asked the Attorney-General, whether he can inform the House if any decision has been reached on the question of appointing official shorthand writers in the Court of Appeal, the Court of Chancery, the King's Bench Division, and the Official Referee's Courts, or in any of the divisions of the High Court of Justice?

The question of instituting a system whereby an official shorthand note may be taken in the High Court of Justice is under close consideration, but I am not yet in a position to make a statement upon it.

asked the Prime Minister, the composition of the Committee of Imperial Defence; whether on a change of office or a change of appointment in Government Departments the office becomes vacant; and how the positions are filled.

In constitutional theory the Committee of Imperial Defence consists of the Prime Minister and such persons as he chooses to ask to assist in the Committee's deliberations. At the present time, under my instructions, the following are associated with the work of the main Committee: the Lord President of the Council, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretaries of State for Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Dominions, the Colonies, India, War, and Air, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Chiefs of Staff of the three Defence Services, and the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury as head of the Civil Service. Should a Minister change his Office or appointment, the vacancy on the Committee of Imperial Defence is, subject to the Prime Minister's discretion, usually filled by his successor.

How often do you meet, and are your recommendations sent to the Cabinet?

If the hon. Member will be good enough to put the Question down—it is one that is very often asked in this House—I shall be very pleased to give him an answer, but I have not the figures in my head.

I have pleasure to-day in bringing before the House a matter of great public importance, and my remarks will be addressed to the Board of Trade. I intimated to the President of the Board of Trade the subject matter with which I proposed to deal, and I have been informed that the Parliamentary Secretary will take his place and reply on this question. The subject about which I am anxious to obtain knowledge as to what the Government are doing has reference to the manning regulations and the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee. Anyone who has knowledge of the recent inquiries in regard to the loss of four ships will be fully aware of the importance of much of the evidence that was adduced. At a later date my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) will deal with the greater portion of the matters appertaining to the loss of life in regard to those ships, and, therefore, I do not intend to labour the matter, but to deal with two important points.

I consider that it will be time well spent to consider the gravity of these matters. This is not a flippant discussion. I take it as an honour to be chosen by the Labour party to-day to deal with this particular question, especially as I come from the Merseyside, where, in my division, there is the largest seafaring population of any seaport in the world. I am convinced that the House will pay due regard to what so intimately touches the life of our people, especially those with whom I am associated and whose homes I am able to visit. This matter is vital in regard to the economic position of these people. Almost every street in our great seaports, and more especially in Liverpool, indicates the tragedy of the sea and of the men who have lost their lives. This is brought home to us when we recollect how much we owe to the Mercantile Marine, and its officers and men, who go down to the sea in ships, and who sail the seven seas.

We have had a Committee set up, and I want it to be distinctly, understood that while I shall be severe in my criticism, which I am justly bound to be, my criticism is not of the Minister but of the Government, with a view to seeing whether something is going to be done. It would be unfair from the Labour benches, when we have so many men of the working classes who are engaged in the Mercantile Marine, if we did not put forward their grievances and ask that they should be given redress by the Board of Trade, who should see that impartial justice is done to the men who jeopardise their lives, many of whom have given their lives in the service of their country.

A statement was made by the President of the Board of Trade last month which pretty well sums up the subject with which I wish to deal. The right hon. Gentleman said, dealing with various phases of shipping,

"But it is not that aspect of the shipping trade which I would ask the House to consider particularly this afternoon. I am thinking particularly of safety of life at sea on which we have received some rude shocks during the last winter season in the North Atlantic. The House will remember that earlier in the year we discussed here four at least of the disasters which have overcome our seafarers in the North Atlantic—the cases of the "Usworth," the "Blairgowrie," the "La Crescenta," and the "Millpool." It became clear as the facts concerning these vessels were disclosed bit by bit that we must institute Board of Trade inquiries as a preliminary to examination of these cases by a Wreck Commissioner. I am gad to say that immediately I asked Lord Merrivale to act as the Wreck Commissioner he undertook this very responsible task, and he has already completed the inquiries in, I think, three of the cases."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th July, 1935; col. 1257, Vol. 304]

We are thankful that the President of the Board of Trade, in view of the evidence that has been produced and the various statements made, thought it necessary that something should be done. I have nothing to say in regard to Lord Merrivale or in regard to the findings of the inquiry. I do not intend to deal with matters which at the present time are sub judice. It will be time enough to deal with the position when those matters are finally dealt with. I wish to deal with questions that are finished with. It is an accomplished fact that a Board has been set up. I am in complete agreement with the remarks of the President of the Board of Trade when he said that we have received some rude shocks. Anyone interested in shipping from the days of the "Alaska," which was the greyhound of the Atlantic, right down to the "Queen Mary," which I hope will be the greyhound of the Atlantic, will know that every great disaster in connection with the Mercantile Marine is a great shock, and brings misery into the homes of our people, and if such disasters can be prevented we ought to take all possible measures to prevent them. The loss of the "Lusitania" was a shock, and brought home to us the fact that we ought to pay close attention to the needs of those engaged in the British Mercantile Marine.

I now wish to deal with the main objections which have been raised. These objections have been given to me in order that I may submit them to the consideration of the Minister. Strong objection is taken to the reference by the Board of Trade of the important question of manning regulations to the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee. We consider that this particular body has a Victorian outlook. In fact, we go as far as to say, in regard to the personnel, that most of it is actually Victorian, although I daresay that exceptions may be trotted out to us later. But we feel that this body is not modern, and is not equipped with modern knowledge, whatever other knowledge it may have. Socrates and Diogenes were people of great knowledge, but in a matter of this kind we are not looking to the philosophers of the past. We want men who are thoroughly acquainted with all matters appertaining to seamen, and whose knowledge of these matters is up to date.

While it is true that there are four Labour representatives on the Committee, the predominant interest on it is that of the employing class, and, consequently, it cannot be considered as a body which will reach judicial and unbiased conclusions on these very important questions. In raising these points relevant to the constitution of this body, we may be told that we are wrong, but as interested parties we have to consider carefully this machinery just as any other people have to consider any machinery which is applicable to their own particular trade or profession. We feel that this body will be biased and non-judicial, and on account of that fact we feel that it will be of no importance whatever. If the President is not prepared to proceed to a complete overhaul of the merchant shipping legislation, which is generally admitted to be hopelessly out of date, he should at least refer these matters to an independent committee with power to call for evidence and to come to a speedy decision. We feel that it is vital that these points should receive due consideration and should be acted upon. We feel that this Committee is not fitted for the job and that there is so much suspicion in the minds of people who know the business in regard to this reference to a body which they consider to be important, that, as a matter of justice, the Minister ought to take what steps he can to remove suspicion from the minds of all people and to leave this body fully empowered as a judicial authority to deal absolutely and impartially with the matter.

There is another observation that I am compelled to make. The employers are bound to be satisfied with the existing minimum scale. This is an important factor. Wherever great expense has to be incurred or improvements have to be made in any industry, you will find those interested in regard to having to pay out are always economical and that the question of life is very seldom taken into consideration. I admit that, as far as the mercantile marine is concerned, there are many good shipping firms and shipowners, but there are exceptions, and great loss of life may be entailed through some of the firms which have ships going to sea that do not make adequate provision. Therefore we feel that those who are interested in this trade should not have the power to consider an indictment laid against their own industry and the power, from the point of view of constitution, not only of considering the finance of the business, but of returning a verdict which will enable them to keep up the continuity of the whole system. We feel that that is wrong, and that in 1935, if the Minister intends to do anything, it must be of such a searching nature that there can be no room for doubt as to what he intends to do.

The Merrivale court of inquiry, in dealing with the "Blairgowrie," said that technically she had a sufficient complement of hands. If lawyers use phraseology within the law, so can the man who goes down to the sea in ships understand what it means. As a practical matter we are not satisfied that she had a sufficient number of deck hands, and anybody who has sailed in the mercantile marine, any ordinary man in the street, would laugh immediately at you if you said that this was quite convincing that justice was being done by the State. The court said that there was no apparent margin for safety so far as the "Usworth" was concerned. If there is such a thing as caressing for the wrong doer, and putting forth the velvet hand to smooth difficulties out of the road, this language is couched in that direction. In ordinary cases, where there would not be so much at stake, I am afraid that different language would be used in regard to the fatalities that have lately occurred, and while this language is guarded, it has its implication, an implication of which the Parliamentary Secretary would know the value, and although those who find verdicts in court may use language of this description, yet to the Parliamentary Secretary it has a value that we ask him to deal with.

Obviously the law is wrong and the regulations made under that law are inadequate. In fact, the whole of the regulations in regard to manning are absolutely out of date, and because they are out of date we feel that we have a right to come to a reasonable Minister, who has a thorough knowledge of these matters, and to ask that something should be done as a result of the terrible tragedies that have recently occurred. In summing up, I want to say that we feel that the method adopted is only throwing dust in the eyes of the general public and is not genuinely dealing with the situation as it concerns the lives of the officers and men of the British Mercantile Marine. To be quite candid, we think it is a subtle move of an inquiry being held which on the face of it would seem to possess some value, but we feel in our heart of hearts that it has no value at all. When I recall what this nation, nay, what the world owes to the British Mercantile Marine, I am compelled, in response to a national duty, to ask for an independent committee and a complete overhaul of the merchant shipping legislation. I trust, having put this point forward, that the Minister, who, I know, is always courteous and always attentive to any request that we might make, will give this his deepest consideration, for there is so much at stake that I do not think I have overstated the matters that I have brought before the House.

The Board of Trade welcomes the fact that this matter has been raised this morning, and the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan) has raised it in a speech to which I take no exception. I shall hope to convince the House by the arguments that I adduce that some of the harsh things he said in his concluding words show a rather jaundiced point of view, but I welcome the raising of the matter and the speech in which it has been raised. The hon. Member represents the great port of Liverpool, and he does no less than justice to the seafaring community in reminding this House of the immense debt which this country and the world owe to those who go down to the sea in ships. This House may rest assured that the Board of Trade will tackle this matter in the way in which it should be tackled. The hon. Member was careful to say that he was not proposing to discuss the findings of the Merrivale Committee in regard to the particular vessels, and that was wise, because the fourth inquiry has not yet taken place, and it would be much more convenient for the House to deal with all the inquiries together, when the results in each of the four cases have been published and when there is an opportunity to consider them and the House can make up its mind as to whether any particular instruction or direction ought to be offered to the Board of Trade.

The hon. Gentleman's observations were chiefly centred round the manning provisions and the method which the President of the Board of Trade has announced for dealing at once with the consideration of that topic. The hon. Member realises, of course, that in no one of the three findings that have yet been published did the court come to the conclusion that the disaster was due to undermanning. In none of these three cases has it been established that the loss was due to undermanning. The hon. Member says that the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee is Victorian in constitution and outlook and that a recommendation from it would not give confidence to the merchant shipping world; and he asked for a special committee or a general overhaul of the Merchant Shipping Acts. I think that we can perhaps leave the latter question until we have had the inquiries into all four vessels, because, obviously, so large a matter is on a different scale from the question under discussion to-day.

As the House may not be wholly familiar with the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee, its constitution and objects, perhaps I may take a minute to make that clear. The Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, Section 79, authorised the Board of Trade to appoint committees

"for the purpose of advising the Board of Trade when considering the making or alteration of any rules, regulations or scales for the purpose of the Merchant Shipping Acts consisting of such persons as they may appoint representing the interests principally affected or having special knowledge of the subject matter."

The Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee is the standing advisory committee appointed under that Section. At the opening meeting of the first committee the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) was President of the Board of Trade and he described the Committee as

"more or less a permanent committee to advise the Board of Trade with regard to the policy which it is to pursue in the administration of the whole of the merchant shipping laws of this country."

This Standing Advisory Committee is appointed every two years and the present committee was appointed less than a fortnight ago. Although the hon. Member says that it is mid-Victorian in fact it is neo-Georgian in the date of appointment. It is thoroughly up-to-date as regards its personnel. In accordance with Section 79 of the Act of 1906 nominations to the committee are obtained from all the mercantile shipping interests. I will give the House a list of the organisations which make nominations. The interests comprise shipowners, naval architects, classification societies, underwriters, deck officers, engine room officers, seamen, wireless operators and pilots. The present committee consists of 22, and its chairman is Sir Norman Hill. He has been chairman of each successive committee since the first committee was set up in 1906, and in all probability he will be elected chairman of the present committee at their first formal meeting. He enjoys the complete confidence of all sections represented on the committee, and he conducts its proceedings along judicial lines. There is no one in any part of Great Britain who would suggest that Sir Norman Hill would not be other than a most acceptable chairman for a committee that had anything to do with merchant shipping.

The committee is not primarily representative of employing interests. There are six direct representatives of shipowners, nine of officers' and seamens' organisations, and of the remaining seven, three represent classification societies, two the Institution of Naval Architects, one the Liverpool Underwriters' Association, and one the Institute of Marine Engineers. When the question of the constitution of the committee has been under consideration in the past the ship-owning interests have from time to time suggested that the officers' and men's interests were rather over represented. I do not want to make any point of that; I only mention it because the hon. Member thought that the committee was an employers' committee. The organisations represented are 16 in number, and they are:

• Shipowners' Parliamentary Committee,
• Institution of Naval Architects,
• Lloyd's,
• Liverpool Underwriters' Association,
• Lloyd's Register of Shipping,
• British Corporation Register of Shipping and Aircraft,
• Institute of Marine Engineers,
• Honourable Company of Master Mariners,
• Imperial Merchant Service Guild,
• Mercantile Marine Service Association,
• Officers' (Merchant Navy) Federation,
• Marine Engineers' Association,
• National Union of Seamen,
• Transport & General Workers' Union,
• Association of Wireless & Cable Telegraphists,
• United Kingdom Pilots' Association.

I suppose that it would be very hard to find an interest connected with merchant shipping that is not represented by one of those organisations. I need not trouble the House with the names of the gentlemen nominated by these organisations, but if there is any general desire for them an answer to a question can be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I think the names are such as will carry weight. For instance, the Shipowners' Parliamentary Committee is represented by such men as Sir Norman Hill, Mr. H. M. Cleminson, and Mr. Michael Brett. There are representatives of a similar character for the different institutions. The National Seamen's Union is represented by Mr. J. H. Tarbitten, Mr. R. W. Clouston, and Mr. W. R. Spence; and the Transport Workers' Union by Mr. James Henson.

I think that the House will feel that the proper way in which to deal with a matter arising under merchant shipping practice would be, in the first instance at all events, to consult the general standing committee. The House and the hon. Member must not assume that this would necessarily be an end of the matter. What I am concerned with at the moment is to point out to the House the wisdom of the President of the Board of Trade, immediately the question obviously becomes important, in saying at once, "I should like some information about it, and let everybody interested in manning make to me the appropriate reports." He tries the instrument nearest to his hand, the instrument which has actually been responsible for bringing into effect the existing scales of manning. It is in accordance with sound administration that if a scale originated by a body in the past, which has worked with comparative success, is attacked, those who were responsible for putting the scale forward should have an opportunity of passing comments on subsequent recommendations and suggestions. Successive advisory committees have dealt with a very wide range of subjects, some controversial and some requiring a careful balance of safety and economic factors. The committee take evidence from outside authorities whenever it so requires, although there is often somebody round the table with sufficient knowledge to make it unnecessary to call for outside evidence. Outside evidence is clearly only asked for when the matter is highly technical.

The committee has produced many valuable reports, and all the important instructions and regulations in force have been considered from time to time by it. For example, the important changes made by the Safety of Life at Sea Convention and the Load Line Convention occupied a great deal of the time of the Committee in 1931–32. The present manning scale, which is embodied in Circular 1463, is based on the advice of this committee. It was introduced in 1909, and the scales have never been seriously criticised and are found satisfactory in practice.

The point raised by recent inquiries as to the margin of safety and matters of that kind is quite obviously the sort of point that ought to be referred in the first place to this standing Committee, and if what the hon. Member is really asking is that the recommendation of this standing committee is not necessarily the last word, I will give an assurance that the Board of Trade are fully alive to the disquiet that is felt in certain quarters, that they are anxious properly to allay that disquiet, that they intend to do what is necessary to see that this subject is properly studied, and if proper recommendations are made to give them attention. The hon. Member need have no apprehension that this reference to the standing Committee is in the least an intention to fob the matter off and to delay action. Quite the reverse. It is the opinion of the President of the Board of Trade and of his advisers that the right thing to do in the first place is to ask those who are appointed by Parliament to consider these matters to pass judgment upon the suggestions that are made.

The manning problem is, of course, technical, but it covers a very much wider range. It affects every interest connected with the safe and successful running of ships. The Advisory Committee contains representatives with wide experience of all sides of the industry. It is particularly well fitted to review the manning requirements, and is the body envisaged by Parliament for that sort of work, and unless and until the members of that Committee have made recommendations which show that they have not fully considered the problem, or made recommendations which are clearly not adequate, I do not see that there is any call for the appointments of any special committee. The committee representing all the interests which originated the scale, being the instrument nominated by Parliament, is the one which should express an opinion. I give the House an assurance that neither the present President of the Board of Trade nor the Board of Trade generally is going to rest until the whole of the matters arising from the inquiries recently made in the north Atlantic losses have been probed. With that assurance I hope the House will pass to the next business.

I wish to raise a question following upon the subject already dealt with—a question that is made necessary by replies given by the Minister of Transport on Wednesday of this week. The Minister then answered a question that was put by another hon. Member relating to the report recently given by the British Medical Association in answer to a request put to them by the Minister after questions in this House. Some weeks ago questions were addressed to the Minister asking whether he intended to take any steps as to the manifest troubles that have arisen consequent upon the association between the use of alcohol and road safety. The Minister gave great satisfaction to those in the country who are interested in this matter by saying that he regarded the subject as of such importance that he intended to take the advice of those who were best qualified to advise, and that therefore he had communicated with the British Medical Association and the British Medical Council. I would like to express at once by gratitude for the course that the right hon. Gentleman took.

I remember that a deputation from those who were interested in this subject waited on Mr. Herbert Morrison when he was Minister of Transport. That deputation was made up of some very eminent men associated with the medical profession, and of those who had taken great interest in the subject. Later on another deputation waited upon the succeeding Minister of Transport, Mr. Oliver Stanley, if I may use the name in this connection. I had the honour to be a member of that deputation, and I heard what was said by the very eminent doctors of this country in submitting their views to the Minister. On this occasion there has been a definite advance, because the Minister has not waited for a deputation; he himself has gone to those who are qualified to advise him. At once, apparently, his request was complied with, and the report has now been published. It is to that report I would like to direct the attention of the House for a few minutes.

The British Medical Association regarded the Minister's request most seriously and they appointed a special committee consisting of 15 gentlemen. It was under the chairmanship of Dr. Willoughby, the Medical Officer of Health of Eastbourne. The Association was apparently most anxious that the Committee should be thoroughly representative. It included physiologists, neurologists, pharmacologists, police surgeons, physicians, and general practitioners, and those 15 men who, I assume, are men of outstanding credentials and of some eminence in their profession, have now published a report. The report occupies about five columns of the present issue of the "British Medical Journal". I think it will be sufficient for me to say that this subject is not going to be discussed in days to come without this report being regarded as indispensable. The importance of the report is in the fact that the eminent men who have given their time to this question and to this inquiry during recent weeks have drawn the attention of the British public not to the ordinary case of intoxication but to

"the effect of the sub-intoxicant amount of alcohol, that is, amounts less than that customarily regarded as rendering a person under the influence of drink to such an extent as to be incapable of having proper control of the vehicle."

Those who turn to the report will find that they deal in particular with the effect of alcohol on powers of concentration, the effect on the reasoning powers, on the "succession of highly skilled muscular movements which are dependent on rapid and accurate co-ordination between the eyes, hands, and feet," and upon the effect of alcohol on the safety and accuracy of hand movements and leg movements. The consequence is that the Committee suggest to the country that the real danger upon the roads is not the drunken man, but the man who is in charge of a dangerous machine and who has taken sufficient alcohol to give him a false confidence, and the effects of small quantities of alcohol "are such that the attention of the public should be drawn to what is a manifest peril." As a matter of fact this report emphasises the result of an inquiry made in 1927. I would like to read to the House what was then found by the British Medical Association in a report by the Committee on tests of drunkenness, which is recorded in the "British Medical Journal" of February 19th, 1927. What that Committee said was this:

"Fine shades of self-control might be lost without any signs apparent of alcoholic intoxication. The first effect of alcohol is on the higher centres and is subjective, and even if no objective symptoms occur the subjective effect of alcohol may be sufficient to make it unfit for an individual to be in a responsible position—for example in charge of a mechanically-propelled vehicle."

If what was said by the British Medical Association in 1927 has been confirmed as a result of constant inquiries not only in this country but in many other countries, it is evident that the tests which are now being applied in courts of law are very often quite inappropriate and irrelevant. The danger is not with the man whose mental gear is thrown entirely out of control by drunkenness, but with the man whose mind is affected by what would not make him, in the ordinary sense of the word, an intoxicated person. In other words, you can have a man who is mechanically drunk and socially sober. If that be true, and it appears to be quite true from the evidence given by these Committees—because this is not a teetotal tract: the report is not written in any polemical way—we have to alter our whole conception of the manner of dealing with the problem of the peril of the roads.

No one can read this report without being satisfied that the association between the use of alcohol and the safety of people upon the roads is direct, is immediate, and is substantial, and that any attempt on the part of the Minister or his Department to deal with the danger upon the roads which ignores this evidence is bound to be inadequate and futile. If these facts are scientifically proved, if what the Committee has to say is true, there is a very definite obligation upon the Minister of Transport and his Department, and, indeed, upon this House, to see that those facts are made known to all who are concerned. If they are untrue let them be disproved; but if true they ought to be made known to every judge on the bench, to every magistrate who has to administer the law, to every police officer, and to every person who takes upon the road a highly dangerous machine. And if the facts are to be made known, there is no one upon whom the responsibility rests more than the right hon. Gentleman. It is his business to see that these facts are brought home to the minds of all concerned.

I will not occupy time in trying to prove, because I think it already has been proved, the association between the use of alcohol and road safety. The time for that has gone. The legislation already passed by this House is based upon the assumption that there is such an association. The fact that something like 80 to 90 per cent. of the municipalities of the country and the great public utility companies make abstinence an absolute condition of service for men who are driving vehicles or acting as conductors is, in itself, conclusive evidence. This problem of the association between the use of alcohol and road safety has confronted those who are responsible for the affairs of every country where there is motor transport. The strongest evidence upon this point is the action of the Minister himself, because when he published the Road Code only a few weeks ago he very wisely, as I think, drew attention to the dangers that may arise from the use of alcohol.

I am raising this question to-day, first, because I want to know what the Minister intends to do about the report; secondly, because I wish to assist in drawing public attention to the report; and, thirdly, because I think the House would like to share with the Minister in the expression of thanks which he gave to the British Medical Association and to the Committee for having given so much time to this question. I assumed that when this report was issued the one man in this country who would be most eager to publish it generally would be the Minister, and I was amazed on Wednesday when I gathered from the reply he made that he intended to take no action to secure greater publicity. He stated in reply to my question that the report was published in the "British Medical Journal" for 27th July, and was therefore generally available. A report in a professional paper is not generally available. If this House put to the Home Secretary a question about some point of English liberty, and he thought it was wise to consult, say, the Law Society, and the Law Society set up a Committee, at his request, to go into the matter, and then sent to him their report, I do not think the Home Secretary would be satisfied, or would think the country would be satisfied, if that report were to remain only in the columns of the "Law Journal".

This report was intended to be published by those who gave their time to it. They themselves drew attention to the necessity of public attention being aroused. The report was not meant for doctors. Probably the one class in this country who need this report less than the rest are the doctors, because they are best qualified to know about these things. It is not a report written by doctors for doctors. It is a report affecting practically every family in this land in as much as everyone has to use the roads, and it is generally the pedestrian who suffers, and seeing that the Report has so far been only issued in the "British Medical Journal"—with the consent of the Minister, it is his report—I suggest that it should be more widely published.

When I pressed my point of view upon the Minister by a supplementary Question, he made what I thought was a preposterous reply, saying that the expense to the British taxpayer had to be taken into consideration. The Minister has spent money with profusion in every other direction, and I think with general approval. No one has begrudged the expenditure upon the pedestrian crossings or upon the beacons, or the enormous expenditure on the widening of the roads, all ostensibly to secure public safety, and to talk about the expense of reprinting half-a-dozen columns did not do the Minister justice and, indeed, was almost ludicrous. In any campaign to reduce the figures of mortality on the roads the Minister will command the co-operation of the whole community, but any such campaign which ignores the facts in this Report is one which, I suggest, is bound to fail. The chief difficulty which the Minister will encounter in this matter is ignorance. If he cannot overcome ignorance, part of his campaign is bound to fail. In so far as ignorance upon these matters is irremovable he cannot help himself, but to the extent that it is removable the responsibility rests upon him.

I am glad the Minister has been doing something to improve the equipment of cars. A man who takes on the road a vehicle with inadequate tyres commits an offence under the law, and I believe that the Minister suggested some time ago that brakes ought to be maintained in good order, when I raised the matter in debate in this House. It is not enough to see to the brakes of the car, if the driver of the car be in an unsound condition, as he would be upon this medical evidence. I am sure that the British Medical Association did not expect that their report would be put on one side. It is not expressing thanks to them to set their report aside in this way. It is a most important document, and public interest should be aroused in it. If the facts stated in the report were fully understood throughout the country and were acted upon, we could bring about a very substantial reduction in the number of killed and injured upon the road. I am satisfied that, whatever else may be done, if this remedy be left untouched the Minister will find his plans frustrated.

I make no apology for raising a matter of such great importance. The mortality and suffering upon our roads are a very great burden and they ought also to be a burden upon the public conscience. It is a lamentable thing to reflect, as we are starting our Recess to-day, that before we meet again upon 29th October, as I assume we shall if we are not summoned earlier by Mr. Speaker, something like 1,500 people, judging by the current figures, will lose their lives on the roads, and about 50,000 people will be injured. I was calculating just now how long it would take merely to record those deaths and accidents if the House considered them upon its resumption. If we gave only one minute to each case and devoted to them every hour of every day of our Parliamentary time, we should be occupied with them for three weeks. I know that the Minister is deeply concerned about these matters; he is entitled to the co-operation of all good citizens, but he cannot achieve his purpose unless he uses the remedy suggested by this report.

These are the questions which I wish to put: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman who is to speak for the Minister, see that the report is made available to Members of this House and to the general public, because it is a publication with the imprimatur of a Government document and can command attention which would not have been given to a mere professional leaflet I Will he in his Department study what the report has to say, and, when a reasonable opportunity presents itself, tell the House what course he intends to take? I was amazed when I heard the Minister say that the report did not suggest any course of action. It was not for the doctors to suggest a course of action; they were not asked to do it. They were asked to state the scientific facts, and if they had gone on to say that the law should be amended in this or that way they might have been accused of usurping the authority of the Minister. Perhaps we may hear what request was put to those medical men. They did not understand that they were requested to advise as to any policy under the existing law. They have complied with the request, as they understood it, in stating the scientific facts based upon the most recent inquiry. I hope that the Minister will not put up such a ludicrous plea as was suggested the other day, that expense stands in the way in this matter, and that we may be assured that everything possible will be done by his Department to translate into effective action the results of this scientific investigation which has been so generously undertaken.

I am very glad that the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Isaac Foot) has introduced this very important matter. The report to which he has referred is extraordinarily interesting, and I hope that it will be very widely read by Members of this House. The report emphasises the fact that the taking of alcohol in comparatively small quantities, even hours before, may have a serious effect upon the mental qualities that are required by the drivers of motor cars. The faculties of quick decision and of immediate attention may be affected, the report shows. It is that which I hope will make this report widely read by the people of this country.

The report gives interesting figures with which I shall not detain the House. May I give one interesting fact with regard to the taking of whisky Two to three ounces of whisky, which is a comparatively small quantity, have been shown by psychological tests to diminish attention and power of control, to reduce the capacity to learn, to affect adversely the reasoning powers and to affect the powers of making movements dependent upon rapid and accurate co-ordination. The curious thing is that drivers of motor cars often think that their powers are improved by taking alcohol, that they are quicker in seeing what goes on around them and are more skilful and ready in the driving of their cars. That feeling is an illusion, because it will always be found that the taking of alcohol affects the qualities which are necessary in the driving of motor cars.

Last year in Great Britain, 2,016 drivers of motor vehicles were certified by doctors to be under the influence of drink. If the number of convictions was 2,016, it is obvious that there must have been a very large number of people in excess of that number who, when driving motor vehicles were under the influence of drink. To reduce that large number ought to be the object of the Minister of Transport. If this discussion arouses attention on the subject of the effect of alcohol upon motor driving it will have been of value. I hope that the Minister will use the report, give publicity to it and act upon it.

I do not complain in the least of the fact that the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Isaac Foot) has raised the question of the report on this, the only occasion on which he could have done so. I agree with him that the more publicity the report obtains, the better the effect will be. As he knows, both my right hon. Friend and myself will do anything possible to reduce the horrible toll of death and mutilation on the road. I think he will also agree that my right hon. Friend, during the time in which he has held his present office, has been successful to a great extent in getting the figures down, in spite of the fact that the number of motor cars on the roads has increased tremendously within the last 12 months. The hon. Member for Bodmin asks what were, if I may use the expression, the terms of reference to the British Medical Association. As he knows, the inquiry was conducted by a special Committee formed by the British Medical Council at the Minister's request, after a question asked in the House by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) and also requests from the hon. Member for Bodmin and others. Accordingly, the Minister wrote that he would be grateful for any observations which the British Medical Association might be able to make on the subject in the light of the existing knowledge and experience of the medical profession. Between the time when the report was asked for and the time when it was received, we inserted in the Highway Code a reference to the use of alcohol. It is very short, and we put it specially in the part which is addressed to all users of the road. It says:

"Before using the road, be sure that your alertness or sense of caution is not affected by alcohol or fatigue."

We put that in on purpose to meet the point made by the hon. Member that we should give as wide publicity as possible to the fact that drivers of motor vehicles should take particular care that their faculties are alert when they are driving; and, as the hon. Member knows, the Highway Code has a circulation of some 13,000,000 or 14,000,000, and is being widely read, as I happen to know. Therefore, I think the hon. Gentleman is wrong in thinking that we are not giving enough publicity to this question of alcohol. As he said, deputations were also received both in 1931 by Mr. Morrison and in 1934 by my right hon. Friend who is now President of the Board of Education. As regards publication, the report has been issued in the "British Medical Journal," which is the official Journal of the British Medical Association. That report is on sale, and no doubt reprints can be obtained by anybody interested if they wish for them. In fact, I know that they can, because I have one here. Generally speaking, a government department does not issue reports of this kind unless there is a general demand from the House, and we have seen no such demand. We really fail to see, when a report is published from one source and can be obtained from that source, why we should ask the taxpayers of this country to publish it again in spite of the fact that it is already published in one journal and is to a certain extent copyright—though I do not stress that point—

On the point of copyright, is it not a fact that the report itself could not have been published without the consent of the Minister, and that the British Medical Association said so?

Certainly. The British Medical Association asked the Minister if they might publish it, and he, of course, agreed at once. I am not making a point of the question of copyright; what I am saying is that the British Medical Association have here something in their Journal which they have taken a great deal of trouble to obtain, and in connection with which they have done a very good piece of work voluntarily. We do not want, if we can avoid it, to take away the value of this contribution which they have, and publish it in the Vote Office here unless there is a very general demand that that should be done; and up to the present we have had no reason to suppose that there is such a demand. We did try, when the report was first published, to get as much publicity for it as possible in the general Press, and I think the hon. Gentleman will agree that nearly every newspaper in this country had some article on the subject. I also hope that our debate to-day will have a certain amount of publicity. I am perfectly certain, however, and my right hon. Friend is certain, that there is no reason why we should republish the report again as a Parliamentary paper, particularly as we are pretty well assured that its circulation would be very small indeed. As regards the report itself, there was one particular sentence in it—the last sentence of all—which I think is the most important. It says:

"After taking alcohol he may believe himself"—

that is, the driver—

"to be driving better, but in fact, his body works less efficiently. This adverse effect generally occurs even if alcohol is taken in moderate quantities some hours before driving, and especially if taken in the absence of food."

I hope that publicity will be given to that statement. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the report is long and very technical, and you do not get a report of that kind widely read by motorists and people who ought to read it; but that one sentence is, I believe, the kernel of the whole report, and I hope that people who are going to drive motor cars will take it to heart. We have, in studying this report—and, of course, it is being studied in the Ministry—to use common sense. We have found that one other thing besides alcohol is almost as bad a cause of accidents, and that is fatigue. I do not know what the hon. Member for Bodmin would want us to do on this report. I do not know if he is suggesting that only a certified teetotaller should in future be allowed to drive a car—

I have not suggested that.

I was wondering what the hon. Member was going to suggest, because I do not think that total prohibition would ever commend itself to this country, particularly after certain experiments in that direction in other countries across the ocean. But we are studying the problem, and we may have to take action, as we had to take action in regard to fatigue in the case of drivers of heavy motor vehicles. As the hon. Member knows, very strenuous steps have been taken to see that they do not drive for too long, because much the same effect in the direction of blunting the faculties takes place from fatigue as from too much alcohol. People in this country are becoming more sober by education And by the force of public opinion, and that, I am certain, is the right line on which to go. The report, as I have already said, suggests no line of action. If the Committee had felt that they could usefully make any such suggestion, I see nothing in the terms of reference which would have prevented them from doing so. The hon. Member for Bodmin has himself suggested no definite line of action. If I were to suggest anything, I would suggest that what we have done by putting in the Highway Code that paragraph to all road users, by educating young people and by popular opinion, is the best thing that can be done. We suggest that this report, or the important parts of the report, should be studied and its lessons taken to heart by all good citizens, and I think I may say that the vast majority of our road users are good citizens, and do their best as far as they can to lessen the horrible toll of our roads.

I should like to raise a matter which was raised in the House on Tuesday last. It is one of the glories of our Constitution that every citizen, however obscure, who feels a sense of grievance against a State official, however highly placed, may have the opportunity of voicing that grievance, whether it be well or ill founded, in Parliament. I hope to exercise that practice this afternoon, and to voice a grievance which is deeply and genuinely felt by the managers and teachers responsible for the carrying on of a humble church school in one of the poorest working-class districts of Manchester, and on their behalf, and also on grounds of public policy, to make an appeal to the helpfulness and generosity of the Minister of Education. There is no dispute as to any material fact in the plain story—

I ought to make it plain at once that there is very great difference of fact.

The correspondence in this case, which I shall therefore read to the House, shows not the slighest difference between the Board of Education and the school as to the material facts. It may be that differences may become patent as the debate develops, but no suggestion by the Board has yet been made that any material difference exists between their version and the version I am putting before the House. At any rate no difference can arise as to the origin of this case. On 16th May certain children in the girls' department of St. Paul's School, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, were instructed to write essays on "My Native Land". It was a Jubilee task, perfectly appropriate, representing no jingoism, imperialism or anything else. All the girls wrote essays indicating love of country. One of the girls wrote an essay which contained these sentences:

"England is only a small country, but it is better than any other country. It has a good King and Queen who reign over it. It has fought many a battle with different countries. The names of our King and Queen are George and Mary and they are very good to the country."

Is there any difference between the Board of Education and the managing body as to that? There can be none. On 22nd May, one of His Majesty's inspectors of schools visited the school, and I will read the signed statement made by a young lady whom I have seen and who, I can assure the House, has no intention but to do her duty. I can also say that the greatest distress to her is that this action might have involved one of His Majesty's inspectors of schools in trouble. This is her main concern at the moment and has caused her acute distress. I have seen this lady and I ask the House to accept what she has said as a true statement of what she saw and heard on that occasion. She says:

"The inspector read, to himself, part of a child's composition on the subject My Native Land'. He was standing in front of the class though not speaking to the class. He spoke to the teacher

She speaks of herself in the third person

"He pointed to the phrase England is only a small country, but it is better than any other country'. He said That is a bold statement to make'. The teacher stood up for the patriotic point of view and told him (it being the time of the Jubilee) that she had been giving them lessons on England and that she had tried to make them feel that it was the best country because she believed it herself. The inspector argued with the teacher as to what would be done if she were German or French. Finally he said that the teacher was teaching old-fashioned imperialism."

I am sure the House will realise that this is an extremely serious matter. The hon. Gentleman was good enough to let me see last Tuesday a copy of the statement made by the teacher. I know I am not infallible, but my impression then was that the words "teaching old-fashioned imperialism" were not included in that statement. Has it in any way been altered?

The right hon. Gentleman can take it from me that this statement is dated 26th July and it is the only statement I have ever had. It is the statement I showed to my right hon. Friend the other day. It is the only statement, and it has not been touched since. It is the statement the lady wrote on the day she signed it, and it has not been altered in any way since then. What I say about the passage down to this point is that I feel most keenly about this matter from the teacher's point of view. I am not very much concerned with the implied reproof to the child. The Press has done full justice to what it calls the "My England Girl", and her essay has had a circulation considerably greater than those of the great essayists in English literature. I am not going to weary the House with the point of view of the child to-day. It is the point of view of the teacher and the managers of the school about which I am really most concerned, as I am sure the House will be.

I contend, without heat or feeling, that that reproof was wrong. I think it was wrong, first because it was given in public. I do not greatly stress that, but that, as I am instructed, is the fact. Secondly, there was nothing on earth to justify it. These words in the essay simply represent the very artless love of country which is common to all English people, regardless of birth, creed, class or age, and nothing more than that. I also think that it was a mistake on the part of the inspector because he conveyed, rightly or wrongly, to the mind of the teacher than he rather despised patriotism. The inspector stands in a very special position when he inspects these schools, because inspectors are in a position of detachment, and have to hold themselves aloof from anything which could affect the public spirit of the children or the way in which these children had been taught, so far as patriotism is concerned. It was said by my right hon. Friend, and I accept it at once, that the inspector when making the remark did not think he was making any more than a casual comment; but that does not really, in my contention, answer the matter. No comment made in a school of this type to a teacher by an inspector can rightly be called casual. These visits are rare visits. They create a great flutter of excitement in the school. The inspector is charged with the important duty of not only reporting on the education but on the tone and character of the school, and I do not think it is correct to describe any comment of that sort as a casual comment.

Another point is that you have to view this episode, not so much from the point of view of the inspector, as from the point of view of the teachers and children. A highly educated man talking to another highly educated man may say something ironical or sarcastic which is accepted as an ironical or sarcastic comment. But, as everyone knows, sarcasm to children or to a less educated man, very often misses fire altogether and is taken literally, and assuming that the comment was what is vulgarly called "leg-pulling," there was nothing to indicate that this was a humorous or "leg-pulling" observation. The teacher took it most seriously indeed. She is a young lady whose one idea is to do her duty, and she is very sorry to be dragged into this. It is only because of her sense of public duty that she committed her recollection of the incident to the statement I have read to the House. What did she do? She took the very natural course of explaining what had taken place to the head mistress, who was not there, but who tells me that the story that the teacher told her is the story which is in the statement; and she also communicated it to the rector of St. Paul's who is chairman of the school managers.

The scene now shifts from the inspector of schools to the Board of Education itself. I should like to read some short passages from the correspondence that followed. For a great national Department like the Board of Education, the manner in which they write their letters does not show in a very shining light the way in which they deal with the grievances of humble schools. Immediately after this episode, the rector of St. Pauls, on 23rd May, 1935, wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Board of Education written with no great temperance of language. I will not read it because it referred to the inspector by name. He complains that the inspector found fault with the expression that the girl put in her essay that England is the finest country in the world, said she ought not to say that and told the teacher that she was teaching old-fashioned Imperialism. As my right hon. Friend has raised a question as to the accuracy of the language, I ask the House to bear in mind that this phrase as recorded on 23rd May, immediately after the occurrence, is the same phrase as was contained in the statement and, if it were incorrect, I should imagine that the Board of Education in their reply would have traversed it. How many days does the House think it took the Board of Education to answer it? Just over a month. On 24th June, 1935, the Board of Education replied:

"We are satisfied that the incident does not bear the complexion which you place upon it and we are unable, therefore, to agree with the inferences that you draw as to its significence or to the fitness of the officer in question for his work."

On 6th July the Chairman of the school managers came back to this question:

"I presume it is not denied that the inspector acted in the manner reported as several members of the school staff can vouch for the accuracy of the account sent to the Board. As the matter is being raised at the next meeting of the school managers, I shall be glad if you will let me know what other construction the Board places on the action of the inspector, and how it reconciles such behaviour on the part of the person concerned."

That was answered on 10th July.

"Reverend Sir,

With reference to your letter of the 6th instant. I am directed to state that the Board gave careful consideration to the matter before reaching the decision conveyed in their letter of the 24th ultimo to which they have nothing to add."

On 12th July the chairman came back to the attack and wrote:

"Surely I may expect the courtesy of some short explanation as to the grounds that influenced the Board in arriving at its decision in this matter."

Later on he says:

"If there is some evidence unknown to the managers which alters the entire complexion of the affair, this evidence should be offered so that the managers may reach a different conclusion."

He went on to say that, if he did not get the information, he would place the matter before his Member of Parliament. The rector waited for 12 days and no answer was received. There seemed to be no reason for waiting another month. I think the House will agree that I should not have been fulfilling my duty as a member for Manchester had I not voiced this grievance in the House and tried to get redress for what I regard as a very unfortunate occurrence. My right hon. Friend, in answering my question on Tuesday, gave a reply which divides itself into two parts. The first was as to the right policy for the Board of Education to pursue, and the second seemed to me and to many others at the time, I am sorry to say, to be not very well grounded or thought out, because it suggested clearly that the Minister considered it unwise to treat this as a complaint of substance, and he proposed to take no further action in the matter. In the interval I am sure my right hon. Friend has had an opportunity of going further into the evidence. I suggest that I was right when I said that, so far as the documents are concerned, there never has been any contradiction or traverse put forward to challenge any statement in the letter written by the rector immediately after the occurrence. The only challenge has been as to the inferences that people might draw from the facts. Also my right hon. Friend must be conscious of the deep distress and discomfort which this episode caused to the teachers. They genuinely and sincerely felt that the words, spoken no doubt inadvertently and in haste by the inspector, chilled and chided them for their loyalty. That was their impression, and I think the House must agree that it was a very natural impression for them to gather. In those circumstances I ask the Minister and the House to consider what is the right course to take. We all say things in haste, which we repent at leisure. There are very few of us who have not committed glaring indiscretions in our day, and I am not suggesting that this is a deliberate and calculated error in diction or discipline committed by the inspector. I have no doubt that he did not realise that observations, which to him are, perhaps, ironical or sarcastic, though they may pass muster as such among educated people of his own type, to a great many people are taken absolutely literally and may cause immense pain and distress, and this is such a case.

I beg my right hon. Friend to meet this grievance by doing two simple things, which are the right, proper and natural things for a Minister in his position to do, actions which do not let down the Civil Service but which give satisfaction to managers and teachers, who, in this matter, feel genuine and sincere concern. First of all, I appeal to him to say that the Board of Education casts no reflection on the managers or teachers, particularly the teachers, at this school. I think we ought really to think all the better and not all the worse of teachers who bring up young children to be proud of the country where they were born and the future of which lies in their hands. It is a vital thing, at a time when in some parts of the country teachers who try to bring up their charges on the right lines are met with difficulties from education committees or head teachers or others who put obstacles in their way, that His Majesty's inspectors should be a shield and buckler to teachers who try to bring up children completely qualified to serve the State. I ask my right hon. Friend to make a statement so clear and so explicit as to make it known to all His Majesty's subjects, including everyone concerned in education, from His Majesty's inspectors of schools, down to the humblest teacher, that no reflections on a child's pure love of country, one of the wholly beautiful things in life, will be tolerated in any school.

May I say at once that I am glad of the opportunity that this debate has afforded of making a much fuller statement upon this unfortunate incident than was possible at Question time. I noticed that in an interview which my hon. and learned Friend gave to the Press he complained that the Board of Education had not treated this as a matter of importance. I can assure him that from the moment this came to my notice I have treated it personally as a matter of great importance from the general point of view, and, if I may remind the House, of very particular importance to the particular individual against whom these allegations are made. So I make no apologies to the House for, I am afraid, having to detain it at some length, because I am sure that the House of Commons, if it should desire to-day to pass judgment upon the conduct of this inspector, would not wish to do so without the fullest possible information and without the opportunity that it has not yet had of hearing his side of the story. Although I gratefully acknowledge the moderation with which my hon. and learned Friend has put the case to-day, I am sure that he will realise that the case has been repeated and broadcast outside without that moderation, and it is not only necessary to meet the moderate expression of views that may be made in this House to-day, but also the less moderate expressions which have been made outside as a, result of this incident.

Let me, in the first place, clear away any matter of principle. It seems to me that the only general issues which can possibly be raised by this incident are these two questions: First of all, Should a child be rebuked for saying that her country is the best in the world? and Should a teacher be rebuked for teaching her that? Surely, to those two questions there can be no two answers. It is not a matter of what political party to which you belong. We all of us believe that pride in one's own country is quite consistent with an appreciation of the merits of other countries, and we believe that if you teach a child to be proud of its own country, it is much more likely to be a worthy citizen of that country in the future. Speaking personally, I feel that any sort of political propaganda in schools is vicious, and it is unfair that a man or woman of an older age, with superior training, should take advantage of the position in which they are placed, but of all forms of political propaganda the one which was designed to ridicule the spontaneous generous love of the child for its own country is the one most to be condemned. Looking at the papers upon this matter I do not think that I can do better than read, the first part of the answer which I gave in the House on Tuesday:

"The Board would consider as highly improper any attempt by one of their inspectors to discourage among school children love of and pride in their own country."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th July, 1935; col. 2474, Vol. 304.]

I do not see how it is possible to say more clearly or emphatically what is the official policy of the Board upon a matter of this kind. I have made that statement only because I want the House to realise that we are dealing here, not with broad general principles, but with a particular question of fact. Does the incident in question, the incident which to-day is being discussed, bring the inspector concerned within that statement of the Board's policy which I have laid down, and therefore make it necessary that action should be taken upon the matter? Let me say at once that if I thought that the allegations contained in the question were true, then I should have taken a very different view upon the matter. I will read the allegations. First of all, that in the presence of the staff and the children he reproved the little girl for having stated that England was the finest country in the world, and, secondly, that he reproved, in the hearing of the children, a teacher in the school for having taught the little girl in question old-fashioned Imperialism.

I interrupted my hon. and learned Friend, and I am sure that he did not mind my doing so, to say at the outset that there is a complete conflict of evidence as to whether these allegations can be substantiated or not. If any misunderstanding arose owing to earlier letters of the Board on this subject, I can only apologise, although I think that the first letter my hon. and learned Friend quoted did put very well the Board's view on the whole matter at issue. But I can say at once that I now feel that it would have been much better if, in the earlier stages, fuller and more detailed answers had been sent to the managers. I think that my hon. and learned Friend will agree with me, although I do not want to discuss the letters of the managers, that the original letter was, in fact, couched in rather immoderate terms, and was not such as would be likely to receive a sympathetic reply from its recipients. After all, those to whom one writes in Government Departments are entitled to the ordinary courtesy of correspondence which one accords in one's own private life.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is taking action to' correct the correspondents of the Board?

My hon. Friend had better allow me to continue. We are discussing a very important subject, and he should allow me to get to the end of my statement. It seems to me that much the best thing that I can do is to give to the House an account of this incident as given to me by the inspector concerned. First of all, the House will have to judge not only the facts of the case, but what inference is to be drawn from the facts which they consider established and obviously to do that it would be desirable, had it been possible, that they should have the same opportunity, as I had, of seeing this inspector. But as, of course, this is impossible, I fear that I must, in order to give the proper background to this discussion, tell them something about the record of the inspector.

And about the records of the teacher and the child.

This is a most serious matter that could possibly arise, and I am sure that Members of the House, who are now acting in a judicial capacity, want to deal with it judicially, and I hope that we shall keep it on a plane of that kind. I noticed that one paper said that this inspector must obviously have been a young and reckless man. He is a man of over 50 with a considerable period of service. He has an excellent war record. He enlisted in the Army at the beginning of the war, won a commission in the ranks, was twice wounded, and was in hospital until well on in the year 1919, and he was for many years before he took up his present position church warden of his local church. There is one other point, and on this occasion I am entitled to say with regard to it, that it is a great tradition in this country that we never, in fact, inquire into the personal political views of our Civil servants. As a Minister you can work alongside a man for years and not at the end know to which political party in his private life he may belong, and you get the same support and loyalty from them all. Frankly, my judgment in this matter would not be in the least affected by what political party this man belonged to, but, in view of the fact, that this is the most serious charge that could be made against him, I think it is only fair to the House, in order to enable them to judge what was the meaning of any words that he used, to say that he is in fact known to be a man of political views which hon. Members opposite would describe as old-fashioned. I have said all that because I want to establish to the House that the individual in question is a man whose personal patriotism is beyond question or criticism.

Now as to the two allegations which are contained in the question placed on the Order Paper by my hon. and learned Friend for the subject matter of which he made himself responsible. Let me deal with the incidents which gave rise to them. The first of the two allegations—the one to which my hon. and learned Friend, as he stated in the House to-day, attaches the least importance, but the one which has certainly got the most publicity in the Press in the last few days—is the allegation that the inspector reproved, in the presence of the staff and the children, a little girl. The inspector meets that allegation by a complete denial. He says that not only did he not reprove the little girl, but that he never spoke to the little girl and, owing to circumstances which I will explain later, he never even knew which girl in the class it was who had written the essay which is the subject of this incident. If I may say so my hon. and learned Friend in reading out the statement of the teacher, did not give the House anything which would bear out this allegation, for the teacher's own story was that all the remarks that were made were made to her in an aside. Therefore I do not know on what this allegation is based.

I think my right hon. Friend misunderstood what I said. I never used the words "in an aside". The statements that were made to her were made in front of the class and, as I understand, in the hearing of all.

I am much obliged to my hon. and learned Friend. I gather now that the allegation is not that he personally rebuked the child, although I rather understood from the form of the Question that the child overheard the conversation that had taken place with the mistress and that that meant that he had also rebuked the child. Therefore, I have only to deal with the second allegation, that the inspector reproved the teacher in the hearing of the children. Let me say at once that whatever the nature of the rebuke, whether it was a rebuke of her views on patriotism or a rebuke of the way she taught arithmetic, for an inspector to rebuke a teacher in the presence of the children would itself be gravely improper. That is not a thing which an inspector of long service would be in the least likely to do.

Let us see what the sequence of events were and judge whether, in fact, whether the words used were a reproof or not, they were used within the hearing of the children. The inspector was visiting the school in the normal course of events, and he came into this class and, first of all, examined the children in mathematics. Then he questioned them in a certain amount of history. It was just before the end of the period, before the break came, that he wanted to examine the written work which, as my hon. and learned Friend has explained, was not being done at the time but had been done a week before, and had been corrected by the teacher, and was then in the form of piles of essays lying upon the teacher's desk. The inspector went to the desk and, with the teacher, began looking through the essays. While he was still looking through the essays the time came for the break. The teacher dismissed the class and the children, of course, began to go out. It happened that the essay which is the subject of this debate was the last essay in the pile. At the time the inspector read it the class was already dispersing, and he says deliberately that he is convinced that no child could have overheard, unless they had been deliberately eavesdropping, the conversation that took place between him and the teacher. Even if they had been able to overhear it they would have been quite unable to identify from the form of the conversation to what particular essay it referred. Hon. Members who have had any experience of schools in this country will realise that conversation between a man and a woman standing at the desk at the time the class is dispersing is not one which is overhead at any very great distance.

Now let me come to the actual question of what was said by the inspector to the teacher. As I have said, this was the last essay at which the inspector was looking, and he was struck when he was reading it by the rather crude but very definite form that the essay took. Incidentally, I am informed that this essay which has since won world-wide publicity in the columns of our daily press, was at the time awarded five marks out of ten by the teacher. When the inspector was looking through the essay he pointed to the particular passage to which my hon. and learned Friend referred, and which had been read out to the House, and said, in an amused way:

"We do not usually see it put quite as strongly as that now."

I think hon. Members will agree that that was not necessarily a very dangerous statement to make. In answer to it the teacher began to give her views upon the approach to patriotism and the teaching of it. She is a girl, obviously, with a very definite viewpoint on the matter, and no doubt she expressed admirable sentiments in an admirable way. The inspector had no desire, as he had his work to do, to enter into a prolonged conversation, and he brought the conversation to a close—it had lasted, according to his statement, something like half a minute—with the phrase: "Did not the old-fashioned imperialisms in the past sometimes lead to war?" I will have a word to say later on about the wisdom of making remarks at all of that kind, but I would ask the House to realise that what we are dealing with at the moment is the allegation that he reproved the teacher for teaching old-fashioned imperialism.

When he gave me his account of the conversation he particularly stressed two points. The first, was that he had never used the word "teaching" in this connection at all, and that whatever remarks he made were in reference to the conversation he was having with the teacher, and not in regard to the essay or the way the child had been taught. The second point he stressed was that he used, not the phrase "old-fashioned imperialism" but "old-fashioned imperialisms", in the plural and not the singular, and that what he had in his mind had no particular reference to this country or to this child but was in reference to the teaching of history and the dangers into which those sentiments had led. Anyone who thinks of the Germany of Bismarck and the France of Napoleon will not quarrel with a statement of that kind.

There is only one other point. The time was 11 o'clock in the morning. The inspector says that he did not notice at the time that the teacher was in any way disturbed or distressed. That may be purely a lack of observation, but he points out that he was in the school for the rest of the morning, that he saw the headmistress after 12 o'clock, and no reference was made to the incident, and that the other inspector continued at the school until it closed in the afternoon, and that she too saw the headmistress and no reference was made to this matter during the whole of the day.

Let me deal with the inspector's answer to the charges which are made. In the first place, I think it is clear that the allegation that he personally and definitely rebuked the child has been dropped. As to the incident with regard to the teacher, he made it quite plain to me that he had no intention whatever of rebuking the teacher, that, in fact, as he said, he had seen nothing about which to rebuke her and regretted that anything he said could possibly have been taken by her in that sense. The House has not had an opportunity of seeing or hearing this man, and, in view of all these things, I accepted both his explanation and the regrets he expressed. But I did tell him that I thought it was ill-advised for an inspector in the course of his official visits even to enter into a discussion of this kind in circumstances which might lead to misunderstanding. Conversations which may be perfectly innocent and harmless between two individuals of equal status, may lead to misunderstanding and, indeed, to misrepresentation, if they take place between people in these particular circumstances. Of course, it is the common practice for inspectors to enter into conversation with teachers, to make challenging remarks to them on various subjects and out of such conversations to get an idea of the teacher's personality and outlook, but, in future, they will, I know, exercise great discretion as to the circumstances and the occasions upon which such a thing is done.

That is the whole story. I wish I could have given the full facts at an earlier stage, but I am sure the House will realise that it was not possible to do so within the limits of a Parliamentary answer, although I should have been glad to have given them to the hon. and learned Member if he had approached me. I hope the House will accept the answer that, while the Board holds the most stringent views on this subject, yet, in view of all the facts of the case, I do not feel it was one in which disciplinary action was necessary. Hon. Members, I know, felt themselves unable to do so, because I was told afterwards that some people felt that my answer had been weak and that everyone would have been satisfied if I had reprimanded the inspector. But if my answer had been considered strong, I wonder whether it would have been considered fair to the individual in question, an individual with a most worthy record and who, I am sure, the House will agree, acted without any ill intentions at all, even if in some of his acts he was ill-advised. I am sure that the last thing that this House ever wants any Minister to do is to purchase a patriotic reputation at the expense of a sense of justice. I do not yield to anybody, not even to the people who have been shouting the loudest in the past few days, in my pride in my own country. I want my children to learn the greatness of its past and of its future, and I want the children of others to learn it, too. I think they are more likely to be proud of their country if we keep it a country of which they can be proud.

I resent the imputation that I should pass in silence any attempt to ridicule that pride or shatter their childish ideals. All over the world in the last few years we have seen things to make us shudder. We have seen political opponents murdered, butchered and confined, and in some countries it has been done in the name of patriotism. One of the things of which we are justly proud in this country, one of the things which justifies that little girl in saying that this is the best country in the world, is that here we are just as patriotic as they are anywhere else, but we never allow our patriotism to degenerate into injustice. This sense of justice may be one of the last bulwarks of political liberty and democracy in Western Europe. The House has now heard all the facts upon which I formed my judgment. I leave the House to form its judgment upon them.

We shall all be grateful to the President of the Board of Education for treating the matter with the gravity he has, and for having examined the case so dispassionately. Every hon. Member, I am sure, will agree in deploring the introduction into our schools by anyone of anything in the nature of political propaganda. It has been my privilege to be a teacher in a school for 11 years and I have also been associated officially with the Board of Education on two occasions. I can say with confidence from my own experience that the number of allegations, whether well or ill-founded, which has ever been made with regard to propaganda in our schools has been extremely few. I have never known of any such accusation being advanced against a teacher in any school where I was employed. I am sure it is the desire of every hon. Member that our schools should be completely protected against any abuse of the confidence reposed in the teachers by the teaching of political propaganda.

The hon. and learned Member for Moss Side (Sir G. Hurst) presented his case with great moderation. It rests upon the allegation that a child was reproved by the inspector on the occasion of his visit to the school. From my own experience I can easily visualise the situation. I know exactly what happens on the occasion of an inspector's visit. The inspector very rarely discusses the work of the children in the presence of the children. Indeed, never in my recollection has an inspector discussed the work presented to him in copy books and so forth in the presence of children. It is almost invariably done when the children are leaving at the end of the morning or afternoon sessions and before the inspector leaves the particular classroom in which he has been engaged. I cannot conceive, from my experience, the possibility of a child overhearing anything which the inspector might chance to say to the teacher, and, as I see it, the allegation in regard to the observation made by the inspector must necessarily fall.

Will the hon. Gentleman explain why it must necessarily fall, merely because in his experience he has never known such a thing to happen?

Because, as I say, this particular part of the inspector's work is invariably done at the end of the session and before he leaves the classroom. The hon. and learned Gentleman said he was most concerned with the teacher. Let me deal for a moment with our concern for the child. I wonder how much regard for the well-being of this child has been shown in connection with this business. Let me read a passage from a newspaper. It is headed:

"Maud Mason Gets a Film Star Reception in London."

The newspaper account goes on as follows. The passage is long but is worth reading:

"Thirteen-year-old Maud Mason arrived in London from Manchester yesterday as the guest of the 'Daily Express' to prepare for her visit to the House, of Commons to-day no hear the debate which started with her now famous Jubilee essay on 'My Native Land.'

And Maud, an unknown schoolgirl in a simple blue frock, had a greater reception than most film stars reaching London after months of advance publicity.

A few moments before her train slid into Euston Station, photographers and reporters spread themselves along the arrival platform. A news-reel cameraman arrived with apparatus to take 'shots' of Maud.

They waited to ask Maud about the essay in which she said 'England is better than any other country,' and so drew down on her teacher a rebuke from a school inspector for old-fashioned Imperialism.'

Then Maud, a little girl in a blue frock, stepped out of a compartment with her mother.

Camera lights flashed, and reporters shouldered each other in frantic efforts to draw either Maud or her mother into conversation.

I guided the party into the nearest taxicab to shouts of—

'Just a few lines, Mrs. Mason.' 'How do you feel about it Maud?' 'You might say just something—anything will do.'"

I venture to suggest that anything has done, in the course of these discussions. I am not accusing the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I would ask this question of those who are concerned with the wellbeing of this child. What do they believe will be the impression left on this child's mind by listening to this discussion? Will it be good? I think that it will be bad for the child to have this false notoriety forced upon her in obedience to a mere press stunt.

It will do her good to hear for herself that the House upholds the child who says that this country is the best country in the world.

How can it be good for the child to hear this discussion concerning herself in connection with a matter of this sort? How can it be good to give her an exaggerated opinion of her own importance? How can it be good to teach a child to believe that some little error committed by an inspector—if there has been an error—can be exaggerated into an issue of first-class importance in this way. The thing is a monstrous imposition upon the child and indeed upon the public of this country.

I turn from that side of the question to another. I do not complain of the hon. and learned Gentleman raising this matter in the House, but I think that even if the Board did not give satisfaction to the correspondent who wrote about the matter originally there was no necessity to raise it as a first-class issue. What was to prevent the correspondent handing over the correspondence to his Member of Parliament and inviting that Member to go to the Minister and discuss it? That is done over and over again. Many of us receive accounts of grievances from our constituents. We take those grievances to the Minister responsible and we find out the facts. In this case no attempt has been made to find out the facts. This inspector has been pilloried in the Press, north, south, east and west in the most un-English way. Until to-day no one has heard a statement of the case by the inspector himself. In spite of that fact, this stunt, for it is nothing else, has been carried on to the detriment, I believe, of the child's wellbeing and mentality, and it might well have been to the detriment of the inspector's future. As to the observation made by the child, we have all probably said over and over again that our country is the best in the world. Many of us entertain the belief still. But the question arises all the same, whether it is wise for us to allow even children to commit themselves to observations of that kind without a quiet attempt to modify those observations—observations which cannot arise from experience. After all it is a natural sentiment for us to entertain, but we must be careful that we give to children the desire to get balanced judgments upon these matters, even such a matter as the appeal our own country makes to us.

I think I express the views of most hon. Members when I say that this is largely a storm in a teacup. If hon. Members really want to raise issues of this sort they are not the only people who can do so. Let me recall to them that not many weeks ago the manager of a school publicly declared that when he was called upon to appoint teachers to his school, he would ask each candidate whether he was a Socialist—whether he was a member of the Labour party—and, if the answer was in the affirmative, he would not appoint that person as a teacher. We raised that matter, but we did not raise a storm about it, as we might have done. Errors of that sort occur from time to time. They are small, after all. They are just the things which ordinary people are subject to, inspectors as everyone else, and we ought not, I think, to exaggerate them as this incident has been exaggerated to-day.

May I say one last word in regard to inspectors generally? When I was a teacher I rather dreaded the visit of an inspector to my school, not so much because of anything that was to the disadvantage of the inspector as because of my own demerits as a teacher. But the relationship between teachers and inspectors in the last few years has been transformed. There is no perpetuation of the old division between inspector and teacher. They discuss the business of the school, so to speak, as man to man, in a comradely, friendly kind of way, and that change in the atmosphere in the schools has been all to the good of the teacher, the school, and, I believe, also the inspector. I have nothing but words of admiration for the enormous service that our inspectors of schools discharge. It is an invaluable service to our educational system generally, and I fail to see having heard what the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. and learned Gentleman have said, that even if—and I say "if" advisedly—there had been some sort of, shall I say, indiscretion—and that, as far as I can see, is not the case—that it would have been worthy of the fuss that has been made to-day.

I am frankly glad that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Moss Side (Sir G. Hurst) has raised this matter, because I think the Debate has been of the greatest value on a matter which is, after all, of very considerable national importance. I only desire to speak very briefly, because I have many friends in the teaching profession, friends with differing political opinions, many of them holding the views of hon. Members opposite, and I would say of the great majority of those men and women that they are always careful to leave those political opinions outside the classroom and that those who do take them into the classroom with them very often find curious and, from their point of view, disappointing results. If the House will excuse a personal note in this matter, I happened to be born a member of the Society of Friends and was educated at one of their schools, where I was impregnated day in and day out with very strong pacifist ideals and politics of what were then known, and are known now, as of the Gladstonian brand. I owe a great deal to that school and to my head master, but the effect of that education upon me was to turn me into a member of the Tory party, a member of the Church of England, and a supporter of the blue-water school of thought, as opposed to what I think one might not describe unfairly as the bilge-water school of thought.

I want to make this suggestion about the case which the House has been discussing this morning, that men of education, teachers and school inspectors who intended to abuse their position for the purpose of disseminating political propaganda among the children would do it in a very much more subtle manner than that which has been described this morning. An inspector would know perfectly well the consequences of such action had it been deliberate, consequences which have in fact occurred today. He would have known very well, and that is what puzzles me, frankly, with regard to the publicity which has been given to this case. I imagine this inspector being possibly a person of a slightly facetious frame of mind. There is nothing more unfortunate than for an inspector to develop a sense of humour, or a schoolmaster for that matter.

Or a politician.

If he develops a sense of humour in the hearing of children, he is very often misunderstood, as many of us know, and I imagine this inspector's mind, he being the type of man the Minister has told us he is, running somewhat on the lines:

"'What do they know of England who only England know?' What are the reasons upon which this little girl bases the statement that her country is the finest in the world"—.

we all know that—

"and what are the reasons which she has given?"

My hon. and learned Friend has allowed me to read the remainder of the essay, and I see in it one reason which appeals to me very strongly. I see that the young lady, when drawing to a conclusion, said:

"In other countries the men generally kiss one another, but in this one they merely shake hands."

That is a reason which would appeal to many hon. Members in this House as a very solid one for giving this point of view. But surely this case is not one in which an important official has abused his position for the purpose of deliberate disparagement of our institutions or our country. It is not a case of a man paid by State money using it even for anti-patriotic propaganda, so far as I can see. Had he committed this offence, if it is one, in many other countries, he would be at this moment in a concentration camp, and the matter would not be under discussion on the floor of the national assembly.

I want to say, as a very strong Conservative myself,that I think this is no hanging matter. I believe that the publicity which it has had to-day is more than sufficient punishment for any offence which the inspector may have committed. I think at the same time we are indebted to my hon. and learned Friend for giving the matter the publicity of debate, if only for the reason that I should like to agree whole-heartedly with the sentiments of the writer of this now world-famous essay, that this is the finest country in the world to live in, largely because we have a Parliament in which, if I may say so after a very short experience, we develop a wonderful toleration towards one another's opinions, and it is largely the finest country in the world to live in because it possesses a House of Commons with a sense of tolerance and a sense of proportion, which I hope will be lived up to this afternoon.

I should like to add a very few words to the very interesting discussion which we have had. The question before us must have been of deep importance to anyone who cares for education, and the discussion has been very valuable because it has drawn from both sides of the House a definite expression of the view that the position of a teacher should not be used for political propaganda. That, unfortunately, is occasionally forgotten, but not so often as some people believe. There are two unfortunate circumstances in this matter. The first is that the inspector should have left on the mind of the teacher the impression that the essay did not express sentiments with which he agreed, and the second regrettable thing is that the Board of Education did not at once respond to the first letter written by the chairman of the governors. I will say, in passing, that if the chairman of the governors believed that the inspector had reproved the little girl for writing such an essay, it is only right that he should have written to the Board as he did. But I think it will be regretted that the Board did not at once, understanding that, deal with the matter and obtain the facts of the case as they have been put before us to-day by the President himself.

I think the way in which the matter has been dealt with by the President of the Board does put a very different complexion upon it. It is the duty of teachers and inspectors to teach children to think, and not what to think, and if a teacher or inspector uses his position to influence politically the young mind he is guilty of betraying his trust. It is well that we should have had the principle affirmed in this House that the schools should not be used for that purpose. The girl said in her essay that England is the finest country in the world. It is, and why is it? It is because no one, Tory or Socialist, reactionary or reformer—

If you said that, you would be equally wrong with the inspector. Surely there is a little bit of the country that is not England, and if you said that, some Scottish patriot would get up and censure you. We seem to be getting to a state now when a man cannot say anything unless he is censured.

The hon. Gentleman seems jealous because I did not include Scotland. I am quite ready to say "Britain." To continue what I was saying, Britain is the finest country in the world, because all men and women of any degree are free under the law to express their opinions. They are not free, as teachers, to use the schools as a means of political propaganda. This Debate has been of great importance because it can be referred to in future as a Debate in which the principle was laid down that our schools should be regarded as means of training the young mind, free from any attempt at political bias.

I do not want to say anything about the conduct of the teacher or inspector, or even of the chairman of the managers, but to refer to the conduct of the Press. I do not remember in recent history anything that has been so discreditable as the Press comments on this matter. We are talking about love of our country, and I do not take second place to anybody in that regard. I do not lose an opportunity of bringing children round the House and of telling them that, in my view, in spite of all its defects, this country is the best in the world. One of the things about the country that I admire—it was referred to by the hon. and learned Gentleman who brought this matter forward, and by the President—is that we are generally fair-minded. Nobody, however, will say that the Press has been fair-minded in regard to this case. They took advantage of the child and of the child's parents, and even of the hon. and learned Member who voiced the complaint in the House to-day, but the one thing they did not do was to get any expression of the view from the gentleman who is in the dock. After all, the man in the dock is the inspector, and there was in the Press no signs of that fairness which never condemns a man without trial. He was never given the opportunity of going into the dock or the witness box, but was treated as if he were an anti-patriot and perhaps a member of this party, because a section of the Press usually regards members of this party as unpatriotic. The attitude of the Press in this case has been discreditable in the extreme, and I hope that we shall not often have cases exaggerated in the way that this has been. If we do, we shall not long be able to continue to say that our country is the best in the world.

I am glad to have the opportunity of raising the question of distressed areas—what are now called special areas. Most of my remarks will be about the conditions in my own division. I feel strongly that this should not be a party question at all. Therefore, I propose to be as non-controversial as possible. I can see nothing good arising out of the abuse of the Government or in making statements about what should be done and what can be done, unless those who criticise are able to bring forward constructive ideas as to how their ideas can be carried out. This problem is a world problem, and I am not overstating it when I say that there are about 40,000,000 people in the world out of employment. Other countries have failed to solve this question. Some of them have relieved it to an extent by forced labour akin to slavery, and by enlisting a lot of people into their great armies. I do not believe that ideas of this sort will do any good in this country. Hard business problems and practical details have to be tackled. Light-hearted general schemes are no good. They have to be worked out in detail. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) said in a speech some time ago that he was told, when he came into the House, that he should always be constructive when he spoke, or not speak at all. I seldom speak here, and although I am old in years I am young enough to try to carry out that advice by endeavourtng to be constructive in anything I say.

The other day when this subject was discussed I found very few constructive ideas coming from those who spoke. There was the idea of nationalisation, but on looking up the results of nationalisation I really cannot support the idea. I would just give one or two figures showing what has been lost by States trying to run businesses. The United States of America lost £670,000,000 in shipping, Canada £16,000,000, Australia £14,000,000 and France £43,000,000. In State railways and mines you have the same story, and State trading in Australia is very much the same story.

There are those who seem to wish to spend a great deal of money. I do not dispute for a moment that if we spent enormous sums it would undoubtedly do good for a time, but money will run short and then bankruptcy and more unemployment will result. We all know what is wanted. We all know of the distress and misery, and it is our duty and every citizen's duty to try to help the Government to produce some scheme to relieve the situation. We all have our distressed areas, and I have no doubt that when the Bill was brought in to deal with the special areas there were requests to other hon. Members from their areas to have some of that £2,000,000 spent in their divisions. In fact we Scottish Members had a general request that the whole of Scotland should be made a special area. I pointed out in reply that no doubt England and Wales would want the same thing if it were granted to Scotland, and that if you spread this £2,000,000 throughout the whole country it would amount to a shilling a week perhaps for a short time, with no experience gained and nothing coming out of the expenditure.

I am sure that the House will agree with me that the acute suffering of the individual in other distressed areas is just as bad for the individual as in the special areas. I look on with the greatest admiration at the patience with which those all over the country in these areas have waited, hoping against hope that out of the experiment in the special areas something good would come to them. The figure in the special areas as regards unemployment is 439,000; that means that in the rest of the country we have a million and a half at least of unemployed spread out in our various constituencies.

The Government have perhaps been too much inclined to concentrate on these special areas, as in my view there is no doubt that no real good can come out of any scheme unless it is going to assist the whole country and not only certain areas. What I mean is that the special areas are mostly coal areas, and unless the whole country is going to benefit by any scheme you are not going to have an increase in the consumption of coal and you are not going to have benefits brought to these special areas. Although I have great admiration for and appreciation of what the Government have done to relieve unemployment, I feel that now the time has come when some definite move should be made. No matter how small, there should be something for all of us to get hold of, some idea that we can help to push throughout the whole country and so bring a little hope into our constituencies for these suffering people. I do not know whether the Government have up to now come to any conclusions in regard to the Commissioners' Report, but I do hope that my right hon. Friend will this afternoon be able to say something which will enable us to go back to our divisions and give a note of hope to our constituents.

The constructive proposals which I am about to make are the result of hearing the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell) and the hon. Member who discussed the distress of the Rhondda Valley. What is it that causes industries and factories to establish themselves in certain areas, and what is it that causes some of them to wish to move from those areas? There are various reasons—local rates, raw materials, markets, harbours and so on—but the most important reason of all is the question of transport. The hon. Member who referred to the Rhondda Valley spoke of the difficulty of getting good cheap sites for new factories. That is not only applicable to the Rhondda Valley but to other places also. I make this suggestion to the Government, that they should very carefully look into the possibility of subsidising freights to the special areas and the great distressed areas in regard to raw materials and conveying manufactures to the various markets; and I feel that that would help very much indeed as an incentive to start new industries in those areas. The Government might also look into the question of being able to provide cheap sites for new industries in those areas. I believe that these two ideas, if carried into effect, would materially assist in bringing new industries to these distressed areas.

Most of us realise the appalling cost of freightage. Every week I send my mother a basket of vegetables from Newbury, which is not very far from London, and the cost of the transport from the station at Newbury to my mother's house is far in excess of the value of the vegetables. When one thinks of that one must realise that transport, and the cost thereof, is of enormous importance in this problem. I feel that what I have suggested could be done without any vast expenditure, and as the Government have told us that they are willing and anxious to spend money on something that would help, here, I believe, is an opportunity. I want to touch also on shipping, because it affects my own division particularly, though to nothing like the extent that it affects other divisions. I will make only one observation upon it. I feel that the time is coming when, in regard to shipping, we must do unto others as they do unto us—when is suits us.

There is another constructive idea which I wish to bring before the House. It is not the first time I have spoken on it, because I made my maiden speech on it, and, although it can only be started in a small way I believe it ought to be tackled again. I refer to emigration to the Colonies and the Dominions. I know that there are difficulties, but I do not believe that they are insurmountable if we here take full responsibility for the failures. The cost of maintaining a man and his family here cannot be less than £80 to £90 a year, which means 3 per cent. on a capital sum of £2,500, and I feel I am putting it high if I say that we can settle people on the land here or in the Dominions and Colonies for at least £1,200. I am particularly anxious about the populating of our Dominions and Colonies by foreigners. In Canada in the last 10 years over 600,000 foreigners have settled and made good. I believe that what they do we can do. It is said, "You are going to drive people from their homes." Nonsense. It will be all voluntary. And I myself do not believe in the idea, which is so often put about, "Oh, yes, but the foreigner will stick it where our fellows will not." I spent the early part of my life doing manual labour with all sorts and conditions of men, of all nationalities, and I have yet to learn that the Britisher is not as tough as any foreigner I ever came across.

The spirit of enterprise which has made our great nation into the great Empire it is to-day is still inherent in our young people, still inherent in a great many of the men who are now at work and are ambitious and wish to get on in the world. It is quite certain that our Empire, which is now sparsely populated, will be populated far more than it is to-day. We all know that there is room in it for hundreds of millions more people, and there ought to be a continuous effort going on, not only to develop the Empire, but also to relieve unemployment, and, incidentally, make new markets for our manufactures from this country. I know that great numbers of people cannot be dealt with, but let us get in the thin end of the wedge, so that we may feel that at least something is being done.

I feel that there is a sort of gap between the Commissioners and the Executive, and I should like to see a department instituted, with a Minister in the Cabinet, such as my right hon. Friend the noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy), who is Minister without Portfolio, which should be continually sitting, receiving deputations, receiving schemes, studying this question and doing nothing else. I believe such a department would bring out a lot of information from people all over the country who at present do not know where to go. The Minister to whom I have referred is called facetiously by some, "The Brains Ministers". I know of nobody whom I would more like to see in that position. If such a Department were started it would help new industries, it would help the development of our Empire, it would help to relieve our unemployed and help manufacturers in this country, and, what we so sadly need throughout the country, would bring a bright cloud on to the dark horizon of many of our people.

Hon. Members must feel very grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for Montrose (Lieut.-Colonel Kerr) for having raised this question and given us an opportunity to discuss it. I, too, represent another nonscheduled distressed area. The average number of persons in receipt of poor relief throughout the country is 269 per 10,000. In Anglesey, according to the last available figures, they number 473 per 10,000 of the population, which is higher than in any other county in England and Wales except Durham, Glamorgan and Monmouth. The numbers in receipt of relief on account of unemployment is 155 per 10,000 of the population, and this is higher than in any county in England and Wales, except Durham, which has 156. It is a curious thing to find depressed areas in an agricultural part of the county, although it is not as curious as it was some years ago. There is a great deal of distress in the agricultural part of the county, although most unemployment distress is in the town of Holyhead. That town is almost entirely dependent upon the cross-channel traffic to the Irish Free State, and it is now a victim of the Anglo-Irish dispute. It can, and I have no doubt that it will, be argued that Government action has been directly responsible in many ways for creating unemployment in some areas, but there can be no doubt that Government action has been directly responsible for the grave state of unemployment in the areas to which I am referring. I make no particular complaint about that, because when this issue last came before the House I voted in support of the Government. I would ask the Minister to recognise that the Government, when they close a dockyard, have a certain responsibility to see that measures are taken to relieve unemployment in the area. I hope that the Minister will be able to treat this area as a special area, and perhaps to give it special consideration.

Last week we debated the scheduled areas. The hon. and gallant Member who has initiated this debate pointed out that by far the larger section of the unemployed are outside those scheduled areas. It is not unreasonable, on this last day before we separate, if hon. Members ask the Government whether they have any proposals to deal with areas which, although not included in the special areas or within those arbitrarily drawn lines, still respond to every test of heavy unemployment. We heard a great deal about transference from the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) in the debate last week. Far too great emphasis is laid upon transference at this time. Unless the volume of trade increases, transference simply means spreading unemployment over a larger area. As the Under-Secretary for the Home Department pointed out, in his very interesting report in regard to transference,

"The limiting factor must continue to be the capacity of the more fortunate districts to absorb workers from depressed areas without arousing local hostility."

I gather that that means without prejudice to those who are already in the labour market or who may have to enter it. Spreading unemployment over a wider area cannot be considered a solution to the problem.

One or two constructive suggestions were made by the hon. and gallant Member for Montrose, who said he wondered whether the Government could provide cheap sites for industries. The Prime Minister appealed to industries the other day to move to the distressed areas, where that was possible and practicable, but the only result of that appeal so far has been a movement in the opposite direction. One of the great industries in South Wales has announced an intention of moving to a more prosperous area. The burden of rates in distressed areas must weigh heavily in the balance against a movement of industry towards them, but apart from that, no industry or business man will extend to or open a branch in a distressed area unless he is reasonably assured of a market for his produce. The question we have to ask is where that new market is to come from. That is fundamental and basic in the problem of unemployment at this moment. It does not seem as though the new market were coming from foreign sources, if the increase in our export trade continues as small as it was last year. Are we to find it in the home market? The President of the Board of Trade said some time ago that the home market had reached saturation point. The greatest hope is in the distressed areas themselves. They can and will provide a potential new market for the new industries which must be established there, but it is impracticable for new industries to establish themselves in those areas until the new market has been created.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman who raised this subject has made constructive suggestions to the Government, who have been greatly assisted from time to time in this House by suggestions, some of which they have not thought wise to adopt. Suggestions have been made by the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Macmillan), and the Government have also had the assistance of my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), some of whose plans have been considered and rejected by the Government. Because the Government have disposed of the plans, they have not disposed of the problem. The Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke some time ago of the danger of sacrificing the substance for the shadow. Where is the substance? We have not seen it. Where are the Government's alternative proposals to those which have been rejected?

The Government have delegated their responsibility for providing work in the distressed areas first of all to societies and now to a Commissioner. I gather from what the Minister said last week that, after some months of study of the problem, the Commissioner has discovered that among his powers to alleviate unemployment the provision of work does not seem to be one. In spite of everything that has been said, only £2,000,000 has been apportioned to the distressed areas, and we are separating without voting another penny. Hon. Members may say that £2,000,000 is something. It is. So is a shower in the drought. It is very refreshing, but it does not get to the root of the trouble. The Government say they are agreed—or perhaps I may put it in this way, that at any rate they say they are not in disagreement—on public works, and they say that finance is no obstacle to a sound economic scheme. What, in the opinion of the Government, is a sound economic scheme? This week the Chancellor of the Exchequer has signified an intention of continuing a subsidy to keep an uneconomic industry alive. Is that a sound economic scheme? He is prepared to spend £6,000,000, which I am told will give direct employment to 20,000 men, and indirectly, it has been suggested, will give employment to another 20,000. Is that an example of those sound schemes which some day we may expect from the Government?

To-day we are separating for three months; we hope that eventualities which might bring us back sooner will not arise; but when we meet again we shall be facing another winter, and, what is much more important, the unemployed will be facing another winter. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman would be prepared to say that there will be a substantial decrease in unemployment after the customary seasonal Christmas decline. I wonder whether he or the Government really contemplates that unemployment will remain substantially the same for the whole period of the next winter. I can only say that, if they do, those of us who represent distressed areas, scheduled or non-scheduled, feel the intense urgency, as I believe the great mass of the people of this country feel the intense urgency, of taking action, and taking action before this next winter—the fifth winter of the National Government.

I am very glad that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Montrose (Lieut.-Colonel C. Kerr) initiated this debate on areas which do not come within the ambit of the special areas, because we all realise that unemployed men and women in any industrial district are individually suffering as much as those in the scheduled areas, though possibly not in the same numbers. I was very interested in my hon. and gallant Friend's reference to emigration. It is well to remember that, if emigration from this country since 1914 had proceded at the rate at which it normally proceeded in previous years, we should have had to-day in this country no unemployment problem at all. In other words, I believe, that if emigration had not been interfered with by the War and in the years subsequent to the War, we should have had to-day a shortage of workers in this country to overtake the business which the country has in hand. I cannot hope that it will be possible for the Minister of Labour to adopt all the suggestions of my hon. and gallant Friend, but I consider that this emigration question is well worthy of the most serious consideration of His Majesty's Government.

My hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George) referred to the position in the distressed areas, and pointed out that, so far as home trade is concerned, it has been reported that saturation point had already been reached. That, indeed, was a statement which was made last year, but, if my hon. Friend had been present in the House earlier this week, she would have heard the President of the Board of Trade state that that was an observation, made by him last year, the accuracy of which he is now prepared to reconsider, because all the signs apparently are the other way. My hon. Friend has asked the Minister what will be the position of unemployment at the end of this year. I do not know what he will say in reply, but I should like to observe that already we have made a very good start for August, because the figures which I saw published in the papers yesterday register a decrease of some 20,000, which brings us under that hateful figure of 2,000,000 of which we all wish to get rid.

I wish to refer to another subject, upon which I have frequently spoken in this House in days gone by, and which has a direct connection with the question of unemployment. About a fortnight ago I asked a question regarding the future status of Rosyth dockyard, and was told in reply that the matter was under consideration, but that no change was contemplated. That reply was repeated a week later by my right hon. Friend, the First Lord of the Admiralty. I raise this question to-day out of no personal discourtesy to him, because he has always been most helpful, and I have appreciated his services to the great Department over which he presides. When he gave his answer, however, I only heard, owing to some conversation which was going on around me at the time, the second part of the answer, which was that no change was contemplated. My suggestion to-day is that a change in policy so far as the Rosyth naval base is concerned ought to be contemplated, and that for one or two reasons which I shall give.

It may be within the recollection of several Members in the House that in 1922, as a result of the Washington Conference and of economy measures then considered necessary in the national interest, Rosyth was cut down from a standard dockyard to a care-and-maintenance basis. I took the view then, and I hold it now, that in January, 1922, there was an unfair discrimination in favour of Chatham and against Rosyth. In the southern dockyards there was a reduction in personnel of something like 12½ per cent., and at Rosyth of about 50 per cent., and it seemed to me at that time that that was a policy which was extremely difficult to justify from almost any point of view. One consideration was that the menace of the German Fleet in the North Sea had disappeared, and at that time there was not considered to be the same need for maintaining a naval base of importance in those northern waters.

I am not on this occasion going to attempt to enter the field of naval strategy, because I do not think that anyone should speak on a subject of that kind except with authority and expert knowledge. But I do want to point out to the House how very important the Rosyth naval base is, and what it costs to bring into existence. I do not think it is realised that the Rosyth naval base cost this country something approaching, if not exceeding, £7,000,000. What is its position? What does it comprise? Its dockyard accommodates the largest battleships and battle cruisers. An entire fleet of battleships and cruisers can be moored in its basins. It includes slipways on which the largest ships can be built, a basin for submarines and torpedo boat destroyers, coaling and oil stations, three graving docks, each 850 feet in length, arsenals, naval stores, workshops, wireless telegraph stations and so on. That was built, and at the time the promise was definitely made by the Admiralty that it would be maintained in the future as a great naval base. To-day it is a phantom dockyard. While I have no title to be heard on the value of the right location of dockyards, it is well to remember that distinguished men like Earl Beatty and Earl Jellicoe and others have spoken in the very highest terms of Rosyth. Earl Beatty described it as the most up-to-date and efficient dockyard in existence, and declared that it must be maintained to preserve the fleets of His Majesty's Navy efficient and ready to perform the work for which they have been built.

I will not detain the House by reading other testimonies to the same effect, but there was one notable speech delivered as recently as April of this year by a very distinguished naval authority, Vice-Admiral Sir Barry Domville, President of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, in which he stated in the clearest possible terms that from the point of view of adequate defence Rosyth was essential to the interest of this country. After he had made that speech, Earl Jellicoe, who was in the chair, expressed regret that high official people were not present to hear this very important lecture of which he evidently himself approved. Vice-Admiral Sir Barry Domville said this:

"At Rosyth ships can be refitted in comparative immunity from risk, since they would be beyond the range of the most ambitious gun, and aircraft would be faced with a far more formidable task in getting there and back, especially in view of the warning of their advent that would probably be given."

At the present time I am informed that our Southern Dockyards are all within gun-range of the Continent, and it seems to me while making no charge of inefficiency or lack of foresight on the part of the Admiralty, that there ought to be an inquiry into the whole position of our dockyards in this country.

I press the Government to take this matter in hand, and I do so for two reasons. One is on the ground of strong opinions expressed by naval authorities that Rosyth is necessary for the purposes of adequate defence; and the other on the ground of the help which even the partial opening of Rosyth would be to unemployment in Scotland. I do not know whether the House realises that while the administration of the National Government has resulted in the strengthening of the industrial position in the South, it has not had quite the same effect in Scotland. We have not benefited to the same extent, and there is still the southern drift of industry. It is my suggestion that if naval defences are necessary, and no one regrets more than I do that they should be necessary, Scotland ought to have its adequate share, if it is in line with an approved system of naval requirements and strategy. So far as Rosyth is concerned, I would very much rather see that site, if not required for defensive purposes, developed for some great commercial enterprise, which would help in many ways my own county and the well-being of Scotland. But as long as there is a German Fleet, and a growing German fleet, in existence, as long as modern warfare has developed in a manner that was not anticipated 20 years ago, it is my suggestion that this country should play for safety and at least give a fresh consideration to the whole question of the claims of Rosyth from the point of view of adequate naval defence.

It is a tribute to the keenness of the hon. Member who has raised this question and to the efficiency of the procedure of this House that the views of the areas not included in the Special Areas Act have been heard in this debate, on the day of the Adjournment for the Recess. It is clear that the basis in the Special Areas Act Schedule was an arbitrary one. That was clearly recognised when the Bill went through the House and became law. I, myself, have good reason to know that, for, like hon. Members whose areas are areas of heavy unemployment, my own constituency is in precisely the same position. Its position is somewhat masked, because being now a part of the City of Edinburgh, it is included in the larger figures of the City, and the gravity of the figures, which are very large, is, as I say, masked.

Hon. Members have raised various questions, and I will do my best to answer them in a sentence or two. They will not expect me to make any general declaration of policy more than was said last week about the reports so recently received from the Special Areas Commissioner, except to deal with one point. They will know, and it is apparent that knowledge has prompted their moving in the matter, that in the course of the report the Commissioner called attention to the fact that the areas were limited to the Schedule, and that there were areas with heavy unemployment outside the Schedule. That is a fact, and in the consideration to be given by the Government to the Commissioner's Report I can assure my hon. Friends that that point will not be overlooked. Of course, it is another thing to say that it is possible to find a scientific definition for an area of heavy unemployment that would not raise some line which would cause some hon. Member to complain that, whatever basis was chosen, his own particular constituency was left out.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Montrose (Lieut.-Colonel Kerr) has raised several interesting questions, and I had better reply to them at once. He has raised the question of freights. There is already some arrangement in the Local Government Act, 1929, with regard to the freights on coal. That, of course, is a matter for the President of the Board of Trade. The problem of immigration affects other Departments than mine, but I will make sure that my right hon. Friends particularly responsible for these particular policies have their attention called to the remarks made by my hon. and gallant Friend in his most admirable speech. In regard to the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George), she has put the case of the distress of her own area, and indeed the case in a wider sense, with her customary charm and lucidity, and with very great force. The question of the relations between ourselves and the Irish Free State is a matter of policy that has been decided upon, and she and I have this in common, that we both welcomed the resumption of the trade between cattle and coal, with which I had something to do last year. I am happy to see, in looking at the figures for Holyhead in regard to men, that there is a slight improvement there. She has put a wider question and asked me for my forecast of employment next year. I am not prepared to make any promise of that kind. There was a Member of the House who once mid, "You cannot argue with a prophet. You can only disbelieve him." I will not venture to prophesy further than December, but I will say a word or two before I sit down up to December, and risk making a prophecy about that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline (Sir J. Wallace) has once more raised the question of Rosyth. He has done it with great keenness and force, and has put the case as strongly as anyone could put it, but I am afraid I cannot give him much comfort. I can only repeat what was said before. Rosyth has not been abandoned and put on the scrapheap. It is on a care and maintenance basis. If and when, in the opinion of the Board, it is advisable or economical to do more work at Rosyth, I can assure him that it will get its fair share. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend says he would like something more original from me. He is asking a question which affects the Board of Admiralty. The Admiralty has not only to do with services concerned with danger. It is concerned with safety also. I have given him the accurate answer from the point of view of the Admiralty at the moment, even although it may afford him scant comfort.

With regard to the general situation, the House generally tries as much as it can to agree on the eve of the Recess, and I think we can find agreement upon a good many things. I think we ought to find agreement that there has been a genuine industrial improvement, and that must never be left out of reckoning in any objective account of our present situation, whether in the distressed areas or outside them. We shall all agree that particular areas, from different causes, have been specially hit through heavy unemployment and its results, and that some of those areas are not contained in the schedule of special areas. I think we should agree also that these problems cannot be wholly dissociated from the national position but are eased, on the one hand by any measure of improvement which may take place in the general position, while, on the other hand, their own special problems are thrown into bolder relief because of unemployment elsewhere, and they are very difficult to solve, as successive Governments since 1920 have found.

I am sure hon. Members would like to feel that the Government share their concern and they can go away for the Recess sure of three things. It is the intention of the Government to maintain and extend by every means in their power the recovery that has taken place. It is a very encouraging recovery, and in world circumstances a very remarkable recovery when you remember always that we are not really dealing with plans, solutions, problems, areas and schedules but with men and women who understand in their households, as indeed some of the heads of industry understand in industry, how grave that problem is and how it has its repercussions in millions of simple homes. We are determined to take, as quickly and energetically as possible, all practical steps to deal with the problems not only of the special areas, but of the areas of heavy unemployment provided that they will not conflict with our determination to maintain the sound basis upon which the recovery, so hardly won, has at the moment been based.

I come back to the desire of my hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey for a policy. From my watch tower in the Ministry of Labour, at the end of July—the House knows very well that July on the whole is not a month when the Minister of Labour is usually optimistic; it is not one of the best months of the year for making forecasts, as the visibility is not always good—surveying the field of employment, as I can see it from my contacts with those who are able to talk about the future, I would say that we can look forward with a very great deal of confidence to a still further improvement in national conditions, which could only be checked should there unhappily be any untoward happenings either abroad or at home. I am in the very happy position, as I sit down, to be able to confirm what I saw in the Press this morning that, when next Wednesday morning hon. Members look at the figures of the unemployment and employment return for the month of July, they will find two things, first, that the employment figures will be better again, and, secondly, that for the first time since the month of June, 1930, the unemployed will fall below 2,000,000 souls.

On Tuesday last, when I put a question or two to the Home Secretary, I gave him to understand that I was not dissatisfied with his replies as far as their accuracy was concerned but with their inadequacy. He stated that at the Fascist meeting held at the Stratford Town Hall, on Wednesday, 24th July, there were 24 police engaged within the hall. In order to assist him I am going to ask him four points. First, what justification was there for police constables being used outside the building to assist the stewards of the meeting to decide who should enter the hall? It was an ordinary advertised meeting to which the public were invited, and in order to charge myself with some degree of accuracy, I have obtained particulars of what appeared in a local paper and what has been said by a local man. This man writes to the local paper:

"Instead of being allowed to walk right in as I have hitherto done when I have attended public meetings there, I was stopped by a policeman, who, before allowing me to pass the door, said to a gentleman in a blackshirt uniform, 'Is he all right.' On receiving an affirmative answer from the gentleman in the black shirt, I was allowed to pass up the stairs. At the top of the staircase, I was stopped by another gentleman in Facist uniform, who asked me for my ticket. I told him that I was under the impression it was a public meeting and that therefore I had no need of a ticket. He replied that all the seats excepting a few at the back of the hall were reserved for ticket holders. Therefore, I was compelled to sit at the rear along with a, uniformed member of Sir Oswald's party."

What right had uniform policemen to be used on the steps of the town hall to assist stewards at any meeting, whether it be a Fascist, a Communist, a Labour, a Liberal or a Tory meeting, to decide who shall enter an ordinary public meeting? The burden of my question to the Home Secretary was, who asked for the presence of uniformed constables in the hall? His reply was:

"That they were not asked for, but that they were put there by the Commissioner of Police as a precautionary measure to deal with any breaches of the peace that might occur."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th July, 1935; col. 2474, Vol. 304.]

I do not associate myself with any person or persons in this country who set out to smash up public meetings. I have never been a participant in such conduct, but I have frequently been a, victim. I felt rather amused at the reply of the right hon. Gentleman, and I ask myself what is the point of view of the police in regard to a breach of the peace which requires precautionary measures? What do they mean by a breach of the peace at the public meeting? Ordinarily, I suppose that it is fair to assume that any conduct by a person or persons likely to lead to public disorder or to injury to life and limb or property would be a breach of the peace. If the police constables were really used at this meeting to ensure that there was no breach of the peace and to deal with any such breaches of peace, I should not be standing here to-day. I am reminded of a discussion that we had the other day in which Mr. Speaker gave guidance in regard to statements in the public Press. Therefore, I have taken special pains to ensure that the few remarks to which I am going to refer are accurate. Our local newspaper, which is not of my political way of thinking, gave its impression of the meeting:

"The police in the hall watched with cold dispassionate gaze the ejectment of interrupters and seemed more or less bored with the whole proceedings. In the guise of stewards, the blackshirts were there to pounce quickly, and there was little evidence of the spirit of forbearance. They were there as chuckers out and meant to fulfil their purpose."

I will not read all the evidence that I have, because of the time, but I have a little explanation to give to the Home Secretary. I asked him if he had been informed of an attack upon a uniformed member of the St. John's Ambulance Brigade. I find that I was a little inaccurate. Although he is a member of the Brigade he was not in uniform, and therefore the police and the people present did not know that he was a member of the brigade. He did, however give some reasonable evidence when at the appropriate time for questions. He asked Sir Oswald a question. I will not ask the right hon. Gentleman to accept my words. These are the words of the local reporter, who sat beneath the platform and was capable of seeing what happened:

"A man was putting a question, the purport of which was not clear, when Sir Oswald Mosley said: 'I have seen men like you get behind a policeman and shout insults to Fascists.' The man was ejected, and he struggled and later on appeared in the hall with his shirt in tatters, and asked Sir Oswald Mosley if his organisation would buy him a new garment. He declared that he had listened without interruption to the speech. Sir Oswald Mosley said that while he was attempting to answer questions the man had yelled with the view to preventing the answers being heard. I fear that he was put out."

That is the report of the local newspaper. I want to ask the Home Secretary if the police were there to deal with any possible breach of the peace, and if the local newspaper is correct that the police

"stood by with cold dispassionate gaze and looked bored with what was going on."

what is really the position of these 24 men? I have had numerous letters sent to me, but I will refer to only two of them. I will give the names and addresses in order that the Home Secretary can verify my information if he desires. A young man called Jennings, of 8, New Providence Street, Stratford, writes:

"A young man (with a girl) who was sitting in front of me was attacked by a group of Fascists who still went on hitting him whilst he was lying on the floor. He was carried out bleeding from the face. The splashes of blood on the stairs were further evidence of their brutality."

I do not want to deal with this matter in any humourous way, but we have to-day in West Ham Town Council offices three sets of artificial teeth still unclaimed. That is just a slight indication that there was violence of more than the ordinary kind. I want to know whether the presence of the police at the meeting was justified or not. If they were there to deal with any possible breach of the peace, will the Home Secretary say whether organised attacks upon ordinary people who attend such meetings can take place with this degree of violence and the police look on with cold, dispassionate gaze? The second point I put to him is with regard to the police in the streets. I remember the days of the general strike when the right hon. and learned Gentleman gave us good guidance in this House. There was no disorder in West Ham, no one was arrested, and I attribute that to the fact that the ordinary West Ham police were left to deal with the West Ham people. As a local magistrate and an official I have nothing but praise for the conduct of the local police, and I attribute the unpleasant incidents which took place to the fact that police from two other divisions were brought in. The Home Secretary looked with some degree of disfavour and displeasure on my suggestion that rather strong action was taken by the police outside the hall. Let me give him one or two facts. The local paper says:

"Generally speaking, they were patient and tactful, though in isolated cases, and when not under the eyes of their chiefs, a few were inclined to officiousness."

The Home Secretary will, of course, explain that better. He will say that this officiousness means that the imported police were merely doing their duty.

A correspondent writes to the newspaper:

"I should like to know the position of law abiding citizens of West Ham versus police on occasions of meetings or demonstrations that may be arranged by any organisation. The police are expected to protect life and property we know, but what is the position of the public when the police by their action may cause a breach of the peace to be committed by their attacks on law abiding citizens?"

This man also writes:

"I emerged from the Broadway Cinema"—

which is not a minute's walk from the Town Hall—

"on Wednesday night about 10.20 with my wife. We witnessed what I consider was an unwarranted attack by the mounted police on peaceful citizens who like myself, no doubt, had no personal interest in the meeting but were simply waiting for a tram to take them home. The mounted police, acting on orders from a mounted officer, charged their horses on to the pavement without warning, scattering the public into the roadway and forcing them to go the way the police intended instead of the way the people intended to go home."

A letter signed by Mrs. Lynch, 42, St. Antony's Road, E. Horswill, 109, Neville Road, and Mrs. Clifford, 32, Gwendoline Avenue, states:

"Instead of maintaining the civil liberties of the public they (the police) on this occasion destroyed all semblance of freedom. A case in point is that of a young man who is a son of one of the signatories to this protest. He had no connection with the meeting inside the Town Hall nor with the huge crowd which had gathered in the vicinity.… Passing the Town Hall he paused to look through its doors, whereupon he was immediately commanded by a police officer to get a move on. Not responding immediately to the order, he was roughly seized by the shoulders and pushed on.… An inspector threatened that unless he did move on, he (the inspector) would wring his—neck."

These ladies say:

"Such behaviour to the public by the police is intolerable and we think that an inquiry of some sort should be made."

I have received this letter from a man whom I have never seen in my life.

"May I express my approval of your intended question to the Home Secretary re the conduct of the police at Stratford on Wednesday last…. The particular section of the crowd in which I found myself was of the most orderly nature, consisting mainly indeed of people leaving the Broadway Cinema who, nevertheless, were forced back by the police at a rate frightening and even dangerous to the women in the crowd. The mounted police mounted the pavement quite unnecessarily and continually addressed remarks to individuals in the crowd. I myself was told when I asked whether I would be permitted to proceed round into the main road, that I was silly to be there. I trust that your protest will not go unremarked by the responsible officials.—Yours faithfully, S. Reed, B.A."

One of the most regrettable features in connection with this incident is what ultimately happened at the local police court. This, I think, is a matter of which the Home Secretary ought to take careful note because it affects the ordinary administration of law and the preservation of order in this country. There were only five people arrested, but there was a very large number of people outside. One man was remanded for a week, and when he came before the magistrate the charge was only of obstructing the police, and in the circumstances that could be quite well understood. One of his friends was on the ground, an altercation took place with the inspector, and the man was arrested. When he was brought up at the police court the week following, the man, Gerald J. Winter, came to give evidence. Winter described himself as an observer for the Council of Civil Liberties, which is a perfectly respectable body, and he said he heard Burford say, "This man's hurt." The inspector immediately ordered his arrest, and he was frog-marched away.

I am a member of the West Ham Bench, and we have applied to the Home Office for years past for a stipendiary, because people in West Ham feel that when they come before the court, if there is somebody on the Bench with no local political colour, they will get British justice. However, this stipendiary magistrate said to this man Winter; "What business had you there?" Fancy that. Fancy a stipendiary asking a witness what business he had on the King's highway. The man replied that he went to the police station to see the police and tell them he was going to give evidence for Burford, and the stipendiary said, "And did the police listen to you?" He replied, "Yes", and the stipendiary said, "What amazing forbearance".

I would like to say to the Home Secretary—and this is the consummation of a situation which has been very regrettable and unpleasant and which I hope will not be repeated—that I think it is very serious that a stipendiary of a great borough—

The hon. Member is criticising the action of a stipendiary magistrate, which is quite out of order on this Motion.

I am sorry, Sir, and if I had known that before, I would have done it another way. Nevertheless, I hope the Home Secretary will take note of that matter and in his own quiet way see that this sort of thing is not repeated. Will he tell me what use these men were in the hall, and what was the use of bringing in police from outside districts? If the right hon. Gentleman will see that this does not recur, the matter will end, but if he takes up the position that the police did their duty in a nice and proper way, I think he ought to institute an inquiry. I should like to feel assured from him that these very unpleasant incidents will not be repeated, and that in any future demonstration in West Ham the police of West Ham shall be used to keep the West Ham people quiet. I assure him that they are not hooligans, but law-abiding citizens, and if circumstances permit outsiders to come inside our town to preach a gospel that is not pleasant to all the people, I hope he will let the police use mutual toleration and not allow them to stand by while brutally ill-treat the people who attend the meeting. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman will tolerate the situation which I have presented. I have not put this case forward with pleasure, but because I regard it as my duty, representing that area, to see that the people of West Ham shall not be so treated. If he will take my remarks in the kindly spirit in which I have made them, I shall not feel that the afternoon has been wasted.

The hon. Gentleman is entirely within his rights in bringing this matter forward, and I have listened with great attention to what he has thought it his duty to say. There are two things we have to bear in mind. The first is that on an occasion when there is some excitement and, I daresay, some hard words, different individuals necessarily get rather different impressions. The other is that on occasions like this the police in a locality, we all know, have a difficult task. The hon. Gentleman divided his observations into two parts. He had some observations to make on the presence of the police inside the building when this meeting which was addressed by Sir Oswald Mosley took place; and also as to some cases which he had as to police conduct outside the hall.

Let me take these two things separately. First, with regard to the presence of the police inside the hall, it might be convenient if I made this general statement. While it is true that ordinarily speaking a policeman would not be entitled without warrant to go into private premises or private property, if the organisers of a meeting, even though it be in a private hall, make the announcement that the public are invited to come to a public meeting, the police are as much entitled to go into the meeting as any other member of the public. They would not go there unless they were ordered to do so, and the circumstances in which they are ordered to go are these. They do not go in as stewards, but, if there is reason to think, and if past experience makes one fear, that there might be serious disturbance—the hon. Gentleman will remember the unfortunate incidents at Olympia—the better view is that the police authorities should be left to form a judgment as to whether it is well to have some police inside a great hall. It would be no good waiting until the damage was done. If there is likely to be serious disturbance, it cannot be a disadvantage to have the police inside. On this occasion the authorities thought that it would be well, and that is why some 24 uniformed policemen were inside. That does not mean that they were stewards, but that they were only to interfere if the occasion became a grave one.

I asked for a careful report in the matter and the House will be ready to believe that in this matter the police did their honest best. The report says that the police were present and that they were definitely instructed only to interfere in the event of there being a breach of the peace. While the meeting was in progress there was a certain amount of interruption—I gather from what the hon. Gentleman said, a great deal of interruption—and I am not surprised that the interrupters were ejected by the stewards. The police report says that they witnessed no incident that called for intervention on their part. A certain amount of force was used by the stewards, but the police did not witness any case of rough handling or the use of any more force than was necessary to eject the interruptors. In the use of force it must be reasonable as well as necessary. After all, though it is inconvenient for a speaker to be interrupted, it is one of the rights we all have, within reason, to interrupt in proper cases, and we must show every kind of tolerance towards one another's opinions. If, however, people deliberately go into a meeting and make it impossible for the meeting to be held, however unpopular may be the opinions that are being expressed, it is not surprising that there are stewards who on occasions do their best to put them out.

There was a chief inspector present, a man of high position in the force and of undoubted probity, and he was in charge of the police inside the hall. He says that he moved about among the audience, and that at no time did he receive any complaint whatsoever; and that neither did any of the officers under him report that they had received any such complaint. So far as what happened inside the hall is concerned, that is the report I got. I would very much deprecate police interference inside a meeting without extreme cause. We do not want to develop a condition in this country by which the policeman, if he thinks it necessary to be inside a hall, intervenes, if it can be avoided. I think it will be the wish of all of us that if the police should be there for the purpose of preventing improper violence or dangerous misconduct it must be the rule that the people who organise a meeting, and provide themselves with stewards for the purpose, are expected themselves to carry the meeting through in all ordinary circumstances. I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for having informed me of the matter as it reached him, but I have no doubt at all as to the care and fairness with which the chief inspector conducted the matter. This was one of the first cases—because this is rather a new practice—in which police have been put inside a hall. I think it is very possible that we may, by experience, work out what is the best way of handling these matters. But I thought it was very necessary that there should be no opportunity of a repetition of some of those deplorable events which happened at a previous meeting at Olympia. So much for what happened inside the hall.

As to what happened outside the hall I think that the hon. Member is quite right to bring these details forward, but I think he has only heard the view of the matter as it presented itself to certain individuals who were undoubtedly inconvenienced. I must positively challenge the allegation that mounted police went careering about on the pavement in an inconsiderate manner. I think that the hon. Member said that they charged the crowd.

The newspaper says that.

I have made very careful inquiry, and I am assured that at no time did the small body of mounted police present do anything whatever but walk their horses. It is quite true that some people were coming out of a cinema at a rather unfortunate moment. Any confusion that arose was really due to the fact that naturally these people did not realise that they should not go their ordinary route and catch their ordinary trams, for at that moment the meeting was breaking up, and it was absolutely necessary to keep the crowds separate, and to secure that they moved on. Any of us who has had experience of election nights or similar occasions knows that when crowds are excited or moving in different directions there is pushing and jostling, and sometimes the police have difficulty in controlling them. I do not think there is anything in this story, so far as I could discover, which really would justify the view that something reprehensible was done by the police or that they left undone anything they should have done. And the best proof of that is the very newspaper to which the hon. Gentleman has referred in several of his extracts. I was not sure at first whether it was the same newspaper—

There is only one.

Then it must be the same, and I knew that it must be the same after a little time because the hon. Member read a sentence in a passage with which I had been provided. Let me read a little more. The extracts which the hon. Member has given us show that the writer in the newspaper has not failed to record, I am sure with the usual journalistic impartiality, some impressions which he thought it fair to make in criticism.

The article was headed "The Blackshirt Invasion," and said:

"Olympia was not repeated in West Ham on Wednesday, despite the dour prognostications of the pessimists. This gratifying fact was not due to the Blackshirts, nor to their political opponents, but was due to the thoughtful provision of the police authorities"—

that is from my hon. Friend's local newspaper—

"who made their dispositions with such thoroughness that they would have been able to cope with any situation."

That sentence he did not read. He read this sentence:

"Generally speaking, they"—

that is the police—

"were patient and tactful, though in isolated cases, where they were not under the eyes of the chief, a few were inclined to officiousness."

I understand that "officiousness" in that connection meant that they were disposed to interfere when they need not have done so.

You cannot have it both ways.

Neither can my hon. Friend. I understood that his main complaint was that the police inside the hall did not interfere when they should, and the newspaper says that in one or two cases the police interfered rather too freely.

"They certainly were not looking for trouble. They were there for the purpose of preventing it and they discharged their duty efficiently."

In these matters you cannot expect British citizens all to have the same judgment on every incident, and I am far from claiming that any force, even so well-disciplined a force as the London police, never make mistakes, but I think a fair view of the matter is that they had a rather difficult task, and I am prepared to submit to the House—and I hope my hon. Friend will be prepared to take the view of the local paper—that generally speaking the police were patient and efficient, not looking for trouble but there for the purpose of preventing trouble, and did their duty efficiently. If there is any specific matter which my hon. Friend thinks I ought to look into further I am willing to do so, because none of us want to do anything but that which is fair, and while he is quite right to come here and voice the views of those who have communicated with him I know that he, like all the rest, will be prepared to look to the force to do its best in all circumstances. I think it is only fair to say that their efforts on this occasion in dealing with what was evidently a heated and rather turbulent crowd probably prevented very much greater injury which might otherwise have occurred, and that we are entitled to say that they have retained the confidence of the people of London.

Only a few minutes remain before we break up for the Summer Recess, but I should like to use them to raise one matter with my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General. A few days ago I put a question to the Prime Minister asking whether he was prepared before the end of the present Parliament to give the House an opportunity of discussing the report of the Committee on Ministers Powers. The Prime Minister replied that owing to the congestion of Parliamentary business it would not be possible to give the House that opportunity. I raise this question partly because I think it is very important that the House should have a chance of discussing that report, and, secondly, because the Prime Minister's reply is in keeping with the attitude of evasiveness which has been adopted by the Government towards this report ever since it was produced in 1932. It was an exceedingly strong Committee, representative of all three parties in this House and including some eminent jurists from outside. It produced its report after some two years spent in interviewing witnesses, and it is a report, and I know that my view is shared by a great many Members who are not here now, of the highest constitutional importance. In spite of the fact that three and a half years have elapsed since that report was produced the House of Commons has never had an opportunity of discussing it.

If they had been fortunate in the ballot, a number of Members would have put down this question for a private Member's day, but that has not arisen this Session because the Government have taken all the time of private Members. It is not possible to raise the matter on a Supply day because it is very difficult to discuss this question without suggesting legislation, and for the same reason it is not possible to go into the merits of the proposal upon the Motion for the Adjournment. There has been no way in the present Session by which the conclusions of that report could be discussed, except by the Government being ready to give time. It is rather serious that the House of Commons should be precluded from being able to consider or debate issues of first-class importance such as are raised in the report.

I have been told from the Government Front Bench that although the Government cannot deal with the report as a whole, the conclusions of the committee are nevertheless being borne in mind. I do not know what the Government bear in mind, but it is not true to say that much regard or any regard is paid to the conclusions of the committee when the Government draft their legislation. If I am to allow time for the Solicitor-General to reply, I have not time to go into the details of the report, but I would briefly mention one or two of the recommendations. The committee protested in most emphatic language against the conclusive evidence Clause—the Solicitor-General will understand what I mean—being included in legislation, and they said that where it was necessary to have finality in any matter there ought to be a period during which a Ministerial order, could be challenged in the courts, preferably six months and at least three months.

Within a short time of the report being produced, the Government introduced their Agricultural Marketing Bill in which they included that clause in the precise form against which the committee had protested, and it was only because of a protest that came from these benches that a small period of challenge, 28 days, was allowed. On the depressed areas Bill the Government gave only 28 days as a period of challenge instead of the three months suggested by the committee. The committee suggested that a standing committee of the House should be set up to inspect all Bills which proposed to give Ministers powers of this kind, and to inspect all ministerial orders made in pursuance of Statutes which had been laid on the Table of the House. Those recommendations did not need legislation, but the Government have never moved to carry them out. The committee proposed that, after public inquiries had been held under Housing Acts or similar statutes, the report of the inspector who made the inquiry should be made available to the parties concerned. On recent Housing Bills, the Ribbon Development Bill and other Measures, the Government have expressly turned down amendments put down to that effect. The committee recommended that any party aggrieved by a judicial decision of a Minister or a ministerial tribunal should have a right of appeal to the High Court on any point of law which arose. No effect has been given to that recommendation.

I hope I have said enough to show that several of the main recommendations of the committee have either been ignored or even deliberately flouted by the Government in drafting legislation which they have brought before the House. It should be one of the first concerns of this House at all times to scrutinise very jealously any increase of executive power. I should like to see us debate once again the Motion brought forward by Mr. Dunning in 1783:

"That the power of the Crown has increased, is increasing and ought, to be diminished,"

but if Mr. Dunning were alive to-day he would probably find that he would not only have no sympathy from the Government for his resolution but that the power against which he was really protesting had so close a stranglehold over the time-table that he would not even be able to bring his resolution forward. I hope that we may have an assurance from the Solicitor-General that, in what will remain of this Session when we come back at the end of October, the Government will endeavour to give the House time to debate the conclusions of the committee.

I have only a very few minutes in which to deal with the points that my hon. Friend has made. No one, of course, disputes that the report of this committee deals with a very important subject. My hon. Friend's main complaint has been that no day has been set apart for a general discussion of the committee's findings, but I think it is worth pointing out that, although that is true, there have been many occasions upon which the committee's recommendations have been discussed in the House and in Committee. The report makes a number of recommendations as to the form which legislation should take. The Government may or may not adopt those recommendations. My hon. Friend gave two examples of cases in which they had not been adopted, or, at any rate, not in the first instance. I could, if I had time, give him examples of cases in which they have been adopted. But, in any case where they have not been adopted, it is, of course, open to any hon. Member to draw the attention of the House, whether sitting as a House or in Committee, to that fact, and I think there is no doubt that, as long as we have my hon. Friend with us—and I hope it will be a long time—that opportunity will be exercised. Even in my own short experience in the office which I occupy, I have on two occasions, and possibly on others, met arguments based on the recommendations of this committee with arguments which at any rate seemed to me to be good arguments. Therefore, it would be quite wrong if the House were left with the impression that this was a report which had been put in a pigeonhole and had not been discussed in our proceedings. It has been discussed on many occasions, and, indeed, arguments were based on it only the other day, when we were discussing the Ribbon Development Bill.

My hon. Friend referred to the suggestion made by the Committee that Standing Committees of this House should be set up to examine Bills, and also to examine regulations and Orders. Those who are familiar with the report will remember that the Committee recommended that these Committees should not report on the merits of the Regulations or Bills, but only on their principles, and personally, although, of course, I am not expressing any authoritative view, I think it is a matter for both serious and long, or at any rate close, consideration whether it would be really practicable for committees of that kind to separate principles from merits in this way, and whether it would really assist the House in the difficult task which it has in dealing with complicated matters of legislation. My hon. Friend hoped that I might be able to give an assurance that a day would be set apart for the discussion of the report of the Committee when we return in October, but I think that that hope was expressed in a spirit of high and meritorious optimism, and that he did not really expect an assurance from me to that effect. I can, however, assure him that the Committee and their recommendations are constantly before us. The Government have not always adopted their proposals, but, when they have not done so, they have been ready to justify the course they have taken. At what time and on what occasion it will be possible, if the House so desires, to debate the report by itself, is a matter upon which, I am afraid, I cannot make any pronouncement.

I desired to raise a Scottish matter concerning a woman who is in prison, but obviously it will not be possible for me to raise it now, although the Secretary of State for Scotland is here. I trust that, when we have adjourned, the right hon. Gentleman will see me and concede the request that I wish to make. That will be some compensation to me for having waited all day, and I regret very much that the right hon. Gentleman should have been kept here, too.