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

In making this proposal I must explain to the House that I do it on two main grounds. I object to this Vote because I regard it as an illegitimate use to make of public money to use it for the purpose of political propaganda. I object with equal strength to the form in which the Estimate is presented to this House, and to the fact that the Government are taking practically unlimited power to spend as much as they choose. I will deal with those points. First of all, I claim that, according to the practice of this House for generations past, and according to sound public doctrine, it is a wrong thing for the Government of the day to spend public money upon political propaganda. The Government are not unconscious that this criticism might be directed against them, because the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University (Sir E. Carson), who is the head of this Department, in describing the purposes of this Committee, said: this Vote, for he justified it on quite other grounds. The argument used by the Patronage Secretary was not that this was national expenditure for a national purpose, but that it was made necessary because of the existence of a strong and vigorous pacifist propaganda which he described as tending to sedition, and he said that though the supporters of this propaganda were not numerically large, nevertheless they were so successful in their campaign that it was absolutely necessary for the Government to take some steps to counteract that propaganda. If that is so, if it is true that there is a section of the nation devoting itself to opposing the purposes of the War Aims Committee by a counter-propaganda, then you cannot argue that the whole nation is behind the War Aims Committee. [An HON. MEMBER: "The majority."] I quite agree that the vast majority of the nation may now be behind the general purposes of the War Aims Committee, but the moment you are dealing with a majority when you are spending the money of all, the Government is placing itself in a most dangerous position. They ought to choose which leg they are going to stand upon.

Is the nation really unanimous, in which case why all this fussy advertisement and this feverish anxiety to shape public opinion? If public opinion is really behind the Government and 99 per cent, of the nation approve of these purposes, what is the need for an unlimited power of expenditure of this kind? If there is not this unanimity of aim, then it means that there is a minority important enough to be dealt with, and from that moment you have proof that your purposes are not national, but the purposes of the majority of the nation. I am putting forward a doctrine which has been proclaimed by the leaders of all parties for centuries past when I say that it is an essentially corrupt thing for the Government of the day to use the funds at its disposal to push purposes which are not entirely national purposes. Even supposing the Government had the whole nation behind it, we must remember that Governments are transient phenomena in these days. We have had three Governments in this country since the War began, and each of them had the whole-hearted confidence and hopes of the nation behind it. But Governments are disappointed. Very often the hopes with which they begin are not realised. They gradually alienate from them the support of the country. Even if the Government have the unanimous support of the country to-day, that is no proof that to-morrow they will still have the confidence of the country. Therefore, this War Aims Committee, representing all parties, may, if they are not successful, find the minority against them steadily growing; and, indeed, some of their operations are so remarkable, that I fear they tend to increase the minority rather than to strengthen the majority. In that case the position is more flagrant from the point of view of the Government spending money on purposes to which the minority of the nation are opposed. This Committee professes to be responsible for the utterances of the speakers at the meetings, but they are utterly unable to control their speakers. I do not know whether the Patronage Secretary attends the meetings, or whether his time is entirely taken up by the work of supervision, but I have been at some of these meetings.

Speaking?

No; to listen to the eloquence of Members of this House, like the hon. and learned Baronet, who takes an active part in the work of this Committee. I do not complain so much of the actual speakers sent out by the Committee as of the noble and eminent chairman they put to preside over them. I went to a great War Aims meeting in Yorkshire, and the noble chairman entertained us with an exposition of Tariff Reform—I confess myself an unrepentant Free Trader—and I learned that it was my duty to become a Tariff Reformer. Is that the purpose of the War Aims Committee? Are they keeping a control over the speakers at these meetings? Take some of the speakers who are Members of this House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee (Mr. Churchill) made a speech at a War Aims meeting the other day. It was a very remarkable speech. I do not want to complain of his own exposition of our war aims. People must do the best they can in the absence of an authoritative statement on the subject from the Government. He proceeded to show that his version of our war aims was the only true version, which, except a man believe, there shall surely be a General Election. Are we to take it that it was on the authority of the War Aims Committee that the right hon. Gentleman made this dire threat to the country? I admit that I am not terrified. I do not mind if the Government do think it desirable to go to the country and ask them what they think of their proceedings. I can assure them that many of the proceedings of the War Aims Committee would not count for merit in the eyes of the electors if it came to the casting of votes. I complain that insufficient control is kept over the speakers at the meetings which are held under the auspices of this Committee. I do not understand why the expenditure for these meetings and for this propaganda work should not have been met out of the ordinary funds which are available for propaganda work in this country. If there were ever a case where you might have expected the party organisations to provide the necessary funds, I should have thought that this was one. We are told that the whole nation stands behind the movement, and I believe that the great majority of the nation is behind the Government in the general purposes put forward by this Committee. That being so, surely there is all the more reason why it should have been paid for out of the funds of the party organisations and the usual funds for propaganda work instead of out of Government funds. There is a political truce; at least, we are assured so. No party meetings are being held.

Oh, yes, there are.

Then they are private meetings. Tory lions and Radical lambs lie down together. If the Labour supporters of the Government roar at all they roar as gently as any sucking dove. There is no work for the party organisations or the party agents to do. There is no registration work. What are these men doing? Most of them are still employed by the party organisations to which they belong. There was an organisation ready to your hand for the purpose of this agitation. Why did you not go to them in order to get the money? Here was work for them to keep them out of that mischief which idleness begets. It was not because the party organisations were unwilling to help. I do not know much about this matter.

Hear, hear!

Well, we are kept very much in the dark about it. I do not know how far the hon. Gentleman who interrupts me may be in the secrets of his party organisation, but unless you are in the very sanctum or the very innermost circle you really do not know.

I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would have known that the party organisations are exactly what the War Aims Committee consists of.

Then why do not they find the money? It is an open secret that the objects are so elaborate and the spending programme so large that the party organisations could not look at it. It was not that they would not subscribe, but they could not subscribe on the scale which some members of the Government seemed to think necessary. I say that to put this unlimited credit at the disposal of the Government is a most dangerous power. They have the power, and they are using it, to put advertisements into the papers. On what principle are those advertisements inserted? Are they inserted according to the circulation of the paper and according to the advice of advertising agents, or do the political views of the newspaper weigh when it comes to the distribution of the advertisements? I have received communications from newspapers of which I know nothing telling me that advertisements have been withdrawn from them, not because their circulation has gone down, but because their views are obnoxious to the gentlemen who compose the Committee. I shall be glad to send the hon. and gallant Gentleman the names of the papers if my hon. Friend repudiates that statement. This power of distributing profitable advertisements is a very dangerous, corrupting power in the hands of any body of men, and when the expenditure is unlimited and there is no check upon it the power becomes extremely dangerous and liable to misuse at any moment. What salaries do the Committee pay? We are not told what is the scale of the salaries. What is the quality of the men whom it is thought desirable to employ? It is a very easy job. We are told that we are short of men and want fighting men. Yet you are taking a lot of paid men and putting them into soft jobs. What is easier than to send men round to make speeches telling people what noble aims are before the country. These gentlemen go about in motor cars and generally luxuriate at the expense of the country. It is a very dangerous power to put in the hands of the Government, and it requires to be most carefully watched by very scrupulous men if the power is not to be misused.

Take the meetings. Are those meetings costing money? I have had some experience of propaganda work in an unpopular cause. I know what it is to get up meetings, and I know what they cost. If I had at my disposal for propaganda work such a body of speakers as the Government can command, instead of it being a source of expense to my organisation I could make a large profit out of the speakers I should have to send round the country. There is no reason for spending money to fill the Albert Hall in order to get people to listen to the Prime Minister. Is it necessary to pay the fares of your audience in order to get them to come and hear the war aims of the Government? [An HON. MEMBER: "That was a War Savings meeting!"] I suppose the War Aims Committee is a new and superior Department which would never be carried on by any of those practices which have disfigured the operations of past organisations. I agree that was a War Savings meeting, but it really is not necessary to spend £5,000 or £7,000 to gather an audience for the Prime Minister. I would fill any hall in the country if he would only come and make a speech in his best Paris style. I put it jocosely, but I say in all seriousness to the members of the Committee that with these speakers at their disposal, and with the country eager to listen to them, they could sell enough tickets in connection with their meetings to repay the whole of the cost of holding the meetings. It is ridiculous that they should come upon public votes to pay the cost of meetings which men like the Prime Minister, the late Prime Minister, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee, or any of these great speakers they are sending round, are going to address.

From the meetings I pass to leaflets and literature. I do not know what sort of a staff of people the Committee are engaging to deal with this literature, but the results are not great. I have not myself an intimate acquaintance with the leaflets, but some that I have seen seem to me to be vulgar and inane. I regret that they should have been issued with anything like the Government stamp upon them to the people of this country. I am afraid the Government profoundly mistake the temper of the people. I really do not think you understand the nation with whom you are dealing. I would venture to read an extract from a written speech by a great man three hundred years ago, and I wish the Government would lay this to heart, because this is the method in which the English nation should be addressed—not with the advertising vulgarity which characterises the literature of the War Aims Committee: have no time to scrutinise expenditure. If the House thinks there is any safeguard there, it does not exist.

The Committee are setting up local committees all over the country. Local committees are being set up even where the people do not want them. They are haying meetings of inquiry for the purpose of bringing grievances to the notice of the Government. I thought that Members of Parliament existed mainly in order to bring the grievances of their constituents to the notice of the Government of the day. But we are to be relieved, at the public expense, of that draft on our time. In future, when my constituents have some grievances, I shall send them to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury to present their case to the Government. The spending powers of these local committees have no limit or check upon them. There is nothing a local committee likes to do more than to organise expensive meetings, with one of their number in the chair, and to have a great speaker down from the outside, when they have a general flare-up at the coming of the great man. All these meetings involve great expense. What, limit are you putting on the spending power of the local committees? What staff are you allowing them to employ? What salaries are they to be paid? Why are these things not told to the House? It cannot be in the public interest to conceal these things, for the Germans will not tremble if we have a dispute as to whether a man is worth £200 or £300 a year. If the War Aims Committee think that the Germans will tremble, they misunderstand the capacity and understanding of the foe we are fighting.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury told us that the second safeguard was that the Estimates were submitted to the Treasury. He said that, though this conscientious Committee might be efficient, still there was always Treasury supervision. There, again, speaking as a member of the Expenditure Committee—of course, I cannot commit my colleagues at all—and having taken a considerable share in investigating the expenditure of the Departments during the last three months, I venture to tell the House that if they are relying upon the Treasury to control the detailed expenditure of a Committee of this kind they are living in a fool's paradise. The Treasury will not do it, and quite rightly. They will say it is the function of the House of Commons, and I agree with them. It is the function of the House of Commons to safeguard this expenditure. You have the machinery, which I will explain in a moment. If the House of Commons gives a spending Committee of its own members an unlimited power of expenditure, how on earth can we expect the permanent officials of the Treasury to check that expenditure? They would be met at once with the reply, "We have the authority of the House to dip into the Vote of Credit to any extent that seems good to the head of our Committee," because against all criticism of finance the signature of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) is a complete answer. No accounting officer can go behind it. What can he do? This money was paid on the order of the right hon. Gentleman the head of the spending Committee. What safeguard have we, therefore, except in the wisdom of the right hon. Gentleman? We rely on him in greater or less degree, all of us, but it is a responsibility which there was no call to place upon his shoulders, and being himself a member of the spending body, he is sure to be lenient in matters of expenditure, instead of being a vigilant guardian of the public purse.

The third safeguard offered by the hon. Gentleman is that our new Expenditure Committee will investigate this expenditure. We may in time, but we have a great load of work upon our shoulders, and I do not know when we may reach the spending of this particular Committee. But the money will largely have been spent. It is being spent now. It is one of the solemn farces of this House that we should be debating whether the money should be spent when large sums have already been spent even before the House of Commons has decided the matter. I assume that the Public Accounts Committee will receive these accounts in some detail when it comes to the Appropriation Account, but that will be twelve or eighteen months, or even more, after the money has been spent. Again, the Public Accounts Committee has no redress against the personal action of the head of this Committee, the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson).

What action have I taken or what have I done?

I will explain. The right hon. Gentleman has not yet begun his operations. He evidently does not know that he is the final authority for all the spending Committees of which he is the head.

No; I am not.

I know what I am talking about. And if he gives his authority to this spending, there is no authority that the House can appoint which can go behind that authority. He fills me with anxiety. I thought that at least, in the wisdom of the right hon. Gentleman, we had some safeguard against the spending of this Committee, but he knows nothing of it. The last safeguard is gone. The House ought not to dispense with full and detailed estimates in this matter. This House can, if it chooses, control expenditure, but if it waives its privilege and its powers it is idle to expect anyone else to check expenditure. You have a complete system for checking expenditure—detailed estimates in this House after careful preparation of where the money is to go. That money is spent by the appointed body under the supervision of the Treasury. The Treasury can and does do that much. At the end of that the Appropriation Accounts in detail are audited by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, considered by the Public Accounts Committee, and reported to the House. There you have a complete system of financial control, but it rests absolutely and entirely upon the detailed estimates at the beginning of the expenditure, and if you dispense with that, as you have done in this case, all your safeguards are at fault and this Committee has unlimited spending power, and there is no possibility of control. This is another instance of what is really at the root of much of the expenditure and of much of the criticism of the Government that is going on in the country. Nothing is telling more against the Government than the supposed recklessness, and, as I know, the real recklessness, of the Government in the spending of public money. What are they doing in all directions? A difficulty arises in motors, in timber, in wheat, in sugar, or in any particular article of consumption. The Government looks round for the best man it can find. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]

It looks round for a Noble Lord.

1.0 P.M.

I do not want to pile up the case higher than it is. They look round for the best man they can find. They say to him, "We are in a difficulty about sugar, wheat, timber, petrol, or something. We do not know what to do. We ask you to look into the matter. Collect your staff where you can. Get them out of the Civil Service or get men from outside; look into the problem, solve it if you can, issue Orders, do something, and here is a cheque book to pay for your expenses." The Government is placing blank cheques in the hands of practically every spending Department, and there is no control, and government by blank cheques is the most expensive form of government you can possibly invent. Naturally, if it makes no difference to a man, he spends more money rather than less. You grease the wheels in a hundred ways by spending lavishly. What you do not get by spending lavishly is efficiency. You may be sure that where there is extravagant spending there is always inefficiency. So far from lavish spending securing efficiency and competence in Government Departments, it is the sure mark of inefficiency and incompetence. I appeal to the House, if it retains its financial self-respect, not to allow this Vote to go through to-day with this unlimited credit. We ought to be told exactly what is to be spent, and what is the purpose for which it is to be spent, and until we know those two things the House ought not to pass this Vote.

As one who has had something to do with this Committee ever since it was started, I rise to say a word or two in answer to the eloquent and exciting appeal of the right hon. Gentleman. I did not gather from him whether he thought that the work of this Committee, apart from the question of how it was to be paid for, was necessary -or useful work or not. That he seemed to me to leave out of his speech. But I want to start with the assumption that this work has to be done, and I want to address myself first of all to the practical side—if it has to be done, how is it going to be paid for? I do not suppose the argument about our making a profit out of it was seriously meant. It was part of the delightful humour of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. It is an undoubted fact, as everyone who has had one-tenth of his political experience knows, that if you are going to work a propaganda in the country you are bound to spend a certain amount of money on it. There are three sources from which such money can be provided. It might be provided from private funds raised by subscriptions, it might be provided out of the old party funds, or it might come out of the Exchequer. It is no secret that we endeavoured at first to start this work by means of private funds, and we received a fairly considerable amount, but I do not think that is altogether a good plan. When you are spending private funds they generally come from the pockets of very rich men. That soon gets about, and if anyone objects to your agitation the cry is raised at once, "This is being financed by a lot of capitalists." I can imagine very well the speeches that some hon. Members opposite would have made if a large work was being done in the country and they were able to trace large subscriptions from very rich men. I can well imagine that speeches could be made to that effect. I think there is serious objection to private funds being used for the purpose, and if there were not there would be this objection, that the private funds were providing insufficent money. As our work extended it was evident that we must get some more fruitful source of supply. If you are to do this work thoroughly, you must have sufficient funds. It is no use doing a job like this by halves; you must do it properly or it is no use doing it at all. We applied to those who manage the funds of the two great parties in the State, and we got an answer from both that they were unable to finance us. I do not want to enter into the question whether they were right or wrong, but I think there is a great deal to be said against using money that has been subscribed for party purposes towards an object that it is not a party object at all. I think those who subscribed the money would have a great deal of reason to complain if their money was used in such a way, because that would not be the purpose for which the money was subscribed, and I do not know how the treasurer of such funds could justify himself in putting the money to such use. However, that is not for me to decide. The fact remains that I asked if we could rely upon being financed from party funds, and those who were responsible for the party funds told us that we could not rely upon them.

dissented.

Not to any extent. I was never told any extent to which we could rely upon them.

Not on the large scale that you asked. That is the whole point.

I was never told to what extent we could rely upon party funds.

You never asked.

I got a negative answer.

Would the hon. Gentleman mind telling the House for what he asked?

No; I will not. I snail be very happy to show the figures to the Estimates Committee. When I found that we could not get the party funds to provide the money, and when the private funds were not going far enough, it was clear that if the work was to be carried on, it must be carried on with national funds, or it could not be carried on in any other way. Rather wild speeches have been made, and I think the right hon. Gentleman erred in that respect, as to the way in which we were going to throw money about. I can assure him that that is not so. It seems to me that extravagance is the very last thing of which this organisation can be accused.

How do we know?

Up to now we have paid nothing for offices, and we have paid no salaries for secretaries. It is not many organisations that can say that. The Estimates Committee has already arranged to inspect our accounts.

There is no Estimates Committee.

It is the Committee over which the right hon. Gentleman is chairman.

It is the National Expenditure Committee.

That Committee has already arranged to inspect our accounts, and, of course, every facility will be given to them for doing so. We have been asked why full estimates were not produced. Of course, that is a matter for the Treasury. It is a matter between this House and the Treasury. It is not for me to presume to say in what way the Treasury should arrange its accounts. I would say this, that we have framed the best estimates we could, but no one realises more clearly than I do how very misleading such estimates may be. You are entering on a practically new field, and it is impossible to say what it is going to cost. So far as we have gone up to the present time—I do not think I am giving away any secret when I say this—our estimates have been entirely wrong. We have not spent anything like the amount of money we expected to spend. That, perhaps, will reassure the right hon. Gentleman who has charged us with such reckless extravagance. You cannot have in a matter like this, unless you have experience of years, an average of the cost, because you do not know what the conditions are going to be. It is part of our business, if we are told that in any particular part of the country it would be a good thing to start a campaign, to make arrangements to start a campaign in that particular part. We cannot tell where, when, and how that is going to occur; yet that is a vital point in our estimates. There is the very interesting question to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, and I thank him for the hint which he has given us in regard to our publicity work. It is quite possible that there may be some returns coming in, but none of us have experience yet to be able to say what amount that profit will reach. I certainly should be very sorry to build any great hopes upon it. I have never yet been engaged in any form of political work out of which I have seen any money made.

Another matter to which the right hon. Gentleman referred was the nature of our work and the nature of our pamphlets, and the speeches that were made on our platforms. I would like to deal with that. I have a good deal of sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman, and I must say that political pamphlets leave me cold. They are not a form of literature for which I have any great admiration, and I cannot say that I ever read a political pamphlet which I thought was likely to change my views. Even after reading the "Letters of Junius," which I suppose were the highest form of political pamphlets that have ever been issued, I came away with the feeling that there was a good deal to be said for the Duke of Grafton after all. After listening with great admiration to the right hon. Gentleman's speech I must say that it did not influence me in the least. He put his case admirably and made a stronger case than I thought he was going to make, but it did not carry the least conviction to my mind. That may have been due to the obtuseness of my mind or to the obstinacy of my conviction. It reminds me that Mr. Gladstone spoke for four hours in the old days and that Lord Palmerston spoke from the dusk of one day to the dawn of another. I am afraid that I should have spent part of the time in the Smoking Room if I had been a Member of the House at the time. We must take the point of view of experienced political organizers—and that is the point of view which is generally accepted by all who have had anything to do with political work—that speeches and pamphlets, and what for some absurd reason we call literature, does have an effect upon the minds of the electors of the country. Speeches, I think, do have a certain effect, though I am surprised that they should have any effect at all. However little effect speeches and pamphlets may have, there is no doubt that whether they do good or not the absence of them always does some amount of harm. If there is work going on on one side, and no work going on on the other, your friends do come and complain that so and so is sending out literature all the time, and speeches are being made from such and such an organisation, and you are making no reply at all. The right hon. Gentleman will bear me out in saying that that is what one finds.

Anyone who has been in the political world knows that that is the sort of complaint that is made, and to meet that sort of complaint is, to a certain extent, the object of the War Aims Committee. In reference to the speakers we employ, and the speeches that are made, we have had certain complaints, to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, and in regard to our ordinary staff of speakers, if we are told that the speeches are on Tariff Reform, or, as I have heard sometimes, are devoted to making attacks on the capitalists of the country, then we take care that we do not employ these people again. But while you can do that with your paid speakers you cannot do quite the same thing with one of the Ministers, and when we ask a Minister to speak on the War Aims platform we cannot be sure beforehand what he is going to say. We cannot, for instance, know before we put him up what the Prime Minister is going to say. I think that the complaint in reference to Ministers and Members of Parliament is hardly a reasonable one. When a Minister comes down to speak on war aims or anything else you cannot bind him down entirely to stick to your war aims. That is not a reasonable request to make, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman would be the first to admit that.

I admit that that is so, but does the hon. Member not see that that is a cardinal reason for not paying out of public funds?

I do not see much in that. I do think that the men we employ, and the meetings we have held, have done a great deal of solid work in the country. I have been at conferences in different parts of the country in connection with this work. I have been asked to arrange that these meetings should be held. We are getting men of all parties to come and meet us. Before we arrange as to what is to be done in a district we ask men of all parties, "What do you say wants to be done?" and we have estimates submitted. We do not give them a blank cheque. We look very carefully into this matter of submitting estimates, and the testimony we get, not only from our agents, but from men of all parties, is that the holding of these meetings and the propaganda work carried on are doing good in the country. We are told that by men of all parties. Now as to the control of funds, We have a Controller appointed by the Treasury who looks into the whole finance. Every payment is made through him. The whole finance of the movement is in the hands of the Treasury. We have an actual Treasury servant in our office controlling the whole finance.

Has that Treasury official ever refused any item, and if he refused would you go behind him or would you accept his decision—because that is the point of difficulty?

All these individual estimates are submitted to the Treasury, and approved by the Treasury in the first place. If we go beyond our estimates—I do not want to speak before such an expert as the right hon. Gentleman; I do not want to give myself away: he is much better up in Treasury Regulations than I am—undoubtedly it is the duty of the Treasury official to call attention to it, and I have no doubt that if there were anything that appeared extravagant or absurd in our orders it would also be his duty to call attention to it, but exactly what would happen if it came to a fight between us and him I cannot tell. It has not arisen yet, and I do not think it is likely to arise. We are the last people in the world to try to chuck money about. We realise fully the need for economy, and the advisability of accounting for every penny, and we are doing our very best to see that the thing is run in an economic and businesslike manner. I hope I have answered most of the points to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. I do not think I need go into the matter which aroused debate on the Committee stage. I do not think it necessary to make a war aims speech. As a purely business proposition, I think that this is a movement that ought to go on, and we exercise every possible care to see that it should be worked as economically as possible.

The hon. Member who has just sat down has done nothing to answer the very powerful arguments put before us by the right hon. Member for Rushcliffe. If the whole thing is absolutely necessary, that does not avoid the necessity of having an estimate put down. I hope that there is going to be some stronger defence of this matter than has been made by the hon. Member who has just sat down, because he has told us that he himself has no belief in the propaganda at all.

dissented.

He says that speeches do not convince him and he does not believe that they convince anybody else.

I did not say that. I said, like the right hon. Gentleman opposite, that I was not one of those who would be convinced by speeches and pamphlets, but I laid emphasis on the fact that it was generally accepted that other people were.

That does not alter what I say. The hon. Member says he does not attach any importance to speeches himself and that they do not convince him. Therefore I repeat that the hon. Gentleman is a very bad exponent of the desirability of the propaganda, and when he tells us, at the same time, that an unlimited sum of money can be spent upon this sort of propaganda I think the climax has been reached. I submit that a case so powerful should have been pre- sented as to justify what is absolutely a blank cheque being given to carry on these meetings in every part of the country. I could not follow the hon. Member very well in what he said. He told us, I think, that the question of the estimate was, purely one for the Treasury. Does he mean that the Treasury deliberately said that they did not think any estimate was necessary or desirable? It may be that I misunderstood him, but I thought he said that the question of an estimate was entirely one for the Treasury.

I was referring to the Token Vote, in answer to the observation that had been made that it was only a Token Vote that was submitted. I said that the question of whether a Token Vote was to be submitted was a matter for the Treasury and not for the War Aims Committee.

That is exactly the point. Does the hon. Gentleman intend us to understand that the Treasury do not want any estimate?

We have given the Treasury an estimate, and whether the Treasury submit it to the House of Commons as a Token Vote or a detailed estimate is a matter for the Treasury and not for the War Aims Committee.

It was not clear to me, for I understood the hon. Gentleman suggested that the Treasury did not want the details, and that they had a right to go on spending money on the Token Vote.

I said distinctly that we have given the Treasury the details.

If there is a detailed estimate, why should not the House be allowed to have it? The House are the guardians of the public money, and why in the world should they not have these details? We ought to have an answer. We are really in a most extraordinary position. We are now informed that those who are spending this money have given the details of the estimate. Therefore, an estimate is in existence with which they are content and satisfied, and yet that information is refused to the House. Why should the House be asked to vote this money without having the information to which they are entitled? A reason was suggested, or adumbrated by the hon. Member, to the effect that it was impossible to arrive at the amount. Are we to understand him to mean that they have framed estimates which have been entirely wrong so forth? If that be so, that may be a reason why the Treasury do not trust the estimate, but surely it is for the House to know what exactly is the situation, and what amount of money should be spent on a matter of this kind. In my view, the House ought to treat this matter most seriously. We have now arrived at a period of the War when the call upon the resources of the country is so vast, that care in the use of those resources is of the utmost importance. What is finance? It is an indicating of what portion of the national resources can be utilised in a particular way. Therefore, it becomes of enormous importance that those who have control of the expenditure of the country should realise that the disposal of its resources, of its energies and of its manpower, is a matter of supreme interest, and that there should be careful supervision over the direction and purpose for which portions of these resources are being used. I regard the question now before us as being only symptomatic of what is being done in every direction, bringing us to a state of utter chaos. Only yesterday with regard to the national shipyards we heard that the War Cabinet issued its decree, though it was based on no estimate whatever, and the First Lord of the Admiralty had to do his best to find out what it cost. In the matter we are now discussing, you have a further illustration of how the resources of this country are disposed of by the War Cabinet, not knowing to what extent they are committing the resources of the country.

From that point of view, it is a grave symptom that this Government should come forward with a Token Vote on a matter of this kind. I am inclined to agree with the statement made by an hon. Member, who has a large experience of these war aims pamphlets. In some cases, it may be, that they have some effect, but it has been brought to my notice, in other cases, that the type of man selected to explain our war aims was unsuitable, so unsuitable that the crowd not only objected to his statements, but assumed such a threatening attitude towards him that he had to fly from them. I trust this money is not going to be used to keep together a number of hangers-on of that kind. Those chosen to perform this work of propaganda should be capable of putting our war aims clearly before their audi- ences, and they ought not to be men speaking to book and to order, and who do not know how to behave, and, therefore, do far more harm than good to the propaganda. On this question of the selection of those who do this work of propaganda one, of course, could not go so high as the Prime Minister; we could not put restraint upon him, for example, or anything of that sort; still, I think it is a pertinent question that if we cannot put the Prime Minister under restraint, why should it cost thousands of pounds to produce an audience for him? I am told that was the work of the War Savings Committee. There is always some excuse put forward as to the way money is being poured out by the Government, but I hope that the House will not be content with this blindfold method of conducting the affairs of the country. This is the most critical moment in which this country has ever been, and I ask whether this is a time in which to enter upon the expenditure, as represented by money, of our resources to an unlimited extent? I do ask the House of Commons not altogether to give away its duty in restraining and ascertaining how the resources of the country are to be used or being used, and that it should not be passed over even in the excitement and pressure of this most stupendous War ever seen. To my mind there has been too much talk and too little action. What we want is a strong, powerful, and vigorous attitude, and not all this talking that we have had. We have tried to defeat the Germans with our mouths——

I must ask the hon. Member to confine his remarks to the question before the House.

I thought I was speaking to the point, Sir——

I beg pardon. I thought that the hon. Member was about to give us his views on strategy.

I am sorry, Sir, that I have given you quite a wrong impression. I had no desire to speak on strategy. I was dealing with the value of the propaganda to the country and its effect. I venture to suggest if we had a little more vigorous action, instead of all this talking, we would preserve the money spent on talking for that vigorous action. Unfortunately our enemies appear to take very powerful action and to do very little talking, and we might learn something from them in that way.

Had the speech of the hon. Member been made in time of peace I think I should as to the principle have agreed almost wholeheartedly with him, but his speech has really resolved itself into a series of quite petty criticisms in regard to whether there is to be a Token Vote or whether there is to be a detailed Estimate. What the hon. Member has not faced is the broad question as to whether this propaganda is a matter essential in the carrying on of the War. I have no hesitation in saying that in principle I totally dissociate myself from any suggestion that the Government of the country should be in the slightest degree responsible for the formation of opinion in the country. With that proposition as a normal peacetime proposition I have no hesitation in stating my approval. But we are faced with a totally different case of circumstances today. It is not a case that what J might call anti-war elements are neutral, it is not that anti-war elements are simply quiescent among themselves. The country at this moment is face to face with a series of most powerful organisations, so far as finance is concerned, whose sole and whole object is to bring this War to an end without regard to the terms of peace. It is a most extraordinary state of things you have in the papers and elsewhere. You see literature to-day from, I do not know how many, but I should say anything between fifty and 120 totally new organisations, calling themselves the committee of this, or the fellowship of that, and so on, and all those aim definitely at the same purpose, which is to bring about peace regardless of the aims to which this country was committed when it entered upon the appalling task of having to meet the aggression of Germany. People come into this House and just coo like turtle doves, but when they go down into the constituencies the talking is of a totally different nature.

Let me give an illustration, and I could multiply the cases, of the sort of thing that has happened down in South Wales and in the South Wales coal-field. I lay it down as fundamental that our lads on the seas and at the front who are risking their lives and their health and their limbs for the sake of the great cause for which we are fighting, if they are to be supported as they ought to be supported, that it is of imperative importance that nothing should be done to discourage recruiting, that nothing should be done to discourage food economy, that nothing should be done to discourage war saving, or, in a word, that nothing should be done by word or deed by those in this country who are not risking their lives and their health and their limbs to weaken the executive power of the fighting forces of this country. If it were merely a question of discussion at mutual improvement societies, or at literary societies, there would be nothing in it, but the pacifist propaganda, the anti-recruiting propaganda, the anti-war propaganda, as it has been carried on, has in many cases been in the most sinister way concentrated in those districts and upon those industrial elements who are likely to apply the teaching poured into them by taking definite action in the form of a down-tools policy. Go to any district, whether it be Coventry or the Clyde or South Wales, where there has been dislocation, labour dislocation, where there has been withholding of the output of ammunition, or of the supply of coal for the Navy, or where there have been threats, and you go to those districts where the propaganda of the anti-war pacifist has been most active and most definite.

Will the hon. Gentleman give some evidence of that. He mentioned Coventry, where I have been recently, and where I helped to bring the strike to an end. Will he give us some documentary evidence of this?

The hon. Member is not entitled to interrupt the speech.

I am quite pleased that our pacifist Friends are really anxious to find out the extent of our knowledge. I have documentary evidence both with regard to Coventry and with regard to South Wales. First, with regard to South Wales, let me give you an example of the sort of thing that has gone on there. This is a copy of a manifesto issued by what is called the Unofficial Reform Committee, a body which was never heard of until this kind of propaganda came into being. These are the soft of doctrines and this is the sort of advocacy they are using definitely to the miners in asking them to favour strikes if the Government go on taking any more of the young men from the pits, and they are glorying in what has already happened. This is what they say, though I am not going to trouble the House with many passages, but this passage is, I think, germane to the point of the interruption of my hon. Friend:

"The greed of the military authorities for more men grows in proportion as our own resistance weakens. Most of us will remember that the first demand was for 70,000 men, but this was reduced when they saw the strength of the opposition aroused to 20,000. Since then it has risen to 40,000, and does anyone suppose it will stop at this?"

And so on. Here is a matter of life-and-death importance to this country. It is a matter of the most vital importance to the 70,000 lads who have gone out from the South Wales coal-fields that there should be men to fill up the gaps and to help them. Here is pacifist propaganda definitely pointing out to the men that, thanks to their opposition, the demands of the military authorities for recruits had been reduced in the South Wales coalfields from 70,000 to 20,000.

Does that come from outside the South Wales coalfields, or is it issued by a local organisation?

It was printed by the Labour Pioneer Press, Limited, Merthyr. Whether it comes primarily from any organisation with which the hon. Member is connected, I do not know.

And I want to know.

No doubt there is great anxiety to find out. But let me say that some members of the Unofficial Reform Committee have been very closely associated with and have taken the chair for pacifist lecturers in different parts of the country, and some of them are in very close association with pacifist Members of this House. For the purpose of meeting the case raised by the hon. Member for Coventry it matters not where this document which has been posted up by the hundred and circulated in smaller form by the thousand, has emanated from a group in this House or from a local group in South Wales. The fact remains it has appeared as a public document in connection with a recent attempt to get miners to vote in favour of "downing tools" if the Government will not give up their recruiting policy in South Wales. I should not be surprised if it is the local miners' interpretation of some philosophic doctrine which the hon. Member for Hanley preaches. He talks with a certain degree of irresponsibility, without regard to what is the calculated effect of his remarks, and be cannot be surprised if men treat his doctrine as something not indefinite, but of particular application, and when they see an opportunity of applying the specific proposal for downing tools, they do it. So much for that.

Yet another method has been adopted by the pacifists. Take the case of the Labour Press of Manchester. That body, as a matter of fact, have been touting among all the unions of the country for orders for printing, and, according to the evidence of representative printers in Manchester, they have offered to do this kind of work at something like one-fourth of the recognised price. They have been offering to do printing at a cost considerably less than the cost of the paper. Why? Because when they have sent out to the trades union or to their branches executed orders the goods have invariably been accompanied by vast quantities of pacifist literature of a most pernicious kind, and this has led to some of the unions withdrawing their orders, after receiving protests from their branches that the printing of their union should be done by an organisation issuing anti-national and anti-war literature. As a matter of fact, a great deal of the literature which has been sent to branches and unions in the Coventry area is in my possession. It is pacifist literature specially addressed to industrial workers. A great deal has been sent to me since I spoke here on the matter three weeks ago, and many officials of trade unions and other people connected with the workers in Coventry have informed me and given me specimens of the class of literature that has been circulated. It is literature issued by the Committee of Democratic Control, by the Independent Labour Party, by the Industrial Workers of the World, by the Fellowship of Peace, and so on, and I shall be very glad, if the hon. Member for Coventry wishes to see some of it, to submit to his inspection twenty or twenty-five specific pieces of literature sent to me as the kind of stuff which has been circulated in Coventry and in the Midlands generally during the last three or four months. That is sufficient to deal with that point.

I come back to the main point of my argument. This matter has been talked about in this House at various times as though it is just an innocent philosophic kind of discussion on pacificism, on peace by negotiations, or on the settlement of I international disputes by arbitration—as though it was innocent debating society sort of stuff. But the fact remains, whatever may have been in the minds of the type of person who issue it, that it has been applied in a very different way, in the great industrial districts, and it has had the effect of poisoning the minds of men in those districts, men who have been working hard under the tremendous strain of grave anxiety and are apt to get a little excited. Unquestionably it has had the effect—I speak with unchallengeable authority for South Wales—of taking a large body of men in South Wales from the old idea of the vigorous prosecution of the War, to the idea that something can be done here and now to finish up the War, and that the end will be helped by withholding recruits and by bringing about a dislocation of trade by means of a strike. So long as you have that kind of propaganda, distasteful as it is to my own particular principle that a Government Department should be responsible for counter propaganda, I say it is imperative, as the executive arm of this country is weakened by this pernicious and insidious propaganda. This must, therefore, be countered directly at meetings among the rank and file of workers by men who understand and can intelligently explain precisely why we must carry the War on vigorously and to a successful conclusion. It is because I have seen beneficial results of that in the recent great campaign we had in South Wales in countering the shots of pernicious pacifist organisations that I express the hope that the House will unanimously adopt the proposal to let this expenditure go on on the war aims campaign.

I shall only intervene for a few moments to raise one or two subjects with reference to this Vote. I ventured to put a question to my hon. and gallant Friend on the Treasury Bench (Captain Guest) a day or two ago, asking him whether the War Aims Committee had invited Mr. William Sunday to visit this country? My hon. and gallant Friend in his reply stated that no such invitation had been sent. I want to ask him whether he is aware of any negotiations pending with Mr. William Sunday for him to visit this country? It is commonly reported in America that Mr. Sunday has received this invitation, and, may I say as my justification for the question I am now putting, that I have been informed by a member of the War Aims Committee—if I receive his permission, I will gladly tell my hon. and gallant Friend, in confidence, that member's name—that negotiations with which the War Aims Committee are perfectly familiar, have been going on with Mr. William Sunday, with the object of his coming to England and addressing meetings in connection with the War. I think that if that is so, the House is entitled to know it; because it is a very important proposal indeed, and it will be necessary to consider the matter very carefully if it is indeed true. In any case, I am quite sure my hon. and gallant Friend will not think I am unreasonable in inquiring whether he or the War Aims Committee are aware of any negotiations for which they may not be, in a technical sense, directly responsible, but which may be going on with the object of bringing the gentleman familiarly known as "Billy Sunday" to this country. If that is so, I do not wonder that a Token Vote is necessary in this case, because I am quite sure, having regard to the income that gentleman draws in America, it would be a very expensive undertaking indeed and would cause a very considerable addition to that estimate.

I wish to ask a question with regard to the need for the secrecy of the detailed amount spent. I ventured to point out, on the Committee stage, that it was not necessary to keep secret the total amount of the Secret Service Vote, and that, therefore, there was still less reason why at least the House should not know the detailed amount of this Vote. I was mystified by the explanations that were given by the hon. Member who spoke on behalf of the War Aims Committee earlier in this Debate, because he stated that the various estimates of expenditure were submitted in advance to the Treasury and. received Treasury sanction. If that is so, I do not understand what office is fulfilled by the official from the Treasury who, in addition to the preliminary Treasury sanction, then attends at the offices to supervise the proceedings of the War Aims Committee. The whole matter was left very vague and confused so far as the relation to the Treasury was concerned, and I think we are entitled to have that point cleared up.

2.0 P.M.

Another question which, I think, is very important in this matter is the relation of the War Aims Committee to the newspaper Press of to-day. It is admitted that a part of this unknown expenditure of the War Aims Committee is expended in the form of advertisements. I think myself it would be very interesting to know not only the total amount paid to the newspaper Press, but also the individual amounts paid to the respective newspapers. This is really a very insidious form of exercising control over the public Press of this country. Not long ago a case was brought forward in this House where a weekly paper of high standing and carrying out impartially a public duty had the official Government advertisement withdrawn because that paper was not approved of by the Committee controlling the advertisement. My hon. and gallant Friend will well know the paper to which I refer. It is the "Cambridge Magazine," and it is a paper the value of which has been attested to by Professor Gilbert Murray and by a large number of other representative and very distinguished gentlemen. I mention that as showing the kind of improper influence that can be exerted. Much more serious to my mind than the withdrawal of advertisements from papers that are disapproved of is the giving of advertisements of very great value to a limited number of newspapers, the power to withdraw them being always present, because I do think that sets up—especially when it is done in secret and without our having any adequate knowledge—a very serious state of things.

There is another department of the expenses of the War Aims Committee about which, I think, we should have more information, and that is the amounts that are expended with reference to the exhibition of cinema films. I am not criticising this particular expenditure at this moment. I am asking for information. It may be that the hon. and gallant Member can submit a case for indulging in propaganda by cinema, but I think we axe entitled to know if that form of propaganda is being indulged in; if so, under what circumstances, and what kind of cinema films are being produced under the auspices of the War Aims Committee. Something has been said in the course of this discussion with regard to the character of the pamphlets and the leaflets which are issued by the Committee. I ventured, on the Committee stage of this Report, to refer to these pamphlets briefly. I will only say now that I entirely agree with the criticisms that were passed upon them by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Leif Jones). It seems to me that the War Aims Committee has this initial, and I should have thought this almost fatal, difficulty in writing any pamphlets whatever on war aims, and that is that they themselves do not know what the war aims of the Government are. The hon. Member who spoke on behalf of the War Aims Committee spoke with great good temper and with considerable humour of the difficulties that he himself felt in this respect, and he pointed out that when they invited a Minister to speak they did not know what he was going to say, that that gave them some difficulty, and that, of course, it was impossible to brief him. I appreciate those difficulties very much, and I think he said what was exactly true when he pointed them out, because the utterances of Ministers I find incoherent and mutually destructive. I think it is Miss Marie. Corelli who in one of her novels gives us a very famous aphorism, If I remember rightly—I am quoting from memory—she said:

For my part, I desire to condemn any propaganda which is based upon the calling forth of, or the supposed need for, arousing feelings of hatred and passion. If literature is necessary on behalf of the war aims of this country, it ought to be literature that is going to lead us to a higher level of life. Let it, above all, be literature which is going to set forth constructive proposals for the new world if the future. Let this literature give us, let it lead us, and the democracies of other nations, into new thoughts and new efforts, and to new efforts towards peace. Let this literature set forth those proposals for a League of Nations, having for its object the elimination of war from the world—those proposals which are associated with the name of President Wilson. My complaint is that all this great, thoughtful, constructive side is forgotten by the War Aims Committee, and we have that which is temporary and based upon momentary passions. The opportunity might be taken, I should have thought, to cultivate that spirit which ultimately we must desire, which ultimately we must seek to draw forth—that spirit which alone in the new world which we trust will come into existence at the end of this War, under new conditions, will enable us so to organise our national and international life as not only to bring temporary peace, but to secure it for evermore.

I think it is impossible to overrate the importance at the present stage of the War of the work which the War Aims Committee has been called upon to carry out. The work of countering enemy propaganda and of promulgating one's own propaganda is recognised by every belligerent country, and certainly by Germany, just as much an essential part of the operations of modern warfare as the manufacture of explosives or shells. As the War progresses the relative importance of propaganda as a military weapon undoubtedly tends to increase and not to diminish. The other day we saw the report of the great offensive on the Italian Front, in which it was said that, having provided themselves with a very large and unexpected quantity of heavy artillery and large supplies of the new and particularly deadly poison gas, the Germans advanced to the attack, bearing in front of them banners upon which were inscribed the word "Peace." I venture to suggest that it was characteristic of the way in which our enemies are conducting their military operations at the present time. They are by no means neglecting to furnish themselves with heavy artillery or new supplies and new varieties of poison gas, but they fully recognise that there are other means by which it may be possible to break the morale and attain the defeat of their enemies. If one looks at Russia one realises, I suggest, how more deadly than artillery or any strategy of the field can be the penetration of an enemy country by pacifist propaganda. The doctrines which have led to the political disruption of the new-born Russian democracy, so far as I understand them, one and all are doctrines which find their counterpart, if they do not find their origin, in the pacifist propaganda which has been conducted in this country for the last three years. When we see the deplorable spectacle of an infant democracy signalising its entry into the comity of the nations by treacherously publishing secret treaties, do not let us forget that what has led them to adopt that act is all the poisonous propaganda issued under the auspices of the Union of Democratic Control, which has been specifically directed now for three long years into humbugging and deceiving the people of this country, who understand very little about diplomacy or diplomats, into believing that when a diplomat sees a fellow diplomat otherwise than on a public platform, and writes a letter otherwise than on an open postcard, and makes an agreement which he does not immediately publish to the Emperor of Germany or any other enemy, he is doing something wicked and terrible.

That nonsense, that pernicious nonsense, undoubtedly found dupes in Russia, and I regret to think is undoubtedly finding dupes here. What propaganda would not which was persisted in with such assiduity as the propaganda has been persisted in with this country for the last three and a half years? Only a week ago a very distinguished lady came down into my Constituency, under the auspices of one of these new societies which spring up like mushrooms to address a meeting on "Problems of Reconstruction." She obtained a very good audience, and there was an excellent report in each of the local papers. When I came to read the report to discover what was the reconstruction of which this lady had been talking I found that three-quarters of her speech was devoted to trying to make my innocent Constituents believe that the sole reason why this War is being prolonged—and deliberately prolonged—is because of the secret diplomacy of Great Britain and against the consent of the British people. I see their propaganda pops up at every turn and every corner. We are dealing in this Vote with a War measure. It is said by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite that some of the men who on behalf of the War Aims Committee are engaged in travelling about this country and endeavouring to combat this pestilent and pernicious propaganda—trying, at any rate, to do some little patriotic service for their country—are hirelings, and that their manners are deplorable. Well, we are all hirelings in this House, and the speakers of the War Aims Committee are not the only people who have a monopoly of bad manners. That cause must be very deficient in solid argument which thinks it can be advanced by calling perfectly respectable and honest men, who are engaged in doing work on behalf of the Government which is of patriotic service to their country, hirelings and bad-mannered.

"Ah," it is said, "but there is one very evil feature about this matter, and that is that the War Aims Committee is absolutely in a position to spend money to place contracts with newspapers." How is any portion of the operation of the War to be carried on by the Government without spending money? How is it more corrupt to place contracts for printing, contracts for publishing, and contracts for advertising in connection with this propaganda, if it be a necessary propaganda, than to spend the same money through similar channels for the purpose of advertising the War Loan? Why should the publishers and proprietors of the great newspapers of this country be regarded as a class more corrupt than the contractors who have to build factories or hutments for our troops, or the manufacturers with whom the Government have to enter into contracts for the manufacture of explosives? I will only say in conclusion, it is perhaps in some ways refreshing in the midst of a great war to see once more, as we saw this afternoon, a spectacle which was so familiar to us in the days before the War—a, right hon. Gentleman pummel-ling the desk in front of him, and with infinite humour diverting the House with Sunday witticisms most excellent and entertaining, but, after all, do let us occasionally remember that we are at war, and that to-day we are dealing with a Department of the Government which is founded for the purpose of meeting in this country the propaganda which already has had disastrous results in Russia, and was not without its influence upon the temporary reverse in Italy. Remembering the purposes for which this Vote is taken, I venture to hope it will receive the unanimous support of the House.

The hon. Member who has just sat down seems to regard himself as an exponent of what constitutes good manners. I do not know that I can accept him as an authority on that matter, and still less do I accept him as an authority as regards the scope, the origin, or the effect of the pacifist movement in Russia. It is rather essential to pay some attention to what he said as regards the failure of the Russian arms. That failure was due to the results of Czarism in Russia, to autocracy, secrecy, tyranny, and corruption on the part of the military system, and it is just those forces that are operating in this country. When you have a feeling of unrest amongst the workers, when you have strikes, it is not due to a pacifist movement, but it is due to an incompetent, tyrannical Government, and it is for the purpose of maintaining that Government that this corrupt fund is being organised. Speakers go out not to preach war aims, but to preach that the one essential thing for this country is to maintain this War Cabinet in existence. The same as regards Italy, From evidence that I can give to the House from a very well qualified authority, it seems that the failure on one part of the Italian front can in itself be directly traced to no pacifist movement, but to conditions brought about by famine. I am informed that when the Turin riots took place, owing to famine, certain regiments sided more or less with the people, and that those regiments were sent, as a punitive measure, to a certain part of the Italian front, and were kept in the trenches for some thirty-seven days. It was upon those men, exhausted in the front line trenches, that the German attack was made, with the results we know.

Wherever you find conditions which are considered by some to be conditions of treasonable sedition, you will find they are always due to those economic causes for which the Government is responsible. Taking the speech of the hon. Member for East Glamorganshire (Mr. C. Edwards) with the charges that the miners of South Wales are being seduced by German gold, one would have expected we would have been given some direct charges—something substantial to go upon. But to what does it all amount? It seems that the unrest in South Wales on this particular point is due to the extension of the operations of Conscription amongst the miners. The miners of South Wales have opposed Conscription all the way through, and, so far as my recollection goes, the loyal leaders of the Welsh miners, men who have been supporting the War, and who, no doubt, will be asked to speak for the War Aims Committee, opposed conscription for the miners, and got special treatment for them. It was a threat to extend conscription that caused the recent unrest in South Wales. The first great outburst in South Wales took place almost immediately after the declaration of War, when the bringing of the miners under the Munitions Act was proclaimed. At that time the present Prime Minister hurried down to Wales and obtained a settlement satisfactory to himself. There was no pacifist propaganda at that time. The fact is that the country is beginning to realise the incompetence of the Government and the ghastly failure of our military operations, and the people are beginning to fear from the evidence provided for them that the lives of their sons and relatives are being sacrificed without compensatory gains. That is the feeling that is spreading amongst the people.

Recently I had a report from Leeds as to the condition of things amongst the women there, and it was a description by one who knows the workpeople, and who is working on industrial questions, and he says that the people there are mad for peace, that the scenes at the railway station are something terrible as sons and husbands were going away, believing that they would never return again. That is what is spreading amongst the people, and I think that feeling does honour to the people and to the men of South Wales, as well as the munition workers of Coventry. The men in these exempted occupations have fought for high wages, and they have had little care for those who, for a shilling a day in the trenches, are bearing the horrors and agonies of this strife. Surely the hon. Gentleman opposite would have nothing but contempt for those who were drawing high wages if they did not give some consideration to the fate of their fellow men, and if they did not use every effort in their power to get those men back it would be brutal and damnable.

Those are the conditions which are causing people to direct their thoughts to these questions of the possibility of peace. There is no sedition or treason about that. It is simply a rightful consideration of these people for the fate of their fellows. For my part I would welcome this Committee and its propaganda of war aims, if only the speakers expounded our war aims. The right hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment spoke of giving the Government a blank cheque. Not only are we doing that, but we are giving a blank cheque for the promotion of a blank object, because we do not know what our war aims are. In the past I have from time to time asked questions regarding our war aims on specific points, and what generally happened when I asked those questions was that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University (Sir E. Carson), who at that time was sitting on this side, would step up to the Table and in a tragic voice he would say, "Is it in the public interest that a question such as this should be answered?" Then the Minister in charge would get up and say, "I do not think it is," and then the Tories would try to howl me down. That is how I was answered when I asked for the war aims of the Government.

I want to give one or two instances to show that we do not know our war aims. I asked if one of our war aims was to secure Constantinople for Russia, and I was told that it was contrary to the public interest to answer that question. Since then we have heard of a secret treaty, and we have had the announcement by the Premier of Russia in the Duma that this agreement had been made guaranteeing to Russia her historic ambition. What a fraud it was to send out our speakers to Russia to tell them our war aims and at the same time hide from them the main factor as to the origin of the War and its continuation—the fact that we were locked up with Czardom and its imperialistic ambitions, and that we had to fight until those aims were fulfilled! Who would have dared some time ago to have gone on the platform in England declaring that our sons and the men from Australia were dying in Gallipoli in order to give Russia Constantinople, and to put her across our trade routes to India? You would not have been allowed to expound such war aims at that time.

Take another example. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University, who is the head of this organisation and its controlling forces, made a speech some time ago saying that it was our war aim to wrench from Germany purely German territory, and to hand over to France the territory on the west bank of the Rhine. When the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was asked if such a war aim existed he said it was a mare's nest, and later on in a speech he poured ridicule on the suggestion that it was our war aim to take purely German territory away from the Germans. We thought at that time that the right hon. Gentleman was showing ignorance of geographical conditions, and that his geography was astray. What do we find now? We find that a treaty has been made between France and Russia guaranteeing to France the whole of the west bank of the Rhine. When I asked the Foreign Secretary the other day whether this treaty had been made with the consent; knowledge, and support of the British Government, the answer was "No."

The fact that the treaty existed was not denied, but we learn from the answer that the treaty was made without the knowledge of the British Government. The treaty between Russia and France involves this country, and under the pact of London we have to go on fighting. How could any speaker representing the War Aims Committee have gone on to any platform and honestly proclaimed the war aims of this country under those circumstances? To be honest he would have to say, "You are fighting not only to give France Alsace and Lorraine, and to give the French capitalists, perhaps allied with capitalists of this country, 80 per cent. of the iron supplies of Germany, but you are also pledged to fight until France secures the coal supplies of Germany and until you have given to Russia great portions of East Prussia." Those were our war aims, and our men are dying for the purpose of securing those aims. These persons are proclaiming our war aims on political platforms, and yet they do not know the existence of those treaties, and if they had known they would not have been permitted to mention them. The object of the Government has been to throw dust into the eyes of the people, and it is for such a purpose as this that we are asked to give the Government unlimited credit.

I want to come to the present. I want to know, for instance, whether some of the particular war aims put forward by certain politicians in this country are to be regarded as our war aims and to be preached from these platforms, or are the war aims of the Allies as a whole to be advocated? It is very essential to know. When the Allies sent their Note to President Wilson a year ago the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was set forth as one of our objects. The independence of the Czechs and Slovaks meant the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Is that an object today? President Wilson most emphatically declares it is not. Whose war aim is to be promulgated? That of the War Cabinet, presumably still including the destruction and the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire or that of the President of the United States? Before any man is sent out by this War Aims Committee that point, at any rate, has to be cleared up, What is he to tell the people on that subject? How about the treaties existing, as we now know, between Italy and this country and France, with regard to handing over to Italy all Slav territory in the Adriatic, the Dalmatian coast? Is that the undisclosed war aim of the past still the war aim of this country? How can you send people out to advocate war aims, when in the past you have been afraid to disclose them? You are, therefore, obtaining money under false pretences. Is it still a war aim of this country to be advocated with this money to crush Germany? I want to know. President Wilson says that it is not. If you send out speakers to urge that we must crush Germany and go on fighting for an unconditional surrender, will you in honesty also instruct them to tell their audience that it is not the war aim of the United States and of- President Wilson? Let us have the whole truth, and not part of the truth. I now come to the most important point of all. I want to know whether the Resolutions of the Paris Conference constitute a war aim of this country, because, if so, it means that we are voting this unlimited amount of money for the promulgation of Tariff Reform, and that I hold to be the bottom cause of this movement. The Resolutions of the Paris Conference, if carried out, would result in the establishment of Protection and Colonial Preference in this country, and would mean an economic boycott aimed at the destruction of industrial Germany.

I think the hon. Member, on a moment's reflection, will see that subject is clearly out of order in this discussion.

May I ask how that can be ruled out, in view of the fact that the function of the Committee for which we are asked to vote unlimited credit is to place the war aims of this country before the people of this country? Are we not entitled to discuss what are the war aims which the Committee is to place before the country?

It all depends upon the lines that the discussion takes. The hon. Member is now launch- upon a discussion of the relative merits of Free Trade and Protection. Clearly, if I allowed that kind of discussion to take place, there is nothing within the range of foreign policy, of military operations, and indeed of the whole question of public policy in this country, which could not be brought into this discussion. I must as well as I can keep the discussion within its proper limits, and it is for that reason I directed the hon. Member's attention to the fact that he was straying to the discussion of a topic which I thought beyond the limits of this discussion.

That was not my intention at all. I was not proceeding to discuss the relative merits of Free Trade and Protection. I was only asking if the Paris Resolutions constituted part of the war aims of this country, and whether this money would be utilised for the pushing of those views. I was not doing it at all for the purpose of discussing fiscal matters. These aims are not the aims of President Wilson, because in his recent speech he has stated that after the War we are not to enter into any scheme for the boycott of German trade. I want to find out whether our war aims are divergent from those of the war aims of the United States, and, if so, which set of war aims are to be advocated. If this organisation is going to advocate the introduction into the legislation of this country of the proposals of the Paris Conference, then this War Aims Committee immediately becomes the Tariff Reform League in another form, and it will be advocating Tariff Reform throughout the length and breadth of the country unless we have some assurance that it will not be permitted. The right hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment (Mr. Leif Jones) gave his own experience, and stated how he went to a great War Aims meeting where the chairman launched forth into a speech in advocacy of Protection or Tariff Reform. We are entitled to know if that is going to be the object for which these meetings and this vast expenditure will be used. On this point it must be remembered that while that line may not be taken by great men at great meetings, if we are not careful all the old theories of the Tariff Reform League will get into this organisation, and throughout the whole of the country we shall have spreading a propaganda for Protection under the guise of war aims. If that is found to be the result of carrying out the present project, then you will soon have an end of all unity for the cause of the War, and you will split this country in a time of war into two sides on the great and fundamental question of our fiscal policy. Therefore, we are entitled to ask for some information on this matter.

I should like to ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman in charge of this Vote whether he is sure that he is getting value for his money in the methods that have been adopted? I have had letters sent to me by persons who have been at War Aims Committee meetings, not the great town hall meetings with a great leader speaking, but the smaller meetings, such, for instance, as are held on Tower Hill. A man wrote to me the other day saying that he had attended at one of those meetings, that four speakers turned out, and that the meeting consisted of one speaker addressing the other three. That was all the audience they could get. I rather doubt whether the expenditure of money for such demonstrations as that will very much help the conduct of the War. I have no doubt that steps are taken to secure audiences. They are at Tower Hill. Is the same protection given to people who hold meetings in connection with the Herald League? There is an organisation which at the present time has taken it upon itself to break up all public meetings, and which goes to the police and says that if this organisation holds a meeting there will be a disturbance, whereupon the police authorities get the meeting proclaimed. That was done in the case of the Herald League. Such action gives the War Aims Committee some opportunity to hold meetings at Tower Hill free from all competition.

In conclusion, I want to know whether there will be any fair play with the audience at these meetings. I am told by men who have been at them that, at present a speaker comes down, not to a great town hall meeting, but to a small meeting, and fires off a speech about German atrocities and all the old business from a brief, but that if members of the audience want to ask questions they are told that he is under instructions not to answer any questions, and the meeting promptly closes. It is a very wise instruction indeed. The speaker folds his tent, like the Arabs, and silently steals away, leaving that part of the audience who remain to discuss the really fundamental things. I should like to know whether a question which will be asked everywhere, which is in the minds of those in the provinces, whatever may be the case in London and in this House, will be permitted—that is, the question raised by Lord Landsdowne's manifesto. Will these speakers be forbidden to answer questions on this great and tremendous pronouncement of fundamental importance, or will the audience be told, in the words of Lord Northcliffe, that Lord Landsdowne's statement was the manifesto of a senile mind? Will these war aims meetings deal with the things of which the people are thinking, and not with what happened in Belgium three and a half years ago—because I can tell the hon. Gentleman that people are thinking most deeply on these subjects? I object to this Vote because I believe it will be used for what I consider to be corrupt purposes, not for the maintenance of any great ideal, not for the advocacy of a national purpose, but for the purpose which is nearest to the minds of a War Cabinet—that is, to maintain themselves in office. A year ago they drove one Government out of office and placed themselves in office to win the War. People are now asking why they have not won the War and why they have not delivered the goods. Many people say that they seized office to win the War, but that they have lost the War. This vast sum which is to be utilised to send speakers throughout the length and breadth of the country is to divert their attention from the one thing they should be thinking of—that is, the methods of this Government, which are bringing us to disaster.

From the way in which the Debate has turned this afternoon it will be advisable for me at this stage to say a few words in explanation, more particularly of the machinery employed in connection with our work. The Debate seems to show a readiness to wander off to bigger subjects which are clearly beyond the scope of reply by anybody in charge of the actual details of the Committee's work. The right hon. Gentleman who moved the reduction is not present, but before sitting down I hope to be able to answer categorically most of the points he has raised. Before doing so, I should like to say that the necessity for this work has not yet been seriously challenged. It has been supported in several quarters of the House. It is well for us to be agreed upon that point before we proceed to consider the amount of money which is necessary to carry on the campaign. I do not think that anybody here will deny that there are organisations of a very seditious character. I challenge anybody here to say there are not such organisations in this country.

Then why are they not prosecuted?

Which organisations are they?

I propose to stick exactly to the words I have used and to leave the burden of proof on those——

You are making a charge.

It is a charge of sedition.

I have no intention of being drawn into a wrangle on that subject. One of the reasons why this work was undertaken was because reports came to us from the country. This did not originate in the minds of the Government but in the country, in the industrial areas and among the patriotic citizens of this country, who asked us to undertake an educative campaign in order to take the platform from those who were holding it recklessly, unpatriotically, and against the interests of the nation while at war. Responding to that request, we have, in a limited manner, tried to fulfil the reasonable steps which were demanded by the circumstances. It is chiefly on the details of our machinery that I wish to say a few words this afternoon. The House was good enough a few weeks ago to give us a Token Vote for this work and at that time I endeavoured to explain to them some of the reasons why the method of a Token Vote was considered advisable. Those reasons stand as good to-day as they stood three weeks ago, although they have been somewhat more seriously challenged. The safeguards which surround that expenditure have been sneered at. We are told that Treasury control means nothing. We are told that this expenditure Committee which the House set up is not sufficient guarantee that money will not be improperly used. The House does not appear to be satisfied that the estimate we have submitted has proved to be in excess of our expenditure, although I think in the minds of most people those safeguards and reasons operate in favour of continued confidence by the House being placed in our efforts. A Member of the Committee who spoke earlier, and who is well known for his patriotism and also for his knowledge of the expenditure necessary for propaganda purposes, has, I should have thought, satisfied the House that the Committee, composed as it is first of all of carefully-selected members of all parties, assisted by the chief political organisers of all the great parties, is a very unlikely body to spend more money than is necessary upon such a work as we have in hand. The point about our efforts having been undertaken in response to a request from the country is true not only of the inception of our work, but of all the items of the campaign which we have undertaken. The campaign consists largely of meetings and the distribution of literature. The applications for meetings have been very remarkable, and one of the most remarkable applications for meetings has come from the Division of Rushcliffe, and has only come to hand in the last few days—a request from both the Conservatives and Liberals of that Division, asking that a campaign shall be undertaken there to educate the electors.

Who asked for it? Is it an authoritative request?

The request is authoritative, and if the right hon. Gentleman was here I am sure he would be the first to admit it. Since 1st June until 1st December we have had no fewer than forty-fire demonstrations attended by over 2,000 people. We are being pressed daily to get up more meetings of a similar character. We have had meetings of well over 1,000 attendance to the number of 180, and the smaller meetings, which are, perhaps, more important still, and which are largely invitation meetings, extend to over 4,700. It is not we who press these meetings upon the localities. The conferences which are held from time to time in different parts of England are invited to express opinions as to whether they think they are still needed, and the notifications which are brought to us on those occasions show that there is considerable necessity, certainly in some districts more than others, to press forward with this useful work. The distribution of literature also takes the form of requests from the constituencies. We have had requests for literature from 445 local war aims committees.

Do they see the samples?

3.0 P.M.

They see the samples and decide for themselves what they would like and what they think is most suitable for the purpose, and make their applications to us. In response to these requests, we have distributed over 5,000,000 leaflets. Something has been said about the quality of the literature. I am not directly concerned with the committee which deals with the literature but I have seen accounts of it, and I think people who hastily write it down as poor stuff can have given very little time to reading it, and can not have taken much notice from whom those words have fallen. Some of the greatest speakers of the last three years are the backbone of all the literary information which we circulate in the countryside. President Wilson's speech has been asked for and has been very widely circulated. The late Prime Minister's speech has had an almost equally valuable effect. The speeches of other prominent and patriotic men have been distributed broadcast, and we are daily receiving more demands for further supplies. Those who criticise the quality of the literature will do well to look into it again before they press it any further.

Could you put samples on the Table?

Samples of all literature are available at the offices of the War Aims Committee to anyone who likes to have them. Another important point which I would ask the House to consider before refusing us this Vote is the propaganda of the enemy in this country. The propaganda of the enemy in other countries has never been disputed. The system of foreign propaganda established by our enemies before the War, and maintained right through the War, has been of enormous extent, and to think that we in this country who have obtained the sanction of Parliament for foreign propaganda in neutral countries are now going to stick at a very small sum of money to educate our own people! The point to which the greatest exception is taken is the fact that this is a Token Vote. The decision for that matter rests with the Cabinet. The Treasury had submitted to them a detailed estimate of what we thought it would cost to carry on our work for six months. We have been able to save very considerably on that estimate. Treasury control is much more than a name. The official of the Treasury who attends our meetings has by no means a sinecure. He is there to question any scheme or proposals we may make, and, being a body of perfectly disinterested people, we should naturally conform to any suggestions which he might make. It seems reasonable to say that in time of war there is some wisdom in our keeping entirely to ourselves this purely domestic matter. Whether the necessity for this propaganda is great or small, I do not see why we should give that information to anyone who can make the slightest use of it against us, and seeing that the sum of money, which will shortly be known to the Expenditure Committee, is not a very large one, it would be very much wiser for us to keep that information to ourselves.

My right hon. Friend (Mr. Leif Jones) went into some details which I should like to reply to. His first line of criticism was that the propaganda was political—in other words, sectional, and not national. That is so easy to answer that it is not necessary to waste very much time upon it because this Committee can only be called "national" in so much as it represents every party in this House.

No; not every party.

That is exactly the same point that the hon. Member raised on the last Debate, when our explanations was that as the Committee did not undertake any operations in Ireland we did not think it necessary to have Irish representatives upon it.

It is they who need it most.

I think that a knowledge of the composition of the Committee is a sufficient reply to anybody who tries to make out that it is a sectional campaign supported out of Treasury funds. An argument used to support that theory which was put forward by the right hon. Gentleman was that it was not fair that a majority should have the right to impose their policy and to spend national money in defence of it. In this case the House will understand that there is a majority of 90 per cent., and when you get four representatives of parties in the House sitting together in one Committee in defence of the national cause, I maintain that we are right in using these funds. In peacetime I admit that minorities must be given a very much wider range of power and latitude than in time or war, but when the Government are prepared to consider that this propaganda, for solely British purposes, is practically a war measure, I think that, with the majority we have behind us in this country, we have a right to use this money in the interests of the nation as a whole, and the section—I am proud to feel as an Englishman that the section is very small—of those who would be prepared to throw away the sacrifices of the last three years, recklessly, is so small that we need not give very much attention to their views on this matter.

The right hon. Gentleman asked us whether some of our speakers—and he mentioned prominent speakers, including Cabinet Ministers—had not rather unfairly taken advantage of war aims platforms the purposes of which did not come within our terms of reference. He referred to the speech delivered at Bedford by the right hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Churchill). Though a slight departure from the strict terms that we have laid down for our speakers was indulged in, I do not think it was a more serious one from our strictly Committee point of view than the somewhat wide proposals as to post-war legislation laid down at Birmingham a few nights ago by the right hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Asquith). In controlling these matters with common sense one must give more latitude to speakers of national importance, such as the two right hon. Gentlemen to whom I have referred, and one can always feel certain that they will not take undue advantage of the opportunities thereby granted. With regard to the less practised speakers, and those who assist us at the smaller meetings, we have taken the greatest possible care to keep them within bounds, and when it is remembered that we have held over 5,000 meetings the cases where the rule has been infringed are not many. A few cases have been brought to our notice, and in a few instances we have thanked the gentleman for his services and expressed regret that we were unable to find further use for them. Most careful instructions are issued to the speakers, and if the House will not be wearied I would like to read three or four of the main instructions. they often put in sixteen hours a day, and get nothing for it from the War Aims Committee. Without that assistance we could not possibly have carried on the work. The proposal that the meetings should be made to pay introduced the subject of the War Savings Meeting at the Albert Hall; but as that meeting was not held under our auspices, it was not a matter to which I need reply.

Reference has been made to the quality of our literature and also to the subject of expense. The House will follow me in my argument when I say that the expense is very largely due to the difficulty of actually locating harmful places which are the fountains and springs of seditious propaganda. It must be clear to everyone that expenditure in this connection depends much more upon the area than it does upon the number of the criminals. It is the prevention and detection of crime that is out of all proportion to the number of offenders. We have to hold meetings frequently in districts where we are without knowledge as to the necessity; but I would like to inform the House that by meetings such as these we have frequently found where more work was needed, to say the least of it. One or two other questions were dealt with in detail by the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Molteno). One was as to the quality of the speakers. I think he rather recklessly accused the speakers of being of bad quality.

Not generally.

Perhaps in justice to those who have the responsibility for the selection of these speakers, the hon. Member will be so good as to supply us with the names of the speakers and the occasions when speakers who have addressed waraims meetings have delivered speeches offensive in quality or material to himself or his friends. Looking through the list of speakers which I have beside me, I find that more than half of them are voluntary, and if a speaker says that he is prepared to undertake to address meetings which he considers to be in the interest of the country and does so to the best of his ability, it is hardly fair to treat that man as if he were a paid hireling and sent down there to make his speech as rapidly as possible in order to secure his pay. The number of speakers who have volunteered for this campaign is one of the most remarkable features of it. That these people are prepared to give up their everyday work and their ordinary duties of life and to put their services at the disposal of this Committee is a further indication that it is publicly thought to be necessary. If the House knew the names of many of these prominent men, they would be less inclined to think that the work has been foisted on the country and has not been undertaken in response to a national demand.

The hon. Member for Mid-Lanark raised a point to which I would like to reply—that is, whether there is any connection between ourselves and a gentleman, whom I never heard of before, named William Sunday. I made inquiry immediately he asked me, and gave my reply to his question. I inquired again to-day, as he seemed doubtful as to the accuracy of that reply, and I find that we have no knowledge whatever of any communication having been made, either officially or unofficially, to the gentleman in question; and if the hon. Member will tell us what other people tell him it would probably help very much to elucidate misunderstanding. The hon. Member raised one more point to-day. Nobody else did. It was whether any other body did film work. The Committee found, on looking into this, that there were already in existence other committees with experience in this kind of propaganda work. Therefore, with one exception, we have decided not to bear any responsibility for the same. The one film for which we are responsible is one which, I think, will draw great attention when it comes to be produced, inasmuch as the scenario is written by one of the most famous story-tellers in the world—Mr. Hall Caine. The effect should be very great. A great many very well-known artists and writers have subscribed towards it and have given both of their time and brains to make it a success.

The only other point raised in connection with this subject since the introduction of the Vote is one which was raised by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden). I regret his absence, because he was courteous enough to postpone it until this occasion. In his absence, perhaps he will let me reply to it, and his friends may satisfy him that there was no intention on my part to avoid him. The question was, What Conservative and Liberal organisers in Scotland are serving with the military forces? The answer is twenty-nine. Twenty-one others are serving in various capacities as civilians. The hon. Member asked me whether they were receiving pay from the War Aims Committee or from their associations, or both? The answer is that they receive pay in the ordinary way. It is not possible to say what grant, if any, they obtain from the political organisations with which they were previously associated. No State funds are paid towards the office expenses of any party organisation. On the contrary, offices and officers have been placed at the disposal of the State, in many cases free of charge.

The hon. Member does not say anything about Labour organisations.

I was not asked that point. Almost every other point in connection with the machinery of our work has been answered. The broad issue of the war aims themselves I have asked the House—very properly, I think—to leave to those members of the War Cabinet who are present and who shoulder the burden. But we have not found, what several hon. Members have referred to this afternoon, the immense difficulty which has been suggested in interesting great audiences with very simple war aims. There is quite sufficient in the addresses of our speakers to interest audiences and to satisfy them that we are justified in the continuance of this great struggle. The introduction of America into the War seems to be imbuing people with fresh courage and determination, and I think that we can add one more aim to the objects of our Committee—that is, the strengthening of the bonds of this country with America across the sea.

I have listened to a very interesting speech, but in my opinion it throws no light whatever on the real point which is involved in this matter. When the hon. Member repeated that every party in this House was represented on the War Aims Committee, I interrupted him to say that the Irish party was not, and he again explained that it had been left out. I assume that the Irish party was left out because, if this war aims propaganda were undertaken in Ireland, very awkward questions might be asked as to how the Irish case squared with the alleged aims of the War, but I will not dwell upon that point beyond saying that it is very remarkable that while Ireland and Irishmen are left out an Irish Member and an Irishman is placed at the head of the whole business. The first criticism which I have to make on the speech of the hon. and gallant Member who is responsible for this Vote is that while he enlarged at considerable length on the machinery of this Committee, and the details of its organisation, he omitted entirely the dominant question as to what is the purpose with which this machinery has been put into operation. That is the really important issue. The majority, said the hon. and gallant Gentleman, are undoubtedly in favour of the War Aims Committee's work, but what are those aims? The hon. and gallant Member never shed the smallest ray of light on what are those aims. As I understand the purpose of this Committee is alleged to be the enlightening of the people of this country, and to educate them. The word is used over and over again—educative campaign as to the war aims of the country at the present time, and when the hon. Member gets up and speaks for half an hour—I do not complain, his speech was interesting from beginning to end—may I point out that it was the play of "Hamlet" with the part of Hamlet left out, because no light whatever was thrown upon what are the war aims which the whole of this machine is set up to explain. That raises an important issue, and I think that before the Debate is concluded, and before we give a blank cheque on this Token Vote, we ought to be told what are our war aims. We have been told nothing of what this Committee is going to lay before the people of this country. Here is what the hon. and gallant Gentleman said on 13th November, when this Vote was previously submitted for discussion. On that occasion he treated the problem as one of more importance on that occasion than on the present: That is not the opinion of the pacifists, and it is not the opinion of our Allies, nor of the Foreign Office and the Government of this country, as now revealed to us by the publication of the secret treaties. How in the name of common sense could any Government face the House of Commons at this stage of the War, and after the publication of these secret treaties, and talk about relegating the details of our war aims, and the war aims of the Allies, to the date when the Conference assembles, I cannot understand! It seems like hiding their head in the sand. The details are of supreme importance in this matter, and they have been made the subject of private treaties behind the backs of the people during the whole course of the War. When this matter was raised by me in the House of Commons the other day, the Minister of Foreign Affairs answered across that Table that these treaties were a matter of common knowledge throughout the whole world, and although they had been published in at least one of the great leading newspapers of England to the whole world, yet they are not even allowed to come before the House of Commons. What is the answer to that? It is that we are not concerned in these matters, and that they affect the Allies. Have we no concern in the Franco-Russian Treaty, to which we ourselves are a party? Is the question of the Straits of Constantinople of no concern to us, or the division of Asia Minor? I ask, What is the use, in the face of these treaties, of sending ridiculous speakers through the country to say what are our war aims? Are our war aims to win for the Russian people the Straits of. Constantinople-One of the main roots of the War is the determination to divide Persia with us, and the price we are to pay to Russia is the Straits of Constantinople Are our war aims to put Italy into possession of Smyrna and divide the whole of Asia Minor amongst the Allies? Yet the Minister for Foreign Affairs says that these things do not concern us, but only our Allies.

Do you suppose the people of this country are so stupid and silly that you could persuade them to imitate the policy and attitude of the Minister for Foreign Affairs by saying that these things do not concern us at all, but only our Allies? It appears to me that you could not have a better example of the way in which this War has been brought to the pass in which it now is. The whole of this business began in connection with our foreign policy and the statement of the Foreign Secretary, who declined to state the truth to the House of Commons, as if the rest of the world knew nothing at all about it, and that it was non-existent. We have found to our bitter cost that such a policy never pays. What are our war aims? Will anybody get up and tell us on behalf of the Government? I challenge any member of the War Cabinet, or any other member on that bench, to tell us what are our war aims. If the war aims of this country can be stated fully, usefully, or "educatively"—I take the word used by the hon. and gallant Member—to the people of this country in the formula to which we have been accustomed by the great master of formulæ (the ex-Prime Minister), the formula contained in three words, "Reparation, Restitution, Security," why set up great and expensive machinery? If the formula is sufficient, then, in the famous words of the Foreign Secretary, our war aims could be stated on "half a sheet of notepaper," and could be placed before the people by phonograph or otherwise. If you mean real business—for this is not real business—you ought, before you set up your machinery, to make up your mind what our war aims are. We are entitled to seek enlightenment on our war aims from some man responsible for the operations not only of this Committee, but who is responsible also for the operations of the foreign propaganda. We are told on very high authority that there is one propaganda that must be considered and worked as hard as possible, and that is the foreign propaganda.

On the point of Order, Sir. Is the hon. Gentleman entitled to speak upon a propaganda which does not come under the War Aims Committee?

I understand the hon. Gentleman is not going to discuss that point. It arises on another Vote.

He is going to raise it now.

It would not be in order.

I am only alluding to it now. Is there a dual control of the policy advocated by this Committee?

Control of what?

We were informed that it was a member of the War Cabinet who had control. Here is a speech from the right hon. Gentleman, delivered quite recently, and he says in one passage:

"They talk of 'a league of nations. Let us, at all events begin with a league of British nations, and let us see what you can do by a proper league of British nations. Then, in my opinion, there is no limit to what can be done."

Is that one of our war aims to begin with a league of British nations? I cannot conceive a sentence more calculated to do injury all round to our Allies and to neutral nations. Furthermore, that sentence, coming as it did shortly after the great speech of President Wilson, is a direct challenge to President Wilson. Who was it talked of a league of nations? President Wilson laid it down as a fundamental and basic principle of our war aims. The right hon. Gentleman speaks with scorn and contempt of a League of Nations, and says, "Let us begin with a league of British nations." Does he include America amongst the British nations? That was the very charge made against us in America, and one of the most damaging and one which, to my own knowledge, has done most mischief in America, and delayed them coming to our side. One of the chief points of German propaganda was that this was a selfish attempt to set up a league of British nations in the interests of this country. The right hon. Gentleman frankly puts that forward as one of the foremost purposes of our war aims.

I did not.