HC Deb 27 May 1908 vol 189 cc1188-221

*MR. MADDISON (Burnley), in moving "That this House considers that immediate steps should be taken to secure the provision of proper sanitary housing accommodation for workpeople employed upon works of construction and in other occupations of a temporary character," said that the Trade Union Group with which he was associated considered they were fortunate in the Minister to whom they had to make this appeal. The rank and file welcomed nothing so much as the inclusion of his right hon. friend in the Cabinet. It gave to the Cabinet a labour representation which had been of enormous advantage, not only to the right hon. Gentleman's own class, but to the nation at large, and the party with which he was associated thought there was considerable advantage in making this practical but immensely important appeal to the President of the Local Government Board. The grievance he brought to the attention of the House was a real one, but he wanted to make it perfectly clear that no wholesale charges were being brought against contractors and employers. Many employers and contractors had endeavoured to do their duty and fulfil their obligations in this respect. He did not suggest that navvies should live in marble halls, but he did claim that this rough but extremely valuable class of our fellow-countrymen should have something like the minimum of decency. There were between 100,000 and 200,000 of these people at the call of the nation for the execution of public work of the greatest importance, and therefore they were a class who had some claim to the attention of Parliament. His Motion was also framed to include people engaged in temporary occupations of another kind; such, for instance, as the hop-pickers, whose condition certainly ought to be remedied. Dr. Farrar, who was asked to investigate the conditions under which the hop-pickers worked, had furnished a most valuable Report, in which he gave some details which one would have liked to have been impossible. Of course, hop-picking differed from other works such as those of great public construction, and he did not expect that elaborate provision should be made for the short time they were engaged, but some provision ought to be made. Dr. Farrar reported that on one farm the pickers had to get water in a field from an open tank which was also used by cattle. On another farm the hop-pickers complained of the musty flavour of the water supplied to them, and upon investigation it was found that the water was conveyed in a barrel that had for many years been used for hog-wash. Dr. Farrar made other statements with regard to sanitary arrangements which he would not now go into, but they showed a most disgraceful state of things, that no discrimination was made between the sexes, and the doctor finally concluded by stating that nobody who could not provide decently for them should bring people to their fields. The Motion, however, mainly referred to navvies and others engaged on railways and other large works, largely carried on in the country districts where ordinary accommodation could not be obtained. He would not labor this point, as he was fortunate enough to have as a seconder of his Motion the hon. Member for Stoke, who zealously served the navvies of this country. They would also have a few words from the hon. Member for Bath, who had been engaged in mission work among the navvies and whose experience corresponded very largely with that of the hon. Member for Stoke. In the Report of Dr. Farrar upon the work of the Brook-lands motor track there were some appalling statements. It was not a long job, but it was long enough to make it obligatory on the contractor to provide reasonable housing accommodation for the men employed. Dr. Farrar found no provision whatever made by the contractors for the housing accommodation of the men they employed. The contractor knew the number of men he was going to employ and how long the work would take, and he provided machinery and everything else required, and although there was no housing accommodation in the neighbourhood it never struck him that he should provide for the human factors, without which the work could not be carried out. Dr. Farrar in his Report said that men working on the night-shift resorted after work to the public-house where they had been to wash down their breakfasts, after which they laid down in the open to rest. If the weather happened to be cold they half-stupefied themselves with beer before taking their rest. These men had not even a hole dug in which they might lay their heads; and they had to stupefy themselves with drink, a remedy, he was bound to say, many would resort to without much encouragement before they went to rest. The Committee visited several public-houses, which they found so full as barely to afford standing room, and the navvies in those houses complained bitterly of the failure of the contractors to find accommodation for them. Dr. Farrar went into the statement that the navvies did not want accommodation and all the rest of it, and came to the conclusion that the genuine navvy, in large numbers, was a victim to these conditions. After the public-houses were closed, he found 6 men sleeping in a straw yard, 17 in a disused cowshed on the bare floor, a number sleeping round a coffee stall, and 300 asleep in a dale. He and those with whom he was associated were not extremists when they said this sort of thing must be stopped. That was the object of the Motion to-night. This was not a new question, because in 1846, when railways were being introduced into this country, a Select Committee sat to inquire into this very matter, and though they confined themselves to the question of railways, their recommendations applied to all works of a similar kind. One recommendation was as follows— Your Committee is of opinion that previous to the collection of a body of these workpeople at any spot sufficient lodging should be ascertained to exist. When the neighbourhood cannot adequately supply it then the company should be required to provide it.

Again they said— Your Committee adverts with pleasure to the evidence they have received from gentlemen largely engaged in executing public works to show that comfortable arrangements for lodging the men are directly and indirectly amply remunerative for the additional expense they may at first entail. He believed they could always square economies with morals. As Adam Smith taught fifty years ago, the way to get the best work out of people was to treat them well. A good many people who tried to upset Adam Smith's conclusion were unaware that he had a good deal of sentiment in his economy. The recommendations of the 1846 Committee awaited adoption. That was rather typical of the House. He might say to the President of the Local Government Board: "Now there is your mandate; get about the business and do what this Select Committee asked Parliament to do sixty years ago." If that were done, they would be absolutely satisfied. He was not one of those who complained of reasonable delay. He did not want the House to race. He had a great belief in his country, but he did not think it was strong enough to stand the House always in the division lobby, where their enthusiasm was tremendous. Already there was one case, and there might be more, where this obligation had been placed upon contractors in a public Bill. The Derwent Valley Water Act, 1899, contained the provision. The hon. Member who represented that district informed him that the administration of the Act had largely broken down, but it was not the fault of the Act. He thought at first there was a similar provision in the Port of London Bill, but, on reading the clause, he found there was an ugly little word "at" instead of "on," and he hoped the hon. Members on the Committee would see that was made "at or on." They wanted the local authorities charged with the duty of seeing that all contractors for works in their area made better provision for the housing of the men employed on those works. There were various things, a register, and other items of machinery, which might be suggested, but he did not suggest them. He told the President of the Local Government Board what they wanted, and it was his duty to see that it was carried out. They paid him a salary and did not grudge it, but they paid it him to do some of their thinking for them. If legislation was needed, then he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would pass legislation. He did not ask him to do so unless it was necessary, because he believed all unnecessary laws on the Statute book were a nuisance and even a tyranny; but, if this could not be done without legislation, then they asked the right hon. Gentleman to do it with legislation. The Motion, which he had the pleasure of moving, merely sought to impose a reasonable obligation upon all employers in the interests of a very deserving class and of the good of the general community.

MR. JOHN WARD (Stoke-on-Trent)

said he had the greatest possible pleasure in seconding the Motion, for, as the officer for a number of years of the society which represented this particular class of workmen, he had been cognisant of many unfortunate circumstances, such as those already described by the hon. Member for Burnley. He was, therefore, delighted to have this opportunity of ventilating this grievance of, he should think, the most hard-working body of men in the country, and possibly one of the most useful body of workmen. The subject was not a new one, because, as the hon. Member for Burnley had pointed out, it was before the House sixty years ago. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the House sixty years ago had the matter before it, absolutely nothing had been done, so far as legislation was concerned, to take the recommendations of the Committee into consideration or to improve the position of the men in any single iota. It was true that in some circumstances there were certain regulations as to the construction of buildings, and so on, and that the general advance in the sanitary laws of the country had assisted the men in getting better accommodation; but the unfortunate part of the business was that the greater proportion of great public works, employing enormous bodies of men nine, ten, or twelve years, were usually commenced in spots where there were no local bye-laws, or only bye-laws of a very mediaeval type, and in districts where there was not the jurisdiction and power to decide on housing accommodation that there was in towns. He would be able to show many cases where the conditions were quite as bad as anything described in the Report of Dr. Farrar. It would not, however, be necessary to make many quotations, because his right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board, he knew, was personally interested in the welfare of this class of men, and had been so interested for a number of years, long before he (Mr. Ward) entered the House, and possibly long before the right hon. Gentleman himself imagined he was going to hold the exalted position he now filled. He, therefore, felt it would only be necessary to state the position exactly, and to show how utterly impossible it was to hope for any improvement under present arrangements, and how necessary it was for definite action on the part of his Department. If he only showed this, he thought they would have the right hon. Gentleman's assistance in obtaining some amelioration of a definite character. The hon. Member for Burnley was mistaken in imagining that the Committee of 1846 was appointed to consider no other than railway works. It was appointed to take into consideration not merely the question of the condition of labourers employed in the construction of railways, but also on public works in general. Perhaps it would be as well for him to read the terms of reference to the Committee. The Committee was appointed on 30th April, 1846, by Sir R. Peel's Administration, and the terms of reference were:— To inquire into the condition of the labourers employed in the construction of railways and other public works and into the remedies which may be calculated to lessen the peculiar evils of that condition. The evidence in the Report clearly showed that sixty years ago they took great care in securing information as to the condition of these men in all parts of the country, on all kinds of works of public utility, and unquestionably the evidence in the Report showed a truly appalling and deplorable state of affairs. So bad was it that the Committee made a Report of a very drastic description. They in that House imagined that in discussing industrial subjects they took a more moral and higher view of the claims for industrial reform than people used to in earlier times. He used to think that the Manchester school of politics was not superior to £ s. d. and that purely materialistic motives prompted them in their decisions, but it was only necessary to read this Report to see that in dealing with subjects of this description sixty years ago they took quite as high a moral view as people did to-day, if not higher. One of the drastic recommendations he would like to read to the House. The whole subject was thoroughly discussed, and the crux of their Report was contained in the following paragraph— Your Committee beg to suggest that every railway company, before employing more than a small number of labourers together in the construction of any part of their work, should be required to notify their intention to the Public Board which may be charged to the general supervision of railways and to state the number of men likely to be employed thereon. A competent officer should then be required by the Board to proceed to the place named and to ascertain whether there was already adequate and decent lodging to be obtained for workpeople within reasonable distance, and to report accordingly to the Board. If it should be sufficient that then the company should be allowed at once to proceed; otherwise, not until they have provided lodgings to the satisfaction of such officer certified by him to the Board. These proceedings should be at the expense of the company, the exercise of whose powers may be made dependent upon them being taken. The inspecting officer should be required from time to time to visit the works and the lodgings and to report thereon to the Board, with power to make sanitary regulations respecting them to be observed by the Committee on approval by the Board. So long ago as 1846 they made elaborate recommendations for the purpose of preventing this deplorable condition of affairs that had been recently brought to light by the Report of Dr. Farrar in the case of the Brooklands motor track, and one or two others which he would bring to light. But nothing had been done. He communicated with the Administration in 1892 when his right hon. friend the Member for Morpeth was Under-Secretary to the Board of Trade, and they discussed the subject in the old Westminster Hall, taking the two sides of the grievances of the workmen, one dealing with their accidents and the other with their lodging accommodation, and he was pleased to have an opportunity of thanking his right hon. friend for dealing very satisfactorily with one side of the subject. But, unfortunately, when the right hon. Gentleman and his friends were beginning to consider the advisability of tackling this subject the result of the ballot boxes at the general election was unsatisfactory, and the powers of administration were handed over to other hands. They could see by the attendance how much care or interest they were likely to take in any question of this description. If it were not for the hon. Member for Yarmouth having come in towards the latter end of his hon. friend's speech, His Majesty's official Opposition would have been entirely absent even on such an important subject as this. Nothing was done, owing to the turn of the ballot, and so the thing had gone on from time to time. He supposed in most of these things a little personal experience was more important than theoretical knowledge. He started life on public works connected with a railway. He had worked on most of the great public works from 1879 to 1890, when he was appointed an officer of his society. He had therefore had an opportunity of personally living in these huts on different public works, and even now sometimes spent his week-ends in visiting one of these public works and lodging in the huts. The form of accommodation that was usually provided was some rough wooden structure. These huts were of a very temporary character. They were easily knocked together—too easily, he was afraid—but they afforded, at any rate, some shelter. Usually about fourteen or sixteen men were stacked in a room about 12 feet by 24, and the beds were close against one another, which sometimes enabled an odd one to be got in. If it happened to be a tunnel or works where there was a night and a day shift, no sooner were the day shift out of their beds than another shift turned in, and that was the condition of affairs that prevailed on many public works, as no doubt Dr. Farrar would be able to explain to the Local Government Board. There was another system where the contractor found it to his advantage to dispense with boards, except for the roof, and the sides were made with sods cut out of the turf on the side of the railway, and that was practically all the protection one had. Many a time he had been able to lie in bed and pick mushrooms. Their organisers had reported to him three cases where similar accommodation was provided on works which were to last five or six years. Private firms were great offenders in this matter, though great improvements had been made on several works, and he wanted to give every credit to those who had made them. Just as he was going to deal out criticisms, he should be just as clear in giving praise where praise was justified. These huts were built sometimes in long streets with scarcely any sanitary accommodation. He remembered well the great navvy village at Runcorn during the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal, where all the garbage used to be thrown out in what was supposed to be the street, the space between the huts, because there was nowhere else to throw it, until the whole space became a sort of spongy mass of filth which, of course, ought to have been cleared away. The result was a diphtheria epidemic which carried off scores of the men and nearly half the children in the village, and yet nothing had been done. But they suddenly had a great improvement. The Birmingham Corporation came to the House for powers to build a great water-works, and he began to get reports from members of his society asking him to go down and see the palaces that were provided on those works. He went and found a. village of about 300 fine huts with the latest sanitary accommodation, while in all other huts he had seen erected by private contractors the whole of the men had been stacked in one room without any possible chance of individual decency or anything of the sort, and that was the general thing even to-day. The Birmingham Corporation, he believed, to the honour of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, put up cubicles so that every man had his own sleeping compartment, bedsteads were provided, and the bedclothes changed every Monday, and there was wash-house and bath accommodation. Nothing like it had ever before been attempted in navvy life. He thought that that would be a pattern to every other private firm to adopt, but he was sorry to say that in the case of private firms there was no improvement whatever upon the condition that prevailed twenty or twenty-five years ago. But Birmingham led the way in this matter, and it created quite a revolution as to the management of the village, and the result was that the Water Committee got together the best body of men that any public workers ever contracted with since he had had anything to do with public works, and the works were carried on in a way which was creditable to everybody concerned. Other public bodies had followed suit. The Swansea Corporation built a large reservoir, and had a proper system of accommodation that was a credit to them. Before the work was finished another large work began, the Swansea Dock, done by a private contractor, and the policy of the public authorities was entirely ignored. No house accommodation whatever was provided, except that some old shanties in the docks or on the ground itself, that had been given over to the rats and the seagulls for half a generation, were slightly renovated and made watertight, if not wind tight, and there some twenty or thirty families had been established. Beyond that no accommodation whatever had been provided for the influx of nearly 2,000 men. He was told that whereas the cottages for the ordinary people before the works began ranged from 3s. 6d. to 4s. a week, the navvies who had families being obliged to secure some kind of accommodation, overcrowding had taken place to an enormous extent, and 10s. a week was being paid for those same cottages, in which they could only live by crowding about one family into one room, and in some cases it was even worse than that. He had drawn the attention of some officials of the Harbour Board to the subject some time ago. No less than from 200 to 300 of those men were living under the hedges on the hillside. It had been said that the navvy did not want much inducement to drink beer, but he was not so sure that he would not have taken arsenic if he had been obliged to live under such conditions. How they could expect men to develop decent habits under circumstances of that description, he failed to see. This was a very serious matter, and it was a subject which ought to have been taken into consideration years ago. He asked the constable on the spot what became of those men, and he told him that directly the cold nights set in they crowded into the filthy cabins of the town in order to get a lodging wherever they could, and they lived there in the most filthy surroundings. Was it to be wondered at that these men were looked upon as a little below the lowest class of workmen? If they placed men under those conditions and condemned them, as the Government had done by its neglect of this question during the last sixty years, to a condition of affairs of that description they could not expect the men to be angels. Public authorities, when they did this work themselves, generally made proper provision for the men, but often the private contractor made absolutely no provision at all. They ought to take steps to force the private contractor up to the standard adopted by the public authority. His hon friend had referred to the case of the Derwent Valley Water Board. That Board had the only Act of Parliament, dealing with public works of this nature, which contained a provision compelling the employer or those undertaking the work to supply proper accommodation for the workmen. His hon. friend said someone had told him that even that Act of Parliament was inoperative, and that the Derwent Valley Water Board were not carrying out that clause. He was able to say that so far as the men employed directly by the Derwent Water Board were concerned that Board were performing their duty to the letter in regard to providing the men with proper accommodation. He had personally frequently visited the Derwent Valley Water Works, where he slept with an old friend of his in one of the huts, and it was as comfortable a little hut and as clean and perfect in every way so far as domestic comfort was concerned as any workman's house in the country. Proper sanitary arrangements were provided on those works, and there was a great recreation hall for the men, and also a library. There was also a clergyman who came to speak to the men, and he considered that that had a very important bearing on their social life. That Water Board had only erred in this way. The point he was urging was the difference in the treatment of the men in the case of public authorities, and by private contractors, and this point could not be better illustrated than in the case of the Derwent Valley Water Board. At first this Board decided to do its own work, and they employed about 800 of the best navvies in the country; they were men capable of performing any kind of work, and were a highly respectable body of men. The moment they made the habitations of these men conform to the ordinary decencies of life, they soon became much the same as other men. Unfortunately the Derwent Valley Water Board, under the influence of reactionaries, who argued that by doing their own work they were murdering private enterprise, decided by a very narrow majority that the lower part of the work should be carried out by contract. The Water Board, thinking that their model villages would be occupied by the private contractors' employees, did not dream that anyone would come and put down a miserable pigsty by the side of those decent cottages. The Board placed no compulsion on the contractor to make any provision at all for the men, and therefore that clause of the Act was a dead letter, with the result that the condition of affairs on that part of the Derwent Valley Water Works which was now being done by a private contractor, was a disgrace to the contractor, and to the county council which had allowed it to exist. He desired to convince his right hon. friend that right up to that very moment those things were continuing. The Brooklands motor track was not an isolated case, because this kind of thing occurred regularly wherever there was no compulsion in the terms of the contract. On this point he wished to read a quotation from the Sheffield Daily Telegraph of Tuesday, 12th May, 1908, dealing with this subject, to show the condition of affairs existing at the present time. That journal said— There were revelations of a remarkable character at yesterday's meeting of the Chapel-on-le-Frith Guardians, respecting the state of things in the Bamford and Derwent district where the Derwent Water Board have their extensive works. The Rev. F. M. Hayward, of Derwent, who presided, called attention to the excessive number of inmates and vagrants at the workhouse, and said he did not think the guardians had any idea of the extraordinary number of vagrants and. tramps accumulating in the district of Bamford and Derwent. He said he was not speaking of the Water Board but of the contractors who were carrying out various works under the Board. Although a large number of men were continually arriving in the district and engaged on the works there was no accommodation for them. Last week seven or eight Italians arrived at Bamford to do some skilled work, and not a soul in the village would take them in. These poor beggars were obliged to sleep under tarpaulin out of doors. He knew, too, that no fewer than fifty men were sleeping in one barn, a dozen in another, the same number in another, and so on, and in fact, every haystack and pipe anywhere between Bamford and Derwent was a lodging place for these men. [Sensation.] The state of things was horrible, and they might imagine the sanitary conditions of a barn where fifty men were sleeping. Something ought to be done to compel the contractors to provide accommodation for the men they employed. They were continually advertising for men, and the result was that the locality was invaded by tramps and vagrants who did not want work, and who were trying to break into people's houses. He suggested that representations be made to the Member of Parliament for the Division, asking that a Bill should be brought forward to compel contractors in such cases to provide accommodation for their workmen. The Derwent Valley Water Board had done all they could, so far as they were concerned, but the contractors did not care whether the men were accommodated or not so long as they got their work done. That was the condition of affairs upon one of their greatest public works. He was very glad that at last they had got to the subject which he had been agitating for a long time. For the first time these men had got a spokesman in this House, and he hoped the result would be to make it impossible for this state of affairs to prevail any longer. It might be asked why was it that private firms kept on advertising for men when there were crowds of them in the locality. This was done in order to secure a fresh stream of men continually on those particular works, and unless the contractor adopted that course he would not be able to complete his works at all. The House would see how necessary it was that something should be done to improve this unfortunate condition of affairs. He hoped the President of the Local Government Board would take the matter into consideration, and devote special attention to the need of giving powers to the county councils to take action. Such powers, however, might not be effective unless the right hon. Gentleman's Department insisted on some method by which they could carry out the proposal of the Select Committee of 1846 to have an inspector occasionally visiting the works to see that proper accommodation was provided. He also suggested that as the Local Government Board drafted model clauses with reference to many other subjects in private legislation there should be a standing order of his Department requiring that when powers were sought for building great works, involving the migration of large numbers of men to given localities, a model clause should be inserted to secure suitable accommodation for the workers before such Bills were permitted to pass.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House considers that immediate steps should be taken to secure the provision of proper sanitary Housing Accommodation for Workpeople employed upon works of construction and in other occupations of a temporary character."—(Mr. Maddison.)

MR. ALBERT STANLEY (Staffordshire, N.W.)

said there was one phase of this question which had not been sufficiently dealt with by the hon. Gentleman who preceded him. He associated himself with his hon. friend the Member for Burnley in assuring the House that it was not in any captious spirit this question had been raised. A great deal had been said in regard to the housing of men engaged on temporary works. What he desired to bring before the House as clearly as he could was the condition not so much of the men but of the women and children engaged in hopping. He had been brought into touch with that aspect of the question as a member of the Staffordshire Education Committee. The attendance at the schools of children who, with their parents, had been hop-picking suffered for reasons which appeared in reports which he would read. The statements he would quote were made by gentlemen who had made a close inspection of the matter on the spot. The Report dated 12th March, 1906, by Mr. Hawkins, superintendent of the attendance officers for the Education Committee of the county of Stafford contained the following— The head teachers most emphatically state that the majority of children return from the hop fields in an absolutely filthy condition, and the general practice is to exclude such children from school until they have been cleasned and their clothes washed. The children are generally absent from two to three days on this account. I may add that scarlet fever broke out in the Quarry Bank district shortly after the return of the hop-pickers and has not yet entirely disappeared. The medical officer of health is of opinion that the disease was in all probability imported from the hop fields. In schedules appended to the Report Mr. Hawkins gave the names of the children and the ailments from which they were suffering on their return from hopping. It was an unsavoury matter and he did not propose to go into all the details. The ailments included fever, diphtheria, bad throats, and bad heads. In the Quarry Bank school the effect on the attendance of these illnesses was a diminution of 20.3. It was because of that Report that Mr. Hawkins was authorised to make inquiry on the spot. Having done so, accompanied by Mr. Howitt, clerk to the Sedgley School Attendance Sub-Committee, he presented a Report, dated 28th September, 1907, in which the following passages occurred— We found (on the farm of Mr. A.) a woman with a sick child. She said she would never go hop picking again, and complained that the women and children suffered very much at nights owing to cold. They could not get sufficient warmth. Proceeding to Mr. B.'s farm at B—we inspected a shed specially built for the hoppers. This shed was divided into spaces about 10 feet by 12 feet. There was no shelter from the wet. Food was cooked by means of fires in iron cylinders, locally known as 'devils.' We spoke to a woman who said she came from a village near Walsall. It was the first time she had come, and would never come again. She was very obviously enceinte. She told us that a young woman, a man, his wife and three children, and herself and two children, slept together in one of the compartments above mentioned. The place was absolutely devoid of sanitary arrangements, and the people relieved nature as best they could. About 100 hoppers were sheltered here. We then proceeded to a farm in the occupation of Mr. A—. On the way we met a girl, aged eleven years, who said she had come from Dudley. She had accompanied and was helping her sister, a girl of fifteen. Her mother was ill and could not come. We found that this girl and her sister slept in a place about 12 feet by 14 feet with three other families. She stated that the women un-dressed. We called at the farm and were shown round by a labourer. We inspected the sleeping compartments, and found that most of them were about 12 or 14 feet square, the floors covered with straw and bags. The shelters appeared fairly clean, but were evidently terribly overcrowded, one, two, and three families sleeping in each compartment. That was the condition of affairs in this hop field, and he felt that it would be almost an insult to the intelligence of the House to argue this matter. He thought the House would desire that the President of the Local Government Board should take what means he had in his power for dealing with it. Had the place to which he referred been within the jurisdiction of the Staffordshire County Council they would have endeavoured to enforce different arrangements. The degrading conditions to which men and women engaged on the hop fields were subjected were such as to call for the action of the Government. Surely there was sufficient power within the constitution of this country to deal with the state of things existing; and if the right hon. Gentleman had not got that power he was sure the House would be ready to give it to him.

MR. PARTINGTON (Derbyshire, High Peak)

said that there were two very large water undertakings in his constituency. The hon. Member for Stoke had referred to the Derwent Valley Water Board, which was in his constituency. He had had very serious protests from his constituents against the way in which the valley was being over-run by vagrants and people who went there to seek for work. The contractors for the works which were being carried out for the Water Board had erected huts for the men, which he had visited, and he found them very well kept, thoroughly clean and satisfactory. Indeed, the principal contractors took very good care of their workpeople. But he had noticed that some other contractors had been advertising for workers, with the result that the valley was over-run with undesirable people. What he would like the right hon. Gentleman to do was to send down an inspector to look into the matter and see whether something could not be done, because the resident in- habitants were getting alarmed at the number of tramps who were over-running the district. The chairman of the Chapel-en-le-Frith Board of Guardians had recently stated, "He knew, too, that no fewer than fifty men were sleeping in one barn, a dozen in another, and the same number in another, and so on, and, in fact, every haystack and pipe anywhere between Bamford and Derwent was a lodging place for these men." This question should not be treated on party lines, and something satisfactory should be done for the men who worked under very hard conditions all the year round.

MR. MACLEAN (Bath)

said he had the pleasure of the personal acquaintance of a large number of navvies, and the conditions under which they lived and did their work had been forced upon his knowledge. There was a general idea that the navvy was outside the ordinary class of artisans; but from his own experience he found that the navvy was as generous, warmhearted, and responsive to kindly and just treatment as any other member of the community could be. He thought that the class was fortunate in being represented by such a gentleman as the hon. Member for Stoke. He was not overstepping the mark when he said that that hon. Member was as capable a representative of labour as was to be found in any Legislature in the world. A good deal had been said about the personal claims of this kind of workman to the consideration of the House. It had been pointed out that this was not a sentimental question at all, that the navvy had a claim to consideration as a citizen discharging a very useful function in the State, and it was as a national asset that he should be conserved in every possible way. It was on these grounds that the Motion now before the House had been brought forward. The conditions under which the navvies worked were not a matter of history, they were going on now and required an immediate remedy. He would give a specific instance. In the district of which the village of Alton was the centre, forty miles of railway construction were being carried on. The contractors who under- took that job made, in the first instance, not the slightest provision for the accommodation of their workmen. The people in the little town were crowded out of their houses, or had to turn their stables, yards, and out-houses into sleeping accommodation for the navvies. It was only towards the closing years of the contract that some accommodation had been provided for them by the contractors. What were the conditions under which these men lived? In the first place, they were very damaging to morals. He spoke from personal knowledge when he said that owing to the crowded state of the huts many of them became no better than sheebeens where illicit drinking was carried on. That did immense damage not only to the men themselves but to the inhabitants of the district. Everybody talked of the British navvy who undertook jobs in any part of the world; and why should the House not take special measures for preserving the good character of the British navvy? But what happened? Magnificent specimens of manhood as they were, in spite of their fine physique they were attacked with pneumonia and other diseases and simply died off as the snowdrift on the dykes melted under the rays of the sun. In spite of their apparent physical power their amount of resistance to disease was extraordinarily small, and the reason was the conditions under which they were compelled to live. The remedy lay very close at the hand of the President of the Local Government Board. It was open to him and those who worked with him to see that in any Bill containing statutory powers for carrying out works model clauses were inserted for providing for the navvies proper accommodation instead of overcrowded huts. Wherever a great railway in carrying out extensions displaced working-class people, new homes had to be provided, and there was a sufficient precedent for the provision of accommodation for the workers. Of course, there would be a difficulty with small contractors. The great railway companies carried out their work usually with a fair idea of what was due to the men, and so, as a rule, did the large contractors. There were men who, like the hon. Member for Colchester, took a very active and keen interest in the welfare of the men employed. But small contractors secured small jobs because they based their tenders upon a disregard or total neglect of these moral obligations. But let every contractor be put on the same basis and under the same conditions for providing temporary housing for their men, and the thing would remedy itself. This was not a party question, and should receive the hearty co-operation of Members in all parts of the House. If the President of the Local Government Board responded to the unanimous opinion of hon. Members, this class of British citizens would have more justice done to them in carrying out their work than at present was the case.

MR. NICHOLLS (Northamptonshire, N.)

said that the case for the navvy had been put in most excellent form by the hon. Member for Stoke. The best navvies came from the agricultural districts, and he thought that the navvy and the agricultural labourer were very closely associated. One of the most important points in connection with this matter was that of advertising for workers by contractors. These contractors did not recognise or endeavour to carry out their responsibilities to their men, and that was the reason for a great deal of the moving about of navvies in the districts where public works were going on. There were, of course men who did not really want work, or who would not stick to it when they got it. The best men, however, stopped where they were well treated and were given good house accommodation and had reasonable conditions of labour. He had personal experience that where the men were not well treated in the way he had spoken of they did not stay at their work more than a day or two. He himself, when he was not satisfied with the conditions of work on a farm, became a navvy. Some contractors could not keep their men when the rule was to drive them hard all day and with no care or thought of where the men went at night. Good men would not remain under such conditions. Where these works were going on there was a constant and swift influx of hands who wanted accommodation somewhere. They went to the nearest village or hamlet, which soon became overcrowded. Those villagers who held their houses on a monthly or quarterly tenancy soon got notice, and the rent was raised; to meet the increased rent they crowded in lodgers. He lodged once in a cottage of two rooms. In that cottage were the husband and wife, two grown-up daughters, a boy of eight, and four lodgers, of whom he was one. The lodgers had the upstairs room and the family the lower room, the two daughters sleeping under the stairs in what was practically a coal-hole. The man and his wife used the bed which was always in the living-room, where they all had to feed. They were not rough, but good, honest, Christian, sober people, and anxious that their lodgers should have good accommodation. The cottage was kept clean, and they were made as comfortable as possible. No woman could have done more, or have done better. But what was the result? There was nothing else to be done, the men were crowding the district, and the consequence was that men would not stop long. In the winter that crowding went on in every available shelter. In the summer time men said they could not be roasted, and so slept outside under the hedgerows and haystacks, and in the cowsheds, and the police of the district, because they were feeling men, winked at it. How was it that someone did not come along and find out what was going on and who was to blame? The cottagers were not to blame, nor were the navvies, but somebody was. How was it that somebody did not come along when these contracts were being signed and sealed, and say that, before the work was begun and hundreds of people were brought into the district, a guarantee should be given by the contractors that shelter should be found for the workmen; that for the sake of cheapness the contractor should not be allowed to flood the district with these rough men, who would lie out because no proper accommodation was found for the best type of men? It affected the morals of the men. If a good man got into such conditions he would go down. What was a man to do on a wet day if he was not a frequenter of public-houses; where was he to go? He had either to go to a public-house or take refuge in a cowshed or other shelter. He considered that as well as housing accommodation it should not be considered a hardship for the contractor to have to provide some kind of shelter for his men on wet days. They could not go to the cottages, because the people there did not want to see them till they went in to bed. When night shifts were at work, one set of men often crept into bed half-an-hour after the others; had crept out; and a man on the day shift could not go to his lodgings on a wet day because there was somebody else in the bed. On one occasion there was a public-house which had a fine room, called a club-room; that would have been a convenient place to go to, but it was a lodging-room by night, and was like a hospital ward. Forty or fifty men crowded into it at night, and they could not go there for shelter on a wet day because it had ceased to be a club-room. There should be a full inquiry into this matter, and those who inquired into it should insist upon proper conditions for these men who worked hard and long at these works. The navvies were not the roughest people; with all the fears so many persons had of them there was no ground for saying they were rough. Many of them were Christian, sober people, and many were total abstainers. What was wanted was to bring the contractors up to the mark, and if they would not do what was right he, for one, would be ready to force them up to the point.

MR. W. E. HARVEY (Derbyshire, N.E.)

said he should not have intervened in the debate but for the fact that one of the fairest parts of the country, in the constituency from which he came, was subjected to treatment at the present time to which it had never been used in the whole of its history. When the Derwent Valley Water Board were carrying out their scheme they recognised their responsibilities with regard to the treatment of the workmen employed by them, and made provision for the ordinary comforts of life for this migratory population. Under that work they found a model state of things, and there was no complaint either from the men or from the organisations to which they belonged. In fact, the contractors met all the requirements of modern civilisation. Unfortunately there was now evidence of another type of contractor. Public bodies had dealt with the matter at their meetings, and there had been bitter complaints of the state of things that now existed in the Derwent Valley. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, a Conservative newspaper, described it as a disgrace to the century. This was not the outcome of municipal or public works trading. It was the outcome of contracting, of selfish private interests, of greed. Hence there was a condition of things in which, though there might be housing accommodation, there were no sanitary arrangements, and no consideration for the well-being or welfare of the men who were doing the work, and for whom the nation was undoubtedly practically responsible. The hon. Member for Stoke had done great service for the migratory labour of the country, and he would receive the thanks of all the working people for what he had said and done that night. This was a trade union question, and one affecting the whole of the workmen of the country. In his own county he had known employers who had erected huts and created great injury by the want of sanitary arrangements. The one idea of the House of Commons ought to be that all the men employed on these works should be employed under proper conditions, whether on railways, waterworks, or in mines, and he was expecting to hear from the President of the Local Government Board an assurance with no uncertain sound that good sanitary conditions should be provided for great enterprises before the work was allowed to be proceeded with. That was only reasonable and right. He had great pleasure in supporting the Resolution.

SIR JOHN KENNAWAY (Devonshire, Honiton)

said he could add nothing to the practical side of the question before the House, and as many of them had no personal experience, they were too apt to put aside what did not obtrude itself upon them. It was a happy thing that they could meet together, put aside their party differences, and think out the question how something could be done to improve the lot of the men engaged on these great public works, particularly in these days when both parties were eager to find work for the unemployed, and bring about a condition of things which should better their lot. He hoped the President of the Local Government Board would bring his knowledge to bear upon this question, and be able to say that something was being done and could be done to improve the conditions of labour in the direction that had been indicated.

MR. VIVIAN (Birkenhead)

said that, in supporting the Resolution, he would like to observe that the question was one which did not seem to attract the attention of a very large proportion of the Members. That, however, made it all the more necessary that they should be extremely careful in connection with the matter, and bring home to the right hon. Gentleman the importance of it. The question was one on which political pressure could not be brought to bear upon hon. Members owing to the peculiar position of the class which the hon. Member for Stoke so ably represented. If this had been a question affecting coal miners or cotton operators, the benches would have been crowded owing to the political pressure being so great. Here, however, was a class which, owing to their peculiar position and the kind of service they rendered to the community, were unable to organise for political purposes and to bring the necessary pressure to bear upon hon. Members. So far as navvies alone were concerned, they were dealing with a population of something like 100,000. He was sure no Member had ever listened to a more interesting debate. The realism brought into the discussion by the hon. Member for Stoke and by the hon. Member for Northants had made it very interesting, and had been very helpful. They had had able speeches from Members who understood the subject from the practical experience of life, and no one would complain of the manner in which the case had been presented. Did anyone believe that, if the conditions which had been so ably described, prevailed amongst a similar number of working class which played their part in elections, they would be allowed to last six months? The pressure on hon. Members would be so great that the House would be forced to deal with the evil. He thought that in considering social evils in the country of this kind, they ought to be not less, but more enthusiastic and anxious when they affected a large mass of people that had no political power. He did not know how far the right hon. Gentleman and his Department had systematised the enforcement by local authorities of their bye-laws in connection with the question. The question of | the application of the bye-laws was a peculiar one in this case because the districts in which the bye-laws had to be enforced were changing almost from month to month. It was difficult enough to carry bye-laws out thoroughly and satisfactorily where the area was the same, and pressure could be continuous from year to year and almost from generation to generation, but here they had a state of things where the application of the bye-laws was in one district for six or twelve months and then the pressure had to be put on fifty or 100 miles away. He should like to know that some steps were taken to systematise the pressure, so far as these bye-laws were concerned, in other words to make themselves acquainted with the existence of the demand and to keep in some way in touch with this kind of population. They kept in touch with workhouses, and various other things, and one really felt that it ought to be part of the duty of certain local government officials to keep in touch with this kind of population as well, and to see that their particular needs were met by the enforcement of bye-laws. Then he thought it would be worth considering whether they ought not, as matter of course, when Bills for carrying out large contracts came before the House, to impose some condition dealing with the provision of housing accommodation for the workers who were to be employed. That was not a revolutionary proposal, and he saw nothing that was economically unsound in it. When it was a question of preserving life and health, surely it could not be economically unsound. He drew the line in connection with economics always at the destruction of life. Here was a clear case both with regard to navvies and to hop-pickers where the evidence seemed to be overwhelming that large masses of human beings worked and lived under conditions which must be destructive to health and life. That clearly was a case for action. It was not a case of trying to get someone an eight-hour day who had at present nine, or of using the House to get 22s. or 24s. instead of 20s. It was a case of preserving life and health for a very large number of people, and it was a question of common decency. The things they had had described and the things that they imagined lay behind what the hon. Member for Staffordshire had been describing surely suggested that this was a question of common decency concerning which Members on all sides ought to unite at the earliest possible moment. When large numbers of women and children were brought together under the most demoralising and degrading conditions it was impossible to expect that these people could be really fit to fulfil the duties imposed by a civilised community. Surely it was their duty to arrest that at the earliest possible moment. With regard to the navvies, those who had had any experience of these matters—and he was; not going to argue whether the tendency to strong drink prevailed largely or otherwise—knew that a more worthy, kind-hearted, generous body of men they could not find in the country, and they were frequently very fine physically as young men. But they too often deteriorated as they got towards old age very largely because of the very evils they were now endeavouring to remedy. He appealed to his right, hon. friend not to let this be a mere pious resolution. They were not there to catch votes because there were no votes behind this question, but they were there to try and put a little pressure on the right hon. Gentle man to take a real step forward in the direction of removing evils which had been so vividly described by those who were competent to give a description.

MR. JOHN BURNS (Battersea)

The Motion before the House refers to two different classes of people who are engaged in either nomadic or temporary occupations. The first class is that engaged in works of construction, like the navvy, whose short but simple annals have been so admirably told by their excellent representative. The other class is one whose position in life is even more pathetic than that of the navvy. It is the hop-picker, the picker of fruit, and the vegetable picker, who are composed very frequently of more helpless men, women, and children than can be said of the navvy class. I can only say on this Motion that we are prepared heartily to accept it, and I can prove conclusively that long before this Motion was tabled the Local Government Board had taken practical and in many respects drastic action to secure the object the Resolution sets out to achieve. I believe the English navvy is the finest industrial worker to be found in any country. He is strong and willing, and, considering his strength and some of the insubordinate characteristics which he at times displays, he is a good-tempered, cheerful, optimistic creature who carries on a laborious work under circumstances which have always evoked my admiration and respect. When I took office I decided to give special attention to the humbler workers of the nomadic type, and I instituted a series of inquiries by one of the ablest and most sympathetic of the Board's medical inespctors, the result of which has been the production of some admirable reports. The effect of Dr. Farrar's investigations into the circumstances attending the construction of the Brooklands motor track, the condition of the hop, pea, and strawberry picker, and also of the navvies on railway, water, and drainage works is mainly responsible for the sentiment of practical sympathy which has been shown in this debate. No one can take up Dr. Farrar's admirably illustrated Reports on the condition of the hop and fruit pickers both in Worcestershire and in Kent without admitting that the Local Government Board are beginning to bring this subject closer to practical action than it has been able to secure for a number of years. It is estimated that there are, in the United Kingdom, about 100,000 men, women, and children connected with this particular class of work. A certain number of these will always get lodging accommodation—a single man easily and readily, but the women and children not so easily. Many of these good fellows, through "sleeping rough," get into a condition in which ordinary cottagers will not take them in, and the effect of that is very often to lead them into a course of life the plane of which is invariably downwards. The letting of cottages to navvies often leads to overcrowding, and, if the work is on a large scale, the private accommodation in remote country districts is generally found to be insufficient. There is not the difficulty now in securing accommodation near large towns that there used to be, because the common lodging-houses are to-day infinitely superior to what they were. In this connection the Local Government Board may be said to have anticipated this debate by a circular issued some time ago, authorising boards of guardians to dispense with the detention period in the casual wards, thus giving these men accommodation which is not of the best, but such that many rough navvies prefer to some of the common lodging-houses, and therefore, the Local Government Board have done something in the right direction. Many contractors erect huts for navvies, but the type of hut which even the best contractor erects is never so good as the huts and the accommodation provided by the local authorities. The common type of hut is let to a ganger. The navvy lodgers are at one end, the kitchen in the centre, and the ganger and his family live at the other end. The average number is from fourteen to twenty in each hut, and the men pay from 12s. to 14s. a week for their board and lodgings, which is the same amount as was mentioned in a Report made sixty-six years ago. The navvy, however, has this advantage now, that he gets ever so much more for his money and considerably higher wages, besides an enhanced purchasing power The cubic air space of the best type of hut is fairly good. The cost is not very great to the contractor and many of them are being encouraged to improve this accommodation. There are other huts, erected by the ex-navvy gangers, some of which are not so good. Some are shebeens and, in many cases, they are badly conducted. A gain, there are contractors who fail altogether to make provision, and at present there is no legal authority to compel them to do so. The consequence is that hundreds of genuine navvies are compelled to "sleep rough" every night. Some of them actually sleep in the water pipes alongside the pipe track which is being laid to carry the water from one part of the country to another. One of the consequences of this is that many of these fine fellows are crippled and invalided prematurely by rheumatism contracted by the habit imposed on them of "sleeping rough" in the fields or under hutches. Apart from the serious rheumatism thus caused, the habit of sleeping rough tends to moral and physical degradation. It should be the interest of contractors to give these men better treatment. Good contractors recognise the obligation to provide accommodation because it enables them to get and to retain the best navvies. The effect of doing so reflects itself in economic and commercial advantage to them. This question, as has been truly said, is not a new one. So long ago as 1846 a Select Committee of the House of Commons made a report on the condition of railway labourers. I would like the hon. Member for Stoke not to weary in well-doing. Bad as are the conditions of the men in some of the instances which the hon. Member gave, they are not comparable with the condition of things revealed in the report of the Committee. The year 1846 was practically the beginning of the railway boom, and there were over 200,000 persons engaged in the work. These men, with their women and children, were badly housed and sheltered. They had monthly pays, a brutal truck system, hospitals were unknown, first-aid was not even thought about, and in connection with blasting, shoring, and excavation work, the most elementary precautions were ignored. Anyone who goes through the record of industrial mortality resulting from accidents at large public works of that kind between 1846 and 1870 will find what the state of affairs was. I took the trouble to do so, and I wrote a pamphlet on this subject. What struck me was the extreme want of knowledge that prevailed then with the result that these fine fellows were neglected when accidents occurred. That Committee had to deal with a worse condition of things than we have to deal with now, and they suggested that previous to the collection of large gangs of workmen at any spot it should be ascertained if accommodation had been provided. The Committee further recommended that there should be an official inspection of all works in progress. Notwithstanding the fact that we were engaged in increasing railways at the rate often of 500 to 1,000 miles a year, no legislative effect was given to these recommendations for nearly sixty-six years. These nomadic workers had not the franchise, and if they had had the franchise, their movement from place to place would have prevented them from exercising the vote. Notwithstanding the fact that the railway boom lasted from 1840 to 1874, there was little done in the direction of carrying out the Committee's recommendations. Now the railway boom has to a great extent passed away, and it has been truly said by the hon. Member for Stoke that speaking broadly and generally the great railway companies in the treatment of their permanent way hands of the ordinary staff have got their faces towards the light, and that on the whole in this regard they do generally the right thing. Where the railway companies by their own staffs make extensions of their trunk lines or make branch lines the navvies they employ get great consideration in the matter of accommodation. This state of things prevails also in connection with other classes of public works, and yet in spite of this I find that things are not so good as they ought to be, or as good as they must be made. From the reports made to me by Dr. Farrar, who has visited railway works, docks, reservoirs, and other works, I am driven to the conclusion that we have got to do something on lines I will subsequently indicate to the House. May I say that the local authorities of thirty or forty years ago used to let contracts with less consideration for the men whom the contractors employed? Now they do this thing exceedingly well. The hon. Member for Stoke deserves credit for the attitude he took up on this particular question. What Birmingham has done in this matter is to the credit of that city. Anyone who reads the industrial reports of 1894, 1896, and 1898 of the Elan Valley village will be able to realise what can be done for these men. Similar institutions have been set up by Swansea, Leeds, and Sheffield. We must all frankly confess that the local authorities have done a great deal of good in this direction. I have only to refer to the Elan Valley as an example of what local authorities might live up to. The works there took seven or eight years and in the picturesquely situated navvy village there were hospital for accidents, mission, schoolroom, public hall, recreation room, bath house, canteen, together with a gymnasium, and other amenities. Notwithstanding that there were from 1,700 to 2,300 men in that village, the reports of the local authority and the police were to the effect that what had been done for the men had been so wonderfully humanising and civilising that there was very little drunkenness and disorder. The local authority had been more than compensated for the money spent on the excellent arrangements made at the place for the comfort and convenience of the navvies under their control. For the continuation of this good work legislation is not necessary for the local authorities if the worst of them will do what the best are now doing. That brings me to the point raised by the hon. Member who represents the Derwent Valley, and the hon. Member for Stoke. I find that Section 64 of the Derwent Valley Water Act of 1899 contains the following— The Water Board or their contractors shall to the reasonable satisfaction of the medical officer of health for the County of Derby erect, fit up, and maintain hospitals or infirmaries and temporary huts or other buildings necessary for the accommodation of the servants and workmen employed by the board and their contractors, and the board shall provide and pay for all such assistance whether of doctors, surgeons or nurses as may be necessary and proper for the efficiency of all such hospitals or infirmaries. When I read last week about the condition of affairs in Derwent Valley I decided to bring that clause in the Derwent Valley Water Board Act to the notice of the local authority, and to send down Dr. Farrar to approach both the local authority and the Water Board and point out the powers they had under this particular Act. I pass from the navvies to those employed on other public works like Blackwall Tunnel and the Rotherhithe Tunnel. There is no comparison between the way in which the men were treated some years ago and that in which they were treated in the construction of the Blackwall Tunnel, which took five or six years to complete, and on which several millions were spent. The London County Council appointed a resident medical officer of health and erected a small infirmary. No man was allowed to work in compressed air, except under well regulated conditions, and the result of taking this humane and elementary course for the preservation of the health of these men was that not one man actually died directly from the effects of working in compressed air. Twenty years ago the deaths would have been numbered by the score, and if the work had been carried out in some other countries the deaths would have numbered some hundreds. On the Rotherhithe Tunnel the Greenwich Corporation has done excellent work. I come now to the treatment of hop-pickers, fruit-pickers, and those engaged in vegetable growing. It is well that hon. Members should know what powers local authorities have in regard to these. Hon. Members have been asked by defaulting local authorities to put questions in the House, whereas if the local authorities were to put their existing powers in operation something practical might be done. For instance, Section 314 of the Public Health Act of 1875 enables any borough, urban, or rural district council to make bye-laws for securing decent lodgings and accommodation of persons engaged in hop-picking. By the Public Health (Fruit Pickers Lodging) Act of 1882, this enactment of 1875 was extended to fruit pickers. Again, Section 9 of the Housing of Working Classes Act of 1885 enables the same authority to make bye-laws for promoting cleanliness in and the habitable condition of tents, vans, sheds, and similar structures used for human accommodation. The Local Government Board have issued series of admirable bye-laws applicable to all these classes of workers, and by that means the local authorities have something to guide them in this class of work. However, I find that notwithstanding this local authorities are not doing what they should; and I have instructed Dr. Farrar to examine into the conditions under which these branches of industry are carried on, and to write a further report thereon. When his labours are concluded I trust to be able to take substantial steps for carrying out the recommendations of the Committee of 1846, and of adopting all the views which have been put forward by hon. Members to-night. But there is something the Local Government Board and the local authorities cannot do, and which is mainly the cause of the condition of things which now transpires in Derwent Valley. The hon. Member tells me that the Derwent Valley Water Board Act is a very good Act, and that the Derwent Valley Water Board have done their best to give good accommodation for those employed by them, but that men have been attracted to that part of the country in excess of the employment that can be given to them. To what is that due? It is that in certain papers which cater for navvies advertisements for hands appear longer than they should do. The result is that men are attracted to the spot where work is not to be had. I am acting in conjunction with the President of the Board of Trade in this matter, and some means will be devised that when public works have advanced a notice shall be put in the Labour Gazette and some other papers stating that no more men are required for these particular works. By that means much of the trouble which has been occasioned in, for example, the Derwent Valley area will be removed. I can only say that we accept this Motion. We have been doing for months something to anticipate it on its practical side. There are two alternatives before us to provide for the condition of things that has been revealed. First, there is general legislation. Well, general legislation is all very well for men whose occupation is permanent, but I am under the impression that general legislation of a fixed and stereotyped kind is not so suitable to that class of labour which is more or less variable, and which can best be dealt with by more elastic and adaptable bye-laws. The other alternative is that: there should be a Standing Order of the House of Commons requiring in every private Bill authorising large works of construction a provision that the local authority should be notified thereof, and that proper accommodation should be made. At the present moment I have not finally made up my mind as to which of the two alternatives I shall take; but as soon as Dr. Farrar has concluded his report, I will submit to the House either a Standing Order or suggest an improvement in the process of administration by which what is sensible and practicable in the Report of the Committee of 1846 may be carried into effect so as to help the navvy and improve his lot. I can only say, Mr. Speaker, that if the hon. Member who moved the Motion, and the hon. Member for Stoke with whom I have been in hearty co-operation upon this particular matter, will accept my interpretation of this Motion, and will take what I have already done, which some hon. Gentlemen, through no fault of theirs, could not know, as a practical proof of the keen interest we take in this matter, then when I get Dr. Farrar's Report, and I take the course I have sketched in brief outline, we shall have, gone a long way to improve the condition of the navvy and the other workmen of this country. If I can do that, then I can say that the navvy now and henceforth will be indebted to the two hon. Members who moved and seconded this Resolution, which will lead to the improvement of one of our best types of labour; labour that has built the railways and constructed the drainage and water works and reservoirs of this country; labour which is too frequently underpaid, too frequently injured and killed, without any remedy, in carrying out great public works which should have been conducted in a more humane manner. If all this is the result of our debate to-night the navvies will have cause to be grateful to the mover of the Motion for initiating in this interesting and humane discussion that has taken place on this, one of the most important branches of social reform.

AN HON. MEMBER: Will the right hon. Gentleman say when Dr. Farrar's Report will be sent in?

MR. JOHN BURNS

In a few days.

Resolved, "That this House considers that immediate steps should be taken to secure the provision of proper sanitary housing accommodation for workpeople employed upon works of construction and in other occupations of a temporary character."—(Mr. Maddison.)