I am not responsible for the other side. [Interruption]. Perhaps it is out of order for the Liberal party to be present. On this question of the technical man, I say I would rather see the technical man sitting there by right, the right of his knowledge. What an insult it must be to a man with technical knowledge when some man says to him, "I will condescend to discuss something that you know and that I do not know." That is too often the position, and not alone in Boards like the Board of Health and the Board of Agriculture. I know a farmer who is one of the biggest experts in his own line. Just imagine this big, fine fellow, with fine red beard, and hair the colour of that of the Secretary of State, coming into an office with all the breezes of the countryside about him—called into consultation with some thing who has never seen more than the inside of a college, who is called an expert civil servant. This man begins to ask the man who knows some questions. I can just imagine what that friend of mine would say. [Interruption]. I will not say it here, but, put in Sunday language, he would say, "My lad, I never discuss what I know with those who do not know, unless as a master to a pupil." And that would be the finish.

We cannot be too careful about the proposals in this Bill, because once we let this Measure go we have lost our grip on the situation. In the hall outside this Chamber there is a large picture dealing with an historical incident when certain Scotsmen sold the Scottish people for a mess of pottage. As I have told the Secretary of State, if he does not alter—and while there is life there is hope—the only thing left will be to complete that picture downstairs by painting him in at the back. I would like to have the job of painting him in the picture. Having regard to this Bill and all that it contains, I should see him, when I was completing that picture, not as Sir John Gilmour, Secretary of State for Scotland, but I should see him as a tool of the Tory party with horns and cloven feet—as Auld Nickie, which means his Satanic Majesty. If the administrative official is to override the technical adviser, in all fairness the latter ought to have the right of going direct to the Minister. That is the practice which exists in the Ministry of Health in England. Sir George Newman and the other medical experts would not consent to be subjected as these experts of the Scottish Department are to be. They always have direct access to the Minister of Health, not only to be heard, but to decide. They decide medically, and the other fellow, who does not understand the medical side, decides politically. That is the position.

I want to point out to the Secretary of State for Scotland that in my view if a thing is good enough for England it should be good enough for Scotland. Has the right hon. Gentleman lost all interest in Scottish affairs and all respect for the Scottish people, because he is now putting Scotland on a lower rung of the ladder in organisation than the Ministry of Health in England? Many comments have been made about the administration of the offices which are dealt with in this Measure, and I should like the Secretary of State for Scotland, in his reply, to say definitely whether there have been complaints about the Scottish Board of Health, because this is a point upon which the public ought to be informed. If the right hon. Gentleman would answer this question it might take away our Opposition.

Those who are putting these proposals forward know that we know that they cannot put up such a defence. Considering the conditions which obtain in Scotland no one can deny that the Scottish Board of Health have done wonders, and in sanitation they have shown the way to other countries. What is going to happen under the reconstructed Board of Health as regards the work which is now being carried on by that organisation? This is a much bigger question than it appears on paper. Those of us who do a little travelling in the remote parts of Scotland know what is meant by a definite knowledge not only of the medical side of these questions but of the existing conditions, and we know that the success of the administration will not be ensured by appointing a civil servant without the necessary contact with these things.

It is the duty of the Secretary of State for Scotland to show us where the inefficiency exists which has caused him to make proposals for the reconstruction of the Board of Agriculture in Scotland. That Board has fought against many difficulties in regard to the land system and other questions. An Agricultural Board working freely in Scotland can give good results, but under the system proposed, where are you going to get any information which will be worth having? You will not get such information from the men who have only seen the inside of a University. You can only get the information you require from the men who know, and those who know are the men who have been engaged in the work for a long time. If we had a Board free from dictation by political heads I am sure Scotland would take its place with any other country in the world. It is no use having a very highly-skilled college-bred man with a certificate showing so many years' attendance at a college unless that man can bring with him agricultural common-sense, and that cannot be got at the University. Mr. Speir is a Scotsman who would be the measure that I should use in measuring out what I believe is necessary in the case of agricultural knowledge. You should have a free board of skilled men and allow the contact between these men and the Government to be a type of machinery that would control expenditure and that which it would obviously be wrong to do. Let the skilled men be free and then you will get the full advantage of their skill. Who can say that the appointment of a new head to deal with the prisons of Scotland is going to be an improvement? In this House not many weeks ago an English Member complimented the Scottish Prison Commissioners on their Report, and he said that Report was not only much larger but superior to the English Report.

9.0 p.m.

Notwithstanding this evidence, the Secretary of State for Scotland is going to destroy the Scottish Prison Commissioners, although in the past they have been the envy of other countries. How can a civil servant deal effectively with the difficulties that arise in connection with crime and criminals? The Commissioners have had close contact with these things, and they have been associated with the movement which has aimed at doing something for the criminal class. They have tried, and they have done their best to find work which is most suitable for the class of people in our prisons. How much of that spirit would you get from a man who is attracted to the position merely on account of the high salary, but who possesses no real capacity for the work? When I want any information about prisons I communicate directly with the prison authorities. I think England has a great deal to learn on this matter from the Scottish Prison Commissioners, and I am surprised at the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Cabinet putting forward these proposals. Instead of adopting this policy, the right hon. Gentleman ought to have said to the Cabinet: "Let us keep the organisation we have, and then we will show you what the human touch can do." Instead of doing that, the Secretary of State for Scotland seems to have slunk into the corner at the bidding of the Prime Minister. I only wish we had a Scottish Secretary of State who would fight the Cabinet on behalf of his own country and its institutions, but we have got such a Scottish Secretary. All this has been used as another step in the progress that I was pointing out—the progress during the last five years in doing everything to take from Scotland its real contact with government. I am not allowed to use the language that I would like to use in trying to describe how I feel. There is Scottish poetry that I could quote which would make the right hon. Gentleman blush, if that were possible, to think that, in the last stage of real national responsibility a Scotsman should sell, not only himelf, but his fellows I thought that those days belonged to a dim and buried past, but it seems that even now we have a remnant of that mind in the Secretary of State for Scotland.