asked the Minister of Labour whether he will state the total number of cases in the areas covered by the Stroud, Nailsworth, Wotton-under-Edge, and Dursley employment exchanges in which there have been increases and decreases as a result of the new unemployment regulations?

The areas referred to form part of the Unemployment Assistance Board's administrative area of Gloucester. In that area at the latest available dates the number of increases was about 65o and the number of decreases was nil.

asked the Minister of Labour whether he can state the turnover of applicants for allowances to the Unemployment Assistance Board for 1935 and 1936, for the period of two years?

It is regretted that information is not available in the form which the hon. Member desires, but the following figures are relevant. The total number of applicants for allowances on the 28th January, 1935, was 784,242, on the 20th January, 1936, it was 735,665 and on 25th January, 1937, 594,441. The average number of applicants during the calendar year 1935 was 749,105, and during 1936 it was 654,761. During 1936, the first year in respect of which complete information is available, the average weekly number of persons who made "initial" applications for allowances was 4,921, and the average weekly number who made "repeat" applications, i.e., cases where a previous application had been made to the Board, was 14,208.

asked the Minister of Labour whether he can give any information respecting the advisory committee set up by the International Labour Office in connection with the workers' use of leisure; and what individuals and what societies or interests in this country are represented and/or are members of the committee?

I presume that the hon. Member refers to the Committee on Workers' Spare Time, which was set up by the Governing Body of the International Labour Office in April, 1936. The Committee comprises an Executive Committee consisting of six members of the Governing Body itself, and an Advisory Committee of Correspondents on Workers' Leisure, consisting of representatives of organisations of the follow- ing types:—(a) Spare time organisations set up by the workers themselves and concerned with Workers' Education Centres, Broadcasting, Housing and Allotments, Sport and Travel; (b) employers' organisations; (c) official organisations; (d) organisations of a general nature, such as those concerned with broadcasting, youth hostels, recreation centres and allotments; (e) religious movements; and (f) miscellaneous bodies. The membership is selected so as to make the Committee, so far as possible, representative of all the States Members of the International Labour Organisation, and the object of the Committee is the co-ordination and development on an international scale of the movement to facilitate the satisfactory use by workers of their leisure. The Executive Committee has met in November, 1936, and in February, 1937.

asked the Minister of Labour, when he will be able to announce the names of the committee which he proposes to appoint to consider the annual holidays question?

I am in communication with the National Confederation of Employers' Organisations and the Trade Union Congress General Council, and I hope to be able to announce the names in the course of the next fortnight.

asked the Minister of Labour whether he can state the numbers of insured persons whose ordinary hours of work per week are over 48, 44 to 48, 40 to 43, and under 40?

For certain groups of industries (textiles, clothing, treatment of non-metalliferous mine and quarry products, and the brick, pottery, glass and chemical industries) statistics showing the proportions of workpeople, employed by firms who supplied information in response to an inquiry made by my Department, whose normal weekly hours, in October, 1935, were less than 44, 44, 44¼ to 46¾, 47, 47¼ to 47¾, 48, and over 48, respectively, are published on page 48 of the "Ministry of Labour Gazette" for February, 1937. Corresponding statistics for other manufacturing industries, and for certain non-manufacturing industries, are now in preparation and will be published in subsequent issues of the Gazette. The particulars given relate to wage-earners; similar figures for insured salary earners are not available.

asked the Home Secretary whether he is yet in a position to state what areas will be included in the proposed experimental increase in police motor patrols?

Subject to the concurrence of the police authorities concerned, it is proposed to carry out the experiment in the folloWing police districts:

• Lancashire County.
• Cheshire County.
• Liverpool.
• Manchester.
• Salford.
• Essex County.
• Metropolitan Police District.

asked the Minister of Health whether any instructions have been given to assessment committees regarding the assessment of public buildings such as libraries and museums; and, if not, whether he will consider the introduction of a uniform system of rating and assessment for these and comparable institutions?

There is no authority for the issue of instructions to Assessment Committees as to the assessment of any class of rateable hereditament. Questions of uniformity in valuation are primarily matters for consideration by the Central Valuation Committee, the statutory body appointed under the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, for that purpose. That Committee have recommended county conferences of the rating and assessment authorities, with a view to securing as wide a uniformity as possible in the assessment of properties such as those mentioned in the question.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has considered the communication sent to him by the honourable Member for Gillingham, giving particulars of the threats now being made against the Hungarian minority in Rumania, including the one that in a certain event a Saint Bartholomew's night against the Hungarian minority will he arranged; and whether he has any statement to make having regard to the circumstance that in Rumania a state of terror exists amongst the Hungarian minority whose rights were guaranteed by the minority treaties to which this Country was a party?

The article dated 12th November last, to which my hon. Friend was good enough to draw my attention, apparently appeared in a provincial newspaper to which I have no reason to suppose that any particular importance should be ascribed. I have no reason to believe that the writer expressed any views other than his own or that his article should be regarded seriously as constituting a threat to the Hungarian minority in Transylvania, nor have I received any reports confirming the existence of a state of terror.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he has information or can give any estimate respecting the number of civilians and of combatants killed and wounded on each side in Spain since the beginning of the rebellion?

I regret that I have no information on which I can base any such estimate.