asked the Secretary of State for India if the chaplains attached to the British Army in India are paid through the Army Department or through the Ecclesiastical Department of the Government of India?

Chaplains of the Church of India, although the greater number of them minister to British troops, are not attached to the Army, and their pay is chargeable to the Ecclesiastical Department. Some chaplains of the Church of Scotland, and all Roman Catholic and Wesleyan chaplains, are attached to the Army and their pay is chargeable to Army estimates.

asked the Secretary of State for India whether he can give a list of the retired bishops and chaplains who are at present in receipts of pensions from Indian revenues through the Ecclesiastical Department of the Government of India, with the amounts of such pensions?

I will send the hon. Member a list of retired bishops and chaplains drawing pensions from Indian revenues in this country together with the amounts of such pensions. A few such pensions are probably paid direct by Governments in India, but a reference to the Government of India would be necessary in order to obtain particulars.

asked the Secretary of State for India what is now the position as to the provision of a church for British troops stationed in Mingaladon, Burma?

I fear I have nothing further to add to the information I have already given to my hon. and gallant Friend, but I will inquire again if he wishes.

asked the Secretary of State for India whether he will announce the measures taken for the relief of victims of the recent earthquake in India; whether he has a full report of the casualties and of the number of people rendered homeless in the areas affected; and whether financial assistance from this country is contemplated?

asked the Secretary of State for India what steps are being taken to restore the damage done by the earthquake in India; and what relief measures have been set in hand for the stricken population?

As I informed my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wycombe (Sir A. Knox) last Monday, it is estimated that in British India 6,582 lives have been lost and that at least five crores of rupees will be required for relief work and the repair of material damage. I have from time to time received reports on the damage done and the measures of relief undertaken, and I communicated their substance to the Press. The Government of Bihar are seeking legislative powers to make loans on easy terms to those whose buildings have been destroyed or damaged; but, as the Provincial Government are unable from their own resources to deal with the situation, the Government of India are working out, in consultation with them, a comprehensive financial scheme under which assistance will be given from central revenues. There are on the other hand certain classes of need which offer a wide scope for private charity, and the Viceroy has opened a relief fund, subscriptions to which are being received in this country by the High Commissioner for India. I am glad to say that the Lord Mayor of London has opened a fund at the Mansion House in support of the Viceroy's Fund. The International Relief Union has also contributed £1,000.

Have the Government decided to show a good example by making a grant towards this fund?

If my hon. Friend will read the answer, he will see that I have set out the steps which the Government are taking.

I understood from the answer that the Government of India are encouraging the Provincial Government to make loans, but are the central Government in this country associating themselves with the relief?

The central Government in this country are doing everything in their power to encourage subscriptions to the Lord Mayor's Fund and the Viceroy's Fund, and the central Government in India are doing what they can in co-operation with the local Government.

Does the right hon. Gentleman expect that this large sum of money can be found by the means suggested?

Yes, Sir, I think it will be found.

Has not my right hon. Friend received an indication that all sections in this country desire to assist in relieving this disaster in India?

Yes, Sir. I hope that the publicity of these questions and answers will draw attention to the Lord Mayor's Fund. We shall be very glad to receive as many subscriptions as we can.

asked the Secretary of State for India whether the steps being taken to deal with the smuggling and possession of unlicensed arms in Bengal are being supported by effective steps to prevent this smuggling and possession of unlicensed arms in other parts of India?

I am satisfied that the authorities in India constantly bear in mind the need for countering this dangerous activity in every possible way. As long as any arms get into unauthorised hands, we are most anxious to improve our system, and we are in fact reviewing it with this object at the present time.

asked the Secretary of State for India if he is aware that since the new year a conspiracy trial has been in progress in Calcutta in which no less than 33 alleged terrorists from Bengal, Madras, the Punjab, the United Provinces, Burma, and the Central Provinces were being tried; whether he can inform the House of the charges brought against the accused; and if any judgments, and, is so, to what effect have been pronounced?

My right hon. Friend is aware that the Government of Bengal sanctioned the institution of a conspiracy case as a result of material discovered by the police in Calcutta, but he has not yet received information as to its progress.

Is my hon. Friend aware that the President of the European Association, in the original draft of the speech which he made recently when the association entertained the Viceroy, described this case as "a remarkable plot, which shows, more than in other recent cases, the increasing extent of the terrorist movement"?

As I informed my Noble Friend last week, the Government must pay attention to speeches as they are delivered. As regards the fact which she has disclosed, I feel sure that all the information will come to notice, and, if not, we shall ask for it.

asked the Secretary of State for India if he is aware that one of the accused in the present Madras conspiracy case, who has turned informer, has given evidence that he had learned the process of bomb manufacture from Bengal terrorist prisoners with whom he was imprisoned in Trichinopoli Gaol, having attended some 50 or 60 classes, each lasting for some two or three hours, in the State prisoners' ward where the cult of violence was taught; and whether he can assure the House that prisoners accused of terrorism will no longer be given any opportunity of imparting such instruction to prisoners not previously connected with the movement?

The Crown Prosecutor in this case informed the court that it was by coming into contact with certain Bengali terrorist detenus that the accused were instructed in the cult of terrorism. To avoid such dangers, a number of terrorist convicts have been transferred to the Andamans instead of to gaols in other Provinces of British India. Terrorist detenus are normally held in concentration camps of their own. As regards terrorist prisoners in gaols in Madras, steps are being taken to arrange for their more effective segregation.

Are we to understand that the authorities in Madras regard as well founded the statements made by this informer as to the instruction in terrorist methods which he had obtained while in prison?

I understand that this particular case took place about two years ago.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the default plan of the Brazilian Government deprives British investors of £16,000,000 a year due by the terms of the contracts under which the moneys were borrowed; and whether this default plan was accepted on behalf of British nationals by the flotation houses who sold Brazilian obligations to the British public or whether His Majesty's Government acquiesced in this default plan?

The full figure for the Brazilian foreign debt service, including the service not only of bonds issued or held in this country, but also of all loans raised in other countries, is, I understand, in the nature of £24,000,000. The plan embodied in the recent Brazilian decree provides, in the first year of its operation, for a total reduction in the foreign debt service of approximately the sum mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend, a reduction which is borne, however, by all holders of Brazilian bonds and not by British investors alone. Further, the sum of approximately £8,000,000, which is to be provided during the first year, will be increased in each successive year of the four-year period covered by the plan. As regards the second part of this question, I understand that the responsibility for the plan rests solely with the Brazilian Government. No question arose as to the acquiescence of His Majesty's Government.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any Englishman is in charge of the Assyrian concentration camp in Iraq; and whether he can give any information as to the present condition of those who survived the massacre?

Yes, Sir; the Mosul camp is, in the temporary absence of Major Thomson, under the supervision of another British subject in the service of the Iraqi Government, Major Wilson, the administrative inspector at Mosul. I have made careful inquiries regarding conditions in the camp, and I am assured that the conditions as recently as the 16th February were satisfactory.

Is the question of the Assyrians now awaiting the decision of the League, or has the right hon. Gentleman any alternative recognising our primary responsibility in this matter?

As the right hon. and gallant Gentleman knows, there is a committee of the League which is dealing with the matter and we are waiting to learn what is the result.

Is the only question before the committee of the League the question of transplanting them to Brazil?

I should desire notice of that question, but I believe that Brazil is the direction to which their attention has been lately directed.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that the Trades Union Council is inviting subscriptions to a fund to help one section of the Austrian people to fight another section; and, seeing that this action may be regarded as an interference in the affairs of a friendly nation, if he will make a communication to the Austrian Government that this action by the Trades Union Council is not approved by His Majesty's Government?

I have no information regarding the fund referred to except what has appeared in the Press, and I do not think that it is necessary for me to take any action on the lines suggested in the last part of the question.

Does not the Foreign Secretary think that such money should be kept within the country and used for our own unemployed?

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Trades Union Congress has helped many deserving objects, including the Indian Earthquake Fund?

Are the principles of the Trades Union Congress peace at home and war abroad?

Would it not be better if a question of this kind were kept off the Order Paper until the condition of Austria was settled?

On that point of Order——

It is a matter for me to decide.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any fresh information to give to the House about the situation in Austria?

There are two matters which I should briefly report to the House, though both of them are made public in to-day's Press.

First, on Saturday last, the 17th February, His Majesty's Government, together with the French and Italian Governments, agreed to the issue of a joint communiqué, the text of which is as follows:

"The Austrian Government has inquired of the Governments of France, Great Britain and Italy as to their attitude with regard to the dossier which it has prepared with a view to establishing German interference in the internal affairs of Austria and which it has communicated to them.

The conversations which have taken place between the three Governments on this subject have shown that they take a common view as to the necessity of maintaining Austria's independence and integrity in accordance with the relevant treaties."

Secondly, the British Minister at Vienna, on my instructions, has been expressing to the Austrian Government our earnest hope that a policy of clemency and appeasement will be followed with reference to the recent grave disturbances.

Was this agreement between the British Government and the Governments of Italy and France as to supporting Austria come to before the Austrian Government perpetrated these massacres, or afterwards?

If my right hon. and gallant Friend's question is simply as to date, I would remind him that I had already announced to the House the view of His Majesty's Government on an earlier occasion—I think on the 13th February.

That was before the massacres took place. What I wish to inquire is whether the view of His Majesty's Government as to the necessity of supporting Austrian independence has not been modified by the example of the way in which the Austrian Government proposes to treat the working-classes in Austria?

I think my right hon. and gallant Friend will see that the broad consideration whether the peace of Europe is best secured by the disturbance of Austria or not can hardly be said to have changed because of the conditions of which he speaks.

Will the right hon. Gentleman make it clear to the Austrian Government that the continuance of the political and financial support given to Austria in the past will be contingent on the proper treatment of the working-classes in that country?

I think the hon. Gentleman really ought to recognise the fact of which I have just informed the House, and which I think he already knew, namely, that His Majesty's Government have been making representations as to clemency and appeasement in the present situation.

Is not the preservation of liberty in Europe as important as the independence of Austria?

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will state the nature of the obligations towards the League of Nations assumed by Austria in recognition of the financial assistance extended to her under the auspices of the League?

By the Protocol of 3rd October 1922, Austria undertakes, in accordance with the terms of Article 88 of the Treaty of St. Germaine, not to alienate its independence and to abstain from any negotiations or from any economic or financial engagement calculated directly or indirectly to compromise this independence.

Is not the Austrian Government also under an obligation not to alienate the independence and the liberties of her own people?

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will inquire for what defensive reason the French Government, since 11th November, 1918, has built, or is building, 80 submarines?

On a point of Order. May I ask you, Sir, if there is any precedent for a question of this nature?

Does the hon. Member refer to this question?

Are Members allowed to ask questions as to why certain Powers are defending themselves, as they have a perfect right to do?

With agreements that are now made on these questions, it is difficult to say whether the Government is responsible or not.

I hardly think it would be proper for His Majesty's Government to adopt my right hon. Friend's suggestion.

Cannot these submarines in certain eventualities be a formidable menace to the free flow of commerce in the Channel?

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can make a statement on the proceedings of the League Committee of Three entrusted by the Council of the League of Nations with the preparation of plans for the conduct of the plebiscite of the Saar?

I have no information regarding the proceedings of the committee referred to by my hon. Friend, though I understand that it met in Geneva on 15th February.

Will the Government see, as far as possible, that no undue pressure is brought to bear upon any elector in the Saar to make him vote in a particular way during the progress of the plebiscite?

The hon. Member will see that the matter that he has just mentioned is manifestly one that is being considered by this very Committee.

asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the greatly increased home supplies of eggs available this spring and the present low level of prices, he can state what action the Government will take to protect the home producer until such time as the Reorganisation Commission has presented its report?

The Market Supply Committee has been asked to report on the situation in the egg market. I anticipate that their report will be submitted very shortly, when it will receive immediate consideration. Meanwhile, I am not in a position to make a statement.

asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the Government intends to use the Land Utilisation Act for the purpose of providing better allotment facilities for the Unemployed; and, if so, on what lines?

The position in this matter remains as indicated in the reply I gave on 27th November last to a question on the subject by the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) of which I am sending my hon. Friend a copy.

asked the Minister of Agriculture if, having regard to the fact that the retained imports of beef, veal, mutton, and lamb, in January 1934, were in weight 13 per cent. greater than those of January, 1933, and 1½ per cent. greater than those of January, 1932, he can now state when he proposes to put into effective operative the restrictive scheme he announced in the House of Commons in November, 1932?

Gross imports from foreign sources in January this year were lower than in January, 1932, and January, 1933, by about 19 and 5 per cent. respectively. The increases in retained imports from all sources of beef, veal, mutton and lamb compared with the corresponding months of 1932 and 1933, are entirely attributable to larger supplies from Empire countries. The programmes announced by me in the House of Commons in 1932 and on subsequent occasions have, of course, been subject to undertakings, such as the Ottawa Agreements, then existing.

When is there going to be a less supply coming on to the home market?

I have answered the question on the Paper. Any restriction can only be undertaken in observance of our existing agreements.

asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the Consumers' Council for England and Wales has been appointed; and whether any direct representative of Wales has been included?

I am sending the hon. Member a list of the members of this Committee, which was appointed on 8th December 1933. The members were not selected to represent particular areas, but one member is Sir Charles Bird, C.B.E., J.P., of Cardiff, resident in Wales.

Has the right hon. Gentleman given any consideration to the claim of the Principality on the ground of separate language?

Every representative must be intelligible to the other members of the Committee.

Have not the people of the Principality an advantage over others in that respect?

I am not sure that that advantage is not shared by the gentleman who is representing them.

asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware of the considerable increase in the imports of foreign barley into this country, particularly from Russia, during January, 1934, as compared with the corresponding month in 1933; whether the Government is prepared to take steps to preserve the British barley grower from the effects of this foreign dumping and to bring barley within the scope of the Marketing Acts, and to regulate imports?

The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. I would remind my hon. Friend, however, that during the present cereal year the price of home-grown barley has been considerably higher than during the last few years. No action by the Government is required to bring barley within the scope of the Agricultural Marketing Acts. The initiative in this matter rests with the producers.

Is the right hon. Gentleman considering the question of pearl barley, about which he gave an undertaking at Aberdeen a month ago?

That does not arise out of the question.

Are the Government taking into consideration the very hard times, owing to the depression, that the barley growers have had?

asked the Minister of Agriculture if he can make any statement as to the reasons for which the resignation of the chairman of the Pig Marketing Board has been requested?

No, Sir. This is a question which I regard as being within the province of the Board.

asked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the fact that under the milk marketing scheme co-operative societies are able to supply the public with milk more cheaply than other re- tailers; and what steps he proposes to take to ensure that all retailers in any given district are placed on the same footing with regard to the selling price of milk?

As I indicated in the reply I gave on 31st January to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) under the contract prescribed by the Milk Marketing Board for the period 6th October, 1933, to 31st March, 1934, retailers, other than co-operative societies, may allow to their customers dividends or discounts on retail sales of milk, provided that such dividends or discounts are paid not oftener than once in every three months and that they do not exceed the rate per pound actually paid on retail sales of milk by any co-operative society operating in the district. My hon. Friend will see, therefore, that ordinary retailers are placed on the same footing as co-operative societies.

Are the ordinary retailers in Scotland to be in the same advantageous position as in England?

That question should be addressed to the Secretary of State.

Are these questions asked in order to bring co-operative prices up or retailers' prices down?

asked the Minister of Agriculture if he can yet, or when he will be able to, announce the policy of the Government restricting the import of oversea milk products so as to secure for the home producer a living return for labour?

I am at present unable to add to the answers I gave my right hon. Friend on 5th and 12th February.

When will the right hon. Gentleman be in a position to answer?

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would not wish me to prophesy, but, as he has already put the question down twice, if he repeats it on Monday I hope to give him the same answer then.

Is the right hon. Gentleman consulting with the Minister of Health?

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a detrimental effect is being produced on the market for cows due to calve in the spring

I am aware of the difficulties arising under the present system, but we are taking all these matters into active review.

Can the right hon. Gentleman give any reason why the Government decision is delayed, considering that unless some decision is arrived at the whole marketing scheme may collapse?

The importance of the statement which my right hon. Friend has just made indicates the necessity of taking measures which really will avert such a danger. These measures cannot be rashly taken, and they will require full consideration before they are announced in the House.

asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that farmers are experiencing difficulty in having to fill up their contract forms for bacon pigs for so long a period as 12 months; and whether he will consider making two periods of six months each?

I recognise that a long-term contract is an innovation in the bacon-pig industry, but I believe that farmers generally are not experiencing insuperable difficulty in contracting for the 10 months' period beginning 1st March next recently prescribed by the Pigs Marketing Board. I would remind my hon. Friend that the Lane Fox Commission, after consultation with producers, strongly recommended a long-term contract as being conducive to the orderly expansion of the industry.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that farmers are adopting the policy of underestimating future profits, and will he take that into consideration in forming his future quota policy?

I am afraid I must be guided by the actual contracts that are registered. I hope my hon. Friend will impress upon the producers in his area the necessity of actually entering into contracts if they wish the expansion of the industry to be maintained.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is difficult to contract for pigs that are not yet born?

asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that persons injured by Post Office vehicles are unable to obtain compensation owing to the fact that the drivers are not insured against third party risks; and whether he will take steps to correct this anomaly?

As stated in the reply to the hon. Member for Plaistow (Mr. Thorne) on the 14th instant, it is the practice of my Department in the event of an accident to accept the same degree of liability in respect of a claim for civil damages as is imposed on a private employer.

Has not the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been drawn to the accident to one of these persons, who states that she will not receive compensation through being knocked down by one of the vehicles of the right hon. Gentleman?

Yes, Sir. I looked into that matter personally, and it was not on account of the fact that the Post Office was not insured that the lady in question did not receive any compensation.

asked the hon. Baronet the Member for Ipswich, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, if hon. Members may be provided with the outlines of the pension scheme for servants to which they have been invited to contribute?

The Kitchen Committee hope, if the yield of the levy permits, to pay a weekly pension to each of the 34 permanent servants who may retire at or after the age of 65.

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he can now say when and in what form the promised legislation in regard to damage by deer will be introduced?

My right hon. Friend regrets that he is not yet in a position to give the information desired.

asked the Minister of Labour if any estimate has been prepared of the expenditure of the Unemployment Assistance Board in respect of allowances in the first year of its operation?

No, Sir; it is not possible to frame an estimate of the expenditure of the Unemployment Assistance Board, in respect of allowances without more knowledge of the number of applicants on the appointed days and in advance of the regulations for the determination and assessment of needs of applicants for assistance which, under Part II of the Unemployment Bill now before the House, are to be submitted to and approved by both Houses of Parliament. In this connection, I should like to refer the hon. Member to paragraphs 15 and 18 of the Financial Memorandum which accompanied the Bill.

Will the hon. Gentleman inform the House whether it is anticipated that the assistance will be more, or less, generous than was given under the Public Assistance Committee?

It will very largely depend upon the regulations issued by the board.

asked the Minister of Labour what would be the reduction in income of the Unemployment Insurance Fund if the rates of contribution were restored to those which prevailed prior to the Economy Act of 1931?

The reduction in the income of the Unemployment Fund if the rates of contributions were reduced to those in operation prior to October, 1931, would, on the basis of finance assumed for the Unemployment Bill, amount to about £15,900,000.

Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the claims of those who are paying so heavily when the committee increase the rates of benefit?

That will be one of the considerations which, no doubt, the Statutory Committee will have in mind.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can make any statement with regard to the negotiations for rubber restriction?

I am replying on behalf of my right hon. Friend. No, Sir. The communiqué issued on the joint authority of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands Government on the 13th of February, which stated that reports to the effect that agreement had been reached for the regulation of rubber supplies were wholly inaccurate, represents the position. This communiqué was issued to contradict various unauthorised reports which appeared likely to mislead the public.

asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the British Government in 1930 notified the signatory countries to the St. Germain-en-Laye Treaty of its willingness to continue that treaty for a further period of five years, and asked the signatory countries to signify their willingness to do likewise, so obviating the necessity for a formal meeting; which of the countries signified their assent; and on what dates such assents were received by the British Government?

In 1930, when in accordance with Article 15 of the Convention a conference of the signatory Powers to introduce any necessary modifications fell due, His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, after consultation with His Majesty's Govern- ments in the Dominions suggested that a meeting should be held in 1935. The Portuguese Government signified their willingness to accept this proposal on the 29th July, 1930, and the Japanese Government on the 12th August, 1930. It was informally understood that the Belgian Government were prepared to agree to the proposal. No other replies were received.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information is in his possession regarding the dissemination of seditious propaganda in this country by Herr Otto Bene, a German subject, lately residing in Westbourne Terrace, London?

According to my information, the propaganda from this source cannot be regarded as seditious in character. If my hon. Friend has any information to the contrary effect, I should be glad to consider it.

Is the propaganda Nazi propaganda?

What sort of propaganda is it? Is it Nazi, or is it Fascist?

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will, preparatory to the coming discussions on the German transfer moratorium, request the German Government to furnish an estimate of the nominal amount of German-owned capital invested outside Germany and, similarly, of foreign securities owned in Germany by German nationals?

According to an estimate by the German Statistical Office, published in March, 1933, the income arising from the capital and investments referred to in the question during the year 1932 was 200 million reichsmarks. I think it may be assumed that any later estimate which may be available will be furnished to the long-term creditors for the purpose of the meeting which is to be held in April next.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will suggest to the German Government that any re-arrangement of the transfer moratorium should provide for the abolition of the various separate exchange control regulations; that there should be only one creditor's account for the blocked claims of the foreign creditors of Germany; and that an international commission should arrange the sale of blocked marks in the creditor's account?

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will intimate to the German Government that no transfer moratorium scheme which varies the contractual Sinking Fund obligations will be acceptable to British nationals unless an end is put to the re-purchase by German borrowers of German loans at prices less than issue prices by means of foreign exchange arising from the sale of German exports?

As was announced in the communiqué published on the 1st February, it is proposed to convene early in April a meeting of all long-term and medium-term creditors of Germany. It will be for the representatives of the British creditors to consider what specific proposals to bring forward at this meeting, and I am taking steps to bring both my hon. Friends' suggestions to their notice.

asked the Home Secretary if he is aware that the existence of the Home Office Museum is not generally known; that the word museum is a misomer; and what steps he proposes to take to advertise more widely the services which this institution can render to industry?

Much has been done to bring the object and character of this valuable institution to the notice both of the public generally and of those to whom it is likely to be of special interest and use. I agree, however, with my hon. and gallant Friend that it ought to be more widely known than it is, and that with greater publicity the services it already renders to industry could be greatly increased. I will consider what further steps can be taken within the resources at our disposal and I should welcome any suggestion which any Member of the House may have to offer. The institution is a permanent exhibition of up-to-date practical methods for promoting the safety, health and welfare of workpeople, particularly in factories; and if any happier title than "Industrial Museum" can be suggested, I shall be glad to consider it.

Will my right hon. Friend consider a suggestion to show some of those exhibits at the British Industries Fair, such, for instance, as those for the protection of human life in factories?

asked the Home Secretary how many smash-and-grab raids or robberies with violence have occurred in the Metropolitan Police Area during the past three months; and in how many cases have the perpetrators of the robbery, or attempted robbery, been arrested?

In the three months ended 31st January 14 cases of the kind described as "smash and grab" raids were reported to the police in the Metropolitan Police District and 10 arrests were made in connection with eight of these crimes. In the same period there were 48 cases reported of robbery with violence or assaults with intent to rob, and in respect of 19 of these crimes, 36 arrests were made.

Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied as to the methods that are being adopted, and also the progress that is being made towards stopping these outrages on the public?

We are doing everything we can, and, while nobody can be satisfied with any system, I think that we are making progress.

asked the Home Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the gallantry of taximeter-cab driver William Tyrrell, who deliberately drove his taximeter-cab into a large saloon car in which three bandits were escaping after an attempted robbery at a jeweller's shop in Duke Street, St. James's, on 13th February, and also assisted to arrest one of the raiders at considerable personal risk; whether compensation will be paid to Mr. Tyrrell in respect of the damage done to his taximeter-cab; and what further recognition is proposed to be given him for the public spirit he showed in securing the capture of two of the raiders?

Yes, Sir. I should like to say how much I appreciate Mr. Tyrrell's public-spirited action. The Commissioner of Police has seen him this morning and thanked him personally for what he did. With regard to the last part of the question, the matter is under consideration, but my hon. Friend may rest assured that Mr. Tyrrell will be fully reimbursed for any loss he may have suffered by reason of the damage to his cab.

Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that not only did this gallant man risk his life, but he also endangered his livelihood? Does he realise that the insurance policy on his motor will not apply, as it was a voluntary act?

Every circumstance will be taken into consideration.

Cannot some general indication of the Home Office attitude towards gallantry of this kind be given to the public, so that men who risk their lives would be certain of receiving some recognition and reward?

I think the answer to the question will leave no doubt in the public mind.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will arrange that an intimation be given at an early date to the effect that a visa enabling them to enter Great Britain will be granted, if desired, to the Bulgarian prisoners recently acquitted in the Reichstag trial?

So far as I am aware, no application has been made by these persons for facilities to come to this country.

Having regard to all the circumstances of this case, would it not be decent to make it known that these facilities will be available?

I hardly think I am called upon to make that sort of proclamation. If the application were made, it would have to be carefully considered in the light of all the information available.

asked the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to a recent broadcast by a deserter from the Foreign Legion giving his impressions of that regiment; and whether he will exercise his powers under the charter of the British Broadcasting Corporation to insure that in future broadcasts likely to give offence to a friendly nation shall not take place?

Until my hon. and gallant Friend referred to the broadcast in question in this House on the 12th February, my attention had not previously been drawn to it. I shall bring my hon. and gallant Friend's observations to the notice of the Governors of the British Broadcasting Corporation; but I desire to maintain the position of the Governors as set out in the charter and the license of the corporation and in accordance with the terms of the Resolution which was recently approved by this House.

The people of this country have heard with profound sorrow of the untimely death of the King of the Belgians. I am sure that it will be the wish of this House to record its sympathy with the Royal Family and with the people of Belgium. Therefore, I propose to-morrow to move a Resolution in the following terms:

"That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty to convey to His Majesty the expression of the deep regret with which this House has learned the news of the death of His Majesty the King of the Belgians, and to pray His Majesty that he will be graciously pleased to express to His Royal Highness the Duke of Brabant, the heir to the Throne of Belgium, the profound sympathy of this House with Her Majesty the Queen of the Belgians and the Royal Family, and with the Government and people of Belgium."

The purpose of this Clause is to set up machinery to give permanent form to a reduction which was secured in 1931 in the course of the financial crisis. The distinction in the financial treatment of transitional payment recipients and recipients of unemployment benefit proper started under the Economy Act, 1931. That distinction was secured because it was felt that the unemployed as well as other categories should make their contribution to the recovery of the national finances. The Clause which we are now considering gives permanency to what the nation was promised was a temporary situation. In 1931 the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised the country that when the finances of the nation were restored the cuts imposed would also be restored. The part of the Bill now under consideration in setting up the Unemployment Assistance Board makes the cuts for the worst-treated section of the unemployed a permanent feature of our treatment of the unemployed. It is against that intention that the party to which I have the honour to belong wishes to register its first complaint.

We say that it is dishonorable, and I should like to hear from the Minister of Labor some reply to the charge, to give permanent effect to what was said to be a temporary expedient. Under the Economy Act of 1931 millions of pounds have been saved and millions of pounds were saved by the application of the means test, which was not imposed because it was then argued that the means test ought to be a part of the general scheme. It was imposed for purely financial considerations, and it is being continued for other reasons. I listened to the Debate last Tuesday night when we were treated to two speeches defending this part of the Bill by the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) and the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. K. Lindsay). The last mentioned hon. Member expressed his admiration of the way in which the Noble Lord addressed the Committee. The Noble Lord defended the setting up of this board on the ground that it was necessary to set up a board of this description because there had crept into the public life of this country what he described as the patronage of the elected person. Consequently it was necessary to remove a problem of this kind out of politics. That is the first candid admission we have had of the intention, that it was necessary to remove this feature out of politics because public assistance authorities had been improperly influenced by the recipients of public assistance.

If I may be allowed to put those pedantic phrases more crudely, I would say they mean that at the present time the recipient of public assistance is allowed to say to his local councillor, "If you do not increase my allowance, I will not vote for you." The Noble Lord regards that as an undesirable state of affairs, and I gather from the Government and from the Government supporters that they also regard it as an undesirable state of affairs. They say it is undesirable that a recipient of public assistance should be able to withhold his vote if he considers that he is being improperly treated. That is the contention advanced. For years the Income Tax payers of the country have been in the habit of telling their Members of Parliament, "If you do not reduce the Income Tax, we shall not vote for you." I understand that that is not a corruption of democracy; that when well-to-do members of the community threaten to withhold their votes because they think they are improperly treated it is high ethics and high morality, but when the poor threaten to withhold their votes because they think they are improperly treated, it is corrupt democracy.

The Noble Lord went on to defend his position by pointing out that this growing corruption of democracy was a state of affairs with which the House would have to deal. There are two ways of dealing with it. One way, of course, is to make is unnecessary for people to secure the assistance of the State, and to do that by ending poverty. But the Government and capitalism, finding it impossible to end poverty, seek to end liberty. The proposition now before the Committee is that a poor person cannot be permitted to exercise his political liberty in such a way as to redress his poverty. I would like some equally plain spoken Conservative Members to get up and defend that position, which is the position taken up by the Government under this Clause. It is a process which, if carried to its logical conclusion, would destroy Parliamentary democracy in this country. For what reason is political liberty conferred upon the people? It is conferred upon them in order that it may be exercised for the purpose of bringing about social reform, and so that that reform may be brought about as quickly as is desirable, and that those in authority may not be deaf to the pleas of those who are in distress, it is desirable that political liberty should be exercised by those who are the worst treated in the community.

If progress is to be made and political liberty is to be taken away from anyone, it should be taken away from those who are better off, because they have least to gain by progress. But the proposition now before the Committee is that those members of the community who are the unfortunate victims of a system over which they have no control are to be rendered most helpless under the law of the land. I am putting in other language what the Noble Lord himself defended. The Noble Lord is perfectly prepared to defend the patronage of the private person. He would prefer to see a poor person dependent upon the caprice of personal generosity. What would be generosity, however, on the part of the rich would be servile dependency on the part of the poor. But the Noble Lord regards that as desirable.

On a point of Order. The Noble Lord is not present.

He should be; that is his fault.

If hon. Members on the Labour Benches replied only to those Conservatives who were present we would make no speeches at all, because usually Conservatives come in and make their speeches and then run away. The position which we are taking up is that unemployment assistance should be regarded not merely as an obligation undertaken by the State, but as a right to be claimed by the citizen. This part of the Bill deprives the citizen of that right. In no Clause is unemployment assistance given to the citizen as a right, because if he had a right he could exercise that right under Parliamentary government only by being permitted to call upon the advocacy of his elected representative. It is precisely that which is taken away from him. On the Second Reading of the Bill the Minister of Labour said specifically that he was divesting himself of the responsibility for the treatment of individual cases, and by so divesting himself of his responsibility he deprives the unemployed man of his right.

I wish to emphasise that, because it is a matter of cardinal importance. There can be no civic right unless exercised by civic status, and if the unemployed man cannot appeal to his elected representative he cannot claim that right as a citizen. Indeed, the powers conferred upon the board permit them to withhold an allowance from an unemployed man, and to withhold from him the right of appeal against their decision. An hon. Member opposite shakes his head. If he looks at the language of the Bill, he will find that an aggrieved applicant for unemployment assistance can make his appeal only by the permission of the chairman of the tribunal, so that there is no prima facie right to an unemployment assistance allowance. I urge hon. Members opposite to realise this fact because this is going to be the foremost problem in British political life for some time to come. [An HON. MEMBER: "You will take care about that!"] Yes, we shall take care about that. If there were a right of appeal, not merely to a non-elected person, but to an elected person, then it could be said that a man had the right to the unemployment allowance. By withholding the right to that allowance in these circumstances, you are depriving the individual of the right to subsistence.

I think hon. Members opposite ought to drop the argument heard so often in these debates that we shall have some power in this matter, because the regulations are to come before the House of Commons. Anyone who was present on Thursday night must realise how low the House of Commons has fallen under the dominance of the Government majority. Then, we had before us an Import Duty Order of first-class importance which was opposed in the Division Lobby by both Oppositions. Yet such a contempt has this Government for the House of Commons that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade did not even reply to the debate—the first time I have known that to happen since I have been a Member of Parliament. It is no use for hon. Members to say that we shall have any effective control over this board merely because the regulations which the board makes will have to come before this Chamber. In the next place it is not the regulation itself that is of vital importance. It is the application of the regulation to the individual case. The essence of a means test is that the amount of unemployment assistance shall vary from family to family in accordance with the need of the family. If the individual is deprived of the right of appeal, then this House is divesting itself of a responsibility which no elected chamber should ever divest itself of, namely, the responsibility for dealing with the conditions of life and the maintenance of life of 5,000,000 citizens.

It may be impossible for me or the party to which I belong to persuade the Committee to change its mind now at the last moment. But we cannot relieve ourselves of the responsibility of pointing out to the Committee the implications of what it is doing here. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock has a power of idealising this sort of legislation which I very much envy. He said that the need test was a step forward, that it was a marked improvement on the existing situation—and that applicants would be better treated under it than they are being treated now. Indeed, he suggested that they might be better treated under it than they are under Unemployment Insurance because their need will be taken into consideration. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is in the Bill."] Yes, it is in the Bill but it will not be in the administration. Really the hon. Member is too ingenuous. The pur- pose of this part of the Bill is to make the condition of the applicant for unemployment assistance worse than that of the insured person. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Then I would like to hear the Minister's reply to this point. Do we understand now that a man who receives benefit in respect of contributions may be worse off than a man who has exhausted his benefit? Is that the assumption? If so, hon. Members opposite seem to be harbouring designs even more subversive of the Constitution than the suggestions of anybody here.

The insurance principle has been defended in all parts of the Committee precisely on the ground that a man who has not exhausted his benefit, should not be subject to the disabilities of the man who has exhausted it. What is that disability? It is a financial disability. What does that mean? It means that he may have less and not more. Hon. Members opposite may shake their heads but it is very difficult indeed for them to convince me. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) has pointed out that in Durham where the public assistance committee has been set aside by the Minister of Health and the needs test is being administered by a commissioner, £300,000 has been saved in one year. Is that giving more favourable treatment to the poor than they were receiving previously, or are we to understand that the commissioner in Durham is treating the poor more harshly than the Government intend the Unemployment Assistance Board to treat them? If that is so, why do not the Government interfere in Durham? The Government are not interfering, because they contend that the public assistance committee there was too generous in assessing the need of applicants. I am prepared to prophesy that the Government will save millions a year more under these proposals than they are saving now under the public assistance committee. If they have saved £300,000 at Durham what do they hope to save in Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire which are administered by Labour authorities?

I frankly confess that I am alarmed by the prospect of what may happen in South Wales when these unemployment assistance allowance officers set to work. If Durham is to be taken as a pattern the situation in South Wales will be desperate and I suggest to hon. Members that there is a limit to what men will put up with—a definite limit. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] There will be desperation there. We are almost approaching it now. I do not wish to answer the flippant interjections of hon. Members opposite because this is, for us, a very serious thing. To those who have brothers, fathers, and sons unemployed in South Wales, with no prospect of getting any employment, it is a very serious question indeed what fate is going to befall those people. As far as we can gather from the Government, and judging from our own experience, you are going to deprive the unemployed people in South Wales, on the Clyde, in Lancashire, of money which they are at present able to obtain. That is the purpose of the Bill. It is mealy-mouthed cant for any hon. Member to say that there is any other purpose behind it. If there is any other purpose behind it, withdraw your commissioner from Durham. If there is any other purpose behind it, why in the course of the last two years have you brought pressure after pressure to bear on public assistance committees to reduce their assessments?

Hon. Members wanted to go into the Lobby to increase the allowance for the child from 2s. to 3s. If you pass this Clause in its present form, you will be depriving yourself of the right to defend the child, under this Part of the Act, who may have less than 2s. a week. If the House divests itself of the right to intervene in the individual case, then as these men are to be assessed in accordance with need, and the other unemployed persons are not subjected to that test, a child may have less than 2s., and you will not be able to raise the matter in any way. That is what I am impressing upon hon. Members. No public assistance committee, no Member of Parliament, no elected person of any sort will be able to intervene with these paid officials of the Unemployment Assistance Board. Anyone who has had any experience of Poor Law administration knows very well that you can never trust a permanent official to treat the poor decently. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw!"] I am not withdrawing that. I speak from personal experience. The permanent official keeps his eye on the regulations, and as I have said before in this Debate, that fact lay behind the administration of the Poor Law for centuries.

Would the hon. Member apply this doctrine in the case of the nationalisation of industry, for example?

Prior to the appointment of the commissioners in the county of Durham, the very point that the hon. Member is making now is the thing that we pointed out to those who refused to administer the law.

I admit that. In other words, if they behaved like the commissioner, the commissioner would not have been put in. We know that very well. With regard to the question of the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), in the case of nationally-owned industries the veto lies here, but in the case of this Bill the veto is being taken away from here. That is the whole point.

Does the hon. Member seriously suggest to this Committee that the public officials of this country charged with the administration of the laws of this country on behalf of the poor have not done their best in every single circumstance to help the poor?

The answer is to be found in our whole local government system, which has been built up on the assumption that the citizen should have the right of appeal over the heads of the permanent paid officials to his elected representative or body.

Which he has always had.

And which is now being taken away from him. That is precisely what is happening under this Clause. Hon. Members have swallowed this Bill in a gulp, and they have not realised what it means. I am quite sure that if they did, they would not face it with such complacency. They are making a complete revolution of the relationship between the poor person and the State, and they are making it at a most dangerous time in the history of this country and of Europe. They are making it at a time when democratic practice ought to be strengthened, not weakened, and I would urge hon. Members in all parts of the House to insist that the Minister should shift from his present position, because hon. Members must really understand that there will be nothing left for unemployed persons between elections if this goes through, except organised rebellion against the State. If you close the avenues of appeal between the citizen and the State in between elections, then you must realise that human beings are not going to have the patience to sit down in resignation for five years until they have another chance at the ballot.

I understood that a large number of the Opposition wished to make it seven years or longer.

If the Opposition were the Government, they would be so successful that the people would not want an election.

Then do I understand that if the Labour Government ever come into power again, they will suspend Parliament and carry on?

What the Labour party would do if they came into power would be to maintain the reality of democracy and not sacrifice the reality of democracy to the form. You are engaged in sapping the content out of democracy, because you are taking away the very essence of democracy, which lies in the right of the citizen to make his poverty politically articulate.

Has the hon. Member spoken after consultation with the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps)?

I have no quarrel and never had any quarrel with what the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol has said. The position that is taken up on this side of the House is perfectly clear in this matter. We would use political liberty for the purpose of winning economic liberty. You take away political liberty because you are afraid the workers will use it to gain economic liberty.

I understand that the hon. Member's complaint is that the aggrieved citizen is completely severed from any means of bringing his grievance before Parliament. A man may be aggrieved by this new authority, but under this Bill how is he being prevented from bringing that complaint before his representative, and what hindrance is being put upon that representative to bring that complaint before the Minister?

It is very obvious that the hon. and learned Member derives his knowledge of Statutes from some mystical source which is not open to the rest of us. We have been discussing this Bill for weeks, and——

Do I understand——

Perhaps the hon. and learned Member will permit me to continue. The Minister of Labour has said that this Clause makes it legal that this board is not to be put on Supply, but on the Consolidated Fund. That means that we cannot question the Minister about its day-to-day administration. If the hon. and learned Member would point out by what procedure in this House a Member could raise an individual grievance, I would be with him. But the Minister has said, "It is undesirable that I should be held responsible for the individual ascertainment."

It would be clearly undesirable for thousands of individual cases to be raised on the Floor of this House. I am meeting the complaint that the aggrieved citizen will have no means of having his complaint investigated. I say that he can bring it before his Member of Parliament, who can carry it to the Minister.

The hon. and learned Member in this matter is not learned, because the Minister would inform him that in no circumstances under this Bill could he be held responsible for individual cases. That is the position, so that the hon. and learned Member is wrong. There are only two cases in which an appeal can be made. One is where a man has been put in the category of cases of special difficulty, when he has a right of appeal. The other case is where he disagrees with the ascertainment of his needs, and then he can appeal only if he is permitted by the chairman; so that in that case there is no right.

I am not suggesting that any Vote can be put down on which an individual case can be raised. I am suggesting that there is the ordinary machinery of Parliamentary representative government, which will still be available to aggrieved persons under this Bill.

It is obvious that courtesy is being abused, because the hon. and learned Member falls back upon empty generalisation. The position is as I have described it, and I want hon. Members to face up to the implications of the position, with their eyes open. Why is this being done? It is being done, of course, because this is not a Government representing the people of Great Britain. It represents the federation of British industries. I have here a publication issued by the Engineering and Allied Employers' National Federation informing His Majesty's Government what they think ought to be done with this question of unemployment. They say:

"If it were possible to segregate such persons as have lost their productive power or who are too old or who are physically unfit for industrial employment, it might be possible to devise a scheme for their support which does not fall directly upon the shoulders of industry."

There you have clearly the producer who says, "I ought not to carry them; it should be the Income Tax payer, the rentier." Then we have the National Confederation of Employers' Organisations informing the Government what they ought to do, and the Government obediently do it.

"The Statutory Commission, as part of its duties, should be charged with laying down the principles to govern the scales of relief, and in that connection we suggest that these scales should follow the principle of being such as will not tempt the individual to improvidence while he is at work, or tempt him to prefer relief to work when he is unemployed, or be such as to interfere with the mobility of labour or create and maintain rigidity of wage rates and of costs of production."

How does this organisation of employers in Great Britain propose that these things are to be secured? By the setting up of a Statutory Commission which shall be outside the governance of the House of Commons. I ask the Minister to face the naked horror of that position. This is a machine of the kind that the employers want, because it will bring about the set of circumstances which they think desirable. I have quoted from the evidence of the National Confederation of Employers' Organisations given before the Royal Commission and circulated to all Members of Parliament. The position that is being taken up is, that if you can take out of politics, and out of the daily administration of the House of Commons, such a matter as this, if you charge a Statutory Committee with this work, you may rest assured that the conditions will be less favourable because, as the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) pointed out on Tuesday, if the conditions under Part II of the scheme are more favourable than under Part I, the Statutory Advisory Committee will complain that they are being embarrassed by the Unemployment Assistance Board. The Unemployment Assistance Board, in order not to embarrass the sister committee, will have to keep down the standards.

A more sinister aspect is that the operation of this Clause will depress the standards of public assistance, because there will be tendency on the part of persons chargeable to the board to get themselves transferred as sick persons to public assistance rates, if the local assistance committee is more favourable to them than the board. The local relief committee, to protect itself against men becoming chargeable to the local rates, will depress their own scales of relief, in order to get men back on the board. So here you have an instrument which not only segregates certain of the unemployed, but also is used as a lever to reduce the social services of the country as a whole. I beg hon. Members, if they pass this Clause, not to pass it complacently, but to pass it with a full realisation of all the implications involved. It is going to do more to undermine the confidence of the people of this country in representative institutions than anything else which could be done.

I do not think hon. Members want privately to reassure themselves that they need not worry because the Socialist forces in the world have been so heavily defeated that they will not be able to take advantage of circumstances of this kind. I profoundly believe that there exists in this country a great upsurge of feeling for democratic institutions. I believe that the consequence of what has recently happened in Austria has been to make Englishmen rally more and more to their own institutions. This strikes a heavy blow at them. I do not want to warn hon. Members at all, because at this moment we have not the power. I merely want to point out that the road upon which they have set their feet may lead to a less desirable goal than the one they have in mind. I believe that this is a very bad mistake on the part of the Government. It is always dangerous to drive men to resentment. It will wake up in places where you least expect it, and I implore the Committee, before it parts with these powers which have been entrusted to elected people in this country for centuries, to consider the matter very carefully, and to bear in mind what may be the fruits of their action.

I am going to try to comply with the advice given by Mr. Speaker, so as not to take up the time of the House unduly, as there are other Members wanting to speak. Therefore, the hon. Member opposite will forgive me if I do not follow him into some of the ramifications with which he has dealt this afternoon. There are two quite clear impressions which he has left on my mind. One is that he is the champion of political liberty and freedom, and of the traditions of Parliamentary liberty; at the same time, he has no quarrel with the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps), and, indeed, that their views largely coincide. The other is that he has given us as the test of political liberty in that there should not be institutions for government which are remote, and not subject to day-to-day questions in this House. It is the more strange to have that exhortation when we remember that the London Transport Board was introduced, in the first place, by the Socialist Minister of Transport, Mr. Herbert Morrison, and that that Board is less subject to Parliamentary criticism, less liable to be dealt with by questions from day to day in this House than this proposed procedure, which he criticises.

Are people's livelihood and food at stake?

There are thousands of people employed under the Transport Board, and, of course, the principle in question applies to them.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the trade unions have their right in that case to go to the board?

I am quite ready to deal with that when the occasion arises. Then the hon. Member said that it is contrary to a solemn pledge to give permanence to a temporary arrangement by bringing in Part II of this Bill. Anyone who is familiar with the history of unemployment insurance must realise that for several years it has been perfectly obvious that if this country were to continue—I do not think there is more than a handful of people who would not wish it to continue—with a proper system of unemployment insurance, a three-decker system with some kind of administration in between the unemployment insurance administration and the Poor Law has become inevitable. It has been increasingly clear for the last 10 years. The proposal here is not to give permanence to a temporary arrangement; it follows the evolution of the unemployment insurance system. In order not to take too long, I will not go into the needs test for it will come up in Committee on a later Clause. We have to deal with another question here.

Part II is the most striking part of the Bill. I agree at once with the hon. Member on that. The question we have to deal with is the authority that shall act under this Part. When I first read the Bill I rubbed my eyes with some surprise to see that the suggested authority was different in composition and nature from the authority that was suggested by either the Majority Report of the commission or the Minority Report. I was not attracted by it in the least. What I did was this. I say it with all humility before the hon. Member who has told us that we on this side of the House, deal with these things with too great complacency and without taking the trouble to read the Bill. I studied both the reports and the Bill on this question with great care. In considering the proposed board, I took the points that were really of importance in this connection which were suggested in the Majority and Minority Reports. I tested the composition of this body to see how it satisfied these points. The first is the discretionary power of the Minister and its application, use and control. I am amazed at the whirligig of opinion on the benches opposite. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) is to-day saying that we should restore the discretion of the Minister——

indicated dissent.

Then I wonder what the hon. Member did say. I do not want to misrepresent him.

I was dealing with the proposals of this Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to know what, our proposals are, he should read the evidence of the Trades Union Congress to the Royal Commission. That contains our proposals.

Then I am not misrepresenting the hon. Member. What he said was, "You are taking away from the ordinary person the right to have a decision made either by an elective authority locally or, if the authority is transferred to the centre, by the Minister, who can be questioned." That meant nothing else, if you are to have Part II at all, than restoring the ministerial discretion. The hon. Member attacks the fact that the ultimate decision upon the degree of the allowance that might be given would rest upon the local appeal tribunal. I have listened to the whole of the hon. Member's speech, and I stand to be challenged by anyone who studies his speech carefully and draws his conclusions from it. The whole of the former attitude of the party opposite was that they did not want to have the ministerial discretion. They wanted this question to be decided by a tribunal of a judicial character. I am not talking about the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton).

At the time my hon. Friends and I expressed our dissent we were Members of the party above the Gangway. A considerable proportion of the Labour party objected to the ministerial discretion.

The majority of the party were for the removal of the ministerial discretion. They wanted a right to what was then called extended benefit, and they wanted the exercise of that right to be decided by a tribunal of a judicial character. That was their attitude. To-day the wheel has turned a full circle so far as we can judge from the speeches to which we listened in the last Debate and the speech of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale to-day. I hope to goodness the Minister will never be saddled with the discretion again. I had to exercise that discretion. If it is to be exercised and is not to be a sham it puts an intolerable burden on the Minister, and if he tries to exercise it properly the burden is so great that the rest of his work suffers.

Let me give a case to show the sort of thing that used to happen. I remember an old Member of Parliament on those benches, for whom I had a great liking and respect—Mr. Robert Smillie—was talking with me in my room about the matter one day, when another Member, Mr. Willie Adamson, came in and said, "We must get you to look into this point for the use of your discretion." It was a question whether a miner had made a real attempt to get employment. Mr. Adamson grew heated about it and when Mr. Smillie chaffed him he had left the room. I turned to Mr. Smillie and said, "He seems really convinced about that man." Mr. Smillie said, "I am sure Adamson would not put that case before you in that way unless he was convinced." I took the case up, had correspondence with the mine manager, and went into the whole thing. In the end I gave the man benefit. It turned out to be justified and we got the man a job at the same mine. If that kind of thing is to come up in a large number of cases it cannot be done by the Minister within the limits of human endurance, and it means that the rest of his work must suffer. In days when industrial troubles exist and a lot of the Minister's time ought to be taken up with them, he ought not to have that burden placed on him. It does no good to the men whose cases are involved. These cases would really be settled with just as much justice to them if they came before an impartial body. I do not believe in the least that in the end it would be a greater benefit to these men to have their cases decided by the Minister. I consider that after the trouble I took in that particular case and in a large number of others they were no better off than they would have been by really impartial people considering their cases.

I have said that I did not at first sight like the proposal in Part II of this Bill, and I wanted to see whether the men would be fairly protected. We have to divide the whole problem into two parts. The first is the general principles which are to be applied, and the second is whether proper care and consideration will be taken in individual cases. The general principles are contained in regulations which have to be brought before this House before they can be applied. There is not much opportunity of a dictatorship by this body in view of that fact. Even the general rules of working of this body, although they do not have to be approved by this House, have to be brought before the House so that it is cognisant of them. If it is a case of less or more in the matter of the allowances granted, there is an appeal to a local body on which, of the three people who have to be appointed according to the Sixth Schedule, there has to be a member representing the workers, who will undoubtedly be a member of a trade union.

I do not think the right hon. Gentleman is right under Part II.

I am subject to correction, but I think I am right. I am talking from memory, but I think it is in the Sixth Schedule. When it comes to a question of less or more in the matter of allowances, the chairman of the appeal board has to give his permission for an appeal to be made, but when it comes to the more serious decision under Clause 39 as to whether a man passes out of the system into the Poor Law system, he can have his appeal whether permission is given by the chairman or not. There is no question of his power of appeal in that case. Truly, in these circumstances, to say that this Unemployment Board is a body that will exercise dictatorial powers is a misuse of language. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, with all his eloquence, has not perhaps taken that care in reading the Schedules and the other parts of the Bill which he commended to Members of this side of the Committee.

The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that membership of the board secures no protection for individual persons.

What was asked for by the Labour party in the old days was the right of appeal. My predecessor, Mr. Tom Shaw, fought in the old days for a legal right and a power to appeal to a court of a judicial character. That is exactly what we have got here.

No.

Excuse me. He has a legal right provided that he has certain qualifications, and has not disqualified himself. The degree of exercise of the right is to be determined by a court which is judicial in character—which is the appeal court. That is, in principle, precisely what hon. Members opposite used to ask for in those days, though the hon. Member is now objecting to it.

I pass to the other tests which the proposed Board should satisfy. One thing for which both parties on the Commission were anxious was that there should really be uniformity. To the Commission uniformity meant not a deadly, dull, mechanical uniformity in every detail, but rather what I should call latitude in minor matters and similarity on general lines. I have read both the majority and minority reports of the Royal Commission, and I think the minority have a great deal of sympathy with that point of view. It is said that if we were to try, from the centre, to put Regulations for action before a large number of different local bodies it would be difficult to get anything like the uniformity which both sides of the Commission want. Anyone who read the majority report will see that doubts were in their minds when they made their own recommendation about it.

It is not easy for the Minister of Health, even though he is dealing with local authorities day by day in respect of many matters, to get from them uniformity of action when they all have different ideas and different methods. If it is difficult for a Minister who deals with them day by day, it would be infinitely harder for the Minister of Labour, who is not dealing with them habitually, to get uniformity of action. Both sides of the Commission thought it would be advisable to have uniformity of principles in the administration, and I think that on the whole they will get it better through a body such as is set up by this Clause.

Another point to remember is that a system of this kind is a difficult proposition from an administrative point of view. It has on one side of it an unemployment insurance system, with which it has close connection, and on the other side the Poor Law authority; it is itself an intermediate organisation between the two. The majority report proposed a dual series of committees of the local authorities separate from and distinct from one another. That has advantages of some kind, but a great many disadvantages from the point of view of uniformity. The proposal has a further disadvantage in another respect, from the point of view of Members opposite themselves.

I do not agree.

But you have not yet heard the "respect."

The right hon. Gentleman is pushing at an open door. We do not agree with a means test at all, so all this machinery goes by the board.

In this case what I have to say has nothing to do with the means test, but with this question of having the Poor Law committee and an Assistance committee side by side. If we are to have an organisation in between unemployment insurance and the local authority we should also take into account the problem of placing and training men and getting them back into industry. That will always have to be done by the Ministry of Labour. The hon. Member himself referred to miners in his constituency who, he says, will never get work in the pits again. No doubt it is of great importance to them to get assistance or unemployment benefit, but what is of far greater importance is that they should be replaced in industry. Therefore, the closer the new authority under Part II of the Bill can be to the Ministry of Labour the better it will be, because it is the Employment Exchanges of the Ministry of Labour which are primarily concerned with placing the men in work. The fact that this board, which is appointed by the Ministry of Labour, will be in closer touch with the Ministry ought to prove of more advantage in the task of getting the men back to work than the proposal of the Royal Commission.

There were one or two other points which I was going to put forward, but I do not wish to take up more time, and I would only say that it was my misfortune, but not my fault, that I was not present when the Bill was first brought in. I should have liked to compliment the Government on at least trying to deal with this question as an organic whole, and I should like, if they will permit it, to compliment both my old friend the Minister of Labour and the Parliamentary Secretary on the way they presented the Measure. I started with a prejudice against the board as outlined in Clause 34, but after working through the whole question as carefully as I could I came to the conclusion that it was an extraordinarily difficult thing to devise a good authority to work Part II, and that, if we are to have such a system as Part II provides, then unquestionably the proposal in this Bill was more likely to serve the purpose than the suggestions of either the majority or the minority reports. It seems to me, on the whole, a very good way out, and a very good solution of an extraordinarily difficult question of administration.

After having discussed this matter for more than one-and-half days I think Members of the Committee will certainly realise the immense importance of Clause 34. It sets up a board which will have to deal with the fortunes of some 5,000,000 people, counting in the dependants as well as those who will actually be clients of the board. The board will loom tremendously in the lives of each one of those 5,000,000 individuals. It will be just about the last thing in the world against which the clients of the board will have to match their wits in an attempt to better their conditions. Nearly every material thing which they will have will come from that board either directly or indirectly. I am afraid I have not reached that peace of mind regarding the board which the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) seems to have arrived at—after some turmoil, I gather. However humanely the board seeks to go about its work it cannot but appear to those with whom it will deal as otherwise than some sort of machine for keeping together a rather wasted body with an attenuated soul, and I think the real danger is that it will appear in a very much less favourable light even than that. However humanely the work of the board may be discharged, it seems to me that it will figure in the minds of those who come under it as a machine set up by their rulers just to keep life together, as it were, for cannon fodder at some future time. I do not think that view would be justifiable—not one little bit—but I am afraid, having regard to the sources of information which so many people now have, that that may grow to be the opinion which they come to have of the board.

This gigantic possibility for evil, as I can see it, is being placed in the hands of a board which really has not a chance, from the nature of the circumstances and the necessary limitations placed upon it, of appearing really in a humane light. It is being put right outside the effective day-to-day control of this House. I am aware, of course, of what has been said about the control which the House will have over the board. My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) has referred to the procedure for the control of Orders made by outside bodies, and we have been told that on four or five occasions in the year the House can discuss the conduct of this board, but if there is any hon. Member who is apt to be impressed by such statements—I do not use the word offensively—who is apt to consider that they are really effective as a means of control, I would ask him to consider the statement frankly made by the Minister that the whole of this Bill is really an attempt to put this subject outside politics. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister seems to dissent from that statement, but I think I do not misrepresent him. It seems to me that he has said that the effect will be to put the day-to-day control of the affairs of these 5,000,000 people to whom I have referred outside the control of Parliament. That appears to be the whole object of the Bill; if it does not mean that these matters are to be outside the control of the elected representatives of the people, I am afraid. I do not understand what that phrase does mean.

The Government have had very obvious reasons, which have weighed heavily with them, in coming to this decision. First of all I suppose there was the desire to prevent a recurrence of "Poplarism," in the very widest sense of that word. I have not any doubt myself that that was behind the Government in the production of these plans. Further, there has been, no doubt, a desire to eliminate from political contests the corrupt feature of candidates bidding one against the other for the favours of the least fortunate sections of the community by something which may appear little less than bribes. I admit that there are real dangers along those lines, such is human frailty, and I should be the very last to advocate that a scheme permitting such dangers should be allowed to remain were it not for the fear that their elimination by the methods here proposed may possibly lead to very much graver danger.

If actual responsibility for the administration of the means test did not rest with the Minister, nevertheless political responsibility was there, through locally elected bodies, and that fact has had a powerful effect, to my mind, on the tempers of those who have had to submit to the means test. They have refrained in a most remarkable degree from acts of violence because, as I submit, they have felt that their representatives could, in some way or other, bring influence to bear upon the officials who they felt had given them cause for grievance. I know how angry I myself become when I feel that an official—person or body—is acting unreasonably about a complaint about which I feel acutely, and Heaven knows it has never been a question of daily bread with me, but usually some little matter of an open postal packet or a triviality such as that. How much more difficult must it be for an unemployed man who is right up against the wall, when he comes up against an official who, he feels, is not doing justice to his case. His grievance will be with him always, day and night, and he will not be allowed to forget it. If his own stomach is not reminding him, it will be his friends, who will be asking him to come along and have some innocent enjoyment which he will not be able to afford. It may be that his own children will have a pinched appearance. Whatever it is, his grievance will be with him day and night, and it is not at all hard to imagine the rancour with which such a man will regard the official of the bureaucracy which, he imagines, is doing him wrong. On this point, I should like to read to the Committee four lines from a book about the unemployed man, describing the feelings of the unemployed towards the official in the Employment Exchange. Through no serious fault on the part of the official, the unemployed man feels a resentment against him, and for the moment imagines that he cannot control it. He says:

"And the bloody blokes wouldn't have their jobs if it wasn't for us men out of a job either. That's what gets me about their holding their noses up."

"They treat you like a lump of dirt, they do. I see a navvy reach across the counter and shake one of them by the collar the other day. The rest of us felt like cheering. Of course, he lost his benefit over it; I don't know what they got him on. But they did. But the clerk deserved it for his sassy way."

Even though there is not a real grievance, if the man is up against an official the grievance, real or imaginary, is magnified out of all proportion. It is proposed to hand these vital matters over to a bureaucratic body, in respect of which this House will have no effective control. Even under the present system, the safety valve of political control has only just been sufficient to prevent major acts of violence, but now it is proposed to remove that safety valve. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth that there are other safeguards, such as the appeal tribunal and so forth, but the safeguard to which I refer is to be removed. Although the result may not be very great in normal times, if there should be an abnormal stress it may lead to irretrievable collapse. I see the political advantages to hon. Members and to the Government in adopting the scheme which is proposed. Hon. Members will be rid of a very tiresome source of friction between themselves and their constituents. I do not suppose that one of us would not desire to be rid of that if we thought we could safely be rid of it. The prospect of being rid of that tiresome source of friction is so dazzling to some hon. Members that I fear we may have been overlooking a vital principle which underlies the whole matter, which is: Is this House to hold the scales between the individual subject and the bureaucracy, or are we to hand over the vital interests of 5,000,000 of our constituents to a bureaucratic body over which we have not effective day-to-day control? That is the principle which is of such vital importance.

If we throw off our responsibilities in this vital matter, I see no reason why people should look in future to this House for protection, or to individual Members of it for leadership. We ought not to do such a thing unless we are absolutely convinced of it for other reasons than those of convenience to ourselves and electoral convenience for the Government. Bureaucracy, from its very nature, cannot be as responsive to currents of opinion in the minds of the people whose affairs are administered, can politicians. It is the business of politicians to find out those currents and to see how far they should be given attention. I am not saying one word against the individuals who will compose the Unemployment Assistance Board, or against the officers who will work under them. Bureaucracy, from its very nature, has characteristics which do not apply to the individuals who make it up. The business of those individuals is to administer, but it is almost impossible for a bureaucracy to administer properly and to give real and human attention to the men whose affairs they administer. If we hand over these affairs to a bureaucratic board, there may very well be repercussions upon this House which nobody who cares for what it stands for will view with equanimity. Henceforth, an unelected body will be dealing with matters which are looming inordinately in the minds of so many of our people, while we, their elected representatives, will seem to have no control over the matter at all.

Most people in this country thoroughly believe in Parliament. I am pretty certain that nearly all the people want to believe in it. I am anxious that by this Clause we should not do anything to add to the number of those who merely want to believe in Parliament but who have become disillusioned after seeing this House apparently laying on one side, or handing over to bureaucratic bodies, matters which should properly remain in the control of the freely-elected House of Commons.

I have had an opportunity since last Tuesday of studying the arguments in support of and in opposition to this Clause. They fall into three main categories. The first objection that has been raised is to the dangerous effect of Part II of the Bill upon the insurance scheme outlined in Part I. The second objection is that which the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Mallalieu) has raised, in regard to the removal of the administration of unemployment assistance from Parliamentary control. The third objection is the duplication of the machinery of relief—I must apologise to the Committee for a beastly cold.

The first objection was put most clearly by the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) when he said that Part II of the Bill "knocked insurance simply silly." I wholly dissent from that view. We have an expression in my constituency, "I was playing me a week." It means that after, say, three weeks' work at a mill, which has been closed by reason of the order book not being filled and stocks being low, the man went on to benefit. The people under Part I of the Bill are those who are in and out of employment. They have other resources. Part II of the Bill deals with people who are in a totally different category. They are people whose clothes are worn out and whose boots are worn through. Their need is definitely greater than that of the people under Part I. I am grateful that the Government have recognised that a man who has been out of employment for six months or more is in need of more relief than the people under Part I of the Bill. The most cruel results of the administration of the last two years has been the setting of a limit, as a result of which no man might receive more than the amount payable under Insurance benefit.

Will the hon. Gentleman please tell me where, in any part of Part II of the Bill, it is provided that a man may receive more benefit?

Under Part II of the Bill, the money that a man receives under Part I, as insurance as of right, may be supplemented, if his needs necessitate. For that reason, I should have thought that this was the actual maintenance for which hon. Members of the Opposition have been asking for such a very long time. If total maintenance is not needed in a particular case, supplementary assistance is given to bridge the gap between the maintenance level—or his maintenance level, in the case of a particular man—and his resources, even though the resources be in the insurance money payable under Part I of the Bill.

The second objection raised by hon. Members has been in regard to the taking away of parliamentary control. If it is true that parliamentary control and interference in individual cases have been taken away, it is certainly not true that parliamentary supervision of general principles of administration has been taken away. I welcome this delegation of powers. I believe that the present system is the more dangerous in which a Member of Parliament has a certain amount of right of patronage; but when he puts up a case definitely and invariably the Minister says, "I have no power to alter this provision." In the Debate last Tuesday, an analogy was suggested with the Minister of Pensions. I thought that that was a bad analogy, because although the Minister of Pensions has a real power, he has always had the most absolute discretion. If it had not been for his great personality it is probable that at one time his job would have become intolerable. Owing to his imposing the most rigid discretion on his servants he is able to say, to those who bring up a pension case, that unless there is fresh evidence there is no hope for the case which is being brought up. That strikes me as a bad analogy of direct, individual Ministerial responsibility over individual cases. In any case, the patronage of a Member of Parliament presupposes the right, in the last instance, of the Minister to reverse a determination. To vest that right in the Minister, is going—to borrow the words of the hon. Member for East Birkenhead—to "knock discretion perfectly silly." I believe the hon. Member believes in the principles of discretion in the administration of relief.

We then come to the question of what machinery ought to be adopted. I am very grateful again to the Government for it, because I have asked for some time for the adoption of such machinery as this against the Poor Law and its very real stigma. The hon. Member for Colne Valley will know, as I know, what the thrifty people in our district think of the Poor Law. The proposal of the Royal Commission savoured too much of the Poor Law, in fact, I do not see how it is possible to set up such a local committee as the commission recommended without the committee being elected; and directly you have an elected committee there are three probable difficulties. In the first place, if one thing is worse than the personal patronage of a Member of Parliament it is the personal patronage of a town councillor. You have also the difficulty that the committee are administering moneys for which they have no financial responsibility, and, in the next place, the crucial difficulty, the lack of uniformity in administration as between district and district. I do not see how you can get uniformity of administration under local administration if you do not include in the Bill hard and fast regulations and actual scales of benefit. But that again knocks out discretion. Therefore, a tripartite machinery was necessary because there are three categories of men in need of some assistance, those in need of insurance, those in need of unemployment industrial relief, and those who are not really industrial cases, but Poor Law cases, and nobody knows the distinction between the last two categories better than a good trade unionist.

I congratulate the Minister of Labour particularly on the wider functions of this board. The Government at least have seen the necessity for a real collaborative body in unemployment administration, and when we get the self-government which some of us want—it may be held up for two or three years, but it will come in the end—we shall have in existence a body with which the industries of the country can collaborate so that unemployment and employment can be dovetailed better than at present, to the infinite advantage of the unemployed man. May I end with a quotation from Burke:

"In other Governments every question of expense is only a question of economy; with ours, in every question of expense there is always a mixture of constitutional consideration."

I believe that the Government have solved the constitutional considerations imposed upon them by the creation of this body and have satisfied the supervision and rights of this House as well as the dignity and cleanliness of local government.

I wish to add my criticism to those already made against the setting up of this Assistance Board. The right hon. Gentleman for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) with some degree of justification chaffed the official Opposition for its enthusiasm for the setting up of this particular kind of detached body. I do not think that Members of the official Opposition have anything to gain by denying that in their ranks there is a large body of opinion which believes that industrial and commercial controls, as well as other controls, are more fitly taken in hand by bodies outside Parliamentary interference than by Government Departments directly. That point of view has been strongly propagated in the ranks of labour, and is being propagated just now. I have found during my period in Parliament that in prospect all these boards are hailed with great enthusiasm by Members of the House but in retrospect are damned with equal unanimity by all Members of the House. They look awfully good and detached, responsible and careful, until you have them, but when you have got them you find that they are a tremendous nuisance, a constant interference with fair play and common sense.

As a Member of Parliament I refuse to accept my share of the Vote of Censure that is implied in every proposal of this description; that a Member of Parliament is not a fit and proper person to act in an honourable, honest and intelligent way. In every one of these proposals the conception is implicit that a Member of Parliament has a morale inferior to that of the average available in the community, and that there are to be found at any given moment detached persons—probably of whom we have never heard before—who in a moral capacity, in administrative ability and in political wisdom, are miles above the ordinary person elected to this House. It is fantastic, it is romanticism, it is nonsense. There is one thing which can be said in favour of Members in this House and that is that they compare favourably, and no better, with people outside. The idea that you can get giants of finer clay than there are here to run jobs which are a little bit irksome and difficult is a conception which has no foundation in fact; and it is a conception which gives rise to dictatorships. The idea that here is some great saviour who is going to shoulder all our troubles, do all our thinking, carry all our responsibilities, and make so perfect a state of society that none of us need bother about anything, is just a lot of arrant rubbish. That is this Clause in a concentrated form.

The right hon. Member for Tamworth accused the Opposition of arguing for the restoration of ministerial discretion, but I think he confuses the difference between discretion and responsibility. I would try to reduce the discretion of the Minister to the smallest point, but I would carry his responsibilities to the maximum. We are not asking the Minister to shoulder the detail work of investigating individual cases. The right hon. Member for Tamworth tried, pathetically, I will not say glibly, to rack our hearts about the overwrought Minister, although it is extraordinary that on every occasion there are tremendous numbers in the queues for these overwrought positions. We are not asking that the Minister shall investigate personally every case under Part II; all we are asking is that in the House of Commons the Minister shall be responsible to the House of Commons, and that he will not be able to push his responsibilities on one side and say, as Ministers do confidentially say to Members, as we all know when we go to them about a case privately, "There is nothing I would like better than to oblige you in this matter. I think it is a hard case, and that you have justice on your side; but it is the board, and I can do absolutely nothing." We do not want that. That is irresponsibility.

The Minister of Labour will remember that in the days of the last Conservative Government of blessed memory, during the halcyon years between 1924–29, when everything went so well in this country, when everybody was happy, when there was no unemployment except a million or two and no trade disturbances except the General Strike, the Government during that period brought before the House a Bill called The Reorganisation of Offices (Scotland) Bill. Over a long period of time, indeed, ever since the union, there had grown up in Scotland a whole collection of Boards of Agriculture, Boards of Education, Commissions for Prisons and commissions for this and that. When these various boards and commissions were set up the poor boobs—I think that is the term—who sat in this House in those days believed that it was a way of bringing to bear outstanding talent available outside Parliament for the administration of a particular sphere of work. During the centuries Scottish political administration had become cluttered up with commissions and commissioners and bodies of various kinds. During the Parliament of 1924–29 the Reorganisation of Offices (Scotland) Bill was introduced to sweep clean away every single one of these boards and commissions, which had taken centuries to build up, and we were told by Members of the Conservative party in so many words that it had been proved that these independent detached persons were only a nuisance and that most of them were doing at high salaries jobs which could be done more efficiently by a junior civil servant at a lower salary. At one swoop all these boards were swept away. We got rid of the litter of centuries in Scotland. The same men, because many of those who were in the Conservative Government in those days are in the present Government, are now starting to impose another collection of these old men of the sea round the necks of the decent politicians of this country.

I want the Minister of Labour and the Committee to realise that we shall not get rid of the troubles in this way. If the idea is to rid us of worrying about the unemployed it will not work. It should not work. There is not one of us here but should have the unemployed man with us day and night until such time as he no longer exists. Our task and that of the Government—and the people have chosen us to face it, not to dodge it—is to set ourselves to abolish the unemployed man, but at the same time, while he exists, to see that he is treated decently, humanely, and in a way that can be defended by intelligent people. We have no right to try to shift that on to anybody else; that is dodging a responsibility.

The question of patronage has been slung about very freely—the ability of a Member of Parliament to get a shilling or two extra for one of his constituents. I have never, in my time in the House, handling thousands of unemployment insurance cases, known a case in which I got a shilling or two more for any constituent of mine than he was entitled to under the Statute. I have on many occa- sions got for a man his legal rights, which he might have been done out of if I had not been there to raise them for him, but never did I get for a man more than he was entitled to—never once. If there is a suggestion that that has been done in some quarters politically, I would like to hear about it, because I thought I was as alert on behalf of my constituents as anyone. If other people have been getting for their unemployed constituents more than their just rights, I have only been getting the bare minimum, and I feel that I have been ill used, and that the patronage has not been outside the House, but inside—that certain Members of the House have been getting favours that have not been available to all.

The Minister knows perfectly well that there has been no patronage in connection with this Act in any sense of the term, and, if there were, is it not just about time that political patronage, which has existed since the beginning of time, should begin to percolate down to the poorest section of the community? Political patronage that can yet your uncle or your cousin made into an admiral, or an archbishop, or a lord chief justice, or that can secure that your land is taken for some purpose rather than the other fellow's—all these patronages have been quiet, clean and decent; but if now, in these days, political patronage is used for the sake of getting sixpence extra out of the public funds for a starving man, there is something that is not right there; and it might influence votes. My one regret is that these concerns have not influenced votes among working people to the extent that they should have influenced votes. The hon. Gentleman who acts as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister has not yet fully learned that, when he takes on that responsible position, he has to give up certain of the rights and liberties that are available to ordinary Members of the House. He has assumed responsibilities and dignities, and it is hardly in keeping with the dignity of those who sit in that position to mutter and laugh at their own jokes while a Member on his feet is trying to address the Minister.

I say that the patronage, as it is called, has never been patronage in the sense of the term in which it has been used in the past. I have just as much right to stand here and argue about the unemployed man's money as I have to argue about an ordinary citizen's education. It is as much a matter of public policy, and my constituents have a perfect right to weigh up and judge me on my record of votes, including what I do or what I do not do for the unemployed. As far as I have seen, the defence of the unemployed man in season and out of season has not always been the most electorally advantageous thing that a Member of the House of Commons can do. If one wanted to curry favour, if one wanted political influence, one would espouse the cause of more powerful people than those who are the unfortunate and the outcasts of society. Therefore, I place these things on one side; the patronage argument has no weight with me. The argument that the men who will be on this board are superior in quality and capacity and knowledge to the average man who sits in the House of Commons I put aside as merely matter for jest. The effect of the working of these boards in the past has, as I have said, been indicated by a previous House in wiping out all these boards from Scottish administration.

I would put this further point, that a cost of £12,000 per annum is being imposed here for the establishment of a board of five or six men, when every one of us knows that in practice there will be one official who will do the work of that board. There will be one capable civil servant to do the real work. He will listen to their talk, he will go home, and he will draft out what they are going to do. He will come back to the next meeting—which will occur as seldom as possible—and he will say, "This is a summary of what you decided at the last meeting; I ask you to endorse it." They will say, "Yes, it seems quite reasonable and moderate. It is getting on for lunch-time. Yes, we will endorse it." The Noble Lady behind me questions whether that would be done——

No—whether Labour meetings were like that.

It is a very long time since I have been at a Labour meeting, but I can assure the Noble Lady that when my party meets we are bright, brief and brotherly, and to the point. I may be caricaturing the position. I have no doubt that for the first few months, when we are all watching them, they will be much more assiduous and energetic than that; but that is what it will come to; it is what all their predecessors came to. There will be one official doing the job, thanking his stars that he has such a soft job; and he will have five or six members of this Committee whom he can just manipulate as he pleases, because he is on the job all the time, and knows the job, while they are only on the job occasionally, and do not know it and are not dependent on it. The Government are asking for the right to spend £12,000 of public money for the carrying out of a job which a civil servant would be glad to do competently for £1,000 a year. He, having done it, would have a real, genuine responsibility to his Minister, and his Minister would have a real, genuine responsibility to the House of Commons. On these grounds I urge the Minister not to take what looks like an easy road out of what is a very grave political difficulty, but to let the House of Commons know steadily and from day to day what the difficulties of the unemployed are, and let us shoulder them ourselves.

I shall not detain the Committee for more than two or three minutes, but I do not think the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) has quite justified himself in his speech this afternoon, for, while it was charming and delightful in its wording, it failed lamentably in logical argument. I do not think that the hon. Member really did justice to Scotland. He takes a particular instance in Scottish legislation in order to draw a general conclusion on British legislation. He takes the Scottish Office and says, "Look how badly we in Scotland have managed these boards; we had to admit failure"; and then he tries to put an equal failure on the English Parliament in English legislation. I should have thought he was a more loyal Scotsman than to let his own country down in order to try to prove a case. Again, he said that it did not always pay to defend the interests of the unemployed, and that had he, perhaps, pursued other courses, his political success could have been achieved in an easier manner——

No; I said I could think of much more profitable ways than defending the unemployed.

It is for the community to defend their unemployed. The hon. Member may mean that other things would be more profitable politically; but it may be that the eclipses which have fallen upon our party have been just because we have been seeking the genuine interest of the unemployed, and not the opportunity of the moment.

The point with which I want to deal is one that was made by the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White), and also by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan)—a point about which there seems to me to be a certain amount of misunderstanding among the electors and also in the House of Commons. It is as to the lack of attraction of Part I of the Bill because of the attractions which exist for men who are out of employment in Part II of the Bill. That is the general condemnation. I would submit that under Part I of the Bill there are certain aspects which must appeal, and which therefore do away to some extent with that lack of balance between the two about which complaint is made. In the first place, under this Clause in Part II of the Bill, the unemployed man cannot draw benefit as of right; he has to pass a means test; and the very Members who complain of the lack of similarity between Part I and Part II are the same Members who complain of the existence of a means test. It seems to me that they cannot have it both ways—they cannot complain of a means test on the one hand and then say on the other hand that there is no difference as regards drawing benefit between Part I and Part II, which is a contradiction in itself. Secondly, benefits under Part I accumulate to a man according to his industrial record, but under Part II his industrial record is of no avail to him. Under Part II he draws according to his need. Under Part I he draws according to his need and to his history. Finally, under Part I there are three contributors, the State, the employer and the employé, but only one person gets the benefit of any surplus, that is the contributor, whereas under Part II the man draws according to his need, and has no participation in the surplus. Therefore, this complaint of the unattractiveness of Part I as against Part II is not borne out, firstly on the ground of no means test in Part I, secondly, no benefits according to a man's record in Part II, and thirdly, because the disposable assets of a solvent, self-sufficient fund go to the participants in that fund under Part I, and cannot do so under Part II. Therefore, I whole-heartedly support this differentiation between Part I and Part II, and I do not think there is any real gravamen in the complaint of Members who make this point.

I think it has been to the general satisfaction and convenience of the Committee that your predecessor in the Chair, Sir, decided to allow the discussion to cover the whole purpose of this very important Clause, and in the result we have had, last week and to-day, one of the most important and, I think, interesting discussions that the Bill has produced since it was first introduced. I wish I could agree with the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) that the Bill, when it passes, will make the road easy for the Minister of Labour. I am under no such delusion. The road of the Minister of Labour is never an easy one and I do not think it will be any more easy when the Bill is passed than it was before. The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Mallalieu), and others who spoke from Liberal benches last week, seemed to think that the result of the Bill would be to rid Members of Parliament of personal responsibility. So far from that, I believe it will increase the responsibility of individual Members to a far greater extent than at present, and perhaps it will enable hon. Members to show whether they are really willing and prepared to face up to the responsibilities which will be cast upon them by the Bill.

The first great point that has been raised in this discussion—it is the question which has occupied most of the proceedings to-day—is the general point as to whether we are right or wrong in taking away from local authorities duties which they now perform. Those duties have been with local authorities for something like 300 years, and I agree that it needs a strong case to satisfy the Committee that they should be taken from them and transferred to someone else. I will explain the reasons which prompted us to come to the very grave decision. It was done in furtherance of the principle to which I referred in my Second Reading speech, that the State should accept general responsibility for all the industrial able-bodied unemployed outside insurance within the limits of a practical definition.

I will pay my tribute to the work which local authorities as a whole have done during the last three years. There was cast upon them in 1931 an immense accession of duties which were very often distasteful, unpopular and very difficult, but local authorities on the whole faced up to the difficulties, and the State as a whole is under a great debt of obligation to them. We asked them to deal with that very large number of persons who were then on transitional benefit. Before 1931 the numbers of persons with whom local authorities dealt were far fewer than those with whom they were asked to deal in 1931. In that year they were suddenly faced with the problem of organising a service for people in many cases quite indistinguishable, both in status and in character, from those who were actually in employment. There was this further difficulty. Unemployment is very largely concentrated in certain trades and in certain districts, and the difficulties of those local authorities in those areas was enormously increased by this fact.

It seems to me and to the Government that, if the State is to accept a general responsibility for the industrial unemployed, and to find the money for this purpose, the machinery can be no longer local but must be central. For long past there has been a demand, which has been growing in all parties, in all parts of the House, and in the country, that this should be a national responsibility. To that demand we have acceded except to an infinitesimal extent. The figure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave the other day was that 95 per cent. of this financial responsibility is now to be undertaken by the Exchequer. If you accede to the demand that this is a national responsibility, as an inevitable corrollary you must admit that the administration must be organised centrally and not locally.

When this immense duty was thrown upon the local authorities—I say this as a matter of history, without criticism or comment; I merely state the facts—a few threw in their hands. Some sub-committees of local authorities refused to carry out their duties, and special committees were appointed in their place. In other areas members of one political party said they would have nothing to do with it, and they left the odium of carrying on the duties to others. In many areas the local authorities made it clear that they were only content to carry on at all because they were given to understand that the job was a temporary one, and they made it equally clear that, if they thought that it was to be anything like a permanent duty, they, too, would have something to say about it.

We had representations from very influential bodies dealing with this very point. The County Councils Association on 15th December, 1932, passed a resolution that, "with a view to preserving the purity of local government, it is undesirable that elected members of local authorities should be charged with distributing to individuals by way of unemployment assistance large sums of money mainly drawn from the national Exchequer." On 11th January, 1933, they passed a resolution in which they said that they were "generally in favour of the recommendations of the Committee on Local Expenditure that the relief of the able-bodied unemployed, whether now receiving transitional payments or public assistance should cease to be administered by local authorities as at present, and should be transferred to independent persons to be specially appointed for the purpose. This proposal, as the Committee on Local Expenditure points out, is directed to the removal from the sphere of national and local politics of the disbursement of local funds for the relief of the unemployed." The Association of Municipal Corporations, while saying they were prepared in certain conditions to carry on, added that they believed it would be "desirable that the administration of unemployment assistance should, so far as possible consistently with administrative efficiency and considerations of economy, be removed from the sphere of local party politics." We had to consider these facts, but whatever view you may take as to whether the County Councils Association were right or wrong, we have also to consider that by far the largest part of the cost is borne by the Exchequer.

I do not think that either this or any other Government could possibly approve, as a permanent arrangement, a system whereby a locally elected authority administered transitional payments on behalf of the central Government without any financial interest themselves in the expenditure. Such a system involves either the danger of abuse or else such a stringent control over local authorities that they become merely the agents of the central Government. For these reasons it seemed to us, having accepted the view that this liability should be a national one, that it followed as a necessary corollary that it could no longer be administered locally. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham (Mr. Crossley) raised a point which has not been sufficiently stressed in the course of this discussion. The functions of the board will not be, and are not intended to be, limited entirely to the payment of cash assistance. The functions of the board are to link up where it can unemployment with employment, to help men to get into employment, and in the meantime to give them such assistance as their needs require. If hon. Members regard this problem, as I do, as an industrial problem and not merely one of relief, and as a national problem and not a local problem, clearly local authorities, with their limited areas of jurisdiction, are not the appropriate bodies to administer the scheme. So much for the point as to the reason why we take it away from the local authorities.

The next point to which I want to refer is one which has been made on more than one occasion, namely, the opinion that we are handing this matter over to a body outside Parliamentary control. This seems to show a complete misapprehension as to what is in the Bill, and I am surprised that it has been stated in quarters where I should not have expected it. The hon. Member for Birkenhead, East (Mr. White) went so far as to say that we are reproducing the action of 1834. He must indeed have a poor opinion of the Minister of Labour if he thinks that in 1934 I am going to reproduce a system which I know as well as he knows broke down. What happened in 1834 which he says is the analogy and example which we are following? In 1834 a Board of Commissioners was set up entirely independent of Parliament and was placed in the charge of, I suppose, one of the ablest administrators this country has ever produced, Sir George Lewis. The experiment failed because this country would not tolerate an outlying department which was not subject to Parliamentary control, and they were right. It lasted 13 years, and then failed. If the country would not stand it then, believe me, they will not stand it now. I entirely agree with what the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) said when he remarked, "You cannot take, and you ought not to take, the problem of unemployment out of politics." You cannot do it, and this Bill will not do it. I do not think that I need proceed further to show how false is that analogy.