I would ask the indulgence of the House, Sir, to make a short personal explanation regarding some remarks I made yesterday during the debate on the Finance Bill. I repeated—somewhat unfortunately, I now realise—a statement made to me in the course of general conversation by a business friend to the effect that if the public only knew all the facts about licensing and quotas the Government would be blown sky-high. Apart from the crudity of metaphor and the inelegance of phrase, I feel that the remark was unfortunate, for it is open to the construction that members of the Government or Civil Service have acted in an improper or dishonourable way. I can assure the House that no such thought even entered my mind and that it never occurred to me that any Minister or official had ever acted other than in what he believed to be the best interests of the State.
I sincerely regret that in the heat and exuberance of debate I should have said anything that might bear any other construction.