HC Deb 12 May 1911 vol 25 cc1531-607

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and question proposed, "That this Bill be now read a Second time."

Mr. REMNANT

I rise to ask the House to give a Second Reading to this Bill, which seeks to prevent the importation from foreign countries of goods manufactured there under sweated conditions of labour, conditions which we have now prohibited in this country. The question of what is a sweated condition naturally calls for a very close definition. I venture to hope that the definition in the Bill meets the case very fairly and reasonably, namely:—

"(b) That otherwise the conditions of labour mean that the rate of wages paid is less than the minimum rate fixed by a Trade Board in the case of similar articles made or produced in the United Kingdom;

"(b) That otherwise the conditions of labour are such as (would not be permitted in the United Kingdom under the provisions of the Factory and Workshops Acts, 1901 and 1907, or by the Trade Board in the particular trade."

It is well known that the object of the Trade Boards Act was to abolish sweating in the four selected trades that are marked out for experiment and to fix a minimum rate of wages under which the workers in those trades should be allowed to carry on the industries. I maintain, and I hope the House will agree with me before I finish, that without such a Bill as this the provisions of the Trade Boards Act would be completely thrown away and the benefits sought to be given by that Act would not be conferred upon the workers in those four industries. Under the working of the Trade Boards Act wages are admitted—and one cannot do otherwise than rejoice at the fact—to have very considerably increased in these four trades. But I venture to say, without fear of contradiction, that experience shows also that you cannot maintain the increase in the wages permanently unless you take steps to protect workers from the competition of goods manufactured under sweated conditions abroad. When the Home Works Committee reported in 1909 they distinctly stated that sweating conditions existed in a large number of trades in this country, and they had no difficulty in mentioning at least a dozen typical trades in which sweating was carried on to a very large extent. Anybody who has read that report will also agree that outside these specially mentioned trades there are many others which may rightly be said to be worked under sweating conditions.

Since the Trade Boards Act has been in existence the provisions enabling other trades, if they so desire, to petition the Board of Trade have been used to a considerable extent. So recently as last Wednesday a question was put by the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) to the President of the Board of Trade, asking how many petitions had been received by the Board of Trade since this Act came into force. The reply enumerated seven or eight other trades which had petitioned to be brought under the Act on the ground that the wages paid in those trades might be improved under the conditions of the Act.

Mr. BOOTH

Were the petitions from employers or from workmen, or from both?

Mr. REMNANT

If the hon. Member had been in the House when the answer was given he would not have needed to ask that question. The reply of the President of the Board of Trade was as follows:— Since the Trade Boards Act came in force applications for its extension have been received from organisations of employers or workmen interested in the following trades:—Birmingham brass trades, linen and cognate trades at Belfast, calico printing, shirt-making, baking, Belfast joiners, and Irish railwaymen. All these applications have been noted, but I am not in a position to make any statement in regard to the eaten- sion of the Act to trades other than the four trades which Parliament decided should be dealt with first"— We may assume from that reply that petitions have been received from both employers and employés.

Mr. BOOTH

No.

Mr. REMNANT

We may assume that employés are workmen. Four trades only were selected in the Trade Boards Act for a first experiment, and these were chosen because in them foreign competition was the least likely to touch them, but my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, who will, I hope, second this Motion, will be able to show that competition by foreign countries of goods manufactured under sweated conditions in these trades has already to be reckoned with, and that steps must be taken to see that our workers are not deprived of their work by people uninfluenced and uncontrolled by the anti-sweating laws and regulations which we impose here with the object of giving them a proper minimum wage. In 1909, when this point was raised, the Board of Trade said that foreign countries were passing similar legislation against sweated trades, and that we need not therefore concern ourselves so much about the matter. But they are still "passing;" nothing so far has been done, and it becomes more clear every day that some provision such as is suggested in this Bill is needed unless the benefits of the Act are to be thrown away. I cannot see why, when after considerable work we have been able to fix a minimum wage for our own trades we should allow these provisions to be defeated by the foreign sweaters to whom we have granted the inestimable privilege of free and unrestricted entry for their goods into our markets. Why should we make it possible for these sweating employers abroad to defy us and to take employment from our own workmen in whose interests we have legislated for this minimum wage?

To-day the position is this: if a sweater who has been carrying on operations here wishes to escape the Act he transfers his operations to a neighbouring country, and there carries them on unfettered by any restrictions such as are imposed in this country. He can send goods freely into this country and thus knock out the workmen for whom we have had so much difficulty in obtaining the minimum wage. It is a platitude to say that with the increasing facilities of communication and the opening up Of countries with immense populations the industrial workers are more and more, owing to the industrial competition of the world, and especially in this country, compelled to meet low priced labour not only in some parts of Europe but in India, China and Japan.

The House will perhaps forgive me for pointing out that such are our conditions to-day, that in Belfast, the great centre of the linen trade, it costs as much to send goods to county Mayo as it does to send them to Japan, and as a result enormous quantities of linen are being sent out every year to Japan to be made up there under conditions that will not allow this country to compete so long as the minimum wage is insisted on. The evidence given before the Home Workers Committee showed that in 1902 about 760,000 yards of linen were sent out to be made up into under-garments in Japan and then to be returned to this country. In four years this quantity was increased to 4,600,000 yards, and I believe that that enormous rate of increase has since been going on. The hon. Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. Arthur Henderson) when the Trade Boards Bill was before the House said that in Australia these Trade Boards, with but one exception—and I believe that the principle applies to something like seventy trades there—had been an unqualified success. But why Simply because in Australia they have been able to apply to those trades the very provisions which we are asking for in this Bill which is now before the House. The extension of these Trade Boards is not likely to be granted by the Board of Trade quickly or without due reason, and in the Bill provision is especially made first of all for the holding of an inquiry by the Board of Trade to see whether sweated goods are really being imported in competition with these different trades. Then there is a further inquiry to be made as to whether the conditions of work in the countries from which these goods are being exported are such as will take them out of sweated conditions, and even then the importation of the goods will not be prohibited if the importer can show a certificate from the British Consular officer of the country in which they are made that they are not made under sweated conditions. Ample provision is therefore made for proper safeguards against any hasty steps in this direction.

It is urged that many hardships are going to be inflicted by the prohibition in regard to the importation of these goods, but. I fail to see how they can arise. On the other hand it seems to me you are going to benefit both sides. You are going to benefit those for whom we have fixed the minimum rates, and on the other hand you are going to impose upon the foreign producer conditions which would be equal to your own if he wishes to come in and use your markets. You are going to do what happened in the case of the white sulphur matches and the employment of women at night. What happened? At a general international convention of the International Association of Labour Legislation held at Berne in September, 1906, it was agreed to regulate night work for women in industrial occupations, and the prohibition was agreed to of the use of white phosphorous in the manufacture of matches. By this Bill you are agreeing to ask them to do exactly the same thing in regard to other industries as was done in the case of those two industries. I should like to recall to the memory of the House the evidence which was given before the Home Workers Commission, and especially that given by Mr. Walker, who was specially alluded to by the Trish Members of this House as one upon whose evidence Irishmen would set great store, and so I think would every other Member of this House. He said, in giving evidence before the Commission:— You cannot raise the rate of wages when the whole world can come in and compete with you. Much as I should like to see a restriction on the importation of very cheap goods, this Bill does not seek to interfere with the importation of goods simply because they are cheap, but it seeks to interfere with the importation of cheap goods which are too cheap to allow the minimum rate of wages which we consider to be fair being given to the workers. Consequently there is a distinction between the two things, and I would make a request to my hon. Friends to draw that distinction. This is not protection in the ordinary fiscal sense; it is protection for our workers in this country in those trades, and only in those trades, to which the Trade Boards Act applies in order to safeguard that they receive the minimum rate of wages laid down. In reference to this matter a very important statement was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in dealing with his great National Insurance Bill to which we all wish so much success. In introducing that Bill he said:— There is nothing so essential to the well-being of the people, as that they shall receive a rate of payment which would enable them to live under decent conditions. We have stipulated for sanitation and ventilation, and shorter hours, also a minimum standard of payment. If the Government are going to allow the sweaters to escape the provisions of the Trade Boards Bill they are going to act contrary to the wishes of every Member of this House and contrary to that statement which I have just read. There is another very important piece of evidence given by Mr. Newey, a member of a large firm of hook and eye manufacturers in Birmingham. He said:— I would be very glad to see a minimum wage fixed provided that the minimum wage could be maintained in every country where hooks and eyes are manufactured. Competition from abroad is very keen. A large quantity of hooks and eyes are imported from Germany and France, where rates for carding (the sweated portion of the trade) are as low or lower than our own. The rates could not be raised under the present system, without some measure of protection from foreign competition. So far as hooks and eyes that are sold in this country are concerned, if there were no foreign competition, I myself would undertake to get the rates doubled. That is a very important piece of evidence by a man who was speaking of a matter he thoroughly understood. He recognised fully that the wages were sweated, and said he would be glad if you could protect the minimum wage against the foreign sweater, and said if you could he would undertake to get the minimum wage doubled. Then Mr. George Shann, manager of the "Daily News" Exhibition of Sweated Industries, said:—

There is severe competition in the hook and eve carding trade, and that is partly the reason for the reduction in the wages. We found that the average wages in Birmingham of fifty-six women, picked at random, some of whom put in very long hours, worked out at 3s. 3½ per week. Surely that is a shocking condition of affairs, and although we have not applied at the present moment the Trade Boards Act to that industry, it must be the wish of every Member of this House that we should do so, and in addition, I hope, apply the provisions of this Bill also. I should like, in conclusion, to read a statement made by the representative of the Board of Trade (Mr. Tennant) on April 26th this year. When speaking for the Government on the Motion of the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Crooks) seeking to impose a 30s. limit for all wage-earners throughout the country, he said:—

Any sudden increase in the rate of wages would increase the cost of production, dislocate labour, and open the door to increased foreign competition. While low wages were undesirable, no wages at all—want of employment—might be worse still. We all probably agree that that is exactly the position which you have created by your Trade Boards Act, but it is a curious statement to come from the Government. Unless they mean to help us to safeguard these wage-earners, and unless they are going to see the benefits which will accrue to the members of these sweated trades under this Trade Boards Act thrown away they must have some such provision in existence as we are anxious to see carried by this amendment of the law. The same hon. Gentleman also made another statement which was a very significant one in trying to defend the Government in the case made against them. He went on to state that there were 7,300,000 workers in this country earning less than 30s. per week, and it would have been very interesting if he had said how many millions were receiving less than 20s., and how many less than 10s. We should also like to know how many were women, and how many men were receiving less than 20s., 15s., and 10s. a week. It is simply deplorable. I am not saying anything against the Trade Boards Act. On the contrary, I am in favour of it, not only for the trades to which it now applies, but that it should be extended to all trades, and that we should safeguard the provisions of that Act by every means in our power. It is not protective in a fiscal sense, but we are anxious that it should be protective from the point of view of a minimum wage, and I hope the House will allow a Second Reading to be given to it.

Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

I beg to second the Motion. Though quite a small Bill I think it is a very important one. It is really the necessary completion of the policy of the Trade Boards Act of two years ago and just as in that Act the State has sought by direct interference to put down sweating and to increase wages and has done it in certain trades so, we say, if that is done with regard to home industries it can be done also with regard to the same industries when they come into competition with the home industries. I entirely support the policy of the Trade Boards Act. I have seen too much of the horrible conditions under which men and women work in certain trades not to know that it is absolutely necessary to put down sweating by State interference. Sweating has been defined as a wage inadequate to the necessities of the worker or disproportionate to the work done. That ought to be put down. We ought to protect the worker not only against the sweater at home but also against the sweater abroad. It is simply that object which the Bill has. I am particularly interested in this measure because I happen to represent a district which is the headquarters of one of the trades scheduled under the Trade Boards Act. Chain making is almost exclusively carried on in what is called the Cradley District, and the greater part of that district, of which Cradley Heath is the centre, is situated within the confines of Dudley. In certain departments of the chain trade there has been a great deal of sweating in the past not among the makers of great cables for battleships and great ocean liners, but among the makers of small chains, especially among the women and those who do their work not in factories, but in their own homes. It is the commonest thing in that district for every row of houses in a street to have behind it a small forge, where chains are made by men, women, and children. In some of these departments there has been sweating, and I am very glad to think that the Trade Boards Act has been applied to the chain trade, and that in consequence of its application and the establishment of a Trade Board, wages have been raised very largely in these departments. But almost simultaneously with the introduction of the Trade Boards Act to Cradley Heath you have had for the first time a considerable importation of foreign chains. I know that the Board of Trade are in the habit of denying that I cannot give any Board of Trade figures for the simple reason that the Board of Trade do not show the figures of the importation of chains separately, and therefore we have nothing to go on. But what the Board of Trade does not know is known to people living in the district, and it so happens that almost contemporaneously with the introduction of the Trade Boards Act there has come about a very great alteration in chain-making. Up to about two years ago, or a little longer, it was impossible to make chains satisfactorily by machinery. Every single link in every chain, from a big cable to the smallest chain to lead a dog, was separately welded by hand. Now a foreign machine has been invented and the result is that there has been in the last two years a very large importation of foreign machine-made chains, many of which we believe are made under sweated conditions.

Mr. JAMES PARKER

Are the machines sweated?

Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

No, but the people who mind the machines may be. The hon. Member does not imagine that the machine works automatically. This Bill gives the Board of Trade the opportunity and the power to ascertain whether they are sweated or not. What we ask is that at all events in the case of a trade like that where you have raised wages, quite rightly, where you have increased largely the cost of production, you should take care that if there is sweating in the case of a foreign competing import that foreign competing import should be stopped at the ports, otherwise instead of these people getting higher wages, they will get no wages at all. That is the whole point that we make with regard to the chain trade. I believe the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Tennant) is a little doubtful as to whether there is any serious competition from abroad in the chain trade. He stated the other day that the foreign importation was a negligible quantity. I believe that was so. Until the machine made chain was satisfactory there was practically no importation. What was felt in the district was that the foreigner did not possess the skill or the industry to make chains as they can do it at Cradley Heath by a process of practically inherited ability, but when it comes to minding a machine the foreigner may be as good a man as the Englishman. I can give some proof. I have here a pamphlet issued by the Electro-Mechanical Manufacturing Company, 93, Arbre Benit, Brussels. They are advertising and pushing their machine-made chains. This is what they say:—

Our chains are absolutely guaranteed in quality, while the cost price is much less than the hand-made chains. The best proof of it is the large export of products made with our machines for France and Belgium to Great Britain and its Colonies. One large manufacturer in Belgium, well-known in England, bought our monopoly for Belgium six years ago, and their principal market now is Great Britain, as they are delivering their goods at the foot of the English works at such quotations and quality as to defy any competition. I hope after that we may not hear from the Government that at all events in this trade there is no foreign competition or that the foreign competition is a negligible quality. I beg to assure the hon. Gentleman it is occurring every day and I believe some provision such as we are supporting to-day is necessary if you are going to protect the chain trade in this country by means of the Trade Boards Act in the future.

Mr. CHARLES DUNCAN

Has the hon. Member any idea of what are the wages paid on the machines? He has pointed out that there is competition between machinery and labour.

Mr. SPEAKER

The proper time to answer the hon. Member will be when he has finished.

Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

One object of the Bill is to get these statistics. We want to know in these trades whether there is sweated competition. If there is not, the Bill will not operate; if there is the Bill will operate. After all we merely ask for the information, and it is a most extraordinary thing to my mind that the Labour Members should wish—quite rightly—to raise wages but at the same time expose these people without any inquiry whatever to the possibility of foreign competition. I do not hesitate to say that the best way to meet this state of affairs would be by a much bigger Bill than the one we have brought in. The best way would be the open and frank adoption of Tariff Reform. [Cheers.] I will deal with these cheers in a moment. After all, hon. Members opposite may laugh at us for adopting that attitude, but our position is largely this: If in this country you, by factory legislation and other social legislation, which we all support, and which no party more vigorously supports than that to which I belong—if by that means you increase the Cost of production, you must protect our people against competition from abroad. That is our position, and it was the position taken up by Mr. Walker before the Select Committee on Home Work, on whose report the Trade Boards Act was founded. He said:— You cannot raise wages when the whole world can come in and compete with you. That is precisely our position, and it is also the position to a large extent of the Labour party. I see the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division (Mr. Barnes) in his place. When the Trade Boards Act was before the House of Commons in 1909 he wished to support a highly protective amendment. He wanted to lay clown that in the cases where the Trade Boards Act was to apply the Government should only buy from English manufacturers. He said:— I do not know whether I shall be committing myself to a Protection policy by so doing, but I should be disposed to favour an amendment which sought to provide that Government, in its purchasing capacity, should favour those people who are compelled by legislation to pay high wages. [An HON. MEMBER: "This Bill does not do that."] The particular Amendment to which I refer was not designed for that purpose. We know the purpose of the hon. Member. He wanted to do in regard to State contracts what we want to do in regard to all these foreign products. He wanted the Government to buy only from the English manufacturer who is compelled by the Trade Boards Act to raise wages. I sincerely hope that we shall have the support in the Lobby to-day of the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division and of many of his friends. I have said that the best remedy for the evils we complain of as regards the trades which come under the 2peration of the Trade Boards Act, and for future evils which may arise, would be the frank adoption of Tariff Reform, but we do not want in a matter of this sort, which we hope may be regarded as a non-party measure, to raise the whole question. We only desire to confine the measure to that portion of foreign-made sweated goods to which the Trade Boards Act has been applied, or may be applied in future. May I point out that the last consideration is a most important one? The Trade Boards Act only applies to four trades. Does anybody suppose that there are only four trades in which there are conditions of sweating in the country? My hon. Friend has mentioned nine others which should be included under the Trade Boards Act. Further, the Home Secretary, who, when the Trade Boards Act was passed, was President of the Board of Trade, mentioned that there were thirty other trades in which there was sweating. I would ask, Why do not the Government apply the Act to all the other trades? Why is sweating to be allowed in some trades and not in others? We know that the reason the Government selected four trades was not because they believed sweating was worse in those trades, but because they thought they were trades in which there was not much competition. I was not a Member of the House at the time the Act was passed, but I understand that it was frankly avowed that these four trades were trades where the Act could be safely applied, because there was no real foreign competition. I have pointed out that in regard to the chain trade, there is very severe competition.

My point is that we want to put down sweating altogether, not only in four trades, but in all trades. We say that you do not desire to apply the Trade Boards Act to other trades because you say there is no foreign competition. This Bill will enable you to apply the Trade Boards Act with absolute confidence to other trades, because sweated-made goods in those other trades will be stopped at the port of entry. I believe that the hon. Gentleman who represents the Government is actuated by a humane spirit in this matter, and I feel sure that the Labour party, who are active supporters of the policy of the Government, to put down sweating generally, and not to make this a party question. Therefore I appeal to them to support us in the principle of this Bill, and enable us to extend the Trade Boards Act to trades which are now excluded. The Government, indeed, admitted the matter indirectly. I have here an extract from a speech made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, in a debate on 28th April, 1909. He admitted that there was danger of foreign competition in certain trades. He used these words:— The public conscience on the continent has been aroused in regard to the evils of the sweating system, and it will not he difficult for its to arrive at an agreement with foreign nations similar to that which has recently been carried out in the Bill of last year for the prohibition of the importation or use of white phosphorus in matches. In other words, he hoped to do by international agreement what we are now wishing to do by this Bill. It is quite true that the Government have not done it. I do not know whether we have got foreign nations into line on the matter. Having regard to that declaration by the hon. Gentleman, which I am sure was made quite bonâ fide, I hope the Government will support us and enable the Bill to be read a second time and to go to a Grand Committee.

Mr. BOOTH

I beg to move to leave out the word "now," and to add at the end of the question the words "upon this day six months." There is great variety on the Order Paper to-day, but I believe I should not be in order in referring to any Bill except that which is now before the House. I prefer to take the measure as printed rather than the eloquence with which it has been supported by the Mover and Seconder. As I understand the document before us, it is really a back-handed attempt to defeat "dumping." I think it was put down for this particular day because, as I understand, hon. Members thought it would be easy to get away to see some flying machines.

Mr. REMNANT

How could we tell that at the beginning of the Session?

Mr. BOOTH

I understand that hon. Members are anxious to see whether there has been any dumping in these aerial machines. I would suggest to them further that if they are prepared to ride in some foreign motor cars to go to see this display they should see whether these machines are the product of some of this sweated labour about which they talk so glibly. Hon. Members are quite prepared to produce Bills and to talk at election meetings, but as I have repeatedly complained they are not prepared to apply their own principles to their daily lives. [HON. MEMBERS "Question."] That is what I am going to prove. This particular Bill purports to deal with imported goods produced or made under sweated conditions. I am afraid that as we shall not learn much in politics from the hon. Members who prepared the title of this Bill, so also we shall not learn much from them in literature. I have been at some pains to understand what they mean by "sweated," which is the principal word in the Bill. Hon. Members have not attempted to define it.

Mr. REMNANT

Yes we have, in Clause 5.

Mr. BOOTH

I shall deal later with Clause 5. I am dealing at present with the title of the Bill. The very first word on the top of page one is "sweated." The word "sweated" conveys different ideas to different speakers, and I was rather anxious in following the hon. Members remarks to find out what his view was. Apparently anything that comes from some unknown country, which he will not disclose, and which he does not like, is to be termed "sweated," but he never attempted to throw any light on what he really meant by "sweated" goods.

Mr. REMNANT

I meant to convey, and hoped I had conveyed, the impression that it was not directed against all cheap goods that were imported, but only applied in cases where these cheap goods were produced under conditions which, under the definition in this Bill, are entitled sweated, such conditions including a condition as to minimum wage. I am sorry if I did not make myself clear.

1.0 P.M.

Mr. BOOTH

That is perfectly clear. I am not complaining about that, but the hon. Member should have gone on to name the countries and places where these goods are produced, and have given us some facts. Neither the Proposer nor the Seconder of the Bill gave us any details at all. The only piece of tangible evidence we have had produced from the benches on the other side of the House is a trade circular, sent out by a man who was advertising his goods. You may get a trade circular, especially from across the water, that will prove anything; but the idea that this House should legislate upon a trade circular is ridiculous, and it seems to be the explanation why these Bills should be so badly drawn. The title is so ill-conceived that I have been at some pains to deal with this word "sweated." So far as it is applied in the authorities to trade, it has been used in the tailoring trade, and also in "sweating" coin. People "sweat" sovereigns from the Mint, and from that origin the word is now used to denote an employer who tries to get too great a production in proportion to the amount of wages that he pays. But hon. Members ought at any rate not to put a slang word into their Bill, but ought to have some classical or literary definition. Hon. Members have been se busy manufacturing Amendments to the Parliament Bill that they have not had time carefully to plan out the title of their own Bill. One of the earliest mentions of the word "sweated" in the matter of practical politics I find to be in Shakespeare's play "As You Like It." Hon. Members opposite should be the first to see its present application. In. Act II., scene 3, Orlando says:— Thou art not for the fashion of these times, Where none will sweat, but for promotion. There could not be a better description of the efforts of the Junior Whip trying to qualify himself for a post in the Treasury. My next reference from this great Master is one even still more closely applicable to the existing situation. I will not, like the hon. Member, quote from some unknown thing which I had heard of for the first time. I will quote from the great play of "Hamlet," Act III., scene 1, from the famous soliloquy which is present to the mind of every hon. Member who proposes a Bill in this House, because it begins:— To be, or not to be, that is the question. It goes on further to introduce the word "sweat," and I may in passing point out that it has a very curious application to the present political situation, and it goes on to speak of the "pangs of dispriz'd love "—that I suppose is the way the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Balfour) moves the Tariff Reformers; "the law's delay "-that is a model Second Chamber dealing with pro- gressive legislation; "the insolence of office "—that is what hon. Members say to themselves at question time when they are peppering right hon. Gentlemen on these points. and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes Now conies the point of the question:— Who would these fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life; That I think is a most pointed question. Hon. Members opposite and particularly the hon. Member for Shropshire (Mr. Rowland Hunt) will at once see the appositeness of this quotation. Now he goes on to snake a pointed reference to the positions of hon. Members opposite who, wishing to bring in a Tariff Reform measure, have not had the courage to do it. The hon. Member who seconded this Bill (Colonel Griffith-Boscawen) is one of the ablest Tariff Reformers in this House, and he let the cat out of the bag. He was rather sorry that his time was wasted on such a trivial measure as this, which touches but a fraction of the problem, and he would have preferred to go the whole hog, only he had not the courage to do it. The continuation of this quotation exactly bears out the existing situation. The very pertinent lines come in And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly M others that we know not of.

Colonel CHALONER

On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member entitled to quote Shakespeare?

Mr. SPEAKER

He is entitled to quote it, provided it be apposite.

Mr. BOOTH

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all." That is exactly what it has done. When hon. Members bring in a Bill of this kind I do wish they would get a more savoury title—one which hon. Members could discuss in the dog days with a little more personal comfort. The measure is backed by eleven Members, but I do not think they can have been consulted—at any rate, one of them I see below the Gangway—about this sloppy title. The number of Members who back the Bill reminds one of a cricket team, and unfortunately it devolves upon me, much to my sorrow, to stand up and do the swift bowling. Should I leave the wickets intact at the end of my efforts, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow will bowl them some "googlies." One of my complaints against this Bill is that hon. Members who have put their names on the back of it are not prepared to come here and support the measure. There is the hon. Member for Gravesend, a wicket keeper.

Mr. SPEAKER

The hon. Member is not addressing himself to the Bill; he has not discussed it yet.

Mr. BOOTH

Having discussed the title of the Bill, and the hon. Members who introduce it, and who I am bound to say, are all very able men, I will now deal with the measure in a way which, with all respect to your ruling, Sir, was not followed by the Mover and Seconder in the last portion of their speeches, which consisted of criticism and explanation of a previous Bill. But I will now come to the document itself. I submit that the sub-title of the Bill and its contents do not correspond, and I question very much whether the Bill is in order at all. The sub-title says: "A Bill to prevent the importation from foreign countries of goods manufactured under sweated conditions." There is nothing in the Bill about foreign countries; the word "foreign" does not occur again in it. Further, I submit that this sub-title would apply even to the Dominions of our Empire, to the West Indies, Canada, and so on. Hon. Members opposite should take a little more care before calling us here on a Friday, after an arduous week, for legislation of this kind. My complaint is that the contents of the Bill do not bear out the title, "the prevention of the importation from foreign countries of goods manufactured under sweated conditions," because there is no use of the word "foreign" in any of the Clauses, and the only inference I can draw is that countries outside the United Kingdom are referred to. Therefore, either the title is inaccurate, or the Bill is brought in for a purpose other than that which is described. The hon. Member asked me to look at Clause 5, and I am very anxious to deal with it. This Clause refers to the Factories and Workshops Acts of 1901 and 1907, and to sweated conditions of labour. I say at once that their idea of the sweated conditions of labour needs to be qualified, because in Clause 2 the promoters of the Bill say that the Board of Trade should inquire into the conditions of employment generally in the countries in which the imported goods have been produced.

But to make such an inquiry you must include in its scope not merely the conditions of labour employed in the production of the goods and the minimum rate of wages paid, but the conditions under which the goods are transported from one place to another, in order to see that those who control the means of transport are also treating their servants justly. I have travelled along the Siberian railway, the conditions of which have been described by a distinguished member of the Press Gallery as well as I have ever seen anything described. At every mile of the way there is a silent signaller, generally a convict who has been granted leave, who comes from his small but and gives the signal that the train may pass along the single line of many thousands of miles. Hon. Members opposite apparently are satisfied if the minimum rate of wages are paid and goods are not manufactured under sweated conditions, but what of the conditions under which those employed in transporting the goods to their destination have to serve? The hon. Member said that the cost of the transit of goods from Belfast to. Mayo is as great as to Japan—so that the promoters of this Bill, it would seem, have in their minds the cost and conditions of transit. Hon. Members who have not very much experience of business when they attempt to meddle with the trade of the country, must be a little more cautious. They have not thought the matter out with completeness. This measure will not contribute one iota to the accomplishment of the object hon. Members opposite have in view, it will not take them an inch on their journey. They start with the assumption which to me, brought up in Manchester, is entirely contrary to the facts. Hon. Members assume as a sort of axiom that people make more money by sweating their 'workpeople. Nothing of the kind. The firms which make the biggest profits are not those which sweat their employés. Well-managed firms have no fear of competition of the kind which hon. Members opposite suggest, and for hon. Members to assume that they have fear shows that they are not acquainted with the conditions of trade. I would further point out that when hon. Members ask for inquiry into the conditions under which goods imported from abroad are manufactured, they must take into account the conditions as a whole. The Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company is, I believe, almost entirely controlled by the great firm of Harmsworth, and from Newfoundland they send to this country a large amount of paper and pulp. Hon. Members might want to know the amount of the wages paid in Newfoundland in connection with this manufacture, but they should require also to know the whole of the conditions of employment. This great firm declined to set up business in Newfoundland until certain conditions were granted them. One was that they should pay no duty on any materials they wanted for their manufacture. Here, of course, they say that the foreigner should pay the duties, but there they stipulated that their materials were to be imported free of duty. The firm made the further stipulation that they were to pay no municipal rates for ever. That is a very important point. As I understand hon. Members opposite they want a tariff for imported goods to meet local and Imperial burdens. Suppose there is objection with regard to pulp or paper coming into this country, how will hon. Members apply this Bill. They will find perhaps that the wages are a little different from the wages in Newfoundland, and if hon. Members object they will get into trouble with their own Tariff Reform newspapers. I am told that pulp and material to make newspapers is admitted free in every protectionist country, whether under sweated conditions or not. I challenge hon. Members, if they can find out that pulp or paper corning to this country is produced under sweated conditions, to take the field and oppose it, and get denounced by the halfpenny Protectionist Press. I would like, especially as I see some representatives of Ulster present, to call attention to the reference in Clause 2. I had some little doubts when I saw that, whether this was not a slight attack on the Union. It seems to me it will introduce a very disturbing element between the relations of Great Britain and Ireland. The phrase in Clause 2 is:—

"Whether any goods imported in competition with the British-made goods of that trade."

That is to say, that it does not matter if it is in competition with Irish goods.

Mr. R. THOMPSON

Is not Ireland part of the United Kingdom?

Mr. BOOTH

Ireland is not part of Britain, and Irish goods are not British. The words United Kingdom are used elsewhere. I submit that the whole Bill is fallacious. There is not even an attempt made to carry out what the hon. Member desired. I would also like to draw attention to the distinction between the three employers and the three workmen, but I suppose that will be understood as a mistake of draftsmanship. According to this hon. Members opposite have got the principle of one man one vote. There is no plural voting here. Three workmen are to have exactly the same power as three employers. I congratulate the hon. Member on that. If the Conservatives present go into the Lobby in favour of a Bill with this principle, I hope we shall never hear anything again about plural voting or university representation, or any superior power. They adopt the principle that "Jack is as good as his master," for that is the plain English of it. I presume hon. Members put this into the Bill in order that it should be another bait for my hon. Friends below the Gangway. I cannot understand any other reason why Conservatives for the first time should have made three workmen have exactly the same power as three employers. That is the only idea in the Bill which redeems it to my mind, all the rest being bad. I come to the provisos. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are great on provisos, and we heard a great deal in the last few weeks about them. This proviso is one of the most curious and most illusory that could possibly be conceived.

"Provided that such prohibition shall not apply where the importer or consignee submits to the Commissioners of Customs a certificate signed by a British Consular officer."

The hon. Member went on that far, but he did not read further—

"in the country in which such goods have been made or produced, or by some person lawfully deputed by him."

Take a great country like China, which is one of the places where they do not pay the minimum rate of wages mentioned in this Bill, and where you cannot hope that they should; nor in Japan. You would have, say, a Consular officer in Canton, and how could he certify that the goods are all right when made north of Peking. The whole thing is a farce in a country with almost thirteen hundred millions of people. It is all a matter of guesswork, where they speak different languages; where men refuse to recognise other men as Chinamen because they come from a province two or three removes from the one in which they were born. How can you work such a Clause as this. It is impossible. Take the case of America, a Continent with every climate, three thousand miles across, with every kind of industry and mineral, and every nationality in its constituent parts. How will the Consular officer in Boston be able to certify about goods made in California. This means that there will be a regular sale of these affidavits at some of the ports. The Clause says, "or by some person lawfully deputed by him." Lawfully deputed must mean according to the laws of the particular country. A Consular officer in China may depute "Chungling-Loo," who may sign at sixpence per document or less, and then who is to decide here as to whether they are genuine or not? I suppose the Unionist Social Committee drew up some particular form. The thing will not work.

Unfortunately there is a great deal too much of a desire under the guise of wanting to do something to bring in these Bills on a Friday. I quite appreciate hon. Members motives to help people who are working under these evil conditions, and I forgive the hon. Member for producing a bad Bill owing to his motives, with which I sympathise. The practice for the last few Fridays has become too common for hon. Members, because they have good moral motives, to think they are justified in occupying the time of the House with a badly-drawn Bill. Any one with experience of business would know that this provision is absurd. It would not effect what hon. Members want, and it would spoil any chance the Bill has of being a success. It exactly defeats the advocacy of the Mover and Seconder of the Bill. What they wish to do is to meddle with the conditions abroad. They are not satisfied with meddling in this country, but they want to impose their will upon manufacturers and workmen abroad, and they therefore bring in a Bill of this description. They cannot do it. It is like saying that the foreigner pays the taxes, but who is to go to the foreigner and collect them? That is the problem which you never can answer, and the same problem is here? How are you going to enforce this? Is it by bringing bits of paper into existence, and by having more officers and a large permanent staff set up at the ports, and increased wages which may appeal to the hon. Members opposite? What good will that be? How will they make their insistent will operative abroad. They are operating, through this Clause, and they are entirely in the hands of those people abroad, thousands of miles away, who do not understand any more than we do what hon. Members are aiming at. This Clause will simply interfere without any direct result. That is my complaint against it. They say they want to get statistics, but there is no Clause in this Bill to get statistics. Hon. Members are not satisfied to control their own party or their own business, and they come to this House with Bills designed to meddle with other people. Every Friday they are trying to put other people right, or to make people do something different from what they want to do. You multiply officials; you multiply State meddlers; and then you come to the House and criticize—

Mr. REMNANT

It is only to give effect to the Trade Boards Act.

Mr. BOOTH

The hon. Member is not thinking about his own Bill; he is thinking about a previous Bill. I am met with that every Friday. When, at the very proper request of the Chair, I discuss the actual Clause, idea by idea, line by line, hon. Members always seek to evade the point at issue by going back to some other measure, which they had a hand in considering, and which they have left in an awfully imperfect state. I am not to be blamed for that. I must take the hon. Member's own proviso, which, I say has not been drawn up by business-men, or with any idea of its operating. It has been drawn up, like a good deal of the remainder of the Bill, for electioneering purposes. I am not saying that that is a wrong motive. Hon. Members seem to think that when I hint that they are trying to promote the welfare of the Conservative party I am blaming them. I mean rather to pay them a compliment. One of their lawful tasks is to further the interests o' their party, and this Bill is introduced with that object—for speech-making, for advertisement in the papers, and as a peg on which to hang a few tags about Tariff Reform. In that way it serves its purpose.

But I cannot deal with an important subject like this without giving a few conclusions of my own. I have endeavoured to deal faithfully with the scanty material the promoters have supplied, at the price of a halfpenny. Might I suggest that their conception of the relation of industry to sweated trades and their ideas as to the power of Governments to prohibit articles coming in, are altogether wide of the mark? I was at the Iron and Steel Institute dinner last night, with the Duke of Devonshire in the chair, and Members from both sides of the House and Members of the House of Lords present. At that great dinner—perhaps the leading trade dinner of the year—the cigars came from abroad, and they were lit by matches made in Sweden. The very match-box that I picked up was made in Sweden. That is what takes place under distinguished auspices. What are hon. Members going to do in cases of that kind? Under this Bill and under their conception of the Trade Boards Act, many of the slaves in the East-end, engaged in matchbox making, will sign the forms provided, and ask the Board of Trade to stop Swedish matches from coming into this country. Immediately there will be consternation at Conservative dinners. Hon. Members do not realise what effect it will have on their daily conduct. If any hon. Member opposite, at a dinner of that description, had either to light his cigar with a match made in Sweden or to go away without smoking, lie would decide to enjoy his cigar. They want to put down sweating. Are they prepared to rebuke any employer in this country who is guilty of employing blackleg labour? Trade union secretaries in this country are never free from trouble with employers who are trying to employ people under conditions below the standard. They would be very glad of a little help. They come to Members of Parliament, and they get the cold shoulder. They are told that they are agitators, and that they are doing it for a living. They are not credited with the good motives that I freely credit to hon. Members opposite in introducing these matters. I appeal to hon. Members to carry out their own ideas a little more systematically.

It is suggested that this country will go to the dogs if these sweated goods come in. That is a gospel of cowardice. I am not a Little Englander. I have faith in the great, big, strong Englishman, if you will only leave him alone, not meddle with him, or try to tie him up and make him go your way. The average Englishman is strong and resolute, and will beat any foreign competitor on the face of the earth. Let hon. Members have more confidence in the vigour of their own country. We do not need to be bolstered up with legislation of this kind. It is too flimsy, too paltry altogether. I want hon. Members to take a great view of this question. There is one fundamental fact which they have entirely ignored, but which is the common knowledge of all business men in this House. It will greatly surprise hon. Members who have not studied the question. In those years when there has been the greatest importation of manufactured goods into this country there has been the least unemployment. Hon. Members talk as if, when these manufactured goods come from abroad it means unemployment in this country. The facts and figures are entirely against them. Hon. Members cannot explain that fact, but I hope they will try to understand it. If they do they will have entirely to revise their opinions on Tariff Reform and sweated goods. These are matters which go to the vitals of this question. As to the idea that old England is doomed unless we pass legislation of this kind—it seems to me that the views of hon. Members of what Englishmen ought to be in the future have entirely gone astray. I believe that if this country is kept free, if its ports are kept open, if Englishmen are encouraged to be thrifty and independent, if they are given their rights, if they are allowed to combine freely, if they are allowed to make their own bargains free and unfettered, there is sufficient strength, experience and vitality in the country to enable us to defy the world. I beg to move.

Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT

I will confine myself to attempting to show some good reason why this Bill on its merits should not be passed by this House. I object to the Bill, and oppose its Second Reading because I think it is a vicious application of a vicious principle. The principle of the Bill is the principle of Protection. I am not going to argue the general question of Protection. It is futile, a heating of the wind, to argue it in this House. One can take it as read. We have our minds made up. A minority opposite believe in the principle; a majority on this side are opposed to it.

But I wish to offer some observations on the particular application in this Bill of the principle. One of the frequent devices of the Protectionists, when they fail to obtain general acceptance of their principle, is to tackle their opponents singly, one by one, to isolate each particular interest, and to attempt to persuade that interest that Protection will be applied on its behalf alone, and not on behalf of the rest, of the community; to offer that interest a bribe of peculiar, special, private protection. The candlestick maker, who is isolated in this way, when he is told that all foreign candlesticks will be prohibited or taxed, is apt at the first blush to think that that will be an admirable proposal—that he will make a profit out of it. It is only afterwards, when he realises that the tailor, the apothecary, the ploughman, and everyone else is to be protected at his expense—that he has to pay for the protection of the whole—that he begins to see that there is another side to the question. The classic instance which has been used for generations is that of the Scottish fisherman, who professed himself to be a thoroughly sound Free Trader, with one reservation: that there was something to be said for the prohibition "of those foreign herrings!" In the same way these tactics have been adopted in this Bill. This is an attempt to nobble the Labour party, and the Labour vote, in the pretended sole interest of one section of the working classes of the country. I wish to argue the question on its merits as applied to this particular instance.

In the first place, what does this application commit us to? Can we rest content here, or would we not be committed to a very wide application of this proposal? The Trade Boards Act is not the only Act or measure which imposes disabilities upon employers in this country, or forces them to give better conditions than they might otherwise give, or increases the cost of production. It is a small measure, one of the smallest of its kind. If you are going to introduce measures like this Bill, why begin with the smallest and least significant case? What about the great Factory Acts? What about Workmen's Compensation? Do not these in an even greater degree than this particular measure, the Trade Boards Act, impose restrictions upon employers, and add to the cost of production? If you apply this principle to this particular little instance, you are logically bound to follow it out, and to apply it to every single industry in this country that is affected by measures like the Factory Acts or the Workmen's Compensation Acts. Everyone who votes for this Bill thereby commits himself to the universal extension of the principle.

My second point is that all these protective measures in the alleged interest of labour as such never really reach labour. Even if they give a larger profit to the employer, the employer is not necessarily going to pay a higher wage to labour. The employer will screw down competitive wages to the lowest farthing. [An HON. MEMBER: "Question?"] Any advantage such as this that may be given by Protection is always cornered and monopolised by a small body of well-organised capitalists. The Bill is not devised in the in terests of the labourers and workers who come under the Trade Boards Act. It is devised really and almost ostensibly for the protection of the employers of these trades, where the labourers are protected already. What more protection do they need? They have got legislation guaranteeing fair wages. The proposal here is that the employer is in an unfair position, and that he must be protected. That is the proposal of the Bill now before us. On that I shall make this further point: That the real cause of sweating in this country is not the competition of some alleged or hypothetical foreigner who is sweating his labourers, but is the competition of home manufactures; not foreign, but home competition. What is the class of trades that is subject to this evil of sweating? It is that class of trades which employs the poorest class of labour, labour which is helpless and defenceless, female unorganised labour, labour which can be exploited and is unable to defend itself. If there is one clever, sharp business man, one who finds it is not against his conscience to "grind the faces of the poor," and screw his labourers down to the uttermost farthing that will keep body and soul together, that man by doing so is able to compete unfairly in this country with other manufacturers. It is he who is able to force other manufacturers down to his level of wages, or to drive them out of the market altogether. The protection which the home manufacturer requires is protection against this class of competition. That protection has been given by the Trade Boards Act, which, I submit, is not merely an Act for the defence of the labourers themselves, but an Act for the defence of the fair employer against the unfair.

My third point is: where is the sweated labour, where are the sweated industries that we hear so much about? In foreign, in protected countries! Here you have one of the fundamental, logical fallacies of Protectionists. They are always telling us that if we adopt Protection we will thereby bring about "a new heaven and a new earth." We are told that there will be proper wages, proper conditions of labour, and universal prosperity. Yet the next day, for another purpose, they tell us that our industries are being ruined by the products of sweated labour coming from foreign countries, which, on their own showing, ought to be enjoying the conditions of a new heaven and a new earth. In conclusion, I want to mention three points in regard to the machinery established by this Bill. First of all I want to comment upon its extraordinary imprudence and lack of foresight. Supposing this Bill was passed into law, what would be the effect? It deals exclusively with the lower grade-trades in the country, and offers them special and peculiar protection by shutting out all foreign goods of a similar description. It offers them protection and the consequence would be that the imports of these foreign goods would fall off and the-production of them in this country would be increased. If the imports fall off from abroad then correspondingly there will be a decrease in exports of high grade goods to pay for them, and we should be diminishing our high grade manufactures. in this country, and extending our low grade manufacture. The effect of this Bill would be to make this country less and less a manufacturer of high grade goods, and more and more a manufacturer of low grade goods.

The second point I wish to make is its extraordinary cost. We are dealing here with four small trades, and supposing we added the nine others referred to, what is the proposal made? At the request of any three employers or workmen without making out a prima facie case or bringing forward any evidence, but at the mere request, the Government is to send abroad expert advisers with a roving commission to search the world from China to Peru. There is no nook or corner of the world to. which they might not be sent. Why, the addition to the Civil Service which that would involve would far out strip the addition of which we have heard so much in recent years. The cost would be a considerable element in national expenditure. Lastly, I want to say a word upon the futility of the machinery, in addition to its cost. It would cost more than a king's ransom, and even after all that cost, it would not work. How are you going to trace these goods? No machinery is laid down. You might trace them from the port which they left; but how are you to trace them back to the spot where they were manufactured. We have no power to lay down legislation in foreign countries that would enable us to trace them. All kinds of foreign goods might be collected at a port, and brought by a ship here, bat we would have no means of ascertaining the origin of these goods. The Bill is very vague in this matter, and the particulars are of the vaguest description. What goods is it proposed to prohibit? Are they all goods coming from a particular country or only some goods. I fail to find that from the Bill. The words used are "such goods." But no one can say whether it IS proposed to prohibit all goods coming, say, from Germany, or whether it is provided only for such goods as may be manufactured under sweated conditions.

Mr. REMNANT

Clause 2 says, "Such goods as those to which the Trade Boards Act has been applied."

Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT

I do not think the hon. Member quite followed my point. It is proposed, when goods are alleged to be manufactured under sweated conditions, to institute an inquiry as to whether they have been manufactured under these conditions, and then is it proposed to prohibit the importation of all goods from that country, or only the goods from that country proved to be manufactured under sweated conditions. There is no indication whatever in the Bill. I submit there would be no possibility whatever, even if this Bill were carried, of putting it into operation. This Bill is characterised by the most flagrant and faulty draftsmanship; it is a piece of sheer jerrybuilding—for show purposes entirely—and deserves to be rejected with contumely by this House.

Mr. COOPER

While I entirely disagree with many of the views of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, I feel I must compliment him on one thing, and that is that he has raised this Debate from the level to which it was brought by the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth). We are here dealing with the proposals which concerns not merely British working men, but also, as we frankly recognise, British industry. This Bill must have a far-reaching effect if passed into law for good or evil. I think any Bill passed in this or any other country must do good by fulfilling the purposes for which it is introduced or else fail, and so it is in this case, and in dealing with a matter of this kind we must do the best we can on all sides, either to prove the advantage of accepting it, or else to give overwhelming reasons why it should be rejected. It is sad to those of us who had to listen to this Debate to have had some forty minutes to what I can only term the pure buffoonery of the hon. Member for Pontefract.

Mr. BOOTH

May I ask the hon. Member to deal with my arguments? I should think they were very pointed.

Mr. COOPER

I rose for the sole purpose of dealing with the hon. Member's. speech. The hon. Member laid emphasis on one point, namely, that the British working man was capable of taking care of himself, and that this Bill merely sought to meddle with him. I wish to ask the hon. Gentleman to tell me what legislative action to which he has applied himself since last February is there which is not meddling with somebody or other in this country. Does the hon. Gentleman support the principle of the Insurance Billy the Shop Hours Bill, the Coal Mines Bill, and many other minor Bills, all of which have for their purpose meddling advantageously with the British working man. The hon. Gentleman then referred to British Consuls abroad. What is asked in the latter part of Clause 3 of a British Consul is, I would submit, nothing more than the humblest clerk in any business could quite adequately fulfil. I think it is an insult to our British Consuls to suggest, when we are asking them to give a certificate, which is a very simple point, that they are incapable of doing it.

Mr. BOOTH

I never remarked upon the capacity of our Consuls. I was more concerned as to how they could possess the information to enable them to give the certificate.

Mr. COOPER

I am much obliged to the hon. Member for his correction, which I quite readily accept. I would ask whether the two hon. Members who preceded me remember the Prison Made Goods Act, which I believe was passed by this House about the year 1889. There has been no difficulty whatever in carrying out that Act. So far as I can understand it, what is asked for in this Act is very little different, except that instead of applying to prison made goods, it applies to goods made under what every Labour. Member understands as well as every Unionist are known as sweated conditions. Another accusation was that we Unionists do not practice what we preach, and he insinuated that those Unionist Members who were going this afternoon to see the-Flying Exhibition would probably all go in foreign motor cars. If the hon. Member thinks it is wrong for us or anyone else to go about this country in foreign motor cars, why does not he support us in bringing forward legislation to prevent us from using them. It is not a question of sweated labour, but a question purely of Tariff Reform.

2.0 P.M.

Complaint was also made by the hon. Member that my hon. Friends who moved and seconded the Second Reading of this Bill did not give any tangible evidence of its necessity. I will give only one small but important illustration from my own Constituency, with which I am fairly well acquainted—I refer to the lock industry. There is made in my Constituency a common type of lock, which is sold in enormous quantities throughout the world. So far as my knowledge of the various firms is concerned who are interested in this particular lock industry, there is not one firm who may be said to have at its head a rich capitalist, and they are very largely small firms employing from ten to twenty-five people. They make these locks, and put them free on rail in the Midlands at 4s. 6d. per gross, that is no less than 144 locks and keys complete —the key comes ready-made from Germany—are sold for 4s. 6d. This trade has been very severely hit in recent years by the production in Germany of this identical lock at 3s. 6d. per gross. I can give a specific case of a large order for Australia which had always gone to one particular firm in my Constituency at 4s. 6d. per gross, and they lost it through a German firm at the price of 3s. 3d. per gross. When you remember that you have got to buy your raw material, possess some sort of a factory with machinery, pay wages, and run the risks of business, and at the same time make a reasonable profit, I ask, is there room for anything like an adequate wage to be paid to the people who make those locks?

My hon. Friend referred to another industry with which I am acquainted, and that is the Cradley Heath chain trade, Hon. Members will be acquainted with the fact that the women employed in the Cradley Heath chain trade were earning no more than l½d. per hour. If we are in this country to encourage circumstances that make it impossible for manufacturers, big or little, to pay anything more than wages at the rate of 1 per hour even to women, it is a poor look-out for the general wage question of this country. No doubt hon. Members opposite read the "Daily News," and they will have noticed that in the month of March last the hon. Member for East Northampton (Mr. Chiozza Money) had a column article on the wages question and the cost of living, particularly as concerned the workers on the railways of this country. Hon. Members will recollect the bare facts that he stated in that article that during the last ten years the cost of living had increased to railway workers by 10 or 12 per cent., whilst the utmost that he could put any increase in their wages during that period was 2 per cent. There were tables showing that the average rate of wages of railway workers at the present time was only ½d. per week higher than it was in the year 1899. That was an extremely valuable article, and very useful upon this question of sweated industries and the wages of people in this country. There you have evidence not of a Tariff Reformer, or of a member of the Unionist party, but of one of the most active compilers of statistics in the Free Trade party opposite.

My main point, and my great reason for supporting this Bill, is that if it is right —and I maintain and agree with hon. Members that it is right—to do all we can to raise the standard of living for the people of this country, and to try legitimately to raise the standard of their wages, you should do what is reasonably necessary to protect them from the only other alternative in many cases at the present moment, under a free import system—namely, the loss entirely of the employment which they now have which means for many of them either the necessity of entering into some different trade or starvation. Sweated labour is bad enough, but it is better than starvation. We want this Bill to apply to those trades which are dealt with by the Trade Boards. If you are going to increase restrictions to improve the lot of the people you must counteract the great dangers of foreign competition to these people, who, instead of getting increased wages—which we are endeavouring to secure for them—will be thrown out of the employment they have now got—

Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present. House counted, and forty Members being found present,

Mr. COOPER

I would like to congratulate the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Sir Godfrey Baring) on the first speech he has made since his return to this House. Its brevity, I think, is its excellence, and the hon. Member evidently is not particularly proud of it, inasmuch as I believe he is not himself in the House at the present time. It is a little significant to observe the real deep interest that hon. Members opposite feel in a question concerning the welfare of the working people of this country. They are ever ready to render lip-service on the public platform when there are votes at the back of it, but when they come to this House, so powerful and so potent, as we witnessed during the Parliament Bill, is the party spirit, that they are driven to do their level best, not merely to argue the merits or demerits of this particular measure, but to obstruct and try to avoid discussing it altogether. If we are going to endeavour to raise the standard of living of the working people of this country, and to improve their standard of wages, as I believe we all agree it is right to do, we must, seeing the danger under our present free import system of foreign competition depriving people of employment at all at higher rates, do something to meet the difficulty and prevent them being driven from their present wages into a state of starvation.

Mr. DENMAN

I do not believe the hon. Member who has just sat down will accuse me of not treating the Bill with proper seriousness. I agree entirely the subject is a serious one, and the Bill introduced to-day is a serious attempt to meet in outline what is a very real problem. It is perfectly obvious, apart altogether from a tariff, that so long as there is any international trade whatever the conditions in one country must have distinct and direct relations to the conditions in another. We know, of course, that even in countries between which there is a tariff the conditions of trade in one country affect the conditions in the other, just as much as the conditions in a Protective country can affect the conditions in a Free Trade country like ours. I fear that is the only point on which I can agree with the hon. Member who spoke last. I think this Bill is not the real way of meeting the difficulty. I should like to examine in a way the proposer of the Bill did not himself examine the actual proposals of the Bill. It is easy for us all to be in sympathy with its objects, but I think we are bound to consider the extent to which a Bill fulfils the objects it sets out to fulfil.

I will ask the hon. Member just to consider Clause 2. You first take a number of trades to which the Trade Boards Act applies. I recognise it is not merely intended that this Bill should apply to four trades which may not be peculiarly bad cases from his point of view. He wishes to apply it as a general principle to all trades coming under the scheme of the Trade Boards Act. Any three employers in any such trade can go to the Board of Trade and ask for an exhaustive inquiry in the nature set out in the Clause. I do not want to be controversial, but I have not the least doubt any trade would have a sufficient number of Tariff Reformers to provide the three employers, and you would get the inquiry demanded front every trade to which the Trade Boards Act applies. The inquiry is as to whether any goods are imported in competition with the goods produced in this country. It is exceedingly hard to say what goods in modern industry are in competition with other goods. For instance, a linen shirt can compete with a flannel shirt, a rope can compete with a chain, and a harem skirt can compete with a somewhat ampler garment on the one hand, or with trousers on the other. I think there are practical problems which would seriously embarrass the Board of Trade in an inquiry as to whether any goods were imported in competition with the goods produced in these trades. Let us assume we have got over that difficulty and have decided there are goods imported in competition, and let us also assume they are discovered to be produced under sweated conditions. You have an absolute prohibition, not merely a. qualified prohibition, so long as those goods are made under those inferior conditions. It would then be possible for a trade in this scheme permanently to prevent the importation of competing goods into this country. It has only got to continue to put up the rate of wages, and, so long as the rate of wages in a foreign country is lower than that which the Trade Board adjusts for itself it has complete protection. There is an absolute prohibition on the importation of goods from all other countries which will not be able to pay the wages which the Trade Board will adjust for itself. That, I think, is a somewhat far-reaching effect which the lion. Member hardly anticipated or, indeed, would desire.

We have to face the practical details of any scheme for dealing with this problem; we have to examine the solution that is offered to us. Let us take the definition of sweated industries which, after all, is the basis of the whole Bill. A sweated industry is one in which the rate of wages is less than the minimum rate fixed by a. Trade Board in the case of similar articles made or produced in the United Kingdom. That clearly fundamentally indicates the real nature of sweating. Sweating has no relation whatever to the absolute rate of wages in itself; the problem of sweating is this, that in certain trades you will have rates of wages below the economic rate within the country of production. But under this Clause you may have wages perfectly adequate in the region in which they are paid, and yet they will be defined by the Bill of the hon. Member opposite as sweating wages. I do not know how he reconciles that, and how he can say that wages paid under such conditions are sweating wages. Yet, under this Bill it would prohibit the import of goods into this country made under perfectly normal conditions in the country in which they are produced. That is a fundamental difficulty. Then when you talk about similar articles do you mean to say that they are similarly produced? We had an example only the other day in connection with the chain trade. In England chains are handmade, but there is in competition with them machine-made chains produced both in England and in foreign countries. Obviously the wages paid for hand-made chains at Cradley Heath cannot compare with the wages paid to persons for much less skilled work in Belgium; for instance, where they are merely minders of machines that produce these chains automatically. Obviously that is a real difficulty which has to be faced under this definition.

Even assuming that this Bill really carries out the intentions of the promoters, I venture to think it is fundamentally opposed to the economic creed of hon. Members opposite. Competition between countries is looked upon as a sort of warfare. There is a Free Trade idea that you are conferring benefits on mankind in general by encouraging international trade, but really, in this matter, nations compete with one another in a form of warfare. I suppose it will be admitted that a sweated industry is infinitely worse for the country in which it occurs than for the consumers of the sweated goods. The objection to sweating is that a sweated industry is parasitical; that it injures the workmen engaged in it; and that it is prejudicial to the welfare of the country in which it is carried on. But we ought to be glad from one point of view that foreign countries have this system of sweated industries, and from that point of view the more of it the better. We ought to encourage foreign countries to sweat as much as possible, because we know that thereby we are tending to promote the commercial downfall of our rivals. That is an inevitable consequence from our own point of view.

Mr. HUNT

No, it is not so. For instance, the Japanese and Chinese work altogether under different conditions, and can work for far less money

Mr. DENMAN

Of course, I welcome the interruption. But I am dealing with cases of genuine sweating in which the workpeople are working below the national standard. I am not dealing with the case of a country like Japan. That brings me to what I think is the solution of this problem. I believe the Mover and Seconder of this Bill both referred to the interesting and instructive Berne Convention of 1906. That was a precedent which I hoped would be followed. On that occasion you had the civilised Powers meeting together in order to promote legislation in every country dealing with a great economic problem. That I suggest is the way in which this problem should be dealt with, not by imposing prohibition, not by limiting the ordinary operations of trade, but by bringing together all the nations in conference and by persuading them to adopt legislation that will prohibit conditions that are bad for the world in general. From a competitive point of view I do not think that we suffer from the sweating that goes on in other countries, and I must say that in my opinion legislation by means of international agreement is the true method of dealing with this problem.

Sir F. BANBURY

I am in rather a difficult position in regard to the course of action I ought to take upon this Bill. No doubt it is a real infringement on the laws of political economy, but when once we start on the downward road it may be necessary to complete the journey, and after all this Bill is a necessary sequel to the Trade Boards Bill. As far as my recollection carries me, when that Bill was before the House I said it. would be absolutely useless unless some Bill of this nature followed it. I do not know what the Labour party are going to do on this question. Up to the present they have been conspicuous by their silence. This undoubtedly is a Protectionist Bill pure and simple, and it is a bad Protectionist Bill, because it does not add to the revenue of the country. I have always been more or less a Protectionist, and therefore I find myself in a rather difficult position, as, either I have to vote against the Bill, in which case I admit I am voting against a Bill which is Protectionist, or I have to support it., in which case I shall be supporting a Bill which it would be absolutely impossible, in my opinion, to administer. I have not, therefore, made up my mind what to do. My hon. Friend behind me said there was no difficulty in dealing with foreign prison-made goods, but that is quite a different thing from what is contemplated by this Bill. It is very easy to find out whether goods are made in prison in a foreign country or not, and, after all, it is not a very large quantity which is imported. It would be very easy to find out from the people consigning the goods whether they were made in a foreign prison or not, but it is a very difficult thing, not only to ascertain where the goods were made, but the rates of wages paid, the conditions under which they were made, and whether the conditions of the Factory and Workshop Act of 1901 prevailed in the place where they were made. I must say that the speech of the hon. Member opposite dealing with this question had a great deal in it, if you look at the Clause in regard to the goods being made in a country which has adopted conditions similar to those which would prevail under the Factory and Workshop Act of 1901, and under the conditions which are provided for in the provisions of the Trade Boards Act.

All these goods are to be excluded, and when one comes to consider the matter, although I should not like to make a statement with regard to all countries, still there is in my opinion hardly a country in the world that has the provisions of the Factory and Workshop Act in existence. There are some few European countries where the rate of wages comes under the provisions of the Trade Boards Act, but in regard to the other question, suppose, for the sake of argument, that this Bill is in operation, the working of it would be very difficult. It seems to me that the statement made by the hon. Member opposite that it would be impossible for three employers and a certain number of workmen to conspire to prevent the import of goods from another country is not well founded. Such a conspiracy would be very easy to effect. All they have got to do is that the workmen and employers should agree to a rate of pay less than the wages which they perfectly well know do not prevail in any other country. Then they have to secure the sanction of the Board of Trade, and they would secure that no other goods would be imported into this country. I am a Tariff Reformer, and, indeed, I might almost call myself a mild Protectionist, but I do not think I have ever gone the length of saying that under no circumstances whatever shall anybody be allowed to import goods, and that is what this Bill does. How are the Consuls to find out the conditions under which the goods are manufactured? I must say my hon. Friends are not very fortunate in the drafting of their Bill, because I venture to say that in the case of every one of the Clauses, it will be impossible to work them if they become law. A man has to go to a British Consul and get a certificate from him, "or some one lawfully deputed by him," that the goods are made under certain conditions. What is "lawfully deputed?" Is it anybody he may depute—say his butler or his cook, or any one else to find out under what conditions the goods were made. There is no definition of "lawfully deputed." Therefore, apparently the "lawfully" would be whatever the Consul thought would be the easiest way of getting out of the difficulty, and he might appoint somebody to make vague inquiries, and he would then report that the goods had been, or had not been, manufactured under certain conditions, and if they had not been manufactured under those conditions they would not be introduced into this country.

I may be wrong, but I should think it, would be exceedingly difficult for the Consul to find out under what conditions the goods were made. Supposing I am a Consul in a foreign country—say in Germany—and I go to a German manufacturer and say, "What rate of wages are you paying to your workmen?" What is to prevent him saying, "What on earth is that to do with you; that is my affair, and I request you to go outside my shop." What is to prevent him doing that? An hon. Member says that the goods would be prohibited, but I do not know that the Consul could act in that way, and if he did where would the word "lawfully" come in? I do not think it would be possible for him to make a report unless he did know and understand the way in which the goods were manufactured. Probably what he would do would be to report in this sense: "I am sorry to say that, after many fruitless endeavours, I have been unable to ascertain the conditions under which these goods are made." Then the Board of Trade would have to decide upon that, whether they would or would not prohibit the importation, and then we are coming back to the state of affairs in which the Board of Trade may say: "No foreign goods shall come into this country under certain conditions." That may be a very good thing, or a very bad thing, but it is a very big question, and that is the weakness of all these measures where you start saying that it shall apply only in sweated trades and when you have started that, you can go on and include other trades. As far as I recall the Trade Boards Act, that Act gave power to include other trades, and pressure will no doubt be put upon the Government by people who are going to benefit by the extension of the provisions of the Bill to extend it. My hon. Friend behind me said something about railways. What has this Bill got to do with railways? As he mentioned them, apparently he thought that railways are to be brought under the provisions of this Bill, but that I do not see. I find myself, as I commenced, by saying, in an extremely awkward position. I should like to support my hon. Friend's Bill, and yet I have some objection to it, because my business instincts come in, seeing that it is unworkable, could not be carried into effect, and is only an abstract resolution in favour of doing certain things, and then my fondness for the Bill disappears, and I do not know what to do—a position in which I do not often find myself. I shall therefore listen to the arguments brought forward on both sides before I come to a final conclusion as to the exercise of my vote.

Mr. CLYNES

We hear frequently in connection with any Bill which is proposed that those of us who sit here make no attempt to meet the arguments of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and in dealing with this Bill on two or three occasions, that has been urged in regard to our treatment of the arguments which have been adduced in favour of it. Those hon. Members who were in the House during the first hour or so of this discussion will, I think, agree, making allowance for about perhaps 10 per cent. of fairly welcome banter, that the speech of the hon. Member who moved and that of the hon. Member who Seconded the Motion to reject the measure utterly destroyed whatever sense there might appear to be in its framework. The arguments demolished especially the machinery part of the measure. I confess the Bill appears from a different standpoint perhaps to those who have already spoken from this side, than it does to us. There is on this, as there is on other social and industrial questions, a distinctly Labour point of view that I will endeavour to express. It is not correct to say, as has been said several times from the other side, that this Bill the inevitable corollary of the passing of the Wage Boards Act, because a Bill similar to this, for which I voted in March, 1909, was introduced by Mr. Harry Marks before the Wage Boards Act became law, so that that Act followed the first introduction of a measure substantially similar to the one we are considering this afternoon. The principle of' this Bill is one which I can support, and if there is to be a division I shall go without any hesitation into the Lobby in its favour. I doubt whether I shall see in that Lobby the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury), not because he disagrees so very much with the machinery of the Bill because he thinks it unworkable, but because really he has at the back of his mind some remote notion that this Bill, so far as it could take effect, would raise someone's wages. That is a sufficient reason, I think, for the embarrassment and the hesitation of the hon. Baronet.

Sir F. BANBURY

I said I was in favour of the principle of the Bill, but that it was quite unworkable.

Mr. CLYNES

That is exactly my point. The view I have just expressed is that the hon. Baronet regards it as unworkable, and I conclude that if he regarded it as workable at all he would not vote for it for the reason that in its working it would have the effect of raising someone's wages.

Sir F. BANBURY

I never said anything of the sort. I should be only too pleased to see wages raised.

Mr. CLYNES

I have endeavoured to draw the only conclusion I can from the remarks of the hon. Baronet, but of course I accept the statement of his motives as they are now put. I regard this Bill as simply a four-page leaflet to be added to the stock of electioneering literature so plentifully used in the course of our campaigns. That point of view is, I know, rejected by hon. Gentlemen opposite, but we know that in every constituency where Labour candidate was standing at the last election many thousands, perhaps millions, of leaflets were distributed on the very subject of this Bill with the idea of showing to the electorate that we who claim to represent the interests of labour in this House have encouraged the importation of sweated-made goods, and therefore advocated a course which made the position of our home workers worse than it otherwise would have been. When we are taunted with doing little or nothing to improve the position of British workers by any action which we take in this House we are driven to reflect upon the long term of power, not merely office, but power which the party opposite had before the Labour party came into this House at all. For some seventeen out of twenty years the party opposite had unlimited power to deal with all these social sores and evil industrial conditions regarding which they introduce Bills of this kind from time to time. I suppose they did not care, in regard to measures of this sort, to test the merit of the House of Lords. It may be that if, when in office, they had tried to pass Bills of this sort they would have evoked that form of opposition which is commonly received from that House when measures are submitted to it from this side.

Those who look at Clause 3 of the Bill will, I think, find how absolutely unworkable it would be in practice. We ought, of course, to make the best use of our Consular service in various parts of the world, but I shrink myself from the idea of calling upon our British Consuls to pick and choose between employment in various trades in foreign lands, putting the stamp of fairness upon one and submitting a certificate of sweating conditions in regard to another. I cannot conceive of a course which would be a more fruitful cause of international trouble and corruption than giving that kind of degrading and commercial travellers work to British Consuls abroad. If this Bill were to be sent to a Committee, as I hope it may—I say for myself, and I think I can say for the Labour Members, that we should welcome a chance of discussing in detail the practicability of a proposal of this sort I should suggest to hon. Members opposite that they could not secure a more authoritative source of actual knowledge of conditions of employment abroad than from the Trade Unions abroad. The complaint of any three workmen in this country with regard to the conditions of workers in foreign countries lands us nowhere. The natural suspicion of workmen in this country in their various trades, and of employers as well, is that if the competition of foreign countries in their particular province were prevented or restricted they would have better times. That does not necessarily follow. The hon. Baronet could not see how railways, for instance, had any thing to do with the Bill. They at least serve as a very helpful illustration of the worthlessness of the machinery of this Bill and of the absence of any real argument adduced in support of the Bill in the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite. The assumption is that foreign competition causes sweating, and as soon as they have laboured that assumption there comes from them also this argument, that the Wage Boards Bill was specially restricted to those trades least affected by foreign competition.

Mr. REMNANT

To four trades as an experiment.

Mr. CLYNES

Exactly. My point is that the Wage Boards Bill was applied to trades least affected by foreign competition. In other words, those trades that suffered from foreign competition in the least degree showed us the greatest degree of sweating conditions. The trades where the best wages are paid and where the best conditions prevail as regards hours of labour, general surroundings and terms of employment in this country, are the trades which are most subject to foreign competition. The workers in the trades which have great trade unions are those who have to face the keenest and most extensive competition. Take furthermore the prevalence of sweating in our home industries which are absolutely free not only from foreign competition but home competition. Take the state of hundreds of thousands of workers in some home industries where employers cannot allege any competition at all. The hon. Baronet opposite (Sir F. Banbury) can tell the House that there are 100,000 railway workers in this country performing hard manual labour for long hours who are paid less than 20s. a week. There is no competition there tending to pull down wages or in any sense regulating the conditions of labour.

Sir F. BANBURY

I do not know where the hon. Member gets his information, unless he includes boys.

Mr. CLYNES

I leave it to the general knowledge and experience of the House to what extent they see boys employed on our railways. Go into the goods sidings or to the places where railway porters are employed and you will see men performing heavy and exhausting work, but if you look for boys you will not find them. It is not boys who are wanted for that work. If the hon. Baronet cares to press the challenge, I say my statement can be proved by the recent Census. If you count one to be a man when he has attained the age of twenty-one, you have at least 100,000 such persons—able-bodied men, employed for long hours at hard work on railways for less than 20s. a week. You have not merely that condition of things in the case of railway servants, but you have it in Adam's great trade, still the greatest trade in the country, agriculture. [An HON. MEMBER: "We cannot keep out foreign competition."] I am dealing with the only reputable argument which has been offered to us. The arguments of hon. Members opposite are shorn of any intellectual repute as soon as they are expressed. The only argument that can justify this Bill is that we have sweating in this country because of foreign competition. If you mean by sweating, low wages, long hours, and hard work, and that is what we mean, I can assure you that we have abundant sweating. I say that you have hundreds of thousands of able-bodied workers employed under conditions which are absolutely unaffected by any foreign competition at all. What has most prevented sweating in this country is trade unionism. The trade unions have protected the workers in this country against the attacks of the employers. They have shielded the workers against the general pressure of competition, and they have compelled employers to regulate and to limit the hours of labour. Indeed, you have the broad fact that in the industries where you have labour which is not organised in some form you have the worst conditions, whereas, in the trades that have been most helped by organisation you have the best conditions of pay and service.

I think the evils which this Bill proposes to remedy have little whatever to do, if anything at all, with the great fiscal controversy that has engaged the attention of the people of this country so long. I am not in favour of methods by which you would artificially raise the price of the commodities on which the worker lives. Let the worker protect himself by organisation so as to get the best pay he can, and then leave him without artificial fiscal arrangements to spend his pay to the best advantage in the open market of the world. I should like any succeeding speaker on the other side to release us from the embarrassment which we feel when they state their position in these terms. The terms in which they have again stated their position this afternoon are: "Protect the workers of this country by Tariff Reform, and you will abolish sweating." That was especially the argument candidly and repeatedly expressed by the hon. Gentleman who Seconded the Motion for the Second Reading of the Bill. He professed himself to be a wholehogger. He said, in effect, that he would sooner take a short cut and adopt Tariff Reform than seek to remedy the present state of affairs by such a Bill as this. I want to know, if sweating conditions would be abolished in this country under any system of Tariff Reform, how it is that the most extensive systems of Protection have given the sweating in those foreign countries which send us the goods which you wish to exclude?

Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

How is it that Free Trade has not abolished sweating?

Mr. CLYNES

I am seeking to obtain all the information that is procurable, so that we may get out of this conflict as to the effects of Free Trade and Protection in relation to our industries. The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. If a system of Protection would abolish sweating in this country, why is it that the most extensive forms of Protection have given sweating so plentiful in other lands that we have to consider a Bill of this kind The benches opposite were almost absolutely empty when my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich (Mr. Crooks) quite recently submitted a Motion on the principle of a minimum rate of wages. One may object to the fixed sum which was stated in that Motion. I admit that when a Resolution has to be framed in accordance with the views of a great congress of labour delegates it may be that the Resolution has to be framed in terms which are open to attack. But how many hon. Gentlemen opposite rose to support my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich in his plea for legally establishing a minimum rate of wages in our various industries? We were taunted this afternoon with respect to the workers at Cradley Heath. The hon. Gentleman who used that particular argument, as well as the Seconder of the Bill, must know that the men and women who made the fight of these sweated workers a success were trade union workers. They organised the funds and raised subscriptions. My answer in the first instance is that the employers were the aggressors. They were the men who imposed sweating conditions on the workers. Parliament had to come to the rescue of the workers, and the employers then sought to defeat the arrangement in spirit if not in the express letter, and when the battle began it was the trades union officials—men and women alike—who went to the rescue of those workers, organised them into a united force, and did everything to make the battle effective. The hon. Member who seconded this Bill himself absolutely shattered any argument that can be brought in its support. He proved, from his own knowledge I assume, that recently the trade of chain-making has been much subject to foreign competition. He showed that the foreign competition was of recent growth, and that it was due to machinery and was due to all those other industrial developments which are inevitable in the nature of things. In short he showed this, that it was before there was any competition in the chain-snaking trade that the worst conditions of sweating existed. Therefore, this state of sweating itself is not attributable to the cause expressed in this Bill. But I support the idea of the Bill for a reason which may astonish hon. Gentlemen opposite. The reason is this, that if it could be worked—and I am prepared to give it a trial—it could do no harm to our workers but would be sure to do good to foreign workers abroad, where the effect would be in one way or another to raise their wages and improve their conditions. If I may again bring in the idea of party into my remarks I would claim that we are an international party. An hon. Gentleman who addressed the House from this side a short time ago explained that the only sensible course that can be taken swiftly to attain the ends aimed at by this Bill is to have an international consultation. We not only want closer international amity for the purpose of peace in regard to national and international affairs, but international consultation and agreement are required in order that the condition of the worker should be raised not in one land at the expense of another, but in order that all should be raised, if possible, at the same time. I will go into the Lobby and support this Bill for totally different reasons from those adduced on the other side, because if it could be worked it could do our workers in this country no harm whatever, whereas it would tend to bring us into closer relationship with the industrial population of other lands, and perhaps do something to raise their condition.

3.0 P.M

Mr. R. THOMPSON

The hon. Member for Holborn (Mr. Remnant) referred specially to the City of Belfast and some of the trades connected with that city. As I have the honour to represent one of the divisions of Belfast, I think it my duty to say a few words in reference to the linen trade; there, especially as think that Belfast suffers more from the importation of sweated goods than any other city in the Kingdom. There is not a month in which we have not hundreds of tons of linen yarns imported into Belfast, which are made on the continent under sweated labour conditions. The hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) challenged us to name the countries that the imported sweated goods come from. I am prepared to do so. In the linen trade the countries are Belgium, France, and Germany. Linen yarns from these countries are imported into Belfast from day to day at lower prices and under cheaper labour conditions than we have existing at present in Belfast. Before coming to this House it was my privilege for seven years to occupy the position of President of the Flax Spinners' Association. During that time I had inquiries made yearly on the continent with regard to the rates of wages there. From the returns received, I found that the workmen in Belgium especially, and also in France and Germany, were paid less than half the rates of wages which we are paying in Belfast for the same kind of work. The hon. Gentleman has also asked, what are sweated conditions. Two years ago German trade unionists sent over a deputation to Belfast to make inquiries and visit some of the mills and see the labour conditions we have existing in Belfast. I found some of the flax spinners there very chary about giving such people admission to their mills. In the position which I held I thought it my duty to give them free access to our mills, and to give them an opportunity of seeing all the conditions that the workers enjoyed with us. This deputation told me after they had seen the conditions existing that they could not have believed that such conditions existed in any spinning mills in the world as we have in Belfast, and that the work-people are so much worse off in Belgium than they were in our part of the country.

We, as flax spinners, have nothing to fear, because I am glad to say that owing to the excellence of our machinery, and especially owing to the excellence of our workpeople, we have been able so far to keep ahead of the world in flax spinning. The Continental people, I do not deny, are gradually creeping upon us, but I think we have sufficient talent and sufficient activity and application among our working people to hold our own for some little time longer. As regards manufactures, especially of linen goods, of which I have experience during the last fifty years, the Continental labour comes nearer to us there, and I think that were it not for our climatic conditions, which are the best in the world for this purpose, we would scarcely keep up the manufacture. But owing to our climatic conditions, so far we have been able to hold our own fairly well. The hon. Member for Holborn referred to Japan. I have a little experience with regard to that. Some forty years ago I introduced a new class of goods into the North of Ireland. They were made largely in the cottages and homes of the people throughout the country. Thousands of young women especially were employed in making that class of goods until about two years ago. Then the Japanese took the matter up, and although they import their linen from Belfast they can re-export these goods to the London markets and distribute them so much more cheaply that the Belfast manufacturers have to relinquish their trade. The result is that we see our best people leaving the country every week. It is not that they do not like Ireland. They are very patriotic, and dislike to leave the country, but when the labour is taken away out of the country under the conditions which I have described, there is nothing left for them to do. The hon. Baronet on this side of the House has denounced the Bill in unmeasured terms. His principal objection was that the consuls could not give the necessary information as to the character of imported goods, but actual experience shows that consuls can obtain reliable information as to imported goods, and that demolishes the principal argument used against this Bill, that consuls could not get information which would be reliable. The question of Tariff Reform has been mentioned from time to time in the Debate. I think hon. Members on the other side of the House are afraid that the Bill might ultimately lead to Tariff Reform. I have been a Tariff Reformer for twenty-five years; I am so to-day, and I see no reason why I should change. But I am quite willing to go on as we are until we have a more enlightened generation on the other side of the House, who will look for ward to the successful introduction of Tariff Reform into this country. I have great pleasure in supporting the Bill now before the House.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Tennant)

It is gratifying to observe from the speech of the hon. Member for Belfast that he has been able, although not without difficulty, to meet, and to meet successfully, the foreign competition to which he is subjected in his industry, and I congratulate him on having been able to show the delegation from Belgium a system of manufacture which was an example to them. When I looked at the Bill now before the House I was in some doubt as to the object which the hon. Gentleman opposite had in introducing it. But I came to the conclusion, from much of what he said in his opening remarks in bringing the Bill before the House, that it was intended to protect the trades to which the Trades Board Act has been applied against unfair competition.

Mr. REMNANT

The workers.

Mr. TENNANT

I used the word "industries" because it seemed to me that it involved employers and workers. The hon. Member could not see why the provisions of the Trade Boards Act should be defeated by this importation of foreign goods, and he has devised certain machinery in order to overcome that difficulty. First of all, I would inquire whether the machinery contained in this Bill is in point of fact practicable; and, secondly, whether these industries do or do not require the protection which the Bill seeks to give them by ascertaining, in point of fact, whether the goods so imported are or are not the result of sweated labour. The hon. Gentleman has perforce to set up a standard wage, and he has set up the standard of the minimum wage established under the Trade Boards Act. I would, however, point out to the hon. Gentleman and his Friends that, when we introduced the Trade Boards Act we never contemplated that there should be one minimum wage and only one. There is provision for different minimums in different parts of the country, and each minimum rate—

Mr. REMNANT

All the conditions are taken into consideration.

Mr. TENNANT

There is a very important point in Clause 3 to which I wish to call the attention of the House: "If it appears there is reasonable ground for believing that the goods imported are being made or produced under sweated conditions of labour"— that does not seem to me to specify what is the minimum rate. Is the rate which is to be the standard in this country to be the standard in a foreign country? The Trade Boards Act of this country does not establish standard rates, but minimum rates. The rate which you would not consider proper for workpeople here could with perfect propriety be applied in other parts of the world and be remunerative. In the East the people do not get anything like the same rate of wages as are paid in this country, simply because the purchasing power of money is so much greater. Under the Trade Boards Act we provided that piece-rates might be set up for time rates, these piece-rates to be so arranged as practically to give the people the same amount of remuneration for their labour as they got under the time-rates. It is not a very easy thing to arrange piece-rates so as to give remuneration which will be equal to that earned under time-rates. When you come to consider all the differences in foreign manufactures and all the differences in the description of goods made in foreign countries, then the difficulties become very much greater, so much greater that to my mind they cannot be surmounted.

Then again, there may be certain standards of work in which the conditions may be better abroad than they are in this country, or, again, standards of work in which the conditions are better in this country than they are abroad. It would be perfectly open for the manufacturer abroad to say, "Yes, it is true we do not give so much air space, but we have much better washing accommodation." Who is to be the judge of which conditions are the better? I pass to the inquiry which the hon. Gentleman seeks to set up under this Bill. Clause 3 says the Board of Trade shall issue an order prohibiting such goods from being imported, pending the result of an inquiry, if the Board of Trade are at all suspicious that the goods have been made under sweated conditions. But such an inquiry might last for a very long time, probably years, before the information could be obtained. Do hon. Gentlemen in the least know how long it took the Board of Trade to find out the rate of wages in other countries, the cost of living and so forth, given in the Yellow Book issued by Parliament? These inquiries were originated from the Board of Trade, and they were of a voluntary character, for statistical purposes. They took years.

Mr. REMNANT

Between the appointment of the Commission and the date of their report, they took no time at all.

Mr. TENNANT

They went out two years before to America. But even if the inquiry lasted only six months, it would be unfair to keep the goods out of the country pending the result of the investigation.

Mr. REMNANT

The hon. Gentleman is referring to an inquiry which was for a specific purpose.

Mr. TENNANT

That is quite true. The House must remember that that was a voluntary inquiry for statistical purposes which would meet with the goodwill of all the employers and of all the persons who were asked questions in those foreign countries. What would be the result under this Bill? Do you suppose that commissioners would be received very heartily in foreign countries when the manufacturers of those countries reflected for what purpose those commissioners had come. Can you imagine a commission coming to this country from Germany, and how Messrs. Armstrong or any other of our great employers in this country would greet a commission which had come over to inquire what the rates of wages were in order to ascertain whether they were so low that they should endeavour afterwards to exclude their goods from Germany? I cannot imagine the position of such a commission. Would my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary have nothing to say to such a commission going away from this country, and would he not be in the greatest alarm as to whether diplomatic objects would not be very much jeopardised, if not entirely defeated? What would be likely to be the result, not only on your diplomatic relationship with foreign countries to which you sent out such a roving commission, but also on your commercial relations with those countries. You are only now dealing with four trades, but the machinery of the Bill allows it to be extended to other trades if and when the Trade Boards Act has been applied to other trades.

If you are going to exasperate manufacturers by asking them these questions, T think I do not exaggerate when I say that at any rate you run very great risks, to put it at its mildest, of getting upon extremely bad commercial terms if you send such commissioners to those countries. I cannot help thinking also that you would run a great risk of injuring your foreign trade with that country, whether in exports or imports. There is the further question, touched on by two of my hon. Friends—namely, the position of the Consuls. I think, again, that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs would very likely have something to say to the instructions to his Consuls. I think the Consuls themselves would gravely resent having such a duty cast on them as to have to say whether or not goods had been prepared under certain conditions. They would not know, in the first place, and they would have the greatest difficulty in ascertaining. I think that that sufficiently disposes of the machinery of the Bill for the purposes for which it is required. I come to the second point, as to what is the need of protection of these particular industries. The hon. Member for Dudley (Colonel Griffith-Boscawen) anticipated me in one of the things I was going to mention, and that is that the trades in question are trades in which there has been no real foreign competition, practically none, and practically insignificant. He tells me, and I am bound to accept it from him, though I am bound to state that it is quite new to me, that there has been of recent weeks, shall I say, threatening of foreign competition in the chain trade.

Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

For the last two years.

Mr. TENNANT

I am very glad that the hon. Member commits himself to the last two years. It will be admitted that the chain trade is mainly an export trade, or at any rate largely, if not mainly so. For the purpose of comparison the figures of the export of chains for the past two or three or five years, would afford a very fair index.

Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

Or of imports.

Mr. TENNANT

Or of imports, but my point is this, if you admit, as I think the hon. Gentleman cannot decline to admit, that the figures of the export of chains are an index of prosperity or the reverse, then let me give him the figures as to the exports. I will take the first four months of this year, being the latest return, and compare that period with the first four months of last year, and the year before. In 1909 for the first four months the exports totalled 9,516 tons. In 1910 9,829 tons, and for the first four months of this year 10,751 tons.

Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that the export of chains depends very largely on shipbuilding, and that there was a tremendous slump in shipbuilding two years ago. These particular figures are almost entirely due to that. Will the right hon. Gentleman give us the import of chains? I know he cannot, but it would be very much more appropriate.

Mr. TENNANT

Shipbuilding is a trade carried on in this country, and it is not for the purpose of shipbuilding that those chains have probably or chiefly been exported. I do not think, however, that that matters in the least. The point is that here you have got a trade which is expanding, and not diminishing, and that is really the whole question. As to tailoring, the imports of cheap tailoring are very small, amounting to £44,000, compared with the exports, amounting to £1,814,000. In the cardboard box trade we have not got absolute figures, but we believe that the imports are less than £50,000 per year. Obviously there cannot be very much import, since the boxes are such bulky things that they do not lend themselves to transit, nor is there very much export in them. Of the four trades, the most exposed to competition is lace curtains and net curtains. The regulations which we have applied in that particular industry is only to one—namely, the machine-made lace, and the cost of that process is really insignificant compared with the total cost of the production of lace. Therefore, I think I am perfectly justified in claiming that these are trades in which there is little or no foreign competition. I challenge any hon. Member that they are trades which are subject to foreign competition. Inasmuch as they have become sweated trades not by foreign competition, but by causes to which the hon. Gentleman the Member for one of the Divisions of Manchester has referred in a most interesting speech, those causes will not be affected to any great degree by the prohibition of foreign competition. Just as this importation has had no part in the making of this disease from which these trades suffer, so the abolition of foreign competition can have little or no part in the curing of that disease.

What would be the effect of the prohibition of these particular goods coming into this country, always supposing that there are some? They would be driven abroad to other parts of the world, where they would come into competition, very likely in our own markets, with our own trade in those particular industries. We have, for instance, a considerable export trade in tailoring to South Africa, and the chances are that this might divert the trade which comes in here to South Africa, and that some injury might be done to that trade in South Africa. I do not, for my part, advance this argument with any degree of strength, because I do not believe that cheap labour is likely to produce goods in the cheapest possible manner. I say that you can press down workers to a very low degree, to such a degree that they may abstain from requiring, even for a certain amount of time, many of the things which are considered the necessaries of life, but by so doing you are not getting efficiency. You are getting inefficiency, and it is efficiency with which one must start in order to face the great industrial struggle of the world. To my mind efficiency is only to be got, as the Labour party quite justifiably claim, by organisation and by regulation. Contrast Lancashire to-clay with Lancashire of 1830 or 1833. Harriet Martineau said that her fellow men were so pale, stunted, emaciated, irregular in their lives, and dissolute in their habits, that she hoped their race might die out in two or three generations. What has happened since? Factory Acts and trade unionism have been introduced; there has been organisation and regulation, with the result set out in the words of Mr. Sydney Webb, that these once wretched sweated operatives have become

energetic, self-reliant, self-controlled men and women, working with unrivalled speed and efficiency during their strictly limited hours, and maintaining in their comfortable homes almost a bourgeois standard of family life. I have always maintained that the real way to raise wages is by organisation and by regulation, and that shorter hours, higher wages, and better conditions make for cheapness of production. If you are afraid of anything you ought to be afraid of articles which are produced cheaply.

Mr. REMNANT

The Bill only applies where sweated wages are paid to operatives.

Mr. TENNANT

I am not sure that the Bill says so. Why should we be afraid at all of this foreign competition? The hon. Member who introduced the Bill quoted me as having said that it would be admitted that any sudden increase in the wages must, in the course of time, if not at once, increase the cost of production. But will not the House agree that there is all the difference in the world between raising the rate of wages from 5s., 6s., 7s., or 10s. a week to some reasonable and proper minimum wage of subsistence, and raising wages universally from 22s. or 23s. to 30s. a week all over the Kingdom for every description of manual labour? If there be any danger from the present situation that danger is not to be prevented in the way the Bill seeks to meet it. On the contrary, I believe that if the Bill were passed it might do incalculable injury by alienating foreign countries, by endangering foreign relations, both commercial and diplomatic, and by engendering friction and exasperation with manufacturers abroad. The better way to meet that danger is by setting a good example to foreign countries—an example which they are not slow to accept, as is shown by the resolution passed at Lugano last autumn that the—

'most efficacious remedy for the abuses prevalent in regard to home-work consists in the organisation of Wages Boards on the lines of those provided for by the British law. The hon. Member for Dudley (Colonel Griffith-Boscawen) rather taunted me with the fact that, although foreign countries were alive to the advantages to be obtained by copying Great Britain in this matter, still nothing more had been done. That is true in the literal sense of the word, because no law has been passed. But steps have been taken to get such laws passed, and I have great hopes that such legislation will be carried very shortly. I ask the House not to accept this Bill, but to help the Government to secure increased efficiency by organisation, by prescribing humane conditions, and by protecting the health, life, and limb of the workers. I believe that by such means we shall preserve and increase the great flow of our trade, and also set to the world an example which they can follow.

Major WHITE

I regret that the Debate, especially on the other side, has shown a tendency to run on the general merits or demerits of Tariff Reform as a whole. Personally, as one of the backers of the Bill, I say frankly that I did not back it as a Tariff Reform measure. I support the Bill because I regard it as a necessary corollary of the very interesting, and I hope it may be successful, experiment of social reform inaugurated by the Trade Boards Act. The specific object of the Bill is to prevent the importation into this country of foreign sweated goods, produced under less favourable conditions or at lower rates of wages than those fixed for the scheduled industries in this country. Well then, with regard to the Consuls. The Consuls, I understand, in America are already paid commissioners. Therefore it does not mean a very great extension of their power. With regard to one or two of the speeches which have been made on the other side—

Mr. TENNANT

May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman to call his attention to Clause 2, which says:—

"The Board of Trade … shall further inquire into the rate of wages paid, and the conditions of employment generally, in that trade in the countries in which the imported goods are made or produced."

Major WHITE

Yes, I quite accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but the main point is when the original complaint is made. I do not mean to imply that we ought to inquire without any investigation, because the Board of Trade has machinery at its disposal for finding out these things. Surely the resources of the Board are not exhausted, and surely they are not unable to find out how the production of goods is carried on in foreign countries I The hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract complained of the waste of time caused to this House by the introduction of Bills such as this on Friday afternoon. Incidentally, he took up nearly forty minutes of the time of the House in a speech which, as I presume, was meant to be humorous, and quite half of which had nothing whatever to do with the subject at issue. I will not deal with his excursions to China and Newfoundland. He introduced in connection with the latter the name of Messrs. Harmsworth. He dealt with the paper trade. That is not one of the trades which is scheduled, at any rate at the present time. I do not know that it is likely to be.

He was followed by one of the Members for Glasgow, who made an extremely relevant speech. He said it was not foreign competition that was the danger but home competition. But to a great extent by the provisions of the Trade Boards Act that home competition in these trades is prevented, or at any rate vastly minimised, by the operation of the Act. Hence again it is foreign competition. I have in my hand s book which has been issued in regard to the paper box and the cardboard box trade of Belgium. I happen to know about this matter at first hand, because I am acquainted with a manufacturer who lives not far from my Division—a gentleman who, I believe, is one of the best employers, one of the most humane and philanthropic in the country. He has by his own knowledge and inventiveness invented different forms of boxes, and has set up and established a big trade near Liverpool. He employs something like 600 or 700 hands. Already his designs are being copied in Belgium and sent over here.

Mr. PRINGLE

Is it being done under sweated conditions in Belgium?

Major WHITE

I believe that in many cases it is so. Already the Belgians have begun to undersell him. Already the tariff is to be raised. It is not actually. I think, definitely settled yet what the increase is to be in that particular trade, but there is reason to believe it will be something like 50, 60, or 70 per cent. It will mean his people leaving their employment. Already he has had to close down one small department in his works—this under the full operation of the Trade Boards Act—and he may have to shut a larger portion of his works. The advantage that the foreigner gets in this matter is this: that the German Government grants, I believe, a rebate on tin-plates, articles manufactured from tin-plate which are for export to foreign countries. I believe there is very little margin of expense and profit between the boxes made of tin and the boxes made of cardboard. If the German Government continue that rebate to the German manufacturer, he will be able to send in boxes made of tin, and they will be purchased instead of these paper boxes at present made near Liverpool. The manufacturer of these boxes in England at present supply great firms like Messrs. Coleman. If these firms find they can get tin boxes cheaper from Germany they will very likely cancel their contract with the English firm and get German tin goods.

Mr. PRINGLE

Do the Germans allow a rebate on the tin-plates or on the tits boxes?

Major WHITE

On the tin-plates manufactured into tin boxes.

Mr. PRINGLE

Is it on the tinplates or boxes?

Major WHITE

It is originally on the tinplates that are for export to foreign countries. As I said at the beginning, this is not, to my mind, a question of Tariff Reform. It is a question, when you are pursuing these social experiments and making social reforms in this country, of endeavouring to see that these principles are not vitiated and an extension of these principles prevented in the way I have described. I myself cannot see why gentlemen who belong to the Labour party and how hon. Members of the party opposite who conscientiously have fully, I believe at heart the interests not only of the well-paid workmen of this country, but, if I may so term it, "the bottom dog," the lowest paid trades, will not do anything to prevent, as these importations inevitably will have the effect of preventing, these people, not only of getting the wages which are laid down for them under the Trade Boards Act—the result inevitably will be that they will be driven out of employment altogether.

Mr. J. M. ROBERTSON

The hon. Member who has just sat down assured us that he does not speak on this Bill as a Tariff Reformer. I should say certainly not. At least it is inconceivable to me how Tariff Reformers should bring in such a Bill, for this Bill proceeds on the assumption that there are coming into this country large quantities of foreign goods produced by sweated labour; and hon. Gentlemen are asking us now to protect the British workmen against competition from the workmen of other countries under the very system of protection that they are advising the British workmen to adopt.

Major WHITE

May I say that the answer to that is a very simple one. It is not because of the Tariff system, but because social legislation, except perhaps in the case of Germany, is more advanced in this country than in the other countries.

Mr. ROBERTSON

I quite agree. But there is the admission that in those countries, under a tariff, the conditions assumed by the Bill are still so bad that you actually need to pass a special resolution to save yourself from the competition of sweated goods made under the tariff. Not only in this instance, but there appears constantly in the whole propaganda of the Tariff party the explicit con tention that we are suffering from unfair competition, the unfairness consisting in the fact that large quantities—the declaration is repeatedly made that the quantity is large—that large quantities of goods imported into this country from abroad are made under what we call sweated conditions of labour. These goods come from protected countries where the tariff system is in full force, so the hon. Member opposite may well say that he does not speak as a Tariff Reformer. But we have to consider this Bill on its merits. It may be admitted that there is a good deal of sweated labour in other countries, and a great deal probably here. The question we have to face is: Is it possible, is it practicable, to undertake to keep out precisely these goods which are made under a sweated system Of course, no one would say that the majority of foreign goods, even that come in from tariff countries, are produced under sweated conditions. The quantity is indefinite. This Bill proposes a childishly simple way of settling the question. It says that upon three employers or three workmen in any trade in the United Kingdom suggesting that certain goods being imported are produced under sweated conditions, then upon that bare requisition the Board of Trade has power to institute an investigation. I suppose there is not a trade in Britain that might not produce such a requisition at once.

Mr. REMNANT

Does the hon. Member imagine that the trade of this country is such that the Trade Boards Act applies to all of it?

Mr. ROBERTSON

I say any trade in Britain could produce such a requisition.

Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

But the Bill only applies to trades to which the Trade Boards Act apply.

Mr. ROBERTSON

It is quite reasonable for me to say that any trade in Britain could produce such a requisition and the Board of Trade will have to make an exhaustive inquiry into the condition of all those trades in foreign countries where goods are produced which this particular trade thinks come in here in competition with it. The hon. Member who spoke last said there was nothing inquisitorial prescribed by the Bill, but surely the proceedings required by the Bill would he inquisitorial in the last degree. I do not see how, inquisitorial as they are, you can hope to carry them out without a great deal more than friction in foreign countries. Supposing another foreign country, recognising the painful fact that we also have some such sweated labour, set up a law like this and begin inquiring into British industries. Of course their work would be facilitated by our own Board of Trade machinery. Suppose they went to Belfast and began to inquire as to the condition of labour in the mills there, and the wages paid to our women workers in our industries. Do not hon. Gentlemen opposite think it would lead to a great deal of bad feeling. Our investigations into trades where these conditions are not so bad are carried on with police facilities. We have the law behind us, and we can claim the right of entry and investigation. How can you claim that in a foreign country? Your Consul abroad would be called upon to give a certificate. How can he conscientiously give a certificate unless he has made himself acquainted as to what I will call an inquisitorial investigation into the conditions of this particular industry. You have no power to inspect and you cannot take evidence from mere statements, and once your inquiry is undertaken you must suspend while your inquiry goes on trade in a large quantity of matters. How long is that investigation going to last?

What information the Board of Trade lately gave us as to food conditions and wages conditions in the United States of America seems to have taken years to collect. The investigation is only brought up to February, 1909. That seems to show that you take a very long time to make anything like a persuasive accurate investigation into the conditions of trade. Under your Bill you would enable all the trades affected by it instantly to be stopped from importing these goods, and the stoppage of the importation would have to last until the Board of Trade here, either through its Consuls or through its special agents abroad, have made full investigation. From the very beginning the Bill is a specious but impracticable plan to prohibit the importation of foreign goods, and there is no limitation of countries. We have got no idea of the number of countries from which these goods might come. You might easily say a dozen besides the Colonies and the United States. Just consider the staff of investigators you would require to settle whether the conditions of industries in all the foreign countries that sent us goods are good or bad. That is an undertaking for a whole army of investigators.

Hon. Members opposite frequently reproach us on this side of the House with the number of officials we are adding to the list, and with a system of bureaucracy. But here is a Bill that would at once create a new army of officials.

Mr. REMNANT

Is the Board of Trade no use at all? Does it not keep any records at all?

Mr. SPEAKER

The hon. Member must not answer arguments in that way.

Mr. ROBERTSON

The Board of Trade is of great use, but the mere compilation of foreign records would not do here. Your Bill prescribes a special investigation and that when a requisition is brought forward the Board of Trade shall stop goods temporarily coming in here and go into an investigation of its own motion. It cannot act on foreign Blue Books and say from that information whether a particular trade is produced under sweated conditions or not. The Board of Trade has no machinery at present for doing what this Bill prescribes. Do hon. Members opposite realise that their Bill would not only apply to manufactured goods but to the case of raw material as well. Take the case of the production of cotton. How are you going to settle what the conditions are that constitutes sweated conditions in this instance?

Mr. ROWLAND HUNT

That is not a completed product.

Mr. ROBERTSON

That would be excluded. You would be quite willing to allow in raw material made under sweated conditions.

Mr. HUNT

It is not our business.

Mr. ROBERTSON

I will limit my arguments to manufactured products. You may note these manufactured products can be made in many countries, and I take it this might happen. Supposing in one country competing with you in that way you did make an investigation, and after keeping out the goods for years, supposing the manufacturers removed their factory across the frontier into our country? Then when they settled there you would have to chase them up again and commence a new investigation. You would need to do that if the Bill is to become anything more than an empty farce. This idea in this Bill has frequently been considered, and all practical men have agreed that while it is desirable, if you could do it effectively, to exclude any goods pro- duced under sweated conditions you would be justified in doing so; but the answer is there is no possibility by which you can discriminate, and supposing you discriminate wrongly you inflict an injustice of a very grave kind upon foreign producers and manufacturers. This is the most impractical measure ever suggested in connection with the Tariff Reform propaganda. It is an admission of the untruthfulness of the assertion that in protected countries the conditions of the workers are better than in Free Trade countries.

Mr. MORETON FREWEN

This question of the production of sweated labour is going to occupy a great deal of attention in this House during this Session. The Bill which was produced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer a week since is an admirable Bill, and it should improve the labouring conditions and the conditions of the industrial classes of this country, which are absolutely to my mind at the mercy of this very question. I am perfectly certain that this country cannot go on under conditions of absolutely unrestricted competition with those countries where the wages of labour are extremely low and the labour is extremely effective. I am reminded of one or two episodes not so long since in my own experience of foreign industries. I am reminded particularly of walking into a boot mill at Cawnpore with the late Sir George Allen, fifteen years ago. I found in this boot mill about 5,000 native children working the most beautiful Boston boot-making machinery, and their wages was 2d. per day. I said to any friend, "This is serious competition for the boot industry of Northampton,'' and Sir George Allen said, "Yes, I think last year the Northampton firms got the whole contracts for supplying Army boots, but last year I got one-half." Sometime afterwards I again met Sir George Allen, and I asked him how the boot factories at Cawnpore were getting on. He replied, "Very well, I have got the other half of the contract I spoke to you about." If you follow these conditions round the world, if you take the tin mines of the Malay Straits, the growing competition of Chinese labour in the iron mines of China, or any industry with which we in this House are concerned, either local or national, you will find a growing competition which is terrible. Only two years ago I saw a vast flotilla of canoes coming down the coast of British Columbia carrying two whole tribes of Indians who were going to pick the hops in the hop- fields of Washington. This is competition with my own county of Sussex. In Sussex at a certain period of the year we do receive the poor of this great Metropolis for a month's holiday in the hop fields where they, at any rate, get the sunlight and the fresh air. What chance is there for the outpour of London when our labour is coming into competition with the Digger Indians of Washington and Oregon?

4.0 P.M.

I have already pointed out, on the authority of Mr. Watson, one of the inspectors of the United States Steel Corporation, that the new steel rolling mill which started last last year at Hankow is turning out 400 tons of steel rails per day, and is paying skilled labour 6d. per capita. Mr. Watson pointed out that the wages of those Chinamen are just one-fifteenth of the wages of those employed in the Pittsburg Mills, and that the efficiency of the yellow man as compared with the white man is 90 per cent. Steamships have become enormously efficient and railway rates have fallen. To-day single engines in the United States are hauling 10,000 tons of freight behind them, and all those conditions of scientific development are impairing the prosperity and progress of our white workers. We cannot continue to compete in this way if we are to bring our working classes into unrestricted competition with the labour of Asiatic races. In all our trades we have to keep up amongst our people a decent standard of living. Are we going to be compelled to sweat our people at home because of foreign competition? Are we going to keep our people in unrestricted competition with Asiatic labour—where no fuel is required, no roof tree, no warm clothing, and where no highly-carbonised food is necessary I Here you have 800,000,000 of people equipped with modern machinery who are in a position to take the bread out of the mouths of our workers, and this is likely to continue from time to time. The more I see of Asia the more future competition alarms me. We have been discussing Belgian competition, which is formidable, but when you get to the Far East you see wonderful imitative nations, content to labour from childhood to old age at a wage of 2d., equipped with modern machinery, determined, active, liking work.

White men do not like work, and they work because they have to work, but a Chinaman works because he likes it. The conditions of competition in Asia are thoroughly alarming. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer explains more fully the Bill which he adumbrated the other day which has filled us all with hope and confidence, when he produces it in detail, the very first question which will arise is—How are we to keep our rate of wages up? We cannot do it if we are to compete with yellow, brown, and black men. Under those circumstances white men cannot keep their wages up to the point where these insurance rates will be beneficial. This enormous competition is growing up, and we know very little about it. Therefore we require constant inquiries abroad upon this subject. I know that the Consuls of the United States are getting this information, and all the evidence we have received is most alarming. I think this is a question which ought to be very fairly and carefully considered by representatives of labour in this House.

Mr. PRINGLE

This Bill presents in one sense a very narrow issue, but it raises from another point of view a very wide and general question. The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has devoted himself in the main to the wider and more general aspects of the question. I wish to draw attention to the actual object of the Bill as it is framed. This Bill professes to be a corollary of the Trade Boards Act of 1909. Before we pass a Bill which may tie described as consequential upon another Act of Parliament I think we should make out a case for this consequential legislation. To justify this Bill it should be possible to point out to the House that certain evils have arisen from the legislation already passed, and that further legislation is required to deal with those evils. It has been suggested that if we are to put an end to sweating in this country we must exclude the goods made by sweated labour in other countries. That sounds perfectly fair and just as a logical proposition, but we do not frame our legislation in this country simply on abstract grounds of logic, but more to deal with practical problems and circumstances which have actually arisen. In order to justify legislation of this kind it seems to me it would be necessary to prove, in the first place. that there had been a large invasion of foreign sweated goods; and in the second place that a large amount of labour had been displaced in this country as a result of this invasion or dumping of foreign-made sweated goods.

The Trade Boards Act only applies to four sets of trades. It applies in the first place, to the ready-made tailoring trade; in the second place, to the cardboard industry; in the third place, to the chain-making industry; and, in the fourth place, to the lace-making industry. There has been no attempt made to suggest there has been any increased importation of ready-made clothing as the result of the Trade Boards Act, and there has been no suggestion of any increased foreign competition with regard to the lace finishing trade, which, after all, is the trade which hitherto has been most open to foreign competition. The only two definite and practical instances which have been brought forward have been the chain-making industry and the cardboard box industry. I want to analyse the case with regard to them. After all, it is the sole practical case for the Bill. What does it amount to? Two hon. Members have produced two advertisers' catalogues. Are we to pass legislation in this House on the strength of two advertisers' catalogues? Has there ever been a more foolish and futile case for legislation brought forward. My hon. Friend who spoke from the bench before me said he was going to support this Bill for reasons which I confess I was quite unable to follow. He described the Bill very aptly and very truly as an electioneering leaflet. I never heard of anybody before in this House voting for the Second Reading of an electioneering leaflet. I suspect the hon. Member is in fear of what may happen at another election. He fears the leaflet for which this Bill has been designed.

Mr. REMNANT

I beg to repudiate that altogether.

Mr. PRINGLE

I accept the hon. Gentleman's repudiation, but I have seen leaflets, and I have had to answer leaflets on the public platform already, and I expect if, unfortunately, this foolish and futile measure goes to a division on the Second Reading, I shall have to deal with the same arguments in the future. I shall be told that whilst regulating labour in this country by the Factory and Workshops Act and by means of industrial insurance, yet I open the door to the products of sweated labour abroad, owing to our system of free imports.

Mr. HUNT

So you do.

Mr. PRINGLE

The hon. Member for Shropshire tells me that is the contention which will be used against me. Yet I am reproached because I say this Bill is designed for an electioneering leaflet. I know the hon. Member for Holborn (Mr. Remnant) has introduced a number of measures in this House which are of great value from the Social Reform point of view, but, judging from the speeches of certain hon. Gentlemen who have supported him to-day, one could not acquit them of having these ulterior motives. We have been told, for instance, by the hon. Member for Dudley (Colonel Griffith-Boscawen) that he supports this measure as a Tariff Reform measure, and he went on with a proposition which seemed to me to illustrate the complete muddle headedness which usually characterises their Acts of Parliament. [HON. MemBERS: "Oh, oh."] I will prove it. I think the hon. Baronet for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) will agree with me when I have stated the argument in full. The hon. Member in the first place said he would prefer a large measure of Tariff Reform. He would prefer to do this by tariffs and duties, "but," he says, "I cannot do this, so I am going to take the less serious method of complete prohibition," as if prohibition were not the very extreme form of Protection. It has always been recognised, in all countries, that prohibition is a most extreme form of Protection, and indeed Protectionist duties have been utilised in the past as a means of mitigating the hardships of prohibition.

I wish to return to the specific objects of this Bill and the methods by which those objects are to be secured. It seems to me to be clearly shown that the promoters of this Bill have made no attempt to make out a practical case. How can you hope to achieve the objects of the measure with such ineffectual machinery as is embodied in this Bill. I can only say if the result of the setting apart of Fridays is to be the production of measures of this kind it will not be long before we are called upon to say "good-bye" altogether to the time allotted to private Members. The Bill has already been riddled by the hon. Member for Pontefract, and no attempt has been made to answer his criticisms. He pointed out to the House that the Bill did not correspond with its title: it proposes to exclude foreign sweated manufactured articles, but at the same time it goes on to exclude goods whether they come from British Dominions or from foreign countries. India has been brought to our minds very forcibly by the hon. Member who last spoke. Let us examine the Bill. It proposes to add to the goods prohibited:—

"Goods which have been made or produced by any trade to which in the United Kingdom the Trade Boards Act, 1909, has been applied, and which have been proved to the satisfaction of the Board of Trade to have been made or produced under sweated conditions of labour."

But what are sweated conditions of labour? These are defined in Clause 5 in these words:— That the rate of wages paid is less than the minimum rate fixed by a trade board in the case of similar articles made or produced in the United Kingdom. That means that if the rate of wages in foreign countries is less than the minimum rate fixed by the Trade Board in the case of similar articles, it is to be treated as a sweated industry. But we have Trade Boards in various parts of the United Kingdom. In fact, Ireland is dealt with as a special case on this ground alone, that you cannot establish a minimum rate in Great Britain which would apply to the standard of living in Ireland. What then is the standard to be set up: that of Great Britain or that of Ireland? If it is to be the standard of Great Britain we must put an embargo on goods that come from Ireland, and that surely will not commend itself to the hon. Member of the Irish party who last spoke—

Mr. KILBRIDE

Who paid £5,000 for a seat!

Mr. PRINGLE

The words are, "That the rate of wages is less than the minimum rate fixed by the Trade Board," and I want to know to what standard that is to be applied. We desire, under the Trade Boards Act, to achieve this result that the people who work in the particular industries should be in receipt of a living wage. That is obviously a living wage, which depends altogether upon the conditions prevailing in a particular locality, but under this Clause we commit ourselves to this extraordinary result, that we set up as a standard which is to prevail throughout the whole of the world the conditions applying to great Britain. Has there even been anything more absurd within the four corners of a Bill introduced into this House. I appeal to the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury). He is a, man of great experience in these things, and I understand that he has made it his duty during the years in which he has sat in this House to read every Bill which has been printed, and I challenge him to mention a 'single Bill which contains a provision as absurd or more absurd than that which I have mentioned to the House.

Sir F. BANBURY

There were a good many Bills brought in by private Members on the Radical side which were quite as ridiculous.

Mr. PRINGLE

The hon. Baronet has made a general reply. I was sure, in order to save the reputation of his own side he would endeavour to make some statement of the kind. My challenge to him was to mention any particular Bill which had a Clause which was so absurd and so illogical, and it is quite clear as he has omitted to mention one concrete individual case that I can safely say that my challenge has not been accepted. Obviously, if we are to apply the principle of the Trade Boards Act to this Bill it should be done by applying the principle of the living wage, that is, a wage which will enable a man to live, considering the cost of living and the various standards of living in all these countries. This is a most interesting inquiry which is to be forced upon the officials of the Board of Trade. If three workmen and three employers make a requisition to the Board of Trade forthwith the inquiry is to be instituted. If these employers and workmen find that some people in China have begun to make boxes of a particular character, and three workmen and three employers in the box trade make a representation to the Board of Trade that these are being imported into this country, what is to happen? The Board of Trade has forthwith to send an expedition to China to make an inquiry. There is, meanwhile, one provision which suspends operations, and it is, of course, a temporary provision. That can be done on the certificate of Consular officers, but that only affects a temporary suspension of the prohibition. These inquiries take a considerable time, and it is necessary to have a temporary injunction as it were, or an interim interdict that will suspend an interdict till the Consul reports in a particular way. If the Consular officer gives a particular certificate, then the interdict will not come into effect. That, however, is only a temporary provision. In order to justify permanent exclusion there has to be a full inquiry.

"The Board of Trade shall at, once hold an enquiry as to whether any goods are imported in competition with the British-made goods of that trade, and if the Board of Trade is satisfied that such goods are imported, it shall further enquire into the rate of wages paid and the condition of employment generally in that trade in the countries in which the imported goods are made or produced."

This is a very difficult and delicate enquiry to make, and one which can only be made by an extremely skilled investigator. He has to find whether the goods are produced in that foreign country under such conditions that the people engaged in the trade are making a living wage. He has to enquire therefore not only the rate of wages, but how much it costs the operators in those trades to live, and then, drawing deductions from the two sets of facts, he has to come to a decision as to whether he can say that the workman is enjoying a living wage. Obviously this is a very difficult enquiry, and it must be an extremely expensive enquiry, and we are to set up this extremely difficult and expensive method of enquiry for the purpose of excluding goods which do not at present come into this country to any serious extent. Of course, there is the further difficulty of getting the information. Who is going to give it? They know that the enquiry has been instituted. It will be public property. Is the employer going to give it? He knows he will lose his profit if he does, and the Board of Trade should decide that sweated conditions prevail. Is the workman going to give it? He knows he is being employed to make the goods exported. Will he give information which may possibly deprive him of his livelihood? Who is to give the information, and how are your officials in an inquiry for this purpose to obtain any reliable data upon which they can reach a conclusion at all? The whole Bill bristles with absurdities and contradictions. It is, of course, only to be expected, considering that it does come from the Tariff Reform party, and considering that it is inspired by Tariff Reform aims. We had an interesting point, which also raises the Tariff Reform question, raised by the hon. Gentleman (Major White). He was endeavouring to show that in regard to the box trade, we were threatened with competition, not of wooden boxes, but of tin boxes, and the evidence which he adduced was that Germany was giving a rebate on tin plates. But that does not mean increased competition from German tin boxes. A rebate on German tin plates will be an advantage to the tin box makers in this country. It will possibly increase the competition against makers of wooden boxes, but the competition with the makers of wooden boxes, will come, not from the German makers, but from the makers of tin boxes in this country. It will be home and not foreign competition. So that this instance, which is one of the few practical concrete instances brought forward, is an argument altogether against the policy of this Bill.

I do not desire to enter at any length into these extremely wide questions which have been raised by the hon. Member (Mr. Moreton Frewen), but his references to Asiatic labour throw a new light on the latest phase of the Tariff Reform propaganda. Up to now we have understood that the fear of the Tariff Reformers was the German and American competitor, but now, apparently, it is the low paid and low grade labour of Asiatics. It is partly the low paid and low grade labour of our own great Dependency of India, and, on the other hand, it is the low paid and the low grade labour of the people of China and Japan. I admit that there is some force in some of the statements that he has made, and that there is a certain amount of formidable competition growing up in those countries. But I do not believe that it depends on the lowness of the wages in. those countries. If those countries remain at their present state of industrial development, or even at 4he state of industrial development which they reached at any time during last century, they could never be formidable competitors of this country. It is always the individual workmen who are rising to tile state of efficiency to which the workmen of this country have advanced, and, if they rise in the scale of industrial efficiency they will also rise in their demands for remuneration and they will continue to do it. That is a thing which we as Free Traders do not regret or deplore, but which we, in the interest of working men in all parts of the world, recognise and welcome. The hon. Member opposite, who is, of course, an out and out Tariff Reformer, and whose politics consist of Tariff Reform and nothing else, smiles at such a position. It is unfamiliar to him. It. is necessarily unfamiliar to those who have adopted the usual arguments, or rather fallacies, of the Tariff Reform platform.

But, after all, it is not this wider question which we are in the main dealing with at the present time. It is true that this Bill, narrow as it is, is capable of very large extension. The Trade Boards Act can be extended to very many industries. It only applies to four industries at the present time, but the Board of Trade, by Provisional Order to be approved by Parliament, could include any other trade which is not included at present—that is, if employers and workmen in a trade petition for inclusion. Well, of course, in these circumstances, the provisions of this Bill might be applied to a great many trades. We might have some manufacturers here who were somewhat worried with foreign competition which did not necessarily arise from sweating conditions abroad, and who, wanting to get rid of that foreign competition, would make an alliance with the workmen to get rid of it. They would unanimously apply to the Board of Trade to have their industry included under the Trade Boards Act, so that they might have a Board to fix the wages in that industry. We might have a facile President of the Board of Trade, possibly, as has happened before, one holding Protectionist principles, although in a Free Trade Government, who would agree to the representations of the employers and workmen in that particular industry in favour of getting a Provisional Order approved by this House and the other House simply and solely for the purpose of excluding foreign competition altogether. It seems to me that would open a very wide door. It would be a means of opening the door to a complete system of prohibition in this country. That is much more objectionable than the Protective system which the hon. Member openly advocates, because, after all, a Protective system only restricts the admission of goods; it does not altogether exclude them, whereas under the provisions of this. Bill, together with the Trade Boards Act, it might be possible under such a conspiracy as I have described to get included in sweated trades some trades which were suffering somewhat from foreign competition and which desired to get rid of that competition.

I regret that there has been no attempt from the other side of the House to answer the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. It was significant to notice the contempt with which some of his arguments were received by some of the hon. Gentlemen responsible for this Bill. We have been taunted by hon. Gentlemen on the opposite benches with neglecting such a problem as this. It is a staple of their platform oratory that we admit these sweated goods. But where is the Front Opposition Bench to-day? Is it looking at flying-machines at Hendon? At least one of the Front Opposition Bench might have been here to give the usual reply from that quarter to the very able speech of the Parliamentary Secretary for the Board of Trade. It seems to me that in the concluding part of that speech the hon. Gentleman pointed to the real solution of this problem. I think the hon. Member responsible for this Bill, along with many others on this side of the House, is anxious to see a restriction of sweated labour, not only here, but elsewhere. We do not think he has taken the right way to diminishing sweated labour either in this country or abroad. We believe that the Trade Boards Act has done something to mitigate the conditions in this country, but we do not believe you will bring about any extension of the principle of that Act to other countries by adopting the method of exclusion which is contained in this Bill. The method of exclusion and prohibition is a hostile one. It is akin to the big revolver of which we have heard so often in the Tariff Reform propaganda. When you use hostile weapons you are not likely to bring those against whom they are directed to share your views and be actuated by the same principles, and it is better under these circumstances that you should not use hostile weapons, the weapons of exclusion, restriction, and prohibition, but that you should proceed upon those methods which are successful in other countries, and which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade mentioned in connection with the night work of women, and the white phosphorus matches—a system of international agreement. We have seen that it is common ground on both sides that the conscience of European people has been awakened to the great national as well as industrial evils arising from sweating. Surely it would be better to take advantage of this awakening of the public conscience of Europe to these great problems, and to proceed by way of international agreement, rather than by the way of foolish, futile, restrictive, and prohibitive methods?

Mr. TYSON WILSON

There is a great Zeal with which I agree in the speeches of the hon. Member for Lanarkshire (Mr. Pringle) and the hon. Member for Tyneside (Mr. J. M. Robertson). At the same time they both admit that something ought to be done to prevent the importation of sweated made goods, no matter where they come from, whether from our Colonies or from foreign countries. I had not the pleasure of hearing the Secretary to the Board of Trade. I do not know what promise, if any, he made in connection with this matter, but certainly something ought to be done either by way of international arrangement or agreement or treaty, or otherwise, because if the work of the Trade Boards is rendered futile by goods coming in, then the Trade Boards are no good at all. As showing that my attitude in this matter is quite consistent I may mention that on 16th July, 1909, when Mr. Harry Marks moved an Amendment to the Trade Boards Bill on lines somewhat similar to this, I voted with him. I would like, if possible, to see questions of Tariff Reform and Free Trade kept out of a Debate of this kind. Somehow or other hon. Members on that side of the House seem to think that nothing good can come from Free Trader's while hon. Members on this side of the House seem to think that nothing good can come from Tariff Reformers. As far as I am concerned, I am prepared to accept anything good, wherever it comes from. I somewhat doubt the sincerity of some of those hon. Gentlemen who support the Bill, for the simple reason that they are connected with companies who do all they possibly can to sweat those whom they employ. [HON. MEMBERS: "Name."] Some Members of this House are connected with companies which will not pay the standard rate of wages if they can possibly help it. Trade unionists are concerned for the employés of those companies.

I believe the machinery of the measure can be amended in Committee to such an extent as to make the Bill workable, and so do something to prevent the importation of sweated goods to this country. I am going to support the Second Reading of the Bill, though I admit that the machinery portion of it is bad. I did not hear what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade said on this measure, and do not know whether he stated what course the Government were going to adopt in regard to it. But I hope the result of this discussion will be that matters will be so arranged in foreign countries that some good will be done from that standpoint. I shall sup- port the Second Reading of the Bill. I believe, if it be allowed to go to Committee, Amendments could be made which would enable something to be done to protect the lives and wages of people at present working in these sweated industries.

Mr. GODFREY COLLINS

We on these benches welcome the introduction of this Bill, because for many years past Free Traders have been asking the Tariff Reform party to come out into the open. We have asked them on platforms and in this House what exactly their policy is. Until this afternoon we have had no Protection Bill laid before the House and the country, and I must say, and I must say from what we hear of the underlying principles contained therein, we shall have less regard for Tariff Reform in the future than we have had in the past. I would like to appeal to the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) who spoke this afternoon to support us in rejecting this Bill. So far as I understood his argument, it was that the measure would give a roving commission to a number of officials to go the world over at the expense of the State We know that the hon. Baronet objects to State officials in any shape or form, and under this Bill there would be a great multiplication of officials who would be paid at the expense of the State.

Sir F. BANBURY

I do not think I said that. It is the Consuls abroad who would have to put the Act into operation. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I do not think there is any question of paying extra money to Consuls.

Mr. GODFREY COLLINS

I quite appreciate that the Consuls abroad will have to advise these officials as to where they are to go. These officials will have to leave this country, and seek out in every part of the world the conditions of labour and the conditions of life abroad. It seems to me like some of those Tariff Reform trippers who went searching high and low in Germany and other parts. Those officials would be paid for by the State, and, whether directly or indirectly, the expense would be borne by the British taxpayer. However much we may sympathise with the objects contained in the Bill to check sweating in any part of the globe, yet though our sentiments are in that direction, unless the machinery can carry out that purpose there is little use in our passing this Bill this afternoon. Therefore, I trust those hon. Members below the Gangway who are practical in their views when they realise that it is quite impossible to carry the Bill out in practice will support us in voting against the Second Reading.

Mr. KING

I came down to the House by no means prejudiced against this Bill; and, in fact, rather inclined to vote in favour of it. I think if I had only listened to the early speeches, and if we had the division earlier I might have been found in the Lobby in favour of it. I am one of those open-minded men who are always open to conviction, and I have been convinced to-day by the arguments of my own side. I have great respect for my own political judgment, but I have still more respect for the judgment of my own party. In view of the excellent speech we have had from the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade and the excellent speeches we have had from this side from various Members, and to which no answer has been even attempted on the other side, and in view of the further fact that nearly all the Members on the back of this Bill have gone elsewhere for pleasure when they ought to have been here for duty, in view of all those facts, if it is going to a division I shall take my courage in my hands and vote against; this Bill. I might be allowed possibly to refer to the fact that this Bill owes its origin to Mr. Harry Marks. I have a personal respect for Mr. Harry Marks, because he twice defeated me in Parliamentary contests. I should like to pay a tribute to his great ability, and his sincerity upon this question of sweated labour, but though I should be glad to pay a tribute to his ability by voting for it, yet I must resist the temptation on this occasion, because conviction is upon the side of the forces arranged against this Bill. Reference has been made to the inevitable leaflet which, I daresay, is already in the Press. I have no doubt whatever that if it is not already so it will be in the Press the first thing on Monday morning, and that if I vote against this Bill my Constituency and the Constituencies of those who vote against the Bill, will be flooded with this ephemeral literature. In spite of that, I intend to do my duty to my conscience and to my Constituents, and I believe courage and conviction are the strength of this country. The object of this Bill, I suppose, is to put down sweating not only in foreign countries but everywhere. That at any rate ought to be the object present to the minds of all who support the Bill. My view is that you cannot touch sweating by direct legislation; or, rather, you can touch it, but not successfully. You cannot remove it from our social and industrial system by legislation of any one kind.

Mr. GOULDING

Will you vote for the repeal of the Trade Boards Act?

Mr. KING

Oh no; every little helps. I am not against the Trade Boards Act. I am not against scheduling other industries. If hon. Members opposite will propose that other industries should be scheduled under that Act, I will give the matter my serious consideration. Sweating can be overcome only by generally raising the level of living, the standard of wages, and the conditions of industrial life. Therefore I look to the strength and the strengthening of the trade union movement as one of the great means of striking a blow at the sweating evil. When a Bill is brought forward by a party which really distrusts and dislikes trade unionism—[several HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—a party which delights in the Osborne Judgment, and would not have that judgment rectified if they could help it; a party which opposed the Trade Disputes Bill—

Mr. GOULDING

So did your leaders.

Mr. KING

But they have learned wisdom, and you have not. On this question it is no use arguing that our leaders or any of us have been inconsistent from time to time. I glory in the fact that I am being inconsistent this afternoon. It is only by progressing from inconsistency to consistency that we can gain anything. The trade union movement is not confined to this country. We want to see it extended in all countries. Labour Members can help in the prevention of sweating and the importation of sweated goods much better by doing all they can to internationalise the trade union movement than by supporting this Bill.

I wish to say a word on a question which comes in only incidentally, but has a very direct bearing on this matter, namely, labour representation and the payments of salaries to Members of Parliament. I am not ashamed to say that I support honest wages for an honest day's work. If I do an honest and courageous day's work in this House—

Mr. SPEAKER

That is quite irrevelant to this Bill.

Mr. KING

I am aware that I was transgressing. Sweating is not to be overcome by legislation of this kind. The Bill is impracticable, and would result in a huge increase of officials. We have heard a good deal lately about jobbery. There would be plenty of opportunity for jobs by the opposite side if they came in and had this Bill to go on, because they would have their back-bench men pressing for large numbers of' extra inspectors to be appointed to carry out this Act. They would undoubtedly be anxious to see members of their own party—that is men who believe thoroughly in this policy, which we do not—appointed to carry out this Act. I myself make no doubt whatever that if this Bill were to come into force and were to be administered, it would lead directly to political jobbery of a partisan kind. [HON. MEMBERS: "Divide; divide."] If there are persistent cries of divide, it will only enable me to breathe more freely and to collect the thoughts that are in my mind. These, I am sure, if properly delivered, will convince even Members on the opposite side. Labour is depressed all over the world, and it is hampered and depressed in our land by monopoly, and by landlords keeping back land from development.

Mr. SPEAKER

The hon. Member must really be more relevant. Already I have warned him.

Mr. KING

I assure you, Sir, that it is with every respect to you and the rules of the House that I desire to continue my remarks. I apologise for having transgressed, but, admittedly, this is a subject of a very wide character. The cause of this Debate has made me strong who before was weak; has made me decided who before was undecided. I have heard to-day of the evils of sweating. I am ready to do everything in a legitimate way to remove those evils. I am firmly convinced that this Bill will not mitigate the evil at all, and therefore with full courage, with full anticipation of the consequences, electoral and otherwise, that may follow, I shall go into the Lobby against the Bill.

Mr. RAFFAN

I have been endeavouring to make out with what object this Bill has been introduced into this House. I wish to know whether it is some part of the ordinary Tariff Reform propaganda, whether there is a real desire to benefit the workers in the sweated trades, or whether there is a desire to put into pos- session of special privileges men who for years, until Sweated Boards were established, lived upon sweated industries? because so far as the workers are concerned they are protected by the Board. This Bill gives the workers no additional protection. It insures no additional wages. It takes no hour off their time. Their condition remains as it was. Who, then, would benefit? No one would benefit except the employers, except these men who made their money out of the blood and sweat and tears of the workers. Hon. Gentlemen opposite smile now. They were keen enough in their platitudes about sweating a few moments ago. But I would point out that the men into whose pockets this Bill would put money are the men who profited by sweating, who lived by sweating, and who were not ashamed to make thousands out of trades in which sweating was practised. Even if it were a laudable object for this country to step in and to put these men in a position of special privilege, the cost that would be incurred would be so great that it would be infinitely better by vote in Supply to pay over a subsidy to those employers than to incur such cost. An hon. Member of the Labour Benches suggested that we should give this Bill a Second Reading

and improve it in Committee; but if one reads the Bill carefully one will be forced to the conclusion that it would be impossible in Committee to put it into anything like a workmanlike shape. The details in this Bill are more absurd than in any Bill I have ever read. You are going to make inquiry into conditions abroad. When is your prohibition to apply? Not after inquiry, but pending inquiry, before you can be sure that these goods are sweated or not, and on the requisition of three workers and three employers you are going to prohibit competition pending inquiry. A more preposterous proposition was never put before the House of Commons. The whole Bill is on a par with the principle proposition, which is a ridiculous one on the face of it. I suggest to my Friends on the Labour Benches it is not good policy to vote for a Bill like this, the argument in favour of which is so fundamentally bad.

Mr. REMNANT

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

And there not being one hundred Members supporting the Motion for the Closure, as required by Standing Order No. 27, and it being after Five of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Friday next.

The House divided: Ayes, 49; Noes, 44.

Division No.240.] AYES [5.0 p.m.
Aitken, William M. Frewen, Moreton Pole-Carew, Sir Reginald
Alden, Percy Gardner, Ernest Roberts, George H. (Norwich)
Amery, L C. M. S. Gilman, Captain John Smith, Albert (Clitheroe)
Archer-Shee, Major Martin Goulding, Edward Alfred Spear, John Ward
Ashley, Wilfrid W. Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West) Stanier, Beville
Balcarres, Lord Henderson, Arthur (Durham) Thorne, William (West Ham)
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Hope, John Deans (Haddington) Thynne, Lord Alexander
Bathurst, Hon. Allen B. (Glouc., E.) Hudson, Walter Touche, George A.
Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich) Hunt, Rowland White, Major G. D. (Lane., Southport)
Boyton, James Illingworth, Percy H. Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud
Brunner, John F. L. Jowett, Frederick William Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Carlile, Edward Mildred Lansbury, George Wolmer, Viscount
Cassel, Felix Lawson, Hon. Harry (Mile End) Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, Ripon)
Clynes, John R. Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich) Worthington-Evans, L.
Cooper, Richard Ashmole M'Laren, F. W. S. (Line., Spalding)
Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.
Croft, Henry Page Nield, Herbert Remnant and Cot. Griffith-Boscawen.
Forster, Henry William Norton-Griffiths, J. (Wednesbury)
NOES
Abraham, William (Dublin) Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) Raffan, Peter Wilson
Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire) Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil) Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)
Atherley-J ones, Llewellyn A. Keating, Matthew Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)
Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple) Kilbride, Denis Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)
Bryce, John Annan Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cockermouth) Scott, A. MacCallum (Bridgeton)
Cameron, Robert MacGhee, Richard Sherwell, Arthur James
Chancellor, Henry George MacVeagh, Jeremiah Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, W.)
Collins, Godfrey P. Greenock) M'Callum, John M. Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Condon, Thomas Joseph Menzies, Sir Walter Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay T.
Crooks, William Murray, Capt. Hon. Arthur C. White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.)
Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster) Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)
Edwards, J. H. (Glamorgan, Mid) Norton, Capt. C. W. (Newington, W.) Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)
Gibson, Sir James Puckering Pearce, Robert (Leek)
Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.
Hayden, John Patrick Pringle, William M. R. Booth and Mr. King.
Higham, John Sharp Radford, George Heynes