ADJOURNED DEBATE.

HC Deb 06 March 1889 vol 333 cc1061-102

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [21st February].—[See page 41.]

Question again proposed.

Debate resumed.

MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM (Lanarkshire, N.W.)

Sir, I submit most respectfully that no more important subject can ever come before this House than the question to which I drew attention last night—namely, the social condition of the working classes. I was endeavouring, when the debate stood adjourned, to show that the uncertainty of employment and the long hours of work are the causes of the distress which now exists among all sections of the working classes of this country, and that almost every trade in England works excessive hours. I was also endeavouring to prove that it is owing to these excessive hours of labour that the degradation which exists among all parts of the community is to be attributed. No self-improvement, moral or otherwise, is to be expected from a man who goes from bed to the workshop and from the workshop to bed again, and who passes his life in an unceasing round of toil more fitted for mill-horses than men. I propose to enumerate a few instances in support of my proposition that the hours of labour are excessive. In the first place, let me take the case of railway servants. The Railway Review of March 25, 1888, states that upon the Midland Railway Company, upon the Somerset and Dorset Line, there were in July, 1886, 100 engineers and firemen, 35 of whom had worked for 14 hours a day; 69, 15 hours; 27, 16 hours; 47, 17 hours; and 9 in which they had worked for 18 hours a day. In January, 1887, the same Company had in their employment 102 engineers and firemen, 119 of whom had worked for 13 hours a day; 184, 14 hours; 104, 15 hours; 64, 16 hours; 22, 17 hours; and 2, 18 hours per day. They had also in their employment 93 signalmen, and during the months of July, 1886, and January, 1887, there were 644 cases in which a man had worked for 17 hours a day. In view of the fact that the profits of the railway companies have been going up, and that the public, in a large degree, commit their safety to men who are employed for these fabulous number of hours; is it possible to say that social distress and pressure do not exist among men who are obliged to accept employment of this nature? I think it is quite time that the House of Commons should endeavour to do something to place these men on a footing in which they may be able to earn a subsistence for themselves, and support their wives and families without working for a number of hours which seems almost incredible to us who do no manual labour at all. From a Return furnished to Parliament on the motion of Lord De La Warr in reference to the same period—January 1886, and January 1887—I find that there were 6,561 cases of passenger guards who were employed for 13 hours a day; 4,646 for 14 hours; 2,210 for 15 hours; 840 for 16 hours; 356 for 17 hours, and 348 for 18 hours. I do not know whether any hon. Member would like to commit his safety to a railway guard who had been 18 hours on duty. Then, I would ask, may not that be fairly called a case of social distress among the working classes? I may say, generally, that the hours of employment of goods guards, drivers, and firemen are in the same ratio. Signalmen, however, seem greatly to exceed any other class of railway servants in the hours in which they are employed, for I find no less than 716 instances in which they were employed for 18 hours a day. When so many Members of this House are large owners of railway shares and railway directors, and when a percentage of their number directly represent the working classes. I must say that if these figures are correct—and I presume they are, seeing that they are contained in a Government Return.—there is a strong and most indisputable proof that the social condition of the working classes requires the immediate attention of this House, constituting as it does at this moment a grave social scandal. Upon the Cheshire Railway some passenger trains are worked for 17 hours a day, some of the men employed upon it working for only 8 hours on the following day, but it is a glaring fact that many engine drivers and firemen on the line are employed for 17 hours a day, goods trains for 16 hours, and in order to reduce the hours of work the men are taken off for one night per week. This, however, does not compensate them, nor lessen the danger of 16 hours' constant employment. These figures I give upon the authority of Mr. E. Harford, the Secretary of the Railway Company's servants, who, although he may be prejudiced in favour of the men he represents, is a man of strict honour and integrity, and nobody will dispute the accuracy of his statement. In regard to some good's trains which are only run for nine hours and 50 minutes, those hours are not considered sufficient for a day's work, and the men have to work a small special trip in addition. Upon some railways in the month of December last, one week's work was as follows: 14 hours for guards; 13½ hours for good's guards; and from 14 to 16½ hours for signalmen and foremen. I find that in the well-known salt works in Cheshire belonging to Messrs. Brunner the working hours are 12, and during the greater portion of the time the men are stewing over pots of chemicals in which the salt is manufactured. And yet the public prints inform us that the profits of this Company amount to no less than 50 per cent, and that the rate of wages is about 3¾d. per hour for a day of 12 hours. You may talk about slavery; your philanthropic Cardinals may move the bowels of fashionable congregations about the slavery which exists in Central Africa, but I maintain that we have as great white British slavery in Cheshire as they have in any portion of Africa or the East. Let me turn for a moment to the profits made out of women not six miles from this House, by Messrs. Bryant and May. This case, through the heroic exertions of one woman, and a poor woman too, has been prominently brought before the country, and I find that the last declared dividend of Messrs. Bryant and May was 17 per cent. I do not assert this on my own responsibility, but I take it from the published share list of the company. I find that the average working day of the women employed by this company is 11 hours, and that those who make what is called good wages may earn from 7s. to 8s. 6d. per week. I want to know how it is that there has been no interest aroused in this House upon these questions, and that when we have had deputations from Messrs. Bryant and May's workpeople and others, their representations have attracted so little attention? I attribute it to the fact that hon. Members in this House hold shares in these businesses, and that naturally they do not wish to exhibit sympathy with cases of this kind, because they make their own profits out of them. As a matter of fact, it is all a case of profit-mongering; but I assert, without fear of contradiction, that those who hold shares in the two businesses I have mentioned do so with their eyes fully open, and know quite well the conditions under which the employés work. Let me turn now to the omnibus and tramway servants in Liverpool and London; 12½, 14½, and even 16½ hours are not an uncommon working day to find among this class of men, and yet we are told that the dividends of some of these companies amount to 14½ and 15 per cent. There, again, I say that the hours of labour amount to a social scandal, and I believe it is a fact that the horses employed are better cared for in this Christian country than a Christian Englishman. There are hundreds and thousands of men who are willing to work but who cannot get work at any price whatever, owing to what I can only call the greed for profit exhibited by most of these companies. It would be invidious to go at length into the evidence now being given before a Committee in the House of Lords, but without referring to ex parte statements by Radicals or Socialists, or even philanthropists, I would quote the cut and dried testimony of Mr. Burnett, one of the Government Inspectors. Mr. Burnett, speaking of the nail and chainmakers of Cradley Heath in South Staffordshire and East Worcestershire, says that for 150 years it has been wretched in the extreme. Yet although it has been known for so long a period, no single effort has been made by Parliament to ameliorate it. The industries at which they work are a sort of survival of an older industry, and is carried on in domestic workshops rather than in a factory. Mr. Burnett reports that in the first house he visited he found a poor woman of 50 so thin and worn that she looked ten years older. She was making small rivets, of which, if she worked hard, she could make one hundredweight a week, for which she got 5s. 6d., but out of that sum she had to find coals and pay shop rent. She was burdened with a paralytic daughter, for whom the parish allowed her 2s. 6d. a week. At Springhall, in the centre of the nail trade, Mr. Burnett says there is a collection of rude shops, called by courtesy a factory, where men and women are closely packed. A man and his wife can turn out 15 cwt. per week, for which they get 1s. per cwt. When he visited this place Mr. Burnett found one woman, although the weather was cold, in a state of intense perspiration, while from an overcrowded pigsty outside the window came odours so foul that he was glad to make his escape from the shop. The man worked from six in the morning until ten at night; but the woman, being protected by Act of Parliament, left off at seven. How this woman must bless the Parliament which has prevented her from continuing at the anvil until nine o'clock at night.

An hon. MEMBER

What is the date of that Report?

MR. C. GRAHAM

November 9th, 1888. Mr. Burnett speaks of the sanitary accommodation as being of the rudest description; the drinking wate being taken, until within a few weeks ago, from a pump situated in the middle of a yard, into the well of which all the surface-sewage was supposed to drain. Yet the rents in this favoured district are high, ranging from 3s. to 4s. a week, not for houses in the ordinary sense of the word, but for little pigsties, the largest room of which is hardly as large as the Table upon the floor of this House. In the principal room the cooking, washing, and every domestic operation has to be carried out, while the kitchen communicates directly with the workshop, into which all the fumes generated by the constant use of inferior fuel find their way. I have other instances here of girls working long hours daily for wages of 4s. and 5s. a week, and I do submit that the condition of the working people in this particular part of the country is such as demands the immediate attention of the Government. I do not seek to place any heroic remedies before the House, all I have sought to do has been to draw the attention of hon. Members to hard facts gathered from the Report of a Government Inspector, and I may add that if hon. Members desire any confirmation they have only to go and listen to the evidence being given at this moment before the Lords Committee on Sweating. I think no hon. Gentleman will deny my proposition that the best way to civilize these people, to bring them into touch with humanity, to make them feel that they are units of our society, and to make them realize that somebody cares for them would be to endeavour to shorten their hours of labour, so that they may improve their minds, raise themselves in the social scale, and obtain the necessary spirit to enable them to combine and revolt against the present state of affairs. Nails, as you know, Sir, lend themselves to be knocked on the head, and these unfortunate people having had all the spirit crushed out of them as effectually as all gaseous matter is crushed out of the piece of iron by the process through which it passes when being converted into nails, have no thought of rebellion whatever; they even fail to avail themselves of the opportunity now afforded them of laying their case before the public, and they continue to bring new generations into the world to pass through a lot as miserable as their own. Now, I think that the first reform we can introduce is to shorten their hours of labour. The question will be asked—Can this be done without reducing their wages? I say it can be done. Much has been accomplished in the past to ameliorate the condition of the working classes? Why did we pass the Factory Acts? Was it because the people for whom we were legislating were women and children, or was it because they were weak and unable to protect themselves? Have any benefits been derived from the passing of these Factory Acts? Let hon. Members remember what before they were passed happened in the mines of Scotland—in Lanarkshire for instance. Do they forget how boys of tender years were harnessed like ponies to coal trucks, and all day long were running upon their hands and knees drawing these trucks for a paltry wage? Surely it is a matter for congratulation that such a state of affairs has passed away? Is it not a good thing that long hours have been done away with in many factories and workshops? Then ought we not—having seen the benefit of this legislation—to extend those benefits to other classes of workpeople whose condition can only be described as lamentable and as a social menace? It is a social menace, for when men have no property of their own to defend they are ever ready to attack that of other people. The present condition of these people cannot continue for ever, and I wish to see wise legislation on the part of this House. I wish to see an extension of the most precious boon men can give one another—namely, sympathy. It may be said that there is no demand on the part of the working classes for intervention with regard to the hours of labour. My reply is that it is our duty to stir up and form public opinion. I believe that not ten per cent of the working classes of his country are organized or belong to Trades Unions. I am not depreciating the value of the work accomplished by these Unions; I fully value the self-sacrifice of the promoters, but up to the present they have been unable to secure he shortening of the hours of labour, without which, in my opinion, Government cannot hope to deal with causes of social distress and with the presence of unemployed working men in our cities. It is said that there is no demand for a shorter working day. My reply is to point to the Bill, having that object which I have brought in at the instance of some thousands of Scotch miners. Remember that the working classes, owing to the expense of elections, are not able to send such representatives to the House as they desire, out I believe that when they do get that opportunity there will be an overwhelming expression of opinion in favour of shortening the working day. I admit that the question of foreign competition might prove a most serious difficulty in the way of shorter hours of labour; but it would not be an insuperable obstacle. Where are the wages highest? In Germany, where the hours are long, or in England, where, as compared with Germany, they are short? It will be found that the wages are considerably higher in England. The better paid man who works the shorter number of hours is able to turn out a better article than the ill-paid man working long hours at starvation wages for a very small subsistence. I have an extract here from the Bureau of Labour Statistics for the State of Connecticut. Professor Hadley in it says that a good workman desires and needs short hours far more than a bad workman, for he will do better work in a shorter time. In Russia the working day is 12 hours, in Germany and France 11, and in England 9, yet the English workman does more in 9 hours than the Russian in 12. I have yet to learn that there is not sufficient ingenuity in this House to secure a simultaneous reduction of the hours of labour in all the industrial centres of Europe. Let us take another point showing that shorter hours bring increased wages in their wake. During the years from 1850 to 1885, in Germany, where the hours of labour were 75 a week, the weekly increase of wages was 6s. 3d.; in France with 72 hours, the increase was 6s. 9d., and in England, with 60 hours, the increase was 8s. 9d. These figures tend to prove indisputably that a reduction in the hours of labour does not inevitably carry with it as a necessary corollary a reduction of the rate of wages. Wages in the American Union are invariably higher in those States in which shorter hours of work prevail. In the State of Maine, with an average of 62½ hours per week, the average working wage is 28s. 2d.; in New Hampshire the hours number 66¼, and the wage averages 29s. 10d.; in Connecticut, with 65 hours, the wages are 31s. 1½d., and in Massachusetts, with 60 hours, the average wage is 33s. 4d. I know that this is not an alluring subject; I regret it is not looked upon as one of general interest, but I submit, Mr. Speaker, it is the duty of the House to attend to the wants of—as Thomas Moore quaintly describes them— The poor carpenters, nailers, smiths, and drivers, who, for our behoof and for our profit, endure the rage of weather and suffer the confinement of the workshop and the mine. When these questions cease to interest the House, then the House itself should cease to exist. I am opposed to all monopoly; hitherto, in this House, I have practically had a monopoly of the question of the unemployed. Now, I wish to destroy that monopoly, and I feel confident that in the future it will secure increased atttention at the hands of the House. I ask hon. Members, therefore, if it would not be easier to try and deal with the problem now, when all is peace and quiet, than to be forced later on to deal with it, at a time, perhaps, when a cycle of years of bad trade will have filled our parish yards with crowds of hunger-stricken men, demanding bread and work? Let me tell hon. Members that should such a day unfortunately come, and should one of them try to disperse the crowds of hungry men by force, it would be better that a millstone be hung round his neck, and that he be cast into the sea. As long as I have the honour of a seat in this House I shall continue to press this question, and if I succeed in awakening the public conscience on this matter I shall feel that I have my reward. I do want to see an end put to this pestilent lack of sympathy. Perhaps I personally attach too much importance to this matter; but let hon. Members remember that I came into this House, not from the merchant's office or the lawyer's court, but straight from the prairies of America, where want is unknown, so that the sight of such misery as exists in London was brought home to my mind with exceptional force. I ask the House, if it will do nothing else, to at least extend its sympathy to these people. They can give it cheaply, and it may serve to show those for whose benefit we are supposed to deliberate that their affairs sometimes occupy our attention.

MR. C. A. V. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)

I can only say, in supporting the Amendment of my hon. Friend, that whatever may be the result of the Division which will probably conclude this debate, the few hours which have been spent in discussing this important subject will not have been thrown away; because, even if the Government do not see their way to expressing much sympathy with us, and fail even to suggest a remedy for the distress to which we are giving expression, yet by the ventilation of the subject in the face of public opinion we may hope to have done some little good for the cause which we have at heart, for we may thereby hope to have aroused the public conscience. I may remark that this subject has for the last few years been constantly debated at Congresses and at meetings of scientific societies; but this is, I believe, the first time we have had a set debate upon it in this House. Now on this question the eminent statistician, Mr. Robert Giffen, speaks in the strongest terms, and his language should be taken seriously to heart. He says that no one can contemplate the present condition of the masses without desiring something like a revolution for the better. We are anxious to see a revolution for the better, and we are anxious to see it take the form of a peaceable and Constitutional revolution We only ask those who scoff at us for insisting on the importance of this question to turn to the pages of history, and consider how the negligence of Rulers in past times has prevented such peaceable revolutions for the better, and has caused revolutions of a graver kind to be substituted for them. We fortunately, in this country, have never seen revolutions of the worst type, nor do we wish to; but human nature is human nature all the world over. We shall soon be celebrating the centenary of the French Revolution of 1789; is it not, then, a season when our minds may be usefully turned to the consideration of the causes of the distress of the people? Now, Mr. Speaker, the proposition which I desire to emphasize and to give some facts in proof of is, not that the people of this country are worse off than they have been in the past, for we may congratulate ourselves that partly owing to the Repeal of the Corn Laws and the enormous expansion of our national commerce since the year 1846, and especially in consequence of the passing of the Factory Acts and other measures, the condition of the people, so far as their wage-earning capacity is concerned, is probably better than in past times. But the fact which I wish to emphasize is, that while the wealth and luxuries of the higher classes in the country have increased, the wealth and comfort and the general physical and moral condition of those classes who are beneath them in the social scale, and upon whose labour the wealth of the upper classes depends, have not increased in anything like a proper ratio. We want to see established throughout the country the principle of a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. We want those by whose labour all classes of the community are enormously benefited to be themselves benefited in a fair ratio; and I contend that at the present time the workers of the country do not enjoy a fair share of the wealth which they are mainly instrumental in creating. In my own constituency the miners of Cornwall labour eight hours a day for what I call the paltry wage of less than £1 a week. The average pay in the Cornish tin mines is but 18s. a week, and you can positively find many instances in South Africa where even uneducated black men can earn with the greatest ease 10s., 15s., and even 20s. per week. There must be something wrong in our social condition in this country to keep our people slaving at these rates, when naked natives in South Africa can earn so much more relatively. We often hear references to the increase of imports and exports, but these figures should not be taken as a conclusive test of the improvement in the condition of the people. The increase is due mainly to the development of labour-saving machinery, by means of which the profits of the employer and the capitalist are enormously increased; and while large numbers of people are thrown out of employment by the change the wages of the workmen are lessened. As Professor Thorold Rogers says— In the great majority of cases the whole advantage of a new discovery, a new process, and a new machine rests with the capitalist employer. Until we succeed in discovering some way by which the profits of labour can be more equally divided between labourers and capitalists, we shall continue to press the urgency of this question. Again, the discovery of new fuel-saving appliances has brought about a great decrease in the cost of production, and a consequent increase in the profits. We contend that in almost all cases the enormous increase in the profits arising from this condition of things goes into the pockets of the capitalist, a very small proportion only going to improve the condition of the labourer. We must also recollect that there has been an enormous increase in the exports of various kinds of machinery, which tends to enable foreign countries to make goods which we hitherto manufactured. I do not complain of foreign competition, but I complain that these facts should be adduced as reasons why we should not lay such stress upon the necessity of improving the social condition of the people generally. I lay stress upon them for the purpose of showing that there is not a fair and equitable distribution of profits between employers and labourers, the latter of whom are the mainsprings of the wealth produced. I admit that the condition of the people in some respects at the present time may be said, when compared with that in olden times, to be considerably better; but if you will consider the facts you will see how far we are behind the ideal state of things we ought to set before ourselves as the only goal which, in a great and so-called civilized country, we ought to endeavour to reach. First of all, let me show the miserable character of the wages of our people. Mr. Mulhall, in his "Dictionary of Statistics," gives the yearly income of the different classes of the people in the country. In the year 1883 he estimates that there were belonging to the gentry class 222,000 families, with an income of £333,000,000, or an average of £1,500 per family; of the middle class there were 604,000 families, with an income of £241,000,000, or an average of nearly £400 per family; of the tradesmen class there were 1,220,000 families, with earnings amounting to £244,000,000, or an average of about £200 per family; and of the working class there were 4,629,000 families, with earnings amounting to £447,000,000, or an average of £96 per family. Now £96 is not a very large sum, even if it represented what every workman might hope to get in the year. It is, however, far from representing anything like what the vast number of our people get. What were the facts arrived at by a careful examination by the Mansion House Committee, which was appointed in March, 1885, to inquire into the causes of permanent distress in London? The Committee, referring to the North-side Docks—not to the wharves on either side—say in their Report— The number of casual labourers applying for work at these docks alone usually averages 2,500 to 3,000 daily. The total number of daily applicants for casual labour at all the docks may be roughly put at 20,000. According to the proportion of the above figures, there would be, therefore, from 7,000 to 8,000 men who, having no regular employment other than dock labour, daily apply, and apply in vain, for such work. A slight reduction (say 10 per cent) would have to be made on these figures, to allow for the possibility of some of the men applying at more than one dock on the same day. Regarding the smallness of wages, it is in evidence that the wages of the casual dock labourer do not exceed twelve shillings per week on the average of the year, and that the earnings of the unemployed, picked up by doing odd jobs, average four shillings and ten-pence per week per man, this sum being eked out by wife and children's earnings, charitable relief, &c. Female labour is wretchedly paid. In shirt making (for export) and similar employment, a woman gets about ninepence to a shilling for a day's work of sixteen hours. There are hundreds of women who work for three farthings an hour, and find their own needles and cotton. The prices include—shirts, three-farthings each; flannel drawers for Chelsea Pensioners, one shilling and three-pence a dozen; soldiers' leggings, two shillings a dozen; and lawn tennis aprons, elaborately frilled, fivepence halfpenny a dozen to the "sweater," the actual worker getting much less. In such kind of women's work, however, the whole profit does not, as is supposed, go to the "sweater," but finds its way in great measure into the pockets of the middlemen and retail dealers. The public, too, have often, in some degree, the benefit of these starvation wages. Now, it will be said that these are unskilled labourers, and that we must take skilled labourers if we wish to make out our case. As a member of the School Board, I have to inquire into the oases in which fees are remitted. I have here a list of cases in which the fees have been remitted because the parents are out of work or have a very small amount of work to do. Now, these parents are not all unskilled labourers. There are bricklayers; printers, polishers, carriage-painters, silver-platers, harness-makers, and others. In making out our case, therefore, we have not to rely solely upon the position of unskilled labourers. But I suppose it is in the Black Country that we find the hardest work and the lowest wages. I have here a collection of chains, which show exactly what is to be made by the poor chainmaker. Here is an ordinary dog-chain [chain produced]. The man who made this chain was paid for his work 1d. I ask hon. Members, who, perhaps, are not familiar with the facts, and who, perhaps, have not had an opportunity of visiting the chainmaking district, how they would like to make this chain for the money? Some of these chains I have seen made by women. I ask hon. Gentlemen whether they think the wage I have mentioned is one upon which men can live in decency, not to say comfort? Here is a chain familiar to many hon. Gentlemen, being connected as it is with harness; it is called a back chain, and for making it a man receives 1½d. If engaged for a week of 60 hours in making these chains, a man can earn the munificent sum of 9s. This is a very weighty chain, and appears to be a complex piece of workmanship. I assert that the man who can make such a chain is no unskilled labourer. Another chain I have here is one for the making of which the workmen get 1d. It is called a halter chain. If a man works 60 hours upon the manufacture of these chains he can earn 6s. Here, again, you see, this is no mere ordinary chain, but one in which the links are twisted, and therefore not one easy to make. I am sure all reasonable men will agree that something ought to be done to improve the terrible condition of the chainmakers. The next feature of the work of the industrial masses which I desire to bring before the House is the precarious nature of their employment, and I think the facts I will now mention throw some light upon the statistics which are constantly placed before us when Government reporters and others go round and find that men are earning so much per week, and put it down as if it is the wage they receive every week in the year. I quote the following from a very competent authority, Mr. H. S. Foxwell, Professor of Economics at Cambridge, who, writing upon irregularity of employment and fluctuation of prices, says— The Rector of Gateshead, in a sermon recently preached before the University of Cambridge, speaks of steady, industrious men, nominally earning 20s. to 22s. per week, actually receiving, on the average, only 8s. or 9s. The London dock labourers, when in work, often earn £2 a week; but they are sometimes six weeks, or more, without work. They are described as living filthily, and as stating that they 'would gladly exchange for £1 a week regular.' Again, in an analysis of 273 cases made by my brother, Dr. Arthur Foxwell, in Manchester, he found that where the nominal wages varied from 14s. to 35s. a week in different occupations, the highest average earnings were those of the regularly employed Corporation labourers, whose nominal wages were 20s. Twelve joiners, nominally receiving 26s. 9d. a week, only averaged 13s. actual earnings; and four masons, nominally receiving 35s., only averaged 10s. And here is what the Rector of Gateshead said, preaching at Cambridge in May, 1885— The wages of artizans, as paraded in Statistical Reports and the columns of the Press, sound fairly adequate. We hear with complacency of 18s. or 20s. per week as the remuneration of unskilled labour in towns; but few, except those in constant contact with the poor, know how very precarious such wages often are—how for weeks and weeks a man, steady, industrious, willing to work, will often not average more than 8s. or 9s., and sometimes for long periods even nothing at all. Life is a sad and hopeless business when a man sits staring into an empty grate, weak and faint, after a weary, dispiriting search for work. No food for himself—and, worse, none for his hungry children; no means of buying any, for the home comforts gathered round him in time of regular employment have been pawned one by one. Is it any wonder that, flying from his wretched home, he should hover round the one bright, cheerful spot in the neighbourhood, the public-house at the corner, and gladly accept the invitation of the first companion who offers to treat him, and so allow himself to be dragged down deeper still? I would also commend to hon. Members a few of the concluding remarks of Mr. Foxwell—such as: The precarious nature of employment is a social evil of the first magnitude, which we can and must in some degree remove. The statements I have made now presented to the House on the above authority are fully corroborated by the following, which will be found in the Report of the Industrial Conference which sat in 1885 under the presidency of Sir C. Dilke. Mr. Lloyd Jones then said— We have no stated allowance for lost time. This is so important a matter in connection with wages, that the sum deducted ought to be distinctly stated. Mr. Hey, one of the Secretaries of the Moulders' Union, has prepared an elaborate account from the books of his Society, and finds the time lost by their members to be 20 per cent, or one-fifth of the whole. This calculation, if carried out over the non-union workers, would be much increased, and this has to be added to depressions of trade, like that existing at present; and though generous efforts have usually been made to relieve the sufferings of those out of work, it is not going too far to say that not only savings, but wages yet unearned, have to be largely used to get rid of the indebtedness incurred at such times. Professor Leone Levi, in a recent article in the Times, brings the wages of the workers up to 523 millions sterling; but the calculation of Mr. Hey rubs out over 100 millions of this amount. And the following statement by Mr. John Wilson (late a Member of this House) is remarkable, as well, for the evidence it gives of the spoliation of the miners by the royalty and rent-exacting landowners— It was said that in 1883, in the Cleveland District, £400,000 were paid in royalty rents to landlords. Workmen and capitalists were contending with each other—one for greater profits, the other for higher wages—but they might join to bring about a reduction or the abolition of royalty rents. If the £400,000 drawn last year were divided between capitalists and workmen, it would have gone far to prevent the distress now prevailing in Durham. He was Treasurer of the Durham Miners' Union, which week after week had been giving 8s. or 9s. to 600 or 700 men out of employment, who were thus, by the benevolence of men—fellow-workmen—kept off the rates. If this £400,000 had been divided between employers and workmen, in place of destitution there might be prosperity. What right had the landlord to the mineral? I am not now upon the question as to what we shall do to remove this condition of things, but it is the duty of us, as legislators, to take these facts into consideration. I, for one, will not believe that it is beyond the power of Parliament to devise some means to correct these great evils. In the next place, I would ask the House to consider what is the effect of the present state of things upon the poorer classes, physically and socially? And in this connection it is important to notice that, out of their pitiably small and precarious earnings, the poor have to pay an altogether disproportionate amount in rent of homes, which, both from a sanitary and also a moral point of view, are too often wholly unfit for human beings to dwell in; and, further, that For all the necessaries of life they have to pay higher prices for inferior goods than people more fortunately circumstanced. Thus, as to their dwellings, in the Report of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes we find it stated that— A large class whose earnings are the lowes are the costermongers and hawkers, whose average appears to be not more than 10s. or 12s. a week. This represents continuous toil, and although the income is a most precarious one, yet it is not rendered so by days and seasons of idleness, as is the case in occupations about to be mentioned, but depends on the state of the market. Dock labourers follow such an uncertain employment that their average wage is said to be not more than 8s. or 9s. a week, and at the highest from 12s. to 18s. a week. Fivepence an hour is about the rate, but the supply of this unskilled labour is so much in excess of the demand, that they are not employed, upon the average, more than two days a week. The average of labourers' wages in Clerkenwell is about 16s. a week, and this means that there are many who earn less. Mr. Marchant Williams says—'From investigation of parts of Clerkenwell, St. Luke's, St. Giles's, Marylebone, and other quarters, I find that 88 per cent of the poor pay more than one-fifth of their income in rent: 46 per cent. from one-fourth to one-half; 42 per cent from one-fourth to one-fifth; and only 12 per cent less than one-fifth of their wages in rent. These figures are gathered from nearly 1,000 dwellings. Among them 3s. 10¾d. is the average rent of one room let as a separate tenement, 6s. of two-roomed tenements, and 7s. 5¼d. of three-roomed tenements. Rents in the congested districts of London are getting higher, and wages are not rising, and there is a prospect, therefore, of the disproportion between rent and wages growing still greater. Evidence shows that the witness just quoted has erred, if at all, on the side of moderation. In South St. Pancras, 4s. a week was paid for one room 10 feet by 7, at 10 Prospect Terrace; the same at 3, Derry Street; at 22, Wood Street, 5s. was paid for a single room, and if cheaper quarters were needed, an underground kitchen must he sought at a rent of 2s. 6d. a week. At 8, Stephen Street, Tottenham Court Road, 5s. a week was paid for a single room in great decay. In Chapel Row, and Wilmington Place, Clerkenwell, 3s. 9d., 4s. 6d., and 5s. were rents for single roooms. In Spitalfields, the average rental for one room was from 4s. 6d. to 6s. a week. Most of these quotations are for unfurnished rooms. In Notting Hill, 4s. or 5s. a week per room was the rent of furnished rooms, and in the Mint 4s. 6d. for the same accommodation; the character of the furniture as a rule, in its wretchedness is beyond description. Instances might he multiplied from the Metropolitan evidence. Many of the tenements just cited are dwellings referred to as instances of extreme over-crowding.' These are not singular figures, nor figures relating solely to the Metropolis. I have here a report of a lecture upon "Life in One Room," by Dr. Russell, the Medical Officer of Health for the City of Glasgow. Some of Dr. Russell's remarks are deserving of the serious attention of hon. Members, because the conclusion they point to is that the congestion of our working population in great cities is tending greatly to the moral as well as physical deterioration of our race. In Glasgow much has been done to improve the dwellings of the poor and the general condition of the people; but Dr. Russell says— Of the inhabitants of Glasgow 25 (24.7) per cent live in houses of one apartment; 45 (44.7) per cent in houses of two apartments; 16 per cent (6.1) in houses of four apartments; and only 8 per cent in houses of 5 apartments and upwards. And then he goes on to say— I am anxious to emphasize this difference by the accumulation of facts which can be expressed in cold figures. Figures are beyond the reach of sentiment, and if they are sensational it is only because of their terribly undisguised truthfulness. You must not think of the inmates of those small houses as families in the ordinary sense of the term. No less than 14 per cent of the one-roomed houses and 27 per cent of the two-roomed contain lodgers—strange men and women mixed up with husbands and wives and children within the four walls of small rooms. Nor must I permit you, in noting down the tame average of fully three inmates in each of these one-apartment houses, to remain ignorant of the fact that there are thousands of these houses which contain five, six, and seven inmates, and hundreds which are inhabited by from 8 up even to 13 per centage, though an accurate, are but a feeble mode of expression for such facts regarding men and women like ourselves. I have told you that in 1881 the population of Glasgow was 511,520 persons, and that of those 25 per cent lived in one room, and 45 per cent in two-roomed houses; but what does that mean? It means that 126,000 persons live in those one-roomed and 228,000 in those two-roomed houses. Then Dr. Russell goes on to say— There you will find, year after year, a death rate of 38 per 1,000, while in the districts with larger houses it is only 16 or 17. These are figures and facts which it is impossible for us to contradict, and which it is dangerous and almost criminal of us to neglect. Now, the questions of the earnings and the inadequacy of the homes of the poor are not by any means the only questions we have to take into consideration in dealing with the social condition of the people. The cost of living is another element in the problem which it would be idle for us to underrate. Mr. George B. Sims, one of the noblest of the many philanthropic men who have devoted their lives to doing something to improve the condition of the people, points out that the poor are obliged to purchase in small quantities, and therefore get the lowest value for the highest price. For coal, for instance, the poor pay 1d. for 7lbs., or 1¾d. for 14lbs.—that is, at the rate of £1 7s. 6d for a ton, which is only worth 16s. or 17s.; and butterine is sold to the poor at 1s. 6d. per lb., while it is not worth more than 9d. or 10d. Tea is bought by the humbler classes at 1¾d. or 2d. per oz., which means 2s. 8d. for a pound, which is only worth 1s. 4d. Now, I do not propose to trouble the House with figures relating to the pauperism in our midst; but I desire to point out how every pound of the income of this country is spent—what proportion goes to the Army and to the Navy, and what proportion is spent in the actual government of the country. Of every £ of income we find that the Customs and Excise Duties contribute 12s. 7¾d. and that proportion of the taxation of the country is the one which falls most heavily upon the lower classes. Of every £ of Expenditure of the country we find that 16s. 1½d. goes for war, leaving only 3s. 10½d. in the £ for all other purposes. If we take the year 1881, we find that 35.08 per cent went in Interest on Debt resulting from past wars, 31.95 per cent in expenditure for war, and 32.97 per cent towards other purposes connected with the Government of the country. Or put it in another form. We can show that during the present century the total income of the country was 5,613 millions, of which 3,550 millions, or more than three-fifths, came from Customs and Excise Duties, including Post Office, Crown Lands, &c., and that four-fifths of the whole Expenditure, or 4,660 millions, went in expenses of war, war debts, and preparations for war. When we find facts such as these, and seeing that so great a proportion of the burden falls on the working classes, we have a right to contend that they should reap far greater benefit from the expenditure than they possibly can do now, and that it would be infinitely better to diminish and not to increase, as you are now proposing to do, the enormous sums expended on war and warlike preparations. If you must vote larger sums, let it be for the amelioration of the condition of our people. There is, in particular, one class of expenditure too little thought of in this country, and to which, if it were less grudgingly granted, we might look as providing one of the best remedies for many of the evils of which we complain. I refer to education. In England we spend only £6,685,000 on education, as compared with £28,900,000 on the Army and Navy, while in the United States they spend £18,600,000 on education, and only £9,400,000 on warlike preparations. Our conten- tion is, that we should reverse our proportion of expenditure; that we should spend a great deal more on what tends really to the benefit of the people, the prosperity of the country, and cut down—very much more than I am afraid many of us are at present inclined to do—the terrible amount continually lavished, thrown away, and wasted in all manner of warlike expenditure. Before I resume my seat I should like to touch on another subject and in only a few words. I do not wish at all to elaborate the question of remedies to be devised. That is the duty of the Government. I am not here to maintain that there is any one special cause of the evil, and much less that there is any special panacea to be advocated for the present state of things. I know it is an exceedingly complicated social problem, and all I now ask is that the Government of the country should devote some attention to, should show some sympathy—if only by a casual reference in the Queen's Speech—with the sufferings of our people. Still, in one direction we may look for a remedy for one principal cause of the difficulties that surround us, the congestion of population in our great towns. Here we may for a remedy look to migration—not to emigration—of the unemployed labourers for the purpose of taking up and occupying land at present unoccupied or not tilled in different parts of the country. I know it will be said that it is useless to settle on our farm lands the unemployed, who are, for the most part, ignorant and unskilled labourers. But the persons who advance that objection are the very advocates of the deportation of these same ignorant and unskilled labourers to our Colonies, which, however, refused to be burdened with them. In the United Kingdom, including the Channel Islands, there are 80 millions of acres of land, and in 1880 there were only 48,335,000 and odd acres under cultivation, notwithstanding that at the same time the population was 34,862,000, or less than half the total number of acres. Now, in a rich country like this, where, without exaggeration, the population is in the proportion of one to every two acres, surely it is idle for anyone to get up and say the country is over-crowded, and that we must drive out and expatriate men from our midst and send them to other countries to assist with their skilled labour in developing the industries of those countries in competition with ourselves. We find, at the same time, that one-half of our food supplies comes from abroad. I do not dwell on the danger this presents if we should be engaged in a war with any great Continental nation—it is sufficiently obvious. But, if 40 millions of acres can produce food for half our people, we may fairly reason that if the whole of the 80 million acres, or the greater part, were under cultivation, you would not only be able to keep all your people in the country, without continually drafting numbers of them out of the country, but you would be able to be very much more independent, and produce, at any rate, a much larger supply of food to maintain them. But some people say, "This is impossible; the land remaining untilled is barren land, and will not repay cultivation." That is simply not true, and will never be true so long as there are millions of acres withdrawn from cultivation, merely to satisfy the sporting and predatory instincts of our land monopolist aristocracy. But taking only those lands which are, or are supposed to be, at present under cultivation, I may point out that at the present moment the produce of the land is not nearly what it might be. I can show that if a system of small holdings were introduced, which would mean placing on the land that is cultivable some hundreds of thousands of starving people who now go to make up the congestion of population in our large cities, you at once supply homes for the people and necessarily increase the output from the soil. For instance, if, as is estimated, the annual value of the agricultural produce of the three kingdoms is from £250,000,000 to £300,000,000, as it was when this pamphlet, from which I now quote, was published a year or two ago, and the number of acres under cultivation 47,000,000, then we find the annual yield to the acre is scarcely £6 10s. That being so, let us see what evidence there is that this can be in- creased. I take a few words from a speech delivered in 1885 by Lord Carrington, well known as a sound agricultural authority. He said— Around High Wycombe he had 800 allotment tenants, who occupied a tenth of an acre each, and who paid him the agricultural value of the land, plus the rates. The net produce of each allotment was £4—that is, £40 an acre. The most a farmer could make out of the same land under plough cultivation would be £7 an acre. So in these 80 acres under allotments £2,640 worth of extra food is produced, and altogether £3,200 worth of wholesome garden stuff is grown, the result of the spare time and labour of artizans which would otherwise probably have been wasted. Commenting upon this the writer of this pamphlet says— Then surely it may be asked, if land can be made to produce food stuffs to the value of £40 an acre, under spade labour, and during the leisure hours of the mechanic, why cannot the farmer at least produce half of that amount—that is, £20 an acre—in lieu of the niggardly £7 per acre under plough cultivation? Why indeed? And with these facts before us it is almost a crime not, at any rate, to try the experiment of relieving the congestion and misery of our cities by migration, by establishing village communities in those rural districts which are now almost bare of a rustic population. If such an experiment were only partially successful, it would, we are satisfied, do much to relieve the miseries and social evils we have laid so much stress upon; and, at the same time, it would tend to the social elevation of the people, and remove a great danger which exists in the possibility of our food supplies being cut off, if we were at war with a Continental nation. It would be a more sensible way of meeting danger than by increasing our armaments. It is an utterly futile and absurd idea to suppose we can always keep pace with foreign armaments by lavishing more and more on warlike preparations and home defences. Let me say, too, on behalf of the cause we champion, that we do not ask your charity; we do not want your money; we do not want a grant for the starving poor to salve the consciences of the rich, and to tide over a period of great dis- tress and misery; we ask for more justice and less charity. We ask that the absurd laws which now restrict the industries of the country and prevent the transfer of land should be done away with. These things can be done by legislative means. We ask you to lighten the burden of labour, and one and the most important means of doing this is to break down that monopoly in land which is at present the curse of the country. I do not wish to say a harsh or an offensive word, but I would remind hon. Members that we who have arrived at a position of social comfort and independence, some by our exertions, while others have never known a day's toil, may be regarded by men and women who toil for long hours day after day, month after month, for a paltry pittance insufficient for the necessaries, much less the comforts of life, not unnaturally with bitter feelings as an idle class whom their labour supports; and I would urge the House on the score of humanity, if on no other grounds, to devote some serious attention to these matters, and to make one united effort to deal in a practical and not merely a speculative spirit with this great social problem, and endeavour to solve it in a way that shall conduce to the future greatness and prosperity of our common country.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,) Tower Hamlets, St. George's

There was one remark from the hon. Member for North West Lanark (Mr. Cuninghame Graham) in his speech last night with which I entirely agree, as, I am sure, will every man in the House, that the question he has brought forward is one of great and pressing importance. But whether or not the opportunity the hon. Member has taken of bringing this subject before the House is a convenient opportunity, at the end of a long debate upon the Address to the Crown, for raising a question of such vast importance—interesting, as it is, to so many Members—is another matter. But, however, I do not desire to make any complaint at his having brought forward a subject in which, I know, he has long taken a very deep interest. I make no complaint even of the length to which the hon. Gentleman carried his observations, although his speech, taking the part delivered last night and the conclusion to-day, was not a short one. I make no complaint of that; but I think I am justified in drawing the attention of the House to the course which has been pursued, to the large demand upon the time of the House which the last speaker has made, both on this particular occasion, and also on a previous occasion upon the Amendment last night, when he favoured the House with a speech extending over an hour and a quarter. To-day he has again favoured the House with a speech overloaded with a mass of detail, and extending to an hour and ten minutes, while the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, and the House knows perfectly well, from the statement of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, and concurred in, I think, by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gladstone), that the exigencies of Supply and other public business demanded that the Address should have been disposed of last night or to-day. Yet, knowing there were a large number of Members who rightly take an interest in such an important question, and knowing there are important subjects on the paper, upon which some Members of the House are anxious to say a few words, the hon. Gentleman thinks it right and consistent with his duty and the interest of the subject under discussion to take up more than an hour of a short day, and when the time remaining for other business can be counted by minutes rather than hours.

MR. CONYBEARE

May I be allowed to explain—

MR. SPEAKER

Order, order!

MR. RITCHIE

I think the hon. Member has already occupied sufficient of the time of the House.

MR. CONYBEARE

Not more than was wanted.

MR. RITCHIE

I am not disposed to give way to the hon. Member.

MR. CONYBEARE

Then do not make charges.

MR. SPEAKER

Order, order!

MR. CONYBEARE

Mr. Speaker, the right hon. Gentleman is charging me with obstruction. It is monstrous.

MR. SPEAKER

Order, order!

MR. RITCHIE

Although I agree with the hon. Member for North West Lanark that the matter is one of great public importance, yet I was unable to agree with him when he specifically stated there was a want of sympathy on the part of the well-to-do classes with the class whose claims he was bringing before the House, and that in reference to questions of this kind there was a desperate lack of sympathy. Well, I do not wish to use strong language in reference to those remarks; but I entirely deny the suggestion, and absolutely repudiate the statement that there is any lack of sympathy on the part of Members of this House, or the well-to-do classes generally, with the sufferings of the poor, or the condition of the working classes. I do not believe that at any time or in any country in the world was there ever so large an expression of sympathy with the working classes and the poor than exists in this country at the present time. I do not believe that, going back for many years, it is possible to point to any country where more has been done, both by means of money and by means of personal help, than has been done, by the well-to-do classes in this country, to raise and improve the position and do the best they can for those not in so fortunate position in the world.

MR. GRAHAM

I said nothing of charity.

MR. RITCHIE

The hon. Gentleman said the rich did not consider the condition of the poor with consideration, and then went on to say that more of the working classes were unemployed, that their lives were made more unendurable at the present time, and that more work was extracted from them than had ever been the case before.

MR. GRAHAM

Undoubtedly.

MR. RITCHIE

Both propositions I emphatically deny.

MR. GRAHAM

Well, prove it.

MR. RITCHIE

I say life has been made much more tolerable to the working classes of to-day than ever it has been before. I would point to such institutions as that which happily now exists in the East End of London—the People's Palace—which has been erected, to a large extent, by contributions from all classes, principally from the wealthy classes, when, day by day and night by night, men and women toil in every conceivable way in order to afford amusement, relaxation, and instruction to the working classes of the East End. That movement is spreading east, west, north, and south, and in a short time similar institutions will be established in every part of London erected for the sole purpose of raising the condition of the poor, and adding to their amusement, happiness, and comfort. I say it ill becomes anyone under such circumstances to endeavour to draw class distinctions between rich and poor, to endeavour to say to the people—because these statements go outside and reach those who, perhaps, are not so well informed as they might be—that there is an indisposition on the part of the class who are well-to-do to do anything to raise the condition of the poorer classes in the Metropolis or elsewhere. So much for the life of the poor being made intolerable. But it is not only in such ways that life is made more tolerable. Legislation administered by local authorities have been attended with most beneficial results, providing all kinds of comforts and conveniences for the people—parks, free libraries, museums, hospitals, baths, and wash-houses to improve the condition of the poorer classes. I was looking at a Return only to-day, which showed that in the year 1885–6 local authorities in England and Wales had, without counting borrowed money, out of the income of the year expended no less than £702,000 on those matters to which I have referred. Year by year the disposition is growing to do everything that can be done to ameliorate the condition of the poorer classes. The hon. Gentleman in the course of his speech said "working classes" and "unemployed" were convertible terms—

MR. GRAHAM

Very nearly so.

MR. RITCHIE

The hon. Gentleman says very nearly so. Well, I am quite sure they would very largely become so if the remedies he proposes or supports were adopted. I am quite sure that the results of such proposals as he has shadowed forth without absolutely advancing them, if such were put into operation, the result would not be more work or higher wages, but less work and lower wages for the working classes. While we all sympathize with the condition of many of the poorer population, while all desire to see more employed and at better wages, when we come to consider how this desire is to be accomplished, then we are met with suggestions of all kinds, many of which will not stand the test of examination, many of which, instead of bettering, would make worse the condition of the people. In his remarks last night the hon. Gentleman said there must be some kind of State regulation of labour.

MR. GRAHAM

Undoubtedly.

MR. RITCHIE

That is the doctrine of pure Socialism?

MR. GRAHAM

Undoubtedly.

MR. RITCHIE

Then we understand that the doctrine the hon. Member preaches is Socialism? He asks the House to adopt, as a means of raising the condition of the working classes, the tenets of pure unmitigated Socialism?

MR. GRAHAM

Undoubtedly.

An hon. MEMBER

Why not?

MR. RITCHIE

Because undoubtedly and rapidly the effect of this State aid would be to deprive individuals of that stimulus which now influences them to improve their condition. It would bring the good workman down to the level of the bad workman. The hon. Member shakes his head, but that is what Socialism would do.

MR. GRAHAM

No.

MR. RITCHIE

It would bring the thrifty, industrious, temperate workman down to the level of the thriftless, idle, drunken workman—that is what Socialism would do by removing individual effort. I presume the hon. Gentleman also adopts the other planks of the Socialistic platform? He would like to see all property equally distributed. Well, let me tell him, if he desires to do that, he will not have only to reckon with the richer classes, but the working classes too—the working classes who, in their millions, possess property in land, houses, savings banks, building societies, and friendly societies. These are the best of our working classes, and I venture to say they would be the first to repudiate the Socialistic doctrine the hon. Member desires to propound. I venture to think that the hon. Gentleman, in preaching that doctrine, will have an extremely small following in this country, however it may be elsewhere. He speaks of the difficulty of the working classes returning Representatives here. I am happy to recognize many Gentlemen in this House, some of them among the most respected Members of the House, who are essentially the Representatives of the working class.

MR. GRAHAM

I said so.

An hon. MEMBER

Nine.

MR. RITCHIE

There is not one of those hon. Gentlemen who would get up here and advocate the doctrines of Socialism on behalf of his constituents. I say, instead of such doctrines being of any benefit to the working classes, they would reduce the whole class to one dead level of uniformity, and do more harm than good. The hon. Member says the hours of labour should be shortened. He or his hon. Friend talked of the Factory Acts, and asked had they been of benefit? Unquestionably they have been of benefit, but we have never yet attempted in this country to deal in such a way with adult labour.

MR. CONYBEARE

No reason why you never should.

MR. RITCHIE

True; but the answer is that the great bulk of the working classes would object to such treatment.

MR. CONYBEARE

How about the Trades Union Conference?

MR. RITCHIE

Because they know perfectly well they are able to take care of themselves. They have their own organizations, their own trades unions, and prefer to manage their own affairs and regulate their own hours of labour, and would decline to accept any regulation of their hours of labour by any Act or any Government. In saying this I am sure I shall be supported by the great bulk of the working class. The hon. Member quoted a few instances here and there of long hours of labour, and I am not prepared to say that men are not overworked; but I say that is no reason whatever why you should bring in a Bill applicable not only to those cases mentioned, but to all industries throughout the country, and which would in its operation be ruinous to half of them. One of the great evils of our own trade is foreign competition, said the hon. Member, and there I agree with him. But what does he propose to do? He proposes to still further tie our hands in competition with foreign countries. He said hours are longer in Germany, and that wages are higher here than in Germany. Well, I do not know what he desires to infer from that. The lesson I draw is this:—that if it be the fact that in Germany and France the people work longer hours for less wages, and if we find considerable difficulty in competing with them in trade, then, if you still further reduce our hours of labour and keep up the wages, our difficulties will be largely increased. Another probable result would be to drive capital out of the country altogether. The hon. Member, as others often do, speaks of England as if we were the only country in the world. Does the hon. Gentleman doubt for a moment that if restrictions such as these he speaks of were placed upon our manufacturers in this country—does he doubt that these manufacturers would take their capital to another country where such restrictions are not in force?

MR. GRAHAM

They would not take the workmen.

MR. RITCHIE

No; but they would take machinery and capital. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that this has already been done in several cases. To proceed in the course he proposes would still further tie the hands of capitalists, and there would be an in- creased emigration of capital from this country. Then what would be the condition of our working classes? Now, I do not doubt that in some cases there is much to be done. The hon. Member cited one case which has been more than once brought before the House—that of the Cradley nail and chainmakers—and the hon. Member for Camborne has put before us visible evidence of the work done by those employed in the Cradley Heath district. He has drawn a very painful picture from reliable sources, of the condition of things unhappily existing there. But he knows perfectly well that, so far as this particular question is concerned, it is at the present moment under investigation by the Lords' Committee appointed to examine the "sweating" system. He knows that the Government are anxious to give that Committee every assistance in their power not only with the view of getting at the actual facts, but also to give it every assistance with the view of providing remedies. If the hon. Member does not know, I can tell him that the Home Secretary has put at the disposal of that Committee an Inspector of the Home Office, who has been down to the district and investigated all the circumstances of the trade there, who has reported upon them, and is prepared to give every assistance in his power.

MR. GRAHAM

Allow me a word to justify myself. I do not charge neglect against the Government in reference to Cradley Heath. I know the Home Office sent an Inspector to report. I only alleged the case as evidence of the distress existing among the working classes.

MR. RITCHIE

I never said the hon. Member made any charge, but he described Cradley Heath as one of the plague spots of the country, and what I wish to say is, we have done all we can to investigate the matter. We must now wait for the Report of the Committee before we can see to what extent evils exist, and what would be the proper means of providing a remedy. I admit that evils do exist, and it is not our fault if nothing has been done. So I say in reference to the sanitary conditions that, as I have told him, the Local Government Board were only anxious to move, but could not until we had some representations which as yet I have not had.

MR. CONYBEARE

I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. I made a strong representation on the subject, accompanied by a memorial signed by residents in Cradley, and pressed it on the attention of the House last Session, though the right hon. Gentleman was not in his place.

MR. RITCHIE

Yes, but we want a representation under the Public Health Act. It is not sufficient to make a statement in this House. We can only move within the lines of the Act.

MR. CONYBEARE

By a memorial?

MR. RITCHIE

I stated distinctly last year if the Local Government Board received representations under the Public Health Act, we would at once take action. So far as I know no such representation has been made. The hon. Member for Lanark stated last night that our commercial system was in a state of collapse. But I do not agree with him. Undoubtedly there has been a period of stagnation existing for years past, but I am happy to think it is rapidly passing away. There is every indication that an improved condition of things exists now. If we look at the question of wages it will be seen that in all districts they are advancing, rapidly advancing, and have now reached the highest limit during the past ten years. Returns published in the Board of Trade Journal for February show on the reports of Trade Societies that of a total of 237,208 workmen only 7,390 are out of work a proportion of 3.1 per cent. In 1886 the proportion of unemployed was 11 percent.; in 1887, 10.3 per cent.; in 1888, 7.8 percent.

MR. GRAHAM

These are members of Trade Societies?

MR. RITCHIE

Yes. I am aware that those who make these returns refer to what is called skilled labour, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, skilled labour almost invariably requires to be supplemented by unskilled labour, and it is impossible to suppose that the demand for skilled labour should thus have enormously increased within the past few years, without a corresponding increase in the demand for unskilled labour. But the prosperity of the working classes at the present time is shown in more ways than one. The capital in the Post Office and Trustees Savings' Banks has increased from £29,000,000 in 1873 to £104,000,000; the capital of the building societies, in which the working classes largely invest their savings, has increased from £20,000,000 in 1876 to £53,000,000 in 1886; and the capital of the provident societies from £6,000,000, with 508,000 members, to £11,000,000 with 841,000 members. These figures show the great increase that had been made in the prosperity of the working classes. No doubt there are a considerable number of unemployed, but these figures, I think, will show the House that the unemployed are not as numerous as they were, and that the savings of the people have been enormously increased. Of course, I am aware, not only that there exists, but that there always will exist, a considerable number of unemployed, many of whom are reduced very often to great straits. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cuninghame Graham) spoke of the dock labourers. Well, Sir, this is about one of the hardest chapters in the whole history of unemployed labour, and no one who has seen these unhappy people at the dock gates in the morning waiting in the hope of obtaining some casual work can fail to have been overwhelmed with sympathy for the sufferings they undergo; but it ought to be borne in mind that the refuse and dregs of the unemployed are collected at the docks. That is their last resort. Unfortunately, it must be admitted that large numbers of these unemployed are unemployed because, owing to weakness brought on by ill-health or intemperance, they are incapable of doing any kind of hard work. The fact must be faced that, even in the most prosperous times, there must be large numbers of persons unemployed, and reduced to the lowest depths of penury. Great efforts are, however, now being made on the part of philanthropic individuals to meet this distress, and there never has been a time when more people have been associated together in the poorer districts of London, and in different parts of the country, to do their best to alleviate this state of things. But I am glad to be able to say that, so far as the pauper returns are concerned, there also we have considerable cause for congratulation. The pauperism of England and Wales in 1888 was 728,000, or 25.4 per 1,000, but in November, 1887, the number was 740,000, or 26.2; so that within a year pauperism has decreased one per thousand. And it must be remembered that though these numbers seem large, about 600,000 are women and children. The condition of pauperism throughout England and Wales is now this, that at no time during the period over which the Returns extend—at no time during the past 30 years—has there been so little pauperism throughout the country as at present. A similar decrease of one per 1,000 has taken place in the Metropolis during the past year, and so far as that goes it shows that the poverty of the country is less now than a year ago, and that many people who otherwise would have come on the Poor Law are now obtaining employment where they did not obtain it before. Upon that point, I may say that I know that at one time there was a considerable amount of doubt as to whether or not the resources of the Metropolitan Boards of Guardians were sufficient to cope with the distress that existed, but that matter has been inquired into by a Committee whose Report sets the doubt at rest, and that Report also bears out the conclusions I have drawn from the pauper returns. I say, it may be concluded that so great a fall in the number of paupers is chiefly due to the improved condition of the working classes generally. The time at our disposal is so short that it has not been possible for me to ask the House to permit me to go into all the details advanced by hon. Gentlemen who preceded me. All I desire to say is that, so far as our information goes, the position of the working classes is considerably better now than for many years past; there is more employment and less distress, and we hope that state of things will continue. But I do not say that there is not great distress, and I do not say that there are not many matters which ought properly to receive the consideration of the Government on so important a question as this. But I must point out to the House and to hon. Gentlemen that at the present time there are no less than three Committees investigating various phases of this question—namely, the Sweating Committee, the Importation of Foreign Paupers Com- mittee, and the Poor Law Committee. All these are investigating different points connected with the condition of the working classes and the unemployed in this country. It will be the duty of the Government to weigh well any reports and recommendations these Committees may make. But while that is so, and while there is still much that may be done in the way of remedial legislation, the proposals of the hon. Member who has moved the Amendment, so far from improving, would rather make matters worse. I give the hon. Member credit for the motive which has induced him to bring forward the Motion. We all sympathize with the object he has in view, but I ask the House to dissent from the Amendment. I trust the House will assist the Government in bringing the debate to a conclusion, so that our time may be given to the important business which is before us.

MR. FENWICK (Northumberland, Wansbeck)

Considering that the House has now been discussing Her Majesty's gracious Speech for nearly a fortnight, it is with great reluctance that I intervene in this debate for a few moments. I wish to say, however, that I do not consider that this is the most opportune moment for raising a question of such importance, and so far-reaching in all its issues as that we are now discussing. Speaking for myself, at the opening of Parliament I should be prepared to challenge, if necessary, the policy of the Government by a single Amendment, and if defeated on that Amendment I should allow the Address to pass. I think it is a very unsatisfactory state of things to be debating the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne for nearly a fortnight without making any satisfactory progress with the business of the country. No doubt it is extremely difficult for persons in the position which I have the honour to hold, representing as I do a working class constituency, to remain silent when questions such as that now under discussion are sprung upon the House. If we remain silent it may be assumed in certain quarters that we are out of sympathy with those whom we are sent here directly to represent. Well, Sir; I will yield to no man in the depth of the sympathy which I entertain towards the working classes, and the desire which I feel to alleviate their position at every possible point. For more than 20 years now, the small influence that I have been able to wield has been given to improve the condition of my fellows, and I should be unfaithful to the trust that is reposed in me if I were not to express sympathy on every possible occasion with the class to whom I have the honour to belong. But, Sir, what we want is not a mere expression of sympathy from the Government. That, I am very glad to say, we have already received from the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, and I should not for one moment think that he was insincere in his expression of sympathy, either on his own part or the part of the Government. But we want something more than mere expressions of opinion. We want something tangible and definite which will tend to improve the condition of the working classes. I am not going to take up the time of the House with any attempt to prove a self-evident proposition. It will be admitted—even the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board has admitted in his speech this afternoon—that there is distress existing in various quarters of the kingdom—very great distress, especially in such a district as that to which he has referred—namely, Cradley Heath. I think it would be well for the Government to consider some scheme for improving the social condition of the people at Cradley Heath. The right Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith), speaking in the debate raised on the Crofters' Question, said the difficulty the Government had to face in proposing any remedial measures for the Scotch crofters lay in the fact that you have not to contend against, or fight with, economic difficulties, but are contending against the forces of nature—that you have a "less productive soil, a less genial climate than those other countries which compete with the Scottish crofter in disposing of the product of their labour." But that state of things, I would point out, does not obtain in the Cradley Heath district. There you have not to fight against any forces of nature. The trade of Cradley Heath is practically a monopoly in that branch of industry. With the permission of the House I should like to read a single sentence from the Report which has been referred to this afternoon, in which it is said— That in reference to the chainmaking trade of Cradley Heath, instead of its being a declining industry, it continues to develop, and nothing has yet been done to materially supplant hand labour by machinery. So that in that case you have not to contend against the forces of nature. But I will not enlarge upon this, seeing that we shall have an opportunity of raising the subject again when the Report of the Lords Committee dealing with sweating is presented to Parliament. Reference has been made to the shortening of the hours of labour by some legislative interference. This is an extremely difficult question—a matter which will have to be very carefully handled when it is brought forward for discussion in this House. Reference has also been made to the action of trades unions. Well, I am frank enough to admit that I am a trades unionist and have been so for a number of years, but I think that the record of trades unionists in relation to the shortening of hours is a very creditable record. For many years I have endeavoured, in my humble way, to secure the reduction of the hours of labour, but I have sought to bring it about apart from any Parliamentary interference. My own conviction is—I express it as an opinion of my own, and pledge nobody else to it—that with proper organization amongst the working classes it is possible to bring about a proper reduction of the hours of labour. But I also admit the great difficulty you have to face in branches of industry where it is not possible for workmen to combine. Take, for example, the case of the London car drivers and conductors. These men go on duty at eight o'clock in the morning, and they do not leave duty until half-past twelve at night. Their work is from morning till night for seven days in the week. They are never an hour off duty during the whole of that time except from sickness. They have no means whatever of establishing an organization; and I can see that in such a case as this and even in the case of railway servants the question is a very difficult one, and that it is a fair question for the State to consider how far it can interfere to secure the men a half or a whole holiday in the week, or bring the hours at which these men are employed within a fair and reasonable limit. But, Sir, I have only risen for the purpose of pointing out the extreme inconvenience there is, in my opinion, in raising a discussion such as this on the Address in reply to a Speech from the Throne. I will reserve what I have to say on the social condition of the working classes to a more fitting occasion, which I am glad to think, owing to the ballot, we shall shortly have on the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst). He has been fortunate enough to secure, by means of the ballot, the first place for this discussion; and I appeal to the Government to afford us every facility on that occasion for a full and frank discussion of the terms of that Motion, and I trust that on that occasion we shall have the definite decision of the House in relation to this serious, grave, and important question.

MR. ISAACSON (Tower Hamlets, Stepney)

I am very sorry to have to rise at this hour of the day; but the two hon. Members who introduced this subject took up so much of the time of the House as to render it impossible for other private Members on this side to speak earlier. I wish to take exception to the statement of the hon. Member who introduced the Amendment that English working men are so miserable that they have nothing to fear from foreign invasion. I also wish to take exception to his statement that trade is so bad that there is nothing but misery and squalour all over the country. If the hon. Member will permit me, I will ask him whether during the vacation he did as I did—that is to say, visit all the centres of industry in the country? If he did not, I will take him with me, to commence with, to South Wales. I there found that coal was reaching a famine price, and that labour was difficult to obtain. I found whole families engaged in the various industries, and the aggregate wage earned by each family was so large as to create surprise in my mind. I found the people enjoying every convenience and living in well-built cottages, but I found none of the squalor and misery depicted by the hon. Member for North-West Lanarkshire. I next visited Lancashire and Yorkshire, and found hundreds of thousands of operatives in full employment, and manufacturers waiting to enlist the services of more men if it were possible to obtain them. I found none of that misery which the hon. Member has so exaggerated, although I acknowledge that there must necessarily be some misery produced by various causes in an industrial country like ours. Next I visited the Black Country, in which Cradley Heath is situated. I know a good deal about the district and am pretty well acquainted with the necessities of the locality. But I maintain that the depression in the Black Country has been solely brought about by the unfair, one-sided Treaties of Mr. Cobden. Those Treaties have never been properly understood, and certainly free trade as now accepted would not have been entertained in the early days of the movement. If you could only alter the system of tariffs which is so unfairly pressing on the agricultural and industrial classes I am satisfied that a better state of things would be the result.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,) Strand, Westminster

I am under the necessity of asking that the Question be now put. It will be quite impossible to go through with the business if the debate continues.

DR. CLARK (Caithness)

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman—

MR. SPEAKER

I am precluded by the Orders of the House from allowing the hon. Member to debate the Question.

DR. CLARK

I did not want to debate it. I only wanted to ask a question.

MR. SPEAKER

Order, order!

Motion made and Question put, "That the Question be now put,"—(Mr. W. H. Smith.)

The House divided:—Ayes 247; Noes 66: Majority 181.—(Division List No. 5).

Question put accordingly, "That those words be there inserted."

The House divided:—Ayes 92; Noes 220: Majority 128.—(Division List No. 6).

MR. W. H. SMITH

claimed "That the Main Question be now put."

DR. CLARK

Mr. Speaker, I protest—

MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Gentleman is out of order.

Main Question put accordingly.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL (Kirkcaldy)

Mr. Speaker; I rise to a point of order. I beg to ask you, Sir, whether the Main Question can be put when the Closure has not been put to the House?

MR. SPEAKER

It is in strict accordance with the Rules and Standing Orders of the House observed on previous occasions, that the further question—that is, the Main Question—may be claimed to be put at once, put forthwith.

The House divided:—Ayes 227; Noes 99:—Majority 128.—(Division List, No. 7.)

MR. SPEAKER

The Question is "That this House resolve itself into Committee to appoint a Committee to draw up the reply to Her Majesty's Gracious Speech from the Throne."

DR. CLARK

No.

MR. SPEAKER

This is a purely supplementary Motion.

MR. T. M. HEALY

It is after half-past five.

MR. SPEAKER

Order, order, That has nothing to do with it. It is a purely contingent Motion on what has taken place, and which is obligatory upon me under the Standing Orders of the House.

DR. CLARK

You said "the ayes have it," and I said "No."

MR. SPEAKER

No division can be allowed, as the Motion is purely supplementary.

DR. CLARK

Then I protest against your saying "the ayes have it."

MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Gentleman may protest, but he is out of order.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Under what rule has the hour been projected forward?

MR. SPEAKER

It is in accordance with the practice of the House under the Standing Orders.