Mr. Speaker—

This is a non-debatable Measure and we cannot debate a Bill which is not before the House.

On a point of Order. If I may very respectfully refer you, Mr. Speaker, to page 173 of Erskine May, it appears from it that in the year 1794 Mr. Sheridan raised a Debate upon the First Reading of this Bill and the then Mr. Speaker decided that he was in Order.

I am afraid we are now in 1946.

Further to that point of Order which, I think, is a serious one. Is it not the case, Mr. Speaker, that the purpose of the Outlawries Bill is to insist upon the right of this House to discuss some item or other of its own business before going on to consider the King's Speech? I think that that is laid down in Erskine May, and in 1794 the then Mr. Speaker ruled that it was in Order for Mr. Sheridan to argue that the House should lead with some business other than the Outlawries Bill, and that it was within its right to deal with such other business before going on with the King's Speech. In the light of precedent, and in the light of the tradition of this House, may I respectfully request you, Mr. Speaker, to reconsider your Ruling?

Standing Order No. 32 lays down this procedure, and it would not be in Order to ask me to put in another Measure instead of the Outlawries Bill. This is an old declaration of our rights and independence and is one of the links with the past. I should be very sorry to see it go.

Further to that point of Order. My only object in rising was to give hon. Members, who, like myself, do not know the true reason why the Outlawries Bill is introduced at this time, some explanation of the reason for its introduction.

I think I have stated my opinion quite clearly.

I wish to make a submission on the point of Order, if I may. It is that although through the centuries this Bill has become very much of a formality, as you yourself have said, there probably was a time when it was by no means a formal matter and when the House, before it spoke its mind, may well have desired to have guarantees on the subject of outlawry. That form of outlawry has now gone, but there are many other forms of outlawry—and especially the closed shop—which I submit it would be appropriate to discuss now.

No doubt, a suitable time will be found to discuss the other forms of outlawry.

I have to acquaint the House that the House has this day attended His Majesty in the House of Peers, and His Majesty was pleased to make a Most Gracious Speech from the Throne to both Houses of Parliament, of which I have, for greater accuracy, obtained a copy, which is as followeth:

I beg to move,

"That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty as followeth:

Most Gracious Sovereign,

"We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."

It is with much apprehension and anxiety that I have gathered up my courage to move this Address, for I am well aware of my shortcomings and of my inexperience. In the 16 months during which it has been my privilege to represent the people of Acock's Green I have learned that sympathy here is always given in full measure to any Member who endeavours to do his duty, is true to his conscience, and is honest and outspoken. It is on this basis, and in all humility, that I wish to address, through you, Mr. Speaker, my remarks to the House this afternoon.

I am not really a politician but an engineer. I am much more at home examining a blueprint than I am when I have to examine a Government White Paper. I have spent all the years of my working life in Birmingham, that city of a thousand industries, peopled for the most part by technicians and engineers like myself. In Hall Green and Acock's Green, the constituency I have the honour to represent, live the people who knew "how to make it," who in their thousands filled the factories of Birmingham, where, at the time of Dunkirk and in the subsequent years of the war, the miracle of production took place. They, my people, suffered, and many died, under the fury of the nightly attacks on Birmingham in the dreadful winter of 1940. But they did not flinch, and production soared in mounting curves till finally the ghastly struggle was over, and the opportunity was won—the opportunity to secure a dynamic, lasting peace for all mankind, so that never again would this senseless slaughter have to be repeated.

In July, 1945, when our victory was certain though the last stages of the fighting still continued, the people of Acock's Green sent me here to represent them, because I believe they knew then the nature of peace and the conditions which we must create if it is to be made secure and permanent for all time. It was for this reason, I believe, that they chose me. I used these words in my Election Address:

"Peace, and with it happiness, justice and freedom for all men—these are ideals impossible of attainment unless we are willing to work and to suffer for them. There can be no new order in Europe Or anywhere else without a change of outlook and of renunciation on our part. We must discard all our old ideas about nationalism and class and wealth, and learn to regard ourselves as units of humanity, sharers of the world's wealth and the world's problems in common. In the future which I hope to see we will have to create a United States of Europe as an integral part of the Federation of the World. This is possible even in our lifetime, if we start working for it now; No peace will be permanent until we achieve it."

That was part of the platform on which I stood. For the fulfilment of that pledge my constituents sent me here to Westminster. I am well aware of the tribute which is being paid to my people by the choice of myself to move this Address this afternoon.

I have also been for eight years an elected member of the Council of Federal Union, that society of idealists—and we do not mind being called idealists—who work together to study the problems and conditions of peace. Today, that organisation has grown to world stature, and only recently at a conference in Luxembourg was incorporated under a new name, the Movement for World Federal Government. More than 40 Members of this Parliament are members of it; in almost every country of the world you will come across our people, speaking different languages, holding different ideologies and surmounting the barriers of nationalism, of class and creed by their determination to work together for one single goal, namely, the creation of an effective world parliament which may save us from atomic destruction, and by the only method known to man—secure world order with freedom based on law and justice. Only ultimately by government, we believe, can one hope to abolish the international anarchy out of which the world's difficulties now so largely arise. We believe that there is no short cut to peace, there is no alternative to government.

In the speech with which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Watford (Mr. J. Freeman) so ably moved the Address this time last year, referring to the San Francisco Charter, he used these words:

"It must be the concern of His Majesty's Government to breathe life into these blueprints and to make a living organism of peace and plenty … but it will not be done … by the stereotyped methods of old-fashioned diplomacy. Something new is needed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th August, 1945; Vol. 413. c. 73.]

Today, I think all of us in this House share those views. Indeed, we know that what is needed is effective world government, as the Foreign Secretary and the leaders of all parties have so frequently stated. In this connection might I make one plea to His Majesty's Ministers? It would be this, that they should continue ceaselessly to stress on every possible occasion that it is their desire to see effective world government, elected by the people, ultimately created. For we know that that task is so great and so urgent that we cannot hope to carry it through unless we have the driving power of world public opinion behind us; and it will make it so much easier for us, the common people in every land, to canalise this overwhelming desire for a just and lasting peace if the Ministers who speak for Britain leave no doubt that they too believe that world government can be and is being achieved, and if in their pronouncements and their policies they indicate the need for its success. In this way, with Britain's lead, I believe we can perform that miracle, and provide a world of permanent peace for future generations to enjoy, a world in which the abundant resources which now lie latent will be fully developed for the good of all mankind.

Unfortunately, today, as is so tragically apparent from the meetings now taking place in New York, there is an underlying fear that each big Power, in the genuine interests of its own security, is looking to military strategy for its defence. Yet we, the common people of Britain, know the absurdity of that thesis, and recognise that in this atomic age there is only one form of security for any of us; that is, the security, not of force but of effective international law, and the order which can be based upon it. Until we have that law, which only world government can make, every nation must, of course, provide its own armed forces for its own protection, in conformity with Article 43 of the Charter of the United Nations. The United Nations organisation is the overriding factor, as indeed it must be, in British foreign policy. Nevertheless, immediately the United Nations organisation can be developed into, or be replaced by, a real and effective world government elected by the people, with a police force of its own to enforce its law, my constituents will ask me, or whoever then represents them, to propose on their behalf that Britain shall demobilise its Armed Forces and merge its defence and sovereignty in the greater sovereignty of all mankind.

I am well aware that this goal of which I speak is some way off. But surely nothing worth while was ever achieved without great effort and a supreme single-mindedness of purpose. My constituents and I knew the difficulties that lay ahead when our troops were beaten back from the shores of Dunkirk, and we knew the long odds against our ultimate success. Yet, in five short years we had succeeded. We are now prepared to repeat that all-out effort, and to keep it up indefinitely till permanent peace for all time is ultimately secured; for that is the end for which we fought the war, that was the purpose of our victory. We know what is involved; we are prepared to work for it, and to spend and to be spent in that endeavour. With God's help, and with high courage, I believe we shall succeed.

I beg to second the Motion so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Acock's Green (Mr. Usborne).

In the duty which I have undertaken this afternoon, I am fortified by two recent personal experiences which, with permission, I will relate to the House. First, may I say that I remember, only too well, the night on which the Battle of E1 Alamein started? We were then keyed up; everyone was tense; but, with the firing of the first shot, we felt a great deal easier. Having said that, I must add that I feel a little easier in undertaking this duty this afternoon. There is one other incident which stands out in my recent experiences. That was on the day on which we started to cross the Rhine. It was then my privilege to accept a message which I read out to all the troops under the command of the 12th Corps; which said, in the words of a famous Yorkshireman, "Let battle commence." And it did, with the success which was a credit to our people.

In discharging the high duty of seconding this Address to His Majesty for His Gracious Speech, I am deeply conscious of the tribute which is being paid to Scotland and to my own constituency. Scotland's war effort needs no retelling by me. The history of our Highland and Lowland Divisions, and the industrial contribution made by Scotland, will live for ever in the annals of our country. I want to say a few words particularly on the real work done and the positive contribution made by the people of Leith. When the Allied commanders and their advisers decided to build Mulberry, a great deal of that work was given to Scotland. As a matter of fact, 83 per cent. of the pierheads which made up the famous Mulberry harbour were built in Scotland, and of a total of 18, 13 were completed within my constituency. We had a great task; time was short; and the order was that, instead of taking four months per pierhead, the men ought to complete them in four weeks. Many thought it was impossible; but not so these workmen of Leith, who are so typical, if I may say so, of the workmen of any other part of these islands. They went to it with a will, and 13 pierheads, and all the pontoons necessary for that operation, were launched from the yards of Leith in good time to play their part in that remarkable D-Day. In addition to that contribution, 54 Admiralty and merchant ships were launched from our yards, and there were also the hundreds of repairs rendered necessary by enemy operations. The men and women of my constituency worked day and night in the common cause. In addition, they rallied to the Forces, and the men of the fishing fleet of Newhaven, which is within my constituency, rallied to the Merchant Navy, which also played such an important part. The dockers worked night and day to keep up the flow of goods, so essential at that time. I am deeply grateful at having this opportunity of paying public tribute to the war service of the people of my constituency.

I think it is all the more remarkable in view of their experiences between the two wars. I know that one should not introduce controversial matter on this occasion, but I do not think Members of this House will object when I recall the treatment meted out to these workers in the years between the wars. Then, they were not clamouring for unemployment pay, nor for public assistance, but for the right to work, which was denied to many of them. Because of that, and because of bad housing, and all that goes with it, their lot was a very mean one, indeed. So that, when this war finished, they not only asked, but demanded that their future should be a much brighter one; and it is because of that, I believe, that this Government was returned, to carry out that task.

I think there is a great feeling of confidence in the country, despite the grey clouds which overhang us. We have been in difficult corners before, and there have been occasions when our morale has been under a severe strain. I recall that in 1942, for instance, things had not been going well for the Armed Forces. I was then stationed in North Africa. There were rumours of changes, because rumours were always plentiful; in fact, I would say that they were the most plentiful thing in the Armed Forces. There were rumours that we were to have a change of commander. Names were bandied about; and then someone said that a chap called Montgomery was to take over. That was followed by a rumour that he was to pay us a visit; followed by another story that we were to have a visit from the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill). May I say, that the Army did not describe the right hon. Gentleman in just those words? They described him in a more affectionate way. This hope was realised. We were turned out to greet the right hon. Gentleman but, unfortunately, in the Army, you cannot just lift your hat, and with enthusiasm shout "Hooray." You have to do it by numbers; to move your hat at the command, "One, two, and three," to the cheering position. You then wait until your section leader gives you the "Hip, hip" before you come in with the "hurrah." Unfortunately, the right hon. Gentleman had by then moved well off down the road out of sight. But behind him—and I want to say this publicly—he did leave behind that feeling of confidence which carried us through.

It is that mood of confidence which, I think, prevails in the country today. People realise that the difficulties before us are great, but, they also feel that with cooperation and an increase of production, we can surmount our present difficulties. All Members must have heard with pleasure that part of the Gracious Speech which refers to the preparatory work of the International Conference on Trade and Industry. It must have given special pleasure to the hon. Members who represent ports, especially those Members from Scotland and Wales, where the ports have been going through a very difficult period since the war ended. We shall welcome any steps that that Conference may take to bring succour to those areas. Transport will play a tremendous part in our economic recovery, and I trust that the proposed legislation will be of benefit to the country as a whole. In the North we have always felt that transport charges formed one barrier to the attraction of light industries to our country, but we trust that the new Measure will rectify this and will help to give us a balanced economy. If the legislation outlined in the Gracious Speech provides an up-to-date and efficient service, it will be welcomed by hon. Members of this House.

The House must have been particularly gratified to hear the proposals to effect an efficient development, with a system of guaranteed prices and assured markets, of our agricultural industry. During and since the war we have all felt how important a part this industry played in our national economy. For too long has it been the Cinderella of industries. We trust that in addition to the greater benefits this legislation will confer upon those engaged in the industry, will also attract people from the urban to the rural areas, and help to give us that better economy which we all so much desire.

The proposals contained in the Gracious Speech to nationalise electricity are essential, if we are to give the best and most economical service to industry and to domestic users. I have only one appeal to make to the Minister who will be responsible, and it is this: that when the legislation is enacted, he will do everything in his power to see that not even the remotest house is deprived of the benefits of that service.

I specially welcome the proposals to give a new health service to Scotland. I do not think there is any need for me to recount the great part played by the medical and surgical work carried out in Scotland. If these services give an adequate health service to every man, woman and child in our country, as I confidently believe they will, then I know it will be a job with which the House of Commons will be very well pleased.

Hon. Members in all parts of the House will welcome that part of the Gracious Speech which promises a greater production of consumer and capital goods for our own people. They have borne their trials with great fortitude and courage, and we feel the time has now arrived when they should experience some of the benefits which greater production can give them. This again, may I reiterate, can only be achieved if we have the greatest cooperation and the maximum production in industry. The people of Scotland, who played such a great part in the winning of the war, along with their brothers from England and Wales and other parts of the British Empire, if given an opportunity, will be only too pleased to join with them once more to secure the victory in the economic battle in which we are now engaged. The present Prime Minister, during the Debate on the Address in 1943, said:

"In our country also, just as the complete changeover of industry from peace to war was slow and difficult, so the restoration of industry, the return of the fighters and war workers to civilian life is not going to be a short or easy business. I am certain that in a well-ordered and peaceful world mankind can attain in time higher standards of life than have ever been enjoyed before, but the difficulty of the immediate postwar period must be understood, and all the more is it necessary that we should see that we utilise to the full the services of our own people and do not allow the workers to rust in enforced idleness."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th November, 1943; c. 44, vol. 395.]

Because I believe that the programme outlined in the Gracious Speech is one more step to that better life for all, and because I believe that the proposals to deal with our basic industries would have commended themselves to that great Scotsman and Socialist Keir Hardie, I do sincerely feel it a great honour and privilege to have the opportunity of seconding the Motion moved by my hon. Friend.

The extensive armoury of the English language has frequently been ransacked on these occasions, in order to find new and unhackneyed terms of compliment and congratulation which can be applied by the Leader of the Opposition to the hon. Members who have been chosen by the Government to move and second the Address. I confess that I should have found myself baffled, in the selection of any new terms or any new feature, but for the remarkable fact that neither of the two hon. Gentlemen is wearing uniform or Court dress. Here, at any rate, is one of the really broad advances of democracy, and it may be some comfort to hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, if their thirst for blood is not slaked in other ways. But here I must utter a word of warning to Ministers opposite. They must remember that, in this direction, they are moving contrary to the general tendencies of the Soviet Government, which has distinguished itself throughout the world by the gold-laced glory of its official uniforms, and by the punctilio which it observes on all occasions. We may, therefore, possibly regard this innovation either as an advance of democracy, or as a demonstration on the part of the Government of their differences with the Communist regime.

But I do wholeheartedly congratulate both hon. Gentlemen on their speeches, on the unexceptionable character of the sentiments to which they have given vent, and on the form in which they have cast their arguments, I was particularly pleased to hear the mover of the Address, the hon. Member for the Acock's Green division of Birmingham (Mr. Usborne), speak with favour of the United States of Europe, and I trust that if ever we are able to come to practical action in that field, he will not fail to enrol himself as a servant of that cause, for a regional consciousness of Europe, while certainly vital in itself, is an essential and fundamental part of the policy of the world organisation of the United Nations. I also give my compliments to the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy), and thank him for his very kind references to me. He commanded the universal assent of the House in his tribute to Scotland, and to the work done at Leith in pursuance of the war. The efforts of Scotland and the contribution of Scotland are entitled to world-wide fame; and I must remind the House that they also voted extremely sensibly at the General Election.

This is the second King's Speech of the Socialist Government. They have been 16 months in office. We have had one of the most laborious and protracted Sessions—fruitful, hon. Members may say, but at any rate productive of something which is on record. At this moment, in reply to' the second King's Speech, we may profitably attempt to take stock of the position. The world situation has not improved. The Prime Minister, at the Mansion House, drew a sombre picture from which I cannot dissent. At the General Election, we were assured that a Socialist or Left-Wing Government "would get on especially well with the Soviet Government of Russia, but relations have steadily deteriorated." The British and American Forces in Europe have melted away, as was inevitable—I am not making it an accusation—in the case of governments resting upon the popular will, after a great victory. The Russian Armies, based on the despotic form of government, have been maintained in Europe in vast strength, and mostly on a war footing. More than one-third of Europe is held under the Russian Soviet control. The Soviet military frontier is on the Elbe, and it is impossible to forecast what the future and the fate of France will be. No fruition has yet attended the peace negotiations even about the smaller satellite enemy Powers—perhaps the Prime Minister will be able to make some statement on this point today.

The United Nations organisation, as he has so forcibly pointed out at the Mansion House, has not, so far, fulfilled our hopes; it remains however—and in this I agree with the mover of the Address—our citadel, and we are in full accord with His Majesty's Government in their loyal and faithful support of this institution, whose reign and ascendancy are an earnest of the desire of the overwhelming majority of mankind. To record these melancholy facts which we see around us, is not necessarily to blame His Majesty's Government, The difficulties have been enormous, and the forces which confront them are intractable. British influence abroad has greatly diminished since wartime days. It is not to attack the Government that I mention these facts, but in order to survey our own position. The Foreign Secretary has done his best, and we on this side have given him whatever support was in our power—we have even sometimes supported him to an extent which caused him embarrassment in other quarters. We cannot charge the Government with being responsible for all the evils of the situation abroad. They have certainly not been guilty of any wrongful or provocative action. We readily believe that their motives are as innocent and virtuous as those which are set out in the mellifluous language of the Gracious Speech, with large parts of which we are in full agreement. It was the duty of the Socialist Government to take office when called upon to do so so decidedly by the electors. It is not their fault if they are not equal to the job, though it may be our misfortune.

It cannot be claimed, however, that even a National Coalition Government would have successfully surmounted all the adverse tides which have been flowing. The Conservative Party cannot of course accept any responsibility for Potsdam, as matters were taken out of our hands in the vital phase of those discussions. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] These are facts, but I am sure, whoever had conducted Potsdam, it would have left behind it many grievous legacies for the future of Europe. Nevertheless, the fact remains that 18 months after the surrender of Germany, and more than a year after that of Japan, and in spite of the firm, helpful attitude of the United States based on the joint action—what they call"bi-partisan"—of their two historic parties, the world scene is still dark, anxious and confused. No decisive improvement can be recorded, except, of course, that in the mercy of God the cannons have ceased to fire.

In the forefront of any survey of the world stands Germany, a vanquished nation. "Stands," I said—no, prostrate, shattered. Seventy or 80 millions of men and women of an ancient, capable and terribly efficient race are in a ruined and famished condition in the heart of Europe. This confronts us with problems which at present are quite unsolved by the victors. We and the Americans continue to rule and administer the German people in our zones at extravagant and almost unbearable cost—I think in this I carry the Chancellor of the Exchequer with me—to ourselves, and with increasing dissatisfaction to the Germans. We have not been told, and I will not attempt to discuss what is happening in the Russian zone. We are all agreed that the proper course is, as I said before we separated, to make the Germans earn their own living, and make them manage their own affairs as soon as possible, and to give them all possible aid while preventing every form of rearmament. If we are agreed on that, let us enforce it. Let us stick to it and enforce it on every occasion as opportunity serves. Though we have not been informed of any attempt which has been made to forecast the form of the peace treaty with Germany, surely it is urgent to make a peace with the German people, or as many of them as lie within our spheres of responsibility. There must be an end to vengeance and retribution.

I am told that Germany must be punished. I ask: When did punishment begin? It certainly seems to have been going on for a long time. It began in 1943, and continued during 1944 and 1945, when the most frightful air bombardments were cast upon German cities, and when the general exhaustion of their life under the cruel Nazi regime had drained the last ounces of strength from the German race and nation. The Nuremberg trials are over, and the guilty leaders of the Nazi regime have been hanged by the conquerors. We are told that thousands yet remain to be tried, and that vast categories of Germans are classed as potentially guilty because of their association with the Nazi regime. After all, in a country which is handled as Germany was, the ordinary people have very little choice about what to do. I think some consideration should always be given to ordinary people. Everyone is not a Pastor Niemoller or a martyr, and When ordinary people are hurled this way and that, when the cruel hands of tyrants are laid upon them and vile systems of regimentation are imposed and enforced by espionage and other forms of cruelty, there are great numbers of people who will succumb. I thank God that in this island home of ours, we have never been put to the test which many of the peoples of Europe have had to undergo. It is my hope that we shall presently reach the end of the executions, penalties, and punishments, and that without forgetting the hard lessons of the past, we shall turn our faces resolutely towards the future. There is much to be said not only on the general problem of Germany, but on the character of our administration in the zone confided to us since Germany surrendered. My right hon. Friend the former Foreign Secretary will deal more at length with the whole German question, and also with British administration of the zone, in the course of the general Debate on the Address. He will speak either tomorrow or the day afterwards, according to what the course of our affairs may render convenient and necessary.

Coming now to the affairs of the British Empire, or former British Empire, with its Commonwealth possessions and mandated territories, I was struck by a statement which was reported to have been made by Mr. Clayton, an official of the United States Government, about Imperial Preference. The statement was made at the end of last week. This subject has often been thrashed out and the facts are common knowledge to every Member who studies our affairs with due attention. Everything is on record. We were repeatedly assured by His Majesty's Government, notably at the time of the acceptance of the American Loan—for which we must not be ungrateful—that no commitments to the prejudice of Imperial Preference had been entered into by His Majesty's Government, and that we are entirely free in any discussions which may take place on the future of world trade or world economy. I ask the Prime Minister to say, when he replies in due course, if he is in a position to renew these assurances on the present occasion in order that we may consider, on this side of the House, what action we should take. I thought it right to give the right hon. Gentleman, whose official position alone prevents me from describing him as "my right hon. Friend," due notice of the question which I have asked on this point.

I may, however, hazard, for my own assurance and that of some of my hon. Friends on these benches, the personal opinion that it would be a great surprise to me, at least, if a Republican Congress were to embrace Free Trade so wholeheartedly, completely, and passionately, and to promote such a casting down of tariff walls of all kinds as to call in question, even as a matter of discussion, the comparatively small, modest Preference duties which have been built up in the British Commonwealth of Nations, which have become part of our supreme common life and which are even more important to us as symbols of our indissoluble union than for their commercial advantages, which are, none the less, considerable. However, I await the declarations of the Prime Minister upon this point.

There is a paragraph in the Gracious Speech about India. This paragraph has the advantage that the Government accept and take upon themselves, as is their duty—it is no more than their duty—the responsibility for what is happening in India, and base their policy upon the statement made by them and the Ministers of the Crown who were recently employed on the mission to India. This is not the time to debate the character and consequences of the British abandonment of India. We have been promised two days' Debate on this subject. I do not consider that anything has been lost by its postponement up to the present. It may well be, however, that before Christmas we shall ask for a formal Debate. We may be forced to ask for it on account of the increasing degeneration in the life of the Indian peoples, and the bloodstains which are already appearing, in wide and numerous areas, on the Indian map.

I will content myself today with one remark, one passage, designed to illustrate the gravity of the events which are now in progress in India. Suppose Europe had been ruled—and this may appeal to the mover of the Address—for several generations, I may even say many generations, by a European Council, and had dwelt in internal peace and safety from external aggression, without any wars, with hardly anybody killed during all that time by steel or lead, except common criminals in the course of common crime. Suppose peace and order had been maintained by an impartial organisation seated, let us say, at Geneva, and that it had required to maintain its authority only fifty to sixty thousand armed council or international troops, and had carried on all its work with little more than 1,200 officials. Suppose this long reign of peace had endured, that nearly a century had passed, and immense increases of population had taken place meanwhile, and that equal laws and justice had been given to all and observed by all the many nations, races, and religions of Europe, so that the Russians and Poles, French and Germans, Austrians and Italians, Protestants and Catholics, Communists and Conservatives, had managed to get along for 60 to 70 years without flying at each other's throats, without killing each other.

That certainly would have been regarded as a blessed era, a kind of Age of the Antonines in Roman history. And that impression would not have been destroyed even though there were admittedly many shortcomings, and also, admittedly, boundless need and hope and means for further improvement. Supposing now that, in the name of progress, it were decided to remove the elements of stability and impartiality which had rendered an all-European organisation possible and had conferred such inestimable blessings upon the masses of the European peoples, that would be a most serious step; it would be a milestone in the history of Europe, and, not only of Europe, but of the world, because we must remember how everything is connected with everything else, especially nowadays. Suppose, moreover, the preparations for the withdrawal of the central power and guiding hand had already released many of the disruptive and rival forces which lurk in every continent and that these were stirring again with age-old animosities, long buried, so long held in neutrality; and suppose, in particular, that the wars of religion in Europe between Catholic and Protestant, which formerly ravaged Europe and which were the cause of the Thirty Years War, again threatened to break out; suppose that already in the last few months in Europe 10,000 Protestants and Catholics had murdered one another. I think that the situation would be one which would justifiably cause widespread anxiety, and which would, when the proper time comes, afford justification for a full and deliberate Debate. We shall hold the Government to their promise to give us this opportunity, but we are quite ready to fix the time in accordance with their convenience, and also with the situation as it exists in India.

I have spoken on recent occasions at length on the proposed abrogation of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and the abandonment by British Forces of the Canal zone. I do not know whether the Prime Minister has any further information for us on the negotiations which have been lately conducted in Cairo and the conversations which have taken place over here, but if he feels that the moment is not suitable, we should not demur to his view, or press him in any way.

About Palestine, however, it is impossible to avoid expressing deep regret at the many changes of tactics and method, at the needless disappointment created throughout world Jewry by the failure to fulfil the hopes which the party opposite excited by their promises and convictions at the General Election, and above all, at the lack of any policy worthy of the name. This absence of any policy or decision on these matters, which have become more complicated as they proceed, has allowed havoc and hatred to flare and run rife throughout Palestine for more than a year—and no one knows where we are today. I have nothing to add to what I have previously advised. Here, perhaps, I may speak for myself, because I have always supported the Zionist movement, and many of my friends here took a different view of it at the time, before the war. I cannot, in any way, recede from the advice which I have ventured to give, namely, that if we cannot fulfil our promises to the Zionists, we should without delay place our mandate for Palestine at the feet of the United Nations, and give due notice of our impending evacuation of that country. If this offer is accepted, a burden, which has become too heavy and too invidious for us to bear alone, will have been lifted from our shoulders and placed in international safekeeping.

If, however, the United States, which is so keenly interested in Jewish immigration, would deprecate such a course on our part, it would be for them to help us in the most effective way, not only with money but with men, and with all that flows from a concerted policy advanced by two great English-speaking Powers. I am not at all deterred in recommending this course by the fact that it has been demanded by the Soviet Government. I was rather glad to find that our minds are flowing in the same direction in one aspect of international affairs. I am convinced that this procedure would either relieve us from the most thankless of all human tasks, from the reproach which attends our ill success and infirmity of purpose, and from the physical and practical difficulties of the task, or, on the other hand, that it would secure us the support necessary from Jewish and American sources by which alone our work can be accomplished and our mission fulfilled. To abandon India, with all the dire consequences that would follow there from, but to have a war with the Jews in order to give Palestine to the Arabs amid the execration of the world, appears to carry incongruity of thought and policy to levels which have rarely been attained in human history.

I leave these external issues in which, in spite of their melancholy features, there is much common ground between the two main parties—after all, we are all in the same boat in the result of many of these things—and I come to the administration and political topics which are open at home. Some of these are referred to in the Gracious Speech. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Address spoke of his great desire to demobilise all the Armed Forces after proper conditions had been established, and I am sure that is a widespread desire—but not yet; like the cynical saying, "We all want to get to Heaven but not immediately." The decision of His Majesty's Government to continue compulsory national service for the Armed Forces for an indefinite period after 1949 is one which they would certainly not have reached without good and grave reasons. In a matter like this, which affects in a vital manner the safety of our country, by avoiding one-sided disarmament, and the maintenance of peace, it will be the duty of the Opposition to support the Government, and we shall certainly do so not only in this House but out of doors.

No one can say there is anything undemocratic about national service for the defence of the country and for the preservation of our free island life, and I assume, of course, that it will be imposed equally and universally upon all British subjects in Great Britain, without any distinction being drawn between rich and poor. There is a question of some difficulty about Northern Ireland. That must be discussed in a temperate spirit, in view of all the past history of that question. I hope, however, that with the least possible delay we shall be placed in possession of the Government's scheme, especially in regard to the Army, so that we may know the part in our future system which the Territorial Army and voluntary enlistment of all kinds will play, and how these features will be reconciled with permanent national compulsory military service. I hope we can also be assured that there is no question of extending compulsory national service in the Armed Forces, which defend the life of the State, to compulsory service in the industries of the country. In time of war, this sacrifice may be made, and was freely and voluntarily made, by the trade unions and by the people of the nation, but anything in the nature of industrial conscription in time of peace would be intolerable, and all tendency in that direction must be resisted by all who wish to avoid the serfdom of totalitarian regimes.

I do not wish to trespass unduly upon the time of the House, but the King's Speech covers many topics, and one may be accused of underrating the value of some particular topic if it is not given customary mention in despatches. I reminded the House recently that I suggested last November that a total of 1,550,000 men should be maintained for the three Services for some time to come. The Government informed us in February that they hoped to reduce the figure to a total of 1,100,000 by 31st December next. I now understand that this process has been stopped—I only read it from the newspapers—and that the 1,100,000 is to be increased by 200,000, 300,000 or 400,000 men. It is no part of my duty to search for points of agreement with the present Government, but it does seem that a figure of 1,100,000, plus 300,000 or 400,000 more, if that is adopted, will bring them very near the 1,550,000 which I put forward a year ago.

Here I must frankly deplore the mismanagement and maladministration of the Armed Forces during the last year. All of the three Ministers responsible have been removed, promoted or dismissed, and new men have been appointed. The former First Lord has now become Minister of Defence. I would like to take the occasion of offering him my hearty congratulations and of saying that we look forward with confidence to his discharge of these duties. The right hon. Gentleman has a very special ability and experience, and I, personally, have always felt the warmest regard for him on account of the very rough times we went through together during the war. But what with his long journey to India and his protracted work on the Paris Conference, which was also quite good—I much preferred it to his work on his previous excursion—he cannot have given much thought to Admiralty business. We are told the Admiralty runs itself. I am not so sure. Today we are told the Navy is undermanned. I saw placarded in the newspapers about recent Fleet exercises that the Navy was undermanned; one battleship, or something like that, was all they could manage Yet the Figures presented to us in February gave them no fewer than 175,000 men on Vote A, or far more than were required for the very large Fleets which were fully manned before the Second World War began. There must be some mismanagement here, and although partial explanations may be forthcoming, I should particularly like to know what is the proportion of men in Vote A of the Navy who are seaborne tonight, and how many of them are employed on shore, and to have comparisons between that and the Navy in- previous phases of its administration. A very searching and severe review of naval establishments is undoubtedly required, and I trust this will be undertaken during: the Estimates Debates of this year. I recognise, of course, that the Fleet Air Arm is an addition to the prewar Navy, and also may be counted as part of our air power.

The former Secretary of State for Air, Lord Stansgate, also has been so much abroad, negotiating for our evacuation of Egypt and the Canal zone, that he has not been able to bring his commanding talents to bear upon the intricate problems and clamant problems of postwar military aviation. Lord Stansgate has gone, and we now have a new Secretary of State for Air, but he has gone, too, to the United States.

Finally, there is the War Office. The former Secretary of State for War—I do not know whether my right hon. Friend is here today—is deservedly popular and respected in all sections of the House. His many good and charming qualities, high patriotism and public spirit, are admired by all That, however, does not in any way efface the fact that he was not qualified to discharge, or capable of discharging, the extraordinary and complicated tasks with which the War Office is cumbered and pressed in the transition period at the end of a great war. There is great importance in having a political Minister constantly making his influence felt in each of the Service Departments. It is one of the cases where that much abused class, the politicians, is indispensable. Left to themselves, the Service chiefs will not be able to produce solutions of many of the difficulties which occur, and they would be the first to say how much they stand in need of political guidance. This guidance they have not had, I think, in any effective form—in any form worth speaking of—for more than a year, and we have paid pretty dearly in all sorts of directions for the lack of this essential element in our organisation.

Take the Kluang court martial, and all that business there. With my immense Army experience, with all the Secretaries of State for War I have seen, criticised or applauded, I cannot understand how any Secretary of State for War, coming into his office one morning and, presumably, reading some of the newspapers, would not have said to the Army Council, or whatever it may be, "Here you are going to try 240 men—since when has there been a mass court martial like that? Look up the precedents. The Cabinet would have to settle a question of that kind." Nothing of this sort seemed to occur, and so we got into an extremely tiresome and vexatious muddle which did not reflect very well upon the smooth and imperturbable administration of our military law and justice, although I take this occasion to say that I thought the first entrance of the new Secretary of State to the House and his remarks upon this subject were by no means unbecoming.

I am sure that if he feels that he has to stand between the Army and criticism and see that justice is done, there will be many opportunities for him to make his tenure of the office praiseworthy and possibly even memorable. Far more serious is the total failure to produce a policy or scheme in respect of the Army which can be explained to Parliament and which, once understood by the country, can become a powerful aid to voluntary recruitment. Failure, and failure worthy of censure, is applied to the Government administration of the three Service Departments since they came into power, and this failure has been demonstrated beyond contradiction by the dismissal of two out of the three Ministers involved.

I have only a few more topics which I must touch upon, and these leave the military, foreign, Colonial, and Imperial spheres and come a little nearer to our home affairs. We are relieved to hear that Ministers will

"prosecute with the utmost vigour the task of providing suitable homes for My people."

This is a day of rejoicing. Is this really true? Have they made up their minds to turn over a new leaf?

Which is more than ever you did.

I have passed more social legislation in this House than any man before. I guarantee that it would have been possible to give a far greater impetus and movement to the house building programme. I have more than once appealed publicly to the Minister of Health, and I am sure that if he chose from now henceforth to be animated by the instruction and statement in the Gracious Speech and let nothing stand in the way of the largest number of homes of all kinds in the shortest possible time by all methods for the largest number of people, he could even now regain a great deal of the position and the hopes which were founded upon his accession to office with his many undoubted abilities. Instead of that we did not get the homes. We got insults every time. Every kind of insult was flung out, not that we seasoned politicians mind what was said about us by people for whom we entertain no respect. It is maddening for the people who need the homes and houses merely to see the right hon. Gentleman working out his little party spites, as well as personal and class spites which in the great position he now occupies he ought to have outlived. I have heard him described as a new Lloyd George. Good gracious me, it was certainly not by this kind of contribution that this former great Welshman made his name a household word, which will long endure and be remembered in the homes of Britain.

We are also told that it will be the constant endeavour of His Majesty's Ministers to alleviate the hardships and inconveniences of the housewives. This again will certainly be a welcome change Let me repeat the old adage, "It is never too late to mend." There may still be a moment,

"Betwixt the stirrup and the ground,

He mercy sought, and mercy found."

So far during their tenure of power, in spite of the great power which they wield and of the very severe measures that they are able to force upon the working people, who have just voted for them in large numbers, and, therefore, give loyal obedience to much which they would otherwise not have sustained and endured, they have in many ways made things actually worse than they were in the war years. There have been arguments about food. In the first year of peace it is worse than it was in the last year of war. I am told that that will bear statistical and searching examination. By all means let it be examined, and let us see what the figures are. I will even put a Question on the Paper if desired to elicit a written answer. It is very gratifying to hear the Ministers in the King's Speech admitting their intention to break with their evil past and to go forward and endeavour to alleviate the lot of the housewife. But what is the substance behind these declarations? The change of heart is very good, but what are the acts and deeds by which they are to be accompanied? What is the first remedy for all these misfortunes and for all these difficulties? What is the first step of alleviation which we are promised in the Gracious Speech? It is the nationalisation of the railways and of inland transport.

You said that 20 years ago.

I am not going to pretend I see anything immoral in the nationalisation of the railways provided fair compensation is paid to the present owners. I profess myself, as the hon. Gentleman has reminded the House, in favour of this policy in 1919, but what happened? [Interruption.]

Hon. Members on the Government benches must not get so rattled.

Sir Eric Geddes was placed in complete charge of the railways with all the facilities and power which would have accrued to a State aided nationalised system. What happened? All that he produced in four years was a very bad service for the public, heavy loss to the shareholders, and the worst railway strike ever known except the one preceding the General Strike.

I must admit that this practical experience of nationalisation—and we do learn by trial and error provided we profit by our experience—damped—I cannot say my youthful—my early enthusiasm for this project. But the railways are only part of the problem. They were a very clearly marked out public service, and one finds it difficult to see why the arguments which have been applied to the Post Office could not equally be applied to the railways, but now the whole problem is changed. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] It is changed by the enormous developments in road transport and haulage. Here is a field of complications of the most extraordinary variety. Why the Government should choose this particular moment to throw all this new sphere into confusion and disturbance and make a large addition to the National Debt in order to thrust the clumsy butter-fingers of the State into all this intricate apparatus cannot be imagined, still less explained. And that it should be represented as a Measure for alleviating the inconveniences and hardships of the housewife—that at any rate is a preposterous fraud. The same is true of their projects for electricity and gas. We can assure the Government that we shall meet the proposals for the nationalisation both of inland transport and of electricity with strenuous and uncompromising opposition.

I join with the right hon. Gentleman opposite—apart from our positions I would say my right hon. Friend—in his congratulations to the mover and seconder of the Address. I thought that both hon. Members struck very distinctive notes. We had a very modest, thoughtful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Acock's Green (Mr. Usborne) dealing with some of the fundamental questions that face not only this country, but the world, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy) an equally sincere speech lit up with charming humour. I think that the two hon. Members fully kept up the tradition of the House.

Before dealing with the matters in the Gracious Speech and in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, I will, according to custom, make one or two statements about Business. It is proposed that the Debate on the Address should occupy the re- mainder of this week and should be carried on into next week. I hope that it will not take the whole of next week but will stop at a reasonably early period. We want to provide reasonable facilities for the Debate. We shall have in mind what have been the precedents in the past and I shall recall how much time was allowed to us when we were in opposition. We shall hope, too, that any hon. Members who speak on behalf of the Government will endeavour to meet the wishes of the House with regard to the subjects which are brought forward, under the guidance of Mr. Speaker.

Tomorrow we are presenting a Motion to give precedence to Government Business and for stopping the Ballot for Private Bills. We regret to ask for these facilities; I have never known any Government who were not regretful at having to do it, but I have known a great many who have had to. The fact is that we have a very full programme. Quite apart from what might be called the front line troops who receive their mention in the Gracious Speech, there are supports, many of them short, many of them non-controversial, but all valuable and necessary, and I am conscious that behind these supports there are many other legislative Measures that are pressing on. We shall not be able to find places for all of them, but they exist and there is always the possibility of other matters arising demanding legislation. While we should like in due course to get back to the days of Private Members' time and Private Bills, I think the House will realise that in this period of transition after a great war we cannot yet get back to normal. On the other hand, it will be our endeavour to give full opportunities for Debates of general interest, and also we shall safeguard the half-hour Adjournment at the end of every Sitting—not only after exempted Business but also after a Division occurring at the interruption of Business. I think it has been valuable for this House over the past Session in that we have used very fully that half hour of what is, strictly, Private Members' time, and which does bring up any number of points relating to administration and to the claims of particular parts of the country.

We shall take a Motion to renew the Motion relating to the hours of sittings today, and I hope that the Debate on the Address will be adjourned at a reasonable hour for this purpose. We are proposing to have the same hours of sitting as we have had of late, and which I think, broadly speaking, met the approval of all sections of the House. At a later stage we shall ask the House to renew the Sessional Orders relating to Standing Committees and other matters. We have received, but only last Friday, the third report from the Procedure Committee. We shall give that very careful consideration, but I should like here to express the gratitude which I know the whole House feels to the Members of that Committee and to the Chairman, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Newton (Sir R. Young), for their very careful work.

I should like now to turn to some of the points raised by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. His speech started in one way and ended in another. I thought the end was somewhat perfunctory. It seemed to me to refer to a number of matters which have been very carefully debated in this House—such matters as houses, food, and the rest—and I am sure that if he had been present at those Debates he would have known the answer to many of the questions that were troubling him, and the reasons for some of our existing conditions. The only thing I would say of the food situation is that everybody knows that we are in the grip of a world food situation and that conditions are much more difficult for this country than they were during the war; and everybody—certainly on these benches—knows that despite all these difficulties, broadly speaking, the mass of the people are better fed than in the days of peace under a Conservative, Government. There is far less malnutrition, in particular of the children, the babies, and the mothers.

The Gracious Speech from the Throne dealt with some aspects of foreign affairs, of which I shall have a word or two to say later. I do not intend to deal with it at great length, first of all, because we had a very extended Debate a very short time ago in which my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary took part, and I do not think it is necessary for me to add to what he said. I think he made very clear what our position was in regard to Germany. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) intends to raise this matter, and, as he knows very well, it is not advisable to get up at a moment's notice without thought and to make a speech on foreign affairs. With regard to what the right hon. Gentleman said about Potsdam, I would remind the House that Potsdam was not the beginning of the chapter; there was a great deal said in that chapter before at other Conferences, and when we arrived at Potsdam we had to deal with the situation as we found it. The right hon. Gentleman asked about the international trade conference, a matter that seems to trouble some hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite however often we reiterate our position, which was made abundantly plain at the time of the Coalition Government. I made it abundantly plain again on 6th December, 1945, but, that being nearly a year ago, I will repeat for the benefit of the House what I said then:

"… there is no commitment on any country in advance of negotiations to reduce or eliminate any particular margin of preference The position is that each country remains free to judge in the light of the offers made by all the others, the extent of the contribution it can make towards the realisation of the agreed objectives It is recognised that reduction or elimination of preferences can only be considered in relation to and in return for reductions of tariffs and other barriers to world trade in a general which would make for mutually advantageous arrangements for the expansion of trade. There is thus no question of any unilateral surrender of preferences. There must be adequate compensation for all parties affected."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th December, 1945: Vol. 416, c. 2668.]

That is where the Coalition Government stood on that matter, and that is where the present Government stand on it; and what somebody said in another country makes no difference to the position we have taken up.

The right hon. Gentleman raised matters in regard to India and Burma. I think he realised that those matters are better debated quite apart from the King's Speech. Negotiations can go through the usual channels as to when they should be debated. I would only say one thing The right hon. Gentleman drew a parallel between India and Europe, and suggested how much better it would be if we had had some supernational authority, seated at Geneva. I quite agree, but let us remember, if his parallel is to be exact, that the people sitting at Geneva would not have been European. They might have been Indians, they might have been Chinese; but if the parallel is exact, they would not have been Europeans. It might have been much better, but whether the right hon. Gentleman would have accepted it I do not know. It is advisable to be exact in our parallel.

I must say that I regretted the right hon. Gentleman's statement with regard to Palestine. No-one knows better than he does the very great difficulties. There has been no wobbling on this matter. We have been pursuing a policy which is in accordance with the Mandate. It may be said that the Mandate is impossible to fulfil, but we are bound by the Mandate to have regard to the position both of Arabs and of Jews. We have been striving earnestly for the cooperation of the United States in this matter. We still hope that we shall get a representative meeting again very shortly on this matter. It would be very ill advised for anyone in this Debate to say anything that would exacerbate the position in that country, particularly at a time when, as we all deplore, lives are being wantonly lost.

I would say one word with regard to the statement made in the Gracious Speech and that is that we are continuing our close collaboration with our friends of the Dominions. I am sure that the whole House will welcome the information of the Royal visit to South Africa. Their Majesties will carry to South Africa the good wishes of the whole of the people of this country.

When I turn to the legislative programme, the House will notice that we make early mention of our need to increase our production, both for home consumption, for capital goods and for export. A good deal of our legislation is concerned with this problem. There are two matters which are referred to which are specially concerned with our balance of payments. One is exchange control. That is a difficult thing to measure and it will be rather complicated, but it is vitally important that we should protect our balance-of-payments position. We are, in effect, only going to carry on the precautions that we had to take during the war, when the administration was, as a matter of fact, carried on with remarkably little, if any, complaint.

Another Measure is also directed to a balanced economy, although its purposes are more far-reaching. That is the efficient organisation of agriculture. We must make full use of our land. We must have a prosperous agriculture. We believe that the farmers and the farm workers should be given a fair and square deal. We believe in fixed prices, assured markets and a proper wage-fixing machinery. I hope the House will welcome this Measure, which is, I think, essential to our economy. We all know that we have a very serious manpower problem. We have to utilise our manpower to the best advantage. We want our workers to work well. We want those who manage industry to manage industry efficiently. Hence, we have the planning for the location of industry, to prevent again there being the waste and misery of distressed areas. We cannot afford to have wasted labour. We cannot afford to have large pockets of wasted labour in which men stand idle for years.

There are two separate lines of advance indicated in the Speech. First of all, there is the organisation of two great services which are basic to industry and to the social life of the' community, under national ownership. First of them is electricity supply. Here we shall complete some of the work begun in 1926 by a Government in which the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) was Chancellor of the Exchequer. That work, unfortunately, was left incomplete at the time. The generation and main transmission of electricity were very largely brought under national ownership and control, but distribution was left out. The present system of a multitude of undertakings of varying size and efficiency is wasteful. Distribution is already half in public ownership. Although the right hon. Gentleman says that he will oppose, I do not think there will be any opposition on principle, in view of the past of the party opposite on this matter. We are really taking a further step forward to complete the integration for the provision of fuel, heat and light. We took our first step in the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act. We are following on, on a good precedent.

On transport, again I do not expect any objection on principle. The right hon. Gentleman has recalled his own past in this matter. He had one of those flashes of insight which, unfortunately, are so often disregarded by his own party. [An HON. MEMBER: "He was a Liberal then."] He was, I believe, a Liberal; at any rate, it was disregarded by the party to which he then belonged and by the party to which he now belongs. They were often in coalition. The right hon. Member advocated the nationalisation of railways in 1918. He has had to wait 28 years for the Labour Party to bring forward legislation to make a reality of his wise prescience. We have to bring the right hon. Gentleman up to date.

The right hon. Gentleman justly pointed out that you cannot deal with railways just by themselves I recall that we had a London Passenger Transport Act brought in by my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council. It was designed to deal with London, because if we had not dealt with London, so far from it being the shoving of butter fingers into a mess, the butter was so thick that nothing would have moved in it. Therefore, that Bill, even after 1931, had to be adopted by the then Coalition Government and put through, by a predominantly Conservative Government. That Act gave expression to the truth that the various forms of transportation must be complementary and not competitive.

We cannot afford to waste on competition services like that. In the interests of the people and the industries of this country, we must have the most efficient and economical organisation of transport. A second line is the effective organisation of the area of industry which remains in private hands. Very valuable work has been done by the working parties set up by my right hon Friend the President of the Board of Trade. They had the cooperation of employers and employed, and anyone who reads those reports will learn a great deal. A Bill has been designed to give effect to their recommendations—the recommendations of the trades themselves, of the people who know how their trade should be organised.

Let me revert to the manpower problem. We are straitened in our manpower. We must make up in quality what we lack in quantity. We are, therefore, raising the school-leaving age. That will inevitably remove from industry a number of young persons—it may be as much as 370,000 at first on the average—but I am sure it will result in increased efficiency. We cannot afford to waste our young life If I am told that we cannot do this, I am bound to remember that that plea was put up years ago when they tried to remove little children from industry. I am quite sure that if this country is to lead in industry, we must have a well educated population.

There is another deduction from our working population which we cannot afford to ignore. We cannot avoid it. We have large forces engaged in clearing up the aftermath of war. Some of these commitments, we hope, will be brought to an end in the coming year, but some remain. We hoped to get some of these out earlier. If the course of foreign affairs had been a bit smoother, we might have had some of them out. We have not exactly realised our expectations, but we have to fulfil our obligations to our Allies. The broad fact remains that whatever forces are allocated to defence is a deduction from our manpower which is available for maintaining and raising our standard of life. We have to calculate this out. Whatever we do, that will be less than the wastage we had in the inter-war years through unemployment. We have to strike a very careful balance. It is folly for any country to try to keep more armed forces than their economy will support. On the other hand, it is folly not to maintain what is necessary.

Our present position has been dealt with up to 1948 by the present provision for national service. It is extremely difficult to prophesy just what forces will be needed in the future. We cannot look ahead. I was very much impressed by what my hon. Friend the Member for Acock's Green said. That is the policy of this Government and, I believe, of this nation, to work for world government and to work for world security, and under that, for disarmament. U.N.O. is the instrument we are trying to build up to effect that. We want a great instrument of peace there, under which all the nations will dwell in security, but that security has not yet been achieved, and even at the start, when it is, we must have some provision for police forces—as you might call them—garrison forces to maintain ourselves even under a United Nations organisation, and we have got to make our contribution to the United Nations organisation. We do not know quite what that will be. We cannot foresee it—there are these uncertain factors—and yet we have at the present time to plan ahead We must provide for an embodied force—land, navy and air—and the reserves to be available in case of need.

I would interpose one word here in reply to the right hon. Gentleman's strictures on the Ministers in charge of the Service Departments. I shall await with interest his substantiation of those charges. The Ministers have been present constantly in the House, they have had numbers and numbers of questions hurled at them and they have answered them, and I think that the attack, particularly on my right hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson), was really not worthy of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Member for Chester-le-Street had a most difficult task. He had the task of demobilisation. I have not the slightest doubt that he contributed very largely to the success of that by the confidence the ordinary rank and file had in him, and when the right hon. Gentleman talks about failure and about our having to have a court-martial for mutiny, that is not the first of its kind. Let him carry his mind back to what happened in the year 1919. We have done a great deal better than that, and I do not think it lies in the mouth of anyone to throw stones. The right hon. Gentleman talks about monstrous maladministration. It is not an easy thing when forces begin to run down to keep them up to concert pitch all the time. It is a very difficult process. When the time comes and the Service Estimates are before us, I am quite sure my right hon. Friends will give a very good account of themselves to this House.

I want to advert for a moment to the proposals in the Gracious Speech in regard to our Defence Forces. The old system was called the voluntary system, composed of the Regulars. Part of these were men who liked the life and were adventurous, but part of them—it is no good blinking the fact—were recruited through their hard circumstances, their poverty and their unemployment. Behind them were the Territorial and Reserve Forces made up mainly of public-spirited citizens, though there was some pressure of one kind and another even there. Throughout the inter-war period we found a difficulty, particularly in the ground forces, in filling the ranks of the Regulars and of the Territorial Army. We have now two new factors to consider. First of all, the development of modern warfare has made this country more vulnerable. We are now part of the Continent. We can be reached by attack from the Continent. While in the past we always had a long breathing space on which we could depend, that breathing space is most unlikely to be available should any war arise in the future. The logic of that is that while we keep our front line forces as low as we can consonant with efficiency and the jobs they have to do, we must have trained reserves who can take their part right away without waiting for six months' training. Secondly, we are faced today with a shortage of manpower. It is the resolve of this Government, supported, I believe, by all parties, that we shall pursue a policy of full employment, and therefore that economic pressure that used to be the chief recruiting officer will not be applied.

On the other hand, we are making the conditions in the Services far better and more attractive. In our Armed Forces we shall always need the element of voluntary service, and I believe we shall get it. We must have that voluntary recruitment. Conscripts are no substitute for long-service people. In fact, voluntary enlistment and national service are complementary. The Government's decision to continue compulsory service is not due to a failure of recruitment. We want to do all we can for recruitment, but having examined the matter and the position of our manpower, we have come to the conclusion that we are very unlikely to be able to depend on voluntary recruitment alone.

Secondly, we must have fully trained reserves. Now the details of the scheme will come forward in a Bill in due course. The right hon. Gentleman indicated that it was right to give the country and the House an indication of our general proposals as soon as possible. I propose, therefore, to set out briefly the features of the scheme which we shall propose to be brought forward.

First of all, the obligation, as the right hon. Gentleman said, should be general; there must be no getting out of it by anybody in a privileged position. The only exemptions are that there must be provision for conscientious objectors, but the conscientious objectors should not get a preferential position through it—they must be treated fairly but not given preferential treatment. Therefore, the obligation should be general. We do not intend to apply compulsory national service to women.

There is the question of Northern Ireland. While the Government are fully conscious of a desire of the majority of people in Northern Ireland to take their full share of the burden of military service as partners of the United Kingdom, they have come to the conclusion, after weighing all the considerations, that the best plan will be to follow the scheme adopted in the National Service Acts and apply the new legislation to Great Britain only.

Now the second point to which I draw attention—the first was generality—is flexibility. The needs of industry vary very much, the needs of the individual vary very much, and our intention is that there must be a range of age of some six years for people engaged in apprenticeship or university training—whatever the training may be. We shall have to go carefully into exactly what the conditions should be because, here again, we must hold the scale quite fairly between those who are trained for professions and those who are trained in industry, and there should be an option to take it within a period of years. It will suit some people to take it young and then go straight on with their career. It will be better for others to get their full training, particularly for a great many of the technical craftsmen, of which the Services are in need now, and then go on with their career. However, the point there is flexibility.

With regard to the period of service, we are working at the present time to a period which comes down to one and a half years at the end of 1948. It is difficult to lay down exactly what the time should be. We should propose to take power that it shall not exceed a period of one and a half years. Whether we shall want that or not depends very largely on the amount of voluntary recruiting and the condition in which the world is settling down. I cannot insist too often in the fact that in all these matters we are dealing with a vast number of entirely unknown factors. However, as at present advised, I consider it will probably be wise to start at one and a half years and to come down. I would rather not start at a lower rate and have to go up. My hope is that it will be able to come down. Then, after they have done this period of service, men would pass into the Reserve for a period of years, into the Territorial Reserve Forces, and would be liable for a certain period in the course of their period in the Reserve—not necessarily so many days a year but such and such a time spread over the period of their reserve, because the requirements are so different with regard to the different Services and the different trades in the Services.

Is that the voluntary Territorials?

I am just coming to that. These men passing into the Reserve would pass into the Territorial and Reserve Forces. There again you will need your Territorial and Reserve Forces, and you will have your volunteer corps into which these will fit. The essential point is that your Reserve Forces must consist of men who have had their full training. Here again there must be close consultation with industry in order that it can be fitted in and do as little harm as possible to our industrial life and to individuals and, of course, this training has to be something outside of holidays. You cannot ask people to give up their holidays to do a national duty. It will be something quite outside that. Let me say that time in the Forces must not be considered as wasted. Much of the training today is technical and it must be a training for citizenship as well as defence. Incidentally, also, during their course of training men will be doing the necessary amount of training for A.R.P. so that in due course they will pass into that Service as one of the available ones.

Now great steps have been taken already with regard to pay and conditions. We have endeavoured to bring the pay up to something comparable with what people get in civil life. It is, therefore, utterly different from anything we used to know in the old days when we talked of conscription on the Continent, when people got about a farthing a day. They will get pay which has been vastly improved, and increased amenities should go forward pari passuwith increased facilities for the increased population under our reconstruction programmes. Inevitably there is a time lag there in the provision of buildings, but, as has been indicated, the man who serves in the Air Force, or in the Navy or in the Army must be given good conditions. And then our Forces in this war drew more than ever on the whole of the intelligence of the nation and on the whole of the powers of leadership of the nation. We must have our Forces increasingly more and more democratic. It is our resolve that this process shall continue, and thus there will be a career open to the talents of those who wish to stay.

I am well aware that the proposals such as I have outlined are not likely to be palatable. No Government would like to put these proposals forward unless they were convinced that it was their duty to do so. Now we are out to try to build up security in the world. We are prepared to make our contribution to that security, but, as has been said, you do not get it by a unilateral disarmament; you have to build up an ordered world, and a world in which there are police forces able to prevent the rise of aggression. At the present time we are not making as good progress, as quick progress, as we could have hoped at U.N.O., although perhaps we have expected more than was possible. We have to.make provision, we have to plan. The Services have to plan, business has to plan, education has to plan, individuals have to plan, and it is not fair to leave them in the dark. Therefore, before the present National Service Acts run out, we have taken this early opportunity of bringing these proposals before the country. We cannot afford to take risks with the safety of the country. I am aware that some of my friends have very strong conscientious opinions on this matter. I cannot argue. We have to face squarely the new conditions that are far different from those of the days before air power and long range projected missiles. We should be much happier if we lived in the days before there were these many inventions. There is nothing undemocratic in national service. We are steadily increasing the rights of the citizen in his own country. The picture of the proletarian with no rights whatever is out of date and departed. The more rights we can give our people, the better; but rights involve obligation.

I do not think I need refer specifically to any other of the legislative proposals, except one. That is the Bill to deal with compensation and betterment in relation to town and country planning. It is not an easy subject. I can recall the long and difficult discussions we had in a former Government. But it is of immense importance in dealing with the reconstruction of our cities, and ridding them both of the evils of blitzand of blight, and building up healthy homes for our people. I am not going to be drawn at this moment into a controversy with the right hon. Gentleman in regard to housing. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) will be willing to cross swords with him at any time.

We want him to build houses, not to cross swords.

I am sure he will always be glad of the right hon. Gentleman's help, whether mental or manual. We have made better progress than was made after the last war.

The legislative programme we have indicated is extensive, but it does not comprehend all that we have to do. Other Measures, hardy annuals, and so on, will come on. This House in the last Session set up a very fine record of work. As hon. Members of the House of Commons together, we can be proud of the way in which this House works, because it is a great demonstration of democracy in action. We have our controversies, and that is a sign of democracy. We have our Debates and opposition, but at the end there is not left a little barren controversy, but a good fat volume of Acts of Parliament, and I am sure the next Session will live up to that performance.

Is the House to understand that a Bill dealing with National Service will be introduced before a Debate, or is the House to be given an opportunity for discussing this question in the immediate future, during the Debate on the Address?

Of course, anything can be debated on the Address. But I should have thought it would be more convenient to wait for the Bill.

Can the right hon. Gentleman indicate when the Bill will be ready?

I could not say offhand, but, if the hon. Gentleman asks me next week, I will try to tell him.

The subject I wish to raise tonight is that of Bulgaria, particularly its relationship with this country, and also insofar as there is any likelihood in the near future, that certain developments there might affect the peace of the Balkans, and the peace of Europe on the Greek-Bulgarian frontier. Some hon. Members will remember that in April last year I had the unique experience and privilege of visiting Bulgaria after a very arduous and difficult journey. To my amazement, and surprise, I was received with what can fairly be described as a tumultuous welcome by the people of that country. It is true that I went in my capacity as a private Member. I had never previously visited that country, and I found that the welcome on all sides was stupendous. In some cases tens of thousands, and in other cases hundreds of thousands, gathered in the streets of the towns to greet the first Member of this House who had visited their country since the war.

I gathered that they were anxious for friendship, and my impression of the Bulgarians was that they were a kind-hearted, extremely hard-working and sincere nation, animated by a desire, above all things, to get into closer contact with the democracies of the West. They are a Slav people, and might almost be called kinsmen of the Russians. They speak a language which is very similar to Russian. In point of fact, the Russian language is derived from the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet. In 1878, after having been under the domination of the Ottoman Empire, they were freed by Russia. Therefore, it is very natural and understandable from the ethnographic, geographic, cultural and economic points of view, that Bulgaria should have a very close association with its big brother Russia. At the same time, the Bulgarians made it very clear to me, this did not debar them from the closest possible ties with Great Britain. They stated that, unfortunately, owing to misunderstandings which had crept up—artificial misunderstandings in many cases—it was more and more difficult to get together. I discovered that the prestige of Britain was high in spite of the last war, during part of which Bulgaria had been a satellite enemy country. Every effort of mine was directed to make the prestige of Britain as high as possible. I asked them, as they were anxious for friendship, if they had adverse criticism of our country, not to direct it against any party and they acceded to that request. When I went round Bulgaria and Rumania crowds, which aggregated to 3 million in the various towns and cities, gave me what could properly be described as the greatest greeting ever given any visitor to that part of the world.

I was amazed by one thing—and I put this to the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—that the Foreign Office should necessarily accept the reports which come from Bulgaria from some of our representatives. I am not speaking unkindly, or in any way discourteously, of our representative in Bulgaria. I got on excellently with him, and invited him, or a member of his staff, to all Press conferences at which I spoke, and kept in close touch with him in every action I took. He congratulated me on the manner in which I did the job. Nevertheless, although he is entitled to his political opinions, I am amazed that we have representatives in Bulgaria, and countries like that, who do not understand the fundamental principles and conditions of the countries in which they are working. The reports we receive from them are, in most cases, accepted by the Foreign Office. May I remind the Under-Secretary of State that not long ago, half a dozen or so hon. Members of this House, who could certainly not be accused of being crypto-Communists or even Left Wing, went to Poland, and submitted a unanimous report? I wonder if that report was given any credence whatever. I am rather inclined to believe that the only reports which are accepted are reports from ambassadors, and not reports by hon. Members of the House of Commons who visit these countries. Therefore, whatever possibility there may be of a better understanding between Bulgaria and this country is being vitiated and rendered more difficult by the type of reports which are being received here and which, I am afraid—I am open to correction—are being accepted by our Foreign Office.

Recently there have been elections in Bulgaria—on 27th October—and it might be well if the House knew something about the figures. There are in Bulgaria at present 4,558,000 electors, of whom 4,205,000 voted on 27th October. There are two bodies, as it were, which are opposed to each other. One is what is known as the Fatherland Front, an organisation comprising, first, the Workers' Party, or Communists, the Social Democrats, who roughly correspond to the Labour Party, the Agrarians, who obviously deal more particularly with peasant problems, the Zveno Party, who may be said to represent the professional classes,, and the Radicals, who are insignificant and more to the Right. Between them these parties polled 2,980,000 votes, of which the Communists received 2,262,000, the Agrarians 559,000, the Social Democrats 78,000, the Zveno Party 76,000 and the Radicals a mere 8,000.

The opposition, and here I can speak from personal experience, were given every opportunity to hold meetings in every part of the country. They were given the utmost latitude of the Press, and I may say that some of their articles attacking the Government were far more vitriolic than Opposition Press articles in this country. They were far more personal, and attributed to the leaders of the Fatherland Front, Georges Dimitrov in particular, motives which would be considered hitting below the belt in Britain. The Opposition polled between them 1,225,000 votes, and had the allocation of 101 seats in the new National Assembly, whereas the total number of seats gained by the Fatherland Front in its entirety numbered 346. There have been all sorts of things said in our Press about these elections. Our Press looked with meticulous care into Bulgaria, and discovered that knitted underwear was being given by Government supporters to potential voters to induce them to vote for Government candidates. I never saw much knitted underwear in Bulgaria before the elections, and I would be surprised to discover much of it now. The Bulgarians are poor, and have to struggle to obtain the elementary needs of life, and cannot afford these luxuries. Votes have been bought and sold in Britain for a glass of beer, let alone knitted underwear, and for people to talk sanctimoniously about the Bulgarian elections being undermined by methods of this kind, shows that they are divorced from realities.

I talked with Dimitrov, acclaimed as the bravest man in all the world, hero of the Reichstag trial. Whatever one thinks about his politics, here is a man of great courage and character, a warm-hearted individual. I shall not easily forget—if the House will bear with me in making this observation—the welcome I got. He embraced me, gave me two bristly bearded kisses, which I warmly returned with interest, to the acclamations of the crowd. There was another interesting, and perhaps amusing, incident. Bulgaria is the land of roses; people are greeted with roses. I found myself garlanded with a bouquet of roses of every description, too heavy for me to carry. That is an indication of the warm-hearted way in which these people greeted me.

The elections were held on 27th October. I do not intend to say that they were absolutely immaculate, or that on no occasion was it possible for some misdirection, difficulty or misunderstanding to occur. I do say, sincerely and honestly, that in my opinion, as far as one could reasonably hope to judge—and I went where I wanted to go, and spoke to everyone to whom I wanted to speak, particularly the opposition—I saw no indication, on the part of the Government, of any desire to obstruct, impede, or to prevent legitimate opposition. I used the word "legitimate" advisedly. One finds in countries like that all kinds of oppositions, who use the cloak of democracy to undermine the State. Bulgaria admittedly fought on the side of Germany, but let us not forget her history. For five hundred years that country has suffered grievously at the hands of Turkey. In 1878 she gained her freedom for the first time. Her people are a race of peasants, naturally talented, gifted and hospitable. Without being guilty of exaggeration, I say that I have yet to see a more lovable, courageous or sincere people. They have made mistakes, which they readily admit, and I admire a man who admits his faults. That they have been the playthings of their ersatz German-imported monarchs they freely admit—"Foxy Ferdinand"—now aged, I believe, 87, and hiding somewhere in Austria—whose machinations are familiar to all students of history; then his son Boris, an ignominious weak creature who followed the policy of his father; and later King Simeon, a child aged nine, now in Egypt as a result of the proclamation of a republic in Bulgaria a little while ago, but who would otherwise normally have succeeded. The Bulgarian people are determined to sever themselves from any corrupt monarchy, and any contact they might have had with the Germans and their supporters, who were prevalent in the court.

To the everlasting glory of Bulgaria, whatever may have been its mistakes, on 9th September, 1944, a historic day in Bulgarian history, the Bulgarians fought with great valour in the cause of the Allies. They lost well over 30,000 of their men, killed, for the Allied cause. No one who knows them, and who was with them at that time, can deny them a meed of praise for the valorous part they played at that time. Yet we in this country are afraid to come into contact with them, for one reason or other which I cannot tell.

I do not know what goes on in the Foreign Office. I have never, in this House, said an unkind work personally about the Foreign Secretary. I have great respect for him, though I sometimes disagree with him. I try, to the best of my ability, to give him loyal support, but he is obviously overworked and under-informed. If he has to depend for his information on certain people whom we have in other parts of the world, heaven help the Foreign Secretary in carrying out a policy of peace and reconstruction in the Balkans. There is always the old bogy of Russia to trot out; that Russia is out to secure domination by territorial depredations in that part of the world. I spoke to the Russian chairman of the Allied Control Commission, and said to him, sincerely and honestly, that we in this country were anxious for friendship, not only with Russia, but with all the people of the Balkans; that we wanted a fair and square deal; that we have no aggressive intent; that we go there to do trade. He said that so far as he was concerned—and this was later confirmed by members of the Bulgarian Government—there was no objection to British people coming in and playing a useful part. But Dimitrov made it clear that the Bulgarians earn a primitive living scraping the barren soil—much of the country is mountainous and barren—in order to secure the elementary needs of life, and that they cannot be expected to pay reparations. Indeed they will not.

The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition spoke of Bulgaria as a country which must "work its passage." He must remember it is no longer possible, in these difficult times, to extract the last ounce out of a country which is weakened not only by internecine strife but by the war, and Bulgaria by its subsequent heroic actions and sacrifices has fully vindicated its good name and should take an honoured place among the nations of the new democratic world. I would be very happy—and I say this not at all in modesty—to give ten minutes of my time to the Foreign Secretary and the Under- Secretary in order to teach them more about the Balkans than ever they will learn from textbooks or from distorted and twisted reports. I like a man who is efficient. The reason I say that is because I am conscious only too well of my own inefficiency in certain respects. If we do a thing, we should do it with all our heart and soul, and all our might. The present Press attacks between one country and another in which all kinds of suspicions are hurled alleging the bad intentions of other countries, have the result that whatever prospect there is of making peace in the Balkans becomes more and more difficult each day. Britain wants peace badly. We want Bulgarian tobacco, timber, attar of roses, fruit and fruit pulp, and hides and skins. We want these things which the Bulgarians can let us have, and we in turn must export our machinery' to them. They need our machinery, and by using that, and other products of this country, they can help not only our export trade, but the building up of their own country, and, thus establish once and for all the friendship which we are all seeking.

I want to say a few words upon the hypocritical and mealy-mouthed phrase which is used too often about "free and unfettered elections." I have never heard more humbug spoken about free and unfettered elections than is being spoken today. I ask my hon. Friend, who has rendered me every courtesy, and for whom I have considerable regard—he knows that and he will not misinterpret my remarks—whether this country proposes to interfere in Poland because Poland may have a Communist majority. Are we prepared at this very hour to render still more difficult the relationship between this country and France, merely because yesterday's election has shown that the Communists are now the largest single party? Are we to go to Czechoslovakia and say, "You have a Communist-controlled Government, and, therefore' we can have no relationship"? Of course, we are not going to do that. Other Governments may be Communist or Conservative, Liberal or Radical, nondescripts or anything they like, as far as I am concerned, so long as they are prepared to enter into friendly relationship with this country, and honour their obligations to us, just as we honour ours to them.

I turn to a situation which has developed on the Grecian side. Whatever I have to say is not said with the intention of being discourteous to the Greeks. I believe hon. Members have great respect for the fighting qualities of the Greeks, their great contribution to the arts and the yeoman part they played in the last war. I took the opportunity of speaking at great length to M. Tsaldaris, the Greek Prime Minister, recently. I told him that he would be ill advised to pursue the truculent propaganda which is being adopted in connection with the claims of Greece for what they call euphemistically "A rectification of their frontiers." I asked him what he meant by that and he said, "We want certain strategic heights which control the Plain of Plovdin in Eastern Roumelia." I said, "Have you not got enough?" And he replied, "Three times we have been invaded by these Bulgarians—in 1912–13, in 1916, and again in 1941. We are taking no chances." He admitted that he also had certain designs for land in Northern Epirus, which corresponds geographically with Southern Albania, and which would take in the town of Koritza. He also admitted that there were difficulties in connection with 'Yugoslavia. I suggested to him that he would be ill advised to pursue those claims, because the Bulgarians will not worry very much about it. They are anxious for peace. Bulgaria had peace with all its neighbours. They had a very commendable peace with Rumania after the return of the Dobruja. They were on terms of excellent relationship with Yugoslavia and Albania. They were even on good terms of friendship with Turkey, and their only difficulty was caused by Greece who had gained very considerably territorially in the last 50 years. Yet because Greece is largely a maritime country and has a friendly relationship with this country, M. Tsaldaris felt it would only be right and proper that they should take these heights in order to control the plains and thus prevent what he thought possibly might be a further Bulgarian attack.

There is no possibility of an attack on the part of Bulgaria against Greece. I shudder to think what the consequences of such an attack might be. Just imagine the situation with Russian forces dominant in that part of the world, and with a war of attrition, or whatever hon. Members may like to call such a war, with Bulgaria on one side and Greece on the other and in which Russia would take one part and we would take the other. It might be an extreme cataclysm the consequences of which no one could foretell. In the interests of peace and human decency, I say we in this country must not support any claims on the part of Greece for certain areas, be they never so small, which would tend to exacerbate the situation between those countries. The men who are building houses in this country today are not building houses to be blown to atoms in two years' time. They are building houses for peace. The people in this country can only be made to work if they believe that our foreign relationships are being ordered in that direction.

The present boundary between Bulgaria and Greece starts somewhere near Adrianople and goes for 486 kilometres—a distance of well over 300 miles—to Toumba, which is near the Yugoslav boundary. Three of the main rivers of Bulgaria flow into the Aegean Sea. They are the Struma and the Mesta and the Maritza. For a long time there has been controversy and considerable discussion about the fact that Bulgaria seeks to find an outlet in the Aegean. The natural port is Kavalla, because that port serves the main Bulgarian routes which converge in Western Thrace towards the Aegean. There is another port, Dedeagatch, which at one time was likely to be considerable and about which in 1923, and again in 1935, the Greeks were prepared to make a very slight compromise. The fact remains that although Western Thrace had a predominantly Bulgarian majority—which was proved by various investigations in 1920 and later—that land has been torn away from them, largely as a result of the association of King Constantine in 1916 with the Kaiser and certain Greek politicians. Venizelos, the venerable statesman of Greece, in 1912 said Greece had no pretensions to Western Thrace and to an outlet in the Aegean Sea and although he was determined to deny them Salonika, which abuts on the Aegean Sea, the territory east of Salonika, including Kavalla, should be ceded to Bulgaria. This struggle has gone on between the two countries for a long time.

I do not want to overstate my case. I am not denying, that, in the past, Bulgaria has suffered from having bad politicians. I do not say there has not been a certain amount of aggression. But the Bulgarian people have never sought to crush the Greeks, to brutalise them, nor to bring them under subjection. I would say to my hon. Friend that, whatever view he may have in this direction, many people in this country, and certainly many of us on these Benches, would resist any encroachment that might be made—and I hope it never will be made—by the Greeks on what is purely Bulgarian territory. I could have gone on much further, but I do not want to protract this Debate unduly.

Now, a few words about the Bulgarian future. One of the tragedies of this world is ignorance. When people get to know each other they find many points of interest in common. I only wish that more hon. Members would try to get to know more about the Bulgarian people. I have been called "the friend of Bulgaria," and I am very proud to be a friend of Bulgaria, and will continue to be the friend of that country, so long as its people stand for decency and human rights. The Government of that country, since 1944, have given the people a very measurable degree of freedom. I was able to see the opposition leaders, and to watch demonstrations taking place against the Government, at which opposition speakers were able to give free expression to their criticism in language much stronger than would have been used in this country, and, on all sides, I saw no indication whatever that people were repressed merely because of their political opinions.

In that country, we have heard of the case of a Minister, an ex-Socialist, who was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on an allegation that he was a member of a democratic Socialist Party—that, because he had enough courage to express his views, he was clapped in gaol. I investigated this case, and found that this had nothing to do with the case. The fact that he was a member of a Socialist Party or claimed democratic leanings was beside the point. He was charged with participating in a campaign which sought to undermine the loyalty of the army and the integrity of the State—a very different thing indeed, which would not be countenanced in this country. These rumours which reach Britain must be examined before being accepted. Indeed, I would be very happy to go there, as an experiment, at my own expense, in order to prove to the Foreign Secretary and my hon. Friend that I can solve any of the difficulties standing in the way of peace between Bulgaria and this country. In Heaven's name, how long are we in this country going to have all these forms of hatred and misunderstanding between one country and another? We fought this war for the brotherhood of human beings. We fought this war in order to establish the democratic ideals to which we have always been attached. Surely, in Bulgaria, we shall find those very ideals, although they have not got 700 years of democratic teaching behind them, as we have in this country? They have only recently emancipated themselves, and I say that they have done a magnificent job of work. To their everlasting credit, they arrested their Fascists, set up their people's courts, and tried and shot not merely the minor Fascists, but even an ex-Prime Minister of their country, and all those who had associated themselves with the Germans during the German campaign.

When I was there, it was amazing to me to discover that the Bulgarians pointed with pride to the fact that there was no racial discrimination in their country. Theirs is the only country on the continent of Europe, so far as I understand, which has never persecuted its Jewish minority of 47,000 people. They even hid them from the Germans in spite of the fact that the Germans overran their country. I think that every shade of political opinion can be drawn together into the fundamental democratic instincts of the people of that country, and, therefore, I ask my hon. Friend to shake the hands of the Bulgarians in friendship, so that the relationship between that country and ours may be brought much closer. In doing that, I believe that he will not only be doing a great job for our own loved country, but also for the principles of democracy to which we have all paid service from time to time in this House.

I am sure that other hon. Members are extremely grateful to the hon. Member for New-castle-under-Lyme (Mr. Mack) for raising the subject of Bulgaria. There are not many of us, I imagine, who have had actual physical experience of that country. Those of us who have had such experience have always come back, I think, with feelings of friendliness and gratitude similar to those of the hon. Gentleman, in view of the welcome and reception which we received. I must, however, take the hon. Gentleman to task for some of the things he said about his experiences in Bulgaria. I do not know how long the hon. Gentleman was in the country, and I understand that his recent visit was his only visit. I must declare my own experiences in that country. I served two years in Bulgaria, Greece and Rumania and lived at Sofia as my headquarters. I also found the Bulgarians in 1932 and 1935 extremely friendly as a whole, and I would suggest to the hon. Gentleman that it is not only now that Bulgarians have wanted to be friendly with Britain. There could not have been a more friendly country to Britain in those days, but they were not only friendly towards Britain but friendly to other countries as well. The officers of the Bulgarian army were sent to Germany for their training, while the lawyers and the professional men went to Paris. and a large number of teachers and others came to Britain for their training. They all had a very important occidental viewpoint, and there are many of us who regretted—and said so in the last Parliament—that Bulgaria, for the second time in the second world war backed the wrong horse.

I have no experience of the present Government of Bulgaria, but I have had experience of other Governments, and I know that, when the Government in Bulgaria changes, probably as a result of an election, not only does the Government and the Sobranje change and go out, but all the busmen, the tram drivers, the railway porters and every official go out too. Whenever one party goes out and another comes in, a wholesale change of State employees takes place. From my contacts in Bulgaria, I have a feeling that the old friendly spirit of the inter-war years does not exist today. I am staggered to hear the hon. Gentleman describe Bulgaria as a bare, barren country. What about the valley of the Danube, which contains the richest corn lands in Europe?

I am quite sure that the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows a great deal about this subject, but I would say that, on the whole, the greater part of the country is mountainous and uncultivable. It is true that the valleys are cultivable, but they are not the major portion of the country.

There are two mountain ranges—the central Balkan range and the Rhodope range—and, between the two, lie the two valleys. It is about fifty-fifty, but, even so, the mountain valleys of Bulgaria are cultivated and contain some of the finest vineyards in that part of the world. I am sure that the Minister will give us all the recent facts about it, but I do feel that, when we start to debate Bulgaria, we should get a proper background to our Debate.

I am also sorry that the hon. Gentleman said what he did about the late King Boris. Britain never had a better friend in Bulgaria than King Boris, and it was only because of the ill judgment of the Government, or the fortunes of war, that Boris found himself on the other side. It is pretty generally accepted that Boris was by no means a friend of the Germans and, in fact, was murdered by them. During the inter-war years Boris visited this country on several occasions, and whenever any of our naval units or private people visited Bulgaria they were always well received. During my period in Bulgaria. quite a number of hon. Members from this House visited the country and were always received by King Boris. It is only right, therefore, that I should be allowed to correct, to a certain extent, the background of the monarchy. Bulgaria sided with the wrong side again, and I am certain that there is no one in Bulgaria today who does not regret that she did so. Boris saw the strong German aggression, on the one side, and wondered what Britain was going to do to help him. He thought he would be swallowed up by the Germans and decided that he had better join the other side. He had not been taught that, in the end, he was going to lose.

There is one point upon which the hon. Gentleman did not touch and which I think ought to be mentioned when we discuss Bulgaria, Greece or Yugoslavia. It is the Macedonian question which, after all, is generally at the bottom of all these troubles. I have seen a man step from a tramcar, level a gun and shoot a fellow Bulgarian dead at a range of five yards. Ostensibly, they were two perfectly peaceful Bulgarians, but, on investigation, the shooting was found to be due to a Macedonian feud. There was also a case in which a hospital nurse in Sofia went inside to one of her patients and shot him dead. She had been instructed by the Macedonian caucus there which was the cause of the trouble. The Macedonian element in the Bulgarian make-up is responsible for most of the trouble, and from it come most of the agitators.

I would like to take up the hon. Gentleman on the question of the reports sent in by our own representatives. I happen to know the present representative, and I cannot believe that he would send in anything except that which he honestly knew to be the circumstances of the case.

I am not questioning the honour or integrity of our representative, but I am very seriously questioning his judgment and capacity to present what I call an unbiased and objective report.

I have never known a man more determined to get down to the ordinary people of the country in which he is serving than our present representative. I also had the highest regard for our previous representatives there. I served under one of them who rendered exemplary service in Bulgaria and whose reports were full of knowledge and information of every kind which enabled our commercial authorities in this country very considerably to enlarge our trade with Bulgaria. I strongly deprecate, without a very definite knowledge of all the facts, accusing our representative there of not being fundamentally able to render proper reports of what is going on in the country. I am unable to speak of the present set-up in Bulgaria because I have not visited the country recently. I only intervened in this Debate to try to correct, to a slight extent, the background of this discussion.

I also have been in Bulgaria, and that is my excuse for intervening in this Debate. I want, first of all, to plead that Bulgaro-Greek relations, either frontiers or any other aspect of those relations, should not be considered in terms of the Balkan wars of 1912–13 instead of in terms of the United Nations organisation and 1946. I was surprised and disappointed to observe from the Press that, at the Peace Conference, His Majesty's Government were backing the Greek Government's claim to a new strategic frontier and pleading for this claim in terms of the security of Greece. Even the League of Nations, weak as it was, was quite able to stop a Bulgaro-Greek conflict within 24 hours, and for a Labour Government to argue in favour of the necessity of establishing strategic frontiers between two Balkan countries, when we are supposed to base our policy on the United Nations organisation and on the organisation of collective security, seems to me a very deplorable example of the abyss between our statements and our actions in the matter of foreign policy. I would plead very strongly that the Government should make it clear that, in discussing Balkan affairs and the relations between Greece and Bulgaria, they will think and act in terms of the United Nations organisation, and not base their security concepts on the idea of these two Balkan States fighting out a duel in a world of armed anarchy.

The second plea I would make is that the relations of these two States should not be considered in terms of relations between an enemy country and an Allied country. The present Government and the present army in Bulgaria have, I believe, a better record of resistance and fighting on our side during the late war than that of the present Government and army command in Greece. In any case, the Bulgarian army did not do any fighting on the side of Germany, but did some effective fighting on ours and suffered many casualties. I believe that the Bulgarians have a stronger claim than the Italians to be considered as co-belligerents, apart from the fact that we have now reached the stage where we all realise that, if we are going to make peace effectively, we had better drop the hatred and prejudice arising out of wartime alignments and look at these matters from the point of view of their international merits.

On that question, I would press the point that we should look at the problem of Western Thrace, not in terms of Greco-Bulgarian relations, but in terms of the interests of the Balkans, particularly the economic interests. From an economic point of view, Western Thrace is a strip of land which Greece has acquired and that cuts off not only Bulgaria but the whole Balkan Hinterland from the Aegean. That is a great economic disadvantage, not only to Bulgaria, but also to the trade of Yugoslavia and Rumania.

The hon. Gentleman probably knows more about the background of this question than I do, but is it not a fact that, during the period between the wars, when the Yugoslavs enjoyed free port facilities in Salonika, there was a perfect flow of Yugoslav trade down the Aegean and back? The hon. Gentleman will also remember that the great Greek Liberal statesman, M. Venizelos, also offered the Bulgarian Government similar facilities in the port of Dedeagach, now called Alexandroupolis. Therefore, whether this strip of land on the North coast of the Aegean, which now contains an overwhelmingly Greek population, is under Greek or Bulgarian sovereignty does not affect the economic situation.

My hon. Friend has anticipated something that I was about to say. I do not agree that the facilities offered by the Greek Government were adequate, but I was going to make a plea for the consideration of the question of Western Thrace primarily from the point of view of international economic relations. After all, if U.N.O, is capable of treating Trieste on an international basis because of its economic importance to the whole hinterland of Central Europe, I suggest that the ports of Salonika, Kavalla and Alexandroupolis—Dedeagach —should also come under some kind of United Nations regime, with internationally guaranteed access to the sea to and from the hinterland. How far that arrangement should go, whether it should imply any political and administrative responsibilities, or whether there should be merely an overriding guarantee, I do not know. Those are matters of detail. But I would press on my hon. Friend who is to reply the point that Western Thrace presents not only a question of national and historic grievances, but is primarily a question of economic importance to the whole of the Balkans, and we should try to use our influence, again in terms of the United Nations organisation, to make sure that there is adequate and internationally guaranteed economic access from the hinterland through Western Thrace to the ports of Kavalla and Dedeagach. Why should we not put Salonika under some similar regime, in the interests of Greece as well as of the other countries concerned?

The final point I wish to make concerns the question of democracy and our attitude to the present regime in Bulgaria. With regard to Bulgaria, as in the case of most of the other liberated and ex-enemy countries in that part of the world, we have an overriding joint obligation with the U.S.S.R. and the United States of America to help the people in those countries to establish a democratic regime and put an end to the remnants of Fascism. The best way in which we can help Bulgaria to establish a democratic regime is not by having a nerve war of notes with the Bulgarian Government, but by trying to reach a common policy with the Soviet Union in the Balkans and Central Europe. I am saying this not only as my own personal opinion, but I am glad to be able to quote to this effect the leaders of the opposition in Bulgaria with whom I discussed this matter. They were so insistent that I should quote them that I have pleasure it-doing so now. I spoke with Dr. Mushanov, a fine old gentleman, the leader of the Democratic Party. He had a very good record in the resistance activities against the prewar Fascist dictatorship in Bulgaria. I also spoke with the able young opposition agrarian leader, Dr. Petkov. They told me that I should not only quote them but that I should also speak in the name of Mr. Lulchev, the Social democratic leader. But as I did not have this from his own lips, and as I want to be very careful about this, I am not invoking Mr. Lulchev's name. I will repeat what Dr. Mushanov and Dr. Petkov asked me to say, namely, that it only Great Britain and the Soviet Union had a common policy in the Balkans and Central Europe, that would be their salvation. That is how they put it, and they showed strong feeling in this matter.

I understand why they feel like this, because so long as the relationships between the great Powers are based on conflict, rivalry and disagreement, none of these questions can be discussed on their merits by the peoples concerned. Obviously, this bears hard on the oppositions in these countries who want to have particularly friendly relations with the Western countries, and who are accused of being enemies of their own countries and of running the errands of the Western Powers, who are suspected of having ex- ternally inspired or encouraged political motives for opposing the regimes in those countries. The only way to put a stop to that is to try to work out with the Soviet Union, on the basis of our common obligations, some kind of common policy. After all, we have common obligations, not only arising from the Teheran and Potsdam Agreements but from the Anglo-Soviet alliance which pledges us to be partners in the economic reconstruction and political reorganisation of Europe. We can only act on those common obligations and discover a common purpose with the Soviet Union if we face the fact that it is impossible for democracy to be developed in these liberated countries except through the success of their present programmes of semi-Socialist economic reconstruction. On those programmes the oppositions as well as the regimes are agreed. In Bulgaria in particular, Mr. Petkov and Dr. Mushanov were very emphatic in saying that they agreed with the Government's reconstruction policy, its home policy, and also its foreign policy of close friendship with the Soviet Union, just as in Poland Mr. Miko-lajczyk and his party agree with the economic programme of their government.

It would help a great deal in revealing possibilities of agreement in discussion if we made it clear that we realised the connection between successful economic reconstruction on the present semi-Socialist lines and the development of democracy and freedom as we understand it. Although the situation in Bulgaria and the other liberated countries is a great advance towards democracy, in terms of their own past, and in terms of what they have come out of during the war, nevertheless, it falls far short of what we understand by democracy and of what they are capable of developing into if they are given proper encouragement and help.

We have to face the fact that the Socialist economic reconstruction which is going on in these countries is impossible on an anti-Communist basis. If we are prepared to help these regimes in their Socialist reconstruction, and be friends with them, we must face the necessity, however distasteful it may be to some members of the Government, for working with the Communist parties. We need not advance very far in this respect. We need only go as far as "The Times," which, on 6th March this year, in an interesting leading article, referring to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition at Fulton, said that the Leader of the Opposition in depicting Communism and Western democracy as irreconcilable enemies, was indulging in a counsel of despair, because both Western democracy and Communism had a good deal to learn from each other. There were in Europe regimes, which were intermediate between the two, and such regimes were more suitable in the present situation to the conditions of those countries than our Western parliamentary democracy. Moreover, this question would be settled not by ideological conflicts, but by the nations in solving the problems of social organisation. If we could have a declaration on those lines, that the Government appreciate the fundamental importance of the success of these new regimes in their programmes of economic reconstruction, and the importance of agreement between ourselves and the Soviet Union as providing an international basis and background against which democracy and tolerance can develop in these countries, I believe this Debate will have been extremely useful. I would press my hon. Friend to say that we will recognise the Bulgarian Government, that we will try to devise a common policy with our Ally, the Soviet Union, on the basis of our alliance with that country, not only for Bulgaria, but for all those countries; and that we will take the view which is set forth in the Labour Party's own policy on which they won the General Election, that Socialism is a fundamental necessity for reconstruction and for the spread of political freedom and democracy in Europe.

I only intervene in this Debate for a very few minutes, because like the hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Mack) and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Gateshead (Mr. Zilliacus) I, too, was fortunate enough to visit Bulgaria during the Recess. However, unlike the hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme my tour was less triumphant. I, too, was received with great courtesy by Mr. George Dimitrov, but not with flowers. It was perhaps unfortunate that the official from the Bulgarian Foreign Office who accompanied me on that occasion as interpreter should have left his identity card behind. When we arrived at the great man's villa we were obliged to wait for quite a long time before this official was able to establish his own identity in front of the two gunmen who were standing on guard by the gate. I must say, frankly, I am unable to share the hon. Member's views in extolling either the present Bulgarian Government or the conditions which exist in Bulgaria today. My own point of view is just as sincere as that of the hon. Gentleman opposite.

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme referred to the part played by the Bulgarian Army at the end of the war on the Allied side. It is quite true that for roughly the last seven months of the war the Bulgarian Army did fight and suffer severe casualties on the Allied side under Russian direction. However, if we are going to distribute bouquets to those who took part in that battle in Eastern Europe, perhaps when the Under-Secretary of State comes to reply he will tell the House what has been the fate of General Stanchev, who commanded the Second Bulgarian Army and who, if my information is correct, is now under house arrest. It seems a curious reward to be arrested, having commanded the Second Bulgarian Army in operations against the Germans.

My impression, from the few weeks I spent in Bulgaria, was that most of the freedoms as we understand them have been assailed by legislation during the last 18 months. It is quite true that a group of the Zveno, the Social-Democrat and the Agrarian parties are represented in the Bulgarian Government. But what the hon. Member did not mention was that the bulk of those three parties was driven into opposition by the Communists because they wished to avoid smirching their own good names by continuing to participate in a Government whose direction was, in their opinion—and in my view quite rightly—tending towards dictatorship rather than towards democracy. We must also remember that the recent elections, which took place on 27th October, were conducted under the shadow of the law for the Defence of the Peoples Powers. Under that law, as the hon. Member opposite no doubt knows, it is a crime to make any speech or statement which could create mistrust in the existing Government; and how anybody belonging to the Opposition is expected to fight an election campaign with that law in operation I really do not know. I wonder how the hon. Member would have conducted his own Election campaign with such success at the last Election had a similar law been in operation in this country.

Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman seriously suggest that in fact the Opposition were gagged and were not allowed to present their policy and their criticism of the Government in the recent election of 27th October?

Yes, I certainly suggest that.

It is not so.

What actually happened was that in the preceding months Opposition papers were suppressed at intervals, many editors were arrested, and many of the would-be candidates were in concentration camps. In the last foreign affairs Debate which we had in this House the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of State told the House in his winding-up speech that a member of the Bulgarian Government had admitted that there were something in the neighbourhood of 40,000 political prisoners in concentration camps in Bulgaria. That statement was made from that Box in the winding-up speech of the foreign affairs Debate. Moreover, according to Press reports, although the actual discrimination against the Opposition parties was relaxed—even hon. Gentlemen opposite can hardly accuse the Opposition of being Fascists—two or three days before polling day, to give the outward appearance of free elections, the conduct of the elections was still very irregular. It was widely reported in a number of newspapers that, for example, road blocks were manned by the militia in order to prevent the Opposition leaders from visiting their own constituencies in country districts. The Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Mr. Georgiev himself, assured me, in an interview I had with him, that broadcasting facilities would be available to the Opposition during the election campaign. When the Under-Secretary of State replies to this Adjournment Debate will he tell us what broadcasting facilities were made available to the Opposition? According to my information they were offered a 10-minutes' broadcast on the eve of the poll. If that is not open discrimination then, Mr. Speaker, the English language has lost its original meaning.

Unlike the hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme I do not wish to join in an attack upon British representatives overseas who are unable to defend themselves. I prefer to agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Argyll (Major McCallum) in paying tribute, not only to the British political representative in Bulgaria but also to the officers and other ranks of the British Mission in Sofia, who are doing a first class job under extremely difficult circumstances. It is all very well for hon. Gentlemen opposite to say that the British political representative is misinformed, and that his reports are biased. Is a biased report a report which does not accept the theory that truth is the monopoly of the Communist Party? Whether or not His Majesty's political representative is fulfilling his functions to the satisfaction of His Majesty's Government can only be judged in the light of whether or not he is carrying out the instructions which he has been given. I am perfectly certain that those instructions have been in the past, and will be in the future, faithfully carried out. If not, it is for the Under-Secretary of State to say so. I think it should be noted in the House that both the political and the military representatives are undertaking a task under extremely trying conditions. Their only means of access to the outside world is by air. That is the way the mail comes. Whether he be a diplomat or in the Services, it is by means of the mail that he is kept in contact with his relations at home. The Sofia airfield is closed at intervals, and at very irregular and uncertain intervals, by the Russian chairman of the Control Commission. No one can say whether tomorrow, the next day or next week a given aircraft carrying mails can arrive. In the winter months, when flying conditions are very difficult, our representatives in Sofia have been marooned for as long as six weeks. I submit to the House that by their conduct they have worthily upheld the good name of our country. They have protested—and there is little more they could do—under instructions from the Foreign Office, against what seemed to most fair-minded men, to be a reign of terror. Unless we wish to disregard completely the ideals of human liberty, which we thought worth while defending in the war, I once again urge the Under-Secretary of State, if we have to sign a Peace Treaty with Bulgaria, and to recognise the Government with whom we sign it, to make it quite clear that the signing of that treaty does not mean approval, either of the methods by which that Government came into power or of the methods by which it seeks to maintain itself in office.

The House has heard a fairly full discussion, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has a number of points to which to reply. Therefore, I confine my remarks to one or two sentences. As I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Mack), and also the hon. and gallant Member for Argyll (Major McCallum), I began to wonder which of the two nations it was, Greece or Bulgaria, that fought on the Allied side during the war. There was one particular section of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme on which I would like to comment very briefly. When he was talking about Greek claims against Bulgaria, and repudiating the right of the Greeks to seek protection by moving their frontier a few kilometres further North—after having been invaded three times, as he himself admitted, in the last 25 years—and having disposed of the case of the Greeks, as he- thought, he then went on to refer to the claims of the Bulgarian Government against Greece; and I felt that, at this point, some protest must be voiced in this House. He mentioned the fact that in the year 1912 the great Greek Liberal statesman, Venizelos, said that, in certain conditions, he might be prepared to agree to territorial arrangements which would leave part of the Aegean coast in the hands of the Bulgarians. But that was after Bulgaria had only once invaded Greece. Two more treacherous invasions have since taken place, and I do ask the Under-Secretary to say, with as much clarity and firmness as he can, that, in any negotiations that have taken place, or that may take place, for a peace settlement with the Bulgarian Government His Majesty's Government, at any rate, consider claims against Greece by Bulgaria as outrageous, preposterous and wholly unacceptable.

The Debate has covered a lot of ground, and I am sure we are grateful to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Mack) for raising it tonight. I should like to begin, without delay, by saying, quite straight out, that we cannot admit his criticisms of His Majesty's Government's representative in Sofia. The general subject of promotion and recruitment has often been discussed quite recently in this House. There is no need for me to go into that. As far as the case of our representation in Sofia is concerned, as has been said, our policy in Bulgaria is a matter for His Majesty's Government, quite definitely, and though the hon. Member, I know, is opposed to the policy in Bulgaria, he cannot visit the sins of the Government upon our representative in Sofia. As far as the objectivity of his reports go, no specific instance of documentation was produced, and it is hard to reply to this accusation. I can only say that we are satisfied with the information that we have been getting from Sofia. In these circumstances, since, as it happens, we shall very shortly be in a position to announce the transfer of our representative I should like to make it very clear that this does not indicate any lack of confidence in his work in Sofia. In this connection, too, I should like to point out, with reference to my hon. Friend's suggestion that he himself should go for six months to Sofia, that it has no relevance to that suggestion either.

The subject of the Greek claims has been discussed at some length by different speakers. I am sure that no hon. Member of this House—though some got near to it tonight, I think—says, of the claims of all the Allies against our enemies, that they are wrong in principle. Why, then, if France and Yugoslavia and Soviet Russia and Poland can make their claims on enemy countries—why should Greece, alone, be excluded?

Surely, the nature of the claim has something to do with it, and making a strategic claim in the world of 1946 seems to me to be an undesirable claim in principle.

Greek strategic claims are not the only strategic claims that have been made—and satisfied—since the war ended. I cannot see, myself, that there is any reason for discriminating against our Ally, Greece, in this way. As has been said, at Bulgaria's hands she has been invaded three times quite recently, and in the last war she suffered heavily at Bulgaria's hands. It is true—I am glad to say it—that in the closing stages of the war the Bulgarian Army fought with remarkable bravery against the Germans, but we must not forget that the great bulk of Bulgaria's war effort was directed against Greece, and that under the Bulgarian Fascist occupation the Greek people suffered oppression and persecution. Against this background, and bearing in mind, also, that of the belligerent countries in Europe Bulgaria was the least war devastated, I see no reason why, in justice, Greece should not put this claim forward. She believes that the claims she put forward at the Paris Conference would very substantially have increased the security of Thrace and Macedonia. In the form in which they were presented they were rejected by the Conference, with less, I think, than sufficient consideration. The claims have been reduced, and are now being considered by the Council of Foreign Ministers, and I myself, and His Majesty's Government, say that Greece has every right to put these claims forward.

I felt more sympathy for the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. Zilliacus) when he talked about Socialist reconstruction measures in Bulgaria. It is early yet to see the effect of the measures they have put into effect already, but it is always a cheering sight to us Socialists to see capitalism going in any part of the world, and few tears will, I think, be shed over Bulgarian capitalism on our side of the House. On the question of democracy, however, I shall have something to say later. I think that the hon. Member's approach was a little naive, if I may say so, on this point. But I shall return to it in a moment. On the subject of the elections, not only my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, but also my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme were, in my view, wholly mistaken. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme actually described the elections in Bulgaria as "not absolutely immaculate"—surely, a world's record in understatement. Not absolutely immaculate!

May I just correct a possible' misunderstanding? I do not for a moment suggest that an election in Bulgaria or anywhere else is necessarily immaculate in every respect. But that remark can be applied to elections in this country, and, if I make that concession, I am not for a moment admitting that it was not an election on a fair and reasonable basis.

Well, my standards and the hon. Member's, of what is an immaculate election, clearly differ. But I will describe them, and show what information we have received about them. So far as I can follow it, polling day passed off peacefully and the voting conditions were broadly satisfactory. But it does seem very doubtful, indeed, whether the results of the election truly reflect the wishes of the Bulgarian people. During months and weeks before the elections the Bulgarian Government used every possible means of pressure and persuasion to get the results they wanted. It was not a matter of the distribution of knitted underwear—the hon. Member for New-castle-under-Lyme referred to the distribution of knitted underwear—as a method by which the Bulgarian Government faked the elections. I should be ashamed to give that reason for opposing the Bulgarian elections. I am going to give another and much more effective explanation. The truth is that during weeks and months before the election, Opposition leaders were thrown into concentration camps. That is a fact, and because it is said by a Conservative, that is no excuse for Socialists to ignore it. That is a fact.

Perhaps my hon. Friend might be a little more clear on that. He says "Opposition leaders." That might imply practically all of them. Will he give names, more details and the reasons?

Yes, but I cannot do it as quickly as my hon. Friend expects me to. Further, Opposition meetings were either banned, in many cases, or broken up if they took place. Opposition candidates were in many cases beaten up. The latest reports which we have had—they have not yet been substantiated, and I give them under reserve—suggest that in this period 95 Opposition organisers were arrested,. 102 people were beaten up in different incidents, 45 meetings were broken up, and 16 Opposition members were killed, mainly by beating up behind closed doors. Again, I say that these reports have not been substantiated, but they are being investigated, because there may be an element of exaggeration in them. But what we know for sure of conditions in Bulgaria makes it all too probable that some proportion of these reports is true. A further lamentable fact was that little or no attempt was made by the security forces to find and punish the offenders.

My hon.-Friend mentioned the freedom of the Press, and I agree with him that it is possible in Sofia to find newspapers with very outright attacks on the Government, but a good deal of administrative interference prevents the circulation of those newspapers outside Sofia. Nevertheless, I do not deny that some expression of opinion is possible in Bulgarian Opposition newspapers. However, it needs courage to fight elections as an Opposition leader in Bulgaria, there is no question about that, and it needs courage even to vote for the Opposition in a Bulgarian election. Rightly or wrongly, there must have been many Bulgarian voters at the election who felt that to vote against the Government was possibly dangerous and almost certainly useless, so we must accept with reserve the result of these elections.

May I put one point? I do not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman unduly, but he is making a series of statements with nothing to substantiate them except these reports, which in some cases have not been confirmed. Why is he so quick to accept reports from a representative in Bulgaria and to refute the witness of people like myself and my hon. Friends who have been there and have seen for themselves, and who are Members of his own party and of the same political faith as himself?

All that is between my hon. Friend and myself is the speed with which I tell my story.

It is not speed that matters.

May I give a concrete illustration which will show straight away what I mean? The hon. Member for Gateshead referred to Mr. Lulchev, the leader of the Democratic Party. I believe he paid a tribute to him. What has happened to Mr. Lulchev since the election? Immediately after the election he and some 20 of his supporters were arrested and put in prison. Does that satisfy the hon. Member?

It does not prove anything. It is only a statement that he is in prison.

He was immediately arrested after the election, in which he fought, under the Law for the Defence of the People's Power, which has been passed by the Bulgarian Fatherland Front Government. This law is based on measures passed by the prewar Fascist Government of Bulgaria, and part of Article 7 of this law reads:

"Whoever spreads calumnious statements likely to create mistrust in the Government in general—"

I repeat:

"—likely to create mistrust in the Government in general or in any of its organs or to cause disturbances in the community by means of printed publications or artistic materials shall be punished by imprisonment of not less than three months and a fine of 5,000 to 50,000 leva. The same punishment shall be applied to anyone who expresses opinions or spreads rumours about facts and circumstances which might tend to harm good relations with a friendly State or with its rulers or to compromise the prestige of such a State or its rulers."

That is Article 7 of the law for the Defence of the People's Power passed by the Fatherland Front Government. M. Lulchev was arrested under the last part of this section. He was arrested on two counts, first, that he sent to the Second International for publication of an exposition of the state of affairs in Bulgaria which contained—here I quote:

"incorrect estimates and statements undermining the authority of the Government."

That was one count, and the second was that he joined in distributing a document falsely alleged to be a speech by Mr. Byrnes. These charges are wholly frivolous, and I say that it is one of the first principles of a Social Democratic foreign policy that we should refuse to countenance the persecution of Social Democrats in this way. I say that His Majesty's Government are right to use what influence they have to stop this oppression taking place against perfectly respectable Social Democrat leaders to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead actually paid a tribute.

I beg my hon. Friend's pardon, but I cannot let that pass. I-paid a tribute to M. Mushanov and M. Petkov, but rather pointedly did not pay a tribute to M. Lulchev. I cannot say why; I had a private talk with him, but since my hon. Friend stresses the point, I must say that I am not surprised at all at what has happened to him.

My hon. Friend should know, if he has visited Bulgaria, that the opposition Social Democrats are the true, genuine Social Democratic Party. In country after country Social Democrats are labeled "Fascists," "Fascist beasts" and "war criminals" by the hon. Member, and when they are persecuted he will not stand up for them.

I cannot accept that either, because I spoke also with the Social Democrats who are for the Government, and who represent the great majority of the Social Democratic Party. I have not used such terms anywhere as he has imputed to me. M. Lulchev belongs to the same brood as the Right wing German Social Democrats who handed their country over to Hitler.

I would very much like to follow the hon. Member, and since he has mentioned Germany, may I point out that the policy of which I accuse him now, of not standing up for the Social Democrats, was precisely carried out in Berlin at the time of the fusion of the Social Democratic Party there? I say that His Majesty's Government are right, as a Social Democratic Government, to stand up for Social Democrats when they are persecuted in Europe, I do not mind where it takes place, whether in Bulgaria or in Berlin. I believe, too, that hon. Members behind me sympathise with that point of view. I say that these hon. Members should stand up and speak out for the persecuted Social Democrats in this world.

Would my hon. Friend give way for a moment? The majority of the Social Democrats in Bulgaria are supporting the Fatherland Front. The people to whom he refers, under the leadership of M. Lulchev, are the disciplined anti-Social Democrats who use the label. They represent definitely a minority of the Social Democratic Party. If he wants verification of that, I can supply him all the evidence from the papers of the organisation.

The hon. Member has allowed his good nature to obscure for him the difference between a firm Social Democratic attitude to these things and an opportunist Communist attitude. [HON. MEMBERS; "Nonsense."] Yes, I think my hon. Friend must make that clear. I said that he was allowing his good nature to do this, and I am not casting any reflections on his motives in the matter, but I do believe it is essential for us on these benches to make this distinction clear.

It is clearly time to pass on from this point. I would like, if I may, to deal briefly with another criticism of our policy, which is passed on the theory that the Bulgarians are not ready for democracy, that somehow or other, in criticising the Bulgarian Government for what is going on there, we are taking a rather English or a rather maiden aunt line towards the realities of Bulgarian politics. It may be said, quite truthfully, that of course Bulgaria has not got the same degree of democratic political advancement as in this country or the United States. What is the implication of this argument which is used by the critics of the Government tonight? The implication is that the Bulgarian Government are trying to establish democracy in Bulgaria and are being hampered by the backwardness of the Bulgarian people. That is what the argument means.

That is the Under-Secretary's interpretation.

What hon. Members have been saying is that it is absurd to expect Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Government to behave as though they- were a political democracy, that the conditions are worse in the Balkans and that you cannot blame the Government for them. On the contrary, I say that the facts are that the Bulgarian Government are not trying to establish political democracy in Bulgaria. Furthermore, they are not even trying to stamp out the acts of oppression which are taking place in Bulgaria, and worse, they are themselves responsible for many of these acts of oppression. To say that the backwardness of the Bulgarian people is responsible for the state of affairs in Bulgaria is surely a wholly hypocritical argument. The responsibility (for the state of affairs in Bulgaria is not due to the low political standards of the Bulgarian people, but due to the low political standards of the Bulgarian Government. That is the truth about that state of affairs, and not as hon. Members suggest.

I have covered a good deal of ground. There is the question of the arrest of General Stanchev. I share hon. Members' views about that. I am not well informed on this, but my information is that at this minute he is under arrest.

Can the Under-Secretary tell the House under what charges he was originally arrested?

I am afraid that I cannot say, but perhaps the hon. and gallant Member will put down a Question on that. It is not our policy in Bulgaria, as so often alleged, to support reactionary capitalists, Fascists and anti-Soviet elements. All over the world, whatever we do, we shall be accused of that. No matter what we do, the Communist parties throughout the world will say that in fact we support these reactionary elements. On the contrary, we wish Bulgaria to remain on good terms with all her neighbours, including Soviet Russia. We wish her to break new ground. We want her to go ahead with constructive social democratic reforms. We want her to plan her way ahead towards better living standards for the Balkan people. Socialism never has been and never will be established on terror and oppression. What is more, no genuine working-class movement needs these weapons to keep itself in power. Only unrepresentative minorities need them, falsely claiming themselves to be progressive working-class movements, and catching innocents with their propaganda. No, Sir, we on this side belong to the largest and most successful Social Democratic party in the world, and we are in a position to judge of these things, and we take our stand on these principles. We say that we are not taking this line because we are capitalists, or because we are reactionary, Fascist, anti-Semitic, anti-Soviet or anything like that, but because we are both Socialists and Democrats, and because we believe that along this line the true welfare of the Balkan people can best be served.

The Under-Secretary elaborated some admirable principles in his speech with which I am in complete agreement. He has escaped the main issue, namely, What are the Government going to do? Is it the intention to distinguish between recognition on the one hand and approval on the other? If not, by what other method can they register disapproval of the Bulgarian Government?

I have done my best, with these matters being discussed by the Council of Foreign Ministers, to give the policy of the Government as fully as I can, and I am afraid there is nothing more I can add.