asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will arrange for officers on the emergency reserve to do a short refresher course and so fit themselves for service when needed; and whether he will consider the employment of former officers, who are fit and anxious to serve, to give at least preliminary training and instruction to recruits, thereby enabling a greater number to be called up and trained than is now the case?

The possibilities of extending military training are kept constantly under review, but are limited by such factors as accommodation, equipment and the supply of qualified instructors. It is not desirable to dissipate our resources by extending training facilities to those who have not yet been called up, as this can only be done, at present, by limiting the training facilities available for personnel who have already been called up. Former officers who are suitable have been and will continue to be recalled as they are required.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) the number of imperial gallons of wine imported and retained for consumption during the calendar year ended 31st December, 1939, and the quantities of sweets, British wines, produced and retained for consumption during the same year;(2) the number of proof gallons of spirits produced and retained for consumption, respectively, in Great Britain and Northern Ireland during the nine months ended 30th September, 1939, and the three months ended 31st December, 1939, with the corresponding figures for spirits imported and retained for consumption during the same period;(3) the number of bulk and standard barrels of beer produced and retained for consumption in Great Britain and Northern Ireland during the periods from 1st January to 30th September, 1939, and during the period 1st October to 31st December, 1939, with the average specific gravity of such beer in each period and in the whole year; and also the number of bulk and standard barrels of beer imported into Great Britain and Northern Ireland during the same period, with the average gravities in each case?

As has already been stated in reply to previous Questions, publication of detailed statistics as to individual commodities has been suspended since the outbreak of war.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the amount of taxation derived from spirits, beer, wines, British wines and hops in the United Kingdom during the calendar year 1939?

I would refer the hon. Member to the financial statement which was laid before the House when the Budget was opened, and which gives figures of the kind for which he asks for the financial year ended 31st March last.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the quantities of beer, home and imported, spirits, home and imported, and wine retained in Northern Ireland for consumption during the calendar year 1939; and the revenue thereon attributable to Northern Ireland?

As has already been stated in reply to previous Questions, publication of detailed statistics as to individual commodities has been suspended since the outbreak of war.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that there are in Scotland retired engineers and others who were employed in Denmark and have been in receipt of pensions from their former Danish employers; that these pensions have been stopped since the German occupation of Denmark; and whether he will consider making regulations for the payment into a fund of sums due by British nationals to Danish firms, and the payment from such fund of the pensions due to such retired persons who are at present sustained by the assistance of friends?

I regret that an arrangement such as my hon. and learned Friend suggests is not practicable.

asked the Minister of Economic Warfare whether employés of military age engaged by his Department in a purely temporary capacity at the outbreak of war are exempt from performing military duties.

Staff of the Ministry of Economic Warfare, whether permanent or temporary, if below the appropriate age of reservation laid down in the Schedule of Reserved Occupations, are liable for military service.

asked the Minister of Economic Warfare whether he is aware that a Mr. Vintner, who was appointed in a purely temporary capacity to his Department on the outbreak of war is of military age but has so far not been required to join the Forces; and in what circumstances this temporary employé is being given immunity from military service?

Mr. F. R. P. Vinter, to whom I assume the Question refers, is a temporary officer in the Ministry of Economic Warfare; he is above the present reservation age for civil servants laid down in the Schedule of Reserved Occupations.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will obtain reports from the Governors of the various Colonies as to how production and exports, at home or abroad, might be increased up to a maximum, irrespective of the market prices of produce, together with suggestions of fresh plant required for such production and of the possibility of producing the plant locally or raising a loan locally wherewith to buy the plant?

My Noble Friend has carefully considered this suggestion, but he does not feel that it would be useful to call for such reports. There is no shortage of Colonial products, but rather a superfluity of them, and the problem is to sell the supplies which are available, rather than to encourage more production. As regards plant, it is exceptional in Colonial conditions for the production of plant to be necessary for an increase of output. In those cases in which it would be necessary, it is practically certain that plant could be obtained only from this country or from foreign sources; and to make it available would involve the diversion of resources from more urgent needs.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what was the value of special Colonial preference certificates per ton of sugar exports in 1939 for each Colony; and whether he will consider a fairer allocation, in view of the changes in the position of the various Colonies since allocation was first made?

The value of the special Colonial preference certificates per ton of sugar exports during the season ended 31st August, 1939, for each Colony was as follows:

	Value per ton.
	s.	d.
Barbados	16	8
British Guiana	19	2
East Africa	10	10
Fiji	26	3
Jamaica	14	2
Leeward Islands	21	3
Mauritius	21	8
Trinidad and Tobago	26	8
Windward Islands	24	2
Average	20	10

It will be appreciated that the value expressed on a tonnage basis varies with seasonal variations in each Colony's crop, and that other conditions, for example, the size of the domestic market and the manufacture and sale of other sugar products such as rum and fancy molasses, vary from Colony to Colony. In answer to the second part of the Question, I have nothing to add to the reply which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health gave to my hon. Friend, the Member for Consett (Mr. David Adams) on 8th May.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will publish the terms of the reply of the Soviet Government to the request of His Majesty's Government, in March, 1923, for the grant to Mr. Joseph Martin of compensation for injuries received, resulting in blindness, during his imprisonment in Moscow without trial, seeing that it was on those terms that Lord Curzon based the decision to omit Mr. Martin's claim from the ultimatum addressed to the Soviet Government on 2nd May, 1923, which succeeded in obtaining compensation in two other similar cases, in which the correspondence with the Soviet Government has been duly published as White Papers?

The British Agent in Moscow, acting on instructions from His Majesty's Government, approached the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs about Mr. Martin's case on 29th September, 1922. In March, 1923, a reply was received of which the following is the relevant excerpt:

"John Martin was arrested, as a suspicious foreigner, at a time when intervention in the internal affairs of the R.S.F.S.R. was still being carried on by a number of States. On the whole question of arrests of British subjects in Russia, as well as of Russian citizens in England before the signature of the Anglo-Russian Trade Agreement, I think it necessary to add that to exhume such ancient affairs and invite correspondence about them is, at the present time, both useless and little calculated to lead to the strengthening of good relations between the two countries."

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many British hospital ships have been bombed; and how many sunk by enemy action during the present war?

Since the outbreak of hostilities nine hospital ships have been bombed, shelled, or machine-gunned by the enemy—two of them on more than one occasion. These attacks have been made despite the vessels' distinctive and unmistakable markings, and in contempt of the lives of the wounded and of the doctors and nurses tending them. The hospital ship "Atlantis" alone was bombed no less than five times in Norwegian waters. The only sinking is that of the hospital carrier "Paris" on 2nd June, which succumbed to three separate waves of attack by bomber aircraft. The hospital carrier "Brighton" was holed and run aground; the hospital carrier "Maid of Kent" set on fire.