ECONOMIC SITUATION

§ Mr. Churchill (Woodford)

I beg to move, in line 2, to leave out from "1947" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof: and, while recognising the ever increasing gravity of the economic crisis and willing to 1333 give its support to any practical measures to meet it, regrets that the full facts of the situation have for so long been withheld from the country; and has no confidence in a Government whose actions hitherto have served only to aggravate the national difficulties and whose proposals for the future are either inadequate or injurious. The problems which confronted the British nation on the morrow of their victory required the strength of a united people to solve and overcome. Instead of that, the Socialist Government, in their hour of unexpected success, set themselves to establish the rule of a party, and of a sect within a party. Having even then, as my right hon. Friend the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson) reminded us, polled only 37 per cent. of the total electorate, they nevertheless deemed it their mission to impose their particular ideological formulas and theories upon all the rest of their fellow countrymen, regardless of the peril in which we all stood, regardless of the urgency of the work to be done, most of all regardless of the comradeship by which alone we had survived the war.

This was a crime against the British State and people, the consequences of which have hampered our recovery, darkened our future and now endanger our very life. In our immense administrative difficulty, the Prime Minister and his colleagues should have concentrated upon their immediate practical tasks, and left the fulfilment of party ambition and the satisfaction of party appetites, at least until we, and the rest of the world with us, stood on firmer and safer ground. Before they nationalised our industries they should have nationalised themselves. They should have set country before party, and shown that they were Britons first, and Socialists only second. They should have set the day-to-day well-being of the whole mass of the nation before and above the gratification of party passions. In this they would have found an honourable and worthy mission, from which lasting honour for themselves and their party might have been reached.

On the contrary, mouthing slogans of envy, hatred and malice, they have spread class warfare throughout the land and all sections of society, and they have divided this nation, in its hour of serious need, as it has never been divided, in a different way from that in which it has ever been divided, in the many party 1334 conflicts I have witnessed in the past. In less than two years our country, under their control, has fallen from its proud and glorious position in the world, to the plight in which it lies this afternoon, and with even more alarming prospects opening upon us in the future. That is their offence, from which we shall suffer much, and with the guilt and discredit of which their name and the doctrines of their party will long be identified in British homes.

For our part, when this Government first took office, although profoundly distressed by the vote of the electorate—[Laughter]—no one more than me—we immediately offered any services which we could render to the national cause, not only at home, but in the United States. I, and my leading colleagues did our utmost, against a good many of our friends here, in our party, to help the Government to obtain the American loan of £1,000 million, in spite of the disadvantageous conditions under which it was offered. I used such personal influence as I had in the United States, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer knows, to clear away American misunderstandings, so far as it is in the power of any private citizen to do any such thing. On every occasion hitherto, my colleagues and I have emphasised the importance of national savings, and we shall continue to do so, but I have an increasing feeling, in view of inflation, that at any rate the smallest class of savings might be linked to some permanent standard of values. We have voted with the Government in everything they have done for the sake of our country, but what has been the return? An aggressive party attack has been made upon us.

I am sorry to see, from the newspapers, though I am glad I was not here, that the Minister of Defence distinguished himself by showing that aggressive spirit last night. An unbroken stream of scorn and hatred has been poured out upon us, not only by Government speakers in all parts of the country, but from the official Government newspaper, the "Daily Herald." One would have thought that the ten million people, who voted for us, or with us, at the Election, were hardly fit to live in the land of their birth, although most of them were folks who had given a lot for the national victory.

The first and the gravest injury which our country has sustained is psychological. 1335 It is the injury to the spirit. I was the Prime Minister responsible, as head of the Government, for the present crushing weight of direct taxation including the almost confiscatory taxation of wealth. All this was done with a great Conservative majority by a Prime Minister of the Conservative Party and by a Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Conservative Party. I was also responsible, as head of the Government, for the controls and regulations of all kinds that were in force at the end of the war. We must not forget that afternoon in May, 1940—I was not here; I had to go to Paris—when the enormous Tory majorities in both Houses of Parliament voted into the hands of the Government, for the sake of our country's survival, practically all the rights of property and, more precious still, of liberty on which what we have called civilisation is built. That ought not to be forgotten when hon. Members opposite mock at us as exploiters, rack renters and profiteers. It ought not to be forgotten, nor grinned at, that Conservative majorities in both Houses of Parliament, in one single afternoon, offered all they had and all that they were worth.

Britain saved herself at that time. Perhaps it may be argued, in the light of history, that she saved the world. But what is so particularly odious and mean, and what has caused this deep schism in our island life, is that this sacrifice so nobly made for victory—not only for our own survival and self-preservation but for the victory of the world cause of freedom—should be used and exploited for party purposes and for the institution of a system of Socialism abhorrent to the mass of the nation, destructive of the free life we have known here so long, and paralysing to our native enterprise and energy. Advantage has been taken of the generous impulses of the nation and they have been used for the opposite purpose for which they were given. Rarely has there been such a distortion of trust or breach of ordinary British fair play. It is that malversation of wartime sacrifices, that "fraud on the power" which has riven the nation in twain and rendered it incapable, while the abuse continues, of overcoming and surmounting its many problems and difficulties.

I have hitherto dealt with what I call the psychological aspect. I now come to the material things by which we live—a 1336 lower level, but still essential for the continuance of existence. I will first deal with bread and coal. I shall be told, "You complained of too much regulation. You, Mr. Churchill, complained of too much regulation about bread, and you also complained of too little regulation about coal. Where do you stand upon control of these two fundamental supplies?" It may be asked—it is a perfectly fair question and I give hon. Members opposite an opportunity to cheer it—" Have you any central theme of thought in these matters, or are you merely taking points off a harassed Government as difficulties arise?" I will answer that question as bluntly as I have put it, but it will take a little while. There was no need for a bread shortage and there was no need for the breakdown in coal. I assert that the shortages which have caused us so much trouble and misfortune, both in bread and coal, are merely marginal and could have been provided against by reasonable foresight and prudence.

Of course, now that the crisis has come, all kinds of emergency measures may be necessary, but if we look back to a year ago, it would have been possible though not easy—many things are not easy nowadays—to maintain sufficient supplies to avoid the disasters which have come upon us. First, take bread. The whole of this process of costly and vexatious rationing, to which even in the crisis of the U-boat war we never had to resort, has only saved so far 290,000 tons of wheat out of a total consumption of perhaps 2,500,000 tons since bread rationing began. Why, then, did Sir Ben Smith give away 200,000 tons of our agreed allocation in April, 1946? Why did the Lord President, in May, waive our claims to another 250,000 tons of foreign wheat which His Majesty's Government had been convinced, and the Food Ministry had been convinced, our people needed? Here were 450,000 tons that we could have had for our under-nourished people which were whistled down the wind last year for reasons which have never been properly explained to Parliament.

Compassion, charity and generosity are noble virtues, but the Government should be just before they are generous. There is no virtue or wisdom in so far undermining the physical strength of our population that we ourselves have to join the ranks of those who were broken by the war and cease to have the power to help 1337 the world even to make the British wheels go round. There are international bodies of great power and force nowadays, and undoubtedly they will continue. We do not get very well treated on these international bodies, anyhow. We do not seem to be able to stand up for ourselves, for our own rights and our needs. Of course, when the new British Food Minister says that we are on the whole better nourished than ever before, not much sympathy can be expected from international bodies dealing with a number of countries who are not at all backward in making their claims and dilating upon their woes. Let me repeat what the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is reported to have said the other day: Already in this country the people are probably enjoying the highest standard of living in the world. We are not even suffering from as many shortages as people would imagine. What chance have we got before these international committees of making our case for the hard-working people of this island, when it is given away beforehand by the Minister? I affirm here this afternoon that the British people today are under-nourished. They are less well fed—[Interruption.] I have never heard much anger expressed, in my long experience, from the Left Wing and Radical quarters about anything which got more food to the people. It has always been a point they championed. But now the Government's Socialist policy comes first and the welfare of the people comes second. I say that our people are less well fed in this victorious but precariously balanced island, with its magnificent but at the same time delicate and ramshackle structure of wealth producing apparatus, than are the populations of Holland, Belgium and Denmark. They are three countries which have just emerged from long years of Prussian German Nazi rule.

I say there was no need for bread rationing with all its inconveniences and the additions to our clerical staffs and paper forms so dear to the hearts of the party opposite. I say there was no need for all this inconvenience if we had not needlessly and wrongfully given up the basic share to which our condition entitled us, which our ships could carry, and which our money, albeit borrowed, could last year and this year at any rate buy.

I challenge the Government directly and in detail, on this food issue. We are fre- 1338 quently informed that 2,400 calories is the minimum daily amount to maintain a human being in a state of health. It was only a few weeks ago that we were told in this House by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food—who is in her place and whose authoritarian demeanour would inspire all, if her agreeable personality did not somewhat discourage it—that our rations gave us less than 1,400 calories, and that from food bought on points, another 200 calories could be derived, 1,600 calories in all. Yet the Chancellor of the Duchy—he has gone—I did not mean to knock him out so quickly. The Chancellor of the Duchy was challenged because the Germans only got, as was said, 1,550 calories. He explained that this was merely the basic ration, and that two-thirds of the Germans were getting rations varying from 2,550 calories to 3,990 calories. I hope it is true. I would not begrudge anybody the food they can get, but how do the statements correspond with the arguments which are used to make us content with the diet which, without having committed great crimes in the world, our nation has now to receive?

We are told, of course, that our people get another 1,300 calories from foods outside the rationed types. Well, I should like to know where. To get 1,300 calories each, persons would have to eat 5 lb. of potatoes or 8 lb. of cabbage every day, and which of us, I should like to know, except perhaps the President of the Board of Trade, would do that even if we could buy such quantities of vegetables and could afford to pay the price which is being charged for them? I am quite prepared to take my share of whatever the British nation subjects itself to, but not necessarily to contemplate receiving with composure the consequences of the mismanagement of the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. I repeat that the British people are under-nourished today. This lethargy in work and falling-off in individual output to which attention has been drawn from every quarter of the House, is only partly due to Socialist teachings. It is mainly due to a shortfall in the necessary calories in respect especially of the heavy manual workers. All this is quite apart from the dreary, dull monotony of diet which directly affects incentive. Let us put up a fight for John Bull's food anyhow—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] He will make the sacrifices if he is called 1339 upon to do so, but to run him down as low as this, is a scandal and a shame.

In the whole business of purchasing food and other commodities the State, that is to say the Government officials and Ministers involved, have already shown a lack of foresight and judgment which plainly reveals their incapacity as compared with private traders competing with one another, animated by the profit motive, and corrected constantly by the fear of loss and by the continual elimination of the inefficient. That is a general principle. I say that the wanton and partisan—this is only an incident, but I cannot omit it here—destruction of the Liverpool Cotton Exchange will be for ever held against the distinguished record of the President of the Board of Trade as an act of folly and of pedantry, amounting to little less than bad citizenship.

Now I turn from bread to coal—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where is the Minister?"] I am sorry that the Minister of Fuel and Power is not here. I intend to devote an important section of argument to the matter for which he is responsible. I cannot, however, consider that the Business of the House should be frustrated by the evidently calculated absence of the Minister concerned in any particular matter which it is necessary to raise. I will address myself to the Prime Minister as far as possible in this matter.

Here in the case of coal the argument is much clearer than in that of bread. The saving produced by all this stoppage of industry, with its measureless reactions upon our means of earning our livelihood in future years, and averting financial catastrophe, has been very small. What does it amount to? The only figure we had was given to us by the Prime Minster. He said there was a saving of 550,000 tons at the electrical generating stations. That is much less than a single day's output of the mines. How much should I add for the other direct saving: two, three, four days' output? The Government have not told us. Perhaps I should say it is four days—five at the very most. That is all we have saved by the whole of the inconveniences and hardship inflicted on the domestic consumer and the stoppage of industry, leading, mind you, to a rise in unemployment only just short of the previous high peak of unemployment, the last time a Socialist Government was in office in 1930.

1340 It is no pleasure to me to hit the Minister of Fuel and Power now that he is down—I do not know whether he is out or not, but he is certainly not here. I must, however, mark his total lack of foresight. The misleading statements which he made repeatedly are so notorious that I will not trouble the House by quoting them, though I have them here. They have certainly robbed him—I say this seriously to the Prime Minister—of the credence and confidence of the public. Everyone knows he is a very straight, honourable man in private life, but no one will believe his statements about the coal situation in future, and no statement that he makes will receive the slightest attention. It is a matter which certainly should be considered, and which perhaps explains his absence from our Debate this afternoon. He failed to persuade the Cabinet in good time or else they failed to persuade him—I cannot tell, naturally—but he failed to persuade the Cabinet of the calamities which would come upon us, if we ran short of the few odd millions of marginal coal which should be kept as a sacred reserve, as what is called the distributional minimum or, in the "Digest", distributive stock.

There were produced in the year 1946 189 million tons of coal. If we had had only 4 million or 5 million tons more, we could have got through without this disaster, and with something in hand. Five million tons extra, and we should have come through this hard, hazardous winter without a breakdown. The plainest warnings were given. It is remarkable, looking back, how often the figure of 5 million tons of coal was mentioned. Belatedly, the Minister of Fuel and Power himself realised it— What stands between us and success this winter? he asked on 26th September of last year. A matter of 5,000,000 tons of coal. On that coal, he said, depended the salvation of this country. And Mr. Horner—Comrade Horner—speaking at a coal production conference at Edinburgh on 6th October, said: For each 5 million tons of coal of which the industry might be short, there will be a consequential loss of employment to more than 1,000,000 people. There was certainly not any lack of warning from that quarter. Five million tons of coal. Why, the Government allowed its Minister of Fuel or its President of the 1341 Board of Trade to export 9 million tons, no doubt with very good reason, in this same war. No doubt the reasons were good but, nevertheless, 9 million tons of coal were exported in bunkering or otherwise during the year, and 5 of these 9 millions kept at home, or 5 millions imported in good time, would have saved us from a breakdown in the whole of our productive industry which will cost us directly tens of millions and, indirectly, hundreds of millions in the productive energies of our people.

It is no new topic. We watched the coal position vigilantly every year of the war. We took the necessary difficult decisions each year in good time. In January or February you must always make sure that you will be able, by the winter, to build up your stocks to the normal 18 million tons of coal or thereabouts, so that you do not drop below the distributional minimum on account of any extra winter consumption. All through the war, we succeeded in keeping this reserve intact. The President of the Board of Trade stated in his comprehensive speech two days ago that during the war we had steadily reduced our stocks. That is quite untrue.

§ The President of the Board of Trade (Sir Stafford Cripps)

indicated dissent.

§ Mr. Churchill

It is no good the right hon. and learned Gentleman shaking his head; he cannot alter his own "Statistical Digest," or what he calls his own "Statistical Digest," by shaking his head. Our so-called distributive stocks, parcelled out throughout the whole country for the daily consumption, in the winter of 1944, were larger than those in 1939. In the intervening years between 1939 and 1944 they were larger still. Why, then, did he say to the House that we had eaten into, or worn down, our reserve of coal during the war? It is quite inaccurate. The right hon. and learned Gentleman two days ago, with a great deal of emphasis, lifted up this book which I hold in my hand, and charged hon. Members that they had probably never read it or would not recognise it. He took it as a book for which he should have the credit—"Socialism gets things done"—as if he had published this book,' brought it out. Why, this very return, this "Digest," was brought into being at my wish, in the autumn of 1940, but, of course, in the war the figures could not be published. 1342 What the right hon. and learned Gentleman has done is to claim the parentage and the credit—if credit there be for such an obvious act, as to make it public.

However, while he has made it public, and lectured hon. Members of this House on not studying it with more attention, there are some facts in it which have at any rate escaped his omniscient eye. The first one is that there was no inroading of stocks under all the cruel, hard necessities of the war. The figures can be found on page 20. For the first time, in the dawn of 1945, the National Government of those days saw the red light. We have a record of what happened at the turn of that year. The usual coal scrutiny was made, as it ought to be made, by the responsible Ministers at the head of the Government, 10 months before the event. It was reported to me that we should have in April—April is the key month, because then we turn from the winter expenditure to the summer scale in the coal year—only 10 million tons instead of the normal 12 million tons which we had always considered the minimum, and therefore it would be difficult to build up to more than 16 million tons by the end of October. Look at that—January, 1945. Those were very rough days. The Von Rundstedt offensive which had been launched in the Ardennes was still in progress. We were preparing to cross the Rhine. Everything was being strained for that. Nevertheless, at that moment, rather than fall below the minimum precautionary coal reserve, I sent a minute, being well advised, to the Minister of Fuel and Power—my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd-George), the bearer of a famous name—stopping all further commitments to export coal, even to the Armies, without my express permission.

It is a very serious thing to run short of coal in this island when a matter of five million tons can save it. It can ruin the whole of one's war making capacity. What happened after I left office I do not know. By the winter of 1945 the Socialist Government had only built up our distributive stock to 13.8 million tons. Fortunately for them, industry was changing over and had not got fully into its stride. The winter was mild, so we got through to the spring without any major dislocation. That was a period for which we were jointly responsible. There was 1343 the National Government, followed by the Conservative Government at the beginning, and the right hon. Gentlemen opposite at the end. What happened then? In April, 1946, the so-called distributive stocks were down to less than seven million tons—smaller than they had ever been in this century. Surely, then the danger must have been glaring.

The National Government had taken extraordinary measures when our stocks dropped to 10 million tons; it was a very strong measure to check the supply of fuel to the Army when we were pushing a great operation. It is true we can always rely on them having a little up their sleeves. The quartermaster spirit is not lacking in the ranks of the British Army, but still the position was very serious. We took these extraordinary measures when the stocks dropped to 10 million tons. The present Government, however, who have been so busy with so many important intellectual exercises, do not seem to have taken any care, although the stocks dropped to 7 million tons. For a year it must have been obvious that, without exceptional measures, we should never reach the desired 18 million tons by the autumn. That was the time when the Government should have realised what impended. That is the time when they should have taken steps to meet the otherwise inevitable catastrophe—a catastrophe which would have happened, whatever the weather. The weather has added to the misery and discomfort of all our people, but it has not altered the march of economic events in a decisive fashion.

Why did not the Government do anything? I ask the Prime Minister to let us know tonight. We were not at war then. All our enemies were conquered. The seas were opened. I am told there is more tonnage afloat now than there ever has been. A little ordinary forethought and a little planning would have made sure that the necessary minimum of stocks in reserve was not lacking. I cannot understand the answer to this question. Why did the Government not buy more coal? If they could not get it in any other way, why did they not buy it? I am assured that it could have been bought. Five million tons would have done it, and more than done it. It might have cost £8 million or £9 million, but if we did not want it, we could have sold it again. We 1344 should have wanted it as it turned out, and we should not have sold it again.

Here are these gentlemen who are all so clever and eager to make an earthly Paradise, where all the work does itself, where all we have to do is to soak the rich—if any can be found—and hire more officials for control, if there are any unemployed. They had forgotten this elementary precaution. They were so busy planning Utopia, so ardent to score off their party opponents, that they forgot their duty, they gave away our bread, and forgot our coal. If 5 million tons of coal had been bought in the last 12 months, in America or South Africa, it would not have stopped this hard winter but, at least, we would have had the means to come through it without a collapse. It is not a very good advertisement for Socialist planning. In fact, a frightful injury, easily avoidable, has been inflicted upon the wage-earning masses and the unhappy middle class, which will lead to worse privation in the future. That is one of the justifications for the Amendment which I am moving.

Before I leave the subject of coal, there is one other fact upon which I must correct the President of the Board of Trade. On Monday I asked whether the rise in the consumption of electricity had not been offset by the corresponding reduction in the domestic consumption of coal. The right hon. and learned Gentleman's answer was: No, Sir. The right hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. There has not been a corresponding reduction at all."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1947; Vol. 434, c. 981.] According to this "Statistical Digest," of which we share the parentage, in 1938, the last prewar year, the domestic consumers got 45,500,000 tons of coal. In 1946, they got only 31 million tons of coal—a drop of nearly a third. In the same period the consumption of coal for electricity works increased by about 11 million tons, from 15 million to 26 million tons. But of this, as the Secretary of State for the Dominions informed us in another place, only about one-third is to be reckoned against the domestic consumer. Thus, whereas the domestic consumer was cut by 14,500,000 tons of coal, and as his or her—the housewives come into this—increased use of electricity corresponded to less than 4 million tons, there was a net reduction of 10 million tons in 1946 as compared with 1938. 1345 which is the last prewar year. The population has not diminished. The ordinary people still feel the difference between heat and cold. They still have to use fuel sometimes to cook their dinner. Why, then, should there be this severe reduction in the supply of coal? I venture to think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman should study more carefully than he evidently has found time to do, with so much on his hands, this Digest which he commended so ceremoniously to us the other day.

So much for bread and coal. I think I have answered that question—that the Government could have avoided both these shortages by taking reasonable precautions, and that any other Government which has ever sat on the benches opposite would, in the normal working of its affairs, have had the foresight to take these quite manageable measures in good time and not lead us where we are today.

I must say a word about housing. I am sorry that the Minister of Health is not here, and still more sorry for the cause. We are glad to know he is improving in health. We shall all be very glad to have him hack here, in order to bring home to him the position in which we stand. The destruction wrought by the enemy by the bombing of our homes raised the building and repair of our houses to the very first urgency after food and fuel. In nearly two years, in spite of all the regulations, penalties and paper forms, we built fewer permanent houses than were built every two months under private enterprise and Tory government before the war. Remarkable. In those two years, when it was really Operation No. I, fewer permanent houses were built than were built in the ordinary course of affairs, under private enterprise and a Tory Government before the war. [HON. MEMBERS: What about after the last war?"] I thought it was coming. We shall, no doubt, be reminded of Dr. Addison, now Lord Addison, K.G. We must, no doubt, be reminded of his failure after the previous war. It is quite true that he was a great failure; and he was dismissed by Mr. Lloyd George, with lively Labour approbation. It is no part o my duty to defend Lord Addison today. But the need of rehousing then, was not comparable with what it is at the present time, because the cessation of building was not so complete and prolonged, and millions of houses had not been damaged 1346 or destroyed by bombing. Besides, everyone should live and learn.

We improved a lot of things in the war which has just finished, from the mistakes made in the 1914–18 war. Certainly we ought to have rectified a lot of the mistakes made in the last peace, in the one which has now come to us. I am sure it would have been possible, with energy, ingenuity and good will, for the Minister responsible to set in motion again the vast, flexible, complete system of house building, both by private enterprise and by local authorities, which in the years before the recent war was producing houses of a good kind for letting or sale, at a rate four times as rapid as that of which the Government can boast today, after two years of peace and nearly 20 months of office. Socialist propaganda and trade union prejudice have attained a remarkable result in Lord Quibell's case. Here was a Socialist peer, a former and much respected colleague of ours, who tried to stimulate house building by a system of bonuses for the builders, through the number of bricks laid per hour. The builders liked this system, and responded to it. Up went the production rate. Well, we all know what happened to Lord Quibell's scheme. And this is typical of what is happening all over the country.

I turn to the national expenditure of money and manpower. I will mention only a certain number of items which might demand the attention of the House of Commons. First of all, instead of leaving the Germans to manage their own affairs and helping them as much as we could, as Christian men, while stopping rearmament, we are spending £20 million a year on trying to solve their problems when we cannot solve our own, in trying to teach them all to hate the Nazis and only succeeding in teaching them to hate us. Then there is Palestine: £82 million since the Socialist Government came into power squandered in Palestine, and 100,000 Englishmen now kept away from their homes and work, for the sake of a senseless, squalid war with the Jews in order to give Palestine to the Arabs, or God knows who. "Scuttle," everywhere, is the order of the day—Egypt, India, Burma. One thing at all costs we must preserve: the right to get ourselves world-mocked and world-hated over Palestine, at a cost of £82 million. Then there is all this silliness, amounting almost to lunacy, about the spending of the American loan. 1347 I must say, I thought it was to be used to re-equip our factories and plants, and to give us the essential food while we got on our feet again. But apparently far less than one-tenth—I am not going into smaller fractions—was spent on re-equipment and all the rest is subject to further decision.

Then there is the story about the dried eggs. Half the foreign exchange spent on dried eggs last year, if devoted to bringing in maize, would have given twice as much real nourishment to the British people, and there would have been the chickens as well. But no. The maize must go to the delightful people in Yugoslavia and Albania, who murdered 44 of our sailors a few weeks ago. Indeed, some of it may have gone to the Poles and Czechs who, I understand, are offering to export eggs and poultry to us. Then there are the Poles in this country. I would have had them all parked out suitably in Germany, far from the Russian or Polish lines, within six months of the end of the German war. It never occurred to me that anything else but that would have been done. Now they are with us here, eating I am told, in many cases, better rations than we are allowed to have ourselves. I am sorry for these men; they are brave men who have defended their country's cause. But presently the Government will have a bitter quarrel with them, a quarrel which has begun already. Surely, it would have been wiser, in principle at any rate, to have 180,000 Poles in Germany and 180,000 more Englishmen at home. Then, of course, we are told it might have offended Russia. His Majesty's Government have been very successful in not offending Russia. Perhaps they will allow me to offer my congratulations on that.

At the present time we have the pleasure of being administered by 460,000 more civil servants—double the size of the prewar Armv—than we had before the war began, at a cost calculated at £150 million a year. The Socialist ideal is to reduce us to one vast Wormwood Scrubbery. I do not wish to exaggerate it, because it is quite true that at Wormwood Scrubbs there is only one official to every four prisoners, whereas up to the present we have the advantage of only one official to look after every eight wage earners or producers. There is nothing like getting the facts accurately. I am looking at the expenditure of the year. I hope the 1348 Chancellor of the Exchequer will be following this discussion, for I am sure he cannot be entirely blind to some of the tendencies which I am indicating.

We come now to the Minister of Defence. As I say, I was glad not to have heard his quite unexpected performance yesterday. I have a regard for him, and I also think that a Minister of Defence should stand a little aloof from party and Parliamentary disputes. [HON. MEMBERS: Why?] Because he is supposed to run the Services, in which all parties take an interest from one point of view or another. Of course, I doubt whether he has improved his prestige and authority by the exhibition he made of himself last night.

I am bound to say, I hope the Service Estimates will be examined by the House with great care. Quite apart from the fighting strengths which have to be maintained—which I am not arguing today—I fear a very great degree of non-effective padding has been introduced into all three Services under a lax and incompetent political control. I should like to know, as the result of a searching inquiry, whether, for instance, in the Navy there is not a much smaller proportion of men afloat to men ashore, or of men afloat to the money we pay, than has ever been known before. I should like to see some figures on that. I should like to know whether, in the case of the Air Force, there is not an ever-increasing ground-staff compared with those who fly; and in the case of the Army, whether the proportion of fighting men—which is, after all, the end and object of military forces—is not getting continually smaller. It is the old story I have often told of the teeth and the tail. At the moment, I believe, the teeth are falling out and the tail is growing ever longer and fatter. Surely, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the House of Commons as a whole should take some interest in this aspect.

I suspect, moreover, that the military, naval, and the Air Force chiefs, for whom I have the greatest regard, are not sufficiently controlled in these financial aspects by the present Government. The control by Parliamentary Ministers of the Services is more important in time of peace than in time of war, when military views necessarily predominate. We have weak or absentee Ministers in all three Service Departments. All three heads have been 1349 changed in a year. There are new Ministers now. There is a new Minister of Defence, if he would not absorb himself entirely in politics. Nevertheless, it is the duty of the House of Commons to make sure that strict Parliamentary and financial control should prevent waste, and overcharge to the public. It is doubly important now to reduce redundant noneffectives—quite apart from strategic issues—when so many of our troops are abroad and, consequently, affect our limited foreign exchange.

There are two great topics with which I ought, certainly, to deal—agriculture and finance; but' I cannot trespass too long upon the indulgence of the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Go on."] The first of these topics was dealt with last night by my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler); and we shall explore, or ask to be allowed to explore, most thoroughly in the near future, the very grave situation in home-grown foods, and future plans for growing them. As to finance, I shall follow the example of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and reserve what I have to say on that dominating subject until the Budget, which is now not far distant.

The French have a saying, "Drive Nature away, and she will return at the gallop." Destroy the free market, and you create a black market; you overwhelm the people with laws and regulations, and you induce a general disrespect of law; you guillotine legislation in the House of Commons, and pass masses of Orders in Council. You may decree that a builder who builds a house without a licence is liable to seven years' penal servitude, but you will find that juries will not convict him. You may try to destroy wealth, and find that all you have done is to increase poverty. In their class warfare, the Government have no right to appeal to the spirit of Dunkirk.

We were all touched and deeply moved at the gifts made by Australia and New Zealand in reducing their sterling balances by.£30 million or £40 million for the sake of the dear old Motherland, now in the mess and muddle into which she seems to them to have been thrown. But it was unpleasant to feel that this aid from our children from across the ocean was little more than half of the money racketed away by the postwar Army in Germany—£58 million in what the Secretary of State for War complacently called a "merry 1350 game" with N.A.A.F.I. cigarettes, marks and sterling. That is the simplest test, and to some extent the measure, of the demoralisation which "Socialism in our own time," for all the honourable wishes and intentions of its votaries, and for all their Pharisaical sneers at an honest profit motive—that is the measure of the kind of degeneration it has brought upon our decent people.

Are there not other needless squanderings and leakages of our life's strength? Is it true that, throughout this winter, nearly one-third of the total capacity of the electric generating production industry has been engaged on export orders? Is it wise, when our whole export programme is cramped through the shortage of generating equipment and of coal, that we should try to boost the export figures in this way? What is the truth about the export of this electric generating equipment and mining machinery at this time above all others? What was the quantity of this vital apparatus exported last year? What was its value? Where did it go? And what did we receive in exchange? The President of the Board of Trade told us that it was particularly for Russia. What then did we receive in exchange? [Interruption.] I took the trouble to look it up.

§ Sir S. Cripps

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me? I said that in the early stages during the war, we were having to manufacture a lot for Russia.

§ Mr. Churchill

None went to Russia last year? Is that so?

§ Mr. Churchill

I shall, then, not press my inquiry. But a very proper inquiry to make is, what did we get back in return for what was sent? Or when are we going to get it back? Are we going to get back any of the railway sleepers of which Russia has so many? The right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the early days of the war. Have we been repaid anything, or have we given it?

§ Sir S. Cripps

The right hon. Gentleman asks questions about current manufacture. That is being paid for in the ordinary way. He knows all about these things.

§ Mr. Churchill

What I feel is this—and I shall look at it from this point and that point, and hon. Members ought to do the 1351 same. The 45 million who live in these islands cannot bear everything on their threadbare shoulders. None gave so freely from the beginning to the end of the war as we did. Now, in our exhaustion, we cannot be blood donors to every part of the world. Surely, there ought to be some sense of national self-preservation in the hearts of our rulers.

I read with interest, and not without surprise, paragraph 9 of the White Paper. The House, no doubt, has it in mind. The point that struck me was this: Our methods of economic planning must have regard to our special economic conditions. Our present industrial system is the result of well over a century's steady growth, and is of a very complex nature. The decisions which determine production are dispersed among thousands of organisations and individuals. The public is accustomed to a wide range of choice and quality in what it buys. Above all, our national existence depends upon imports, which means that the goods we export in return must compete with the rest of the world in price, quality and design, and that our industry must adapt itself rapidly to changes in world markets. The Leader of the Liberal Party must have been very pleased at this. It carries us back to the old days of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. It carries us back to the periods when the laws of supply and demand had some validity, and when the qualities of free enterprise, hard work, thrift, contrivance, and good housekeeping were said to be the sources of national wealth. This paragraph 9 of the Government White Paper might have been conceived by Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Bright. It might have been in the clear-cut language of Herbert Henry Asquith, in the days when the calm lamp of Liberal wisdom shed its refulgent gleam upon a happier world. I wonder who was the civil servant who wrote this for his Socialist masters. Out of the 2,000,000 we have at present, he should be the last one to be sacked. What is the meaning of this death-bed confession? It is the recognition that the life of this island people of 47 million cannot be maintained under the Socialist system. It is a confession that not only have we been deeply injured by all the Government's neglects and mismanagement of our ordinary daily affairs, but that the Socialist dream or the Socialist nightmare—which you will—for which so much of our great prosperity has been sacrificed, is false and foolish, and that it would not enable our present num- 1352 hers of people to inhabit this island or maintain the standard of life to which we have hitherto attained. Why, then, with a situation so complex, throw a series of nationalising spanners into this indispensable system, which is the "steady growth of well over a century"? Why do it wantonly at a time when external facts are so adverse, and all the resources so scarce?

Let me put this case in more general terms. In most cases, management by private enterprise is not only more efficient, but far less costly to the wage-earners, than management by the huge official staffs now quartered upon the producers. Let every man now ask himself this: Is it the interest of the wage-earners to serve an all-powerful employer—the State—or to deal with private employers, who, though more efficient in business, are in a far weaker position as masters? Is it the interest of the housewife to queue up before officials at public distribution centres, as Socialism logically involves, or to go as a customer to a private shopkeeper, whose livelihood depends on giving good and friendly service to his customers? Of course, the State must have its plan and its policy. The first object of this plan should be to liberate and encourage the natural, native energies, genius and contrivance of our race, which, by a prodigy, have built up this vast population in our small island, and built up a standard of living which, before the war, was the envy of every country in Europe. The first object, then, is to liberate these energies; the second stage is to guide and aid all the forces that these native energies generate into the right channels. The Government have begun the wrong way round. They have started with control for control's sake on the theory of levelling down to the weakest and least productive types, and thus they have cramped and fettered the life-thrust of British society. I have assembled and cited all these examples of the foolish misdeeds of the Government as an explanation and justification of why we have no confidence in them, and why we regard their continuance in office as a growing growing national disaster.

If I turn to the future, it is only for a moment. In considering the future, one is on much less certain ground, first of all, because we do not know all the facts, and it is foolish to prophesy unless they 1353 are known, and, secondly, because it is always difficult to strike the true note between giving a necessary warning and spreading despondency and alarm. I do not wish to emphasise unduly the various degrees and forms in which the crisis will present itself to us in the next 12 months. In the White Paper, the Government have certainly gone a long way in indicating some of our principal dangers and have not shrunk from confessing that much of what they have been teaching all these years to the wage-earning masses is false, or that the great hopes they encouraged and the promises they made at the General Election are falser still.

One thing appears to me to be perfectly clear. The Government cannot save the country and carry on the class warfare and a Socialist programme of nationalisation at the same time. They must choose between the two. Either they must go down in a measureless crash with their party flags nailed stoutly to the mast, and carry our country down too, or they must make an effort by dropping their Socialist legislation, by freeing industry and enterprise from the trammels in which they have entangled them, and by restoring, at the earliest date, the outraged sense of national unity, to get out of the troubles in which we are. That is their choice, and their only choice. We have not the power to control their decision. The choice is theirs, but on it our fate depends. Whatever they decide, we shall do our best to minimise the evils they have wrought. We shall inculcate obedience to their decrees wherever these affect the national safety or well-being, even though we dissociate ourselves from all responsibility for the ruin now facing the land.

We do not desire a Coalition. We do not grudge the Ministers their offices, and certainly not their cares. Nevertheless, we must earnestly hope that the Prime Minister and his principal colleagues will take the right turning at this grave moment in British history. The speech which the right hon. Gentleman made at Hanley to win party cheers on 15th February was ominous. It was not up to the level of events, nor was it worthy of the hour. I trust that tonight he will have the courage to strike a truer note of national leadership, and one more worthy of his wartime record in both the wars.

I have two convictions in my heart. One is that, somehow or other, we shall 1354 survive, though for a time at a lower level than hitherto. The late Lord Fisher used to say "Britain never succumbs". The second is that things are going to get worse before they are better. Before the glowing promises, by which the wearied and unthinking people were seduced at the General Election, have been atoned for, all of us, wherever we sit, will have much to endure. We are bound to give the warning while the time remains. It is right to arouse our people to the peril in which they stand. Only when they realise fully the decline and descent, psychological, social, financial and economic, into which we have fallen, and, in part, been thrust, since our glorious victory, will those forces arise in the land in which redemption and recovery can be found.

§ The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Arthur Greenwood)

We have had a very brilliant Parliamentary performance by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, but. I am bound to say, a most unconvincing one. We must now get down to the issues which divide us. This Amendment is intended by the right hon. Gentleman as a Vote of Censure on His Majesty's Government. He means it: we accept the challenge. It is an attempt by the right hon. Gentleman to consolidate the serried ranks of his followers who dash hither and thither, without, so far as we have been able to find out, any objective. He is trying to rally his supporters, not on constructive proposals, but on their common hatred of the Labour Party. And let it be said that the right hon. Gentleman has far more interest in the political situation than in the economic situation. He does not like the political set-up, and, quite frankly, his object today—and I think it is perfectly obvious to everybody who has heard him—is to try to discredit it. I assure him now that the Division tonight will show that the Government, in pursuing their General Election policy, have behind them the unanimous support of their followers. I hope that hon. Members will look at the Division list in HANSARD tomorrow morning. The right hon. Gentleman has really done us a good service, in healing one or two little breaches which have recently appeared.

Let the right hon. Gentleman appreciate what he has done in his Amendment now before the House. He has rejected all the 1355 operative words of the Government Motion. There were three main points in that Motion. One was that this House welcomes the "Economic Survey for 1947." It asked the House to agree to support the Government in all practical measures to deal with our problem in co-operation with all sections of the people of the country… It asked for co-operation in order—I quote again— to make secure the foundations of our industry so as to provide a high standard of living for out people. In his Amendment, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, while agreeing to welcome the laying before Parliament of the "Economic Survey for 1947 "—the opening words of our Motion—goes on to say that he regrets that the full facts of the situation have for so long been withheld from the country. The whole facts of the economic situation of this country have never been put before it up to now. Our people have lived in a fool's paradise. High financial transactions have been conducted behind closed doors, and the full facts of the industrial, economic situation have never been known. I regret, much as the right hon. Gentleman regrets, that the full facts of the situation have, for so long, been withheld from the country. When did any Government in this country come so frankly to the House, and to the public, and put the grim economic facts before them? When has that happened before? Would a Tory Government have had the courage to do it? They would have hidden themselves behind clouds of words, and behind a spate of oratory from the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. They would have covered up everything they could. Let it be said, to our credit, that we have "come clean," and told the people. Supposing that an adventurous Conservative Government had had the courage to tell the truth about things, would it have been in a position to hold out reasonable hopes to the people of this country of anything but jam in the far distant future, based on the fantastic and completely unrealistic hopes of the maintenance of the capitalist system? I think it is fantastic.

Secondly, we appeal in our Motion for co-operation with all sections of our people to aid in the solution of our diffi- 1356 culties. That is rejected by the Opposition; they propose to cut out those words. Is it their view that, should they succeed in defeating us—which is very unlikely—and if they gained the very temporary support of the people of this country—which is just as unlikely—they could proceed to put matters right without such co-operation? Is this point about co-operation with all sections on which emphasis has been put from these benches turned down? It obviously is. The words are excluded from our Motion by the Amendment. What is it then that hon. Members want? Totalitarianism in industry? Is that their case? Or is it the bread line and unemployment, with which to compel submission? They turn down co-operation. Therefore, it must be either the policy of totalitarianism or the policy of the bread line. I defy them to put up any answer to that question.

Or is it that they are very anxious about political co-operation? The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition laid his hand on his heart, when he spoke about the outbreak of party politics. I think there were about six references in his speech, all pointing to the desirability of a new Coalition Government, with himself as Prime Minister. At the end of his speech, he said he did not want any Coalition. Well, as far as we are concerned, he is not going to get one. Political co-operation in war is one thing; political co-operation, when building a peace after a world war, depends upon the policy of a body of men who are fundamentally agreed in their political faith. That is what we are trying to do.

The third part of our Motion is cut out by the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. It is the part in which we ask for co-operation to secure the foundations of industry so as to provide a high standard of living for our people. Am I to understand that hon. Members opposite are not concerned about the standard of life of our people? That concern is exclusively repudiated by them. They have cut those words out of the Motion, and they have included other words. In his Amendment, the right hon. Gentleman has withdrawn his support from propositions which, I thought, would have been generally agreed by the House. I imagine that he will live to regret the day that he ever lent himself to a proposal excluding from this Motion the con- 1357 struclive parts, without which this country cannot live. Instead of being helpful, the right hon. Gentleman came down flat-footed in favour of an unqualified Motion of Censure, which he supported with great cogency and force, and with great rhetoric, in his speech this afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman wishes to prove in the Division Lobby tonight that the House has no confidence in a Government whose actions hitherto have served only to aggravate the national difficulties and whose proposals for the future are either inadequate or injurious. Let me examine those two statements; they are very interesting. In what way have we aggravated the national difficulties? I was not impressed, and nor, I think, were my hon. and right hon. Friends, by the excursion which the Leader of the Opposition made into the field of economics. I like to hear the right hon. Gentleman speaking on politics, but I am afraid he is a very weak brother in the economic field. How were these difficulties from which we are suffering created? I leave aside for the moment, although I will return to it presently, the question of the cruel instability of the capitalist system, with its recurrent periods of depression and unemployment, its disregard of human considerations, and its ruthless exploitation of national resources for financial gain.

Leaving that aside for the moment, our national difficulties, which are only part of the world's difficulties, arise directly from the catastrophic economic effects of the second world war. It is true that in the West we did not suffer such grievous human losses in the last war as we did in the first world war, but the strain on the economic resources of mankind was far greater than it was during the period 1914–18. I need not enlarge on that matter, but I would point out that the old system, the system before the first world war, suffered a shattering blow from which it has never really recovered. In the second world war, our survival, the survival of liberty, and victory, were rendered possible only by the most drastic changes in the organisation and purpose of our economic system. My submission is that the structure of our economic life, and that of other countries, was fundamentally changed by the two world wars, and that it cannot be restored to meet the tests of reconstruction 1358 and to fulfil the hopes for the future set out in the Atlantic Charter, to which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was party, and indeed, of which he was part author.

I cannot see how a Conservative Government would, in 18 or 19 months, have successfully grappled with the problem of the breakdown of the old system. They could not have re-established the old system, and they would not have tried to begin to build a new one in harmony with modern needs. Therefore, I think it is just as well that we have inherited this difficult period rather than the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and his friends. Apart from these broad, wide considerations, there is the battle with the weather. There appear to be two views about this problem. The first is that it is a divine punishment on our people, and indeed, on other peoples on the Continent, for having lived to see a Labour Government in this country.

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames)

Who said that?

§ Mr. Greenwood

It is a view which hon. Members opposite hold. The second view is that had there been a bold, efficient and vigorous Conservative Government, the ills from which we are suffering today, and from which we have suffered, would, in ways which have not yet been disclosed from the benches opposite, have been avoided—including the recent long spell of bad weather. This is just wishful thinking on the part of hon. Members opposite. Let us suppose the worst. Let us suppose that a Conservative Government had been returned in July, 1945. Would coal output have risen last year? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Would such superhuman efforts have been made by the miners, by the railway and other transport workers, by dockers, and by the merchant seamen in the little colliers? Would those efforts have been made in response to an appeal by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in peace time? The answer is, "No."

§ Mr. Beverley Baxter (Wood Green)

Not even if the country needed it?

§ Mr. Greenwood

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will try to explain why. I am glad the right hon. Gentleman realises the part which organised labour had to play, and did play, in the second 1359 world war; but his own past, before the first great war, in the trade union field, his tragic determination, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to restore the Gold Standard, which precipitated the General Strike of 1926, the part which the right hon. Gentleman played in that struggle, his bitter and unrelenting efforts to shackle and crush the rightful aspirations of the industrial labour movement by the 1927 Act—these hard facts in his life did not mark out the right hon. Gentleman as a trusted democratic leader in the days following the second world war, a war in which he played so noble a part. Our thanks will always be gratefully given to the right hon. Gentleman for that, but as a peace leader his history is not such that the common people of this country would have trusted him. Therefore, the truth is that, had the Labour Party not been victorious in the summer of 1945—and the results of the General Election were not really so big a surprise to some people as they were to the right hon. Gentleman—this country would have lacked trusted leadership. Hon. Members opposite may not like some of us very much, but at least we can match man for man in the confidence we have from the rank and file of the people with anybody on the other side of the House.

The White Paper, which many people have talked about, but not everybody has studied with very great care, analyses the situation which arises from the flagrant shortcomings of the capitalist system over generations, accruing liabilities which started long before the first world war, the revolutionary effects of the last world war and the first world war on our economic system, the position in the world as regards shortages of vital materials, and so on, and then at the last hour, afflicted as we were by winter storms, we took account of what were the inescapable results of a long and hard winter.

The Leader of the Opposition, and perhaps some of his followers—I think he has got a rather doubtful body of followers behind him—think that the right hon. Gentleman as Prime Minister would be the country's fairy godmother, who, by a wave of the wand, would disperse all the economic miasma which has settled on the world, get rid of the snow and the ice, and bring the warm sun and the glow of a new prosperity. That view is nonsensical, 1360 and hon. Gentlemen opposite must know that that is so. The country is quite clear about it. This is not a new conflict. Ever since the Labour Party was established the people have known that we were a Socialist party. We are not ashamed of being a Socialist party. The word "Socialism" tastes nicer in the mouth than that ugly, hard and barren word, "individualism." The idea that we have no plan is absurd. Of course we have a plan. The trouble is that we are putting it into operation, and hon. Members do not like it. Where is the plan of right hon. Gentlemen opposite? I understand that there is some very high-powered official committee of the party, but there are also other people, unofficial, and there is no policy there.

What is our policy? Our policy is a definite policy of obtaining for the people of this country equality of opportunity, to which they are entitled in any democratic system, and a reasonable and rising standard of life, under condtions which are honourable to them as citizens, as parents, as workers and as individuals. We say that we cannot do it under this crazy old system which the right hon. Gentleman talks about and which had always lived on margins. When the right hon. Gentleman talks about the promises we made during the General Election, I would say that if he will read "Let us Face the Future "—it is in quite simple language, and would not give him half an hour's real trouble—he will find that we stated there explicitly that we were not offering the world on a plate to the people. We did point that out—my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the President of the Board of Trade pointed it out. They were different from the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who exuded more heat than light on the subject. We have never tried to mislead the people. Why should we try to mislead the people? We are born of the people, most of us; we have lived our lives among them. My life is a part of the lives of the old members of my party. If the people arc misled, they are misled by people who never understood what the life of ordinary working class people is. We do not mislead them. Now, after 50 years of struggle in the political field, we have by fair means won political power, starting with almost every man's hand against us. The Tory Party and the Liberal Party have always known what our policy was. We are executing 1361 it. We are to be trusted, within the five year programme, to adapt and to insert measures which in our judgment should be included in the five years work we have to do. That is the realistic view.

The Leader of the Opposition spoke about my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence being aggressive, and so on. I can never keep up with the right hon. Gentleman's adjectives, they are wonderful—"scorn," "hatred," "odious," "partisan." I think he referred to an "aggressive party attack" from my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence. I think he used the words "scorn" and "hatred" about it. Whatever may be said about my right hon. Friend, hatred is not one of his personal defects—not that I have noticed, having known him for a long period of years. Who started this aggressive policy? What is all this talk about class Government and a class war, which the right hon. Gentleman has referred to on several occasions this afternoon? Who started it? Hon. Members opposite started it, and they waged it. I should have thought that their attitude a week last Monday in the House, when nobody on that side wanted to listen to me, disclosed their intentions. They mean, so far as they can, to prevent our programme being put on the Statute Book. I assure them they are not going to succeed. Then, because my right hon. Friend, quite rightly, made a few gentle remarks about the Opposition last night, here the Leader of the Opposition comes down in a state of high dudgeon, showing a certain amount of indignation which I am quite sure he cannot feel in his heart.

That is what this Debate is about. This Debate is not about the economic situation. This Debate is to enable the right hon. Gentleman to pull his people together—God knows, they need it—in the hope that he will get the country behind him with a view to defeating the further progress of this Government. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that he is taking the wrong line. We can have our own differences, as indeed the other party has its differences, but on an issue of this kind this party stands solid. There can be no challenge about that. We shall continue to stand solid. We shall play the Parliamentary game fairly; we shall do what we think is right in the interests of good and adequate Debate, but we shall not be deflected from our purpose and when, in 1362 a few hours' time, we go into the Division Lobby, I hope the Opposition will realise the strength and unity of this party.

§ Mr. Peter Thorneycroft (Monmouth)

I have listened closely, as the whole House listened, to the speech which has just been delivered by the Lord Privy Seal. From start to finish it did not refer to the crisis which we are discussing. It answered no single question that has been asked throughout the whole course of the Debate, on either side of the House, and it indicated no line of action for the future. In those circumstances it is an extremely difficult speech to reply to. I think the best I can do is to leave it where it rests.

As the Amendment or Motion of Censure which I seek to support refers in its concluding passage to the actions, or lack of actions, proposed by the Socialist Government for the future, it is on that aspect of the matter that I want to speak. I am not particularly concerned about who got us into this mess, and I am certainly not concerned to argue about it this afternoon. But I am very much concerned, and I believe the country is very much concerned, about how we are going to get out of this mess, and it is to that aspect of the matter that I want to address my remarks. I will leave to other hon. Members the job of comparing the past Socialist promises with the present Socialist performances. I do so, not from any affection or tenderness for the party opposite, but because I believe that we are discussing something which is a great deal more important even than the future of the Socialist Party, and that is the future of this country.

My first criticism of His Majesty's Government is not of their past record or of the mistakes which they have made. All Governments make mistakes. I recognise that. We are concerned about what action they are going to take for the future. During this Debate a devastating indictment of their industrial, financial and economic policies has been delivered, and that indictment has, in the main, in no way been answered. I want to say how I think the matter should be tackled. If one tries to deal with the future in these Debates, one is bound to say things which may be used against one. I shall say things which may be used against me in Debate or against my party in the country, but knowing that 1363 will not deter me from saying them. If hon. Members opposite, and some on the back benches, would spend more time giving us the truth as they see it—and many of them actually do see it—and less time in worrying whether by saying the truth they might lay themselves open to attack by the Tories, we might get a great deal further. I understand that there is a great deal of freedom and frankness in their party committee. I wish that some freedom and frankness could be exhibited by them on the Floor of this House.

I recognise that the failure of which we are all today spectators is more than the failure of the Minister of Fuel and Power. It is much more than that. It is in part, at any rate, the failure not simply of the Socialist Government or of a Socialist Minister; it is in part the failure of a nation. For too long all of us in this country, of all parties, have had the idea—sponsored sometimes, I must say, by the propaganda of hon. Gentlemen opposite—that there was some easy way of recovery and that we could pull ourselves out of our difficulties without too much hard work or too many new ideas, or without abandoning too much of our party doctrine—to whichever party we belonged—or abandoning too much of the cherished industrial traditions upon both sides of industry. The country was wrong in holding that idea. It is held much too widely today. It will go on being held until it is made clear who, in fact, is governing the country.

Why was it that, a year ago, the President of the Board of Trade said that it was a wholly impracticable suggestion to introduce foreign workers into this country? That was the view of the President of the Board of Trade a year ago. Why was it that Polish miners were not introduced into the pits last summer when they might have been able to produce more coal? Why was it that the wage question was not adequately tackled? It seems to me that the reason for these things is that the Government are afraid on this issue of facing either the trade unions, the shop stewards, or some of the hundreds of thousands of men many of whom voted for the Government at the last Election. In many respects, strike action or the fear of strike action has become the substitute for policy. The pressure of industrial groups has taken on the rôle which ought 1364 to be discharged by Parliamentary majorities. These things need to be said. It is necessary to determine in the near future who is governing the country. Is it the trade union movement? Is it the Mineworkers Federation, or the Federation of British Industries, or the shop stewards; or a combination of the lot? Is it His Majesty's Government? I am quite clear who it should be. It should be His Majesty's Government, and the country looks to the Government to do it.

Now I would say a few words about the task ahead. The most frightening thing which I detect in the White Paper is not a note of warning; it is a note of complacency. If one looks at paragraphs 3 and 59, one observes that the Government claim what they call "a high level of industrial activity." When one examines the facts upon which that claim is based, one sees a really horrifying situation. Take the men who are in munitions at the present time. There are half a million men making munitions still for a million and a half in the Forces. I quite agree that the Minister of Defence last night, interpolating between a certain amount of talk on Munich and other irrelevant issues, tried to whittle down that figure, but I want to know what are those half million men making? Can we be informed at some stage of this Debate?

What about exports? The Government claim that we are now exporting 110 per cent. or 115 per cent. in volume over 1938. I should like to have the attention of the Lord Privy Seal for a moment. I want to ask whether that figure includes, as I believe it does, the export of war stores. Can we have an answer to my question? If it does, how is it that a million and a half men are making rather less in exports than a million men made for the war? Why is it that it is taking three men to do the job which two men did before the war? Is that what His Majesty's Government regard as a high level of industrial activity?

Take the question of re-equipment and maintenance. The Government pride themselves in the White Paper that a normal year's re-equipment was done in 1946, and that that will be increased by 15 per cent. in 1947. My right hon. Friend the senior Member for the City of London (Sir A. Duncan) pointed out that that was rather an inadequate arrangement. The Government thought 1365 it over during the night, and came to the conclusion that he was right. What sort of planning is it that treats the industrial re-equipment of this country as a figure which they can change about over night? What is the plan for mechanising and re-equipping the whole of our industry? Have the Government any idea of the amount they will allocate to that important task over the next 10 years? I am not going to venture a prophecy, but I have seen estimates which ranged between £2,000 million and £5,000 million, to be spent over 10 years. Is the figure which the Government contemplate anywhere near the right figure?

Why is it that in the metal and engineering industry there are 600,000 more men, who are only doing a normal prewar year's work in maintenance and re-equipment? Why in that industry, as in others, is it taking more men to do a job which fewer men did before? There is just one further word on the question of the high level of industrial activity. At least one Member on the opposite side yesterday suggested that a tribute should be paid to the coal miners for the way in which many of them behaved during the recent crisis. I quite agree. I heard of the case of a man who fought his way to the pit and died of heart failure. I am not going to detract from one word of that praise. The miners are entitled, however, to the truth, and the country is entitled to the truth, and the truth is that, man for man, with more machinery, each miner is producing 50 tons a year less than he was producing before the war. That is the truth of the matter. It is no good trying to get out of it.

§ Mrs. Nichol (Bradford, North)

The hon. Member has given only half the truth. He has left out a very important thing—the age group of the men who are in industry at present, as compared with those who were in industry before the war.

§ Mr. Thorneyeroft

I have heard that argument before. [interruption.] The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) spends so much time talk-in this House, that he might allow other hon. Members to make their speeches without intervening. The hon. Lady put a perfectly fair point. The age group in this country is far below that in the U.S.A., and they are certainly producing more coal there. I have dealt with the facts, and if that is what the Government 1366 call "a high level of industrial activity," there is very little hope indeed of this country pulling out of its difficulties. If my figures are right, as I believe they are, on the export side it will take not a 25 per cent. increase in productivity but an 80 per cent. increase to get the exports which the Government require.

That was the picture presented in the White Paper. In any event, it was presented before the crisis developed. The picture now, of course, is infinitely worse. The coal crisis was bad enough, but the Government themselves admit that the effects of the coal crisis will not be anything like as bad as the probable effects of a dollar crisis before we are very much older. That is the situation which confronts us. What are the Government going to do about it? I hope that someone on the Government side will give an answer to that question before the Debate is ended. I will not talk about their long-term policy except to say that I read Part I of the White Paper with interest. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) that one might have been reading any of the admirable policy statements produced by the Liberal Party—not in recent years, I should have said. One might have been reading "Design for Freedom," or any of the Conservative Party publications, the publication, for instance, called "Work," written by Mr. Henry Brooke, before the war. All I say to the Government is that they must make up their minds whether they intend in future to adopt Part I of the White Paper as their policy, which means making the capitalist system work, or whether they are to adopt the Socialist policy. Of course, the two are quite different. If they are going ahead with Part I of the White Paper, to keep capitalism in this country, and all the machinery of the compulsory system and profit motive, or if they are going to adopt Socialism as their policy, they should let us know. We have had so far somewhat divergent views from the Front Bench.

It is not a long-term policy that matters now; it is a short-term policy. What are we to do now? That is what the country wants to know from the Government. Anything which the Government do is bound to he unpalatable, and bound, in many respects, to cut across some of the principles of Socialism. It is bound to meat the abandonment of some of the 1367 promises made at the General Election. I think that the country expects unpalatable things to be said, but they would prefer the truth, and they would prefer to know it now. The Government have told the truth about the existing facts; what the country wants is the truth about the action to be taken upon the facts. They want an answer to this problem, and they do not mind whether it cuts across the principles of Socialism or Liberalism or those of any other party. They want an answer, and, so far as abandoning promises is concerned, I do not think that the country expects the Socialist Government to keep their promises.

Let me say what I think the answers ought to be. I think that the prerequisite is a sound financial policy. I think that unless we get that, none of the other things will work at all. The Government admit a gap of £1,000 million between the goods we are producing and the money we are spending. What are the Government going to do about it? We have not had an answer. We have had speech after speech from this side of the House, notably two brilliant speeches yesterday, one from the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson) and the other from the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Eccles). No answer has been given to those speeches. When I saw the Lord Privy Seal get up today, I thought that he was going to answer them. I realise that the Minister of Defence did not know how to answer them last night, or did not intend to, but I expected the Lord Privy Seal had been furnished overnight with a few replies. I must have been over-optimistic for no reply came.

I realise that in tackling the matter of inflation, we have to do tough and unpleasant things, which means reducing expenditure upon Government account. Are they prepared to do that; if they are, will they get up and say so? I know that it means a sharp increase in indirect taxation. No one likes that, but I think that it ought to be done. Will any hon. Member on the other side of the House get up and say that it ought to be done, because the country wants to know what the Socialist Party want, and where it stands in this matter? Above all, I think it means that, quite apart from the merits of nationalisation, we cannot go on churning out bits of paper called Govern- 1368 ment bonds and distributing them in exchange for fixed assets. That does not rule out the principle of nationalisation, but it does mean that we shall have to slow down the process, for financial reasons.

I know that the Lord Privy Seal has fought for Socialism all his life, very hard and well, and generally very fairly. I would assure him of this. If the Lord Privy Seal, or better still the Prime Minister, would get up at this moment and say that they still believe in Socialism, but they realise that they will not be able to do what they stated in the White Paper, because they want to put first things first, and they intend to drop nationalisation of the roads or of electricity—if he said that, I do not believe that his party would lose a single vote in the country. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I do not expect hon. Members to take my advice, but I am at least free to tender it.

The financial policy is not the end of this matter. This is a human, material problem as well. I am not going to talk at length about coal. Plenty has been said about coal already, but I want an answer to the question which has been asked many times: Are the Government prepared to buy coal? Can we be assured that, before this Debate ends, we shall have an answer to that question? Five million or ten million tons of coal might make all the difference between success and failure in getting through the difficult 12 months ahead. For Heaven's sake do not let us prejudice our chances, for another five million tons of coal. We have done it once; do not let us fail a second time.

As to manpower, the British worker should be considered first. A 5 per cent. increase in output would equal more than three times the output of all the disabled persons we could get from the British zone in Germany. What will be done about that? The Government say in the White Paper that restrictive practices exist in the trade union movement on the employers' side. Is it now accepted by hon. Members opposite that restrictive practices do exist in the unions? I see that one hon. Member last night tried to challenge that contention. If anyone wishes to deny that restrictive practices exist, or if anyone disagrees with the White Paper, let him say so. We should make some progress by getting on record that these 1369 practices do go on, and are restricting output at the very moment when output is vital to this country.

§ Mr. Palmer (Wimbledon)

On both sides of industry?

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

Sweeping away the facts is always a very useful thing to do in argument. We agree then about both sides of industry, but what are we prepared to do about it? What are the Government going to do about it? It is not enough to put it in a White Paper and politely regret it. Are they prepared to have a public inquiry, into the dockworkers' industry and into the lamp rings? [HON. MEMBERS: "Are you?"] Yes, and I would carry every Member on this side of the House with me in saying, that a full public inquiry should be conducted as soon as and early as possible into the restrictive practices both in the dock world and in the lamp rings. I do not think that a single Member of my party would dissent from that. That is a fair, honest and open thing to suggest. Are the Government prepared to accept it? Can I have an answer to that before the Debate concludes?

I want to say a few words on the question of foreign labour. I think what is wanted is a clear cut decision whether these foreign men are coming in or not. I must say this, and I say it almost in parenthesis, that a great human problem is involved in this matter. There are thousands of displaced persons not only in the British but in the American zone of Germany without homes and without hope. Are they to be left there in the conditions under which some of them are living today, faced with the kind of futures which they can anticipate? I choose my words carefully when I say that history may judge that the gas chamber was the finer method of the two. There is a deep human problem in the case of these displaced persons. I have always pleaded and urged, as have some of my hon. Friends on this side of the House such as the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) and the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Spearman) as well as Members from the other side of the House, that some of these men should be brought in. I only want to say this: Bring them in, but do not let the Minister of Labour think that he can do any good by screening them. They have been screened by the Russian 1370 security police and by the Gestapo, and many of them owe their lives to the fact that they avoided the results of the screening by the Gestapo. If they have escaped the Gestapo and the Russian security police, is it likely that the Minister of Labour will succeed?

On this question of manpower I want to say a word about the Army. I am not asking that it should be cut down or that it should be increased. I have not enough information to speak on that. Only the Government and the Chiefs of Staff have that information. But I can say this that in war, in times of great emergency, the Army was used upon productive work, particularly in agriculture. In this year of 1947 we are going to have our backs to the wall as regards this matter. We need every man we can get. Agriculture is short by 33,000 men. The Army has got the men trained. Such units as the Royal Engineers can do any job, and they can build their own accommodation. Are we going to have a ruling that the emergency is so grave that the Government intend and the Chiefs of Staff intend to put productive work particularly in agriculture above technical training for this year? I think that that is a fair and possible solution, and it does not affect the size of the Armed Forces.

On the question of wages I say this. I know the difficulty of this wage question. I know that Government after Government have made appeals that wage rates should be related to production. I know it is true today that if we try to pay a building operative a bonus for piecework, we are practically certain to promote a strike. I know, too, if a body of workers comes along and asks for higher wages and a shorter working week, though it is unrelated to production, they are quite likely to get it. I know it is an extremely difficult subject to tackle, but I believe that the Government will be compelled to tackle it. I do not believe that it will be possible to allow that situation to drift.

I know that there are hundreds, indeed thousands, of members in the trade union movement, who risk their position, their popularity and all they have, in order to try to make some sense out of this policy, and to stand up against the demands and the pressure extended against them. I am not talking of those men. They are not heard of. They are some of the heroes of this situation. I know what happens to 1371 them; they keep hold of their position only for a few months. Then an industry clown the road, does not succeed in holding the position and the whole circle starts. The other factory demands and gets a 42 hour week and the others get it too. How is it going to be met? A nine months' moratorium on national increases of wage rates would do more than anything else to give the Government a breathing space at the present time. I know it and they know it. I do not believe that it is beyond the wit of man to reach an agreement with the trade unions on that point. I believe that something of the sort has got to be done.

But what have we got? Have they, in fact, faced up to these things? I listened to the whole speech of the President of the Board of Trade opening this Debate—two hours of it and none too long for so great a subject. I thought it was summed up very well next day in the headlines of the newspapers, "Fuel rationing, trains cut, tobacco saved." That is a terrible commentary. Supposing these headlines had read, "Britain to buy coal, the transport industry to be free to get on with the job, and a 200 per cent. tax upon tobacco tomorrow morning." The British people would, at least, know that the British Government for once meant business.

I do not misjudge the temper of the British people. I realise that somewhere or other in politics, no matter to which party one belongs, one has to make up one's mind about a fundamental issue, and that is the issue of whether we are a great nation or a small one. There are plenty of people who think in their hearts—they do not say it—that this country is somewhere near finished. They think that two world wars have proved too much for a small island of 47 million people. If anyone thinks that then for Heaven's sake do not bring any more workers into the country. Encourage emigration. At the present time I think the Government are doing both. These people look forward to a time when our foreign trade will be circumscribed in narrow channels. We must accept the fact that we cannot afford to pay for the tobacco we are getting from America. Some people would say that for all time we must live in that sort of a way. They see Great Britain like an old man creeping about the streets selling trifles a little 1372 above their cost, which are bought by those who remember him in the days of his greatness and prosperity and do not wish to see him perish in the workhouse. That is not my idea. I think we are a great nation and I think we are going to be a greater one. But if we are and if that is the view of this Government then let them tell the British people the truth not about the facts of the situation—because they are learning those now, and I am afraid are going to learn them even more clearly in the future—but about the harsh, unpalatable actions that have to be taken.

Let us get the men, and if necessary rip out restrictive practices, whether they be on the side of big business or on the side of trade unions. This question has been funked too much on all sides of the House of Commons. Let us face it and see if we can get rid of it, and make the supreme effort which is necessary in order to maintain some balance in our Budget. I know that there is a conflict between balancing your Budget and incentives, but if I had to choose—and I think, broadly, that one has to choose in these matters—I would say that the future of this country and its best hope lie more in the direction of sweat and tears, and less in the direction of nylon stockings for the miners' wives. I think it is on this kind of choice that the Government have to make up their minds. As I say, I think we are a great nation, and I am certain that the Prime Minister has a great opportunity—one of the greatest opportunities that has been extended to any Prime Minister in recent years.

After all, anybody can govern England when all is going well. Anybody can stand at that Despatch Box and, with a few tricks of oratory, describe a great series of victories or triumphs. It takes a statesman to stand there and describe disaster and defeat, and yet bring the people with him to new adventures. We had such a statesman once. The Prime Minister is to reply tonight. I say that I think he has a great opportunity if he will rise above the issues which have divided these parties in the past, and if he will not be afraid of telling the full truth of the situation to the people. If he will do that, I wish him well. I say that with all my heart, even though I know that if he had the courage, he and his party would govern England for many years to come. I hope he will, but if he 1373 will not, or dare not, then let him and his party go and make room for those who will.

§ Miss Colman (Tynemouth)

I do not propose to follow the hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. P. Thorneycroft) into party politics, but to put three points to the Government as briefly as I can. It is very clear from the White Paper which is before the House and from the Debate which has taken place that the centre of our problems is our trade balance. If we are to pay our way as a trading country we have not only to produce the goods, but we have to find markets for them. Perhaps it has not been made sufficiently clear what an enormous difference there is in our trade position today as compared with before the war. In the years between the wars, from 1924 to 1938, the excess of imports of merchandise over exports varied from £464 million in 1926 to £263 million in 1935. We had this enormous deficit in imports over exports which we were then able to make up as the result of our shipping services, our income from foreign investments, and so on.

This year, we were told by the President of the Board of Trade on Monday, these invisible exports will amount to only £75 million. That means that, compared with before the war, we have practically to pay our way by exports of goods alone. As I said a moment ago, if we are to do that we have not only to produce goods, but to sell them, and we have to find markets for 140 per cent. over 1938. The three points which I want to put to the Government are these. First of all, are we being as ruthless as we should be in cutting imports? We read in the Press today, for instance, that caviar is being sold at ten guineas a pound, and we know quite well that expensive fruits are on sale in the shops and that we spend quite a lot each year in buying wine from abroad and so on. I am not suggesting that the total amount is large; it may be quite small. What I am suggesting is that the psychological effect of the fact that these goods are on sale in the shops is bad.

I have had criticisms on these lines in my own constituency. People say, "If we are so short of shipping space and foreign exchange, why are we buying these luxury goods from abroad?" That 1374 is the first thing I want to ask—that we should, as far as possible, cut down luxury imports such as I have mentioned. The second point I want to put is an obvious one but it seems to me that not very much time or attention has been given to it during this Debate. We must produce all we can in this country. I have in mind, particularly, shipping. The right hon. and gallant Member for North Newcastle (Sir C. Headlam) mentioned this yesterday. I also represent a Tyneside constituency, and I know that while the prospects in ship building and repairing are good during the next two or three years, we do not know what the position is going to be after that. There is already on Tyneside a very considerable anxiety lest, after those two or three years of full production, we may go back to the conditions of the years between the wars, when unemployment in ship building was up to 60 per cent., when many of the yards on Tyneside were idle, and when Shipbuilding Securities, Limited, were in control. We are afraid we may go back to that, but we are determined that we shall not. It depends largely, I think, on Government policy whether we do or not. What I want to ask is this.

We know what the target is for 1947—one and a quarter million gross tons. We want to know what the prospects are beyond 1947. The ship building industry has suffered in the past and we want to be certain that we are not going back to the unemployment of the inter-war years, to the state of affairs when yards were cl