Will the Prime Minister state what will be the business for Thursday, 16th June?

The business for Thursday, 16th June, will be: Report and Third Reading of the Herring Industry Bill, and of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Bill; Second Reading of the Naval Discipline (Amendment) Bill; Committee stage of the Essential Commodities Reserves Bill, and of the Imperial Telegraphs Bill; further consideration of the Mental Deficiency Bill, and, if there is time, other Orders on the Paper.

I wish to raise the question of the position of ex-Service men. On two days of this week, we were dealing with preparations against the emergency of war, namely, air raid precautions and the Essential Commodities Reserves Bill. When the House was dealing with those matters I thought of the position of the men who did such noble work 20 odd years ago. Have we forgotten what they did for us? In preparing for the future, we ought to remember, and try to do justice to, those men who did so well for their country. I would remind the House that 6,000,000 men in the United Kingdom served in His Majesty's Forces during the Great War. They were among the best of the nation's manhood; and 876,000 of them were killed or died on active service, while those wounded numbered almost 2,000,000. Over 1,250,000 pensions have been awarded since that time, and the total amount of money that has been paid from the country's funds amounts to £1,221,500,000. We are now paying £41,000,000 a year to cover pensions and the expenses involved. As the years have gone by, the sum has been reduced, and it now amounts to about 17s. 6d. per head of the population. For a number of years after the War, things went fairly smoothly in dealing with ex-Service men, but during the last two or three years there has been great agitation throughout the country, because it is felt that the ex-Service men are not receiving the justice to which they are entitled.

In February, 1937, a deputation headed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. E. Smith) was received by the Minister of Pensions, and the deputation asked that a Committee should be set up to examine the whole position. The Minister was courteous to us, as he always is. Indeed, one of the tributes that one can pay to His Majesty's Government is that they are always courteous in dealing with requests made to them; but unfortunately, they go no further and too often they try to put us off with nice words. The question was raised again last October in the King's Speech, which provided an opportunity for many of us to state the position. The reply given then was that the Government was awaiting further developments, and that attention would be given to the matter. The question was then raised fairly exhaustively on the Motion for the Adjournment on 23rd December, 1937; it was raised again on the Motion for the Adjournment on 14th April, 1938; and now, again, we are raising it in order to see whether we can get some assurance from the Government. This is the fifth occasion on which we raise the question, but I assure the Minister that it is not the last time, and that probably next time we shall be more determined and shall raise the matter when it can be dealt with more effectively by way of a Division.

I wish now to refer to one or two questions of a general character. Every time the subject of ex-Service men's pensions is raised in the House, hon. Members in all parties express indignation about the way in which the ex-Service men are treated. Hon. Members will remember that on Monday last, Questions were asked by several hon. Members regarding the position of war widows whose pensions had been taken away. The Reply given by the Minister was that in 1935, 292 were struck off; in 1936, 237; and in 1937, 170. The feeling which prevails in the House is that these widows, who were accused of wrongdoing, were not given sufficient opportunity of meeting the charges levelled against them. I hope that to-day the Minister will tell the House exactly how these cases are dealt with, and explain what opportunities are given to the widows to reply to the charges, which can be very insidious, and to which it is difficult for them to reply unless they face their accusers and know exactly what are the charges.

On the same day, a Question was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) regarding the serious position which arises when an ex-Service man dies, and his death is held not to be due wholly to War service, with the result that his widow does not get any pension. My hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street gave a distressing case where a man returned from the war a physical wreck, the object of sympathy from the whole village, but whose widow, when he died, received no pension because it was discovered that the man's death was not due to War services. It is very difficult to explain this matter away. I trust that our representations will cause the Minister to be a little more lenient in these cases, and to give the widows the, benefit of the doubt and not be as hard on them as in the past.

I asked another question on Monday concerning a case where a man was in receipt of a 30 per cent. pension and had to give up work altogether. There was shrapnel in the man's body, but the doctor who examined him said that he could not say that the shrapnel caused more than 30 per cent. of the disablement. I maintained that the wound was having an effect on the man's mind, and I am satisfied that the deterioration in his health was due entirely to his feeling of what had happened in the War. I asked in my question whether in such cases the Department called in a psychologist to assist in determining the case. The Minister's Reply was rather interesting. He said that in every case in which an applicant produces evidence to show that his mind has been affected by his War service, an expert in mental diseases is consulted. A psychologist was not called in in this case because I could not say that the man's mind was deranged, for it was not. His War experience was acting on his mind so that he could not attend to his work.

What I am asking is that a psychologist should be called in to examine a man, not merely when the man shows signs of insanity, but if the War experiences have any effect on his mind. Even Members of Parliament are depressed or uplifted according to the things that are being discussed. I hope that the Minister will give wider consideration to this question and that a psychologist will be called in when there is definite medical evidence that he could help. Even if the psychologist did not agree with the doctor, it would give great satisfaction to everybody concerned to know that such cases were dealt with in this way.

In the Debate which took place on 23rd December, the Minister defending his Department, assured us that many requests made by Members of Parliament did not get the true facts of the case and he mentioned my name. He said:

" I will give an instance of the way in which hon. Members may be misled. The hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) produced about a year ago, at my invitation, a number of cases "—

I did—

" with which he was dissatisfied. In 14 of those cases I advised him in each individual case to request the complainant to present himself at the area office, and, as they were all fresh cases, to state his case and, if necessary, be medically examined. To this day 12 out of those 14 complainants have not yet appeared, and the House will realise the difficulty which that sort of thing causes to the Ministry of Pensions. You receive a complaint, but you do not get the opportunity of saying whether or not the complaint is justified.''—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd December, 1937; col. 2241, Vol. 330.]

I could see there was some mistake in that matter, so I got the names from the Minister and took it upon myself to interview the men. I asked them why they had not been, and there were various reasons. Some felt that it was hardly worth while because of the way they had been treated before, and they thought they were wasting time. I urged them that when one was trying to help them they should do their share. Only one case has been successful, and that case is to come forward for further examination.

I do not know whether many Members' experiences are like my own, but I feel that if I have got one per cent. of cases through I have done extremely well. It seems as though the Minister just glances at the heading when you send him a letter and he at once writes back and says: "I regret," etc. That is the general tale of Members of Parliament. The applicants have usually exhausted every other means before they go to their Members of Parliament, and that is why such a large percentage of them is rejected. I was amazed when the Minister, replying to a Question, said that some 30 per cent. of cases which were re-examined had some hope; Members of Parliament had not been so lucky in that respect. Some other people must have got the benefit of it.

I want now to turn to the main theme of this morning's discussion, which is dealt with in Command Paper 5738, of 1938. In the last Debate in this House on 14th April, the Minister of Pensions referred to this Command Paper and to some of the documents printed in it. Many hon. Members have not had the privilege of seeing this paper because when the Debate took place it had not been issued from the Vote Office. I received my copy in the middle of May; it is dated for May. I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that a committee was set up by the ex-service men's association for the purpose of investigating the question of prematurely-aged ex-service men. At the conference of the association a resolution was carried in favour of this matter being properly dealt with, and as a result the committee was set up. In its report, that committee said:

" The Committee has made exhaustive and comprehensive inquiries into the whole question, in the course of which a large number of Legion branches have submitted evidence and particulars of individual cases. In addition, the committee has had the advantage of considering the views of prominent members of the medical profession."

As the result of the findings of the committee, the Government were urged to set up a Royal Commission for the purpose of examining the whole matter and seeing whether there were not some justification for the claim that ex-service men who went through the rigours of the War were showing signs of physical deterioration earlier than would have been the case if they had not done that war service. A letter was sent to the Prime Minister, in the following terms:

" Dear Prime Minister,

As I believe you are aware, the British Legion has for some time been concerned with the large number of ex-service men who apply to the Legion for assistance, suffering from some form of chronic sickness, with consequent loss of earning capacity and industrial value.

A discussion on this subject took place at the annual conference of the Legion in 1936, following which a special committee was established in June of that year for the purpose of investigating the problem of prematurely-aged ex-service men. The committee has now completed its investigations, and its findings have been embodied in a report, six copies of which I now have pleasure in forwarding to you herewith."

That letter was sent from the British section of the Legion; the Scottish section dealt with the matter also, and sent a Memorandum to the Prime Minister on similar lines. They said:

" It is for this reason that it desires an independent Royal Commission to investigate these matters."

Then they gave a list of the matters which they desired investigated. The Prime Minister considered the matter, and he stated in his reply that in his opinion a case had not been made out. He went on to say:

" I cannot, I fear, agree that you have shown a case for a Government inquiry, nor am I satisfied that such an inquiry would be feasible or likely to lead to any reliable conclusions."

That was the Prime Minister's reply after the matter had been exhaustively investigated by the men who belong to the ex-service men's organisation.

In one of the reports in this White Paper an extract is printed from a report presented by the Ex-Soldiers Rehabilitation Commission, New Zealand, 1930.

This report states:

" More than one of the medical witnesses that gave evidence before us spoke of the mentality of the returned soldier as something recognisable by them as distinctive: as the mentality of a class of men who, in some cases for years, were subjected to a degree of mental and nervous strain, and life under insanitary and uncomfortable conditions, to a degree never known before. This has caused them to be restored to civil life with the marks of these experiences upon them; they suffer and display lessened nervous control, and many of the symptoms of premature old age."

Here is the point:

" It should be remembered that according to a principle of selection the returned soldiers should (omitting the results of War service) display better health and more stamina than those of their age who did not go to the Front. The tests for military service tended to send out best men (physically) to the front, and retained without War service those who were not so fit. If, therefore, at the present time (considering only persons who were by age eligible for service during the period of war), ex-service men show at least as much tendency to ill-health as those who did not serve, there is a prima facie case for the submission that their tendency to ill-health is due to War service."

The Minister of Pensions has a great regard for the British Legion. On 23rd December, 1937, when defending his position and when he was using some part of the ex-service men's report which pleased him, he said:

" The British Legion has very highly experienced officials and is in constant touch with ex-service men, and is not likely to give an opinion based upon ignorance or lack of acquaintence with what we are taking about."

The report which I have read is an ex-service men's report calling upon the Government to set up a commission of inquiry and presenting the evidence upon which they base that request. These are the very men who, the Minister says, were likely to justify their case on the facts. The report was signed by men of high standing: the Chairman, Major Sir Francis Fetherston-Godley; the National Vice-Chairman, Col. S. W. L. Ashwanden; the Chairman of the Central Relief Committee, Mr. S. E. Perry; Mr. A. Deacon of the Sheffield Branch; Mr. W. F. Francis of the Swansea Branch; Mr. S. Kelly of the City of Westminster Branch, and the Secretary, Mr. A. G. Webb. These men have defended the position of the Minister of Pensions from time to time, and they have also issued a report asking the Government to do something in what they believe to be a genuine case worthy of examination. Why should we not accept the position as it was found to be by their investigation?

This demand is not confined to one part of the House. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) has urged this matter on two occasions, and every speaker who takes part in these Debates, on whatever side of the House he may sit, urges that an examination of this question is necessary. There are some matters that are not what may be termed purely political matters in which all parts of the House can join for the common good. I will name three of them, as I see it. First, there is the defence of the country; we all join in thinking that an adequate defence should be provided for the country. Then I think we shall all join in wanting to give adequate old age pensions to our aged people; that is another form of agreement common among us all. The third is the one that I am advocating now, that we ought to try and give justice, or at least to remove the suspicion that justice is not being given, to that great body of men who went out in the War period without any thought of what might happen for the future. They realised that the country was in danger and went out to give of their best in the country's service, and I think we are all united in wanting to give satisfaction to those men. If, as the Government say, there is nothing in these allegations, let them examine the case and satisfy us that their position is cor- rect. That would remove from our minds what is agitating them. If, on the other hand, there are grounds for these complaints, the Government cannot ignore an examination of them.

May I point out that the present soldiers, sailors, and airmen are entitled to very different conditions from those obtaining 20 years ago? I have in my possession a copy of the "News-Letter" issued this morning, in which the Secretary of State for War has an article telling the country what they are doing for the soldier of to-day and that the conditions are so good that nobody ought to refuse to enlist. The House of Commons has agreed that soldiers ought to have better conditions than they ever had before. If that is now recognised, and we have the knowledge that some of those who fought for us are not being treated fairly, that ought to prevail on the good will of the House of Commons, and an examination ought to be made into the whole question to see whether there is any justification at all for these complaints. I ask the Minister of Pensions not to come out with a prepared speech wiping this off. I hope he will put aside the speech that he has prepared, listen to the claims made from all sides of the House, and say to himself, "I want to be unbiased in this matter, to try and give justice to these people, and if it is the prevailing wish of the House that something should be done, I want to be magnanimous and to say that I will take this matter back to the Cabinet and ask them to examine this question." If he will do that, he will deserve and get the thanks of this whole Assembly.

The last time that I spoke on this question, I referred to my own experiences, along with other people with whom I was associated, and I want to follow that up by saying that my interest in this matter was intensified by the letters that I received, when I came to this House, from constituents of mine and from people in other parts of the country. As a result of reading those letters, I visited a number of the people who live in the vicinity of the district which it is my duty to represent, and as a result of visits to their homes I was bound to take the interest in this issue which I have done, if I was truly to represent them. Therefore, I started putting down questions, and I was pleased at the interest which Lord Baldwin took in those questions when we first raised them. Owing, however, to the difficulties that he was in at that time, he said he could not give his personal attention to the matter, and he referred us to the Minister of Pensions. A number of us went along to the Minister of Pensions as a deputation, representing all parties in the House, and our main plea on that occasion was that an investigation into the question should be conducted by the Government. The Minister, in reply, asked us to await the result of the inquiry that was being conducted by the British Legion. We reluctantly agreed to do so, and for months and months very few questions were put in the House and very little activity took place, because we were prepared to await the result of that inquiry.

At the same time, we thought it was a Government responsibility. We realised that only Government Departments had access to the men's records and the statistical information which is brought out as a result of administering the various social services. However, despite our opinion at that time, we awaited this report, which has been referred to this morning by my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker). Let us say, quite candidly, that the whole House is very disappointed with the White Paper which has been issued. We have seen that the inquiry has been conducted by the British Legion, and we have read the correspondence which has passed between the Prime Minister, representing the Government, and the British Legion, and this report is a disappointment, as I say, to the whole House. I have in my hand an official publication issued in 1917 by the Government of day, dealing with soldiers' pensions. They state in this publication:

" Soldiers disabled by wounds, injuries or disease on military duty during this war will get pensions according to the degree of their disablement."

Has that promise been carried out? The document also states:

" He gets this pension if for instance he has lost two limbs. If he can still earn while drawing this 27s. 6d. a week so much the better for him. That will not alter his pension."

Does that prevail to-day? Every hon. Member of this House knows the pro- mises that were made, and one could go on giving others. For example, this document continues:

" Injuries not included in the printed list, and diseases, will be estimated by a Board.

A Board will also decide whether disease was caused by, or was made worse by, military service.…

A soldier may apply to have his pension fixed according to his earnings before the war.…

A man's permanent pension is not fixed until the doctors consider that his injuries are as much cured as they are ever likely to be.…

If a man has been killed in action during the war or has died from wounds or from injuries while on duty, and through no fault of his own, or from disease contracted on active service—"

and I want to emphasise this in particular—

" or aggravated by service, his widow may get a pension equal to half the soldier's pension for the highest degree of disablement, according to his rank."

If these promises had been carried out, you would hear very little in this House of the grievances which we are constantly raising. It is because the promises contained in that official publication have not been carried out, because hundreds of men in this country whose constitutions have been undermined, or who have contracted disease due to the effects of the war upon their constitutions, have so much difficulty in proving their cases, that we plead for them to-day. We claim that these men are entitled to be given the benefit of the doubt to a greater extent than they have been given it by the Minister of Pensions. When I went to get my correspondence from the Post Office last evening, I found this letter:

" Dear Sir, My husband is an ex-service man having served his country from 1915–18. For the past 13 years he has been in a mental hospital. I receive no pension for him. I have a little girl to rear. I myself go out to work and I only earn 23s. per week to keep us on. As I am getting older I am feeling worn out with my work, with doing the work at home, and with the worry of my husband. As I have spoken to a number of my friends they have asked me to write to you."

It is such letters which make us realise the sad cases which have arisen out of war service. If that woman has any proof at all that her husband is in that position because of his War service, or if there is any doubt about it, she ought to be given the benefit of the doubt and ought not to be expected to live under conditions of that kind. It is for such cases that we are pleading this morning. I understand that the administration of the Ministry of Pensions is based upon these principles: to decide whether an injury can be proved to be the result of war service or whether a disease has been contracted because of war service. We say that in many instances, while it is difficult to prove that a man's injury or disease directly arises out of war service, it has been in many instances aggravated by it, and that if there is any doubt the men should be given the benefit of it. I know it is alleged that certain people are always prepared to play up to this kind of thing. No one realises that more than I do, but while I admit that, I have no hesitation in saying that the big percentage of the applicants are genuine cases and deserve better treatment than they have received.

While it becomes increasingly difficult to prove our cases to the satisfaction of the Ministry of Pensions, we say that the records of service of these men and the medical evidence that they produce ought to be sufficient to earn them more consideration than they receive. There are thousands of men who can produce certicates from medical men in their own localities and from local hospitals; and some of the officers with whom I have dealt through the officers' section of the benevolent fund of the British Legion have produced medical evidence from some of the most reputable medical practitioners in the country, but it has been of no avail when placed before the Ministry of Pensions. If the Ministry of Pensions is not now prepared to go to the Cabinet and say that the time has arrived when, owing to the pressure that has been brought upon Members by public opinion, more generous treatment should be extended towards applicants, I for one am not prepared to carry on. The Minister knows that we are not exaggerating the position. He has travelled round the country, met local pensions committees and public-spirited people who have served on the committees of organisations of all descriptions, and I am confident that he has received a large amount of evidence of the character that we are placing before him. Major Fetherstone Godley, speaking at Leicester in December, 1935, said:

" There are at least 100,000 prematurely aged and disabled ex-Service men in this country to-day who are physically unfit for employment."

When we have raised this question in the past the Minister of Pensions has said that he wanted individual cases. When we have produced individual cases we have found that, while the replies were couched in the most courteous terms, it was always regretted that nothing could be done for the individual. I want to get on record some figures which cannot be doubted in order that hon. Members can have an opportunity of considering them. I will quote from to-day's "Manchester Guardian," which reports a deputation that waited on the Minister the other day. There is growing support in the House for our campaign and we welcome it, but I am sorry to notice that many of those who support us are not present this morning, nor are they always present when this issue is raised on other occasions. The following figures appear in the "Manchester Guardian." At 31st March, 1937, there were 419,200 pensions; 18,918 are unclassified; 252,274 are assessed at 20 to 40 per cent. disabled; 83,744 at 50 to 60 per cent.; 37,937 at 60 to 70 per cent.; and only 26,327 at 100 per cent. It then goes on to analyse the reply which the Minister gave to the deputation.

I want to give some extracts from answers that have been given in the House. The former Minister gave the following figures. From 1931 to 1936 the number of claims to pensions for ex-service men's widows and orphans was 13,362, and the number disallowed was 5,598. The present Minister of Pensions has given the following figures in reply to the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies)—showing the death rate per 1,000 of adult male disability pensioners calculated for each of the age groups specified, for the year ended 31st March, 1936. For the purposes of comparison the death rates in the corresponding groups of the civil population, male, have been added. I hope the Minister and the House will pay attention to these statistics, because they are an endorsement of our claim and are proof that we are not overstating our case, but, if anything, understating it. The Minister of Pensions gave these age group statistics. At ages between 35 and 39 the death-rate for ex-service men was 7·1 and for civilians ·8. Between 40 and 44 years the death-rate for ex-service men was ·7 and for civilians ·4. Between 45 and 49 years the death-rate for ex-service men was 1·4 and for civilians ·3. Those figures prove our case beyond all possibility of doubt, and we again plead with the Minister of Pensions to give consideration to our request for an investigation and to consider with the Prime Minister the White Paper which has been published.

There is one matter which I hesitate to mention, but which I feel bound to raise in view of the position in the country. If Members of this House give their attention to their duties here it is a full-time job, and they have their hands full, and what applies to Members applies even more so to Ministers of State, particularly in these times, but we find that the Minister of Pensions is being used as the chief propagandist for the Government throughout the country. When a Cabinet Minister cannot keep an appointment in the country the Minister of Pensions goes to fill his place, and I have no hesitation in saying that if the Minister of Pensions were giving his attention to the administration of his Ministry he would not have so much time to fulfil these other appontments.

Further, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) for reminding me of it, if any Cabinet Minister is a bit off colour, or if the Minister of Agriculture cannot attend at Question time, it is always the Minister of Pensions who answers the questions. I am convinced that the Minister of Pensions could not be as familiar as he is with agricultural questions, as we can see by his replies to supplementary questions, if he were not giving a good deal of attention to agricultural affairs. I say that the time has arrived when the Minister of Pensions ought to be asked to devote more time to this subject which we are raising this morning. In addition, I find according to this morning's "Manchester Guardian" that the Minister of Pensions stated at a meeting:

" If the Socialist party were in office to-day there would be war to-morrow."

I have no hesitation in saying that that is a most irresponsible statement, and on behalf of our people I repudiate it. If the Minister were giving his time to his own duties he would not have the time to make irresponsible statements of that kind.

I want to conclude with the following: A person afflicted with a physical defect or disease is handicapped in working for his living. Only those who have been engaged in manual labour, particularly in the mines, with present-day mechanisation, on the railways, or in industry generally, can fully realise how essential it is for a man to be in perfect physical condition if he is to hold his own in industry. A man whose constitution has been undermined feels humiliated when he cannot hold his own with the rest of the men. Further, men who have been forced to lose time through ill-health are the first to be discharged when slackness of trade arrives. Not only is the man affected, directly or indirectly, but there are bigger tragedies arising from the effects upon the man's wife and children, because his wife cannot maintain her own economic position, in accordance with her own likes, in the district where she is living, if his constitution has been undermined and he cannot keep his job. She cannot do justice to her children.

Therefore, we say that ex-service men are not only affected directly in the way which has been proved by the statistical information given by the Minister of Pensions, but are affected indirectly in a way that only men who have been engaged in manual labour can realise. For that reason we shall have no hesitation in raising this issue time after time. As the hon. Member for Leigh has said, if we cannot get justice on this occasion it will be our duty, no matter what Government is in power, to go on raising this issue until the Government will agree to an investigation, because we are confident that if there is an investigation our case will be proved and justice will be done.

When I had the honour of taking part in a debate on this subject on 23rd December, I gave one instance of the difficulty of establishing a man's claim to pension. My example in that case was an ex-naval rating who had gone into the Navy on a pre-war engagement. I need not stress the point that very careful examination was given to the eyesight of recruits for the Royal Navy in pre-war days. This man, formerly employed in agriculture, was accepted for the Royal Navy before the War. His eyesight has now failed, and he makes a claim to the Ministry of Pensions and suggests that it is due to his war service. He served, I believe, at Zeebrugge. He was asked, quite rightly, to bring forward evidence in support of his claim. He points out, first, that his eyesight was examined by the authorities of the Royal Navy when he was a young man, and that as an agricultural worker he had not been engaged in an occupation which was likely to prejudice his eyesight. He then submits a letter from his employer before the War stating that his eyesight was good, and another letter from his employer immediately after the War, in which it is said that he was often taken home from work with severe pains in the head. He also sent a doctor's certificate. I ask the Minister of Pensions whether he can suggest any other way in which an ordinary agricultural worker living in a small Lincolnshire village can establish a claim that his eyesight has been affected by the War. His case has been turned down.

I feel that we have now reached a stage at which, with genuine cases reaching us as Members of Parliament, we are entitled to go to the Ministry and to say, The onus of establishing a claim to pension is now bearing far too hardly on the man." Instead of the balance being on the side of the man having to prove his case the Ministry of Pensions ought to take the other view and say, "If the man has a good record we are prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt"—that is, of course, if he has a good record, because we must all admit that there are some people who will try to secure something to which they are riot entitled. I have no desire to make the difficulties of my hon. Friend the Minister greater than they are, in view of his many other occupations in addition to the Ministry of Pensions, to which reference has been made, but I do feel that there is a widespread and growing dissatisfaction with the work of the Ministry of Pensions at the present time. Let me refer to the Report of the Minister for the year ended 31st March, 1937, in which, on page 3, there is a reference to the increased use of independent medical specialists. It says that the advice of a number of eminent specialists, surgical and medical, nominated by the Presidents of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, is used in determining the more difficult of these cases. Their advice is now sought by the Ministry. It is interesting to see how the advice is sought.

During the year ended 31st March, 1937, 143 cases were so submitted. In every case the entire evidence and the transcript of all relevant reports and other documents affecting the claim are put before the specialist, who is invited to form his independent opinion on them, while he can also at his own option examine the claimant personally. In a question intimately concerning a man's health it is quite impossible to come to any decision at all on merely written evidence in cases of this nature. It is the experience of those of us who are engaged in industry that if a claim is made on behalf of a workman we refer it automatically to the insurance company, and the first step that the insurance company takes is to have the man examined by the insurance company's doctor. The case goes a little further, and it is examined then perhaps with a view to going into the courts. The insurance company is not satisfied with the mere expression of opinion of a specialist, based on the early report of the doctor. The man is sent to London at the insurance company's expense to be examined by the specialist there.

I feel that where these very difficult cases come up, as they must come up, there will be very much more satisfaction if the applicants are seen and personally examined by a specialist. For my own part I would not accept any report on my own health if I knew that a complete list of my physical characteristics and my disabilities had been submitted by 20 doctors to a specialist and he was prescribing on that. His medicine would automatically be suspect. In all these difficult cases the man himself should be personally examined by the specialist. It is not that there is a large number of cases. There were only 143 in the whole year, something under three a week. I do ask the Minister to examine this question of pensions, not with the view that it is the duty of the Ministry to insist that in no case shall a pension be altered unless every evidence has been brought—it is very difficult to bring it—but rather to reverse their attitude and to say, "We are prepared in the case of men who can bring evidence that before their service they were of good physique and character and now find themselves suffering from some illness which in the opinion of their local doctor or other qualified doctor may be due to their war service— we are prepared, as a wealthy and grateful country, to give these men the benefit of the doubt".

I am afraid that I have shared the experience of other hon. Members who have taken part in this debate, in finding that I get a smaller percentage of success in applying to this particular Ministry than in applying to any other Ministry. I am not in any way putting that personally on the Minister himself, because we must in fairness recognise that as time goes on it becomes more difficult to estimate the precise facts and to bring logical proof of what we are protesting on behalf of an applicant; but at the same time, from whatever cause it be, I always open a pension claim with a certain feeling of sinking at the heart that I am not likely to be successful. since I took part in the debate on 23rd December I have had, from all parts of the country, a perfect spate of cases dealing with pensions. I suppose it is one of the penalties for taking part in a debate of this kind. But they have come from all parts of the country and, as the proper practice is, I have advised the applicants to proceed through their own Members of Parliament.

What impressed me was that a great many of the claims were quite old claims that had been turned down years ago, and they left the impression on my mind that there is an enduring discontent in many homes all over the country, where a claim has been turned down, and yet years after there is a feeling of rankling injustice and the claimants are ready to try to fight the whole thing over again with a new Minister, of course with even greater difficulties owing to the lapse of time. That is the impression that has been brought home to me by the correspondence I have had during the past few weeks. I feel it particularly with regard to the claims of widows who are claiming that their husbands died owing to war service. I cannot be satisfied, after the cases I have seen, that the benefit of the doubt really is being given.

I have had cases like this. A man has been suffering from a disability which is admittedly due to war service because he has been given a disability pension. Then he goes to hospital. He dies, and on the death certificate the pensionable disability is actually mentioned. But there is something else as well, because something else has intervened; and the claim has not been granted. In cases like that I think that, provided a persionable disability is mentioned on the death certificate, the claim is proved. The actual terms of the letters I have received from successive Ministers of Pensions make me feel that the burden of proof is being put entirely on the side of the applicant. They say, "It has not been established that the injury was due to war service." That really is demanding mathematical and absolute proof. There must be doubt in cases where, possibly, a man might have died even if he had never been to the war at all. But if there is a disability which can be connected with his death I should have thought that the Ministry should pursue the policy of granting the claim. I am not satisfied that they or their medical advisors take that view. Therefore I am very glad that the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) has raised this matter to-day and that we are once again doing a kind of sit-down strike, refusing to go away from this House for the Recess without obtaining from the Minister some statement which we hope may give comfort and reassurance to those who come and ask for our help.

I shall not detain the House for long after the speech of the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker). This matter has been debated on numerous occasions, and it must be very difficult for hon. Members to find new points to put to the Minister. Certainly one new point has been advanced to-day by the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. E. Smith), and that is that the Minister himself has so little to do that he is being used to assist other Departments and to make speeches in the country—speeches which, I am bound to say, do not often meet with the success that they may perhaps deserve. That point has a moral. The Ministry of Pensions is merely an administrative Department. It has hardly anything to do with policy, and although we are precluded from saying anything to-day which might even suggest a change of policy necessitating legislation, nevertheless our speeches on this occasion may have that effect at a future date. This morning we are bound to refer only to the administrative side of the Ministry of Pensions. The Minister indicated that he had not come here with a prepared speech. We hope that he will endeavour to reply to the points which have been very cogently put by Members on all sides of the House, because this is a subject which enlists the sympathy and advocacy of all hon. Members. But if the Minister had not come here this morning with a set speech, I fear that he has come here with set ideas in his mind. I noticed a paragraph in the "Times" this morning, as follows:

" The subjects proposed for discussion on the adjournment for the Whitsuntide recess are various."

Then there is a reference to ex-Servicemen's pensions, and other matters and the "Times" reporter goes on to say:

"The debate, whatever the intrinsic merits of the speeches may be, is unlikely to penetrate deep into the consciousness of the general public, for the reasons that the subjects have all been raised before in not dissimilar circumstances, and that no statement of significance is expected from the Government."

I do not know how far in the confidence of the Government or of the hon. Gentleman the "Times" Parliamentary correspondent is, but I fear very much that that is a shrewd prognostication on his part. I propose to emphasise what has already been said by other hon. Members by giving a few quotations from the report of a special committee of the British Legion on this subject. Hon. Members know that the British Legion is no revolutionary body. It is not even a political body. Most hon. Members, I believe, will agree with me when I say that it does not contain by any means a predominant number of supporters of the Labour Party. Indeed I should say that, particularly as regards the officials who administer its affairs both at headquarters and in the branches, their politics accord more with those of the Government than with those of the Opposition. Therefore, in considering the quotations which I propose to give from this report hon. Members may take it for granted that this body is not biased against the Government. On page 5 of the report we find this statement:—

"The Committee is, however, convinced from a survey of individual cases, that there are a number of ex-Service men whose health has broken down as a result of the rigours of war service, although it is not possible to substantiate by medical sequence a direct connection with such service."

That is largely our case. The manner in which these individual cases are dealt with does not lead to satisfaction in the minds of hon. Members or of the applicants themselves. In fact, most hon. Members who have had to bring cases to the attention of the Minister have been convinced that the system which is now operating is not adequate according to present-day requirements. On page 6 of the report the British Legion Committee further said:—

"The Committee computed that throughout the country there were at least 17,972 Great War ex-Service men between the ages of 40 and 60 suffering from chronic sickness, unable to work and forced to apply to the local authority for assistance."

They go on to say:

" Branches of the Legion were asked for certain information concerning their own districts and from the replies received from some 750 branches it will be seen that of the cases brought to the notice of the branches, 54 per cent. although in need were struggling along without recourse to the Public Assistance Committee."

What does that indicate? That this body of ex-Service men, many of them, admittedly, broken-down in health, are even now not broken-down in spirit and that, if at all possible, they refuse to go to the public assistance committee to seek help. Should we not be prepared to treat these men in a more generous fashion? On page 7 of the report we find the following:

" It has been represented to the Committee that ex-Service men are strongly averse to applying for public assistance, many regarding it as degrading and conveying a stigma of pauperism and consequent loss of standing and self-respect."

I know that these men, like other citizens in distressed circumstances, have the right to go to the Public Assistance Committee, but the fact remains that they do not want to do that, and they ought not to be forced to do it if it is avoidable. May I quote an example of the working of the pensions warrant, as the Minister will probably say in his reply that he is bound to administer his Department in accordance with the pensions warrant. In the same report on page II, I find:

" For example, many men receiving pensions assessed at from 6o per cent. to 100 per cent. are still able to carry on their normal occupation and receive full wages for it."

I am not denying the right of those who suffered in the last War to get whatever pension they can get, but a case was brought to my attention the other day by an ex-service man, who had not received a pension himself, of one of his colleagues who was enjoying a zoo per cent. pension and at the same time receiving full wages, and very adequate wages, for the work which he was doing. I do not want to alter that man's circumstances. If he suffered in the War he ought to be compensated for it. But such a case is bound to leave a certain impression on the minds of those who are not able to get adequately-paid work, and who find themselves turned down, with only a small pension or no pension at all. I know that the problem is a very difficult one for the Minister, but I would point out that we are not appealing on behalf of a small number of ex-service men. Hon. Members may have few or many cases to bring to the Minister's notice, and I, personally, have only had a few, but I wish to quote again from the Legion's report some figures to show the extent of this problem. The report states:

" The Committee's enquiries reveal that there are to-day in the country at least 95,539 ex-service men unable to work through incapacity and in need."

Hon. Members can draw their own conclusions from that, as to the size of the problem. I should like also to quote some figures as to the number receiving public assistance. The figures given in the appendix to the report show conclusively that the number of Great War ex-Service men between the ages of 40 and 49 receiving assistance is in excess of the number of non-combatants between those ages in receipt of assistance. The figures may not be quite conclusive, because the totals show that in the first category, that is to say, those ex-service men who served in the Great War, there are 2,444 receiving public assistance, while among non-combatants there are 2,346; but this last figure is swelled by the remarkable figures from the county of Glamorgan. That in itself, I think, indicates a problem with which the Ministry of Pensions is not concerned.

Every hon. Member of the House, including the Minister of Pensions himself, knows that his Department is the Cinderella of all the Government Departments. It is reckoned to be a self-liquidating Department, a Department that in course of time, by death, will liquidate itself, and the country will then not be called upon to find the heavy sums of money which it has been called upon to find in the past. We ask the Minister of Pensions to adopt an entirely different policy—not to look upon himself as being, as it were, a Minister without portfolio, the handmaiden of all other Departments of State, the hon. Gentlemen who is there to go to the country and to make speeches on suitable and unsuitable occasions in order to bolster up the Government's record. We ask him to be an active Minister; we ask him to extend more geneerosity to these ex-service men; and we demand of him that he should go to his colleagues in the Government and say to them that this is a matter on which probably the whole House is agreed, and ask from his colleagues in the Government some better treatment.

We used to say in the Army—those ex-service men who served during the War will recognise this, I am sure—that "Old soldiers never die; they only fade away." It seems that that is literally true to-day. Many of these men, as hon. Members know, are fading away. They have served their country in times past; they served their country when the country was almost overwhelmed by the storm more than 20 years ago. If the indications of international affairs are any conclusive evidence, the storm is likely to break over us again, and then it may be a question of "All hands on deck." I ask the Minister of Pensions, in these circumstances, why does he alienate the sympathy, the good will, and the considerable assistance which this large and loyal body of ex-service men are able to give to the nation even once again if that storm should break over us? To-day one can insure, for a comparatively small premium in money, against all forms of accident, illness and death. These men for whom we are pleading have paid the premium in days gone by; they are still paying the premum; but they are not getting any benefits from the policy. We ask the Minister of Pensions to see that the premium which they have paid in days gone by, and which they are still continuing to pay, shall bear a better return than it gets to-day under the present Pension Warrants.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) and the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. E. Smith) both described the Minister of Pensions as the chief propagandist of the Government, and they seemed somewhat concerned, that he should occupy that role. I also am interested in that fact, but from a somewhat different point of view. I. welcome the fact that the Minister of Pensions occupies that position, if indeed, he does, but I should like to be certain that he is able to do his job as well as he is fitted to do it and, I am sure, would like to do it. I think that, if he could meet the demand which has been made on previous occasions, and again to-day, from all quarters of the House, that a square deal should be given to ex-service men, he would be able to carry out more easily, not only his duties as Minister of Pensions, but his other duties as well.

I would like to ask once again that the request which has been made by the British Legion for an inquiry into the condition of the prematurely aged men should be acceded to by the Government. I believe that the Government of the day ought to agree to any request for an inquiry that comes from any responsible body. I would ask the Minister of Pensions whether he does not agree that the British Legion is a responsible body, that it has looked after the interests of ex-service men, and that no other organisation in this country is more qualified to speak in the name of ex-service men? I would also ask him whether he does not agree that it has been moderate in its demands upon the country, and that ex-service men have been moderate? One can contrast what the ex-service men of this country might have asked for, if they had used the power they possessed at the end of the War, with what their demands actually have been. One can compare the position of the British Legion in this country with the attitude taken up by the ex-service men in the United States of America. That is a tribute to the moderation which ex-service men in this country have shown since the War. When they come to the Government with a perfectly modest demand for an inquiry, that inquiry should be granted. They are not asking for a penny of public money; they are only asking that an inquiry should be held as to whether the promises that were made to them have been fulfilled. It reminds me of what Clive is reported to have said when he was accused of having amassed a great deal of wealth in India. His reply was: "When I consider what I might have brought back, I am amazed at my own moderation." I think that that might justly be said of the ex-service men.

Reference has been made by previous speakers, quite rightly, to the fact that hitherto the question of ex-service men's treatment has not been a party question in this country. I think it would be very unfortunate if the impression were to get abroad that there is only one party in the country which is prepared to support this request for an inquiry, and that it would be necessary to replace the present Government and put another Government in power before this reasonable request could be granted. Therefore, I would appeal to the Government for a change of mind in this matter. We know that the Prime Minister is strong enough to agree when a mistake has been made. I am not asking that the Minister of Pensions should definitely say this morning that the request for an inquiry will be granted. What I ask is that he will agree to ask the Prime Minister whether he will reconsider his decision. I think that if he does that, it will give great satisfaction, not only to ex-service men, but to everybody in this country who is anxious to see ex-service men receive a square deal.

I say without any hesitation that the refusal of an inquiry has caused resentment. I have yet to meet a single individual who is prepared to support that refusal. I am satisfied that if a free vote of the House were allowed at any time on this question there would be an overwhelming majority in favour of an inquiry. I have taken part in every Debate on this subject since I became a Member of the House, and I think that, with the exception of the Minister, there has not been a single Member in any part of the House who has been willing to uphold the present state of things. All have insisted that more ought to be done if a square deal is to be given to ex-service men. I myself have no quarrel with or complaint against the Minister so far as the administration of his office is concerned, but I feel that the request of the British Legion for an inquiry is a perfectly reasonable request, and that this Government ought to grant it. The British Legion themselves, it is true, held an inquiry, but they were not in a position to make that inquiry as complete and as conclusive as it might have been, But the evidence they have been able to put forward is such as to justify the contention that further inquiry by the Government is desirable. I, therefore, appeal most strongly to the Minister of Pensions to ask the Prime Minister at least to reconsider his decision in the matter.

I think it is time that a word was said from this Bench on the subject raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker). The House will agree, I think, that he has rendered a very great service by raising this question. But I wish that the speeches we have heard from both sides of the House this morning could have been delivered on a Supply Day, so that we could have had a vote on the matter. The Government, however satisfied they may be with the general structure and work of the Ministry of Pensions, cannot deny that these speeches represent a very great body of dissatisfaction outside the House, or that these complaints are not limited to people in any one party. There have been complaints at the Conservative conferences. The hon. Gentleman gave a general answer to his own people. The Ministry of Pensions, with all the range of experience and statistics it has at its disposal, as a rule can answer anything, but the Minister did not allay the dissatisfaction that exists on this matter even among his own people.

Then we have the British Legion. The Government cannot say that they are merely disgruntled, dissident forces. The British Legion have made an inquiry. I want to say quite frankly that when my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. E. Smith) and other people asked the Government for an inquiry, I was not satisfied, although I have relations with the British Legion, that the Government should delegate its own functions to the British Legion and push off on to that body their duty of making an inquiry. Week after week, we were told that the Government could not give an answer at the moment to our questions, because the British Legion were inquiring. The answer we got for months was, "We will give you a reply by and by: meanwhile, just wait for the report of the British Legion." I got the impression that the Government were leaving this matter for the British Legion to settle in their own inquiry. The British Legion have had their inquiry. I think it was at once too wide and too limited. I think they generalised a little too much and did not pay sufficient attention to the large number of cases strictly within their purview. They also left out a good many questions that need consideration. I am not satisfied, for instance, with the position of the Royal Warrant in relation to widows who married after the men's service. They may have been all right just after the War, but, for many reasons it is a different proposition now, 20 years after.

But here is the British Legion's report, and the Prime Minister replies to that report. It is not worth while, in the time at our disposal to-day, discussing the report at length, but I must say I have seldom seen a cleverer piece of juggling—and I wish the Prime Minister were here as I say this—than the Prime Minister's reply to the British Legion. He says: "You just take a certain number of specific cases, and you say it is impossible to tell how a certain ex-service man is affected as the years go on, as compared with the non-service man; but you say that 100,000 are affected. Here is the actuary's report." Imagine answering the ex-service men's claim on this matter with an actuary's report. Hon. Members have read many actuaries' reports, and it is no criticism of the particular actuaries concerned to say that it is very questionable whether any member of this House ever knew an actuary's report which was even approximately true in its effect. Actuaries' reports are the most intangible things imaginable. It is a most absurd reply that the Prime Minister has made. The Legion's report says that the committee are convinced, from a survey of individual cases, that there are a number of ex-service men whose health has broken down as a result of the rigours of war service, although it is not possible to substantiate that it is as a result of such service. Does anybody deny that? The Prime Minister says: "You do not know everything in these cases; your sympathy is misplaced." But is he going to question that that statement gives expression to a deep-seated feeling of wrong in the country with regard to masses of men? However much the Government may question it, it surely gives ground for inquiry.

Every hon. Member knows of individual cases. Here is a case I know of myself. A woman came to me some six months ago. Her husband was in hospital. It was a case of doing certain things, and the Minister was up and doing. He was very sympathetic and generous. He gave immediate attention to the needs of the man. The man, who was receiving a pension, died in that hospital. I was shocked to find that the woman, who has a daughter of 18, could not receive a pension, for the simple reason that she had married him two years after he received his injury. They were friends, in the ordinary term of sweethearting before the man went into the Army, but because they were not married before he went into the Army, the woman received no pension. I know that there were reasons for the inclusion of this particular article in the warrant in the earlier stages, and I will not go into them now, but is there no ground for reexamining a question like that after 18 years of the operation of that warrant? Is there anyone who would say that a woman like that has not been wronged by the refusal of a pension? There is very grave need for inquiry into such a state of things. There is also the case to which my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh has alluded and which I raised on Monday, when the hon. Gentleman said that the case could go to appeal. I know that the appeal tribunal is an unbiased body, but one recognises the weight of experience and general status of the Ministry in an appeal of this description compared with the appearance of a poor widow, with, perhaps, some local man from the British Legion representing her. It is very much like a poor person having to attend an appeal in the House of Lords without the benefit of counsel. Here is this man. The right hon. Gentleman has his own case, and I will tell my case as I see it—

And I will tell mine.

This man came out of the Army. I did not see him originally, but I was told that it was distressing to see him, and when I did see him, his condition was really painful to look upon. He got somewhat better as the years went by, but it was always uncomfortable to talk to him. He died and his widow has been refused a pension. She can go to appeal, and she is going to appeal, but I do not think that there should be any doubt in the case of a widow of that description. If there is any doubt or any special information in the possession of the Ministry, why should not the Minister accept the opportunity of an inquiry? There is grave need of serious reconsideration being given to these matters. I say this as one who has from time to time taken a very active part in these questions, and who has paid his tribute to the general organisation and conduct of the Ministry as a whole. I should say that the job has been too well done by the Ministry to submit to the sense of wrong that prevails in respect of a limited number of cases, but in these limited number of cases there is very great hardship indeed. The Government would be wise to submit to an inquiry. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh has said that we have to raise this matter on the Adjournment, and that it will not be the last time. I only wish that we could get an opportunity on some Supply day, so that we could have sufficient time in which to consider this matter.

On a point of Order, I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker. In this Debate a request has been made for an inquiry which will be restricted, judging by the references that have been made, to the kind of cases mentioned this morning. Will there be an opportunity given to bring in a very large section of pensioners to whom reference has not been made? I refer to the widows particularly.

I am afraid that I do not follow the hon. Member in his point of Order.

The point is that a request has been made for an inquiry regarding certain pensioners, but no reference whatever has been made to those widows who have had pensions taken away from them. Will an opportunity be given to include these persons in the scope of any inquiry, so that their cases may be dealt with? We have had no chance to refer to the matter this morning.

I have heard several references to widows in the course of the debate.

As the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) pointed out in his speech, we have debated this subject now on three successive Adjournments since last December. When I am asked whether I have a prepared speech on this occasion, I tell the House that it is quite unnecessary, because I have made so many speeches on this subject before. Before Christmas I spoke for an hour; last April I spoke for half-an-hour; and I shall, no doubt, occupy the time of the House for something like that time to-day. I gather from the speeches I have heard that the complaint is rather against the policy of the Ministry of Pensions than against the actual individual at the Ministry. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) was kind enough to say on the last debate that he had no particular quarrel against myself, and that he did not think that I was lacking in sympathy with the ex-Service men. I do not think that it is necessary to impress that upon the House, but what I have to do, and what I am charged with, is to administer the law as it stands and to carry out the policy laid down by Parliament in regard to the treatment of the war-disabled man.

I would emphasise once more, as I have had to emphasise in previous debates, that my responsibility as Minister of Pensions is the war-disabled man. That inevitably means the man in respect of whom there is reasonable evidence that the disablement had a war origin. Otherwise, as I have pointed out to the House before, the whole pension system would collapse. If I am to be asked to secure pensions for men who served in the War on grounds other than the production of reasonable evidence that the injury is due to the War, then we shall have something quite unlike our present system, and shall have a system which not many people in this country would desire us to have.

When I last spoke, I tried to give the House a picture of the difficulties with which any Minister of Pensions must be faced some 20 years after the War in determining whether or not he can honestly and conscientiously award public money in compensation for war disable- ment. As long ago as 1929, when my predecessor the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. F. O. Roberts) was in office administering the Ministry of Pensions in the Government of the Party opposite, he explained to the House what the position was and was likely to be. He said:

" At the present date, more than so years since the men were demobilised, cases in which disablement by war service can now be justifiably claimed for the first time are, as is admitted on all hands, few in number and will necessarily become fewer. Old war wounds thought to have been healed but giving trouble for the first time since the War, are readily identifiable and are already dealt with both by medical treatment and pension. New claims in respect of some ailment or disease are the more numerous, but comparatively very few cases are found on investigation to be genuinely traceable to war service. The situation is one that requires to be met by provision for a small and diminishing number of genuine cases only."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1929; col. 24, Vol. 232.]

That statement was made in this House by the Minister of Pensions in a Socialist Government. It was a very correct statement of the position, and I am not aware that any hon. Members opposite, who have criticised me, have ever found fault with that statement. A reference has been made by the hon. Member for Leigh to the White Paper, Command Paper 5738, which contains the report of the inquiry set up by the British Legion, and the Prime Minister's reply to that report. There are one or two points in the report of the British Legion to which I should like to draw attention. On page 19, they say:

" The Committee is satisfied that the general principles which form the basis of the Pension Warrants are sound."

That statement must mean that the Legion does not want any drastic alteration in the terms of the Warrant under which it is my duty to administer the pensions system.

That is the English expression of opinion. If the Minister will look at the Scottish report he will see that they do not altogether agree with that.

The British section of the Legion contains a much larger percentage of men who fought in the War. On page 22, the report says:

" The Committee is satisfied that where reasonable evidence is produced to show the disablement is due to war service, pension is paid under the War Compensation Schemes."

What conclusion is to be drawn from that statement? Here is a statement of a committee appointed by a highly responsible body—and I agree with every word that has been said about the British Legion—which carried on its investigations for i8 months to two years and dealt with a very large number of cases from a very large number of branches. It was their considered opinion not merely that they do not wish to disturb the Warrant under which I administer the pensions system, but that they are satisfied, where reasonable evidence is produced that the disablement is due to war service, that a pension is awarded.

Does not that fact make the request that they have put forward all the more reasonable?

I do not agree with the hon. Member. I am here to administer the pension system laid down by Parliament, and I have quoted two expressions of opinion from a committee of the British Legion stating, in the first place, that the pension system is sound and that they do not wish it to be disturbed and, in the second place, that they are satisfied that where reasonable evidence is produced to me that the man's present condition is due to war service, a pension is paid. I would ask hon. Members whether, in view of these facts, it is not a little hard to endeavour to create an impression that countless cases are brought to me and a pension is refused.

The British Legion, obviously, has a great deal more experience than any of us can possibly have of individual cases. As Members of Parliament some of us may get perhaps 100 individual cases in a year, whereas the British Legion deals with thousands. Therefore, we cannot fail to give due weight to statements of the kind that I have quoted. If, therefore, the body which has produced this report, after carrying out its investigations, is satisfied that the Pension Warrant system as it stands is sound, and is satisfied that the Minister awards pensions wherever reasonable evidence is produced, then I do not think that this document produced by the British Legion contains a complaint against the Ministry of Pensions. There are many matters mentioned in the report, and recommendations dealing with various points into which I cannot go because they would all involve legislation; but as far as the Ministry is concerned I think this report is a considerable vindication by a very important body representing a large number of ex-service men.

The Minister has raised what appears to me to be an important point. He says that there are other recommendations in the report of the British Legion which would involve legislation, but that under the Rules of Order he cannot deal with them. Is it not possible for him to give to the House a general view as to the consideration which the Government have given to those recommendations, and some indication of the Government's intention?

I take it that the hon. Member has not read the Prime Minister's reply, contained in the White Paper, which goes at length into a detailed examination of the recommendations of the British Legion, and gives the Government's views on those recommendations. There is nothing that I can add at this stage to what the Prime Minister has said. If the hon. Member will read the statement I think he will be entirely satisfied that every point has been dealt with.

I hope the Minister will not get away like that. He has referred to the British Legion, representing the ex-service men, as being a body of outstanding merit and well worthy of notice. Then he goes on to say that he cannot deal with the recommendations that are made because they would require legislation. He quotes from the report statements in his own favour, but he does not deal with the other points, or say that the Government are prepared to examine them and to set up the inquiry which is asked for. He is prepared to accept the Legion's point of view in one respect but not in the other.

I do not think the hon. Member quite understands the position. I said that there were certain recommendations, which I could not discuss because they would involve legislation. As far as the request for the holding of an inquiry is concerned, that is dealt with in the reply which the Prime Minister gave. The hon. Member may not have read the report.

One of the reasons given by the Prime Minister for not acceding to the request, was rather funny. Did he not describe the proposals as rambling?

The hon. Member does not correctly represent what was said. I will read the passage from the Prime Minister's statement:

" In these circumstances, there does not appear to be a case calling for a formal Committee of Inquiry. Such an inquiry could only resolve itself into a detailed investigation into the circumstances of several thousand individuals all over the country, in order to determine the various causes which have led ex-service men to apply for treatment or assistance from one or other of the many social services—a procedure which would certainly be resented by many of the men themselves, and, in the inevitable absence of any valid comparison with a corresponding group of non-service men, could yield no conclusive result towards determining your Committee's claim that they should be treated differently from the rest of the population. I should not feel justified in setting up a Committee for an inquiry which for these reasons could only be both rambling and inconclusive, especially as the form of the inquiry must raise widespread expectations and result in feelings of disappointment not easily allayed."

The Minister has concentrated his remarks on the English side of the British Legion report. Has he no similar comments to make on the Scottish side?

Whatever reasons apply as to the undesirability of an inquiry into the British side, apply equally to the Scottish: there is no distinction.

The Scottish side was dealt with only recently. It is somewhat different from the English, and I think justifies different treatment.

The only comments I have to make on the Scottish report is that 13 out of the 15 points to which they draw attention have been before successive Ministers of Pensions for a considerable number of years and have been dealt with to the best of the Ministers power. The hon. Member for Leigh and also the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Kelly) mentioned the question of widows who through their own fault are deprived of their pensions by the Special Grants Committee. I gave a long answer in the House last week setting out the whole position. I have seen a deputation of hon. Members and explained it to them, and may I again remind the House that I have no power—Parliament has given the Minister no power—to alter the procedure of the Special Grants Committee or to reverse its decisions? I cannot discuss matters relating to that Committee because they would involve legislation.

The hon. Member for Leigh also referred to the 14 cases which he put to me in February 1937. I wrote on each individual case and suggested that the man should go to the chief area officer to be examined. The only point I made last December was that as far as I could gather 12 out of 14 had not gone, but as a result of the hon. Members stimulating them to do so, six of them, according to my information, subsequently appeared. With five we have not found it possible to do anything, one will be boarded on the 7th June, but up to the present no application has been received from the remaining six. I do not know whether hon. Members themselves personally investigate all these cases, and I sometimes wonder whether they see the local war pensions committee. Reference has been made to the visits I paid to the war pensions committee. I have seen no chairmen out of 160 and I can assure the hon. Member for Stoke that I got no confirmation whatever from the chairmen of the war pensions committees of the allegations he made.

There is nothing wrong!

I do not say that, but I do say that nothing like the picture which the hon. Member has drawn was confirmed to me by the war pensions committees, and if he will consult the chairman of the Stoke Pensions Committee he will find that what I have said will be confirmed. The hon. Member also asked whether the promises made by the Government had been carried out. I say quite definitely that the promises made by successive Governments since the War to the disabled men have been carried out. If they had not been carried out the Minister in charge would have been neglecting his duties, and would have been censured by the House. From 1917 up to the present date the Government have rigorously carried out the promises they have made, and every Minister has done his best to do so.

The hon. Member for Stoke referred to various cases which he has put to me. He must remember that I have records which Members of Parliament and local medical men have not got. A case which the hon. Member for Stoke put to me appeared on the face of it to be one calling for lenient and generous treatment, but it turned out on further examination that the document put in to prove the man's service was a forged one. The medical officer did not know it, and the hon. Member for Stoke did not know it.

These are not general?

No. But if it is to be laid down as a. principle that the medical officer's opinion or the opinion of a Member of Parliament is to be the deciding factor, then, of course, the whole pensions system disappears.

Annoyed as the Minister was, I was even more annoyed when it was found that it was a forged document, because I felt that I had been let down, but I suggest that it is most unfair to give a special case, because the special case does not deny that the general is true. The cases we quoted were cases in general; and the special does not deny the general.

If it is unfair for me, as hon. Members allege, to give special cases of that kind, is it not equally unfair for hon. Members without notice to give special cases in the course of the Debate? I have not the facts. I have not been given notice, but when I have the facts the hon. Member turns round and says it is unfair on my part. I must leave it at that. The hon. Member for Boston with Holland (Mr. Butcher) mentioned a case which I have not had any previous notice.

I did not intend any discourtesy to the Minister of Pensions, but I only received the letter this morning and I thought that I had better bring up this matter at the earliest possible moment.

I do not charge the hon. Member with any discourtesy, but it is difficult to keep individual cases in mind. I have to deal in the course of the year with 3,000 cases from hon. Members, and that is ·07 of the total number of cases I could get, that is the percentage of the total number of ex-Service men. The point is that these 3,000 cases represent ·07 of the total number of cases I could receive, and when I hear expressions as to the general discontent prevailing I suggest that ·07 is not a very extensive basis on which to found such an opinion. And, of course, many of these cases have been considered and turned down by my predecessors.

They were just as bad as you.

That gives me some consolation. I would like to correct my hon. Friend the Member for Holland-withBoston on one point with regard to the independent medical expert. Let me say, in the first place, that I cannot compel an independent medical expert to see the man. Generally, the independent medical expert is a Harley Street physician or surgeon, who does this work for us at a very small fee, almost voluntarily, and thus performs a very great service to the Ministry and the country.

Would it not be much more satisfactory if he were paid a satisfactory fee and there were a thorough examination?

I am not quite sure what my hon. Friend means. I cannot compel the independent medical expert to see the man. In most cases, he does not not want to see the man, because it is not a question of diagnosis, but a question of the perusal of all the documents in the case and the war service records. The independent medical expert, with his great experience, has to decide whether there is reasonable evidence to connect the present condition of the man with the war service shown on his records. That is often a difficult thing to do. I believe I am right in saying that in workman's compensation cases the claim has to be made at once or not later than six months afterwards, but here we are dealing with claims which have a history of 20 years or more.

Has is to be reasonable evidence or irrefutable evidence?

Perhaps the hon. Member was not here at an earlier stage—

I have been here throughout the Debate.

In a previous Debate, I said that there has to be reasonable evidence and that we do not ask for anything in the nature of irrefutable evidence. If we did, two-thirds of the cases which receive a favourable decision would not receive it. There must be a reasonable connection established between the War service, the disability incurred in the War, and the present state of the man. If we do not require some evidence of that sort, then it is no longer a pensions system, but a system of bonuses. In this country we still maintain a pensions system, we still reward, and reward generously, any soldier who gives reasonable evidence showing that his present condition results from his War service. As hon. Members know, I am prepared to examine each case most carefully, to help a man to establish his claim, to tell him where to find the evidence—to write to the approved societies and to his medical advisers—and to build up a chain of evidence on which my medical advisers can honestly and conscientiously say to me that there is the probability that the man's present condition is due to his War service. If I did not do that, I should not be worthy to occupy the position which I now occupy. I am convinced that the House has no intention of endeavouring to persuade me to exact from my medical advisers a certificate in which they do not believe.

Nobody has asked that.

I am bound by Statute not to grant a pension to a man unless I have a certificate from my medical advisers to the effect that the pension should be granted because the war disability is the cause of the present condition of the man. Therefore, it must be, and is, primarily a medical decision. If, as a result of persuasion, I proceeded to induce the medical advisers of the Ministry to relax their ordinary standards of evidence, to relax their medical examination and to give certificates which do not represent the honest and conscientious opinion of the medical advisers in question, it would strike a blow at the pensions system of the country from which it would never recover.

I am rather sorry that I felt obliged to raise the question of economic appeasement on the Motion for the Adjournment this Whitsuntide, but I asked permission to do so because I thought that this would be a better atmosphere in which to discuss this question than during a Debate on the Spanish or Chinese situation or upon armaments generally. Although I think my hon. and right hon. Friends above the Gangway will agree very largely with most of what I say, I wish to explain that I speak only for myself, my constituents and the pacifist groups with which I am associated in this country. I should have liked the Prime Minister to be present to reply, but I understand that he has important public business which prevents him from attending, and therefore none of us can complain.

I wish at the outset to say that I cannot believe that any hon. Member would, for a moment, object to almost any terms of peace if they could be secured, and secured at once. All of us agree that if the Government, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Office or anyone else can do anything, apart from the Measures which I think are necessary, to bring about permanent peace, or even temporary peace, in Europe, we shall all be devoutly thankful. I wish to call attention to the fact that the late Foreign Secretary, speaking in the House, once said that he would go 99 per cent.—I think he said 9½t.—for peace at any price, because of the catastrophe that would result from a European war. When I heard him say that, I was reminded of a statement that was made by the late Professor Freeman many years ago, that the greatest of British interests is peace. I think he would have said that had he been a German, a Frenchman or an American. The over-riding thought of mankind must be to bring about peaceful relations between the nations. since the House reassembled, we have had a strenuous time, and almost every day at Question Time I think the House, pacifists and others, must have been terribly depressed, and almost heartbroken, by the fact that so much time has to be taken up in dealing with war and its consequences. I think there could never have been a more depressing debate than the one which took place this week on air-raid precautions. I do not intend to argue about those things this afternoon, for my views on them are well known; but the proposition that we should pile up armaments for the next two years or so in order to become powerful, above all others, and then be able to enforce peace is, in my opinion, simply a chimerical delusion.

In South Wales last Saturday, at a tremendous gathering, I listened to the oratorio "Samson" and as I heard the end, telling how Samson pulled down the pillars of the temple, destroying himself and his friends as well as his enemies, I had a vision that perhaps this piling up of armaments might be meant in some such way as that. Europe and Asia are too full of combustible material for any of us to acquiesce with anything like contentment in the present situation. I may be wrong, but I think I am right—I never felt myself more right in all my life, but we are all human. A number of us—not a very large number—would vote against armaments every time, if we had the opportunity. There is a consensus of opinion, not only among pacifists but among those who support armaments, that the result of our accentuation of armaments may well be that the civilisation of the world as we know it will be smashed. No one that I have heard, in or out of this House, or to whom I have spoken throughout the world, says anything different. If hon. Members feel obliged to go on with what the Prime Minister termed the madness of armaments expenditure, and if they feel that they must do it, I ask them to consider whether, side by side with that, it is not possible to make some offer along the lines that the only alternative to war is the economic appeasement of the world. There is a consensus of opinion in that direction also.

I was brought up to believe that the economic condition of a nation determines largely the class relationship within that nation. I am now quite confident that although dictators and emperors, and some democracies, may become terribly Imperialistic, ultimate peace can be maintained only when nations are willing to co-operate in sharing the raw materials, the territories and the markets of the world. When it was my good fortune to win in the Ballot in this House, my Friends above the Gangway and I drafted a Motion, and raised the whole of this question in February, 1935. The Government were then very sympathetic, as they had been in the previous Parliament, but they said that the time was not ripe, and that they must have time for further inquiry. When I went abroad I received the same answer that people must have time for preparation. Three years have passed since that February, and nearly six years since the World Economic Conference, in 1932. From that Box I appealed for an effort to be made to reconstitute that conference in another form. The late Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, speaking in reply said what he had previously said, that it was necessary to tackle the economic situation of the world if we were to have peace.

We must not ride off now on the proposition that we must take a lot more time. I met many diplomats abroad, foreign and British. In my ignorance I have probably said a good many hard things about ambassadors and others, but having seen and talked with foreign and British diplomats abroad, I am not at all sure that a conference of those gentlemen would not yield much better results for the future of the world than the sort of conference that has been held. They understand each other, and, what is of greater importance, they understand the conditions in the countries in which they serve. since 1936, when I met M. van Zeeland in Brussels, we have had an inquiry throughout Europe and America. I am not saying that I support everything that M. van Zeeland has said, but in general, I think, everyone who has studied his report will agree that it forms a basis on which discussion can commence. I would call attention to statements made in that connection by the King of the Belgians before the report was published. People like myself who are now a very small minority in this House, occasionally get smitten with a sort of self-conscious inferiority in regard to the rest of the Members, and it is hard to persuade ourselves that we are right. In this case, I am glad to say that it is not so. I have seen all the important Prime Ministers and not only have they agreed with me privately but they are beginning to agree publicly.

Here is what the King of the Belgians wrote to M. van Zeeland—and any Socialist might have written what I am going to read to the House:

" Neither the lowering of tariffs nor any partial measure can alone put an end to the confusion which is threatening peace. If we really wish to avert war and bring mankind back to a more peaceful frame of mind we must have the courage to tackle the economic question in its entirety and to solve the great problems which menacingly confront humanity, distribution of raw materials, distribution of the means of exchange, international distribution of labour and equilibrium between agricultural and industrial nations."

I think that is very important. On hundreds of platforms I have said those things, and I have tried to say them once or twice in this House. The King of the Belgians goes on:

" I cherish no illusions as to the difficulties "—

neither do I—

" which the realisation of such a vast programme involves. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the moment is favourable for the attempt. We cannot conceal from ourselves that whole sections of the human race are no longer in sympathy with each other."

This is what I urge on the Minister to-day:

" If one first step can be taken to bring them together again, we shall be offering to humanity especially to the East, otherwise than by words, proof that the West values above all immediate considerations of a material nature, the spiritual strength which comes from a genuine feeling of brotherhood."

That was the King of the Belgians, last July. In the autumn His Majesty came to the City of London, was entertained in the City, and made an eloquent appeal to the citizens of London, as being citizens of this great Empire, with more power, financial and otherwise, than any other set of men in the world. He made a fervent appeal that something should be done, and practically that appeal has gone unheeded. Then another voice has been heard just lately. On 9th May the Press of this country reported that Mr. Cordell Hull, in a broadcast message to America on the eve of the meeting of the League Council, said he was empowered by the President to say:

" Co-operation in the solution of economic problems offers one of the practical approaches to the task which the world must undertake. There is a growing realisation that no nation, no group of nations, can enjoy prosperity when a large part of the world is in economic distress."

I think that every one of us must agree about that. Between the statement of the King of the Belgians and the present moment this van Zeeland report has come out, and a writer in the "Times" this morning, rather damning with faint praise the proposition of the Liberal Opposition to raise this question again on a Supply Vote, says that the dust is on the shelves and on the report. I think that is a most distressing fact, if it is a fact, because I think my countrymen would join with me in saying that M. van Zeeland has performed a very great service to the world, first by undertaking the mission, and then by bringing forward this report. I repeat that he will not expect any of us to accept it just as it stands, but there are one or two things that he says to which I would like to call the attention of the House. On page 42 he says:

" We must…admit the considerable difficulties which cumber the ground,"

and then he points out that on the political plane the reasons for hope appear to be slighter than at any moment since 1918, but on the next page he says, as I say, having read him—and I say it with more emphasis that I otherwise would have done—that if you must arm, you ought to put some one of the Government Departments—I think it should be the Foreign Office, whose business it is to keep peace—to deal with this question, because he goes on to say, what every thoughtful person would say:

" But, taking it all in all, it seemed to me that such an attitude—"

that is, an attitude that nothing can be done because of the world situation—

" would have been sterile, and even dangerous. One has never the right to renounce action or, at any rate, to renounce attempted action. No effort is every completely lost, even if it does not succeed all at once.

On the other hand, the persistence of a general situation, which is confused and bristles with contradictions, would incur the risk of very serious consequences, both with the political and in the economic order."

He also says something which I think it is worth the while of all of us to consider, and it is this:

" International trade is not an end in itself, it is only a means directed towards an end. This end cannot be other than the improvement of the standard of life of the masses, the increase of the well-being of the population. Under our present organisation this end is pursued by national entities."

That, of course, raises the whole question that he raises in the beginning of the report. I want to quote once more from M. van Zeeland, because it is very important. The argument may be used against me this afternoon—it has been used in the House when I have spoken during other debates—that it is useless to think that you could allow any nation that is living under totalitarian conditions to prosper in trade because of the fact that it would become more aggressive. M. van Zeeland has been arguing about financial assistance, and I think that he meets that point very well indeed when he says, on page 48:

" Thus one can understand the preoccupation of those who fear to see the financial assistance, the credit facilities, or the facilities for obtaining supplies which would he granted in the execution of the present programme of action— "

that is, his proposals for action—

" diverted from their object to serve warlike ends. Guarantees would have to be provided in this respect, and such guarantees are necessarily political in their nature.

Again, is it possible to provide an economic solution for the difficulties with which certain national economies will be faced when the point of saturation has been reached in their rearmament policy without evoking the problem of the limitation of armaments?

Conversely, it also appears to be true that any concerted policy for the limitation of armaments would require, if its application were not to be obstructed, to be accompanied by economic measures which would also have to be internationally concerted."

Over and over again my hon. Friends above the Gangway in the last Parliament emphasised the fact that you could not expect disarmament in the world unless you secured economic disarmament, and one right hon. Gentleman, speaking during a Debate in this House a few days ago, warned the House that we were now embarked on an economic war, which was far more serious for the future of this country than any other kind of war might be. As I listened to that, I thought it was a statement of despair, because if it means that the propositions here, or the Socialist propositions, or any other propositions put forward for economic appeasement are all hopeless and that we are helpless in the matter, I can see nothing for the world except ruin, and complete ruin at that.

M. van Zealand says something else. He winds up his suggestions in this way:

" I have intentionally refrained from entering into details…On most of the points which I have mentioned, prolonged studies have been undertaken; plans for putting them into effect could be quickly drawn up with the assistance of specialised organs such as the Economic and Financial Committees of the League of Nations, the Bank for International Settlements, the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Institute of Agriculture, etc."

I hope the House will forgive me for making so many quotations from the report, but I am anxious to bring out the fact that M. van Zeeland has endeavoured, first, to pose the economic questions that are before the world, plus the territorial and other similar questions, and then has asked that an effort should be made to bring the nations round the table in order to discuss how the proposals that he has made should be applied.

This House will, sooner or later, be forced to face this problem, because we are living, as we are often told in regard to our armaments, in an entirely new world. We are certainly living in a new economic world. Is it not an amazing thing that we are in trouble in Jamaica because we cannot get rid of the sugar that the labourers and others there produce, while there are myriads of people who need the sugar? Is it not an extraordinary thing that in America, that great self-contained continent, there are myriads of people unable to get their daily bread? Is it not an appalling picture which someone with a greater power of descriptive language than I have could paint, that we see in South-Eastern Europe? Almost from the Baltic to the Black Sea right across Europe, there are masses of people suffering semi-starvation and destitution. Is it not also something to remember that the problem in Czechoslovakia, although it is largely racial, is also a problem of economic welfare? I have seen reports on the Sudetan area by impartial investigators, reports which, I think, have gone to the Foreign Office, in which it has been pointed out that nearly all that district has suffered because of the economic blizzard which smote Lancashire and other parts of this country. If you go into Poland, travel where you will, you will find the people suffering terrible destitution. I have come back from talking with ordinary people, with dictators and democrats and statesmen of all kinds, and with clergy and educational people.

I have come back obsessed with the belief that there is no way out unless nations which are like our own, and especially our own, unselfishly take a lead in asking other great nations to join in giving assistance to uplift these people through the development of their own countries. When I was in Poland discussing the conditions with some of the Ministers, they were saying how many of their people must be migrated. I could not help asking them, "Is Poland overdeveloped?" Of course it is not. Is any part of South-Eastern Europe overdeveloped? Of course it is not. But what is standing in the way? It is this horrible nightmare of war. They spend their substance on armaments, and each defends it from the same point of view. They always come back, even the military chiefs, to the one statement, that if they could only solve the economic problem and get rid of the starvation of so many of their people, neither the problem of bloody revolution by the Left nor of bloody revolution by the Right would arise. Do we not know in our own country that when people are crushed by poverty, when they see no hope, they turn hither and thither, first to one thing and then to another, in a vain hope to find a way out?

I did not come here to-day to say that I have a special gilded pill that will cure an earthquake. I am sure that if M. van Zeeland could speak in this House he would not claim that his propositions contain everything that is necessary, or that everything he has proposed could be accepted straight off. What he would ask for, I am sure, and what I am asking for, is a perfectly simple thing—that the Government shall tell us in clear, straight language that this report is not going to lie and rot in the archives of the Foreign Office or of the Board of Trade, but that it will be considered. It is to the credit of Great Britain and France that they asked M. van Zeeland to undertake the inquiry, but that credit imposes a tremendous responsibility on those countries to see that the report is dealt with. Although most hon. Members profoundly disagree with me about pacifism, I do not believe that any one can disagree with me that fundamentally this is a problem of how men and women can get their living in relation to one another, and, chief of all of how the world is to meet the new situation in which there is abundant power to produce and abundant demand if it could be made clamant, and yet myriads of people starving. If a tithe of the energy, knowledge and enthusiasm that are given by the nations to making preparations to destroy one another were given to the economic problems that face us, we could save the world from war, and bring peace for the first time throughout the length and breadth of the world.

I am sure the House will recognise that the right hon. Gentleman has performed a public service in raising this important question. The need for a policy of economic appeasement was never more necessary than at the present time. The word "war" is on the lips of men and women in every part of the world. The whole world is feverishly re-arming, and last year we were told that the world spent more than £2,400,000,000 on preparations for war. That policy, in my humble opinion, can end only in bankruptcy or catastrophe. But however much we may realise the futility of armaments as a means of solving world problems, it is equally futile not to realise that the desire for national security is the mainspring of the armaments' policy which is being followed at the present time by almost every country in the world. The tragedy of the position lies in the fact that the more one country intensifies the process of arming itself the more other countries follow suit, and so, relatively, no greater security results. To my mind what it necessary is that people should realise that the most effective method of attaining security lies in removing the causes of war, and that, I believe, can only be achieved by securing political and economic appeasement. Wars are not brought about by mere lust for more territory. An examination of history will prove that in most cases they have been due to a desire on the part of nations to secure a higher standard of living for their peoples and a greater share of the wealth of the universe.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) has said with regard to central Europe, which to-day is perhaps the chief danger spot, a good deal of the political unrest which exists there is due to economic causes. When I recently visited Hungary and Czechoslovakia the impressions which I formed were similar to those of my right hon. Friend. I discovered in the Sudeten territories of Czechoslovakia conditions akin to the conditions in our own distressed areas, and until the economic conditions had become acute, as they have to-day, the political claims put forward on behalf of the German inhabitants of those territories were much less vociferous than they are at the present time. In Hungary large masses of the peasant population are right down to the margin of subsistence. In Poland millions of Jews are living under appalling conditions, and they constitute a problem which in my submission has become an international one, because apparently the Polish Government are unable to deal adequately with it. I suggest that if these people could have reasonable economic prosperity, political problems, whether they be problems of autonomy, boundary revisions or what not, would quickly settle themselves. Nor do I believe that the new policy of autarchy, or economic autonomy, which has been established in Germany and Italy would prove to be an insuperable obstacle to economic appeasement along the lines suggested by M. van Zeeland.

If, as suggested by M. van Zeeland, economic collaboration could be shown to produce better results, I believe that the peoples of Germany and Italy would quickly end the system of autarchy in favour of international economic cooperation. The van Zeeland Report is valuable because it contains practical proposals for securing economic collaboration on a wide basis. Tariffs, quotas, exchanges, raw materials, colonies, immigration—all these matters have been clearly dealt with by M. van Zeeland. He makes concrete proposals in respect of each of them, and I suggest that they are worthy of the very serious consideration of all the Governments of the world. In his report M. van Zeeland urges that the representatives of the principal economic Powers, the United States of America, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy, should come together to take soundings and prepare the ground. Will not His Majesty's Government respond to that appeal? Will not His Majesty's Government take the initiative with this object in view? I sincerely trust that the vivid description of the writer in the Times "this morning will not be borne out by the facts of the case.

As my right hon. Friend has indicated, this matter has been under consideration for some years now. Apart from the report of M. van Zeeland, the Economic Committee of the League of Nations made concrete proposals two or three years ago for dealing with the obstacles to international trade, but nothing has been done with respect to either of those reports suggest that if, side by side with their policy of rearmament, His Majesty's Government would intensify their efforts to secure the removal of these obstacles to international trade, and bring about a measure of economic collaboration and appeasement, they would do much to remove the dangers of war. I believe that this matter is of vitally urgent importance, and I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will be able to give the House some indication that His Majesty's Government are not going to place this report in the pigeon holes of the Foreign Office and leave it there.

I certainly endorse what my right hon. Friend has said, that if the Governments and peoples of this country and other countries would only apply one-tenth of the energy that they are using in preparing the instruments of war, which bring death and destruction in their wake, to this problem of economic and political appeasement, we should be able to achieve definite results. I am not going to suggest that the responsibility rests alone upon His Majesty's Government. I realise, as we all must realise, that these problems can be solved only on the basis of co-operation among all the nations of the world, but it does sometimes pay to give a lead, and I believe that the British Government, if they are able to secure a trade agreement with the United States of America, will enable a start to be made on the solution of the problem. I hope the Minister will be able to give the House some idea of the prospects of securing agreement with the United States, but even though that be not possible I hope he will be able to give us some real assurance that the Cabinet are applying themselves to this very important problem.

If I may again refer to the position in Central Europe, I believe that the nations of Central Europe are waiting for a lead, particularly from this country. I believe that if this country, in collaboration with Germany and Italy and France and Russia would come together and sponsor an economic conference with a view to the establishment of a Danubian Economic Federation, that that would be a constructive effort which might have a very decisive effect upon the political situation in Central Europe. I believe that if we can secure economic appeasement it will lead to political security, and if as I believe, it is the fundamental desire of every nation to secure political security, then they are more likely to obtain that by political and economic appeasement than by the construction of colossal armaments. I hope, as a result of this Debate, that public opinion will be told by the Government spokesman that some constructive effort is about to be attempted by the Government.

The right hon. Gentleman who introduced this subject this afternoon stated that at times he and his small group of pacifist colleagues were inclined to feel an inferiority complex. There is no justification for such a feeling. Throughout all sections of this House we respect and admire the enthusiasm, energy and sincerity which he puts into his advocacy of peace. I myself do not share his pacifist opinions. I feel that war, abominable as it is, may in the last resort be necessary to defend certain fundamental human rights. But I do not claim that that feeling is superior to his, it may well be that it is inferior and that I cannot rise to the heights of that extreme but logical pacifism advocated by the right hon. Gentleman. I think the right hon. Gentleman's interventions on this subject do fulfil a very useful function. Man is an adaptable animal and can adapt himself to any conditions, and there is a danger to-day that as we move forward into the modern world, this insane and terrible world, we might gradually accustom ourselves to regard such conditions as normal.

That is a danger we must guard against, and the interventions of the right hon. Gentleman serve to remind us that the conditions of Europe to-day are an abomination and that we must never rest content and accept that as part of the normal order of things. In this country we are only beginning to feel the burden of rearmament. But if the world goes on piling up armaments—and I support the rearmament policy of the Government—the divergence of productive energy to the increasing of armaments must lower the standard of life of all peoples. The piling up of debt consequent on that may well force us towards a closed economy in this country. We even see the beginning of it to-day.

The history of this subject, like so many histories, is a record of lost opportunities. At the end of the War there was in existence a system among the Allies for the pooling of supplies of essential materials. That system was an example of what the future organisation of the world should have been, namely, the organisation of resources for the common use of the nations of the world. It is a tragedy that the League of Nations did not adopt such a system, and it was not for want of advice because Italy, when the League was set up, begged that the rectification of these economic grievances should be incorporated and dealt with in the organisation of the League. That was rejected at Versailles. How different the history of the world, and of Italy herself, might have been had her request been granted. While I do not believe that economic factors are the only causes of war, I do think they are a very potent cause, and economic pressure beyond a certain point must cause war.

I dealt with this matter in this House four years ago, and I took then the case of Japan. In the case of Japan, with a crowded population, using every yard of soil capable of growing food for growing food, with the population rising by nearly 1,000,000 a year, an elementary mathematical fact is evident. It is, that if they cannot grow food and use their land to the limit, they must import more food in order to maintain the standard of life. If they cannot do that, the standard of life must go on falling until a certain point is reached where any government of any kind will try foreign adventure rather than risk civil war at home. We say, of course, that these discontended nations can purchase in the markets of the world. That is true, but have they every facility for paying for the materials they want to purchase? I suggest that increasing restrictions prevent them from buying those materials that are so essential for national existence. I do feel that there is a tendency in this House and elsewhere to regard all these restrictions on trade as the causes of the breakdown of international trade. I think that is a mistake. I suggest that all these restrictions such as quotas, currency control and tariffs are symptoms rather than causes, and we must get down very deep to deal with the causes if we are to cure the symptoms. Admirable as is the van Zeeland Report, it does not go deep enough. There is a tendency in the first part of the report to try to re-establish pre-War conditions in the international economic system. I do not believe that that is possible in the world of to-day.

Take the case of Germany, a country faced five years ago wth 6,000,000, unemployed. To get those people to work the government had to extend currency and credit. The government did so, and I hey practically abolished unemployment in Germany. But they could only do so provided they had a closed economy. If they had allowed the free functioning of international exchange the mark would have depreciated. We have to face this fact to-day, that if Germany abolished or greatly diminished her restrictions, the mark would collapse in the money markets of the world. Germany can only maintain that great internal activity and full employment which she has at present by those restrictions, and it is a very difficult problem for a country with a closed economy like Germany to move without wrecking its internal economy.

I shall not attempt to go into the details of the van Zeeland Report, as I understand there is another subject to be discussed on the Adjournment, but I wish to put forward a few suggestions in outline. I believe that we can never successfully tackle this problem of getting international trade going freely unless we recognise the fundamental fact that, in order to do so, it is necessary to have internal prosperity in countries. If there is in any country restriction of purchasing power there follows restriction of the home market. What happens? As the home market contracts, there is fierce competition for it and every home manufacturer demands increased tariffs, so as to secure the home market. But if there is an expanding home market, then the home manufacturer does not require such a high tariff, there is an ample market for goods and that market provides for an increasing flow of imported goods.

To sum up, I would put forward six points which I venture to suggest are worthy of consideration. First, if we are to attempt to restore world prosperity we must get the international price level right, as regards raw materials. The producers of primary commodities are two-thirds of the population of the world. They had their purchasing power destroyed seven years ago by the fall in prices. We have to get that price level right and I think possibly it could be done to a great extent by international action. The second point is one of enormous difficulty. Incidentally, may I say that I admit that the difficulties before us are vast. But we have to face them because the cost of not facing them is so great. My second point is that we have to remove from countries which are at present living more or less in closed economies, the fear that, if they remove restrictions, their currencies will be battered down and broken in the money markets of the world. That is an immensely difficult problem.

My third point is one to which I have already alluded, namely, the question of access to raw materials for all nations and of enabling them to pay fully for their requirements by the export of their goods. The fourth suggestion which I would make is that in order to restore the economic health of the world the creditor countries must be prepared to receive interest payments, in full, in the form of imported goods. Fifthly, I suggest that we must abandon the nineteenth century idea of international trade, which was that of a struggle to secure a favourable balance of trade, to export capital and to hold the debtor countries in tribute for ever. Today I feel that we must base international trade on the idea that the only object of exporting goods is in order to import goods—that when any nation exports goods, it has to import goods to pay for them. Finally, there is the point which I have already mentioned, and that is the necessity for internal prosperity and increased purchasing power in all countries because that is the only possible basis for a revival of international trade.

I felt it incumbent on myself to intervene in this Debate, and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for having brought up the subject. I would say, in conclusion, that when we look round the world to-day and think of the human suffering all over the world—the actual suffering and shortage of food in such countries as Italy and the mental suffering caused by the increasing fear of war—we must feel, to whatever party we may belong, that it is incumbent upon us, first, to study these terribly difficult problems and never to despair of arriving at a solution which will improve the lot of the world, and, secondly, to seek for reconciliation among all peoples and all nations. I support the Prime Minister because I believe that he has broken away from the drift which we have been in during recent years and is seeking to establish peace among all peoples.

There is one practical Measure before the Government at the present time for carrying out the ideas of the van Zeeland Report. That is the trade treaty at present being negotiated between this country and the United States. Those negotiations are the outcome of the van Zeeland Report and they are, in a practical way, showing the nations of the world that the two sensible peoples in the world can come together with the object of starting an appeasement policy which will get us back a little way in the direction of freedom. This Debate has gone beyond rather wider than the van Zeeland Report. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) understands very well that all Members in this House on both sides are pacifists. We all want peace. We are mostly not advocates of "peace at any price," but peace at any price except the loss of honour, or, as I would prefer to put it, they want peace at any price except the sacrifice of freedom. I think the difference between us arises really on the question of what is the best way to secure peace.

I do not think, and I do not believe that the majority of the country think, that you can secure peace now by disarming. Our method is collective security in order to enforce the rule of international law, and that depends upon having an adequate force and adequate allies to back the policy and contribute to the force. That is the alternative policy to disarmament, and it is the only policy which will secure peace and lead up to eventual disarmament.

Speech after speech in the Debate has turned on the question of appeasement—political and economic appeasement. Do let us clear our minds of mere words. Who is it whom we want to appease, and is the appeasement to be carried out at the expense of others? If there is a chance of appeasing international jealousies, of appeasing peoples, there is a great deal to be said for it; but if it is merely going to be repeated frightened attempts to appease dictators, it is not a policy which will lead to peace, but merely to further demands from the dictators. Everybody knows that that is true.

Even if appeasement were in the direction of settlement, do let us consider at whose expense that appeasement is to be made. We hear a great deal of talk about redistributing territories in the world. If that means handing over blacks from one Government to another, I think that that form of appeasement might consider at any rate the interests of the blacks who are to be handed over. The thought of handing back colonies to Germany as though it were merely a matter that depended upon the Front Bench here and upon a set of rulers in Germany, seems to me to be a monstrous perversion of justice. If any settlement is come to about colonial questions, I hope the House will realise that there ought to be an international trust in charge of those colonies, throwing them open to trade, but with the main duty of looking after the interests and development and freedom of the native inhabitants of the colonies in question.

When we come to appeasing Italy, are we appeasing Italians or the ruler of Italy? Probably the Italian people, like ourselves, want peace. I should doubt whether any of those who have been fighting in Spain any longer have any illusions as to the beauties of war. Are we to appease Italy now by advancing her money in order that she may be able to provide more munitions of war to destroy the Spanish people? Is the appeasement of Italy to be at the expense of the Spanish people?

Again, take the question of Czechoslovakia. We are told that we should appease Herr Hitler by allowing the Sudeten Deutsch territory to become an independent federated canton under German control. Surely, we should consider the minorities in the Sudeten Deutsch territory. There are over 350,000 Czechs even in the Sudeten Deutsch territory which it is proposed should be handed over. In addition, there must be at least another half-million of people in that territory who are Socialists, and who know that they will be sent to concentration camps if that territory were cantonised and annexed by Germany. Moreover, the Jews, who number many thousands in that territory, are being boycotted, driven out and robbed in Henlein Czechoslovakia. The fear of what has happened in Austria happening in Czechoslovakia is already expelling and robbing the Jewish minority. Czechoslovakia includes many other minorities.

Take the question of finance. One of the main recommendations of the van Zeeland report was, to put it plainly, that England, America and France should advance money to Germany and Italy in order to re-establish their finances, so that they might then be enabled to drop the quota system and buy freely once more. That, no doubt, would be a measure which would be welcomed and hailed with enthusiasm in Germany and in Italy; but at whose expense is it to be carried out, and for what purpose? It is to be carried out at the expense of the British taxpayer, in order that these dictators may build more aeroplanes and make more bombs—so that, whenever they please, they can deal with us as they dealt with the Spaniards, and as they would deal with the Czechs.

Let us look at these questions from a practical point of view. There will always be a demand from Germany, from Italy and from Poland for foreign money; and just as, when the Norse pirates came over to England, we always bought them off with Danegeld year by year in order that they might go away again, so these people who have no money say they are going to be nasty as long as we do not pay them. II is necessary, in order to secure economic appeasement in this world, that we establish international law and reliance upon treaties. As long as you have the Germans saying that they are going to repudiate, not only the Austrian debts, but the Young and Dawes loans as well, how are you to consider any form of international financing, and any sort of confidence whatever? Confidence must depend upon respect for law, and respect for law can only be universal when the law is based on and built up on an adequate force to support the decisions of the courts of law. That seems to be the only possible economic or political method of appeasement.

I would say further to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley, when he goes to Poland and sees the horrible conditions there, look at the position with the sort of eyes that you use in this country. He knows perfectly well that in Poland there are vast empty spaces in which production has hardly scratched the soil, and that landlordism has damned Poland. It is not a question of Green Shirts, or the Social Credit people; it is not a question of Socialism; it is not a question of the fear of war; the real difficulty is that the landlords will not let men work. We cannot pretend that we can solve the Polish problem for the Polish Government; we can only just tell them, "There is the problem under your noses; if you want freedom, you can get it for yourselves." There is one other point in connection with the financing of these bankrupt totalitarian States who have no currency for imports. We are all talking about trying to stabilise prices and stabilise currency. We have this scheme of stabilising —

We are not stabilising currency.

We have the tripartite agreement with America, whereby we have stabilised the value of the pound and the dollar, though the franc has sadly fallen out of the picture. There is one certain way of upsetting any stabilisation of that sort. That is by one State in the compact outrunning the constable. France has. If America does, as it is now threatening to, borrow $5,000,000,000 in order to find work for unemployed, the dollar is sure to fall; and then, what is to happen to the pound which we are supporting rigorously by a 5s. 6d. Income Tax? The pound will go up and the dollar will go down, and the whole financial situation of the world will be upset, simply because one country does not balance another's budget. If America and ourselves were united and we had one intelligent Parliament here to rule both countries, there would be no outrunning the constable in those two countries; we should have sound finance triumphant throughout the English-speaking world and we could keep parity. But you cannot keep parity with countries which do not balance their budgets; they will depreciate currency once again. I am afraid the van Zeeland proposals for stabilising the currencies of the world depend on the unpleasant necessity of one Parliament ruling the rest of the world.

It is rather difficult for me, an ordinary average man, to follow the three speakers who have gone before me. [An HON. MEMBER: "Four."] I had forgotten my hon. Friend, admittedly. The right hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury), the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Loftus) and the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) are very distinct individuals in this House, with very distinct views, all of whom would get a certain amount of company along some of the road, but none of whom would get company over the whole of the road he wants to go. But I want to support the demand that the Government should take definite steps to see that the international aspects of economic problems are not lost sight of. In these recent years and months the political aspects of the problem have come right on top, and the economic aspects have been shoved into the background. I think that was a disgraceful quotation from the "Times" which my right hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley gave, in which they said that the van Zeeland Report was away on the shelves, with the dust collecting on it. When the leading organ of the Government [Interruption]. This is a most shocking moment, when one of the most representative Members in the House laughs at the "Times." I am so concerned that I feel I ought to resume my seat until I have my emotions under control. I say, when this important organ of Conservative opinion in this country throws aside with contempt what was a few months ago held up to us by the Government as a principal item in their international programme, that is a dreadful development.

I do not want to continue the Debate or intervene for any undue length of time, because I understand there will be a full debate on the subject the week after we resume. But I want to say to my friends, when they are talking about economic appeasement, that I have never known a time in the whole of my life when there was not enough wealth in each one of the countries of the world to give everybody in that particular country a reasonable standard of life if the wealth had been reasonably distributed among the people in that nation. Although we have been through what are supposed to be hard times in the last 20 years in this country—and I know a lot of my constituents have been through hard times—a big proportion of the people in this country in the upper classes have never known what it was to want a single meal. The hon. Member for Lowestoft says that we must do this and we must do that. Who are the "we's" that he is talking about?

The individual Members of this House.

No, the hon. Member is talking about "we" as a nation. I do not see that "we." This nation has two classes, with two distinct and antagonistic interests. The hon. Member talks about Great Britain as a great and self-sacrificing nation, prepared to go into international conferences and set an example to others of international unselfishness. But people in this country during this last week have been deliberately throwing shares up and down and wrecking the whole economics of this country and other countries; not to serve any national purpose that I can see, but simply so that at the end of these manipulations they shall have more profits than they had at the beginning. They have no higher motives, no bigger objectives, and no greater knowledge of the things they are counting on than the fellow who went to the Derby.

I suggest that every Member on that side of the House ought to go to the Derby.

I did not know what was going to win the Derby.

I did not suggest that the hon. Member did; otherwise we should have had a grievance against him.

You would have had no grievance against me. I should have done as I always do; I should have shared my knowledge. The gambling on the Stock Exchanges and what are called the money markets is run by a body of people with no national interest whatever. During the last week I have read of the debates in another part of this building on the coal deposits of this country. These are the sort of people who are supposed to go to Geneva and Germany and set the world an example of British unselfishness in economic affairs. They are trying to extract out of us, the people, double the amount of millions of pounds that they have already been promised for the mineral resources of our country. I am not going on, because hon. Members will realise that I am on a theme that, if developed, would be very fruitful, and on which I could easily allow myself to be carried away. I want to support the view that the economics of the situation should be kept constantly in mind, but that the social aspects of the situation, the problems that can be easily solved, should be also dealt with.

I was in Austria during the starvation in the early post-war years. In the town of Vienna the people were in the most pitiable condition that I have ever seen human beings in my time. I was not in a pitiable condition. I was a millionaire. I was made a millionaire by changing £2; I became a millionaire in Vienna for a week. I could buy anything I wanted, things which I could never get in my own land, but the people in Vienna were starving. That is the essential economic problem that has to be solved. If you are to get a stable economic world free from war danger, you have to get rid of the starving men in countries that are rolling in wealth of all descriptions. That is why I rise to-day to support the demand that, in our rearming and in our burrowing under ground to make ourselves safe from bombs and all the other things upon which we are spending our time, the question of solving the property of the poor man in all lands should be the major preoccupation.

The picture that hon. Member has given of Vienna in 1920 is a picture of the misery that comes to people as a result of a great war. It is because some of us realise what that means—as I am sure that he does—that we would like to join with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr Lansbury) in appealing to the Government to take this opportunity of making clear that they are determined that the labours of M. van Zeeland shall not have been in vain, and that, without committing themselves in any way to any details of his suggestions, they are prepared to follow up, with all the energy that they can command, the method that he recommends—the method of conference involving willingness to co-operate and to make sacrifices. It is the only method by which not only the economic causes that are leading to war, but the other, deeper as they may seem to some, national causes can be removed. It will be a tragic thing if, after having given days to considering preparations for war and what we are to do if war comes, we cannot find an hour or two to consider the preparations for peace, the need for them, and how we can support the Government in taking every opportunity to make those preparations effective.

It has been said that there is nothing new in the Report of M. van Zeeland. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) says that that is his view. It is quite true that you can take up each individual proposal and find that someone or somebody has suggested it at some time. That criticism has been made before now of the Sermon on the Mount; that it contained nothing new. It has been seriously made. But this report is new by its authority and by the way in which it brings forward a whole series of suggestions and makes a unit of them. It is new from the fact that for the first time it comes before the world, not as the suggestion of a group of economists or of theorists, but as the proposal of a Prime Minister of experience, who has been asked by the Prime Ministers of Great Britain and France to undertake a mission which has involved visiting the capitals and the governments of a number of the leading countries of Europe, and also the United States of America. It comes to us as a result of all that experience and labour. This thing cannot be put aside as something which can be left in a pigeon-hole to be looked at when a convenient moment comes in the distant future.

All the while rearmament goes on in every country, and some countries are near the breaking-point. The strain on the life of the people in the poorer countries of Europe becomes greater and more intolerable, and unless you can take positive steps to make a halt in the armaments' race possible, and bring the nations together and to make peace real, a breakdown will come which will involve not only the country which now feels the burden greatest, but perhaps the whole of our civilisation. We are not asking for peace which will just be the stabilisation of the status quo. The peace that is to be real must be something much deeper than that. We want to see the real causes of war removed—the causes in the life of the people—and if we can do that, peace will be a noble thing, because it will mean international co-operation in which all nations will be the gainers, though all must be ready to make sacrifices. I would ask that this country in this difficult hour of the world should come forward and say that it will not only be willing to join in such a work, but that it invites other nations to come forward to undertake this method of conference, and that, for its part, it will be willing to make the sacrifice of position and privilege that may be necessary; not to purchase a momentary peace, but to secure peace that will be lasting, because it involves international co-operation and the common welfare of all.

I am sure that we are all very much indebted to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) for having introduced this very interesting debate. I have listened on behalf of the Government very carefully to all the thoughtful contributions that have been made during the afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman has, in fact, as usual, advocated a policy of peace by diplomacy, and I should like to accept his speech in that spirit. I would also like to thank him for the reference he has made to the representatives of His Majesty's Government abroad, our Ministers and Ambassadors, whom he has told us, he has recently met, whose qualities he admires and to whom he wishes success. That view is endorsed by the experience we have ourselves of the excellent work which they are doing at this critical time. Having shown the right hon. Gentleman how much importance we attach to diplomacy and all it means in the world to-day, I should like to address myself to several of the topics, points and questions that have been put in the course of the debate. We have been told that if we put right the economic troubles of the world we shall do much to avoid possible war. There is a good deal of truth in that assertion, but in examining it we ought to realise that we must get perfectly clear the inter-relationship of economics and politics. To this particular point M. van Zeeland attached special importance. He said:

" Let us try, therefore, to find a way for a practical solution, without going beyond the limits of this mission, which is of an economic character, but without pretending that it can be artificially isolated from the political factors which surround it and which impose upon it their conditions."

That illustrates the importance which M. van Zeeland attaches to the political atmosphere in which his report was most likely to be successful. I might add, that this copy of his report is quite free from dust, owing to the habitual attention paid to it by His Majesty's Government. In fact, owing to the laborious attention that I always pay to these subjects, I have been able during my short period at the Foreign Office only to wipe the sweat from my brow, but have never had occasion to wipe the dust from any document that I have studied.

Let us consider a little further the inter-relationship of politics and economics. It is true that economic distress is a fruitful cause of political instability. It is also true that a successful measure of what one hon. Member has referred to as economic disarmament might be expected to set up currents favourable to political appeasement. While that is true, it must also be realised that economic nationalism—which is one of the chief obstacles in the way of obtaining a general relaxing of trade barriers—is due as much to political as to economic causes. A certain degree of confidence in the political sphere is, therefore, essential, particularly if we are to try to persuade those who have set up barriers, with which to ensure their own economic self-sufficiency, to pull them down.

This brings me back to some further words of M. van Zeeland, where he says:

" Improvement in economic conditions requires an atmosphere in which at least a certain degree of confidence, good will, sincerity, order and security prevails in international relations."

The whole efforts of His Majesty's Government are being slowly, surely and successfully devoted to these ends, as I hope to show in the course of my remarks.

Before I come to what I would call the political side of my remarks, let me study a little more closely the economic activity of His Majesty's Government to improve matters. I have been asked a question about M. van Zeeland's report itself. There is to be a debate on this specific subject on the Wednesday after the Home resumes. Therefore, I shall be excused, I am sure, from going into the details of the report. The present position in regard to the report was announced by the Prime Minister a short time ago, when he said that the report is still under consideration but that we must defer any decision as to whether effect could be given to its recommendations. I would repeat that the report will continue to receive the consideration which it deserves. The fact that time is being taken in examining it and in preparing the ground, is justified by our experience of the World Economic Conference, where we realised the danger of insufficient preparation. This is an argument in favour of taking particular trouble over such an important matter as this at the present time.

Reference has been made to a feature of the report which desires that equilibrium shall be established between agricultural and industrial conditions. His Majesty's Ministers have this matter very much in mind. A speech of the Minister of Labour at the International Labour Office recently was devoted to this very subject and attracted a great deal of attention at Geneva at the time. If hon. Members will study that speech they will see the importance which the Government attach to this particular aspect of the problem. But I do not want to rest simply on saying that we have this important report under consideration. We have been indulging in very real activities in the sphere of international economics. These activities have been prompted by a realisation of the present position of international trade and by our wish to improve that, as much as by a natural desire to look after our own interests. If we look at the position of international trade we find that in volume it is about half what it was in 1929—a very strong reason for continuing the efforts we have been making.

Will the Under-Secretary make that quite clear, as it is important? Does he mean that the amount of goods which are passing between country and country is half now what it was in 1929?

The total volume of international trade exchanged between countries is as I have said.

Weight or value?

I beg pardon, in value. This is primarily due to economic causes, but we must remember, as I have already said, that it is partly due to the economic nationalism which has created barriers between nations. M. van Zeeland has drawn attention to the difficulties in the path of international trade and has made suggestions for dealing with some of these barriers. We have done our best: in recent years to reconstruct as much as possible of the system of free trade which existed in pre-War days. The attempts that we have made have been most successful in the areas where there has been most political calm. Between Great Britain and her own customers in the Empire there has been a marked development in trade, and this is also true of the development of our trade with Scandinavia and other countries. There has been a modification of the old system we knew before, but I believe that this development, taken in conjunction with the large number of trade agreements which this country has successfully negotiated, shows that we are making a considerable contribution to the development of freedom in international trade.

What about America?

I am coming to the right hon. and gallant Member's point. If we examine an interesting article in the "Times" to-day we find that Sir George Schuster gives reasons showing that our recent activity in Imperial and other trade need not excite the envy but rather the admiration of other countries for the contribution we have made to economic appeasement. The policy that we have adopted in widening the area of freer trade has been adopted also by the United States of America, and the result is that these two great systems of world trade have been moving on parallel lines. Unlike the rule in geometry, I am glad to say that those lines are now drawing closer together. Here I come to the question raised by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood), who asked me about the proposed trade agreement with America. As the right hon. and gallant Gentleman knows, we have been engaged in negotiating this trade agreement. I cannot give any further news at the present time, but the negotiations are proceeding. We attach importance to the successful outcome of these negotiations, and we hope that this will be a genuine contribution to the improvement of world trade, the importance of which it would be impossible to exaggerate.

In another direction, as the right hon. Gentleman also observed, we participated with the United States, in 1936, in the Tripartite Monetary Agreement with France, by which the three Powers undertook to consult together with a view to maintaining equilibrium between their currencies. The hope was expressed at the time that that agreement might lead to a general reduction in trade restrictions, and it was due to this hope that we then took the initiative in asking M. van Zeeland to produce his report on these very important matters. I think it may really be said with justice that, as far as lies within its power, this country has done its best to improve economic conditions in the world. We are not only satisfied that we have made progress in that sphere, but, having shown what we have tried to do in the economic sphere, I come back to the original statement of M. van Zeeland, that much depends upon political appeasement if we are to have success in the economic field. Let me remind the House again of M. van Zeeland's words. He asked for

" an atmosphere in which at least a certain degree of confidence, goodwill, sincerity, order and clarity prevails in international relations."

I have been asked whether the Government subscribe to several general declarations in favour of peace which were quoted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury). He asked whether we approve of the recent statement made by Mr. Cordell Hull. I quote what the Prime Minister said on that subject on 1st June—

" I need hardly add that they [His Majesty's Government] for their part are fully resolved to respect the obligations which they entered into in signing the Pact of Paris."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st June, 1938; col. 2011; Vol. 336.]

That, I think, shows that we are ready to adhere to our obligations, and the answer I give to the right hon. Gentleman is that we do subscribe to this statement made by Mr. Cordell Hull and that we support his general appeal for the settlement of disputes by peaceful methods.

The Americans have appended to the Kellogg-Briand Pact what is known as the Stimson Declaration. Do the Government accept that?

I am confining myself to the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bow and Bromley, who asked a specific question, beyond which I do not propose to go on this occasion. The whole policy of the Government is in favour of widening the area of agreement. We have had occasion to discuss this policy before on one side of the House and the other; in fact, we have had exchanges of opinion with the right hon. Gentleman opposite on this point. I must stress again on this occasion that the whole of our activity and our influence is being used to widen the area of agreement and therefore to create that atmosphere in which, along with the economic steps we have been taking, further implementation can be given to such important reports as that of M. van Zeeland.

The House will remember that on several occasions we have attempted to widen the circle of agreement, but that we have met with opposition from the party opposite. [HON. MEMBERS: Oh !"] Yes, we negotiated an agreement with the Italians that was opposed by hon. Members; that was widening the area of agreement. We have also signed with the new Eire another agreement. On every side one sees that the policy of the Government is being crowned with a good degree of success, and that despite the difficulties with which we are faced in the economic and political spheres we are making slow but sure progress, in the exceptional conditions of the time. I am sure we shall be aided in our efforts if we are inspired by the idealism of the right hon. Gentleman who introduced this subject this afternoon. I am sure that his spirit is the right one, though his spirit is so sincere and so intense that he might not always appreciate some of the more sordid difficulties with which I have been striving. I feel when I hear him that I am threading my way over a difficult plain covered with boulders and rocks which I am trying to negotiate, while he can soar over it in a much more satisfactory way—though I fear occasionally he gets lost in those clouds which merely cast shadows on the ground over which I am walking. The policy of the Government might be summed up in the following way: We are using at the present time our experience in the economic field, and our tradition in the political field for political wisdom and diplomacy, to maintain that balance between politics and economics which we hope will help us out of the difficulties which lie ahead.

I should like now to refer to some of the successes that the Government have obtained in the realm of Spanish affairs and to the bombing that has been taking place there on a large scale recently, both with a military object and to inflict terrorism on the civil population. I believe that during the last four months something like 6,000 persons, mainly old men and women, and children, have been killed or wounded in the bombing of open towns by General Franco. It must be remembered in that connection that the Spanish Government deliberately renounced in February last the use of bombing as a reprisal, because they relied on the efforts which Great Britain was making, in association with other great Powers, to stop it. Unfortunately, nothing has come of those efforts. I do not know whether the Under-Secretary can tell us anything about it.

In the Debate which took place in February last, the late Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs made reference to an international scheme in which he was interested, for an agreement to abolish bombing altogether. It is not only in Spain that we see this sort of thing taking place; the horrible events in Canton recently have shocked public opinion very much. I suggest that one practicable proposal is that the Government should take steps to arrange for the removal of anti-aircraft guns from the list of articles not permitted to be exported to Spain. That would be a practical step forward. Public opinion can do a great deal to restrain the countries which are indulging in this sheer terrorism. We can do it also individually by the boycott, by refusal to purchase articles from the countries concerned. The only real remedy for it in the long run is collective action to abolish war itself altogether.

Now I want to refer to the bombing of British ships that has taken place. In some cases, as is acknowledged, it has been deliberate. This bombing has been carried on experimentally by General Franco for some time. He began with smaller nations and bombed their ships, and now he has grown bolder and begun experimenting with Great Britain, and a number of British subjects have been killed and wounded as a result of his activities. The Government have made protests, and, as I believe, vigorous and sincere protests, but, of course, if it is known that your policy is one of complete non-intervention and that nothing will move you from it, the most vigorous protests are apt to be rather ineffective. I understand that our Consul resides outside Barcelona. I suggest that he should be there, on the spot, as are the Consuls of other countries, and that there should be naval and air attaches there.

Some suggestions have been made that neutral zones might be provided in the different ports. I know it is a very difficult matter and that it may not be practicable, but if that could be done, it could be arranged for British warships to be present, which could go into action at once in the event of any attack upon British ships. I understand that the present idea is that the bill for reparations in regard to British property should be sent in at the end of the war. That may be all right up to a point, but in cases where you get this deliberate bombing of British property contrary to international law, and for which there is no justification whatever—this pure piracy—then different action should be taken. We in this country, of course, cannot do what perhaps some others might do. We cannot take any action which would involve a reprisal in the form of loss of life, but we can seize property, and I think it would be perfectly proper action to seize one or more of General Franco's ships as a safeguard and a surety against the claims that may arise for the destruction of British shipping. I put that forward as a practical proposal, and I think that in the old and glorious days of the British Navy that is the least action that would have been taken in the circumstances.

I want now to refer to a case of a different kind which has arisen recently, to show the length to which General Franco's agents are going in this country. A well known line which has an extensive trade with the Canary Islands—Teneriffe—and also with the East Coast of Spain was rung up the other day by the Duke of Alba's agent, and asked if they would have a talk with him. Naturally the firm's representative went to have a talk, and he was informed that it had been discovered that as a result of the bombing of one of their ships his line was carrying food to Spanish Government ports and that, in view of that fact, no clearance certificates were to be allowed for any ships of his line sailing to the Canaries in future—a direct discrimination against British traders. I venture to say that that is absolutely intolerable and ought not to be permitted from the representative of any country in this country, and certainly not from a country which is not diplomatically represented here at all. I hope the Under-Secretary of State is taking vigorous action to make it clear that any action of that kind will not be tolerated here.

Let me now refer to the work of the Non-Intervention Committee and the position at the present time. May I put the position as I see it? So far as I can form a judgment, the Government now want General Franco to win. It fits in with their plans, and they think it is the best way out. If General Franco wins, that means that Germany wins in Spain. With regard to Italy, there is an agreement which arranges for the departure of the Italians altogether from Spain. I am going to assume that that goes through—and I sincerely hope that it will be carried out—but if it does go through, it does not by any means solve the problem. The Germans are under no obligation to go, and they are not in the least likely to surrender the harbours, the aerodromes, and the other gauges which they have at the present time and which are of enormous value to them in controlling the country from a Nazi point of view. One realises by studying the records of the Great War, that throughout that period the people who, at the present time, are backing General Franco, are the very people who were backing the Germans throughout the Great War. If anyone doubts that, they should look up the files of the "Times," and they will find that it is so. Quite apart from gratitude for what has been done for Franco by Germany, their natural feelings and instincts are on that side and there is no hope that they are going to turn round to us and say, "We are hoping you will give us money and we are going to throw over the other people," for it is not likely to happen.

In regard to the Italian Agreement, Signor Mussolini has been singularly successful, and I congratulate him, because he has the British Prime Minister at the end of a string. The Prime Minister has pledged his political reputation that he can make a first-class Anglo-Italian Agreement, and he has simply got to put it through. Therefore, I say that Signor Mussolini is in a very happy position, much happier than that of the British Prime Minister. In this position which I have been describing, namely the victory of Germany if Franco wins in Spain, I am surprised and disappointed to find that apparently the French Government, with whom we are so closely allied and with whom our interests run so intimately, are apparently tamely following in the same course as directed by the British Government, a course which must, from their point of view, lead to a great diversion of the French Army from the West down to the Pyrenees. I hope that they will be a little stiffer in dealing with the British Government in future.

The position of the Non-Intervention Committee, as I understand it, is this: On 4th November all nations represented on the Committee were in complete agreement as to the terms on which the Counting Commissions should operate when they went to Spain. since then certain British proposals have been put forward which weaken, and to a large extent render futile, the agreements which were unanimously come to on 4th November. Certain attacks have been made on the Russian Government for the part they have been playing in obstructing, but one must in justice say that they are the only people who have been consistent. They are remaining exactly where everybody else was on 4th November, and it seems to me unfair to attack them in these circumstances. Let me quote words used by Lord Plymouth himself during the Debate in the Non-Intervention Committee on 13th January, 1938:

" In view of the fact that we have passed this resolution— That is the resolution of 4th November—

" I feel it would be a very serious thing to attempt to reverse the decision that we came to then, and to try to reach an agreement that is upon some different basis from that which we originally agreed upon when we passed our resolution of November 4th."

That is what he has been doing ever since, in spite of his use of those words.

Let me consider rapidly the changes which have been proposed by the British Government. On the question of the date when the land control should come into operation, first it was to precede shortly the commencement of withdrawal. That was unanimously agreed to. Then a proposal was brought forward by the British Government that the land control should come into operation when the Counting Commission arrived in Spain, obviously at a moment when there was no certainty that anything at all would take place or that there was the slightest hope of any withdrawal. That was a fundamental change. I understand the position now is—to bring things up to date—that the Russian Government, in spite of the obvious objection, have agreed to let that point go, only making the stipulation that the control shall not last longer than the 40 days, that is the 30 days plus 10 days' grace, and that there shall be no suggestion for an extension, which certainly would be brought forward under other circumstances. That seems a reasonable proposal if it is adhered to—40 days, no more and no excuses of any kind.

The second proposal of the British Government is as to the method of counting the volunteers. The basis on which it has always been discussed in the subcommittee is that there would be separate categories for artillery, infantry, cavalry, tanks, machine guns, military engineers, signals, air, and navy. That has been fundamentally altered. The categories have been cut down to four—military, naval, air and civil. That means all the army categories are to be lumped into one, and it is obvious what manipulation there could he, such as an exchange of so many infantrymen against so many technical troops. There is room for any amount or gross injustice there. The position as a result of what took place at the sub-committee yesterday is, I believe, that the Russian Government have nevertheless conceded that too, so there is full agreement there.

The next point concerns sea control. The original proposal was that there should be control at all the ports in Spain, both day and night, as obviously there would have to be if it was to be effective. In the very small ports there would probably be three observers, who could work on a rota of eight-hour shifts, and larger ports would probably have 24 observers, who would be on the spot to board immediately any ships which came in. The British Government's proposal is that the observers should not be permanent, that they should not be available day and night, and should not be stationed at all the ports. That makes a fundamental change in the efficient working of the scheme. I am glad to learn that the Russian Government, while making these other concessions are insisting, and I hope they will stick to it, that land and sea control shall come into operation at the same time. Otherwise it would be grossly unfair to one side.

Then there are questions of finance. They have been divided, as the Prime Minister said at Question time to-day, into two categories: administrative costs and the costs of the transport and maintenance of troops. I understand that it is agreed that the administrative costs should be shared among the great Powers. It is also agreed that the transport of the troops back to their own countries by sea should be shared pro rata by the countries to which they belong. But there is no agreement as to the cost of maintaining these troops in Spain until they can be repatriated and transferred to the ports. I understand—and I am saying this in order to make the position as clear as possible—that the only point of difficulty there is that the Russian Government insist that the cost of the maintenance of the troops in Spain and their transport to the ports should be borne by the countries to which they belong, and that does not seem to me to be very unreasonable.

What are the weak points? It is conceivable that, before the Counting Commission get out there, some of the troops, let us say the German troops, have been transferred to Spanish West Africa or the islands. There is no provision for checking that. After the counting has taken place they can be brought back in Spanish ships. There is nothing to prevent that. Another weak point in the scheme is in regard to the question of aircraft. There is going to he no control of any kind on aircraft. It is a matter of fundamental importance. It is exceedingly difficult to find an effective scheme, but you cannot expect the Spanish Government to accept a scheme which permits Franco aircraft to arrive by air in any quantity at any time and yet prevents the arrival of Government aircraft which can be brought only by sea. Obviously such a proposal is quite inadmissible. It is difficult to see how such a scheme is going to be put into operation. I hope the age of miracles is not over and that some fair scheme will be put into operation, and that the Counting Commission will go out there. I would suggest that the first thing they should do is to propose an armistice while the counting is taking place. You cannot effectively count soldiers while fighting is going on. Once you got an armistice, however short, it would be very much more difficult to start the war again. I hope that proposal will be taken into consideration.

Finally, I would say, with regard to the whole non-intervention policy, that it is one of the most shameful episodes in the recent history of England. It is a policy of calculated imposture and organisd hypocrisy. It is the imposition of sanctions against a subject of aggression. The least we can do is to restore to the Spanish Government the international right to buy arms, a right which should never have been taken from them. If we were to do this, even at this late hour, we would drive away into dark corners war and the risks of war, and not in Spain alone.

For a few minutes I want to raise one other aspect of this problem. I think the whole world has been horrified by the bombings which have recently taken place on non-combatants in this war. But, indeed, I think that one of the most fearful results of these outrages has been that by their frightfulness and unending repetition the capacity of the peoples of the world for spontaneous protest has been atrophied, and the will to impose effective restraints has been blunted. Nevertheless, there are certain things that can be done. Something can be done to stop the killing and wounding of British sailors on British boats who are going about their legitimate business. Not only the lives of those involved—and every one of us must deplore the unnecessary death of people who are going about their normal tasks—but the Whole prestige of this country is at stake. British shipping is being threatened by the action of General Franco and his Fascist allies in their deliberate bombardment of British boats. It has been suggested that the ships trading between England and Spain are few in number and not carrying much cargo. That is quite untrue. The value of the tonnage of British shipping which moved from this country to Republican Spain in the last six months is, I am told, something like £3,000,000. Cargoes to the value of about £4,500,000 have been carried, including coal to the value of £750,000, and potatoes to the value of £200,000, while, from Australia, £2,000,000 worth of wheat has been shipped. That is a considerable trade and it is obviously of urgent importance to this country that it should not be interfered with. Moreover it is directly in the interest of this country that international maritime law about neutral shipping should be upheld, because if we allow this law to go by default, Great Britain is likely to be the greatest sufferer if she should ever become engaged in war. since the beginning of this year, according to my information, there have been i6 aerial attacks on British boats, either in or just outside Spanish Government ports. Twelve people on those boats have been killed and 42 have been wounded, and among the wounded are two officers of the international committee.

I have not time to go through the answers given to us by the Under-Secretary of State, but they show clearly that in the view of the Government some, if not all, of these attacks have been deliberate. That has been admitted more than once. It also becomes clear from the answers which have been given that protests and apparently strong protests, have been made by the Government to General Franco on more than one occasion, the first having been put in, I understand, on nth May. The only reply to these repeated protests has been further bombing and sinking of ships. We were told on 30th May that the rebel authorities had said that they were going to make inquiries into this bombing, but in point of fact the only reply has been the bombing of other ships. It is clear that these bombings have been deliberate and that the Government's protests have been ineffective. I suggest that the patience of His Majesty's Government should now be exhausted and that they should take effective action to protect the lives of our sailors and the vital national interests which are being so seriously threatened. Many things could be done. One step suggested by the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) is to demand compensation immediately. When our Ambassador in China was wounded the British Government demanded from Japan—a properly constituted Government, with whom we were in friendly relations—

In the case of our Ambassador in China, there was a grant. h was not a question of compensation.

There was a grant and we paid it.

I think it is right to say that not only did we require an immediate apology but that we have already put in demands for compensation to the Japanese Government. I cannot see why such a demand should not be made immediately to the rebel authorities in Spain, not only in respect of shipping itself but in respect of the people who have been killed, and if the demands are not met we ought to set up clearing arrangements by which money under our control could be applied on compensation for this damage. Further, as these aeroplanes are mostly Italian or German and are flown by Italian and German officers and in view also of the fact that they are still part of the Italian and German air forces, a protest should be made to the heads of those States asking them to insist immediately that their air forces shall no longer be allowed to bomb British merchantmen at sea.

Thirdly, I suggest that we should take the action which was proved successful after the Nyon Conference, and allow British warships—destroyers, it may be—to defend in territorial waters, with the permission which would doubtless be given by the Spanish Government, our British ships from attack when they are in the harbours of the Spanish Government. I suggest that, abroad, the complacency with which His Majesty's Government have looked upon this infringement of international law by these bombardments of our British shipping has given rise to amazement. If we allow these attacks to continue without taking effective action, the prestige of this country will suffer severely in the eyes of the peoples of other countries. I suggest that at home the people are rapidly losing patience at this constant and licensed murder of our British sailors, and I ask the Government to declare—there were indications recently that they may be taking a stronger line on this matter, and I hope that that is so I ask them to declare this afternoon that, as all protests so far have proved ineffective, the time for talk has finished, and the time for action has arrived.

I will do my best, in the short time available, to deal with the very serious matters which have been raised. There are three points. The first is the bombing of open towns; the second the bombing of British ships, and the third, to which I can only make just a reference, the Non-Intervention Committee. With regard to the bombing of open towns, it would be quite impossible to exaggerate the horror with which His Majesty's Government have read of recent bombings. Following the recent heavy bombings of Alicante and Granollers, His Majesty's Government have delivered a further protest at Burgos, in the course of which it was emphasised that the destruction of innocent lives only serves to embitter the Spanish conflict. We are asking the French Government and the Holy See to co-operate with us in our representations, and at the same time we are urgently considering other methods of action for preventing this terrible bombing, which all civilised peoples so much deplore. We have, in fact, been so horrified by the loss of civilian lives in Spain that I would repudiate the word "complacency," which the hon. Gentleman used. It in no way represents our feeling.

These apparently wanton aerial bombardments should, we think, be brought to an end, with the aid, perhaps, of public opinion. We believe that much can be done by the force of public opinion, and we are therefore considering asking certain foreign governments, who are in no way identified with either of the contending parties in Spain, to join with us in setting up a small independent commission which could hold itself in readiness to proceed to the scene of any aerial bombardment at the request of the party that suffered the attack, and report on the damage done, indicating in their view any possible military objectives which were in the neighbourhood. The Commission would immediately publish its report, and world opinion would then judge, with full knowledge that the matter had been impartially investigated, whether there could be any justification for the use of these barbarous methods of warfare.

Will it be associated with the League of Nations?

I am giving the hon. Member our immediate views on the subject before the House rises for the Whitsuntide Recess, and I would request him to allow us to continue to examine this matter.

Does that apply to China?

I am referring now to Spain, but we are not going to forget the international aspect of this question. I hope the words I have used, if they leave the matter somewhat open, will indicate how seriously we regard this problem. With regard to the bombing of British ships, the gist of the recent reply which we have received from General Franco's administration can, I think, be properly given by me to the House. In the first place, the reply says that the suggestion that British shipping is being deliberately selected for attack is devoid of any foundation whatever. In the second place, we are informed that the head of the administration himself and Count Jordana are interesting themselves in this matter, and that they have called for a full inquiry into the circumstances of the attack of which we complain and which the National Government regrets. This is the substance of the official reply we have received from the Burgos authorities, and I sincerely hope that this reply, its terms and the spirit in which it has been sent, indicate that those authorities realise what a very serious view His Majesty's Government have taken of the bombing of these ships.

Has there been any further bombing after that?

No, the reply has just been received. The hon. Gentleman who raised the question and the hon. Member who spoke before me asked for several detailed points to be considered. We have given serious consideration to many suggestions for the future. The most important is the reliance which we can feel that the Burgos authorities will pay attention to our recent emphatic protests. Besides that, we are proceeding with the investigation of safety zones for Spanish ports. There is no doubt that several of the berths used by British shipping have been exceedingly close to objectives which could be described as military. For instance, in some cases British ships have lain alongside Spanish ships of war. In those circumstances some of the ships which have been hit cannot be said to have been objects of deliberate attack, but in five cases which I have previously given we have reached the conclusion that the attacks have been deliberate. With regard to those attacks which cannot be called deliberate, there is some prospect of results, in our view, in this proposal for safety zones. We have been in touch with representatives of shipping interests in regard to this matter and I understand that they have taken steps to get in touch with the authorities at Barcelona and Valencia. We shall certainly lend all our efforts in trying to obtain a successful outcome of these discussions, although, owing to the small size of the port of Valencia, there are great difficulties in that place. With regard to the suggestion of our using warships and anti-aircraft guns on the spot, that could not be distinguished, I think, from a policy of intervention. We have examined that very closely, but we feel that it could be regarded as intervention if either batteries or ships or guns were to fire on the aircraft.

Does that mean that even if it were known that an insurgent vessel was firing on a British ship, it would be intervention in the war if the British ship fired back?

I think the hon. Lady cannot expect me to go into that question now, but within territorial waters if a ship of the British Navy fires on other ships engaged in the conflict, it is very difficult to distinguish that from intervention in the conflict. I am advised in that by my advisers and by my own common sense. With regard to the question of the Non-Intervention Committee, I can only say that I cannot accept the gloomy picture of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) of the work of the Committee, nor his strictures on the efforts of every Government except that of Russia. So far as the British Government are concerned, we have been trying, under the wise guidance of Lord Plymouth, to achieve success, and the result is that the Committee is nearer agreement on a plan than ever before.

Were any of my statements inaccurate?

I am sorry I cannot deal with each of them. I was about to say that the Soviet Government had given either approval or qualified approval to three points which were outstanding. These relate to the methods to be adopted and the work thus shows a certain progress.