asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the importance of giving this information to the House at the earliest possible moment, he can make a statement regarding the Japanese treatment of British prisoners of war and civilian internees in the Far East.

I fear I have grave news to give to the House. Members will be aware that a large number of postcards and letters have recently been received in this country from prisoners in the Far East: and that these almost uniformly suggest that the writers are being treated well and are in good health. There is no doubt from what we know about particular areas that some of these communications, at any rate, are in terms dictated by the Japanese authorities. I regret to have to tell the House that in- formation which has been, reaching His Majesty's Government no longer leaves room for any doubt that the true state of affairs is a very different one so far as the great majority of prisoners in Japanese hands is concerned.

The House is already aware that a very high proportion, perhaps 80 to 90 per cent., of the prisoners and civilian internees in Japanese hands are located in the Southern area, comprising the Philippine Islands, the Netherlands East Indies, Borneo, Malaya, Burma, Siam, and Indo-China, and that the Japanese Government have hitherto withheld permission for any neutral inspection of any of the camps in question. We have not even been allowed to know the numbers of prisoners detained in the various areas nor have the names of a large number of those who must have been taken prisoner by the Japanese, yet been communicated to us.

For some time past, information has been reaching His Majesty's Government regarding the conditions under which prisoners are detained and worked in some of these areas, and as it was of so grave a character as to be likely to cause distress to relatives of prisoners and civilian internees in Japanese hands His Majesty's Government felt bound to satisfy themselves that it was authentic before making it public. We are now so satisfied, and it becomes my painful duty to tell the House that in Siam there are many thousands of prisoners from the British Commonwealth, including India, who are being compelled by the Japanese military to live in tropical jungle conditions without adequate shelter, clothing, food, or medical attention: and these men are forced to work on building a railway and making roads. Our information is that their health is rapidly deteriorating, that a high percentage are seriously ill, and that there have been some thousands of deaths. Here, may I add that the number of such deaths reported by the Japanese to us is just over 100. The railway and roads concerned lead into Burma, and the conditions I have described apply throughout their whole length. One eyewitness reports of a camp in Siam that "I saw many prisoners clearly. They were skin-and bone, unshaven and with long matted hair. They were half-naked." The same-witness reported that they wore no hats or shoes: and this, may I remind the House, in a tropical climate, where the neighbouring country is virtually uninhabited, so that there are practically no local resources which could provide medical or other material relief.

Of one other part of this huge Southern area we have some information. From Java comes evidence which leaves no doubt that many of our prisoners are confined in camps with no adequate protection from malarial infection and lacking in proper provision for sanitation: except in so far as prisoners may sometimes obtain food from local sources, the food and clothing provided are insufficient to maintain them in health. Reports from the Northern area have referred to the emaciated state of prisoners arriving from Java. I have, so far, no information to give the House regarding conditions in other parts of the Southern area. Before I leave the Southern area, there is one exception I can make to what I have said. There are civilians interned in our old military camp at Changi and in the neighbourhood of Bangkok and Saigon, and our information suggests that conditions in those particular camps are at least tolerable.

The refusal of the Japanese Government to permit neutral inspections of camps in the Southern area is difficult to understand, in view of the fact that they have allowed visits by neutral inspectors—though on a scale which we cannot regard as adequate—to camps in the Northern area, which comprises Hong Kong, Formosa, Shanghai, Korea and Japan itself. His Majesty's Government are reasonably satisfied that conditions generally in this area are tolerable, though as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War has said on more than one occasion, the scale on which food is provided is not adequate over long periods to maintain the health of prisoners. I should add, however, that conditions in Hong Kong appear to be growing worse.

If that were the whole of the story it would be bad indeed; but there unhappily is worse to come. We have a growing list of cases of brutal outrage on individuals or groups of individuals. I could not burden the House with the full tale of these. But in order to give an idea of their nature I must, I fear, quote a few typical examples. First, two cases affecting civilians. The first is that of an officer in the Shanghai Municipal Police Force. Along with some three hundred other Allied nationals, he was interned, by the Japanese in the detention camp for so-called "political suspects" at Haiphong Road in Shanghai. He incurred the displeasure of the Japanese gendarmerie and was taken away to their office in another part of the town. When he emerged from the building he was practically out of his mind; his arms and feet were infected where ropes had left deep scars; and he had lost 40 lbs. of weight. He died within a day or two of his release. The second case comes from the Philippine Islands. Here, on the 11th February, 1942, three British subjects escaped from the Japanese civilian internment camp at Santo Tomas, Manila. They were recaptured and flogged by the camp guard. Two days later, on the 14th February, they were sentenced to death by a military court, despite the fact that international law prescribes the imposition of only disciplinary punishment for attempts to escape. The firing party used automatic pistols, and the three men were not killed outright I now turn to cases affecting soldiers. A number of Indian soldiers captured in Burma, having had their hands tied behind their backs, were made to sit in groups by the side of the road. They were then systematically bayoneted from behind in turn, each man receiving apparently three bayonet thrusts. By some miracle, one man who collapsed subsequently recovered and escaped to our lines. That is how we know. The other case concerns an officer of a well-known regiment of the line, who was captured in Burma. After being clubbed across the face with a sword he was tied to a stake and a rope was passed round his neck so that only by raising his body could he just get enough air to keep him alive. He was then subjected to further torture. Fortunately an Allied attack developed, the Japanese fled and the officer was rescued by a British tank. The third case concerns a transport called the Lisbon Manu which was being used to convey over 1,800 British prisoners of war from Hong Kong. Conditions on board were almost indescribable. The prisoners were seriously overcrowded. Many of them were under-nourished and many had contracted diphtheria, dysentery and other diseases. There was no medical provision; and the sanitary arrangements were virtually nonexistent. Two of the prisoners in one hold died where they lay and no attempt was made to remove their bodies. On the morning of the 1st October, 1942, the vessel was torpedoed by a United Nations submarine. The Japanese officers, soldiers and crew kept the prisoners under hatches and abandoned ship forthwith, although she did not sink until 24 hours later. There were insufficient life belts and other safety appliances on board. Some of the prisoners managed to break out and swim to land. They were fired on when in the water. In all, at least 800 prisoners lost their lives.

I have said sufficient to show the barbarous nature of our Japanese enemy. He has violated not only the principles of International Law but all canons of decent and civilised conduct. His Majesty's, Government have repeatedly made the strongest possible representations to the Japanese Government through the Swiss Government. Such replies as have been received have been evasive, cynical or otherwise unsatisfactory. Sir, we had the right to expect that, once aware of the facts, the Japanese Government would remedy this state of affairs. The Japanese know well what are the obligations of a civilised Power to safeguard the life and health of prisoners who have fallen into their hands. This was shown by their treatment of prisoners in the Russo-Japanese war and the war of 1914 to 1918. Let the Japanese Government reflect that in time to come the record of their military authorities in this war will not be forgotten. It is with the deepest regret that I have been obliged to make such a statement to the House. But after consultation with their Allies who are equally victims of this unspeakable savagery, His Majesty's Government have felt it to be their duty to make public the facts.

This horrible story to which the House has listened is so dreadful that it makes it difficult even to ask a question about it. I am quite certain that the Government have done everything possible to make representations to the Japanese in the ways normally open to them. I am wondering only whether it would be possible for the American Government and ourselves not only to give notice to the Japanese, through neutrals, that every atrocity that has taken place will be remembered and that they will be brought to account for them, but also whether it would be possible to arrange for a commission, comprised of, say, Spanish, Portuguese and other neutrals to examine the facts and by that means definitely make these conditions public to the world. A threat of this kind might force the Japanese to alter the existing conditions.

We have tried every representation we could possibly devise. We have put up every suggestion we could think of. Neutral inspection we have asked for over and over again, in any form or any condition. We have been met throughout, not only with refusal, as I have said, but often cynical refusal, and His Majesty's Government felt—and our Allies felt the same, and the Dominion Governments too—that there was nothing left to do, but to make the facts public and hope that that action would perhaps, at long last bring the Japanese authorities to an understanding of their responsibility.

The right hon. Gentleman's disclosures must have shocked not only hon. Members but the whole civilised world, and for this side of the House, may I be permitted to express the fullest sympathy with those concerned. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not possible, in addition to the representations made by the Allies, to request the Russian Government—I put this with some measure of reserve, because it is a matter of delicacy—whether it is not possible for the Russian Government, who are not engaged in hostilities with Japan, to make direct representations; and whether, also, it is not possible, having acquainted neutral Governments with the facts, to ask them in the name of civilisation, which no doubt they respect, to make representations with us, to the Japanese Government?

Of course, we have considered and will consider everything, including the suggestion the hon. Member has made. So far as the neutral Governments are concerned, it is my belief that representations have been made by them, or anyhow by those charged with this particular care. I would not like to say more now than to state that it is certainly true that we have tried everything we can think of—and we shall continue to do so—in order to try to remedy this state of affairs, which is intensely painful to any civilised person, anywhere on the earth's surface.

Can my right hon. Friend say anything reassuring about the present conditions of prisoners of war in the concentration camps at the present time? I am so much afraid that these revelations may cause a very great deal of anxiety to those who have relatives who are prisoners of war at present in the hands of the Japanese. Would it be possible for him to say anything reassuring about the conditions in those prisoners of war camps?

I cannot quite understand my hon. Friend. I have given as full an account as I could of all we know, and I have put, where I can, the relatively satisfactory part against the other.

There is no doubt that the grave statement the right hon. Gentleman has made will be given publicity, but will he see that the power of the B.B.C. is used to broadcast this statement to the four corners of the earth?

I have said this now, because it is necessary to time it with other statements which are being made in other parts of the world.

Like all Members of the House I am shocked by what the right hon. Gentleman has said. I would like him, if he could, to make clear what is the position of the International Red Cross in this very important matter. They are above the battle and they have done some very excellent work.

Unfortunately, in the main, the Japanese have refused even gifts through the International Red Cross, except on a very small scale. Of course, we should welcome any help they can give.

Does my right hon. Friend not think that some effect might be caused by a solemn national expression of our horror? I believe that if the full depth of the feeling aroused throughout every section and class in this nation and in the Empire, particularly in India, were brought home to the Japanese Government, it might make them realise the seriousness of the effect on the future of their nation.

We have had to consider this question of publicity very carefully. We had to weigh the anxiety which is bound to be caused to relatives by the revelations, against the possible effects on the Japanese. On balance, I made this statement. I do not think Lean say more.

What I mean is some more formal solemn national expression of our horror.

I take it that prisoners in prisoners of war camps other than Japanese have not been treated in the same brutal manner?

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

With regard to any Bill there are two questions which one has to cover: what does it do, and why does it do it? I will address myself, first, to what the first Clause of this Bill does. As the House will see, Sub-section (1) of Clause 1 says that the number of puisne judges—that is, of course, judges of the High Court, other than the Lord Justices and the Lord Chief Justice, and the President of the Admiralty, Probate and Divorce Division—shall not number less than 25 or more than 32. At present there can be 19 judges appointed to the King's Bench Division, of whom two, the 28th and 19th, can be appointed only after the passing of a Resolution by both Houses of Parliament. For the Admiralty, Probate and Divorce Division the maximum is four, of whom one is subject to a Resolution, and for the Chancery Division six, of whom five have to be appointed: the sixth does not require a Resolution, but the appointment can be filled substantially on the lines we are providing for over the whole field by the present Bill. At present there are 17 judges of the King's Bench Division, instead of the full maximum of 19. There are four judges—the maximum—in the Admiralty, Probate and Divorce Division, and there are five judges—the minimum, and one below the maximum—in the Chancery Division. That is to say, under the existing law the total maximum, with the Resolutions and with the allocations to the Divisions as I have described, is 29. This Bill enables that number to be increased to 32. The establishment will be increased by three judges more than there could be at present.

At present, the King's Bench Division has not its full maximum: it has 17, which is the minimum; and the Chancery Division has one below its maximum. Therefore, at present, by Resolution in the King's Bench Division and without Resolution in the Chancery Division, three more judges could be appointed. But the difficulty which has arisen is that the arrears which demand urgent attention are in the Admiralty, Probate and Divorce Division, which is up to its maximum. We, therefore, propose to increase the maximum by three for all Divisions, and to do away with the provision by which judges over the minimum have to be allocated, two at present to the King's Bench Division, one to the Admiralty, Probate and Divorce Division, and one to the Chancery Division. Sub-section (3) preserves the existing minimum, but what I may call the extra judges over the minimum will not be tied, as at present, to particular Divisions. Suppose that divorce work in future fell off very much and there was a great increase in the King's Bench work, you could then appoint all your extra judges to the King's Bench Division. I think that that elasticity is wise.

The other provision is to do away with the existing provision under which when there is a vacancy above the minimum there has to be a Resolution of each House of Parliament, based on the view that the state of business in that Division necessitates the vacancy being filled. I believe that this new provision will commend itself to the House. I believe that the general opinion in the House to-day, contrary perhaps to what it sometimes has been, is that the House wishes there to be at any time enough judges to deal with the work which comes before them, and to deal with it as promptly as the procedure of litigation, which in some cases is necessarily somewhat slow, allows. If the Bill is passed, when a vacancy occurs above the 25 which is the aggregate minimum, the vacancy can be filled if the Lord Chancellor, with the concurrence of the Treasury, is satisfied that the state of business in the High Court requires that the vacancy shall be filled. I think that that is right in principle; in practice, the present procedure inevitably involves some delay, and we think more prompt action would be secured by the method proposed.

As I have said, the main reason for the Bill is the very substantial increase in the volume of work in the Admiralty, Probate and Divorce Division. That increase is in connection with divorce cases. Particularly in the last two years—and it is still continuing—there has been a very substantial increase in the number of cases to be dealt with. The existing judges of that Division have done their best to cope with the work; they that and were ready to try any cases in the Vacation, but it is obvious that they cannot deal with the position. The House will know that a Committee was appointed recently, under the chairmanship of Sir Ralph Wedgwood, to consider the question of the trial of divorce cases in the provinces. Under the Rules, at present the position is that defended cases other than poor persons' cases have to be tried in London: The Committee recommended that that Rule should be abrogated and provision made for defended cases to be taken in the provinces, not in all circuit towns but in the larger ones. My noble Friend the Lord Chancellor is accepting that recommendation. That does not necessitate a Bill; it can be done by the alteration of a Rule. He proposes to alter the Rule so as to enable defended cases other than poor, persons' cases to be tried in the provinces. I think that that is right, and that it will have the general commendation of the House. It cannot come into full operation tomorrow: there is difficulty about accommodation and so on; but we shall get on with it as speedily as possible if the House gives us this Bill.

My Noble Friend intends to use the powers of the Bill to appoint two, or possibly three, more judges—the Committee suggested two, but there are other factors and I cannot tie myself to a figure at the moment—to the Admiralty, Probate and Divorce Division, who will be available to assist in the trial of divorce cases in the assize towns in the provinces, and also to assist with work in London. We are satisfied that the powers which this Bill will give will enable the arrears to be caught up and disposed of and for that Division to get well abreast of its work. That really gives the effect of what the main provisions of this Bill do and the main reason for them.

I ought to say a word or two about Subsection (4) which says:

"A puisne judge of the High Court may be transferred by direction of the Lord Chancellor from one of the Division of that Court to another."

When a judge is appointed the Letters Patent appointing him do not specify the Division to which he is appointed, but he is appointed to fill a vacancy. Under Section 11 (1) (b) of the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act, 1925, a judge appointed to fill a vacancy of the High Court, subject to the provision of that Act and to Rules of Court, becomes a member of the same Division as that to which the vacating Judge belonged If there is a vacancy in the King's Bench Division you appoint a judge, and subject to the provisions of that Act, he becomes a judge of the King's Bench Division. "Subject to the provisions of this Act" refers to Section 4 (2) which says:

"Any judge of any of the said Division may be transferred by His Majesty, under His Royal Sign Manual, from one to another of the said Divisions."

That gives a complete power to His Majesty, who, in this matter, as in others, would act on the advice of the appropriate Minister, in this case the Lord Chancellor, to transfer a judge from one Division to another. That has not often been used in the past; it may be more desirable in future. We therefore, in order to get the whole of the thing into one Bill, have put that provision into this Bill, but we put it in a slightly different form and -I want to explain why it is in that form. In form, in the main Act, it is a transfer by His Majesty; in form, in the present Bill, it is a transfer by the Lord Chancellor. But, obviously, there is no difference in substance, because His Majesty in this matter would act on the advice of the Lord Chancellor, who would be responsible for any action which was taken. We change the form for the reason that we thought it right to put in that, if a transfer is to be made, it should be made with the consent of the President of the Division from which the judge is being transferred. He is, broadly speaking, responsible for the work of his Division, and it seems to us right, that, as an independent judicial officer, his consent should be obtained. If that is right, then the form of the old Act would not be appropriate, and the House will at once see that you could not say that His Majesty could transfer somebody with the consent of one of his own judges and therefore, if the proposed addition that there should be the consent of the President of the Division is accepted, everybody will agree that the change in form is right and appropriate.

May I ask the Attorney-General a question in order to clarify this matter? I understand that under the present system it is the practice that, when there is a special pressure of work in one Division, a judge is lent from another Division. What is the particular advantage in having to transfer him completely? Is there not something to be said for sending a judge to a particular Division where his experience has lain rather than to another Division?

It is right to make clear that although judges are attached to a Division, as I said, under the Letters Patent appointing them, they are made judges of the High Court, and when they go on Assize, under the Commission under which they act, they can, and do, deal with every class of case. Where it arises in London, it would go to the Chancery Division, the Admiralty, Probate and Divorce Division or the King's Bench Division and, from one point of view, it is the underlying principle of this legislation that a judge is a judge of the High Court. The provision to which my hon. Friend refers of what he calls lending from one Division to another temporarily, for a week or a fortnight and so on, we are not altering at all. It is made use of from time to time and that provision remains unaltered, but in the existing structure, in addition to that power to lend temporarily, there is the power of transfer. That is all with which we are dealing here.

It is quite a different case and it is right that there should be the two quite different powers. Let me take an imaginary example. I have no particular case or individual in mind, but let us assume that you appoint to the Divorce Division someone who has practised in both the Divorce Court, as many people have, and in the King's Bench Division, a man with a wide general experience of law. At the moment when you appoint him the need is for extra judges to do Divorce work. In the course of time that need may diminish and he may be the most suitable man, and may be anxious to do the work of a King's Bench judge should opportunity offer. This would give the power, if that case arose and you had a vacancy in the King's Bench Division, for his transfer. In the ordinary way it might be a good thing to do, and he might be a most suitable person to consider for the increase that was wanted in the strength of that division to fill a vacancy which had occurred. That really describes the main purpose of this Bill. If any right hon. or hon. Gentlemen have any points, perhaps with the leave of the House, I tan say a word or two in reply at the end of the Debate.

Wound the Attorney-General say, in respect of the Committee to which he refers, whether it is intended to implement the decisions of the Committee either to send a Divorce judge along with the King's Bench judge to assize or to have independent divorce assizes; and whether it is the intention of the Government to implement the recommendations that the assize divorce work should be taken only in the large assize town and that that in the smaller assize towns should be left to the judges of the King's Bench Division?

I thought I had noted that but I am glad to expand a little what I said. We are accepting the recommendation of the Committee. It is not intended to have separate assizes, and, as I stated, it is intended that the judges of the Admiralty, Probate and Divorce Division, including the extra judges that will be appointed under this Bill, if we get it, shall go on circuit not necessarily to take all the work, but to assist in dealing with the divorce work in the larger assize towns. It is our intention to restrict ourselves in accordance with the Committee's suggestion to the larger-sized towns. I think that will meet the needs of the main representations which have been made.

I welcome this Bill, which brings in three very necessary improvements for which many of us have been asking for a very long time. More than one Commission has made recommendations which are now partly embodied in this Bill. In the first place, the number of judges are to be increased to a maximum of 32; in the second place the Bill does away with that absurdity of the Law Officers of the Crown having to come here and ask this House to address a petition unto His Majesty to ask for another judge for any vacancy that occurs. In the third place, the Bill makes the judges interchangeable. There is a fourth improvement, not in the Bill, which is the biggest of the lot. That can be carried out by rules and is adopting recommendations made by the Committee. May I deal briefly with these improvements? First, as to the addition to the number of judges. Even now, the maximum will be brought up to only 32. If I may take the King's Bench Division, where the greatest delays have been, the maximum would be brought up there to 19 at the most, subject to interchangeability.

Yes. One of the points of the Bill is that the extra six can be put anywhere. There will be no longer any hard or fast maximum for any one Division.

Subject to that interchangeability the number is now to be brought up to 19 in the King's Bench Division. May I point out to the House what a small change that is? There is one Supreme Court of Justice, which is divided into three Divisions apart from the Courts of Appeal—the King's Bench Division, the Chancery Division and that mysterious Division, Probate, Admiralty and Divorce. The old complaints about "the law's delays" used to be with regard to the Chancery Division and these complaints have been with us since the time of Henry II. They were mentioned, of course, in Hamlet's great soliloquy, and Dickens referred to them in connection with the famous case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. In the King's Bench Division we have suffered all along from delays, and delayed justice is a denial of justice. In any event, it puts an unnecessary burden and expense upon litigants and, what is more, prolonged anxiety.

In 1880 there were 15 judges of the King's Bench Division, when the population England and Wales was only 35,000,000. That number was increased to 18, with a possibility of adding another two, in 1910, when the population had risen to 36,000,000. To-day, our population is over 45,000,000 and we are to have only 19 judges. That is not much of an addition, when one considers all the complications which have arisen. But for one thing, the whole system would have broken down. That one thing is the unpopularity of our legal administration in the minds of all commercial people. I had the honour in 1934 of sitting on a Royal Commission, which reported in 1936. The first question I asked every one of His Majesty's judges was: "Does your Lordship realise that the administration of justice is so unpopular that everyone making a contract, who knows of the possibilities of a breach of contract, puts into his contract words to show that under no circumstances will he go before one of His Majesty's judges?" The usual answer I obtained was, "I have never heard of that," whereupon I further asked, "Does your Lordship realise the number of disputes arising out of contracts which are referred to arbitration?" A great number of arbitration cases have relieved the courts although commercial people know that arbitrations are far more expensive than actions fought in the courts. The fees for counsel are higher, the charges made by witnesses and solicitors are much more expensive and, moreover, the parties do not have that same confidence of impartiality in the arbitrator, who knows so much about both sides, as they have in a judge who knows nothing about either side.

Nevertheless, they will go to arbitration for several reasons. One is the certainty of finally disposing of the case; another is that they can get a decision on a specified day and do not have to wait a considerable time. A third is that the matter is dealt with much more informally, without the necessity of going through all the costs and expense of copying documents and so on which we insist upon in the law courts. I would like to see our courts restored to their high position in the opinion of the commercial people of this country. Our jurisprudence is second to none, and the men who administer our law, hold the highest reputation, not only in this country but throughout the world. But our machinery has, undoubtedly, broken down. I would like to see people having so much confidence in the courts that their cases could be dealt with swiftly and cheaply, and that arbitrations, instead of being on the increase, would decrease. I would like to see people go to the courts which have been formed for them.

Another point is that the administration of justice, having been for so long a State monopoly should be cheap to the litigant; if there is any expense at all it should fall upon the State. We are adding to the numbers of judges to-day, and provision will have to be made for their salaries, their pensions, clerks and so on. I wonder whether the House realises that the fees obtained in the administration of justice pay for all these costs—judges, clerks, masters, even buildings—so much so, that when we consider these matters in Committee of Supply there is only a token Vote. The fees that are brought in, small as they really are, are sufficient to cover all. I do not know what the present figure is, but in 1936 it was £894,000. Yet the cost of setting down a case is only £2, and the cost of the hearing is only £2 whereas, I have known arbitrators charge a thousand guineas for a couple of hours' sitting—a very different thing from His Majesty's judges.

Therefore, there is no reason whatever, so far as the cost to the country is concerned, why the number of judges should not be increased. Moreover, it would result in a great saving to the country as a whole. For what happens now, owing to a shortage of judges? Judges fill their lists so that they do not waste five minutes a day from a quarter past ten until a quarter past four, but it never occurs to them that they are wasting hours, and maybe days, of the time of the litigants and witnesses who are kicking their heels outside in the corridors of the courts waiting for their cases to come on. The list is filled up with three or four cases, lest, perchance, the parties arrive at a settlement in the first, second or third cases, and the fourth case will then be called into the list. I have always suggested that it would be a very good thing if His Majesty's judges had but one or two cases in their lists, and if they finished early, and went off to play a game of golf, they would be better judges. They would be fresher, and, I am quite sure, would apply their minds very much better to the cases. Instead of that, they are anxious to fill up their lists, while all these people are outside waiting for the cases to come on.

Now may I move from the question of the number of judges to that of the transference of judges from one division to another? This is an important, but a very small, point, which, I do not suppose, is going to affect the Chancery Division at all There are cases in the Chancery Division which relate to real property, houses, trusts, and so on, which are treated rather as specialist subjects, and come before judges of long experience at the Bar and on the Bench. Why the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty cases were put into one list has always been a mystery, why it should be continued, passes anyone's comprehension. Might I recite a passage out of the report of the Commission to which I have referred, presided over by Lord Peel in 1936? On page 59, paragraph 172, he said about that extraordinary position:

"The segregation of these three classes of work, namely, the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty in one Division has also resulted in a tendency to treat them as occult mysteries incomprehensible to all save the select few."

I have never been able to discover any one of the "select few." Recommendation after recommendation has been made to break up that Division, which, of course, is the sensible and right thing to do, and transfer the Admiralty business to the King's Bench, where there is already a judge sitting dealing with commercial matters and where counsel who appear also appear in Admiralty and commercial cases. Probate business should go to the Chancery Division, where they are already dealing with the interpretation of wills, and divorces should be handed over to the King's Bench Division, generally.

This brings me to the question of divorces. There are going to be more and more of the defended cases taken separately. This matter was first brought up by the greatest—and I am choosing my words with great care—Lord Chancellor that this country has known in 150 or even more years—Lord Birkenhead, a master of law and a great Chancellor. Until his time, all divorces had to go to London, and there were two judges sitting in that Division. One, usually the President, who was experienced only in Admiralty work, took the divorce cases, and the other, usually another Admiralty man, also dealt with divorce cases. Until recently, only one divorce examiner had ever been put on the bench. All the matters, wherever they arose, had to be brought to London. Lord Birkenhead suggested that judges should be sent on circuit, but he only succeeded in getting consent for circuit judges to deal with undefended divorces. Defended divorces had still to be tried in London.

Look at the injustice of it. I do not know what the cost is to-day, but I remember making inquiries in 1938 and the cost of undefended divorce cases was something like £120 to £130. What the cost of the defended divorces may be one does not know. It all depends on the length, the number of witnesses and so on. Yet, if a case arose in Newcastle, that case had to be tried in London. If the petitions were brought to London, there was an order, straight away, for payment towards the costs, covering the expenses of solicitors, counsel and witnesses and so on in coming to London. Time and again, the husband gave up fighting and allowed the case to go by default.

What action are we taking now to remedy that position? I do not know to how many of these towns it is proposed that these judges should go. Up to the present, of these 61 circuit towns, even undefended divorces have been taken only at 26. I sincerely hope that at every assize town—whether there are 61, or, as I think now, 63—these cases will be taken. It is an unjustifiable expense to put upon people, that they should have to travel such distances in order to be heard. Justice ought to be brought to the door, or as near to the door, of the litigant as it is possible to bring it. I hope that the Government will take this opportunity of introducing far greater measures than this for the better administration of justice in this country—to reduce the cost to the litigant, to enable these matters to be tried locally, without having to be brought all the way to London, to enable them to be tried before judges on a fixed day and disposed of, and, finally, to do away with the expense and waste, of time covered by the multiplicity of appeals. There have been improvements in my time. There used to be a Divisional Court, with an appeal to the Court of Appeal and then to the House of Lords. That has been done away with. You cannot appeal to the House of Lords now except with the leave of the Court of Appeal. I think the time has come when we should say there shall be a trial by the judge of first instance, whoever he may be, with one Court of Appeal and then finish. Then there will be much greater confidence in the administration of justice.

I want to extend a welcome to the Bill on behalf of myself and my colleagues. The occasion for the Bill, as we know, is the large number of divorce cases which are cluttering up the list, but advantage has been taken, very wisely, of this opportunity to make some improvements in the organisation of justice, a greater flexibility as between division and division, an overall increase in the possible number of judges and greater freedom to appoint them when vacancies occur. All those are to be welcomed, but I notice that the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not dwell at all upon the real reason for the Bill—the necessity for dealing with these divorce cases. Perhaps he was right, because before dealing with that situation, it would have been better if the House had had an opportunity of discussing the best way to tackle it.

There has been discussion in the Press and it has aroused considerable public interest, because you can approach this question of divorce in two ways. You can approach it from the business point of view, regarding it as a case in which a minimum number of facts have to be established and certain forms have to be gone through, and they produce inevitable consequences. I am thinking now, more of undefended than of defended cases. As a matter of legal business, the ordinary undefended divorce case presents no difficulty whatever. Issues as difficult, if not more difficult, are tried every day by county court judges and registrars. From the point of view of business, therefore, you could delegate the work of trying undefended divorce cases to inferior tribunals. Suggestions have been made that they should be handed over to registrars. It has even been suggested that they should be handed over to courts of petty sessions.

If you look upon it as a matter of plain business, that suggestion may well be justified but there is another aspect of the question of divorce. It is a matter with very serious social consequences. Perhaps we, in the profession, more than those outside—but probably the public too—are apt to regard divorce somewhat light-heartedly and flippantly. For the overwhelming majority of those involved in it, it is a serious, a distressing and a very disturbing experience and the consequences are often serious. However simple the issue may be and however straightforward the decision on the facts, the social consequences are such that it calls for adjudication by a supreme judicial tribunal. It justifies a tribunal of competence and of dignity.

Therefore, I welcome the fact that it is still to be treated at a high level, even though it is a matter of undefended divorce. But the arrears which these judges are to clear off when they are appointed are not the only arrears. There are unseen arrears, which do not feature on any printed list. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery (Mr. Davies) has referred to the question of cost. I cannot quite agree with his estimate. I have made inquiries and I find that the cost of an undefended divorce, without any complications, the work being done by a competent firm of solicitors familiar with this type of work in London, ranges from £50 to £75. To any firm of solicitors, who do not do this as a regular business, I think the minimum sum at which it could be done with a reasonable return to them is between £70 and £80 and the fashionable firms charge anything from £100 to £150. That is for a simple, plain, undefended divorce.

At that level of cost the right to have one's matrimonial affairs adjusted according to the law of the land is denied to many people. I am sorry the Government have not gone a bit further and seized this opportunity to enable those who, after all, have a right to their remedy at the hands of the court but cannot afford it, to do so. I am not advocating any extension of divorce. I am advocating only that those who are entitled to it, should not be denied it because they have not the money. It is true that there is a poor person's procedure but the figures of income and capital amount which entitle a man to describe himself for this purpose as a poor person have been so fixed that there is hardly anyone in employment to-day who would qualify to be a poor person and, since the success of the national savings movement, I imagine that there are very few who would not be disqualified on the ground of the savings that they have. Therefore, I hope that before long the Attorney-General will advise the Government as to the steps that are necessary in order to make the Courts more accessible to those who are entitled to go there and have their differences adjusted. This, of course, is part of a much larger problem than the one raised by this Bill, and I apologise if I have tended to go outside the immediate scope of the Bill, but I submit that this was a proper occasion on which the matter of costs in the Courts should be raised. I welcome the Bill as far as it goes but regret that it does not embrace this wider issue.

I find it difficult after the grievous matter of which we heard earlier to apply my mind to what I had thought I might say upon this Bill, but I will do my best. We have had a most remarkable statement from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. M. Hughes), who talked about the high principles involved in divorce on the one hand and suggested how much easier it should be made for people to obtain it on the other. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) had, of course, nothing but praise for the Bill, but I would remind the House that both those hon. and learned Members are intimately concerned in their daily life with—well, I need not say it, but hon. Members know quite well what I mean. Naturally they would approve of this Bill, although to my mind it is not so satisfactory or so much needed as some people say that it is at the present time. First of all, the Bill takes away power from this House—takes away some of the few remaining powers of the House in this matter. The House still has to present an Address under certain conditions. A great deal has been made by the Attorney-General and others of the delay which might occur in appointing a new judge. That delay is not a serious matter at all. It is always wise for this House to keep power in its hands, whatever it may be. It may need at some future time, for some reason or another, to delay the appointment of a judge. The Executive should be as remote from the Judiciary as possible, and I suggest that it is a pity this House is giving away any of its power at all It has already given away much of its authority to the Executive.

There is another point. The Attorney-General said that His Majesty could already make changes from one Division to the other, but this is made very much easier under this Bill. The Lord Chancellor can now move a judge from one Division to another, admittedly with the consent of the President of the Divorce Division in one particular case, but nevertheless it becomes an easier and simpler matter. I do not suspect His Majesty's present Government or the present Lord Chancellor. I have every trust in them, in spite of the dictatorial régime under which we are living, and I do not suspect them at all, but it may well be that in future we might have unscrupulous Governments. It may well be that some judge of the King's Bench Division might, in a judgment, condemn the Executive Government very severely, and it would be a simple matter for an unscrupulous Government to transfer him to another Division—surely to put him into the Chancery Division would be very depressing for him—but that would have a bad effect on the Judiciary and we want to keep it as independent as possible of control by the Executive. I am sure that those who framed the Bill of Rights, who had memories of those time-serving Judges under the Stuart kings, would not be in favour of any move of this kind to-day.

I want to pass on to matters which are perhaps a little delicate, but we seldom have the opportunity of discussing the Judiciary so freely in this House. First, I would like to point out that there will be a very considerable charge on the Consolidated Fund by the appointment of these extra judges. Three will be appointed in due course. They might not be appointed all at once, but there is no doubt that owing to the state of business three will be appointed in time, and there will be an extra charge of £15,000 a year. There will also be the charge for the Judges' Clerks, £1,575 a year; and there will be, possibly for indefinite periods of time for an indefinite number of persons, payments of £3,500 a year which the judges receive when they retire. I only make that comment in passing but, after all, it is this House which provides the money for the Government as for everything else.

The main reason for the appointment of these judges is the delay in business in the Divorce Court, but I suggest, though I suggest it very respectfully, that there could have been two other remedies for that particular state of things. The two remedies could run together. Instead of this Bill to appoint three judges we could have had another Bill; indeed, for one of the points which I have in mind, I do not think that even another Bill would have been needed. First of all, we have heard a great deal about the care with which even undefended divorce cases should be dealt with. This seems to me to be a great deal of nonsense. They are the simplest of all cases. Undoubtedly, many of the undefended divorce cases, to which the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen referred as being the simplest type of case, could be dealt with by the magistrates. In spite of his devotion to high principles I still say that, because the magistrates are already constantly untangling far more complicated matrimonial relationships when dealing with judicial separations and so on and are constantly dealing with the most intricate phases of married life and judicially separating the parties concerned. I am sure that magistrates, county court judges or others could deal with undefended divorce petitions quite satisfactorily. There is another suggestion which would help in this difficulty. I can say this without in any way wishing to offer any criticism of His Majesty's judges—but has not the time come to shorten the Long Vacation? The Law Courts rise at Christmas for, I think, about three weeks, at Easter for about two weeks, at Whitsun for about 10 days and in the summer for eight to ten weeks. That is 16 weeks in all in the year—in fact, I think it is more. I know of no other occupation which is obliged with so much leisure.

Members of Parliament.

I will come to Members of Parliament in a moment. [Interruption.] A university professor is not rewarded with the emoluments and other glamour which so often attach to those who practice at the Bar. Further, the courts do not sit until half-past ten and they rise at a quarter past four—for five day a week only. The hours of sitting of the courts might be readjusted and lengthened a little. After all, now that there is a war on we all try to work a little longer. If these points had been considered it might well be that these long waiting lists in the Divorce Court would have been avoided. Many of these cases could be disposed of quite simply and easily. I put forward the suggestion that if these cases were referred to magistrates and if the vacations were shortened there would be no need for the Government to come to the House for the appointment of three more judges as they do in this Bill.

It may be argued that the judges' work is onerous work, which involves great mental effort and so on, but we must remember that while judges have to settle cases between private litigants Members of Parliament have to settle matters for the whole nation, and many of them have to work very hard, indeed, besides. Take again the case of rising Counsel at the Bar. They have to work very hard. Sometimes they have to sit up to a late hour studying their briefs, and then they have to attend the court next day and supply the judge with all the facts necessary to enable him to come to a decision. During the vacation they have to spend their time in the murky atmosphere of the police court and the cold and depressing corridors of the County Court. The doctor, again, may have to work through the night in a confinement case where life and death are involved. He has to use his knowledge all the time. But he has to continue visiting his patients next day. There is no excuse on that ground for His Majesty's judges.

There is another point that I want to put, and I must be very careful in what I say. I do not want to say anything which can be misconstrued by the judiciary, whose members, no one doubts, have been promoted because of their eminence. I do not want to cast any reflection on any one, but I do want to express the hope that the Lord Chancellor, when these powers are given to him, will not make his appointments because those who hope for promotion have followed a political life. There are judges at the present time who have had a political career, and I am sure that when they reached judicial office their politics did not count. Not only judges in the High Court but judges in the county court have had a political life, and I hope that when the Lord Chancellor from time to time exercises his powers under this Bill, he will make his decision about the appointments completely on other lines. I am sure he will. Membership of this House should not be regarded as the way to the Bench. It is not only learning which is required of a judge. He must also have foresight, discretion and judgment in its broad sense, and the power to weigh evidence. It is not necessarily the best advocate who makes a good judge.

But one thing which we should bear in mind all the time is the importance of the complete independence of the judiciary from the Executive. I regret that this Bill draws the Executive and the Judiciary a little nearer together. That is to be highly deplored. I regret, too, that a Bill of this kind should be brought before the House. In the first place I say so because it takes away the power of Parliament in some degree; secondly, because it makes charges which in my opinion are quite unnecessary charges, on the Consolidated Fund; thirdly, by increasing the number of what some may think are sinecures it brings a great profession like the Bar into perhaps a little public disrespect; and, finally, I repeat, it takes away from this House the remnant of its powers in the matter. On these grounds, I must say that, I deplore that the Government have thought fit to bring forward this Bill.

Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Dr. R. Thomas) I am delighted that this Bill has been brought forward, for the reason that it contemplates the appointment of three additional judges. It is well known, and I think it must be well known to my hon. Friend, because his speech seems to indicate that he he has read at any rate one or two letters which have appeared in "The Times"——

On a point of Order. May I say that I gave up reading "The Times" three years ago, and I have felt very much better ever since.

May I say to my hon. Friend that. I think he ought to revert to reading "The Times." Then he might be a little better instructed on this matter. I welcome this Bill, because it has obviously been brought forward on account of the arrears of work in the Probate and Admiralty Division of the High Court Those arrears mean that there is g delay in settling the cases of a very large number of people in this country. Men and women in the provinces wait for their cases to be tried, particularly divorce cases, for a year or two years or even longer. Mention has been made of the application of the Poor Persons Rules to divorce cases. Where the people concerned come within those Rules the judge of assize is given complete jurisdiction to deal with the cases but if an unfortunate person whose income is higher than is provided in those Rules brings an action which is defended then the case must come to London.

That means that many persons in receipt of £3, £4 or £5 a week must incur the expenses of coming to London, and that imposes an enormous hardship on a very large number of comparatively small people. The statement of the learned Attorney General that it is the intention that not only cases of people coming within the Poor Persons Rules but all cases will be adjudicated at the Assizes means a very important step towards the more speedy administration of the law in this particular regard. I welcome the Bill because of the great hardship to litigants which has occurred in the past through the appalling delay in the trial of cases. The extended jurisdiction given to the judges who go round the country means more expedition in dealing with these cases, and I think that any one interested in the matter must welcome the Bill as a step in the right direction.

I regret that I was nable to be here at the opening of this Debate and so I do not know whether the learned Attorney-General dealt with certain criticisms which occur to me. A number of criticisms do occur to me, but I would like to mention just one and ask him to consider whether there might not be some re-drafting in Committee of the proviso to Clause 1. Clause 1 (2) permits His Majesty to appoint additional judges but requires that the advice given to His Majesty shall be given in a certain way. There is in fact nothing to prevent His Majesty from appointing judges. To-day His Majesty must, of course, take, and does take, such advice as seems to him fit, and it would be perfectly legal under Clause 1 (2) if His Majesty, on the advice of the Executive, were to appoint these additional judges without fulfilling the requirements of the proviso. I suggest that it would be a perfectly valid appointment. The result of this Bill will be that the influence of Parliament with regard to the appointment of additional judges will be taken away, and what purports to be a safeguard will be found to be no safeguard at all. Alternatively, if the proviso means that it is illegal and invalid for His Majesty to appoint additional judges without such advice, it is open to any litigant appearing in court before one of the newly appointed judges to contend that in that particular appointment the Lord Chancellor did not have the concurrence of the Treasury. A similar point has been taken before and with success.

I do not like the introduction of the Treasury in this proviso. It is, apparently, taking the place of Parliament in this matter. If it is to be said that the appointment of an additional judge by His Majesty would be invalid unless the Lord Chancellor had the concurrence of the Treasury, it would be open to a litigant to contend that the judge had no power to try his case because the Lord Chancellor had not the concurrence of the Treasury. It may be alleged that the concurrence was of a formal nature, and contended that it should be of more than a formal nature. I doubt myself whether the proviso does have the effect of making an appointment invalid without such advice. But I am putting a dilemma to my right hon. and learned Friend. Either the proviso means something, in which case I anticipate legal difficulties, or it means nothing, in which case the influence of Parliament is removed and His Majesty may appoint the additional judges without let or hindrance. I do not like the form of drafting which seems to me not in accord with constitutional theory, and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will consider its amendment.

I am stirred into activity in this Debate by reason of the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. Thomas) who referred to a judicial appointment as a sinecure. I felt that we could not pass that unchallenged.

I said that it may be considered by the public to be such.

I would only tell my hon. Friend that those of us with knowledge of the enormous amount of labour undertaken by the occupants of the judicial bench are satisfied that it could never be described as a sinecure. We in this country should be extremely grateful for the impartial administration of justice which we get and the heavy labour which falls on the judges involved. I welcome this Bill as a contribution to relieving some of that labour.

I also welcome it for another reason. I think that in the past we have made the mistake of waiting until the courts got into a chaotic state before asking for the appointment of judges. I am glad to see that the reverse procedure is being adopted, that is, having the power to appoint judges first so that they will be available as and when required. That is an extremely good principle because the judges are the servants of the public and the public must be served. It should be open to all to be able to have their cases heard expeditiously. There has been some reference to correspondence in "The Times," in which there was a suggestion that the divorce jurisdiction should be delegated to magisterial courts. I hope that that will never happen in this country. It leads to the kind of abuse which has occurred in other countries abroad. A certain court becomes known for the facility with which divorce can be obtained in that particular court, and people seek the necessary domicile in order to come within the jurisdiction of the court. That leads to abuses which we have seen and which I hope will never occur here.

Reference has also been made to the charge on the Consoliated Fund. I do not think that anyone can allege that our judges are overpaid. It has to be borne in mind that of the £5,000 a year which they receive, at the present rate of taxation something like £3,000 goes back to the Treasury, so that the net receipt to a judge is in the region of £2,000. It is unfortunate that a judge should be so underpaid. It is very necessary for the administration of justice that a judge should be free from those financial worries which come to the rest of us, and I certainly see no reason why any objection should be taken to this alleged burden on the Treasury. The appointment of three extra judges will not cost the Treasury more than £6,000 net, and that is a small price to pay for the sure and swift administration of justice. I heartily support and welcome the Bill and hope that it will pass without difficulty.

I do not want to make this Debate a field day for lawyers, whether they are practising, whether they have lost their practices, or whether they have retired from practising; but as one who appeared in court and took notes in the days when the learned Attorney-General was practising prominently at the commercial bar, I should like to make a few observations about that extraordinary court the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. I never understood it when I was practising and I do not understand it now. It has the most absurd collection of work. I remember on one occasion that a dinner of members of the Admiralty Bar was held. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) and other people of his eminence and of my more lowly station were assembled in some pleasant room in a hotel. We were joined by a number of strangers, who were pointed out to us as practitioners in the Divorce Court. Our guest was a learned judge who had never held a brief in the Divorce Court, and it was explained that he was appointed because he understood Admiralty work, which was very difficult, and could learn the Divorce work, which was easier. There was an appointment to the Admiralty Court recently, an admirable appointment, but again that judge had aways had the type of Admiralty and commercial practice which brought him plenty of work, and he had never had to go into the Divorce Court.

It seems to me that as we are still and shall be after the war, a great commercial nation, carrying out great insurance business all over the world, and as foreigners have great respect and confidence in the old historic Admiralty jurisdiction of the law courts, we should not continue to clutter up that court with this extraordinary assemblage of probate actions and divorce There is, though I have forgotten the details of it, a certain procedure under which you can even bring a commercial action in the Admiralty Court by serving a writ on the ship. The learned Attorney-General, when he was practising at the Bar, practised in the Admiralty and commercial courts, and frequently found himself in the Admiralty Court one day and in the King's Bench Division the next.

Although it is not important we may as well have the facts correct. I never appeared in the Admiralty Court, only in the commercial court.

I am sorry the Attorney-General has never had that opportunity, but, as a general rule, most people who have practices in the Admiralty Court are also retained in shipping cases in the commercial court, and the types of solicitors who do the Admiralty kind also do the commercial cases. You do not, however, get any duality between counsel and solicitor who appear in Admiralty actions and who also handle divorce actions. The link is commercial and Admiralty, and I feel the time has now come, and is long overdue, when we should recognise the facts of the matter, that if you are competent to argue in the Admiralty Court a case about two ships coming into collision you are also competent to argue a case about cargo being damaged on discharge from a ship. No counsel that I ever met at the Bar had any practice at all in Admiralty cases coupled with divorce cases. Surely the time has come—and it would have long since been done but for certain rather absurd vested interests—when we should set up an Admiralty and Commercial Division, and when we should assign the divorce work to the King's Bench Division.

I have never appeared in a divorce case; I cannot conceive of anything more sordid than sitting week after week and month after month trying divorce actions. Lord Mersey, an eminent commercial judge, once remarked that he had one foot in the Atlantic and one in the sewer. It is not fair to assign a judge solely to divorce work. It does not give him the necessary relief. If this work were assigned to the King's Bench Division, it would be done by judges in the course of other work. You should not assign one judge to do nothing else but the type of work which, however necessary and right it may be, must inevitably give a man a jaundiced view of human nature. I have thought that ever since I was called to the Bar in 1927. I have never understood the reason for this extraordinary linking of Probate, Admiralty and Divorce. I know the answer which is given—and it is correct technically—is that it is the old civil jurisdiction which remained outside the jurisdiction of the King's Courts. we should not be so bound by history, however, that we cannot depart from it on grounds of convenience, It has been frequently urged by judges of the greatest distinction, urged by practitioners who have had a hundred times the experience of the courts that I have had. When we are passing this Bill we should not let slip the opportunity of rearranging the assignment of business in our courts in a rather more sensible and logical fashion.

rose——

Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman the leave of the House?

Well, Mr. Speaker, when I moved the Second Reading I said that with the leave of the House I would deal with any points hon. Members would wish to raise. I will be quite brief. One or two general points have been raised on which I will make one or two observations. In the first place, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) referred to what he described as the unpopularity of the courts, and he quoted certain figures showing that the numbers of judges had not gone up in proportion to the population. In considering those figures one has to bear in mind the very large increase in the jurisdiction of the courts of petty sessions, the very large number of minor criminal cases with which they deal, and also the extension of the county courts. He said he hoped to see the days restored—he suggested there was some golden age—when there were no delays and the courts were generally acceptable in all their procedure. At the same time, however, he told us there had been complaints since the days of Henry II; so I do not know at what precise stage of our history this golden age was fixed. But everything ought to be done that is possible to avoid delays. It is a very difficult problem to speed up litigation because it involves a lot of work.

I would like to tell my hon. and learned Friend and the House, with regard to fixing days, that it is a great convenience, particularly in the case of witnesses. In recent years there has been an increase of that practice. There was, I believe, some comment in the Press a short time ago that four or five judges had apparently nothing to do after 11.30. The reason for that was that they had fixed that day for cases, and when they sat they found the cases had been settled. That shows how hard it is to please everybody. The general trend, however, is on the lines, as far as is practicable, that my hon. and learned Friend suggested.

Two or three speakers talked about the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. So far as the technical point of this Bill is concerned, that is quite outside the Bill, because it can already be done under Section 4 (2) of the 1925 Act. I know a different view is held by my hon. Friend and I do not want to spend much time on it. My own view, broadly, is that judges ought to be able to try all sorts of cases. I think it would be a pity to have a Division which did only one sort of work, and the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division to some extent may have suffered in the views of certain people because they have their work set out in their title. After all a King's Bench judge will be trying murder one day, landlord and tenant the next day, and a case about a charter party the next day. You do not, however, call it the Murder, Landlord and Tenant, and Charter Party Division. Therefore, I am not in the least impressed by the fact that these things are different, and I think it has been found convenient, and the convenience does not decrease as the number of High Court judges goes up to have Divisions rather than to have only one Division including the whole High Court. All I need say, however, is that it does not arise in the Bill. The views of my two hon. and learned Friends have been stated, and the matter has been raised in the report of that Committee.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. M. Hughes) referred to the question of costs. Of course, if we can do anything to keep costs down, let us do it, but even a simple divorce case involves the proof of certain matters. It is not like a case the parties can agree. The Court has to be satisfied and have evidence before it of certain things. However, I do not think anybody suggested that the figures mentioned were exorbitant or that solicitors were profiteering. The fact is that in the divorce laws this House has laid it down that certain investigations have to be made and certain facts have to be proved, but this Bill, in allowing cases in the provinces, will to some extent meet the question of costs there. With regard to the Poor Persons' position, though we cannot discuss that in any detail the Army legal aid scheme and schemes for other Services, which have functioned on the whole very well, are one of the reasons why there are so many more cases to try. These measures have been introduced in the Services to get the wheels started and the machinery going.

The suggestion that undefended divorce cases might be dealt with in lower courts was made by the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. Russell Thomas) and one other hon. Member. It is a view that is held by some people, but the matter has been considered within the last 10 years by two committees. The recent Committee said that these cases seemed to call for treatment in the highest court available and its Report was signed by all the members, including one High Court judge who was a member of the King's Bench Division. The Peel Committee in 1934 took the same view. They said:

"We are strongly of the opinon that the status of the person entrusted with a task of such importance not only to the individual but to the State should not be in any way inferior to that of a High Court judge."

One remark was made about vacations. As a matter of fact, particularly in the Divorce Court, the judges sat all through the vacation to try cases which were available to be tried. That has, broadly, been the position during the war. In peacetime, vacations on the whole were welcomed by solicitors and litigants as much as by the Bench and the Bar. Take the Long Vacation, which is the one usually attacked. Without pursuing the attractive comparison between Members of Parliament and the judges, for two months in the year, judges, litigants and solicitors find this holiday arrangement convenient to them, and so do witnesses, some of whom would be taking their holidays in August and others in September, free from the intrusion into their normal life which litigation involves. They have a break. The existing vacation arrangements have been found, on the whole, to be of advantage in the administration of justice and to all those concerned in it.

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Bill deals with a situation which arises when premises that are under lease are requisitioned. There are three Clauses which I need, very briefly, to draw to the attention of the House. Clause 1 modifies the rights of the parties to a lease who are under a covenant to repair in respect of damage occurring during requisition by the Crown. It is based on the fact that the party liable under the covenant is not in control of the damage that may be done during the requisition. Therefore, the provision is introduced that no repairing covenant is to be enforceable during the time of requisition. Clause 2 is based on the fact that the Crown pays compensation, and it is intended to be enacted that a person who gets compensation, although he would otherwise be entitled to rights against the other party, will not be entitled to enforce those rights, because he has got the compensation. Those are two necessary Amendments to the original Act, and it is suggested that they should, and properly will be, retrospective, to the period when the original legislation was passed.

The second Clause entitles a tenant who chooses to make good the damage accruing during requisition, that is a tenant who, of his own desire and volition, makes good the damage, to receive from his landlord an appropriate part of any compensation paid to the landlord by the requisitioning authorities. Hon. Members will appreciate that this is a useful provision in cases where a tenant has a substantial portion of his lease still to expire and does not want the property to deteriorate during the time of requisition. If there is any dispute it will go to the county court, in the interests of cheapness. Clause 3 makes some useful changes in machinery. It provides for simplicity of evidence, and takes away the power of the requisitioning authority not to pay compensation to a landlord who has a right against a tenant, and also provides that references to payment of compensation shall include payment by agreement under Section 15 of the original Act which was made in respect of wear and tear. That difficulty has caused a certain amount of anxiety up to this time. The other three Clauses of the Bill are really formal, applying the Bill to the Crown, making certain definitions, and establishing the short Title. I hope that I have, in these few words, made clear the essential principles of the Bill.

I do not want to delay the passing of the Bill and I have no particular quarrel with its provisions, but I would point out that this is a further stage in the process of setting aside covenants and other obligations in existing leases, a tendency which needs to be watched with very great care. The Bill, like other Bills and Orders under the Emergency Powers, sets aside certain obligations, with regard to dilapidations, for instance. There may be good reasons to relieve a sitting tenant from obligations under the contracts and leases by which he holds his land, but any relief that is given to a sitting tenant in respect of dilapidations or anything of that kind tends to pile up the amount that will have to be met by an incoming tenant, and those figures threaten to reach quite alarming proportions in some cases. Many tenants, in fact, all tenants, have been relieved from their obligations with regard to the compulsory breaking up of grassland and things like that, while on the other hand they still retain their rights to compensation for the laying down of seed leys and temporary pastures. If a tenant goes out, he will have a considerable claim, primarily against his landlord, but in effect against an incoming tenant. No greater injury could be done to the future of agriculture in this country than that an incoming tenant should have a burden of valuation to meet so heavy that the working capital which he requires for successful cultivation is diminished. I hope that the Government, in their anxiety to remove possible hardship from a sitting tenant, will be very careful not to make it too difficult for the man who is going to succeed him.

The Committee will see that the terms of this Resolution are broadly drawn. The Government's object is to enable us to discuss the many financial issues involved in the Education Bill in the course of its further stages, a course which has appeared to the Government to be desired by a large number of Members in the Committee. For the sake of hon. Members who are present I will just run over some of the heads, so as to explain how they are drawn and to indicate the Clauses of the Bill to which the various paragraphs relate. I need not detain the Committee for very long, since, as the object of the Resolution is to give an opportunity for discussing questions in more detail later, it would surely be a great pity if we were to discuss them in great detail now.

I should make it clear to the Committee that the Government's attitude towards the financial issues involved in a Bill of this magnitude has been expressed in the course of the speeches which were made by myself in introducing the Second Reading of the Bill and by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. The fact that the Government do not ask the Committee at this stage to accept a Resolution drawn in very rigid terms means that the Government desire to afford every opportunity for discussion. But our desire for that full and frank discussion must not be taken as involving any change in Government policy. I think it is necessary to say that because we are very keen to discuss all these matters. But I do not want any wrong interpretation to be put on the fact that we have drawn this Resolution in broad terms.

Coming to the paragraphs I think they speak for themselves. I will simply indicate any limitations they may contain so that there may be no misunderstanding at later stages. There is nothing more odious to a Minister than to think there is any misunderstanding as to limitations in the Committee stage after a Financial Resolution has been passed. Under paragraph (a) there is this slight limitation in that the remuneration is such as the Minister

"… may with the consent of the Treasury determine. …"

That is the only limitation there. That is concerned with the staff which the Minister may appoint. I think that is quite understandable.

Then we come to paragraph (b) dealing with the question of

"… paying grants for local education authorities in respect of expenditure incurred by such authorities in the exercise of their functions relating to education,"

The Committee will see that it is drawn in very broad terms, and should be read in conjunction with Clause 93 (1, a) of the Bill.

Paragraph (c) relates to Clause 93 (1, b) and is equally widely drawn.

Paragraph (d) is the paragraph about which certain representations were made to the Government and it is so drafted as to permit a discussion of the nature or amount of any financial assistance likely to be involved in repairs and alterations to the premises of aided and special agreement schools. It will also permit a discussion about whether financial assistance can be given towards the provision of new schools of these types. I must remind the Committee that Government policy on the subject of new schools is set out in Clause 15 and Clause 96. I would just remind the Committee that these Clauses provide for a grant to be paid where new premises are required for schools to take the place of accommodation formerly provided by another school or two or more such schools. We envisaged, in originally drafting the Clauses, cases of disturbance arising through town planning, slum clearance and similar interventions. It will be seen by the Committee that paragraph (d) is widely enough drawn to permit freedom of discussion on these various points at a later stage.

Paragraph (e) does not, I think, require any special comment. It speaks for itself. It refers to Clause 93 (1, c) of the Bill.

On paragraph (f) it would be possible for me to give the Committee a dissertation upon the methods of Welsh finance, a matter on which I see at least one expert present, but I think it would be a pity if the Committee were to enlarge the scope of the discussion on this paragraph because it does not relate to grants in general but to a special grant. It is specifically stated that the special annual grant paid to the local Welsh Education Authorities in respect of the schools maintained or assisted by them under Section nine of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, 1889, are not to exceed the sum payable under that Section in the year ended 31st March, 1929. It would not therefore be possible in Committee to increase the amount of grant under that particular head. That particular head is one to which I believe certain importance is attached and it would be wise to retain reference to it even though it will not be possible to increase it. But paragraph (f) does not refer to the main education grants.

Paragraph (g) is subject to the same limitations as paragraph (a) and provides for paying to any persons appointed to be members of Independent Schools Tribunals such remuneration and allowances as may, with the consent of the Treasury, be provided for. The paragraph relates to Clause 71 (1) of the Bill.

That, I think, is all I need say at this stage. I trust that we have met the convenience of hon. Members. I attach great importance in the case of a Bill of the magnitude which we shall be considering later to seeing that we should, as far as possible, meet the convenience of hon. Members, even though we cannot always agree with them. I trust, in moving this Resolution, that the Committee will let us have it without undue difficulty.

We are all deeply indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for giving instructions that this Resolution should be framed as widely as possible to admit of the freest possible discussion. I quite understand the caveat which the right hon. Gentleman rightly put in, that it does not mean he is going to deviate in any way from the policy he laid before the House during the Second Reading. I shall certainly not enter into this question of Welsh finance under that particular Sub-section, but I do desire a little enlightenment on a point I raised during the Second Reading. It will be within the recollection of the Committee that I drew attention to the inequalities arising from the part of the expense being borne by the Treasury and the part being borne by the local authorities. My own suggestion was that all the expense should fall upon the Treasury. When I come to refer to this paragraph I see that it does provide for payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenditure incurred

"in paying grants to local education authorities in respect of expenditure incurred by such authorities in the exercise of their functions relating to education."

I take it that one would be in Order during the course of a Bill in moving an Amendment that that grant should be 100 per cent. I am not quite sure whether one could then during the course of the other stages of the Bill move such Amendments as one to Clause 8 which deals with the provision and maintenance of primary and secondary schools. Clause 8 (1) reads:

"It shall be the duty of every local education authority to secure that there shall be available for their area sufficient schools"—

If I may put a hypothetical case I would leave out "local education authority" and make it read:

"It shall be the duty of the President of the Board of Education to secure that there shall be available in all areas sufficient schools,"

and so on. That would mean, of course, that the whole burden would be thrown upon the Treasury. I am wondering whether this Resolution is wide enough to enable me to raise that in that form, although I can conceive, and I should like to know the President's view on this, that possibly I can meet it by asking that the grants that shall be made to the poorer education authorities, or indeed all education authorities, shall be 100 per cent. of the cost they are incurring in educational matters. With this I end. It is a matter which is fundamental and vital. That is why I am raising it.

I have been asked by the county education authorities to draw the attention of the Committee to the grant comparisons which are included in Table 11 on page 4 of the Bill. I am in somewhat of a difficulty, because having consulted you, Mr. Williams, and also in view of the observations made by the President in introducing the Resolution, I am informed that I should not be able to expand that, not to dilate upon the question of the rate burdens but only that of taxation.

I think it would be better if I made the position quite plain. Any Member is entitled at this stage of the Financial Resolution to say that the Government should give more money, that the Government should increase the financial contribution, but they are not allowed to go into the question of poorer or better off local rating authorities, or discuss in any way the incidence of rates as between different authorities. It is only the matter of finance, and an appeal can be made to the Government for more help, but we must leave out the provision of the rate.

Thank you, Mr. Williams, for that explanation. I take it that it is within our right to deal with all the types of education for which this Financial Resolution provides?

I am not quite clear about that. I think I would like to see it when it comes up.

I too should like to thank you, Mr. Williams, but I am not quite sure now whether what I intended to say would be appropriate at the present time. Mine was not so much a comparison between district and district as between the national rate borne charge as against the taxation contribution. In view of what you have said I will take a rather different course at the moment and say that I will not go into that detail now. But I want to safeguard myself and the authorities against the point arising later on, that not having mentioned the question at this stage we were precluded at a later stage from bringing the matter before the House when in Committee.

As far as I am able to understand the hon. Member I do not think it will prejudice hon. Members on the Committee stage of the Bill.

I am obliged for that assurance. It is really what I required. I am aware that in Clause 93 the Minister has the power to make these grants. I am now saying that we do not consider that the grant will be adequate, and that we shall at a later stage put forward our applications and detailed reasons as to the statement made on our behalf. May I confine myself simply to thanking the Minister for the inclusion in the Resolution which has been placed on the Paper since the Bill was printed of paragraph (b), which does give us an opportunity of raising the matter at a subsequent date, which I hope to do on behalf of the Association at that time.

I want to commend the statement made by the President of the Board of Education because I felt very anxious to know what the Financial Resolution would allow. His statement tells us that on the Committee stage we shall be allowed to discuss the various points. Hitherto in many Bills we have had a Financial Resolution so circumscribed that when we have got to the Committee stage we have been told from the Chair "You cannot go further than that." I have been anxious to know what the Minister has in mind. I know he has been very fair over this matter. I want it to be the will of the House as to what financial aid shall be given. I want a wide scope of discussion on this matter on the Committee stage. I am particularly concerned with Clause 95, that is the one dealing with the aided school. This Resolution allows us on that Clause to make an appeal to the Committee for better financial aid than is being given in the Bill. It will be a matter for the Committee to decide as to whether or not they think something better should be given. That is all I ask. In matters of this kind I have always been a democrat. When we have been able to put our case before the Committee without any restrictions I shall accept their verdict, I do not say with pleasure, but I shall accept it. The Resolution gives us full opportunity, and I thank the Minister for what he has said.

I know it is rather late in the day, but I would like to join hon. Members who spoke on the Second Reading of the Bill in expressing gratitude to the Minister for the clear and persuasive way in which he put forward his educational plans for this country. I have thought at times what a relief it must be for him to be planning himself, instead of resisting the planning of others, which he frequently had to do when he was at the Foreign Office. Like many others who failed to catch the Speaker's eye on the Second Reading of the Bill, I would like to thank the Government for the wide and generous way in which they have drawn up the Money Resolution. It seems to me to provide, in paragraphs (b) and (c), an opportunity for us still to contribute some views about the educational requirements of this country. According to the Bill and to the Financial Resolution, this House, through the Minister, is making itself responsible for the entire payment for schools of which the Minister has Control and for practically a 50 per cent. payment for schools of which he has part control. It seems to me, therefore, that this House has a fairly free hand in advising the Minister or, through him, the educational authorities on what is to be the form of education in those schools.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman was kind enough to remind the Committee that he did not catch the Speaker's eye on the Second Reading. This is the Financial Resolution, and we cannot have anything approaching a Second Reading speech. He must confine himself very strictly to the Financial Resolution.

Yes, Mr. Williams; but may I also remind you that I thanked the Government for having drawn the Financial Resolution so widely that it enabled us to make certain contributions on the subject of teaching in the schools, for which financial provision is to be made?

That would be far too much a Second Reading matter.

Of course, I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Williams; but may I draw your attention—I know you will probably have made a study of them—to paragraphs (b) and (c). Paragraph (b) deals with expenditure incurred

"in paying grants to local education authorities in respect of expenditure incurred by such authorities in the exercise of their functions relating to education."

Surely, if we are giving, under this Resolution, the money to be spent on matters relating to education, I suggest, very respectfully, that it is within our prerogative to suggest to the Minister the matters to which we judge local authorities should pay attention in expending this money.

There, again, the hon. and gallant Gentleman could do it on Second Reading or on the Clauses of the Bill, but not on the Money Resolution.

Most respectfully, I am not trying to be smart or anything of that kind, but I understood that the Financial Resolution was not, in its original form, quite acceptable to either the Minister or the House, and that, as a result of certain representations that were made, the Resolution was withdrawn and (b) and (c) were put in, in order to make this Debate as widely spread as possible.

No, the hon. and gallant Gentleman has not quite got the point. They were put in so that the matter could be dealt with on the Committee stage, not on this Resolution but on the Bill itself.

Yes, Mr. Williams, I see your point; but there is a question which, despite the width of this Resolution, I am not sure could be dealt with in an Amendment. That is the point which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, in his most admirable and witty speech, the question of forming a pool of teachers, or potential teachers, from among serving members of the Forces. Even now, casting my mind well ahead, I do not see how it would be possible to put that into an Amendment to the Bill.

It is still more impossible to talk about it now.

I am getting into the strait-jacket of Parliamentary procedure, but I still see one opening. I will leave for the moment the Parliamentary Secretary's most admirable speech, and deal with a matter of very high Imperial importance. That is the question—and I am sure my right hon. Friend the Minister will pay particular attention to this point—of establishing a two-way traffic in teachers between the Dominions and ourselves.

I really cannot let the hon. and gallant Member go any farther on that point.

I admit that that was out of Order; therefore, I will end these very inconsequential and disjointed remarks—that is not altogether my own fault—by appealing to you, Mr. Williams, and your colleagues, when we come to deal with these points on the Committee stage, possibly by Amendments that will meet our wishes, to view our efforts with more kindliness than you have shown me to-day.

I am sure that every Member will be grateful to the President of the Board of Education for having drafted this Resolution so broadly, but some like the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore), who desired to speak to-day, will regret that the Debate is on so narrow a question, but the Resolution is broad, and it will present opportunities for Members when the Bill is in Committee. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) suggested that there should be a 100 per cent. grant. I hope that that will never happen; that would remove much local influence and control. I think it would be a very regrettable thing, because it would remove a great deal of the local interest, and our educational system would tend to become deadly uniform in character. On the other hand, I would like to ask the President of the Board of Education whether, under this Resolution, the obligations placed on the local education authorities by Clause 8 of the Bill can be carried out. Is there sufficient finance available, or are the grants high enough to enable all authorities in the country to carry out their obligations under the Bill? That is all important. It was suggested by one hon. Member that if the President of the Board of Education gave 100 per cent. grants he would then have the onus of providing the standards. I do not want a no per cent. grant, but I want grants of such a standard that every authority will be able to carry out its obligations.

We hope in this Bill to set a high standard of education. The main responsibility for that rests with the President of the Board of Education. We must never place upon any body a greater burden than we know they can bear. If we were to do that, we should be false to our trust. I know that the President is particularly anxious about this: no Member has a higher regard to the work he has done in connection with this Bill than I have; but I want to fix that responsibility definitely upon him. This Bill must not go on the Statute Book until he is absolutely satisfied that every authority operating under this Bill is able to carry out its obligations financially. Obviously, we shall have opportunities when the Bill is discussed in Committee, but I want the President to see that the grants are high enough to put every authority in such a position that it can reasonably be expected to carry out its obligations.

What I had intended to say has been said by the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker), so I will content myself with saying, on behalf of my Catholic colleagues on this side, that we are very grateful for the way that my right hon. Friend has had paragraph (b) drawn up, and we hope that that augurs well for the future.

I want to add to what a previous speaker has said about those areas which will not be able to meet the expenditure involved in the Bill without undue hardship or greater financial assistance from the Board. I admit that, like the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore), I came here to-day hoping that I might get off my chest a speech which I did not get the opportunity of making on the Second Reading. However, I have the good fortune to come after him rather than before him, so I have learned the error of my ways, and I have cut the several pages of my remarks down to a few sentences. I still would like, with your permission, Mr. Williams, to stake a claim on the Committee stage of the Bill on this Question. The phrase "to stake a claim" was used advisedly to me to-day by a man of considerable authority in this House, and, obviously, it was a leader to me on what I could and could not say. Those of us who are not admittedly allowed to say to-day that we represent areas which have a low rateable value, nevertheless, can say we represent counties which are extremely poor. We do not want to see these counties suffer. Naturally, the Financial Resolution as it stands is very wide, and, if we like to think optimistically, can provide the necessary moneys so that we can see in our areas adequate schools and teachers, and the Bill carried out not only to the letter, but in the spirit in which it has been so nobly conceived.

Those of us who represent poor rural areas hope that, in the intervening period between now and the Committee stage of the Bill, the President of the Board of Education will not have allowed his mind so to crystallise that he deprives himself of our valuable advice on this matter, because it is a matter of very great concern to those whom we represent. I believe that I am not allowed to mention that the rating in Cornwall is considerably lower than the rating anywhere else and, naturally, I shall not pursue that point, but it is, nevertheless, true.

Whether it is true or not we must not have any more out of Order truths.

I naturally bow to your judgment, Mr. Williams, but I was going on to say that in paragraph (d)—I am here sticking to the letter of the Financial Resolution—reference is made to the carrying out of repairs and alterations. In my area these repairs and alterations are going to be more necessary and expensive than in certain other areas, and I hope that, in interpreting this particular paragraph of the Financial Resolution, the President of the Board of Education will bear that in mind. It is extremely difficult for those of us who want to voice the opinions of our constituents on this Bill to await a time when, possibly, parochial matters will not have their place in the Debates, It is not out of any desire to be either mischievous or difficult that I stand here to-day and try to worm my way into the heart of the Chair. It is simply that it has been a little difficult to get a Ruling on what we might be allowed to say and what we might not. In view of the fact that Cornwall, like Wales, considers itself to be a foreign country—and there is a paragraph entirely devoted to Wales—I felt that possibly my contribution on behalf of Cornwall might equally well have been permitted to-day. I beg the President of the Board of Education to remember the very dire needs of these rural areas, which have been backward only because of their financial situation and not at all because of their lack of purpose or ambitions. We need every possible assistance from him, and the grant as it stands, I am afraid, will not see the results envisaged in the Bill. I do not say that we should have 100 per cent. help from the Board, but we need far more help than do other areas.

I am completely at a loss to know what would be in Order and what would not, and I will ask your advice, Mr. Williams, straight away, so that I may know whether I shall be in Order or not. I want to discuss the figures in Table 1 of the Financial Memorandum which constitute the estimate presented to the House of money that will have to be found under the Financial Resolution, and, in particular, I want to talk about the capital cost of the building programme which, I feel, has not been sufficiently explained.

This is a fairly complicated table and I would rather like to hear what the hon. Member has to say. If he will keep away from what is not in the Financial Resolution, it will be all right. He can say what he likes about increasing taxation, as was put so excellently from another hon. Member.

I am a newcomer to Financial Resolutions and Memoranda, but as I see it the Financial Memorandum and therefore the Resolution stand in relation to the Bill as the underwriter's guarantee should stand in relation to a company prospectus. When I look at the Financial Memorandum I see no guarantee that the money, labour and materials will be forthcoming when the Bill gets into operation. I am particularly concerned with the lumping together of the capital sum required for the building pragramme with the current charges, like teachers' salaries. The result of that is that in Table 1 we have no idea of the size of the building programme, and yet, in paragraph (4) of the Financial Memorandum we are told that the whole development of Part II of the Bill depends upon whether the material, labour and money will be available. That puts us in a very awkward position.

My right hon. Friend in his speech said that the competing claims in the building industry were such that he could not say whether priority would be given to the building of schools. Can he give us before the Committee stage the capital figures which are included in Table 1? We want to know the burden falling on the building industry, and whether the capital figures included in Table 1 really cover the true costs of the programme as tar as can be seen now. To what proportion of the various types of new schools do they refer? If they refer only to a small proportion, the financial burden of the Bill will be greater than can be seen at present. I do not know what the capital cost of the building programme is going to be, but I would ask my right hon. Friend whether these two comparisons are not fair—first, that it is less than half of the amount spent by the Ministry of Aircraft Production on the construction and equipment of aircraft factories in this country, and, secondly, that it is no more than the production cost of heavy bombers in the last four years. In both of these cases the amount spent has been spent in a considerably less time than that in Table 1 will have to be spent. Supposing we were not here in January, 1944, but say, in January, 1941, and the Minister of Aircraft Production came to the House and said, "The Cabinet have decided to increase the bomber programme; I shall have my production plans ready in three years but I cannot promise any aircraft to the Secretary of State for Air, because labour and materials may not be available." Such a statement in regard to a vital weapon of war would be ridiculous, and a similar qualification in regard to what I think is a vital weapon of peace should be equally ridiculous.

We are given no hope at all that, in the period of reconstruction, any priority will be attached to the capital cost of this Bill. That means that the Government think that there will be such a scarcity of materials and labour even after 1947 that they dare not attach any priority to the schools. I see you looking at me, Mr. Williams, and I therefore want to ask the President of the Board of Education two things: first, may we have the figures on which the Committee can judge the importance of the school building programme relative to other projects of reconstruction; and secondly, will he ask his colleagues to get a priority attached to school building at least equal to the repair of houses and the re-equipment of industry.

The Financial Resolution is important. Unless we can get the finance of the Bill right, any hope of its being implemented must go. If the finance of the Bill is to be put right, it is obvious that the Government grant must be very much bigger than has hitherto been contemplated. I do not agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) that local authorities should receive 100 per cent. Government grant for the whole of their education expenditure. If they were to be given such a grant they would have no claim to local control. But there is certain expenditure involved in the Bill which the Government might bear up to 100 per cent. I have in mind new capital expenditure. This expenditure would only be incurred if the Board of Education had first expressed its approval. Once it had decided that the capital expenditure was necessary and night, the Government must be prepared to pay 100 per cent. grant.

In certain areas there is a special expenditure involved, which will be increased under the Bill with the provision of new secondary schools, such as the transport of school children. There, again, the Government might consider whether a special expenditure of that kind should not be met by 100 per cent. Government grant. The lessons of the past with regard to our not being able to make greater progress in education are, again and again, that local authorities, with the best desire in the world to carry out the intentions of Parliament, have been unable to do so for financial reasons. The only way in which that difficulty can be overcome is for the Government to give more financial help. I, therefore, hope that my right hon. Friend will be successful—and I am sure he desires it—in trying to persuade the Treasury to be more generous to education in the matter of grants. We know from experience of the Home Office in Civil Defence that it was only when the Government were prepared to give 100 per cent. grants for shelters that the job was done. I think that that will happen in regard to schools. I can assure my right hon. Friend that any efforts he may make to try to persuade the Treasury to loosen the purse strings and help in financing this Bill will meet with support from all quarters of the Committee.

I would like to join my voice to that of the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) in expressing the hope that the Government will be able to undertake a larger share of the cost of educational development. All who represent rural areas cannot help relating this enormous programme to the resources of those areas. We are imposing tasks on local authorities, but when we examine their resources they are not equal to those tasks. Thus we come to the right hon. Gentleman and ask if he will be prepared to carry a large proportion of the capital expenditure required for the provision of new buildings, or, alternatively, carry a larger proportion of such items as the transport of children to school, or the maintenance of children, if it is necessary for them to live away from home. In paragraph 10 of the Financial Memorandum there is a sum of £900,000 which has not yet been allotted but which will pass for additional grant to the poorest areas on a basis yet to be settled. The County of Holland in Lincolnshire is not regarded among the first in educational advance at the present time, but that is due, simply and solely, to the difficulties of financing this programme on a local basis. Without consulting other Members for Lincolnshire I am quite certain that this £900,000, divided between Kesteven, Lindsey and Holland, would enable us to do this work to my right hon. Friend's satisfaction with extreme promptitude. But I bear in mind that there are other backward areas——

I think the hon. Member is getting rather far from the point. If we are to refer to every backward area we shall be getting on dangerous ground.

I had a feeling that I had better return to a more prosperous area to bring myself more into line with your view, Mr. Williams. I want to tell the Minister that there is a genuine desire on the part of all people to make our future education plans work, but unless we are prepared to make a clean sweep of this job once and for all, particularly in terms of capital equipment, we shall not be able to do much. This problem of capital equipment is of first importance for many areas, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will allow us to help him in making sure that substantial finance is really available to make a first-class job of his Bill.

I am grateful to the President of the Board of Education for the wide terms of this Resolution. But I am not certain that I have not discovered something which hon. Members wish to discuss and which would not be permitted and, therefore, I want to ask whether it would be in Order for us to move that managers may raise money on the same terms as local authorities.

The hon. Member cannot move that now.

I do not wish to move it here, Mr. Williams. I intended to ask whether it would be in Order to move it on the Committee stage. Would such an Amendment be in accordance with the Financial Resolution? I should be grateful, also, if Clause 96 could be made clear, because I find some doubt among educationists about its meaning. After reading the Clause carefully I have come to the conclusion that it authorises the Minister to pay 50 per cent. of the cost of the new schools. But the Minister is precluded from using the word "new" and in the Financial Memorandum talks of the cost as 50 per cent. of the cost of the "substituted schools." That has caused doubt, and I should be grateful if we could know what is exactly meant.

I am sorry it has not been possible for me to be here throughout the whole of this Debate, but I have been detained on other business. I would like to join with other Members in welcoming the manner in which this Money Resolution has been drawn. It reflects the open mind, not only of the Minister but of the Government in general, towards this difficult and controversial problem of finance in relation to education. I would like to say that if the Government find it possible to meet us on this question of finance, there will not be any unnecessary and unfortunate haggling on the Floor of the House later. I hope the Minister will find it possible to assure us to-day that negotiations might take place behind the Chair, so to speak, in order that unnecessary Amendments will not be placed on the Order Paper for the purpose of bargaining. From the Second Reading Debate it must have been obvious to the Minister that there was a great deal of feeling on this point, reflected in all parts of the House, by Members of all religious denominations, and that the Bill as introduced in its restricted form would not meet with that unanimous reception which a Measure of this kind should meet with if it is to be worked satisfactorily to all concerned.

I hope my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Cardiff (Colonel A. Evans) will forgive me if I say that it is my experience of Parliament that not all is well when everybody congratulates the Minister. To me it looks like the calm before the storm. I have seen that happen before. However, I do not intend to be critical, because I think the Minister has dealt with this problem skilfully, and that the Money Resolution is wide enough to deal with all that the Bill intends it to do. But might I say that I do not think the President would, have succeeded so well, if his Parliamentary Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), were not his deputy?

I want to raise two small points. I sat on the Manchester education committee for some years and that is the only reason why I have any title to speak. I want to know whether this Money Resolution will provide local authorities with sufficient money to make secondary education absolutely free in this country, where that is so desired. I am not sure of that. I was responsible for moving in Manchester some time ago, a resolution to make secondary education free in that city. But financial restrictions came along, and the Government induced the local authority to abolish the system of free education in our city. My next point is this: The real problem about this Money Resolution is connected with the cost of building schools and the cost of each school place. That is a very important issue. I assume that, as happened after the last war, the cost of these buildings will naturally come down in the future, and I do not think we ought to criticise the Government if they are assuming that the cost of school buildings and school places will come down. We cannot possibly think that a house which cost £300 to build before the war and which now costs £1,100 will always cost that amount to build.

In two or three Clauses of the Bill it is intended to alter, modify or, at any rate, amend the problem of educational administration in connection with the employment of children during school hours and holiday time. I am not allowed to deal with that now, but I hope to do so later. I am not bold enough to say that I am staking the claim to speak on this subject later, but I am wondering whether the Board think that by Resolution there is sufficient money to deal with the administration of this very important question. Perhaps we can be told something about that. Having kept within the limits of Order, Mr. Williams, let me finish by saying that I understand there have been some negotiations about this Money Resolution. If my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Cardiff will again forgive me for saying so, I am not enamoured of consultation behind the scenes. If there are any money problems to be dealt with the Floor of the House is the place to deal with them. Whatever private discussions on money affairs there are behind the Chair, they have to come here to be ventilated.

I am sure it is well in the mind of my hon. Friend that in all matters of legislation—for instance, as that affecting the Home Office, with which he was so familiar when he was such a distinguished member of that Department—negotiations have to take place of a preliminary character which must, in the nature and order of things, come to this House for subsequent confirmation. I merely suggested that in the event of preliminary negotiations taking place they should be largely settled in detail before coming to this House.

I am sure there is no difference of opinion on that score. It is always the duty of a Minister to try to make arrangements, but it is the duty of Members of Parliament to see that those arrangements are brought here.

I gathered during the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) that the only thing he said that was in order was a compliment he paid to the Parliamentary Secretary. As modesty prevents me from doing that I may find myself in some difficulty even in dealing with some of the points made by my hon. and gallant Friend in the course of this Debate. But I would like to thank the Committee for the way in which they have recognised the determination of my right hon. Friend the President that there should be no limitation, so far as we can avoid it, upon the discussions in Committee. I think the manly and democratic way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) acknowledged that and said that after discussions had taken place he would be willing to accept whatever decision the House arrived at indicated that the offer was being accepted in the spirit in which it was tendered. We do not desire that at any stage anyone should be ruled out from submitting a proposal to the House on the ground that it is outside the Money Resolution. I have spent more time in Opposition than in office in this House and I know the annoyance felt when one rises on the Committee stage of a Bill with a proposition that seems perfectly reasonable, and when one feels one has the majority of the Committee with one, and is told that the narrow drawing of the Money Resolution has ruled one out of Order. We hope that no one will suffer that feeling of frustration in the course of our forthcoming discussions.

We have had a characteristic speech from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) who suggested an amendment to the wording of Clause 8 that would alter the position of the Minister and the local authorities as it is set out in Clause 1. We are well aware that in England and Wales there is so wide a diversity of the spread of the population and of the pursuits of the people who look for employment for a great majority of our children that it would be impossible to lay down in the office of the Board the way in which education should be carried on, except in the most general terms Therefore, we regard the local authorities as our partners in the work of administration. It is true we take more powers in this Bill than we have hitherto had to spur the laggards. I recollect Lord Eustace Percy saying in my presence that the duty of the Board was to restrain the hasty and spur the laggards. I replied that I had noticed him more frequently exercising his first office than the second. We have drafted a Clause which we hope will enable us to spur the laggards without unnecessarily restraining those who are anxious to experiment. I am bound to say that it is my experience, after 35 years of local government, that the higher the percentage of grant the more Departmental control comes in. I am quite sure that, if this House was paying 100 per cent. of the cost of education, there would be an insistence that national ideas should prevail, sometimes against the legitimate wishes of the locality. I often recollect that, on my own County Council, where at one time we would not meet the men employed on the highway through their trade union, the minute the trunk roads were 100 per cent. the Ministry of Transport insisted that we must have a Joint Industrial Council with our men. While I rejoice at the result, I am not sure that in other cases it might not be wrong to apply the same principle.

The hon. Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb) spoke on behalf of the County Councils Association. We recognise that there is grave misgiving—I use the adjective advisedly—in some quarters as to whether the existing grant regulations, even as we have proposed to amend them, will enable the benefits of this Bill to be extended to secure, as Clause 1 makes imperative, a varied and comprehensive educational service in every area. The principle on which we proceed is that, according to age, ability and aptitude, every child in the country, no matter where he is born or where he may reside, shall have an equal opportunity of developing his talents. We shall have to pay attention to the feelings expressed in the House, both to-day and on Second Reading, that this may be denied to certain children because the incidence of local expenditure may be too high. Last year my local authority gave a boy £230 a year with which to go to Cambridge because they thought that he was worth the investment. A penny rate produces £52,000. In my hon. and learned Friend's constituency a penny rate produces £600. If his local authority gave such a grant people would turn round to see a halfpenny rate walking down the street. We know of these problems and there is a genuine desire on the part of the Board that they shall be solved, because, unless we are able to solve them, it is quite clear that a large number of children of our country, often those most in need of help, will not secure the benefit of great parts of this Bill.

The hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. A. Jenkins) supports the view I take with regard to having no 100 per cent. grant. He thinks he would like to get nearer to 100 per cent. than I, but I hope he will not be too certain of that too soon. The hon. and gallant Member for St. Pancras North (Wing Commander Grant-Ferris) supported the view expressed by the hon. Member for Leigh. The hon. Lady the Member for Bodmin (Mrs. Wright) asked the President not to allow his mind to crystallise. May I say that of all people I have come across in my experience I know of no one with a mind so crystal as the Minister, but I have also observed that he never allows its crystalline clearness to be obscured by letting ideas crystallise too soon. Having watched my right hon. Friend closely for a very long time, before I took office, when I used to sit opposite, I can now assure the hon. Lady that she will be perfectly wise in trying to worm her way not into his heart but into his mind. The hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Eccles) asked for certain capital figures. I want to assure him that we will do our very best to meet him. I hope that on the question of priority he will recollect that it is a very great thing to get into the Pool of Bethesda first. So far as the social reform programme of the Government is concerned, we stepped into the waters as soon as we saw the Angel troubling them. We hope we shall receive the blessings that were promised.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) made a suggestion about 100 per cent. grant in certain circumstances. We shall examine everything that conies from him with the utmost care, but I am not sure that his suggestion that we should rely on the A.R.P. precedent was a very helpful one, because by giving some people 100 per cent. after others had done the job well, we did not get very much satisfaction expressed by the local authorities. In fact there were accusations that there had been a breach of faith in the matter—quite unjustifiable, as I said in the House at the time. We have to be very careful that, by increasing the grant to a considerable extent after certain people have done the job reasonably well, we do not penalise those who have been getting on with the job. For instance, some authorities have got a very long way with the task of reorganisation, while some have not started at all. To give the latter 100 per cent. in respect of jobs which other people have been doing with a lower scale of grant, would not, I think, encourage local authorities to work the grant system in partnership as it should be worked.

What I asked for was that there should be 100 per cent. at the outset for all capital expenditure required by this Bill.

That we can examine, but it may be very difficult to disentangle one from the other.

Does it not mean that the child has been sacrificed in the past because of the failure of the local authority, and that the child is also going to be sacrificed in the future, and does the hon. Gentleman mean to tell the Committee now that the well-being of a local authority is more important than the education of children?

No, my hon. and learned Friend is taking a most unjudicial attitude in considering my crime. We have greater powers in this Bill to compel the local authorities to attend to the child than we have hitherto had. When this Bill becomes an Act, the powers of the Minister will be such that we shall be able to deal with cases where the well-being of the child has been sacrificed in the past.

Presumably, the hon. Gentleman is taking into account whether they can afford it or not? What provision is being made to see that they will be able to go ahead in future? That is the whole point.

The main difficulty in the past was not always finance, but, in some areas, disbelief in popular education.

But who is to judge?

The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Ivor Thomas) asked whether loans for school managers would be available on certain terms. That is a form of assistance, and is, therefore, we hope, covered by the terms of the Financial Resolution. In fact, the Resolution was so worded that such a discussion could take place on the Committee stage of the Bill.

The hon. and gallant Member for South Cardiff (Colonel A. Evans) made a speech generally in support of the speeches made by the hon. Member for Leigh and the hon. and gallant Member for St. Pancras North. We are now at the stage where discussion takes place in this House, and, quite clearly, any arrangements that may be made, or may have been made in the past, will have to be submitted here for the decision of the House. We have so drafted the Resolution that I doubt whether even the ingenious mind of the hon. and gallant Member can suggest a provision so vague as to be outside the terms of the Financial Resolution.

The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) asked whether secondary education would be free. After all, up to the moment there has been no statutory requirement that secondary education shall be free. In fact, there has been no explicit duty on an English authority to provide secondary education. They have done it, and I tremble to think what would have happened to any of them who had declined, but there has been no mandatory requirement. Clause 59, Subsection (1), will make it statutory that all secondary education provided in schools maintained by the local education authority shall be free. It will clearly need another Act of Parliament to go back on that decision, once it is enacted by this House.

But is there anything there to preclude a local education authority from making certain charges, even though, legally, secondary education must be free?

If there is any doubt on that, I will examine the Bill to see, but certainly we do not intend children to be weighted out of certain schools by charges for uniforms and sport, and the hon. Member will find that in Clause 76 (a) we give the local education authority power

"to defray such expenses of children attending county schools … as may be necessary to enable them to take part in any school activity."

Certainly the spirit of our desire is on the lines that my hon. Friend would desire. I will undertake to examine the Bill to make sure that the specific point that he has raised is dealt with.

If my hon. Friend reads the next paragraph he will find:

"To pay the whole or any part of the fees and expenses payable in respect of children attending schools at which fees are payable."

Inasmuch as these are schools at which fees are payable, they cannot be schools maintained by the local education authority. The words my hon. Friend has read enable a local education authority to assist, let us say, a parent who can pay part of the cost of sending his boy to Eton but cannot pay the whole of it. It clearly cannot allude to any school maintained by an authority, because no fee may be charged there. My hon. Friend also tried to draw me on the question of the employment of school children. We have been advised that an Amendment of the law relating to the employment of school children cannot be brought within the Title of an Education Bill and for that reason it would clearly be out of Order for me to say anything about it now but we are aware of the point that he has in mind and he can rest assured that he has the sympathy of my right hon. Friend and myself and that we hope that legislation with regard to this matter, which is not within our purview, will enable a movement to take place along the tines he desires.

With reference to my hon. Friend's question, may I ask on what basis the original figures for cost of buildings are taken, and can he say a word on 76 (c), as to whether a maintenance allowance can be paid in secondary schools?

I have already told my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham that we are considering whether we can make some statement with regard to capital costs and the way we have arrived at them, and I hope that covers the first point. With regard to 76 (c), it is clear that that covers the case of a child remaining at a secondary school beyond the compulsory school age. Let me read the Sub-section:

"Local education authorities shall have power (c) to grant scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries and other allowances in respect of pupils over compulsory school age."

The limitation is not on the school that the child attends but on the age of the child. Once the child is beyond the compulsory school age he becomes eligible for a maintenance grant, of course under regulations which the local authority will make, irrespective of the school he may happen to be attending.

The hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Butcher) suggested that if I were asked to place Holland in order of merit with local education authorities I should not put it in the first two in the country. I will accept that. I hope he will not ask me to say how few local education authorities there would have to be in competition before I could assure him that his authority would have a place, because we have been told earlier that it is out of Order to compare local authorities as between rich and poor, and in that I include rich and poor in character as well as rich and poor in wealth. We have had a very pleasant and helpful discussion. I thank the Committee for the manner in which the Resolution has been received, and we sincerely hope that the good spirit that has prevailed both on Second Reading and in the discussion to-day will remain with us through the remaining days on which we have to discuss the Bill.

I am sorry to detain the House but, if Ministers have other duties to perform, no answer to my few remarks is required and there will be no discourtesy if they find it necessary to leave before those remarks are concluded. I wish to call attention to the necessity, in view of the present state of the law, for special caution in making appointments to departmental and other posts. It is obvious that this is connected with recent decisions of the courts. There is no suggestion or any thought in my mind that those decisions were not perfectly right. The judges in question were capable of directing the jury and, therefore, if any harm happens to the State as the result of those decisions, it is not the fault of the judiciary but undoubtedly the fault of the law itself. I am precluded from suggesting that amending Acts are necessary in this instance, and therefore I am forced to adopt the form. Failing a law which effects this object, there is only one way in which the country can be relieved from the scandals that are taking place at present, and that is by the most serious consideration being given by every departmental chief to the appointments that he makes and the inquiries that he makes into the antecedents of the people employed by him in responsible positions.

I am going to take examples from some time past, so that it is difficult, except for the Ministers concerned, to trace them, because I do not wish to be unfair to anyone. I take it that it is the duty of every Member of the House, more than of any other member of the public, if he has reason to believe, when an appointment is being made to a responsible position in the Government service that that appointment is going to some man who is utterly unfitted by his past to hold such appointment, to convey that information to the Minister concerned, so that the Minister may have an opportunity of making the necessary inquiries, to see whether these contentions are justified or not.

Some little time ago an appointment was being made to a position where the possibilities of a dishonest man enriching himself to the detriment of the country were enormous, and the public interests concerned were of the greatest importance to us, not only during the war but subsequently. Hearing who was selected for this appointment, I saw the Minister and gave him a complete dossier of the man in question—the blackest dossier which could ever be attached to anyone in a responsible position in Great Britain. I had information from a man holding a responsible position in a foreign country. Whether that information is right or not, I do not know. All I can say is that the man who informed me was in a responsible position. He told me that this individual had fled from that country, with a warrant out for his arrest for fraud. The answer that I got from the Minister amounted to this: that it is unfair to dig up a man's past. In view of decisions of the courts, which show how powerless the law against corruption is, I ask the House, am I not right in suggesting that very much greater caution should be exercised over these appointments than has been the case hitherto?

Let me take another case, also dating well back into the past, so that it cannot be traced and no injustice can be done. A very notorious gentleman known to a large number of people outside the House and in it, after standing for Parliament as one of Sir Oswald Mosley's candidates, was received into the bosom of the Conservative Central Office. A Member of this House employed him for some time, I can only say not with complete satisfaction to his employer. He became a member of a university, not I think to the complete satisfaction of the university. Early in the war he appeared with the King's commission at a provincial centre and a local lawyer asked me if I knew anything of the gentleman, because he particularly wanted to know whether he was a truthful person. I said, "Why do you want to know? Have you any doubt? "He said, "He informed a client of mine that he was a Member of Parliament, and I found that he was not. He also told the client of mine that he was a barrister, and his name was not in the law list, so I began to doubt his credentials." I gave my lawyer friend some advice. The gentleman in question left the Army. Later, I was asked about him by a member of a public corporation which had taken him into its employment. He also wanted to know. I told him. He left that corporation. A few months later I found him in a substantial position in one of our Ministries. Again I spoke to one of the people concerned and he left that Ministry. The next time I found him he was in charge, under another Ministry, of very important things on a very large scale. Then I gave it up—I thought that if I still chased him he would probably soon be in the Cabinet.

I give these examples not to amuse the House but to show the seriousness of the position and the callous indifference to the national interest that is shown in making these appointments. You have only to look at the newspapers in the past two years. You get one Department wanting a superintendent of store depots. A man is appointed. Within a few months he is convicted of embezzlement to the extent of over £1,000 and it comes out in evidence that he had only been released a few months from a long term of imprisonment for the same crime. It is not one or two cases. There are many of them, though it is only the bigger ones that come out. It is all, to my mind, a symptom of a lowering of our standards of public life which has been remarked very largely by people outside the House and within it.

We are not maintaining our standards in the way we used to maintain them. Hon. Members will remember that in the summer of 1940 many Members were going about saying, "We are fighting against gangsters. We must therefore employ gangsterism." That is the most damnable non sequitur I have ever heard invented. Because the people we are fighting against are gangsters and crooks therefore we must be gangsters or crooks or we cannot win. The right hon Gentleman the Member for Devonport (Mr. Hore-Belisha) was right, when early in the war he described this as a Christian crusade. This is the cynical attitude of mind which is being shown, I am sorry to say, among us in the House to-day, but it is not really the feeling of our fellow countrymen, who are far from being cynical. After all, what business has the cynic to be fighting this war? The cynic is a man who, in his heart of hearts, does not believe there is anything good or decent in the world, and therefore it is utterly useless to fight against any evil he comes across. I have been accused, myself, of being cynical simply because I do believe this country is the home of a decent and honest nation and that it is possible, by constantly fighting against graft and dishonesty when we see it to carry out the desires of a nation which is essentially sound at heart.

So far as concerns the case which gave rise to this discussion on my part, I am sorry to say that among my acquaintances—I do not say my friends—are some of the worst offenders in this respect, some of the worst grafters that infest the body politic at the present time. Until last Friday one of these acquaintances appeared to be distinctly what we call "under the weather." He did not seem to be enjoying life at all. I happened to see him again on Saturday, after the case had been decided, and I never saw a man so recovered in health and spirit as my acquaintance was after the case had been so decided that it could go out to the contractors of the country that it is possible, if you give an official a large sum of money and nobody can disprove that you gave it to him out of pure affection and for no other reason, that no objection will be taken, if that official recommends you for a very large and profitable contract which you are not very capable of carrying out. That is the position. That is the reason why Ministers must be pressed by this House to be ever so much more careful in these matters than they have been in the past.

Take our present situation. As all the world knows, we are likely to be undertaking, in a very short space of time, military operations not only of the greatest magnitude but also involving obviously very great military risk. We have to steel our minds to the thought that before these operations are successful, we may have suffered several severe setbacks in a military or naval sense. Our enemies—and some of our Allies, by the way—are entirely wrong when they talk about the existence of any appreciable defeatism in this country. It just is not there yet. But the potential defeatists of this country are those people who are making a good thing out of the war. Those are the people I am talking about to-day, and I want the Government to mark this, that if they take the steps I am urging them to take, if they get rid of graft out of the Departments—I am not talking of civil servants, I have come across no trace of it in the regular Civil Service—they must bear in mind this potential defeatist body, which will then become active. So it is no use going into a thing like this like a bull in a china shop because if we have an exposure of large-scale dishonesty just at the same time as a military setback it might result in a situation of very great danger. Hence it has always been my policy to drag these things into the light of day piecemeal, bit by bit, so that we do not get some horrible coincidence of large-scale scandal and military setback.

Therefore there is no time to be lost. The people of this country have to be made to understand that the Government are anxious to weed this thing out. Thank Heaven it does not exist to the same extent that we believe it exists in some countries. This country is supposed to be leading a crusade for all that is decent and honest and in accordance with the ideals of British men and women, and this country therefore must have absolutely clean hands. Finally I should like to repeat that there will be no discourtesy, if no answer is supplied by the Treasury bench on this occasion. For this is really what I may call a declamatory Motion and nothing more.

I have not been in the House a very long time but I have heard a large number of speeches. I have never heard one more mischievous than that to which we have just listened. I think it is a very unfortunate speech. Statements have been made which can very easily be misunderstood abroad. I am very glad that the Civil Service was exempted, but I am equally displeased to think that the temporary civil servants should have been singled out as a body of people, among whom this sort of thing, this graft, can go on. I think it is very unfortunate. I am not going to detain the House, but I have risen to protest against and to dissociate myself from an attack on a fine body of people who are rendering a vast service to the war effort.

I merely said they were temporary civil servants because, in every single case I have seen reported, convictions for graft have been convictions of temporary and not permanent civil servants.

The temporary civil servant has been singled out. What I want to know is what percentage of temporary civil servants out of the large number of those serving the country have been charged and found guilty. I was a temporary civil servant myself for 2½ years, and I mixed amongst many temporary civil servants in the postal and telegraph section. I was impressed by those men and women and by the way they did their work. I have also been in public life for 25 years and I have been a working journalist. I do not claim to have moved among angels during the whole of my life, but I do say that I have not discovered graft to the extent which one might imagine it to exist after listening to the hon. Member's speech. I make these few remarks so that the outside public should know that there is at least one Member of Parliament who disagrees with the speech which has just been made.

I did not come here prepared to make a speech, nor did I know what subject was to be raised. The hon. Gentleman made a number of very serious allegations but he has not, of course, given the House any details of those allegations. I should like to affirm the view just expressed by the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Reakes) that the standard of honesty among civil servants both temporary and permanent is exceedingly high. I do not think any. Member of this House intends to cast any reflection whatever upon the Civil Service as a whole. It may well be that in circumstances of great stress, when large numbers of people have had to be taken into the Civil Service, one or two mistakes may have been made. That may well happen in circumstances of great stress but I hope the House will not believe for one moment that there is any cause for anxiety in general. The standards which the Civil Service has maintained for generations are still being maintained, and the standards are just as high among temporary as among permanent civil servants. I think it would be a disservice to this country if it were to go out from the House that the contrary view was held in any responsible quarter.

If there is a feeling in the country that there are people in important positions who are not filling those positions properly, the Government themselves have a considerable responsibility to bear. The hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson) referred in passing to a case which was reported in the papers, I think last week, a most extraordinary case brought before the courts by the Ministry of Aircraft Production.

By the Public Prosecutor.

Surely the prosecution must be initiated by the Minister in charge of the Department. The Minister in charge of the Ministry of Aircraft Production is a very skilled and experienced lawyer. He brings his case into court, involving, I think—I have not examined this very closely—two civil servants holding fairly high positions, a director of a fairly responsible company and a manager perhaps. The case gets all sorts of publicity. All sorts of doubt and questions are raised in the minds of the citizens of this country on the initiative of the Government. The case, presumably, is brought not merely on the judgment of the head of the Ministry but on the advice of his legal advisers and the Public Prosecutor. The judge listens to the case for a couple of days; it is reported at length in the newspapers and the judge then says, "Take it away. It is just a lot of nonsense, there is no case. The men are discharged without a stain on their characters." But there is a stain on their characters, whatever the judge may have decided, and a very grave doubt is raised in people's minds.

People will say, "If this one case comes into court, what about the others that never reach the light of day?" If all civil servants and these business men doing jobs for the nation have clean records, why do the Government subject them to the obloquy of being hauled into court and exposed to all the publicity which has shone on them, when there has not been even a case that the judge will look at seriously against them? I think that the Government must not attack the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mossley for raising a matter of this sort. They must examine their own methods in these matters and if they have not a case against these people they should not bring them into court.