I beg to move, in page 9, line 17, to leave out from "himself," to the second "and," in line 19, and to insert: at such place and time (not earlier than the fourteenth day after the date of the service of the notice). This Amendment is partly drafting, but it does include a change of some substance. It is drafting in that the reference to "day" is being left out and a reference to "time" substituted. In Clauses 1(1) and 4(1) there is a reference to "time," and it is thought desirable to bring the different descriptions into relation with one another. It is also an Amendment involving a change of some substance in that we have altered the period of 10 days required before a man is called up for military training after notice is served on him to a period of 14 days, as we consider this to more fair to the man in the circumstances.

Amendment agreed to.

11.15 a.m.

I beg to move, in page 9, line 20, at the end, to insert: Provided that a military training notice shall not be served upon a person engaged in agriculture requiring him to present himself for service before the first day of October in any year, and. The object of the Amendment is to make it obligatory that persons engaged in agriculture shall be called up for the special course of training only in the period from 1st October until the end of March and not at any other period of the year. Probably the first question which the Committee will ask me is, why this special arrangement should be sought in the case of agriculture. I assure the Committee that those engaged in the agricultural industry have no desire, on their own account, to escape from the provisions of the Bill, and I put forward this Amendment, not so much on account of the worker or the farmer, as in the national interest. In 1921 the number of persons under the age of 21 engaged in agriculture in this country was 184,000. Last year the corresponding number was 96,000. We have almost halved the number of persons under 21 engaged in agriculture. I understand that the effect of the Bill will be to remove for this special course of training about 26,000 of those 96,000 every year. I suggest to the Committee, for that reason, that agriculture is in a special position in relation to the question of the defence of the country and training for defence.

Agriculture is partly a seasonal industry. I do not wish the Committee to think that no agricultural work is done in the winter time. Such is very far from being the case, but, indoubtedly, the heaviest burden of labour falls upon the industry during the summer months. During the period of the hay harvest and the corn harvest special arrangements have to be made, and if during that period many of these young men were to be taken away for this special course of training, the work of the hay harvest and the corn harvest would be seriously imperilled. I may be asked why I propose to fix 1st October and not 1st November as the appropriate date in connection with this proposal. My reason is that a six months' period beginning on 1st October would end on 31st March. If the date were 1st November, the period would end in April, and April is frequently one of the most important months in the year for the agricultural industry. We had an example of that in the present year. Those who have knowledge of agricultural conditions are aware that this year men of the agricultural industry were working under full pressure during the whole of April because they had been held off the land until April. Owing to the conditions, heavy land could not be worked, and when April came it was necessary to get in all the spring corn and to prepare the ground for potatoes. If men had been taken away from the agricultural industry during that month, we could scarcely have got in the corn from which the harvest is to come.

Last week the Minister of Agriculture appealed to the agricultural districts to plough up worn-out grasslands for the period ending on 30th September. That is an added burden on agricultural labour. The men who will carry out that work are tractor drivers, a high proportion of whom are under 21. If, this year, any of these men are to undergo a special course of training before 1st October, I fear that the appeal by the Minister of Agriculture will meet with but a poor response, because it will be outside the power of those engaged in agriculture to carry out his wishes. There is one line of argument which I may anticipate. Hon. Members may say "Why move this Amendment in Clause 5, when there are provisions relating to special grounds of hardship in Clause 1?" This, however, is not what I would call a hardship case. I freely admit that there are hardship cases in agriculture, such as the cases of the family farm and of the young farmer under 20, and these will require careful attention under the provisions of Clause 1. But this is a matter which affects the nation, and not the individual. It is because everybody who is engaged in agriculture must be on the land during these summer months, that we move this Amendment. Therefore, I claim that its proper place is in Clause 5, and not in Clause 1.

Let me remind the Committee of one or two of the lessons which are to be learned from Europe to-day. What is happening in Germany in relation to agriculture? There is a grave shortage of agricultural labour there and during the summer months, the German authorities draft men from the Army on to the land. Men whom they put under their so-called protection in Czecho-Slovakia, are being drafted on to the land in Germany. That is a lesson which we ought not to neglect. This land question is of vital importance. It is part of the defence of the country. To keep these men on the land during the summer months is as essential to our defence as any of the other arms of defence under the control of the Service Departments. The House of Commons is far too apt to forget that one of the weapons of war is defence against starvation. I ask the Committee to accept this Amendment.

11.23 a.m.

There is no doubt that the object which my hon. Friend desires to achieve is a worthy one. But the position of agricultural workers in relation to the obligations imposed by this Bill is part of a larger problem, the problem of so working the Bill by administrative action, as to cause the minimum of inconvenience to every section of the population affected by it. The keynote of the policy of the Bill is that there are no exemptions and no special provision for any particular industry or class of persons, but the Bill is framed so that men may be called up in a way which will effect the least dislocation and cause the least loss of national productive activity. I think my hon. Friend realises the force of that consideration, which is the reason why we do not desire to mention any one particular industry or class. If we mention one, it will be found that there are numbers of others who may have claims to consideration equally well founded.

There is another reason why I shall ask my hon. Friend not to press the Amendment. I believe that it would be better for the cause which he has at heart to proceed by administrative action rather than impose this rigid time-table which he suggests on the issue of the calling-up notices. It is, in general, the case that the effect of withdrawing men from agricultural work is most severe on the production side of the industry if that withdrawal takes place during the summer months, but it is not the case that this proposed time-table could be rigidly applied in every district of the country. There are other forms of agriculture in other parts of the country where, I understand, it is the view that the winter months are very important and dislocation can be caused if men are taken up at certain times during that season.

I would ask my hon. Friend not to press his Amendment, but I give him the assurance that in working this Bill there will be close co-operation between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Labour—[An HON. MEMBER: "And the Ministry of Mines?"]—and the Ministry of Mines, certainly, with regard to other matters, but in regard to this particular agricultural aspect with which we are now dealing, between the two Ministries I have mentioned, and that the least possible dislocation will be caused to agricultural operations. In so far as agricultural conditions vary from district to district, that fact will be borne in mind. The position of the smallholder having only one farm worker of liable age will also be specially considered; and when you have cases of staffs on farms consisting mainly or only of persons of 20 to 21, every endeavour will be made to avoid calling them up in such numbers together as to dislocate the work of the farm unduly.

On that important point, if there is only one man on a farm—a one-man farm—how are you going to avoid calling them all up together?

Where there is only one worker on a farm, that case will be specially considered, and what arrangements can be made will be made to avoid hardship. The last point with which I wish to deal is the reference which my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) made to the effect of these proposals on the ploughing-up campaign recently announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture. The Government attach great importance to that campaign, and the repercussions of this question upon it will certainly be borne in mind. I hope that on the assurance that, in the case of agriculture as with other industries, this Bill will be worked to cause the very least dislocation possible, my hon. Friend will not press for this special Amendment for one industry.

11.28 a.m.

I rise to stress the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). We thank the Minister for his very good assurance; nevertheless, I want to press the point that last year, when there was no question of any Measure such as this taking men off the land, we were extremely short of labour. I may tell the Committee that in my own district I saw field after field of hay rotting because there was not enough labour, in the short date which good Dame Nature allowed us, to get it in. Also I saw fields of barley in November still in the stook. If, therefore, there is to be any dislocation whatever, if the calling-up by the Minister of Labour is going in any way to affect one or two men, it will be very serious indeed.

The Minister said he wanted the ploughing-up scheme of the Minister of Agriculture to go through well, but may I point out that every weed which grows in a field during the months of July and August will mean so much less food grown when the crops come to be harvested. The last point that I would like to make, and upon which I should like an assurance from the Minister, is in regard to the hardship committees before which certain cases will come. We shall not have another opportunity of making this point, and I would like to ask whether the hardship committees will be so placed in particular areas that there is not a great deal of time wasted by the men coming off the land, having to leave their work and their homes, and going to these hardship committees to present their case. With such an assurance from the Minister, and with the assurance of special consideration which he said will be given to these particular instances, I feel that my hon. Friends will be satisfied.

11.31 a.m.

On the whole,I—

Did the hon. and gallant Member vote for the Guillotine?

I am sure hon. Members opposite will not object to hon. Members on this side having a few words on this Amendment, because they will recollect that when their party was in office they themselves spoke very freely under a Guillotine that was then in operation. On the whole, I am in favour of the principle of this Amendment, but I think it is too rigid. In some places our harvests are very late and continue well into October, so that I hope the Minister will be able to have a flexible calling-up of the men according to the season, and that when there is a late season he will be able to have machinery to allow the calling-up to be a little later than it would otherwise be. I realise that many different classes of agriculture require people to be called up at different times, and, therefore, an Amendment like this, with fixed times, would cause some hardship in certain cases. I therefore ask the Minister to make the machinery of calling-up as flexible as possible.

11.32 a.m.

I would not have intervened but for the fact that the view seems to be held that there is only one man to be considered in this connection, and that is the farmer. I merely want to put this view to the Minister of Agriculture, that the young men concerned should also be considered as an element in this business. It may be that farm labourers are not prepared to do their military training in the uncongenial months from October to March. I know that if I had to choose when I would do my military training, I would not choose the hardest winter months, and I hope it will be remembered that there is the farm labourer as well as the farmer to be considered.

On the undertaking given by the Minister, I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

11.33 a.m.

I beg to move, in page 9, line 27, at the end, to insert: Provided also that the Minister shall not exercise his power to serve military training notices unless he is satisfied that there will be available at the places specified in the notices accommodation for the persons concerned on a basis of floor space and air space equal to that prescribed for the standard peace time accommodation of members of His Majesty's regular forces at home stations. The fact that we shall be brief on this Amendment is not to be taken as meaning that we do not feel very strongly upon it. We are most concerned that the calling-up of these boys should not be done in such a fashion and with such lack of preparation that immediately their health will be severely threatened. I want to remind the Committee of the report which was issued in 1920—Special Reports, Series No. 50—by the Medical Research Council which inquired into the enormous number of deaths, so numerous that it became a public scandal, among the young men who were called up in this country during the last Great War—the enormous mortality among the boys because over and over again they were put into hutments and barracks and other places in which there was continuous overcrowding. Whoever was responsible for the inquiry carried out by the Medical Research Council deserves public thanks for the results which have been laid before the public in this report. It seems that again and again the minimum square footage or cubic space laid down for the ordinary troops was not observed and that the carrier rate for the diseases often went up rapidly from about 11 per cent. to as high as 40 per cent., and in some cases even 73 per cent.

The fact is that while we were most in need of men in 1916–17 we were carrying to the graveyard in this country hundreds of our young lives who would never have been brought to the position of mortality if they had been properly looked after under healthy and hygienic conditions. I am moving this Amendment on behalf of my hon. Friends to secure a statutory provision that in calling up men, as the War Office will call them up, 20,000 to 40,000 at a time, they shall not do it until they can guarantee that there is proper space and air for them. I will quote to the Secretary of State a much older authority than this Important Medical Research Medical Council Report. It is from the Royal Commission of 1861, which reported on the scandals of the Crimean War. They said: Before the soldier can be assured of having the amount of space required for health, there must be a distinct recognition that the amount given by regulation (i.e., 600 cubic feet and 3 feet between beds) is on no account to be tampered with. No increase of regimental strength, no want of store rooms, libraries, or reading rooms, should for an instance be permitted to interfere with it. It would never be pleaded, as a reason for reducing the soldier's ration of bread and meat, that a larger number of men had joined the regiment than the commissariat could provide for. Why should the soldier's air ration, which is equally important for his health and efficiency, be differently dealt with? In any case overcrowding should utterly be put an end to. They have not been aware that, if above a certain number of men are placed in a given cubic space, the lives of some of these men and the health of others are certain to be sacrificed. I should think it ought to be regarded as a public duty by Members in every part of the House to insist that the Executive shall not summon to the colours one man who cannot be guaranteed, before he is called up to do his service, at least the minimum space required by the regulations for health and strength in his training.

11.37 a.m.

I think I can give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance he is seeking. We are well aware of the report from which he has quoted, but I am sure nobody would imagine that the conditions of the militiamen would in any way approach those that existed at the time of the War. I do not think it will be necessary to include in the terms of the Bill any conditions such as those provided by the Amendment. Under the machinery of the Bill military training notices will only be served on men by the Ministry of Labour as the War Office makes demands for them, and we shall not make demands for men for whom we have no accommodation. [ Interruption. ] That stands to reason. We do not want the men unless we can accommodate them. These men will be accommodated on exactly the same scale as that which has been laid down for the Regular soldier, that is, a minimum of 60 square feet per man. The extra accommodation which will have to be built in some cases in order to accommodate the men will be built upon that basis.

It is true that to begin with it may be necessary to put some of these men into tents, but they will be put in tents upon the most generous scale which we can afford, namely, eight men per tent. It will be only for a short time until hut accommodation is ready and they will have the same space per man as is arranged for the Regular soldier. Hon. Members who have visited any of the new barracks which the War Office are building will realise that the modern accommodation provided for a Regular soldier is very different from that which existed a short time ago. The programme of rebuilding which we have under way at the present time is a very extensive one. It has been accelerated, and we are getting on with it as fast as the buildings can be put up. It really cannot be suggested, and I hope it will not be suggested, that the living conditions for the modern soldier are anything but exemplary. If hon. Members think that the floor space or cubic air space which we allot to the Regulars is insufficient, let me refer to the incidence of cerebro-spinal fever in the Army during recent years. There has been no epidemic of this disease in the Army since the War. During the last five years the number of cases has averaged about 33 for the Army as a whole.

It might be expected that in the Army where the average age is young, the incidence of this disease, which is most prevalent among young adults, would be higher than in civil life. That cannot be substantiated. It shows that the precautions which we take with regard to the health of the men are such that the serious infectious diseases are not those to which the soldier is unduly exposed. We take the greatest precautions to prevent their being exposed to them. In the case of the Militiamen, I can assure the Committee that we are determined to make their life in the Army hygienic in every way.

This Amendment does not deal with existing accommodation for the existing soldier. It is intended to make some provision so that the present high standard will be available for the young Militiamen when they are called up.

I was saying that the Militiaman will be accommodated under the same standards and the same regulations as the Regular soldier. I have pointed out that the accommodation we provide is such as to prevent the spread and incidence of infectious disease, and that we are satisfied that the floor space which we allot to men is more than sufficient to give them immunity from this disease. The Amendment seeks to insert in the Bill some statutory provision, but I am giving the Committee an assurance that the Militiamen will be dealt with in the same way as the Regulars. Since the incidence of disease among Regulars is as low as it is, hon. Members need have no fear with regard to the conditions of the militiamen.

11.43 a.m.

The hon. Gentleman has completely failed to apprehend the purpose and meaning of the Amendment. We are asking that these men shall not be called up until accommodation is available. It is clear from what the hon. Gentleman has said that accommodation of the kind that is specified in the Amendment will not be available when they are called up. It is useless for the Undersecretary of State for Air to shake his head, because the hon. Gentleman has just told the Committee that it will be necessary to accommodate many of the men in tents. That implies that there is not sufficient barrack room accommodation of the right kind. While my hon. Friends will be ready to agree that there are occasions when it is proper to accommodate men in tents, it will be highly improper, and indeed injurious, to the men concerned to accommodate them in tents immediately upon being called up. That is not what happens in the case of Regular soldiers. They are not sent to tents when they enlist, but to barracks, and if barrack-room accommodation is not by any means perfect—although I am ready to admit there has been considerable improvement in recent years—it does afford an opportunity of breaking the men in by giving them accommodation not unlike that to which they have been accustomed.

To put 5,000 or 10,000 men into tents, in all sorts of weather, possibly in the winter season, when they have not been accustomed to accommodation of that kind, is going a little too far. What does all this demonstrate? That the Government are imposing on the country this compulsory system, and will be calling up large bodies of men, without having planned their accommodation and equipment. The hon. Gentleman tells us that the men will be accommodated in tents holding eight men. We ought to have rather fuller information on that point. What sort of tents are they to be? [HON. MEMBERS: "Bell tents."] I do not know whether hon. and right hon. Members opposite would care to be accommodated in tents, eight together, and on 1s. a day, when they join the Army for the first time.

We have done it.

I think the hon. Member had better be allowed to make his speech without so many interruptions. He has not much time, and interruptions do take up time.

I am much obliged, but I am not very much embarrassed by interruptions. I was about to observe, that while it might be quite legitimate to do this in war-time, it is quite unreasonable in times of peace, and I think we are entitled not merely to an assurance from the hon. Gentleman but to a specific provision in the Bill to ensure that before men are called up there will be ample accommodation of the kind that he has told us is available for the ordinary soldier.

11.48 a.m.

I think we should be failing completely in our duty if we did not protect these young men who are to be called up for military service. It is outrageous that they should not have proper comforts and proper accommodation in the Army. The Financial Secretary has told us that these men, or many of them—I do not want to exaggerate—will be accommodated for some time in tents. It is all very well for young men to be under canvas for a short time if the weather is good. I have been under canvas with the Volunteers for periods of two or three weeks, and with the type of weather we get sometimes, especially in Scotland, such accommodation can become not only uncomfortable but positively dangerous, men being soaked to the skin on many occasions. Ordinary barrack or hut accommodation can be uncomfortable, but apparently these men are to be accommodated eight in a tent for an indefinite period, because we have not been given any undertaking that it will be for only a short time.

The Financial Secretary objects to inserting in the Bill a statutory provision which would compel the Government to provide proper accommodation. I do not know what prevents the Government from going ahead with the provision of the necessary accommodation. They ought to give an undertaking that until proper accommodation is available none of these young men will be called to the Colours. That young men should be taken from comfortable homes and put under canvas for an indefinte period is an outrageous thing. The ordinary tent gives no proper accommodation, and is no substitute for ordinary home life, even when that is on a modest scale. I should like to have an undertaking from the Minister that they will be in tents for a very limited period only. Some of these young men may be damaged physically for the rest of their lives owing to the lack of accommodation, because there are many periods, even in summer, when the weather is very trying indeed, and living in tents is very dangerous.

The attitude of the Government and their supporters proves to me that they are completely lacking in sympathy towards the young men whom they are seeking to enlist for the purposes of defending the rich class in society. They are absolutely indifferent not only to the dislocation of home life which is bound to accompany the calling-up of the men but also to the financial hardships which will fall upon the family and on the individual, and on top of all that they add this indignity and inhumanity. It is unbecoming of those who are seeking to employ young men to defend their selfish interests. If they are anxious to use these young men to defend them and their possessions the least they could do would be to give them proper accommodation and to see that they are not subjected to the rigours of life in tents in the weather that we may get in this country. Hon. Members opposite tell us that they have lived in tents. Although the hon. and gallant Member for Camborne (Lieut.-Commander Agnew) says that he has been under canvas I take it that it was for a short time only, and I feel that he was very glad to get out of it.

11.53 a.m.

Mr. Markham: Judging by some of the speeches from the benches opposite during the last few minutes one would imagine that the young men of this country were tender hot-house plants who would wilt and decay at a breath of fresh air. In actual truth, I venture to say, young men are far fitter now than we were 20 years ago. We were then under canvas for many months on end and as far as camp life was concerned came out from that experience better physically than we were at the beginning. I would ask hon. Members opposite to remember some of the things that did happen 20 years ago when many of us who were under the age of those who are now to be called up were put under canvas for the first time. Naturally some of us had had a certain amount of coddling as youngsters—we did not like draughts; we did not like certain other things—but I do not think anyone can deny that a great number of those who volunteered during the war years benefited considerably from their training under canvas before going out to France.

Is not the hon. Member aware that it has been proved that on the last occasion thousands of our young men died directly due to overcrowding? They went away healthy but became infected, and instead of serving their country abroad died hi this country. That is what we want to stop now. We want the Government to be decent about it.

The overcrowding was not in tents. As a matter of fact, open-air accommodation is the thing that to a very large extent remedies that state of affairs. The trend of opinion in this country is towards the belief that one of the great remedies for the evils of overcrowding is open-air life. I have always said that many hundreds of thousands of men like myself, when we were 20 years of age or younger, benefited very considerably from the time we spent under canvas. I would go further, and say that the camps organised by the Boy Scouts, Church Lads Brigade and other movements not only for young men of 20 but for young lads of 10 to 15 years of age, in bivouaks in the summer, do the greatest possible amount of good. There are considerable medical grounds for urging that young men in industrial centres should get a chance of the free, open-air life that they can get under proper camping conditions. [HON. MEMBERS: "Divide."] It is extraordinary how the Opposition take every minute that they can on questions such as these but refuse to listen to others. The intolerance shown by the Opposition during the Debates on this Bill has been the very opposite of free speech, as we understand it.

Let me conclude my remarks. We have heard sob-stuff speeches from hon. Gentlemen opposite based upon the most abyssmal ignorance of the good that the open-air life can do. There are Members of the Opposition who have been scoutmasters, camp leaders and so on, but who have remained silent during these Debates. I urge any hon. Member opposite who has spent time under canvas to get up in all honesty and say that he disagrees with a very stupid Amendment.

11.58 a.m.

Mr. Ellis Smith rose —

Divide.

We shall get nearer to a Division if we allow hon. Members to make their speeches without unnecessary interruption.

I shall make my remarks as brief as possible. I had actual experience of the conditions during and after the last War, and I feel bound to say a few words on behalf of the young men who are to be called up. I want to have an assurance from the Secretary of State for War and the Financial Secretary that in no circumstances shall there be a repetition of what we went through. I always thought that our men were entitled to conditions at least as good as those of the officers, and one of my bitter memories is of the way in which we were treated compared with the treatment of officers and their batmen during the last War. I want to obtain the Minister's assurance that when men are put in tents there shall be not more than six in a tent. The men have to keep themselves smart and I am not complaining of that, because I realise the necessity of it. They have to deal with their equipment, and because of all that that implies I say that the maximum number in each tent should be six.

In addition to that, I hold that there

should be no tents in winter. I hope that an assurance will be given that whenever possible men shall not be put into tents. Tents are all right in decent weather, but as soon as it start to pour with rain, conditions become serious, as anyone will agree who has had experience of living under canvas. I am, therefore, asking for an assurance by the Secretary of State for War that men will have at least the same conditions as officers, that there shall be no differentiation, that men shall not be expected to live more than six in a tent and that there shall be no tents in winter.

Question put," That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 98; Noes, 195.

12.9 p.m.

I beg to move, in page 10, line 2, after the first "to," to insert: take duty in aid of the civil power in connection with a trade dispute, or to perform, in consequence of a trade dispute, any civil or industrial duty customarily performed by a civilian in the course of his employment, or to. If there is one matter in this Bill on which we feel strongly, it is the matter of protecting the rights of the trade unions and of the workers in the event of a trade dispute. It is a matter of fundamental importance to the trade unions and to the workers generally. We in this country have not yet passed into the totalitarian orbit, although there are tendencies which create apprehensions in our minds. We are still entitled, in the event of grievances against employers, to refuse to work, and we are very jealous of that privilege. The right to strike, although it is only resorted to in a moment of extremity, is a right which the trade union movement is anxious to safeguard, and in such a contingency we should resent very strongly the use of conscripts who might be employed, and, indeed, could be employed under the provisions of this Measure, either to assist in suppressing the men who were on strike and bringing the dispute to an end, or to take their places in any particular department of industry. The other day, when we were discussing the Reserve and Auxiliary Forces Bill, hon. Friends of mine, particularly the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), and, I believe, the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen), raised the question of the use of the auxiliary forces during trade disputes, and the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, in replying on the Debate, used these words: The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) and other hon. Members raised the point of whether this Measure could be used in connection with internal disputes. It is not intended to do anything of the sort, and in my belief it could not be so used. The opening words of the Bill are that the Government have to be satisfied that the service is urgently required for ensuring preparedness for the defence of the Realm against any external danger. Those words were put in to show that there was not intention of using the Measure for internal purposes, and it is not intended so to use it."—[OFICIAI. REPORT 9th May, 1939; cols. 377–8, Vol. 347.] That was a specifiic assurance, and we were grateful for it. But that assurance only applies to the men who come within the provisions of the Reserve and Auxiliary Forces Bill, that is to say, the Territorials to begin with, and also the men who, after they have gone through their six months' training, are automatically transferred to the reserve or auxiliary forces. Once they have been so transferred, they could not, within the assurance which the hon. and gallant Gentleman gave, be utilised for such a purpose. But it will be noted that, because there is no similar provision in the present Bill, a man who was undergoing his six months' training could be used by the War Office on behalf of the Government, perhaps in consultation with the Minister of Labour, for such a purpose, and it is with a view to obtaining a specific assurance which will satisfy the trade union movement and the workers generally that we are now raising this matter. The terms of the Amendment are so clear that its purpose must be obvious. It is this: It is perfectly true that the Regular forces can be employed to perform operations during a trade dispute, either for the purpose of bringing civil commotion to an end or for the purpose of taking the place of the men concerned in the dispute. For example, in case of a strike on the railways a soldier could be brought out to occupy key positions, and indeed to occupy positions in any other department of the railway service. There have been most unfortunate examples in the past of cases in which the Regular troops have been brought out for such a purpose.

I do not wish to arouse unnecessary acrimony by detailing these matters, which are well within the recollection of hon. Members. But there is a distinction between the Regular forces and the men who are concerned in this Measure. This is the distinction as I see it. While I object to troops being called out for such a purpose, whether in the Regular forces or in any other department of the Services, yet at the same time I do not raise that issue now, for this is not an appropriate time to raise it. But here is the distinction. In the case of the Regular forces a man enlists on a voluntary basis after making the necessary inquiries, he knows that he may be called out for such a purpose and he knows that risk. That is his responsibility. But in the case of these men who are conscripted there is no alternative. They may have very strong objections to being used during a trade dispute, and quite rightly so, for many of them come from working-class homes and have worked in the workshops and mines and so on, and they would be very reluctant to be used for the purpose of suppressing the activities of their fellow workers and comrades.

There is a distinction which the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War ought to be ready to meet. In one case men voluntarily enlist and take the consequence, and in the other case men who have no alternative and are compelled to come in, ought not to be used for such a purpose. I speak as one who in the past has taken considerable interest in the trade union movement and in the organisation of workers of various kinds, and I am bound to say that I have taken part in a great many trade disputes. In the present circumstances I may be faced with this position: It so happens that I have a son who is eligible for service. I doubt whether at any time he will conceive a liking for this Government. He has very strong objections to Fascist aggression and very strong views about Herr Hitler, but he certainly has no particular liking for this Government. If he is called up, as no doubt he will be, and if in a trade dispute he were called out for the purpose of dealing with the activities of the workers, it would be a very awkward situation. We should be on opposite sides, and I should dislike that intensely. Because I desire to protect my own boy, and other hon. Members want to protect their boys in such a contingency, I ask the Minister to give us the assurance for which we ask, and I have some reason to believe that he is more likely to be conciliatory on a matter of this kind than on some of the Amendments that we have presented to the Committee.

12.20 p.m.

This Amendment raises an issue of first-class importance. These young men are to be called up for one specific purpose only, the defence of this country at home and overseas, and it would be entirely wrong to use them for the purpose of intervention in any internal dispute. It may be that such a thing is not contemplated for a moment at the present time. I fully believe that that may be so. It may be that assurances will be given that there is no such intention, but unless there is statutory authority preventing it I do not think the situation will be at all satisfactory. Circumstances change. I must say that I take a very gloomy view of the future myself, as long as this Government remains in office, and it may be that the situation not only internationally but internally will deteriorate so much that we shall have a great deal of civil strife and commotion. Then it will be said "The situation has changed and we must after all have regard to what has happened, and we are very sorry that we have got to use the troops." Unfortunately, experience has shown us that we cannot rely on the verbal assurances given by this Government. I am sure that they mean them at the time, but they do not count them binding if they are not convenient. Unless there are in the Statute definite words which will make it impossible for the Government to use these young people for intervention in trade disputes, there will be the gravest danger that in the future circumstances may arise when they will be used, contrary to the wishes of the House and the country, and contrary to the wishes and intentions of the Government itself at the present time. Therefore, I strongly support the Amendment.

12.24 p.m.

I hope that the Minister will grant us this very small request because as I read the Bill a very serious situation may arise as far as the workers are concerned. This is the very thing that we fear as a result of conscription. It is one of the reasons why I have definitely stated that I will do all I can to keep this country from going conscript. The one outstanding thing that the workers of the country have left is the right to strike. We fear that with conscription the Government are taking away from these young men the right to say what they will do: Their's not to reason why. Their's but to do and die. They will have no option unless we can convince the Minister how essential is this safeguard, if the Government are to have a chance of getting the young men of this country to agree to the demands made upon them. I hope the Government realise how much they are asking the youth of our native land to surrender. In my opinion, they are asking them to surrender their all. We are asking now for a small amount of freedom to be left to those men, so that they shall not be asked to take part in any industrial dispute. I know what it is to see the soldiers being brought in during a dispute. Nothing arouses so much the ire of the worker who is out in the streets, and of the womenfolk. We have evidence of it all over the country: in England, Wales and Scotland, time and again; let alone in Ireland. Therefore, I would appeal to the Secretary for War to give us this small concession on behalf of those men whom they are going to conscript.

12.27 p.m.

I have never been able to understand the distinction between a volunteer and a conscript. A man volunteers, let us say, after hearing an eloquent speech by the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood). When he wants to quit, he cannot. He has not his freedom; he has not the right to strike. Nobody should ever give promises in politics, because circumstances may change and, as a result, one may be put in the unfortunate position of having to do what is wrong or break one's promise. I have been asked over and over again to make promises, and I have said, "No, I have seen too many political promises broken." But I do not belive that these boys could ever be used for the purpose that is suggested. I believe they will all get a fine holiday, but they will never be used for such a purpose as this. The Government do not need to. Our trade unions are very reasonable bodies—sometimes the men break away from the advice of the leaders, but that is becoming rarer and rarer. I should be surprised if during a time of stress the Government did anything to cause industrial disputes. The thing is so unlikely that it is not worth while inserting this Amendment.

12.30 p.m.

We all enjoy the dialectics of the hon. and learned Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten). [An HON. MEMBER: "And the dialect."] Yes, and we enjoy the dialect, too. Needless to say he is a Scot.

I am a Highlander, that is, a super-Scot.

The hon. and learned Member answered his own argument very well. He said that he never breaks promises, because he never makes them, and he never makes them because circumstances change. It seems essential that we should have this Amendment if the future is to be determined by changing circumstances. We want to see that, whatever the circumstances are in future, we have a statutory obligation on the Minister to see that these young men are not used to break a strike or used by any employers in a lock-out. I am sure the Minister fully understands what this means, and that the whole of the trade union movement in this country is behind this Amendment. The trade union movement certainly has a virulent opposition to conscription as a whole, but quite a number of people who might otherwise support conscription and who are allied to the trade union movement, have a suspicion that this Bill is the thin end of the wedge of industrial conscription. That suspicion will not be allayed if the Minister is not prepared to accept the Amendment, but he can remove a great deal of that suspicion by accepting it.

Like the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) I have had a great deal of experience of industrial disputes. I can remember soldiers being called in to settle a very serious affair in Tonypandy in 1910. Those horrible riots that took place in Mid-Rhondda in that year were almost directly attributable to bringing in an element quite foreign to the Welsh valleys. I can remember in later years—because I had some responsibility in the matter—naval ratings being brought in to do the work of safety men underground. I suggest that the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Seaham with regard to these conscripts places them in an entirely different category from Regular soldiers. I do not believe that men in the Regular Army would at any time, of their own volition, attempt to break a strike. They are just commanded to do certain things; if they do not do them, they are faced with the consequences under military law. But the Government case for this Bill is that there is an international military situation which can be met only by the introduction of this Measure, and that there is nothing of a civil nature in this country which warrants this Bill or anything appertaining to it. We ought to have not merely an undertaking from the Minister, but a statutory obligation imposed that no Minister in the future can use these conscripts for civil purposes—for the purpose of breaking a strike or aiding an employer in a lock-out to impose unwarrantable conditions on the workpeople.

Does the hon. Member mean during the six months' conscription period, or during the period of training With the Territorials?

I mean for the time they are actually under the purview of military discipline. If they are at any time under military discipline they should not be so used, and at the moment it would mean that they would be under military discipline for the six months. But the Government would have the authority to call them up at a later stage, and, therefore, they should not, at any time they come under the purview of the Government for military purposes, be used to break a strike or to do anything of a civil nature that would interfere with anything that would appertain to normal collective bargaining or agreements in industry.

For the following three years?

We are dealing with the period of six months here.

Suppose there was a strike for a political purpose—I have heard it suggested by the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) that industrial pressure might be used to change the mind of the Government—would that apply then?

Whatever dispute or strike took place, I should not permit it to be denned by any lawyer. That was what took place in 1926. [ Interruption. ] I am sure that the hon. Gentleman realises the time that could be occupied if we were attempting to debate what happened in 1926. We do not believe that these strikes are political at all. They are so considered, of course, by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer in order so to tie up the political movement in the future and introduce into it as much political prejudice as possible, and impair, as he thought on that occasion, the prospects of the Labour party obtaining political power. Therefore, I would not leave the definition in the hands of any lawyer. I am certain that the Secretary of State for War will not satisfy the trade union movement in this country if he gives us less than is contained in this Amendment. I reiterate what has been said by my hon. Friend, that these persons, during the six months they are under military authority, should not be used at any time to interfere in any kind of civil dispute that may impair the wage conditions of persons engaged in industry.

12.39 p.m.

It is seldom that I am in agreement with the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell), but I agree with him on this occasion that these men who are called conscripts, but whom I prefer to call National Service volunteers, should not in peacetime, at all events, be involved in trade disputes. But there might be two other situations. There might be a decision in wartime where a trade dispute was brought about against the wishes of the trade union leaders and which might be fostered, one might say, by German money. The only people available might be certain troops among whom there were some of these men, as they are not to be separate bodies. Therefore, in wartime possibly this restriction should not apply. There is another situation in which, if war were imminent, a trade dispute might be a danger to the nation. It is difficult to deal with such situations, but in time of absolute peace—and I am afraid we are not in that time at the present moment—it might be possible to evolve some form of words to prevent these people who have been temporarily enlisted from being used in connection with trade disputes. Although I am not in a district where there are a large number of industries, it being mainly an agricultural district, I realise that these young people should not be used in industrial disputes. There are other methods of dealing with this matter, and if the Government cannot accept the Amendment, I hope that they will agree to find some safeguarding words to keep these men out of disputes in peacetime.

12.41 p.m.

There is one very strong point to which I would ask the Secretary of State for War to give his mind in considering this Amendment. While we are agreed that the Regular forces of the Crown may be called upon in the case of civil commotion and civil disputes, it should be borne in mind that, while officers and men in the Regular Army have, perhaps, no very strong political opinions, and are not very keenly interested in politics, in the case of the men who will be called up for the period of six months will be found political opinions and views associated with the conditions of life and employment, and these will vary very considerably among those who are called up. It would in all probability be the case that, if these men were called upon to deal with some civil dispute or civil commotion, there would be very strong and deepseated differences of opinion among them as to the rights and wrongs of the dispute in question. Therefore, among the men themselves would be created very strong differences of opinion because of their being called upon to deal with some civil dispute, and on that ground alone it is most undesirable that these men should be called upon to deal with civil disputes, and I hope that the Secretary of State for War will be able to accept the Amendment of my hon. Friend.

12.43 p.m.

I think that most of us who heard the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) realise that this is one of the fundamental differences in the country upon this Bill. There should be no possible fear that it could be used, as was the case, for instance, in France, for the purpose of in any way interfering with industrial disputes. I, and, I think, a large number of hon. Members on this side of the Committee, want to make it perfectly clear that there is nothing in the Bill of that kind, and we accepted and voted for the Bill only because we realise the great national emergency with which we are faced to-day. That is the only reason why I voted for the Bill. If I thought that it was for the purpose that the hon. Member above the Gangway genuinely feared, if there were any danger of that, I would even vote for the Amendment. Frankly, I do not think that we can use hard-and-fast words to deal with this matter at the present time. We have had two or three other Amendments dealing with other things in which that position has been pointed out.

I would like to put two considerations to hon. Members above the Gangway which, I think, are essential in considering this matter. Can anyone possibly conceive that anybody with wisdom would use these young men coming straight from civil life for a period of six months for the purpose of interfering in a trade dispute. [ Interruption. ] I am trying to keep this apart from the party point of view. We are always being chipped by hon. Members above the Gangway if we take another point of view from what they do. As far as I can see, it would not be possible, and I cannot conceive that the Government are in the least likely, to use these men for that purpose.

I should like to draw attention to one further point. Hon. Members realise that we have had a period free from industrial disputes during the last few years. That is due to the fact that a certain gentleman, whom we know as Lord Baldwin, was able to infuse a good deal more sense into the employers and the employed. In the event of war or in the days immediately preceding war, we are to have allies, and I hope that one of those allies will be Russia. Suppose it becomes urgent, for some particular purpose, to load certain ships, and there is urgency to get them off to Russia, during critical days. Are we going to put into the Act words which might conceivably prevent certain men being used to help our allies in such circumstances? That is a point well worth consideration. In dealing with this- Bill we cannot consider only ourselves; we have to consider those who may be fighting on our side as allies. I would ask hon. Members above the Gangway not to do anything which might give the impression that we are edging away from the Russian point of view.

12.46 p.m.

I should like to reinforce the plea that has been made to the Secretary of State for War to see whether it is possible to accept the Amendment. He will be aware, as the House is aware, that because of this departure from the voluntary system, so far as military conscription is concerned, there has been very definite apprehension in the minds of trade unionists that in the event of certain difficulties arising, military men would be used in industrial disputes. I am sure that we can get his assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that that is not intended under the Bill, but I should like him to accept the Amendment or such other words as would give effect to what the Amendment intends to convey. We have already the statement from the Prime Minister and other members of the Government who have spoken that this measure of military conscription is not intended to replace the voluntary system.

The Minister will be aware of the immense efforts that have been made under the voluntary system to supply all kinds of labour for work which can be done quite as well in mufti as in khaki. There is no need to recruit men and put them into khaki in order to discharge tasks that can be done in industry in mufti. Unless we get some words which will guarantee us against such an event, there is a definite danger that in case of industrial difficulties arising the military would be used to take the place of men out in a dispute. I agree with the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) that this country has been relatively free from industrial disputes for a long time. I did not know that Lord Baldwin had such great power, for which we must give him credit, in the direction of promoting sanity, but in so far as any influence is used to promote the common good, it is welcome. There are very grave dangers in regard to the matter raised by the Amendment, and I should like the Minister to give us an assurance.

If there are industrial disputes, they do not arise out of imagination. There is some very definite reason for any industrial dispute, and they have to be understood in order to tackle them. Men do not voluntarily leave their employment and impose handicaps upon themselves, without good cause. Men do not come out for the fun of the thing. There is some definite, deep-rooted economic reason why men leave their jobs. It ought not to be difficult to agree on some form of words appearing in the Bill so that there will be a guarantee that steps will not be taken to interfere with the legitimate rights of men in regard to industrial disputes. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give us some assurance.

12.49 P.m.

The Debate has taken place in a very good spirit, and I have been agreeably surprised by the extreme moderation of the request made to me, particularly by the hon. Member who moved the Amendment. There is unanimity of feeling on both sides of the House that these militiamen should not be used for any of the purposes mentioned in the Amendment, during their time of training. I do not think they could be so used except in very unexpected circumstances. Apart from statutory provisions outside the military code members of the Forces cannot be ordered to do purely civilian work. There is a qualification of that condition, but that is the general position and it covers part of the Amendment, which asks that we should refrain from employing these men on any duties customarily performed by a civilian in the course of his employment. I have said that apart from statutory provisions outside the military code members of the military forces cannot be ordered to do purely civilian work; but there is a qualification. It is their duty to aid the civilian power in the case of disorder. That is a duty imposed not only upon soldiers but upon all citizens. There is sometimes a misconception that because soldiers are organised in a military body if called upon to aid the civil power they are doing something more than the duty of civilians. A magistrate can call upon the aid of the forces, but it is for the commanding officer to decide to what extent he will use his military authority. The use of the troops does not differ under the common law from the use of civilians in the event of disturbance.

If the life of the community is imperilled, if its food supply, water supply and transport services are jeopardised by commotion, the Emergency Powers Act would be put into operation and the military would discharge the functions they were called upon to discharge, under regulations laid before the House of Commons. I think I have made it plain that it would be extremely difficult for the Government, out of hand, to employ the forces in an industrial dispute. There is no intention to employ troops, and particularly these men, for that purpose. I have been asked to give an assurance which I am told would allay suspicion and doubt which are very legitimately entertained.

More than that.

I know the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) always asks for more. I have been asked for an assurance, but I want to do more than just give an assurance. I should not like anybody to feel that we were passing this Bill with any ulterior motives in our minds. It is true, as the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) has recalled, that the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, on the other Bill, said that it was impossible to call men up under that Bill for participation in an industrial dispute because the Bill was confined to external danger. In this Bill no such phrase is used. Therefore, what I propose to do, if it meets with the agreement of the Committee, is to have a more permanent record of our intentions than my mere verbal declaration. We cannot accept the Amendment because it would interfere with the general military law; it would have to much more precise than it is. But I am prepared to give each one of these Militiamen a written statement saying that any liability he might be presumed to be under to be ordered by military authority to aid the civil power in an industrial dispute during his period of continuous training will not be enforced in his case. We will put that in writing and give it to all Militiamen. I hope that the assurance will satisfy hon. Members. I will give that undertaking to each individual. I do not want to accept the Amendment because it will not stand examination as a precise legal definition, but I will do the next best thing and give the assurance that they will all have this probably in the document which will contain a general description of their duties.

May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman contemplates putting such a provision in the Bill, or whether he merely proposes to issue it with the ordi- nary regulations which are furnished to men who are enlisted?

I was not proposing to put it in the Bill, but I am willing to give that assurance. I will go further and promise that every one of these men shall have it. I do not think I ought to be bound by Statute.

12.57 P.m.

I I am in general agreement with the spirit of the Debate, but I would point out the possibility when this nightmare has passed, which I hope will not be long, that in two years' time we may find the normal defence of this country largely resting upon men who have joined under the Military Training Bill. If that is the case we might have a smaller regular Army than at present, and it might therefore preclude the only force we have in the case of holding up the life of the nation. The Territorial Army cannot be used in any way. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider the long view in this respect.

This is a temporary Bill and we are dealing only with young militiamen while they are called up for six months' training. The hon. and gallant Member is looking rather further ahead.

On the whole, the assurance is satisfactory to my hon. Friends, but I should like to ask whether this instruction will apply during the whole course of this Bill, that is during the period to which the Bill applies and whether each individual will receive this instruction?

It will apply to everybody undergoing six months' training. After that they will become part of the general forces of the country.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move, in page 10, line 3, at the end, to insert: Provided also that any persons called up for military training under this Act shall be entitled freely to form associations for the discussion of military and political matters and the conditions of their service and to elect representatives to take up their grievances with the military and civil authorities.

I support the Amendment.

It being One of the Clock, The CHAIRMAN proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House of 10 th May to put forthwith the Question on the Amendment already proposed from the Chair.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 106, Noes, 215.

The chairman then proceeded successively to put forthwith the Questions on Amendments moved by the Government, of which notice had been given, and the Question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at One of the Clock at this day's sitting.

Amendments made:

In page 10, line 22, leave out from "in," to "and," in line 23, and insert "the royal navy or the regular air force."

In line 24, leave out "and."

In line 36, leave out "by virtue," and insert "in pursuance."

In line 40, at the end, to insert: and, unless that force is part of the army reserve, he shall, upon such entry or enlistment, be deemed to be discharged from the army reserve.

In page n, line 2, leave out from the beginning to "unless," in line 4, and insert: deemed to have been enlisted by virtue of sub-section (2) of this section who enlists in the regular military forces or in the regular air force.

In line 5, leave out "entry or."

In line 7, leave out "sub-section (2) of this section," and insert "that subsection."

In line 16, after "person," insert: deemed to have been enlisted by virtue of sub-section (2) of this section.

In line 18, leave out: in pursuance of such arrangements as aforesaid.

In line 23, after "is," insert "so."

In line 24, leave out "by virtue of sub-section (2) of this section."

In line 23, at the end, insert: (6) Where a person, having entered or enlisted for service in any of His Majesty's reserve and auxiliary forces in pursuance of arrangements under sub-section (4) of this section, is discharged from that force before the expiration of the period for which, by virtue of sub-sections (2) and (3) of this section he would otherwise have been liable to serve as a militiaman then, subject to any directions of the Army Council, he shall, upon being so discharged, be deemed to be again duly enlisted under section thirty of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act, 1907, for the unexpired part of the said period: Provided that, during the period for which any person is deemed by virtue of this subsection to be enlisted under the said section thirty, he shall not be liable to be calfed out for a special course of training under subsection (2) of that section.

In line 37, leave out "postponing the day on," and insert "altering the place or time at."

In page 12, line 18, leave out "from," and insert "beginning with."—[ Mr. W. S. Morrison. ]

Motion made, and Question put, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 218; Noes, 110.

I beg to move, in page 12, line 28, to leave out from the first "for," to "was," in line 29, and to insert "training to which this section applies."

With this Amendment there are four others relating to the same subject to be Considered. They are rather more than merely drafting in character. The one to which I direct particular attention is—in page 13, line 16, at the end, insert: (2) The training to which this section applies is training for a continuous period of six months or more, being training which the person called up has become liable to undergo by virtue of his having entered or enlisted in one of His Majesty's reserve and auxiliary forces on or after the twenty-seventh day of April, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine, and any reference in this section to a person enlisted or called up shall be construed as including a reference to a person who, by virtue of this Act, is deemed to have been enlisted or to have been called up, as the case may be. That is a new subsection which we shall, later, seek to include in the Clause. Hon. Members who were good enough to listen to me, will recall that I spoke for a considerable time on a similar Clause on the Reserve and Auxiliary Forces Bill, and I gave the House an assurance then, that the Government wished to make this procedure as watertight as we could. The words which we are attempting by this Amendment to delete are: Service for a continuous period of six months or more under this Act. If hon. Members direct their attention to Clause 2 (3), they will find that those persons who are entered in the new Royal Naval Special Reserve or in the Auxiliary Air Force are not in any event liable to be called up for military training under this Measure, and it is very doubtful, looking into it further, whether the words "a continuous period of six months or more under this Act" would apply to them. Hon. Members will agree that I should be in a most unfortunate position if I had said that the Clause was watertight, as I did, and then find that the people in the Royal Naval Special Reserve, who are the particular concern of the Admiralty, had by inaccurate drafting been excluded from these provisions. We are, therefore, seeking to put in these words to make it clear that people who join the Royal Naval Special Reserve and people in the Auxiliary Air Force will be included and get the benefit of these provisions.

In putting the Amendment, I will endeavour to do it in such a way as to save the Amendment which the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) wishes to move in the same line. I am afraid as it stands I cannot save it; but I think the hon. Member can move it as an insertion a little further on.

On a point of Order. May I suggest that instead of my Amendment being after the word "service," in line 28, it might follow after the word "training" in the Amendment just proposed by the Minister? The Clause would then read, if my Amendment were carried: It shall be the duty of any employer by whom a person called up for training or made subject to the condition that he shall engage in and perform work of national importance … The Government Amendment is at a point that is one word too early to allow of my Amendment being moved at the place at which it appears on the Order paper. If the Chairman can therefore see his way to accept the first word of the Government Amendment—"training"—and then allow my Amendment to be moved at that point, it would have the effect that we desire.

I am obliged to the hon. Member, and I think the way he suggests is all right and will meet the difficulty.

On a point of Order. I wonder whether this is an occasion on which I could deal with a point that I have in mind. I understand that the Government Amendment has been moved in order to make sure that this protection is watertight. I wanted to discuss whether the class that the Amendment now proposed covers is in fact afforded any protection.

I meant watertight as to the classes of persons to be covered.

I know, and I suppose one might agree that the Amendment, if carried, would make the particular class which it covers as watertight as it is in any other case, but supposing some of us are of the opinion that it is not watertight in the case of any of them, I think the argument that this Amendment is watertight would not be a good argument. However well-intentioned the Government may have been in this matter, under the Clause as drafted, even with this Amendment, there is no substantial protection, in my view, for anybody at all.

On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member in order in discussing the whole principle of this Clause on the Amendment moved by the Civil Lord, which, I think, relates merely to the classes of people called up?

The hon. Member would be in Order in so far as anything which he has to say deals with the group of Amendments to which the hon. and gallant Member referred in moving his Amendment.

It seemed to me that as the hon. and gallant Gentleman put forward his Amendment with the argument that if we passed it, that would make the Clause watertight, and there would then be real protection for everybody, it was not out of Order to deal with that argument. It seems to me that the Clause would still be inadequate to afford any substantial protection for anybody, even including the new class which would be covered under the Amendment and which was not covered before.

On the point of Order. May we know what precisely is the group of Amendments which we are supposed to be discussing?

The Amendment that I am moving, is on page 12, line 28, and the Government Amendments on page 12, line 31; on page 13, line 16; on page 13, line 17; and on page 13, line 21.

I think that that rather supports my view that we are not entitled on this group of Amendments to discuss the conditions that are applied to employers, which was what the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) was dealing with. If he is in Order we shall be in Order in discussing it, too.

That is so, and perhaps the hon. Member will raise it on a later Amendment.

I will not proceed with it at this stage but will raise it on a later Government Amendment.

I think it will come on the next Government Amendment but one.

You will have observed, Sir Dennis, that eight Government Amendments were put without explanation or debate an hour ago.

I did observe it and I could not help observing it, but I do not see what is the application of the right hon. Gentleman's remark.

The Chair has said that I shall have an opportunity when the Amendment is reached and I am content with that.

Subject to any Order of the House.

There is an Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) which raises the general question of re-instatement. Could we have a general debate on that Amendment?

We shall see when we get to it.

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.

Question proposed, "That the proposed words be there inserted."

1.39 p.m.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, after "training" to insert: or made subject to the condition that he shall engage in and perform work of national importance. The simple point in the Amendment to the proposed Amendment is to ensure to the person who under Clause 3 (5, a ) is diverted from his usual work by doing work of national importance shall have the same right of reinstatement at the end of that work as the person who is called up for training. On Clause 3 every hon. Member agreed that if the spirit of the words of the Prime Minister is to be observed, there must be no punitive treatment of the person who proves to the tribunal that he is justified in taking a particular stand. The Lord Privy Seal and the Minister of Labour made concessions on Clause 3 so that a man has the same right of appeal as has the Minister in certain disputes. The Committee welcomed that kind of gesture. For the first time in the Bill Clause 6 makes a differentiation in treatment between the person who claims to have a conscientious objection and the ordinary person called up for training. To exclude the conscientious objector from this Clause is not consistent with the Prime Minister's statement or his desire when he made it.

Take, as an example, the case of a shop assistant. He entered the service of a shop at 14 years of age. Up to the age of 20 he was acquiring knowledge and then became an efficient assistant. He is diverted by the appropriate tribunal for 12 months—not six months—to work of national importance. What that work is likely to be even the Minister of Labour could not tell us yesterday. He said that Sub-section (5) was purposely left vague in order to allow the maximum of elasticity for the tribunal when dealing with these cases. The shop assistant may be sent to a farm or an engineering shop, or anywhere, and he is sent away for 12 months. His instruction is that under pain of heavy penalties he must remain there to perform the work of national importance for 12 months. Before he is sent he must satisfy a tribunal that he has sustained his claim to be a conscientious objector. Then he is sent away for 12 months on work of national importance and thus fulfils his part of the national demand, and all the conditions imposed upon him. Ought he not at the end of that period of service to be able to claim the right to return to the same employer for whom he worked for the six years previous to being called up? I do not want to inflict punitive treatment on one person any more than another or to make conditions easier for one class than another, but if the House admits that there is such a thing as a conscientious objection and provides facilities for dealing with it, we must, in order to be logical, safeguard the employment of the conscientious objector in the same way as we safeguard the employment of the man who does training.

There are good employers as there are less good employers, good workmen and perhaps less good workmen, and always we have to legislate against the worst type of individual. A person who in six years has proved to be an efficient employé will as a rule have no trouble in getting back into his previous employment, but we may come across employers who will not re-engage him, who will not give him a character, who will make it as difficult as possible for him to obtain other work. If that man has sustained his case before a tribunal we ought not to subject him to that humiliation. According to the Schedule the chairman of a tribunal is to be a county court judge, and if the applicant has satisfied a county court judge that his case is a good one it ought to satisfy the Minister of Labour and the Government that he is entitled to the same rights and privileges under this Clause as are given to other persons who are called up and perform their training.

1.46 p.m.

I was interested to hear the hon. Member talk about this in terms of logic, but I did not find his logic convincing, because really there is no relation such as he suggested between this Clause and Clause 3. How does Clause 6 arise? It arises from past history. If persons have rendered military or naval service in times of national emergency there has always been an appeal to their employers on account of the service they have rendered—and no other service—to take them back into their employment after the emergency has passed, if that employment still existed; and I have no doubt whatever that apart from this Clause 6, the great bulk of the employers in the country would be willing to do so under present conditions, just as have the overwhelming majority of employers in past years. But there is one distinction as regards the present emergency, and that is that we have in this Statute—

It is not a Statute yet.

Well, a statutory duty is proposed in the Bill, if the right hon. Gentleman is so pernicketty and so precise. We have this statutory obligation imposed by this Bill because instead of its being an emergency likely to continue for a short period only, as has happened once or twice since the War, this is a definite period, a long period, and the man is to be compulsorily taken away. In the circumstances the Government have felt that, since they were laying compulsion upon the man to give service in the armed forces of the Crown, they ought to lay a compulsion, and it is a compulsion to be enforced by heavy penalties, upon the employer to reinstate the man who has rendered that service to the community where it is reasonable to say that he can be reinstated.

That is the structure of this Clause. I cannot agree that it follows in logic that if a man has not rendered the particular service for which this preference has always been asked—and been given voluntarily—the employer should now be asked, under penalty, to reinstate him. I want to make that quite clear. I do not complain about the Amendment being put down now, because the hon. Member asked a question yesterday, and I made it plain that it was not by an accident of drafting that the arrangement is as it is in the Bill. We felt that we ought to have this unprecedented thing, this very difficult thing—for it will be a very difficult thing—this statutory obligation upon an employer to take back the men who have served as the nation desires to compel them to serve by training for the armed forces of the Crown; but I do not think the House or the country would wish to lay that heavy obligation, imposed under penalty, upon the shoulders of employers in the case of those who for reasons of conscience have not so served. To push things to the logical conclusion of the terms of the hon. Member's Amendment would be to misinterpret the whole intention of the Statute, and therefore I cannot ask the Committee to accept the Amendment.

1.47 p.m.

The impression has been created that we are displaying a better mood towards conscientious objectors than was the case in the last War, and I am very glad that the provisions of the law affecting conscientious objectors are being discussed in times of peace, because we are better able to get reasonable treatment for them, but we have had one or two interesting revelations in the pontifical utterance of the right hon. Gentleman. He said that this emergency is going to be of long duration. The Bill is only for three years. If the Government say that the emergency is to be of long duration that is an answer to the question which was asked by the right hon. Mem- ber for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery). Of course this is not a temporary Bill. It is a permanent change in the social structure of the country. The right hon. Gentleman forgets what happened in the last War, forgets how the conscientious objectors were persecuted and driven from their jobs—sometimes from their jobs under local authorities. Even in this House people pleaded that the Government should not reinstate those who had been conscientious objectors. He forgets, also, that people tried to prevent conscientious objectors from even having a vote. There was a debate on this House in 1916 or 1917, and some Members tried to prevent them from having the vote under the Franchise Bill.

I wish hon. Members would go to the Library and turn up the OFFICIAL REPORT for March, 1917, and read the speech made on this subject by Lord Hugh Cecil. It is one of the most moving speeches, and one of the clearest, on this question which has ever been made. His case—I wish I could repeat it in his words—and it is our case, is that the conscientious objector who believes that conscience comes first will brave public obloquy for his conscience. Other people will lay down their lives because they feel that they have a conscientious duty to fight for their country. But they have this in common, that both erect conscience as against State worship. That is really the fundamental point in this question of conscientious objection—whether we are to take the view put forward by the right hon. Gentleman, which was in essence State worship, Hitlerism pure and simple, or whether we ought to take our stand on the point of view we have advanced. Whether we are people who would willingly go out and fight or willingly stay at home and suffer for our conscience state, we have this in common, that we stand for something that is a principle against this hideous doctrine of State worship which is beginning to pervade the utterances of the right hon. Gentleman.

1.55 p.m.

I want to join in the protests against the spirit of the Minister's speech. If the principle of that speech will do anything, it will encourage employers to sack conscientious objectors now. Some are being discharged now, before the Bill comes into operation. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who have very strong objections to the conscientious objector forget that the foundation of human liberty has been built upon that kind of thing. History always puts on a pedestal the man or woman who has stood for conscience and been loyal to his faith. They have given great service to humanity through their loyalty. I do not believe that I would have the courage to be a conscientious objector if I were a young man. I have plenty of a sort of courage, but I am not sure that I could stand the test, especially if I had just been married, of risking my future, the future of my wife and perhaps the future of a child by definitely standing against this thing.

I say that not because there is the least self-righteousness in me as to what I would do. I hope that I would do it, but I am not sure. When I see young Quakers and young politicians who are imbued with a great love of truth and idealism taking this stand, I am carried away with admiration for them, just as I am carried away with admiration for the hon. and gallant Member for North Portsmouth (Sir R. Keyes) who served in the Navy and carried out brilliant work. I am made up in that contradictory way, but I can admire courage, bravery and devotion, even if I disagree with the manner in which it is expressed. Here are these men for whom we are asking this consideration. They will face all the obloquy of their neighbours. I have here a book—I cannot and I dare not read extracts to the House fromit—about what happened during the last war to the conscientious objectors, who endured to the bitter end. They were heroes in the very best sense of the word. To say that is in no way derogatory to heroism in other walks of life.

The Government have admitted the right of these men to a conscience and have said that men who can persuade the tribunals that they have a conscientious objection should do work of national importance. The Government impose that work upon those who will accept it, without the men knowing anything about wages or conditions. It is easy for me to say this and many other things, but I believe that during war-time all of us ought to be upon a level of absolute equality with the men who carry on the war, so far as remuneration and this kind of thing are concerned. These men are to be sent to work of various kinds, but no one knows what the remuneration will be. We are not going to safeguard these men in any way. The right hon. Gentleman says that they are not fulfilling the demand which the Government have made upon the young men of the nation, and he spoke of logic. I am never a logic-chopper anyhow, and I am not going to attempt to chop logic with him, but there is something which has not been taken into account.

The fact is that the Government have definitely recognised, and the Prime Minister has said that he wants to recognise, the right of an individual to say that his conscience will not allow him to serve the nation in that way. Having done that, having planned what a man shall do instead of serving the nation as a fighting soldier, having determined that he shall serve the nation in a civil capacity and that he is not to carry on his own work or his own little business—he is not to be allowed to choose what he shall do because the tribunal will make that choice—the Government deny him protection when the period of service, 12 months, and not six months, is over. His employer can say to him: "You were a conscientious objector. I conscientiously am not going to employ you." That is a very serious breach of the Prime Minister's promise at that Box that the conscientious objector should have fair and proper treatment.

Is this to be the policy of each Government Department and of the local authorities? If so, it lays down that there is no obligation upon employers to reinstate these men whether the employer is the Government, a local authority, a great utility company or a private person. By refusing to accept the Amendment the Government are showing that they feel in their hearts that these men are doing something derogatory to public policy and to the well-being of the country. I stand definitely by these men, even though I cannot claim that I could be like some of my hon. Friends were in the last War. I do not know that my make-up would allow me to do it.

This thing I do know: These men are taking a stand which in the days to come will be looked upon in exactly the same manner as the stand for freedom has been looked upon in the past. The other day the hon. Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson) quoted the Bible, and went on to say that in any case you could get one quotation to cancel another. Perhaps you can, but it is not possible to say that the Author of our faith, when the test came to Him to make the supreme sacrifice, refused to make that sacrifice in the teeth of nationalism, statecraft, priestcraft and everything which we have been brought up in this country to believe to be hateful and to have nothing to do with. These young men, fools as they may be in the eyes of some people, cowards in the eyes of others, are following the light of their conscience, which tells them that they must do this thing, and it is very shabby if Parliament will not give them the protection for which we are asking this afternoon.

2.5 p.m.

With a great deal of what the right hon. Gentleman has just said I am in entire agreement, and it seems to me that the Minister of Labour also was in entire agreement. We do not want anything in the Bill to make possible persecution for conscience, but I cannot see that this Amendment would be workable. If at another stage the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) were to bring in a new Clause laying down a penalty for dismissing a person on the sole ground that he was a conscientious objector, I, for one, should support him.

Has the hon. Gentleman looked at the question from this point of view? There will be in the Civil Service a large number of young men between the ages of 20 and 21, some of whom will have a conscience. All that we ask is that the Government, if they put these young men to work of national importance in some other occupation than their Civil Service occupation, shall reinstate them afterwards.

I do not think there is any division of opinion in the Committee that we want to stop persecution for conscience' sake, and I should have thought the Minister had made that quite clear to every section of the Committee. As to whether the Amendment would be workable, the Committee will recollect that, in the discussion on Clause 3, the Minister pointed out, and it was generally agreed, mat there is nothing in Sub-sec- tion 5 ( b ) that would prevent a person from changing from one employment to another employment while doing work of national importance. Take the position of a munition worker. The Minister made it clear that no man would be transferred to munition work, but, if the man was already a munition worker and wished for conscience' sake not to undertake military training, he would remain in his employment, but could if he wished transfer to other employment of the same class. I hope that a man who wants to improve his position, and who naturally in the ordinary course might be promoted from one employment to another, will not be bound to one employer, but the words of the Amendment would make it obligatory on such a man to go back to the employer for whom he worked at the beginning. While we are all in agreement that we do not desire any persecution to take place, it is an entirely different matter when people are brought from the labour market, kept on a training register without any chance of getting employment, and then thrown back on to the labour market. Then they should be given a chance of getting back to their former employer. But to make it a rigid condition in the case of men who are not taken from the labour market that they shall go back to their first employer would be a grave mistake, and not in the interests of the men themselves.

The Amendment clearly provides that there shall be a guarantee that the employment will be available if the person who has done his service requires it. It does not compel him to go back to his old employer, but only declares that, if he wishes so to return, he shall have that right and privilege. All that the Amendment asks is that the same privilege shall apply to all men and not to some.

In a case where a man has not been transferred owing to the conscience Clause, if at a later stage he were promoted or had gone into other employment, he would have a right to go back to that particular employer for which there would be no possible ground at all.

2.10 p.m.

This is my first intervention on this very important Bill, and I hope the Committee will pardon me a personal reference. A Member of this House who could have spoken with authority on a subject like this was buried a week or two ago, and I hope I may be forgiven for mentioning that his case is an example in favour of this Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman will of course be aware that I am referring to the late Morgan Jones. What happened to him will probably happen to other conscientious objectors under this Measure if we carry out what the right hon. Gentleman has stated. Morgan Jones was a school teacher, employed by a local authority. He proclaimed himself a conscientious objector during the Great War. He was sent to gaol for two years, and, when he came out of prison, there was no job for him. The local authority declined to employ him in the district where he was bred and born, and he became a colliery underground labourer for another two years; his scholastic career was ended. I want to tell the right hon. Gentleman that that is exactly what is going to happen to these men under the present Measure.

That is not covered by the Amendment.

I would ask the right hon. Gentleman a very simple question. The Government must have thought out this problem of reinstating men who are put on work of national importance, and the first question that arises is: Do the Government themselves intend to reinstate such men in Government employment? I think we are entitled to ask that question. I speak with some little knowledge of this problem, because I myself was a conscientious objector during the last War. I was, however, immune from any penalty because I was the secretary of an approved society, and my job was exempted from any penalties such as might otherwise have been placed upon me. It was grossly unfair, of course, that while I was exempted from military service members of my society were penalised for holding exactly the same opinions as I held.

There is another reason why the right hon. Gentleman ought to accept this Amendment. I am connected with the distributive trade. He knows that the distributive trade employs proportionately more young people than any other in- dustry, and there will, I suppose, be a bigger percentage from shops and offices falling within the provisions of this Bill than from coal-mining, textiles, agriculture, or any other industry. I should imagine too that in the distributive trade there will be as many conscientious objectors proportionately as in any other occupation; I have come across some of them. I want the right hon. Gentleman to follow the case, say, of a boy leaving school at the age of 14½ or 15, going into an office or shop with the idea of becoming a branch manager, chief of the office staff, or something of that kind. If he is a conscientious objector, he will be liable to all these penalties; he will become a farm labourer, a colliery worker maybe, or something of that kind. And then, when he asks for reinstatement, the employer will quote the right hon. Gentleman's speech to-day, and the boy's career in that occupation is finished. He will be a very generous employer who will reinstate a man who raises a conscientious objection to the provisions of this Bill after he has served his 12 months on work of national importance.

If the right hon. Gentleman and his Government want to penalise these men, they are doing it already. They put the militiaman into training for six months, but they say that the conscientious objector must serve 12 months on work of national importance, and they make no provision at all for his reinstatement or for finding employment for him. There are some spiteful employers who will be delighted to exploit these fellows, not because they want to do so, but because they want to penalise them as conscientious objectors. I say, therefore, to the right hon. Gentleman that he is getting away from all Government promises that have been made in this connection. There is one enlightenment that we have had this morning. I have always thought that this Government was bluffing on this Bill from beginning to end, and the right hon. Gentleman has been honest enough at last to call some of that bluff.

2.15 p.m.

I cannot say that I have the boundless sympathy for the conscientious objector that the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) has, but in this particular case I do suffer from some difficulty in agreeing with my right hon. Friend. There are three types of conscientious objector. There is the first type, who is not prepared to kill men, but is prepared to do Red Cross work. That kind of man is called up for six months, then goes back to civil life and is assured of his job. He suffers no penalty. There is a second type of extreme objector, who puts his case so well to the tribunal that he is excluded altogether. Therefore, he suffers no penalty and keeps his job. I cannot, from the point of view of fairness, appreciate the attitude of the Government towards the third type of conscientious objector, who alone is to be penalised. I say so not as a great sympathiser with conscientious objection, but from the point of view of cold equity and fairness. I cannot see why you should penalise this one type of person and not the other two types.

I can understand that it is very difficult for an employer to keep a job open after 12 months. I appreciate that that is a fair argument. As my hon. Friend has said, it is possible to restore a job to a man after he has been away a month, or two months, or possibly even six months, but it is exceedingly difficult after 12 months. But that was not my right hon. Friend's reply. Therefore, what is to be our attitude? It would be out of Order to revert to the discussion of the Clause on which we considered extending the training for these particular conscientious objectors from six months to 12 months. Still I do not think it was a wise course; it would have been infinitely better to have insisted on six months work of national importance, and then the yearly fortnight of service. Then you could have said that at the end of six months a man would return to his job. The Government have said that they are not proposing to penalise conscientious objectors. My right hon. Friend to-day has repeated that statement. It was possible to have said, "We shall penalise them, for we think they are a bad lot," but that is not what the Government said. The Government said, "We will recognise their consciences." That statement having been most solemnly made by the Prime Minister and repeated by the Minister of Labour, I cannot see the logic in refusing to these men the same rights that are to be given to other conscientious objectors. Therefore, I am sorry I am not able on this occasion to support my right hon. Friend.

2.19 p.m.

It is not often that the hon. Member who has just spoken echoes what is running in my mind. He has referred to logic. As I understood logic when I was attempting to take a class on the subject, it seemed that what we had to do, as an element of it, was to take two premises, to use the same method of deduction, and that then we would arrive at the same conclusion. If that be logic I would like to see that test applied in this case. We take a man and we subject him to training. That is work of national importance. The fact that it happens to be preparation for war does not alter the fact that it is work of national importance. We take another man, and for reasons which at the moment ought not to enter into our discussion, we do not give him the same sort of work of national importance, but we take him from his job in exactly the same way as we have taken the first man. We rob him of the opportunity of getting the wages that he was accustomed to getting, and in the end he is not to go back to his original job and is not to be treated in the same way as the other man, though logic demands that he should be so treated. Because you are giving him the right of presenting his case as a conscientious objector, you are taking possession of him. You are not giving him the freedom that he would have if you had not made that claim on him. Obviously the treatment in both cases should be the same.

I suggest that the Minister of Labour will not be doing a service to this Bill unless he concedes this point. It is a point that will be strongly pressed, because, as has rightly been said, the conscientious objector who gets clear from any commitment is not called upon to leave his decent job, to leave the work which he is accustomed to doing, to leave his home, his friends, and his social life; but here is this man who has to do work of national importance, and when it is ended there is no opportunity for restoration of the position that he previously occupied. There is surely no test of logic by which the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman can be justified.

2.23 p.m.

The remarkable thing about this Debate, no matter who has taken part in it or from whatever part of the House speakers have risen, has been that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour is alone in the opinion which he expressed at the beginning of the Debate. No one has shared that opinion.

Mr. Turton indicated dissent.

The hon. Member will forgive me. He has expressly dissociated himself from the right hon. Gentleman's opinion. The hon. Member's view was that the principle of the Amendment was a sound one, that he agreed with it, that he thought there ought, if it were practicable, to be the same protection in the case of the one conscientious objector as in the case of the other, but that in his view he was unable to support the Amendment because he thought it impossible in practice to work it. In other words his objection was not an objection in principle at all, but simply the view that it was not possible to apply the Amendment. But there is a fundamental difference between his view and the view of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman alone in this Debate has sought to establish a distinction in logic or principle, and the remarkable thing about the Debate is that he is alone in his view. What was that view? It was that it was illogical to give to this class of men the same protection as to the other class because the demand for it had not been made. His view was that the Clause in the Bill was introduced only in order to protect in his job a man who was called out for military service. I do not think there is any authority for that view.

I entirely agree that everybody in the House and in the country wishes that if a man is called out for military service he should be protected in his job when he comes back. That is quite true. But in everything I say, I say it subject to this, that I do not believe, in fact, that in this Clause there is any substantial protection for anybody. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that, because this Clause was inserted in response to a public demand that a man called out for military service should be protected in his job when he came back, it was not logical to extend the same protection, for whatever it may be worth, to men not performing military service. I should have thought that, in accordance with what has been claimed to be the spirit of the Bill, and certainly with the way the Prime Minister presented it to us, the man who is not willing to do military service but who is content to do other national service should be in no way reproached or made into a sort of second-class citizen. The right hon. Gentleman made it his case that you ought not to treat them in the same way: that you ought to divide them: that one class ought to be sheep and the other goats. I find it a matter of great gratification that nobody in the Committee, even on his own side, is prepared to accept that point of view. I think that that alone ought to weigh with him.

I ask him to give me a specific answer to this question: What is the position of the Government going to be with regard to those men, if there are any, who come under this category and are now in Government service? Certainly, if this Amendment is accepted they will be protected; if not, is it the Government's intention to protect them without statutory obligation? In that case, if they are prepared to protect men in their own service without statutory obligation, they ought not to object to other employers being compelled to take these men back. If, on the other hand, they are not, without statutory obligation, prepared to give these men that protection, it makes it all the more incumbent on the Committee to see that the Government are bound by statute to do what I think everybody in the Committee would like to see them do.

2.29 p.m.

I am certain that the recommendation I have made to the Committee is in no way a breach of the undertaking given by the Prime Minister or of the general structure of the Bill. We have, for the first time in our history, done our very best, as I think was generally agreed yesterday, not merely to draft the Statute so that the unhappy experiences of the last War may not be repeated, but, in the discussion on the Amendments, shown that our whole attitude was one of understanding of the vital claims of conscience. Therefore, charges of Hitlerism leave me quite cold. But I say that there has been no attempt to answer the case I put up, except in the reference made by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman). He did show an understanding of the case I put up.

The case was that in this part of the Bill we are doing what the nation would have desired for those who serve it in the armed forces of the Crown. That was the whole plea for preferential treatment. The whole record of this country in peace time has been one of preferential treatment for those who serve it in the armed forces. On that basis, the Government have gone further. They have not been content to face the country and say "The record of employers in the past in this matter has been good. Only a small number in past emergencies has not taken men back; and hi most of those cases it was not because? they were unwilling, but because circumstances had changed and the jobs were not there." We are saying that it shall be the statutory duty of the employer, under heavy penalties, to do what the best employers would in any case do, and what the great majority have always done. To say that, because we do not include in this Clause those who do not serve in the forces of the Crown, we are not treating? conscientious objectors properly, is to press against the Government a charge that does not lie.

If I had been asked to add one more word, I would say this: The hon. Member talks about those in Government employment who may be called upon to do national service. I should have thought that it would stand out at once that those in Government employment were doing work of national importance; and, therefore, the question would not arise. If he asks what is the Government's desire about local authorities or private employers, I would say that we should desire that, apart from due reason given, they should reinstate such men. The Committee is asked now to amend a Clause which is designed to give, what has always been the desire of the nation, preferential treatment to those who serve in the armed forces. I regret to say that I cannot see my way to alter the recommendation I made to the Committee.

The right hon. Gentleman said that people engaged in Government service were presumably doing work of national importance, and that, therefore, the matter would not arise. But is it not possible that a Government servant applying for exemption would be given exemption in the (b) class, and the tribunal has the right to determine what work of national importance such a man should do. In many cases the tribunal may—and certainly will—determine that he should be put on work of national importance not so pleasant and well paid as he was doing in a Government Department. In a case like that, what would be the attitude of the Government when the man finished the work of national importance assigned by the tribunal? Would he be allowed to continue the work of national importance that he was doing before in a Government Department?

I have made it quite plain. If the Government express a desire as to what shall be done by local authorities and private employers, they will desire to do the same thing themselves.

The Minister has not dealt with the point raised by the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) that the extreme conscientious objector is now protected, because he does not have to leave his work, while the less extreme conscientious objector is not protected.

A conscientious objection is the most difficult thing to establish, and we know, from the cases that came up in the last War, that it is only a small section who would refuse to have anything to do with national service. I did not justify it on the ground of logic but on the ground of experience. There is a class of conscience that regards its inner and religious convictions as so strong that it will stand by them at all costs. I do not think that the paragraph ( a ) in the Clause which we discussed yesterday ought to be laid against us in regard to this Amendment.

2.36 p.m.

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not want the Committee to feel that they had been misled by anything he had said. Will he state specifically that, if Civil Servants are ipso facto taken to be doing work of national importance, that in itself is the full justification for the reinstatement of these people if they leave that work for other work of national importance? If the answer to that question is in the affirmative, what distinction can he draw between any other employés on work of national importance who might ask for the same treatment to be given to them?

2.37 p.m.

During the course of his speech the right hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that employers who did not accept their statutory obligation to reinstate their employçs would be liable to a heavy penalty. The Minister will realise that the wording of the Clause dealing with the particular point states that the fine will be one not exceeding £50, and, therefore, an employer may only be fined £1 or £2, and have to provide four weeks' remuneration. A fine of 10s. has even been mentioned. The right hon. Gentleman is wrong in making that statement, and, therefore, cannot he bring in a regulation that, where the employer is proved to be guilty of an offence, a very heavy and definite penalty shall be imposed?

Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question which I put to him? Will he state categorically that a Government servant considered to be doing work of national importance will in no circumstances be discharged?

2.38 p.m.

It seems that we have now arrived at a point where there is a most unpleasant differentiation. Clause 3 presumes that an objector on the ground of conscience is to be put into one of three categories, in any one of which he is recognised as having a conscientious objection to military service. Why should the right hon. Gentleman refuse to recognise the points made from this side of the Committee? This is a very important differentiation, and I feel deeply about it. If you differentiate between a man whose conscience takes him into the Army and is entitled to his job when he returns from Army Service, and the man with a conscientious objection so fundamental and deep-rooted as to be recognised by the tribunal, whose right to have his job back is not as firmly rooted as in the former case, you enter into a very unpleasant differentiation. I have heard two hon. Members opposite, one an hon. and gallant Member, refer continuously to shirkers and conscientious objectors. That conveys to my mind not only an unpleasant differentiation, but a very unpleasant attitude indeed, and the right hon. Gentleman should be sure, in these cases where conscience is recognised on the three grounds in the Bill, that there is to be the recognition of the right of re-employment.

Are we to understand that a person in Government employment who may be a conscientious objector is to be left undisturbed in his employment irrespective of the nature of the work he is performing merely by virtue of the fact that he is in the service of the Government?

2.41 p.m.

Although we are working under a Guillotine we cannot possibly tolerate this sort of thing. The hon. Gentleman has put to the right hon. Gentleman a perfectly specific and brief question, whether the Minister suggests that the Civil Service is a work of national importance and therefore completely covered; and the other question put is, will the Minister say what is his intention about the conscientious objectors in the Civil Service? Will he keep their jobs open or not? As far as the Debate has gone, it is clear that the Government intend not to retain the jobs of conscientious objectors and are starting the pressure in peacetime against those who stand up for conscience. We want an answer. If he will not answer—and the right hon. Gentleman is not usually very backward in giving an answer—we shall frame our own answers, and make it clear that we have framed our answers in default of any answer from the Government.

The right hon. Gentleman will frame his own answer whether I give an answer or not.

What do you mean by that?

On a point of Order. Has any hon. or right hon. Member of this Committee the right to suggest that in the face of the facts another hon. or right hon. Gentleman will supply an answer which is in contradiction of the facts?

I never said that.

On a point of Order. Are we to understand from the Minister who now states definitely that he will not reply specifically to the questions put to him, that he was in fact endeavouring to mislead the Committee in his earlier statement.

No, I was not.

That is not a point of Order. The hon. Member cannot ask me whether the Minister is trying to mislead the Committee. He must draw his own conclusions.

That is the answer then?

2.43 p.m.

The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour cannot expect to get off like that. I was not a conscientious objector in the last War, and I adopt the line that my hon. Friend adopts. I recognise that persons like my great personal friend the late Morgan Jones showed an amount of courage in the stand that they took that was as great, in many ways, as anything that could be displayed on the battlefield. The right hon. Gentleman will recollect that towards the end of the last War Civil Servants were very considerably derided by certain organs of the popular Press as Cuthberts, which was supposed to indicate that the Government were keeping healthy young men in Government employment rather than allow them to go into the Forces. It was alleged, I have no doubt quite untruly, that persons using family and other influences could keep themselves out of the Forces. Does he take the line and say that we are not going to have any men sheltering themselves as postmen or clerks in Whitehall, while other men are in the Forces, in barracks or in tents, if the local tribunal decrees that a man in the Civil Service who applies for exemption as a conscientious objector shall perform some class of work of national importance other than in the Civil Service? That is the point. The Minister has given the local tribunal that power. When it comes to the end of the 12 months and the man has returned to civil life, will the right hon. Gentleman give a promise that the man who has been removed by the local tribunal from the Civil Service shall be replaced in the Civil Service on his return to civil life?

2.45 p.m.

I am sorry that I did not hear the beginning of this Debate, but I have listened to the recent speeches. The Opposition are endeavouring to decide in advance as to the decisions of the Tribunals. It is a matter for the Tribunal in each case to consider whether the work of a particular person is work of national importance. I submit that if the Government lay down in advance all the various things that are to be considered as work of national importance, we shall be here for a long time.

2.46 p.m.

The duty of the Minister is to explain to the Committee the Government's full intentions with regard to the tribunals, and the Committee must take into account the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman. I asked, in a perfectly candid Parliamentary manner, a definite question. The Minister said equally definitely that under this particular Clause any employer who evaded his statutory obligations would suffer a heavy penalty.

I am afraid that the hon. Member is addressing himself not to the Amendment but to the Clause.

May I point out, with due respect, that the Minister referred to the heavy penalty on the employer who refused to accept his statutory obligation? Therefore I think I am entitled to ask whether it is not the case that his statement is misleading, and that in fact an employer can be fined in accordance with this Clause only 10s. or £1?

2.48 p.m.

Does the Minister propose to issue regulations, instructions or guidance to the tribunals, or does he propose to hand a copy of the Act to them and say: "There is your job"? If he proposes, after the passing of the Act, to issue instructions to the tribunals, will those instructions contain—

All this is wide of the Amendment.

May I be allowed to ask whether the instructions will contain the statement that if a man is already doing work of national importance he cannot be conscripted?

2.49 p.m.

Perhaps the best way to meet the situation is to ask the Minister a specific question. In the case of a conscientious objector who is employed in the Civil Service, if he serves his period in some other work of national importance and at the termination of that period he applies for reinstatement, do the Government intend to reinstate him? I think we ought to be given a clear answer by the right hon. Gentleman.

I could not answer the kind of general question that was put by certain hon. Members, but I can answer the question put by the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) and the hon.

Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), and the answer is: "Yes".

Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the proposed Amendment."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 113; Noes, 200.

Proposed words there inserted.

2.58 p.m.

I beg to move, in page 12, line 30, to leave out "when he was so called up," and to insert: on the twenty-seventh day of April, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine.

On a point of Order. This Amendment was referred to earlier in the Debate and a hope was expressed that it might be possible to discuss the general range of questions which hang around the particular issue which is contained in a series of Amendments to be moved by the Government and other Amendments in the name of hon. Members in all parts of the Committee. I want to ask whether it will be possible, for the convenience of the Committee, if on this Amendment an opportunity can be given to discuss the whole matter of reinstatement raised by the Amendment, and also Amendments in the name of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and many other Amendments in the names of other hon. Members?

I do not think I can give a ruling quite as wide as that. We had better let the hon. Member develop his case and then we can see what should be done.

I think that the young men who are to be called up under the Bill are feeling more anxiety about the question of reinstatement than about anything else. I appreciate that the Government realise this anxiety and are trying to do what they can to meet it by inserting a number of novel features in the Bill, to make sure that they will get their jobs back again. There are difficulties, of course, but it is felt by those who are in touch with the feeling in the country that these difficulties have not been entirely overcome by the Government's proposal. Certain employers, in order that they may not come within the ambit of the Bill, have already taken steps to avoid doing so by discharging persons of 20 years who are in their employ. That is, obviously, a very improper thing to do; it is contrary to the intention of the Government and of the House of Commons, and we must find some means of overcoming action of that kind.

The object of the Amendment is to say that the right of reinstatement rests with the man not from the moment when he is called up but from the date, 27th April, when the Conscription Bill was first made known to the public. I appreciate that the Amendment if it is accepted will probably involve certain consequential Amendments because it might put an employer in a difficult position if he were compelled to re-employ a man who had left of his own accord, or who had been dismissed for some perfectly good reason, or had gone to some other employer after his period of training, got a job for a few months, and when that failed went back to his original employer and claimed his right to be reinstated. Obviously, there must be some opportunity for an employer to be protected against anything of that kind, but I do not think the wording of the provision: or that by reason of a change of circumstances is sufficient. It might be argued that there had been a change of circumstances because a man had left of his own accord. I think the Law Officers would advise that these words are not very satisfactory and if the Amendment is accepted, as I hope it will be, because it closes a gap which is now open, I hope the Government in due course will make the necessary consequential changes. I am trying to be helpful and to assist the Government in closing a gap which we all want to see closed. If it is suggested that the Amendment ought to be word perfect at this moment, I think that is going much "too far. Therefore, I ask the Government most seriously to consider whether this is not the best way of dealing with a matter with which we all want to deal, and if they feel that some further wording later in the Clause is necessary to protect the employer, as I am inclined to think it is, I hope they will make themselves responsible for that.

3.6 p.m.

I am sure that the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) is right when he says that many employés and also many employers are very much concerned about the matter with which this Clause deals. Employers no less than employés are anxious that proper provision should be made to secure that a man who is called up for training shall have a full chance of being reinstated in his employment when he comes back. It is very natural that employers of the better type, to whom the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) referred not long ago, should desire that these provisions should be sufficiently precise to secure that all employers come properly within their ambit. When some of us read this Clause, while we recognise its intention, we felt some doubt as to whether its precise provisions would carry out that intention. It is clear at once that there might be many easy ways of avoiding the provisions of the Clause. For example, a man might come back after his training and be reinstated by his employer, and then dismissed at the end of a week or a fortnight; and as far as I can see, such an employer would be entirely exempted from the penal provisions of this Clause. Then, it subsequently occurred to many people that employers, anticipating that a man might be called up for training and that they might be deprived of his services at a time inconvenient to them, might, in anticipation of the calling-up notice, dismiss him now.

I am certain that throughout the country there is a very widespread feeling that a provision should be included in the Bill to prevent employers acting in that fashion. Hon. Members will see that these considerations have been fairly in the mind of the Government if they refer to a series of Amendment on the Paper, and particularly to the Amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in page 13, line 26, which clearly sets out to deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton, and many other points as well. I think that what we can ask the Government to do is to explain to us now in a little more detail the nature of the regulations that they had in mind when that particular Amendment was drafted. If the Government spokesman can indicate that the points of danger that may arise for an employers, are to be met by the regulations that they intend to make under the powers given by that Amendment, I think many of us will be satisfied; but we are extremely anxious to hear that those regulations will be complete and will safeguard employers in all circumstances against any attempt on the part of employers to avoid this liability to reinstate them on the completion of their training.

3.10 p.m.

I support the Amendment. The hon. Member for Hudders-field (Mr. Mabane) pointed out that there was a subsequent Amendment in the name of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster dealing with this matter, but I do not think that that Amendment covers all the points which were made by the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander). It will be some time before the regulations are made, and many young men may have lost their employment before then. At a previous stage of the discussion of this Bill I said I thought these proposals about reinstatement were eyewash. I still think so, but I believe the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton would give a certain amount of protection, and that that protection ought to be given right away. The relevant date is the date when the announcement was made. No doubt the best employers will seek to play fair in this matter. Only the more unscrupulous employers will be able to get away with practices such as have been indicated.

Even with the Amendment which is on the Paper in the name of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Clause will leave open tremendous loopholes, indeed great wide thoroughfares, enabling the employers to avoid their responsibilities and liabilities in this matter. This moderate Amendment would give some protection to a few thousands of these young men, and I hope the Government will accept it. Indeed, I am surprised that the Minister did not intervene at once to say he was prepared to accept it. The necessary consequential Amendments could easily be made by the Government, but if there is to be any protection for these young men with regard to employment, it should be given as from the date of the announcement. No decent employer will be penalised by the insertion of this date. The only employers who can have a grievance will be those who have treated their employés in an unfair and unjustifiable way. I, therefore, ask the Minister to make this concession.

3.14 p.m.

I did not intervene earlier because I was anxious to hear what elucidation the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) had to bring to bear on this problem. From what he said, I do not think he appreciates the consequences which would follow if the narrow and restricted Amendment of the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) were accepted by the Committee. As has been pointed out, there will be opportunities later of discussing other aspects of the problem of reinstatement, if you, Colonel Clifton Brown, call certain Amendments which stand later on the Paper, including that in the name of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to which reference has been made. But the Amendment which is before us now, would, if carried, throw upon an employer who, on 27th April, 1939, had one of these men in his employment, the obligation to take that man back into employment when his period of militia service terminated. I do not think the hon. Member fully appreciates the consequences which would follow if such an obligation were thrown upon that employer. It might well be that the Militiaman, between 27th April and the actual day on which he was called up for military training, had passed from the employment of that man to one or several other employers, and he might not wish that the only obligation to reinstate him should be on an employer with whom he had terminated his employment perhaps some time ago. It might also be that the Militiaman had been unemployed on 27th April and therefore had no employer at all, and that between that date and the date of calling up he had found employment. If this Amendment were accepted, there would be no obligation on anybody to take the man back, because being unemployed on 27th April, there would be no employer who would be liable to re-instate him.

I hope that at this stage of the debate, and in the light of the Bill and the known intentions of the Government, no one will think that I am trying, by a mere verbal quibble, to disregard the very real feeling in the minds of hon. Members on this question. There are difficulties which we are anxious to meet, and we are really concerned that the obligation to take a man back should fall on the shoulders of the person who should most properly be asked to bear it. We believe that that person is the employer who was employing the militiaman on the day when he was actually called up for training. The hon. Member for East Wolverhampton and one or two other hon. Members have raised the question of those employers who may be anticipating the pro- visions of the Bill by dismissing the men who either are now 20 or shortly will become 20 years of age. We have no evidence that this practice is widespread, and I do not believe it to be so, but if the hon. Members will refer to the Government Amendment to Clause 6, page 13, line 26—my hon. Friend the Member for Huddesfield (Mr. Mabane) has already referred to it—they will see that if that Amendment is carried, we shall be in a position, through my right hon. Friend, to issue regulations to prevent employers terminating before the training begins the employment of any person who is or is liable to be called up for military training. Hon Members on both sides will appreciate the extreme difficulty of framing this power in a rigid form; we are dealing with entirely novel circumstances; our good intentions to see that no man is penalised in these conditions are well known, and I can assure hon. Members that those regulations, which must be left elastic, will be so devised as to meet cases of employers trying to anticipate their responsibilties by avoiding them.

I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield who spoke about a man losing his employment, but I do not think he quite appreciated that the object of the Government is to see that no man suffers because he is called upon to fulfil his Militia training. We cannot go further than that and put a man in a preferential position afterwards, different from what it would have been if in fact he had not been called up for his Militia training.

The point that I was trying to make was that a man might come back after his military training, and the employer, in order to avoid the consequences of the Statute, might reinstate him, and dismiss him after, say, a week or a fortnight's service, for no good reason. I and other hon. Members have an Amendment on the Paper, which will probably not be reached, which would entitle a man in such a case to take the employer to a county court in order to require him to show good cause why he should have dismissed him. What we should like is to be assured that the regulations would deal with a case like that, where employers clearly endeavour to evade their responsibility.

Will the Minister also explain the position of the docker whose work is by nature casual and who, although he may be regularly employed, will have a number of employers in any one week? What will be his position when he is called up and returns to the dock-side? Is his last employer for whom he may have worked for only three days, to be responsible for taking him back?

Obviously, no such, obligation can be imposed on the last employer. It is proposed to provide that the docker who is called up for military training shall be reinstated in the dockers' register, so that when he returns he will be in the same position as he was before being called up. In reply to the hon. Member for Huddersfield, when a man has fulfilled his military training and the employer takes him back, the employer has fulfilled his obligations under this section of the Act. We cannot impose on him a further obligation to give a man when he returns different conditions of employment from those which other men who have been throughout in that employment are asked to accept. If the man was on terms which provided that he should have a week's notice or a month's notice the same conditions should apply as if he had never been called up for military training. What we are concerned about is that a man should be put back into the position in which he would have been if he had not been called up for military training. In practice it is exceedingly unlikely that the employer would put himself in the position of calling a man back for 24 hours merely in order to dismiss him. The Minister will have power under the proposed Amendment to the Clause to issue regulations to prevent the provisions of the Bill being evaded. Should there arise a situation in which it was apparent that they were being evaded, those powers would most certainly be used.

I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary has fully appreciated this point. In the case put by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Mabane) it is true that if the man were taken back and then given the period of notice required by the formal terms of his employment, that would not be a breach of this Clause; it would be a fulfilment of it. Would it not be wrong, however, to say that such a man had not suffered by reason of being called up, because the job might have been filled in the meantime because of his absence? The employer could retain the new servant and could then escape any penalty under this Clause by taking his former employé back and giving him the period of notice required. His obligation will have been completely discharged, but the man will have lost his job.

I think the hon. Member has failed to take note of lines 6 and 7 at the top of page 13 of the Bill. These provide that it is no defence for the employer to prove that the reason why he did not take the man back was that he had engaged some other person to replace him. I think it will be found in practice that there will be adequate safeguards in the proposals which my right hon. Friend will have power to bring forward later. If it is found that there is widespread evasion and that men are suffering as a result of any failure of employers to take them back, my right hon. Friend will take full power to deal with the situation, and he will certainly do so with the full approval of the House and of the country.

3.25 p.m.

I think every hon. Member appreciates that this Clause bristles with difficulties. It appears that there is no party interest in the matter, but that in all quarters of the Committee there is a desire to find some means of escape. We have to consider, first, the issue raised by the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander), namely, what is to happen to the man who is dismissed from his employment before he receives his calling-up notice, and, at the other end what is to happen to him when he applies for reinstatement at the expiration of training? It is true that under an Amendment which is to be moved by the Chancellor of the Duchy regulations will be drafted which will enable the Minister to find some means of dealing with the latter difficulty, but there is nothing which enables him to deal with the case of a man who, for whatever reasons, genuine or otherwise, is dismissed before receiving his calling-up notice. We are not dealing with a position where 200,000 men join up at the same time, men will be called up, I suppose, in batches of 25,000 or 50,000, and I am bound to say that I take the view of the Parliamentary Secretary that what this Amendment proposes is not a practical thing, that what is suggested would not work out fairly in practice and would not afford adequate protection to the men concerned.

If that be so, surely some provision should be included in the Bill to ensure that the men are properly protected in a case of that kind. The Parliamentary Secretary said he doubted whether there would be any widespread difficulty in respect of dismissals before the calling-up notice was received, that there was no evidence upon that point; but the men are to be called up in batches and the process will go on over a fair long period—It may take a year. It may be said that there is no evidence that employers are dismissing men, or that there may be only a case here and there, but during the period over which the men will be called up there may be a great many cases—dismissals from whatever cause, legitimate or otherwise. I suggest to the Government that in such cases the man should have the right to appeal to a tribunal set up for the purpose or be entitled to appeal to the Minister of Labour himself. If a man is dismissed because the employer anticipates that he will have a calling up notice and that his absence may dislocate the works or the office or the shop, surely the man should have the right—just as he has certain rights accorded to him at the end of his training—of taking his case before the Minister or a tribunal set up for the purpose. I leave it at that because I think that is the most positive suggestion which can be made. The hon. Member, probably for quite good reasons, has embarked on a discussion of a general character on the question of reinstatement. I do not propose to discuss the general question at this moment, but content myself with dealing with the position preceding the issue of the calling-up notices and I hope that the Government will make some response.

On a point of Order. Could you, Colonel Clifton Brown, give the Committee your guidance on a particular point? The Parliamentary Secretary referred to an Amendment which is on the Paper in the name of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; will it be in order to discuss that Amendment when it is reached in spite of the fact that it has been referred to now?

I do not think that we can go into a full discussion of that Amendment now, because it would make the Debate too long and involved. We can discuss it when we come to it.

3.31 p.m.

I think the Committee will expect me to make a brief reference to our intended Amendment, but I take it that there will not be a general discussion on it. We are anxious that employers should not avoid their responsibility by dismissing men in anticipation of the age of compulsory calling up, and I think the hon. Member will find that his fears will be dissipated by the regulations which can be issued under the Bill. It is our intention to provide that duties or liabilities to which an employé may become liable under the Act shall not be the cause of his being discharged in anticipation of being called up. The hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) has had enough experience of industrial disputes to know the difficulty of providing complete statutory protection of this kind, but within the obvious limits which we know must exist, we intend to issue regulations in future to prevent an employer evading his responsibility in this regard.

Secondly, the hon. Member asked that there should be an appeal for a man who had lost his job in anticipation of reaching the age of 20. He will notice that our proposals provide a punishment for breaches of the regulations. This same provision will be made in regard to an employer who is thought to be guilty of anticipating his responsibility and avoiding it. It does, in fact, apply if he fails to reinstate a man after his service, and it is intended that in these regulations provisions should be made for a man or for the Minister—it will involve a breach of the Minister's regulations—taking some action against an employer who tries in this way to avoid his responsibility.

If regulations are provided on the subject there may be a measure of protection, but take the case of a man who is dismissed on a Monday—

Would the hon. Member speak up, because we cannot hear a word.

I will do my best to make myself heard. The man to whom I refer might be called up a fortnight later. Would that man come within the purview of the proposed regulations, or are the regulations to deal with cases that arise in the future? Would the decision of the Minister within the regulations be retrospective? Unless the regulations are retrospective some men will be protected and others unprotected.

The Minister has suggested that the scope of the regulations will be wide, but if an employer now or a fortnight ago has dismissed men of 18 years of age, those men are for some reason not called up for a year or two, and during that period the men get no employment, will the regulations force the employer who has dismissed them to reinstate them? Unless they do so they will not get over the difficulty that I have raised.

It would, obviously, be unreasonable and impossible to impose any obligation upon an employer unless he was the employer on the day when the man was called up for military training. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to make the regulations retrospective. We are dealing with the future. There may be employers—I am glad to think they are very few—who in the past have dismissed their men because they joined the Territorials, and any legislation regarding the future could not provide for the proper punishment of an employer who acted in that way. We are endeavouring to get the Bill through as quickly as possible, and we will take every step, with the assistance of hon. Members opposite, to get it on the Statute Book at an early date. The moment it comes into operation, the provisions will be there for the advantage of the individuals concerned and the welfare of the community.

3.36 p.m.

The hon. Gentleman has not dealt with the point that I raised. I did not raise the question of the Territorials at all, but he has based his reply on the assumption that I had raised the question of the Territorials. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I want to make it clear that I did not want this to apply to cases which occurred many years ago, or perhaps a few months ago, but from a particular date, as, for example, the date mentioned by the hon. Member, or some other date—perhaps the present date. It seems to me that it should be made retrospective to some extent.

3.37 P.m.

In the case suggested by the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell), the employer would be doing something in the nature of what in commercial phraseology is called "forestalling." We do not want that to happen. One realises that there is a very small percentage of bad employers who would have a grudge against a man because he wanted to undertake military duties, but it is a fact that certain people will try to evade their military duties, and they should not be put in any better position than returned soldiers. These are the men with whom we need to deal. The ordinary human employer would not have the shame of doing this kind of thing, but there are people who hold extreme views and with whom it might be difficult to deal. It must be remembered that this military service is not war; it only means giving these youths a splendid holiday, such as is enjoyed by youths at public schools. It will be a splendid thing for them. They will come out strong and fit. They will be given this training just at the age when parental control is beginning to relax, and it will give them a reason for living.

3.38 p.m.

If I might, with the leave of the Committee, say a further word, I think it might be possible so to frame the regulations as to provide for the case of employers who may have already tried to forestall their responsibilities. I cannot give any undertaking; there are difficulties which all Members of the Committee will appreciate; but we will do our best to see that that is done, as we recognise that the man who has attempted to evade, or has succeeded in evading, his responsibility, should not be placed in a preferential position as compared with a man who has carried out his responsibility.

The hon. Member for Rotherhithe (Mr. Benjamin Smith) asked a very important question about dockers and casual labourers of that kind, but I should like to ask what is to happen in the case of other casual labourers, such as those em- ployed by big contractors. It often happens that, when a young man has been away perhaps for a month on a job in the country, his gang is dismissed. What would be the position in a case of that kind?

Dockers, of course, are a special case, for which, I am glad to say, there is machinery available by which they can be put back in the same position as they were in before—

At some ports.

Yes, at some ports. Of course, however, it would be quite impracticable, as I am sure the Committee will appreciate, to deal with the case of a casual worker who in a whole year has a number of different employments, but we hope to provide for him in every way possible if he returns to the place where he was a casual labourer, so that he will be in no worse a position than before he was called up.

He will be a much better workman.

The Parliamentary Secretary has gone a long way to meet the point that I raised. I understand that if an employer dismisses a man now, and he cannot get any other job before he is called up, the regulations will be of such a nature as to force the original employer to take him back. Is that the case?

I did not say that.

This is of very great importance, and the Parliamentary Secretary certainly gave some of us the impression that he was hoping that might be done, If it is not to be done, would he explain more precisely what is to be done.

Amendment negatived.

The next Amendment I call is that in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for North West Camberwell (Major Guest).

3.40 p.m.

On a point of Order. Can you explain to me how it is that we are still discussing Amendments at 3.40 when the Time-table says that the Guillotine was to fall at 3.30?

The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. The Time-table on Clause 5 came to an end at One o'clock, and the discussion now on Clause 6 goes on until 7.30 on Monday. We are still working to the Time-table.

I understood from the Time-table that Twelve o'clock midnight on the ordinary day was to be regarded as 3.30 o'clock on the Friday.

Twelve midnight on the ordinary day was to be treated the same as 3.30 p.m. on the Friday. If we are not using the Guillotine, if the Guillotine is not falling, we go on to the usual hours of the House on the Friday. We go on, therefore, until Four o'clock.to-day, as there was no Guillotine falling at 3.30.

Can you tell me when we propose to cease this business to-day?

At Four o'clock. We have the normal hours of the House for a Friday.

Will the other business be taken after Four o'clock?

I am not responsible for the other business. I must deal with the situation as it arises.

3.43 p.m.

I beg to move, in page 12, line 30, after "up," to insert: upon receiving fourteen days' notice from such person prior to the termination of his six months' training period that he desires to be reinstated. The object of the Amendment is to simplify procedure after the period of a man's training. It is essential that employers should get some notice of the time when their men are returning and whether they are returning, so that they can make the necessary arrangements, and the employes too want to know whether their jobs are still open, whether they can return to them, and on what date they are to return. In the case of a large organisation there might be considerable numbers of men returning throughout the year at all sorts of times, and it would be difficult for an employer to know what men he would have to deal with in any given week. There is the further point that where an employer to lose a number of men in certain sections of work he would temporarily have to replace those men. That employer wants some notice to enable him to deal with the returning men. In a store where only a few assistants are employed, it may be a very difficult for an employer to take back two other assistants who return from training.

I do not think it would be difficult to evolve machinery to enable notice of a fortnight, or possibly a month, to be given of the intention of the employ6 to come back to his job. That might be worked through the military unit with which he is serving instructing the employment exchange, and the employment exchange instructing the employer. The essence of this Clause is that the maximum number of employés should, smoothly and easily, regain their employment. What we want to ensure is that young men shall do this training with a minimum of disturbance in their working lives, and that the employer shall be able to carry out not only the letter but the spirit of the Clause.

3.47 p.m.

I will answer, very briefly, the point raised by my hon. and gallant Friend. We appreciate the need for employers to know in advance whether a militiaman proposes to take the opportunity of returning to the employment in which he was previously engaged. It is our hope to deal with this matter administratively. The War Office will bring to the attention of the man's commander the need for his employer being informed of his intentions in time, but we feel that it would be undesirable to make it, by accepting this Amendment, a complete defence for the employer that notice of this sort had not been given.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Ordered, That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—[ Captain Margesson. ]

Committee report Progress: to sit again upon Monday next.

The right hon. Gentleman opposite asked me this morning whether I had any statement to make on the progress of the discussions between His Majesty's Government and the Turkish Government, and I promised to make a statement in reply to that question this afternoon, and the statement is as follows:

His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the Turkish Government have entered into close consultation, and the discussions which have taken place between them and which are still continuing have revealed their customary identity of view.

2. It is agreed that the two countries will conclude a definite long-term agreement of a reciprocal character in the interest of their national security.

3. Pending the completion of the definitive agreement, His Majesty's Government and the Turkish Government declare that in the event of an act of aggression leading to war in the Mediterranean area they would be prepared to co-operate effectively and to lend each other all aid and assistance in their power.

4. This declaration, like the proposed agreement, is not directed against any country, but is designed to assure Great Britain and Turkey of mutual aid and assistance should the necessity arise.

5. It is recognised by the two Governments that certain matters, including the more precise definition of the various conditions which would bring the reciprocal engagements into operation, will require closer examination before the definitive agreement can be completed. This examination is proceeding.

6. The two Governments recognise that it is also necessary to ensure the establishment of security in the Balkans and they are consulting together with the object of achieving this purpose as speedily as possible.

7. It is understood that the arrangements above mentioned do not preclude either Government from making agreements with other countries in the general interest of the consolidation of peace.

8. A similar declaration is being made in Angora this evening.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, while expressing the satisfaction that I am sure we all feel at this Agreement, whether the Agreement will be followed up by staff talks?

That does not arise until the definitive agreement is concluded.