I too desire to raise a question affecting the mining industry, but this is in relation to a different aspect of its activities, or perhaps I should say in-activities. A serious situation has arisen in the coalfields of the Notts and Derby district. This is a very rich district, possibly the richest in production in the country. I do not know whether similar difficulties have arisen in other districts—I am not informed on that particular matter—but I think it my duty to bring to the notice of the House and the Government Department concerned that in the three weeks ended firth December the following quantities of coal have been lost to war factories and domestic consumers for the reasons I shall give in a few moments—in the first of the three weeks, 19,000 tons were lost, in the second 31,000 tons, and in the third 66,000 tons making in all 116,000 tons. I am informed that this current week which finishes on Saturday will show an even worse loss of coal.

The coal has not been lost through the unwillingness of the miners to dig it. It has not been lost by reason of their absenteeism or by reason of undue sickness in the pits, but only through a lack of wagon transport to remove the coal from the pit-head. I share the position, humbly, with the Minister of Labour in that I am not an expert in these matters, but I am informed that in modern pits the coal comes to the pit-head, is screened and is put into wagons at once, and that facilities do not exist for stacking it in any quantity, so that the failure to remove the coal by wagons after it has been screened means that no more coal can be dug because you cannot get rid of it. The loss of 116,000 tons of coal at this time is serious enough, but coming at this particular moment I suggest that from the point of view of morale it is almost a disaster. After all, we know that many harsh things have been said in the past few months or years about the attitude of the mining industry and of the miners to production. The miners of the Notts and Derby district have had their share of that type of accusation. It is clear from the information at my disposal that the miners in this particular district have been brought to realise how vitally important it is that as much coal as possible should now be raised. Having come to that realisation, they find themselves refused the opportunity to work, because, as I pointed out, it is impossible to raise any more coal from these pits until what has already been dug can be carried away.

This deprivation means something more, it means a loss of wages. Apart from anything else that is bound to lead to great unrest, and I am bound to tell the Minister that the effect on local opinion has been really serious. Consumers are repeatedly exhorted to economise in fuel and to save it, and there are most admirable advertisements and broadcasts to that effect, yet they now find or think that the economies they are being asked to face are not really necessitated by any shortage of fuel but because of the inability of the Government Department concerned to make the fuel available by taking it away from the pits for distribution. That is a most unfortunate impression to create now in the minds of the consumers. On the part of the miners you get a sense of frustration and irritation, because, as I said, they are willing to go down into the pits and dig out the coal, and they find they are not allowed to do so for the reasons which I have given. They are now promised an additional supply of man-power or rather boy-power to help them not to produce coal. It could not have comer at a more unfortunate moment. It is for that reason that I felt it my duty to raise the matter in this House, not in any mischievous or fault-finding spirit, but to see whether the combined wisdom of the House and the Government Departments could not find a speedy solution.

I am quite prepared to agree that the shortage of wagons in the Notts and Derby coalfield district may be due to a partial breakdown in the transportation system and that that partial breakdown may have been aggravated by the influenza epidemic. What I want to stress to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport is that he should accord the highest wagon priority to the carriage of coal. Surely, it must rank among the very first priorities for war factories and for other purposes. If he had accorded that priority to the carriage of coal, my suggestion is that this particular crisis would not have arisen. If the operative man-power on the railways is really in short supply through illness, could not some of it be diverted to this particular, very pressing need? I want to point out, what is self-evident, that you cannot carry coal about in lorries in an economic way but that there is a great quantity of goods transported by railway which could be moved by lorry at any rate in a crisis. What I ask the Minister is, has he brought his present difficulties, for they are quite clear, to the notice of the Services—the three Services, two of which certainly have ample transport facilities available in this country? Has he brought them to the notice of the American Forces in this country, who also, if one may judge by the number of narrow shaves one has in the streets, have some supply of transport at their disposal, and how necessary it is that he should have some temporary assistance from them? There must be certain black spots where transportation difficulties are very great. Could the Service personnel at the moment available in this country be utilised for this immediate purpose? I am sure the House would support the Parliamentary Secretary in any action which he thought right to bring about that state of affairs. I am quite satisfied that with good will and co-operation this immediate problem could be solved.

But I want to ask something else about it. It is clear that there is a shortage of wagons, and that they cannot be moved about, for reasons which no doubt the Parliamentary Secretary will explain. But I am sure that he will also admit that the supply of wagons is inadequate, and that after four years of war wagons are tending to break down and fall into disrepair. Is he being provided by the Ministry of Labour with adequate labour resources so that those wagons can be kept in repair and new ones provided to meet the enormous need? Most Members will agree that transportation is the real bottleneck in the war effort, and that adequate transportation will ultimately win the war for us. Has my hon. Friend adequate reserves to keep the wagon supply going? If not, why has he not pressed very hard for it? Our air strategy has devised a method of hitting the enemy through his transportation system. Fortunately, we have not had to compete with that particular trouble, but if our wagons are breaking down because there are not sufficient hands to repair them, I hope that every possible step will be taken to remedy that as soon as possible. I recognise that the Minister lacks either good will nor determination. I hope that on this occasion he will recognise that I have spoken in a friendly and co-operative way, and that I am anxious, as we all are, to see this particular trouble remedied at the earliest possible moment.

Last weekend in my constituency I went to two mining villages—I will not name them—20 miles apart. I talked to a large number of miners, and at one place they said: "We have had four shifts not worked, owing to shortage of railway wagons" while at the other they said that two shifts had not been worked, for the same reason. I was surprised at that, though some of my mining friends in this House say that it is an old-standing grievance, and the public, I think, will be rather shocked. I support everything that has been said by the hon. and gallant Member for East Nottingham (Lieutenant-Colonel Gluckstein), and I hope that the Minister will have a satisfactory reply to the miners, who lose wages, to the public, who suffer from the shortage of coal, and to the boys who are being directed at the age of 18 into the pits. If this kind of stoppage, having nothing to do with the production of coal, but with its movement forward, is taking place, it seems that there is not quite so strong a case for directing boys of 18 into the pits.

My hon. Friends the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power will recollect that a week ago I raised this subject, which is a burning issue in the area that I have the honour to represent. Many persons who are expert from one angle or another on this subject have given me differing kinds of advice. They have put into my mind a question which I hope the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport will be able to answer to-day, in view of the very reasonable manner in which the subject has been put forward by the hon. and gallant Member for East Nottingham (Lieutenant-Colonel Gluckstein). The issue which is being raised in my division, particularly through one of our local newspapers, is the amount of time that is now spent in repairing wagons. It has been stated quite definitely by a man who has been for many years in the wagon repair industry that we are now carrying on exactly the same kind of repair service as we did in peace-time, undertaking the same kind of renovations and painting all sorts of names on the wagons; and it is generally held that at least three days could be saved on each wagon renovated or repaired if some utility method of repair could be adopted. There is undoubtedly something in this argument. We see wagons coming out of the repair shops, and there is nothing of a utility nature about the design when they are finished: it would be a very fine job for peacetime, and it is far beyond what ought to be done in war-time. Is the Parliamentary Secretary fully satisfied with the amount of labour that is expended on these wagons? I am not concerned with whether they put three or four lbs. of extra paint on them, but I am concerned with the amount of time. Reference has been made to the number of wagons used by the American Forces in this country. I am assured that if we had a sort of get-together negotiation, we could persuade the Americans to release almost right away some 4,000 or 5,000 wagons. If we could have a quarter of those wagons in the Doncaster area it would obviate much of the trouble which is frightening coal-owners and managers to-day, and keep men at work, instead of causing them to come up the shaft earlier because of shortage of wagons.

We ought to give more attention to the fact that long before the war it was quite normal for what were called "stop tracks" to occur in the coalfields of Great Britain. Because of snowstorms, long nights, the failure of ships to come to the ports, and the holding-up therefore of wagons at the ports, in the winter, coal stocks were built up in the summer. One of the reasons why this stoppage of coal wagons is serious now is that we have failed to build up stocks to the extent which we did before the war. This stoppage, therefore, comes with a much-added impact on our unfortunate coal industry. I cannot refrain from turning the dagger in the wound a bit, by pointing out that one reason why we have a shortage of wagons is that we have the craziest method in the world of distributing coal. You have only to look out of a train window at the average station, to see that we have an archaic way of unloading coal by hand. The wagon is held while it is unloaded by men with shovels, a process which sometimes takes days, and then the coal is picked up again and put on to a lorry for distribution. That is what the Americans would call a one-horse way of distribution. Dozens of wagons are idle because they are being unloaded in that way. Then if you have a flu epidemic, coming on top of everything else, the men who normally do that work are not there to unload the wagons, and they are left standing, full. If we had our coal distribution system intelligently organised we could put our coal straight into hoppers, so that the wagon could be emptied at once and taken back to the pits and we could use the ordinary laws of gravity to fill the bags for the consumers. It is because we have left the distribution of coal exclusively to private enterprise that we have an enormous shortage of wagons in Great Britain. I am surprised we have not had more transport difficulties than we have had, because the strain on the railway system of Great Britain is unprecedented. But the impact of this really serious dislocation causes very special hardship, and something will have to be done to maintain the even flow of coal from the pits to the consumer if we are to avoid the worst consequences of the Government's coal policy in the last few years.

I am most grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Nottingham (Lieut.-Colonel Gluckstein) for raising this question, and to him and other hon. Members for the moderate and constructive speeches they have made. I agree that the Government must do everything in their power to meet the needs of the coalmines for railway wagons and that it is disastrous that, when the miners are urged to give us every last ounce of output, they find that the coal they produce cannot be shifted from the mines. This Debate gives me an opportunity to explain the difficulties with which we are faced, and with which we shall be faced during coming months, and the special difficulties which have caused the serious situation of the last few weeks. I hope that in doing so I can remove some of the feeling of despondency and alarm which my hon. and gallant Friend has said exists among the miners. I accept my hon. and gallant Friend's statistics for the loss of output: it is not within the competence of my Department, but I understand from my colleague the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power that the figures are right. Last week I visited some of the open-cast workings in South Yorkshire to see the Transport arrangements which had been made, and I saw there that wagon shortage had caused difficulties and in some cases had brought the whole of the work to a stop.

If there had been no special factors in the last few weeks, the wagon position would have caused anxiety, and indeed it is bound to do so in the next few months. As the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) has said, the railways are carrying a great and continually increasing burden. We have cut the passenger train mileage since 1939 by 30 per cent. The amount of passenger traffic has now increased by 60 per cent., and it is still going up. Trains are loaded 125 per cent. more than they were before the war. Freight traffic is increasing still more. In the higher classes of merchandise it has increased by 106 per cent. since pre-war days; and in the lower classes of merchandise and minerals, excluding coal, by 96 per cent. And ton-miles of coal, coke and other fuel are up by 24 per cent. Taking all in all, the railways are now carrying in every hour of every 24 hours about 1,000,000 ton-miles more than before the war. It is evident that we could not increase our wagons in that proportion. With all the other competing demands for war production, it is hard enough to keep the supply of wagons up to the total of before the war, to get the plant and the labour required to keep the wagons we have in adequate repair. All that we could do was, subject to these war-time limitations, to do everything possible to increase the supply of wagons, to keep them running by adequate repairs, and to ensure that the wagons we have are used as fully and as efficiently as possible, or, in other words, to try and quicken the turn round, and to cut out the days that are wasted, by inducing everybody to unload the goods when they come as quickly as they can.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale that if we could get rid of all the inadequacies of our peace-time system during the war we could make great advances, but, unfortunately, we have to work within the limits of the equipment that we have available. Within these limits, we foresaw the difficulties to which he has drawn attention. We took action. At present the pool of wagons, railway and private requisitioned wagons together, is about the same as it was before the war, perhaps a little higher. The number of wagons under or awaiting repair is a little over five per cent.—it was about 5.28 on 12th November, which is the last figure that I have. That is a good deal lower than it was in the summer, as the summer is always the peak of wagon repair. In the last eight weeks we have improved the situation by no fewer than 22,000 wagons, and the figure is better to-day by 3,000—that is the figure of wagons under repair—than it was on 1st January of this year. As my hon. and gallant Friend said, we must remember that the age of the wagons is above normal. We have not had the normal replacement we should have had in peace time. For over four years these wagons have been subjected to quite abnormal wear and tear and repair has become increasingly necessary, but increasingly difficult to carry out.

I want to assure my hon. and gallant Friend that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has been very good to us. He has given us the same priority in regard to labour as for the Ministry of Aircraft Production. Labour is coming in, and if we get the labour and go on getting it as we hope to do, we expect to bring the figure down to four per cent. by which we should put another 16,000 wagons on the road. We have taken every measure of which we could think to improve the repair position, and we are now investigating new means of finding additional labour and equipment to help us in the task of repair.

My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden) said that he had evidence that the methods of repair were over elaborate and that, instead of adopting war-time utility standards, we were adhering to the luxury standards of the past. He raised this by question and answer and I have to-day sent him a full reply, with a long memorandum on the statements made by the expert whom he quoted from a Doncaster paper. I hope he will find that reply fully satisfying and that he will be assured that the railways are not adhering to peace-time standards, far from it. They are only doing the minimum required to make the running of the wagons safe.

We also sought to increase the total supply of wagons and have placed an order for 10,000 mineral wagons to be built, and an order for an additional 5,000 is very shortly going to be placed.

What will be the size of these wagons?

Fourteen-ton wagons, if my information is right.

And the date of delivery?

Deliveries begin in the New Year, and the order is to be completed by the end of the year. We expect and hope for something like an average delivery of 1,500 a month. At any rate, at this time next year, if we are still at war, we shall have got a great deal of that order through.

But I do not want my hon. and gallant Friend or the House to think that wagon supply—the numbers in the pool—is the most important factor in the present situation. We want some more wagons, of course, but beyond a certain point more wagons would only cause congestion on the lines, unless other factors were correspondingly increased in a way we could not hope for—I mean, for example, train crews. More important than either repairs to wagons or new construction is the turn-round I have mentioned. We are trying to get the users of wagons to unload the wagons quickly and reduce the turn-round, and, of all the measures taken, this is by far the easiest and by far the most rewarding. At the present time the average time for a round journey is nine days. On one recent day, selected quite at random, the number of days lost by loaded wagons standing more than two days at their destination was no less than 80,000 wagon days, by not being unloaded.

That is fantastic.

We are doing what we can to call attention to it.

Again, I submit to the hon. Member that that really is fantastic.

During last winter, by the vigorous measures that the railways took and we took and by the propaganda we did, we cut the average turn-round by nine hours. That was the equivalent in carrying capacity of the addition of 50,000 wagons.

My hon. Friend has not divided these figures between the public utilities and other factors?

No, that is over-all.

The public utilities are obviously able to economise very much better than others.

In any case, our desire is to quicken the turn-round in all railway wagons in whatever use. I am certain that as far as this business of wagon capacity is concerned and our ability to meet the increasing demand, this turn-round question is the very crux of the problem.

Has my hon. Friend considered the application of some sanction or an increased demurrage charge? Will he consider telling all offenders that, if they persist in doing it, their priority of delivery will be placed somewhat lower?

I will consider that proposal; I will consider any proposal that will help. We cannot always divert priorities because we want the stun from the manufacturers. We are at their mercy quite as much as they are at ours, and it is not so simple. I want to take this opportunity of expressing publicly and to everybody concerned the immense importance of this matter, and of appealing to every railway user to help us to the greatest possible extent in the next few months by quickening the turn-round. I can say with some confidence that there is no greater service that they can render to the nation at the present time than that.

It is not only by increasing wagon capacity in these various ways that we could meet the present emergency. We could also divert traffic to other means of transport. That we have done. In particular, we have carried great quantities of coal by coaster and by canal. In the first 11 months of this year, that is, up to the end of November, we carried by coaster 19,000,000 tons and by canal and inland waterway 5,000,000 tons. We could have taken more on the canals, if we had had more boats and more crews; but this is a very considerable contribution.

We have never hesitated and we shall not hesitate to call in road transport where it will be useful and where it is required. I do not myself think that road transport can ever be used on a large scale for long-distance transport for such a cargo as coal, but it can be used, as my hon. and gallant Friend suggested, for goods which will relieve the pressure on the wagons and so make more wagons available for coal. We used it, for example, in South Wales. Recently there was a very acute but, I am glad to say, temporary congestion in the ports. Under our road haulage scheme we sent down 1,000 lorries or thereabouts and we helped to clear that congestion in about eight days. A splendid job was done. My hon. and gallant Friend suggested that we might also give higher priority for wagons for coal over other kinds of goods. Coal is very important and so is food, and the transport of workers to the factories and so are raw materials for the factories. We have to try and keep the whole thing in balance. Because we happen to be making a special appeal to miners, we cannot throw everything out of gear and stop other production of things like bombing aircraft which stands so very high in priority at the present time.

My hon. and gallant Friend further suggested that there was another measure that the Government might take—that we might get the Services to give us more help than we have had. He asked whether we had brought this situation to their attention and to the attention of the American Army. In fact we have discussed it with them. They have given us generous help on many occasions and in many ways. They sent down road transport to help us in that emergency in South Wales and they have very frequently unloaded their own goods when they have been delivered from the factories to the Armed Forces, and in other ways they have done what they can. I have no doubt that when they have considered my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestions to-day they will see if there is more that they can do, and for my part I will discuss the matter with my right hon. Friends, the Secretaries of State for the Service Departments. I know that the House will realise that the Service Departments themselves are carrying very heavy burdens and that they have special duties in the next few months which it would be very difficult for them to postpone. Therefore, I do not want too much to encourage hopes from them.

In any case, none of these measures which I have described—repairs, new construction, quicker turn-round, diversion to coaster and canal, road transport or the help of the Armed Forces—could in fact have secured an adequate supply of wagons to the pits in the last few weeks. They are all important in the future and we shall do our best to push them on. But in the last few weeks there has been another factor—influenza. The greatly increased traffic on the railways is not being handled by a greatly increased staff. The railways have done everything they could to dilute their staff with boys and women and I think they have done very well, but there are limits beyond which they cannot go. In particular, they have not been able to increase the numbers of their train crews and, as in the omnibus services, it is the trained operating crews who are the bottle-neck of the services we can give the public. And I realise that as on the road, the operating crews are very near the limit of their strength. They are in their fifth black-out winter. For four years they have worked for very long hours in bad conditions. In recent weeks they have all too often met the railway man's worst enemy—fog. They have kept their services running in a magnificent way and the nation owes them a great debt for the patriotism, the patience and endurance which they have shown.

When will they be reinforced?

I am now talking of sickness. I cannot give the House specific figures for sickness among operating train crews or the results of that sickness, but I can give them some indication. Taking the whole staff of the railways together, ten per cent. have been away from duty in recent weeks with influenza. The figure for the train crews will not be less than that, and in all human probability it is a good deal more. That means that trains in great numbers have been cancelled. On one day alone during the week before last one company—the L.M. & S.—had to cancel no less than 71 passenger trains in order to find crews for freight trains; and very often even that has not found crews for freight trains. On one section of the main line between Stratford and Whitemoor nine main line freight trains had to be cancelled on Wednesday of this week because no crews could be found. That is the real cause of the difficulty in the coal mines at the present time and I hope that the miners will understand that it is not lack of desire on our part or lack of energy or foresight. We have been working at this, but influenza has beaten us. We hope that the dislocation and loss of output which it has caused will pass as soon as the influenza epidemic ceases. I hope, therefore, that the miners will not feel that the railwaymen and railways have let them down. When the wave of sickness has passed we shall return to normal—to the normal of a fifth black-out winter of a total war, and I hope that the measures we have taken will then begin to produce real results. I have not led anybody to think that we are complacent about our task. We shall have shortages of wagons even in the coalfields, but wes have taken vigorous measures to improve the situation, and I have sober confidence that they will reasonably succeed.

When the Gracious Speech from the Throne was before the House recently a few of us in this House tabled an Amendment which contains the germs of practically all I want to say to-day. This Amendment was:

"That this House humbly regrets that there is no indication in the Gracious Speech that the maximum use will be made of political and economic pronouncements to the people of the world in order to bring the present conflict, with its incalculable misery, destruction and waste, to an end at the earliest possible moment."

It is no secret that since this war began a small group of Members belonging to the Labour Party in the Lords and Commons came together to try and find out whether there was any means of bringing this conflict to a close apart from, or even in addition to, the use of force. We called ourselves the "Parliamentary Peace Aims Group," and ever since 1939 we have been trying to induce His Majesty's Government, with the United Nations, to declare to the peoples of the world, and of Europe in particular, what we are fighting for. I think it is due to the men who are fighting at the several fronts that an answer should be given to that question. Everybody knows what we are fighting against, but the real issue which has arisen in this, the fifth winter of the war, is: What is it that the United Nations expect to achieve at the end of this war? In the time available to me I will dwell on that particular issue.

On 8th November, 1939, before the Coalition Government was formed the present Deputy Prime Minister made a declaration on behalf of the Labour Party. It is as well to resurrect some of the statements he made at that time, because the right hon. Gentleman then clothed in words in advance what in the end came out in the form of a skeleton as the Atlantic Charter. The right hon. Gentleman and I both belong to the Labour Party, and it is worth while reading what he then said:

"What, then, should be the principles of a peace settlement?"

Of course, he assumed that even this war will come to an end some day. Peace will be restored, I hope, in my own lifetime. The right hon. Gentleman answered his own question by saying:

"The first principle is that there should be no dictated peace. We have no desire to humiliate, to crush or to divide the German nation. There must be restitution made to the victims of aggression. All ideas of revenge and punishment must be excluded."

I could never command better language than that to express what I am trying to say to-day. Since that statement the Atlantic Charter has been issued, and, of course, that Charter was welcomed by all people like myself and my hon. Friends who believe that mankind should not rest exclusively on the elements of force even in war-time. Men and women are, after all, inspired by something much more elevated than mere battleships, bayonets and guns. Consequently, I would like my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to take note of what I am trying to say, because there has been a gradual descent in the aims of the United Nations towards a peace settlement since the declaration of the Atlantic Charter. Where do we stand now? If we listen to certain members of the Tory Party, their language is, "March to Berlin; crush Germany; strip Japan." One member of the Government even went so far as to say that we must put an end to Germany as a nation. I have travelled almost all over Europe, and I have seen Germany at close quarters. To say that you can put an end to a nation is just as foolish as saying that you can blot out the sun. If you could destroy a nation by persecution and murder there should not be a single Jew left in the world to-day, but the Jews live nevertheless. I do not like the descent from the high principles set out in the Atlantic Charter to the present position. What is the official attitude now? Unconditional surrender! Let me examine what that means. That is what we told the Italians; and if ever there was a complete and abject failure of the gospel of unconditional surrender, it has been proved up to the hilt in the case of Italy. There probably never was such a mess, diplomatically and militarily, in the history of Europe than there is in Italy now. I should have thought that His Majesty's Government and their associates would have appealed to the Italian people on higher grounds if they wanted that country out of the war, as I imagine they did. Once you declare that there is no alternative to unconditional surrender, what happens? You turn the very people you want to be friendly and on to your side into your enemies. There must be millions of working-class people in Germany, miners, railwaymen, metal workers and others who do not like the Hitlerite régime. But when we declare to those Germans that there is no alternative for them but unconditional surrender what happens? Those ordinary folk in Germany who dislike Hitler will rally to him because they will say that we have pronounced what is equivalent to a, sentence of death upon them. For my part, I should imagine that it would have been a better course for His Majesty's Government and their associates to go underneath or over the heads of the Hitlerites and appeal to those millions, who cannot come out in open revolt whether they desire to do so or not.

Next, I would like to know what is the mind of the Foreign Office on the old problem of the balance of power in Europe? People who do not agree with me about war and peace, some in high places, admit now that it is a great error on behalf of the British purple to play the game of fighting with Germany against France in one decade and with France against Germany in another and then urge those two great Powers deliberately to quarrel with each other so that neither will ever be strong enough to challenge the might of the British Empire. But now another Colossus has arisen to upset all that. Russia has emerged as a mighty power in Europe; and if the British Government wish to pursue the policy of the balance of power in Europe I am not so sure that they will not be confronted in future with the views of the Soviet Union on this vital problem. The British Government might, therefore, find itself faced with complete failure if we continue to pursue that same policy at the end of this war. If the House and the people of this country want a pointer as to what is likely to happen in that connection, they have it in the recognition of General Tito, the Croat Communist. The British Government, on behalf of a capitalist country, forsooth; and the United States Government, a still more capitalist country, are at last recognizing a leading Communist in Yugoslavia as their champion in the fight against Fascism in the Balkans. I am not suggesting for a moment that they should not—that is not my point—I want to show that it is an indication of the trend of events in Europe. It looks as if, with the complete crushing of Fascism in Europe, there will arise the enthronement of Sovietism all over the continent in its place, Where would His Majesty's Government stand then, on an issue like that?

In the lengthy speech made by the Foreign Secretary the other day he devoted only a few sentences to peace aims because, as I have stated, the slogan is now "Unconditional surrender and nothing short of that." This is what the right hon. Gentleman said:

"What we are seeking, what we are working for, when we approach these matters in harmony with the United States and Russia, is not to impose a three-Power will upon Europe—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th December, 1943; col. 1432, Vol.395.]

I welcome that statement nevertheless.

Will my hon. Friend read a little further into the speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, when he dealt with this question of the balance of power very fully?

The right hon. Gentleman did not deal with it as I desired; that is why I am referring to it now. On this point of building up a group of great Powers like Great Britain, the United States, China and Russia, we are told that they are to determine the form of world organisation for peace at the end of this war. If I know human nature at all I am confident that there is no possibility of peace in the world if three, four or five great Powers join together and imagine that they can police the whole world with the power they possess. They will automatically incite another group against them. As this is a total war, I am all in favour of total peace; if it is a global war, I want a global peace too.

I do not know whether hon. Members know what happened to the United States at the end of the last war. The fact that America did not come into the League of Nations resulted very largely in the emergence of this present world conflict. I doubt if this war would ever have occurred if America had come into the League, and it is worth while therefore asking ourselves why she did not. Woodrow Wilson returned to his native country at the close of the 1914–18 conflict and propagated the League of Nations. It was a noble idea, but strange enough, the country that gave birth to that idea did not join the League. I am told on the very best authority that at least one of the reasons was this. The British Commonwealth comprises this country, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and Australia; and, although all told we only muster about 70,000,000 or 80,000,000 people, we entered the League as five separate units. On that basis the United States, with 130,000,000 people, would have to come in as a single nation, and that in spite of the fact that they regard themselves as 47 separate units federated in what is called the United States of America. I am not bold enough to suggest a remedy for that in the future. I am only arguing that the issue ought to be considered. If we are to have a world organisation for peace, what is going to happen, for instance, to Russia, with its 160,000,000 people, made up of very many separate republics, inside that country, each of which may regard itself as important as Canada, New Zealand, Australia or even South Africa? I consider this as one of the most important points that can be raised in connection with a future world organisation for peace.

I was very glad to read the statement, very much on the lines that I am trying to argue, of the Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday. I have been very disappointed with the Christian Church. I have belonged to it all my life; I still belong to it. I have been disappointed that the Church in this country and all over Europe has not taken a leading part in trying to bring the war to a close. But the Archbishop put his finger on a point that ought to be mentioned in a Debate of this kind. Some people imagine that Hitler arose because of his genius and that the Hitlerite régime is just a lot of gangsters who have collected themselves together for mischief. The Hitlerite régime however is just the result of the foul economic conditions that prevailed in that part of the world. We may therefore destroy the whole of the Hitlerite régime, but if the causes that made it are still there, I do not see that peace is possible in Europe even when the present war is over. The Archbishop put it very clearly, and I am glad he did. May I read one statement that he made:

"There is still in some countries a notion that while no State—"

Is the hon. Gentleman quoting from a speech in the House of Lords?

Yes, I am sorry if I am wrong.

I am afraid the hon. Member is.

I will leave it at that except to say that for once—I should not say I agree with his Lordship; I should be too impudent if I said his Lordship agreed with me.

I should like to ask the people of this country who are willing to listen to my voice what they propose doing in the field of economics and finance at the end of the war. There is no peace possible in this world unless nations are willing to throw their resources into some sort of international pool. If, for instance, Japan is able to keep Malaya and those other territories in the Pacific, and retains for herself 90 per cent. of the rubber of the world, there will be another war about that later on. It is commonly known that Great Britain possessed all the Colonies in the world fit for white men. You cannot possibly therefore get a stable peace until the nations that possess raw materials in abundance are willing to share them with those who have none.

We went to war ostensibly to safeguard the independence of Poland. I did not expect the Foreign Secretary to say what happened at Teheran on that score. I am not influenced, by the way, one bit by official communiqués. I do not expect the Government to disclose all that transpires at conferences, but I should like to know what is going to happen to Poland. Poland had attached to it in 1939 a patch of the Ukraine with 7,000,000 Ukrainians. The people of this country are bewildered about the war. They are inquiring as to whether, after all the bloodshed and devastation that have taken place, the Poland for which we went to fight in 1939 will be the Poland that will emerge at the Peace? It would be worth while knowing whether the Government have anything to say about the future of that country. Then, what of Finland, Latvia, Esthonia, Lithuania and Bessarabia? Is it too much to ask my right hon. Friend to give us some idea about the destiny of those countries? I am very sad to see countries devastated by war; I suppose everyone will join me in that sentiment. A devastated Europe, however, must mean a bankrupt Britain in the end.

Now the slogan is to shorten the war. I agree. I wish it would end to-morrow. The other slogan is: Try the war criminals! I do not understand that at all; it seems to me that everyone who takes part in a war commits a crime against Christianity anyhow. Although I agree with him, I did not like the very pessimistic tone of General Smuts' speech when he said that Great Britain will emerge from the war with glory, prestige and honour, but with nothing in the till. The appropriate comment to that is a simple one. You cannot pay rent with glory; you cannot purchase a suit of clothes with your honour, and you cannot get a ton of coal in your cellar by parading your prestige. But, of course, people do not like the truth, and I am very much afraid he told us a mouthful of it when he spoke thus.

Now let me come to the economic problem. What is to happen, for instance, to the cotton trade of Lancashire? I do not blame the Americans for what they are doing; they are at the moment capturing the cotton trade of the South American Republics. The Lancashire cotton trade was very nearly destroyed in the last war. My right hon. Friend knows better than anyone what happened to coal and shipbuilding. I want to plead therefore that in entering the peace conference when it comes, we shall make up our minds that, whatever our views may be about Bolshevism and Fascism, we will do nothing, as was done in the Treaty of Versailles, to try to import revenge in the new arrangements. It was the spirit of revenge in 1918 which put millions of our people out of employment, some of them for 10 or 15 years. I trust that we shall not enter the next peace conference with that spirit animating us.

It is certain that the longer it takes to achieve military victory the more remote is the possibility of recovery when peace returns. I should wish that those who believe in force as a weapon for settling international conflicts would sometimes use their reason as well as their Armies, Navies and Air Forces.

We drop propaganda leaflets, I understand, over Germany on occasions. I should like to appeal to my right hon. Friend that anything we do in that respect will not convey the impression that we intend punishing the German working classes, because in my view the ordinary people of any belligerent country have very little or nothing to do with war. Wars are made by Governments and sustained by propaganda in order to keep up the morale of the masses. I cannot believe that the ordinary coal-miner in the Ruhr had any more to do with the Hitlerite régime than my right hon. Friend and I, or the miners we represent, have with some of the great capitalist companies of this country and America. I should like if I can to resurrect reason among all this terrible hatred and fury which has gripped mankind. When I was in Central Europe I came across an old fable translated into English. Perhaps it will describe better than I can convey what I am thinking at the moment. It was a fable of an old woman who spent all day begging candles and matches in order that she might do her work when darkness came. It never occurred to her to work during the day and to sleep at night. Although I do not profess to know my Bible too well, I think there is a verse that says:

"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light."

I do not profess either to propagate the light, but I hope that what I have said will, at any rate, lead the right hon. Gentleman to the conclusion that something can be done to shorten the war, apart altogether from military and naval operations. May I quote what the late Woodrow Wilson said in a speech at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1919? Whatever hon. Members forget of what I have said I trust that they will remember this. It is a most striking statement:

"I feel like asking the Secretary for War to get the boys who went across the water together where I could go and see them. I would stand up before them and say, 'Boys, I told you before you went across the seas that this was a war against war, and I did my best to fulfil that promise, but I am obliged to come to you in mortification and shame and say that I have not been able to fulfil that promise. Boys, you are betrayed. You fought for something that you did not get, and the glory of the armies and navies of the United States is gone like a dream in the night'."

I want, in any modest contribution that I make, to help shorten this war, and to make it impossible for any British statesman at the conclusion of hostilities to have to say like Woodrow Wilson that they stand up in mortification and shame, having made so many promises during the conflict that they are unable to fulfil when the war is ended.

Before the hon. Gentleman sits down may I put two points to him, not in any antagonism? In his speech he referred to the federated republics of Russia and the federated states of America and compared them with the British Commonwealth. In that comparison does he not forget the fact that these states and republics are federated? I should like to know what he has in mind in respect of the status and the relations of the British Commonwealth with these two federations. On the question of raw materials, he said that peace could not be guaranteed unless raw materials were made available for all nations, In what way are the raw materials which are supposed to be monopolised by the British Empire not available to other nations, and in what way were they not available even before the war?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those questions and I will do my best to reply to them. I pointed out that the attitude of mind of the Americans was that it was unfair to have five, separate countries within the British Empire with five separate voices within the League of Nations, whereas they had only one voice with twice the population. I did not argue in favour of their contention; I said that that was their argument. I do not know what the attitude of Russia will be towards any new world organisation for peace, but if the Americans would not come into the League of Nations because of that argument I have a fear that Russia may keep out of the next international organisation for the same reason. I want our Government to meet that argument in advance. With regard to raw materials, the hon. Gentleman knows more about that subject than I do, but I should have thought that the Ottawa Agreement is a sufficient answer. Raw materials can of course be bought and manufactures sold freely. When, however, you have a wall of tariffs, giving one country preference for the same article over another, it develops enmity. There is nothing that creates hatred between nations more than that one nation is shut out from the markets of another by tariff walls.

The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies), who introduced this subject, has covered a wide field and raised a large number of issues, and I am sure that he will not expect me to follow him in all of them. One of his remarks remained in my mind. He did not think that three, four or five great Powers would be able to work together for the peace of the world. I would agree with him if they attempted to do it in a dominating manner, but it must now be accepted as one of the principal lessons that emerged from the period between the two wars that although might may not be right, it is essential that right should have plenty of might behind it. If we cannot get agreement between three or four principal Powers where the might will be concentrated, because in total war military might is to all intents and purposes a factor of industrial power, the outlook for peace will be very uncertain.

The hon. Member raised this matter about a year ago, and I did not find myself in agreement with him. To-day I am in agreement to this extent, that he has brought to the notice of the House a subject of great importance from the point of view of the practical conduct of the war. That is the use that is being made or might be made of political warfare. On several occasions, in the past two years, I have endeavoured to make some remarks in this House on that subject, and I am bound to admit that possibly I have been prejudiced or have been accused of being prejudiced in having attached too much importance to political warfare and its possibilities. If that charge is true, I have been pushed into an exaggerated position by the fact that those persons who could only conceive of war in terms of military operation seem to have had a completely blank mind on the subject of political warfare and to have completely missed what I was brought up to believe in the two staff colleges which I attended, that the object of military operations is to bring about a state of affairs in which one can achieve a certain political result. Military operations are only a means to that end, but naturally, being dramatic and terrible, once a war starts and military operations begin to take place they tend to drive other considerations out of men's minds. That could be proved to the House historically if I had time. It was argued that we could not carry on political warfare until we have had military successes. I did not accept that argument, but I do not wish to discuss that issue, because it no longer arises.

We have now had a considerable measure of military success, and therefore I think that even on the grounds of those who maintain that we should have a good measure of military success in the background before we do propaganda, the time is now ripe to do something about it. The strategy of total war is a combination of political warfare and military warfare—a combination of the battle of brains and the battle of the bodies or brawn. To put it crudely, it is difficult to kick a man in the stomach and at the same time have an argument with him on lines of reason and put other ideas into his head. One is only attacking a man's body as part and parcel of the process of changing his mind, because the object of war is simply to change the enemy's mind. I defy the whole of the members of the Imperial General Staff to say that this definition of the object of war is incorrect. They will agree with me.

As regards the particular issue of what we can do in this total war, we have had this series of important Conferences on military and political subjects, and on the political intentions of the Governments it seems to me that three important decisions have been announced. We hear from the Moscow Conference that Austrian independence was one of the objects and aims of His Majesty's Government, including a rather vague statement that it might be advisable for Austria to be linked up economically with a larger area. With that I think most people would agree. There was also an implication that if the Austrians revolted or took some action hostile to the Nazi régime, it would go down to their credit in any settlement that may be arrived at. Secondly, we have had the general statement that Japan should be stripped of the overseas possessions which she has accumulated since the Sino-Japanese war in 1894 up to the present time. That again is a definite statement. Thirdly, we had the rather curious communiqué which assured one of our Allies, Iran, that they need not be in any apprehension about their independence. No doubt they found this encouraging.

Nothing was said about what our intentions are as regards the key to the whole problem, Germany. I perfectly accept the view that one cannot expect the Foreign Secretary to come back from these Conferences and do much more than clothe in Parliamentary language what we have already read in the newspapers. I cannot, however, see that if there is any agreement as to the general lines on what we are doing about the German problem after the war, it can possibly be called a military secret. If we do know what we are going to do with the Germans why do we not say so? It can be very useful to the war effort if used in the right way. A large number of ideas are floating about and have been mentioned in this House as to what to do to the Germans. It is extremely instructive to collect into one document the various official and semi-official statements that have been made since the beginning of the war. They show a great lack of consistency. The hon. Member for Westhoughton asked what we were fighting for, and he said he knew what we were fighting against. I am not in any doubt, up to a certain point. What we are fighting for, apart from the fact that we are fighting for self-preservation, is for the opportunity of doing certain things, and I am clear in my own mind that the principle behind those certain things can be broadly expressed as the principle of re-establishing freedom and liberty, but that is only a principle. What we have to face is how these principles are to be translated into practice.

Among the various ideas that are floating about are: Germany should be divided up again into small States: Germany should be de-industrialised and German industry controlled by the Allies for a certain period. I exclude from my list fantastic ideas such as that the German nation should be exterminated. What I would ask is whether or not the Government have any views as to what, broadly speaking, is to happen to the Germans. We must remember that the German propaganda machine, as far as I am able to follow its activities, makes no bones about putting to the German people what it alleges to be our views on this matter. The views that it alleges we hold are, of course, that the most terrible and frightful things are going to happen. German propagandists are put up by Goebbels with the obvious intention of persuading everybody in Germany that however severe the privations they are undergoing they must hold on till the last possible moment and fight to the last man, woman and child because nothing could be more frightful than what the British intend to do to the Germans. I do not for a moment believe that that bears any relation to the truth. I simply do not know what the official reply is to that statement.

Before I sit dawn, I would only make one remark to indicate my own view on the economic side. I would beg the House to believe that this is not a sentimental view. I am not in the least sentimental about the Germans. I claim that it is a strictly practical point of view. The longer this war goes on the greater will be the problem of the reconstruction of Europe and undoubtedly from information one receives many parts of Europe are in a pretty bad way. In the "Sunday Pictorial," a paper which I do not usually commend to the attention of this House, I saw an interesting despatch last Sunday from the Italian front describing conditions in Italy and in Naples and what the troops were saying about the fact that there was a 10 years job in front of the world in trying to get Europe square again it the conditions in Italy were in any sense typical. If that is the practical problem in front of us I simply do not believe as a matter of practical politics that it is going to be possible to reconstruct Europe it we are to have in the middle of Europe an area of 70,000,000 people in a state of chaos, anarchy, disease, famine and so forth. There is nothing sentimental about that. It is purely a matter of practical administrative fact, because Germany and the Germans, whatever we may think of them, are an integral part of Europe just as we are an integral part of Europe. I know that some people have tried to argue that we do not belong to Europe, but that is not so. It is no good trying to pretend that 70,000,000 people situated geographically in the centre of Europe and with the raw materials which they have under the ground they live on can be ignored. They will have to play a part of some kind in Europe, however humble that part may be, and for however long we may keep them in a humble part. Therefore, I ask this final and concluding question: What are the views of the Government? In view of what happened after the last war, I think tins should be a matter of public discussion as far as the House is concerned and that we should know what the views of the Government are, whether those views are in agreement with those of our Allies as to the part, however humble, which we visualise Germany playing in Europe in the years immediately after the war.

I do not desire to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Ormskirk (Commander King-Hall) in all his speech because I cannot attach quite the same weight as he did to the importance of propaganda. But I should like to support what he has so clearly indicated, and it is that we must clarify our minds as to what is to be the position of these 80,000,000 Germans in Europe at the end of the war. When I read suggestions about sending a handful of young men from Balliol to re-educate the German race; or dividing up the German State, which has found its full unity only at this fate stage; or of de-industrialising the Ruhr, I ask myself whether I am living in Britain or Laputa. I cannot visualise any economic reconstruction of Europe without taking full account of the productive and consuming power of these 80,000,000 people in the centre of the Continent, and I hope, therefore, that my right hon. Friend who represents the Foreign Office, if he cannot discuss it now, will keep that point clearly in mind.

I want to bring this House back to the speech of the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies). He made great play with the Atlantic Charter. May I remind him that there are four freedoms in the Atlantic Charter, but that those four freedoms are one freedom, because unless we succeed in banishing fear there is nothing left in the great principles behind that great pronouncement? I cannot see in the present conduct of the war and of foreign affairs any recession from those four fundamental principles. I have sat in this House fairly regularly, and I have heard the hon. Member make many speeches, but I never remember a single occasion when he has made any contribution to the banishing of that one fundamental freedom, on which hang all freedoms, and that is freedom from fear. I would ask him to take that Charter away and think of it very seriously in connection with the line he pursues in the discussion of foreign affairs.

He also made great play with the Allied demand for unconditional surrender and tried to persuade this House that that demand had had a prejudicial effect upon the course of events in Italy. Has he read or studied anything of what is taking place in Turin and Milan to-day, that great industrial part of Northern Italy which is under the heel of Germany, where there is intense resistance to Nazi domination and an intense desire to throw it off and join in with the United Nations as an ally—unconditional surrender or whatever the terms may be? Yet these people are held down by that very fear which we are out to banish. On no occasion in this House or outside this House has he made any contribution to the successful prosecution of that mighty effort which the United Nations are putting forth.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the revival of the balance of power. Who has ever heard of the revival of the balance of power? He objects to the speech of General Smuts. Of course he does. General Smuts told us too many plain blunt truths for those who live in a world of illusion to digest, and when he said that the old balance of power in Europe had disappeared for generations, if not for all time, he was saying a thing which is absolutely and unassailably correct. Something far bigger than the defeat of France occurred in June, 1940. It was the disappearance from Europe of a system which had existed for 10 centuries and which cannot be restored either in our time or possibly for ever. When he talks about three or four Powers dominating the world, is it because of the lust of power among those States? Is it not because this position has inevitably arisen from the very conditions which General Smuts disclosed and which he drove home with all the force of his eloquence and all the strength of his immense knowledge? No, this is not the lust of power on the part of the United States, the British Commonwealth, Russia and China—if we include China—but it is the inevitable course of events, the responsibility thrown upon them and the responsibility which they and they alone can discharge if the next generation is to live in freedom from fear. For my part, I can see no future for the peace of the world either now or in the future without the closest co-operation between the British Commonwealth, the United States and Russia and China, a co-operation which must be exercised through power and strength, until there has grown up a new generation in Germany and a new generation in Japan brought up in the conviction that war is not a pleasant and profitable enterprise for themselves.

Further, the hon. Member talked about an appeal to the German working classes over the heads of the Nazi tyranny. Before the last war a great friend of mine, Sir Valentine Chirol, was standing with Karl Liebnicht while a body of German troops was marching down Unter den Linden. Liebnicht said to Sir Valentine Chirol, "Yes, and when the time comes all of us, all of our great Social Democratic Party, will march with them into war." And so it happened. That is the position to-day, and that will be the position until such a situation has been built up that Germany will realise that war is not a profitable enterprise. After all is said and done, whatever happens in this war, there will be 80,000,000 Germans in the centre of Europe, and whatever happens in the Pacific, there will be 90,000,000 Japanese in Japan and in the islands she dominates, and in Korea and Manchuria—90,000,000 people nerd in the iron tyranny of the most dreadful despotism the world has seen for untold centuries, brought up, disciplined, organised and trained in the idea that war is the be-all and end-all of their existence. How is tear to be banished in those conditions? Only by the knowledge that the over-riding strength of the three or four great Powers who have been drawn together by the pressure of events will be exercised to see that war does not pay.

In the plain blunt situation we have to face to-day no contribution to the future peace of the world can be made by those who handicap either by word or deed the peoples who are determined to see that this horrid despotism is crushed, and that aggressors are taught to see that war does not pay. That is a situation which, whatever words we use, does exist and must exist and there is a responsibility on the United Nations which must be exercised. It may be said—it is one of the few things said by the hon. Member with which I agree—that one of the great causes of the present war was the decision of the United States not to enter into the League of Nations when it was constituted. But that refusal did not spring mainly or primarily from the large collective vote of the British Commonwealth; that was only a minor factor. There were many others. If the hon. Member will pursue his political studies a little further, he will find that opposition to the weight of the British Commonwealth vote emerged as a sort of red herring to lead the American people astray. Why did the League of Nations fail? That is a question on which there is no possible doubt whatsoever. It failed because it entered into great international responsibilities and sought to exercise those responsibilities without the power to make its decisions felt. The power to make decisions felt when this war is over rests, and must rest, whether they like it or not, on the four great associated Powers; and upon their determination to accept that responsibility and to exercise it the whole future of the world and the whole peace of the world rests and must rest.

I should like to follow my hon. Friend a little into his economics, only they are so extraordinary that I really cannot. He talked about freedom to obtain raw materials, a point which was answered by the hon. Member for West Islington (Mr. Montague). Every producer of raw materials wants to sell them and welcomes any buyer from any quarter; the reason Germany went short of raw materials was that she preferred to buy materials for armaments rather than the materials for industrial development. As for his statement that the textile industry of Lancashire was ruined by the last war, because we lost the South American market, I really must ask him not to try to delude the House with such grotesquely inaccurate descriptions of events. The Lancashire textile industry lost its great market in India and other markets because of its complete inability to organise itself on anything like modern lines of industrial production. But these are minor matters. The great fact is that the hon. Member believes in the Atlantic Charter, even if he uses it only to charge the Government with not carrying it into full effect. I agree with the Atlantic Charter, and most of us do, but we realise that that Charter's four freedoms are one freedom, and that is freedom from fear, and we are determined to use every atom of strength and make any sacrifice which may be laid upon us now or in the future to see that that basic fear which has caused all the miseries imposed upon the world is banished because there can be no peace for the world until fear is exorcised for all time.

There was a time when I thought the following line might be very applicable to this House:

"shall fold their tents like the Arabs and as silently steal away."

One Member after another retired, and I thought we were going to have a miniature Labour Party Conference, but we have now had an augmentation of strength. It was interesting to follow the speech of the last hon. Member. I cannot follow him as far as agreeing with what he says, and had time permitted I should have been very pleased to take up some of the points he advanced. I cannot quite understand, however, what he means when he declares that war does not pay. I should have thought that war has paid the British Empire very sound dividends indeed. It paid us in Canada, for by war we secured Canada from the French. It paid us in China, for there we secured certain territories, including Hong Kong, from the Chinese. It paid us in Burma, which again was acquired by war, and it paid us in South Africa, where large portions of the southern part of that continent were acquired by the sword. But I do not wish to pursue that, because I have my own line of thought which I wish briefly to express.

I think the last speaker and other hon. Members at least will agree with me when I say that we have had many warnings in recent months against undue optimism regarding the end of this war. It is quite true that there might be unforeseen events, as happened in 1918, to bring this war to an unexpected conclusion. I hope that will be so, but in the absence of such events I think we must face the facts that this war may last a long time yet. It may go on until 1945, 1946, 1947, or even longer. When it does end, the aftermath will taste like bitter herbs, for it will be an aftermath of profound disappointment as well as distress.

There is a Member in this House who, in the course of his speech this week, uttered the following words:

"Most people think that when Germany surrenders the war will be ended, that prosperity will automatically return and that there will be no necessity for further sacrifices or hard work. That is an extraordinarily dangerous outlook. The war against Japan is going to take very much longer and to require very much more from us than most people realise. We shall not be able to start the great task of reconstruction to which we look forward, because we shall not have the men or the materials."

If you will permit me, I should like to make another quotation:

"There is another thing which the Government could do on this problem of demobilisation. They should make a statement here and now that after this war compulsory military service is going to remain. If people know that military service in the future is going to be an ordinary part of our life, I do not think there will be the same haste as there would otherwise be to get out of it directly the German war is over."

I do not mention the Member's name, because I have no intention of attacking him, and I merely quote these sentences because I think they are representative of the opinion of quite a large number of Members of this House, not confined to one set of benches. That being so, I think we should appreciate that the war may last many years, and I notice that we have given up the one-time illusion of perpetual peace. We no longer talk in this war, as we did in the last, of a war to end wars. There is a certain number of perverted idealists still remaining who have resurrected the old conception of a personal devil, only they have now called him Adolf Hitler. Even then, they were rather dubious, and so they expanded their conception and included within that category 200,000,000 of their fellow human beings in Germany, Japan, Italy and elsewhere. This being so, it seems to me as we have now reached the stage where we are attributing congenital devilry to some 200,000,000, we must appreciate the force of the argument of the hon. Member to whom I referred when he claims we must have post-warconscription.

Why should we have post-war conscription if the devils of Germany, Italy, and Japan are completely defeated? Do we suspect any danger from the United States of America or from the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics? God forbid. But perhaps I ought to omit any reference to the Deity, seeing that with many Members any association of religion with politics is looked upon, as I think by the last Member, with some suspicion. There must be a sort of neat division between the priest, on the one hand, and the politician on the other. We must remain in the arena of conflict while the parson can remain in his pulpit or in his study. If I may paraphrase a familiar line of Kipling's: "Priest is priest and politician is politician, and ne'er the twain shall meet"—save presumably at morning prayers or evening dinner.

I agree that as we have given up any belief in perpetual peace, it might be just as well if we openly admitted we did believe in perpetual war. Indeed, I would go further and say it is quite possible to look upon war as a natural condition of mankind and, with a certain amount of adjustment, to go on for an indefinite period if we can ration goods and so adjust our mechanism that when we find ourselves in short supply we can restrict the amounts distributed. I think that could be applied to coal, on the one hand, and to children on the other. If that sounds morbid or cynical, I would ask hon. Members to look at these facts. The peoples of the Axis Powers are now associated with all that is violent and degrading. I do not deny for a single moment the great deal of devilry that has been apparent in the last few years and which has been perpetrated by some section of the German people. But, on the other hand, there is hardly a nation under the sun which we have not hated at one time or other and to whom we have not ascribed wickedness. There is Spain; how we hated her in the days of the Spanish Armada. There is France; for 400 years France was the great military Power of Europe, reaching her climax in the Napoleonic war when, indeed, she was defeated.

If Members go from here into the Royal Gallery, they can still see the mural painting in which German and British Field Marshals, astride their horses, celebrate victory on a field cumbered with corpses of French militarists. In those days it was Napoleon who was the incarnation of devilry. We have hated the country from which my name is derived, for we bombarded Copenhagen under our great Lord Nelson. We have hated the Dutch more than once, when they were our commercial rivals and, again, in the Boer War. We have hated the Chinese and called them "cruel Chinks," and, as for the Russians, I had hardly dare mention that name for even in this war our own Prime Minister has openly stated:

"Now we see how Communism rots the soul of a people"

A few years ago he was describing Bolshevism as "Bloodthirsty baboonery." When one considers this, one is inclined to be ironical. And if we look through our own history we shall find also ourselves guilty of many things for which we have condemned others.

At the same time, this has to be said: Italy has changed places since the last war. Then, she was with us and she was everything that was good. In this war she was just a poison because she was against us and now, I suppose, she is a sort of shandy-gaff. Finland was praised by us at the beginning of this war, but is now to be annihilated. Again, there is Japan. In the last war we referred to the Japanese as the "gallant little Japs, "but now we refer to them as the "yellow devils of the East." If the Japanese had not come into the Axis and had remained out at their discretion, would we have said anything about their military conquests and annexations? I suggest that we should have said nothing about that. We should have welcomed them again as the "gallant little Japs." It does seem when we look back on the sorry story of mankind as if Fate is continually organising a kind of diabolical whist-drive in which we change partners after every game. Be that as it may, we are now involved in a dreadful struggle and I know, too, that Members in this House genuinely believe everything must be done to the bitter end, even if it means the destruction of our civilisation in the process. We must destroy those with ill-gotten gains and who are drunk with despotism even if we destroy ourselves. But even if that nemesis is not reached I do beg the House to realise what the cost may be.

The newspapers have told us that the Cairo conference means that Japan is to be reduced to a third-rate Power. What effect is that pronouncement going to have on the Japanese people? It may be said that they will ultimately cringe with fear and ask for mercy. It is equally likely, and I think more probable, that such a declaration will steel the resistance of the Japanese people. On the other hand, I think it could be said, although I do not necessarily subscribe to it, that this very declaration is itself but a piece of evidence of what some people describe the European war to have been until Russia was attacked—an "Imperialist gang fight." If it is not this, then we have to ask ourselves whether our condemnation of the actions of Japan cannot be made more impressive by our consistency. After all, I think we should agree that a teetotal lecturer is more likely to be impressive if it is known that he has no shares in a brewery company and is not the proprietor of a public house, even if he be temperate himself, and when we are prepared to indicate what we propose to do with those territories in the world which we have acquired by war then it may be that our moral condemnation will be more impressive.

What are we going to do with Burma which we acquired by war? What are we going to do with Malaya, with India, with our African colonies and with the Italian colonies? I do not ask this because I want to see a wholesale transference of peoples. On the contrary, I believe we have shown many signs of liberal development, but, on the other hand, I suggest it would be well for us to appreciate what is the answer of some of our critics whom we have tried to win to a sounder outlook on life. It is true that we are now restoring, or will restore, those extra-territorial rights we took from China under duress—now that we have lost them. It may be that Hong-Kong will be restored, but it is we who decide. If anybody tried to decide for us we should promptly tell them to mind their own business. As the Prime Minister said, "We intend to hold our own." If that arrogant attitude persists then, in only a short space of time, this war will be followed by another. If that is our attitude other countries will say, It you intend to hold your own, having secured it by the sword, we, by a sharper sword, will try to take it from you." And perpetual war will continue.

There is one other question I would ask, before I come to a conclusion. Who is responsible for the aggression of Japan? The Japanese war lords no doubt, in large measure; but in 1854 it was Admiral Perry of America who arrived off the coast of Japan with four gun boats, threatening to bombard Japan if she did not open her land and grant certain concessions. Because in the following year it was not clear that Japan would make those concessions, Admiral Perry came again with ten gun boats and then, of course, Japan had to climb down and grant concessions to the Western Powers. No wonder the good Admiral wrote, as the last entry in his diary:

"Thus ends my expedition to Japan, for which thank God."

After that, it was Britain, America and Germany who taught Japan the art of modern militarism and navalism. It was our Western industrialists who assisted Japan and encouraged her to build up great modern industries. In the-last war, it was our alliance that endorsed the procedure which Japan had followed. Indeed, just before this war and as a contributory factor to it, let us remember, the scrap iron that Japan is using came from America, the oil and rubber from our own "Imperial Estates." Therefore, I submit, if we are going to put Japan in the dock, there are accessories before and after the fact who might very well accompany her.

A more fundamental issue is this: What are we to do with 90,000,000 human beings in Japan, in an area little larger than the British Isles, the habitable part of which is not much more than half this Island? They have got to live, and if they are to live and if we are to benefit by their production, as we could, we have to answer the questions which they address to us, and not only they, but the Chinese people who are their victims, and the Indians and all the peoples in Asia: What do we propose as an alternative to the economic order which the Japanese militarists have tried to impose upon the East? The East is awake, and it may very well respond to the seductive siren voice that proclaims "Asia for the Asiatic." I do not want them to do it, but if not, we have to persuade them not simply to copy our democratic principles and to accept our democratic faith, but to "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them," and to join with us in the common task of creating, politically and economically, a co-operative world. If we do not do that, war will succeed war. But if the future world is to be truly co-operative we are involving the future of Europe as well as Asia.

We have now secured military unity among the "Big Three." Have we as yet secured political unity for a common purpose? I hope we shall do so. I am not certain this will be achieved, but it is imperative that we try to reach it. After this war is over, Europe will be distracted and devastated, hungry, chaotic and embittered, and unless we are careful we may find we are nearing the end of Western civilisation. I say that in no morbid spirit, but because, when we look back through the course of human history, we observe how great Empires have had their day and ceased to be—Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome—and there is no inherent reason why the Western world, closely knit to-day, should not follow and become one more pile of wreckage on the road of time. It is true as never before that, whether righteous or unrighteous, saints or sinners, if one member suffers, all other members suffer with it.

I am afraid not only of the economic consequences of the peace and of the previous sombre forebodings of Professor Keynes that may now be applied to this war, but of the psychological and ethical mess that will confront us, of the impulse to revolution on the one hand and of the despair and despondency on the other. We who are involved in this shocking paradox between our ethical professions and our economic and political practice—we who are Christians and while talking of the Sermon on the Mount are also trying it blow it up; we who are Socialists and who having described capitalism as the cause of modern war, yet now attempt to segregate 200,000,000 of our fellows, as if they were the cause of it all. Our responsibility is to prepare in every way possible for the world that should emerge out of the travail and tribulation of today and that could be in some measure a compensation for all that we have suffered. Could we not learn just one significant fact embodied by Milton in his "Paradise Lost":

"Reyenge, at first though Sweet,

Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils."?

Those are words whose content should be learned by us all. Revenge may be sweet, but in the end it recoils, and because of that I would just add one or two final words of appeal.

I was very moved to read some weeks ago that Lord Derby, father of our own estimable Colonial Secretary, addressing a meeting in Lancashire, said that he felt grieved and heart-burdened for the mothers of this country. Then he went on to add, "and for the mothers of Germany too." It was a fine and splendid sentence. I will not say that it was courageous, for it should not be courageous to utter those things, but I shall remember that pronouncement always. I wish our statesmen would sometimes strike the same note. Why cannot they sometimes state boldly to enemy peoples their appreciation of the sanity and humanity that are still there, at least as firmly as they do of the ugliness and the devilry? It would not hurt us, and it might gain a great deal. Why cannot we repeat that note, and say now to the peoples of Japan, Italy and Germany that the world we shall have after this war will not be a world of revenge and not a world even of penalty, not a world of domination and exploitation, but a world in which they, with us, on equal terms, can build up a new society in which liberty shall be the very breath of our souls, but a liberty firmly related to economic security? Without that foundation of economic security liberty will perish as the proverbial house did on its foundations of sand; but with it, indeed, there is hope that humanity will at last have learned its lesson and will rebuild its world on that sure foundation which can and will, to use a great and wonderful Quaker phrase, "Take away the occasion of all wars."

The Debate, which was opened by my hon. Friend with his usual eloquence, has certainly produced a number of very excellent and thought-provoking speeches. As I stand here, I just ask myself the question whether this nation adopted the right course when it decided to take up arms against the Nazi terror. Looking, back to that time over four years ago, I believe there was no doubt in the mind of almost every person in this country, irrespective of position, as to the right course to adopt. I well remember sitting at the Trades Union Congress and later at the Labour Party Conference when resolutions were passed, not by what may be regarded as majorities but almost unanimously, as to the right course to adopt before the menace with which Europe and the world were faced.

I have long been associated with my hon. Friends on the other side of the House, and still am. As members of the Labour Party, we did not lightly throw over or postpone the constructive work on which we were then engaged with other members and organisations in this House; we did not turn from those activities lightly to support an effort which had for its purpose the defeat of a menace which we knew would impose conditions upon the people of this country, compared with which the conditions which we then knew or which we shall know after the war, would be infinitely preferable. If this nation had not stood, as she did, in the breach, to defeat the group of gangsters, they would have imposed those conditions not only upon the British nation but upon the world.

With a number of my hon. Friends, I fully realise what this war means. We have no need to be reminded of the speech of the Prime Minister in which he referred to the ordeal of "blood, sweat, toil and tears" through which this and other nations would have to pass before the conclusion of hostilities. Indeed, while it is true that victory is in sight, no one knows how soon or how long it will take to achieve, and it is fitting that we should discuss some of the matters which have been raised to-day. We must not forget the fact that, while we have the right of criticism of any peace proposals, or peace conditions which will be agreed to in Europe, or Japan and throughout the world, unless this war is won it will be a dictated peace without this nation or the people of any other nation having any consideration or say as to what those proposals should be.

I have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) on numerous occasions in this House and in party meetings and conferences, and I have heard him in the country, but, as the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Reed) rightly said, I have not, even during the darkest days of the war, heard him make a single suggestion as to how we could bring the war to a successful conclusion. The war has caused sorrow, suffering and sacrifice to many of us, and if we could see a way of bringing it to an end, we should do so to-morrow, but not as the result of a stalemate or indeed, of surrender. I wonder if my hon. Friend fully realises, if after what he has propagated and advocated for the last four or five years, the war ended in retaining Hitler in Germany with all the power he possesses, that the occupied countries of Europe, although handed back to their sovereign Governments, would be still under the economic domination of the 80,000,000 of people in Central Europe referred to by my hon. Friend.

I think we have said too little about one of the great issues of the war. While I would not yield to anybody in my zeal for democracy and freedom, I think that one of the great issues which affects this country as much as any other is the economic issue. Rightly or wrongly, the economy of this nation has been built upon export and import trade for a period of 100 or 150 years. What would be the economic condition of this country unless we could retain and indeed improve upon our pre-war export trade? We may talk of great reconstruction schemes—and I want to see not only a new Britain or a new Europe but a new world—but unless the economic basis of this country is right, and unless this war is won, I am afraid we shall not be able to fulfil the promises made to the people of our own country.

This is the third day on which we have had a Debate on foreign affairs. A number of questions put to me to-day have been already covered in the very excellent speeches made by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on Tuesday and Wednesday. There has been much criticism to-day about these Conferences, but I have not heard a single suggestion that the Conferences were not worth holding. They were worth holding. We have for the first time brought into conference representatives of the four great Powers of the world. They have been discussing, of course, in the first instance how to win the war.

Political matters were also discussed. My right hon. Friend could not disclose to the House very much about the military discussions, but he did point out, that as far as some of the political discussions are concerned, there is no ambiguity whatever with regard to them. My hon. Friend referred to the balance of power. That matter was fully dealt with by my right hon. Friend. He especially referred to the four great Powers acting together, but that did not exclude the smaller Powers, and indeed an invitation was extended to the smaller Powers to join the greater Powers in order to bring about in the world a situation such as my hon. Friend himself desires.

It is true he is concerned with the position of 80,000,000 people in Germany, as is my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Commander King-Hall) and the hon. Member for Aylesbury, and also the position of the 90,000,000 people in Japan. As far as the European situation is concerned, I think it is generally admitted that it is impossible to bring about economic restoration in Europe if you leave out that great mass of population in the centre. But is not that one of the questions which the European Advisory Commission which is now sitting in London is considering? That Commission was set up as a result of the Moscow Conference; and while it is true that U.N.R.R.A., that organisation representative of almost all the nations of the world with the exception of the Axis Powers, has for its purpose the relief and rehabilitation of Europe during that period which has been so eloquently described by some of my hon. Friends—

I am anxious not to misunderstand this. Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that the European Advisory Commission is charged with considering the future of German economy?

My understanding of the functions of the European Advisory Commission is that they are charged to consider almost any question with regard to peace problems which might arise when the war is over. I have no doubt that when it is required the position of Japan will also be considered in exactly the same way. I do beg my hon. Friend to understand that His Majesty's Government are endeavouring in every possible way to see that the sufferings shall be minimised to the smallest extent possible in the post-war years and will consider of course all the great economic and political problems which arise. My hon. Friend also referred to political propaganda. Of course consideration is still being given to political propaganda. It is impossible to disclose what is being done, but much is being done in connection with that matter, and it will continue to be done.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) made more than one reference to the terms of the Atlantic Charter. I can assure him that the terms of the Atlantic Charter are not whittled down in any way whatsoever by this nation or any other nation. It must be remembered that the Atlantic Charter was not issued by Britain alone. It was a joint declaration by Britain and America, which was afterwards approved by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and a number of other Allied nations. It would be inadvisable to attempt to put any glosses upon the Charter. The Charter was a statement of general principles which will guide any nation subscribing to it. It is not a specific treaty and its exact interpretation must often be sought in agreements between the States based on the general principles which it contains.

For instance, the Four-Power Declaration signed in Moscow on 30th October represented a more formal engagement on the part of the signatory bodies to follow certain policies after the war. Equally the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 26th May, 1942, committed Great Britain and the Soviet Union to certain definite courses of action. These and similar instruments are the means whereby the general principles of the Charter are being translated into more positive action, and they constitute one of, the main reasons why it is not possible for His Majesty's Government for their part to make any authoritative statement on the exact meaning of certain clauses of the Charter itself.

We should be deceiving ourselves if we did not take into account the economic difficulties which are likely to arise in Europe after the war. Our first efforts, as I have mentioned, should be directed by all means in our power to shortening the war, for the longer it goes on the more difficult the situation will become. Apart from that, there are certain preparations to meet immediate distress which we are now making together with our Allies. The first meeting of the Council of U.N.R.R.A. showed that there was very substantial agreement on measures to be taken in regard to relief and rehabilitation, and His Majesty's Government for their part are determined to do all in their power to combat distress and to ensure that the re-establishment of European economy as a whole, and principally that of our European Allies is effected at the earliest possible moment. We should not delude ourselves as to the enormous difficulties which will be in our way. But we may well reflect that there is an immense natural recuperative power in Europe generally, and when their countries have been relieved of the German incubus the free peoples of Europe are likely by their own exertions to assist greatly in remedying some of the obstacles which at the moment seem formidable enough.

My hon. Friend referred to the question of access to the resources of the British Empire. I want to repeat what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury. There are and have been no restrictions upon the purchase of raw materials in the Colonial Empire. Each country has had free access for this purpose—if, of course, it had the money to pay for its purchases—and I have no doubt that in the reconstruction of Europe and indeed the world, the British Colonial Empire, in common with the Dominions and Great Britain and our Allies, will make their full contribution towards relief and rehabilitation. As the result of the recent Conferences there still can be but one thought in the minds of all of us, and that is, What can we do to defeat the enemy as speedily as possible? For that effort we shall need all the courage and strength which have brought us safely through to this point. For there is no doubt there are still in store for us enormous difficulties, and great sacrifices will be asked for. The attainment of victory will be hastened only in proportion to our industry and our exertions. There must be no relaxation of our effort to accomplish this. After victory we can then move to the next stage with our minds open to new ideas, ready to grasp the possibilities of any new situation by bringing every kind of skill, economic, political, social, industrial and technical, to the solving of the international problems with which we shall then be faced. We can, I am convinced, restore peace, freedom and security to a war-weary world and establish social and economic justice for all the peoples of all that world.

This is not the occasion for a full Debate on East Africa, but the Labour Party have asked me to raise a matter which is causing them some apprehension. Consequently, we feel it is right that we should take what few opportunities present themselves in this House for directing attention to Colonial matters. Moreover, it is important that we should know what is the policy of the Government on certain Colonial affairs. There is, in many areas of the Colonial Empire, an increasing sense of urgency, and certain areas in Africa in particular, when the war is over, when the men who have been gathered up in the Forces return, and when some of our social programmes reach a bigger stage of fulfilment, will find their problems assuming somewhat alarming proportions unless it is clear where they are going and their policies are well thought out in advance.

Affairs in Kenya have disturbed the minds of many of my hon. Friends for a long time. It is not for me now to detail past history. I only want to say that in the last Debate we had in this House in which Kenya was discussed I referred to the condition of the Colony, to the deterioration of the native reserves, and I asked for a more positive policy of development. It was the occasion when I objected strongly to the application of forced labour. Since then, there has been a famine in the reserves and other parts. Some illuminating evidence has been given to the Famine Commission. In addition, new steps have been taken to initiate further European settlement.

Let me say right away that we are glad that for practical purposes the Government have abandoned the policy of forced labour except in the case of the growing of sisal. We felt that the extension a year or so ago of forced labour to tea and coffee was wrong: I would go so far as to say reprehensible. I am glad that the Government have taken the more sensible line of limiting forced labour, and I sincerely hope that before long even with sisal forced labour will be abandoned altogether.

I want also to say that my party welcome the announcement which was recently made by the Secretary of State in respect of development and welfare. The schemes which have been announced seem comprehensive and far-reaching, and they will bring immense benefit to the reserves, in fact to the Colony as a whole. As has been said, land, water, forest and roads are key words in Kenya, and we hope that the schemes of research and investigation and experiment will be urgently pushed on with, that there will be at the earliest possible date a getting-on with the big public works schemes that have been announced. We also hope that the Africans themselves will be quite definitely associated with all the work of development. We hope that all pains will be taken to get the staffs that are necessary for this great new work, and that as far as possible the returning soldiers, the Africans coming back, may be utilised, because with their new skill, the training they have had, they can make a very effective contribution, if wisely used, to the development of their own country. We feel it is not a moment too soon to get on with the job. The situation with regard to erosion, the need for irrigation, the replanting of forests, the attack on the tsetse fly and so on, all these matters are of grave urgency.

But alongside this work of development on the economic and material side we want to look forward in respect of social welfare, and we would like the creation of a Board of African Welfare and Development, in order that some of these problems shall receive a little more attention than they are apt to receive in the pre-occupations of the present moment. No one will be satisfied with the social standards which exist among the native peoples of Kenya, nor with the economic conditions, the conditions in the towns and the standards of wages which are paid. I would only direct attention—the Secretary of State has undoubtedly read it—to the Report of the Labour Officer, Mr. Allen, in which many deplorable and indefensible instances of exploitation and abominable conditions are exposed. These are conditions which ought to be brought to an end as early as possible and a wage policy thought out in respect of this part of Africa.

May I, therefore, again urge that the Secretary of State will consider whether at the earliest moment his Labour Adviser or some economic adviser can visit the territory with a view to bringing these economic and labour problems, as well as these social questions, under review? There is a growing apprehension in Kenya that things are not all right. Let me quote from the "East African Standard" of 9th August. In a leader they say:

"We are beginning to see cracks in the imposing structure that has been erected so quickly in a quarter of a century.… Right at the foundations is the African and his land … policy in the European areas is secondary to policy in the native reserves.… If policy in the native areas is faulty, if over-crowding continues and grows, with recurring and increasing fragmentation of the land as generation succeeds generation, if on the one hand we have the pressure of the inescapable demand for better living standards and on the other increasing difficulty facing an African who has to make the wherewithal out of soil which is steadily deteriorating it takes little imagination to see that there is trouble ahead."

This apprehension as to the future is growing, and vigorous and comprehensive policies are, therefore, necessary. Perhaps some limit might be imposed on the sub-division of native lands, so that at least they shall be of family size. We should like to see an increase in mixed farming, the further adoption of co-operative practice, a ban on mortgages, a campaign for training the African in husbandry, and a development on the other side of economics, the founding of small industries. Any surplus population of Africans might then be assisted in the towns and be absorbed on useful work. A better social and economic balance could thus be secured in the Colony. This we regard as of great importance.

On the social side, we would like to see—and I am sure the Secretary of State is just as eager—an enormous expansion of community education, with particular attention to the women, with teaching of hygiene and of crafts as well. I need not refer to the fundamental importance of good health and nutrition for dealing with the great diseases which inflict and do so much harm and destruction on the people.

Now on this side of the House we are becoming apprehensive about a new development which is going on in regard to European settlement. I do not want to discuss the tragic history of the Colony so far as the Africans are concerned. My party have always opposed the white highlands policy and the eviction from those lands of the Africans. We have regarded that as utterly wrong, and we do not countenance it, even at the present time. Of 7,000,000 acres in European holding, only 10 per cent. is cultivated, and there are little more than 2,000 European farmers, after all the efforts of the past. The policy of European settlement has been costly to the Colony, and, most of all, costly to large numbers of the individuals who were attracted to settle in the Colony. The land offered was often of doubtful value, it was costly to work, and without the most elaborate economic arrangements it was work which was not calculated to pay. It certainly could not stand on its own economic basis. That colonisation has been sustained by subsidising from Colonial revenues, by distorting the natural economy of the Colony, and by neglect of the native areas: in 1939 the Report on soil erosion showed what a sorry plight the native reserves had got into. It has been sustained also by neglect of the vital social services and by a disparity in treatment between European and African in such matters as education and health. Indeed, that colonisation has been largely sustained by a system of privileges and subsidies. The facts are there: I do not think that anyone, in the light of the Pim Report, would dispute them to-day.

It is because of that past history that I ask whether we are going to repeat any of this story. Already a Settlement Officer has been appointed, the Kenya Government have expressed their agreement with the policy of the Commission which sat on settlement in 1939, and a promise has been given by the Kenya Government that public money will be available for new schemes of European settlement. That policy should be weighed most carefully before it is embarked upon. I know that many advantages have come to East Africa, with the disabilities to the Africans, as a result of white settlement, although in West Africa and Uganda the native peoples have managed to get on pretty well without it. But the purpose of the Labour Party is to see in East Africa a common civilisation of black and white in common citizenship, working and living side by side. The maintenance or extension of European settlement should not be by privilege to the Europeans, or to the prejudice of African development. We are opposed to preferential treatment being given to the Europeans. We fear that the effect of further European settlement may be not only to perpetuate but to increase the difficulties of government, and to strengthen the present dominant influence and direction in government. Let us remember that the social structure of Kenya is essentially that of a plural society. Within the Imperial framework two or more races pursue their separate courses, with little social or economic interaction, the Government from time to time adjusting the relationships when one or the other race may tend to become restless. I suggest that the war has already demonstrated that that type of society is both inadequate and weak. There is in Kenya a civilisation of a dominant race, supported by cheap labour, and that kind of society is completely intolerable. We are afraid that any marked increase of European settlement will aggravate the present position.

Another reason why we are apprehensive is that, looking ahead, we see that there may be gathering for us difficulties because of the increasing population of the Africans and the existence already of an acute land hunger. You may improve African husbandry. You may adopt social changes and go all out for schemes of development, but sooner or later, because of the limited areas in which the African may live, you may be obliged to seek outlets in order that land may be available so that his livelihood can be pursued. It may be inevitable and desirable that many of these good neglected lands in the white highlands shall be used by selected Africans along the lines of some resettlement scheme. The present policy in the European highlands of a stratified society, in which blacks can be put to labour for the Europeans on the European lands, means the continued existence of a dominant people, and that seems to us to be an indefensible policy altogether. In the light of the past we do not think that arrangements that are made should be for the exclusive enjoyment of Europeans only. I have said that in the past there has been far too much discrimination. We have tended to create what has been called a privileged class, and in order to do so we have distorted the economy of Kenya, and we do not want that policy to be pursued. We want the building up in Kenya of a civilisation in which both races can play their part.

These then are our fears and, perhaps, suspicions. It makes it difficult for us to feel happy about the new plans, and we hope that the Colonial Secretary will pause before he sanctions this new development.

There are only two points that I now would like to make. The first is that we are not satisfied with the progress of representation of Africans on central and regional bodies. During this war the European people have increased their influence in government to a very considerable degree. They have got on to boards which exercised important executive powers. Their influence is felt in every corner of government. It is true that the Secretary of State is trying hard to build up some form of African representation in native councils and trying to create some central body from which representatives of African interest could be drawn for service on the central authorities, but already in most of the guiding and directing bodies, although Europeans are a very small minority in the population, European representation is over-weighted. I would seriously urge that in the executive councils as well as on the legislative council more places should be assigned for the Africans, and if representation cannot be secured directly, at least it should be obtained indirectly. There are large numbers of men who are coming forward among the Africans themselves who can be trained in government and who are ready to take their place. It seems to us imperative that more should be done in this direction.

The second point is that already there is a rising demand for the amalgamation of the Governments of Uganda, Tanganyika and Kenya. The old cry of closer union is being heard, and I need not quote the bodies and conferences which have been making this demand. All of us recognise that there must be, in certain of the common services of the three territories, a closer coming together. There must be co-operation and association, but in our judgment it would be fatal if we gave ear to any suggestion that the three Governments should be amalgamated into one. I therefore hope that the Government will resist these proposals and will make a statement to that effect.

I have tried to put across some of the things that are worrying my party at the present time, and I hope that we can be reassured by the Secretary of State that there is little ground for these apprehensions or at least that there will be no departure in the way of new European settlement without the fullest consideration of all the factors that are involved by such a development.

We always listen to the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) with great interest, because he has made a great study of these Colonial questions, and lately he has been showing a very sturdy Imperialism, which we very much welcome, and which, we hope, will stand us in good stead in the future. The hon. Member has spoken about certain difficulties which his party feel with regard to the future, and he has given various instances in dealing with local affairs in such of our Colonies and Mandated Territories as Kenya. But towards the end of his speech he made a statement that his party was very much against a closer union, and therefore I gather that he is rather in favour of maintaining the Mandate at present existing. I want to oppose that view, because it is a fatal view for the prosperity of any of our Colonies, East African or otherwise. Mandates should be of the shortest possible duration. We all want development. We want improvement of conditions, amenities, labour and of industry. We want to see them all thriving, and that is the common ground which we all possess. If you want that to develop you have to have capital and development, and you cannot have development unless you have capital in some form or other. You are not going to get any long-term capital invested if you have a Mandate which means uncertainty as to future conditions. You are only going to get short-term capital, which is not desirable, because it is likely to be used for exploitation and quick returns. It is not the sort of thing that I should imagine hon. Friends opposite would desire themselves. We want to see a closer union with this country and the East African countries, when you are likely to get a definite settlement of problems and where capital can be directed. With regard to our West Indian Colonies, for instance, we hear with monotonous regularity as to the need for the improvement of living conditions, standards of life for the peoples in the Colonies, but we also hear periodically of the same kind of contribution from the Exchequer, from some development fund. In my opinion, far too much attention has been levelled at what is called welfare and far too little to what I call development. I believe that it is only by developing our existing industries and by attracting fresh enterprises that we can really hope for an extension and improvement in the condition of the people in the West African Colonies. Most of our Colonies undoubtedly depend for their successful existence on their export trade, and I think it would be extremely foolish for us if we did not recognise that fact.

Now I have the opportunity I want to say a few words on a subject on which I know I shall have the wholehearted support of my hon. Friends opposite, namely, the colour bar. I raise this point because I am in touch with my own people in the West Indies, who tell me that even although we have not heard very much about it over here it is a question which still looms large out there. Only recently there was sent to me a copy of "The Gleaner," a well known newspaper published in Jamaica, referring to this question. If I have any authority—and it is not very much—I wish to say to the people of the West Indies that I do not think that such a thing as a colour bar really exists in this country. We have had, of course, instances which we all deeply deplore, but isolated cases must not be taken as representing the opinions of the people of this country. I would like to utter the warning that when they do occur they give a wonderful handle to our enemies, to all the most extreme agitators and to the people who really want to work in the interests of the enemies of Britain. We want this great Empire of ours to be more united and more strongly held together than ever before when this war ends, because it is only by maintaining and by strengthening our ties of Empire that we can really exist as a great nation. We want to have, as a nation, the love and respect of our children from overseas, whatever their caste, creed or colour. We could never expect to have a united Empire, knit together by love and loyalty, if we had opinions such as are suggested in some quarters, about the colour bar. We cannot expect that state of affairs to come about if we take from our Colonies all they have to give during our time of trial and tribulation and then later tell them that they can rise only so far and no further and that there is such a thing as a colour bar which prevents them from obtaining the fruits of their labour, skill and culture.

We all remember the individual case where that great sportsman, Constantine—a man whom, I am perfectly certain, everybody would have been delighted to have met and welcomed to his home—was treated in a very deplorable way. There was also another case, I believe of a land girl, and I mention these because I think they are the only two cases which have come to our knowledge during this war. In view of the number of coloured people who have come over here, its speaks well for us and for how well everybody has taken to our black kinsmen and accepted them as one of us. I remember that in the last war a cultured and highly educated native from Jamaica, a man of great charm and character, who is now a well known King's Counsel was treated, also in a way that I deeply deplored. But these are isolated but irritating instances. I would like to say that the companies with which I am concerned, and which I represent out there, desire to have adopted a policy of wherever possible offering every opportunity to coloured people who have the ability and the talent to rise to the big positions in the company. That seems to be not only sound business policy but a patriotic and a correct one. I do not want to detain the House any longer, but I thought it would do no harm and it might do a certain amount of good if I, as one who has many interests in the welfare of some of our great Colonies, and as a Member of the British House of Commons, expressed my view on this subject and restated what I believe are the feelings of the vast majority of my colleagues.

I welcome most warmly the speech which my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Sir L. Lyle) has contributed to this Debate, and I hope that his insistence on the importance of the colour bar question will help the Colonial Secretary to make this an occasion for stating on behalf of the Government that there is to be no bar to colour and that administrative posts and legislative posts, when the right time comes, will be open to those who are subjects of the King, whether their colour be white, yellow, black or brown, and that we can all be members of one great fellowship, proud and glad to work together in a sense of community. This Debate will have been worth while if, as a result of it, we can have some such memorable declaration from the Minister.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones), in introducing the Debate, dealt with the question of Kenya, and I want to follow in warm sympathy with what he said and to add one or two points. Summaries of parts of the evidence given before the Food Commission in Kenya have appeared from time to time in the "East African Standard." Anyone who has gone through extracts from it will feel that it is of very great social value, and I hope the Colonial Secretary will take steps to make it more public. It may not be possible to publish all the evidence, but a certain amount at least ought to be made available for wider use, because it affects not just the question of the lamentable food shortage and loss of life which have occurred, but the whole question of agricultural policy and relations in that Colony. There is a very great deal of valuable evidence on the question of the single crop and the future of maize growing. It is too soon to expect the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to announce his decision, but I hope one result may be—this is borne out by evidence from experts as well as from ordinary farmers—that in future an effort will be made to avoid dependence upon a single crop and to encourage a great deal more mixed farming, not only among the European settlers, but also among the Africans. It has undoubtedly been one of the causes of the food shortage and the loss of life which has followed during the last year, and the fluctuations in the price of maize have resulted in a smaller crop being raised at a time when the largest amount was needed. There ought to be some method by which there should be more definite control of the maize crop, and along with that it comes out clearly from the evidence that there is a great need of better farming not only by natives but by Europeans.

I was very pleased to see a despatch from the Governor which my right hon. and gallant Friend has placed in the Library, which shows that the Government are already considering that and looking forward to a considerable expenditure of money from the Development Fund for Agricultural Institutes and for encouraging good farming. That, I hope, will be just as much for the benefit of Africans as of Europeans. It is most encouraging to see in that despatch that a whole series of measures are being taken for the benefit not of one section but of both. I know how sad is the tragic history of the past. Over 32 years ago I began to take up in the House some of these East African questions, and I tried in vain to get justice for one section of Africans, the Masai tribe; who I felt were wronged, who had to give up their Northern Reserve and go to land to which many of them did not want to go. Many Members in the interval of time have taken up these questions and have failed, yet it has not been wholly failure, because we have seen an increasing desire on the part of the Colonial Office to protect the rights of those who cannot speak for themselves and for whom they and we are trustees. We do not want to set one section of the community against another. We wish our fellow countrymen who have settled there well and want them to be true and noble representatives of all that is best in our ideals, but we also wish well to our dark skinned African fellow citizens and we want their welfare too. We cannot undo the past, but we can undo the evil very largely, as we work for the welfare and well-being not of one section but of both alike.

There are one or two suggestions that I want to put as to help that can be given in that way. The hon. Member for Shipley has spoken of the difficulty of the fresh settlement of Europeans because so many African natives are longing for land that they cannot get. Many of the reserves are overcrowded. Surely it would be possible, along with the settlement of the Europeans in the highlands, to get a further settlement of Africans on land that they have not yet got, it may be on land which has been assigned in the past to European lessees or owners, but never used. It should be possible to resume the ownership of land which has been long left unused. In French Equatorial Africa a tax was placed on such land and it resulted in the resumption by the State of a large amount of land of which the owners were not making use. I should like to see an undeveloped land tax, of a very different kind from what has been suggested in our own country, a tax on land which is lying waste and not developed for agriculture. There are people who own thousands of acres and are holding them for speculation in the distant future. They should no longer hold it unless they are going to make use of it. That would make it possible for land to be available for settlement which would not otherwise be available.

I was very glad to see in the Governor's despatch that some preparation is being made for an irrigation scheme in the Tana River Valley. As long ago as 1936 there were some investigations by the Kenya Government as to an irrigation scheme in that valley. It would mean that several thousand square miles of land now dry and derelict would be brought into cultivation and made fertile, and it would be well worth while as a long-term investment to have a considerable capital expenditure in order to make this desert land fertile. It was done not so far away in what was Italian Jubaland. After the cession of Jubaland to Italy, Italian engineers working on a similar desert valley made it possible to grow bananas on what had been desert land. What has been done by Italians could be done by British engineering skill, and it would be of great benefit to Africans and Europeans alike. I hope the Colonial Secretary will be able to carry forward the scheme, the preparation for which is already being made, as we read in the Governor's despatch. In all these things we look to him to show the insight and the spirit of sympathy that be has shown in so many cases already. He is himself the representative of the spirit of partnership that we want to see not only in Kenya, but pervading the whole Empire.

I am always glad when we have an opportunity to discuss in this House matters of Colonial policy. It does good here, and it does good in the Colonies themselves to know that we are interested in their problems and that we are taking them seriously. I rather regret, however, that the hon. Gentleman should have chosen just this time of the Parliamentary Session to inaugurate this Debate, because it may give a quite wrong impression to the people who live in the lands we have been discussing. To them the matters which we have been discussing in a rather hurried and necessarily perfunctory manner are matters of life and death, and they may feel that we are not really giving to them the attention they deserve. I am sure that the whole House would like to make it plain to them that all we are doing to-day is getting from the Minister an interim reply to certain questions which hon. Members wanted urgently to raise, and that there is no thought that in a Debate of this length and character we are fully and finally discharging our responsibilities for and discussion of the tremendous problems which arise in these areas.

What other occasion would the hon. Gentleman have had to bring up this matter?

I really think that the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones), whom I know very well and who I know can stand up very well for himself, is quite capable, if I have wronged him, of doing it without the hon. and gallant Gentleman's intervention. There are many occasions, of course, during the Session. We had no fewer than four occasions last year when we had full Debates. All I am saying is that I do not want East Africa to get the impression that this is Parliament's final word on the great problems in that area.

I may say in self-defence that the opportunities of raising Colonial matters in the House are limited and that we have urged that there should be some additional machinery Whereby some of these problems could receive greater attention. I tried very hard by tabling an Amendment to the King's Speech to get an opportunity of raising some of these problems which have been opened out to-day.

The hon. Member, who, has slightly turned his coat owing to unexpected championship, agreed with me before the Debate that it was important we should let East Africa know that we were not regarding this as the full occasion for a Debate on their problems. I am sorry for this digression, which I am afraid can only have the result of worsening the prospects of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's subject which he is waiting to raise.

I should like to start by paying one word of tribute, after a very hurried visit which I paid to East Africa in the last last month or two, to the part which East Africa is playing in the war effort. We are already fully conscious here of the part played by West Africa. Lord Swinton came back here and spoke to Members of both Houses; he held a Press conference, and he did a broadcast which brought home to the people of this country the part which has been played by West Africa. I would like to emphasise that a no less important part is being played by all communities alike in East Africa. I am not allowed for obvious reasons to give figures of those who have joined the Fighting Forces, but I can say that the contributions which East African territories have made have been no less—in fact, in proportion to their number they have been rather greater—than have been made by West Africa. In the field of production, just as West Africa is producing for us vital commodities in which we were left in extremely short supply by the collapse of the Far East, so East Africa is producing another range of commodities without which we should find it almost impossible to continue the war effort, certainly at anything like its present tempo. I am sure we should all like to show that we do recognise the part they are playing and the debt of gratitude that we owe to them all.

One of my regrets that this discussion should have taken place on this occasion and therefore last for so short a time is the fact that it should be in such a small House and In such a cursory Debate and that the hon. Member for the English Universities (Mr. E. Harvey) used two or three of the sentences that he did in his speech. He has certainly taken a lively interest in East Africa for many years, but he said he was not intervening in this Debate in order to set one section against another, that he wished the white settlers well, wished the white settlers to be a happy and settled community worthy of the country from which they had come, and equally wished well to the Africans and to their prosperity and their future, but that what he wanted was the welfare of both and the growth in East Africa of a spirit of accord. I felt that the whole of our political purpose in East Africa could not have been better or more sincerely put than it was in those few sentences, and I wish that it could go out to East Africa as the feelings not only of one back bencher, however distinguished, but of the Government and the House of Commons as a whole.

Let me, in that spirit, turn to answer some of the individual questions that have been asked. The hon. Member for Shipley made a reference to forced labour. I read with some interest the Debate in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Harold Macmillan) took part when compulsory labour was instituted soon, after the fall of Singapore, at a time to East Africa of very deadly danger. He said it was a thing nobody liked. That is equally true to-day. During the short time I was in East Africa, this was perhaps the one subject above all others upon which I wanted to make some inquiry, and I found that this labour was generally unpopular. The Government disliked it because of its effect upon tribal life; the employer disliked it because he would far prefer to have the volunteer than the conscript and the mixture sometimes of volunteers and conscripts created considerable difficulties; and the bad employer disliked it because compulsory labour means Government regulation of conditions, and that might be disliked by some people. Everybody disliked it; everybody would like to get rid of it. It is only the urgency of the situation that makes it impossible to do so.

I went out with the idea of satisfying myself as to whether there were any alternative ways in which without compulsory labour we could ensure the continued production at the rate one requires of commodities essential for the continuance of the war. I came back quite convinced that there was no alternative to this system, however much I might dislike it. It is not, of course, on a big scale. In Kenya out of 286,000 people engaged in work 8,500 are conscripts. In Tanganyika the similar figures are 258,000 and 5,200. What I have arranged as a result of my visit is to emphasise the fact that this is work for war purposes and war purposes alone, that applications for the extension of this system to particular commodities shall be made to me and that it shall be for me, after consultation with the appropriate Ministers here as to the need for those particular commodities to give the sanction. The hon. Member is not quite right in what he said about it, for in addition to sisal I have authorised pyrethrum and rubber and also essential foodstuffs which do not however include either coffee or tea. Any further extension of that list can only be made on application to me.

The next point raised by the hon. Member concerned African development. I do not think I can add anything to the despatch from the Governor which has been put in the Library. I think anybody who reads it will realise that there is a really determined attempt on the part of the Kenya Government to be as ready as they can with extensive plans for development as soon as conditions make it possible to start. This particular report covers in some detail soil erosion, agricultural education, the Tana River plan and African housing, to which I have already given approval; but the hon. Member will realise that this is only the first part and that the Governor in the despatch makes it plain that we can expect in the near future a further despatch dealing with education and health. I think, therefore, we can feel that the Kenya Government have made very satisfactory progress already with their post-war plans and that those plans are conceived upon a broad and generous scale. The hon. Member referred to the importance of plans such as these vis-à-vis the utilisation of the returning soldier. He is absolutely correct. Not only in East but in West Africa an enormous number of Africans who have joined the Army will have received a certain amount of mechanical and trade education which they had not got before, and many of them will be unwilling to return to the agricultural community from which they came. It is essential therefore that in our development plans and in our encouragement of economic secondary industries we should have in mind the possibility of finding some use for the industrial skill which those people have acquired. The hon. Member talked of small industries, and we have already made a certain amount of progress there. I had a visit from the official in Kenya who is looking after industrial development of that kind. He had many talks with various Departments here, and as a result we were able to give him opportunities to acquire machinery for staffing quite a number of small industries designed at the moment for supplying needs which arise in war-time but which will undoubtedly have an economic future in peace-time as well.

I think the point with which I ought to deal more fully in the hon. Member's speech is that of the European settlement. He asked about a new development. I must assure him that there is, at the moment, no new development in regard to white settlement in Kenya. There was a report of a Settlement Committee which sat some time in the year 1938. It was accepted by my predecessor in office in the year 1939. The proposals of that Commission were on a most modest scale. They proposed to settle a few hundreds over a period of ten years by Government-aided purchase of land, by long-term loans and by the provision of farm training. That report was accepted at the time, and its acceptance has been reaffirmed recently by the Kenya Government, but it is obvious that its details will have to be reconsidered in the light of existing circumstances to see what under new world conditions is likely to be an economic settlement. It is for that purpose, I understand, that a Settlement Section has been set up to investigate the matter. It is true that legislation is proposed in this connection. The object of the legislation is the compulsory acquisition of land for resettlement. As to the case to which the hon. Member called attention, is he going to suggest that it is not a good thing to acquire that land compulsorily for the purpose of resettlement? The second purpose of the legislation is to control land dealing in the white highlands to prevent speculation. Obviously whenever there is the danger of an inflationary period one of the first things you have to guard against is speculation in land which will so artificially inflate its value that economic settlement becomes impossible.

Those are the objects of this legislation, which has certainly, so far as its objects are concerned, my full support. Full details are not available. A Bill was published for criticism in the last Session, and a new Bill will be introduced this Session which will be based on the criticisms, suggestions and advice put forward about the old Bill. One more word about what the hon. Member said on this point. He said that the party to which he belongs was, and always had been, opposed to the white highland policy. I do not think he can quite get away with that. He must remember the White Paper of 1930 issued by Lord Passfield, in which he said:

"Having no desire to go back on the decision come to by Lord Elgin in 1908, confirmed by the White Paper in 1923, with regard to the restriction of agricultural land sales in the so-called highlands of Kenya to persons of European descent, His Majesty's Government"—

I should like to point out that the Labour Party has never endorsed that policy. The Labour Party has always opposed the segregation of an area of country in Kenya for the purposes of the exclusive use of European settlers. That has been the consistent policy ever since this party has made any pronouncements in regard to Kenya at all.

I beg the hon. Member's pardon. I ought to draw the distinction between being opposed to it, which he was, and accepting it during their term of office, which was the policy supported by him when Lord Passfield was Colonial Secretary.

Going on to another question, I was anxious to see proper African representation, but I was anxious to see that representation made effective. It is not effective if you simply put Africans on committees to discuss matters which they may be quite incapable at the moment of discussing effectively. I am hoping that this machinery to which I have referred before, which is dealing with a rather simpler set of reforms than may have to be dealt with in the central Legislature, will provide good opportunity for Africans to develop their capacity for higher functions and that it will lead to their being able to participate in more complicated affairs in the central Legislature. Until we are certain they can participate with effect we should be very unwise to throw away the safeguards at present afforded to them by the special indirect representation of the Europeans representing natives' interests.

On the question of amalgamation and closer union, I can only say that that is a question which we have to approach on its merits, if possible without any partiality, to try and get in this area of the world the greatest economic advantages we can for efficient co-operation and at the same time respect as far as we can the desires and wishes of the people of these areas. It is a great problem, and to attempt to deal with it in a minute or two would be quite wrong. I have already referred to some words used by the hon. Member for the English Universities. I would certainly consider the suggestion he made about an undeveloped land tax. I do not know what the position is in regard to that, but I agree entirely with the development of mixed farming and above all with the encouragement of better farming. He will realise that one of the proposals in the report is directed to the question of better agricultural education.

The hon. Member for Bournemouth (Sir L. Lyle) referred to the difficult question of the colour bar. I do not think the hon. Member for the English Universities need have said that he hoped that following everybody else the Secretary for the Colonies might say he was against it. I have said before, and I say in no unmeasured terms, that I am against it. As far as this country is concerned, the colour bar is a social question. It is a question in which it is very difficult for Governments or Legislatures to interfere. It is difficult by laws to prevent a certain number of ill-mannered and ignorant people allowing ill manners and ignorance to get the better of them. All of us deplored the particular case to which the hon. Gentleman referred. As far as any economic disadvantages are imposed by race or colour, I think the hon. Gentleman has done something better than merely make speeches about it. He has set an example by promising that in his very widespread business opportunities for advancement are to be given quite irrespective of race or colour. All of us are pleased to hear that. It is a declaration which I know will be welcomed in the West Indies, and it shows a spirit which I believe is shared by many in big industry to-day.

I hope that we shall have an opportunity later in the Session to deal on a wider scale with the great subjects which have been sketched out to-day. All of us must realise the difficult problems existing in the area to which this Debate has particularly referred. We all must realise the necessity for a considered solution, and all of us hope that we shall find solutions for these problems and that this part of Africa with its white, its Indian and its African population will remain in contented, prosperous and happy association with this country.

Might I ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to enlighten me as to what pyrethrum means?

It is seen in herbaceous borders. It is a flower like a daisy, and its use is that from it is made a powder which is deadly to the malarial mosquito. In the Far East it is one of the most vital things we need.

I want to raise a matter which is of immediate and urgent importance to members of the farming community who are tenant farmers and as it also concerns food production is a matter in which the whole community is indirectly concerned and directly affected. I regret that I have to raise the matter at this very late hour and in such a thin House when so many of my colleagues who represent agricultural constituencies are not present. I raised the matter in a Question to the Minister last week, and it is because of the Minister's reply that I am taking this the first opportunity of bringing the matter to the attention of the House. It concerns the part of the country with which I am very familiar and which I also represent.

In North Montgomeryshire there was a small estate which was owned by Mr. Sandbach. He owned and occupied a large house called Bryngwyn Hall with a certain amount of parkland attached, and he owned also a certain number of farms, about half a dozen or so. He died some 15 or 20 years ago, and the estate then passed to his widow. She did not occupy this large house, and it has been empty ever since. She occupied a smaller house, almost a cottage, in a village which is near. She died in August, 1942, and apparently under her will the estate has now passed to her daughter. The daughter in the meantime had got married, and she lives something like 80 or 90 miles away from this district. This lady having taken possession as executrix in August, 1942, there arrived in March of this year at two farms which were owned by her an agent who said that he had refused to draw the document he was about to hand over to the farmers, that it had been drawn by a solicitor, and that he had refused to post it because he thought in fairness to the two farmers he should come all that way to tell them what had happened. The document was a notice to quit their farms, and they will have to do so unless the Minister can intervene this coming March. The agent said he had refused to post these notices to quit or draw up the document because he had never been asked to do such a thing before, that he deeply regretted his position, and he thought the least he could do was to come all that way and explain. There was no letter from the landlady then, but one arrived some 10 days later, stating that she and her husband wished to take over the two farms and farm them themselves.

That is the position of these two farmers. One of the farms, Stone house Farm, is occupied by a Mr. Edwards, who was born on that farm some 67 years ago. His father and mother married about a year or so before. They went to that farm as tenants, I think in the year 1875, and the present tenant was born in 1876, so the family have been there for 68 years. The present farmer got married and has four children, three sons and a daughter, who all assist in the farm operations. The size of the farm is 217 acres and the rent £327. Some 40 years ago there was added to the farm another holding where, as so often happens in Wales, the house had become derelict, and so the land was added to the adjacent farm. The size of that one was 130 acres, so, all told, he farms some 347 acres, the rental of the whole being £556 10s. The notice to quit was given, of course, in respect of the farm of 217 acres, which he holds from this lady, whose name is now Mrs. MacPherson Mackerson Sandbach. The other farm is a smallholding of 39 acres, farmed by a man named Arthur Williams. He succeeded his father, who died some two years ago, but, as so often occurs in these cases, he had been joint tenant with his father since 1937. Again, it is a family farm. He lives there with an invalid sister who is over 50 and another sister who is somewhere between 45 and 50. The rental is £2 an acre, totalling £78.

Although I am familiar with those two farms, and, indeed, every farm in Montgomeryshire, I paid a visit last Wednesday to those two farms, in order to be quite sure of my facts. I spent a considerable time with the farmers and saw the farms and the stock. They have had a reputation for a very considerable time of being among the best farmers in North Montgomeryshire and of having some of the best farmed land in that county. Their food production is excellent. May I give the production figures of the larger farm? There, the farmer has been farming a mixed farm, in the main of dairy cattle, and his herd has never been less that 20 milking cows. They are all tuberculin-tested, and he produces, on the agerage, some 10,000 gallons of T.T. milk a year. He rears between 30 and 40 heifer calves every year, fattens his young stock and sends them to the nearest market, which, prior to the war, was a very excellent market in Oswestry, one of the finest in the country He sends between 40 and 50 of his fattened steers to the market, obtaining the top price; he has some 230 ewes, producing 350 lambs, and he fattens another 50, and he has 80 to go pigs. He has also 12 or 14 horses. Since the war, he has been ploughing some 97 acres, 21 of wheat and the remainder of barley, oats, mixed corn, potatoes and so on. His bill, for purchases of feeding stuffs prior to the war was never less than £1,000 a year, all that adding to the benefit of the soil and of improved farming. The other farm smallholding has, in a sense, been even better. The annual bill of this farmer is now somewhere between £200 and £300, on this little farm of 39 acres. There, again, he rears young cattle and fattens his steers. He had been doing that very excellent work of buying heifer calves, keeping them until they are about three years old and selling them and their calves, and every year he has been able to pass through his hands some 20 of them. He has also been feeding as many as 20 steers. He also has some 20 sheep and sends his fat lambs to the market.

Those are the facts with regard to the two farms, which have a high reputation as being excellent farms. Now, this young lady, who, as far as we can ascertain, has had no experience whatsoever of farming, has come along. I do not know what experience her husband has had. I understand that he is about 30 years of age and I have been told that he was in the Army prior to the war and has been invalided out. Anyway, they have their home some 80 miles away at Abergele. There they live, and could continue to live, until after the war; but because they have now become the owners of the farms, by the death of the lady's mother in August, 1942, suddenly these two families, who are indigenous to the soil and who know no other home than this—one of these families has been on the farm for 100 years—are to be turned out. They have nowhere to go. If they had been cottagers, they would have been protected. The only mode of life they know is farming, and farming has been not only their sole means of earning a livelihood but their only mode of life. The man who is now 67 has worked hard all the days of his life. He is not very strong and he is dependent to a very large extent upon his young family who, again, know no other home or work than this.

What is the power of the Minister? The matter was raised in this House in November, 1941, I think, and the particular instance which brought the matter to the attention of the Minister was again that of a Welshman. A landowner had given notice to quit to his tenants with a view to the selling of the estate, and there was a danger that land speculators would come along, purchase this land and hold up the farmers to ransom. The Minister thereupon intervened and took special powers. Those special powers are limited to the case where a farm has been subject to a contract of sale since the date of the outbreak of the war. Where there has been a contract of sale, no notice to quit is valid unless the Minister assents thereto in writing. There has been no contract of sale here. This young woman succeeded her mother, and therefore she is outside that particular Order. Therefore, we have to rely upon the Defence Regulations and under those Regulation the Minister can intervene if he is satisfied that food production will deteriorate as a result of the farmers being turned out. Apparently, the Minister very rightly referred this matter to the local war agricultural executive committee. In his reply to me the other day he said:

"At my request the county war agricultural executive committee have considered the circumstances of these two cases very carefully and have advised me that they can find no grounds on which they would be justified in seeking my consent to their taking possession of the farms in order to retain the sitting tenants in occupation. It is understood that the object of the landlords in giving the notice to quit is to farm the lands themselves and there is no reason to an anticipate that the lands under their control will be less productive than under that of the sitting tenant."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, 9th December, 1943; col. 1132, Vol. 395.]

On that I join issue. Here we have two people, husband and wife, who are not of the farming community. They do not come of farming stock, and as far as I know, have never done a stroke of work upon the land.

The farmers who are being turned out have worked on that land ever since they could walk, and know every field of it and, one might say, every blade of grass on it. They are indigenous to the soil. They know the capacity of every field, and being good farmers they have planned ahead. Every good farmer does that. You cannot plan from year to year. They have a long-term policy. Anybody coming in fresh must break into the continuity of that policy. These farmers know the capacities of the fields. They know what they have produced in the past and they know what they intended to do probably for the next three, four or five years. A breach of continuity must result in one of two things. The new man coming in can reap an immediate advantage to himself, to the disadvantage of the land. That we have often witnessed. A good farmer having planned ahead, desiring to keep his land in good heart, would not drive that land to its uttermost limit. But a new man coming in will reap a quick crop on it, benefit himself for a short while and leave the land. That is one result. The alternative is that he will not be able to get as much out of that land as the outgoing occupier could have got, because he will not know the capacity of that land and of course at the present time the country will be the sufferer. The break in continuity must affect the quantity of food produced. That is the really important question which the Minister has to put to himself.

There is another matter incidental to that. I take it that these two farmers, unless the Minister intervenes, will have to arrange for the selling of their stock, all their farming stock, live and dead, all their implements and possibly their furniture because we have no empty houses now, except this vast mansion which is still empty. There is a great shortage of agricultural implements. When there is an agricultural sale in the community the prices for these second-hand or third-hand or fourth-hand implements jump up enormously. Farmers are crying out for new implements. This landlord will be coming in. Where is she to get the implements, which she has not at the moment, as far as I know? Is it to be suggested that she will have priority for new implements in order to get the same food production as these two farmers? Where are the implements to come from? Will those people bid at this sale? If so I do not envy them appearing at the sate. These two notices to quit have stirred the whole community. It is the talk of every market. The farmers talk is of this kind: "If we farm badly we are told we can be turned out, and rightly turned out. If we farm well, and do our best, we have no guarantee we shall be allowed to remain."

I said at the outset that it is not merely a case of these two farmers in this particular instance but that this is affecting the morale of the farming community. It might interest the House to know that, although a great number of farms came into the market at the end of the last war, when landowners were taking advantage of the rising prices and selling their farms, the tenants, rather than go out, were paying inflated prices and although a great number came in then, even to-day 85 per cent. of the holdings in Wales are holdings by tenants under individual landlords. Now what is their position if this is an example of what might occur to them? I want to make an appeal to the Minister. He is relying upon the advice that has been given to him by this war agricultural committee. What evidence they take, what considerations move them, I do not know, but I do beg of him to reconsider this matter, and if he is not prepared to take action on his own, would he do this? Would he have an independent inquiry asking the one question he is entitled to ask. If these two farmers, these two families, are disturbed and thrown out in this way, will food production deteriorate? There should be a proper inquiry into the whole matter and then my farmers would be satisfied. If, perchance, that independent inquiry said, "We are of the opinion—" or "I am of the opinion that this will affect the food production," then I hope the Minister will intervene. If he came to the conclusion, that inquiry having gone into the matter fully and heard all the evidence on both sides, that food production would not be interfered with, then the Minister not only would not but could not interfere. This is a matter so vital that I appeal to the Minister and through the Minister to the House for their support and sympathy in these two very distressing cases.

I think my hon. and learned Friend has stated very correctly the legal position, which is that my primary concern is food production, and the only reason I should have for intervening would be if there were any reasonable doubt whether food production would be maintained or any reasonable presumption that food production would suffer. After all, this is an ordinary tenancy under the Agricultural Holdings Act under which, on the one hand, the tenant has the right to give 12 months notice to his landlord if he is not satisfied, and on the other hand, the landlord has the right to give 12 months notice to his tenant. The only difference is that if the landlord gives notice to his tenant, he has to pay the tenant compensation for disturbance, unless it can be shown that the tenant has failed to carry out some important clause of his agreement, or unless, pre-war, he could get a certificate to say that the tenant was guilty of bad husbandry. It does not come under the special Order issued in 1941 with the deliberate intention of meeting the desire widely expressed in this House, to do something to stop land speculation. I think that particular Order was successful.

Therefore we have the narrow point: Is this notice to quit likely to result in any material impairment of the food production campaign? On that, I naturally have to take local advice. I am satisfied that the matter has been exhaustively and impartially examined. I do not think that my hon. and learned Friend was, perhaps, quite fair to the owner. The owner herself is farming in, I believe, one of the North Welsh counties and our information is that she is farming well. Not only is she farming well, but she has greatly improved the condition of the farm since she took it over. It is, therefore, I think, not altogether fair to say that she knows nothing about farming.

Her husband is what I suppose you would call technically a disabled ex-Service man. He was in the Army, and he retired. He went into farming, and did extremely well; therefore, contrary to what my hon. and learned Friend has led hon. Members to believe, he is a knowledgeable fanner. I understand that he then rejoined the Army, and that he has now been invalided out. I would say that, so far as one can judge, the local committee had every ground for assuming that there would be no reduction in food production. Indeed, since the departing tenant is 67—although he has been a good farmer, and there is no dispute that he is still a good farmer to-day—I think there is no reason to doubt that the new people will do much better. As for Mr. Edwards—

Is not the name Williams?

I understand that it is Edwards. Even supposing that I had been advised by the local committee that I ought to intervene, and even supposing that I had agreed, it would have done no good, because I understand that this gentleman has stated that even if the notice were withdrawn by the owner, he would not stay on.

That is not so.

That is his statement.

I saw him the other day—

He said, in confidence, that the friendship between landlord and tenant had been disturbed by this action, and that he would not stay on. But I have no power to intervene, unless there is reasonable ground to suppose that there would be a reduction in food production. Obviously, I have to exercise that power only after very careful consideration.

I have done it in a very few cases, where I am satisfied that there would be a drop in production if I did not. I am not satisfied of that in this case, and, therefore, I am afraid that I would not be justified in exercising my powers.

As fresh considerations have arisen, I make no apology for referring again to the deplorable conditions to which a juvenile girl delinquent was subjected at a hostel. This has become known as the Mary case. It will be recollected that while Mary was working at this particular hostel, there was a change of wardens, and I alleged that the first warden, not content with working this girl until the girl's hands were practically raw, also set a bad example to this child, who had been put on probation for being drunk. I also pointed out that the surveillance exercised by the probation officer concerned had not been efficient. Had it been efficient, such treatment would have been avoided. The Home Secretary thereupon produced one of those pots of whitewash of which there has appeared recently to be an unlimited supply at the Home Office, and both the probation officer and the warden were exonerated, and all those ever-trusting, faithful Government yes-men believed, with ill-concealed glee, that the hon. and gallant Member for St. Marylebone—

These gentlemen believed that the hon. and gallant Member for St. Marylebone, regardless of the merits of his case, had been out-manoeuvred and downed. Anyhow, for the present he is up on his feet again. As it was, the Home Secretary who had contradicted what his Under-Secretary had admitted in a previous Debate on this question, and as it was the Home Secretary who claimed that I had misled the House, I asked, and hoped, that he would be present to-day, as he is the person with whom I have a bone to pick. But no doubt his admirable deputy will be able to speak for him.

The Home Office have now taken Mary away from the probation officer who had been responsible for her, and, incidentally, Mary is now about to do the kind of work that she has always wanted to do. She is going to work on a farm. Consequently, the House will appreciate that I have achieved my original objective, which was to provide a more wholesome and a happier life for a young constituent of mine. I hope that other juvenile Mary Magdalenes may benefit indirectly. Therefore, in the ordinary course of events I would not have brought up this matter again; but an important matter of principle has arisen. I hope to be able to prove to the House that the Home Secretary has made a mistake which no Home Secretary ought to make, and unless today conclusive evidence to the contrary can be produced, it will be clear that the Home Secretary has obtained information on which to base the verdict he gave in the House from the defendants only. The plaintiffs and the plaintiffs' chief witnesses were not consulted.

On 17th November I received a letter from Mary. I will read only an extract:

"Dear Captain,

I am writing to thank you for all you have done for me in the past few weeks. I have been reading the newspapers, and I cannot even think how they can say that the things you said in the House were not true. I am sure that whoever conducted the supposed investigation must be having some very sleepless nights."

This child of 15 has yet to learn just how sensitive and tender is the average Cabinet Minister. It so happened that six days before receiving Mary's letter I had written to the Home Secretary. And I said, referring to the "Mary" case:

"You will recollect that in the House last Thursday I asked you several questions, but no doubt owing to the diversions caused by the Noble Lord you or the Under-Secretary overlooked answering them, and I should be obliged if you will do so now, and I should also like some information on one or two other points."

Then followed a few questions which, if truthfully answered, would show whether it was the Home Secretary or whether it was I who had misled the House. After three weeks' delay the Home Secretary wrote to me and said:

"I have considered your letter of 17th January about the girl called 'Mary' and, in reply to the specific questions which you put to me, I do not feel able to add anything to the very full statement which I made in the House on 11th November."

If there was ever a case of evading the issue, here is a blatant example. In the statement referred to by the Home Secretary—the statement he made in the House—not one of the questions I had asked in that letter was answered, and the House may realise why the Home Secretary was not able to answer the questions I put to him in writing when I tell the House what some of the questions were. First of all, I asked: "From whom did you get the information that Mary was not overworked at the hostel about which I have complained?" I do not know whether the hon. Lady is going to answer these questions—I hope on this occasion I may at last get an answer—but in case I am unable to get replies to reasonable questions that I am entitled to ask about a constituent of mine, I am going to give now what I have every reason to believe are the replies. The reply to that question is mat die information that this girl was overworked came from the woman who overworked her—the first warden. I feel, therefore, that that is an allegation that the hon. Lady cannot let go by. If that is not so, she will undoubtedly, either now or later, tell us, but I have a sort of feeling that she will not be able to deny it.

The next question is: "Did the first warden have bottles of intoxicating spirits in her room?" And the answer to that is, "Yes," and this was strictly against Y.W.C.A. regulations. Another question was, "Why did this first warden give no report of Mary to the second warden?" One went out and the other came in and they overlapped, and the answer to that question is, "Because she carried out her duties in a negligent manner." A further question: "Was another 15-yearold girl who came from the same Remand Home as Mary, and who was also under the supervision of the first warden, discovered at this hostel with a man in her bedroom?" I have not had a reply to that, for the simple reason that the answer to it is, "Yes," and I defy the Home Office to be able to say otherwise. Another question I addressed to the Home Secretary in writing many weeks ago, to which I have had no reply, was, "If a London or local probation officer had visited Mary during her first five weeks at the hostel and if they had ascertained that the answer to questions 5 and 2 were in the affirmative, would this hostel have been considered a suitable environment for encouraging this juvenile delinquent not to repeat past offences?" The answer is, "No."

Question 7: "When you spoke on this subject on 11th November, had the Y.W.C.A. made inquiries concerning my allegations from anybody who was in that hostel when the first warden was in charge, other than from this warden? If so, from whom?" The answer is: "No inquiries were made from anyone else in the hostel." Question 8: "When you spoke on this subject on 11th November, had any representative of the Home Office other than probation officers made inquiries concerning my allegations from anybody in the hostel when the first warden was in charge? If so, who were the representatives and from whom did they make inquiries?" the answer is: "Only those implicated made inquiries." Question 9: "Between the time that I brought the matter up in the House of Commons and when you spoke on the same subject on 11th November had any representative of the Home Office other than probation officers interrogated Mary or her mother?" The answer to that is, "No. Mary and her mother were not interrogated, although they were the central figures. It was a one-sided inquiry." Question 10: "In the House on 11th November the Home Secretary said, 'Mary would have wished to stay there if her mother had not removed her.' Was he correctly informed about the mother?" The answer to that is, "The Home Office was misinformed."

I want to leave time for a reply to these important questions, so I will add only this. If to-day the hon. Lady refuses to give straight answers to proper and simple questions that I put to the Home Secretary that admittedly concern only a humble and small girl of 15, then the Home Secretary will have only himself to blame if, coming on top of the Mosley incident, the public, rightly or wrongly, starts to get the idea that he is becoming the champion of the privileged as against the underdog.

My hon. and gallant Friend mentioned bottles of "booze," or drinks, in the lady's room. Were there a large number of bottles or perhaps only one for medicinal purposes?

I think I can best answer that by giving a few short details about the circumstances. This girl, Mary, who had been placed on remand because she had been found drunk at one o'clock in the morning at Hyde Park Corner, found it to be one of her duties to have to remove from the warden's bed-sitting room not just an occasional bottle of spirits for medicinal purposes but empty gin and whisky bottles and soda water bottles.

Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman say from whom he derived this information?

Yes, I got it from the main character in this incident—Mary—and had it corroborated by people actually residing in the hostel, the names of whom I have all along offered to give to the Home Secretary.

I have had some experience of the administration of the criminal law. Everyone knows that a child of 15 or 16 is probably the most inaccurate witness you could possibly get and, although corroboration is not absolutely necessary, one would hesitate to accept any statement made without corroboration by a girl of 15. Was it corroborated by anyone?

The answer is, Yes. If the Home Office is able to answer these questions, or the most important ones, in a manner which can satisfy the House that there is no justification for the implication in these questions, including the one I have just been asked concerning drink, and that the Home Office has consulted prior to the Home Secretary's speech on this subject not only the defendants but also the plaintiff and the plaintiff's witnesses, I can assure the House that I shall be very glad handsomely to withdraw any allegation that I have made, as the Home Secretary so kindly suggested that I should do when he addressed the House on this topic not so very long ago. On the other hand, if the Home Office cannot satisfy the House in answer to these questions, then the hon. Lady should withdraw the allegation made specifically by the Home Secretary against me in which it was said that my exposures were unjustified and unfair. Anyhow the least the hon Lady can do is to admit that perhaps the Home Office should have asked for evidence from the plaintiff or from the plaintiff's witnesses. After all, they were the people who were in a position to know the facts, for the very simple reason that they were situated where the matters complained of took place, a somewhat important qualification which could not be claimed by the probation officer concerned or by the headquarters of the Y.W.C.A.

I had understood from the hon. and gallant Gentleman that his reason for returning to this case and taking up the time of the House with it was that he had some fresh material to bring forward. He certainly gave the Home Secretary that impression, and he has given it to me. What he has done now is, in a rather weaker and more watery way, to repeat a considerable number of statements that he made previously, backed up with as little evidence as on the first occasion. We are now told that this girl's hands were practically raw. I wish to state perfectly flatly that that is entirely untrue. We have admitted that at the time she was not visited by the woman probation officer because the officer was herself ill. She had been bombed out, and there was a great deal of pressure of work on her. But what had been done was to find this girl a situation in a hostel for Land Army girls not run by the Home Office, not a detention home or a remand home, or even a home for the correction of character. She was given a position as domestic servant in this hostel. It is true that for the first fortnight she was working very long hours, and, as soon as that matter was reported, it was put right. That is the whole of the real substance of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's case.

rose—

The hon. and gallant Member had 20 minutes, and he is giving me 10 minutes to reply. Will he listen to what I have to say?

Yes, if the hon. Lady eventually answers my questions? That is all I have asked for.

Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman allow me to finish my case? He finished his. With regard to the woman warden, it is really too bad that her character has been taken away by the hon. and gallant Gentleman in the way that it has. This matter has been investigated not only by the Home Office but by officials of the Ministry under which the Y.W.C.A. hostel comes. There have been the fullest investigations, and we have taken evidence not only from the people concerned, the people accused, but also from the people who it was said were speaking against the character of this woman, including a caretaker and his wife. We have signed witnesses' statements that whatever they have said about this warden, with whom apparently there was some quarrel, they had at no time made any statement against her moral character. With regard to this business of the doctor being in the room of the warden, the warden has a bed-sitting room in which she is accustomed to receive people and to have conversations with them.

I never said anything about a doctor.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman said there was a man, and the only man to date whom we have discovered as having been in this unfortunate lady's bed-sitting room was the doctor. This doctor was accustomed, as it seems to me clearly to be his duty, to consult the warden of the hostel. In all the offices of responsible civil servants, even of women civil servants and women Ministers now, there is a bed, because many of them have to spend the night in their offices, as they are working very late. It does not mean, because we have to interview men in the office in which there is a bed, that therefore the moral character of every woman civil servant and woman Minister is to be called in question. The bed-sitting room of this woman warden opens off the sick bay, and when the doctor had dealt with any of the patients and if he wanted to discuss a case, he went to the room of the warden to discuss it with her. As far as we can gather, no male foot has ever stepped into the room of this warden after 5.30 p.m. Owing to all the trouble that the hon. and gallant Member has raised, this warden did not feel that she wanted to stay at this hostel.

She left long before I had mentioned this matter in the House at all.

The hon. and gallant Member had made a fuss about her before he made it in the House. She was very anxious not to stay on and left a fortnight later. Several other jobs were offered to her, and she is now happily in another hostel, where, I have no doubt, she has still a bed-sitting room which seems to upset the hon. and gallant Gentleman so much.

What is the case of this unfortunate girl herself? One must think to some extent of what happened in the past. She is only a child. When the hon. and gallant Gentleman speaks about her being a Mary Magdalene, I would remind him that the only thing that has been brought against the character of this unfortunate child is that she was once drunk. There is no allegation against her moral character at all. There is no doubt that she was overworked during the first fortnight, we are willing to admit it. After that, with another lady in charge, her life was very much happier. When her mother called to take her away the girl said that she did not want to go, but she did return with her mother, and as far as we can gather from what the mother said and what the girl has said there has been nothing but quarrels between mother and daughter in the home ever since.

Quite untrue.

The hon. and gallant Member says one thing, and the mother and daughter come to the probation officer and say another, so we can either believe the mother and daughter or we can believe the hon. and gallant Member when he says that what we say is quite untrue. He has asked where we got our evidence. We got it from the girl and her mother.

Who gave it to you? Was it the probation officer concerned, the one of whom I had complained. If so the evidence is biased.

As a matter of fact, it was not that particular probation officer, because we put another probation officer to help the first one with the case. She is a very experienced probation officer. We brought her into this case because the hon. and gallant Member had disliked the first probation officer. [Interruption.] The hon. and gallant Member comes here and tries to scrape up every horrid thing he can say against the Home Secretary, and he must not be surprised if he just gets slapped back in return.

The hon. Lady is again side-tracking the whole issue. I have only asked for answers to certain specific questions.

I am endeavouring to answer the hon. and gallant Gentleman's questions.

Not one yet. I said—

Mr. Speaker, I must appeal to you. I cannot speak with all this going on. [Interruption.] Oh, do be quiet. I think the hon. and gallant Member will really have to be seen by a probation officer in the professional sense. Now what happens? This very experienced probation officer whom we asked to deal with the case has interviewed the mother and daughter a number of times, and as a result she has concluded that it is impossible for Mary to remain at home with her mother and in the situation in which her mother was living. The girl says that she was very unhappy and bitterly regrets having left the land hostel, where she still maintains she was happy. She said that she would like to go on a farm. The difficulty has been that owing to the fuss that has been made about her it has been difficult to get her fixed up. It has taken quite a long time to find her a suitable place. The second probation officer has now found a farm where there are a good number of animals—ducks, chickens and cows—and she is going to live there, in the house. She will be paid 35s. a week, and will pay 25s. for board and lodging, and 10s. will be given to her for pocket money. She is very much looking forward to going there and is delighted with the arrangement. While she is there she will be under the supervision of the local probation officer with whom the probation officer in London— not the first one, but the second one—will keep well in touch. We find her an excellent probation officer.

Here I want the hon. and gallant Member to realise that I think his difficulty has been that he has accepted at its face value all that the mother has stated. I think that really he has been led away. We have gone into this matter very carefully, and I think that if the hon. and gallant Member knew as much of this business as we do, he would not place so much credence on the mother's statements as he seems to do. We have asked the mother whether she will go down to the farm and see for herself all the arrangements being made for Mary and see whether that suits her, The mother has absolutely refused to go. We are sending Mary down there without her mother having seen the place, and I have no doubt that after Mary has been there a short time the hon. and gallant Member will again be coming to the House with complaints from the mother, who will say that we have again ill-used her daughter. That is the difficulty, that the mother and daughter are in, this very difficult relationship, and if the hon. and gallant Member insists upon taking the mother's word on this case, I think he will find himself in difficulties. I can understand the hon. and gallant Member's position. I know he is anxious to do his best in the matter, and I can assure him that all of us are, and I think the arrangements which have now been made for the girl are quite satisfactory.

It is usual at this time of year, Mr. Speaker, to wish you and your staff and deputies and all concerned a Merry Christmas and, I hope, a peaceful New Year, and may I be permitted to do so?

May I second that?

Thank you very much, and the same to you.