I beg to move, in page 1, line 6, after "peace," to insert: the maintenance of a sufficiency of supplies essential to the well-being of the community. The functions of a Preamble—and they are rare enough in these days—ought to be to tell the truth, but in two respects, this Preamble fails to do that. The first Amendment in the names of my hon. Friends and myself is a small matter. This Preamble merely consists of what is intended to be a cloak for the Government's inaction since they obtained the Act of 1945. We should take the greatest exception to using the Preamble purely for the sake of propaganda, and that is what this Preamble is put in for. As I see it, the Government, by omitting the words, the maintenance of a sufficiency of supplies essential to the well-being of the community. are seeking to disguise the idea that since 1945 they have had all the powers they wanted. Their duty under that Act was to maintain those sufficient supplies essential to the well-being of the community. Every hon. Member of this House knows how lamentably they have failed in carrying out that duty, and there seems to me no doubt that they want to suppress the fact that they undertook this duty, because they have failed in it. The point is what was in the minds of the Government when they left out these most important words in the 1945 Act.

5.30 a.m.

I do not think the words do any good—nor, on the other hand, will they do any harm, and as I have been reasonable in that line of country ever since the Committee stage began, I think I can accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 9, to leave out from "Whereas," to "supplies," in line 10.

This is an Amendment to leave out: by reason of the war and the dislocation of trade consequent thereon. It is a very curious thing that these words are in because the whole argument for the Bill appeared to be that there was something new which required a new Bill to deal with it; that the ordinary processes of transition from war to peace had in some way given rise to new problems which required a new Bill and therefore those words were required there. But the words are wholly—or at any rate more than half—untrue. They are not supported by the theories put forward by the Prime Minister or the President of the Board of Trade, and they are certainly not supported by any view of the causes of the crisis which is held on this side of the Committee. If I understood the Prime Minister and the President of the Board of Trade aright, they did not regard this trouble we are in to-day as really the heritage of this war at all. They regard it as a stage in the gradual breakup of the capitalist system which had begun in 1913—something very different from the dislocation of trade caused by the war. These words are quite inapt to describe the theories of either the Prime Minister or the President of the Board of Trade. They entirely describe the Government's difficulty and are in conflict with the whole argument put forward by all the Government speakers to explain the appearance of the Bill. I can only attribute their presence to that lack of co-ordination, that method of progression by fits and starts which has been so characteristic of the whole of the Government's actions for a very long time and as the only intelligible way of explaining how we have got into that position with this Bill in which we find ourselves at the moment.

When we come to the real truth of the matter, what is the cause of this crisis? The cause of the crisis, I think, it is practically admitted, is that the Government have failed to solve the problem of under-production. That is the real basis of the crisis. Dollar shortages are merely an aspect of that and the Government failed for two years to tackle the problem. Why have they done that? They have done that because as was explained, I think, they have been pulled in two directions. First of all, they have seen all along, if I understood the speeches of Friday aright, the necessity for action on the lines that they are now beginning to contemplate. The Prime Minister explained that, on the other hand, he had found it necessary to maintain morale, and in order to maintain morale he had neglected to take the steps necessary to avoid this crisis. That is the only meaning I can read into the statements made in the last few days.

In other words, the Government found it necessary to pretend to the people of this country that Socialism was paying an immediate dividend, and they could not do that and, at the same time, put in train the necessary steps to combat the deterioration that everyone saw was approaching. The only difference in opinion was how fast it was approaching. The root cause of the real trouble, and the urgency of the trouble, was that the Government thought it necessary to put the pretence that Socialism paid dividends, before the real interests of the country. Thirty years of propaganda had taught their followers to believe that only capitalism stood in the way of easy money and more money for less work.

You are talking of your own crowd

I am taking about the Socialist propaganda that all of us had to encounter ever since we entered poli- tical life. Over and above that, there were pseudo-scientists who told us that the production problem had been solved, that three or four hours' work a day would produce all that anybody could reasonably want, and the real problem for the future was how to use our leisure.

Would the right hon. Gentleman say that Lord Leverhulme was a Socialist, yet he said that in 1919?

Some people have learned in the course of 30 years. At least, I think very few people would deny that there was a very large body of opinion, and what the hon. Gentleman says, confirms it that production was easy and that we had solved the problem. If you bring up your followers to believe that kind of thing, of course, when you get into power you find difficulty in turning round at once to tell the people the truth. The real reason for the urgency of this crisis is not the war and the dislocation of trade consequent thereon; it is the embarrassment in which the Government have found themselves in deserting their bad old past and coming round to face the facts. That is the reason why the crisis is as bad and difficult and urgent as it is.

Are we to understand that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in his political life before the war was telling the people of this country that the way out of their troubles was to work harder, to have more production?

No, of course——

Was the right hon. and learned Gentleman telling them that?

No, because they did work harder in those days. Will anyone deny that? The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that there was only a very small proportion of the working people of this country who were unemployed for any long period.

Hon. Members:

Two million.

Mrs. Braddock:

What percentage of the population?

Let us get the facts right. During almost the whole time when Conservative and National Governments were in office the unemployed ranged round about the million.

An Hon. Member:

Two million.

The Chairman:

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is not in Order in discussing these matters, and I must ask him to address himself to the subject which is before the Committee.

I am sorry. Major Milner, but I always like to answer fair questions as well as I can. I quite agree that these questions have led me beyond the scope of the matter under discussion. I have good answers to these questions, but I will not pursue the matter. I have made the point which I wanted to make. Although I agree that the war and the dislocation of trade consequent thereon have contributed to the situation as we know it today, there would not have been any immediate and urgent crisis from these reasons alone. After all, we have had two years in which to recover from the war, and we ought to have made some progress, however unfavourable certain factors may be. Therefore, I say that it is a plain misstatement of fact to put these words into the Preamble as the main explanation of the difficulties which give rise to the need for this Bill. As Preambles ought to be as truthful as possible, the Government ought to have put in all the reasons, or none at all. It ought not to put in one and leave out the other. The best way of bringing the Preamble into some conformity with truth is to leave out these words.

5.45 a.m.

I have listened to nearly the whole of the Debate on this Bill, and the thing which has struck me most is that the party opposite has selected the two most innocent passages for the greatest denunciation. I should have thought that nothing could have been more simply stated, and that nothing could have been more true, than that it is largely by reason of the war and the dislocation of trade consequent thereon that supplies and services are, or are likely to become, insufficient to meet the essential needs of the community. Yet that is the phrase singled out by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Mr. J. S. C. Reid) as the one which should be deleted from the Preamble. Was the right hon. and learned Gentleman actuated by the same motive in selecting paragraph (c) of Clause I for special denunciation? Yet if we consider this phrase in relation to the Bill, in relation to the crisis, the right hon. and learned Gentleman should realise better than most that this is a fundamental statement of a national principle, to which he and every hon. Member should subscribe.

We say, it should be noted, not that supplies or services are insufficent, but that they are insufficient for meeting the essential needs of the community! That is just the difference between the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hillhead and the Socialist Members for the West of Scotland. We do believe that the articles, the commodities, the raw materials, the machine tools which are in short supply should be used for the whole community and not for the part of the community he happens to represent. We know the West of Scotland as it was between the two wars. We knew crises of a different kind which occurred in the West of Scotland after the first world war, and we know the kind of crisis which obtained in the West of Scotland in 1931 under the National Government. I can assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the people in the West of Scotland do not regard this crisis as in any way similar to the crises of the past. They regard it as a national crisis, as a crisis involving the whole community, and they are prepared to help make good these deficiencies—for the community.

On a point of Order: Is the hon. Gentleman really dealing with the proper Amendment?

The Chairman::

I cannot remember his going extremely wide.

I understand we are discussing the Amendment in page 1, line 9, to leave out from "whereas" to "supplies" in line 10.

That has nothing to do with the point the hon. Gentleman was making.

I hope the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok will allow me to develop my argument in my own way as we allowed the right hon. and learned Member for Hillhead.

All right, if the hon. Member keeps to the point; but he is not doing so.

The people of the West of Scotland recognise that this crisis is a national crisis, a community crisis, and they are prepared to back the Government in implementing everything the Government requires to be done in order to get the nation out of a grave and difficult situation. They believe in the Government and recognise that this is a community crisis and not the kind of artificial crisis hon. Gentlemen opposite produced in 1931—[HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."]—I am prepared to confess that if hon. Gentlemen opposite had won the. General Election, we would not be in this, kind of crisis today. Instead, we would have had 2,000,000 unemployed. There would have been plenty for all the people who have been represented by the party opposite for far too long, and there would have been plenty for nearly every member of this House, and certainly for the people in my profession and those in other professions if those in the middle and upper income groups, were content to allow the people in South Wales, Tyneside and Lanarkshire to go through the kind of hell the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hillhead would still defend.

I really had to say something on this because the right hon. and learned Member is one of the ablest people on the other side. He knows the meaning of words, and knows the records, and it was audaciously indiscreet of him to raise the matter of the unemployed in Glasgow. He knows how much the people who control the iron and steel industry in Scotland had to do with the mess and shambles of industry in the West of Scotland between the two wars. It is true the country has got into a crisis, not because of the Government, but because of circumstances largely outside their control. Even the right hon. and learned Gentleman in moving his Amendment, ended rather tamely by admitting that the war and dislocation of trade that followed were among the reasons for certain things being in short supply. The party opposite are attempting, as always, to make the cheapest party capital out of the crisis. We were told after the Prime Minister's speech that they would rally to a national policy. There has not been the slightest sign that they are prepared to sink their own petty prejudices and own selfish interests and make a real contribution to the national well-being and to national recovery.

As far as I can understand the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. McAllister) he agrees with some of us that these words are inappropriate. I gather from him that the crisis was due to the fact that our party had not been returned at the General Election, and that it was also due to someone in the iron and steel industry. I thought he would have agreed with us in having these words out. I appeal to the Lord President of the Council to have them out because they are liable to a great deal of misunderstanding. I am surprised that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) with his views on America——

The Chairman:

The hon. Member must confine himself to the Amendment and not get out of Order. He must really refrain from exciting other hon. Members.

There are views held in this House that the crisis is due to other causes than the war, and if I am out of Order in exciting the hon. Member, I will deal with specific points. What are the reasons for the shortages of supplies and services at the present time? Other hon. Members will deal with those shortages with which they are specially concerned. Let me take the one in which I am particularly interested—the shortage of meat. Why is there the shortage of meat? Is that due to the war or the dislocation of trade consequent thereon? No, it is due to the failure of the Government in buying from Argentina and from the United States.

Lecture No. 3 on the Argentine.

It is all very well for the hon. Member for South Cardiff to interject as he always does. This cut in the meat ration will affect his constituents, as it will mine, and they want to know why it is. The Government in this Preamble have said it is due to the war and to the dislocation of trade consequent thereon. I would appeal to the Lord President to take the wisest course, and to cut these words completely out. If they are to have a Bill passed into law, they do not want to have petty contentions in the Preamble. I have never known in my experience of Parliament a Government of any party having brought in a Bill that opened with a Preamble like this one. Take the shortage of coal. My constituents are going to be cold this winter. Is that due to the war or to the dislocation of trade? No. Surely, it is not. It is the five hour day—[Laughter]—I mean the five-day week and nationalisation of the coal industry. Again, there is a shortage of houses. Is that due to the war or to the dislocation of trade? It is due to the administrative bungling of the Minister of Health. I do not really see why the Government do not take the wiser course of saying, "We will cut these words out, and have no more argument on this subject," because they are very vulnerable, and I believe that some of their own supporters, apart from the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne, have other ideas as to what are the causes of the present crisis. What about eggs and bacon? [Laughter] Why cannot the hon. Lady the Member for Epping (Mrs. Manning) get her eggs and bacon? Because the Minister of Food by bungling has failed to buy maize for feedingstuffs and has bought her dried eggs instead, which cost far more.

Is the hon. Member suggesting that the hon. Lady is suffering from malnutrition?

I am making no reflection on the hon. Lady. She laughed delightedly at my mention of bacon and eggs, and I regret that because of administrative bungling by the Government, particularly by the Minister of Food, she cannot have her desire for bacon and eggs fulfilled.

I am perfectly well fed.

I hope the Government will alter this Preamble. It is far better to have these words cut out. If not, will they on Report stage allow us to have in our interpretation, so that we can have in this Bill the Government's interpretation—about the war and the dislocation of trade consequent thereon—and our own, which is the administrative bungling of His Majesty's Government?

The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) has shown certain signs of fatigue. [HON. MEMBERS: "Five-hour day."] I do not know whether it was a five-hour day or a five-hour week he talked about. Moreover, I was not quite sure from his speech whether he was talking about this Amendment or that other Amendment to the Preamble, in page 1, line 9, to leave out from "Whereas," to "supplies" in line 10, and to insert: by reason of the administrative incompetence of His Majesty's Government. We have had a short, but, I think, an adequate discussion of what is not a very important Amendment. I am not terribly excited about it one way or the other. But I think that, historically, it is best to leave the words in that it is proposed should be omitted. After all, future Members of Parliament will look at this statute; legal luminaries—judges of the High Court—will look at this statute; and I think it would be better to have the historical sequence of events adequately set out in the Preamble. We could, of course, if we were that kind of people, have put a lot of propaganda into this Preamble which would have recited the industrial history of the nineteenth century. We could have told the story of the period between the wars.

6.0 a.m.

And of the last two years.

We could have occupied pages of this Measure and tried to fix the price as low as we could and sell it off in large quantities. But we are not that sort of people. This Amendment to which I have referred, which was not moved, was indeed an Amendment for the purpose of putting political propaganda into an Act of Parliament at the public expense.

On a point of Order. The right hon. Gentleman has made reference to a previous Amendment which did not have the good fortune to be selected. May I take it that as the right hon. Gentleman has been permitted to make comments upon it, it will be possible in due course to reply to it?

The Chairman:

It was only a passing reference.

Further to that point of Order. The right hon. Gentleman did reflect upon those who had put their names to it in that he said that it was a naughty Amendment designed to make political propaganda. What I am asking is, if the right hon. Gentleman is permitted to say that when we are discussing another Amendment, will it be open to hon. Members on this side to reply and demonstrate the inaccuracy of the right hon. Gentleman's statement?

The Chairman:

That will be considered if and when the time comes.

It was purely a passing reference and I thought it had some relevance to what others had said. I did not realise that Kingston-upon-Thames was such a sensitive and touchy place.

Not as touchy as you.

Now, now, the County of London is much less touchy than Kingston-upon-Thames. I thought that the words were relevant and appropriate and ought to stay. There has been a lot of discussion, blaming everything on the Government. I thought that was rather extreme as applied to the whole situation.—[Interruption.] I gather that the Opposition spokesmen have been tending to blame everything in connection with the present economic situation on His Majesty's Government. If that is their view, they had better square it up with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson). In view of all the observations that have been made that these words ought to come out because the Government are to blame, I would remind the Committee that, speaking in the House on 7th August on the state of the nation, the right hon. Gentleman, although he concluded with some criticism of the Government and their policy, did say this: His Majesty's Government are in no way responsible for the general situation with which they were confronted at the end of the war. They are in no way responsible for the state of economic and financial exhaustion in which we emerged after, regardless of consequences, pledging all our resources to the single purpose of achieving victory. Neither are His Majesty's Government responsible for the great inherent difficulty of expanding our exports to the extent necessary to meet our economic situation. Nor are they responsible for the increased prices, upon which the Chancellor laid great stress, of the imports which we have had to purchase from various markets. No doubt also the Government have had some extraordinarily bad luck. They had bad luck in the weather last winter.… They have had bad luck in the still slow recovery of Europe from the war."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th August, 1947; c. 1696–7, Vol. 441.] That is a pretty good mouthful. We ought to have thought of that earlier. We have had an interesting discussion which could have been turned into a Socialist versus anti-Socialist Debate. I hope a good time has been had by all. I advise the Committee to retain these words, and I hope we may come to that conclusion.

I gather that even the right hon. Gentleman does not pretend that the words which we seek to delete from the Preamble are a full and accurate statement of the facts. In fact, he went on to say that in order to give, from his point of view, a full and accurate statement of the position, it would be necessary to write in half the industrial history of the last century. At least we are agreed on both sides of the Committee that the words in the Preamble do not give a full and accurate statement of policy. That in itself is surely objectionable, and it is a brutal act of drafting to include in the Preamble of a Statute words substantially inaccurate, and that is a conclusive reason why they should be taken out. Perhaps I may be permitted to invite the attention of the Committee to the 1945 Act, to which a great deal of reference has been made in the last dozen hours or so. No such Preamble is there, and I do not see why the Government had thought it necessary to indulge in propaganda by Act of Parliament. I do not think anybody on either side of the Committee is pretending that all the facts are given.

Taking it from the point of view of members opposite, there is no mention of the weather to which the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Fuel and Power refers when called to task for his failures. There is not even mention of the famous 20 years of Tory misrule which so gladden the hearts of members opposite If I turn to members on this side—I have dealt with the Majority, and even the minority have rights, until this Bill goes through—from their point of view no reasons are given for the mishandling of the supplies of food which led to the liquidation of Sir Ben Smith, not one word about the collapse of the supply of fuel which ought to have led to the liquidation of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Fuel and Power, not one word of the mishandling of our exchange system by the Chancellor of the exchequer, or one word of the effect of the inflationary policy of the Government—not one word. Yet I do assure the Committee there are many people in this country, both in this Committee and outside, who would be inclined to the view that all of these things had something to do with the shortage of supplies which is here already and will be accentuated without any doubt, as, indeed, the Preamble states, in the months that are to come. There is not one word either of the £58,000,000 sterling convertible into dollars which slipped through the hands of the War Office while the Secretary of State for War looked elsewhere. I did not realise the Government was so bankrupt in propaganda that they had to resort to propaganda by statute.

I would agree in one respect with the Lord President. The main, if not the only, purpose of this Amendment is to ensure the historical accuracy of the facts recited by the Preamble for the purpose of future students, but I cannot altogether accept the comment which the Lord President sought to make that, therefore, the Amendment was of small account and was to be disregarded. I consider that historical accuracy is a matter of some importance, and what we are asked to consider is whether we ought to put in the Preamble to the Statute that the present shortage of supplies and services has occurred by reason of the war and the dislocation of trade consequent upon it. That is what we are asked to insert into the body of the statute. Some of my hon. Friends have objected to that on the grounds that the main cause of the shortages is the incompetence of the Government. An hon. Member for, I think, one of the Hull constituencies, suggested that the dislocation of supplies and services, so far from having anything to do with the war, was part of the long-term problem with which this country was confronted. To write into the Preamble this theory that the shortage is due to the war, is to insert one of the main arguments on which the Government have hitherto relied. If these shortages are due to the war, then, I think, one might make a similar argument about the period which came immediately after the first world war, and that being a valid argument, what then becomes of the wretched lie about 20 years of Tory misrule?

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Preamble."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 193; Noes, 63.

Preamble, as amended, agreed to.

Question put, "That the Chairman do report the Bill, as amended, to the House."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 189; Noes, 62.

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, considered.