in reply to that particular point, "The hon. Member has peculiar ideas on this subject, but I do know enough to say that I believe it to be utterly untrue that the force has become completely demoralised." In spite of the fact of what was said by the Under-Secretary two nights afterwards the hon. Member for Blackburn, piling Pelion on Ossa, said:

My hon. and gallant Friend who has just sat down has called upon me to indicate the character of the British troops on the Salonika Front. I confess when I came down to this House this afternoon, it never occurred to me that anybody at any time had called in question either the discipline, or courage, or competence, of the British Force which is now on that front, maintaining the honour of the British Flag with the same courage and with the same high qualties with which the British soldiers are maintaining the British Flag on other fronts. My hon. Friend referred to some Debate, at which unfortunately I was not present, in which rather wild charges appear to have been tossed about in the House in regard to these troops. If I understood him rightly, these charges were immediately and categorically and emphatically repudiated by my Noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Blockade. I do not know why the defence of the soldiers on the Salonika Front should always fall on the Foreign Office, but the defence appears to have been undertaken with considerable success by my Noble Friend on the previous occasion. I think I can certainly say with confidence not less than he showed, that the Government are entirely in agreement with my hon. and gallant Friend and that the attempt to discredit either the character, discipline or courage of the British troops on the Salonika Front has no foundation whatever. Another observation fell from my hon. Friend to which I listened with a considerable amount of surprise. He said he was rather afraid that there was some conflict of jurisdiction between the Foreign Office and the War Office in respect of the conduct of this particular part of our many expeditionary forces.

I meant divided responsibility.

I do not wish to misrepresent the hon. Member. He thought there was divided responsibility, which he feared might produce results as unhappy as those which he attributed to divided responsibility in the early days of the Mesopotamia Expedition. I must frankly tell the House that I have not the slightest conception as to what my hon. and gallant Friend refers. The Foreign Office has no responsibility. The responsibility is not divided between the War Office and the Foreign Office, because the Foreign Office has no responsibility of any kind or any sort whatsoever as to the conduct of military affairs in any branch that I am aware of on the Salonika Front. It would be, I can assure my hon. Friend, as reasonable to suggest to the House that there was divided responsibility with regard to-Field-Marshal Haig's operations in Flanders as between the Department over which I have the honour to preside and the War Office or the Munitions Department. I can assure him that that is a complete delusion. The last thing the Foreign Office would think of doing would be to carry on a campaign at Salonika on their own account, or to offer any opinion upon a military matter to the military authorities in this country or out there.

One other observation I may make which I think should be brought to the notice of the House in connection not merely with the speech of my hon. Friend, but also the speech of my hon. Friend who preceded him in the Debate and who initiated this discussion upon Serbia. They must remember not only that the Foreign Office has nothing whatever to do with military matters on the Salonika Front, but that no British general and no British office has control of the operations on the Salonika Front. The force fighting there, as everybody knows, is a mixed force. There are Russians there, Italians, Serbians, British and French, and the Commander-in-Chief of the whole forces is not appointed by the War Office and does not belong to the British Army. He is, as my hon. Friend well knows, a French general of great distinction.

Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is not an Allied Staff over which General Sarrail presides?

I presume that General Sarrail settles his own staff with his own Government. Certainly the Foreign Office has no knowledge of these matters, and the question should be addressed to some other Department. But whether it should be to another Department in this country or in another country is a different question, but certainly not to our Foreign Office. My hon. Friend who initiated this part of the Debate made some general observations, with which I entirely concur, about the great importance of preventing German schemes for expansion through Austria, through the Balkans, through Asia Minor, down to the Persian Gulf and beyond it, coming to a successful issue. As to the importance of that, I think everybody in this House agrees. Personally, I have the fullest confidence that the result of this War will be the defeat of these particular actions. Clearly I have no information in my possession which I can usefully give to the House upon this subject. It depends upon the issue, not of diplomatic councils at this stage of the War, but upon what may happen to the various belligerents who are fighting out these immense world-wide issues. There will also be general agreement with what my hon. Friend said, and with the quotations he—I think very happily—gave to the House from one of President Wilson's addresses. He then turned to Serbia, and quoted with approval what had been said by the Prime Minister and by my Noble Friend the Minister of Blockade at a recent luncheon given in honour of Mr. Pasitch and other Serbians in this country. Those speeches represented the views of the Government. As my hon. Friend quoted those speeches with approval, I hope he will extend his favour to the Government whose policy those speeches fully represent. We yield to no man and to no body of men in our admiration for the courage, the distinguished and incomparable valour, with which the Serbians, amid great misfortunes, amid almost overwhelming trials, have sustained the reputation of their race. We look forward with hope and with confidence to the restoration of the Serbian kingdom under conditions which will make its future more successful, more glorious, and more full of promise than was the case in the years which preceded these great disasters. More than that it would be impossible for me to say. We share my hon. Friend's hopes, and we are confident that these hopes will find final and adequate fruition. My hon. Friend apparently carried his natural and legitimate enthusiasm for the Serbian cause to the extent of thinking that the proper main front on which an attack should be conducted on the Central Powers was the Balkan front. It would be very presumptuous of me to offer observations on military strategy, but I think—

May I interrupt my right hon. Friend? I think he misunderstood what I said. What at all events I intended to say was that the Balkans was one of the possible fronts, if not the main one.

I rather gathered that my hon. Friend thought that public attention in this country—I am sure he said so— had been unduly concentrated upon the Western front, and on the loss and sacrifices on that front through the great operations which have been carried on there. So I understood him. It would be very presumptuous of me to offer upon a purely strategic problem any opinion to the House, but I may venture to call my hon. Friend's attention to what fell from my hon. Friend the Member for South-wark, who succeeded him in Debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Southwark has personal acquaintance of the Salonika front. He gave a description of that front, of its means of communication, of the character of the terrain, and other important military aspects of it, which clearly indicated that at first sight, at all events, it was not the front on which an attack could be carried on with the best hope of immediate success. I trust we shall see on that front activities successfully displayed; but that will depend on a great many circumstances— physical, moral, international, material— and it seems very unlikely to me that in the immediate future we can expect any operations on that front on the scale my hon. Friend appears to desire, and which would be comparable to the great operations that are now going on in France, and possibly elsewhere. My hon. Friend asks me a great many questions which are purely military, and on which I am not qualified to give an opinion. But he asked one question with regard to transport on which I hope I can give him some satisfaction. He asked me to assure the House that every effort is being made to increase the land support on the Salonika Front, in order to serve, among other purposes, to relieve the tonnage which is now necessarily employed in supplying the troops. I can assure my hon. Friend that that is an aspect of the case which has not escaped the attention of any of the Allied Governments. France, Italy, and Greece have to assist. That is a policy to which we are deeply committed, which has been successfully carried out, and which, I hope, will produce valuable and important results in the near future.

I do not know that there is any other point of interest connected with the contemporary military events on which I need say anything. But I might perhaps refer in a word to the earlier part of my hon. Friend's speech, in which he drew a contrast between the present method of conducting discussions on foreign affairs in this House with the happy days of Gladstone and Disraeli, when, he appeared to think, a greater flood of light was let in upon the mysterious intricacies of policy and diplomacy. My hon. Friend is too young to remember those days, but I remember them perfectly. I was a Member of the House, and I was an admiring auditor of the great contests that then went on in which Mr. Gladstone played so great an oratorical part. The circumstances of those days are entirely different from those which have prevailed since, and when the circumstances of those days are repeated—if they ever are—the Parliamentary accompaniments of the controversy will resemble the past, and what happened then will be repeated. There was then a fairly clear issue before the country upon a great controversy. One political party took one side, and the other political party took another side. As soon as you have those conditions repeated, of course you; will have the embattled hosts on each side, with the great antagonists on both Front Benches and the light skirmishers behind. They will tear the controversy to tatters, endless Blue Books will be published, endless votes of confidence will be passed in the Government which happens to be in power, and my hon. Friend, if he lives to see that state of things, will be fully satisfied with the dramatic interest of the situation. Whether he thinks the country will get to know more what the politics are is a question upon which I am not quite so clear. If there has been, as there has been I think, an attempt to keep foreign policy out of party politics, and in consequence not to perpetually drag; before this House and into its debates discussions on foreign affairs, it is because since those days there may have been differences of opinion, but there has been no great cleavage in this House upon questions of foreign policy, and I think: that is a most fortunate state of things.

I am the last person to undervalue the importance of debates in this House. I spent too many years in listening to them, and I myself am responsible for too many columns of Hansard to be prepared to admit that public debate is not a useful exercise for talent or ingenuity. I think it is. I think on fitting subjects and at fitting times debates in this House are the very lifeblood of a free country. But debates on foreign affairs, even in ordinary circumstances, and certainly at these times, are inevitably hampered by this difficulty, that the Ministry and the Government who are responsible to this House for the conduct of foreign affairs cannot from the nature of the case speak about foreign affairs as if they were a franchise Bill or a local government Bill, or some domestic interest in which every argument that could influence or ought to influence the conduct of a public man can freely and fully be thrown upon the Table of the House, analysed, criticised and, if possible, answered. That is not the case, and cannot be "the case even in ordinary peace times. More so when you are dealing with a multitude of nations, with some of whom you may have close political connection, with others of whom there may be always the possibility waiting in the background of disagreeable incidents leading even it may be to unhappier controversies. There must be reticence; and caution and reticence involve, necessarily involve, that everything cannot be said. We all know in private life that if everything is said everywhere and by everybody, domestic life would be impossible; and the domestic life of nations is quite as delicate and difficult to manage as the domestic intercourse and the relations between the different members of the human family. Let me put it that way. The relations between the different organisations into which the human family is divided are as difficult and as delicate and may produce even more disastrous consequences if mismanaged than in the family and domestic life of individuals, or say the domestic management of a company or party or any other of those relations in which human beings come together and in which truth is always desirable; but all truth ought not to be told at all times.

There is no attempt or desire, so far as I know, on the part of anybody—any Government with which I have been connected or against which I have been in opposition—to keep secrets unnecessarily either from this House or from the country; but if you are to have free communication between the Foreign Ministers and ministers and ambassadors of other countries they must be sure that he will not come down to this House and blurt out things that were not intended to be blurted out. That is perfectly obvious and perfectly clear. I am not at all sure that it was not the present Lord Grey, my predecessor in office, who, in a debate of this character on this sort of subject, explained that of course he could tell the House what went on at the Foreign Office, but he could only do it once. Certainly, he would never have an opportunity given him by the representative of any foreign government of doing it a second time. There are critics in the chair who appear to think that diplomacy is a sort of conflict. A diplomat fails they often do, circumstances are too strong for him; but the whole energies of a diplomat, certainly in a country like this, are entirely directed, not to making quarrels, but to healing quarrels, not to producing difficulties but to preventing difficulties, not to provoking war, but to stopping war. That is his whole business, and that business is far better done in most cases, though not necessarily in all, not by proclaiming our policy at Charing Cross, but by confidential conversations with those who can convey views to other governments, and in that way smooth over difficulties, great or small, which, if ignored or repeated in a wrong way, may become festering sores of a most dangerous character to the general harmony and health of international relationship. If it is impossible in peace time, how much more is it impossible in war time to be always explaining everything to everybody.

We have no diplomatic relations with our enemies. Our diplomatic relations are purely with our friends and neutrals. There never was a time when circumstances made the relations with neutrals more important or critical, or made it more desirable to make them easy and smooth, because the path of neutrals is only a little less thorny and difficult than the path of belligerents. They suffer, not, indeed, as belligerents suffer, but they suffer greatly in this War. Questions of great difficulty and irritation constantly arise, and it is really absurd for my hon. and gallant Friend to suggest that those questions can best be treated by perpetual Debates in this House on International relations. I do not think anything could be gained by that. My hon. and gallant Friend suggested that we should do much better if we had a Parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee. That was his substitute for Debates in this House. That has never been the practice in this country. It is a practice which might possibly have some advantages. The habit of having a Committee upon every great branch of the public service—a Standing Committee, so to speak, upon the Navy, upon the Army, upon foreign relations, upon education, and all the rest of it, and having the Minister constantly before them explaining his policy to them— I do not believe that really would conduce either to good administration or to healthy control of the Government by this House. We, at all events, in this country have always gone on a different system, and I do not believe, so far as one is in a position to compare our system with those systems which prevail in foreign countries, that, on the whole, our system is less fitted to carry out the public interests to the best advantage. You could not, of course, have the system confined to Foreign Affairs. Even confined to Foreign Affairs, you could not have it without making another fundamental alteration in the whole Parliamentary constitution of this country. In this country our practice is that a Minister can only speak in the House to which he belongs. Certainly it would be an innovation if he habitually went before a Committee of the other House to discuss the policy of his Department. In America the Minister cannot speak at all in either House. In France he can speak in both Houses, and is habitually expected to speak in both Houses. I do not know which is the better system.

Personally, I am perhaps too long wedded by habit to our existing practice that, if the matter ever came up for serious discussion—this is not the time to make a change—I should be prepared to take a conservative line and to suggest that the system does not work ill, and I do not think it would be improved by any such change as my hon. and gallant Friend suggests. At all events, there is this consideration: he suggested to us that had the House been taken into the confidence of the Government before the War, the War would not have burst upon the country as an unexpected thunderbolt. I believe him to be quite wrong in that respect. I do not believe that the Government in June, 1914, had the slightest notion that there was any danger ahead. My hon. Friend quoted trance. He said the French had the advantage of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I do not believe there is any evidence that the French Government, with all their Committees, expected war. I see nothing in the illustration which he has given to the House which would suggest for a moment that in that respect we should have been better prepared for the great issues we have since had to meet had Parliament been subjected to a daily lecture from the Foreign Minister then in power, and had been shown every document which passed between him and any foreign Chancellor.

I have, perhaps, been induced by my hon. and gallant Friend to wander into paths which are rather remote from the Salonika front, but if that be so he is to blame, and I hope he will forgive me for having said something upon the more general issue which he tried to raise. I have said it particularly, because I think there is in the public mind a profound illusion as to this so-called secret diplomacy. Secret diplomacy is not, as I have tried to explain, a criminal operation intended to cover up dark transactions which lead to divisions among mankind. It is merely the ordinary practice of ordinary beings in the ordinary course of life which they conduct to the best of their ability, and under the ordinary rules governing private individuals in the doing of such work as they have got to do. It is an extension of that to the intercourse between nations, and I do not believe the rules governing the two are fundamentally different, although luckily in private life we do not always have to issue subsequently Blue Books explaining and recording all the letters which have passed between controversialists, or giving all the reasons which produced unhappy differences of opinion in the domestic circle. That is a development of modern institutions which I hope will be confined entirely to public life. We issue Blue Books to members. They do not always, or even usually, like to read Blue Books, and if they do, a large number read them only for the purpose of putting annoying questions to the Government. But still, such as they are, they give a faithful record of the broad outline of what has passed. But it has passed, and the revelations then made are made with the utmost care, so as to prevent mischief ensuing from their perusal. To reveal from day to day what is ultimately revealed with all due precautions in the Blue Book would really be insanity, and I cannot conceive how any man acquainted with public affairs or the methods by which international relations are carried on would suggest it as a practical policy for sane Governments.

On rising to-day I cannot help being reminded of an old French saying, "The more it changes the more it remains the same thing." After three years of war we see the same spectacle, a House listening to the same comforting speech, an air of official optimism, an exterior situation not improved, and one is forced to ask how long this state of affairs will continue. We have heard during the present Debate some notable speeches. I will only touch for one moment upon those which advocated an immediate conference in order to secure peace, because although I recognise the sincerity of the men who advocate peace, or conferences tending towards peace, and recognise the full force of their arguments, delivered with great power, and no doubt with ever-increasing intensity, yet, after all, it would seem to me that there are worse evils than the continuance of this War. A peace at the present moment would mean a German peace. The Germans desire peace, because they are sitting on their conquests, and if peace were arranged now while the Germans occupy France, Belgium, Serbia, and Poland, even if in the course of the negotiations they agreed to relinquish part of that territory, yet inevitably by the force of circumstances they must retain sufficient in order that the Imperial party in Germany may say, "Look at the fruits of our action. Look at the compensations for your sacrifices. These give the sanction to our Imperialistic diplomacy. These give the rewards of war, and these will determine our future policy." I venture to say that a peace concluded now could only be a temporary peace which, within a very short time, five, ten or fifteen years, would bring war again, when the Allies could be singled out, and in the meantime it would leave none of the burdens under which all the countries of Europe have suffered, diminished or relaxed. Therefore, no matter how terrible the sacrifice of the War may be, we must fight out this question once and for all to the only possible termination, and that is the conquest of the German Imperial Power. There comes a time in the history of nations, as in the old days of Rome and Carthage, when it has to be determined which is Rome and which is Carthage, and it is the survivor who tells the tale. On the one hand we see Imperial Germany, we are face to face with not merely a policy but a form of political religion—the religion of Imperial force. The religion of Imperialism as represented by the Hohenzollerns is the most degrading religion that has ever disfigured the soul of man.

But while sympathising to the full with the expression of the ultimate aims of the Allies by the Prime Minister, I am forced to criticise at least some of the ways and means. I see the Minister for Education present. He has come from outside, not as a Parliamentarian but as a commanding figure in the world of education and as a great expert. He has an opportunity now of doing in this country, and indirectly for the whole of these communities bound together, something equivalent—here I will not hesitate to quote a great German name—to what Wilhelm von Humboldt did for Germany at the time of his country's greatest need when crushed under the wars of Napoleon. Fichte inspired the soul of Germany again, and men like Humboldt laid the great foundation of a system which has made whatever is great in Germany and which redounds to her greatness and her power to-day. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Fisher), with that conviction perhaps in his own mind, has, since delivering his speech in introducing the Education Bill, spoken outside and thown out a suggestion on the grand lines of a much bolder policy. I can only regret that it was not that bolder policy which he introduced here, because the opportunity he then had, when the minds of men were ripe for it, and when this House would have accepted that bolder policy, has passed, and may not again be recovered. He should have brought in a scheme for a great national university, and, if possible, for a super-university, which would be the great training school for the professors of the national university. In that way the principles which would emanate from that sphere would descend and would determine the details of elementary education. Instead of that, he has thought fit to work out the details of elementary education; he has not yet reached that grand superstructure.

I will now deal with the question of the submarine menace in its broad, general lines. We had a speech from the Prime Minister which was intended to be a reassuring statement. Looking at the situation at the present day, he displayed an optimistic mood. At the present time there is a sort of match between Germany and the Allies, the task of the Allies being to build ships and the task of the Germans being to sink them. Can any man who exercises his common sense and who looks at this subject simply as a problem in a cold and impartial manner, have any doubt as to what will be the issue? Even on the showing of the Prime Minister's figures it is inevitable that gradually the shipping of this country must be destroyed, and if the War lasts two, three or four years more the situation here, on those lines and on that showing, will become progressively worse. It is necessary that something new should be invented, that some new idea should arise, that a thinking department should be set to work more definitely, and in a more concentrated way, in order to find some better means of baffling that menace.

Then, again, with regard to the Western Front we have had a reassuring statement. But I was pleased, at a luncheon given to Mr. Holman, the Prime Minister of New South Wales, to notice the influx of new ideas coming from a mind not too much trammelled by Parliamentary forms or by old traditions, but which looks at facts as they are and forms reasonable and valid conclusions. He said, without minimising the great successes due not merely to the valour of the soldiers, but also in part to the efficiency of the military machinery on the Western Front, that it is necessary to weigh those gains on one side and on the other not merely the sacrifices of the country, but the vast amount of preparation, involving the life and energies of almost every human being of these realms. Judged by that standard, the results are inadequate. Not merely that, but, giving full value to those results, it is inevitable from that rate of progress that the War must last not one or two or three years, but several years, before it can be won in a conclusive way by the Allies.

Therefore something new must be found. He suggested a greater use of the aeroplane service, a suggestion which finds a more ready acceptance in my own mind from the fact that months ago—even years ago—I advocated that very suggestion in this House. But it is the great pride of the British people that they are hostile to ideas. A great man in this country, especially if he rises to the rank of being a great statesman, seems to pride himself upon putting up a sort of Hindenburg line of defence against ideas which might come to him from the outside, and he makes it his peculiar boast to hark back to tradition of one or two hundred years ago. The discrediting of ideas, the discrediting of genius, may be carried to too great lengths. The results of the War so far have not been in favour of the unintellectual system. The way of routine is, I believe, in this House the way to success; it is not the true measure of greatness. Unless there be an infiltration of new ideas on that bench, even by bringing in new men, in the development of some new capacity of mind, in receptivity to new ideas, no matter how this War turns out, this country led by men of the calibre we have seen is inevitably destined to decay. These observations, though they may not have any effect at the moment, yet, made again and again, I believe will gradually affect the public mind and help to bring about a renovation of the methods of government.

The Minister of the Colonies seems never happy unless he can cling to some old precedent, some old tradition, perhaps some old superstition. In these days, when ideas are so vital, great intellectual leaders, who ought to be bold adventurers in these new worlds of thought, seem always lost unless they can hug the shores of old customs and old traditions; and the Minister of the Colonies, in the course of his speech on the Dominions, seemed to have no other resource than to utter, from time to time, with great unction, the name of the Empire and King; partly as an appeal, partly as a menace, partly as a consecration. I am told that Mr. Holman, the representative of New South Wales, came to this country partly to fight the Colonial Office on the question of the appointment of State Governors in Australia, and, if the Ministry of the Colonies resists the suggestions of men like Mr. Holman, they are inevitably setting themselves against the whole body of public opinion not merely in Australia, but what corresponds to that in every one of the other Dominions. To these people democracy is something vital; the future has something real and attractive for them. They feel their new energy coursing through their veins; they are not bound to those old traditions of which most of them are, indeed, entirely ignorant, and they will refuse to put the new wine of their energy into the old bottles of those played-out forms to which we bow in this House. So far from these State Governors being links, binding together the Empire so-called, or, as General Smuts calls it, the Imperial Commonwealth—rather than that, they are a source of irritation which, if adhered to, will mean the final disruption of this great community of nations and the setting out of each one of these states on its own path as an independent and disconnected nation. It should be the duty of the representatives on the Government Bench not to discourage these ideas, not to offer any futile fight against them, but rather, from their commanding position, first, to receive them, and then to prepare the public mind for their acceptation. I believe that these young countries are moving towards a republican form of Government, and I think there is safety in that not merely for them, but for this country also, and the way for that devolution should be prepared by the leaders of thought in this country. So far from being a disruptive policy, it is the sole policy which will bind all these great communities together in amity and co-operation, and I believe eventually it will also be the sole solution for the Irish question. What I look forward to, in fact, is this: Not an Imperial form of Government, holding in subjection, more or less, countries which feel their own ambition, their strong aspirations, the desire to make their mark in the future—not Imperialism, but rather a ring of free republics, each one self-consistent and self-subsistent, but all finding their entire mutual interests point in the direction of a close association and close interchange of privileges and prerogatives. Such a ring of free republics would resist the aggression of the world. The Imperial system has already broken down.

As this War progresses it has shown more and more its true essential character in that it is a fight of democracy against autocracy, it is a fight between the ideas, which found their wonderful ebulition and eclosion in the first French republic, against those ideas which smell of the Middle Ages. The sense of the whole community is essentially against what we perceive the tyranny and barbarities of German militarism. Why retain here, when the spirit has departed, the mere shell and husks of that Imperialism and hold it up for perpetual adoration? Why not give to these democracies' aspirations full course, not merely in words but in its essence? I want my ideas to go abroad not merely in this House, but in these young communities, to which I speak through this House. I wish to say that the old Imperialism of the Middle Ages, the inertia of ideas, the clinging to superstitions, the adoration of mere forms and symbols, must give place to the aspirations for liberty, the free spirit of the people, moving towards progress, to the sanity, the strength and greatness of a people who march forward, their eyes fixed on the great ideals that inspire the civilisation of a world.

5.0 P.M.

I shall not attempt to follow the hon. Member (Mr. Lynch) who has just spoken, who is always, I feel when I listen to him, so remarkably well equipped intellectually land with such powers of imagination, that I always like to think over his remarks carefully before I answer him and, if I may do so on this occasion, I hope he will not think me wanting in respect. I want to call attention to some of the remarks we were privileged to listen to from the Foreign Secretary (Mr. Balfour). As he spoke here the thought came to me what a great Parliamentary wizard he is, a magician who charms us, whom we gladly listen to again and again, but who at the end seems to leave us in a nebulous mass of something soothing, something narcotic, yet something quite indefinite. I am not going to blame him this afternoon for having taken up an indefinite line, because I believe there was a great deal of wisdom in the remarks which the Under-Secretary for War made a few hours before, when he said that he was now getting for too acute to say anything definite in this House.

I believe that for the Foreign Secretary at the present time to say anything very definite, especially about our determination to follow this course and that, to set out this evil or that, to particularise in any thing as to what we shall do, or what we shall prevent or what we shall have after the War, would be a sort of definition which is very undesirable. I, therefore, welcome in one sense the indefiniteness of his speech, but there is one subject I want to bring to his attention in respect to which I have put questions in this House. On Monday last I asked him a question about the passports for Stockholm, and he most explicitly denied that any passports had been applied for to visit Stockholm at all. He said, particularly, that no passport had been asked for by the Irish trade union delegates. My information is that on the 21st June, nearly two months ago, the Irish delegates, to attend Stockholm, applied for passports. On the 24th June their application was acknowledged by the Foreign Office. On the 9th July they renewed their application for passports; on 11th July they received an acknowledgment of the letter promising to reply; and on the 17th July, nearly a month ago, the Foreign Office, after this considerable correspondence, declined to give passports. Yet the Foreign Secretary comes here and tells us that no passports were applied for by these men. I have drawn the attention of the Foreign Office to this matter, they have had the correspondence supplied to them, and yet I have received no reply from the gentleman whose attention I called to the subject. It is only a small matter possibly, but it shows the lack of control and the nebulosity of method in which the right hon. Gentleman carries on his office. He cannot give a straight answer to a definite question, and though his speech may be charming, and though one may be struck by it, yet we may be quite sure that he is not a practical politician. I wish to call attention to a matter which I think ought to be made clear. I do not ask the Foreign Office to be definite in political matters, but I do think they should repudiate exaggerated claims which are constantly put forward by persons of high position and authority, and who by their exceptional and peculiar exaggeration of policy I believe are doing a great deal of harm to the Allies. I have had a document sent to me which makes it not inappropriate to go into this matter with some detail. The document was sent out on the 21st of last month, with the authority of three members of the War Cabinet. It was largely commented upon, and received the authority of three members of the War Cabinet, but I believe they have now withdrawn their assent. It also received the sanction of two members of the Government and several private secretaries to Ministers, and of Members of Parliament and of other persons, journalists, and others. This document, which was headed, "Notes on Allied Strategy," is entirely a criticism of the Balkan position and of our Balkan policy, both military and diplomatic. They call attention to the Higher Commands, and make most trenchant criticism against the present Commander-in-Chief. They do not say whether there is any cohesion or co-operation in policy between the different armies, and the question which I ventured to address to the right hon. Gentleman just now as to whether there was an Allied Staff at Salonika is left by this document in the sense that there is no Allied Staff, and that, therefore, our commanding officers in Salonika have no intelligent idea of the policy which they have to pursue. They receive their commands from a General, who is, no doubt, a very eminent politician and very sympathetic man. but against whose strategic policy there has been constant criticism now for two years. Those criticisms may possibly be quite right, and, being made, as they have been made, on the authority of three members of the War Cabinet, have created a very painful impression. They give us this idea, that the general control of the policy of the War, especially in the Near East, is out of hand, and wants drawing together, and better direction and. proper definition. That is a point which the Foreign Secretary did not touch in the slightest degree.

The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Major Davies) pressed very ably for greater definition, not necessarily greater publicity, in every respect, and a more harmonious control in connection with foreign policy, and the delightful reply of the Foreign Secretary was no answer to that demand. Another point in connection with Balkan policy which we have stated in this document is that there is, and has been, a very considerable amount of friction existing between the Allies. That is a statement which may or may not be true. I hope it is not true. But I must say when we have extremist demands of a Serbian character one day put forward, and as it were supported by sympathy if not in clear decisive words by one Minister, and then extremist demands by the Greeks on another day, and extremist demands by the Italians on another day, and all those referred to sympathetically by different Ministers, you cannot have anything else but friction between the different sections of the Allies in the Near East. What I wanted to ask the Foreign Secretary—what I would venture to put to any Minister who may be kind enough—and, shall I say, wise enough?—to listen to me is this: Have you any controlling power in these very difficult and complicated issues in the Balkans? Are you keeping one Power in good temper and in obedience by seeming to support its extraordinary demand, and are you doing the same thing to another Power on another day? Are you doing the same thing to a third Power on the third day? I am afraid very much indeed that such is the policy. If in answer to a definite question the Government would say that territorial ambitions cannot be decided now but must await decision, that the demands not only of justice but of nationality and of mutual agreements at the end of the War, and of autonomy, have to wait—if, I say, something of that kind? could be said, the right hon. Gentleman would, at any rate, have strengthened my confidence in him. I believe such an answer would assist the diplomacy of the War.

I am going to turn to another instance of the very remarkable character which has occurred lately. I mean that we have had the visit of a gentleman to this Capital. I had the pleasure of seeing him at a large meeting, but I did not speak to him. Everyone, I am sure, welcomes him. I refer to Baron Sonnino, the Foreign Secretary of our gallant Italian ally. Baron Sonnino has been here on a Conference. We have not had any statement whatever made as to the reasons or the subject of that Conference. But a statement has been made in Italy. I wish to call attention to the undesirable character of the representatives of two Powers going into a Conference with absolute silence imposed upon one side, and then the other side giving its account of what has been decided at that Conference. That has occurred again and again. It is a policy which the Foreign Secretary defends. He went recently to the United States at the same time as M. Viviani went on behalf of France. They practically took the tour together, or corresponding tours at the same time. M. Viviani came back and gave a full statement in the French Chamber, and the French Parliament, and through him the French nation were placed in vital and living accord with that Minister, and the results of that visit were brought home to the French people in a way most desirable. I asked very early whether the right hon. Gentleman could give any statement of any kind as to the result of his visit to the United States. He declined. He did not think it was necessary. From that day to this he has not given us one word in this House as to any result, or as to what grew out of his visit to the United States. I take this instance because it shows the temper of our Foreign Secretary and our diplomatic representatives. It shows also that they are further out of popular touch and out of popular sympathy than in the time of Mr. Gladstone. I would call attention to some remarkable words used in the Debate yesterday by one hon. Member, when he said that "whereas in our domestic affairs democracy has grown very strong during this generation, by some curious evil the Foreign Office has remained isolated from the general democratic movement." I believe those words to be profoundly true, and I believe they contain a germ of danger, if indeed, that fact mentioned there has not been largely the cause of this War. I am not sure. I say those words are profoundly true, and not one word in the Foreign Secretary's speech this afternoon has given us any hope that he realises it or has any change to announce.

When Baron Sonnino returned to Italy, there was published in the Italian papers a statement of three objects for which he came to this country. They were, first, to consider the question of the tonnage granted by the Allies to Italy, and, on his, return to Italy, he said that a larger amount of tonnage is now being given to Italy. I think that a very serious matter indeed. We are suffering a weekly diminution of tonnage. We have supplied tonnage to Italy generously, and I am glad of it; but at this time, for us to increase our tonnage to Italy, really needs some reason to be given, because if one country is suffering a constant and really serious diminution, and another country is to get more than it had before, that is just one of those things which is likely to cause suspicion and difficulty, and lead to a lack of necessary harmony among the Allies and the Allied people. Of course, it is quite possible that this report may be incomplete, or that there may be some special reasons for these statements, but I do object most strongly to a definite statement like this being made in one country, and absolute silence imposed upon a great country like this, especially a country which in this case has been so generous and made sacrifices.

Another matter to which the Italian Foreign Secretary referred to in this interview which is published in the Italian papers, was that there had been a slight modification demanded by Italy in the division of the spheres of influence in Asia Minor after the War, that this had been discussed and had now been accepted. I do protest against our diplomatists and our Foreign Office at that time making more definite promises to any Power as regards the future of Asia. Minor. To undertake new obligations in this respect, I think most unwise and unnecessary. We are not fighting for the material ends of Italy in the Far East. We went into this War to free Belgium and to save France from a horrible, wicked invasion, and for those objects I believe our men are ready to fight on. But if you tell them that we are now fighting on to get greater spheres of influence for Italian capital in Asia Minor, I can conceive nothing more likely to dishearten them, and to make them say, "This is no longer a war of honour and security, but it is one of selfishness and aggression."

Then the third point that Baron Sonnino put up was the question of the revision of the written Agreements between the great Powers, and here we come upon a matter which is at the present time of prime importance. The new Government of Russia has made it a cardinal point of its policy that the written Agreements between the Allies shall be reconsidered and, if necessary, revised; and more than a month ago the Russian Government sent a request to our Government that there should be a revision of the written Treaties in connection with the War between the Allies. We know that one of these Treaties, kept secret for many months, is already repudiated by Russia, and that she neither desires, nor will she receive, Constantinople as a Russian conquest at the end of this War. Therefore, it is most necessary that we should reconsider the old Agreements and the Treaties in the light of the new position. Baron Sonnino declares on going back to Italy— that is after being in conference with our Ministers here—he declares that nothing new has occurred which could possibly necessitate the revision of written Agreements between the great Powers, and that neither Italy nor any other of the great Powers requested that the question might be reopened. There I think he is absolutely wrong, because Russia has most certainly so requested, and on the 12th July the Foreign Secretary gave me an answer in this House in which he admitted that. What apparently Baron Sonnino desires is either to delay or to discourage any revision of the Agreements and Treaties arising out of this War. I believe to do so will discourage and dishearten the Russian Government at the present time—now when we have a great many extremists on both sides attacking the Russian Government, some saying that all the Governments are capitalists, and are only waging a capital war for the sake of their commerce and trade and take it away from others, and where you have on the other side the old official classes saying that the present Government is unable to maintain law and order —anything of this kind tending to delay what the Russian Government considers an urgent pressing and immediate demand is most undesirable.

Those are the three points, and there are others arising out of the interpretation that has been put on the position of Baron Sonnino here that might be taken up— other points too long to touch upon—but these three points really appear to me to be of prime importance, and I urge, as part of the policy and true line of the Foreign Office at the present time, that they should not give definite individual promises to individual Powers for sectional aims and particular interests, but that what they should do is to lay down clearly the lines of our policy, and that we shall regard as far as possible nationalistic aims and boundaries, that we shall establish as far as possible economic freedom and independence, that we should establish the autonomy of the people, and do nothing to support the old dynastic and autocratic methods of certain Powers. If our policy is clear and definite on these lines, I am sure the Foreign Office can at the present time exert an influence far greater than it has exerted before, because the position, as I look upon it, is this: the War has passed from its military stage. I do not believe an overwhelming military victory is possible.

It was possible, perhaps, in the early stages of the War, but the chance having gone by, neither Power, I believe, can possibly obtain a great military victory, and therefore no Power will be able to dictate the terms of peace to any other Power. The terms of peace must be agreed upon by negotiations and by diplomacy when the proper time arrives, and for us to cumber ourselves by sectional promises of an extremist character and by refusing now to take a broad line and a definite, clear, and honest policy applicable in all cases and in all quarters of the field of conflict, would be unwise. I had hoped to have heard something from the Foreign Secretary this afternoon that would have given encouragement to the rational and only sensible point of view which can be taken at the present time. He was very delightful to listen to, but very unsatisfactory in the opinions and information that he gave. I can only trust, when we come back here in two months' time and when no doubt there will be an early occasion on a Vote of Credit to give a more definite and clear utterance on the problems of foreign policy, that we shall get something more satisfactory than we have had to-day.

I apologise for detaining the House on a Friday after- noon, but I hope to compress my remarks in a very few minutes. The day of Adjournment is a day of long speeches and heavy sighs on many subjects. My hon. Friend who has just spoken with great eloquence covered many topics, and he was unhappy about many things. The only happy speech we have had during the course of this Debate has been the speech from the Foreign Secretary. I gave notice some time ago that I would call attention to the question of our shipping losses and the amount of information afforded by His Majesty's Government. Most providentially and accidentally the hon. Member for the Hornsey Division of Middlesex (Mr. Kennedy Jones) made his maiden speech, and drew from the Prime Minister a statement as to our tonnage losses. Although the Prime Minister gives all the appearance of frankness, he is not entirely frank in these matters. He is himself the author of a saying that "Frankness is the beginning of all wise action." He was certainly frank in dealing with Germany, and it struck me at times that the speech was much more addressed to Germany than it was to this House. He had no difficulty in showing that Germany had broken her promises to the German people. The submarine menace, according to the German Ministers, was to finish this country by August. It is nowhere near succeeding. The Germans Slave been fooled by promises all along the line. They have been fed on promises, which have been doled out much more liberally than bread tickets. We want from the Prime Minister something which will tell us fully and frankly, not merely the British losses, but the British, Allied, and neutral losses of shipping, and their replacement. We want to get a balance-sheet from which we can judge how far we are able to face the future. He led us to believe, and quite rightly, that the position shows signs of improvement from the bad days of April, and he said that this was true now during the worst period. I do not think that it would do to look so optimistically upon the matter. I do not know that this is the worst period of the German submarine menace. If days of long twilight should come with the winter, I am not sure that they will not be much more favourable to submarine action than these days. Also we have to remember that we are resorting to convoys. Convoys are only a partial defence. The Germans at present are attacking shipping which does not go under convoy. They may turn their attention to the convoys, and in that case we may see our losses go up again. In any case, any purely defensive system is bound sooner or later to fail. That is why the cry goes up from the man in the Fleet, as well as from the man in the street for more offensive action on the part of the Admiralty. The Prime Minister did not tell us the number of ships which are salved and which are, of course, not included in the shipping losses. To take his figures for British tonnage alone, I conclude that in the big ships, which are the only ones of real importance—the ships over 1,600 tons which bring our supplies to this country —allowing for his statement that we shall add, with the ships bought on British account in America and the ships built in this country, 1,900,000 tons during the year, that there may be a net loss of 2,500,000 tons in one year on the big ships. That net loss does not fall on the 14,000,000 tons of big ships that we possess. It falls only on those which supply this country and which are not used for our military requirements. I assume that 6,500,000 tons are devoted to our military requirements. We cannot economise on that; in fact, the demands of the War Offices of Europe will become greater. Therefore, that 2,500,000 tons will fall on our 7,500,000 tons which carry the supplies of raw material and food to this country. By the spring of next year we may be working with 5,000,000 tons of shipping to carry on the work which the Prime Minister himself says is carried on with difficulty by 7,500,000 tons. The other 6,500,000 tons is used for military requirements.

There are the ships building.

I am showing the net loss after allowing for building. The better course is to tell Labour frankly the position in this country and not to wait, because labour is beginning to formulate its policy. We have seen it entering in upon strikes. I do not believe that the British working men will strike if they are faced with the facts and the real emergency. It is by candour that we have won all our victories in this War. You may dam up the truth, but sooner or later the dams burst. That happened in regard to munitions, and we gained immeasurably by the truth being revealed. It happened again in regard to our divisions at the front. The depleted state of the divisions at the front was revealed, and we got compulsion through this House without much difficulty. I suggest very respectfully to the Government that the time has come when they should reveal the whole of the facts of the situation in regard to the shipping industry of this country. I heard the hon. Member (Mr. Lynch) point out with great force that it is a race —I believe he used these words—between the attrition of man-power in the German Army and the loss of British shipping. Practically there are two curves of destiny which the war staffs of Europe are watching. One is the loss of British, Allied, and neutral shipping, and the other is the attrition of German man-power. If our curve of destiny crosses the Rubicon first we shall lose the War. If the German curve crosses the Rubicon first, they will lose the War. That is not allowing for any question of internal dissensions in the two countries. If we have strikes and so forth our position will get worse. If the Germanic forces have differences of opinion between Austria and Prussia, or between Bavaria and Prussia, or revolutionary strikes, their position will get worse. I believe we shall win the War, but I think the Government will go further in helping the country to win the War by being perfectly frank with the British people and with British labour.

I make no apology for again bringing up a subject which has been discussed already and referring to the remarks made yesterday by the hon. Member (Mr. Wardle) with regard to our food supplies. The question of food production in this country is of enormous importance towards our winning the War, and as time passes the opportunity for that extra production is rapidly slipping away. The hon. Member yesterday made these very pertinent remarks: do his best, and he is doing now all he can for the food production of the country. He exhibits to the full the fine old English quality which the hon. Member so much admired that while willing to be led he refuses to be driven. The great object of the Corn Production Bill, we are told, is increased production. Every insult which is poured upon the British farmer is liable to decrease instead of increasing the production of food in this country. I would rather see good feeling all round, which could very easily be produced by a little sympathetic expression of opinion in this House, as to the good work which the British farmer has done, instead of the constant taunts which are hurled against him for what he has left undone. I would suggest that we should live and let live. There are two points which are now specially worrying the British farmers, and I think they could very easily be put right, and should be put right, before the Adjournment. It is perfectly absurd to expect that the British farmer can produce meat and milk on the sliding scale which is now suggested. He does not object to the present maximum price put upon meat, but it is quite impossible that he should turn out meat in January at the maximum price of 60s. and make a profit. I do not think hon. Members who are not so well acquainted with agriculture as I am can have the faintest idea of the expense of feeding cattle when once they are taken off grass and put into the yard. The price of cake, take cotton cake for instance, for which we used to pay £4 to £5 a ton has gone up to £l5 or £l6 a ton. The price of all the other feeding stuffs has increased proportionately, and I am quite sure that I am within the mark when I say that if cattle are taken in in October and put into the yard the expense to the farmer is not less than 10s. per head per week. I am taking into consideration the price of cake, turnips, and hay, all of which he can sell, and for which he could get the market price. In addition, there is the cost of attendance and wages, which are now fixed at 25s. a week, and are often higher. If I put the price per week per head of cattle fed in the yard, I think 10s. is much below the mark. That is £2 a month. How can yon expect a farmer to put his cattle into the yard in October and to feed them for three or four months at £2 per month per head and sell them at a much less price per cwt. than he is able to sell them for at the present time?

I look forward with serious apprehension to the time when in the spring there will be a great dearth of meat, and, what is still more important, a dearth of milk. The present position is quite impossible. I know something of the markets in the North and in Yorkshire. Immature cattle are being rushed into the market now in order to get the higher price. You cannot blame the farmer. He is a business man, and has got to protect himself so far as he can against loss, and the loss which is very likely to ensue. If you bring into the market, as farmers are doing now, a very large quantity of immature heifers instead of putting them to the bull you are going to have a very serious shortage of milk next spring and summer and the babies and children of this country are going to suffer. That is a most unwise policy, and I urge the Government to reconsider very seriously this question of the sliding scale. If they will maintain the price of 72s. per live cwt. throughout the winter, I think there will not be time when we meet again farmers, although the farmer will still be at great disadvantage when the spring comes, because he will have fed his cattle at great expense in the winter and will only get the same price per live cwt. that he gets now. The farmers are perfectly willing to do their part, and if they are treated fairly I am sure that the result will be a great increase in live meat and in milk in the spring. But there is this danger, that if you maintain your present sliding scale you will have a very great shortage at the time of the year when it is most desirable that we should have a full supply.

The only other question which I desire to put forward now is that of the way in which the Orders of the Food Controller and the Minister of Education are exercised in the country. We are always told that it is imperative not to take any action which may be unjust or prejudicial to the general interests of the farmer. I believe that to be the intention of the Minister of Agriculture. But the danger is that when you come to the application of your principles so many local interests come into play that great hardships are inflicted upon the farmer and the landowner which are not intended by this House. I may be excused if I give my own instance. I turn out every year about 100 cows and heifers, producing calves, which all find their way into the dairies of the country for producing milk. I have some low-lying land through which a stream flows, where these cattle can be in the summer. In the winter I am obliged to bring them up to higher land, because the conditions below are not suitable. Suppose an inspector is sent down, and says that I must plough up the grass on the higher land, that very materially affects the whole system, and decreases the number of milk cows I am able to turn out, which I think would be a misfortune not only to myself but to the country at large. These are the sorts of questions which perhaps are not fully understood by Members of this House who are not farmers, and I do think that great caution should be exercised to see that the local tribunals do not exceed their powers, or perhaps I should say do not exercise their powers in such a way as to be prejudicial not only to the farmers themselves, but to the interests of the country at large, and to the meat and milk production, which are so important in time of war. These are questions of the greatest national importance, and while there is yet time— there will not be time when we meet again late in the autumn—the Government should consider the importance of so modifying their proposals, especially as regards the sliding scale, that instead of having to call next spring for milkless days and meatless days they will take such measures as will satisfy the farmers and cause them to have the greatest possible production, and not put the farmer to any material injury which will interfere with the food production of the country.

I shall convey to the Minister responsible the various suggestions which have been put before us, not only by the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just sat down, but by the hon. and gallant Member who preceded him. May I now make an appeal that the House should permit us to get the Motion? I dare say everyone will realise that the Debate on the Motion has extended over many more hours than we expected would be the case, and we are really keeping the whole of the attendants. I would, therefore, ask that we should now get the Motion.

Question put, and agreed to.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Whereupon, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.

Adjourned at Four minutes before Six o'clock till Monday next.