Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I am glad the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. W. R. Williams) spoke about the Welsh missionaries in India, and I think it was a word in season. I have been treated personally in Dr. Robert's Welsh hospital, and so I can pay a personal tribute to the great work which they are doing in India. I do not believe that the Prime Minister or the President of the Board of Trade are feeling...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson) has told us, this is a most important Clause. I have been connected with this particular corner of India since 1904, and even before that there were considerable arguments as to which Province Sylhet should belong to, either Assam or Bengal. I remember when the railway was opened first over the hilly...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I hesitate to disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler). My experience of the Sikh community is confined to Mesopotamia in the last war and to several clever mechanical engineers of the Sikh community the right hon. Gentleman hoped that separate electorates for the Sikh community would be considered. From my small knowledge of Indian political...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: My approach to this Clause is different from that of some other hon. Members who have spoken this afternoon. The Government of India are certainly very keenly concerned with what goes on in the Indian States. Only last cold weather, one very prominent Indian statesman, speaking at a commercial gathering, suggested that whereas the British commercial community paid their Income Tax and Surtax...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: Up to now on this Bill I have supported the Government, because I realise that conditions in India are very different today from what they were after the last war, but I believe that lines 20 to 22 in this Clause, providing for the division of the Indian Army, would mean murder and bloodshed in India. First, let us consider for a moment the composition of the Indian Army. I do not think...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: May I ask your guidance on one point, Mr. Speaker? There is an Amendment on the Order Paper in my name to include ex-Service men and women in hospitals who are in receipt of disability pensions. May I ask you if it would be in Order for me to speak on this topic in the general Debate, and perhaps, if you were to call the Amendment later on, it might be moved formally without a speech?
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: Perhaps I may, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, and for the convenience of the House move the Amendment standing in my name.
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: The Amendment will be moved later, and when I move it, it will be in the following terms: in line 43, after "1946," insert: and ex-service men and women in hospital who are in receipt of a disability pension. Since the Tobacco Duty was raised I have had a great many letters on the subject, as I am sure have other hon. Members. These letters have been mostly from ladies who have never written...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Clause, in line 43, after"1946,"to insert: and ex-service men and women in hospital who are in receipt of a disabilty pension.
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: Can the hon. Gentleman give way for one moment? I think he is misrepresenting the last picture. I understand that in local government elections ox-Service men and women have definitely been given the vote.
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I am gratified at the number of Members who are present today. So often I hear it said in other places, "You live in Down, that is part of Eire." I am glad that misapprehension does not exist in this House today. In this Debate it is not the actual Bill which is being attacked, but the Unionist Government in Northern Ireland who are to administer it. That is a Government which, up to date,...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: —and in Northern Ireland we give 60 per cent. I am sorry, I made a mistake about Scotland. We actually give more towards Roman Catholic education in the Six Counties of Northern Ireland than is given in England.
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I think it is due to the fact that the Government of Northern Ireland introduced it against a lot of opposition and insisted on it being passed. I see the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. J. Beattie) opposite. He and I are about the same age. I believe he and I, when we were boys, both worked in the same firm in the North of Ireland. When I was there, I saw no religious discrimination...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: No.
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I have never seen it, and I have been in many processions.
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: In the case of the Chairman of the Down County Council, I believe, though I have never discussed it with him, he is a Nationalist.
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman three questions. The first is about the Anglo-Indian community. A great many of these people wish to retain British nationality for 10 years until they see how these new Governments progress. The second question is about the district of Cachar, which adjoins Sylhet in Assam. It also wishes to be included in Bengal. The third point is about the...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: Perhaps 42 would be still better.
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I would like to return to the argument put forward by the mover of the Amendment, the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Ayles); I refer only to his point about the engineering trade. I nave not had the privilege of knowing what the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) said about what went on in the universities, but in the engineering trade, the average boy or young man comes in at the age of 16....
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: Having listened to this Debate, I agree with most of what has been said. So far as I can see, the production of civil aeroplanes in this country today is absolutely in its infancy. The planes that have been flying from here at any rate on the routes to Ireland, are exactly the same as those in which I learned to fly myself in 1915. I appreciate the reason for it. It was the war, in which we...
