I wish to raise the question of the condition of the employment of ex-Service men in public departments, and to invite a statement from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on the change of policy which has taken place. It has become evident that the well-known hostility of the Government to the Fighting Services has been accompanied by a change of policy towards the ex-Service men employed in the Civil Service, to which I think it is high time public attention should be drawn. Of course, we know that many of the leaders in the Socialist Government were defeatists during the War, and only the most simple minded of ex-Service men could possibly, in view of that record, expect sympathetic treatment from an Administration for which they are responsible. We have not forgotten, of course, that a few years ago there was a different attitude, when it was a question of getting votes. The present Prime Minister answered a questionnaire of the Ex-Service Civil Servants' Association, and, when a further question was put to him, he said that his pledges covered everything which they required. I want to remind the House of the sad disillusionment of these unfortunate dupes. But the pretence of sympathy for the ex-Service man in Government employment was very quickly dropped, and, during the present Administration, definite action has been taken to the prejudice of the ex-Service man.

I invite first a comparison between the treatment of the men who fought—who left the Civil Service to fight in the War—and the treatment of the conscientious objector. In this case I am, of course, dealing with the permanent Civil servant. In 1920, the Coalition Government returned the conscientious objectors to the established grade of the Civil Service, but they were not reinstated at the same point in the pay scale as if they had not lost some years of service, nor were they allowed to count the last years towards computing pension. Since August, 1929, by the fiat of the present Government, conscientious objectors have been given back all their rights—

Not all.

If the hon. Member wishes to draw a distinction, no doubt he will do so afterwards. I will tell the House why we say that they have been given back their rights. They have been put, by means of a special credit, at the same point of their incremental scales which they would have occupied had they not lost those years of service, and, further, the period of suspension from public work is now allowed to count in computing their pension rights. Compare that with the condition of the ex-Service man. Take the worst case of all of harsh treatment—the men who joined the Fighting Services without Departmental permission. Those men lost all their Civil Service pay—the pay which was enjoyed by those who went on a more regular basis—and the bonus which they would have received under the Sutton judgment. Reinstatement has only been conceded to them in special circumstances, and some, the number of whom I am not able to obtain, have lost their reinstatement altogether. As to pension rights, they have not automatically been given these back in the way that has been conceded to the conscientious objector. Here again it seems to be a matter of Departmental discretion, and I am informed that it has by no means been universally conceded. [ Interruption. ] I am informed that many cases can be given where it has not been conceded, and, if the hon. Member can prove a negative of that, I shall be very interested to hear it.

Then take the case of the men who have been in temporary employment, as compared, again, with the conscientious objectors. Seventeen thousand men were taken from temporary employment and established. They have not been given those accumulated pay rates and those pension rights which have been extended to the conscientious objector, and I think there is no question that there has been a discrimination which this concession to the conscientious objectors has made extremely harsh against the ex-Service man.

I now come to the administrative action, which amounts to breaches of the agreement of 1925. The House will re- member that that agreement was negotiated on behalf of the late Government as soon as we took office, and it settled various points arising out of the recommendations of the Third Report of the Southborough Committee. It settled the system of establishment, and set up a new class, known colloquially as the "P" Class, who were for the first time to be given an assurance of permanency. In that agreement, Clause 5 provided that:

Besides this influx of nearly 1,000 unqualified people, 2,276 girls who were writing assistants have been promoted into the clerical class, and in that way the opportunities for promotion of the ex-service men who were recommended and qualified, and had every reasonable expectation of being established in this way, have been flooded out. Only 1,750 were established, because of this great influx of more than three times that number of people, who were certainly never contemplated as their competitors when the agreement was signed. This is a serious breach at least of the spirit of the agreement.

I come to an even more glaring case of open and unashamed breach of the letter of the bond. Clause 9 lays it down that it is agreed that preference shall continue to be given to ex-service personnel in making fresh temporary appointments, and until this year that undertaking has been rigorously observed. It has lately, however, become known that in the Ministry of Labour, on 20th November, 417 temporary or casual clerks—I think they are called casuals for the first month—are being employed who do not comply with this requirement because they have never served in the armed forces. The excuse is made that no ex-service men were available. That is an absolutely absurd plea. I have looked into the figures in the six different districts of unemployed males on the register, and the figures vary from 10,000 to 20,000 unemployed men for every one of these clerical vacancies which have been filled up.

Not ex-service men?

12 n.

No. It is unthinkable that among 10,000 or 20,000 men there was not one ex-service man who was qualified, and the excuse does not bear a moment's examination. It is a mere transparent pretext for having broken the agreement. In the Inland Revenue there are 44 men who have been taken on without any ex-service qualifications. In the Air Ministry there are a certain number. I do not know the full amount, because the returns from the out-stations have not reached me. I only mention the Air Ministry case because of the excuse that was given. They said they took on these other people because the Joint Substitution Board were unable to nominate men to their requirements. There may be a good deal in what he said for making the Joint Substitution Board responsible for this work, but at present it is not so responsible, and it was never suggested for a moment that, when these casuals were to be taken on, they were to be recruited from the Joint Substitution Board, and never in fact have they in the ordinary course been so recruited. If there were men on the register of the Joint Substitution Board, the clearinghouse organisation of the six districts, they, of course, would have the first opening, but those vacancies which were not filled in that way were filled as a matter of course through the Employment Exchanges, perhaps in some cases by means of consulting the British Legion and other ex-service bodies. There is no doubt that these engagements constitute a glaring breach of the undertakings which were given by the late Government and which have so far not been repudiated by the present Government.

I should like to say a word as to the strange attitude of complacency adopted by the Financial Secretary. When I raised this matter at Question Time some few days ago, he said that as far as the Treasury was concerned there had been no change of policy, but on the specific point I had better ask the Minister of Labour. What on earth is the object of the Establishment Branch of the Treasury? What conceivable use is it for the Treasury to pretend to control the Departments and to give undertakings which are held to apply to the whole of the Civil Service? It has always been the accepted system that matters of establishment and conditions of service and pay are rigidly controlled by the Treasury, and this is a most surprising development.

Not at all.

The hon. Gentleman has abrogated his responsibility. He has said it is not a matter for him that other people have broken the agreement, and I must ask the Minister of Labour. I shall be very much interested to hear the explanation, and I hope he will tell us of what conceivable use these agreements are, or any agreement signed by the Treasury, if the Financial Secretary says I am to ask the Department.

It is the same policy as your own.

The hon. Gentleman pretended that he had been maintaining our policy, and I do not think he can dispute that these breaches have taken place. I shall be interested to hear how he can explain away these hundreds of people, who he did not know about when he answered my question, who have been taken on in flagrant breach of all undertakings. I ask for a definite explanation of two points: first of all, how the hon. Gentleman reconciles this engagement with the solemn undertakings which have been given and by which, according to his statement the other day, he still stands, and how, seeing that these men have been taken on, he can reasonably argue that the Government have not carried out a change of policy.

There is behind what the right hon. Gentleman has said a real grievance with which the House of Commons ought to deal. But I dissent almost in toto from the way in which that grievance has been presented. Many of the right hon. Gentleman's figures are wrong, and the inferences drawn from other figures are inaccurate, and I am concerned lest the method of presentation of the grievance should detract from the genuineness of the grievance itself. The right hon. Gentleman began by contrasting the treatment given by the Government to ex-service men, on the one hand, and conscientious, objectors on the other. I should like to say two things about that matter. The first is that the Civil Service as a whole, including something like 150,000 ex-service men, cordially approves the decision of this Government in regard to conscientious objectors. If that is challenged, as it may be, by reference to the dissent of an organisation known as the Association of Ex-service Civil Servants, which, indeed, did dissent, my reply will be that that organisation represents only between 4,000 and 5,000 ex-service men out of a total of 150,000, and represents them exceedingly badly.

The second point which I should like to make upon that aspect of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks is, that when the Great War was on, rightly or wrongly, Parliament decided that citizens who entertained a conscientious objection to bearing arms and who could prove the genuineness of their objection to the satisfaction of a tribunal of their fellow citizens, should be exempted from the obligation of bearing arms. I am not discussing for a moment whether that was a wise or an unwise, or a right or a wrong provision. I am merely making the point that it was a decision taken by the House of Commons. Clearly, if individual civil servants, who, as the right hon. Gentleman will admit, are also citizens, to the number of a few score out of 300,000, claim exemption from military service on the ground of conscientious objection, and have the genuineness of that contention upheld by a tribunal of fellow citizens, and then the State as employer victimises those civil servants for doing what the State, as a State, has said it is right for them to do, it is an abominable thing, unjust in law, unjust in morality and indefensible from every point of view.

Among the many black episodes which occurred in this country during and after the War, the one which reflected not the least discredit upon the Governments of those times, including the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member, was the petty, mean and vindictive treatment of that little handful of men in Government service who pleaded conscientious objection. If there is a case to be established to-day, it is a case which has to be established on its own merits and not by reference to the treatment which past and present Governments have given to this handful of conscientious objectors in the Civil Service.

What are the complaints of the right hon. Gentleman. He makes, as I understand him, two main complaints, apart from the one with which I have dealt. The first is that the decision of previous Governments that recruitment for temporary posts should be confined to ex-service men has been violated by the present Government, and the second is that the position of "P" Class civil servants and temporary Civil Service ex-service men has been prejudiced by the Government's policy in regard to (a), open competitive recruitment from outside, and (b), the promotion of women from the inside.

I do not complain of competitive examinations. I complain of the taking on of people who do not pass.

I am very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, and I will come to that point in a moment. I should like to deal with those two complaints in the order in which they were given. The first is a matter which I propose to leave to be dealt with by the Financial Secretary. With regard to the suggestion that we have departed from the agreement of 1925 in that respect, I feel very little doubt that on that point the Financial Secretary will be able to give a conclusive answer. But I should like to make this observation to the right hon. Gentleman opposite. The agreement to which the right hon. Gentleman referred—the agreement of 1925 for which he personally was primarily responsible—was itself a violation of half-a-dozen existing agreements in the Civil Service and a violation which was embarked upon without the slightest reference to the Civil Service trade unions, the staff side of the National Whitley Council, and indeed to anybody except the insignificant little organisation, the Association of Ex-Service Civil Servants, which claims, on the strength of a membership of a few thousands, to speak for the ex-service men of the Civil Service. If there are charges to be made about broken agreements, let me tell the right hon. Gentleman frankly that they would come better from some other mouth than his own in this particular connection.

I will try, in regard to the second complaint, to make what may be a complicated issue as simple as I can for the benefit of the House. There are in the Civil Service four or five main grades of employés. First of all, there is the administrative class at the top, then the executive class, then the clerical class, and then there are two classes of women—writing assistants and typists—and finally two classes of unestablished people—the "P" Class clerks who are unestablished but permanent, and the temporary clerks who are neither established nor permanent. I invite the House to notice this point, that year after year in the Civil Service large numbers of vacancies occur in the established grades, while there are in existence at the same time a large number of unestablished "P" Class men and a large number of temporary clerks whose future is completely uncertain and who desire security of tenure. It follows that if, when vacancies occur in the top class, the second class, the third class, and the fourth class you bring in people from outside the Civil Service and place them into those vacancies, you do two things. You prevent the promotion of people already in the Service clearly, and, by preventing their promotion, you prevent security being given to the temporary clerk and the "P" Class clerk by giving him the vacancies in the clerical grades. I hope I have made the position clear. It is not an easy thing to make clear, but, at any rate, I hope that I have succeeded in making it broadly intelligent.

I will give the House one or two figures. During the last five years 130 recruits have been brought into the executive class from outside the Civil Service, 1,058 have been brought from outside the Civil Service and placed in the clerical class, and 2,064 have been brought from outside and placed in the writing assistants class, and 1,700 into other classes, making a total of something like 5,000 persons brought from outside the Civil Service into the Civil Service established grades. If the right hon. Gentleman says that it is wrong, when you have 6,000 temporary clerks who do not know from one month to another whether they are going to get the sack or not, to bring in nearly 6,000 people from outside the Civil Service and put them into the established jobs which they could fill, I agree with him. I hope that the House will make it clear that, however desirable it may be to have a steady flow of recruitment from outside the Civil Service, at this stage in our development, at any rate, there are claims which take precedence over claims from outside, and those claims are the two claims I have mentioned.

The claim of the established Civil Servant to promotion after he has earned it is a strong claim. It is a humiliating thing for men in the class to which I belonged when I was in the Civil Service, to have to work for many years with no hope of promotion and to have to teach young boys coming in the very jobs which they themselves are unable to fill because it is impossible to promote them. You would not find an outside business conducted on those lines. I do not think that the Financial Secretary will deny that in every department of the Civil Service and in every grade, there are men and women who have been certified as fit for promotion again and again, but who go on through bleak and barren years without the hope of promotion. That claim ought to be met, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will help me make it. I rather gathered that he was opposed to the claim being met, at any rate, as far as it affected some promotions from the Writing Assistant Class. May I remind him of two things? The agreement to which he referred, flowed out of an earlier document—the report of the Southborough Committee. I would remind him, secondly, that the report of that Committee made it plain that its recommendations were subject to the over-riding proviso that the promotion prospects of existing classes should not be disturbed. As writing assistants and typists are an existing class, their rights should not be disturbed, and the real enemy of the claim of the remaining temporary class to security and of the "P" class to promotion is not the writing assistant or the typist, but the outside recruit, who comes in to damage both classes. We have had 5,000 brought in in that way. We could have given security to 5,000 out of the 6,000 of the temporary class, if we had utilised the vacancies in the way I suggest, and promotion might have been given to many more typists and writing assistants than has been the case.

There was a time in the history of this problem when it would have been impossible for any Government, whatever its political complexion, to give security to all the temporary class. The reason is plain. The functions of the State expanded with tremendous rapidity during the War, and staffs were taken on by scores of thousands. At one time, the number of temporary civil servants amounted to over 60,000, and a Government of any complexion could not at the end of the War have met the demand for establishment and security for the whole of that staff. That was perfectly impossible, because at the end of the War there began the contraction of State activity and the size of the State Departments, and that contraction made it impossible to give security by the establishment of every one of those 60,000 temporary civil servants. But having said that, may I say that the problem over the course of the years has now shrunk to a point where it is now practical politics to give security to every remaining temporary civil servant who is fit for his job. The total problem has now shrunk to 6,000. I have shown that by utilising the vacancies in the last five years we could have given security to five-sixths of that number. The vacancies which will arise in the next five years will be sufficient to accommodate that 6,000, and I should like to see the whole House insist upon two things, first, that outside recruitment of the boy and girl shall be stopped until such time as this temporary problem has disappeared; secondly, that in the mean- time vacancies arising at the top shall be filled by promotion from the grade below, and vacancies in that grade shall be filled by promotion from the grade below them, and so on through the Civil Service structure, the vacancies in the clerical class at the bottom being filled in the way I have suggested.

There is no administrative difficulty in tackling the problem in that way, except one. It will probably be argued, although I hope it will not, by the Front Bench, that age groupings in the Civil Service demand a steady flow of outside recruits. With great respect, many of us would call that bunkum. In point of fact, there is in each class of the Civil Service to-day an enormous variation in age, and the horrible picture which the Financial Secretary sometimes conjures up of all the members of one class resigning in the same year, is, with great respect, sheer bunkum. The danger does not arise, and there is nothing in the age group argument which invalidates the claim now being made. I know that it is difficult for Governments to meet the demands of everyone, because sometimes demands conflict, and, in any case, you cannot get a quart into a pint bottle. But when Governments have to choose between three sets of claims they are not exempted from the obligation of exercising discretion about them. To-day there are three claims: the claim of the established civil servant to promotion, the claim of the "P" man to promotion and of the temporary to security, and the claim of the boys and girls leaving school. If all these claims cannot be met, I say that the first two possess a clear priority over the third, and the claim, which, I hope, the Financial Secretary will meet to-day, is the claim that security shall be given to the 6,000 temporary staff, and that to do that open competitive recruitment shall be abandoned until we have absorbed the remaining unestablished staff.

I do not know whether the hon. Member who has just spoken—I do not mean to be offensive—has been a conscientious objector or not, but he certainly started his speech by making a very eloquent plea on their behalf. I have a great respect for certain conscientious objectors whose conscience would not allow them to fight, but I do not think that anyone would say that they played a very useful part to the country in the War. I do not think it would be denied that all those fellows who fought played a very useful part.

I was not a conscientious objector in the last War, but, by the grace of Almighty God, I will be one in the next.

At any rate, they should be left to the last as regards this employment. I cannot help thinking that the Government themselves have got a little slack in their obligations to the ex-service men and are getting a little bit out of touch, out of feeling, with them. They made rather a stupid suggestion with regard to the Cenotaph at Armistice time, that people coming from abroad should not place wreaths on the Cenotaph. They were very objectionable, too, in their manifesto about the seven years' limit being abolished. Also, they are taking rather more non-ex-service men into employment in the Civil Service than previously. On 1st January male temporary employés in the Civil Service numbered 3,288, of whom only 27 were non-ex-service men, but on 1st November there were 5,560 ex-service men and 481 non-ex-service men—an increase from something like ¾ per cent. to 8 per cent.

There is really only one point I particularly want to make to-day, and that is to ask what steps the Treasury take to see whether ex-service men are available for vacant posts before taking on non-ex-service men.

The British Legion has employment committees attached to every branch throughout the country, they have employment officers in at least five areas and they have the headquarters in London dealing with anything in relation to employment. During the past 12 months they have been able to place more men into employment than in the previous year, despite the difficult circumstances in regard to employment. The total number of jobs which have been found this year is over 11,500. I know that the Ministerial employment officers of the different areas in the country have not approached the Legional divisional officers to endeavour to find out whether they could find suitable men. I am certain that men could have been found for the vacant jobs had they been so approached. In some cases local branch secretaries were asked by the Ministry if they could find jobs for men. In this respect there may appear to be a certain reflection upon the Legion, but it must be remembered that the branches have not a very wide range, and that they only deal with men round about. They ought to have passed on the request to the area, but they did not. If the Ministry will get into touch with the Legion headquarters or with our divisional areas, I feel sure that a good many jobs could be found.

I should like to put a few points from the point of view of the "B" class ex-service men. I deprecate any differentiation between what we called the conscientious objector in the late War and those who were not conscientious objectors. There was a time during the War when one felt strongly on certain matters, but I think the time has come to drop that feeling. We have to try to convince the Treasury bench that we have a genuine case from the point of view of these ex-service men. The admirable speech of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton West (Mr. W. J. Brown) put the case extraordinarily well. He pointed out that outside individuals were brought into the Service, and thereby blocked the promotions in the clerical section. If the Financial Secretary to the Treasury would fix his mind on that aspect of the matter, he would remove the great sense of grievance from which these ex-service men suffer. When vacancies occur for temporary appointment, I am sure that by advertisement or by approaching the various branches of the British Legion, or the ex-Service Men's Associations which exist in connection with every regiment, the Government would get a large number of very efficient men and men of suitable age to take the appointments.

The Establishment Branch of the Treasury ought to carry out some inquiry into the doings of the Departments, and not to allow things to go on and simply to wash their hands of responsibility. In 1925 the agreement was made, and there was a restatement of policy in answer to a question in 1927. It was then stated that the policy would be renewed and continued in dealing with ex-service men, and that they would have preference. Some inquiry ought to be made into what has been going on since then. The grievance which has arisen is a genuine grievance, and undoubtedly it needs inquiry. I am satisfied that with the fair-mindedness of the Financial Secretary if he will look into what is going on in connection with the recruitment in the clerical ranks, he will find that there is some justification for the sense of grievance that prevails. The real crux of the matter is that the Civil Service requires the intake, through examination, of younger elements to come on, but I think we can carry that analogy too far. It is true that in the military or the naval service you want to have equality in the various years of service, so that you will not get a particular age left in the Service when others leave or retire. It is not quite the same thing in the Civil Service.

Until the difficulty of placing and handling the "B" ex-service men class and the temporary ex-service men has been got over, the Government ought to take into the Service only those who have passed the necessary examination and not those, and they are a large number, who have failed in the examination. That class come into the same category as those who are coming in from the outside. The difficulty will eventually pass, and I think that a period of possibly 10 years will be sufficient for the purpose. Certainly, it will be only during a limited period that the difficulty will remain. I hope that the Financial Secretary will do what he can to examine the situation and to see if the intentions of Parliament are being carried out. These particular men do deserve a little more permanence. They want to get away from the state of things which we know exists in the industrial world in regard to the fear of losing their jobs. If we could do anything to improve their position and statue and give them a little more permanency, I am sure that everyone in the country would be only too glad.

I welcome the moderate and friendly tone of the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Montrose Burghs (Sir R. Hutchison), but I cannot say the same thing in regard to the speech of the right hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Guinness). I think that hon. Members will realise that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was most intemperate, entirely unjustified by the circumstances of the case, and utterly unworthy of a right hon. Gentleman who has held the position which I have the honour to occupy. Typical of the speech was the method adopted by the right hon. Gentleman at the beginning of his remarks. He attacked the Members of the Government for the attitude that they took up in regard to the War. That was irrelevant to our discussion, but I will say this, that if the advice of some of those who now sit on the Government bench had been followed and terms of peace which were reasonable had been put forward at the time, a great deal of bloodshed and a great deal of the disasters from which we are now suffering might have been avoided. [ Interruption. ] I say that if before the conclusion of the War more reasonable terms of peace had been put forward, a great deal of what has happened might have been avoided.

The statement made by the Financial Secretary is a very serious one, and I should like to say that the terms of peace which were offered were terms that were submitted to the Trade Union Congress and received their full assent; but they were not accepted.

I do not know whether the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) was present during the speech of the right hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds when he dealt with this particular point. He was not dealing with the attitude of the Trade Union Congress but with the attitude of individual members of the Government. The view that he expressed is, of course, a matter of opinion. The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to have his opinion, just as I am entitled to have mine, but what he is not entitled to do is to transfer what he considers to have been the attitude of the Members of the Government to the War to their present attitude towards the men who fought in the War.

Speaking on behalf of the Government and of my hon. Friends on this side of the House I repudiate utterly the suggestion that we have been less solicitous for the men who fought in the War than hon. Members opposite, and anyone who studies the columns, of the OFFICIAL REPORT will find that repudiation fully borne out by the facts.

After all, we are not dealing with question of that kind, but with specific matters relating to the employment of ex-Service men inside the Civil Service. I repeat the answer which I gave to the right hon. Gentleman in reply to a question, that there has been no change of policy whatever with the single exception of the reinstatement of conscientious objectors. I do not think the House wants me to go into that question again, I believe we are thoroughly supported by the country and by the great bulk of ex-Service men themselves in that matter.

I am prepared to deal to-day with the charge that we have departed from the principle that in the case of temporary employment we are to give a preference to ex-Service men. That was the rule enunciated by the late Government, which we also enunciated, and by which we stand. In its precise terms it does not give an exclusive monopoly to ex-Service men, it gives a preference; and the right hon. Gentleman knows how difficult that has been to construe in the light of the facts. I construe it in this way, a perfectly legitimate way; that when an ex-Service man and a non-ex-Service man present themselves for employment the ex-Service man is to be taken even if his qualifications are lower than those of the non-ex-Service man, but only on the condition that he has qualifications which will enable him to fulfil the position. Anyone who occupies my position or is in charge of any department of State cannot possibly construe it further than that. During the late Government there were occasions when, owing to the difficulty of finding ex-Service men to fulfil temporary posts, non-ex-Service men were taken on, and the present Government have carried out the undertaking in a way precisely similar to that of the late Government.

The large issue involved here is the employment in employment exchanges by the Minister of Labour of men who are not ex-Service men. The explanation of that does not rest with me, it is the responsibility of the Minister of Labour, and my hon. friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour will give an explanation which I believe will be fully satisfactory to the House. I will only say this, that in the Ministry of Labour and in the department for which I am directly responsible, where there are temporary vacancies in places up and down the country the first effort is to find whether there are any Guinness men out of work and, if there are, to give them a preference. Failing that we have to find a suitable man, preferably on the spot, and we endeavour to find an ex-Service man who fulfils the conditions, but where we cannot find an ex-Service man on the spot to fulfil a purely temporary job we certainly are not going to import an ex-Service man hundreds of miles away for a job which is only going to occupy a few weeks, and it would be perfectly ridiculous to expect us to do so. In these cases these temporary jobs are given to qualified men in the locality, and in doing that we are doing precisely what the late Government did.

Can the Financial Secretary give us the figures of the preferences that have been given?

I think it would be better if the Parliamentary Secretary gave them; they really belong to his department. The position is that the great bulk of these vacancies are given to ex-service men. A few, in places where there is a difficulty in finding ex-service men, are given to non-ex-service men and the pledge so far from being broken, as the right hon. Gentleman alleged, is being kept by all departments with the full knowledge of the Treasury. The right hon. Gentleman, after dealing with this matter, made a charge which I should have thought, as one who has occupied the office which I now hold, he would have known to be false. I am quite sure that he would not deliberately make a false charge, and therefore I asume that it was ignorance, which I must say, considering his own association with this matter, very much surprised me. He made the statement that we had taken entrants who had failed in the examination, or at any rate failed to qualify. I give that assertion an absolute and flat denial. It is not true.

I will tell the right hon. Gentleman the facts, and probably explain to him why he went wrong in the matter. When an examination of that kind is held a certain number pass the examination and reach the qualifications required. But we do not want the full number of those in the service, therefore we declare successful a certain number—namely, those that we actually require to take into the service. Later, if we have additional vacancies we take in a further number, but no matter how pressing the needs of the department may be we never allow the appointment of candidates who have not in fact achieved a satisfactory position of marks in the examination and we refuse absolutely to admit any such candidate. Therefore, the position is simply this; of those candidates who qualify we take in the first place a certain number, holding ourselves free to take any additional numbers if and when occasion arises, but under no circumstances whatever do we take any candidate who has not passed the qualifying test in the examination. I have dealt with the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman.

There is one point I should like to clear up. Does the Financial Secretary mean that, apart altogether from the number of vacancies required, those who do in fact pass and obtain the same standard of efficiency are later taken on according to the needs of the moment?

Broadly speaking that is correct, but it would be wrong to say that all candidates obtain the same standard of efficiency. They are marked right away down, those who obtain the highest marks and those who obtain the lowest marks. There is a dividing line, above which there are those who are said to pass and below which there are those who are said to fail. Anyone above the dividing line is eligible for appointment, but at the beginning we take only a proportion according to our requirements, holding ourselves perfectly free to take a part or a whole of those above the line at any future time.

Why does it appear in the official paper which I have before me that "The following candidates are declared successful," and then later "The following candidates are unsuccessful?" Do I understand that only those who are declared successful take the particular posts but that the time of appointment depends on the necessity of the department?

I have not got the particular document referred to, but I have got something which probably corresponds to it. By "successful" is meant that that number will be taken in. It means that these candidates have passed the examination.

That will not do.

The right hon. Gentleman says that that will not do. I am telling him the facts! he asks for the facts and I am giving them. We declare a certain number originally successful, and if we want a further number we ultimately declare a larger number successful. That does not mean that any of these have failed in the examination.

That includes those who were previously declared to be unsuccessful?

Unsuccessful in the sense that they did not secure posts, not unsuccessful in the sense that they failed in the examination.

Obviously that cannot be the case, because I have before me an official document. The heading refers to the result of "an open competition held in November, 1927, and March, 1928, for the admission of boys and girls to the clerical class." There follow the words "The following candidates are declared successful." Another list says "The following candidates were not successful." Anyone would assume that when you went into a competition and there was a list of those who were successful and those who were unsuccessful, it would be impossible to declare afterwards that in the list of the unsuccessful were people who had in fact been successful.

I gave way to the right hon. Gentleman, but really he has stated nothing in his last excursions except a repetition of his previous fallacy. He is confusing the use of two words. Naturally a man cannot be regarded as successful if he does not attain the object that he has in view. If he does not get a post he cannot be held to be successful. But that does not say that he has failed in the examination. Those are the facts. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but that will not make the smallest difference to the policy adopted by this Government or by the Government of which he was such an ornament. One of the examinations to which he referred was in November, 1927, when his Government was in office, and I believe the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. A. M. Samuel) was Financial Secretary to the Treasury. If the right hon. Gentleman objects to the wording of these documents, his complaint is not against me, but against the hon. Friend who sits beside him. I have no time to deal with that quite small point any further.

Let me turn now to a point of substance made by the hon. and gallant Member for Montrose. The suggestion has been made that we should abandon competitive entrance in certain classes and proceed entirely by promotion. I think the hon. and gallant Member will agree that we are pursuing identically the policy that the late Government pursued. The question is whether that policy should be discontinued. The answer is perfectly simple. The policy was adopted after the reports of the Southborough Committee and of a Select Committee of this House. We have appointed a Royal Commission to go into the whole question of the Civil Service, and in view of the reports of the Southborough Committee and of the Select Committee, and the existence of the Royal Commission, it would obviously be wholly improper to change the method of recruitment until we are so advised by the Royal Commission.

The Financial Secretary has stated quite fairly that there is a Royal Commission sitting to inquire into the service, but in the meantime the present Government is pursuing the policy of the last Government. While the Royal Commission is sitting and claims are being taken to it for establishment and security for these people, they are in process of being discharged. We shall not get a report from the Royal Commission until next October at the earliest, and by that time a good many of these people in respect of whom we have asked for security will have gone out of the service. Does the hon. Gentleman not see that this is not a case where he can simply reply that there is a Royal Commission sitting.

I admit that the position is that the two other Committees, the Southborough Committee and the Select Committee, decided in favour of a certain course of action in the interest of the Civil Service. I do not want to re-open that question. Until that course of action is reversed by the Royal Commission the Government have no intention of departing from it.

I want to raise another question of which I have given notice. Apart from agriculture, the main industry in the constituency which I have the honour to represent, is the slate industry. Many of the quarries which are being worked in that constituency are leased from the Crown Lands Department, and the landlord in fact is the Crown itself. Prior to 1917 there were in a certain district in my constituency three quarries, the Alexandra, the Moeltryfan and the Cilgwyn quarries, which were worked on separate leases from the Crown Department. In 1917 approaches were made by the Crown Lands Department to the Cilgwyn quarry asking them to amalgamate with the other two quarries, namely, Moeltryfan and Alexandra. These two quarries have become to all intents and purposes derelict, owing to the fact that there have been heavy falls of soil which have prevented the work of bringing out the slate being carried on. As a result of this arrangement, which I desire to emphasise was at the request of the Crown Lands Department itself, a new company was formed, called the Amalgamated Slate Association, Limited. The Crown Lands Department advanced the sum of £12,000 to this company, of which sum £6,000 was secured by a debenture of 5 per cent. interest on the plant and machinery of the company, and £6,000 was a free gift. The second £6,000 was really by way of a consideration to the new company for taking on the task of removing the overburden, amounting to round about £500,000, which had been left by the previous derelict company. This sum of £12,000 was, of course, entirely inadequate to remove the very heavy burden, and the company has spent not £12,000, but between £50,000 and £60,000.

Since then, several heavy falls have taken place. In 1925, a very heavy fall took place, and the Crown came to the assistance of the company with a grant of £3,000. In 1926, and again in 1927, a similar difficulty occurred, and in 1928 the Crown once more came to the assistance of the company with a further grant of £3,000. For one reason or another, the company has received £18,000 from the Crown Lands Department, and has repaid, in repayment of loan and in various other ways, £4,500. There is left to-day as a debenture, part of a first debenture and part of a second debenture, a sum of only £6,000. Last year there were several further falls and the company made an application to the Crown Lands Department for assistance in order that the company might remove the over-burden altogether. It was estimated that it would be necessary to have skilled excavators to do the work and that the whole process over a period of three years would cost £20,000.

That request has been made by the company to the Crown; let us see how the Crown stands at the present time. A first debenture of 5 per cent. was issued in 1918 amounting to £6,000, of which £3,600 has been repaid. At the same time, a second debenture of £4,500 was due from the old company and had nothing at all to do with the present company. Of that, £900 has been repaid. In the period from 1918 up to date, the company has paid back £4,500 and the total sum advanced by the Crown has been £18,000. But the company has paid in rents and royalties during that period £21,615 15s. 7d. The Crown has therefore, since 1918, made a profit of £8,115 15s. 7d. on these properties. In addition to that, the company has paid a sum of £4,054 12s. 3d. in Income Tax, and a still larger sum in local rates. The transaction has been a very profitable one to the Crown. The most important fact of all, is the large sum of £625,848 6s. 7d. which has been paid since 1918 in wages in that area. Employment has been given over that considerable period to about 500 skilled men, who have been trained in the work of producing slate. It is a very highly skilled, and at times a very dangerous, occupation.

1.0 p.m.

What is the position to-day? When I put a question the other day to the Minister of Agriculture, his reply to me was that the Crown Lands Commission were in sympathy with the position, but while they deplored the unemployment caused by the closing of these quarries, they regretted that they had no power under their statutes to accede to the company's request for a grant. I put a further question on that, and asked, if in the past the Crown had been able to make grants amounting altogether to £12,000 for this company, why it was that the Crown was not able to make a grant on this occasion. The Minister then put forward the excuse on behalf of the Department that they would not be able to make a grant, as they were advised that this sum was much greater than any return which they could hope to receive from the quarries in the future. One reply is contradictory of the other. I have proved already that during the period from 1918 to the present day, the Crown has made a profit of over £8,000 on this transaction, in rents and royalties alone. If it is possible for the Crown to make a grant of £12,000 in 1918, why is it not possible for them to make a grant of £20,000 to-day covering a period of three years? The result is that the company at the present moment owes the Crown in debentures a sum of £6,000, and the Crown has without notice put in a receiver who has held up the whole work of the quarry, which is no longer carrying on. This has permanently put out of employment the 500 men.

On the day when I asked my question of the Minister of Agriculture, a question was answered by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour in reply to a question put by the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. G. Macdonald) in which he said that on the 31st of October there were 273 schemes in Lancashire employing 12,862 men, and that the total estimated cost was £9,420,000. I have worked out a calculation as to what these schemes are going to cost per man.

Will the hon. and gallant Member say to what schemes he refers?

I refer to unemployment schemes in Lancashire. I have worked out how much they would cost per man and it comes to a sum of £732 per man. The sum asked for in this case is only £20,000 and, assuming that the number of men employed is only 400, that represents a cost of £50 per man. In Lancashire the Government are spending £732 per man on work which is only of a temporary nature, work which is bound to terminate, but here is a proposal which would secure permanent employment not only for 400 men but for a very much larger number and would at the same time secure a constant revenue for the State. My personal opinion is that the Department is failing in its duty to the State in this matter. It is acting as a very poor kind of landlord. I cannot imagine any private landlord acting as the Crown Lands Department has acted in this case. Here is a valuable property which is being ruined for ever, while 500 men, who have families, are put out of work without any hope of getting similar work to do. There is no future for them there.

Even assuming that under existing statutes the Crown Lands Commissioners are precluded from making this grant, what is to prevent the right hon. Gentleman appealing to the Treasury for a sum of £20,000 which would put this quarry permanently in the position of being probably the third best in the world. I have spoken to many experts in the industry on this matter and they tell me that next to the Penrhyn and Llanberis quarries, each of which employs 2,000 men, this is the best bed of slate in the whole country or indeed in the whole world. But the Department, because it sticks to its regulations, will not attempt to act as an ordinary private landowner would and come to the assistance of an industry which both gives employment and brings in revenue. The Department does nothing to help but rather hampers the work of this company, even in their efforts to sell the stocks which they have already quarried. The receiver actually refused to allow the company to use their own engines to carry consignments of slates down to the station, to be sent to various destinations. That is the sort of thing which makes one say, "God help the country the moment the State gets control of industry". No better example could be found of a bad and unsatisfactory method of dealing with an industry than we have in this case.

I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give a promise to-day that he will do his utmost to persuade the Treasury to come to the rescue of this company. I am not concerned very much with the company but all their money has been expended and there are 500 men, with families dependent on them, who have no hope of obtaining employment again in this part of the country. They are skilled men and excellent citizens and even from a business point of view it would pay the Govment to spend this £20,000 because, as a result, they would continue to get revenue at the rate of about £2,000 a year in rents and royalties, the Imperial Treasury would get an annual amount in the form of Income Tax and the local rates would also benefit. But, at the moment, the Government are wiping out the income of the Department, wiping out an annual sum in Income Tax and wiping out a large annual sum in rates. At the same time, assuming that there are only 400 men and that they are paid, in unemployment benefit, an average of £1 a week, that would more than cover the cost of putting in excavators and otherwise placing these quarries in a condition to work satisfactorily. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to approach the Treasury, or whatever department is in a position to make this grant, and to ask them to prevent this company going into liquidation as it is bound to go within the next few weeks unless assistance is forthcoming. I urge him to do something which will secure, not temporary but permanent employment for a large number of men.