On a point of order. I wish to raise a matter for the convenience of the House. There may be extenuating circumstances in this particular case, as I am sure there are, but some of the Questions which I have on the Order Paper today, which are of a general nature affecting the hake fishing industry, were originally put down for answer by the Prime Minister. I appreciate that it is within the competence of a Minister to transfer Questions to another Minister, but as the Leader of the House is present, may we have some general guidance, for the convenience of the House, about Questions to the new Prime Minister in the future?

Are we to take it that there will be specific days, like Tuesdays and Thursdays which were the days when the last Prime Minister answered Questions, or are we to understand that we can ask the new Prime Minister Questions on home affairs as well? The Questions to which I refer were important Questions about home affairs and were right at the beginning of the Order Paper.

I do not see a point of order in that. The right of Ministers to transfer Questions has been frequently stated in this House; and, indeed, it is the only rule that is practicable, because Ministers alone know their spheres of responsibility.

With respect, Mr. Speaker, what I was submitting as a point of order was for the general convenience of the House. All I am seeking is elucidation. As the Leader of the House is here, surely he can give us some elucidation.

The hon. Member prefaced his remarks by saying that he was raising a point of order. It really is not a point of order, and I cannot deal with it.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Heath.]

London's traffic congestion and London's roads are matters which are not infrequently debated in the House. I do not think that there is any need for me to waste much time today in stressing the urgency of this problem. All hon. Members suffer, as, indeed, do Londoners in general, from the frustrations and exasperations and time-wasting that appear to be inseparable from any journey by road in central London today.

Some months ago I made a speech in the House on the question of London traffic, when I dealt mainly with the opportunities that we have lost in the post-war period of making urgently needed improvements and also with certain specific improvements which might still be made, mainly of a minor nature. I am very happy to say that one or two of the suggestions which I made on that occasion actually have been, or are now in the process of being, implemented. I am not going to tempt fortune by suggesting that this is a matter of cause and effect, but, at any rate, it does give me some hope on behalf of the quite different plea which I am making to the Government today.

Before I come to the main subject of my remarks, which is long-term planning, I want to say a few words about the short term. I believe that very much more could be done than is being done at present, and could be done immediately, to relieve traffic congestion in the centre of London. A lot could be done with comparatively minor street improvements. Still more could be done by a much more intelligent use of traffic lights and by a greatly extended system of one-way streets. I do not think it is necessary for me to stress, at any rate to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, that it is very much simpler to introduce intelligent light-signal working in a one-way street than in a street where the traffic is moving in both directions.

I am very glad that some months ago the Minister set his face against any purely restrictive solution of the London traffic problem. I am glad that he scouted the idea of trying to keep out private cars from some of the central areas of London because, in my view, that would be wholly defeatist and, if introduced in legislative form, would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to enforce. So we are faced with the admission, at any rate on the part of the Minister, that a positive solution of this problem is needed.

Many people who write and speak about this problem appear to imagine that it stems entirely from the excess number of private cars parked in the streets of Central London. Although it is obvious that parked cars do intensify this problem, if there were no cars at all parked in Central London we should still have a very urgent and acute traffic problem.

My main theme today is to stress the need for new road construction in the London area, particularly in the central part of London, and also the need for major improvements to existing roads. This is an absolutely essential part of any solution to the problem and it is a field in which there has been almost complete inertia over the last 15 years. For some of that period, of course, it was inevitable that no steps could be taken, but in the case of Central London this inertia has gone on for a very much longer period. For at least 50 years almost nothing has been done in the way of major road construction in the Central London area. Let me remind the House that the last major road scheme that Central London saw was the Kingsway and Aldwych construction, which is about half a century old.

We are very glad to see that now there are signs of a small and modest move forward in this respect. We have had certain proposals affecting London in the Government's road programme recently announced. Though I welcome these schemes, what I want to make sure of, and cannot be sure about at the moment is that the move is in the right direction. Has the Minister got his priorities right? These are things which we cannot know. We can only guess and only hope and, for my part, I have certain very serious doubts about some of these proposals.

We cannot know these things for certain, because we have not got the necessary information upon which to form a judgment and upon which to base a comprehensive road programme. What we do know is that the Government have promised a number of haphazard, unco-ordinated, piecemeal projects which may leave the situation very little better than before and could conceivably leave it in an even worse state. These purely ad hoc local solutions, dealing with a specific problem here and another one there, may well create new and possibly more serious problems elsewhere if they are not part of a co-ordinated plan.

I should like to give the House an example of what I have in mind. We are promised, in the fairly early part of the road programme, certain improvements in Tottenham Court Road. It is proposed to have a roundabout at the Tottenham Court Road-Euston Road intersection at Warren Street underground station. It is proposed, also, to have some street widening in that part of Tottenham Court Road immediately to the south and another roundabout in St. Giles' Circus, that is, the intersection of Oxford Street, which, I freely admit, is one of the worst congested intersections in London.

No one can be more grateful than I for any improvement made in Tottenham Court Road because I spend far too large a proportion of my life travelling from North London into the centre, and I normally travel along that road. But these improvements are to cost nearly £6 million and it is important to see what value we are to have for the money. If the traffic is freed on this section of Tottenham Court Road, what is to happen at the roundabout in Cambridge Circus, which already is overloaded, and grossly overloaded at peak hours?

If we are to make traffic flow more easily down the northern part of Tottenhav Court Road, obviously more traffic will use it and we shall have increased congestion at the intersection immediately south of it. We shall also have more congestion in Charing Cross Road and in the approaches to Trafalgar Square. The solution of one problem on a purely local basis can create other and more serious problems.

Then there is the question of priorities. How can we possibly know that the first things are being dealt with first? I would be prepared to grant the Minister the priority which he has given to the Cromwell Road extension, because this proposal was held to be vitally urgent and necessary in 1905. Therefore, it is reasonable to suppose that it is still urgent today. Similarly with the proposal to widen the Strand. That was regarded as urgent in 1912, if not earlier, and, of course, we are glad that these things are at last to be tackled.

But why the reconstruction of the Albert Bridge? That bridge does not tie up with any trunk route. I put a Question to the Minister on this subject and he suggested that the main reason why he wanted to reconstruct the bridge was to prevent it from falling into the Thames. I had not heard that the bridge was in such a bad state of repair and I cannot believe that such a catastrophe is really imminent.

Since the Albert Bridge does not form part of any north-south trunk road, surely some thought should have been given perhaps to a new road bridge at Charing Cross, which is urgently needed and which would relieve traffic congestion on Waterloo and Westminster Bridges. That might have been a far better and more profitable investment of a considerable sum of money. The reason why we do not know about these things is simply that there does not exist any coordinated, comprehensive, up-to-date, long-term road plan for London, a plan which would be based on the principles of modern traffic engineering.

I put a Question to the Minister about this matter a month or so ago. The Minister said rather airily that we had plenty of plans and that what we wanted was to get some action. I do not agree. The Minister said that there was the Bressey Plan of 1937, he mentioned the County of London Plan, 1943, and the London Development Plan, 1951. None of these is a plan in the sense that I have in mind or a plan of the kind that I have described. None is a good plan and two of the three are now hopelessly out-of-date. As far as I can recall, the Bressey Plan was not even thought to be a very good one at the time. It certainly did not meet with a very favourable reception. When one looks at it today it seems to have been more a series of individual schemes than a plan.

The County of London Plan, which formed part of the Abercrombie Scheme of 1943 when it was published, was at least a bold and imaginative plan, but I should have said that it was visionary rather than practicable. Certainly, no estimate was ever made of the cost of implementing those proposals, but I am quite sure that it would have been fantastic, and it is not very surprising that that plan was stillborn. The key proposal of it was the A-Ring Road and the next most important proposal was the B-Ring Road.

Perhaps I should interpolate here that this is not in any way a political issue and that all Governments have been guilty in this matter. The Labour Government of the day dropped the B-Ring Road first and then dropped the A-Ring Road and the scheme just disintegrated and, therefore, we have now the road section of the London Development Plan.

That is a greatly whittled down version of the earlier County of London Plan. It is quite unco-ordinated, and in my view it is hopelessly inadequate. Indeed, it admits it is inadequate as a plan, because I was looking at it early yesterday and I see the programme says that it

"cannot be regarded as adequate for the needs of traffic."

It is, in fact, like the new proposals of the Minister, an effort to get a quart into a pint pot. The whole time we are talking about this quart it is probably swelling to a gallon, and we are not doing much about the pint pot.

I rather regard the problem of drawing up an effective road development plan as in a way analogous to the problem faced by anti-aircraft gunners during the war. One used not to aim one's shell at the aircraft; one aimed at where one hoped the aircraft would be when the shell reached that point. That is not what we have been doing, and not what we are doing now in this question of road development in London. All we are doing is to aim a few desultory shots in the wake of the aircraft and rather a long way behind it.

In the course of my researches into this problem I came across an interesting Report of the Royal Commission on London Traffic, which was appointed in February, 1903, and reported in 1905. This Royal Commission appointed an advisory board of engineers to advise it on the road aspect of their problem. The board consisted of three experts, and the Commission, in its Report, included a summary of the advisory board's report to it.

I should like to quote an extract from this Report:

"The projects put forward by the Advisory Board of Engineers are based upon the view that those entrusted with the duty of providing for the wants of London in years to come ought to have before them a carefully thought out plan and definite principles upon which they should work."

Then it goes on to quote, as an example of what was in its mind, the plan for the redevelopment of Paris during the 19th century, and it continued:

"The point to secure that, in future, new streets shall be constructed and improvements in old streets shall be effected, not haphazard and piecemeal as hitherto, but in relation to the general needs of London and in pursuance so far as possible, of a fixed policy which should be followed with persistent effort over a great length of time."

That is nothing less than I am suggesting to the House half a century later.

The Royal Commission itself sent in a rather disappointing Report. It did not adopt all the recommendations of its advisory board of engineers but with this conclusion it recorded its specific agreement:

"That street improvements should be undertaken in conformity with a carefully considered plan, designed to meet the requirements of through traffic which may be carried out over a long series of years."

The advisory board at that time could not, of course, produce such a plan. It was not in a position to do so, but it did put forward what it regarded as urgent proposals for new streets and for street widening. Few of those proposals have been implemented even to this day.

I found it rather interesting to note that the new so-called Route 11, which is shortly to be begun on a very reduced scale, is largely based on a much more ambitious scheme in this particular Report. It was a scheme for a new east-west road running from Bayswater right through the City to Commercial Road. This scheme was in turn a development of a proposal made in 1867 to a Select Committee by Colonel Haywood, engineer to the Commissioners of City Sewers, so that the new Route 11 was first proposed in 1867 and nothing has been done about it in the 88 years following that date.

Before I leave this very interesting Royal Commission Report, I should like to mention a minority Report, which was signed by an hon. Member of this House, Sir George Bartley, who considered that the Royal Commission's proposals were nothing more than a mere temporary palliative, and foresaw with quite remarkable clarity the present congestion in the streets of London. He said that in his view traffic would increase in geometrical progression and that the congested streets would become

"absolutely unbearable, and the difficulty of improving them will increase in the same geometrical proportion the longer the real and only practical improvement of new and wider streets is delayed."

What a tragedy for London that no one heeded these wise and far-sighted words that were written 50 years ago by a Member of this House.

What we need today is fresh thinking and an entirely new approach to this problem of London's traffic congestion. The kind of plan that I have in mind is the type of plan that has been produced for cities such as Berne, Munich, Boston, Zurich, and Copenhagen. Those are cities which feel they cannot deal with their traffic problems without getting right down to producing a long-term coordinated plan. The sort of plans that they have been producing and are in a process of implementing are produced, in the main, by outside traffic consultants, men of the type that are not to be found in this country because there is no one to employ them. They are men like Dr. Feuchtinger, of Germany, who is perhaps the greatest expert in the world on this problem.

Our traffic experts are, I believe, suffering from far too set ideas. They are resisting new thinking in road development. Let me give the House an example. It seems to me that when faced with any intersection problem our own traffic engineers can only think in terms of roundabouts. Yet we are only at this moment beginning to study the roundabout in modern terms of traffic capacity. I believe that a whole new form of inquiry has been started in the Road Research Laboratory, and I am delighted to hear it, but let us have a look at some of the results of our lack of planning and lack of examination of this problem in the past.

The Hyde Park boulevard scheme was produced by the L.C.C. about five years ago. It was adopted, endorsed by the Minister and it was ready to start. Then somebody discovered that this plan, that was based on two roundabouts at Hyde Park Corner and at Marble Arch, would not work, because the roundabouts themselves would not be able to cope with the peak-hour traffic. I believe it is quite possible to work out the maximum capacity of any roundabout however many exits or entrances it has and whatever its radius. That had not been done in this case, and the result is that we have now a modified scheme involving flyovers or under-passes, which the Minister told us just now, in answer to a Question, he is satisfied will work.

There is one man who has produced a really scientific analysis of London traffic needs, and that was a young traffic engineer named R. B. Hounsfield who, unfortunately, died at an early age, about five years ago. His plan, published posthumously in 1951, was based on statistics of 1937, so it is not entirely relevant today. It provided the kind of survey that we must have to deal with this problem and to plan ahead. Hounsfield came to the conclusion that London must have a number of what he called relief highways. Those are roads with limited and controlled access, without intersections, and, for the most part, either elevated on viaducts or sunk below the surface level.

On the whole, I think that Hounsfield's plan was far too ambitious and that he postulated too many of these relief highways, but it seems to me probable that there will be no satisfactory solution of this problem unless we build at least three or four of this type of relief highways—or "expressways," which I believe is the more common name for them. These roads would be expensive to construct but the volume of traffic they would carry and would divert from other inadequate roads would be considerable, and they might make unnecessary some of the costly developments of existing roads now planned. It may well be that in trying to deal with this problem in a purely two-dimensional way, as we have been, where it needs a three-dimensional solution, we are wasting large sums of money in the long term.

To sum up, what I am asking for is that the Minister, who after all is the traffic authority for London, should set up a fairly small committee of experts to examine the present and future needs of London traffic, to prepare a comprehensive and co-ordinated development plan for a 20 or 25-year road programme, if possible phased over five-year periods.

I have no doubt that some overall financial limitation would have to be placed on the programme because experts cannot be given their heads completely, particularly over a problem as vast as this, but the financial limitation must be generous in order to be adequate. That is inevitable, because this problem has been neglected for so long that any satisfactory solution will cost a lot of money. However, the cost of traffic delays in London is incalculable, and so is the cost in nervous exhaustion and frustration of people who have to drive and travel in private cars and in London buses along the streets of London today.

I would suggest that if such a committee were formed, we should bring in at least one expert from either the United States or Europe, where they have much more experience than we have of this kind of problem. Happily, there was a precedent set by the 1905 Royal Commission, because one of the three members of their advisory board of engineers was a New York traffic engineer.

I hope, also, that an opportunity will be given to one or two of the younger traffic engineers in this country. They have never had a chance to show what they can do and I believe that, here and there, we have one or two young men of great promise. We need boldness and imagination, applied science and a radical approach to this problem. I hope that the Minister will give careful consideration to these suggestions and not reject them out of hand, merely saying that I am asking for just another plan and that we have plenty already. I believe that the suggestion I have put forward is an essential preliminary to any solution of this vast and urgent problem.

The House owes a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson), for giving us an opportunity to debate this subject this morning. I listened with the greatest interest to his speech and found myself in agreement with every point he made. I will not detain the House long, because it would be tedious for me to repeat his argument—even if I could do so in the lucid way in which the hon. Gentleman put forward his arguments—but I wish to ask the House to consider whether we have the priority right in this matter. I do not believe that we have.

If we are to prevent complete traffic stagnation we must try to reduce the volume of London traffic. I agree that it would be unthinkable to do so by imposing restrictions on the use of private cars in London, as has been suggested in some quarters. Yet in some way we must try to reduce the number of vehicles coming into London and, particularly, passing through it.

In Paris, where I lived for some years, a constructive approach has been made to the problem. The ring road which passes around Paris, and which passes the main arteries in and out of the city by a series of fly-overs and under-passes, has done a great deal to relieve traffic congestion in that city. In the same way, in New York and in most of the American States, the problem has been tackled by providing arteries so that the traffic which does not need to go into the centre of the city can pass around it or even, as in some cases, underneath the city. That has made a big improvement.

In London, we are concentrating on what might be called a piecemeal programme, which does not appear to me to be linked to any major overall scheme. We have heard much about the Hyde Park boulevard scheme. This will undoubtedly be a contribution towards solving the problem in a specific area, but one objection voiced against the scheme is the increased traffic it will bring into that area, which will cause more congestion in Oxford Street. Therefore, as we deal with the problem in one area by a piecemeal programme, we merely create increased congestion somewhere else.

I ask my hon. Friend to consider whether we are giving sufficient priority to the ring roads. We have a North Circular Road, but it exists only in part, because for long stretches it is no more a main artery than many of the other streets in London. The South Circular Road exists solely by courtesy of the excellent sign-posting arrangements which have been made by one of the motoring organisations. But for that, I do not think that the South Circular Road could be said to exist at all.

I also ask my hon. Friend to consider the question of the A-Ring Road. We have heard some of its history this morning, but I do not know whether the House knows of the 28th Report of the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee—I believe its last Report—in which the Committee raises the subject again and says:

"In our view, the A-Ring Road is one of the few bold and imaginative ideas which have been proposed to deal with the traffic congestion in London. We do not underestimate the difficulties or the expense, but this road would substantially reduce the traffic in the inner area of London and would thus render unnecessary many of the road improvements in that area which the London County Council now consider necessary. It would probably in the long-term be cheaper than the piecemeal improvements otherwise necessary, and it represents a much more positive approach to the problem and one which is more likely to produce a real improvement in traffic congestion in London."

It seems to me that the Minister should set up a committee to reconsider the whole project of the A-Ring Road, which was abandoned in 1950.

I think it is along those lines that we should look for a solution to the problem—diverting traffic from the centre of London; and I ask my hon. Friend to reconsider this proposal and, particularly, the setting up of a committee to investigate it, possibly along the lines suggested by the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North.

My hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) and the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharpies) have united in deploring the possibility of private cars being prevented from coming into London. I found my hon. Friend a little more emphatic on this subject today than he was in an article which he wrote for the "Evening News" a little while ago, in which he said, writing of the traffic congestion in London:

"A great deal of the trouble, though by no means all, is due to the parking of private cars on the highway."

Does my hon. Friend's speech mean that he has retreated a little from that standpoint? Does he now suggest that the parking of cars on the roadway is not as major a factor in causing congestion as when he wrote the article?

I have not retreated. Perhaps I have advanced. I fully agree with what I wrote, and I said in my speech that parking is a contributory factor, but I am equally sure that we should have acute traffic congestion in London without any private cars parked on the roadway. I was deploring the suggestion which has been made in some quarters, not that we should limit parking in London but that we should keep private cars out of the central area of London altogether.

If the Government are not prepared to initiate a longterm plan for solving London's traffic problems, it will become essential to prevent private cars from coming into London at all, because if we have to choose between two evils, it is surely less deplorable to stop private cars from coming into London than to allow the whole traffic of Central London to grind to a complete standstill.

Does not the hon. and gallant Gentleman's proposal mean that we should have to give permission to doctors, perhaps Members of Parliament, district nurses and many other people who find it essential to have their cars in London, and would not this set up a most undesirable bureaucracy and privilege?

All kinds of complications will arise, but they will not be as difficult as the complete inability of the mass of the population to move about at all.

There is a possibility that legislation might arise out of any such system of prohibition. The subject can be mentioned, but I call the attention of the House to the rule against raising matters on the Adjournment which involve legislation.

I am obliged to you, Mr. Speaker. I do not want to be led into breaking the rules of the House by the interventions of hon. Members.

The fact remains that in 1938 there were about 3 million vehicles in this country, that by 1954 the number had risen to about 5½ million and that the number is continuing to rise. Unless we stop motor-car manufacturers from manufacturing more and more cars, steps must be taken in London and other large towns to enable these cars, which are being sold in ever-increasing quantities, to travel along the road.

I suggest that the haphazard approach of which both previous speakers has complained must be abandoned as quickly as possible. As more and more vehicles pour on to the congested roads, the number of fatal accidents and casualties is bound to continue to increase. That is another of the very heavy prices which we shall have to pay, quite apart from the millions which these choked arteries in London and other large towns will cost industry.

Drastic action is required, and I want to make a suggestion following a comment made by my hon. Friend. All the main-line stations should be pushed right out of the centre of London and into the suburbs. The advantage of doing that would be that the last 10 miles of railway track leading into the various main-line stations of London could be used as motor highways. Where they are not wide enough, we could build one highway on top of the other so as to have one-way traffic along these new relief highways, which would stretch from the outlying suburbs into the heart of London.

Another advantage would be that we should not have these concentrations of traffic and congestion arising from the fact that thousands of people pour into the main-line stations and in many cases have to double back on their tracks. For instance, some people travel into King's Cross and then have to get back to places in the North of London. That applies to thousands of people who come to London every day to a main-line station and then have to go back on their tracks to their places of work. If drastic proposals have to be considered, then I suggest that one of the proposals that might be considered is this idea of pushing the main-line stations out of London altogether. That would create more fluid traffic conditions, particularly in the neighbourhoods where these main-line stations are to be found.

That is the only practical suggestion I should like to make in the discussion which has been so ably introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North. We have to get ourselves out of the rut and face up to a problem that is bound to continue if we are to encourage millions more cars on to the roads and if we are not to do anything to make it possible for those cars to move freely. Even if it is not possible altogether to ban private cars from coming into London, it might be possible to consider stopping-up the main roads in Central London to private cars during the rush hours.

That would enable the buses to take people to and from work, which is the primary problem that London traffic authorities have to consider. It would not necessarily involve legislation to lay down that no private cars should be allowed in certain streets in Central London at certain times in the rush hours. They should be compelled to use alternative routes.

Quite a number of hon. Members want to speak on this matter and we are all anxious to hear what the Parliamentary Secretary has to say. I hope that he will embark upon some completely fresh thinking on this very important problem.

The hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) has done a service to the House. I was privileged to raise this matter a year ago on the Easter Adjournment, and I must say that it is alarming to see how little progress has been made in the interval.

I could not altogether agree with the proposal put forward by the hon. and gallant Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton), which would mean that people would perhaps arrive in Brixton instead of arriving further into London and would have to take a taxi, if they wanted to go to the North of England, perhaps right to Hendon, my own constituency, before getting into a train and going north. That may be all right for taxi people, but not for holiday makers travelling through London, either north to south, or east to west.

I should like to draw attention to two points which merit consideration. I cannot altogether agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples) that piecemeal methods do not achieve an improvement. In the last 18 months we have seen that the improvements made on the Embankment have enormously speeded up the east-west and west-east flow of traffic along the riverside. But although that traffic flow has improved—and on occasions I have found it averaging very nearly 30 miles an hour along that stretch of road—I have also noticed an increase in the number of cars parked along both sides of the Embankment.

That leads me to the belief, which was borne out by many other speakers in the recent debate which we had on this subject, that, sooner or later, one will have to have traffic police specialising in keeping London traffic flowing smoothly and fast, especially along the main arteries. I fear that our policemen have so much to do these days that they are not able to give the same attention and same enthusiasm to this aspect of the London problem as they give to minor motoring offences.

It always astonishes me that one can park a car in Oxford Street at a peak hour—especially if one's car looks like a van—and constipate the traffic in Oxford Street, without attracting much attention. But if one parks one's car in a cul-de-sac, when one returns to it one may find a policeman only too ready to take one's name and address. Until a section of our police have the primary object of tackling the problem of keeping London traffic moving, then, however many improvements we make, we will not really achieve the required result. We will not get dividends from the very considerable capital expenditure which is necessary on roads and other methods of transport.

We need to tackle this problem, and I thoroughly support the idea that we should set up a committee. It is admirable and we should in no way be narrow, but invite experts from other countries to sit on that committee. I hope that the committee will not consider only the road problem of London, because the problem of the use of our roads and the movement of traffic on them is tied up with and dovetailed into the problem of rail and the movement of passengers in and out of this city.

I deplore the suggestion, which has been canvassed on several occasions by London Transport Executive, of banning cars in Central London. In the long run, that may be necessary, but I can see the most alarming growth of privilege for people who have to have their cars. Just as in petrol rationing it was the person who put his case best—often it was not too near the truth—who got the privilege of extra petrol coupons, so I can see exactly the same thing happening. A person who best puts the case for bringing his car in would bring it in and the more honest person might be excluded.

London Transport Executive should not canvass that suggestion until it has tackled the problem of making it easier, quicker and more comfortable for passengers to come into London by rail. I realise that that would mean doubling up the tubes and possibly making use of the old steam lines, many of which still exist all through London today and which are hardly used at all, and running express lines from the perimeter of the Metropolitan area.

It cannot be expected that a person from the country, travelling to London by car, will park his car 12 or 15 miles away from London and then get on the tube knowing that the train will stop at every station and that the journey will take him 45 or 60 minutes. But one would find very large numbers of travellers in and out of London who would be happy to park their cars outside London if they could then get into an express tube to take them into London on business or pleasure in a short time.

I know that that would mean capital expenditure on. a considerable scale, but I believe that, in the long run, it might be less than the capital expenditure invested in roads. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will set up a committee whose terms of reference are not so narrow as to include only roads. This is a problem which equally concerns the railways. I hope that he will also ask this committee to consider whether, by the use of fast diesel locomotives, we cannot make much better use of the redundant steam lines to help the traveller to get in and out of London more quickly instead of forcing travellers to use their cars and thus paralyse London traffic to a still greater degree.

Like my hon. Friends the Members for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples) and Hendon, North (Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing), I support almost everything said by the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) in this most interesting discussion. I will not weary the House by repeating many of his comments, but I should like to emphasise one or two of them, and especially what he said about roundabouts.

We are today seeing examples of the comparative uselessness of roundabouts in great centres such as Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch. I do not think that that is fully realised because, as has been said, there had not been a scientific examination of the problem until quite recently. I suggest that every new scheme of road improvement which contains a roundabout of an area such as the one at Hyde Park Corner should be thoroughly examined before it is put into operation.

I know that roundabouts like those on the other side of the river at each end of York Road, which were introduced at the time of the Festival of Britain, have proved a success because they are not the type with one island in the centre. They form a series of streets and, in any case, the traffic there is comparatively light. But because these schemes have succeeded we should not run away with the idea that the provision of a roundabout is the only solution of a traffic problem.

It has been said that parked cars are not the main cause of congestion. I fully agree. It was said that the Strand needed widening in 1912. Although my recollection of the Strand in those days is very dim, I am sure that there were no parked cars or many parked horse-drawn vehicles. That was the day when the horse bus was about to disappear. The congestion was caused by the amount of traffic and, as it is today, by the amount of intersecting traffic. That is the prime cause of congestion.

The solution is not so much to chase parked cars off the side streets where, perhaps, they cause only minor conges- tion, but to remove the causes of intersection. That will have to be done either by making tunnels and fly-overs, as has been done in Paris very successfully, or by making one-way streets so that we should get two streams of intersecting traffic and not four. If only we could have more one-way streets in London so that traffic lights could be arranged on a progressive basis, then we should get far less congestion than we do today even without providing new streets. That suggestion ought to be taken into account.

Another problem is that of acquiring land for traffic improvements. There have been many instances in the past—one was when the Great West Road was built—where we did not look ahead soon enough and a row of new houses went up only to be pulled down when the land was acquired two or three years later for the building of the road. I ask my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary whether action is being taken to make sure that local authorities acquire land in time before it is sterilised by some other kind of building, and so that it does not cost any more than is absolutely necessary. This is an expensive job at any time, and we do not want to make it more expensive by having to pay added compensation because of a failure to look ahead.

I count myself most fortunate, Mr. Speaker, in catching your eye at this stage of this most interesting debate. I promise that I shall speak for only two minutes. I congratulate the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) for introducing the subject. I am sorry that I was a little late, but I listened to most of his speech with rapt attention. He stressed the importance of the long-term plan, and I fully agree. The point I want to make is that we must not overlook the fact that if we do not make a short-term plan we shall be completely defeated and no long-term plan will ever have any foundation.

The only further point I wish to stress is in connection with the vehicles which use the main streets of London. A street or road is meant for vehicles to travel along and not to stand still on. The difficulty is that there are not sufficient garages in which cars can be parked. As motorists, we seem to think that we have a right to park our cars anywhere on any street and to leave them there for any length of time. I should be getting very near the limits of order if I were to press for an early introduction of parking meters, but until we find sufficient garage space to get these cars off the road—a car parked on a side road has a silting-up effect—we shall not make any progress.

Finally, I take the opportunity to make a plea to some other road users. Why is it that British Railways have an endless number of enormous vans each of which carries only one parcel? It is a curious fact, also, that every local authority seems to try to have bigger and better refuse carts which are always brought out at the height of the traffic jams in the mornings. Further, the police seem to have very large Black Marias; I do not know how many occupants there are in them sometimes. All users of the road would be well advised to have small vehicles wherever possible. If they used their intelligence and co-operated in this vital matter we could have a short-term plan and thus ensure that the long-term plan could be carried out.

The hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) has several times discussed the subject of the roads of London. I hope to be able to show him today that progress of a substantial kind has been made since he raised the matter on 28th May last year.

I am not sure that it is always clearly understood what is the division of responsibility in these matters. In London, the London County Council is the planning authority under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, and it is also the highway improvement authority. In addition to the London County Council, there are the Metropolitan boroughs, which are highway authorities. It is within their powers to carry out improvements of the highways within their jurisdiction where they think it desirable to do so.

If they are in agreement with the London County Council about the works that require to be done, it is the practice for the county council to make a grant towards the expenses of those works. I understand that, generally speaking, the relations between the London County Council and the Metropolitan boroughs are very cordial. Therefore, there is a greater degree of co-ordination between these different authorities than might be supposed to be the case from the fact that they have overlapping powers.

My right hon. Friend is the traffic authority for London. It is difficult to draw an exact line of distinction between matters which are primarily those of highways and those that are chiefly questions of traffic. At the same time, it is natural, and, I think, right, that different authorities should be responsible for these different matters.

It was the intent of Parliament in 1924, when it made the Minister of Transport the traffic authority for London, to ensure that there should be some general policy covering the whole of London, but it would have been unnecessary, cumbrous and inconvenient if at the same time a single authority had been made responsible for the maintenance, improvement and development of all the highways of London. That is why I thought it necessary to explain how these responsibilities are divided up, and, on the whole, I think that the system works reasonably well.

I wish to make it plain that in these matters my right hon. Friend is not primarily responsible, but I recognise that he is responsible for the payment of grants in respect of these improvements. It is not possible for the London County Council or the Metropolitan boroughs to carry out great schemes unless the Minister can make special grants.

The hon. Gentleman suggested that there is an urgent need for a new inquiry into the roads of London. The London County Council has prepared a development plan for London which, on 7th March, was approved, with certain modifications, by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government. The plan provides for a large number of highway improvements which are likely to cover the next 20 years. I should like to quote from the written analysis which forms part of the plan to show that what is proposed to be done during the next 20 years is intended to lead up to the more radical ultimate road programme which the London County Council already has in mind.

"It is necessary, before operating a programme of road improvements, to have an indication of the resources likely to be available over a considerable period. While it might at first be thought that a programme prepared without this knowledge could be spread over a number of years according to the resources available, it is pointed out that limited resources over a 20-year period would be better spent on a larger number of smaller schemes on a co-ordinated basis rather than concentrated upon a few schemes of greater magnitude. … The magnitude of the Council's expenditure will, of course, be dependent on the amounts which the Minister will be prepared to approve for grant purposes in each of the years concerned."

Page 159 of the written analysis shows what the improvement will be over the next 20 years, and page 160 shows the ultimate road plan which the London County Council hope to carry out.

In addition, in 1951 the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, at the request of the then Minister, made a report on traffic congestion. We have paid the utmost attention to the recommendations then made, and the majority of them will be carried out in the near future.

Since the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North last raised this matter, we have been able to make available greatly increased finances and as a result, considerable works have been undertaken. Immediately after Easter, work on the Cromwell Road extension will begin, at a cost of £3 million. Route 11, in the City of London, at a cost of £1 million, will be begun shortly. The Piccadilly widening at Swallow Street, to which he referred last year, will also be undertaken.

In 1955–56, the Elephant and Castle roundabout will be begun, and the Dartford-Purfleet Tunnel. Although that tunnel does not actually come within the London County Council area, I am sure the hon. Member would agree that it is a major task of the utmost importance for the relief of cross-river traffic. It bears especially on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples), who spoke of other countries where by-passes or tunnels have been provided to reduce congestion in large towns and to keep the through traffic away from the city centres.

My right hon. Friend has announced that in the years 1956–57 to l 1958–59 a large number of schemes are to be undertaken, the exact priority for which has not yet been determined. We are prepared to consider with the London County Council what ought to be the priorities, and we shall bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman has said about the Albert Bridge. The hon. Gentleman took great pleasure in referring to the time taken to embark upon improvements, and I would remind him that as long ago as 1924 the Royal Commission on Cross-River Traffic recommended that the Albert Bridge should be extended to carry four lines of traffic. Since then, and despite the need to impose load restrictions on the traffic using that bridge, the amount of traffic has increased by 137 per cent. There is, however, this considerable programme which is to be undertaken, and we shall be influenced by the views of the London County Council about what priorities should be given.

Of the 17 classified road schemes mentioned by my right hon. Friend on 2nd February, 10 are in the London County Council area. That means that all but three of the large schemes asked for in the report by the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee on traffic congestion will be dealt with during that period, or at any rate, work on them will begin. The only ones which have not been included are the Euston Road and Tottenham Court Road widenings and the Gardiner's Corner improvement. The fact that they have not been included in the first four-year programme does not mean that they will not find a place in the later programme, and it must not be thought that we underestimate their importance.

I hope I have shown that here are at present two plans, or rather one plan and one report, and I have no doubt that we are right to give special attention to both of them. It is the general view of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and the view of the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation from the transport point of view, that the London County Council's ultimate road plan is a good one.

The hon. Member for St. Pancras, North, and my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam referred to the A-Ring Road. In 1950, the late Government decided to drop that project, but it has always been the view of the transport experts in my Department that the A-Ring Road would have been a most valuable aid in relieving the traffic congestion in London. My right hon. Friend is still considering the possibility of reviving that project but, of course, after a period of five years, when no safeguarding has been undertaken, it is difficult to revive it. But in view of its importance, we have it under consideration. It would, of course, be necessary to ascertain how far the London County Council would be sympathetic to the proposal. It would be extremely costly, but also extremely beneficial.

Under the ultimate road plan to which I have referred, there is a proposal for an inner circular road along existing roads—which will be much improved—on an alignment not very far from the line of the original A-Ring Road proposal. This inner circular road follows, roughly, the line of Marylebone Road, Euston Road, City Road, Moorgate, Tower Bridge, New Kent Road, Vauxhall Bridge, Victoria Station and Park Lane. That is a contribution to the problem, though it does not make provision for the fly-over and the elevated road which were one of the great features of the A-Ring Road.

Generally speaking, we have been in agreement with the London County Council, but there have been cases, as for example, where the new Cromwell Road extension passes through Hammersmith, where the Ministry of Transport would have preferred to see a fly-over. At present, the London County Council is not prepared to agree with that. However, the work is being so undertaken that if, later, a fly-over is found to be necessary, as, frankly, we think it will be, it will be possible for it to be added.

We attach great importance to the improvement of traffic lights. More than £200,000 has been spent on them this year, and the result has been, I think, a great improvement in the mobility of traffic, especially along Oxford Street.

We entirely accept the need for greatly improving the streets of London. However, I was glad that one or two hon. Members today mentioned that, even when everything that can be done has been done, there will still be the need for some restriction and regulation of traffic. I am sure that no one contemplates the complete demolition of the whole of London and its reconstruction, but that would really be necessary if there was to be no restriction at all upon the indiscriminate use and parking of cars by every individual coming to work in one.

Even if we were able to provide, as we hope to be able to provide, additional parking accommodation in the centre of London, it would still be impossible for any roads that one can possibly imagine to cope with the influx in the morning and the efflux in the evening of the vast number of cars, each one of them occupied by a single person, and that the driver. But when I say that by way of warning, I must not be understood to mean that we do not sincerely intend to carry out great improvements in the highways of London. We accept the need for great developments. We believe that the London County Council has already got a plan, and we are prepared, now that more money is available, to assist it in carrying out those works.

Surely the logical conclusion of the last part of my hon. Friend's remarks, to the effect that we could never cope with all the people who want to come into London, is that some attention should be given to the speeding up of rail traffic in and out of London. Would my hon. Friend deal with that point, which I specifically raised in my speech?

I am sorry if I did not deal with the point. That matter was dealt with in the modernisation plan recently issued by the British Transport Commission, but I would say to my hon. Friend that his suggestion of doubling the tubes in order to provide express trains is really quite out of the question.

Why?

It is not very long ago that I had to tell the House that, even for the urgently needed Route C, we have not yet been able to see our way to provide the necessary finance. Therefore, any idea of doubling the tubes in London is quite out of the question.

I am very disappointed with the hon. Gentleman's reception of my suggestions and with the attitude of the Ministry. Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that this problem can be solved without expressways leading into and out of London of the kind that I have described? Secondly, does he finally reject the idea, and does the London County Council. of bringing in foreign consultants and drawing on the experience of other countries, which is far greater than that of our own?

We do not reject the idea of expressways, but the hon. Gentleman himself said that the A-Ring Road is a kind of expressway. I said that my right hon. Friend now has that matter under consideration.

On the second point, we do not think that there is any need for a further inquiry at present, although we do not exclude the possibility or the desirability from our minds. The London County Council has a plan which will take 20 years to put into full operation, and which will then lead to its ultimate road plan as set out in page 160 of the written analysis. It may be necessary at some time to have a further inquiry, but we do not think that there is any need for that at present, and we propose to get on with the programme.

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the increasing problem of day-time parking in the centre of London. Can he say whether attention is being given to the increasing practice of parking cars at night along quiet streets where they are left quite unattended?

Order. As far as I can understand, the matter which the hon. Gentleman is now raising is covered by the Road Traffic Bill which is before the House, and, this being the Adjournment, we cannot deal with legislation.

I am merely asking for an explanation, Sir. I am asking whether there is not a power already in existence under which something can be done at least to restrict the extension of that practice.

I think that that is properly a matter for the Bill.

We now turn from the problems of the Metropolis to those of a country far distant from here, and one which is not very often mentioned in this House. But the fact that the country is happily a relatively quiet one should not mean that it ought to be neglected or overlooked. That is why I am glad to have this opportunity of discussing the situation in Tanganyika.

It is some time since problems in that Territory were debated in this House, though they have been recently discussed in another place. By that, I do not mean the House of Lords but before the United Nations in New York. Therefore, I think it only proper that we should take cognisance of the reports presented to the Trusteeship Council, the one by the visiting mission and the other by the Trusteeship Council itself to the United Nations.

There has been a great deal of criticism of the report of the visiting mission both in Tanganyika and among knowledgeable persons elsewhere. I wish to say at the outset that one must have some sympathy with a good deal of that criticism. To take the main point of contention, the visiting mission suggested that it would be possible, here and now, to give a specific target date by which Tanganyika should achieve self-government. I cannot believe that such a procedure would be at all helpful.

It is sometimes useful, when one is approaching near to the point of self-government, to have a time-table of specific constitutional changes. The mission itself realised that it will be a very long time before the people of Tanganyika will be able to manage their own affairs. To try now to fix a specific date so far ahead might be unhelpful in more ways than one. It is just possible that self-government might prove reasonable before that target date, which might then be a limiting instead of a speeding-up factor. However anxious we are for those aims to be achieved, most would agree that a time-table is not necessarily very helpful.

A great deal of space was given in the report to land alienation. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Attercliffe (Mr. J. Hynd) wishes to deal with one or two specific points on this subject, but, on the whole, one realises that the Government of Tanganyika have a reasonably good record here in that they have purchased land formerly in non-African hands to be used for African settlement. On the other hand, throughout Africa there is always the keenest anxiety about anything concerning land. For example, it has been put to me that the fact that a chief is normally consulted before there is alienation of land is not likely to be entirely reassuring to the Africans because the chief is regarded as someone dependent on the administration for his office and may therefore find it difficult to resist any requests for the alienation of land for a particular purpose. That should be borne in mind if further alienations take place.

It should be emphasised, however, that the specific policy of the Government of Tanganyika appears to be that, broadly speaking, land for individual occupation by non-Africans is not likely to be forthcoming except in circumstances where it is felt that the Africans themselves have little likelihood of being able to use the land profitably, and where the land can be so used only by people having adequate capital.

The third contentious point of principle in the visiting mission's report was the whole question of what is meant by multi-racialism—multi-racial society and multi-racial government. I hope to return to this point before I conclude. In the meantime, I would agree with those who suggest that the visiting mission might very well have stressed very much more than it did the great need for economic development. I had the pleasure of spending only a few days in Tanganyika last summer as a member of a Commonwealth Parliamentary Delegation. I was in some of the most beautiful places—on the slopes of Kilimanjaro and in Lushoto; but in that short time I learned that the question of communications is one of the most important. It is a vast territory with poor communications in many areas. I visited one school, an excellent institution—a school of natural resources—in the neighbourhood of Arusha. I was told that in the vacation a member of the staff who came from the southern part of Tanganyika took a fortnight to reach his home because of transport difficulties.

Water supplies are also extremely important—and very expensive. Not much has so far been done about hydro-electric schemes. There are so many things needed in Tanganyika which will cost a great deal of money and which cannot possibly be financed from indigenous resources either now or for quite a long time to come.

The visiting mission seemed to be far too little aware of the very great need for external economic assistance. In fairness, I must say that the local African political organisations also seemed to under-rate the necessity of economic development. They seemed to think that they can get more help from the United Nations organisations than it may be reasonable to expect. It may be that those organisations have been ill-advised as to their expectations from that source. One must realise, however, as one of the realities, that external economic and financial assistance is bound to be needed in the future.

The in mission was, I think, mistaken n its views on primary education. There is no doubt that in Tanganyika, as in many other parts of Africa, there is a tremendous demand for education—far greater than the resources of the Territory can fully meet at present. There should certainly be no complacency about this subject. I am glad to know that there is now to be greater emphasis laid on secondary education. It is essential that there should be some really well-qualified people in Tanganyika who, when the time comes, will be able to take over the administration of government and industry. That stage will not be reached for a very long time.

In the meantime, one particular aspect of education troubles me. The Government of Tanganyika appear to have the strongest prejudice against adult education in the sense in which we understand it. I understand that they do not support the extra-mural department at Makerere University College. It is true that that Department is still in its fairly early days, but I hope very much that Tanganyika will realise that it will be a grave mistake not to provide adult education for the admittedly relatively small minority of those who are able to appreciate such education at the extra-mural level.

It is very important that those people should not be neglected, because it is precisely they who are the potential leaders. It is extremely important that they should have every opportunity of free and frank discussion on an academic level with a first-class mind, which is, after all, the best education one can have. It would be very much to be deprecated if the Tanganyika Government failed to see this and to support any possible extra-mural work which might be provided.

The political situation in the Territory occupied the greater part of the mission's report. It is perhaps true to say that the mission devoted an undue part of its report to this. The fact that those in Tanganyika who are politically conscious are still relatively few on the African side—and less obstreperous, shall we say, on the European side—than, for example, in Kenya, should not make one complacent about the political development of the Territory.

I am glad to know that the new arrangements for the Legislative Assembly are coming into being and that there will be a parity of 10 of each of the three major racial groups on the unofficial side, with four nominated non-officials from each racial group on the Government side of the House. That is a step which has now been expected for some time. For the present, and as far as it goes, we certainly welcome it. It is a perfectly logical step towards the ultimate goal of democratic government in the Territory.

If I might digress for a moment, I was very pleased to see that amongst those nominated were two women. I met Mrs. Marealle when I was in Tanganyika; I have not met the other lady. As a woman Member of Parliament, I should like to send them my best wishes in their new career.

Although we are pleased with this new arrangement, that should not for one moment lead anyone to suppose that this is the final step—no one would suggest that—or even that it is a situation which will necessarily continue for a very long time. I do not think that the three years suggested by the visiting mission is sufficient. I should have thought that those concerned would need a little longer than that to gain experience. But I do not consider that it would be satisfactory that such a state of affairs should continue for a very long time. For one thing, the members are really too few.

I think the Secretary of State knows that this is a subject on which I feel very strongly. It is always difficult to get individuals capable of serving on the legislative body, but there is a job of education to be done. As long as we have only nine African unofficial members based on constituencies—though that is really not the correct word, because they are not representative but nominated—based on a territorial area, it is simply not enough to carry out the kind of political education that is needed in such a vast country with such inadequate communications. Therefore, I hope that it will not be very long before a rather larger number of people may be associated with the Legislative Assembly at Dar-es-Salaam.

I should also like to know how soon we are to have the electoral principle put into effect in any part of the Territory. It is now quite a long time since we had Professor Mackenzie's Report, in which suggestions were made for elections at Dar-es-Salaam and Tanga. I am well aware that there are proposals for elections in one or two places on a local government basis, but it will be impossible to have national political life on a satisfactory basis unless we make a beginning fairly soon with an electoral system. I fully recognise that it is not suitable at present in all parts of the Territory, but we should at least make a beginning in places like Dar-es-Salaam, where there seems to be a very strong case for it.

I should like to say one other thing on the question of political education. Some of us who have read the observations of the administering authority, that is, the Government, on the report have been disturbed to notice the tone of those observations in dealing with the organisation by Africans of their own political African National Union. This body is not by any means spread over the whole Territory. It has branches in certain places in some strength, but there are wide areas where, as far as I am aware, it has no organisation at all. But it is trying to do something which will have to be done for Tanganyika. It is trying to organise the African people and to encourage them to take more interest in their society and in the progress of their own affairs.

I am quite well aware that some of those connected with the organisation have not been either as experienced or responsible as one could wish, and that they have made statements which we might call rather wild, but, on the other hand, we are glad to know that there are others who are certainly responsible, intelligent and moderate people. Some of us recently had the pleasure of meeting the President of the Tanganyika African National Union, Mr. Nyerere, and others remember him as a student of Edinburgh University. He represented his organisation before the Trusteeship Council as a representative from Tanganyika.

I should like to read a comment from a leading article in the "Tanganyika Standard" of 22nd March last, referring to a speech Mr. Nyerere made when he reported to a very large open air meeting of Africans at Dar-es-Salaam on his work in New York. Commenting on his speech, the leading article said

"… all will have read with satisfaction the balanced views expressed on many points and the far more reasonable approach now being made by the Union to local political problems. From what Mr. Nyerere said, it is evident that the Union now realises that some of the more extreme views held by some members have not been practical politics and that, if followed, could well have done irreparable harm to the territory. Realising this, Mr. Nyerere has wisely guided his followers along a far more constructive line of thought."

That is a very interesting comment from a local newspaper not necessarily biased in favour of Mr. Nyerere. One is therefore disappointed to learn that he has had to give up his job as a schoolmaster because it appears that the heads of the mission school at which he works feel that his political activities are not compatible with his work in the school. We can have some sympathy with the school authorities, because it is not easy to have a politician on the staff of any school, but, on the other hand, one must recognise the great difficulty in undeveloped territories for educated minorities who wish to be active in politics but see no means of securing a livelihood.

It is to my mind one of the major problems of an emergent African society—the fact that for so many educated persons there is only one possibility of a livelihood, and that is in the Government service, where they are bound to be politically sterilised, or in the mission service, where they already have difficulties, as in this case. They are not as a rule trained to carry on a private profession, and there are not many opportunities for making fortunes in business in countries with low purchasing power.

I was particularly distressed to learn of the suggestion that the Government will withhold the grant towards Mr. Nyerere's salary during the time when he was in New York, when he went with the permission of his headmaster and had been given leave of absence. I therefore hope that if there is anything at all in the suggestion the Government will do the decent and generous thing and will not prevent the school receiving the grant for the period he spent in New York, because that would be a really shabby thing to do. I therefore hope that there is nothing in this suggestion.

Some of my hon. Friends wish to raise other points, so I will not go very much further, except to say that it would be a very great pity if not only Government circles but also others fail to realise that, where we have people trying to work out their political future for the first time, there are some people who may be attacked as being irresponsible; but potential leaders should be encouraged and not discouraged, and particularly should not be spoken to or written about in a supercilious and superior way. It should be recognised that they are genuinely trying to do their best in an extraordinarily difficult situation.

There is one other point concerning political organisation. I should like to point out to the Minister that we have several times raised the question of the use of the Societies Ordinance to ban branches of the African National Union. Our objection is not that there may not have been good reasons in certain cases for taking this action, but that we dislike the procedure whereby whole branches of the organisation are disbanded and any funds which they may have impounded, whereas we think it would be so much better that action should be taken against the individuals who committed the offences. If anybody is guilty of sedition, that individual should be brought to book; similarly, if there is any misappropriation of funds, as there may be, it is the individual responsible who should be penalised, and we should not necessarily penalise the whole organisation. I hope very much that the Government will look at this matter.

Finally, I have raised these points, not in a critical spirit, but because I feel that, while Tanganyika has been a happy country for a long time, it is country very much in need of further development, and because I think there is a tendency in the Administration and among the non-Africans in Tanganyika towards a certain complacency, simply because it has been a peaceful country. I would only suggest that it is dangerous to be complacent in any territory in Africa, and that this is as true of Tanganyika as it is of other places that are more in the news.

I wish to follow the line taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White). Unlike her, I want to do so in a somewhat critical spirit, not because I have substantial reasons for saying that there have been injustices, but because I have been unable to obtain substantial reasons, even after putting a series of Questions to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, to explain what has been going on. We have not yet been given that explanation.

Many of us who know Tanganyika have been interested, and even enthused, by the development that has taken place in its Constitution within the last few years, because we saw possibilities of a new form of multi-racial society which, if it was allowed to develop, might lead to something quite different from the setup in other Colonial Territories. Now we begin to feel uneasy and unhappy about the atmosphere that seems to be developing and which, in my view, threatens to wreck that very valuable experiment.

The difficulties in Tanganyika spring from the Societies Ordinance, 1954, in connection with which I have put my series of Questions to the Government. According to the reply I had on 2nd March from the Colonial Secretary, the purpose of the Ordinance is:

"to protect Africans from exploitation by unscrupulous society organisers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd March, 1955; Vol. 537, c. 276.]

Under that Ordinance, according to other information which I have obtained by means of Questions, of the 30 branches of the Tanganyika African National Union only six have been registered and three have been refused registration. These are the Lake Province, the Mwanza and the Malampaka branches. The others have either not been registered or have been refused registration.

I take as a test case the Mwanza branch. According to information that I have been able to obtain, this branch has been suspended and the whole of its property has been confiscated. This has been done in a most ruthless fashion. I have a copy of the notice which was issued to the branches when this course was taken. Here is one which was sent to the Lake Province branch. It is dated 1st November, 1954, and it comes from the Registrar of Societies. It says:

"I hereby give you notice that in exercise of the powers conferred on me by Sections 8 and 9 of the Societies Ordinance, 1954, I refuse to register the society known as the Lake Province branch of the Tanganyika African National Union on the ground that it appears to me that such society is being or is likely to be used for purposes prejudicial to or incompatible with the maintenance of peace, order and good government."

I call attention to that phrase" or is likely to be used." There appears to be no direct accusation that the branch has been so used. One must bear in mind that the purpose of the Ordinance is to protect Africans from exploitation by unscrupulous society organisers. If protecting a branch means to wind it up, although it has some 3,000 members, and to sequester its funds and property, one wonders how that can be described as "protecting the Africans from exploitation by unscrupulous society organisers."

A further notice was issued on 3rd November, 1954, to the Mwanza branch by the District Commissioner. He said:

"I am directed to inform you that in consequence of the refusal by the Registrar of Societies to register the Provincial Branch of the Tanganyika African National Union, of which you were the Secretary, and the declaration of this branch as an unlawful society, the Governor-in-Council has ordered that all the assets of this branch, both movable and immovable, shall vest in me.

By virtue of this Order dated 29th October, 1954, I hereby order you to deliver up to me within 14 days from the date of this letter all movable assets of the Provincial Branch of the Tanganyika African National Union, together with a statement, certified as correct by you, of all immovable assets (if any)."

That is a rather peremptory method of dealing with possibly some tactless remark on the part of an branch official; the whole branch is wound up, the property of 30,000 or more members is sequestered and they are left without representation at all.

I put a series of Questions to the Minister asking what the Mwanza branch of the Tanganyika African National Union had done. I was told by the Minister that the branch was being used

"for purposes prejudicial to peace, order and good government."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th December, 1954; Vol. 535, c. 959.]

I asked, on 23rd March, if the right hon. Gentleman would tell me

"the unlawful or unconstitutional methods adopted by the Mwanza Branch of the Tanganyika African National Union which occasioned the refusal of registration and sequestering of the branch's property."

The answer I got several days later was that the Registrar of Societies refused registration because he was satisfied that the branch was being used in the way described. The Minister added:

"I do not think it would be in the public interest for me to add to that reply."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th March, 1955; Vol. 539, c. 25.]

We are responsible for the administration of these Territories, and we are entitled, on their behalf, to ask for the justification for such action, if there is justification. I can imagine that there might be justification, but surely we can be told. Surely the people in the African Union ought to be told. If officials have done something wrong they could be removed, not the branch be called upon to surrender all its funds and property. These people are entitled to be told what offence they have committed, and that answer should be given to this Parliament. I cannot see how national security or anything of that kind could be affected if that information were given.

I have tried to find out. I understand from the secretary of the union, Mr. Nyerere, to whom reference has already been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East, that the officials of the Mwanza branch were accused of making near-seditious speeches. How near I do not know. If it is the case, and if officials have done wrong, action could have been taken against them and not against the whole branch.

I understand that the two officials concerned are Mr. Isaac Munanka, president, who was previously a clerk in the Provincial Administration, and Mr. Abdul Kandoro, the secretary, a teacher. If those people can be described as professional agitators, it would be interesting to know how they got into the profession.

I understand that a protest has been made by Mr. Nyerere, who strikes me as a most responsible African. He is very concerned about racial relations and about the constitutional operations of his organisation, whose purpose has always been regarded as lawful. If the organisation is registered as a whole, so should its branches be. Mr. Nyerere informs me that all that the branch has done is to make protests on certain local matters, such as cattle pens and crop funds. I can hardly think that such matters are seditious. It is the purpose of an organisation of this kind to enable grievances to be brought, in a proper constitutional way, to the notice of the authorities. if that is the kind of matter they have been protesting about, I can see nothing unconstitutional or unlawful.

I have asked the Minister to tell us why this action has been taken, and I am still waiting for an answer. I understand that the officials concerned were properly elected by branch ballot of the 3,000 members who appear to be quite happy about the result. I beg the Government to tell us why these branches have been closed down. There may be some good reason. If there is, will the right hon. Gentleman let us know? If the officials are at fault, let him deal with the officials.

We can all understand the effect that actions of this peremptory kind have upon the African people. I have read the letters that were sent to these branches, covering 3,000 or more members, whose funds and property were taken away without any explanation of any kind, except that the branches were being used by certain officials for undesirable purposes. This can have no good effect upon racial relations. The reason Mr. Nyerere is so concerned about it, with many of his colleagues, is that they, like us, are anxious that the experiment which has been developing in Tanganyika in multiracial relations should be allowed to succeed.

In view of all the examples around them—especially in Kenya, and in Uganda, on the other side of Africa—and with all the agitation which is going on in the world and the temptation for people to adopt unconstitutional methods in order to bring grievances to light and have them adjusted, surely the most necessary thing is to be not only tolerant but generous in the methods by which we enable them, constitutionally, to air their grievances and bring them to light.

Without taking up any more time of the House, I ask the Minister to give us some more information upon this matter. Unless we receive it many of us will be completely dissatisfied, and will use every possible means at our disposal to try to obtain this information and clear up the situation.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House are grateful to the hon. Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) for having raised—not for the first time—a very interesting subject upon the Adjournment. We did have a debate upon Tanganyika fairly recently—shortly after I came back from East Africa, at a time when the Overseas Food Corporation's assets were transferred to the Tanganyika Agricultural Corporation—but I agree that Tanganyika certainly deserves frequent discussion in the House, and I am glad that an opportunity to do so has arisen today. I should like to say how sorry I am that by rising now I have prevented one or two other hon. Members from speaking—and also that the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson), who had intended to be here, is ill.

The hon. Lady referred to the report of the visiting mission. I have made the constitutional position quite plain here, as have the Government of Tanganyika in that country. It is our intention to administer Tanganyika under and according to the Trusteeship Agreement. We are, therefore, obliged to transmit information to the United Nations and to study any recommendations that may come from it—and we are very glad to do so—but the undivided responsibility for the Government of Tanganyika rests with Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the Tanganyikan Government, and it must be for us, and us alone, to settle what is in the best interests of the people for whom we are trustees.

I do not want to spend too long upon the report itself, and I shall try to deal with the various points which have been made. I cannot do better than sum up the feelings of some of us about the report by referring, as I did on a previous occasion, to the accumulated substructure of error in it, which really vitiates its value. I invite hon. Members to read the report in conjunction with that of the visiting mission in 1951, for the developing situation which exists at present springs from that which, in 1951, earned the commendation of that visiting mission. The contrast between the two views of the same developing situation leaves those of us who have direct responsibility for Government rather puzzled. I think that we can have a very useful debate upon Tanganyika—short though it is bound to be—and deal with some of the solid achievements that have taken place, without spending too much time upon a report which, seen in perspective, is of only passing interest.

I am glad that the hon. Lady referred to the need for economic development, and the astonishingly little attention paid to this aspect by the visiting mission. She mentioned the question of communications. I came into the House today in the middle of a discussion upon London Transport with a number of my colleagues, with whom I was associated when I was Minister of Transport. They were talking about the value of communications. I came straight to my present office from the Ministry of Transport, and I am not likely to forget the real value of good communications.

I opened the new airport at Dar-es-Salaam, and I have seen something of the Southern Province railway and the new deep-water berth at Tanga and Dar-es-Salaam and the new port of Mtwara, which are real signs of the development of communications. I agree that much remains to be done, but the Government of Tanganyika are fully conscious of that fact and are driving ahead as fast as resources allow.

We have all watched with sympathy and enthusiasm the efforts to build up an African middle class in Tanganyika—a propertied African class with a share in the equity, as the Governor described it.

In that connection, I would mention the Newgla water scheme, with the shareholding interest in African hands, the growing of wattles by Africans for the C.D.C., and various projects of that kind. We also know of the growing need for water in this vast territory, and our good wishes will be expressed at the successful conclusion of the surveys in the Kilombero-Rufiji basin and elsewhere, for upon the proper development of water supply largely depends the economy of that country.

We have also watched the growth in the production of tobacco and timber, and the growing of food crops; the experiment of the Tanganyika Agricultural Corporation, under its really live leadership, and the immense new capital which has been put into the diamond mines, which I know the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) has visited, as I have. These, along with sisal, coffee and cotton, now form the main production of Tanganyika.

We are all anxious to promote a steady development of education and social services. I join with the hon. Lady in hoping that there will be a steady and even increase in progress in education, and we are entitled to give, and the Government of Tanganyika are entitled to receive, congratulations upon the progress that has been made. Now that we are nearing the end of the 10-year period it looks as though the Tanganyika Government will exceed the target of 36 per cent. of all children of primary school age receiving a primary education.

We also watch with sympathy the development of the education of girls and women, the growth of the new technical institute at Dar-es-Salaam and the possibilities which, one day not very long ahead, it will open up. We all wish the greatest possible success to this new institute. The hon. Lady seems to feel that there is a certain amount of hostility in Tanganyika to adult education. I can assure her that that is not the case. The Government of Tanganyika have had to lay down their own priorities, and have been driving ahead with great vigour in primary education, but that must certainly not be taken to mean that they are not interested in adult education.

The British Council and the Social Development Department of Tanganyika are running some courses and evening classes in various subjects—not of a very advanced nature, it is true—and are now considering whether this work should be carried out by Makerere College. The Government of Tanganyika are watching the pilot scheme in Uganda, and upon the success or otherwise of that scheme they will make up their own minds about the system which they should institute in Tanganyika.

I believe that the House knows—the hon. Lady certainly does—that plans are on foot for a higher education college in the Territory, which would be affiliated to Makerere. Side by side with this social development there has been a considerable improvement in the health services, with the great new hospital which is planned for Dar-es-Salaam and a great new emphasis upon African housing. From constant talks with the Governor and his senior officials and others I know the real attention which is being devoted to the increase in decent African housing, especially in the towns and townships.

There has also been a growth of local government, with four multi-racial town councils, the first county council in the Lake Province, and the greater responsibility which is being given to the district councils. All this has been achieved, and is being achieved, in an atmosphere of really good race relations, with confidence and trust in the Government, with the Christian missions playing a very helpful part both in social and educational work, and, generally, a feeling that people are pulling together.

It is against this background that we must view some of the resentment that many of us feel at the way in which the visiting mission's report was actually worded, the exaggerated importance that was given to the views of one section without regard to the views of many others, probably far more representative, the undue stressing of political as opposed to economic development, the absurdly unrealistic target dates which the hon. Lady herself was frank enough to recognise, the attack on parity which, as I had something to do with it when I was Minister of State for Colonial Affairs, in 1951, i know to be the proper line of approach for Tanganyika at this time.

It is interesting to read some of the speeches that were made when this matter came before the United Nations, even by those who took part in the work of the visiting mission itself. One is left to wonder whether they had altogether appreciated the way in which their words would come out when they appeared actually in the report. The general attitude shown by the Trusteeship Council when they looked at the matter was one with which, on the whole, the United Kingdom could agree, and, indeed, we would have voted for the Trusteeship Council's recommendations with all the praise they gave for certain achievements of the administering Power, had it not been for two particular resolutions which we found it impossible to accept.

In one resolution we were asked to agree that before the administering authority granted rights of occupancy of land to non-Africans, consultation must take place with the Africans concerned and their consent must be obtained. Of course, consultation always takes place, but the Government must really be free, as any Government must, to make up their mind in the last resort what is to the advantage of the territory as a whole. No Government in this country nor anywhere else would tie themselves to be obliged to secure consent, provided proper attention was given to consultation.

Is not one of the difficulties the fact that consultation is sometimes with chiefs who are far removed from the people concerned? In addition, there are people who have for generations been living on land—indeed, it is the very policy advocated by the party opposite regarding land in this country when it is taken over by the Government. Surely they should be the people who should give consent to the transfer.

I agree that it would be a great mistake to assume that in every case every chief speaks with the full authority of his people. Due attention must be paid to the fact that sometimes chiefs are unrepresentative. It is true that a great many people frequently lay claim to the same piece of land, and if the Government had to get the consent of all the rival claimants no executive action would be likely to be taken.

The second resolution to which we were bound to take exception was that the administering authority, while educating public opinion to put an end to racial discrimination, should, if necessary, adopt penal legislation to achieve this end. I yield to no one in my dislike—indeed, detestation—of the colour bar. I think hon. Members on both sides of the House will do me the favour of recognising that that is sincere. But I am certain that the end of this sort of bar and discrimination will come not through legislation but through education and the growth of trust and friendship.

The hon. Lady asked me a number of questions and I will attempt as best I can, in the short time available, to give her answers. She referred to the relatively small number of Africans in the Legislative Council, but she quite rightly recognised that this is just one stage in the development of Tanganyika. Until March of this year there were seven Europeans, four Africans and three Asians on the Legislative Council. Now there will be 10 Africans out of 30 on the representative side, and four unofficial Africans, including one woman, on the Government side. This new Council will meet for the first time on our Budget day, 19th April.

The hon. Lady then referred to the development of common roll elections as suggested in the MacKenzie Report. The Government of Tanganyika have already made it clear that when the new Legislative Council is established, it will be asked to consider the introduction of common roll elections in specified areas where there is a genuine demand and where it is practicable. I myself, and I think all of us, will watch with the greatest sympathy this most important experiment. It might, for example, take the form of a combination of the common roll and a fixed proportion of seats. I do not know precisely how it will work out, but I am wholly convinced that an attempt must be made.

The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Attercliffe (Mr. J. Hynd) referred to the Tanganyika African National Union. The hon. Lady said she was somewhat disturbed by the tone adopted by the administering Power towards this union. I can assure her that there is no hostility whatever to that union. High resentment sprang not against the union but against the report in large part because of the undue importance attached to the views of the union by the visiting mission. After all, there are 80,000 Africans in Dar-es-Salaam, and the union has never claimed to have more than 162 members, though they have a much higher membership outside Dar-es-Salaam in the country as a whole. There are 8 million Africans the greater proportion of whom do not belong to the Union. There is no intention whatever of showing any hostility to the union when properly constituted, and as for the president, Mr. Nyerere, I had the pleasure of meeting him when I was recently in Dar-es-Salaam and I know that as he was once a temporary member, at the Governor's wish, of the Legislative Council, there is every desire to take the fullest possible advantage of his undoubted talents.

The hon. Lady asked me about the fact that Mr. Nyerere was no longer a teacher in the mission school. I am grateful to her for having given me advance warning that she was going to ask me that question and, indeed, other questions. The priest who is the headmaster of the school asked Mr. Nyerere to reduce the amount of time that he spent in extra-school activities. I think that the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) may be particularly interested in this point. After all, school has to be run regularly by schoolmasters. When the headmaster saw that out of a total of 12 failures among all candidates for this school in the recent school certificate examination, nine were in subjects taught by Mr. Nyerere, he came to the conclusion that perhaps Mr. Nyerere spent not enough time in school and too much in outside activities.

In tendering his resignation, he said that he quite understood the position which had been explained to him in writing, that he ought to cut down his extra-school activities if he wanted to stay at the school, with no reference whatever to political questions. I do not know about the suggestion of a loss of salary. I will take it up and will communicate with the hon. Lady.

Finally, I was asked by the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Attercliffe about the registration of societies. It is true that three branches have been banned and six have been granted registration. I believe that another six are now under consideration. The Societies Ordinance is there to protect people against fraudulent exploitation, and largely financial exploitation. The Governor, in a society like Tanganyika in her present state of development, can declare a society illegal if, in his view, its conduct is or is likely to be prejudicial to peace, order and good government.

The sources of information which are open to the Government are frequently of a very confidential kind, and I have always, as have my predecessors from whatever party they may have come, refused to give reasons when, in our view, it is not in the public interest to give reasons as to the information brought to the authorities about certain individuals. All three societies that have been banned have their right of appeal to the Governor in Council. Not one of them took advantage of that right of appeal, and that really is the opportunity to have the argument threshed out by the Governor in Council. I hope the time will come when all societies that want to set up in Tanganyika will have the informed and disinterested leadership that they need.

The hon. Gentleman asked me about what happened to the funds. The registrar has a duty in each case to have the claim for the disposal of the money confiscated by the Government transferred, and the Government, naturally, bear in mind the interests of the people from whom the money has been collected.

I must apologise for not having dealt with every point brought up in the debate. I hope the time is not far distant when we can have a much fuller discussion of Tanganyika, in view of its very remarkable story and enormous hopes for the future.

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us why it is that the branches have been wound up while the charges against individuals have not been dealt with? That is what we are concerned about.

If it were possible merely to apprehend the ringleader and substitute somebody else, that would be the simpler thing to do, but in the present state of development, in which there is no security, the next chairman or treasurer of a society would be in a difficult position, and it is much better to wind a society up, and to wait until the leadership comes along.

The subject I want to bring to the attention of the House is that of cotton stocks held in Lancashire. The Minister and everybody in the House knows that at the present moment uncertainty and fear stalk through Lancashire. We know that short-time is being worked, that there are to be extended holidays at Easter, that mills are closing down, and that there is a general atmosphere of gloom surrounding the cotton trade.

I do not want to dwell on the political aspects of the situation today. Rather do I want to probe and to bring some arguments to bear upon the influence of the stock position on the fortunes of Lancashire. It could be argued, of course, that the fact that stocks are low is due to the fear of a drop in prices. It may be due to there being no demand for cotton goods, so that there is no need to buy cotton in any case. All these things were argued at length when the Cotton Bill was under discussion some 18 months ago on the Floor of the House and in Committee.

The question was discussed whether an exchange could function without free convertibility. That ran like a thread through the fabric of the debate. I do not want to discuss that today. Another question was whether stock could be accumulated sufficiently to support a free market. That, of course, is a very important factor in the situation. I should like to quote some remarks of the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Sir W. Fletcher), whose absence from the House and the reasons for it I am sure everybody deplores. He said:

"Until we have freedom of exchange, until we have free physical stock behind the market—

that is, the Liverpool Cotton Market—

"without which no such market can work at all, we shall not have the full benefit of this Bill."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1953; Vol. 520, c. 1768.]

That was the Cotton Bill, now the Cotton Act. Although that is an important factor, and although it could be argued politically that that is one of the reasons why stocks are running at the present low ebb, nevertheless that is a question I do not want to talk about today.

Another question which was discussed was whether finance would be available in Liverpool. That exercised the minds of Members on both sides of the House, and I very well remember the President of the Board of Trade making a very blunt comment on that aspect of the matter. He said:

"I wish to say quite bluntly that if an industry as great, as powerful and as historic as the cotton industry were unable to finance its own stocks, it would be an astonishing and deplorable situation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1953; Vol. 520, c. 1746.]

One could argue that, but I do not want to argue that today.

I want to argue the question whether the price risk of United States cotton would prevent adequate stocks from being available in this country. In the debate on the Second Reading of the Cotton Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Thornton) quoted the Financial Editor of Reuter's, pointing out the risk attendant on the American cotton. He wrote an article which was published in the "Textile Mercury and Argus" for 13th November, 1953, and my hon. Friend quoted from the article as follows:

"Even now, prices of American cotton may look more stable than those of other growths, but it could prove to be a very brittle stability. It is hard to believe that any values in the free world are more 'political' than those of United States cotton and other United States surpluses. Accordingly one may doubt whether there are price risks anywhere in the free world comparable to the risk of unloading of United States cotton and other surpluses."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1953; Vol. 520, c. 1786.]

That was what Mr. Sydney S. Gampell, Reuter's Financial Editor, wrote. It is with that aspect of the matter that I wish to deal today.

Those of us who have studied this question know that before the last war Liverpool used to hold 1 million bales, and it was usually assumed that 23 per cent. of the cotton in use before the war had a colonial or Dominion origin. So it is safe to assume that of the stock held in Liverpool about 750,000 bales were of American type and long staple cottons. Before its dissolution the Raw Cotton Commission used to hold about 260,000 tons of cotton, equivalent to about the same amount that the Liverpool merchants held before the war. It was necessary to hold such stocks of cotton at the time when variety was much sought after by Lancashire spinners. They needed to have on hand stock cotton which could be used for manufacture at short notice. The advantages of holding stock cotton are apparent. It is quite obvious, with a world commodity like cotton, that when stocks are held by the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and other countries. people are not disposed to talk down prices. It is only when they have no stocks that they are prepared to talk down prices in the hope that the next purchase may be cheaper.

In the case of a slump or recession, such as we had in the spring of 1952, I think it is now well-known and readily acknowledged that it was the stocks held by the Raw Cotton Commission which really saved Lancashire. I emphasise that, because when the recovery came, as it did very quickly after the spring, Lancashire was able to get all the cotton it wanted and its wheels turning in the quickest possible time. That is the background. What is the position now?

I urge the Government seriously to consider this problem and its possible implications. I understand that at the present time, excluding mill stocks and stocks afloat, we have in this country 330,000 bales. Let us think about that in terms of 1 million bales which the Raw Cotton Commission and the Liverpool merchants had before the war. Out of this stock, I understand that about 55,000 bales are still held by the Raw Cotton Commission. That means that approximately 258,000 bales are in private hands. Of this, 149,000 bales are long staple cotton, so it does not need much mental arithmetic to arrive at the very small amount of actual American cotton which is held in this country, which is in the region of only 63,000 bales. I understand that there are about 111,000 bales afloat. Comparing this with the stocks held on previous occasions, we automatically have a big "why" in our minds.

I say that the reason for this is not so much financial, not so much a question of convertibility, and not so much a question of whether stocks can be accumulating at a sufficiently high volume to support the free market, as the fear of the export subsidy of the United States Government coming into operation. How has this situation arisen? The prices of United States cotton are really artificial. The United States Government have a Department known as the Commodity Credit Corporation to finance cotton. It buys in cotton when the farmers cannot sell and pays the farmer for it. This cotton is put in stock. That is in addition to the normal off-take by private organisations for domestic use.

At the present time the parity price is 35 cents. As the Commodity Corporation pays 90 per cent. of that, it comes to about the quoted figure of 32 cents. This position can be affected by the amount of cotton that is grown in a season, so the Department of Agriculture in America takes action. When it looks as though there will be a substantial surplus, the Department of Agriculture in America decides that it will reduce the acreage, and I understand that last year it reduced the acreage from about 22 million to 18 million or less.

In these days, however, there are such things as artificial manures, and these are now being used; and so we are faced this year with a considerable cotton surplus in America. Think of the world picture again. This problem is not confined to this country. Belgium and France are affected, and all the other manufacturing countries are affected in the same way. Think in terms of 63,000 bales of American cotton in this country compared with a possible total in America for disposal of old and new cotton in August of 22 million bales. It does not need much imagination to appreciate the pressure that will have not only on the political set-up in America, but also on the economic set-up in every country in the world, whether producers of raw cotton or manufacturers.

To protect themselves against too great a surplus the Department of Agriculture in America, under the Agricultural Trade and Development Act, has at its disposal 700,000 dollars for cotton spread over three years for allocation abroad. It is sent to those countries which are needing or lacking dollar facilities. I should like to hear the Government's opinion on this matter. There may not be as much in it as I think, but it is very important to realise that Japan is one of these countries needing dollar facilities.

I should like the Minister to give me some indication of what he thinks of that. The Mexican correspondent of the "Cotton and General Economic Review," published in Liverpool on 18th March. says:

"It is quite apparent that the United States, without establishing a direct cotton export subsidy, is indirectly fostering exports of American cotton through a policy which other cotton producing countries are unable to counteract. Sales against F.A.O. authorisations permitting payment in local currencies, and the Export-Import Bank credits guaranteeing U.S. exporters immediate reimbursement in dollars for a small premium of 1¾ per cent., are no less forms of dumping than those effected under the above-mentioned programme."

That is what people abroad are considering. There is a growing feeling that this market for cotton all over the world is becoming semi-paralysed.

Here is another report on this matter:

"Reports from all parts of the world give evidence of the state of semi-paralysis which is creeping over the international cotton trade as a result of U.S. export subsidy apprehensions. The present Congressional campaign to accelerate sales of surplus stocks on world markets by offering competitively has so undermined confidence in prices that the disposition on all sides is to refrain from purchasing more than essential immediate requirements, and to reduce reserve stocks to the lowest workable minimum."

The writer goes on to comment on the question whether exports subsidies will be applied either before or after 31st July next. He says:

"… Mr. Benson has to accept the stark economic realities of the international situation. An export subsidy next season would have to be in a proximity of 10 cents per lb. to be effective, completely disrupting the world price of cotton. A subsidy of only up to 5 cents would not reduce cotton growing elsewhere in the world; neither could it improve the competitive position of American cotton, as other producing countries would be obliged to reduce their export prices correspondingly."

This matter has been taken up by some very important groups. I want to mention one in particular. The directors of the Liverpool Cotton Association, after full consideration of the paralysing effect of Washington uncertainties on the markets for raw cotton and textiles, decided on 22nd March to send the following cable to Mr. E. T. Benson, the United States Secretary of Agriculture:

"Respectfully draw attention to disastrous market reaction due to uncertainty regarding future United States Government policy. Fresh importing of American cotton is virtually at a standstill, while consumption of other growths is being encouraged by price cutting in anticipation of a possible American export subsidy. Would urge vital necessity of clear statement of policy at earliest."

I could adduce dozens of pieces of evidence in support of that statement, but I have not the time now, and I think that I have said quite enough to convince the Minister and the House of the urgency of this problem.

Another aspect which I should like to mention is the effect on colonial cottons and other growths at present. They are doing very well at the moment because, as a result of the artificial price in America, the growers of colonial cottons and others are able to keep their prices below the American prices and still make a substantial profit. The dividends of the British Cotton Growing Association which were published the other day show that full well. But if an American export subsidy is to be imposed this year, many of these countries which are dependent upon cotton as a cash crop will be seriously disrupted economically. It may be that if there is an export subsidy on American cotton India will take off the present export tax, and it may be that Mexico, Peru, Egypt, the Sudan and East Africa will follow suit. It means that unless we can obtain some information from America which will definitely determine whether this is going to happen or not, uncertainty will be experienced throughout the rest of the year.

We cannot go on from season to season having the uncertainty experienced during the last two seasons. It was on 11th June that news came last time that the Americans were not going to apply an export subsidy last year. This year we do not know the position and, since private efforts have failed to secure any sort of answer from the Americans, I ask the Government what they are going to do. Does the Minister think that the present purchasing methods for cotton are adequate? If he does, he cannot lay any blame on the merchants. If events over which they have no control are responsible, surely it is action by our Government vis-à-vis the United States Government which is needed.

Last week I asked the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) the next but one last Question he answered in the House. I asked if he would try to make some effort to contact the Americans in connection with this matter or send the President of the Board of Trade over there to discuss it with them. I believe that here is a chance for the new Prime Minister. I only hope that the matter does not get bogged down in the "official channels" of which we hear so much. I hope that the Government will stir themselves with regard to this urgent and desperate problem, because I am perfectly certain that, if they can secure the result for which I plead, they will at one stroke remove at least 70 per cent. of the uncertainty which prevails in Lancashire.

I am sure that the House would like to congratulate the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) upon the lucidity of his statement. This is a rather complicated subject, but it is a very important one and I certainly have no complaint at all that the hon. Member should have tried to raise the matter today and should have been successful in doing so. We all know that he has great knowledge of the textile industry. It is a good thing that it should have fallen to his lot to present this case to the House.

I have no doubt at all that the hon. Member was right in emphasising that the great uncertainty in Liverpool and Manchester about the future price of cotton is a subject which we ought to consider in the House and which the Government should consider. He is right, of course, in saying that this uncertainty is created at present by the threat of a substantial artificial reduction in the United States price of cotton some time after 31st July, and, of course, we know that the United States price governs the world price.

My hon. Friend speaks about an artificial reduction. Would it not be more proper to say that the present level of prices is artificial and that what we are coming to is getting prices down to the natural level?

I thank my hon. Friend, but if he had given me a little more than a minute he would have found that I was coming exactly to that point.

I come back to explaining why I said something about 31st July. Up to 31st July this year the United States Government have promised that there will be no subsidy. As the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne said, this promise was made in June, 1954. In the slightly restricted Press which we are able to read at present a number of statements have been reported to have been made recently by Mr. Benson, Secretary of Agriculture in the United States. I understand that these statements referred to this year's crop and that what he was talking about covered only up to 31st July. Therefore, the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne was quite right in referring to the position after 31st July.

rose—

Perhaps I might make this point clear first before the hon. Member intervenes.

After 31st July, we have no promise from the United States Government that there will be no export subsidy. In fact, we have had no statement of intention by them at all.

I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, but the point I am worried about is that he should say that in the absence of newspapers the Government are not completely informed on these things. Surely the Governmnent have a commercial secretary at our Embassy in Washington, who, on such a vital question, would be in cable communication with the Minister.

I must apologise to the House because I must be very bad at explaining my case, as this is the second time that an hon. Member has taken up a point to which I was about to refer. It is, on the other hand, worth commenting in present circumstances on the information already available to hon. Gentlemen.

We have been in touch with the United States about this matter. We have represented strongly to them that serious damage to confidence has already resulted from this uncertainty, and we have also represented the possible serious effects of the continuance of this uncertainty. We have made these representations to them now, and we shall continue to press them on this matter. What we want, as the hon. Gentleman has said, is a statement of what is to happen after 31st July.

The hon Gentleman the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne referred to the danger of this matter getting bogged down through official channels. He knows the Board of Trade. I do not know whether, when he was there, things used to get bogged down in that way, but I can assure him they do not get bogged down now. We are carrying on these representations in the normal way, and we shall see that they are pressed. We have to make this clear: the continuance of this uncertainty covers the whole of the cotton textile industry and not just the Liverpool Cotton Exchange. We are on common ground there with the hon. Gentleman.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) is quite right to make the point that the price of United States cotton is slightly artificial, to say the least of it. I have always considered it a rather complicated matter, but after I heard the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne describe the system with great lucidity I cannot help but congratulate him very much. I do not confirm everything that he said, but, in general, I agree with the way he described the system. The price is kept artificially high by the support policy, and as a result the world price of cotton is above what might be called the economic price of production in many cotton-growing countries.

But—and I want to make this quite clear—even in these circumstances we here are opposed to subsidies. Subsidies can be harmful, as everyone knows, and they can be very unfair. They can be put on and taken off arbitrarily at the whim of Governments. For that reason and for others of which the hon. Gentleman is aware we are opposed to them. But the problem here is not merely the effect of subsidies already in existence. It is a much worse thing from the point of view of Lancashire, with which we are dealing here. The problem is the uncertainty caused by the threat that a subsidy of an unknown size may or may not be put on. That is the problem with which we are dealing and about which we are making representations.

The hon. Gentleman was also right, in my opinion, to link the subsidy with the accumulation of surplus cotton in the United States and the arrangements for its disposal. He is quite right, I know, in saying that much anxiety is being caused in the minds of some people about United States Government policy on the disposal of surpluses, including cotton. We have, of course, been in touch with the Commonwealth Governments and the United States Government on that point for some time, and it may help the hon. Gentleman and the House if I give this information, which may or may not be in their possession.

The United States Government gave a general assurance recently, and, in fact, over a period of months before, that in disposing of their surpluses they would seek to avoid any undue disruption of world prices and also to avoid damage to the trade of friendly countries; and they would consult other countries concerned. That is a rather important and valuable assurance, for which we should be grateful. It is also good to know that under United States laws relating to trade transactions in disposing of surpluses the United States Government always seek to ensure that other friendly countries are not displaced. That is their position under existing laws.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the size of stocks. It is quite true that stocks are very low today.

Would the Minister say that they are the lowest for 65 years?

I have not looked back 65 years, but they are certainly lower than they have been for any period over which I have looked back. In January this year I am told that the total stocks of raw cotton in the United Kingdom were only 144,000 tons. I have made a quick calculation—the hon. Gentleman himself used the term "bales"—and I find that that comes to 650,000 bales or thereabouts. That figure includes stocks at mills, and I am told that most of these stocks are at mills. The amount on the average—and we are here using averages though some mills may have more and some less—is equal to 18 or 19 weeks' consumption.

In pre-war days sufficient stocks were normally kept for six months' consumption.

That was in January?

That was in January, and they are the latest reliable figures that we have.

As I was saying, in pre-war days stocks were normally kept for six months' consumption, but in considering these lower stocks we must bear in mind the practice mentioned at the time of the debate on the Cotton Bill, in 1953, that spinners now tend to buy cotton for shipment from shippers and not spot cotton in Liverpool. The result is that the Liverpool merchants do not keep the large stocks they kept before the war. We must have regard to that practice in looking at these figures.

When the hon. Member was making his observations, I was wondering whether he was looking back nostalgically to the days of the Raw Cotton Commission. I hope he will forgive me if I say that today the trouble and uncertainty about price would not be removed by having a Raw Cotton Commission.

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman on that. I was not arguing for the Commission or against the merchants, I was looking back nostalgically to full-time and a bit of overtime

I am not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman had in mind, but if he is not looking back nostalgically to the Raw Cotton Commission I will not waste time in explaining to the House that the Commission would not have met the difficulty at all, and that if the Commission had held large stocks it would have been making an unjustifiable use of public money in what would amount to something very like a gamble.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the sales of American cotton under aid arrangements in local currencies. That is one way in which the Americans have been disposing of part of their surplus, and it is an attractive way to the countries which are short of dollars. It is a way that has appealed to Japan, to France and to Italy as well as to other countries which have benefited from it. It is one of the conditions of this aid that the cotton shall not displace the normal marketings of cotton from other friendly countries, and it is sold in local currencies at the world price at the current level of exchange.

The hon. Gentleman was also concerned about the effect of a possible sub- sidy upon colonial and Empire cotton. That is a very proper matter to be raised in the House of Commons. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that Empire cotton growing was on the increase. Last year it was higher in general than the year before, but I cannot say what damage would or might be done to Empire cotton by any United States subsidy. It would depend upon the size·of the subsidy. I can say, however, that the present uncertainty about world prices has some effect upon purchases of Empire cotton as well as upon purchases of American cotton.

In conclusion, one must agree that any anxiety about substantial reductions in the world price of cotton is bound to be harmful. One must agree, too, that such uncertainty is bound to have some effect upon stocks. I think the hon. Gentleman would agree that there is no shortage of raw cotton in the world today, and one ought to agree that the level of stocks, though certainly lower than previously, does not, so I am advised, appear to be dangerously low.

That is all I can say to the House in reply to the speech of the hon. Gentleman, for which I have thanked him already, and I repeat that we shall continue to press the United States Government for a statement on this matter.

Mr. Speaker, I want first to thank you for allocating time today for this important subject. On 22nd March I put a Question to the Secretary of State for Scotland, and I was shocked to find from the reply that the right hon. Gentleman had taken a decision to give up the use of 70 beds that we have had for Scottish patients in the Wolfgang Sanatorium in Switzerland.

Like everyone else in Scotland, I welcome the improvements that have taken place in the treatment of the dread disease of tuberculosis, and at this early stage I want to thank the nurses, the doctors, the specialists and everyone else who has played any part in bringing about those improvements. At the same time I have to ask myself, as I know our people in Scotland are doing, have we got this dread disease under control yet in Scotland? Is the position such that we can afford to give up those 70 beds in Switzerland. From the figures I shall quote, I hope to show that the answer must be a definite "No."

From 1945 onwards every Secretary of State for Scotland has found that the incidence of and the deaths due to tuberculosis have provided one of the biggest problems he has had to face in his work as Minister. My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil), when Secretary of State, inaugurated a scheme whereby patients could go from Scotland to sanatoria in Switzerland, and I as Joint Under-Secretary at that time played a little part in its inauguration.

As the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows, this scheme was inaugurated because of shortage of beds in Scotland for these patients and because of the appalling waiting list of people suffering from tuberculosis. I am relieved to learn from the figures given in official reports that the list has been cut down considerably, but it is still far too large for any Government to give up 70 beds which could be so well used. To prove this I shall give figures which apply to the death rate from this disease and to its incidence.

In 1949 100 out of every 100,000 of the population in Glasgow died from tuberculosis. In 1951 this figure dropped to 60, in 1953 to 43 and in 1954, for which we have only provisional figures, to 33. If we take a comparable city in the United Kingdom, Manchester, we find that in 1949 the figure was 60 as against 100 in Glasgow, in 1951 it was 45 as against 60 in Glasgow, in 1953 it was 28 as against 43 in Glasgow.

Taking Scotland as a whole, in 1949 the deaths were 60 out of every 100,000 of the population, in 1951 they were 37, and in 1953 they were 23. For the rest of the United Kingdom, England and Wales, we discover that in 1949 the figure was 40 as against 60 in Scotland, in 1951 it was 28 as against 37, in 1953 it was 18 as against 23 in Scotland. If we go outside the United Kingdom, to Denmark, we find that in 1949 it was 16 as against Scotland's 60, in 1951 it was 12 as against 37, and in 1953 it was eight as against 23 in Scotland. In Holland in 1953 it was 7 as against 23 in Scotland.

From those figures it is clear that the largest toll of this disease, not only in human suffering but in deaths, is in Scotland. I know that the figures for Eire and for France are higher, but our aim should be to emulate those countries which have a better record than Scotland.

Now I want to turn to the notifications, which have not shown the improvement we find when we examine the mortality figures. It is because of our worry about the notifications that again I stress that we ought not to give up those 70 beds. In Glasgow notifications per 100,000 of the population were 257 in 1949, 202 in 1951, 218 in 1953—an increase there—and the provisional figure for 1954 is 203.

These are very serious figures indeed for the city of Glasgow; and of course they are not figures but are human beings about whose suffering we are speaking today. We find that the incidence for London in 1949 was 168 against 257 in Glasgow. In 1951, for London it was 146 against 202 for Glasgow. In 1953 it was 140 against 218.

For Scotland as a whole, per 100,000 of the population, we get the figure of 167 in 1949, 152 in 1951 and 147 in 1953. Compared with Scotland as a whole, Glasgow seems to be the black spot, but let us compare the whole of Scotland with England and Wales, because these beds apply to the whole of Scotland. In England and Wales the incidence of new notifications in 1949 was 102 against 167 for Scotland; in 1951 it was 97 against 152; and in 1953 it was 93 against 147.

Those figures show very clearly that the incidence of tuberculosis in Scotland is much higher than that in England and Wales. But, in spite of this, the Government have decided to give up those 70 precious beds in Swiss sanatoria. In answer to my Question, the Joint-Under Secretary said that the waiting lists had fallen from just under 2,000 to around 500, and he gave various reasons for this fall and for the decision to give up the 70 beds. Among those reasons was,

"the more efficient use of … other resources in Scotland."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd March, 1955; Vol. 538, c. 1883.]

I want to ask a question about that. Does it mean that more patients are being treated at home? Has the waiting list been reduced in this way? I have had sent to me this week a report which has just been published—the Joint Under-Secretary of State may have seen it—it is the first Report on T.B. in Glasgow produced by the Glasgow District Trades Council. I want to congratulate the Trades Council on the fine work which it has done in collating the material in this Report and in publishing it. The Council has this to say about people being treated at home and about the great reduction in the waiting list over a short period—and this appears on page 15:

"We shall certainly inquire about this, to see how far it has been achieved by a change in the attitude to home treatment."

I, too, have doubts about how this great reduction has been achieved, and I feel that the Joint Under-Secretary must give to me and to those who are most concerned an answer about it.

My doubts were strengthened when I turned to the latest Report published by the Department of Health for Scotland, for I find on page 24, dealing with tuberculosis:

"The part use of domiciliary management and treatment is, of course, important in the plan for increasing the turnover, but the extent to which this can be employed depends on both social and medical considerations."

I wonder whether it has been employed to such an extent that these social and medical considerations have been put in the background.

On page 25 we read:

The use of beds, however, for serious relapses and returns to infectivity where housing and other conditions are unsatisfactory must be in competition with the demand for the early treatment of new cases, and it is often a matter for careful judgment by the physician and a matter of anxiety for the medical officer of health which case should on occasion get priority. This has always been a problem in the tuberculosis service and it has not yet been solved."

I emphasise that this was the latest Report of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's own Department. Can he tell us that this problem, which has always been with us and which the Report said had never been solved, has in fact been solved? If he tells us today that it has not yet been solved, then it is completely and morally wrong that these 70 beds should have been given up.

For the life of me I cannot understand the Government's decision at this time. According to the Minister's own figures, we have 500 patients awaiting treatment for this dread disease. I want to quote again from the Report of the Glasgow District Trades Council. Dealing with the figures for Glasgow of those suffering from tuberculosis, the Report states:

"These figures represent thousands of young people whose lives have been blighted at the outset by a wasting disease which at best takes long months perhaps years, of treatment to cure and whose homes have been darkened by sorrow, economic privation and often despair."

Let us consider the mental strains and stresses of those 500 people, apart altogether from their physical illness and suffering, for anyone suffering from tuberculosis is often in a very depressed frame of mind. Each one of those 500 is a human being, with all the hopes and aspirations which other human beings have. If we consider these, we can come to only one conclusion—that the Government's decision is both wrong and heartless. If we consider also the dangers of infection from these 500 people, then the Government's decision is wholly indefensible and, I very strongly suggest, should be revoked.

What a psychological uplift it was for T.B. patients and for those who were nearest and dearest to them to know that the responsible powers in Scotland were doing everything they possibly could to combat this disease, that they were looking on these sufferers as individual human beings and that they felt that nothing should be left undone which could possibly help these people to find a cure. I believe that the Government's decision has destroyed that psychological uplift.

Finally—because I want to give the Minister plenty of time in which to reply—I beg the Government to reconsider the matter. Surely a Government who have been able to find almost £1 million to subsidise private interests in commercial T.V. can find the money to keep these 70 beds in Wolfgang Sanatorium for the T.B. patients of Scotland.

The hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), has raised a matter of very great importance. I gather that she attacks the decision of the Government to curtail the Swiss scheme. I do not consider that this is a decision which needs any defence at all. On the contrary, we should welcome it as a sign of real progress in Scotland's campaign against tuberculosis.

The scheme has not been curtailed—and I would emphasise this to the hon. Lady in view of her last remarks, which I thought were very unfortunate—on financial grounds; it has not been curtailed because it is defective; it has been curtailed because it is no longer needed on the same scale as in the past four years. Far from that being a destroying of the psychological value of which the hon. Lady spoke, encouragement and increased hope should be brought to every sufferer from this disease by the fact that the Government have found it possible, as I shall explain, to curtail the scheme.

The hon. Lady gave us a number of figures concerned with the death rate and the rate of notifications. I want to put on record in round figures what the death rate has been. In 1950—that was the last full year before this scheme came into operation—there were 2,439 deaths from respiratory tuberculosis; in 1954, there were 1,012; in 1950, there were 8,135 notifications, which is 1,019 more than the provisional figure for 1954. Preliminary figures indicate that the reduction, both in deaths and notifications, has continued during the first quarter of this year. Of course, there is still room for improvement. No one would be stupid enough to deny that, but the downward trend which I have indicated, and to which the hon. Lady referred, is encouraging.

The present high rate of notification is attributed to a very large extent to the improved case-finding procedures which have been bringing to notice cases of milder disease which would not have been found, or not found so soon, in the past. It is not possible to estimate the extent of this effect, because earlier records did not show the severity of the disease found. For that reason, at the beginning of last year a new form of reporting was introduced which will make it possible to study the future trend of new disease, both in terms of severity and number of cases. What appears to be happening is that we are now uncovering a larger part of the reservoir of the disease.

When I made my statement in the House on 22nd March, I explained that during the last 12 months the waiting list had fallen from about 2,000 to about 500. I also pointed out that the chest physicians—after all, it is they who have to judge—have for some time been finding it increasingly difficult to fill beds in Switzerland allotted to them. In that situation, it was obviously incumbent on us to examine the scheme closely, and we were forced to conclude that we would have to give up at least part of it.

This is a very important point. We are not given the reasons why the chest physicians—

If the hon. Lady will give me a minute or two, I will deal with that point. Patients for the scheme are now coming forward only from Glasgow, Renfrewshire, Stirling-shire and Dunbartonshire.

The hon. Lady referred to the waiting lists. At 28th February this year the total Scottish waiting list was 505. These were people waiting for treatment in sanatoria, and I have confirmed from the regional hospital boards that for cases of new tuberculosis the waiting time for admission to hospital is generally about one to four weeks, though less urgent cases may have to wait three to four months. The point which the hon. Lady must get hold of is that in choosing patients for treatment in Switzerland we have to be selective in the sense that they must be fit for the journey and temperamentally suitable to undergo treatment far from home and away from their personal friends and other affairs.

We found that the shortening of the waiting list for admission to Scottish sanatoria has made patients who would be suitable for treatment in Switzerland reluctant to accept it. Indeed, we are also finding that patients prefer to wait for a few weeks for admission to a sanatorium near their homes, rather than accept immediate admission to sanatoria at a distance—and not a great distance—from their homes.

There are several reasons for the substantial fall in the waiting lists. As a result of the policy which has been followed by successive Governments of giving first priority to the needs of respiratory tuberculosis and since December, 1951, there has been a very substantial increase in the number of staffed beds available. They have increased from 5,335 in December, 1950, to 6,098 in December, 1954. The main limiting factor in the increase has been the availability of nursing staff.

Accompanying that rise in the number of staffed beds there has been, as the result of improved therapeutic methods, a fall in the average period of stay in hospital and a corresponding increase in the turnover of beds. The discharges—and this is another reason for the decrease—rose from 6,762 in 1950 to 8,254 in 1953; and in the Western Region in 1953 there were 5,572 discharges and 6,812 in 1954, while the average numbers of days' stay in hospital fell from 200 to 169, that is, a reduction over the year of one month. This is equivalent to an 18 per cent. increase in the number of beds available.

At the same time as there has been this increase in hospital treatment, there has been, particularly in Glasgow, a substantial increase in the number of patients undergoing out-patient or domiciliary treatment. That was a point which the hon. Lady raised. She thought it might be bad, but as a matter of fact I am told that it is not bad at all.

Earlier figures are not available, but at present there are 2,700 patients in Glasgow receiving such treatment in one form or another, about 1,900 of whom are undergoing active chemotherapy, in other words, drug treatment. Some of these patients will receive hospital treatment in the form of thoracic surgery, but from the results being obtained at present it is expected that most of them will complete their treatment at home. The hon. Lady thought that these people were in danger of infecting others. I am given to understand that for the most part those undergoing treatment at home are not suffering from the disease in an infectious form.

In these ways we are keeping ahead and pulling down the figures of people who can go to be treated in Switzerland. There are fewer people on the waiting lists who are available to go, there are people who do not want to go because they can be admitted to sanatoria in their own country by waiting merely a week or two and then there are those other people who have to have serious operations. The hon. Lady would agree that it would not be right to send those. It has never been done. People who have had operations in Switzerland are those who were already there and for whom it was discovered that an operation was urgently required.

When all those matters are taken into consideration, the simple fact emerges that the doctors cannot find the patients to fill these beds in Switzerland. The hon. Lady must abide by the decision of the medical profession. Doctors judge whether these beds are required or not, and in their judgment the beds are not required simply because there are not the people to fill the 70 beds which we are giving up in Switzerland.

No question of finance is involved in this matter at all, and I should have thought that the hon. Lady would have been generous enough to have admitted that this Government, and any Government, would do all they could to cure people of a disease which has created such havoc in our country and which we have been fighting by every means in our power for many months, indeed, years.

The whole question is whether or not the people can be found for these beds. We are tackling the position in Scotland at all points and we are not in the least complacent or self-satisfied. We are still striving might and main to find reasons why tuberculosis should affect our country more than certain other countries; but that is something which we cannot force. It is something which the medical men and the scientists are trying to find out. Nowhere in the world have men been able to explain why tuberculosis should be more prevalent in certain areas than in others.

A meeting of a representative group of Scottish thoracic surgeons was recently convened by the Department to make a fresh assessment of the needs and to consider how best the resources available might be deployed. As a result, the possibility of further inter-regional transfers is being explored. I want once more to reiterate that there is no question of finance in this matter. The sole question at issue is: have we got the patients to fill the beds? The answer that we have from the doctors most concerned is that they are not available. It would be stupid and ridiculous to maintain accommodation which is not required.

I wish to refer to the need for increased migration from the United Kingdom to the various countries of the Commonwealth. In raising the matter I feel fortified by the fact that there is a Motion on the Notice Paper signed by no fewer than 101 Members from both sides of the House. The Motion says:

"That this House welcomes the First Annual Report of the Overseas Migration Board … but notes with regret that only about 25 per cent. of the immigrants to Canada and 50 per cent. of those to Australia since 1945 were from the British Isles; and, as recommended in the Report, urges Her Majesty's Government to use their influence to increase the flow of migration from the United Kingdom to reception countries of the Commonwealth, and to increase considerably the United Kingdom contribution towards schemes designed to increase such migration."

These are not the sentiments of extreme fanatics about mass migration. They are the modest, temperate views of hon. Members of both sides of the House who wish Commonwealth co-operation to be full and effective and who believe that an increased flow of migration is vital to that purpose.

If we take a Commonwealth and not merely a national view of strategic, economic and social problems, we are faced with an amazing contrast. On the one hand, we have this country with 50 million people living at a density of 540 persons per square mile of habitable land, with inadequate natural resources, and dependent for food and raw materials, and for the exports necessary to buy those goods, upon the fickleness of world markets. On the other hand, there are the vast undeveloped open spaces of countries of the Commonwealth whose natural resources, whether developed or undeveloped, are far in excess of the needs of their populations.

Australia has 9 million people and a density of only four people to the habitable square mile. Canada with 15 million people has a density of only nine to the habitable square mile. New Zealand with 2 million people has a considerably higher density, though it still is far short of ours, of 19 to the square mile. Southern Rhodesia has a population of only 2½ million, but I have not got the details of the density per habitable square mile.

The British Commonwealth and Empire was built up and made great, and its cohesion was formed, by the habit of migration of the generations which have gone before. That habit of migration was interrupted by the war, but it has been resumed since then on a limited scale with the result stated, that the proportion of British people in overseas countries of the Commonwealth is not being maintained. I say without shame or hesitation that that is a matter for regret.

The Australian and Canadian Governments, to their credit, are anxious to have more British people, and are now carrying out a vigorous recruiting campaign in this country. I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, whose heart is in the right place in this matter, whether the Governments of Australia and Canada have the full support of Her Majesty's Government in this country in carrying out that recruiting campaign.

The First Report of the Overseas Migration Board, which was published in July of last year, is a most valuable and informative document. It says in paragraph 7, which I should like to quote in full:

"The Board had assumed—"

This was before interviewing various Ministers of Governments of the Commonwealth who were here during Coronation year and at other times—

"that the initiative in migration policy must come from the countries of reception, and that it would be wrong for the United Kingdom to attempt to influence their immigration policies. This was not the view of some of the more influential Ministers with whom we spoke. It was said that what was really needed was a clear lead from the heads of Governments, including our own, so that Ministers responsible for migration schemes might have a firm figure of the number of migrants which they should aim to recruit and settle. We should like to place on record their view that in the formulation and execution of migration policies the United Kingdom should be more than a sleeping partner."

The House will, I hope, heartily agree with those wise words. Perhaps I could summarise my main purpose by saying that it is to ask whether the Government have an up-to-date migration policy, and what it is, and what initiative they are prepared to use.

Under the Empire Settlement Acts, the Government have power to spend as much as 1½ million a year in assisting overseas migration and settlement. However, I cannot find that since the war they have ever spent as much as £200,000 a year. The figure seems to be only about £185,000 annually. That includes £150,000 on the Australia assisted passages scheme and £35,000 on the child migration scheme.

The agreement with Australia was to have expired at the end of this month, but we were told by my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, in the debate in the other place last November, that it was to be extended for the two years which remained before the expiry of the 1952 Act. That figure of £150,000 is not to be increased during the next two years. That is a disappointment because, whereas £150,000 meant a certain number of migrants in 1947, it means considerably fewer today. I suggest that the amount is nothing like enough. It is no more than chicken fodder in relation to the problem.

For every £that is spent by the Government in this way there is a return incalculable in value when measured in relation to the increased bonds of friendship, of blood fellowship and good will. Therefore, if my hon. Friend can give us some encouragement by saying that the Government will spend more than £150,000 on that scheme alone, it would give satisfaction.

The Report of the Overseas Migration Board stresses the need for balanced migration, which means of course that there must be a fair proportion of unskilled as well as skilled workers going abroad and a fair proportion of old people as well as young. It is reassuring to know that the Governments both of Canada and Australia accept the proposition that the best unit for migration is the family, including, if necessary, grandmamma.

Naturally we heartily agree with this view about balanced migration; I do not think any hon. Gentleman would dispute it. But let us consider its implications and relation to what is now happening. Skilled young people with an enterprising attitude towards life will go in any event, whatever the Government may do. The Government cannot stop them. Therefore, Government policy should be directed to ensuring that a fair portion of unskilled and older people migrate, and that is where we see the value of the assisted passage scheme.

Whatever may be said about that scheme—and some derogatory things have been said about it from time to time—we cannot escape the fact that by the assisted passage scheme families can migrate more easily, and a reasonable proportion of unskilled workers can also migrate. In other words, the scheme avoids the mere skimming of the cream of voluntary migration of skilled young people.

Let no one say that we cannot spare these people because we are short of labour. I say that we can spare them. I say further, and perhaps this is more important, that even if we could not spare them we ought still to let them go in the broader and more important long-term Commonwealth interest. I realise that I may be entering the realms of controversy—and discussing a matter outside the responsibility of my hon. Friend—when I say that, if we are short of labour, it is not because we have too few people in this country but because we have too many. That is a most important paradox which one rarely finds understood in Whitehall. But as it is not germane to the reply of my hon. Friend, I will not pursue it now.

Even though that argument be not accepted, there are plenty of others, which justify a policy of migration. I wish to pay tribute to the fact that the Government have done a great deal to encourage the flow of capital towards the undeveloped parts of the Commonwealth. I understand that all the capital likely to be needed in the foreseeable future is, and will be, available on the London money market. The limiting factors are purely physical, including the lack of manpower, skilled and unskilled, in the under-developed territories.

I suggest that when young people go out from this country they do not cease to produce for us. The truth is that by helping us to create valuable capital investments abroad they strengthen our economic position. They are earning for this country just as much as if they had stayed here. I know that there are other hon. Gentlemen interested in this matter, and I hope that they may have an opportunity to contribute to this debate. I will therefore, bring my remarks to a conclusion.

At the moment it looks as though the Government policy is one of standstill—"Let the thing run; let it find its own level; do not let us take the initiative; let us just hope for the best and hope that not too much will happen." That, I am sorry to say, was the conclusion I reached after reading the report of the debate last November in another place. I wish to ask my hon. Friend whether the Government have considered, or will consider, spending more of the money which Parliament has authorised them to spend under the Empire Settlement Acts. Secondly, I wish to ask whether they will extend the amount spent under the assisted passages scheme and whether they will give further encouragement to child migration schemes as recommended in the report.

Yesterday we entered upon a new era of leadership in this country which coincides, we all hope, with a new era of development, expansion and strength in the British Commonwealth. The Government have all the right ideas about political co-operation with the Commonwealth and the need to increase capital investment. Let my hon. Friend say this afternoon that the Government have also the right ideas about migration.

The House is grateful to the hon. and learned Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) for initiating this debate. I envy him his unfettered approach to this problem. Like the Under-Secretary, I have the honour to be a member of the Overseas Migration Board, whose report the hon. and learned Gentleman quoted in such friendly terms. I therefore feel to some degree fettered in my approach to the subject—may I say that shades of almost Cabinet responsibility fall upon me? Nevertheless, I shall not allow myself to be too tied. This is a fascinating and important subject and the debate this afternoon is, as it were, a discussion among friends.

Many of us who heard Sir Oliver Franks' Reith lectures recently were struck by his emphasis on the importance of the Commonwealth relationship, if this country is to remain a great Power. He laid that down as almost the first essential, if we are to maintain our position as a leading Power. There is no doubt that migration is a most important element—and by migration I mean not only the movement outwards from this country, but also the movement into this country.

One of the reasons why, in my opinion, the Commonwealth sticks together is because we stir the pot. People move around freely, and with air transport that movement becomes freer still. One of the most recent exciting developments in this matter is the express Comet service which is planned to Woomera, where Anglo-Australian scientists are working on products suggested by British industry and linked to this country by the express Comet service.

This country may help to enrich the Commonwealth, by sending many of its best young men and women to the Commonwealth, but, in turn, we have been enriched by immigration into this country of such men as Lord Rutherford, Low, and Colin Clark, among other famous names, who have come here to settle, or for a time to take part in the intellectual life of the Commonwealth as a whole.

It is extremely difficult to measure or weigh the importance of emigration, but the hard fact is that it did, after all, create the Commonwealth, and must continue in order to maintain it. It is from that point of view that I start. We must not be too despondent about emigration at the moment. Since the last war, the flow from this country has been at a relatively high rate. It is about equal to the highest rate achieved before the war and has been steadily maintained. The net flow has, in fact, been at a rate which was stated by the Royal Commission on Population to be the maximum that this country could stand.

Personally, I am not in full agreement with the Royal Commission on this subject. I believe that we must spare as many men and women as we can for the purpose of Commonwealth development. I do not believe, as some economists, and, indeed, some politicians believe, that it is likely to weaken the economic system of the United Kingdom. I am satisfied that that is not so, quite apart from the arguments put forward by the hon. and learned Member for Huntingdon.

We should not forget that outside this fortunate island there are great reserves of unemployed manpower, and that if, by any miracle, the flow should rise to such a level that our own economic equilibrium was upset, it could be corrected by an inflow from the Continent of Europe. Since the war we have absorbed into this country approximately 200,000 to 300,000 emigrants from the Continent, and we observe, possibly with mixed feelings, the inflow of British subjects from the West Indies who, too, are doing essential work within our own economic system.

Therefore, even if we should get a very much greater rate of flow, as a result of which there is some economic disequilibrium, there is plenty of manpower available ready to be brought in to take its place. That being so, we need not worry about stepping up the rate of flow too high. We want it to be as high as we can get it.

I have only a few disjointed points to make which either underline the points raised by the hon. and learned Member for Huntingdon or which should be considered in the course of this discussion. The hon. and learned Member mentioned the need for balanced emigration. There is no doubt that one of the ways in which we can help to achieve balanced emigration is by bringing into effect as many reciprocal social insurance schemes as possible between ourselves and the other members of the Commonwealth.

During the Coronation, such an agreement was signed between ourselves and Australia. It will be seen from the statistics that quite a significant flow of people over 55 years of age are going to Australia, who are now covered by Australian old-age insurance benefits, and who, as a result, have lost nothing by emigrating.

There is, I believe, a similar agreement on the stocks with New Zealand. I very much hope that any hindrances that may still exist to the signature of this agreement will be removed as soon as possible, and that the Under-Secretary of State will inform his colleagues in New Zealand how much we in this country wish to see such an agreement signed.

The second point I wish to make is on the subject of strategic considerations. This subject was raised, I believe, in 1946 by the Chiefs of Staff and then dropped for reasons that I do not know, but which, I suspect, were connected with disagreement among the technical experts as to whether or not we could better defend a target by dispersing or by concentrating our defences around it.

I wish to read to the House a statement made by Mr. Harold Holt, the Australian Minister for Emigration at this year's Australian Citizenship Convention. He said that he was

"convinced that the British Commonwealth family could be enormously strengthened and enriched by a more effective dispersal of people of British stock in the countries of the Commonwealth. In this age of potential atomic destruction, people might well ask how we could afford to have so much of the strength of the Commonwealth, measured in terms of British population and industry, locked in the tiny and vulnerable area of the United Kingdom."

I believe that in this matter Mr. Holt was absolutely right. The argument about defence in 1946 was an argument about the effects of atomic bombing of the type which we saw in Japan. But with the arrival of thermo-nuclear warfare, with its great area of fallout. I am quite certain that one of the ways in which we can counter this danger is by the dispersal of our industry. By what better way can we achieve that than by a form of emigration which takes industry to the new countries south of the Equator, which are a very long way indeed from the potential aggressor and the potential threat?

It is for this reason that I believe, as does the hon. and learned Member for Huntingdon, that one of the most important ways whereby we can encourage and facilitate an increased rate of emigration is by an increased rate of investment in the Commonwealth itself. This, of course, performs two functions. It performs the function of taking capital, and people with it, abroad. It also ensures that this country has access to the raw materials which are absolutely essential for our economic expansion.

I am sure that the Chancellor's aim of doubling the national income within the next 25 years or so is something which hon. Members on both sides of the House would support, but we shall not be able to do that unless we have access to the raw materials necessary for this economic expansion. We must remember this when we think about Commonwealth development and about the development of our own economy. The two are linked; without one, the other cannot take place.

Lastly, I should like to make a point which, I know, will not be looked upon with favour by the Under-Secretary or by any Government. Governments have fought shy of it. I believe that the United Kingdom should be a member of the Inter-Governmental Committee on European Migration. The function of the Committee, which is financed almost exclusively by American money, is to remove surplus populations from Western Europe, where they are a danger in the cold war, and to settle them in various parts of the world where they can creatively build up a new and prosperous life for themselves and, at the same time, cease to be a danger to the political life of Western Europe.

Canada and Australia were founder members of the I.C.E.M., and New Zealand has recently recorded that she wishes to become a member. Her application will be considered in April. What is true of New Zealand is, I believe, true of the Rhodesias. Kenya has an observer at the Committee's meetings. Although this particular organisation deals solely with the problem of moving people from Europe to lands where they can settle—and some of the most important of those lands are within the Commonwealth—I believe that we should be in this organisation with the sister nations of the Commonwealth. It is too important to shun for much longer. Do not let us forget, also, that this country is directly responsible for Malta. This particular piece of machinery is one that can help us to solve the problems of that island.

I know that the Minister, in formulating policy, has to face very considerable pressures and difficulties. This is not an easy subject. It is rather like any organic growth; it cannot be forced or rushed, particularly in a free country. It must be nursed gently along. Nevertheless, it is a subject of paramount importance. The Under-Secretary, when he attempts to tackle the forces opposed to a greater rate of migration, has behind him a very great number of friends.

I hope that in what I say I shall not develop too much of that feeling of criticism which sometimes overcomes me. It is a tragedy that for the discussion of something of such vital importance to this country and to the Commonwealth we should be limited to one hour on an Adjournment Motion. During the last few weeks we have spent three or four days discussing horror comics, yet for this vital subject we have only a very limited amount of time at our disposal. The subject of horror comics is a matter not for legislation, but for parental control. Parents should decide what their children should or should not read.

I agree with everything which has been said by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) and with all that has been said by my hon. Friend—as I shall call him—on the other side, the Member for Nottingham, Central (Mr. Ian Winterbottom), to whom I pay tribute for his work on the Overseas Migration Board. Incidentally, I may say that those who are now opposed to a debate on this subject say that this is not the right time. If we were to wait for the right time it would never come. The right time is certainly not when we may have 2 or 3 million unemployed, because we should then be faced with the same problem that we had in the early 'thirties, when the movement was to, and not from, this country.

I want, first, to counter the attitude taken by the opponents of migration by quoting from page 8 of the Report of the Oversea Migration Board. It is there stated:

"… there is the question of how many and what type of emigrants the United Kingdom can afford to spare without disrupting her own economy. …"

Page 11 of the Report states:

"We cannot, however, afford a too selective flow of migrants; a disproportionate loss of skilled and the young is far more dangerous to our economy than a far larger flow outward of a balanced cross-section of our people."

That is exactly the process through which we are now going; a selective proportion of our young men is being taken by the Commonwealth. We cannot stop that, but those are the very people whom we ourselves want. It is the Government's duty to sec that steps are taken. The Board should be given powers to act not only in an advisory capacity but in achieving a more active and co-operative attitude at the receiving end and to produce schemes for the Government. Then let us have a debate in this House.

I was going to quote a very important paragraph in page 9 of the Report, but my hon. and learned Friend has already done so. I wish only to emphasise its importance. It is entirely wrong that the initiative should come from the receiving end; on the contrary, it should come from this end. We should co-operate with the receiving end. We should be careful to see that the emigration policy is agreed and that it does not result in the country concerned sending people back to us, with such criticisms as we have already had from some of the emigrants.

There are two methods of migration from this country. One is child migration and the other is group migration. Both of them are very important, and are opposed to the selection which is going on at the present time. Child migration is the one that is welcomed in Australia. There are many very excellent schemes in this country for assisting the migration of children to Australia, and I suggest to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that the Government should give a considerably larger grant for assisted migration.

The Government should not raise any question of not being able to afford it, because, if they keep in this country children who have no parents and who are probably accommodated in homes, it will involve the Exchequer in a very heavy burden. It would be cheaper to devote money to grants in order to assist these children to go to Australia, where they can grow up as good Australians. Successive Australian Governments have said what good citizens and good Australians these young people make.

The Fairbridge school, which has done useful work in connection with emigration, has told us that only 1 per cent. of the children who have gone from that school have been failures. It is essential that they should go when quite young, before they become accustomed to the idea that they must keep their eyes glued to a television screen for three or four hours a day, and before they are unable to work without the accompaniment of the wireless.

Perhaps I might mention a classic example from my own district where, a short time ago, a child engaged on some homework said to its mother, "Can I have the wireless on? I cannot do my homework unless it is going." We want to get our children away from that sort of thinking and into a country in which they may learn to take broader views.

The assisted passage scheme is an excellent one for the assistance of the cross-section type of emigrant. When the Commonwealth countries come here and select from us what they want, there should be no assisted passages because they can afford to take these valuable people and pay their passage without assistance from this country. When they come here and are prepared to take a group or a cross-section, then they are entitled to ask that we should give them assistance.

It is not only a question of group or child migration. I want to see industrial migration. I have previously called attention to the potentialities of Central Africa, where there is untold mineral wealth, probably as much as there is in the United States, with the exception of oil. The Government should give every encouragement possible to part of the cotton industry, which is now complaining of foreign competition, to go to Central Africa, where the cotton is grown, and where there is a vast labour force of unskilled people who could be turned into skilled workers.

These people, when they have become skilled and are paid good wages, will become ambitious, and will themselves become customers for the very goods which they and their fellow workers are making in the factories. That is a much better way of dealing with manufacturing than bringing raw materials here from all over the world to be processed, only to send them back to the countries of origin. We must make up our minds to face these things now, or one day we shall be brought up against them very forcibly.

I know that my hon. Friend will not be able to give us quite as much comfort as he would like, but I know where his heart lies. A Front Bencher differs from a back bencher in that while he is speaking he has to keep one eye on his superior officers. Therefore, if my hon. Friend is not so forthcoming as we would like him to be we shall know that if he were talking to us elsewhere he would be much more forthright.

I would emphasise the value to this country of the Commonwealth from the defensive and economic points of view.

Why should we continue to have 50 million people in this country when there are vast open spaces in the Commonwealth far removed from the atom bomb? If we want to avoid war we should spread our population and our industry as far as possible, when we would not be so vulnerable or so likely to attract the atom bomb of which we are all so afraid.

The Welfare State is maintained by the resources of the Commonwealth; if we lose the Commonwealth we shall lose those natural resources, and then the Welfare State cannot be maintained. If Her Majesty's present Government, or any other Government, want to maintain the Commonwealth I ask them to look upon migration with a practical and much more forceful outlook than at present. We may find, otherwise, that this great Commonwealth, which has taken so long, so much money and so much manpower to build up, is fading away.

I have promised to take only a few minutes, but it is important that I should rise because I want to strike a discordant note. I do not agree with what has been said, or the policy that is being advocated, and in saying that I speak for a very substantial part of the population of Scotland.

My hon. Friends have presented arguments for still more migration; I wonder whether they are referring only to England and Wales, or whether they are including Scotland. In the 90 years from 1861 more people left Scotland than left England and Wales, though the latter is eight times the size of Scotland. The number of people of Scottish birth but not of Scottish origin living in various countries is more than 1,200,000. They are in Canada, United States and various other places, including England and Wales. There are estimated to be 600,000 people of Scottish birth living in England and Wales.

This might be taken as evidence that the Scots desire to travel or to seek adventure abroad. That is romantic nonsense. Scots do not leave Scotland in order to live in Birmingham or Coventry, or with any desire for adventure or for travel. They leave Scotland for the very good reason that the number of jobs available, the price paid for those jobs, and the facilities which exist for their youngsters are so much worse than they are in England and in other countries. People do not leave the glens in the North to go to the industrial areas of Glasgow for romantic reasons; similarly, they do not leave Scotland for romantic reasons. They leave because of the conditions of life which they have been compelled to endure and the desire to better themselves. I am not suggesting that some measure of romanticism is not involved, but the main reason is the absence of job prospects.

Having suffered so much from this question of migration, and having lost some of our finest people, we in Scotland could not be happy about any policy which sought still further to" cream" our people. The policy which seems to be behind the point of view which is being advocated in this debate is the dispersal of people for defence reasons. The dispersal of people and industry makes very little difference in a hydrogen bomb age. The whole policy of dispersal is a policy of despair.

What we have to offer the world at present arises largely from the fact that we have a concentration of industry and skill. The question of over-population is a relative one. A country is overpopulated when there is extensive unemployment; it is not over-populated if it is industrious, its people are kept employed, and they enjoy a high standard of living. The concentration of industry in Britain is one of the greatest assets which we have to offer to the world.

What we should endeavour to do is still further to improve the standards of our people, and make conditions in Britain—and especially in Scotland—more atractive. In that way we should be able to retain Scots, English, Welsh and Irish. I am sure that I am not the only hon. Member who very heartily disagrees with the point of view that has been expressed.

The hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) has underlined one aspect of the problem which we have merely touched on in this short debate. I am sure that we are all grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) for having been successful is being able to have an hour's debate upon this topic. In one way and another it raises the whole problem of human and racial relations throughout the world, and it would therefore be difficult, even in a day's debate, to cover many of the points which might be raised.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin) stated that many people say that this is not the right moment to deal with this problem, and made the point that it never is the right moment. I quite agree. This is a continuing problem. I hope that my hon. Friend will not accuse me of holding back because I now speak from the Front Bench instead of alongside him a little further back.

The presence in the House of my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Board of Trade, reminded me of the fact that they and I were among a small group who just after the war began to consider the problem of migration from this country. That was at a time when our affairs had not become stabilised after the end of the war and the position was in many ways more difficult to foresee than it is now; but I really do not think that the conclusions which I have come to after having worked for the last six months in the Commonwealth Relations Office are any different from those to which I came four or five years after the war, as one of a group of private Members. All of us who have worked on this problem since the end of the war agree more or less on what can and should be done. If there is any shortcoming on the part of the Government of the day and any delay in getting on with the job, it is not because they are unwilling to do so; it is because they are inhibited in certain ways, as I shall try to show.

This is a vast problem, and there are many agencies concerned, both private and public. Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom is only one of those agencies, and the Commonwealth Relations Office is one Department within that Government which is concerned with that problem. Overseas Governments in the Commonwealth have their own ideas about the type of immigrant that they want. They are, after all, self-governing countries in the Commonwealth, and Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom cannot coerce them. Of course, there has been no suggestion that we should do so, but I am saying that if we tried in any way to coerce them it would cause resentment and would merely prevent us from doing what we want to do.

The principle of pushing rather than pulling has its limitations. We must concern ourselves closely with the pulling side of the problem or, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdon said, with the point of view of the reception countries of the Commonwealth. I have always likened this question to one of setting up magnets in the reception countries in order to attract people from this country. We are still living in a free society, and there are considerable limitations on what any Government could or should do in such a free society.

There is possibly greater scope for what certain private groups can do rather than for governmental action. My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster mentioned group migration and setting up branches of industrial firms in Commonwealth countries. Those are examples of the sort of action which can be taken through private initiative. Any Government must of necessity be limited to intergovernmental action at the request of the" pulling" Government, if I may use that term.

As I have said, there are limits to what we can do within a free society. Within a free society persuasion must be our greatest aid, rather than trying to force people out by closing an industry. It has not been suggested in this debate that industries should be closed down, but I have read the suggestion that in certain cases we should try to restrict an industry here in order to build it up somewhere overseas.

While I have this opportunity of speaking, I would like to suggest—more as a private individual than on behalf of Her Majesty's Government—how I feel we can help to solve this problem. About four months ago the B.B.C. broadcast an excellent television programme on migration to Canada. It aroused a great deal of interest in this country. I suggest that, as time goes on, instead of distributing pamphlets and illustrated papers, there should be short programmes on television, either through the B.B.C. or through the new sponsored television which we hope will start its activities before long, presenting some of the opportunities that are open overseas in a way that no other medium can do. I believe that the power of television in that way has not yet been fully understood.

I should like to touch on the question of housebuilding. Over the last 20 years or so this country has developed unique experience in this field, through a combination of free enterprise and municipal housing, and of public and private finance. We could help some of these countries overseas, perhaps, by setting out how in this country we have managed, to the extent we have so far, so successfully to overcome our housing problem. Those are two suggestions I could contribute to the debate.

We have heard in the debate, not in great detail but briefly, some statement of the two attitudes there are towards migration. There is the attitude of those people who believe we ought to cut down our population in this country by 10 million or so, by what is generally called the mass migration policy. There are those who, on the other side, take the attitude that nobody ought to go at all, and that, if anything, we ought to try to stop people from going. In a free society there is a limit to what the Government can do. In this connection I would repeat some words of the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations in a debate in another place last November. He said:

"I would venture to put three propositions—I might almost say three principles—on which I hope we shall all be agreed. I think, first, it is true that it is the desire of the Commonwealth countries to have immigrants of British stock. Secondly, in spite of the figures I have quoted of population trends"

he had quoted figures about population trends unfavourable to this country—

"we believe that we in this country can and ought to spare a proportion of our people to go overseas and we assume that they will be keen to go; but, as I have said, it ought to be a balanced selection. And thirdly, it certainly is a United Kingdom interest (and I think an interest of the whole Commonwealth) that the existing character of the Commonwealth should be preserved."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 17th November, 1954; Vol. 189, c. 1633.]

That puts most clearly what the attitude of the present Administration is and what, I believe, that of the last Administration was to this matter of migration.

I would underline what my noble Friend went on to say, how important is the two-way traffic, which was touched on by the hon. Member for Nottingham, Central (Mr. Ian Winterbottom), who has done so much hard work on this matter. I think, incidentally, that from many points of view the exchange of students is invaluable, and I also believe that our educational system, particularly our higher education, is the finest in the world today. The fact that there are 26,000 overseas students taking advantage of these arrangements in the United Kingdom at the moment illustrates that, and I hope that it will make people realise that there is proof of the truth of what I say, and that it is not merely a matter of sentiment.

I have only a few minutes in which to speak, and I must now pass on to saying a word or two on the Motion, to which I have already referred, on the Notice Paper in the name of my hon. Friend and the recommendations of the Oversea Migration Board. My hon. Friend regrets in his Motion that only 25 per cent. of those going to Canada and 50 per cent. of those going to Australia are of British stock. I think all Governments would like immigrants coming into their countries to be of their own stock, and, of course, if every Government found the world peopled by people of their own stock, there would be no foreign problems.

Of course, we should like the proportion of British immigrants into other Commonwealth countries to be maintained. The Inter-Governmental Committee on European Migration has helped and is still helping substantial numbers of European migrants, but its work will tend to come to an end, whereas we hope and believe that emigration from this country to other parts of the Commonwealth will continue.

We learnt from the Report in 1947 of the Royal Commission on Population that certain sections of the community wish to send their young folk overseas, but there is not at the moment any sign that so many want to go as would make any significant difference to the total number of our population. I am not entering into that topic this afternoon because unfortunately I have not the time. These points are covered by the recommendations of the Oversea Migration Board, which are summarised on page 22 of its Report.

On the question of assisted passages, which has been mentioned in one or two speeches, I would point out, although it is already known in this House, that the Government have undertaken to maintain their contribution of £150,000 a year under the assisted passage agreement with Australia over the next two years. In 1957 the Empire Settlement Act will come to an end, and that year will also see the end of the statutory liability of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom to continue their contribution. From then on it will be necessary, if the House thinks fit, to lay new legislation.

I would agree on the whole with what has been said about assisted passages. They help certain individuals to migrate who would not otherwise be able to do so. I do not think that we have ever pretended in this country that the Government's contribution of £150,000 a year is more than a token of our good will, because it is estimated that each immigrant into Australia costs about £2,000 to settle. Therefore this contribution of about 15s. per head towards that total cannot be regarded as more than a token payment. But it is a token, and as such it is continuing until the end of the Empire Settlement Act.

As for the recommendation concerning the continuance of the agreements with the aided societies, these agreements have been and are renewable annually until 1957. That is the situation at the moment. The continuance of the grant in aid to the Society for the Oversea Settlement of British Women is also being continued. All these societies, in the view of the Oversea Migration Board, are doing admirable work, and we hope that this assistance will be at least a help to them in continuing.

On recommendation (b)—the increase of the rate of maintenance allowance to £1 a week per child as soon as financial circumstances permit—the Oversea Migration Board is again considering this point and going into details with the societies in order to see whether increased maintenance allowances would lead to the movement of further children. I think that is a matter which the Government, being responsible for the expenditure of the taxpayers' money, must carefully consider from the point of view of how far any further payment of the taxpayers' money will increase the movement of children or groups of people overseas. I do not think that the House would want the taxpayers to take on expenditure which would not result in any increased movement.

On recommendation (c)—an invitation to other voluntary societies concerned with children and young people to submit details of their work—I might add that the only society not already in receipt of assistance which submitted proposals under this recommendation was the Big Brother Movement. After considering this application, the Board recommended that assistance should be given, and the Movement is to receive a per capita grant of £2 10s. for each boy sailing, up to a maximum of £1,000, in the financial year 1955–56, which corresponds to the contribution already being made by the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia. I hope that this will be of some assistance to this most admirable body.

On recommendation (d) the Overseas Migration Board is at the moment considering what can be done to bring facilities available for child migration to the notice of the local authorities. It appears from the figures which we have studied at the moment that there has been some slowing down in the availability of children for migration overseas. Therefore we want to see, with the co-operation of the local authorities, how information on migration may be brought to their attention for the benefit, as the Board sees it, of the children themselves, in order to give them an opportunity of knowing whether they would like a life overseas.

I can assure the House, if there is any need to do so, that Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom—and particularly the Oversea Migration Board and the Commonwealth Relations Office—would welcome the continued help of hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is a great help for any Government to have an all-party group—we have in this House—to take a continuing interest in this problem, and I can assure the House that we shall continue to do our utmost to assist in strengthening our bonds with the Commonwealth in this sphere of migration, just as we are endeavouring to do in other activities of mutual interest.

The matter which I wish to raise is very different in character from those which have been previously discussed today. It concerns an event which took place at an Army barracks on 24th October last. It is, unfortunately, necessary for me to give the House some very painful details, but I will be brief in that respect and will not dwell upon them.

I quote from statements which were made by counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions at the trial of this matter. He said that on the morning of 24th October, four boys of the Infantry Boys' Battalion, Plumer Barracks, Plymouth, accused one of their fellow-soldiers, Private Peter Foden, of carrying tales and squealing to the commanding officer. He was thereupon assaulted by these four boys.

Later that same Sunday, these four boys were joined by seven others and the eleven boys entered the barrack room where Private Foden was and began to beat him up. These are the words of prosecuting counsel:

"He was kicked, he was hit he was thrown on the floor and jumped on. Then he was carried outside the barrack-room and thrown down a grass bank, coming to rest against a wall at the bottom. He was then picked up, taken along to the ablutions and held under a shower. He was taken back to the barrack-room, put upon his bed and beaten up again. He was then punched and kicked and had his head banged against the wall. The assault went on for between half an hour and three-quarters."

Finally, a corporal instructor came on the scene and found Foden lying on his bed semi-conscious.

"Both his eyes were closed and badly swollen, the left side of his face was completely bruised and his lips bloated. His teeth appeared to have been knocked back into his throat and he had extreme difficulty in talking."

Foden was then taken to hospital, where he died three days later.

An inquest found that he died as the result of taking a cleaning fluid containing some kind of chemical poison, but I suggest that this, far from being an extenuating circumstance, goes to show that this boy of 16, who, incidentally, was an orphan, was not only in great physical pain but must have been in extreme mental anguish as well to have taken such a course.

Ten of the boys were convicted at the Hampshire Assizes and are now serving terms of imprisonment. Mr. Justice Byrne ordered that the case should be reported to the Secretary of State for War to ensure that such an appalling episode should never occur again. He went on to say:

"This is a boys' battalion and parents who allow their sons to enlist in this battalion have a right to expect that the military authorities will look after them properly. This case indicates quite plainly to my mind that the military authorities have failed in their duty. How such a state of affairs can go on in a camp, where officers, warrant officers and non-commissioned officers are supposed to be doing their duty. seems to me to be incredible."

Following upon these criticisms and the death of Private Foden, the Secretary of State for War, with commendable promptitude, appointed a court of inquiry to inquire into the facts of the case and also set up a committee of inquiry into the whole organisation and administration of boys' units generally. In the short time available to me I want to confine part of my remarks to the Foden case and the other part to the question of these boys' units generally.

At the hearing it was stated by the prosecution that there had been trouble in this unit between the commanding officer and a certain sergeant-major. The commanding officer is stated to have said, "I have got my little spies." It was further alleged that as a result of this statement by the commanding officer the sergeant-major incited these boys to commit this savage attack, and it was further said that one of the corporals encouraged this offence to take place.

Therefore, we have a situation in which, at a court of assize, a commanding officer was accused of having said that he had spies in the unit to bring him tales about commissioned officers, and two non-commissioned officers were accused of having incited this offence, for which ten boys, aged 17 to 15, are now in prison.

One of the reasons I have raised the matter today is that not only do I feel that the War Office should make some statement on the matter, but I believe it may be glad of the opportunity of so doing and of dealing with these very serious charges made against an officer and non-commissioned officers in this unit. I appreciate that the War Office was in a difficulty, because the proceedings of a court of inquiry are confidential. But it seems to me to disclose a rather unsatisfactory position when evidence given at an assize court which casts serious reflections upon officers and non-commissioned officers was published, while the evidence given at a court of inquiry, which, presumably, has to some extent cleared them of these charges, is confidential and can neither be published nor weighed.

While realising the difficulty the Minister is in through not being able to give us the evidence on which the War Office has acted or has failed to act, nevertheless, I should like to ask him to give us an assurance that this commanding officer and these non-commissioned officers are no longer with units of this character or units where special knowledge is required of how to deal with young soldiers or cadets. We ought to have that assurance, so that there is no risk of their not knowing, either as a result of negligence or through lack of understanding, the special needs of units of this nature.

It is also necessary to ask what inquiries were made by the War Office into the quite extraordinary condition which must have existed in this unit where, during a large part of a Sunday, ten boys were able to indulge in this terrible exhibition of sadism without a single boy or a group of boys coming forward in the way one would expect ordinary British boys to do and say, "This has gone on long enough." Nothing was done until this boy was practically on the point of death. It indicates there must have been in existence a serious amount of tyranny or bullying if boys were afraid to come forward to stop what was going on.

I want to pass quickly to my second point, relating to the Report of the Committee on the Organisation and Administration of Boys' Units in the Army, which was published and laid before Parliament only last week. I will not attempt to discuss it in detail now, but I can only hope there will be an opportunity of dealing with it in a longer debate because it contains some most valuable and helpful information. I want to ask the Minister what action is being taken immediately to implement the more urgent recommendations of the Committee. The Secretary of State for War has been good enough to say that he accepts these recommendations in principle, and I would like to know how quickly the more urgent ones will be implemented.

I refer, in particular, to the recommendation that there should be greater contact between the officers and N.C.Os. and the boys in the units. That is obviously a good recommendation and I want to make sure that it has been accepted. The Report states:

"The most serious weakness which runs through the whole system of appointments is discontinuity and shortness of term."

In other words, there is too rapid a changeover of the officers. Indeed, the Report continues:

"In one or two units the rate of turn-over of staffing … was little short of disastrous."

It goes on to criticise the accommodation and the amenities of these units.

Perhaps the most important of all the recommendations relating to this case of Private Foden is the recommendation that in future a confidential report should be made to the commanding officer of each unit about the previous history of every boy coming into it. Especially should that be done where a boy has been to an approved school, or has been placed on probation, or has been committed to the care of a local authority.

Here, I have some sympathy with the position of the War Office and of the commanding officer, because I believe that had this commanding officer been told of the previous record of some of the boys concerned in this case he would have been put on his guard, and would have taken steps which might have prevented the tragedy occurring. I do not think that this matter rests entirely with the War Office, but I hope that as a result of this case it may be possible to ensure that the War Office is not presented unknowingly with problem boys who may give rise to disastrous incidents of this kind.

I have already spoken for longer than I had intended, but I should like to make two other brief points. The first is that this experiment of boys' units is an interesting but difficult one. Its object is to produce not ordinary soldiers for the rank and file but long-term Regular warrant officers and senior N.C.Os. It is clear, therefore, that the standard of training and discipline and administration required in these units should not be, as it is here apparently, lower than that of an ordinary unit, but that it should be the highest the Army can devise.

I want to underline that by reading a sentence in the Committee's Report which relates to the problem of staffing these units:

"It would be untrue to say that failure in this respect has been limited to one case of brutal bullying. …"

In other words, there is the clear inference that the Foden case is not the only one and that there have been other cases where bullying has taken place.

My final point is that there has been a falling off in the attitude of the War Office towards the problem of Army welfare. I had the privilege of some experience in that matter during the war and I came across the great divergence of opinion which exists in military circles. The older type of Regular officer is inclined to think that there need be no welfare system apart from that which exists inside the regiment, but I suggest that this is no longer applicable to the Army of today.

In the old days, when the British Army consisted largely of regiments, each regiment was able to build up its own tradition of welfare, but today a large proportion of the Army consists of hundreds of thousands of men who are not serving in regiments as we understand them. There are lines of communication troops; there are reinforcement groups, transportation units, training battalions, boys' training battalions; indeed, a whole host of units dealing with essential tasks, but far removed from regimental traditions as the Army in the best sense understands them.

That fact was realised by some most distinguished officers, of whom I would mention General Sir Bernard Paget and Field Marshal Montgomery, and who were largely responsible for the system of Army welfare which was set up during the late war. In my view, it has been a mistake for the War Office so to have reduced the provision of what I might call technical Army welfare and I would draw attention to paragraph 65 of the Report, which says that certain amenities are essential in relation to Army units of this kind. It refers to the provision of canteens, games rooms, reading rooms, workshop and hobby rooms, educational classrooms and suitable playing fields and other amenities.

I thought that about ten years ago, as a result of our experience during the war, that was all accepted by the War Office as a basic minimum for all units, and it is with some sense of shock and disappointment that one finds that in this type of boys' unit—where, above all, these things should have been provided—the Report says that most of these facilities were not available.

It may well be that, as a result of this case and of the Report, good will come out of evil, and that there will be a great increase in the attention paid to this kind of amenity. I know that some of the older officers think we were inclined, during the war, to make the Army too luxurious, but I do not think that that view was accepted by the greatest of all our Generals, who found that the provision of intelligent education services, proper amenities, decent accommodation and ample recreation was not incompatible with building up tough fighting soldiers, as was evidenced by the results achieved, especially in the final and decisive campaign in North-West Europe.

I have asked the Minister to give us an assurance that the more obvious and the more urgent of the Committee's recommendations will be implemented speedily. If that can be done, not only will it help to remove the rather unhappy reflections which have been passed upon military administration by this case, but thousands of boy soldiers and their parents will be deeply grateful, and, furthermore, I am sure that, as the result of raising the standards of these boys' battalions, the Army itself will be greatly advantaged.

We should be grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Norfolk, Central (Sir F. Medlicott) for raising this matter, and I personally want to express my gratitude to him for having let me know in advance the specific points he intended to raise. We should also be grateful to him for the valuable and constructive comments he has made.

As he has said, this tragic occurrence showed quite clearly that there was something very wrong in the boys' battalion in question—and beyond that, too. My right hon. Friend has made no attempt to shirk that issue. As soon as the trial of the boys who were tried in the civil court was over, a court of inquiry was convened and, as a result, a number of measures were taken immediately. That court of inquiry, and the very careful investigations which accompanied and followed it, showed first and foremost that what was at fault was not so much the individuals as the system.

The court of inquiry and the connected investigations produced no evidence of neglect of duty by the officers or N.C.Os. of the unit, nor did they produce anything that could be regarded as a case for disciplinary action. As my right hon. Friend has pointed out, the proceedings of courts of inquiry are privileged documents, and it will not be possible for us therefore to publish proceedings of the court in question. I personally regret that in this case, because I have no doubt that if the proceedings could be published, they would show hon. Members as clearly as they have shown my right hon. Friend and myself, who have read them carefully, that there was no case for disciplinary action against any of the officers or N.C.Os. concerned.

As I have said, immediate measures were taken to put things right after the court of inquiry into the boys' battalion concerned. First, the battalion was reorganised under a new commanding officer, increased supervision was instituted and the supervisory staff, which had until then been short, was also increased in scale, increased recreational activities were organised and increased recreational facilities provided. Some undesirable boys in the unit were discharged, and in future greater care will be taken in checking the references of boys admitted to the battalion. That meets one of the points which my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, Central mentioned.

In addition to the court of inquiry, my right hon. Friend instituted a general inquiry into the whole subject of boys' units. For that purpose he set up a committee which consisted of two distinguished educationalists, Mr. Hallward and Mr. Bruce Lockhart, and one distinguished soldier, Lieutenant-General Sir Euan Miller. They have produced an able and very frank report which, as hon. Members will be aware, has since been published as a White Paper, and my right hon. Friend, as he indicated in the foreword to that Paper, has accepted in principle the recommendations which the report contains. Hon. Members will be familiar with those recommendations and therefore I will not now recapitulate them. I will say only that, broadly, the main recommendation is that in future a boys' battalion should be less of a unit and more of a school and that its organisation, amenities, buildings and so on should be on the lines of a school and less on the lines of a military unit than hitherto.

To take only one example, one of the bad points of the old system was that when boys had finished their day's work at about 5.30, in the same way as trained soldiers, they were free to do anything they liked. It is clearly desirable that their whole day should be filled up in the way a boy's time is filled up at a school.

Another very important recommendation was that there should be changes in the selection and also in the terms of service of the staff of these units—that we should aim at getting the highest possible quality of officer and N.C.O. and also that, as far as possible, there should be continuity. Hon. Members will realise that those are two requirements which it is not always easy to combine. It is not always possible, for instance, to pin down a young officer of outstanding ability in one unit for a period of years.

To implement these recommendations a new branch of the Military Training Directorate is being set up under a senior officer who will devote his whole time to implementing the recommendations and, after that, to watching the problems of boys' units. To help him in that task there will be a standing committee of experts. That is the general picture. Those are the steps which have been taken so far to put things right.

Perhaps I might now deal briefly with some of the specific points made by my hon. and gallant Friend. He mentioned that it was unfortunate that the proceedings of the court of inquiry cannot be made public. In this case it would, in a way, make my task very much easier today if we could publish them. I think that they would satisfy hon. Members that no injustice has been done. The whole purpose of a court of inquiry is that there should be a private investigation at which those giving evidence can speak freely without fear of the consequences. For that reason these proceedings are privileged documents which cannot be published and cannot be used at a court-martial. Its name—a court of inquiry—is perhaps rather misleading, because it does not, technically speaking, constitute a judicial process. The change of the name to "board of inquiry" which is contemplated may help to clear up that misapprehension.

There was no evidence of neglect of duty and no case for disciplinary action against any individual members of the staff of the boys' battalion in question. There is now a new commanding officer, and the company sergeant major mentioned by my hon. Friend has been posted from the battalion. My hon. and gallant Friend mentioned organised bullying. The proceedings have not brought to light any evidence of organised, large-scale intimidation in this unit. The incident in question occurred on one day in one single platoon. My hon. and gallant Friend asked how it was possible for that to happen without anybody knowing about it. It happened on a Sunday, the only Sunday in the month when there was not a church parade.

During the day, both the company commander and the company sergeant major went into the hut. On both occasions nothing untoward was occurring and there were no sign that anything was wrong. It is a rule in boys' units that no grown up non-commissioned officer lives in the same hut as the boys. In future, as I have already said, there will be increased supervision in off-duty hours. An orderly officer and an N.C.O. will keep an eye on things during off-duty hours.

I have already indicated what steps are being taken to implement the recommendations of the Committee. A new branch is being set up together with a standing committee; we have already increased supervision and there is a new system of selection. It is proposed to transfer the boys' battalion from Plymouth to Weedon, where new barracks are already being built to accommodate it.

My hon. Friend suggested that there was a lack of welfare facilities in the unit at the time. That point needs clearing up. In fact, there were, perhaps not adequate welfare facilities, but they were considerable. They included a boys' club, a unit library, two gymnasia, two football clubs, and two hockey grounds and the usual Army Education Corps facilities for evening study, woodwork and other handicrafts. Since then, steps have been taken to improve these facilities, and there is no doubt that under the new system a much higher standard will prevail.

This tragic occurrence has served to bring to light a state of affairs far from satisfactory. My right hon. Friend took prompt steps to have the problem investigated thoroughly. As a result we are confident that good will come of evil; that we shall have a higher standard and that a proper degree of importance will be accorded to these extremely vital units.

On 27th February the Ministry of Defence published the booklet "Treatment of British Prisoners of War in Korea." I think it was vitally important that they should publish it, for several reasons. It was the first occasion that United Kingdom troops had actually been prisoners of war in Communist hands. It was the first occasion that a war had been waged for the principle of collective security in which United Nations troops had taken part. I think that it was the first occasion when our prisoners of war had been subjected to the kind of brain-washing, the political indoctrination and the mental and physical torture which are now well-known characteristics of the totalitarian and Communist regimes throughout the world.

The publication of the booklet was, therefore, no more than a Government duty to the 978 men and their relatives— indeed, to the whole nation, which gave support to the war as a test of the strength of the United Nations. I believe that the publication was necessary to call attention to another vital matter; the existence in this country of people who clearly have an allegiance to foreign power ideologies, people who are prepared to befriend and help the enemies of this country even in time of war.

There are powerful reasons why the Government should publish this document and just as powerful reasons for granting Government time in which to discuss it and its implications. It is nothing short of scandalous that a private Member should have to try to snatch half an hour on the last day before the Easter Recess in order to raise a matter so vital not only to the men involved, but to their families and to the nation as a whole.

The Questions that were asked in this House and the Press comment which followed the publication of the document were quite clearly evidence of a widespread public interest in the matter. Before I deal with the booklet itself, I propose to make one or two points which, though connected with it, are not connected with the specific matter contained therein.

The first point is one with which, I think, the public are not too well acquainted. It is that a note was apparently issued with the booklet which made it quite clear that it was not a Parliamentary publication. Therefore, it does not enjoy absolute privilege. I think I am right in saying that the booklet contains libellous statements about at least five British Commonwealth citizens whom I will mention by name in order to get them on the record.

They are Alan Winnington, of the "Daily Worker," Michael Shapiro, also of the "Daily Worker," Jack Gaster, a well-known London Communist lawyer, Mrs. Monica Felton. a sinister and repulsive kind of figure, Wilfred Burchett, an Australian by birth, who was. I think, the correspondent of the French Communist newspapers in Korea, "Le Soir" and "L'Humanité."

If this is not a privileged document, and if the statements contained in it about these people are libellous, can the Minister say whether the issuing of the booklet ranks as a challenge to those five people to sue the Ministry for libel, and would the Minister gladly accept such a challenge? If these people did not issue such a challenge, would that not be tantamount to admitting the accuracy of the charges made against them in the booklet?

I believe that at the moment Winning-ton and Shapiro are in Peking where, no doubt, they are receiving the rewards of their treacherous activities in the course of the Korean war. I do not know when they are likely to come back to the United Kingdom, if they ever do, but I should like to know whether action against them is contemplated by the Law Officers of the Crown.

My second point—again outside the pamphlet itself—is whether, in view of this new menace, the political indoctrination and the brain-washing to which our troops may again be subjected in any future war, though God forbid that there should be a future war, steps are now being taken to help our troops face a possible similar ordeal.

My third point is this. It is difficult for me to understand why no comparable document has been issued by any other member of the United Nations involved in the Korean war. Of course, I may be wrong in saying that no comparable document has been issued by any other country, but, as far as I know, that is so. Has the United States issued a similar document? As we all know, they suffered most in the Korean war. Has action been taken by the United Nations to collate the evidence that, quite clearly, came into their hands? If I might quote from his book, "The Cause of Peace," Trygve Lie says, at page 340:

"Early in the fighting deeply disturbing reports of shooting of prisoners and other atrocities began to come in."

Have these reports been published? If they have, would the Ministry of Defence make them available to hon. Members?

The contents of the booklet itself bear out in less vivid language what has already been written in books by the prisoners. In the last week or two I have read four such books. I have not time to quote them, but I shall mention them by name. There is "The Edge of the Sword" by Captain Anthony Farrar Hockley, D.S.O., M.C., the Adjutant of the Second Battalion of the Gloucester Regiment. He speaks of United States soldiers being shot in the back of their heads after having their hands tied behind their backs with telephone cable. He speaks also of the ice-box punishment—about being put into these little boxes. He quotes Jack Gaster, the London Communist lawyer, as saying:

"The food I have seen our men eating would make a British housewife's mouth water."

I do not think that the food in the Army anywhere, least of all when a man is a prisoner of war, would make any British housewife's mouth water. He also mentions Mrs. Felton and Alan Winnington. I think that the Ministry has been right in withholding the names of the prisoners though it has been asked to mention them, but many of them are mentioned by the Adjutant of the Gloucester Regiment.

There is the book by the Rev. S. J. Davies, M.B.E., M.A., C.F., "In Spite of Dungeons." He was the only survivor of four chaplains who were captives in Korea. He describes how the Red Cross were never allowed to serve the prisoners of war in the camps—again merely confirming what Trygvie Lie mentions in his book. He speaks about being put into one of these tiny cells 6 ft. by 4 ft., and mentions numerous prisoners who underwent those things—C.S.M. Morton, C.S.M. Gallagher, and Major Sam Weller. He describes how the Dean of Canterbury's book "I Appeal" was used to sap the prisoners' resistance. He speaks of tape-recorded conversations between Mrs. Monica Felton and United States Air Force officers, who were confessing to the use of germ warfare, being played back to prisoners.

There is, therefore, nothing in the pamphlet which has not been described much more vividly in books. There is "General Dean's Story." General Dean was a United States General who was three years in captivity. He was put in a cage 4 ft. by 4 ft. in which he could neither stand nor stretch. He endured 68 hours of continuous interrogation. He mentions Burchett and Winnington.

Lastly, there is the book by Philip Deane of the Observer"—"Captive in Korea." That describes the treatment that civilians got. He repeats how G.I.s were shot in the back of the neck and describes the vile treatment meted out to Captain Vyvyan Holt, the interned British Minister, his vice-consul Mr. George Blake, his pro-consul and others. He witnessed the cold-blooded shooting of Lieut. Cordus H. Thornton of the U.S. Army. Compared with these books the Ministry's pamphlet is a mild, dull, dusty, musty, cautious civil service document.

The sum total of it all is surely a most fearful story, and not the least horrifying feature of it is the ruthless, wicked, inhuman exploitation of the relatives of these lads in this country. The pamphlet quotes statements that were made by mothers whose lads were prisoners, from whom they had not heard except through the medium of the "Daily Worker." I should like to ask how these women were questioned. It must have been a most difficult and harrowing experience both for the women concerned and the people who questioned them.

I thought it my duty to raise this issue in the House, and I bitterly regret that the Government have not thought fit, in the interests of the nation as a whole, and particularly in the interests of the men who suffered so much and their relatives, to provide the time themselves. All I can say in my last minute is that I sincerely hope that everybody who values the British way of life and the free way of life will have learned the lessons that can be learned from this hellish tale.

Before I answer the specific questions put to me by the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton), may I start with a very brief glimpse of the background of the Ministry of Defence booklet which is the subject of this debate?

It became apparent, when the main batch of prisoners of war was released from Korea in September, 1953, that the men had been subjected to treatment which was unparalleled in our experience. A smaller batch of sick and wounded prisoners had been released earlier, in April, 1953, but, as the introduction to the booklet explains, the Chinese had been very careful to include in this earlier batch of released prisoners several "progressives," as they called them—men who had accepted Communist indoctrination and were favourably inclined to the Communist cause. Therefore, many men of this first batch, when interviewed, claimed that they had been very well treated, and it was not until the main batch was released in September, 1953, that the truth began to become clear.

All the prisoners released in September, 1953, were interviewed in Korea, before they were repatriated, by four Service officers sent out from the United Kingdom, and these four officers were assisted by a number of officers already serving in Korea. The object of these interviews was two-fold. First, we wanted to try to find out what had happened to a number of men who had been posted as missing and about whom we had had no further information, owing to the complete inadequacy of the Communist casualty returns. Secondly, we wanted to determine exactly the kind of treatment our prisoners had received in the camps. I would emphasise that the whole procedure at these interviews was informal. and that the men were encouraged to tell their stories in their own way.

On their return to England, these men were again interviewed, either in batches or individually. This was done to supplement the necessarily rather hurried interviews which had been possible in Korea, and also for the purpose of checking on any discrepancies which might have appeared between the stories of various individuals. Information was also obtained from captured enemy documents, enemy publications, photographic reconnaissance, and sources of that kind.

The reports of the interviews, and other material available to us, made it certain that our prisoners had been subjected to barbarous and methodical ill-treatment while they were in the camps with the sole object of forcing them to accept Communism. We thought that Parliament and the public should be fully informed about this situation, and it was for this reason that the Ministry of Defence issued this booklet. I am glad that the hon. Member started his speech by according a welcome to the booklet. I am sure that his sentiments will be echoed by hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Every statement in the booklet can be attributed to a particular ex-prisoner, and in most cases the statements are corroborated by other ex-prisoners. There has been some criticism because the specific sources of information were not quoted and names were not given. We felt that the men concerned would not want their names to be given. In fact, some returned prisoners were asked whether they wanted their names to be given to the Press when this booklet was published, and a very considerable number of them preferred, for quite understandable reasons, that this should not be done. That, to our minds, confirmed the rightness of our original decision.

The lessons to be learnt from the treatment of these prisoners by the Communists are now being carefully studied, with a view to modifying, if necessary, our instructions to Service men about their conduct if they are captured. The Dominion authorities are working closely with us in this investigation, and we are in touch with the United States authorities, who are themselves conducting an inquiry of their own. It is not possible to forecast the results of this investigation, and, indeed, it may even be against the public interest to publish the results.

The hon. Member asked why the Government did not give official time for debating this booklet. That is more a question for the Leader of the House than for me, but the Government were content to leave the Ministry of Defence booklet, with its objective presentation of the facts, to speak for itself. I have no doubt, however, that if the official Opposition had made representations to the Government through the usual channels for time to be given for a debate, they would certainly have been considered.

The hon. Member referred to the printed slip enclosed with the original booklet and asked whether it was a challenge to anyone, for example, to the Communists and fellow-travellers he mentioned in his speech, to sue the Ministry of Defence, which published the booklet. There was no intention, on the part of the Government, of trailing their coat deliberately in that way. On the other hand, the booklet was not a Parliamentary Paper for which absolute privilege was claimed. The Government left it open to any person who felt himself aggrieved by the statements in the booklet to go to the court in the ordinary way, if he so desired. The hon. Member asked whether other countries had published similar booklets. The answer to that is" No, they have not done so."

As to a campaign against relatives, there was no interviewing of relatives by Service authorities. The campaign against relatives was brought to the notice of Service Departments by S.S.A.F.A. and similar organisations. Their representatives had been consulted by relatives who had been approached by Communist and Communist-sponsored organisations, or who had been sent Communist propaganda, direct in some cases from Peking.

Some of the relatives concerned wrote to the War Office, complaining about the approach of Communist organisations and forwarding copies of the propaganda which they had received. They also provided us quite voluntarily with information about the manner in which they had been approached, and—