PART II.—EXCEPTIONS. (Hansard, 20 November 1911)

HC Deb 20 November 1911 vol 31 cc833-984 833

§ (a) Employment in the naval or military service of the Crown, including service in Officers' Training Corps, but excluding service in the Naval Reserves, the Army Reserve, and the Territorial Force except when called out on actual service or on permanent service or on embodiment.

§ (b) Employment under the Crown or any local or other public authority where the Insurance Commissioners certify that the terms of the employment are such as to secure provision in respect of sickness and disablement on the whole not less favourable than the corresponding benefits conferred by Part I. of this Act.

§ (c) Employment as a teacher to whom the Elementary School Teachers Superannuation Act, 1898, or a scheme under Section fourteen of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908, or the National School Teachers (Ireland) Act, 1878, applies.

§ (d) Employment as an agent not ordinarily engaged in any other regular employment paid by commission or fees or a share in the profits, or partly in one and partly in another such ways, and not being ordinarily employed by one employer only.

§ (e) Employment in respect of which no wages or other money payment is made where the employer is the occupier of an agricultural holding the annual value of which as assessed for the purposes of Schedule A. of the Income Tax Acts is less than twenty pounds or where the employer is the parent of, or person liable to maintain, the person employed and that person is under the age of sixteen.

§ (f) Employment otherwise than by way of manual labour and at a regular salary or other fixed rate of remuneration exceeding one hundred and sixty pounds a year.

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§ (g) Employment of a casual nature otherwise than for the purposes of the employer's trade or business, and otherwise than for the purposes of any game or recreation where the persons employed are engaged or paid through a club, and in such case the club shall be deemed to be the employer.

§ The CHAIRMAN
The first Amendment on the Paper is consequential.

§ The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George)
I beg to move, in paragraph (a), to leave out the words "or any ship registered in the United Kingdom, or on any other British ship or vessel of which the owner, or (if there is more than one owner), the managing owner or manager, resides or has his principal place of business in the United Kingdom."

§ Mr. FALLE
On a point of Order, before the Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is put, I have a drafting Amendment which comes earlier, to substitute the words "Great Britain" for "United Kingdom."

§ The CHAIRMAN
It is proposed to leave out certain words after "United Kingdom," and the question has already been put.

§ Mr. FALLE
The point is a technical one arising on the words United Kingdom. Neither the Channel Islands nor the Isle of Man come within the words "United Kingdom."

§ The CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member can deal with the point on the question that the Schedule be the Schedule of the Bill.

§ Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Schedule," put, and negatived.

§ Amendment made: In paragraph (a), after the word "whether" ["and whether paid by the employer and some other person"], insert the words "the employed person is."—[Mr. Lloyd George.]

§ Sir GEORGE DOUGHTY
I beg to move, in paragraph (a), after the word "piece" ["whether paid by time or by the piece"], to insert the words, "or by a share in the profits of the enterprise."
I desire to raise the question as to share fishermen, and whether or not they are included in this Bill. By my Amendment they would be included. I would like the 835 Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider the difficulties which surround that class of fishermen. It is very easy in many sections of employment to find words which apply to them generally, but in the class of employment to which I refer there other considerations arise. If, however, the contract of service is all that is necessary to bring a man within the provisions of the Bill, I think that the share fisherman also might be able to prove that he comes within the meaning of the Bill. I would suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, while it is clear that a number of these men are within the limits of the Bill, it is not quite clear whether other men would be. For example, in regard to the Cornish fishermen and other fishermen on the coasts of Great Britain, who have casual employment, it is not clear to me whether or not they are included. If hon. Members will consider for a moment they will realise that these men are not in constant employment, not from any fault of their own, but because the elements frequently prevent them from following their occupation. If a strong wind is blowing from the west they are unable, however willing, to gain their livelihood on the sea, and it often occurs that these men, for three or four days in the week are unable to follow their ordinary calling in life. If they are only employed for two or three days at a time on very precarious work, it seems to me that at the end of the week they have very little indeed out of which to pay any charge that this Bill may impose upon them. Amongst that class of men there are two sections. There are those who own the boat as well as work the boat, and therefore those men, under the Bill, will be both employer and employed, and they would have to pay not only the 4d. but also the 3d. In these boats there is a certain number of men who are occasionally employed for two or three days' work, and they receive a wage in some small proportion to the value of the catch. Therefore these men are in the position of receiving a wage, and somebody will have to pay for them under the Bill as it stands.
May I call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to another very important class of men—the Scotch herring fishermen? There are thousands of men engaged in the Scotch herring fishing industry. As a rule, these men are employed for not more than seven months in the year. 836 Some of them are part owners of the vessels but a large proportion of them are not part owners; they have no interest whatever in the vessels. Their service consists in their owning the nets, and the catch is divided into so many shares, by which means they are remunerated for the services they render. These men, as a rule, are not employed for more than seven months in the year in that particular class of the fishing industry. They have to make their living as best they can during the remaining portion of the year, and they have to pay the contribution. Then there is the class of fishermen whom I particularly represent in this House, namely, those working in connection with steam trawlers. They are, generally speaking, employed all the year round, and they take their profit out of each "catch" as the time comes along. Some of these men earn very considerable sums.

§ The CHAIRMAN
The hon. Gentleman, I understand, wants to bring these copartners into the Bill or to leave them out. By his Amendment he wants to leave them in, but I gather from his speech that he wants to leave them out.

§ Sir G. DOUGHTY
I have not said that I want to leave them out. I want an explanation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to what their position is. I want to see them all in, and that is the meaning of my Amendment.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Them all in?

§ Sir G. DOUGHTY
I want these men who are working under contract to have the advantages which this Bill may confer on them if there are any advantages for them. The thing is so complex and difficult for these simple men to understand that the Committee will excuse me if I try to put their case before it.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
On a point of Order. I quite agree, if I may say so, with the hon. Gentleman, that the point ought to be raised. The question is whether it ought to be raised on Part I., which means inclusion, or on Part II., which means exemption.

§ Sir G. DOUGHTY
If the right hon. Gentleman in his reply will tell me what is in his mind he will satisfy me. I am desirous of getting from him an expression of what his conviction is as to the question of share fishermen. Some of these men at certain times of the year make very considerable sums of money, 837 but at other times they receive very small sums of money. If they are not now included, I hope a scheme will be propounded by which they may be included on fair and equitable terms. The whole class of fishermen, so far as this Bill goes, are in a position which it is very difficult to understand. I would like them to be included, but I would also like the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider whether it would not be possible for a scheme to be propounded by which their case could be submitted to the Insurance Commissioners, so that the whole of the fishermen of Great Britain might come within the provisions of the Insurance Bill. That is my suggestion, and in order to get an expression of opinion from the right hon. Gentleman, I beg to move.

§ The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Rufus Isaacs)
As I was one of those who received a deputation, and having heard all that was to be said by the hon. Member who has just spoken—among other gentlemen who represented the fishermen—perhaps I may answer and state what the views of the Government are upon this question. The question is an extremely difficult one, and I doubt if there is a more difficult one raised in this Bill, because it is by no means easy to say whether the particular form of contract under which the fisherman is serving is strictly a contract of service or not. Take for example steam trawling in the north, where you may have a crew of ten men, eight of whom are paid employés, and two who get a share of the catch. It is difficult to say whether those two are under contract of Service or not, while they are not partners in the ordinary sense of the word. There is the still more difficult case in which they have to share in the expenses, the nets and so forth, so that it is an extremely complex question. Moreover, the views of hon. Members who represent the constituencies in which these very desirable body of men live do not agree. Some, for instance who represent the Cornishmen, think it would be better that those men should be excluded. On the other hand, there are some on the east coast who wish them to be included, and there is another representative who thinks they should be excluded. So apparently the conditions vary in each particular place in each particular locality. As the hon. Member may have seen on reference to an Amendment to Part II. of the Schedule, the way in which we deal with the matter is in accordance really with the suggestions of the 838 hon. Member and others, and the only way in which we think you can deal with this matter is to ascertain the practice and the views of each particular place. Then, say if in the case of the Cornishmen the Insurance Commissioners ascertained that there was a desire on the part of the fishermen that they should not be included, it is very difficult to see how they are to be included if they object, so closely do the conditions of their service impinge on co-partnership. Thus, in Lowestoft you have the desire to be included, and in Hull to be excluded.
We propose that the matter should be left to the Insurance Commissioners to deal with in each particular locality where they would have the opportunity of ascertaining what are the views and what are the conditions under which the men serve. In that way they could ascertain whether the crews in a locality are on shares of the gross earnings of the vessel, or what is the custom and practice of the locality, and they may decide to exclude them. If they do not do that they will be held to be included under the contract of service. It is obvious there must be a further difficulty which must be considered. Suppose you have, as in some places, fishermen serving who are both members of the crew and share in the catch, it is rather difficult to see how you are in that case to get the employer's contribution. There are all those difficulties to be taken into account. I am quite sure the House will agree that in a matter of this kind where you have such different practices, that the only way to deal with it is to ascertain the different practices and to find out the different customs and let the Insurance Commissioners hear what are the views of the fishermen and decide whether a particular locality shall be excluded or included. I trust that that would meet the views of the hon. Member and of the other hon. Members interested in this particular industry. It is the best solution we have been able to find to meet the views so very well put by the hon. Member and by other Members who attended the deputation, and who expressed what they apparently ascertained to be the views of their constituents. I hope that proposal will meet with approvel.

§ Sir G. DOUGHTY
That would apply to all fishermen?

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
Yes.

§ Sir CLIFFORD CORY
In the case of the fishermen whom I represent, they are, as the Attorney-General has just stated, 839 an instance of both employer and employed. They divide the result up in shares, and therefore it would be very difficult to say amongst them who are the employers and who are the employed. Thus it would really mean that the employed would have to contribute the whole of the 7d. themselves, and as the margin of profit is extremely small, it would be very hard on those men to have to find the money, while in some cases instead of a profit they have a loss. I think the Amendment put down by the Chancellor of the Exchequer will meet the question though I would rather my own was adopted.

§ 4.0 P.M.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
I think everybody will admit who has heard anything of this discussion, that the case of some of the fishermen is peculiar and needs peculiar treatment. But the Government are now proposing, as I understand their answer to the hon. Baronet, that all fishermen should be treated alike to this extent: that their inclusion or non-inclusion in the Bill should be according as the Insurance Commissioners may decide after making such inquiries as the Insurance Commissioners think proper. As I read the Amendments in the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I think very little guidance, or in fact no guidance at all, is given to the Insurance Commissioners. I may imperfectly understand the reply of the Attorney-General, but as I understand it, it is that the Commissioners would be guided, if not wholly, almost entirely by the opinion expressed by the fishermen of any locality. I presume that would mean employers as well as employed and the opinion of the trade in any locality. I am not going to say that that is a wrong proposal, but of course it makes extraordinary confusion in the scheme of this Bill which has hitherto been a compulsory Bill. Hitherto the Government have declined to make exception to its compulsory provisions. If you once admit that the fishermen, not merely the fishermen in some peculiarly appropriate case where it may be very difficult to say whether an individual man is an employer or a servant, but fishermen generally are entitled to contract out if they wish, subject to the judgment of the Insurance Commissioners, the decision in the main being the desire of the men themselves, then why is not similar treatment to be accorded to other classes of the people in other 840 localities. The course which the Government are taking raises a very wide question indeed, and I think if they accord this latitude of choice to the fishermen and refuse it to other classes of employed people, they will find that they raise very serious objection in the minds of those people who will think themselves very unfairly treated. Take, for example, the case of domestic servants. Are they not as competent to judge as fishermen?

§ The CHAIRMAN
The Amendment deals only with co-partnership. We cannot allow the Debate to go into these larger questions.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
I confess I am in some difficulty. The Government have announced a very considerable alteration in the scheme of the Bill, and for reasons best known to themselves they propose to confine it to fishermen—not to co-partnership fishermen, but to fishermen of all classes. That is the statement of the Attorney-General. My hon. Friend put the question explicitly to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. If the Attorney-General misunderstood the question I will, of course, accept his correction; but my hon. Friend asked: "Does the Amendment of the Government apply to co-partnership fishermen only, or to all?" and the Attorney-General replied, "To all." So all my Friends around me understood. I am precluded from saying anything more than this: if fishermen are to have this latitude, I think that agricultural labourers, domestic servants, and other classes ought to have the same latitude of choice given to them.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The right hon. Gentleman has drawn rather extensive inferences from very limited premises. The whole point here is that there are difficulties which are inherent in the very methods of employment of fishermen in this country. They are not difficulties created by the Insurance Bill; they meet you whenever you come to interpret any Act of Parliament relating to fishermen. I know fishermen in connection with whom there are difficulties, just as there are difficulties which my hon. Friend experiences in connection with his fishermen. Their employment is on totally different conditions from that of fishermen employed at Grimsby and in the great trawling trade. There you find one man who owns a boat. It is very difficult to determine in each individual case whether it is a contract of service or a co-partnership. What 841 happens? I knew a man who had twelve or twenty boats which he let out to fishermen. Another man brought his nets. Then they would decide to divide the haul into twenty or twelve shares, as the case may be, giving the owner of the boat two or three shares, the owner of the nets so many, and dividing the rest among those who were employed on the boat. The difficulty is to decide whether that is a contract of service or a co-partnership. All our Amendment is to do is to leave it to the Insurance Commissioners to decide in each individual case, after investigating the matter locally, what is the real nature of the service. That is really what my right hon. and learned Friend said. The right hon. Gentleman assumes that we are giving an unlimited right of contracting out to all fishermen. That is really not the proposal of the Government at all.

§ Sir G. DOUGHTY
I understood the Attorney-General to say that it would apply to all fishermen. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not close his mind on that point. He will remember the discussion the other night on the question of the obligations thrown on steam-trawler owners by the Workmen's Compensation Act. In order that a scheme might be worked out by the National Sea Fisheries' Protection Association, I want him to give us an opportunity to put our case before the Insurance Commissioners.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The right hon. Gentleman seems rather to have made a small party point for the time being than to have helped to elucidate a very tangled problem—one of the most entangled problems possible. It must come up on every proposal of the kind. If ever the right hon. Gentleman stands here and proposes a tariff he will find the same sort of thing then. In connection with such matters as workmen's compensation, national insurance, tariffs, and so forth, there is always the same sort of question, full of entanglement. It is very difficult to know in what category you ought to place certain people. It is not a question of contracting out; it is a question of determining the conditions—substantially whether there is an employer who ought to be liable. That is really what you want to find out. If there is no employer, it would be unfair to pick out one man who is purely a co-partner and say that he must bear the burden of the whole of the employer's liability when he is no more the employer than the rest of 842 the men on the boat. That is the only thing we want to find out by means of our Amendment. It may be that when we come to it the right hon. Gentleman will be able to suggest words to make the matter perfectly clear.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
Will anybody pretend that the explanation of the Amendment given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the same as the explanation given by the Attorney-General? The two explanations are totally and absolutely different and contradictory. The Government may mean either one or the other, but they cannot mean both. The Attorney-General said that what the Commissioners were going to do was to ascertain the wishes of all the fishermen in the locality and act accordingly.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
As to contract of service.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
He said that they were going to ascertain the wishes of all the fishermen in the locality. Is that disputed?

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
What I said was that they would go there and ascertain what the contract of service was, whether there was a contract of service, what the terms and conditions in the locality were, and that they would also hear representatives of the employed and the employers to see what their views were.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
And that they would be governed by their wishes was the argument of the Attorney-General.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
was understood to dissent.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
I will judge by the report. If the Attorney-General will look at the report of his speech to-morrow and compare it with what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said, I am certain that he will not say they come to the same thing. "The proposal, as explained by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is quite different. It is that the Commissioners should inquire, not into the wishes of the people, but into a question of fact—whether there is or is not an employer. If they find that there is an employer, the men are to be included. If they find that there is not an employer, then the men are to be excluded. The moral of this discussion and of some recent procedure is that when you desire to 843 entrust powers of this kind to Commissioners the duties of the Commissioners and the wishes of Parliament should be made absolutely clear. I think that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes to his Amendment he ought to insert words making it quite clear upon what principles the Commissioners are to act.

§ Sir ALFRED CRIPPS
I do not want to go into the question of difference between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Attorney-General. It may be a difficult and important question whether there is a co-partnership or a contract of service. What I want to know is, having regard to the difficulties which arise in other industries, why the provision is to be confined to fishermen. The same difficulty as to co-partnership or service arises in connection with other industries. Is there to be the same provision with regard to those, or is the provision to be applicable only to the fishing industry?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The hon. and learned Gentleman will find that there are provisions in the Bill dealing with the mining difficulty, but that is a very different case. Here there are three partners all contributing something. Take the case of a slate quarry.

§ Sir A. CRIPPS
Tin mining was the case I had in mind.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
In the case of the slate quarries, which is the case I know best, there is no doubt something which looks like a co-partnership. A part is let to one man, who calls in four or five others, and they enter into a sort of bond, payment being on the basis of what they get. Although nominally that looks like a contract of co-partnership, substantially it is a method of ascertaining wages. In fact, they have gone so far as to apply for a minimum wage in those cases, because very often a man may work very hard, and get only 10s. a week out of his bargain. That is not a co-partnership. In the case of the fishermen, if a man does not catch half a dozen mackerel that is his loss. There is no talk about a minimum wage in those cases.

§ Mr. FALLE
What exactly does the Chancellor of the Exchequer mean by "fishermen"? There are a very hard-working class in my Constituency who fish, not for fish, but for the old shells fired by gunboats, and they do their work on a co-partnership system. Is a fisher- 844 man only a person who fishes for the live creatures of the sea? There are 500 or 600 families in my Constituency who practically live by the picking up of these shells—[An HON. MEMBER: "Shell fish."]—and they work practically on a co-partnership system. Will they or will they not come within the scope of what the right hon. Gentleman has said with regard to fishermen?

§ Mr. MORTON
We have a great many fishermen in the North of Scotland, so that this matter is of some interest to them. I did not hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer very clearly, and I should like to know if I understood aright. What I understood was that his Amendment will apply to all fishermen, and that in the case of Scotland the Scottish National Insurance Commissioners will have power to set up a scheme in all cases.

§ Sir G. DOUGHTY
After the explanations of the Attorney-General and of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Mr. C. BATHURST
I beg to move, in paragraph (a), after the word "piece" ["or by the piece"], to add the words "or partly by time and partly by piece."
This Amendment, I feel sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer will see, fills a lacuna. The effect of the present wording of this Schedule would be to exclude—perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be good enough to listen to this?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I am just putting the point to the Attorney-General. I always listen to the hon. Member when he speaks. I was just ascertaining from my right hon. and learned Friend what the legal effect of the proposed words of the hon. Gentleman would be.

§ Mr. C. BATHURST
The Chancellor will note, if my interpretation is right, that agricultural labourers, other than bailiffs, stockmen, and carters, will be omitted altogether from the Bill.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I think I will be able to accept the hon. Gentleman's Amendment.

§ Mr. C. BATHURST
Agricultural labourers are employed partly by time and partly by piece.

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§ Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I beg to move, in paragraph (a), after the word "or" ["by the piece or without"], to insert the words "except in the case of a contract of apprenticeship."

§ Mr. FORSTER
Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer tell us what is the precise effect of putting in these words?

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The effect intended is that in a case of contract of apprenticeship, where there is no money payment, the apprentice shall be considered to be an employed person.

§ Mr. FORSTER
Is there any limit of age in the apprenticeship? What I am anxious to arrive at is how the subject here is going to have a reserve value, for the Committee will see that the apprenticeship carries the thing beyond the age of seventeen.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
We deal with that in an earlier part of the Bill, I think.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
I would ask the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the point. My recollection of Clause 9 is that the position of the apprentice is just like that of a boy at school: it is extending the provisions of the boy at school to the apprentice. That prevents him coming in at the higher rate, the rate for age.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Sub-section (4) of Clause 9.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
That would not quite meet the point of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks. That does protect the person against having to pay the rate for age. It brings him in at the 4d. rate. That case is possibly provided for, but it does not necessarily give him his reserve value, and that is what the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks is asking about. Supposing he was under apprenticeship at the age of seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen? If he is not an employed person you are excluding him from the deduction of the employed person. How, then, are you going to give him his reserve value? The reserve value has only to go to those who are employed persons. The effect of this Amendment, if I understand it correctly, will be to take the apprentice out of the class of those who are employed persons, and so take 846 him out of the class which gets reserve value. The Chancellor will bear that in mind?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Yes.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
There are two points, not one only.

§ Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I beg to move, at the end of paragraph (a), to insert the words, (b) Employment under such a contract as aforesaid as master or a member of the crew of any ship registered in the United Kingdom or of any other British ship or vessel of which the owner, or, if there is more than one owner, the managing owner or manager, resides or has his principal place of business in the United Kingdom.

§ Mr. FORSTER
May I ask, first of all, why it is necessary to have the word "resides" in in regard to the managing owner? I should have thought the case was met when you knew his principal place of business in this country. Why is it necessary to have an alternative place of residence of the manager or managing owner? In the second place, I should like to ask the Attorney-General whether the Clause will include ships that are really British ships, but form part of a foreign combination, such as the White Star Line, which forms part of an American combination and is so registered?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Registered in the United Kingdom.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
In reply to the second question of the hon. Gentleman, if the ship is registered here that is sufficient. It does not matter what combination it belongs to or by what combination it is worked. There must be registration of the ship in the United Kingdom. In respect to the first question, the definition here, I think, is taken from one of the Merchant Shipping Acts, where the "managing owner or the manager resides or has his principal place of business in the United Kingdom." I think the hon. Member will find that it is the definition, always adopted with regard to the managing owner.

§ Mr. HILLS
What is the difference between a registered British ship and a British ship? All British ships must be registered, must they not?

847

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The object of the words "or of any other British ship or vessel which the owner, or if there is more than one owner, the managing owner or manager resides or has his principal place of business in the United Kingdom," is to provide for that kind of case where you have to have a managing owner. It may be that the vessel of which the man is managing owner may not be registered in the United Kingdom. What we want to provide for is that the words shall apply not only to a vessel registered in the United Kingdom, but also to any vessel of which he is managing owner in the United Kingdom.

§ Mr. HILLS
I take it that the ship must be registered as a British ship or in the Colonies, otherwise it would not be a British ship?

Mr. SHIRLEY BENN
What about the case of ships that do not come to British ports, but sail between foreign ports, and frequently ship British crews at those foreign ports?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The hon. Member asks about ships that really never come to British ports at all, and simply sail between one foreign port and another. That is specially dealt with in the Seamen's Clause.

§ Mr. FORSTER
Does this cover the case of the crews of yachts? The Chancellor is possibly aware that one of the difficulties that yachtsmen will find and one of the hardships that their men will find is that they will be included in the provisions of the Bill, while a great many of them are only engaged for some six months of the year. Outside the yachting season many of them own their own little fishing boats, and in other ways spend the rest of the year working on their own account. During the six months the men are engaged by owners of yachts they will have 4d. deducted from their wages, after which, for the next four or five months, they pass out of insurance altogether until they come back again into employment in the following summer, when the process is again repeated till the yacht is laid up for the winter. So far as I can see, these men will go on, or many of them, suffering the deductions from their wages every summer, and never be deriving any benefit.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
There are two ways in which these men employed on yachts can arrange the matter. They can 848 do it exactly like anybody else who is engaged in a seasonal trade. That is the real difficulty of all seasonal trades. There are obvious objections to leaving them out of insurance altogether. That would be an inducement to people to employ them for a few months only. Men like those described by the hon. Member can pay in the usual way during the six months they are employed, and then into their own society during the remainder of the time. In order to prevent themselves getting into arrear they can pay as voluntary contributors. That enables them during the six months they are employed to get the 3d. of the employer and the 2d. of the State. A person may say he cannot very well keep the contributions up for the remaining six months. Such persons can put their money into the Post Office. The position, at any rate, is undoubtedly an immense improvement upon their present position. At the end of the season they will have six months' payment at 9d. per week paid to their credit, which they can draw upon in the case of sickness.

§ The CHAIRMAN
That is merely touching on a matter that does not arise at all. Of course, seasonal employment does not arise under the Amendment.

§ Mr. FORSTER
Surely this is a matter that affects persons who are employed contributors. I do not press the point and I refer to it only because the matter dealt with by this Clause was never discussed.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
There the hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong. The matter was actually discussed and we passed away beyond it, and this very question was dealt with.

§ Sir ALFRED CRIPPS
I hope the Attorney-General will answer the question put to him upon the form of the Clause. Suppose you take the case of a managing owner, or the manager of a ship plying between two foreign ports.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The question of foreign ports is specially dealt with under the Seamen's Clause.

§ Amendment agreed to.

Mr. PEEL
I beg to move to leave out paragraph (b), which, as the Committee will see, brings outworkers within the scope of the scheme. First of all, I may say I am not quite clear as to the exact scope of paragraph (b). I wish to know whether or not it purports to include all classes of outworkers without exception, 849 because that is very important, having regard to the Amendments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer later on, because these Amendments have the object of cutting down the effects of this Clause (b) and exempting a certain class of outworker from the provisions of the Bill. It is obvious, therefore, that if the Clause applies to all outworkers that exemption would be larger, and if it applies to a limited number the exemption would be smaller, and there may be a certain class of outworker to whom this exemption would not apply at all. The other point, I think, is of very great importance. This Amendment generally raises the question of whether outworkers are or are not to be included in the scope of the Bill. The question of outworkers is a matter of rather immediate importance at the present moment. I am not one of those who complain that at the present juncture certain Amendments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared rather suspiciously upon the Amendment Paper. I know a certain number of people have complained not unnaturally that this matter being a matter of vital importance in view of the South Somerset election the right hon. Gentleman has put down his Amendments. I am not complaining of that course, for which there are many precedents, notably the precedent of Dundee. I am very glad, whatever may be the juncture or situation, that the right hon. Gentleman has produced some Amendments, although I am afraid they are not very satisfactory. The point I raise is whether or not outworkers should be excluded from the scope of the Bill. They get very few advantages under the scope of the Bill. After all, what do they earn? They are old people earning presumably low wages; and the people on whose behalf I am speaking are mainly women who earn from 3s. to 11s. or 12s. a week as outworkers. As regards those who earn less than 9s. a week the employer will have to pay more than if these people were men or women earning more than 9s. a week. He will have to pay 5d. in the case of women and 6d. in the case of men in order to make up the 7d. for the employed contributor. I am afraid these people will lose their employment because the profits to the employer on outwork is very small, and owing to the extra sum which he will have to pay it will be swept away altogether. He will be compelled to make a change in the nature of his business, and he will not give outwork at all, and those people will lose their employment so far 850 as it is outwork. The man who employed them before will now employ a smaller number of people of a different class who will do all the work. I think it is very hard that those people should be brought within the scope of the Bill. I would point out further that, of course, this work is rather uncertain, and that being so there will be great difficulty for those people entering friendly societies. If it is known they are outworkers it will also be known that the work is uncertain, and I think it very unlikely that any friendly society will accept them.

§ Mr. BOOTH
Why?

Mr. PEEL
Because they will not be very satisfactory payers, and will often be in arrears, and therefore they will have to fall into the position of Post Office contributors whose position as we know is very unfortunate indeed. A very large number of these people are women. It is quite true that the position of women has been very much improved, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I think, later on recognises the fact that women are rather hardly treated, and I see that he has decided to put down an Amendment to exempt married women whose husbands are insured persons. That appears to be very hard in the case of widows and unmarried women, because, of course, it gives an obvious preference to married women who have husbands to look after them, and it seems rather hard that unmarried women and widows should be put in a worse position than those who have husbands to look after them, and to vote also I suppose. If they are dependent they are to be included; if they are not dependent they are to be exempt. The result is that the very people who want the employment most will be those most likely to lose it. I am not going to deal in detail with the several Amendments which appear upon the Paper later on. All I submit broadly is that under this Clause outworkers should be entirely excluded. The advantage they get is that they may under the Act lose the very work in which they are employed, and if they cease to be outworkers then they lose the very emoluments on which up to the present they live. I make a strong appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider this question very fully, and even if he is not disposed to yield to us on the whole question let him in his exemption include the widows and the unmarried women, and at least try to class all women in this respect or the same sort of equality.

851

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The hon. Gentleman rather suggested that the modifications which we intimated of the proposals in the Bill in reference to outwork had reference purely and simply to circumstances which occurred in the last few days in a particular constituency. I will give the hon. Gentleman just two facts that may bear upon that. First of all I had to consider the question of outworkers when I came to the Irish Clause, because there is no part of the country in which the problem is more difficult than in Ireland, and I actually put my Amendments on the Paper in reference to the condition of Ireland long before I knew of any electioneering question in this country which might be affected by it.

Mr. PEEL
I did not make any complaints.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I think the hon. Gentleman rather suggested it was quite possible we had been influenced in that respect. Now this is a very difficult problem, and we had to deal with it in reference to Ireland in particular.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
When were the Irish Amendments put down?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
About a fortnight or three weeks ago.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
Since the election?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Long before the election. The Amendments were prepared weeks ago, and they were on the Paper long before I even heard of the election. Let me point to another fact. A deputation was introduced to me from the hon. Gentleman's (Mr. Peel's) own constituency; it had reference to the collar trade, rather than to the glove trade, and most of the particulars I got were from his own constituency. Most elaborate figures were given me by gentlemen from his own constituency as to what the state of the outworkers in these works were; and I benefited very particularly by those figures, and I will say what the effect was later on.

Mr. PEEL
Was it from Mr. French or Mr. Powell you got them?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I think it was from Mr. Powell. He is a collar manufacturer, and he brought me sheets showing the wages earned by those in outdoor and those in indoor work. He showed me that the outworkers worked at their 852 leisure and that those indoor were paid very substantial wages, and that the others could earn as much but they did not care to do so. It would be very unfair to the employer if he should pay at the same rate; or, rather, pay the same contribution in respect of those earning a few shillings as in the case of those earning 25s. or 30s. a week. I thought that was a very good case. I hope this question will be discussed on its merits, because it is a very difficult problem. What is the position? The hon. Member for Taunton has an Amendment on the Paper—

Mr. PEEL
I had a consultation with the Chairman, and I moved this Amendment instead of my own, because I thought wider questions might be raised upon it.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The only effect will be that the outworkers who earn 1s. 6d. a day and under will contribute nothing, and if this Amendment were carried, although contributing nothing, the hon. Gentleman would deprive them of benefit altogether. With regard to the problem of excluding outworkers altogether, there are one or two difficulties. If you leave them out altogether it is undoubtedly a premium on what in some districts is the worst form of wage-earning and wage-paying, because there is a good deal more sweating in the outworking departments than any other branch of employment in this country. On the other hand, there is a good deal of very useful work amongst the outworkers in the villages. In Ireland the peasant woman, while tending her flock, would go on knitting and spinning. I think it is desirable that that kind of work should be encouraged in the villages. It is really in the nature of contract work, for it is work the same as that which is done for service in wages. One of our greatest difficulties was to discriminate between these cases and cases which could not be left out of the insurance. A very considerable number of these poor people are the poorest of the poor, who obviously ought to be protected by insurance, and any scheme of this kind, if it has any advantages, surely they ought to be conferred upon the hundreds of thousands of people who earn their living in this way. I do not pretend that we have found a final solution. I do not know whether I shall be in order in discussing the Amendments we have put down at present, or whether we are to be confined to the question whether outworkers should be left out altogether.

853

§ The CHAIRMAN
The only difficulty about that would be that we should have the discussion twice over. If the discussion takes place now, then we should not be able to have it upon the Amendments.

§ Mr. FORSTER
Hitherto I have been strongly in favour of a general discussion, and practically no detailed discussion on the Amendments, but in this particular case there are one or two definite questions raised in the Amendments, and I think we ought really to have our discussion in detail upon the Amendments.

§ The CHAIRMAN
If it is desired to raise specific points on the Amendment it would be better to argue them separately. In that case the general discussion had better not proceed on this Amendment.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Does the hon. Member opposite seriously propose that outworkers should be cut out altogether? I do not think anybody would propose to cut out all the outworkers in this country. A certain class of employment is confined to outworkers, and hundreds of thousands who have this kind of work as their only means of employment would be cut out of insurance altogether. I should have thought this class stood more in need of insurance than any other class in the population.

Mr. PEEL
Does paragraph (b) practically bring into the Bill all classes by this machinery for outworkers? The Sub-section says, "employment as an outworker in such classes of work as may for the time being be specified in any special order made under Part VI. of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901." That apparently depends upon the conditions whether they may for the time being be specified in any special order. Supposing all outworkers are really included under paragraph (b), then the exceptions and exemptions the right hon. Gentleman moved later on will have a wider application than if there were only certain classes of outworkers referred to on paragraph (b). If there are outworkers not included under paragraph (b), then I assume the exceptions would only apply to outworkers as defined under paragraph (b).

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I can only call the hon. Member's attention to the Subsection which relates to this or a particular kind of work which has already been specified by an order of the Home Office. I can hardly read out to the Committee the long list to which it will apply.

854

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
By "special order" does the right hon. Gentleman mean special order under this Bill or any order under Part VI. of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
It means under the Factory Act of 1901. Section 107 provides for the case of "persons employed in such classes of work who may from time to time be specified by special order of the Secretary of State." It is an order made under the Section. The classes are very numerous and minute, and cover about two pages.

§ Mr. HILLS
One point my hon. Friend wants to raise is whether the outworkers are included in paragraph (b), and whether all such outworkers as may be included in an order under the Act of 1901 are included. The point is very important, because if you turn to the Act of 1901 it provides for two classes of orders which the Home Secretary may make, and it is quite clear that if Sub-section (b) refers to all persons who may come within the ambit of that order the provision is a much wider one. Under Section 107 of the Factory Act the Home Secretary has power to include certain persons as outworkers, and under Section 114 of the same Act he has power to exclude certain persons from the operation of the Act. I think this Clause requires reconsideration, because as it stands it is certainly very confusing. The first point the Committee would like to have made clear is, Does Sub-section (b) include all the possible persons who may come within the order, or only those who are now within the order?

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The outworker class may be specified in any special order, and that would include any employment at any time specified in any special order as specified under any Act of Parliament.

§ Mr. HILLS
But not until it is specified.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
No, not until it is specified. When once it is specified under the order it is included. Once they come within these words there is no further difficulty.

§ Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD
I would like to know how far the home workers are covered by this order. Does it include the whole of the home workers, or is there still a considerable section of home workers outside that order? Surely 855 it would be very improper if a new section of home workers happened to be included, and automatically come under the Insurance Bill. If we want to include home workers, let us include them. The Order which has been referred to was amended a very short time ago, and I know that one or two sections of home work were added. I think it is very objectionable to extend the scope of the Insurance Bill in that way, and I would suggest that the Attorney-General might accept an Amendment which would make it clear that the home workers to be insured are not those that may for the time being be specified, but those that may be specified.

Mr. PEEL
We want a better definition.

§ Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD
The Clause as it stands applies the Insurance Bill to the lists contained in this order, but I want all home workers to be included.

§ 5.0 P.M.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
I want to support most of the propositions of the hon. Member who has last spoken, but I think we want something a little different. After all, we are trying to define a large number of outworkers without going to the trouble of repeating them here. We are bringing them in by reference. That is a most objectionable form of legislation, and I venture to say not a single Member of the Committee knows who are included in this Schedule at the present time. It is one thing to include those who are defined in an order which you can get if you go to the library, but it is a totally different thing to include a large number of people because that order is altered for a totally different purpose which has nothing whatever to do with insurance. Supposing that order is altered in two years' time, what is the effect on those outworkers? Are they going to pay the same rates of contribution as they would pay if they are included in the order now, or are they to pay a rate for age? I rather fancy those included in two years' time, owing to an alteration under the Factory and Workshop Act, would come in, not on the 4d. rate, but on a rate for age, according to tables to be prepared by the Insurance Commissioners, and we do not know the amount of the rate to-day. Surely it is the height of absurdity we should legislate by reference when nobody in the Committee can contemplate the result. Is it 856 not better we should now bring in all the outworkers whose names and definitions we can understand? If the Bill is to be extended at all, it should be extended by special order made under this Act, and not under the Factory and Workshop Act. Why not alter this so that it will come before Parliament in a way that we shall be able to ascertain who it is proposed to include and at what rate, because then it will be open to us to say the rate shall be the employed rate in the Bill.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
I think this matter does require further consideration. There are several proposals before us. The Government proposal is to include everybody who may from time to time be the subject of special order under Part VI. of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901. The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald) proposes to include everyone who may not be so included, with reference to whom the Secretary of State could, if he wished, make an order for inclusion. That would be a sort of definition. Then my hon. Friend (Mr. Worthington-Evans) proposes to take as a preliminary the class who have actually been included by special order now, and then leave it to the Commissioners to include others by a special order under this Act. Those are the various ways proposed of dealing with the matter, and of the three I think the Government way is the least acceptable. In the first place, it leaves it wholly unsettled who are going to be the subjects of the provisions of the Insurance Act; and in the second place, it brings into the Insurance Act another authority altogether different from that which deals with all similar subjects in other parts of the Bill. According to the Government proposal, in this particular case, and I think in this particular case only, the Home Secretary would be brought in as the person to decide who is and who is not subject to the provisions of the Insurance Act. Elsewhere, wherever a doubt of that kind arises, the Insurance Commissioners make the order and decide accordingly?
I do not think there is any good case for bringing in the Home Secretary here, and I think it is very desirable, if such matters are not to be dealt with by Act of Parliament, they should at least be dealt with by the same authority and by the authority most conversant with the working of the Act. In any case, I do press the Government not to leave it as it stands with reference to those who may be included 857 by special order under Section 107 of the Factory and Workshop Act. Special orders under that Section will not be made with any reference to their effect on insurance, but for the administration of the Factory and Workshop Act, and therefore for quite different reasons. There is certainly no reason to suppose that everybody that ought to be included in the provisions of the Insurance Act ought necessarily to be included in a special order under the Factory and Workshop Act, nor that everybody that ought to be excluded from a special order under the Factory and Workshop Act ought necessarily to be excluded from the Insurance Act. I should have thought it highly desirable the Government should, if they possibly can, give up all reference to the Factory and Workshop Act, and put in a definition of some kind which will make it clear on the face of this Act whom we wish to include and whom we do not wish to include. I confess my idea would rather be not to take the wording proposed by the hon. Member for Leicester, but to go for his suggestion and to include all outworkers not specifically excluded by subsequent Amendment. He did not mention the subsequent exclusions, but I should have thought that was the way for the Government to deal with the matter. Why not make the inclusion general and the exclusions specific to deal with those whom you think ought not to come in the general inclusion.

§ Sir A. CRIPPS
It is quite clear, if the Bill stands with the words "for the time being," it might bring about this result. At one time a particular outworker might be within the Act, and at another time he might be outside the Act. I am sure the Attorney-General does not mean that. You must have some form which makes it specific. It cannot be pretended that an outworker who, up to a certain date, has subscribed and got certain benefits, should then be excluded because of some new order, with reference to the work in which he was engaged, made under the Factory and Workshop Act of 1901. There can be no doubt a Bill of this kind should be made as specific as possible. It is a case where legislation by reference is extremely difficult. What is done by the Home Secretary to bring outworkers into the Factory and Workshop Act and for the purposes of inspection, by no means affects the question whether a particular outworker ought to be excluded from this Act or not. You are dealing with quite different considerations altogether. The 858 main point I want to bring to the attention of the Attorney-General is that extreme difficulty would arise from the fact that at one moment an outworker might be within the Act, and that at another moment he might be excluded from the Act.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
I think this discussion has been extremely useful. It has, at any rate, shown some of the difficulties surrounding the definition of those outworkers to be included. The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) desires to have no qualification or limitation of any kind, but if it is desired to have exceptions—and no doubt it would be necessary—he suggests they should be introduced in a separate part of the Schedule. That was what the hon. Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) also proposed. A third proposition came from the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Worthington-Evans). He suggested, I understand, that once a man was included under this Clause he should remain for all time, and you should also give the opportunity to the Insurance Commissioners of extending the list of persons to be included as outworkers. The view he put forward was that in two years' time there might be another list of outworkers issued by the Home Office under the Factory and Workshop Act 1901. I must say I think he made a very good point. He observed that, if that was the case, and if it was left as it is at present, although he adopted the construction which I suggested to be the right construction, that all such persons would be included, it would still be open to one difficulty. At what rate would those persons be included?
It might be said, twelve months having elapsed, the flat rate entrance had gone, and anybody coming in after that period would have to pay contributions according to age. In other words, if the Home Office were to issue an order, say one year after the passing of the Act, you would deprive those persons who would thereby become outworkers from coming in at the flat rate, as they are entitled to come in now as the Bill stands. I think that is a point which ought to be met. It is not intended those persons should be put at any disadvantage, and I do, therefore, think it would be necessary to consider the introduction of words which would allow the Insurance Commissioners to specify what further classes are to be included, and also to give them power to 859 treat them at the same time in a special category. I am impressed by the point raised by the hon. Member for Colchester, and I think that at any rate must be considered. I am not prepared to adopt any particular form at the moment, but those are the views suggested, and what occurs to me is that it may be we shall adopt the suggestions to the extent of leaving all qualifications out in the first instance and introducing exceptions afterwards, with power to extend by the Insurance Commissioners. I think it would be best to consider adopting in that way all the very useful suggestions which have been made during the course of the discussion.

§ Mr. FORSTER
I think the speech of the Attorney-General will give general satisfaction to the Committee. He accepts the suggestions of the hon. Member for Leicester, of my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, and of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire, but he does not tell us how he is going to carry them out. I know these things cannot be done in a moment, but shall we have an opportunity, before we come to deal with the exceptions contained in the Amendments of which the Government have given notice, of having before us the language in which the right hon. Gentleman proposes to clothe the Amendments he is going to insert. I think it is important we should have the language. We ought to know exactly where we stand before we take out of the category any persons whom we are going to exempt.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
I do not think it is possible. We must deal with these Schedules (1–5) at the present stage. I will consider very carefully and make inquiries to see whether we are in any way excluding persons who ought to be in or including those who ought not to be. I think that is the only way in which it can be done, and if my hon. Friend will put down an Amendment we may have an opportunity of discussing it later on. I am sure everybody will recognise that this is one of the most puzzling problems we have had to deal with. It shows the usefulness of the discussion that, this afternoon, we have had still further light thrown on the difficulties suggested by my hon. Friend. I think this matter requires a little more careful drafting consideration, but I am afraid I cannot give any pledge as to opportunities for further discussion.

860

§ Mr. FORSTER
I know that the Attorney-General is a very busy man. He has a great many things to do, but, after all, this is the only opportunity we shall have of discussing this very difficult matter. It is one of real importance, and we ought not to lose sight of it. I am afraid we shall have no opportunity of discussing the Schedules on Report. The Attorney-General admits that the definition of the outworker must be amended, and it must include practically all outworkers and homeworkers who are not exempted in the Amendments going to be proposed by the Government. Unless you include practically all the outworkers I think you will create a sense of injustice on the part of certain persons, while on the other hand, if you do exempt large numbers of outworkers, it will be placing a premium on the employment of these persons. You have practically covered the ground by providing for cases where the Insurance Commissioners are satisfied that no hardship will ensue. If the Insurance Commissioners are satisfied that people should be taken out, I think that is as far as we ought to go. I do not want to press the matter further. We must rely and we can do so confidently on the Attorney-General giving the matter careful and close attention, and when the Report stage is reached we may hope that any suggestions we make will receive the favourable consideration of the Government.

§ Lord ALEXANDER THYNNE
The Government desires us to proceed with the definition of the exemptions under these Schedules without being apprised of their definition of the word "outworker." I quite recognise the difficulty in which the right hon. Gentleman finds himself. It is a very complex matter which requires very careful consideration, and it is also a matter in which very precise wording is required. I agree with him the point is as to whether people are included who should be excluded, and I think it is important that we should have drafted a definition of the word "outworker." We want to be perfectly certain what it covers. If the Committee is discontented or dissatisfied with the definition propounded by the right hon. Gentleman, their only remedy lies in the meaning of this part of this Schedule with regard to exemption. If the hon. and learned Gentleman's definition includes a class which the Committee consider should not be included, the remedy will be to deal with these Clauses in Part II. as regards exemptions. Under the 861 method adopted by the right hon. Gentleman the Committee would be obliged to accept the definition which is propounded later on by the hon. and learned Gentleman. I only mention this in order to exemplify the very inconvenient methods which have been adopted for discussing a measure like this in watertight compartments under the guillotine.

§ Mr. BAIRD
I should like to emphasise this point. The fact is the Committee itself does not know what we are discussing. I do not think the Chancellor of the Exchequer can know what we have discussed. We are invited to go on discussing exemptions, and what is said in the Chamber does not make the slightest scrap of difference to people outside. People are told that they are to get 9d. for 4d., but strangely they are being excluded from these advantages. It is all chaos.

§ Mr. HARRY LAWSON
I honestly fear that the mechanical methods by which this Bill is being pressed forward will have serious consequences. The whole of this discussion has been not only unparliamentary, but anti-Parliamentary in its method. I want to raise a point not raised heretofore which concerns the people at the East End of London, and in the poorer parts of this great Metropolis in a very marked degree. I hope that nothing laid down will put a premium on home work under underpaid conditions. In the East End of London a very great deal of work is still done in houses which are very ill-adapted to the processes of a trade which would be much better done in a factory. I think it will be doing a very bad thing if you are going to give a premium to home work under these sweating conditions, and I hope the Attorney-General will look into this matter. A great deal depends upon the definition which we are not to see and which the House will have to swallow undigested. It will be a very bad thing if the process is arrested which is now going on of taking from the small houses in the East End of London these trades, which are pursued under very bad conditions—if the process which is now going on is arrested of driving this work into workshops and factories under inspection, both by the State and the local authorities. It is quite a popular thing to exempt certain classes and to propitiate certain interests, and I quite admit that, but I think there is a great danger of much that is being done by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen in taking out classes from the Bill that ought to be in it. I fear you are going to put a 862 premium on home work being done under insanitary conditions from an industrial standpoint. What will the effect be? It seems to me to be monstrous that when we have these great interests, from the point of view of national health and efficiency, we should not have an opportunity of discussing them in the light of day and of gathering information from those who can speak with expert knowledge. I do not know how far this will be dealt with in another place, but I am very fearful, from the point of view of national health, that something is going to be done by the Government which is likely to stereotype the evil conditions under which we live, and I hope that when the Attorney-General comes to reply these evils will be present to his mind.

§ Mr. AMERY
An hon. Member pointed out the great disadvantage of discussing exemptions under existing circumstances when we have no definition before us. He did this on the assumption that the definition would be too wide. But supposing the definition is not wide enough, then how can you remedy it? I think there is a real case why this particular Clause should be fully discussed. There are many people besides home workers who will not come under the definition of outworkers. I do not see how the Committee can give any consideration to the matter now. The Attorney-General has pointed out that we have to get through these Schedules by a certain time. Why should we get through these Schedules by a certain time? Why should not the Bill receive more consideration than it has received? Admittedly the fringe of this question is a very difficult one. Every fringe is, and that is a reason for discussing it adequately. The Committee should not be asked to swallow undivulged definitions, and afterwards be asked to try to patch them up here and there if they should be found to be too wide.

§ Mr. PETO
I understand this is the only opportunity I shall have of discussing what the Chancellor of the Exchequer defined as the broad question whether or not outworkers should be included in the Bill. I understand from the definition, so far as the Attorney-General has adumbrated, what he is going to define by and by as the class of outworkers to be included, that he is going to endeavour to combine the view of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) and the view of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcester (Mr. Austen 863 Chamberlain). Both of these hon. Members agree that it is desirable that practically the whole of the outworkers should be included within the four corners of the Bill with the exception of those who may be left out at a later date by a special exemption. The Committee and the country should know who are in and who are out. On the general question whether it is a good thing for the outworkers to be included, taking the trades throughout the country as a whole, there is something to be said which has not yet been said. A great deal of attention has been directed to the question of particular outworkers in comparatively rural trades in comparatively rural parts of the country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has attempted to meet that case by Amendments which are coming on the Paper later, the principle of them being that they may be left out if it is not their principal means of livelihood. But there are other great classes of outworkers, such as those referred to by the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Harry Lawson). For instance, there are those in the glove trade and other trades in the country, and in dealing with them the effect of the Bill is roughly this. On the average only 6s. or 7s. worth of work a week is done. In most cases it is not their principal means of livelihood. But what would happen if that part of their work which only takes one-third or one-quarter of the week were concentrated in one factory? If they go on doing out-work, say, four of them at 6s. a week apiece, the result is that by the Bill, as now amended, the employer will have to pay 1s. 8d. on their 24s. worth of work. If that work is concentrated in the hands of one person in the factory, and the outwork system is killed by the inclusion of these persons in the Bill, then he will only have to pay 3d. on the 24s. worth of work, and, instead of that being a benefit to these outworkers, you would be depriving them of the whole chance of employment, except such of them—and they are very few—as can alter their whole methods of life, and go into the factory six days a week.
Take the larger case mentioned by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mile End. It is questionable if you include these outworkers in the Bill whether you will not be doing them more harm than good. If anything can be done for them by providing for sickness, or in any other way to ameliorate their lot, there will be no division of opinion in the Committee on such 864 a proposition. But are we going to do it by including the outworking trades in the Bill? By the Amendments we have already passed, those who earn under 9s. a week will have to make no contribution themselves. We are certain that practically the whole of these outworking trades are piecework trades, and most or many of them are piecework on the lowest conceivable prices. Are we certain that the employer will in no case, either directly or indirectly, be able to get out of the outworker the amount of the contribution he is supposed to make? I know there are provisions in the Bill to prevent that, but there is such a thing as the course of trade. We know that the outworking trades are subject to the keenest competition. I know that you have the Trade Boards Act, but that does not cover everything. It is a very difficult thing to fight against loss of employment by Trade Board Acts. I am not at all certain that by putting into the Bill the whole of these outworkers you will not be in many cases depriving them of employment, and in many other cases depriving them of the small living they make.
It is open to wider question when you have a system of trade in the country where wages on such a miserable level are possible and work is done in the home on small piecework prices, where people are only earning 8s. or 9s. a week, whether it is not beginning at the wrong end of the stick to provide sick benefits and other benefits, and whether it is not at the expense of the employment or the employed persons themselves. I think it is more than ever desirable that we should know before we begin to discuss exemptions what is the intention of the Government. It should have been made clear to the Committee that they are really going to benefit the outworking trades by including them within the ambit of the Bill. We know that in those trades where special attention has been called to the matter, the outworkers themselves and the employers in the trade seem agreed that the kindest thing the Chancellor of the Exchequer can do is to leave them without their share of the Christmas gift. I am not at all sure that if hon. Members went very carefully into the matter it would not be decided that this is not the way to raise the standard of wages in the country.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
Before we part from this Amendment I should like to say two words further about it. There are outworkers and outworkers. There are two things we have to do. We 865 have to take care that by this insurance scheme we do not give an encouragement to the undesirable form of outwork of which my hon. Friends have spoken. We have equally to take care that we do not discourage what is really highly desirable, subsidiary labour of a non-agricultural character in agricultural districts, especially at seasons of the year when agricultural work is slack and, as we know in many parts of the world, the whole difference of the prosperity of the agricultural population is made up by their having a winter industry—home work which they can do in the winter as subsidiary to their agricultural or other labour. It is an extraordinarily difficult problem, and I deeply regret that the Committee will never have an adequate opportunity of discussing the matter in all its details, or even of discussing the Government's proposal in detail. I rose to ask the Attorney-General two questions. In the first place, what exactly he proposes to do now. He has said, and rightly said, that he cannot draft such delicate Amendments as those he has foreshadowed at a moment's notice. But does he propose that we should pass the Sub-section as it is at this stage and amend it later? The matter is of some consequence to the Government, because if I rightly understand the Rule of the House we cannot include any fresh person in the Bill on Report stage. We could exclude anyone on Report, but I do not think we could put any new persons or class of persons into the Bill on Report stage, because we should be increasing the charge upon the public. Therefore, I think the Government must make their definition wide enough to include all they want to include at this stage, or else they must recommit the Bill in order to get in additional classes. The Attorney-General will not be otherwise than grateful to me for calling his attention to that matter. It is a question of procedure which might be of great importance. The other question is, if we adopt the course he foreshadowed, will it be necessary to leave any discretion to the Commissioners to bring in other people?

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The right hon. Gentleman misunderstood me in one respect. I do not think there is one of the definitions put forward by the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Worthington-Evans) that was not a good point. They did leave open this question, that if you had the definition as it is now and an order was made in a few years' time, these 866 persons might be shut out from getting the benefit. That is the point of the hon. Member for Colchester. I said I would take that into account, and that I thought I could see a way of meeting it which would at the same time deal with the criticism and the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) and the right hon. Gentleman himself. I am quite prepared to deal with this matter now. Would it not be better to have an Amendment in the widest possible terms so that we can meet the possible difficulty of having to limit it when we get to the Report stage? My right hon. Friend the Solicitor-General and I have been framing an Amendment which I will propose in due course. It adopts some of the words of the Factory Act, 1901, the only object in doing this being to make the definition of outworkers as wide as possible. The Amendment will read:— Employment as an outworker, that is a person employed by the occupier of a factory or workshop, or by any contractor employed by such occupier in the business of the factory or workshop outside the factory or workshop.

§ Mr. HARRY LAWSON
That does not cover the East End of London.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
That is the definition in the Factory Act, 1901, to which these specified orders apply. I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman says it would not cover them. Let me say this. If, on consideration of the Amendment, he thinks it does not cover them, I am quite prepared to introduce words that would. The only thing I am anxious about now is that we should have the widest possible definition. I cannot see how the definition I have suggested could exclude anyone. An outworker must be a person employed by the occupier of a factory or workshop or by any contractor employed by such occupier.

§ Mr. HARRY LAWSON
I understand he must be either the occupier of a factory or workshop or a contractor under him. There are men in the East End who would not fall under that definition. They would receive from outworkers various articles, but they would not be occupiers of factories or workshops or contractors under them.

§ Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD
Might I suggest that the best way would be simply to leave it "employment as an outworker." That is sufficiently wide. It is 867 very difficult to say what an outworker is, but we want to have it sufficiently wide to enable us to alter it on the Report stage. There might be cases outside the scope of the definition which the Attorney-General has just read, and if they should be discovered they could not be provided for on Report stage. It is far better to leave it pretty vague, with the understanding that it may be made definite on Report stage, rather than attempt in a great hurry to supply a form of words which may be discovered to be too narrow.

§ Mr. NIELD
I wish the Government to consider another class of people who might be described as outworkers in one sense of the word. Under the Factory Act of 1907, however small a laundry is it is a factory, even though it employs three or four hands who do manual work without the aid of machinery. I ask the Attorney-General not to accede to the request of the hon. Member (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald). It will inflict tremendous hardship on them if they are to be included.

§ Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD
They are in the Bill now.

§ Mr. NIELD
Yes, and I want to exclude them from the Bill. You ought not to exclude only those who are outworkers and include a large class of persons who are no better off than the outworker in the ordinary sense of the word. I do not understand the Government proposals with regard to exemption—I do not know whether the 1s. 6d. a day is to be averaged over the whole week. If it means 1s. 6d. a day each of these poor creatures who gets one, or possibly two days, and earns 2s. 3d., will be mulct. I ask that the definition should be sufficiently wide that these persons should be included.

Mr. PEEL
I am very glad that one result of my raising this point has been that the Attorney-General has practically destroyed the Clause. He practically says it does not meet the case. I should have liked a general discussion on the whole question of the outworkers on this specific matter, because I do not see how it would be possible to have it on any of the other Amendments as they raise narrow points. I must protest that we do not get the words clearly put before us, because I am keenly interested in the question of the exclusion and the inclusion under the home workers. The Attorney-General says there is no time. The only reason why there is not time is that he has 868 voted for the guillotine. I think we ought to have a proper definition in order that we may know what the exclusions are to be. My position is rather different from that of the hon. Member (Mr. Harry Lawson), because he has been rather condemning certain classes of home workers. I have been speaking of good classes of home work—in fact, those which have been referred to as supplemental and subsidiary to wages otherwise earned—in fact, work done chiefly by wives and daughters and those connected with agricultural labour in addition to what they have earned otherwise. It is earned under very wholesome conditions indeed, and if they are deprived of it they will suffer, and their husbands will suffer too. I am more interested in the exclusions than the inclusions; or, rather, I am interested in the inclusions, because the question of the exclusions must be closely affected by them. My object in allowing them to be excluded is not that they might lose their job. That is the thing I was afraid they might do. Of course the employer might feel it did not pay him to pay this 5d. in the case of those earning small sums of money. It seems to be assumed that where wages are low the employers' profits are high. That of course is entirely contradicted by facts. We are always hearing that the higher the wages are the more efficient is the work and the greater the profits. I should like, if possible, that these classes of people should have the option if they like of avoiding State insurance. I quite understand, of course, that the compulsory principle applies to the whole of the Bill and ought generally to apply. But in the case of these special classes of people who, when they appreciate the situation they are in, may be unwilling to come into insurance, the exemption might be made, and they might be allowed the option of withdrawal if they like. Now, as I understand, the Attorney-General is willing to substitute very satisfactory words, I am prepared to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
I beg to move, in paragraph (b), to leave out the words "in such classes of work as may for the time being be specified in any special order made under Part VI. of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901."
I wish to meet the views of the Committee and to take care that nothing should be done to-day which would prevent 869 words being inserted on the Report stage if desired. If we stop at the word "outworker" that will give us the most extended form of definition, and if it is found necessary to introduce limiting words, it may be done on Report stage.

§ Mr. HARRY LAWSON
Is it understood that we have a fair opportunity of discussion?

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
I can give no undertaking of that kind.

§ Amendment agreed to.

§ Mr. BARNES
I beg to move, in Part II., to leave out paragraph (b).
The object of the Amendment is to exclude these people from the exceptions in paragraph (b), the idea being to bring them in. We take an exactly opposite view to that expressed by the hon. Member (Mr. Peel). I notice several Amendments to exclude employés of railway companies, gas companies, insurance people, and all sorts of societies. We want this pool to be as big as possible in contradistinction to all these Amendments to limit it and to take out just those people who are best able to pay. We regard the employés of public authorities and Government workers as fairly good lives, and it is important that they should come in. They ought to be regular payers. The Bill, of course, provides compulsorily that the low-paid worker, the casual worker, and many others shall come in, whereas this particular provision and all these Amendments to extend its application have the effect of limiting the Bill and of taking away the liability to contribute to it from those who are most regularly employed. I have been against that principle all the way through. I moved an Amendment in regard to shop clubs, and I carried it to a Division, and I shall be disposed to carry this to a Division if there is a decent number in the House willing to vote with me.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
The hon. Gentleman, as I understand, is desirous of putting in these people, not because they are going to gain any advantage from being put in, but because he wants to give an advantage to someone else. To be left out of the Bill, as far as I can see, is coming to be regarded as a benefit all over the country. If an election comes on you propose to leave something out of the Bill or you do not get votes. It is the best thing that can happen generally, that the sooner you are left out of the Bill the better.

870

§ Mr. BARNES
I do not share that.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
I would point out to the hon. Member that paragraph (b) of the "Exceptions" says, Employment under the Crown or any local or other public authority where the Insurance Commissioners certify that the terms of the employment are such as to secure provision in respect of sickness or disablement on the whole not less favourable than the corresponding benefits conferred by Part I. of this Act. 6.0 P.M.
The hon. Member opposite did not allude to that at all. Let me point out to him what he is going to do. This paragraph says that people who are already in as good a position as others will be under the Bill may be left out. If, through their own frugality in the past, they have become members of societies which give equal benefits, it is proposed by this Amendment that the money is to be taken away from them, and that they have, in addition, to pay for somebody else.

§ Mr. BARNES
I said absolutely nothing of the kind. Frugality does not enter into the question at all. These people are compulsorily in a scheme already—a scheme to which neither the Government nor the local authorities contribute amounts equal to those which are to be contributed under the scheme of this Bill.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
These people have already contributed something out of their wages. Of course, it is quite true that they were more or loss obliged to make this contribution. They could have done something else. If they did not like making the contribution they did not require to do it, and, therefore, frugality does enter into the matter. The argument of the hon. Member is not that further advantage will be obtained, but that they must contribute for somebody else. I cannot see the fairness of that argument. I understood that the principle of the Bill was that where, owing to a variety of circumstances, people could not make provision for themselves they should come under the benefits of this Bill. I never understood that where people had already under the terms of their employment made certain arrangements of their own, which are as good as any they can get out of this Bill, they would be obliged to come into this scheme, not for any good they could do to themselves, but for the 871 good they might do to somebody else. When the public begin to understand this principle which is supported by hon. Gentlemen opposite, they will not be so keen to vote for the party opposite as they have been in the past. Hon. Members say that those members of the labouring classes who are prosperous, and who have taken care to provide for themselves, will have to contribute in order that people who have not been prosperous, and who have not taken care to provide for themselves, should get the benefit of their contributions. When that is understood I do not think the proposal will be so popular. I am glad the hon. Member is going to a Division. I hope his courage will not desert him at the last moment. I hope the Leader of the Labour party (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) will get up and endorse the views of the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division. I shall have much pleasure in voting against the Amendment.

§ The CHAIRMAN
I think it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I state here that I do not propose to allow on this paragraph the question of the exemption of companies to be discussed. I think clearly the logical way to deal with the matter is to deal now only with public bodies and the Crown. The other matter will be raised by Amendments later on, and it will be desirable not to mix the two things up together.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend would have a very curious effect, because the exception proposed refers to those whose terms of employment, under the Crown, or any local or public authority, are such as to secure provision in respect of sickness and disablement not less favourable than the corresponding benefit conferred by Part I. of the Bill. The effect of my hon. Friend's Amendment would be to strike out the whole of those employed in that way, and make them contribute compulsorily, notwithstanding that under the terms of their employment they at present get the benefit which is to be given under the Bill. We are dealing with those employed by public authorities, and not with other employers who give the benefit of provisions which are as good as those under the Bill. I do not see why they should be excluded from the exceptions. There is every reason why we should keep them in. My hon. Friend does not suggest that there is any hardship in their being included.

872

§ Mr. BARNES
My point is that the Amendment would do away with the present arrangements and give them the benefit of a larger pool.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The effect of that would be that you would have to alter the conditions of their employment. They have to make no contributions at present except what are taken into account under the conditions of their employment. They have already got benefits. It is quite true that if you take them out, they would have to join an approved society. It might be that the benefits in an approved society would be less favourable. I do not see why you should take away the benefits they are already getting.

§ Mr. NEWMAN
I represent a body of 1,900 men at Enfield who are interested in this question. I should like to ask the Attorney-General how they will stand under this particular paragraph in the Schedule? I confess that their condition is one of uncertainty. I have had conferences with these men, and they have had conferences with the Treasury. I think it was this day week they had an interview on the subject with the Attorney-General. At Enfield at the present moment a man who has been employed more than three years and has borne a good character gets certain advantages. If he gets ill, and has had more than three years' service, he gets half-pay for a period of two months. If he has had ten years' service he gets three-quarters pay for two months. He also gets free medical attendance and hospital benefit. After three years' service, he also gets pension benefit and insurance benefit. He pays for that, because 6d. a week is deducted from his wages. What is to happen to the man before he has had three years' service I do not know. There are several alternatives. In the first place, I would ask are these men to be allowed to contract out of the Bill altogether, or are they to be allowed War Office benefit, and have such an addition to their pay as will enable them to become insured persons in the ordinary way? Are they to get the employers' 4d., the workers' 3d., and the State 2d. placed to their credit in addition to the 6d. which is deducted from their pay, and are they to get benefits for 1s. 3d. in some way or another? So far as I can gather, the men want to get their 6d. restored, or else to have these benefits given to them. I cannot speak for the workers at Woolwich; I only speak for those at Enfield. Before we pass the 873 Schedule I would ask the Attorney-General or the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is intended with respect to the workers at Enfield and Woolwich?

§ Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD
I am not quite sure that I understood the meaning of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Newman). I thought he meant that his constituents had asked him to come and ask the House to restore the 6d. which is now deducted, and to give them the benefits under this Bill for nothing. If that is so, I hope the House will do nothing of the kind. There is a good deal of sponging going on, and I think it is high time Government workers were told that they have to submit to the same terms as obtain for employment in the outside market. To separate Government employment from outside employment is very bad for the workers themselves, it is very bad for the hon. Members in this House who represent them, and it is exceedingly bad for the general body of labour in the country. It is because they are animated by these ideas that we have put down this Amendment. The Attorney-General said that the employés of the Crown enjoy certain privileges as conditions of their service, but, as the hon. Member (Mr. Newman) said, they have to pay for these privileges. When we try to get the trade union rate of wages for them the reply of the Government is, "We cannot pay that rate because we give certain privileges." The Government is always unwilling to put a value on these privileges so that the rate of wages may be accurately ascertained. It would be far better that the Government should pay the ordinary rate of wages, and let those who receive the wages bear the ordinary responsibilities of outside workers. Let us tell the Government employé that he is going to be employed by a fair employer, namely, the Crown, and that he can do with his fair wages exactly what an outside worker has to do. That is the gist of the Amendment. There is no use raising any other issue. We desire no privileges for Government workers. We desire that they should receive fair wages, and if the workers wish to increase their wages, let them join the ordinary outside unions and help to increase the general level and not regard them as specially privileged persons who can come to their Members in this House and put up a plea for them to be treated, not as ordinary workmen, but as workmen occupying specially soft jobs. It is that that we are opposed to, and 874 because we are opposed to it we have moved this Amendment.

§ Sir HENRY KIMBER
May I ask if I correctly understand your ruling just now to be that the Amendments standing in the name of myself and the hon. Member for Brentford (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) and other hon. Members have to come out from the place in which they stand, and that we shall have to move them as Amendments to the Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

§ The CHAIRMAN
Either as Amendments to the proposed Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer or in the new paragraph following.

§ Mr. HOHLER
The hon. Member for Leicester gave those who are interested in Government employés a most admirable lecture, which we will take to heart, but meanwhile I will be inclined to go with the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division (Mr. Barnes) if his Amendment did not go so far. It is necessary to draw a distinction in reference to the position of those men who serve the Crown in an established capacity. I do not desire, by any Amendment that may be moved to injure the position of those men. I think that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Blackfriars would do so. The establishment is a limited caste, and men in the service on the establishmnet have certain deductions made from their wages, and at the age of sixty they automatically—

§ The CHAIRMAN
I have preserved the hon. Member's right to move his Amendment lower down. If he speaks on the present Amendment I am afraid he will defeat that right.

§ Mr. HOHLER
I think I would prefer to preserve my right.

§ Mr. HARRY LAWSON
I was rather surprised that a man of the subtle mind of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) would take the line which he has upon this Amendment, because though he and his colleagues can vote for it in perfect safety, it would involve the Committee in some of the grossest absurdities that can be imagined. For one thing the Amendment would cover the police forces in the country, and they take their benefits of superannuation and during sickness as part of their terms of service. If it is objected that they get better terms than the general ruck, it may be pointed out that they are picked men 875 chosen for certain qualities, and it would be a most unjust thing to force men into a scheme much worse than that which they now have. The hon. Member for the City (Sir F. Banbury) said it was a surprising thing that section after section of the community claimed exemption from the Bill. But I would point out to him that although no doubt compulsion is not palatable to everybody in regard to Government service, of course compulsion is already applied. One main object of this Bill is to discipline the national character, not so much to give benefit; and with regard to the employés of the Crown and the different corporations, the discipline is already being applied.
Therefore, there cannot be any reason on that ground for treating them differently. But, on the other hand, I am bound to say that I think they ought to have at least terms as good as those given in the Bill, and I observe that under this Sub-section the benefits for maternity, consumption, and sanatorium are not included. It is the duty of the House to see that that at least is rectified. I am certainly not for allowing a scheme to be approved and passed that would put Government servants, who are the salt of the earth in many cases, in a worse position than those who are in private employment, and of course that applies equally to those who serve the great corporations. Therefore, I would ask the Attorney-General whether these benefits are purposely omitted or whether there is an intention of approving of a scheme which does not provide for such benefits, and, if not, what is the position of those in the service of national or municipal corporations in respect of sanatorium benefits and maternity benefits? There must be some reason for the Clause being drafted as it is, and I have no doubt that he can give an explanation.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The hon. Member who has just sat down has raised quite a new point, an important point I admit, but rather different from that which is raised by the Amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald) stated quite clearly and freely the issue which is raised by this Amendment, and he did not shrink from it, but it is a very large issue and one which we cannot possibly settle on an Amendment to this Bill. It may or may not be a good thing to have superannuation for these workers, but surely that 876 is not a question that can be settled on an Amendment to the Insurance Bill. There is a great deal to be said for it, and there may be something to be said against it, but to alter a system which has been established in this country so far back as the memory of man goes, and that on the whole that has worked quite satisfactorily—

§ Mr. BARNES
No, unsatisfactorily.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
At any rate, to alter without any preliminary inquiry and warning now a system which affects I do not know how many thousands or hundreds of thousands of workmen in this country, and to alter it in the Schedule of an Insurance Bill, is, to say the least of it, rather a tall order, and I do not think that we could possibly assent to it even if we accept the view of my hon. Friend that superannuation of Government workers is a bad thing for themselves, and I am not at all convinced of that at the present moment. If eventually my hon. Friends below the Gangway persuaded the House of Commons to abolish superannuation, then there would be a very good case for bringing in another Bill, and including these dis-superannuated servants in the scope of the insurance scheme. I come to the question raised by the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Harry Lawson). I agree that there is a good deal to be said for including municipal and Government servants for the purpose of these very limited benefits. But I do not think it will be possible. We have had no suggestion of that kind up to the present. No request has ever come from them. Had it been pressed on the Government earlier in the course of the proceedings I think it would have been very well worth while considering whether they could not be brought under the scheme. The hon. Gentleman cannot tell me what it would cost, and I certainly cannot say. It would involve a very careful actuarial calculation. I do not suppose the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Worthington-Evans) who has considered so many points, has considered this point, and I do not think that any actuary has been at work upon it. If you did it I do not think you would confine yourselves altogether to medical benefit and sanatorium benefit. I am not sure that they are always included for medical benefit. I think most of them are now.

§ Mr. HARRY LAWSON
Not for maternity.

877

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Maternity and sanatorium I agree. I do not think they are all included for medical benefit. Both things ought to be considered, and I have no doubt they will be once the Insurance Bill is in full operation; and I think there will be a demand from those outside now to be included in the scope of its benefits, or at least in the scope of some of its benefits; but I could not possibly now, when we have reached the Schedule of benefits, accept a suggestion which is quite valuable, but which is made for the first time now.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
The right hon. Gentleman did not answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield (Mr. Newman), and I would like him to do so. My hon. Friend pointed out the facts with regard to the Enfield sanatorium for men and said there was a waiting period of three years. This is not quite what he asked, but I would ask it on my own account. Could any scheme where there is a waiting period of three years be deemed in the words of the Section to be on the whole not less favourable than any corresponding benefit conferred by Part I. of the Act? It may be more favourable in other directions and yet may not have the same health effect, for the waiting period of three years may be so long that only a relatively small number may come in. One point made by the hon. Member for Blackfriars was, I think, made under a misapprehension. He said that the pool was not to be limited, and that the good lives would come in to the full, but he seems to forget that the pool is now limited to any group of 5,000 people, who chose to form themselves into a society. Any such group can be a pool in themselves. They can take the whole of the surplus for their own benefit, and he has not really by pressing this Amendment sweetened up the general average of lives at all, because the first thing that would happen would be that the Government servants included by it in this Bill would form a pool for themselves, just as they are now pooled and the general average would not be improved. Certainly, if he presses this Amendment I shall not be able to support it.

§ Mr. BARNES
May I point out to the hon. Member that he is entirely wrong. It would depend on the option of the individuals. A large number of them would become members of an approved society, 878 and, being necessarily good lives, would improve the average.

Mr. WORTHINGTON - EVANS
My point was that they would not necessarily sweeten the general average, because they can form a pool of their own at any moment. The hon. Member's Amendment would not necessarily carry out what he is seeking to achieve.

§ Lord A. THYNNE
Until I heard the speech of the hon. Member for Leicester I had considerable sympathy with the Amendment, but I was very much surprised at the line which the hon. Member for Leicester took. His arguement is that here you have got a privileged class of workmen and the general result of his proposal is not to raise the standard, but to lower the standard. He wishes to take away certain benefits already enjoyed by particular classes, because he regards those classes as privileged classes of workers. I think that that argument runs altogether counter to the general tendency of modern times. I should have thought that the hon. Member would have wished to level up the other classes of workers to enjoy the same privileges and the same standard rather than to lower the standard enjoyed under the Crown and the great municipalities. I do not think the Attorney-General altogether realises the driving force behind the hon. Member's Amendment. We heard a great deal in the initial stages of this Bill about the advisability or the necessity of its being universal and compulsory. The right hon. Gentleman cannot hope to have the best of two worlds. He must either make his Bill universal and compulsory, or else he must make it limited in extent and voluntary in principle. What the right hon. Gentleman is proposing at the present moment is, in fact, to make it universal and compulsory and then, under pressure from various parts of the country, to grant very extensive exemptions. The Attorney-General argued that the exemptions proposed under this particular Clause were limited in extent because they referred only to the Crown and to local authorities. We are all thankful for small mercies in regard to local authorities, and very glad even of the admission that local authorities are such good employers that they may rank with the Crown in this matter. But what I would point out to the Committee is this, that you cannot in logic limit this Clause to the Crown and to local authorities if you are prepared to lay 879 down as a principle that where employés enjoy benefits not less favourable than those accorded under the Bill you will have to extend it to other corporations which are not included. I would point out that, quite apart from the question of the pool which has been argued between the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes) and the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Worthington-Evans), there is another broad question raised on this particular Clause.
We have seen on all sides a general wish for exclusion from this Bill. We have seen it especially in connection with outworkers. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to give an additional privilege to those who work for the Crown and under local authorities. In addition to the privileges which they at present enjoy, they are to have another privilege—a privilege which apparently is esteemed in certain parts of the country—that of being exempted from this Bill and excluded from its effects. I think you cannot limit a privilege of this sort to the class of workers mentioned in the Clause, and I hope that when we come to consider some later Amendments on the Paper the Chancellor of the Exchequer will take that into consideration. I have got one final objection to the Clause as it stands. It is not entirely a novel objection; it is to the unlimited discretion accorded to the Insurance Commissioners who have to decide this matter. The Committee will be entrusting to the Insurance Commissioners a very wide discretion. They are giving them no standard of comparison at all; they are practically leaving the Insurance Commissioners an arbitrary power of deciding whether the benefits enjoyed under the terms of employment are as good, or better, than are given under the Bill. I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that there are, as he himself admits, certain matters which you cannot place upon a statistical or financial basis. You must, I submit, in comparing the terms of employment or the benefits enjoyed under a superannuation scheme with what is granted under the Bill, draw an exact parallel in such matters as sanatorium and maternity benefit. I submit that in this matter you are placing the superannuation fund more or less at the mercy, or, rather, at the arbitrary discretion of the Insurance Commissioners. I hope, at some later stage, perhaps on Report, that some limit, or if not some limit at least some principle, will be laid 880 down to guide the Insurance Commissioners in exercising their discretion, or arriving at a decision in these matters.

§ Mr. CLYNES
I fail to understand the objection of the Noble Lord to this Amendment, after the excellent speech he has made in its favour. The Amendment is not designed to pull anyone down; it means really a process of levelling up. Particularly it aims at leaving in the hands of the Insurance Commissioners a very large degree of power, to which the Noble Lord so effectively objects. Most of the speeches delivered on this Amendment have dealt with the position, of Crown employés. But there is a much larger number of persons affected—persons who are employed by hundreds under local authorities in all parts of the country. A case might be made out against this Amendment if the Clause, as it now stands, dealt only with Crown employés. The main body of municipal employés are not superannuated persons; they are not policemen or other officials who are superannuated; they are gas workers, men who attend to the water supply, and others—men who, in the general sense of the term, are mainly labourers. Thousands of them are employed by public bodies only for a part of the year. Much of the work done by public bodies is of a seasonal character. We want to know what is to be the position of a man who is employed necessarily only for six months in the year by a local body, and who for the remainder of the year is engaged by several employers in turn. These frequent changes we think necessitate the process of levelling up, at which the Amendment aims. But there is a broader and much stronger objection to the Clause as it stands—it is that it is not a good thing to have thousands of separate and different little schemes locally controlled by the various municipalities, and very often administered in the spirit of patronage in the case of those who are affected. Many of these schemes are designed, not so much specially to benefit the employés as to enlarge the power and authority of managers, foremen, and superintendents over the men who are in their employment. This Amendment of ours aims at having similarity of benefits and conditions of treatment. Thousands of men in the service of corporations and in Crown employment will find not the slightest difficulty in taking full advantage of this Bill when it becomes law. They are already members of friendly societies, and they are already 881 members of trade unions. No case has been made out for leaving the Bill as it is, and accordingly I support the Amendment.

§ Mr. POLLOCK
This Clause is a valuable one, and I support it. But I wish to understand what is included in it and to ask the Attorney-General what is meant by "or other public authorities," because I have been looking to see whether there is any definition anywrhere—never mind about employment under the Crown, or local authority, which one understands—of the words "other public authorities." There are a great many public authorities of different sorts, water boards, and others, besides a great number of persons who might, perhaps, be added as public authorities by the Insurance Commissioners. If the meaning is simply that they are to be regarded as municipal authorities, then perhaps the Clause is rather inept by including the words "other public authorities." If, on the other hand, it is intended to meet the case where important bodies may be called public authorities, I hope there will be some definition given, because here it is again an unfortunate case of handing the matter entirely over to the decision, possibly the arbitrary decision, of the Insurance Commissioners.
As to another point, I do not understand what is the meaning of the words whether the terms of employment "on the whole are not less favourable than the corresponding benefits." I suppose it means, if I follow the Chancellor of the Exchequer aright, that you are not to consider either maternity benefit or sanatorium benefit, probably because those are comparatively new matters. With regard to medical benefit, it may be that in most cases where this sort of employment is given there are arrangements made to provide medical benefit; I do not know, but that may be so. Then the Commissioners have to decide whether those forms of employment are on the whole less favourable. Does that mean that they have to balance up the question of maternity benefit or sanatorium benefit, or are they to come to some rule or determination merely by considering what the terms of sickness and medical benefit are? I know the Clause itself provides that the Insurance Commissioners are to have power under this Clause, but it is extremely important that there should be no doubt as to whether a large number of persons are to be included in it or not, and we should have some sort of test which would prevent any uncertainty 882 as to what the decision of the Commissioners may be. I hope the Attorney-General will point out what is intended by the Clause, or will tell us that there is going to be some sort of definition to make this Clause—valuable as I believe it to be—more workable and useful to the Bill as a whole.

§ Sir A. CRIPPS
I think the omission of these words would be unjust, and I want to put this proposition before the Committee: What possible equity or justice is there in telling a man to take worst conditions in regard to matters of this kind than he enjoys at the present moment, and that he is to do it, not to get any advantage as regards himself or his co-workers, but in order to give certain advantages to what is called the central fund. But that is wholly inconsistent with the idea of insurance. Insurance means that people who are suffering from substantially similar risks subscribe to a common fund, and that common fund is the fund to which the people who so subscribe have recourse. That is wholly inconsistent with the idea of the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division. He says, bring in people who are not subject to these risks at all in order that they may contribute to funds from which according to his view, they are unable to get any benefit. I entirely agree that it would be impossible to limit a provision of this kind to local or other public bodies. It would have to be extended, but that is a subject for consideration later. One other point in reference to the Clause as it stands: I do not think the difficulty will arise that has been pointed out. Words similar to those we find here were allowed in what is called the Contracting-Out Clause of the Workmen's Compensation Act, by which people were not to be subject to less favourable terms and conditions. It appears to me that the words here have been taken almost in terms from the Workmen's Compensation Act, and have been properly so taken. They have worked very well in that Act. It is one of the parts of the Workmen's Compensation Act in reference to which there has not been any litigation. There has been litigation on almost every topic under the Act except that. Therefore I can see no difficulty in putting in force a provision of this kind if you leave the decision in the hands of some practical body. I think under the Workmen's Compensation Act it was the registrar at that time, and I have never heard a single complaint as regards the decisions given. 883 Can you really force labourers to take worse terms than they are enjoying apart from this Act. Are we going to compel a man to worsen his position; what justice or equity is there in that. I say it is a monstrous proposition. I hope most cordially that this Sub-section will be retained in the Bill.

§ Mr. BARNES
I should like by leave of the Committee to make a few supplementary observations. The hon. and learned Member said that we wanted to sacrifice the Government employés. We want to do nothing of the kind. I say that the free mobility of labour to shift from one place to another is a condition of labour to which we attach the utmost importance, a consideration that must overshadow that interest that the hon. and learned Member had in his mind. There is another thing he entirely forgets, he draws a comparison between this Act and the Workmen's Compensation Act. There is no comparison. Under that Act you had no pool such as we have in this, although we have not a national pool here, and under that Act there is no contribution from the State. The pool, such as it is, loses the contribution from the State in separating those classes of workmen Government employs and the employés of local authorities. By adopting this Amendment the contribution of the State, at all events, will be secured for the workmen in common. Those in such employment and those outside. Another hon. Member suggested that in that event the Government worker will immediately set about forming societies of their own, and that inasmuch as there is no general national fund and only small pools, they will have the full benefit of their own pool. The answer to that is by asking another question, why do they not do that now? As a matter of fact, men in the Government employ are members of national societies. I myself belong to one with 120,000 members, and I should say that probably anything from 25,000 to 30,000 of its members are working in the Government workshops, both established and non-established. That is to say, they are quite willing now, when left to themselves, to pool their interests with their fellows in other workshops throughout the country, and inasmuch as they do that now, it seems to me that they will continue to do so in the event of the Amendment being carried; and if those schemes were wound tip now and a new start made, I think that those men sink 884 their interests and pool their interests with their fellow workers.
The hon. Member for Enfield (Mr. Newman) said a great deal about the privileges which the men in Enfield and elsewhere enjoyed. There is a good deal to be said about that. In the first place, if they are privileges, why weigh them up? If they are privileges, they should not be paid for at all. I deny that they are altogether an advantage to the men. I happen to have had a case a week or two ago from a worker in Enfield, and I should like to tell the Committee how this precious privilege worked out. The man left Enfield factory because it was impossible for him to live in the district as his wife was ordered to go to a warmer climate. The man had been there eighteen years, and if he had been discharged on reduction or for inefficiency he would have been entitled to eighteen weeks' pay, but because he had to leave in consequence of his wife's health he did not get a single halfpenny. That is how these privileges work out in a great many cases. Therefore, I suggest that in championing the men in regard to these privileges the hon. Member is not standing for the best interests of the men. On the contrary, if he will come along with us and somehow get those men in with their fellows outside and think less of those pettifogging privileges, that are likely to fail when they want them, he would be doing better by his Constituents. There is only one argument against my Amendment. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that, after all, this is a very big subject, that there has been no inquiry about it, and that it would be rather unfair to tack this Amendment on to a Bill of this sort before any inquiry is made. We are not responsible for the inquiry not having been made. We and all trade unionists have protested in season and out of season, for many years past in regard to those privileges. If the authorities have not inquired into them then it seems to me that they ought to have done so. But I recognise that not having inquired into them, and this Bill being framed as it is, that it would be a rather tall order now, when we are near the completion of the Bill, to insist upon an Amendment of this character. Therefore, I am afraid I must deny to the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London satisfaction, at all events, of following me into the Lobby. I do not agree with the validity of any of the arguments against my Amendment. I still 885 believe that the interests of the men, either inside Government workshops or outside, are common. But still I recognise that it would be a tall job to alter this Bill at this stage of the proceeding, and therefore I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Leave to withdraw withheld.

§ Mr. JAMES HOPE
I hope the Attorney-General will reply to the question put by the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington as to what is meant by "other public authorities."

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The hon. Member for South Bucks pointed out that this Clause was taken from the Workmen's Compensation Act, where the interpretation was understood, and that it was in the wider sense the hon. Member desired. The Clause does carry out the view he expressed.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he desires to withdraw his Amendment in consequence of his having been convinced by this side of the House that he was in the wrong. If so, I am not sure that I will persist in my objection to the Amendment being withdrawn.

§ Amendment negatived.

§ Mr. HOHLER
I beg to move, in paragraph (b), to leave out the word "under" ["under the Crown"], and to insert instead thereof the words "in an established capacity in the permanent service of."
7.0 P.M.
This Amendment is in regard to the hired men in the Government establishment, who stand in quite a different position from those on the establishment, who have permanent employers, superannuation at sixty, and in case of sickness also superannuation with a proper allowance. Those men may be hired for weeks or years, and they are discharged on reduction because they are not on the establishment. What is their position in regard to their rights under the Bill? Let me assume a man is a skilled labourer or shipwright, and that in that capacity he enters the Government employment an insured person who has paid his contribution under the Bill compulsorily. In all human probability he will enter during the currency of an insurance year, and the sum payable by him or in respect of him for medical benefit will already have been paid to the doctor of his society. What is to happen to that. 886 Let me then assume that he remains in the Government employment for fifty-two weeks, and that he is discharged at the end of that time. What then is his position? When he goes out he at once becomes an employed contributor. Of course, I assume for the purposes of my argument that, while serving the Government he has neither been sick nor otherwise required relief or benefits. Having left the Government service he becomes an employed contributor and then becomes sick. As I read the Bill under those circumstances he would be out of benefit, since under Clause 10 he is not exempted, because he is more than thirteen weeks out of contribution. I see nothing in the Bill to meet that case. I call the attention of the Attorney General to the point, because it seems to me to require consideration and amendment. There is nothing in the Bill to say that the payments which were not being made while the man was in the service of the Crown shall not count as arrears. That is what we want to cover. I want it to be perfectly clear that the man, when he goes out of Government employment, shall be entitled to the benefits of the Bill as if he had been insured throughout the whole year that he was working for the Crown. I have great sympathy with much that has been said by the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division (Mr. Barnes), though I rather regretted the tone of his speech. The case to which I have referred does not come within the exemptions set out in Clause 10, and it is in order that the matter may be perfectly clear that I move the Amendment, and I shall ask the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division to follow me into the Lobby. I want a little more definition as to what the Government scheme is to be. The Clause refers only to sickness and disablement. Whether it includes or covers medical attendance, sanatorium benefit, and maternity benefit, ought to be made perfectly clear. We are asked to sanction this Schedule without any knowledge of what the scheme is. What real control have we over the Insurance Commissioners?

§ The CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is now travelling beyond the Amendment.

§ Mr. HOHLER
That is perhaps true. In regard to these men I should be inclined to say that you must make good to their fellow workmen outside the employment of the Crown when they rejoin them, the 887 contributions that they ought to have paid while in that service. I agree with the hon. Member opposite that these men are excellent lives in the sense that they are medically examined before they enter the service of the Crown. That is a very strong point. Infinite difficulties will arise in the matter of account as between the approved society and the Crown. How can they deal with this case supposing the society exercise their powers to reduce contributions? They will do it on the theory that all their members are receiving precisely equivalent benefits under the Bill, and they may reduce the voluntary contribution. How is the man under the Crown, who is still a member of the approved society, to be dealt with in that case? I see no system under which proper effect can be given to the existing conditions. I should prefer that men were left in the ordinary position of workmen in the service of an ordinary employer. Unless you establish the men, I object to these partial schemes of exemption. The real truth of the matter is this: it must have been obvious to the Committee from the first that the Chancellor of the Exchequer wants to save the pocket of the Crown at every conceivable point. He objects to an official acting for the Crown having to pay the 3d. per head contribution for these men. He hopes to get off more cheaply by the use of naval or military doctors, who will be sent to attend these men. They will be not the doctors selected by the men. I press the Amendment most strongly.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The object of the Amendment, as I understand it, is to point out that under the Clause as drafted there is no provision in respect of arrears in the case of a man who leaves the Crown service. I do not understand how that is to be remedied by the Amendment, which proposes to make the Clause read "employed in an established capacity in the permanent service of the Crown." Unless that means that in no circumstances should a person be discharged, which the hon. Member can hardly suggest, it is exactly the same question that he raised on the Government words. It seems not to make the slightest difference whether you take the words already in the Government Clause or the words desired by the hon. Member, except that you introduce the phrase "permanent service of the Crown," which is rather unusual in an Act of Parliament.

888

§ Mr. HOHLER
The words are taken from Clause 79 in the Unemployment Part of the Bill. As to the other point raised by the Attorney-General, I have dealt with it in a subsequent Amendment.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
I am dealing with the Amendment before the Committee. The hon. Member complained that there was no provision in regard to arrears. How could it possibly be argued that there were any arrears payable for the time during which a man was in the employment of the Crown, seeing that in Part II. of the Schedule it is said that he is not to be an employed contributor at all? The whole object of that exemption is that the man may be excluded; therefore, during the time he is in the service of the Crown, he cannot be called upon to make any payment. It would clearly be impossible for any claim to be made against a man for arrears during the time he was in Government service. The other question raised by the hon. Member does not arise on this Amendment.

§ Mr. FORSTER
I think the question of transfer value does arise on this Amendment. I agree that there will be no question of arrears, because the man who enters the service of the Crown after he has been an employed contributor, if he stays in that service for anything like twelve months, drops out of insurance altogether, assuming that as regards sickness and disablement he is getting equivalent benefits. I do not think that that is a satisfactory position at all. He has to become a contributor as soon as the Bill passes, or as soon as he becomes sixteen years of age; he has to pay his contributions up to the time he enters the service of the Crown; but if he enters that service he does so knowing that in the course of twelve months he will drop out of insurance altogether and forfeit all the benefits for which he has hitherto contributed. What happens, supposing he subsequently leaves the service of the Crown or is discharged? He then becomes an employed contributor again. He again has to enter insurance, and this time he has to pay the contributions appropriate to his age. I do not think that that is a very satisfactory prospect. When this Bill becomes law, a man ought to be told quite clearly when he enters the service of the Crown what may happen to him if he subsequently leaves that service. I do not know whether or not it is going to make it easy for the Crown to get workmen to enter their workshops. I myself think it will 889 tend rather in the opposite direction, but I will reserve what I have to say on transfer value until my hon. Friend's second Amendment.

§ Mr. HARRY LAWSON
I do not think the Attorney-General in the least realises the extraordinary intricacies of this part of the Bill. The workmen who either enters the service of the Crown or a municipality after being in private employment, or the one who leaves the service of the Crown or the municipality to enter into private employment, have an equally hard case, for the benefits given, as a rule, I speak from my own experience, under municipal direction are of a different kind to those contemplated in the Bill. When a man enters the service of the municipality or the service of the Crown he will probably become a member of one of the schemes that are now universally prevalent of superannuation and in certain cases of allowance during sickness, but he will lose altogether the benefits under the Bill. Vice versa, he loses his superannuation, and anything he may have contributed, as soon as he leaves the public service and enters private service. Therefore, there seems to me to be a double hardship—a hardship in either case. I do not believe the Government have contemplated these cases at close quarters. If they had investigated the problem of the municipality from the point of view of municipal and State service they would see that really the two systems are incompatible. It would be well if they considered before Report in what way to bridge over the difficulty. Why should there be a hardship inflicted on a man who, having been in private employment, is selected for his superior skill for public employment, only to lose that which has accrued to him under the Bill in which he has paid subscriptions as an employed contributor? Why should the fact that the Government is going to reduce its establishment lead to a man sacrificing his benefits under the Government scheme? The Attorney-General will see that this will seriously prejudice the public service in the public mind.

§ Sir HILDRED CARLILE
I think the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney-General scarcely seems to realise the marked difference there is between men in Government employment who are upon the establishment and those who are not upon the establishment. The position of those who are not upon the establishment is far more insecure, their period of em- 890 ployment is often very short, and their employment is very uncertain. I think my hon. and learned Friend was well advised in bringing forward this Amendment so as to show this particular point. It should be realised that the mere fact of the insecurity of their employment constitutes the probability that many of these men will be placed in the difficulty to which reference has already been made. During the time that they are in Government employment, of course, no contributions are made; but then are not the same benefits under the Bill dependent upon the number of payments that a man contributes towards the fund? If a man leaves Government employment the period represented by such employment cannot count at all as a single payment in behalf of those benefits; therefore the man has to begin again. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks pointed out a moment ago, he begins again under great disadvantages, because then he has to take up the position of one who was older than he was, and he has to pay at a rate represented by the increased age. He is therefore doubly handicapped, on the one hand when he rejoins and becomes an insured person under the Bill he has to pay a higher rate, and he has also lost all those periods of payment which he would otherwise have made. If the Attorney-General considers these two points he will, I should imagine, come to the conclusion that the real substance of my hon. and learned Friend's Amendment is one that the Government should really seriously consider.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
I hope the Government will give very serious attention to this matter, because, as the Bill stands, I think it inflicts a great hard ship on a large number of public servants. I am not referring now to the cases coming under local governing authorities. I have never—unfortunately for myself—had a seat on one of those bodies, or taken any part in local work. But I have in the course of my official experience had a good deal to do with servants of the Crown, especially in the dockyards. Do the Government really appreciate what is the position of the unestablished men? The Attorney-General says, or seems to think, that the Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend does not affect the question of transfer value—

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
I never said so. On the contrary, I pointed out that the Amendment did affect the question which 891 the hon. and learned Member had indicated. The hon. and learned Gentleman said he would deal with that question when he came to the second Amendment, and I said that, except on a narrow question of arrears, I would reserve what I had to say in regard to transfer value. The only point I argued was the question which seemed to arise upon this: as to whether or not arrears would be demanded from the persons who had left the Crown service.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
I do not think that it is I who have misunderstood the Attorney-General. I think on this occasion it is the Attorney-General who has misunderstood me. The Attorney-General thinks that transfer value is raised by the subsequent Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend. I think it is raised in a very material form by this Amendment. Indeed, if this Amendment be rejected, I doubt very much whether the other Amendment, which is consequential upon it, may even be moved. That Amendment specifically refers to transfer value in particular cases; and the Attorney-General is reserving his observations upon the point. May I put the position to him, and I think he will see that there is some ground for my argument as to what the hon. and learned Gentleman meant. My hon. and learned Friend means to exclude from, the exceptions unestablished men. He desires to leave established men only. He provides that in their case when they leave the service of the Crown there shall be transfer value. That is the effect of his Amendment.

§ Mr. HOHLER
"Otherwise than upon his discharge to pension."

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
That is the effect of the two Amendments. The first Amendment limits the exceptions to established men. The second Amendment gives to those established men a transfer value if they are discharged, otherwise than on pension. If you reject the first Amendment I do not think that you can move the second. In any case the second Amendment does not touch the transfer value of the unestablished men. My hon. and learned Friend confirms me in saying that is his object.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
His Amendment goes further.

§ Mr. HOHLER
May I say that my second Amendment is wide enough to 892 cover both cases. The object and intention of it—I hope to succeed on my first Amendment—of the second Amendment, undoubtedly, is simply to deal with those still on the establishment.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
It is a case which I had overlooked. You can read the second Amendment into the Bill whether the first Amendment is carried or not. I thought the second was dependent upon the first Amendment. Certainly the scheme of my hon. Friend was to treat the two classes of men differently. They are, in fact, in a very different position. The established man very rarely leaves the service voluntarily except to take up some very considerable promotion, and he is never discharged from the service except for very gross misconduct. Therefore the cases in which the established man leaves the service are very few. But the cases in which the unestablished man leaves the service have been very large indeed, within my recollection in the dockyards, both at the time I was at the Admiralty, and since under different Governments—notably under this Government, I think—notably perhaps in the last year or two of the Government of which I was a member, and of the first year of the present Government.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
was understood to intimate the wish of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the unestablished men should be given as favourable terms as possible.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
That is the intention of the Government. I thought they meant to get the Government scheme certified if they could. I admit that the scheme, as I knew it, and as it now exists, certainly for unestablished men, is probably insufficient to satisfy the terms of this Schedule. I believe it will be sufficient to satisfy the conditions as to sickness. I doubt if it will be sufficient to satisfy the conditions as to disablement, though that really is a matter which is not very easy to answer, because you would then have to consider what is the capital value of the disablement charge under this Bill—or the Commissioners will have to consider it. If the Attorney-General means that the Government do not believe that any of their dockyard employés come under this exception, and that they mean them to come under the ordinary terms of the Bill—

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
was understood to nod affirmatively.

893

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
But the Sub-section does not touch the cases suggested by my hon. and learned Friend.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
No, no. The words are that the terms of employment must "secure provision in respect of sickness and disablement on the whole not less favourable than those in Part I." It is not one of the main objects of the Sub-section to keep out a man who may be termed in the ordinary sense of the word a workman employed in the dockyard, and who may be discharged in six or twelve months or a couple of years, as the case may be. It is meant to cover the case of those men whom the right hon. Gentleman described as established men, who would be entitled both to sickness and disablement benefits, and who do not come within that category at all. I do not think that the case which he put, and which I agree, if it was not covered, would be a very hard case, is the object of this Clause at all.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
I am much obliged to the Attorney-General for his explanation, and I admit I did not understand the intention of the Government. I think I was misled by previous recollections of the action of Government under previous Bills. I never very much liked exceptional legislation for the servants of the Crown. I think when the House lays down general rules for all employés these rules should apply to people working under the Crown as well as to others, and my recollection and official experience were that we conformed in our dockyards to the various Acts which Parliament had passed. We had, of course, before ever there was a Workmen's Compensation Act, an extended scheme of compensation, but when the Workmen's Compensation Act was passed the dockyards were made to conform to the provisions of that Act. I understood this Clause to mean that the Government were going to contract themselves out by making provision for those people satisfying the Commissioners, but leaving matters so framed that many of the people well provided for in the service of the Government, but who might be discharged for want of work, or who might go elsewhere owing to the fluctuations of trade, might find themselves injured by having no transfer value. After the explanations of the Attorney-General, I think I am satisfied he has met that part of the case, and the other part is met by my hon. Friend.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
Will the Attorney-General say what would be the 894 position of the man who is now a member of a friendly society, and a contributor in civilian employ, if he comes into Government employ as a more or less temporary hand, and not one of the established workmen? The Insurance Commissioners will have already certified the scheme for the Department, because obviously it does not contemplate that the Insurance Commissioners are going to certify the terms of employment for each individual workman; that could not happen in a dockyard or Army Ordanace Department to every individual case; the general terms of employment would come before the Insurance Commissioners, who would have to say yea or nay as to whether these terms of employment were as favourable or not as the terms under the National Insurance. Supposing the Insurance Commissioners did certify the State scheme, then what is going to happen to the man already in a friendly society who comes into a dockyard for one year? The terms of employment are as favourable as the Insurance Bill gives. That is certified by the Insurance Commissioners, and during the whole of the year he is in that employment he gets sick benefit and medical benefit. But at the end of that year if he goes away what is his position? His contributions to the friendly societies are not continued, and surely some provision must be made for such cases as that. This is not an imaginative case. It is one bound to happen every day. Does not the Attorney-General know there is a large amount of additional labour taken on from time to time in Government Departments in times of pressure. I am afraid I did not hear any answer to that. The terms of employment a man has got during that year would be as favourable so far as the Government Department is concerned as may be, but when the man leaves at the termination of his employment he is in a worse position than ever.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
I am sorry to intervene again, but I only want to answer some further questions put to me and suggestions made in the course of this discussion. Hon. Members are under a misapprehension. Under Clause 37 we made this Bill apply to the servants of the Crown. It applies to all persons with certain exceptions. The terms of employment as regards sickness and disablement are dealt with under the Bill. I think this Clause is introduced into the Bill to deal with a totally different class of persons 895 from those described by the hon. Gentleman, men who are on the establishment. It is not meant to deal with the cases the hon. Gentleman gives. If a man came to the dock and had left his approved society and got employment for a year or two and then came out and found he lost his benefits in an approved society and could not get back without having some considerable transfer value, I agree that is a case that should be dealt with, but it does not arise here, because that is not within this Clause. I think the whole question the hon. Member put is based upon a misapprehension of the position which will arise under this Clause.

§ Mr. AMERY
It seems to me that it would be possible for the Government Department to make a scheme for all its employés that would satisfy the Insurance Commissioners and that would be satisfactory for the men, provided they remain in Government employment, but would not be fair if they left Government employment. We want some assurance that a Government Department will not profess to give all its employés terms which are really only fair to those who get on the permanent establishment. The whole object of the present Amendment is to prevent a State Department trying to save on the 3d. a week by a cheaper pension scheme. In a great many cases people will fall out and leave the service, and are those to be left unprovided for? In the case of the soldiers and sailors, under Clause 36 provision is made not only for transfer value but also for granting something to their society all the time they are in the Army, and it seems to me the same should come in in regard to short service men, either on lines analogous to the case of the soldiers and sailors or other lines, that the State Department should make a scheme for short service men and strictly pay 3d. a week for every one of these men until finally it takes them on to its permanent establishment.

§ Mr. CLYNES
Allusion has been made to the second Amendment as well as to the first, and to a great extent we have been discussing both. I think something can be said for the second Amendment, but nothing whatever for the first, which is the immediate matter before us. As I understand at the present moment this applies to a class, and the object of the Amendment is really to make a class within a class. It is bad enough to make 896 exceptions, but to so condition and restrict this class, as this Amendment would do, is, in my opinion, to further complicate an already much complicated Bill. I think the whole of the corporation services and the Crown employés sould be treated similarly. There will be extreme difficulty on the part of the Insurance Commissioners in determining who are the men upon the establishment staff and permanently employed, and who are not on the established staff and only temporarily employed. I think the Committee will be well advised in keeping on a similar level the whole body of men employed in corporations and in the services of the Crown, and then proceeding to consider the great interests involved in the next Amendment.

§ Mr. HOHLER
The Debate has been singularly instructive. I want by my Amendment to confine these exceptions to those established in a permanent capacity under the Crown. Says the Attorney-General, "That is exactly what the Clause does." If that is so, I say, make it clear. I do not agree with the Attorney-General. I think the Clause means what it says, and what the Clause says to my mind is perfectly clear. Paragraph (b) says, Employment under the Crown or any local or other public authority where the Insurance Commissioners certify that the terms of the employment are such as to secure provision in respect of sickness and disablement on the whole not less favourable than the corresponding benefits conferred by Part I. of this Act. It does not relate to the existing scheme at all. Supposing the Crown in its scheme say in substance, "While in our employ we will give you the same benefits as the Bill gives you." Under this Clause you cannot do that, and therefore it is quite clear that the Clause would enable a scheme such as I have foreshadowed to be made. Having been made everybody entering the service of the Crown would come under it, and we want to protect those who go out, because they are only hired men or engaged for temporary purposes. Why does not the Attorney-General accept words to show what the Clause means. I heard the speech of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clynes) opposite, who says you are creating exceptions. That is what the Attorney-General says it does, namely, that it is confined to those serving in establishments under the Crown. I ask the Attorney-General to make it clear it is confined to those under 897 established capacity. Otherwise a new scheme would be brought up precisely on the lines of the Workmen's Compensation Act, which to my mind, would be no benefit to the men at all. I want to make it perfectly clear that when these men serve the Crown for a limited period they

898

§ shall not be prejudiced when they leave the service.

§ Question put, "That the word 'under' stand part of the Schedule."

§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 178; Noes, 85.

899

Division No. 394.]	AYES.	[7.45 p.m.
Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)	Harwood, George	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)
Acland, Francis Dyke	Haslam, James (Derbyshire)	Power, Patrick Joseph
Adamson, William	Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)	Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)
Addison, Dr. C.	Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry	Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)
Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.	Haworth, Sir Arthur A.	Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)
Alden, Percy	Hayward, Evan	Radford, George Heynes
Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)	Helme, Norval Watson	Raffan, Peter Wilson
Allen, Charles Peter (Stroud)	Henderson, Arthur (Durham)	Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)
Anderson, Andrew Macbeth	Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)	Reddy, Michael
Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.	Higham, John Sharp	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)	Hinds, John	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)
Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)	Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.	Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)
Benn, W. W. (T. H'mts., St. George)	Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich)	Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	Robinson, Sidney
Black, Arthur W.	Hughes, Spencer Leigh	Roche, Augustine (Louth)
Boland, John Pius	Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus	Roche, John (Galway, E.)
Booth, Frederick Handel	Johnson, W.	Rose, Sir Charles Day
Brady, Patrick Joseph	Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe	Rowlands, James
Brunner, John F. L.	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)	Rowntree, Arnold
Buckmaster, Stanley O.	Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts, Stepney)	Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Joyce, Michael	Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)
Buxton, Rt. Hon. S. C. (Poplar)	Keating, Matthew	Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Byles, Sir William Pollard	Kellaway, Frederick George	Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.
Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)	Kennedy, Vincent Paul	Sheehy, David
Cawley, H. T. (Lancs., Heywood)	Kilbride, Denis	Sherwell, Arthur James
Chapple, Dr. William Allen	Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)	Simon, Sir John Allsebrook
Clough, William	Leach, Charles	Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)
Clynes, John R.	Levy, Sir Maurice	Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)
Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)	Lewis, John Herbert	Spicer, Sir Albert
Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	Lundon, Thomas	Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Lynch, Arthur Alfred	Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, W.)
Cory, Sir Clifford John	Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)	Taylor, John W. (Durham)
Cotton, William Francis	Macpherson, James Ian	Tennant, Harold John
Crumley, Patrick	MacVeagh, Jeremiah	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Cullinan, John	M'Callum, John M.	Toulmin, Sir George
Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)	McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)	Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander
Dawes, James Arthur	M'Micking, Major Gilbert	Verney, Sir Harry
Dillon, John	Meagher, Michael	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)
Donelan, Captain A.	Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)	Wardie, George J.
Doris, William	Menzies, Sir Walter	Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay
Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)	Millar, James Duncan	Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)
Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)	Mond, Sir Alfred	Watt, Henry A.
Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)	Mooney, John J.	Webb, H.
Elibank, Rt. Hon. Master of	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas	White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston)
Esslemont, George Birnie	Munro, Robert	White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.
Furness, Stephen	Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd	Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C.	Whitehouse, John Howard
Glanville, Harold James	Nannetti, Joseph P.	Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.
Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Nolan, Joseph	Whyte, A. F. (Perth)
Goldstone, Frank	Norman, Sir Henry	Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)
Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)	O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)	Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)
Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	O'Doherty, Philip	Young, Samuel (Cavan, E.)
Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke)	O'Donnell, Thomas	Young, William (Perthshire, E.)
Hackett, John	Ogden, Fred	Yoxall, Sir James Henry
Hancock, J. G.	O'Malley, William
Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale)	Parker, James (Halifax)
Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.
Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds.)	Pearce, William (Limehouse)	Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.
Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.)	Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)
NOES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte	Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)	Cave, George
Archer-Shee, Major M.	Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)	Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worcr.)
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Bird, Alfred	Clyde, James Avon
Baird, J. L.	Boyton, James	Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)
Balcarres, Lord	Bull, Sir William James	Croft, Henry Page
Baldwin, Stanley	Burn, Colonel C. R.	Denniss, E. R. B.
Baring, Maj. Hon. Guy V. (Winchester)	Butcher, John George	Doughty, Sir George
Barnes, G. N.	Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred	Du Cros, Arthur Philip
Duke, Henry Edward	Lamb, Ernest Henry	Ronaldshay, Earl of
Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.	Lansbury, George	Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)
Falle, Bertram Godfrey	Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)	Sanderson, Lancelot
Fell, Arthur	Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey)	Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)
Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert	Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee	Steel-Maitland, A. D.
Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes	MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh	Swift, Rigby
Forster, Henry William	Mackinder, Halford J.	Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central)
Gardner, Ernest	Magnus, Sir Philip	Talbot, Lord Edmund
Gastrell, Major W. Houghton	Mildmay, Francis Bingham	Thomson, W. Mtchell- (Down, N.)
Goldman, Charles Sydney	Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas	Touche, George Alexander
Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)	Neville, Reginald J. N.	Tryon, Captain George Clement
Greene, Walter Raymond	Newdegate, F. A.	Valentia, Viscount
Gretton, John	Newman, John R. P.	Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)
Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)	Nield, Herbert	Wolmer, Viscount
Hall, Fred (Dulwich)	O'Grady, James	Worthington-Evans, L.
Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington)	Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)	Yate, Col. C. E.
Hills, John Waller	Peel, Hon. W. R. W. (Taunton)	Younger, Sir George
Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)	Perkins, Walter Frank
Hunt, Rowland	Peto, Basil Edward
Jowett, Frederick William	Pollock, Ernest Murray	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.
Kerry, Earl of	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel	Hohler and Mr. Amery.
Kimber, Sir Henry	Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Mr. PEEL
I beg to move, at the end of paragraph (b), to insert the words "and the person so employed is a member of a superannuation fund established for the benefit of persons in such employment."
I was asked to raise this point by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras (Mr. Cassel). Why are those words necessary in the second case and not in the first case? It looks as though some special disability was being laid on railway companies which is not laid on local or other public authorities. I submit that if the words are necessary in the one case they are necessary in the other in order to secure these benefits. It might be argued that it is sufficient to say that the Insurance Comissioners must be satisfied that the terms of the employment are such as to secure proper conditions. If that is enough in the case of a local authority why is it not enough in the case of a railway company, because the cases are parallel? I submit that it is just as necessary in the one case as in the other, and I should be very glad if the Attorney-General will explain this point.

§ Mr. POLLOCK
I support this Amendment for the purpose of getting an explanation from the Attorney-General. I think he will say that if these words are inserted they will operate as words of limitation. If that is so, then the similar words which are contained in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Amendment will operate in the same way. Perhaps it would be much better to leave the matter dealt with under the words "terms of employment." It matters really very little whether there happens to be in a particular case a superannuation fund or not if the terms of the employment secure conditions which, on the whole, are not less favourable. The last Clause of the Chancellor 900 of the Exchequer's Amendment is framed in such a way that it introduces these words. It may be that in particular cases in the employment of clerks there may be a superannuation fund, and that may be the reason for not having those words there. I suggest to the Attorney-General that the best course would be to leave them out in both cases, and I hope he will consider the matter from that point of view and leave the words as wide as possible to cover all cases in which you find that the employment is not less favourable than the corresponding benefits conferred by this Act. If you have these two Clauses drawn up in this alternative way you set up a contrast, and I hope the Attorney-General will alter the words contained in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Amendment. I support the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton because I wish to have the words made as wide as possible.

§ 8.0 P.M.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
I have to discuss this proposal in the light of the words contained in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Amendment to be moved later on, and we shall have an opportunity then of explaining why those words are to be inserted. It does not necessarily follow that there is a superannuation fund, although the firm have made sufficient provision to satisfy the Insurance Commissioners. That is one reason why it is not necessary to introduce the word "superannuation." When we come to deal later I on with the Amendment of the Chancellor I of the Exchequer we shall see that in the I case of the clerks who are employed by the railway companies you are dealing with companies authorised by Act of Parliament having statutory authority for a superannuation fund. That company is in a different position to the State, because it 901 is a company which trades for profit, and the clerk has statutory authority in the case of the superannuation fund. That is entirely different from the position of the State or of the public authority, which is really not quite the same thing as a railway trading for profit. Therefore it is necessary to have these words, which are used in various Acts of Parliament relating to the superannuation funds of railway companies. They speak of a superannuation fund established by Act of Parliament for the benefit of persons in the employment of the railway company. That is why we introduce the words at the end of this Clause, although we do not in the other Clause, where they would not be quite applicable.

Mr. PEEL
I do not quite understand the argument of the Attorney-General about trading for profit. I do not quite see because one company trades for profit and the other does not why that makes such a difference. The point is whether these funds are good and are properly secure, and they undoubtedly ought to be properly secure.

§ Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and negatived.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
I beg to move, in Part II., at the end of paragraph (b), to insert the words, (c) Employment as a clerk or otherwise in the service of a railway or other company, or of a joint committee of two or more such companies, when the Insurance Commissioners certify that the terms of employment are such as to secure provision in respect of sickness or disablement, on the whole, not less favourable than the corresponding benefits conferred by Part I. of this Act, and the person so employed is a member of a superannuation fund established by Act of Parliament for the benefit of persons in such employment.

§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

§ Sir H. KIMBER
I beg to move, in the proposed Amendment, to leave out the words "as a clerk or otherwise."
I had put down an Amendment before the Amendment standing in the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared on the Paper to include in the right to apply for exemption from the Statute not 902 only the case of Crown service and local municipal service, but also the case of service in any company or society, and I had hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer intended by his Amendment to cover it. I have had many illustrations put before me of companies with funds which give to the members of them much greater benefits than are offered by this Bill or can possibly be obtained under this Bill. The South Metropolitan Gas Company is one of many gas companies of which I might say the same thing. They have funds which are guaranteed as to solvency, and they give for a less payment per week greater sick benefit and other benefits than the State fund. I do not like to lose the hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, having by this Amendment proposed to except the case of service in a railway company, may see there is not much difference between a railway company and a gas company or any other company having such a fund as to comply with the condition he inserts in the Bill—the condition that they should satisfy the Insurance Commissioners that on the whole the provisions in the case of sickness and disablement are not less favourable than the corresponding benefits conferred by Part I. of this Act. If they comply with that condition, it does not appear to me there can be any difference between a railway company and any other company or any big firm. There are many hon. Members on that side of the House, as well as on this, who are heads of commercial undertakings of great stability which have funds of this kind. Some of them are incorporated as companies, limited or otherwise, and others are not incorporated. I can see no distinction that can be drawn in principle between them and a railway company. If a railway company is to have the right to appeal to the Commissioners and say, "We have a fund as good as your State Insurance Bill," I see no reason why companies other than railway companies and private firms, whether incorporated as limited companies or not, should not have the same right. I should like to ask what is meant by the words in the first line of the Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer:— Employment as a clerk or otherwise in the service of a railway or other company. What does "otherwise" mean? Does it mean a clerk or other employé in the service of that company, ejusdem generis? Is I it to be some man who wears a black coat, 903 or is to be men who are workers? It ought to be explained, otherwise it leaves a doubt as to its interpretation. Clerk or otherwise in the service of a railway company. Workmen are in the service of the company, and it might be contended they are included. On the other hand, it might be contended a workman is not a "clerk or otherwise," and therefore is not included. There is, at all events, a doubt as to the interpretation of the words which ought to be cleared up. My first Amendment is to leave out the words "as a clerk or otherwise." Then I propose to strike out the words "railway or other." What does "or other" mean? Does it mean a company ejusdem generis with a railway company, or will it apply to a gas company? The expression should be such as can only have one meaning, but it is quite clear this can have half-a-dozen meanings, and all the descriptions of a company which exist in the country might one after the other be contended to be within or without the words "or other." I propose to strike out the words "railway or other," so that the two lines will read "employment in the service of a company." Perhaps it will lead to clearness if I say what other Amendments I propose to make subsequently. I propose, after the words "company, or of a joint committee of two or more such companies," to insert the words "or other employers," meaning thereby to include firms of the kind I have described. Many of them have funds of great stability, the solvency of which are guaranteed by the employers, and I see no reason in principle why, if a limited incorporated company or a railway company is to be included, such a firm should not also be included. Then I propose to strike out the last two lines of the Amendment, which make it a condition of exemption that The person so employed as a member of a superannuation fund established by Act of Parliament for the benefit of persons in such employment. There are special reasons why those words should not be inserted at all. Why is subscription to a superannuation fund to be made a condition of exemption in the case of men employed by railway and other companies when the Bill itself has nothing to do with superannuation? The benefits given by the Bill do not include superannuation? Why, then, should the 904 members of a fund who are amply provided for against all the casualties mentioned in the Bill, and who obtain greater benefits than are given by the Bill have added, as a condition of exemption, that they must also belong to some superannuation fund established by Act of Parliament for the benefit of persons in such employment? There must be a special Act of Parliament for the purpose of establishing a superannuation fund, to which they are bound to subscribe, as well as to the sick and benefit fund, and yet this Bill does not offer any superannuation arrangement at all? There is nothing like a good illustration from facts to understand the application of a principle. The South Metropolitan Gas Company have funds for their workmen, who are in number about 6,000. The men contribute 3d. per week, as against the contribution to the State scheme of 4d., and for that 3d. they get 12s. a week in case of sickness, beginning with the first day of sickness and not with the fourth, as against the State provision of 10s. a week. After the first three months the State Bill gives 7s. per week under sixty years of age, and 5s. per week over sixty years of age. In the case of the gas company fund, they are allowed 12s. per week for the first three months and 6s. per week afterwards all through, with additions in the way of half-pay for employés who terminate their service owing to ill-health. Taking the whole of the amount of the fund together, the total subscription in the last year of the workmen, together with that of the company, amounted to £5,097. The benefits for sick pay, etc., amounted to £1,470, the company guaranteeing the solvency of the fund, and to pay whatever deficit was necessary for fulfilling the full complement of the benefit promised. The Government Bill, on the other hand, promises, but does not guarantee, that the fund will be solvent enough to continue these benefits. I think that is a short statement of the benefits obtained by the men through their own exertions as compared with those promised under the Bill. Under the company's funds the men are perfectly secure, and they get 20 per cent. more benefit on their subscription than they would under the Government scheme. In August last I put a question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as follows:— Whether he has been informed of the case of the workmen in the employ of the South Metropolitan Gas Company, some 6,000 in number, who gain all the benefits afforded by the National Insurance Bill, except maternity benefit, at considerably less expense under 905 the fund which they have established with the assistance of their company, their contributions being 3d. per week as against 4d. per week under the Bill; and their sick benefit being 12s. per week as against 10s. per week under the Bill, this benefit including workmen up to the age of sixty-five years, as against 10s. per week up to the age of fifty years, 7s. per week for over fifty and under sixty years, and 5s. per week for over sixty years under the Bill, the benefits also covering the first three days of sickness which the Bill excludes; and whether he would be willing to exclude them and any other similar body who provide not less favourable terms than those offered by the Bill from the compulsory Clauses of the Bill? The answer was most extraordinary. It was:— My attention has been called to the case referred to by the hon. Baronet. As every penny contributed by the employers and workmen under the National Health Insurance will be applied exclusively for the benefit of the workmen under their own administration, it follows that they cannot lose through being brought under the Bill, and since they will have the State Grant in addition to their own contributions, it further follows that they must gain. If they can so manage the fund as to provide larger benefits than the minimum indicated in the Bill, they will be in a position to enjoy those larger benefits. I am not prepared to penalise all the best-managed provident funds by withdrawing State aid from them. Let me take these assertions seriatim. It is suggested that the company do not contribute under that arrangement exclusively for the benefit of the workmen. That is not true. Under the Bill the workmen gets all the benefit less the expenses of the management fund. Apply this to the case of men under the provisions of a Bill. They get under a pension fund £5,097, and that will be 25 per cent. more than they would get under this Bill. It means that the company pays about £1,200 more than would have to be paid under the Bill. That is a very large item. More than that, the fund is not guaranteed. Take the case of the sick pay; under the Bill it amounts to £4,500; under the company's fund they get £5,097; nearly £600 more, for which they would only pay 3d. per week, or 1d. per week less than under the Government scheme. I think I have shown the Committee that under the Bill they will pay more than under their own administration. That cannot be denied. The total of the fund put forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if I recollect the figures accurately, was twenty-seven millions for the whole. The cost of the management fund is to be three millions, and that represents 11 per cent., or one-ninth of the whole fund. We will assume that the State pays 2d. The provision for the reserve fund has to be deducted from this, it is 1d. and 5–9ths, and in view of the management expenses it is obvious that a very small portion will go to the benefit of the men. 906 How can it be true, as alleged in the answer of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the men cannot lose under the State fund, and that they must gain. I cannot see how they can gain. The benefits distributed among them are £600 less than they would get under the State fund by paying 4d. a week instead of 3d. Therefore they must lose in one case, and they cannot possibly gain in the other. Let me take the next assertion in this answer:— If they can so manage the fund as to provide larger benefits than the minimum indicated in the Bill they will be in a position to enjoy these larger benefits. That is a very cynical statement. If out of their own pockets they can find greater benefits, of course they will enjoy them, but that is not owing either to the Bill or to the Government. Is it supposed that in addition to subscribing the 4d. and 3d. to the State fund, they should keep on subscribing to their own fund as well. Of course they will get double benefits. If out of the 3d. they get 12s. a week for sick benefit, how much ought they to get for 4d.? They ought to get 16s. Instead of that, under the Bill they get only 10s. Is is not manifest that they must lose in the one way and that they cannot gain in the other?
Finally, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said:— I am not prepared to penalise all the best-managed provident funds by withdrawing State aid from them. The men do not want State aid. They say, "we want to do without it. The State aid leaves us with a loss; we are free men and are content. Out of our own funds we have done a great deal more than the State, by this Bill, professes to do for us, and we want to be let alone." Their masters are quite willing to guarantee the solvency of the fund, whatever may be required for the sick benefits and the other benefits promised by the Bill. They undertake with all the capital of the company at their back to make them good. It is not the company that object. I believe these figures have been corroborated by a public statement. The men have submitted to me their balance-sheets for two years, but I do not want to read them. The figures I have given do not include any contribution from the State, which contribution, it is true, does not come out of the pockets of the men directly, but it comes out of the pockets of the British taxpayer, and in the case of this company it will be no less than £2,091. These men are offering to-day, without State aid, to relieve the State of a burden of £2,091 a year. Is it not a strong and an 907 unanswerable proof that the vice of this Bill is the compulsion that is put upon men who do now, and promise in the future to do, a great deal more—almost fifty per cent. more on the whole—than the State offers to do for them.

§ The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna)
The hon. Gentleman has raised in this Amendment not merely the technical point contained in the particular words he has moved to omit, but the much larger question of the treatment of companies of the nature of the South Metropolitan Gas Company. The Solicitor-General will deal later with the hon. Member's particular Amendment, and will also supplement what I have to say about the South Metropolitan Gas Company. The hon. Gentleman puts the case forward as one in which the men employed at the gas company, who pay 3d., are much better off than they would be under the scheme of the Bill. I had the advantage of meeting some of the representatives of the men employed by this company, and I heard their case very fully staled. What are the facts? The case which was put before me by these men was not that they were to continue in future to pay 3d. as in the past, but that they will pay 4d. and receive 12s. sickness benefit and 6s. after the first thirteen weeks. I am, however, quite content to take the case as represented by the hon. Gentleman. He says that these men now pay 3d. and receive sickness benefit of 12s. a week and 6s. after the first thirteen weeks, and that they are enabled to receive the benefits upon this substantial scale owing to the fact that the company guarantee the solvency of the fund. The company, it must be observed, do not undertake to make any payment themselves when benefits are paid out to the men, nor do they undertake to pay any portion of the benefits. All they do is to guarantee the ultimate solvency of the fund as a permanent concern. The company has been extended, and in recent years it has added very largely to the number of men employed.

§ Sir H. KIMBER
The company do not wait until the solvency or otherwise of the fund is ascertained. They pay de anno in annum.

§ Mr. McKENNA
The company guarantee the solvency of the fund, and do not undertake to pay any portion of the benefits distributed to the men, but they undertake 908 that the men shall receive those benefits. In the history of the company the number of men employed by them has been an increasing number, and, in consequence of that, the fund has had the advantage of a steadily growing premium income paid by the men. This has meant that the benefits have been to a consider able extent, not entirely, paid out of the growing premium income—

§ Sir H. KIMBER
Oh, no.

§ Mr. McKENNA
Yes; I have the figures—which the fund has received from the contributions.

§ Sir H. KIMBER
That is another fund altogether.

§ Mr. McKENNA
The company undertake to pay no definite part of the contributions. They undertake to pay no definite sum of money annually into the fund. They have incurred a large and growing liability in respect of the solvency of the fund. I believe it is very difficult to estimate what the actual amount of this liability is.

§ Sir H. KIMBER
I can give the exact payments in cash. Three years ago the payment by the company was £1,959, that is besides the expenses of management, which they do not bring into the account, but bear themselves. That is against subscriptions by the workmen of £3,138.

§ Mr. McKENNA
The figures the hon. Gentleman has stated exactly bear out my case. Three years ago the men were contributing to the fund nearly twice as much as the employers in cash, but the employers were building up, against this, an annually increasing liability, a liability which at some time or other, if members employed by the firm do not go on increasing, they will have to meet in very much larger annual payments. But the position of the company and the fund at this moment is that the company has guaranteed its solvency and are liable, on being wound up, for the whole of the outstanding liability at the present time. How would the men be affected if they came in under the Bill with the employers and took advantage of the provisions of Clause 19? The employers would go on guaranteeing as heretofore the superior advantages of their scheme over the Government's. They would be able to be represented on the management as to a total of one-fourth of the management. The liability upon the employers will not be 909 greater in future than it has been in the past under Clause 19. What would be the advantage to the men if they came in under the Bill? By definition they are to get all the advantages they get now and, in addition, they will get further advantages. They will get the maternity benefit and the sanatorium benefit. These two alone are worth 1d. a week. They will further—the hon. Member threw some scorn upon it—get the great advantage of the economic management of their fund. He stated that the estimated allowance for cost of management is approximately 1d., that is the estimated cost of management in all the circumstances under which approved societies have to carry on their business. But in a fund of this kind there ought to be no such cost of management. In funds of this kind there will be considerable saving.

§ Sir H. KIMBER
That is a charge on the Government.

§ Mr. McKENNA
No, the hon. Gentleman is in error there.

§ Sir H. KIMBER
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will tell us what is the charge estimated by the Government for management expenses.

§ Mr. McKENNA
No, no. The estimated charge on the societies for managing the whole business is nil. The whole of the Government charges falls on the Estimates, and does not come into these accounts at all. The Government pay the whole cost of the Insurance Commissioners.

§ Sir H. KIMBER
The taxpayers pay it.

§ Mr. McKENNA
The hon. Gentleman said it came into this .94d. It is not part of that at all. The whole of the cost of the Government part of the scheme is borne on the Estimates. The .94d. cost of management is the estimated cost of the management of the fund itself, and not the Government management. It cannot be admitted for a moment that in the case of a society of this kind, any such charge as that will have to be borne for management. So that the men save. They get first of all maternity benefit extra and then sanatorium benefit extra, and then, by virtue of the savings that they are able to make, they will be able to distribute additional benefits. But that is not all. What is to become of the liability of the company? Every one of the men in the company now has got a reserve value, and that reserve value is going to be made 910 good to him by the State. He will be entitled to have additional benefits in respect of it. In these circumstances can it be conceived for a moment that it would be to the advantage of the men to leave them out from the benefits of this Bill? The hon. Gentleman said, with truth, that they will pay 4d., whereas in the past they only paid 3d. They will be paying a little more. The employer will pay a minimum of 3d., and the State will pay the equivalent of 2d. In the past—three years ago—out of a total of £5,097 the employers paid only £1,900. The proportions will no longer be as stated by the hon. Gentleman. It will be in the proportion of four to three. Then how does the hon. Gentleman dispose of the State 2d.? He says they lose more than the equivalent of the State 2d. in the cost of management and in the 1 5–9d. for reserve value. Have the men got a reserve value now, which they will transfer?

§ Sir H. KIMBER
Certainly.

§ Mr. McKENNA
That is now.

§ Sir H. KIMBER
Of course they have. They are guaranteed all the benefits for the whole of their lives.

§ Mr. McKENNA
Suppose they leave the company. So long as any particular workman is employed by the firm he has got the guarantee of the company, but supposing he is discharged, what becomes of him then? Does he take his reserve value with him?

§ Sir H. KIMBER
He never wants to go.

§ Mr. McKENNA
I am assuming that he does not want to go, but is discharged unwillingly. What becomes of him then?

§ Sir H. KIMBER
That is all arranged between him and the company. The men are satisfied.

§ Mr. McKENNA
I am not at all so sure that they are satisfied.

§ Sir H. KIMBER
All I can say is that they have asked me to make this application to the Government, which I have done, and they tell me that at a meeting of the whole of their number they have passed a unanimous resolution that they should not come under the Bill.

§ Mr. McKENNA
I saw some of the workmen myself, and when they came to see me they were not in the least aware of the value of the provisions of the Bill, and I left them under the impression—perhaps an erroneous one—that after the 911 discussion they were not so very anxious to be left out of the Bill as the hon. Gentleman thinks. As a matter of fact, what is to happen to a man under the existing scheme of the South Metropolitan Gas Company who, for some reason or other, leaves that employment? As matters stand now he leaves without any rights whatever. I was told by those representatives that it was proposed to alter that condition and give the man his appropriate reserve value, and the very representatives who told me that said it was proposed under the same scheme to charge 4d. instead of 3d. a week.

§ Sir H. KIMBER
And give 16s. instead of 12s. a week.

§ Mr. McKENNA
No. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to state the facts as I know them. I should like to state them to the House as they were stated to me. If I am to take the proposal as it comes from the hon. Gentleman the men are to pay 3d. Then that proposal includes the existing practice that the men have no reserve value on leaving the company. On the other hand, if you take the new proposal, then their weekly contribution is to be 4d. Under the Bill they get the certainty that the fund of the company will be audited, they get the certainty of their reserve value, they get greater benefits than they get at the present time, and I think, taking these three considerations together, there cannot be a doubt that the men themselves will be better off under the Bill than under the rules of the existing fund.

§ Sir H. KIMBER
Only they do not think so.

§ Mr. McKENNA
It is often very difficult to explain the provisions of a large and complicated measure of this kind. The men say that they have gone on exceedingly well for a number of years under the existing system, and they are satisfied with it. It reflects great credit on them. But is that any reason why this House, which has to look to the permanency of the arrangements, and which cannot rely merely on the solvency of a private company however powerful it may be at this time, should not make the proposal contained in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Amendment? If gas went out of use, and if the South Metropolitan Gas Company, instead of having a large and growing business, were gradually to 912 decline, these men might find themselves in later years without the possibility of having the liability of the company towards the fund realised. They might also see themselves in old age left without reserve value. I think this House would be very ill-advised indeed if they allowed any private firm or company to stand out from the provisions of the Bill. What we look for before anything else is absolute security for the men that when sickness comes they will be medically attended, and will receive sickness benefit. So long as they are under the provisions of the Bill they are safe, and I do not think it would be desirable to give them less terms of security under any company whatever.

§ Mr. FORSTER
I have endeavoured on one or two occasions to bring before the Committee the case of the South Metropolitan Gas Company and the South Suburban Gas Company, who, some months ago, laid their case very fully before me. I am bound to say they made out what seemed to me a case which was unanswerable—a case which has not been answered by the Home Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman has told us in his eloquent words that the thing we have to secure above everything else is security. He said, "This company may fail, and if it failed the men's fund fails too. That is a prospect that the Committee ought not to contemplate with any degree of equanimity. What we ought to secure is that there shall be full security for all men who are brought under the Bill." One would suppose that all the friendly societies which are going to become approved societies are to have a Government guarantee. They are not. There is no guarantee that any man who comes under the Bill is going to get the benefits which the Bill appears to promise. There is no security in the Bill, and if owing to a run of bad luck a society fails—and a society may fail just as much as a company may fail—the members of the society, as it appears to me, will have no Government guarantee behind them. They will have to make good out of their own pockets by a compulsory levy the amount by which their society fails to reach the point of solvency.
Let us look at this as plain and practical men. Do not let us lead one another away by false appeals to sentiment or by suggesting that a security is given by the Bill which in fact is not given. What is the case put by my hon. Friend (Sir H. Kimber)? 913 He says that when it can be proved to the satisfaction of the Insurance Commissioners that a scheme which is now in operation and which is approved, welcomed, and supported by the men, gives to the men benefits as good as the benefits which the Bill confers, then the men may continue to be members of the fund and the fund may continue to give benefits to the men. What is the harm in that? If the present fund gives to the men benefits as good as the Bill proposes to confer, why not let them go on with the fund they have got? I cannot see, unless you are to put on one side altogether every voluntary agency except the friendly societies. I was interested to hear the description of the fund which was given by the Home Secretary. If he depicted the advantages which the Bill would confer in similar terms to the deputation that waited upon him, I am not in the least surprised that they were doubtful when they left as to whether they were as strongly attached to their own point of view as before.

§ Sir H. KIMBER
But they were.

§ Mr. FORSTER
I am told that the latest figures show that in order to derive their present benefits the men contribute 3d. The value of the employer's contribution is practically 2d. It was admitted by the men and by the employers that they were not animated in their desire to keep the present fund alive by the desire to save their pockets from the contributions which the Bill demanded from employers and employed. The men pointed out that they pay 3d. to the present fund, and that under the Bill they will have to pay 4d. Employers now only pay 2d.; under the Bill they will pay 3d. Therefore, if they do not make any change in the subscription they will save 1d. per week, although they would get the form of insurance which they wish. They say, "We do not want to save our pockets. We admit the difficulty of the men in the service of the company, and in order to provide for them anything which the Insurance Commissioners may think necessary, we are perfectly willing to bring our subscriptions up to the level on which the Bill places them." They do not say, "in order to get these benefits we have got to pay 4d." They say, "We are perfectly willing to pay 4d. in order that the Commissioners may be satisfied that the amount of benefit they are going to get from our fund is not less than the benefit contributed by the Bill," although they actually, as they have told us, prefer the form of benefit they 914 got from the fund to the benefits which the Bill confers upon them. But the Home Secretary said that when you bring the contributions up by 1d. a week for the man and 1d. for the employer and add to that the equivalent of 2d. per week from the State it was almost inconceivable that the men would not see that they are likely to get bigger benefits than they are getting now. But the cost of administration takes up practically 1d.

§ Mr. McKENNA
No; a halfpenny at the outside.

§ Mr. FORSTER
Then why is 1d. allowed?

§ Mr. McKENNA
This is a fund for single works, the cost of administration in which is very different from the cost in an approved society which has branches over a very wide area. In this case the cost would not be more than about half the average amount.

§ 9.0 P.M.

§ Mr. FORSTER
The Home Secretary speaks as if every approved society were some gigantic concern with branches spread all over the country. The present cost of administering the funds in small building societies works out, I am told, practically all over the country at 1d. a week. That is where the fund is administered by volunteer work. The Home Secretary is wholly wrong when he thinks that you are going to make a saving of 1d. a week in administration charges. I am afraid that the boot will be on the other leg. I do not want to go into the question now, but I am afraid the general levy for administration charges will far exceed 1d. a week, because you will no longer be able to count on the purely voluntary service which is given so generously at the present time. I do not think the Home Secretary can give us any sort of solid basis for his estimate when he says that the cost of administration is going to be so much lower than the actuaries have allowed. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the reserve value that was to be attached to these men, and asked where is their reserve value now. Of course, they have not got any reserve value, no more than anybody else. In a fund of this kind, where the solvency is guaranteed by the employer, there are no accumulations, and naturally they do not have a reserve value. The men are willing to provide the transfer values for the purposes of the Bill. The number of people who leave the employment of the company is so small that each one of the 915 present members of the fund is very willing to stand his chance of being one of the unlucky ones. I think we come back to the original suggestion of my hon. Friend. The case is unanswerable. It merely gives the Insurance Commissioners power to satisfy themselves whether or not this fund confers upon the men the benefits given by the Bill. If it does, if the men, with free opportunities of voting for it, and expressing an opinion on it, declare their preference for the present scheme, I cannot for the life of me see why they should not be allowed to take it.

§ Mr. J. PARKER
I trust that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not accept this Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Wandsworth (Sir H. Kimber). For a considerable time I was looking round to find out the reason why this suggestion should be put forward that this company should contract out of the provisions of this Bill, but as he got along with the finances I was soon able to see what the reason was. This particular company is going to have to pay under the Bill £3,900 a year at least, if they have 6,000 employés, instead of just over £1,900 as they are paying to-day. Two thousand pounds a year is a consideration to this particular company. Under the existing arrangement a man leaving the employment of the company leaves behind him whatever may be left of his contributions. He can take nothing away with him. Some of us know something about this particular company. In some respects they may have done what many Members in this House will consider a very good thing for a company to do, but as a trade unionist in this House I have to recognise the treatment that this company metes out to trade unionists. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is honest."] Certainly, I hope I shall always be honest in this House. I have to remember that not very long ago, if I am rightly informed, a condition of employment by this company was that a man must not belong to his trade union.

§ Sir H. KIMBER
No.

§ Mr. PARKER
If that was the company. I fancy that is as near the truth as we are likely to get. A man might transfer his services and the company took particular care that he did not transfer the values which his subscriptions had created, if he had not drawn the benefits for those values while in the employment of the company. Therefore if a workman gets no other 916 advantage in any other way he certainly will get the advantage in that particular way under this Bill. I submit that the worker will receive, whatever may be said to the contrary, benefits far superior to what he can draw from this company at the present time. The benefits under the Bill taken as a whole must of necessity be greater by the extra amount of money which is paid in than they are under the scheme as it stands at present. Therefore I trust that the Amendment will not be accepted. I rose principally to ask a question of the Home Secretary with regard to certain words in the Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I wish to know whether the words, after "clerk," or "otherwise," are not rather too wide? Within those words could there not be brought in practically the whole of the employés of the company? I notice an Amendment on the Paper which proposes after the word "clerk" to insert the words "or other salaried official." I would suggest that some narrower term than "or otherwise" would fit the situation a good deal better from my point of view, and I think that of some of my Friends who sit with me on this bench. I hope the Government will not accept the widening terms of this Amendment, which practicaly puts into the power of thousands of firms, if need be, to contract out of the provisions of this Bill. Personally, I am not in favour of railway companies contracting out, but I think that ought to be the limit to which this House should go.

Mr. HAMILTON BENN
I hope the Government will see their way to change their mind and let this Amendment go through, otherwise a very grave injustice will be done to a large body of men. In the employ of the South Metropolitan Gas Company there are about 6,000 men, of whom some 20 per cent. are fifty years of age and older—some 1,200 men. If they come under the Bill instead of being under their present society they will lose very considerably. The Home Secretary shakes his head, but I would point out that the payment per week to men over fifty years of age under the Bill is 7s. a week, while at the present time in the case of the South Metropolitan Gas Company they get 12s. a week. It must be a great hardship on men when they are growing older, and at a period of life when sickness becomes more frequent, that they should get a smaller benefit by 5s. a week than they have been allowed to expect all through their lives they would obtain. 917 I think that is a very serious point and one which affects a very large number of men. Reference has been made to the transfer value. At the present time the contribution would have to be raised to 4d. in order to reduce the transfer value; but that increase to 4d. is also to include sanatorium and maternity benefits. We must not overlook that no body of men can be accepted as contracting out of the Bill unless they satisfy the requirements of the Insurance Commissioners; and therefore a great deal of the argument put forward by the last speaker falls to the ground. Furthermore, in satisfying the Insurance Commissioners they will have to show the solvency and safety of their funds.
It seems to me, also, that the Government have to consider whether the benefits which will accrue are equal to those under the Bill. If they are equal—and in this case they are undoubtedly better—the only point that remains is, are the funds secure in the case which we are discussing? This fund has been in existence some sixty-nine years, and it would appear to me that funds which have been managed so as to produce these benefits that are now payable to the men must have been well managed, and ought to be secure. The position of the South Metropolitan Gas Company is probably well known to all Members of this House. I am quite satisfied that none of them would hesitate to accept the security which that company offers. But there is the further consideration that the men do not wish to come under the Bill, and the State saves a considerable amount of money if they stay out. Why, then, should they be compelled, why should legislation run so mad as to force people to do something they do not want to do—to get a less benefit than they are getting at the present time, and to put themselves is an undoubtedly worse position? There is also the argument that under the Bill as at present proposed by the Government two-fifths of the gas companies will not come under the Bill, because they are owned by public authorities. Yet a great industrial concern like the South Metropolitan Gas Company is to be put into a position different from that of two-fifths of the same industry. I do not see that there is any good reason why the Government should not reconsider their position.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir J. Simon)
My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax asked a question as to the language of the Chancellor of the Ex- 918 chequer's Amendment. He called attention to the words "or otherwise," following the word "clerk." He expressed the fear lest the words might be construed not only to cover other salaried officials of the company, but to cover the ordinary workman. I think the fear he has expressed is a reasonable one. The Committee will realise it is not the intention of the Clause to cover the ordinary workman. I shall ask leave, when the present Amendment has been disposed of, to substitute for the words "or otherwise," words which appear on the next page of the printed Amendments in a very similar Amendment of the hon. Gentleman opposite, to substitute for "or otherwise," "or other salaried officials." I think that will make it plain. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Wandsworth put a second question on the language of the proposed Amendment. He called attention to the words "in the service of a railway company or other company," and, in the same way suggested that the language might be understood either in a narrower or a wider sense. The intention of the Government is that the words should be understood in the narrower sense. It is not intended that the phrase "other company" should cover any company registered under the Joint Stock Companies Act. It would be better to make the matter quite clear. I shall propose to insert before the word "company" the word "statutory," so that it would read "railway or other statutory company." Our reason for referring to companies other than railway companies is that there are dock and harbour companies with Acts of Parliament, and, of course, there are the cases of gas companies which have been already discussed. That brings me to say one or two words about the case of the South Metropolitan Gas Company. May I point out to the Committee that really the case put forward on behalf of the South Metropolitan Gas Company is capable of being regarded, and I venture to think sufficiently and fairly regarded from a simple point of view. Either the scheme of the South Metropolitan Gas Company is an actuarialy sound scheme, or it is not. If it is an actuarialy sound scheme, well then it is quite clear that the provision of Clause 19 is what we want. If, on the other hand, it is not an actuarialy sound scheme—it is not our fault on these benches that this question has been raised—then it is clearly improper that it should claim special exemption.
919 The hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Forster) made a speech dealing with a number of points relating to this company, but I could not see in his speech that he called attention to that which I will ask the Members of the Committee to observe, is the fundamental distinction between the South Metropolitan Company's scheme and the scheme of the Bill. The distinction is so fundamental that it raises the whole difference between a fund of this sort, which is based on something like a sound actuarial position, and a fund which in course of time is extremely likely to find itself involved in heavy liability. The essential difference is this: Whatever else may be said about the Government scheme under the Bill, at any rate it is a scheme by which the different parties who contribute contribute pari passu. As the benefit comes to be paid, whatever that benefit may be, it is not paid in the first instance out of premiums which are paid by the workmen, and only paid, in the second event, so far as is necessary, out of some fund provided by the employer. It is paid under this Bill out of the three different sources pari passu, whereas the South Metropolitan Gas Company's scheme, whatever be its merits, is a scheme by which, as long as the workmen belonging to the fund have paid into the fund sufficient sums of money to pay the benefits, then as long as that condition of affairs continues the company does not pay a farthing, and the difference between those two things is the difference between a sound actuarial scheme and a scheme which does not deserve that description. You set up a scheme by which you say that the workmen are to contribute so much to a pool, and that pool we will draw upon until it is drained dry in order to pay from time to time this benefit or that benefit, according as the regulations prescribe, and where the employer will only come into fill the pool if it is already drained dry. In certain circumstances we can find the company making no contribution for years.
In the present case the South Metropolitan Gas Company has been increasing its staff, and it has been getting year by year a larger number of premiums from the men under this Bill. I am very glad indeed that it has been possible to provide the benefits which the scheme proposed, and it has been possible to provide them in the first instance entirely out of those contributions which come from the men themselves. If anybody wants to compare 920 the thing quickly, the scheme in the Bill with the scheme of the South Metropolitan Gas Company, it cannot be done more shortly than by calling attention to a single rule which I find in the latest edition of the scheme which provides for the company's contributions. The scheme which the Committee are discussing in the Bill is a scheme by which the benefit to be paid is represented by a contribution from the workman, a contribution from the employer, and a contribution from the public funds. I turn to the company's rules and I find a rule which begins "Workmen's contributions." There I read what hon. Gentlemen opposite referred to, and I turn over the page naturally expecting to find "Employer's contribution." There is no such thing. When I came to the place where I should expect to see it this is what I find: Company's guarantee. The company guarantees the financial stability of the fund and will subscribe the necessary amount quarterly to make income balance expenditure. If you get sufficient contributions from your men you are able to build up a pool out of which you draw your benefits without ever making any contribution from any other source whatever, and while I do not wish to use other than respectful language about such a scheme, I turn to the point, either a scheme so based is at this moment actuarialy sound or it is not. If it is not actuarialy sound then most certainly it has no right to take the benefit of the Bill. If it is so, or is fit to be made actuarialy sound, there is no reason I am able to discover why it should not come under Clause 19. May I point out that by the rules of this fund the South Metropolitan Gas Company undertakes the obligation to meet the deficit if the fund came to an end. I have not the slightest doubt, and of course nobody has, not only that they are capable of discharging that obligation, but that they will most willingly do so. If the fund is now going to come to an end then the company will have to pay the deficit and balance the fund. If they choose not to bring their fund to an end, but to apply under Clause 19, then equally the employer would have to guarantee the solvency of that fund. Therefore, whether they choose to stay outside the Bill or to come inside the Bill in either event there must, be, sooner or later, the production by the company of the sum necessary to make that fund balance itself at this moment.
May I conclude by pointing out that in discussing this individual case—and of 921 course we recognise it is an important case and one that has been put very fairly by several hon. Gentlemen—we are likely to lose sight of the general considerations which should govern us in discussing exceptions of this sort. I submit to the Committee that the real principle is this. Here you have a national scheme which is primâ facie universal, and when you set up your scheme you find, of course, that the ground you propose to occupy is in part already occupied by voluntary agencies. The question arises how to deal with such cases. The answer must be as regards certain of those voluntary agencies, that the simple course and the right course is to lay down conditions upon which they can be taken into the national scheme. As regards the residue we may find special reasons why it is better that they should be left outside. But in order that they must be left outside they must satisfy special conditions which are necessarily limited, and which ought not to be too freely extended. The essential conditions are set out in the Clause and are two. The first is that before an association of that sort can go outside the scheme of the Bill that it should be open to persons who are in practically permanent employment. I do not say that the South Metropolitan Gas Company does not satisfy that condition. That is one reason why we have already excluded certain Government servants, and that is the reason why we are prepared to exclude certain servants or railway companies.
The second reason is not only that those excepted persons should be in practically permanent employment, but that the fund of which they are members, and which we are invited to exclude should be a fund which would be certain hereafter to be able to meet the demands which may be made upon it. That is the reason we put into this Amendment the second condition that it must not only be of this character but that it must be a fund which has been formed under the authority of the Act of Parliament setting up this scheme. Beyond that we are not prepared to go, because, as it appears to us, if we carry this thing indefinitely far we shall be turning the exception into the rule. Our view is that the rule should be the rule and that nothing but the strict conditions would justify exceptions and exclusion. For those reasons I hope the Committee will see their way to reject the proposal which is here made, and which is admittedly made on behalf of one particular 922 society, which, in fact, will not be in the least prejudiced, in so far as its conditions comply with those laid down in the Bill.

§ Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD
We have had in the speech of the Solicitor-General a most important statement. The hon. and learned Gentleman has told us that the Government intend again to alter the Amendment in the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to make it clear that the words "or otherwise" do not include the rest of the employés of the company.

§ Sir J. SIMON
I meant that they do not include the workmen. They might include other salaried servants.

§ Mr. W. RUTHERFORD
As we read the Amendment we understood that the words "employment as a clerk or otherwise" included everybody employed, and our Amendments and the arguments we intended to adduce were based on that understanding. Now, after the Home Secretary has made his speech on the general meaning of the whole Clause, we are told by the Solicitor-General that it is the intention of the Government to make a further alteration and to exclude all workmen employed by the railway or other company That is a drastic and most important alteration in the whole proposal. The speech of the Home Secretary was exceedingly important, because he dealt not merely with the question of this particular company, about which there is little divergence of opinion, but with the general question as to which existing organisations for conferring these benefits upon large numbers of people are to be omitted from the provisions of the Bill and which are not. Let us look at the facts. The South Metropolitan Gas Company may be taken as typical of a very large number of bodies of a similar character. It is clear from the Bill as it stands, and as I understand from the Solicitor-General's explanation, even under the further Amendment, that gas undertakings run by corporations will be exempt. I do not know from the Solicitor-General's language whether it is intended to exclude the workmen even of such gas undertakings. The hon. and learned Gentleman has left that point rather in doubt.
What are the facts about this particular company? We have been told to-night that it has 6,000 men in its employment. The damning fact about the company which with extreme honesty the hon. 923 Member for Halifax (Mr. Parker) told us actuated his party in the attitude they were taking up, is that this body of 6,000 men actually has no trade union. What an unfortunate concern this must be. Here you have an industrial undertaking of some importance in London and the men have not had the good sense and enterprise to establish a trade union. Hence the opposition from the Labour party. Why has this body no trade union? The fact is that this concern is being run on a co-operative basis. Not only do the men get exceedingly good wages, but there is an annual divide of a proportion of the profits. I am told that last year the men received on an average over £5, and some £8, according to their wages. The men are exceedingly grateful for this great privilege. In addition to that, they have an absolute guarantee, not so much of the solvency of the fund, but that if there is anything short in paying the benefits the company will make it good. What better security could they possibly have? To my mind it beats the security of the nebulous 2d. which the State is going to put in. It certainly is quite as good as the contribution of 4d. made by the employers, because what is going to be done with that 4d. in different directions, heaven only knows. Here is a substantial concern, which is going to make up every 1d. year by year, as it has always done for over fifty years, whenever required.
This particular sick club has over 5,500 members. What is the contribution they make? Threepence per week; that is all. And the company guarantee to make good any deficiency. The Home Secretary and the Solicitor-General say, "Oh, you have not got maternity benefit, sanatorium benefit, or any transfer value in reserve, so that in case you are thrown out of that employment you will be in a bad position." Those are the only objections we have heard from the Government side. But the Home Secretary and the Solicitor-General seem not to have read or to have thoroughly understood the Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because they would have seen from that proposal that an undertaking can be exempted only if it can prove to the satisfaction of the Insurance Commissioners, that it is giving, and guarantees to give, benefits equal to or greater than those in the Bill. That is what the South Metropolitan Gas Company propose to do. They propose, between the 1st January or the 1st May, or 924 the 1st July, or some other date—and if there is to be a General Election at the end of next year, I suppose the Government will make the date as late as possible—to add voluntarily to their benefits, every benefit conferred by and every security involved in the Bill. They propose to place themselves exactly in the position suggested by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Amendment, in the words "not less favourable than the corresponding benefits conferred by Part I. of the Act." Unless they did so, it is clear that they would not come within the provision; but if they can satisfy the Insurance Commissioners that they have so rearranged their rules as to give all these additional benefits and all this additional security, why should they not be allowed to be exempt?
The Government Amendment proposes to allow railway companies to be exempt. The Government Clause, which we have already passed, proposes to allow a gas undertaking to be exempt when it is being run by a corporation. Why in the name of goodness should not a gas concern which is being run on its own account, if successful, and doing in a first class manner a great work like this, have the same exemption and the same privileges as a gas undertaking that is being run by a corporation? Where is the difference? I submit to this Committee that it is not a question of the solvency or of the actuarial value, because the actuarial value that the Solicitor-General referred to just now may, and probably in plenty of these societies or branches, will be deficient. The concern will be insolvent. It may be that smaller benefits will have to be given or larger levies made. But this is an undertaking in which the men's provisions is guaranteed by the undertaking itself. They are perfectly satisfied with it. I am bound to say that the benefits they have are given for less money, and there are very considerable additional benefits too which have not been all mentioned.
There is, for instance, invalidity benefit which continues during the rest of a man's life if he meets with an accident. There is infectious disease benefit. The Home Secretary does not propose in this Bill to give anything in the nature of infectious disease benefit. That benefit means that a servant of a public undertaking like the gas company, may have scarlet fever in the house—a member of his family may have it. The manager says to that man, "Do not come down to work, and do not go into the homes of any of our customers 925 to attend to the meters or anything of the sort until the member of your family is better. You stay at home and we will make you a certain allowance." That goes on as if the man were sick himself. That provision is an exceedingly valuable one, and one important, too, from the point of view of the public health. I do not find anything of the kind in the present Bill. That is obvious, because the Bill only applies to a particular kind of employment.
That brings me to my final argument. Where you have a particular kind of employment such as we are dealing with here, why not allow the concern in question to arrange this matter in its own way, provided it complies with all the conditions made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and provided it can satisfy the insurance Commissioners that for similar—at all events no greater contributions—its employés can secure equal and probably superior benefits; the solvency, too, being absolutely guaranteed, and including, as I understand it, a transfer reserve value equal to what a man would have under the Act. Why, in the name of goodness, do you not allow those people to administer their funds in their own way, especially as it has been proved to-night, the State will save £2,000 a year by allowing them to do so. This is one of those matters connected with the Bill to which to me there does not seem to be any reasonable answer whatever. Both on the general question and on the particular point it seems to me that on the real merits of the case the Government should give way. But they have made up their minds that they will force the scheme of compulsory payments both on the part of the employer and the part of the employed down the throat, not merely of the general community, but of all bodies which have been doing even better than they propose to do, and doing it for years with the greatest satisfaction to everybody that belongs to them. All those concerns and those excellent institutions are to be destroyed, and destroyed because the Government has set its mind upon bringing all these people into this its pet scheme. The Home Secretary presents the case for the Bill in so alluring a manner—no doubt he did so to the deputation from the company that waited upon him—that one almost begins to think that one is in the wrong, and that 12s. a week is not as good as 10s., and 4d. a much better contribution than 3d. We almost begin to believe these things ourselves. I am appalled by the last contribution in 926 this Debate from the Government side. In spite of the promises that have been made, in spite of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's own Amendment, which led everybody to believe that this right of exemption was going to be extended to the employés of the railway companies—we are now told that at the last moment that simply clerks and other black-coated employés are to be included.

§ Sir J. SIMON
The hon. Gentleman ought really not to say that. The Clause as put down by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is intended to have exactly the effect of the Amendment put down by, I think, five hon. Friends of the hon. Member.

§ Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD
The mere fact that some of my hon. Friends on these benches do not wish to include the workmen employed by the railway and other companies in the scope of the exemption, and wish to restrict it to the clerks and what you may call the black-coated and kid-gloved employés, has nothing to do with the fact, and is no excuse for the Government altering their views to-night in the way they have done.

§ Sir J. SIMON
They have not altered them.

§ Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD
The Solicitor-General asks us to believe that when you use the words "employed by the railway company as clerk or otherwise," that that only means employed as clerks and other people with black coats. The word "otherwise" does not, I venture to think, bear in the English language the interpretation he puts upon it.

§ Sir J. SIMON
If the hon. Gentleman will look at the Amendment he will see that it deals with superannuation funds established by Act of Parliament for the persons who are referred to in the Clause. Can he mention a single railway company in England that has got a superannuation fund established for its porters?

§ Sir F. BANBURY
Some railway companies have superannuation funds established by Act of Parliament for anybody.

§ Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORD
The point is an exceedingly important one, especially as regards the employés in the railway companies. The real essence of the Amendment which we are now discussing, an Amendment to the Amendment of the Chancellor, is: Whether the servants 927 of the railway companies and their organisations should be outside the Bill—and the Chancellor's Amendment undoubtedly enacts that—where there is a superannuation fund provided for them by Act of Parliament? Some of us were going to try to alter these words by leaving out the words by "Act of Parliament" in the Amendments which are still coming on. There is only one railway company, so far as I am aware, that has got such a superannuation scheme established by Act of Parliament, and I think that is the Lancashire and Yorkshire, who two years ago had a Clause to that effect put into an Act. With regard to all the other superannuation schemes of railway companies—I may be wrong—my idea at the present moment is that they have been all voluntarily established by arrangements between the men and the companies; but still they are there, and I have no doubt at all that if it were necessary for the purpose of making it quite clear that these obligations were statutory obligations on the part of the companies, if this Clause of the Chancellor of the Exchequer were passed, amending Bills would be brought in by the different companies to make their superannuation schemes have the validity of an Act of Parliament. One finds it difficult to express on a night like this, at the end of a Bill dealing with this most important point, one's sense of annoyance and want of confidence in either the plan or consistency of the Government, when not only have they overwhelmed us with Amendments at the last moment, but when we are told by the Solicitor-General, after the Home Secretary had dealt with the whole merits of the Amendment, that he is going to make a drastic alteration of that kind in the Amendment which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has put upon the Paper. I think that is a matter which ought not to be allowed to pass without making a strong protest against it.

§ Sir RYLAND ADKINS
I have been, and hope to continue, a somewhat consistent supporter of the Government upon this Bill, but on the particular question raised by the Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer I desire to say there is, as I had occasion to discover during an election in the summer, on the part of employés of such companies as tramway companies, not under the control of local authorities, and of the employers of railway companies a real genuine desire to be exempt from the provisions of this 928 Bill when they are convinced that their present position is better than in their opinion the Bill could secure for them. I think that some of the criticisms directed by the last speaker against the Solicitor-General are scarcely well founded. There is no doubt I think that the words "or otherwise" would be suggestive of a somewhat limited construction when they come before a legal tribunal. I regret the Government have not been able, although I appreciate the argument against any kind of contracting out, I regret they were not able in the case of employés of railway companies, and in the case of employés of other statutory companies, to allow them to remain out of the Bill if, and when, and in so far, as they are satisfied the insurance Commissioners think their position is not less favourable than that of persons under the Bill.
There are some things in which one would desire, it may be, to limit the powers of the Insurance Commissioners, but I am quite certain of this, that the Insurance Commissioners under this Bill would not be likely to exclude any body of employés unless they were satisfied that that body of employés were really as well off without the Bill as with it. Where you have, as you certainly have, in the case of the employés of the Lancashire and Yorkshire and other employés of statutory companies, a genuine desire on the part not only of the employers, but of the employés, to remain outside the Act, I regret the Government have not been able to meet them further than by the Amendment in its present form, and I still hope that from this Debate there may arise upon the Report stage some Clause better framed than this for meeting a perfectly genuine desire of workers satisfied as they are and merely requiring a guarantee that this Statute shall not be used to their detriment.

§ Mr. BARNES
I should like to offer a few observations in reply to some of the last speakers. I think the South Metropolitan Gas Company is a good illustration, from my point of view, at all events, as showing why the South Metropolitan Gas Company should not be excluded, but also why this Amendment of the Government should not be passed. Hon. Members opposite seem to think that the Gas Company and their men have no connection with other people in the country. I cannot take that view. I believe many of these schemes are set up for the deliberate purpose of separating the workmen 929 that come under their operation from their fellows in the country. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I do not say they were all set up for that purpose, and when I spoke on Clause 19 I willingly conceded the point that many employers started these schemes out of the kindness of their hearts at times when many men could not form associations. But that time has gone. Many employers have schemes of that kind for the sole purpose of benefiting men in their own employ. The South Metropolitan Gas Company is not one of them. I remember the circumstances in which their scheme was started. There was a strike for an eight hours day, and I say in all conscience eight hours is long enough to work in a gas company. It will be long enough for me, and I think it would be a little too long for the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
Not a bit.

§ Mr. BARNES
Why was this scheme started by the South Metropolitan Gas Company? It was not started from philanthropic motives, or to benefit the men of the South Metropolitan Gas Company. It was started for the deliberate purpose of defeating the Gas Workers' Union, and defeat it they did, which no doubt is a matter for rejoicing on the part of the hon. Baronet and others who feel with him. I do not commit myself to the statement that the gas company now work their men twelve hours a day, but I know they did do so for a good many years after that scheme was inaugurated, and while men in other parts of the country engaged at similar work were working eight hours per day this company were working their men twelve hours a day. I hope that brief statement will convince hon. Members that we cannot look upon these schemes as affecting only the men who come under their operations. The conditions of labour enforced upon men who come under these schemes have the effect of determining the conditions of labour elsewhere. For our part we cannot assent to anything which would have the effect of isolating groups of men further from their fellows engaged in similar occupations throughout the country. If that is the object of the hon. Member for Liverpool, why not frankly state that so long as men in the employ of any particular company are getting terms as good as this Bill, he does not wish that they should be included. I have given one clear reason, and I merely mentioned this case because it has been imported into the 930 Debate. The Solicitor-General says the object of the Clause is to stereotype conditions of employment which are permanent. When conditions of employment in any particular company are stereotyped and made permanent, when the men are separated from their fellows engaged in similar work throughout the country, what does it mean? It means putting the men under the thumb of that particular employer, thereby weakening the conditions of labour and weakening labour in its attempts to better its own conditions. I regard this matter from the point of view of principle. I recognise it is a large order to say when men are as well off under a voluntary arrangement as they will be under this Bill that they should not come under the Bill; but I stand for the principle. I stand for labour under any company having interests in common with the same sort of workmen employed elsewhere, and I am against the argument of the hon. Member for Liverpool and the Amendment now before the Committee, which I cannot help thinking is due to a little pressure.
We were dealing last week with the men employed in banks and other good employers who pay their clerks full wages when they are away sick, and pay them for indefinite periods. I have two boys as bank clerks, and when sick they get their full wages, and they will be worsened by this Bill. What provision do you make for them? You assume that the bank is going to maintain those lads for six weeks. As a matter of fact, they are maintained for longer than that now. But in the case of these clerks, agricultural labourers and other people who have no organisation, on the assumption that they are going to be maintained for five weeks, all you do for them is to exempt them from the actuarial value of the six weeks' sick pay they would otherwise be entitled to under this Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I know it is something like that. I ask what is the difference between those men and other men who get such advantages as that without any statutory provision, without any contribution being paid for them? What is the difference between those men and the men covered by the Amendment of the Government? There is no difference except this—that the bank clerk, agricultural labourers, servants and other people have got no organisation to speak for them, whereas these other people have been imposing pressure upon most Members of Parliament. I suppose most hon. Gentlemen opposite 931 have received circulars and deputations, and all sorts of pressure, from this particular association of railway clerks, and I cannot help thinking that the Government have succumbed to the pressure put upon them. I regret it, and, for my part, I am against the Amendment, and if there is a Division I shall certainly vote against the Government.

§ 10.0 P.M.

§ Mr. POLLOCK
I think it would be rather unfortunate if the impression left upon the Committee by the speech of the Solicitor-General were allowed to pass without some further remark, if not of protest. Speaking with reference to the particular Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, the Solicitor-General said that the South Metropolitan Gas Company ought not to be dealt with in this particular way, because of the nature of the society and the rules under which it carried on its business. He said that this society was somewhat in the nature of a slate club, and he referred to a rule under which he suggested that the fund for the employés of the South Metropolitan Gas Company was not actuarialy sound, because the employés did not contribute in the first instance, but only under the rule he read to us gave a guarantee and no more, that is to say, they allowed the contributions of the employés to be depleted from the funds, and then and then only, they come to the rescue of the employé. That is a very unfair representation of this particular society. What are the facts? The hon. Member for Wandsworth told us that about £3,500 is put up by the premiums of the employés, and £1,953 was the contribution of the employers. It is quite obvious that with these contributions that are given so large benefits cannot be given, and are not expected, without the gas company itself contributes, and the gas company makes this contribution an absolute first charge on their profits. Is it fair to represent that this is a mere guarantee and no more, and say that it is only in the last resort that the employers will subscribe to the fund. When the Solicitor-General takes a £5 note, does he inquire whether it is a mere promissory note that will be paid, or whether he may expect it to be guaranteed at the Bank of England? Is he not satisfied to take a piece of paper of no actual value itself, because he knows that he will get five sovereigns for it? It is exactly the 932 same under the rules he has read to the Committee. The guarantee of the company is well worth having, and if they guarantee that they will pay all the moneys which ought to be paid out to their employés, then the employés have got a fund from which they can draw and their system is actuarialy as sound as if they had two-ninths guaranteed by the Government.

§ Sir J. SIMON
The distinction between the two is not that which has been mentioned, but between a fund which is created by contemporaneous contributions, and therefore has accumulations; and on the other hand a fund which is not created by contemporary contributions at all, but which spends the workmen's contributions to the last farthing as far as is necessary and requires no accumulations. No amount of reasoning will make a fund which does not provide for accumulations actuarialy sound unless something is done to meet the deficiencies as they arise.

§ Mr. POLLOCK
I perfectly understood the Solicitor-General in the first instance. It is entirely a matter of book-keeping. Does the Solicitor-General really suppose it is necessary for the South Metropolitan Gas Company to hand the money over, say, to the Post Office Savings Bank, or to some other bank, in order to be quite sure it is there and is accumulating? The money which is in the hands of the South Metropolitan Gas Company is not being used to no purpose, and whether it is under one account or another, it is equally there for that purpose if it is required. This society is just as actuarialy sound as the most solvent institution in the country. The hon. Member for Blackfriars Division (Mr. Barnes) complained of this society, because he is in favour of the principle of the mobility of labour. Does he mean that where employers and employed are quite happy, and where the employed are in large numbers in receipt of regular wages, you must, for the sake of mobility of labour, disturb those enjoying regular work and wages in order to put other persons in their places? If so, it would not conduce to the prosperity of the working classes, and I should think it very unfortunate if that principle were carried to any extent.

§ Mr. MORTON
I was sorry to notice that the Home Secretary and the Solicitor-General were so unfriendly towards private enterprise. An hon. Gentleman below me says they are Socialists. If they 933 are they had better say so openly, and then we shall see what Liberals think of them. After all, private enterprise has made this country what it is. The Home Secretary talked about the advantages of coming in under this Bill. I heard exactly the same sort of thing from boards of guardians and Poor Law officers when they tried to drive the poor people into the workhouse. They said, "We offer you a better home here, and so on." The answer of a great many poor people was, "We prefer our liberty." That, I suppose, is exactly what the workmen of the South Metropolitan Gas Company wish to have. They say they would rather sacrifice the Government 2d. than lose their liberty. So would I. Complaints have been made to-night about the action of this particular gas company a good many years ago. It is hardly fair to rake that up. There is no doubt there was trouble more than thirty years ago, but the company settled it with their men. They gave them a share of the profits, amounting now to nearly £300,000, and they allowed them to elect three directors from their own number and put them on the board, thereby giving the workmen what all workmen are now clamouring for, and with which I entirely agree. The company recognise the men's representatives. It is managed with great economy (and so, I think, is this fund), and I am glad to know the result has been a reduction in the price of gas. That, to my mind, is exceedingly satisfactory. Not long ago, before Sir George Livesey died, I asked him how he got on with his men, and he said—

§ The CHAIRMAN
That would be opening too wide a question on this Amendment.

§ Mr. MORTON
We have been told these 6,000 men were not unanimous. I have got the numbers before me, and the minority out of the 6,000 is twenty-seven. The security is ample; it does not wobble about so much as Consols do. I do not think one need trouble oneself about that part of the business. I understand there will have to be an increased contribution to give all the benefits, including sanatorium treatment, but the men, as I understand, have by resolution agreed, if necessary, to go up to 4d. We have been told the company have not been required to give the 3d. promised. That shows how well they have managed the funds. The company have agreed to pay whatever deficiency there may be, and that seems to me satisfactory, so far as the management 934 and security of the funds are concerned. This is not quite a new proposition. When the Workmen's Compensation Act was passed this and other companies were allowed to contract out, and I am informed on inquiry that they have carried on that business with great success. Consequently, I think we might fairly allow them to continue in this matter. I do not know whether the others have been managed quite so successfully. I understand they have actually been carrying on their business for sixty-nine years with great success and with no trouble or difficulty whatever. Surely that is sufficient experience. I have fought gas and other companies where the people's rights are concerned, but I have always recognised that there are companies and companies, and that there are a great many companies which merely mean co-operation, enabling them to do things which otherwise would not be done at all. Although I have felt it my duty here and in other places to watch companies, I am only too pleased to recognise their merits when they do their work well and satisfactorily, and that has been our experience on the south side of London with regard to the South Metropolitan Gas Company. I hope that the Government will presently, on the Report stage, do something to allow these companies to carry on their business in their own economical way. I trust, therefore, we shall never forget, to whatever party we belong, the private enterprise of these companies and allow them to deal with their workmen in their own way, and in accordance with the wishes of the workmen.

§ Mr. COTTON
I have heard that the Amendment applies to all companies, and I feel I must oppose it. I am chairman of a good many companies on both sides of the water. I am chairman of one of the biggest gas companies in Ireland, and I know something of what occurred in connection with the South Metropolitan Gas Company, and that is one of the reasons why I shall vote against this proposition.

§ Mr. PETO
I find myself practically in entire agreement with the hon. Member for Sutherlandshire on the broad lines of this proposal, which would exclude companies, no matter how well managed, no matter whether they are managed in the interests of the men, or especially in the interests of labour or capital. The only condition is that it shall be a public or local authority. I think that is a wholly wrong distinction to make. It seems to 935 me the principle which was laid down in the Employers' Liability Act, whether the scheme which is supported by the different companies and carried out by those companies provided benefits superior to the Act is the practical test. The hon. Baronet behind me goes upon these lines. He wishes to draw a distinction between the schemes—are they better or worse for the men? I think the men are the best judges. The Home Secretary said he thought he had produced some impression on the deputation which waited on him on behalf of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I can assure the Committee that that deputation were not by any means satisfied, and in a few minutes after their meeting they were still of the same opinion as before. They believed it was in the interests of the men that these additional exemptions should be put in. The hon. Member for Sutherland alluded to the views put forward by the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General on the part of both employers and employed. This is a case in which the men can all say "L'etat c'est moi." The men are the employers. They have over a quarter of a million of the capital, and have three directors on the board, therefore the distinction as to what is in the interest of the men and in the interest of the employers vanishes from a case of this kind. Two-fifths of the gas companies' capital, and, roughly speaking, the same proportion of the men, are allowed under this exemption, provided they satisfy the Insurance Commissioners that the benefits are the same, to contract out of the Bill. Why? Not because they have better schemes, not because they have better security and are better able to provide transfer values, but because they happen to be local or public authorities. Hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite may regard employment by some local authority as being better than employment by the man himself. The form of employment followed by the South Metropolitan Gas Company is the best form of employment that ever existed in this country, and in that form of employment—profit-sharing between employers and employer—lies, in my opinion, the future solution of the industrial problem. Under this Bill practically all companies, excepting local or public authorities, are brought into the Bill unless they accept a condition which should not be employed in this case at all. I am not dealing only with the question of a profit-sharing company. There are other companies, even 936 companies which are not limited companies. The particular company which has occupied the attention of the Committee is a limited company. The one I wish to refer to is not a limited company. It is the case of a large cake-crushing firm in Liverpool, Bibby Brothers. They have had a scheme for the benefit of their workpeople on wholly other lines than those now being considered. It has been said that in the case of the South Metropolitan Gas Company that that company has only to pay when the condition of the fund requires them to do so. I asked this particular firm what was the proportion which was paid by the men, and what was the proportion paid toy the employer. I got a very definite answer; that the men in that case do not make any contribution whatever. The employers pay the whole contributions that are necessary, and they say that even on those lines, which are exactly opposite lines to those of the gas company, it would be far better to go on as they are than to come in under the Bill, as the Bill would cost them over double every year what their own insurance has been, and their insurance for sickness provides better benefits than those under the Act. The answers to my questions were: "(1) We do not distribute any surplus from the sick fund; and (2) The men do not contribute anything to the fund. We keep it going ourselves."
That company employs very nearly 1,500 men. They want to go on as they are. There is perfect good feeling between the men and the employers, as is only natural in the case where the men contribute nothing and get better benefits than under the Act. But that is entirely shut out. It must be stopped and commenced again. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] You cannot go on without coming to an end. The system under which this benefit is given to the men is that the men shall pay nothing. That must be done away with, and they must come in again under a fresh scheme which will certainly not promote such a good feeling between employer and employed as the present scheme does. Probably increased contributions will be required in respect of sanatorium benefits and the other outside benefits. Looking at the thing more broadly we see what the exceptions are. Now we are considering fresh exceptions made specially in respect of railway companies. As originally introduced they were (a), Employment in the Naval or Military Service of the Crown; (b), Employment under the Crown or any legal or 937 public authority where the Insurance Commissioners certify, etc.; and (c), Employment as a teacher in an elementary school. Practically manual labour was not allowed to make any arrangement whatever outside the provisions of this Act. I want to know why there should be one rule in respect of manual labour and another in respect of school teachers and clerks. It seems to me that there again is a wholly false distinction. It ought to be purely a question whether it is more in the interests of the employed, whether a manual worker or not, to contract out of the Act or not. The South Metropolitan Company, in common with other companies, were able to contract out of the Employers' Liability Act, and the result is that whereas accidents throughout the country have increased very considerably, almost to an alarming extent, they have been able to reduce them from 8 per cent. to 4 per cent. If they have been so successful, why not give them a run in this case, and let them work out their own salvation?
The Home Secretary asked if anybody would maintain that it was to the advantage of the men. I think in considering the question he left out of consideration one great factor. In every company where that principle is adopted there is something altogether beyond the question of the mere receipt of so much for sickness benefit and other benefits provided in this Bill. There is a question of pride in a corporate existence, the pride of doing something entirely for themselves outside any assistance from the State at all. It will be a great misfortune if we cannot open the door, but say to these companies and their employés who are prepared to stand that test—the one essential test, that they will do better than the Act—"no matter what you do for yourselves, everybody must come in and accept this State grant whether he wants it or not." I most heartily support the Amendment, and I hope the Government even now will see, having made an exception in the case of some railway employés—there is no special virtue in being a railway company—that there is no reason why such companies and local and other authorities should be placed in some kind of sacrosanct enclosure and should be allowed to do what no one else in the country can do, no matter how well they may be able to manage their own affairs. Therefore, I hope that, having opened the door in favour of home workers and in favour of railway companies, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open it 938 a little wider and make an exception in favour of covering the case of any company or private co-partnership as long as they fulfil the one essential condition of doing better for their men than the scheme under the Bill.

§ Mr. J. M. HENDERSON
There is a fallacy attached to the argument of the hon. Gentleman opposite. Where is your reserve fund? Suppose any employé of Messrs. Bibby Brothers were to leave to-morrow, where is the reserve fund?

§ Mr. PETO
I say, unhesitatingly, that if such an exception was made in favour of any company fulfilling the condition I have named, it would be absolutely essential that they should be prepared to provide a reserve fund and the transfer value for the men in their employment.

§ Mr. J. M. HENDERSON
I do not believe for a moment that the South Metropolitan Gas Company could do it, because there is no reserve fund, and without a reserve fund they cannot possibly provide for the future. No Commissioner would pass a company if it had no reserve fund. If they have no reserve fund, they cannot come in under Clause 19. Messrs. Bibby Brothers provide no reserve fund, and therefore they could not come in under Clause 19.

§ Lord A. THYNNE
I think there has been a certain amount of confusion on the part of some of the speakers on the opposite side in regard to transfer values and reserve values. I think it is perfectly clear to anybody who has studied the scheme of the South Metropolitan Gas Company that although there is no reserve value, there is a very good equivalent, inasmuch as these benefits are guaranteed by the company for life. I am making this point quite distinct from transfer values, which I will come to in a minute. It is open to anybody to question the value of the guarantee given by the company. One hon. Member suggested the possibility of the disuse of gas owing to the progress of invention, with the result that the whole business of the gas company would go from it, in which case the guarantee of the company would not be worth the paper it was written upon. I would remind the Committee that the guarantee is a prior charge to the debenture stock. It is the first charge on the company. I believe I am correct in saying with regard to the transfer value that the question was recently considered by the South 939 Metropolitan Gas Company, and that they were prepared to give an additional 1d., raising their contribution from 3d. to 4d. They were prepared not only to provide the additional benefits under this Government scheme, but also to formulate a scheme for transfer values, although to the men employed by the company that is not a matter of great importance, because the number of men who leave the company to go into other employment is a very small percentage. Therefore, the point made by the hon. Member opposite is not altogether a relevant point. I agree that a large amount of time has been wasted in discussing this question, but that was largely owing to the Home

940

§ Secretary being unable to accept this Amendment. The matter was put in a nutshell by the Solicitor-General (Sir J. Simon), who, comparing the Government scheme and that of the South Metropolitan Gas Company, said that whichever way it worked out, it became a matter of indifference. If the right hon. Gentleman had accepted this Amendment he would have increased both the flexibility and the adaptability of the Bill besides meeting the wishes of a large body of men, who are, after all, the parties primarily concerned.

§ Question put, "That the words 'as a clerk or' stand part of the proposed Amendment."

§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 181; Noes, 86.

941

Division No. 395.]	AYES.	[10.40 p.m.
Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)	Furness, Stephen	Millar, James Duncan
Acland, Francis Dyke	George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd	Mond, Sir Alfred M.
Adamson, William	Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Munro, Robert
Addison, Dr. C.	Goldstone, Frank	Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.
Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.	Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)	Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C.
Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R.	Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)	Nannetti, Joseph P.
Allen, A. A. (Dumbartonshire)	Greig, Colonel James William	Nolan, Joseph
Allen, Charles Peter (Stroud)	Griffith, Ellis James	Norman, Sir Henry
Anderson, Andrew Macbeth	Guest, Hon. Major C. H. C. (Pembroke)	Norton, Captain Cecil W.
Armitage, Robert	Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny
Baker, H. T. (Accrington)	Hackett, John	O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)
Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)	Hancock, John George	Ogden, Fred
Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)	Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale)	O'Grady, James
Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)	Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)	O'Sullivan, Timothy
Barnes, G. N.	Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)	Parker, James (Halifax)
Beauchamp, Sir Edward	Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)
Beck, Arthur Cecil	Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)	Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)
Benn, W. W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.)	Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)
Black, Arthur W.	Harwood, George	Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.
Boland, John Pius	Haslam, James (Derbyshire)	Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)
Booth, Frederick Handel	Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry	Price, Sir R. J. (Norfolk, E.)
Bowerman, C. W.	Haworth, Sir Arthur A.	Radford, George Heynes
Brace, William	Hayward, Evan	Raffan, Peter Wilson
Brady, Patrick Joseph	Helme, Norval Watson	Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)
Brunner, John F. L.	Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)	Reddy, Michael
Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)	Henry, Sir Charles	Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Higham, John Sharp	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)
Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)	Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.	Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)
Cawley, R. T. (Lancs., Heywood)	Holt, Richard Durning	Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)
Chapple, Dr. William Allen	Hope, John Deans (Haddington)	Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)
Clough, William	Horne, Charles Silvester (Ipswich)	Robinson, Sidney
Clynes, John R.	Hughes, Spencer Leigh	Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)
Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)	Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus	Roche, John (Galway, E.)
Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	Johnson, W.	Rose, Sir Charles Day
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)	Rowlands, James
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)	Rowntree, Arnold
Cory, Sir Clifford John	Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts, Stepney)	Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)
Cotton, William Francis	Jowett, Frederick William	Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Craig, Herbert James (Tynemouth)	Joyce, Michael	Sheehy, David
Crawshay-Williams, Eliot	Keating, Matthew	Sherwell, Arthur James
Crumley, Patrick	Kemp, Sir George	Simon, Sir John Allsebrook
Cullinan, John	Kennedy, Vincent Paul	Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)
Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)	Kilbride, Denis	Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)
Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)	Leach, Charles	Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)
Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)	Levy, Sir Maurice	Taylor, John W. (Durham)
Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	Lewis, John Herbert	Tennant, Harold John
Dawes, James Arthur	Lundon, Thomas	Thomas, James Henry (Derby)
Devlin, Joseph	Lynch, Arthur Alfred	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Doris, William	Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)	Toulmin, Sir George
Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)	Macpherson, James Ian	Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander
Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)	MacVeagh, Jeremiah	Verney, Sir Harry
Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)	M'Callum, John M.	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)
Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)	McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald	Wardie, George J.
Esslemont, George Birnie	M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)	Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay
Falconer, James	M'Micking, Major Gilbert	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Ferens, Thomas Robinson	Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)	Watt, Henry A.
Webb, H.	Williams, J. (Glamorgan)	Young, William (Perth, East)
White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston)	Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)
White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.)	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.
Whitehouse, John Howard	Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)	Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.
Wiles, Thomas	Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)
NOES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte	Forster, Henry William	Newman, John R. P.
Amery, L. C. M. S.	Gastrell, Major W. Houghton	Paget, Almeric Hugh
Archer-Shee, Major M.	Gilmour, Captain John	Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Goldman, Charles Sydney	Pearce, William (Limehouse)
Astor, Waldorf	Goldsmith, Frank	Peel, Hon. W. R. W. (Taunton)
Baird, John Lawrence	Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)	Perkins, Walter Frank
Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.	Grant, J. A.	Peto, Basil Edward
Balcarres, Lord	Gretton, John	Pollock, Ernest Murray
Baldwin, Stanley	Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Hall, Fred (Dulwich)	Rawson, Col. Richard H.
Baring, Maj. Hon. Guy V. (Winchester)	Hills, John Waller	Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)	Hill-Wood, Samuel	Ronaldshay, Earl of
Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Hinds, John	Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)
Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)	Hoare, Samuel John Gurney	Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)
Bennett-Goldney, Francis	Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy	Sanderson, Lancelot
Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-	Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)	Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)
Bird, Alfred	Hume-Williams, Wm. Ellis	Snowden, Philip
Boyton, James	Hunt, Rowland	Steel-Maitland, A. D.
Bridgeman, William Clive	Hunter, Sir Charles Rodk. (Bath)	Swift, Rigby
Bull, Sir William James	Kyffin-Taylor, G.	Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central)
Burn, Colonel C. R.	Lansbury, George	Talbot, Lord Edmund
Butcher, John George	Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts., Mile End)	Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.)
Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred	Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'r'ld, Cockerm'th)	Thynne, Lord Alexander
Cave, George	Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)	Touche, George Alexander
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.)	Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.	Tryon, Captain George Clement
Denniss, E. R. B.	Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)	Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)
Doughty, Sir George	Magnus, Sir Philip	Wolmer, Viscount
Du Cros, Arthur Philip	Martin, Joseph	Wood, John (Stalybridge)
Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.	Mildmay, Francis Bingham	Worthington-Evans, L.
Falle, Bertram Godfray	Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas	Yate, Col. C. E.
Fell, Arthur	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas
Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes	Neville, Reginald J. N.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir H.
Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)	Newdegate, F. A.	Kimber and Mr. H. Benn.

Question, "That the proposed words, as amended, be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

§ Amendments made to proposed Amendment: Leave out the word "otherwise" ["clerk or otherwise"], and insert instead thereof the words "other salaried officials;" after the word "other" ["railway or other company"], insert the word "statutory."—[Mr. Lloyd George.]

§ Mr. C. BATHURST
I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the word "when" ["when the Insurance Commissioners"], and to insert instead thereof the word "where."
I think the word "when" is a printer's error in the printing of the new Clause.

§ Amendment agreed to.

§ Mr. WARDLE
I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, at the end to insert the words "including the expiring funds of railway companies in Ireland which have been closed to future membership, in order that the staff of such companies might become members of a fund established under statutory authority."
This Amendment is to provide for about 150 men in Ireland who are under special provisions of an expiring Act. I understood an agreement had been entered into that they should be provided for.

942

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
This is a very special case, in which 150 men are involved. I desire to accept the Amendment, but I do not think the words carry out the principle, and we will introduce words to do so.

§ Mr. WARDLE
Under those circumstances, I beg to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment to the proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
May I ask the Attorney-General whether there is any legal precedent for describing a person as a member of a superannuation fund? I should have thought it would be a subscriber to the fund or beneficiary, and that he could not be a member of the fund. I believe we are now paid out of the Consolidated Fund, but we are still Members of Parliament and not members of the fund. Perhaps between now and the Report stage the Attorney-General will consider that point.

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
Can any reply be given to the question put a short time ago as to how many railway companies at present have statutory authority or Acts of Parliament dealing with their superannuation funds?

943

§ Sir J. SIMON
A note has been made of the question, but I think the hon. and learned Gentleman may take it that practically every railway company in the United Kingdom has one and in most cases a number of Acts.

§ Mr. WARDLE
That is not quite correct so far as superannuation funds are concerned. There are about sixteen superannuation funds, and a number of railway companies are joined together in the Railway Clearing House Fund, which takes all the smaller railways into one fund. These will come under the same Clause, I understand?

§ Sir J. SIMON
Certainly.

§ Sir RANDOLF BAKER
had given notice of the following Amendment: At end of paragraph (b), Part II., to insert the words—
"Employment as an outworker where the person employed is not solely or mainly dependent upon his or her earnings as an outworker, or where the average time occupied by a person as an outworker does not exceed thirty hours a week, or where the employment does not exceed thirteen weeks in the year."

§ The CHAIRMAN
This Amendment is not in the right place.

§ Sir R. BAKER
Is there any difference in principle between the exemption I wish to propose and that suggested by the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

§ The CHAIRMAN
It is rather difficult to distinguish between some Amendments. I can only ask the Committee to trust me in the matter. I do my best to consider Amendments together.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
Would you kindly indicate where the Amendment ought to be moved?

§ The CHAIRMAN
As far as I can say at present, where the Chancellor of the Exchequer has put down a similar Amendment at the end of the Schedule.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
Will it not require them to be moved as an additional Sub-section?

§ The CHAIRMAN
I will keep an open mind as to whether it should be moved as 944 an Amendment to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Amendment or as an additional Sub-section?

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
If it is moved as an Amendment to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Amendment it becomes part of a new Sub-section. Is there any precedent for the Chairman's settling the order in which Sub-sections are to appear in a Clause of this kind?

§ The CHAIRMAN
I can answer for myself. I have been guilty of doing so more than once recently. It is rather a common thing for hon. Members to put down their Sub-sections as (a) or (1) in front of whatever is in the Bill; whereas as a rule, unless there is some reason to act otherwise, new proposals ought to come after the consideration of matter already in the Bill. That, roughly, is the principle which guides me in the matter.

§ Sir R. BAKER
Do I understand that my Amendment will have to be moved after the Chancellor's Amendment dealing with the same question is moved? My Amendment has been down for four months; the Chancellor's for about four days.

§ The CHAIRMAN
As I said, I keep an open mind; but a Government Amendment takes precedence of that of a private Member that raises the same point.

§ Mr. WILLIAM PEEL
On a point of Order. My Amendment, I submit, is on a different basis. It deals with employment in any seasonal trade or other occupation in which the persons employed are not, as a rule, employed for more than thirty-nine weeks in a year. We are now dealing with casual labour. I have, I submit, put my Amendment down at the proper place. It has been down about five months; that of the Chancellor about five minutes, and I submit that one that has been down so long should have precedence even to that of the Chancellor?

§ The CHAIRMAN
I am inclined to listen to any reasonable view of the case, but it appears to me that this Amendment comes later and not at this point.

§ Mr. W. PEEL
I give notice, Sir, that at the proper time I will be prepared to convince you that this is the proper place.

§ The CHAIRMAN
I shall be glad to give the hon. Member a chance.

§ Mr. HOHLER
May I call attention to my Amendment?

945

§ The CHAIRMAN
I am sorry I did not specifically refer to the hon. Gentleman's Amendment. The hon. Gentleman had his chance before the dinner hour.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
On a point of Order. May I recall to your mind the fact that the Attorney-General corrected me—and quite correctly so—and pointed out that this Amendment was independent of my hon. Friend's previous Amendment; and that it would be quite open to the Committee to reject the first Amendment without affecting the second? Further, it was said that on the second Amendment the intentions of the Government would be made known.

§ The CHAIRMAN
I heard that; I do not know that I necessarily share the view of the Attorney-General, but I am quite willing to hear anything further on the point. The hon. and learned Gentleman's first Amendment was negatived, and therefore the Committee came to a decision that those persons were not to be excluded from the exceptions. It occurred to roe that this decision governs the second Amendment.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
May I submit to you, Mr. Whitley, that the first Amendments sought to draw a distinction between established and non-established workmen, that is to say, between pensionable and non-pensionable workmen. This Amendment is applicable to all workmen whether pensionable or non-pensionable. The first Amendments sought to take out of the exceptions altogether all men who are technically known in the Government service as established workmen; that is, men working on towards pensions. It was decided that they should not be taken out of the exceptions. This Amendment applies to all people left in, whether established or non-established. There is a particular provision in it in the case of their being discharged from or pensioned, and it is to apply to all people whom the Committee declined to omit by rejecting my hon. Friend's Amendment. The Attorney-General promised to make a statement upon that very Amendment.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
On the point of Order, this Amendment does not deal with exceptions at all. It is a proviso that the transfer value shall in certain conditions be credited to approved societies on account of certain persons as deposit contributors. I submit this question of transfer value should be dealt with on the Clause which deals with transfer values, 946 and not in the Schedule which deals with exceptions. I am dealing with the point of Order.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
Here it is a point of honour; the Attorney-General promised to deal with it.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
This is a point of Order, and the question I submit is that we cannot deal with transfer value upon a Schedule merely of exceptions.

§ Mr. HOHLER
On the point of Order, and in regard to the point which the Chancellor has made, it is a matter of surprise to my mind that any responsible Minister of the Government could raise such a point, because the result would be that these men, either hired or established, whose service the Government had, would get no transfer value. I do not appreciate the point the right hon. Gentleman has made, however well founded it may be, for this reason, they are introduced by way of exceptions. The whole point of this Amendment is as to what extent these exceptions are in the Schedule as it now stands. As it now stands these men while in the service of the Crown are wholly exempted from any levy or in regard to the Crown making contributions on their behalf. My Amendment is to limit that exception while they are in the employ of the Government. With regard to the other point it is quite clear it was never touched by the other Amendment at all. Anyone who fully appreciates the distinction in regard to employment under the Crown will, I think, follow it at once.

§ The CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is now making a speech. I have considered the point further and I think the objection taken by the Chancellor is a fatal one. You cannot introduce this proviso into the Schedule, and this particular proviso was the main argument used by the hon. Member if I remember aright to support his previous Amendment. I am afraid the objection is fatal, and it would not be in order to introduce a proviso of that kind in a part of the Schedule which deals with exceptions. On that ground I must rule against it.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
I was afraid at first that this objection would be taken. I raised the question across the floor of the House, and the Attorney-General said it was not the point raised by my hon. and learned Friend, and he was right. He said it was raised by a subsequent Amendment, and he corrected me very courteously, and therefore I thought this 947 Amendment could be moved whatever happened to the Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend. I understood the Attorney-General postponed the discussion until this Amendment, and I thought he said quite definitely that I was wrong in alleging that this Amendment was consequential upon my hon. and learned Friend's Amendment. There was a very important matter to be raised, and for that reason I ask for further consideration of this question by you. The Schedules provide for certain exceptions, and the provisio which my hon. and learned Friend now seeks to insert states the conditions under which such exceptions shall be made. Some of us would assent to the exception with this proviso, although we think that the exception without the provisio would work great hardship. I submit that the proviso is germane to the exception, because it is the condition which is in our opinion quite legitimately an essential condition of the exception.

§ The CHAIRMAN
I think this point of Order ought to have been raised earlier. I remember the incident which the right hon. Gentleman referred to, and, without going back on my ruling, as a matter of convenience, I am quite prepared to allow this to be moved if the Attorney-General assents.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
I will assent to it on account of what took place at the time. I understood that the discussion turned on transfer value. I pointed out that I thought the point arose later, and not on the Amendment before the Committee. I should be particularly sorry to have any misunderstanding by which hon. Members of the Committee have not discussed this point, because they understood it was coming on later, and I shall not object to it being discussed.

§ The CHAIRMAN
The Amendment having been referred to in the course of the Debate, perhaps the hon Member will be content simply with moving it.

§ Mr. HOHLER
I beg to move in Part II. after paragraph (b), to insert the words, "Provided always that in the event of any such person ceasing to serve the Crown or any local or other public authority, otherwise than upon his discharge to pension, his transfer value ascertained in accordance with Section twenty-five of this Act shall be credited to an approved society or to his account as a deposit contributor, as the case may be."
948 We have under the Government the established man and the hired labourer. The established man may be continued for years, and he may then be discharged on reduction, or he may leave ordinarily. It does occasionally happen an established man sees a better opening and wants to transfer his services elsewhere. The whole object of this Amendment is that when he becomes an insured person or an employed contributor in the open market—that is, outside the Government service—he shall not suffer by reason of having been under the scheme with the Government or with a local authority. I wish, in other words, to secure to him his transfer value when he ceases to be either in the employ of the Government or the local authority.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The difficulty which the hon. and learned Gentleman suggests really does not arise. If a person is on the Established List, and therefore comes within the exception to which we made reference earlier in the discussion, and the Insurance Commissioners are satisfied that the conditions of his employment are at least as favourable in respect of sickness benefit and disablement as under the Bill, then no question of this kind can arise. If, on the other hand, he is not on the Established List, and is merely a labourer or a workman who has come there for a short time, or it may be for a year or two years, then he comes under Clause 37. Under that Clause the Crown is made liable as an ordinary employer. It will have to pay the contribution, and the man will have to pay his contributions in the ordinary way. He would be a member of an approved society, just as any other workman, so that, if he does not come within this particular exception, he would be in exactly the same position with regard to his transfer value as if he were in anybody else's employ. That is the provision the hon. and learned Member desires to make. He says, "supposing a man is discharged, what becomes of his transfer value?" He is in exactly the same position with regard to his transfer value as if he were in anybody else's employ. He is a person who does not come within the exception.

§ Mr. HOHLER
I do not accept that view.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The result would be he would be just in the same position as any person who is employed by any other employer. Therefore, there is no necessity for this proviso.

949

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
I am not convinced the question is as narrow or as well guarded as the Attorney-General says, and, if my hon. Friend goes to a division, I shall certainly vote with him.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
If my hon. Friend goes to a division I shall certainly support him. The Government are doing less in connection with their own service than they are forcing upon the inmates of charitable homes. The managers of charitable institutions are only allowed not to pay the contributions in respect of people whom they are employing as a matter of charity, and on the

950

§ condition that they are to give all those people leaving the homes what is in effect a transfer value. That was one of the new Clauses which went through without discussion the other night, but it clearly provides the inmates of charitable homes are to go out with the full transfer value. Yet the Government, so far as their own servants are concerned, are turning them out without any pretence of giving them the transfer value necessary in order to enable them to remain in their friendly society.

§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 90; Noes, 162.

951

Division No. 396.]	AYES.	[11.20 p.m.
Adamson, William	Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)	Newman, John R. P.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte	Forster, Henry William	O'Grady, James
Archer-Shee, Major Martin	Gastrell, Major W. Houghton	Paget, Almeric Hugh
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Gilmour, Captain J.	Peel, Captain R. F. (Woodbridge)
Baird, John Lawrence	Goldman, Charles Sydney	Peel, Hon. W. R. W. (Taunton)
Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.)	Goldsmith, Frank	Perkins, Walter Frank
Balcarres, Lord	Goldstone, Frank	Peto, Basil Edward
Baldwin, Stanley	Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)	Pollock, Ernest Murray
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Grant, J. A.	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel
Baring, Maj. Hon. Guy V. (Winchester)	Gretton, John	Rawson, Colonel Richard H.
Barnes, G. N.	Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)	Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)
Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)	Hall, Fred (Dulwich)	Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)	Hancock, John George	Ronaldshay, Earl of
Bennett-Goldney, Francis	Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)	Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)
Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish	Hills, J. W.	Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)
Bird, Alfred	Hill-Wood, Samuel	Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central)
Boyton, James	Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)	Talbot, Lord Edmund
Bridgeman, William Clive	Hunt, Rowland	Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, North)
Bull, Sir William James	Hunter, Sir Charles Rodk. (Bath)	Thynne, Lord Alexander
Burn, Col. C. R.	Jowett, Frederick William	Touche, George Alexander
Butcher, John George	Kyffin-Taylor, G.	Tryon, Captain George Clement
Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred	Lansbury, George	Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)
Cave, George	Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)	Williams, John (Glamorgan)
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worcr.)	Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey)	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Clynes, John R.	Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.	Wolmer, Viscount
Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)	Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)	Wood, John (Stalybridge)
Craik, Sir Henry	Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)	Worthington-Evans, L.
Denniss, E. R. B.	Magnus, Sir Philip	Yate, Col. C. E.
Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.	Mildmay, Francis Bingham
Fell, Arthur	Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.
Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes	Newdegate, F. A.	Hohler and Mr. Amery.
NOES.
Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)	Cawley, H. T. (Lancs., Heywood)	Esslemont, George Birnie
Acland, Francis Dyke	Chapple, Dr. William Allen	Falconer, James
Addison, Dr. C.	Clough, William	Ferens, Thomas Robinson
Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.	Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)	Furness, Stephen
Allen, A. A. (Dumbartonshire)	Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd
Allen, Charles Peter (Stroud)	Condon, Thomas Joseph	Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford
Anderson, Andrew Macbeth	Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)
Armitage, Robert	Cory, Sir Clifford John	Greig, Colonel James William
Baker, H. T. (Accrington)	Cotton, William Francis	Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward
Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)	Craig, Herbert James (Tynemouth)	Griffith, Ellis Jones
Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)	Crawshay-Williams, Eliot	Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)
Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)	Crumley, Patrick	Hackett, John
Beauchamp, Sir Edward	Cullinan, John	Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)
Beck, Arthur Cecil	Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)	Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)
Benn, W. W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.)	Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)	Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)
Black, Arthur W.	Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)	Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)
Boland, John Pius	Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	Harwood, George
Booth, Frederick Handel	Dawes, James Arthur	Haslam, James (Derbyshire)
Bowerman, C. W.	Devlin, Joseph	Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)
Brace, William	Doris, William	Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry
Brady, Patrick Joseph	Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)	Haworth, Sir Arthur A.
Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, N.)	Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)	Hayward, Evan
Byles, Sir William Pollard	Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)	Helme, Norval Watson
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)	Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)
Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)	Elibank, Rt. Hon. Master of	Henry, Sir Charles S.
Higham, John Sharp	Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C.	Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)
Hinds, John	Nannetti, Joseph P.	Sheehy, David
Holt, Richard Durning	Nolan, Joseph	Sherwell, Arthur James
Hope, John Deans (Haddington)	Norman, Sir Henry	Simon, Sir John Allsebrook
Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)
Hughes, Spencer Leigh	O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)	Taylor, John W. (Durham)
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus	O'Doherty, Philip	Tennant, Harold John
Johnson, William	Ogden, Fred	Thomas, James Henry (Derby)
Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)	O'Sullivan, Timothy	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)	Parker, James (Halifax)	Toulmin, Sir George
Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts, Stepney)	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)	Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander
Keating, Matthew	Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)	Verney, Sir Harry
Kennedy, Vincent Paul	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)	Walters, John Tudor
Kilbride, Denis	Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)
Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'r'ld, Cockerm'th)	Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)	Wardie, George J.
Leach, Charles	Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)	Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay
Levy, Sir Maurice	Radford, George Heynes	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Lewis, John Herbert	Raffan, Peter Wilson	Watt, Henry A.
Lundon, Thomas	Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)	Webb, H.
Lyell, C. H.	Reddy, Michael	White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston)
MacVeagh, Jeremiah	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.)
M'Laren, Hon. F. W. S. (Lincs., Spalding)	Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)	Whyte, A. F. (Perth)
M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)	Robinson, Sidney	Wiles, Thomas
M'Micking, Major Gilbert	Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)	Wilson, J. (Durham, Mid)
Martin, Joseph	Roche, John (Galway)	Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)
Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)	Rose, Sir Charles Day	Young, William (Perth, East)
Millar, James Duncan	Rowntree, Arnold	Yoxall, Sir James Henry
Mond, Sir Alfred M.	Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)
Munro, Robert	Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.
Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.	Scanlan, Thomas	Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.

§ Sir P. MAGNUS
I beg to move, in Part II., paragraph (c), after the word "employment" to insert the words "as a teacher in a recognised secondary school for boys or girls, or."
This Amendment deals with a class of employed persons altogether different from those we have been considering during the whole of this day. Taken with a later Amendment it proposes to exempt the majority of teachers of all classes other than elementary school teachers, for whom provision is already made. I move it at the request of the different associations of teachers concerned. The Amendment affects thousands of men and women who are quite capable of looking after their own interests, and who do not desire the benefits which this Bill confers, and who believe they will be in a worse position under the Bill than at present. I will deal first with the assistant teachers in secondary schools, to whom the Amendment particularly refers. From Command Paper 5951 it appears that in not more than 813 grant-aided secondary schools there were 1,714 assistant masters and 3,411 assistant mistresses, or altogether, 5,125 assistant teachers in receipt of a salary under £160. There can be no doubt that if we include in these statistics those of schools not receiving grants from the Board of Education the number of assistant teachers in receipt of salaries less than £160 would very much exceed this number. The majority of these teachers would, in the course of a few years, in all probability be in receipt of salaries above £160 a year. I do not 952 understand what their position would then be when they came to receive a salary in excess of £160. Recently I put a question and was informed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was giving the matter serious consideration. I have not yet heard what is the result of the consideration which has been given to the position of teachers in secondary schools. It certainly seems to me that when the assistant teachers come to receive a salary over £160 a year they will not be eligible to become voluntary insurers, and their contributions, which they have already made to the Insurance Fund, will not in any way help them, as would their savings at that period of life when some assistance would be of considerable use. The teachers on whose behalf I am asked to speak, including those referred to in the Amendment later on, are men and women of good education, many of them possessing a University degree, and are certainly capable of deciding for themselves whether or not they desire to come under this scheme, and whether they are likely to gain any advantage by so doing. Notwithstanding that they have sent to most Members of Parliament petitions asking to be excluded from this Bill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer so far appears to insist that they should contribute to this scheme, and that they should receive, whether they like it or not, and whether they consider that it will be to their advantage or not, the sum of 2d. per week from the Government.
Let us see what this action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer really means. It 953 requires that teachers shall pay 4d. or 3d. per week at a time when they can least afford it and when their salaries are lowest. It requires also that the school authorities shall contribute 3d., and the State 2d., for benefits which these teachers do not desire to possess. The 9d. for 4d. offer of the Chancellor of the Exchequer has no attraction for them. Possibly they think that the offer is not strictly accurate. They also know that the benefits which this offer brings with it are not real benefits which secondary teachers really desire. What our teachers really require are benefits of a different kind. Take the medical benefit which this Bill provides. These teachers, many of whom have, their own personal doctor, would, I take it, under this Bill be compelled, unless they lose the benefit, to employ a club doctor, in whom they might not altogether have full confidence. It is true, as I understand, that they might select their doctor from a panel. But from all I hear, the panel of doctors is likely, under the conditions upon which they are to be employed, to be a very limited one, and teachers might not find in that panel any doctor in whom they had complete confidence. I might in support of this statement refer to some remarks made by the President-elect of the British Medical Association on Saturday last. Speaking of the case of the doctors under the Bill, he said: They would get a very inferior type of medical man. Surely it must be admitted that it is a very great hardship to impose on all those persons, who have received a thorough education and are highly trained, the obligation of contributing to a scheme of insurance which may or may not suit artisans engaged in manual labour—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—I say may or may not suit those engaged in manual labour, but a scheme which certainly does not meet the requirements of teachers in our schools. What our teachers really do require is some superannuation scheme to meet their wants in advanced age, and at the same time larger salaries when they are still able to work. I know quite well that there are difficulties in the way of framing a superannuation scheme for secondary teachers. But difficulties exist to be overcome, and the difficulties in the way of providing such a scheme are not insuperable. In the absence of any such scheme it is the height of folly and the surest indication of incompetent statesmanship to compel 954 persons who do not require these particular benefits to accept them at an expense to the local authority and of the State of 6d. or 7d. a week for each particular teacher.
The position of those teachers to whom my second Amendment refers is almost as hard as that of those who are dealt with by the Amendment to which I am now speaking. Every assistant lecturer or demonstrator in a university college or medical school is a potential professor. I cannot point to anyone of our most eminent professors of science at the present day who has not at one period of his life acted as an assistant lecturer or demonstrator and possibly at a salary very much below £160 a year. Yet most of those men rise to receive a salary of from £800 to £1,000 per annum, and some occupy positions commanding salaries very much greater. Since my Amendment was placed on the Paper I have received communications from the Association of Technical Teachers asking that they may be included among those exempted from the provisions of the Bill. These technical teachers include all the teachers in the great London polytechnic institutions and all the teachers in our great technical schools throught the country. They wish to be placed in the same position as I am suggesting that assistant masters in our secondary schools shall be placed. Although the amount payable on each of these teachers and lecturers to whom I have referred may seem small the aggregate amount which would have to be paid by these institutions would be very considerable and would be taken away from the great objects for which these institutions are founded. Nearly every one of these institutions is now asking for funds and it is a burden to have these contributions placed upon them.
I expect that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer may say in reply to the terms of my Amendment that there may still be a large number of assistant masters and mistresses in secondary schools who never receive a salary of over £160 per annum to whom the benefits of this Bill would be a consideration. I should be very sorry if there was so large a proportion who never rise beyond £160, but I think—I may be wrong—that all those teachers can if they so desire, and their salaries are under £160 per annum, become voluntary subscribers. If they remain voluntary subscribers for a period of five years they could then 955 continue to be subscribers even if their salaries were increased beyond £160. I think I have made out a case for the exclusion of these teachers as a special class different from any other class, on behalf of whom exclusion has been urged. I have also endeavoured to meet such arguments as the Chancellor of the Exchequer may advance if he is unwilling to accept the Amendment.

§ The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Pease)
As representing the Board of Education, who have to deal with the scheme in regard to teachers, I would point out to the hon. Member that his words do not convey accurately his intention. First of all, it is impossible, I think, by words such as he has suggested, to limit the numbers to those categories to which he has alluded. The Amendment in terms alludes to the "teachers in recognised secondary schools." I would venture to point out to the Committee that the only reason for any teachers being excluded from the operation of this Bill is attributable to the fact that the certificated elementary teachers have already secured, with the assistance of the State, an arrangement for themselves somewhat similar to the benefits which this Bill would procure for them in the future. At the present time every male teacher subscribes, I think, £3 per annum, and every female teacher certificated subscribes £2 per annum. When they are disabled they retire on a retirement allowance. If they serve thirty-five years and retire at the age of sixty-five years they obtain a pension of some £56 per annum. Of that, £36 represents the equivalent of their own contributions, and £20 represents the contributions of the State. In that way the certificated elementary teachers are put in a better position than they would be if they were included in the provisions of the Bill. Outside the certificated teachers, who number 97,395 in our elementary schools, we have other teachers numbering 74,194. I am now quoting the figures of July last year, the last which are available.
When we come to the secondary teachers I can only place a few facts before the Committee to show how impossible it is to accept the Amendment. From the Board of Education point of view we can take the secondary teacher in three different classes. The first are those who are employed in schools receiving Government 956 grants. These schools must have 25 per cent. of free places; they must be schools which are not conducted for private profit, and they must be schools where children are taught from at least twelve years of age to seventeen years of age. Then there is a second class of secondary school teachers who are employed in schools which are inspected by the Board of Education and recognised as efficient. These may be denominational schools, or they may be conducted for private profit—such schools as Clifton and Harrow and several others which I might name.
There is a third set of schools in which secondary teachers are employed, and which do not come within either of those two categories—Eton and Winchester, for instance. In addition there are all the technical teachers, University lecturers and demonstrators with varying duties, some with only one or two hours per week, and some up to twenty or twenty-four hours' tuition per week. There are, too, all kinds and varieties of teachers in schools of art, and artisans who perhaps teach one or two hours per week in connection with mining and other classes. It is not probably the intention of the hon. Member that all those hundreds and thousands of teachers in this country should be excluded from the operations of this Bill. The majority of those men are poor men. They do not want to be deprived of the benefits of this Bill, but there may be a certain class which the hon. Member has spoken for who do desire to be excluded. I agree that that is so, and I received a deputation which expressed exactly the same views to me as the hon. Member has expressed tonight. I think the best suggestion I can make to the Committee is this, that if any of those teachers can secure a better arrangement than that provided in the Bill they should be excluded hereafter from the provisions of the Bill. If it would meet with the wishes of the Committee I would suggest that these words should be inserted on the lines of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Lincoln, namely, in Schedule 1 paragraph (e), after the word "applies" to insert the words "or in the event of any similar enactment being hereafter passed, as respects teachers or any class of teachers other than teachers in public elementary schools, the teacher to whom such enactment applies." In that way any class of teacher who would be placed hereafter under any Government scheme of superannuation would then be excluded from the scope of this Insurance 957 Bill. If that proposal would meet the views of the Committee, and if the hon. Member is prepared to withdraw his Amendment, I will move.

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
I thank the right hon. Gentleman both for his courtesy in receiving the deputation and for the suggestion he has thrown out. Speaking for myself and for the Assistant Schoolmasters' Association and for the two Associations of women teachers who had the privilege of waiting on the right hon. Gentleman and who represent the vast bulk of a highly educated profession who are fully capable of looking after their own interests and who have carefully considered this arrangement, I do not think that the suggestion thrown out by the right hon. Gentleman, though a very kind effort to meet their wishes, is anything like sufficient for the purpose. I hope he will reconsider his decision. The elementary teachers have got absolute exclusion from this Bill.

§ Mr. GOLDSTONE
Only half of them.

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
The right hon. Gentleman says that they get benefits even greater than that which this Act supplies. The right hon. Gentleman has not been sitting here all this evening or he would not have overlooked the inestimable advantages which we were told arose from maternity benefit. These elementary teachers are sent forth into the world without either of these estimable benefits, and they seem perfectly happy without them. I ask for similar protection for the secondary school teachers. I submit that it is likely that educated people of that kind, when they are practically unanimous in asking for exemption, know what they are about. Secondary teachers are very well treated at present by their employers on all questions of sickness and so forth. I do not say there is a legal custom which gives them such rights, but they are getting them every day, and there is no doubt they will continue to get them if they are excluded from the Bill. But if they are included, their employers, when they have to pay the amounts required, will take a more strictly legal view as to their duties, and it is exceedingly probable that the teachers will lose rather than gain. The vast majority of these teachers start at salaries of from £100 to £160 a year, and in a large number of cases rise rapidly above £160.
The right hon. Gentleman proposes that if at some future day a Bill is passed giving 958 them benefits equal to those conferred by this measure they shall be exempt. What becomes of their payments in the interval? Suppose a man starts at £130, rising by £10 a year. When his salary reaches £160 what benefit does he get for the contributions he has made? As far as I understand the Bill, such a teacher will absolutely lose all the premiums he has paid. Take the proposed Amendment. Supposing five or six years hence a superannuation scheme is passed, what becomes of the payments made by the depositors in the interval? Will there be any transfer value? It will be a difficult matter to carry out. The main point I want to press upon the Committee is that the enactments of this Bill are absolutely unsuited for secondary school teachers. There is no call at present for the benefits that it is proposed should be given to them under this Bill. They do not ask for them and do not want them. If the Government do wish to assist them at all what they want is a superannuation scheme. That would be for their good, and for the good generally of the teaching profession. I am convinced that the right hon. Gentleman who is now in charge of the Education department will do all he can to assist in that way. I ask that the Government should now allow this class of teachers to be excluded from the Bill, and assist them, as I say, if they desire to do so with a superannuation scheme.

§ Mr. FORSTER
The words of the Amendment of the President of the Board of Education conveyed little to my mind. If I had had ample opportunity of informing myself upon them I might have taken a different view. But I would like to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer—it is now midnight—how far he proposes we should go to-night?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I did think that we might have got the First Schedule to-night. But I understand that a few of the Amendments are somewhat important, and that the Members of the Committee would like to discuss them in broad daylight. Under the circumstances I think we might get to the question of the out-workers as far as the Government Amendment at the bottom of page 32. I assent to the idea of those who would rather like to debate some of the points raised at the beginning of the sitting. We ought to get the question of domestic servants before the dinner hour to-morrow. My Amendments on the question of the out-workers—the only question of importance between us— 959 should not be difficult to arrive at a settlement on, and I shall then be very happy to suggest that we report progress.

§ 12.0 M.

§ Mr. FORSTER
I understand from your ruling, Sir, that some of the Amendments standing on the Paper in the names of my hon. Friends will not be in Order at this point, and necessarily will be postponed until some point later. In that way as I understand the matter we should have a chance on the main question raised relating to out-workers, charitable institutions, hospital staffs, before we came to domestic servants. It is very desirable and I think my hon. Friends will agree with me that although these points should be discussed, though we may have to curtail our discussions very rigidly, there are undoubtedly, I think, more important questions which remain on the Amendment Paper. I do not want to have any misunderstanding. What does the Chancellor of the Exchequer mean when he says he wants to get to the question of the domestic servants before the dinner hour?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Beginning the Debate.

§ Mr. FORSTER
At half-past seven or eight o'clock?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Yes.

§ Mr. FORSTER
In these circumstances I think we would agree.

§ Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS
I wish to thank the President of the Board of Education for his Amendment. I do not want to argue the whole case of the secondary school teachers any further, but I agree to a large extent with the case put from the other side. I think it is desirable to exclude them if and when the superannuation scheme is proposed. I do not believe there is any case whatever for excluding the secondary teachers any more than any other workers on the mere margin of the income limit of £160. To that extent I cannot agree with the arguments put forward on the other side, and some of their reasons left me quite cold. But I think there is a case for taking out secondary teachers in order to get them a superannuation scheme, just as you take out certificated teachers because they have already a superannuation scheme of some kind. Therefore I think the President of the Board of Education has met the case to a very large extent, and I 960 believe that will be the feeling of a large body of the secondary teachers. I do know there is one strain of opinion in favour of the solution which the President of the Board of Education has proposed.

§ Mr. CHARLES BATHURST
As a governor of three secondary schools and chairman of one of them, perhaps I may be allowed to say to the President of the Board of Education that I am quite sure the secondary teachers will not be satisfied with such an Amendment as this. I am afraid, on the other hand, they will regard this Amendment as merely a pretext for putting off the superannuation scheme which they have some reason to believe is now being considered by the Board of Education, and which they hoped would be crystallised into a definite scheme as an alternative to that provided by this Bill, and before this Bill was passed. Is it not rather a pity that they should commence to make these necessary contributions, and that the local authorities and others who employ them should make these necessary contributions under an Act, only to lose these contributions or to see them applied under a totally different scheme whenever a superannuation scheme is substituted for this? Surely it would be much simpler and far more satisfactory to the teachers, and would inspire them with much more hope for the future, if the date of the superannuation scheme was the date of the coming into operation of this Bill, so far as they are concerned. There is one question upon which the teachers are doubtful and would like some enlightenment from the Government. As the Bill is framed at present they may or may not, according to the construction put by the Commissioners upon paragraph (b) of this Schedule, come within its provisions, as the right hon. Gentleman will see it includes employment by a local authority, which, of course, would cover their case where the Commissioners certify that the terms of employment in the event of sickness on the whole are less favourable than the benefits conferred by the Act. In the case of sickness extending over a period of six months or even longer, how is it possible for the Insurance Commissioners or any other body to decide whether the rate of such salaries during sickness is less favourable than under the provisions of this Bill? This will leave them in a most doubtful and unsatisfactory position, and in the opinion of the teachers, and also in the opinion of many hon. Members on this side of the House, 961 it is impossible for anybody to say whether they are or are not included under the provisions of this Schedule. What is going to happen to the contributions of such persons in the event of receiving salaries in excess of £160 a year? Are the contributions going to be entirely lost or merged in a State fund to be applied for the benefit of other contributors under the Bill? If so a very gross injustice will be done to the teachers, and others will also suffer in this respect.
The question has in Committee been repeatedly put to the Government as to what is going to be the form of their Amendment dealing with cases such as these where a contributor makes his payment for many years and then by promotion gets beyond the £160 limit. The only reply we have received is that the matter is going to be dealt with on Report, but in fairness to the teachers and others who are affected we ought to have some definite statement before the Committee stage finishes as to what is going to happen to those persons who, by their own capacity obtain an income of over £160 a year. In Scotland the elementary and the secondary school teachers enjoy a superannuation fund to which the Scottish Education Department contributes. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not yet."] At any rate the scheme is under consideration at the present moment, and there is every reason to believe that the proposal will be approved as applying both to secondary and elementary school teachers. Why cannot we take a leaf out of the Scotsman's book in this respect though not in some other respects and make one uniform scheme for all teachers from the commencement of this Act so that they will all enjoy a superannuation scheme instead of having to make contributions towards benefits which they do not want in a Bill under which they will probably lose their benefits if they justify their own activities and reach a salary of more than £160 a year.

§ Mr. T. E. HARVEY
I hope the Government will be able to go somewhat further in the direction of meeting our demands than was indicated by the President of the Board of Education. The secondary school teachers, I believe, will welcome the right hon. Gentleman's promise that the Government intend to introduce a scheme for a superannuation fund for them. If that is the intention of the Government I hope we shall have it stated more clearly, because that will be a most welcome announcement. But 962 although that is good as far as it goes it really does not at all meet the difficulties at the present moment. I do not think the Amendment, quite as it stands, is one which personally I could recommend the Government to accept; because I think it covers far too wide a class of teacher. I would venture to put in a plea on behalf of the teachers who are under a scale of salary and who will in the ordinary course receive £160 a year. The hon. Member for London University told us that there were many teachers in secondary schools whose salaries would not rise above this limit, and such teachers ought surely to be included under the Insurance scheme and receive its benefits. But I do think it might be possible for the Government between now and the Report stage to introduce an Amendment which would except teachers in secondary schools upon a sliding scale and whose salaries will rise to more than £160 a year. That would meet a real grievance. It is a very great hardship that the teachers should be compelled to pay during the healthy years of his or her life when probably the school will allow sick pay and should on rising over the limit lose all benefits. I cannot agree that the teacher is entirely on a par with other occupations of business life. For one thing, the teacher in a secondary school with a salary of £160 a year has to find out of that sum a large amount of money for equipment and for travel, to keep abreast of the times. All that means a large inroad upon the salary. It is very necessary this particular class of teacher in the secondary school should have some provision made for him, and I very much hope the Government will make a further step to meet the need which has been pointed out.

§ Mr. AMERY
There is a further point I want to press upon the Government. Not only are the great majority of the teachers in secondary schools who are receiving under £150 a year under thirty-five years of age, and will, therefore, when they rise above that £150, lose the benefits, and yet only a comparatively small proportion of that which they have paid for with regard to the penny and five-ninths, but none of the benefits, will accrue to any of them under thirty-two years of age. The great majority of the teachers in these schools with a salary less than £150 a year are under thirty-two. They will have to pay a penny and five-ninths a week, and they practically have no chance of getting any benefit whatever. I think that is a further point that ought to be considered.

963

§ Mr. BUTCHER
The question is when a teacher of a secondary school has for some years contributed to this Insurance Fund and then his salary rises above £160 a year, what will be his position? This is a very material point, and I think we are entitled to some answer. We cannot get one. Is it because the Government do not know their own mind? Let the right hon. Gentleman endeavour to enable us to arrive at a correct decision on this Amendment. If these teachers pay their contributions for years and then their salary goes over £160 yearly, I believe there is to be found a strong argument in favour of the Motion of the hon. Member for London University. On the general question I agree with the hon. Member for Leeds that teachers in secondary schools are in a substantially different position. They surely ought to be allowed to know their own minds as to whether they wish to come under the operation of the Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman remains obdurate cannot he at any rate give us a promise that at the earliest possible period the Government will produce some scheme of superannuation for teachers in the secondary schools. In that I am sure he would have the support of hon. Members on both sides of the House.

§ The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease)
An appeal has been made to me to go a little further than I had felt myself able to do on this Amendment. Speaking for myself I have every desire to meet the wishes of those who undoubtedly constitute a very deserving class in the community and recognise that at a very great cost of both time and money secondary teachers are engaged in most difficult, arduous, and excellent work for the benefit of the nation and I should like to meet their wishes if it be possible. I have been asked if I can pledge the Government to state a superannuation scheme at an early date. All I can tell the Committee is that I have been in communication with representatives of the secondary school teachers and have discussed with them proposals for a superannuation scheme. They are now considering suggestions which have passed between us. I can say no more than that. In the event of their submitting to the Government what seems a practicable scheme of superannuation, limited to those identified with schools receiving a public grant, we will consider it. I am not entitled to say more than that at the 964 present moment. The Scottish scheme to which allusion has been made is based on a very substantial endowment fund which apparently exists in that country and is available for a purpose such as this. But in this country we have no similar endowment fund; consequently the cases of Scotland and England differ. At the present time I think the number of teachers in England and Wales engaged in these schools is 9,545—head masters, head mistresses, and assistant head masters and mistresses, and this total includes those whose remuneration exceeds £160 as well as those receiving less than that figure. In addition to that there is an enormous number of other schoolmasters, in all sorts of schools in the country, such as technical schools and schools of art. These masters go in and out of these schools receiving Government grants, into schools carried on, for instance, for private profit or as denominational schools, taking up particular subjects for a year or two, and in some instances possibly teaching only one or two hours every week. It is very difficult for the Government to devise any scheme which will include a particular section of schoolmasters, and carry out the wishes of those who have made representations to the hon. Member. At the present moment I cannot do more than say that, between now and Report. I will again confer with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and see if we can extend in any direction the desires which have been placed before us this evening. I am not in a position, owing to the difficulties I foresee, to definitely promise that on the Report stage I can do anything more.

§ Mr. SHERWELL
Many of us have heard with some relief the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. I personally sincerely hope that, between now and Report stage, he will be able to arrive at a conclusion much more favourable than he now anticipates. What I specially rose for was to ask whether an opportunity will be given to us to make any comment on the proposed arrangement for the business to-night and to-morrow? I cannot help thinking that the proposed arrangement may be attended with serious consequences so far as regards the consideration of important remaining portions of the schedules. We have spent to-day many hours on matters which are relatively unimportant as compared with the matters that may remain undiscussed to-morrow night. I am expressing the opinion of many hon. Members on this side of the 965 Committee, that, if we agree to the proposed arrangement, it means that by eight o'clock to-morrow night we shall be left with the perfectly impossible task of giving anything like fair consideration to the great bulk of the schedules which still remain, many of which represent points of vital importance to the success of the scheme. I should much prefer that the Government should agree to a much longer sitting to-night, so that we might make substantial progress with the vital matters remaining.

§ Sir P. MAGNUS
Can the Attorney-General give a definite answer to the question what becomes of the contributions which thousands of teachers receiving salaries less than £160 a year may be compelled to contribute towards the Insurance Fund, when their salaries are so increased as to be beyond that income limit? Will they lose the whole of those contributions, or to what purpose will they be devoted?

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
It all depends upon whether or not they have paid contributions for five years. If contributions have been paid for five years they are entitled to continue as voluntary contributors. If they have not, as the Bill stands, they would receive nothing, but of course they are building up a value by their payments, and that must be taken into account, I should think, in any superannuation scheme which came before the House.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
I think the hon. and learned Gentleman is wrong. Clause 1 contains this proviso:— Provided that where a person who has been a voluntary contributor for five years or upwards ceases to possess such qualifications as aforesaid he shall not by reason thereof be disentitled to continue to be insured under this Part of this Act. My recollection is that the Attorney-General was right in stating the original terms of the Bill, but wrong in stating the Amended terms of the Bill. Nor has he replied to the other part of the question. He says these persons will be piling up a value, but what is to happen to that value? Under the Bill as amended they do not get it in any form. It goes out of existence.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The amended Clause goes on to provide that where a person who had voluntarily contributed for five years or upwards ceases to 966 possess such qualifications he shall not by reason thereof be disentitled to continue to contribute.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
The hon. and learned Gentleman ignores the fact that the teachers will not have been voluntary contributors but employed persons. This proviso applies only to those who have been voluntary contributors for five years.

§ Sir P. MAGNUS
I said any teacher who had been a voluntary subscriber for five years might be allowed to continue as a voluntary subscriber, and I used that as an argument for the exclusion of those teachers from compulsory insurance. Surely we ought to leave them the option of saying whether they desire to be voluntary subscribers or not. I thank the President of the Board of Education for the statement that the Government are contemplating the formation of a superannuation fund for the teachers. We should very much like to know that there is some reasonable chance of its soon coming into existence. Meanwhile I must impress upon the right hon. Gentleman the desirability of his communicating with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and endeavouring to allow these teachers to be excluded from the compulsory Clauses of the Bill. It would seem to be very undesirable that they should come into a scheme of this kind when it will be useless after a superannuation arrangement has come into existence. The House cannot ignore the petitions which have been presented for the Incorporated Association of Schoolmasters, the Association of Teachers of Technical Institutions and others and compel them, whether they like it or not, to come under the Bill. In the absence of any better assurance than we have received I shall feel compelled to divide the House.

§ Mr. BOOTH
I rise to protest against the idea which seems to have spread in the Committee that this is a sort of savings bank to which these teachers or anybody else can contribute. I understood we were talking about an insurance Bill, but the idea seems to be that these teachers who have paid into an insurance fund a little more than they have received are in some way or another defrauded if they do not get it out again when they get an increase of salary. I should like to ask hon. Members opposite who take that view are they prepared to say, in case a teacher has received more from the Fund 967 than he has paid in that that teacher shall reimburse it when he gets an increase of salary. Hon. Members opposite must remember what the principles of insurance are. Surely it would be quite unreasonable for anybody insured against fire to want to obtain the price of his building, if he had a fire and was successful in fighting it.

§ Sir P. MAGNUS
Nobody is compelled to insure against fire; that is a voluntary insurance.

§ Mr. BOOTH
I intend to come to that point. I am glad the hon. Member agrees with me that he had lost sight of the fundamental insurance principle. Teachers may pay into the Fund for a large number of years, and many of them will undoubtedly have drawn out a great deal more than they have paid in. Some may have had it in one way and some in another, but I would suggest that teachers cannot have any grievance because they are numerous enough to form a separate society for teachers only, and then those who are promoted and get higher salaries will know that any money they leave behind them will go to the support of those teachers who have not been fortunate enough to get increases of salary. I think it is time we got back to the root idea of the Bill. This is a compulsory scheme. The hon. Member opposite (Sir P. Magnus) spoke about voluntary insurance, but this is a compulsory scheme. On Second Reading I criticised it on that ground, and the hon. Member gave me no support whatever. My voice was about the only one raised on the Second Reading to draw attention to the comprehensive principle of compulsion in the Bill. But I was left standing alone. I must ask the hon. Member to accept the consequences of the act of the entire House. It is a universal compulsory scheme, and on that ground I see no justification for the Amendment.

§ Mr. BUTCHER
The position is this. A teacher is compelled to insure for a certain time. When his salary reaches £160 he is prevented from insuring any longer. The question is therefore a very material one. When this teacher has been paying for a certain number of years, and is not allowed to insure any longer, what is to become of the contributions? I really think we might have an answer to that question. The answer of the learned Attorney-General does not meet the case, 968 for he pointed to a Clause which has nothing to do with it. There are two classes of persons considered in this first Section, namely, the employed contributors and voluntary contributors. No person can become an insured person, either voluntary or employed, after his income exceeds £160 a year. There is a proviso, but that proviso only deals with the case of voluntary contributors. There is not a word about what happens when the employed contributor ceases to possess the qualifications. Inasmuch as it is perfectly clear there is nothing in the Bill to meet that particular case, what we want to know is what the Government intend to do on Report? May I ask the Attorney-General to explain is there anything in the Bill about it. If not, will anything be put into the Bill on Report, and if so, what?

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
The difficulty arising with regard to the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman is in the words "provided a person has been a voluntary contributor." There is an Amendment already down to provide that a voluntary contributor is an insured person.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
I do not know where that Amendment is, but I will take the hon. and learned Gentleman's word for it. If he had only told the Committee a little while ago that a teacher was not in the Bill as amended, but was going to be brought into the Bill the Committee's time might have been saved. If the Government have made up their minds to turn a voluntary contributor into an insured person that will include a person who has been a compulsory contributor. But I think we were right in saying that the Bill did not permit of a teacher being included in the insurance.

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
We have now had an answer for the first time to a question we have asked time after time in this House and out of it. We know now for the first time that a very important change in the Bill is being put down somewhere in a Government Department with the intention of being brought forward on the Report stage. Even now, taking the new aspect of affairs, what does it come to? What does the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) think of the justice of this, that a person who does not want to be insured for benefits under this Bill but for superannuation is to be forced, at a time when he can ill afford it, to go on paying 969 until he has £160 a year. He then can go on paying for an insurance which he does not want to undertake, and which is going to do him no good, when all the time he wants to join a superannuation fund. Further, we have had from the President of the Board of Education a qualified assurance—though I believe the right hon. Gentleman means to go much further than he has foreshadowed in this House—of a superannuation scheme. When that comes the teacher will have to pay on a totally different basis of superannuation, and then what will be the good of his going on paying for an insurance which he does not want? If the hon. Member for Pontefract found his own business done in that way I am sure he, as a business man, would be the first to resent it. That is what you are doing with this large body of secondary teachers, and now that we really know the facts I submit very strongly that the

970

§ Government should reconsider the matter. I hope they will do something more for secondary teachers and not force them into a scheme which they do not want to come into and which will do them no good. I would remind the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) when he says this is a universal Insurance Bill that the elementary teachers are excluded from it by this very section, and I think it would take a greater intellect even than his to tell the Committee what difference there is in theory between the elementary school teacher and the secondary school teacher so far as exclusion from the provisions of this Bill is concerned.

§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 64; Noes, 103.

971

Division No. 397.]	AYES.	[12.45 a.m.
Adamson, William	Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)	Ronaldshay, Earl of
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte	Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)	Rowntree, Arnold
Amery, L. C. M. S.	Hall, Fred (Dulwich)	Sherwell, Arthur James
Archer-Shee, Major M.	Hancock, John George	Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)
Baird, J. L.	Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)	Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central)
Baker, Sir R. L. (Dorset, N.)	Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)	Talbot, Lord Edmund
Balcarres, Lord	Hills, John Waller	Taylor, John W. (Durham)
Baldwin, Stanley	Hill-Wood, Samuel	Thynne, Lord A.
Baring, Maj. Hon. Guy V. (Winchester)	Hohler, G. F.	Touche, George Alexander
Barlow, Montague (Salford, South)	Hunt, Rowland	Tryon, Captain George Clement
Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)	Kyffin-Taylor, G.	Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)
Boyton, James	Lansbury, George	Wheler, Granville C. H.
Bridgeman, William Clive	Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)	Whitehouse, John Howard
Burn, Col. C. R.	Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Butcher, John George	Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas	Wood, John (Stalybridge)
Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred	Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)	Worthington-Evans, L.
Clynes, John R.	Peel, Captain R. F. (Woodbridge)	Yate, Colenel C. E.
Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)	Perkins, Walter Frank	Yoxall, Sir James Henry
Craik, Sir Henry	Peto, Basil Edward
Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.	Pointer, Joseph
Forster, Henry William	Pollock, Ernest Murray	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Sir
Goldsmith, Frank	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel	Philip Magnus and Mr. C. Bathurst.
Goldstone, Frank	Rawson, Colonel Richard H.
NOES.
Acland, Francis Dyke	Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)	Higham, John Sharp
Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)	Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey
Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)	Dawes, J. A.	Hughes, Spencer Leigh
Anderson, Andrew Macbeth	Doris, W.	Illingworth, Percy H.
Armitage, Robert	Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)	Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus
Baker, H. T. (Accrington)	Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)	Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)
Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)	Elibank, Rt. Hon. Master of	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)
Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)	Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)	Jones, W. S. Glyn- (Stepney)
Beauchamp, Sir Edward	Esslemont, George Birnie	Kilbride, Denis
Beck, Arthur Cecil	Falconer, J.	King, J. (Somerset, N.)
Booth, Frederick Handel	Ferens, Thomas Robinson	Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'r'id, Cockerm'th)
Bowerman, C. W.	George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd	Leach, Charles
Brace, William	Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)	Lewis, John Herbert
Cawley, H. T. (Lancs., Heywood)	Greig, Col. J. W.	Lundon, T.
Chapple, Dr. William Allen	Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)	Lyell, Charles Henry
Clough, William	Gulland, John W.	MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)	M'Laren, Hon. F. W. S. (Lincs., Spalding)
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Hackett, John	M'Micking, Major Gilbert
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)	Millar, James Duncan
Cory, Sir Clifford John	Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds.)	Mond, Sir Alfred M.
Cotton, William Francis	Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)	Munro, Robert
Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)	Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C.
Crawshay-Williams, Eliot	Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry	Nannetti, Joseph P.
Cullinan, John	Haworth, Sir Arthur A.	Nolan, Joseph
Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)	Henry, Sir Charles S.	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
O'Sullivan, Timothy	Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)	White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston)
Parker, James (Halifax)	Sheehy, David	White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.)
Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)	Simon, Sir John Allsebrook	Whyte, A. F. (Perth)
Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)	Tennant, Harold John	Wiles, Thomas
Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)	Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)
Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)	Toulmin, Sir George	Young, William (Perth, East)
Raffan, Peter Wilson	Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander
Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)	Waring, Walter	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.
Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay	Dudley Ward and Mr. Wedgwood
Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)	Benn.
Robinson, Sidney	Webb, H.

Question put, and agreed to.

§ Mr. GOLDSTONE
I beg to move in paragraph (c) of Part II. of Schedule 1, after "1898" ["Elementary School Teachers Superannuation Act, 1898"], to insert the words "or otherwise as a teacher in a public elementary school in England and Wales."
The effect of this Amendment will be to exclude from the operations of the Bill teachers who are preparing for their certificates. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education told the Committee that there are something like 74,000 teachers in elementary schools who are not certificated. The bulk of them are young persons who are preparing for the training colleges or for the teacher's certificate. Under the Bill as it is at present drafted they will be included as employed persons from whom payment will be exacted of 2d., 3d., or 4d. per week, and the local education authorities will have to contribute varying amounts for them. But automatically these teachers, as soon as they get their certificates, at the age of, say, twenty, will fall out of the Bill, because by getting their certificates they compulsorily enter the Teacher's Superannuation scheme. The case, therefore, is really more difficult than that of the teachers in secondary schools, because these young people pay at a time when they are never likely to come on the benefit, and at a time when they are likely to come on benefit they are automatically removed from the operations of the scheme. This seems to me obviously unjust, and it has probably been overlooked by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think I carry the sense of the Committee with me, and therefore I need not trouble the Committee with any further arguments.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I think my hon. Friend is perfectly right in the object for which he moved this Amendment, because it is perfectly clear that it would be unfair to compel these young people to pay, say, up to the age of twenty, when the moment they pass on to a fund it would exclude them from the benefits of the Bill. I am not sure the words of the Amendment are 972 not rather too wide, and if my hon. Friend will be satisfied for the moment with accepting the principle, on the understanding that we will introduce words on the Report stage to carry out the object he has in mind, I shall be very pleased to give him that undertaking.

§ Mr. GOLDSTONE
I accept that assurance, and if it will be inserted on the Report stage I shall not move.

§ Mr. HILLS
I just wish to ask a question about that. I certainly should support the Amendment, but I want to ask this. I believe teachers have got to be ten years on the Fund before they get any benefit. Supposing the teacher should be married, I understand the teacher would leave the Fund altogether, and, under Clause 34, could not be insured at all. It certainly is a hardship that a teacher who is insured in the Fund until married should be, after marriage, excluded entirely from insurance, and I think there ought to be some way whereby a woman should move off the Fund on which she was before marriage on to the benefits of Clause 34, which are only given to those insured under the Bill before marriage. I think that is a real gap in the Bill. I do not think it is intentional, and it ought to be amended.

§ Mr. GOLDSTONE
I beg to withdraw my Amendment, if I may.

§ Leave to withdraw withheld.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I am afraid leave is refused.

§ Mr. HILLS
I did not refuse.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I am afraid I cannot now put the question that the Amendment be withdrawn.

§ Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and negatived.

§ Mr. PEASE
I beg to move in Paragraph (c), after the word "applies" ["National School Teachers (Ireland) Act, 1878, applies"], to insert the words, "or, in the event of any similar enactment being hereafter passed as regards 973 teachers or any class of teachers other than teachers in public elementary schools, as a teacher to whom such enactment applies."

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
Before you put that could you say where we can find it on the Order Paper?

§ Mr. PEASE
May I explain to the hon. Member that it is practically the same Amendment as the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. C. H. Roberts), but the draftsman required the alteration of the words in order that it should meet the requirements. It is practically exactly the same in intention as that of the hon. Member.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
Would the President of the Board of Education say what the Amendment is, as it was impossible to follow it as read, and much less understand what it meant?

§ Mr. PEASE
I have already explained that the object of this Amendment is that if any group of teachers hereafter were given superannuation or other scheme which would make analogous provisions to those which the Bill confers they should be excluded from the provisions of the Bill.

§ Further Amendment made: In paragraph (d), leave out the words "not ordinarily engaged in any other regular employment."—[Sir Rufus Isaacs.]

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
I beg to move, in paragraph (d) to leave out the words, "and not being ordinarily employed by one employer only," and insert instead thereof the words, "where the person so employed is mainly dependent for his livelihood on his earnings from some other occupation, or where he is ordinarily employed as such agent by more than one employer and his employment under any one of such employers is that on which he is mainly dependent for his livelihood."

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
I am afraid I have not followed this manuscript Amendment, which at one o'clock in the morning has been handed in. I venture to submit that the Committee are entitled to some further explanation.

§ Mr. BOOTH
It seems to me that the words I have heard remove a criticism 974 that otherwise I should have made. The latter part of the phrase on the Paper would rule out, I think, the industrial life agent if he happened to have an agency from a fire company. The industrial agent working on weekly wages or commission is allowed sometimes to represent a fire company. He does not do very much fire business as a rule, but once a quarter he does get a little extra paid from that quarter. That appertains also to many other businesses. I should think the intention of the Committee would be that those who employ him weekly should pay the master's contributions— and they clearly ought to—but not to deprive the man who perhaps has some small agency in something else. That is as it occurs to me.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
For myself I am quite prepared, after the luminous explanation by the assistant of the Government of this Amendment—the manuscript Amendment of the starred Amendment—not to object to the Government taking it at once.

§ Mr. FORSTER
I think we ought to be told who is to be the judge of whether the agency is mainly or—

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
This is really framed in reply to a deputation from some of the insurance agents. If there is a dispute, of course the appeal will be to the Insurance Commissioners.

§ Mr. C. BATHURST
I beg to move, in paragraph (e), after the word "holding" ["occupier of an agricultural holding"], to insert the words "and the employed person is employed thereon."
This Amendment would make clear what I believe to be the intention of the Government. As the paragraph is drafted in the Bill, it is quite possible for a shopkeeper or even an industrial employer, to employ a large number of persons for remuneration in kind and not in money, and because he happened to occupy a little bit of agricultural land of, say, six yards square, his employés would be exempt altogether from the operation of this Bill. That cannot possibly be intended. Clearly the paragraph is intended to meet what is called the small holder—the employer who is the parent of, or person liable to maintain, the person employed. It is quite right that such persons should be exempt. But as the paragraph is without the Amendment, 975 I suggest that a shopkeeper or industrial employer might employ a large number of persons in his business, and remunerate them in kind, and because he happens to occupy about six square yards of land at the back of his premises, he can exempt his employés altogether from the operation of the Bill.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The point I want to put to the hon. Member is this: that his Amendment hardly reads with what follows it.

§ Mr. C. BATHURST
If the Chancellor of the Exchequer will make the words to be inserted "and the employed person is employed thereon, and where," it will be clearer.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The hon. Member wants to confine this absolutely to those employed on a holding, so that a tradesman in a village shall not be exempt in respect of those who are assisting him in his business simply because he has an acre or two of land?

§ Mr. C. BATHURST
I understood that was the Chancellor's object in inserting this exemption paragraph. If the Chancellor means that because a man chooses to occupy a small bit of ground he should therefore be able to exempt all the employés in his business then I think it is a most preposterous suggestion and I shall certainly oppose it.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I have no right to complain that the hon. Gentleman is now moving new words that I have not seen, because I have been doing exactly the same thing. I should, however, like a little more time to consider what the exact effect of the introduction of these new words into the paragraph will be. He might move it on Report. All I can do now is to accept the words on the distinct understanding that he must not regard me as having broken faith if I find afterwards that the words do not fit in.

§ Mr. C. BATHURST
In my simplicity I thought I had moved something that was so clear and simple that it would be very helpful to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. To be quite frank I should like to ask him whether his interpretation of this paragraph is the interpretation which I have suggested to the Committee.

§ Mr. FORSTER
May I put a concrete case? Take a not very uncommon 976 case: take a village baker, for instance, who has a holding in addition to his bakery and general grocer's business. He keeps a man to assist him in baking. The baking assistant does not work on the holding. My hon. Friend suggests that under the terms of the Schedule that baking assistant might be exempt from the Bill altogether. Is that the intention?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Under the Schedule the person gets no wages. The baker's assistant gets wages.

§ Mr. FORSTER
But the assistant may may be a member of the man's family. What my hon. Friend wishes to ascertain is whether the employment in the general business is to carry exemption where the owner of the business has a small holding as well.

§ Mr. C. BATHURST
As it stands it appears to put a premium on payment in kind rather than payment in money. If the employer has a little bit of ground at the back which in no sense can be called—

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I will accept the Amendment subject to what I have said.

§ Further Amendment proposed: In Part II. paragraph (e) to leave out the words "the annual value of which, assessed for the purposes of Schedule A of the Income Tax Acts, is less than twenty pounds."—[Mr. Lloyd George.]

§ Mr. C. BATHURST
Does the Chancellor intend to alter the word "or" into "and"?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
No.

§ Mr. BATHURST
I only wanted to make it quite clear.

§ Question, "That those words stand part of the Schedule," put, and negatived.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
moved to leave out the words "and that person is under the age of sixteen" ["where the employer is the parent of, or person liable to maintain, the person employed, and that person is under the age of sixteen."]

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
Before this is put I hope the Committee will realise what is being done. In this 977 Amendment you are knocking the biggest hole in compulsory national insurance. I hope the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) is here, because I would expect his support in this. Where a man chooses to employ his children or anyone else for no wages and to keep them at home they are not to be insured persons. He may selfishly keep them at home, without giving them any money wages, to assist him in his business or on his holding, and so may keep them until they are nineteen or twenty. He may then die or they may go off to another occupation, and these children must then become insured persons not at the 4d. rate, but at some rate for age which the Insurance Commissioners are to fix. It sounds like a simple Amendment, but it means that a large class will be kept out of insurance because they wish, perhaps, to continue to help their parents, and then have a disability put on them which will last all their lives. If the Government is going to impose on charitable institutions the obligation to make their inmates, when they leave these institutions, take their transfer value with them, then at least the Government should hesitate before they handicap the assistants of parents in this way by giving them no transfer value or possibility of getting insured at the flat rate. We should have some serious explanation from the Government of why this tremendous exception is being smuggled through at a late hour of the night without a word of explanation.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
It is not being smuggled through at all. It was there from the start. Do I understand the hon. Gentleman to object to it?

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
I want to know why you are doing it?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I was not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was objecting to it, or criticising at large.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
Is it not for the Government to explain their own Amendments? Is the Government entitled to call on any Member of the House to explain the Government Amendments?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I am not asking the hon. Gentleman to explain any Amendment. I think, on the whole, we are fairly capable of doing that without the hon. Gentleman's assistance, however valuable as it undoubtedly is. I think I am entitled to ask him whether I am to understand from his speech that he is objecting 978 to the Amendment? The hon. Gentleman is usually very lucid, but I am really not sure now whether he objects to the Amendment. There is no difficulty about understanding what the Amendment is. The hon. Gentleman himself explained it quite fully, and I accept his explanation. It does mean that a parent, under these conditions, shall not be liable to be treated as an employer. Having accepted the explanation of the hon. Gentleman, I am entitled, I think, to ask him whether he objects to the Amendment? I am not sure whether he does or not.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
I should be very pleased to enlighten the right hon. Gentleman as soon as he has given any reasons for his Amendment. I am as open to conviction as any other Member sitting here, and if he says why the Amendment has been put down I should cease to object to it.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Well, I take it the hon. Gentleman does object?

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
Until I hear some reason for it.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
That is all I ask. If it were not objected to I do not see why the Committee should be detained at this hour of the night. Of course, if the hon. Gentleman is objecting he is entitled to ask for a reason. The reason is that in these conditions the parent is not in the position of an ordinary employer in reference to his child. It is the parent's own business, and to that extent the child has an interest in it. The child is looking forward to something more than the ordinary employé working for an employer. The employé may be dismissed. If his health breaks down the employer is not responsible for curing him, but the parent has the same responsibility whether his child is in a position to serve him or not. If the inability is a permanent one the parent has a permanent liability, however long it lasts. Therefore there is no analogy at all between the relation of ordinary employer and workman and that which exists between the parent and his child who serves him in the shop, because the parent's liability is never determined.

§ Mr. LEIF JONES
I am bound to say that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not quite met the case which was very much in my mind; that is the case of a farmer who keeps his sons and daughters at home working for 979 him on his farm. If the father dies the liability for their maintenance terminates with his death, and these sons, who may be twenty-six, twenty-eight or thirty years of age, will very likely have to turn out as agricultural labourers. For the purposes of insurance they would then have to come in, not at a flat rate, but at a rate according to their age, so that they would be placed at a great disadvantage. The case I have put is an exceedingly common one among Cumberland farmers, and, even under the present system, where the farmer recognises his liability, the omission to make provision does leave boys and girls much unprovided for at the farmer's death. I think if these words are taken out and the case is not provided for, hardship will be inflicted on a deserving class. In the cases I am referring to the farms are really small holdings and can only be carried on so long as the family stick together. When the head dies, the family breaks up and the sons go out as agricultural labourers. The complaint now made is that in regard to insurance they will then be in a position of great disadvantage as compared with persons who go out at the age of sixteen to work for people other than their parents as agricultural labourers, and come into the scheme compulsorily.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Like my hon. Friend who has just spoken I also have had experience of districts where farmers avail themselves of the services of their sons on the farms they occupy. But my experience, or rather my observation, is this, that if the farmer has, say, three or four sons, two or three of them will leave the farm, and, as a rule, only the son who expects, or is chosen by his parents, to succeed his father, remains on the farm. That is my experience. I do not know of any case where children have been kept on farms until they have reached the age of thirty or forty and then, when their father dies, become agricultural labourers. They remain, it is true, until the parent is in a position, having saved a few hundred pounds, to settle them on other farms. I have lived in an agricultural district for a good many years, and I cannot recall a case where after a man has given many years of his life to work on his parents' farm he has passed on to become an agricultural labourer. The idea is that one of the sons generally becomes the successor to his father in that particular farm, and the other sons are on 980 the look out for other farms. They are not in training for agricultural labourers, but to become themselves the possessors of holdings, and farmers in their own right. I am perfectly certain that is the case with most people who live in agricultural districts, and it is not, therefore, a case for participation. The parent, I repeat, is responsible for the maintenance of the child and for medical attendance, however long that child may remain.

§ Mr. POLLOCK
May I point out to the Committee that the Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to deal with this paragraph of the Clause as if it related to parents and children only.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
No, I was only answering the point raised by my hon. Friend behind me (Mr. Leif Jones), who put a specific case.

§ Mr. POLLOCK
If I am right, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer's answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Wilton (Mr. Charles Bathurst) was that he leaves in the word "or," then you must read the paragraph in this way: In cases of employment in regard to which no wages or other money payment is made where the employer is the occupier of an agricultural holding, or where he is the parent of or is liable to maintain the person employed, then the person employed does not become an insured person, and the employer remains liable for medical attendance. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer takes out the word "or," I believe he then will deal with the paragraph as he intended to deal with it, but if he leaves the word "or" in the paragraph it will relate to other classes besides the case of parents and children. I rather think that perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not mean to leave in the word "or," but that he intended this sort of employment to apply only to family cases where the father is employing his children. But if he leaves in the word "or" then there is an alternative and other cases of employment, which are not the case of father and children may be brought in. I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider the matter, because it is clear that the alternative ought to be removed if it is not the right hon. Gentleman's intention to carry out the provision in that sense.

§ Mr. C. BATHURST
This was the very reason why I put a question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer before I moved 981 the Amendment as to whether he intended to alter the word "or" into "and." What has happened is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he originally framed the paragraph, intended to restrict it only to the children of farmers employed at home and children living with their fathers. Then it was perfectly intelligible. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer has cut out the words "the annual value of which, as assessed for the purposes of Schedule A of the Income Tax Acts, is less than twenty pounds," and the effect is to leave two alternatives, one of which I do not think he intended the Committee to carry, but which the Committee have carried, May I say that my experience is not quite the same as that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to sons, particularly those brought up on small farms. I have some experience of Wales, although not the part of Wales with which the right hon. Gentleman is connected, and certainly from my observation the tendency appears to be for two or three sons to live with their father on the farm. The father can just afford to put the eldest son on a farm, but he cannot afford to give the other sons a similar start in life, with the result that, as a rule, they become in time bailiffs, or stockmen, or something else in the service of another man. Possibly they may become head labourers, but, at any rate, it will be a position a cut above the ordinary labourer which they occupy; they will, that is to say, be skilled labourers who secure good wages, but they will be in the employment, not of their own father, but of somebody else. I should not like to think there would be a good many men who, after their father's death, would have no insurance at all, for the simple reason that they have been provided for as boys under this Clause and when they are thrown on the scheme as labourers in after years find themselves wholly noninsured.

§ Mr. T. E. HARVEY
I very much hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will bear in mind the remarks of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. I am quite sure that in the West Riding of Yorkshire a number of cases could be quoted where farmers' sons are employed under just the conditions referred to by the hon. Gentleman. I think it would be a very great hardship in the case of young men who have been working perhaps up to the age of eighteen or nineteen and then have to leave their homes and take up other work 982 if they will not be able to enter under the flat rate, and perhaps also the same remark applies in the case of men who work under their parents up to a later age.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
My difficulty is that if you leave out the word "or"—

§ Mr. POLLOCK
It is already in.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
That could be met.

§ Mr. POLLOCK
On Report.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Not on Report; by withdrawing the present Amendment I could do it. But my difficulty is this: Then it would be confined to purely agricultural cases.

§ Mr. BATHURST
That is what was originally intended.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
No, not altogether. Take the case either of the small tradesman or the village publican who employs his daughter for the purposes of his business in the shop or in the public-house, as the case may be—that certainly is a case which we intended to meet by these words. I will promise to consider the matter between this and the Report stage, but I should like to say to these hon. Gentlemen who criticise this that it is not so easy a matter as they appear to imagine. I do not think the cases ought to be treated as ordinary cases. I could not deal with it on Report, however; I could only deal with it, if there was an agreement, on recommittal.

§ Mr. POLLOCK
What we really want to know is, what up to the present has been the intention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Has it been to confine this merely to the family, because, if so, the word "or" must come out. I quite appreciate the difficulty the right hon. Gentleman suggests in cases where you have a small agricultural employment added to a business. It is very common in some parts of the country—in Lincolnshire, for example. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes up his mind what he intends to do, there does not seem much difficulty about it, but is it necessary to make any Amendment now in order to keep the matter fully open on Report?

§ Mr. AMERY
I am afraid I have not been able to understand quite clearly the Chancellor of the Exchequer's explanations as to the object of this Amendment. Are there people in such a favourable position 983 that they are really not deserving of the State contribution, or is it a relief that they should be exempted from the benefits of the Bill? Is it a favour done to these people employed at home because they are already in such a good position that the contribution is not needed, or is it an advantage to them that they should not enjoy the full benefits of the Bill?

§ Mr. C. BATHURST
I am very unhappy after what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said about this paragraph for many reasons, because I rather hoped when he got up just now that the paragraph was restricted to those who live in on small farms. If he does not mean that, he is giving an inducement to bad agricultural employers, however large their farms, to pay in kind rather than in money. The tendency of most enlightened people nowadays is to encourage agricultural employers to give good wages to their servants, and not pay in kind. I hope if the right hon. Gentleman is going to reconsider the matter on Report he will not leave it open to the agricultural employer to pay his servants in kind rather than give proper wages, which would be a retrograde step from a social point of view.

§ Amendment agreed to.

§ Further Amendments made: In paragraph (f) leave out the words "regular salary or other fixed."

§ After the word "exceeding" ["remuneration exceeding one hundred and sixty pounds a year"] insert the words "in value."

§ After the word "year" ["one hundred and sixty pounds a year"] insert the words "or in cases where such employment involves part-time service only at a rate of remuneration which, in the opinion of the Insurance Commissioners, is equivalent to a rate of remuneration exceeding one hundred and sixty pounds a year for whole-time service."—[Mr. Lloyd George.]

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I beg to move to add at the end of the Schedule, (h) Employment of any class which may be specified in a special order as being of such a nature that it is ordinarily adopted as subsidiary employment only, and not as the principal means of livelihood.

§ Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

984

§ Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow (Wednesday).

§ Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 24th October, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes before Two o'clock.