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SIR CYRIL HURCOMB said that under the Potsdam decisions, a joint shipping review was due to take place in October. He agreed, in reply to a question from the Prime Minister, that we could press the Americans to discuss certain aspects of shipping allocation at an earlier date. Problems needing urgent revision were the allocation of the queens and the captured enemy personnel ships which the Americans had been granted use until the end of the year in return for an allocation of 16,000 spaces for the repatriation of Canadians from the U.K.'

SIR ALAN BROOKE said that the shipping review being compiled by the departments would be examined by the Chiefs of Staff Committee within the next few days and would then be placed before the Defence Committee to decide the order of priorities for British requirements. After these decisions had been taken, it would be then possible to table the paper before the Americans and to begin the revision of the joint-shipping allocations. He agreed that, owing to the urgency of the position, the joint Anglo-American review should be advanced and undertook to ask the American Chiefs of Staff to bring forward the date previously settled at Potsdam as 1st October.

SIR CHARLES PORTAL said that the question of flying personnel from their various bases to the ports of India must depend to a large extent on the priorities allocated by the Supreme Commander in the use of his air forces for operations he was conducting for occupation and surrender purposes. With regard to increasing the troop lift from India to the United Kingdom, this problem was under examination, but to increase the figure of 10,000 would involve increasing maintenance personnel in order to expand the accommodation and administration of the air bases en route. This extra commitment might well cut across the demobilisation of Transport Command.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA said that there were considerable numbers of officers in the Indian Army and civilians who had served very long periods in India, and urgently need repatriation. He understood that allocations were made to officers of the Indian Army but asked that an enquiry be made into allocations reserved for civilians.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS suggested that the transport of certain civilians could possibly be postponed until early 1946. It was of the utmost importance that Service personnel should be brought home quickly as their release would help enormously our production and manpower needs. The Minister of Labour was due to make a further public statement in early October and he thought that to help him and for psychological reasons, it was most important he should be able to state that certain high release groups involving large numbers of men would be released by Christmas.

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