asked the Home Secretary whether he can state the profit earned and paid to the Treasury by the Carlisle State Management licensing scheme for the years 1935, 1936 and 1937?

The following statement gives the information required by the hon. Member.

A Rule of Procedure, in so far as it reproduces no provision of a Statute, is directory only, and this has always been the case.

asked the Secretary of State for War, whether we have adopted the plan of dropping Air infantry by parachute?

No units of parachute infantry have been formed, but the technical aspects of the problem are naturally always before the General Staff.

asked the Postmaster-General whether he will state the grounds on which the tariff rate was fixed at £1 3s. quarterly for a telephone line connecting a private residence with an exchange which is within seven miles of a selected central point in Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool or Manchester, whereas the rate was fixed at £1 quarterly for a similar line elsewhere in the provinces?

The higher charge for a residence line in the four towns named is based on the greater net cost of providing telephone service, including the cost of setting up telephone calls, in those areas as compared with the rest of the country outside London. Subscribers in those towns have, of course, a compensating advantage in the larger area available for local calls.

asked the Minister of Labour whether he has now received a report from the National Joint Council for Dock Labour as to the signing of dock workers at employment exchanges?

As I informed the hon. Member on 3rd February, the National Joint Council has recommended that the experiment should be made in the Hartlepools of requiring one attendance only each day, and this is being done.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he will consider the desirability of making the renewal fees for licences to keep dogs payable on 1st May instead of 1st January in each year, so that unnecessary suffering through inclement weather to unlicensed and homeless dogs may be avoided; and whether he will introduce amending legislation so that such licences shall be operative for one year from the date of issue instead of only to the following 31st December?

The dog licence duty in England and Wales is not an Imperial but a local taxation duty. I doubt whether my hon. Friend's proposals would be practicable, but in any case I could not consider the initiation of legislation to give effect to either of them unless they were supported by the various local authorities concerned.