I desire to ask the Noble Lord a question with regard to Monday's business. The Bill which is down for to-day is the Re-election of Ministers Bill. I understood from what the Leader of the House said that he had some hopes that it might be disposed of on Monday. I do not know whether that will be so, but, if it is or if it becomes necessary to adjourn the further stages of the Bill, what other business does the Noble Lord propose to take?

We shall have on the Paper the Aerial Navigation Bill, and it is hoped to proceed with that if there is time. I think we shall have on the Paper the proposals with regard to procedure. I doubt very much whether we shall have time to make a start with them, but, if there is an opportunity, I have no doubt that we shall do it. We shall certainly get the Aerial Navigation Bill if we can.

Is the Bill circulated, or, if not, will it be circulated to-day so that Members may have an opportunity of seeing what it is?

I was under the impression that it had been circulated.

Is the Noble Lord aware that there is a Notice upon the Paper for the rejection of the Ministers Re-election Bill?

No, I am not aware of it.

I beg to move, at the end of the Address, to add the words,

"But humbly regrets that in view of the increasing dissatisfaction with the provisions for, and the administration of pensions to sailors and soldiers disabled on war service, and to the widows of men deceased, also with the provision for the treatment, training, and employment of disabled men, no mention is made in the Gracious Speech of any action to be taken to effect improvement in the scales of pensions now current, to ensure more generous and speedy decisions, and to provide more adequate schemes for training, treatment, and employment."

This subject has been discussed at great length in other Sessions, not of this, but of the last Parliament, and certain promises have been made from time to time which so far have not been fulfilled. One is disappointed, therefore, that in the King's Speech no definite reference is made to the carrying out of the concessions that have been, promised. Consequently, I think, before we pass from the Address that we ought, if possible, to secure the mind of the Pensions Ministry and of the Government on this question. My Amendment does two things. First of all, it expresses dissatisfaction with the provisions for and the administration of pensions, and, as a remedy, names three things, namely, an improvement in the current scale of pensions, an improvement towards a more generous and speedy administration of the Regulations as they exist, and the provision of more adequate schemes of training, treatment, and employment. I propose to deal with those quite briefly, because I am conscious of the fact that there are a large number of Members in the House who had not the opportunity of engaging in the discussions before who desire to speak, and I am perfectly certain that every Member of the House returned at the General Election was made aware during his election campaign of the considerable dissatisfaction and the growing dissatisfaction which exists among discharged disabled men and their dependants with the existing provisions for pensions, and more especially, perhaps, with the administration of the pensions that are provided.

As an example of this, let me mention one case. At the present moment men are being demobilised from the Army, and for a period of four weeks are in receipt of full pay and allowances. When a discharged disabled man leaves the Army he gets very much less than the man who is physically fit when he is demobilised to resume his place in the industry of the country, and that fact rather strikes the discharged disabled man who has been wounded in the course of the War as being somewhat unfair. Then take the promise of a war bonus of 5s., which was given, as a matter of fact, during the election by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Barnes). That 5s. bonus in many cases has not yet been paid upon these pensions. There are many men in receipt of disability pensions who received that promise in the early days of the General Election, and they have not yet got the money. The same applies with equal force to the 20 per cent. all round increase on disability pensions payable to widows and dependants of men who are deceased. In very many cases no money has yet reached these people, and when one compares that with the provisions for drawing unemployed pay made on behalf of women turned away from munition works, it is obvious that the dependants of deceased soldiers have some reason for feeling sore. Then again, take the award of 6s. 6d. a week to the childless wife. That promise reached me from the Front Bench opposite just before Parliament prorogued, and it was made in order to meet the difficulties suffered by the childless wife who only drew 12s. 6d. as a separation allowance. No conditions were attached when the soldier received an increase of pay that that increase was to affect the grant to which the soldier's wife was entitled. The promise was made from the Front Bench opposite, but the practice of every local war pensions committee has been to reduce the supplementary pay of the childless wife on account of this new increase of 5s. 6d., which was awarded for entirely different purposes, in order to meet to some extent the increased cost of living. Secondly, there is dissatisfaction with administration. I was rather astounded yesterday to hear my hon. and gallant Friend opposite, in reply to a question, make the statement that the alternative pensions were being completed in an average of a fortnight. I should personally like to meet any applicant for an alternative pension whose demand had been so promptly dealt with as that. My experience, which is shared by other Members of this House, is that it takes nearly three months on the average to complete the transaction.

I think my hon. Friend has rather exaggerated the effect of my remarks. I was careful not to say that the fortnight was an average time, but the transaction could be completed in that period if all the papers were in proper order. I pointed out, however, that in many cases they required to be referred back.

I am obliged to my right hon. Friend. What he says on his authority as Parliamentary Secretary of the Pensions Ministry bears out what I say, that the Ministry can do the work in a fortnight if the machinery is in good working order, and it is because the machinery does not work properly that so much time is taken. What I have said remains true. As a matter of fact the machine works so slowly that the widow of a man who is killed has in very many cases to wait three months for her alternative pension. The same condition obtains with regard to the working of the local war pensions committees. They are not prompt enough in their decisions. Many lamentable cases arise as the result of dilatoriness in the carrying out of their work. I have a letter here dealing with a case in the North of England in which a woman with two children applied for an illness grant on the 8th November. Nobody called to see her, nothing was done, no money was advanced, and on the 12th November she wrote to the effect that it was no use doing anything now, because the child had died from pneumonia. Instead of making an application for an illness grant to prevent the child dying she asked for a funeral grant. I know my right hon. Friend deplores these cases, but I am afraid we cannot get away from the fact that they occur, because there is an extraordinary amount of dilatoriness on the part of the local war pensions committee in dealing with these matters.

I now come to three items in my Amendment dealing with treatment, training, and employment. There is another Amendment on the Paper raising the same question, but applying more particularly to tubercular cases. I shall leave to other hon. Members the development of this point. I will only say that as a matter of fact to-day there are no fewer than 50,000 men who have been discharged from the Army suffering from tuberculosis, and that a very small proportion of them are receiving the treatment to which they are entitled, while those who are receiving that treatment are being deprived by an arrangement made between the National Health Commissioners and the Pensions Ministry of their right to free sanatorium treatment. That is a point which ought to be dealt with. Seven shillings per week is charged against a man's pension for maintenance in a sanatorium. The man has contributed to that sum in his national health insurance payments, which were continued by the Army and the Navy, and I say it is iniquitous that the Pensions Ministry, the National Health Insurance Commissioners, and the Treasury should combine to deprive the man of the 7s. to which he is entitled by his disability rate of pension. We ought to have some statement with regard to that and some assurance that the man shall receive what he is entitled to. With regard to training, I think my right hon. Friend will admit that the schemes for training are still very inadequate. We are told that only ninety officers are now in receipt of training. The last time I spoke in this House on the subject, just before the Dissolution of the last Parliament, the number was less than ten. The increase in the figures has consequently been slight. My right hon. Friend yesterday told us that 7,000 or 8,000 men were receiving training, but in view of the fact that a quarter of a million have been discharged one realises how very little has been done in order to enable disabled men to resume their proper place in the industrial life of the country.

My Amendment goes on to deal with remedies, and I wish to put a few direct questions to my right hon. Friend. We want to know whether the 20 per cent. bonus which was announced in the early days of the General Election, but which we were then told was only to extend to the month of June of this year, is to be made a permanent increase in the current scale of pension rates, and I hope the House is not going to allow the Address in reply to the King's. Speech to be concluded without doing something for the men who while absent on service were not able through their organisations to get what they otherwise would have got had they remained in civilian work during the War. The least we can do for these men is to see that the debt of gratitude that we owe to them is met before we pass the Address. Then I think the House will agree that there are fat too many anomalies in the Pension Warrants at the moment, and that we want a very drastic revision. To mention only one out of a great many cases, take the provision for the pension of a son who has been killed in the War. The original Pension Warrant provided a pension, the minimum of which was 3s. 6d. and the maximum 15s., and later on that was extended to allow of a husband and wife each getting a pension, in the case of two sons being killed in one family. But the House knows, and my right hon. Friend will know, that there are many cases of widows who have lost two sons in the War but who cannot draw two pensions. They are confined to the limit of 15s., and I want to ask why a widowed mother who has lost more than one son in the War cannot be met by being put in a position to entitle her to draw a pension for the pre-war dependence that she had on both of her sons. That is the kind of thing I mean when I say that there are a great number of anomalies in the Warrants that want revision.

The second suggestion I make is to speed up decisions and to make them more generous. I dare say I have complained more than most hon. Members to the Ministry, which has always been very good to me, and my right hon. Friend, since he has been in office, has continued that tradition. I have no complaints personally to make against the Ministers who represent the Ministry in this House, because I have always found them willing to deal with any reasonable complaints put up, but I want my right hon. Friend to infuse some more generosity into the officialdom which controls the Regulations. I will give one case only. In the retreat from Cambrai a major of a battery was riding in the dark at the head of his battery and was thrown from his horse which had shied at something that was passing. Before he could recover his feet the battery passed over his head and crushed him to death. The widow of the major under the Regulations of the Ministry was entitled to a death gratuity of £300 in addition to her pension. But the widow of this major was refused her death gratuity on the ground that her husband did not die a violent death in action. I am perfectly certain that the House of Commons would never stop where the Ministry stops under the Regulations. Nobody could say that that man's death was not due to enemy action, and it is ridiculous that officialdom should be left to interpret the Regulations in that way. As a matter of fact, I have been fighting that case with the Ministry for very many months. My right hon. Friend is looking into it again since he has taken office, and I think we are going to get a satisfactory settlement, and, if we are, I hope it means that the new Ministers who are now devoting their time and attention to the work are going to interpret these Regulations in the same generous spirit in which this House wants them to be interpreted.

My third suggestion is that we should have more adequate schemes for training, treatment and employment, but I only mention that matter in passing and will leave it for others to develop. I think the House should give a lead to the Government and to the Ministry on the question of the statutory right of a disabled man to a pension. No disabled man or widow has any statutory right at the moment. I have been looking about for Government pledges in the matter and I have only found one, but I hope it may be confirmed this afternoon. Lord Beaverbrook—I do not know whether he was in the Ministry at the time, but I think he had gone—speaking at the election of the President of the Board of Trade at Rusham, used these words: "The Government intended to give soldiers and sailors the statutory right to their pensions." I do not know whether some announcement can be made upon that, but I am perfectly clear on this point, that the House of Commons is desirous that the sailor and the soldier, his widow, and dependants shall have a statutory right to claim the pension to which we all think they are justly entitled. I also think we ought to go a little further in the provision of methods of appeal against decisions. At present a man who is dissatisfied with his assessment has only an appeal to the medical referee of the Local War Pensions Committees. I would like to see the appeal on the question of assessment extended in something of the same way as we did when we set up the appeal tribunals against gratuities. I think a man ought to have a right to go beyond the Ministry if he is not satisfied and have his case properly heard in a proper court of appeal, and I hope something can be done in that direction. Thirdly, I would like my right hon. Friend to tell us something of the progress of the King's Fund, and whether the Ministry of Pensions have made up their minds to rely upon voluntary contributions to meet what many of us think ought to be provided by the State. I am very keen on the point myself, because I think we owe it to the men who have fought for us. A great many of them, particularly those who joined up voluntarily before the Conscription Acts came into being, gave up businesses and opportunities in civilian life which they can never recover and from which they will suffer very severe loss, and in these cases I think the State is entitled out of State funds to rehabilitate such men as far as possible in civilian life. I do not like that being left to the King's Fund and to charity, and I shall be glad to know from my right hon. Friend if he can tell us as a result of Gratitude Week how much money is now in that fund and what progress is being made in the matter, because the grants which are now being made do not touch a tithe of the men for whom it is proposed to make provision.

My last point is also in the way of a query. I would like to ask whether the Ministry have gone any further in the question of decentralising their administration? There is no doubt at all that the centralisation of administration here in London is responsible for the large number of delays, and I do not think we ought to have any delays in dealing with these men. We made no delays when we recruited them, for getting them into the Army was the quickest process that we ever knew, and the process of giving them pensions ought to be as quick. It is certain that if it is centralised here in London delays will continue. The Ministry, after all, was given certain obligations by this House. It was asked to undertake training and treatment. It has already handed over some of those obligations to other Ministers. Treatment, for instance, has gone to the Local Government Board and training and employment has gone to the Labour Ministry, and I hear a rumour that even the care of orphan children is to be handed over to some voluntary body created as a result of discussion in a Special Committee and that the Ministry will be in a position of only making a contribution to it and not really responsible for the upbringing of those children. It is quite certain that the House wants to keep the care of all the disabled and everything that has arisen out of the War in its own hands. We want to feel, after what we have said, that we have kept our share of the bargain, and it is in that spirit that I put this Amendment down to-day. It is not in any hostile spirit, because I have devoted some time to this question, always in a helpful spirit to the Government. I am only sincerely anxious that they and I together, all of us in the House, will be able frankly to look the men whom we recruited, their dependants and those associated with them, in the face, knowing that we have done our duty by them.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I rise for the first time in this House with a due sense of responsibility. I had not intended to make my first plunge on the Address, but when I was asked to second this Amendment I felt I could not resist the opportunity of speaking on a subject which I think all agree is one of first and vital importance at present. We have heard in the Debates, particularly yesterday, that there has been a certain amount of accentuation of the class differences which exist at present. I think I can say, as one who has been out there for a considerable time, with the honour of holding a commission in His Majesty's Forces, that these differences of class, so far as I know, have not existed in the Army. That is really an extraordinary phenomenon when we view the nature of the Army system, with its necessarily acute line of demarcation between officers and men. But I think the genius of the British nation has overcome even the Army system, which no one loves. I think it is quite admitted that a great deal of that was due to the fact that so vast a majority of the officers in the British Army during this War have been civilians. I therefore make no apology when I say that in dealing with this question—we are dealing primarily with these pensions of the rank and file—that I speak about their pensions in the position of holding a commission. Officers and men have equal sympathies and equal rights to speak on this subject. This subject of pensions was, if not the prime issue, certainly one of the main issues at the late General Election. There is no Member in this House who is not deeply pledged on the subject, and the Government is also deeply pledged. This War has been quite different from any in the past in that it has affected every home in this country. In previous wars armies were recruited largely perhaps from men of independent means, but here we have men who have all the cares and responsibilities of family life, who have formed the major part of the Army. We have therefore recognised that their claim in this matter is a first charge on the resources of the country, and when we recognised that we recognised that it would be not a small matter but a matter of an enormous liability. That was known; there was no question about it. The size of our Army and the nature of the constituents of that Army must mean that if we were going to deal with this matter in the nature of the pledges which were given, there would be an enormous liability on the country, and yet what is the present position? Did anyone at the General Election express satisfaction with the present scale of pensions? I did not, and I regret that in His Majesty's Speech there is no mention of any promise of an improvement in those scales.

That is not a matter, perhaps, of supreme importance, and will be dealt with; but the point that I consider is of rather sinister aspect is that the Prime Minister took it upon himself to issue a warning on this subject that there should be no undue competition in running up charges on the country on this subject. On all the subjects of expenditure on which he might have issued a warning it seems to me that the last is this subject, on which the nation feels so very strongly and on which even extravagance would be condoned and cheerfully borne by the country at large. We are told that the country is faced with great burdens. Who but the Government is responsible for the enormous salaries paid to munition workers? That has created a big burden on the country. These burdens are now put before us as a warning against dealing with this subject with undue competition—the burdens of our soldiers and their dependants. It seems to me that it was very uncalled for that we should have a warning on this subject. I can mention the specific case of a woman who has been employed in a munition factory. She is in receipt of a pension of 25s. a week, and yet the widow of a soldier is entitled to a pension of 13s. 9d. a week. I consider that is very disproportionate, and needs an immediate and radical change. why was not this warning issued at the General Election? At the General Election, instead of that warning, a bonus of 20 per cent. was granted. I do not want to lay too much stress on that warning, and I am not appealing in any spirit of hostility, but I say that it is necessary now for the House to express its view as to the spirit in which these pensions are going to be tackled. We do not want mere promises. We want them translated into action in this House. Are we satisfied with the present scale? The maximum scale is 27s. 6d. a week, plus the 20 per cent. bonus which has been given. That would come to, say, 33s. a week. We know what the cost of living is at the present time and that it has increased more than 100 per. cent. since pre-war days. If we look to that we find that the scale is about 16s. 6d. a week pre-war. Whatever ideas we may have about national minimum I think we are all satisfied that such a wage pre-war is not such as will give the decency and comfort of which we have all been speaking so much during the election. We want something more than that: an alternative pension. We have not yet had any pronouncement that the increased cost of living will be taken into consideration in dealing with these pensions. At present they are based purely on the pre-war earnings of the soldier. That is grossly inadequate. We must take into consideration the increased cost of living which has taken place since the War. There is ample room for great improvements in the scale of pensions at the present time. We gave various promises at the election as to generosity, but the war cry of the election was, "No charity in these matters." I am sure that that is the feeling of this House. But in dealing with this question in a practical form it is so easy not to get that spirit translated into action. Let each Member of the House insist upon it. The Government naturally has to look on the economical side but this is not a matter, however grave may be the burdens of this country, in regard to which we must lay stress on the economical side. If this matter is not dealt with, I say that every man in this House is pledged not to support the Government if they are not satisfied, but to see that the Government do deal with the matter in that generous spirit about which so many promises have been made.

My hon. Friend (Mr. Hogge) dealt with the various details of treatment and administration, and I do not propose to go into that, but I would like to mention one point which I think should be remedied, and that is the question of tuberculous cases at home. Soldiers who are suffering from this terrible disease number something like 50,000. A great many of these men ought never to have been admitted into the Army in the first instance, but having got into the Army we find that the present facilities for dealing with these cases are grossly inadequate, and that only a small fraction of the cases can be treated. When they are admitted for treatment a deduction is made of 7s. for maintenance in the sanatorium, although they are entitled to free treatment under the National Insurance Act. I submit that that is a case deserving of amendment and consideration on the part of the Government. I have only one further appeal to make, and that is that we ought to deal with this matter in a liberal spirit. We are proud of the achievements of our Army in this War. The British nation never stood higher in the counsels of the nations of the world. There are various proposals for memorials of our achievements in this War. What more fitting monument, not only of the might and glory of this country, but of the justice of democracy to-day, than that we should have a body of pensioners living not only honoured by us, but in comfort and respectability.

May I have permission, Mr. Speaker, to address the House sitting? [Hear, hear.] Major Cohen resumed his seat, and said: It is with very great diffidence that I venture to address the House to-day, so early in the Session, seing that I am a very new Member. I would not have ventured to do so had not the subject arisen relating to the employment of disabled men. I am a disabled man myself, and I feel that perhaps I have some knowledge on that subject. The courtesy and sympathy which you, Sir, and which every Member of this House have shown me since I came here, and which I take as being not only meant for me, but being meant for every other disabled man in the country shows me that it is the wish of this House to do everything in their power to help such men. What is going to be done? It is not a question so much of teaching a man a trade, though that is a very important question. What I think is still more important is to find that man a job when he has learned his trade. It is no use teaching thousands of men to cobble, thousands of men tailoring, and thousands of men diamond cutting, if, when they have learnt these trades, there is no place for them to go to earn their living. That is, I think, one of the chief objections to the training centres which it is proposed should be run by the Government. Another objection to these centres is that it will be impossible for any Government to teach more than a certain number of trades.

What I would like to see would be a scheme for apprenticing disabled men to private firms, where they would be taught their trade as apprentices. I do not suggest that they should be paid by their employers while they are learning their trade. They could be paid by the State in the same way as it is proposed they should be paid while at these training centres. It would be an advantage that when they had been apprenticed to a certain firm for so many months, and had learned the trade, they would already be partially placed in a job. I feel sure that the vast majority of employers would only be too pleased to keep men on to, whom they had taught their trade from the beginning.

I am told that there is a scheme which is receiving attention from the Ministry of Pensions called the Roth band scheme, which is similar to what I suggest in so far as it affects the employer. But it is different in one respect. After careful study of that scheme, it seems to me that it does only one thing. It finds a disabled man a job, but does not care in the very least what sort of a job that is. They wish to make employers take a certain number of disabled men into their service. The number of men will, of course, vary with the size of the firm; but, after all, if a patriotic firm take, say, a dozen men into its employment, it is all over. That is not quite what the disabled man wants. The firm may be quite willing to take a certain number of men on their books and pay them a salary, but they will not find a suitable job for him. They may give a man a lift to run, or something like that, whereas if a man had served an apprenticeship to a trade which he would choose himself, he could be employed at that trade. If he wanted to be a tailor, and served an apprenticeship in a tailoring shop, then the employer at the end of that time would know that the man was a good tailor, and would be quite willing to take him on at the ordinary wage.

Of course, what I say refers only to partially disabled men, but there is still the question of what is to be done with the totally disabled men. Take my own case. I am what the Pensions Committee call a "100 per cent. disability." Still, there are lots of things which I can do. A man in my position could do tailoring, cobbling, typewriting, typesetting—just to mention a few things—but his great disability would be how to get to his place of employment, and I would like to see some scheme arranged by which employment of that sort could be brought to the man's house. I know that he will have his pension, and I am hoping soon that his pension will be quite sufficient for him to live on comfortably. But that is not all. He wants employment. I do not pretend to be anything at all out of the way in any respect, but I am one of thousands—indeed, one of millions—who have been wounded in the service of their country while doing their duty, and I know that the disabled man does not want to sit at home, and have nothing to do and nothing to look forward to. I know what that is. I often wondered what I should do. Fortunately my constituents came along, and solved the difficulty for me. It is impossible for all disabled men to become Members of Parliament. Still, many of them could do a lot. The question is one which should be looked into. Several schemes have been suggested as to what should be done with partially disabled men, but totally disabled men deserve something more than to be called incurable.

I desire to express my satisfaction at the speech which has just been delivered by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. I cannot help congratulating myself upon the fact that I am one of those who gave him some help in getting into this House. His words carry conviction owing to the sacrifices which he has made as do the words of few other men. I do not for a moment suggest that the Speech from the Throne did not imply the fullest sympathy with our disabled men. It is true that owing to the forms of this House we have to refer to the omission of specific details. But I find in the second paragraph of the Speech these words:

'Among the Resolutions to be submitted to you will be one asking you to give solemn expression to the gratitude of My People for the achievements and sacrifices of those who have suffered for their Country's cause by land, and sea and air.'

It would be a mockery if we in this House passed such a Resolution as is there suggested, and if, at the same time, we failed to give practical effect to the task of making proper provision for those who have made sacrifices for this country by land or sea or air. Previous speakers have with great moderation, and with the obvious approval of the House, urged the inadequacy of pensions. I quite agree, but I do not propose to give examples, because it is difficult to begin giving examples of the inadequacy of pensions without going into a great mass of detail, and I know that time is wanted to-day for other purposes. Apart from that I do think that all these details and technical matters which some of us have studied for years are better dealt with by private discussion with the Minister of Pensions, and the Parliamentary Secretary, or by means of question and answer in this House rather than in debate on this occasion. Therefore I will omit a great deal which I would have liked to say if more time were available.

At the present moment, fortunately, we can congratulate ourselves on the fact that in the Minister of Pensions and the Parliamentary Secretary we have two new brooms who will no doubt sweep very thoroughly. But I would like respectfully to remind the Pensions Minister and his assistant that the value of brooms, new or old, depends largely upon the number and stiffness of the bristles, and I hope that the Pensions Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary will prove, when they go to the Treasury and other Departments of the Government, that they are ready to get up their bristles and that they are stiff bristles, and will not be put down until what is wanted is obtained. The Seconder of the Amendment referred to the pity it would be if there were any class feeling as between private soldiers and officers. But I would suggest with all respect to the Minister of Pensions that the officers have hardly been fairly treated. I am not for a moment suggesting that the men have been, but I do not think that there ought to be any distinction. I think that the fact that the man is an officer ought not to go against him, and that we ought to bear in mind how very much circumstances have changed. In the old Army before the War officers as a class might be regarded as well-to-do, but we know perfectly well that large numbers of the officers of our Army to-day are poor men, sons of workmen and possibly workmen themselves, men who have no private means.

A short time ago, after tipping a railway porter for carrying my bag, he began to talk to me very nicely about the War. He said, "I take a great interest in it because I have two sons out there." I asked him what they were in, and he told me that one was a lieutenant and the other was a captain. I was speaking to a working man the other day, a fitter, and he told me he had three sons in the Army, and he was proud to say that they had all been offered commissions. Therefore, I think it is necessary that we should insist that officers and men should have at least equal treatment, but unfortunately that is not the fact. It may come as a surprise to many Members to learn that an officer in hospital who is in receipt of £3 7s. 3d. per week pay, less £1 11s. 6d. deduction for maintenance, actually receives for himself and his wife 1s. 3d. less than is received by a private soldier in hospital and his wife. Surely that cannot be right. If we carry the matter further, the deficiency in the case of the commissioned officer in hospital as compared with the sergeant-major in hospital is no less than £1 5s. 4d. per week. I do ask the Pensions Minister to consider why commissioned officers should be penalised to that extent as compared with the sums received by privates or sergeant-majors. As regards tuberculosis, I do not propose to say much, particularly as I have sitting by my side a colleague who is one of the best authorities in the country on the subject from the medical point of view. He has served for four years in France, and has, of course, had many opportunities of studying the effects of tuberculosis upon our soldiers. I desire to draw the attention of the Ministry to two points in this connection, one is the extraordinary delay which has taken place in dealing with tuberculosis cases. I elicited, by means of a question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry, the information that Treasury sanction to expenditure for dealing with tuberculosis cases in the Army was given in May last, but that it was only in December that an explanatory circular was sent out to the local government authorities. If it takes seven months from the date when a sum of money is granted by the Treasury to the date when a circular is issued to the local government authorities, how long is it going to take before this scheme comes into active operation?

The other point which may come as a surprise and a shock to many Members of the House, is in connection with the seven-year limit, which applies to diseases as well as to wounds. Under that seven-year limit the wife and children of an ex-soldier are entitled to a pension if he dies within seven years—and I want to draw special attention to this point—of the date upon which he has contracted the disability. I had a Letter from a constituent of mine the other day which put this extraordinary point before me. He said, "I am in a dilemma. It is now three years since I contracted this disease, and unless I die within four years from now my wife and children will be deprived of their pension. I know that by taking the greatest possible care of my life I may live for a few years longer, but what a horrible feeling it is to me to think that if I prolong my life by care beyond that limited time by so doing I leave my wife and children destitute." I would respectfully ask the Pensions Minister to consider that point. My hon. Friend the Member for the Fairfield Division of Liverpool referred to the Rothband scheme. I have just received a telegram from an ex-Member of this House, Mr. Tom Wing, who formerly represented Houghton-le-Spring, in which he asks me to draw the attention of the Government to the fact that as far back as the 5th November last a deputation of twenty Members of this House, of which I was one, waited upon the Pensions Minister and the Minister of Labour. They were both there to receive us and they both gave a promise to the effect that the Rothband Scheme, possibly with modifications and improvements, would be urged by the Government, with the backing of the Prime Minister, on the employers of the country. Since that time a meeting, or rather a demonstration I think, of disabled men waited upon the Minister of Labour and received again an assurance from him that this Rothband Scheme would be urged on the employers of the country. That was last November and we are now getting on towards the end of February and no announcement on this matter has yet been made by the Government. There are many other matters which I really ought to bring before the House on behalf of the Parliamentary War Pensions Bureau, which has so many cases brought to its attention, but I know that there are many new Members who wish to address the House on this subject, and I therefore curtail my remarks.

I rise with very great hesitation as a new Member of the House to address it, but I am encouraged to do so first of all by the consideration which is always extended to new Members, and more particularly by the fact that the subject on which we are engaged is one which commends itself to the earnest sympathy of every Member of this Chamber. Before offering any remarks, which I trust will be of a constructive character, I desire to associate the Labour Members most cordially with the tribute which has been paid to the moving appeal delivered under peculiar circumstances by the hon. Member for the Fairfield Division of Liverpool (Major Cohen). In this matter of pensions and disablement it is easy to offer criticism which is only destructive in character. One could pile up case after case of almost intolerable wrong and injustice not only to the dependants of serving men, but also to the widows and children of men who have given their lives, and also to the large numbers of the discharged and disabled. I have no desire to embark upon that course this afternoon, but rather in the light of our experience in the Scottish capital, admittedly one of the largest centres in war pensions administration and disablement schemes, to offer one or two remarks which I trust will be considered by the Ministry of Pensions to outline reforms which could be brought into operation now. I endorse very sincerely the plea which has been made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) that what we urgently require is immediate decentralisation in war pensions administration. I venture to commend to the consideration of this House two cases. The first is the fixing of disability pensions in the case of discharged men, and, secondly, the fixing of alternative pensions not only in the case of the discharged and disabled, but also in the ease of widows and children of men who have given their lives in the War. A man is medically examined prior to his discharge from the forces, and he is also subject to medical examination on the conditional pension basis from time to time by the local war pensions committee of his area. His disability is placed at a certain percentage which varies with the condition of his health, and the allowance in the terms of that percentage is perfectly clear and understandable. It seems utterly unreasonable, therefore, that in such circumstances, where you have determined quite clearly the amount to which a man and his dependants are entitled, it should be necessary to send that case elsewhere to have it settled after great delay and entailing a great deal of suffering.

I think that without any difficulty or hesitation the Ministry of Pensions might now consider the possibility of allowing either a Scottish Pensions Ministry, or at all events the local war pensions committees, immediately to proceed to the issue of pensions in such clear cases, instead of referring them to a central authority. In the second place, we have the assessment of alternative pensions. In the case of widows they are now equal to two-thirds of the pre-war earnings of the husband. Obviously that lends itself to local investigation by a local inquiry officer. All the details and all the information must be marshalled in the locality in which the man resided. There you get all the circumstances from every point of view, which enables you to say that here is a case which can be determined and settled right away by a local committee in the area in which the man resided, many of the members of which probably knew him in civil life. You have there a clear case which could be settled by the local war pensions committee without reference to central machinery in London. Those are two reforms which I venture to suggest could be carried out now by the Ministry of Pensions without loss of efficiency in control.

Speaking very briefly as a Scottish Member representing one of the Edinburgh Divisions which have suffered severely from the tragic losses of the past four years, we in Scotland feel very strongly that the time has come when decentralisation of pensions administration must be carried out to the extent of giving us something resembling a Scottish Pensions Ministry. I freely admit that the Ministry of Pensions has so far conceded our case in Scotland by establishing an institutional committee, and by establishing four joint disablement committees. I think we might usefully at this stage link up all that is best in the four joint disablement Committees in Scotland and also in the institutional committee, making that a nucleus or beginning of an effective Pensions Ministry north of the Tweed. Side by side with those powers entrusted to such a body I suggest that you can hand over what might be called a pensions and disablement administration in that country to such an authority. The first proposal is that there should be a new Scottish Pensions Ministry, and, in the second place, there should be decentralisation. As far as local war pensions committees are concerned, I have had the honour of being closely associated with those working in Scotland and can say, without fear of contradiction, you will go a long way to minimising the dissatisfaction which exists over this great problem in our midst if these suggestions are adopted. I venture to suggest that these are eminently reasonable and constructive proposals.

Before I sit down I want to mention very briefly four or five matters which seem to me particularly urgent at the moment, and which also might be taken into consideration by the Ministry at this stage. Throughout the whole country large numbers of people have never been able to understand why the widows and dependents of men who have given their lives should be treated differently in the matter of allowances from the wives and children of men who are still serving. The rates of pensions are undeniably lower than separation allowances. I know the theory and the argument that this is a permanent pension for all time, that the State is discharging its duty or obligation to those who have suffered in the country's interest, and that on the other hand the separation allowance is only temporary to enable a family to tide over. I do strongly claim that the widows and orphans of men who have gone down are entitled to even more and not less consideration than the widows and children of men still serving. I advocate most strongly therefore that the time has come when we should bring the rates of pensions of widows and dependants up to the rates of separation allowances. In the second place, I venture to hope that the Ministry of Pensions will take into consideration the advisability of extending to widows and orphans the right to other allowances which are now available under the local war pensions committees for the wives and children of men still serving. For many years after this War is over, looking to the fact that there will be no immediate reduction in house rents, if reduction at any time, widows and dependants with fixed, incomes must suffer very severely owing to the high cost of living, and other difficulties of our time. It is not possible in many cases for them readily to find, cheaper houses or accommodation at low rents, and I for one do not suggest for a single moment that they should be expected or called upon to do so. I hope that the Ministry of Pensions will go beyond, at the earliest possible moment, the sickness allowances which they have already granted to widows and dependants, a concession which we have achieved, and extend that concession to the matter of rent and other liabilities, so that these families may tide over the difficulties of the next few years.

In the second place, on the matter of disablement, I venture to plead, particularly in the light of our experience in Edinburgh, on behalf of what is termed "high-grade disability"—that is, men who have suffered so very severely in action that it is almost impossible to train them for any new occupation or calling in life. Time and again we have had illustrations north of the Tweed, as well as in other centres, that any sort of training in such cases is almost impossible, and that while it might have been possible for the man to undertake some form of work, the nature of his disability is such as to unfit him for regular toil in the community. He therefore requires, at the hands of employers on the one side and at the hands of the trade unions and organised labour on the other, special consideration. I hope it may be possible in the near future for the Pensions Ministry and the Ministry of Labour to combine with employers and the trade unions to secure throughout the whole range of industry, wherever there is work to be found, preferential treatment for such men, either in the matter of training or in the matter of occupation which such men, in the light of their disability, can properly undertake. Such consideration is urgently necessary if we are to avoid a repetition of the experience which followed previous wars, and are not to see these men begging outside the gates of football marches, or at other places of amusement or recreation, whereas we on our side should have made it possible for them to find a reasonable and healthy place in public service and activity.

Lastly, I want to urge very strongly that not only for high-grade disablement but also for a very large number of injuries arising from this War, we should provide extended orthopædic treatment not only in Scotland but also in other parts of the country. I have mentioned minor injuries. Perhaps one of the most encouraging features of disablement scheme work is the fact that a very large amount of the injury which we encounter and the disablement which so far we have had to make good is capable of ready and immediate treatment on orthopædic lines. I pay all tribute this afternoon to what has already been done by the military and other authorities in this direction. I know also that the Pensions Ministry have established in the larger centres orthopædic institutions which may go a long way to restoring the earning capacity of men who have suffered to a minor or partial extent in this War. There are, however, one or two points of importance at this stage. I am very much afraid that in some of the larger centres of our country the Pensions Ministry has embarked on a course of providing separate orthopædic centres, very often at great public expense. It seems to me that those centres would have been much more happily combined with the existing curative institutions, more particularly in the large cities and also in the leading provincial towns. We should then have had their services not merely for the purposes of war, but at the same time we should have made a contribution to the curative agencies of these localities and also aided existing institutions. I am not suggesting for a moment that the orthopædic centres will not be employed to the full, but I do say they would have been employed to much greater advantage had they been combined with the large infirmaries or the large hospitals now in existence. In the second place—this applies at least to rural Scotland—the Ministry of Pensions would require to consider the extension of such institutions to the minor provincial towns. At the present moment large numbers of discharged men are in occupation in the provincial and rural districts of Scotland who would benefit undeniably and enormously by orthopædic treatment. There exists, however, no such provision in their locality. They cannot sacrifice the income which they are now receiving from employment in order to travel to some large city or to some greater centre. They are going without this treatment, and at the same time their earning capacity in the community is being steadily impaired. As orthopædic treatment is essentially a thing of immediate application, I am very much afraid that many of these men will drift into the unemployable or the semi-unemployable classes in the near future. All that might be avoided even now by a vigorous application of the reforms which I have ventured to outline.

Again, the Ministry of Pensions will require to consider the very grave complaints which even now are arising on the part of discharged disabled men that their pensions are being exploited for the purpose of offering them either sweated rates or very low rates of remuneration. I admit quite freely that the overwhelming numbers of employers are in no way desirous of taking any such mean and contemptible advantage at the expense of discharged men, but, unhappily, the instances accumulate in which, contrary to the whole instructions of the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Pensions in this most important matter, pensions are being regularly taken into account by employers in remuneration offered to the men and as justifying them in offering lower rates to these men when they make application for jobs. We require, therefore, a fresh emphasis of the Ministry of Pensions' Regulations. We require some extension of, or some more popular form of, the advisory wages boards to control such matters. I venture to hope that if these minor and, I trust, constructive reforms are adopted we shall have a practical improvement in pensions administration, and a much greater sense of justice and due tribute to those who have suffered so largely on our behalf in recent years.

This is the first time I have addressed this House, and I shall be very brief indeed. I want to make a very special appeal on behalf of those brave soldiers and sailors who have fought for us in the War who are already affected with that dread disease, tuberculosis. It is estimated that at the present time there are between 40,000 and 50,000 of our soldiers and sailors affected with tuberculosis. A very large number of these men contracted this disease owing to the rigours of active service. The position and the prospects of these men are pathetic. I feel quite sure they will command the sympathies of the whole House. I speak from a very large experience during the last four years. I have had the great privilege of assisting many thousands of our men in France, and I know exactly the position as regards this dread disease. Now this disease is the greatest scourge in this country, and carries off about 60,000 people every year, most of them in the very prime of life. Tuberculosis is preventable, and I am glad to say, if taken in the early stages and given adequate treatment, is curable. The Government is, and has been, most sympathetic with regard to assisting our ex-Service men who are affected with this disease. But I should like to point out that a few months in a sanatorium and the payment of a pension are not sufficient to cure tuberculosis, and a very much more comprehensive scheme is required if we are to deal adequately and properly, and with any prospect of success, with the treatment of this disease as it affects our ex-Service men.

It requires a very long, and, I may say, a costly treatment to cure any man or woman affected with tuberculosis, and I most strongly appeal to the Government to-day to appoint a special committee which will deal with tuberculosis alone as it affects the men invalided from the Service, and to establish some general and adequate form of treatment which will be immediate, because whilst we are delaying in official ways as to the best methods of treating our men, they are dying The matter is very urgent, and ought to be dealt with at the very earliest possible moment. I suggest also that the Government should undertake the treatment of tuberculosis as it affects Service men as a special disease, and that they should provide the necessary colonies, open-air methods of treatment attached to that Department which will carry out the work of the health of this country, and that the whole of that Department, with the treatment of tuberculosis, should be under the direct control of the Government itself, and that the ex-Service men should be treated exactly as they would be as soldiers. At the present time, it is the custom to pass over those men to the local authorities. I hope that the Government will recognise the great responsibility that they have to men who have developed tuberculosis in the service of their country, and that a great nation will not deny any expense or any amount of trouble which is taken by the Government to give those men the very best possible chance of recovering and returning to industrial life.

It is with the greatest diffidence that I rise to address this House for the first time, and I should most certainly not have ventured to do so if I had not been chosen by the group, of which I have the honour to be a member, to represent their views upon this particular question. At the same time, I acknowledge—if I may be allowed to say so without undue egotism—that I have worked assiduously, and have waited anxiously for this opportunity of presenting a certain case from a soldier's point of view before this tribunal, because I know there is not a Member of this House who is not prepared and anxious to deal with a just generosity by those who have suffered in the course of their task of defending and upholding the honour of their country. On Tuesday last the Prime Minister, in a noble and a generous speech—an inspiring speech—made use of certain words in regard to this subject, which, I fear, will cause a certain amount of uneasiness throughout the country—words that, for my own part, I am afraid have been misunderstood. The Prime Minister said.

"I hope there will be no undue competition in regard to running up charges against the Government."

We all hope that. We all hope that the soldier will not be exploited by political adventurers. We believe that there have been those who have built up reputations at the risk of the moral character of these gallant people. At the same time, I would venture to point out to the Prime Minister that those words make him liable to a very obvious retort. True, do not run up charges against the Government. But do not forget that you made certain pledges, and do not economise at the expense of broken men. That this is a momentous problem, and not a myth, the over-Weighted letter-boxes of Members of this House will, I think, bear daily testimony, and there are those who are prepared to argue that a happy solution of this question will bring with it the easing of other problems which are at the present moment exercising the minds of our statesmen.

Whence do these grievances come? I venture to assert that, in the first place, these genuine grievances of soldiers arise out of a misunderstanding. They arise out of the fact that many benefits to which soldiers are entitled are unknown to the soldiers themselves. Any soldier will bear me out on this point. Hon. Members are aware, for example, that under the alternative pensions scheme, to which reference has been made, there is a generous provision by which disabled officers, non-commissioned officers and men are entitled, within reasonable limits, to have their income put up to their pre-war income, but they are possibly not aware that this provision is unknown to 80 per cent. of officers, non-commissioned officers and men. I wish to make some reference to alternative pensions, but, for the time being, I want to make this point. The Government accepted a principle which would have gone a long way towards satisfying grievances, but they failed to make that principle known to those who would have benefited by it, and the good effect was thereby largely nullified. My point, then, is this, that benefits to which soldiers are entitled should be much more widely and much more intelligently advertised, and should, so far as possible, be automatically pay able. Now for the law itself. I do suggest that any fair-minded critic examining the law, as embodied in the Pension Warrants, the Pay Warrants and the amendments thereto, must acknowledge that not a mean, but a generous spirit, runs through them.

I have already made reference to alternative pensions, and I suggest that there is a principle embodied in these which is well worthy the consideration of this House. What is that principle? I suggest that it is that no man, within reasonable limits, shall be in a worse position than before owing to the fact that he has served his country. If the State can make this assertion, then, I say, we stand in no contemptible position. Can we do so? Examine the position. It is perfectly true that officers, non-commissioned officers and men can claim to have their income put up to the level of their pre-war income, the limits approximately being £450 and £3 5s. Surely no more generous provision was ever embodied in a Pensions Warrant. Yet the beneficiaries are not satisfied. Why? The reason is obvious. In the first place, as I have already stated, the benefits are unknown to the majority of the soldiers, and, in the second place, there is the fundamental injustice embodied in it which strikes at the very heart of the scheme. The fact is that the pre-war income of a man is based, not on the commodity purchasing value of that income, but merely on its cash value. What is the result? You knock the bottom out of the whole of your principle—a principle which would have put you into an unassailable position. The State most certainly cannot now claim that it has redeemed its pledges that no man should be a loser by joining the Army, while the soldier is merely irritated at what appears to him to be a subterfuge and an evasion. I would humbly suggest, in the first place, that the alternative pension scheme should be regarded as the key to the whole solution, and, secondly, that the scheme should be based on the commodity-purchasing value of the pre-war income, and not on its cash value; also that it should be made payable to dependants. So you would knock the bottom out of objectors to your pension scheme. I do not suggest that the very reasonable, the very generous limits of £450 and £3 5s. should be altered. I do, however, most earnestly commend the consideration of their own principle to the Government.

I commend it because it is a just principle, because it will commend itself as being an elementary and a just principle which will appeal to the minds of soldiers and to all those to whose minds you wish to appeal. For my last point I will only take a few minutes, because it refers to a. common and well-known grievance—theadministration of the law itself. I have only to say that I am in complete agreement with almost every speaker this afternoon. I do most earnestly commend to the Government this fact: your machinery of administration is in a rusty condition. It must be overhauled, unless you are going to risk a breakdown. Within my own personal observations maddening and inexcusable delays have occurred in which men, distraught by wounds and sickened by pain, have been left in an almost destitute condition. I shall content myself by asserting that it ought not to pass the wit of man to devise a scheme by which these in-excusable delays can be obviated. An example has been given by an hon. Member opposite. I cannot for the life of me understand why, for example, the president of the medical board, called upon to discharge a man from hospital, should not at the conclusion of the deliberations tell the man as to the degree of disability at which he has been assessed, and make an entry in the man's pay-book which shall then and there entitle him to draw provisional pay. Nor can I see why the difficulties in regard to matters of appeal cannot be obviated.

I have made no attempt to deal with miscellaneous grievances which have been so admirably dealt with by hon. Members this afternoon. Personally, I have made no reference to these because I am convinced, as has been stated, that the scheme has got to be overhauled, and will best be overhauled by a Committee—such a Committee as, I understand, the Government has undertaken to set up. I hope when that Committee comes to us for confirmation—and I look forward to this with the utmost optimism—it will go forward with an unequivocal instruction from this House to embody in its Report some general principle such as I have ventured to enunciate, and with the instruction also to see to it that unnecessary and bureaucratic delays are ended. I conclude, as I began, by asserting that the soldiers know, firstly, that temporary grievances, such as those which have been mentioned, must happen, and we do not unreasonably complain of that; also, I believe, that they know that no one is more anxious to see their grievances removed than the Minister of Pensions, the Government, the country, and hon. Members of this House, without exception of party.

I just want to say one word on the question of tubercular discharged soldiers, because I happen, for some years now, to have been chairman of an insurance committee, and a member in London who has had to administer the scheme on behalf of the Pension authorities. As far as results are concerned, the benefits which have been given to discharged men have been most profoundly disappointing. My hon. Friend before me has stated that there are some 50,000 cases up and down the country who require treatment. So far as London is concerned, I suppose that at the present time there are only 2,500 discharged soldiers who are receiving no treatment at all. I suppose everyone will agree that if any man, whether a discharged soldier or not, is to have any chance at all he must have some sort of treatment at any rate extending over a period of some twelve months. Yet we find that so far as London is concerned during the last twelve months, with the exception of the month of December, there have been several hundred men weekly waiting to go into sanatoria. It is true there was an improvement in December, but during the other eleven months of that year these men who have come back, and who deserve so well of their country, have had actually to wait for accommodation.

I also desire to complain very strongly of the accommodation that is provided for the men in the sanatoria themselves. It is evidenced by what has taken place in London daring the last two months. No fewer than 339 men have discharged themselves from sanatoria in Landon after one month's treatment, 467 came out of sanatoria after two month's treatment, 258 in three mouths and 105 in four months; in fact, there were only twenty discharged soldiers in London last year who stayed in the sanatoria of their own free will for over six months. I have endeavoured to ascertain the reasons for these discharges, and I have come to the conclusion that in the first place there is a great need for more humane and sympathetic treatment in the sanatoria themselves. Undoubtedly a large number of the men have discharged themselves for economic reasons, such as the necessity for looking after their family, but there is one particular sanatorium in London—the Downs Sanatorium in which 46 per cent. of the men discharged themselves during the first month, and in that large institution, which is more like a work-house infirmary than anything else, there have been no proper facilities at all. The men have not even been in a position to dry their own clothes, and there have been no provision made for recreation. At the same time there has been a large amount of unreasonable discipline imposed upon the inmates. For instance, I believe they have not been allowed even to leave the sanatorium, except for two or three hours a week. For the rest of the week they have been detained inside the building, and when one remembers that the only recreation is the tramping round an asphalte court one is not surprised that the men should have discharged themselves in the way they have done. I am very glad to know that the President of the Local Government Board has ordered an inquiry into the administration of this particular sanatorium, which has had to bear the burden of a very large number of cases in London. I trust we shall see far better accommodation and treatment provided, particularly for discharged soldiers in London.

I only want to say, in, conclusion, that; I believe a very good experiment could be made in endeavouring to establish work centres in different localities up and down the country. It is useless offering a man working facilities if he has to go a long way from his wife and children. I want to urge on the Pensions Minister the necessity of simplifying the administration in this connection. The right hon. Gentleman is actually administering sanatorium treatment to discharged soldiers through no fewer than three lots of local authorities. He goes to the insurance committees, and asks them to look after sanatoria for discharged soldiers. He goes to the local war pensions committees and asks them to look after demiciliary treatment and to administer the benefit, and his latest effort to deal with the problem has been to ask the President of the Local Government Board, through the local borough councils, to facilitate the appointment of health visitors, who in their turn are to endeavour to do something for these men. With all these authorities and all these officials one is not surprised that there should be a very large amount of discontent in London, and up and down the country, as regards the treatment which the Pensions Ministry is supplying. I join very heartily in the suggestion which my hon. Friend has made that, at the earliest opportunity, the Pensions Minister, who I believe is heart and soul in the desire to make better provision for these men, should set up a committee of experts and medical men, as well as social workers, to try and provide better treatment for these men, who deserve so much at our hands.

I feel I must, in the first instance, say how much I appreciate the tone of the speeches which have been delivered to-day, and especially that of my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge), who moved the Amendment. I am in the position of being able, I hope, to answer a great many of the questions that have been put to me, but I must ask the induldulgence of the House not to press me where policy is concerned for any statement, as I am sure the feeling on all sides will be that matters concerning policy in the administration of the Ministry should await the return of the Minister himself, which, I hope, will not be very long delayed. My hon. Friend opened this discussion by referring to the promise which was made two days before the General Election with regard to the 20 per cent. pension increase. Of course my right hon. Friend and I had nothing to do with that particular promise. We can only deal with the situation from the day on which we took office. I should like to state, further, that where I cannot specifically reply to the cases which have been put forward not only by my hon. Friend, but by other hon. Gentlemen, I will make it my special charge to-morrow morning to look through the Official Report, and discover where advice has been given or information asked for, and take the best advantage of the one and an early opportunity of supplying the other. My hon. Friend asked whether it was possible to extend the time beyond June for the payment of alternative pensions. I can only say that that is a matter which has engaged, and is continuing to engage, the attention of my right hon. Friend, and it is impossible at this early date to indicate what decision may be arrived at.

With regard to the suggestion that more generosity should be infused into the official mind, may I say my experience has been entrely contrary to that of my hon. Friend. All through the Department, from the highest to the lowest, I have discovered no instance in which the generosity or feeling towards the soldier is not as warm as that of the hon. Member himself. It is very easy, of course, when dealing with such a great system as pensions, to pick out isolated bad cases, and bring them to the notice of the public and of the House; but I can assure him that where thousands and thousands of cases are concerned the very utmost care is taken, and the staff, which is improving all the time, is most sympathetic in the way in which it considers them, and interprets the Warrants and the various authorities under which it acts.

My hon. Friend suggested that the sooner the pensioner was placed in a position in which he could claim the pension as a statutory right the better, but on that I think there must be a very grave difference of opinion. On the one hand, it would greatly facilitate the work of the Pensions Ministry if the soldiers had the right of appeal, and if their pensions were placed upon a statutory basis. But, speaking for myself alone, I feel that the individual officer or man is really better served under the present system than he would be if the pension were a statutory right, and if the cases could be heard in the Courts. Many hon. Members may not have the same opportunity of being able to come to a decision upon that point, but if they will look back upon history, study the delays in our Courts, and consider the vast number of people who have to be dealt with, and the risk of encouraging a certain class of soldiers' help throughout the country agitating and working on their behalf, I think they will find that the present system, taking it all round, is the best. We do try to take all the trouble and expense off the man's shoulders, and to sift out his case and come to a decision. It would, therefore, militate very much against him if it were made a statutory obligation.

If my hon. and gallant Friend is opposed to making it a statutory right, will he create a proper Court of Appeal?

I do not know that it would be possible to create a more proper or independent Court of Appeal than the five Courts that have already been set up. It is proposed to set up five more, making ten, and to spread them all over the country, so as to work off the arrears as rapidly as possible and to bring the work up to date. I am referring to the appeal on the ground of actual disability or on the question of aggravation by war service, and I say that the Minister of Pensions is endeavouring to enlarge the number of these Appeal Courts in order to overtake the arrears and wipe out an unfortunate block owing to the pressure which has not yet been worked off. The hon. Member also brought up the question of decentralisation, as did the hon. Member for the St. Rollox Division of Glasgow (Mr. G. Murray) the other night. Decentralisation is a matter of policy, and I would not like to say anything on that subject except this. The Minister is moving toward the setting up of a strong Committee to deal with every branch of the subject, in order to discover whether it would be safe to devolve some of the functions upon area or regional committees, but he has not yet come to a complete decision as to how far he can go. He will, however, make an announcement on the matter as soon as he is able to do so.

I now come to the remarks made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South-West Hull (Major Entwistle). I feel myself in rather an embarrassing position, as a new Minister, in haying to tender as I feel the whole House would like me to do, my hearty congratulations to the hon. and gallant Member, and to those other new Members who have to-day made their maiden speeches. During some fourteen years that I have been in the House I have seldom heard better maiden speeches, and I think one and all will add very considerably to the dignity of the Debates in this House. I was particularly struck by the lucid and knowledgable remarks of the hon. Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. W. Graham), and certainly if we are to conduct our Debates in the spirit in which he has initiated his career in this House, we shall get on very well as far as the Pensions Ministry is concerned.

May I make this general remark. Hon. Members on all sides of the House can help the Ministry very much indeed, because if they will give the Ministry the benefit of their advice and experience we shall be able to absorb their ideas, and graft on to our system any suggestion which may have escaped our notice. Therefore I hope no one will hesitate to come to the Pensions Ministry, which is close to the House, and give us the advantage of their experience and advice. I can a sure them that the Minister and myself will welcome any suggestion to make the machinery work more smoothly, to facilitate matters, and to keep us in close touch with the feeling in the country regarding our gallant heroes for whom we are now trying to make the best possible provision.

Amongst other matters touched upon was the question of training. Training at the present moment is being transferred, as the House is aware, to the Labour Ministry, but only to a limited extent, and only, if I may use the exact words of the medical officials, after men are certified to be fit to undertake that work. Really, therefore, the change is not as great a one as would appear in the first instance. We are minimising the gap which must necessarily arise between a man leaving the Pensions Ministry and being taken over by the Ministry of Labour His care, his treatment, and his early training will remain in our hands, and everything sympathetic will be done to carry on as we are doing now, only under better conditions. The hon. Member for Kirkdale (Mr. Pennefather) raised several cases of disparity between the Warrants of the officers and the men. As I informed the hon. Member either yesterday or to-day in answer to a question, we are at the moment engaged in revising both Warrants, and we are taking pains to find out exactly where there is a discrepancy either in favour of an officer or a man or vice versa. Later on it will be the pleasure of the Minister himself to make an announcement in regard to the new Warrant, and may I add that we are attempting to codify the old Warrants and the old Regulations, as it is recognised that this should be made as simple as possible.

With regard to the questions asked about tuberculosis I felt so strongly that this question would be raised that before coming down to the House I had a special conversation with the highest medical authority we have on the subject, and with regard to what has fallen from my hon. and gallant Friend, who is an expert on this particular subject, I can only say that our Director-General of Medical Service (Colonel Webb) would welcome at any time a visit from him or any other hon. Member specially interested in this extraordinarily difficult and delicate question. I am sure Colonel Webb would look forward with pleasure to the day when the hon. and gallant Member could pay him a visit, and give him the benefit of his knowledge and experience. The same remark applies also to what fell from other hon. Members who dealt with this subject. I was told by our senior medical officer that up to the present the Minister himself was most emphatic upon having this question dealt with. He has been able to give the disabled man priority over any other case of tuberculosis requiring treatment, and has arranged to increase the accommodation in the institutions, to improve the aftercare and home treatment, to give extended treatment in early cases, and to find graduated employment in agriculture or other suitable industries. That deals as far as I am able to inform the House to-day, with the step the Minister has already taken.

What about the cost of maintenance—the 7s.?

That is a matter which has been raised with regard to the officers as well. The disparity between the charge for officers and men in hospitals will require a change upon which the Minister is now actually engaged. I regret I am not able to make a definite answer, but I hope the hon. Member will put a question down next Thursday, when the Minister will be in his place I would just like to say that perhaps the House hardly realises one important point with respect to the Ministry of Pensions. Whereas the signing of the Armistice meant relaxation of work and a curtailment of staff and a general slacking off in nearly all the other Government Departments, it found our Ministry nearly on the crest of the wave. Some people are apt to overlook the fact that it was necessary for the Ministry of Pensions not only to grapple with a profoundly difficult question, but also to make preparation for demobilisation and to expand on all sides in order not to have a breakdown in the machinery. To do that, of course, my right hon. Friend had to go into the question as to whether the present system of pensions was the best, and he will be satisfied with no less. He had also to decide whether if not the best it would be possible to make any great constructive change at this particular moment. Of course, that again is a matter of policy, but in the meantime the existing machinery is being vastly improved and extended. Those who begin as juniors in the office are being enabled to give larger scope to their abilities, and others are being trained. Schools are being established to give instruction and training to the junior members of the staff, and we hope that the complaints of delay which are genuine—and that is not denied—will from this time onwards gradually become less and less.

With regard to some of the other matters which my right hon. Friend has instituted since he took office, I would like to mention one or two to which we have given considerable care and consideration. My right hon. Friend has instituted an "Officers' Friend," and has issued a handbook for disabled officers, to be followed very shortly by one dealing with widows. It was felt that an "Officers' Friend" in the Pensions Ministry itself would serve a want which has been expressed on many occasions as being very necessary to fill the place that local war pensions committees feel as regards the men. The taking away of dealing with the officer's case from headquarters might possibly lead to complication at the moment, and put a strain on the local war pensions committees that perhaps would not be justified, but we hope by these new innovations to meet many of the objections raised hitherto as to a want of knowledge on the part of the officers as to what is their due under the officers' Warrants. We have taken steps to bridge the gulf between an officer being released and the day on which he will first begin to get the benefit of his disablement and retired pay, if awarded. We have instituted a system whereby there will be no gap between the War Office and ourselves.

Then my right hon. Friend has secured the services of a very distinguished soldier and medical man in Colonel Webb, who is to act as our Director-General of Medical Services, the idea being that with his great knowledge of the hospital work in connection with the Army as it is at present he will be able to carry on, into the life of the discharged disabled soldier where treatment is required, all the care and hospital treatment that is found necessary, without a break in the administration or personnel of the staff. My right hon. Friend has arranged a weekly conference with all the chairmen, or their deputies or nominees, of all the local war pensions committees, spreading it by knots of twenty over the whole year. This is quite in addition to any advisory boards that may be set up necessitating the temporary attendance of members of local committees. This is in order that the local committees may have a direct touch with the Minister himself, and we have appointed every Tuesday morning at 11 o'clock for these chairmen of local war pensions committees to come to the Ministry and interview the Minister and myself as to any suggestions on policy or any bad cases that may have occurred in their area.

Will warrants be given to these chairmen of committees who live at a great distance, to enable them to come cheaply to London?

Certainly. We feel it would be quite unfair, as this is on national service and at our invitation, and as they come to advise and consult with us, that we should allow these very hard-working and patriotic men to come to London at their own expense, and therefore we have made arrangements whereby their first-class fare and their subsistence allowance shall be granted to those who come from the country districts. The next point that I wish to make is that we have made—and it required some care and attention, I can assure all sections of the House—the most elaborate arrangements for demobilisation. When I tell the House that something like 1,300,000 soldiers and sailors have been demobilised already, and they calculate that a very large number of these men will immediately come under the pensions scheme, they will realise what a sudden strain fell upon the Minister and all those under him. He has also arranged to take over the National Service Medical Boards, and he has set up a strong Committee to consider and report upon the position of the supply, fitting, and repair of artificial limbs and surgical appliances. I refer to that especially again to-day, although in answer to a question by an hon. Friend yesterday, I was able to give that information; but it is in order to assure all those who at the present time have any anxiety regarding the question of limbs that the matter is receiving the utmost possible attention which can be given to it by the Minister and his advisers.

He has increased the number of pension appeal tribunals from a very small number—I think it was only two—to ten, five of which are at the present moment in full working order. In accordance with the Cabinet decision of 8th January as regards training it was agreed with the Minister of Labour that certain cases should be dealt with by that Ministry instead of by us. The Pensions Minister has also prepared model rules and regulations for local committees under the War Pensions Act of 1918, and that was also done with the assistance of an advisory board. A large proportion of whom consisted of representatives from local war pensions committees. So that when the issue of these regulations and model rules is made the country will understand that they are not, as it were, a mandatory order from hon. Gentlemen, but that they have been drawn up after the most careful consultation with those best able to represent the country districts through their local war pensions committees, and, therefore, we hope will give general satisfaction throughout the country. The pensions Minister has also considered very carefully and made preparations for consolidating the Warrants. May I first give the House some small idea of the work which at present rests upon the shoulders of the Ministry by saying that the total number of pensions and allowances granted up to the end of last year was 1,780,000 odd—over that number—and that it is being added to at the rate of from 15,000 to 20,000 fresh awards per week.

Are they increasing or decreasing?

They are increasing at the moment, but sometimes there is a little decrease, according very often to demobilisation. These figures relate only to first awards. Over and above them, we have something between 25,000 and 30,000 renewals of temporary pensions per month. The current financial year, which is approaching an end, will mean a pensions bill of something approaching £50,000,000, and one cannot really say how many new cases will fall upon our shoulders from the demobilised men, who, although asked to sign their papers on leaving, whether fit or unfit, may fall upon the Ministry to deal with under Article IX.

Will the right hon. Gentleman, as Under-Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions, say that none of these men has sacrificed any right of appeal to have a medical hoard properly administered by what he has signed?

I think there is no question about that. So far as I can say at the moment, a Class W and Class Z man, although signifying on his Army Form Z22 that he is fit and well on the day of discharge, is not precluded from the right of claiming in the ordinary way later on that, owing to military service, he is suffering from some complaint which might be attributable to or aggravated by his military service. Therefore he comes de novo on to our books, and we class him as Z in the meantime, merely to be able to deal more rapidly with the cases, but it differentiates in no degree between them and the other cases, what we call the Clause IX men. With regard to medical treatment, the number of men under medical treatment by the Ministry at the end of last year was over 42,000, and during the month of December of 9,000 odd admitted for treatment, 4,500 were discharged. The total number of men under training at the end of the year was 7,766. During the month of December 1,310 were admitted to training, and 923 were discharged. I may say that when the Ministry was started it was a very small work. To-day it is enormous, and we have a staff of something approaching 9,000 to deal with the work—all working long hours, arduous work—doing their very utmost to help in every possible way in this delicate operation. I feel that the House would not like me to say more to-day on details. Details can be dealt with by question and answer, or better still by sending a personal letter, either to the Minister or to myself, these being always welcome.

People seem to think it is a trouble or a nuisance to deal directly with a Minister, but I think it is entirely different. The reason why I suggest that course chiefly is that questions appearing on the Paper may require to be postponed, and they very often cause a false impression. If they only pick out the very bad cases, and send them along in the first instance to be dealt with instantly, although perhaps the Member suffers a slight want of publicity, I can assure him that if he has at heart the benefit of the soldiers he will send along, by telegram, if necessary, the first intimation he has that something is wrong, and not carry it about in his pocket until he is able to put a question on the Paper. I say that, not because I desire in any way to find fault with the questions which have been put down or which we anticipate may be put down. I only say it in the interests of the men themselves, that the system now is that all matters of urgent importance should be sent by telegram from the local centres all over the country when instant attention will be paid to them. That is the way we are able to find out if there be anything wrong in the vast chain between us and the local war pensions committees; and if hon. Members really desire the best welfare of the men themselves, they should let us instantly know in some way what complaint they have. They can rely upon two things beforehand. The Minister's sympathy is as deep as that of any hon. Member in this House, and his talent for organisation is well known to the old Members of the House. This vast subject requires not only great sympathy, but organisation and very hard work. The highest standard that you can apply to any person you can apply to the Minister of Pensions, and I think you will find in time that he fulfils them all.

In order to clear up a doubtful matter, will my hon. and gallant Friend say if the facilities which are given to the soldier for the repair of limbs and the provision of spare limbs apply equally to officers?

I am sorry to say they do not for the moment. In answer to questions yesterday, I was able to say the matter was engaging very careful attention. A strong, sympathetic Committee has been set up, in order to see if something can be done in that direction.

Will my hon. and gallant Friend place officers on the same footing as soldiers in this respect?

The Committee is to decide that very point.

When shall we know the result?

In view of the quite fair and frank way in which the Government has met the Amendment, I ask permission to withdraw it.

I beg to move, at the end of the Address to add the words:

"But humbly regrets that in His Majesty's Gracious Speech from the Throne no announcement is made of real provision for the needs of the agricultural industry and population."

I was surprised to find that his advisers were content to allow His Majesty only to make a perfunctory reference to any provision for British agriculture. The only references are two. We are promised a Ministry of Ways and Communications, with a view to increasing and developing the industrial and agricultural resources of the country by improved methods of transport, and again, "You will be asked to consider measures for increasing the industrial and agricultural output." In the whole of that long speech that is the only reference that is made. While I recognise that improved transport will be of assistance, it is of really no value to meet the perilous position which I am going to point out. The position of British agriculture was completely changed by the passage of the Corn Production Act in 1917. Up to that time agriculture, and those engaged in it, were left to carry on their industry as best they could, but from the passage of that Act agriculture became a subsidised industry, unable to stand on its own legs or rely on its own resources. Since the passage of that Act agriculture depends entirely on a subsidy, and as far as I can see in the future, at least for the next few years, it is going to become more and more dependent on the subsidy. The scheme of the Corn Production Act was this: For the first time there was introduced into agriculture a minimum wage. No man can be employed in agriculture unless he receives this fixed wage. Wages boards were set up, and the wage has been fixed on an average for the farm worker at about 35s. throughout England and Scotland. It varies from 30s. to about 41s., while the experts in agriculture, such as the cowman, stockmen, horsemen, and men of that character, receive on an average 6s. or 7s. more than that minimum. In return for the minimum wage the farmers receive guarantees fixed according to the price of corn. The guarantee varies, but for the year of the harvest that is to come he is to be paid for every acre of wheat he grows on the basis of four times the difference between the average selling price for the country of a quarter of wheat and the price of 55s. as fixed by the Corn Production Act. In other words, for every acre of wheat the farmer grows, he is deemed to grow four quarters an acre, and the State guarantees that he receives 55s. a quarter for it. For every acre of oats that he grows he is for this year to receive 32s., And he is deemed to grow five quarters per acre, and is really guaranteed five quarters of oats per acre at a price of 32s. It is quite true that the guarantee has not hitherto become operative, the reason being that owing to the War, owing to the shortage of shipping, the enormous increase of freight and insurance, and the increased cost of wheat in all countries in the world, the price has never got anywhere near the figures I have named as fixed in the Corn Production Act. The Government, in order to protect the consumers, fixed a maximum price for cereals under the Defence of the Realm Act. The existing controlled price, which has been in operation for some time, taking wheat alone—I only propose to deal with wheat, the other cereals vary in proportion—is 75s. 6d.

The House will note that although the Government fixed the maximum price it has never guaranteed to the farmer a market for the corn which he is ordered to produce, and we are already seeing the effect of the termination of the War. Already freights have gone down something like two-thirds of what they were just before the War finished. Insurances have gone down enormously; the price of wheat is going down all over the world. To-day, owing to the purchases of wheat by the Government, foreign wheat, and owing to the fact that the Government are getting rid of the foreign wheat they have bought, the small farmer in England is unable to sell the wheat he is ordered to grow. Only the bigger farmers can sell the wheat, but they cannot get the maximum price. What is the peril to which I refer? Wages are increasing, and I perhaps ought to say something about wages. The wages are fixed under the terms of the Corn Production Act, and the section under which they are fixed reads: —

"The Wages Board shall, so far as practicable, secure for able-bodied men wages which, in the opinion of the Board, are adequate to promote efficiency and to enable a man in an ordinary case to maintain himself and his family in accordance with such standard of comfort as may be reasonable in relation to the nature of his occupation."

The wages boards, so I am informed, are acting quite irrespective of what the price of wheat is. Whether they do so or whether they do not is really immaterial to my argument. The main point is that I the Corn Production Act was passed in 1917 and the wages boards did not come into operation until 1918, when the cost of everything had enormously increased. They have fixed an average wage for the whole country, which works out at about 35s., whereas the Act of Parliament, when it was passed, contemplated a minimum wage at somewhere about 25s. The wages boards are at present engaged in raising wages, and I am very glad to see that agriculture wages are being brought somewhat into consonance with the necessities of a decent livelihood; but my particular point is that the wages boards are at present engaged in increasing these wages by giving them half-holidays and less work, and there is already a demand throughout the country taken up by the men's section of the wages boards to increase the minimum wage which has already been fixed. At the same time that there is this increase the guarantee that is given under the Corn Production Act goes down next year from 55s. to 45s. for wheat and from 32s. to 24s. for oats, so that we shall be getting very nearly to the pre-war prices for these cereals.

Seeing that the maximum price as fixed cannot be obtained at the present time, seeing that little farmers cannot sell their wheat at all, and that the big farmers cannot get their maximum price for the wheat they are called upon to grow, what are the prospects for the future? Wheat prices are steadily going down. There are large surplus quantities in the Argentine, in India and Australia. There are large, harvests in view and freights will go down more than I have already mentioned. New ships are being brought into existence every week. Other ships are being taken away from war service and added to the ordinary transport of goods, and I feel perfectly convinced that in a year's time we shall have wheat down to 45s. and the only thing the farmer will have to rely upon to enable him to pay his wages is the subsidy, which I recognise, and I am sure the House recognises, has to be paid by the town man and the taxpayers of the whole population of this country. As to the prospects of the wheat market, I would like to read something that appeared in the "Times" a week ago, on 7th February, expressing the views of Sir James Wilson, of Edinburgh, formerly British delegate for the whole of the British Empire at the International Institute of Agriculture held at Rome. He tells us that according to the statistical position on the 1st August, 1918, there were no less than 10,000,000 tons of wheat ready to be sent to Europe from the Argentine, Australia, and India. He tells us that the existing harvests are as good as they ever have been known throughout the world, and he finishes with these words:

"The price of wheat in Britain must soon be allowed to fall to the level established by the law of demand and supply, and it may therefore soon, perhaps by June, fall to 60s. per quarter, or even, if the propects of the very large world's wheat harvest becomes assured, to less than 50s. a quarter. By September English wheat may be selling at 40s. a quarter."

He puts the price rather lower than I do, but he bears out what I have put before the House regarding the wheat market and that within a year's time we shall have wheat at something like 45s. a quarter and the farmer depending entirely upon the subsidy. What I suggest to the Government is—and I hope very strongly that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture will agree—that immediate steps should be taken to revise the Corn Production Act and to revise the prices, otherwise the whole of the farmers of England and the whole of British agriculture—and I am not speaking in an exaggerated way—are heading for catastrophe and disaster. The mere fact that the minimum wage of 25s. was contemplated, that the Act gave a guaranteed price of corn at 55s., and the existing fact that the minimum wage is at least 35s. when you take the whole country and has a rising tendency above 35s., makes a prima facie and absolute case for revision of the whole of the prices fixed by the Corn Production Act. If it was right to fix a price of 55s. and a minimum wage of 25s., it is clear that the 55s. must be increased when the wage has been increased from 25s. to 35s. I tell the House, on the best advice I can get, that it is impossible to grow wheat at anything like the 55s. with the present price either of labour or commodities, and of everything that the farmer has to buy.

I am concerned here not with the whole of agriculture, though the Amendment which I put down was backed unanimously by the whole of the Agricultural Committees which we have in this House, but I speak more particularly for my own county, the east part of Sussex. I have figures which were taken for Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset shire, and Wiltshire which show that a quarter of wheat cannot be grown at anything like 55s. at the present time. In addition to the rise in wages the prices of all commodities have risen and are still rising. Even since the 1st of January this year there has been a rise of at least 5 per cent. in every implement and machine that a farmer has to buy. I do not conceal that it is extremely difficult to take out the cost of any article which the farmer produces in the course of his industry, as the cost necessarily varies and may be greater at one time than another or greater in the case of one place than another. For instance, when a farmer ploughs and reaps a field he might have a small crop or he might have a crop out of all proportion to the average crop. What has been done is this. The National Farmers' Union of East Sussex called for returns, from farmers all over the county. They took the first twenty-three of them and they averaged out the cost of an acre of wheat, and it worked out at £16 4s. They then took the first six of the first twenty-three and went through every detailed item of the cost in each case. I have the figures in my pocket now. They held meeting after meeting to consider them and see if they were correct. The instructions I gave were to make sure they could stand cross-examination by experts. The figures for the six that I have referred to were £15 16s. 4d. an acre; but taking the whole twenty-three and assuming that there were 4 quarters to the acre, the cost works out at 81s., or at 3½ quarters to the acre it works out at over 90s.

3.0 P.M.

These are the present figures for the growing of wheat certified by the National Farmers' Union and taken from figures collected with the greatest care from all over the county. In my own district twenty-five of these returns were received by the local branch of the National Farmers' Union, and they worked out at £15 5s. for the acre, and if you take this as a basis it will work out at over £4 a quarter. The Peters field branch of the National Farmers' Union, at a meeting of farmers representing Hampshire, Dorset shire, and part of Wiltshire, took out the figures for the cost of growing a quarter of wheat, going into the minutest particulars and differentiating between heavy, medium, and light land, and they arrived at the result that the cost of growing a quarter of wheat on heavy land was 73s., on medium land 71s. 6d., and on light land 85s. If this is so, how is wheat growing to continue? Something must be done. The country has been stirred up during the last three years of war to the fact that we must grow corn in this country. Under the stimulus that has been applied land has been brought into cultivation which can never grow wheat economically. But this applies only to a very small portion. A great deal that has been brought into cultivation should be kept in cultivation. We must grow wheat. We must grow it for our own protection. We must also grow it as part of the farming and agricultural rotation. We must keep men on the land. But I am not going to argue the question from the national standpoint. My interest is the industry and the farmers engaged in the industry. I leave it to others to urge the national claims of agriculture, but I do tell the House, and townsmen in particular, that unless this matter is taken up the land which is growing corn must go out of cultivation, except a minimum that must be grown for ordinary farming rotation; but, otherwise, the land which has been ploughed up at great expense, and even the old corn land, will go back as it did in the bad times in the 'eighties, into grass.

The expense of cultivation not only in labour, but for every item on the farm, has gone up by 200 or 300 per cent., and the expenses are such that this cannot go on. I cannot believe that the Prime Minister realises the position. From the speeches that he has made, and from his own up-bringing, I know that he has sympathy with agriculture and with people who live by the land, but I do urge that we should have some assurance that this matter will be taken into consideration, and taken into consideration quickly. I have for a long period recognised that the agricultural workers' wage is totally inadequate for the responsibilities he has to undertake. I became a Tariff Reformer solely for the purpose of raising the agricultural workers' wages. We were defeated in that policy, and by whom—by the Labour party in Great Britain, who wanted cheap food for the towns. The Labour party now, since they want, I take it, an accession to their political strength, have suddenly evinced a very active and earnest interest in the agricultural labourer in the country districts. The one fault I have to find, and the only one, is that there is an attempt to bring too much industrialism into the farms of England. The services they are rendering, I think, are good, and I am glad to think that on behalf of agriculture, so far as I can speak for it, I am able to claim the whole of the Labour party now in support of the interests of agriculture. The wages of the workers and the profits of the farmer are both dependent on, and are non-existent without, the guarantee of the Corn Production Act, and, what is more, on an alteration and increase of that guarantee. Remember that that does not really affect the principle of cheap food. The Prime Minister has decided, and decided rightly, that agriculture is to remain a subsidised industry. He has also decided, and in my view rightly, that in this present period of great industrial unrest the one line of action to take and the policy to be adopted is to reduce the cost of living at all points. I hope that the Government will pursue and carry out that policy. The mores that is done, the more necessary it becomes that wages are kept up in agriculture by means of the guarantee and by means of an increased guarantee. The party opposite—Irefer to the Labour party, have got a great opportunity of coming to the assistance of the workmen on the farms of England by voting for an increase of their wages and at the same time an increase of this guarantee to make that increase of wages possible, and at the same time by telling their supporters in the towns that the guarantee is necessary, and that a subsidy must be paid by the townsmen of England.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I should like to emphasise what has been said on this subject, and I welcome the opportunity of bringing forward the agricultural question in the Debate on the Address. I can assure the House that keen interest was felt and keen disappointment expressed at what I may call the meagre reference to the agricultural question contained in the Gracious Speech from the Throne, and also keen disappointment expressed lest possibly there might not be an opportunity to bring forward the question in the Debate on the Address. We quite recognise that there are at the present moment most important questions for consideration by this House, but at the same time we claim that, after all, agriculture is still the chief industry of this country, and that its claim to attention by this House is every bit as great as are the claims of any other industry, if not greater. Although we quite acknowledge that at this moment there are questions of great urgency for the consideration of this House, we claim that the urgency of the agricultural problem which confronts us is every bit as great.

It is not so very long ago since this country was threatened with an extremely dangerous state of affairs as regards its food supplies. I doubt very much if anybody really realised what the menace to this country really was except those actually acquainted with the position. That menace was primarily caused by the submarines of our enemies, but it was chiefly caused by the neglect which the agricultural industry received in the past from every Government in this country for the last twenty-five years. It is quite true that at this present moment hostilities have ceased, but I should like to express one word of warning, and it is that although hostilities have ceased we are not to suppose that the possibilities of war have been for ever removed. There is a great danger at the present time that people of this country may be deceived. I do not mean that in any bad sense, by ideas as to Leagues of Nations and so forth, into thinking that the danger of any future war is removed. That is not the case, and should war ever come again not only does the submarine menace remain, but science would probably have developed that arm so as to make it more dangerous than ever. Realising that fact, as the nation did realise it in the time when the danger was present, they took action. What has been done so far to meet our difficulty is the passing of a measure in this House to enforce the ploughing up of additional land, and the Corn Production Act. The first of those two measures, passed in order to increase the produce of corn in this country, was only a war measure and could only be passed as a war measure. You could not go on indefinitely forcing agriculturists or any other industry to do that which they know is not to their advantage from an economic point of view. The second of these Bills, the Corn Production Act, was supposed to give a security to the farmer for the corn which he produced on the amount of increased arable land that he has been forced to plough up, and at the same time the Act is supposed to give security to the agricultural labourer that he will get a sufficient wage. That is what the Government has done up to now to deal with the agricultural situation. The Corn Production Act fixed the price of corn for four years on a declining scale. The Wages Boards which were started under the Corn Production Act have fixed the prices of the agricultural labourer's wage on an increasing scale. If you take these two things one with the other, it is quite obvious, I should think, to the meanest intelligence that the prospects are that the industry which is so dealt with must come to disaster.

The unfortunate farmer is always accused, by those who are misinformed, of profiteering. I have heard people who ought to have known better say that the farmer has been the profiteer during the War. I believe it was perfectly true that, at any rate for the first two years of the War, farmers made a very large profit. That was chiefly accounted for by the rapid rise of the prices of his produce, whereas the cost of his labour, machinery, and the things which he used on his farm did not immediately go up in price. But I do not think I shall be wrong in saying that for the last two years, certainly for the last year, the farmers of this country, though there may be instances where the contrary has occurred, by no means made profits out of their industry. There is a good deal of misunderstanding on this question, and I am afraid it is very often encouraged by misinformed people who write in the newspapers. I see it said: "How can it be true that the farmers of this country have not made large profits when the price of land, as we see by the sales that have taken place, has so enormously increased?"

I am often asked that question, and it seems at first sight as if it was so, and that the profits had been made, and that the very large demand for the land made it look as if it was a most profitable industry. But the increased prices which land has been fetching lately are very misleading to those who do not take the trouble to find out the causes. In the first place, the increase in the price of land is often reckoned by the larger price that it fetches now compared to what it would have fetched, say fifteen or twenty years ago. No consideration whatever is paid to the price it used to fetch forty years ago. I know an instance of some land, 2,500 acres, which forty years ago was purchased for £80,000. About twelve years ago the owner endeavoured to sell that piece of land, and the beat he could obtain for it was £30,000. He has recently sold it for £13,000. Anybody who had not been informed on this question would naturally infer that the rise from £30,000 to £13,000 showed an increase in the value of the ground. It is quite true there is an increase in the value from what it was twelve years ago, but if you take that as a basis you are taking a basis when land was absolutely at its lowest, and you ought to take a mean average between the two. But the increased value which is being obtained for land is, in my judgment, due to three different causes. People accuse landowners of giving a high price for their land, but seem to forget that the land is just as much affected by the value of money as is any other commodity which is bought and sold. As the purchasing value of money is now about half what it was ten years ago, obviously the land is affected by these economic changes, and its price must be larger than it was a short time ago.

There is another reason why landowners get higher prices for their land than some people think they ought to have. The unfortunate landowner has had for many years in this country to bear the weight of much abuse and criticism, but if there is one thing more certain than another it is that owners of agricultural land, at any rate to tenants of long standing, let them retain their land at very much below the rent which might have been obtained. If a farmer comes along and gives what appears to be a much higher price than the rent he has been paying seemed to justify, it is because for years he has been farming it below its value as a rentable concern, and that is shown conclusively by his being willing to pay a high price in order to remain upon it. One other reason for the sale of land at good values, and in my mind one of the most satisfactory is that it shows conclusively that a very large community in this country are anxious, even at a high price, to remain and work on the land, which, in my humble judgment, is still the best occupation a man can possibly have. I am the very last Member of this House who would wish in any way to reduce the wages of the agricultural labourer. I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman who preceded me in this Debate that he has been, in my judgment, shamefully treated in this respect in the past. I had the honour with some Members of this House several years ago of sitting on an agricultural committee with the view of doing what we could to increase the agricultural labourer's wage, but we found we were up against such impossible obstacles, and the Government of the day would render us such very small assistance, that our efforts at that time were not as successful as they might have been. I say emphatically that the lowness of the agricultural labourer's wage in the past has been entirely due to the lack of consideration given to agriculture as an industry by successive Governments in this country, and for no other reason whatever. It is obvious from the events which have taken place in the last two or three years that the taxpayers, and especially those engaged in industrial occupations in the towns, must begin to realise that they cannot have it both ways, that either the agricultural labourer's wage must go down or else the land of this country must go out of cultivation They must realise that they have got to pay the actual cost of the production of the things that they want, and that until they do so we shall constantly have this agitation between town and country, which is so very much to be deplored.

I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks that although I realised fully there were many urgent and most urgent questions which needed the consideration of this House, yet I thought the agricultural question was, if possible, more urgent, and certainly as urgent as any question to which we could give our consideration. I say so for this reason: Agriculture is an industry in which you cannot turn the tap on hot or cold at a moment's notice. You cannot produce ploughing-up schemes just because you want to increase the amount of cereals grown in this country at the moment. You must have a definite policy, so that those engaged in the industry can feel secure for some period of years. For instance, we have to know now—not after the 31st March—what the policy as regards agriculture is to be in order to prepare for the next succeeding four years the way our crops are to be grown. I do not want to weary the House with technicalities, but anybody who has been engaged in farming operations knows that on many lands it is absolutely necessary, in order to keep your land clean and to grow a good crop of wheat, that you should have some portion of your farm lying in fallow every year. How in the world is a man to know, unless he knows before the 31st March, what are the prospects for the year afterwards, what portion of land he should keep in fallow and what portion he should not? If he leaves the land in fallow and the prospects of a crop of wheat are withheld from him, he loses what might have been for the moment a profitable crop, and the land produces nothing for the country. Therefore, you must have a policy, and the Government must tell us what it is at the earliest possible moment if the best products of the land are to be secured. I see in the Gracious Speech from the Throne it is said that the Government have in view measures for increasing the output of the land. Unless they tell us what their policy is in regard to the land, I can assure them that they are not fulfilling the words of the King's Speech by doing their best to increase the output from the land.

It seems sometimes almost childish the sort of things one has to say to those who refuse for some reason or other to take an intelligent interest in the operations of farming. Farmers are business men, and work their industry for a profit. They are not philanthropists, whose object is to supply the townspeople with cheap articles of food. What an irony it is to suggest that you are going to settle men on the land to occupy small holdings when you do not hold out to them a reasonable prospect of making a profitable livelihood out of it! During the time that I was in France during the recent War, owing to the movements of the Division to which I was attached, I had the opportunity of occupying as billets a very large number of houses which were really small holdings in France and Flanders, and I had every opportunity of studying the methods of the most industrious people who occupy those holdings. What seemed to me the chief thing with regard to them was the tremendous amount of work they had to put in in order to make a profitable occupation of their small holding. There was no question of a six hours day, with the possibility of a strike if they did not get fifteen minutes for luncheon. That sort of question did not arise among these industrious people in France and Flanders. What impressed one more than anything else was that men, women, and children who were engaged in small holding work in that part of the world worked something more like a sixteen to eighteen hours day than a six hours day. I should be the last to discourage any man who had the inclination, the training, and the desire to occupy a small holding. If he could get one in a suitable district, I should be the first to encourage him to take it. But I can assure the House that it is not doing people any good to hold out to them the prospect that they are going to have a good time of it and leisure if they are given small holdings, unless, at any rate, the Government will do more than they have done in the past to encourage the agricultural industry and enable men to make a profitable livelihood out of it. What does it come to? That if you are going to secure the agricultural labourer's wage at what it is now the Government must tackle this question without a moment's delay. I do hope the hon. Gentleman who now represents agriculture—and I am sure we are ready to give him every assistance we can in the arduous job he has got before him—will get into touch with the Noble Lord who at present presides over the Board of Agriculture, and that they will put their heads together, with the best advice they can receive, and reconsider the Corn Production Act, so as to make it an Act which will give ample security to the tenant farmer and those engaged in agriculture, so that they can put their money into the industry with the prospect that it will give a profitable return, and also give that security to the agricultural labourer in working to the best advantage of the State, with the sure knowledge that his wages will not be cut down in the near future.

I should not, at this early stage of my Parliamentary career, have intruded in this Debate but for the fact that I have the honour to represent, in all probability—I hope it will not be controverted—the most important agricultural constituency in the Kingdom. [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] In a very large measure I agree with the Mover and Seconder of this Amendment, but. I joined issue early in the Mover's speech when he dismissed, as being of very secondary and practically of little importance to agriculture, the question of transportation. That, in my opinion, is one of the most important, if not the most important, matter that those desirous of benefiting agriculture should at once take in hand. I have my own opinion, and I trust and believe it is shared by all the occupants of these benches, that the first step in this direction that should be taken is to nationalise the railways. If the railways were worked in the interests of the country, rather than in the interests of shareholders, agriculture would be among the very first things to benefit by the change. I know there are many difficulties in the matter when approaching the subject of agriculture, and what is good in one part of the country is not necessarily good in the other. The question that has been largely brought before the House this afternoon is that of corn-growing. Corn-growing is of supreme importance. It is, in all probability, the most important in many counties, but in the county I have the honour to represent it does not occupy the same prominent position that it does in other counties in this country.

I should like to say, while on the subject of transportation, that the question of improved transport communication has justly received attention in His Majesty's Speech, and I do hope that the subject will be approached in no niggardly measure by the Department concerned. We, in the county I have the honour to represent, have already a scheme which will make a demand for something like 100 miles of railway. I have no doubt many other counties will have as great, or even larger, demands, but in this connection I should like to suggest that careful consideration should be given in the matter of the administration of these lines when built, and I suggest that it would be well for the Department to take into consideration whether they should not form part of the county council administration rather than of the regular railways of the country. It would be found, I am sure, of great advantage, especially in agricultural districts, if the administration of these proposed lines were purely local rather than general. We have a scheme by which we propose that all these lines should be devoted purely to the carriage of agricultural produce and imports necessary for the industry, and that passenger traffic should take no part in connection with it. Under these circumstances, there would be no difficulty whatever in placing these lines under the control of the same authority, say, for instance, that now administers the roads. Another matter brought forward by the hon. Gentleman opposite—and I think it reflects somewhat, on the party with which I have the honour to be associated—was the remark with regard to agricultural labourers having votes. I take it that this party would be altogether unworthy of its name as a Labour party unless it took into its fold the interests of that large, and largely inarticulate, class, the labourerson the land, and I am quite sure that, when the hon. Gentleman made that reference, he had not in his mind the desire to impress the House with the belief that the Labour party, at any rate, wore indifferent to the claims of the agricultural labourer.

I said just the reverse. I said I claimed the support of the whole Labour party, because they were showing such an interest in agriculture.

I accept the correction, and I am very glad to know that hon. Gentlemen opposite have the interests of the labouring classes so much at heart. Another subject that is of vital interest to agriculture is the provision of houses. This is really a subject that requires immediate attention. I was greatly interested to hear the Prime Minister in this House state that bricks, doors, and window-frames had been ordered, and it is most interesting to know these steps have been taken. It is a very easy process to order things, but it is quite a different process to provide them, and, so far as I have been able to ascertain, I have seen no movement, say, in the direction of making bricks—a very important matter, which takes time. This should be tackled at once in the interests of agriculture. Then, with regard to this same scheme of housing, it seems to be delegated to local authorities. I should like to say that there is not anything like adequate provision being made by these local authorities, and the sooner something in the nature of a Commission is appointed to inquire into the local projects for housing the people the better it will be for the improvement of the housing of the working classes, and especially of the labourers in the rural districts. It is a matter that requires immediate consideration, especially in those districts which come somewhat out of the cognizance of the ordinary local authority. I mean the isolated rural districts. Some steps should be taken to make provision for housing the workers on the land in those districts.

Another great advantage to agriculture, I am sure, would be to relieve it as soon as possible from some of the trammels that are at present imposed upon it by the various Departments of State. The sooner agriculture is freed from these restrictions the better it will be for its interests. I realise that at the present time, while the State subsidises the produce, it is necessary that it should have some control in the matter of marketing that produce; but I note in that connection that no provision is made for the marketing of corn. In our county we have made provision for the marketing of one of our principal articles—the potato. But the present system is not working quite so satisfactorily as it might do, and there is much ground for the discontent engendered by the fact that the State, having taken over the potato crop on the 1st November, and having failed to remove it within a reasonable time—and, so far as I can judge and learn, by the end of the season, at the present rate of progress, not more than 40 per cent. of the total crop will have been moved—has taken the attitude it has taken. When you realise the extraordinary value of much of that crop, I am sure the House will agree with me that some investigation into this matter is absolutely necessary.

Agricultural Members have been furnished with a statement from the various local farmers' and other unions. But it is not only the farmer as a farmer who is concerned in this matter; there is the small holder who is being particularly hard hit. When the Department concerned refuses to take over potatoes that have gone bad for the reason that they have not been removed in time, then it becomes a greater hardship still and requires consideration. Agriculture has been well served during recent years by the Noble Lord who is now at the head of the Department. Agriculturists throughout the country will, I am sure, be only too glad to recognise that fact and wish that he may long continue at the head of his Department. So far as the Department is concerned, I must acknowledge the debt of gratitude that agriculturists owe to it. But take the matter further. I do especially hope that Members in this House who take an interest in agriculture will cast their eyes and extend their vision just a little bit beyond the mere corn growing whose claims have been so very badly put forward, and believe that there are many other matters relating to agriculture which require consideration. Reference has been made to establishing the soldiers on the land. It is of imperative importance when you put these men upon the land that you must give them an opportunity of making a living upon the land. Here, again, the question of local administration is of supreme importance. I am not sanguine of the provisions indicated by the Board of Agriculture for making provision for land for soldiers. Soldiers, too, are not the only ones, although they ought to take first place in receiving adequate land for their requirements. There are a number of other people in the country who are craving for a bit of land. There are labourers and others who want a little bit of land to cultivate for their own use or for purposes of marketing. The present provisions for the acquirement of that land are altogether inadequate.

This is a matter I should like to commend to the Minister concerned, so that greater facilities may be given for the acquisition of land. It might, and probably will, be said that the local authorities have ample opportunity and powers to acquire land, but the class to which I have referred—the labourers—have no opportunity of getting on those bodies, for the simple reason that they cannot afford to lose their day's work and pay to attend to the duties. The question of making provisioin in this matter for payment for services rendered on public bodies is one I commend to the notice of those concerned. It would very largely facilitate the acquisition of land for soldiers and others if a larger labourer representation was on the various local councils. You will get that labourer representation on the councils immediately adequate provision is made for paying the men who cannot afford to lose the days to attend the various meetings. I am sorry to have so imperfectly indicated some of what I regard as the measures that will be of advantage to agriculture. I do, however, assure the hon. Gentleman opposite that the Labour party are intensely interested in agriculture and more than interested—they are devoted to the interests of the labourer upon the land.

I am sure the House is grateful to the hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment to the Address, which, I am sure, has been done, not with the object of attacking the Government, but with the abject of giving a much-needed opportunity to tills House to consider at the earliest possible moment what is the present position of agriculture and what ought to be the future policy of the Government and the country towards agriculture. I should like, if I may, to congratulate the last speaker who spoke from the Labour Benches in such a sympathetic spirit. We are very glad to feel that in the Labour party there are representatives who understand the nature of agriculture, and who labour in agricultural districts. I think he was perhaps a little optimistic in hoping that the nationalisation of railways was going to be a cure for agricultural ills. I rather doubt whether our experience of the national management of railways would lead us to believe that it will result in lower fares or lower freights, and I imagine that that is the only direction in which agriculture could benefit from a policy of that description. I am afraid we who are here to-day to speak on agricultural questions will feel that we must look beyond that policy and ask for something more immediately advantageous to agriculture than the nationalisation of railways. I do not want again to go over the ground which has been so admirably covered by the Mover and Seconder of this Amendment. They have made it perfectly clear that the policy, or rather the enactment of the Clauses of the Corn Production Act as it stands, do not meet the necessities of the agricultural case. They have made that perfectly clear, and also that the figures in that Act of the prices fixed for corn will not enable the present minimum wage to be maintained. That is the fundamental point. They have also made it perfectly clear that the country has to decide the policy it is going to adopt in its natural desire to reduce the cost of food, and at the same time to maintain the wages of the agricultural labourer at a minimum. That is really, to my mind, the plain object of this Debate, and the reasons why it is so important that this Debate, even for some short two hours, should be held at this early period of the Session, so that this House and the country should at the earliest possible moment understand the main outlines of this question and see what it has to decide.

There is a certain confusion, I think, in the public mind as to the bearing of increased production. There is a certain amount of loose thinking on a very fundamental fact. Many people suppose that increased production necessarily means more profitable production. That is not so. It is perfectly clear you are not going to get an increased production in agriculture or any other business unless the industry is profitable and prosperous. There are two main factors which make for prosperity in agriculture or any other industry: one is the cost of producing the article and the other the price which the article fetches, and upon those two factors the profit depends. It does not follow that because a number of units per acre increase that therefore the production is more profitable. That will not happen unless the price of the extra units produced more than cover the extra cost of the intensive methods adopted. That is where intensive cultivation has failed in the past. Every practical farmer knows that you cannot produce a single instance in the long history of agriculture, and it seems odd to think that we are at this stage discussing such elementary matters which are not very fully understood by everybody in regard to one of the oldest industries in the world. But that, unfortunately, is the fact. All agriculturists know that there is no instance, so far as I am aware, in actual practice where an intensive cultivator has succeeded over a long period of years in making a real success of his cultivation, and the reason of that is because agriculture, unlike other industries, cannot be run by rule of rote, and it has to face uncertain conditions which will overwhelm sometimes the best human calculations. That is what the farmer has to face. Intensive cultivation is going to cost a great deal more than ordinary cultivation and there is no certainty that you are going to get a crop that will pay, and if you do not the loss is very much greater than under the ordinary system. That is where intense cultivation has broken down.

The need of the country for increased production cannot be merely met by asking for intense cultivation, because it will break down for the reasons I have suggested. Therefore the only way to get increased production is to make ordinary agricultural operations prosperous, and that is what we want to do through the amendment of the Corn Production Act. But that Act does not endorse the position. We have not only the Corn Production Act but we have under D.O.R.A. certain maximum prices fixed at which agricultural produce may be sold, and what has hitherto operated to govern prices has not been so much the Corn Production Act but the Regulations under D.O.R.A. Certain prices under the Corn Production Act have been quoted by my hon. Friend who moved this Amendment. The prices under D.O.R.A. are 75s. 6d. wheat, 47s. 6d. oats, and 70s. barley, and it is on those prices that the wages of the agricultural labourer has been fixed. Now it is obvious, if those wages are to be maintained, that the prices here fixed cannot be departed from. I have a circular here which was issued by the Board of Agriculture on 14th December last and I want to call the attention of the House to it. It commences:

"Important Notice to Farmers.—Prices Guaranteed for Next Year's Harvest.—The Board of Agriculture understands that much confusion exists among the farming community as to the exact meaning of the announcement made by the President of the Board of Agriculture in the House of Commons, in which he agreed that the prices paid to farmers for controlled cereals harvested in 1919 will not be lower than those now current. With a view to removing any misunderstanding that may exist the Board now inform farmers that the price to be fixed for the 1919 crop of the cereals at present controlled will in no case be less than the prices at present in operation for the 1918 crop. In other words, the commencing prices for the 1919 crop will be at least as follows.: …"

4.0 P.M.

Then the prices I have quoted are given. That is a notice intended to make it clear to the farmers what prices they are going to get for the coming harvest. But does that make it clear? What does this notice mean? I must press my hon. and gallant Friend to try and make it clear what this notice means. Does it mean that the farmers are going to get those prices or not? Remember that the prices which this circular quotes are not guaranteed but maximum prices above which corn may not be sold, and not below which it must not be sold. Therefore, if this circular only means that, it means nothing of any advantage to the farmer, because there is nothing about guaranteeing them a market. I wrote to the President, whom I congratulate upon going to another place, although we were sorry to lose him here. I wrote to him and asked if a market was going to be guaranteed and, if so, by what means? I pointed out that this was a fundamental matter to the farmers, and I got the following answer:

"The Government decided that the prices of controlled cereals for the harvest of 1919 should be the same as those current for the harvest of 1918. By what administrative steps the Food Controller or the Board, or both, will carry that decision into effect I cannot yet say. But we have seven months for the consideration of that problem."

I do not think there is seven months, because the farmers have to make their plans now, and it is important it should be done now. The reply continues:

"If the world prices fall substantially it may involve a considerable loss."

If that means anything, it means that the Government are going to maintain prices at the cost of the taxpayer, but it does not say so definitely, and I press my hon. Friend to tell us definitely now, for the information of the agricultural industry, whether the Government intend or do not intend to make this circular which they have issued officially really effective, and whether the farmers are going to get these prices or not, and whether they are going to have a market guaranteed? This is not a question for the future. When I wrote to the President of the Board of Agriculture I pointed out that, so far from it being unnecessary to deal with it now, the actual prices obtainable at this moment for the cereals mentioned were below the prices fixed. Therefore the Food Controller urgently pressed light land farmers about six months ago, both before last sowing time and this sowing time, and for two years running during the last stages of the War, not to grow wheat but rye, which was being largely used for bread, and which was a substitute for wheat. The light-land farmers put in large quantities of rye, which is an unprofitable crop to grow, in order to meet the requirements of the Food Controller, and they did it on the promise of a price of 75s. When the Armistice came rye was no longer wanted, because people prefer white bread, and the Food Controller, who is chiefly concerned with the interests of the consumer, and does not care so much about the grower, simply issued an Order to the millers to take no more rye, without a word to agriculture or to the farmers. When we took our rye into the market we were simply told that there was no market for it; the Food Controller had forbidden them to buy it, and we must take it home again. Later we were told it could be used for vinegar, and eventually those of us who took our rye into the market got 68s. instead of 75s. It is not a large matter, and I do not say it is a thing about which the whole of the agricultural industry should make a row. I only mention it as a kind of barometer showing the sort of way in which agriculture is treated. I am reminded that it also shows that the guarantee is not there now. The circular which I have quoted says, "75s. for rye," but we have actually been selling rye at 68s., and sometimes we had to take it home again.

There is also a difficulty in selling wheat. You cannot get your wheat sold. A notice was issued to farmers asking them not to thresh their wheat. That was a very thoughtless thing to do. Why do farmers thresh wheat? Can a farmer thresh his wheat at the moment someone in high authority says that he ought to thresh it? I suppose when we have agriculture nationalised we shall have a threshing day once a week. Everybody who farms knows perfectly well that there are reasons for threshing wheat quite apart from national requirements. A farmer must thresh his wheat when he wants straw for his stock, or money with which to pay the wages of his agricultural labourers. He must thresh wheat when he can get the threshing machine, and, above all, he must thresh wheat when God sends a day on which wheat can be threshed. All these factors are quite independent of Government Departments, and to issue an Order that farmers are to thresh wheat really only excites a feeling which perhaps I had better not describe. I would ask my hon. and gallant Friend when he replies to deal with the question of policy on corn prices not only from the point of view of the Corn Production Act but also from the point of view of this circular and the prices which are referred to in it.

One of the most important matters in the cost of production of agricultural produce is the question of feeding stuffs, and one of the farmers' greatest difficulties now is the cost of feeding stuffs. I venture to suggest it is the duty of the Food Controller, who controls feeding stuffs, to do what he can to help the farmer to get his feeding stuffs cheap. I should like to point out it is not satisfactory that the Food Controller, whose main duty is to the community as a whole, and who therefore has no real special interest in agriculture, should have absolute control over feeding stuffs which go to maintain, the agricultural industry. I assume the Board of Agriculture cannot have very much say in the matter, because I have here a circular issued on the third of this month by the Food Controller to merchants who are importers of feeding stuffs. The House of Commons knows that the prices of feeding stuffs are strictly controlled and that they are maximum prices. Freights are coming down, and the opportunity is coming when it may be possible for merchants and importers of feeding stuffs to get consignments at a price lower than the controlled price. In fact some merchants have been able to make bargains and have obtained parcels of feeding stuffs from foreign countries for importation into this country at prices considerably lower than the maximum prices fixed by the Food Controller. I have in my hands a notice which has been issued by the Food Controller to importers. It informs them that he is prepared to take over parcels of feeding stuffs which they import. Such parcels are to be offered to him, and if they have been bought at less than the maximum price he may requisition them, take them over, pay a commission to the importer and resell them himself at the maximum price. That I cannot think is to the advantage of the farming community or of the country. Surely if merchants can import and sell at a price lower than the maximum price they ought to be allowed to do so. It amounts to this, that you have a Government Department which is employing a very large staff and occupying very expensive offices costing the country a great deal of money. I notice from the remarks that one hears occasionally that these Departments think it is quite all right if they can make their Departments pay and if they do not cost the country anything. All they need do is to sell at a profit above the value of the goods, and, with the money, run the Department. This, I think, is most objectionable. It means that independent taxing authorities are set up. It is nothing else but indirect taxation. The Food Controller buys at one price, sells at a higher price, credits himself with the difference, and the money goes to cover the cost of the Department. I do not believe that the House intended that that should be done. It is done under the Defence of the Realm Act, and I am sure it was never contemplated that that Act should be used for that purpose. If a test action could be taken in the Law Courts, I believe it would be found to be illegal.

We have another case in which agriculture has suffered in exactly the same way. It is the case of wool. The War Office commandeered all the wool of this country as well as that produced in Australia. They commandeered not only all that was necessary for national purposes but the whole of the crop and resold part of it for civil use. In regard to the Australian wool, half that profit was returned to the Australian farmers, but when the British farmer asked for similar treatment, although his wool had been requisitioned at below cost price, he was refused any share of the profit at all, and that, I suggest, was direct taxation of the British farmer unauthorised by Parliament. The sum of all these matters again, as in the case of the rye, has not ruined any farmer, but it is not the spirit in which agriculture must be met by the Government if it is to be successfully carried on, And I suggest that we must have, on behalf of the Government, and not merely of the Board of Agriculture, sonic reassuring statement, because I tell the House that I resigned my office in the Government because I felt so seriously on this agricultural question, and mainly because I felt that the Board of Agriculture requires the strongest possible support in this House if it is to deal successfully with other Government Departments in regard to the needs of the agricultural industry. The Minister of Agriculture does not get his way, in my opinion, as often as he ought to get it, and it is not quite sufficient for us merely, to get an assurance from my hon. Friend below me that the Board of Agriculture agree with us and will do their best. We want an assurance from somebody speaking with high responsibility for the head of the Government that the Government do realise fully that if the agricultural labourer's wage is to be maintained it can only be maintained in the manner that has been pointed out by my hon. Friends the Mover and Seconder of this Amendment. If the Government will tell the House that they are really facing the problem and that they realise that, as the Prime Minister told us in September at Manchester, the maintenance and increase of agricultural production is one of the most vital elements in the prosperity of this country, and that they are prepared to make some sacrifice to carry that out, that is the real point. You cannot have it both ways. The people of this country cannot have cheap home-grown food without any subsidy to agriculture and at the same time see the agricultural labourer paid a living wage. The thing is impossible.

It is not for agriculture, although it may be the principal industry in the country, to lay down the law to this great community and to say they must have this price or that price. All we claim is to state the facts to the country so that they may realise it and decide it for themselves. It is not a question of morality or of what we wish for, but of what is possible, and you may have the finest politicians and schemers in the world but they cannot get corn grown at a loss. It is impossible. We do not hold a pistol at the head of the country at all. We only ask that the country shall realise the fact, and that if they want the agricultural labourer to be put into the position that he ought to be put in, they can only do it through the industry at which he works, and that if they want that industry to support the labourer and the farmer and the whole of the organisation upon which agriculture depends, it can only be done by making some sacrifice. Before the War they were never willing to make that sacrifice, and agriculture struggled on as best it might. I do not feel very confident that after the War they will make that sacrifice either. Whether they will or not remains to be seen. Our duty here, as representing agriculture, is merely to make it perfectly clear to them what the facts are, what the possibilities are, and then leave them to decide for themselves; only do not blame the farmers if they cannot make land pay and cannot increase production, not because of their fault or of the fault of nature, but because under the present world conditions this country has determined that it is not worth the sacrifice to enable them to do it.

I only rise to reply to one or two points of my right hon. Friend in which he criticised, somewhat severely and somewhat unjustly, the recent circular issued by the Ministry of Food, and which he erroneously supposes is intended as an intimation that if feeding-stuffs are now imported into this country it is the intention of the Ministry to requisition those feeding-stuffs at such reduced prices as they may now be imported at and then to resell them at a profit at the maximum price allowed by the Maximum Prices Order of 1918. My right hon. Friend is misinformed as to the purpose and the meaning of the Order in question. The position is this: In 1918 there was a considerable shortage of feeding-stuffs, and at that time it was regarded as necessary—and I do not think my right hon. Friend criticised the expediency of the Order at that time that there should be a requisition Order the effect of which was that all imports of feeding-stuffs into this country were, in fact, on account of the Government, and that if any private importer chose to import feeding-staffs at his own risk they were subject to being requisitioned by the Government without any guarantee to him that they would be requisitioned at a price which would give him any profit on the transaction. The result was that all imports of feeding-stuffs were in fact made on behalf of the Government. At present the situation is somewhat changed, Freights are lower and there is a possibility of feeding-stuffs being imported at lower prices, and the whole object of the circular to which my right hon. Friend has drawn attention is not to discourage but to promote and encourage the importation of feeding-stuffs by importers, and for that purpose it commences by giving notice—a passage which appears to have escaped my right hon. Friend's attention—that until further notice the Food Controller will, at his option, either release foods from the operation of the Requisition Order or pay a price on the basis of cost with the allowance of a reasonable profit as provided by the Defence of the Realm Regulations, in no case such price to exceed the maximum price. The operative words of the Order were that it is intended from now onwards to release importations of feeding-stuffs from the operation of the Requisition Order. That is not only the object of the Order, but actually the way in which it has been put into operation. There have been no requisitions under this Order, and no requisitions are contemplated to be made under it. With regard to the Clause which appears to excite my right hon. Friend's apprehension, and upon which he bases the entirely mistaken view that the purpose is to take advantage of the Order to purchase imported goods cheaply and sell them at a profit, which was never in their minds at all, the latter part of the Order is merely by way of precaution, because the situation with regard to food and feeding-stuffs is not yet so wholly satisfactory that the Food Controller would think it right to wholly abandon the power, if necessary, to maintain or reimpose for some time the safeguards that exist. The purpose of the Order is not the imposition of restrictions. The main purpose of the Order on the face of it is to release restrictions so as to promote the free importation of feeding stuffs.

I must explain that the merchant who sent me this order—

Order, order

As one of those who has farmed a considerable acreage of land for many years I should like to say a few words on this great question of agriculture. I am one of those new Members who are, so to speak, shivering on the bank of the river hesitating whether they should take the great plunge and make their maiden speech. I have come to the conclusion that it is very cold standing on the bank and that very likely if I take the plunge the water will not be any colder. The House is well aware that the War has taught us many great lessons, and possibly not the least of these is the lesson which most agriculturists knew, but which was very little recognised, I may even say totally ignored, by the Government in the past from whatever party they were drawn. It is essential for the future welfare of Britain that agriculture should be placed in the position it deserves, and not only should it be placed there, but legislation should be passed which will enable it to remain there. I should like to briefly sketch the conditions which are essential, in my mind, if agriculture as an industry is to flourish in this country. The first question is how to obtain land. There has been a great deal of nonsense spoken and written on this question by those who knew nothing, or next to nothing, on the subject as to the impossibility of working men obtaining land from the landowner. As a case in point, I might perhaps be allowed to quote an instance that occurred at one of my election meetings. A statement was made by a member of my audience, a railway man, that a hundred men in that locality were trying to get land, but could not get any because the local landlord refused it. Such a statement as that, unless it could be denied, would be a very strong argument against the so-called tyranny of the landlord. Unknown to my railway man friend, the local landlord, the owner of the land in that district, happened to be amongst the crowd in the room, and after my meeting was ended he asked permission to question the man. After a very little while the hundred men who had asked for land was reduced to a dozen. In a very short while the number was further reduced to five, and finally to one, and when challenged to name that one, although he was even asked, if he liked, to send up the name on a bit of paper to the landlord, no name was forthcoming.

I only quote this instance to show what a lot of exaggeration is being talked on this subject. We all know that there have been instances of landlords refusing to part with their land, but I think that, if these cases were investigated, it would be found in nearly every case that the reason of the refusal was that the claimant either required a good piece of land, which very likely was situated in the middle of another holding, or because the claimant was undesirable either through lack of experience or of financial backing. My experience has been—and perhaps I may be allowed to speak with a little authority as being a member of the Small Holdings Committee of the Hampshire County Council—that when a landlord can be assured that there is a genuine demand for his land, and there is plenty of evidence that the land will be properly cultivated, he rarely, if ever, puts obstacles in the way of the county council authorities. Therefore I think that the question how to obtain the land is one which is capable of being solved quite easily. All that is required is that the county council should be given more power to acquire land and that the Government should back them up financially as they have done in the past.

The next question is that of getting men back on the land. I am not one of those enthusiasts who indulge in the parrot cry of "put the soldier on the land." I am much too good a friend of the soldier to invite him to face certain disappointment and certain ruin—for that is inevitably what would happen to the demobilised soldier, unless he had previous experience as an agriculturist, if he were dumped on the land. As far as I am aware, every county council has a county agricultural farm or school. I would suggest that those farms should be further developed so that soldiers who are desirous of learning the science of agriculture could do so under the very best auspices, and in this connection I would like to mention the good work which is being performed by the Village Centres Association. We now come to the question of how we are going to make it possible for the embryo agriculturist to make a living. The first condition which is essential is that greater and cheaper facilities for transport should be forthcoming. Every soldier knows what an important part light railways played in France in the organisation which in the end made victory possible for our troops. May I put it in this way, so as to avoid lengthy detail, that the light railways made it possible for the producer of shells to reach the consumer—the guns—with the least possible delay. Is it not equally essential that the producer of our food supplies should reach the consumer with a minimum of delay, and, I venture to suggest, with the least amount of expense? If the small holder is to make a living out of the land it is essential that he should devote the whole of his time to the cultivation of that land, and that he should not waste many valuable hours in the course of the week on the road in order to get his produce to the market. Therefore, it is essential that greater facilities, by the development of either light railways or canals, should be provided.

I come to another point which I think is also most essential if the small holder is to make a living. That is that a greater measure of security than the Corn Production Act now provides should be arrived at in order to ensure that farmers have at least a fair chance of making a living, since, if the farmer is to be denied the chance of making a profit, how in the world can he pay his labourer higher wages. Fix a minimum wage by all means, but make it possible for the farmer to earn sufficient to pay that wage. This, I know, was a highly controversial subject in the past, and one which I would hardly dare to touch upon in my maiden speech, did I not venture to think that as our eyes have been opened to so many things owing to this War, that our views on this subject have been considerably enlarged. There has been much talk in the newspapers lately about the eager-faced new Members of this House, and about the new spirit which prevails in it. I think probably that the newspapers are right, and that the Members of the House are anxious that every topic which is brought before it should be discussed frankly, honestly, and without fear of the results which that discussion might entail among certain sections of the community, both in this House and outside. We must recognise frankly that there are only two conditions possible as regards agriculture. If it is to flourish, and if British labour is to secure the produce from Britain's soil, then the farmer must have some measure of security. If you deny that security, then agriculture is bound to decline and in time fail altogether.

I think it will be convenient, as the hour is getting late, if I were to say what I have to say in reply to the Debate this day, though I am sorry to curtail the eloquence of hon. Members and to cut in immediately after my hon. Friend's excellent maiden speech. I feel in responding a grave responsibility in having to represent here this great industry; but I can assure my hon. Friends that the interest of agriculture and of everybody engaged in it—the landowner, the tenant-farmer, the agricultural labourer—is very near to my heart, and that, as far as I am able, I will endeavour adequately to represent their views. I am very fortunate in having as my chief my Noble Friend the President of the Board, who, I think, has the confidence and support of the great bulk of agriculturists all over the country, and to whose excellent work and attention tributes have been already given this afternoon. I am not surprised that my hon. Friend has brought forward this Motion, and I make no complaint. I think they were perfectly entitled to do it. I fully realise the great importance of the question. I realise its urgency.

The position of agriculture at the present moment is altogether extraordinary. For years past, up to the time of the War, it is not an exaggeration to say it has been neglected by successive Governments. Then came the War. Then we suddenly awoke to the fact of the grave danger of being dependent, as we were, upon foreign imports. Then came the realisation of the importance of food production. After all, what is food production but agriculture? Then came that wonderful stimulus, the work done by the Food Production Department and the Agricultural Committees. A splendid response was made by all classes engaged in agriculture, which went a long way to saving the country and winning the War. As I think my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton shire has told you, you cannot turn on the tap, hot and cold, of agriculture in a few moments. Whether the revival of agriculture, which has been produced by war conditions and largely by the action of the Government in consequence of war conditions, is to be maintained, or whether we are to allow agriculture to lapse back into the position which it occupied a few years ago, we can imagine no question of more importance to the country.

It was raised in a rather different form in another place the other night, and there was a short, and I think, very important leading article in the "Times" newspaper yesterday, calling attention to the same point. The War, it pointed out, had brought most people to some dim understanding of our position. The real danger, it said, was of a falling-off from the war standard. It was unthinkable, but it might happen all the same, unless every effort was made to go one better. I can assure my hon. Friends that the Government, my Noble Friend, the Board of Agriculture and all of us are fully alive to the position and are anxious to do everything we can to maintain agriculture at its present standard, or, rather, to make it go beyond its present standard, certainly not to allow it to slip back to the position it occupied a few years before the War, and that for the very reasons we have heard this afternoon, which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Northampton shire (Colonel Fitzroy) described as platitudes. Of course we all hope very much that there may be no more war, but we should be very unwise to allow ourselves to feel so secure that once again we are going to be dependent upon foreign importations of foodstuffs into the United Kingdom. Then there is the social aspect of the question. We have heard about our C3 population. I do not think the C3 population came from the villages or fields or farms of England; it came much more from the large towns. Then there is the other point mentioned by several speakers, that we are looking forward to a big scheme of land settlement. I myself have given notice of a Bill to carry that out. There could be nothing more ridiculous than to invite people on to the land, to place ex-soldiers on the land, and then to make the conditions of farming such that they would simply lose whatever little capital they have. No policy could be more ridiculous than that. Well, then, what is the position? There is the Corn Production Act. It was passed for six years. So far as the guaranteed prices go, it has never really been operative, because higher prices have always ruled. We heard a great deal about that guarantee. The position has been made greatly different by the very large increases in wages. The minimum inserted in the Corn Production Act was 25s. We all know that in no county is it less than 30s., while some have a minimum of 35s. and even 40s. Of course, there was correlation between the guaranteed prices of produce of cereals and the minimum wage, but that balance has been upset, as we fully realise. The question therefore arises, and is put to me by the Mover of the Amendment and others, Should there not be an extension and an amendment—that is what it comes to—an extension of years and an amendment of the Corn Production Act? I am not in a position to make any definite announcement this afternoon, but I need hardly say that the Government are very well aware of the position. They realise precisely what has happened. They realise that if wages continue to rise and the prices of wheat go down, say, to 45s. well, only the best land would be kept for wheat and a great deal of land would have to go back to grass which has been ploughed up in recent years. The whole question is, When is it best to come to some definite decision on the matter? How do we stand now? The whole question of world prices is uncertain. Nobody really knows what the price of anything is, the value of money has so changed. It may change again. A fixed guaranteed price this year might be too low. In that case the farmers would suffer. It might be altogether too high. In that case the State would make a heavy loss. The Government have not come forward—and I do not think they are prepared for the moment to come forward—with a definite amendment of the Corn Production Act, but they have fixed the price of cereals for this year at a figure a great deal above the guaranteed prices under the Corn Production Act. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Pretyman), in his excellent speech, asked what was actually meant by certain statements made in this House and elsewhere. He asked whether this price was a maximum or a minimum. Perhaps the best thing I could do would be to read the words of the question and the reply. My right hon. Friend (Mr. G. Lambert) on the 19th November asked

"if the President of the Board of Agriculture is able yet to say whether the prices paid to farmers for controlled cereals harvested in 1919 will be not less than those now current?"

and the answer was:

"Mr. Prothero: Yes, Sir; the answer is in the affirmative."

Some confusion arose as to the meaning of that. The Board of Agriculture for Scotland was not clear as to the meaning, and they asked a question. Certain telegrams passed between the Board of Agriculture for Scotland and the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in this country. I will read them:

(1) Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to Board of Agriculture for Scotland.

"Prices to be fixed for next year's controlled cereals will not be less than those now current; in other words, a minimum is guaranteed."

(2) Board of Agriculture for Scotland to Board of Agriculture and Fisheries.

"Wire received. Does statement mean that maximum prices for controlled cereals now current will be guaranteed minimum prices for next year's crops?"

(3) Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to Board of Agriculture for Scotland.

"Your interpretation of statement as to cereal prices for next year is correct."

I think that makes the matter perfectly clear, and I have nothing to add to the information given in those telegrams.

Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman say how that is going to be done?

I am not in a position to make a definite statement, but I can say this: I know the matter is now being considered by my Noble Friend.

Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman say whether the Board will consider what will be done with the remainder of this season's crops?

As regards that, I understand the difficulty is in disposing of the wheat. The reason for that is that no one expected the War would come to an end last year. The Wheat Commission would have been guilty of a grave dereliction of duty had they not made provision. They arranged to buy a large amount of American wheat. Owing to the Armistice, that wheat has come in very much mores quickly than was expected. The millers are the only people who have storage on a large scale, and they find themselves with this wheat. There has consequently been a difficulty for the time being of disposing of the English wheat. I hope that shortly that matter will right itself, and that English farmers, encouraged to grow this wheat, will be able to dispose of it. Many topics have been raised. I have little time left to deal with them. But I should like to recognise the interesting maiden speech made by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Royce). To him, I should say, we realise the great importance of transport for agricultural produce. It is a matter for the new Ministry. We of the Board of Agriculture do all we can to encourage the creation of new facilities, both by motor lorry, in some places, and of a grails or light railways in others, for the transport of agricultural produce; for the collection, so to speak, of the produce at the door of the farm, or a near collecting station, so as to facilitate the marketing of the farmer's crops. As to housing, I know the difficulty as well as anybody, but I am afraid that is a matter for the Local Government Board. I know they have the matter in hand. Preliminary steps have been taken, and I hope before long that the shortage of houses in the rural districts will be fully met. As to potatoes, that is a question for the Ministry of Food. They bought up the entire crop. They are responsible for what is done, and the price paid.

Does that mean they pay for the whole crop?

I am sure they will do justice. But it would be very unwise if I were to endeavour to detail the actions of other Departments. In conclusion, I can only say that I fully realise the gravity of the situation. My hon. Friend may take this from us: in the nation's need we realised for the first time the national importance of agriculture. We asked the farmers, who had been neglected all these years, to help us. We do not mean to allow agriculture to drift back into the hopeless position it was a few years ago. It is true that before the War there was a slight revival. That has been carried much further since the War. I can assure my hon. Friend that my Noble Friend and myself will not be behindhand in reporting to the heads of the Government what we regard as being of supreme importance to agriculture in the national welfare.

Before asking leave to withdraw my Amendment, I should like to ask my hon. Friend to consider the practicability of issuing an Order to the millers to mix with their foreign wheat a certain percentage of this year's English wheat. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the sympathetic way in which we have been received, and I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

I venture to make an appeal to the House. I think the Government have given ample time for the discussion of the various questions. The pressure of business is so great that I would ask the House to agree to the Address now.

After that appeal I shall not proceed, but I desire to enter my strong protest against the exclusion of such a subject as the one I wished to bring forward.