I beg leave to present a Petition on behalf of the Aeronautical Engineers' Association at No. 18 Maintenance Unit, R.A.F., in the County of Dumfries, and signed by 45 members of the branch. The Petition sets forth that the Air Ministry have declined to admit members of the Aeronautical Engineers' Association to local Whitley Councils, and have varied the terms of the Air Ministry Orders in relation to discharge under which the petitioners were engaged. The Petition concludes with the following Prayer:

"Wherefore your Petitioners Pray that recognition be accorded to the Aeronautical Engineers' Association as a Trade Union. That members of the said Union be permitted to be represented on the Whitley Council by members of the said Union elected by them, and that the conditions set out in Paragraph 98 of Air Publication 826 relating to discharge in the event of redundancy be strictly adhered to. Your Petitioners in duty bound will forever Pray."

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

As the House is aware, it is the declared policy of His Majesty's Government to hold elections in Burma at the earliest possible date, so that a democratically-elected Legislature can be returned, from which a Ministry can be formed. As I stated in the Adjournment Debate on 7th June, I am not without hope that conditions will make it possible to hold free and fair elections as early as April of next year and to have a Ministry by that date. Following the establishment of a Ministerial Government, a constitution-making body will be set up, so that the Burmese people can devise for themselves a constitution which will make them as free and independent as any of the great self-governing Dominions.

May I explain, first, why this Bill is necessary? The existing franchise for men was laid down in the Fourth Schedule to the Government of Burma Act, 1935. In essence, it rested on a variety of property qualifications, but, for the great majority of the electorate, qualification depended on assessment to, or payment of, a capitation tax or household tax for three preceding years, so that, although a general nominal minimum age of 18 was prescribed, which was also the age for liability to pay these taxes, in practice, the franchise could not be exercised before the attainment of the age of 21. Women became qualified at the age of 21 subject to a literacy qualification. In 1941, before the Japanese invasion, there were approximately 2½ million electors on the rolls. In that year however, the two taxes to which I have referred—the capitation tax and the household tax—were abolished by the then existing Burmese legislature, and thus was removed the main basis of the franchise in that country. In addition, almost all the relevant records in Burma have been lost or destroyed.

In these circumstances, soon after his return in October, the Governor decided to appoint a Franchise Committee of three Executive Councillors and one representative of the organisation called A.F.P.F.L., under the chairmanship of U Pu, a former Premier, to consider the franchise question, and to submit proposals. This Committee reported in February, and, by a majority, the representative of A.F.P.F.L. dissenting, recommended universal franchise for all males of 18 and over, and for females of 18 and over subject to qualifications based on literacy and earning capacity, the latter of which, I think the House would agree, would have been exceedingly hard to work in practice. These proposals of the Franchise Committee would have enfranchised 4½ million persons. The report of the Franchise Committee was remitted by the Governor to the Legislative Council, who, by a vote of 24 to 6, took the view that the sexes should be treated on an equal basis, and recommended universal suffrage for both. This, perhaps, is not surprising, in view of the freedom and social status which, as is well known, the Burmese women enjoy, and of their justifiable reputation for sound common sense, shrewdness and good business instincts. I understand that a good deal of the business in Burma is carried on by the women. Under this proposal, that is, that men and women over the age of 21 should receive the vote, 6¾ million persons will be enfranchised, as against 4½ million who would have been enfranchised under the proposals of the Franchise Committee, and it is this proposal which is embodied in the Bill now before the House.

It will be observed that, under Clause 2 (3), Buddhist monks and nuns are not to have the vote. So far as monks are concerned, this is in accordance with the views of the majority of both the Franchise Committee and the Legislative Council, and, I am informed, in accordance with the views of the religious orders themselves. While the monks have not, hitherto, been formally debarred from the franchise, they have, in practice, been so debarred in the past because they do not own any property and so are not able to qualify. The position regarding nuns is less clear-cut. The rules of the Buddhist order are not so stringent in their case as in the case of monks, and many of them will, in fact, have been qualified to vote under the 1935 Act by reason of the literacy qualification. The Franchise Committee, for their part, recommended that those nuns who would have been qualified under the old provisions of the 1935 Act should continue to be so qualified. The Legislative Council, however, relying largely on the opinion expressed by the authorities of the religious orders, themselves decided that nuns should be disqualified. In these circumstances, we have felt it desirable to accept what, on the evidence before us, appears to be the predominating local sentiment.

The matters I have just dealt with are covered by Clause 2 of the Bill. Clause 1 relates to the separate question of the qualifications of members of the Senate, which are prescribed in Paragraph 12 of the Third Schedule to the 1935 Act, and include as one of the qualifications, the payment of Income Tax or land revenue at a given level. In lower Burma, the amount fixed in the 1935 Act was 1,000 rupees and, in Upper Burma, 500 rupees. The Bill proposes to halve the qualifying figures in each case. The reason for this proposal is that the impoverishment of Burma, following the years of Japanese occupation, would prevent many individuals from qualifying unless the old rules were revised. This reduction, therefore, does not impose a new property qualification, but seeks to prevent disqualification of persons, by reason of the present economic situation in Burma who, before the war, would have been eligible.

Clause 3 of the Bill is purely a technical provision, as is also Clause 4. Clause 3 deals with Section 154 of the 1935 Act, which Section, after the expiration of 10 years from the commencement of the 1935 Act, empowers the Burmese Legislature to pass a resolution recommending Amendments of the 1935 Act, chiefly in relation to the composition of the Legislature, and the franchise. This Clause merely provides that, for these purposes, the 1935 Act is to be read as amended by Clause 1 and 2 of the Bill. Clause 4 is also technical, and seeks to ensure that, for the purposes of the Bill, the Third and Fourth Schedules of the 1935 Act shall be construed as amended by an Order in Council made under the Act. Clause 5 is the usual printing Clause, which is embodied in all amending Acts to the Government of India and the Government of Burma Acts.

The passage of this Bill will enable the preparation of the new electoral rolls to be put in hand without delay. There is, as the House will appreciate, much preparation work to be done before it will be possible to hold the elections which must precede the return of Burma to Ministerial Government which is the next step on the road to the full self-government promised in the White Paper of 1945. As I have already stated, His Majesty's Government are anxious to see the election held at the earliest practicable moment, and as the passage of this Bill is essential to the constitutional programme to which I have referred, I would ask the House to agree to the Second Reading of the Bill.

I understood the hon. and learned Gentleman to say that the Franchise Committee recommended a qualifying age of 18 and that that had been accepted, but, in Clause 2, as printed here, it is laid down that the elector must have attained the age of 21 years.

I am afraid my hon. and gallant Friend misunderstood what I said. I said that the Franchise Committee, which was the first body set up by the Governor to investigate the franchise, recommended that the age should be 18 for all men, and 18 for women subject to a literacy qualification and an earning test. The matter was then referred by the Governor to the Legislative Council, which is a body of nominated members representing all parties and sections in Burma, with the exception of A.F.P.F.L., who, in their turn, rejected the proposal that the age should be 18 and recommended to the Governor that it should be 21 for men and women, but without any qualification of property or otherwise.

Could the Minister give the number of males among the 6,750,000 new voters on the register so that by deduction from the 4,500,000 we may know how many are to be deprived of the vote?

I will obtain the figures for my hon. Friend.

11.25 a.m.

As we have previously discussed the general outline of this Bill, and as we had a Debate on Burma just before the Whitsuntide Recess, it will not be necessary for me to go into detail in indicating the support of the Opposition for this Bill. May I say what I have said before, that it is our wish to further the progress of Burma towards self-government and to make it possible for Burma to achieve that status which she so ardently desires? The Under-Secretary of State indicated that it was the desire of the Government to have the elections at the earliest possible date and that, by passing this Bill, we should be able to accelerate that date. But there are some definite considerations which the Government must bear in mind There is all the machinery which has to be undertaken in order to make these elections work successfully. I was a member of the Indian Franchise Committee under the chairmanship of Lord Lothian, and I know, from my own experience, what care must be taken in the compilation of electoral rolls and in making the arrangements, police and otherwise, for the proper handling of the elections. I remember that when we considered these matters in relation to the intricacies of the Indian situation, we were particularly anxious to fix the franchise so that the elections would work. I remember that all of us, including the distinguished Chairman, were extremely anxious about the level of the franchise which we were setting up in the Provinces of Bihar and Orissa, because we were anxious not about the credentials of those who were going to vote, but as to whether the actual physical voting could be carried out without misunderstanding and disorder.

That seems to be the main issue before us today, and we cannot let this Bill go through unless we receive a further statement from the Government that they will not press ahead with the holding of the elections unless they are satisfied that the conditions in Burma, in regard to law and order, have been restored to normal. I said this in the previous Debate, and I attach particular importance to it. I observe that the Government of Burma are, themselves, fully aware of the problems. Let me remind the House again, however, that the position as regards law and order in Burma at the moment is chaotic. It is not even possible to travel about with safety—and that is not an overstatement. Therefore, I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman, while pressing ahead with the necessary arrangements for the elections, will bear in mind what was said, I understand, in a broadcast by the Public Relations Officer of the Government of Burma and published in the "New Times of Burma" on 24th May:

Referring to some of the physical things that are necessary to be carried out—and, I would emphasise, in the hope that the elections can be carried out next April—I want to ask the Under-Secretary whether he is satisfied that proper arrangements will be made for the preparation of the electoral rolls, for the manning of polling stations, and, what is most important, the publication, checking and correction of the rolls. The sort of timetable I have in mind is that the printing and distribution of the forms for compiling the register might take about four months and the preparation of the preliminary rolls about three months.

Then the publication, checking and correction of the rolls might take about another six weeks. That would be the sort of time table which would make it possible to hold the elections next April. Allowing an extra six weeks for nominations and the election campaign, it would be possible to achieve this programme within the time limit set down by the Government. If the Government give their assurance that they will do their utmost to establish law and order, and that a full opportunity will be given to the Burmese people to express their wishes, we can support the Second Reading of this Bill.

I now wish to say a word about the franchise. The original franchise envisaged in the Schedule to the 1935 Act was based on two sorts of tax—capitation and household tax. There has been some question whether it is wise to jump from about 20 per cent. of the electorate to adult suffrage. Again, I am not questioning the ability of the voters, but I am questioning the physical possibility of making the working of the scheme a success. I can say from my experience of these matters that it is almost impossible to find any other halting place for the franchise from the present thatadema and poll tax, than adult suffrage. There is practically no other qualification which the wit of man can devise upon which to base the franchise. I see no alternative but to jump to adult suffrage. But, in jumping to adult suffrage, I want some assurance from the Government that this adult suffrage will be a reality, that is to say that arrangements will be made and the disposition of the people will be such that a proper proportion of the electors will go to the poll, so as to represent Burma's real view, and not the view of a minority. I would remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that he has already given an answer to the hon. Member for London University (Sir E. Graham-Little) in this House with regard to the proportion that voted in the Indian elections. The number on the electoral roll in contested constituencies was 1,033,346. The number of votes polled was 539,881, which is about 50 per cent. That is only a proportion in India on a limited franchise. We would like to feel that in the Burmese elections a rather higher proportion will cast their votes, so that the will of the country would be more widely expressed.

There was a higher proportion in the Provinces.

Yes, there was a higher proportion in the Provinces. This was in the centre. If the hon. and learned Gentleman feels that the jump to adult suffrage will be attended by a better result than was the case in the Indian centre, we shall feel better satisfied.

As regards the details of the franchise, we welcome the fact that the franchise should be at the age of 21. The age of the franchise in this country is 21, and I fail to see why the Burmese should not follow this country in this matter. There is no more democratic country than this, and there is no better country for the Burmese to follow; therefore, I fail to see why the age should be 18 in Burma and 21 in this country. Quite apart from that, I have investigated this matter in the past in considerable detail, and I find there is some misunderstanding about the age of 18. Leaving aside the views of the recent Franchise Committee in Burma, appointed to go into these matters, this question arose in the old days under the Act of 1935, and in those days it was due to the fact that a three year qualification was laid down for business and other qualifications that the age of 18 was ever envisaged. In fact, the operation of the Schedule of the 1935 Act resulted in very few people indeed qualifying at 18. There is this immense difference, that now there is to be adult suffrage and then there was to be a suffrage of 20 per cent. I, therefore, think the Burmese should feel perfectly satisfied that, in assuming adult suffrage at 21, they are following the most up to date Parliamentary and democratic model that the world can provide. I do not think they can do better than that. We on this side of the House welcome the introduction of women with full qualifications. The Burmese women play a prominent part, not only in the domestic life of the country where they are said sometimes to "wear the trousers", but also in the political life of the country; and we welcome the fact that this stabilising influence will be brought into the general structure of the franchise.

With regard to the monks and the nuns, I understand that the Sanga Council which directs the affairs of the Orders has itself declared against the inclusion of monks and nuns in the suffrage. The Buddhist monks are expressly prohibited from taking part in any secular disputes, and, as it seems likely in Burma that secular disputes will be very prominent in these elections, it is just as well that they should keep out. I also understand that the main principle of these Orders is to teach men to change the objects of their desire, rather than to teach them to change the political, economic or social institutions of their country. Therefore, I think it would be wiser to back the Government in keeping the monks and nuns free from the odious controversies which are likely to arise. I also support the provisions with regard to the senators. There is no doubt that the impoverishment of Burma has made it necessary to reduce the property qualifications for Senators. Otherwise, it would be difficult to elect an Upper House, because there is no doubt that Burma has been affected so much by the horrors of war that the country is in an impoverished condition, and it would not be right if any provision were inserted which prevented the right type of person being elected.

My last remarks are related to Clause 5 of the Bill, on which I would like again to congratulate the Burma Office on being one enlightened section of the Government. It is the practice in India and Burma Bills to include this singularly constructive and valuable type of Clause on the subject of printing. This is contrary to the general practice of the Government. Normally, the Government in drafting a Bill string together a number of loose Clauses enabling the Minister to make regulations in every case and leaving the matter to the future discretion of the Minister, thus removing all discretion from this House of Commons. In the case of the Government of India and Burma Bills, we are treated much better, because there is not only legislation by reference, but the principal Act, which in this case is the 1935 Act, is to be amended and reprinted with the Amendments which we make by this amending Bill. Therefore, the 1935 Act, which I regard as one of the major Statutes of the time, will be even more intelligible than it would have been, had not the hon. and learned Gentleman included this very wise provision. I would like to congratulate him on this because if all our amending Bills were reprinted and attached to the other measures concerned, we would be better able to understand some of the legislation which is being ruthlessly crammed through this House by the present Administration. Likewise, the country would be able to understand a little of what we are doing instead of having to sit up late at night and listen to the B.B.C. at 10.45—if they do sit up as late as that—to learn what we are doing. We can take an intelligent interest in the affairs of Burma, thanks to the wisdom of the hon. and learned Gentleman.

With these few words, I support the Second Reading of this Bill. I hope that we may get an undertaking from the hon. and learned Gentleman that these elections will be conducted in circumstances in which law and order prevail, and that the physical arrangements for the elections will be perfected. Otherwise we shall not be able to ascertain the true voice of the people of Burma. We desire Burma to go forward along her chosen path, and we desire her to do so in the best possible circumstances.

11.40 a.m.

It seems to me there are three points which the House has to consider with regard to this Bill. The first point is with reference to the Senate, on which the Minister hardly touched. The property qualification for Senators is continued. It is not the only qualification, but it is one. I am rather surprised to find a Labour Government continuing a property qualification for the Senate. To be logical, if the Government want to deal with the situation in Burma, I should have thought they would have doubled this qualification and not halved it. In spite of what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) said, there is a good deal of inflation in Burma, so, in fact, the money qualification should be doubled not halved. I do not agree with that, of course; I think there should not be any money or property qualification whatever. I am sure the Minister will take notice of the feeling of this side of the House on that point. It is particularly noticeable that they have kept this qualification in, because they have, in fact, removed the property qualification with regard to the House of Representatives. If they have done it in one, why not do it in the other? Under the 1935 Act the Governor has power to appoint a person whom he thinks is suitable to be a Senator, whether he has property or not. Therefore, the removal of this property qualification from the Act would not in any way impair the choice of the Governor in selecting the right type of man as Senator.

The second point to which I would direct the attention of the House is the increased voting age, from 18 to 21. I am not at all satisfied with the arguments that have been adduced on this point. We must realise that in Asiatic countries men arrive at manhood much earlier than elsewhere; their expectation of life is much less. I believe that in India the expectation of life is said to be the age of 27; I do not suppose it is much more in Burma. That means a man has an expectation of only six years in which he can be a voter.

Oh no.

Quite recently I saw a statement by Field Marshal Smuts that the expectation of life in India is 27.

Surely the hon. Gentleman does not need to have explained to him that that does not mean that if a man reaches the age of 21 years he will live only until he is 27?

No. That is the average expectation of life, as in the case of the computation by an insurance company. I should have thought the hon. Gentleman would have known what the term "average expectation of life" meant without me explaining it to him. Field-Marshal Smuts has had a great deal of experience of Indians in South Africa; therefore, he must know what he is talking about. People who have lived in the East all know that, whatever may be the statistical expectation of life, it is actually very short; Indians of 45 and 50 years of age are very rare people. Normally in Burma, and in the East generally, a man is married at 18 years of age, and probably has a growing family by the time he is 21 years of age. Therefore, I do not see why a man who is married at 18 should not be in a position to have a vote at 18. Again, I see no reason at all why we should disqualify monks and nuns. If the rule of their Order is that they should not take part in public affairs, that is a matter for them. I do not see why they should be disqualified by law. If their Order says, "We do not think you should interfere in disputes," let their Order make this a local rule. Furthermore, we are not asking them to interfere in disputes. All we want is that they should be entitled to vote by secret ballot. We are not suggesting they should take part in any political controversy. I would point out to the Minister that there appears to be a misquotation in Clause 1 (2), if the Library copy of the 1935 Act is correct. Perhaps we can deal with that matter in Committee.

The object of this Bill, as the Minister described it, is to pave the way for ministerial status once more in Burma, and, when that status has been reached, to continue on that road right up to self-government in Burma. It seems to me the effect of this Bill will be meagre, if not, indeed, niggardly. I doubt whether it will have any effect at all under the present conditions in Burma. On 7th June we heard of some of the conditions in Burma at the present moment. I think they were rather exaggerated in some instances. However, we do know that Burma has been ravaged by war; it has been occupied by the enemy, then administered by the British Army, and finally it is back to civil government. It is estimated that between £200 million and £300 million will be necessary to put Burma on its feet economically. We know that politically the leaders of the people are at loggerheads, to some extent, with the Government.

I had the opportunity of meeting the young man who has been spoken of a good deal, and written about in the Press in this country, namely, Aung San. I believe he is a symbol of young Burma. As far as I can gather, he is a man who never made any concealment of his hostility towards the British. He fought against us in Burma at the beginning of the war, and then, as so many more did, he saw his mistake. He found that the Japanese were merely bluffing the people of Burma; that they were a cruel and ruthless enemy. He then decided to fight against them, and he and his men formed part of the resistance movement. I believe this man is a perfectly honourable man in private life. We cannot overlook the fact that he fought against us, but he is a true patriot. He is not a man who took that action for personal gain. He is not a gangster, as are some men in similar positions in some of the Colonies. He is a man who lives a simple life and really believes in what he advocates. Therefore, we must take notice of him, not as a person but as a symbol. He is part of the restless, turbulent, changing life of the East.

I have been away from the East for 12 years, but when I recently had an opportunity of going back there I noticed an enormous difference. The East changed more in the last few years, particularly in the period of the Japanese occupation, than it did in probably 50 or 100 years before. The East is politically adolescent. I do not feel—and I say this with all sincerity—that our approach to the East at the moment is imaginative enough in many of our Colonies. It is too pedestrian, and that is the same in the case of Burma. It is no use having this Bill, which looks all right on paper, unless the spirit behind it is right. It is no good offering the East law and order, in those terms—roads, bridges, and so on. There are certain imponderables which they require, and which we must give them. If I may say so without offence, it is the fault of Governments in the past, and perhaps of the English character. I have the greatest respect for the English; they are good-humoured people, kindly, sincere and honest. However, there is one quality which they lack in administration, namely, the imaginative quality of projecting themselves into the minds of other people, especially subject people. We suffered from that in Wales for many years. It is only recently that we are beginning to hold our own in that respect. If I may give an example, on Victory Day I looked out to see how many examples of the Red Dragon of Wales there were in Whitehall. I was very glad to see that outside the Ministry of Health at all events the Red Dragon was well represented. Little things like that do affect the people of small nations—small in numbers—a thing which our English administrators do not always appreciate.

Two courses are open under the 1935 Act. The first is to rule by force, and the second is to use a human and imaginative method. We cannot rule by force because we are a Labour Party and we do not believe in force, but in my view we are not making the new and imaginative approach. In other words, we are doing neither, and it is felt in Burma that there is a distinct lack of grip and that the situation is not being handled strongly enough. Perhaps I may make some suggestions. It is easy to criticise, but I think one should always be constructive if possible. In this imaginative approach the first step could be taken on the retirement of the present Governor, whose term of office I understand is very nearly over. We need a new Governor who is fully imbued with the ideas we represent. He need not be a member of our party, but he should at all events be imbued with our ideas, and be able to give to the Burmese people a feeling that we intend to carry out, and carry out soon, the spirit and not merely the letter of the White Paper.

Secondly, I would say that we need to make some definite and immediate steps towards rehabilitation. We must get a considerable amount of help from Japanese industry; Japan has not been ravaged, and an enormous amount of industrial potential is left in that country. Thirdly, I believe that we should bring over here as soon as possible a number of young Burmese and put them through a course of training, possibly in a college, in political affairs, economics, world history and matters of that kind. I do not mean administrators or civil servants, I mean the men who will be the future political leaders of Burma. At the moment they have no assistance, and I believe we should go to Aung San, U Saw and the various other leaders, and say to them, "Pick out 10 or 20 of your young men and women who will be your future leaders, and we will take them back to our country, give them the best instructors and put them through a course of history, economics and the like to enable them to take their place in the life of Burma." Nothing like that has yet been done, and unless it is we shall eventually hand this country over to people whose sole experience has been gained as guerilla leaders. We cannot blame them for that. We have to do something, and this is the sort of imaginative approach which I think would help.

I believe also that if a Parliamentary mission consisting of a few Members of this House could go to Burma when conditions are more stable, it would do a great deal of good. The India Mission did an enormous amount of good in India; it led the Indians to feel that we were interested in them and, at all events, it was a friendly approach, and that is what we want in Burma. If a mission actually goes out I believe that it will do good. I realise that it would be very difficult at the moment because of transport and communications, but later on it will be possible. No doubt there are other matters, which the Minister can think of far better than I, which would come into this more imaginative approach, but the most essential of all is to have the right type of man as Governor, because if the Government's instrument in the Colony is not fully in sympathy with our views nothing will be done in the spirit in which we intend it.

Finally, I would say a word about the Shan States which will be affected to a certain extent by this Bill, although they do not strictly come under it. They are bound to be affected if there is a representative Government in Burma. Sometime I hope we shall have an opportunity of discussing the future of these people. They are a fascinating people, they did great services in the war, and they are people for whom we in this House are directly responsible. Because they come under the Governor and not under the 1935 Legislature. I do not think we have often discussed their future or their qualities. They are most fascinating to deal with, and I hope that the Minister will give us at some time an opportunity of discussing their fate.

11.55 a.m.

I would like to thank the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams) for the very kind words he has said about the English. All the time I have been in this House I have never before heard anyone saying anything nice about Englishmen, and to have it from Wales is a tribute indeed. If ever the English have to ask the Scottish and Welsh for Dominion status, I am sure we shall have the support of the hon. Gentleman.

I do not want to oppose this Bill in any way, but I would like to reinforce what my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) has said, namely, that if these elections are to take place in an atmosphere of freedom and democracy the first thing we have to do is to restore law and order. Unless that is done what we are discussing this morning has about it an air of unreality or even of farce, because we must realise the position in Burma. The whole country is devastated from end to end as no other part of Asia is devastated. The condition of Burma is rather like that of parts of the Ruhr or other parts of Germany. The hon. Member for South Croydon said, I think quite rightly, that we ought to do something about the rehabilitation of Burma. Do not the Government think it is time to make up their minds as to who will pay for all this? The people of Burma have a sort of pathetic idea that the British taxpayer will pay. Will he? If not—and I do not believe for one moment he can—surely the first thing we ought to do before talking about a Bill of this nature is to tell the Burmese where they stand in the economic sphere.

That is not the whole story. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden has said, large parts of Burma today are not controlled by the Government at all; they are controlled by dacoits. Murders are of daily occurrence and so are gang robberies. I do hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman or someone on behalf of the Government will tell us what the Government propose to do to create the elementary conditions under which alone a Bill of this sort has any reality. The hon. Member for South Croydon referred to the new political parties in Burma and especially to Mr. Aung San. I said quite hard things about him a week or so ago in this House, and I do not know that I wish to withdraw anything I then said. The fact is that the man was a traitor. [An HON. MEMBER: "Nonsense."] He was a traitor to this country and to the Allies—

He was not a traitor to Burma.

—when we needed all the help we could get. True, he had the sense to bale out in 1944 when he saw that the Japanese were going to lose, but he was in fact a traitor to the Allied cause in 1941. I know the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) does not agree with me, but I would warn him that freedom and democracy are terms which are quite divorced from fancy titles. I know that so long as any scoundrel calls himself an anti-Fascist he will get the hon. Gentleman's support. Anybody has only to call himself the leader of a "People's Party'—"People" having a capital "P"—and he will get the support of the hon. Gentleman and of a lot of his friends.

Nonsense

I would remind the hon. Gentleman of what Mr. Huey Long said in the United States—if you want to start a Fascist Party, you can call yourself an anti-Fascist Party. That is what I am afraid may happen in Burma in Aung San's day. Whatever may be his previous record, however indulgent we may be towards him, the fact is that this man at this moment is being allowed to retain what is, in effect, a private army. I want to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman whether these 8,000 or 9,000 men who are in Mr. Aung San's control are, in fact, going to be allowed to continue to wear some sort of uniform and to drill, because, if they are, I want to warn the Government that there is very great danger that when this election takes place we shall have all the conditions in which Fascist regimes have come into power on the Continent of Europe—the conditions of intimidation by a party which has force behind it.

I do not want to pursue this matter any further, because I certainly agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden that we on this side of the House want to see that Burma attains full self-government as quickly as she can. I agree with what the hon. Member for South Croydon has said, that we want an imaginative approach. Anything that we can do here to make the Burmese realise that we are in earnest we should do, and I would certainly support what he said, too, about a Parliamentary delegation. It would be a very great and useful thing if Members of all parties in this House went out to Burma. It would not only have the effect of enabling them to learn something, but have the rather intangible benefit that the people of Burma would feel that the Imperial Parliament was taking some interest in their welfare. I am all for anything that we can do to create a better atmosphere between ourselves and the Burmese and to give Burmese self-government a good start, but we in this House are not doing our duty if we do not make it clear that the prior condition for seeing democracy flourish is the restoration of law and order. Until that is done, I am afraid, Burmese self government will not start off as all of us would wish it to start off.

12.2 p.m.

I should like to touch first on this question of age. I thought the argument of the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) was exceedingly characteristic of our race and of a great many of our officials, who are thoroughly well meaning and take the attitude that, because we think a thing is right, therefore, it is right for everybody. I do not think that that attitude is a suitable one at the present stage of the world's history. What we have to ask is, What do the Burmese think is right for themselves? Unless we can give them what they think is right for themselves they will not operate the scheme in the best and most cooperative spirit. Surely, what we want in Burma is the cooperation of the people to the utmost extent. If we flout their own opinions, we shall establish a cause of friction. There is no divine sanction behind the age of 21. We think that that is the age at which a man should be allowed to take charge of his own affairs, unless he happens to be the Monarch. I have never quite understood that exception. But in the East, very often that view is not held at all, and it is not held in Burma; and, therefore, I should like to know whether the opinion of the Burmese themselves, a cross section of Burmese opinion, has been tested in order to see what they themselves want and think right. Unless that has been done, more consideration should be given to that point.

As regards the situation in Burma as a whole, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams) that the Government are not tackling the situation with nearly enough imagination—or vigour. There is a great lack of vigour in dealing with the question of reconstructing the devastation in Burma. What the Administration should try to do, before even attempting t0 hold elections or anything of that kind, is to harness this nationalistic feeling in Burma. There is a great urge and enthusiasm in this new party, and we should try to harness that to measures of reconstruction. There is far too much of the attitude of "no hurry" in Burma. I thought that the White Paper last year showed that failing. It was proposed to carry on by slow steps, which will not do in these urgent times. If the resurgent feeling of the Burmese people could be harnessed to reconstruction, it would help greatly in restoring law and order, which, undoubtedly, is essential.

I thought that the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) also showed a characteristic British attitude, namely, that anybody who fights against us is a traitor. That would apply, of course, and did apply and was applied, to William Wallace, who was tried in Westminster Hall. He was a traitor because he fought against the English, and Aung San is a traitor because he also fought against us. But we have to look at this case more from the point of view of the people concerned. Just as in the eyes of the Scots William Wallace was a hero and leader whom they trusted, so it may very well be with the man we are discussing today, that he is a hero in Burma. In that case we should try to get his cooperation now in building up his own country.

The hon. Gentleman has taken the analogy of William Wallace, but, surely, the difference is that Wallace did not bale out and come on to our side when he thought it would suit him. Surely, there is an essential difference between the two men there?

I do not agree at all. Aung San thought that the Japanese were speaking the truth when they said they would make a free Burma. If some other nation, the French or someone else, had come along and told William Wallace that they would free Scotland, he might have accepted their help, and if they did not show that they were sincere, he would probably have switched over.

That is quite hypothetical.

I hold to that analogy. Anyway, he is regarded with great respect and enthusiasm by a very large number of young Burmans. Why not, then, try to get his cooperation, which, I am sure, we could get with an imaginative approach? Why not try to harness all this rise of feeling in the task of reconstructing Burma? I am sure that that would have a great effect in helping to restore law and order.

12.9 p.m.

I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams) on his most interesting and imaginative speech, which was in such pleasing contrast to the vaporous and vicious rantings of the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans), who recently accompanied him to the East. I am not going to deal in detail with the hon. Member for Hornsey, though it is tempting to do so. But, since he has once more repeated his violent and slanderous attacks on Aung San—whom I cannot find in the Bill, incidentally—may I once more try to clear his mind for him, by saying that Aung San was never a traitor to his own people, and that that is the essential difference between this nationalist leader and the European quislings who sold out their own people to the Germans? That is, surely, an absolutely essential difference. Quisling, and the other quislings like him, including some people in this country, some friends of the hon. Member—I am speaking in a political sense, of course—were prepared to sell out this country to the Germans. Aung San has never been prepared to sell out Burma to anybody.

The only way to ensure orderly conditions for the elections, which I agree it is necessary to have, is, as I stated a couple of weeks ago, to enlist the cooperation of Aung San, the anti-Fascist People's Freedom League, and the People's Volunteer Organisation—which is no more a private army than the British Legion is—in the task of restoring order to this sorely ravaged country.

Perhaps the only slip which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) made in his very careful, thoughtful and liberal speech, was his reference to the desirability of retaining the property qualifications for Senators, to ensure that you get the "right type" of man for the job, thus showing that the right hon. Gentleman's idea of the right type of man for a Senator is someone with a good deal of money. I agree with him that there is really no half-way house between complicated property qualifications and complete adult franchise. I regret that this Bill does not do away altogether with that kind of property qualification. The same thing applies to literacy tests, because it is impossible to devise any literacy or educational test for voting which cannot be manipulated or misused by a Government or party in power, in the same way as it has been manipulated or misused in other parts of the world. It would, after all, be too much to assume that every elector in this country is fully literate, although many more are literate than use to be so, as was shown last July.

In so far as this Bill takes us a step nearer to a general election in Burma, and therefore a step towards self-government for Burma, obviously it has to be welcomed and supported. At any rate, it takes one big step forward in abolishing the long, complicated paragraphs in the original Act referring to property qualifications for the ordinary voters. On the other hand, I share the misgivings and disappointments of my hon. Friends at the backward step which this Bill takes in the raising of the age for voters from 18 to 21. It may surprise some people in this country to learn that the age Of 18 has hitherto been the voting age in Burma. That has been the case since 1923; if it has not always been the case in practice, it has at any rate been the case in theory. Why on earth should this Labour Government back up the Legislative Council in taking this retrograde step? My hon. and learned Friend referred to the Franchise Committee which was set up by the Governor last November and reported last February—by a majority, it is true, but with only one dissentient—in favour of the franchise at 18. I do not think my hon. and learned Friend told us anything about the reasons which led the Legislative Council to reject the recommendations of the Franchise Committee, and I hope that he will do so in his winding-up speech. He skated over that rather gingerly, and he also said that the only dissentient from the Committee's recommendation was—and this is rather surprising—the A.F.P.F.L. representative. If that be the case, surely he dissented only from the retention of any property qualifications. I cannot believe that the A.F.P.F.L. representative dissented from the proposal to retain the franchise at 18.

I can satisfy my hon. Friend by telling him that the A.F.P.F.L. representatives wanted universal franchise for men and women at the age of 18.

I am most grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for having substantiated what I was trying to prove. The only dissenting voice on the Franchise Committee was not against franchise at the age of 18, but against the retention of certain qualifications, and so there was, in effect, a unanimous recommendation from the Committee which was presided over by a distinguished former Premier of Burma. What reason has been advanced for the rejection of this recommendation? I have no doubt that my hon. and learned Friend will be able to give us some very much better and more substantial reasons than those which were advanced in the Legislative Council in Burma. The reasons advanced there seem to me to be trivial excuses. One reason was advanced by the President of the Legislative Council, U Chit Hlaing, who suggested that because Christians come of age at 21, a franchise at 18 might be invalid for Christians. If that be the case, and under existing law Christians in Burma come of age at 21, surely that could be quite easily amended—there would be no opposition to it here or anywhere else. There is nothing in the formularies of the Christian Church which says that adult status is only to be reached at the age of 21. There cannot be any universal church law to this effect, or the heir to the British Throne would hardly be able to come of age, as he or she does, at 18.

Another reason given was that the British Parliament might not be in favour of the age of 18, and might turn down such a recommendation, because we in this country have adult suffrage at 21 and not at 18. I cannot think that that is a serious argument, because if it had been put to this House, as it was put by my two hon. Friends, that people in Eastern countries tend to mature earlier than in this country, marry and raise families at a much earlier age, and have a smaller expectation of life, if that had been put to the House and had been brought forward with the authority of the British Government, does any one suppose that this House would have seriously opposed it? I do not think there is any substance at all in that reason.

The third reason advanced in the Legislative Council was that extra voters would mean a lot of extra work—preparatory administrative work. If my hon. and learned Friend will deal with these reasons seriatim, perhaps he will say what the figures are. I think he stated that the franchise would extend to 6,750,000 voters in all. The estimate of U Ba Pe, a venerable Burmese leader of whom I am sure even the hon. Member for Hornsey will not disapprove—he may be described as a Liberal National in outlook—is that if universal franchise at 18 were adopted, there would be 8,600,000 voters. If you are preparing administrative and electoral machinery for 6,750,000 voters, I cannot see that it is much more difficult to provide it for 8 million voters. Moreover, as U Ba Pe said, it would cover a much more satisfactory cross-section of the population. He said a few months ago that, owing to the limited franchise, elections held between 1923 and 1936 gave votes to only 16.9 of the total population, and that at the last election held in November, 1936, the electorate was extended to 23.26 of the total population. "If universal franchise at 18 were adopted," he added, "there would be 8,600,000 voters, thereby enfranchising 50 per cent. of the adult population, which is more democratic"—if the hon. Gentleman opposite will pardon my quoting the word "democratic"—"than if only 16 or 23 per cent. of the people can vote." That seems a substantial argument in favour of universal franchise at 18, and against the argument that it would make too much administrative and preparatory work.

Therefore, since all these arguments which have been put forward publicly are so thin and trivial, I am reluctantly driven to the conclusion that this decision to raise the age from 18 to 21 is in the nature of a political manoeuvre or wangle, and that the elderly Burmese politicians, who largely compose the Legislative Council, are afraid of the growing power and influence of the new forces, so well described by my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon. Men must be deemed, one is told, to intend the natural consequences of their actions, and the natural consequences of this action is to disfranchise a large number of young people between 18 and 20, many of whom—perhaps most of whom, as I believe—would be ardent, even fanatical, supporters of Aung San and the anti-Fascist League. Since that is the natural and inevitable consequence of the action we are taking today, it must be assumed that that is the intention of the Legislative Council in rejecting this proposal by the Franchise Committee. I hope, at any rate, if that is not so, that my hon. and learned Friend will be able to produce more substantial reasons for the rejection of the recommendations than have yet been put forward in Burma or here.

I hope also that Aung San and his friends will not be discouraged, either by this step which is being taken, or by the harsh things that have been said about them by people by whom it is an honour to be attacked. I hope that they will go ahead, and, even with the franchise limited to 21 years of age, I hope and believe that they will win the general election. Do not let them be discouraged. I would almost like a message to go out from this House to them to that effect, because if they start falling into a defeatist or nihilist mood there will be endless trouble in Burma. I beg them to be patient, and to believe in the genuine sincerity of the Labour Government and its supporters in this country. Personally, I could wish that they had been less firmly recusant on the question of coming into the Executive Council, even with a diminished representation. I believe that they could have made their voice heard effectively in it. However, we do not know here all the circumstances and in particular the atmospheric and psychological circumstances, in Burma. At any rate, I do urge them to be patient and to go ahead with their plans for the election, in the belief that they will win Burma for the ideals which we so largely—on this side of the House, at any rate—share with them.

I naturally do not propose to divide the House against the Second Reading of this Bill, since that would in itself be a delaying step, and would delay the general election, but I shall certainly consider carefully with my hon. Friends whether we should put down Amendments on the Committee stage, knowing that if we do so, we shall not in any way be embarrassing the Government, since the Conservative Opposition are already committed to supporting the Government by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden today. We believe sincerely that the only real form of political democracy that works in any country is based on a universal adult franchise at the age which is the customary age of seniority in that country.

12.25 p.m.

I do not propose to follow the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg), beyond saying that I think that it would be a pity if it became the custom of this House to send messages of good will to any political party, whether in the Dominions, the Colonies or foreign countries. I think it would be regarded as unwarrantable interference. The hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams) and another hon. Gentleman spoke of the desirability of a Parliamentary delegation shortly visiting Burma. I support that point of view I had the honour of being a member of the Parliamentary delegation that went to India, and I feel certain that if the members of a Parliamentary delegation are willing to contribute to this House something of what they have learned, the value to this House of their close and intimate up-to-date contacts with the Dominions, Colonies and Dependencies is very great indeed. I frankly admit that I feel rather confused by this Debate, as I have no first hand knowledge of Burma. We have heard a lot about individuals and parties of which we have no real knowledge, and I think that, if this House is to carry out its responsibilities towards Burma, there must be more Members of it with an intimate knowledge of that country. It is the fashion in some quarters to sneer at Parliamentary delegations, but we must educate ourselves in the countries for which we are responsible.

The hon. Member for South Croydon was good enough to say that in his opinion the Parliamentary delegation had done good in India. I was very gratified to hear that. It is not for us who were on the delegation to say that it did or did not, although we hope that it did. I hope that the Government will seriously consider the advisability of sending a Parliamentary delegation to Burma in the very near future. I disagree with the hon. Member for South Croydon in saying that it should wait until conditions are easier there. I do not think it should wait; it should go as soon as possible. Although we are considering this Bill on the apparent assumption that things will go fairly smoothly in Burma, I do not think that it is untrue to say that the outlook is not very good, and I am afraid that we shall hear a great deal more of Burma and be caused great anxiety by Burmese affairs before many months have passed. If there is a danger of things blowing up to a storm in Burma, it would be greatly to the advantage of this House if we had hon. Members in it with recent knowledge of Burma, when discussions on Burma take place. In the present temporary Governor of Burma, we have a very fine Imperial servant, and I hope that full advantage will be taken of his great experience and remarkable achievements in India. He is a man of very sound judgment and great ability. I wish to echo the message of good will towards Burma that has gone out from every corner of this House.

12.28 p.m.

Generally speaking, I am in complete agreement with the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams). He has had the advantage of having lived and worked for many years in that part of the East, and, in addition, he has recently paid a visit to Burma. On the question of franchise, it seems to me that the Government have first of all followed the advice of the Legislative Council, which is not really an elected council, but a nominated body, for the time being, and that there has not been much change, because under the old Constitution a man did not actually get a vote until 21. When elections are held in Burma it must be remembered that it is not a country like this where everyone's age is known or can be tested in five minutes. Things are far more primitive. If we do not cede the principle of allowing the vote at 18, in fact persons of 18, 17, and even 16 years of age will vote, because when the time comes for claims and objections it is impossible to carry out the ordinary procedure of elections here, and there is nobody in that country who is able to come forward and say what a person's age is. The machinery will not be so definite as it is in this country, and therefore it is not the slightest use tying down the age to 21 when in fact people of, 18, 19, and 20 will vote. We should only be causing irritation by restricting the age to 21. Another point on which I strongly support my hon. Friend is with regard to the principle of putting Buddhist law into the secular law of the country. Buddhist monks and nuns do not vote, but why should the law of the land disqualify them? I think it is entirely unsound to put anyone's theology into the secular laws of the land. The hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) has experience of these parts of the world too, and he is quite right in envisaging enormous difficulties in carrying out this election.

I had the task of carrying out an election in Ceylon when the electorate was raised from 4 per cent. to 100 per cent. and I know the difficulty. First of all, there is the problem of illiteracy; we got over that in Ceylon by allowing people to vote for colours. Each candidate was given a colour and this worked very well, but if there are a number of candidates it would be difficult to get sufficient colours to cover them all, and there may be an enormous number of candidates—sometimes there are as many as six—because there is not a proper political development in Burma. Nevertheless, the difficulty can be overcome. There is a much more serious difficulty in this election because unless the thing is to be left to chance there must be responsible people to organise the elections, police and trained officials, and it is impossible to hold all the polls on one day. Again, we got over that in Ceylon by moving the police from one voting station to another and the elections were spread over a considerable period of time. If the elections in Burma can be held in the space of a month I shall be very surprised. It is a vast country with poor communications and great difficulties will arise.

The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler), said that no elections should be held until law and order is established. I cannot think of anything more calculated to exasperate the Burmese. These Burmese are in a hurry; it is no use saying they should not be, because they are. The best thing is not to lay down any provisions of that kind. We cannot anticipate complete law and order in Burma for a considerable time to come. Elections were held recently in Greece when there was not law and order, although it is true that they were not perfect by any means. We must hold elections in Burma because the Burmese want elections, and therefore as soon as communications permit and as soon as reasonable law and order is established they must be held. Even though things are not perfect it is good that we should do this so that the elections may associate the people of Burma in the enormous task of rehabilitation and confront them by it. That is the best way of keeping law and order—not to frustrate them but to hold out the hope of an election soon and then give them the task and responsibility themselves.

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon that there should not be a property qualification for the Senate. It should not be open to persons of 18 or 21. The Members of the' Senate should be of more mature years, but there should be no property qualification whatever. I know that my hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary has here again followed the advice of local people, but Burma has not now a proper legislative council, a proper representative body, and I think he would be within his rights in overriding the recommendations of local people. I hope that when the time comes he will throw the Senate open to everybody at, say, the age of 30, without any property qualification. There is one other point concerning the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon. He has just come back from Burma and I, too, have been in a great many countries of the British Empire, in the Colonies, and so on, and I would impress on this House the absolute necessity of sending out first class men as Governors. This has not been done in the past as is well known. The Governor of a Colony or a place like Burma has enormous responsibilities. He needs to be a man of outstanding ability, not merely administrative ability, but political ability, and I endorse every word said by my hon. Friend. A Governor must be a man with broad and liberal sympathies, otherwise he will be a failure even if he is an administrative genius. I hope that when the present Governor, who I am sorry to say is very ill, retires, the Government will send out a man of outstanding ability to be Governor of Burma.

The hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. T. Reid), who speaks with such great authority on Colonial affairs, has taken to task the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) for saying that no elections should take place in Burma until law and order are restored. Perhaps it would be better to put it the other way and to say that law and order must be restored before elections can take place. I feel sure the hon. Member would agree with that. It seems to me that the very able speeches made from the other side of the House approach the question from a peculiar angle, if I may say so. At the present time we are not constitution making or even franchise making, but are seeking to get back as closely as possible to the 1935 Constitution and work on that, so that afterwards. Burma may, as the whole House agrees she should, have the right to decide her own destiny and to draw up her own Constitution. I think the House will agree that the Under-Secretary has made it fairly clear that in practice the vote was not exercised to any great degree until the age of 21 was attained for the very reason that taxation had to be paid for three years before it could be exercised. The hon. Member for Swindon has said that if the franchise is fixed at 21 there will be a great deal of evasion. That may be so, but surely it applies at whatever age the franchise is fixed, and I feel that in the present circumstances the Government are quite right in trying to get back as closely as possible to the conditions of the 1935 franchise, that is to say, now that the property qualifications are no longer possible we want to get back to the same age at which franchise was exercised before. Once that is done and a representative Government has been set up then let the people of Burma decide at what age in future they wish the franchise to be operative.

The hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) makes a big point about the direction in which he thinks the vote will be exercised by people between the ages of 18 and 25. I submit that it is quite impossible to give any opinion on that, and the House would be quite wrong in taking it into consideration. It is quite true that the movement of Aung San has gained a great deal of force in the big agglomerations, but in the country districts this cannot be said to be so and the hon. Member for Maldon would not claim that it could. It is quite impossible to say what the effect would be politically of reducing the age to 18. I feel therefore that the only representative body in Burma, representative, as the hon. Member for Swindon says, not in the sense that it is elected but that it is the only representative body that is to be accepted in this case—

Surely the Franchise Committee did take opinions from really representative bodies of all kinds from all over Burma?

That may be so, but we cannot accept as gospel, and necessarily work on, the report of any committee or commission. This House has reports from committees and commissions but we do not necessarily accept in detail what is recommended. We have to consider it. The same thing applies in Burma. I agree with the hon. Member for Swindon that it is quite wrong for this Bill to exclude nuns and monks from the right to vote. The only justification for it would be if there was a penalty in the Bill for not voting. Otherwise they ought to have the right. With that very small exception, I give full support to this Bill.

12.42 p.m.

I do not intend to keep the House long but I wish to express my gratification that there has been such keen interest in the proposals of this Bill and also that, on this side of the House, there has been practical unanimity. I still cannot understand why the voting age had to be changed so drastically, and possibly the Minister will give a more adequate explanation when he replies. Personally, I confess that when I saw this suggestion I wondered why 18 should be looked upon as superior to 21. I considered it again, and then I wondered "why even 21?" It is a very difficult task to decide exactly at what age individuals reach maturity. I suppose that any age is more or less arbitrary. In any case we have decided in this country, for the time being and for good or ill, that 21 years of age is a traditional and proper criterion but it does not follow that what is appropriate in our community is appropriate for all others.

The only way out of this dilemma is to ask the people concerned. They may be wise or unwise in their judgment and decision but that is irrelevant. Many have done things which we felt were unwise, and ultimately have turned out to be unwise. Nevertheless we do not propose to interfere with them. It would be an excellent opportunity here to make it quite clear that although we may in this country feel that 21 is a better age than 18, nevertheless in deference to the opinion of the Burmese themselves we would establish the voting age at 18. There is overwhelming evidence that that is the desire of the great majority of Burmese. The Franchise Committee which considered this matter had a large number of witnesses before it and the overwhelming majority of those witnesses pleaded for the age of 18. There are some who have a contrary opinion, but it seems to me that whether one contacts persons who know Burma, or looks up the files of newspapers, or studies the reports of various bodies who have considered the matter, one can only come to the conclusion that, although there is a minority in favour of 21, the great majority are in favour of 18. I urge that that matter be reconsidered.

Observations have been passed about a very remarkable man, Aung San. It seems to me highly undesirable that we should loosely fling out epithets like "traitor" in regard to one who is looked upon by large numbers of Burmese as being not a traitor but a patriot of the highest quality. It may be that we disagree. Feelings in this House may vary regarding the integrity of Ministers, of Charles I, of Oliver Cromwell, of de Valera and Jawaharlal Nehru—who, I regret to note, has been arrested by an Indian despot.

And the Mufti of Jerusalem.

On a point of Order. If the hon. Member is to make reference to Jawaharlal Nehru being apprehended by an Indian despot, surely we on the Opposition benches should have the opportunity of giving our opinion on Jawaharlal Nehru's action?

I used that as an illustration.

I do not know, Mr. Speaker, if your attention was called to the fact that the hon. Gentleman was dealing with the Government of India. Is that in Order on this Bill?

I did not hear what the hon. Gentleman said. I did not gather that what he was saying was not in Order.

May I respectfully call your attention, Sir, to the hon. Member's actual words? Am I entitled to do that? I am raising a point of Order. The hon. Gentleman was using an argument in which he made references going outside Burma—to Jawaharlal Nehru and others in India. My right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Butler) asked whether if the Debate were to include such references, we should have an opportunity of referring to the same subjects from these Benches.

I did not hear the remark and I do not know what the context was. I thought the hon. Gentleman was giving illustrations of the way in which our opinions might differ about individuals. But he cannot discuss the situation in India on this Bill.

I fully appreciate your last remark, Mr. Speaker, and I have no intention of discussing the question of India. I am glad to find that, in this case at least, I was justified in using certain illustrations regarding the curious habit many of us have of applying unfortunate epithets to people. I pass on with regrets that my intention to abbreviate my remarks have been frustrated. It is as undesirable to fling about epithets like "traitor" regarding Mr. Aung San as it is to fling about epithets regarding any other person within our Dominions and Empire, whether he is in Ireland, India, Britain or elsewhere. In those circumstances, I think I can very well pass to my final observation.

Mention was made by the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) of the great need for economic reconstruction in Burma. The only reason why I refer to this is that, undoubtedly, as far as one can tell, great devastation has been imposed on Burma and its people not through their own fault. They did not ask for the war, but the war ranged over that area. That being so, it seems to me that we have a moral obligation as far as we possibly can, to assist in the reconstruction of their country. We should do so not merely because it is morally right, but because unless economic reconstruction takes place in Burma, even an advance in political liberty may prove ultimately abortive.

As the hon. Member has referred to me, perhaps I may interrupt him. It is all very well to talk about moral obligations, but what the people of Burma want is not moral obligations but money—about £400 million. Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to go to his constituents and say that they should put up £400 million for the people of Burma, If so, I think he ought to say so.

As to the amount, that is the estimate of the hon. Gentleman.

It is not my estimate.

In principle, I have always said to my constituents that we have this moral obligation and that where we have had the advantage of other people's services, we owe a debt to them in return. I am prepared to repeat that in my own constituency and if necessary also in the constituency of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hornsey. That being so, I merely say again that the advance towards political liberty and responsibility must be accompanied by economic reconstruction. One of the reasons why in many parts of the world there have been in the past a diversion from a sense of democracy and political liberty, has been because wretched social and economic conditions have undermined people's faith in those principles. I trust that along with the advance towards what I hope will be complete self-government for Burma, we shall go to the utmost of our ability to help them to advance to economic recovery.

12.50 p.m.

Although we have discussed this matter fairly fully, there are one or two points I would like to impress on the House. I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams) mention the Shan States. Those who have seen the six Shan States and know what happened when our 14th Army and others were in the Burmese Campaign, realise that we owe something to the people in the Shan States and that we should be trying to evolve a system of local democracy—there will be no other hope at the moment—based on the head man of the tribe and on the houses and huts in that region. It may not be a parallel to local government in this country, but it will give a feeling of democratic contact with the whole of Burma. I hope that if any Parliamentary delegation is sent out to Burma, the utmost attention will be given to this problem of evolving a pattern of government which will suit the psychology and culture of the Shan States and yet ultimately fit in to the Burmese Legislature.

In 1939 there were 200,000 pupils in monastic schools in Burma. I believe it is quite wrong in a Government paper to mark out a line of demarcation between theological bodies and the secular arm of the State. That we have definitely done by including in black and white the statement in the Clause about exclusion of the monks from voting. Whether the monks are to vote or not, is a matter which should be left to the Order itself in Burma, and not decided by the Legislative Assembly. I think this is an error. Burma is one of the most literate areas of the Far East, but in 1939 over one million children were getting no education at all. We are confronted with the issue of whether or not we should try to get an election and this system of government immediately, or wait until there is law and order. I believe we should try as soon as possible to get some system of election working, because the educational system cannot be built up until there is some agreement about the pattern of the Legislative Assembly in Burma. The ultimate destiny of Burma depends, in the last analysis, on how far we are able to give these people an adequate educational system.

I add my voice on this issue of the franchise and whether it should be granted at 18 or 21 years of age. As was well pointed out by the hon. Member for South Croydon, sometimes we in Britain lack imagination. We must on no account in this transition period in the history of the East try to give to these people the exact pattern of government which we have in this country. It does not fit into their psychology. We cannot work it out accurately on the age of 18 nor on the age of 21. I deprecate this inclusion and agree with an hon. Member on this side of the House that there seems to some of us to be some type of political manoeuvre in this change of the age from 18 to 21. Nevertheless, I am convinced that there is wholehearted support on both sides of the House for this Measure and, I hope, among the Burmese. They follow very carefully every word said on these Benches on either side of the House. Hence it is very important for us to speak very carefully. At last we are trying to evolve some constitutional system, some political and economic system, which will give to Burma that place and destiny which ultimately, I believe, she deserves in the British Commonwealth of Nations.

12.56 p.m.

I wish to put only one point. I have listened to practically the whole of this Debate and find myself in agreement with most of the arguments produced on this side of the House. The point I am interested in is about this gentleman who controls an army of his own in Burma. I want the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) to explain to me what he meant when he said that that army might be compared to the British Legion. It was a remark which anyone who belongs to the British Legion entirely fails to understand. Here is a body of men—no doubt he will correct me if I am wrong—which is maintained as a disciplined body in uniform, being drilled and kept as a unit under a particular commander whose record may or may not be as bad as it appears to me that it is. This body of men, which I should have thought was an embryo Brown Shirt Force, may be compared, so the hon. Member for Maldon tells us, with the British Legion. Does the hon. Gentleman know that the British Legion is not associated with politics in any manner at all, but is a body which works entirely for the interest of the ex-Servicemen and is entirely non-political? If this force in Burma at the present time is merely a body of that kind, nothing can be said against it. But what kind of proof can the hon. Member for Maldon bring to bear on this point? Why does he make a statement of that kind?

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has kindly given way, and he has asked a number of questions.

Only one.

He has asked what proof I can bring, and several other things. The British Legion, of which I have the honour to be an honorary member, of the House of Commons branch, is a highly political body, and rightly so, but not a party political body. This organisation in Burma is most emphatically not a private army, but is, as I described it by rough analogy in the last Debate, a cross between the Home Guard and the British Legion.

All I can say is that the honorary member of the British Legion, House of Commons branch, has a curious idea of what the work of the British Legion is, and that the sooner he learns more about it the better it will be. I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman in charge of the Bill will give the House an assurance that this organised body of men in Burma is a recognised force and is at any rate under the control of an individual with the full approval of the Government.

I have said in this House on a previous occasion that I understand that the leader of this force has offered to put it at the disposal of the regular Burma Army. As to another point the right hon. and gallant Member made, is it not strictly political work, and quite rightly so, to bring pressure on Members of Parliament to improve the conditions of ex-Servicemen? Of course, it is.

It is perfectly clear from the hon. Member's speech that what he means is that this particular body of men belong to a political party.

No.

That is exactly the argument on which the hon. Member based his speech.

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman simply does not know the facts.

1.2 p.m

I would like to revert to the Bill if possible and to answer a question which has been only partly answered, since it was put by my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams). He suggested that it might be a good thing if the opinion of a cross-section of the people of Burma themselves could be taken as to the age at which they would like the franchise to be granted. Such a possibility of opinion has been thoroughly explored. It was the job of the Franchise Committee to obtain this cross-section of Burmese opinion, and it was obtained. I suggest that it was handed to the Legislative Council, and that it was they who made the final decision. I do not know what reply my hon. and learned Friend will give as to the change made in the Legislative Council from the suggestion put forward by the Franchise Committee. There is obviously one cause for the change, and it is one which I do not like. I have never wished to see discrimination against women removed by worsening the position of men. When I have been fighting for equality of pay for women, I have never wanted it to be brought about by lowering the pay of men.

I see no reason why, instead of removing the discrimination against women contained in the recommendation of the Franchise Committee it should have been decided to give the vote to everyone at 21, which in effect worsens the position of men. It removes the discrimination against women at the cost of raising the age in the case of men. That recommendation must have had some weight with the Legislative Council. It was a sort of decision of Solomon. I think it is a great pity. The feeling of the Burmese people is obviously that the franchise should be given at the age of 18. When the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Butler) said he believed in adult suffrage, I thought he intended to support that view, because in Burma adult suffrage means enfranchisement at the age of 18. Although we shall put down an Amendment on this point, I should have preferred it, if the Government could have seen their way to make this change. I have my own views on why they do not want these young people to vote. They are obviously the reasons put forward by the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg).

However far East and West may be divided, many of the results of the war are the same in Asia as in Europe. We have said over and over again to the devastated countries in Europe, "Get on with your elections, and carry out your economic reconstruction as part and parcel of the rehabilitation of your country." I think that is what the Burmese people want. They want to hold their elections and to carry out the reconstruction of their country. They are not asking for this enormous subsidy in order to do that. They want the help of the Government. I received from the Burma Office this week a most interesting report of the project which the Legislature would put forward in Burma to help the Burmese to help themselves. But they must feel that they have political rights first. The kind of political right for which they ask will work off some of the surplus energy, some of the surge of feeling, about which my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon spoke with such feeling and imagination. Give them the things they want politically. Let them express their view as to when and how people shall vote. Everyone in the House of Commons knows about this young and growing movement in Burma. We are divided in our opinions about it. We on this side think it a hopeful sign for the future of Burma; hon. Members opposite think differently. If we give them the kind of franchise which they themselves want, and which is advised by the Committee set up by the Legislature, we shall find that unsettled conditions will come to an end. The Burmese people will join with all their hearts and souls and energy in promoting social justice and economic reconstruction in their country, along the lines suggested by the Government.

1.7 p.m.

As we have heard, the whole House is united in wanting to see that these elections are held as early as possible. This Bill alone, however, will not guarantee early elections. The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler), who emphasised the requirement of law and order, was quite right in doing so. Hon. Members have agreed that no elections can take place in a country where conditions are like the present state of affairs in Burma. Therefore, before turning to the aspects of the Bill, I wish to say a few words on those conditions, and how to bring about a state of law and order and stability so that elections may be held.

I believe it is true to say that the disorders taking place in many parts of Burma—dacoity and banditry—can be ascribed to two causes. There are, of course, the demoralised elements—the bandits. There are, however, as information which I have goes to show, many people who are resorting to banditry who have been ordinary respectable folk, and who have turned to this sort of thing in recent months. They have done so partly as a result of the war mentality in which they have been plunged for several years—no one can say that that was due to any fault of their's—and partly due to the terrible economic conditions. As a consequence, they are resorting to methods of living which are a menace to the community and to the maintenance of law and order. The question arises of how to overcome this. We have heard expression of opinion this morning and last week about force being necessary. We have not always been very successful in using force. I do not know Burma personally, but I do know, from my knowledge of geography, what that country is like. It would mean, in the ultimate, the use of bombing planes and large numbers of troops, British and Colonial, who would have to be used for the purpose of maintaining order, with no guarantee of permanent maintenance of that order if such Forces were removed.

Therefore, I want to deal with one or two aspects of the problem with a view to bringing about the desired end. Firstly, how soon are we to rehabilitate the country, how soon are we to bring law and order of an economic character to the country? The quicker that is done, the sooner will those dacoits, who have taken to this occupation out of dire need, return to an ordinary respectable life. The Government have granted a loan of £87 million to Burma, and £62 million of this is proposed to be spent on industry—on public utilities, Government services and so on. There is no indication of how the main bulk of this money is to be spent, and there is no clear indication whether it is going to be spent on the ultimate improvement of the standard of living of the Burmese people. A number of private industrial concerns, who, in former years, dominated the economy of Burma, are to be given precedence. Messrs. Lever, one of the greatest cartels in the world, will be given their preference and the right to exploit in Burma and sell their goods. The Imperial Tobacco Company are to have similar rights, and the supply of milk and similar goods is to be in the hands of Nestle, a firm well-known in this country and in others where they have monopoly enterprises. The standard of the workers has been lowered, and there have been several cases of labour troubles due to the fact that the standard of living, compared with current prices, is even lower than in prewar years.

I think the hon. and gallant Member for Dumfries (Major N. Macpherson) earlier raised the question about the money to be spent, and the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) spoke of challenging an hon. Member on this side of the House on whether he was prepared to spend £400 million. I suggest that it is not a question whether the Government loan £87 million free of interest or spend £400 million. The question is on what the money is to be spent in Burma. I do not believe that on any previous occasion we have had a clear indication of how this money is to be spent and I believe it would be very useful—

This has nothing whatever to do with the Bill.

May I point out that, in one or two respects, but only in one or two, I am an ardent disciple of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden. I try to learn from his debating experience. The right hon. Gentleman started this argument, and I am continuing it. I believe this is a very important question, which relates to the holding of the Burmese elections. Cultivation in Burma has declined, partly because of the disorder in the countryside, because the people will not cultivate the land if they know they will not get the results of their efforts; and partly because of the low prices paid for their crops. I ask the Minister to consider two points in this respect. First, early attention must be given to the economic conditions prevailing in Burma and the standard of living of the people, so that the Burmese people may be placed in a suitable position and a suitable frame of mind to reap the benefit of the democratic privileges which they are attaining. Second, in regard to the disorders which are taking place, force is necessary, but, if only such British and Colonial troops as are in Burma at present are used, considering that Burma is a vast country, they will be insufficient, while to use large forces will only result in the mass terrorising of the population, which can be more terrible than the conditions as at present.

I ask the Minister if he will consider enlisting the support of those sections of the Burmese people who have done good service during the war and have shown that they have sound political leanings. There is the organisation of A.F.P.F.L.; there is also the People's Voluntary Organisation, which could be harnessed in this service. There was some dispute this morning as to the character of the British Legion, but I have the idea that the actual nature of the organisation to be used would be more in keeping with that of the Home Guard. I do not believe that we shall get law and order in Burma without such a Home Guard, or militia, such as the Polish Government have introduced to destroy the bandits in their country.

With regard to the Bill itself, I ask the Under-Secretary to note that all the constructive suggestions for a more democratic form of franchise have come from this side, and it is notable that hon. Members on the other side of the House have supported the Bill and the Amendments which it contains. I believe I have a right to say this, because I am not a member of the majority party. Several hon. Members have given notice to move Amendments in the Committee stage, and I think the Minister would do a good service to the House if he would indicate now whether the Amendments could come from the Government itself, rather than from hon. Members behind, who feel so earnestly on this subject.

The first question is that of the property qualification. The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) suggested to me earlier on that a very good point which could be suggested during the Committee stage would be that, in page 1, line 13, the word "thousand" should be omitted. We should then get a qualification of six rupees a year. I do not believe that the argument which was put before the House earlier really holds water. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden has said that other countries would do well by importing our system. So far as I am aware, there is no property qualification for any elected assembly in this country, and, therefore, what is good for us, in the outlook of the right hon. Gentleman, should likewise be good for the Burmese, but it is apparent that the right hon. Gentleman knows how and when to adjust his seasoning, sometimes putting in more and sometimes less. I think there should be no property qualification. Before I leave this question, I want to deal with another point concerning the Senate. The age qualification for the Senate is 35 years, and the age qualification for the House of Representatives is 25. I have no objection to 25, but I think that 35 years, in an Asiatic country where people do not live to the age which we attain in European countries, means that we are waiting until a man has almost reached the equivalent of the old age pension age before he can qualify for the Senate. I think this is a case for some adjustment.

The other point concerns the question of the age limit. I think that most points have been covered but I want to say just one thing. The House is under no illusion that there is a widespread feeling in this country that it is time that the minimum age limit for participation in elections was reduced to 18. That question was raised before the Select Committee which sat a year or two ago, and there is a slogan which has often been cited:

If the hon. Member will forgive me, I said "representative," which is, in no sense, the same as "elected." If the hon. Member will look at HANSARD, he will see that that is so.

What does "representative" mean? If the hon. and gallant Member will look at the 1935 Act he will find that it is unrepresentative of the various sections of the population at the present day for, during the last ten years, the people of Burma have gone through a century of political advancement. Therefore, does the Legislative Council represent the people? It is to be appreciated that the committee which recommended that all young men of 18 shall have the right to vote is more representative of the will of the people than the Legislative Council, and I ask the Minister to give further consideration to those points. I will conclude by saying that I welcome the Bill and want to see it go through as quickly as possible in order that the elections may be held. I shall not oppose the Second Reading, although I feel strongly on the points I have raised. I hope that the Government will make the Amendments. They would be wise, sometimes, to adopt Amendments fostered by this side as they have, on other occasions, adopted Amendments fostered by the other side.

Before I finish, I would like to add a word to what the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) said earlier, that we do not want to discourage the Burmese people from taking their full share in the political life of their country. While we do not want to discourage them, we, also, ought not to impede them for, undoubtedly, some of the finest elements in the country will be prevented from voting and standing for election to the Senate if the Government carry through this Bill as it at present stands.

1.25 p.m.

We have had a very interesting Debate, and I am quite sure that there will be no doubt in the minds of anyone that this House regards the present situation in Burma and the future of that country as matters of major importance. Reference has been made to the present economic situation in Burma and to doubts as to whether or not His Majesty's Government and the Government of Burma are doing everything possible to deal with that very difficult situation. I do not propose, today, to discuss whether or not the sum of £200 million or £300 million is necessary for the rehabilitation of the country, but, as the House knows, there was a full and comprehensive Debate some weeks ago on the economic aspects of the situation. It was generally agreed that the case I was able to make for the Government did convey, at any rate, a reasonable measure of confidence that the problem was being faced up to in an adequate way. It is quite impossible for anyone to suggest that, in a matter of months, a country such as Burma, which was in enemy occupation for three years—during which two major campaigns were fought over its territory with all the resulting devastation and dislocation that was involved— can be expected to show very much in the way of results in a matter of six months.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams) asked the Government to be a little more imaginative. But when one is dealing with a concrete situation like the economic conditions of the people of a country, one wants something a little more, substantial than merely being imaginative. The £84 million to which the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Piratin) has referred is not imaginary; it is very real, and will go much farther towards securing economic rehabilitation than anything else I can think of.

It is not my function today to deal in detail with how the £84 million is being allocated. There may be differences of opinion as to whether European agencies, such as those to which the hon. Gentleman referred, should be employed, or whether it should be done in another way. But we have to take the position as we find it; we have to take the tools available as we find them and make the best use of them. I believe that the policy which the Government are following will make a very substantial contribution to the rehabilitation of the country, and I cannot conceive any way of improving the standard of living of the people there unless, and until, we have secured rehabilitation of its industry and of the other aspects of its social and economic life. I would be misleading the House if I suggested that this was going to be done in a matter of months; it will, obviously, be a matter of years. If I may refer once more to my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon, I would like to say that he made a most interesting speech and that, while I believe that he was just a little hard on the Government, nonetheless, perhaps it does good to take that line occasionally. He said that the Government were not imaginative in their approach.

I would like to make the matter quite clear. I was not only, as it were, flogging this Government; I was flogging all Governments and, in fact, the English generally for that particular lack which I feel exists. I feel that there is a definite lack of imaginative approach to other peoples, and that that is the one weakness in an otherwise admirable people.

Being of Scottish descent myself, I suppose I must plead guilty to displaying a lack of imagination at times. I was not suggesting that my hon. Friend was putting it too high, but the Government, as well as the people of Burma and this House, have to face, not only a human problem, but a real problem, both economic and political. Therefore, the test that must be applied is, How are the Government approaching that problem? My hon. Friend is entitled to his view that we show a lack of imagination. On the other hand, once the position of the Government is challenged, even though only in a friendly way, I am justified in putting before the House how we are dealing with these problems. We regard them from the "Let us look forward" aspect. I would have thought that all my hon. Friends on this side of the House would agree with me that if an indictment can be made against a Government of its economic policy, or lack of it, in respect of a particular country which has not got its own political power, and has no control of its own destiny, then the sooner that that country is in control of its destiny the more likely is it that it will be able to follow an economic or social policy more consonant with the views of the people themselves.

Reference has been made to the fact that the Legislative Council is not representative. How can we get any body in Burma which is representative until we have some sort of an election? If we had not had a Legislative Council such as we have today, and if we had continued the form of government by a Governor under Section 139, then we would have been criticised because we were not taking into our counsels representative Burmese. Therefore, the sooner we have this election, which I consider the most vital part of our policy at the moment, the better it will be for Burma and for all concerned. I would assure the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) that obviously we would have to satisfy ourselves that, as far as possible, the election will be free and fair, but the mere fact that in the months previous to next April there might be a number of murders would surely be no reason for not holding the election. I was looking at some figures the other day which indicated that in March, 1941, before the invasion started, there were quite a number of murders. Subject to that, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, which I think is what he is after, that if we are to have an election which is any indication of the desires of the people, it must be held in conditions in which the people are able to vote freely and without fear.

There have been certain criticisms of the contents of the Bill. I understand from what some of my hon. Friends have indicated that we will have to discuss some of these points when amendments are moved. Therefore, I do not see much purpose in dealing with them in detail at the moment. But May I just say this? A good deal of the criticism which has been levelled against the Bill is in respect of the fixing of the age at 21 instead of 18. The point has been made, quite rightly, that this is a change from the recommendations that were made by the Franchise Committee. I think we must face this position: we have no representative body, in the sense of having been elected by the people, which can express the desires of the people of Burma as to what the basis of the franchise should be. We can either decide in this House without reference to what the Burmese want,—in so far as we can ascertain what they want,—or we must pay attention to what the people of Burma say they want, through the machinery which is in existence—the Executive Council and the Legislative Council. His Majesty's Government have taken account of what the Legislative Council want. I do not suggest that there is anything sacrosanct in the age of 21, any more than there is in the age of 18, but we have sought to give statutory authority to the proposals which have been put to us by the Legislative Council. It may be right or wrong, but I cannot conceive what else we could have done except to have paid attention to the proposals of the four members of the Franchise Committee who wanted the age of 18 for men, and for women the same age subject to earning and literacy qualifications, or we could have paid attention to the proposal of the solitary representative of A.F.P.F.L. who suggested a universal suffrage at 18.

We had the recommendations put forward by this body, which may not have been elected by the people but does contain, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) will agree, distinguished Burmese, even though one may not agree with their political views. It is a very representative Council in the sense that it contains 30 or more very distinguished Burmese of every party except, unfortunately, A.F.P.F.L. itself. By a vote of 24 to six, they made these various recommendations which are embodied in the Bill. We can discuss at a later stage some of the particular points to which objection has been taken. We do attach very great importance to this Bill, because until there is an election I do not see how we can implement the promises contained in the White Paper to transfer political power from this House to the elected leaders of Burma. Therefore, in that sense it is an urgent matter, and whatever discussions we may have when the Committee stage is reached, I am sure this Bill will go forward not only with the support but the blessing of all Members of this House who, I am sure, are sincerely desirous that the people of Burma should at the earliest possible moment, have control of their own destinies.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House for Monday next—[ Captain Michael Stewart ].

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

I shall not detain the Committee long on this new Clause. It is somewhat technical but, in short, it attempts to make superannuation provision for a staff employed by a railway assessment authority in Surrey. This small staff was drawn from the local government service in question, and I understand that that authority is willing to make arrangements to return them to the membership of their staff, with full superannuation arrangements. I hope that this somewhat long, but basically simple, addition to the Bill will receive the sympathetic consideration of the Minister. It may be that this is too clumsy a way of dealing with the matter, and there may be an easier way, but, at any rate, I think the suggested new Clause makes clear the essential requirements, and I ask the Minister to give it his sympathetic consideration.

1.40 p.m.

Discussions have taken place on this matter among all the interested parties—the railway assessment authority, the joint authority, representatives of the employees and so on. In consequence, I understand this new Clause has been drafted as a result of complete agreement amongst the interested people. In view of that, and of the sort of representations which were made to us by a deputation of the employees of the authority concerned, we are ready and willing to accept the new Clause.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.

Bill reported, with an Amendment; as amended, considered; read the Third time, and passed.

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

The purpose of this Bill is to amend the law governing retiring payments and pensions to civil servants. The present Code governing such payments is embodied in a number of Acts; the first, I think, dated 1834, and the last, if we exclude the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1944, in 1935. This is a short, modest but urgent and, we think, essential Measure. It forms part of the comprehensive plan for the reconstruction of the Civil Service in the postwar period, which the Government believe is now necessary. The Bill is urgent for the following reasons. The Government have decided to make a concession to ex-Service recruits to the Civil Service, under which they will be able to reckon part of their time spent with the Forces for superannuation purposes. It is desirable that this decision should be legalised so that ex-Servicemen and women who are now beginning, in increasing numbers, I am glad to say, to take the reconstruction and Civil Service examinations may know where they are. It is also necessary to facilitate the recruitment of men and women of middle age, who possess special qualifications essential for particular posts in the Civil Service, where it is impossible to find people of similar calibre amongst individuals of younger ages.

It is also desirable to remove certain anomalies and difficulties to which the present complicated Superannuation Acts have given rise, and to provide for the implementation of the undertaking given recently by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to allow what are known as the Lytton and South-borough entrants to the established Civil Service to reckon for pension purposes the whole of their unestablished service as to one-half since the end of the 1914–18 war. The detailed arrangements to give effect to this decision, and to the decision relating to age barred officers, are, I would like to remark in passing, now being considered by two sides of the National Whitley Council.

This Bill does not deal with the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1944, which has been extended under the Expiring Laws Continuance Act, 1945, to 31st March, 1947. The question what shall be done in future about pension increases is now under discussion. I will not say active discussion, because that has become a hackneyed phrase. It is now under discussion in the Department with the T.U.C. The National Whitley Council, of course, is interested in it, and it will also be necessary to discuss the matter with local authorities. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer informed the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) yesterday, it is hoped to introduce an amending Bill early in the next Session. I for one very much hope that that promise can be kept.

I would also remind the House that this Bill does not deal with reckon-ability of service with the Forces for pension purposes in public services other than the Civil Service. As I indicated yesterday in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for South Cardiff (Mr. Callaghan), the Government are prepared to pay their share of the cost of a similar concession to that which this Bill gives, to recruits to the Police, Fire Service, teaching and other similar forms of service outside the Civil Service proper. I am advised it is desirable that these other categories of public servants should be dealt with separately in legislation covering them alone. As and when discussions with the local authorities, which are now proceeding, come to a sufficient stage, and the opportunity occurs, it is intended to introduce legislation to give to other public servants what in this Bill we extend to the Civil Service proper.

I now come to the provisions of the Bill. I am, of course, at the service of the House, but I assume hon. Members will not desire me to deal in too great detail with the provisions contained in the various Clauses. We shall have a Committee stage, when matters of detail can be considered. It appears to me that in the short time at our disposal today it would be well if I did no more than indicate briefly what the Clauses are about, particularly as this Bill, or most of it, is not really technical in character. Unlike some Bills, which come before the House, it is easy to understand and its meaning is plain on the face of it. Therefore, it would be unfortunate if I took up time which other hon. Members would like to use, by going into too much detail at this stage. I content myself with no more than a brief reference to the main effects of the principal Clauses. Before I come to that, I should say, as the House will undoubtedly have realised almost without my saying it, the provisions which this Bill contains have been considered by the staff side of the National Whitley Council. Whilst it would be unfair of me to say, because it would not be true, that they believe this Bill is the last word in Bills of this kind, I think I can say they are generally in agreement with most of the provisions therein. If I may mention one item in particular, I think they have certain reservations on Clause 2, which deals with added years, and doubtless later on, in further stages of the passage of this Bill, their views will be voiced in the House by the very excellent representation which, I am glad to think, the Civil Service has in this assembly.

Clause 1 provides for the concession to ex-Service recruits. It enables those entering from the Armed Forces who served in the 1939–45 war to count such service for superannuation purposes as if it had been continuous service in an unestablished capacity in the Civil Service, after, of course, the prescribed age for their entry into whatever grade it may be had been reached. By that I mean that if someone presently coming into the Civil Service had gone into the Armed Forces at the age of 18, and he is to enter a grade where normally the age of recruitment is something later than that, he will count his Armed Forces service from the date when he attained the age at which others, or he himself, might have entered that grade of the Civil Service. This, amongst other things, will put such recruits on an equality with the retained temporary civil servants during the present war. Although, as I say, I do not want to go into too much detail, this Clause also deals with certain limitations as to the counting of similar service by a regular member of the Armed Forces who afterwards comes into the Civil Service.

Clause 2 deals with the late entrant, that is, the specialists coming in at an age greater than the normal. It gives effect, broadly, to the recommendations of the Royal Commission of 1929–31, commonly known as the Tomlin Commission, which made certain recommendations regarding such entrants. It provides for what are called "added years," in order to weight their service so that an adequate pension can be given them when they come to retire. If we are to attract the best brains in specialised fields, as I think the nation undoubtedly desires to do, a provision of this kind is in our view essential. Men and women of ability are normally only too anxious to serve the community, but I think the House will agree that it is unfair that this readiness should be used as a reason for taking advantage of them. If they come in and place their specialised ability at the service of the State, it is only right and just that the State should look after them and see that they are adequately remunerated, and also receive a proper pension at the end of their service.

The provisions of this Clause will be used sparingly but adequately. It is no good having these provisions on the Statute Book if we do not intend to use them. Normally, the benefits of this Clause will be applied to people coming in at the minimum age of 40 on recruitment, but as the House will see we have given ourselves a certain amount of elbow room by allowing a margin of five years for exceptional cases. The effect of the provision is this: It will increase by a notional 60 per cent. the period of service given after reaching the age of 40. His pension will, in effect, be one-fiftieth instead of the present one-eightieth for each year of service. A man recruited at 40 who stays until he is 65 will, under this Clause—if the House agrees with it—get the maximum pension. If on the other hand he goes out at 60 he will get the same pension as another man—or woman, of course, for man embraces woman—who came in at the age of 28. That, broadly speaking, is the effect of this Clause.

I do not think I need spend much time on Clause 3. It makes minor amendments, which are listed in the Second Schedule, to previous Superannuation Acts. Unfortunately, the Statute Book appears to be littered with these, and it is time some of them were cleared out and got rid of.

Clause 4 provides for various modifications of the same Superannuation Acts to meet circumstances which have arisen out of the war. It is designed, for one thing, to safeguard the superannuation position of those who went into other forms of national service. The civil servant proper who went into the Armed Forces is covered in any case, but some civil servants went off into munitions and other forms of war work and they are not covered by the existing law. It is now desired to place them on the same footing as those who went into the Armed Forces and had their basic Civil Service pay made up whilst they were away. We also want, if we can, to do justice to what are called "the rebel volunteers" who said, "Notwithstanding the fact that you want me to stay in the Civil Service, I am going to fight for my country." They went, and by so doing, under the Regulations they lost their job in the Civil Service. Now quite a lot of them have been reinstated and at the same time we should like to reinstate them as fully as possible so far as their superannuation or gratuity rights are concerned.

This Clause also provides for the grant of awards under the Injury Warrants to civil servants who were injured, or who died, in enemy hands. Unfortunately, quite a number of them died in Japanese hands, and in our view it would be unfair if, for a purely technical reason, they or their dependants or personal representatives lost all right to an award under this particular head. We also provide in the same Clause for something quite different, a special scale of gratuities to officers who had to be recruited in a temporary capacity for work with the Control Commission in Germany and Austria. They come into a special category on which I will not enlarge here, but as the House will readily realise it has been necessary, in the circumstances, to make special provision for them.

Clause 5 applies to the Civil Service what is called the "Federated Superannuation System for Universities," and other similar systems such as the Federated Superannuation Scheme for Nurses and Hospital Officers. The basis upon which superannuation is paid in the Civil Service is different from that upon which pensions are arranged under the systems to which I have referred. There they have a system, with which I take it most hon. Members are familiar, whereby a policy is taken out for an individual; it has worked quite well in the universities where a man has gone from one post to another and has taken his policy, and its accrued value, with him. We are taking into the Civil Service at present, not in large numbers but certainly in sufficient numbers to justify what we are here doing, people from the universities who come in temporarily and for a limited period. They are coming into the Service to do work for in-instance, of a statistical, or scientific, or economic nature. It would be grossly unfair if, because of that temporary change from university to Civil Service, they lost, or ran the risk of losing, the pension rights which they had built up in the university. Under the system we propose to adopt if the House gives us this Bill, it will be possible for us to continue to keep pension rights alive and, under certain conditions, to pay such premiums as the employees would otherwise have paid.

Clause 6 deals with the situation of teachers who come temporarily into the Civil Service. Under the Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1925, if such a teacher comes temporarily into the Civil Service to a job analogous to that of teaching, he or she is covered; but if teachers come temporarily into the Civil Service to a job which cannot technically be considered analogous to teaching, they come out of the scope of the Act of 1925. That, of course, is an absurd position, and we want to rectify it and to put the matter right.

That, briefly, covers the main provisions of the Bill. I commend it to the House as a useful and necessary Measure, and as an integral part, as I said earlier on, of the Government's plan for the reorganisation and improvement of the Civil Service and the conditions of those employed in it. The Civil Service of this country is, of course, not perfect, but, in my view, and, I think, in the general view, it is the finest in the world. Its personnel has faults—we all have—but it is incorruptible, it is exceedingly hard working, it serves all Governments alike without any show of political prejudice. Compared with outside commercial standards it is not overpaid. It bears insults in silence. It is a common music hall joke, when every other joke appears to get stale, to have something rude to say about the Civil Service. Only last night, an hon. Gentleman on the back Benches opposite thought it well to refer to a visit he paid earlier on to the Board of Trade, and to make some cheap sneer about his expectation that all the corridors would be filled with cups of tea. That kind of thing is said, and the Civil Service bears it, and it bears it in silence. It is true, I believe, that cups of tea are served in Government offices, but they are also served here, and they are also served in commercial offices; and so far as I know they do not interfere with the work done by the Civil Service.

Recruitment to, and the conditions in, the Civil Service are a particular concern of the Treasury; and as, for the time being, a Treasury Minister, I have, consequently, in the short time I have been there, had this subject very much under consideration in all its phases. It is one of very great complexity. It contains problems of the utmost magnitude, few of them easy to solve; but the solutions will have to be found to them, and given the will, I am positive can be found for them. In the past it has too often been thought that anything was good enough for the Civil Service. The accommodation is often completely out of date, the equipment shocking, insufficient and inefficient. Even the paper, in most of these Government offices, can hardly be written on. I, personally, rarely go into a Government office or Department without feeling immediately a great sense of depression. We have got to get away from all that. The staffs now are grossly overworked. There is not the slightest doubt about that. Many Departments have been evacuated during the war to distant parts of the provinces, and are suffering a feeling of great frustration. It is one of the principle headaches at the moment, with the great dearth of office accommodation here in London, how to get them back, and to see that earlier promises made to them are kept as soon as may be. The Civil Service is still subject—and we must remember this—to the Control of Engagement Order, and now that the war is a year behind us it is time that we were thinking of putting the civil servants on the same footing as other workers. These are some of the trials the Civil Service has to bear.

We want to get rid at the earliesr possible moment of the Control of Engagement Order, and we want to resettle the dispersed Departments as soon as ever we can. We want to provide up to date, airy offices equal to the best, with the finest equipment, and up to date business methods. We want, also, to establish throughout good pay and excellent conditions, and anything less than this, any target short of this, is unfair to the loyal body of employees who serve the State well. This Bill will not accomplish all this. It is, however, a modest instalment, in my view, towards achieving some of it, and as it is such, I ask the House unanimously to give it a Second Reading.

2.8 p.m.

I do not think anybody in any quarter of the House will differ very widely from the observations made by the hon. Gentleman in introducing this Bill. I was, how ever, just a little sorry to hear him say, if I understood him aright, that the Civil Service, which was in good spirits and cheerful when I left office last July, was now getting a little depressed and overworked. For that, Ministers must bear the responsibility. But I would join with him in the tribute he paid to the industry, the capacity and the loyalty of the great body of civil servants by which this country is served.

I should like to make a few observations on some of the Clauses in the Bill. No one will quarrel at all with the provision in the first Clause of the Bill, that those whose entry into the Civil Service has been delayed by the war should count, at any rate, part of their war service towards their pension rights. The only criticism, I think, that could be made of Clause 1, is that they should be permitted to count the whole of the years of war service towards their ultimate pension. On the other hand, I think I am right in saying that no civil servants have been granted establishment since the outbreak of war, and it would, therefore, be a little unfair to those who were taken into the Civil Service in a temporary capacity during the war if others who had joined the armed Forces were permitted to count the whole of their war service towards pension, whilst those who had been serving in an unestablished capacity were permitted only to count half. The only other observation I have to make on Clause 1 is, that we see, for the first time I think, in any Act of Parliament, in the First Schedule of this Bill, a comprehensive list of the women's Services. There are some 11 of them therein set out. There is here yet one more grievance for the Women's Land Army.

I regard Clause 2 as the most important Clause in the Bill and I propose to return to it in a few moments. Clause 4 will enable the Treasury, by means of regulations, to deal with the numerous difficult cases where careers of civil servants have been interrupted by war circumstances. It will also enable them to deal with those very hard cases, to which the Financial Secretary referred, of civil servants who fell into enemy hands and suffered or died through internment by the Japanese. I am extremely glad that the provision has been placed in the Bill.

Clause 5 deals with the position which is growing more common where a man moves from time to time from service with the State to service with a university. I am sure that that is a very good thing. There are various classes of scientific and technical men whose services are frequently required by the Government for a few years, who after serving the Government return to the university. Hitherto the State has continued to pay the contributions in respect of these persons under what is known as the F.S.S.U. scheme. These contributions have been paid without statutory authority, and the Public Accounts Committee have drawn the attention of the House to this matter. The Treasury have given undertakings to the Public Accounts Committee that this matter would be rectified, and Clause 5 fulfils these undertakings. Clause 3 tells us only that I am sure, have encountered very considerable difficulty. It deals with matters which are of an exceedingly technical character. My only criticism—and perhaps the Financial Secretary will say a word on this in reply—is that in this Schedule we have a number of paragraphs which are of a retrospective character. Hon. Members will see that paragraph 3 begins with the words:

I come now to what I have already described as the most important Clause in the Bill, namely, Clause 2, which provides for what are known as added years in the case of late entrants into the Civil Service. In the first place, let hon. Members note that under Subsection (3) this Clause does not apply to anyone who became a civil servant before years and upwards who may enter the Civil Service after 13th May of this year.

Become established.

Do I understand that these words mean "becomes an established civil servant"? As I read the Subsection, even a temporary civil servant cannot take advantage of the Clause, but it may be that my interpretation is incorrect.

It means unless a man becomes an established civil servant. Unless he puts in a certain period of time as an established civil servant, he cannot be liable to pension. Therefore, this Clause cannot apply, unless he becomes an established civil servant.

indicated assent.

I am obliged to the hon. Member. The other matter which is of great importance in Clause 2 is this. Subsection (4) says:

The ordinary practice in commerce—it may be different in some of the very largest combines—is to pay a technical man a fairly high salary, which is much higher than the salary he would earn in the Civil Service, and expect him out of it to make his own provision for old age by savings or by insurance. But if it is the intention that these people who enter the service of the State in middle age by way of nationalisation are to receive pensions on a Civil Service basis, then something must be done to coordinate the schemes of pensions under the different authorities. At present there is a great danger that individual organisations such as the Forestry Commission, the Coal Board or other boards and bodies will have separate pension schemes and there will be no coordinating authority to prescribe a general line and common conditions. I am quite sure that there will be a great deal of discontent and heartburning, if the pensions in one State service, are on a much lower or a much higher scale than in a corresponding service.

Therefore, I ask the hon. Gentleman to get his advisers at the Treasury to keep a very careful eye on the powers given to these various boards and commissions, which are to be set up, or have been set up already, to make sure that they have a common policy. It would be all wrong, in my view, if these various authorities were to continue to pay salaries at commercial rates which are very much higher than Civil Service rates, and, at the same time were to superimpose on the high commercial salaries a scale of pensions commensurate with that given, or even higher than that given, in the Civil Service. That is a matter of very wide importance. It goes a little beyond the scope of the Bill, but it is vitally important that the Treasury should take this matter in hand, and give it very careful and close consideration.

Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that quite a number of medium-sized companies may come under consideration on this point? They have pension schemes, and, therefore, they will also have to be taken into consideration when they come under public control.

Quite clearly that is so. There will be existing superannuation schemes which will have to be superseded when the transfer to State ownership occurs. But, broadly speaking, I think that I am right in saying that the pensions given under these private superannuation schemes are on a much lower scale than the ordinary Civil Service pensions. That is to say, they do not bear the same relationship to the number of years service as the Civil Service pensions. What we have done in this country is to underpay our civil servants, and to give them a fairly early retiring age, and a fairly generous pension. I do not think that it would be right and proper to apply those principles to those industries which are to be nationalised, unless corresponding alterations were made in the salary scales of the persons taken over. I hope that these points will receive the most careful consideration, because there is a danger, which is growing already, that different boards and commissions will each adopt their own scale of superannuation, and that grave discontent will be caused thereby to other persons whose scales are not so high as those which they see their neighbours obtaining. With these observations, we, on this side of the House, give our blessing to the Bill. It is a necessary Bill; it is a good Bill; and I understand that during the Committee stage, a further Clause will be introduced which will incorporate the concession announced the other day in an answer, not to the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Brown) but to the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. Williams)—a concession for which the hon. Member for Rugby has pressed so long and so hard, and whose efforts have at last been rewarded by success. I understand that that Clause will be introduced during the Committee stage, and, no doubt, it will be as welcome to the House as the other Clauses in the Bill.

2.25 p.m.

I rise to give my blessing to this Bill, and to congratulate the Financial Secretary, if he will allow me to do so, both on the clarity of his exposition of the Bill, and the justification of the Civil Service of this country, with which he concluded his presentation of the Bill. I assure him that the Civil Service will welcome and deeply appreciate that justification from the Front Bench. In the nature of things the Civil Service can never be popular. Its job is to apply the legislation which this House passes. All legislation involves the shoving of someone or other around, and people do not like being shoved around. So the Civil Service is the subject of a good deal of unjustified criticism, and a good deal of ill-natured humour, or so-called humour. And it is, therefore, proper that, from time to time, someone speaking for the Government should tell the truth about the Service, which is that, with all its faults, it is the best instrument of its kind in the world. There are many countries—I refer particularly to the U.S.A.—which have had to remodel their Civil Service on something very much like English lines.

About the depression in the Civil Service, I think that I am right in saying that if there is any change at all in that respect, it is a slight change for the better. It will be cheered by this Bill, among other things. Both the Minister and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) were united in agreeing that the civil servants were underpaid. They both said that, and yet neither of them does anything about it when he is in office. The office now filled by my hon. Friend was, at an earlier stage, filled by the right hon. Gentleman above the Gangway. I found him just as obdurate as his successor when it came to the question of the improvement of pay in the Civil Service. After this joint declaration from both sides of the House that the Civil Service is badly underpaid, I hope that the matter will be put right by tomorrow morning.

Concerning accommodation, Government buildings are out-of-date, they are badly housed, and it is true that the furniture and equipment are poor. I am very much looking to my hon. Friend to do one thing for which I have been pressing for 30 years in the Civil Service, and which I believe lies at the root of our shockingly-bad accommodation. Until now we have been restricted, in our building programmes, to building out of revenue. We ought long ago to have started to build on capital account. The same amount of money which now serves for an extremely limited building programme out of revenue, would have financed a vastly larger programme if we had built on capital account. No commercial firm would do what we do, and I hope that that is one of the things which my hon. Friend will put right.

We have no national capital account.

I do not know whether we have a national capital account, but we have a lot of national capital. No one has the slightest idea what property is owned by the State in Britain, and this restriction to building out of revenue is quite out-of-date, and impedes the proper elaboration of an adequate building programme, when building materials again become available.

As to the Bill itself, as the right hon. Member for North Leeds has said, Clause 2 is the most important. I would like to endorse everything that he has said on the significance of the importance of that Clause in the light of the new set-up in Britain. I am not arguing the merits or demerits of nationalisation but I say that it is perfectly plain that the function of the State is being substantially, and, as I think, permanently, enlarged in Britain. That means a change not only of area, but of character, is taking place. Until now our Civil Service has been engaged, in the main, in carrying out a largely static job of legislation. It has been an administrative and executive body. But if we are to nationalise industry after industry the need will develop for a new kind of Civil Service. In addition to an executive and administrative service we shall need an economic service, and that is going to make a profound difference to our methods of recruitment to the public service. At the moment the whole basis of that recruitment is that we take people at school-leaving age, which may be secondary, intermediate, or university, and then they learn the job doing it. But if we are to have the State taking over industry after industry, we shall have to recruit from outside the Service men who have already learned their job in industry, and we shall have to recruit them, not at school-leaving age—they would not then have learned their job—but at all sorts of ages if we are to get the kind of men we want. In view of this, some modification of the superannuation practice and law of the Service is necessary.

Having said that, and to that extent having welcomed Clause 2, let me add that I do not think that the Clause goes far enough. Under it we can, in the case of a man over 40, give him better treatment than the present Superannuation Acts provide. In exceptional cases we can give some improvement, although a less improvement, in respect of men between 35 and 40. But as regards the man under 35 who would be brought in from outside we can do nothing under this Bill. I want to urge the Financial Secretary not to lay down that limit of 35. Even under this Bill, the man who comes in at 40 will go out at 60 with a smaller pension than the full pension. Again, a man of 35 will go out with a smaller pension than the full pension. But the man under 35 who may be brought in from outside gets no concession whatever under the terms of Clause 2. I believe the Financial Secretary will find that that will be a great barrier to the recruitment from industry to the economic civil service, if I may so describe it, of men under the age of 35. I want to put this dilemma to the Financial Secretary. He must do one of two things; either he must alter the wages structure of the Service in order to enable these late entrants to make their own pension provisions by insurance, or alternatively he must alter the superannuation structure. What the hon. Gentleman is doing is to leave the wages structure untouched and he is altering the superannuation structure only in respect of those people who come in from the age of 35 and upwards. He must be logical here, and he must either alter the wages structure or the superannuation structure to benefit the man under 35 as well.

The House should know that this Clause 2 has a history. Until 1914 the Treasury had the power, under superannuation law, to give what were known as "added years." They could add a number of years to the actual service put in by a civil servant for the purposes of assessing his pension when he retired. This provision was removed by the Superannuation Act of 1914. One of the reasons was that in the public service in Britain a great deal of patronage was still being practised. That is to say, people were appointed not as the result of open competitive examination, in many cases, but because of the exercise of patronage by Ministers and others. And there were some pretty bad cases of men being brought into the public service late in life on a patronage basis, and then being given, sometimes quite undeservedly, added years to inflate their pensions, when they went out. Today the position is that appointments to the public service are very closely regulated by the Civil Service Commission, and there is, in my opinion, no danger whatever of abuse of the powers asked for in Clause 2. The change in the character of the Civil Service which must take place renders it absolutely necessary that this power of giving added years should be exercised.

I will comment only briefly upon the new Clause which I understand we are to have when we get to the Committee stage, implementing the concession given, in response to the pressure of some 270 odd Members of this House, for whose assistance I have been and still am extremely grateful in respect of unestablished service to count for pension. I am very glad indeed that the Government have seen wisdom about this matter, and that they are going to produce a Clause which will enable that concession to be implemented. In justice to himself I think the Financial Secretary might have said a word more than he did. The concession is not being restricted to Lytton entrants, South-borough entrants, or to the age-barred officers, to whom the Chancellor specifically referred in his reply to the Question the other day.

Full unestablished service is to count.

Yes, full unestablished service is to count for pension throughout the whole of the public service.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but perhaps I may just complete what I was saying. The details are now being worked out by the National Whitley Council staff side with the Civil Service Commission.

I am extremely grateful, and I want to do justice to the Financial Secretary here. In this Bill he is doing in fact a great deal more than was contained in the reply by the Chancellor to the Question the other day. He is covering the whole Service, and not only the two or three categories which were referred to specifically. And I understand him now to say that all unestablished service is to count for pension where it is followed by established service in the ordinary way. I can assure the Financial Secretary that we are extremely grateful for what has been said on this subject today. I compliment and felicitate him on taking a decision which every one knows should have been taken many years ago but for which, now that it has been taken, I am sure the whole public Service will be grateful to him. The discrimination between unestablished and established service has been an extremely unreal one. We have a temporary postman remaining temporary for 40 years, and at the end, when he goes out, because the Service has been labelled "unestablished," we repudiate our moral obligation to look after him in his old age. That has been utterly indefensible, and I have been campaigning against it for three decades. I rejoice that I shall not have to attack on that point again, although no doubt there will be other matters to engage my attention. I give my cordial approval to the Second Reading of this Bill, and on behalf of the public service I express deep gratitude for the concessions which have been announced to-day, and which I understand will be embodied in a Clause which is to be introduced in the Committee stage.

2.39 p.m.

I should like to welcome what I regard as a sound routine Measure for improving the general superannuation position in the Service, and one which will certainly do something to make the Civil Service an attractive occupation for those now being demobilised from His Majesty's Forces. I was glad that the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) referred to the great importance of Clause 2, which makes provision for augmenting the pension of late entrants to the Civil Service. This is an overdue reform, because pension rights are a very important consideration. In the case of an engineer leaving some technical capacity in outside industry to join the Civil Service it is particularly necessary that pension rights should be as good as possible. Hon. Members have already stressed that in spite of many great improvements the salaries paid in the Civil Service still compare very unfavourably with some of the glittering prizes offered in outside industry.

I was glad that the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) referred to the practice of paying additional years for pensions to late entrants in the Service that existed in the years prior to 1914, because they were the days when the Liberal and Tory Parties really ruled the roost in this country. I sometimes get the impression from listening to hon. Gentlemen opposite, and particularly from reading their newspapers, that the Civil Service was invented in or about July, 1945. That, of course, is not true. It goes back a very long way. It was built up largely by Tory Governments in the past. I was going to say Tory bureaucrats, but I did not wish to be misunderstood. I hope the Government will give some attention to Civil Service reform, but it is a different story from the business before the House today. As the hon. Member for Rugby said, in the really good old days of Civil Service life—in the pre-Daltonian age—there was no Civil Service Commission and it was not always a question of what one knew but whom one knew. With the passing of years, standards of public decency in matters of this kind have changed tremendously, and I therefore take it that the Chancellor assumes that in these days of high-minded Socialist integrity it is possible to revive the power which was abolished in 1914. The House will agree with the sound sense of that decision. I am at one with the hon. Member for Rugby in believing that having the qualifying age at 40, or 35 in some circumstances, is quite wrong. It is altogether far too high. It means that a great number of technical men, especially those who enter the Service between 25 and 35, are barred from qualifying for a full pension, which requires, I believe, 40 years of established service. It is not the fault of these men as a rule that they have entered the Service so late. The nature of their work demands special qualification and experience that cannot very well be gained at an earlier age. This high age level is a fault, and I hope that my hon. Friend will impress on the Chancellor the need to take note of the criticism that has been expressed in the House today on this point.

I believe it is true to say that there is a well founded suspicion that this power to grant additional years of service for pension purposes is, in fact, a carrot which has been put in to bring into the Service rather valuable but perhaps obstinate animals who might otherwise look down their noses at the financial inducements. If that is the case, I believe it is quite wrong. Civil Service salaries, especially for scientific and technical men, should be equal to the very best salaries that are paid outside. Then such positions in the Civil Service will have a magnetic pull of their own. Finally, I agree that it is a good thing to have pension improvements for late entrants, but they should be given on the merits of all individuals irrespective of the age that they enter the Service.

2.45 p.m.

As an ex-civil servant—perhaps a very lowly one—I should be lacking in courtesy if I did not thank my hon. Friend for his very warm and sincere tribute to the Civil Service. That might also apply to the hard working civil servants in the Post Office. What I want to say concerns the lowly grades in the Post Office. For a long while they have been much concerned about the effect of the Superannuation Acts. There are something like 12 or 13 Acts in connection with superannuation, and this Bill adds yet another to that very long list. There have been innumerable modifications. They have been piecemeal modifications, and they have so far failed to bring the whole body of the Acts into line with the reasonable needs of the present day Civil Service. Despite the Measure now before the House, there will still be defects, hardships and anomalies. I could refer to my own example. I entered the Civil Service at 14 years of age. Had I remained in the Civil Service until I was 60, I would not have got a full pension because of the circumstances of these Superannuation Acts. I am not going to use that illustration in connection with this Bill because it does not apply, but it does point to some defects, hardships and anomalies that still exist. Even this Bill will still permit the wretched principle that a pension is not claimable as by right.

This amending Bill is a further modification, and for that reason I welcome it, but I have some reservations. Under Clause 1, ex-Service recruits to the Civil Service from 3rd September, 1939, may count part of the period of service in the Forces towards pension. Why only part of the time in the Services to count? My view is that the whole of the time in the Forces should count for Civil Service pension. My next question is, why the 3rd September, 1939? What of those ex-Servicemen established prior to that date? Many thousands in the Civil Service have rendered service to the State without pension by previous service in the Navy, Army and Air Force, and they are not covered by this Bill. The old campaign about Colour Service counting is brought to the forefront in this Bill. We shall have in the Civil Service three classes of persons. There is the established member of the Civil Service who took it up as a career, providing he gets his 40 years' service for full superannuation. There is another type of individual who served some time in the Army, Navy or Air Force, and got no pension, who comes into the Civil Service and does not get a full superannuation pension.

Now a third class is to be created. Already we have these two working side by side; there might be two lads of 19 years of age one of whom comes into the Civil Service and takes it up as a career, and the other has gone into the Forces and after, say, seven years he has come into the Civil Service. The one who took it up as a career gets a pension and the one who went into the Army, Navy or Air Force gets a pension which is smaller than that of the other lad. Now we are likely to get three individuals working side by side. There will be the man who took up the Civil Service as a career, the man who came in from the Forces and gets a lesser pension, and the other who comes in later under the concessions in Clause 1.

I want my hon. Friend to be good enough to look into the question to see whether it is possible to get rid of this date, 3rd September, 1939, and to include all who have given service to the State and who should have pension rights, in full. I could give examples. Often individuals have come into the Civil Service and have received pension rights for service which was not Crown service. There was the Telegraph Company, which was taken over by the Post Office and the employees were allowed to reckon their past service to count for service with the Post Office. There was the Submarine Cable Company, taken over in 1889. After agitation an Act was passed recognising that their former service should count. The National Telephone Company employees had concessions made, and former employees of the Middlesex Registry had their service counted towards pension. There is a case for the ex-Service recruits to the Civil Service prior to 3rd September, 1939. I regret very much that they are not mentioned in this Clause. There are lowly grades in the Civil Service and they are the people who should be considered. This Clause puts the matter right as from 3rd September, 1939, but does not deal with those who entered the Service prior to that date.

On Clause 2, as I understand the position, the person who becomes an established civil servant after 40 will be granted a special superannuation benefit, and his service will be multiplied by eight-fifths. He will have an option of eight-fifths added as from 40 years of age. But I take it that this only applies to entrants to the Service as from the date of the Bill. This again will exclude thousands of disabled soldiers of the last war. Many disabled soldiers came into the Civil Service after the last war up to the age of 40 and they will not benefit as a result of this Clause. It is possibly true that a very large number of unestablished servants who have become established will not benefit under the Clause. I hope my hon. Friend will give some consideration in the Committee stage whereby the benefits in Clauses 1 and 2 may be extended to include those civil servants who came into the Civil Service before 3rd September, 1939.

2.54 p.m.

I think most people's interests have been taken care of in this very good Bill, except one which I might call for want of a better term, "the industrial transient." I think the Civil Service in the future will want to get people from industry for temporary periods. This is a two-way traffic, and I can see circumstances in which a civil servant will want to go into industry for specialised knowledge over two, three and, perhaps, five years, and to come back into the Civil Service. Let us suppose that the Civil Service want to get people for a short period, perhaps up to five or seven years from industry, and at the end of that time allow them to go back to industry. I suggest that the pension rights of people in this category can be divided into three classes. There is first the large company who have a pension scheme which is non-contributory; then there is the smaller company where there is a scheme generally worked with an insurance company, where the employee contributes one half and the employer the other, and which entitles the employee to a pension generally at the age of 60 or 65. In the third category there are no pension rights at all and so far as I can see nothing would be done in such cases. I would like the Financial Secretary to consider whether something could be done in the other two categories where people come into the Civil Service for a short period of years.

I believe this is a good thing, which should be encouraged. Of course, I may De biased because I am now in my 27th job, ranging from selling marriage licences, in my early years, later working as an engineer in the B.B.C., and then managing companies employing several thousand people. But I have seen the enriching benefits that a change of job can bring to the individual, and to the organisation he serves. I believe the Financial Secretary to the Treasury would find that the Civil Service would benefit and that industry would benefit over a period of years if it were made possible for this to be done. I earnestly ask him to give it that very careful and sympathetic attention which I believe the suggestion merits.

2.57 p.m.

I never like to repeat what has already been said, but I would like to refer to the very excellent exposition of this Bill given by the Financial Secretary. I do not think anyone who listened to him could have any dubiety as to its provisions. I wish to associate myself with the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) and my hon. Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Randall) in appreciation of the tributes the Financial Secretary paid to the Civil Service. It is becoming fashionable to pay these tributes, and it is very encouraging to some of us to hear them. I would be failing in my duty if I did not also express appreciation of the tribute paid by the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake). May I say with all due humility that he too gave a very excellent review of the provisions in this Bill. I am in entire agreement with his criticism of the Bill that it relates only to part-time and not to full-time service. I think that that is a serious flaw in the Bill and one which the Financial Secretary and the Chancellor may wish to examine at a later stage.

My only purpose in speaking is to try to cross the t's and dot the i's of speeches made in regard to people who are not covered by the Bill. The hon. Member for Clitheroe has referred to the ex-Servicemen and I would like to emphasise the case. We are dealing here with people who went into the Forces and started to make that their career. They went as young men or in their early twenties, and after a period of service in the Army, Navy or Air Force they have come back and taken up a permanent career in the Civil Service. Their service with the Armed Forces would not be pensionable because they had not given the requisite period of service. Therefore, when they came into the Civil Service later on, that part of their service which had been with the Armed Forces would not entitle them to a pension so far as the Civil Service was concerned. I would emphasise that these men have served the State, and nobody else, throughout the whole of their working lives. They have gone into the Armed Forces, they have remained there for a number of years, they have served loyally and well in various branches of the Services. They have to be men of good character, of average ability and of integrity before they are allowed to come into the Civil Service. These men, perhaps for three, four, five, six, possibly up to 10 years, have served their country and the State in an exemplary manner and that service is now to be followed by a longer period in the Civil Service.

There has been a good deal of agitation in regard to this service for many years. I believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer may like to consider this matter. May I pay this indirect tribute to the Chancellor? I believe it is his intention to do the right and just thing by the Civil Service. He has already given us every indication that he wants to do the right thing, not only for the people who are coming into the Service in the future—perhaps into a new form of Civil Service which the times will demand—but that he wants to do the right thing by men and women who have given long, patient and faithful service in the past. The old "colour service to count" organisations of the past did their utmost, and I think they convinced most of us of the justice of their case, but for one reason or another their claim was never accepted by the Government of the day. I feel quite sure that the sense of justice and equity which the Chancellor has already exhibited in some of these cases will prompt him and his associates satisfactorily to deal with this old sore. It has been a sore point with succeeding generations of ex-Servicemen in the Civil Service. There is no need for me to labour the obvious in that direction beyond commending the case to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

There is another body of men of whom I wish to speak. I do not think their number is now very large since there were originally only about 170 of them in the beginning. I refer to the men who served in the telegraph section of the Royal Engineers for many years. This section was brought into existence, to deal not with military telecommunications as such but with civilian telecommunications. When the Post Office, about 1870, took over from the private companies the telegraph system of this country, there followed a rapid development in the service, a rapid increase in the number of telegrams accepted from the public, with the result that the old civil servants of the State were not in a position, at that time, to face up to the establishment requirements of that period. Therefore, by arrangement with the Royal Engineers, some of these Post Office men were invited to undertake service with the Royal Engineers for a period varying from three to seven years. They used to work in civilian offices, side by side with Post Office telgraphists, and I have worked with them myself many years ago. These men had their right of return to the Post Office service; they had their status and seniority safeguarded when they came back into the service, but, in so far as pension was concerned, they had no right to that period in which they had served the country in an emergency but in a military capacity.

I feel that there is no justice at all in that, and that it is a matter which must commend itself to the Financial Secretary and the Chancellor. They may be supported in the view that it is the right thing to do if they will look up the recommendations of the Departmental Committee which sat, I think, in 1936, and which very strongly came to the conclusion that this was a range of persons who ought to be considered by the Treasury, and who firmly recommended that the whole of the service which these men gave in that emergency should be counted for superannuation purposes. The two ranges which I have mentioned are worthy of the consideration of the Financial Secretary, who, I feel quite sure, in view of the approach he has already made to these matters, will go a little further and cover these people. I believe that the points which have been made by my hon. Friends will also be found acceptable by the House.

3.6 p.m.

Not being an ex-civil servant, it would be out of place for me to attempt to follow in detail the points which have been raised by those experienced speakers like my hon. Friend who has just sat down, but there are one or two general points which I would like to make. The hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate referred to the efficiency, integrity and loyalty of the Civil Service, with which, I think, most of us in this Chamber would like to associate ourselves. It is, perhaps, a little unfortunate that, on an occasion of this kind, those voices which are heard on the opposite Benches and elsewhere criticising the Civil Service in the most prejudiced manner have not shown themselves in this Debate. This was an opportunity, I think, when some of the remarks which are made in the Opposition Press might have been brought into the open in this House, but, instead, they have been kept very carefully concealed.

My hon. Friend who opened the Debate referred to business methods and conditions of work in the Civil Service, and I would like to support those who have already mentioned this question of conditions of service. In recent months, I have had an opportunity of seeing the conditions in which some civil servants are working in what we may describe as the slums of Belgravia and Mayfair, and it is a fact that efficient work cannot be expected from overcrowded people in such poor accommodation. I hope that a great deal more urgency will be infused into the question of building proper offices, to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. Reference has also been made to organisation, and we know that much is being done to bring about more modern methods of business and organisation into the Civil Service, but I think it is very surprising to find quite high-up officials who are deprived of the services of the necessary typists and personal secretaries. There are Departments, as we all know, in which it takes three to five weeks for a high-up official to get his letters typed, and that is, indeed, a matter to which I hope my hon. Friend will devote his urgent attention.

I would also add my voice to those which have been raised in this Debate in favour of making these superannuation arrangements even more fluid and flexible than they will be when this Bill is passed into law. We are beginning to realise that the right channel for training our administrative civil servants is not purely and simply, as it used to be, from the grammar school to the university and then to the Department in which they will spend the rest of their lives. We are finding that in a modern, positive State, we need men in the Civil Service who have behind them a wide experience of local authorities and of business methods. As my hon. Friend the Member for Elland (Mr. Cobb) pointed out, if we are going to get the kind of experienced civil servants which we require for a planned economy, we shall need greater fluidity and exchange between civil servants and business, local authorities and other professions.

If there is a valid criticism to be made of the Civil Service at the present time, it is that it does not always fully appreciate the point of view of the public and does not always have that sense of urgency which we would wish it to have. The obvious remedy is to recruit civil servants from men who have been at the receiving end of Ministry letters. They will, then, have a different outlook and a greater sense of urgency. It is obviously necessary to go even further than is done in Clause 2 of this Bill. We are no longer under the kind of system in which the Civil Service first developed, in which its chief rôle was to stop other people from doing things. The Civil Service is increasingly having a planned and positive rôle to play, and we may need to go much further than we have done during the war in bringing in men of business, scientific and technical experience of every kind. Therefore, we welcome the increased flexibility of the superannuation arrangements which this Bill gives, and I hope that, in the future, it will be possible to go even further in this direction.

3.13 p.m.

I can only speak a second time with the leave of the House and, if that is granted, I will endeavour to be brief, particularly as this Bill has received a very cordial welcome from every speaker in the Debate. On behalf of my right hon. Friend, I would like to say that we appreciate that.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake), one of my predecessors in the post I now occupy, put several questions to me, some of which were put again by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), and I will endeavour, quite simply and in a few words, to answer them. The right hon. Gentleman dealt with the Second Schedule, and drew attention to the phrasing of paragraph 3 which, as he read it, made the provisions of that particular Subsection retrospective. That is true. The right hon. Gentleman is now Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and, perhaps, he will remember that the Comptroller and Auditor-General came to the conclusion that Subsection (2, c ) of Section 3 of the 1935 Act did not empower the Treasury to take as complete action as it sometimes desired to do in order to make establishment retrospective where, for one reason or another, the certificate of establishment was held up. Because there are some members of the Civil Service who have laboured under the difficulty of not being established owing to the certificate not having been forthcoming for some time, these words have been put in so that a common date can be fixed, for retrospective establishment.

He also asked why the date 13th May, 1946, was inserted. As he rightly said, that date coincides with the date of publication of the Bill. He wanted to know why the provisions of Clause 2 could not have been made to apply to those already in the Civil Service, who entered in an analogous manner to those who will be affected by Clause 2, and why they could not have the benefit of this new provision. The answer is that this Clause will be discretionary and, as I said in my opening speech, it will be used with caution, although it will also be used adequately. It is essential that anyone coming in under the Clause should realise what is the contract under which he takes service in a Government Department. Those who have entered in this way in the early days came in under certain terms and conditions to which they agreed; in our view, it would be difficult to go back too far—although I think we can discuss this again on the Committee stage—and, as one has to fix a date we thought 13th May, 1946, was a proper date to lay down. In addition, there is the technical difficulty that under the regulations, six months' notice has to be given when an unestablished civil servant, coming in under this Clause in his middle years, seeks to become established.

The hon. Member for Rugby raised a number of very interesting points with which I would like to deal. If I do not cover them all, they will come up again when we deal with this matter in Committee, and perhaps an opportunity will then occur for dealing with them. The hon. Gentleman said that this question of added years has a long history. It goes back nearly a century. At one time Lord Randolph Churchill figured in Debates in this House which led to the rule being altered in 1914. He quoted the case of someone who came into the Civil Service at 64, and at 75 he retired with a considerable pension and quite a large number of years added.

I agree with what was said about buildings, although it is quite immaterial whether the money comes out of revenue or capital account, so long as adequate and up to date buildings are provided for the Civil Service. I can only repeat that the Lytton and Southborough entrants will be covered. They come in under Clause 3, and a reference will be made to them in the Schedule in order to bring the matter within the compass of this Bill. I can assure the House that this reference will be included and that the whole of their unestablished service will count as to half as under the 1935 Act, right back to 1918.

My hon. Friend the Member for Elland (Mr. Cobb) urged that the pension scheme similar to the F.S.S.U. scheme should be extended to include certain others which he named. It is possible under the Bill for the Treasury to extend the same facilities to other approved schemes. As a matter of fact, at present we are discussing one with the I.C.I. I can assure my hon. Friend that we will read what he said during this Debate and between now and parting with the Bill we will make sure that the point is covered. We have had some very thoughtful speeches, as always, from my hon. Friend the Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. William Williams), my hon. Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Randall) and my hon. Friend the Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes). Generally they agreed that what the Bill sought to do was excellent, although each of them had criticisms to offer, which we will consider between now and the Committee stage, and in so far as we can do so, we will endeavour to meet them. The thing is not so easy, unfortunately, as may appear on the surface. Once we get back to the 1914–1918 war, we get to a period when records are not all that they might be. I have been told by the War Office that out of five and a half million records of people who served in that war over four million have been destroyed during this last war by fire. Although that would not be an insuperable barrier to doing justice, if that is necessary, to deserving men who then served, it does increase our difficulty. We have to remember that in the 1914–1918 war the temporary employees in the Civil Service were not allowed to count any of the years they served, not even as to half. Therefore, to give to ex-Servicemen who afterwards came into the Civil Service an advantage over those who served in the Civil Service during that period might be considered by some as unfair.

We are very grateful for the reception that has been accorded this Bill. We believe it is a Measure which will commend itself to the House. We shall be dealing with the Committee stage possibly one day next week. Between now and then, I undertake to give very careful consideration to the observations which have been made from all quarters of the House. In so far as we can improve the Bill to do justice to this very deserving body of people, the House can rely upon us to do so.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House for Monday next.—[ Captain Snow. ]

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

The full Title of this Bill is: This House approved the ratification of the Charter, and by our ratification we are bound to the principles involved. This Bill is simply to settle the details of how our obligations under the Charter shall be fulfilled, and to enable us to settle them on the basis of the convention which the Assembly drew up and the Resolutions which it passed.

The form of this convention is, in my view, a great improvement on that of many law-making conventions which used to be adopted in the past. It is what we now call a "streamline convention." I will not elaborate the point, because I know a number of hon. Members desire to take part in the discussion; I will only say that by this system of having the convention prepared carefully in the work of the preparatory Commission and then adopted by the Assembly without the process of signature, allowing each member under the terms of the convention to adhere to it by a simple act of accession and the deposit of a document with the Secretary-General, we have reduced to a minimum the friction and the chance of inertia proving a brake on action which used to be so great an obstacle between the wars to the bringing into force of new conventional international law. By this new model convention, which I hope will be followed in other matters, I trust that we shall make conventional international law more rapidly effective and effective over a larger part of the world than used to be the case. The Bill deals not only with the convention itself but with two matters on which the Assembly passed Resolutions, but did not take final—

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point, perhaps he will explain a little further. I understood him to suggest that because a convention had been passed by somebody outside this House it was, ipso facto, binding upon this country. That, of course, is a matter which is not even for the Government, but is for this House to decide.

Of course. My point was that under the Charter itself, which this House has approved, we are bound to the main principles on which this convention is founded. It is the details which this convention settles.

Will the right hon. Gentleman make it quite clear whether or not His Majesty's Government have yet acceded to the cenvention to which he has referred? In the White Paper appears the statement that His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom have not yet acceded to the convention.

Of course we have not acceded. We cannot accede until our law enables us to carry out the provisions of the convention, and it is in order to bring our law into conformity with the convention that I am now bringing forward this Bill. I apologise to the noble Lord if I did not make that plain; I thought it was. All I meant to say was that no big new principle was involved in the Bill. That was settled in the Charter; it is the details with which the Bill is concerned.

The two points outside the convention with which the Bill deals are, firstly, immunities for the International Court of Justice. The Assembly passed a Resolution on that point in January, deciding that the details of the immunities would be settled in September next in the second part of the Assembly after the Court itself had given advice on the matter. Instead of asking the House to pass a separate Bill on this matter after the Assembly had acted in September, we are asking that we should be given the powers now. It may be said that we are asking for a blank cheque. In point of fact the House will, I am sure, want to give the privileges to the members of the Court, the registrar and his staff, in the same way that it has to the Secretariat of the United Nations. I do not think there can be any difference of opinion about that. The degree in which we shall be practically affected is very small, because the seat of the court is not to be in this country but in the Netherlands, and, therefore, I think, it would not be found of practical effect in this country, except for judges of the Court and members of the registrar's staff, when they pass through here, or are resident here for some short time, in the pursuance of some special duty in which they may be engaged. Therefore, I hope the House may think it right to give us that.

The second point with which the Bill deals is the consolidation of the privileges and immunities granted to preexisting international organisations, for example, the I.L.O., U.N.R.R.A., or E.C.I.T.O., or others—[HON. MEMBERS: "What is that?]—European Central Inland Transport Organisation.

Why not say so?

I beg pardon. It means the European Central Inland Transport Organisation. I do not like these initials, but I thought they had become, perhaps, familiar, and I was trying to save the time of the House for the benefit of hon. Members. It is generally agreed that all these organisations which are to be connected with the United Nations and are to become part of one institutional system, should have the same immunities and privileges. Some of them exist, as I have said. Others are in process of being set up in due course. The privileges which have been granted in the past must be made the same as those which are now being given to the United Nations. But we do not now propose to change the Orders in Council under which privileges have been granted to such bodies as U.N.R.R.A., and the European Central Inland Transport Organisation. We do not propose to change those Orders in Council until it has been determined in what measure the constitution of these organisations may need to be modified. When we know what is being done we shall change the Orders in Council, but we ask the House now to agree that the Government shall have power to do that.

I now come to the Convention itself. I ought to explain at once that in some regards the Bill goes a little beyond what the strict letter of the Convention would require. We have done that, because to have brought in the full detail of what is needed in a Bill before this House would have made it a very, very complicated Measure, which would have taken a long time to draft and a long time for this House to consider, without any substantial advantage, I think. In fact, nothing will be done without an Order in Council. I give an undertaking to the House that the Orders in Council will be as restrictive as possible in order to fulfil the purpose of the Convention. It is in the Orders in Council that the details will be set up. The Orders in Council can be annulled by a Resolution of either House, and, therefore, Parliament remains quite supreme in this matter. The Bill simply says the maximum which Orders in Council may do, in order to carry out the Convention. The Orders in Council will cut down from that maximum to meet practical needs in any particular question.

Perhaps, I may deal with another similar point, a general matter with regard to the Conventon. It is that in drafting the Convention, the Assembly were—under British leadership, I may say—very careful only to grant the minimum privileges and immunities which were strictly necessary for the purposes of the United Nations. So far as it can be done, all possibility of abuse has been assessed and provided against. If hon. Members will look at the Convention and at Sections 6, 14, 20, 21 or 29 they will see what I mean. I will quote Section 14 because it puts the main point. It states: will think it is right to give such immunity and liberty to experts who are acting in some temporary capacity for the United Nations.

Article VII, Section 24, introduces what is, I think, an important innovation, the granting of laissez-passer to travelling officials. The Governments undertake to recognise and facilitate the travel of those who are engaged on the work of the United Nations. If that is done, it will certainly prove to be a most valuable innovation.

It is a basic principle in the Convention that nothing shall be done by way of privilege which shall impede the courts of justice. If the purpose of the granting of the immunity is not obstructed and not frustrated, then the immunity must be waived in order to allow justice to take its course. The Secretary-General can waive the immunity which his officials enjoy so that they can be taken before the courts of a Member of the United Nations Similarly, the Council can waive the Secretary-General's immunity. Any Government must waive the immunity of its representatives if that is desired. I am sure the House will agree that that is wise, and I hope that it will provide a valuable safeguard in practice, because no doubt some difficulties over immunity and the administration of justice will arise from time to time as they always do.

There are three points about British subjects who become international officials. In Section 1 (2, b ) of the Act the words "other than British subjects" are now omitted. That means that, in this country, British officials of the higher ranks who belong to the Secretariat will secure the same diplomatic immunities as the envoys of foreign Powers, but that particular provision applies only to the Secretary-General himself and his eight or nine Assistant-Secretary-Generals, of whom, clearly only one will be British, so that immunity, in this form, will probably apply to only one man. There is no return to the old abuse under which British subjects used to try to become representatives of foreign Powers in order to escape the jurisdiction of the Courts in this country. I think that every one will recognise that an official of British nationality, in such a position of high responsibility as this, ought to be free and independent in his own country as elsewhere.

In the second place, international officials of British nationality will be immune from the national taxation on their salaries and from rates. This is a change from the 1944 Act which excluded, for example, the British employees of U.N.R.R.A. from this immunity in this country. The Delegation to the Assembly supported this change—indeed we thought it quite essential—in order to secure equality of emoluments between officials of different nationalities who are doing the same work. We considered that desirable in the interests of the Secretary-General, to whom it might have been embarrassing, if he wanted to transfer a man from one country to another and considerations of taxation and changes in income were to hamper what he wanted to do. Of course, this does not apply, as the Bill specifically provides, to members of a United Kingdom delegation, who naturally cannot claim any immunity in this country.

The third small point to which I want to draw attention is that since we have allowed some British subjects these immunities when they are international officials, we thought it also right to provide that the same should be given to members of Dominion delegations who are attending the United Nations meetings, which may be held in this country, or are passing through this country to go to such meetings. Every Dominion delegation will now have the same immunities as representatives of other Governments who are members of the United Nations.

The last point is the change in the time for which the immunities are granted. Under the 1944 Act there was a five year limitation. The Act lapsed unless it was continued by a Resolution of Parliament. At that time, of course, the Act was intended primarily for bodies of a temporary kind, such as U.N.R.R.A. and the European transport organisation. We hope that the United Nations institutions are to endure, and also the other organisations which we are setting up, and, therefore, we have made this without time limit.

I hope that we shall be able to have the agreement of the House to this Bill, so that we may report to the next Assembly that it has received Parliamentary approval. We hope, too, that other members of the United Nations will follow our example. Therefore, I ask the House to give the Bill a cordial response.

Will the right hon. Gentleman define the word "children" in Part IV?

I think that it means what it says, "children"—of the person involved.

In introducing this Bill the right hon. Gentleman devoted the greater part of his speech to explaining the Convention which was laid before this House in February of this year. He said singularly little about the great and far reaching changes that this Bill makes in the rights and liberties of people living in this country. Indeed, he began his speech by just referring to the Title of the Bill, and with that part of the Bill I certainly shall not quarrel. The word "extension" is extremely apt, and although the right hon. Gentleman has not drawn much attention to it this afternoon we are being asked by the party who, at the hustings, vigorously pronounced itself as opposed to all privilege, to secure the Second Reading of this Bill extending the privileges which can be enjoyed by individuals and by Britons in this island far beyond all former limits, far beyond the extent to which this House was prepared to go in 1944, and, in my opinion, far beyond all reason.

As time is short I will, before I deal with all the matters which are of importance contained in this Bill, come straight away to the extension of privilege which, if passed, it will confer upon individuals. The right hon. Gentleman said that this was a Bill to consolidate privileges and immunities given to individuals serving on international bodies. Well, this House passed an Act in 1944 for that very purpose, and I shall have to refer just a little to the provisions of that Act—to which the right hon. Gentleman did not refer—to show what great extensions are now being made. That Bill was introduced in 1944 by the National Government in which the party opposite were partners, and we were told then that there was no intention on the part of the Government at that time to give British residents in this country immunities and privileges such as foreign envoys enjoyed, and ultimately the Government moved an Amendment in the Bill to make that quite clear. That has now gone.

The 1944 Act divided individuals into two categories and I should like to say a few words in that connection. The first category comprises the higher officers of the organisation. The Act was designed specifically to deal with U.N.R.R.A. but, as the Attorney-General then said, also to enable other international organisations to be brought within its scope by Order in Council. The higher officers of the organisations, the representatives of member Governments of the governing body or any committee of the organisation, were in the higher category, and now by the present Bill those privileges are extended in Clause 2 to members of the General Assembly or any council or other organ of the United Nations. I am not quite clear what can be covered by the phrase "other organ of the United Nations." The United Nations may perform many functions, but this goes much further than the right hon. Gentleman said because it means that anyone who is appointed to the council or to any committee of the United Nations or, indeed, of any other international organisation of which this Government are members, can have conferred upon him the privileges and immunities which a member of the higher category under the 1944 Act, as amended by this Bill, can obtain.

What are these privileges? They are those of an envoy of a foreign sovereign Power. They give immunity from suit or legal process, inviolability of residence, and exemption from rates and taxes. The other officers or servants do not get all those privileges; they just get immunity from suit and legal process for things done in the course of the performance of their official duties, and I should have thought that that was all that was required by any of the servants, whether highly placed or junior. The junior ones only get exemption from Income Tax on the emoluments they draw as officers or servants of the Organisation. In the 1944 Act, those immunities and privileges were subject to this very important proviso. I will read it: That proviso was moved, by an Amendment by the Government, into the 1944 Bill after strong speeches had been made in opposition to that Bill by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health, and also, if it will carry any weight with the right hon. Gentleman, by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes). That proviso has been left out of this Bill—

Of course.

The right hon. Gentleman says, "Of course," but let us make it quite clear why this is done. The party to which he belongs is in power and has the sole responsibility for it. What is the effect of taking it out? It will mean that British subjects in this country—not just one individual but such individuals as the Foreign Secretary likes to name, whether they belong to U.N.O. or any other international organisation, people who are appointed to any organ of the United Nations Organisation—will be completely beyond the law.

With great respect, the hon. and learned Member is under a misapprehension if he is talking about British delegates to organs of the United Nations. These privileges are not granted to such persons.

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will look at the Bill. I say that the terms of the Bill give power to grant such privileges to British subjects whether they are on organs of the United Nations or any other international body, provided they hold high office. The right hon. Gentleman will see it set out if he looks at the Second Schedule on page 4, at line 34: the immunities and privileges of an envoy of a foreign sovereign Power. Not only will those British subjects be above the law, but they will be freed from all these harassing controls in which the Government take a pride and delight. Employment in the high offices of one of these international organs will be most enviable, and if this Government follows the course its supporters so frequently urge, that is to say, of securing jobs for the boys, we shall get the odd situation of having a whole series of Socialists freed from the delights of bureaucratic control. Nationalisation will mean nothing to them. They will live in this country rent free, tax free and free from legal process. Food cuts will mean nothing to them. To them our rationing system will not apply. They will be able to get their houses repaired and redecorated without licences. They will be able to buy all their clothes without coupons, and to them Purchase Tax will have no meaning. Indeed, it will be a delightful, carefree existence, if one secures employment in one of these higher offices, an existence not subject to Paul Prys, agents provocateurs, inspectors, and form fillers.

It is absolutely clear that this Bill gives this Government power to put British subjects in these islands in that position. That is why I say that, as far as individuals are concerned, this Bill, introduced by the opponents of privilege, extends it beyond all limits. Why, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, is it necessary that British subjects should have these privileges to do their work in this island? If that contention be well founded, and if it prevails that they must have these privileges to do the work in an international organisation here, we shall next be faced with the argument that the work of the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues is really much more important than that of the officials of these organisations in this country, and we shall next be asked to remove the proviso I see inserted in the Bill that the representatives of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom shall not get these immunities. I am glad to see that, but I hope it will last a little longer than the proviso that no British subject shall get these benefits.

That was an earlier Act, which we are amending. This is 1946, not 1944.

That was an earlier Act introduced by the National Government, in which I think I am right in saying the right hon. Gentleman held some office. It was introduced after re-amendment in consequence of the strongest opposition from both sides of this House. That proviso has only lasted for two years. I am merely expressing the hope that this proviso that the right hon. Gentleman now desires to put in, may have a longer life than that. We do not know at all how many individuals will be affected by the operation of this Bill. We know one; it may be any number more. It is completely within the discretion of the Foreign Secretary.

It is nothing to do with him at all, it is the Secretary-General.

The Secretary-General as far as U.N.O. is concerned, but the right hon. Gentleman does not seem to appreciate the fact that, as he said, this is a consolidating code intended, as the 1944 Act was, to apply to other international organisations. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman of the words of the Minister of Health:

"… when we confer immunities on certain people, we take away rights from British subjects."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 27th September, 1944; Vol. 403, c. 364.]

Let there be no doubt that that is what the Government are seeking to do by this Bill. But it is not only the higher officials who are going to be put in this wonderfully privileged position. The right hon. Gentleman did not draw attention to the fact that the privileges of the higher officials are by this Bill extended to the higher official's wife, or husband, or children, and that those wives, husbands, and children will, under this Bill, get the same privileges as the wife and children of an ambassador. I would ask him to deal with this point. If it be argued that a British man holding office in this country under one of these international organisations can only do his work if he lives rate free, tax free, and free from all Socialist controls, does the same argument apply to his wife and to his children? Why should a British wife and British children in this country receive these privileges at the hands of a Socialist Government?

It being Four o'Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.

We have been talking a good deal this afternoon about civil servants of one kind and another. I want to raise a matter which affects a certain small category of temporary civil servants, that is, the discharge on redundancy of some members of the Admiralty courier service. I can probably best explain the point at issue, which is really quite a narrow one, by reading the Question which I put to the First Lord of the Admiralty some weeks ago, after previous correspondence with the Financial Secretary. I asked him some injustice or to be labouring under a grievance take the trouble to make representations about it, or we should all require at least five full-time secretaries to deal with our constituency correspondence. The two men who made representations, Captain Francis and Squadron-Leader Withers, were, I think, with possibly one exception, the only two who had seen service in both world wars, and who therefore might have been expected to enjoy a high degree of seniority.

The second point in the reply to which I wish to refer is the statement that this method of discharge was in keeping with the spirit of the Memorandum referred to, Memorandum 492. On that, I should like the Financial Secretary to look at paragraph 14, which is the relevant paragraph. This Memorandum deals with the release and discharge of redundant temporary staff. The paragraph says: the crux of the whole matter, and, on that, I would like to ask a few questions.

First, has any body of temporary civil servants the right to get together on their own and decide to override the terms of an Admiralty Memorandum based on a Whitley Council agreement which clearly lays down the conditions under which they are to be discharged, and, if they have, could that happen in any Department, or could it only happen and apply to the courier service? If it could happen in any Department, or in any section of any Government Department, it would make absolute nonsense of the Whitley Council agreements, and nobody would ever be able to tell where they were as regards discharge. The second point about these meetings is the manner in which they were held. The first meeting, at which the couriers originally took this decision, expressly excluded from attendance all those of less than three years' service, and that meant that both Captain Francis and Squadron-Leader Withers were automatically prevented from attending. Furthermore, the order of discharge which was settled at that meeting was settled at a time when many, I understand, even of those who did attend, were in entire ignorance of the existence of Memorandum 492, and it was only subsequently that it happened by chance to come to the notice of some of them.

As soon as it was brought to the notice of Captain Francis and Squadron-Leader Withers, they immediately protested, both on behalf of themselves and those others who had already been irregularly discharged. Then there was a second meeting held by the couriers, and, with regard to that, I would like to point out that, when the second meeting was held, Captain Francis, one of the men affected, had already left the Service, so that he was prevented from attending the meeting. So far as Squadron-Leader Withers was concerned, he had already raised the matter and was already in correspondence with the Admiralty with regard to it, and he knew that the second meeting was being held simply to confirm the decision arrived at at the first. Therefore, he thought that no useful purpose would be served by his attending it, and, as a result, did not do so.

I submit that the Admiralty really know that they are wrong about this matter, that they made a mistake and that the heads of the courier service know perfectly well that they are wrong, and that they are simply trying to brazen it out and cover it up the best way they can. According to Squadron-Leader Withers, some time after he had raised the matter he had an interview with Captain Colvin, head of the courier service, and showed him Memorandum 492. Captain Colvin was alleged to have said, "I suppose this is all my fault. Why did you not show me this before? I am afraid that it is too late to alter the method of discharge now." As I informed the Financial Secretary that I was going to quote this alleged statement, the hon. Gentleman will no doubt tell me whether it is admitted or not, for it seems to me to have a direct and important bearing on the whole matter.

The second reason which I put forward, in support of my contention that the Admiralty know they are wrong about this, is the fact that, after Captain Francis had left the service and had protested against his treatment, he was subsequently offered a job—presumably, in order to keep him quiet—as some kind of clerk at what I can only describe as the insulting salary of £175 a year, a job which, he, very rightly and properly, in my opinion, refused. That is all I have to say except that I hope the Financial Secretary will look at this matter again very carefully and will be able to tell me that he has now decided to rectify what I believe to be a serious injustice by granting the persons concerned either reinstatement or compensation.

4.10 p.m.

As one who was somewhat closely connected with the courier service during his naval career, I should like to lend my support to the case put forward by the hon. Member for West Harrow (Mr. Bower). He has made most of the relevant points in connection with the specific cases he has raised. There is, however, one additional factor which I should like to commend to the Financial Secretary. The fact that these particular men under review have seen service in the last two wars must inevitably mean that they have reached an age when it is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for them to secure fresh employment. In judging this matter that, surely, should be taken into consideration.

The courier service as a whole did notable work in the war, very often in exceedingly trying conditions. I was stationed at Scapa Flow and these men used to come and go through all weathers and faithfully carry out their duties in a most regular fashion. It must be remembered that the men to whom the hon. Member for West Harrow has been referring, have only a very small pension on which to live. They are fit men and are capable of performing quite well any duties which might be imposed upon them in the courier service. Therefore, I would ask the Financial Secretary to do justice to these individuals, especially as that would not involve unduly extending the financial commitments of any Service Department.

4.13 p.m.

I am very glad, for two reasons, that the hon. Member for West Harrow (Mr. Bower) has raised this question, first, because I think it is very important that individual cases should be raised by Members of Parliament and, second, because it affords me an opportunity of explaining the position. I have looked carefully into this matter and I am convinced that justice has been done. Let me describe the position as I see it. In the first place, I should like to pay a tribute to the work which the couriers have performed. They have carried out very arduous work, often extremely boring work, under difficult circumstances all through the war, and I should like to add my tribute to that paid by the hon. Member for West Harrow and by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeffington-Lodge).

What is the position of the courier? The courier's job is a temporary and a variable one. He is not a regular civil servant, and what is most important, the Whitley Council principles of discharge do not apply to the courier service. The members of this service expressly refrained from joining any staff association—they said they did not want to. It was perfectly open to them to refrain, and they did. Therefore, they are not represented on the Admiralty administrative Whitley Council at their own request. Not coming under the Whitley Council principles, the question was, on what principle these men should be discharged. The head of the courier service decided that he would inquire from them, as far as possible, what principles they would prefer. After a number of inquiries, made so often that several men said to him, "You have asked us this question three times already"—each time they came into his office he asked them in order to be quite certain that he had asked as many as possible before he made this new decision—he decided on the principle of discharge without regard to 1914–18 service, in other words the principle of "first in, last out." That is a rather different principle from that which some people would want to see for the Armed Forces. The important point about this is that the plan was published on the couriers' notice board on 29th August, 1945, and no objection whatever was raised at the time or, indeed, for some months afterwards. It may be said that the men did not read the notice board but, in fact, it is the duty of all couriers to read the notice board, and they do read it, to see what their next duty is after they have come in from a previous duty. It can, therefore, be said, I think, quite fairly, that every one of these men had an opportunity of reading the notice board, that they could have made objection, and that for a very considerable time none of them, including Captain Francis and Squadron-Leader Withers, made any objection at all. At a later period these two gentlemen did make an objection, and, as a result of this, a meeting was called on 10th February. It is alleged—at least, I think the allegation is implied—that this meeting was, to some extent, a "packed" meeting—at any rate, that it was not a properly constituted meeting. The fact is that the notice was sent out to all members remaining in the Service at that time—

I did not say that about the second meeting on 10th February, but I said the first meeting which was held excluded all those who had not had three years' service. I would not say that that was necessarily a "packed" meeting.

In regard to this second meeting, in fact, Captain Francis was no longer a member of the Service, so he could not go at all. Squadron-Leader Withers was able to go. He was not on duty until after the meeting, and there was nothing to prevent him from going, but he did not go. Why, I do not know, but he decided not to go to this meeting. All the couriers who were still in the Service at that time were invited, and out of the 33 who were left at that time, 15 actually attended. Twenty-eight out of the 33 could have attended. All of them had seen the notice of the meeting which was posted on 4th February, six days before. As regards the meeting itself, it has also been alleged that the majority of those present had not seen active service in the 1914–18 war. In fact, the majority of those present had. Out of the 15 present, eight had served in the Armed Forces during the 1914–18 war, so that they were adequately represented at this meeting.

I pass to the point raised by the hon. Member, for West Harrow, of which he very kindly gave me notice, about the conversations alleged to have taken place with certain officers. He quoted a statement alleged to have been made: "I suppose this is all my fault." I am informed by the officer concerned that it is perfectly possible that he may have made that statement, but that what he meant by it was that it was his fault—if fault there be—that the scheme was, in fact, propounded. He took full responsibility for it, and if there was any trouble he was the man who would take the blame, as he did not want to put the blame on anybody else. As regards the second statement, "Why did you not show me this before?" he says he fails altogether to understand that. In fact, he had seen the document a month or so before the interview took place. How he can possibly have made a statement like that, he says he fails to understand.

With regard to the third statement he is alleged to have made, namely, "I'm afraid it is too late to do anything about it now," the answer, which appears to me to be a very reasonable answer indeed, is that what he meant was, the document having been published and placed on the notice board, and having given the method of discharge, it was impossible to do anything at that time, as already a very large number of couriers had been discharged under the scheme. Therefore, it was too late at that time because the discharges had already taken place. I am satisfied this officer acted with the highest possible sense of duty; that he was not in any way unfair to any of the couriers; that he has been proved, in fact, to have been supported by the overwhelming majority of the couriers, and that no injustice has been done.

I conclude by saying that I think it well that this matter has been brought up, in view of the fact that one or two men have been expressing their sense of grievance. I am glad to have had the opportunity of explaining the position. I think the overwhelming majority of the couriers will support me in my statement that the officers in charge of this service have behaved perfectly correctly in every way, and have done their best to see that the wishes of the couriers themselves are regarded, which, after all, should be our primary consideration.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-two Minutes past Four o'Clock.