Demobilisation and Re-Employment

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 13 March 1945.

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Photo of Mr Hubert Beaumont Mr Hubert Beaumont , Batley and Morley 12:00, 13 March 1945

I still assert that my contention is strictly correct. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] It is true that the hon. and gallant Member suggested that you should have the J.T.C., but who are likely to become members of the J.T.C.? The children who go to the elementary schools? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] I wish hon. Members would wait until I have finished. Many of the children who go to the elementary schools will not have the opportunity afforded them of going into the training corps. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] For many and varied reasons. [HON. MEMBERS: "What are they?"] If hon. Members really want to know I will give them. A great number of children of working class parents have various duties to perform or they have to utilise a definite part of their time for study at home. It may he said that that applies to other children, out there is this difference. In many schools there will be junior training corps already established as part of the school and it would definitely be to the advantage of children of parents who had their children at such schools. It would be giving these children a greater advantage. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] This view is fundamental. I do not think they should start their military training until approximately 18 years of age. The time that could be spared before that age should be used to enable them to become educationally fit.

The hon. and gallant Member for Smethwick advocated the formation of a conscript Army. I do not know what is going to happen. We shall have to have a much larger Army for the first few years after the war. It all depends upon our commitments in Germany and so forth but I am convinced that as far as the community are concerned they will demand that, if we have an Air Force, a Navy and an Army, there shall be afforded a free and full opportunity for everyone, to any boy, to become an officer, no matter from what branch of society he may come.

I want to deal with three or four points as briefly as I can. We do not want to keep the Secretary of State for War too long away from his bed. [An HON. MEMBER: "He has gone already."] Then, I do not want hon. Members to be away too long from their beds. The Financial Secretary to the War Office dealt with the question of education. I would like to ask whether the War Office is sufficiently conscious not only of the importance of education now but during the post-war period. Now that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War has come back I hope that he will not think that I have been casting aspersions upon him in any shape or form. I would rather he knew that I had been paying him compliments. I said that the right hon. Gentleman had become mellowed but not chastened.

With regard to education, we not only have to take into account the needs of the standing Army but also the Army of Occupation. I was one who had occasion to be concerned with the formation of the Army Education Corps. I remember after all the work that was put in the ruthlessness of the Geddes axe destroyed the education system of the Army. I hope the Secretary of State for War will set his face against any reduction in the form of educational training. It is true, as the Financial Secretary said, that the Army cannot primarily become an educational establishment. It is also true that as the Army took these young men into the Service they have to see to it that they do not suffer from the educational point of view, and at least have facilities for education offered to them. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will stress the direct importance of education among the troops in post-war years and improve, as far as possible, the amenities of Army life in preparation for the return to civil life. There is a point I want to ask the Secretary of State for War. I am not sure how far he is concerned with it, but I along with a number of other Members received letters from people who are very distressed about the conditions of service offered in the Indian Army.