Dr Donald Murray: I rise to call attention to the Vote dealing with the Board of Agriculture in Scotland, with especial reference to the administration in connection with the applications sent in for small holdings from the highlands and islands of Scotland. The only feeling of confidence that I have in rising for the first time to address the House on this or any other subject is derived from the assurance...
Dr Donald Murray: I do not know that it is quite subjudice. Anyhow I have done with the case. I hope the Board of Agriculture will take advantage of some of the things which are being sold at present. I think a Scottish Board should know where a good bargain is going. There will be a lot of barbed wire fencing, wood, and things of that sort which will be useful for new holdings. I hope the Board of Agriculture...
Dr Donald Murray: Can anything be done to prevent these families from being cast on the roadside?
Dr Donald Murray: The fact that this Bill has come on unexpectedly puts some of us at a disadvantage, especially an unsophisticated rustic like myself, fresh from the heather, who is not accustomed to speaking when suddenly called upon. But I can quite understand why my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland, with the Scottish instinct for taking advantage of an opportunity, seized the occasion to get...
Dr Donald Murray: I should think the hon. and gallant Member who represents the Ministry for Shipping will be glad to escape from the stormy waters of Chepstow and to steer into the comparative calm of the Western Seas, and I hope that in drawing attention to the matter I propose to raise I shall not be considered lacking in a sense of perspective or proportion in taking hon. Members' attention away from the...
Dr Donald Murray: 14. asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he-is aware that a considerable number of the buildings in the island of St. Kilda, including the church and the nurse's house, were destroyed by shell-fire from a German submarine last summer; and whether the Government propose to pay compensation with a view to restoring these buildings?
Dr Donald Murray: Are only the conscripts to be brought back; are not those who volunteered to go last year to come back?
Dr Donald Murray: I mean, not those who volunteered to stay, but volunteered to go.
Dr Donald Murray: 75. asked the Secretary for Scotland if ha can state when he will be in a position to introduce his proposals for the settlement of soldiers and sailors upon the land; and whether, in view of the unrest in Lewis and Harris, he will direct the Board of Agriculture to proceed at once with the schemes for small holdings already adopted by the Board for that area?
Dr Donald Murray: On a point of Order. May I ask you, Sir, if it is in Order for a group of rather boisterous Members of the House at the door, in order to defeat the Government, to prevent other Members from getting into the House to vote who were not quite here to time?
Dr Donald Murray: As more or less an outsider, I should like to say a few words against the acceptance of this Amendment. As far as I can understand, it is one of a series of wrecking Amendments. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) has already, I understand, made one or two holes in watertight compartments of the Bill. Now the bold buccaneers want to put a pirate crew on board the ship, and when the ship is...
Dr Donald Murray: 79. asked the Secretary for Scotland whether he can state the number of applications by leaseholders to be declared statutory smallholders under the Scottish Smallholders Act, 1911, received during the years 1914 to 1917, inclusive, and the number rejected on the ground that they were not lodged within the period prescribed by the Act; and whether, in view of the anxiety of so many...
Dr Donald Murray: I should like to divert the thoughts of hon. Members from the close atmosphere of railway carriages to the fresh breezes of the sea coast. I rise to support this Bill. I must say that the doleful Jeremiad to which the Mover of the Amendment treated us leaves me cold. I believe that the Bill will make for the welfare of the country as a whole. It is because I believe that that I do not join...
Dr Donald Murray: Other hon. Members have spoken.
Dr Donald Murray: How long will the factory be required for Army purposes?
Dr Donald Murray: Will the box be opened by the Committee?
Dr Donald Murray: I am afraid the hon. Gentleman will look upon us as a lot of Oliver Twists, and that our asking for more will not encourage him to make concessions. But really in order to make this concession of any value whatever, especially in Scotland, it would be necessary to extend it. The young men and women in the Highlands go to the universities at, perhaps, a later age than they do in the Lowlands....
Dr Donald Murray: I cannot say much about the telephone system of late years, but the Post Office generally, up till quite recently, used to be considered one of the most efficient and best-run institutions in the whole country. Whether it has changed of recent years I do not know, but a few years ago it used to be recognised as a very efficient institution. This Committee has been likened to a shareholders'...
Dr Donald Murray: Has the right hon. Gentleman anything to say about the Western Isles, which have only two mails a week?
Dr Donald Murray: I would join in the congratulations to the Minister of Pensions for the growing efficiency, I would almost say the growing humanity, of his Department, and add my testimony to those who have spoken of the courtesy received from the Department. It is a great pleasure to me that the system of regional areas has been adopted, because it will make for efficiency. The chief point I wish to touch...
