Commons Chamber

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House Of Commons

Thursday, 5th March, 1936.

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

Private Business

Private Bills (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with).

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bill, referred on the Second Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:

London Midland and Scottish Railway Bill.

Bill committed.

Caledonian Power Bill (Substituted Bill)

"to incorporate and confer powers upon the Caledonian Power Company and for other purposes," presented, and read the First time;and ordered to be read a Second time.

Oral Answers To Questions

Unemployment

Exchanges

asked the Minister of Labour when it is proposed to rebuild the Walworth Road (Borough) Employment Exchange;and whether he can give particulars?

Active search is being made for a suitable site, and a new building will be erected as soon as such a site is found.

Would the Minister consider erecting a screen or awning outside the present exchange, so that men do not have to wait in the rain?

I will look into the point.

asked the Minister of Labour when the temporary Employment Exchange in Barking is to be replaced by a more permanent building which will provide adequate accommodation for the staff and enable the claims of the unemployed to be dealt with in less discomfort than at present?

I cannot give a date, but Barking is scheduled as an urgent case in the Employment Exchange rehousing programme.

Is the Minister aware that there is only one room available for use as a cloak-room and mess-room and for meetings of the court of referees and the women's committee; and will he take action at an early date?

That is understood.

Is the Minister aware that his colleague, the First Commissioner of Works, complained very bitterly about the dilatoriness of his Department in regard to the building of new Exchanges, which has prevented him as Commissioner of Works from getting on with this work?

I think that the hon. Member has given a romantic interpretation of what my right hon. Friend said.

He said it here the other day.

11.

asked the Minister of Labour whether he will arrange for greater facilities at the Employment Exchanges in order that those in employment, seeking to better themselves in their occupation, may be accorded interviews outside their normal hours of employment?

I will give attention to my hon. Friend's suggestion.

Will the right hon. Gentleman see me a bout some examples?

I shall be glad to see my bon. Friend at any time.

Pneumatic Pick Workers, Beamisii

asked the Minister of Labour whether lie is aware that the Beamish air-pit millers were requested some months ago to work the pneumatic pick in a seam one foot nine inches high; that, although the men could not work this machine in such a seam, the officers of the Ministry and the Umpire declared this was a dispute, and consequently no benefit was paid; and that the manager has now declared all the men in the scam are unsuitable for this employment after trial; and what steps he now proposes to have the whole of these facts reconsidered?

asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that the men concerned in the Beamish air-pit case, which was recently heard by the Umpire, have now been declared unsuitable for this class of work by the manager; and, in view of this changed position, what steps he proposes to take to have this case reconsidered?

My attention has been called to this ease by the hon. Members. The decision has been given by the Umpire, who, as the hon. Member knows, is the final authority. I regret, therefore, that there is no action which I can take.

Is the Minister aware that, since I put down my question, the colliery manager has sent a letter in which he says quite plainly that the which who are doing this work are unsuitable? Does not that alter the whole case; and will the right hon. Gentleman see to it, therefore, that there is a rehearing of the case, which has been totally altered by the manager's statement?

I am quite sure that, if there are new facts, the ease can be, and will be, reconsidered by the Umpire.

Could not a re-hearing be obtained on the facts stated in the latter parts of these questions, seeing that the men have now been declared unsuitable for this class of work?

I should like notice of that question.

Is the Minister aware that it is the common opinion in the district that there have been new facts, and that the men concerned have pressed for the re-hearing of a case in which a wrong has certainly been done to decent, moderate-minded men?

Are we to understand t hat the right hon. Gentleman will bring these new facts to the notice of the authorities or of the Umpire?

The hon. Member will understand that it is not my duty to bring forward the facts, but the facts may be brought before the Umpire, and, if they are new facts, they will of course be examined by him and the whole case reviewed in the light of those new facts.

Will not the Minister of Labour do what has been done in the past in cases of this kind?

A reply has been given to the question.

Special Areas

asked the Minister of Labour how many districts have recently been included in the Special Areas category, with the names?

No additions have been made to the special areas, which, as the hon. Member is aware, are defined in the First Schedule to the Special Areas (Development and Improvement) Act, 1934, and cannot be altered without legislation. I assume that the hon. Member has in mind the additions which have recently been made to the schedule of areas to which a preference is given, other things being equal, in the allocation of Government contracts. As the list is very long, I will, if I may, publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT a copy of the schedule, which will show all the areas to which the preference is applied and indicate the recent additions.

Would the right hon. Gentleman tell us what qualification is required in order that an area may be placed in that category?

Perhaps the hon. Member will put that question down, when I will give him a specific answer.

Will the Minister, in giving this matter further consideration, bear in mind the fact that, although the City of Sheffield has very many fewer unemployed at the moment than it had a year or two ago, there are still over 30,000 people there who are unemployed?

Would the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to say what percentage of unemployment an area has to have before it can be regarded as qualified for special treatment?

I have already asked the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams to put that question down, when I Williams) to put that questions down, when I will give a specific answer.

Following is the list of areas

List of Areas to which a preference is given (Other things being equal) in placing Government Contracts.

Towns marked ^* are Special Areas.

Towns in heavy type were added to the Schedule as from 15th February, 1936.

SCOTLAND.

^*Airdrie.

^*Johnstone.

^*Alexandria.

^*Kilbirnie.

Annan.

^*Kilmarnock.

Anstruther.

^*Kilwinning.

Arbroath.

Kinross.

^*Ardrossan.

^*Kirkintilloch.

Banff.

^*Lanark.

Barrhead.

^*Larkhall.

^*Bathgate.

Leith.

Beauly.

Lerwick.

Bo'ness.

^*Lesmahagow.

^*Bowling.

^*Linlithgow.

^*Broxburn.

Maybole.

Buckie.

Montrose.

^*Cambuslang.

^*Motherwell.

Campbeltown.

Nairn.

^*Carluke.

^*Newmilns.

Catrine.

Oban.

^*Clydebank.

^*Paisley.

^*Coatbridge.

Peterhead.

Cullen.

Port Charlotte.

^*Dalry.

^*Port Glasgow.

^* Dumbarton.

Portsoy.

Dunbar.

^*Renfrew.

Dundee.

Rothes.

^*East Calder.

Rothesay.

^*East Kilbride.

^*Rutherglen.

Fortrose.

^*Shotts.

Fraserburgh.

South Queensferry.

Glasgow.

^*Stovenston.

Grantown-on-Spey.

^*Stewarton.

^*Greenock.

^*Stornoway.

^*Hamilton.

^*Strathaven.

^*Helensburgh.

Tain.

Inverbervie.

Thurso.

Invergordon.

^*Uddingston.

Inverkeithing.

^*West Calder.

Inverness.

Wick.

^*Irvine.

^*Wishaw.

WALES.
^*Aberdare.	^*Brynmawr.
Abergavenny.	Buckley.
Abergele.	Builth Wells.
^*Aberkenfig.	Burryport.
^*Abertillery.	Caernarvon.
Aberystwyth.	^*Caerphilly.
Amlwch.	Caldicott.
^*Bargoed.	^*Cardiff and Bute Docks.
^*Barry.	Cardigan.
Beaumaris.	Chepstow.
^*Blaina.	Conway.
^*Blackwood.	Corwen.
^*Blaenavon.	^*Crickhowell.
Brecon.	^*Crumlin.
^*Bridgend.	^*Cymmer.
Brymbo.	Denbigh.

^*Dowlais.	^*Pembroke Dock.
^*Ebbw Vale.	^*Penarth.
^*Ferndale.	Penygroes.
Fishguard.	Pontardawe.
Garnant.	Pontardulais.
Gorseinon.	^*Pontlottyn.
Harlech.	^*Pontnewydd.
Haverfordwest.	^*Pontyclun.
Hay.	^*Pontycymmer.
Holyhead.	^*Pontypool.
Holywell.	^*Pontypridd.
Kidwelly.	^*Porth.
Knighton.	Porthcawl.
Lampeter.	Portmadoc.
Llandilo.	^*Port Talbot
Llandyssul.	Pwllheli.
Llanelly.	^*Resolven.
Llangefni.	Rhosllanerchrugog.
Llangollen.	^*Risca.
Llanidloes.	^*Swansea and Docks.
^*Llantwit Major.	^*Taffs Wells.
^*Maesteg.	Tenby.
^*Merthyr Tydfil.	^*Tonypandy.
Milford Haven.	^*Tonyrefail
Mold.	Towyn.
Monmouth.	^*Tredegar.
Morriston.	^*Treharris.
Mountain Ash.	^*Treorchy.
Mumbles.	^*Usk.
^*Neath.	Welsbpool.
^*Newport and Docks.	Wrexham.
Newtown.	Ystalyfera.
^*Ogmore Vale.

NORTH WESTERN DIVISION.
Accrington.	Hindley.
^* Alston.	^*Keswick.
Ashton-under-Lyne.	Kirkham.
^*Aspatria.	Leigh.
Bacup.	Liverpool Area.
Birkenhead.	Longton.
Blackburn.	^*Mary port.
Bolton.	^*Millom.
Burnley.	Mossley.
Bury.	Nelson.
Chadderton.	Oldham.
Chorley.	Ormskirk.
^*Cleator Moor.	Padiham.
Clitheroe.	Preston.
^*Cockermouth.	Prestwich.
Colne and Barnoldswiok.	St. Helens.
Congleton.	^*Silloth.
^*Coniston.	Stalybridge.
Dalton.	Standish.
Darwen.	Ulverston.
Farnworth.	Upholland.
Glossop.	Wailasey.
Golborne.	Westhoughton.
Great Harwood.	White haven.
Hadfield.	Whitworth.
^*Haltwhistle.	Wigan.
^*Harrington.	^*Wigton.
Haslingden.	^*Workington.
Heywood.

NORTH EASTERN DIVISION.

Askern.

^*Chopwell.

^*Barnard Castle.

^*Cockfield.

Barnsley.

^*Consett.

Batley.

^*Crook.

^*Birtley.

Dronfield.

^*Bishop Auckland.

^*Dunston-on-Tyne.

^*Blaydon-on-Tyne.

^*Durham.

Castleford.

^*East Boldon.

^*Chester-le-Street.

^*Elswick.

^*Felling-on-Tyne.

Pontefract.

^*Gainford.

^*Prudhoe.

Gainsborough.

Rotherham.

^*Gateshead.

Saltburn.

Goole.

^*Seaham Harbour.

Guisborough.

^*Sedgefield.

^*Hartlepool.

^*Shildon.

^* Haswoll.

^*Shiremoor.

^*Heaton.

Skelmanthorpe.

Helmsley.

South Kirkby.

Hexham.

^*South Shields.

^*Horden.

^*Southwick-on-Wear.

^*Houghton-le-Spring.

^*Spennymoor.

Hoyland.

^*Stanhope.

^*Jarrow and Hobburn.

^*Stanley.

Knottingley.

Stockton and Thornaby.

^*Lanchester.

Stokesley.

Loftus.

^*Sunderland.

Mexborough.

Thirsk.

Middlesbrough.

^*Walker-on-Tyne.

^*Middleton-in-Teesdale.

^*Wallsend.

^*Newburn.

^*Washington Station.

^*Newcastle-on-Tyne.

^*West Hartlepool.

Normanton.

Whitby.

^* North Shields.

Whitley Bay.

Ossett.

^*Willington Quay.

^*Pallion.

^*Wingate.

Penistone.

Withernsea.

Pickering.

^*Wolsingham.

MIDLANDS DIVISION.
Arnold.	Ledbury.
Audley.	Ludlow.
Kiddulph.	Newcastle- under-Lyne.
Bishops Castle.	Ratby.
Hucknall.	Ross.
Kidsgrove.	Shepshed.
Ironbridge.	Wellington.

SOUTH WESTERN DIVISION.
Bodmin.	Perranporth.
Cinderford.	Portland.
Clutton.	Redruth.
Coleford.	St. Columb.
Fowey.	St. Just.
Hayle.	Torpoint.
Newnham.

SOUTH EASTERN DIVISION.
Acle.	Walsham-le-Willows.
Great Yarmouth.	Wells.
Pitsea.

17.

asked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider putting Burnley on the same footing as those places in the distressed areas to which Government, contracts are given?

Burnley is already in-eluded in the schedule of areas to which a preference is given, other things being equal, in the allocation of Government contracts.

Can the Minister define exactly what is meant by a Special Area?

I have already said that, if a question is put down, I will give a reply.

Is Leeds included in the schedule?

My hon. Friend will find that in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow.

Walsall

10.

asked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a statement on the age distribution of the unemployed registered at the Walsall Employment Exchange, and also at the Walsall Juvenile Employment Exchange, at the latest convenient date?

As the reply includes tables of figures, 1 will, if I may, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:

The following table shows the numbers of unemployed men and women in each age group for which particulars were obtained, registered at the Walsall Employment Exchange at 4th November, 1935, the latest date for which detailed figures are available:

Age Group.	Men.	Women.	Total.
18–20 years	190	103	293
21–24 years	412	111	523
25–34 years	1,066	166	1,232
35–44 years	987	87	1,074
45–54 years	913	53	966
55–59 years	523	30	553
60–64 years	444	11	455
65 years and over	4	—	4
Total aged 18 and over.	4,539	561	5,100

Corresponding statistics for juveniles 'under 18 years of age are not available in respect of 4th November, but at 25th November the numbers unemployed, registered at the Walsall Employment Exchange, in each age group for which particulars were obtained, were as follow:

Age Group.	Boys.	Girls.	Total.
14 and under 16 years.	24	18	42
16 and under 18 years.	7	16	23
Total aged 14 and under 18 years.	31	34	65

Dependants' Benefit

14.

asked the Minister of Labour whether dependants' benefit will continue to be paid under the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1935, in respect of young persons who are children of unemployed workers and who obtain employment at the age of 14 but later become unemployed and return to an educational institution whilst still under the age of 16 years?

The Unemployment Insurance Act provides for the payment of dependants' benefit in respect of a child between the ages of 14 and 16 years who is under full time instruction at a day school and I am not aware of any proposal to discontinue this provision.

Cotton Manufacturing Industry (Temporary Provisions) Act

asked the Minister of Labour what progress has been made with the application of the Cotton Manufacturing Industry (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1934;whether it is working satisfactorily; and whether any applications for similar powers for the statutory regulation of wages have been made by other industries or will be sympathetically considered?

An Order has been made under the Act mentioned which brought into force, as from 15th July, 1935, certain agreed rates of wages for weavers in the industry. The Act is regarded as an experimental Measure, and has not yet been in operation long enough to enable a considered opinion to be formed as to its working. Joint representations by workers and employers in other industries have been made to me with a view to enabling statutory force to be given to their voluntary agreements and these representations will be considered in the light of the experience of the working of the Cotton Manufacturing Industry Act.

What are the industries?

Quarrying, asbestos, hosiery, cooperage, lock and latch, electrical contracting, gloves, heating and domestic engineering, pottery, furniture warehousing and removing.

Juvenile Employment (Sheffield)

asked the Minister of Labour whether he has any record of the number of boys and girls, respectively, who have left the Sheffield elementary schools during the last two years; how many of them obtained employment; and whether generally there is any following up of these boys and girls to see how far their employment was blind-alley or otherwise?

I am informed that the number of boys and girls who left elementary schools in Sheffield was 4,185 boys and 4,263 girls in the year 1934, and 3,982 boys and 4,001 girls in the year 1935. As to the number who obtain employment, full information is available only in the case of the boys and girls placed directly in employment by the Juvenile Department of the Employment Exchanges. It is estimated, however, that 97 per cent. of the children leaving Sheffield schools and seeking employment are able to find it within three months of leaving school. The careers of the boys and girls placed by the exchange are followed up by the Juvenile Advisory Committees and reports obtained about their progress. A special record is kept of boys and girls known to be in non-progressive employment, and every attempt is made to place them in occupations offering definite prospects when an opportunity occurs.

Forty-Hour Week

16.

asked the Minister of Labour whether he can give any information on the negotiations regarding the application of the 40-hour week in the textile industry; whether His Majesty's Government is prepared to give technical advice; and what is the attitude of the employers' associations concerned?

I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on 27th February to a similar question by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown).

Will the Minister expedite the publication of his promised report, in view of the fact that this matter must come up at Geneva within three months for ratification

I will see that the report is in the Vote Office very soon.

Cost-Of-Living Index

15.

asked the Minister of Labour whether he will give the list of food items used in the compilation of the cost-of-living index; and the average prices of these articles in the

The following Table gives the information required, so far as it is available. Corresponding particulars have not been collected for any date prior to July, 1914.
—				July. 1914.		Average of the Prices returned at the beginning of each month of
—				July. 1914.		1924.		1929.		1930.		1931.		1932.		1933.		1934.		1935.
				s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.
Beef, British:
Ribs	…	…	per lb.	0	10	1	5¾	1	4¾	1	4½	1	3¾	1	2¾	1	2	1	2	1	1½
Thin Flank		…	perlb.	0	6½	0	10	0	9½	0	9	0	8½	0	8	0	7½	0	7½	0	7½
Beef, Chilled or Frozen:
Ribs	…	…	per lb.	0	7¼	0	10¼	0	10½	0	10½	0	9¾	0	9¼	0	9	0	9	0	8¾
Thin Flank		…	perlb.	0	4¾	0	5½	0	5¾	0	5¾	0	5¼	0	4¾	0	4½	0	4½	0	4½
Mutton, British:
Legs	…	…	per lb.	0	10½	1	8	1	6¼	1	6	1	5¼	1	3¼	1	2½	1	3	1	3¼
Breast	…	…	perlb.	0	64	0	11¼	0	10	0	10	0	9¼	0	8	0	7½	0	7½	0	7½
Mutton, Frozen:
Legs	…	…	per lb.	0	6¾	1	0¼	0	11¾	0	11½	0	10½	0	9½	0	9¼	0	9¾	0	9¾
Breast	…	…	per lb.	0	4	0	5¼	0	5¼	0	5¼	0	4½	0	4	0	3¾	0	4	0	3¾
Bacon, Streaky (a)		…	per lb.	0	11¼	1	4½	1	5½	1	4	0	11½	0	10	0	11½	1	l¾	1	1¾
Flour	…	…	per 7 lb.	0	10½	1	4	1	3¾	1	3¼	0	11½	0	11¾	1	0¼	1	0¼	1	0¾
Bread	…	…	per 4 lb.	0	5¾	0	9	0	8¾	0	8½	0	7	0	7¼	0	7½	0	7½	0	7¾
Tea	…	…	per lb.	1	6¼	2	4¾	2	1¾	1	ll¾	1	10¼	1	9	1	9½	1	l1¼	1	11½
Sugar, Granulated		…	per lb.	0	2	0	5½	0	3	0	2¾	0	2½	0	2½	0	2½	0	2¼	0	2¼
Milk	…	…	per qt.	0	3½	0	6¼	0	6¼	0	6¼	0	6	0	6	0	5¾	0	6¼	0	6¼
Butter, Fresh		…	perlb.	1	2½	2	1¼	1	11¾	1	8¼	1	5¼	1	4¼	1	2¼	1	1¼	1	2¼
" Salt	…	…	per lb.	1	2¼	2	0	1	10¼	1	6¾	1	3½	1	2½	1	0½	0	11¼	1	0½
Cheese (b)	…	…	perlb.	0	8¾	1	1¾	1	2	1	1	0	10¾	0	10½	0	9¼	0	8¾	0	8¼
Margarine	…	…	per lb.	0	7	0	6¾	0	7½	0	7¼	0	7	0	6¾	0	6¼	0	5½	0	5¼
Eggs, Fresh	…	…	each	0	1¼	0	2½	0	2¼	0	2	0	1¾	0	1¾	0	1½	0	1½	0	1½
Potatoes	…	…	per 7 lb.	0	4¾	0	l0¾	0	6½	0	5¾	0	8¾	0	8¾	0	5½	0	6¼	0	6¾
Fish (c)	(Index number)			100		211		214		209		205		201		198		201		201
(a) If this kind is seldom dealt with in a locality, the returns quote the prices of another kind locally representative.
(b) Tho description of cheese for which prices are quoted is in most cases Canadian or New Zealand, but in some districts the returns quote the prices of another kind locally representative.
(c) The available data are insufficient to provide a satisfactory basis for the calculation of annual averages of the retail prices of fish: the index-numbers given show the approximate ratio of prices in each year to those of July, 1914, as indicated by the returns received.

Air Raid Precautions

20.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will arrange for Members of this House to attend a demonstration of the gas-mask to be used for the protection of the civilian population?

When the design of the respirator referred to is finally settled, I shall be very glad to arrange for a demonstration; and I hope that hon. Members will not merely attend, but will years 1900, 1914, 1924, arid for each year between 1929 and 1935?

As the reply involves a table of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the reply:

also test for themselves the efficacy of the respirator in various concentrations of poison gases.

Can the hon. Gentleman say whether, when this demonstration takes place, it will take place under conditions similar to those which will obtain when there is a gas attack?

It will take place under the conditions which are operating at the Anti-Gas School.

Is there any intention of using the apparatus in this House?

Will the hon. Gentleman see that the conditions are conditions created by scientists who are independent of the Government?

21.

asked the Home Secretary what precautionary instructions, in addition to those against gas attacks, he is sending to local authorities with regard to attacks by high explosive and incendiary bombs?

It is hoped to issue handbooks and memoranda, making available to local authorities, industrial undertakings and the public generally the information at the disposal of the Government on protection against high explosives and incendiary bombs; and I can assure the hon. Member that this aspect of the subject is being given the careful consideration which it requires as an integral part of all air raids precautions schemes.

Workmen's Compensation

18.

asked the Home Secretary whether the Government have given recent consideration to the ratification of the Workmen's Compensation (Occupational Diseases) Convention (Revised), 1934, No. 62; and when it is proposed that the Convention should be ratified?

The Government propose to ratify this Convention, and the formalities for ratification are now being carried out.

19.

asked the Home Secretary whether he will now consider, with a view to ratification, the Workmen's Compensation (Accidents) Convention, 1925 (No. 17)?

I am advised that this Convention could not be ratified without far-reaching changes in the law and medical arrangements of this country, and I see no prospect of such legislation being passed at present.

Celluloid Articles

22.

asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the recent death of a child from burns caused by a celluloid comb; and whether he will take action to prevent the sale of highly inflammable celluloid toys and articles in chain stores?

I am aware that, unhappily, serious accidents occur from time to time through setting light to one or other of the many celluloid articles in common use. The sale of these articles, however, could not be stopped without legislation.

Bail (Refusal)

24.

asked the Home Secretary what number of persons in each year 1930 to 1935 remanded in custody were refused bail but were not subsequently convicted?

I regret that the information is not available.

Jewish Shopkeepers (Fascists)

26.

asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to cases of Jew baiting in Tottenham; and whether he proposes issuing special instructions to the police to deal with the cases which are brought to their notice?

I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on this subject to the hon. Member for the North-East Division of Bethnal Green (Mr. Chater) on 27th February.

Can the right hon. Gentleman say, from the reports that he received from other quarters, whether this practice is on the increase?

The matter may be mentioned in the Debate later in the clay. Perhaps we had better postpone it.

Ex-Convicts

25.

asked the Home Secretary to what extent the police authorities are instructed or authorised to watch those who have been in convict prisons and to warn their employers; and whether he is aware that this system reacts prejudicially on the prospects of those men obtaining permanent employment?

There is no foundation for the suggestion that it is the practice of the police to warn employers or to do anything which hinders ex-convicts from following honest employment. An exceptional case might arise where a man who has been an adept in a particular type of crime is told that while on licence he must not take employment of a kind which provides special opportunities for such crime, and if he disregards such instruction, it might be the duty of the police to warn the employer. But the general principle on which the police act is that if an ex-convict is trying to follow honest employment, nothing what-even is to be done which is likely to prejudice his efforts, but on the contrary he should so far as possible he helped.

Metropolitan Police (Defaulters)

27.

asked the Home Secretary the number of police officers in the Metropolitan area that have been before the Discipline Board during the last two years, and the number that have been dismissed or suspended following the decisnn arrived at; whether any of these officers have been charged with bribery: and will he give particulars?

During the two years ending on 29th ultimo 153 defaulters appeared before a Metropolitan Police Disciplinary Board. Of these 34 were dismissed and 29 were required to retire as an alternative to dismissal. In none of these cases was a specific charge of bribery made, but in 37 cases charges involving allegations of corruption were found to be proved and were suitably dealt with.

Are these men allowed to have legal representation?

Every possible precaution is taken to secure that their case is put forward in a way that thoroughly satisfies the conditions of justice. I am sure the hon. Member will agree that the system, if properly worked, is a fair system.

In how many cases have they appealed to the right hon. Gentleman?

I could riot say without notice, but many cases have come before me and I have gone into every case personally.

Prisons (Work, Private Firms)

30, 31 and 32.

asked the Home Secretary (1) whether, when work is undertaken for private firms in His Majesty's prisons, it is arranged for by written or oral contract;

(2) whether, in arriving at the charges made by his Department for work done for private traders by inmates of His Majesty's prisons, any general system of costings is used; and, if so, what factors are taken into account in deciding what are properly overhead charges on such work;

(3) when parts of an article are assembled in His Majesty's prisons for private firms, what method, if any, is used to determine the value of the work done; and whether the cost of such work done under ordinary industrial conditions is ascertained and taken into account when fixing the price to be charged?

As was explained in reply to a question which he asked on 24th February, only a very small amount of work is done in prisons for sale outside. The average annual receipts from this source represent only about 1 per cent. of the total work done, and care is always taken to avoid accepting work at a price which would undercut outside prices. Arrangements to undertake such work are made in writing. The price depends on market considerations and not on any system of costing.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that several firms have complained to different Members of Parliament that they are being undercut?

Naturally I should not be aware that they have complained to other Members of Parliament, but, if anyone has any information which he thinks should be examined at the home Office, I shall be glad to receive it.

33.

asked the Home Secretary whether, when work for private firms is being done in His Majesty's prisons, inmates employed on such work are allotted tasks on account of any special aptitude, or for good conduct, or as a punishment?

In assigning prisoners to such work as is available regard is had to a prisoner's medical fitness and, so far as practicable, to any special aptitude that he may possess. Good or bad conduct is dealt with by the marks system and the disciplinary rules, and has no relation to the question of employment.

34.

asked the Home Secretary the number of private firms for which work was done in His Majesty's prisons during 1933, 1934, and 1935, and any names of firms other than the three already stated?

As already stated, the aggregate amount of work done for private firms is almost negligible, and this aggregate is made up of a number of small orders. During 1935 work to the total value of about £1,700 was done for about 30 firms. I am informed that none of the three firms mentioned have in fact had contracts with the Prison Commissioners.

35.

asked the Home Secretary when work for private traders is carried out in His Majesty's prisons, how decisions to take work are arrived at; whether advertisements for work are issued publicly or are circulated among a limited number of approved firms, or whether the use of prison labour is secured by favour; and, if by favour, in whose power the decision to give preference to any firm rests?

As already explained in answer to previous questions, the acceptance of work from private firms involves no favour, since it is an established principle to avoid taking work at a price which would undercut outside prices. No advertisements are issued. Applications are received from time to time and are considered when the volume of work available for Government Establishments is insufficient to keep the prisoners usefully employed.

36.

asked the Home Secretary the number of industrial processes in which inmates of His Majesty's prisons share in the productive work carried on by, and for, private firms?

A list of the trades carried on in prisons will be found in paragraph 48 of the report of the Committee on the Employment of Prisoners which was presented to Parliament in November, 1933. Nearly all this work is done for Government Departments hut amongst the small jobs done for private firms there has been a little firewood-chopping, mat-making, sack-making and a few other miscellaneous items of a similar character.

37.

asked the Home Secretary the gross income derived by his Department from work done by inmates of His Majesty's prisons for private firms for any 12 months to the last convenient date; and whether it is his intention to expand this service to manufacturers and traders?

During 1935 the gross receipts from work done for private firms amounted to £1,700. At the present time, when the prison population is comparatively low and sufficient orders are available from Government establishments, private orders are at a minimum.

38.

asked the Home Secretary whether, when work is being done for private firms in His Majesty's prisons, any method is employed for detecting alleged faulty work and tracing it to individual prisoners employed on such work; and whether, if any work held to be faulty is traced to a prisoner the prisoner's prison record is adversely affected by such work being traced to him?

The position of a prisoner is exactly the same whether he is employed on work which the prison authorities have undertaken for a private firm, or on any other work. In either case the prisoner works under the supervision of prison officers and deliberate misconduct or negligence would involve disciplinary action.

Do they pay trade union rates?

If prisoners do faulty work, arc they discharged?

Education

Schools (Sanitation)

39.

asked the President of the Board of Education the number of schools in England and Wales that are not provided with an efficient water supply or proper sanitary equipment; when his inspectors last reported on these conditions; and what steps his Department are taking to ensure that the education authorities concerned have these defects remedied and the schools properly equipped?

I regret I am not able to answer the first part of the hon. Member's question. The water supply and sanitation for a school depend generally upon the arrangements which exist in the neighbourhood in which the school is situated, Thesematters are among those to which His Majesty's inspectors give attention when they inspect the schools, and cases of neglect and inadequacy are reported to the Board and appropriate action is taken.

Could the right hon. Gentleman obtain the information asked for in the first part of the question?

Not without a quite disproportionate amount of labour?

Do the inspectors make continual examination?

The inspectors are continually inspecting all the schools, and one of the things they look at is the question of sanitation.

Doncaster Grammar School

40.

asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that the decision of the Governor of the Doncaster Grammar School to throw open the planning of the proposed new school will cause great delay in the erection of the school; and will he ensure that improved temporary accommodation is provided?

I realise that some delay is likely to result from the decision of the local education authority to throw open the plans to competition, but I am sure that they appreciate the importance of minimising this delay. I do not think that there is any occasion for structural alterations to the temporary premises which will soon be replaced by permanent buildings, but I am informed that improvements to the existing heating arrangements will be made in the near future.

Catholic Schools (Grants)

41.

asked the President of the Board of Education the total financial grants made to Catholic schools during the last financial year?

The Board do not make grants direct to Catholic or other elementary voluntary schools. Such schools are maintained by the local education authorities and the expenditure incurred thereon forms part of the total expenditure of the authorities on which a bulk assessment is made for the purpose of the Board's grants.

Playing Fields

42 and 43.

asked the President of the Board of Education (1) what is the number of elementary and senior schools in England and Wales built in the last 10 years; and how many of this number have a field for the playing of games and recreation adjoining;

(2) the number of elementary and senior schools in England and Wales planned or in the course of construction; and how many of this number have a field for the playing of games and recreation adjoining?

During the last 10 years 1,264 new public elementary schools, including senior schools, have been opened. Of these, according to the Board's records, which in this respect are by no means complete, 584 are on sites of more than two acres which provide space for the playing of games. The number of public elementary schools, including senior schools, which are now in course of erection or for which plans have been approved is 234. Of these 183 are on sites of over two acres, large enough to provide playing field facilities. In a number of the remaining cases public recreation grounds or other playing fields are accessible to the schools.

Is it a fact that there are fewer playing grounds in Lancashire than in other parts of the country and that that is the reason why there are no Lancashire clubs in the English Cup semi-final?

I will not argue with an hon. Member who comes from an inferior county.

Supplementary Teachers

50.

asked the President of the Board of Education what are the qualifications necessary for appointment as a supplementary teacher in an elementary school; how many such teachers there were on the last date for which figures are available; and how many such teachers were appointed for the first time during the latest 12 months for which figures are available

The conditions under which supplementary teachers may be appointed and employed are set out in Schedule II of the Code of Regulations for Elementary Schools, a copy of which I am sending to the hon. Member. The number of supplementary teachers in public elementary schools maintained by local education authorities on the 31st December, 1935, was 5,722. The board have no figures of new appointments, which are not notified to them, but to His Majesty's inspector.

Maintenance Allowances (Barrow-In-Furness)

51.

asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that no reply has been sent to letters dated 19th November, 1935, 6th January, 1936, and 4th February, 1936, from the Barrow-in-Furness local education authority with regard to that authority's proposed arrangements for the award of maintenance allowances under Section 24 of the Education Act, 1921;when the authority may expect to receive a reply to their letters; and whether there is any reason why the authority's scheme cannot be dealt with and approved under the existing grant regulations of the board?

The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The policy of the Government is in accord with the resolution passed by this House on 12th February last, to the effect that it is undesirable to make provision for State maintenance grants for children attending public elementary schools during the period of compulsory school attendance. I have, however, felt that it would not be courteous to the House to take action in accordance with this resolution until I have had an opportunity of considering the outcome of any discussions which may arise in the course of the further proceedings on the Education Bill.

Local Government Officers'superannuation Acts

44.

asked the President of the Board of Education the number of local education authorities to whom he pays grant on their expenditure in paying the local authority's share of the contributions under the Local Government Officers' Superannuation Acts; whether he pays grant on all classes of officers brought under the Act; and, if not, what classes of officers are excluded?

No expenditure by local education authorities under the Local Government Officers' Superannuation Acts ranks for grant from the Board of Education.

57.

asked the Minister of Health the number of local authorities who have submitted to him schemes for including supplementary teachers for benefit under the Local Government Officers' Superannuation Acts; how many such schemes he has approved; and the total number of designated posts so created?

Twenty-four authorities have, with my approval, made agreements with the managers of non-provided schools for the admission to the benefits of the Act of 1922 of 225 supplementary teachers. I regret that figures relating to supplementary teachers in provided schools are not readily available.

Are there any authorities who do it with provided schools and not with non-provided schools?

I will inquire and let the hon. Gentleman know.

Agriculture (English And Scottish Departments)

45.

asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the undesirability of treating English and Scottish agriculture separately, he will consider merging the Ministry of Agriculture with the Scottish Department of Agriculture, so that the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries may be responsible for administration in the United Kingdom as a whole?

No, Sir. A separate Agricultural Department for Scotland was set up under Statute in 1912, and since that date it has carried on its work with success. Moreover, the many diversities between English and Scottish agriculture, the separate system of land laws in the two countries, and the special problem of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland make it inexpedient, in my opinion, to adopt my hon. Friend's suggestion.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a widespread feeling among Scottish agriculturists at the moment that they are not receiving fair treatment, or as much money as their English compatriots; and will be look into the question from this aspect?

Yes, I have gathered something of the kind from the nature of a question that was recently asked.

Does my right hon. Friend recognise the overwhelming importance in English agricultural policy of all those parts of the United Kingdom which have separate agricultural departments?

Imperial Defence (Government Proposals)

46.

asked the Prime Minister whether, having regard to the Government's programme for repairing gaps in Imperial Defence, he will call a conference of Dominion and Indian representatives, including Indian princes, with a. view to the Dominions and India contributing more materially to the defence of our common interests?

The fullest touch is maintained between the Government of the United Kingdom and the Governments of the Dominions and India on all major questions of Imperial defence through the work of the Committee of Imperial Defence and by the normal means of communication. I do not consider that the suggestion of my hon. and gallant Friend could usefully be adopted at the present stage.

Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that, now that India has got an approach to responsible Government, she might well approach the question of making a more responsible contribution towards the defence of our common interests?

47.

asked the; Prime Minister whether he will consider the advisability of calling a conference of the leaders of parties to see whether, in view of the international crisis, it would be possible to secure national support on the widest possible front for an armaments policy that was closely linked up with a system of collective security, in which each country made an agreed and co-ordinated contribution on specific undertakings?

The hon. Member's suggestion has been noted.

48.

asked the Prime Minister whether the policy explained in the White Paper of 1st March, 1935 [Cmd. 4827], remains in all respects the policy of the Government?

The policy of His Majesty's Government is fully set out in the recently issued White Paper of 3rd March, and to that I have nothing to add.

65.

asked the Chancellor. of the Exchequer whether it is the intention of the Government to meet the whole cost of the programme laid down in the White Paper relating to defence out of revenue?

It will be more appropriate to consider the method of meeting the cost referred to in the question in the course of my Budget statement.

Are we to understand from that reply, and in view of the importance of the programme which will be considered on Monday and Tuesday, that this House is to have no information as to the expenditure?

Yes, Sir.

May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman has not already made up his mind as to how the money is to be raised?

The answer is in the negative.

This question was originally put down to the Prime Minister and was transferred to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. May I be permitted to ask the Prime Minister if he really thinks that it is in accordance with the traditions of the House for this very important matter to be withheld from the House at a time when this great defence programme is under contemplation?

I have not been given notice of that question, and I should like to see it down.

66.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he proposes to make a statement as to the approximate cost of the defence reconstruction programme laid down in the White Paper, as to over how long a period it is proposed to spread it, and as to the approximate additional annual cost of upkeep of the Forces resulting there from?

For the reasons given in the White Paper, namely, the flexible and variable character of the proposals as well as the difficulty of estimating accurately beforehand the possible rate of execution, it is not practicable to say at this stage, even approximately, what will be the total cost of the defence reconstruction programme. For the same reasons, it would be premature at present to frame any estimate of the additional annual cost of upkeep of the Forces resulting there from.

Having regard to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's answer to this question and to the previous question, does he not think that it is utterly unreasonable, and contrary to good public policy, that this House and the country should be expected to accept the policy laid down in the White Paper, involving huge expenditure, without the slightest knowledge as to how much it is, or the means by which that money is to be raised; and does he not think that it is contrary to good financial administration?

It is very important that the public should not be misled in this matter. I think that the right hon. Gentleman has had personal experience of the embarrassment that may be caused by giving figures without sufficient knowledge.

May I ask the Prime Minister whether, in the Debate on Monday, some indication will be given to this House and the country as to expenditure, having regard to the fact that without any figures misleading statements are likely to be made?

I have again not had notice of this question. I am at this very moment having under consideration various aspects of the matter which can be placed before the House of Commons, and of course that is one question that must be considered. I cannot at this moment give an answer to it.

Arising out of the answer of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to me, is it rot a rule of every local authority in the country that before they are committed to a given item of policy the council are informed of the cost of that policy, and may I ask that the House of Commons should be treated at any rate as decently as a local authority?

That must be borne in consideration.

89.

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will make representations to the Departments concerned to ensure that the special areas of Scotland receive a fair share of the contracts to be placed for defensive armaments?

As stated in the Debate on Monday last, it is the policy of the Government, other things being equal, to give preference in the placing of Government contracts to the depressed areas. It may be assumed that in the carrying out of that policy the claims of depressed areas in Scotland to a fair share of the contracts will be fully considered.

Will the right hon. Gentleman see that due attention is given to the establishment in Scotland of some of the duplicate Government factories envisaged in the White Paper?

I shall communicate that suggestion to my right hon. Friend.

Dominion Affairs (Undersecretary,:Resignation)

49.

asked the Prime Minister whether it is intended that the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs shall resign his office following his appointment as chairman of the Conservative Party Organisation?

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hacking) has resigned his office as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs.

Has the right hon. Gentleman now got a better job than that which he had in this House?

I think that that inquiry had better be made of the right hon. Gentleman in question.

Public Health

Maternal Mortality (Rhondda)

52.

asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to figures and graphs showing the reduction of maternal mortality in the Rhondda Valley as the result of the provision of additional meals as well as milk to expectant mothers; and whether he will supply these figures and graphs For the information of Members?

I have requested the medical officers of my Department who are investigating the problem of maternal mortality to pay careful attention to the information regarding Rhondda referred to by the hon. Member. I have no doubt that they will deal with it in their report which I hope to receive from them when they have completed the extensive inquiry they are now making. The report, which will be presented to Parliament as soon as it is received, will, I think, be the best way of bringing to the notice of hon. Members the facts in this and other cases and the conclusions to be drawn from them.

Can the Minister say when he expects to receive the report?

It will be rather a long inquiry, but I should think it ought to be completed later on in the year.

Will it be possible to publish the report before we discuss the Maternity Bill that is to be introduced?

No, Sir.

Does not the Minister think that these matters are of sufficient importance as to give the House an opportunity of judging for themselves by publishing these matters separately and in advance of the report?

I should hesitate to bring forward only one case. I am anxious for the House to be appraised of the whole of the facts concerning every case.

Will the report be published before we are ask to agree to the Bill?

Mental Hospital, Napsbury (Boy Patient)

56.

asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that John Henry Fuller, a boy of 14 years of age, is the only boy patient in the Napsbury Mental Hospital, where all the other patients are adults; and whether he will take steps to obtain his transfer to a more suitable institution?

The question of this patient's transfer to another institution has already been carefully considered, but I am advised that it is not at present desirable or practicable, having regard to his mental condition, as to which I am communicating with the hon. Member.

Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider this case, if I send him a letter which I have received, showing that a boy in similar circumstances has been treated in an exceedingly bad and discreditable way by other patients, and that the danger of having one boy in a mental institution where all the other patients are men is highly dangerous?

Of course, I have not seen the communication to which the hon. Member refers, but I shall be glad if he will speak to me about it.

Anaesthetics

59.

asked the Minister of Health the number of deaths attributable to the anaesthetic when chloroform was being used?

I regret that the desired information is not available.

Hotels, Clubs, Etc (Sanitation)

61.

asked the Minister of Health whether he will issue instructions to local governing bodies to carry out an annual inspection of lavatories and conveniences in hotels, public houses, clubs, etc., with a view to the replacement of all defective sanitary ware which is considered to be a source of danger to public health; and will he issue regulations to carry this into effect?

No, Sir. I have no evidence that local authorities need any special stimulus in this matter; nor have I any power to issue instructions or regulations of the kind suggested.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give consideration to an order of a similar character to be issued, and is he aware that this annual inspection is carried out on the Continent with salutary effect?

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will see me on the subject.

Health Resorts And Watering Places Act, 1921

53.

asked the Minister of Health whether he will consider an amendment of the Health Resorts and Watering Places Act, 1921, so that the council of any borough or urban district may be able to expend for the purpose of advertising the advantages and amenities of the borough or district the profits received by them from the letting of chairs, tents, bathing machines, letting of stalls to beach vendors, and entertainments or recreation provided by them and the like, without the total sum being restricted to the produce of a ld. rate?

I have received representations in favour of an amendment of this Act from the Association of Health and Pleasure Resorts, and I understand that the Association contemplates the introduction of a Bill which will deal with the point raised by my hon. Friend, among others.

Housing

Statistics

54 and 55.

asked the Minister of Health (1) how many houses have been built in England and Wales under the 1934 Housing Acts, with the consent of the Ministry of Health, where the full Government subsidy has been and is now being passed on to private individuals; and will he state the amount of the taxpayers' money already paid and the final commitments at the termination of the subsidy period, and name the local authorities involved;

(2) how many houses have been built under the 1924 Housing Act in England and Wales where, in addition to the Government subsidy under the same Act, the local authority have made and are now making grants from the local rates for the selfsame houses to private individuals; how much money has been paid; what are the final financial commitments at the termination of the subsidy period; and will he name the local authorities?

Grants have been made under the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1924, to sonic 260 local authorities in respect of about 14,000 houses erected by private enterprise including societies, trustees and companies as well as individuals, but I have no details of the number of such houses in each category and the information asked for could only be obtained by inquiry of each of the 260 local authorities concerned. If the hon. Member desires information in any particular case, perhaps he will communicate with me and I will obtain it.

Film

58.

asked the Minister of Health how far his Department has been responsible for the production of the documentary film on housing recently shown to Members of Parliament and others; and whether and, if so, how much public money has been spent upon this National Government propaganda crusade?

My Department has had no responsibility for the production of the housing film to which the hon. Member refers, and no public money has been spent on it.

Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether the complacent optimism of the film represents the view of his Department?

It shows great progress and an intending endeavour to make still more progress.

Can the right hon. Gentleman explain, in that case, how it is that the promoters of the film indicated that it was produced with the approval of the Minister of Health, and will he tell us of the circumstances whereby public money is used for Government propaganda?

That was not the question I was asked. The film was produced with my full encouragement, such as I would be glad to give to any other film which would help our housing programme.

Railways (Rating)

62.

asked the Minister of Health whether it is the intention of the Government to deal with the anomalous position created by the recent decision in the Southern Railway Company's case regarding the rating of railways?

Until the application which has been made to the Railway and Canal Commission has been determined, I am not in a position to make any statement.

Income Tax (Arrears)

63.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the bankruptcy of Mr. C. M. Johnstone, whose Income Tax arrears, accumulated over a period of 10 years, amount to £16,000, and whose assets are stated to amount to £16;and how much of the arrears of £16,000 the Inland Revenue authorities expect to recover?

I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to my reply of 27th February, to which I can only add that in addition to the assets the current earnings of a bankrupt may be applied to the satisfaction of the bankruptcy debt.

If the existing machinery for the collection of Income Tax is so faulty as to permit such arrears to accumulate, is the Chancellor of the Exchequer prepared to introduce legislation to amend that machinery?

No, Sir. I do not consider that the existing machinery is faulty. I have given some personal examination to this question, and I find that in the years 1932–34 inclusive, the amount which had to be written off as irrecoverable, in consequence of bank- ruptcy or liquidation, amounted to less than ½ per cent. Of the total amount which was due for tax.

Is it not a fact that when the small man goes a clay or two over his limit he is threatened with prosecution; and how could this man go 10 years and accumulate £16,000 without being pulled up?

It is impossible to give particulars of what happened in this case, but I have gone very carefully into it, and I am satisfied that the Inland Revenue Department did all that they possibly could to collect the money.

If that be so, does it not indicate that there should be a tightening-up of the law in order to be able to get at these people?

It is not possible always to provide for all circumstances that may arise.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this case has given a great deal of uneasiness to a large number of people, who feel that certain privileges have been applied here which would not be applied to poor people who have lapsed; and in view of that, would the right hon. Gentleman not go into the whole question again in order to allay the feeling that there is difference of treatment between comfortable people and poor folk?

I am very ranch obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I am quite aware that there is this feeling, but I think it is founded upon misapprehension. Cases of this kind are very few in number. They arise out of special circumstances that do not generally arise in the case of the smaller people to whom the hon. Member referred. I have myself given special consideration to this particular case, and I am satisfied that there is no distinction made between rich and poor.

Franco-Rumanian Agreement

64.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the proposed Franco-Rumanian agreement under which Rumania's oil royalties, representing her remaining asset, have been mortgaged for purchases of armaments in France and for the benefit of French bondholders; and what steps he proposes to take to safeguard the interests of Rumania's British creditors?

Yes, Sir, my attention has been called to reports which have appeared in the Press in regard to the proposed Franco-Rumanian agreement, and the matter is receiving careful consideration.

Mexican Cigarettes (Duty)

67.

asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the increasing sale in this country of Mexican reefer cigarettes made from a weed called mairjuana which acts as a drug; and whether any duty is charged on these cigarettes?

I am not aware that Mexican reefer cigarettes made from mairjuana are being imported and sold in this country, but if my hon. Friend will furnish me with particulars of any case he may have in mind, I will have further inquiry made.

Government Departments (Staff)

68.

asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the reasons for the distinction whereby candidates from the staff of the Imperial Civil Service for appointment to the Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue Departments, whose functions are common to Great Britain and Northern Ireland, are granted, in virtue of their Government service, concessions as to age limits at the open competitive examination for appointment to the reserved services cited, whereas candidates from the staffs of the Northern Ireland service are not; and whether His Majesty's Government will take the necessary steps to ensure that candidates from the Northern Ireland service are accorded the same privilege as candidates from the Imperial Civil Service?

Extensions above the normal age limits for entry to the various grades of the home Civil Service are allowed to candidates who are already established members of that Service. Employés of the Northern Ireland Government do not fall within this category, and I regret that I am not prepared to grant a similar concession to them in connection with appointments to the Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue Departments.

Capital Issues (Empire And Foreign Countries)

69.

asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the total amount of British money invested in development work or advanced as loans since the War to Empire countries and to foreign countries, respectively?

I fear that there are no available statistics which would enable me to answer the question. For what they are worth, the figures of the new capital issues on the London market during the years 1919 to 1935, inclusive, have been computed at £960,000,000 for British Empire countries and at £527,000,000 for foreign countries; but, as my hon. Friend is aware, these figures do not purport to show the true net amount invested by the United Kingdom overseas during the period in question, and may be a quite inaccurate guide to it.

New Roads (Acreage)

71.

asked the Minister of Agriculture the estimated acreage of the country which has been absorbed by new roads since 1921?

I regret that the information is not available.

Tithe Rentcharge

72.

asked the Minister of Agriculture what was the gross annual value of tithe rentcharge charged on lands in private lay ownership at December, 1934; and what percentage this is of the total tithe rentcharge in existence at that date?

According to the Report of the Royal Commission on Tithe Rent-charge, the amount of tithe rentcharge, par value, in the ownership of colleges, hospitals, charities, and private lay owners, in 1934, was approximately £532,598, or 17.1 per cent. Of the total tithe rentcharge. No precise figures are available as to the amount of tithe rent-charge owned by private individuals as distinct from the other bodies which I have named.

Is it not possible to get the figure which is in private lay ownership, and may I take it that those figures were all submitted to the Royal Commission that investigated that matter and it ought therefore to be possible to get this particular figure?

The Royal Commission's Report gave the figure for the Colleges and University of Oxford and the Colleges and University of Cambridge, but the precise figure is not set out.

Would the Minister be good enough to make inquiries in order to see if it is possible to get the figure?

I will make what inquiries are possible.

73.

asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will arrange, before any discussion on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Tithes takes place, for a full statement to be made showing all the sources of income available at present to the Church of England and the precise directions in which this income is expended?

I fear that it would not be possible for a Government statement to be made on the lines suggested by the hon. Member. I would, however, refer him to the annual reports of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and of Queen Anne's Bounty and the Official Year-Book of the Church of England, which contain certain information on this subject. The Report of the Arshbishop's Commission on Church Property and Finance published in 1924 contains, I am informed, a full statement of income and expenditure of the Church of England. This report was published by the Press and Publications Board of the Church Assembly.

Royal Air Force

Oversea Establishments

74.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether, in view of the necessity for the establish- ment of safer bases for the manufacture of aircraft in the event of hostilities breaking out in Europe, the Government are taking any steps to encourage the establishment of aircraft and engine factories in other parts of the Empire?

The whole question of the sources of supply of our aircraft requirements in war is at present under consideration by His Majesty's Government, and I am not at present in a position to make any statement in regard to the point raised in the question.

Does not the Under-Secretary think that this would be a good idea not only from the point of view of Defence but from the point of view of migration as well?

The whole matter is under consideration.

Farnborough Experimental Station

75.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the total cost during the last 10 years of the Government experimental station at Farnborough; and whether any of the recent discoveries, such as slots, flaps, retractable under-carriages, fog landing apparatus, blind-flying instruments, variable pitch propellers, etc., have originated from Farnborough?

The total cost of the Royal Aircraft Establishment during the 10 years ended 31st March, 1935 (after allowing for rents received, sales of material, etc.), was about £3,500,000. The answer to the second part of the question is in the affirmative, notwithstanding that the primary function of the establishment is not to originate inventions but to carry out such experimental work and practical tests as may be required.

Would not this sum of £3,500,000 be spent to better advantage if distributed equally among official aircraft firms for experimental purposes?

No, Sir, I think that this establishment has initiated many important inventions although their work is primarily experimental.

Can the Under-Secretary tell the House what single invention has originated from Farnborough?

I will certainly tell the House.

Apprentices

76.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether, in view of the announcement of the need for new apprentices for the Royal Air Force, he will state the numbers of mechanics in the Air Force to whom within the last two years permission to re-engage for another period of 12 years has been refused after the completion of their first 12 years' service; and what is the average age of such men who have been dropped from the Royal Air Force?

Information in the form desired is not readily available. I may say, however, that since 1st April, 1934, 794 airmen in Group I, which is the highly skilled group, have been re-engaged, 314 have been allowed to prolong their service, and 86 have been discharged or transferred to the reserve. The average age of the last mentioned would be about 30.

Will the Under-Secretary say what assistance his Department gives to the men who are dropped from the service through no fault of their own?

I must ask for notice of that question.

77.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air, in view of the announcement that 1,000 boys between 15 and 17 years of age will be required by the Royal Air Force for training in August and September, the number of such boys who will have a reasonable chance of making service in the force a career; and whether all of them, providing they are efficient, will be given at the conclusion of their first period of service an opportunity of re-engagement?

The number of airmen who can be allowed to re-engage to complete time for pension is necessarily limited by the requirements of the service from time to time, and it is not practicable to give a forecast of conditions many years hence. The numbers accepted are such as to ensure to re-engaged men promotion to and employment in ranks appropriate to their qualifications and experience. Apprentice entrants not eventually accepted for re-engagement on the active list are offered entry into the reserve with a gratuity of £100.

Cannot the Under-Secretary take steps to make industrial employment in the Royal Air Force a career instead of a possibility?

Will these boys be told when they get into the Royal Air Force that they will be fed on a very inferior quality of margarine?

Trade And Commerce

Trade Agrlements

78.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can give an assurance that, in any steps which may be taken during the current year to negotiate the revision of the trade agreement between this country and Finland, Latvia, Sweden, or Norway, regard will be had to the fact that the imports into this country of planed or dressed timber have more than doubled during the past 10 years and that accordingly better protection is needed for the home saw-milling and box-board industries?

The position of our saw-milling and box-board industries will be borne in mind in any negotiations for the revision of our trade agreements with the countries in question.

If I give the Parliamentary Secretary evidence which has been supplied to me this week as to the way the box-making industry of Grimsby is suffering unemployment as a result of these large imports, will he give special consideration to the matter?

I shall be glad to receive the information.

Is the hon. Member aware that the trade agreement between Finland and this country has led to such a great improvement in the relations between the two countries that this is a far more important matter in the present state of Europe than a comparatively small individual interest?

Does not the hon. Member think that there is a good deal more to be done in this direction?

Linoleum And Floorcloth

79.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has considered the protest from the Linoleum and Floorcloth Manufacturers' Association regarding the accuracy of the information circulated by the association to Members of the House in connection with the Import Duties (No. 34) Order, 1935; and whether he is now in a position to define the alleged inaccuracies in that information?

Yes, Sir. I am sending the right hon. Gentleman a copy of my reply to the 'Linoleum and Floorcloth Manufacturers' Association.

Foodstuffs (Imports)

80.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can furnish information as to the volume of the importation of foodstuffs of kinds produced in the United Kingdom for each of the years 1930 to 1035, inclusive, based upon the average prices of 1930?

As most imported foodstuffs are produced in some measure in the United Kingdom, I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT the desired index numbers of the voulme of total imports in Class I (Food, Drink and Tobacco) excluding tea, coffee, cocoa, alcoholic liquors and tobacco.

Following is the statement:

The following statement shows, for each of the years. 1930 to 1935, index numbers of the volume of imports into the United Kingdom of goods comprised in Class I (Food, Drink and Tobacco), excluding tea, coffee, cocoa, alcoholic beverages and tobacco, based on the estimated value of such imports at the prices of the year 1930.

Year	Index number.
1930	100.0
1931	109.9
1932	105.3
1933	101.8
1934	102.1
1935	100.9

Import, Duties Act

81.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether arrangements can be made for a more rapid publication of the reports of the effect of the Import Duties Act on the industries of the country?

I can assure by hon. Friend that I fully appreciate the importance of publishing these reports promptly. The principal results of the Import Duties Act Inquiry for 1934 are being published in a series of preliminary reports in the Board of Trade Journal. The reports relating to all the textile trades have already appeared, and it is hoped to complete the series by the middle of the year.

Post Office

Parcels (Egypt)

83.

asked the Postmaster-General whether he has received any complaints as to the delivery of parcels to British troops now in Egypt; and whether anything can be done to improve this service?

There have been a few complaints, due mainly to the fact that parcels addressed to British troops in Egypt, like other parcels, have to pass through the Egyptian Customs and are liable to Customs duty. There may have been some delay also in the distribution in Egypt of parcels not fully addressed to the locality where the addressee is stationed. I am, however, looking into the matter and will write to my hon. Friend.

Air-Mail Corresponden (Surcharges)

84.

asked the Postmaster-General whether it is his intention to abolish surcharges on air-mail correspondence to the continent of Europe?

In extension of the policy instituted last year for the carriage by air within the United Kingdom, without surcharge, of first class mail which could be accelerated in delivery wherever suitable air services were available at reasonable cost, arrangements are being made with the co-operation of the Air Ministry for the conveyance of first class mail by air, at the ordinary foreign postage rates to Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. The object will be to ensure that, in general, letters and postcards addressed to the countries mentioned shall be despatched to their destinations by surface or air transport, whichever offers the quickest delivery, without the necessity for the use of air mail labels or other special action by the posting public. The payment of the existing surcharge on letters to these countries will thus be rendered unnecessary. An essential condition of the proposals is that at least 50 per cent. of such mail services, inward and outward, shall be performed by British aeroplanes. I hope that these new services will be in operation very shortly and detailed announcements will be made in due course.

Will this apply to France?

It applies to the countries I have mentioned in my reply—Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

Why are France and Germany left out?

That will be taken into consideration. As we are able to effect the services I take the earliest opportunity of announcing them to the House.

Are these services a paying proposition?

Tanganyika (Flogging)

85.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, seeing that Baron von Bultzingslowen was convicted in a Tanganyika court and before the supreme court of East Africa of flogging a native within an inch of his life, that Chief Justice Abrahams held that he was lucky in not being charged with a graver offence, and that the Governor has now set aside the deportation order, the Home Government was in any way consulted upon the matter before the Governor of Tanganyika decided to cancel this deportation; and what steps it is proposed to take?

The decision not to accept the court's recommendation for expulsion was made by the Governor of Tanganyika in Council under the Expulsion of Undesirables Ordinance, and no question of reference to His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom arose. I have asked the Governor to report the grounds for the decision taken in the matter.

Is the flogging of natives common in this territory?

I hope it is not common. I hope that this is an exception to the general practice. I am not happy about the circumstances, and that is why I am asking why the Governor took this course.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that recently there appeared in the "Radio Times" a letter from a correspondent in Southern Rhodesia in which it was virtually admitted that domestic troubles among the natives are settled by rough justice administered by a sjambok?

Rough justice can be like rough language.

If the right hon. Gentleman is not satisfied on examination with the reasons which the Governor gives, will he see that the original sentence of deportation is carried out?

Most certainly I am not satisfied on my present information. In my judgment this particular individual would be an undesirable individual in any colony or anywhere. The difficulty would be to find anywhere to send him.

Railway Engines (Electrical Headlights)

87.

asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that the London and North Eastern Railway Company ran an experimental train between Harrogate and Pilmoor the other day, the engine of which carried a powerful headlamp, and that the driver of the train was most enthusiastic over the result; and whether he will cause further inquiries to be made with a view to the extension of the experiment?

I understand that the railway company are using an electrical headlight to enable the driver to see a new type of signal, introduced experimentally on the Boroughbridge branch line, which is fitted with reflectors instead of lamps. I shall keep myself informed about this experiment in branch line signalling.

Hyde Park (Lighting)

88.

asked the First Commissioner of Works whether he is aware that in a recent case concerning an attack on a man in Hyde Park a police officer stated that such attacks have lately become more frequent and that they usually take place in a very dark place; and whether, in view of this evidence, he will take steps to improve the lighting in Hyde Park?

I find that since June of last year 12 cases of assault in Hyde Park during the hours of darkness have been reported to the police, and, of these, eight appear to have been committed quite near to the speakers' ground at Marble Arch. Additional lamps have been added from time to time at certain places, but I am having a general review of the lighting of the park made in conjunction with the police, and when this has been done I will consider what action is necessary.

Does not the right lion. Gentleman think that the moral of a case such as this is that people should not go into dark places?

As I pointed out in my reply, the difficulty of the case is that it did not happen in a dark part of the park, but near the speakers' enclosure at the Marble Arch.

Army Regulations (Moustaches)

90.

asked the Secretary of State for War whether he can now make a statement regarding the court-martial of a guardsman for refusing to shave off his moustache; under what Army Regulations this was done; and how the Regulations are administered for the various regiments of the Army?

I think my hon. and gallant Friend is under some misapprehension regarding this case, as the soldier in question was not tried by court-martial for refusing to shave off his moustache, but for the quite separate offence of disobeying the command to fall in. Under paragraph 978 of King's Regulations a soldier is at liberty to shave his upper lip or to grow a moustache, but it is obviously within the discretion of the commanding officer to order the removal of a moustache which presents an unsoldierly appearance. The guardsman in question was on more than one occasion ordered either to remove his moustache or to grow it in a proper manner. For disobedience of this lawful command he was sentenced by his commanding officer to 10 days' confinement to barracks. When this sentence had been pronounced he was ordered to fall in, with a view to being marched away, but disobeyed the order. It was for this last act of disobedience of a lawful command that he was tried by a district court-martial and sentenced to 28 days' detention. In view of this explanation, I trust my hon. and gallant Friend will agree that the last part of the question does not arise.

Is a man before enlisting told about these complicated Regulations regarding the wearing of a moustache?

Will the hon. Baronet illustrate to the House exactly what a soldierly moustache is?

Was the famous "Old Bill's" moustache in accordance with the Regulations?

In view of the great importance of this question, could it not be added as an addendum to the White Paper?

The King's Regulations on this point are perfectly simple, and can be easily understood.

Business Of The House

Might I ask the Prime Minister what is the business for next week?

On Monday, Debate on Defence; Committee stage of the Unemployment (Northern Ireland Agreement) Bill. Tuesday.—Conclusion of the Debate on Defence; Third Reading of the Unemployment (Northern Ireland Agreement) Bill, and the Report stage of the Supplementary Estimates which were considered in Committee on 25th February.

Wednesday. — Private Members' Motions.

Thursday.—It is proposed to move Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on first going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, 1936, and to consider Votes A, 1, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 and the Ordnance Factories Vote in Committee. Also consideration of the Irish Free State (Special Duties) No. 1 Order.

Friday.—Private Members' Bills.

On any day, if there is time, other Orders may be taken.

Might I ask the Prime Minister in what way the Debate on Monday will take place, and whether there will be a Motion of not? Might I also call his attention to the Unemployment (Northern Ireland Agreement) Bill? I understand there was a statement in the House that that should be taken at an early hour and not after 11 o'clock, in view of its controversial nature?

It is the Committee stage that I have announced for Monday night, and I do not think there is anything especially controversial about that stage. Again, that is unfortunately one of the pieces of legislation that has to be got through against time.

How far are we going to-day? I did not know the right hon. Gentleman proposed to take the Unemployment (Northern Ireland Agreement) Bill Second Reading to-night. I also asked the right hon. Gentleman a question as to the course the Debate would take on Monday.

The Debate on Monday will be on a Motion which will be on the Paper to-morrow morning. The suspension of the Rule to-night is for the purpose of obtaining the Second Reading of the Unemployment (Northern Ireland Agreement) Bill. The Money Resolution on which the Bill is founded was taken a fortnight ago. We desire to take the Committee stage of the Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill, arid the Motion to approve the Additional Import Duties (No. 2) Order relating to upholstery. That is exempted business.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Unemployment (Northern Ireland) Agreement Bill is considered to be a very important Bill, and that there is great anxiety to discuss the Second Reading at an earlier hour than Eleven o'clock?

I wish it were possible, but I am afraid it is impossible. I understood that one or two hon. Members were interested in it, but I never regarded it as a controversial Bill.

Can the Prime Minister say when is it intended to announce the appointment of the Minister who is to be charged with the duties of Defence; and whether the announcement will be made before the commencement of the Debate on Monday?

An announcement will be made quite reasonably soon. I do not think it is likely to be made before the Debate. It may be made immediately after the Debate.

Is it not going to be made during the Debate? Surely, it will be made after the Debate starts, at any rate?

I think I must be the judge of that.

Surely the Prime Minister realises that it is essential that during the course of the Debate the House of Commons should be informed as to who this Minister will be?

Why?

Has the Prime Minister made up his mind about who is going to take over this new administration, as much as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made up his mind about the finances of it?

Can the Prime Minister at least assure us that the new Minister will be a Member of this House?

I think the House might wait with patience until I fulfil what is my sole responsibility.

I wish to raise a point concerning the suspension of the 11 o'clock Rule, and I apologise, Mr. Speaker, for doing so without having given notice. To-day the Prime Minister is again moving the suspension of the 11 o'clock Rule. I wish to put it to you, Sir, that this Rule was, made by Members in order that the House should sit only until 11 o'clock. When that Rule was made, it was presumably made to suit not only the majority but also the minority in the House, so that Members would know within reason when they would get borne under the ordinary customs of the House. One has never objected to the suspension of the 11 o'clock Rule when occasion demanded, but I put it to you that the suspension of the Rule is not now merely a matter arising from time to time, but has become the normal custom and pays no regard to the fact that the Rule was originally adopted as some defence of minorities in this House. We have now reached the stage that, except on private Members' day, the 11o'clock Rule is always abrogated. I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, as the defender of the rights of minorities. If the Government are going always to suspend the 11 o'clock Rule, I suggest that you ought to insist on refusal to accept the Motion, and throw on the Government the responsibility for putting down a Motion for alteration of the Standing Order, so that the House can debate it.

In this particular case I have no powers at all. The question whether the 11 o'clock Rule is to be suspended is one for the House to decide, and not for me.

Division No. 85.]	AYES.	[4.5 p.m.
Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)	Butler, R. A.	Drewe, C.
Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.	Caine, G. R. Hall-	Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)
Albery, I. J.	Campbell, Sir E. T.	Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)	Cartland, J. R. H.	Dugdale, Major T. L.
Allen, Lt.-Col. Sir W. J. (Armagh)	Carver, Major W. H.	Duggan. H. J.
Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)	Castlereagh, Viscount	Duncan, J. A. L.
Anstruther-Gray, W. J.	Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)	Dunglass, Lord
Aske, Sir R. W.	Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)	Dunne, P. R. R.
Assheton, R.	Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord Hugh	Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Astor, Major Hon. J. J. (Dover)	Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (Br.W.)	Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)	Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. N. (Edgb'tn)	Ellis, Sir G.
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Channon, H.	Elmley, Viscount
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)	Emmott, C. E. G. C.
Baxter, A. Beverley	Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)	Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Beauchamp, Sir B. C.	Chorlton, A. E. L.	Entwistle, C. F.
Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)	Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)
Bernays, R. H.	Cobb, Sir C. S.	Everard, W. L.
Blair, Sir R.	Colfox, Major W. P.	Fildes, Sir H.
Blindell, Sir J.	Colman, N. C. D.	Fox, Sir G. W. G.
Boothby, R. J. G.	Cook, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk N.)	Fraser, Capt. Sir I.
Borodale, Viscount	Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)	Fremantle, Sir F. E.
Bossom, A. C.	Cooper, Rt. Hn. A. Duff(W'st'r S.G'gs)	Furness, S. N.
Boulton, W. W.	Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'burgh, W.)	Ganzoni, Sir J.
Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart	Croft, Brig.-Gen. Sir H. Page	Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir J.
Bower, Comdr. R T.	Crooke, J. S.	Gledhill, G.
Bowyer. Capt. Sir G. E. W.	Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.	Gluckstein, L. H.
Boyce, H. Leslie	Cross, R H.	Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.
Brass, Sir W.	Culverwell, C. T.	Goodman, Cal. A. W.
Briscoe, Capt. R. G.	Davies, Major G. F. (Yeovil)	Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)
Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Davison, Sir W. H.	Granville, E. L.
Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)	De la Bère, R.	Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)
Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)	Denman, Hon. R. D.	Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.
Brown. Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)	Denville, Alfred	Gridley, Sir A. B.
Bull, B. B.	Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.	Grimston, R. V.
Burgin, Dr. E. L.	Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.	Gritten, W. G. Howard
Burton, Col. H. W.	Dower, Capt. A. V. G.	Guest, Hon. I. (Brecon and Radnor)

Is not the repeated suspension of the 11 o'clock Rule a breaking of the Standing Order, which says that the House shall rise at 11 o'clock? Is not the Government's action tantamount to setting aside the original Standing Order, which says that the Rule shall be suspended only in exceptional circumstances?

Undoubtedly there is a, Standing Order which says that the House will rise at 11 o'clock, except in special circumstances, but the House has always had liberty to suspend the Standing Order. It is not a matter for me to decide.

In order to avoid the Divisions that take place every day, would it not be possible to suspend the 11 o'clock Rule on Monday for the whole of the week?

Motion made, and Question put,

"That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 14, Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Eleven of the Clock and that the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]

The House divided; Ayes, 244;Noes, 131.

Guinness, T. L. E. B.	Manningham-Buller, Sir M.	Shepperson, Sir E. W.
Gunston, Capt. D. W.	Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R	Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.
Guy, J. C. M.	Maxwell, S. A.	Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.
Hannah, I. C.	Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.	Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)
Hannon, Sir P. J. H.	Mills, Sir F. (Layton, E.)	Smithers Sir W.
Harvey, G.	Mills, Major J. D.(New Forest)	Somerset, T.
Heligers, Captain F. F. A.	Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)	Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)
Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-	Moreing, A. C.	Somerville. A. A. (Windsor)
Hepworth, J.	Mcrris-Jones, Dr. J. H.	Southby. Comdr. A. R. j.
Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)	Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)	Spender-Clay, Lt.-Cl Rt. Hn. H. H.
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)	Morrison, W. S. (Cirencester)	Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
Holdsworth, H.	Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.	Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'I'd)
Holmes, J. S.	Nicolson, Hon. H. G.	Storey, S.
Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.	O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh	Strauss. E. A. (Southwark, N.)
Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.	Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. G.	Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw.h)
Hulbert, N. J.	OrrEwing, I. L.	Stuart, Hot j. (Moray and Nairn)
Hunter, T.	Palmer. G. E. H.	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir T. W. H.	Patrick, C. M.	Sutcliffe. H.
James, Wing-Commander A. W.	Percy, Rt. Hon. Lord E.	Tasker, Sir R. I.
Jarvis, Sir J. J.	Perkins, W. R. D.	Tate, Mavis C.
Joel, D. J. B.	Petherick, M.	Thomson, Sir.J. D. W.
Keeling, E. H.	Plugge, L. F.	Titchfield, Marquess of
Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)	Pownall, Sir A. Assheton	Touche, G. C.
Kimball, L.	Purbrick, R.	Train, Sir J.
Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)	Radford, E. A.	Tree, A. R. L. F.
Leckie, J. A.	Raikes, H. V. A. M.	Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.
Leech. Dr. J. W.	Ramsbotham, H.	Tufnell, Lieut.-Com. R. L.
Lees-Jones, J.	Rankin, R.	Turton, R. H.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.	Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)	Wakefield, W. W.
Levy, T.	Reid, Sir D. D. (Down)	Walker-Smith, Sir J.
Lewis, O.	Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)	Wallace, Captain Euan
Liewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.	Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)	Ward, Irene (Wallsend)
Lloyd, G. W.	Ropner, Colonel L.	Warrender, Sir V.
Loder, Captain Hon. J. de V.	Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'derry)	Waterhouse, Captain C.
Lumley, Capt. L. R.	Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)	Wells, S. R.
Lyons, A. M.	Ruggles-Brise. Colonel Sir E. A.	Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.
Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)	Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)	Williams. H. G. (Croydon, S.)
MacAndrew, Lt. Col. Sir C. G.	Russell, R. J. (Eddlsbury)	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
M'Connell, Sir J.	Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.
MacDonald, Rt. fin. J. R. (Scot. U.)	Salmon, Sir I.	Womersley, Sir W. J.
Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)	Salt, E. W.	Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley
McEwen, Capt. H. J. F.	Samuel, Sir A. M. (Farnham)	Young, A. S. L. (Partick)
McKie, J. H.	Sanderson, Sir F. B.
Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.	Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir P.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES. —
Magnay, T.	Savcry, Servington	Sir George Penny and Lieut.-
Maitland. A.	Selley, H. R.	Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward.
Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.	Shaw. Major P. S. (Wavertree)
NOES.
Aciand, R. T, D. (Barnstaple)	Frankel, D.	Lunn, W.
Adams, D. (Consett)	Gallacher, W.	Macdonald, G. (Ince)
Adamson, W. M.	Gardner, B. W.	McEntee, V. La T.
Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'isbr.)	George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)	McGhee, H. G.
Attlee. Rt. Hon. C R.	George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)	McGovern, J.
Banfield, J. W.	Gibbins, J.	MacLaren, A.
Barr, J.	Green, W. H. (Deptford)	Maclean, N.
Batey, J.	Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.	MacMillan, M. (Western Isles)
Ballenger, F.	Grenfell, D. R.	MacNeill, Weir, L.
Benson, G.	Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)	Mainwaring, W. H.
Broad, F. A.	Griffiths. G. A. (Hemsworth)	Mander, G. le M.
Bromfield, W.	Groves, T. E.	Marklew, E.
Brown, C. (Mansfield)	Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)	Marshall, F.
Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)	Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)	Mathers, G.
Buchanan, G.	Hardie, G. D.	Maxton, J.
Burke, W. A.	Harris, Sir P. A.	Messer, F.
Cape, T.	Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)	Montague, F.
Chater, D.	Henderson, T. (Tradeston)	Morrison, Rt Hon. H. (Ha'krny, S.)
Cluse, W. S.	Holland, A.	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Cocks, F. S.	Hollins, A.	Naylor, T. E.
Compton. J.	Jagger, J.	Oliver, G. H.
Cove, W. G.	Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)	Paling, W.
Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford	John, W.	Parker, H. J. H.
Daggar, G.	Jones, A. C. (Shipley)	Petrick-Lawrence, F. W.
Dalton, H.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Potts, J.
Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)	Kelly, W. T.	Oulbell, J. D.
Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)	Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.	Riley, B.
Day, H.	Kirby. B. V.	Roberts. W. (Cumberland. N.)
Dobble, W.	Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.	Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)
Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)	Lathan, G.	Rowson, G.
Ede, J. C.	Lawson, J. J.	Salter, Dr. A.
Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)	Leach, W.	Seely, Sir H M.
Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwelity)	Lee, F.	Sexton, T. M.
Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.	Leonard, W.	Shinwell, E.
Foot, D. M.	Logan, D. G.	Short, A.

Silverman, S. S.	Thorne, W.	Wilkinson, Ellen
Simpson, F. B.	Thurtie, E.	Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)
Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)	Tinker, J. J.	Williams, T. (Don Valley)
Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)	Viant, S. P.	Wilson, C. H. (Attercllffe)
Smith, E. (Stoke)	Walkden, A. G.	Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)
Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees. (Kly)	Watkins, F. C.	Young, Sir R. (Newton)
Smith, T. (Normanton)	Watson, W. McL.
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)	Welsh, J. C.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)	Westwood, J.	Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Charleton.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)	White, H. Graham

Questions To Ministers

I desire to raise, Mr. Speaker, a question relating to the rights of hon. and right hon. Members of the House at Question Time. Yesterday, I addressed to the Under-Secretary of State for Air, to whom I had sent notice of my intention, two questions upon matters which I considered to be of public importance. In his reply he began by saying that it was his intention to combine the two questions, notwithstanding the fact, as I considered it, that they bore little relationship to each other except in a minor degree. Thereby he doubled the length of his answer. He then went on to say that, as the answer was long, he proposed to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT thus depriving me of the oral answer which I had expected. In the course of the afternoon I duly received the type-written reply to my questions, and I am surprised to discover that the answer is not, in my judgment, a long one at all. It consists, in point of fact, of 146 words. Most Members of the House will agree that there are Ministers on the Front Bench, notably the Minister of Labour, who could have given that answer inside 30 seconds. I further observe that, on Tuesday, an answer given orally by the Lord President of the Council consisted of 168 words and that an answer given by the President of the Board of Trade contained 196 words. I also discover that the Under-Secretary of State for Air himself yesterday gave an oral answer which occupied identically the same amount of space in the OFFICIAL REPORT as the answer to my question.

In those circumstances, I seek to know what are the actual powers of Ministers in dealing with answers to Questions. Can they combine whatever Questions they wish and return a single answer to them, however little related those Questions may be one to another? Further, can they refuse to give an oral answer on the ground that the answer—which they have taken care beforehand shall be lng—is too long to be given in the House? Is that to be offered as an excuse for not giving an oral answer? I suggest that if Ministers are to have full freedom to do exactly as they please in these two respects the public purpose to be served at Question Time may, very easily, be entirely frustrated. I am not for an instant suggesting that this is the attitude of Ministers generally, but I did feel when I received that typewritten answer from the Under-Secretary of State for Air that he was rather guilty of an effort to avoid what he might regard as obnoxious Supplementary Questions.

:The hon. Member has raised a question which is, no doubt, of considerable importance. He will remember, however, what is the usual practice at Question Time in this respect. When a Minister wishes to answer two Questions together, or when he considers the answer too long to be given in the House and announces that he intends to publish it in the OFFICIAL REPORT he always prefaces that announcement by asking the permission of the hon. Member who has asked the Question. Therefore, the Minister, if he receives that permission, is within his rights either in joining the questions together or if the answer is a long one, in publishing it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I do not think that any Minister ever takes either of these courses without first asking the permission of the Member concerned and it is, of course, within the Member's rights to refuse that permission.

What would happen then?

Presumably the Minister would answer each Question separately, or, in the case of a long answer, would read out that answer, however long, in the House. I would, however, point out that when there are 90 or 100 Questions on the Paper, unless a matter is of public importance it is rather unfair to other hon. Members that a long reply should be read out in the House. The object of publishing replies in the OFFICIAL REPORT is in order that Members may not have their public rights in this matter curtailed as a result of time taken up in reading long replies. Unfortunately, on this occasion the judgment of the Minister as to the length of the reply in question does not seem to have been very accurate. After considerable research the hon. Member has discovered that the reply only contained, I think, 140 words. I hope, however, that will not occur again.

While thanking you, Sir, for your reply, may I point out that you have not dealt with the point which I raised as to whether it is within the jurisdiction of Ministers to do exactly as they please on these two matters.

I thought I had made that quite clear. It is never done without the permission of the Member who has put the question.

Bill Presented

Peace Bill

"to incorporate in the statute law of the United Kingdom those obligations in regard to the maintenance of peace and of machinery for the peaceful settlement of international disputes which are embodied in the Covenant of the League of Nations and in other treaties; and for other purposes," presented by Mr. Mander; supported by Mr. Acland, Mr. Vyvyan Adams, Mr. Bernays, Mr. Cocks, Lieut.-Commander Fletcher, Mr. Kingsley Griffith, Mr. Arthur Henderson, Mr. Lovat-Fraser, Mr. Harold Macmillan, Miss Rathbone, and Mr. Graham White; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed.—[Bill 67.]

Bills Reported

Warkworth Harbour Bill

Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. Bill, as amended, to lie upon the Table.

Brighton Marine Palace And Pier Bill

Reported, with Amendments.

Bill, as amended, to lie upon the Table.

South Essex Waterworks Bill

Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Bill, as amended, to lie upon the Table.

Orders Of The Day

Supply

[2ND ALLOTTED DAY.]

Resolution [ 3rd March] reported.

Civil Estimates And Estimates For Revenue Departments, 1936 (Vote On Account)

"That a sum, not exceeding £165,890,000, be granted to His Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the charges for the following Civil and Revenue Departments (including Pensions, Education, Insurance, and other Grants, and Exchequer Contributions to Local Revenues) for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1937, namely:"

[For details of Vote on Account see OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March, 1936; cols. 1219–1222.]

Resolution read a Second time.

4.14 p.m.

I beg to move to leave out "£165,890;000," and to insert "165,889,900."

I wish to raise one subject on the Home Office Vote. Some of my hon. Friends will probably also speak on this subject, but other hon. Friends of mine will speak on other matters which also concern the Home Secretary. The matter which I desire to raise concerns the safety and security of certain residents and citizens in the East End of London, The House will know that my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle), my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bethnal Green (Mr. Chater) and my hon. Friend the Iember for Central Hackney (Mr. Watkins) have put to the Home Secretary certain questions which indicate that there have been attacks upon members of the Jewish community in the East End of London by persons who appear to be members or representatives of Fascist organisations. I desire to say at once that the replies of the Home Secretary have been very helpful, and we are pleased that he takes a serious and a firm view of this matter, but it was thought that we ought to bring certain incidents before the House in a somewhat more extended form, in order that the Home Secretary may realise the gravity of the situation and have an opportunity of making a further and perhaps amplified statement.

I have before me certain statements and allegations with regard to attacks upon the Jewish community in the borough of Shoreditch. In the time at my disposal I have not been able to get other cases, but I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Central Hackney has other cases which have occurred in Hackney. There is, in the East End of London, a fairly considerable Jewish population, although it is a very definite minority of the total population in the East End, and I think the Home Secretary will agree that although, here and there, there will be found among them offenders against the law, as is the normal case with the British population, taking that Jewish Population, taking that Jewish population as a whole, it is the normal case with the British population, taking that Jewish population as a whole, it is law-abiding and well-behaved. In the borough of Shoreditch, and to some extent in Bethnal Green and to Hackeny, there have developed during recent months a spirit and activities which are endangering the good order of the neigh-bourhood, and which cause grave apprehension to certain residents, and I propose to give a summary of incidents which have been brought to my attention.

I have asked that this information should be carefully verified, and that the persons who give it should be sure of what they are saying, but the House will appreciate that, by the very nature of the circumstances, it, would not be right that I should give the House and the public the names and addresses of the persons concerned, though I am quite willing to hand these papers over to the Secretary of State in order that he may make what inquiries he thinks appropriate. I am afraid that I should not be allowed to utter some of the language on this paper, and therefore there will be some blanks. There is a person living in Shoreditch who has been called in the street "dirty Jewish—" and other foul names, and there have been threats to murder him, to burn his shop and to expel his family from Hoxton. I am informed that one of the Blackshirts concerned in this matter. whose name is given, was later arrested and bound over for 12 months. To that extent the law took its course; but I shall say something later about the law taking its course. There is another case, in which it is alleged that Blackshirts stand outside the shop of the man concerned, mainly on Saturdays, calling him foul names and shouting "Boycott the Jews. Clear the Jews out of Hoxton."

The next case is one of actual physical violence. It is alleged that a man residing in Hoxton was struck by a Blackshirt, whose name is given, and who appears to be a professional boxer. He threatened to murder this Jewish shopkeeper if he took action, and used the usual foul language. It is said that on last Saturday, 1st March, this Jewish shopkeeper telephoned to the police for protection for a Jewish man who was selling cough lozenges in the gutter and was being molested in the usual way by Fascists. One of the Fascists concerned was the same boxer that I have mentioned, and another was another man to whom I will refer in a moment, because police proceedings have been taken against him; and, by the way, the second man had actually been bound over by the magistrate at Old Street Police Court for 12 months the very day before he made this offensive threat against this Jewish tradesman in Shoreditch. His record is pretty bad. The next instance concerns a woman. It is said there have been threats to kill her and burn her millinery shop, made by this same boxing gentleman and his associates. They have also called her a "Dirty Jewish cow" and similar epithets.

The next case is of a Jewish man who, when standing outside his shop, was attacked as a "Dirty, stinking, Jewish,—" and with worse epithets. One Blackshirt recently stepped into his shop to say, "This business is mine and not yours, you —." I am told that in another case a man was threatened with violence by a crowd of Blackshirts and they used foul epithets against him. Another man alleges that there was an occurrence in November when a number of Fascists got round the shop and created a disturbance in the usual manner, by the uttering of epithets and so on, and prevented customers entering the shop. This man, in consequence, had to close his shop at 8.40 p.m., on a Saturday, for fear of actual violence, while the Blackshirts used the refrain, "Get back to the Ghetto."

In the next case 10 or 12 Blackshirts broke the plate-glass window of a cabinet-making shop by throwing bricks and stones, and the man still retains the missiles. There is a case of a man living in Stoke Newington who was attacked by a gang of Blackshirts in December last while walking along Hackney Downs at 11.45 p.m., and a friend was so badly knocked about that he was obliged to receive hospital treatment for two weeks. These people are spreading the slogans, "Kill the Jews" and "Dirty Jews," and so on in the neighbourhood, and are actually affixing to various places, including premises, a gummed slip with "Jew" on it, and other slips with the Hitler trade-mark, the Swastika, in the middle and the words "Perish Judah." That is obviously action which is stimulating a breach of the peace and is endangering the security of His Majesty's subjects. Even if they do not break the peace themselves, it is obvious that action of that kind is calculated to cause a breach of the peace and to inflame racial hatred in a district where, clearly, it is particularly undesirable that that should be done.

I will refer to another man who is a member of a public authority and who does his work peacefully as a member of that authority, and from knowledge I have of him I should say that he is certainly not of a provocative disposition. I asked this man, who I knew had had difficulties over the matter, to write to me and give me information in order that I might put it before the House. He refers to a man who is apparently the leading local Blackshirt and says that this man, who was dealt with last Saturday at Old Street Police Court, is a real pest. He says:

"On one occasion he actually spat in my sister's face because he was writing on the wall of our house, 'Kill the dirty Jews,' and my sister asked him to refrain from writing on our wall."

That is the first instance he gives. The second refers to himself:

"On the 7th February, 1936, I was looking out of my window at a funeral when a number of Blackshirts who congregated opposite my house called me a Jewish— and said, 'Come down and have a fight.' My sister went out to try to find a policeman, but could not find one. I therefore got on a 'bus to Old Street Police Station and reported the incident. The police told me that when I saw the person again who called me out of my name I should get his name and address and summons him. I assure you I have never given these people any cause to insult me, and have never visited any of their meetings or even spoken to them at any time."

I know that the police have very great difficulties in these matters. As a London Member of Parliament I share the general admiration for the London police. Sometimes we are critical about them, but, taking the London police as a whole, they are a remarkably well disciplined, considerate and courteous body of men. Still, I am bound to say that in this case it was not quite helpful that the man should be told to take out a summons, and I think the police had some duty to go back with him and to protect him against these people. He gives another instance. Speaking of Saturday, 29th February, he says:

"At approximately a quarter after mid- night I was going home and getting off a 'bus outside my door when I noticed about 30 Blackshirts, who rushed for the 'bus and shouted, Here he is.'Realising that they were after me, I remained on the 'bus."

I think, myself, it was very wise to do SO—

"and took another penny fare so as to try to find a policeman, which I did at Dalston Junction. I then got off the 'bus and reported the matter to the police officer "—

his number is given—

"but he only thought I should return home and take a chance."

There again, I suggest, that if it were practicable that. man was entitled in those circumstances to immediate police protection.

"He did, however, take my name and address, and said be would report it, but not being satisfied to take a chance I called a taxi and drove to Old Street Police Station and reported the incident. The inspector in charge told me to go home by taxi and sent a policeman on a bicycle after me. But, of course, the Blackshirts had by that time gone. Since then I have been scared to go about at night on my own. I may mention that Mr. Ernest Thurtle knows about this and has taken it up with the police. I think, as a public man, I should receive proper police protection, and I am not kidding myself that this matter is now closed, because I feel that as soon as the Blackshirts think things have blown over they will try waiting on me again. If you can do anything I shall be grateful. Unfortunately, these people never do any work, and nearly all of them have a record as black as ink."

He gives me, independently of the other sources of information, cases which, I think, are duplicates of some of the cases I have already mentioned. The leader of these people has been in trouble before. He was prosecuted for making a speech which was liable to cause a breach of the peace. I admit that the police took the case seriously and briefed counsel in order that they might be effectively represented. This is the man to whom I referred earlier who, a day after he was bound over, appeared to be guilty of action which was contrary to the undertaking he had given to the court. This man, who appears to be the leader of the local British Union of Fascists, seems to be a very bright specimen and rather typical of certain prominent Fascist leaders not only in this country, but in certain other countries.

In the police court proceedings a police sergeant of the Special Squad reported that prisoner was bound over in 1931, sentenced to 12 months imprisonment in 1932 for house-breaking and larceny, and sentenced to eight months hard labour in 1933 for obtaining money by false pretences. The superintendent stated that on two occasions he had spoken to prisoner warning him about the manner in which he delivered speeches uttering insinuations about Jews. Prisoner was a man who was inclined to be provocative. Although the court knew he was that type of man, and although he has been in trouble more than once, all that the police court magistrate did was to bind him over. I suggest that in a case of that kind that was not adequate.

I know that the right hon. Gentleman cannot control the police court magistrates, and he will, no doubt, gently rebuke me for having said what I have said, but it will not do any harm. I am bound to say from my experience that if a man with that record had come before a good many London police court magistrates and had happened to be a Communist, he would not have been bound over, but would probably have been given "time." I hold no brief for the Communists, and certainly they have no reason to be grateful to me. A Fascist is entitled to no more justice than a Communist, and a Communist is entitled to just as much justice as any other citizen. The magistrate possibly acted as he did in accordance with what he thought was right, but I am bound to say that, in view of that man's record and the fact that he is a persistent public nuisance, he really ought to be dealt with. He is apparently the leader of the British Union of Fascist organisation in the borough of Shoreditch, and, as far as I can gather, he is the kind of material out of which Fascists are made, not only in Great Britain but in certain other parts of the world.

This thing goes higher up. The organisations themselves are making a propaganda which is calculated to encourage this kind of thing. A leaflet issued by the Imperial Fascist Union has been sent to me by my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence). That union is not the same body as the British Union of Fascists, but it is Fascist. The leaflet says:

"According to official reports we have 300,000 Jews in this country. If we read our local papers and note the number of Jews concerned in crime, bankruptcy, fire-raising, and other law-breaking pastimes, the 300,000 Jews must surely all be convicted by this time. The truth is that there are about 3,000,000 Jews in this country, roughly the same number as there are unemployed Englishmen."

Hon. Members will note the same philosophy, the same brutal incitement to jealousy and envy which is part of the policy on which the Nazi Party based its revolution of 1933. It is an indication that but for the 3,000,000 Jews who live in this country there would be no unemployed. It is absolute economic nonsense, but it is just the kind of thing which is calculated to promote that very spirit of economic envy combined with racial hatred out of which these incidents happen. I venture to suggest that leaflets of that kind really ought not to be published. This leaflet finishes by saying:

"Britons awake, boycott Jewish shops, perish Judah."

It is not only because of this rival organisation to the British Union of Fascists that this deliberate incitement to friction against the Jews is taking place. At the Hackney Baths recently there was a meeting of the British Union of Fascists, and it was addressed by a gentleman who is of no great importance himself but who, as a matter of fact, is one of the prominent leaders of the organisation, a sort of second or third in command to Sir Oswald Mosley. The House may or may not remember him. He was once a Member of this House, a man named Beckett, who once walked up the Floor with the Mace. That was the biggest contribution he made to the proceedings of this Assembly and the thing by which he is chiefly remembered. In this organisation he appears to be the principal propagandist. He is of no great importance, but he might have been if he had taken advantage of the advice I gave him when he was young. Although of no importance himself, he is relatively important in relation to the British Union of Fascists. This organisation is supposed not to have encouraged anti-Jewish violence, but he gave an answer to a question at this meeting at Hackney. It is reported in the "Hackney Gazette" of the 21st February. This is a paper with which I usually disagree but its reports can usually be relied upon. According to this report, a questioner asked whether a Jew would be able to become naturalised, or use an English name under Fascism. The reply was:

"Certainly not. It is preposterous. We must get rid of this muddle-headed idea that the Englishman is a Jew and the Jew an Englishman. I have no desire to foment race hatred. I say nothing against the Jew except that he is not an Englishman, and when he pretends to be an Englishman he merely makes himself both a bad Englishman and a bad Jew. It is, therefore, the first step towards the solution of this problem to see that the two races are different—that this country is Britain, and that, therefore, the British people we have here are British people. Foreigners, whether Germans, Italians, French, Russians or Jews—it is not our habit to beat them up—if they live here, it is under three conditions: first, that they are decent citizens; secondly, that they do not interfere in British politics; and, thirdly, that they do not do work which is keeping a Briton out of employment."

I would not say that that is an illegal utterance, but it is the kind of utterance which is calculated to create those psychological conditions which involve a breach of the peace sooner or later. Jews who are British citizens take part in British public affairs, as they have every right to do. There are Jewish Members of this House who make important contributions to our proceedings, and there are Jews who, in various ways, contribute to British public administration, and we have much for which to be thankful to many of them. According to the utterance I have quoted, however, if a Jew takes part. in British public life he ought to be stopped, and if a Jew has a job while any British subject is unemployed, he should be put out of the job. I think that I have covered all the ground that was necessary to open this discussion. I have only done so on behalf of my hon. Friends in order that the House may see that there is a situation in the East End of London which, however, is not so bad as it is and has been in Germany in this respect; but, in the conditions of East London, it contains the elements of grave potential trouble unless the police and magistrates come down on it firmly and say it is to be stopped. I hold no brief for Jews as such. They all have their little ways, but so have we, and so has every other race in the world. If the nation takes the view that the Jewish population should be excluded, Parliament should face that issue, but it is certain that no Parliament is likely to wish to do any such thing. That being so, we simply cannot tolerate a situation in which these people are taking the law into their own hands and making the Jews feel, when they go on to the King's highway, that they are not safe from molestation.

I wish to thank the Home Secretary for the assurances he has given to my hon. Friends in answer to questions which they have put, and I hope he will be able to make a statement which will reassure the House and convince us that he will take such energetic steps as are within his power and are appropriate. I can assure him on behalf of all sections of the House that if he acts with vigour and determination in a matter which potentially is very dangerous, he will receive the united support of the House.

4.41 p. m.

I shall be grateful to the House if it allows me to make a short statement now, because the question which has been raised—I think very usefully raised—by the right hon. Gentleman, is one which ought to be brought to a point. I am ready to make a short statement about it which I hope will be thought to be useful and I trust may be generally accepted by the House. This does not, of course, mean that I am seeking to suggest that other hon. Members may not have observations to make on the subject. In addition, there is a large variety of topics that come within the scope of the Home Office, and fortunately my colleague the Under-Secretary is here and he will deal with other matters at the end of the Debate. The subject which the right hon. Gentleman has raised especially concerns the Home Secretary and the Home Office because they are charged with the duty of keeping public order and to a large extent of preserving civil liberty. It is also a subject which affects the whole Government, the whole Parliament and the whole country.

I do not think it is a subject on which decent people have two opinions. It appears to me an issue which must be regarded as of first-rate importance by everybody who is concerned with civil rights and human liberty. It is especially important to us here for, after all, it is here in the House of Commons more than anywhere else that we claim to have been the protectors of the rights of individuals, and we all stand, I am sure, for the principle that there ought not to be either in the law or in administration any discrimination against any section of the community, whether by reason of their race, or of their religion, or of their political convictions. Whether we are all ready to stand fully up to those fine principles is a very proper matter for Parliamentary discussion from time to time. I think that the right hon. Gentleman performed a very useful part in choosing this topic on the occasion of this Vote.

Let me say that I do not think there is any widespread feeling of hostility against Jews in this country, but undoubtedly it is the case that in certain quarters, particularly in certain quarters of London, where many of the Jews more especially congregate, there is developing a very disquieting movement which potentially is very dangerous. That is, this preaching of the doctrine of hatred against the Jews, because they are Jews. One does not wish to sit in judgment on anybody's political philosophy, but one is not going beyond the mark when one says that that doctrine does seem inherent in the Fascist movement in this country. If this is indeed a free country and we are free people, a man is just as much entitled to profess the Fascist philosophy as any other, and he is perfectly entitled to proclaim it and expound it so long as he does not exceed the reasonable bounds which are set by the law. It has nothing l o do with it whether we like or we do not like that political philosophy or any other political philosophy.

We are not. discussing anybody's political tenets. We are merely discussing the effect of a movement, such as that which has been described and illustrated by the right hon. Gentleman, which is making it its business to encourage our citizens to look on the Jew as an outcast. He is a citizen living here under the law, like the rest of us, and is entitled to fair and proper treatment like other citizens, and it is certainly part of the business of those responsible for the administration of the law to deal with any conduct which interferes with the liberties and rights of the subject in this matter. I say, and I am sure the whole House will agree with me, that in this country we are not prepared to tolerate any form of Jew baiting. We are not in the least disposed to look with an indulgent eye upon any form of persecution. It is, therefore, necessary that public attention should be called to this danger, the nature of which has been described to-day by the right hon. Gentleman. Therefore, I am glad that the Debate has taken place.

I have had this matter brought to my attention, since I have been at the Home Office, by a number of hon. Members and by other means, and also by cases in the courts. I have made it my business personally to examine to the best of my ability any cases which have come before me, and I certainly join with those who think that, unless proper action is successfully taken, this movement has in it the seeds of very serious development. Individual citizens are entitled to the protection which the law can give them, but there are very great difficulties in dealing with this matter effectively. We shall all agree that we must allow people to express their opinions, although they may be very wild ones and although they may sometimes be very strongly expressed, so long as they do not step over the boundaries which the law prescribes. Let it be clearly understood that a man is breaking the law if with regard to any section of the community he uses language of insult, abuse and provocation to such an extent that he is in fact encouraging people themselves to be violent or to behave without respect to the rights of those whom he attacks.

A man may, for instance, hold Protestant opinions and may express very strongly and firmly his detestation of certain Roman Catholic practices, and of Popery—it is right that people should be able to express their views fearlessly—but if that person deliberately chooses to go into a Roman Catholic quarter and sets himself to work to try and move those who listen to him to lend themselves to violence and attack, he would in fact be breaking the law. Therefore, while we must give every man every proper opportunity of expressing his opinion, so long as he does not break the law, there comes a point when we must all behave like good citizens and have respect for other people's opinions, and see to it that a minority is not exposed to contumely for the purpose of trying to create a row, a disturbance, a breach of the peace. That is the view that I have taken of this matter.

There is also a difficulty about evidence. Some of the instances which my right hon. Friend has given show how difficult it is to get evidence. You cannot take proceedings unless you have a case which you can prove affirmatively to the satisfaction of the court. While I recognise how hard it is for people to come forward, and I realise that it would be a very cheap form of assistance to tell them to show more courage, it is impossible to take proceedings unless one has the testimony in proof of the case. The Commissioner of Police, the Home Office authorities and myself have been considering this matter a good many times. We have received a series of complaints that Jews in the Jewish districts of London have been subject to abuse and in some cases to violence and assault. Some of the complaints may be exaggerated, but there can be no doubt that there have been cases in which people have been molested because they have been Jews, in pursuance or as an outcome of this anti-Jewish campaign. This anti-Jewish campaign is being carried on to some extent by Fascist speakers and Fascist meetings. I have heard it sometimes suggested or hinted that in dealing with Fascist or anti-Fascist demonstrations the police discriminate in favour of Fascists and that facilities or protection are given to them in contrast to the methods that are adopted with regard to people of the extreme opposite views.

Hear, hear.

The hon. Member makes an exclamation which shows that he thinks that may be so. I have taken personally the greatest care to inform myself and I am completely convinced that there is no truth at all in that suggestion. It may be that sometimes those who conduct the meetings on one side show themselves a little more skilful than the people who conduct them on the other side, but it is simply not true that the police in this matter have any bias of a political kind. The only interest of the police and the only interest of the police authorities is to do the best they can in difficult circumstances to keep the peace and to stop people from breaking the peace. It is not true that there has been favouritism or a difference of emphasis in the matter.

The action which the police take in regard to meetings is taken in discharge of what is really one of their primary responsibilities. They have to deal with an actual breach of the peace if it occurs and they have to do a much more difficult thing, that is to prevent a breach of the peace from occurring, if they can do so. Whether they have been successful or not, I am completely convinced that neither the police nor those who are directing them are in this matter in the least inclined to show any favour. If they did so I should be the very first to express my complete opposition to anything of the kind.

This propaganda very largely originates with meetings, although, apparently, individuals belonging to some association or other act in a reprehensible way in small groups. So far as some of these meetings are concerned it has been the case that for some time most offensive language has been used about Jews. Some of these meetings are held in the street. What is called the right of public meeting is nothing more than the right of anybody to do what he likes in the street so long as he does not break the law, and so long as public order is preserved. The police, as is their duty, attend such public meetings and do their best to watch them and see whether or not what some people call an abuse of the right of free speech takes place and the occasion is being used to break the law or to encourage other people to break the law.

The view taken by Scotland Yard and certainly the view which I take, and I have done my best to impress it upon everyone concerned, is that it is intolerable, as I said in the House in answer to a question, that any section of a community should be subject to the sort of abuse which is likely to lead to a breach of the peace. The right hon. Gentleman referred to a particular case which came before one of the London magistrates the other day. He did not give the name of the man but he gave his record and described what had happened. The magistrate in dealing with the case made some observations which seemed to put the position very well. The learned magistrate said:

"In this jurisdiction there is going to be no baiting, whether of Jew or Communist or Fascist or any other group of men. Every individual who observes the law is entitled to receive, and will receive from this court and from the police, the full protection of the law, whatever his religion, his race or his polities."

That was a very proper way to put it and I associate myself very fully with what the learned magistrate said. He gave a warning as to the very serious course that might have to be taken. I cannot but think that the publicity that is now being given in the House of Commons to this matter and the attention that is being drawn to it in the country, will if any further such cases occur justify some pretty smart sentences in the future. It is all very well for some people to say, "It was only words," but there are occasions when words produce very serious action for which the speakers must be held responsible.

We inquire most carefully into every case which is brought to our attention, and I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that if there is a proper case and the police have proper evidence they ought not to leave it to the individual to prosecute. It is a public matter and should be dealt with as a public matter and a public responsibility. I have recently been in consultation with the Commissioner of Police, not merely for the purposes of this Debate but before I knew that the Debate was to come on. with a view to seeing whether more effective measures can be devised to deal with the situation, and as the result it has been decided to detail additional police for duty in these districts. They will be specially charged with the responsibility of keeping a special lookout for provocative conduct calculated to lead to a breach of the peace or to injury, and it is hoped very much—I wish to say this in order that the public outside may realise it—that the general public, the ordinary decent citizen who wants to see fair play all round, will not regard any case of this sort which he sees as a matter merely between the two parties who are in controversy, but will feel that it is his duty, as it certainly is, to give his support and help to get the law properly administered and the offending persons properly identified.

It is, of course, the duty of the public to come to the assistance of the policeman who is put into difficulty. It is one of the common law duties of every citizen to help the police. One of the reasons why in this country, in the case of sudden and serious crime, such as a gangster trying to hold up a bank or a post office, such crime does not usually succeed, is not because we are more virtuous than other people, but because the ordinary citizen in this country instantly lends a hand. When somebody is attacked, there is a natural inclination on the part of any man, and woman too, of reasonable spirit and courage to do his or her best to see that the thing is stopped and that the offender is identified. If the public will help the police in this matter, I feel confident that we can do a great deal to improve the situation.

I may say that the information which I have does not give the slightest ground in support of the view that this movement from which these things come is on the increase—not at all; very much the opposite—but it is true that a number of individuals who appear to be connected with it are still extremely active and, as I have pointed out, in ways which certainly will call for proper police action. That is the substance of what I wanted to say on this subject. I will add this general reflection: I say this— and I hold it very strongly—that as far as the Home Office and the police are concerned, we have nothing to do with people's political philosophies; we have merely to see that every citizen has a fair opportunity for living his life in peace and exercising the rights which we claim for ourselves. But, of course, one cannot help having this reflection in one's mind —and I am sure my hon. Friend opposite the Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), will not mind if I put it in this way—that there are in fact two political philosophies, the philosophy of Fascism and the philosophy of Communism—I say nothing against either—which are alike in this respect: They both do undoubtedly constitute a menace to the ideas of freedom by which the vast majority of the nation hold, and I think one may say that in both cases they may be disposed, sometimes at least, to seek their ends by forcible methods. That is why, as the Prime Minister has more than once said, they both logically and ultimately involve a dictatorship.

May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman?

I am sure the hon. Member will allow me to put my point. I shall be willing to be corrected, but that is how it strikes me, and whether it comes from the Right or the Left does not seem to make very much difference. I do not believe that either of those philosophies is likely to make very much headway in this country unless the nation were to be misguided enough to allow itself to be divided into two opposing camps. At the same time, the police have a very difficult task. People object very much, and quite rightly, if a policeman interferes without cause. It is astonishing how many times in the year some misguided person writes to the Home Secretary and says, "I saw a policeman doing so and so," and it turns out that the person was quite wrong. On the other hand, it seems to me certain that the police of this country and of the Metropolis would be failing in their duty if they allowed these two opposing bodies to come into open conflict in the street. If you start one, you tend to start the other.

As I conceive the duty of the police, it is, in the name of observing the liberties of us all, to see to it that, while everybody has a fair opportunity of expressing his opinions, we do not get this conflict really developed and encouraged. It is for that reason that I am so anxious to do what I can, with the help of the experienced officials at the Home Office arid of the police force and, I hope, with the approval of the House generally, to see to it that police action in these areas in the East End of London is directed to checking this conflict. I am convinced we can do it. It is not a situation which appeals to the instincts of the ordinary Englishman as at all tolerable. This is one of those things on which we are all united in trying to get the right thing done, and I greatly appreciate the opportunity which this Debate has given to show that at the Home Office we are very anxious to do it.

I would like to say one word in conclusion, following the right hon. Gentleman opposite, as to the position of the police. He gave the case of a poor fellow who appealed to a policeman some distance away from where he was wanted and was told that he had better go back again. It might have been cold comfort, but, on the other hand, it is obvious that the policeman could not have said, "I will leave my duty and come with you." Every policeman has his duty to do, and it is a terribly difficult thing sometimes for him to know how he should act, but I lay this down—and I am sure this is the view of the Commissioner—that the police are not concerned with the political views of any body or organisation whatever, and that is why I deny altogether that they are trying to use their powers in a partisan spirit. I believe the Debate to-day will very greatly strengthen their hands and provide them with the public opinion behind them which is what they always need in order to bring about a more tolerable state of things.

5.9 p.m.

The subject which I wish to raise is that of the psychological treatment of delinquents. I want first to say a word of gratitude to the Home Office for the sympathetic way in which they have dealt with this matter in the past, but I would remind the right hon. Gentleman of the definition of gratitude that runs, "A lively sense of favours to come," and it is in that sense, as well as in the more common sense, that I use the word "gratitude." I think the first official recognition of the psychological problem or the possibilities of the psychological treatment of delinquents and criminal offenders is in a Departmental Report issued in 1932, which contains a section dealing with psychological treatment. The report reads very much as if the Commissioners were thoroughly scared of their subject, but they go so far as to recommend that the Home Office should experiment in the matter. I am pleased to say that the Home Office, differing very largely from many Government Departments in their treatment of recommendations, immediately appointed a psychiatrist, who, I believe, is working at Wormwood Scrubs, and it is with the object of appealing to the Home Office to go a little bit farther than they have done that I want to ventilate this problem to-day.

It is frequently said that the psychological treatment of delinquents is in a purely experimental stage. That is true, but so is the treatment of cancer in an experimental stage. As in the treatment of cancer, however, and as in practically all medical matters, treatment and experiment are bound to go hand in hand. Practically the whole development of medical science has been along the lines of using treatment as an opportunity for improving the method, the technique, and with regard to psychiatry, particularly as applied to delinquency, it is essential that psychiatrists who are working on this subject should be encouraged and should be allowed every possible facility for the treatment of delinquents in order that they may extend and improve their technique and bring it out of what is called the experimental stage, As a matter of fact, psychiatry, like all medicine, probably always will be in an experimental stage, because experiments will never stop.

The present work that is being carried on is extremely haphazard, very largely because of a shortage of facilities. It is not that the Home Office are responsible for that. There is a brilliant band of psychological specialists working on this matter, but unfortunately they have to apply a long, arduous, and extremely difficult technique, and, moreover, they are very gravely hampered by lack of funds, lack of buildings, and lack of almost everything that will make either their experiments or their treatment efficient and helpful. At the present moment there is a single Government psychiatrist, I think at Wormwood Scrubs, and there are six London hospitals which have psychological clinics, and these occasionally take delinquents. There is the Institute of Medical Psychology, where again the treatment of delinquency is a side line, though they have done most valuable work and have gathered very valuable data. There is also one small new body with a very long name, the Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquency, which is the only specialist body in the country dealing with the psychiatric treatment of crime and criminals.

The type of case that comes before these clinics for treatment is extraordinarily varied. It is not merely the sex case, as so many people seem to imagine. There has appeared a report of the Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquency. In 1934 and 1935 the following cases came into their hands:

Attempted murder	1
Violence	7
Attempted Suicide	9
Sex cases	36
Wandering	13
Theft (including four burglars)	46
Shoplifting	14
Embezzlement, forgery and false pretences	26
Other kinds of cases	29

Therefore, the types that come before these various clinics and bodies is extremely varied. I should like to give the House two actual cases to show roughly the kind of types that are dealt with by the clinics, and the specific problems involved. The first is the case of a boy who was continually pilfering—not very large sums, but still pilfering. He lost job after job. When he was younger he had received pretty severe parental punishment, but nothing seemed to affect him. At last he came into the hands of a doctor who was a psychologist, and who applied modern psychological methods, by which he eventually cured the boy completely.

I almost hesitate to give the House the psychological explanation, but I think it is interesting although to the layman it sounds so bizarre. The real psycholological trouble of this boy was that he suffered from what is technically known as a guilt complex. Deep in his unconscious mind there was an overwhelming feeling of guilt, and, along with this overwhelming feeling of guilt, there was a demand, again unconscious, for expiation; and it was in order to invoke punishment upon himself, so that the feeling of guilt might be expiated, that he continually committed these thefts. That explanation sounds bizarre, but I assure the House that it would be immediately recognised by any psychologist as a highly typical one. In that case it would have been utterly useless to send the boy to prison; no matter what punishment might be inflicted upon him, there was no possibility of turning him into an honest citizen, from the very fact that theft was not an object in itself, but merely a symptom of an unconscious and abnormal demand for punishment.

The other case redounds very much to the credit of the Home Office. It was that of a man in a London prison who was serving his third sentence for homosexual offences. He applied to the prison governor to see whether there was any possibility of treatment—he was an educated man, or he would never have suspected the possibility. The prison governor told him point blank that nothing could be done. He applied to the prison doctor, and was given exactly the same reply—that nothing could be done, that he was a hopeless case. Despite that fact, he wrote to the Home Office, and the Home Office put him in touch with the Institute of Medical Psychology. The Home Office gave every facility for his treatment while he was in prison, although that treatment, if I remember rightly, had to be applied three times a week for nearly two years Eventually the man was entirely cured. That is not a typical case, because this abnormality is one of the most resistant of all psychological abnormalities. I merely mention it to show that the Home Office are doing what they can, and also because I hope that they will not weary in well-doing.

In this connection the Home Office will have to face two problems, because I am convinced that they will realise the paramount importance of psychological treatment. First of all, they will have to get the co-operation of judges and magistrates, who will have to recognise that in many cases there is some alternative to mere punishment. In London, I am pleased to say, the magistrates are awakening to that fact. In 1935, they sent to the Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquency twice as many cases as they sent in 1934, and, incidentally, they nearly broke the Institute in so doing. In the second place, the Home Office will have to realise what is an equally difficult problem, namely, the necessity for the provision of treatment for cases in which it is recommended by the courts. In London the possibilities for this treatment at present are hopelessly inadequate, and in the Provinces they are entirely non-existent. The situation is only saved by the fact that magistrates in the North have never heard of psychology. I would commend to the right hon. Gentleman's notice the problem in the Provinces.

This is not merely a case of backwardness on the part of magistrates and judges; it is a case of backwardness on the part of the whole population. It is rather astounding that there are practically no clinics outside London for the treatment of delinquents, and there are no clinics because there are no psychiatrists. London is far ahead of the rest of the country in this form of medical treatment. It is really staggering, but it is a fact, that outside London there are only four doctors with the qualification of the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. All the rest of the doctors with that qualification are in London. There is one in Manchester, one in Reading, one in Southsea and one in Edinburgh. These are practically the only doctors outside London with a really modern, up-to-date psychiatric technique.

The Home Office will have to face this problem, because the psychiatric treatment, not merely of delinquents but of any neurotic person, is fundamentally different from the treatment that is given by hospitals. The hospital can rely very largely upon the voluntary work of the ordinary practitioner and the specialist. A surgeon may perform half-a-dozen operations in a morning for his hospital, but with psychological treatment that is utterly impossible; it is a slow, arduous and extremely difficult technique. In some extreme cases a doctor may have to give as many as 400 hours to one case. In the homosexual case I have mentioned, which was sent by the Home Office to the Institute of Medical Psychology, the treatment lasted for two years. To allow this type of treatment to depend upon the voluntary work of a small handful of specialists is out of the question. A surgeon can give a considerable amount of time voluntarily to a hospital, because he can do a lot of work for himself in the afternoon, but a psychiatrist is continually and steadily working against time, possibly having to devote an immense period to each individual patient, and he cannot give anything like the same service, relatively, that the surgeon can give. Therefore, if this problem is thoroughly tackled, the Home Office will sooner or later have to pro- vide its own trained psychiatrists and to regard this as a curative branch of the prison service, and one which will eventually be a very economical investment.

It may be said that I am a special pleader, and that the results so far do not necessarily warrant, the Home Office taking such action. If I were making a debating case, I agree that the results would be disappointing. There are very few statistics on the subject. To begin with, this form of treatment is extremely modern, or rather, the opportunities for the clinical treatment of delinquents are of extremely recent date. Secondly, the statistics would be vitiated by the fact that there has been no time to test whether the criminal treated is likely to relapse. Another point in this connection is that, even if there is a, relapse, it does not necessarily prove that the treatment has failed. This is rather a subtle point. If the boy whose case I have mentioned, who was continually pilfering because of an unconscious guilt complex, and whose pilfering stopped as a result of the treatment, fell out of work and, as an. ordinary normal person, stole, as he might do through want, that would be regarded by a hostile critic as evidence of the failure of the psychological treatment, whereas it would be nothing of the kind, because the pilfering due to his psychological maladjustment had stopped, and the hypothetical subsequent theft would not be due to psychological maladjustment of the boy himself, but to social maladjustment outside his control.

The cases that have been sent to the clinics and institutes are not selected cases. There has been no psychologist sitting on the bench and saying to himself that such-and-such a case was one that would answer to psychological treatment, then allowing a dozen prisoners to go by and picking out another. There is no question of picking out cases that a psychologist would recognise at suitable for treatment; the cases are sent haphazard by the magistrates, not for any medical reason, but purely for lay reasons—possibly because the case puzzled the magistrate, or possibly because in his opinion the case was a psychological one. It is a very haphazard, unpicked set of cases with which the clinics have to deal.

The Institute of Medical Psychology has followed up for three years a number of cases which it has treated, and has found that after three years some 30 per cent. of the delinquents have not relapsed. They point out that, until the social conditions and home conditions of the people they have treated can be improved, there is no guarantee that their treatment can effectively prevent a relapse into crime. The psychiatrist does not claim that he can make a man proof against the temptation to crime; he merely says that in many cases he can remove an abnormal neurotic impulse which may lead to anti-social acts. A far better test than statistics is the feeling of the doctors themselves who are voluntarily engaging in this work. If you read their reports you will see in a. moment that they are not enthusiastic propagandists who think they have a cure-all. Their reports are cold, scientific documents which face up to the facts —failures as well as successes. They are giving long, arduous hours of work involving a. highly difficult technique, but you will find that in their opinion the work they are doing for the delinquent is immensely worth while. I think that is a better criterion than statistics which are extremely difficult to gather and still more difficult to interpret when they are gathered. I ask Ministers if they do not think it opportune to go a little further than they went when thew put into operation the very timid and halting recommendations of the Departmental Committee. I am not going to make any suggestions. It would be impertinent on my part, speaking as a layman, to make suggestions. I know that they are in sympathetic touch with the clinics and doctors who are carrying on this valuable work, and I hope they will encourage those psychologists and doctors by continuing in their sympathetic attitude and expanding the service that they can give, by offering greater facilities and possibly actually establishing an inpatient clinic. I know they will give what help they can, and I am hopeful it will be more expansive than it has been in the past.

5.32 p.m.

I think the hon. Member has rendered a very great service to the House and the community as a whole in raising this extraordinarily in- teresting topic. I quite agree with him that no one has any complaint to make about the Home Office. No one thinks it is a matter in which they could take drastic action or move very fast, but it is very necessary, and I make an appeal to the Under-Secretary that the Home Office should take a very lively interest in this whole question of the more scientific treatment of delinquents and keep in very close touch with the experts who are carrying on this very valuable work, so as to know exactly what the position is at any given moment. We are here in the presence of a science which, though comparatively new, is moving very rapidly. Every year fresh discoveries of vital interest and importance are made. The actual founders of the science are still alive. We are all inclined to laugh at Freud and Freudism, without realising the incredible extent to which his doctrines and discoveries permeate the lives of the whole of us to-day. The very word "complex," which we now so glibly use, derives from. Freud. I feel that this whole science needs much closer attention on the part of the governing authority than it has hitherto received.

Would not the hon. Members who have spoken be doing a greater service if they drew a proper distinction between pathological and social science? It is surely absurd to suggest that a very large amount of juvenile delinquency can he solved by the application of pathological science.

I do not think I ever made that suggestion. I merely said that pathological science and the development of psychology and psycho-analysis were of extreme importance. The hon. Member is at heart a Marxian, and thinks that nothing but purely economic forces mean anything or have ever caused anything to happen. I do not take that view. Psychology and psycho-analysis are of as great importance as pure economies. I was a little astonished on getting an appeal signed by a very large number of our most distinguished scientists and sociologists and medical and public men, including the wife of a distinguished Minister in the Government, for a, comparatively trivial sum, something like £l2,000, to help the Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquents. I feel that this is a little humiliating for a great country of our size. I think such an important departure in embryo ought not to be left entirely to private enterprise to carry on as best it can, by raising a fiver here and a fiver there, when, more. and more, magistrates are coming to appreciate it and use it.

I think the whole criminal law will have to be revised by a special committee sooner or later in the light of modern psychological discovery. In the meantime I ask the Under-Secretary to consider, first of all, whether he would not think it worth while to give some support and backing by his Department to institutions such as the Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquents, which is one of the very few that are carrying on at all, and, secondly, whether in regard to the administration of the law he would call the attention of judges, magistrates and sheriffs all over the country to the advantage in certain places of sending young delinquents particularly for treatment at some of these centres because, however much hon. Members may sneer at it, I am sure in many cases results of enormous value can be achieved.

We are not sneering, but we think that crime is due primarily to economic causes.

If hon. Members are so absolutely rigid in their ideas, I am not going to argue with them. More than ever it shows that we shall have to depend for progress of the best and most suitable kind upon this side of the House.

5.39 p.m.

I hope that attention will be paid by the authorities' to the various suggestions that have been put forward by the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson). Those whose business it is from time to time to be present at the criminal courts know how appallingly frequent, particularly in country districts, arc the kind of cases to which he referred. A great many of them are cases which, whatever the causes in the first place, demand not so much punishment as treatment, and I hope the hon. Member's remarks will be taken to heart by the Minister. I want to raise a rather different matter which to some extent arises out of the propositions advanced by the Home Secretary a short time ago. He said that one function of his Department was the preservation of civil liberty and of the rights of individuals, and he proceeded to put forward a number of propositions as to the existing law regarding propaganda and public meetings.

I should like to draw attention to an action that was tried at the Cambridge County Court in December last. The matter arose in this way: On 6th July there was an Air Force display at the Duxford Aerodrome. A number of persons of what are known as pacifist views attended in order to distribute leaflets. The leaflets were all confiscated by the police. As I understand it, there was no dispute at any time that the distributors of the leaflets were acting in a perfectly peaceful and law-abiding manner. An action was brought against the police, and the county court judge, though he did not take a very serious view of the case, awarded damages against the police of £1. I should like to cite one sentence from his judgment. He said:

"In acting as he did I consider that the sergeant went rather beyond what he was in law entitled to do and that as a matter of law ho really had no reasonable ground to apprehend a breach of the peace, and I further find that a breach of the peace would not have been a natural consequence of the exhibition of these pamphlets."

A police sergeant who gave evidence, who was one of the defendants, justified his action by referring to his duty to prevent a breach of the peace. It was said that the attempt to distribute these leaflets had aroused a certain amount of hostility and apparently what was in the minds of the police was that people hostile to the distributors of literature might create a breach of the peace. I emphasise the word "might." There was no evidence at all that there was any sign of a breach of the peace being imminent. It was simply that the police anticipated that there might be a breach of the peace on the part of these other people at some time in the future if the literature was not confiscated. It is that justification for the action of the police that I want to bring to the attention of the House and the Minister.

In my opinion it is a serious matter and it would be introducing an entirely novel principle into our law if people doing something perfectly lawful were to be restrained became it was supposed that those antagonistic to them might do something unlawful. That was the proposition put forward on which the police were acting. That proposition has always been rejected in the Law Courts when it has been put forward. There was a famous case when the Salvation Army wished to hold a procession and were restrained from doing so because it was thought that there would be a breach of the peace. In that case the judge said:

"What has happened here is that an unlawful organisation has assumed to itself the right to prevent the appellants and others from lawfully assembling together and the finding of the justices amounts to this, that a man may he convicted for doing a lawful act if he knows that his doing it may cause another to do an unlawful act. There is no authority for that proposition."

Yet it was that proposition on which the police were acting on the occasion to which I have referred. Professor Dicey in his work on constitutional law, and in the course of his comments on that judgment, says:

"Nor is it in general an answer to the claim, for example, of the Salvationists to exercise their right of meeting, that while such exercise might excite wrongdoers to break the peace, the surest way of keeping it is to prevent the meeting"—

In this case, to prevent the distribution of literature—

"or, if danger arises from the exercise of lawful rights resulting in a breach of the peace, the remedy is the presence of a sufficient force to prevent that result under the legal condonation of those who exercise those powers."

I submit to the Minister that those particulars precisely apply to this case. I know that it has been held in other cases that, where there is absolutely no other way of preventing a breach of the peace and where a breach of the peace is likely to occur at any moment, the police are justified in stepping in and restraining someone who is doing something which is in itself perfectly lawful. But as the law stands, it is only in those very exceptional cases and on those very extreme occasions that they can exercise a power of that. kind. I would not have raised this matter if it were the only occasion on which this sort of thing has occurred, but there has been, as I expect the Minister knows, other and similar occasions when people have been restrained in this way. Some of those cases were raised in this House on the Home Office Estimates in. July of last year. I do not say that these cases are of any great importance them- selves, but the principle is of vital importance. We are concerned with some of the principles laid down in a speech a short time ago by the Home Secretary. It would indeed be unfortunate if people indulging in perfectly legitimate propaganda and expressing their opinions in a legitimate way could be restrained by the authorities because somebody else might possibly be provoked to a violent attack or a breach of the peace. I am not attacking the police. I realise the truth of what the Home Secretary has said as to the difficulty that often arises in the tasks which they have to carry out, but when you have an arbitrary interference with lawful activities such as occurred on this occasion, it is a serious matter and one which ought to be inquired into by the Minister and by the Home Office.

5.49 p.m.

I will not follow the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) into the case which he has made out with regard to the distribution of Fascist literature at aerodromes. He maintained that where people were going about their lawful vocations in such a way that it might provoke a breach of the peace, it was the duty of the police to give protection to them and not to stop them doing those things because some disorder might arise. I agree with him up to a certain point on the general principle, but all the same there are circumstances in which it is necessary for the police to intervene and stop people doing a perfectly lawful thing. May I offer a possible suggestion in regard to something that might happen? Suppose that during the Jubilee celebrations a republican demonstration had been threatened. Fortunately we do not suffer from that sort of thing in this country, but that is the sort of analogy I would draw. In a ease like that, I think that the police would have been justified in intervening in order to prevent a demonstration which perhaps might have had the effect of causing loyal Monarchists and supporters of the Throne to make counter-disturbances.

The question of immigration of aliens into this country has been raised in this House on previous occasions, but it has not been brought up very recently. It is for that reason that I wish to express certain apprehensions to-day. Some of us who read the criminal cases in the newspapers have noticed a considerable amount of crime which has been brought home to the subjects of foreign countries. In the last few years I have personally kept a fairly active eye upon criminal reports in the newspapers for that purpose. When you begin to examine these matters and to raise the question of alien immigration into this country you run the risk of being accused of having persecution mania. There are certain newspapers of rather an enterprising character which print from time to time large headlines concerning aliens' activities and all that sort of thing. It is possible to have an exaggerated view as to the danger, but I think that danger definitely exists to a certain degree, and it is very important that we should be clear as to the policy of the Home Office in this matter.

I have noticed in the papers in the last few years a number of extremely unsavoury cases. For instance, there have been many sharepushers sent across, I suppose, by our Trans-Atlantic cousins or who came across in any case, and they have relieved the subjects of Great Britain of very large sums of money and have very often got away with it. I have noticed several of these cases recently. There was not so long ago a murder case which aroused a good deal of public interest—the case of Emil Allard, who was shot and whose body was found in a ditch in Hertfordshire. I do not hold any brief for the statements in various newspapers with regard to the alleged criminal activities of this person. I did not know how much information the Home Office possessed with regard to this man's past, but I put a question to the Home Secretary and asked whether he was of British birth or not, and I received an answer that apparently his origin was not known. Anyhow the man got into this country and engaged apparently in a number of criminal activities, and eventually he was murdered.

The Home Office have very extensive powers to deal with aliens who wish to come and reside temporarily in this country. I know from being in business that on certain occasions when I wished to get a foreigner into the country in order to stay in my office, perhaps for six months, in order to learn the language, the Home Office and the Ministry of Labour have quite properly made it extremely difficult to get in such a man, although he was in fact respectable and intended to stay only for a very short time for the purpose of learning English. There must be some loophole somewhere by which aliens can enter the country and stay here.

To-day I have been looking at the Statistical Abstract for the last few years, but the latest copy, unfortunately, only gives figures of immigration up to 1933. The average figures of naturalisation of aliens have kept pretty constant since 1913. They are not excessive or likely to alarm anybody in the country in any way. They very rarely exceed 2,000 a year, and generally the average has been something in the region of 1,100 to 1,500 since 1913. Those are the naturalisation figures. But when one turns to the balance of immigration, that is to say, the balance of people of foreign birth who come into this country over those who leave the country, a very different situation is disclosed. The most recent statistical abstract of the figures shows that since 1913 the figures of the balance of aliens who stay in this country are very high almost every year. In 1913 the balance inwards was 123,000. There was a gap throughout the War years, and in 1921 it was 16,000, taken to the nearest round figure, and it has remained steady, 18,000, 16,000, 28,000 and so on, up to the year 1931, when there was a very small balance outwards, and in 1932 a very small balance outwards also. In 1933, however, the latest year for which I have available figures, there was again an inward balance of foreign subjects of some 10,000.

Over the years from 1921 to 1933 inclusive a balance of inward immigrants of 368,000 is disclosed as having taken up residence in this country. When we consider that figure in conjunction with the unemployment figures, we begin to wonder if the administration and the policies of successive Governments have been wise or in the interests of the people of this country as a whole. I am not claiming that the whole of these 368,000 would have gone to swell the unemployment figures. Obviously, some of them must have displaced British people who would otherwise have obtained jobs, but all these people have to be fed and they create employment to a certain extent. But is it wise and sound to allow this very large amount of immigration to go on when we have a very considerable unemployment problem of our own?

There is another aspect of the case, and that is the question of getting a certain degree of racial purity. Hon. Members opposite may not feel so interested in that side of the question as some of us on this side of the House, especially as the theory of Aryan purity is advocated in certain quarters which are not popular with them, and indeed, not very popular with us either. Still, I think there is something to be said for it, and undoubtedly we have been suffering for 20 or 30 years now from an entirely unrestricted immigration into this country from Central Europe, and indeed, from other parts of the world. Unfortunately, far from the flood having been stopped, it is still going on, though I am happy to say that it has been somewhat diminished during the last two or three years.

I should be very grateful if my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, in replying to this question, will give me the most recent figures for 1934 and 1935, which are not available in the statistical abstract. There are cases, perhaps, where it is advisable for scientific or other reasons of that nature to allow eminent people to come into this country. All the same, at the present time, particularly when we are suffering from a most severe unemployment problem, the Home Office should be extremely strict in preventing our shores from being flooded with people who, perhaps, are escaping persecution in their own country. We are very sorry for them, but I do not think that it is right to allow them to come here. We know that many undesirable aliens, as well as perfectly respectable people, have entered these shores and have remained here during the last few years.

I mentioned the case of Emil Allard. It is one which has certainly perturbed a good many of us, and I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State whether he and his Department are entirely satisfied with the staff of the Home Office at the various ports. The Customs Officers are incredibly ingenious in detecting breaches of the Customs regulations, and over a long period of years, by long training, they have been able to detect almost at once those who were likely to be smuggling and those who were not. Does that same principle apply to those who are inspecting the immigrants not for Customs purposes, but on purely Home Office grounds? I feel rather doubtful. I saw a suggestion in one of the newspapers not very long ago that there was some doubt as to whether the staff at the ports had the proper sort of training, and adequate training, and I should be very glad if my hon. Friend could give some indication in his reply of the sort of training that Home Office immigration officers have, whether they start from the beginning and work their way up in the trade, so to speak, or whether they are drafted in from outside and are, say, ex-Army officers or the like. I hope, now that I have drawn attention to this very important case, that the hon. Gentleman, as was almost promised by the Home Secretary the other day in reply to a question, will institute a most searching examination of all the rules which govern immigration into this country.

6.1 p.m.

The hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Petherick) has introduced a very interesting and I have no doubt important question, but perhaps he will forgive me if I do not follow him into it this evening, because I want to raise two other points with the Home Office. I would take this opportunity of paying a tribute, with which I think the whole House will agree, to the very satisfactory statement by the Home Secretary of the position of the Fascists in the East End of London. I am sure that the House will have heard with satisfaction of the right hon. Gentleman's determination to see that Jewish citizens in the East End of London are not subjected to violence or intimidation. The energising action that he has already taken has had beneficial effects upon the police, and I hope that he will not weary in his well-doing. If the Home Office do not keep up this attitude, in the course of a few months the police, it may well be, will relax their vigilance, and we may get back into the old condition of affairs.

Speaking as one who believes very firmly in free speech, as do all the members of this party, I would make it clear that in our campaign against Fascist in- timidation and violence we have no desire to go contrary to the principle of freedom of speech. I think, as we all think, that the Fascists, as other parties, have a perfect right to express their political views as freely as they please, but freedom of speech, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, does not mean liberty to indulge in abuse, and it is that kind of abuse to which we object. I am not a lawyer. A Member who spoke recently was a lawyer, and argued the nice point as to when free speech becomes an offence. I do not presume to be an authority on that point, but it seems to me that a criterion of whether or not speech is proper from a legal point of view is whether it is likely to cause a breach of the peace, and we have to consider the circumstances in which any particular sentiment is expressed.

When Fascist speakers in the East End of London denounce Jewish business people, Jewish cinema magnates, or Jewish financiers such as the Rothschilds and the Sassoons, such statements are not calculated to cause a breach of the peace because the Rothschilds and the Sassoons are far away, and there is no immediate danger of a crowd being incited to take action against them. It is a very different matter when speakers talk about shopkeepers who are within 20 yards, 100 yards or 200 yards, or about Jewish people who are said to have taken jobs. It must be remembered that the speakers are talking to people who are frightfully discontented and suffering from misfortune, poverty and unemployment, and when these people hear speakers say that they are being robbed and exploited by Jewish shopkeepers, or that jobs which they should have had have been taken by Jewish workpeople, there is a clear danger that language of that kind and in such places is calculated to cause a breach of the peace. I hope that the Home Office will continually press that point of view upon the police who have the task of administering the law.

I do not wish to go into the puerilities of Fascist literature and Fascist statements, because my right hon. Friend the Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison) has done that. I am going to give the House only two quotations to bear out what I say as to the danger of language inciting people to violence. Here is a, speech which. was delivered by a speaker in Victoria Park Square. He said:

"When there are any jobs going, who is it that gets the jobs? The Isaacs, the Cohens, the Solomons and the Jacobs. They are robbing the British workers of their daily bread."

Then he went to to say:

"The Jews among us are the cancer and every foul disease. The situation calls for surgical operation, and we Fascists intend making that operation. We will extirpate them thoroughly from our life."

These things seem almost beneath our contempt, and yet we ought to realise that if we allow that kind of thing to go on, we may create quite a dangerous situation in the East End of London and other parts of the country. In all of us are latent ignoble tendencies, and those people are appealing to the very basest and lowest prejudices of the people in the East End. I am sure that people who have any regard for their country will feel that it is deplorable that a so-called political movement like this Fascist movement should descend to the petty kind of nonsense that we hear spoken in the East End of London.

There is nothing fundamental about the differences between the Jew and the Gentile, and anyone who emphasises those differences is doing a very real disservice to the country. The things which link us together, and the things of our common humanity, are much more. important than those comparatively trivial differences which separate us. It is desirable from the point of view of public service and public well-being that the law in this country should, so far as possible, step in to prevent the development of the exacerbation of feelings of that kind. I was very glad indeed to hear the Home Secertary say, from his information—he, of course, is in a position to know—that this Fascist movement is definitely on the decline. That is only in conformity with our expectations. We never believed that the good sense of the people of this country would be taken in by these miserable appeals. The hatred and jealousy that they seek to foment are foreign to the nature of our people. and I am sure that in 12 months, or in two or three years, we shall find that movement definitely petering out. In the meantime, it is a comfort to know that the Home Office and the Metropolitan police system are determined to do all within their power to ensure that violence and intimidation on the part of those people are definitely kept in check.

One of the functions of this House is to guard the liberties of the people. Perhaps the most important function of all is that we should guard the liberties of the very poorest people. I want to raise the question of the very large number of arrests which have been taking place in London in the course of the last few years, by policemen in plain clothes. The arrests have been on the ground that the persons concerned were suspected of loitering with intent to commit a felony. I do not know whether hon. Members are aware that such cases have been very largely on the increase in the last two years. I understand that the increase is due to an innovation brought about by Lord Trenchard when he was at the head of the Metropolitan Police. He introduced the practice of plain-clothes men going out on a very large scale indeed. My information is that many of those plain-clothes men who go out are not police officers of very great experience. While this practice is employed in the Metropolitan area, not one chief constable in the provinces is employing the method. The chief constables of the provinces are mainly, I am told, officers with great police experience behind them, and, in their judgment, the method of employing plain-clothes officers for the apprehension of persons suspected of committing a felony is not a desirable practice.

Consider the position which arises. Young men are invited to take on this work of going out in plain clothes to see if they can find potential criminals. I understand that when the system was first introduced it was expected that a large number would volunteer for the service, but that calculation was wrong, as only a comparatively small number of policemen came forward. Then, as I am informed again, the suggestion was put round in the Force that unless a young man volunteered he was lacking in zeal and keenness. The result was a kind of veiled coercion which induced many young policemen, who did not want to take on the work, to volunteer to go out in plain clothes. Consider the position. An ambitious young man, we will say, goes out. He is hoping to make a career for himself in the police force, and he goes out in plain clothes. Is it not very natural that in those circumstances lie will try his very hardest to achieve results? If he is young and comparatively inexperienced, almost every poor down-and-out man that he meets in the street will be looked upon by him as a potential criminal. I believe that that sort of thing explains the very remarkable figures of arrests of this kind.

I find that in 1935 3,672 people were arrested on suspicion and only 2,439 of them convicted. Out of every three persons arrested in this way one was arrested falsely;he was found to be innocent when the case was examined before the magistrate. That is a situation which ought to be looked into by the Home Office. It is said that there is no distinction in the eyes of the law between one person and another, but I think I can safely say that of these 1,200 persons who were arrested and found to be innocent there is hardly one who was not a poor man. It is the case that people who are poor and unemployed looking around for jobs, whose clothes are ragged, are looked upon by the police as the kind of persons who may be contemplating committing a crime. I hope, therefore, that the Under-Secretary will look into this question and urge upon the Commissioner that much more experienced men are sent out on this difficult work than is the case at present, and bear in mind that no matter how poor a man may be it is no reason why he should be regarded as a potential criminal.

6.17 p.m.

I do not propose to follow the hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle) in all that he has said, but I certainly do not think that all hon. Members will accept his suggestion that the police go out with the idea of trumping up cases against poor people in order to make a career for themselves. I have much sympathy with what he has said about Fascism, not from a political point of view but from the general civic outlook of the citizens of this country. The hon. Member said that it was entirely wrong for any political party to try to emphasise differences between fellow-subjects, and that it was entirely wrong in principle for a party to try to exploit poverty and dissatisfaction in order to advance their own political aims. I do not know whether the hon. Member was addressing those remarks only to the Fascist party, or also addressing them to hon. Members who sit on the same benches as himself. Surely he realises that if only his hon. Friends were to accept his very excellent advice, probably very few of them would be sitting there this afternoon. Hon. Members in all parts of the House, except perhaps hon. Members opposite, are grateful to the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) for giving us such a very human speech, and making such a moving appeal to the Home Secretary to look into the question of the psychological inclination towards crime. I am a little surprised that hon. Members opposite are so bigoted in their political outlook that they wish to attribute all crime to economic causes, and to deny to those people who, as they know perfectly well, are tempted to crime not through economic causes but from purely mental and physical causes, the assistance and help which science is able to offer.

I rose to ask the Under-Secretary of State a question about a subject which his Department has recently taken over —air raid precautions for civilians. I have been approached by a number of medical practitioners recently who have said that in the event of an air raid and gas attack, they know that upon them will fall a large part of the duties of providing relief and first-aid assistance to the victims, and as yet they are not in a position to carry out these duties. The vast majority of doctors to-day have no knowledge whatever regarding the treatment of poison gas cases. There are a certain number of doctors who took part in the late War and acquired a certain knowledge of a number of gases which were then used, but since then the range of poison gas has developed out of all recognition, and a whole generation of doctors has appeared who have no knowledge or training in the treatment of these cases. It does not form part of the regular curriculum of a medical practitioner training for his degree. Therefore, I want to ask whether the Home Office are considering measures to provide courses of instruction for doctors in the treatment of gas cases, and also whether they are preparing directions for doctors not only in the treatment of poison gas cases but as to how they should render first-aid at the actual moment of the air attack. When a gas attack takes place it is evident that doctors will have to play a very big part in giving first-aid relief to the victims on the streets or elsewhere, and if it is incumbent on doctors, as it no doubt will be, to render this first-aid, are the Home Office making arrangements to provide all medical practitioners with suitable gas masks and gas-proof suits and outfits in order to enable a doctor in a gas attack to go on to the streets and bring in the victims of the attack? I do not expect that my hon. Friend will be in a position to give a very full statement on the matter, but if he can give us a general assurance that these aspects of the question are under active consideration, we should be reassured.

6.25 p.m.

I do not propose to argue—although I should very much like to—some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Sandys). I have risen for a specific purpose, but I am tempted to say this one thing, that when he accuses us of believing that all crime is due to economic causes he is saying something which is literally not true. We believe that if we had a decent economic system, an arrangement of society which would give adequacy to all men and women, very little of the crime committed to-day would be found to exist, and for that reason we consider that economics enter largely into the amount and the degrees of crime to be found in the community.

I was sharply interrupted and taken to task by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) for even suggesting that some crime may be due to pathological causes.

I was dealing directly with the statement made by the hon. Member for Norwood, that we on these benches believe that all crime is due to economic causes.

The reason I said that was because when my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) made the remark to which he has referred there was a storm of protest from hon. Members opposite, and as far as I could see the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) was the only Member of the party opposite who recognised that there was a human side to this problem.

I do not propose to follow the argument. There appears to be some difference between the two hon. Members which they had better resolve among themselves, and bring back a united front to our discussion. I have really risen in order to say a word about the unprovoked and unjustified attacks upon the Jews. As I have a large number of Jews in my constituency I was naturally interested in the two opening speeches of the Debate. The right hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison) gave a whole catalogue of these attacks. I was pleased with the reply the. Home Secretary gave to a question in the House a week ago and with his reply to-day. Among the Jewish population of London his reply will be warmly received. But these attacks are not made only on Jewish people. The Fascist does not merely select the Jews for beating and persecution. I have had an incident brought to my notice of an ex-Service man, an Englishman, who keeps a little cafe, which like most of them is open rather late at night. Into this cafe all sorts of people come, and among them Communists. A Communist has a perfect right to coffee and sandwiches like the vest of the population, but because this English ex-Service man who was crippled in the War serves coffee and sandwiches o Communists he has had his shop windows smashed by Blackshirts, and the threat is held over him that his shop will he smashed to pieces unless he desists from serving these customers. The Fascists do not merely attack the Jews, but anyone with whom they see fit to pick a quarrel.

In this country we have always managed to conduct our political controversies, until the Fascists came, by reasonable methods. We believe in reaching political decisions by counting, not by breaking heads. If the knuckle-duster and other means of violence are introduced into our discussions, things will go very badly indeed for us. I trust that no effort will be spared to prevent this kind of thing happening in London or anywhere else. I cannot help wondering whether it would not be a very great advantage to this country to prohibit the wearing of uniforms for political purposes. It seems to me that when a man dresses himself up in a uniform which differentiates him from the remainder of the people, there is produced in his mind a kind of psychological feeling which leads to very bad results. Differences in politics ought to be fought out in the realm of ordinary controversy. With the coming of the Fascists, very unsatisfactory methods have been introduced, and I believe I am right in saying that the Under-Secretary has himself witnessed some of those unfortunate methods during recent months. At large meetings held to forward this particular brand of political belief, all sorts of torments have been introduced that ought not to be continued.

My main object in rising was to tell the Home Office that it is not merely persecution of the Jews but persecution, either directly or indirectly, of Communists when they are behaving themselves perfectly reasonably, against which protection must be sought. I have taken every case that has arisen in my constituency to Scotland Yard, and it is with great pleasure that I say that the inspectors there have given me every assistance in trying to root out the wrongdoers and bring them to justice. I have no complaints to make at all, but only praise for the police in their efforts to maintain law, order and decency in our midst. I repeat that the people in the East End of London will receive with great satisfaction the statement made by the Home Secretary.

6.33 p.m.

I would like, in the first place, to ask the Under-Secretary whether he would convey a message to the Home Secretary arising out of a question which the Home Secretary answered in the House recently concerning an increase in the number of factory inspectors. I would ask the Home Secretary to consider giving one of those additional inspectors to the Midland area. When it is realised that there are 300 to 400 factories within the area of Stoke-on-Trent, and hundreds of others in the district, it must be agreed that from our point of view the present staff is inadequate if a thorough inspection of the factories is to be made. In view of the dangerous occupations carried on in those factories, I think it is important that there should be rigid inspection. I know that under the 1914 Regulations concerning the pottery industry, it is suggested that there should he internal inspection carried out by someone appointed by the factories, but I would point out that, from the operatives' point of view, very little good has come of that. We would prefer that the Home Office should make a permanent addition to the staff in order that there might be more adequate inspection. To go further still, we would prefer that some appointments should be made of workmen with experience to assist in these inspections.

I want to draw the attention of the House to the position of hundreds of thousands of workers in this country who are engaged in occupations in which the dreadful disease of silicosis has developed. There have been many deputations to the Home Office for the purpose of securing that this disease shall be scheduled as an industrial disease, since at the moment it is only covered by Section 47 of the 1925 Act. We would prefer that there should not be the limitation which at present exists with regard to silicosis, because Section 47 only schedules the occupation and not the disease. Only those people who are working in the scheduled occupations are able to obtain compensation at present. We contend that wherever a workman contracts this dreadful disease as a result of following an occupation he should be allowed to make a claim for compensation, but at the moment it is more or less the occupation which is scheduled and not the disease.

I know that one reply I shall receive will he that we should lose some of the advantages of the present scheme if silicosis was scheduled as an industrial disease under Section 43. Under Section 43 a workman who claims to be suffering from an industrial disease first of all goes to a certifying surgeon, gets a certificate and then goes to the medical referee. The decision of the medical referee, when given, is final and binding. Under the scheme of Section 47, and the amending Act of 1931, medical boards were introduced, and the experience of the pottery industry is that these boards are operating in a perfectly satisfactory manner. As a matter of fact, we would prefer the medical boards to the system of medical referees and certifying surgeons. The medical referee is the only person who is consulted with regard to a disease, whereas with the medical board system, it is possible, in cases where doubt exists, to obtain a second or even a third opinion. We prefer that. there should be a second or a third opinion rather than that the decision should be left to one man.

We can see no reason why silicosis should not be scheduled as a disease and the machinery which is now contained in Section 47 retained, so that instead of there being a certifying surgeon and a medical referee under Section 43, there would be the medical boards under Section 47 to administer the matter. In my own industry the position is that the processes are scheduled up to and including the preparation for glazing. Recently there arose a case where a workman engaged on one side of a wall on the same operation as a workman on the other side was not able to claim compensation, whereas the man on the other side of the wall would have been able to claim it. That is entirely wrong. If it can be proved that silicosis is brought about because of a man's occupation, surely it ought to be scheduled as an industrial disease, so that the man would have an opportunity of making a claim for compensation.

There is another point which I would like to raise, since it is of very great importance. My own industry was scheduled in the 1928 Act, which came into operation in January, 1929. Unfortunately, from 1929 to the middle of 1933, the pottery industry was hit by the great trade depression. Under the present Act, the average earnings of a workman are taken 12 months prior to the date of the accident, and because of the fact that the industry was hit by the great depression, the operatives do not get the maximum 30s., which is meagre enough in any case, simply because they happen to have fallen on two or three years of bad trade. The society with which I am connected has had through its hands hundreds of cases for compensation. I have some statistics which I will quote to hon. Members. These statistics show that only 38.7 per cent. obtained the whole 30s. compensation;18.3 per cent. got 25s. to 30s.: 28.5 per cent. got under 25s. and over 20s and 14 per cent. got under 20s. Had it not been for the depression, most of these men would have been earning from three to four pounds a week and would have been entitled to the maximum 30s. I think this state of affairs ought to he remedied at the earliest opportunity, and I beg the Under- Secretary to note the point I am making. We lost the opportunity a week ago of raising some of these points when we were unable to bring a new compensation Bill before the House, and had that Bill been brought forward more drastic things would have been said than I am now saying.

To sum up, I would ask the Under-Secretary to pass on my message regarding the appointment of an additional inspector in the Midland area to help to cover the pottery industry, and I hope that due consideration will be given to the question of scheduling silicosis as an industrial disease under Section 43, while continuing to operate the machinery under Section 47.

6.44 p.m.

Most hon. Members on this side obtained a good deal of satisfaction from the statement made by the Home Secretary. Some of us have suffered from the kind of treatment to which reference has been made, but in the days when I experienced it, the meetings were broken up by the young gentlemen represented on the Government side. The Liberals and Tories broke up my meetings, and implemented my way out of the villages with tomatoes and bananas. Nevertheless we survived those days, and did not alter our point of view concern in the preservation of the right of free speech. We believe in the freedom of speech and the liberty of the subject to express his opinions whether we like them or not. I want to draw attention to another matter which is not unimportant. Like every other hon. Member who has had experience of the Police Force I can pay a tribute to the courtesy, help and consideration rendered to us at all times by the police. In the days to which I have already referred I did not need police attention. I had a way of dealing with those matters myself, but in these later days we have become law-abiding to such an extent that we call on their aid in case of necessity.

I would draw the Home Secretary's attention to the growing number of ex-police officers who are given the best jobs at some of our works while they are in receipt of handsome pensions, having retired from the police force at the age of 45 or 50. In the town in which I live this has become almost a scandal. We have police, police inspectors and sergeants taking every key position. In fact, in one case the only civilian that was acting as bailiff of the county court whose services was being dispensed with but, on appeal, the decision to replace him was reconsidered on the ground that he had long experience and that he would not receive a pension.

I have said to the police that they are their own worst enemies in this respect, because the workers protest strongly against this system of employing ex-officers especially in view of existing unemployment. I suggest that the Government ought to introduce some regulation to deal with this matter. In my own town we have four superintendents, three of them retired and one at work, and before long we shall have five, four of whom will be pensioned officers and only one performing any duties. I hope that they will remain with us for a long time, but the eldest of them is still fit to discharge the duties which he had to discharge when he occupied the position of superintendent at Scunthorpe. That precedent will be a good one for us to apply on this side of the House in future to other industries and occupations.

I want to draw attention to another matter which has not been touched on this afternoon so far. It relates to the reports of the Home Office inspectors whose duty is to deal with court houses, police stations, police houses and the general conditions which concern the efficiency of the police force. I wish to bring to the Under-Secretary's attention a case in which police court buildings, police cells and police houses are in a condition which I consider to be a disgrace to civilisation. In this particular police court there is no cell for females—it has been closed—and for males there are three cells. In one of them there is a water-closet; in the other two there are the old-fashioned pail closets, which the Government compelled the Scunthorpe Council to abolish before they would give them a charter. These conditions have been condemned by successive inspectors, but in spite of that fact people have to sleep in those cells and in some cases perfectly innocent and decent people have had to do so. I consider that the Home Office deserves a. great deal of criticism for not taking steps to put an end to these abominable conditions. These cells, I think, must have been designed by Queen Elizabeth.

Why blame it on a woman?

I ought not to blame it on Queen Elizabeth because she was a good woman. I made a bad choice, but I was referring to the date. In any case, the conditions are, as I say, abominable. Then, as regards the court, we have to-day women acting as magistrates, and everybody will admit that there are cases in which women magistrates are very useful and which they are more fitted to judge than men. Yet what are the conditions in that court house? There is only one retiring room. There is just the same accommodation for a town of 40,000 inhabitants that it had when it was a town of 7,000 to 10,000 inhabitants. The retiring room which is supposed to be available for the magistrates to go to when they wish to consult together and consider a case, has to be used as a second court and there is only one cloakroom for the magistrates. It has become nearly impossible to carry on the ordinary business. In addition, the court is situated near a works, and those engaged in business in it can scarcely hear one another speak. That court house is an abomination and ought to be swept away.

We have three police cam with garage accommodation for one. The other, in Lincolnshire language, has to be "joisted out" anywhere in the town. There is no coal house so that the coal has to be left out in the open yard. There is very little accommodation in the charge room which has a. little entrance 6 feet by 3 feet, and every conversation which takes place between an officer and anybody else is public property. There is just one place for the inspectors and the sergeants and if anyone goes there to speak privately to the chief officer the others have to go out. Then the houses in which the inspectors, sergeants and some of the police officers have to live are situated near a blast furnace and the dust settles down on the houses like a cloud and has to be wiped off the shelves. The result is that the amount of sickness is abnormal because of the housing conditions and were it not that these houses were police houses, I believe that the council would not hesitate to take steps to close them. I know of one case of an inspector whose wife has never been well since she went to live there.

As far as Lindsey is concerned they will do nothing in these matters, but the Home Office know the facts and I hope they will compel the responsible authority to take action to put an end to conditions such as I have described. Those conditions ought not to exist in a town like ours, or any other town. Another thing is that the prisoners have only a little bird-cage walk in which to take exercise, a place about 10 yards long by 3 yards wide with iron bars. It is more like a place in which one would keep hens than an exercise yard. I hope and trust, therefore, that t he Home Office will take up this matter with the Lindsey standing joint committee and that some action will be taken to abolish these abominable conditions in Scunthorpe.

Before the Debate concludes I would like to hear from the Home Secretary how many meetings were broken up at the General Election and what steps will be taken in future to see that that form of violence does not continue.

6.55 p.m.

To-right we have had a variety of subjects before the House, ranging from juvenile delinquencies to the breaking up of political meetings and conditions such as the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) has mentioned. I am pleased to say that in my division we are not troubled in the way he has described, but, if we were, I should certainly wish to call attention to it in the House. I rise, however, to refer to another point which has not, I think, been dealt with yet in this Debate. I differ from some views which have been put forward as to the cause of crime. My idea is that it is due chiefly to economic circumstances and I propose to give an instance.

Under the Workmen's Compensation Act there is a schedule of industrial diseases and one of these diseases is called nystagmus. It is a terrible disease from which miners suffer. There is a regulation which requires a man seeking work at a colliery to sign a declaration as to whether he has suffered from industrial disease or not. If he has had such a disease and makes the fact known he has no chance of work. He is thrown on the scrap-heap. The result is that he must either tell lies or lose the job. I put it to hon. Members that in circumstances like that a man is driven to do wrong. If he declares that he has not had an industrial disease, there in always the dread on his part that should he contract disease later there will be no compensation for him. There have been cases in which men, rather than be out of work, have declared falsely that they have never suffered from an industrial disease. Later they have contracted disease and when they have put in claims for compensation the employers have had the records examined and have found that the men did suffer from industrial diseases previously. In such cases, if a man has drawn compensation previously he is called upon to refund it. In many cases he is unable to do so and he has a debt hanging over his shoulders.

On the other hand, if he declares he has had industrial disease there is no hope of his getting work in the mine again. That man is on the scrap-heap or life. There are few miners who are fitted for and go to another occupation. What is the man to do? Is he to go on day by day doing nothing, saying to himself that that is the position in which he, must be for the future, and not attempting to break the law? I always want to be as lawful as I can, but I have often thought that if I were driven to the extreme point of not being able to get employment and when nobody was taking any interest in my grievance that I should take the consequences and break the law. Probably I might quail if I were driven to that point. But when I see hundreds of men in that position I think that I could almost forgive them anything they did to try to assert themselves and to right their wrongs. I hope the Home Office will try to do something to get that position altered. I think it could be done by regulation.

The next point with which I want to deal is in relation to the medical referee. I have been looking through the statistics of the number of cases that have gone before the referee when there has been a dispute regarding the finding of the certifying surgeon. In the workmen's compensation statistics for 1934, issued by the Home Office, I find that of the 2,063 cases referred under Section 43, 1,961 appeals were made by employers a ad 102 by workmen. The decision of the certifying surgeon was confirmed in 1,255 of the 1,961 appeals by employers, and in 66 of the 102 appeals by workmen. In the employers' cases, 64 per cent. were confirmed and 36 per cent. were swept on one side as not being qualified for compensation. That is a grave position. The men who come before the medical referee feel that an injustice has been done to their cases. Instances have been brought to my notice in which on many occasions the medical referee has been casual in his examination. Hon. Members should imagine themselves being put in a similar position to these men. A man feels that he is suffering from industrial disease. His own doctor certifies it. He goes before the certifying surgeon, and it is confirmed. The employer appeals. The case is taken before one man, who in a casual way examines the workman, and the decision is against him. That workman never feels that his case has been judged properly.

What we are asking is that the Home Office should consider having more than one man to judge these cases. We think that at least three should form that body. It is very difficult to satisfy the workman. The medical referee may be right in his judgment, but the workman always feels that he has not had a fair deal. When we find that 36 per cent. of the cases are rejected, it is sad, to think that the livelihood of the men concerned depends on one man who, in our judgment, does not in many cases give the careful examination that we think he should do. The Workmen's Compensation Act needs a thorough examination in many respects. I was sorry that on Friday last we had not an opportunity of doing that. I hope that the Under-Secretary will pay some regard to what we have said and try to rectify the points that have been mentioned.

7.6 p.m.

I should like to emphasise the importance of the question raised by the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) and the desirability of more serious thought and consideration being given to it by the Home Office. I rose for the purpose of making what I hope will be a friendly intervention calling attention to the accidents in factories and workshops. Judging from the last report of the Chief Inspector there has been a, notable increase in the number of accidents, particularly of a non-fatal character, and the Inspector emphasises the growing volume and nature of the accidents. In 1933 the total number was 113,260, and it rose to 136,858, an increase of 23,598. The fatalities rose from 688 to 785, an increase of 97. We have to admit that there has been an increase of employment among the workers, and there has also been the re-employment of workers after long spells of inactivity. They have returned to work unaccustomed to association with work. I recall an occasion in my own life when I was out of work for a long time and then found employment, and I remember that during the first fortnight particularly I suffered great agony, and I was certainly not so mentally alert and so physically fit as I had been. That, I think, is true of the conditions of large numbers of those who have re-entered industry after long spells of unemployment, and it is calculated to accentuate the danger and incidence of accidents. The sudden re-starting of machinery, the introduction of new industries and new processes, and the sudden demand to cope with new and irregular orders, are all calculated to cause an increase in accidents. There is need for greater care and supervision.

I would like to call attention to the increasing accident rate among young people. It is much greater than the accident rate among adults. These young people are unaccustomed to factory life, unaware of the danger, have no experience of machinery, and I think that when they enter industry they should be taken round by some intelligent foreman and have the possible dangers which surround their occupation explained to thorn. It is not sufficient to hand out books of safety rules. There should be personal education. I am pleased that attention is called to working hours, and that the Inspector expresses the view, with which I agree, that it is undesirable that young people should be employed long hours. It is a short-sighted policy, it is not calculated to sustain output, it is not in the interest of the young people, and it certainly has a tendency to encourage accidents. There is one class of machinery, of which I had personal knowledge when I was in the workshop, to which the Inspector gives the title transmission machinery, belts, gearing and so forth. The Inspector points out that this class of accident is far too numerous, and that it has been found necessary in many cases to institute legal proceedings against the occupiers of factories. The total number of accidents due to transmission machinery was 1,143, compared with 1,064 the previous year. There were 38 fatal accidents, compared with 35; 25 occurred at revolving shafts, and 17 were due to driving belts, ropes, pulleys and gearing. This class of accident is of a serious character. Many of them wholly or partially incapacitate the victim, and it is desirable that greater care should be shown, and greater supervision provided.

I also want to refer to the question of lifts. Accidents constantly occur in connection with hoists and lifts, and the Inspector points out that there is a similarity about many of these accidents which points to the lamentable fact that practically every accident should not have occurred if the hoists had been properly constructed and fenced in accordance with modern safety standards. He points out that many of them are old and out of date, that there is a lack of supervision respecting overloading and workers travelling in hoists intended for goods only, and that they are not periodically examined by skilled persons. From the Inspector's report itself we find ample evidence to justify us in asking for something to be done. In the newspapers one constantly reads reports of accidents occurring in lifts or associated with them. It is pointed out that a committee of the British Standards Institution is preparing standard specifications for hoists and lifts, and I should be obliged if the Under-Secretary would tell me what have been the results of their work.

In so far as these accidents are concerned I am inclined to think we have not enough inspectors. In reply to a question I put to the Home Secretary some little time ago he said the authorised strength of the factory inspectorate was 254. I think there is an examination going on with a view to the appointment of a further nine, but can it be contended that 254 inspectors are sufficient to supervise all the workshops and factories in Great Britain? We also require new powers to strengthen the hands of factory inspectors, but that would involve legislation. At the same time I do not put my faith entirely in compulsion. I think the practice of inspectors entering workshops and calling attention to the need for this or that reform frequently accomplishes its purpose.

I am glad to pay testimoney to the very admirable way in which the inspectors carry out their duties under difficult circumstances, but I hope the Under-Secretary will be able to say that the Government contemplate appointing a larger number, apart from the announcement that next Session they propose to introduce a new factory Bill which it is hoped will strengthen the law by giving inspectors additional powers in respect of new industries which have sprung up in the last few years. While on the subject of inspectors I should like to pay a tribute to the women inspectors. I am glad the Home Office have appointed women inspectors, and when I read the report of the Committee on the two-shift system I was gratified by the nature and quality of the evidence which they had submitted, though I do not think it had the effect upon the minds of the members of the Committee which it had upon my mind. I read their evidence with great satisfaction, and thought it emphasised my point of view.

Another matter to which I wish to call attention is carbon monoxide poisoning arising from petrol fumes. Many drivers and other workers employed upon petrol-driven omnibuses suffer from gastric complaints as a result of inhaling these fumes. I understand that the Transport and General Workers' Union have more than once been in communication with the Home Office, and the question is now in the hands of some research council—I do not know whether it is the Medical Research Council. I should like to know whether the Home Office is co-operating in this investigation or whether it is being left to the trade union to investigate the matter for itself. The object of this investigation, if the fears of the men as to the cause of their complaints is confirmed, is to have those complaints scheduled as industrial diseases.

Further, I wish to ask about the Dock Regulations of 1934. That is a new code of regulations affecting docks. Earlier regulations were issued in 1925 and a new set became operative in 1934. I understand that while British employers have accepted the regulations and that they are becoming generally operative, there is difficulty with regard to foreign ships. I wish to know how far these regulations have been adopted in the case of foreign ships. Finally, there ought to be a closer association with the medical profession as regards the health of the workers. It is desirable that there should be a greater diffusion of knowledge concerning industrial diseases. There is an amount of ignorance abroad, and medical men ought to be encouraged, if they believe that the complaint from which a patient is suffering arises from the patient's occupation, to communicate that fact to the factory inspector or the Home Office. I trust that the Under-Secretary will be able to give attention to some of the points I have raised. I have put them forward in a friendly way, and I am glad that the whole course of the Debate has run so smoothly.

7.25 p.m.

The hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Short) has spoken of accidents in lifts. May I express the hope that when the Under-Secretary replies he will deal with lift accidents which occur on hotel and restaurant premises, which, in law, if they employ more than 40 persons, are, I believe, classified as factories. If inspected at all they are not as a rule inspected in the matter of lifts. There have been a great many lift accidents, more particularly to juveniles, in the past few years, and the general impression is that they are increasing in number. Never a week passes without one reading a reference to some boy or girl who has been maimed or killed in a lift. I know from the predecessor of the Under-Secretary that systematic inquiries have been set on foot by the Home Office in order to endeavour to secure a higher standard of safety in such lifts. No action will be adequate unless the Factory Acts are so interpreted as to bring hotels and restaurants, within their scope, which I understand requires no fresh legislation.

The hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) spoke about workmen's compensation. In cases of silicosis, dermatitis, nystagmus and similar occupation diseases the first essential is to re-condition the man and make him fit to follow some other occupation. It is not sufficient to pay compensation and have done with the case. It is not sufficient for the doctor to report that he is fit for some sort of work. There should be an organisation for ex-workmen, just as there is for ex-service men, to fit them for some other trade. It is done at training centres, beyond all praise, by the Ministry of Labour in the case of young men between 18 and 25 from the Special Areas, and I can see no good reason why men who have been found unfit for a particular trade by reason of an acquired disability should not be systematically trained for other occupations. It would unquestionably save us hundreds of thousands of pounds. Many a man is on the scrap heap simply because he has not had the opportunity to fit himself for another trade. To give him that opportunity would be consistent with the whole trend of our legislation, no changes in which are needed to continue the medical benefit until the man has been trained for another occupation.

In Vienna, I understand, the insurance companies have for many years past had a special clinic the business of which is to take a man who has lost three fingers or an arm or a leg and teach him how to make the best use of his remaining limbs and fit him to take his part in life. In every industrial town, almost in every street, in England there is a man, and sometimes more than one, who has been thrown on the scrap heap simply because nobody has taken the trouble to pick him up and polish him. A man may lack initiative, like many of us. He has been paid his legal compensation and has had proper medical treatment, but this has not gone so far as to fit him to do anything except to eat and drink and, finally, to decay. A little more stimulus applied to him at the right moment—sometimes perhaps harshly—to get him back into work by teaching him that there is an occupation which he can follow would, I believe, do more good than any modification of the law or the appointment of more inspectors.

The third point to which I wish to make reference is the Home Office Report on Workmen's Compensation for 1934, recently laid before the House. I do not think we shall get much further with improving workmen's compensation—and I for one greatly regret that the expected debate on Friday last did not take place—unless we have more figures and more information available to us than is to be found in the report. At the bottom of page 7 is a footnote which says:

"These calculations take no account of one item of profit, viz., interest and dividends on reserves, for which complete figures are not available."

Why should they not be available? We ought to have them. We cannot discuss these matters dispassionately and in a non-party spirit unless we know the facts. I see that 66 per cent. of the total sum received by the companies as premiums was expended in payment of compensation, and one-third went as expenses, of which rather more than £1,000,000 was paid as commission. Assuming for present purposes that workmen's compensation is a proper subject for private enterprise and private profit—which I do not myself admit, these figures suggest that the overhead costs involved are excessive. The figure of overhead charges is not stated definitely. We ought to know how it is divided up. Again, we do not know how much is incurred on legal and medical expenses in connection with the settlement of claims. I have some reason to believe that it may be as much as 15 per cent. So that, of the £11,000,000 which the employers paid, only half or less actually has reached the workmen.

It being Half-past Seven of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down. by direction of The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS under Standing Order No. 6, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

Private Business

Perth Corporation Order Confirmation Bill Lords (By Order)

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [ 4th March], "That the Bill be now considered."

Question again proposed.

7.31 p.m.

The House will remember how this Debate closed last night with an arrangement that Members interested should meet me in order to discuss the matter to-day with a view to seeing whether they could make an arangement which would expedite the business of the House, That meeting took place, and all I desire to say now is that if the House will pass the Motion "That the Bill be now considered," the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Hunter) will then propose Amendments which may or may not commend themselves to the House. My object in rising is merely to suggest that the House should pass the formal Motion in order that the questions at issue may lie dealt with.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill considered accordingly.

7.33 p.m.

I beg to move in page 1, line 1, to leave out the first "the," and to insert "a."

Following the conference which we held this afternoon, I was instructed by the promoters to move the deletion of Clause 84 in the Schedule. As a preliminary to doing that, I desire to move certain consequential and technical Amendments to the Preamble.

I beg to second the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Consequential Amendments made.

I beg to move in page 38, line 1, to leave out from the beginning to the end of line 16.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I very cordially support the Amendment, and I am glad that this happy agreement has been come to by all the parties concerned. I hope that the City of Perth, with the ample powers that are being given to it in this Measure, even with the withdrawal of Clause 84, will continue to be the distinguished and prosperous Scottish burgh that it has always been.

Amendment agreed to.

Bill to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Supply

Postponed Proceeding resumed on Amendment proposed on Consideration of Resolution,

"That a sum, not exceeding £165,889,900, he granted to His Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the charges for the Civil and Revenue Departments for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1937."

Question again proposed, "That '£165,890,000' stand part of the Resolution."

7.38 p.m.

We ought to know from the Home Office what are the actual overhead costs. In every annual report issued by the Home Office on this subject for the last five years, there appears the statement that in order to compute the total charge it would be necessary to take into account administrative expenditure, medical and legal costs, and what is placed to reserve and profits accounts. Of these things we know nothing and I submit that they should be in the next report. I find that by comparing this year's report with the reports of the last five years, although the cost of living has recently shown a tendency to go up, the actual average amounts paid as lump sums for disability have gone down year after year. That fact may be without significance, but, remembering that no less than £12,000,000 a year directly or indirectly will be paid by employers for workmen's compensation in this year and that it seems improbable that more than,£7,000,000 a year ever reaches the workmen's pockets, the overhead charges seem in all the circumstances to be excessive. I submit that the Home Office report should deal far more frankly and openly with these things. I hope that there will be further opportunities to discuss these questions. Meanwhile, I can only urge that the Home Office report on workmen's compensation should be far fuller than it has been in past years.

7.40 p.m.

It was said earlier in the Debate that a great variety of questions would be raised. I propose to add one more to the variety. I am probably carrying coals to Newcastle, but I would like to have an assurance on the subject I am about to mention. I want to urge on the Home Secretary the need for considering amendments to the petrol storage regulations. The existing regulations are good for their purpose at the moment. I speak with some acquaintance on the subject, because for the past 30 years, as a member of the local authority, I have sat on the committee that manages the fire brigade. I know therefore, that the petrol storage regulations are at the moment satisfactory. I wish the Home Office to consider, how- ever, that a new situation is arising in the world and that petrol, as it is stored at present, may be a grave danger in a national emergency. It is stored all over the place, and in some places it is in such bulk that it is likely to lead to serious public danger. I am sure the Home Office will agree that when petrol in bulk gets alight it is unmanageable and no fire brigade can deal with it. If we think of that from the standpoint of air raids, we shall appreciate that there is serious danger to the whole community. Tanks at present are sunk in the ground and hardly anyone is aware of their existence. They are scattered very thickly over London and fairly thickly in all the large towns, certainly in industrial areas.

I asked a question in the House as to the number of licences to store petrol in force in the Metropolitan Police area, and the number of licences to store up to 1,000 gallons and of licences to store above 1,000 gallons. The Department could not give the figures for the Metropolitan Police area, but supplied the figures for the London County Council area. There were 3,594 licences forquantities up to 1,000 gallons and 1,162 for quantities exceeding 1,000. As a member of the local authority in West Ham, I was able to get figures about the storage there which help to throw some light on the subject. There were 257 licences to store petrol. Licences to store in quantities not exceeding 10,000 gallons numbered 190. There are other licences ranging from 12,000 gallons up to one for storing 1,900,000. The total in bulk in West Ham amounts to nearly 5,000,000 gallons, and petrol stores are dotted about the place. The danger that arises does not come wholly from fire. Once a petrol tank fires when do air raid is taking place, it is a kind of beacon for the aircraft that may be coming on. It would also act as an illuminant when they arrived, and would be an invaluable aid to an attacking force.

Apart from the danger to life and property, there is another aspect to be considered, and that is the great danger to productive power. The right hon. Gentleman will know how important that is in war time. It might well be that an important factory would be put out of action. From our experience in the last war we know that a factory staffed by women might be worth as much as a whole brigade of men in the field. Therefore, this question is of tremendous importance. I suggest that the Home Office should take into consideration the advisability of prohibiting altogether the storage of petrol in residential areas, while in factory areas where it is stored in bulk it should be stored in bomb proof shelters. Very large bulk storage should be away from the large towns and thickly populated areas generally. No doubt the Department are giving attention to this matter, but I should like the public to be assured that it is not being lost sight of.

7.46 p.m.

I should like to call attention to the question of compensation as it affects the country generally but my division and Northumberland in particular. The latest figures that have been issued by the Department give no evidence of reduction in the numbers of persons making applications for compensation. In 1930 the percentage was 22.35 and in 1934 it was 22.30. My reason for drawing attention to this matter is the very great hardship—a hardship nearly indescribable, so far as the miners in Northumberland are concerned—which the present system involves. In Northumberland we regulate compensation on the average wage and the average number of days per week worked. We do that because we believe it to be the lesser of two evils. The effect is that when our men are in receipt of full compensation they receive—I am speaking of the skilled worker, the man at the coal face—23s. 9d. a week but if they happen to live in what is known as a free colliery house a deduction of 5s. per week is made from their compensation. I should like to say with regard to the wages of skilled workers in the mining industry that no one appreciates more than the miners the fact that in the recent attempt to obtain better wages the general public, for the first time in my memory, came on to the side of the miner because they believed that in existing circumstances they were not being properly remunerated for their labour. The men who receive compensation are broken in industry and as much entitled to be compensated in the full sense. of the word as any man who, in time of war, gives his brain, his brawn and risks his life in the service of the nation.

When the 5s. has been deducted, 18s. 9d. is left. But that is overstating the case, because certain other deductions have to be made. A deduction of 6d. a week is made for coals, doctor's fees, etc., and that reduces the amount to something less than 17s. a week. I am not sure that the Horne Office is aware of the misery and privation that is going on. After a few weeks, during which they have spent the little bit that they have saved, the men have to apply for public assistance relief. It will be agreed that 18s. 9d. or 18s. a week is not sufficient to keep a man, an injured men, who requires something more than when he was in full health and strength.

Now I come to another aspect of this question, to which I hope the Home Office will give attention, and that is the light work side of the problem. Something must be done so far as light work compensation is concerned. I am speaking of the man who is certified for light work and is unable to obtain work. The lot of that man is beyond me to describe. There is no element of justice for the light work man. He has been broken and injured, is unable to get work and is in receipt of light work compensation. He eventually drifts to the means test, and the light work compensation is then taken into consideration. Before I come to the question of nystagmus, of which I have had more experience than I ever wanted to have, I should like to draw attention to another matter which particularly affects Northumberland. In the old days of hand production our young men when they had served their apprenticeship became coal-getters at the age of 21. If as boys they suffered serious accident they were able to get a review into the higher class into which they would have graduated. We generally associate the word "graduated" in the educational sense, and it is applicable in this case because in working through it the boy gets a great deal of education. In the old days he would have been eligible for the higher rate of compensation as a coal-getter, but as things stand at the moment unless he gets his review at 21½ years he is shut out.

We had a case before the county court at Ashington and the judge was most sympathetic and would have liked to have granted the necessary review for the young man in question, but it was argued by the other side that no coal-getter started at 21½ years but that their ages were usually 23 to 25. I would draw the attention of the Home Office to that point, because I feel sure that under the Act it was never intended that young men or boys who for the rest of their lives are permanently injured should be calculated for compensation on the lowest grade in the colliery. That is what is happening to-day. An enormous amount of money must be spent and care taken to ensure that statutes are foolproof, but I have come to the conclusion that there must be a good deal more money spent and a good deal more thought given by people in industry in finding a way round the Acts which have been with such meticulous care placed on the Statute Book. What is happening in Northumsberland to-day is that young men graduate to the hewing class at the age of 21 but they are 23 before they get there. The judge in the case mentioned took a sympathetic view but he had reluctantly to refuse the application. I should like the Home Secretary to pay attention to that matter.

Now I come to nystagmus, the most terrible thing in the coalfields to-day. I worked at a colliery both below and on the surface and, therefore, I can speak on this question with some measure of authority. Before that colliery began active production there was a colliery in the neighbourhood working with open lights and nystagmus was a thing never heard of in that colliery. That colliery closed, and I was instrumental in getting practically every man at that colliery work at the new one, where there were electric lamps. Shortly after they went there, nystagmus made its appearance on the scene, and year after year it grew, increasingly. My view is that that colliery did everything possible—at least, they appeared to do everything possible with the means at their disposal—to circumvent and meet the disease. They coloured the glasses, they canary-tinted them, and they did everything they could to endeavour to reduce the rate of nystagmus, but without effect. At that time, though unfortunately we are not often taken into consideration in these matters —the management claim that as their prerogative—I thought, and I think yet, that if we put canary tints around the glass, we should increase the candlepower at least to equal that tint and if possible to exceed it.

I come to a more serious side of the question. Men certified for nystagmus receive compensation at the full rate for a period, and then they go to the medical referee. We had a man as medical referee in Carlisle who was probably one of the ablest men in this country, and he told me repeatedly that his job was to examine a man on the day that he appeared before him and to certify him on that day. The man probably had nystagmus the next day, but he had not got it the day he was there. I therefore submit for the consideration of the Home Office that it would be wise for them to endeavour to see that before a man is declared fit, or partially fit, he should at least have more than one examination. If he is certified partially fit, it would not be asking too much that he should be given an opportunity to do the job which the medical man thinks he can do.

Imagine what happens on coming before a medical man who has probably never been in the bowels of the earth and has not the slightest comprehension of what it means to work in a 2 feet 1 inch or a 1 foot 9 inch seam. He certifies that the man can go in there and do the work in there. I think I am asking a most reasonable request when I ask that this side of the question should be taken into consideration and that before a man is definitely determined as able, in the opinion of the medical referee, to do a certain class of work, the employer should be compelled to give the man a job. Then for, say, a period of a month or more, let him do the job, and then go back to the medical referee. If at the end of that period, after the trial on work, the medical referee was satisfied, there would be some measure of equity and some certainty that the medical referee's decision was based on sound knowledge.

We have men, any number of them, who, when once the hall-mark of nystagmus is placed upon them, find it a curse and are branded as much as Cain was branded, as we read in Holy Writ. What is he to do? He is certified fit, he is clear, and at the first colliery to which he goes he is asked if he has ever had nystagmus. He does not get an examination if he say he has had it. That is the end of it; they are taking no more risks with such a man. Therefore I want the Home Office to take that aspect of the matter into consideration and to see to it that if a man is unable to get work because he has been branded with this industrial disease, then, unless he can get work, he should have full compensation, because he is suffering as a result of a disease that he has caught in producing the coal for this nation. I ask that, believing that it is a reasonable request.

There is one other point to which I would like to draw attention. Would it be possible for the Home Secretary to take further into consideration the advisability of having more than one man to examine our men? We feel, as workmen, that it would be a matter of great satisfaction if there was more than one man to examine us, because even the best of men are liable to err and their judgment be at fault, and we believe that if there was more than one man, that element of chance would be entirely removed. When our workmen go on to compensation they are entering on to a period of their life which is the most terrible that can happen to any man. I once had that brought home to me many years ago, and I have never forgotten the lesson. I was playing football, and I got a twisted cartilage. I was on the ground, but the game was going on. Our men only get a fair crack of the whip when they have their hands and brains and muscles in the industrial world, and when they are not able to stand up and play their part, it is a terrible thing for them. I believe the suggestion which I have made would help at least to smooth those rough places and ensure justice to the workmen.

8.8 p.m.

I feel sure the Secretary of State for the Home Department will be highly pleased with himself to-day; he will have listened to less criticism of his Department than has been the case for many years past on a Vote on Account. He disarmed most of the criticisms that might otherwise have been levelled against him when he replied to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison) on the treatment of the Jews. Although I do not think there is a single Jew in my Parliamentary division, I feel I should be speaking for a goodly number of folk if I said that they will echo to the full the sentiments of the right hon. Gentleman on this very difficult problem. Fascists in particular, and probably Communists too on occasion, imagine that this system of government which gives us freedom of speech and the right to express our opinions in print is too feeble a thing to defend itself. I am quite satisfied that if this form of government which we have gradually established in this country and which gives us the right of a Parliament and free discussion were ever seriously attacked, then this thing called political democracy would be able to defend itself successfully against all attacks upon it. I say, therefore, that political democracy in this country is not that feeble and timid instrument that some people suppose it to be.

I have listened to most of the Debate to-day, and we have traversed some new ground. If I may mention it in passing, I was very pleased with the suggestion that came from the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson). I think the problem with which he dealt has been touched upon on more than one occasion, but I have never heard it elaborated to such an extent as he did, and I would commence my remarks on that very issue. Some years ago I had the privilege of sitting on a Departmental Committee set up by the Home Office to inquire into the problem of treating young offenders, and I was asked, with another member of that committee, if we would proceed to Belgium to find out for ourselves, and to report on our visit, what the Belgian Government were actually doing in the realm of psycho-analysing young delinquents. Frankly, I was agreeably surprised to find out what they were able to achieve. There was what was called an observation centre in a town called Moll in Belgium. All the young delinquents in Belgium were brought to the observation centre, and before they were handed over to the schools, the teachers and the masters, the medical officer and the psycho-analyst found out first of all what was wrong medically and mentally with the children.

It is amazing what they have been able to achieve, and one thing they have found out is that some children were mentally incapable of knowing when they were committing a wrong against society. It seemed to us, when we reported to the Departmental Committee later on, that it would be well if our country followed suit and established some observation centres here for the same purpose. The hon. Member for Chesterfield dealt with psycho-analysing adult offenders. I want to touch upon the same problem as it affects juveniles. The Home Office is now about to establish eight new approved schools. They used to be called reformatory schools, but we have a. better name for them now. I hope the Under-Secretary of State will ask his Department if it will not utilise two or three of these new schools and establish in them observation centres, so that the Home Office will not thrust children of different types, and outlook, and mentalities all together in the same school and subject them to the same education and the same training.

There are many children in these Home Office schools to-day who are there because they just want care and protection. They are not there because they have committed an offence against society. I am told that these are mixed up with delinquent children who have passed through the courts and are there for training, and some of the training, of course, is of a rather severe type on occasion. It seems to me, therefore, that we might ask the Home Office if they will look at this problem once again. I am sure that one day some Government will get down to this problem of what is called the observation centre, in order to find out, not what offence the youngster has committed against society, but what ought to be done wih him when he is handed to the schoolmaster and the teacher; and for that purpose we think that the doctor and the psychoanalyst should be called in.

The remarks of the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Sandys) was the only truculent speech that I have heard today. I do not know why the hon. Member got angry with us. I thought he was beginning to criticise his own Government, but he made a most remarkable statement about the Labour party when he said that we had always declared in our propaganda speeches that all the crime ever committed by mankind arose out of economic factors. We are naturally critical of the capitalist system, but there is no doubt that crime will persist in some form or other whatever system of society we may establish. One thing is certain, however, and every Member of Parliament will know that, were it not for the exploitation of the many by the few for their own personal aggrandisement, some crimes that are now committed against society would not emerge. We do not carry the case further than that in relation to crime.

I was very pleased that my, hon. Friend the Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) raised the very old problem of accommodation at police stations in some parts of the country. The story he told to-day was an extraordinary one—that the police station, with its housing and cell accommodation, owned and controlled by the county council in that area, would, if it had not been controlled by the county council, have been condemned by the local urban authority in whose district it was situated. That is a very deplorable state of affairs. In the city where I live the sanitary inspector always prosecutes his own local authority first; he expects the local authority to be more modern and up to date than the private owners of mills and factories. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to look into this problem of police and cell accommodation, especially in the township referred to by my hon. Friend.

I hope the hon. Gentleman will not mind my referring to one point that has not yet been touched upon. When we passed the Children Act a few years ago, the Government of that day put in a Clause providing that the courts should not order boys to be whipped by policemen—a very good provision. The Bill went to another place, where there was some difficulty, and in the end a Clause was again inserted in the Bill, so that magistrates can still order boys to be whipped. I think the Home Office have done their best to discourage magistrates from ordering boys to be whipped, and I should like anyone who hears my voice or reads the words that I utter to know that I consider that practice one of the most monstrous, namely, orders given by magistrates for boys to be whipped by policemen. It is the most brutal thing that I know of. I am astonished sometimes to see that magistrates still persist in giving these orders. I understand that the Home Office is in this respect almost better than the law. Of course, the Home Office is always better administered when Labour is in power than when hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are there; it is very much more merciful than it can be under this Government; but, even under this Government it has gone to the extent of asking that magistrates should not order boys to be whipped.

The hon. Gentleman will remember that, as from the 1st January this year, some 350,000 boys and girls employed in the distributive trades are under regulations in respect of hours of labour, and I have already seen reported some cases in which shopkeepers have pleaded ignorance of the existence of this new law. When we passed that Act, we handed over its administration to the Home Office, because they hold the baby, as it were, for every other Department that declines to hold a baby at all. I want to pay tribute to the Department's administration of the Shops Act, but I would ask them to go one further. It is not sufficient for Parliament to pass an Act. Unless the Department of State concerned will see to it that the local authorities appoint inspectors to implement the provisions of the Act, the Act itself is of no avail. Can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether the Home Office is satisfied that all the local authorities in this country have already appointed an adequate staff of shops inspectors to see that that Act is implemented properly? I think I am entitled to ask that question because, as the hon. Gentleman will know, I was on the Select Committee, which made recommendations which were translated later on into an Act of Parliament.

We used to be supplied with a very good report giving us information on the work of the Children's Branch of the Home Office. There are Borstal institutions, reformatory schools, hostels, and remand homes for children, to report upon but I have not seen that report for some years. I do not know why we should not get it. I thought it was a very human document, telling us what was being done for these thousands of delinquent children. I would urge the Home Office to consider letting us have that report again. It may cover two, or three, or even five years, but in any case Parliament ought to be supplied with a report, especially in view of the Children Act which we passed some years ago, and which, of course, has changed the whole manner of treatment of these children.

I am on a little more delicate ground when I come to the police. I speak with more emphasis on this subject because I have visited America twice, and know a little about the police administration in that country. I think it is creditable to us that our police force is probably the best in the world. Having said that, however, I would not like Parliament to pay so much tribute to our police that we would never at any time offer a single word of criticism of what they do. That would be carrying our tribute to the police to an absurdity. Those of us who live in the provinces, who come to London on Mondays and go home on Fridays, have been a little alarmed at the figures presented to us from time to time as to the number of persons arrested in London against whom no charge could be levelled when they were brought to the court. I do not think that happens in the provinces. I live in Manchester and it does not happen to the same extent there. I am not saying that because I live in Manchester. I suppose it would happen whether I lived there or not. Some explanation is necessary therefore before we can believe all that has already been said about these statistics.

Having said a word or two about the police, let me say something now about the police college. We had a discussion some years ago when the Commissioner of Police was demanding that these colleges should be set up. We were told some very wonderful things as to the necessity of bringing young men to he trained to meet the new type of criminal that was to be found in London. We have not heard much since about the college, and the time has arrived when we ought to be told how it is getting on. How many young men are there, and how many working-class boys are there, or are they all sons of the nobility and the aristocracy? Are they boys who must have matriculated? Are young men there from the universities? We shall be very interested in that information.

There is some apprehension in the minds of some people that the police are a little meticulous when they find pacifist literature being distributed. I have some bias myself in favour of pacifist literature and I should not like the police to be too keen when they are scrutinising what is printed on that subject. There was a case at Cambridge which showed that the police went a little outside their domain. Then will the hon. Gentleman tell us how many women police there are in the country, whether the number is increasing and whether their appointment has been justified by the results?

I should like to put a pertinent question in relation to the use of the Criminal Investigation Department by provincial forces. It has been alleged in some quarters that provincial forces are unwilling that they should intervene, I suppose because there is a little jealousy. I should imagine that the hon. Gentleman would be able to give us some information whether there is a more extensive use of that Department in the provinces than used to be the case.

I think I am entitled too to ask a question about the dismissal of two prison officers at Oxford. A manifesto was issued respecting them and I feel sure that anyone who reads it will conclude that they have not had fair play. I think the Home Office ought to justify itself as to the alleged harsh treatment meted out to them. It would appear that a great deal more ought to be said about these dismissals.

Not very many years ago we passed the Incitement to Disaffection Act, and we were told we were bound to pass it because there were evil-minded people ready to rock the pillar of the State from its socket—people inciting others to do things against the constitution, whatever that meant. The Attorney-General practically told us that, unless we passed it, he was not so sure that the British Empire could withstand these evil influences and he would not be responsible for the consequences. That was a very strong statement to make. The time has, therefore, arrived to ask how many of these evildoers have been collected in the net. If they were there at the time they must have been collected since. We ought to be told how many there are of them.

My last point is on something much more serious. It relates to the terrible disease of silicosis. I have taken a slight interest in industrial diseases. Some years ago I had something to do with helping to pass a law which has happily reduced the numbers of painters suffering from the terrible disease of lead poisoning. If an Act of Parliament can save the life of one individual, it is worth passing. Some of us are not at all happy about this matter of silicosis. The incidence of the disease continues to be serious and widespread. During the three years 1932–1934 the Silicosis Medical Board have certified 52 cases of disablement and 17 deaths from ganister mines and silica brickworks, 252 cases of disablement and 79 deaths from the getting and manipulation of sandstone at quarries or premises worked in conjunction therewith, 289 cases of disablement and 92 deaths from the pottery industry, 532 cases of disablement and 105 deaths from coal mines and 319 cases of disablement and 142 deaths from other industries. It is very strange indeed that when society conquers one disease and feels itself on top of it, another new disease comes along and we have to combat that too. Sufferers in some parts of our coalfields are feeling a little sore at the way they are being treated under the present silicosis scheme. They say you must practically be dead before you can claim compensation. It is put in a very crude form, but it is understandable.

The medical profession have had considerable experience by this time and ought to be able to diagnose silicosis as well as they diagnose Bright's disease or any other complaint. From the printed documents that come into our hands it would seem the medical profession will have reached that stage at the moment. I know that the main trouble is the unwillingness of the premium insurance companies who cover workmen's compensation cases. If I had my way, I would take workmen's compensation funds entirely out of the hands of the profit maker. If there is one thing in this world that wants doing by some government, it is to see that no person or group of persons shall be able to make 10 per cent. out of broken limbs in collieries, factories and workshops, because that is what it means. The day may come when another government of a different kind will be in power. If I am in that Parliament the first thing I shall ask that government to do will be to bring under public control, once and for all, the funds of workmen's compensation, so that men who are bruised in mines and women who are injured in factories shall have the full benefit of the premiums paid in respect of them.

8.36 p.m.

We have had a Debate to-day, as I think the hon. Gentleman the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. R. Davies) opposite will agree, that illustrates once again the point that he made, and of which he is so well aware, and that is, the wide range of subjects dealt with by the Home Office. Therefore, the House will not expect me to reply, at any rate certainly not in detail, to every point that has been raised to-day, although I shall try to reply to some of the main divisions of the important subjects which have been raised. The House can take it for granted that we in the Home Office shall examine the Debate to-day with great care, and that we shall note carefully and consider, wherever possible, the suggestions that have been made by hon. Members.

Perhaps before I get on to some of the other subjects raised to-day, I might just touch upon the subject raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Sandys), because it is unrelated really to the other subjects with which we are dealing, although it comes under the Home Office. It is the question of the medical profession and air raid precautions. I can give him the assurance at once that we have not in the least overlooked the great importance of this matter, and that we are already taking a number of steps in regard to it. We are in touch with medical officers of health all over the country in connection with the medical aspect of air raid precaution schemes, and a doctor has recently been appointed to the staff of the Air Raid Precautions Department. Lectures have been arranged with the British Medical Association to interest general practitioners in our problem, and the Department is in touch with the medical officers attached to the Ministry of Health. In addition a doctor has been attached to the staff of the Anti-Gas School. I give those details of what we are doing at present. I do not say that they are necessarily comprehensive or that they indicate what should be done in the future, but they will give a background to the assurance I give, that we are fully alive to this question.

I do not want to weary the House by an unduly long speech, which would be essential if I were to reply to all the points which have been raised. I should not like to continue my remarks to-night without making at least a passing reference to the speech which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made at the beginning of the Debate. It was very satisfactory that the Home Secretary was able to make that statement and that the House received it in the manner in which it did. I do not think that hon. Gentlemen will think that I am unduly straining the point when I say that it gave great satisfaction on the point of which he was speaking, and secured general assent as regards problems connected with the functions of the police. I think that it indicates that the public arid the House are at present satisfied with the way in which the police are being administered in regard to this question to-day.

There was one question raised by the junior Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) and touched upon by the hon. Member for Westhoughton. It was the incident that took place at Duxford when certain pacifist pamphlets were taken away by a police officer. The House will realise that the Home Secretary is not directly responsible for the provincial police forces, but he has general functions with regard to supervision and also a general duty in regard to the preservation of public order, and, therefore, it is right for him to give information with regard to episodes that may occur under those provincial jurisdictions. We have ascertained the facts in regard to this matter, and I will put them before the House.

It was rather interesting that my hon. Friend the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Petherick), commenting upon the raising of this case, said, "I quite understand that, but, of course, there must be exceptions to the legalistic point of view raised by the hon. Gentleman," and he said, for example, that if certain behaviour had taken place at the Jubilee celebrations it might have been very provocative. That is exactly what was happening. His late Majesty King George V was reviewing the Air Force at Mildenhall and Duxford, and while he was at Mildenhall a lady, no doubt very sincerely but somewhat misguidedly in the circumstances, tried to throw a pamphlet into His Majesty's car through the open window. Fortunately the attempt did not succeed, but there was evidence of strong resentment on the part of bystanders. Information was telephoned to the police at Duxford, and it was in those circumstances that, fearing a repetition of some similar incident, the police gave an instruction that these leaflets were to be confiscated and prevented from being distributed. As the House knows, this action was challenged in a court of law and the judge said that he was satisfied that the police officers were acting within a bona fide conception of their duty. In the circumstances he held that they were mistaken and that there would not have been a breach of the peace, and he awarded damages of £1, which indicated, no doubt, the view the judge took of the seriousness of the episode.

I would point out (and I think everybody will agree) that whatever this may prove, it certainly does not show any overbearing conduct on the part of the police. It shows the smooth way in which our constitutional arrangements work, in that, after this episode had taken place, it was the most natural thing in the world that it should be challenged in the courts. The judge took the view he did, and there the matter ended. I think the House will agree, when they consider all the circumstances, and the great responsibilities with which the police have to contend on special occasions of this kind, that it is not a matter upon which one need spend a great deal of time. Indeed, when we recall that this is the sort of incident that is brought up as a case of possible bad behaviour on the part of the police, which resulted in damages of £1, we can consider ourselves lucky in this country that that is the sort of thing which arises here and is dealt with in the ordinary course of our law.

The next large subject of interest raised was the psychological treatment of delinquents. We have had interesting speeches on the matter, to a large extent from the benches opposite. Hon. Members will agree that there has been a great movement in this country of recent years towards a more progressive and sympathetic view of the treatment which should be given to delinquents of all kinds, and especially to juvenile delinquents. The Home Office has not been uninfluenced by that movement, and this House has passed legislation in regard to juvenile delinquents which has been in the spirit of that movement. The point which was raised in regard to psychological treatment is part of that general movement, perhaps the most advanced and the most speculative. We have treated it from that point of view.

The House would expect from the Home Office in a matter of this kind that, while our minds should be thoroughly open to all new schools of thought in these subjects, we should not rashly adopt schemes or theories which are as yet not thoroughly tried out and approved. There is a scientific basis for certain psychological theories, but it is necessary to point out that psychologists have not achieved complete agreement among themselves, and that would indicate the need for a certain degree of caution in advancing along those lines. The Home Office have not their eyes closed in this matter. Hon. Members will be aware that a Departmental committee on the question of persistent offenders said that there was reason to suppose that certain delinquents might be amenable to psychological treatment and that, although the scope of such treatment was probably limited, the time had arrived when selected delinquents should be placed voluntarily under psychological treatment, and that the results should be published in due course.

The Home Office have sent a circular to courts of summary jurisdiction in which they draw attention to the desirability of obtaining a medical report on the offender in any case where the circumstances of the offender, or his demeanour when before the court, suggests doubt as to his mental condition. That is only one side of the question. It may well be that there are some offenders who are not mentally normal and who ought to be under some form of restraint, but who cannot be dealt with except by being sent to prison. The question arises as to how you are to treat them there. The Home Office have appointed a specialist in mental psychology as part-time medical officer at one of the London prisons. The arrangement is still in an experimental stage, and it is too early to arrive at any conclusions as to the type of case which is most likely to respond to such treatment or to give permanent results. The experiment will be continued, and considerable information as to the results will in due course be available.

For the benefit of hon. Gentlemen who were not here when I introduced this subject, I will sum it up by saying that the Home Office have not their minds closed on this subject, and are not unsympathetic to the consideration of modern progressive theories, but, on the other hand, they could not take rash decisions on matters which are not fully explored. That is the difficulty that faces the Home Office. Hon. Members can rely upon our considering the whole subject very carefully.

My hon. Friend who raised the question of aliens gave a number of interesting figures. He appreciates, I am sure, that there are various sources of these figures, and that we are not in a position to accept as accurate the figures which he produced. I make no reflection upon him, of course; his figures came from a reputable source. Our figures are based upon our own operations. The key figure, in which he will be interested, is that the number of aliens registered with the police has fallen in the last 10 years. We could not, therefore, consider that there has been any large increase in the alien population such as might be indicated by the figure which he gave. I do not regard the matter as very urgent, but we will further consider it to see if we can reconcile the two sets of figures and I will communicate with him further.

I appreciate his point about the difficulties which a respectable foreigner has in coming to this country. Also a certain number of undesirable aliens do find their way here. I do not want to weary the House by dealing with this matter for too long, but I would say that we have certain recognised principles as to the admission of foreigners to this country. The Home Office accept the advice of the Ministry of Labour with regard to aliens who are seeking employment. The general principle is that we can allow foreigners into this country only if to do so will not prejudice the employment of British subjects. In spite of what is said about this, I do not think that either my hon. Friend or myself would wish to be too severe in any action which would prevent this country providing a reasonable asylum to those who wish to escape from persecution elsewhere. We have been considering the subject, especially in the light of recent questions in this House. However perfect may be the system for the control of the entry of foreigners into the country, the measures taken cannot always be proof against the ingenious criminal. There are such things as forged passports and landing in this country by means of boats. We cannot prevent entry in every case, but we are alive to the problem, and we take every measure that is possible. It is not easy to effect an entrance into this country, but in certain cases entry is almost impossible to prevent.

That brings me to the other great division of the subject which we are discussing to-day, the question of industrial disease and accidents, on which the hon. Member for Westhoughton mentioned some interesting points. I would like to reply first to the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Short), on the subject of hoists. The provisions of the Factory Acts on the subject are practically limited to saying that hoists. oust be securely fixed. In view of the practical difficulty and the heavy expenditure of bringing hoists up to date, progress, though considerable, seems somewhat slow. I know that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate the point that in some industries that use hoists to a considerable extent, for example, in the North of England, there are very had cases, and it has been very difficult in their case to introduce up-to-date hoists, but we have our eye very much on this question. I greatly appreciate that it has been raised. It is contemplated that in the Factory Bill which may be introduced next Session the provisions as to hoists will be considerably strengthened.

I was in the Industrial Museum of the Home Office this morning and I went into the question of hoists. We have there a very up-to-date example of the best type of industrial hoist. One would like to see such a hoist in as many factories as possible in this country. The ingenuity in regard to safety devices incorporated in it is very striking when you examine it carefully. As to the regulations relating to the loading and unloading of ships, they apply to foreign ships in the same way as to British ships. I have not heard of any special difficulty, but will inquire into any complaint that foreign vessels are not complying with the regulations.

Before I deal with the question of industrial accidents and disease may I just answer a point put by the hon. Member for Westhoughton with regard to the loaning of members of the Criminal Investigation Department to provincial forces? Arrangements were made as long ago as 1906 for detective officers of special skill and experience in the Metropolitan Police district to be available to assist other forces in the investigation of serious crime when application is made for their services by the local chief constable. When these officers are sent to assist the local police force they remain under the direct control of the Commissioner and carry out their investigations in close co-operation with the chief constable of the local police force and his officers, and report to the chief constable their progress and results. The number of cases in which this aid has been actually sought is quite small. There were three cases in 1931, none in 1932, two in 1933, and six in 1934.

The question of policewomen is one of great interest. Two committees have inquired into this subject and both recommended that the employment of women in a particular force should be left to the discretion of the local police authority concerned. We are not in a position to press these local police forces; it is left to their discretion. What is within our control is the position in the Metropolitan Police. The number of policewomen employed in the Metropolitan Police district has fluctuated mainly for financial reasons. On 1st January, 1931, there were 47, and in December last 66, and the Home Secretary recently sanctioned an increase to 142, but it will take some time to reach that figure owing to the difficulty of finding women suitable to join the police force.

Let me say one word on the question of the arrest of suspected persons. The hon. Member for Westhoughton was inclined to take the view that the figures of persons arrested on suspicion and charged with loitering with intent to commit a felony was unduly large in the Metropolitan district. I cannot agree with him. The duty of the police is to prevent crime whenever possible, and there is no doubt that this is an important method of preventing crime. The police are convinced that they have been able by the use of this power to prevent a substantial amount of crime. It is the duty of the police to bring these persons before the court if they have sufficient grounds for believing that their conduct is open to suspicion, and it is the business of the court to decide whether a case has been made out. In many cases where a magistrate dismisses a charge he has made it clear that the police were justified in bringing the defendant before the court. If the practice in this matter were seriously changed the police would be hampered in preventing crime, and I can assure the House that constant vigilance is exercised to guard against any improper use of the power of arrest.

Without in any way criticising the activities of the police in this matter, will the Under-Secretary look into the statistics of provincial police and populations, and see whether the figure for London is not really very much larger in proportion?

I will certainly look into that. In regard to the question of industrial disease and accidents, every hon. Member will agree that silicosis is one of the most important matters that can be raised, and if I deal with this at some length may I assure hon. Members that we will look carefully into the points raised regarding workmen's compensation and in particular to the subject of miners' nystagmus. There is a Committee sitting at the present time on this matter and I do not think we can have a very useful discussion before we get the report of that Committee. With regard to silicosis, I agree with the hon. Member that it is one of the most terrible industrial scourges that exist. It is a curious and insidious disease, due to infinitesimal particle of silica dust which can be liberated by any rock or stone which has a considerable portion of silicon in its composition. They are invisible to the eye except across a beam of sunlight. Hon. Members have asked that the disease should be dealt with under the ordinary provisions and scheduled as an industrial disease, but there are certain facts in regard to the disease which make it inappropriate to deal with it in that way. It progresses slowly. These minute particles get into the recesses of the lungs. A number of them are removed with the mucous secretions and a certain number stay there and are only removed by the internal processes of the body. But there is a limit to what the body can do in removing these particles of silica, and if a person is exposed for any length of time to the infection a slow inflammatory reaction is set up which is progressive and gets gradually worse. Therefore, it is very slow in its onset, and that is one reason why it is not suitable to be scheduled under the ordinary provisions.

The other reason is that it is difficult to diagnose. No ordinary doctor can tell with any degree of certainty whether a particular man is suffering from silicosis or some other pulmonary condition, and an elaborate medical machinery, including a medical board, is necessary whereby the most expert skill possessed by the radiographer shows beyond doubt whether a man has silicosis or not. In general we feel that it is not wise to scrap all the work that has been done in gradually building up this complex system of silicosis schemes—because there are a number of schemes—which have been added to and improved as the result of experience. We feel that it is better to go on, as we are at present, experimenting on and making researches into the causes of the disease; we are ready to examine any evidence that is brought to us as to the occurrence of the disease in any other occupations or any other circumstances, and none in time to make improvements in the scheme.

I think all hon. Members agree that the ordinary medical practitioner cannot diagnose the disease by a clinical diagnosis at all, and can only say whether there is lung trouble. In the remarks I made I put it to the hon. Gentleman that the machinery of the medical boards could still be retained, and I hope it will be retained not only for this but for other industries, in place of the medical referee and the certifying surgeon.

I will not go into that question to-night because it raises a very complicated matter and would, of course, involve legislation. I would like to discuss the question afterwards with the hon. Gentleman, but in my remarks to-night I will confine myself to stating that our view, as we are at present advised, is that we should improve these schemes in detail as they continue and as our knowledge grows. At the present time we are conducting a number of examinations with regard to silicosis, and, in particular, the Medical Research Council is at work on the subject. Another side of the matter which has not been dealt with very much to-night and to which I would direct the attention of hon. Members, is the prevention of silicosis, a question which is receiving considerable attention from the Home Office. As many hon. Members are aware there are special processes, the main principle of all of them being the suppression of the dust, which can be achieved by a number of methods. For instance, there is exhaust ventilation, which is applied in innumerable methods to different types of machinery; there is the method of putting water upon the material that is being used; and there are certain other methods, the use of respirators of a certain type being one of them—in fact, in the Home Office we think we have a simple and better type of respirator with regard to silica dust.

A good deal is being done in co-operation with employers in certain industries for the elimination of siliceous material. I will give the House two examples. Grinding processes used to be done, particularly in Sheffield, with siliceous material, but now to a very large extent we have secured the use of emery or artificial abrasives; which means that young people entering the industry in Sheffield to-day, in so far as they are using artificial abrasives or emery, are to all intents and purposes not exposed to the risk of silicosis at all. The same applies with regard to sand-blasting for cleaning castings. In a very large number of cases we have been able to secure the substitution of steel shot for quartzose sand, which means the substitution of a non-siliceous material and the removal of the risk.

Before leaving the question of silicosis, I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether the Home Office is making any researches in connection with a process for grinding involving the use of oyster shells? I think that if the Department made some research on those lines it might obtain some very interesting results.

I cannot say to-night whether that question is being investigated. I would like to conclude by referring to the prevention of accidents in general from the Home Office point of view. We are very much alive to our function of assisting in the prevention of accidents, although we know, as hon. Members will appreciate, that accidents can in fact only be prevented by the co-operation of all concerned, employers and employés alike. A great many accidents are not caused by machinery at all, but by ordinary operations which are not connected with machinery. So far as the prevention of accidents caused by machinery is concerned, the Home Office is playing a very active part. I would like to draw the attention of hon. Members to the Home Office Industrial Museum, which is in Horseferry Road, very near the House. As many hon. Members know, we have there a clearing house for knowledge from all parts of the country in relation to safety, health and welfare in factories. There is nothing theoretical about the museum, and the term "museum" is really a misnomer. Practically every machine in the museum is in use in industry to-day, and there is no doubt that extremely good work is being done by these practical demonstrations of the latest machinery for the prevention of accidents so far as machines are concerned.

I was recently in the museum myself, and I must confess that I was very much struck by the work being done. There I was able to see the actual pair of spectacles which a worker engaged in an oil refinery wore, and congealed upon them was the hot oil which flew out of a defective valve at a temperature of between 600 and 700 degrees Fahrenheit straight towards his eye—which would have meant the loss of his sight but for those spectacles. There are many other examples of spectacles which have prevented the loss of sight and on which one can still see the molten aluminium or molten caustic which would have caused an accident but for the spectacles. I would appeal to hon. Members who are interested in the question of industrial accidents and health to visit the museum, if they have not done so already, and if my voice reaches outside I would address that appeal to employers, especially to those progressive employers who want to help in this matter. If they pay such a visit, they will learn much that will be to their advantage.

Is that invitation open to Members of Parliament?

Naturally, and it is open to the public as well. But I hope hon. Members opposite will visit the Museum, because they know that in certain cases when safety machinery is first introduced the more conservative type of older workman feels that it is something new and that it may be something which would make his job more difficult to do. This is often the feeling they have when they are on piece work, and it is a natural feeling. We should be very grateful if hon. Members would use their great influence with the workpeople with a view to persuading them to take a, modern and progressive attitude with regard to using the latest accident-preventing machinery.

In my speech I raised the important question of carbon monoxide poisoning from which the drivers of petrol-driven buses suffer. Could the hon. Gentleman make some statement or send me a statement regarding this matter?

I am sorry I could not deal with the hon. Gentleman's point. As a matter of fact, the Home Office has no direct functions with regard to bus drivers, but I have ascertained that the matter is in fact being examined by a medical committee at the present time.

9.15 p.m.

I am sure all hon. Members wish to congratulate the Under-Secretary on the way in which he has replied to the Debate. We all appreciate the vast subject he has taken on and the assiduity he has given to his task; and we must all feel satisfaction that he has been able to follow up so many aspects of the Department's work. There is one subject which I understand was to be raised to-day either by the Home Secretary or the Under-Secretary and which was dealt with indirectly by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies). It is the subject of juvenile delinquents. I believe this to be one of the most important matters that comes under the aegis of the Home Office. I believe, too, that the whole future of the administration of children's courts in this country depends on the work of the probation officers and I would ask the Under-Secretary for an assurance that the Home Office will have inquiry made into the working of the children's courts, especially in those parts of the country where there are no whole-time probation officers.

When this matter came before the House some years ago it was laid down and, I think, was intended by Parliament, that local benches of magistrates should recognise that by the establishment of children's courts it was desired to take charge of juveniles and prevent them falling into the category of criminals. It is no use having a children's court if a child is to be brought before a bench consisting of a number of old gentlemen of 70 or 80 who have no conception of what a child's ideas are. What we want to do is to inculcate into the minds of magistrates throughout the country the necessity of trying to understand the child mentality. That is why I ask the Home Office to make inquiries as to the number of whole-time probation officers who have been appointed by local authorities in the various counties. We cannot expect the children's courts to function properly unless there are probation officers who are trained to the work, who take a sympathetic interest in the children and are able to help the children to gain that experience and find that employment which will remove them from the area of crime. If the hon. Gentleman examines the archives of the Home Office I think he will find that in those counties where there are no whole-time officers, the statistics show that the children's courts are not functioning as Parliament intended them to function.

I apologise to the House for intervening at this stage in the Debate but I feel that the question of the care of these children is of such importance that special attention ought, to be paid to it by us. It is no use for us to lie back in self-satisfaction and to say that we have established children's courts, unless we follow up the working of those courts and see whether machinery exists to ensure that they are functioning according to the intentions of Parliament. If a boy or girl is haled before a bench of magistrates, found guilty of some small crime and subjected to a savage sentence, the experience sears the child's mind and puts the child right outside all hope of being saved. We, in this House, pass Acts of Parliament but over and over again we leave the operation of those Acts to local authorities. Indeed, I think we are piling too much on to the shoulders of local authorities. We must recognise that if we do not inquire how legislation works after we have passed it, we are guilty of trying to avoid our responsibility. It is for us to see, not only that legislation is passed, but that the machinery for operating it is working satisfactorily throughout the country. I, therefore, ask the Under-Secretary to consider setting up a, departmental committee to ascertain how the children's courts are working. It would be easy to ascertain from the chief constables what is happening and it is the solemn duty of the Home Office to see that the Children Acts are being observed. Every child who is neglected in this respect becomes a potential criminal and we ought to see to it that child offenders are subjected to a more modern and a more humane jurisdiction than the ordinary criminal law.

9.21 p.m.

I would not have intervened in this Debate had it not been for the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) because my experience bears out much of what he has said. In Sunderland some years ago we had a chief constable who is now the chief constable of Newcastle and who felt, like the hon. and gallant Member opposite, that it was wrong to drag children charged with trivial offences before the magistrates in the first instance. What he did was to act in a paternal way towards the children who got into trouble. The children were brought not into the police court but before a fatherly superintendent in the police station with their fathers and mothers. They were kindly dealt with, the parents were given useful information and the subsequent career of the children was followed up by the police, not with the object of making the children criminals, but with the object of helping the. children to do better. That has had a marvellous effect upon child life in our town.

With regard to the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member opposite about aged men on the bench, may I say that I do not think there is anybody more capable of dealing with the impishness of children than the man who is the father of a family himself and who has had to live with children and to be responsible for them. That is why I object to stipendiary magistrates in this connection because I feel that they are cold-blooded. Some of my hon. Friends may object to the theory that lawyers are any more cold-blooded than other people, but I think stipendiary magistrates are so steeped in law that they forget the necessity of dealing with the children in a parental way. I would suggest appointment of additional lay magistrates who are apt to deal more tenderly with children. Generally speaking, I think it will be agreed that the police have become more tender, not only to children but to adult offenders. In connection with the bench where I have the honour to sit, we have a superintendent who takes a very keen interest in the children and who does all he can when children have been brought before the court to assist the parents of those children in getting them back on to proper lines. The tragedy unfortunately is that many children of 14 or 15 years have nowhere to go and have no work and are very liable to get into mischief.

There is a greater responsibility and duty falling upon magistrates to-day than ever there was, but there is also greater sympathy all round for the children. I think the Home Office ought to give more encouragement to the police in this respect as I must admit they have already done in connection with adult offenders. In my day the police were rewarded according to the number of convictions which they obtained. Nowadays, watch committees are not so ready to give preference to the officer who has succeeded in gaining a number of convictions and I think we ought to be more concerned about giving promotion to the man who knows how to handle these cases with kindliness and tact. I could give you some wonderful instances of that. If the Home Office could give more encouragement to the police to help children in consultation with their parents before taking them to the police courts I believe that the magistrates would be better able to deal with the problem later on.

9.26 p.m.

I was interested in the statement made by the Under-Secretary in regard to the instructions sent out to the London magistrates—I do not know whether they have been sent elsewhere—as to a psychologist being appointed in order to observe these children. I would like to know if that particular medical man is appointed to deal with boys and girls or with only one of the sexes, and also where this particular medical officer is situated. I would like to know also whether the Home Office have given any instructions to the magistrates with regard to these young people that they should be sent to the colonies for mental defectives. I am amazed as one of those responsible for the conduct of the two great mental colonies in London at the number of young children who are sent to us by the courts. I do not know why it is. I ask that that should be looked into. I do not want to see these young people being sent to prison. Very often the offences they are supposed to have committed are what many of us have done many times without the slightest penalty being attached to us, and there would be something wrong with us if we did not attempt some of these things. But I hope that the Home Office are not going to send these young people to colonies for mental defectives when some other method is required. If that instruction has been sent out I hope that further consideration will be given to it.

9.28 p.m.

There is one point about which I want to ask the Home Secretary, and that is the question of silicosis. I come from a district where workmen are gradually having their lungs encased in concrete. I want to know what the Home Office are doing in the work of protecting these men, and I welcome what we have heard to-night. I want to know whether there is a special silicosis fund and whether there is a special silicosis medical board. We have had quite recently a death from silicosis, and the widow and children, five of them, have got no compensation at all. Another case is that of a man who was certified by the medical board to be suffering from silicosis. He has not been able to get anything from the board and is at present on benefit at half rate. That is all that he has as income. What is being done now for the victims of this vile disease?

Question, "That '£165,890,000' stand part of the Resolution," put, and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution," put, and agreed to.

Unemployment (Northern Ireland Agreement) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

9.30 p.m.

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

In the course of the discussions on the Financial Resolution on which this Bill is founded I explained that, the purpose of the Bill is to give effect to an agreement between the Treasury of the United Kingdom and the Finance Ministry of Northern Ireland. The purpose of the agreement is to attempt to equate somewhat the burden of unemployment which falls on the Exchequers of Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland is a district which has its own peculiar problem of unemployment. It is a problem similar to the problem which exists in many parts of the United Kingdom where the industrial population is chiefly dependent for employment on one or two main industries. In the United Kingdom, where coal and shipbuilding are the main industries, if anything happens to depress those industries you have a heavy increase of unemployment. In Northern Ireland the two main industries are linen and the shipbuilding trade, and these have been in recent years depressed, with the result that Northern Ireland has a burden of unemployment on it which is comparable with the burden falling on some of our own special areas. In the United Kingdom the charge for the relief of unemployment is met by the Unemployment Insurance Fund, fortified as it is by the contributions which flow into it from the more prosperous industries.

In Northern Ireland, which has only these two industries, the burden is very acute. With the separation of the two Exchequers which took place when the Government of Northern Ireland was established in 1920, the two insur- ance funds were separated and there is no way of equating the burden except by an agreement of this character. In the course of the discussion on the Financial Resolution I went in some detail into the Agreement, and the finance involved. It was obvious that there were two points in particular which interested hon. Members. I think I am justified in saying that hon. Members opposite did not challenge the propriety of securing that the standard of unemployment benefit provided for the citizens of Northern Ireland should be the same as that for the citizens of the United Kingdom. But hon. Members expressed anxiety on two important points. The first was that referred to by the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) and the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) among others, who urged the point of view that a simpler method of dealing with the problem would be by amalgamating the two funds. Several hon. Members expresed the view that as the operation of the Agreement in present circumstances involved the transfer of money to Northern Ireland, there ought to be some control from Whitehall over the administration of unemployment insurance in Ireland so as to secure a proper expenditure of that money.

I believe it would be in accordance with the desires of hon. Members if I were to try to explain the reasons which have prompted us to come to a different conclusion about those two very important and debatable points. First, there is the question whether the funds should be amalgamated. I would like to make it clear that the opposition to this course does not come from Northern Ireland. My hon. Friend the Member for Down (Sir D. Reid) has expressed his entire concurrence with that view, and the opposition to that course is founded upon considerations which I shall briefly indicate. The short answer is that the Act of 1920, which established a separate Legislature and Government, provided for a separation of the funds, and, in general, for the administration of what we may call comprehensively the social services by the Northern Ireland Government, and the agreement we are now considering was, of course, constructed by the parties out of the existing framework created by that statute, which contemplated the separate administra- tion of the fund and of the service which is included in unemployment insurance and unemployment assistance.

I am aware that the hon. Member may say to me that that is not a complete answer, because what Parliament has done it can undo, and there is nothing to prevent legislation altering that provision, but I submit that such an alteration would be contrary to the whole spirit of the Act of 1920, which was that the social services should be administered by Northern Ireland and not by Whitehall. If the course of amalgamating the funds were followed grave administrative difficulties would have to be faced. The work of unemployment insurance involves a great deal of local activity, and it is not the sort of service which can be run from a centre without a great deal of specialised local assistance, in order that the broad lines of administration may be fitted to deal with the actual conditions in localities. For example, the work-finding function of Employment Exchanges would be greatly complicated if the funds were amalgamated, and, as a necessary corollary, the whole of the work of unemployment insurance and of the exchanges were controlled from this country. I offer those observations as an indication of the sort of difficulty that might arise. In the field of unemployment assistance one has to work with the co-operation of local authorities, and it would be a prospect not devoid of great difficulty if the central authority for the working of this service were to be in London and had to deal with local authorities in Northern Ireland. Certainly that would be the case within the present framework.

The last consideration is the financial effect of this proposal. The object of the agreement we are considering is to equate, as far as may be, the Exchequer contributions. The excess of cost of this particular service to Northern Ireland is to be shared between the Exchequers of the United Kingdom and of Northern Ireland in the proportion of three to one, that is, 75 per cent. of this excess is to be contributed by the United Kingdom Exchequer and 25 per cent. by that of Northern Ireland. In other words, it is a proposal for dealing with a burden which falls on the taxpayers of the two countries—because the agreement casts a burden upon the taxpayers of the two countries. If, instead of adopting this method, we were to amalgamate the funds it is true that the excess cost falling on Northern Ireland would be met, but it would not be met by the taxpayers of the two countries but by the resources of the Unemployment Fund of Great Britain. The burden would be borne by a limited class of taxpayers of the United Kingdom, namely, those who contribute to the Unemployment Fund—the workmen, the employers and the Exchequer—and would not be shared among the general taxpayers as a whole. If this heavy excess were to be borne entirely by the Unemployment Fund I can see that it might be such a heavy burden on the fund as to reduce its ability to provide benefits in the United Kingdom.

The Government are proposing to reduce contributions.

If this excess cost had been cast on the Unemployment Fund in this country, it might have been an impossibility to make the reduction in contributions lately proposed. With regard to the question of control, I have very great sympathy with the desire manifested by hon. Members to secure control over expenditure emanating from the Exchequer of this country. That is a sentiment which will always strike a favourable echo in the breast of anyone speaking for the Treasury. Again I say that control established in this country would be contrary to the spirit and the letter of the Act of 1920, but, apart from that, I would not like this House—taking into consideration the general character of our contribution to Northern Ireland, because I conceive it to be a fair and generous apportionment—to think because the sum proposed under this agreement is a considerable sum that we shoulder anything like the whole cost of unemployment insurance in Northern Ireland. Of course we do not. The great bulk of the money that goes to provide the service of unemployment insurance and unemployment assistance in Northern Ireland is found in Northern Ireland. Not only have the employers and the employed to pay their contributions, but the Exchequer of Northern Ireland has to bear its due proportion of the total expenditure of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, taken together, before it can qualify for any contribution under this Bill. Even then Northern Ireland gets only 75 per cent. of the excess; the remaining 25 per cent. she has to bear herself.

It is clear, in the way that I look at it, that it would be very difficult indeed to have Whitehall supervision over a service in Northern Ireland the bulk of the cost of which is defrayed out of purely North of Ireland money. It is not a proposal which is likely to work smoothly, and for these reasons it is not one that I feel the House ought to adopt at the present time. Let is not he thought that because I am now arguing against this sort of detailed control in the administration of the fund in Northern Ireland, that we are leaving the matter entirely at large. If hon. Members will consult the Schedule to the Bill, which is the agreement, they will find that Article 7 provides:

"If at any time the classes of persons insured or of persons entitled to apply for an unemployment allowance the rates of contribution the rates or conditions of benefit or the regulations under which allowances are paid or the general method of charging administrative expenses or the method of financing the Unemployment or Unemployment Assistance Funds differ in Great Britain and Northern Ireland there shall be made such adjustment, if any, in the amounts of the contributions from one Exchequer to the other as the Joint Exchequer Board, after consulting the Government Actuary, may consider just."

The effect of that article is roughly this: The whole of this agreement, upon which the contribution is payable to Northern Ireland, rests upon the assumption that the rates and conditions of unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance will remain the same, that the general system will remain the same in Norther Ireland as here. Any variation of that system will, by Article 7, bring up the question of contribution again. The assumption of the whole agreement is that there will be a uniformity between this country and Northern Ireland. I would ask the House to accept as the best guarantee that the fund in Northern Ireland will be administered with the same standard as obtains here, the fact that Northern Ireland has in fact throughout these years, even when the old agreements broke down and she got no assistance from this country, maintained as good a service of unemployment insurance as has obtained here. That record in the past in this small part of the United Kingdom is the best guarantee the House can have that there will be no important variation in the standards of administration between this country and Northern Ireland.

These are the considerations which I would advance to the House in support of this Bill. It is hoped that this new agreement will provide a permanent basis for the adjustment of contributions between this country and Northern Ireland. There are many points in the agreement to which no doubt hon. Members would like to draw attention, but I would ask hon. Members to note that by an exchange of correspondence between this country and Northern Ireland it has been agreed that in certain conditions the question can be re-opened. That is to say, if at any time our liability under the agreement exceeds £1,000,000 the question can be re-opened, and if any change in legislation affects the whole basis of the agreement the matter will be open to review. I put forward this Bill and the agreement scheduled in it as something which the House may well consider to be an attempt to regulate the relations of the Exchequer of Northern Ireland with the Exchequer of Great Britain so as to provide that the standard of life in this important matter of unemployment insurance and assistance shall remain the same in every part of the United Kingdom.

9.50 p.m.

This is the third Bill of this kind that has appeared before the House since 1920. The hon. Gentleman has assured us that this will be a permanent agreement and probably the last of its kind. The hon. Gentleman has no more right to say that than any other financial secretary had before. If the speech of the hon. Gentleman, in which he practically said that they could not give any further consideration to the question of the amalgamation of the funds, is any guarantee of the real mind of the Exchequer, the sooner the House brings the Government up against this problem and insists on a settlement of it, the better. The problem has arisen from the Act of 1920, under which Northern Ireland became responsible for the conduct of its own unemployment insurance machinery. They did not do that because the Act of 1920 was passed, because they could have still remained within the insurance system of this country, but they deliberately chose to become a separate entity in unemployment insurance. They thought, what many of us thought, that the basic industries then appeared to be going concerns and that they would be able to have an insurance system and an income which would place their fund in a superior position to that of the general fund in this country.

There were in this country people in the basic industries who thought the same thing. Economic events have not justified their view, nor have they justified the view of the people in Northern Ireland. To their dismay, therefore, they had to come cap in hand to this country to ask for some help. Then this Government devised the means of the agreement in order to give the necessary help to maintain the fund of Northern Ireland on the same basis of contributions and benefits as we had in this country. I like the wording of this Bill, which follows that of other Bills with reference to this question. It says that provision has to be made

"with a view to assimilating the burdens on the Exchequer of the United Kingdom and the Exchequer of Northern Ireland in respect of unemployment insurance."

I like the word "assimilating." When we are talking about the equalisation of rates as between the Special Areas and the rest of the country, I am going to suggest to hon. Gentlemen that we should talk about assimilating, because, as far as I can gather, the difference between equalisation and assimilation is that you do not get anything if you call it equalisation, but if you call it assimilation you can be sure that you will get a fairly large chunk of financial help. There would have been no need for any agreement had it not been for the Government's 1934 Act. The strange thing about Northern Ireland is that our electors decide what their unemployment insurance will be. Every time we have a change in insurance systems in this country Northern Ireland has to follow suit. It has been rather amusing to me, as a Member of the Labour Government, to watch the Northern Ireland Conservatives following the Socialist Government in their unemployment insurance legislation.

There is some good in Socialist legislation.

At any rate, the Northern Ireland legislation has been changed every time it has been changed here. Previously, up to 1929, the grants were based upon the relative population of the two countries. Under this agreement the unemployment insured population is the basis of calculation. That is the reason for the new agreement. What does the Bill do? The Financial Memorandum said that the total annual payments from the Exchequer of the United Kingdom to that of Northern Ireland under the agreement had been, in 1925 (six months), £706,000; in 1926, £879,000;in 1927, £296,000; in 1928, £483,000; in 1929, £346,000; in 1930, £547,000;and in 1931, £165,000. I understand that in the first year of the new agreement we shall have to pay £722,000 and that afterwards there will be a blank cheque so far as new conditions are concerned, subject to the number of unemployed. I do not think that the North of Ireland representatives in this House will deny that there is any more right for this country to grant this money to them than to any other State or Dominion within the British Commonwealth of Nations.

Certainly there is. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. No other State or Dominion is.

For the purpose of unemployment insurance Northern Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom. They have definitely placed themselves on a separate basis. I will not carp over this matter, because I intend to ask my hon. Friends to support the equalisation of benefit for workers; but we do not agree that the Financial Secretary's speech is the last word on this subject. There must be either amalgamation or control. We cannot go on continually this way. I do not think there is any real argument why there should he grants made to Northern Ireland any more than to any other State or Dominion within the British Commonwealth of Nations. It is a very serious matter that we have not control over this question. The Financial Secretary used various arguments as to the difficulties of taking over the North of Ireland machinery, such as the Employment Exchanges, etc. There is no difficulty in that. There would be no more difficulty in our running the North of Ireland Employment Exchanges and conducting all the activities than there would be in running them anywhere else in the United Kingdom. It is very probable although one does not like too much centralisation, and without casting any reflection upon the Northern Ireland machinery, that the whole organisation would be run far more efficiently from this country as the centre than it is run at the present time.

Since I last spoke on this subject I have received several letters from Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland there are always difficulties in regard to such things as religion, and I gather that there is complaint that through the exchanges when work is given out special privilege is given to people of certain religious persuasion. I do not know what there may be in that complaint, but there is always danger of that kind of thing taking place there. Northern Ireland have a peculiar problem of their own in that respect. I would ask hon. Members representing Northern Ireland to give us some guarantee that they will do what they can to see to it that no particular prejudice is shown towards people because of any political views they hold or because of the religious creed they profess. I do not know what the Financial Secretary can do about that matter, but it is something over which we ought to have some control.

We shall not vote against the Bill, which gives equal benefit as well as equal contributions, but I hope that the Financial Secretary will have a fresh look at the problem. He has convinced himself that this is the last Bill of the kind. It is not the last Bill. I can see the possibility under the rearmament measures of the Government that North of Ireland shipyards will benefit to some extent, and if they become prosperous Northern Ireland will have to return some money; but I would draw attention to the fact that they have already had something like £3,500,000 without returning anything. There is no guarantee in this Agreement that this country will get anything back. The only straight thing to do will be to have an amalgamation, or, failing amalgamation, some control. I hope that, so far as the giving of work through the exchanges is concerned the Financial Secretary and the hon. Members from Northern Ireland will see to it that no prejudice is shown against any men because of their political or religious convictions.

10.3 p.m.

On this Measure, although the temptation is great to go outside it, I shall refrain from discussing issues other than those directly concerned in the Bill. In connection with North of Ireland Measures one is always constrained to criticise the Government of that country. One almost feels instinctively a desire to oppose such a Measure because of the type of Government in Northern Ireland, but I will refrain from doing so to-night because it would not be fair to the people who live under the Government of that country. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, but one cannot but feel that there is constantly a difference of treatment between that which we give to Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Only a few years ago we entered into a bitter feud with the Irish Free State over a comparatively miserable sum about annuities, a feud which upset industry and commerce.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being present—

I always feel a cynic on these matters. When we are discussing unemployment insurance we usually get a handful of attendance from certain hon. Members, and we have seen that to-night. When we discuss problems of defence, for which the unemployed are usually the first people called upon, we usually have the House packed. I feel that these issues are as great and as important as those of defence, and some of us feel that on the questions of land annuities and the Government of Northern Ireland there have been two different kinds of treatment and unnecessary friction.

There is the question touched on by the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson), who mentioned the difficulty of religion. Far be it from me in this House to add to the difficulties of the people of Northern Ireland. I have lived there, and I know some of their difficulties and problems, but I would say to the representatives of Northern Ireland here that there is a feeling among a certain section of people there that they are not quite getting a fair deal under this scheme. They may be wrong, but when the Government are making a grant of money raised out of national taxation, quite apart from creed or race, they have a peculiar responsibility on them to see that there is no religious test or difference when public money is concerned. I do not want to cast any reflection on the Northern Ireland Government, but there is a feeling—it may arise out of other issues—and the people who have communicated with me have possibly paid the Treasury a greater tribute than they are entitled to. They feel, whatever may be the faults of the Treasury, that if they make inquiries, at least on religious matters, they will have no bias. I therefore ask the Financial Secretary on the matter of these tests at least to ensure, in the granting of public money, that representations are made to the Northern Ireland Government to see that nothing of that kind creeps in on the question of giving work—I know the Government have no power over an employer granting a job—and to see that as far as possible in this matter, and in the payment of benefits, these questions are not allowed to intervene.

There is another point. I think the Financial Secretary will carve for himself something of a future, and I want to say to him, without arrogance, not to prejudge his future by starting to discuss matters about which I think he needs a little more coaching than he has had. On the question of the difficulties of administration, let me say that there are not half the difficulties in administering unemployment insurance in Northern Ireland than there are in his native country of Stornoway. There, in Stornoway, you have 50 times more difficulties —the language difficulty, for instance, the difficulty of fisher girls, etc., which far transcend the difficulties in Northern Ireland. The great bulk of the Northern Irish population is confined to Belfast and to Derry, where the problem is practically the same as in Liverpool, Newcastle, and Glasgow.

I think the hon. Gentleman is right in not opposing this Bill, although the temptations for us to do so are great, but to punish anyone by voting against this Measure because we have some political difference with these people would be wrong. I was always in dread in this House when we were opposing these Regulations and the coming of the new system under Part II. I thought the one case for Part I was Belfast, and I lived in dread lest Belfast would be quoted against me, because the one matter on which the two religious sides entered into a common cause was in the treatment of Poor Law relief in Belfast, and Part II did mean much better treatment for the able-bodied poor in Northern Ireland.

Therefore, I do not want to oppose this Bill, but the hon. Gentleman should give us some chance of making representations in these matters. For good or ill, a large section of the population of Northern Ireland think that in these matters they have not got representation. Some of us have a union with a large membership in Northern Ireland, and we feel that on issues arising there we should have the right to make representations, through some Treasury official, to the Northern Ireland Government. We feel that in making representations across there we do not possibly get the satisfaction that we might get otherwise.

I find to-night a unanimity which I wish was always to be found here. Only a few weeks ago I had to suffer the whole opposition of this House with regard to the insurance of agricultural workers, when Members here defended different rates of benefit for those workers. To-day they stand here and say they want uniform rates for workers in Northern Ireland and workers here. I want uniform rates for all workers. I think an insurance scheme ought not to differentiate between abode and abode or occupation and occupation. I remember that on another occasion a man who now occupies a place at the other end of this building led us to oppose a certain Measure. I dodged it on that occasion by the not very creditable step of abstaining from voting. I think I ought to have voted with the powers that be at the time, but I did not do it. I should certainly have been led to oppose the Measure, but I felt that it would give rise to difficulties that were possibly unnecessary.

The Northern Ireland. representatives have been very generous, and have not made the stir that they could make about this Bill, and I feel that in return they are entitled to a certain generosity in regard to relief for the poor of Belfast. What I am afraid of is the possibility of the Belfast Corporation being too niggardly rather than too' kindly in their spending. The Labour party have a right to ask from the Government of Northern Ireland generosity in the treatment of their people. I have had one or two complaints about the want of uniformity in the scheme, and have written to the Government of Northern Ireland about them. If I do not get satisfaction I shall try to raise them here, since we arc now voting this money, but I trust that the Government of Northern Ireland will take our conduct on this occasion, not as an indication that we are giving way to any kind of fear, but as an evidence of generosity which I hope they will return, not only in their dealing with unemployment insurance, but with the terrible question of religious persecution, and that they will see that the minority, who hold their views strongly, are treated with a kindness and toleration that will bring to an end the present terrible conditions and place Northern Ireland on a higher level than it has occupied hitherto.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.—[ Sir A. Lambert Ward.]

Consolidated Fund (No 1) Bill

Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed.

Import Duties (Import Duties Act 1932)

10.19 p.m.

I beg to move,

"That the Additional Import Duties (No. 2) Order, 1936, dated the tenth day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said tenth day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, be approved."

This Order relates to upholstery, mattress and similar stuffing materials consisting wholly or partially of artificially curled animal hair. This is a small matter. It is proposed that the duty on these materials should be increased from 10 per cent., which was the old ad valorem duty, to the difference between the value of the goods per cwt. and 75s. per cwt. The effect of the Order is to impose an additional duty upon this material. In practice it will mean that the duty will only be paid in respect of imported second-hand hair. New hair will continue to be imported at the general ad valorem duty. The better class bedding and furniture manufacturers refrain from using second-hand hair at all, on hygienic grounds. They are strongly in favour of increased duties being imposed upon these imports, which come in at exceptionally low prices, chiefly from the United States, and they come in from the United States chiefly because in August, 1934, under one of the new codes issued under the National Recovery Act, the material is not allowed to be used for bedding and upholstering in the United States, and they have been shipping it to this country at ridiculously cheap prices and interfering with our manufacture.

There are 14 firms manufacturing curled hair in the United Kingdom, four in Scotland, three in Liverpool, two in London and five in the remainder of the country. They employ 1,500 workpeople and the whole production of curled hair is of the value of £360,000. The upholstery trade is having a share of prosperity owing to the increasing requirements of the growing motor-car industry, but the home output has in volume remained more or less stationary owing to the bad effect of these large imports of low price second-hand material from the United States. The average price of imported second-hand materials has been something like 37s. 6d. per cwt., and the average price of the cheaper new material is something about 68s. a cwt., so that very little, if any, imported new material will be likely to be caught by the new duty.

10.23 p.m.

Surely it is altruism for the Parliamentary Secretary to he interested in anything to do with hair. I gather that the present position has arisen because the United States regards the use of this material as unhygienic and likely, therefore, to cause disease in their country. I should have thought this was not a matter for imposing a tariff but for having such a regulation as would prohibit the use of this material on the same grounds as are advocated in the United States. I should have thought it was far better to recognise that the tariff will not keep this out perpetually, and that sooner or later we shall be faced, as we have been in practically all these matters, with a fresh Order of this kind. Surely the proper thing is to bring the whole matter to the notice of the Home Office and suggest that we should be not less careful with regard to the use of this material than they are in the United States. Already we have regulations dealing with the use of flock and similar matters for bedding material. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will bring the experience of the United States to the attention of the Home Office in the hope that it may make a similar regulation to that now in force in America.

10.25 p.m.

Can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether at the present time there is any test that this material has to satisfy before its use in the upholstery trade in this country? My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has mentioned the Rag Flock Acts and the necessity for passing certain chemical tests if material is to qualify for re-use which has already been used by human beings. I should like to know whether, in the case of this material which is imported from abroad, there is any qualification as regards its coming into this country for use that it should possess some degree of purity and of absence of those animal matters which are objectionable, and of the bacteriological matters which are equally objectionable for use for such purposes as upholstery and bedding. It seems to be a very ineffective way of keeping an undesirable material out of the country merely to increase the duty upon it. If it is desirable that it should be used in this country, the cheaper it is, the better it is for the country, but if it is undesirable that it should be used in this country—and I am sure that that is the argument of the hon. Gentleman as regards the imposition of this duty—it seems to be a very inefficient way of stopping it. We should at least like to know whether, at the present time, it has to pass any tests before it can be utilized?

10.27 p.m.

This being a substantive Motion, I have the right to answer questions. The points which have been raised have nothing to do with the Order which is actually before the House for consideration. It may be well to consider whether there are alternative methods of bringing about the same results, but what I intend to do is to ask the House to give the affirmative Motion to the Order made by the Treasury upon the recommendation of the Import Duties Advisory Committee. I am, therefore, following the procedure which is now customary under Section 3 of the Import Duties Act, 1932. I think that there has been a misunderstanding. The United States Government, by one of these new codes has prohibited the use of this material. That is the reason why the exports from the United States have enormously increased. I happen to have the figures. In a normal year something like 500 tons of this material come in. In 1934, 550 tons came in, and in 1935 over 800 tons of this material came in largely because it was prohibited in the United States.

The material, when it comes into this country, undergoes a process of reconditioning during which the points raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bristol East (Sir S. Cripps) are dealt with; that is to say, such as disinfection, because it would be found that the Rag Flock Acts apply to a good deal more than what is called officially rag flock. There is no question of this material not being properly cleansed, but the House will remember that I said that the principal bedding and furniture manufacturers refrain from using this second-hand hair altogether on hygienic grounds. It is the cheaper end of the trade that uses this second-hand hair at all. The bulk of the trade in the new material comes from the Irish Free State, and it is thought that this Order will not interfere with that new material at all. The trade is a relatively small one, but it is precisely one of those instances where a manufacturing industry in this country which is capable of expansion is being prejudicially affected by the importation from another country of a material at a price wholly noncompetitive; and that is precisely the type of interference with British manufacture which the Import Duties Act is designed to prevent.

This will not, of course, put an end to the whole thing; it will only mean less temptation for the manufacturers of the cheaper type of bedding to use this rather undesirable material for their manufacture. That, on the whole, will tend to strengthen the better end of the trade.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

"That the Additional Import Duties (No. 2) Order, 1936, dated the tenth day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said tenth day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, be approved"

Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 To 1934

Resolved,

"That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 to 1934, on the application of the Salisbury Gas company, which was presented on the 10th day of February and published, be approved."—[Dr. Burgin.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Adjournment

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[ Sir A. Lambert Ward.]

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-nine Minutes before Eleven o' Clock.

Volume 309: debated on Thursday 5 March 1936

House Of Commons

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