asked the Minister of Labour the number of insured persons who have failed to qualify for unemployment benefit since 19th April, 1928, to the latest available date in the Nottingham, Mansfield, Sutton-in-Ashfield, and Basford Exchanges, respectively?

In the period 19th April to 9th July, 1928, the number of claims to unemployment benefit disallowed by insurance officers, which were made at the Employment Exchanges named, were as follow:

asked the President of the Board of Trade the number forming the Irish Lights Commission; how they are appointed; and if the accounts are

The disallowances by insurance officers are those recorded during the period, and relate in a proportion of cases to claims made earlier. They also include cases in which the decisions were reversed on appeal.

asked the President of the Board of Trade what quantity of canvaswoven hose was exported and what quantity was imported from January to July, 1928; and the values of such exports and imports?

I regret that the information is not available.

asked the President of the Board of Trade the value of the total exports and imports between this country and Russia in 1926 and 1927, and to indicate the value of exports of agricultural machinery during those years?

The following table shows the declared values of (1) the total imports into and exports from, the United Kingdom (excluding bullion coin) consigned from and to Russia (U.S.S.R.), and (2) the exports of agricultural machinery and parts thereof consigned to Russia (U.S.S.R.), during each of the years 1926 and 1927.

submitted to the Board of Trade for approval?

The Commissioners of Irish Lights are 22 in number, consisting of five ex-officio members, namely, the Lord Mayor, the High Sheriff and three Aldermen of the city of Dublin, and 17 other members who are co-opted, all the members taking part in the election when a vacancy occurs. The answer to the last part of the question is in the affirmative.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether negotiations are proceeding for the transfer of the Irish lights from Trinity House to the Irish Light Commissioners; and if there is a prospect of these discussions reaching an early conclusion?

There is no question of a transfer of the lighthouses in the Irish Free State from the Trinity House to the Commissioners of Irish Lights. The management of these lighthouses is already vested in the latter body, and Trinity House has no jurisdiction over them. As the hon. Member has already been informed, however, by the President of the Board of Trade, certain matters affecting the future of these lighthouses are under consideration by His Majesty's Governments in Great Britain and the Irish Free State. I am unable to say when a decision will be reached.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the estimates of the Northern Lights Commissioners come before his Department for approval; and what new light vessels and steam vessels are under construction?

The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. No new light vessels or steam vessels are being constructed by the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses.

asked the President of the Board of Trade the number of men employed in the lighthouse service at the Mauritius, Penang, and Singapore, and also the conditions of service of these men?

In Mauritius there are seven light-keepers with salaries ranging from Rs.487.50 to Rs.2,340 per annum, and with a servant and ration allowance which in two cases is Rs.327.60 per annum and in the remainder Rs.468 per annum. The light-keepers in Singapore are 10 in number and receive a salary of $900–60–1,200 per annum and free rations. In Penang there are two light-keepers, on a similar scale of salary and with free quarters, but drawing allowances for rations of $240 per annum and for ghari and boat hire of $24 per annum. All these officers are locally recruited, and are subject to the same general regulations as other members of the public services to which they belong.

asked the President of the Board of Trade the number of emigrants from the United Kingdom for the years 1900 to 1928, separately?

Particulars of the numbers of emigrants and immigrants, as distinct from other passengers, were not obtained before 1st April, 1912. The balances outward of passengers of British nationality from the United Kingdom to non-European countries (the only measure of the net emigration available for the whole series of years specified in the question) were as follow:

asked the President of the Board of Trade how many milk bottling and measuring machines are now on the market; whether official approval has been given to any of them and, if so, what; and in that case how many of them are in use?

Up to the present date, 19 patterns of milk measuring instruments have received the certificate of the Board of Trade under the Weights and Measures Act, 1904. The Board have no information as to the number of individual instruments on the market or in use.

asked the Secretary for Mines whether his Department has been consulted in regard to the form of distribution of funds specifically collected for the relief of distress in mining areas?

No, Sir.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether all coal sold for export, bunkers, and steel works will receive freight relief on 1st December, 1928, if carried over private railways as well as public railways?

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the reductions in railway freight for selected industries will also apply to freights carried on the private railways of coal companies?

I have been asked to answer these questions. The decision of the Government to expedite as a special measure the proposed railway freight reductions, was taken in response to urgent appeals of the industries concerned for earlier relief from the heavy transport charges on public railways. The circumstances of the private mineral railways are different, and under the Rating and Valuation (Apportionment) Bill relief is to be afforded to these railways as industrial hereditaments. As such, they will, in common with other mining hereditaments, be relieved of three-quarters of their local rates as from 1st October, 1929.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that, pending the receipt of the Report of the Bengal Government's opium inquiry, the excise authorities proposed the issue of 20 new licences for opium and drugs; and the reasons for this proposal at such a time?

My Noble Friend has not yet received the report of the Excise Department in Bengal for 1927–28 and has no information on the matter referred to, which, as the hon. Member is aware, lies within the competence of the Governor acting with his Ministers.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the Report of the Bengal Government Committee into the excessive consumption of opium in Calcutta, Baraidpore, and Serampore has been received; whether a copy can be placed in the Library; and what action the Bengal Government has taken upon the Report, which was forwarded to the Government in December, 1927?

My Noble Friend has not received the Report and has no recent information, but he will ask for copies to be forwarded and inquire how the matter now stands.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that since June, 1927, officials in India have been deprived of the privilege of sending direct to him copies of petitions addressed to him of which the originals are transmitted through the regular official channel; whether this change in procedure has been made with the Secretary of State's permission; and what action has been taken, or will be taken, by the Secretary of State to ensure the expeditious disposal of such memorials, which can, under the revised procedure, be held up by the Government of India for an indefinite period?

No such privilege was recognised in the Memorial Rules, and memorials, copies of which were sent direct to the Secretary of State, were not considered until they had been re- ceived from the Government of India. The Government of India were asked by my Noble Friend last year to draw the attention of officers to the impropriety of direct communication. I must make it quite clear that the Secretary of State will take cognisance of no representations received otherwise than through the channels prescribed by the Rules, which themselves make provision for the avoidance of delay.

asked the Home Secretary particulars of the stations in the Metropolitan police, the sub-divisions and divisions, for which no representative from the rank of constable, sergeant, and inspector, respectively, have been elected to the Police Federation; and will he cause inquiries to be made as to the reasons for this?

All members of the ranks mentioned are by Statute members of the Police Federation. The three branch boards, which should consist of one member of each rank from each division, are complete except that V and J divisions have no representative on the inspectors' branch board, and the commissioner's office has no representative on the sergeant's board. In the case of J division, the inspector who represented the division retired recently and a successor has not yet been appointed. I have no information as to the reason for the other vacancies, and do not consider it necessary for me to intervene. As regards the divisional committees, which are not statutory bodies, all sub-divisions are represented on the sergeants' committee except

Gerald Road (B division).

Hunter Street (E division).

Clapham and Lavender Hill (L division).

Woolwich (R. division).

Wandsworth, Richmond and Kingston (V division),

and all stations are represented on the constables' committee except

Walham Green (B division).

Clapham (L division).

Kingston and Wandsworth (V division).

Chatham Dockyard.

asked the Minister of Pensions, if he will furnish a statement showing the areas in Great Britain and Ireland, the district or counties that each area covers and the situation of the chief area office, and the number of whole-time and part-time medical officers attached to each War pension area.

The information desired by the hon. Member cannot be given in precisely the form asked for. Medical men are employed by the Ministry as medical officers on a part-time basis in all areas for purposes of medical examinations and treatment, but the number varies as circumstances require and cannot, therefore, be precisely stated for each area. Subject to this qualification I am sending the hon. Member a statement containing the particulars desired.

asked the Home Secretary if the Treasury has given sanction for obtaining clerks from the Civil Service clerical grades to fill vacancies made by retirement of clerks and schoolmasters in the prison service; and whether, in filling clerical vacancies, he will give consideration to ex-service clerks who are out of work.

Clerical posts in prisons are at present filled by prison officers selected by a competitive examination confined to serving officers. The question whether this system shall be continued is under consideration, but I am not as yet in a position to make any announcement on the subject.

asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether it is the intention of the Government to amend Section 4 of the Superannuation Act so that employés in the Admiralty and engineering establishments of the Government may receive gratuities after having given seven years' continuous service.

No, Sir. The Section already provides for the award of gratuities to unestablished employés who have completed seven years of reckonable service, and who are discharged in consequence of the abolition of their employment.

asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, whether the Commissioners of Inland Revenue have received representations from the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers and Landed Property Agents asking that members who have passed the examinations of that society may be regarded as eligible to apply for posts as third-class valuers; and whether in view of the high standard of the examination in question, he is prepared to grant this request.

asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury why appointments as third-class valuers in the Inland Revenue Department are restricted to candidates who have passed the examinations of the Surveyors' Institution, the Auctioneers' Institute, or the Land Agents' Society; and whether he is prepared to extend the field of recruitment to candidates who have passed the equivalent examination of the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers and Landed Property Agents.

In the appointment of persons to fill posts which involve duties of a professional character the responsibility rests upon my advisers of ensuring in the public interest that the qualifications which these persons possess are such as to command the highest degree of recognition among the members of that profession. Representations in the sense suggested by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Duckworth) have been received from this society, but its incorporation is so recent that my advisers could not comply with the request without anticipating the judgment of the profession on the weight to be attached to the examination in question.

asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the principles upon which exemption from Income Tax is allowed on funds of scientific institutions and societies?

The Income Tax Acts do not provide specifically for the exemption of scientific institutions and societies from Income Tax on the income derived from their investments. The question whether such an institution or society is entitled to exemption depends upon whether or not it comes within the provisions of Section 37 of the Income Tax Act, 1918, as being a body established for charitable purposes only. In this connection I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 15th December last to a question by the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Clayton), of which I am sending him a copy. I would add that a decision has recently been given in the King's Bench Division upholding the decision of the Special Commissioners of Income Tax in the two cases referred to, and that an appeal to the Court of Appeal is pending.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Governor of Kenya Colony has reported to him as to the boundaries to which the Samburu tribe are to be limited; whether these boundaries have now been definitely laid down; and, if so, what are these boundaries?

An area of about 530,000 acres is to be definitely reserved for the Samburu, and for the present, pending further examination of that area, the tribe are to be permitted to use a further area of about 600,000 acres to the south of it. I have not received a precise definition of the boundaries of the area which is to be reserved, but it lies in the northern part of the Laikipia district, and I understand that it will be bounded on the North and East by the Boundary of the old Masai Reserve and on the West by the Baringo district.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to a recent statement of the Governor of Kenya Colony explaining the Kenya Native Land Trust Bill; whether he can explain more fully on what grounds the Governor determined that the future requirements of the natives for land should in part be met through the development by water boring in areas now dry; whether the Governor intends to set aside sums for such development; and whether the alternative policy of reserving sufficient land in the fertile areas still unoccupied to allow for the probable expansion of the natives has been considered?

I assume that the hon. Member is referring to statements made by the Governor of Kenya in the Legislative Council on,18th May when speaking on the Native Lands Trust Bill. I am not in a position to amplify those statements; but, as regards the last part of the question, I would point out that in the same speech the Governor stated that he had no hesitation in saying that the reserves as now gazetted were amply sufficient not only for the present population, but also for a very large .increase of that population, and I understand that when making the statements referred to he was thinking not of the reservation of additional land for natives, but of the possibility of communities of natives "hiving off" from the reserves and developing under conditions different from those in the reserves. In reply to the third part of the question, provision of more than £11,000 is made in the current year's estimates of the colony for the water boring branch of the Public Works Department, and there is a vote of £8,500 for the purchase of boring plants.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the present position as regards the Stock and Produce Theft Ordinance which came before the Legislative Council of Kenya Colony in May last; whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that in this draft ordinance the owners or managers of farms are empowered to apprehend, detain, and hand over to the police, without a warrant, any natives found in possession of produce which they have cause to suspect to have been stolen or unlawfully obtained from their farms; that the onus of proving that such produce and, in proclaimed areas, all stock in their possession is legally theirs shall rest upon the natives; and whether, in view of the two new principles introduced in this ordinance that civilians may, without warrant, arrest persons whom they suspect and that the onus of proving innocence rests on the arrested person, he will give it his careful consideration before sanctioning its proclamation?

The Stock and Produce Draft (Amendment) Ordinance, 1928, was pased by the Legislative Council of Kenya in May, and assent was given to it by the Governor on 9th June. The description in the hon. Member's question does not represent quite accurately the provisions of the ordinance as enacted. I will have a copy of the ordinance placed in the Library of the House; but I would point out now that the law applies not only to natives but to all persons; that the powers of apprehension are exercisable only if the person found in possession of produce is on a farm or in its immediate vicinity; and that it is only if the circumstances are such as may reasonably lead to the belief that the produce or stock in question has been stolen that the onus of proof of lawful possession rests upon the person concerned. As regards the last part of the question, I would remind the hon. Member that the principles are not new, and that there are precedents in the legislation of other Colonies.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the present position as regards the Gambia Protectorate (Amendment) Bill; whether his attention has been drawn to a petition, presented on behalf not only of the native community but also of resident Europeans, against the abolition of the right of appeal in criminal cases from the Courts of Summary Jurisdiction to the Supreme Court, and to the fact that the amendments since introduced are regarded as inadequate; and whether, in view of the fact that the right of appeal, as introduced 15 years ago, has, as in the recent Sukutu case, resulted in the reversal of verdicts, he will disallow this proposed legislation?

No petition on the subject to which the hon. Member refers has been received. The present position is that, by the amending Ordinance introduced and passed in June of this year and now in force, an appeal lies to the Supreme Court from any native tribunal which has been constituted by the Commissioner sitting alone or with one or more native members. In the case of native tribunals which are composed of native members only, an appeal lies to the Commissioner, who has also power to transfer the case to himself at his discretion. In any case, the findings of all native tribunals, however constituted, are reviewed by the Judge of the Supreme Court.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will call for a full Report regarding the death of Reginald Thompson, of Gosport, at Haslar Hospital, on 17th April, who is alleged to have died as a result of vaccination?

The answer is in the affirmative.

asked the Postmaster-General if he will give his reasons for removing telegraph and telephone facilities from Llangynidr; and whether, in the case of his finally deciding to remove these facilities from the post office, he will be willing to erect a public automatic call-box similar to those being erected in towns?

Telegraph and telephone facilities have been maintained since 1915 at a considerable loss to the taxpayer. The receipts do not justify the retention of both services and the telegraph office has accordingly been closed. The telephone call office (from which telegrams can be dictated) is being maintained for a short period while the local parish council are considering the terms quoted for its continuance. I regret that the expenses of a kiosk would be greater than those of the existing call office.

asked the Postmaster-General the total amount of capital invested in the Post Office services as at 31st March, 1928; the approximate amount placed to depreciation and reserve; the percentage of interest, calculated upon the capital invested before arriving at the net profit for the year; and the amount of such net profit?

The following are the figures for which my hon. Friend asks:

asked the Minister of Transport whether he has received the Report from the Board appointed to consider the Port of London Authority's recommendation that oil tankers should be permitted to proceed up the River Thames as far as Purfleet; and, if so, whether he proposes to accept or reject the recommendation?

I have considered the Report referred to in consultation with the other Government Departments concerned and have reached the following decision:—

(1) That an alteration in the existing limit of navigation for petroleum tank ships is undesirable.

(2) That ships carrying not more than 1,000 tons of petroleum spirit or petroleum spirit and other petroleum in barrels or drums should be allowed to navigate the River Thames to and from Bow Creek.

(3) That ships carrying not more than 2,000 gallons of petroleum spirit or petroleum spirit and other petroleum in barrels or drums should be allowed to navigate throughout the Port of London.

asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the refusal of the Swansea Board of Guardians to give relief to widows and infirm persons on the ground that the income which is brought into the house is over 10s. per person residing therein; and whether he will issue regulations prohibiting the refusal of relief in such cases when the person seeking relief is not related to, or is not a legal dependant of, the person earning the income?

The reply to both parts of the question is in the negative. In any event, I have no power to issue such a regulation as is suggested in the second part.

asked the Minister of Health whether, in regard to the Food and Drugs (Adulteration) Bill [ Lords ], any consultation has taken place with the Institute of Chemistry, or the Society of Analysts, or other similar bodies; and, if not, for what reason.

No, Sir. As the object of the Bill is not the amendment but the consolidation of the existing law, its preparation was a purely legal matter, and it was not considered necessary to consult the bodies mentioned. I understand, however, that the Society of Public Analysts communicated with the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills and that the Committee considered the Society's views on the Bill.

asked the Minister of Health whether the appeal of Mrs. M. Pullen, 53, Preston Street, Brighton (Appeal No. 38,827), regarding her application for pension is receiving the attention of his Department; and whether a settlement is expected to be reached shortly?

The reply to both parts of the question is in the affirmative.

asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the effluvia coming from the sewage disposal works of the West Kent Sewerage Board constitutes a menace to the health of the inhabitants of the parish of West Thurrock; and will he take steps in this matter?

I am not aware that there is any menace to health from this cause. I understand that officials of the District Council and the Sewerage Board have been conferring on the subject, and I am ascertaining the position.

asked the Minister of Agriculture what foreign agricultural products have been recommended for marking by the Committee set up under the Merchandise Marks Act?

The agricultural and horticultural products which have been so far recommended for marking under the Merchandise Marks Act, 1926, are apples, honey, currants, sultanas and raisins, oat-products and, with certain reservations, eggs.

asked the Minister of Health the expenditure in each of the last five years of each Metropolitan borough council on maternity and child-welfare services; the amount of Exchequer contribution in each case; and the maternal mortality and infant mortality rates in each case and year?

The following statement gives the figures asked for in the first two parts of the question. As regards the last part of the question, I would point out that full particulars as to maternal mortality (births and maternal deaths) from which maternal mortality rates could be derived, together with infantile mortality rates, are already published in respect of each Metropolitan borough in Tables 13, 14 and 20 of Part I of the Registrar's General Statistical Review.

asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if he will call for a Report from His Majesty's Consular representative at Buenos Aires as to the steps which the Argentine Government has taken or proposes to take under the provisions of the Mitre Law in respect of the Buenos Aires Great Southern and the Central Argentine Railways; and whether such steps will affect in any way the British investors in the said railways?

His Majesty's Ambassador at Buenos Aires has been requested by telegram to furnish a report upon this subject. On receipt of it I will communicate with my hon. Friend.

asked the right hon. Member for Cheltenham, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, whether any synthetic or reconstituted cream is used in the refreshment department of this House; and, if so, whether he will take steps to see that only natural cream is used in future?

In reply to the question of the hon. and gallant Member for Ludlow, it is not the practice of the Kitchen Committee to supply synthetic cream. The cream used in the House is unadulterated and a product of British agriculture.