I am grateful to the right hon. and gallant Member for giving me this opportunity of making a statement.

His Majesty's Government, together with the Governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, are parties to the declaration on Austria made in Moscow in October, 1943. That declaration set forth the desire of the three Powers to see the establishment of a free and independent Austria. That declaration was subsequently subscribed to by the Government of France.

His Majesty's Government are also parties to the Control Agreement for Austria signed by the representatives of the four occupying Powers on 28th June 1946. This agreement includes a statement that among the primary tasks of the Allied Commission for Austria is

"to maintain the independent existence and integrity of the Austrian State and, pending the final definition of its frontiers, to ensure respect for them as they were on December 31st, 1937."

In accordance with the spirit of the Moscow Declaration His Majesty's Government have for some time done their best to secure a treaty with Austria to end the occupation and in the meantime to reduce the effect of the boundaries between the zones. They would regard as a matter of grave concern any action which might intensify the effect of the division of Austria into zones, the more so if such action appeared likely to infringe the internal or external integrity of Austria which all the four occupying Powers have agreed to maintain.

In fulfilment of the promise which I gave on 9th July. I am now able to inform the House of the constitution of the Committee of Inquiry into the metalliferous and other mineral resources of this country, and their development. It is as follows:—Lord Westwood (Chairman), Mr. T. Balogh, Mr. A. R. Davies, Mr. L. C. Hill, Professor W. R. Jones, Professor A. O. Rankine, Professor J. A. S. Ritson, Mr. Stanley Robson, the hon. Member for Lanark (Mr. Steele), the hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. P. Thorney-croft), Mr. R. E. Yeabsley, the Secretary-is Mr. W. C. C. Rose, Ministry of Fuel and Power.

The Committee, which will be known as the Mineral Development Committee, has the following terms of reference:

"To enquire into the resources of minerals in the United Kingdom, excepting coal, oil, bedded ironstone, and substances of widespread occurrence; to consider possibilities and means of their co-ordinated, orderly and economic development in the national interest and to make recommendations."

May I ask whether there are no distinguished women geologists in this country, and whether the right hon. Gentleman has tried to find any? I have never heard the names mentioned of any women on any important Government Committee since I have been in the House.

As regards the names of women on important Government Committees, it is not long since I appointed the hon. Member for North Lanark (Miss Herbison) to the Miners' Welfare Commission, and in the reconstitution of that Commission I have reappointed her. As regards women geologists, I have no doubt they exist, but so far, I have not been made aware of the existence of any woman who is suitable for this Committee.

Is the House to take it that this Committee has some political significance by the inclusion in it of two hon. Members of this House? It would seem unusual if it is a purely fact finding and technological body of expert geologists and others, that hon. Members should be included.

All committees set up by this House with the consent of this House bear political implications, but the reason for including the names of the hon. Member for Lanark and the hon. Member for Monmouth is that I thought it would be desirable to have on the Committee some persons who were closely associated with the House and would be able because of their association with particular constituencies to offer some guidance.

Why does the right hon. Gentleman say that the Committee is set up with the consent of this House? Surely this Committee has not asked for the consent of this House?

One of the reasons why this Committee is being set up is because representations have been made by hon. Members who are concerned with the development of tin, copper and lead that an inquiry should be instituted, and of course the House can object to any such Committee if they think fit.

Since the time when my hon. Friend and I put down this subject for today, a hopeful development has occurred. At that time, it appeared likely that a deadlock would be reached on the Atomic Commission of the United Nations organisation, but in today's paper I see that a more hopeful development has arisen, and very much on the lines for which we had hoped. Nevertheless, I hope the Government will con- sider today's discussion of the progress of the Atomic Commission not unhelpful. I would like to congratulate the Government on the White Paper which they issued the day before the first Bikini atom bomb test. That White Paper was produced by a high powered committee, and it reported on what the atomic bombs had done at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They gave a carefully reasoned and sober estimate of what such bombs would do to major cities of this country. They estimated that an atomic bomb of that type would kill 50,000 and render 400,000 temporarily homeless.

That is the background to the question we are now considering, and it reinforces its urgency. I hope His Majesty's Government will declare their overriding intention that at all costs Britain is going to see that the work of the Atomic Commission succeeds. If the work of the Atomic Commission fails, then, inevitably, in 10 years' time we will have a world in which there is more than one Power—It may be four, five or more— possessing these weapons. It is often said, "The only real way to be sure that atomic weapons are not used again, is to eliminate the causes of war." The Indian gets £4 10s. a year and the American makes perhaps one hundred times as large an income. Until one has equated international wage levels, we will never remove all the causes of war, I am not sufficiently Utopian to believe that in the lifetime of anyone who listens to my words all the causes will be removed. What we have to do is to lay the foundations of international confidence. What we can do in relation to atomic energy is to draw up a modern form of disarmament, and to form an international organisation through which weapons of mass destruction will be eliminated from national armaments.

When the Prime Minister went to the United States of America, he played a major part in persuading President Truman to modify his "Sacred Trust" formula, and to agree to the formation of an Atomic Commission, to which the Russians assented. It is not easy to obtain an up-to-date, accurate report of exactly what is being said at the Atomic Commission. I wish to confine myself today to the original proposals made by the Americans, and the original proposals made by the Russians. It is my case that the differences between the American proposals and the Russian proposals are in substance differences of timing rather than of content. The substance of the American proposal is that, first of all, we should establish control of atomic energy and then, when we and America are satisfied that that control is working, we will be prepared to throw the benefit of our research into the common pool, and have it developed for the benefit of all mankind. The substance of the Russian proposal is precisely the other way round. The Russians say, "First destroy your stock piles, and eliminate atomic bombs from your arguments, then enter an agreement with all the nations of the world never to use those weapons again. Then we will start on the discussions which will lead to such measures as are necessary for the control of atomic energy."

Differences of timing are differences which can be eliminated. I will later give a specific quotation from the speech of Mr. Gromyko which will make it quite clear that the Russians have not stated that they are not in any circumstances going to submit to any form of inspection. The Russians have stated, and I am sure this is in today's papers, "We do not think inspection of itself is going to solve the problem. We do believe that at the outset the nations of the world should abolish all recourse to atomic bombs by a formal act." Many of us feel—and I am here speaking not only of people in this country but of people who were present at the Atomic Commission itself—that the Atomic Commission started off very much on the wrong foot. It started by putting the cart before the horse, that is to say, by considering the wider political issues involved, such as the veto, instead of first setting up the necessary technical and scientific committees to report on the question of machinery for the control of atomic energy. It is very much easier for scientists of different nations to come to agreement than for politicians of different nations to come to agreement. I have no doubt—and it was to be our main case— that if the scientists, who are the technical advisers to the various countries on the Atomic Commission, were given more or less carte blanche to cooperate with one another, pooling information as far as necessary for the purpose, they would be able to satisfy the world that atomic energy can be controlled, and that certain measures are necessary to control it.

If I may refer to the problem of the veto, this approach would bypass the whole question of the veto. Any measures which such a scientific commission determines upon, would have to be approved by the Security Council. Russia would be in a position to veto, as would any other of the permanent members, but, once those measures have been approved by the Security Council, and provided they were satisfactory, they would provide for their own enforcement. As I said, Mr. Gromyko, in proposing a second committee of this kind, specifically stated that he wished the committee

"to elaborate a system of sanctions for application against the unlawful use of atomic energy, and measures, systems, and organisations of control, to ensure the observance of conditions for the outlawry of atomic weapons."

He must have anticipated that the work of such a committee would be to produce a workable system for the control of atomic energy. I cannot conceive that the working of a system for the control of atomic energy should remain dependent upon any act of the Security Council itself. After all, the Security Council might not be sitting, very often it would not be sitting, and it would take a long time for it to be called together. Those who have studied the subject, have come more and more to the conclusion that the really effective safeguard would be in having a fairly long warning of the danger that once the system which was first adumbrated in detail in the Acheson-Lilienthal Report is in operation, it will be relatively difficult for any country to be able to manufacture atomic bombs in secret. It would indeed have a remarkable effect on the world if the atomic development authority were to acquire information that a nation was violating that agreement. I gather that this point was made yesterday in several speeches on the Atomic Commission, and several delegates pointed out that once an atomic bomb has been used, a disastrous situation has occurred, and it is not a hopeful line of approach to say that we must elaborate sanctions to punish anybody who has used an atomic bomb. The position is that we must establish such a system of control that we have many months' warning in advance of the fact that a country which purports to be accepting the rules laid down is really violating those rules. So, in my submission, it should be possible by that means to by- pass this political problem of the veto, and, by relying on the advice of the scientists, to establish the machinery, which is surely a matter not dependent upon political considerations but on commonsense and technical considerations.

I can understand, and I think many hon. Members will be able to understand, why the Russians were at first rather suspicious of the American proposal, for this reason: The American proposal provided that the countries of the world would inform the atomic development authority of where their own raw materials were. Thus, the Soviet Union would be obliged to give information— which would necessarily go to the United States of America—informing the world where their own supplies of uranium and thorium were. They would be bound to do this while America still retained huge stock piles and large numbers of atomic bombs. In other words, the effect of the American proposals as they now are is almost to disarm Russia, while America herself remains armed; and in a world which is unfortunately still not in a fine state of international confidence, one could hardly expect the Russians to accept at the outset proposals of that kind. It is for that reason that I believe that the solution to Russian suspicion is to obtain agreement, first on the machinery for international control, and thereafter to allow negotiations to proceed in order to bring the timings to an agreeable conclusion.

I understand that a proposal for the scientists of all these countries to get together without much interference from the politicians was, in fact, made, and was agreed to by the Russians. That proposal, I understand, was blocked by Canada, largely because of the hang-over from the Canadian spy incidents. However that may be, I very much hope that the development reported today will be followed by a great increase in confidence, and that British, Canadian and American scientific representatives will be fully authorised by their Governments to provide as much information in this scientific conference as is needed, first, to convince the Russians of the immense advantages which may be gained from the peaceful application of atomic energy; and, secondly, to give the Russians full information to enable them to know that atomic energy really can be controlled, because there are still many people who are convinced that it cannot be controlled. It is only a careful study of the technical side of this problem which has convinced me that measures for the control of atomic energy are possible, because they turn largely upon purely scientific considerations.

May I turn to a point which has so far not been mentioned at all, I think, in the deliberations of the Atomic Commission? An obvious gap in all the proposals so far made is that they have been dealing with countries which are not members of the United Nations. Any system of international control must, from the very beginning, command international confidence, and it cannot command confidence so long as there is any uranium or any thorium anywhere in the world which is not owned or controlled by the United Nations. There, in a convenient and simple form, is an ultimatum to modern industrial civilisation. Either we succeed in bringing all the uranium and thorium, wherever it may be, under the ownership and control of the United Nations, or we shall necessarily get a world in which many Powers are in possession of atomic weapons, as a result of which there will be strains and stresses, and war, in my opinion, will inevitably develop.

I do not wish to offer this observation at all in criticism, but it is only fair to the Russians to say that I can imagine them being rather suspicious because of the attitude of Sir Alexander Cadogan over the question of Spain. Sir Alexander Cadogan is, of course, our representative in the Atomic Commission. He was previously authorised to say, in the name of Britain, that our British Foreign Office and our British Embassy in Madrid were satisfied that German scientists are not, in fact, working in Spain. We could only know that if our Embassy in Madrid were a far more efficient spy service than we allege the Russian Embassy in Canada was. It was a fantastic statement to make. I am convinced that although there is uranium in Spain it is quite beyond the industrial resources of Spain to manufacture atomic bombs. I am not suggesting that there is an immediate danger, and I am not trying to raise a scare, but it is obvious that German scientists went to Spain, and it is quite impossible for our Foreign Office to know what is happening in all parts of Spain, and to know where these German scientists are now working.

In all these circumstances, I hope that our Government will take a firm line on their own. The impression now prevails, it has been put to me by many people of distinction—distinguished Americans quite recently—that Britain agrees with America on its line in advance of all these international conferences, particularly the Atomic Commission; and that, therefore, it is almost useless for me or for my hon. Friends to ask the British Government to take a line because, it is said, Russia will immediately believe that we are the stooge of America. That is not true. I am quite convinced that the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Minister of State have taken strong and independent lines behind the scenes. I hope that they will take a strong, independent line openly. I am much reminded of a phrase of John Milton's:

"I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue."

We know that there is great virtue, but let it shine forth for all men to see.

May I now turn to the main point on the peaceful side which I desire to make? I am told that the world is getting very tired of discussion of the atomic bomb. The President of the Board of Trade, in a remarkable speech delivered about a year ago, forecast that the world would begin to get very tired of consideration of this appalling weapon, and that it would gradually recede in the consciousness of men as a thing rather too unpleasant to think about and something which one, as it were, subconsciously tried to belittle. The only solution to that is for us to go ahead as rapidly as possible with the peaceful development of atomic energy.

There is one immediate circumstance in respect of which Britain and America could give a lead which would help to create a basis of confidence between Russia and ourselves. Plants in the United States are already producing an enormous quantity of radio-active byproducts, which are of immense value and may have a revolutionary effect in medical science and medical research. It is no exaggeration to say that radium is already becoming out of date today, because of the important radio-active substances that are being produced and which have a far greater range. I do not mean that radium is out of date in the strict sense, but only in the sense in which it has been publicly regarded as an extremely expensive, rare and irreplaceable element; it is still a valuable and potent material which can perform certain functions. Here, obviously, is a case of non-dangerous activity connected with atomic energy, Let us say, here and now, that these radioactive by-products will be freely and openly shared with all the nations of the world. Even if the world should, unfortunately, have to perish, as has been suggested, in the harsh glare of atomic annihilation—as I do not believe likely or perhaps possible—let us, at any rate, see that in the next five or ten years we will achieve results with the by-products of atomic energy for the benefit of people suffering from such diseases as cancer. I can see no reason whatever why we should not give a lead in this matter. I know we shall have a small atomic file working in a matter of a few months or a year. Indeed, whatever attitude is taken by the United States, we should give a lead and show Russian scientists that we want to co-operate with them.

I do not wish to detain the House any longer, except to make this final general observation. It was the first Labour Prime Minister who spoke of the risks of peace. I am convinced that if we do not boldly accept the challenge now before us and are not prepared to take all the risks of peace, we will face the certainty of war. It seems to me that one very easily gets into the situation in which one cannot see the wood for the trees, the situation in which the immediate political arguments, the immediate strategic considerations, the immediate economic considerations, overweigh the mind and prevent the mind from seeing what it is able to see at times of great stress, namely, the true position of this country, and of other politicians and statesmen, in relation to humanity as a whole. Can anybody say that we would have gone to war in 1939 if we had known of the existence of the atomic bomb? That is the kind of consideration which I suggest should remain in our minds, and I therefore ask the Government to indicate their belief that the Atomic Commission must be made to succeed and that they will try to produce that result along the lines I have suggested.

I have no particular quarrel with the excellent speech which has just been made by my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton (Mr. Blackburn), except to say that he wants to hold out to Russia the whole of the scientific pacts relating to atomic energy. I am just wondering whether or not, if Russia were placed in the situation of the United States, Russia, in turn, would be willing to let other nations of the world share in the atomic developments that have taken place in the States. I rather doubt it, and ray doubt is based on experience we had during the war. We handed over to the Russians many of our developments in mechanical warfare, and, to the best of my knowledge, we never got anything like the same return in information on what the Russians were doing themselves in the development of their own weapons of warfare.

Can the hon. Member tell me of any mechanical weapons that we handed over to the Russians that Russia had not already got?

I could tell the hon. Member of very many, but I doubt whether he would fully appreciate the information. It seems to me, from the experience we have had in the last war, that it is hardly right, at this time, to hand over to Russia any more of the great developments that have taken place, either in this country or under the Security Council. I think Russia herself ought to show some willingness for cooperation with ourselves, not only on this subject, but on all kinds of matters that are being discussed at the present time.

What my hon. Friend said in relation to the benefits to be derived from the application of the radio-active properties of uranium and thorium and such like is quite true, but, in that respect, we should do all we possibly can to help the humane side of life throughout the world. I certainly oppose today any idea which my hon. Friend has of scrapping all the knowledge we have at the present time and starting again on an equal footing with everyone else, because I do not think that Russia today is ready to give that fullest cooperation for which we have endeavoured very frequently, and are still endeavouring, quite genuinely and seriously. It is, I think, true, as the hon. Member suggested, that we do emphasise the United States part a little too much and our own not sufficiently. I think that is true, in many respects, but, apart from that one criticism, I should certainly go the rest of the way with the hon. Member. Meanwhile, I certainly hope that representatives of our Government will do nothing to hand over the full atomic secrets to Russia until we know just what Russia is going to give us in return.

I feel that I must say something in reply to the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Kendall), whose remarks are typical of those of so many people who have not studied this problem. The hon. Member for King's Norton (Mr. Blackburn) did not suggest handing over atomic secrets to Russia, and the suggestion of the hon. Member for Grantham about wiping out all existing knowledge is, I think, pointless. We cannot do that, unless we want to be faced with the atomic war which we are trying to prevent. It is quite useless for us to start any discussions with Russia on the basis of what they are going to give us in return. The whole weakness of the present situation is, that Russia realises that she is in a weak bargaining position. She realises that America has the atomic bomb, and, that being so, it is difficult for Russia to discuss this matter on anything like equal terms, and I think the Russian attitude is quite understandable. They say "We shall have to wait until we can discuss it on equal terms," America is in a strong position in regard to the possession of the atomic bomb, and that, I think, is the most serious obstacle to any sort of world agreement.

The hon. Member for King's Norton, in an extraordinarily clear and lucid speech, has stated what is the problem, and there is very little that I can add to what he has said. I think the hon. Member is acknowledged on all sides as a tremendous expert on this problem. But there are one or two points which I would like to make. When the Bikini bomb went up on 24th July, another event occurred which was very upsetting and disturbing to those of us who have been thinking about this problem. It was the day on which Mr. Gromyko said that Russia could not accept the American pro- posals. That was a bitter disappointment, I think we must realise, and make a special effort to consider, why Russia is taking that attitude. When we analyse the American proposals with their emphasis on the abolition of the veto, which I think was dragged in quite unnecessarily at this stage, it is obvious that Russia, realising her position of inferiority, is not going to agree to a permanent control, or at any rate to an extension of monopoly in control, of atomic weapons by America. We must realise that because it is the clue to Russia's attitude.

It is agreed now, and I do not think anyone will deny it, that the atomic weapon is something against which there is no defence. I know that there are people who, in the past, have argued that there is always a cure for every new weapon; but those protections in the past have always taken a form of reduction in effect and a partial or almost complete prevention of its delivery on the target. Nothing less than 100 per cent. protection is protection against the atomic bomb. Therefore, any steps that may be taken in the future for development of armaments, or for our military organisation, must be conditioned to one end only, and that is to effective prevention of war and no longer to the actual fighting. That may sound something of a paradox but there are certain possibilities in the situation which might enable us to organise a system of world defence which would have that result. For instance, there has been a most interesting suggestion, which will not commend itself to the hon. Member for Grantham from certain progressive people in America. It is that if each country in the world, or each of the major Powers, possessed a limited supply of atomic weapons, the effect as a retaliatory weapon would be such that no other country would dare to start an atomic war. That sounds a little naive, nevertheless it is true.

I am very much afraid that until that situation exists we shall not be able to get down to this problem if we continue to confine ourselves to discussing such questions as the veto and America's stock pile. I welcome the fact that a technical committee has been set up to consider this problem. It is only by tackling the matter in its technical details, by getting down to it and considering the uses that can be made of atomic energy, and con- sidering the problem with minute care, in the same way that the Lilienthall Committee considered it, that we shall make any progress. Therefore, we should start considering the development of atomic energy throughout the world. We should consider not only the negative and terrifying aspect of its use as an atomic bomb, but also the opposite side of the coin, its use for peaceful purposes. I think it was Henry Wallace who said the other day that the expectation of a new age of abundance in the field which atomic energy can bring, will do more to prevent war than the fear of being blown to bits. I submit that that is a progressive and hopeful attitude. We should now start discussing this with the scientists of the world.

I echo the remarks of the hon. Member for King's Norton. We should take a lead in this and discuss the setting up of atomic energy plants throughout the world. It is quite clear that the scientific principles of the production of atomic energy are known to all the scientists of the world. I might even claim to say I understand them in part myself, though perhaps not quite so well as the hon. Member for King's Norton. The scientific principles are known and if we could build up the progressive side of atomic energy and start making contributions towards increasing the standard of living of the whole world, the Russians would see there are great advantages in cooperation and also that we mean what we say when we declare that we are prepared to cooperate with her.

I repeat, that it is no good our saying that we will cooperate if she gives up the veto. In my submission that forms a dead end. We cannot make any progress if we follow that line. I ask that the Minister should bear in mind the remarks of the hon. Member for King's Norton and that instructions should be sent—if they have already been sent they should be emphasised—to our representatives on the U.N.O. Atomic Commission that they should get ahead with active thinking on the problem and try to work out so far as is practicable a system of cooperation, and then, a? that developed, we would begin to see more clearly this international atomic development authority. In my opinion, that is the only hope for- the world and unless we make that attempt now the result will be the closing of the door to the future and the atomic war which we all fear will come upon us. In the meanwhile, we shall lose the advantages which atomic energy could confer on a world which needs those advantages so badly today.

I hope my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Preston (Wing-Commander Shackleton) will forgive me if I do not follow him in his remarks. I welcome the Debate, as I am sure all hon. Members welcome the opportunity to consider this matter. We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman the Member for King's Norton (Mr. Blackburn) for his initiative in raising this subject. I think the House generally is grateful to him for the interest he has shown in this subject since this Parliament assembled. I do not think for one moment that the subject has been over discussed. If anything, I think in the House the subject has been under-discussed. It is rather curious to notice the aloofness of the Press from this subject as from sex in the past. It is possible that sex is discussed too much in the Press at present, but there was a time when sex was hardly discussed at all in the Press. Atomic energy has lapsed into comparative obscurity during recent months, and I am glad that the subject has been raised once again. We have to face the fact that the relations between the three great Powers, the Soviet Union, the United States of America, and Great Britain, have progressed more or less slowly in the last year or so against a new and novel background.

That background, or the beginning of it, was marked by that appalling fiery flash at Hiroshima, and recently another stage has been marked by the great "South Sea Bubble" at Bikini. I think if we bear that in our minds we may perhaps understand why relations have not progressed as well as might have been the case. I believe that in the new circumstances of the world the foreign policy of the British Government should be directed quite openly and clearly towards the establishment of a world State. I do not apologise, in any sense, for holding that point of view. Ten years ago, one had to apologise for talking about a world State. It meant that one had been reading Mr. Wells too recently. In fact, it indicated possibly a state of mental adolescence bordering almost on the indecent or the pitiful.

Today, however, the situation has altogether changed. Ten years ago, high Tories felt that the idea of a world State contradicted the British Empire, and high Marxists thought that the idea contradicted the social revolution. As for the rest of us, we felt that any talk of a world State was not compatible with our ideas of the self-determination of the small nations, upon which collective security and all our other ideas were based at that time. Today the situation has tremendously changed. The Utopians and the realists can join hands, because the atomic bomb has made us one. The world State is now practical politics. We can go to a world State either by the hard road, which may be a very bloody road as well, by means of another great war, or we can take a short cut by establishing now, or in the next two or three years, effective control of atomic energy. I believe that if effective control is established, a world State becomes a reality because the old ideas of national sovereignty are out of date.

As has been mentioned already this morning, there is no single reason that will account adequately at present for the apparent reluctance of the Russian Government to approach a peace settlement, and I am not one who blames the Russian Government entirely for a moment. I do not think that this morning we should attempt to allocate blame one way or the other. Certainly, there is one important contributory factor to the Russian approach, and that is the practical realisation that for a year or so, or maybe two or three years—I do not know—the balance of practical power in the world rests with the possessors of the atomic secret. There has been some kind of dress rehearsal, of course, in the South Sea at Bikini. In connection with that, I would like to put this question to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, who I understand is to reply. I can imagine that at Bikini many foreign observers were very carefully excluded. I do not know, but I do not suppose Russian observers were welcomed. I would like to know whether the British Government had any expert observers at Bikini. I know that two hon. Members of this House attended but, with great respect to them, I do not think that they could be described, perhaps, as expert observers.

The Russians know that it is important to delay and postpone final decisions on the peace settlement until Soviet science restores the balance of power. If that balance of power is restored I do not think we have necessarily advanced one step towards a permanent state of peace. Therefore, it is clearly urgent that the political problem of the world control of atomic energy should be solved, and solved quickly, because there is no time to lose. Although I welcome what my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton said about the need to bypass the political problems for the moment, and to concentrate upon the technical approach, at the same time we must remember that they are only bypassed and that in the long run we shall be returning once again to the main road which is marked by the political problems. We, therefore, cannot run away from the issue indefinitely. Clearly, the political differences are immense. The Russians say, "Let us have atomic disarmament first of all, and then we can talk on a footing of equality." The Americans, on the other hand, say, "When we are satisfied of our security and that peace in the world is certain, we will hand over this great power to an international authority."

I suggest that the British Government should propose a way out of this deadlock by giving all the support they can to the idea of a supernational authority—to the Atomic Development Authority or, as I prefer to call it, "Atomic Developers Unlimited." But we should oppose the American idea that they should determine when this authority is to come into action. A definite date should be stated, and then I think we might do something towards restoring Russian confidence in the proposal. I would like now to support as emphatically as I can everything that my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton has said about the need for the British Government to have their own independent policy. We were the first people to do anything about this. That we should give the impression that we are following obediently, softly and smoothly behind everything the American Government propose is bad; as a Member of this House and as an Englishman I detest it. It is not good for the Americans or for the Russians, and it is very bad for ourselves and for our prestige. It has been suggested that some kind of a secret understanding between us and the Americans in this matter was reached between the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) and the President of the United States some time ago, at Quebec, I think. The present Government, who are a different Government, with, I hope, a very different world outlook, will remove that belief by establishing clearly that the British Government have their own world policy for atomic energy.

While agreeing with my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton (Mr. Blackburn), I wish to say that the situation is really much simpler than would appear from his remarks. It is true that the atomic bomb is the most potent explosive weapon that has been invented up to date, and it is also true, unfortunately, that it is so horrible in its effects that the reaction after a short period of alarmist excitement and headlines has been to try to forget about it because it is so terrible. It is no good trying to forget about it. While I do not wish to depress the House further, I want to indicate what is, unfortunately, true; namely, that the atomic bomb is neither the last nor the worst weapon which could be used against humanity.

When I was in the United States recently, I saw in various American papers references to bacteriological and other forms of warfare. I will not particularise, but they were suggestions of something so horrible that, in one case the germs, and in other cases other substances, could be disseminated by elderly gentlemen carrying handbags into a foreign country, and sowing the seeds of germs or other preparations which would have the effect of, not very slowly but imperceptibly, destroying all human and animal life. I thought to myself, "Is this an American headline?" As I happened to be in Washington, where I had the opportunity to get at the highest scientific authorities, I went to what I regarded as a completely competent expert scientific authority on this subject, and I was told: "This is true. It can be done."

That would be a very good answer to the atomic bomb. How would it work? Let us say the Russians are very afraid of the Americans who have atomic bombs; they send a few refugee Czechoslovaks, or someone like that, into the United States with their little handbags, and the United States population dies and fades away before any atomic bomb can be used. I am not suggesting that anything like that is in the minds of the Russians, or would be suggested by anybody at all. Why I am speaking like this is to bring before the House the realisation that this matter must be faced in all its horror. Mankind already has at its disposal means which the scientists have discovered, which are so destructive that any one of them might result in the destruction over the surface of the globe of large numbers of human beings and other living things—resulting, of course, in complete disruption and, to a large extent, the end of our civilisation.

The problem is not only that of the atomic bomb. The problem is a moral problem, and a political moral problem. Being, as it were, grown up in the world, with nations becoming adult and realising our responsibilities, we have unparalleled scientific advantages here in this country, and, I would remind the House, in the Soviet Union. The hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Kendall) is afraid of giving information to the Russians. How long does the hon. Member think it would take competent Russian scientists to find out all the technical and engineering details necessary to make the atomic bomb? It will not take very long. I say that, relying on information I have obtained by consulting some of the highest authorities on this subject. These things cannot be kept secret. One of the greatest troubles in the world at the present time, which was shown very strongly in our Debate on Monday on the control in Germany, is the strong anti-Soviet feeling throughout the world. That feeling is damaging our relations, damaging relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, damaging world relations and poisoning world opinion.

I do not believe there is this need to be so suspicious of the Soviet Union. I know the Soviet Union very well. I was there in 1920. I saw the effects of our blockade. Something like six million people died, largely because of the action of the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill). Having seen that for myself, and having seen the horrors which there existed, I do not wonder that the Russians are suspicious of some of the suggestions made by representatives of the United States and of this country, that they should stand by and allow others to control these tremendous energies. At the present time there is no possibility of keeping secret the manufacture of atomic bombs and other weapons from any nation of the world which is sufficiently well equipped to be able to engage scientific men and women to carry out the necessary research and engineering work.

The problem is a moral one, and we must face it. We must make up our minds that under no conditions will we enter into another war. In order to achieve that, one of the preliminaries is the free exchange of scientific information with the Soviet Union and with all other nations. I learned from the scientists in America that the scientists of the world strongly support these opinions. Scientists in general feel very strongly about this absurd suspicion which is dividing men. We should go confidently to the Soviet Union and to other nations and say: "We are ready to pool the knowledge which we can use together in cooperation for the benefit of mankind as a whole." That can be done.. It should be done. Any technical details ought to be given to the Russians, through, of course, the proper international authority, at the earliest possible moment. There is no doubt at all that that is the line upon which we should proceed.

Might I ask a question before the hon. Member sits down?

Mr. Warbey.

In the short time remaining before the right hon. Gentleman replies, I wish to make two points. The first is to underline what has already been said by other hon. Members, that our own Government have a responsibility to take much greater initiative in this matter than they have shown hitherto. The Prime Minister performed a magnificent service to humanity by going to the United States last autumn. Since that time there has been, not only a failure of initiative but a degree of timidity in handling this whole question which I find rather shocking. The whole question has been wrapped up in an atmosphere of secrecy which applies, not only to the techniques of the question but to the politics of it. While there is a case for the first, there is no case whatever for the second. We should have grasped the nettle of the political implications of this whole problem, and have had our own proposals to put forward. If proposals came, as they have come, from other countries we should have been able to make our contribution towards — not emphasising differences but minimising them—towards, as Professor Oliphant is reported in the Press to have said, making proposals for modifications to bridge the gap and to remove the deadlocks. If, as I have suggested on other occasions, we had had political leadership in that great world organisation the Security Council, with the Atomic Energy Commission attached to it, we might have played a greater part than we have played hitherto.

Secondly, I wish to appeal to hon. Members who are so concerned about the functional and technical approach not to believe that we can by-pass the political problems involved. The American Government, after making a technical approach, have come forward with the really remarkable proposal of the Lilien-thal five-man board for an atomic development authority. There we see one of the paradoxes of the American civilisation, that three American capitalists, with the chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority and with scientists, can put forward a proposal for a world Socialist enterprise. In the United States they establish a great public corporation like the Tennessee Valley Authority and call it a magnificent example of private enterprise. In this country, we stimulate private enterprise more than it has been stimulated in the past 20 years, and hon. Members opposite call it doctrinaire Socialism. It is one of those paradoxes that we find in all modern civilisations.

The Americans have put forward this proposal. If we eventually get out of it an atomic development authority, let us realise that that authority will be a supranational body with vast power—with vaster powers than have ever been possessed by anybody in history before. One of the suggestions in the report says:

"It is furthermore, important to note that for every kilowatt generated in safe reactors about one kilowatt must be generated in dangerous ones in which the material was manufactured. Thus, if atomic power is, in fact, developed on a large scale, about half of it will inevitably be an international monopoly, and about a half might be available for competitive exploitation."

The atomic development authority would set up, not only a vast body with licensing, controlling, owning, regulating, and inspecting powers, which would inevitably involve police powers and sanctions as well, but would also set up a vast public corporation on a world wide scale controlling half the world's potential output of energy. That you cannot have, except under a political control which is of the same degree of magnitude.

If you set up a supra-national, body with vast economic and possibly police powers, then you must have it within the framework of supra-national political control of equivalent magnitude, and that means that the limitations of the present Charter of U.N.O. will, if we go along those lines, eventually be burst asunder. I ask that we should see where we are going, and see that this thing must be integrated with the political control, and that we do not accept the American proposal, and other proposals which I think were put forward here, to bypass political control, or even bypass U.N.O., the Security Council and General Assembly altogether, and set up some quite independent, self-acting body.

The only suggestion that has been put forward is that the veto, which is a supreme political issue dividing Russia and America, can be bypassed, because the machinery would provide automatically for its own enforcement.

There is no time to discuss that, but I do not believe that any piece of functional machinery can provide automatically for its own enforcement. Police powers and sanctions have to come in, and that means political control. There must be political control, and ultimately we shall come up against the question of the revision of the Charter. By all means, let us not force this issue at the present stage. Let us make a technical approach to begin with, and allow the necessary delays for suspicion to die down and a new atmosphere to be created, in which we can establish the world political control which alone will render any device safe and effective.

I am very grateful, as other hon. Members have been, to my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton (Mr. Blackburn) for raising this Debate today. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Palmer) that he has rendered considerable service in this Parliament by devoting special attention to the subject of atomic energy, and, in view of the special functions with which I am charged in the Government, perhaps the House will allow me to say that I think other hon. Members would also serve the public interest if they imitated his example, and gave special attention to some of the other work with which the United Nations is charged; because much of the rest of that work is of vital importance to the organisation of a stable system of peace, and if what is going on is not generally known, it will not produce the results for which we hope. I am also in agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon in thinking that the world is not yet weary of discussing atomic energy. If it were I should think it all the more important to bring home to people who are reluctant to listen the choice that faces them.

I do not want to speak in general about that choice, but to deal with the practical issues which hon. Members have raised today. The hon. Member for King's Norton used the word "deadlock," happily to reject it, because I think it is premature to use that word. Atomic energy is a problem which mankind is compelled to face; but which it will take a long time to solve. Not all inventions which are made promote the well being of mankind. It is 20 years since the man whom I regard as the greatest of all our air officers, the man who perhaps more than all others enabled us to defeat the Hitler menace when it came—I mean Lord Trenchard—said that if he had the casting vote he would abolish aviation altogether, because the evil that it could do in war time was far greater than the good which it could do in peace. Aircraft were not abolished; unfortunately, they have not yet, as their inventors hoped, bound the nations and the continents together; instead they have girdled the world with a vast circle of devastation. A United States Senator who has just flown from Tokio told me last night that 70 per cent. of the great cities of Japan, in which so vast a proportion of her population lived, are in total and absolute ruin. Aircraft have demolished, in east and west, many of the greatest monuments of the genius of mankind, and they have bombed out of existence many of the moral standards of value which have taken centuries to build up, and which we have now to reconstruct. So far, there is hardly anything on the credit side.

But, even with that prospect before us, put to us by such a man as Lord Trenchard, we did not succeed in abolishing aviation. It is academic to think that we can stop scientific progress on atomic energy; and for my part I do not think it is even desirable, because if mankind let atomic energy be used to destroy them, I do not think they are worth saving. But if they stop that, then I venture to say that atomic energy may open up before us a future of greater well being, and material and spiritual progress, than mankind has ever had before.

Spiritual?

Yes, of course, because if he solves the material problems of earning his living, man has the leisure and the strength to develop spiritual well-being of every kind.

Opinions about the potential use of atomic energy for the welfare of mankind vary, even among the highest experts. One of the leading figures of the world in this domain said to me a day or two ago that he thought we were quite a long way from the time when we could use it for industrial power. Another expert, of almost if not quite equal standing, said recently that he thought that, with the known supplies of material and using the methods which we now have, we could supply the world's energy requirements, and that perhaps in the very near future, if not at present, the cost would be reasonably competitive with coal. In any case, we all know that already, as my hon. Friend has said, atomic energy can have great value for scientific and medical uses, and we ought to ensure that it is put to those uses, and put to use if possible in chemical production of various kinds, as soon as possible. The conclu- sions I would draw from that are, first, that we cannot think about trying to stop the use of atomic energy—we cannot abolish the thing altogether, and second, we ought to emphasise, as hon. Members have done, its positive side, and to ensure that there is adequate research on that side wherever such research may serve a useful purpose.

Solving the problem will not be a quick business. I venture an analogy which will be differently received in different parts of the House. Our party on this side have, for 40 years, devoted themselves to trying to secure social security for the people. They had some early successes, they had some very serious setbacks, like the General Election of 1931. Today the National Insurance Act is on the Statute Book; and not only that, but everybody, except a few eccentrics, accepts the basic principles on which it is based, the principles that poverty, preventable illness and disease, and unemployment are social waste, and that great poverty and great wealth side by side make for the happiness of none. We may hope that the problem of international security will be solved in Jess than 40 years, less than 40 years, even if we date the start of the struggle from the signing of the Covenant in 1919.

But we certainly cannot hope that a new fundamental problem like that of atomic energy will be solved in 40 days; and it is about 40 days since the Atomic Energy Commission began its deliberations. It is impossible that in such a period concrete conclusions, or concrete accepted plans could have emerged; and, therefore, I am glad that my hon. Friend recognised that it is much too soon to talk of "deadlock." It would be much too soon even if we had had already a head-on collision of points of view between the different delegations. At present, the Commission is really at the stage of a Second Reading Debate. That is true, although it is working through a number of different committees. It is still elucidating and defining the problems to be solved. It is putting into words, words which can be understood by the layman, the principles in which the various protagonists believe. It is creating its own terminology, and clearing up misunderstandings of various kinds between the different parties.

But there has been no head-on collision. On the contrary, there has been the making of different proposals, proposals which differ primarily because they deal with different parts of the subject, rather than because they are incompatible, as my hon. Friend said. Those proposals are now under serious preliminary debate. I derive encouragement from that fact. The greatest danger in an international commission is that, when it meets, and when it knows it has a grave task before it, none of its members has anything to say; when no one puts forward any proposal at all. I have seen that happen. In 1920 various committees were created by the League of Nations to deal with the problems of the reduction and limitation of armaments. They met, and no one had anything useful to put into the discussion at all. It was left, after some years, to Lord Cecil to start a serious Debate; he did so, of course, from a purely political point of view, and he did so as the spokesman of a small country, the Union of South Africa. Our experience in this Commission has been a good deal more encouraging than that. We have had two plans of major importance put forward by major Powers. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. War-bey) in thinking that the American proposal is a plan of tremendous scope and importance. They urge that the ownership or control of all the raw materials in the world which can be used for atomic energy should be made over to an international authority.

They propose that this authority should also conduct fundamental research into the problems of atomic energy. They propose that this authority should conduct the operation of all the plants in which atomic energy may be used for any dangerous purposes. It is a tremendous proposal, revolutionary. There has been nothing like it in international affairs at all. Let us not, by the slightest inflection of our voices detract from the importance of the decision which the United States Government came to when they put forward this great plan. They suggest that this new authority should also control a great system of international inspection of raw materials and industrial plants throughout the world; that as part of the plan it should de-, nature raw material, which it should make over to national authorities for use for peaceful purposes. There are limits to the utility of de-naturing. I have not time to go into them now, but the most serious people believe that, at the lowest, it would very greatly help the system of control which is proposed. This United States proposal is a plan which will, of course, mean an immense change in the relations between the nations, if it is adopted.

The second major plan is that of the Russians. The Russians propose that the manufacture and use of atomic energy for warlike purposes should be outlawed, and that an obligation should be undertaken by every State neither to manufacture nor to use the atomic bomb. I think that these plans are not in conflict. They deal, as I said, with different parts of the subject. They must be integrated together. I am glad to say that the last reports which I have had of the discussions going on this week are that the different delegations, the Australian, Dutch, British, American, Russian, and the rest are discussing together in a committee of the Commission to see in what way this integration can take place, and to clear up misunderstandings which there have been. If I had time I could give the House examples of the kind of interchange which there has been, and of how the American representative, for example, has agreed with the Russian representative that there is no fundamental clash of principle between what they have put forward

His Majesty's Government, for their part, accept both these plans. They believe that they need to be fused. I want to say, if I may, a special word on control and inspection. International control for the prevention of the increase of armaments, the prevention of war, is not a new project. It has been debated for many years. It was always recognised in the past that it would involve access to every country, that teams-international teams—of inspectors would have to go about freely wherever they wanted, that they would have to report to some supernational authority, and that that authority would have to have power to decide on the reports. Fifteen years ago, or rather less, the French General Staff officially said, "Control is security." His Majesty's Government then in power were not wholly or enthusiastically in favour of the principle of control. They thought it would create more friction than it would do good, and that it would not really find out the facts it was designed to discover. His Majesty's present Government fully accept the principle of control and believe that a practicable scheme can be devised. It may not be 100 per cent. effective, but we believe it will give us reasonable security and will reasonably deal with the problems we have in view.

We believe, of course—and here I answer my hon. Friend the Member for Luton—that all the legal, political, scientific, and administrative problems which are involved have got to be solved, and solved together in a single, common plan. But we also agree with the hon. Member for King's Norton in thinking that the right way to start is with the technical side. We believe that we ought first to aim at drawing up a practical plan in the form of a convention for the creation of the international authority—how it is to be composed, how it is to be financed, how it can do its work, how the inspection is to be carried on, what rights are required. We believe that when we have done all that, then, in due course we shall arrive at the necessity for political decisions. We shall then be at the parting of the ways: Will Governments have this new scheme or will they not? But we think that before the governments make this major decision they ought to have first, time for reflection; second, the benefit of a prolonged international debate to bring out all the merits of all the questions that are involved; and, third, they ought to have a concrete picture of the safeguards which they are going to receive, if they accept the surrender of sovereignty, which the plan would involve.

Would the right hon. Gentleman allow me a moment? Could he make this point a little bit clearer? Is the technical commission which is to work out this scheme to concern itself exclusively with the drawing up of the terms of a convention, or will it deal with scientific subjects and the interchange of information between the members of the technical commission, which, possibly, could be passed back to their respective countries?

I am not sure that I understand the purpose of the noble Lord. I think that everything will have to be passed back to the respective countries for consideration and acceptance. It is possible there may be agreement on exchange of scientific information before any final convention is made, but I would not care to commit myself on that.

I want to be quite sure about this. Is this a Commission of scientists who are to discuss scientific subjects and exchange information, or is it a political Commission which will draw up the convention?

I think that the answer is to be found in the composition of the Atomic Commission. The noble Lord will know that our representative is Sir Alexander Cadogan who is not primarily a scientist. The American representative is Mr. Baruch and Canada is represented by General McNaughton. The Commission will deal with all aspects of the matter, as I will show. I fully agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Preston (Wing-Commander Shackleton) that the plan must also include provision for promoting the peaceful use of atomic energy, I cannot of course commit myself to his proposition that we ought now to see that plant should be set up in countries for production of atomic energy for that purpose, but I would by no means exclude that possibility.

Of course, if possible the plan should cover the whole of the world that is always true of all armament problems. This brings me to say a word about Spain. I cannot believe that in any early future, research or production in Spain is going to be a danger. I think that they are many years behind in fundamental research. I would point out that most of the scientists in this field are known, and I do not think that they have any Germans who will help them; but even if that is not the case, they are utterly without the engineering capacity. One of the greatest miracles of the atom bombs has been the achievement of American engineering. It may be that the day will come when a handful of Falangists could produce atom bombs in hidden laboratories in an Andalusian cave; but I think that that day is very distant. I hope that by then the power of the Falange and the doctrines of military Fascism will have disappeared for ever from Spain.

How are we going to get this plan? My hon. and gallant Friend says that we should use the scientists. It has been suggested that we might summon a special scientists' conference to do it for us. Scientists in a private capacity have rendered great service already during this last year. I could cite some of these services and I hope that they will continue to render them. But I am quite sure that the Government ought not to push on to the scientists the responsibility which ought to be their own. An eminent scientist whom I quoted said to me the other day that this is not a scientific problem at all; it is, scientifically, a perfectly simple matter on which they could write out what you need to know to solve it in a very short time. It is, he said, a political and administrative problem with which the Government must deal.

That is the point. Scientists and many of us interested in this subject are perturbed at the iron curtain thrown over the faculty of nuclear fission, and until the Governments come to a decision, you are putting research and exchange of ideas in an iron cage. Civilisation cannot go on like this.

That is one of the problems with which we must deal. Scientists in their private capacity have already rendered great service by pooling and publishing information and calling attention to the major problems to be solved, and suggesting lines on which a solution might be found. It is a Government problem, and while scientists can help us to build the by-pass road, they cannot themselves by-pass the veto.

That brings me to speak of the organisation of the Commission. First, there is the Atomic Energy Commission, which consists of members of the Security Council together with representatives of Canada. They set up a sub-committee which was called Sub-Committee No. 1. That sub-committee has ceased to exist. Then there is Sub-Committee No. 2 which is mainly of a political character and deals with the system of control. That committee still continues. Then there is a body called the Working Committee, which consists of one representative from each member of the Commission. I do not know why it is called "working" —all of them are pretty industrious. There is the Scientific and Technical Committee, and there is a Legal Committee. On the Scientific Committee we have some of the most eminent figures in the world. We have first Sir James Chadwick, now Sir George Thomson and Mr. Oppen-heimer, M. Curie and others. I think that is a very high-powered body, and I think it can do the task which my hon. Friend has in view. [HON. MEMBERS: "Are there any Russians?"] Yes, Sir, Mr. Bkobeltzin. Russia takes a full part on all committees and is playing a very active part and, I hope, a constructive part.

I think I have now really answered the main points which my hon. Friends desired to know about what the Government think. I want to say a word about the charge that our policy is only a pale shadow of the policy of the United States. I do not think that is true. From the beginning we have played a prominent and important part. When there are already two important plans before the Commission I do not think it would be wise to have a third plan of our own, the more so as we agree with so much of those two plans. We took the first initiative; we are continuing to play an active part in all the discussions, and we shall continue to do so with the double purpose of maximising the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes and of preventing its use for warlike purposes. We have always stood for what we believe to be right, and I believe that we have done it in the main with general acceptance. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Islington (Dr. Guest), who said that this is neither the last nor the worst weapon which science may produce. We have to deal with armaments of all kinds, and we cannot afford to have another war, even another like the last. But that does not mean we have to remove every cause of war before we can hope that war will end. We must make it the object of our policy to stop all wars, because we know that, if we have another world war, then these atomic and other weapons will certainly be used. That being so, the Government are prepared to do what was suggested; having long taken risks for war, they are prepared now to take risks for peace.

The question I wish to raise is not unrelated to the matter which we have just been discussing. It relates especially to the problem of the abolition of war which was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, in his closing words. I want the House to consider the part which the British Commonwealth of Nations and ourselves have to play in the problem, first of the abolition of war, and second of security. Security is a background, and we can be certain that it will be occupied by an international order, equipped with a legal system, fortified by a police force, or some military body equipped to carry out its commands, with an economic system which gradually increases the unity of all the national economic orders of mankind, which will lead to a peaceful and orderly change among the nations. Either we proceed along those lines until we have a system of that nature, or we shall relapse again inevitably into a competition of national armaments, which will gradually gather in speed as time goes on, and we shall find ourselves in the position in which we were seven to ten years ago.

The matters which I want to present to the attention of the House are, I know, not very suitable for discussion on an occasion of this nature. But it does seem to me to be urgent that we should face the facts, and the problem of Dominion unity and Dominion collective action at this stage of our development. I want to stress that we are, in the view of a large number of people, fighting against time. The period that elapsed between the first great war and the second great war was 20 years. The tempo of mankind, the psychological and mechanistic tempo of the human race, has inconceivably increased. There is every reason to believe that that increase is going on, as our power to create and rebuild shattered cities, as our power to produce, as our power to invent new weapons of destruction, as our power to speed up communications—as our power in all these matters develops, so its psychological reaction on mankind develops too, so the sensitivity of mankind to the dangers that beset it become more acute, so the interval that elapses between one war and another and between one crisis and another is considerably reduced.

We may have 10 to 15 years or 20 to 25 years before the next crisis is upon us. Unless we find some means of solving this question of settling human disputes without war and integrating the human race to a greater degree—I do not say to a degree that is sometimes suggested by realists in this matter, because I agree with my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, who has just spoken, that it is not necessary to get rid of all the causes of war before we can hope to get rid of war itself—but unless we can achieve in the next 10 or 15 years a greater measure of human integrity and unity than at present, we shall find ourselves faced with a repetition of the calamity through which we have just passed, on an immeasurably greater scale.

It is against that background that I want to consider a few of the questions that affect the British Empire at the present moment. One of the advantages of discussing it on an occasion like this is that the voice of controversy is somewhat stilled by the paucity of the attendance in the House. One feels a return to the psychological and political conditions in this Chamber which were familiar to hon. Members who sat in the last Parliament, when we forgot, for a time, the things that divided us, and found in this House something which, when one first enters into a time of party strife, it is difficult to imagine. This House, this afternoon, as is the real function of the State in moments of emergency, represents as a national assembly, and as no other national assembly in the history of mankind has ever done, the people who returned their representatives to this place. As I say, on occasions like this, when the House is rather worn out after an exhausting Session, one comes round, so to speak, from the opposite door to the same situation, and it is easier perhaps to discuss these difficult and delicate questions—because they are difficult and delicate questions—without the danger of so much heat and controversy that might otherwise be engendered.

There are certain questions which I want to put to the right hon. Gentleman who is to reply for the Government this morning—I think that this is his first official appearance in this House, and I should like to say how glad we all are to see him at that Box today—and I ask that he will not so much give specific answers to these questions, because that, I know, will be difficult, but that he will take away the problems which I, and I hope, if there is time, other Members will present to him, and have them considered by the Government during the Recess. The Commonwealth has a great part to play in this problem of averting war. If, unhappily, war should not be averted, it has a great part to play in the security of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. It would seem to some of us that we are not facing this matter as realistically as we should. There is a tendency in some quarters to write down the part which the British Commonwealth should play. I think that danger emanates from two different directions. There are some hon. Members, colleagues of mine, whose point of view I respect, who believe that these somewhat intangible and spiritual links between people of the same race and the same culture and the same political system are less important than the great ideologies.

I think that one must face the fact that, if one takes that point of view, one may, in an emergency, find oneself involved not only in considerable disagreement but actually in war itself, under certain conditions, with these people of our own race with whom we have so many spiritual and material links. I can only say that if that point of view were to prevail, it would make it all the more important that we should clarify our relations with the people of our Dominions at an early date. I do not think for a moment that that point of view will prevail, but it is to be found in certain quarters and we must take it into account. At the other end of the scale, there are people who think that these matters are almost too dangerous to be discussed, that they may cause considerable ill-feeling in the Dominions, that they may raise a fracas and commotion between the various parts of the Commonwealth, and that they may have disastrous consequences which it would be well for us to avoid. I cannot subscribe to that point of view either. I think that the salient thing about the British Commonwealth is that it is the only political unity that has members in every part of the world. It is the most vulnerable, therefore, of all political units at present existing on the face of the globe. Those are two things we must take into account.

The hon. Gentleman will excuse me if I interrupt him. I think all of us in the unfortunately rather small House are deeply interested in his speech, but I feel that his use of the term "political unit" might give a wrong impression abroad. The British Empire is not a political unit, but is in fact a unitary system, which is something quite different. It is not correct to describe the Empire as a political unit, because the Dominions sometimes have a different view from that of this country. I know that the hon. Gentleman is a student of these things, but I think that it will give an unfortunate impression if he uses that actual term.

I am obliged to the noble Lord. I was using the word "unit" more in its Greek sense of a common civic entity. By his intervention, the noble Lord has directed me to another aspect of this matter. The uniting bond is the Crown and as the Crown is a matter which we always discuss in this House with great delicacy, I will endeavour not to give you reason to call me to Order, Mr. Speaker. Either the unitary system that is implied by the Crown is something real or it is not. If it is not something real I think we must face the fact that it might be desirable that the various members of our Commonwealth should split up and regard their association as at an end, and that we should find some other means of providing a unitary state. If, on the other hand, it means something, if it is a matter of importance, I think we have to take into account that it is conceivable that if, for instance, the political developments of the world went, as we hope they would not, if we found ourselves unable to set up a system to prevent war, and if we find ourselves falling back into a competition in arms and a continual political manoeuvre for the advantage of one group of states over another—then I think it possible that a division of policy between the members of the British Commonwealth might have the most serious implications and complications. That would not be fair to the Dominions themselves, still less would it be fair to this country, which is the habitual habitation of the Crown and least of all would it be fair to the Sovereign at the moment, especially if it happened that, in the wisdom of Providence, that Sovereign was an innocent and inexperienced young woman or girl.

I think those are problems which we should face. If the link of the Crown means anything, if it is the outward and visible symbol of an inward and spiritual reality linking the peoples of the British Commonwealth together, then I think the peoples of the British Commonwealth should be united in their policy for the establishment of a coherent world order for the prevention of war, or, if that should unhappily fail, for securing the protection of its members in the event of another conflict.

I want to say just one word about the position of the various members of the Commonwealth vis-à-vis ourselves in this matter. First, there is the problem of relations in Canada. There are two outstanding aspects of that which I think we are bound to take into account in considering these matters. Since the last war broke out, Canada has entered into a Joint Defence Board with the United States for their mutual protection in the event of war. Nothing I say this afternoon must be construed as criticism of anything that the Government or people of Canada have done. I think, personally, that they were perfectly right, and the step they took when they became members of the Joint Defence Board was inevitable. I think it was to the long-term interest both of the British race and of the peace of the world that this should have taken place. None the less it does imply inevitably, under existing circumstances, unless you have a world order, a common foreign policy. Therefore, one very important member of the Commonwealth has a common foreign policy today, in all vital matters, with a State which is not a member of the Commonwealth at all.

So has this country, in fact; let us not be mealy-mouthed about it.

The noble Lord says that, and he may be right; I will not dispute it.

What is going on in Paris?

At the same time, we arc free, as Canada, in a sense, is not free, to withdraw from that association. The fact remains, if that is so, if we have an agreement with the United States of America for common self protection, that has at important significance upon our foreign policy, and I think it should be considered not only with regard to our foreign policy but with regard to measures that we are obliged to take for security. If the United States have, in fact, some advantage, as I assume they have, from that association, then they have a responsibility to see that the asociation is preserved. The Joint Defence Board has not, so far, resulted in Canada becoming a member of the Pan-American Union, but it is quite obvious that that will be a development which is liable to take place in the near future. That again is a matter which I bring out not as criticism or complaint but as a question which I think we should rightly consider from time to time in this House with regard to its implications. When, some time ago, Lord Halifax, who is not a political figure with whom I often find myself in agreement, was advocating something of the same kind as I am advocating today—a greater political union of action between the members of the Commonwealth—he was met by Mr. Mackenzie King, who said:

"I maintain that apart from all questions as to how the common policy is to be reached and enforced, such a conception runs counter to the establishment of effective world security and therefore is opposed to the true interests of the Commonwealth itself. We are certainly determined to see the closest collaboration continued between Canada, the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries. Nothing that I am saying should be construed as supporting any other view than this. Collaboration inside the British Commonwealth has and will continue to have a special degree of intimacy. When, however, it comes to dealing with the great issues which determine peace or war, prosperity or depression, it must not, in aim or method, be exclusive in meeting world issues of security, employment and social standards. We must join not only with Commonwealth countries, but with all like-minded States if our purposes and ideals are to prevail. Our commitments on these great issues must be part of a general scheme, whether they be on a world basis or regional in nature. We look forward, therefore to close collaboration in the interests of peace not only inside the British Commonwealth but also with the small friendly nations outside it as well as the great."

These are brave words, but the real question is, are they significant words? Does the Prime Minister of Canada mean that he is going to advocate that he believes he will be able to reach an order of that kind in which the world will be secured from war? If he does nobody will he more pleased than the people of this country. Nobody will more heartily agree when we can return to a situation in which the various members of the Commonwealth can act independently in freedom. So long as we have not reached that state and so long as the problem of an effective peace system on the one hand and war on the other remains, there can be no reason whatever why the British Commonwealth should not act as a single unit for the prosecution of this aim of obtaining a proper and decent world order, and why we should be ashamed to think for a moment that that should be desirable I do not know.

Only last Tuesday there was an article in "The Times" referring to the Peace Conference. It explicitly prefaced its remarks by saying that, of course, the British Empire, as members of the British Commonwealth, never acted as a bloc. But we should act as a bloc. There is nothing to be ashamed in that if we are acting in our own interests. Other nations act in blocs. There is the Pan-American Union, and the Russian system has become a bloc. There is no conceivable reason why we should not act as a bloc for peaceful purposes—

Is not that what in fact the Empire did in the first week of the war?

The noble Lord is correct. They did. The point I am discussing now is whether it is likely to happen again. One reason why it is not is, I suggest, the existence of the Joint Defence Board which makes it almost certain that if a localised war in which we were involved broke out in Europe, Canada could not again come to our assistance for the reason that, if attack was made, which has now become quite feasible, it would be by a European State. Let us suppose that Germany revives and regains her ancient power, and in 15 or 20 years another war breaks out between Germany and England in Europe. It would be impossible for Canada, under those conditions, again to come to our assistance, unless the United States agrees, and it is quite possible, in view of the powerful weapons now existing in the world, that the United States would not agree. That is the problem we have to consider.

I pass next to Australia. Australia has not yet found herself in the Joint Defence Board. I think that is only a matter of time. I do not see how the United States, if they felt that they were threatened by a world war in a measurable distance of time, could possibly avoid coming to the conclusion that the defence of those outposts in the Pacific was vital. What the consequences of that would be, I do not wish to pursue at this juncture. I only wish to point out the likelihood of it. But suppose that that does not happen, and Australia becomes involved in a war with a revived and refortified Japan. What are our responsibilities with regard to Australia? No country in the world is so vulnerable to airborne invasion. No country has so vast a coastline. Have we any responsibilities in the event of such a thing happening to go to the assistance of Australia? Legally, I do not think we have such responsibility but morally, of course, we have great responsibility; and if the world again entered into a situation in which there was a competitive race in arms, we should have to consider the protection of our communications with the Pacific very seriously indeed.

Lastly, there is the problem of South Africa. We have our own differences with South Africa from time to time about questions of race and colour and so on, but they are not, I trust, serious questions. South Africa occupies a position of great importance in connection with our strategic communications. Now that the Mediterranean may not be available to us as a passage in the event of war our position would be of greater seriousness. In any discussion that may take place between this country and South Africa in regard to these problems, the other members of the Dominions should be called in for the fullest consultation. It may be that they are, but we have not had anything like a full-dress Imperial Conference for a considerable time. Such conferences as those with the Prime Ministers allowed very little to escape. In this country we know very little of our responsibilities, obligations and duties with regard to Imperial defence and preservation of Imperial communications in the event of war. Those responsibilities and duties have been enormously transformed by the inventions at the end of the last war, even if we do not take into consideration the atomic bomb. Our whole system of military defence and security has been put on a quite different footing. That makes it all the more important that we should without fail do our best to see that a true and effective peace system is implemented as soon as possible.

For my part I would add nothing to the difficulties of His Majesty's Government at this juncture with regard to these problems, but, without any question, unless this problem is faced candidly and courageously in the near future it will present us with unmanageable difficulties with regard to our attitude at Peace Conferences and in securing an effective system of self-defence while we are trying to build up an effective world system. The responsibilities of His Majesty's Government, and in particular those of the Foreign Secretary, are greater today than anything faced by any Ministers of the Crown or Rulers of this country since our history first began. Unless this problem be solved, I doubt whether we shall, in the end, be able to solve the problems of peace.

I rise only for one purpose and intend to speak only for a short time. I shall then ask the permission of Mr. Speaker and of the House to leave before the Debate is over—if one may apologise in advance—because I have to catch a train. I hope that it will not be considered by the Dominions that the very small attendance in the House on this occasion is any indication of lack of interest in this subject. The hon. Member for Central Southwark (Mr. Martin) has, on an afternoon when the House is adjourning for the Recess, raised a question of immense complexity which cannot possibly be disposed of even in the half hour's speech he has made and really requires a three-day Debate. The problems go to the very roots of national and international existence. So far as I am aware, nobody knew that the hon. Member was going to speak on this subject. I certainly did not know. If I had known, I should have consulted the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden), who speaks for the Opposition in matters of foreign policy. Because I have not had an opportunity of consulting him, I am not going to propound any policy but only mention a fact or two. No one who knows the sincerity of the hon. Member would quarrel with him for having raised the subject. It was a speech of some length, and, if I may say so, not of great clarity. It attempted to deal in a "flibberty gibbet" way—if I may use that term—with matters of immense complexity such as inter-Imperial defence, and things of that kind. With all his sentiments I think many of us would be in agreement, and with many of his sentiments in great agreement. I think it would be useful for someone on this side of the House to make clear that the reason why there is such a small attendance is because no one knew the matter was to be raised in this way. It does not mean that the House is not interested in these matters, which are vital to the future of this country and, indeed, to the whole world.

I did not mean to use the term "mealy-mouthed" in any derogatory sense, but one of the things which alarms me, having been in the House not only before, but after, the 1914–18 war, is the tendency to talk around a subject which was symptomatic of those years. Everyone, whether Tory, Socialist or Liberal, in and out of the House, if not a complete lunatic, wants to see the greatest possible measure of international cooperation. But what all these speakers ignore, is that it just not does exist at the present time, and cannot exist until some working agreement between the great Allies and small Allies on the one side, and the Soviet Union on the other, can be found. Until then, it does not exist, and no one can deny that. The aspirations of the Minister of State cannot be satisfied until there is an understanding with Russia. I am not criticising anyone—I am not entitled to speak on behalf of the Opposition on foreign policy—I am merely stating facts. Until cooperation exists, we must face the facts of the present situation. It is more evident every day that, for the purpose of mutual safety, to put it no higher than that, the United States and this country have to act together. They are acting together. The Foreign Secretary and Mr. Byrnes could hardly be in closer contact in regard to these conferences. Similarly, the Dominions must work in close contact with us and the United States.

As I understood it, the hon. Member wants a different system in the future and says that we must either have a closer integration, or the whole thing will come to an end. I am not so sure. I think that the British Commonwealth, like this country, flourishes on inconsistency. Although I do not personally agree with all the political views of my old friend, Mr. MacKenzie King, for whom I have the greatest admiration and respect, I agree with a great many of the hesitancies he sometimes shows on these matters. At the moment, there is the closest possible working arrangement between the United States, the Dominions, and ourselves, and, of course, the Colonies. Until a better system, a world economic and spiritual agreement takes place, that is the best thing this country and the Dominions can do. Everyone hopes that the much bigger achievement will be reached, but it is still very far from being reached as yet.

The point I was making, was that there should be a unitary effort by the members of the Commonwealth to secure the peace system. I do not mean that there should be greater integration for all purposes, but, until the peace system is secured, for that particular purpose there should be greater unity than is being shown at present.

I think the answer to that is that, from a practical working point of view, in these matters we are working with the Dominions very closely at present. I see a slight danger in this position. I think the whole House is in agreement that we want to get a general world economic, military, political, and spiritual agreement, and that we have not got at present. If we emphasise too much that in lieu of obtaining it, we should build up a new system, we are in danger. I think it would be better to have things as they are. The position today is that the United States, the Dominions, and ourselves are working as closely together as any countries could. In lieu of the complete system, that is the only alternative. Most of us on this side of the House would like to pay tribute to the Foreign Secretary, the Dominion Prime Ministers, and Mr. Byrnes who have made that possible. As a Tory, I think we all owe to Mr. Byrnes, the Foreign Secretary, and Dr. Evatt and the representatives of the Dominions, the utmost debt of gratitude for maintaining the relationship between the Dominions, this country and the United States which, unhappily, no longer exists, and which even the greatest optimist could not imagine for one moment exists, between those countries and the Soviet Union. It may be recreated, but today it does not exist.

I feel that this subject would require a three days' Debate and an Imperial conference and, probably, a world conference, before we could reach a clear view of the picture. However, I think we are indebted to the hon. Member for Central Southwark (Mr. Martin) for the great sincerity he shows in dealing with this subject, and it is all to the good that it should be aired, even on the Friday before the Recess.

I would like to deal with the point made by the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) in regard to the Canadian Prime Minister. I think that what we are pleading for is not any sacrifice of political status or centralisation, but for consultations consistent with the speed of modern events and modern times, in order to avoid the kind of misunderstanding which happened, for instance, over the Dominion consultations on Egypt. The hon. Member for Central Southwark referred to the Joint Défence Board. It may be, as he said, that Australia will eventually come into the Board, and Canada is certainly in it. I am not quite sure that I agreed with him when he implied that this means that the fixed or exclusive relationship in foreign policy between America and Canada might become closer than between Canada and this country. Those who have been to Canada, have had an opportunity to discuss the matter with distinguished French Canadians in Ottawa. As the noble Lord said, that suggestion of the hon. Member would be unfortunate. The statement of the Canadian Prime Minister, on his recent visit to this country, would endorse what I am saying. There is no question whatever of any fundamental shift of Canadian policy in that matter. Enormous ramifications of defence policy go far beyond what the hon. Member for Central Southwark dealt with, and beyond even a Committee of Imperial Defence. Canada is a member of the dollar area and, at the same time, is concerned with the Ottawa Agreements, and is having extreme difficulty in that respect with the sterling area. She has had to come to this House to increase the number of her constituencies which is extraordinary. All these things have to be reviewed in the light of international relations.

I have made a lot of speeches on this subject and I am not going to make one at great length at this hour. The Statute of Westminster envisaged the status of the members of the Commonwealth of British Nations, but it never set up machinery for democratic consultation upon this new basis. Time after time we get the same problem arising between the Dominions Office and Ottawa, Canberra and other capitals. We had it during the war. Lloyd George solved the problem by having an Imperial War Cabinet and an Imperial War Council. We never had that in the war which has just ended. There was a difficulty. Canada had a distinct point of view on the matter, and Australia was pressing almost in the opposite direction.

A great deal depends on the kind of initiative which is taken by His Majesty's Government. Surely, Canberra, Ottawa and South Africa are still interested in any new proposals or initiative which may come from His Majesty's Government. It may be that the status of the High Commissioners should be increased to Ministerial level so that they could sit in Cabinets when foreign policy was being decided—sit at policy-making level and not merely to be informed when the decision has been taken. Do the Government object to them having a voice in foreign policy-making? Perhaps that is one of the things we ought to suggest, something which we might take the initiative in putting to the Dominion Prime Ministers. The "scrambler" telephone, which provides completely private direct communication between the Empire capitals, may have made things easier; fast aircraft, the jet air-liner, will make consultation much easier. It may be that the wireless system will assist in the machinery of consultation.

Where I think the hon. Gentleman opposite put his finger on an important point was in his view that it may be that in some of the Dominions the old idea that Tory Imperialism still dominates Whitehall exists. I think there is a newer, fresher opinion in the Dominions, which sees the Commonwealth of British nations as a democratic arrangement. That is to say, we want to see that while, say, a young scientist on atomic energy may come from Australia or anywhere else, there should be some way whereby the united view of the British Commonwealth can be expressed. I have raised that point on many occasions in this House, but the initiative must be that of His Majesty's Government. Otherwise we should shut up the Dominions Office. I would myself like to abolish the Dominions Office and Colonial Office and set up a Commonwealth Consultation Council in this country. What disturbs me, and the noble Lord, with many of us, has said this on numerous occasions, is that there appears to be no kind of initiative here on these new ideas. That is the criticism in Canada, Australia and South Africa—that we have surrendered our initiative, as the home country in a great democratic confederation.

We really ought to have a Debate on this subject, because time is a vital factor on this question. The defence of this country cannot be organised unless the vast question of the decentralisation of industrial war potential is tackled. Is anybody in the Government doing that? Has anyone in the Government measured the narrow margin by which we got through in the last war, and how long it takes a democracy to mobilise its production, scientific resources and the rest? The Committee of Imperial Defence should have upon it scientists and industrialists also from the Dominions. We should plan our economic development and research, and the nucleus of our decentralisation—aircraft plants and technical development plants and laboratories in South Africa, Australia and Canada. This is life and death for this country. I have said this for the last four or five years, but no one appears to want to initiate this. Certainly, bring the United States into these consultations, but unless we consult with the Dominion Governments and make this policy one which can be carried out, we have no more chance of planning the defence and security of this country than the man in the moon. I have asked over and over again whether there is anybody thinking about this? I ask it again today.

I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. The main thing he has to do is to justify the existence of the Dominions Office. We should have a visionary policy which will capture the imagination of the younger people of the Dominions in regard to the scientific and-industrial potentialities of the British Commonwealth. Let us have an industrial Cecil Rhodes scholarship system which envisages an exchange throughout the whole of the Commonwealth. Give us these things, such as wireless and modern equipment, in which youth is interested. No lead of any kind comes from the Dominions Office. If the Dominions turn to Washington and the Joint Defence Board , and get a lead and initiative there, they will turn there also in design, science, industry and production. I realise that the hon. Gentleman has not held office for long, and that this is a problem which touches something of Government, Dominion and international policy. I would ask him to go back to his Department and really make the Dominions Office do something about this matter which will be considered really worth while.

I am just back from Canada where I had some conversation with the Canadian Prime Minister. I wish I could speak at length on Canadian affairs but as I have only about four minutes in which to speak I cannot follow the argument of the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Granville) in detail. But I will say this: I cannot accept the point of view he expressed in accusing this Government—or past Governments; I am not making a party point—of lack of initiative. It is quite useless to think we can dictate to Canada or any other Dominion on their policy.

I have been in this House for 17 years and I am against dictation from Whitehall. I am an advocate of a democratic Commonwealth, but I say that unless we can initiate from a Dominions Office, then why have it?

There is obviously a distinction between initiative and dictation but in this matter it is a thin one. My impression was that Canadians were very satisfied with the Dominions Office. What I would welcome is initiative coming from the Dominions. Both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member asked in effect for some new instrument of unity; I think the phrase was new machinery of consultation. I wish, in that connection, to draw attention to the one piece of machinery which does exist, and which has not been mentioned at all, the Empire Parliamentary Association. Presumably everyone here knows of the office in Westminster Hall. It is known to Dominion statesmen and Members of Dominion Parliaments everywhere. They frequently make use of that office, and it arranges the provision of seats for them in the Gallery. It also issues a quarterly journal describing the work of the Parliaments of the Empire, which circulates also in the United States of America. Above all, the primary task of the Association is to arrange for delegations to visit the Dominions. I cannot think that the importance of that work is yet sufficiently realised. From 1890 onwards men have talked vaguely of a Parliament of Empire. Some have gone further and talked about a Parliament of Man, a Federation of the World, phrases which, to many of us, now must seem the phrases of a visionary, a dreamer, or as I hope, a prophet. However that may be, it is certainly not yet realised that in the Empire Parliamentary Association there is at the moment the nearest approach to a Parliament of that kind which exists.

I have a happy memory of the E.P.A. meeting at Bermuda this year. It was in a House very similar to this House, the Bermudian House of Representatives, that, under the chairmanship of the Lord Chief Justice of Bermuda, there sat down British Members of Parliament of all parties, Canadian Members of Parliament of all parties, a New Zealand Member of Parliament, with American Senators and Members of the American House of Representatives. There we had a discussion similar to what well might have taken place here. We found Labour or C.C.F. Members from Canada, Members of the British Labour Party talking with Conservative Members of all their countries, , and I never saw anything that more nearly resembled an Empire Parliament than that Conference. That is a most valuable instrument of unity which has so far not been mentioned at all. I know, of course, that there must be primary contacts between the Governments of the Dominions and America, but in addition to that, there is very great importance in the contacts which already exist and have proved so valuable between private Members upon whom, in the end, Governments must depend.

One other question. Is it realised, for example, that, in the United States, there are 23 Senators, under the able chairmanship of Senator Hatch, and 38 Members of the House of Representatives, 61 Members of Congress in all, in their group which is attached to the Empire Parliamentary Association, a significant fact? Nor have I never known better relations exist or more friendly discussions take place than took place on that occasion. One last recollection. I remember very vividly the honour which I had of addressing the whole of the American C.C.F., the nearest equivalent to the British Labour Party. That was an invaluable opportunity, because, through the C.T.F., it was possible to put across our point of view and receive in return the Canadian point of view. It was an honour I shared with my hon. Friends the Members for Normanton (Mr. T. Smith) and Wansbeck (Mr. Robens). From the Canadian and American Senators I gained much, I learned much. May such opportunities recur and may the E.P.A., which makes them possible, thrive and grow.

Lastly, I would like to quote to the House something which was written by Mr. Duncan Hall, an Australian and former Professor at Harvard University. This is what he said about the Empire Parliamentary Association:

"It is only when account is taken of the work of the Association that we can fully explain the extraordinary unanimity of the Parliaments of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand on the necessity of their countries entering the war, and the rapid decision of South' Africa, to take and remain steadfast in the same course despite the opposition of a substantial minority. The machinery of the Empire worked because Parliamentarians, Ministers of the Crown and leading officials had met so early and worked together so long on common tasks, knew each other so well, and saw each other so often."

That is a very high tribute indeed and one of which this House should take note. One last sentence:

"It may well be, that in the near future, as a result of the discussions here in Washington, that the first inter-Parliamentary Conference of the English-speaking peoples will become a possibility and this may open a new chapter in the history of the Empire Parliamentary Association."

That conference has now taken place. It is done. I think this House ought to be aware of it. I think it ought to be proud of it, and of the work, the E.P.A. has done on its behalf.

I am grateful to my hon. Friends who have spoken in this Debate for their kindly references to myself. I am sorry that the noble Lord had to go, because he did say something about the arrangements for this Debate, and I would like to inform him that notice of this Debate has appeared in the usual place just outside this Chamber for a week. I am a strong believer in the British Commonwealth and Empire system, not because of its old form of Tory imperialism, to which the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. E. Granville) has referred, but because I see in the British Commonwealth of Nations the greatest moral force in the world. I do not think we should be too disturbed by what has been said about the paucity of attendance. I might also add that it is infrequent that Debates of this kind take place, and I believe there is strength in both those observations. I believe it is a fact that the Commonwealth and the Empire is such a smooth-running machine that we find that there is confidence among all Members of Parliament in leaving it to the Department concerned, without raising the matter often in Debate.

We have heard today about the need for unification. I do not subscribe to that. Indeed, there has never been any question of unification between parts of the Commonwealth. A free discussion runs through all our peoples, we have common ideals and it is a common purpose that keeps us together. There are consultations on all matters, as we know, and, on the one particularly mentioned today— defence—it naturally follows that there is consultation on that matter as well as on the others. It is no secret that, at the recent Conference of the Dominion Prime Ministers, defence was one of the problems considered.

Our strength lies in the exchange of ideas and information. The rigid centralized machine is foreign to our way of life. I am quite sure we all agree with that, and that that kind of machine, or that sort of rigidity, does not suit us. I think it is too early to lay down what would happen if we had the unhappy event of a future war. The last war was instructive, and I suppose it would be true to say, that one of the disasters between the 1914–18 war and the war that occurred in 1939 was that we did not realise that new wars begin where the old wars leave off. Therefore, I think it is too early to make any decision about these matters. It was inevitable, of course, that the burden of the last war should fall upon the United Kingdom. We had the task of maintaining a front in Europe, as well as defending our lines of communication and our Colonial Empire. Fortunately for us, we were successful, but we also know that the Dominions recognised that and have been most generous in their references to the way in which we carried that burden. I make one quotation only, as an illustration. Other Dominion Ministers have expressed similar sentiments, and I will quote only these words of Premier Chifley of Australia:

"I referred earlier to the heavy burden of the military commitments being borne by the people of the United Kingdom, who poured out blood and treasure without stint to save the world. I therefore told the Conference, and I am certain that I was expressing the sentiments of both sides of this House and of the people of Australia, that it was recognised that Australia must, in future, make a larger contribution towards the defence of the British Commonwealth."

After a comment like that, the matter must not be left without paying tribute to the magnificent part the Dominions played in Empire defence. During the war, I was a Deputy Regional Commissioner in the South-East of England and I had an opportunity of working with Canadians and of knowing of the wonderful work which they did at the time of our direst peril. Equal tributes could be paid about Australia and New Zealand, who, apart from their own campaign in the Far East, also fought alongside us in Egypt. South Africa is remembered for the tremendous part her troops played in the Battle of Alamein. Time does not permit me to acknowledge fully these valiant services. Spontaneous cooperation, in fact, has been our strength, and I agree with the interjection made by the noble Lord the Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) about the outbreak of the 1939 war, when there was instantaneous cooperation between all the members of the Commonwealth, in the struggle that appeared before us.

Reference was made to the close cooperation between Canada and the United States. This is founded on a long tradition and of joint participation in the last war. For my part, I see in it a source of strength for peace for the world as a whole. I do not think we need to be disturbed about it at all. I referred earlier to the lessons of the last war. We know that towards the end of the last war there were new developments and they, in due course, may provide us with even more sensational developments, as we heard this morning, during an earlier Debate in connection with atomic energy. We all have in our memory, I am sure, recollection of the rockets which fell near this great assembly, of the flying bombs, and finally of the atomic bomb itself. In the same way as the aeroplane assisted to contract the world for war purposes between the last two wars, so it is that these weapons equally can contract the world for the future. No country can ignore them until there is real peace.

The Commonwealth countries, of course, are examining them. I think it is common knowledge that a mission recently went from this country to Australia to investigate with the authorities there a site, and possibly a way in which long range rockets could be used. The mission has made a report which is being considered. I should not be expected to say anything more than that. Comments appeared in the Press about the scientific conference held in London recently. Not only did the conference consider matters generally, but, obviously, they considered these new scientific weapons from the point of view of defence. I suppose it would be quite right to say that there was a pooling of information on the matter. I think it is generally known that as far as the Services are concerned already there is a uniformity of organisational training and equipment.

It is true to say that the United Kingdom have kept in more constant consultation with the Dominions than ever before. In 1944, we had all the Prime Ministers from the Dominions here. In 1945, we had a visit from the Prime Ministers of New Zealand and South Africa, and Dr. Evatt, the Australian Minister of External Affairs. This year, as hon. Members know, all the Dominion Prime Ministers have been in this country at one time or another. I think that is an indication that there is the closest and fullest consultation between us. His Majesty's Government have proposed to the Dominion Governments the establishment in each Dominion of United Kingdom liaison officers for the purpose of studying defence problems with the local military authorities, and have suggested reciprocal arrangements in London. These proposals are still under consideration by the Dominion Govern- ments. The exact method of organising such interchanges necessarily must vary from Dominion to Dominion in the light of local circumstances, the object being to secure such a measure of coordination as is practicable.

I was asked if I would note all the comments that were made during this Debate and take them back with me to the Dominion's Office. That I propose to do. I agree that in a short time that we have had we have not been able to cover all the ground, but I repeat that it has been a worth while Debate and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Central Southwark (Mr. Martin) for raising the matter.

I wish to raise the question of the vast increase in forms, circulars, and regulations used for official purposes which has fallen upon this country during the one year of Socialist rule. I raise the matter because I feel there is a strong case for an inquiry as to whether or not some of this paper is being wasted. During the researches which I have been carrying out on the subject up and down the country, I have tried to look at it from the point of view of the ordinary man or woman on the farm, in the factory, in the street, and especially the ordinary man or woman in his or her home. The impression that I have formed, and I am not afraid to say it, is that instead of food, we have forms, instead of foundations for our houses we have forms, instead of freedom we have forms, and instead of fuel we have forms.

I do not wish to overstate this case. I fully accept that control and regulations are necessary during a period of shortage and that it is essential for the Government to have a strategic plan. I believe, however, that this Government are falling' down on their job. They are trying to fight the detailed battle of industry and agriculture, which cannot be done from Whitehall with paper work. It is leading to an appalling increase in the amount of raw material used for newsprint and paper being used by the Government instead of by industry.

If we take the case of food, I can quote the example of a baker in my constituency who supplies 800 houses. At the end of a rationing period he had to deal with 115,000 small pieces of paper. I do not know whether the Minister of Food is expecting to celebrate his silver wedding but, if he is collecting confetti, surely he could choose some other way. On my own farm I have to fill in one form for the Ministry of Agriculture for potatoes and another for the Ministry of Food. The farmer is in the front line and it is up to everybody behind to back him up. I do not see why a man on a motor bicycle should not come round and ask me how many potatoes I have got in the ground and then go away and with a piece of chalk and mark it up on a board in the W.A.E.C. office. I throw that out as a suggestion.

So far as freedom is concerned, there is a grave danger of "gagging" because of the shortage of newsprint. What is the situation of the Press at home? " The Times " yesterday reported that the President of the Imperial Press Conference, a distinguished Australian, came back to this country from Canada and America and said that consumption there was increasing. The Canadian newspapers were using 25 to 20 per cent. more paper and the American papers were using about 15 per cent. more. He is reported to have said that the size of their newspapers is about 48 pages, whereas we have four pages. The words which he is alleged to have used were that the shortage of paper was affecting the attitude of the public mind. I fully accept that with the shortage of dollars it is difficult to import raw materials, but I believe an energetic Government would have got them from the Continent and the Baltic and Scandinavian countries.

The present situation, where the papers of this country are 74 per cent. less in size than they were before the war and where countries abroad have more than ever, is intolerable. It is no use saying that it is a case only of dollars. I looked through the South African Press and found that their papers were two and a half times the size of ours. This matter should be given urgent consideration during the two months before we meet again. Then I hope that one of my hon. Friends will raise the matter if I myself should not catch Mr. Speaker's eye. I believe this shortage of paper is having a most unfortunate effect upon journalists. All the Press, including the " Daily Herald " and the " Daily Worker," have, I understand, loyally carried out their obligations and reemployed journalists who were in the Forces. I was very impressed by one of these gentlemen from the Dominions who attended the Imperial Press Conference. When I was lunching with him he said that one of the things which impressed him was that a very large number of our young journalists wanted to leave this country. They had their jobs but they did not get their " copy " into the papers and, as a result, they preferred to go to Canada or South Africa where they would not feel that they were working and yet unable to get their views, their reports, or their news published.

I was very disappointed when in answer to a Question I put to him the President of the Board of Trade said recently that he was not going to reduce the amount of paper supplied to Government Departments. There is a tremendous demand for it for education, novels, periodicals and publications of all sorts, not only of an educational and political nature, but of a light and even a sporting nature. It is almost impossible now to follow cricket, which is regarded as quite important in the county of Kent. Some of these forms could be dispensed with now. Let me take the question of fuel. When I asked a question a short time ago, according to the Minister of Fuel, we were getting only one per cent. of the oil produced by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Surely, we could wash out a very large number of forms concerning fuel which have to be filled in by the private individual and by industry if only we could import a higher percentage from Iraq.

The biggest offenders in creating paper work are the Service Departments. The Duke of Wellington and every great soldier since his day have complained of the paper work "churned out" from Whitehall. The moment the commander-in-chief is given decentralised responsibility, the paper work drops. I saw that myself very vividly in Egypt in 1939. When all our bits of paper were blown away in the Desert we were supposed to put in an explanation for everything we had lost. The moment the commander-in-chief had adequate powers, we were able to get ready for the job of war and a great decrease took place in paper work. The young men and women in the Forces are sitting at desks filling in petty forms. We know we have to have a large clerical establishment in an organisation like the Army, but I am prepared to wager outside this House with any hon. Member that there are now practically no units in the Army which are working to their normal clerical establishment. They are taking in young men who should be training in order to deal with this paper work. Hon. Members on this side of the House, who have as much experience as I have of Service matters, will bear me out. Here is an example. In my constituency, and in many other constituencies, there are halls which are requisitioned, or were until recently. Anybody could hire those halls by arrangement. In one case which I will quote, a gentleman in holy orders was accustomed to hire a hall for a social on Fridays in aid of his church funds. After filling in a form he went to the clerk and said, " Can I have a lease for a few months? " The clerk said, " I am very sorry; you must fill in a form for each occasion." He filled in the form, being a studious man, and after a few weeks he went back and said, "I see that on this form I have to fill in the size of the building. Surely the size does not vary. Need I do that? " The clerk said, " Yes, you have to." In desperation he started to enlarge the size of the hall in the form concerned until it became the size of the Albert Hall. Then, in desperation, he reduced it to the size of a postage stamp, but still nobody has noticed this.

With regard to the building of houses, many local authorities of Independent, Socialist and Conservative points of view would truthfully say that nothing has been achieved—so would many ex-Servicemen. There have been 300 instructions sent out by the Ministers of Health and Works. I am not in a position to say whether or not they are all necessary; I look at the matter from the worm's eye point of view. In the opinion of the town clerk of Bridgwater, 37 forms are needed before a house can be built. One of my local buliders wrote to me:

"It would appear the paper question is increasing daily. Instead of being able to build houses we must fill in forms from mom till night. In our experience the result is a great increase in overhead expenses and a corresponding reduction in results."

I understand from that firm, which is quite a small one, that they have had 100 per cent. more clerks and 100 per cent. increase in telephone costs in a year. I ask if that is necessary. I think it is not. The " buck " is passed between the Ministry of Works and the War Damage Commission. The small people who have had their houses destroyed do not possess the capital to rebuild their houses, the builders are running out of capital and an impasse has been reached especially in coastal towns. There is a hold up in the rebuilding of houses owing to all the paper work, resulting in the slowing down in the settlement of these war damage claims.

With regard to freedom from want or our export trade, I took the trouble to inquire into a number of industries in the Midlands. There are many small businesses there; out of 13,000, 10,000 employ fewer than 20 people each. In those businesses the master man is not where his skill is needed in the factory. He is filling in forms to get licences for raw materials, pay-as-you-earn, purchase tax, import licences, etc. That sort of thing must force up the cost of the articles when they are produced, and in many cases it does not improve their quality. I cannot believe that all those forms are necessary. In the case of a slightly larger factory employing between 50 and 200 people, as the result of questions I had asked, a business gentleman whom I did not know came to see me. Later he wrote as follows:

"All these forms affecting businesses in Birmingham demand a special department with very complete and carefully indexed records, so that they may be at any time available for scrutiny by a Government Department, whose officials can visit us without appointment and can demand sight of this information. My clerical establishment is up 300 per cent. on the 1939 level without an increase of production and with a natural rise in costs."

This state of affairs will produce a lower standard of living in this country because we shall not be able to compete in the markets in the world. That is the result of one man's inquiry. The result of my inquiry may be at variance with those of my colleagues, but that is what I have found. My general impression is that there are too many forms.

Let us look at it from the point of view of the Government. Broadly speaking, based on a recent question I asked, I believe that His Majesty's Government are using 80,000 tons of paper a year as compared with 20,000 tons which were used two years before the outbreak of the war. I would have expected a redaction because a large proportion of that paper increase was caused by the Services and by new Departments. I would refer hon. Members to the Civil Estimates for 1946 where, in Class VII on page 64, they will see that on paper alone the Coalition Government in 1945 were spending £1,610,000, whereas the Labour Government propose to spend £5,975,000 in 1946. That is not a decrease; it is a colossal increase. It breaks down into the most amazing figures. On Press advertisements the figures have gone up from £35,000 to £130,000. Some of these figures would be funny if they were not so tragic. On photography the figures have increased from £125,000 in 1945 to £420,000 in 1946. Why do we want to spend £420,000 on photographs; are we all going to be given photos of the Chancellor or of pin-up girls? It is perfect nonsense. The figure for printing and writing paper has increased from £1,040,000 in 1945 to £4,100,000 in 1946. There is little more writing paper available for the woman in her home or for the industrialist or for advertisers. What about blotting paper which, I think, includes wrapping paper? The figure has increased from £120,000 to £809,000 in one year. Those are staggering figures. What about the expense of printing forms? The Government's predecessors spent £910,500 last year. I thought that was enough. This Government propose to spend £3,272,350 in 1946.

Is not the explanation for that the fact that this Government is doing considerably more work?

This Government is cluttering up the country with gross inefficiency and forms. Be that as it may, surely if £8 million more is to be spent on stationery and printing, would not the hon. Member or any ordinary person expect the salvage to go up or down? I would expect more to be salvaged. According to the Civil Estimates which I have here, the sales of waste paper are going down by £32,000 this year as compared with 1945. I am very grateful to the Minister for coming here. I am making a party case of this, because I believe Socialism will always be wrapped up in forms. I implore the Minister to make a careful inquiry in the next two months to see if he cannot give the free people of this country a little bit more freedom.

I desire to support my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Hythe (Brigadier Mackeson). He has given several very striking examples of the increase in the waste of paper caused by Government Departments in form filling. I want to make a general point, which really affects the whole trade and future of this country. There is a thing which we in business circles call " velocity of turnover." In ordinary parlance it is described as '' time is money." We are told by Ministers of the Crown—who had to face facts when they had the responsibility of office, who had to wake up to the fact that an increase in our export trade was a vital necessity—that our export trade must be increased. I will not detain the House this afternoon by going into details, but I have had case after case sent to me, showing how the export trade has been held up because the forms have not gone through; files have been lost, and export hampered for that reason. In addition to that, the internal business of the country is hampered. The other day I had a form, which I have since passed on to the Minister of Labour, sent to me by a. farmer who wanted a man released for a fortnight or three weeks to help him during the harvest. Speaking from memory, it was a page of foolscap with questions on both sides, asking the maiden name of the man's mother, the colour of her hair and eyes, or such perfectly ridiculous questions, merely to get a man released to help in a vital harvest for a fortnight.

I will give another reason why I think all this filling up of forms is very dangerous. I look upon this Government as one which has a lust for power, which is trying to get a stranglehold on every citizen in the country. The filling up of forms, whether it be for bread rationing or, when the National Health Bill comes in, the medical history sheet of every one in the country—

The medical record.

In the Army we call it a "medical history sheet." In time there will be in the Government offices detailed particulars of every citizen of this country. This Government, in their desire for power over the individual, will be able to exchange all those details of our private lives between the different Departments, and use them for any fell purpose they may have at the backs of their minds. I now wish to give an example of how, in some of the villages, the filling up of these forms by law abiding people becomes an absolute impossibility. I give the example of Mr. and Mrs. Dabnor, who are grocers in the village in which I live. They had two sons in the Air Force, one of whom I think was killed. All through the six years of war they strove valiantly to keep the food supply going. They told me themselves that after a hard day's work in the shop they were working till one or two o'clock most nights of the week, filling up endless forms. The consequence was, their health broke down, and, for a time at any rate, the shop was closed. The other day the Minister of Food told me that the rationing of bread —no doubt the hon. Lady will correct me if I am wrong; I am speaking from memory—would necessitate the printing of another 28 million cards. Recently, I have been in two different parts of the country, in small country villages, speaking to people like the baker to whom my hon. and gallant Friend referred in opening the Debate. Those country bakers say: "We do not want to break the law, but it is a physical impossibility for us to fill up the forms. We are going on providing our customers with the bread they want." What will happen when the end of the rationing period comes and they have to turn in their ration cards to get a further allocation, I do not know.

If this Socialist Government passes laws which are against the natural law— —[Interruption.]—Well, it is. The filling up of forms is against the freedom of the people. All this filling up of forms only accentuates the shortages and increases the work of the distributors. The system will inevitably break down. I can give another instance, of an old farmer. I will not say where he lives, because inspectors may be sent down to pursue him. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Hon. Members may say " Oh," but that has been done. In my constituency, when they were picking strawberries recently, two gentlemen appeared, inspectors of the Ministry of Food, to watch the picking and despatch of those strawberries. The farmer told them exactly what he thought of them. I will not say what he said because I would be out of Order, but they departed quickly. That old fanner is not a very good scholar. He has a small room just inside his front door, which is used as a gun-room or a boot-room. Whenever a form arrives he opens the door, chucks it in and takes no further notice of it. When anybody comes round and says, " What about filling up your forms?" He says, "They are in there. I am busy at work in the fields. If you want them you can fill them up yourself, and I will give you all the details." That illustrates how this totalitarian system of control of our lives keeps breaking down.

Therefore, I support my hon. and gallant Friend in the effort he is making. There is a small attendance here today, but I hope this scandal will be taken note of in the public Press, and that the people of this country will rise up in their wrath and take every legitimate—I emphasise "legitimate"—action they can to stop it. The frustration and delay in housing, in the distribution of food and in the export trade because of this filling up of forms are giving a serious blow to the domestic and overseas recovery of the trade of our country.

I think the House and the country are indebted to the hon. and gallant Member for Hythe (Brigadier Mackeson) who has raised this matter. It will give the Minister an opportunity of replying to a great many current criticisms to which the hon. and gallant Member has drawn attention. I agree with the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers) that it does present difficulties to certain people who have not been used to dealing with printed forms. Everybody sympathises with them, and I can only ask that the various Ministries should give people in that position all the assistance they possibly can by making the forms as simple and clear as possible.

Burn the lot.

Recently there have been, improvements in that respect, and I suggest that such proposals as that just made, to burn the lot, would under present conditions bring about impossible confusion. After all, we are all agreed, and it is not denied on any side of the House when the question is really faced seriously, that some sort of control is necessary at the present time. I would ask hon. Members to consider what the position would be, controls being necessary, if we attempted to do without forms. Suppose we had to deal with every individual commodity, and every individual person dealing in or handling those commodities, without printed forms. Talk about waste of paper—think of the amount of correspondence, think of the number of civil servants who would have to be employed, if every individual case had to have individual attention. And that is the alternative to filling in forms.

I happen to have had some experience in this matter. I was employed during the war both by the Ministry of Works and by the War Damage Commission, and I would say that if people who have to fill in forms would give the matter a little study and care at the beginning, they would find that it was not really so very difficult after all; having done that, if they would see to it that all the information asked for on the form was filled in in the proper place, it would render their business and the task of the various Ministries very much easier. I found, as the result of my experience in the Ministries, that when a form was not properly filled in, when certain information was left out, it caused additional writing, additional form filling and additional delays. Since coming out of the Ministries and going back into practice on my own, and finding myself having to deal with certain matters in the way of war damage repairs, I have discovered what an advantage it is to have forms and documents prepared which can be filled in to meet the various cases. Take the preparation of specifications for war damage in connection with various buildings. Suppose we had to deal with every individual building on its own, and had to write out a separate specification for every different job. It would need a tremendous lot of consideration and of duplicating or triplicating of writing, but by preparing an outline specification, which can be made applicable to almost any job, I have found a great saving in time, trouble and paper. I imagine that what I have discovered in my small way was discovered long ago by the various Ministries, and used to their advantage and to the advantage of the rest of the community.

There is one matter for criticism which I think the Minister would do very well to look into, and that is the amount of delay in dealing with correspondence and sending replies to the forms received. Dealing with correspondence ought to be hastened. It is too easily accepted in Government Departments that, an acknowledgment having been sent, the matter can wait. There ought to be a determined effort—

Ought there not to be a form prepared by the Ministries for delayed correspondence, to be rendered weekly?

There ought to be a determined effort by the Ministers to impress upon their staffs the necessity of altering this system whereby weeks and weeks have to pass before replies can bo made. Believe me, at the present time, it takes on an average at least a month to get any sort of reply from the Ministries even when forms have been properly filled in. The war is over, we are at peace and we are going to win the peace, and I suggest that a determination to deal with correspondence and forms more rapidly would be to the advantage of all concerned.

I want to add a little fuel to the fire started by my hon. and gallant Friend and stirred up, poked and brought into activity by the hon. Member for Orpington, (Sir W. Smithers). Nobody seriously suggests, as was indicated by the hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. Braddock), that forms can be completely dispensed with. Of course they cannot. It is only a question of degree, it is a question of how much our lives are to be wrapped up in paper and thereafter neatly tied round with red tape. This question of forms which we have been discussing this afternoon is one which stretches its tentacles into all sections of our lives at the present time. Everybody admits that a form is a nuisance; it is a nuisance not only to the sender but to the receiver, and it would be interesting if somebody could assess the proportion of our lives at present spent in filling in forms or unravelling them if one happens to be the recipient. Endless people spend their lives burning the candle at both ends, and I want to emphasise to the right hon. Gentleman that that is not the way to make both ends meet.

Would the hon. and gallant Member excuse me—is it not a fact that many more people in this country spend their lives filling in coupons than filling in forms, and they seem to enjoy it?

But a coupon is only a form, it is an abbreviated example of exactly the same thing. Take newspapers, for example. We have heard a lot about the Press in the last two days; newspapers are distressingly short of newsprint, and what is the effect of that? Since most newspapers have some mild, if not strong, form of political adherence, the tendency is obviously for that adherence to become stronger and the other point of view more abbreviated. So whereas the Press should in principle be impartial, it is forced by shortage of newsprint to take up a much more definite attitude, to the disadvantage of the public, who in fact want their newspapers to be impartial and to state both sides of a question. Therefore, a great deal of the fuss that has boiled up lately about the Press is largely the result of a shortage of newsprint, and that shortage is undoubtedly contributed to by the enormous demand so graphically illustrated by my hon. and gallant Friend for paper for other purposes.

Then books. Only today I was talking to a book publisher, who says that one of the greatest difficulties in getting books to the public is not so much the shortage of paper as the demand made on the printers by the stationery offices. The public, once again, have to suffer in their reading matter because of the demand from the stationery offices. I would suggest that the Government should consider whether they could not appoint a controller of forms, or if you like a controller of controls, charged with the duty of inquiring into the necessity for all these forms and, once he is satisfied that they are necessary, cutting them down in number and in length and finally doing all he can to advise Government Departments to make them understandable and easy to fill in.

This discussion started, I thought, on rather an unfortunate note. The hon. and gallant Gentleman who introduced it prefaced his remarks by saying that he did not want to overstate his case, and he then proceeded to launch upon what sounded to me little more than a harangue against Socialism. That is not within the ambit of this discussion. His example was then followed by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers), who went even further in the same direction with, perhaps, even rather less discretion. I was particularly glad when the Debate was brought back into more constructive channels by later speakers. If one is to conduct Debates on those lines, both sides can do it, and some people might be inclined to suggest that the Conservative Party, which used less forms, did very much less work. Reference was made to the Ministry of Works; and some of my hon. Friends on this side of the House might be supposed to think that that was due to the fact that the Tory Party had no housing programme to use forms upon. But I hope the House will think that the proper course is to discuss this matter seriously, and to try to consider whether there is in fact, a wastage of paper, and whether, if there is, what steps ought to be taken to remedy it. I propose to discuss that, and to forget the more general, vituperative suggestions thrown about by the two hon. Members who initiated this Debate.

Does the Solicitor-General deny that it is part of the policy of this Government to use these forms to control our lives and our businesses from Whitehall? Surely, that is a political method and, therefore, ground for attack on Socialism?

I have a clear recollection of a story about strawberries, I think, which seemed to form the central theme of the hon. Gentleman's argument, but which did not seem to me to be very conducive to the closer and more accurate consideration of this problem. May I try, in my own way, to deal with what is, I think, the issue? I am going to ask the House to accept the view that, in point of fact, the most stringent methods are adopted in order to prevent waste of paper. Of course, the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Central Glasgow (Colonel Hutchison) accepted, as my hon. Friend who spoke on this side accepted, the position that, when we have enormous social problems to tackle, we must have a certain amount of forms for the purpose of regularising the proceedings taken in connection with them. He made, it seemed to me, a very attractive plea for simplification of these forms, as much as they can be simplified; and I am sure that everybody, on both sides of the House, will agree that, clearly, one does not want to throw them about broadcast, and have forms where they are not necessary. But there is in existence an organisation, a series of organisations, which functions in trying to prevent waste of paper. I want to tell the House, roughly, how that system works. All the big Departments have now developed sections which they call—

Organisation and method sections.

I am much obliged. Organisation and method sections. They function in all the big Departments, and there is a mother organisation and method section in the Treasury, which, as many hon. Members know, exercises a general supervisory jurisdiction over the other sections in the particular Departments. These sections are primarily charged with the duty of scrutinising the forms used, and of trying to simplify them, trying to make them short, trying to prevent wastage of paper in the use of the forms by preventing unnecessary duplication, and, generally, regularising and making more sensible the system operated by the Departments in the use of the forms. During the war, as hon. Members will remember, there was a particular committee set up called the Official Paper Shortage Committee, and that committee was charged, inter alia, with the duty of scrutinising complaints which came from the public of alleged wastage of paper. That committee, in point of fact, did go very carefully into those complaints, and, whenever there was a complaint of substance, did take it up with the Department concerned, in order to bring about a rectification of the abuse. I am in a position to say, of the very large number of complaints examined, that it was always found to be the case, with very few exceptions, that the wastage, in point of fact, was trifling, negligible. The committee exercised a constant watch over complaints. Very rarely was there a complaint which disclosed a wastage of paper which could be said to be other than negligible in quantity.

We have now gone back to the peace time system, and the Stationery Office replaces this committee in that respect. The Stationery Office does the work, in close liaison with those sections in the Departments to which I have referred, those organisation and method sections. The Stationery Office has, amongst its duties, the duty of scrutinising very carefully the estimates which come in from the Departments of their paper requirements; and not only does it scrutinise the estimates, but, as and when each Department makes demands for allocation of paper against its estimates, the Stationery Office scrutinises each and every demand. Each demand is scrutinised with the greatest care to see whether there is an apparent wastage involved; whether there is an apparent wastage of the paper; whether the paper to be printed upon is too large in size, and so on. The Stationery Office, and the experts in the Stationery Office, who have great experience in these matters, do act in very close liaison with the sections actually within the Departments. That is how it works, so that all demands go through this sieve. The Stationery Office, when it gets a demand for an allocation of paper wants to know whether the demand is sufficiently balanced, and whether it comes from a sufficiently high quarter in the Department concerned; and if it is not satisfied about that, it will refer the matter back, and make sure that the request is not some irresponsible one by somebody not with authority to order paper for specific purposes, but that it does come from a high quarter in the Department, and that the Minister himself is prepared to take the responsibility for it. There is supervision, constantly and deliberately exercised, on this question of paper consumption. That is how it works. Hon. Members will know that there is a Select Committee of this House that also is charged, as part of its terms of reference, with the duty of considering the use of public paper.

I want to go for a moment or so into the figures. In 1938 to 1939 the paper consumption was 44,000 tons. I take that as the starting point. Since that date, it would naturally be expected that consumption would go up very greatly because of the war, and so on; and the picture which is disclosed by the figures in the years which have supervened is that this consumption went up, year by year, in 1939, 1940 and 1941, and so on, until, in 1944 to 1945, the peak consumption was reached. That is to say that between 1938 to 1939 and 1944 to 1945 the consumption went up from 44,000 tons, in the first period, to 140,000 tons in 1944 to 1945.

Consumption by whom?

That was the consumption of paper by all Government Departments.

Including the Services?

Yes, including the Services.

And the Post Office?

Yes, including the Services and the Post Office. It went up to that peak figure in 1944 to 1945. In 1945 to 1946 the figure went down to 104,000 tons, a drop of 36,000 tons. That was between March, 1945, and March, 1946. When we get to the next year, 1946 to 1947, the only figure available is for the first quarter. The figure for the first quarter is 13,550. I am not in a position to say that that will be a constant figure throughout the four quarters. If it were a constant figure, the resulting consumption for the whole year would be, of course, 54,200 tons, which would show a very startling drop on the preceding year. In other words, it would be a drop from 104,000 tons to 54,000 tons. The peak figure was 140,000 tons a year. The next year it was 104,000 tons, and now, on the assumption that this increase will remain constant, it will be 54,000 tons.

I have no reason to doubt the figures which the Solicitor-General has given, but, in the reply to a Question I put some weeks ago, the figure quoted was 21,600 tons. If the figures which the Solicitor-General has given are correct, it makes my case not so strong.

The figure for the March quarter, 1946 is, as the hon. and gallant Member says, 21,600 tons. The financial year runs from March to March, and I was talking about the quarter which ends in June. For the quarter ending March, 1946, the figure was 21,600 tons, but for the quarter which ends in June it is 13,150 tons. Multiplying that figure by four, it may or may not give us a correct figure for the year, but suppose it works out at 60,000, 70,000 or even 80,000, there would be a great drop in consumption. It would be something like half the consumption of the peak year. This is very largely due, as was the extra consumption, to the consumption of the Services. It is reflected by the figures for the War Office, Admiralty and Air Ministry for the two quarters ending March and June, 1946. The relevant figures are: War Office, 6,000 and 3,900; Admiralty, 3,600 and 1,350; Air Ministry, 2,400 and 1,150.

Are these the only decreases?

In the case of each of the Service Departments there has been a very marked drop. On the other hand, there has been an increase in the case of the Post Office from 1,000 to 1,750. This is due to the fact that telephone directories, which involve an enormous amount of paper, were not previously in issue. In the great majority of cases there has been a marked drop between these two quarters, and this is reflected in the total. There is every reason to anticipate that consumption will go down to not very much more than the consumption of 1938–39, when it was 44,000. Suppose that the figure for the quarter is constant, consumption will be about 54,000 tons. I ask the House to accept the view that this is a very satisfactory reduction, and that we are getting close to peacetime consumption. I would point out, without being disparaging to hon. Members opposite, that Government Departments arc now undertaking a larger burden of work compared with before the war.

Does the Solicitor-General take into account the over-printed stocks which are in hand? It is suggested that in some Departments millions of forms have been printed in excess of their annual needs. Are these taken into account, because that would account for the reduction in the figures?

I am told that the reduction is a reduction in consumption.

There has, naturally, been an increase in the case of the Post Office, but can the Solicitor-General tell us whether an increase has been shown in the case of any other Department?

In the case of the Ministry of Food, there has been an increase from 700 to 900 and in the case of the Beard of Trade, from 280 to 300. With these exceptions, consumption is decreasing all round. I wish to conclude with two general statements. I do not think they can be controversial, because they are by experts on these particular matters. Printing standards used by Government Departments are run on more economic lines than standards in private work. That is a conclusion which has been formed by the experts in the Stationery Office, whose duty it is to study this sort of problem. The second general statement is that every civil department is using less paper than in 1936 in every case where the staff and services performed are comparable.

But the Government have expanded the Civil Service.

Month by month and year by year, taking comparable staff and services, less paper is being used by civil Departments than in 1936. I ask the House to say that it is very creditable, and I hope hon. Members are satisfied, having heard of the organisation in existence and the results that have been achieved, that the position is entirely satisfactory.

I am in great sympathy with the Solicitor-General. There is one question I should like to ask, because this may be misleading. Is not type area of paper used in the trade measure rather than weight of paper? Economy in the use of paper is now, quite rightly, being exercised by Government Departments, but it is not fair to make a comparison of tonnage for 1938, when con-sumption was on an extravagant area basis, with 1946, when it was on an economy basis.

The only reliable and practical test which we can apply is the total weight of paper used. We have to take that total overall weight, and then an opinion can be formulated to see whether the general proposition I have enunciated is correct. It is the only practical way in which we can make a comparison and form an opinion.

I should like to apologise at the outset for having missed the Adjournment on Tuesday of last week, and to express my gratitude to Mr. Speaker for having given me an opportunity to state my case today, the last day before the Parliamentary Recess. The Minister of Food recently informed us that he had made certain modifications with regard to supplementary charges in restaurants, and later on these supplementary charges were increased. In my submission, the war having ceased, we should revise the whole question of supplementary charges in restaurants.

At the outset of the war, we were assured by the then Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, that this was not to be a profit-making war. We were told that no one should enrich himself from this war. When the supplementary charges were introduced on 15th June, 1942, allowances were made to certain of the larger hotels and restaurants on the understanding that their overheads were so great that without these supplementary charges they would not be able to carry on. It was necessary for these hotels to carry on, on account of, among other reasons, the people coming from overseas to this country who would have to be suitably entertained. I have gone very carefully into the question of the profits made by the larger hotels, and I am limiting myself to the West End and South-West of London because, of the 31 hotels and restaurants named by the Minister recently, I think that all of them were either in the West End or South-West of London. I am going to take a few of the figures.

The Grosvenor House in 1940 made a loss. Their shares for the whole year fell on an average to 2s. 6d. a share. Their profit in the financial year of 1939, which would be a fair year to take, was £61,109 after deduction of tax. In 1945, the profit was £153,000, so in 1939, which was the last year before the war, to 1945 the profit had gone up from £61,000 to £153,000, and the shares, taken over the whole year, because they fluctuate, were 2s. 6d.; whereas today they are 20s. 10d. The Savoy Hotel in 1939 made a loss of £13,000. In 1945—the latest figures—the profit made was £395,672. The through-cut price of shares on the Stock Exchange in 1939 was 10s. 6d.; today they are 33s. 9d.; Quaglinos' profits increased from £21,000 to £57,000; the Carlton Hotel's from £7,000 to £47,000—the value of the shares on the Stock Exchange, for a whole year, rising from 4s. to 32s. 9d. With regard to Lyons, who control a great many hotels such as the Regent Palace, the Strand Palace, the Kensington Palace and a large number of tea rooms and restaurants, I get this report: "In the case of Lyons, the gross trading profits before tax are not available. I think that I am right in saying that Lyons do not disclose the actual amount of tax charged against any one year's profits." I think that these figures are a fair proof that, so far as the restaurants and hotels are concerned, this has been a profit-making war on a very large scale. Whether the supplementary charges are still justified on account of overheads is, I think, very much in doubt. Not one of these hotels or restaurants has made a profit less than double that of prewar, and it should be seriously considered now whether or not only the supplementary charges should be wiped out, and a different scale of rating should be introduced; whether we should not have first-class restaurant or hotels, second-class and third-class.

I know that that has been tried out in France and has proved a failure, but many things have proved a failure in France that have proved a success in this country. The danger of making a maximum charge of 5s. per meal is that the maximum charge becomes the minimum charge, and it will be found that throughout the West End, whatever restaurant one goes into, and whatever sort of food they provide, no matter how indifferent or how bad it may be, the minimum charge is 5s. This is aggravated by the fact that people, on account of rationing and for other reasons, now cram into the restaurants in the West End, who previously never went to those restaurants, and they are paying 5s. for a meal which formerly cost 1s. 3d., 1s. 6d. or 1s. 9d. If the prewar record of the restaurants can be taken as a criterion, and a maximum charge for a third-class restaurant, for a second-class restaurant and for a first-class restaurant be introduced, I think that the whole thing would be much fairer than at present. Some of the supplementary charges made are grossly unfair.

I have had one instance of this myself recently. When I went into a restaurant in the West End—it would not be fair to give the name of the restaurant here—I went in at six o'clock and came out at 6.25. There was a large notice outside, stating that from 6.30 there would be dancing and a dance band in attendance, and whoever went in would be charged 2s. 6d. for dancing, whether they danced or not. I was surprised to see on my bill a charge of 2s. 6d. for dancing, because it was not dancing time. I drew the attention of the waiter to this, and he called the manager, who said, "I am very sorry, but you will have to pay." I said, "I do not mind paying, but it is wrong." He suggested that I should write to the head office, which I did. I received a reply, but they would not return the 2s. 6d. I am not concerned about that, but I am concerned about the principle of the whole thing—that a person going into this restaurant should have to pay 2s. 6d. for something for which no provision was made. The band did not come in until 6.30 and I was going out at 6.25, so I was being charged 2s. 6d. for something which the restaurant did not provide. I wrote to the company pointing out that they were actually charging 2s. 6d. extra for a meal to which they were not entitled, and I said that I would bring this forward later.

When one travels on the railways one can get an excellent meal for 3s. 6d.—fish, a cut off the joint and vegetables—and I have often had this when travelling between London and my constituency. I suggest that, if the railway companies can give one a decent meal for 3s. 6d., the restaurants charging 5s. for something which is not nearly as good should have their prices reduced. I would also point out that the à la carte menu has totally disappeared from restaurants in the West End. Actually, we have an à la carte menu here in the House of Commons but if one goes into any West End restaurant one has to be content with a table d'hôte menu, and there are many people who do not want that. I never used to use the table d'hôte menu, but liked to choose what I wanted.

Further, the hotels and restaurants of the West End have made good use of the war in their charges for wine. Many of the wines that were formerly sold at 6s. or 7s. a bottle are being sold, or were being sold until quite recently, at £4, £5 and £6 a bottle. Cigars formerly sold at 1s. 3d. or 1s. 6d. have been sold at I guinea and 25s. This is an abuse outside the maximum charge and should be regulated. I know that the excuse will be that Restell's have the auctioneering of the wine and that the hotels have to buy them retail, but that is not true. The majority of the hotels had very large stocks and still they charged high prices for them, whereas we were told at the beginning of the war that the price of an article should not be more than its price before the war when it was bought new.

I should like now to refer a little to conditions in tea shops, because some of those conditions are not only objectionable but filthy. In one of these "serve yourself teashops" in the West End I saw on one occasion a young girl, quite a well dressed person, take a chocolate bun, put it on her plate and then lick her fingers. Then she had another look and took a second bun, put it on her plate, and again licked the chocolate from her fingers. She repeated this procedure yet a third time and then went to the cashier who said, "No, you're only allowed one chocolate bun." She, therefore, had to take two of them back and put them amongst the rest for sale. On other occasions in these "serve yourself teashops" I have seen a person take three pats of butter and when told he was allowed only one put the other back with a knife, dropping it on the counter in the process. Working-class people often feel three or four rolls to see which suits them best. I wrote to the firm concerned pointing out that this kind of thing, could quite easily be avoided by displaying a note telling customers that they were entitled to only one chocolate bun, pat of butter, roll or whatever it might be. They sent a representative to see me but up to now nothing has been done in the matter and that was two months ago.

I do suggest that now the war is over there should be more adequate inspection of the service in tea rooms and that people should be posted in them to correct these very bad and dirty habits. I also suggest that prices in restaurants should be graded so that customers are not exorbitantly overcharged either for amenities or food not provided. As a last point I would ask the Ministry of Food to see that more teaspoons are allowed in restaurants and tea rooms. I often notice a person stirring his tea with the handle of his knife and afterwards using the knife for cutting his food. If one notices the way in which knives are washed in these places one will see that the handles are not washed at all— only the blades are cleaned. These dirty handles are used time after time for stirring tea and may possibly spread infection. That concludes the few remarks I wished to make, and it is everybody's business to see that cleanliness reigns again now that the war is over; there is no excuse for allowing such unhealthy conditions to exist as they do, not only in London but in many parts of the country.

After listening to the hon. Gentleman I must admit that I have to plead guilty myself to licking my fingers after a chocolate bun, and I defy any hon. Member in this House to say that he or she does not do the same, particularly today when it is so difficult to get chocolate. I can only suggest, with regard to the lady who showed such disquieting behaviour as to take three chocolate buns and then lick her fingers three times, that it must have been a regression to her childhood combined with the acquisitive instinct. I think that in suggesting that I should undertake that my Department will control that kind of behaviour the hon. Gentleman is asking rather a lot, and I do feel that he should display a little more tolerance today.

The hon. Gentleman kindly informed me that he intended to raise the whole matter of what he described as "objectionable habits in tea rooms," so I took the trouble to look up Section 13 of the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, which is designed to prevent the contamination of food in shops, including restaurants and cafeterias. This Section of the Act covers all rooms in which food, other than milk, intended for human consumption is prepared for sale, is actually sold, or is displayed or put there for the purpose of being sold. People employed in these rooms are required to observe a certain standard of cleanliness and they are liable to prosecution if they do not take such steps as are reasonably necessary to prevent the risk of contamination. Local authorities, not the Ministry of Food, are, of course, responsible for enforcing this Section of the Food and Drugs Act. I think the House will agree that, as I have already said, it is a little difficult to prevent a customer handling food. Since the hon. Gentleman has raised this matter I have looked at the behaviour of the crowds of people who use the cafeteria in this House—and I think he will agree with me that in these days those people represent a cross section of the country—and on the whole I think their behaviour is perfect. I should say that what is needed is not another regulation or another Order but, perhaps, education of the public in the principles of hygiene. I would go further than that and would say that, when the time has come when people have better houses and lead more spacious lives, it will be easier to educate them in the etiquette of the table.

So far as concerns the profits made by hotels, I feel that the figures which the hon. Gentleman has given the House are hardly relevant to the control of the prices of meals because he has quoted places where accommodation is provided also. He must know that the price of accommodation is not controlled. Hon Members may say that it should be controlled, but it is very difficult to control accommodation in London because so many different amenities are offered, and, therefore, the profits in question may relate to the accommodation provided. I would remind the hon. Gentleman that during the war it was difficult to obtain accommodation in London or in fact in any part of the country.

Probably people who would have preferred to stay at more modest establishments were forced to go to the Savoy, the Grosvenor House, the Carlton and so on. So far as dancing is concerned, I must confess that it is very many years since I have had the opportunity of dillydallying and dancing—

Shame.

I want to say something to the hon. Gentleman and others who want more controls. The hon. Gentleman said that he was sitting in a dancing room and was charged for the dance as well as the tea. I am told that the success of a dance varies in direct ratio with the number of people per square yard of dance floor. In the hon. Gentleman's day—I dare not say in my day—probably people did polkas and had to have plenty of space, but to-day these small hotels and restaurants have a small room, put chairs round the dancing area and expect them to be occupied by people who are prepared to dance or at least are prepared to pay the extra half crown to look at beautiful women dancing. The hon. Gentleman goes to this special room and takes up space. I do not think he has any grievance because he has been charged half a crown. The music may not have started until immediately he left the room, but the point is that he was taking a seat which someone who was prepared to dance might have occupied—

But there were no facilities for dancing.

If the dancing was billed to start at half past six, probably the poor overworked band were not prepared to arrive until 29 minutes past six. The hon. Gentleman left the room at 25 minutes past six when the room was prepared for people to come and take their seats. I want to be fair to the hon. Gentleman, but if these are the facts, then the restaurant or the hotel that provided those facilities was in order to charge the half crown if it was made quite clear that that was a dancing room and that dancing was provided at a certain hour.

Now let me deal with vintage wines. We realise that high prices have been charged, but it has been difficult to control them. We have not aimed at controlling all luxuries. People can have a luxury or not. Vintage wine is a luxury, and if people want these luxuries they must be prepared to pay the high prices charged. We have already had a Debate about the numbers of forms. If my Ministry decided to control all luxuries, the number of forms would be increased, and we would also have to enforce our Orders and that division of the Ministry would have to be augmented. On the question of the price controls on food, the house charge was introduced in 1942 as an addition to the maximum price for a meal, I want the hon. Member to get this matter in its proper perspective. I do not like to worry this House with figures, but I should like to quote these.

The position at present is that out of a total number of 81,789 commercial establishments in the whole country catering for the public, of which 27,915 are hotels and restaurants of a similar character to those where house charges are permitted, only 259 ostablishments are authorised to make house charges—only 259 out of 27,915. Of these 259 establishments, 127 are in London, leaving 132 in the rest of the country, chiefly in the large provincial centres. They are less than one in 100 of the ordinary hotels and restaurants and only three in a 1,000 of catering establishments. So far as the amount is concerned, the house charge permitted varies from 6d to 3s. 6d. for lunch and from 6d. to 6s. for dinner. Of the no establishments allowed to make a house charge for lunch, more than half can charge only 6d. to 1s. Of the 254 establishments making a house charge for dinner, more than half can charge only 6d. to 1s. 6d.

Of course, we have said that this extra charge can be made for dancing. The hon. Member would probably be prepared to pay 5s. for a dinner and then go down the street to another establishment where a half-crown charge is made for dancing, which he would think more modest. If he gets this amenity on the premises, he should be prepared to pay for it. It has been brought to our notice that some establishments were charging what in effect would be an unrestricted price for a meal, because it was served in a private room. Accordingly, we have issued another Order which will limit the amount charged for a private room. We have to allow restaurant proprietors to charge the exta half-crown for dancing, and an extra half-crown per head for a private room. At the same time, we are allowing hotels which have large overhead expenses, to make further application to us to be allowed to make an extra charge, if they can prove their case. I want the House to realise that we are paying the closest attention to this question. It is very difficult to control these establishments as one would like to control them, because of the different amenities provided. As far as it is in our power, we are trying to control waste and exorbitant charges, which were made in the past.

I wish to raise with the Financial Secretary to the War Office the question of progress of Army recruiting. I do so because of two very disquieting statements which have been made, one in another place, and one in answer to a written Question by me on 30th July. From those statements, it is clear that the Government are not succeeding—and I will try to suggest reasons why—in reaching the target for recruits to the Army announced by the Financial Secretary in his reply to the Debate on 27th June.

The Financial Secretary then said that the War Office were aiming to get in 1946, 100,000 recruits under the short-service scheme, and 50,000 under normal engagements I think those are the correct figures which appeared in HANSARD. Up to date, the following numbers of other ranks have so far been recruited—that is, up to mid-July—into the Army: a total of 9,572 under normal engagements and 1,448 under short-service engagements. The short-service system started on 15th April There have, therefore, been up to the time of this statement, three months out of less than nine months of this year, in which the War Office have achieved 1·5 per cent. of their target. That is, in a little more than a third of the time available, they have achieved 1·5 per cent. of the target. The position is somewhat better in the case of recruits under normal engagements. It is true to say that the recruiting campaign was started by the Secretary of State for War on 16th May, but I think the Financial Secretary will agree that there has been a trickle, and perhaps more than a trickle, coming into the Army, particularly men still serving and men who have just been released. With five months to go there is still 80 per cent. of the target which the War Office have set, themselves to be collected. These figures will persuade all sides of the House that the position is bad.

I am glad that the Secretary of State was willing to answer the question I put to him, particularly so because only six days previously a Government statement was made in another place to the effect that it was not in the public interest to give any such figures. I am glad that in the course of six days they changed their mind about that. Having said I am glad about that, I am sorry about one thing. I am delighted to see the Financial Secretary here. I know that he will answer in the usual candid, frank and thorough way he answers Debates in this House. But I consider this question so important that it might have been to the advantage of the War Office and of the House if the Secretary of State had been able to attend today, because it is my object in raising this question, and I think the Financial Secretary knows this, to assist the War Office. If I and my hon. Friends criticise it from time to time on matters of administration of the Army, we do so with the object of improving the Army. Indeed, the Financial Secretary himself knows, through criticising other administrations, as he has done for years in the past, that that is a fair test of the criticism. I hope to make some constructive points which will not always be congratulatory.

My first point is that I hope the Government will do more than they have done to make clear to the country what the role of the Regular Army is in peace time. The Secretary of State has made it quite clear that in his opinion we must have a reasonably large professional Army to carry out our peace time commitments. I am not sure that every one understands the importance of there being a professional Army to carry out those commitments. I believe that a number of people in the country think that we can, by means of some form of national service, get away with a sufficient number of men who will come into the Army, through some form of national service, to provide ourselves with an Army to carry out those commitments. That is an entirely wrong use of conscription or of any form of national service. If we are to have national service, we should not have it for that purpose. I hope that the Government will also make clear that we have these commitments throughout the world, which we must carry out, and that we do not regret having them. There is far too much talk in this country at the moment of regretting that we have these commitments. We certainly regret the disorders and the hardships of the soldiers in Palestine at the present time, but much of the place which we have won for ourselves in the world has been won by the deeds of our forefathers, and we should not regret but rather be proud that one of the duties imposed by our high position in the world is to provide a peaceful and orderly police military force in the world.

Secondly, I think the Government can do far more to explain to the young men what opportunities they will have in the peace time Regular Army. I do not believe that anybody really knows at the moment what opportunity a man has for technical study, technical efficiency, for the satisfaction of the normal spirit of adventure and so on, in the peace time Army of today. I believe there are very few people who really know the life of the soldier who is serving abroad or at home in the Regular Army today. I think the Government could do far more, through the many mediums open to them, to let the country know about that.

Thirdly, and this is a point which we have pressed before on the Financial Secretary, I hope the War Office will try to reduce to a minimum at once, and then cut out completely, the mistakes and delays that are made from time to time, which get the War Office far more publicity than their many successes. It is an unfortunate thing that the public like reading about the mistakes of Government Departments much more than they like reading about their successes. In the past few months, we have had too much reference in the House and the country to the unnecessary deferment of officers and men and to delays in the release of land. We have had several references to the way in which the War Office has sent men from this country, after leave, to Burma, India and the Far East to get demobilised and come back a month or so later. It is this sort of stupid mistake which is causing the War Office and the Army to be less popular in the country. I believe that, at the moment, there is some perhaps unavoidable muddle about the future clothing of the Army. I know there are reasons, which I shall not go into, but I believe that there was a Committee which sat before the war and which decided on a suitable walking-out dress, but now the whole matter appears to be on the shelf again. I mention that as a matter on which the Government, as a whole, have not come up to scratch.

Fourthly, I should like to make it clear that, when the Secretary of State and the Financial Secretary give this House and the country promises and pledges of improved conditions, such as the building of better barracks, both at home and abroad, those are promises which the Government will carry out, unlike some others, which seem not so likely to be carried out. It is of course, necessary that the country as a whole should have confidence in the statements on improved conditions which are made from time to time in this House.

Fifthly, I think more publicity could have been given to the recruiting campaign. The 16th May, the day on which the Secretary of State launched the campaign, was also the day on which the Cabinet Mission in India issued its statement, and the Press next day carried the Cabinet Mission's statement from India. That was unfortunate. It is also true that the Secretary of State, when broadcasting the same night, did not receive full publicity, but I have also been disappointed with the publicity given to the recruiting campaign since that time. In my own constituency, as the Financial Secretary no doubt knows, there has just been a visit by the mobile demonstration column. Unfortunately, the weather was unkind on the first day and it could not perform. I believe, however, that it attracted a very large crowd in Stanley Park, Blackpool, and a number of people have told me what good arrangements were made for showing off the Army vehicles. I rather wondered, however, from the reports I have received—I was unable to get down there, because the House was sitting—whether they are showing off that part of the Army life which is most likely to attract young men today. I think they do, perhaps, concentrate too much upon the glamour of the tanks, and I hope the Government will explain to the young men what opportunities they will have of becoming technically efficient and taking up a trade of their own, so that, when the time comes for them to leave the Army, they will have a good chance in civil life.

The other part of the Government's recruiting campaign is to send round Army mobile information units in lorries with loudspeakers. I have heard nothing about that, and I do not know how they are succeeding. I think it would possibly help—and I throw this out as a suggestion —if the Government issued a statement from time to time about the success or failure of these mobile demonstration columns and information units in various parts of England. I believe there is still a spirit of competition between various parts of the country, and that it would be a good thing to publish a statement showing what they were doing and indicating, for example, that North is doing better than South and that Lancashire was doing better than Yorkshire, which I am sure would be the case.

Finally, what are the public relations arrangements which the Secretary of State has established for getting this great campaign across? I have purposely left out any reference to conditions of service and pay. Those are subjects upon which I have given the Financial Secretary my opinion from time to time. I believe his aim is the same as mine. I am not sure that he has gone far enough.

I do not believe it is possible to overemphasise the importance of the recruiting campaign this year. Men who are recruited this year will be useful to the Army in five to 10 or 15 years' time. That is when they will be really useful. The job of a modern soldier is complicated, and the sooner we begin forming a really good nucleus of a professional Army, a strong, good and sufficiently powerful nucleus, the better. We cannot wait. I believe there is a feeling that there is time to wait. I think there is a certain amount of misunderstanding of the position. I hope the Government will make that clear.

Also, I think there has been a little muddled thinking about conscription. The Government and the country cannot, and must not, rely upon getting sufficient men for the execution of the peacetime commitments of the Army from the men who have been called up for a short period. They must rely on long term professional Army recruits. I think I am right in saying that this is the first occasion for a very long time when all responsible parties in this country are behind the Government in supporting the recruiting campaign. There is no difference between any of the responsible political parties upon the matter. I would like to see the Government making use of this circumstance. The Press and hon. Members of this House are willing and anxious to help. We all agree that we must have a strong Army. We can only have a strong Army if we get recruits. The will is there and I ask the Government to use methods worthy of this will. The presentation so far has been insufficiently vivid. If the campaign is not successful, then there is a certain lack of national patriotism in this country. I refuse to believe that that is the case. It is the presentation of the Government's case which needs to be made worthy of the will of the country.

It is obvious to anyone familiar with the problem of Army recruitment that in present circumstances the campaign would fail. I venture to say that in the years before the war the majority of men who joined the Army did so not because they thought they were going to like Army life, but because they had not got a job. The Army does not appeal to Englishmen, particularly to young Englishmen, for the simple reason that Englishmen do not like a life of discipline. That is quite understandable. They much prefer the greater freedom of "civvy street" in which, once the factory hooter has blown, they can go where they like, dress as they like and do what they like. In "civvy street" there are no dress regulations, no night operations, no orderly sergeants who come in and shout "Lights out" at night, and "Get up" at reveille.

It is not a bit of good the Government patting themselves on the back and saying complacently that they have offered pay terms comparable with industry. If we are to attract young men into the Army we must be able to offer them better pay and conditions than industry, in order to make up for the disadvantages of having to live under military discipline. Before the war, the Treasury exerted a most unfortunate influence upon those who were trying to make the Army attractive. Let me take the case of the married man, for example. Before the war, there was no marriage allowance in the Army until the age of 30, and married quarters, like Army barracks, were a disgrace to the nation, and they were far too few. Married men in many stations, particularly abroad, had no possibility of living with their families, and a young married man who went, for example to India for six years had to say goodbye to any possibility of seeing his wife in that time. In order to make the Army attractive, the Government must be prepared to spend money in a big way, and there are already signs of Treasury difficulties over making Army life attractive, which has its bearing upon recruiting, as was so before the war.

I believe that never before has it been more necessary to have a strong and efficient Secretary of State for War than in this difficult period of postwar transition. I regret to say that the present Secretary of State for War is both weak and incompetent, and I honestly believe that until there is a change the best interests of the Army are bound to go to the wall. Every man has his level and it is perfectly clear to any Member, in whatever part of the House he sits, if he searches his conscience and is honest with himself, that the Secretary of State for War has been placed in a position which is manifestly beyond his abilities. We only have to watch the Minister at Question time, and see that he is quite unable to answer the simplest supplementary question if it goes beyond his brief. We see him standing there, if I may use a boxing metaphor, "punch drunk," unable to parry the simplest supplementary question, staggering from side to side, and one wishes the Prime Minister would throw the sponge into the ring and save him and us from positive embarrassment.

The B.A.O.R. today has many most urgent problems, of which recruitment is but one, particularly because young men will have to go to Germany for most of their conscripted service, since Germany is a home station. Once again, I ask, why has the Secretary of State for War, who is responsible for this great Army which is so close to Whitehall in flying time, not thought fit to visit its headquarters to settle some of these problems there on the spot? What would happen to a regimental commander who had a sub-unit on detachment and never went to visit it? He would not stay long in his job. It is a scandal that the Secretary of State for War has not thought fit to visit the British Army of the Rhine. If we acquit him of complacency we can only assume that he finds his work in Whitehall so difficult to grasp that it leaves him no time to do anything else. I regret that I have not given him notice that I was going to make this statement about him, but I had no reason to assume that he would not be present at this most important Debate.

He ought to have been.

He ought to have been, as my hon. Friend says. I hope the Secretary of State will think fit, during the coming Recess, to consider his own position very carefully and that he may decide to ask the Prime Minister to relieve him from this position, which he is manifestly incapable of fulfilling in the best interests of the Army.

If I might return to the subject of this Debate, I would like to mention one aspect with which the hon. and gallant Member for North Blackpool (Brigadier Low) did not deal. That is the long foreign service which members of the Regular Army have to endure. That is one of the main reasons, in my opinion, for the lack of recruiting in this country. If a boy feels that when he goes into the Army he will have to spend many years abroad, I do not believe a new walking out kit, or anything of that kind, will remedy the position as long as this long service abroad hangs over him.

Take the case of the Welch Regiment, of which at one time I was a member. The second battalion has been abroad since a time shortly after the last war. It has never been home. The first battalion has been abroad for some eight years. Thus, the whole of the regular part of the Welch Regiment has done nothing but foreign service, except for the Depot, for many, many years. That does mean a tremendous drawback to recruiting. I do not wish to detain the House for long, because I know other hon. Members want to speak. There are two suggestions I would make to the Financial Secretary for remedying the position. The first is that there should be much shorter periods of service abroad. I know it is difficult, but it must be overcome if we are to have a competent Regular Army. Secondly, before the recruit joins, and afterwards, foreign service should be put in its true perspective. I have spoken to many young men on this matter, pointing out to them how lucky they are to visit foreign countries when they are young. If that point of view can be put to them, they will be encouraged to join.

When they are in the Army there should be plenty of education and so on, encouraging them to take an interest in local affairs, local people, the geography of the country, its industry and so forth. It is a wonderful opportunity for a young man, going abroad at that time of life. If the Financial Secretary does these things, I feel sure he will have a much bigger Army than by merely supplying those who join with blue walking out kit, which I do not believe has the slightest effect on those thinking of joining the Army.

I wish to address the House very briefly on the subject of the importance of this recruiting campaign from a slightly different angle. Our commitments have been mentioned, and they are heavy. I think it is true to say they have become heavier in recent months, and we cannot foresee what form they are likely to take, or what directions they are likely to be in the future. In any case, if we are to reap the reward of victory, and if the Foreign Secretary is to speak in the councils of the world with the weight which ought to be attached to the opinions of the British Foreign Secretary, those commitments will have to be met, and it must be known that they can be met. If voluntary recruitment fails, there is only one way in which the number car. be made up, and that is by increasing the length of service which a man has to do when he is conscripted. I think it is felt on all sides of the House to be most desirable that should not happen through a failure in the voluntary recruiting campaign. I do urge that things should not be allowed to drift in this regard, as they have been allowed to drift in many other things.

The other day the Under-Secretary of State for War spoke in another place. The gist of his remarks was, that the results of the recruiting campaign were somewhat disappointing. In the light of a Question which was afterwards answered in this House, that remark would appear to be either a masterly understatement or, shall we say, a euphemism. I hope that this afternoon we shall hear the results have been a good deal better in recent weeks. The cause of the failure of the recruiting campaign may be one of two reasons. There may be something wrong with the campaign itself, in its presentation or in the publicity. Certain criticisms have been made. I have not had the advantage of seeing it myself, but I am told by my colleagues that it is a very good show. Whether it is the sort of show which is merely a good show as a spectacle but which does not make the appeal we wanted to make, I do not know. It may be that the recruiting campaign is a failure for reasons which are more fundamental. Perhaps the terms are wrong, or perhaps the point raised by the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams) is a great deterrent, but whatever the cause may be, it must now be known to those who are running the campaign. From running the show and from conversations and so on, they must be getting a pretty fair idea of the reasons why they are not getting the recruits. I want to know whether that is already being taken note of, and whether the War Office, if it has become apparent that there is something wrong with the show, will put it right while there is still time. I do not think the publicity is awfully good; the country is not particularly conscious that a recruiting campaign is going on, and if that is one of the reasons it should be attended to. But if other reasons are becoming apparent, if the terms are not good enough, if the prospect of the length of overseas service is uncertain, that should be known, and the War Office should be taking steps already to deal with it. The price of a failure to get voluntary recruits, whom I think we should get by hook or by crook, will simply be that, if we are to keep our commitments, we shall have to have a longer term of conscription than any of us would wish to see.

In the days when hon. Members were being showered with letters from constituents about demobilisation I picked out 100 typical letters and prepared a memorandum, which I submitted to the War Office, containing a series of complaints made by serving men, and it is on the basis of those complaints that I have a few constructive suggestions to make to the Minister. It seems to me that the first thing we ought to do is to examine our methods of recruitment. If the suggestion that awards to recruiting sergeants are being continued is true, to me it seems to be a most undignified thing that the nation should allow commissions to be paid to sergeants for enticing men away from other occupations, or from the ranks of the unemployed. Then, if the recruit- ing campaign is to be conducted by recruiting marches, I would counsel the Minister that brass bands are a little out of date. The general standard of musical education in this country has risen in recent years, and he might consider whether another method ought not to be adopted.

Thirdly, the posters which are being exhibited in connection with the recruiting campaign appear to me to be out of date. No new appeal seems to have been suggested or inspired since the great campaign for which Kitchener was responsible in 1916, and. I would suggest that these methods should be abolished or drastically altered as soon as possible. The appeal to "Join the Army and see the world" is, to the men who have been in Malaya and Burma, a great deal of "hokum." They do not want to leave their homes, and an entirely different appeal must be made to them. As other speakers have said, the conditions should be such as to attract the many, but even when the conditions are comparable with those appertaining to civilian employment, something else is needed in order to get over the past attitude about the Army. On this question we have something to learn from a country whose methods it is considered fashionable to despise at the present time.

The Red Army, I believe, is composed of the é1ite of the people of the Soviet Union, and if in this country we could inaugurate something in the nature of a people's Army, and make it difficult for men and women to join the Forces, that new attitude might result in better recruits for the Minister. I suggest that the standard of physical types and physical attainment should be placed very high.

I suggest that medical officers should be told to keep those standards as rigid as possible, and that the most mentally alert men should be attracted into the Forces and not those who resemble the village idiot or the urban dullard. We must endeavour to attract men to the Forces on the basis that service in the Army is a distinguished career, and that the Army is not a reservoir for the unemployed, and that every man who comes out of the Forces is a rogue, or a man who does not want to do a real day's work.

When the recruit is in the Army there are other things that have to be done. In the first place, trainees should not be trained by persons who have one leg out of the Forces, as so many of those responsible for training have at the present time. Every man recruited into the Forces should be trained in civilian employment, and the standards of craftman-ship should be the same as those demanded in civilian life. Again, I believe that the whole attitude towards sport in the Forces is wrong. There is a constant appeal by headquarters for cricketers for the company, for footballers for the company. There ought to be more intercompany matches and inter-platoon sport. If there were, there would be more esprit de corps or some sort of public school spirit, real public school spirit that would be of value.

I speak about that without very great authority, because I was not, like the hon. Gentleman the Member for Solihull (Mr. M. Lindsay) a colonel in the Forces. I am sorry he made so unhappy and unfortunate a reference to the Secretary of State for War. I was only a private in the Home Guard, and the only private in my platoon. As long as we have a national Army I hope we shall try to attract the very best men into it. But I hope the time is soon coming, when U.N.O. will provide a world security force. If U.N.O. provides a world security force, let it be that the contingent which comes from Great Britain, will be the contingent that will be emulated by all the other national contingents.

I associate myself with what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Blackpool (Brigadier Low) has said. I agree with him, most particularly, that this year is the most vital year, so far as recruiting is concerned. We have made a bad start, and I hope the Government are going to see that we go ahead with more efficiency now. As regards foreign service, may I associate myself with what was said by the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams)? In my own regiment, the first battalion has been abroad as a battalion since 1930 and at the present moment we have no home service battalion at all. That has a very bad effect on recruiting. I appeal to hon. Members opposite—or to sections of the party opposite—not to pay mere lip service to this recruiting. It is no good paying lip service to strong armed forces, and to recruiting at the present time, if one puts down Motions about no conscription, or belongs to pacifist organisations. A scheme was announced a few months ago—I have not the details in my head—by which, I think, a bounty of £25 a year was to be paid to people who took on a short service engagement. I think that had a thoroughly bad effect on recruiting, because, in fact, what it meant was that we would not pay a bounty to those who take on for the proper period of service. That seemed to me an ill considered and ill timed scheme.

As regards. what was said about the Secretary of State for War, I was sorry to hear what the hon. Gentleman the Member for Solihull (Mr. M. Lindsay) said, because I think this is not the right occasion for such an attack. I would just say this: that whatever else people may say about the Secretary of State for War, he is a man with a very fine record of service in the Armed Forces of this country, serving originally in one of our finest regiments, the Durham Light Infantry. I have some admiration for him on that account at least. I would prefer a man of his attainments in his present job to one of the wishy-washy idealists to be found in all too large numbers among Members on the other side, and who call themselves members of the intelligentsia. I very much hope that we are going to be reassured by the Minister, and be told that the Government are really putting their backs into making the recruiting scheme an efficient one.

As has been pointed out, I have had occasion in days gone by to criticise the Government of the day, and therefore I never mind any criticism which is constructive. Hon. Members will never find me getting out of temper merely because they have something unpleasant to say about the Department where I happen to be at the moment. I am most grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Major Beamish) for the very apposite and kindly words he has spoken in relation to my right hon. Friend. This is not the occasion when the other hon. Member should make these remarks, whatever he may think about my right hon. Friend's lack of qualities in this House. We are engaged on a subject which ought to be above party. This new Army we are attempting to build will not be raised by any one political party, or by one section of the population. The Army must be drawn from all sections of the nation, if it is to be entirely successful in its purpose. Therefore, we ought to discuss this matter in its right perspective, free from all acrimony about individual Ministers.

I welcome some of the helpful remarks which have been made from both sides of the House. I can assure Members that we at the War Office are not above learning. We have had to learn a lot in the past. Even during the last Government the War Office was constantly under review, as the cliché goes, and there is no reason why it should not be under review under this Government. There is no universal or easy method to obtain the number of officers and men we require to form the regular Army. I agree in many respects with the moderate and constructive speech which was made by the hon. and gallant Member for North Blackpool (Brigadier Low). It is necessary at some time to define the role of the new Army, but this is not the occasion to do it. The occasion for that is on the Estimates, when the Secretary of State gives his review of the past and also some inkling of the future. It has not been possible for my right hon. Friend to do that because he has made only one Estimates speech. When the war ended in August, the whole thought and trend of public opinion was how to get the men out of the Army, not how to get them into the Army, and we have to overcome that frame of mind before we can say that we have successfully accomplished the recruitment of the Regular Army.

I wish to leave the House under no misapprehension that this is going to be a quick and easy policy. It will be a long-term policy, and we must apply our minds to it. For the past year we have been improvising and trying to get the biggest number of men back to their homes in the quickest possible time. Demobilisation is not quite finished, but very soon we have to apply our minds- we are doing it already-to see how we can build up this new Regular Army. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Blackpool truly said that the public like to read about the mistakes of Government Departments, particularly those of the War Office, and I am not going to say that the War Office has never made a mistake or will never make a mistake. I may be permitted perhaps to say, as that great master of warfare, Napoleon, said, that the greatest general was he who made the fewest mistakes; and that is what we are attempting to do at the present time. We are open to learn from any source how we can get the men, because we want them. As to the clothing situation-walking-out dress and so forth -we have placed in the tearoom of the House two examples of the blue walking-out dress which has been submitted to His Majesty for his approval, and the prewar 1938 suggestions, which were never approved.

Do I understand my hon. Friend to say that the walking-out dress has been decided upon and submitted for approval, because we understood from his right hon. Friend that that was not the case, up to a few days ago?

The question of the uniform dress for the Army is within the prerogative of the King, and, therefore, designs and ideas are suggested to his Majesty who has, no doubt, ideas of his own, but the final approval has not yet been given to either of these two dresses which are exhibited in the Tearoom. We all have our ideas on how the Army should be dressed-I have views of my own, but they do not meet with the approval of quite a lot of people, because I am told that the public do not want the colours which were used in the dress of the Army in the old days. I must say that I like to see the Chelsea Pensioners, for example, in their red uniforms, going about Chelsea. It adds to the gaiety of Chelsea, and, perhaps, in these drab times, we may hark back to the days when soldiers were dressed in more colourful uniforms than they are now. I am told, however, that the public will not stand for that sort of thing. It is open to hon. Members to submit their ideas to the War Office, and I can assure them that they will be very carefully considered.

As to the suggestion made by the hon. and gallant Member for North Blackpool about periodical statements, I think that, at some time in the future, they should be made, but I suggest that now is not the appropriate moment. I have to admit that recruiting is not as satisfactory as we would desire. There are various reasons for that. I think that the principal reason is that the spirit of the nation and of the young men, is not directed towards joining the Regular Army. There is intense competition in civil life, with the purely artificial conditions which exist, and which, possibly, will continue to exist for some time to come, but I am quite certain that this nation will respond and the young men will respond, as their fathers and forefathers did, but with this difference, that the young men of today will join the Fighting Forces—not only the Army, but the other Services, because they are quite sure in their own minds that they want to make them a career, and not because they are unemployed, down and out, or because some recruiting sergeant has got hold of them in some public house.

The hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. M. Lindsay) said that Army quarters had been a disgrace to the nation in the past. That is quite true. I hope that the House will absolve me, my right hon. Friend, and the present Government for being directly responsible. We have been handed this inheritance Many of these unsuitable barracks and married quarters are still there, and we have to get rid of them and rebuild new ones. I can assure hon. Members, in all parts of the House, that we are busily engaged on that, and my right hon. Friend has given to me personally that particular job to watch, and to supervise the progress of the building campaign which we have laid down, and which will extend over a very long period, possibly as much as 20 years.

Will the hon. Gentleman have sufficient priority from the Ministry of Health to make these building improvements?

We do not ask the Ministry of Health for priority in this respect. This is a matter of Government responsibility and I can assure the hon. and gallant Member for North Blackpool that my right hon. Friend, with all those faults and failings upon which the hon. Member for Solihull seems to concentrate, is constantly putting forward the point of view of the War Office in respect of many of these things, and, indeed, meeting with a very considerable amount of success— at any rate behind the scenes.

I should like now to deal with some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams). I agree with him that the overseas tour of service in the past has been too long, although it is a remarkable thing that in days gone by, in the earlier part of this century and the last, there was competition for the overseas tour of service. Now it seems to be the other way about; both officers and men want to spend the shortest possible time abroad and the longest possible time at home, and obviously we shall have to meet the changed circumstances. I am glad to say that in the new plans which we are now in the process of making we have allowed for a shorter tour of overseas service. I think that as far as foreign service is concerned there will be a desire at some time on the part of young men to go and see the world.

I do not altogether agree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Willesden (Mr. Orbach) that the spirit of adventure epitomised in the poster, "Join the Navy and see the world" is lacking; 1 believe that the time will come, particularly with the faster means of communication, when young men will want to leave this country and go abroad to see what is happening in other parts of the world, and I like to think that perhaps the Army will be a very good avenue for that overseas travel. However be that as it may, we have wide flung commitments in all parts of the world and we have to have an Army to protect them. It will therefore be necessary for young men to realise, as I am sure they will, that a shorter period of overseas service than we have had hitherto will offer many attractions for those who are young, vigorous and healthy.

I am very pleased to hear from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Westbury (Mr. Grimston) that the mobile recruiting column that we are sending round the country is "a very good show," but I am quite sure that it alone cannot achieve what we desire. It is only part of the propaganda which we at the War Office are trying now to introduce in order to stimulate some interest in the country among the recruits we want. I am inclined to think that we are not getting as much publicity as we would desire or as is necessary, but there it is—we are in very difficult times. The newspapers are very brief; they have not the same space as heretofore, either for the War Office or for the House of Commons Debates, but I must pay a tribute to them. They are helping us considerably and they helped us equally when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State opened the recruiting campaign in May last. As time goes on, we shall use all methods of getting our message over to the public, including both the Press and, of course, the B.B.C.

Has the Minister formulated any opinion as to why the campaign is not going as it should?

We are engaged in a very technical process, which I have not time to go into now, for ascertaining the reactions of the public to this recruiting campaign, and perhaps at some time I may be able to inform the hon. Gentleman and the House as to the result of that technical examination.

The hon. Member for East Willesden rather suggested that we should adopt the same method and the same outlook as the Red Army to get our men. I do not think that would be quite suitable in this country. I am quite prepared to pay tribute to many of the methods adopted by the U.S.S.R., but in recruiting a voluntary army—which the Red Army is not—we must use essentially British methods, with all their faults, and hope for the best. I am not at all sure that we shall not get as good results as Russia does, though perhaps not on such a magnificent and wide scale. I would like to give the House as much information as I can—

Although, as I have said, this is not the appropriate moment to give detailed figures, I would like to give the House one or two facts. Strangely enough, the summer season is never the best season for recruiting. That is our experience in the past and it is our experience now. Here is another little piece of information. Before the war, the Royal Air Force was able to attract three recruits to every one we got in the Army, although the Royal Air Force was a smaller Service. I think there should be healthy competition between the Services, and also between the commands, formations and units within those Services. A little healthy rivalry like that is all to the good. Therefore, it will not be out of place for me to say that, today, the Royal Air Force is not in advance of the Army in recruiting, although in many respects they have more to offer than we have. They have that glamorous element, the air, which attracts youth. The Army is on terra firma. But today at any rate we are keeping pace with the Royal Air Force, and I hope that in time we shall lead. I am sure the Royal Air Force will not mind that, because the Royal Air Force, by the very nature of its service, and the smaller numbers required, will get all the recruits it wants. We are getting from one source, 1,000 inquiries a week for the booklet we have advertised dealing with conditions in the Army. Naturally, those 1,000 inquiries do not produce 1,000 recruits, but nevertheless it is an indication of the interest the country has in the Army, and we hope that that will be continued and stimulated.

Finally, I would ask hon. Members in all parts of the House to help us in this matter. By all means criticise. We shall welcome criticism so long as it is constructive, but we depend on Members of Parliament, who are in a special relationship with their constituents. They are entirely different from trade unions, the employers and other organisations. They are more specialised, and obviously we cannot expect trade unions or even employers to go recruiting for the Army, because at the present moment they want workpeople in their industries. In that respect hon. Members can help us considerably in the task to which we have set our hands. I am not at all pessimistic as to the results of the campaign, although I think it will take some time before we are able to come to this House and show very tangible results.

I hope the hon. Member will realise that there is widespread dissatisfaction with both models of walking-out dress which have been exhibited, and that in particular we feel that the step that has been taken during the war, of giving the private soldier the right to wear a collar and tie, should not be taken from him. The cut and texture of the clothing must be on a much better scale than it is in the case of either of those models. I hope the Minister will assure us that very careful reconsideration is being given to this matter, which is of such importance to recruiting.

I take note of that, and those remarks will receive particular attention at the War Office.

I am very grateful indeed to be given this opportunity to raise the question of cattle breeding. It is a matter of great importance to the agricultural industry. It is indeed of such importance that it appears to have attracted a single hon. Member to the Opposition Benches, and I would like to congratulate him on being there.

During the last 20 years there has probably been some improvement in the production records of our dairy herds. Feeding methods have been improved, veterinary methods have been improved, and, most important of all, during the war years, owing to shortage of food, there has been much more vigorousculling. But in spite of that, I am reasonably confident, and I think most farmers will agree with me, that the average dairy herd of today is worse bred than it was 20 years ago. There are more mixed lots, more mongrel lots. It is not an easy matter to show this by statistics, but if one goes to the average market, and to the ordinary commercial herds, one will find there a more mixed and more mongrel lot than there used to be. If that is so, there can be no question that our cattle-breeding policy over the period of 20 years has not been a success. Twenty years ago, when the district breeds were better established, it was a good deal easier to anticipate what performance heifer calves would give when they grew up. Now they have become so mongrel that it is very difficult to have any idea in these mixed herds as to what the produce are going to do.

As to the causes of that situation, the one I would put first is the homelessness of the British Friesian. We have introduced in large quantities the great milking breed of the British Friesian, but it is not indigenous to any particular district and the result is that Friesian herds are dotted about all over the country. Their bulls have been introduced in a haphazard way in every district. They are admirable cattle, but a little dash of British Friesian blood introduced into other breeds is a very bad thing indeed, because it mon-grelises the local breed.

Another difficulty is the highly unsatisfactory method of bull licensing. We have introduced the licensing of bulls to get rid of scrub bulls, but the main ground on which licences are granted or refused, is the appearance of the bull. Appearance gives very little guide as to the capacities of a dairy bull. We can get very little idea from its appearance. Further, and this is a by-result, in order to get the licences and to sell yearling bulls, they are grossly and extravagantly over fed. They are filled up with milk in order to make them attractive and are forced, at the expense of their later years. I could show hon. Members three young bulls on my farm which are looking magnificent. They are being prepared for sale. I could show them next door an animal of the same age, but smaller and thin, which looks all head and horn. That is the bull I am keeping, because I know that four or five years hence that will be the best bull of the four. The way to bring up a young bull is to hold it back and not let it get too fat but to let it develop gradually. But one cannot sell bulls that way. In many herds one cannot get them licensed in that way. One has to force them at an. early age. It is a great waste of milk. It is true that recently some provisions regarding the performance of immediate ancestors have been brought into the bull licensing system,; but that is not enough. One cannot tell what sort of progeny a bull will have, merely from seeing his immediate ancestors. One needs to know a great deal more about the back pedigree than that. One cannot tell if he will carry on his characteristics purely by looking at the performance of his dam and his sire. In the question of bull licensing, breeding should be considered far more and appearance and immediate performances far less.

Far more serious, in the bull licensing system of today is the fact that a bull, once licensed, may go into any herd. One can have the best bull in the world but if he is put in some herds he will breed mongrels and bad stock there. One does not get good stock by having good bulls. One gets good stock by getting good matings. A bull has to be selected which is suitable for the herd, and licensing does not help in that. Bulls should only be licensed for a specific herd, where they are likely to fit in with the herd characteristics, and if it is wished to move them to another herd, a licence should be necessary for that purpose. Finally, I would say that 90 per cent. of our bulls go to market and are slaughtered before they can be progeny tested. The ordinary procedure is to buy a young bull, keep him until he is about three or four, and then send him to market. The result is that the bull is slaughtered before one knows how his daughters will milk. That is not sense. It means that bulls which are most successful by the only real test, which is the test of the dairy qualities of their progeny, have generally been slaughtered before one knows what those progeny are like.

I suggest that if these criticisms are well founded, and I think most farmers will agree they are, there is a case to appoint a Commission, which is why I have raised this subject, to consider this question of cattle breeding and see if we can make some improvements. I will make a suggestion or two, one of which will doubtless appeal to the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) whom I am very glad to see here. I think our bulls would work better if they were nationalised.

Naturalised or nationalised?

Nationalised. I thought that suggestion would appeal to the hon. Gentleman. Let me apply the test suggested by the Lord President, in a speech which is often misquoted, in which he said we should prove our case. The first thing one has to consider is whether private enterprise has failed. Of course, in many respects in this breeding question it has done very well. The pedigree breed societies are doing an admirable job, as they are also doing in grading up herds where they are working. There are a few herds where they have established breeding methods of their own and while not entering their cattle in any register they are, in fact, breeding very pure stock. Let us leave our breeding societies members to carry on and select their own bulls. In the case of a few exceptional non-pedigree herds, where they have an established breeding method which is a success, let them carry on too. But I would say, as to the others, these people who are not prepared to take the trouble to join a breeding society and upgrade their herds, that they regard a bull merely as a means of getting a cow in calf, that in the flying herds which represent the majority of our dairy population, they are utterly indifferent to what they breed, and I suggest that, in regard to these herds, the owner should not be allowed to own a bull, but that the bulls for the commercial herds should be owned by the Ministry and leased to commercial farmers. The Ministry would have a monopoly of the bulls, and they would lease them to the farmers. That would enable the following advantages to be derived: Local breeds could be built up, that is to say, the Government could take a large area covering a large number of markets, say the Midland counties, and stipulate the breed which they were going to build up as the dairy breed. It might be the dairy shorthorn.

Why?

I am just taking an example of an area. I know the hon. Gentleman's interest in Ayrshires. Possibly, in Cheshire and Lancashire we would establish a home for British Friesians. In these areas, the Government would release only dairy bulls of one breed. Therefore, the stock that was going to market in that area would be the products of bulls of that breed, and we should begin to get purity in the local breeds again. In the sub-divisions of these areas, we could draw the bulls from single herds breeding to line. In the days of Bates and Collins, whole districts were influenced by the presence of these men and what their herds were doing. If we took a pedigree herd and distributed their bulls in the area of one market, the influence of that pedigree herd would at once begin to be felt in the district, and the district would gain, in effect, by line breeding, while the breed in the larger area would tend to establish the purity of local breeding.

The second great advantage would be that we should establish what is lacking at the moment, a home for the Friesians. We should have all the Friesian bulls in one area. Finally, there is one other thing which is extremely important, and that is the question of distinguishing between our dairy breeds and our beef breeds. At the present moment, the beef bulls which are recommended are those which give a colour, such as the Herefords and Aberdeen Angus, to the exclusion of the beef Shorthorn bulls. If that goes on, the beef shorthorns will be ruined, because the production for the Argentine market can only be supported if there is a middle market for the commercial bulls in England, and that middle market has been killed by this policy of recommending only the Herefords and Aberdeens. In a district where the dairy shorthorn had been chosen as the dairy breed, for beef, we could establish Hereford or Aberdeen Angus, and, in other areas, where we had Friesians or Guernseys for milk, we could have shorthorns for beef, and so make good use of shorthorn beef bulls with magnificent results, without confusing them with our dairy herds. It would give the Ministry a general control over the breeding policy within the commercial herds. Of course, this is not worked out in detail and, if it were, I should not have the time to describe it. These are merely the sort of suggestions which could be considered by a commission. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us, in his reply, that he will consider the appointment of a commission to go into the whole question of cattle breeding.

I want to support the practical basis of the speech of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). I want the Minister to turn his attention, as soon as possible, to the long-term policy which we must initiate in regard to livestock and cattle breeding. At present, under force of circumstances, we are thinking only in terms of cereal production. Most of the speeches I have made in this House have been upon that subject. The time will come within the next three or four years, when we must consider seriously the question of our livestock. No doubt, we shall switch back to livestock production, and it is necessary for the Ministry to take appropriate steps. They may have taken steps already, but, if not, they should begin to think in terms of the betterment of British stock.

A few moments ago, I looked up some figures. The June figures were not available, but the March figures show very plainly that there is a tremendous wastage, either by sale or disease, in our young stock. It is a fact that the figures, for March, 1946, for young stock alone, are down by about 100,000 head. The wastages which the farming industry suffer must be made good. Therefore, it behoves the Ministry to think in terms of licences and the improvement of stock, so that farmers can be assured not only that our dairy herds are kept up to a high standard, but that our other cattle breeds are also maintained upon a high level. British stock have in the past occupied a high place so far as quality is concerned, when compared with international stock. We want to make it a primary duty on the part of the Ministry to uphold that position. There is one warning which I wish to give. I want the Ministry to cater for the needs of the ordinary farmer. We hear a lot about pedigree stock. The high grades of pedigree stock are not available to the ordinary farmer. Prices are too high. In my view, they are much too high, and I hope that we may be able to devise ways and means, whereby the small farmer, the farmer with say 100 or 200 acres, may have access, not only by artificial insemination but in other ways, to these high grade stocks, which I hope it will be possible for the industry to produce. I suggest that out of this very small Debate this afternoon some policy may be forthcoming, which will assist British farming in the future.

We have had a most interesting contribution today from my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) on this question of cattle breeding policy, which is so important both to the livestock industry of this country and to the agricultural industry in general. I was glad, at least, to hear him pay tribute to the quality of our pedigree stock which, I think, is unrivalled. Because it is unrivalled, our pedigree stock has taken its part—and a very useful part—in the export trade which I hope will be developed. The criticism that he makes is essentially in relation to the commercial herds, and I want to tell him here and now that very full consideration will be given to some of the suggestions that he has made. Some, I thought, were novel; some, I thought, were at least worthy of very serious consideration, and I want to assure him that we shall give consideration to those questions.

But let it not be thought that little or nothing has been done in this matter, because quite the contrary is the case. The bull licensing scheme which this House approved in the early 1930's, was, of course, intended to eliminate the scrub bull, and in that it has been largely successful. Constant improvements have been made in that scheme, and as recently as last year, for example, there were added to that scheme three distinct categories of licence—the dairy licence, the beef licence, and the general licence. That system has been operating only for a relatively short time. I am sure that everybody who is interested in this matter will appreciate that we must be guided largely by experience, and since that scheme has only come into being recently, we must allow it to have a little time in which to work. We ought not to lose sight of the fact that the Bill which this House passed has helped considerably the development of artificial insemination centres in the country. In those artificial insemination centres, only bulls of the highest quality are being used. Quite obviously, the smallish farmer—and experience testifies to this again and again —is now getting considerable advantages from the use of these centres.

My hon. Friend went on to suggest that Friesian cattle are, as I think he put it, "homeless." It is an interesting suggestion. This is only a tiny island, but its soil, climate and other conditions vary considerably from county to county. As he says, it is a fact that Friesians are fairly widely distributed today. I thought he might fight shy of saying this, because he is a very bold person who will say today that any particular breed of cattle should find a home in one particular county or another. If we were to adopt such a course, it might be said that we should confine the Galloways to Galloway, and I can see the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie) having a little to say about that. I imagine that if we argued likewise about the Ayrshires, we should certainly have a most interesting Debate. We might even have the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) taking part in the discussion if we proposed to restrict the Ayrshires to Ayrshire. This Debate has opened up a. number of most interesting suggestions, and in the minute that I have left I wish to say one thing. My hon. Friend has thrown out the notion of having a commission.

The answer to that suggestion is this. We have at the Ministry now working on this matter a Livestock Improvement Committee, composed of practical people, including representatives of the important breed societies, scientists and specialists in this matter, of which I know my hon. Friend has some knowledge. We have those people working on this Committee with the broad aim of directing special attention to these questions. I would not like the House or the country to imagine that nothing is done about this very important matter. I do not subscribe to the view which my hon. Friend put forward that we have made no improvement in relation to the question of mongrelisation. That is taking it rather too far. I agree that during the war, for reasons that we well know—the emphasis on milk production, and all that followed from that— there was a little indiscriminate breeding, but I would not go as far as my hon. Friend did. Let me assure him, while thanking him for his contribution, that everything that has been said in this Debate will be most carefully considered in order to get the utmost advantage in the development of our livestock policy.