– in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 28 Hydref 1947.
With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I desire to make a personal statement. When speaking last night in this House I used the following words:
I saw in the paper recently that the hon. Lady the Member for North Hendon (Mrs. Ayrton Gould) had said in a speech, I think in Norway or Sweden, that this country was now a second-class Power."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th October, 1947; Vol. 443, c. 634.]
The hon. Lady informs me today that the report of her speech was wrongly translated and that she did not, in fact, say that we were a second-class Power, as I understand her, but that we were a poor Power. The last thing that I would wish would be to misrepresent the hon. Lady in any way and I desire to state that I regret having done so.
May I thank the hon. and gallant Member for what he has said? I am glad to take this opportunity of saying that I have never said that this country is now a second-class or minor Power, but only that we were now a poor country.