§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY moved for leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Truck Acts. He said the Measure was introduced in fulfilment of a promise which had been made early in the Session by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House. It was not an attempt to consolidate the whole of the Truck Acts, but only proposed to deal with that particular branch of their administration which had been the subject of a Motion which had been made by the right hon. Baronet opposite early in the Session upon a point which was in urgent need of clear definition. It was evident that the extreme uncertainty of the present law was a serious embarrassment alike to employers and employed. In the Bill an attempt was made to define the conditions under which deductions from the gross sums paid by the employers to the workmen should be permitted—namely, in the three cases of fines, damages to materials the property of the employers, and as regarded materials and other things supplied by employers in relation to the work to be carried out by the workmen. The proposals of the Bill are embodied in three operative clauses, which were separate, clear, and distinct, and there were three other clauses dealing with penalties and deductions, which constituted the whole of the Bill. The Bill was not controversial, and he hoped that it might be the means of improving and clearing the law.
§ MR. HALDANEasked whether the Bill applied to shop assistants.
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYsaid that it did not apply to those persons, because he was afraid that the subject would overlay the Bill. ["Hear, hear!"]
§ Bill ordered to be brought in by Secretary Sir Matthew White Ridley and Mr. Jesse Collings; presented and read 1°, to be read 2° upon Monday, 4th May, and to be printed.—[Bill 184.]