I count myself fortunate to have caught your eye, Mr. Speaker, at the commencement of this Adjournment Debate, in order to deal with a subject that has in the past, I think, been rather insufficiently ventilated in this House. That is the question of the power of this House of demanding, through a simple process which I shall presently explain, an inquiry into the efficacy and efficiency of our Standing Orders and whether any of them need amending or not, in the light of changing conditions. Before I do so, I should like to make one or two preliminary observations.

In the first place, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House was good enough to convey to me privately, and to give me permission to convey to the House, his regret that he could not be present during the Debate. My right hon. Friend said that this was a question which might particularly affect him as Leader of the House, and that he would have liked to have been here for this discussion but an important official engagement prevented his attendance. I think we shall agree that we are fortunate to have, in the person of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a Minister here to reply to this Debate who has taken a very real and vital interest in the matter and was a very successful chairman of a Committee on the subject some time ago. I am fortunate also to have as my supporters several hon. Members in all parts of the House who are interested in this subject. We do not as a rule, on most questions of domestic politics, see eye to eye, but we have this in common, that we happen to be Members who are not opposed to swimming against the stream of public opinion, in this House or outside it, which I think is a valuable thing. There are quite a lot of people who like to swim with the stream. My hon. Friends and I prefer to swim against it, although some on the bank may jeer at us. I also want to say that I do not, for one moment, attach any sacrosanct character to the suggestions which I am going to make. I do not feel that my political reputation, such as it is, will suffer in the least if hon. Members who follow me in the Debate, including those who are interested in the matter, say that my proposals do not commend themselves. What I have in mind in inaugurating this Debate is to be, if one may use a term of very common military parlance at the moment, a pathfinder, to try to get the House interested in what I think is a subject very important for its future.

What is the situation with which the House finds itself faced in this matter? In the little green book which I have here, and which is so familiar to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen, "The Manual of Procedure in the Public Business," there will be found—I think it is on page 220—the actual Standing Orders relative to public business of the House; but at the beginning of the book are to be found interpretations of them, which, I think it is true to say, are largely based upon the opinions, one might almost say the obiter dicta, of a former Clerk of the House. When the Speaker of the day quotes from one of these obiter dicta, the House listens with the respect and awe shown by Moslems when an Imam quotes the words of the Prophet. That has always seemed to me to be an excessive tribute to pay to a distinguished former official of this House, to whom the modern world and the needs of the modern world are completely unknown. I suggest that we cannot live in a sort of insulated and isolated room, remote from the affairs of the outside world, in the way in which we do our business.

There is a very interesting parallel—a rough parallel it is true, but a parallel—between what I may call in general terms the constitution of this House, and the Constitution of the United States. Just as the Constitution of the United States—which I understand is found by our American Allies to be at times a highly inconvenient instrument of government—is based partly on a written Constitution, and partly upon Rulings of the Supreme Court, so it is true that the procedure of this House is governed partly by Standing Orders and partly—I will ask the House to note this—on the interpret- tations placed upon those Standing Orders by successive occupants of the Chair, based very largely on the opinions expressed on them by a former Clerk of the House. It is true to say that the rigidity of both is mitigated by certain factors; in the shape, in the one case, of amendments conceded by both Houses of Congress and by the Rulings of the Supreme Court in the United States, and in the case of this House by decisions of occupants of the higher and lower Chairs, as well as, of course, by actual Amendments which have been made.

I speak with some diffidence on my next point, seeing in the House several very distinguished persons with a much better knowledge of history than I have. But there seems to be a rough parallel between the circumstances in which both constitutions came into operation. Both constitutions—if I may use a generic term to cover two things which are not quite similar—arose out of revolutions, or a series of revolutions, including a civil war. It might be held that an expression of opinion either way at this moment would be outside the scope of this discussion but I would say that it may be the case that the House needs to arm itself to-day against the encroachments of the Executive and not, as in the 17th century, against those of the Crown.

I think it is true to say, broadly speaking, that the constitution of this House did arise to a considerable extent out of the events of the two revolutions which we had in this country, the actual Civil War and the second Revolution, if I may so term it, when James II lost his throne. Also, as I shall proceed to mention more specifically in a moment, it arose out of the circumstances of the late eighties and early nineties of the last century. What happened in those days is of great historical importance, when considering the history of this House. They witnessed the rise of the Irish Nationalist Party under Mr. Parnell, who, with all his faults, was a very distinguished Member of this House. He was a rebel and his speeches are still worth reading to-day. He said to his followers, as the House will be aware: "You will realise that we are not living in the days of the Whigs and Tories and that, if we all act together, we can smash the constitution of the House of Commons and cause the Government to grant us what we want in the shape of Home Rule for Ireland." That was his argument. That it is a fact has been constantly brought out in books and reminiscences of that day.

He further argued: "There has always been up to now an unwritten rule between the Government and the Opposition that they will not so strain the Rules of the House as to make all business impossible and yet, if you interpret the Rules literally, you can make all business impossible." I have been told by relatives of mine, distinguished Members of the House who were in it when I first entered, that there was certainly a period—I am not sure of the exact date, but I think it was in the nineties or it may have been in the late eighties—when, in the opinion of the Leader of the House and of the Leader of the Opposition, unless drastic steps were taken, the whole procedure of the House would have been brought to an end. I think I am right in saying that on one occasion the Irish Nationalists took advantage of the Rule which then prevailed, of being able to move the Adjournment on any day, to move the Adjournment on five or six successive Parliamentary days, during which no Government Business was got through at all. Consequently, it was necessary for the Government of the day to take very drastic action, and some of that action is reflected, even if only palely, in the Rules of to-day which were intended to deal with a situation that has long passed away.

Before proceeding to describe my proposal for the setting up of a Standing Committee to deal with these matters, I would like to say that it would diminish, in no way, the power and the authority of the Chair. The Committee I have in mind, and whose functions I will describe later, would have no right to criticise or comment on the Rulings of the present or past occupant of the higher or lower Chair. I think the House would, quite rightly, take the strongest exception to any of its Committees possessing such a power, but there is a difficulty here, which I think can be overcome. It is a somewhat delicate matter to deal with, but I think I must deal with it. After all, occupants of the Chair are only human, and in times of great stress and strain, as for example in those days I have been describing, and in the days of the Parliament Bill, when, once again, the Procedure of the House was almost brought to an end—I suppose I must admit by violent combat on the part of the Tory Opposition, and equally violent counter-action by the Government—occupants of both the higher and lower Chairs are apt, quite rightly, and in order to meet a grave dilemma, which if unsolved would mean the disruption of the House, at least temporarily, to give Rulings which appear to be in dissonance, to some extent, with those of their predecessors and the actual wording of Standing Orders.

In other words, in thorough accord with British ideas, they deal with a difficult situation not legalisticallly but by methods of common sense. I think that has been a feature always of the situation when these circumstances have arisen. Sometimes, however, quite unwittingly, this has led to a permanent deprivation of facilities for debate, long after the circumstances have passed which made the curtailment necessary. If, under the machinery which I am now about to outline, an investigation has to be made into a particular Standing Order whose interpretation had been affected in the manner I have described, the Committee could, by an unwritten law which would I think arise in the very first instance, carefully refrain in their report to the House from expressing any opinion on the validity or otherwise of a particular Ruling, by using some such phrase as this: "It was represented to us that the meaning of the Standing Order so and so should be clarified by the addition of the words—or by the Amendment of the words so and so, and the substitution for them of the words, so and so—and we are in agreement. We therefore propose that Standing Order—should read as follows." That would meet the difficulty of the rather delicate matter to which I have referred.

I would like to cite, as an example of the need of this machinery—I think it is the best example—the position that has arisen over the question of Adjournment Motions. The history of this matter is as follows: I have already mentioned that there was one week in the period of stress and strain in the days of the Irish Nationalist Party, when the whole of Government Business was interrupted for a week, because the Irish Nationalists, every day, moved the Adjournment of the Debate, as they were entitled to do, so that no Government Business was got through. The Government had to meet the situation by some immediate action, and it was in consequence of that situation, that the present Standing Order was brought in relating to Adjournment Motions on matters of "definite, urgent public importance." I have not the quotation with me but there was a Debate on the subject in the House at the time. The Prime Minister had to resist a good deal of opposition; I think some came from the distinguished father of the present Prime Minister Lord Randolph Churchill. The Prime Minister was told "You are depriving the House of a most valuable right, that of being able to adjourn the House at any time." The reply he made was that he was not doing anything of the kind, that he was merely bringing in a Standing Order which would give to the House its actual rights and would prevent the abuse of its rights.

For some time after that, the Standing Order worked well. Then in the bitter period of the 1900 Parliament, the present Prime Minister and other opponents of the Balfour Government used it whenever they could, as they were entitled to, to embarrass the Administration. In the 1906 Parliament "young blades" of the Opposition like myself followed suit, usually followed by the Irish Nationalist Party. We frequently succeeded in moving the Adjournment, and often against the private advice of our Leader and our Whips. Obviously, I am a biased witness in the matter, because of my part in it in the past, and I will express no opinion on whether we did or did not cause the original purpose of the Standing Order to be unduly strained. At any rate, the Chair obviously thought that "Jove had been nodding," for, at a later date, the conditions considered applicable to the grant of permission to move the Adjournment, were, literally, narrowed down—I am making no complaint against any distinguished occupant of the Chair—"from precedent to precedent." I am making no reflection on anybody when I say, "Let us take, not this year, but 1935." As compared with 1905, it was infinitely harder to get permission to move the Adjournment on matters of "definite, urgent public importance," though the same Rule applied. That is a serious situation. It requires no reflection on anybody to make it obvious. It is, to my mind, a tremendous argument in favour of some procedure by which these things could be regulated, and this was a very valuable Private Members' Privilege.

I do not wish unduly to detain the House so I come to the actual proposal. Mutatis mutandis I would model the Standing Committee which I propose on the Committee of Privileges. Although only a recent member of that body —and it is not for any member of such a Committee to use an opportunity of this kind to be unduly effusive about its working—I venture to say that it works admirably. We have a most excellent chairman in the Lord President of the Council, and I think it fair to say, without giving away what happens in the Committee, which would be contrary to Order, that there is a complete fairness of approach to the problems before it, by Members of all parties. I would like a Committee, set up in the same way as the Committee of Privileges, to deal with this matter. I would like to see, if that be possible, and if it would not put him in an embarrassing position, the Chairman of Committees made ex-officio chairman of the Committee. I think one representative of the Government, probably one of the Law Officers—perhaps the SolicitorGeneral—should be a member, in the same way as the Attorney-General is a member of the Committee of Privileges. I would call it "The Committee on Procedure."

At first, or at any rate until it was possible to judge by actual experience how the system worked, I would limit the purview of the Committee to existing Standing Orders and Rules of Procedure for both Public and Private Business. That is to say, I would not give it the power to consider proposals made for some completely new Standing Order to deal with a new situation. Here, of course, I might differ from some of my hon. Friends who are supporting my general argument. I repeat that this is a proposal which is put in a very sketchy way. But I think that to allow the Committee, in the early usage of a wholly new procedure, to handle proposals for some novel rule, unknown to our present procedure, would be to strain unduly the terms of reference of the Committee. These could, if necessary, be enlarged later. I suggest, very generally, that the method of approach to the Committee, would be as follows: If not less than 100 Members—I am not tied to any number: it might be more or less, but it would have to be sufficiently large to avoid frivolous applications by small minorities —made the submission that they desired the alteration of a Standing Order or Rule of Procedure, you, Sir, would, at the commencement of Public Business, make an announcement in some such terms as these:

"The requisite number of hon. Members having intimated to me their desire that the amendment of … should be considered, I have referred the matter to the Committee on Procedure."

When the Committee received those instructions, they would call such witnesses as seemed desirable, in the same way as the Committee of Privileges do—they would have the same rights as the Committee of Privileges possess in the matter of calling witnesses—and, having considered the matter, they would report to the House, which would accept or reject their proposals. This would in no way prevent the Government, provided that it had a majority in the House, having a final say in the matter. The House and the Government would be the people who would finally decide. It may be said that, if sufficient Members make representations to the Government that they want the alteration of a Rule, that can be done now, and that the Government, at any rate, can alter a Rule. That may be so; but this procedure would be a more efficacious one, because a Committee of the House would consider the matter from every point of view, not only from the point of view of the Government. Just as, when any question affecting a Member of the Government comes up before the Committee of Privileges, the Committee hear all points of view, so, in this case, the Committee would hear evidence both from those for and from those against the proposed change. I would like to give an example of the kind of reform which I suppose such a Committee would submit to the House. Let me return to this matter of the Adjournment Motion. Suppose that 100 Members asked that there might be an inquiry into the Rule about moving the Adjournment on matters of definite public importance. Let us assume that the Committee give a Ruling like this:

"We think that, where a matter coming within the purview of the Government in which there is widespread public interest, has suddenly arisen, and cannot, under the arrangements for Business in the House, be raised in the near future, hon. Members should have the right to move the Adjournment, provided that a sufficient number of them rise in their places to support the Motion. In our judgment, the Adjournment at the close of Business, apart from the fact that it is often allocated weeks in advance, does not meet this want, because the time is insufficient. We, therefore, recommend the following change in the Standing Order…."

I give this example, because, assuming that there was such a change in the Standing Orders, one would suppose that you, Sir, and subsequent occupants of the Chair, in interpreting the Rule, would also have regard to the Report of the Committee. The Committee, if it is to do its business, will have expressed in clear language the purport of its recommendation. I think it would be infinitely better that the Chair should base its Rulings on the report of a Committee, rather than on the views of a former Clerk of the House, however distinguished he may have been.

I thank hon. Members who have listened to my remarks. All of us who are proud of being Members of the House of Commons are entitled to claim that the prestige of this House has never stood higher in the world than it does now. This is the greatest unfettered sovereign lawmaking body in the world. There is no Supreme Court here, as there is in the United States, to dispute the validity of the laws we pass; and another place has been largely deprived of its powers to interfere with the laws we pass. Surely the immense responsibility which is thus placed upon our shoulders involves us in an obligation to ensure that our procedure is equal to our needs and the country's needs, and that we are not—as we now are, in some respects—shrouded in the grave-clothes of a dead and vanished past. Hon. Members should not fear the possibility that, in a matter of this kind, some cherished ideals, which have hitherto been held in high regard, must be abandoned. Surely, the only question is whether, with the majesty and the prestige by which it is surrounded at the present time, it can, or cannot, do its business properly.

I lay no claim to originality in the suggestions which I will make to-day. I make them against the background of my own experience, and I will try to produce evidence to show hon. Members that this question is one of urgency. The suggestions which I intend to make have been supported, at various times, by the present Prime Minister and by men of great character, who have now passed away, after serving our movement as well as any man could ever serve it—men like the late Fred Jowett, E. F. Wise, and others whom I cannot, for the moment, remember. On 6th April, I put the following Question to the Prime Minister:

"if he will move to appoint a Select Committee that shall have authority to send for persons and papers, to inquire into the future of the Parliamentary machinery and consider how it should best be adapted to meet the post-war needs and, while preserving the rights of Private Members, function with speed and efficiency."— OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th April, 1944; Vol. 398, c. 2167–8.]

I claim that, apart from the question of winning the war, this is one of the most urgent questions the House could discuss. I want authority given, so that this House can have the advice of the Speaker, the Clerks at the Table, Parliamentary Counsel, and all people who can advise us on how to make the Parliamentary machine adapt itself to meet the great problems which may arise after the war. We can all learn something from each other on this subject; and I am confident that, with the same spirit which has been shown, in the main, on the question of winning the war, we ought to be able to adapt our democratic machine, to enable us to profit from the experience of the war. Instead of forcing people to achieve their aspirations by means which other countries have had to adopt, we should so adapt our institutions that this country will become greater than ever. Therefore, I want this Select Committee to be set up in order that we can have a pooling of experience and ideas, so that we can make our Parliamentary machinery as efficient as it can be made, to meet post-war problems, while preserving the reasonable and democratic rights of Private Members.

I was trained in industry to work to drawings. I had to spend a considerable time in equipping myself, mathematically, to be able to build in a constructive way. At the same time, because of world events and their effect on big scale industry in this country, we had to be alert, and to work as quickly and efficiently as we could, and, of course, the country has benefited by the output we have been able to achieve during the war. This building is a very fine building, but it could never have been built, if it had been attempted in the haphazard way in which many people in this country approach problems. There are now under construction in this country some of the finest turbines built in any part of the world. We are also building the finest night flying bomber, namely, the Lancaster, but this would not have been possible but for the efforts of many people, and the pooling of ideas of people who have put in years of work. These machines could never have been built if men did not work to plans.

When I first came into this House, straight from the bench, it was against that background, and, from 1935 to 1939, as I sat here, day after day, I became irritated at the time-wasting that took place, at the frustation of many hon. Members with great qualities and great experience, who never had an opportunity to translate that experience and those qualities into reality in this House. I should never be a party to opposition for opposition's sake. That is easy, but the day for that sort of thing has long since gone by. Although some of us are strong in our opposition to the national system which, during our lifetime, has lacked so much, economically, and refuse to forget our history or those who sent us here, yet at the same time, in these days, the test of men is how they can build, how they can organise, to deal with problems in an efficient way.

How does the hon. Member discriminate betweeen what he is enunciating, and the practice of sitting on the Front Opposition Bench, as a Member of the Opposition, having the right to speak from that Box?

If the hon. Gentleman had been good enough to listen—I have been speaking for only seven minutes—he would have realised that I am just sketching the background of what I wish to submit to the House. Now that the question has been asked may I say that some of us have a very close knowledge of what took place in the Reichstag and also in Spain and in other countries, and we are determined to watch that similar forces shall not take advantage of the situation in this country in order to do here what they have done in Germany, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, Spain, Italy and elsewhere. I will certainly face up to the question which my hon. Friend has raised, because it is a test to see whether a question of that kind can be answered in a constructive way.

I was, as I say, very briefly, sketching the background that stimulated me to take action on the lines which I am indicating. I was only saying that what took place in this House, at a time when the international situation was worsening, leading to war, seemed out of harmony with world events. The same applies to the serious economic problems with which we are faced to-day, and, as far as I am concerned, I am determined to play my part in trying to prevent a repetition of what took place between the two world wars, when this House, in many cases, refused to face questions as they should have been faced.

Here is another example. In 1914, the winner of the Schneider Trophy did 86 m.p.h., and in 1931 it was 340 m.p.h. Now, planes, built by people in industry, built by people who have been trained in industry—trained not to talk, but to build—are flying from the United States to this country in five hours and 4o minutes. Those of us in industry who have made a contribution to the well-being of this country can never forget the great speeding-up which has taken place in industry. The whole of our life has been speeded up. Yet our legislative machinery, in peace time, was, in the main, working at the speed of the Victorian age. In my view, if we are to prevent crisis after crisis arising in this country, legislative machinery must be speeded up in some way. Between the two wars, people in the country—the real British people—were becoming irritated by the rate at which they had to work, compared with the slow-moving machinery of our national Legislature. The war has further quickened up life, and, in my view, the functioning of this House must be quickened in the same way. We shall be impotent to handle the post-war problems, and the problems unleashed by the war, unless we adapt our institutions and meet the needs of the situation in a much quicker way than we did before the war.

The Report of the Select Committee on Procedure in 1932 said this:

"They have borne in mind that, wherever a representative assembly acts as a healthy and vigorous organ of Government, its regulations and forms must be such as, while permitting adequate debate and giving adequate powers of initiative to individual Members, will assist the Executive in providing, with regularity and celerity, for the vital wants of the State."

I have no hesitation in saying that, between the two wars, this House did not provide, "with regularity and celerity," for the vital wants of this country. This is my second experience of a world war, and the people of the world, and of this country, have just had about enough of war. They are, rightly, looking forward to a greater joy in life, to the harnessing of abundance and the giving of security, and, in my view, if we approach these problems in the right way in this House, we can build a greater Britain than most people have ever dreamed of Democracy has become dynamic for war purposes, and my plea is that we must maintain this dynamic force in order to face the post-war problems. We recently sat here for two days considering foreign affairs. I heard most of the speeches that were made, and it was generally agreed that the tone and standard of debate was very high. But most Members who took part dealt only with figures of populations. They talked about the fact that we had 45,000,000 people, and compared that with the large populations in some other parts of the world. I was disappointed that no hon. Member pointed out that, apart from the population, productive capacity played a big part in our standing and strength in the world. I am convinced that, if Britain will prepare herself in order to harness the whole of our productive capacity and the high skill of our people after the war to a policy of full employment, we shall be able to hold our own in the peace. We shall not be able to do that unless this machinery is quickened and made to work more efficiently than it did before the war.

The recent Education Bill was a so-called agreed Measure; there was no real opposition to it in the House. We have a Coalition Government which draws upon the support of nearly all the Members of the House. Yet it took five months to put that Bill through the House. The problem of transition from war to peace will be so great, that we shall not be able to work at that slow rate. Therefore, I am pleading that the House and the Government should give consideration to the need for taking action on the lines I am indicating. I often used to feel annoyed when I heard hon. Members talking about the efficiency of the Nazi system. Anyone who had closely followed what was taking place knew that a good deal of that was the result of deliberate propaganda work by the Nazi propaganda machine. Those same people, after talking about Nazi efficiency before the war, are now against making British institutions more efficient in order to prepare ourselves to deal with the post-war situation.

I want to make some constructive suggestions for the consideration of the House. It is a matter of urgency that a Select Committee or some other appropriate body should be set up to give consideration to the items that I am raising. Since 1931 in particular, and again since 1935, many of the best types of new Members in this House have felt frustrated when they have entered it. There are over boo Members of the House, and when Debates took place many hon. Members—and it is particularly to my hon. Friends on whose behalf I am making this contribution that this applies—seldom had the opportunity of taking part in those Debates, with the result that they became almost heart-broken and began to lose all hope of being able to get in, except on very rare occasions.

There are no more chances for hon. Members on this side.

I agree that this also applies to other hon. Members. It is not good enough that that condition should prevail. Members come into this House from all walks of life with a great background of experience, and there is something fundamentally wrong when you cannot draw on that experience so that it can find expression in the national Legislature. That is only one aspect of the problem. There is another aspect. We have witnessed the great growth of unofficial committees, which are doing very fine work in their own way. I give all credit to the officials who keep them going, and to those who are regular in their attendance, because it proves how interested they are and that they want to make a contribution in the conduct of our national affairs. But in my view the time has arrived when these unofficial committees should be made into official Parliamentary Committees. Before 1914 this country was always in the vanguard of progress in world development. We made a great contribution to world progress, but, unfortunately, after 1919, we no longer made the contribution to progress that we ought to have made. We were left behind by other countries like Australia, New Zealand and the Soviet Union.

I am pleading that Britain should resume its natural historical role of being in the vanguard of progress in world affairs. An indispensable, essential step to be taken towards that end is an investigation on the lines I am suggesting so that we can prepare ourselves for it. You, Mr. Speaker, recently called a Conference to consider the electoral machine. Surely, the next logical step is an examination of our legislative and administrative machinery. That Conference must have functioned efficiently, judging by the announcement made yesterday that already an interim report is being published. That is a concrete example of what I want to bring about. These men pooled their experience and ideas at that electoral Conference in order that such a report could be published, and that is an indication of what can be done with regard to our electoral, legislative and administrative machinery.

As far as my own party is concerned I am on good ground on this matter, because in 1935, in our General Election Manifesto, we said:

"Labour seeks a mandate to carry out the programme by democratic means and with this end in view it seeks power to abolish the House of Lords and improve the procedure of the House of Commons."

And over 8,000,000 people voted for that proposal. The functioning of Parliament must be reconsidered by those who have any regard for the future of our country and, as I said at the beginning, I am only laying down these suggestions as a basis of discussion, so that they will be considered by the whole of the Members. The first need of the Parliamentary machine is to act as legislator, the second to become the national forum, and the third to retain financial control. We shall also have to take steps to protect industry and trade, to bring about the most efficient administration possible throughout the country and to root out bureaucracy wherever it begins to develop. Therefore, such a Select Committee should consider how best our Parliamentary institutions can be adapted to fulfil that task. Since the war a large number of regulations have been introduced and hon. Members in all parts of the House have taken steps to show that they are concerned about the introduction of all these regulations. As we approach the post-war problems, and if we are to handle affairs in the way that they must be handled, there will be need for more regulations. We shall have to consider some policy of devolution, not only so far as the Legislature is concerned, but also in regard to administration.

It would not be in Order to discuss that subject, as it would involve legislation.

Already the Home Secretary has taken action by setting up a Committee to consider the question of legislation.

If a Committee were set up, it would necessarily involve legislation, and this would therefore be out of Order on the Adjournment.

I mean the Committee to consider the regulations. I am only going on to say that this Committee, which has now been set up by the Home Secretary, should also consider regulations of the kind of which I am speaking.

I understood the hon. Member was speaking about devolution.

It is a particular regulation about which I am concerned, and I was going to deal with it in that way, Mr. Speaker. In my view it is upon these lines that the House should take action. The Prime Minister, when he gave this evidence to the Select Committee on Procedure, said:

"I am in favour of what is called an economic sub-parliament being formed which would guide and aid Parliament in all commercial business and financial questions."

Then he went on to give further evidence which supports the plea we are making today. Mr. Jowett, Mr. E. F. Wise, and others made proposals similar to that which I am making. I believe we have to consider these and work on a planned basis instead of legislating in the chaotic way of the past. I agree that the standing of this House is now higher than it ever was, and our problem will be to maintain that standard, and also to deal with the big problems that will arise after the war. In my view, we shall need to adapt our Parliamentary institutions and the whole of the machinery of government of this country, to the handling of problems in a much bigger and better way than we have done in the past.

I think it would be difficult, as both the preceding speakers have said, to exaggerate the importance of the subject we are discussing to-day. I think we are going to hear a great deal more about it during the next 18 months and I venture to suggest to you, Sir, and to the House that this Debate to-day should be regarded as a kind of preliminary reconnaissance into what is really an intricate and complicated subject. In fact in the field of politics it is analogous perhaps to the subject of national currency questions and economic matters. It affects everybody. It is very intricate, it has many phases and aspects, and I venture to think that we shall have to take a full day, if not two days, for a Debate on this subject, if possible in the course of the next 18 months. There is perhaps only one section of the House where a Debate on this subject is, for quite natural reasons, not very much welcomed—and I say it in no spirit of criticism—as we will soon discover if we consult the bible on this subject, a copy of which I suspect I see on the knees of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, that is to say, the report of the Committee over which he presided with so much ability in 1931. It is very interesting there to see the point of view of the distinguished Chief Whips who were examined by the Committee on the question of procedure. Put frankly, from the Whips point of view and speaking as Whips, the less hon. Members know or bother about procedure the more comfortable life is for the Executive and the Whips' Office.

I want to support what my noble Friend the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton) has said, and I welcome very much his suggestion to this Committee. However, I go further than he does along the lines of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) because I think that it will be found to be impossible to tackle this subject in a limited manner. Again, if one studies the volume which the Chancellor of the Duchy is holding, one will see that that Committee, with its very wide terms of reference, was continually finding itself in the dilemma that it wanted to get outside its own terms of reference. I think it is worth detaining the House two or three minutes while I try to indicate why that must be so. If you start a study of procedure, the fact very soon becomes Obvious—which perhaps should be obvious at first glance but is not so always to everybody—that that procedure is a means to an end; it is the method by which, and through which, the House exercises its functions. You cannot possibly start playing about with, or examining, procedure without being drawn into a study of the functions of this ancient and complex institution to which we have the honour to belong.

I know that several other hon. Members want to talk on this important subject, and I shall certainly resist the temptation to attempt an analysis of the functions of this House, or, what I think will have to be done in the not distant future, to examine to what extent these functions need be re-defined in the light of modern conditions. I hope one day, Sir, that I may catch your eye on that subject and debate an inquiry into it. All I want to say to-day is that if one studies the evolution of procedure beginning from, say, the 17th century up to the present day, one will see that it is through changes of procedure that modifications, enlargements, and sometimes restrictions of function are expressed. My Noble Friend made that point very clearly when he illustrated the manner in which, through changes of procedure and custom, this function of the House of raising matters of urgency on the Adjournment has in fact been greatly restricted.

The second reason why this matter of procedure is of much more fundamental importance than some people think—especially those who are inclined to dismiss it as just a series of rules which only a few Members need know about and the rest can pick up in an emergency —is that it is not only necessary that our procedure, at any given moment, should be in harmony with the functional purposes of the House, that it should be so designed that the House can operate efficiently in the carrying out of its various purposes, but it is also extremely necessary that the procedure should be of such a type that the public is persuaded that this is so, that this House is working efficiently and briskly at any given moment. Not only has Parliament actually to be efficient, but it must be seen and known and believed to be efficient by the people outside. That is really the problem of the public relations of Parliament in which I have tried to interest myself and do a little work.

In connection with the Friends of Hansard movement with which I am associated, we have had a great deal of correspondence from all classes of people in all parts of the country about Parliament. We are quite satisfied, in the nine months we have been working, to have practically doubled the sales of HANSARD, but that is nothing to what we intend to do in the future when times are more propitious. If the House will accept my analysis of this correspondence from all over the country, and particularly from the Services, it can be summarised in three points. First, there is undoubtedly a very great respect for Parliament as an institution. I am perfectly satisfied, as my hon. Friend said at the conclusion of his speech, that the prestige of Parliament as an institution never stood higher than it does to-day. Secondly, there is an increase of interest about Parliament. I welcome this immensely because we are trying to stimulate, through HANSARD, as much as possible, an increasing interest in the affairs of Parliament. There was in the nineties a very great interest in Parliament, of course, among a smaller circle of people at that time. Then we passed through a period in which there was a lack of interest in Parliament; now we are on the rise again in the sense that there is an increasing interest.

I must honestly say, however, that I think there is a certain amount of criticism of the apparatus of Parliament, on the ground that it seems, to the outside public, to be cumbersome and rather out-of-date. For example, on a recent occasion when we were debating the Education Bill, proceedings were interrupted for two hours while we discussed the question of the needs of Hull. A great many people who did not understand this procedure thought it was an odd way of interrupting business. There was a lot of confusion in the public mind as to why equal pay for equal work got tangled up with the Education Bill. Of course, I must frankly say that a great deal of this criticism, if I may so call it, is undoubtedly based on ignorance of Parliament, as to how this House works. In fact, many members of the public write or say to me, "We come into the gallery, we see very few Members apparently in the House of Commons. What are they all doing?" Then I explain, and possibly say, "Our Ambassador at Madrid is addressing a meeting upstairs, and perhaps there are 150 Members there." We must do something to let the public know how this place works.

If the House of Commons had as many publicity officers as Ministers have, we should manage it easily.

If I may say so with respect to the House, the proper publicity officers for the House of Commons are the Members of the House themselves. They will, no doubt, take steps in their divisions to do something about this matter. I want to support what the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham and Worthing said, and particularly what the hon. Member for Stoke said, that a body, or committee, should be set up to look into all these matters. But I would like to go even further than the hon. Member for Stoke in that I would not like to see a body set up with limited terms of reference, but a body with wide terms of reference to consider and examine the whole aspects of House of Commons procedure in relation to the modern problems with which it is faced.

To illustrate the width of the terms of reference I would like to mention, briefly, two or three other points which should come within the ambit of the kind of inquiry I have in mind. I want to draw the attention of the House to the danger to the reputation of this House caused by the growing practice of Members receiving subventions from outside bodies. I think it would be desirable—and as it probably could not be done without legislation I must not enlarge upon it now—if the sources of incomes of Members of Parliament were made public property. A corollary to that would be that the funds of political parties should equally be open to inspection, a step which I would welcome. Of course, I am not imputing, in the slightest degree, any unworthy motives to any hon Member who happens to receive money, because he is a Member of the House, which he would not receive if he were not a Member. But I think the public should know it, and we should aim at the ideal of a Member of Parliament being independent of that kind of financial support in order to live. I was actually offered a job not long ago, and when I mentioned that it sounded a big job which would keep me rather busy and asked how about my Parliamentary duties, I was told, "We want you to stay in the House of Commons; that is the whole idea of the thing." I think that is an improper approach to the duties of a Member of Parliament. I am sure it is agreed that it is most desirable that Members should be as independent as possible, and should find it easy to exercise their unfettered judgment. The desirability of this is, of course, recognised because it is a gross breach of Privilege for any outside body to endeavour to bring any economic pressure on a Member to influence his actions in this House.

I understand that the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton) dealt with the Rules and procedure of the House. In what way does the hon. and gallant Member suggest that other extraneous matters can be brought into the Noble Lord's scheme?

The gist of my observations and what I am showing is that I thought it was extremely difficult to deal with a question of procedure without going into the whole question of the functions of this House, and the general position and status of Members.

I suggested that it was well to deal first with procedure, and then we could afterwards widen the terms of reference.

I regard the matter as so urgent that perhaps I want to go a little faster than the Noble Lord. Having made it possible to establish the economic independence of Members—and an increase of salary or expenses would do that—we are still left with the question of how we are to raise the status of the back bench Member. There may be some feeling that this is not a very important matter, but I detect a tendency that the electorate, more and more, want to feel that their representatives have minds of their own and are not perambulating rubber stamps. I think that is a very good sign indeed; the more you encourage independence of action and thought by Members, the better it will be for the honour and glory of Parliament. We ought to think the whole time on these matters of Parliament, because this Parliament is the institution in which we are interested. At the same time, the business of the House must be briskly despatched, and in order to do that we require the machinery of the Whips and the devices of Parliament. I speak as an independent supporter of the artifice of a National Government in times of crisis, and I have no hostile conception of parties as such. My objection to the existing political parties is based on other considerations. I think they have lost sight of their principles, but I will not go into that now.

I want to make a suggestion which I think may be worth the consideration of the House, and which would improve the position of a Private Member without interfering with the mechanism of the Whips and the parties. There is a growing practice—and it is a very good one—for the Government to introduce White Papers in which their general policy is outlined as a preface to legislation. The purpose of these White Papers is to ascertain the general view of the House about the proposals which are to be put into the Bills which are to follow, and in discussing these White Papers the House is exercising one of its great historic functions, as a Council of State. It has been described by the author of the "English Constitution" as:

"Expressing the mind of the people; teaching the nation what it does not know; making us hear what we otherwise should not hear."

These Debates on the White Papers usually arise on a Motion, and my suggestion is that there should be an extension of that procedure. I want to split up the main proposals of a White Paper into a series of Motions, four or six, or, on rare occasions, perhaps eight or nine, on very big Bills. After a general Debate there would be, on each Motion, a free vote. For instance, in connection with the Education Bill one Motion would have covered the matter of equal pay. The feeling of the House would have been ascertained. On that particular Motion there would have been a vote in favour of equal pay. What at present happens is that the Whips go to the Government and say, "The general feeling of the House is rather in favour of this part of the White Paper and there is certain feeling against that part." On this occasion they would have known what the House felt about equal pay. It would have been a simple matter for the Government then to have mentioned their intention to set up a Royal Commission to consider the matter and the Education Bill would not have been held up. Further, Members not able to take part in the Debates on the White Papers would be able to register their opinions for and against certain parts of those White Papers.

Does the hon. and gallant Member suggest that these proposed Motions should extend to matters which are not found in a White Paper, because equal pay was not mentioned in the White Paper on education?

Perhaps the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) will allow the hon. and gallant Member to proceed, otherwise we might get a third speech of half-an-hour.

Perhaps my hon. Friend opposite will forgive me if I do not reply directly to his question. The Government would obtain a much more clear-cut view of the opinion of the House, and I think there would be a better attendance because Members would come in order to vote. I said at the beginning of my speech that I would make a general reconnaissance. I apologise if I have taken rather a long time. All I have attempted to do is to indicate the width and size of the particular subjects which have to be looked into. I strongly support the idea that a body should be set up to deal with this matter.

I think it is entirely right that so late in the life of this Parliament, when there has been so much discussion of reform and reconstruction in the country, we should turn our eyes upon ourselves and see whether we, also, do not stand in need of some reform. My Noble Friend the right hon. Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton) has rendered a great service in raising this matter to-day. I think it is clear that during the last 30 or 40 years, there has been so great a change in the volume and character of the busi- ness of Parliament that fairly fundamental changes will have to be made in the Parliamentary machine. I agree also with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Commander King-Hall) that what will be required of this House in future will be to reconcile the independence of mind on the part of individual Members with the maintenance of the party system. The party system is absolutely essential for the preservation of a strong Government, because without it there would be a development of pressure groups who would bring their influence to bear upon individual members of the Government. Unless the whole Government stood together and protection was given under the broad aegis of the Prime Minister for the time being, it would be quite impossible for any Minister to run his Department without the risk of being compelled to give way to some organised agitation throughout the country. These are some of the problems with which Parliament will have to deal.

My Noble Friend in the more modest proposals which be made to-day referred in particular to the importance of keeping our Standing Orders in harmony with modern requirements. I have had some experience in the last few months of how difficult it is to obtain Parliamentary time, and afterwards to persuade the Government to accept a change in procedure on some particular issue. I feel that if there were a Standing Committee of responsible and representative Members keeping the Standing Orders under perpetual review, it would be possible to have comparatively small and modest changes made by the Committee, thus ensuring that the machinery of the House did not get out of adjustment with modern requirements. Therefore, I very much hope that the suggestion which my Noble Friend has put forward will receive a sympathetic reply from the Chancellor of the Duchy. It is unlike my noble Friend to be unduly timid, but I think he was so to-day, because I feel that it would be a great mistake to empower this Committee to suggest only the amendment of existing Standing Orders and not to allow them to propose new ones. That would be a restraint upon their discretion which could hardly fail to result in producing Standing Orders of quite excessive length and complexity whenever they desired to deal with some new problem and had to bring it within the ambit of some Standing Order of the past. Therefore, I hope that a responsible and authoritative Standing Committee will be set up and given a very wide discretion.

The hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) carried the Debate a great deal further. I find myself in considerable agreement with what he said, but I would put the functions of the House in a different order from that in which he placed them. I would say that our first task is to make and unmake Governments, and, secondly, to scrutinise and criticise the Governments when they are in power. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," and a Government that enjoys the support of the House is none the worse, sometimes, for being occasionally criticised—and, as an hon. Member near me says, on small and minor Committee points, perhaps sometimes beaten. The third function of Parliament I would say is the control of finance. It may perhaps come as a surprise to some hon. Members to know that there was a time when this House did exercise effective control over finance. Then I would say that its fourth function is to be a forum of discussion where issues which are agitating the public mind can be authoritatively discussed. Fourthly and lastly, I would put the passing of legislation.

I thought that my hon. and gallant Friend made an extremely interesting suggestion when he spoke about the value of White Papers and suggested that some of the principles contained in them should be put individually before the House in the form of Resolutions. I have not refreshed my memory on the old procedure of this House of proceeding by Resolution, but when Mr. Disraeli decided to introduce a Franchise Bill, he proceeded in 1866 or 1867 by Resolution. In that way he obtained the concurrence of the House to general principles, and then passed the Act of 1867 based upon those Resolutions.

I think we had the same thing, or something of the kind, in connection with the last redistribution Bill.

I think that is a suggestion of great interest and importance; but I am sure that, as the hon. Member for Stoke said, if hon. Members are to have an opportunity of making the fullest con- tributions to our proceedings from their own personal knowledge, we shall have to extend very greatly the use of Committees. I hope the time will never come when Committees of this House will obtain as much power as Committees have in the United States or in France, because that results in an undermining of the responsibility, the authority and the power of the Government, and I should deplore anything of that kind; but the business of Parliament is now so detailed and so complex that even the most assiduous Member has to concentrate his attention upon certain subjects. The consequence is that it is very seldom that he is able to make a contribution to Debates on the Floor of this House upon subjects to which he has given special time and attention.

I suggest that there should be set up Advisory Committees attached to certain Departments of State or groups of Departments and that they should consist, naturally, of Members of all parties. Let me take the Colonial Office as one example. There is no doubt that the administration of our Colonial Empire has greatly suffered from the fact that there has not been a sufficiently close and informed interest taken by this House in the Colonial Empire. It would be of immense advantage to the Colonial Secretary if there were a group of Members of all parties whom he could to some degree take into his confidence, consulting with them upon what he thought the House of Commons would agree to, because we should then have both informed criticism from the Opposition and informed support from the friends of the Government. Such Committees could also scrutinise the Estimates of the Departments with real knowledge and understanding, which it is obviously quite impossible for the House as a whole to do.

My last point is that we must get back to the use of Standing Committees for the scrutiny of legislation. While I agreed so largely with what the hon. Member for Stoke said, I was a little uneasy about his criticism of the time taken over the Education Bill. That was a very important Bill, one which will leave its mark upon this country for many decades to come, and the 10 or 12 or 14 days given to the Committee stage was not time wasted, but I feel that we should not have devoted so much of the time of the whole House to what was a technical Bill which only a certain number of Members fully understood, or were particularly interested in, and that we should avail ourselves far more of Committees upstairs.

I feel that this Debate has been a most valuable reconnaissance of the ground. I doubt very much whether it would be right for this House, old as it is and at the end of a long war, to set up the kind of inquiry which the hon. Member for Stoke has in mind. But one of the first and most urgent tasks of the reconstruction Parliament must be to make certain that Parliament has machinery which will enable it to deal expeditiously and effectually with the greatly increased volume of work which will then fall upon it, while at the same time retaining that close scrutiny and effective control both of the Government and the Legislature which is, after all, the main principle for which this war has been fought.

The House will appreciate that when the Rules and Standing Orders are mentioned, I feel a very natural interest in the subject, but I hope that what I am going to say will not give offence to any bodies outside the House. This subject has interested me for many years. I should like to call the attention of hon. Members, particularly those on the back benches, to one fact which is highly relevant to this Debate and which goes to prove that back bench Members' private efforts in this House are not necessarily always fruitless. The first piece of serious business that I had to do when I came into the House, was to move a Motion calling for the setting-up of a Select Committee on Private Bill legislation. The Motion was adopted, and three of us sat on the Committee, about 14 years ago, and made a very large number of changes in the procedure of Private Bill legislation which, I think, probably saved the local authorities many hundreds of thousands of pounds. One of the great difficulties about the Standing Orders of the House, as you, Mr. Speaker, know better than any of us, is that they cannot be understood merely by reading them. They are so deeply embedded in the past that the significance of them, the emphasis to be put upon one as against another, can only be understood after quite a long experience in the House. That is why young Members are so often under a serious handicap. They "swot up" the Standing Orders and think they understand them, only to learn that there is no democracy among Standing Orders, because some are very much more important than others, and that a very considerable qualitative weight has to be given to certain of them.

We are governed in this House by conventions and by Standing Orders and by the Constitution and I do not quite know where one begins and the other ends,, because our conventions are largely matters of the Constitution and our Standing Orders are made from time to time by overt acts. Every time you consider how far Standing Orders should be amended you are up against the fact that it would very considerably modify the Constitution. There have been many pedants, among them Junius, who insisted that it was not possible for us to carry any Resolution which modified the Constitution because we are not the makers of the Constitution. We are merely the inheritors of it. As the noble Lord has pointed out, if that is accepted, we are almost in a worse position than the United States, because the United States are clamped in the confines of a Constitution created in 1767, while we go back to the 13th and 14th centuries. So that the remote historical past of this country is now beginning to bully us to a very much larger extent than the fathers of the Constitution bully the contemporary American generation. These conventions affect the life of the House very considerably and I think they ought to be looked at and some of them scrapped, or embodied in Standing Orders in such a way that they can be understood. There is a convention usually accepted by the Chair that certain people have a prior right to be called in the House. The Prime Minister has been so lavish in his appointments during the war that, if that is to continue after the war, and we are so unfortunate as to see these right hon. Gentlemen returned to the House of Commons in anything like their present strength, very few back benchers will be able to speak.

That is one convention which, I think, ought to be considered. There is another. I am mentioning the more trivial ones at the beginning. As the Noble Lord has pointed out, a great deal of our Constitution is a consequence of the conflict be- tween the Crown and the House of Commons. The Government now have the reversion of very many of the Sovereign's rights. I remember making a speech on one occasion and, like all Welshmen, I was particularly concerned about my peroration. I was just beginning it when His Majesty's representative announced that he wanted us to go to another place. I think the time has come when serious business ought not to be interrupted by this ritual. The atmosphere that I had carefully laboured to create was dispelled and I could not start all over again, so that HANSARD lost a really good peroration. I do not want to destroy all colourful ritual, but I want to get rid of it when it interferes with serious business. It is a foolish thing and it ought to be dropped.

The Noble Lord called attention to the desuetude into which our right to move the Adjournment "on a definite matter of urgent public importance" has fallen. The only occasion in my experience when your predecessor, Mr. Speaker, permitted the moving of the Adjournment in this way, was when there was a very large demonstration of unemployed outside the House, I think in 1935, so large that Members could not go in and out. We managed to get the Adjournment on that occasion, but on no other has the Speaker permitted it. This is a very considerable deprivation of the rights of Private Members over the Executive and I think it ought to be looked into.

But there is a branch of governmental activity which is very much more important than all this, and that is the power of the Government, inherited from the Crown, to make treaties. If hon. Members will read the introduction to the last edition of Bagehot's "English Constitution" they will see that that very learned man very much questioned whether the House of Commons ought not to have the right to make treaties. He did not accept the idea that His Majesty alone could make treaties. It becomes very much more serious to-day, because foreign affairs are much more important. Not merely that, but economic arrangements have been made between nations affecting the lives of every member of the community. Are they not to be brought under review and the sanction of the House obtained before decisions are made? Here is a very important branch of our activities, outside the legislative sphere, enlarged from day to day, giving the Government almost tyrannical powers, because once the Government have committed themselves to another Power by way of a treaty, or an economic concordat, they have to be thrown out, before the House of Commons can assert its authority.

Could the hon. Member give an example of a treaty made in recent years which has not, in fact, been ratified by Parliament?

A very large number of instances, but I did not say "not ratified." The hon. Member has not quite grasped my point. Certainly ratified, but the House of Commons has had a pistol pointed at its head. Failure to ratify a treaty is so serious that it means the end of the Government. It is a fait accompli. There is the case of the Atlantic air bases. I think that is not ratified even yet.

An even worse case was the Prime Minister informing the French Government that he was prepared to make a treaty with them making France a part of Great Britain, and the House accepted it like tame sheep.

I am trying to show to what extent the new social context of the modern world has reduced the House of Commons to a very inferior position in its relations with the Executive. There is going on at present a most interesting controversy between the House of Representatives and the Senate in America. Under the American Constitution, treaty-making is a privilege of the Senate, but the House of Representatives is now progressively asserting itself against the Senate, and the other day a Motion sponsored by Robert Fulbright was accepted by the House of Representatives which caused very bad feeling amongst some Members of the Senate. They said the House of Representatives was now attempting to interfere with the constitutional right of the Senate to make treaties. But we have not any right even to discuss treaties effectively, and it seems to me that this whole matter should be inquired into and that the House of Commons, the representatives of the people, should be able continuously to influence what is now becoming a most important part of governmental activity.

I would seriously suggest that what we need to do is to set up the Standing Committee suggested by the Noble Lord in order to make what may be called immediate alterations for the convenience of the House of Commons in the conduct of its business. It is, I agree, an old House and we cannot do it, but, when the new Muse is elected, we ought to have a very much more ambitious Committee. There is no reason why the Committee that the Noble Lord suggests should not be set up, but it seems to me that there is a very much wider question that that. The hon. and gallant Member for Ormskirk (Commander King-Hall) pointed out that the House of Commons will have to adapt itself to new functions. It will have to give away certain of its powers in order more fully to exercise the remainder. We may have to abandon our right to examine certain Bills so meticulously in Committee in order to have a better opportunity of deciding the principles upon which the Bills are going to be made. At present the rules are working only in one way, to the detriment of House of Commons' control over the Government. The argument that we had the other day about delegated legislation is an illustration of that.

It therefore seems to me to be of the greatest possible importance that the House of Commons should now begin to consider what steps should be taken to readjust its machinery in relation to the Executive. The Executive has always found the House of Commons very resilient. People outside speak of our machinery operating too slowly. I can recall instance after instance during the war when, at the request of the Executive, we have passed the most important legislation in a few hours. Our difficulty is not that the Government cannot act. It is that we have not any means of making them act. It is the absence of resiliency in the Executive that is the trouble. Our machinery, at the moment, does not put sufficient leverage in the hands of the House itself, to be able to force the Executive to act when we think they should do so.

I have one more suggestion. One of the most important functions that we discharge is at Question Time. It is the only form in which we can be said to govern the country, because we do not actually, constitutionally, govern the country at all. But we do, by question and answer, bring the administration under review. Of recent years there has grown up a practice on the part of Ministers to refuse to give information. I am not speaking merely of the war years. Questions and answers have become so very important a part of our functions now that we shall need protection from the Chair against the Executive because of certain practices which were beginning to arise even before the war. We must have the right to have certain information. Ministers must always give full and exact answers They often give inexact replies deliberately, because there is behind the Government a huge apparatus of civil servants, many of whom appear to think they are at war with the House of Commons. It is not their function to serve the interests of the Government by obfuscating the minds of Members of the House of Commons. I could make one or two suggestions for improving Question Time in the House. One hundred years ago only Too Questions were asked in one year. Hon. Members have only to look at the Order Paper to-day to see the important function that is served by Question Time, but it needs to be renovated, if it is to do its full service to the House. I am extremely grateful, as the whole House is, to my Noble Friend for raising this matter to-day. I hope that the Committee he suggests will be established and that when the new House meets, it will give this matter its earliest consideration. I put the adaptation of our constitutional procedure to meet the needs of the new world first among our preoccupations.

I want to join with my hon. Friend in thanking my Noble Friend for bringing this matter forward. He has always been the champion of the rights of this House. He has not confined his championship to his own party, but has always with great generosity extended it to other parties in the House. I do not pretend to have the knowledge that my Noble Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) have of the procedure of the House. By the way, may I congratulate my hon. Friend on the fact that his very zealousness over the years for the rights and Privileges of Parliament has, as I see in this morning's papers, obtained its own reward in that the sword of Damocles over his head has been withdrawn for the reason that it might infringe on the Privileges of the House of Commons.

Did the hon. Member say "sword of democracy"?

The Noble Lord rather confined his remarks to procedure, although he suggested that the proposed Committee should have rather wider scope. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Commander King-Hall), on the other hand, went into the whole question of the machinery of government, which is a much bigger issue. We might get some clarification as to whether the suggested Committee should confine itself to the Rules of Procedure of this House, or whether its duties should be enlarged to cover the whole question of the machinery of government and the general conduct of the Executive. I am glad to hear my hon. and gallant Friend, who deserves a tribute for the work he has done for HANSARD, refer to the prestige of this House. We are told from time to time that that prestige has been lowered, but I am glad to hear the testimony of my hon. and gallant Friend that that is not so. It coincides with all the information I gain from contacts in my constituency.

I think that my Noble Friend has made a case for the setting up of a Committee, although it must be agreed that this House has at times shown an elasticity which is surprising. We have seen over and over again during the war legislation passed through the House with a rapidity referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) in his allusion to the modern aeroplane versus the old form of transport. He considers that this House should be much improved in the rapidity with which it can carry legislation, but I do not agree with his contention. The whole purpose—or one of the main purposes—of Parliament is to delay legislation. The recent Education Bill was preceded, by preliminary negotiations with many outside bodies, and a great deal of work by the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary for many months. Then it was subjected to the intelligence and wisdom of the House. Would anyone suggest that, after all that, it did not leave the House an infinitely better Bill than when it was originally presented?

The late Lord Balfour said that the art of government was the most difficult art in the world. The art of framing a Bill and of carrying out legislation is an art which can only be helped by the House of Commons as a body associating with the Government. The Noble Lord concentrated the burden of his argument on the particular procedure governing the Adjournment of the House on a definite and urgent matter of public importance. In the 15 years I have been in the House I do not recall that Adjournment being granted on more than one or two occasions. I remember my hon. Friend the Member for Eye (Mr. Granville) had the temerity at the time of the Singapore crisis to try to secure the Adjournment of the House on a matter of definite and urgent public importance,. but your predecessor, Mr. Speaker, refused it. I have seen examples more than once of occasions which the House considered urgent when Mr. Speaker declined to allow the Adjournment to be moved. In time of war it is difficult to define what "urgent" means because everything is, in a way, urgent. War itself is urgent. There is, however, a variation of the meaning of "urgent" in time of peace. In the placid waters of peace the word "urgent" becomes more clearly outlined. I am sure that the House agrees with the purpose of my Noble Friend, and I trust that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will in his reply be able to agree with the general wish of the House that a Committee should be set up.

It is good that we should be able in a reflective sort of way to discuss the question introduced by my Noble Friend. It was refreshing to listen to the Noble Lord, especially when he was giving some of his early experiences. They show that he has some Irish blood which made him sympathise so much with the Nationalist Party. It is always refreshing to listen to the reflections of a reformed poacher, and the reflections of the Noble Lord were no exception to that rule. I had the pleasure a week or two ago of listening for 67 minutes to the Home Secretary speaking on this important subject to an all-party meeting in Yorkshire. If hon. Members read the verbatim report of what the right hon. Gentleman said, I think that most of them would be in agreement with him. The leaders of all parties who were present on that occasion gave their approval to what the Home Secretary said. He emphasised the dangers of delegated legislation. There is no doubt that in the coming days we shall have to speed up the passing of needed legislation, at any rate in the new Parliament. The recent Education Bill was under consideration for 19 days, and there were something like Zoo pages of Amendments for discussion in Committee. If ever there was an example of a Committee realising that it was a Committee of State and not a factious Committee, it was the Committee of the House which discussed the Education Bill. If it had been a factious Committee, it would have taken, not 19 days, but nearer 19 weeks to go through the Bill.

We shall have to make more use in future of Standing Committees, not merely for Private Members' Bills but for the more important Bills introduced by the Government. That will save a good deal of the time of the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) made me somewhat reminiscent when he mentioned the late Member for West Bradford who introduced the idea of Standing Committees. I differed from the late hon. Member because it appeared as if he were trying to imitate the Standing Committees of the American Congress, and I did not think we should do that because some of the Congress Committees simply serve to delay legislation. We, on the other hand, want to endeavour to speed up legislation and to increase the prestige of Parliament in so doing. We should lose no opportunity of increasing that prestige, although I am convinced that it never stood higher in modern history than it does to-day. One of the reasons is that we have dissipated the idea of factious opposition, and humbly we try to make ourselves a Council of State in order to meet whatever crisis may come our way. It much depends not upon committees but upon our own general conduct. The standing and prestige of the House of Commons slumped from 1918 to 1922 more than in any other period in modern times, largely because there was no real opposition. The 1918 Parliament was really nominated by the right hon. Member for Caernarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) and it was an almost unmitigated disaster. I have very unpleasant recollections of the 1929–31 Parliament, when we faced a factious opposition. I still remember the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) coming in with his partisans and conducting a guerilla warfare which kept us up to all hours of the night and the next day as well. If we had realised that we were facing what the right hon. Member described as an "economic blizzard," some of the ills encountered after 1931 might have been better surmounted.

Treaty-making has been mentioned. On 4th August, 1914, even some Members of the Cabinet were not aware that the late Sir Edward Grey had made a secret treaty with France. Only the inner Cabinet were aware of it, so far as my memory serves me. We want continuity of policy, and greater interest in foreign affairs. Under the regime of the late Marquis of Salisbury and Sir Edward Grey, we find that the Members of the House took very little interest in this vital subject. I am sorry that the National Labour Member—as he formerly was—for Ormskirk (Commander King-Hall) should have reproved some of us because during the proceedings on the Education Bill we had to defend a municipal Bill for two hours. That time was not wasted.

I think my hon. Friend has misunderstood what I said. I said that the outside public were unable to understand it.

The hon. and gallant Member's friends compelled that Debate, and we were compelled to take our stand to defend the city of Hull. We will do it again, if we have the chance.

The hon. Member still misunderstands the point.

Well, I will carry on. It was not a waste of time to devote a couple of hours to a great city. I repeat it and emphasise it. I suppose that I have contacted more male members of the younger generation these past few months than most other Members of this House. If was heckled for seven and a half hours in Scotland at two great schools. Those young fellows were interested in this House. They tried to understand our procedure, but sometimes I think they were puzzled. They were told about Question Time, which is unique in any Parliament and is one of the greatest institutions that tradition has passed down to us. They asked questions. As I say, I have been asked hundreds and hundreds of questions and have tried to answer them. I have been heckled, quizzed and so forth. This great institution can live, if we make it live by our own conduct in seeing that we do not descend to mere factious opposition, and indulge in factious delay. I am grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for Ormskirk and to other hon. Members for initiating this Debate.

I understood that the purpose of this Motion was the facilitating of business and speeding-up of procedure, but there, is one omission—

There is no specific Motion before the House except the Motion for Adjournment.

The one omission in the proposals that have been suggested is the curtailing of the length of speeches of Members. That would facilitate business. Nothing is more annoying than to hear a Member meandering on for half an hour, constantly repeating himself, while others waiting to get a chance to speak may never have an opportunity of being called. If the proposed Committee is set up, I hope that one matter it will consider, will be a time limit on speeches. At the Trades Union Congress business is carried on, with a limit of ten minutes for the mover of a motion, and five minutes for every other speaker. Something like that can be done in this House. I never speak for longer than a few minutes, knowing that others want to speak and I want to give them a chance. If more of that consideration was shown, it would facilitate matters.

I rise to say only two things. In the first place, I find myself in the peculiar position of concurring with the Noble Lord who introduced this Debate. I trust that such concurrence may in the future be reciprocated. I support his demand for a Standing Committee to go into the matter of Parliamentary procedure, but only provided it is not limited to considering practices of the House that are indicated in print; in other words, practices that only appear in the Standing Orders and such like. For there are many unwritten practices of this House that should be revised. For example, when is a Vote of Confidence really a Vote of Confidence? There is also the question of the excessive powers of the Whips, which, I have indicated before, cry out for revision, and that certainly comes under the heading of Parliamentary reform. There are other matters that are not laid down in the Rules of procedure that should be considered by such a committee, if and when it is set up. In view of the fact that I take a very keen interest in this subject of Parliamentary reform and consider it to be one of paramount importance, it was my desire to-day, I must admit, to make a somewhat lengthy speech on the subject. But as time is short, for I understand that you, Mr. Speaker, have many more items on your menu to-day, and you do not want any of them to be "Off," and as I had an innings on this subject on the Adjournment a few weeks ago, I do not want to abuse the very real consideration which you have shown to such a minority as myself. Therefore, Sir, I am going to content myself with endorsing what has already been said by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Commander King-Hall) and other hon. Members who have taken part in the Debate, when they have stressed the necessity and made the demand that, at some time in the near future, at least a full day should be given by the Government to the discussion of this wide and significant subject. It could then, to some extent, be comprehensively covered.

I am sure that the whole House is indebted to the Noble Lord for having taken the initiative in raising this subject to-day. I sometimes divide the 612 unofficial Members of the House into two kinds, those who are Members of Parliament and those who are House of Commons men. If I were asked for my own simple definition I would say that a Member of Parliament is a person who is concerned with his own Questions, and his own speeches, while a House of Commons man is a man who is concerned with other people's Questions and speeches, as well as with his own. It is very good for the House of Commons to look at its own procedure, not in terms of persons or parties, but as the House of Commons, one of the great institutions of the world, and not merely of this country. It is very interesting that this Debate should be taking place in 1944, when we reflect that the first edition of the great volume to which my Noble Friend referred, the production called "Erskine May," was issued in 1844.

I think my Noble Friend must have fore-shortened his history a little, because we are really not paying deference, when we consult Erskine May, to one man long ago, but to a succession of very able servants of this House. The present edition happens to be the 13th of that great standard manual of Parliamentary procedure. It is also interesting to note that, whereas the first edition of Erskine May, produced by that long-ago Clerk to the House, contained 50o pages, the current volume has 914 pages, and requires an index of no less than 71 pages, showing that in the course of the century there have been great developments in Parliamentary procedure and practice. Not only that, but it shows that there has been continual adaptation of that procedure to the growing political and social needs of our national and Parliamentary life.

It is never out of date or out of time to discuss these issues. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) was quite right when he pointed out that, in order that this great institution should function successfully, it is necessary not only to have things written out, but to have conventions observed. All young Members of the House would agree with him about the division of the House, but when he was speaking about right hon. Gentlemen, I recalled a brilliant lecture delivered by the late Mr. Birrell to his then constituents in West Fife, at Cowdenbeath, in which he pointed out to the miners there, nearly half a century ago, what my hon. Friend has been pointing out to-day, namely, that the real division of this House was not between the Government and the Opposition, but between the right hon. Gentlemen and the rest. Said Mr. Birrell:

"If my hearers want to understand why that is, it is for the simple reason that the right hon. Gentlemen get all the first cuts off the joint."

I happened to re-read that lecture the other day, and it is very interesting to note that the issues raised to-day, while in a new form and facing new conditions, are really the old issues. They are no: merely the issues which affect our Parliamentary procedure, but they have, during the long development of Parliamentary institutions in various parts of the globe, been found in every Legislature that has attempted a form of democratic government. The participants in the Debate have fallen into two groups, consisting of those who desire, as the noble Lord desires, in his own modest plea, a particular piece of new machinery in order to deal with the actual practice and procedure, the Standing Orders and the working of this House—that is a narrow isue—and those who think the time ripe, or not quite ripe. But I gather from the speeches that there is a general consensus of opinion that the time to have a real reconstruction of the whole machinery of government and of Parliamentary procedure, in particular, over its whole field, should be when the new Parliament assembles after the victory is won rather than now. I hope to report in that sense, not wrongly, I hope, to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.

The issues are really profound, and in my experience as Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure in 1931-32, especially in the early part—it is unfortunate that the election came between the two sittings, so that the Report is not in one volume—the things that really matter, the views of those who gave evidence, are in the previous volume. It was made clear to Members of that Committee that when you come to deal with Parliamentary procedure you get two fairly sharply divided views. There are the views of those who desire to increase the power of the majority to get its way, and the views of those who desire to increase the power of the independent 'Members and of the minority in the House at any time to stage opposition to the majority of the day.

Just to have a fair share.

I am making no adverse comment. I am stating facts as they were illustrated then, and as they have cropped up in this interesting Debate today. I had, perhaps, better remark that there are hon. Members who may be on one side of the fence on one occasion, and on the other at another. That brings me to a comment of the hon. Member for East Hull (Mr. Muff) when he brought the HOUSE back from the mechanics and procedure of Parliament to the fundamental fact that whatever the Rules may be their working will depend not on machinery but on the Members. [Interruption.] That may be, but we decide how they shall work the machine, and no machine will work better than the Members concerned. That is the point I am making now. It is quite natural that my Noble Friend expected the Debate would take this course. Once you touch procedure at any point you go into history, you cannot help it, because our Parliament strikes its roots so deeply in the past that there is scarcely a feature of this procedure that can be made intelligible without reference to history. It is, therefore, an interesting fact that the classic work from the constitutional and historical point of view should not have been written by an Englishman at all but by the Austrian Redlich in that very remarkable work on the history and constitutional aspects of Parliament.

I will not go into the points raised by two hon. Members, including the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson), about the order of precedence of the functions of Parliament except to say that I think that when Members go back to that great authority they will find his triple analysis is, in the light of their own experience, roughly right. He begins with legislation, then talks about finance, then he talks about criticism, including the power of controlling the Executive. That is his logical and historical analysis of the functions of Parliament. I am not sure that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) will get all the Members of the House to agree that ritual is without its meaning or its use, such as, for instance, the coming of Black Rod to the House at a particular juncture.

The very last thing I would wish to convey is that I want to abolish colourful ritual, but I do not think that ritual ought to overlay the contemporary needs of Parliament.

If the hon. Member had a little patience I intended to say that I think he overlooked this: there is a double convenience in this convention in Parliament, not only the convenience of the Member who is actually speaking, but the convenience of Members of another House, which is at the moment part of the Constitution.

I hope I shall not be out of Order in saying that it is absurd and intolerable that this medieval procession, accompanied by what might be described as a good deal of mummery, should arrive in the middle of a speech in this House. Why could it not be arranged, by simple timing, to take place at some time at the beginning?

The answer is that the arrangement is, as far as possible, that way. I am not expressing a view of my own at all. My Noble Friend holds his views, but I do not think he will find them generally shared in all quarters of the House when he describes that as mummery. Indeed, I have noticed, when showing many parties of constituents round the House, that some hon. Members who are most keen about altering things are among those who describe this particular episode in Parliamentary life at the greatest length and with the greatest glee to their own constituents. We may perhaps differ about it.

Bring out the elephants and the monkeys!

My Noble Friend is using metaphors, but neither of us knows how the mind of the monkey or the elephant works. So we will leave it there.

In this Debate there has been criticism based on the need for relieving Parliament of part of the business which, it is said, clogs its machinery. On the other hand there has been criticism based on asking for an actual amendment of the procedure so that Parliament may be able to do more legislative work in the time at its disposal and increase its efficiency as a critical and a controlling Assembly. That is where the major division always comes—between those who hold a view that we ought to facilitate Bills and deal with a larger number of Bills, and those who take the view that Bills ought to be few in number, good in quality and well considered. That is common to every discussion that arises on this issue.

On the wider issue the House would not expect me to add anything to what the Prime Minister said less than three weeks ago. At the moment it must be clear to all who have watched the growth of our life, political, social, industrial and economic, and who have seen the complexity of the modern problems in every sphere which have been referred to by various hon. Members, that we shall have to make sure that the Parliamentary machine is, as the Noble Lord said, apt and fitting to do the work which this country will want it to do in the light of the world situation in the days immediately after the war.

Before the right hon. Gentleman concludes—I do not expect him to enlarge upon it of course—may I ask him whether he will convey to his right hon. Friend the view that the extension of the treaty-making powers of the Government is beginning to give some of us concern?

Perhaps I was leading the hon. Member to think I was about to sit down a little sooner than I purposed. I was also going to say that there have been, apart from that major issue, one or two pleas on the interesting and important question of the conventions of the House. The question has arisen whether my Noble Friend's limited series of conventions should be the terms of reference to a committee, or whether, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for St Marylebone (Captain Cunningham-Reid) suggested, there should be a far wider range. There is also the question raised by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale and by the hon. Member for East Hull, of the power of the Government to make treaties, and the whole range of questions brought by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith), which covered the whole economic, industrial and social lay-out. Indeed, his points raised the very large issues which were brought before the Select Committee in 1931, not in detail but in general form, and from one point of view, by the present Prime Minister in discussing an economic Parliament as well as a legislative Parliament, and by a series of suggestions raised by the late Mr. F. W. jowett and the late Mr. E. F. Wise. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has had an opportunity of reading the cross-examination. I think that on the whole the House would feel that that proposal did not stand up too well to the cross-examination of that Committee.

Coming back to my hon. Friend the Member for East Hull, I think he was right in bringing the Debate back not merely to the machinery but to the persons. There was a Select Committee on Public Business in 1848. This is what it said:

"It is not so much on any new rules, especially restricted rules, that your Committee would desire to rely for a prompt and efficient dispatch of business, but increasing business calls for increasing consideration on the part of Members in the exercise of their individual privileges. Your Committee would desire to rely on the good feeling of the House, on the forbearance of its Members, and on a general acquiescence in the enforcement by the Speaker of the established rule of the House which requires that Members Should strictly confine themselves to matters immediately pertinent to the subject of debate."

Old words, wise words. Perhaps I might be allowed to add one other sentence in passing regretfully from this very vital and fundamental issue. In drafting the Report of 1932 I had regretfully to add that it had been the record of every Select Committee up to that time that it had ended in the restriction of opportunities for Private Members and the increase of the power of the Executive of the day.

There is the question of a time limit on speeches.

On that I would say that the general opinion of the Committee was that it really is the good sense of the House that is wanted, not new Rules.

I am glad to have this opportunity of raising a question which vitally affects the small man. The incidence of war falls unevenly, in its hardship, on different classes of the community, and on no class does it fall more heavily than upon the individual small traders and small shopkeepers. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, in the course of an Adjournment Debate last February, expressed his own sympathy with the lot of the small man. I am sure we have his sympathy; but this House ought to ask whether everything possible is being done to relieve the lot of the small man, and to make it easier for him to struggle on. I am certain that it is the wish of this House that everything possible should be done to enable him to go on, or to start afresh at the end of this war. I put a Question to the Minister some time ago, the effect of which was whether, when anyone was being called up from a small shop, and his going meant the closing down of the shop, the Minister could alleviate his lot in any way, and help him to tide over his difficulties as long as possible. The Minister said:

"I have no evidence that the principles and procedure followed … are not adequate to deal with cases of exceptional hardship amongst small shopkeepers, but, if my hon. and learned Friend has any particular case in mind where he feels that exceptional hardship has occurred, I shall be glad to look into it."

If that means that the Minister is satisfied with the lot of the small trader who is being called up, I profoundly disagree with him. I hope to persuade the Minister that there are ways in which the small man can be helped. Also, I deprecate this habit of meeting a large class of cases by saying, "I am prepared to consider any special case, and try to meet it in any way I can." That is dangerous, from the point of view of the subject, because not everyone knows that he can go to his Member of Parliament, and not everyone likes to bother other people when he has any grievance or trouble; therefore, many cases must be overlooked which involve hardship, which, no doubt, the Minister would relieve if he knew about it. It is undoubtedly true that hard cases make bad law, but if there are enough hard cases it is a clear indication that the law as it exists is bad and should be improved. The Minister, in reply to a supplementary question, said:

"If my hon. and learned Friend can show that any action which I am taking is treating this class of people unjustly compared either with the co-operative societies or the other multiple concerns, no one will be more anxious than myself to look into it, because I am particularly careful to try to be fair between those classes."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd March, 1944; Vol. 398, C. 1017-5018.]

I accept that. I want to show him that there is a distinction, and that he ought to look into it, to see what he can do. I will not weary the House with a lot of cases, although I have had a number of cases sent to me since I put down my Question; but I will describe one case, which symbolises a number of others, and which is particularly appropriate. Three brothers had shops in Glasgow. Each of those brothers had a family, who lived on the profits made by keeping the shops. Shortly after the war began, two of the brothers were called up, and two of the shops closed down, leaving one brother to support not only his own family, but his brothers' families and an old mother, who was dependent on him. Seven or eight months ago the remaining brother was called up. He appealed to the hardship tribunal, who twice gave him deferment, of three months each time. Then he faced the tribunal again, and was told that no further extension could possibly be given. I may say, and I hope that the Minister will take note of it, that the chairman of the tribunal said that he had no sympathy at all with the case. No man who could say anything of that sort, in such a case, is fit to be chairman of an appeal tribunal. I think it was most improper. Some people are apt to forget that they are servants of the public, and not their masters.

What then happened in this case? The man was asked to go to a labour bureau, where he was seen by an officer. This officer, if my facts are correct, as I believe them to be, told that man, "You need not go into the Services if you are prepared to accept a position as an employee of a co-operative stores in Lerwick." It seems to me that, to take a man away from his natural duties of looking after his own and his brothers' families, of keeping their concern alive, so that when his brothers came back they could all start again, is a terrible hardship, which ought to be put right. I feel that the Minister is not using some of the powers, which this House gave him, to relieve those people. Under the National Service Act, we gave him power to issue certificates of exemption. These involved no appeal to tribunals. There is no reason why he should call any person up, even if he does not like to give a certificate of exemption, if the facts show that there is hardship, which ought to be relieved. I think every Member will agree with me that once anyone is within the meshes of the appeals tribunal system, it is only a question of time before he goes, his time of exemption finished. I want the Minister to look into the whole of this subject, to see whether he cannot make an arrangement so that those hard cases do not come within the machinery which must eventually force a man out of his shop and into the Services.

Of course, there are different classes of people. There is the man of military age who can fulfil his service to his country in the most active fields. There, the Minister has his duty to see that, at whatever cost, the service is performed. But it is very different when you come to people who are going to be directed to some other branch of trade or industry. Particularly I would ask the Minister to lay down that, wherever anyone is being taken away from his own trade or employment, he should not be forced to go into a competing business, as his national service.

The hon. and learned Member has made two statements which, he has admitted, are hearsay. Can he name the co-operative society or the employment exchange, or give any substantial evidence of where the incident occurred? The Minister, and probably the trade unions, would be glad to investigate the accuracy of the hon. and learned Member's statements.

I am much obliged to my hon. Friend. The case occurred in Glasgow. Full particulars are being sent to the Minister. The co-operative store was at Lerwick. Obviously, I do not want to tire the House with masses of detail, but I can assure my hon. Friend that full particulars will be given to the Minister, and that they will be communicated to the hon. Gentleman if he wishes to have fuller details than I have been able to give the House. The lot of the small shopkeeper is made worse by the fact that he has competitors upon whom the burden is not falling so heavily. The effect of that competition is to worsen his position while he is away, and to make it more difficult for him when he returns. For that reason alone, I think that fuller consideration should be given to the matter. Knowing the susceptibilities of some hon. Gentlemen opposite, I want to be quite fair. I do not- want to make statements of my own to which exception might be taken. That there is this conflict of interest between the ordinary small shopkeeper and the co-operative stores has been stated, in no uncertain terms, by one of the leaders of the co-operative movement, a person whom I have met, and for whom I have great respect, a person who has recently been honoured by the Secretary of State for Scotland by being put on the Scottish Hydro-Electric Board. This gentleman, Mr. Neil Beaton, spoke at a conference at Skye, in the middle of February. After saying that the co-operative societies hoped to open shops in every town and village in the Highlands, he made it clear where, in his opinion, the small man stands. I will quote his words:

"There is a fight. The small shopkeeper will have to go, whether he likes it or not, and I am confident that, despite the power of the Press, we shall win."

I heard, although I never saw any contradiction, that this report had been questioned. It formed the subject of a leading article in the "Daily Express." I want to make quite certain that I am not misrepresenting Mr. Beaton, and I, therefore, quote a passage from a book, called "The New Scotland," which he issued. On page 76, he says:

"We boast that we represent 900,000 households, equal to two-thirds of the consuming units of Scotland. Conjure up the proper application of such forces, and there is no power under the sun which can gainsay us. Linked up with the municipalities, the cooperative movement is capable of, and aims at, carrying through the whole gamut of production, distribution, and services for the entire community."

That is exactly the same thing, in other words, as Mr. Beaton is reported to have said at that conference. What is happening in these days, when so many of our gallant fellows have gone out, at this time of crisis and worry to all of us? Shops in the North of Scotland are being bought up for very large sums by the co-operative stores. I am not questioning at the moment whether that is the right policy for the co-operative stores or not, but say that it is imposing additional hardship upon the man who has left his shop to go and fight. That is one aspect which the Minister ought to bear in mind, and to instruct his tribunals to have in view; because, if the hardship to the man, while he is away, is going to be increased, that ought to be taken into consideration in deciding whether he ought to go away at all.

On the question of women workers, I want to put this to the Minister. He has made some concession to the woman who is holding the fort while one of her relatives is away, and she is allowed to have exemption and not be called up at all. But what about the type of case where a woman has lost her husband and is left with a son of the age of 16, with whom she is anxious to carry on the business? Ought not the Minister to lay down a definite rule that in such a case she must not be disturbed? Ought it to be left to the "hard cases" being brought before the tribunals? I ask the Minister to consider extending the whole gamut of relief to these women, and I should say myself that there will be a strong case for giving women relief in every case where the effect will be to close down the business, unless there is a very special reason why she should be brought into the war machine in some way other than her business.

This country has been called, in derision, "a nation of shopkeepers," but I say I have great pride that this country has been likened to these people — the ordinary type of small shopkeeper. Their integrity, their honesty, their will to succeed, their patriotism—all these are things of which we may well be proud, and I think that, when they are making these sacrifices in the common interest and grumbling so very little about it, it is the duty of this House to keep on urging the Minister to do what he can for them, so that they may feel that they have a body of support in this House which is interested in their hardships during war time and will see that they have a fair deal.

I support whole-heartedly the appeal which has been made by the hon. and learned Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine-Hill), particularly in regard to the administration of the National Service Acts. Particularly do I emphasise this point in view of the fact that, after nearly five years of war, we have, in my opinion, reached a most appalling condition in regard to the small shopkeepers of this country. There was one point which the hon. and learned Member made in his speech into which I would like to go a little further. Owing to the administration of the Rules or Orders laid down under the Act, I understand that the Minister has no option but to support any decision made, not by the tribunal, not by the higher authority, but by the official known as the umpire. If I am right, under the orders of the Minister, once the umpire has given his decision, the man must go into the Forces, whatever the circumstances, after he has had certain deferment periods, and the Minister has no right or authority to override that decision. What does that mean? It means that only this House can overrule that decision by overruling the Minister. That is, in my opinion, an appalling state of affairs. I really think that, if such administration can come within the Act, it should be altered so that the Minister can intervene.

The hon. Member is quite right. The National Service Act, as passed by this House, says that, once the umpire has made his decision, that decision shall be final. It would need fresh legislation, a new National Service Act, to alter it.

I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend. I thought I was right, and, as I must not speak on a matter involving fresh legislation, I shall have to leave the matter where it is at the moment. I fully realise that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary have had a most difficult and, in some respects, very unpleasant task in these five years in calling up these men and women from their life-long pursuits. Has the time not arrived when we have got right down to the bone, as far as the small businesses of this country are concerned? I feel sure that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary must be aware of the acute position now existing. They must be aware of the number of closed shops, not only in the Minister's own constituency of Central Wandsworth, but in the whole of London and throughout the country. There are derelict areas of shops which tell us quite clearly that we have, as I say, got down to the bone in calling up these small men while leaving the larger employers fully equipped and going ahead in their businesses.

My appeal on this matter is on the ground that the distributive and other small businesses have given their maximum number of men to the Forces; in fact, both man and woman-power. Can we not ask that those persons who have reached the age of 43—the military service age—can be allowed to remain in their businesses, when it can be proved, as it can in many instances, that calling up would mean the closing of the business? My post-bag tells me of the most distressing cases, and other cases, no doubt, will be proved here to-day, where persons have been called up or directed into other businesses, and have had to close their shops, or, if fortunate enough, to sell them. Surely the Minister will agree that we have gone far enough in creating these derelict areas of shops throughout the Kingdom? Is he aware, as I feel certain he must be, that the members of one trade union consisting of shop assistants have given no less than 60 per cent. of their membership? That does not take account of those persons in that trade who are not members of a union, nor does it refer to key-men, who, I understand, number over 100,000.

Among the co-operative employees?

I am not suggesting that. The position would be met if some more constructive action could be taken in cases brought to the Minister's notice when men have come to the end of their deferment. The man may be just over or just under 43 and might be compelled, through the call-up, to close his business or sell it. What is the position if he is called up, or if he has to sell? The position, as I understood it from the President of the Board of Trade, is that, if the man sells his business through being called up, he is precluded from obtaining a licence to re-open his shop when he comes back from the war. That is an appalling position. How many cases could I quote where a man has sold his business, not for the sake of the money, but because he was compelled to do so or close it down? Often, the money is very small, compared with what he would have done had he not been compelled to sell.

Instructions have been given by the Ministry of Labour that, if an employer can show that a man or woman is a worker whose withdrawal would result in the closing down of a business or branch, the employer will be allowed a period not exceeding six months' deferment on the first appeal, in which to find a substitute. I ask the Minister if, after five years of war, it is possible for these people to find substitutes. It is impossible, and this applies to shopkeepers as well as to the workers. I ask the Minister, in all seriousness, where are these substitutes to be found? The shopkeepers have had to put up with this state of affairs and have done so, willingly and loyally, from 1941, and through 1942 and 1943 right up to this very time, but, in view of this question of selling, has not the time arrived when this matter should receive greater consideration? These poor fellows, most of them now fighting, do not know what they are going to do when they come back. The shopkeepers have done their bit in this war, if any people have, but the Parliamentary Secretary, speaking recently, said:

"I would reconsider the matter further before suggesting that we should bring in new hardship regulations."

I suggest that the time has arrived when this further consideration should be given, in justice and equity to these people, and I hope that, after these appeals, he will consider this question with an open mind.

At the beginning of this year, I understand a new Order was issued by the Ministry to all employment exchanges authorising fresh medical examination of every man of over six months' extension, deferment or postponement. I appreciate and realise that a re-appeal can be made to the Committee, but, on past results of these appeals, there will be still more businesses closing down through the calling up of these persons who are now being re-examined by order of the Ministry. I appeal to the Minister of Labour—after more than four years of closing down the small businesses of this country—at last to give favourable consideration to the issue of fresh instructtions, which will enable a man over 43 years of age to stay in his established business, if the calling up of such a man will jeopardise a livelihood, which may have taken a lifetime to establish.

The small business people are few in number in 1944, compared with 1941–1942 and 1943, and, up to the present, they have gone through a double sieve for the call-up. What is the difference between a departmental store, a multiple store and a co-operative store, as distinct from the small man? I want to make no distinction or invidious comparisons between them, but I do say that these departmental stores, these co-operative societies, these large one-price stores, are all in a better position to-day than they were in 1939. One has only to refer to the daily Press to see that the results of their trading have shown clearly that they are in a better position to-day to start off the mark, immediately after the war is over, than any of these poor devils fighting for their country in foreign parts. These large establishments are more prosperous to-day. Can that be said of thousands of small men who have been taken from their businesses? The time has arrived for reconsideration of the matter even at this critical stage of the war, and I appeal to my hon. Friend to give further consideration to this question. I will conclude by reading from a letter I have received from a firm, which is typical of many of these establishments. It says:

"We are makers and suppliers of nurses' uniforms and have been established since 1848. More than 50 per cent, of our staff have either joined the Services or been transferred to munitions.

"We have a Designation and an Essential Work Order for the production of nurses' uniforms, and we are now threatened with the call-up of part of the remaining and already depleted distributive and administrative staff.

"We fully realise the difficulty of the manpower position, and have already contributed 50 per cent. of our staff as mentioned above. But we do feel now that the members of the staff in question, i.e., seven, should be allowed to remain, as their effectiveness if directed elsewhere, would be infinitesimal compared with the crippling effect their withdrawal would have on our organisation.

"Owing to the great demand for nurses, we are working to full capacity and the withdrawal of this staff would practically kill our war effort, which we do not think you would consider desirable. It will be appreciated that, without the distributive and administrative staff, we could not produce a single garment."

Finally, I will give a quotation from the Joint Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Labour. On 18th February of this year, he said:

"The one thing on which I heartily agree with Members on all sides is that we do not want to get into the position of drifting into nothing but big combines, big firms and the like. We do want to preserve the life of the small individual man in this country."

This is the point I want to emphasise, and it emphasises my point in asking the Minister for a reconsideration of his powers:

"The retail distributive trade, which is the one we are specially considering, has of necessity been drawn upon more hardly than any other trade to provide personnel for the war effort. It has responded magnificently." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th February, 1944; Vol. 397, C. 618.]

We have the sympathy of the hon. Gentleman, but we want him to go a little further and to reconsider his present powers in regard to these people.

I would like to add mine to the pleas that are being made on behalf of a large number of small shopkeepers who are having to face the greatest difficulties of their lives during the period of this war. Not only is this a case where every small shopkeeper ought to be given consideration, but it must be realised—and I am aware it is realised by the Ministry—that the difficulty of finding what the hon. and gallant Member described as substitutes is very great. There has been an elimination from the labour market of the substitutes for these small businesses. I have always suspected, in connection with the war, that the large multiple firms and combines have been given representations in the Board of Trade and other Government Departments and that they have used the national effort for the purpose of waging a conflict against the small man, so that in the post-war period they may gain advantages from the elimination of the small man. Small shopkeepers have given tremendous service to the people of this country, given a courtesy, consideration and service which, to a large extent, are absent in the case of the large combines and the co-operative stores. In the development of this country towards some form of new society, if that should ever come, it will be found that one of the main props in the service of the country has been the small man.

The Ministry of Labour has given consideration to many cases, and it is true that when its attention has been specially drawn to grave hardships it has been prepared to consider individual cases. But in the main there is a large small shop-keeping element who are simply mown down without knowing their rights in connection with the Service Acts. They are called to the Services and their businesses collapse; in many cases they are not able to sell their businesses and realise some of the capital they have invested in them. I know of a large number of small shopkeepers in the city of Glasgow who set up business after the last war out of the compensation given to them in connection with injuries. They have handed on these businesses to their sons, who, when they have got to the stage of being called-up for National Service, have see the businesses entirely collapse. One sees these things continually. I know of a small clothing business that had its girls taken away. One of these girls was sent to the cosmetic department of Boots' Stores. One would hardly have thought that cases of that kind could happen. There was the case I raised in the House early in the war of a co-operative store. A girl in Shettleston, who had charge of 17,000 books, was sent to a factory where her job was to collect a penny a week from those using the putting green con- nected with that factory. The Minister then decided that there had been a mistake. But mistakes continue to happen and many people who have no means of expressing themselves to the Ministry suffer in consequence.

I believe that a number of people on the hardship committees deal very justly and considerately with the applicants who appear before them, but there are others, and the chairman is the dominating figure. The chairman says "Appeal refused," and he looks at the two "stupids" beside him and they make no motion. Very often a trades union representative is sent there to protect their workers' interests. Invariably the employers' representative has been the individual to whom I have had to appeal, because I felt that I could get little or no support from the individual chosen by the trade union to safeguard the interests of these people. The chairman of these bodies no doubt feels that he has to produce results. It is rather like the conscientious objectors' tribunals, where it is a question of "Who is to get through to-day?" It is a question of about eight to two—eight refused and two allowed, and you cannot tell which two will be successful. The same is true of the hardship tribunals; the chairman has to eliminate a number of applicants. The individual who can make the best of his case is often successful and the poor individual who cannot put his case is unsuccessful. He has never been before any such body in his life before and he cannot even speak; his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth and he cannot express his case, and he is turned down without any consideration.

There ought to be some sort of review of all these cases. There ought to be an obligation on the Ministry to supply a substitute if there was danger of the closing down of a business or the taking away of a key worker from a business. A man taken away from a job in an office, warehouse or factory and posted to the Army, if he is lucky, can get back afterwards and may be able to step into his old job, but the little fellow whose business has gone, with all his life's savings, may find a tremendous difficulty in restarting business, in getting a shop and then supplies and customers. I will give an example of a case about which I was in communication with the Ministry of Labour. The man, a small shopkeeper in Glasgow, was in the Army and his father carried on the grocery business. The father died, the mother was dead, and there was no other member of the family. The man came back for a week or two at the time of his father's death, but the grocery business has to be closed down now because the military authorities cannot release the man. Here are represented the life savings of this young lad. He is willing to sell the business in order to realise capital so that, if he comes back, he can start up again, but he has to close it down because there is no other labour to be had. Instances of that kind can be repeated in many parts of this country.

One of the great aims of a large number of men in the Socialist movement, in spite of their Socialism, has been to set up little businesses. I know a large number of Socialists who, with a certain amount of capital, started some little private enterprise—a newsagent's, a tobacconist's shop or a general store. Their politics may have undergone a change afterwards if successful in business. But a large number invested their life savings in such businesses and handed them on to their sons, who are now in the position of seeing the inevitable collapse of their businesses during the war. One cannot eliminate all the hardships of the war, but one can lessen its injustices among certain classes of individuals. Therefore, I plead with the Parliamentary Secretary to realise that this small class of business is peculiar to this country, and that it is embodied in the life of the country and is performing a tremendously useful service to the nation, especially at this time. I appeal to the Minister to give the greatest consideration to this problem in order to see if protection cannot be given to these people, with greater opportunities to carry on during probably the last year of the war so that they may survive the tremendous difficulties of our time.

The House is indebted to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine-Hill) for having once again raised this question. The impression I have is that the machinery for recruitment which was set up as long ago as 1939 is not suitable in the fifth year of the war. What could properly be done then ought to be reconsidered carefully now. I have the impression that the screw has been turned just too far and; that, if anything, a quarter turn in the other direction is needed now if public morale is not to suffer. The discussion we have had so far has been on a broad basis and I would want to keep it there, but I want to quote to the House one particular case, first because I think the Minister is likely to make a very grave mistake and to create a very grave injustice if he persists in his decision, and secondly because it vividly illustrates points that have been raised by one or two speakers. I am going to mention the name of the man, because he is in so desperate a situation now that an appeal to this House is practically all that is available to him. His name is W. A. Steele and he is an outfitter in High Street, Edgware. I would like to tell the House the family history. There are three brothers, of whom he is the eldest. One brother was captured at Dunkirk and is in a German prisoner-of-war camp; the second brother fought all through the African campaign and is at present in Italy; the third and eldest brother is left to run the family business. On that business there are dependent a widowed mother, an invalid sister, and the wife and three children of the soldier in Italy.

It seems to me that here there is every possible ingredient for hardship one could possibly expect to find, and yet I hold in my hand a letter from the Minister in which he regrets that he is not able to prevent the call-up of that man. The history of the case is the familiar one—an appeal to hardship committees, periods of hardship granted subject to his finding a manager, subject to his selling the business. He cannot find a manager, for reasons which my hon. Friend the Member for Balham and Tooting (Mr. Doland) has made clear; he cannot even sell the business because half of it belongs to his brother who is fighting in Italy. He writes to his brother who is fighting in Italy and says, "These people have told me to sell the business; can I have your permission to do it?" You can imagine the language of the member of the Eighth Army fighting in Italy, who finishes up his letter to his brother by saying this:

"Naturally you cannot dispose without my consent, and to that I must emphatically say, no. It seems pretty rotten that whilst I am away, all available staff taken, that you, left as the sole one to carry on the business, are told that you must dispose of it. It is enough to make one feel that there is no justice or fair play at all."

That is from one of our soldiers fighting in Italy who is hoping to come back to a business upon which his wife and children, his widowed mother and his sick sister are all dependent. His eldest brother is going to be called up unless this House can make its weight felt.

The story of these hardship appeals culminated in a decision against him. He appealed to the umpire, who decided in his favour and he was given another deferment. On the last occasion, the hardship committee gave him six months and then, to my utter amazement, the Minister appealed against the decisions of the hardship committee and the umpire turned down the man. At that stage I came into the picture and I asked my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary if he would review the case. He replied, as he has told us today, that the umpire is the final statutory authority. That is the first general point I want to take up with the House. I maintain that at some stage after the umpire has come to his decision, there is a Ministerial act—the issue of calling-up papers—and in respect of that act the Minister cannot divest himself of his responsibility to this House. It is true the Act of Parliament says that the decision of the umpire is final, but I submit that means this, that there is no appeal from the umpire to the High Court, but I do not see how the Act can operate to divest the Minister of his responsibility.

As a result of pressure the case was reconsidered, and I had to point out to the Ministry of Labour, what they had themselves overlooked, that there are two roads by which these hard cases can be considered. One is through the hardship machinery, the other is by a direct appeal to the Minister. That is clearly set out in the Act of Parliament. I have had the final reply from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. He takes both those roads and deals with both. He says that, if the umpire has turned down a case, he can only delay enlistment when it is in the national interest that it should be delayed. I would submit that to impose this sort of burden upon a fighting soldier is not in the national interest and, on that narrow ground alone, the Minister would be amply justified in holding up an enlistment notice in this case. I am not going to worry the House with them, but I could give a whole list of contracts which this firm have locally which in one way or another have to do with the prosecution of the war. However, if you take the other road—the right of the Minister under the Act, independent of the hardship machinery, to give his own certificate—then my hon. Friend says this:

"Where the Minister does not grant a certificate, he is bound to refer it to a Hardship Committee."

On this particular case my point is that the Minister has never applied his mind to the case, he has automatically referred it to the hardship committee. I suggest, even along that road, there is a duty on the Minister if he gets an application to turn his mind to it.

I have used that case, because I can see what I can only call an abominable injustice being perpetrated, to illustrate three propositions which I want to put to the House and which I hope will be accepted by my hon. Friend. I think first of all that there is a great deal of confusion in the minds of ordinary citizens as to their rights, and that there ought to be available in very simple form to men and women who are likely to be called up some pamphlet or statement which will tell them exactly what their rights are, even to the extent of coming to this House. The second point, I think, is important. I would suggest to the House that the Minister ought never to appeal against the decision of the umpire when the umpire's decision is favourable to the man—

I think the hon. Member means "hardship committee."

I beg pardon, I do mean that. If a hardship committee has decided favourably for a man, then I suggest it is scarcely proper for the Minister to appeal against the decision of the very tribunal that has to decide it and against the man himself. The third point is, that in every case there is a responsibility on the Minister to this House and that, however it may reach him, at the stage when he has to determine whether or not he issues a calling-up paper, the Minister must accept personal responsibility and not pass that responsibility on to an umpire and say, "It is no longer my concern." Those are the points of principle that I raise, but I would most urgently put to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary this particular case of Steele, of Edgware, where I think a most scandalous set of circumstances is likely to arise if he is called up, and to urge him to take up the case with my right hon. Friend with the good will and support, I am sure, of the House, and have that case reconsidered and justice done.

I rise to support the plea expressed by hon. Members opposite, but I approach the subject from a totally different angle. I would have appreciated it very much had the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh North (Mr. Erskine-Hill) stated his case strictly upon the merits of the small traders and the injustice they have suffered during the last three or four years. But to quote, as he did, instances of the cooperative society and a statement made by one of the representatives of that society was not, I think, in accordance with the express wishes of those hon. Members who are desirous of supporting the claims of the small shopkeepers.

Will the hon. Member give way to me for one moment? My reason in quoting a leader of the Co-operative movement was to show that the proof should come from the Cooperative movement itself. The reason why I mentioned it to-day was because the Co-operative movement's activities against the small traders are among the hardships which they have to face.

I appreciate that, but the fact of having quoted it makes one rather suspicious. The deep interest shown by hon. Members opposite in the small shopkeeper does not accord with the fact 4that a very large number of those hon. Members—roughly 5o per cent., in my opinion, if you look up the Directory of Directors—are connected with very big business, and that before the war we saw a process of gradually eliminating small traders and small industrial undertakings, and that it has continued during war-time under the Concentration of Industries Order.

I would have liked the subject to be debated strictly on the lines of the injustice that is being meted out to the small trader. I ask the Minister really to give serious consideration to the posi- tion of these people, because I do not believe it is very necessary to the war effort to call up men who are running a business who are in the categories of B.2, B.3, C.', C.2 and C.3. I do not think it is really necessary to take away a man who is running a small business with 1,400, 1,50o or 1,600 registered customers. There has been a case in my constituency in the last three weeks of a man who has, roughly, 3,700 registered customers. That man's category two years ago when he was medically examined was B.2. Now he is 41 years of age, He has just been informed that his deferment has ceased. In the East End of London, where can a substitute for that man be found to run his business?

Has he applied for postponement on hardship grounds? Even if business deferment has ceased because of his responsibilities for food distribution he can always apply for postponement on hardship grounds.

I wish to thank the hon. Gentleman. I quote this because it is typical of cases all over the country, and I think it would be true to say that very nearly every hon. Member has constituents who are affected in this way. I think it only fair to say that the Minister is in a difficult position. We have to remember that these Regulations were passed by this House, and I cannot understand why the hon. Member who raised this question did not raise it at the time the Regulations were before the House.

Does the hon. Member realise that when these Acts and Regulations were passed most people did not expect the war to last so long and that the difficulties of shopkeepers are now becoming very great?

Perhaps the hon. Member will forgive me: I am a new Member of the House. When these small shopkeepers are called up, it is almost impossible to find substitutes. In my constituency the employment exchange cannot provide a substitute of any character whatever, because every available man and woman is working elsewhere. The position of a widow whose only son looks after her shop is equally hard, especially if she has had other sons called up. This should be a non-party question; it should be looked at solely from the point of view of the hardship caused to a section of the community. As I have said, the Minister is in a difficult position. He is merely carrying out our wishes, as expressed by the legislation we have passed, and if we want an alteration, we must convince him of the necessity of altering the law.

I do not wish to detain the House for long, because what has to be said has been said with great vigour and clarity by the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern), to whose remarks I can only say "ditto." I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to take from this discussion the firm conviction that the picture which has been drawn to-day, is the literal, bare and stark truth. I have had some experience of this matter, because since the beginning of this war I have been responsible, in Parliament, for two constituencies and, for a part of the time, for three. In my postbag the most distressing cases are these of the small traders, and it is one of my most grievous regrets that in so many of them I could do so little. I have seen family businesses closed and ruined. Unless more drastic steps are taken there is almost no hope whatever of a revival. As has been said, craftsmen and others who leave a job can go back to it, or to a corresponding job, but what chance is there for the small trader to re-establish himself after the war when his business has been closed and his capital has gone?

I do not wish to criticise the Ministry of Labour. In every hard case I have taken to them, or to the hardship committees, I have had courteous and sympathetic consideration, and the Services have often been most generous in giving deferments. But that has not been enough to preserve those small businesses, the owners of which are the salt of our community, a hard-working group of stable individuals who are a great asset to our society. During the war these have been hard cases; they have grown harder, and now we are reaching a stage when they are the hardest of the hard. The limited number of small tradesmen who remain cannot endanger the war effort, if further consideration is extended to them, even if the Government cannot go so far as to say that there shall be no further closing of small businesses. We feel very strongly about this; we know that justice cannot always be done but we are appealing for a class of the community which is the hardest hit of all. There is poor prospect of rehabilitation unless special measures are taken to give these small traders a fresh start in life.

I think all of us have come across very hard cases in connection with small traders and I must say that the lion. Member who spoke on behalf of the relatibes of a man in the Eighth Army put forward what seemed a particularly hard case. My experience is that the machinery provided for hard cases does not always work in such a way as to make the cases harder. The Ministry of Labour are not altogether unreasonable, and I think their officials very often do what they can to soften the hardness to the small trader. One or two Members have mentioned examples of the way in which a small trader has been directed from his own business into a competitive business. I have had examples of that, and I cannot believe that it can lead to efficiency. A case I have in mind comes under the Ministry of War Transport, as well as under the Ministry of Labour. I cannot believe that to close a small garage in a country district, transfer the owner and sole worker in that garage to a big garage 10 miles away, to a firm which has always been his fierce competitor against whom he has had to struggle hard, can possibly lead to efficient work. I cannot believe it leads to efficiency to tell an ex-soldier of the last war—the man I am thinking about—that although he was working 12 to 14 hours a day in his own business the work was not of national importance, and that he must travel for an hour or more by bus, and work for a big firm, which has always tried to bring him down. One hears a good many stories of large firms not always occupying the time of their employees as well as they should.

In trying to make a case for the small man, it is often very difficult to find any authority, which will recognise all his claims to be left in his own business. You can find a Government Department which is responsible for him for certain things; you can find a Government Department to which he can appeal for support that his work is of importance, but no Government Department, as far as I know, represents the general interest of the district in which the man lives. I am think, ing of the case of an ironmonger in a small town. The Board of Trade can say that it is not essential to have an ironmonger there. It may be that it should be the Board of Trade which does that, but I have not found, in cases I have taken up with them, that they looked at the matter from the point of view of the people in the district. The fact that there is not another ironmonger within 10 or 20 miles does not seem to be anybody's responsibility. Fortunately, this case solved itself, but there must be many others of the same kind in which the general interest of the neighbourhood in retaining the small trader is not represented or fully recognised by the hardship committee, which is thinking of the hardship to the individual who is called up and not the hardship to many housewives and others who will lose the service rendered by the business man.

I would like to add my plea to those which have been made that older men who are above military age, and who are in a low medical category, should receive special consideration. If the war goes on they will receive less consideration; they will be combed out more thoroughly, as they are being combed out now. There are men who have probably been in the last war, who will find it more difficult after this war to start in business if their business has been closed. They cannot be so adaptable if they are sent elsewhere. I do not believe that some of the moving about which is going on now is really helping the war effort, and I make an appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary not to be too hard on these people. It is impossible to find substitutes now, and thus the hardship becomes greater. I suppose it is inevitable that when you try to make out a case for the small trader you try to make his business as important as possible, but on the reverse side, the smaller the man is, the less likely is he to be allowed to stay at his job.

That may be one of the inevitable hardships of the war. As the war goes on, businesses may have to be curtailed for all sorts of reasons, including a shortage of supplies and the like. I recall the case of a country bootmaker who, because he was a small trader, is not allowed by the Board of Trade to have any quota of leather at all, the Board saying that his business was not large enough to qualify. These hardships often bear with the greatest severity on the small men, and I also appeal to the Ministry of Labour to lighten their demands a little, and be a little more ready to allow a few people to escape through the very close mesh of their net.

I should like to support my hon. and learned Friend in what he has said to-day—not that he needs very much support. I only say that because I should like to make a few observations of my own, and when I come to the end of them, I will not say, "In conclusion" and go on speaking. I will say that it is the end, and it will be the end, of my speech. With regard to what my hon. Friend opposite said about the calling up of men who are in categories B, C or D, I suggest that it is a little unfair to penalise only the men who are entirely fit. I think the men in B, C or D categories ought to be called up with others, regard being had, of course, to their ages and whether they are married and have a family, because such men can be posted to lines of communication, or stationed a little farther back than that, and thus release men in the higher category from their present jobs to go a little further forward in the line.

The hon. Member will appreciate that the point I was putting was to ask what was the use of calling up a man in category B, C or D and putting him into the Army if he finds himself employed there only in answering the telephone or doing some similar job?

My view is that if such a man is put into the Army, he will be able to take the place of a man in a better category who is at present employed to answer the telephone. That is where I disagree with my hon. Friend. There has been a little unfairness in the calling up of small shopkeepers, which has resulted in the closing down of a number of small shops. There can be no dispute about that. My hon. and learned Friend has said that the Minister has stated that he will gladly look into cases of exceptional hardship which arise from the calling up of small shopkeepers, but I do not think that promise is quite adequate to meet the situation. I know that the Minister said it and, having said it, that he means it, but my complaint is that he does not look sufficiently closely into these cases. I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am not speaking against co-operative societies or multiple stores, I am only saying a few words in support of the small shopkeepers, because the feeling unquestionably exists among a lot of them, rightly or wrongly—and if wrongly let us have an explanation, let the matter be cleared up so that everyone can understand it—that the same rule is not applied to men in the multiple stores as is applied to the small shopkeepers. That impression undoubtedly exists. If it is wrong let us prove to the satisfaction of the small shopkeepers that what they suspect does not represent the real state of affairs. I do not know whether it is so or not, but the impression does exist in their minds. They see in the multiple stores young men who have not been called up, whereas many shopkeepers over 40 years of age, running their own shops, have been called up, and as a result have had to close down their businesses. And as my hon. Friend opposite has asked, how are some of these men over 40 who own their own shops, employed when they are in the Army?

Every shopkeeper with a wife and family who is called up and has to close down his shop, looks around and sees younger men still in the co-operative stores, or the multiple shops, or in factories, and he naturally asks himself, "How old are these men? Are they married? What are their categories?" It is natural enough that they should do so. I would suggest to the small shopkeepers that if they feel they are being treated unfairly—I do not say they are, but harsh things are being said—that they should combine. I can think of enough to say that without reading a number of letters from my constituents, but I have many letters which I could read if I wanted to. I will not read even one of them. I often think that instead of reading letters from one's constituents one ought to be able to have them inserted in the OFFICIAL REPORT without first burdening the House with them.

I was saying that I suggest that small shopkeepers should combine for their self-protection against unfair treatment, in the same way, to draw an analogy, as Members of Parliament should combine when an unfair book is written about them. I only quote it as an analogy, but the book which I have in mind contains a num- ber of disparaging remarks about Conservative M.P.s. I think there is nothing in it against Common Wealth or Labour Members; the Tories were the only poor, misguided fools according to this book, and I think that the Tories, instead of dividing themselves into young, medium or old Tories, should combine to protect themselves against this sort of thing. The book is made up of sentences torn from their context. When we in this House discuss small traders, or any other subject, and a Member makes a speech, it is reported in HANSARD and everyone knows what is said and who said it. This book has been written by some unknown person. In schoolboy language, it is a caddish performance—referring to a lot of other people by name while the author has not the courage to sign his own name to what he writes. In any event it is a poor thing to bring shame upon the name of Gracchus.

In a speech which I read in a newspaper the hon. and gallant Member for Hornsey (Captain Gammans) said that if we lost the small trader we should lose a very valuable citizen. I have seen it stated that 100,000 shops have been closed down, I should like to ask how many multiple concerns have been closed down. I understand there were before the war 600,000 shops, so that one-sixth have been closed. I wonder if one-sixth of the multiple stores have been closed down to correspond. I only ask for information. Napoleon said that we were a nation of shopkeepers. As a nation of shopkeepers we were good enough to get him down. I think this nation of shopkeepers and multiple stores will undoubtedly get Hitler down though, when it comes to that, I do not really think he will be much of a prize as far as I can judge from his pictures. It is a great pity that the small shopkeeper should be put out of business unless we are certain that we have something better, from the point of view of Britain's future, to put in his place.

I like to follow the hon. Member because he is so reasonable and so amusing that no one can ever doubt his sincerity. Some of the points that he has made are worthy of examination but, as the Debate has gone on for nearly an hour and a half, I think we ought to get back where we started. I believe this is the third occasion on which we have discussed this question in an Adjournment Debate. Very few on the opposite side of the House ever come forward with a reasonable suggestion how to amend the various forms of machinery which deal in the localities with the small shopkeepers. They give individual cases, huge chunks from the propaganda of Lord Beaverbrook, a wholly misleading portrayal of the case, and they put forward challenges to the Minister, but they never come down to the realities of the situation. I would not question the honesty of purpose of the hon. and learned Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine-Hill) in bringing forward the sentimental touch of the grandmother maintained by a son. He was justified in it, but no one has ever questioned what has happened in the distributive trade over the last two or three or 20 years if you like, which has really led to the situation in which we find ourselves. The hon. Member for Enfield (Mr. Bull) asked what about the co-operative employees.

I said that was, to some extent, in the mind of the private trader.

I assure the hon. Member that there has been no deferment for co-operative employees. They went long ago. They are in the Fifth or Eighth Armies or somewhere in the fighting line. The hon. Member for Balham and Tooting (Mr. Doland) did honour to my union in quoting the ratio of our members in the Fighting Services. There are none left in most of our co-operative stores among the managers. They are grey-haired old men who were pensioned off by their enlightened employers long ago, and many of whom have been brought back. Old men are also in shops like those of the hon. Member, having replaced the younger men who went into the Fighting Services at the outset, with no deferment whatever. Where is the preferential treatment of which the hon. and learned Member for North Edinburgh spoke? He said he was going to prove the differentiation between multiple and co-operative stores and the small shopkeepers. Where is it?

Twenty years ago, Boots began their gigantic scheme of elimination. It is the principle in which hon. Members opposite believe. They believe in private enterprise. We believe that it is "red in tooth and claw." The co-operative stores just before the last war were not quite so vigorous in their challenge as they are to-day. The mass of the people had not taken to co-operative trading. But Boots taught the world a lesson, and then Lipton's, the International Stores, Sainsbury's and all the multiple stores came along, long before Woolworths and Marks and Spencers slowly eliminated the small trader. After the last war people were persuaded that they could make a little fortune by investing their small savings in a shop. Some succeeded but, where one succeeded, five lost their life savings and eliminated themselves, not because of the co-operative stores, but because of the vigorous challenge and the efficiency of the multiple concerns. The hon. Member for Balham and Tooting succeeded because he learned lessons from the multiple firms and fought back. He was a little man in his own area, but he became a multiple firm himself, because he learned the lesson and profited by it.

The hon. Member said I did not say what was the differentiation between the co-operative store and the private trader. The difference is quite clear. It is that, where you call up a number of men from the co-operative stores or large businesses, you still leave something in being, but where you call up the individual man, the last stay as it were of the business, it involves closing down, probably for ever.

In the last stage it does, and I am trying to present the position as it is, so that this hoodwinking of the small shopkeeper shall not be exploited by the Tory Party, because I believe that they are dishonest with the small shopkeeper, but that there is a case for him. The hon. and learned Member said the differentiation began in the first instance with the co-operative societies. Whatever may happen to them, their business continues. The reason is that, wherever they can, they adapt, train and equip people to carry on the business. I know one shop which had 70 employees at the outbreak of the war. To-day it has 58. Formerly all the employees were men. To-day there are only two men out of 58. The other 56 are women. The same thing has happened to the multiple firms. In Liptons, the International, Sainsburys and all the multiple firms, you see old men. Silverhaired, grey-haired men, some with beards, and some very efficient women are helping to carry on.

The little trader has really had preferential treatment up to a point. The small shopkeeper has been considered side by side with his fellow distributive workers employed by the multiple firm and the co-operative store. As his age group has come along, he has been sent for. He has probably been given three months' deferment, but the man of the same age in the co-operative store has had no three months given to him. He has had to go, and the employee of the multiple firm has also had to go. But the small trader has had his case examined and he has been given three months' deferment, then another examination and a further three months. I could quote one case in the road where I reside, of a man who had 15 months' deferment, and quite right, because, search as they might, the employment exchange could not find a substitute for him. The man is still there, but there are many like him who have not been so fortunate. They have not been so fortunate because somebody at the employment exchange has said, "I will send you a woman of 42 or 38, as the case may be, who knows a little bit about the business, and she will help you out." Consequently the small trader has had the benefit of help and advice. When we reach the fourth and fifth years of the war, we find that the older small shopkeepers, having had their periods of deferment, are now being combed out by the Ministry of Labour and their deferments terminated. Now they are presenting arguments, as they should do, to their Members of Parliament, and they are putting up a good case.

And a just case.

Yes, a just case. I believe that, despite the Tory Party and its cunning, and the deliberate and wilful misrepresentation by Lord Beaverbrook and the exploitation of the small shopkeeper, there is something the Ministry of Labour have not done which they could do. That is to set up an independent committee in each area to advise on the needs of the distributive trades in the area and the circumstances of each case as it comes up, especially of men over 35. I do not think that any of my hon. Friends opposite would argue that a small trader who is under 30 should not serve like the small plumber or the small undertaker next door. The Ministry of Labour have displayed a shortcoming by not setting up any kind of committee to examine distribution in each area. In order to get any positive results from this Debate the Minister must be prepared to receive advice and to respond to suggestions made to him.

I would commend to his attention a Debate on this problem about six months ago in which it was suggested that local committees should be set up specifically to deal, not merely with the small shopkeeper, but with the needs of the distributive trades, whether they be foodstuffs, hardware, ironmongery or any other trade. There is overwhelming evidence that now is the time for each village and town to have these committees to examine the needs of each area from the distributive angle. The food committee could then tender advice on the case of every grocer, or even owner of a sweet stores; who is called up. I suggest that the ironmonger, the draper, the outfitter and every shopkeeper should be able to get some kind of advice and guidance from somebody. The worst cases that come to me are of the little shopkeeper who is bewildered and dazed by regulations, rules, ration books and every conceivable thing. He does not know to whom he can go for advice. If he goes to the chamber of commerce he finds that the officials are on the tribunal which will try him. He usually finds, too, that the people on the committee before which he appears have no understanding of the part of the town where his business is established. Whatever advantage may be derived from Lord Bea verbrook and the Tory Party in this Debate., the plea of the hon. Member for South Poplar (Mr. Guy) was a genuine and sincere one. Let us take this question out of the sordid atmosphere of politics and of trying to set the co-operative store against the private trader. Let us frankly recognise that a mistake has been made by the Ministry of Labour. They have tried to carry out the law, but they have missed something out by not setting up ccinmittees to deal with the problem of the distributive trades. They should do that without delay.

The speech of the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden) displayed a complete misunderstanding of the interest which we have in the small trader, particularly in relation to deferment. The hon. Member said that the small traders have had preferential treatment because they have had deferments of three and six months, and sometimes even 15 months. That is, of course, preferential in relation to being called into the Armed Forces, but we are not so concerned with that. That is merely saying "Is he not lucky not to be sent sooner into the Armed Forces?" It does not attempt to deal with the problem of keeping a business going. That is what we are concerned with. The difference between a small shopkeeper who works on his own and the employee of a multiple firm is that when the latter is called up there is someone left to keep the business going. There will be a business for him to come back to, but we are concerned about the position of the small man, who is taken away and has no business to come back to after the war. I shall not pursue that subject any further, because it has been adequately dealt with, but I wanted to answer the point, so far as it has been dealt with by the hon. Member for Don-caster.

I am particularly concerned with two matters. One is, not present deferment, but reinstatement after the war. We realise that small traders must at present be subject to controls, licences and regulations, and they have willingly submitted to them, but I want to know whether the Government have any policy for restoring these men to their businesses. I know of no reason why the Government should not set up a scheme of financial assistance for those who are hardly treated. Probably no section of the community has been more hard hit by this war than those on the middle income level, and nothing that we have seen recently of the Government's financial policy leads us to expect much comfort in that direction. If the cost of living is to be unpegged and repegged at a different level, it is again they who will suffer the greatest burden.

I am not concerned with the wealthy at one end of the scale, for they have reserves upon which they can draw, nor with those at the other end of the scale, who have bargaining machinery and will no doubt get adjustments in their wage levels which will improve their position. I am concerned with the man in the middle who has to earn his own money and has no means of increasing his takings; on the contrary he has to look forward to a continued period of decreased takings. He is the one who will be hit by the Budget announcement in relation to the cost of living. I want to 'know whether the Government have any policy for dealing with the shopkeeping section of that community, and for putting the shopkeepers back after the war. During the years between the two wars, a new form of finance sprang up in this country, known as the hire-purchase system. The companies concerned were enabled to take on what were really bad business risks, but they managed to remain solvent and prosperous in spite of that. I know of no reason why the Government should not put forward a similar scheme for financing these men and starting them up in business after the war.

A further consideration is that there are thousands of them who are less favourably placed than the employees of large concerns, because those in the latter category are in many instances getting their pay made up, but the shopkeeper who has gone to the war has no source from which his pay can be made up. Therefore he is suffering the double blow that his present income is decreased and that his future prospects have almost disappeared. It is for the Government to indicate what they are going to do for him. I do not suggest that, at this stage, we should be given any detailed plans, and I do not ask for any dates or details as to when controls can be relaxed, but I think the Government ought to outline the policy which will enable these people to have something to look forward to.

Moreover, I am especially concerned with shops in evacuated and defence areas. They represent a particular problem of their own. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will give us some encouragement in this respect. He has done a great deal, I know, in finding substitutes but the problem in the defence areas is that there are no substitutes. It is a problem of its own. This is a matter about which I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will give me a reply. He was good enough to come to my constituency a little while ago and make a statement on the matter. There must be in his mind a particular method of dealing with it and I hope that he will let us know in his reply what it is.

Some of the questions which were raised about co-operative stores were important. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Doncaster has left his place. He said there was no distinction in treatment between the small shopkeeper and the employee of a co-operative store but there is one outstanding instance of differentiation. Hon. Members opposite have been fond of throwing out a charge about vested interests against us; for once I am going to throw it back and say there was never a more outstanding instance of vested interest than the exclusion of the Co-operative Wholesale Society from the milk rationalisation scheme. It was monstrous and there was no justification for it at all, but I believe that the Government were afraid to tackle it. The results have been most unfortunate, because the small milkman has been interfered with and he has had his customers rationalised and regionalised, while the Co-operative Wholesale Society were left outside the scheme, and they were able to continue on the same basis as before. They were the only people who were excluded from the scheme and I consider it not only unfair but an unfortunate attitude for Government policy to have displayed.

There is certainly an uncomfortable feeling that no sort of control is being exercised over the buying and selling of property, so far as it affects this question. The chain and multiple stores are buying up property which will be the only shop property available, so that the small shopkeeper will not have the space. Most of the best sites are being acquired by the multiple stores. I hope the Government will direct more attention to that matter in order to prevent the small shopkeeper having nowhere to put his shop when he comes back. Another problem of defence areas is that some roads or streets have had to be closed. A man who keeps a shop in those areas suffers very badly, and unless he is in fact turned out he gets no compensation. The Government are not turning them out but are just leaving them there. When the street is closed, the man's business is gone.

I have taken more time than I intended to, but I hope that the Minister of Labour will give us some hope for the future. Let us be satisfied that he is bearing in mind what is to happen in the future. Let us remember the problems of the soldier now serving and determine what is to happen to him when he comes back. We want some reassurance from the Parliamentary Secretary that his future will be safeguarded.

Earlier in the day we were discussing the procedure and the machinery of the House of Commons, and I think it is a tribute to our procedure and our machinery that we can hold a Debate on the small trader, and the small shopkeeper, which I think is the third Debate of its kind in a few months, and can voice his grievances in this manner. I thought the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just sat down in many ways answered the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden) who preceded him, and the arguments he was putting forward to refute the case which had been advanced by the hon. and learned Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine-Hill), to whom we are indebted for initiating this discussion. I was a little surprised that the hon. Member for Doncaster, who has considerable knowledge and who speaks with great interest on this problem, in his argument with regard to the co-operative societies and the small trader, and the dispute which appears, according to him, to be going on in the columns of the "Daily Express" should continually refer to the Lord Privy Seal as a member of the Conservative Party, or as being associated with the Conservative Party, or as speaking on their behalf. I seem to remember that not long ago Lord Beaverbrook was spending a great deal of his time in attacking the very strongholds of the Conservative Party.

Listening to this Debate, and I think I have heard most of the speeches, it seems to me that a case has been made out. In fact the hon. Member for Doncaster, although he spent a great deal of his time in trying to answer the arguments of the hon. and learned Member for North Edinburgh, at the end of his speech came down in favour of the suggestion that something has to be done for the small shopkeeper, and he suggested an idea that has been put forward many times before to the Parliamentary Secretary, that committees should be set up to give this matter more careful local consideration. The feeling in the letters which we all receive from our constituents is that God is on the side of the big battalions on the home front. The hon. Member for Enfield (Mr. Bull), in one of the humorous speeches we have become accustomed to hearing from him, dealt with the book "Your M.P." and with the reign of Napoleon, and I could not help feeling that it was a long stretch from Uncle Tom Cobley to the hon. Member for Enfield. We have certainly come a long way from the days of John Bright who said that if the light of the Constitution failed to shine in the cottage of the poor and lowly as well as in the mansions of the rich we had still to learn the first duty of government.

There are various manifestations of this problem of power politics. You get the big battalions outside the influence of the House of Commons trying to exert influence over the little man or-the ordinary Member of Parliament as to how he shall speak and vote in the House of Commons. At any rate, I hope that to-day the big battalions of the Government, as represented by the Parliamentary Secretary, or at least the big battalions of the Ministry of Labour, are going to be on the side of the little shopkeeper, because if we allow this call-up to go on, as far as I can see, it will result in changing the whole character of the shop life of this country. At the end of the last war it was one of the things that produced cynicism and unrest, this feeling that there was unfairness and discrimination, and to a certain extent injustice. What happened? When the small shopkeeper and the big shopkeeper both went before the tribunal the little man was probably called up, and the big man continued in business, and because of this he, perhaps, attracted most of the trade which previously went to his unfortunate competitor, so at the end of the war the serving man who had left his shop in the charge of someone else very often came back to the situation that he had to go to the big man to get a job. This was the kind of injustice which of course produced bad feeling and a bitter sense of grievance. It must not happen again.

Therefore I want to enter a plea for the shopkeeper in the small country town. Many instances have been given of what is happening in the urban districts. Before the war the whole trend was, I am afraid, in favour of the multiple shop or the big store. Improved bus and transport arrangements were such that on market days the tendency was for people to go into the county town to do their shopping, leaving the one man business in the villages or small towns to struggle against unfair odds. To-day because of the war he must struggle for the right to keep open. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to do something on his behalf. I have brought up in this House a case in a Suffolk village which is a glaring example of the kind of injustice this is producing. It is the case of a grocer's shop. I have referred to it before. There are five sons, all of whom volunteered for the Fighting Services. The father, in ill-health, tried to keep the business going, so that when the boys came back they would not have to look elsewhere but would have the inheritance of the business, which the father had given his life to build up. Eventually, because of overwork the father died, and despite efforts made to the Secretary of State for Air and the Ministry of Labour there is no chance whatever of getting one of those young men back out of the Services to help the mother, who is not in particularly robust health, to keep the shutters open.

Quite frankly if this kind of thing is going on, if these small businesses are to be closed, if you are going to see the scales weighted against these men who have volunteered to serve their country, they may be well asking themselves whether they are fighting this war any more for freedom or not. The Prime Minister said on Wednesday that he thought the war was losing much of its ideological character. I wonder if we are still fighting for the rights of the individual against great influence and power. Surely some way can be found to stop this extinction of their fundamental interests. It is on the lap of the gods when they come back whether they will find that their rights and inheritance have been preserved. It may not seem important to some people, but in the small villages and towns up and down the country this is a very real problem, as our postbags show time and time again. We are in the fifth year of war and the sustenance of the home front and the moral effort behind is of importance. It is these small things that are agitating the minds of the ordinary people. We see people who appear to be helping the war effort and yet one finds it impossible to say exactly what they are doing. Yet if you go to some of the small villages, such as I have in my constituency, you will find people struggling to carry on, with additional voluntary duties in the war effort, who are tired and showing signs of war fatigue. It seems something must be done to lighten their load.

We have had three of these Debates. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary has a large heart, and that he does his best to help these hard cases. I know that he has done his best with regard to the hardship committees and the man-power committee, but something more is needed. Surely, it is possible, with all the millions we have in uniform, to make a comb-out of some of the men in the lower categories—I do not mean the men doing combatant duties, but we get complaints from men in the Army, telling us that they have been called up from a small grocer's or chemist's shop, or something of that sort, and that when they go into the Army they do nothing but sit by a telephone or perform odd duties in base camps. These man-power committees ought to have the right to say that these categories in the Army ought to be combed-out, and that an opportunity should be given to some of the older men to go back to their businesses. I have asked the Parliamentary Secretary before who has the really effective voice on the Central Man-power Committee. Is it the Services—because the Prime Minister is always in favour of the uniform—who decide these margin cases? I submit to the Government that the time has come, even with impending military operations, to review this question of man-power, to make a comb-out of some of the lower grades, and to allow a strengthening of the civilian or home front. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to tell us something more hopeful than he has told us in the past.

I do not wish to miss this opportunity of adding my plea for the small traders, particularly those in our big cities, who are engaged on what I would call social work of national importance. I mean by that the small milk roundsman, the small builder, the small chimney sweep, and so on, whose work is of enormous social importance, particularly to people who live, under very difficult circumstances, in our bigger blitzed cities. I find, in my own constituency, that many oldish men have been called up, on a very low medical category, and put to work in the Army, scrubbing tables and floors, and so forth, when they ought to be doing civil work of national importance. I would beg the Parliamentary Secretary to consider such cases very much more on their merits, and to endeavour to deal with them with more flexibility and adaptability. I thank you, Sir, for giving me these few minutes, to support my hon. Friends, on both sides of the House, in the very moving pleas that they have made in support of the small traders.

We have had a most interesting Debate, which has run for more than two hours, and I do not complain in the very least of the quality or the fairness of any of the speeches. I could not help reflecting, as I listened, that they were possibly, in some ways, very nearly as important as those which were made in the very great Debate on foreign affairs which we have had in the last two days. During those two days hon. Members, in all parts of the House, painted the picture of the postwar organisation that they wished to see after victory had been won. But victory never would be won if we had not been able to mobilise fully our man-power and our woman-power for the war effort. We have been able to mobilise that on an unparalleled scale, because we have had at the Ministry of Labour, I believe, the general confidence, trust, and support, not only of this House but of the whole country, because we have endeavoured to deal fairly as between man and man. The whole policy that my Minister has laid down is that the overriding principle must be that we should try to be fair. In war many hardships are bound to exist, but we have endeavoured to act fairly. Therefore, when hon. Members wish to probe below the surface, to see whether we have lived up to our promise to try to act fairly, the answer is vital to our mobilisation, and to the general course of the war effort.

I would like to make one general observation, which must be continuously and urgently and overwhelmingly in the mind of my Minister and myself at the present time. It is a commonplace that we are on the threshold of a very great adventure. There has never been such an incessant demand for man-power and woman-power as at this very moment, on the eve of these operations; and I could not stand here—and I believe that, on reflection, no hon. Member would ask me to do so—and say that at this moment, of all moments in the war, we could, as one hon. Member said, call a halt, and, as another hon. Member said, comb-out the Forces. We cannot recommend any let-up of the rigour of our mobilisation until this operation has been concluded, and until we can see how speedily it can be carried out. The more speedily this mobilisation goes on, the more speedily can we attain victory.

We had a Debate on this subject on 18th February, when I delivered a carefully prepared speech, as indeed I was asked to do, setting out the whole position of the call-up of small shopkeepers. I do not want to go through that again. I cannot, as the hon. Member for Enfield (Mr. Bull) suggested, have a large piece put into HANSARD which I have not delivered, and no hon. Member would wish me to repeat what I said on the last occasion. Many matters have been raised which I endeavoured to answer on that occasion, notably the question of how we should try to temper the wind to the shorn lamb of the small shopkeeper as against the large multiple store and the like. The small shopkeeper has, over and above deferment, which is the same for all classes of shopkeepers, the hardship procedure. The procedure falls into two parts. First, there are men of military age who are due to be called up for the Armed Forces. They come under the National Service Acts. The hardship tribunal, to which they can appeal, is a statutory body set up by this House. It decides whether there is exceptional hardship, on Regulations which have been laid before this House, and, as one hon. Member said, there is an appeal, in certain cases, to the umpire, and the Act lays down that the umpire's decision is final.

We could not alter the position of the men of military age who are small shopkeepers without coming to the House either for a new Act or for a new set of regulations, and, as I have just said, this, above all, is not the time to do that with regard to the men of military age, every one of whom is needed for the Forces if they can possibly be spared. In that connection, the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Linstead), who apologised for having to go off to an urgent engagement, raised a special case. This case has been to the umpire, and he has given his decision, which is final. The only thing that my right hon. Friend could do now would be arbitrarily not to call the man up. My right hon. Friend has taken the view, and I am sure he is right, that, if the statutory body set up by Parliament says that the man is available for call-up, it would not be right for the Minister to override Parliament and the statutory authorities in this way. I have the very greatest sympathy for this man, and so have we all, but he has actually had postponement, on hardship grounds, from being called up for over two years, and I would like to read just what I wrote to the hon. Member on this case:

"The Minister felt bound, however, to make it a rule that where he is free to issue an enlistment notice it should be delayed only when it is in the national interest to do so. Indeed, to adopt any course that took into account personal circumstances of any other character could but lead to the most invidious comparisons between one man and another."

What about Members of Parliament?

They are covered by the arrangement which the Prime Minister made early in the war. So much for the man under the National Service Acts, except that I would say, to one or two hon. Members who raised the question of the hardship tribunals—I think the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) was one—and suggested that the chairman had sometimes not acted fairly or had been harsh on the man—

I mentioned a particular case.

I am coming to that point. I was talking about the National Service Hardship Committees which are statutory bodies set up under the National Service Acts. The hon. Member for Shettleston and I think one or two other hon. Members mentioned that sometimes they seemed hard and did not give enough attention to the cases, but that is not my experience. There may be some cases—everybody is human—but, by and large, these gentlemen and ladies who sit on these Tribunals have done a very invidious job very well in the national interest, and we owe them a debt of gratitude, first, for taking on that job, which is no child's play, but only likely to bring them hard, difficult and anxious problems, and, second, for doing it in the way that Parliament wished. So much, then, for the men of military age under the National Service Act. I think I have said enough to show that, at this moment, and I emphasise at this moment, when the exigencies of the war are so acute, we could not possibly come to Parliament to ask for fresh regulations or an alteration in the Act.

Men and women over military age are called up under the Registration for Employment Order, and are under the Ministry of Labour's direct control, and, although the local appeal boards and National Service officers, who deal with these people, do in general regard hardship on the same lines as it is regarded by the umpire under the National Service Acts, we, of course, can and in fact do make the rigour of these people's call-up or withdrawal from small businesses very much easier. In one of these Debates about six months ago my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Summers), now in Australia, raised the case, for example, of the wife or sister or other relative of a serving man endeavouring to keep his business open while he was away, and asked if the Minister would look into that case. The hon. Member believed that some of these people were being asked to transfer to other work. We did consider that, and not only met the hon. Member's request, but went further and issued instructions to our National Service officers, who are the first people to consider these cases, that, where anybody, man or woman, is acting as substitute for the original owner or single employee of that shop or small business, who has gone to the war or into national service, they shall not, in general, disturb them in any way. If the withdrawal of the substitute would involve the closing of the business, and it is improbable that alternative arrangements can be made, we do not take any further action, and we so instruct our National Service officers. They also give consideration to the actual persons whom we propose to withdraw from small businesses. If it is clear, from the state of health of that person, man or woman, who would be withdrawn under the Registration of Employment Order, that the proposal to withdraw him or her would not materially assist the war effort, then no further action is taken, and it is within my knowledge that the National Service officers have taken a very wide and liberal view of that instruction.

As regards food shops, in general no man is withdrawn over military age, and, indeed, excepting in special categories, there are, in my belief, at the moment, very few businesses which are being closed down because of the withdrawal, under the Registration of Employment Order, of women or of men over military age. I say "except in special categories." One category was mentioned by the hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) with regard to garages. The Ministry of War Transport asked us to see whether we could, in some way, concentrate the effort of some garages in the country, owing to very special difficulties, and we endeavoured to do so. I am not sure that we made a great success of that scheme, and we have modified it very much. Similarly, a case exists in regard to bakers baking in very small establishments who, if working in larger premises, would be able to bake very much more bread.

When the National Service officer does consider that exceptional hardship would ensue he gives postponement up to six months as a maximum, and the suggestion is made to the individual to whom the postponement is granted that he should use that period to make alternative arrangements, if possible, for carryon or disposing of the business, but if the National Service officer at the end of the six months is shown that the business cannot be provided with a substitute and that alternative arrangements cannot be made, then, normally, he gives a further postponement. I have been told that I should not place too much on individual cases, but I did, on 18th February, specifically ask hon. Members whether they would send me cases of businesses which were being closed down under the Registration for Employment Order procedure outside the National Service age groups, and I promised to look into them. From my recollection—and I read every letter that comes to me in the Department—I do not remember a single one in which the actual closing down of a shop has taken place.

Many points have been raised in the course of the Debate, and I would, in a few moments, like to run through some of them. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine-Hill) opened the Debate with what I thought was a most reasonable speech. I do not wish to take up the point he raised regarding the co-operative societies. My personal belief is that the small shopkeeper will always find a living in this country. We are a nation largely of individualists. We like personal attention, which the small shopkeeper can give, and I do not believe, however much any of the multiple shops try to close the small shopkeeper, they will be able to do so, and I certainly hope they will not succeed.

I do not think that the Minister would agree with the hon. Gentleman.

I said that I hope they will not.

But the Minister would not agree.

I am talking about myself. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Edinburgh raised a case rather similar to that raised by the hon. Member for Northampton. It was the case of a woman whose husband has been killed or has died and who was endeavouring to keep the business open for her son or some other relative. I will certainly look into such cases and see whether they are covered. I think they are. If not, I will certainly see if we cannot include that case with the other one, and in that way help the position. He also raised a point, by way of example, of a man who was being withdrawn and who, instead of being put into the Army, had been offered the alternative of going to the Shetlands to work in a shop. That man presumably—I do not know the case—is over 35 and yet of military age. Men over 35 who are still of military age are often offered, where circumstances permit, the alternative, when further postponement is not granted, of either going into the Forces or going as substitute to some work of national importance which will allow a younger man than himself to be called-up and go into the Forces. That seems to us to be the sensible thing to do, because we get a net gain of a young man instead of a net gain of an older man over 35. I think that that case was probably one under that arrangement. It is an entirely voluntary arrangement for the man. He can go into the Forces rather than to the job which we find for him, if he so wishes.

The hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Guy) made an eloquent appeal for more relaxation. He did not exactly explain to us how we ought to relax our efforts and I hope that what I have told him, how we endeavour to act as generously as possible under the Registration of Employment Order, though we cannot in any way upset the rigour of our call-up under the National Service Acts, will to some extent satisfy him. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield (Mr. Bull)—and the case was also taken by another hon. Friend—mentioned the number of shops that were being shut down. He gave the figure of 100,000. I do not know where that figure came from. I have not been able to confirm it.

It came from the "Daily Express."

I asked my hon. Friend for information. Can he, alternatively, give me another figure?

I can only give the figure for non-food shops whose owners, after the shops have been closed down, have applied for registration under the Board of Trade scheme of registration. The Board of Trade wishes every nonfood shop that has been closed down to register with it in order that it can substantiate their claim to special treatment when they can start up again. It has 15,000 of these small shops registered which is a different figure from that of 100,000. I do not know where that figure came from, and we have not been able to substantiate it in any way.

My hon. Friend is referring to non-food shops, but not to all shops.

We have not the food shops figure. The hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden) made a plea, for special committees. As far as food shops are concerned, we take the advice of local food offices. There are special committees set up and my hon. Friend the Member for Putney knows there is one with regard to chemists. I will again examine the point that has been raised, however.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will follow the point I made very closely. I mean local committees or district committees capable of judging the needs of each area for the distribution of any goods, whether food or whatever commodity it may be. That is the point, as distinct from the chemists' committee.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Doland) raised the position of the National Service Acts and I think I have dealt with that. My hon. Friend the Member for Putney raised a very special case. I have, against the principles I have announced, held up the call-up of that man until after this Debate, which is for a period of about a fortnight. In view of his fears and of the special emphasis he put into his plea, I will certainly discuss the case with my Minister again, but I do not see how we could in any way get over the decision of the umpire. Finally, there was the speech by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brighton (Lieut.-Colonel Marlowe), who discussed the subject of reinstatement after the war. This is a very important subject and I cannot deal with it to-day, except to say that the consideration he mentioned is one we have very much in mind. He would not expect me at this hour to announce a complete scheme for the rehabilitation of the small shopkeeper after the war, but the principles he has put forward are very much in mind and we shall not overlook them. The hon. Member for the Eye Division (Mr. Granville) discussed a comb-out of low category men from the Forces. I think he was answered in part by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, who said that low category men were needed in the Army so as to release higher category men in order to do the actual fighting. At any rate, I cannot suggest that we should comb-out the Army at this time.

I would also remind the House that the shops which have been closed down have by no means always been closed down because of lack of labour but because of the blitz, the shortage of goods to sell and for many other reasons. In our view, the shortage of labour and the call-up to the Forces has not been the major factor although it has been an important one in the closing of small shops. I believe that the whole House—and I certainly—regret the necessity of having to close down a single establish- ment, but, on the other hand, the small shopkeeper, I believe, would not like to be regarded as being in a category different from any other section of the community in that he could claim immunity from call-up for the Forces or for national service.

It is our duty to see how we can help him to regain his place at the end of the war in cases where in the national interest we have had to ask him to suffer the hardship of giving up his business during the war. I am sure that all Government Departments concerned in the post-war reconstruction period will agree with what I say in that respect. I would not like it to go out from this Debate that the Government or the Ministry of Labour are in any way unmindful of the fact that we have had to make exceptional calls on the distributive industry in this war, The whole country owes them a debt of gratitude for the splendid way in which they have responded to the call, and although we cannot now promise them a let-up, I hope that that day will not be long delayed.

I am glad that not a few of my hon. Friends have thought fit to answer in the negative the old question, "Is your journey really necessary?" because that enables them to be here to join with me in answering, also in the negative, the same question as applied to the export of art treasures to the United States of America. On 25th May, 1943, I asked the President of the Board of Trade

"whether he is aware that there is a steady drain to the United States of America of the richest treasures of this country in furniture, pictures, plate and the like; and whether he will look into this situation and take the action best calculated to bring it to an end?"

The President of the Board of Trade replied that no articles more than 75 years old, nor any work of art, might be exported without a licence from the Board of Trade, and then he added:

"When in any particular case his officers are in any doubt whether export is in the public interest, they consult the museum authorities and only issue a licence with their concurrence."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th May, 1943; Vol. 389, C. 1388–1389.]

A week later I took up the question of how many licences have been granted, and I was told that these articles were first placed under export control on 21st August, 1940, that they included any paintings, drawing or sculpture irrespective of age, and also any article more than 75 years old irrespective of artistic, historic or other interest. Then my right hon. Friend gave the number of licences—and I ask the House to note this carefully—for 1940, 1,827 licences; for 1941, 4,407; for 1942, 3,166. I thought it right to let a little time elapse before I tackled this subject again, in view of the diminution in the licences as between 1941 and 1942, and accordingly it was only on the 9th May this year that I asked my right hon. Friend for the figures for 1943, and he stated that for that year 3,093 licences had been granted. I put a supplementary question to him in these words:

"Is my right hon. Friend aware that the decrease which took place between 5945 and 1942 has not been maintained, and will he take urgent steps to see that the figures are reduced this year?"

The President of the Board of Trade replied:

"No, Sir. I am satisfied that these arrangements are administered properly. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th May, 1944; Vol. 399, c. 1694.]

It was on that account that I gave notice of this Debate.

Subsequently my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) extracted from the President the value of licences issued in 1940 as £340,000 worth of works of art and paintings. The President added:

"The figures for 1945 and 1942, which have not been published, show a heavy reduction."

That amount, therefore, is approximately what is realised by the export of these goods to the United States at the present time, but I would like to point out to the House that the amount of goods exported is obviously higher than the figure given, since the licensing system does not cover such goods as manuscripts, libretti, first editions of famous authors—from the later works of Charles Dickens downwards—and also Victorian and Edwardian glass, plate and furniture which now, I understand, is gaining in public approval and esteem.

On 3rd June, 1943, after I had put my original Questions, an art dealer described as "of international repute" communi- cated to the "Daily Mail" the following remarks:

"The stuff for which nearly 10,000 licences have been granted has been mostly furniture and silver such as may be found in any comfortably appointed home in this country. Most middle-class families have bits of period furniture and some good silver, and more and more of these families are selling these long cherished possessions because they need the money. There is a good market for such things in America, but practically nobody there wants to buy first class museum pieces."

On 23rd May last year the New York correspondent of the "Sunday Pictorial" cabled to his newspaper:

"It hurts my eyes to see several Fifth Avenue store windows crammed with lovely old English silver, china, pictures, books and other treasures, and at a time when the United States Government are imploring citizens to invest in war savings instead of spending. It is painful to see them pouring out dollars in the purchase of Britain's heirlooms."

I have had a number of letters on this subject from correspondents, and I would like to extract one to give to the House. Other letters are very much to the same effect:

"Do you realise that all the old English and Irish glass which is in the country is being bought up? I am interested in old glass. Quite recently I wrote to one of the principal dealers and he told me that prices had gone up out of all sense of values because every piece he bought he sold to America. He frankly admitted that he did not mind how much of it never reached there, owing to losses at sea and breakages, as the Americans paid all risks and insurance and came back asking for more."

On account of all this evidence of what is taking place I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary for a reconsideration of this whole matter and, in particular, I want to ask him two questions. First, whether he will shorten the period of licensing from 75 years to 25; second, whether he will undertake to be more selective in granting licences, with the object of bringing the total number of licences down from 3,000 to approximately 1,500, that is to say, cutting them by half? I am not asking for a total prohibition, as I think that would be drastic and arbitrary.

There are two arguments usually advanced against interference with the present system of laissez faire free trade in objects of art and vertu. The first is finance, that lubricator of so many cogs in the machinery of unrighteousness. It is said, "We need the dollars, so let us pour out our treasures, if necessary to the end, and if only to pay a tithe of what is needed to feed and equip ourselves for war." But what is this 300,000 among the billions involved in the international transactions of the present time? A mere token. If it is necessary to put up tokens, let us offer electrical machinery or linen, and all sorts of current manufactures. I would even go so far as to suggest whisky, but I understand my hon. Friends consider their constituents are running a little short.

Charity begins at home.

The second argument is the argument of the international dealers, and of those periodicals which give advertising space to dealers, whether national or international. On 4th June, 1943, "Country Life" said:

"Though sentiment is sometimes hurt, and will no doubt be often wounded henceforth, by the transference of beautiful things overseas that is a reasonable arrangement. Anything in the nature of a general embargo would immediately call in question the right of this country to the possession of numberless imported works of art, from the Elgin Marbles downwards. Works of art are a form of international currency, on the retention of which, in any particular country, ultimately depends its wealth. They must also be regarded as instruments for the dissimination of culture."

But may I point out that my proposals are not retrospective? I would not return the Elgin Marbles, just as I would not claim back from the United States the fabulous collection of pictures which found their way there, from this country, in the period from 1900–14. As for art being international currency, let me suggest to hon. Members that it is better to freeze art than to freeze people. There is far more hope for peace in the world if people move freely about the world and are able to view the artistic treasures in the countries of their origin than if we were to embark on a long-term process of educating the multitude in artistic appreciation by switching the world's masterpieces from one country to another, from century to century.

My third proposal to the Government is this: I want them to reverse the present Treasury policy and make grants or loans amounting to £1,000,000, or more in excess of present grants, to enable the National Arts Collection Fund, and existing museums, to acquire more of these treasures, and also to enable local authorities to open new museums and new galleries. I would like to give the House one or two examples. The actions of the Dorset County museum authorities have been most enlightened and exemplary. There is a room in the Dorchester museum in memory of Thomas Hardy. Part of his actual study has been reconstructed there but. I believe—and I do not suppose the authorities would differ—that there is scope still for improvement and extension. It may be that more of Hardy's original M.S. could be acquired. Let me look North-East, to my home county. It is deplorable that Huntingdon has not a museum more worthy of its great son and product Oliver Cromwell. Let me look West, to Warwickshire. I do not believe that Stratford-on-Avon would claim that everything that can be done has been done to attract world lovers of Shakespeare to the banks of the Avon.

Far from it.

Perhaps my hon. Friend can bear me out when I say that specimens of Shakespeare's Second, Third and Fourth Folios were, at Christie's, in mid-April, consigned to nameless destinations. A small country town museum, such as exists at Stratford-on-Avon, cannot compete in present circumstances with the prices—up to £850 for each volume—which are now ruling in the markets. Let me turn East. My right hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Secretary represents the city of Leicester with great ability and distinction. In Leicester there is a city museum and art gallery. It contains various Roman architectural remains, a botanical and zoological section and a gallery of representative paintings. That is admirable, but how about adding to it a new science wing, to collect the original machinery which went into the development of the hosiery and boot and shoe trades, on which the prosperity of the great city which my right hon. and gallant Friend represents, depends? For example, the inventions of the Elizabethan, William Lee, and of the Victorians, Townsend, Moulding, Lamb and Cotton. Why not also add an historical department to the museum, to collect the relics of Prince Rupert who, 299 years ago this very month, swept into the city of Leicester and put to flight Cromwell's forces? If my right hon. and gallant Friend will encourage the city to think quickly they may yet act in time to celebrate the tercentenary next year. I trust that the museum authorities will not discover that the objects which, with a little aid from the Treasury, they might acquire are now in Liverpool Docks packed ready for shipment to the United States.

We must obviously safeguard the interests of the individual seller. High taxation and Death Duties force many to-day to sell their dearest possessions. The proposals which I have outlined, if accepted, must be designed to avoid knocking the bottom out of the market. Enough public money must be infused into any new system to ensure that the whole thing does not become a buyer's market, otherwise, of course, considerable public dissatisfaction will ensue.

My final proposal is this. I think there should be undertaken the immediate preparation of a list of our greatest masterpieces, which must not be allowed on any account to leave the country. For example, the Wilton Diptych and the Luttrell Psalter. One of the world's most glorious landscapes, Constable's "Dedham Vale," comes up at Christie's on 9th June. I want to ask my right hon. Friend to take action forthwith to save that picture for the nation. In conclusion may I say this? I think Parliament must enact legislation at the earliest opportunity to prevent what is admittedly only a stream to-day from developing into a flood after the war. There is no time to lose. We must have on the Statute Book by the time controls generally begin to be released, Measures necessary to withstand the pressure that is bound to develop along the channels of this particular trade. It is often argued that we shall be poor after the war. I do not take that view. I think we shall be rich—rich in new inventions, in new machinery and in new-found skill. But to allow the products of the great craftsmen of former generations to leave our shores, to let those products trickle away through the sands of insensibility and indifference, is much more than to become poor. It is to renounce nationality in its spiritual foundations. It is to cast away a heritage.

My Noble Friend has given very interesting figures as to the assessed values of these great treasures. Has he brought the figures up to date? When he suggests £1,000,000 from the Treasury, does he think that that might balance the value?

The President of the Board of Trade has not given the figures since 1940, but he says they show a reduction. g1,000,000 would perhaps rather more than counter-balance the present outflow but it would not be too much having regard to what took place before the war and what, in default of legislation, may be expected after the war.

I wish to support the plea that has been made by my Noble Friend and I think we are greatly indebted to him for bringing the subject before the House. Unfortunately, this question of the export of antiquities and works of art is one that exercises the minds of very few people either inside or outside the House. The numbers present to-day are ample evidence of that fact. Without casting any reflections on my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench, it is also significant that the President of the Board of Trade has not considered it of sufficient importance to come and deal with the question himself. I am afraid that these exports are regarded generally merely as a profitable form of commerce, and that the Treasury views the matter very largely in that light Of course, during these war years it is understandable that they have derived a considerable measure of satisfaction from the supplies of dollars which have been accumulated from this source. In the early and critical days of the war, when our very existence as a country was at stake, there was, no doubt, a very strong case for increasing our supplies of foreign exchange by this method. There was no sacrifice from which we shrank, or which we were not prepared to make. But the time has now come when this matter should be entirely reconsidered, from the point of view of what is, in the long run, in the national interest. It is certain that there are very few people who have given thought and attention to the matter, including officials and experts attached to our museums and galleries, who do not view the question with increasing concern, and I believe they are unanimously of opinion that the Government should conduct a far more drastic and restrictive policy.

My Noble Friend has made certain suggestions, and indicated certain steps that may be taken, and I should like to endorse fully what he has said. I should be prepared to go a long way in carrying out such a policy. He has agreed that it is in the national interest to retain in this country the great wealth of art treasures and antiquities which have been accumulated in the past, and I think the case for taking action is overwhelming, whatever difficulties there may be. I am of opinion that no considerations of a commercial character, no vested trade interests and no private interests should be allowed to stand in our way. There are, after all, precedents for establishing such a policy and taking such action. I suggest that the Government should inaugurate some such system as that adopted by the Italian Government before the war. I believe the French Government took action on rather similar lines.

What has been the past history of this trade? There is no question that throughout the years of this century there has been a continuous outflow of art treasures and antiquities of all kinds and all values, and that flow has proceeded chiefly to the United States. Indeed, it has at times developed into a shameless racket. Fabulous profits have been made and an artificial level of prices has been established. There were boom periods when an insatiable demand created a corresponding supply of wholly questionable goods, which were fabricated and faked to suit the prevailing fashion. Indeed, our losses in that respect have not always been quite as great as figures might indicate. I know one expert who examined this question carefully some years ago who concluded that in one boom year, I think 1925 or 1926, as much furniture passing as 100 years old was exported to the United States as could not possibly have been made in the whole of the 18th century.

Those days, it is true, are now over. The Americans themselves realise the nature of this business and they have imposed a system of severe tests and scrutiny on all articles that pose as being of value by reason, of their age. There is another and perhaps more important aspect of this question—the great losses we have sustained in unique and indi- vidual art treasures in the last 20 or 30 years. That is an aspect of the matter which is of the greatest importance, and it was particularly referred to in the concluding part of my Noble Friend's speech. It is particularly with regard to that aspect that I believe some immediate action should be taken on the lines indicated by my Noble Friend. I do not think we need grudge our American Allies the great treasures that they have acquired and which have crossed the Atlantic during the last 50 years. They are, I know, highly prized and appreciated in America. There is, I think, nowhere in the world a public that is more appreciative of great art. In the immediate future, and in the post-war years, we shall find ourselves in a position of great disadvantage in purchasing power.

It is certain that individual incomes will be lower in this country than in the United States. We shall have an incomparably higher level of taxation, and the United States will emerge from the war with their resources relatively unimpaired. Therefore, if this trade is to be left to the ordinary processes of commerce, and the working of the market, we are likely to see an enormously increased drain of our art treasures far greater even than in the past which we cannot any longer afford. For these reasons, I strongly support the case that has been made by my Noble Friend and I hope that the President of the Board of Trade will indicate that his Department will at least enter into conversations with all the interests concerned to see whether some definite policy can be decided upon.

For the first time, I can say on rising to address the House that I find myself exactly zoo per cent. in agreement with anything that previous speakers in a Debate have said. My Noble Friend has rendered a public service by raising this issue. In these blood-soaked times through which we are passing, it is significant to note that many art treasures and some of the world's famous monuments of culture have already been sacrificed on the altar of the gods of destruction. As the Prime Minister declared recently:

"It is the great tragedy of our times that the fruits of science, by a monstrous perversion, have been turned on a vast scale to evil ends."

Bearing these sombre facts in mind, it behoves us to seek by all means in our power to preserve what is left of our still unrivalled heritage of works of art contained in these islands. We must also bear in mind that enemy action from the air has been responsible for inflicting grievous losses. Moreover, there has been a one-way traffic in art treasures to the United States on a scale which I can only describe, taking all the circumstances into consideration, as deplorable. Most significant of all, it should be emphasised that war taxation has virtually doomed to dispersal every substantial art collection remaining in private hands.

The proposals which my Noble Friend has made for the retention in this country of as many objects of art as can be saved are the bare minimum of what is required. All his proposals are reasonable. I particularly commend his suggestion that civic authorities should be encouraged to expand on sound lines their art collections. It is astonishing to observe as one goes about, how few cities can boast any art collection worth the trouble of a visit. I would, therefore, take this opportunity to appeal to such private individuals who remain—and there are quite a number of them who are in a position to do so—to found new art galleries, or do what they can to expand existing ones. There could be no higher act of patriotism, or one conferring more lasting benefits upon the nation. The main obstacles to achieving our object are the Treasury on the one hand, and the trade on the other. The Treasury is a formidable obstacle, because it is particularly interested in collecting dollars.

My hon. Friend would not deny that the House of Commons should tell the Treasury what they ought to do in the matter.

I endorse what my. Noble Friend says. With regard to the trade, the difficulty is that many art dealers in this country have branches in New York or elsewhere abroad, and they are not in the least interested in preserving works of art here but are only bent on realising profits in any way they can accumulate them. I submit to the Parliamentary Secretary that the overriding consideration in this matter should be the national interest. The gravamen of our case is that the retention of our art treasures is vital to the cultural development of our people and it is on those grounds I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to do his utmost to help to achieve the object we have in view.

I agree with all that has been said by my three hon. Friends, and I want now to put three suggestions or questions to the Parliamentary Secretary. The first is: Have the Board of Trade considered, or will they consider, imposing an export duty on these articles, so as to reduce automatically their volume? I hope that my right hon. and gallant Friend will not reply that that is a matter for the Treasury. I do not think the Board of Trade can dissociate themselves from it. The second question is this. It may be suggested that we import even larger quantities of beautiful things than we allow to go out, and that we ought not to be dog-in-the-manger. If that is alleged, will the Board of Trade consider arranging that statistics should in future be kept of what we bring in, as well as of what we export? My third question is: Is it intended that the control which was instituted in 1940 shall remain after the war? The Conservative Party, to which I belong, is not 100 per cent. a supporter of control, but in this matter I, for one, should be very glad to hear that we are to have a permanent control.

I agree with previous speakers that my Noble Friend did real service to the country in bringing this matter before the House of Commons. The suggestion is that the Government should interest themselves in the encouragement of local museums and galleries, in a much larger degree than in the past. We live in an age when the word "culture" means all that is outstanding in modern progress. By "culture" we mean the provision of objects of beauty which stimulate higher thought and a higher sense of responsibility. There is nothing which would more commend itself to the genius of our people, or more elevate the instincts of our race, than to have in every town of the country some cultural centre in which all the available objects of art and beauty could be brought together to be under continual observation.

We have had the privilege of receiving under the National Trust in this country, a great many generous gifts of places of interest and beauty throughout this green and pleasant land of ours. It would be a tremendous addition to our cultural vitality if such centres of educational interest as I have suggested, could be brought into existence, and extended on the lines suggested by my Noble Friend. He made a first-class case this afternoon, and it was supported by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Arthur Duckworth). In an age in which taxation is taking from the mass of the people of the country opportunities for adding to objects of beauty and art which are in their possession, it would be fitting if the Treasury could give back to the country in this way some of the money which it is taking. I think £1,000,000 a year would be a very small contribution towards raising the general level of culture in our body politic, and I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade that he could not associate himself with any interest that would make a greater appeal in this House and outside, than by responding with full and practical sympathy to the proposal made by my Noble Friend. How many things the Board of Trade could do to help this great object, and to preserve our old position, if it were to put an export tax on every article of real cultural interest leaving this country. I hope very much that the subject which has been brought before us in so delightful a way by my Noble Friend, will be sympathetically considered by the Board of Trade.

I would like to say a few words in support of this right-minded proposal. I hope that it will be the beginning of a revival of our interest in art and that it will become almost a passion. I was almost brought up by the late William Morris, who gave to our movement such a wonderful impetus from his great and generous heart. It is very deplorable that art has had so little consideration in this country. Through these squalid periods of the 19th century, it was allowed to sink and became horribly commercialised. Only in relatively recent years has there emerged the hope of gettting back to the old days, when great works of art were produced in our country. I gather that this proposal has reference to works of art that happen to be in the country now. I would remind hon. Members that there was a period when England bought up lots of works of art from Europe. Then came a period when America bought up works of art from England. Art kept going Westward. I hope that we shall be able to retain in our country such works of art as show the inspiration of our own people.

I hope the Government will be inspired to do something more than that, and to give further impetus to art workers in their own country. There was an arts and crafts movement inspired by Morris, Walter Crane, and other men, but it has never had a good chance. Somehow in France the artist is honoured more than in England, and his work is treasured more. Art is a great feature in the life of that country. I understand that among the exports from France, the one that is placed highest in importance is the export of works of art. That is because there is a more generous artistic mind in France, which is the most cultured nation in the world. I hope that the achievements of our own country will reach a higher grade of artistic production than has been the case in recent years. I do not know whether this is a matter for the Board of Trade, or for the President of the Board of Education, or whose business it is, but I wish the Government would take it up. There are many examples that could be emulated. When I was in Copenhagen, in the happy days before this war, I found a lot of evidence of young artistic ability. I found a great-minded-brewer in Copenhagen, who owned a lager brewery. He left it to the State, on condition that they continued to sell beer as good as he had done, and that all the profits went to young artists. I do not know whether we can get money for art from the brewers in this country, since the Government are already taking hundreds of millions of pounds from them every year. Perhaps the Government will spare a million or two for this great cause.

The short Debate which my Noble Friend the Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) initiated, has proved both interesting and informative. I only hope that some of the arguments which hon. Members have used have impressed themselves on the mind of the Government Front Bench. The hon. Member for South Dorset gave striking facts and figures in his speech to show the tremendous outpouring of art treasures from this country to the United States. I feel that we are losing some of our most precious artistic inheritance, all for the sake of the dollar exchange. I believe that some wit once said that the Grenville family had lost England, America, but had recompensed it by building the palace of Stowe. Perhaps that wit spoke truer than he thought. We have only to go to the great galleries of America, in Chicago or the Middle West, or to the great private art collections of Mr. Frick Huntingdon or Mr. Weidener to realise how much of England has travelled across the Atlantic. One may argue that this is according to a natural process, owing to the rise of great American industrial fortunes, and the heavy taxation of this country, which have made it inevitable.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this country did the same towards Italy. You may argue that the average young man of fashion of those days bumped and creaked in his heavy coach across Europe to admire the marvels of antiquity, and to return to this country laden with tapestries and pictures for his home. What happened as a result of that draining of artistic treasures from Italy? The Italian Government exercised a total prohibition, and no valuable work of art could leave Italy in the years before the war, without a licence from the Italian Government. The Noble Lord argued for a reduction in the export of works of art. I would like to see a total prohibition of certain classified works of art.

What is the exact position in this country at the present time? Let me take the case of an imaginary individual and call him the Duke of Bankruptcy and Broadacres. In his residence in the country he has a valuable Gainsborough. If this Gainsborough remains in the family as a family heirloom, the Duke does not pay Death Duties on that work of art. On the other hand, if he chooses to sell his Gainsborough to the National Art-Collections Fund or some art gallery in this country he will, possibly, receive a comparatively small sum of money, but his heir will be liable to pay Death Duties on the proceeds of that sale. He is far more likely to sell his Gainsborough to, say, Mr. Mellon and receive something like £60,000. If you bring in a total prohibition on the export of works of art the bottom will fall out of the picture market, and I believe that the owners of these works of art do merit certain consideration.

Let me make a practical proposal. I would like to see a Commission of art experts set up, composed of, let us say, the directors of the National Gallery, and the Tate Gallery, as well as some representative of provincial galleries, and some well-known picture expert well versed in prices, who would go round the country listing works of art of first-class national importance. Should the Duke of Bankruptcy's Gainsborough come within this list he would be entitled, when he died, if he so wished, to give this picture to a national pool of pictures and furniture. In so doing, I would like to see, if the Gainsborough was valued at £60,000 by the experts, his, Death Duty assessment £60,000 less than it would otherwise have been. I believe that by doing this, we could collect a pool of works of art of the highest quality, somewhat on the same model as the French Garde Meuble. I know that at the present time the Art-Collections Fund purchase works of art, and that the National Gallery lends works of art to Government offices. But it is quite obvious that the limited funds of private charity cannot retain in this country works of art of the highest quality.

I would like to see this pool of national works of art used for specific purposes. One of the most valuable of these purposes would be its availability to provincial art galleries. I would like to see first class art galleries in the heart of England. Why should not the docker on the Clyde or the Tyne, or the cotton worker in Manchester, or the Welsh coal-miner near Cardiff see in his own art gallery pictures just as good as the Londoner can see every day in the National Gallery? One other important aspect concerns our embassies and legations abroad. It is quite obvious that the only way a foreigner who resides permanently abroad can obtain an impression of England, is in the atmosphere he sees in British embassies abroad. More often than not what happens? Once you put your foot upon the red stair-carpet you see the beloved but somewhat familiar face of Queen Victoria looking down upon you. You find a picture of Queen Victoria in practically every legation and embassy. Why not have some of our best works of art? Let us say that we are entering the Embassy, the residence of the His Majesty's Ambassador accredited to the State of Ruritania. As you go through the various rooms, why should you not see pictures by Gainsborough, by Constable, and by Reynolds? And why not, also, some of those delightful pictures, all too little seen by the public, illustrating English sporting life, by Stubbs, Herring, and Ferncley—the stage coach rattling up the Great North Road, the classic winners of the turf who drew enthusiastic cheers at Epsom and Newmarket—

—and hunting pictures, illustrating the whole of British sporting life? No one who has been to the Maritime Museum at Greenwich can fail to realise how typically British are those pictures, showing such subjects as a tea clipper leaving the Thames Estuary or a battleship of the line leaving Portsmouth Harbour under full sail. Why should not likewise the visitor to a British embassy abroad be able to see typical exhibits of British furniture—Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Regency and so on? If you are to express the British way of life, you cannot neglect the material expression of that way of life. Why should not the Governors-General of Canada, Australia, or South Africa have some of these splendid works of art? Why should not some of the Colonies have them, so that the planter of Jamaica or the West African native may see pictures of the British institutions, which are his own? I know it is arguable that some of these things will perish in a tropical climate; but anyone who has been to the West Indies knows that some of the finest Chippendale furniture is to be seen there. If we are to do this, we must realise that the Treasury attitude might be penny wise but pound foolish. We should be accumulating national assets. If we are to play our part in the world after the war, these pictures of Britain and British way of life may have their influence.

I am very keen to hold everything beautiful that we have in this country, and to preserve it from the clutches of the speculator in the auction-room; but that is not possible—I wish it were. Once the suggestion of the Noble Lord, about getting £1,000,000 behind some protective measure, is carried out, you have opened the door. Then the charlatan gets abroad. He will produce all the masterpieces you want, and put them on the wall of his lordship, so that, when his lordship dies, these pictures will be bought in the auction room, at a high price, to pay the Death Duties. That is going on now. I know one noble lord now, who thinks that he has 16th-century masterpieces on his wall. I have seen two of them under X-ray, and they were painted five years ago. He has them certificated, in the belief that when he dies they will be sold at high lumping prices, to pay his Death Duties. That is what happens when you start this nonsense. The greatest work of art is a child, a human being. It always startles me when people become apprehensive lest a picture or a chair should be destroyed, when they pass mankind in the streets, underfed and miserable and it does not disturb them in the least.

Then they take this plunge, this astonishing endeavour to get £1,000,000 out of the Government to stop pictures from going to America. Here, in the National Gallery, there is a Titian picture, the "Carnaro," which was sold to pay the Death Duties, I believe, of the Duke of Northumberland. I tell the National Gallery now that Titian never saw that picture. I said in this House at the time, when money was voted from the Contingencies Fund, to pay for it, that that picture was a fake, and I challenge the officials, after the war, to have it taken down and put under modern examination, because Titian never saw it. It cost over £100,000. At that time, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) was Financial Secretary to the Treasury, he said that the reason why the money for this picture had to be voted out of the Contingencies Fund was that if it had got out that the Titian and the Wilton Diptych were in the market, there would have been wholesale speculation, with no end of people trying to buy them. What were the facts? Lord Duveen, who has his main showroom in New York, was a director of the National Gallery, so we had to keep Lord Duveen in New York ignorant of the fact that Lord Duveen, as a Director of the National Gallery, was about to buy these two masterpieces. That is the sort of thing that runs not in these cases.

Anyone who looks at the Wilton Diptych knows that it is a work of art, because he can see by every mark on it that the old monk who painted it painted it for the love of God, and breathed a prayer into it with every stroke of his brush. There were three of these Titians at the time we got this one at an enormous price. While I agree about stopping the exportation, if possible, of things that are well worth keeping at home, we should be on our guard once we ask for a fund. It is just like telling the landowners in the City that we are going to buy land for housing.

Would the hon. Member object if a small proportion went to the purchase of X-ray apparatus?

We can always get X-ray apparatus at the market price, and can always produce more X-ray apparatus, but we cannot go on producing half-a-dozen Titians every few weeks. There is that difference. Once we put public money at the disposal of people for buying works of art we shall get robbed, for there are houses in this country to-day getting ready to catch high prices for these things. I am with hon. Members and yet I am against them. I am with them in spirit, but I am against them because of the difficulty in the proposal. So debased has the mentality of this nation become in recent years that people do not care a damn about art, but they will go in their thousands twice a week to the pictures-houses to see the muck of Hollywood. They are more interested in that than in anything else. That is largely due to the fact that the great instruments that animated the minds of men and brought them into contact with the eternal verities and the beauties of life—picture-houses and wireless—were debauched and played down to the lowest appetites.

It is more art that we want in life, real living art, rather than gathering together the remnants of a by-gone age, perhaps beautiful in their way, and signs or exam- ples of what we should do now. But I would rather, if we are to have money for art, give that money to enliven the generation in which we live rather than do what is being suggested now. It is horrible and terrible, even in our own country, to go into places of mere vulgar ostentation and see some really beautiful work of art merely used as a decoration instead of as an adornment for some religious devotion. I hope that the House will forgive me for this outburst. I am at one with hon. Members in preserving whatever beauty is the outcome of our past generations, but I do not approve of the method they are adopting to secure it.

The interesting little Debate we have had has gone, of course, very far outside the matters under the direct control of the Board of Trade, but of that I make no complaint at all. I just remind the House that this control of which we are speaking was put on in August, 1940, with the object of preventing the uncontrolled exportation of capital in the form of valuables. To some extent it was then useful, and probably has been useful since. My Noble Friend who raised this matter, and several of my hon. Friends behind him, have spoken of the tremendous volume of these exports, and of the "tremendous outpourings," and said that we were losing our most treasured possessions. The Noble Lord the Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) said there was a steady drain of our richest treasures. I think I can do something at least to allay all nervousness in that particular regard. First I must remind him that, although the figure of 3,000 or 4,000 export licences sounds very large, the works are not really in the main in this category of the richest national treasures. If anybody wanted, say, a sketch made of Windsor Castle for a calendar in Australia and said he would commission somebody at 30s. to do it, it would go out with a licence from us. In fact, out of these 3,166 licences given in 1942, over 1,000 were for things worth less than £5 and another 1,000 were for things between £5 and £25. So it does limit the size of the pipe which is carrying this effluent from this country.

I think I can go further even than that to relieve the mind of my Noble Friend. He has been given and has quoted figures and, just for the sake of getting a complete picture, I will requote them. Export licences issued to America were, for 1940, 1827—that is only a part of1940, because the House will remember that this Order did not come into force until August of that year; for 1941, 4,400—I am giving round figures; for 1942, 3,200; for 1943. 3,100—not very material decreases. Those are the figures which he gave. But if one takes values, which I am now giving to the House for the first time—except for the figure of £340,000 which my Noble Friend has already given—one finds that the value of the exports to the United States fell to £84,000 in to £83,000 in 1942, and to the figure—which I am quite sure he will find very reassuring—of £14,000 last year. Therefore I think it is fairly clear that the danger of a great drain is not very great.

Even so, we do take definite precautions to make sure that things of lasting value to this country should not be so exported. In the case of pictures and portraits, anything—not these £5 or £25 articles—of any intrinsic value at all is always brought to the notice of both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. If they raise any doubt, automatically the licence is not granted; there is no question of proving a case, they have oily to say, "We do not think this is the proper thing to export," and straight away that licence is not granted.

What about things other than pictures?

I am just coming to that. On coins, books, manuscripts and antiques generally the British Museum is consulted. Then, on furniture and miscellaneous works of art the Victoria and Albert Museum is consulted. These experts, I may say, are consulted on any item which is scheduled at more than £100 and, in the case of books or manuscripts, more than £50. I think my hon. Friends may rest assured that nothing that these experts feel to be of real national value will go out of this country without their knowledge and consent.

Several recommendations have been made, and certain points put forward for consideration. My Noble Friend the Member for South Dorset asked for a shorter period of licensing, reducing the age of an antique from 75 years to 25 years. Obviously, that would only touch antiques; it does not touch pictures, because all pictures, for the purpose of this Order, are works of art—though I can assure him that many of them are greatly misnamed. That is a point which I am perfectly prepared to consider, but I do not really think there would be any great gain in that slight alteration. Then he asked us to be more selective. I hope that what I have said already will make him feel that that matter of selection is adequately dealt with, and that we are very careful that those who know should be in possession of the fact that any of these works of art are in danger of moving out of the country. His main suggestion, which was supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Moseley (Sir P. Hannon) and several others, was that £1,000,000 should be provided as a fund for the purchase of works of art. I was extremely gratified to find what a close study my Noble Friend had made of my own constituency, and I can assure him straight away that my constituents think quickly and that they will take what action they think necessary in time—at least that has been my experience of them for the last 20 years.

Did they do that in the last Election?

Indeed they did, as my hon. Friend will see if he cares to look up the figures. But, of course, a grant is not a question for the Board of Trade at all. It would be for the Board of Education, but I am perfectly prepared to draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education to this Debate and ask him to consider it, though I must honestly say that, desirable as he will no doubt think it, as I do, in the present financial stringency the chances of getting any such grant are not very great, especially when I remind the House that the grant before the war was the princely sum of £1,000 a year provided on the Board of Education (Victoria and Albert Museum) Vote for expenditure by museums throughout the whole of the country, and that was reduced at the beginning of this war to £100. I am afraid that his chances of getting £1,000,000 are not very rosy.

Then he asked for a list of the master-pieces. I could make no statement on that. An hon. Member mentioned that a good many of the masterpieces in the country are becoming scheduled now, owing to Death Duties. That, again, is an interesting point, to which I will draw my right hon. Friend's attention. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) asked whether we could put an export duty on these works of art. As Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade I am not very anxious to put duties on exports as a matter of general principle, but in this case I think that what I have said already as to the volume of the export will be a sufficient answer. A duty would not necesarily be a deterrent when the volume has come down, as it has in this case. Therefore, I think my hon. Friend can be satisfied that a small export duty would make no difference to this problem. My hon. Friend asked whether statistics could be prepared, or were prepared, for imports of works of art into this country, in the same way as for exports. I am told that they are, and that they will be available. Finally, my hon. Friend asked whether this control would remain. Happily, or unhappily, this control is outside my control; it is a Treasury control, and whether it will remain or not I cannot say, although I rather doubt it.

The hon. Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden) raised a very important general point when he reminded us that England, up till a short time ago, was the world's greatest buyer of works of art. We have accumulated from all over the world a collection such as possibly has never been accumulated in any other country, and while I can quite see that we should like to make ourselves a sort of fly-trap, in which everything gets in and nothing gets out, I am not sure that, taking the long view, such a very restrictive provision would be salutary. That is my own view, and not in any way a Departmental view.

It was no part of my case that we should continue to be acquisitive.

I am rather surprised to find that in this matter my Noble Friend is so static; I thought he was one of those who wanted to get new things rather than hold the ones we had. I think that on reflection he will doubt the wisdom of that remark. I think it is better that our people should enjoy the great works of art of the world by moving fresh works in and having some go out rather than we should say that what we have we will hold for ever. However, that is a matter of opinion, and not a matter for the Board of Trade. I am not at all sure that if we approached the brewers there would be any hope of them furnishing assistance towards the provision of provincial art galleries. Many of our provincial galleries are extremely well furnished with works of art. My hon. Friend said that it was a pity that workers in our great industrial towns could not have the same advantage as those who lived in London. Clearly, people who live in the provinces cannot have the same advantages in that way as those who live in capital cities. On the other hand, many of our provincial towns are extremely fortunate in their collections of works of art.

The figures that I have given already do not refer to antique furniture. I would rather not give the figures for furniture. They include not only antiques but all commercial furniture. For last year the exports of furniture, new, antique and secondhand, to the United States were considerably less than £10,000 in value and had come down to something like a twentieth of what they were a few years ago. I hope hon. Members may feel that what I have said has been enough to assure them that, although some works of art are going out of the country, the drain is not such as to jeopardise the store of which we are so justly proud.

I do not know if the Noble Lord has been reassured by what we have just learned, but I think he is to be congratulated on having elicited this extra information. I was rather glad that the hon. Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden) spoke and showed that love and appreciation of the fine arts are not the prerogative of any one side or section of this House or of the country. Despite the ruthless realism of the hon. Member for Burslem (Mr. MacLaren)—and I agree with much that he said—I am inclined to agree also with much of the Noble Lord's proposals. I particularly welcomed his suggestion that there should be a lowering of the age limit on antiques, because I remember how often the Schedule of Ancient Monuments has been weakened, or indeed frustrated, by such a limit. I think it stops at 1714, or some such date, which really marks the beginning of one of our finest periods of domestic architecture. On the other hand, when one comes to works of art by living artists, contretemps do sometimes occur. For instance, there is an Import Duty on works of art on the other side; and a year or two ago, when a piece of sculpture by, I think, Henry Moore, perhaps our greatest living sculptor, was sent to America, the Customs officials refused to impose any duty on it on the ground that it was not a work of art at all but merely a shapeless lump of stone.

Having said that, I hope the Noble Lord and his Friends will not count the House out, in the two minutes that remain before we start to celebrate Pentecost, if I pass to a totally different subject and read rapidly a letter that I have received in connection with the arrangements for the Forces to register as voters. I have not given the War Office notice of this but, of course, the unit concerned will be communicated to them:

"May I draw your attention to a matter in connection with A.F.B. 2626. … While it may be true that there are adequate numbers of forms available in units throughout the Army, the procedure necessary to fill in A.F.B. 2626, at least in this unit, is not calculated to ensure that the maximum number of soldiers exercise their vote. … It involves making a written application to the O.C. intimating that one desires to com- plete the form, followed by the necessary parade outside the O.C.'s office. I have no way of knowing whether this is a general procedure throughout the Army, but I do submit that it constitutes a definite psychological hazard resulting in a mere handful of very politically conscious soldiers taking the necessary steps …."

The Secretary of State has been very forthcoming with his answers on this subject, and I hope he will do his best to ensure not merely that the War Office directions are thorough and explicit, but that they are actually carried out in units.

This again is a matter in which all Members can be interested—particularly, perhaps, my Conservative friends, because, although I believe that there is, in fact, this swing to the Left that we hear of, and that the Progressive forces will secure a sweeping victory at the next Election, at the same time it would be equally disastrous for the Tories if only a few politically-conscious soldiers voted, because they depend for their present and past dominance on the politically unconscious.

In the moment that remains I wish to draw your attention to a matter which has given rise to great comment—