Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: Even if Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo, the two best-looking women in the world, were compelled to look at each other all the way to Australia, I think each would tire of the other's face. The best way to get more machines is to get more passengers, because if you get more money, it will pay for better planes. We want this air service to be like a service of tramcars. People do not run for a...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I came into the House this evening to listen and learn, and I have learned. I heard the Financial Secretary make a speech in which he repeated himself three times. Three times he gave us the words which would have to be used if he had not used the omnibus clause that is put down here. I suggest that it would be an excellent thing to use the words which he quoted to us. I have not the...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I certainly could not answer for the hon. Baronet; I can only answer for myself. I am not perfect and do not pretend to have understood every Bill which has become an Act since I became a Member of Parliament. But I listened to the Financial Secretary, whose statement I treat with the greatest respect, and I think the words he mentioned would be very much better than those in the omnibus...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: During the past month, I have listened to a great many speeches on India, and a great many of them have had a sense of unreality about them. The speakers appeared to think that India in 1947 is exactly the same as the India of 1935, when the last India Bill was passed by this House. After all, we cannot put a young man of 21 in a perambulator and call him "Mummy's darling boy." He wants to...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I think she is deeper and deeper in the mire today, and I do not want to see India in that state. It is only some 400 million people that we have to think about and I think that is enough for this afternoon. Without including China let us peer into the future with the worst possibility first. There may be a new Government in India, and many parts of India may well refuse to obey that new...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I wish to point out how this Bill applies to Northern Ireland. Mine is an agricultural constituency, and I have received a good many letters on the subject of this Bill. I will quote one of them as an example. In the interests of agriculture and also of children and young people, and in view of the fact that we are already half an hour in advance of London time, it is hoped that you will do...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would assist the Government of Northern Ireland in getting electricity, poles and plant for the farmers there, as they have half an hour less light in the morning?
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I would like to thank the House for the speedy passage which has been given to this Bill on Second Reading and in Committee. We in Northern Ireland welcome the Bill, which was a freely negotiated agreement first made in 1925, and continued afterwards in 1935. Although this Bill has hardly caused a ripple on the political waters in Westminster, it excites an extremely lively interest in...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I would be inclined to advise the Minister not to accept this Amendment. We all know the importance of this Bill and the secrecy which is attached to it. I have been reading through the further Amendments on the Order Paper, but, of course, I would be out of Order if I referred in more than a word or two to the last Amendment, where, for the first time, we see that the Irish Land Act, 1907,...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I would be very glad if I were proved wrong and if it were the fact that Russia had accepted that position. Perhaps the hon. Member for King's Norton (Mr. Blackburn) has more information than I have. However, at the present moment, with international negotiations in progress, the Minister would be very wise to refuse to accept this Amendment.
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I think they will slow up; why not?
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: In my opinion, war between the United States and ourselves is unthinkable, and I hope and believe that we shall always be Allies, so that the stronger we are, the less anxiety the United States of America will have to provide itself with munitions.
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: In that case the hon. and gallant Member should not make his statement.
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: Will the hon. Member give way for one moment?
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: In the absence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Antrim (Sir H. O'Neill), I would like to say a word on this Amendment. I see that this Schedule applies to Northern Ireland. Only a week ago I drove through my constituency from the North about 70 miles down to Rostrevor in the South, through the Mountains of Mourne, where there are a great many sheep and hill farms. I saw how had some...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I wish to speak for a few minutes on three points only. In the first place, I am raising again the point concerning consumer goods. After all, we have now got the nationalisation of the coal mines, and it is no use going back again to 1926 or 1906; we had better confine our attention to 1946, and things as they are today. For a start I think that everybody in the country realises the...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I wish to refer to what was said about partnership by the hon. Member for South Belfast (Mr. Gage) and the right hon. and learned Member for North Croydon (Mr. Willink). I understood them to say that if one of a well-established partnership of doctors dies or retires, the remaining partners cannot select whoever is to join the partnership. I can imagine some very embarrassing positions...
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: Will the hon. Gentleman read what follows, and show how the industry was permitted to write off the expenditure?
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: Does that not take into account the increase in the steel industry in India and in South Africa?
Lieut-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: In India the ore is actually beside the coal mines
