§ MR. J. W. MACLURE (Lancashire, Stretford) moved the Second Reading of this Bill. He said the Bill was not in favour of Protection, but was for the benefit of the working classes, who suffered from the admission into this country of foreign products that were falsely described as of home make and growth. As connected with various railway companies, it was his pleasure and pride a short time ago to stop a contract made by our Government with a foreign manufacturer, the difference between the English price and the foreign price being only 5s., and he understood that of the amount of the contract, 33 per cent. would go in the form of wages to the working classes. [''Hear, hear!"] They were constantly hearing that everybody in this country was poor. He agreed with that, and believed that the cause of our being poor was our mismanagement in regard to the admission of foreign goods. There were cases in which goods had been marked as Welsh flannels, although they had come from Germany, and in France linens had been marked as of Belfast manufacture. The Bill would, therefore, benefit the artisan class, who needed to be protected from such practices. If they made a ton of steel rails in Sheffield and sent it to Germany. Belgium, or France, there was a heavy tax put upon it; but we, on the other hand, allowed rails to come into this country without any tax. The main object of the Bill was to preclude the absolute falsification which at present existed in regard to the place from which an article came.
§ *SIR HOWARD VINCENT (Sheffield, Central)supported the Second Reading of the Bill. After the emphatic declaration of the House last Wednesday in favour of foreign or colonial meat being marked, he hoped the House would view the present proposal with equal favour. The right hon. Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield had taken an interest in this question, but, he was sorry to say, in an adverse direction. He hoped, however, to be able to win him over to support the Measure. This was a very simple Bill, which consisted of one operative clause, providing that all goods capable of being marked, should on coming into this country, be stamped 139 as foreign. The Bill, however, did not propose that an indication of the actual country of origin should be placed upon the goods, and it was not proposed to interfere with the sale of foreign goods in this country to those who desired to be supplied with them. It would be within the recollection of the House that complaints had been made from Members on both sides of the House as to the injurious effect which, in their opinion, had ensued from the carrying out of the 16th Section of the Merchandise Marks Act of 1887. That section required that all goods coming into this country with English wording, or an English trade mark, should be accompanied by the qualifying words, "made in Germany,'' or France, as the case might be. He thought the proposal in this Bill might almost be simplified to the word "foreign" being placed upon the goods. The right hon. Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield objected to a similar Bill in 1894, on the ground that there were many articles that could not be marked. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman to a certain degree, and by this Bill articles which could not be marked might be exempted by the Commissioners of Customs from its provisions. To show, however, that marking could be carried out in the case of eggs and biscuits, the hon. Member produced, amidst laughter, an egg which had been marked with the. stamp of the Aylesbury Dairy Company, another with the stamp of the Provincial Dairy Company, and a tiny biscuit with the stamp of Messrs. Huntley and Palmer upon it, as an answer to the only speech made in this House by Mr. George Palmer, Member for Reading in the last Parliament, who, while averring that imports could not be marked, took care to mark everything leaving his factory. The Bill of 1894 had been supported by Mr. Cremer, Mr. Keir Hardie, and the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, and the present Measure, which was a similar one, could not, therefore, he contended, be a Party Measure. ["Hear, hear!"]
§ MR. H. E. KEARLEY (Devonport)opposed the Bill, arguing that it was by no means a simple Measure, but would, on the contrary, be vexatious, inoperative, and expensive to work. He did not quite see where the line was going to 140 be drawn by hon. Members opposite; perhaps, eventually they would demand that in the case of eggs, each egg should be accompanied by its own birth certificate. [Laughhter.] Beer, cheese, and eggs were to be marked, and he believed that agricultural Members were entertaining the idea that even foreign flour should be marked. It was not desirable that the proposed responsibility should be thrown upon the Customs officials.
And, it being half-past Five of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned.
§ Debate to be resumed upon Tuesday 14th April.