The charge amounts to this:—That, in the years 1796 and 1797, two Ministers of the Crown thought it useful for the public service to encourage a general Rebellion in Ireland—that is to say, that during the most perilous Crisis of the War, after the French successes in Italy, after the disasters of Austria, after the Treaty of Campo 78 Formio—notwithstanding the mutiny at the Nore, and the threatened invasion of Ireland, two Ministers were found wicked enough, and mad enough, to take upon themselves the responsibility of deliberately provoking and fostering a Rebellion in Ireland.

Surely, then, they were justified in assuming that this was an important Crisis in the War, and that within a fortnight the electric telegraph might flash from one end of Europe to the other the announcement that the dispute had been finally and satisfactorily arranged, and that there was no reason why the belligerent Powers should not agree to an armistice.

The noble Viscount who had brought this question before the House had stated that the colony did not ask for men, although a very modest request had been made within the last month to the Home Government that they would permit the only regiment that was still in New Zealand to remain there until the result of the present Crisis of the War was known in this country.

This will be the heading—" For a sum required beyond the ordinary grants by Parliament towards defraying the expenses which may be incurred in immediately increasing the Naval and Military Services in the present Crisis of the War between Russia and Turkey, including the cost of a further addition to the number of Land Forces during the year ending the 31st March, 1878".

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £6,000,000, be granted to Her Majesty, beyond the Ordinary Grants of Parliament, towards defraying the Expenses which may he incurred, during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1878, in increasing- the efficiency of the Naval and Military Services at the present Crisis of the War between Russia and Turkey".

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: With regard to the Question just put to me, it certainly is a point whether this ought to be a Supplementary Estimate, or a Vote of Credit, but this is the form of it— "Vote of Credit for the sum required beyond the ordinary Grants of Parliament towards defraying the Expenses which may be incurred during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1878, in increasing the efficiency of the Naval and Military Services at the present Crisis of the War between Russia and Turkey".

It is this—The Estimate speaks of a "sum required beyond the ordinary Grants of Parliament, towards defraying the Expenses which may he incurred, during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1878, in increasing the efficiency of the Naval and Military Services at the present Crisis of the War between Russia and Turkey".

If they put £6,000,000 on the Estimates because there was a Crisis in the War between Russia and Turkey, it meant war and nothing else, and it was insulting their common sense to say that it meant anything else.

That is a reason why the discussion should not proceed upon my Amendment, although it is also a ground which applies to the proposal of the Government, the proposal of the Government being a Vote that is asked on account of the "present Crisis in the War between Russia and Turkey;" and we are still, I trust, under the belief that the war has practically ceased.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £6,000,000, be granted to Her Majesty, beyond the ordinary Grants of Parliament, towards defraying the Expenses which may be incurred, during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1878, in 1314 increasing the Efficiency of the Naval and Military Services at the present Crisis of the War between Russia and Turkey".

Question again proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £6,000,000, be granted to Her Majesty, beyond the ordinary Grants of Parliament, towards defraying the Expenses -which may he incurred, during the year ending on the 31st of March 1878, in increasing the Efficiency of the Naval and Military Services at the present Crisis of the War between Russia and Turkey".

The wording of the Resolution proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was objectionable, because it spoke of the Vote being expended in increasing the efficiency of the Naval and Military Services at the present Crisis of the War between Russia and Turkey.

The Crisis of the War is over, but during the crisis the Prime Minister said that he had abdicated in favour of Lord Roberts, or words to that effect.

He may have sanguine and confident anticipations as to the services that Army will render in war time to an Army in the field, but I think that if he were to ask the lights of the Staffs of the great continental Powers what they thought of a mobilisation which was marked at its earliest stages by uncertainty, which left them in the Crisis of War not knowing what numbers they could employ or where they could employ them, and not daring to employ them at all until a particular stage of the war was reached the members of the Staff consulted would say that the organisation stood self-condemned.

It seems to me that you ought to avoid the possibility of conflict of personal interests in the performance of a national duty, and when doing the best you can in any great Crisis of War.

Not only will workers be thrown out of work by the million—it will not simply be by the thousand, but by the million—but the unscrupulous gang who form the food ring will take advantage of the War Crisis to rob the poor more than the market justifies.

Mr. ARTHUR HENDERSON asked whether the Government are now in a position to say what proposals, if any, they have to make for assisting the textile industry of Lancashire to overcome the difficulties arising out of the War Crisis, which have resulted in an increase of unemployment, as stated by the trade union deputation on the 27th of August last?

and whether the Government can now say what proposals, if any, are to be adopted for assisting trade unions to deal with unemployment owing to the War Crisis?

On the other hand, we all realise that the question may arise as to what is proper to be done, if we still find ourselves some months hence involved in the Crisis of This War.

If in the Crisis of This War, when thrift is being preached on all hands, as it is being preached, and that by thrift the working classes not only can help their country but learn habits of thrift by aiding this, you not only do something to serve the immediate interests of the War but something to promote a most desirable social—revolution I call it!

We have had to adopt very powerful, and perhaps arbitrary, rough, crude methods in order to render this country capable of dealing with this great Crisis of War.

I may add—because it is an illustration of the spirit and the methods by which in some quarters even now, with an acute Crisis in the War, political controversy in this country is carried on—that it is in the knowledge of everybody that for my temerity in putting these questions I was assailed, not, indeed, by my right hon. Friend, but by some of the most strident organs of the Government in the Press, as sounding a note of national dissension, as importing in a crisis of the War into our proceedings of the House of Commons a taint of party controversy, as a pacifist without the courage so to avow himself—and, indeed, as a Bolo in a thin disguise.

It would be melancholy, discreditable, calamitous—I do not think I am going too far if I said it would be disgraceful—if in this Crisis of the War, and in the matter of resources which we know from the actual experience of the last quarter of last year we could bring into being and make effective for the purpose of supplying that which at this moment is the one primary and essential element needed for the Allied success, namely, the continued and increased production of shipping, if we were to have a line of declension and decline at this stage of the War we should prove false to what is the paramount necessity.

We have come to impress upon you that this really is the Crisis of the War and that in your hands and in your industry rests the crisis of crises.

He did not tell us what was the object of his Motion, and I confess I never quite gathered, unless it was to prevent one of our Allies from helping the other Allies 533 in the greatest Crisis of the War.

But I do think that a subject which aroused such active controversy, which has not altogether died down in spite of the appeal of my hon. Friend—really, it would not be possible at this Crisis in the War even to contemplate upsetting this arrangement in the House of Commons.

I ask that this question should be taken up seriously and that every possible man should be got at this serious Crisis of the War.

The 1394 hon. Member has alluded to the bonuses which have been given as a result of the War Crisis to persons who are suffering from the effects of the War.

It was used with far greater, infinitely greater, lack of scruple, 2353 and far more cruel misrepresentation at an infinitely worse Crisis in This War when the Ministers of the first War Government were pursued to their destruction.

Apparently, having passed through the Crisis of the War, and our special constabulary force having come to an end, this force is being created waiting 981 for another war.

As a matter of fact, the Crisis of the Great War came so suddenly that war was declared in this country before the Dominions clearly understood what it was all about.

One of the tragedies of our post-War economic condition in this and other countries has been the growth of tariff restriction, and if hon. Members consider the state of affairs in Europe and other parts of the world, they will think it is rather curious that many countries which we did a great deal to help during the Crisis of the War have been almost the very first to build up against us tariff walls of one kind or another.

All these things were well known to experts, and others, during the Crisis of War, and when some of us first entered this House in 1918 we were familiar with the atmosphere of what was called "post-War reconstruction".

Who served this country during the terrible Crisis of the War better than the miners?

After all, Imperial Preference is a policy which has been adopted ever since the Imperial Conference of 1917, which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs summoned in the Crisis of the War.

What you do in the Crisis of War, when you have to summon up all your resources against the common enemy, is an entirely different thing from what you do when you are trying to minimise and regulate armaments in the cause of international peace.

The pledge which all the world regarded with considerable attention, and which was mentioned by the Secretary of State in his speech, is undoubtedly the Balfour Declaration of policy put forward by the War Cabinet in the Crisis of the Great War.

On the contrary, it was a measure taken, as the right hon. Gentleman who led us in the Crisis of the War knows, in the dire need of the War with the object of promoting the general victory of the Allies, for which we expected and received valuable and important assistance.

I know that the majority of people in this country think that we may face a Crisis of War within six months, two years or something of that sort, but I do not envisage the future as being a threat of war on us.

They are not only to meet the temporary purpose of an Immediate War Crisis but are to last for many years and to serve a permanent social purpose.

When, however, the Crisis of the War was reached and it was found to be absolutely necessary to have conscription, hardly any of the Ministers found the slightest difficulty in voting for it.

As in the middle of a War Crisis it is not possible for us to devise, in accordance with the wishes of the Indian people, a new constitution, we offer as an immediate step in that direction the following adjustment, which could easily be made, of the present constitutional position.

The Secretary of State made reference to remedies for the Highlands that have had to he stopped owing to the War Crisis.

War Crisis

There was a time not many months ago when it looked as if, when this country was faced with a great Crisis in the War, India might take advantage of that crisis and start a campaign of civil disobedience and of the creation of difficulties for this country in her administration of India.

There could, of course, be no question of changing over the whole basis of administrative and legislative power in the supreme Crisis of the War, or of placing the direction of India's war effort in the hands of an entirely new Executive.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir: but every effort will be made to stimulate production in this Crisis of the War.

Sir G. Broadbridge asked the Secretary of State for War what was the reason for authorising the publication of Lord Gort's despatches during this particular phase of the War Crisis?

The people have an instinct, amounting to a deep conviction, that the supreme Crisis of the War has now begun.

And I add this: Any attempt to force this amalgamation through during the Crisis of the War would create a lasting resentment in this House and in the country, which would make its rejection doubly sure.

This Government came into existence by a Vote which turned out the previous Government, and the only reason for not turning out this Government at the present time is that it would be a little inconvenient at the moment, and that we do not wish at this particular Crisis of the War to press the matter, even if we wished to do so, which, for my own part, I do not wish to do, to a division to defeat the Government.

A fourth day it is Finance, A fifth day it is something else, and so on - a series of particular crises within the ambit of the total Crisis of War.

Does not my right hon. Friend recognise that, as we are rapidly approaching the Crisis of the War, every avenue through which information could be conveyed to the enemy should be closed, and especially that the open door between the United Kingdom and Eire within the British Empire which gives sanctuary to representatives of enemy countries should be locked, barred and bolted?

On 25th May, 1940, in the deadly Crisis of the War, the Minister of Labour met the executives of all the trade unions at a conference at the Central Hall, and appealed to them to join with the Government in increasing production, preventing strikes or lockouts, and facilitating and speeding up procedure so as to avoid difficulties arising.

They have worked full time and overtime, and I do not like to say anything that might make their job worse, during this great Crisis of the War.

I am glad that he did not increase the dose, because it might have retarded our convalescence when this savage, raging Crisis of the War is over.

I only hope - and I am sure that my right hon. Friend agrees - that when the War Crisis is over and we have a new peace conference, a new peace congress, we shall do everything in our power to exercise the influence which we have achieved, to see that the small Powers, the weak Powers, are taken into consultation and treated with such deference and respect as will do something to efface the impression left by the rather highhanded methods which we have used in the last few months.

That theory has been proved in the Crisis of the War.

To my mind, there is nothing to be said for the argument which has been advanced that at a time like this, during the supreme Crisis of the War, we should not debate these Service grievances.

We have plans which are far advanced, and which we shall be in a position to complete at a more appropriate time than this, when we are at the very Crisis of the War.

It is surely not too optimistic to say that the period of the Urgent War Crisis is over, and that the end is in sight.

Not only belligerents, but neutrals, will find that their position in the world cannot remain entirely unaffected by the part they have chosen to play in the Crisis of the War.

In the case of this war, we are not waiting until the post-War Crisis is upon us before we deal with this problem, and before peace comes we have a considered Report dealing with this very difficult problem of recruitment in the Service after the war.

It is not reasonable to ask them to do so at the very Crisis of the War; and if they cannot decide the whole programme they cannot decide individual items.

If those powers were not necessary at or after the Crisis of the War, plainly, and I think everybody would agree, they ought not now to be imported into any Regulation for the first time.

When I read that, I thought it a very curious remark because everyone remembers that, at that time, there was a very strong agitation for immediate legislation in spite of the fact that the Crisis of the War was only just past.

This was very noticeable in several of her speeches and actions, not only during the Crisis of the War, but later.

At that Crisis in the War, they were far more interested, indeed, entirely interested, apparently, in, the small local troubles at their own pits.

I had many talks with them about that subject, and I hope that by the passing of this Bill we will get these fellows to go on and do this work despite the fact that the War Crisis has gone.

That was in the middle of the Crisis of War.

We have, as I have said, never been short of men in a War Crisis.

May I remind him that the Reid Report - which was a far more comprehensive piece of work than we would imagine necessary for this new committee today - was produced in a short time in the great Crisis of War, when the coal situation was just as stringent as it is today.

Every Member has had to face the terrible Crisis of War in the course of his life-time.

1941 was the Crisis of the War, and the miners worked more shifts then than in any other year, and certainly more than I should desire that they should work in any peace-time year.

In my industrial life I always found employers always ready to raise wages of certain groups of workers when the Government of the day, perhaps because of the Crisis of War, were opposed to such an increase.

However, the morale of a military force can be based only on the knowledge and conviction of the rational defensibility of what it exists to do, of the relationship of what it does in peace to the supreme Crisis of War for which it exists.

The plan has been for rapid printing and circulation in a War Crisis at a time when its impact would be greatest.

Mr. Mayhew: Sub—regional commissioners would be appointed by the Prime Minister at a time of War Crisis.

We know how to solve our economic problems, because, after the 30s and the Crisis of the War, we joined with the other western European economies and democratic countries in other parts of the world, notably the United States, to set up a world economic order.

It would not be appropriate for local authorities to participate in such exercises, which are designed to test central Government's civil and militarycommand and control procedures in a War Crisis.

Those, for example, who did not enter the UK immediately after the 1974 war but who lived in refugee camps awaiting the outcome of the War Crisis before coming here were not considered by the Home Office to be displaced persons and were not granted indefinite leave to stay.

Final details on participation have not yet been settled, but in addition to the local authorities, it is hoped that all civil organisations with responsibilities in a War Crisis will take part.

The Prime Minister: Final details have not yet been settled, but it is expected that all civil Departments with responsibilities in a War Crisis will participate.

In the event of a War Crisis, advice would be given on expedient measures to improve protection in the home.

Mr. Redmond: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the liaison arrangements between the Central Office of Information and United States civilian or military authorities on the proposed content of emergency radio and television broadcasts in the United Kingdom during a pre-War Crisis.

Mr. Ryder: No liaison arrangements have been made between the Central Office of Information and United States civilian or military authorities on the proposed content of emergency radio and television broadcasts in the United Kingdom during a pre-War Crisis.

Mr. Redmond: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what are the liaison arrangements between his Department and the United States civilian or military authorities on the proposed content of emergency radio and television broadcasts in the United Kingdom during a pre-War Crisis.

Mr. Archie Hamilton: No liaison arrangements have been made between my Department and United States civilian or military authorities on the proposed content of emergency radio and television broadcasts in the United 656 Kingdom during a pre-War Crisis, but there would naturally be liaison between the United Kingdom and its NATO allies over such matters at such a time.

The local authorities involved have agreed that it would be sensible for the first series of such exercises to concentrate on the initial phase of a Possible War Crisis, covering a period of international tension.

Normally in a War Crisis, historically government and people converge as they did in 1914 and in 1939.