*MR. KEIR HARDIE (Merthyr Tydvil)I rise for the purpose of moving the following Amendment to the Address—"But we desire humbly to express our regret that your Majesty's advisers have not seen fit to recommend the inclusion therein of such measures or measure as would have empowered the Government and local administrative authorities to acquire land for cultivation, and to set up undertakings whereby men and women unable to find employment in the ordinary labour market might be profitably set to work." First, I must be allowed very briefly to put the Housein possession of several facts directly bearing upon this question of the unemployed. From returns supplied by the Labour Department of the Board of Trade, and published in the Labour Gazette issued this month, I find that in 225 unions with a total membership of 547,000 men, there are 27,685 men returned as unemployed—that is to say that, practically speaking, 5.5 per cent. of these trades unions are out of employment. A year ago I should say the Proportion was 4.4 per cent. But I would not have the House assume that this 27,658 men represent the total number lacking employment. These figures refer exclusively to certain trades unions, and it is well understood that the unions which pay out-of-work benefits, and which are exclusively confined to skilled labour, and 248 artisans, represent nothing like the high percentage of unemployment in periods of trade depression which obtain in less skilled trades. I estimate that the total number of wage earners in the country is 12,000,000, and if we deduct from that figure the number employed in domestic service, as agricultural labourers, and in the carrying trade, employments which are steady and regular, there are left, I estimate, 8,000,000 workers who are always affected by a depression in trade such as now exists. If we assume that the percentage of the unemployed among these workers is the same as it is known to be in the skilled artisan trades—namely, 5.5 per cent.—it gives a total now out of employment of over 400,000. I say deliberately that that is the minimum at which the number in Great Britain can be placed at the present time. There are over 400,000 working men and women, with all their helpless dependents, suffering hardship in consequence of the lack of employment. If that be so, and if my figures are only approximately accurate, it surely represents a social question of sufficient magnitude to arrest the serious attention of this House and of the country.
I have been at some trouble to ascertain what is the condition of employment in the different centres of industry up and down the country. In response to circulars I sent out some time ago to trades councils and large unions, I learn that the unemployed in Stockton are between 4,000 and 5,000, in Hull between 3,000 and 4,000, in West Hartlepool 5,000, and in Middlesbrough 2,000. In Leeds, where a labour bureau has been opened, the number who have signed the books is 3,662, this representing not the total number out of work, but the proportion who have reached the limits of subsis- 249 tence and are willing to accept work of any kind rather than continue the fruitless search for work in their own employment. In Bradford 1,100 have signed the registers of the labour bureaux. In Manchester, according to the trades council, the police report that, all sleeping accommodation being filled, every night 2,000 houseless wanderers sleep in brickfields and in the open air. In Glasgow, according to the Herald, 20 percent. of the men employed in the Clyde shipyards are out of employment, and this figure was given not to magnify the seriousness of the unemployed problem, but in order to justify the employers in reducing the wages. Now I wish to ask what is being done to meet the necessities of this case. Everyone will admit that to working men dependent upon a weekly wage deprivation of employment is a very serious matter indeed.
First I may draw attention to what the large trades unions of the country are doing in order to cope with this great evil. I have collected returns from those unions which pay out-of-work benefits, and before quoting them I would call the attention of the House to the fact that the out-of-work benefit is not continued for an indefinite period, for if it were it would be impossible for the unions to continue to exist. Now, the carpenters and joiners pay an out-of-work benefit of 10s. per week for the first twelve weeks, and of 6s. for the next twelve weeks. The friendly society of the Ironfounders pays 9s. the first thirteen weeks, 8s. the second thirteen weeks, and 6s. the third thirteen weeks. The boiler makers pay sums varying from 5s. 6d. to 11s. 6d. per week for fourteen 250 weeks in each year. The railway servants pay from 10s. to 12s. for ten weeks, and half the amount for another the weeks. The Durham Miners' Association pays 10s. weekly for about eighteen months, while the engineers pay 10s. for fourteen weeks, and 6s. so long as the man remains out of employment. But, after all, these payments represent little more than the average rent of a working man's house. In our big centres the rents vary from 8s. to 12s. weekly, and even for 12s. you only get a house of very inferior quality in parts of this City of London. The total sum spent last year by the trades union movement on out-of-work relief was £265,000, and that fact should be remembered to its credit at a time like the present.
In speaking of house rents I am dealing with matters concerning which I have knowledge. For very inconvenient houses, badly situated and containing very limited accommodation, 8s. per week is charged in the East End of London, and if the accommodation is at all decent the rents go up as high as 12s. weekly. I ask hon. Gentlemen to accept this, not as a mere expression of opinion on my part, but as an actual statement of fact.
Now, for one moment may I turn to the question as to who these unemployed are, because there is a disposition in many quarters to make it appear that people out of work are generally so through some fault or defect of their own, that they are drunkards or incapables, or men who are lazy and do not want employment. I would remind the House that even admitted, as I admit, that incapable men and drunken men are the first to be dismissed when trade becomes depressed, 251 the reason for their being dismissed is not that they are incapable or drunken, but because there is no longer any demand for their labour. There is not the same amount of work to be performed, and when there is less work to be done, less men are required to do it. If every one of these men was perfect at his trade, sober, and diligent, the same number would still require to be dismissed when trade became depressed and orders fell off. I trust that we shall not hear in this House what is so painful when we see it stated in the Press, or hear it asserted on the platform, that the men are out or work owing to some defect of their own. They are unemployed because trade is depressed. If it be the case that among the unemployed are to be found the wastrels and outcasts of society, who are not capable of performing an honest day's work, they are more to be pitied than blamed. They are the victims of our industrial system, and I would say to those who blame them, parodying the words of Tennyson's "Poacher's Wife,"
that had your sons been brought up as they were your sons might have been the same.But I would further point out that if we have to select the fit from the unfit, the willing from the lazy, there is only one means of accomplishing it, and that is to provide an opportunity for all willing to perform useful work. When we have that test we shall then be able to weed out the fit from the unfit, the willing from the lazy. I hope I shall not weary the House if I insist upon the importance of this question to the nation as a whole. I am not casting any reflections on individuals, but I know it must be difficult for an average Member of Parliament even to think himself into the place of an unemployed workman. Even in a time 252 of good trade the income is barely sufficient—seldom more in the best of cases—than to keep things going. Most hon. Members are aware that there are from 28 per cent. to30 per cent. of our working-class population which even in times of commercial prosperity, when work is plentiful and wages are good, live below the poverty line, not because they are drunkards, but because the total income of the household is not sufficient to provide the commonest necessaries of life. It is easy to understand that in such cases no resources can be accumulated to fall back upon in times of depression. Take the case of the men on the Clyde. Fifty or sixty skilled artisans are cast adrift in one week. They begin tramping from workshop to workshop, and from town to town, insearch of employment, but with all their skill and with all their opportunities they are not allowed to earn their bread by honest labour. Meantime, the resources of the homes are dwindling, the savings are being spent, and the furniture and clothing are being sold or pawned to keep the homes going. By-and-bye there comes a time—it has come to hundreds of thousands—when the children cry for bread, and when there is no bread with which to still their cries. I ask hon. Members to remember that when a man gets to that position and finds himself an incumbrance upon the earth, a social and industrial outcast, he loses heart and hope; he sinks in the social scale, and becomes the wastrel whom all men malign. I trust, therefore, the House will, in view of the importance of this question, not merely to the men out of work, but to the community as a whole, take serious heed of the matter, in order to devise some means whereby to provide every willing Englishman with an 253 opportunity of working for his living. There are two methods by which this evil requires to be combated. First of all, some means is required whereby the amount of work will be increased. If we could increase the expenditure of the nation, work would be increased, the labour market would be brisk, and the unemployed would be absorbed. When a reduction of wages is advocated as a means of tiding the country over a period of industrial depression, we are, thereby only increasing the evil from which we are suffering. The more wages are reduced the less there is to spend, and the less there is to spend the less demand there is for commodities, and the greater the number of people out of employment. I submit, therefore, that in order to permanently remedy this oft-recurring depression in trade and its consequence, shortage of employment, we must organise industry in such a manner as to increase the spending power of the community, and thereby increase the amount of work to be performed. That leads us straight to the main questionf There can be no permanent increase in the work of the nation without a large addition to the quantity of land under cultivation.My second remedy is, some form of work which will be elastic enough to be able to absorb in times of depression the so-called surplus population for which there is no room in the ordinary labour market. That points to great public works, such as the making of embankments, the reclamation of foreshores, and the reafforesting of large tracts of our country. I will deal first of all with public works, and I would remind the House of Commons that the Board of Trade already possesses very large powers under the Foreshores Act of 1866 for dealing with this most important matter. I understand that the Board of Trade could at once begin to reclaim practically every foreshore in the country where the waters of the sea have invaded the land unduly. As a matter of fact, a beginning was made in this direction some time ago, but owing to the opposition of landlords with foreshore rights, the work had to be given up after only having been partially undertaken. As an illustration of what could be done in 254 the matter of reclaiming land from the sea, let me quote two instances from well-known experiments carried out in Holland. The Haarlem Lake was reclaimed and 46, 000 acres were added to the arable land of Holland, and now the Government of Holland propose to reclaim from the Zuyder Zee a million acres by the same means. It that can be done in Holland it can also be done in England. The need for it is quite as great here as it is there, and the opportunities for carrying it through are equally available. May I remind the House that, according to a scheme prepared by an eminent engineer, 200,000 acres might be reclaimed from the Wash alone, if properly undertaken. That would mean employment for 10,000 men for about fifteen years. The need is great and the powers exist, and pressure should be applied to the Board of Trade to put its powers into operation. One small experiment was tried at the beginning of the last century, by which 60,000 acres were reclaimed at a total expenditure of £580,000, and now land, which was formerly swept by the sea, is covered with cornfields and comfortable farmsteads, which bring in a rental of £110,000 a year, leaving and annual surplus over and above the cost of reclamation of some £81,000. Therefore I am entitled to say that the reclamation of foreshore is not a theoretical, but a practical, question, which can be undertaken by the nation, and which would add to the estates of the nation, because the land reclaimed would be the property of the nation, and its benefits would not pass into the pockets of private individuals.
As to reafforesting, I would remind the House that 90 per cent. of the timber used in this country, in our mines, and for pulp in our paper mills, is imported from abroad. According to the Board of Trade Returns, the value of the timber imported last year was £5,435,000, and I submit respectfully that every stick of that timber could be grown within our own shores with great advantage to ourselves. In this case also we have a special report of a Departmental Committee to guide us. According to it there are 20,000,000 255 acres of land lying absolutely waste and bare at the present moment, in many cases not even carrying sheep, which might be utilised for the purpose of wood-growing. An experiment on these lines tree-planting and afforesting, has been tried in Germany, with the result that after paying all costs, including interest on expenditure, a clear profit of 38s. per annum per acre remains, and that upon land which previously only produced 4s. an acre for sporting purposes. Here I submit also there is much profitable work to be done, which would employ thousands and tens of thousands if properly undertaken. It is a constant matter of complaint, and justly so, that in matters of wood and other essentials for our industries, this country is dependent upon other nations. Here is a means by which that dependence could be lessened and the wood required produced at home, work being given to the unemployed and a substantial profit made on the transaction. With these inducements it is difficult to understand why there should be any hesitation on the part of the Governments to embark on work of this kind.
Now I come to what I term the permanent remedy for this question of the unemployed. I need scarcely remind the House that, belonging as I do to the economic school of thought designated Socialism, there can be, in my opinion, no final solution of the unemployed problem as long as production for profit continues to dominate our commercial system. I will not, however, propound a Socialist solution of the question. I am more concerned with finding some practical reform which will benefit the unemployed. There is one step which though for differing reasons might perhaps meet with acceptance on both sides of the House, and that is that the Local Authorities should be employed to acquire land for cultivation. Here, as in the case of timber, there is room for great development in the matter of producing things which the nation requires, and for which it is now dependent on other nations. The total cultivable area of Great Britain is just over 36,000,000 acres, and out of that total the amount under cultivation is just over 16,000,000. That is to say, that more than half of the cultivable land of the country is not 256 being put to anything like a profitable use. And whilst that is so our imports of food stuffs increase year by year. At the beginning of the last century the bulk of the food required by the people of England was produced at home. Now, after a century of progress, our of five loaves consumed four are baked from foreign-grown wheat. The importance of this question is now beginning to be realised. As long as this country is dependent for its food supplies upon foreign nations, we are under a menace which cannot be overestimated, and which may produce the most serious results. Therefore, I submit that if some means could be devised where-by the quantity of land under cultivation could be all increased, the quantity of produce, from gardens, dairies, farmyards and corn-fields would be all increased, and our dependence on foreign nations would be lessened, and we should be doing more for the prosperity of the country than by any number of filibustering expeditions for the extension of our Empire.
The first essential of Empire is a sound heart at home, and so long at this unemployed evil is in our midst, it is a cancer eating into our social system which will spread and contaminate every section of society. The question then is, what can be done? We are now paying for dairy produce close upon £25,000,000 a year, and for food stuffs £59,000,000 a year. Altogether I believe we are now paying to other nations for food supplies over £120,000,000, and I venture to assert 75 per cent. of this expenditure could be spent on food produced at home, to the spent on food produced at home, to the great advantage of all concerned. If I am asked as to the means to be employed in order to bring this desirable result about, my reply is: The same power by which between £5,000,000 and £6,000,000 is spent in opening up Uganda. If we were to do as much for the people of England as has been done for the people of Uganda—
§ And, it being Midnight, the debate stood adjourned.
§ Debate to be resumed Tomorrow.
§ Adjourned at one minute after Twelve o'clock.