asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps His Majesty's Government have taken or propose to take under the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870, against those British subjects who have proceeded to Spain in order to take active part in the civil war in that country?

I have been asked to reply. I have had some information which is under consideration. If my honourable Friend has himself any information on the subject I should be glad if he would communicate it to me.

Can I have the Attorney-General's assurance that if the Act in question does not cover active intervention in a civil war, he will take steps to see that it should be made to do so and that legislation will be introduced for that purpose?

That does not rest with me.

Is it not a fact that the Foreign Enlistment Act could not apply to affairs in Spain unless recognition was given to General Franco?

We cannot, obviously, discuss legal questions across the Floor of the House, but I do not think that is so.

Are we to understand that the Government propose to take no steps whatever to prevent His Majesty's subjects fighting in this war if they so desire?

No, Sir that is not so.

Can the Attorney-General give an assurance that no unilateral action will be taken in this matter?

What I have to do is to see that the law is enforced if breaches of the law are brought to my attention. Whether that is unilateral action or not, I do not know.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, what action has, within the last three weeks, been taken by Spanish or other ships to interfere with the passage of shipping to Spanish ports; and whether any British vessels have been stopped?

I am unable to give the information asked for in the first part of the question. As regards the second part, I am not aware of any instance of a British ship being interfered with by a Spanish warship during the last three weeks.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the present position with regard to the closer application of non-intervention in Spain to both munitions and men, and what men voluntarily or as conscripts have reached Spain during the last three weeks?

In reply to the first part of the Question, I hope to have an opportunity of dealing with the present position with regard to non-intervention in the course of the Debate to-day. With regard to the second part, I have not sufficient information on which to base any reliable estimate of the number of foreigners who have reached Spain in the last few weeks.

Can the right hon. Gentleman give an estimate within 5,000 or 10,000?

The hon. Member will realise that it is not much good my giving inaccurate figures.

Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been directed to statements from correspondents of several British Conservative newspapers in Berlin that Germany has 60,000 men ready to start for Spain?

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will give the House any information on the subject of the conclusion of a secret agreement between France and the Spanish Communist leaders for a supply of arms to the latter?

I have no knowledge of any such agreement.

Is it not the case that the proportion of Communist leaders in the Spanish Government and Parliament is exceedingly small, and that they would be unlikely to be able to conduct any agreement?

I think it would be incorrect to describe one side as exclusively Communist or the other side as Fascist.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether in view of the conflicting information reaching this House regarding the atrocities and executions by the respective factions in the Spanish civil war, he will give the House any information on the subject received from His Majesty's representatives in Madrid and Barcelona?

I have heard from His Majesty's Representatives in Madrid and Barcelona and from other sources of executions carried out in those towns. I have also received unconfirmed information of executions in insurgent territory. Such information by its very nature is difficult to confirm, and it is not possible to give the House any specific instances. But from the facts at my disposal, it is unfortunately not possible to deny that executions have taken place on a deplorable scale.

Is it not fair to assume from the reply that the executions on the part of the Red leaders are far more numerous than those on the other side?

I think I would rather say that I am not prepared to differentiate. I think the House and the country have an equal contempt for this practice whoever indulges in it.

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has received the report of the committee of investigation for Scotland on the complaint made by the Association of Certified and Grade A (T.T.) Milk Producers regarding the position of the producers of Grade A (T.T.) milk under the Scottish milk marketing scheme; and, if so, what are the committee's findings and what action does he propose to take in the matter?

The Committee's report on the complaint has been received. The Committee find that the provisions of Section 24 (3) (d) of the scheme, under which producers selling milk through the agency of the Board qualify for payment of premiums in respect of the grade or quality of their milk only if it is sold at a price exceeding the price of ordinary milk, are contrary to the interests of producers of Grade A (T.T.) milk within the area of the scheme and are not in the public interest. The position of Grade A (T.T.) milk producers in relation to the Milk Marketing Scheme in England is also at the moment under examination, and there are general questions involved in both countries which will require consideration in the light of the results of these two inquiries. In the circumstances, I propose to defer a decision on the report of the Scottish Committee in the meantime.

When the House was summoned to another place I was about to quote an extract on which my hon. Friend the Member for Derby based a question the other day in reference to Abyssinia, and I was also about to point out that this extract originally referred to affairs in China. It is as follows:—

"The twelve Members of the Council recall the terms of Article 10 of the Covenant by which all Members of the League have undertaken to respect and preserve the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all other Members. It is their friendly right to direct attention to this provision particularly as it appears to them to follow that no infringement of the territorial integrity and no change in the political independence of any Member of the League brought about in disregard of this Article ought to be recognised as valid and effectual by the Members of the League of Nations."

That had reference, as I say, originally to affairs in China, and it still has a bearing upon the problem there. I would like, therefore, to know whether the Government still hold the view that the League of Nations should continue to take an active interest in events in the Far East in the light of the document which I have just read.

I pass from this reference to the Far East to a consideration of the position in Abyssinia in connection with which my hon. Friend put the Question I have just mentioned. What is the present position of the League of Nations vis-a-vis Abyssinia? I take it that there is nothing in contemplation that would in any wise be a recognition of the violation of Abyssinian independency by the Italians in the last year or two. I notice that in answer to the Question to which I have just referred, the right hon. Gentleman said:

"His Majesty's Government adhere to the principle enunciated in the declaration referred to by the hon. Member"—

which I have just quoted. He went on to say—

"Any such action on their part does not imply approval of the methods by which the situation was brought about"— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1936; col. 2442, Vol. 318.]

That, of course, we may take for granted, but is it not possible for recognition to be given to the existing state of affairs in Abyssinia without formal approval of the methods by which Abyssinia's independence was destroyed? I hope that we shall get an assurance that no such recognition is in contemplation, either overtly or covertly by the Government.

There is another question that I would like to raise in regard to the Abyssinian matter, but I do not wish to dwell unduly upon it. I gather that there are large numbers of Abyssinian refugees crossing the frontiers of contiguous territory, and I would like to know whether the Government are aware of this and whether, if there is a very large number, it is not an appropriate case to which to direct the attention of the League of Nations and to invite the League to do something of its own accord for their sustenance. Whatever our views as to the Abyssinian episode may be now, we all know that the Abyssinians were led to believe that the League would stand behind them, and so we have a moral commitment to them, if nothing else.

I pass to a word or two upon the European situation as I see it, and I would like to recall to the House that two speeches have been delivered in the country this week of some interest to all who study European affairs. The first, of course, in importance and in interest to this House is the speech of the right hon. Gentleman himself at Bradford early in the week. I hope he will forgive me if I say that I thought he made a rather too exaggerated claim as to the unity of this country behind the foreign policy of the Government. That unity might be forthcoming if we knew what their foreign policy was. Anyway, do not let him claim that we are unanimously behind him in all that he does until he can be assured that we really do understand his policy. There are passages in his speech which gave me very great pleasure, and I venture to quote one passage with which I think I can say I am myself, and I believe my hon. Friends are, completely in accord. Here it is:

"Observance of treaties and willingness to resort to free negotiation in a disagreement constitute together the only basis of international accord. That is assuredly one of the lessons the world should have learned in the last two months. Admittedly treaties in themselves which are made by human hands are not sacrosanct, and they are capable of improvement, as are all human things, but there must be some sanctity about the observance of solemn undertakings, there must be a limit to unilateral denunciation, or we shall reach a point where force, and force alone, is to be the sole arbiter of international relations and where no treaty will be worth the paper on which it is written."

I am completely in agreement with that sentiment. I wish the Government themselves had remembered it long before, but I will not be unkind to the Government. I will simply be glad that we have got this observation from the Foreign Secretary, for, after all, it is an undeniable fact that you can multiply covenants, multiply pacts, multiply understandings on paper a thousandfold, and unless you can rely upon the honour of those who have attached their signatures to those agreements and covenants, then they are in fact worthless. Honour, after all, must be the rock upon which the temple of peace is to be founded, and I can only hope that the words of the Foreign Secretary will be hearkened to by nations beyond the seas. But on the assumption that honour will be established and observed among nations, and on the understanding, of course, that the League of Nations can be accepted as the instrument for settling international differences, I venture to assert that there is no dispute in Europe to-day that is incapable of settlement by agreement if there are goodwill and willingness to settle prevalent among the nations. War will not settle anything. Reason can, and reason alone can, and we would like to see the nations recognise that simple and elementary fact.

There is, however, one great impediment to peace in Europe at this moment. It is the ever widening conflict between the two ideologies, that of Communism and of Fascism or Nazism. Europe is in danger, it seems to me, of being ranged behind one or other of these. Why should it be so? Is it impossible for these combatants to realise that the people of any country are the best judges of the best form of government for themselves? Bolshevism, Nazism, or Fascism cannot be destroyed from without. Ideas cannot be annihilated with guns. Why cannot the leaders of all nations—I say "all nations," without exception—accept the simple proposition that the internal affairs of a country are its own? I would say, therefore, to the leaders of Russia, Germany, Italy, and of all other nations, abandon this foolish and mischievous interference in the internal affairs of other nations, for such interference only breeds counter-interference, and the last condition of the country interfered with is worse than its first.

Given that reasonable measure of restraint and order, what is there to prevent the establishment of a real concert of Europe at this moment? I say "a real concert." I would frown upon any attempt to establish separate or conflicting camps in Europe, and I would venture to say to the representatives of certain States in this country that they mislead themselves or allow themselves to be misled if they suppose that the people of this country will contemplate with equanimity any attempt to form a bloc simply to exclude that great country of Russia in Europe. If, on the other hand, there is readiness to have a concert, an accord, with all nations, none will be more willing to give support to it, I feel sure, than my hon. Friends on this side of the House. There are, of course, other issues, economic issues, colonies, raw materials, and so on —very important issues, I know—but none of them is an issue that cannot and ought not to be settled by the arbitrament of reason, and I was glad again to read the reference made by the right hon. Gentleman to this matter in his own speech at Bradford this week. But he is not alone. His predecessor, the present First Lord of the Admiralty, made a pronouncement of some significance in Geneva a year or two ago. We have no objection to pronouncements, but we would to heaven that effect were given to them, that something were done, and not merely words, words, words.

I venture also to cite, in support of this proposition, another very important statement. M. Blum one day this week gave a most interesting and arresting interview to a London newspaper, the "News-Chronicle," and he expressed himself upon a great number of problems that affect Europe at this moment. Among other things he said:

"France is ready and anxious to help Germany back to a normal, economic life, if Germany, by agreeing to a general level of disarmament, will help Europe back to a normal political life. To achieve those two states, so inextricably bound together, no effort is or shall be too great."

There is a gesture of the first significance from the standpoint of European peace.

indicated assent.

I gather that the right hon. Gentleman is in accord with that gesture, and I am sure hon. Members opposite are, as we are too. What is there to prevent the leaders of Germany and of all other countries falling in with this gesture and grasping this opportunity now, in good time, in order to save the world from the catastrophe which menaces us so obviously at this moment?

I pass from that to some observations I want to make about Spain. We have given the right hon. Gentleman notice of some questions on the humanitarian problems presented by the Spanish situation. We are anxious, first, that the question of the evacuation of non-combatants from Madrid shall not only be studied by the League, but shall, if possible, be speedily undertaken by it. It is a humanitarian task of the first importance, and I venture to make a specific observation upon it. There is attached to the League an organisation called the International Relief Union, and I believe that it is presided over by an Italian. I make no unkind reference to that, but it is obvious that an organisation of this kind presided over by nn Italian might not be acceptable to the Spanish Government on that account. I do not know. In any case, I urge that the League, on the initiative of our own Government, should take an active interest in this matter and appoint somebody as representing the League to co-operate with the Spanish Government for the purpose of securing the evacuation of these unfortunate non-combatants as early as possible.

The second thing I wish to ask is, whether the Government are aware of the report of the Members of this House who have been to Spain. We are all deeply indebted to them for having added so substantially to our knowledge of the situation in Spain. They have presented an excellent report on the situation as they found it. They report that there is a great shortage of medical supplies in Madrid and elsewhere. I wonder whether the Government—and here, again, I do not prejudge the issue—will be willing to provide medical supplies and other like supplies to hospitals in Madrid and elsewhere. If the Government could undertake that—and I plead that they should—it would perhaps help the Spanish peoples to feel that, after all, our heart is with them in their distress. The third question I wish to ask is whether there is anything in the Nonintervention Agreement that would preclude the Government or kindly people in this country from sending to the Spanish Government a supply of gas attacks. I gather that there is danger in future, if it has not already happened, of gas attacks on the city. We would all deplore such a wanton attack upon non-combatant people, and it is imperative that something should be done, if it is permissible, to supply gas masks. The fourth point is whether ships are being permitted to carry goods between this country and Spain. Are the Government taking any action to protect vessels that may be carrying coal from South Wales or elsewhere to Spain in exchange for oranges and other produce from Barcelona and Alicante.

We are glad that the Government have initiated, in concert with the French Government, this mediation movement. We are all horrified—and that is an understatement—at the barbarism of the struggle in Spain. It seems to me that Spain has slid back in the course of six months to the barbarianism of the Middle Ages, and anything that can be done by the Government to bring this conflict to a speedy conclusion will merit the support of every decent minded citizen everywhere. I hope that the movement in the direction of mediation will not be allowed to be seized by anybody as an excuse for slowing down the Non-intervention Agreement. Let it be fulfilled completely; 100 per cent. will suit us best, because it is a monstrous thing that other nations should be poking their noses into this internal affair in Spain. We wish to say once more that we shall view with the greatest possible objection any attempt to grant General Franco belligerent rights. Whatever may be said in his favour or against him, General Franco is a Spanish citizen and he is in rebellion against his own Government. He has no right, in our judgment, to be accorded anything approaching belligerent rights, and I hope the Government are not contemplating according them at any time.

On the question of volunteers, there has been no public pronouncement of the Government, but there have been hints in the Press that there is some talk of introducing legislation for putting a ban upon volunteers from Britain. I should be glad to see volunteers and all instruments of warfare stopped, so long as they are stopped all round. The right hon. Gentleman will find from us the strongest possible opposition to the imposition of any ban upon volunteers unless that ban is applied all round and accepted by all nations. The trouble that led up to the Non-intervention Agreement was a mistake that was made —well intentioned as it was—when France and this country imposed a restraint upon themselves without making it conditional upon a similar restraint on the part of other nations. If there is to be a ban on volunteers therefore, let it not he unilateral, but multilateral, all nations taking part in it. In that way the ban would be effective. The right hon. Gentleman answered a question the other day from the hon. Member for Derby with reference to the Balearic Isles, and he said that he had received assurance—it was affirmed and reaffirmed. We are told that the people who have gone to the Balearic Isles, to Majorca and Minorca, are volunteers. If they are volunteers, what need is there for assurances? It is because we know that they are not volunteers that assurances are necessary, and I can only hope that those assurances will be effective not only as to prospective action, but as to past action as well.

These are the problems that confront us. They are extremely grave and none of us dare under-rate their importance. For us their danger is in their repercussions. We have launched upon a campaign of armaments on a most colossal scale, and if there is one criticism I would offer to the Government more than another it is that they seem to have abandoned all hope of any alternative except a big armament campaign. No Minister speaks now in the country on peace except the Foreign Secretary. No one speaks of the League of Nations being used. Everyone pleads for the effectiveness of the armaments campaign.

From the point of view of the poor people whom we try to represent in this House, that is a most menacing and significant fact. By these armaments, we are creating fatal obstacles to the social progress which we hoped to achieve in the coming generation. We have no right to deprive future generations of that social upliftment and advance because of the disastrous international relations which now confront us. It is the task of His Majesty's Government, and of all governments, to pursue, in season and out of season, the path of peace and reconciliation, for only in peace and reconciliation lies the hope of the world.

We have listened to a very eloquent speech, most of which will have the general approval of the House. I rarely intervene in these foreign Debates, but, unfortunately, my right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) who was to have spoken, is prevented—I understand for similar reasons as in the case of Mr. Speaker—from being in his place this morning. Some reference should be made in all parts of the House to the very important speech which was made at Bradford by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. I would wish he had made that speech in this House where it would have been more appropriate, because it was of great importance and significance. I realise, however, that speeches have to be made in the country, even by Foreign Secretaries, and the right hon. Gentleman not unnaturally took advantage of the opportunity to make his speech in the breezy and stimulating atmosphere of Yorkshire. One passage of that speech has been quoted by the hon. Gentleman who preceded me; I shall now embarrass the Foreign Secretary by quoting another passage, which is so excellent that it might very well be made the theme of our discussion this afternoon. He said:

"We have attempted a fresh initiative with the dual object of making the Nonintervention Agreement really effective, and of offering mediation to bring hostilities to an end."

A little later he said:

"If we, the nations of Europe, cannot collaborate to deal with the Spanish problem, then we shall be moving into deeper and more dangerous waters."

Those are pregnant words. The word "mediation" is easy to use, but much can be interpreted into it. It can be regarded as of great importance, or watered down to be a mere expression of good will. We want to see those good words translated into action, but obviously the character of the mediation must be left to the great responsibility of His Majesty's Government. I understand, especially from speeches which have been made in France, that it is going to mean the closest co-operation with France. The one healthy thing that has been happening in the last few weeks is the close and intimate contact between the right hon. Gentleman and M. Blum.

The right hon. Gentleman has consistently supported the policy of nonintervention. He did so, and so did we, because we felt that it would make it easier for us to use our good offices when the time came to bring this horrible conflict to an end. It will certainly redound to the credit of the two great democracies of Western Europe if, as a result of their restraint and their policy of non-intervention, they are able to exercise real power in stopping the war. That will be in marked contrast to the ineffectiveness of the policies adopted by the various dictator systems—I will not specify any particular system—in other parts of Europe. The only result of their intervention has been to intensify and to prolong the war. I agree that it is right to speed up the machinery of nonintervention and to make it a reality, but I am afraid that it has become something of a farce. The hon. Gentleman spoke from the Front Opposition bench about a concert of Europe. The work of the Non-intervention Committee reminds me very much of the old Concert of Europe which we remember in operation many years before the Great War, and which we used to regard as a prelude to inactivity and inertia, apparently every member suspicious of the others, and merely using the organisation as a cloak to evade responsibility.

The machinery of non-intervention might be put into operation about the so-called volunteers. We understand from the statements made at various- times by the right hon. Gentleman that it has been discussed. I suppose it is very difficult, and I have no doubt that each representative upon the Committee disclaims responsibility for any volunteers who manage to arrive on the shores of Spain. It is hard to believe, from one's knowledge and experience of the totalitarian States, that any of their nationals could get passports without having to say why, and where they were going. I should think a camel might as easily go through the eye of a needle as a volunteer go out of Russia or Germany. Hundreds of volunteers are in Spain. A figure which I have heard mentioned, and have seen in some newspapers, is 60,000, as having left the shores of one country. It is impossible to believe that they can leave their countries without their Governments being aware of their destination or purpose. It is not unreasonable to say that most of the so-called volunteers carry hidden under their cloaks or packed away in their baggage some form of munition, rifle or other weapon of destruction in order to stimulate the war which is going on.

At the present time there is every evidence of stalemate. It is now many weeks since we were told that the fall of Madrid was merely a matter of days. We were told that the arrival of troops outside the area would mean the surrender of the city. All that has happened has been that the slaughter has been intensified. Hon. Members who have returned from their visit will be able to tell the House about the untold misery of the citizens of that great city, of every political complexion. It is quite a mistake to think that the people affected are confined to any one political party. My main purpose in speaking this morning is to support the Foreign Secretary in the application of the principle of mediation. I believe that, if he can get a formula with France to bring this horrible conflict to an end, he will have the good will of every section of political opinion in Spain—which has many sections, exceeding in number even our political divisions in this House—that is concerned in this terrible civil war. I do not under-estimate the difficulty of the undertaking; it will need great skill and great tact; and, of course, the difficulty will be to get the sincere co-operation of other Powers. All war is horrible; civil war is ten times worse. Everyone in the House of Commons realises that it is not possible to confine the war spirit: it is bound to infect other countries. It is the common interest of this country and of mankind as a whole for the Government to endeavour to bring what has now become a stalemate, and offers a great opportunity, to a peaceful conclusion, even if it means a good deal of ingenuity and a little application of unorthodox methods.

I want to begin by supporting the plea for any help when we as a nation, or the League of Nations in general, may be able to give to Spain, and particularly to those people in Spain who have no interest in the war, in politics, or in anything but getting on with their daily job in their own ordinary way. I may be saying, in the course of my remarks this morning, one or two things which will be unpopular perhaps on both sides of the House, but I intend, if I can, to speak very fairly and without prejudice, and if possible to make a plea for impartiality in this country. I have found, both before I went to Spain and since I came back, that the Spanish question is very difficult to talk about, because people make up their minds in a hurry on preconceived clichés, and are very largely affected by the kind of newspapers that they read; and I think that from our own point of view particularly, and from the Spanish point of view as well, it would be wise if we in this country were more ready to sift the evidence and look at the facts as they are, instead of running off wildly at a tangent in one direction or another because of these clichés to which we are so used.

I intend to make a few remarks on Spain, but I must lead up to them by some references to one or two other countries in Europe. There is, I know, a great international spirit abroad. It is shown in many different ways. There-is the League of Nations; there are various ideas about a United States of Europe; there are also international creeds, such as Communism, or Nazi-ism; and generally speaking we are noticing a growth of, if I may say so, a spirit of either interference or co-operation, whichever way we like to put it, which is making people more internationally minded. Eventualy we may be able to turn that only to good, but in the meantime, during the next 10 years, our foreign policy will have to be to steer this country through a very difficult turmoil, for these ideas may, unless we are very careful, mix us and other people up in some sort of war.

The chief factors affecting peace are undoubtedly the two countries of Italy and Germany. It is no use mincing words on the subject; the two countries which are likely to affect the peace of Europe during the next 10 years are these two countries of Italy and Germany. We in this country, therefore, during the next 10 years or so, besides recognising the League of Nations and working for our ultimate ideals, must also take into consideration, in particular, those countries which are likely to help us keep the peace, partly because they have no desire for war themselves, and partly because, geographically, they very much affect this country, our Empire, and the trade routes between the two. One of those countries needless to say, is France, and, if nothing else has come out of the Spanish conflict, it is very welcome to us in England to see the great accord which there is between France and ourselves at the present moment. I hope that that accord will continue, and that any little petty differences between France and ourselves in character or outlook will never affect the great friendship and solidarity between the two countries.

Another country in which we must take more interest is Yugoslavia, though I will not touch upon that now; and a third country which geographically will affect us in future, and in which, therefore, we must take an interest now, whether we like it or not, is Spain. We have seen certain things happening in Spain from a political point of view which should be extremely alarming to the public of this country. I sometimes wonder why it is that people in this country are not more alarmed at what is happening in Spain, and why they are not more prepared to be fair and to judge the situation from our own point of view. I am leaving out the humanitarian side of the question for the time being, and am speaking purely from the political point of view. Why are not the people of this country prepared to study the facts as they are and as they are likely to be in the future, so that we may be able to evolve a policy which will be beneficial to us?

We all know that various countries have been interfering in the internal affairs of Spain. One of those countries is Russia. Most of us know that nowadays there are two Russias; there is Russia the State, and there is Russia the Third International. Most of us know that these two do not necessarily always see eye to eye, and that there has been a certain atempt on the part of Russia as a State to settle down into a petite bourgeoisie and to liquidate the Third International as far as it is concerned with the State. That may be so, but at the same time I do not think we can altogether excuse the Russian State for not having jumped a bit more firmly on the Third International for interfering in Spain before the revolt started. I know that there are two sides to this question—that since the elections and the time when the Spanish Government in Madrid began to be a weak government there has been a side which says that certain Fascists and Right Wing elements got out of hand and caused terrorism in the streets, used churches for the storage of arms, and so on. I am not denying for a moment that some of that is riot true. I am not denying that, on the other hand, the communist elements are interfering and trying to cause trouble. It is a very great pity that the Russian Government should not have been firmer.

General Franco's military revolt started in Morocco. We will give it for the sake of argument the highest praise we can. It may have started with the very genuine motive of putting right the rather chaotic state of affairs in the Government of the country and of substituting something better than the Government of the day. The Spanish General may have wished to do his best for his own country. But there is also no doubt that, the moment the revolt started, two foreign countries said this was an opportunity too good for them to miss. Italy and Germany almost immediately took part, supplied General Franco with arms, ammunition, men and material of every sort. Two responsible States of Europe have been interfering in a civil war in a way abso- lutely unheard of in history before. It is no secret that Germany is now very actively engaged in the civil war. I want to state one or two things which I have heard are happening in Germany now. I do not say that they are necessarily true. They are nothing more than rumour, but it is my information. I do not pretend to possess such exact information about Germany as my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), who always knows so well what is happening there, but this is what one hears. In German barrack rooms there are notices asking for volunteers for Spain. German soldiers are taken in before their colonels one after the other and asked whether they will volunteer to go to Spain as tourists, and these lads naturally have to agree to go. Whole divisions are thus volunteering and are put into some form of khaki uniform and shipped off. I have also heard that the German people are not at all happy about this volunteering for Spain. The German soldiers are not over-anxious to volunteer, their families are very much against it, and internally there is a great deal of grumbling on the subject, which means that there is a very good opportunity for us, and that a little firm pressure from us would get them to call off the venture altogether, because there is a growing feeling in both Italy and Germany that they may have bitten off more than they can chew.

I now want to say a word on the military situation as I see it at the moment. You have, roughly, the Western half of Spain in the hands of the insurgents and the Eastern half in the hands of the Government, with isolated posts here and there. The chief battle is undoubtedly the battle for Madrid. Outside Madrid you have General Franco's army of some 20,000 or 30,000 men hanging on to the western outskirts of the city, with both flanks exposed and suffering very greatly from the wintry conditions. Inside the city you have some 80,000 to 200,000 defenders—it is very hard to get the exact figures—mainly half-trained militia, and an international column consisting of volunteers from various other countries. The international column in Madrid is, I think, about 3,000 to 4,000 strong. It consists of Frenchmen, Italians, German—people who have fled from Germany and Italy—Poles, Czechs, etc. and a few Britons. Although we have good evidence that the Russian aeroplanes and tanks that are being supplied to the Government are driven by Russian aviators or worked by Russian mechanics, we did not see any evidence of Russian soldiers fighting in Madrid. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, Hear."] I want no cheers. I am trying to be absolutely fair. Outside Madrid you have the Moors, the militia, Fascists and other troops, and also an international force of trained German and Italians actually fighting for General Franco. Behind General Franco's lines, from what evidence we can get, there does not seem to be much spontaneity or much desire to join his colours, for the very reason that these Germans and others have entered Spanish territory and are fighting there. The revolt may have started for a very genuine reason, and possibly in its initial stages may have been exceedingly popular among certain sections of the people, but I am certain, if I know anything of Spain—I have known Spain for many years before this civil war—that Spaniards resent all foreign interference from whatever side it comes and, the more the foreigner interferes, the less will the Spaniards show any spontaneity for the side which makes most use of foreigners.

With regard to horrors, I do not think there is twopence to choose between the two sides. Both sides are fighting brutally and ruthlessly. There is no morality and no respect for the Red Cross. Prisoners are shot, hostages are murdered and the wounded are murdered in the hospitals when they are captured. Unfortunately we were not in the lines behind General Franco. I should very much like to have gone. Both the Madrid and the Valencia Governments are doing their best, from a governmental point of view, to put an end to these horrors.

Did the hon. and gallant Gentleman hear of any actions on the Government side to compare with the cruelty of the shootings at Badajoz and the massacre of wounded by the Franco troops in the hospital at Toledo?

I do not think I will amplify my statement. I know the allegations that the hon. Lady mentions, and they are almost certainly true, but, as I have already said, there is not much to choose between the two sides in this connection. At the same time, I do not think that I will amplify which I have said, which was that the horrors are just about as bad on both sides, and it is very hard to say which is the greater offender. I should like to clear up one or two misapprehensions. One hears sometimes in this country cries against the danger of Communism on the one hand, or the wickedness of Fascism on the other. As to General Franco's side, we have had no evidence whatever that he would have attempted to set up a corporate or Fascist State had he won the battle in Spain. We do not know what his ideas were. He has made a great many pronouncements and, as I have said many times, that no doubt, perfectly genuinely, what he wanted to do, was to set up a stronger government. We do not know what ultimate government he will set up, if he wins the war. His forces are made up of many different elements, only some of them Fascist, and, if he wins, he will have a great deal of difficulty in settling among all these different elements what kind of government is to be set up in Spain, and it may not be a Fascist Government at all. Now that Germany and Italy have intervened, and Germany so very much, if Franco wins, it is possible that he may not be in a position to say what government he wants to set up.

On the other hand, we have heard of the dangers of Communism, and I refer again to the beginning of my speech, when I said that I regretted very much the work of the Third International by putting in all the Communist elements among the Spanish people before the revolt started. But I will also say that the Frente Popular is made up not of one party, but, like Franco's side, of a great number of elements, most of whom are trade unionists, republicans. Socialists or the like. On the extreme Left in this grouping in the Frente Popular are two groups both of whom are in a minority. One is the Communists and the other is the Anarchists, and I think that we ought to realise that fact. It is no good shirking the facts; we must see the facts as they are. They are made up of all these groups, two of which—and they are the smallest, and both hate each other like poison and would murder each other if they won the war—are the Communists, who believe in collectivisation, and the Anarchists who believe in no sort of government at all. It is equally untrue to say that one side is Fascist and the other side is Communist.

The groups in the Frente Popular seem to be gaining prestige and strength every day. General Franco may win against the Spanish Government and may capture Madrid, but even after he has done that, he will still have to settle with his own people as to what kind of government he wants to set up—that is to say, if Germany is going to allow him to have any choice—and he will still have to fight two other wars. One is with the Basque Province in the north-west, which has still to be captured, and the other with Catalonia on the north-east. Catalonia will be a very tough proposition. She is arming strongly. She is an industrial country and it will be a very long time, even if he defeats the Valencia Government, before these other wars are settled. Should the Government side win, they will not have to fight a war between Catalonia and themselves or the Basque Province and themselves, as they are co-operating together. They may have to adjust what form of relationship they may have between them in the future, and they will, of course, like General Franco, have to settle for themselves which of their parties is to come out on top, and what sort of government they are to have themselves. Instead of tearing at each other's throats as in the Frente Popular, someone will have to come out on top. As every day goes by in the war, it becomes easier for the Government in this respect, because force of circumstances and very dire straits are making them work together and produce a dominant factor.

What are the courses which are open to us? There is that of sitting back and piously hoping for non-intervention, and perhaps deluding ourselves and our own public that non-intervention is working, and washing our hands of the whole concern. To delude our public, or ourselves in particular, is certainly dishonest. We must face the facts. It is no good just sitting back and saying that we have this policy and hoping that it is working all right, when it is not working at all. I know in my own mind that France is definitely not going to allow German soldiers in any numbers to go to Spain. I think that we can take that to be absolutely definite. France fears a war against Germany at any time about six months from now, when Germany will have caught up with France in armaments and, naturally, France is not going to allow a German army to hang about on her southern frontier waiting to attack her on that frontier. This should be obvious to us, and we must take it that France will not allow German troops to go to Spain in any large numbers. I think the French are right when they assume that Germany and Italy are both feeling that perhaps they have bitten off more than they can chew, and a little bit of firmness en her part and on our part at the moment may get them to call off their venture altogether.

I ask and hope that our Government will do everything in their power to make non-intervention effective. I also hope that Russia will not only agree in principle, but will actually in practice make non-intervention effective from her point of view. From the other side, from Italy and Germany, we may have to do more possibly than ask, but I still think that we have got to make non-intervention effective. Our prestige is at stake in the whole world, and there is an attitude of mind in many countries that we are running away from Italy and Germany. We have to regain our prestige and make non-intervention effective, because if we do not, we shall only store up much more trouble for ourselves in the future. Having made non-intervention effective absolutely all round, then, either the Spaniards will fight out their own civil war in their own way, which they are entitled to do, or else they will listen to our efforts for mediation. I hope that they will listen to our efforts for mediation, but I would remind all concerned that, when talking about mediation from one point of view or the other, they are dealing with a race who are very proud indeed, and one must be very careful not to tread upon their corns.

I should like, first of all, to congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Captain Macnamara) and his five colleagues upon doing well a very good piece of work for this country and for humanity, and upon setting an example such as we would have England set to the world at the present time. No other country has sent out to Spain any Members of any Parliament or of any body to try to carry out a similar mission. If they had, they would not have been deemed to be a disinterested and impartial body. There were Members of all three parties in this mission. They have given not only to this House but to the world at large an example and a line to follow. For I wish that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and every Member of this House, when they are dealing with foreign affairs, would try to imagine that they are not speaking as Englishmen but speaking as citizens of the world. Over and over again the best speeches made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite and by his predecessors have been when they were speaking, not for England, but for the future aspirations of the human race. I believe that our influence in international politics goes up when those speeches are made, and down whenever we look at these international problems from a narrow British point of view. It sounds almost irrational to say so, but the overwhelming majority of this House look forward ideally towards the Parliament of man and the federation of the world. We can say that of Great Britain. We cannot say it as yet of all other countries.

But if only we could get into the heads of other countries that that is what Great Britain stood for—that what we want is to end all sovereignties and to create a union of peace, of justice and of safety. There is no doubt that that idea, which has come to us here gradually in these post-War years, has not yet spread through the vast bulk of the population of this country; but throughout Great Britain and increasingly throughout other lands we have seen developing already certain common fundamental desires. The passionate desire for peace in this country and throughout the greater part of the civilised world has been growing and growing every year since the War. It fills the columns of our newspapers; it fills the speeches made in church and chapel; it is everywhere present in men's minds, this passion for peace. That we are anxious for peace is not always believed elsewhere, but everyone in this House knows that this passionate desire to avoid war has been the mainspring of an apparently weak foreign policy during these last months. We have seen ourselves losing allies and friends one after another, and have objected to a policy which has produced this loss of confidence in Great Britain. Yet we recognise that if we were responsible for the conduct of Imperial affairs to-day we too might act in a similar manner simply through fear of war.

You have, therefore, vocal to-day this love of peace. You have equally vocal throughout the same countries a passionate desire for freedom and for justice. Too often up to now these two main springs of human emotion have been regarded as rival and antipathetic. Those who put peace first are accused of disregarding the desire for individual freedom, for justice, for the old-fashioned rights of man, and those of us who put first the words of Patrick Henry are regarded as being in favour of war and hostile to peace. There is, and there ought to be, no antagonism between these two. Peace and liberty are bound together, and both these emotions are in the background of all our minds as the ultimate aim of world policy—peace, safety and union. This is all rather off the line, perhaps, but it is so important in dealing with this Spanish problem that we should envisage it as part of a much larger and longer struggle that is going on throughout the world. We on these benches have been wedded throughout to the principle of collective security and using the League as the nucleus and framework for this Federation of the world. If the League had been used throughout the last three years we should be in a much better position than we are to-day, but each concession made by the League, each obvious lack of unity in the basic ideas of the League, has weakened its power, and we are being driven back on something not so all embracing as the League but something which is capable of acting, capable of giving that security, which the League is not.

My hon. Friend who opened this debate said that we in this country would do anything on earth to stop the war in Spain. There is one way in which we could stop the war in Spain, certainly and promptly, and that would be by occupying Spain with British troops. It may be impossible and impracticable, but that would stop it. After all, nobody interferes with us in Malta. Nobody interferes with the British Empire anywhere. The British Empire is the sole symbol of security left in an insecure world. But it is not necessary, fortunately, to use the British policeman alone as the guarantee of security. There are certain nations within the League who would work together. We could—I am glad to see that the Foreign Office is moving in that direction—through the use of the League, bring that war to a conclusion by the occupation of those parts of Spain which the Spanish Government desired us to occupy. The hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down said that the Spaniards were a proud people. He knows and I know that they would not tolerate for one moment the occupation of Spain by a British Army, but can he and can we be so sure that they would not welcome the occupation of Catalonia, Valencia, and even Madrid, by the forces of the League if that were practicable? If it becomes practicable, cannot we by that action lay the foundation stone of a firm, reliable federation of free peoples throughout Europe?

I remember hearing, not so long ago, that the Foreign Minister of Latvia, after listening to one of our excellent Geneva speeches, said that there was nothing for Latvia to do except join the British Empire. I do not think Latvia is alone in feeling that safety and progress can only come by joining the British Empire. I admit that by Latvia or Spain or France joining the British Empire we should also gain in security, but we should unfortunately increase our responsibilities. Yet are we not being driven to just exactly that position? We are trying desparately to collect allies in case of war. I am thankful that we have now pledged ourselves to fight for France and that France has pledged herself to fight for England. We have taken on an additional responsibility. Why? Because we know that we have got by that declaration an additional security for ourselves where we need it. It is not such a far step to extend that principle to other countries that want to come in—call it into the British Empire or call it into the band of free people. We do not now know what are our responsibilities. No one dare ask what are our responsibilities in case what is happening in Spain is extended tomorrow, not to Danzig or Memel, but to Schleswig-Holstein. It is perfectly possible nowadays to make war without any declaration of war. It is done so easily, as we have seen in Spain. Volunteers go out, the sinews of war are supplied, war is never declared, but it goes on. The same thing may happen in Denmark. What would our position be then?

Would it not be better that Germany and Italy should know, as they know in the case of France, that there are certain things which we cannot allow and that there are certain responsibilities which we must shoulder? As we increase our friends so we increase our liabilities. By increasing friends and liabilities we forward union. We have heard in the last three years the arguments of those people who say that we should cut ourselves from Europe and from all responsibilities and liabilities. They say we should keep out of all. We have seen as that campaign has gone on the increasing futility and impossibility of any such attitude. We cannot divest ourselves of responsibility and liability. Thereby we lose safety. What we can do is to state clearly as soon as possible to the dangerous Powers where we do draw the line with friends.

Is there any place where we do not draw the line?

There is no case where I would draw the line, but there are plenty of obvious places and cases. The main thing is that both Germany and our friends should be clear as to what we and they can say and what we cannot say. If your drew such a line or bond then we should have all those countries who stand to benefit bound to us, contributing to us the same help that we give to them. There should be the closest continuous contact between the staffs and between the governments and between the peoples of those countries. We should realise that in building thus we should not be building up a war machine, but building up a peace machine. We should be laying the foundation for that Parliament of the world and federation of mankind which is the true aspiration of all decent people.

I hope the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) will forgive me if I do not follow him in the points raised in the interesting speech which he has just delivered. I think that no one in the House—if I may say so—can give a happier or more eloquent definition of the abstract principles of Peace and Justice. I think the House is indebted to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones) for baying prefaced his remarks by a reference to the Far East. We sometimes seem to think so much of events in Spain or Germany that we fail to take note of the vast opposing forces now taking shape in the Far East. Speaking at a dinner in London last year on Far Eastern problems, General Smuts uttered these significant words:

"Even measured by the gigantic scale of events to which we have become accustomed since the Great War we are face to face with one of the major conflicts of history. By the side of this fateful situation the troubles of Europe, which now loom so large to us are intrinsically more like petty family squabbles, in comparison."

We all of us know the cause of tension in the Far East. The cause is the rapid expansion in Japan's population, a population expanding at the alarming rate of something like 900,000 a year, and which will not be stabilised until the year 1970. As someone has said, Japan is like a steam boiler within which the pressure is rising every minute. How can the Japanese Government solve this great problem? It can find only two possible means of solution. Japan can send her subjects in vast numbers overseas, or alternatively she can try to industrialise the country and find food for an ever-increasing number of people by increasing exports overseas. In China, Japan has close to hand sources of raw material. In the soya bean crop of Manchukuo, and the potential cotton crops of the Northern Provinces of China, she hopes to find valuable raw materials. She hopes to find also, among the teeming millions of China, a ready market for manufactured goods. But pressure in one direction inevitably creates counter pressure in another direction. The result is that at the present moment, vast forces, both political and economic, are aligning themselves to resist this pressure from Japan.

The first and most obvious example of this is in China, where all parties, whether they own allegiance to the Nanking Government or to local Communist governments, are more and more agreeing that they should ally themselves in one common front against Japan. The second obvious instance exists in Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia looks with distrust across her Siberian frontier at Japan's increasing power in Manchukuo. Soviet Russia has turned Vladivostok and the maritime provinces into a, veritable fortress along the whole frontier, from Lake Baikal to the sea, enormous armies are massed. In fact, the whole of Western Siberia from the defence point of view, is a huge self-contained, self-supporting economic unit. Aeroplane factories, mines, textile factories, and there is a large population settled on the land which can all be called upon in case of emergency for army reserves.

These vast political alignments are not the only ones. During recent years many countries have tried to defend themselves economically against Japanese penetration of their markets. No fewer than 40 countries have taken defensive fiscal measures against Japan, among them, in particular, this country. After the failure of negotiations some little time ago we were compelled to place quotas on Japanese goods entering our Colonial market, but if we examine the actual figures of those quotas we realise that the damage to Japanese trade was relatively small. Japan lost only 80,000,000 square yards or £1,000,000 worth of goods by the quotas, but the friction caused was considerable. We ought to make one point very plain, that neither this country, nor anyone in the country, denies to Japan the right to live. I have the honour to represent a great constituency in Lancashire which, perhaps more than any other, has suffered from the effects of Japanese competition, but I do not hesitate to say that not one of my constituents would deny to his Japanese competitor the essential right to live.

What they have objected to in the past has been the suddenness and the violence of Japan's attack upon world markets. Signs are, however, becoming evident that informed and moderate Japanese opinion is beginning to realise the somewhat unfavourable effect of this sudden attack on world markets. Speaking at the Pacific Conference last year Mr. Yoshi Zawa, the Foreign Minister of Japan in 1932, used the following important words. I am sure that he will not mind my quoting him, seeing that he has given permission to another colleague to quote these words in an article in the "Manchester Guardian":

"Japan has no intention or ambition to monopolise world trade or to divide the world's markets with this or that Power. Japan's desire is to promote her trade interests in a peaceful way, and Japan is free to conclude trade agreements on the basis of reciprocity and fair play."

Part of the trouble caused in the past by this too rapid attack on world markets has been due, in some respects, to the peculiar organisation of Japanese industry, over which the Japanese Government has had no control. I believe I am right in saying that no less than 52 per cent. of the commercial undertakings in Japan comprise small industries employing not more than five people. Those industries are probably family concerns comprising father and son. They enjoy relatively low production costs and no overhead charges. The Central Japanese Organisation have made considerable efforts to organise this type of competition, and in the last few years 600 trading associations have been formed.

A most useful principle has been embarked upon, and one, which I hope, will receive some measure of recognition from the British Government. On several important occasions Japanese interests have voluntarily restricted their exports. In 1933 Sir Horace Wilson, then at the Board of Trade, informed the Japanese Commercial Attaché that producers in this country were anxious to have the tariff increased against Japanese electric lamps, and be asked him whether the Japanese exporters would be willing voluntarily to limit the volume of their exports to this country. The result was that a federation of electric lamp producers was organised in Japan, and the arrangement was entirely satisfactory. Consequently the volume of exports was controlled from the source. A similar agreement has been negotiated with the United States with equal success—an agreement controlling the export of pencils, cotton rugs, and knitted woollen goods. Japan has similarly made an arrangement with the United States and the Philippines with regard to cotton textiles. In the last few weeks, also, a general voluntary agreement covering hosiery goods entering this country has been entered into by Japan. These agreements have two very solid advantages. First, they promote a certain amount of good-will and confidence, and, secondly, and more important, they prevent the continual raising of tariffs against Japanese goods, which is bound to lead to friction. An appreciation and encouragement by the British Government of these efforts on the part of Japanese exporters would be of considerable influence in removing much of the ill-feeling which at present exists between the two nations.

I should like to say a few words upon the status quo Clause of the Five-Power Treaty. Under that Clause the respective signatories undertook not to fortify any further their bases and possessions within a certain specified area in the Pacific. The signatories further undertook not to provide increased naval facilities in any of those territories. The provisions of the Treaty lapse on the 31st December, 1936, and I understand that His Majesty's Government has been making inquiries to see whether this particular Clause of the Five-Power Treaty cannot remain in existence. From our point of view, it is an extremely important Clause, as likewise it is from the American point of view. From our point of view it covers the Island of Hong Kong, the oil territory of Sarawak and the coal port of Labuan. From the American point of view it covers Juam, the Alentian Islands, but exempts Pearl Harbour. From the Japanese point of view it covers Formosa, the Caroline Islands and the Marshall Islands. If this area can be preserved permanently free from naval bases or air bases it will be a great help towards peace in the far Pacific. The distance to be traversed by rival fleets and transports will be so great as to add relative protection to the various countries.

This question of the status quo Clause brings me to the subject of the Philippine Islands. The United States has entered into a recent treaty with the Philippine people in which she has undertaken to evacuate the Philippine Islands within the space of 10 years after the signing of the Treaty. The only right which the United States maintain for themselves is the right to maintain naval bases. What actually does that mean? If the United States maintains naval bases in the Philippines is she still willing to undertake the defence of the Philippine Islands. On the other hand, if she is going to liquidate all her interests in the Pacific, is it not a temptation to any great Power to step in and occupy those rich islands? The attitude of the United States on this issue is extremely important. If she is willing to maintain her interests and obligations in the Pacific it may be possible to obtain agreement between Great Britain, Japan and the United States to guarantee the neutrality of the Philippine Islands. This would tend to give a feeling of confidence and to advance the cause of peace, for any occupation of the Philippine Islands by a great foreign Power would naturally alarm this country. For the Islands are half way to Australia, and such an occupation might be the cause of another terrible explosion.

I should like to say a few words about Anglo-Japanese co-operation. It will be remembered that a year ago Sir Frederick Leith Ross went on a financial mission to China. Nanking welcomed him, but Tokyo, apparently, viewed his arrival with suspicion. We may ask ourselves why that was so. At the present time China needs nothing so much as capital and capital goods. She wants capital with which to build railways and roads and telegraph systems. She needs capital goods such as trucks and steel rails for her railways, and agricultural implements with which to develop her agriculture. Japan does not possess the financial resources to carry out the development of China by herself. She must therefore face the questions whether she wishes to have China as her neighbour impoverished and unwilling to purchase her goods, a China which she claims is within her sole sphere of influence, or whether she will co-operate with other nations in the development of that great country. Is she willing to co-operate in China? If she were willing to try to regulate her entry into world markets by agreements, Japan would be showing signs of very great good will indeed.

We have to ask ourselves what return we should have to give for that good will. I am going to make what I know will be a very unpopular suggestion in many quarters of the House. I suggest that Japan might demand the recognition of Manchukuo. Whilst no one is more eager to support an effective peace system than myself, we must ask ourselves whether our present attitude really leads to peace. Is our present policy able to affect, by one jot, the fact that Japan's population is rising at the rate of 900,000 per year and that sooner or later it must find an outlet, perhaps by violent means. Do we take into account that Japan's isolated position is driving her more and more into the arms of Germany? We must really take these factors into consideration. And, for my part, if we could obtain Japanese cooperation in the Far East, and thereby ensure peace; and, better still, if we could feel certain that the Oldham spinner could return home more confident that his job will give him greater security for the future than has been the case for the last 10 years, I say that recognition of Manchukuo would not be too great a price.

I desire to associate myself with many of the remarks made by the hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Captain Macnamara) with whom, in company with others, I recently found myself in Spain. I do not agree with every word he said, but I should like to congratulate him on a real attempt at a fair presentation of the internal facts as we ascertained them and of the external implications of the war which is in progress in Spain. The value of our visit is perhaps twofold. I hope that we achieved some little effect from the humanitarian point of view, the point of view on which we set out to Spain, and in that connection I should like to ask the Foreign Secretary to tell us what decisions were recently come to at the meeting of the League Council. I am anxious also to associate myself with the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. M. Jones) in urging that every effort should be made under the auspices of the League to alleviate the position of the civil population in Madrid. It is a truly terrible situation; and while I am not going to detain the House now by going further into that matter, it is one which, on humanitarian grounds, should receive the sympathy of every Briton.

Something has been said of the horrors of this war, and the suggestion has been made that as the Spaniards are a hot-tempered people the civil war in which they are now taking part may be expected to be more than usually cruel and ferocious. It is only fair to point out, on behalf of the Spanish people, that much of the war is now in the hands of other Europeans, and that some of the cruel features of the war are being carried out by other Europeans. The war in the air is largely out of the control of Spanish hands, and there are certain features of that war in which cruelties are practised which did not take place even in the Great War. I believe that if there were another European War the good manners of European nations would not stand the strain and bitterness which would be engendered. War in the future will be far more horrible and the Red Cross and other mitigating interventions will be increasingly disregarded.

It was natural that in addition to our humanitarian mission we should make some observations on the political situation in Spain, and form some conclusions which are perhaps of importance. At the outset I should like to pay a tribute on behalf of my colleagues and myself to the British representative in Madrid. In a position of some danger and very great difficulty, the British representative has won the affections, as we know, of many Spaniards of different political outlook, and I should like to express, as we have already done to the Foreign Secretary himself, our appreciation in this House of the work that he is carrying out. The hon. Member for Caerphilly seemed to suggest that the war in Spain is one between rival ideas, Communism and Fascism, but I think that the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford did much to dispel that view. I should like to add one other consideration, and that is that the individualism of the Spanish character, the love of individual liberty, has sunk very deep into the people and I do not believe that the rigid type of Soviet Communism can ever fasten itself upon the people of Spain.

In our possibly superficial examination —our visit was necessarily short—of the political situation in that part of Spain under the control of the Government of Valencia, we did not see any signs of that rigid type of government by dictatorship which one associates with the ideas of Communism and Fascism.

I am confident that a majority of the Spanish people support the Spanish Government, and I would offer to the House evidence under two heads on that point. In the first place impartial witnesses suggested to us that the check which General Franco's forces had received at the gates of Madrid was partly due to the insufficient number of troops that he had for the purpose of capturing that city. General Franco controls, in the military sense, nearly half of Spain. There was no sign of any shortage of troops on the Government side. The information which we were given, and which seemed to come from reliable and impartial sources, suggested that perhaps the troops attacking Madrid numbered not more than 30,000. If the insurgent forces had the confidence of a large part of the population which they control, I wonder why it is that General Franco had to call in Germans and Italians. We also saw fairly widespread apparent enthusiasm for the Spanish Government, and. I am convinced that the Spanish Government wishes that all its actions shall be those of a democratically-elected and supported Government.

There is one point I would like to make with regard to propaganda in Spain before the outbreak of the trouble, and it is that while one can accuse the Com-intern of conducting propaganda in Spain, there is also equal evidence that Fascists were doing so with apparently equal success. It appears to me, however, that there is a more important feature of the violation of the Non-Intervention Agreement. I do not believe the German or Italian people are prepared to spend as much money as they are spending in Spain to-day for the sake of an ideal alone. Some people are prepared to fight and give their lives for ideals, but there is frequently a more tangible reason as well. I do not believe that the German and Italian expeditionary forces—for one may call them that—are taking part in the Spanish conflict for the sake of Fascist ideals alone. Much has been said with regard to the strategic importance of Spain, and Spain has a political significance as well. There is also an economic significance. I believe I am correct in saying that of European countries Spain is by far the largest exporter of copper and zinc. There are in Spain valuable deposits of iron, coal, and some other minerals. Some of these minerals are of great importance to all European countries, but perhaps especially important to Germany at the present time. It has been suggested that should General Franco be able to establish his control over the whole of the country, he will require finance and the wherewithal to develop the country. In these days, an empire is not necessarily an empire which is established under a country's flag.

On these Benches we welcome the Foreign Minister's statement with regard to the importance that he and this country attach to the integrity of Spain and Spanish possessions; but there are more ways than one of establishing an empire to-day. By exchange control and other means, it is possible that in the event of General Franco establishing complete control over Spain, those very important raw materials which are to be found in that country will find their way in increasing quantities, and on more favourable terms, into the Fascist countries to assist their development. I do not wish to deal at any further length with the strategic importance of Spain, but I wish to make one further point with regard to non-intervention. The evidence I received appeared to me fairly conclusive that the intervention on the side of the insurgents had been more pronounced, had come earlier, and had been more effective than the contraventions of the Non-Intervention Agreement on the other side, until very recently. I think I am reproducing an impartial opinion when I say that one of the more important factors of the insurgent advance on Madrid was the complete inadequacy of the armaments in the possession of the Government. It was not until a little over a month ago that that great inadequacy was to some extent remedied. I think it is an important consideration to bear in mind. There may have been breaches of the Non-Intervention Agreement on both sides previously to that, but that the effective breaches were committed on the side of the insurgents is to me clear.

There is one other consideration I would like to put to the House. It is sometimes a good thing to put oneself in the place of other people and try to imagine what conclusions they will be drawing from your actions about your motives. I would ask the House to consider what informed opinion in Germany to-day concludes is the real meaning of British policy at the present time. I think informed opinion in Germany would come to the conclusion at once that there is a very real and essential difference between our attitude in the Spanish conflict and that of the French Government. While we both agree to non-intervention, no one would suspect that M. Leon Blum was neutral in this conflict. He may think that the wisest policy for the French people at the present time is to adopt nonintervention, but no one doubts the fact that he wishes the Spanish Government to win. I do not think that the same can be said of the pronouncements made by Ministers and by influential members of the Conservative party in this country.

Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that it was M. Blum who initiated the policy of non-intervention?

I do not intend to be drawn into a discussion of that kind because I have, unfortunately, failed to make clear the point which I am trying to put to the House. My point is that while M. Blum may or may not have instigated this policy, nobody in Europe or the world thinks that his sympathies are equally divided or that he is uncertain as to which party in this conflict he wants to win. His sympathies and, as he realises, his country's interests are definitely behind the Spanish Government. The British Government, at any rate until very recently, were at great pains to show that they did not know which side they wanted to win in this conflict. Reference was made earlier to "opposing factions" and we have also heard the statement that on one side there is Communism and on the other side there is Fascism and that we do not wish either side to succeed. I am not going into that question again. What I wish to put before the House is the fact that it is of great importance to this country that the Spanish Government of the future should not be under the control of Fascist Powers. I submit that that is an interest of great Imperial importance, of considerable strategical importance and of some economic importance. I want to make it clear that it would be perfectly possible for us to take the attitude which the French Government has taken and to say "We will not permit our nationals to supply arms to either side, but our sympathies are definitely on one side." I suggest that an impartial observer in Germany may think that we are really neutral, that we have not realised that Imperial interests are at stake, and that if the German Government consider it to be in their interests that one side should win, we are prepared to sit back and allow them to take what steps they think necessary to accomplish that end.

I, therefore, ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider this question carefully. While non-intervention may be the right tactical approach to the problem, in the very difficult and dangerous situation arising out of the civil war in Spain, I ask him whether he really considers that we ought not to make it plain that we attach great importance as a democracy to a free Government being left at liberty in Spain to organise Spanish affairs, without dictation from the Governments of Germany and Italy, instead of allowing Spain to become what would be to all intents And purposes a vassal State? I put forward those considerations in all seriousness. I do not accept the suggestion that the Spanish Government are not anxious to restore law and order, but I shall not deal further with that point in view of what has already been said by other hon. Members. I ask again that the British Government should consider what the implications of statement or lack of statement on this question have been, and I ask them to consider what will be the result, on the balance of power, if you like, and on European affairs, of a victory for General Franco and the insurgents.

I think it may suit the convenience of the House if I attempt now to reply to some of the questions which have been put to the Government in the course of this Debate. I wish to assure the hon. Gentleman who opened the discussion of one thing and it is that, as far as the Government are concerned, we have no objection to this subject being raised at a time like this. On the contrary we think there is considerable usefulness in being able to make a review of international affairs at this time so shortly before we all adjourn for a Christmas holiday which some of us hope will be comparatively uninterrupted. I am going to confine my remarks within a limited compass because I know there are other subjects which hon. Members desire to discuss, and I think it is probably the wish of the House that I should deal mainly with the chief subject of this Debate and that is the Spanish situation. The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down in the course of a very interesting speech made certain remarks on the subject of non-intervention. He asked the Government to say what form of Government they would like to see in Spain. My answer, as a democrat, to that question is not difficult to give. I should like to see the Government in Spain that Spain wants, and that is the whole motive behind our support of the policy of non-intervention. We think it the duty of all nations to keep out of this Spanish quarrel and to allow the Spanish people to settle their sufficiently tragic difficulties in their own way. If anybody thinks that the fact that we support non-intervention is due to a feeling of sympathy for one side or the other they are mistaken. We are supporting this policy because we believe it to be the best for Europe at this time.

I wish to be frank with the House on this subject. Non-intervention has not realised our expectations. Neither in the speed with which the Agreement was negotiated nor in the manner in which it has been observed since, have we, who joined with the French in initiating it, any cause for satisfaction. What I want the House to consider for a moment is the question of whether that dissatisfaction is a sufficient cause for denouncing the policy of non-intervention. If we were to denounce it one result certainly would be that all nations would be free to pour arms into Spain without hindrance of any kind and that would inevitably, I think, bring the risks of a European war nearer. Would it—and this question I ask hon. Members opposite to consider—profit the Spanish Government? A mere permission given to the Spanish Government to buy arms in this country would have no effect whatever on the course of the War. What would have some effect on the course of the War would be—and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle - under - Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) referred to this—an active measure of military intervention by this country in the conflict. Obviously that would affect the course of the war, but there is not a single soul who has advocated that course.

It may interest the House if I say that two days ago, by accident, I came across, in the Foreign Office, a note addressed to Lord Palmerston almost exactly 100 years ago by the Ambassador of the then Queen of Spain in connection with a situation which had arisen in a civil war in Spain, the Carlist war, and this is what the Spanish Ambassador 100 years ago asked. He pointed out the terrible nature of the struggle and the various local circumstances, and he spoke of the necessity for meeting open resistance to a legitimate Government. That is a claim which I think we have heard once or twice recently. He went on to say that he felt sure

"that the Government of his Britannic Majesty would be pleased to authorise him by a special Order of the King in Council to raise in the United Kingdom a body of 10,000 troops, giving His Majesty's permission to British subjects, and particularly to such officers as are desirous, to enlist in the same, for the service of his Catholic Majesty, and furnishing him from the military arsenals with the articles of armament and others which may be necessary for the speedy departure of the said forces for the place where their presence may be most useful."

Optimistically, the Ambassador flattered himself that his request would have a happy issue. He flattered himself in vain, because Lord Palmerston, in a very eloquent note, explained that the Government's policy was non-intervention. That was in 1835.

No progress.

Is it not a fact that in 1836 we did supply a great deal of arms to the legitimist Government against the Carlists?

That may be, but the only means, in our view, which might be effective or decisive was military intervention, and that Lord Palmerston would have none of, nor, I believe, would anybody in this House at the present time. With regard to the issue of non-intervention, I believe it to be true to say that this policy, despite its admitted shortcomings, despite the blatant breaches that there have been has on the whole reduced the risk of a European war. M. Blum, speaking in the French Chamber of Deputies in a speech which many hon. Members have no doubt read, expressed his belief that last August Europe was on the brink of war and that the Non-intervention Agreement saved it. I am certainly not going to say that he was wrong, but it is quite true to argue that, despite the fact that arms have gone from Germany, Russia, and Italy—and we know it, I agree—the existence of this Non-intervention Agreement has reduced the significance of those breaches. Anyhow, the risks created by those supplies have definitely been less than they would have been had there been no Non-intervention Agreement.

The House may say that the French Government, with ourselves, in supporting it, exaggerated the risk of war last Autumn. That must be a matter of opinion, but at least I would say to the House that it is better to exaggerate the risks of war than to overlook them, and in that respect I stand in no white sheet for the support of this policy of nonintervention. But I would not have the House or other people outside consider that our support of this policy is due to weakness, because that is not so. That support is due to the fact, as I mentioned in the first sentence of my speech to-day, that we believe the faithful pursuit of such a policy to be the wisest course for ourselves and for Europe, and indeed a duty which Europe owes to Spain at this time.

None the less, the present situation obviously is profoundly unsatisfactory, and we are searching for some means of bettering the Non-intervention Agreement. Obviously, the best method of doing so would be some effective method of control. In order to show the difficulties which meet us at every turn, if the nations of Europe, the principal nations, all of them, really wished to make the Non-intervention Agreement effective, we could have quite a simple system of control, and that would be enough, but if they do not wish to make non-intervention effective, there is virtually no system of control which the wit of man can devise which will make it wholly effective, and that is the fundamental difficulty which we have to face.

The recent Anglo-French initiative has been referred to. That initiative arose out of our dissatisfaction with the present position, and it had a dual objective. The first was to reinforce and improve the effectiveness of the Non-intervention Agreement, and the second was to make an effort towards mediation. I am not going to detain the House by describing the answers which the Governments have given—they have all appeared in the Press—but I would like to say to my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris), in connection with his speech, that neither we nor the French Government have any intention of desisting from our attempt to secure mediation in this conflict. We did not anticipate that at the first attempt of this kind we were going to be immediately received with support from all sides, either in Spain or elsewhere in Europe. But we intend to persist in these efforts, perhaps using slightly different methods of approach, because we believe that ultimately the time will come when those efforts will be rewarded

Now may I be allowed to say a few words to the House on a subject about which many questions have been asked, and that is with regard to what is being done in the humanitarian sphere, because I think it would be of some interest to the House to hear it. I would like to say something of what we have been doing as a Government, through our representatives, since I last spoke on this subject at the end of October. The House will perhaps recall that at that time we had made an offer for the exchange of prisoners, if you call them that, or hostages, on a large scale between the two parties, which had been rejected. I regret that, not only because of the rejection itself, but because it made the task of our diplomatic and consular representatives in various parts of Spain much more delicate and much more laborious in carrying on the work which they had been doing and are still doing in that connection. However, that work has been going on quietly and steadily during the last two months and inevitably with the minimum of publicity, because the less publicity we have, we think, the more effectively we can do this work. I feel sure the House will agree that the results, even if they are not successful, will justify the efforts which have been made and the expense which His Majesty's Government have incurred.

One of the ways, of course, in which we have been able to give this help is by providing facilities for evacuation in His Majesty's warships. The House will realise that in the present state of feeling in that country, which has been so very well described by those who have recently been to Spain, any movements of this kind, of prisoners from one side to the other, have to be preceded by a long and often very delicate negotiation between the two parties, before we can get the permission of the local authorities to carry out these exchanges. Nevertheless, we have made considerable progress, and, to give the House one example, from one port alone in Spain as many as 200 persons have been evacuated weekly for some time past as a result of the activities of our consular officers and the work of our ships.

Will the right hon. Gentleman name the port?

No, I cannot. I cannot yet give the total figures, but I can say that I shall be surpised if, when the reckoning of what has been done in this respect is finally made up, the total of persons exchanged, or hostages, or prisoners, that total does not reach five figures, and I think that that in itself will show the amount of work which has been done. Our diplomatic and consular officers have also been active in drawing the attention of the Government and the local authorities in different parts of Spain to individual cases which come to their notice which seem to them to be based on reliable evidence such as cases of unjust imprisonment, or the flight of a family, or of women and children separated from their men folk, and so on. I am not going to pretend that these representations have in all cases been successful. Unfortunately, they have not, but we have evidence to show that in certain cases they have borne fruit and that in a number of instances as a result of these representations, we have been able to secure the actual release of prisoners. Our diplomatic and consular representatives have also given active assistance to such voluntary organisations as the Scottish Ambulance Unit, which has done such splendid work in Madrid. We have made a point of working in the closest contact with the International Red Cross.

One of the most fruitful results of that co-operation is what we have been able to assist in carrying through in north-west Spain as a result of a series of agreements which have been concluded between the Burgos Government and the Basque Government. There is apparently considerably less bitterness between these two sides than there is between the Burgos Government and the Government of Spain. As a result of these agreements, several hundreds of prisoners have been exchanged, and we hope shortly to effect the exchange of a further 4,000. When it takes place it will be carried out by His Majesty's ships. I have, therefore, every hope that with patience and insistence we shall be able to presuade the local authorities in other parts of Spain to avail themselves of our help to effect the exchange of prisoners. This humanitarian work has been carried out all over Spain in any place where opportunity offered and without any discrimination as to the political sympathies of the persons concerned. We attach considerable importance to this work, not only because of what it means in the saving of life—we know only too well what has so often happened to prisoners —but because of the effect we hope it will have in reducing the bitterness of this strife, and, therefore, in facilitating the opportunities for bringing it to an end.

We have continued to hope that it may be possible to organise some humanitarian work on a large scale with the official blessing of the two parties fighting in Spain. To this end we called a little time ago for a meeting of the International Relief Union. That is not all that we have done. My noble Friend the Under-Secretary has also been active at Geneva. He has made an appeal there for the co-ordination of, international effort and has suggested that the Secretary-General of the League should be empowered to provide technical assistance to Spain at this time. My noble Friend does not return until to-night, so that my information is somewhat incomplete, but, from a late message which I have had, it appears that the view of the Spanish Government at present is that they do not require money or food or transport. They say they can manage even transport. What they do want is a certain amount of technical assistance in the co-ordination of these things. If the League can offer that technical assistance on a purely humanitarian basis, I think they should offer it, and we have expressed this view at Geneva.

Perhaps the House will allow me to answer one or two of the specific questions that were asked on the subject of help being given in Spain. We were asked about medical supplies. We believe that there is a shortage, and the Government will be very ready to do anything they can to facilitate the efforts of any private organisation anxious to forward these supplies to Madrid. As to gas masks, fortunately there has not been any gas used in this conflict, but there is certainly nothing to prevent any private organisation from sending gas masks to Madrid. As a matter of fact, we have been approached by the Spanish Government and we have sold a small consignment direct to them. Of course, we sell them to anybody when we have any to spare. Another question was what happens to the coal going to Spain. As the position is at present, His Majesty's ships protect British shipping on the high seas and, therefore, it is their duty to protect any British ships carrying on commerce with Spain. The only exception is special treatment for ships carrying arms. As I informed the House at Question Time there has during the last three weeks been no case of any kind of interference with British shipping by anybody.

On the question of volunteers from this country, let me assure the House that there is no question of the Government seeking to introduce legislation on the subject. What we are working for is international action on the subject. At the same time, I must remind the House that the Attorney-General explained at Question Time that there are certain Acts already in force in this country, and I am not going to deal with this question any further beyond saying that.

Is it the intention of the Government to take action on this matter in advance and independently of what other countries may do?

There are certain laws in this country already and, of course, the Government have to enforce them. We cannot do anything else. My object is to secure international action on this subject, but I cannot forget that there are already laws on the subject in this country.

Before I leave the question of Spain, there is a further word that the House will perhaps allow me to say. Frequently tributes have been rightly paid in the House to the work of Mr. Ogilvie Forbes and others who have helped him in Spain and to various consular officers in various parts of the country. I would like to add this, although it is perhaps a little irregular. I doubt whether it is fully realised what a severe strain is placed on the staff of a small department of the Foreign Office by the emergencies of so prolonged and critical a situation as that with which we are faced in Spain. In addition to their ordinary activities, the Department has to spend many weary extra hours dealing with such problems as the evacuation of British subjects, letters from people in this country who have friends in Spain and are anxious to trace them, relief work, humanitarian organisation, and so on. It is impossible automatically to increase the staff to cope with this extra work, and the result has been that the staff has had to work for many weeks for very long hours indeed. I hope the House will allow me to pay a tribute to these officials for the work they have done.

Finally, may I say a word on the general situation. I agree with the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken when he describes the difficulties through which we have passed this year. He begged me not to presume too much on unity in foreign affairs, and I waited to hear from him where the disunity exists, but he did not say. If I am not entitled to say that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me, perhaps he will allow me to say that I agree with him, because, so far as I was able to discover in his speech, there was virtually nothing with which I would wish to quarrel. Here we stand at the end of a very difficult year, a year when difficulties have crowded round us, but I would not like the House to adjourn for Christmas in a mood of inspissated gloom about the international situation because, difficult as it is we are by no means prepared to despair. The problems are still acute, but they are not necessarily insoluble. I think it is true to say definitely that our position in Europe is certainly better than it was at this time last year. That is not without its importance in the maintenance of peace.

Another factor which we can note is the close cordiality of the relations which exist at present between us and France, a, cordiality which is all the more important because it is not exclusive, and because both of us have made it clear that our object is to secure a European settlement. I take some comfort from the fact that a semi-official German agency should have said two days ago:

"It cannot be denied that the recent speeches of M. Blum and, the British Foreign Secretary have represented honest attempts to find a way out of the present situation and to begin a genuine work of reconstruction."

Can we, in the New Year, make progress with European peace? I should be the last to belittle the difficulties but, none the less, I am not without hope, for no achievement is impossible to statesmanship if it has faith to act and courage to persevere.

Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down, would he be good enough to answer one or two questions arising out of his speech at Bradford? He spoke of Great Britain's interest in the integrity in Spain and the Spanish possessions, and he said that it was a consideration of great moment to us that, when Spain emerges from her present troubles, that integrity should be preserved. Does that amount to saying that the integrity of Spain in her Spanish possessions is a matter of vital interest to Great Britain? Secondly, can anything be said directly, either to Rome or to Berlin, in order, to put it bluntly, to warn them off the grass and to call their attention to the fact that we are deeply interested in the integrity of Spain and the Spanish possessions?

I would tell the hon. Lady, in answer to her question, and without wishing to be thought discourteous, that I do not think I can improve on my own form of words, and that I do not want to put a gloss on them at the moment. As to the action that can be taken, I think I have already informed the House at Question Time, and I do not think I can add to that.

I rise to introduce the subject of housing conditions in Glasgow which have not been so much in the public eye as the one that we have just been discussing, but on which there has been constant questioning of the Secretary of State for Scotland recently, on a number of Tuesdays. Hon. Members have no doubt watched with some interest the various duels which have taken place. The matter is one of far-reaching importance. During that constant questioning a certain amount of feeling has been aroused, to none of which I object or about which I have a single word of criticism of hon. Members of the Labour Opposition, who seem to think that we have singled out the Glasgow Corporation for attack. I am not going to bother myself to reply to most of the criticisms which I have seen written by Members of the Glasgow Town Council who belong to the Labour party, in alleged reply to me. About the so-called "names" of various kinds applying to me, I will say only that if they please those people, I have no objection. The fact that none of the names applied to me disposes of the facts.

I am much more concerned about the housing conditions of the people in Glasgow than I am with either the convener of the Glasgow Housing Department or any other man. I saw in one paper a reference to my hon. Friend the Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) as an hon. and learned Member and to myself as not so learned. That sort of thing has been said about Labour party men over since I have known them, and if it pleases those who say it, they are entitled to all the pleasure they get from it. I represent Gorbals, and I have done so in defiance of the Labour party, who deliberately fought me, to which I have no objection. I am determined to represent my Division, and to state the facts of Glasgow housing conditions. The constant questions have revealed an appalling and ghastly situation. The fact has been brought out, that in the city of Glasgow, almost one-third of the population live in conditions which, compared with modern housing, are totally indefensible. Let me give the figures for my Division. I asked on a recent Tuesday how many citizens or householders were living in houses that had been condemned either for overcrowding or insanitary conditions. I was informed that 9,500 families, in rough figures, were living in Gorbals in houses condemned either for insanitary conditions or for overcrowding. There are 1,700 living in houses condemned for sanitary reasons. During the last two years, the total number rehoused in Gorbals amounted to 542, or 271 in each year. At that rate of progress it will take the Glasgow Corporation six and-a-half years to rehouse those who are living in insanitary conditions, and at least 20 years, if not considerably more, to tackle the problem of overcrowding in Gorbals alone.

I put it to the Labour Members: Can a man who represents a Division like that —call the Council by whatever name you like—sit quietly here and allow those conditions to continue without finding out the facts and raising his voice on behalf of those whom he represents? The conditions are appalling. I will not go into the single apartment problem in Glasgow. There are not fewer than 4,000 families housed in shocking conditions, where tuberculosis is prevalent. I visited the City with the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland a few weeks ago, and we made a fair tour, not of all the City but of typical places in the City; and I would defy any man to look on those conditions and feel complacent or easy in his mind about the matter. I know that various reasons are given why house-building is not proceeding in Glasgow, and I will say a word or two about them later. What are the facts? In the year 1929–30, fully 6,000 houses were built in the City of Glasgow. In subsequent years the figure fell, sometimes reaching almost 4,000, sometimes reaching 4,800, until this year, 1936, the figures show that the Glasgow Town Council had completed something in the region of 1,600 houses up to the end of October, and hoped to build 600 more before the end of the year. That is a total, for 1936, of 2,200 houses.

It is said that difficulties arise in connection with labour, and I would like to get from those who are running the council some kind of answer on this point. In the year 1929, I think, speaking from memory, the figure for the whole of Scotland was round about 13,000, and last year the figure for the whole of Scotland was 20,000, while for the present year the estimated figure is round about 18,000. Here you have Glasgow building 6,000 houses in 1929–30, and the figure falling to 2,200 this year, while in the same period the figure for the rest of Scotland has risen from 13,000 to roughly 18,000. If it had been merely a question of shortage of labour, if it had been a question of labour problems, why should not those labour problems have affected the rest of Scotland? Why is it that, even in comparatively small burghs throughout the country, the programme has increased, and, as a result, the capacity to produce houses has increased, while in Glasgow there is a decrease? In towns like Kilsyth and other surrounding towns outside there has been a remarkable increase in house-building, and those places have had to face exactly the same labour problems which have had to be faced by every other town, large and small, throughout the country.

When this question was raised one day at Question Time, it was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston), a former Under-Secretary, that bricklayers were being dragged away from their jobs. I looked up the statement to-day, because when he made it I really wondered whether I had heard him correctly. Bricklayers are as independent and honest men and as good trade unionists as ever I knew in my life, and they do not allow anyone to drag them away. No one drags them. When bricklayers go from job to job, they go because they have a reason to go. Nobody drags them; they are free men. If they go from job to job, when did it become a policy of this House or anyone in it to interfere with the bricklayer increasing his wage and his standards like any other worker? Is it to be said that a bricklayer is not entitled to raise his wages and his standards in the same way as any other worker? It may well be that certain bricklayers have been offered inducements to leave and go to other jobs, but, if they have, they have gone of their own free will, as free men ought to go. I resent this phrase about dragging men away, as if men were chattel slaves or in some way inferior to us.

Let me say, on the labour problem, that I have yet to see a reasoned case that there is a shortage of labour, and it certainly is not admitted by the trade unions. Only the other week I gave to the Secretary for Scotland particulars of the case of a bricklayer, a good member of his trade union, who lives in my Division. He was paid off, and went to the Employment Exchange. He wanted to be put in a job near his home—on housing or anything else, so long as he could be near to his home. Where was he sent? He was sent to Busby, outside the City, to Barrhead outside the City, to Newmains outside the City. He was not sent to one job inside the City. No vacancies were registered at the South Side Employment Exchange for bricklayers for a housing scheme within the City—not one. I have supplied the name and address of the man; I have here his green card for Busby. There is said to be a labour shortage, and yet this bricklayer was not asked to go to a job in the City, but was asked to go outside the City in order to find work.

Let me say, to those who are constantly raising so-called criticisms of the Labour party in the Corporation, that for the last three years I have never raised a question about housing conditions or the progress or the lack of progress, for the reason that I thought, and still think, that the new council had a new point of view, a point of view different from that of the old council, and that the new council should at least have from two to three years to get under way with their new plans—that their new ideas should have time to show results. For three years we have waited, and, instead of an increase taking place, house-building in the City has fallen to the lowest level that it has reached for over 10 years. I am often told by so-called highbrows that something is wrong with me, and that I have no constructive plans. When Labour went into the Town Council with a majority and with full power, I understood that they would apply their minds to a new set of ideas to solve this problem.

Why is it that you cannot attract men to housing schemes? I do not think that commercial work is taking men away in great numbers. I am told that there are only two cinemas being built in the city at the moment, and the amount of commercial work is not high as compared with other great cities. I admit that the steel works have attracted a certain number, but that has happened only within the last 12 months and the fall in house-building has been going on for years. One reason why men go to the steelworks is that they have no broken time in wet weather, their employment is not so casual and they work all day long. A bricklayer starting at the steelworks gets a reasonable spell of work. He is not paid off on a Wednesday, as is often the case in the building trade, and when he is going to be dismissed he usually knows it weeks ahead. The Corporation should plan ahead. At least 70,000 houses are wanted. According to the figures of the Secretary of State, nearly 9,500 are wanted for Gorbals alone.

I cannot see why the Glasgow Corporation should not do as a Government Department does when it wants 70 ships. Let them set up a department for house-building and give every bricklayer they employ the same conditions as they give to every other Corporation servant. There is no shortage of bricklayers in the Corporation department. If the department would do building repairs and wanted a bricklayer they could get ten. The Corporation bricklayer has a guaranteed week, payment for holidays and superannuation. He has no casual employment. Give the ordinary bricklayer who builds houses the same conditions and you will get all the houses and all the men that you need. [Interruption.] It is no use telling me that you have built 43,000 houses. There are 60,000 needed and, if you go on at the rate of the last year, it will take 30 years to complete them. If the Tory party had been in the Council and had built only 2,300 houses in a year, there would have been an outcry. This year they are completing 1,600 to the end of October and they expect to build 600 more by the end of the year. [Interruption.] I am asked the total number of houses the Corporation are building.

Or have built.

Built and completed and ready for occupation. The total number—slum clearance, intermediate and ordinary—to the end of November is 2,100. But if the hon. Member doubles the number it would still be a scandal. The Tories built 6,000 in 1929 and you were put in because the Glasgow people were not satisfied with 6,000. I cannot understand anyone who knows the social conditions being complacent about that figure. You need a department for doing nothing else but building houses and employing the necessary labour to do it. It is no use, in a serious problem like this, depending on the whims of private enterprise, because private enterprise will go to the most remunerative field, that is common every-day life. You have to start anew with this problem and not depend upon this or that fellow taking over a contract. You have to plan, and you have to be the employers of labour and be responsible for the construction of the houses. You enter into a contract with a man to build so many houses, and, try as you may, he is, in the last resort, the only person who can hurry on the contract. If there is other work which comes in or goes out, your schemes are to that extent made difficult and are delayed. The Secretary of State for Scotland ought not merely to consider this matter from the Glasgow point of view, but from the Scottish point of view. It is time, when one looks back upon the records of the War days, when the Government set up a national housing board, that at least you should give the local authorities similar power for the purpose of co-ordinating labour and becoming the employers of the necessary labour. In this connection, Edinburgh is as bad as Glasgow.

I am surprised that the Labour Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) has not raised that question. It is a scandalous position. The Edinburgh Town Council are allowing the conditions in that city to become shocking. I notice that the hon. Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. Guy) cross-examined the Secretary of State for Scotland the other day about his figures and the shocking conditions in Edinburgh. In these days such conditions ought not to be tolerated. I read to-day with considerable pain, as I am sure all hon. Members did, of the crime trial in the City of Glasgow. I am not going into the question of whether the sentences are heavy or light, but it is a terrible thing. I would, however, ask those who criticise Glasgow, whether these things happen in the West end of the City or even in the more comfortable off districts where the well-to-do artisan and the civil workers live. Gang fights like that are unknown in the better-off quarters. They never take place in Pollokshiels and the West End; they take place in places where the conditions are shocking and squalid. I would tell the Secretary of State for Scotland that I know of no improvement, apart from the improvement in the incomes of the people, that would make for greater social change than the decent housing of our people in Glasgow.

Let me take the position with regard to child welfare. I have been looking at the figures of Dr. McGregor, concerning last year's death rates in Glasgow. In Gorbals, Mile End, and Calton children die four, five, six or seven times more rapidly than children die in Pollokshiels. It is an appalling death rate. The one thing that is common between rich and poor is, that everybody wants to see child life saved. Children die at that appalling rate because of the terrible social conditions in which our people have to live. In my Division thousands of people, even in the best places, have no lavatory accommodation. I visited one place in my Division with the Secretary of State for Scotland one Saturday where 70 people had to use one lavatory. A little woman living in one of the back-end houses caught hold of us by the lapels of our coats and said "Mister, have you any power, for God's sake, to get us out of this?" I was told, and quite truthfully, that this was not the worst place; that there were other places even worse. I asked myself whatever must the worst places be like. I have a letter stating that two girls of 19 and 20 when they have to change their clothes have to walk out to the stairhead in order to change them in order to give the rest of the family a chance.

Has a member of this House ever visited a "single-end" in the city of Glasgow when death has occurred and seen the coffin placed at the bed at one time and on the floor at another time, the woman of the place having to cook, wash and clean beside the body. I know that this is the product of century-old conditions and of a capitalism which has gone on for so long. We have been sent here to fight this sort of thing and to urge the need for change. Although we are told that so many houses have been built, it is no answer to the growing needs of the people. The Secretary of State for Scotland has been entrusted with a great task. I fear the consequences of next year more than I fear the consequences this year, and I will tell the House why. It is proposed to begin building an exhibition which must utilise a great deal of building trade labour which must, in the long run, interfere with the housing programme. I am worried about it. I would sooner have a decently-housed Glasgow than all the exhibitions. This exhibition is to be erected at Bellahouston Park for a few selected people but the best advertisement for the city, instead of having to read about these terrible things to-day, would be to see to it that it is decently housed. What exhibition can be successful if within a stone's throw you can go to the Plantation district and the Tradeston division and see some of the terrible conditions under which the people have to live. The town council, instead of bending their energies in the direction of an exhibition and utilising labour upon it, should bend their minds to giving the children and the womenfolk who are defenceless decent homes. If they do that they will make the city greater than all the exhibitions they have ever known.

I am sure that no one objects to the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) raising his voice at any time especially in regard to his own constituency, but the general question which has been touched upon is that of the general housing in the City of Glasgow. In dealing with that subject and in referring to the questions which have been continuously put during the last few weeks, there are certain things still to be understood. No one can object to the statements made in regard to the awful housing conditions, but these belong to a past. They do not belong to the present at all. No strength is given to a case where when you are dealing with what is the present you bring in the past and try to tack the responsibility of the past on those responsible for dealing with the present. When anyone in a movement such as our seeks to make capital out of difficulties that arise through the fact that the majority of the citizens of Glasgow chose at a certain time to give this present power to the Glasgow Town Council, ever since that date they have been pursued by every kind of reactionary mind. Every kind of difficulty has been put in the way, not only on the question of building houses, but on the question of borrowing money and in other ways, to try to make it appear that Labour was incapable in some way.

Through all these attacks that have been made, Labour has been able not only to continue but to show in many departments tremendous improvements. The greatest difficulty of all is the question of housing, because before the period came when Labour could have a say in affairs in its own city, there was very little land within the city boundaries on which to build new houses. Another difficulty that must be recognised is that where you take down a three- four- or five-storey tenement and want to make an improvement by building a two-storey tenement, you cannot replace on the same amount of land the number you have displaced. All these things, taken into consideration, make it clear that the problem is one of trying to secure land on which to build. The difficulties of that procedure are well known to the hon. Member for Gorbals, because he has been a member of the Glasgow Town Council. Those who have been engaged in this attack, not only on the Benches below the Gangway, but in other parts of the House, have been so engaged not so much to try to get something done and help on housing in Glasgow as to try and damage Labour because it happens to be in power at the present time.

When you raised it in 1924 was it not to damage the Tories who were in power?

It was a question of fact which I raised. When we get this kind of vendetta going on, instead of getting down to the subject, it has taken us away from what we should be dealing with. The 1930 Act is the most important still on the Statute Book. It was the first time that the subsidies were given on a basis of human need. I hope that no Member below the Gangway will think that I am being personal, but when we are being attcked we do not want to attack so much as to state the facts. The Scottish Standing Committee of that time which dealt with this important Bill began its work on 6th May, 1930, and the Committee was at work for 13 days. The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) was not at one of those meetings. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) attended six meetings and the hon. Member for Gorbals attended seven.

Would the hon. Member tell us the attendances of all the Labour men?

I could.

Will the hon. Member tell us how many meetings the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Johnston) attended?

I am prepared to do that. The bulk of the houses have been built under the 1930 Act. In 1933–4 under the 1930 Act we built 15,977 houses. There was a continuous increase under that Act. In regard to the land difficulty in Glasgow, I should like to quote from a newspaper of yesterday:

"Glasgow Extension Scheme. Proposal to acquire 14,000 acres for house-building. A scheme for the extension of the city boundaries so as to provide sites for over 40,000 houses was unanimously approved yesterday by a special committee of Glasgow Corporation. The Town Clerk was instructed to proceed with the minute, which will be presented to the Corporation for consideration, and to lodge a Parliamentary Order in February next. The area which it is proposed to add to the city extends to over 14,000 acres, the scheme being based on the need of the municipality for undeveloped sites to complete the programme of house-building to replace slums and relieve overcrowding. Informal negotiations on the subject have taken place between members of the Corporation and representatives of Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire, Dumbartonshire and the burgh of Paisley, and it is understood that a fair measure of agreement has been reached, and that it will be possible to complete the negotiations before the proposals are submitted to Parliament."

All that goes to show the tremendous amount of energy that is being spent in trying to get the necessary land on which to remedy these hellish housing conditions which exist in some parts of Glasgow. The tenement versus cottage question is another question which the Secretary of State for Scotland will have to face before long. Unless the Government see that every facility is given, including finance, in order to deal with housing conditions in Glasgow there is bound to be a return to the conditions which manufacture slums out of the modern house. In regard to the shortage of labour this is much more serious than the hon. Member for Gorbals tried to make out. The day before yesterday this telegram arrived here from Dunfermline:

"All bricklayers leaving tomorrow. Bribed away. Bigger money. Position serious. Houses standstill."

Should these men not go away.

I am not saying that. Let these men go where they can get the biggest wages. Then we have a temporary agreement made and this telegram arrived yesterday:

"Temporary agreement made bricklayers to prevent them leaving Cowdenbeath. Compelled to grant 1s. 10d. per hour, 3d. over union rate. Seeing Department Health immediately to sanction extra expenditure. Only method keep men and prevent complete stoppage. Failure Department's sanction to arrangement means abandonment of operations for 112 houses."

Those are the kind of conditions that are obtaining. Here is a quotation from an Edinburgh newspaper yesterday. Edinburgh is in the same position:

"Edinburgh's programme was in the lamentable position of being 1,750 houses in arrears."

At this meeting which was held the day before yesterday they were trying to find out—and they have appointed a committee—why it is that this big shortage of labour should take place. I do not think that, apart from munitions work, there is any attraction that is responsible for withdrawing men from ordinary domestic building work. There may sometimes be an offer of a job for a short time at wages 6d. or 1s. an hour above the ordinary rate, but men will not leave a constant job to go to work of that kind.

Then there is the question of overtime work on municipal houses. I have had a report from the building trade union in Glasgow of a meeting last May with the convener and members of the Glasgow Corporation Housing Committee. It was suggested that, as the work was getting behind, overtime should be worked at rates in accordance with the terms of the national agreement. The Corporation were anxious to get that done, but the employers objected, and so it was out of the question. The Corporation tried also to get men transferred from one job to another, but again they could not get the employers to co-operate. The result is that the whole programme is being held up in Glasgow. It seems to me that if the thing is to be properly handled, not only the Corporation but the Government must take some responsibility. It is only to be expected that men should go to jobs where they can get higher wages, and if the Corporation of Glasgow or any other Corporation has to face competition with capitalists, say, in the armament industry, who are making big profits and can afford to offer higher wages, then the Government must take the responsibility for finding the money necessary to pay increased wages. It will not do to put that increased payment on the rates, because that only means increasing the cost of the houses and raising the rents of the houses for all time.

I hope the Government will take its full share of responsibility in this matter. No one knows the needs of Glasgow better than the Secretary of State for Scotland, and for the good name of that city which honours him with a seat in this House he at least should make every possible effort to deal with this question in order that something may be done that will reflect credit on the whole of Scotland. He can deal with the question of the distribution of material for building. I do not want to detain the House too long but I have reports here which give details of the holding up of the supply of bricks—or of the scarcity of bricks, I do not mind in which way it is put. The important point is that the bricks are not there. From personal knowledge I can say that there are people in Scotland who are ready to do all they can to prevent Labour success in this matter. They do not like Labour politics and do not want to see Labour succeed, and so they will put every possible obstacle in the way. I would put my last appeal in this way: This is not a party quarrel. It is a question of housing conditions in a big city, arising from a state of affairs which began hundreds of years ago. Conditions in Glasgow in regard to housing have always been bad. People used to come from all parts to see the slums of Glasgow. We have got rid of the worse and most degraded slums, but we still have bad conditions in Glasgow, and I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will be prepared to take the steps necessary to help Glasgow in this matter.

I should like to support the last speaker in the appeal he has made to the Secretary of State for Scotland to take the necessary steps to deal with the housing situation in Scotland. There is general agreement with regard to the gravity of the condition, and no apology is needed for raising this matter to-day. Having listened to the speech made by the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie), I must say that I am not prepared to accept his defence of the Glasgow Corporation as a really adequate defence. I know there were difficulties when the moderates were in control of the City of Glasgow, but the Labour party declared that with a majority on the city council they would be able to deal with those difficulties and to provide houses for the people. The Labour party were quite confident that if the electors of Glasgow put them in power they would be able to provide houses for the people, and that they would be able to deal satisfactorily with all these difficulties.

The hon. Member for Springburn also referred to the Act of 1930, and he gave the attendances of my hon. Friends and myself in that connection. I am quite willing to let my attendances stand against the attendances of any Labour member in this House. I think if the records are examined they will show that the members of my party have a higher standard of attendance in connection with the work of this House than the members of any of the other parties. I fail to see the importance of the statement of the hon. Member for Springburn in this connection. It was not our Government that was in office, but we were anxious to assist that Government in getting its Bill through and we gave them all the assistance we could. We did not make unnecessary speeches in Committee because we wanted to help to get the Bill on the Statute Book. We have nothing to regret with regard to the action we took.

The statement has been made that this housing condition is an outcome of misgovernment in the past. That is true. The fact is that there has been this Labour majority now for a certain period on the Glasgow City Council and that majority has not been taking the steps that it should have taken to deal with the situation. There can be no doubt about the housing figures. The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) referred to the year 1929. The grand total of houses in that year was 7,819. Therefore, with all the difficulties in regard to labour and everything else, lit was possible to produce nearly 8,000 houses, and I submit that the Labour majority in Glasgow ought to have been able by this time to achieve an output figure of 8,000. With regard to the provision of labour one statement has been constantly made that the Department of Health for Scotland has turned down an attempt by the Labour majority in Glasgow to deal with this matter by providing a guaranteed wage for workers in the building industry. A very bright correspondent in the Scottish Socialist Press makes that definite statement. Accordingly, I put down a question to the Secretary of State on the 15th December asking:

"What were the reasons why a proposed scheme providing a guaranteed wage for workers in the building industry engaged on houses being built by the Glasgow Corporation was disapproved by his Department?"

I received the reply:

"No such scheme has been submitted to the Department of Health for Scotland by the corporation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th December, 1936; col. 2287, Vol. 318.]

That is a categorical denial by the Secretary of State for Scotland of the statement that a scheme was put forward to the Department. I hope the right hon. Gentleman to-day will be able to give us more information. We shall not deal with this problem by statements being made which are not true regarding the provision of labour. This matter must be made perfectly plain to-day. At the beginning of the Session I raised a question in relation to two of my constituents who were driven out of their houses because the roof fell in during a big storm, and the Glasgow Corporation refused to do anything for their families. They were put out on the street. One family was taken to the poor-house, but rather than stay there they went back to the house, although it was in a dangerous condition. I went to every department in Glasgow about this matter, but I could not get anything done for that family. In one of the families the children are in a very bad state of health, but I have been unable to get a promise of any house for that family from the housing department.

There is in Soho Street another house to which I have called attention. The condition there is almost indescribable. I have been raising that matter ever since last June. Last June I had a definite promise that this matter would be dealt with at an early date, but nothing yet has been done. I am asking the Secretary of State to assure me that these people are going to be rehoused. Some of the houses are overrun with rats and bugs and beetles. When the man sits down to read his paper the rats come out and play about as though they were domestic pets. In one room there are a father and mother and six children. When I received the assurance in June that these people were to be rehoused I was told that there were many houses in even a worse state in the city and that with these they would have to deal first. That is a matter which must be put right. I am not asking too much when I say that these people should be given houses before the year concludes, or at least very early in the next year. I want to read a letter I received yesterday from 43, Greenvale Street, Glasgow:

"Dear Sir, My wife, four children and myself, live in a single apartment house which has two set-in beds. The factor was told on 2nd November that the bed next to the gable end needed repairing. He promised to see to it, but eventually waited until the wall round the bed collapsed on the 4th December. Since Friday, 4th December, all the family have more or less slept on the floor. I have written to the Dean of Guild, who referred by letter to the Master of Works, who has done nothing for me up to the time of writing you. The Sanitary Board of Health, Dean of Guild and Master of Works, of this time seem to be sleeping. Fancy any ratepayer paying a factor one month's forehanded rent for the privilege of sleeping on the floor."

That is the kind of letter I am getting, and I say that the Labour majority in Glasgow, if they were functioning properly, would see that these matters are attended to at once. If they had happened under the old regime we should have had indignation meetings about it, and justly so; and I say that the Labour majority should now take proper steps to deal with them. I am asking the Secretary of State to insist that the assurance given by the corporation in regard to the houses in Soho Street shall be realised and that he will also impress upon them the necessity for setting up a housing department which will give a guaranteed wage to the workers. If they were given a guaranteed wage I have not the slightest doubt that the Glasgow Corporation would be able to get labour for its housing schemes, and that during the next year would be able to set themselves out to reach the 10,000 figure. They would then show that Labour can govern.

As there are other subjects to be dealt with before the House rises I propose to make now a few observations on a subject which is of vital importance to Scotland. The argument which has been advanced to-day is an argument to which every Scotsman must give very close and immediate consideration. I leave out of account altogether a certain amount of cross fire between hon. Members below and above the Gangway opposite, for this is not a problem which concerns a class or movement. It is a problem of importance to the whole of Scotland, and it is a problem with which the whole of Scotland is not dealing adequately. If it were only a problem of the past, as was suggested by the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie), I should not be discussing it to-day; but it is a problem of the present, and worse still, a problem of the future.

The facts as stated by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) are not exaggerated. They are under-stated. The output of houses which he gave is a favourable estimate, and I do not think it will be reached. I do not think 2,000 houses will be built in Glasgow this year, because the figures of houses already completed show that, unless some tremendous spurt takes place, there will not be enough houses completed during the remaining days of this year to reach that figure. What is worse, the houses under construction do not, to my mind, indicate that the figure of 3,000 will be reached—and it may be considerably less than that—during next year. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) asked me about the houses at 18, Soho Street. Special visits have been made by the Department to Glasgow, and I have before me a report, dated as recently as the 11th of this month, dealing with the situation and pointing out that for some time past it has been the policy to restrict representations as to unfit houses until the mass of condemned houses has been dealt with. Owing to the progress now made and the number of new houses likely to become available in the next few months, it is anticipated that it will be possible within six months to resume the practice of making regular representations in regard to unfit houses; that is to say, it is hoped within six months to take up representations as to unfit houses, but it is not expected to take them up before then.

May I point out that the Corporation made a promise last June, and surely they must be compelled to carry out the promise then made? If they made a mistake and ought not to have given the promise, it is unfortunate; but surely when a public authority have given a promise on the Floor of the House, that promise must be carried out, even if it means breaking into what has been their practice.

I beg the hon. Member for Springburn not to embroil me in the quarrel between hon. Members below and above the Gangway, a quarrel into which I am very desirous not to be drawn.

But there is no quarrel. May I inform the right hon. Gentleman, as a Glasgow representative, that personally I am very much indebted to hon. Members below the Gangway for raising this question to-day? Although rumours have been current that it has been done out of emnity towards the Labour majority in Glasgow and the Labour party, I sincerely trust that is not so.

We would raise the matter whatever the political party in control.

It may be that all the argument that has gone on, between hon. Members below and above the Gangway opposite is merely the love talk of friends. It may be. But if I were to use the language which has been used below and above the Gangway opposite, it would not be so interpreted on my part.

Therefore, I do not intend to use it. I am answering the question which was put by the hon. Member for Camlachie, and I say that it may be possible within six months to resume the practice of making representations with regard to unfit houses. The view at present is that these houses were not so bad as others at the time when wholesale representations were being made, otherwise they would have been included. I assume, therefore, that they were not included, and there are still 600 houses which have to be cleared off before we get round to the discussion of the houses to which the hon. Member for Camlachie referred.

There is a definite pledge of 16th June that they were to be dealt with, and surely they will be dealt with before the year is out?

The hon. Member must realise that the Secretary of State had no power to give a pledge and did not give a pledge on behalf of the statutory housing authority of Glasgow.

The corporation gave a pledge.

I leave the hon. Member to thresh out that question with the corporation. The fact of the matter is that I do not see, on the actual position as it stands, that these houses will be dealt with in the immediate future, and I tell the hon. Member that frankly.

The hon. Member for Springburn indicated that there were great difficulties in the way of housing in Scotland and great difficulties in Glasgow. I agree that there are. He pointed out that there were difficulties as regards the acquisition of land.

There always has been.

I have gone into that question and I find that there is enough land in the possession of the Corporation just now for two years' building at the rate of 6,500 houses a year and for four years' building at the rate of 3,000 houses a year. The question of land is not a governing factor in the slow progress which, we are agreed, is being made.

What about the desirability of leaving open spaces? We do not want to build up every inch of Glasgow.

The estimate which I have given is based on full amenity provisions of every kind both as regards open spaces and as regards the density permitted by the Statutes now in force. I do not think it desirable to underestimate the difficulties which have arisen because this is a matter which will require all our agreement and concentration without distinction of party. There is a grave problem here which is of vital importance to the future of Scotland, not merely as regards the social conditions but even as regards the industrial conditions of the people. It is impossible to expect that the new factories can be built in Scotland or workmen brought to Scotland as long as the conditions are no better than those which have been described to the House.

The hon. Member for Gorbals said that in his view no case for the shortage of labour had been made out. I am willing to suspend judgment on that point until it has been further examined. I think, however, it is true that representations have been made from all quarters that there is a considerable shortage of labour and one which could not be dealt with merely by shifting men from one job to another or back again, from jobs to which they have gone, to Corporation jobs. Suppose they had gone to the building of shops and cinemas. The amenities of the cities of Scotland are just as important from the industrial point of view as anything else. We have to get the shops and the cinemas and to say that there are too many jobs in Scotland is surely the most arrant paradox ever enunciated at a time when we find one city in that country with 80,000 unemployed. To say that we should adopt a system of licences, that we should put a label round a man's neck in order to hold him to his job, that we should treat men like serfs or like the villeins of old times is surely one of the most reactionary proposals that could possibly be put forward. We have, of course, to consider that there is a very great difficulty going back a hundred years at least. On our industrial revolution, there was added to a population living in a condition of grinding poverty, another wave of immigration, and the two together produced these desperate conditions in the West of Scotland of which we all complain to-day.

The Irish invasion.

On top of the overcrowding of the industrial revolution was superimposed the overcrowding of immigration.

There were the Scotch who went to Belfast.

I hope hon. Members will do their best to restrain their feelings, as there is only a short time before us before the Adjournment for Christmas. The local authorities have all had a very difficult task. Some of them have done well, and some of them have completed their programmes, but the back of the problem, I believe, is not broken, arid in some ways one would say that the problem as a whole remains almost untouched. The extent to which we have got to open our minds on this matter may be seen by the fact that the Scottish Housing Commission, reporting after the War, reported that 120,000 houses were necessary to deal with the problem and suggested that if a higher standard were adopted, 250,000 would be necessary. That report was signed by, among others, the Rev. James Barr, now an honoured Member of this House. A quarter of a million houses! We have built the first 100,000 and nearly completed the second 100,000, and we are nowhere near breaking the back of this problem or even making a serious inroad into it. The conditions in Scotland, of course, are out of all comparison with those in England. The under-housing in Scotland is something to which there is no parallel in England, and even with the very low standard of overcrowding which is generally adopted, there are in Glasgow 4,638 single-apartment houses occupied by four or more persons—who are going to spend the whole of their lives with four or more to a room—and there are 9,786 two-apartment houses occupied by six or more persons. That is in Glasgow alone, and in that calculation we are taking no account at all of children under one year—and anyone who has gone on a long railway journey with a baby knows that it can occupy quite as much space in the apartment as an adult—and every two children under 10 are counted as one.

There is no parallel to that in England. I looked up the figures for cities and counties in England with equally poor conditions. I am not talking of the wealthy Southern cities or of places like Birmingham, but of Liverpool, which has had the same immigration, the same industrial conditions, and very much the same depression. In Liverpool 7·4 per cent. of the houses are overcrowded; 30 per cent. of the houses in Glasgow are overcrowded. To take the counties, in Durham, a depressed area, 12 per cent. of the houses are overcrowded; in Lanark 37 per cent. are overcrowded. For Scotland as a whole 23 per cent. of the houses are overcrowded, as against 3·8 per cent, for all England and Wales. The programmes which are being put forward at present to deal with this situation seem to be inadequate, and the performance of those programmes seems to be desperately inadequate. In the last three years, roughly 20,000 houses a year have been built in Scotland. On that basis the problem will require 10 years, and perhaps 15 years for a solution.

To ask those people to wait for 15 years before their problem is solved is a proposition I am not prepared to make. At 40,000 houses a year it would still he seven years before the problem could be dealt with, and that is a very long time to ask people to spend in some of the houses which exist both in the divisions of hon. Members below the Gangway and my own division. In the past year, not 20,000 houses were built, nor 40,000. I do not think they will top 16,000; it may not he much over 15,000. There are only some 20,000 houses under construction, and that makes it very improbable that much more than that number will be reached in the course of next year. When we adjourn again next Christmas, if nothing more is done than the present programmes, we will still be faced with a problem as bad as that which we have to deal with to-day, with the added knowledge that for 12 months more the water has run under the bridges with nothing being done.

The falling off in programmes which has been mentioned is not merely the falling off in Glasgow. There has been a falling off elsewhere. The Edinburgh figures are 730 houses in 1934, 858 in 1935, and only 350 so far this year. It is true there has been a considerable amount of private building in Edinburgh, but it does not touch the problem of slum clearance or touch the poorest people who find difficulty in paying the rents. I do not think that the drop from 700 houses to 350 is one that can be justified. Lanarkshire has a fall, although not so much. It built 1,000 houses in 1935 and 632 houses in the first 10 months of 1936. There are, however, still to be built 15,000 houses, which means that the people of Lanarkshire will have to endure another 15 years before the problem is solved. In Fife in 1934, 251 houses were built, in 1935, 275, and in the 10 months of 1936, 80 houses. That is not a record of which any Secretary of State for Scotland can be proud. I will not go over the whole conditions, although I might put on record one figure for the benefit of the English Members who are here. There are 30,000 families living in Glasgow in conditions which provide only one water closet for four families. Conceive the conditions of the sanitation of these families. It is all very well to say that it is an inheritance, but it is an inheritance that we want to sweep away, for the people ought not to be allowed to endure it a day longer than is necessary. I have records here which I will not read, but I will take one instance of a single-roomed house which has not been condemned. The room is five-sided, the clear measurements being 11 feet by 12. The window at one corner is flush with the side of a building which projects at right-angles. In the room is a box bed, and there are angles which are dark even with the gas on. The gas is required all day. The walls are damp, the woodwork decayed, and a water closet above the stairs leaks so that the water runs downstairs and along a passage and seeps through the ceiling.

"This may account"—

says the report—

"for the bad smell of the houses".

That house is not condemned. In conditions like that, less than 2,000 houses will be completed this year in Glasgow. None of us can regard that as a situation which is satisfactory.

I come again to conditions in Glasgow. I have here a file dealing with the ques- tion as to whether any proposal was or was not put up for Glasgow with regard to a proposed scheme for guaranteeing the wages of workers in the building industry. The answer was in the negative. No such scheme has been submitted. The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has said that there is an adequate supply of labour, or that one could be secured for housing purposes. The Glasgow demand alone to carry out a programme of 6,500 houses would be equal to 33 per cent. of the bricklayers upon local authority work in Scotland. That would create a shortage in other areas, but I am certainly willing to be convinced. I am going into that matter further with Glasgow itself. It is certainly not a question of land. There is enough land for two years of building in the City of Glasgow.

It is your land system which has brought about the present situation.

It is not the land system, because there is enough land in Glasgow to build 12,000 houses and more, and there were 2,000 houses built last year.

It was the previous land system that brought Glasgow to what it is now.

It is not a question of money, because the money required to build 6,500 houses would be produced by a half-penny rate. Does anybody suggest that that is an excessive amount to put on the rates in order to sweep away 6,500 of those dens of which hon. Members in all parts of the House have given examples?

The right hon. Gentleman's party say that it is excessive.

The Moderate party built 6,500 houses in a year, and I had something to do with the drive that put those houses up. When hon. Members have done as much as we did they can talk—

At the last municipal election in Glasgow, the Moderate party objected to any addition to the rates, whether for house building or any other purpose.

It is idle to say that a halfpenny on the rates for building 6,500 houses is too much, and I will not take that attitude as long as I am Secretary of State. I will say more. I agree that the Government have to play their part in this. We are at present dealing with the question of the new block grants. We are re-calculating them. We are taking up proposals with the local authorities and elsewhere, and the Government are making new allocations. I can say here that the new proposals will ease the financial position of local authorities to the extent of hundreds of thousands of pounds in a year. If there is no excuse now there is going to be still less excuse in the future for not dealing with this problem.

The Scottish landlords will get their rents all right.

Conditions are not going to be dealt with by catchwords, or by minimising the problems that we have before us. What I say is: Here we are with every third working-class house in Glasgow with more than five adults to three rooms. We have 40,000 families averaging more than three families to a watercloset and 10,000 houses condemned as unfit in Glasgow. There are 600 houses scheduled for demolition that have not been demolished, and January, February, March, April, May and June will pass before the Medical Officer can begin to deal with other houses for demolition. It is not common sense, it is not business, it is not investment. These people are paying for these dens sums which would enable them to pay rents for reasonable houses. Hon. Members must take that fact into consideration. Furthermore, there is the development of industry for which we are all looking in Scotland. Housing is not only housing: it brings with it half-a-dozen ancillary industries. It brings with it the light castings industry, the linoleum industry, the furniture industry; and these are the smaller industries which we desire to see developed in our own country. We have, too, the raw material, which no one can deny to us. The State is already providing over two-thirds of the grants in the case of housing, and in the case of slum clearance well over two-thirds. The recalculation of the block grant, as I have already said, will ease the financial position of the local authorities to the extent of hundreds of thousands of pounds in the year. It is time for us to get together and make a real housing drive possible, and I pledge myself as Secretary of State that I will do everything in my power to see that a real alteration is made in these conditions.

Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the attempt made by the late John Wheatley, in connection with his Housing Act of 1924, to bring together the local authorities, the right hon. Gentleman's Department the employers and the trade unions to solve this problem?

There have been consultations since July, and I myself have been engaged upon them since I came into my present office. I am not likely to under-estimate the desirability of getting employers and employed, the local authorities and the State in if we are really to make an advance in dealing with this problem.

At this hour I do not propose to take up much of the time of the House, but since I have had the honour to sit at the back of these Back Benches I have listened to many important speeches on our Defence Forces, and also on the problem of our food supplies in the event of war, and I wish to bring up a subject which I consider is a natural connecting link between these two great questions and to ask the Government to give agriculture a Christmas present which would be much appreciated. I refer to the desirability of feeding the armed forces of the Crown on British beef and other British produce. I know that this matter has been raised before at Question time, but as one representing a great agricultural Division I make no apology for raising it again, as I feel that the Government should be informed of the strong feeling that exists among both farmers and farm workers regarding it. "Why do the Government," they ask, "encourage the country to buy British and feed the Army from abroad; why do they preach the urgency of agricultural revival and import much of the Navy's food, and how can they expect us to appreciate our position as a vital cog in the scheme of defence, while they clog the machinery with the grit of this kind of discouragement?"

Now I consider that there is a good deal of truth in these complaints. The Government, to this extent, do not practise what they preach, and I suggest that a statement to the effect that in future, or from such times as existing contracts expire, the Forces should be fed entirely on British beef, would indeed be a welcome one. I know there are difficulties and I realise, as do most farmers, that the general level of prices would be barely affected, but I hold that this Measure would not only increase production, but have a great psychological influence on the morale of the agricultural industry, and would forge a valuable link in the public mind between two vital aspects of the Defence plan.

The main difficulty, no doubt, is the cost, and, as a soldier, I well appreciate the service views on this factor. I have commanded a unit of 600 men and being partly responsible for the feeding of it, I have felt myself obliged to buy in the cheapest market in order to make the best use of the funds at my disposal. Equally, on the higher plane, it would seem to be the first duty of the Admiralty and the Army and Air Councils, to provide, with the money allowed them, the maximum measure of defence. They are able, however, to take a long view not permitted the regimental officer, and one feels that they should do all they can to foster home-grown supplies of meat as these are as essential in war time as armaments and as vulnerable in transit from abroad. If, in fact, the policy of buying army supplies in the cheapest market were followed to its logical conclusion, we should close our Arsenals and buy arms at half what they now cost from some cheap labour country like Japan, and though this practice is unthinkable it is perhaps equally unsound in the case of foodstuffs. Moreover, they have to consider the enormous difficulty of providing storage for chilled and foreign meat at innumerable camps, and as every soldier realises, there is no doubt that the ideal meat supply for the changing needs of mobilised forces is that which is carried on the hoof.

I believe also, speaking now both as an agricultural Member and a soldier, that a very great deal could be done to keep down cost by making proper use of the secondary joint of English meat. This is said to have just as much food value as the prime joint, and a good deal more than cuts from the frozen corpses which we import, and though it requires to be cooked in a slightly different way, I cannot see any reason why service cooks should not receive the necessary training. The Forces might, in fact, in this connection easily perform a great national service unconnected with their duties by popularising the cheaper grades of fresh meat among a population in which an urge for physical fitness shows signs of awakening.

I beg to suggest, therefore, to the Minister of Agriculture that this whole question should be considered by the Government at an early date, and that the Government might be responsible for such additional cost as could not be met in the ordinary course from the respective Defence Funds. This cost would be a mere fleabite among other defence charges, and would, I think, be money well spent for reasons which, in conclusion, I will sum up. First, there is the published fact that the standard of living of the Forces was again to go up, and that only British meat would be supplied to them would be a welcome aid to recruiting. Secondly, the times are dangerous and the supply for the Defence Forces ought to come from a regular and assured source, which is unlikely to be disorganised in times of national emergency. The only assured source is a British one. Thirdly, this measure would be the logical corollary of the far-reaching defence measures which the Government have already initiated, and would also strengthen their efforts to encourage a "Buy British" mentality among our people. Lastly, this measure would give the keenest satisfaction and real encouragement to those who work on the land. This Government has done much for agriculture, but good men are still leaving the land at the rate of many thousands a year, and no effort should be spared to stop this deplorable exodus. The measure to which I have referred requires only a small effort, but I suggest that from every point of view it is well worth the making.

I have only a very short time in which to put the case for the Government, but I appreciate that my hon. and gallant Friend has given me as much time as he could. This is an old story, and there is very little new to be said about it. In spite of the excellence of my hon. and gallant Friend's arguments, I am afraid that he did not adduce anything very novel in the way of new arguments, but I should not like it to be assumed that we who are responsible for buying meat for the Army and for the Royal Air Force, or indeed, the Admiralty either, are in any way antagonistic to the interests of farmers. This afternoon I am of necessity speaking as junior Minister representing the War Office, but I am also the Member for a very important agricultural constituency in the country, and I am more than fully aware of the feelings which exist in the rural districts upon this matter.

Ever since the War it has been the policy of successive Governments to buy frozen meat of Dominion origin for the Forces. The annual consumption of the Army and the Royal Air Force amounts to some 14,000 tons, costing approximately some £470,000. To replace this supply of meat with home-killed meat at current prices would add a sum of about £335,000 to this figure. That is without making any allowance for any advance in price which might materialise as a result of increased demand. If we add to the Army and the Royal Air Force figures those of the Navy, the total increased cost per annum would be about £390,000. The same considerations apply in the case of home-produced meat, the cost being even higher than that of home-killed, and likely to rise proportionately higher were this change to take place, in view of the much more limited supply. It will, therefore, be seen that the financial difficulties in the way of meeting the suggestion of my hon. and gallant Friend are very serious indeed.

The administrative difficulties must not be lost sight of when we examine this question. In the first place, although a good many buildings for the storage of foodstuffs have been built in this country both for the Army and for the Royal Air Force, they are not designed for the storage of fresh meat but for the storage of frozen meat and are not suitable for the hanging of fresh meat. A very considerable expense would have to be incurred to provide the accommodation that would be necessary if we made a change-over to fresh meat. Any cost of this reconstruction has to be taken into account with the figures which I have given to my hon. Friend just now. My hon. Friend made a considerable point about the circumstances which would arise in the event of our being committed to another world war. It should be taken for granted, to start with, that the field forces of the British Army would have to be fed upon frozen meat, and whatever value might accrue to the British farmer as a result of our going over to home-produced meat in times of peace certainly in times of war we should have to rely upon supplies of frozen meat. Although my hon. Friend seemed to think that we might have some difficulty in ensuring the supplies, it probably occurred to him that, if we were not able to ensure supplies of frozen meat to the troops in the field, we should certainly not be able to ensure the supply of the greater amount of food which would be required for feeding our population at home. I must come back to the original point, that it is mainly a question of finance, and the figures which I have quoted to the House this afternoon will prove what an enormously increased expenditure is involved in a change of this kind.

The other points which my hon. Friend raised are covered by what I have said this afternoon. I would like to conclude with this. Whatever advantages may accrue to the agricultural industry—and I do not deny that they might be considerable, though I think that they are sometimes exaggerated—I do not think that the cost of providing those advantages is one which should fall on the Fighting Service Votes. To give this benefit to agriculture in this form would mean no less than giving it a concealed subsidy, and we have quite enough expenditure already to face without having an additional £400,000 piled on to us for the benefit of British farmers. Though I put it in that language, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not think that we are not interested in the welfare of the farmers. My point is that it is not for the Service Departments to bear the additional cost of what is nothing less than a concealed subsidy.

Time being somewhat short and the atmosphere somewhat thick with the crowded state of the House, might I take this opportunity of saying to you, Sir, and to the Speaker, to your colleagues, to the Serjeant-at-Arms, to all the officials of the House, to the Socialist party opposite and the Liberal party, which at this moment is defunct, and to everybody con- cerned, especially the messengers and servants of the House, a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I think that the hon. Member's remarks were probably thoroughly disorderly, but they will be appreciated by all.