HC Deb 31 July 1890 vol 347 cc1358-9
MR. HOWARD VINCENT (Sheffield. Central)

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he has received any communication from Messrs. Bryant & May, contradicting the official statement that, although appealing for public support on the ground that they were large employers of British labour, they had a factory in Sweden for the supply of the English market and Her Majesty's Service; and, further, if it is true that an annual contract has been recently renewed by Her Majesty's Government with a middleman for the supply of Swedish safety matches to order, and, in such case, if directions can be issued to the public Departments that, wherever practicable, goods made by British or Irish labour are to be ordered, having regard to the congested state of British labour, and the desirability of returning the taxation of the people, so far as circumstances allow, in industrial wages?

* MR. BRADLAUGH

I should like to ask whether the recent statistics published by the Labour Bureau of the Board of Trade do not show that the labour market is not congested?

MR. HOWARD VINCENT

Before my right hon. Friend answers the question of the hon. Member for Northampton, let me ask him if the Reports of the Labour Department of the Board of Trade should not refer almost exclusively to the state of the skilled labour market, on the evidenceof the Trades Unions who consent to report, and not to the masses of unskilled labour?

MR. JACKSON

I am afraid that it would be out of order if I were to enter into that matter. Since I answered a question on the same subject the other day, I have been informed by Messrs. Bryant & May that they ceased to have any interest in the Swedish factory at which the "Lion" matches are made, in 1886, and that their matches are made only at their Fairfield Works at Bow. I am unable to suggest to my right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works a course which would preclude his purchasing any articles necessary for the Public Service, even though such articles be manufactured abroad.

MR. HOWARD VINCENT

Does my right hon. Friend mean that, although British working men may be starving at the gates of Parliament for want of employment, public money may be fitly used in remunerating foreign labour?

* MR. BRADLAUGH

; May I ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the periodical Returns of the Labour Department do not contradict the view that there is a congested state of the labour market?

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

I must ask for notice.