I was interested to hear the suggestion of the hon. Member (Mr. Hopkinson) that this matter has been raised on these Benches in a more or less corrupt way. I should like to ask a question or two of the Minister in connection with that aspect of the matter. I want to know whether there is any corruption in operation. I want to know whether the constituents of Coalition Members are being better treated than the constituents of Members on this side. If they are, there seems to be some sort of corruption. Are all the men who went from Mosley being treated fairly in the way of pensions? Are they being better treated at Mosley than at Hamilton? It may be they are because the hon. Member who represents that Division votes with the Government and they are not being treated fairly in Hamilton because the Member for Hamilton votes against them. I do not know. I am sure the Minister of Pensions and the vast majority of hon. Members will not for a moment imagine that we have raised this matter from any corrupt or political motive. We honestly believe that all hon. Members, no matter to what party they belong or on which side of the House they sit, are troubled with the same difficulty in regard to the men whom they sincerely believe have a. right to have their pensions continued, but find themselves being deprived of them. How are they deprived? I am making no complaint against the Pensions Minister, I think he is the victim of circumstances. I have always obtained quite reasonable and satisfactory treatment from him, so far as he could go. The unfortunate thing is that he cannot go very far. He comes up against the doctor. I am not dealing with the tribunals at present, but I want to say something about the medical boards. Who are they? What are they? Is there anybody who has any faith in them? Has any soldier or any Member of Parliament any faith in them? I am a Member of Parliament, and I have absolutely no faith in the doctors who form the medical hoard in Glasgow, and I have a good reason. Has not the medical man who is the panel doctor of a soldier or ex-soldier gone through the same scholastic training, attended the university, and undergone the same severe study in order to secure a degree entitling him to act as a doctor? Judging from reports I have received from those who have served long years in the Army, the ordinary civilian doctor is very much superior to the doctor in the Army. Here we have a panel doctor certifying that men are unfit to work because of services rendered in the Army during the War, and that their present disability is either caused or aggravated by such service. These men go to the medical boards, and the medical boards say, "Go back to your panel doctors. You are not fit to work, but you are not entitled to get any pension or treatment allowance. You may be in poverty, you may be in starvation, but, so far as we are concerned, you can either get from the parochial authorities sufficient to maintain you, or you can starve."

I venture to say that if anybody is corrupt at all in this matter it is the members of the Government who, in 1918, pledged themselves that the treatment to be meted out to the men who served during the last Great War should be very different from that accorded to the men who served in previous wars. We all professed to he shocked at the treatment received by those of our fathers who served in the Crimean and Peninsular Wars. We solemnly swore before God Almighty that we would not act in that way so far as the men who fought in the last War were concerned; but now we have an amount of misery in the country, in consequence of the evil treatment that ex-soldiers and ex-pensioners are receiving, which is a standing disgrace to hon. Members of this House. It may be that the tribunal has a power superior to that of the Minister of Pensions. Nobody here knows the tribunal, but we do know the Minister of Pensions. He is responsible to this House, and if the tribunals are giving what we believe and know to be unsatisfactory decisions, it is clearly the duty of hon. Members to change the law, so that the Minister shall have control over the tribunals, and we shall have some control over him. The onus of proving that a claim for a pension by a man who rendered services during the War is fraudulent and unreasonable ought to lie with the Ministry.

When a man has served, and finds himself in this position because of his service, it ought not to be his duty to prove his case; the other side should have to prove that his case is wrong. They do not do. so. It is peculiarly unfair so far as that particular industry with which I am associated is concerned. A miner may be fit for light employment, but, because he is fit for light employment, he may not be, and certainly is not fit for his ordinary employment. Over 400,000 went into the War from the mining industry. A large number of them have returned very much less skilful and able physically than they went away. At the present time there are more men in the industry than the employers can find work for, and the first men who are turned off, or the men who are the least likely to get a job, are the ex-soldiers. They are told that they are fit for light employment, but no light employment can be obtained. If a man went into the Army in 1914, and served during the four years of the War, and if at the end of that time he is found to be unfit to follow his usual occupation, then a duty rests on the Government—whether it is composed of hon. Members from this side of the House or from that—and upon every citizen of the country to provide the means to insure that such a man's position will not be worsened in consequence of the services he has rendered.

I do not know what the Minister of Pensions is going to say, but I hope it will he something different from what he has always said in dealing with this matter. I hope he will say that the Government intend to adopt some plan to insure that at least even-handed fair-play will be given to the ex-soldier, and that he shall not be bandied from pillar to post. He should not be sent first to a medical board, which does not say he is unfit or fit for work, but sends him home to his panel doctor. He then goes back to the panel doctor, who says he can work. Then he makes application to the Labour Ministry and gets nothing. Possibly he has to go to the parish authority, and the local ratepayers have to maintain him, whereas it should have been a pleasure for the country to find the money to keep this man, of whom it was said that he had rendered such service that it was impossible to give him sufficient honour and reward. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give some indication of his intentions. We are not making a protest on behalf of the Labour party but on behalf of the whole of the House. We are all equally anxious that the Pensions Minister should state that the Government policy in future should either be to make good the promise of 1918 to these men who served the country, or that the authorities themselves should have to prove that the men were fit to continue the work they were doing prior to joining up. I hope that some good result will arise from this Debate.