House Of Commons
Monday, 14th July, 1930.
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
Private Business
Ascot District Gas and Electricity Bill [ Lords],
Middlessex County Council Bill [ Lords],
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
Shoreham Harbour Bill [ Lords] (Certified Bill),
As amended, considered; King's Consent signified; Bill read the Third time (pursuant to the Order of the House of 11th December), and passed, with Amendments.
Bradford Corporation (Trolley Vehicles) Provisional Order Bill,
As amended, considered, to be read the Third time To-morrow.
Aberdeen Corporation Order Confirmation Bill,
Considered; to be read the Third time To-morrow.
Oral Answers To Questions
India
Communications, Afghanistan
1.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he has received any reports to the effect that the communications in Afghanistan between Jalalabad and Dakka are in any way at present interrupted; and can he give particulars?
I have received no such reports.
Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there has been any report of disturbances by the Shinwaris?
Perhaps the hon. Member will put that question on the Paper.
Police Pay
2.
asked the Secretary of State for India if he will suggest to the Government of India the desirability of raising the pay of all ranks of the Indian police as a recognition of their loyalty and devotion?
Except as regards the Indian Police Service, whose pay is fixed in accordance with the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India, 1924, the pay of the police is a matter for the local governments in India and is subject to the vote of Provincial legislatures.
Peshawar Inquiry
4.
asked the Secretary of State for India what were the terms of reference laid before the two judges prior to the recent inquiry into events at Peshawar?
5.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the report of Sir Shah Muhammed Suleiman and Mr. Panckridge on the disturbances at Peshawar city on the 23rd April, together with the evidence which was given before the inquiry?
8.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he has received the report of the Peshawar Inquiry Committee; and, if so, what action he proposes to take in the matter?
The terms of reference are quoted at the beginning of the report of the Peshawar Disturbances Inquiry Committee, a copy of which has been placed in the Library. I will add a copy of the Government of India's covering resolution, showing their conclusions, as soon as I receive it.
Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that these inquiries into the actions of local officials tend to undermine the prestige of these officials?
Does the Secretary of State propose to take any action with regard to the use of armoured cars?
I have answered that question in the first part of my reply, saying that I will put in the Library a copy of the Resolution of the Government of India.
May I ask for a reply to the last part of my question?
I will look into that matter, but I am afraid I cannot answer that at the moment.
Director Of Information
6.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether, since the appointment of an Indian to the position of director of information to the Government of India, there has been under consideration any alteration in the practice followed in the past of entrusting to the holder of this post the preparation of the statement on the moral and material progress and condition of India for presentation to Parliament?
It is not contemplated that the duty of compiling the moral and material progress report should be removed from the Department of Public Information in India.
May I ask if the Director of Public Information is to prepare this himself as in the past, or whether someone subordinate to the director is to be put in charge?
I think the report is to be prepared on the responsibility of the Department.
Wireless Stations, Poona And Dhond
7.
asked the Secretary of State for India if he will give particulars as to the relationship between, and the respective responsibility of, the Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department and the Imperial and International Communications, Limited, in respect of the beam transmitting and receiving stations at Poona and Dhond?
These stations are owned and worked by the Indian Radio Telegraph Company under a licence granted by the Director-General of Posts and Telegraphs, India. Although Imperial and International Communications Limited have, it is understood, a sub stantial holding in the Indian Company, they have no direct responsibility for the working of these stations.
Statutory Commission's Report
9.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether the question of translating the Simon report into leading foreign and Indian languages was considered before the completion of the report; whether the Montagu-Chelmsford report and/or a summary of it was translated into the principal Indian languages; and whether any decision has been reached in the matter of translating the Simon report?
The answer to the first and third parts of the question is in the negative. I believe the answer to the second to be in the affirmative, but I have not complete information.
May I ask when my right hon. Friend expects to reach a decision with reference to the last part of my question?
The Government of India have already communicated with the Provincial Governments on the matter.
What is preventing the translation of the report into foreign languages; into European languages, for example?
I am not sure that that is so forward as the other matter, but it is forming the subject of correspondence.
Why on earth cannot the right hon. Gentleman decide on the publication? Surely it is a simple matter to translate a Parliamentary Paper.
It may be a simple matter to the hon. and gallant Member, but there are certain complications.
Situation
10.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he will give the Rouse the latest information he has as to the conditions in India?
I am circulating a statement of the Government of India's appreciation of the situation up to 12th July.
Following is the statement:
Appreciation of the situation by the Government of India up to 12th July, 1930.
1. North-West Frontier Province.—(A) Tribal.—The week has seen a recrudescence of hostile activity in South Waziristan in Upper Shaktu Area. A hostile Shabi Khel Mulla named Gulin, succeeded in collecting a lashkar of Shabi Khel Kikarai Jalal Khel and Nazar Khel Mahsuds. Simultaneously, Mulla Kundalai with Ramzan, Sadde Khan and other hostile leaders collected a lashkar in the Maidan and Baddar valley area on the evening of 6th July. Gulin's lashkar invested the Scouts post at Sararogha, and during the night fired shots into post. They destroyed a neighbouring Khassadar post and smashed water pumps on which post depends for water supply. On morning 7th July, Kundalai's lashkar from Maidan and Baddar entered Marobi village on main Razmak-Sararogha road, attacked Khassadar post at Shamak Raghza and destroyed the road bridge above Marobi. The lashkar then joined forces with Gulin at Sararogha on evening of 7th July. A strong party under Sadde Khan and others was detached from Sararogha and moved down road, their objectives apparently being Kotkai and Ahnai Scouts posts, and the Khassadar posts south of Sararogha.
On 8th July, main lashkar was still in position round Sararogha. In late evening they again concerted attack on Scouts post and a gun belonging to Sadde Khan was brought into action. The gun was put out of action by machine gun fire from the post and lashkar withdrew to a distance, but kept up long range sniping. Lashkar withdrew northwards on morning 9th July, but in evening of same day returned and made further determined attack on Scouts post. They were repulsed with considerable loss, including it is said, destruction of gunners owing to bursting of Sadde Khan's gun. Lashkar then retired towards Piazha, captured and destroyed Khassadar posts at Piazha and Bibizai and invested Khassadar posts at Shamak and Ladha. On the advent of the Razmak column on 10th July, lashkar withdrew towards Maidan. Noticeable feature of operation has been co-operation on part of friendly sections and the loyalty of Khassadars. On 7th July, Khassadar posts at Maidan, Bibizai and Shamak Raghza successfully defied Kundalai's lashkar, and friendly Abdullai of Makin posted force of 200 men at Tauda China in order to deny lashkar admittance to Makin. In neighbourhood of Sararogha, Khassadars and friendly sections have co-operated with Scouts. On 10th July, Abdullai of Makin moved out in force to assist Khassadars at Shamak and co-operated with Razmak Column. Continuous air action has been maintained against lashkars and areas which supplied them, and numerous casualties have been inflicted on lashkars.
On Peshawar border, Alingar Fakir is still active. By 10th July, he had again collected lashkar about 1,000 strong at Agra Shamozai, between Malakand and Swat River, with intention of re-occupying old position in caves near Pallai. In Jindai Khwar warning was issued that action would be taken if gathering did not disperse. Haji of Turangzai has announced his intention to leave Mohmand country if Mohmands do not join him in. Jehad. Among Afridis, general intention now appears to be to collect representative jirga for discussion with Government. Maliks and elders making efforts to bring this about, but are encountering opposition from Mullas and young bloods. Some slight anti-Government activity reported amongst Ali Khel and Malla Khel sections of Orakzai Tribe. On 8th July, patrol of Kurram Militia was fired on by trans-border gang.
(B) Internal.—Bannu District reports slight recrudescence of political meetings in villages. Five Congress volunteers organising picketing by villagers in Bannu City, were arrested and sentenced. On night 8th July, a slight explosion occurred in Peshawar City outside the house of an Honorary Magistrate, but very little damage was done. Mardan reports a dacoity at Dagi in Swabi Tabsil, in which dacoits were disguised as police; otherwise position generally returning to normal.
In other parts of India, Civil Disobedience movement pursues its course. There has been increased activity in some places and lull in others, but on whole recent indications of decline have been maintained. In several towns renewed energy has been imparted by the return of students from their vacations. They have given some trouble in Calcutta and Bombay. Their chief activities are to prevent the attendance of pupils at Government schools and colleges and of candidates at Government examinations. It is reported that in Bengal, as a whole, Civil Disobedience movement is on decrease, but that tendency towards violence is increasing, and there are signs that terrorist party may become more active. Madras Presidency also reports definite slackening in movement due, however, more to vigorous action by authorities than to voluntary abandonment by its adherents.
Similar improvement is manifested in other Provinces, except in Bombay and Central Provinces. Further clashes have taken place in Bombay Presidency between authorities and public, most serious of which occurred on 11th in Bombay, when Congress volunteers persisted in their attempts to hold procession and meeting in honour of Garhwali soldiers who have been convicted of mutiny. In spite of orders of Commissioner of Police forbidding procession, volunteers made persistent efforts to defy authority and police had to make several charges before intention was abandoned. There was collision during week between police and crowd in Poona and, owing to its aggresive attitude, crowd had to be dispersed by force. In Gujerat, on the other hand, there are signs of improvement, and in several districts village officers, who had been persuaded or coerced resign their offices, are withdrawing their resignations in considerable numbers. In Central Provinces an organised movement has been started to defy Forest Laws.
While the movement remains in principle non-violent, incidents are continually occurring which show rank and file, especially in rural areas, cannot be restrained from acts of violence. This most commonly takes form of attacks on small parties of police, and four or five incidents of this nature have been reported during week from Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and Madras.
In Punjab, agitation in regard to the Sisganj Gurdwara affair has been revived. It will be remembered that on 6th May, in course of rioting at Delhi, firing had to be directed towards building in order to protect, from murderous shower of brickbats proceeding from Gurdwara, party of police who, at great risk to themselves, were going to rescue of their comrades. This incident has been used by extremists to stir up ill-feeling towards Government, and band of 100 Akalis started this week from Amritsar to march to Delhi. There is at present no reason to suppose Sikhs, as whole, are seriously affected.
Gandhi Cap
11.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether the wearing of the Gandhi cap has been prohibited in any part of India?
Beyond Press reports I have no information on this point except that the wearing of congress emblems was forbidden while martial law was in force in Sholapur.
May I ask whether my right hon. Friend is aware that in the district of Guntur—[HON. MEMBERS: "Do not read!"]—I am not reading—an official order has been issued prohibiting the wearing of the Gandhi cap?
I have seen a quotation to that effect, but, as I have said, I have no other information on the subject.
I have a copy in my possession, and I will forward it to the right hon. Gentleman. Does he really consider that the wearing of a simple cap of this kind is dangerous to British administration in India?
Put it on!
Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries into this matter, and, if need be, make representations to the Government of India to the effect that this is quite unnecessary?
Confepence
12.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he has any information as to whether it is the Viceroy's intention to consult leaders of the congress party regarding attendance at the round-table conference?
13.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India propose to grant a general amnesty for all political prisoners as a preliminary to the convening of the proposed round-table conference; and, if not, can he state what prospects are there that the representative political parties in India will appoint representatives to attend the round-table conference?
The policy of the Government was stated on 1st November last, namely, that the conference should be representative of the different parties and interests in British India and that policy remains unchanged. As to question No. 13 I pointed out to my hon. Friend on 23rd June the difficulty of considering his suggestion.
Is it not the case that the Viceroy in his statement said that he would consult the various sections of Indian opinion; and is not the Congress party one of the sections which should be consulted?
The Viceroy is in constant communication with the leaders of Indian opinion, but beyond that I can say nothing.
Is it not time, in view of the end of the present Session, that Parliament should know definitely what is going to be done in regard to getting the party leaders together?
May I ask if the attention of the right hon. Gentleman has been called to the statement of the party leaders in the Legislature at Simla, a most able and statesmanlike document, dealing with the question of amnesty and putting it in relation to the calling off of the Civil Disobedience Campaign; and whether, in view of the very timely nature of the statement, he will consider making any special response?
Before the right hon. Gentleman replies, will he make sure that an amnesty would ameliorate the present situation?
May I ask whether it is not the fact—
Order!
Russia
Debts And Claims (Committee)
14.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any intimation from the Soviet Government as to the composition of the delegation to negotiate on claims and counterclaims; if so, whether he will state the names of the Soviet delegates as well as the British delegates; and what the terms of reference of the committee of investigation are to be?
15.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the names of the British members of the joint committee to negotiate with the Soviet representatives on claims and counterclaims?
In answering these questions I would like to express my regret for the unavoidable delay in the announcement of the names. The following gentlemen have consented to serve on the joint committee:
Lord Goschen, formerly Governor of Madras, a director of the Westminster Bank and the Ottoman Bank. Sir John Dewrance, chairman of Messrs. Babcock & Wilcox, general engineers. Mr. C. T. Cramp, Industrial General Secretary, National Union of Railwaymen. Sir William Max Muller, a former Minister in His Majesty's Diplomatic Service. Sir Frederick Leith-Ross, representing His Majesty's Treasury. Arrangements are being made for the interests immediately concerned to be represented on the following advisory subcommittees: (a) sub-committee on claims in respect of property and concessions nationalised by the Soviet Government; (b) sub-committee on claims of bondholders; (c) sub-committee on private debts and claims other than those dealt with by sub-committees (a) and (b). There will be a fourth sub-committee dealing with inter-Governmental debts. This committee, on the British side, will consist exclusively of members of His Majesty's Treasury. The expert members of the Soviet delegation are:- Professor E. Preobrashensky.
- Professor Dolgov.
- Mr. G. Arkus.
- Professor S. Chlonov.
- Mr. M. Gourevitch.
Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake that any agreement come to between the delegates will be submitted to this House before it is ratified?
I have more than once stated that all agreements when made into treaties have to be ratified and submitted to the House before ratification takes place.
Does that mean both Houses of Parliament?
In view of the extremely isolated position of the one Labour representative whose name has been mentioned, does not the right hon. Gentleman think it would be an improvement if the composition of the committee was left to capitalists?
Are these committees likely to sit forthwith? Are they likely to meet before Parliament assembles again? Otherwise, valuable time will be lost.
That is a matter about which we shall have to consult the members of the committee, and we are not losing any time, because the British representatives are meeting this afternoon. With regard to the isolation mentioned, these are advisory committees, and they have to report to the main committee and to myself as the plenipotentiary representing this Government.
Has any progress been made towards a solution of this problem during the 12 months of negotiation between the Foreign Office and Russia?
Was the right hon. Gentleman rightly understood to say that all treaties entered into have to be submitted to this House for ratification?
No. I said that I had intimated, in reply to a previous question, that in the case of treaties entered into now our Government has undertaken that before ratification at least they had to be submitted for ratification, and that, if there was a desire to discuss them, they could be discussed.
Does that mean both Houses of Parliament?
Timber Exports (United States)
16.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any report from His Majesty's Ambassador in Washington regarding the refusal of the Government of the United States to sanction the landing of timber produced by forced labour or prison labour in Russia?
His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington reported on the 10th of July that the United States Treasury decided late on the 7th instant that shipments of Russian lumber which had already reached United States ports should be admitted. The United States Treasury also announced that shipments now in transit to United States destinations might likewise be admitted on their arrival in the absence of any instructions to the contrary in the meantime.
Have they not intimated that any other cargo for sale henceforth will not be admitted? Would not that decision be worth taking into consideration in the case of goods imported into this country, when those goods have been produced by convict labour?
That is another question, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman had better put it on the Paper.
Propaganda
18.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if arrangements can be made for the report on the inquiry which has been set up by the Government with respect to Soviet propaganda to be issued in time for the question to be debated by Parliament before the Adjournment?
24.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now state what progress has been made with the machinery set up by him to inquire into hostile propaganda by the Soviet Government?
These investigations are still proceeding, but I am not yet in a position to say when they are likely to be terminated. With regard to the question of a report, I can only call the hon. and gallant Member's attention to my replies of the 26th of May and the 2nd of July, in which I said that His Majesty's Government would decide on the basis of the inquiries what action, if any, will be appropriate.
In view of the fact that this inquiry has been- going on for many months, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he will be able to make any announcement before the House rises?
I am afraid that I shall not, because hon. Members are never tired of reminding me that propaganda is going on, and therefore we must continue the inquiry.
Does that mean that we shall never have any result from this machinery, and that the Government will always be ineffectually trying to catch up with the propaganda?
No, it does not quite mean that. The House will have to give the Government an opportunity of considering the report when the report is issued.
League Of Nations
Minority Treaties
17.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received a statement on the subject of minorities, signed by 68 Members of Parliament., asking him to place on the agenda of the forthcoming Assembly of the League of Nations an item proposing a commission of inquiry into the working of the minority treaties; whether he has been able to give this subject his consideration; and, if so, with what result?
Yes, Sir. I have received the widely-signed memorial referred to in my hon. Friend's question, and it is now receiving my careful atten tion. The attitude to be adopted by His Majesty's Government in this matter is at present under consideration.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that of some 40 petitions presented last year only two were considered by the Council, and will the right hon. Gentleman bear that in mind so as, if possible, to get more effective and more swiftly-moving machinery?
I will bear that in mind, but the hon. Member's information is new.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his predecessor in the last Government considered memoranda on the Polish minorities sent to him by invitation of Members of this House; and has any decision been come to in the Foreign Office on action to be taken with regard to the treatment of these minorities?
That is an entirely separate question and must be put on the Paper.
M Ochmann (Petition)
22.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Council of the League of Nations, at their meeting in May, 1930, examined the petition of M. Ochmann, a lawyer of Upper Silesia; if he will state the nature of his complaint; and what action, if any, was taken by the British members present?
Monsieur Ochmann's complaint is that the permission to plead before the Lubliniec Kreis Court previously accorded to him by the Polish authorities was subsequently withdrawn without due cause. The Polish Government have offered to institute an inquiry so that the matter may be considered at the next session of the Council of the League of Nations; and the Council agreed to this course.
Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether certain evidence was suppressed by the Secretary-General of the League, and will the right hon. Gentleman, as a member of the Council, call for the publication of this evidence, so that the matter may be treated with fairness and impartiality?
I have no information that anything has been suppressed, but I will make inquiries.
Poland (Ukrainian Minority)
23.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has yet received a report of the result of two petitions submitted to the League of Nations by the Ukrainian minority in Poland, dated respectively 15th January, 1929, concerning the liquidation of Ukrainian elementary schools, and 2nd March, 1929, regarding the abolition of autonomous administration; and why there has been delay in dealing with these petitions?
I have not yet received a report on these petitions, and I have no information as to the present position of the matter; but, if my hon. Friend wishes, I will make inquiries at Geneva.
Is my right hon. Friend aware that there has been a great deal of suffering and persecution for five years in this part of the Ukraine, and cannot he expedite the inquiry by the League of Nations?
I do not see how I can expedite the inquiry. I promised to make inquiry at Geneva.
Is a League of Nations inquiry as slow as inquiries by the present Government?
Palestine (Mandates Commission's Report)
49.
asked the Prime Minister whether the report of the Permanent Mandates Commission on Palestine will be made available as a White Paper?
The report to which the right hon. Gentleman refers is a confidential document submitted to the Council of the League of Nations by the Permanent Mandates Commission, which is a purely advisory body. I am advised that it would be improper for His Majesty's Government to print it as a White Paper until it has been published by the Council. I understand that this will not be done till after their September meeting.
China
Missionaries
19.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now state the position regarding the two lady missionaries captured by brigands at Chungan, China, and particularly say what information he has received as to their safety and as to the possibility of their being released?
I have little information beyond the fact that the two ladies were captured by brigands in the neighbourhood named. It was at first reported that they had been detained to look after the sick, and that there was no need for anxiety, but a subsequent report states that a ransom is being demanded. As already stated, representations have been made both to the local authorities and to the Central Government.
Will the right hon. Gentleman be receiving the report on this matter at an early date?
I am hoping so.
What ransom was demanded?
I cannot say.
Kulangsu International Settlement
25.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Chinese Government has opened up negotiations with His Majesty's Government regarding the rendition of the international settlement at Kulangsu, opposite Amoy; how many and which foreign Powers are interested in this settlement; and whether His Majesty's Government has any objection to its rendition if demanded by the Chinese Government?
The foreign Powers besides China, interested in the international settlement at Kulangsu, are Japan, Great Britain, America, Germany, France, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway. China has not opened negotiations regarding rendition. She has in recent years put forward various proposals for increased Chinese representation in the municipal administration, which has been effected in consequence. Any further proposals she may make would certainly meet with a sympathetic response from His Majesty's Government.
When the right hon. Gentleman uses the word "America," does he mean the United States of America?
Yes.
Egypt
20.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any British troops have been employed in the recent disturbances in Egypt; and, if so, where and to what extent?
The reply to the first part of the question is in the negative. The second part, therefore, does not arise.
Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the undesirability of employing these troops in any attempt to thwart parliamentary government in Egypt?
London Naval Conference (France And Italy)
26.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can make any further statement about the conversations between the French and Italian Governments in continuance of the London Naval Conference?
As I informed my hon. and gallant Friend on the 18th of June, the Italian Government offered to suspend, while the negotiations for which the Naval Conference was adjourned were proceeding, the laying down of any units of their 1930 naval programme, provided similar action was taken by the French Government. I am now able to add that the French Government have informed the Italian Government that, in accordance with arrangements already made, no ship of the French programme will be laid down before December. I have no further statement to make on the subject at the present time.
52.
asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the acceptance by the Government of the French Republic of the proposal for a naval shipbuilding holiday by the Royal Italian Government; and what action is to be taken by His Majesty's Government, especially with regard to our own proposed new warship building?
His Majesty's Government have learned with pleasure of the arrangements being made by the Governments of France and Italy with a view to facilitating a resumption of discussions on the naval question. His Majesty's Government hope that these negotiations will complete the work of the London Naval Conference and apply the principles of naval limitation of Part III of the London Naval Treaty to all parties to the Conference. It is not necessary that His Majesty's Government should take any action in this connection with regard to the naval programme for 1930 announced for this country, since this programme is purely for necessary replacements within the reduced tonnage limits imposed by Part III of the Treaty. That this programme would be put in hand was well understood by all the Powers represented at the London Conference.
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the French ships which are not to be laid down till the end of the year are also described as for replacement purposes, and would it not help matters if we postponed also?
As a matter of fact, the French Government have never said that the ships that they are going to lay down, the ships in their naval programme, were for replacement purposes only, but, on the other hand, it was perfectly clearly understood by both the French and the Italian Governments, and by the United States and Japanese Governments, that the programme which is now 'before this House was included in Part III and is in no sense a competitive programme.
While thanking my right hon. Friend for his full answer, may I ask whether the fact that these other Powers understood that we contemplated building certain ships compels us to build them?
That has nothing to do with the question.
On a point of Order. May not a question be asked from this side of the House?
We have had several questions on the subject already.
No question has been asked from this side.
Trade And Commerce
Export Credits (Russia)
27.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department the ratio to the total amount of all risks outstanding under the Export Credit Guarantee Scheme now represented by the British Government's guarantee of the credit of the Soviet delegation?
No, Sir. I do not think it would be desirable to give this information.
Are we to understand that the guarantees of the credit of the Soviet Government by His Majesty's Government are in excess of £2,500,000? Were not those figures given the other day?
The figures were not given exactly on those lines.
Is the reason for not giving the figures, the fact that they disclose a policy contrary to the undertaking given by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that his Majesty's Government would not guarantee the credit of the Soviet Government?
No, Sir. That is not the case, because the House has been informed already of the amount of business done with Russian exporters.
While we may well understand the objection to giving particulars of an individual transaction, what possible objection can there be to giving the totals?
Because it is not thought advisable to give the figures for a particular country. At certain times, quite apart from the question of Russia, the Department does not wish to give facilities to export to certain countries, and it would be very unfortunate to have to announce that fact to the House of Commons.
They prefer exporting to Russia—giving advantages to Russia.
Boot And Shoe Trade (Russian Order)
28.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he will visit Northampton and endeavour to persuade the local firms to accept from the Soviet Delegation their order for 3,000,000 pairs of boots and shoes subject to payment five years after delivery of the goods?
No, Sir. It is not the policy of my Department to encourage exporters to give credits far in excess of those normally required for the goods which they are exporting.
Am I to presume that the Government have no faith whatever in Russia paying up her obligations?
29.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether any negotiations are in progress with the Soviet delegation in order to purchase 3,000,000 pairs of boots and shoes of British manufacture on the terms of the order already offered to Northampton firms?
No, Sir, not so far as my Department is concerned.
Will the hon. Gentleman take an early opportunity of instructing the hon. Members concerned as to the real facts?
I think that hon. Members already know the facts.
South Africa (Economic Mission)
31.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether, in view of the success of Lord d'Abernon's mission to South America, it is intended to send any further missions overseas, particularly to Empire countries?
The Overseas Trade Development Council have recommended to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade that an economic mission should visit the Union of South Africa. This proposal has been welcomed by the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, and His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom have invited Lord Kirkley to lead the mission. Lard Kirkley has accepted the Government's invitation. It is intended that the mission shall leave this country early in August and shall visit Southern and Northern Rhodesia as well as the Union. A further statement will be made in due course regarding the personnel of the mission.
Is it the hon. Gentleman's intention to continue this policy and expand it?
We are considering the advisability of sending missions to other parts of the world.
Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind the needs of the cotton trade in forming this delegation?
Yes, we are talking all these matters into consideration.
Can the hon. Gentleman say who will be the other members of the mission?
I hope to be in a position to state the names in a few days' time.
Economic Missions
32.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether it is the intention of his Department to despatch an economic mission to Soviet Russia?
No such mission is at present under contemplation.
In view of the very prominent part which the revival of trade with Russia bore in the recent Election campaign, will the hon. Gentleman say why it is not proposed to send a mission to Russia?
I am afraid that would be a rather long explanation to give in answer to a question.
Would the hon. Gentleman ask the Russians to send one to him?
33.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether, in connection with the consideration of the despatch of an economic mission to the Far East, the appropriate organisations representing industry were consulted or whether consultation only took place with individual industrialists?
The recommendation to send an economic mission to the Far East was made by the Overseas Trade Development Council. On that Council are leading industrialists representative of industry as a whole. Subsequent consultations have taken place with leading organisations affected, and in particular, in view of the importance of the cotton trade, with the Joint Committee of Cotton Trade Organisations.
Has the hon. Gentleman consulted any other trade organisation, such as the Association of Chambers of Commerce or the Federation of British Industries, representing industry as a whole?
rose—
Answer!
Are any representatives of the Co-operative movement being asked to join this mission?
Other organisations have been consulted. If the hon. Member for Moseley (Mr. Hannon) wants to know which organisations, perhaps he will put down a question.
How many Labour representatives are on this Overseas Trade Development Council, to whose recommendations so much importance is attached?
On a point of Order. I put to the hon. Gentleman a question which, I think, was perfectly in order, arising out of a previous answer. Can I not have an answer?
Perhaps the hon. Member for East Leyton (Mr. Brockway) will give me notice of his question.
Does the hon. Gentleman also require notice of my question?
Iron And Steel Industry
34.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether his attention has been drawn to the wage reduction in the German iron and steel industries in Upper Silesia and to the general wage revision in other industries; and has he yet obtained any information as to the general cut in German export prices other than in iron and steel?
My attention has been drawn to the information published in the Press regarding the movement for wage reductions in the Upper Silesian iron and steel industry. The Commercial Counsellor at Berlin was recently requested to report developments. So far, however, no information has been received from him beyond that which has already appeared.
Will the hon. Gentleman take steps to get that information and make it available to the Association of British Chambers of Commerce so that we may be prepared to compete with a cut in our own prices?
If any information can be obtained which it is desirable to make available, of course it will be made available.
In what way does the hon. Gentleman propose to provide our export firms with early information as to what their German competitors are quoting?
| Date of Sale. | Description. | Purchaser. | Area. | Purchase Price. | |||||||||
| Acres. | £ | s. | d. | ||||||||||
| 1922 and 1924. | Town Property* | … | … | Various | … | … | … | About 35 | 35,836 | 10 | 0 | ||
| 1927 | … | Lighthouse and Nene Lodge Farms.† | Commissioners of Crown Lands. | 819·578 | 38,000 | 0 | 0 | ||||||
| 1927 | … | Chalk House Farm | … | Air Ministry | … | … | 94·978 | 4,000 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 1929 | … | Scott's Holt | … | … | Sutton Bridge U.D.C. | … | 2·550 | 150 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 1930 | … | — | do. | … | 5·266 | 533 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| 1923 to 1928. | — | Various | … | … | … | 1·274 | 205 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 78,724 | 10 | 0 | |||||||||||
| Auctioneers' expenses, etc. | … | … | 913 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||
| Net proceeds of Sales | … | … | … | £77,811 | 10 | 0 | |||||||
* The estate as originally purchased included the greater part of the town of Sutton Bridge, and such portions of the town property as were not required for the development of the estate in small holdings were sold by auction in 1922 and 1924. | |||||||||||||
| † This area, which is situated to the east of the River Nene, was not considered very suitable in character for immediate development in Email holdings, having been reclaimed in comparatively recent years. | |||||||||||||
Is the iron and steel industry in Silesia protected by a special tariff?
That cannot arise out of the question.
Is this the first occasion on which there has been a wage reduction in a protected industry in Germany?
That question does not arise either.
Agriculture
Estate Sale, Sutton Bridge
35.
asked the Minister of Agriculture the date under which 958 acres of land, part of the original Guy's Hospital estate at Sutton Bridge, was sold by the Ministry, together with the price obtained?
The land referred to was sold on various dates from 1922 to 1930, and, as the reply is necessarily long and contains a number of figures, I propose, with the hon. Member's permission, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
Is the right hon. Gentleman busy de-nationalising the land?
Following is the reply:
Crown Estates, Holbeach (Rents)
30.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has now given full consideration to representations made on behalf of the Ministry's tenants at Sutton Bridge and Crown Colony, Holbeach; whether he is satisfied that they are good cultivators deserving special consideration; and, in view of all the circumstances connected with the acquisition and settlement of men upon this land, if he will assist them to obtain a livelihood by granting a permanent general reduction of rent?
I have given careful consideration to the position of the tenants on the estates mentioned, who, I agree, are excellent cultivators; with the result that concessions have been offered to them as regards payment of the last half-year's rents. I am not, however, prepared to agree to any permanent general reduction of rents as the existing rents, taking one year with another, are not excessive in view of the nature of the equipment and the high class of land comprising these estates which include some of the finest agricultural land in the country.
Does the right hon. Gentleman really consider that a 5 per cent. rebate for prompt cash payment, in the case of men who, as he knows, have no money, is going to help them?
Beet Sugar Subsidy
37.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he can now state the policy of the Government with respect to the suggested renewal of the sugar-beet subsidy either in part or as a whole?
I am not clear as to the circumstances which the hon. Member has in mind but, in any case, the subsidy to which he refers is governed by the terms of the British Sugar (Subsidy) Act, 1925, which does not expire until 1934.
Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the future of this industry would be more assured and that considerably more acreage could be grown if the subsidy were continued further?
I shall consider the question of the 1934 Act if I am still Minister.
Has the right hon. Gentleman received any communications with regard to these industries?
We are continually receiving communications.
Governmint Policy
38.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the Government has discussed on non-party lines with any section of the House its future policy with respect to assisting wheat growing; and whether he expects to be able to announce this policy before the autumn ploughings?
39.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he can now say when a statement of the agricultural policy of the Government will be made?
40.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if, in view of the anticipated heavy crops of wheat and barley in the arable districts, it is the intention of the Government to introduce its agricultural proposals before the Recess?
42.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he can now make a statement respecting the agricultural policy of the Government?
The answer to the first part of question No. 38 is in the negative. With regard to the second part and to the other questions, I am not in a position at present to add anything to the reply which I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Wight (Captain P. Macdonald) last week.
When will the right hon. Gentleman be in a position to make a statement of the Government's policy in regard to agriculture?
Nothing like so long as the hon. and gallant Member's own friends.
Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to make a statement before the House rises?
I should want notice of that question.
On a point of Order. Are you aware, Mr. Speaker, that successive Ministers of Agriculture in this Parliament have given the same reply to these questions for 13 months?
Fishing Industry (Seals)
41.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether further research is being made by his Department into the question of the destruction of fish by the common seal?
The Ministry's investigations as to the food of the common seal which have been carried out during the last five years have served their purpose and have now been discontinued. The Ministry continues to receive all available information on the subject, but, up to the present, no evidence has been produced which conflicts with that of its own investigations.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in Iceland, which largely depends on its fisheries, the people are satisfied that the common seal does a great deal of damage, and will he be good enough to apply to our Consul-General there for a report?
Certainly I will inquire.
Has not the food of the Privy Seal shown a marked improvement lately?
National Galleries (Loans)
43.
asked the First Commissioner of Works whether he will obtain from the trustees of the National Gallery the loan of an additional number of such oil paintings as do not form part of the permanent exhibition at Trafalgar Square or Millbank in order that he may distribute such pictures among the various Government offices in Whitehall and in other buildings in London under Government control, so as to allow the pictures to be seen and, at the same time kept under observation as to condition?
The Trustees of the National Galleries have rendered considerable assistance to my Department in the past by the loan of surplus pictures to adorn the more important rooms in official premises, and I do not consider that any further action in this direction is necessary at the present time.
Will the right hon. Gentleman say what is the good of having pictures if the authorities keep them in a cellar and do not show them?
That question should be put to the trustees.
Is not that question implicit in the question which I have put, which asked if the right hon. Gentleman would draw the attention of the trustees to the fact that they have a number of pictures which they cannot or do not exhibit, either in provincial or London galleries, and that they should be exhibited somewhere, if indeed only in Government offices?
I would inform the hon. Gentleman that in the judgment of my Department and myself we have sufficient of these pictures, especially in view of the fact, that the Duke of Leeds and others have also put at our disposal pictures for this purpose. We cannot, as it were, wallpaper the rooms with them.
Is my right hon. Friend aware that during the flooding of the Thames in the last two years paintings to the value of several hundred thousand pounds were totally destroyed in the cellars of the Tate Gallery?
British Embassy, Rio De Janeiro
44.
asked the First Commissioner of Works the date upon which it was decided to purchase a site for the new British Embassy at Rio de Janeiro; whether any site was purchased; if so, upon what date; and whether the new British Embassy will be ready for occupation on or before 1st January, 1931?
A site was purchased in 1928. It has never been developed owing to the introduction of a town planning scheme for Rio whereby sites in a new embassy quarter will be allocated to various diplomatic missions. I understand that the position of the new site is preferable to that of the original site, but much further information is necessary as regards the terms upon which the site may be offered, and the future development of the area, before a definite decision can be taken.
Are we to understand that the original site is still in the possession of the British Government?
Yes.
Would it not be advisable, before the Government purchase sites in future, to communicate with the Governments in question?
Mineral Royalties (Taxation)
45.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the introduction of legislation which will have as its object the raising of a special tax on mineral royalties and the allocation of a portion of it to relief in the distressed areas in the coal-mining centres?
I am sorry, but I do not think that this would be a profitable way of dealing with either of the subjects referred to in the question.
Can my right hon. Friend say whether it has been considered, alto can he give the House any reason for his refusal?
Would it not be much better to keep this in mind when my right hon. Friend deals with the nationalisation of mining royalties?
It is in that direction that the question could more appropriately be dealt with.
Unemployment
Political Parties (Co-Operation)
46.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will state, in relation to the Advisory Committee on Unemployment, of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon (Mr. Lloyd George) is a member, the nature of the papers which are to be supplied to members of the Committee; whether civil servants will be requested to be in attendance at such meetings; and whether its proceedings will be secret?
50.
asked the Prime Minister if he now has any statement to make regarding the two-party conference on unemployment?
Conversations on the basis of the statement I made during the course of the debate on 18th June have taken place between Members of the Government and representatives of the Liberal party, to whom material necessary for effective co-operation has been supplied. Civil servants have been present at certain conversations, and I shall have no hesitation in requesting their attendance whenever that is necessary for guidance or information.
Is the right hon. Gentleman proposing to continue these conversations, or not?
Certainly.
Can the right hon. Gentleman say if anything has actually happened at these meetings?
Government Policy
47.
asked the Prime Minister whether, apart from Bills now before the House, he proposes to introduce any further Measures, or has any further proposals to make, to mitigate unemployment before the House rises for the Summer Recess?
53.
asked the Prime Minister if he intends to introduce any further proposals before the House rises for dealing with unemployment?
Apart from the Public Works Facilities Bill, the Unemployment Insurance (No. 3) Bill and the Vote to be taken on account of the specially necessitous areas, I do not anticipate at present the introduction of further proposals necessitating Parliamentary sanction.
May I ask what the last Labour party meeting said about that?
Local Authorities (Conference)
64.
asked the Minister of Health why no invitation to attend the municipal conference on unemployment, recently held at the Guildhall, was extended to the Corporation of Merthyr Tydvil?
Invitations were sent to the several associations of local authorities, not to individual local authorities.
British Capital (Speculative Industries)
48.
asked the Prime Minister if the Government will consider the advisability of taking powers to prevent the employment of British capital in enterprises which are considered to be speculative in character?
I fear that there are no practicable means for attaining the object desired by my hon. Friend by the method he proposes, which would not have serious adverse effects on legitimate industrial and trading activities.
Will my right hon. Friend explain to the House how he reconciles the inaction of the Government on this matter with the Government's opposition to the Channel Tunnel project?
Business Of The House (India)
51.
asked the Prime Minister whether he proposes to give the House an opportunity to discuss the political situation in India, prior to the summer Recess, in its relation to the findings of the Simon Commission and in its relation to the terms of reference and personnel of the proposed round-table conference to be held in the autumn?
I do not think it would be helpful to adopt my hon. Friend's suggestion.
Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn to the fact that there is likely to be a discussion on this matter in another place during the present week, and, under those conditions, is it not desirable that this House should have an opportunity of expressing its opinion upon the matter?
I can pass no opinion upon what is to be done in another place, but, if I ventured to do so, I should apply the same description—"lack of helpfulness"—to that as I have done to the suggestion made here.
Does the Prime Minister propose to ask the House of Commons to break up for the Summer Recess, which covers an interval of some two months or more, without saying a word on the situation in India, which at the present time is heading straight towards disaster?
That is a matter of opinion.
Botanical Gardens, Regent's Park
54.
asked the First Commissioner of Works if he has considered the desirability of allocating the whole or a portion of the Botanical Gardens, Regent's Park, for the purpose of an open-air school when the Crown lease falls in during 1932?
No definite decision has yet been reached as to the use to which the Gardens shall be put. My han. Friend's suggestion will receive consideration.
House Of Commons (Women Cleaners)
55.
asked the First Commissioner of Works whether he will consider the payment of wages, either wholly or in part, to the women cleaners of the House of Commons during the summer recess, as the men employed are paid for these holidays?
The persons concerned are not employed by my Department, but I am forwarding my hon. Friend's suggestion to the proper authority.
Will the right hon. Gentleman's good offices be used in urging this matter, even if he is not directly responsible?
Who is responsible, the Kitchen Committee?
British Army (Subversive Propaganda)
56.
asked the Attorney-General whether he has now in his possession any evidence which will enable him to institute proceedings against the publishers and printers of certain circulars inciting certain soldiers to mutiny and sedition and distributed to a number of soldiers on 27th May last, and in respect of which a person distributing such leaflet was sentenced for endeavouring to seduce soldiers from their allegiance to 18 months' imprisonment with hard labour at the recent Hampshire Assizes?
No, Sir.
Is every effort being made to obtain this evidence?
indicated assent.
In accordance with the precedent of the Campbell case, will there be a Cabinet decision on this matter?
Solicitors (Fraudulent Conversion)
57.
asked the Attorney-General if he will inquire of the Law Society whether it would be willing to embody in its draft Bill provisions for placing under the control of the Master of the Rolls a fund to indemnify the public against defalcations by solicitors convicted of fraud in the criminal courts, or, as an alternative, to ensure that every practising solicitor should deposit a fidelity bond with the Master of the Rolls in lieu of compulsory audit of money and securities held on behalf of clients?
I understand that the general principles of the Law Society's Bill have been approved by its members, and notice of introduction of the Bill is being given to-day. Another Bill on the same subject has been introduced by the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Sir J. Withers). In these circumstances, I think the best course would be for the hon. Member to make his suggestion when these Bills come on for discussion in the House.
In view of the feeling on all sides of the House in support of the principle of these Bills, will the hon. and learned Gentleman consider appointing a Select Committee to deal with both of them, so that an agreed Bill, based on the report of that committee, may be introduced?
Foreign Affairs (Dominion Governments)
58.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs what the existing arrangements are for keeping His Majesty's Governments in the Dominions informed with reference to important information on foreign affairs; what officers have been appointed for this specific purpose either by His Majesty's Government or the Dominions Governments; and whether any recent alterations have taken place in the methods of Empire co-ordination in respect of foreign policy?
The policy at present followed was laid down at the time of the Imperial Conference, 1926, and I cannot do better than refer my hon. Friend to the report of the Inter-Imperial Relations Committee of that Conference. As my hon. Friend will be aware, Dominion representatives have now been appointed at several foreign capitals. So far as His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom are concerned, communications as to foreign affairs are made to the Dominions through the usual official channels, and, in addition, His Majesty's Government in the Commonwealth of Australia have appointed a liaison officer in London who is in close touch with the Foreign Office. In the Dominions themselves the services of the High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in Canada and of our representative in the. Union of South Africa are also available for the purpose of facilitating consultation and discussion.
Is the home Government consulted before commercial treaties are made between the Dominions and foreign Powers?
I would not like to give a definite answer to that question, but I should say that consultations do take place before anything is finally arranged.
Housing, Scotland (Statistics)
60.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he can state the number of State-assisted municipal houses completed in the first six months of 1930, or, failing that, in the first five months, and the numbers completed in the corresponding period in 1929?
The figures for the month of June, 1930, are not yet available. In the first five months of 1930, 2,807 houses were completed by local authorities in Scotland under all State-assisted schemes. The number completed in the corresponding period of 1929 was 5,756 houses.
What is the reason for the tremendous drop in these figures?
Has not the reduction in the subsidy by the late Government something to do with the matter?
I should say that one part of the reason for the diminution in house building is undoubtedly the reduction in the subsidy by the late Government, and it is true that the evil that men do lives after them.
Has the hon. Gentleman any other excuses?
There are no other excuses, but many valid arguments which will, I trust, be given in the course of the discussion this afternoon.
Is the hon. Gentleman's answer in agreement with the OFFICIAL REPORT, which states that the delay in the introduction of the Government's housing legislation also accounts for the fall?
No, the word "delay" is wrong.
Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that, where a reduction in the bounty was made, the construction of houses in this country increased tremendously?
That is not in accordance with the facts.
61.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of houses for the working classes at present under construction in Scotland, according to his latest returns, under all categories; and the numbers under similar categories for the corresponding date last year?
At the 31st May, 1930, the number of houses under construction in Scotland under all State-assisted housing schemes was 10,580. The number at the corresponding date last year was 14,719.
What is the reason for that?
Similar reasons to those which were given before.
Will the hon. Gentleman explain that to the people who are houseless and badly housed?
I prefer to explain it in the first instance to the right hon. Gentleman.
Are we to understand that what is delay for other people is quick progress for a Socialist Government?
62.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of men employed under various categories on municipal housing schemes according to his latest returns: and the numbers under those categories at the corresponding period last year?
At the 31st May, 1930, there were 6,307 men employed on local authorities' housing schemes in Scotland. The number employed at the corresponding date late year was 8,913.
What is the explanation of that?
The explanation is very largely the fact that the overwhelming majority of the local authorities in Scotland are controlled by the right hon. Gentleman's friends.
Municipal Aerodromes (Northampton)
63.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air what is now the policy of the Air Ministry in regard to the establishment of a municipal aerodrome at Northampton?
The Air Ministry's attitude to the general question of the establishment of municipal aerodromes has been explained in a circular sent to all town councils, and the terms of that circular are applicable to Northampton as to other important towns. In the circular the Air Council drew attention to the increasing development of air traffic and suggested that each corporation should earnestly consider the advisability of establishing a municipal aerodrome at an early date. It stated also that the council would be glad to advise on the suitability of any sites which the corporation might have under consideration for this purpose. My hon. Friend is no doubt aware that at the request of the Town Planning Committee an Air Ministry official has already inspected a site for an aerodrome at Northampton. This was unfortunately not considered suitable, and the Town Planning Committee was advised to carry out a further preliminary survey for possible sites and informed that the Department would be glad to inspect and advise on any which might be found. No further sites have so far been submitted for inspection.
How many municipal authorities have accepted the suggestion?
Colonial Dependencies (Appointments)
65.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether British workmen are given preference over aliens in Government offices in Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, Nyasaland, and the Sudan; and, if not, will he take immediate steps to see that British workmen are employed to the fullest possible extent in all Government Departments?
I would refer the hon. and gallant Gentleman to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Wardlaw-Milne) on the 9th July, of which I am sending him a copy. I would point out that in the Colonial Dependencies mentioned, appointments for which Europeans are required, other than temporary jobs suited to local residents, are filled by the Secretary of State with British subjects recruited in this country or overseas. Other appointments are filled at present by British subjects or protected persons from India, by Goanese and by natives of Africa; and, in regard to these appointments, the policy is to increase the number of natives employed as circumstances permit. As regards the Sudan, a question should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Private Schools (Inspection And Registration)
67.
asked the President of the Board of Education if he is intending to introduce legislation for the compulsory inspection and registration of private schools?
I am afraid that I cannot undertake to introduce legislation for this purpose at the present time.
Does the right hon. Gentleman not feel that there is great need for legislation of this description?
It is important, but there are other important matters.
Why have special powers in this respect, which are not enjoyed by any other local authority, been granted to the Corporation of Kingston-upon-Hull in their Bill?
Imperial Communications Company
69.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether the full reduction in the number of directors of the Communications Company has been carried out in accordance with Recommendation IV of the report of the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference; and, if not, does he propose to insist upon early compliance with the recommendation?
The hon. Member's question refers presumably to the statement in the report of the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference that it had been proposed to, and accepted by, the companies that, as and when opportunities offered, the number of directors would be reduced to, say, 12, including the two directors approved by His Majesty's Government. My hon. Friend does not know to what extent it has already been found possible to effect the reduction or numbers thus contemplated, nor has he any power to take action on the lines suggested in the latter part of the question.
Commissions And Committees
70.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many commissions and committees of inquiry have now been set up by the present Government; what is the total membership; and how many of this number are known to be supporters of the Government?
The appointment of 37 commissions and committees has been announced since the present Government took office. The total membership is 327. With regard to the last part of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to him by the Prime Minister on the 11th November last.
Is my hon. Friend aware that the Prime Minister, in a speech he made just before taking office, claimed that one of the virtues of a minority Government was that its own supporters would—
That question does not arise.
Before any one of the 327 members was appointed to these committees was it ascertained whether he was sound on the miner's strike?
Private Bills
Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence and Appendices, brought up, and read.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Bills Presented
London Naval Treaty Bill
"to enable effect to be given to a Treaty signed at London on behalf of His Majesty and certain other Powers and to repeal Section four of the Treaties of Washington Act, 1922," presented by Mr. A. V. Alexander; supported by Mr. Arthur Henderson and Mr. Ammon; to be read a Second time to-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 234.]
Solicitors Bill
"to amend the Solicitors Acts," presented by Sir Dennis Herbert; supported by Mr. Stuart Bevan, Dr. Burgin, Sir Walter Greaves-Lord, Mr. Edward Grenfell, Sir Donald Maclean, Major Milner, Major Nathan, and Mr. George Oliver; to be read a Second time upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 235.]
Orders Of The Day
Supply
[16TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
Considered in Committee.
[Mr. HERBERT DUNNICO in the Chair.]
Civil Estimates, 1930
Class V
Department Of Health For Scotland
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £1,651,592, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1931, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of Health for Scotland, including Grants and other Expenses in connection with Housing, certain Grants to Local Authorities, etc., Grant-in-Aid of the Highlands and Islands Medical Service, Grants-in-Aid of Benefits and Expenses of Administration under the National Health Insurance Acts, certain expenses in connection with the Widows', Orphans', and Old Age Contributory Pensions Acts, and other Services."
In submitting the Estimates of the Department of Health for Scotland it is not possible within the limited time available to review the whole field of that Department's activities, and I propose, therefore, to make a selection of those which may be regarded as being of the general interest. At the outset I shall refer to a few of the outstanding figures in the vital statistics for 1929. The birth rate was 19.02 per 1,000 of the population. Both the number of births and the birth rate were lower than in any year since compulsory registration was introduced in 1855. The death rate was 14.5 per 1,000 of the population, slightly higher than in the previous year, but this is largely if not entirely attributable to an epidemic of influenza which occurred in the first quarter of the year. Respiratory diseases during the epidemic of influenza also had an adverse effect on the infantile mortality rate, which was 86.8 per 1,000 births, but even this rate was lower than the rate for any year, excepting the years 1923, 1926 and 1928. As regards maternal mortality, Scotland, unfortunately, still stands in an un enviable position. The maternal mortality rate for 1929 was 6.9 per 1,000 births, as compared with 7.0 for the preceding year. The rate has varied very little since the introduction of schemes of maternity and child welfare, and it shows no marked tendency to decline. The matter is one that is continually engaging the attention of the Department of Health, of the local authorities, and of offers engaged in medical administration.
Investigations are now being made into all deaths of married women during pregnancy or within four weeks of the termination of pregnancy. While the numbers so far investigated are not sufficient on which to base definite conclusions, there is throughout a quite definite indication of the need for providing more complete medical supervision and care of women during pregnancy and in the reorganisation of local health services under the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929, an effort will be made to secure an adequate ante-natal service. But in order that the best results may be obtained we must look to the mothers themselves to co-operate by making a fuller use of the services provided, and this will probably have to be secured by stimulating their interest in these services and educating them as to their value in protecting and preserving their health. When I come to tuberculosis I am able to present a more cheerful and encouraging picture. The death-rate from all forms of tuberculosis, which was 94 per 100,000 of the population, was the lowest yet recorded in Scotland. It was 3 per 100,000 less than the figure for 1928, which up to that time was the lowest recorded figure. Actually 4,579 persons died from tuberculosis in 1929. Ten years ago, in 1919, there were 6,326 deaths from tuberculosis. The 1929 figures show that 1,747 fewer persons died from this terrible disease in that year than in 1919. Although respiratory tuberculosis shared in the high mortality of the first quarter, the death-rate for the whole year is down and it is not improbable that, but for the abnormal weather conditions of the first quarter the decrease in the number of deaths from tuberculosis would have been more substantial. Although tuberculosis still accounts for many deaths, it is hoped that a continuance of the intensive cam paign against the disease, aided by important methods of diagnosis, and greater facilities for institutional treatment, will, before long, secure that tuberculosis can be classed among the less deadly ailments of humanity. I now come to Health Insurance—sickness and benefit. The amounts expended by approved societies in sickness and disablement benefits still keep abnormally high, the amount so expended in 1929 being £1,924,000 or an increase of £200,000 over the corresponding figure for 1928. As I have already indicated, there was a severe epidemic of influenza in the early months of last year which would account for some part of the increased expenditure. But, after making allowance for this and for a Slight increase in the number of insured persons at risk last year, there remains a considerable part of the increase for which no satisfactory explanation is available. The Department continues to give the matter their close attention, and they have been in conference regarding it with representatives of approved societies and with a special committee of the Insurance Acts Sub-committee of the British Medical Association. The Department have, in addition, had constantly before them the great importance of determining, if possible, the causes from which the demands on the sickness funds arise. One defect of the Health Insurance scheme is that it has not hitherto been possible for various reasons to prepare and publish accurate statistical information regarding the nature and extent of incapacitating illness among the insured population. An attempt of that kind was made about 10 years ago by the Scottish Board of Health, but the data available were found to be inadequate and the attempt was abandoned. I am pleased to announce that the Department of Health now find themselves in a position to remedy that defect. They have put into operation on the 1st of July this year a scheme for the collecting of complete and trustworthy data from the approved societies from which may be compiled statistical records showing, inter alia (1) the incidence of the various incapacitating diseases and their duration not only for insured persons generally but for groups of insured persons arranged according to area of residence, occupation, age, etc., and (2) the extent to which individual medical practitioners are granting certificates of incapacity for work. The scheme was considered recently at a conference between the department and representatives of the larger approved societies in Scotland. Those representatives approved of the principle of the scheme, and promised on behalf of their societies, to co-operate in making it as complete a success as possible. Incidentally, it is hoped that the morbidity statistics, when published, will be of great advantage to the local authorities in the administration of the health services within their areas. I will now say a few words regarding a very much discussed subject in recent times, namely, Kilda. In May, 1930, we received a petition from the inhabitants of that island praying that they might be removed from the island before next winter. The petition was signed by all the householders on the island, numbering 36, exclusive of the missionary and his family and the nurse. Accordingly, the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland visited the island of St. Kilda early in June and made full inquiries on the spot. The Under-Secretary made a report on the subject and it was decided to accede to the prayer of the petitioners. Arrangements for carrying out the evacuation and for placing the inhabitants are now receiving attention. No definite decision has yet been arrived at as to where the inhabitants will be settled. The Forestry Commission have offered to employ the majority of the able-bodied members of the community on an estate at Ardtornish, Sound of Mull, but the Department of Health for Scotland are still in communication with the Inverness County Council, and any suggestions that may be made by that County Council will be considered along with the Forestry Commission's offer. The Department of Agriculture are dealing with one case in which one of the men desires to have a small holding. I will now deal with the question of foods. Considerable improvement continues to be effected in the purity of the milk supply of Scotland. This is due in large measure to the general effort on the part of producers to attain the standards set by the dairy by-laws, and to the increasing attention given by local authorities to the inspection of dairy cattle, and to the structure and sanitary conditions of dairy farms. Mention may be made here of the Lanarkshire Milk Investigation which was inaugurated in the early part of this year. That investigation was designed to ascertain the effect on the growth (height and weight) of school children by supplying them with an extra ration (¾ of a pint) of Grade "A" (T.T.) milk each school day. Children to the number of 10,000 received the milk, and another 10,000 "control" children were embraced in the investigation. Feeding was carried on until 20th June, 1930, when the final weighing and measuring of the children was completed. There were early signs of improvement in the children receiving milk, compared with the "controls." The preliminary work in the examination of the cards of record is now in progress. The cost of the investigation is being met by a grant from the Empire Marketing Board, supplemented by a contribution from the Miners' Relief Fund. Various firms and individuals interested in the milk industry have also been good enough to give subscriptions. 4.0 p.m. Then the Empire Marketing Board have also promised a grant—I cannot give the exact figures—to enable an investigation to be carried out into the tuberculous infection of milk, its object being to ascertain the incidence of such infection in the milk supplies of Scotland. The investigation will continue for a period of about two-years, and will be carried out by the Department of Health in co-operation with the health authorities of the four large cities of Scotland, namely, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Hannah Dairy Research Institute will also participate in the investigation. I will now deal briefly with the question of housing. When speaking on the Second Reading of the Housing Bill, I referred generally to the housing position in Scotland, and I do not know that I need repeat here in detail what I then said. I may, however, be permitted to give a few statistics showing what the present position is. According to the latest returns, there had been completed up to 31st May, 1930, in Scotland, under all forms of State assistance, 110,136 houses. These probably accommodate about 495,000 people, or, perhaps, one-ninth of the working class population of Scotland. But while these figures are large, all are agreed that much yet remains to be done, and we are not exaggerating when we say that at least another 100,000 houses are required before the housing conditions in Scotland can be regarded as reasonably satisfactory. I am glad to report that prices continue to show a tendency to fall. During the last five years the average reduction in cost is estimated at approximately £75 per house. As regards houses in rural areas, the local authorities of these areas, following on departmental communications, are causing housing surveys to be made, and I have caused a special letter to be sent to each of the new county councils in Scotland, urging them to seure that the utmost advantage will be taken by owners in rural areas of the provisions of the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, 1926. At 30th March of this year, the latest date for which information is available, there had been approved under the Act for improvement or reconstruction 4,184 houses, for which grant amounting to over £360,000 had been promised. The improvements had been effected on 2,406 of these houses, and grants amounting to £204,670 had been paid. The Government, as the Committee knows, are in course of carrying through special legislation dealing with slum clearance, and when the new Bill becomes law I trust that a great forward move will take place on the part of local authorities in tackling with the fullest energy this most necessitous problem. The Bill, I hope, will pass this House this week, and I would repeat my earnest appeal to local authorities that they should at once proceed with the completion of the details of their schemes, so that the work can be put in hand immediately the Bill is placed upon the Statute Book. I will now turn to the Contributory Pensions Act, which was passed last year and is now in partial operation. On 2nd January last, certain of the anomalies resulting from the Act of 1925 were finally removed. The provisions of the amend ing Act which came into operation on that date had the effect of bringing into the pension scheme over 3,000 wives of insured persons between the ages of 65 and 70 who had previously no title to pension. On the same date, over 1,800 widows whose pensions had expired under the 1925 Act had their pensions restored, and allowances or orphans' pensions at the full rates are now being paid in respect of approximately 2,400 children who previously were receiving reduced rates or nothing at all because of the payment of workmen's compensation. Apart from these minor changes, the first extension of the original pension scheme took place on the 1st instant, when the provisions of the 1929 Act conferring pensions on certain widows over the age of 60 became operative. The Department of Health for Scotland have, up to date, received over 26,000 applications from women in this category, and so far have awarded pensions in 19,700 cases. About 5,000 cases, many of which have only recently been received, are still under consideration. While the Department's efforts have been concentrated on the foregoing part of the new scheme, certain steps have also been taken regarding the pensions which will become payable under the Act to widows over 55 years of age from January next. Already 5,500 claims have been received in this category, and up to date about 1,500 have been allowed. The total number of beneficiaries in Scotland under the Contributory Pensions Acts of 1925 and 1929 is now over 154,000. The Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929, came into operation in May, 1930. Under its provisions the county councils and the town councils of larger burghs of over 20,000 population, have taken over the administration of education, the major health services and the whole field of public assistance and Poor Law. It would be premature to express any opinion on the effects of this enormous change, but I do not think that it is premature to recognise what an enormous amount of work it has thrown on these authorities and their officials, and to say that the way in which the majority of the authorities and their officials have faced their task is most praiseworthy. The ability and zeal of those responsible for local administration may well be recog nised by this Committee, by the House and by the country. Having briefly reviewed some of the features of general interest in these Estimates, I hope that the Committee, after fully examining them, will see their way to pass our Estimates before the sitting concludes.Anyone, of course, who speaks for a great Department of State with so wide a field of operations as that of the Department of Health for Scotland must, of necessity, deal only with certain aspects of the case. I do not doubt that before this debate closes to-day, there will be a number of problems dealt with by hon. Members in this Committee. I think that we may congratulate ourselves upon having an opportunity of reviewing some of the most important problems in the welfare of our country, and, at the outset, I should like, if I may be permitted to do so, to offer my congratulations to the Department of Health on their first report in their new position. Of course, in any changes which are made in the administrative machine, there are always bound to be differences of opinion as to whether these changes are likely to be more effective than in the past, but I am satisfied, from my knowledge of the personnel of the Department, that they have spared no effort on their part to do the best for the services which they have to conduct, and, from my knowledge and experience of my work with them, I think Scotland is to be congratulated upon that fact.
The right hon. Gentleman opened today, I think very properly, with a review of the progress which is being made in dealing with the well-being of our people, and particularly of women and children. He referred, in speaking of this matter, to the hope that the new schemes, which were being devised under the Local Government Act, and under the ægis of the newer and wider authorities, might be of material assistance. At a later stage in his speech, the right hon. Gentleman told us something of the progress which has been made in the development of these changes in local government. I should like to associate myself at once with the tribute which he paid to these new authorities in all parts of Scotland, and more particularly their officials, for the immense amount of work which they have put in, in endeavouring to bring into operation this new system of local government. Although the right hon. Gentleman indicated that it was premature to go very deeply into this subject, I should like, and I think the Committee would like, and I am sure that the general public in Scotland would like, to know, if we can be told at a later stage, a little more as to how far the scheme, which the House discussed at considerable length, has been brought into operation in its initial stages of working, and if at any point there have been found insurmountable difficulties. So far as one can judge from the public Press and from the reports of the working of these schemes, there have come into operation fresh bodies with very wide duties, which call for an intensified interest in many of these problems, and one would hope that the very fact that the questions to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, dealing with the birth rate, with the care of mothers, and with the children, open out new opportunities for the development of health services, co-operation in hospital work, health visitors, and all those possibilities of further education which the right hon. Gentleman emphasised, will excite an increasing interest in these problems. I have watched the development of these alterations with a peculiar interest, because of the measure of responsibility which I and my hon. and right hon. Friends have had in making these changes. I say at once, as I have said repeatedly, both in this House and in the country, that we have never claimed for these changes an unalterable system, nor have we said at any time that there might not be things which from time to time might be improved; but we base our hope in regard to these changes upon the fact that there is held out to these new bodies, whether they be the great cities or whether they be the enlarged local authorities in the counties, the hope of being able to give to the people of our country better service than they have been able to give-in the past. Above all, there is the opportunity now, which there was not in the past, of co-ordinating, particularly, these health services, and of linking up the health of the child from the very earliest age right through until it goes to school, and from the school on into the further stages of life. There is nothing which it is of greater importance to note, in the report of the Department of Health, than the attention which it draws to the subject of the health of the children in the very earliest stages, before they go to school. If that alone were to be assisted and helped by this co-ordination of services, that Measure would be justified in a considerable degree. I should very much have liked to hear from the Government, with their knowledge and information, how far these great new authorities have utilised the powers of organisation and of devolution of their duties which were given to them in the Measure; whether the district councils have in every case been set up; and whether they conform more or less to the old districts of the counties, or whether these authorities have in some cases, or in many cases, taken into account the new duties, and have been able to regroup and redistribute those duties. Of course, I realise that these are early days, and that the authorities themselves are merely feeling their way, but I should hope that, if there are some authorities which have been less ready to take into account the existing circumstances, the fact of their attention being drawn to these matters, either here or at a later stage through the Department, may lead to a better organisation throughout the country. Those of us who have knowledge of the Highland areas of Scotland, particularly, must welcome anything which will bring into the remoter parts better opportunities for the organisation of health services, and I should hope that, perhaps, at a later stage, we might hear something of the work which is being done in the outlying hospitals in the Lewis and in Orkney and Shetland, and as to whether these are developing on the lines on which we hope that they will develop, and whether the public are making greater use of the facilities which have been brought to them. Everyone must have listened with interest to what the right hon. Gentleman said about the evacuation of St. Kilda. It was one of my regrets during the time of my administration that I failed to reach that rocky spot, and I congratulate the Under-Secretary of State on having been more fortunate. Of course, from a sentimental point of view, this evacuation of St. Kilda may appear to some people to be unfortunate, but I am quite certain that, in view of the petition which has come from those who are chiefly concerned, and in view of the knowledge that we have of the extreme difficulties of communication and of bringing to these people that sustenance and support which we would desire them to have, we cannot but feel that this evacuation is a wise move; and, that being so, it only remains for us to express the hope that the Departments of the Government concerned may be able to provide suitable posts for these people When they come to the mainland. I am interested indeed to hear what the right hon. Gentleman has had to say as to the food supplies of our country, and, more particularly, his remarks on the progress that is being made in improving the milk supply of the country. I trust that the new dairy school and research station at Auchincruive may be an improved centre for research in all these matters, and that the fullest opportunity will be taken of co-operation in connection with it. I am glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman that co-operation is taking place between the Department of Health, the great cities of Scotland, and the Hannah Research Institution. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the importance of the experiments which are being made in connection with the feeding of school children with milk in Lanarkshire. As to that I heartily agree. I would only remind him that, while, perhaps, this is a rather wider experiment, it is not a new experiment. Everyone who has followed such experiments as have been made in the past has been convinced that the education of our people as to the value of milk diet, and particularly as to the fact that it does not even require whole milk, but that skimmed milk in itself is often of great value as an extra constituent in the food of our children, is bound to be of great benefit to the whole community, and, if the work of the Government in that respect can be pushed forward, I am satisfied that it will have a good effect. The right hon. Gentleman has, of course, not dealt at any great length with the problem of the inspection of meat, but I trust that the steps which are being taken by the local authorities to set up improved abattoirs will conduce to greater facilities for inspection, and that, as the right hon. Gentleman indicated, in dealing with the problem of inspection of dairies and the improved construction of dairies, we shall gradually eliminate the serious scourge of tuberculosis among cattle. That is a problem which, of course, carries with it the difficulty of obtaining the good will and co-operation of those in the industry, because undoubtedly, if the matter is pushed too rapidly, it causes great expense to many of those concerned; but, at the same time, I would not for a moment say that that expense must not be met. All that I would urge is that, in dealing with this problem it is a matter of education and of demonstration, and the more we can induce the owners of stock and the producers of milk to go to such institutions as the Dairy Research Institution and to our research stations, whether in Aberdeen or in Edinburgh, and can convince them that the work which is being done there is in their interests as well as in the general interests of the public, the more we shall be able to get on to the right lines in these matters. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the problem of housing. I do not want at this stage to say anything on that matter, because it will be dealt with by others of my hon. Friends. All that I would like to say upon it is that we shall have an opportunity of debating in the House to-morrow the Bill to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred. Every one of us, from whatever party we may come or for whatever party we may speak, is anxious to see improved housing conditions in Scotland, and, for myself, I heartily approve of what the right hon. Gentleman has done in stimulating the interest of the county authorities in a survey of the conditions of housing in the country districts. We made every effort, when we were responsible in this matter, to stimulate interest in the improvement of housing in the country districts. Certain local authorities and certain proprietors have been more active than others, but some districts have failed to take the fullest advantage of the Act and of the easy opportunities of vastly improving many of the houses throughout the country districts. That is greatly to be regretted, and I hope that, through Parliament, the atten tion of the local authorities, and particularly these new and enlarged authorities, may be stimulated and quickened in this matter, and they they will do everything that they can to assist. It is clear that, particularly in the country districts, we have many houses which could be improved by enlarging the windows and letting in fresh air. That in itself would be of material assistance. The other problem before us is a more difficult and a more debatable one since, unless you can be quite certain of a proper supply of water and an adequate drainage system, you may do greater harm than good. But at the same time local authorities can do a great deal to encourage those in the country districts to improve the houses, particularly in connection with farms throughout the country. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken hopefully of the operations of his Department and of the improvement that is being made generally in the health of the people. Tuberculosis is being corn-bated, and we hope—here again it is largely a matter of education and of the co-operation of individuals with the authorities—that continued improvement will be made. I hope, before the debate finishes, those who speak for the Department may be able to give us some further indication as to how far they think the local authorities have made improvements in co-ordinating the various services, and particularly whether there are any parts of Scotland which have more adequately than others made a proper use of the opportunities held out to them under the Local Government Act. I do not wish to introduce into the debate any kind of controversy as to whether that Act was good or bad. These things were thrashed out in the House and throughout the country. Some of us have been told we were poking sticks into the machinery of local government. Though I should hesitate to use that phrase myself, if I had poked a stick into the local government of Scotland for the purpose of better co-ordination and better service, I should not regret it.I can well understand the anxiety with which the right hon. Gentleman regards the working of the Local Government (Scotland) Act. Having regard to the amount of responsibility which he had for its in troduction, I am sure he must watch very carefully to see that the objects that he hoped to achieve will be achieved. Many of us were strong opponents and critics of that Act when it was a Bill, but I can assure him that, if it does tend to the improvement of the health of Scotland generally, we shall welcome it. Whatever other criticism we may have made with regard to it, if that sole object is achieved, something will have been done for the benefit of the health of Scotland. Whether it will be entirely due to the insertion of that stick into local Government I am not prepared to say, but I should be rather inclined to think that inserting a stick into the wheels of Government is not the best way of making them turn round rapidly. Still, we shall all watch. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it is early days yet. We cannot tell. It is impossible to ask the Government to give an answer. The machine has hardly begun to function, but in a year's time we may have some very searching questions to put to whatever Government may be in power as to the way the Act has worked. I was particularly glad to hear the figures with regard to tuberculosis. That immense efforts that have been made of recent years to tackle that great disease have made it all the more courageous for the authorities who are tackling it to go on in the face of what were very disheartening results for some time, and it is very satisfactory to realise now that we believe we are making some inroads against the attacks of that disease, which in parts of Scotland is so very severe in its incidence.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the work he did in the outlying parts of the Highlands and Islands. We have recently passed an Act to put the Highlands and Islands Medical Fund on a stable basis. I always speak of that fund with the greatest respect. There is, I believe, no fund of its size which is so well administered or which does so much good over so large an area. The people who are entrusted with applying the money in their hands—I am sure it is not as much as we should like to see—apply it in the most useful manner they can and spread it as far as they can. When you think of the multiplicity of objects and aims that they desire to achieve, the sum of some £72,000, when it is split up into all these various departments, becomes very small in certain directions—much smaller than we should like to see it. Without the fund I really do not know what the Highlands and Islands would do. If anyone can go back half a century, as I am sorry to say, I can now, and remember what the conditions in those parts were, and compare them with what they are to-day, the change is enormous. Now we think we are not properly served if we have not medical officers in every district supplied with motor cars, district nurses, local hospitals and consulting surgeons in places where it was impossible to get, not only the attendance of a medical officer very often, but a nurse, and it was quite impossible to get any major operation carried out. I said just now we hoped the fund had been put on a stable basis. In looking into the figures, I have been considerably surprised and disappointed. The Department in its report expresses great hopes of what may be done in the future. They say:That is the obligation now on Parliament year by year, to set aside whatever sum may be necessary for carrying out these health services in the North of Scotland in addition to the £42,000 under the 1913 Act. After having spoken of the advance that has been made under the Local Government Act with regard to the major health services, the report goes on to say:"The new Act provides that in addition to the annual grant of £42,000 hitherto paid, there shall be paid to the fund such sum as may be voted annually by Parliament for the purpose."
When I turn to see what provision has been made for the forthcoming year, there is a total of £72,000 in the Estimates we are asked to vote to-night, but three years ago Sir James Leishman expressed the opinion that £25,000, in addition to the £42,000, was the very minimum that was necessary—that was £67,000. Last year there was available a sum of £74,800. This year provision is only made for £72,000 and, when we remember the way the services are being extended in every direction as far as the money will go, I am very doubtful whether the provision that we are asked to make to-night will be sufficient to meet all the objects we have in view when you know that it is actually £3,000 less than was available last year. Instead of putting the fund on a more ample basis, it seems to me that its scope has been somewhat contracted. I hope the Government are not intending to contract the finances of this fund, but are rather looking forward to its expansion because, with all the work the Department is envisaging in the North, I am afraid this £72,000 will not be sufficient to meet what we desire to do. Having said that, I should like to refer to the extension that has been made in the nursing services in the country districts in the North. They have been invaluable. There were places, no doubt, where doctors who have been living for a time by themselves objected to the introduction of a nurse, but those objections have all given way now and everyone realises what an enormous advantage it is to have a nurse in addition to a doctor. But the difficulty of the nurse getting about is very considerable and I am glad to see that the Department proposes that in future they shall be supplied with light cars. That will be a great advantage. A pedal bicycle against a steep brae, with a wind of 50 miles an hour against you, is not a way for a nurse to get to her work in a condition in which she can possibly carry it out, or even a motor cycle in bad weather, and I very much hope that some money will be found for the small cars that are available nowadays. Another direction in which very useful work has been done by the fund is in helping to build doctors' houses. At the same time, I know one or two cases where the question of the doctor's house has been hanging over for a very long time. I should like, particularly to call attention to the case of the island of Whalsay in the Orkneys, where the doctor's house is not built yet and the doctor on the island has been living in most uncomfortable conditions. I really wonder how he has kept on there so long. I hope that will be one of the first pieces of work that will be undertaken and put through. Another piece of very useful work the Department has done in connection with doctors' houses, almost as important as building the house, is putting the doctor on the telephone, They have gone to the extent of subscribing, and thus getting over the parsimony of the Post Office in the interests of humanity. I have often failed to understand why the Post Office asks for heavy guarantees. I can quote one instance in an island where they are absolutely unable to get the doctor put on to the service. The Post Office is asking for an £8 subscription from eight subscribers, who cannot be found. The lines of the existing telephone pass within a few yards of the doctor's house, and yet we cannot get the doctor in that parish on to the telephone. I hope that the Department mill keep their eyes very wide open for cases like that, and see if they cannot come to their assistance and help them if the Post Office is unable to come forward because of its rules and regulations with regard to its finances. This is a matter in which they should insist that every doctor in a country parish where there is a telephone service should be put upon the telephone. It is really ridiculous nowadays that you should have a medical officer in a country parish without the possibility of the people in the neighbourhood being able to call him up. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pollok (Sir J. Gilmour) referred to the work that is being done by the hospitals in the North, and he asked the Government to give some information with regard to what had been done. I am happy to be able myself to give him a little information in that respect, because I am very closely interested in a hospital which is doing magnificent work in Lerwick. The history of that particular hospital is remarkable. It is very poorly endowed, in fact scarcely endowed at all. We make subscriptions all through the Islands and raise a very considerable sum annually, as much as the poverty of the people will allow, in order to enable the hospital, which is barely able to make ends meet, to keep going. But since flee Government Department have given the services of a consulting surgeon—we have a very excellent consulting surgeon there—the result has been that the hospital has become almost full of surgical cases, and there is practically no room for the ordinary medical cases. All the surgical cases which used to go south to Aberdeen and Edinburgh and help to fill the already overfilled hospitals there are dealt with locally, with the peculiar result that they have taken up the places which would have been filled by the ordinary medical cases. We are now faced with having to build a considerable extension of the hospital, and we have not the funds with which to do it. An estimate has been made that £12,000 is required at least for the building and another £3,000 for fitments—about £15,000 in all—and with our utmost endeavours so far we have been able to collect £2,200 towards this new extension work. I wish to ask the Secretary of State whether it is possible to make a call upon this fund for the extension of a local country hospital which is doing such magnificent work. If ever there was a case in which a hospital required to be extended, this is one, but what I am really concerned to know is whether this is a fund out of which aid can be given. In support of what I have said as regards the work of the hospital, I will quote one or two very remarkable statistics showing what has been done. The number of inpatients before the surgeon was appointed was between 140 and 170 per annum. After the surgeon was appointed the number rose to 281, and in 1927 it rose to 378. These are very remarkable figures showing how the work there has expanded. It has expanded to such an extent that they have had to cut down the rooms of the staff and turn the staff out of the hospital, and the staff are living apart from the hospital without any security of tenure. I have put the case before the Secretary of State for Scotland, and I should like him to say definitely to-night if it is possible for capital assistance to be given out of this fund, and if not, whether he will give his sympathetic attention to obtaining assistance from elsewhere. I have referred particularly to the work of this hospital, because it is typical of the work which is being done by two or three similar hospitals in the North about which my hon. Friends here and others will, no doubt, be able to speak. I do not think that it is realised through the rest of Scotland how the work which is being done in these particular hospitals is relieving the hospitals in the South, or that that fact is a very strong argument for very special assistance being given to them in these poor areas, where they make whatever endeavours they possibly can to get funds locally. We are now in the position of seeing these hospitals which have been going forward and doing excellent work definitely held up and scarcely able to exist for the want of means, which, if they had the means, they would expend to the very best possible advantage."The Department hopes that full advantage will be taken of the opportunity thus opened up for securing a steady improvement in those conditions of highland life which are the Department's concern."
I have listened with deep interest to the statement which was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland, and I have also listened to the discussion which has followed. But, while I am totally in agreement with the statements which have been made regarding hospital accommodation, the necessity for telephone communication between doctors and their patients, and many other things which have been mentioned, I suggest that there is a deeper problem even than the questions which have arisen to-day and which must be faced by the Department. The right hon. Gentleman should, at the earliest possible moment, convene a conference of all Public Assistance Committees in Scotland with a view to dealing with the totally inadequate scales of relief to the working-classes who are at present unemployed and in a state of depression. There are grave anomalies which ought to be rectified. I consider, to begin with, that the sum allocated for Scottish health is totally inadequate to meet the needs of the people of our country, and I want to see greater provision made in that direction.
I find in regard to relief in Scotland that under the headings of Poor Law, and of able-bodied relief there is a gulf that must be bridged if we are to deal with the health of the people, especially of the children. Under Poor Law relief in an industrial city like Glasgow, the Public Assistance Committee is paying, for the first child, a sum of 5s. a week, for the second child 4s., for the third child 3s., and if one of the children is under two years of age there is an extra provision for nourishment of 2s. per week. That brings the total for three children up to 14s., plus a rent allowance of 3s. on an ordinary rental of 6s. or 7s., making a grant of 17s. a week. In respect of able-bodied relief, the same authority pay, in respect of three children, a sum of 2s. for each child, making a total of 6s. per week, with no rent allowances at all. The difference of 11s. per week between the sum paid in respect of three children on Poor Law relief, and the sum paid in respect of three children on able-bodied relief is an absolute scandal and ought to be rectified at the earliest possible moment. These standards are laid down by the local authority in Glasgow, and they are a continuation of the standard which was laid down by the previous parish council. I know that my right hon. Friend has indicated to the local authorities that they are left free to raise the allowances to these children, even on the able-bodied side, and I am glad to hear that the right hon. Gentleman on the Opposition bench has been converted to the idea of looking after the health of the children of this country. He previously prohibited the parish council in Glasgow, of which I was a member, from raising the scale of relief of 2s. to the child of the able-bodied man. The present Department, since the Labour Government came into office, have taken off that restriction and have allowed the local authorities to add something to the grant. I find that local authorities are not taking advantage of the opportunity, and I want to see a form of stimulation adopted by the Scottish Office to ensure that the children shall be dealt with more adequately. After the restriction was taken off by the present Secretary of State for Scotland, Govan Parish Council raised the grant to the children of the unemployed from 2s. to 3s. 6d. per week, an addition of 1s. 6d. per week, and we were told that the general welfare of the families was steadily improving. Even factors and landlords were in agreement that rents were being met better in that area during the period that the increased amount was being given to the children. But, upon Govan coming under the new administration and under the wing of Glasgow Corporation, the additional 1s. 6d. per week was stolen from the children, and they were again reduced to the 2s. standard of life. I am satisfied that, while the Department can state that there is a decrease in the cases of tuberculosis, the advantage is not being felt which might be felt as the result of that decrease owing to the fact that the children are suffering a worse fate than that which they formerly suffered in better days. To put it bluntly, instead of developing the child into a state when it becomes an inmate of a sanatorium, we are simply crushing the life out of the child at an earlier age and we are pushing it into the grave, by depriving it of the ordinary decencies and essentials of life. If we take a family of five, including father and mother, on Poor Law relief, we find that there is a total of 37s., plus 9s. relief on rent, which gives an income of 46s., but in regard to a family of five across the landing, where the father may be ill or in prison, the allowance is 32s. with no rent relief. There is a difference of 14s. a week between two families on the same stairs under the respective headings of able-bodied and Poor Law relief. Medical men on the Glasgow Parish Council have laid it down that the minimum under the Poor Law heading is the absolute minimum for children under 14 years. If this is the minimum in the interests of the health of these children, I want to know what the Department are going to do to ensure that that minimum shall be paid, not only in respect of Poor Law but able-bodied relief? If we take, for example, a child which is boarded out under the Glasgow Corporation or Parish Council, a child who may have been taken from parents who have probably been running an immoral house or may have been drunken and neglected their duties as father and mother, and if we board out that child in the Highlands it costs 14s. 9d. a week to keep it. We spend 14s. 9d. per week, we give the best medical attention, we give clothing, and we even give cycles to enable the child to go to and from school, and we provide education right up to the university if a child is fitted for it. We give the children of the bad parents every opportunity to develop, but we penalise the child of the good parents in every shape and form. We give to the good father and mother 2s. a week for the child, and we pay to the bad father and mother 14s. 9d. in respect of their child. I suggest that there is something radically wrong there which ought to be met and which could be met by the Department convening a conference of the kind I have suggested to the right hon. Gentleman. Take the case of the parish councils and the amount of relief that is given for a family of five, 32s. If the family is to meet the ordinary obligations of a rental of 7s. or 8s. a week, there is nothing left in the home for five persons to meet the needs of ordinary human beings when you have provided for seven days 105 meals at 2¾d. per meal. The essential needs cannot be met on such a totally inadequate sum. I have had experience of the upbringing of children in my home. The latest recruit to our home came two years ago, and I have taken account of the cost of the upbringing of that child. From the co-operative creamery in our area it requires over 2½ pints of milk per day for that child, which means 5s. 2¾d. a week. If it costs 5s. 2¾d. to keep my child in milk, and the working class mother and father is only given an allowance of 2s. per week for a child they are not getting justice, and the system ought to be ended at the earliest possible moment. 5.0. p.m. It will be suggested that it is not the function of the Department to implement the scales that ought to be granted by another Department. We are told that the Ministry of Labour is responsible for the scales of relief that are laid down. When we were arguing the case for added nourishment for children in the Glasgow Corporation we were met at every turn by the statement that these were the scales laid down by the Labour Government and that they could not be added to in any form. I know the effect of these scales on child life. For the past two years I have been meeting every week 80 or 90 mothers, who have been seeking some form of assistance, parochial relief or otherwise. I have seen children with legs no thicker than my two fingers. These children are simply being crushed to death by the scales of relief given by the public authorities. I know of homes entirely without the ordinary decencies of life, without a sheet or a blanket, and without the ordinary civilised decencies that we might expect. That is not due to any crime on the part of the parents, but to the fact that the fathers and mothers are unemployed, and that they have been brought to that very low subsistence level. Take the question of tuberculosis. We have provided in connection with the Glasgow Corporation a sanatorium, and it is going to cost, according to the medical officer of health, three guineas a week to keep a child in that sanatorium. The two shillings a week maintenance that is being offered for a child is so reducing the physical powers of the children that we are faced with the tragedy of having to pour out money at the rate of three guineas a week in a sanatorium to try to build up the frame that has been destroyed by the present scales that are being paid. We want to see a different outlook. I suggest that the Lord Advocate might have a job here. He might prosecute the public bodies that are responsible for the murdering of children of the working class in Scotland. If it is wrong for a human being to take life, surely it cannot be right for a public authority, by the scales of relief that are offered, to murder the children of the working class in large numbers throughout our area. If we are going to deal with these people in the lenient fashion that we have dealt with them in the past, we can only expect a continuation of these low scales that are paid by the local authorities. In another form we have sad cases that come into the Robroyson Sanatorium. I have seen in the Glasgow area young men and young women, who ought to have been the joy and comfort of their parents, gasping for breath, black in the face, with machines pumping air into their lungs in order that they might retain their hold on life. The tragedy is that you know that they are struggling there, and every medical man who is worthy of his noble calling will tell you that they are there, because of lack of nourishment in their infancy. They are there because of slumdom, because they were deprived of pure air. So the tragedy goes on, and it can be multiplied in every large area in Great Britain, and yet nothing of a logical nature is being done to alter this state of affairs. We talk of the provision of houses for the working classes. I do not care what kind of house you provide for the worker, or how low the rental may be, the man or woman who is unemployed and has a family, having regard to the low scale of relief that is paid to-day, cannot afford to pay any rent. If you are going to build houses, even from the point of view of health, you will have to let the houses rent free. What do we find in Glasgow, according to an answer which was given last week? We have cited for the Land Courts 14,305 persons who are unable to pay their rent. Go there any week and you can see a great number of women, degraded and demoralised women, trembling at being compelled to go there week after week and month after month because they cannot afford to pay rent. If they pay rent it has to be taken out of the bodies of their children. We are putting these children into a process of martyrdom; we are crushing the very life's blood out of them. If in this Assembly there was a child and I dashed out its brains against the table, there would not be a man or woman who would not be prepared to have vengeance upon me for an atrocious act of that nature. Yet we are going on, callously and coldly, allowing tens of thousands of children to be put to death in a more tragic and more immoral manner even than the committing of the atrocious crime which I have just suggested. If the Department is going to tackle this problem it must get down to the root causes, and deal with them. There is no use in trying merely to deal with the child when it has contracted a foul disease. It is far better to pour the nourishment into the body of the child and to stimulate its life, rather than attempt to perform miracles after the child has contracted a foul disease. Therefore, I suggest, quite honestly, that something should be done in the way I have proposed by the convening of a conference and by the Department saying that it is determined that a higher standard of life must be given to the children of the working class. It is all very well to say that the public authorities will not pay heed, but I suggest to the Department, who are responsible for the health of the children, that they have a right to see that they carry out their duties in a better manner than in the past. Instead of being called a Ministry of Labour or a Ministry of Health, if the process of which I have complained goes on it will be called a Ministry of Death. I do not want to be associated in any way with any action of that kind. The Under-Secretary has met us in some respects in Glasgow. Within the past 12 months he has stopped the sending into the workhouse of able-bodied men whose only crime was that they had not been able to secure employment. He has taken off the prohibition that the Tory Government enforced to prevent the raising of the scales for children. I suggest that he might go forward and convene the conference and say to the conference: "You are responsible for the health of the children. You must face up to your responsibility. I will do all I can to encourage the Government to face up to their responsibility, and not allow the present state of affairs to continue."I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) on the eloquent and forceful way that he has presented his view to the Committee, and to assure him that while we on this side do not agree with him on many aspects of things, we shall be glad every time that he makes a contribution to our debates, because his speeches are characterised by power and lucidity. He has opened a very vast subject. He has told us the story of the poverty that prevails in our industrial towns. It makes one realise the truth of what was said long ago, that God made the country and the devil made the towns. We have people living in the towns in what always seems to me unnatural and unhealthy conditions. When the particular work to which they have been trained fails, then they have nothing to fall back upon like the people who have been brought up under more natural conditions, who have all the supplies of nature round about them. We have to consider the logical outcome of the proposal as to the responsibility for offspring, which are the natural burden of the parents, falling upon other parents, other people in the community. No doubt the time will come when we shall have to take seriously into consideration whether the right to have families, which certain people are not able, through economic circumstances or other reasons, themselves to bring up, shall be a concession that is to be made to everybody. We have had effective speeches made in this House from time to time as to whether there should not be some method of dealing with the increase of mental defectives.
We have a serious problem before us. It is quite true that the children of parents who are utterly worthless are often better treated than the children of those who struggle along and do the best they can. I have seen these children in the Highlands. I have known many cases of little children taken from the poorest of parents and under the worst surroundings, who are now occupying positions of credit and honour in many parts of Great Britain. I came across a striking case of that sort the other day, of two young women who said they had come from a part of my constituency. They had been taken there in their tender years, and they are now occupying very creditable positions in the South of England. How far one can go in these matters it is difficult to say. It is easy to rend the hearts of the people with pity, but the heart of mankind is not wide enough to take in all his fellows. You can test the matter very simply. We have, first of all, the instinct of self preservation, and then comes one's own family and one's own household, which come practically before everything else. That is what makes the appeal to the patriotic instinct when it is said that a man is defending his own hearth and home. We can test whether the sympathy of humanity is world wide, by a very simple illustration. We know of the great crowded populations out in the East, and we sometimes hear of an earthquake in Japan or a river flooding in China, where perhaps a million people are annihilated, and yet our hearts are not wrung by the news of an earthquake in Japan or China where so many people are killed so much as by news of a much smaller tragedy which comes closer to us. Not even the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) would be so much put about by such an awful tragedy in the Far East as he would be by the loss of his own umbrella.He would do his best to reduce the suffering.
True. Of course, if he thought that by sacrificing an umbrella he might save a million lives he would do so. The fact remains that great tragedies occur all over the world, but unless they come close to us, unless, as the hon. Member for Shettleston mentioned, one can stand before a bed and see the terrible effects upon tuberculosis cases, one never fully realises the horror of it. I recollect the time of the air raid on London. I heard one going on some miles away and it did not perturb me particularly, but the next night, when a bomb dropped on the building in which I was staying, I immediately realised what it meant. It came home to me. In the same way these tragedies come home to the hon. Member because they happen in his particular constituency, and whilst we all sympathise with his view we must realise that an excellent beginning has been made in these services. I am a much older man than the hon. Member. In my young days we had a healthy, strong and vigorous population, subject, no doubt, to many complaints, but still sturdy and vigorous and we had none of this eleemosynary assistance at all. All contractors will tell you that the navvies they get to-day are poor creatures compared with the great hefty fellows of 30 or 41 years ago.
We are doing something very useful in maintaining the people in the Highlands of Scotland, and I was very interested in reading the observations concerning the medical services in the Highlands. It is a wonderful service and a remarkable monument to the memory of the late Lord Forteviot, who instituted it. When I was a boy in Argyll I recollect that a man whose leg was broken had to remain 25 years in his bed because there was no medical man within reach and no way of bringing in a medical man to perform the comparatively simple operation of setting his leg. Those evil days have gone. A great advance has been made, and with a comparatively small sum of money. To the honour of the noble profession of medical science it has been found possible to get men, and still more women, who love the solitudes and lone spaces, to go into these parts and conduct their great calling. And the nurses too. There is nothing that does more honour to that noble profession than the work that is done by them in the Highlands and Islands. I want to make a suggestion to the Scottish Office which I think will make this small sum of money go still further. We might follow the precedent of the medical missionary in Africa. We have in the Highlands a great many manses. In these days it is very difficult to get the lad of parts to go in for the Church, because the teaching profession attracts him more. The carnal emoluments are much better than those in the church and there is, moreover, the prospect of a satisfactory pension at a comparatively early age on which he is able to retire. Some of these manses are of considerable extent, and it occurs to me that there might be a combination in many of the districts in the Highlands of the clergyman and the doctor. In this way much of the difficulty would be solved. You would have the doctor's house at the manse, and, generally, it is a much larger house than the salary ever justified. If we combine the stipend with the assistance which is given by the Department of Health, and the other small emoluments which attach to the position of medical officer, you would solve a great difficulty. When a man has taken his medical degree he might, with the assistance of the church, spend 12 months, in a theological college—Three months.
He probably will not have the rhetorical faculty of preaching like the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton).
Nor the deep religious instinct.
No; I should have been quite ready to take charge on Sundays; it was the difficulty of setting an example throughout the week; that always stopped me. But that is a scheme which, I think, would modify our difficulty. It would meet the difficulty of trying to keep the cure of souls; and there is no reason why a man should not have the cure of souls as well as of bodies. Why should they not be combined? It would enable the fund to be spread, and many places could have a medical man which at present cannot afford to provide a suitable house. It might also mean a little hospital accommodation in some cases. It would enable the medical services to be spread to a much greater extent over the Highlands than is the case at present.
I have on more than one occasion dealt in this House with the reports from the old Board of Health, and very rarely has the House of Commons had documents so admirably presented as the reports from that particular Department. I am glad that the report which we are discussing to-day is as comprehensive and as full in its information as any of the reports which have been presented in the past. The Secretary of State gave us a resumé of part of the work of this Department, but he quite frankly said that he could not cover the whole of the work. We are grateful for the information he gave. I was particularly interested in the statistics he presented, and if the Department continues on the lines he outlined, the Scottish nation will owe it a deep debt of gratitude. The right hon. Gentleman was particularly anxious about his own reorganisation scheme. I am not surprised, because by that scheme he put out of existence no fewer than 1,000 public bodies. I associate myself with his appreciation of the work of the defunct bodies and the work that is now being done by the reconstituted bodies. I have been astonished how admirably they have started their new work in my own constituency, and I am hopeful that the doubts and misgivings which so many of us expressed may be belied, and that the newly constituted authorities, after they have been in existence for a little while, will prove that they are a real blessing and will carry on their excellent work in the future.
I am not going to deal with all the points raised by the Secretary of State but I should like to refer to his remarks about St. Kilda. I was glad to hear that the Under-Secretary of State had paid a visit to the island, but he might have mentioned that on the same date the hon. Member for the island also arrived on that rocky coast. The island of St. Kilda has always been a problem. It appears now to have been solved; and we all hope for the best. Nobody likes to think of anybody being forcibly or compulsorily taken from the land of their fathers, however poor and rocky it may be, and I am glad that the inhabitants of that island are leaving it not because of any force of compulsion but of their own free will. With regard to their settlement. They are a hardy and good-looking race. They are brave, as you would expect from their livelihood. They have to get their living in a most dangerous way. I have seen it stated that if you take inhabitants from a particular sort of environment and surrounding and place them in large cities, very unlike the surroundings of their native land, that they immediately succumb. I want to impress upon the Secretary of State that when he is considering the question of settling the inhabitants of this island upon the mainland or upon another island that he will allocate portions of land which are near the sea for them or, alternately, give them occupation in afforestation or fishing, which would be consistent with their habits in the past.They do not fish.
I understand that a good many of them fish, and go in for bird nesting. In any case I mention these sea pursuits as those which would be more appropriate for these men and women who are now the responsibility of His Majesty's Government. The Secretary of State gave us a few statistics about housing which I have no doubt will be discussed later on by the hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Major Elliot). I listened with interest to-day to the two answers which the hon. and gallant Member received, and while I will leave him to deal with those replies I should like to draw the serious attention of the Secretary of State to the fact that there is now a shortage of 100,000 houses in Scotland and that the number which was erected last year was much less than the number erected a year ago. Not only that, the number employed was 2,000 less than in the previous year. I do not agree with the statement of the Under-Secretary that that was due to the fact that local authorities were Unionist in principles. There is no justification of any sort or kind for that statement. What is happening in Glasgow? What is the party complexion there? Has the number of houses increased there to any great extent? No, the Under-Secretary cannot say that it has. The answer which the hon. Gentleman gave this afternoon is, not an answer which this Committee can tolerate or believe.
What I said was that one of the reasons why house building in certain parts of Scotland was in arrears was the complexion of the councils. There are areas where no building at all has been done.
Not because they are Tory.
The people who are responsible for the fact I have stated are not representative of this side of the Committee, but of the other side.
The hon. Gentleman may be accurate in citing one instance where the local authority has been dilatory, but to say that local authorities are dilatory because of their political complexion is quite absurd. What were they going to gain by it? If they did not build they would have 2,000 or 3,000 more out of employment, and they would have the privilege of giving these men a dole for doing nothing. The whole logic of the statement is ridiculous. I was glad to hear that the Secretary of State intended to press upon the rural local authorities by letter or some other means—
We have done it.
I am glad it has been done, and that there has been impressed on the local authorities the dire need of improvement in housing in rural districts. The late Secretary for Scotland pointed out how difficult it might be to get all the authorities to introduce the latest improvements, so far as smaller houses in rural districts are concerned. I think that the Act to-morrow will do something to compel the recalcitrant local authorities to act, and in any case to stimulate action by them. There is nothing so dreadful as to think that you may have a slum condition in a small house in the country just as iniquitous as in one of the large slum areas of a town. Whatever action the Under-Secretary may take in inspiring a new interest among these recalcitrant local authorities in the country districts, I am sure, will have the unanimous support of every Member of the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir R. Hamilton) quite appropriately introduced the important subject of the administration of the Highlands and Islands grant. It was his predecessor as Member for those islands, along with myself, if I may say so, who moved the Amendment introducing this peculiar grant—a grant that was peculiar because of the conditions in the area—under the Insurance Act of 1911. Afterwards Lord Forteviot and his Commission did an enormous amount of excellent work in bringing great advantages, aided by this grant, to this Highlands and Islands. In the past it was found that £42,000 a year was quite inadequate to meet the multifarious needs of the very diversified communities which you have in these great open spaces of the North, and if this Government has done nothing else it has done one good thing in having promised to increase the grant from £42,000 to £72,000. It is a variable grant, and so long as the present Government are in office they are more or less pledged to keep the grant art a figure at least high enough to meet the various needs of the community. I know the life of the Highland doctor of the old days. If ever there was a hero in the world it was the Highland doctor. Many a stormy night in winter he would go miles up hill and down dale, and very often at the end of it all, after six or seven hours, he would get half a crown or nothing at all for his work. There were no motors in those days; the doctor had to use his Highland pony, and he did his work ungrudgingly and remarkably well. It was a great joy to those of us who are interested in the Highlands to find that men of that calibre could now, under the Highlands and Islands Act, be guaranteed a livelihood in any case. The grant which was introduced in 1911 has justified itself, as was proved by an hon. Friend in the case which he adduced. I could adduce many other cases and describe similar circumstances, but it is not necessary for me to do so. All that I would impress upon the Under-Secretary is this: The details in the report, such as telephones in doctors' houses, houses, doctors' housing itself, and assistance to nursing associations—these should be further developed because they have proved of enormous value to the communities in the north. I would draw attention particularly to the nursing associations. I remember the time when there was not a single professional nurse in any parish in the Highlands. Now it is the rarest thing to see a parish without a nurse, and some parishes have two nurses. They have gat them because of the willingness of the voluntary workers and of the local inhabitants, who help themselves by subscriptions and otherwise to acquire gradually a nurse here and a nurse there. As I understand it, these voluntary associations do not desire in any way to be dependent upon State grant entirely. All that they want is that in certain cases of necessitous areas the State should stand by, and that where the need is greatest the State should come forward and assist. The report states that the Department is taking a great interest in the various hospitals which are in these areas. Reference has already been made to some hospitals. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Ramsay), when he catches the Chairman's eye, will speak about the hospital in Lewis. I would like to say a few words about the Invergordon Hospital. I am not pleading for this particular hospital, but for this class of hospital, the sanatorium hospital. I am very anxious that the good work started locally by the local authorities should be watched with the tenderest care by the Government, and if when the local authority has done its level best it should be necessary, in the public interest, that an additional sum should be given, whether through this grant or otherwise, I hope that the State will look with sympathy on any request that might be made. The hospital at Invergordon is exceedingly well managed. I can say the same about every other hospital of this class. There are the Ross Memorial Hospital at Dingwall and the Northern Infirmary at Inverness. It is a wonderful achievement by voluntary subscription to raise no less than £100,000 for the local hospital in Inverness. They have established, under the wgis of the Department of Health, a specialised service of highly skilled consultants and surgeons. As has been pointed out, when you are developing a hospital system in the north you are easing the burden of the hospitals in the south and benefiting not only the local community but the community in the south. I hope that when the Under-Secretary replies he will give a guarantee, so far as he can, that all these things are under the special supervision of his Department, and that he will persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer not only to keep this grant of £72,000 in existence, but that if need should arise he will do his level best to add to the guarantee so that needs may be adequately met.I regret that the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) has left the Committee. He is always extremely interesting in his comments, but in his speech he got down to what I call the rice basis, and about that I want to say something. Whenever a speaker gets down to the coolie basis, in the multiplication of the professions of one individual, it generally means getting down to the least efficient. So far as missionary societies are concerned, they have sent missionaries to China, but none of them would claim to have the fullest qualifications of the medical profession. To say that we are too poor to provide in the remotest part of these islands not only medical proficiency but everything else that is required, is simply to ignore the wealth of the nation. We have not only the wealth but the people who can do this kind of work. What we still lack is the will to apply. There are idle medical men, idle nurses and idle teachers. There is no lack of ability. I regret that any Scotsman should have been reduced to the argument of the split service idea. If a man is to be fit for medical work he must concentrate upon medical science alone. If he is to be fit as a spiritual advisor, he must concentrate on spiritual subjects alone.
The first thing in the report to which I wish to draw attention is the question of the able-bodied unemployed. This has always been a vexed question, and it is not so long ago since the able-bodied person in Scotland had no recourse in the matter of relief unless he became a criminal. That condition has been removed. We are now going a step further, and I observe in the report there is the suggestion that a conference of local authorities should be held to consider what can be done in reference to this question. Something will have to be done. It is no longer a question of the Poor Law authority acting as a Poor Law authority. The Poor Law authority used to deal with cases of poverty arising out of conditions other than that of being unable to obtain employment, but now we have a duplication of governmental departments in dealing with this matter. The Employment Exchange deals with the man who is termed an unemployed insured man, but after a long period of unemployment that man becomes an uninsured person and comes on to Poor Law relief. What we want to deal with in connection with this matter is the status of the man himself and whether any difference should be made in the case of the man who, as a result of a long period of unemployment, is prevented from receiving the benefits enjoyed by the more fortunate men who are still treated as insured persons and are drawing benefit from the Exchange. I hope that the Under-Secretary will consider the question of having a conference of local authorities. I do not see any other way out of the difficulty unless Parliament takes direct action and overrides the findings of the local authorities, which is a bad thing to do. If we are to have local government, the local authorities ought to have their own responsibilities. But if we are going to deal, by means of local government, with something quite outside the Act which brought the Poor Law authorities into being, then some legislative change is necessary in order to meet cases of the kind I have indicated. I was rather surprised at the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pollok (Sir J. Gilmour), who is usually very well-informed on these matters, but to-day, particularly on the question of housing, he was far from being well-informed. I thought he was trying a joke on us, but he assures me that he is serious. If he is serious, I would point out to him that the factors and owners of property are doing everything possible on the town councils and other public bodies to put a stop to the building of houses, because the increase in the number of houses is reducing the rental and the selling value of their property. As the number of houses increases, the value is bound to come down from the present enhanced value—a value which ought not to be there at all. Anybody who watches the doings of public bodies must realise the kind of influences that are being used to keep lap the demand for houses by keeping down the building of new houses—to do that, on the one hand, in the interests of the property-owners themselves and, on the other hand, to do all that is possible to create difficulties for the present Government. Those are the two things that we find going on in the councils in Scotland. Take the case of my own city. One does not need spectacles in order to see what is happening in Glasgow. If the property-owner himself cannot get into the town council to do this kind of work, he gets the factor or the house agent into the council. One has only to read the reports of the town council to see what is going on there. It is not so long ago since I had to raise in this House a question about the action of certain factors in placing a slip of paper inside each rent book stating that the Rent Acts did not apply to what was being paid. The men who would stoop to do that dirty, illegal thing on people who are uneducated, as far as the law is concerned—well, you cannot question what they would stoop to in other directions! I can understand a man who is mentally well-equipped meeting another man who is mentally well-equipped on equal terms, but when a man who is mentally well-equipped tries to take advantage of the mentally unequipped, it brings us down to a very low stage, as far as public business is concerned. In the City of Glasgow though the opinions which are held on these benches have a certain dominance, there is still a minority, and the same thing applies all through Scotland. In regard to housing it is showing itself in the way I have described. We are seeing now in Glasgow what has not been seen for many years, namely, "to let" boards on the houses, and just as the number of those boards increases, the property-owner and his representatives in the town councils throughout Scotland become more active against the building of houses because they know that as more houses are built the people will leave the tenements and the value of property will fall. It is absurd for anyone, and especially for anyone on the Front Opposition Bench, to suggest that it is because of something done by this Government that more houses are not being built. I challenge anyone to point to any single thing done by this Government which has interfered with grants or materials, or, in any way at all, hindered the provision of more houses. The basis of this matter rests with the local authorities, and that is why, on Friday last, this House was asked to pass a Measure the object of which was to get these authorities to act more quickly if possible. That proves that the statements made from the Front Opposition Bench on this matter are entirely wrong. Were those statements right, the local authorities would have been telling the country that they were being prevented by the Government from doing these things. They cannot say so, because this Government ever since coming into office have been probing the local authorities and urging them to get on with the work. The next point which I wish to raise is in relation to the question of allowances for children, and particularly to the disparity between the 2s. a week and the 14s. 9d. a week for boarded-out children. I quite understand all the costs that are included in the 14s. 9d., but, even taking into account the cost of inspectors and the overhead costs of keeping records in the offices and getting reports and all these other things, still the difference between the 14s. 9d. and 2s. calls for some explanation, and some new light ought to be thrown upon it. I have the feeling that 2s. is entirely inadequate, and it is certainly out of all proportion to the 14s. 9d. in respect of the boarded-out child. I hope that something will be done in reference to this matter. It is not a very large sum which would be required to deal with the matter, if we take the returns for the whole of Scotland, and as regards the question of the boarded-out child in Scotland, we ought to try to bring about the greatest possible amount of progress. This is not a party matter, and I think everbody wants to reduce the number of boarded-out Children. To me it is always heartbreaking to see a boarded-out child. I do not like the idea at all, but I know that there are cases in which the only home influences are bad influences where boarding-out is unavoidable. We want to give such a child the best possible chance, but we must not forget the child in the good home. If the child of the bad home is going to cost the nation 14s. 9d., why should the parents of the child in the good home be penalised? It seems to me a penalty that, because the parents happen to be good parents, they should only get an allowance of 2s. whereas if the parents are bad parents a much increased cost is incurred. I hope that something will be done to secure a better relation, on the cost of living basis, between the case of the good parent and the case of the bad parent. The cost of the child's living ought to be the basis of calculation, and 2s. a week is a very inadequate sum to provide a healthy child with all it requires. As I have said, this nation is so rich that we need have no fear about anyone being against doing something for the child in the small way which I have suggested. To return to the question of the able-bodied unemployed, that problem becomes more serious every week and every month. We have to realise the position of the able-bodied unemployed man who is outside unemployment insurance. One of the alternatives before the Government is to bring in legislation which will include every unemployed individual. I believe in a system whereby we should have no insurance at all but a form of State relief. It would be cheaper and it would be better. An all-over system of State relief for the able-bodied unemployed would mean that there would be no question at all of whether a man was insured or not. At present if a man applies at the Exchange and it is found that he does not come within the scope of the Arts he is flung back on the parish council or the board of guardians. The State has to meet that man's claim in any case. Why have two sets of officials for doing it? Why not have your able-bodied unemployed all going through one door? If at the Exchanges all the able-bodied unemployed were dealt with, then in Glasgow and Dundee and other cities there would be no need for the double queues—one queue at the Exchange and one at the parish council. The unemployed man should not, in any circumstances, be placed in the position of a pauper because the word "pauper" in relation to our Poor Law system denotes an individual who through illness of some kind is unable to work. To treat the able-bodied unemployed man of today as a pauper is most unfair. I hope the points which I have raised will receive some consideration and particularly this question of the able-bodied unemployed man. There is no greater tragedy than to see that able-bodied man standing at the parish council door. He should be with his fellows who are fit going through the door of the Employment Exchange and there dealt with as an unemployed man.6.0 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Scotland referred in passing to the figures given in the Ministry of Health report with regard to infant and maternal mortality. These figures are most distressing, and I was extremely sorry that the right hon. Gentleman did not seem to take a more serious view of them, because if one looks at the column for maternal mortality, on page 71, he will find that there is practically no improvement in that case over a large number of years. I hope the Government will seriously consider this question of the children and their mothers. I speak only as a layman, but I have studied this report very carefully, and it seems to me that it is very clearly shown that greater care must be taken of the expectant mother and also of the child just after birth. There is no good our expecting to have a healthy nation if the children come into the world in unhealthy circumstances. I have referred to these tables, but they do not give the whole case, and I am sure it is true that there are many children in this country who suffer from weakness all their lives owing to the conditions under which they came into the world. Therefore, I press upon the Government very strongly that they should try to do something for these mothers and children.
It seems to me quite clear, though the Secretary of State for Scotland did not refer to it, that what is wanted is the better education of the expectant mother, which can be done in various ways. We have, I notice from the report, about 87 pre-natal centres in Scotland, and I hope it will be possible to increase these places. The report says that experience indicates the need for the establishment of the pre-natal service on a more adequate basis. I would press that on the Government, but there is as well the maternity and child welfare centre, which also gives very valuable informa tion to the expectant mother, and I am sorry to see that in the Estimates for this year we find, on page 85, that the grants for the training of midwives and health visitors are down by over £1,000. I do not say that the amount is very large, but it seems to be going the wrong way, especially when we see that the administrative expenses of this Department are up by over £39,000. The training of a mother is of vital importance, but my candid opinion is that the training should begin long before the woman ever becomes a mother. It seems to me that in order that the expectant mothers may gain the full benefit of these pre-natal centres, and also of the maternity and child welfare centres, they must really learn ordinary physical hygiene at school, and that is why I would like to refer especially to the part of the report which deals with the health of the school children. In my opinion, the way in which the children are allowed to go about at school in our country is simply shocking. They are not taught there how to look after their health properly, and my opinion is that we want to start with the children at school and teach them how to keep themselves healthy. If you once manage to inculcate that at school, you will not find it so difficult to get the women to come for advice on health matters when they come to be expectant mothers. I should like to refer especially to what is said on page 92 of the report:If I may give a personal experience, I would like to refer to what happened in my own case. I visited a school in my part of the world and found a class meeting. There was one child who was reading whom I asked to clean its nose before it went further, but it said it had not got a handkerchief. I asked all the children in the class what hankerchiefs they had, and there was not 50 per cent. of the class with handkerchiefs, and there was not 50 per cent. in the school that had them either. One of the first things necessary is that these children should have handkerchiefs and learn how to use them. I do not think I am the only person who has observed this lack of handkerchiefs among school children, because, on page 91 of the report, I find that the school medical officer of Banff states that the common cold"The school child should not only he taught the golden rules of health, but should also be trained in the practice of them."
Evidently he found exactly the same as I did, that there was a sad lack there. There is another thing, and that is with regard to the cleanliness of the hands and faces of the children in our schools. Far be it front me to say that all the teachers do not look after the children in that way, because many of them do so most carefully, but there are many places in which the children are not properly washed during school hours. In the schools there is a supply of soap and water and towels, and therefore there is no reason why the children should not be clean. I raised this very question on the school management committee of which I was a member, and the reply that was made to me was, "You cannot expect the school teacher to do that sort of work." I hope the Government will see that the school teachers do consider that it is part of their duty to see that the children are clean and tidy, and if hon. Members will study this report, they will find that that suggestion is made. It must not be left to the nurses and the medical men, but it ought to be done by the teachers in the ordinary routine. The doctors and the nurses come round at certain times, but the teacher is there every day, and I want to see that we teach the children properly to be clean and tidy in the schools. It says, on page 91 of the report, that all officers of the local authorities:"should be regarded as an infectious fever, and much can be done to prevent it and to check its spread by teaching the children ordinary hygienic hbaits and the proper use of the handkerchief."
should take part in the hyigenic training of the children. If we were to get the children into the way of keeping themselves clean at school and learning the advantages of health, I think we should find, when it came to a question of mothers and children, that they would be much more willing to visit the maternity and welfare centres for advice and that, having got the advice, they would be better able to benefit by it. I believe that if we started in that way and took some trouble on those lines, we should find that the figures of maternal and infant mortality would very soon begin to drop."the medical officer, the school nurse, the physical training specialists, and the school teachers,"
The question of Saint Kilda was introduced, and until then I had no intention of intervening, but, to my very great surprise, not only tilt Secretary of State for Scotland, but the late Secretary of State, gave a blessing to the action that is being taken in that connection. I happen to differ from both these right hon. Gentlemen in regard to the policy adopted, and unlike the previous Secretary of State but like the present Under-Secretary of State, I have had the privilege and honour of visiting that far-flung part of the United Kingdom. It was stated by the Secretary of State that he had received a petition, dated the 10th May last, as a result of which, and of the visit of the Under-Secretary of State, it had been determined to vacate the island. It is quite easy to understand why that petition was drafted. When you get a set of circumstances in which no letters reached the islanders from the middle of October, 1923, till the middle of February, 1930, and no newspapers or any communications whatsoever, you can understand why, in their desperation, they signed a petition asking to be removed out of such conditions.
I hold that all this is a tragedy of neglect. It is a thousand pities that something was not done to help the communications. We know that during the months of May, June, July, and August communications have reached these people by the ordinary touring vessels, but for the remainder of the year, from the middle of September to the return of May in the following year, these people are dependant on spasmodic visits from trawlers for the delivery of letters. I cannot understand why, in these days of the advance of science, when we have aeroplanes, seaplanes, and submarines, and many ways of getting at people that we did not have formerly, we should not have thought out some better method of reaching these people. It is very easy to remove the people themselves—much easier than stepping forward and fulfilling one's duty in another way. If the Government had only gone into this problem seriously from the point of view of helping the people by adopting better means of communication by aeroplane, seaplane, or submarine, it would have been far better. What is the use of keeping these vessels for merely ornamental purposes? We want to use these things to help the people. I understand that the sheep on the Island of Boreray were never shorn for three years. Something might have been done there. At the present moment the people have only—[Interruption]. I hope I shall be allowed to continue. There was a scene when St. Kilda was debated before, but I hope that I shall have an opportunity of voicing my opinions and letting the Committee know things as I found them. After all, the Saint Kildans are my own constituents. At the present moment we have nothing but small boats in which these poor islanders have to go to the neighbouring island of Boreray for shearing machines, and with the cross currents in the sea that is almost impossible. If a motor boat supplied with a winch for hauling it up in rough weather—I am trying to find out where in the Estimates of the Department of Health for Scotland the shearing of sheep comes in.
The Secretary of State for Scotland expressly introduced this subject, and enlarged upon the conditions of the island and of the islanders.
If the Secretary of State did that, he had no right to do it, that is all I can say.
May I suggest that as this question is bound up with public health and medical services, and as this is possibly the only opportunity which the hon. Gentleman may have of raising the question of the evacuation of the island, which is bound up with medical costs in the island, it might be possible, if the hon. Gentleman could forget the word "shearing," to state his point of view?
There is a definite reference in the report which we are discussing to a Poor Law allowance which has had to be paid for the first time to a resident of St. Kilda.
The hon. Member was talking about sheep, and he must show me how he can talk about public health in connection with sheep.
I was using the illustration as a reason why the island should not be evacuated, and I was coming to the reason which the Government give for the evacuation, namely, health. I should have liked to go into the other point, because it was the foundation of the petition which the islanders presented, and there is definite mention of it in the report. We know that a number of people have been removed from the island of St. Kilda during the year, and considerable expense has been incurred in removing them. I understand that something in the neighbourhood of £500 has been spent, and that is largely the reason which has determined the Government—
Where is the £500 in these Estimates? The hon. Member has access to these Estimates as I have, and he ought to show me where it is.
It has been stated in the House that the doctors of the Department of Health attempted to visit the island and were unable to land. That was stated recently in the House, and it is in connection with the visit of these doctors to see the condition of the health of the people that my hon. Friend is now raising this point.
I have no objection to that, but the hon. Gentleman has been round about it a long way and talking about the shearing of sheep.
I think that he was introducing that as an example of the difficulty of approaching the island, and of getting off the island.
It is a well-known fact that there have been two cases of serious illness where medical officers belonging to the Department of Health have sent to have patients removed, and largely as a result of the costs incurred in visiting the island to get these people off, the policy of the Government is to evacuate it, and surely I am entitled to bring that forward. If it is a point which is full of dangers and pitfalls, I have no desire to thrash it out in the way that I would otherwise have done.
Another point which is of interest to my constituency is the question of the delegation of health services to the island of Lewis. This question has caused something in the nature of a deadlock for a considerable time, and we have been in communication with the Scottish Office about it. We are anxious to get the views of the Under-Secretary upon this point, because it is a serious matter. The county councils of Inverness and Argyll have delegated the health services to a specific committee belonging more or less to the islands of these two counties, but, unfortunately, the people of Lewis, although they have asked for a similar delegation, have not received it. I hope that the Under-Secretary will give us an assurance that something will be done in this respect, because it is a serious thing from the health point of view of the island of Lewis that they should have people who understand the local conditions on the sub-committees or district committees which are dealing with these health problems. At the present moment those members who have to go to the mainland waste about three days in going there, attending the meetings and returning, and if the hon. Gentleman would only give us an assurance that he is sympathetic and will support the claim of the people of Lewis to have a delegation to look after their own health services, it would be a great thing for the island. I have not, the same complaint to make about the other islands, because the county councils have given this delegation. With regard to the nurses, no one has a greater respect for them than I have. In all these islands I have seen them on their bicycles pushing themselves along the very bad roads, and when they come to the townships they have to get off their bicycles and walk long distances. It has been suggested that light cars should be provided for them. I would be the last to deny fiat they should have light cars, and I hope that they will be provided, but a difficulty would arise with regard to the township roads, which are four or five miles from the main roads. That is a question which, I hope, the Under-Secretary will keep in view. Doctors' houses have been mentioned, and I would like the views of the Under-Secretary with regard to the provision of telephones for these houses. I have advocated telephones for a long time, and I did it on the Committee stage of the Act dealing with the Highlands and Islands medical services. I should like to emphasise the desirability of having telephones not only in every doctor's house, but in every schoolhouse or other convenient centre in each parish in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The hon. Gentleman might get into communication with the Post Office and ask them to help in that respect. We are making a great fight with the Post Office for the provision of telephones, but it is difficut for us to get them unless the Secretary of State will support us and see that some of the great profits which the Post Office are making are used to help the outlying parts of the United Kingdom. We were grateful for the statement which was made by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir R. Hamilton) with regard to hospitals, and I want to thank the Government and the late Government for the encouragement which they have given to Lewis Hospital. This Government and the last Government have done splendid work for the island of Lewis in establishing that hospital. I can assure the Government that it is very much appreciated. I wish, however, that provision were made for more ambulances and stretchers. During a recent tour a case was brought to my notice of a man suffering from peritonitis; he expired largely because no near ambulance on which to take him to hospital was available. There was no stretcher, and he had to be put on part of a bed, and when he got to the end of the narrow footpaths which are so abundant in the Western Islands, he had to be put into an ordinary motor car, with the result that he doubled up and expired. The provision of ambulances would go a long way to help the situation. I thank the Government also for the provision of a road at Bernera. The people there have been in a bad position for a long time because of the want of a medical service. Formerly there was one doctor; in recent years there have been two doctors, but the island was more badly served with two doctors than with one, and I am glad that provision has been made for a road, which will enable the islanders to get over the narrow neck of land and to reach the doctors more expeditiously. I do not know how far I shall be allowed to raise the question of unemployment, but it was mentioned freely on the benches opposite. When men in the mercantile service in the Western Islands are out of employment they naturally want to go back to the islands because they do not want to be separated from their families; and places like Oban and Dumbarton, where they might search for work, are too far away. This is a serious position from the point of view of health, because these men cannot stay in Dumbarton or Oban or other places and leave their wives and families in the islands.I am afraid that that question cannot be introduced. I do not see how the hon. Member can suggest that the Department of Health are responsible for the fact that men have to live apart from their families.
On page 171 there is a long paragraph devoted to distress due to unemployment.
I cannot help that report; I am confined to the Estimates. The hon. Member must show me that anything he refers to in that report has any relation to the Estimates before us.
The point in the report is that in these districts unemployment affects the health of the people, and it is because of that that this particular paragraph on page 171 is inserted.
I can hardly see how that has any relation to the point which the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Ramsay) is making.
A similar subject was introduced from the benches opposite, and I thought that I had an equal right to speak about it. I suggest that the health of the children is affected if the families are forced to live apart.
Surely that is something that is occurring all over the country. The question of unemployment does not arise.
I do not rise with the intention of making a speech. As an English Member I am in danger of being an intruder in a discussion of this kind, but I wish to ask one or two questions suggested by the report. After your remarks, Mr. Young, to the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Ramsay) I am a little nervous of referring to the report, but I will go on until you stop me.
The hon. Member must make himself conversant with the details of the Estimate before the House. It is not for me to tell him what the details are, and if the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise matters of that kind he must do so on the Scottish Office Vote. Unless they are in this Estimate, they are out of order.
I will submit to any correction or rebuke that you may think proper to give me if I go beyond the scope of what is permissible to-day. The first question I wish to ask arises out of the Poor Law relief statistics on page 206. It is stated there that 790 Poor Law children are in poor houses. I wish to know how that number of 790 is made up. Modern, enlightened opinion is hostile to the retention of children in poor houses and workhouses. The last place in the world for young children, whose eyes ought to be opening on the world with hope and happiness, is among the wreckages and failures of the poor house. In England the Ministry of Health take a strong view about the undesirability of children living in workhouses, and there is an Order which forbids children over the age of three remaining in workhouses for more than six weeks. I would like an assurance from those who represent the Scottish Office that everything is done to keep the number of children in poor houses as low as possible, because 790 is 10 per cent. of the total number of Poor Law children. The best method of dealing with them is to board them out, and I hope the Scottish Office will follow that policy with vigour and persistence.
The next matter to which I wish to refer concerns the dental service in the Highlands and Islands. Having some little knowledge of the Highlands and Islands, I attach great importance to it. We who live in towns and cities think of toothache as a small thing, but to people in remote islands, where the nearest dentist is 50 miles away, it is a very serious matter. I need hardly remind this Scottish gathering of Robert Burns' description of toothache:"Thou hell o' a' diseases…
The hell of all diseases is a very real thing to the people in the Highlands and Islands. When I go up to those remote islands I take a supply of genaspirin with me, and I have been able on more than one occasion to bring much-needed relief to sufferers there, on one occasion with the happy result of reducing my hotel bill. I was glad to read in the report that the regional and town-planning movement is being pushed forward in Scotland. There was an inquiry last, year into a town-planning scheme for a part of Edinburgh, including Charlotte Square, and I would like to know what was the result of the inquiry. It is referred to in the report, but the result is not given. On page 52 of the report there is a reference to canned horse flesh. It says that the Scottish Office saw an advertisement by an American firm who wished to obtain carcases of horses for importation into other countries in the form of canned meat. The report says:Aye mocks our groan."
I only want to ask the Scottish Office whether there is the slightest suspicion that people in this country consume canned horse flesh."In view of the possibility that canned horse flesh might reach this country for home consumtion either under its own name or labelled as beef the attention of the medical officers of health of the principal ports was drawn to the matter."
Is there any reason why a man should not eat canned horse flesh if he wishes to?
In the interesting speech of the Secertary of State the most interesting item to me was the announcement that one-ninth of the working class population of Scotland are housed in sanitary houses, but reading through this report one sees that something more than the mere building of houses is required in order to secure the health of the people. We have had many suggestions from hon. and right hon. Members opposite as to the assistance to be given in order to help public health work all over Scotland. One suggestion was that we should give free houses to some of the people, and now that we have given free education, perhaps there is some thing in the argument in favour of free houses; but I wish to draw attention to the fact that something in connection with house building we have neglected is sewage purification and the provision of a good water supply. I see from page 38 of the report that the work of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929, is beginning to make itself felt, in that local authorities are thinking about introducing sewage purification. In the case of the larger areas there is not the difficulty over the contour of the land that arises in other cases. Where one area is abutting on to another and the ground happens to fall the wrong way for outlets for sewers, the authorities of the two areas can get together and have a joint scheme, as they are doing in East Stirling. The great difficulty there was money. The rate in Slamannan and Maddiston was something like 20s. in the £, and they were not able to proceed with the scheme, because they were offered only 75 per cent. of the cost, but I see by a footnote that they are now getting the full grant and are going on with sewage purification. Kilmarnock is in difficulty over its sewage purification. It is still running crude sewage into the River Irvine. Further on we find the Vale of Leven in the same position. Then we come to the premier county of Scotland, the county of Lanark, and we find that the Board of Health have been supporting the county authorities in a prosecution against a colliery owner and a creamery, the colliery owner for polluting the river by washings from coal dust and the creamery for putting what is known as whey into the stream. It is a matter of great surprise to me that two small items like that should occupy about half a page of the report, when one knows that the great town of Hamilton has no sewage purification and is putting its crude sewage into the river. The town of Paisley is polluting the Cart and causing a nuisance. The effluvia from these rivers and streams is not good for the public health. We are to have more housing schemes, but we shall be putting the cart before the horse in proceeding with them without doing something to purify the streams and rivers that are at present a menace to the public health.
Most of the matters in which I am specially interested have been referred to already, but there are one or two small points to which I wish to draw attention. The Secretary of State estimated the need for houses in Scotland at 100,000, and the report of the Department of Health says that even more than 100,000 are required, and at a time when there is immense unemployment, especially in the building industry, it is a tragedy that greater strides are not being made to cope with the housing shortage. To-morrow we shall have a discussion on slum clearance, and I will not now take up time with discussing those aspects of the housing question which will be dealt with under that Bill, but there are two aspects which are of particular interest to my own constituency and to the countryside of Scotland generally. Very slow progress is being made with housing in the rural districts. It is stated in the report that continual pressure has been applied during the year to landward local authorities in the Highlands and Islands to frame schemes, and more schemes have been approved, and that almost one-half of the local authorities now have schemes in operation. The position is that three or four years after the legislation was passed less than half the local authorities actually have schemes in operation. One of the local authorities in my own constituency had not then got a scheme, but I am glad to think that they are now undertaking a scheme under the Act.
I hope that the Under-Secretary of State when he replies will tell us a little more of what use is being made of this Act and whether other authorities are coming forward. Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether more than half of these authorities are working the Act, and what steps the Government propose to take in those areas where the local authorities are refusing to work the Act? This is a Measure to which the Government ought to attach much importance, and I know that they have been circularising some of the local authorities. I want to know what steps the Government propose to take in those areas where the Act is not being worked, and where there is no immediate prospect of the Act being brought into operation. Another point I wish to raise is that of housing in the small burghs of Scot land. I will not go into that subject in detail, because we shall have an opportunity to-morrow of doing so when we are considering legislation which will then be under discussion. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland will consider between now and to-morrow how serious the situation is in the small burghs, and that he will take into account the fact that in some parts of the small burghs there are whole streets where the housing is worse than it is in the country districts. It is particularly unfortunate that, the small burghs should not be able to get the same assistance by way of subsidies as is granted to the rural parishes. I hope these facts will be taken note of by the Government when they are considering housing in the Scottish countryside. I was very much interested in the remarks made by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir B. Hamilton), particularly with regard to the experience of the people of Lerwick with regard to their hospitals. He told us that when a residential surgeon was appointed, the number of cases rose from 170 in the first year to 281, and in the next year to 378. We have that kind of situation in Caithness. There is a scheme before the Scottish Department of Health for the appointment of a residential surgeon for a district in my constituency, and I should be very grateful to the Under-Secretary if it is possible for him to give any indication of the attitude of the Department now that that scheme is before them. I listened with pleasure to the important and interesting observations made by the Secretary of State about the Lanarkshire experiment for the feeding of school children. He said that that investigation was completed on 20th June, and I should like the Under-Secretary to tell us when he replies when the result will be published. This is a matter of immense importance. I gather that the indications so far are that the result of the experiments will bear out the results of previous experiments and show the immense importance of that extra ration of milk to school children under those particular circumstances. If that is so, it will undoubtedly have an immense influence upon education authorities all over Scotland when they come to consider, as they must soon consider, the powers which they have just received under the Bill which this House passed earlier in the Session and which was introduced by the hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Major Elliot) to enable education committees to supply milk for school children. I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to tell us that these results will be published as early as possible. The Secretary of State also referred to other interesting experiments being made by the Empire Marketing Board with regard to tuberculosis and the way in which that disease may be communicated to children by different kinds of milk. I understand that every single consignment of milk is being tested, including the best kind, and what is considered to be the absolutely gilt-edged safe kind of milk, in case there is a possibility of infection at the different stages of the production and distribution of milk. The results of these experiments will be of the greatest assistance to those who take an interest in the health and education of our children. The late Secretary of State for Scotland, in referring to this subject of eliminating this disease from our herds, said that we must not push on too fast. That is quite true, but I think the industry is prepared to go further than it has gone up to the present time. Various plans have been discussed with the industry for instituting schemes which would result in the elimination of this scourge from our Scottish herds. It has been done in other countries, and I believe it can be done in Scotland. I ask the Under-Secretary if he can give any indication as to whether he considers any advance is possible at this time in connection with the elimination of this scourge from our Scottish herds.I should like to call the attention of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland to the question of river pollution prevention. The Scottish Advisory Committee has been at work dealing with this question for a considerable period of time, and we are definitely concerned to know the nature of the report of their investigations which have been recently carried out. We are awaiting reports on the River Tweed and the River Esk, Midlothian. The Secretary of State for Scotland has under- taken that the attention of this Committee should next be drawn to the River Leven in Fife. I should like to urge upon the Government that this question of pollution is a matter which calls for their immediate consideration, and that schemes should be framed to carry out the measures which are necessary to deal with the pollution of the rivers in various areas in Scotland.
I would like specially to refer to the serious pollution of the River Leven in Fife, and urge that steps should be taken at the earliest possible moment to secure the carrying out of a scheme through the united action of the local authorities. The necessity for such action has been admitted over a considerable period, and I suggest to the Under-Secretary of State that he should arrange to deal with this matter at the earliest possible moment. Some of the local authorities, who are greatly interested in this matter, are desirous of putting their views before the Scottish Advisory Committee, and I think it is very desirable that he should afford an opportunity for a discussion of this question with those immediately concerned. I ask the Under-Secretary whether it would be possible for him to arrange for a meeting at which the town council of Leven and representatives of the other local authorities would have an opportunity of discussing this important matter with the Committee, and putting their views before them. The necessity for action is very urgent to-day, particularly in view of the quantity of effluents from the industrial undertakings which are creating pollution and which are now capable of being treated so as to remove all danger in future. The local authorities in some cases are responsible for a considerable amount of sewage going into the rivers, and steps should be taken to diminish that pollution by formulating an agreed scheme which would meet local needs. I suggest to the Under-Secretary also that at a time when the local authorities are very much concerned about the progress which ought to be made in connection with their unemployment relief schemes, such purification schemes would afford a large measure of employment.We are not now discussing relief schemes.
I am discussing administration, and I am dealing with the question of health and the schemes necessary to promote public health, which the local authorities and the Department are charged with administering.
That is not in order unless the hon. Member can show me that money is being voted in this Vote for that purpose.
7.0 p.m.
I understand that money is involved in this Vote for the payment of officials and inspectors of schemes whose salaries are down on this Vote. The only point I wish to put is in connection with that work. The work I allude to is carried out under the supervision of the Department and of the Secretary of State for Scotland, and I am dealing with the acceleration of such work by the officials, who are directly concerned, and whose salaries come under this particular Vote. I am aware that we have at the head of this Department a gentleman who is extremely sympathetic towards these schemes, but I want to emphasise that something further should be done in regard to the acceleration of relief schemes and of schemes relating to pollution, or the diminution of pollution, which is work that conies within the scope of the local authorities themselves in co-operation with the Department. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give us an under-taking that an effort will be made to deal with the case I have mentioned and with similar cases at the earliest possible moment. I associate myself with what has been said by my two hon. Friends who spoke on the subject of rural housing, and I would urge very strongly that some further efforts should be made to complete the surveys which are being carried out in all parts of Scotland, and to ensure that effect is given to the recommendations of various bodies interested in the farm servants and agricultural workers. There is urgent need for this work to be carried out, and I am sure that the officials of the Department of Health are prepared, if further assistance is afforded them by way of staff or otherwise, to have this work completed at an early date. I am glad to recognise from the report the work done by the Department, and that an effort has been made to cope with the very serious situation which has arisen all over Scotland. The time has come when definite schemes submitted to the Department ought to receive the earliest possible sanction, and no obstacles should be placed in their way either by reduction of grants through the deduction of Income Tax or otherwise to the carrying through of these schemes.
The local authorities are very keen to get on with their work. They have often been held up by delays and by the conditions imposed. I know that, at a conference held in Edinburgh the other day, there was a very strong feeling, to which I desire to give expression here, that much further progress could be made by closer co-operation between the various local authorities concerned and the Department. The suggestion made there to establish an advisory committee to deal with all the particular aspects connected with unemployment relief schemes, on which officials representing the different local authorities should act, would be a very good suggestion to carry out. I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to make an answer now with regard to some of the questions put to him on that occasion of the conference referred to, and particularly with regard to the very unfair demand which has been made upon local authorities through the deduction of Income Tax on grants towards revenue producing schemes.I have no intention of allowing the Minister to reply to questions of that kind. We must keep to the Vote before us. If hon. Members wish to raise anything, they must select that Vote. When we come to a Vote of this kind we must discuss what is contained in it, and if the Minister went beyond its border, that is no reason why I should allow it to develop.
I am only referring to the undertaking the Under-Secretary gave to the conference in Edinburgh that he would meet some of the points of local authorities, particularly in reference to this question of unemployment.
If we are to deal with unemployment we must deal with it as far as it goes within this Estimate, and not outside.
I am sure that the Under-Secretary will have listened with some relief to the efforts to limit some of the questions he will have to answer. I have sat in his place, and towards the end of a debate, either on the Board of Health for Scotland or on the Scottish Office, have begun to wonder whether there was anything on earth not ancillary to the activities of the Secretary of State for Scotland or the Scottish Board of Health. I have no doubt whatever that the Under-Secretary will do his utmost to reply to some of the questions asked, but, when it comes to the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) expressing a wish to have been made a minister in his youth, I am not sure that he feels that his power would reach to such extreme limits.
The course of the debate this afternoon has been most gratifying to us on this side of the Committee, because it has shown that there is no grievance arising out of the great Act of 1929, the Local Government Act, of such a nature as to call for redress in this House. There are no administrative difficulties arising out of it which are insuperable. Many hon. Members who have spoken have borne testimony to the fact that the Act gives every prospect of operating in a smooth and efficient manner. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) went so far as to say that in his own county he found there were considerable advances being made by it on the health side. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) also intimated that since its coming into force his local authority had attempted a housing scheme. Whether post hoc or propter hoc, I am not quite certain, but, at any rate, it does not injure the prospects of housing in his constituency. The review which we have before us to-day is a review, apart from the examination of legislative changes and the working out of the Local Government Act, of the public health activity, and the housing activities of the Department of Health for Scotland. The Acts are all very well, butThe genius of our people will allow us to adminster almost any Act if there is good will behind it and a fair amount of assistance from the Chancellor of the Ex chequer.I have no doubt whatever that we can adminster the 1929 Act, and, indeed, we have made progress under the Acts which stood previously on the Statute Book. There are provisions of that Act which I should like to see pressed forward more vigorously. There are provisions with regard to district councils which make me believe that a great deal more work could be taken off the central authority by a greater devolution. Greater use might be made of that provision. There are Clauses also with regard to what is known as the break-up of the Poor Law, and the reorganisation of the hospital services. Good will has been secured for the voluntary hospitals, and the Department states in its report that there are already signs that certain of these schemes for reorganisation will be brought forward at an early date. All these things are for the future; we are dealing with the present. Statistics show that the public health of Scotland improves, that the attack which the local authorities and voluntary societies have for so long conducted on tuberculosis continues to give an increasing yield. It took us 40 years from 1870 onwards to halve the death rate from tuberculosis; it took us 20 years to halve it again. If it took us 40 years to cut it in half the first time, and took us only 20 years the second time, let us see if we can cut it in half the third time in 10 years. As to the work in regard to non-pulmonary tuberculosis and food infections, there is no doubt whatever that the fall in these figures is of a most encouraging nature, and seems to indicate that the administration of the Acts with regard to the slaughtering of tuberculous cattle and the cleansing of the dairies and the administrative pressure which is being kept up towards getting a clean supply of milk, are doing much to diminish the non-pulmonary infections, which do so much for the killing and crippling of young children in Scotland. That demands a reasonable outlook by the people. They themselves must respond. All this effort by the administration is of no use unless it meets a corresponding will among the people to look for clean milk, to purchase and pay for clean miuk. It is a common complaint among the producers of milk, that, with all the work they do to secure cleanliness in the production of milk, they find it very difficult to get any recognition from the public by paying a penny extra for clean milk, whereas they will cheerfully pay from 1s. to 5s. to get a better seat at the cinema. That requires a better health consciousness among the people. Though there are signs of it growing, yet it has to be fostered. Work, such as the Under-Secretary has sketched out in regard to the milk experiment in Lanarkshire, will undoubtedly help to foster that health consciousness among the people. We laid the foundations in the experiments under control conditions. Both for that and the present experiment we owe much to the Empire Marketing Board for the ready support it gave us in the way of funds, treating the experiments in Scotland as a real Empire experiment, of value not only to us in Scotland but to the United Kingdom, not only to the United Kingdom but to any areas wherever milk is given to school children, which is wherever there is a white community."Whate'er is best administered is best."
They pay half the money.
In all these ways the help of the Empire Marketing Board was of great value to the Scottish administration, and we should pay a tribute to the enlightened view which both the home and overseas representatives took of the possibilities of this experiment. It is clear, in looking at the health side of the report, that many of the water-borne diseases have practically been conquered, that food diseases are in the way of being conquered, but that the air-borne diseases, if one may call them so, are still completely unsubdued. You have the great epidemics which range among the crowded tenement populations of our great cities, measles, bronchial pneumonia, whooping cough. If one takes pre-school children, one finds on looking at the deaths of children between one and five years of age, in 1928, numbering 4,247, that of those, bronchial pneumonia, measles, whooping cough and tuberculosis accounted for 57 per cent. of the deaths. Of those deaths, then, 57 per cent. were caused almost entirely by the respiratory diseases and the complications arising from those diseases. That seems to point not to an attempt to clean up the air, which is a very big business, and although it is necessary in our great cities may take us a long time, but to point to the fact that the resistance of the individual is the next line to go upon. We have to bring up the resistance of the individual to the diseases which affect their health. The lung diseases especially are a sign of lowered resistance in the individual child.
All these points, the experiments in the feeding of the school children, the high rate of measles and bronchial pneumonia, the figures for the health of the school population all seem to point to the fact that we are still trying to build the health of our population on a marsh. We have not got the pile-driving done which is necessary to get a sound foundation. With 73 per cent. of the children with decayed teeth, with 2 per cent. with primary anæmia, with the bronchitis figures, with the rickets and with the other figures I have mentioned, all these point strongly to the fact that the fundamental resistance of the race is not being safeguarded at the point where it will give the best results and where, if it is not safeguarded, it will sooner or later lead to that breakdown in adolescence or adult life which is so painful a feature of our modern life, whether you take it from the point of view of the unemployed who go out to Canada, the recruits we cannot get for the Army, the people who go on the health insurance funds for one reason or another, or those who fall through all these provisions and end up as cripples or bedridden persons in one or other of the hospitals which alone remain for them to drag out their lives in. I do not wish to raise a controversial note in the debate, but, surely, under such conditions, it seems urgent that, until the child is safe up to the age of 14, the child between the ages of 14 and 15 should take a secondary place. If you have not a sound child between the ages of one and five, it is useless to try to pump education into children between the ages of 14 and 15. Looking at the report, I find it stated that defective vision is the greatest difficulty from the point of view of the school child. I beg to differ from that. I myself suffer from defective vision, but I am sure that if I had acute rheumatism, or tooth ache, or rickets, or anaemia, it would be a much greater prejudice to the absorption of knowledge than the fact that I had to sit a little closer to the blackboard. I am not at all afraid of defective vision as compared with some of these other complaints from the educational point of view. That was precisely one of the reasons for which we found it necessary to move against the ad hoc authority, and towards the ad omnia authority. The report states, at page 81, that:I say that, when you find such a passage in an official report, it is very reasonable for us to say that that view is not one which would commend itself to most of us as common-sense citizens looking at the upbringing of the child from a common-sense point of view. We have turned very largely towards preserved foods, extracted foods, refined foods of one kind and another, and the necessity for studying these things scientifically stands out in almost every sentence of the report. The Poor Law authorities, since 1920, have spent £10,000,000 on the purchase of food for the Poor Law population of Scotland, without, as far as I know, any examination into the principles which should govern dietetics in the modern State. The difficulties before us are very great. There is no reason to suppose that scientific examination into the feeding of both the younger and the older people would not give us most valuable results, because it becomes clearer and clearer that, in moving away from the generally rough food on which our ancestors used to live, with a considerable amount of "roughage" of one kind and another, even including that peck of dirt which it was assumed everyone had to eat before he reached the age of 40, we do run the risk of over-refinement, of over-elaboration, and of a diet which eventually causes, to a considerable extent, the lack of that stamina which we all should desire. The physical condition of our people is one of the chief concerns of the Department of Health, and the advance in that respect is going steadily forward, but there is another field of advance which is more particularly the field of the Department just now, namely, the field of housing, and in that field we cannot say that the advance is going steadily forward. Accusations and discussions have gone on to a certain extent this afternoon as to what it is that is responsible for the fall in housing which has undoubtedly taken place. We need go no further than the answers which have been given this afternoon by the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland on behalf of the Department. He stated that on the 31st May, 1930, there were 6,300 men employed on local authorities' housing schemes in Scotland, while last year there were 8,900. That shows a drop of 3,600 in the number of men engaged in the building of houses in Scotland as compared with a year ago. We find the same thing in the case of the figures for houses under construction. On the 31st May of this year there were 10,500 houses under construction, while on the corresponding date last year there were 14,700. That shows a drop of 4,200 houses under construction, or very nearly 33⅓ per cent. The figures for houses completed are even more strikng. In the first five months of 1930, 2,807 houses were completed by local authorities in Scotland under all the State-assisted schemes, while the number completed in the corresponding period of 1929 was 5,700. That shows a drop of just in the region of 3,000. This matter was under review a, few days ago in the case of the English Ministry of Health, when several points of considerable interest were brought out. First of all, the discontinuance of the subsidy to private builders did mean that, in the case of a certain number of houses, the label had simply been taken off. Houses were still being built, but, while they were previously labelled as State-assisted houses, they were not now so labelled. I should like very much to know whether in Scotland the Under-Secretary of State considers that that is the case in Scotland. Undoubtedly, a certain number of houses fewer are being built, but it looks as though the number may be fewer simply because the label has been taken off them. Does not the hon. Gentleman, however, consider that there has been a real drop in the number of houses con structed in Scotland? I think that none of us could deny that there has been a real and a serious drop, and we have to look for the reason for it. Two of the reasons are given in the current Report of the Department of Health, I notice with some interest, in a journal to which I have always devoted great attenion, namely, "Forward," an article by Councillor Dollan, to whose work I have always paid great attention, because you nearly always find that there is a "catch" in it somewhere. In this article the "catch" is clear to see. The Report says:"Education authorities have recognised that the presence of defective vision, more than any other defective condition, is the most immediately serious handicap to the education of the child."
It will surprise none who are familiar with the methods of controversy of the correspondent in question to be told that he left out altogether the second factor which militated against the construction of houses in the year, and the passage, printed all in black type, looked as if it were entirely due to the proposed reduction of subsidy. The fact that half of it, according to the opinion expressed in the official report itself, was due to the prospect of more favourable legislative terms, was entirely omitted from the powerful article in question. The correspondent went on to say that he expected an apology. I am not disposed to tender any apology whatsoever, and I think that perhaps the demand for an apology might reasonably come from myself instead of from the eminent author. The report states that:"Two factors militated against an improved output for the year. In December, 1928, it was decided to reduce the rates of subsidy under the Acts of 1923 and 1924 as from the end of the following September. The rates under the latter Act were restored by Act of Parliament in July, so that actually the reduction under that Act never came into operation, but the prospect of the reduction doubtless deterred some local authorities from building. From July onwards better results might have ensued, but by that time there was a prospect of new legislation which it was hoped by local authorities might offer more attractive terms than those existing, and this consideration operated to retard building activity right to the close of the year. The year, therefore, was one of doubt and hesitancy, and to this may be attributed the fact that, the output of houses did not reach the 20,000 mark."
Yes, but that was over a year ago, and the restoration of the subsidy might reasonably have been expected to show itself in the number of houses under construction, if not in the number actually completed. But the number under construction has fallen by over 4,000 even with the prospect of an increased subsidy as compared with what it was when there was a prospect of a decreased subsidy. I think we must look further for the cause of the decline in house-building. I look to the figures given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the English Ministry of Health, who is always very interesting, because she is so extremely frank in reading out anything given to her by the Department. She said that, although it was quite true that municipal housing had collapsed, the country was being saved by private enterprise. She said:"the prospect of the reduction doubtless deterred some local authorities from building."
Is that what we are to look for in Scotland? If it is, I do not think that there is anything like the same revival of private enterprise in Scotland as there is in England, although that was the official explanation of the Ministry in England with regard to the saving of the housing situation. The hon. Lady went even further, and I wish that the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) were in his place, because she dealt very directly with the accusation that the Government were in some way responsible for the drop in housing during recent months. She went so far as not only to say, but to glory in the fact, that it was due to the action of the Government. These were her words:"That programme has been kept up quite satisfactorily, and though it is true that the private enterprise houses are not much good to the poorer workers, they are just as much good to the bricklayers and workers in the building trade as any other houses."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th June, 1930; col. 1,677, Vol. 240.]
I have no doubt—[Interruption.] I am glad to hear that interjection from the Under-Secretary. More will be heard, no doubt, of the extreme but unblushing lucidity of the hon. Lady who is his opposite number in the English Ministry of Health, but I am glad that the repre sentative of the Scottish Department has not said anything of the kind, and I am sure that in vain is the net spread in the sight of the bird, and that he will refuse to say anything of the kind. What is it due to? I think we shall all agree that it is due to a consideraable extent to the fear on the part of local authorities of the increasing burden of local taxation which it is piling up on their shoulders. It is quite true, as the Under-Secretary has said, that a great many members of local authorities are not of his political way of thinking; but they have not changed their way of thinking since a year ago. When we lost the General Election, we did not simultaneously win all the local authorities of Scotland. My right hon. Friend and myself had to deal with exactly the same local authorities, of exactly the same composition. We had to fight exactly the same opposition and to dispel exactly the same doubts as the hon. Gentleman. That explanation, really, if he will excuse my saying so, will not hold water. There is no vital change in the political complexion of local authorities since a year ago, and we must look further for the difficulties in which they find themselves, and in which the hon. Gentleman finds himself just now. The difficulty is one of finance, and the danger of piling burdens upon the local authorities is the danger that it slows up their progress in every branch. In such a case, with the slowing up of housing, with the fearful conditions under which the people are living and moving, with the slum sections of his own report, with the records by the Commissioners of children unable to sleep at night because of vermin, of dark houses, where a shilling a day is demanded for artificial light, burning up the air and ruining the health of the people as well as adding to their expense, what folly to ask Glasgow to find £400,000 for additional school buildings which may or may not be wanted when the present excessive number of school children pass from the schools! This is a moment to concentrate upon essentials, and, when you have a grievous housing situation and a slackening in the rate of progress in the Department, which all of us would desire to see accelerated rather than slowed down, such is surely a moment to save rather than increase the burden on local authorities. First things first. Let us deal with these tremendous and urgent problems before we go on to other problems which, no doubt, require attention, but do not require it in anything like the same degree as the problems immediately under review. No doubt, considerable advances have been made. Health has improved and housing has now improved, but we have a long way to go, and we do not know what the condition of the finances of the local authorities will be in the near future. Let us concentrate upon essentials. If anything is essential, the health of the young child and the housing of the population are. When we have cleaned these things up, we can pass on to other fields of activity, but let us, for God's sake, deal with these urgent problems first."As a matter of administration, I can say that we have advised local authorities to hold their hands for slum clearance until the new Housing Bill goes through the House."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th June, 1930; col. 1,679, Vol. 240.]
I despair of meeting in detail the enormous number of questions that have been raised in every part of the Committee, but, as on a previous occasion, if I undertake to send hon. Members written answers to points of local interest, that may meet the convenience of the Committee and enable me to concentrate my attention a little more upon general questions. The right hon. Gentleman who opened the debate asked how the new Local Government Act was being fitted into the machinery of local government. It is far too early to say. The machinery creaks a little here and there. It creaks rather badly in Lewis, and we have considerable difficulty in fitting in the desire of the people for local government and financial autonomy, with considerable State subventions, with the control which is being exercised by the county council of which it forms a part. But since 15th May, when the new Act came into full operation, it is fair to say that it is working with considerable facility and smoothness, taking the country as a whole. While I am not able to give the right hon. Gentleman any considered opinion as to what the ultimate facts may be, he will recognise that we have only had two months experience to go on, and it is really impossible to answer his question.
He and others raised the question of St. Kilda. He supported our attitude, while the hon. Member who represents the Western Isles rather criticized it. He took the view that our sole reason for assisting the evacuation of the population was one of saving cost, that it was only because it was costing us something like £500 a year to keep the people on the island that we were desirous of assisting evacuation. I assure him that it not so. Cost was, of course, a factor. It had to be considered. Any Government in its senses would consider whether it ought not to do something to stop a drain like that upon its finances. I went into every house and asked all the islanders separately what their views were, and I was assured in every case that it was their earnest desire not to spend another winter on the island. They implored me not to let the question of sheep stock stand between them and evacuation. We will take every step possible to see that these people are accommodated in future in surroundings which will be a very considerable improvement upon those under which they were living. The poverty under which they have lived is almost indescribable. They were faced with famine—actual shortage of food. Had it not been for the Queen's nurse, to whose devoted labour and service I should like to pay a tribute, who stayed there these two winters, Heaven only knows what tragedies would have occurred. We are taking every step, and I believe now with success, to find suitable employment, and we are making provision for those who are unable to fend for themselves.Whatever provision the hon. Gentleman makes, will he see that these people are kept as near the sea as possible, so that the old conditions under which they were reared will be available for them, and that in any case they shall be kept away from town life?
That is the desire of the majority, but there are at least two who do not want the particular conditions that the hon. Member specifies. Their desires are being met so far as they can be met, and I have reason to believe that the offers made to them have been heartily welcomed.
The right hon. Gentleman also raised the question of the Lanarkshire milk experiment. I agree with the late Under-Secretary that we are exceedingly indebted to the members of the Empire Marketing Board for the generosity with which they put at our disposal some £5,000 to give us the basis of our experiment. We have had to raise the balance from other sources, sometimes not without difficulty, but I think we have got it all, and I believe the experiment we have conducted with these 10,000 children in Lanarkshire will be one of interest to the people, not only of Scotland but of all the world. If we can prove beyond all doubt that a ration of milk given to the school child will raise its weight and its height and will benefit its health in every way, and that by organising the milk supply properly through the local authorities we shall save untold millions later on in public health expenditure, we may get a well organised demand for milk rations to school children. Then there is the question of bovine tuberculosis. That ought to be wiped out. It is a scandal that anyone should suffer now as the result of bovine tubercle. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir R Hamilton) raised the question of the Highlands and Islands Medical Fund. I propose to send him a considered answer to his question. In general, I can assure him that we have every sympathy with the point of view that he expressed, and we are not at all desirous of cutting down the expenditure. We recognise the very valuable service it has given, and my right hon. Friend proposes to extend its operation. We propose to assist telephones, and all the rest of it, in the rural areas. Without going further in detail into these matters, I assure him that the questions he raised will have our sympathy. The hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern), who delivered a very forcible maiden speech, asked whether the Secretary of State would agree to calling a conference of public assistance committees to discuss the equalisation of the present scales of relief, particularly in so far as they apply to children. My right hon. Friend and I have been giving the matter very serious consideration. Take two authorities adjacent to one another, Wishaw and Hamilton. In Wishaw a man and his wife on poor relief have a scale of 20s., and 2s. for each child under 16. In Hamilton it is 4s. better. That is only over an imaginary line where, presumably, the cost of living and so on is the same, and obviously it is wrong. If it is right that poor relief should be a certain sum in Hamilton—that was on advice from the medical officer—it is time we had some examination of the lower scales of relief in the immediate neighbourhood. There are remarkable differences all over Scotland. Some areas pay 3s. 6d. per child, and other areas pay 2s. per child. I want to say no more about the 2s. areas, but I, do not think that any child can be maintained for a week for 2s. I do not know how it can be done; seven days a week, 3½d. per day. It cannot be done. No matter how thrifty or how economically a mother may spend the money, a child cannot be maintained in physical efficiency to-day at 3½. per day. My right hon. Friend authorises me to say that he proposes at an early date, after the Public Assistance Committees have found their feet, after the new Committees under the Act have visualised the problem which is in front of them, to have a friendly discussion at least with some of these authorities to see how far we may secure the adoption of a more reasonable scale as far as the children are concerned. Several hon. Gentlemen raised the question of rivers pollution, including the hon. Member for Cathcart (Mr. Train) and the hon. and learned Member for East Fife (Mr. Millar). I can assure hon. Members that the Rivers Pollution Committee are very actively engaged at this moment. The report on the Tweed has been finished, and it will be published shortly; at least, I hope it will be published shortly, and I understand that we propose to go on with the Leven as has been suggested. The hon. Member for Cathcart may rest assured that everything that the Committee can do to secure a more comprehensive attack upon rivers pollution will be undertaken.Can the hon. Gentleman say whether it will be possible to arrange that the Committee should meet the Town Council of Leven who are closely affected?
I should hardly think it would be necessary for me to suggest that they should meet any particular body. I am certain that if the town of Leven made any representation with regard to being seen by the Rivers Pollution Committee, the Committee would be prepared to meet them, but I should not like to give any promise that they would meet any particular body. I will not seek to follow the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) in his irrelevant but rather humorous dissertation upon medical missionaries among the aborigines of the West Highlands. I should be hopelessly out of order if I sought to follow him. The hon. Member for Central Aberdeen (Mr. R. W. Smith) raised questions about the necessity of paying more attention to pre-natal trouble, and, as will be seen from the report, that matter is engaging the attention of the medical officers of the Department, and we certainly intend to speed up that matter in every way that we can.
The hon. and gallant Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) asked if we could speed up rural housing. I think that it will he more appropriate if we discuss that matter to-morrow on the new Bill, but I can assure him that my right hon. Friend has sent out circulars to the local authorities, he has met the local authorities, or some of them, and we are sending inspectors to local authorities and doing everything in our power to induce the local authorities, as far as they financially can, to make the maximum effort possible in dealing with the improvement of housing in the rural areas in Scotland. Up till March there were 2,406 housing schemes under the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, 1926, and there are at present 1,637 under construction so that there are nearly as many houses under construction as had been constructed previously, thus proving that we are not slackening in pressure but are hacking up local authorities in the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Lovat-Fraser) asked about the number of children whom he saw from the report were in Poor houses in Scotland. I am informed that these include newly-born children and also what are called temporary cases, and that they include cases where the local authorities have so far not been able to make arrangements for boarding out. There are very few of them all told. At any rate, it is the desire of the Department that no children whatever should be brought up in the poor houses in Scot land. We ought to get the children out of the poor houses, and as far as we do so we are exerting pressure in that sense.Is my hon. Friend going to say anything about the position of the River Clyde?
I have only been able to refer to the Tweed. I come to the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Major Elliot), who wound up the debate on the other side. With the opening statement of that speech, I am in whole-hearted agreement. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman does not mind my saying so, I think that he made a most statesmanlike summary of the health position in Scotland and I recommend every hon. Member who did not hear his statement to read it in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow. I also agree with him that we are making very considerable progress not only in regard to tuberculosis, but along other lines. We are making some progress in regard to nutrition, and, if our milk experiment succeeds, we shall make a great advance in nutrition. We are making great advances in regard to fresh air. We see the younger generation with their rucksacks and their staffs marching out from the cities to camp out on the hillsides. And the omnibus is having an effect upon the health of this generation. I can see a generation demanding fresh air and sunlight: a generation which will never again go back to the damp closed-in beds and the unhealthy conditions which past generations have tolerated.
I am not sure that I agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman in his summary of the causes of the diminution in house building during recent months. It is not only during the past 12 months that there has been a diminution in the rate of house building in Scotland; it is not only since this Government came into office that there has been a diminution. But I welcome whole-heartedly the desire now evinced on all sides of the Committee for a greater speeding up in public ownership of dwelling-houses for the people of Scotland. I remember the day when you could not get a majority in any city or village in Scotland to agree with the principle of municipal housing. To-day it is accepted on all hands that the future dwelling-house to let must be publicly-owned. [Interruption.] At any rate, I should say that the overwhelming voice of the people of Scotland is now in favour of the public ownership of dwelling-houses to let and that, as far as houses built to be let are concerned, they should be publicly and not privately-owned. I welcome that fact. Have we left anything undone during the last 12 months which we ought to have done to speed up housing? I know of nothing. If there be anything that we have left undone, will the hon. and gallant Gentleman tell me what we have left undone?If the hon. Gentleman and his party continue to pile financial burdens upon the backs of the authorities, housing will diminish. I should like the hon. Gentleman to leave undone exactly the sort of thing which we are going to debate in a very few minutes, and in which the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Noble Lady the Member for Kinross and Western (Duchess of Atholl) will take part.
The question of whether or not we should extend the school age is a matter that we cannot discuss at the moment.
We cannot discuss that question at the moment; it would require legislation.
It is administratively possible for Tie Secretary of State by a stroke of the pen to extend the school age, and therefore is it not in order to discuss the matter?
I thought that the hon. and gallant. Member was referring to a Bill.
I agree that it is within the power of the Secretary of State to do that. I was asking: Is there anything which we have left undone during the past I2 months that we could have done to induce the local authorities to build more houses? [An. HON. MEMBER: "You have increased the subsidy!"] I will come to that in a moment. Has anything been left undone during the past 12 months which would have induced local authorities to build more houses? I do not know of anything. We have met them in conference, we have written to them, we have pleaded with them, and we have sent our inspectors. I know of nothing more that could have been done to induce the production of a greater number of houses in the country. What has happened—and it is very important that the Committee should know it—to cause a diminution in the rate of house building in Scotland? The Committee must cast back their minds to the fact that the review period under the Wheatley Act ended on the 1st October, or at the end of September, 1928, and that the then Government—not our Government—in December of that year decided to cut the subsidy, to lower the subsidy. I would ask the attention of the hon. and gallant Gentleman to this fact, that between the period September, 1928, and the period when we took office there was a steady reduction month by month of the houses under construction in Scotland, and the reduction was at the rate of 5,000 per month when we took office. There were 14,000 houses being built per month when we took office, and there were 19,000 houses being built before the subsidy was cut, so that under the regime of our predecessors house building fell at the rate of 5,000 Der month. It is true that building construction has still fallen, but building construction under this Government has fallen at a slightly lower rate. It has fallen to the extent of 3,600 up to the end of May. I have not the June figures. Up to the end of May, 10,580 houses were under construction, and when we took office there were 3,600 more than that. Therefore, the rate of fall has been somewhat smaller under our regime than under the regime of our predecessors. I would like to carry the matter further. I have here a very interesting extract, which I have been waiting to quote on a favouable opportunity. It is a- quotation from a speech made by the hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove in this House on the 12th December, 1928, when he was justifying the cut in the subsidy. He sad:
He expected to get an increase in the number."I say that in the near future no look for an increase and not for a decrease in housing as a result of this Order."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th December, 1928; col. 2204, Vol. 223.]
8.0 p.m.
Will the Under-Secretary compare that quotation with page 2 or the current report, which says:
"Greater than in 1928." So that the increase which I expected actually occurred."The number of houses completed during the year, although greater than in 1928, did not fulfil all expectations."
The number of houses for which the hon. and gallant Member took credit in 1928 were almost entirely started before he got the cut in the subsidy. When he intimated the cut in the subsidy, the local authorities rushed forward to have their schemes completed in order to secure the larger subsidy. As a matter of fact, the number of houses under construction fell steadily from September, 1928, when the Wheatley review period had to be undertaken.
The Under-Secretary will agree that they were falling before then, when there was no suggestion of a cut in the subsidy.
I say that the numbers were falling throughout 1928.
Take the year before.
I am dealing with the year 1928. In 1928 the figures ran 18,000, 17,000, 18,000, 19,000, and so on until October, when the figure was 17,000; then November, 16,000; December, 16,000; January, 1929, 15,000; February, 15,000; March, 14,000—a steady diminution—12,000; 10,000; 9,000. Instead of getting an increase of houses as a result of his cut in the subsidy, the hon. and gallant Member actually got a steady decrease. I am not blaming the hon. and gallant Member any more than we can be blamed. I know that he exercised every possible pressure that he could to get houses built in Scotland, and so did his right hon. Friend. They sent out circulars, they threatened and did everything possible, but there are local authorities in Scotland to-day, county councils, who have built no State-aided houses at all. I was in a housing scheme yesterday, in Smithston in Dumbartonshire. Up to the 15th May this year there was not a solitary representative of my political persuasion on the county council there. They were all supporters of the right hon. and the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite. In the village of Smithston there are 70 houses and there are eight dry privies, 14 feet from the windows of the houses. There is not a door in one of those privies. There is not a spar or a seat in one of these privies. There is an open sewer 1½ yards broad which runs down the whole length of the village. There is a stench that cries to heaven, yet I cannot get and the hon. and gallant Member could not get that county council to build a solitary house in that area. The houses are not owned by a widow, but they are owned by William Baird and Company.
We cannot be blamed nor can any other Government be blamed unless it can be proved that the Government are not using all their powers and energies to see that Acts that are passed by the House of Commons are put into operation. Therefore, I regret that the hon. and gallant Member and his friends have put down an Amendment to the Bill which comes up for discussion to-morrow, to limit our powers in dealing with these recalcitrant local authorities. We are asking for powers so that where a local authority will not build we can have power to go in and build on health grounds, and charge them. Hon. Members opposite have put down an Amendment to provide that, before we are able to exercise that power, we are to lay the Order on the Table of this House and the other House for 30 days. If there are local authorities that will not move, if there are local authorities that defy the elementary laws of decency and human existence, then instead of blaming the Government as being responsible let us take all the powers that we can to compel the local authorities to act. When we get the powers, then let whatever Government is in office exercise those powers. My right hon. Friend and I, if we have anything to do with the administration of that Act, propose to exercise to the maximum our powers of compulsion upon the recalcitrant local authorities who have defied us, who have defied civilisation, who have defied Christianity and, to my knowledge, have allowed to remain in this old Scotland of ours stinking hovels the like of which cannot be described in a public assembly. There is nothing that my right hon. Friend and I are conscious of having left undone to wipe away the slums in Scotland and to secure a healthier environment and better conditions for the generation which is to come after us.The situation with regard to the smaller house is one of very great importance, and I am asked to make a further representation on that point and to appeal to the Government to enable a local authority in any given quarter where it is found essential to provide the smaller houses, and that the 25 per cent. should be increased to meet the urgent necessities of the case. The report that we have before us to-day shows that the Government have shown appreciation of the magnificent gift to our city of 500 houses at a cost of £155,000. These houses range from houses of one, two and three rooms, and the report expresses due appreciation of that munificent gift. So far as our city is concerned, however, we do appeal to the Government to concede the urgent call for an extension of the 25 per cent. with respect to two-roomed houses. We know that that matter will be under consideration tomorrow, but we may have some difficulty in raising the matter then. There is reference in the report to the proposed provision in Scotland of hostel accommodation, and the Corporation of Dundee wish again to call attention to the anomalous situation that whereas the English Housing Bill provides for the smaller houses and not for hostel accommodation—
The hon. Member is now discussing a matter which involves legislation. On this Vote he must deal only with questions of administration for which the Department is responsible.
I was referring to the fact that the report states that hostel accommodation is to be provided, and I was merely pointing out that that matter will be dealt with in the Bill which is to be discussed to-morrow. I am not proceeding to discuss legislation, but I do suggest that it is vital to meet the call of the corporation of Dundee and other parts of Scotland where they may wish to provide smaller houses, as can be done in England. Reference was made in the Committee on the Scottish Housing Bill to the cubicle system in the hostel accommodation, and the Under-Secretary took exception to it, vet I find in the re port now under discussion that, with regard to the Edinburgh scheme, it distinctly points out that there is the provision of cubicles. Therefore, there is strong warrant for the application of the term that I used in Committee, and it is a very effective answer to the statement of the Under-Secretary.
On a point of Order. It will be grossly unfair if no opportunity is to be given to reply to these statements by the hon. Member. I distinctly deny that anything in our Bill which deals with hostels has anything to do with cubicles.
That is my difficulty. The hon. Member is referring to matters which imply legislation, and that is distinctly out of order on this Vote. The only matters that can be discussed on this Vote are matters for which the Department is administratively responsible. The hon. Member must not anticipate future legislation.
I am not discussing future legislation. I did not say that that term is used in the Bill. I said that in the report of the Department which is now under review in connection with this Vote reference is made to the term "cubicle," and I submit that as an effective endorsement of the term which was resented by the Under-Secretary when I used it. I urge that the Government should give consideration to the advisability of meeting the needs of the community where industrial conditions are such, as admitted by the report, that people are not able to find the requisite rental for a larger house. The corporation of Dundee say, "We accept your condition as to the number of people who are to occupy houses"—that is to prevent overcrowding—"but we as a corporation ask, and the women workers in Dundee ask and insist upon it, that we should be allowed to provide smaller houses, and we maintain that Scotland is rightly entitled to do what England is entitled to do." If hostels are not good enough for England, they are not good enough for Scotland.
I must enter my protest against the Government giving way to the appeal which has just been made. Scotland has been suffering for years from one and two roomed houses, and it is only in recent times that we have begun to raise the standard of living. Even at the moment 48 per cent. of our people are living in one and two roomed houses, and that is only a reduction from the 62 per cent. a few years ago. Some public authorities, and sometimes Members of Parliament, desire to keep up the conditions which have been killing off our people before their time. Our object should be to raise the standard of living in Scotland. For years yet, with all the work which the Scottish Department of Health is doing, there will still be far too many of these small houses. I admire the public work of the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour) and the stand he has taken on certain questions, but bad housing and insanitary conditions have destroyed more of our people than anything else, and we shall never raise the standard of living or take away the curse of strong drink so long as they are housed worse than pigs. I sincerely hope that the Scottish Office will not listen to the voice of the pleader as far as housing is concerned.
May I point out to the hon. Member for Bothwell (Mr. Sullivan) that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health gave a very effective reply when she said that she had occupied one room. She has risen to a position of eminence to which my hon. Friend has not risen. Then again, the right hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. J. Brown) still takes great credit that his beloved wife and himself occupy a "butt and ben," and the right hon. Gentleman is Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. That is a position to which one may rise from two rooms.
Question put, and agreed to.
Class Iv
Public Education, Scotland
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £4,497,422, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1931, for Public Education in Scotland, and for the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, including sundry Grants in Aid."—[NOTE.—£2,750,000 has been voted on account.]
In a discussion on the Estimate for Scottish education, I may begin by directing the attention of the Committee to one special feature of our education finance. The total sum asked for is nearly £8,000,000, but over £7,750,000 of this sum, Grant-in-Aid is determined automatically by the 11/80ths formula prescribed by the Act of 1918. That is to say, the sum is calculated at 11/80ths of the corresponding English Estimate, subsequent to certain adjustments of a very minor character. On the remaining quarter of a million, there is an increase of only about £4,000 over the corresponding figure for 1929. In this residual part of the Estimate, the expenditure is almost entirely for staff, mainly for small annual increments in the scale of existing officers. If hon. Members will look at the figures, they will see that the total increase in the staff is only four, a very modest figure when we consider the additions to the work of the Department consequent upon the Local Government Act of 1929, and the attention which has been given to the problem of raising the school age. The increase in the Grant-in-Aid amounts to a little over £1,000,000, but I must point out that £586,000 of this sum is not a real increase; it is due to a change in book-keeping, so to speak. Up to this year, this sum was paid from the local taxation account into the education account. It is now on the Vote, and the change marks the end of the historic system of assigned revenues. The real increase in the Grant-in-Aid is less than half a million pounds.
The abolition of the assigned revenues was brought about by the Local Government (Scotland) Act of 1929, and this gives me an opportunity of referring briefly to the great changes in local administration of education made by that Act. On the 15th May this year the ad hoc system disappeared in Scotland, 28 years after the corresponding change was made in England and 58 years after thebeginning of that system in Scotland itself. We have reached the end of an epoch, marked at the beginning by Lord Young's Act of 1872 and at the end by the Act brought in by the late Secretary of State for Scotland. Hon. Members will be aware that my colleagues and I were strongly opposed to that change, but it is my duty to carry it into effect, and I think I may say that with the good will and energy of members and officials of local bodies we have made the change over as smooth as possible. The new authorities are now settling down to their work. They have set up their education committees, and their school management committees and formulated their administrative schemes, and the work of the schools is going on as before. I will now pass to more purely educational matters. Within the last few weeks the hon. Member for Kincardine (Mr. Scott) has put at least 24 questions to me relating to the work of the Education Department. Arising from these it may be useful if, within the larger scope of the present Vote, I try to explain certain of the principles which have guided the Department for many years. I choose three outstanding points raised in these questions. First, I noticed with surprise the hon. Member's desire for more examinations. Surely the general feeling among well-informed critics nowadays is that the less we have in the way of rigorous, formal, external examinations the better. Examinations are perhaps a necessary evil, useful for certain limited purposes, but we must closely scrutinise the claims of each to continued existence. Any proposal to add to their number is surely to be regarded at least with a certain amount of suspicion. I hope we have progressed beyond the days of Victorian Codes and payment by results, and have reached a less mechanical conception of the way to assess our educational work. In the second place, I have been asked for statistics and more statistics, so as to reveal what the hon. Member called the "real results of education." Can the real results of education be verified by statistics? Personally, I gravely doubt it. They are very useful within limits, but they must never occupy more than a subsidiary place in any attempt to put a value on results. They appeal, no doubt, to the bureaucratic mind, which likes tidy columns and balancing totals. But surely we judge by other things as well. In both these demands, for more examinations and more statistics, there lies a profound fallacy. The material conditions under which teachers do their work—salaries, the size of classes, attendance, buildings—can be described in figures, but the essence of education is a thing of the spirit. You cannot reduce it to neat and manageable percentages, and if I am told that the intelligence, behaviour and manners and health of the present generation of young people are worse as a consequence of our school system, frankly I do not believe it. Nor will any disinterested observer of our social system who takes any rains to find out what is really being done in the schools day by day. There are the views expressed by the Salvesen Committee, a very representative body which so recently as 1928 examined the relations of our Scottish education to industry:"Most of the witnesses representing trades and industry have little or no fault to find with the character of the boys and girls leaving primary schools for employment. Dundee employers, for example, say that immense progress has been made in the building up of character between the ages of five and 14 years, and this view is supported by other witnesses. …."
"As regards physique there is evidence of improvement during recent years, due to periodical medical examinations, the inclusion of physical drill and organised games in the curriculum, and the establishment of clinics. No witness would suggest that the physique of children leaving school at the present time has deteriorated…."
"The general level of intelligence of boys and girls from the primary schools is said to be high…."
The Committee also makes a number of specific recommendations for improvement, but I find in their report nothing to contradict the belief that Scottish education is in a thoroughly healthy and progressive condition. My third point is the place and value of practical work. I have been asked why I do not reduce manual occupations in the schools so as to give more time to reading, writing and arithmetic. Such a step, I am sure, would be condemned by those who have given most attention to educational problems. We are continually being told by the students of education that what is wanted is more practical instruction, not less, that such instruction engages the interest and develops the mind of many children who have little aptitude for book work, that it should find a place in the curriculum even of the normal and bookish child. I agree with these views. Let me give one illustration. Is arithmetic to be taught only by doing theoretical sums on paper? If a boy is taught wood work properly he must necessarily do arithmetic as part of the work, and it is an arithmetic which has a real appeal to him, for he sees its value in the constructive work that he is doing. I think it will be a very long time before we need become apprehensive that too much practical work is being done in our schools. The tradition of Scotland is too academic for that. I now pass to a few significant figures, and in doing so I am not forgetting what I have already said about statistics. The number of scholars on the registers of the schools is 819,000, a figure lower than any during the last 10 years except 1925, and 50,000 lower than the 1920 figure. We all know the causes of this. On the other hand, the number of teachers, 27,200, is higher than it has ever been, and is now 2,500 in excess of the 1920 figure. In other words, scholars have gone down by 6 per cent. and teachers have gone up by 10 per cent. in the 10 years' period. I do not think we can criticise this contrary movement. In the big towns classes are still large—very large compared with the standard adopted in private schools. Only the cost would make anyone hesitate to carry further the reduction decided on by myself in 1924 and carried into effect by my right hon. Friend in 1928; but we have to remember that teachers mean salaries and pensions, and that both those items account for over £8,000,000 of the total of £12,000,000 expended annually on public education in Scotland by our local authorities. In the planning of schools there has been great activity. During the year 1929 loans for new buildings, sites and extensions, to the extent of over £1,000,000, were sanctioned. During the first six months of this year the corresponding figure is £970,000 and the average for the previous 10 years was less than £500,000. These are remarkable figures and, I think, they speak for themselves. No doubt I shall be expected to say something about the raising of the school age, but there is very little to say that has not been said before on this question. Hon. Members will recall that this sub ject was very fully discussed on the Motion for Adjournment before the Easter Recess. To what I said then may add that I have circularised the new authorities asking them for more precise estimates and impressing upon them the need for carrying on the preparations of their predecessors. I have, in particular, pointed out to them that in framing their estimates it is desirable to distinguish, as far as possible, between what is the direct result of the raising of the school age and what, in any case, would be necessary or desirable for other reasons. I admit that it is very difficult to draw the line especially where, as in so many cases, general schemes of reorganisation are involved. In considering and comparing estimates we must bear this difficulty in mind. I have also, quite recently, met a representative gathering of the new authorities and have discussed with them the questions of buildings, of teachers and of maintenance allowances. My general impression from this discussion was that the new authorities are as zealous for the cause of progressive education as were the old authorities. In this connection I may just add an interesting figure that out of 1,070 members on the new education committees, 448 were members of the old education authorities. The necessary Order under the Education (Scotland) Act, 1918, for raising the school age is ready and when the English Bill has become an Act I shall sign it. In Scotland, as in England, the question of maintenance allowances will have to be dealt with by legislation. For Scotland I wish also to narrow or, it may be to abolish altogether the power which education authorities have to grant exemptions from the obligation to attend school at certain ages. All these matters are engaging my close attention and I do not think I need go into them at such great length as I did just before the Easter Recess when the Noble Lady the Member for Perth and Kinross (Duchess of Atholl) and I, had an opportunity of discussing Scottish educational matters very fully. I cannot close, however, without acknowledging the interest which the Noble Lady has taken in my educational thoughts and doings. I gather that she is concerned in the main about two things, first, the adequacy of the preparations for next April, and, second, the financial aid which the Scottish authorities will receive. As to the former, no reasonable person expects that a complete and perfect organisation of post-primary education can spring into being on 1st April next. There must be a gradual development of the new system when the conditions for it are firmly set, but I do not agree that we must, therefore, give notice extending to a period of years after the Act has been passed or the order has been made. As I have said before, the best way to get a thing done is to fix a definite and not too distant date. The intention to raise the school age in Scotland has been on the Statute Book for over 10 years, and the date which we have fixed was announced two years in advance. I would recall again the facts that the 1872 Act came into operation immediately after it was passed and the 1901 Act came into operation only lout months after it was passed. The former Act introduced compulsory education for the whole child population between the ages of five and 13, and the second raised the school-leaving age lay one year—surely, changes as great as that which it is sought to make on the present occasion. During the past year local authorities have done a great deal of work in the preparation of plans. The figures given earlier are proof of that fact. If the authorities have not actually put stone to the ground as much as I would have liked, owing to causes of which we are all aware, we must just make the best of it. But that does not justify any further postponement of a reform which has long been accepted as desirable and even urgently desirable. We shall have set the conditions for the new work, and I am confident that, with the good will of local administrators, it will soon be carried to a stage at which it will be one of the most valuable elements in our system of education. As to the financial side, the Scottish authorities will receive a contribution from the Exchequer fixed on the 11/80ths principle. Scotland will receive her share of whatever is given in respect of English expenditure. I must point out once more that there is very great difficulty in distinguishing that part of the cost of schemes of reorganisation which is due to the raising of the school age from that which is due to other causes. But the English grant will be paid in respect of the total expenditure of the authorities. It will not be paid in two parts, one for the raising of the school age and one for the other causes of expenditure, nor will the Scottish grants be so divided, so that for the purposes of our grants it does not greatly matter whether the line demarcating those estimates is drawn accurately or not. The total English expenditure will determine our grant, and I have no reason to think that the two countries will not keep step in this matter. It will be well, therefore, to await the actual outturn of the two expenditures before we think of questioning the 11/80ths principle, which has operated in such a simple, effective, and equitable manner for so many years. One could have taken more time and touched more subjects on such an interesting question as this, but there are others who want to speak, and for the time being I have touched as many points as I want, to do. I therefore have much pleasure in moving the Estimate which you have just read from the Chair."It will be seen from this outline of the evidence of the representatives of trade and industry, that the average Scottish employer would probably state that he is fairly content with the primary school system as it stands and does not demand any radical alteration…."
I am sure the Committee has listened with great interest to the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman, and I think it is clear that in what he said about practical instruction he has the sympathy of many Members of the Committee beside myself. But in what he has said about the raising of the school leaving age and in particular about the attitude in which I approach this subject, he has once more made me feel that he is not facing the realities of the situation, and that he does not realise the grounds by any means fully on which we, on these benches, say that it is premature to act now; and I hope he will forgive me if I devote my speech mainly to that question.
It is clear that under any circumstances the raising of the school age is a question of cardinal importance for any country at any moment. To prolong by a year the school life of every child of school age in the country must always be a very momentous step, but I claim that it is a step of special moment and one that requires special consideration in regard to Scotland, because it is a step which cuts right into and, I say unhesitatingly, intensifies one of Scotland's biggest educational problems—the education of the adolescent. The right hon. Gentleman told us that he felt that more practical instruction was needed, and in saying so he referred to the demand of the hon. Member for Kincardine (Mr. Scott) for more uniform and rigorous examination of children at the age of 12.I want to enter a caveat at this stage. I do not accept for a moment that my views have been correctly represented, but I propose later on to contribute my own version of them.
I am very sorry if I have misinterpreted the hon. Gentleman, but I leave him to explain what was in his mind when he put that series of interesting questions to the right hon. Gentleman. Personally, I am very glad he put those questions, because I think they focus attention on a very important point, and strengthen a position which I personally hope to maintain in the matter. This question of practical instruction is not merely a modern question, or a temporary or passing question. It is something that seems to me to arise out of Scotland's whole educational history. As I look back on the centuries of the history of Scottish education, it seems quite clear that a distinctive feature of that education has been the fact that for so long we have had universities, well distributed at different centres in our country, accessible to students of small means; and leading up towards those universities, we have had a widespread system of secondary schools, aided by grants from public funds.
Therefore, the special pride of Scottish education is that for so long we have had a more open and a wider avenue of approach to university education than has been the case in some other countries, notably England; we are all proud of it, and we recognise it as a distinctive quality of Scottish education. But qualities are apt to have their defects, and in the case of Scottish education the defect of that great quality of the avenue for the poorer children to the university has been that the needs of the university student have too much dominated our secondary schools and our education in general. Secondary schools are always apt to be dominated by the university, but I venture to say that in Scotland there has been more than a usual measure of that domination. The eyes of school boards and education authorities have been so fixed on the child of literary ability, who was obviously able to profit by secondary and university education, that there has not been enough thought given to the best means of developing the children of less literary types of ability, but possibly with gifts of equal use to the community, if they could be developed. Surely variety of capacity, variety of taste and individuality, is one of the fundamental facts in human nature. It seems to me one of the glories of human nature that there is this variety. After all, we daily marvel at the variety in the animal creation and in the plant creation, and surely the variety in the human creation is not less wonderful. But probably in all countries, though I think rather specially in Scotland, we have been so anxious to do our best for the children of one particular type of ability that we have been a little slow to recognise the great variety of ability that there is in children, and I think that in that field it is established now by pyschology that variety of type, variety of capacity, begins to show itself at the adolescent stage in a way in which it does not show itself in the earlier school years. Therefore, while you may educate children of different types of ability together, say, up to 11 or 12 years, after that age, if you are to do them justice and really help them to bring out what is in them, you have to have varied types of courses side by side in each centre. What Scottish Members know as the system of advanced divisions, introduced in 1923, was a recognition of that fundamental principle. It was intended to offer varying courses with a common core of the main class subjects, but with a fringe that may vary from a foreign language with higher mathematics at one end, to some form of practical instruction, indoor or outdoor, for boys and girls, at the other. It is very interesting to remember that that principle was the main point of what is known as the Hadow report, the report of the Board of Education's Consultative Committee in 1926, which therefore recommended the reorganisation of the education of the senior children which my right hon. Friend the late President of the Board of Education had already begun to carry through. The report issued by the right hon. Gentleman's Department tells us that in Scotland advanced divisions are extending. I do not think that they are extending very fast, but they are extending. The reports of His Majesty's Inspectors and of the Department alike tell us that there is still too little practical instruction in the advanced divisions; indeed the right hon. Gentleman has told us so to-day. We are further told that there is too little practical instruction in the secondary schools. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman in what he says, and I want to see practical instruction a part of the instruction of every child, indeed of every young person who is going from a secondary school to a university, because education is not complete unless there is some development of the hand as well as of the head. Let us also be quite clear that, when we are developing the hands of children who are perhaps rather slow in the first instance with their books, we are probably developing their brains as well. Through some form of practical instruction, the child may be given a real interest in his work; he will gain a new confidence, and he may be sent back with fresh heart and hope to the lessons in which he was making little headway before. Of course, the provision of practical instruction means special equipment, expensive and bulky equipment, which needs special premises and extra classrooms; therefore, widespread development of practical instruction means centralisation, and more teachers able to teach practical subjects. The fact that we have not more practical instruction in our schools seems to be one reason why there are not enough children taking advantage of the two years' advanced divisions. The way is barred by an examination which, His Majesty's chief inspectors state, is apt to be of too scholastic a character, and the child who ought to get on to practical instruction in some advanced division finds his way barred because he is not good enough at his bookwork. In England a system has been adopted of making a "clean cut at eleven plus, whereby the child gets moved up automatically at that age, examination or no examination, and thereby gets the chance of practical instruction which very often brings him on in his bookwork too. We should not lose sight of the fact, that if a child's lessons have been of a kind that he could not master, or which did not arouse any interest in him, his education has largely failed. It may have taught him discipline and manners and some mechanical routine; but, after all, the main thing at which we must aim in education is that interest should be aroused and that the pupil should leave his school or college with a thirst for more. Unless his education has been of the type best fitted to develop him, he probably leaves school thankful to see the last of it, and possibly with a distaste for learning. It is obviously the most urgent need of Scottish education to give the nonliterary child a chance of development, in order that he may gain confidence, that his interest may be aroused, and that he may be encouraged to continue studies of some kind after he leaves school. To put the matter in a sentence, the need of Scottish education at the present is for education of a particular type and of a particular quality in order to give more variety of opportunity in school. What are the Government doing? They are not concerning themselves in the first instance about the type of education which the children are getting, or whether there is any practical instruction in school or not. I am glad to think that the right hon. Gentleman has given practical instruction his blessing, but the policy which he is pursuing is a policy of putting quantity before quality. The raising of the school age means that every child from next spring has to spend a year more in school, whether the education is the type that is most suitable for the child or not. One of the reports of His Majesty's senior inspectors indeed suggests what seems to me obvious, that the raising of the school age may throw back this greater differentiation which we agree is so necessary. It is pointed out in this report that more practical instruction means more centralisation, and that, if to the children of the present age range are added the children up to 15, the central schools to which the children must go if they are to get practical instruction, will be swamped. The "clean cut" at 12 to enable the child to go on without a set examination and after the age of 12 to get the kind of education necessary, will probably be deferred by the raising of the age. If the central schools are swamped as is suggested in this report, it means crowded classes, and that means less chances of good teaching both to the children of the new age and the children of a younger age. It will make it impossible to divide the pupils up into different classes, as they must be if you want to have varying instruction; you may be keeping the children a year longer at what they dislike, and thereby you will risk sending them away more than ever disheartened and discouraged. Even supposing that the authorities will have their central school buildings planned and ready by the time stated, what about the practical teachers? It is obvious from the report issued by the right hon. Gentleman's Department that there are not enough teachers of practical subjects even now. The report says quite clearly that the number of practical teachers must be increased.9.0 p.m.
There is no difficulty about the increasing the number of teachers or the building of new schools.
If the hon. Gentleman will be kind enough to listen, he will see that so far the right hon. Gentleman has not given any indication of how he is going to increase the number. The right hon. Gentleman told me, in reply to a question on 3rd April, that he thought he would require some 2,000 more teachers when the school age was raised. I could never prevail on him to say at what particular date he would require that number. The President of the Board of Education has tried to be more explicit in regard to his needs, but I have never succeeded in drawing from the right hon. Gentleman anything but that figure of 2,000 at same unspecified date. He said, however, that more than a half of those additional teachers would be class teachers. Therefore, we may infer that something approaching 1,000 will have to be teachers of practical subjects. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that the average number of teachers of practical subjects who completed training in the last three years was not more than 271, and I have not been able to get him to give me any indication of any step he has taken to bring about any material increase in the number of practical teachers to be trained, except that, when I pressed him about the need for more teachers of commercial subjects, he told me that some 38 teachers had entered to be trained for commercial subjects under the authorities of Glasgow and Aberdeen. Providing 38 teachers of commercial subjects does not carry us very far towards the additional 1,000 required, and the Committee would be glad to hear what steps have been taken to train the 1,000 additional teachers of practical subjects which we are told will be necessary.
Physical training is another subject of very great importance. In several places in these reports there are statements to the effect that not enough physical training is given in the schools, that it is only taken on two or three days a week, whereas the inspector feels that it should be given every day. When I was a member of an education authority I understood that it was the Department's rule that physical training must be given daily in Secondary Schools. If physical training is not being given as often as inspectors think necessary, that points to a shortage of teachers. We asked the right hon. Gentleman how many teachers of physical training, on an average, complete their course in a year, and the answer given was 35. In the event of the raising of the school-leaving age, Glasgow alone will require 45 additional teachers of physical training. That is 10 more than the whole output of our physical training college in a normal year, and no intimation has been given to us that there is to be any increase of accommodation or of staff for training more teachers. Then the reports state that it is difficult for graduate teachers to find time to gain instruction in physical training, and that means that class teachers who will be competent to give this instruction are likely to be fewer in the future than in the past, as we are coming to depend more and more on graduate teachers in our primary schools. Again, the fact that there is so little instruction in practical subjects in secondary schools means that the young people who go up from those schools to the training colleges may have, in some cases, too academic an outlook; they take very few practical subjects in their leaving certificate. From whatever angle one approaches this subject one sees an insufficiency of teachers of practical subjects and teachers exclusively of physical instruction, and, as matters are proceeding, that shortage is likely to grow. I will close what I have to say with regard to teachers by pointing out that though there are more men teachers going into training now than formerly, a fact which I am sure we all welcome, the number of women teachers is disproportionate to the number of men. In saying this I have no wish to belittle the services of women teachers, because women should always be the teachers of young children as well as of the older girls; but the question is whether we can expect that the boys who will be kept in school for an additional year will have men as teachers. It is frequently difficult for a woman, perhaps a young woman, to deal with boys of 12 and 13, and boys of 14, Who possibly may be kept at school against their will, not being interested in their work, will probably be more difficult still to handle. From the point of view, therefore, of the provision of men teachers, of teachers of practical instruction and physical training, the right hon. Gentleman is pressing on towards an important step in a very unprepared state. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the Act of 1872, which set up school boards, and under which a great many schools were built, and also to the year 1901, when the school age was extended, but is it not the case that on both those occasions a large number of uncertificated teachers were engaged? Is he prepared to have unqualified teachers coming into the profession? Uncertificated teachers have been gradually eliminated in recent times. It seems to me that Scottish education suffered for many years as a result of the steps taken in 1872 and 1901—more especially in 1872—without sufficient preparation. To-day we are not satisfied to have uncertificated teachers in our schools, and quite obviously this problem needs more thought and preparation than either the Department or the Government have given to it. I should not have touched on the question of exemptions if the right hon. Gentleman had not done so, because I imagine that legislation may be necessary if, as he suggested, he isgoing to change the powers of local authorities. According to a statement in the public Press, the right hon. Gentleman told a meeting of local authorities that in no country in Europe were children exempted for agricultural work below the age of 14—or words to that effect. Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that in Denmark, which is often held up to us as an example both in agriculture and in education, it is a recognised part of the system that children from about the age of 10 are exempted for so many days—sometimes for so many weeks—in a year, in order to help their parents to work their farms? It is a complete mistake to suppose that Denmark has a whole-time system of primary education, as we understand it: and I believe the right hon. Gentleman would find it very difficult to produce an instance of any country in which so high a standard of school attendance is required as in the case of this country. On the question of finance, I wish to ask whether the £1,500,000 which the right hon. Gentleman has told us will be the cost of raising the school age in Scotland will include the cost of reorganisation. I put that question because the figures given for England and Wales in the Financial Memorandum to the English Bill do not include the cost of reorganisation, but are merely the cost of raising the age. From a reply given to me by the President of the Board of Education, it appears that the combined additional cost of raising the school age and of reorganisation will by 1933 be something like £7,000,000 in England and Wales, exclusive of the cost of the maintenance allowances, which will raise it another £3,000,000 or £4,000,000. That is to say, the cost of raising the school age, plus reorganisation and maintenance allowances, in England and Wales by 1933, is likely to be £10,000,000 or £11,000,000 additional, instead of £5,500,000 as stated in the Financial Memorandum to the English Bill. If that is so, Scotland will get eleven-eightieths of the bigger sum, but I am doubtful whether even this will equal the two-thirds grant to be given to the English authorities. The point, however, that I wish to make is that if educational expenditure is so greatly increased in both England and Scotland as a result of the raising of the school age it follows that for many years to come it will be very difficult to get sufficient money to make educational advances in other directions. Take as an example the question of the health of the pre-school child. In the past, Scotland has not devoted much attention to this, and nursery classes and nursery schools are in their early stages in Scotland. The chief medical officer of the Board of Education has frequently pointed out the large number of children entering school with physical defects and has stressed the importance of doing something more for these children through nursery schools, day nurseries and an extended child welfare service. We have to remember that in Scotland infant mortality is higher than in England, and therefore the probability is that the childrenin Scotland need more attention than in England. It seems to me inevitable that the great cost of raising the school age will keep back developments which otherwise might take place, affecting the health of the pre-school child. Improvement in the health of children between the ages of 1 year and 5 years is of greater importance to the nation as a whole than the additional year of school life for all. That being so and taking into consideration the need for practical teachers, and the question of finance being so very serious, can we be surprised at the opposition of the new education authorities to the proposals put forward by the Government. Even the report of the Scottish Education Department recognises how much redistribution of school population will be necessitated by the raising of the school age. It may well be that local authorities hesitate, because they know that if the school age be raised before 1935 they will require to provide more accommodation than will be needed after that date, and they will get no assistance under the grant system for doing so. Therefore, it is not surprising if local authorities seem to make very little progress. Perthshire and Moray-shire have passed resolutions against the raising of the age, and in Dundee new buildings are being held up until the Eng lish Bill passes. That Means- that for several months nothing will be done. Glasgow is enquiring into the extra accommodation that will be necessary if the school age is raised. That merely means that the officials have been instructed to prepare another elaborate report. Edinburgh is delaying consideration of this problem until it receives a further report as to finance, and the additional buildings that will be required. Roxburgh is obtaining further information before taking any definite step, and the attitude of other counties on this question is much to the same effect as Roxburgh. They are all obtaining further information, and even the Secretary of State for Scotland did not go further than to ask the authorities to let him know the cost that would be involved after the school age has been raised. Does that look as if the education authorities were making the necessary preparations? [Interruption.] If the hon. Member who interrupts me inquires into this matter, he will find that the Scottish authorities do not wish to commit themselves to any extra expenditure which can be avoided until the English Education Bill has been passed. What the Government have proposed has already been described as a leap in the dark, but it seems to me that it may well be a leap into a morass. I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will face the situation, and not encourage the Scottish education authorities to take a leap which, it seems to me, will throw education back in regard to the essentials which it needs most, instead of helping it. There is one other subject I would like to mention. I do not think that enough assistance is being given to children in the matter of choice of occupation. In England and Wales in each of the 318 areas there is a choice of employment or juvenile advisory committee which includes representatives of the education committees, the Employment Exchanges, the employers and the teachers, and they advise children as to the occupations for which they seem to be most suited. In Scotland, according to the right hon. Gentleman's report, there are committees of this kind in only 15 of our educational areas. Speaking as one who, at least, spends the holidays in a rural district of Scotland, I never see or hear anything of any machinery for giving guidance to young people, and I very often find parents very much in the dark, and needing help and advice. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if he does not think it would be possible for school management committees in rural areas to form the nucleus of committees which might be very helpful to parents and young people? I do not think the school management committees as they are constituted would be sufficient, but if they could co-opt representatives of employers and employed in local industries, they might be quite useful bodies. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if he would confer with his colleague the Minister of Labour upon this question? I am sure that there are many parents who are very concerned when their children are leaving school as to the best occupations for them to enter. In the rural areas they have very few means of getting information, and I think that something of that kind would be really very useful, might avoid rather long, weary waits for young people, and sometimes prevent them from entering into occupations which they do not find congenial.In common with other hon. Members, I listened with great interest and a very large share of satisfaction to the speech of the Secretary of State. He has many departments of Scottish activities for which he is responsible, but I am sure there is no one department among them, the success of which is nearer to his heart than education. I listened, also, with very great interest to the contribution made by the Noble Lady who has just spoken, whose knowledge of Scottish education is reinforced and her outlook widened by her experience of English administration. I think it was inevitable that the right hon. Gentleman should begin his speech by a reference to my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine (Mr. Scott). The hon. Member has been the subject of much interest and admiration for the pertinacity with which he has sought information, with varying degrees of success, from the Education Department. I am not going to try to explain, even if understand it exactly, my hon. Friend's attitude towards examinations. I am perfectly certain he has no desire to go back to the old rigid system of payment by results. His scheme, I take it, is rather a more moderate one. It is that there should be at the age of 12 something in the nature of a uniform test for all Children in Scotland to discover whether or not they are able to advance to something higher of one sort or another.
Things have advanced very considerably since my hon. Friend and many others of us were at school. The old-fashioned examination has fallen into very great disrepute. The scientist and psychologist have been at work and now, instead of putting down a few questions on a few subjects, we really try to get at the mentality of the child and the intellectual force which animates it. I am sure my hon. Friend has read with great interest of such things as intellectual quotas, though I am not quite sure where he and I would stand if the same process were applied to us. But, really, this question of examinations is one that goes very deep into all education. It is not a matter on which we can altogether dogmatise. I know not a few educationists of high repute do attach value to examinations such as my hon. Friend referred to. At the same time, the real test is not to be found in anything of the mechanical nature which he suggests, because examinations of a set type are mechanical and haphazard at the same time. We must go further than that, and I am glad to say that in Scotland we are approaching the question from quite a different standpoint. As I mentioned in Committee last year, on the occasion of the discussion of the Estimates, there has been formed in Scotland a representative research committee. On that committee we have got members selected from education authorities, education associations, universities, training colleges and other sources. That body is doing its very best to discover what should be the real nature of the test applied to children, to see whether or not they are able to take advantage of such further education as may be offered to them. That body is not content simply with determining something with regard to examinations of that sort. It goes further, and is attempting to solve the problem referred to by the Secretary of State and by the Noble Lady. It would, indeed, be a misfortune if children were kept at school for a year longer doing things in which they had no interest, but there is no reason why that should be. It is the duty of the Education Department, and of this House and of everyone who has any connection whatever with education, to see that the children do get proper education at school. It is to that duty that every educationist of any real standing is devoting himself at this present time. I have not the least doubt that when the age is raised, it will be possible to take the fullest advantage of it, because there will be curricula devised to meet the varying abilities of these children. This is not the occasion to enter upon a purely pedagogic discussion. I repeat that I believe the next great advance in Scottish education will be along the physical side, accomplished partly by practical work in the schools, but more by development of the medical services and the provision of playing fields where children can give vent to their natural activities. I listened with particular interest to what was said about the milk experiment in Lanarkshire, and I hope full advantage will be taken of any theories which may be found to be well grounded as a result of that experiment. There was another part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech to which I listened with somewhat mingled feelings. I was at one time quite proud to know that in the Education (Scotland) Act, 1918, there was a Clause which said that the Secretary for Scotland, by Order in Council, could raise the age to 15 at any time he pleased. That was at one time a matter of pride to me. I happened to be, as a member of the public, one of the spectators upstairs while the Bill was going through Committee. I was also present in the Gallery in this House when it received its Third Reading, and it seemed to open a new era as far as Scottish education was concerned. But 12 years have passed, and nothing has been done, and another 12 years may pass if a certain condition is not fulfilled, namely, that England takes this step first. I do not know that it is a matter of any particular pride for Scotland that she should have the right to do this simply by the fiat of the Secretary of State for Scotland, if that fiat cannot be exercised until England has taken the first step.
That is the financial arrangement.
I am not quite able to recognise that humble position for Scotland—for it may be taken from the Act and from the right hon. Gentleman that Scotland is in a humble position, since she cannot or will not exercise that power of raising the age until the age has been raised in England. I put the question to the Under-Secretary when we were discussing this matter before, and he stated specifically that the age could not and would not be raised in Scotland until it had been raised in England. Where is the pride of being given the power to do a thing which you dare not do?
I now come to the point raised by the hon. Member opposite, when he said that it was the financial arrangement. That is quite true, but the right hon. Gentleman said he hoped that nothing would disturb the 11/80ths arrangement, because it was probably a good arrangement for Scotland, and it had worked well. Whether that is a proper financial nexus between the two countries or not, the fact that we are shackled to England by this 11/80ths arrangement throttles all advance in Scotland. I cannot enter into that now, because it would involve legislation, but the fact that it is so rather destroys my satisfaction with the right hon. Gentleman's treatment of this question. I was somewhat surprised that one other point was not mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman. He gave us a very hypothetical account of the raising of the age in Scotland. He pointed out that, although there were difficulties, those difficulties could be overcome. I quite agree with him, and I should like him to repeat here and now, in order to dispel some of the fears that have been aroused in Scotland, that it is the absolute determination of this Government to raise the school age before the end of the school year. That statement has been made on more than one occasion. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that he has had interviews, conversations, and discussions with the members of local education authorities. Those are all to the good, but, at the same time, these pronouncements from the Government and from the Secretary of State for Scotland have brought a very heavy responsibility upon the right hon. Gentleman. I repeat that the pronouncements made by the Government, the pronouncements made with regard to Scotland by the right hon. Gentleman, the conversations that he has had with representatives of local education committees and others, and the circulars that have been issued under his authority, have brought about a serious state of affairs, for which he and others in the Government must take the responsibility. The point is that at present there are something like 1,000 teachers who are unemployed, and not likely to be employed, in Scotland. That, I understand, is partly due to the fact that, trusting to the statement that the age would be raised and additional teachers would be required, the training colleges have admitted a larger number than was required to meet the ordinary wastage year by year. At the present time, these authorities are in a difficulty. They would like to be ready for the raising of the age in 1931, but, at the same time, with the withdrawal of two Bills before them, they are wondering what is going to happen, and I say here and now that they are not justified in training one additional teacher until they have some certainty that these teachers will not be allowed to go on to the streets. Therefore, I say that the Government, as represented by the right hon. Gentleman, cannot rid themselves of the responsibility that there are now many teachers unemployed and likely to be unemployed, and very possibly the number will increase if the word of the Government is not carried out and the age raised with certainty before the end of this year. While I have said these things, and have attributed responsibility to the right hon. Gentleman, he knows perfectly well that I am not attributing any special responsibility to, or finding fault with, himself personally. I am only saying here what has been said with regard to England—that the indecision of the Government on this matter has led to the raising of difficulties where no difficulties were necessary. We all regret that the Government, for reasons into which I cannot enter, but which I suppose were perfectly satisfactory to the Government, or, at least, were perfectly cogent in their view, had to withdraw the Bill, but I say that it will, if anything, put back the educational movement unless the Government are now determined to do it, and to do it without delay. There is one other matter in regard to which I come to the right hon. Gentleman with rather a different tone, and that is, not to ask a favour for myself, but to ask somewhat generous consideration for others. I have noticed in the Press and elsewhere that the right hon. Gentleman has received deputations and representations on behalf of a very deserving class of teachers in Scotland. We are very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessors for what has been done for some of the teachers who retired before 1929 on very inadequate pensions. Something has been done for a large number of them, but there are still others for whom nothing has been done. I have gathered from answers to questions in the House that the right hon. Gentleman has been giving this matter his serious consideration, and I would ask him whether his consideration has allowed him to arrive at any decision, and whether he could intimate that decision to the Committee. The plea is put forward on behalf of only a very small number, whose average age must be, I should think, something approaching 80, but, however that may be, I have been asked to inquire whether the consideration which the right hon. Gentleman promised has been given, and if he can tell the Committee what the decision was. I conclude by saying that I am quite sure that, under the guidance of the right hon. Gentleman himself, the officials of the Education Department, and the new authorities, Scotland has every reason to hope and believe that its educational future will be worthy of its past.The latter part of the hon. Gentleman's speech impressed me. I was on a school board for longer years than I care to count, and in my time the teachers got no pensions at all. Another speech I want to follow up is that of the Noble Lady the Member for Perth and Kinross (Duchess of Atholl). I always take pleasure in listening to her speeches on education, but I wonder if she has had any experience outside Perthshire, because she advocates things and tells the Government to do things that we have had in operation for years, and she seems to know nothing whatever about it. We have had most of the things she has been advocating to-day working for years. She wants to enlarge her mind and look beyond that area. I assume from her speech that she is willing to increase the number of years during which the child goes to school, but she wants to begin at two or three to make certain of them beginning work at twelve. If she went to Scotland and made that part of her speech that she has made here, she would get a great deal of criticism from members of local authorities, because I have heard them talking very strongly about turning the schools into nurseries. It is not my opinion, but I have had to meet criticism of that kind.
I said that I wanted to use the money either in an extension of child welfare or day nurseries.
I am glad the Noble Lady has made that explanation, because I do not want to misrepresent her. If she will read the OFFICIAL REPORT tomorrow, it may help her. At any rate, she wants to do something for pre-school children. If we spend the public health money on the child, what is the difference between that and spending the education fund on looking after the child? The big thing is that the child is to be taken care of. The difficulties in raising the school age are three. The first is the scarcity of male teachers, the next is the scarcity of teachers for practical subjects, and the third is the scarcity of physical instructors. How would the Noble Lady meet arguments of that kind? The hon. Gentleman who spoke before me gave the figures of unemployed teachers for last year—874. We do not know how many are still available in addition to that. The Noble Lady seems to think that because fewer men are going into training—
On the contrary, I mentioned that rather more are being trained now than formerly, but I said that it was not enough.
I should much prefer if the Noble Lady would take some pride in her country. Scotland is a bigger place than Perthshire. We have nearly a thousand teachers unemployed. This scheme would provide work for them. She wants to say that nothing should be done because there are fewer men likely to go through ten years hence than now. We can let that period look after itself. I should like the Noble Lady to define what she means by practical instruction. The boys can get manual instruction and the girls domestic science at 12, but there is no provision made for their further education. They potter about a shop. The idea of raising the age is to give three years to complete the intermediate course, and it is possible to do that. It gives something for the child to work for.
The hon. Member has referred to Perthshire. That is not what happens there—that when a child has passed the qualifying stage it potters about a shop. They have considerably more advanced bookwork than before, but the Secretary of State wants them to have more practical instruction.
I have told the Noble Lady the system under a more advanced education authority than Perthshire. I do not want to be unkind, because I might say they are gathering potatoes in Perthshire, and I do not want to say that. There are various forms of manual instruction. If I were on the Front Bench, responsible for education, I should try to get them to teach the science of agriculture, because I believe in that direction lies the solution of most of our troubles. There is something that we do not seem to think about. I do not condemn it, but I would riather see the children continuing their education, and, if they did so until 15, we should be likely to see the standard of education raised. [Interruption.] I understand education. It is something in a school. But I did not think you sent boys to school to learn to be blacksmiths, miners, or steelworkers. They are none the worse for getting some manual training, but, if you turn their thoughts to some occupation after they leave school, where are they to get the work? The thing is absurd. Unless you develop channels in a different direction you are only going to put them on the streets earlier than you would otherwise do. I know exactly how much time it takes for a joiner to become a manual in structor. The test is very simple. I am sure that with the scarcity of work at present in the joinery trade, there would be no difficulty whatever in getting men qualified to teach boys to make boxes and to use a saw. I would like to go a little further than that. We think that there is no difficulty whatever in meeting the demand for practical instructors. It is no credit to any Government that we have not had a recognised place for training these persons, but, at any rate, it is possible to get them when they are required, because when we advertise for them we have plenty of applications. The year 1901 marked the last addition to the school life of the child. Hon. Members on the other side ought to be supporting us, trying to help us to extend the period of education and training. If I wanted to do something for unemployment I should select this question relating to the schools, because it is necessary to make additions to schools everywhere. I hope that we shall be building new schools in order to provide work. It is a much better way of spending money than the present method of spending money at the bureau and getting no return at all. We have no right to go back; we ought to be advancing. I would like this country to take the lead in education, and I hope that the Government will press forward with the raising of the school age and in addition, make provision for every child. Wherever there is an overcrowded school, the school should be dealt with. Wherever there are too many children in a class, the matter should be dealt with, for by so doing we shall not only be helping the child but raising the general standard of education.
10.0 p.m.
The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland has told us that he and his colleagues were strongly opposed to the Local Government. Act of last year. Many of us remember the gloomy forebodings expressed by the right hon. Gentleman. After all that, it is indeed a great relief to take up the report of the Committee of the Council on Education in Scotland for the year 1929–30 which is signed by the right hon. Gentleman as Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education in Scotland, and to find that in matters of greatest immediate importance from an educa tional point of view in Scotland he looks forward, as he tells us in the report to the great advantages which will be derived from the Act. One might deal with the question of the preschool child referred to by the Noble Lady. We know that the doctors tell us that a large number of children come into the schools in a condition of health which is not what we should like. The maternity and child welfare schemes cover only about one-third of the children in Scotland. There are provisions under the Act of 1919 for nursery schools for children between two and five whose mental and physical condition necessitates attention. These provisions have not been greatly used. There are excellent maternity and child welfare centres in Scottish cities, and some of these are supported or aided by local authorities under schemes prepared by the Department of Health. It is stated in the report of the committee of the Education Department:
And the right hon. Gentleman goes on:"There is no matter that calls more urgently for more earnest and practical consideration than the provision of healthy conditions of development for children in the poorer quarters of crowded town areas before they come under the protection of the ordinary school service."
I am glad, indeed, to find that the right hon. Gentleman is already appreciating the benefits which Scotland will gain from the Act which was passed last year. I will pass on to the question of physical education, which all will agree is a matter of the highest importance for Scotland, one which is regarded by the Scottish Education Department as of immediate importance, and about which all educational authorities in Scotland are unanimous. As regards physical training, we know that Scottish education of the olden times, while excellent from the intellectual point of view, neglected the physical side. One has seen in one's own lifetime a great change, especially in secondary schools, where they now lay the greatest stress upon physical training. I can remember when no physical training was carried out, and when it received no encouragement from school authorities. In reading the report of the last Education Authority of Aberdeen, one of the Divisions of which city I represent, I find that it was only in 1924 that, apart from the secondary schools, a ground was acquired for the other schools for use for organised games and sports during school hours. A further advance was made last year, when another field was obtained in which 300 children could at one time take part in various games. That is a great advance. I am glad to know that last year the Scottish Education Department sent round a circular to all education authorities asking them to examine what facilities for physical training and organised games were provided in their locality and how those facilities were being used, and to enter into communication with voluntary bodies carrying on work on these lines, to see that these facilities were used to the greatest possible extent. I find in the report that a great deal of interesting information was obtained in answer to that circular. The right hon. Gentleman says in regard to it:"The step forward will be facilitated by the operation of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929, under which the powers conferred on education authorities by the Act of 1918 and those possessed by local authorities under Statutes relating to Maternity and Child Welfare will … be vested in one authority, who will be responsible for all the schemes affecting the health, education, and well-being of the child from its birth to the end of its school life."
and he goes on:"We propose shortly to pursue our inquiries further"—
It is obvious that this Act will be of benefit as regards physical training, because in the utilisation of parks, open spaces, playgrounds and swimming baths, it is of advantage that all these things should be under the control of one great authority. Let me pass to another service, the unfortunate case of defective children. While our main effort must be to provide the best education, intellectual and physical, for the great mass of healthy children, we have to do what we can for those who come into life heavily handicapped. No one who has visited the schools in Scotland which look after de fective defective children, mental and physical, can fail to be impressed by the wonderful work done by the teachers in those schools. The success from the physical point of view has been very remarkable. The hunchback was once sadly common in Scotland, but to a great extent these ailments of the crippled child have been eliminated by the work done in schools such as these. The work as regards mentally defective ohildren has less capacity for success, because in many cases little can be done for those whose mental equipment is sadly defective. The defective children used to suffer from the fact that the responsibility for their care was, under the old law, a divided one. The education authority was responsible for those children who were capable of receiving a certain amount of education. The children who were not educable, were under the charge of the parish council, and if any of these defective children were sent to an institution the District Board of Control came in. When a child was in one of these institutions, if it was an educable child, it was the duty of the education authority to provide for its maintenance, whereas if its father was in receipt of poor relief then its maintenance became the duty of the parish council. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is relieved that these complications have been removed by the recent Act. He says in the report:"but as the playing fields service is one that will be directly affected—and, we hope, to material advantage—by the unification of authorities under the new Local Government (Scotland) Act, we have thought it advisable to defer further action until after that Act is in operation."
Therefore, it must be a great satisfaction to my right hon. Friend to have the benefit of the Act which his predecessor passed, after a great deal of Parliamentary toil and trouble. Another important question relates to the continuation classes. The Noble Lady the Member for Perth and Kinross (Duchess of Atholl) said that education was to be judged for its success or failure according as a boy or girl left school with a thirst for knowledge. It is gratifying to know that the numbers of those attending continuation classes has steadily increased, so that there is an increase of those leaving school with a thirst for knowledge. The number in Scotland last year was 159,000, an increase of 7,000 over the previous year. In 1923–24, the number was only 124,000. There has been an increase of 35,000 in seven years. New regulations for continuation classes were passed in 1925, which laid special stress upon general culture, the teaching of English and also, for the first time, physical training. In the large cities, and I must refer again to the city which I represent, and which I know best, every effort is made to provide in these continuation classes for cultural education and technical instruction, to equip the pupils for various trades, and to fit them to be more efficient in the trades in which they are engaged. Instruction is given in every kind of trade and every branch of commerce when there is demand for it and there is training in domestic subjects for girls. One very important development in these continuation classes is that they are brought into close connection with industry by the new advisory committees, which are composed of representatives of employers and employés in the various industries. By this close contact with the continuation classes the advisory committees are able to give advice which is very useful. The Noble Lady spoke of the advanced divisions. In the large centres the advanced education is given in the intermediate schools. It has been found in my city most advantageous, and I think it is the case in other cities, that the continuation classes should be held in the intermediate schools. The pupils who have left the intermediate schools are able to return to their continuation classes in the evening and find themselves in the same environment and studying the same curriculum which was part of their life in the day school. In these ways education is most effectively promoted. The steadily increasing numbers of those attending continuation classes is a matter for satisfaction. It shows that those who leave school are anxious to continue their education, in order to fit themselves better for the battle of life. Many of the young people who are engaged in industry are doing their best by technical instruction to make themselves more capable partners in the industrial work of the country. I think we can pay a warm tribute to those who are engaged in the educational work of Scotland in seeing that the boys and girls are turned out, as evidenced by the report of the Salvesen Committee, well fitted to carry on their work in the various spheres of trade and commerce. Therefore, while our country has difficult times to face we are doing our best in Scotland to enable the boys and girls of the generations as they come along adequately to fit themselves for the battle of life."This division of functions, which is not conducive to the efficient treatment of the general problem of the mentally defective, will practically come to an end under the operation of the new Local Government (Scotland) Act."
The Secretary of State took the unusual course of singling me out for special treatment when he submitted his Estimates to-day. I seem to have incurred the ire if not of himself of those behind him in the Scottish Education Department by having put, as he said, no fewer than 24 questions on education during the past two or three months. I should have thought that he would have welcomed anyone who would show sufficient interest in Scottish education to do that. Is he aware of the little interest that is taken in Scotland in education, and that when the elections for the education authorities took place only between 20 per cent. and 40 per cent. took the trouble to vote? The right hon. Gentleman ought to be grateful to me for having put these questions, because I have provided him with the text for his statement to-night. I think it would have been a very barren statement without the contribution with which my questions supplied him. If he means by what he said to warn me not to put any more questions, then let me tell him, here and now, that while I regret any personal trouble which I have caused himself or his staff by putting the questions, I make no apology for having put them; on the contrary, I intend to continue to exercise my right as a Member of Parliament to ask questions of him or of any other Minister of the Crown. I hold a brief for no one in putting these questions or in speaking here to-night, except that of any ordinary Member of Parliament whose interest is—and I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me in this—three-fold, first, there is the paramount consideration that the children of Scotland should receive the very best education that can be given to them; secondly, to see, in the national interest, not only that the children are well educated, but that the nation is receiving full value for all the money that is spent upon education. In the third place, that the teachers, in whose hands education really lies, get a fair deal, work under fair terms and conditions, and under a curriculum which will encourage them and give them the best return.
The right hon. Gentleman might be interested to know why it was that I put so many questions to him especially in regard to statistics. The initial reason was that for a number of years I have been more than annoyed by a certain table which I find at the end of the report and which contains, as I think, the vital figures with regard to education. There has been no reference to these figures to-night, nor to this particular table, but on studying it I found that a great many statistics were wanting and that it was exceptionally difficult to arrive at the hard facts which lie behind the figures. May I make my first request to the Secretary of State that in future reports he will deal drastically with this table and, if he cannot withdraw it altogether, that he will alter it. I compliment the inventor of this table. It is like a crossword puzzle, with divisions and subdivisions, sections and cross-sections, parentheses and brackets, until you get into a perfect maze of figures and are reduced to asking questions of the right hon. Gentleman. I would suggest that he should make it into two or three tables, and give in the body of the report the information which he has been good enough to give me in answer to my questions. If he feels constrained to adhere to this table, I hope he will put a few guide posts and marks in it, which will explain to the ordinary man this rather terrifying table. One word with regard to the new authorities on education. Education in Scotland is falling into entirely new and untried hands. Except to the extent of the comparatively small number of those who were previously members of an education authority, the present committees are entirely untried. I should like to emphasise this point that, while they may be interested in questions of buildings and scholastic appointments, their real and constant and superlative aim should be the education of the children; that is to say, that they should personally consider the kind of education that is being given and the curriculum under which the teachers are working. It is in that way that the education com mittees may be able to breathe new life into education in Scotland. These new committees may be able to give us the benefit of new ideas and new methods, which we should all greatly welcome. Let me go a little deeper into this question, as to whether we are really giving our children in Scotland a good education or not. There has been no reference to-night to one of the most arresting sentences in the whole of this long report. I propose to read it to the Committee now:I would like to concentrate upon that question. I doubt very much whether education committees in Scotland know of that fact. When I asked the Secretary of State the other day how many copies of this report had been purchased in Scotland, it turned out that the number was a little over 400. That fact is eloquent. I propose to draw public attention to it, and to find out how far it is true and in what sense we are to understand it. The report warns us against drawing any hasty conclusions from that statement. It is because I wish to take that warning to myself that I asked the question to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred. I was rather astonished that the Noble Lady the Member for Perth and Kinross (Duchess of Atholl) made no reference to a reply to a question which she herself put in November of last year on this very vital matter. She asked what was the number of children between 12 and 15 years of age in primary advanced divisions and secondary schools respectively, and the Secretary of State replied that at the end of the school year 1927–28 the number of children between the ages of 12 and 15 in the schools was as follows: In primary schools, 144,000, of whom 66,000 were in advanced divisions: in secondary schools 63,000, of whom 51,000 were in secondary departments, including the advanced divisions. That is the end of the reply. I wish to proceed to the logical deduction from these facts. Deduct the 66,000 advanced division pupils from the 144,000 in primary schools, and we find that there are in elementary or pre- qualifying classes 78,000. With regard to the other figure, from the 63,000 in secondary schools, deduct the 51,000, and there remains in the elementary stages 12,000. That is a total of 90,000 in all. I put this question to the right hon. Gentleman: Is this what is meant by saying that 60 per cent. failed to reach the normal? Is it the case that in Scotland last year there were 90,000 children between 12 and 15 years of age who had failed to pass the ordinary test which would entitle them to go into the advanced division? I have been told that some explanation was to be found in the number of mentally defective children, in bad attendance, in reasons of poverty and so on. But the average attendance of the scholars in our Scottish schools is remarkably high: it is no less than 90 per cent. Accordingly, the explanations that have been offered seem to me to fall short of the mark. I think it is still the case that, if not 60 per cent., at least 45 per cent. of the children leave school without being fully educated. I am not going to attempt to explain this fact in any way or to say where the blame lies. I say that it is for the Education Department and for the right hon. Gentleman to do that. It may be that the organisation is defective, or that the allocation of time given to the main subjects is wrong, or that the subjects taught are too much of the fancy description, or that the curricula may be ill-judged. At any rate it is very like the education described by Mark Twain when he said I had a good education, but the worst of it was that so much of it wasn't so. I do not wish to take the role of a pessimist. I wish to take the role of one who is anxious to get down to bedrock facts with regard to education, and I trust to the right hon. Gentleman's sense of independence and to the personal trouble which he is always willing to take to investigate Scottish matters. I trust to the right hon. Gentleman to pay careful attention to the argument, which I am now submitting in all seriousness, and to see that it is dealt with. I am glad of course that the report shows a gradual improvement. For example, it is stated in the report that the proportion of pupils sent out unqualified from the primary schools or departments is now under 15 per cent. compared with about 21 per cent. in 1920–21. That is gratifying but I am anxious to improve even upon those figures. The most interesting documents in connection with this subject, apart from the report itself, are the general reports by His Majesty's chief inspectors of schools, and these reports leave the impression on my mind, of a scarcely concealed uneasiness that a thorough overhaul of primary education in Scotland is necessary. For example, one inspector writes about a clean cut at 12, by which is meant that all children at the age of 12 should be passed on to advanced divisions whether they qualify or not. Commenting on this report from a sub-inspector a chief inspector of schools suggests that even in the case of such a clean cut at 12 a qualifying examination will still be necessary. Going to the root of the matter this chief inspector of schools says that behind all these questions lies one more fundamental, namely, the question of curricula. The right hon. Gentleman will observe that I am dealing with vital matters with which his own inspectors are dealing. This chief inspector puts a pertinent question. He asks if the failure of so many pupils to qualify at 12 may not be due, in part, to imperfections not in the qualifying test but in the primary course itself. The right hon. Gentleman spoke some words of homily on the subject of statistics. He seems to think that I have a voracious desire for more statistics. The right hon. Gentleman is surely cynical in that suggestion. These two reports are crammed from cover to cover with statistics and hardly anything else. Am I to be debarred from testing those statistics and asking for further information or explanation about them? May I say wherein I think the right hon. Gentleman does not quite appreciate the position? There is a system in Scotland—and he ought to know it—of what is known as picked pupils, and this system renders fallacious many of the percentages which are usually given out to the public. The method is that the headmaster or other teacher in the school selects those pupils who he thinks will have a fair chance of passing a qualifying examination, and these are the pupils who are put up for examination. Accordingly, when the results of the examination are announced, it is not unusual to find them standing at a very high figure. Of course, they will, if you only pick out those likely to pass. The right hon. Gentleman knows that a few years ago in Edinburgh the education authority had the courage to abandon that system of picked pupils absolutely, and I suggest to him that his Department ought to see to it that that system is given up all over Scotland. I also ask him to consider this general proposition, that there should be a qualifying test which will be universal, uniform and official. I say that, in spite of any of the criticisms that I have heard from the right hon. Lady to-night or from my hon. and learned colleague. I maintain that I am not for a moment doing what the right hon. Gentleman said I was doing, namely, multiplying examinations. He knows very well that this qualifying examination is in existence to-day through most of the counties of Scotland, but that it is entirely optional with regard both to whether the examination is held at all and to the subjects embraced. It varies in degree and intensity. I suggest that we are getting a false impression with regard to primary education in Scotland, and in order to give the public a fair knowledge of how the children stand, all of the children ought to be subjected to an examination. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is possible for a child to go through school to-day from the age of five to the age of 12 without being compelled to undergo an examination at all? I do not elevate examinations beyond their legitimate quality and authority, but I say that it would be fair and proper to submit for examination all the children and see whether they are able to pass at 12. At any rate, I am pressing the point that, without that examination, we are not understanding the true and correct position of education in Scotland. Something was said in criticism of the three R's. I believe in the three R's education, and I also believe in the scientific education, the manual instruction and the vocational instruction advocated by the right hon. Lady, but the matter is surely brought into prominence by a resolution which was passed recently at Duns to this effect:"Sixty per cent. of the girls and boys sent forth from the day schools have failed in various degrees to reach the normal goal in education."
Of course, that will be only at advanced division centres, and to advanced pupils, and the concentration of education ought to be upon the elementary subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic, history, geography, and I would almost like to add another one which has been specially mentioned by one of His Majesty's Inspectors — the speaking of King's English. This school inspector singled that out as being very necessary. He says that in some districts English is a foreign language to the people, and it is as necessary to teach it as it is to teach French. It may be suggested that the teaching of the three "R's" is very dull. It is nothing of the sort if it is in proper hands. In efficient and enthusiastic hands, the teaching of these so-called dull subjects may be made of the fullest interest to the pupils, and I maintain that if we are to lay a proper foundation on which the advanced courses are to be built, we must secure that the pupil is well educated and grounded in these essential subjects. I am constantly receiving complaints that handwriting is bad and almost indecipherable, that boys of 14 are unable to tot up lists of figures correctly, and other complaints of the same kind. I therefore suggest that the right hon. Gentleman will, in laying down the curricula for the future, eliminate from the primary classes some of the "frill" subjects. He has ventured the remark that there are not too many of them, and that not too much time is given to the teaching of these frill subjects. I have grave doubts about it, and it is only necessary to remind him of the striking indictment of Primary Education in the report to show that there is something in what I say. My object in putting these quesitons and in laying these facts before the Committee is in the best interests of education."That this conference is of opinion that a rural science course should be an essential part of the curriculum of selected advanced division centres."
I trust that the hon. Member for Kincardine (Mr. Scott) will not work himself up into a martyrdom over a jocular reference by the Secretary of State to the number of questions that he has put upon education. I am sure that my right hon. Friend welcomes the interest taken in education in Scotland by the hon. Gentleman, and no harm whatever can come of repeated questions put in this House on education by any hon. Member who takes the trouble and is interested in the subject. It is all to the good that we should have disputation, for the worst thing that could happen is a spirit of quiescence. The hon. Gentleman drew attention to the fact that in the report of the Council on education in Scotland for 1928–29 there is a statement on page 16 to the effect that 15 per cent. of the pupils leave school without passing a qualifying test, and a statement on page 21 that some 60 per cent. of the girls and boys in day schools fail to reach the normal goal. These are the two points to which he has drawn attention. The Department have anxiously considered what is the reason, and my right hon. Friend is at this moment considering the implications of what are on the face of them rather alarming statements. My own view, for what it is worth, is that the standard of examination is largely at fault.
We are setting up examinations for our children to which children ought not to be compelled to submit. As a matter of fact, if you take the average history examination it is only the stuff that has been taught to these poor children in the fortnight before the examination that they remember—and wisely! If they happen to be questioned upon the material that has been stuffed into them during the fortnight prior to the examination they have a happy pass; if, unfortunately, they get questions on some of the tomfoolery they got six months before, they do not pass at all. I hold very strong views on the nonsense that is being taught to our children, and I believe the time may come when we should ask ourselves whether we ought to have history and geography examinations at all in qualifying class examinations. After all the history taught at that age is realty a mass of intricate detail, very often it is a question of an assimilation of dates, most useless dates, which we do our best to forget when we get older. Therefore, I am not so disturbed as the hon. Gentleman appears to be at these figures, because I do not think they reveal what at first sight they may appear to mean. I think it is the examination that is at fault, and I am hopeful that the time may come when there will be a change. The hon. Member asked whether a particular table could be reconsidered for next year. I am sure my right hon. Friend will give attention to that point. The Noble Lady who initiated this discussion put forward such a large number of points that it would take a week to answer all of them, but there were three or four outstanding points with which I will deal. In her long and elaborate argument against the raising of the school age she said that what we wanted was not so much quantity as quality, and that making this additional year at school compulsory upon all the children of the working class was a waste of public money and a waste of effort.I said that if you insist on quantity at the present time you will spoil the quality.
That is what I was endeavouring to paraphrase. We ought to ask ourselves if the same standard that is applied to children of other classes in the kingdom is this standard that is applied to the children of the class who go to Loretto—is this the standard that is to be applied to every class in the kingdom or is it, if you please, only to be the standard applied to the children of the working class? We who are on these benches say most emphatically "No."
I do not think I used the expression "working class" in the whole of my speech. If the hon. Gentleman will study the curriculum of schools of all types he will see that great emphasis is being laid on practical instruction.
What I am dealing with is the necessity of giving the children of the working class a secondary schooling. If a secondary schooling is good for the children of the middle class and the children of the rich, it ought to be good for the children of the working class. Whatever is good in education must be applied to all the children of the nation, and that is the aim and the purpose and intention of the Government. The Noble Lady put some specific points, and she asked how we get over the difficulty of the teachers. I am not certain that some answer has not already been made to that point, but if the Noble Lady will look at the tenth report of the Education Committee upon the training of teachers, on page 7, she will see that of the students who left the training colleges in June, 1929, over 500 were still unemployed on the 31st January, 1930. While doubtless this number has been diminished since that time, there is still a considerable volume of unemployment. At the close of June, 1930, about 1,400 students will leave the centres and colleges. Over 200 of those are Roman Catholics, and employment will be obtained for them at once. It is difficult to say for how many of the remaining 1,200 students places can be found.
Surely there are class teachers. My remarks applied to teachers of practical subjects and physical training.
I think the Noble Lady went a little further, and she talked about specialist training.
Practical training.
I want, first of all, to put the point that there are somewhere about 1,200 unemployed teachers. That is a considerable number, and when one considers this year's crop, the additional crop that will be available at the end of the last school year, it may be that there is a net unemployment pool in the teaching profession—we will leave the point whether they are practical teachers, specialists or primary teachers—of some 1,700 teachers. If you have 1,700 teachers available, I put it to the Noble Lady that it is not beyond reason to say that some of them would very quickly qualify as specialist teachers.
I asked what steps the Secretary of State for Scotland is taking to give special training to these teachers.
I must first see whether it is technically and physically possible to raise the school age next April in Scotland. I am very anxious to deal with the statement that there are not sufficient practical teachers to do the job.
Will the Noble Lady say what she means by practical teachers, because among those who are unemployed are many highly skilled teachers possessing qualifications.
I think we need not go into these technicalities. Let me put the point that there are something like 1,700 teachers capable of stepping into the breach. Even if we may not just at the moment be able to fit everything in like a jig-saw puzzle, and there may be a loose link in the chain, we have been assured by the teachers that they will put no unnecessary obstacles in the way, and will do their utmost to make the change over to the new system as easy and as smooth as possible.
Does that mean that graduate teachers are ready to be trained to teach practical subjects? Otherwise, there is no meaning in what the hon. Gentleman says. We want teachers for training in practical instruction.
I was hoping to say a word or two about practical teaching, and to draw attention to what we can do as regards physical instruction. I was trying to show what was the view of the Scottish Office with regard to the teaching profession. I have some sympathy with the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Cowan), who says we ought not to train further teachers unless we can give some prospect of employment to the teachers whom we have already trained. Then the Noble Lady raised another point about physical teaching. We all want to see physical teaching or physical training. It is quite true that we have only one training college in Scotland, and we may require temporarily to take steps to increase the available number, as any Board of Education would require to do when making a considerable change in educational administration, but surely what we ought to do—with good will such as we have from the educational institutions and such as we have, finance apart, from educational authorities in Scotland and from every educationist in Scotland, again finance apart—is to bend all our energies and ingenuity in endeavouring to make the change over as smooth and as simple as possible, and not to magnify the little difficulties that will undoubtedly exist.
The Noble Lady raised the question of school buildings. The local education authorities have been doing something, and the picture is not so black as she painted it. The average expenditure for loans for new buildings, sites and extensions during the 10 years 1918–1928 has been nearly £500,000 a year, but in 1929 it jumped to £1,000,000, and for the first six months of 1930 it is £970,000. So that, at any rate, the local education authorities are making some efforts to provide the necessary sites to meet the change. It may be that we shall require temporary makeshifts in some districts, particularly, perhaps, in Glasgow, where building has been retarded for reasons I need not discuss now. We may require the use of halls and to accept the offer of the teaching profession to make temporary arrangements regarding the size of classes here and there. But if we do not make a beginning now, when shall we ever make it? Surely, in view of the fact that 60 per cent. of our children are leaving school without passing a particular standard of examination and in view of the fact that only children of certain classes of the community are getting a secondary education, it is time that this House faced up to the urgent necessity of securing as the heritage of every child in the land an opportunity for a secondary education. With many of the points raised by the Noble Lady I agree. It is quite true that we shall have to train more practical teachers, and we may, as the hon. Member for Kincardine (Mr. Scott) has said, have to change our curriculum. I hope that we may do so; I hope that we shall empty it of much of the rubbish that is now in it; but, surely, what we are facing now is the fact that that the great bulk of the nation gets no adequate secondary education. With all the increase of productivity that is going on, with all the rationalisaton, and all the increased product, surely one of the first means we should take to apportion that product equally over the community is to ensure that every child in the nation shall be given an opportunity of secondary education, and that is the policy of His Majesty's Government. After the very elaborate discussion which has taken place, I trust that we shall now get the Vote.Is the hon. Gentleman taking any steps in connection with the teaching of history? He himself, on a previous occasion, has made a statement with regard to the way in which history is being taught, and I should like to know what steps he is taking in that matter.
I have made some reference to the question of the teaching of history, and have done my best to make known my view in regard to it, though I do not say that it is the majority view in this country. I am, however, hopeful that I may live long enough to see the day when the children of Scotland are not taught the rubbish that is being taught to them now.
I would point out that the hon. Gentleman is proposing to increase the length of the time during which they are to be subjected to this process, which he himself says is totally misleading, and against which he has inveighed in public. I should not like to repeat what he has said with regard to Robert Bruce. Our views may be right, or his view may be right, but, until we decide which of the two is right, it is difficult to see how anything can be done in the matter.
Question put, and agreed to.
Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.
Committee to sit again To-morrow.
Electricity (Supply) Acts
Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Queston—[10 th July].
"That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1928, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of part of the rural district of God-stone, in the county of Surrey, and for the amendment of the Sevenoaks and District Electric Lighting Order, 1913, which was presented on the 29th day of May, 1930, be approved."—[Mr. Herbert Morrison.]
Question again proposed.
If I may be allowed to explain what happened—
The hon. Member has already spoken.
11.0. p.m.
May I ask if there was anything that necessitated the authority asking for the Order as stated by the Minister. I understand that the process of that Order was brought into being under the 1919 Act, which gave it the privilege whereby it need not apply for the Order. But for that change, the supply would have been under municipal ownership, with a saving of 65 per cent. We were somewhat astounded to think a Labour Minister of Transport would so far allow the thing to pass in that direction as to place that burden upon a new area instead of allowing the municipality to have control. I think the House has a right to some explanation.
I want to say a word as my hon. Friend has not an opportunity of speaking again. Suggestions have been made that he was speaking for some particular interest. I want to say on his behalf that he was speaking in the public interest when dealing with this subject the other evening.
I fully accept what my hon. Friend says on behalf of the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Muggeridge). I hope I made no suggestion that, whatever he said, he was not speaking quite genuinely in the public interest. I thought he was then and I think so now, and I should have to hold a very different opinion of my hon. Friend, whom I have known for many years, before I thought otherwise about him. The Joint Electricity Authority was a party to the inquiry. It would have been difficult for me to have adopted the suggestion made by one hon. Member that, after the inquiry had been completed, I should see one of the parties who appeared at the inquiry. I could not do so without giving an opportunity to the other parties to be seen and if I went to the extent of seeing them all I should in effect have been re-opening the whole inquiry. I certainly made no suggestion that my hon. Friend appeared on behalf of any section or vested interest at all. I am certain he was actuated by what he thought right in the public interest and I hope no one has any other idea.
As to what the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) said, there is no obligation on the Joint Electricity Authority to apply for an Order. It has a right of criticism and opposition, and that it has exercised. What I said on Thursday, and say now, is that the Joint Authority were not in a position to put forward an alternative proposal at that time for immediate supply to that area. It was hoped, as a result of co-operation with the local authority or local authorities in the area, in due time to be able to make alternative proposals, but I think that my hon. Friends will agree that that was not certain to come off. In any case, it was likely to take a year to complete those discussions. I was faced with an application for an Order and a request by the people concerned that they wanted a supply, and I could not take the responsibility for rejecting that application without a reasonably early alternative being adopted in its place.On the 10th July you said in this House that,
You have admitted that there was no need to ask for an Order. Clause 12 of the Act of 1919 gives such a body the right and therefore why should they wait for an Order?"The Joint Electricity Board had not asked for an Order."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th July, 1930; col. 801, Vol. 241.]
My hon. Friend is quite wrong. Neither the Act of 1919 nor any existing. Order gives a joint authority power to supply any given area without the authority of this House.
Does not Clause 12 of the Act of 1919 make a joint electricity authority the undertaker in every parish where no other undertaker has obtained an Order? That was the position in this area prior to the application of this Order, and is the position to-night until this House confirms this Order. The electricity authority are the undertakers until someone gets an Order.
If that is so, it means that the joint authority which—I think I was a member of it for three years—has existed for four or five years, has had power to supply the area, and great difficulty must arise if somebody else comes along and gets the support of the local authority and is prepared to afford an immediate supply. Whether that be so or not; if it had power to do it, and did not do it, I should be in a difficulty in refusing an Order. My hon. Friend the Member for Springburn raised a further point, namely, that the joint authority could supply at 75 per cent. lower price. Is that the point?
That the municipality, if they had an extension of that area, could supply at 75 per cent. cheaper?
I do not know. That is a very big reduction which I should hesitate to accept.
Would you allow me, Mr. Speaker, to explain the point?
I cannot allow the hon. Member to explain. It is not the Committee stage.
Anyway, I cannot answer that question on the spur of the moment. I know that the local authority, after all, is very efficient. [Interruption.] I agree if given time the scheme might come off, but one cannot be sure about it. I am faced with a difficulty and the House is faced with a difficulty, that if one rejects the Order there is nothing reasonably comparable which is going to take its place. I cannot take the responsibility even for a perfectly understandable motive of public interest, namely, public ownership. I cannot take that view, because the public authority at the moment is not, and for some time will not be, in a position to supply, and I am going to use my administrative powers to enable somebody else to do it. I can assure my hon. Friends that I only came to that conclusion after looking into all the facts.
rose—
I cannot give way. I have already done so several times. I am doing my best. I have been into this matter very carefully, and I have come to a conclusion which I believe to be right in all the circumstances of the case. Without any facts against me which are superior to those which I have put before the House, I think the House would be wise in confirming this Order and allowing it to go through, rather than adopting the dangerous attitude of taking up a purely destructive position. [Interruption.] The Order is in the usual form. The company must supply the specified streets within two years, and if they do not, the Order lapses unless it is extended. That is common form. Of course it must lay the mains and so on.
Can the municipality supply within two years?
I do not know; there is no guarantee of that. There is great opportunity for delay under existing legislation. No one knows better than the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) that the Acts of 1919 and 1922, and the Act which is his favourite aversion, the Act of 1926, afford ample opportunities to private interests for obstruction and delay. I am certain that not merely a year will be taken by these authorities to fix the matter up. They will probably take that, and even then by the legal actions and the machinery which the Act lays down they could easily use up a couple of years, and two more years might be required in order to lay mains and give the supply. The decision I have come to, after careful examination of the facts, is to advise the House to confirm the Order.
Question put, and agreed to.
Resolved,
"That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1928, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of part of the rural district of Godstone, in the county of Surrey, and for the amendment of the Sevenoaks and District Electric Lighting Order, 1913, which was presented on the 29th day of May, 1930, be approved."
The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
Adjournment
Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[ Mr. T. Kennedy.]
Adjourned accordingly at a quarter after Eleven o'Clock.