asked the President of the Board of Trade if he can give any information as to the comparative cost of manufacture, excluding wages, of some ordinary type of yarn in Japan and Lancashire; and give similar information with regard to cloth?

asked the Under-secretary of State for Air the numbers of men and women, respectively, employed in the established departmental clerical class of the Air Ministry in the grade proceeding to a maximum of £180 basic, men, and £150 basic, women; and in the grade proceeding to a maximum of £250 basic, men, and £220 basic, women, on 1st April, 1933?

The answer to the first part of the question is 307 men and 19 women; to the second part, 79 men and two women.

asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office the numbers of men and women, respectively, employed in the established Departmental

I am aware that a number of estimates have been made, but in view of the variety of the factors entering into the cost of production, both here and in Japan, it is not possible to provide reliable comparative figures of the kind the hon. Member has in mind.

asked the President of the Board of Trade the total number of cotton mills and their capacity in China in 1920 and 1933, together with the nationality of the persons controlling them?

According to figures published in the "International Cotton Bulletin," the number and ownership of cotton mills in China in 1923 and 1933 were as follow:clerical class of the War Office in the grade proceeding to a maximum of £180 basic, men, and £150 basic, women; and in the grade proceeding to a maximum of £250 basic, men, and £220 basic, women, on 1st April, 1933?

There were 739 men with a maximum basic salary of £180 a year, and 128 men with a maximum basic salary of £250 a year. There were no women employed in the class in question.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the numbers of men and women, respectively, employed in the established Departmental clerical class of the Admiralty in the grade proceeding to a maximum of £180 basic, men, and £150 basic, women; and in the grade proceeding to a maximum of £250 basic, men, and £220 basic, women, on 1st April, 1933?

The numbers employed in the established Departmental clerical class in the Admiralty and at the outports 1 on 1st April, 1933, were as follow:

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the numbers of men and women, respectively, employed in the established clerical class of the Scottish Office in the grade proceeding to a maximum of £180 basic, men, and £150 basic, women; and in the grade proceeding to a maximum of £250 basic, men, and £220 basic, women, on 1st April, 1933?

In the two grades referred to the numbers on 1st April, 1933, were (respectively) none and 17 (15 men and 2 women). The figures relate to the establishments borne on the Scottish Office Vote.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can form

asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what has been the increase in the number of employés in all Departments of the Civil Service, excluding the Post Office, Army, Navy, and Air Force, since the present National Government came into power; and what has been the total increase in salaries paid in these Departments consequent upon the increase in the number of employés?

The latest figures available relate to 1st April, 1933. The figures of civil staffs, industrial and non-industrial, in Departments other than the Post Office and the three defence Departments, show a decrease of 1,629 in the period up to that date. The second part of the question, therefore, does not arise.

asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the amounts of original Estimates and of Supplementary Estimates for beet-sugar subsidy in each year since the inception of the subsidy?

The following table gives the information for which the hon. Member asks.any estimate of the annual income derived by this country from investments in the Empire and in foreign countries, respectively, at the present time?

I regret that no official estimate is available.

asked the Minister of Health if he has authorised the decision that when an insured woman, who is in receipt of national health insurance benefits, is certified by a medical officer as being able to do housework though unable to follow her usual occupation, her benefits shall cease, even though she intends to resume her own occupation as soon as her health will permit?

There is no general decision that an insured woman who, though unable to follow her usual occupation is able to do housework, is to be treated as not entitled to sickness or disablement benefit. An approved society would not ordinarily regard such a woman as disentitled to benefit pending her early return to her normal employment, but in the case of a woman who is the domestic head of a household and for whom, accordingly, the performance of household duties is in the nature of an alternative to her industrial employment, fitness for the former as well as for the latter form of work would properly be taken into consideration. Societies have been informed that it is their duty to consider every such case on its merits, and any woman who is dissatisfied with the decision of her society is entitled to appeal in accordance with the rules of the society.

asked the Minister of Health whether any of the Blackburn small-pox patients had been vaccinated before removal to hospital with smallpox; and, if so, how many days before such removal was the vaccination per formed in each case?

Five patients were vaccinated shortly before removal to hospital. Two of these were vaccinated during the incubation period of the disease, six and 10 days respectively before removal. Three were vaccinated after the illness had begun, one on the day of removal, one the day before removal and the third four days before removal.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will consider the desirability of setting up a committee to formulate a scheme for providing sick leave with pay for industrial civil servants in Admiraltly employ on similar lines to leave thus provided for non-industrial civil servants?

The industrial employés of the Admiralty are in the same position as the many other Government industrial employés in that their sickness is catered for by insurance under the National Health Insurance Acts. In these circumstances, it is not considered that the hon. Member's proposal could usefully be pursued apart from the larger question with which it is obviously involved.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty for what reason it is claimed that it is more expensive at the present time to build destroyers in private yards rather than in His Majesty's dockyards; and whether he will arrange for this matter to be re-examined, taking into account only the strictly comparable costs, and making due allowance for the necessarily higher permanent overheads which have to be borne by His Majesty's dockyards?

I am not aware of any claim having been made that the costs of building destroyers in private yards are in excess of those for building such vessels in His Majesty's dockyards, nor is there any reason to believe that economy would result from building destroyers in His Majesty's dockyards. As the hon. Member will realise, the allocation of construction work as between private and Government yards is not determined solely on a question of cost, but must have regard to the size of the shipbuilding programme and the facilities available in the dockyards over and above those required for their principal function of repairing and maintaining the Fleet.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to the fact that, following the introduction of acetylene burning and welding in His Majesty's dockyards, burners, who had previously been in receipt of wages amounting to 44s. and 47s. per week in the event of their having passed the welding test, have now had their rates reduced to 39s.; and whether all the employés' organisations in His Majesty's dockyards were consulted before the reduction took place?

I think the hon. Member has been misinformed. The authorised range of wages for men rated as burners in His Majesty's dockyards has never been 44s. to 47s. a week. The purpose of the recent Admiralty order was to confirm that the authorised basic range for such men was 34s. to 39s. a

asked the Secretary for Mines the total quantity of coal produced in Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland and Scotland; the amount exported by each of these districts; and the average f.o.b. price during 1931, 1932 and 1933, respectively?

The information, so far as it is available, is as follows: