Mr William Aitken: The hon. Member seems to me to be illogical about this. The whole object of getting a representative of the veterinary service on the Board is that more money will be available if it gets a fair chance of getting it.
Mr William Aitken: I have in my constituency a bacon factory which is working to just under one-third of its normal capacity. Nobody can live in that part of the country for long without realising what a very important part the bacon factory plays in the pig industry. Bacon factories take only about one-third of the total pig production of the country, but they provide a stimulus to breeding and the...
Mr William Aitken: This case concerns a constituent of mine, as the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel Baker) indicated. I raised it first just over two years ago. After an exchange of about forty letters between the National Farmers' Union, the Ministry and other parties concerned, the case which I made for my constituent was firmly and unequivocally turned down. I felt very deeply about it at...
Mr William Aitken: It looks very much as though I shall have to follow the exhortations of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), whether I like it or not. Most of us here today who like myself are interested in every aspect of breeding, training and racing horses have listened to a most informative debate. I confess that I am one who gains no excitement, no entertainment, no pleasure and no...
Mr William Aitken: I am grateful for this opportunity of raising the case of Mr. Harvey Frost, who is head of a well-known and reputable firm of builders in Bury St. Edmunds. In July, 1951, Mr. Frost entered into a contract for the reconstruction of the West Suffolk Hospital which had been severely damaged by fire in 1949. In July, 1951, Mr. Frost started his reconstruction work. For many years Mr. Frost's...
Mr William Aitken: The difference between the £20,000 and the £9,000 arose because Mr. Frost saw the final bill of variation some time after he had made his original claim for £23,000, so that he could not know what the costs were until he saw the final bill of variation. That is why he accepted the difference between £23,000 and £9,000.
Mr William Aitken: May I ask whether the implication is that Mr. Frost was responsible for part of the delay in the payment? Is that the implication which my hon. Friend assumes from Colonel Ackland's last letter?
Mr William Aitken: I have sat here for a very long time and have had the not unusual experience of hearing a good deal of my speech made for me by my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) and Harrogate (Mr. Ramsden). I start off by congratulating the Government on a very remarkable achievement in Montreal. It is remarkable that Britain is at last able to give a real lead because she is...
Mr William Aitken: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Is it not completely out of order to refer to the internal affairs of another self-governing part of the Commonwealth? Surely that is a question we are rather careful about in this House?
Mr William Aitken: I am glad of the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson), because I wish to point out to him that, according to my reckoning, there are six hon. Members in the House who were born in Her Majesty's Realm of Canada. There are also two Australians, two or three South Africans, and various other Members from the Commonwealth. I can assure the hon. Member that most of...
Mr William Aitken: It would be an independent corporation. It would be a piece of economic machinery quite outside politics and as mechanical as the law. It would not be unlike the gold standard or exchange equalisation fund, which are attempts to stabilise, the one gold and the other money. I shall not attempt to argue through the details, because then we should be here for a long time indeed. I will try to...
Mr William Aitken: Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to intervene to say that the proposed schemes for stabilisation really have nothing whatever to do with bulk buying. Bulk buying is an adventure on the part of the Government buyer. He buys at what he thinks a suitable price, and sells when it suits him. The scheme that we were discussing was simply an automatic piece of machinery which buys a certain...
Mr William Aitken: May I point out that there is a danger in describing this as Dominion status minus, because it is different from the Nationalist Party's proposals, which they called quasi-Dominion status. With great respect I think it is rather dangerous to compare the two, because they are different. It is difficult, in an intervention, to recall the whole of the Nationalist Party's proposals, but they are...
Mr William Aitken: The Round Table Conference said that they were not possible.
Mr William Aitken: It was the Nationalist Party's proposals for Dominion status minus. That is why I called attention to the use of this expression, so that there should not be confusion.
Mr William Aitken: I am glad to follow the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) because, had I not had the privilege of being a Member of the Round Table Conference, I would have agreed with every word he said. I very much agree with his observations about the way in which the Prime Minister of Malta has handled this question. It is a good thing that he should have said this today, because...
Mr William Aitken: I am coming to the rather different situation which arises at present. I believe that the Round Table Conference which was, by and large, composed of reasonable people without too many prejudices, came to an unescapable conclusion. Unless there have been great changes in the aspirations of the political parties in Malta, I still do not think that there is any other real solution to the...
Mr William Aitken: Mr. Mintoff has not repudiated integration. We are quite a long way off that, I hope, although the process should have been completed before now. There is still a possibility for a settlement. I think hon. Members would say that if there is any fault there is more on the other side than on this side. I hope that this historical opportunity will not be spurned by the House of Commons, and that...
Mr William Aitken: Although I was very interested in some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop), I am sure he will appreciate that if I do not follow him on this occasion it is because we all have our own subjects we want to discuss in this debate. No one seems to have dealt so far with that very important sector of international affairs, Cyprus. I have either taken...
Mr William Aitken: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations when the Commonwealth Economic Committee will have completed its inquiry into Commonwealth raw materials; and when the Report will be available.