Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: Official committees.
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: Would the right hon. Gentleman explain what is meant by "fresh visitors"?
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I entirely support what my hon. Friend has said. Nothing could be more dangerous than that the feeling should get around in the country that those who are unable to achieve certain standards of production in the farming industry should be protected by the procedure suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers). It would be damaging to the sympathy which exists between...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: The House will be interested in hearing such a speech from an hon. Member on the other side of the House. We can well understand his detestation of monopoly rights. No doubt the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Coldrick) has been completely logical in what he has said tonight compared with the way in which he cast his votes many dozens of times since 1945. He voted against...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I still have not had an answer to the simple question I posed to the hon. Member. Am I right in assuming that he voted against nationalisation of the enterprises of which I have been speaking? I want to establish that perfectly simple point. It is a little difficult to get a definite answer. Quite obviously, the hon. Member is a little evasive on that point.
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I entirely agree. Nor has it ever been suggested that the farm workers should be entrusted with the control of the Milk Marketing Board.
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: Nor the cows. The hon. Member for Bristol, North-East complimented the Ministry of Food, but did not compliment the farm worker on the work he did to encourage the cow to produce milk. The hon. Member did not, in fact, oppose nationalisation of coal, iron and steel and the rest but, by supporting those Measures of nationalisation, he supported a very large measure of monopoly. It is no...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: When hon. Members opposite—I do not think there are many of them—abuse the proposal to give back powers in a modified form to the Milk Marketing Board, they should examine the question of how, otherwise, we are to get a suitable milk market in this country, how we are to help supply milk to be distributed at a reasonable price and by a reasonable organisation unless we have something of...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I do not think that all the members of the Co-operative movement would agree that they entirely control the price structure of the Co-operative movement, but that is another matter. Nor would I agree that the users of the services supplied by nationalised boards can control the prices they charge for those services. Of course they cannot do so. But in this case I do not think that the...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I was glad to hear the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) welcome the Bill, although he did so with a slightly backhanded compliment. I was surprised to hear him try to belittle the Bill merely on the ground that it did not do everything. It was never meant to do everything, and it would not be the right vehicle in which to include as much as the right hon. Gentleman would wish to...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: That fact has already been commented on by the right hon. Member for Huyton, and I think we may hear more about it later. In any event, that is a matter for which this House is not responsible in any way. It is laid down in the original Act that the President has an absolute right, if he so desires, to deal with the Report in the public interest. I hope it will not be thought for one moment...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that further powers are needed beyond those which are covered by Section 15 of the principal Act? Is he suggesting that a form of inquiry, which was not contemplated at the time of the 1948 Act and covered by Section 15, should now be considered?
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: My hon. Friend is surely aware that this House has always the power and the right and, indeed, the duty to correct what it considers to be a wrong ruling as regards the public interest? The final answer does not reside, and will not under the Bill, either in the chairman of the panel or the panel as a whole, any more than it does now in the Chairman of the Commission.
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I think I was very careful to say, and I think it was in the minds of the Committee when they reported in the way they did, that though, in fact, the industry against which a complaint was made was not sub judice, yet in the public mind that was the position. Though it may be repeated in the annual report, that still remains the opinion outside.
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: They have not got the opportunity.
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but how does all this affect the substance of the Orders now under consideration by the House? I quite appreciate that certain comparative matters, quite rightly, should be raised, but in connection with the Orders are we not getting rather wide of the subject?
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I have listened with great interest to the quiet, measured and objective speech of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale). I must say that when he told the House that it was our duty to ensure that distrust was not sown in Nyasaland in particular, those words seemed to come very oddly from him, because practically every word that he said, whether he meant it or not, will have the...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I cannot give way. I want to be very brief and I am sure that the hon. Member will be able to catch Mr. Speaker's eye.
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I am sorry about that, but I am not in control of the debate. If, on the introduction of this system of federation, should it be approved in Southern Rhodesia, it were found possible to introduce gradually a practical means of carrying out development without going the whole hog at once with federation I believe that a great deal of the trouble would be overcome and that a great deal of the...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: No.