§ All local authorities shall have power to acquire land compulsorily for the purpose of letting the same for allotments, paying compensation at a rate not exceeding thirty years' purchase of the gross rateable value of the land, provided that the land so to be acquired compulsorily has a gross rateable value not exceeding two pounds per acre.—[Colonel Wedgwood.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODI beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The essence of this Clause is to give local authorities power to acquire land for allotments and definitely to put a limit to the compensation payable for land so acquired. I am confident that it requires an extremely strong case to persuade Parliament to fix the price which should be paid for land acquired by public authorities, but I believe that every hon. Member is obsessed at the present time by the picture of the increasing number of unemployed who are deteriorating in mental, physical and moral capacity as the period of their unemployment lengthens. Something drastic has to be done to save these people, and we on the Labour Benches have been considering for some time whether it might not be possible to get the 1,500,000 unemployed started, at any rate, on, some form of work. The easiest and best way of managing something in this direction seems to us to be to put is many of the unemployed as are willing on to suburban allotments, in order to get them to produce something instead of nothing, and so enable them to retain their manhood by feeling that they are doing some form of useful work. The problem is an ever growing one, and it is time that the House considered whether we ought not to do something drastic in order to provide an opportunity for useful productive work to these men who are involuntarily unemployed. It will be said at once that not one in ten of the unemployed would work an allotment 1901 if he had it offered to him. But if it were only one in ten, that would mean that 150,000 men would be employed.
Mr. WOODOn a point of Order. I do not want to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but it would seem that the discussion he is raising is rather covering the discussion which is likely to arise if you call upon the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) to move a Clause standing in his name. I do not know whether it would be possible to take the two discussions together?
§ Colonel WEDGWOODI have no objection.
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERThe other Clause can be moved later. This will not put it out of Order, but we cannot have the same discussion twice.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODThe Clauses are in two forms, because one deals with the acquisition of land and the other with the question of schemes for providing allotments for the unemployed. The real difficulty is that you cannot get any great scheme of this sort working without powers to acquire land compulsorily at a reasonable price. If you get only one man in 10 of the unemployed willing to work an allotment of a quarter of an acre you will at once increase enormously the production of food, and you will be keeping that man as a self-respecting and self-supporting individual, instead of allowing him to drift indefinitely. I believe that every hon. Member would willingly get into operation a scheme which would keep men fit and help production. But we must realise two things. In the first place it cannot be done unless you can get the land, and, in the second place, no man can, for the first two years at any rate, support himself on an allotment. You have to continue the unemployment benefit for a period of time while the man is working the allotment; you must not cut him off his benefit because he is working for himself on an allotment. We have to regard a certain period of time as necessary for training men to shift over from their present skilled occupation, which is no longer required of them, to their new productive occupations of producing food.
Therefore, the scheme is that there should be offered to the unemployed an 1902 opportunity of cultivating an allotment free of rent and rates for two years. On that there may be many points of difference. It is not very material, when you consider that it is to be only £250,000, that they should have the power still to draw their benefit while cultivating the allotments for a period, that they should have security of tenure on the quarter of an acre, and that we should definitely make a big sacrifice in order to get them to work. Steps exactly similar to these have been taken in other countries.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODWe are discussing the two Clauses together. This Clause deals with the compulsory acquisition of land, and the Clause to be moved later will deal with the provision of allotments for the unemployed. I was for many years in South Africa, where they were faced with a somewhat similar problem on a much smaller scale. There were in South Africa people known as "poor whites"—landless whites—who were becoming a very serious problem. President Kruger, to meet this difficulty, allotted to all these whites what he called burgher erven in the suburbs of the various South African towns. Anybody who has been in South Africa will know that all round the towns you have burgher erven which are issued freely to the poor whites in order that they may have somewhere to camp and something to cultivate, and in that way for a time the problem in South Africa was solved. There have been other experiments in the same direction on the Continent since the War, where they have been faced with exceptional unemployment during the post-war slump, and I think we ought to see to it that something of the same kind is done here. I believe every hon. Member of the House is worried day and night by the question of unemployment. That concern is not confined in the least to this side of the House. The situation is growing steadily worse, and it is no use waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for something to turn up. We have to put schemes forward and see what can be done.
I believe every hon. Member realises that it is up to us now to see whether we cannot get some scheme for getting the men who are now unemployed on to useful productive work. One of the greatest 1903 difficulties of this problem is the number of schemes brought forward for useless work. That is one of the pitfalls which we have to avoid. It is when we come to the agricultural question, and in particular to this allotment question that we must discover the true solution of the difficulties from which we are suffering. The other day I read that the town council of Canterbury had discovered a solution of the unemployment problem. It appears they have a municipal farm and also unemployed. Instead of putting tractors on to the farm they put on the unemployed to dig it up with spades. That, of course, is no solution of the difficulty. If it were, we might just as well ask the town council of Canterbury to solve it for every one of us by putting on all the unemployed to dig up the farm with tooth-picks, and thus provide work for everybody. That does not mean any increase in production. What we have to find is a scheme which involves increased production. At the present time there are 1,250,000 allotment holders in this country and if we could double that number we should solve the unemployed problem. We ask the House to make a start in the right direction by giving a welcome to a scheme which holds out some hope of alleviating the position, and of restoring and maintaining the manhood of those men who have been one, two or three years out of work.
There is to-day a growing realisation that the coal trade and the iron and steel trade in this country are not likely ever to get back to their pre-War position. The production of substitutes for coal as a means of providing power and the fact that the nations of the East, as well as of Europe, are now able to turn out with almost the same skill as our own workers those complicated machines and fabrics which are necessities of civilisation make it less likely that we can ever get back to the pre-War position in those trades. It may be that 500,000 men skilled men in this country will have to be shifted over to a new form of production. It is time we envisaged this problem, and I put forward this scheme to the House to-day as an attempt, by people who want to solve the problem but who have not unfortunately the machinery of government to assist them in working it out, to deal with the problem here and now and on practical lines.
§ Mr. RILEYI beg to support the New Clause, for two reasons. First, if this Clause is embodied in the Bill it will be of material assistance in encouraging those men who have already taken up allotments and are working them, but who are discouraged by the excessive rents, and the uncertainty of tenure. It will also have the effect of encouraging a large number of men who may not be very keen on allotments just now, but who would be likely to take up allotments if access were made easier and the rent were not so high. It is well known that where land is obtained, particularly in the neighbourhood of big towns, to meet the demand for allotments, the price paid for the land or the rent paid by the local authority is so high as to be a deterrent to the extension of the allotment system. This Clause would limit the liability for the annual rent to £2 10s. to £3 per acre per annum. It lays down the principle that land which has a rate-able value not exceeding £2 per acre may be compulsorily acquired at not more than 30 years' purchase, which would limit the annual liability for rent charged to the figure I have mentioned. It is well known that a large number of allotments are rented at £4, £4 10s., and £5 per acre, which is so high as to be a deterrent. There is another reason in favour of this New Clause to which the Mover has alluded. It is that in view of the persistence of unemployment, local authorities and the State should do something substantial in offering easy facilities and every encouragement to men who have been out of work year after year, to become cultivators of land. It may be argued that that proposition is an uneconomic one and that, if you got the power under this Clause to acquire land compulsorily on the terms laid down in the Clause, it would be no use, on the ground that you possibly would not be able to produce from the land anything like sufficient to give satisfaction.
What are the well-known facts of the case with regard to the present system of applying labour to land? If we take the present system of agriculture, what we know is that, approximately, for every man employed upon the land today, there is at least £1 per week on the average, going in rent out of the produce of the land. Take any farm you will, in any average agricultural county, 1905 and you will find, as I have found by long examination of individual cases, that it works out in rent alone at about £l per week per man. There are the wages of the workpeople and other things, but I think we may say, with more or less certainty, that, under the existing system, for every man employed upon land, there is a return per annum of about £140, as the result of one man's application to agriculture. Under this proposal the local authority is to get a return of about £3 per annum, that is, the return on 30 years' purchase; and surely, between £3 and, say, the £100 that one man might, by persistent labour, produce from the land, there is an ample and adequate margin, far better, at any rate, than a man remaining idle and drawing from the State his £40 or £50 a year for doing nothing.
Surely it is common sense to say that, if you have an opportunity to provide facilities for these men to work and to make £40 worth of stuff, it is better than for them to take that amount from the State for doing nothing. I submit that there are great possibilities in this scheme. One does not suggest that by it the unemployment problem will be solved, but surely the situation is sufficiently desperate to make us try every possible means of solving it. For seven months the Government have had this matter before them. They are not in a minority in this House, but have a great majority on their side, and for seven months everyone has professed that, if a remedy can be found, it ought to be applied. Well, here is one method whereby something might be done, of a positive character, providing useful work and not demoralising men, work which might lead ultimately to these men becoming sufficiently adapted to agriculture to go forward to small holdings. I would like to remind the House of what took place in the Committee the other day.
§ Mr. RILEYI, myself, have examined the ratebooks of more than 300 agricultural parishes in this country. I have examined the returns as to the size of farms, the rateable value, and the gross rental, and I have ascertained the number of men working on the respective farms, and, 1906 taking those farms everywhere, I have found an average of 25s. per man per annum going in rent to the owner. I say, therefore, it is approximately something like £1 per man.
§ Mr. RILEYI know that charges have to be met, but I am speaking of the product. The rent has to be met out of the cultivation of the land, and I know that out of the £140 I have mentioned the wages of the labourer and the rent of the owner have to be paid and charges met, but the produce is there, and it all has to come out of the produce, obviously. Under this proposal you would get land in use at an annual charge of £3, giving a man the chance to work on the land, and surely he can make a good deal more than an annual charge of £3. Whatever he makes over that £3 is a clear gain to the community.
Mr. SANDEMANDoes the hon. Member mean that a man getting an allotment holding and working on it would be exempt from drawing the dole?
§ Mr. RILEYThat is a matter for consideration, but surely in the course of a year or a short time his returns would either obviate the need of a dole or diminish the amount. We are paying the dole now, and the men are being demoralised and not working, but under this scheme they would have a chance to work. I was going to refer, when I was interrupted, to the testimony of an hon. Member of this House in Committee on this Bill, as to an actual experience which he had in his constituency only a short time ago when a man applied to him for assistance to take over a small holding. In questioning the applicant the hon. Member said: "Where did you acquire your experience so as to take on this small holding?" The man replied: "I was employed as under-gardener at So and So's, and gradually I gained experience and saved money, and now I want a small holding." What is to prevent, with all the unemployment we have to-day, many of these men, whose ancestors were born in rural districts and trained to agriculture, gradually gaining that habit of working on the land instead of being idle in the towns? For these reasons, I hope the Minister will see his way to include the Clause in the Bill.
§ Captain BOURNEThe debate so far has travelled a long way from this Clause, and I am not quite certain whether we are discussing a Clause or whether we have embarked on a general debate on the unemployment question. To listen to the very interesting speech of the right hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) who moved the Clause, and the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley), who supported it, I could not help thinking that in many ways their speeches would be more applicable to the debate on unemployment, which I understand we are to have on Monday, as a constructive suggestion for dealing with this on a large scale. As such, I feel they will merit the very careful consideration of every hon. Member present to-day, but I do think the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I say that, on a Bill of this character, a Private Member's Bill, I cannot accept an Amendment of such a very far reaching character. It is a matter which, obviously, wants very careful investigation. It wants to be looked into as a possible solution of the unemployment problem, by people who have far better access to information and are much better acquainted with the problem than I am. Further, it cuts into principles of law which have existed in this country for a great many years. For these reasons, although I think we ought to consider the whole question of land in this country with a view, possibly, to getting more people working on it. I do feel this is a change of greater magnitude than I can accept at this moment. Therefore, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not think me discourteous if I say I cannot accept this Clause.
§ Mr. JOHNSTONI beg to support this Clause, and for the very reasons which prevent the hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down from supporting it. I cannot quite understand how an hon. Member of this House, representing a rural constituency, can possibly object to bringing into a discussion upon allotments the extraordinary industrial and economic situation in which the country finds itself. It is perfectly true that, possibly, some of the matters raised this morning would be more applicable to the discussion which is to take place in this House on Monday, but you cannot possibly divorce the unemployment problem from the problem 1908 that has been raised in the House this morning. You cannot discuss this thing in water-tight compartments. When we are aware that this country paid £96,000,000 more for imported foodstuffs in 1924 than in 1922. That is to say, in two years our charges for imported foodstuffs have risen almost £100,000,000, and you cannot possibly discuss the questions raised in this Allotment Bill without paying attention to the larger economic changes which are taking place in this country to-day. I, personally, do not agree that we should pay 30 years' or any number of years' purchase for portions of land in this country. I, personally, would favour giving powers to the local authorities to seize, without a penny of compensation, all land that is not being cultivated at this moment. My view is that the land is a national heritage, that any individual who calls himself an owner of land, who does not choose to put that land to use—
§ Sir FRANCIS WATSONMay I ask whether this is in order on this Clause?
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERIt certainly will not be in order to embark upon a general disquisition on the respective rights of the individual and the State with regard to land. I gather that the hon. Member was referring only to this in parenthesis, and I was wondering how long I ought to allow the parenthesis to last.
§ Mr. JOHNSTONI shall, I hope, bring my parenthesis very speedily to a close. I was merely expressing the view that in regard to certain kinds of land, I should not vote for the payment of compensation on 30 years or any number of years purchase, but that land which was not being used should be taken over by the local authorities without any compensation whatsoever, and such of the unemployed in the neighbourhood as were willing to cultivate that land for the benefit of themselves and their families should be given, not a quarter of an acre, but up to an acre of land, and given every encouragement and facility to cultivate it for the benefit of themselves and their families, and when they had any surplus to dispose of, whether it be honey, vegetables, eggs, or anything else, they should be compelled to sell that surplus produce to the community at a rate to be fixed in advance. [Laughter.] One hon. Mem- 1909 ber is amused at that. He thinks that is not economical, but what is the present system?
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERI am afraid this is another parenthesis. I must ask the hon. Member to come back to the Clause.
§ Mr. JOHNSTONI thought I was sticking very closely to the question of the purposes for which, under this Bill, land should be taken over by the community.
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERI understand the hon. Member was proposing a system of State distribution, on which a very long debate might ensue.
§ Mr. JOHNSTONI think you will agree that I made only one brief passing reference to the question of distribution. But the point I desire to make is that it is essential in the interests of the nation that this land should be put to social use. It is a lunatic asylum system to be spending money on importing foodstuffs which we could raise at home, and when we have one and a quarter million unemployed, and some part of the unemployed is willing to cultivate foodstuffs for themselves and their families. The unemployed workman would have an increased purchasing power, he would be able to buy other goods, such as boots, furniture and so on, and it would stop the process which is going on of taking the people from the rural districts and herding them in the cities, and I think it would be an economic proposal in terms of cash. It is said that it would add somewhat to the expenditure of the nation. It would, but, on the other hand, you would decrease your health expenditure and increase production of wealth in this country. You would make a better social use of the land, and, in face of the fact that we are losing our markets abroad, markets we require to hold if we are to be able to pay for the foodstuffs we import, I suggest it is of the highest national importance that every inch of cultivable land in this country should no longer be used or misused for sport, but should be offered freely, and without charge, to such of the unemployed as are willing to cultivate it, so that this nation may be, in a small part at least, delivered from the perils which face it.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODI do hope we shall have some reply from the Govern- 1910 ment before we vote on this Clause. It is a most important question. If we could get any hope from the Government that they would consider this as at least a possible method of dealing with this serious unemployed question, we would not press this to a Division. I have some sympathy with the view of the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill that this is rather a wide extension, but I do think that we are entitled to have the views of the Government on this question, which has been put before the Government, I may say, in Committee as well as here to-day. I should like to know whether the Government are yet prepared to face the problem of taking drastic action so as to get the idle man and the idle land together. That is the real problem with which we are faced. We are seeking in this Amendment, an Amendment which you, Sir, will observe, is a compromise between the two sections of the Labour party itself, to provide a bridge whereby, without confiscation, we can get some system of providing land for the people who want it. We are entitled to ask the Government whether they will in the near future envisage some system to enable local authorities to acquire land compulsorily for such an urgent matter as allotments, somewhat simpler, quicker and on a cheaper basis than under the Land Clauses Act, 1844, by which all the other systems of the compulsory acquisition are controlled. This Amendment proposes that we should use the new valuation with which the Minister of Health is associated as a basis of calculating the purchase price of land to be acquired compulsorily. If there is progress on these lines we will not press this Amendment, but we will be grateful to the Government which has applied its mind to see what can be done for the unemployed. Unless the Government can hold out some hope that this Amendment will obtain careful and sympathetic consideration, I am afraid we shall have to press it.
§ 12.0 N.
Mr. WOODI am sure the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) will not attribute any discourtesy to me nor will the hon. Member who moved the Amendment which has been so ably put, because I did not rise to reply on the Debate. They will recognise that there is an hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill who, per- 1911 haps, could have dealt with this point better than myself. I think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman and those who have supported him have advanced their case to the House not, perhaps, without some measure of misunderstanding. I welcome the statement that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman made in his opening speech, that he recognises to the full that preoccupation with the dominant problem of unemployment is not a monopoly of any one party in this House, but is equally felt in its gravity in all parts of the House. I wish to assure the right hon. Gentleman—if he needs assurance—that if by this method that has been suggested, or by any other method, anyone can suggest to the Government a real and tangible way of contributing to the solution of this problem, that the Government would not be deterred from exploring that solution by the fact that in some of its implications it might be held to be uneconomic Having said so much, I want to make two other observations. I have said that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, in bringing forward this Amendment to the House, is perhaps under some misunderstanding. He appeared to speak as if he thought—no doubt he is much too familiar with the facts really to think so—that there were no compulsory powers that could be put into operation.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODI did not mean that. There are certain compulsory powers, but in every case the compensation to be paid gets in the way of the possibility of putting the powers into operation.
Mr. WOODI am coming to that. I am glad to have it made clear that there are compulsory powers under which allotments can be obtained. When there is a dispute on the question of price it goes to arbitration. It might well be thought by some that the arbitrator awards too high a price. Therefore, the remedy for that, it is suggested, is to apply a form which is not unfamiliar—to use the basis of the rateable value as a calculation of the sale value. That may or may not be a good plan. I do not wish to enter into that controversy at the moment, beyond saying this: that whether or not the right hon. gentleman's 1912 plan is good or bad, it will require a lot of argument to convince the House, or to convince me, that it is a sound principle, to take the rateable basis designed for one purpose and one principle and apply it to another basis and another principle—that a rateable system that is designed on a basis of the natural letting value should be put to a wholly different purpose.
Now I come to say, if I may, a word or two about the real case advanced, as regards unemployment. I do not propose to trespass on ground that will in all probability be covered in the debate on Monday, but, as the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston) said, you cannot keep these matters in watertight compartments. Naturally they overlap one another a little. I have, I suppose, been thinking of nothing so much for one last six months as to what contribution I could assist land and agriculture to make to the problem of unemployment. How, in other words, as the hon. Member for Dundee so well said, can you substitute a drift to the country from the towns for a drift to the towns from the country? That is not really so easy a problem as hon. Members opposite often seem to think. As I have listened to the various speeches on these matters, I am left with the conviction that really the method of argument of hon. Members in debate is very simple. Their method often amounts to this—they visualise all the benefits they would like to see, all the happy results they would like to see accomplished; by an easy jump of reasoning they assume those will all follow from a particular course of action. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme made what seemed to me a perfectly astounding statement. He said that at the present moment there are about 1,250,000 allotment holders—something like that number—and that if we could double the number of allotment holders we should solve the unemployed problem. Does he really think that? Does he think that a Yorkshire miner who has been accustomed to draw his £4, £5 or £6 a week? [HON. MEMBERS: "Less than that"]—sometimes more and sometimes less. I am not going to enter into a controversy about that, but I know a great many Yorkshire miners, they are good friends of mine, who draw that.
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERI am afraid the question of the wages of Yorkshire miners is another parenthesis.
Mr. WOODI am sorry, Sir, if I was temporarily led away from the path of rectitude, but I only wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman seriously to reconsider that statement, because the suggestion that the industrial unemployed would find an adequate substitute in the cultivation of allotments for the wages of employment, and that by that means we could solve the problem of unemployment, is a proposition which cannot, I think, seriously be maintained.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODI hope the right hon. Gentleman will remember the snowball effect of employment. If a man is working and producing something he is not only satisfying his own wants, but every new man who is got into employment is piling up more employment for other people.
Mr. WOODI was just coming to the snowball argument used by the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston). I do not wish to adopt a critical attitude, but it is important to examine these things. Imagine 1,000,000 people being put on to allotments of a few poles each—if it could be done—and growing their potatoes, their onions, their tomatoes and so on. They would be very lucky if they managed to keep themselves in food by their allotments—very lucky; and how is that going automatically to stimulate their demand for all the industrial products of their fellow-workers all over the country?
§ Mr. JOHNSTONThis is rather important. Surely if an unemployed man producing, shall we say, £40 worth of food on his quarter-acre adds to his purchasing power, if he adds £40 to his purchasing power, he is going to buy more boots, crockery and furniture?
Mr. WOODThat is most true; all I am venturing to challenge is the statement that the mere fact that a man gets about three poles of land on which he is able to work is going automatically to place him in as nearly as good a position as if he were in regular industrial employment. I do deprecate these over- 1914 statements of the case, and therefore it is my duty to say that while this and every other possible solution that may have the slightest favourable reaction upon the unemployment problem will have, as it always has had, the most favourable consideration of the Government. I should be less than frank with the House if I allowed them to think that I associated myself with the idea that if we put a million people on to allotments we could solve the unemployment problem. I frankly do not believe that; and for those reasons I am bound to associate myself with my hon. and gallant Friend behind me who, whilst sharing my sympathy, was yet bound to point out that this matter did not fall within the natural compass of a Bill designed to improve the machinery for the creation of allotments throughout the country. For those reasons I cannot, any more than can my hon. and gallant Friend, see my way to accept this new Clause.
§ Mr. HOPKINSONI should like to point out to the House what the effect of passing this Clause would be, from the point of view of a suburban land owner on a very small scale. Those who have accepted the writings of Mr. Henry George, and, accordingly, rotted their brains away, in the manner that those who have accepted those writings do rot their brains away, seem always to shut their eyes—
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERI am afraid this, again, is another parenthesis. We cannot enter into the writings of Mr. Henry George.
§ Mr. HOPKINSONWhat I was saying is rather in the nature of a periphrasis by way of reference to what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for New-castle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) said, though coming to it, I admit, by rather a long way round. The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues shut their eyes entirely to the effect upon the housing problem which would follow the passing of this particular Clause. Take the case of anyone who purchases land in a suburban area with a view to developing that land and makes the necessary roads and the necessary drains preliminary to building houses. If it 1915 were known that the land could be seized compulsorily by the neighbouring local authority, could be confiscated on the basis suggested in this new Clause, nobody but a lunatic would ever dream of developing suburban land for houses in the future. What this Clause does is to introduce exactly the same difficulty as was introduced by the land values taxation and the increment value duties of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), the duties which cut off the building of working class houses in suburban areas as if they were cut off with a knife, and were the main cause of the terrible housing crisis through which we have been passing. The effect of this Clause, which would permit the seizing of land, because that is what is suggested, would simply be to put us back where we were after the Lumsden judgment in 1910. Therefore, I do ask hon. Members to consider what they are doing in pressing this ridiculous Clause upon the notice of the
§ House. They are accentuating the difficulties of the situation, and putting us back where we were before we abolished those ridiculous increment value duties. By abolishing those duties we rendered it possible for a certain number of houses to be built. I do plead with them not to be misled by any of the ridiculous theories that have been put forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and his friends, but really to consider the practical issue, the effect in suburban areas on the housing of the people.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODI do not want to enter into debate on that point, but I would like to ask the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Mossley Division (Mr. A. Hopkinson) why, holding those views sincerely, as he does, he declines to vote with me in this Division?
§ Question put, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
§ The House divided: Ayes 60; Noes 91.
1917| Division No. 2 0.] | AYES. | [12.1 p.m. |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Slesser, Sir Henry H. |
| Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro') | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley) |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Johnston, Thomas (Dundee) | Snell, Harry |
| Baker, Walter | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Stamford, T. W. |
| Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery) | Kennedy, T. | Taylor, R. A. |
| ,Barnes A. | Lawson, John James | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.) |
| Batey, Joseph | Lowth, T. | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) |
| Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W. | MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon) | Thurtle, E. |
| Bromley, J. | Mackinder, W. | Tinker, John Joseph |
| Buchanan, G. | MacLaren, Andrew | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P. |
| Crawfurd, H. E. | March, S. | Viant, S. P. |
| Dalton, Hugh | Naylor, T. E. | Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney |
| Day, Colonel Harry | Oliver, George Harold | Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah |
| Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty) | Paling, W. | Westwood, J. |
| Gibbins, Joseph | Potts, John S. | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Gosling, Harry | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) | Windsor, Walter |
| Hall, F. (York. W.R., Normanton) | Ritson, J. | Wright, W. |
| Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland) | Rose, Frank H. | Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton) |
| Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley) | Scrymgeour, E. | |
| Henderson, T. (Glasgow) | Sexton, James | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Shiels, Dr. Drummond | Mr. Riley and Mr. T. Williams. |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel | Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton) | Hurd, Percy A. |
| Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S. | Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester) | Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S. |
| Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley | Doyle, Sir N. Grattan | Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William |
| Barnston, Major Sir Harry | Drewe, C. | Knox, Sir Alfred |
| Berry, Sir George | Elveden, Viscount | Lamb, J. Q. |
| Boyd-Carpenter, Major A. | Fermoy, Lord | Lane-Fox, Lieut.-Col. George R. |
| Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive | Forestier-Walker, Sir L. | Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip |
| Brocklebank, C. E. R. | Gee, Captain R. | Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green) |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C.(Berks, Newb'y) | Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham | Looker, Herbert William |
| Broun-Lindsay, Major H. | Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John | Mac Andrew, Charles Glen |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Grotrian, H. Brent | Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart) |
| Campbell, E. T. | Gunston, Captain D. W. | McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus |
| Cautley, Sir Henry S. | Hacking, Captain Douglas H. | Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm., W.) | Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne) | Makins, Brigadier-General E. |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood) | Hawke, John Anthony | Margesson, Captain D. |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer | Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G. | Milne, J. S. Wardlaw- |
| Clarry, Reginald George | Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone) | Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark) |
| Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D. | Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M. |
| Cope, Major William | Hopkins, J. W. W. | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) |
| Couper, J. B. | Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley) | Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury) |
| Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) | Smithers, Waldron | Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H. |
| Nuttall, Ellis | Sprot, Sir Alexander | Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay) |
| Oman, Sir Charles William C. | Strickland, Sir Gerald | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) | Sugden, Sir Wilfrid | Wise, Sir Fredric |
| Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome) | Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H. | Womersley, W. J. |
| Preston, William | Tasker, Major B. Inigo | Wood, Rt. Hon. E. (York, W. R., Ripon) |
| Price, Major C. W. M. | Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South) | Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L. |
| Ramsden, E. | Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Croydon, S.) | |
| Sandeman, A. Stewart | Tinne, J. A. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Savery, S. S. | Wallace, Captain D. E. | Sir Douglas Newton and Captain |
| Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y) | Waterhouse, Captain Charles | Bourne. |
| Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down) | Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley) |