§ (1) For the purposes of this Part of this Act there shall be established under the control and management of the Board of Trade a fund called the Unemployment Fund, into which shall be paid all contributions payable under this Part of this Act by employers and workmen and out of moneys provided by Parliament, and out of which shall be paid all claims for unemployment benefit and any other payments which under this Part of this Act are payable out of the fund.
§ (2) The accounts of the Unemployment Fund shall be audited in such manner as the Treasury may direct.
§ (3) Any moneys forming part of the Unemployment Fund may from time to time be paid over to the National Debt Commissioners and by them invested in accordance with regulations made by the Treasury in any securities which are for the time being authorised by Parliament as investments for savings banks' moneys.
§ (4) The National Debt Commissioners shall present to Parliament annually an account of the securities in which moneys forming part of the said fund are for the time being invested.
1805§ Mr. HOLTI beg to move in Sub-section (3) to leave out the words "savings banks' moneys," and to insert instead thereof the words "trust funds, or in any other securities for the time being approved by the Insurance Commissioners."
The object of this Amendment is to give the National Debt Commissioners powers of investment on exactly the same terms as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has put down as a suitable power of investment to be given to friendly societies for their money under the other portion of the Bill. I do not think I need defend the particular proposition I have made as being in itself a prudent and cautious one; the fact that it has been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought, I think, to be quite sufficient to reassure everybody as to its financial prudence. It is quite clear that, under the Bill, these funds can only be invested in Government securities, such as Consols, etc., bearing a low rate of interest; and seeing that under the Bill if the fund is not sufficient to meet its liabilities, the Board of Trade are to take power to call upon both employers and employed to make a larger contribution, surely it is very much to their interest and to the interest of all classes that this fund should earn the hightest amount of interest that it is possible to obtain with complete security. It is a matter of importance that we should get this higher interest from another point of view. Many of us feel that as, under this Bill, those who promote great municipal or semi-municipal enterprises are being asked to make very large contributions to these funds, they ought, at least, to have this advantage, that where the State is satisfied that the enterprises are prudently and carefully conducted, the State should be in a position to give them that assistance to which I think they are entitled, and that they would derive from the investment of these funds in these enterprises.
I would ask the Government to observe that there is nothing compulsory about this Amendment. It would not prevent them from investing every single farthing they could raise under the Bill in Government securities. There is nothing in this Amendment which would compel them to invest a halfpenny in any security except Consols. It merely gives the National Debt Commissioners a discretion which it is thought proper to give to friendly societies as to the investment of their funds. I should think it would 1806 be difficult for any representative of the Government to get up and solemnly tell us that the National Debt Commissioners are not as well able to exercise discretion in this matter as the managing committee of an approved friendly society.
§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. McKinnon Wood)My hon. Friend has founded his Amendment on a comparison with a provision which is made in the first part of the Bill. But if he examines the two cases he will find there are great dissimilarities between them. The powers which he asks are given in the first part of the Bill only as regards the contributions of the employed persons; they are not given in regard to the State contributions. The provisions in the first part of the Bill, which it is proposed by the hon. Members to extend to the second part of the Bill, stand on an altogether different basis. The Government has a greater degree of responsibility with regard to this fund. The whole question of amending the Amendment raises a very large question as to how the Commissioners should be allowed to invest their money. It is a question which, of course, was considered very exhaustively by a Special Committee which was appointed in 1902 to deal with Savings Banks funds. I need not go into that particular question now, but I think there is one consideration which will satisfy my hon. Friend that he should not press his Amendment.
The facts about this fund are altogether different from the facts relating to the fund in Part I. of the Bill. We are now dealing with a small reserve, and, what is most important, a fluctuating reserve. This is money which will be drawn out from time to time during the year; sometimes there will be little or no money in the fund; at times there may be none; but at other times there may be, perhaps, a million or two in it. It is not a question of a large fund built up as in the case of Part I. If we are dealing with a fluctuating amount, if this is a fund which is constantly changing, an important consideration is as to the realisability of the fund. You want a fund which you can realise cheaply, and if you leave it to the securities provided in the Bill the Commissioners can deal wth the fund, and very often may be able to realise without any cost at all. At any rate, the cost will be small. But if you are dealing without large securities, such as are suggested by my hon. Friend, 1807 you will, of course, have to take the chances of the market, and you will probably be selling these securities at a time of depression, because that is the very time when you will want money from the fund.
§ Mr. McKINNON WOODYes, but if you keep the matter in the hands of the Commissioners you can very often avoid the necessity of dealing with them in this way. You can deal with the fund in a different way—in a way in which you cannot deal without outside securities. Of course, the margin you have to allow on the buying and selling of other funds is very different from the margin you allow in regard to Government securities. You have a more expensive dealing with the fund quite apart from the question of the depreciation or appreciation of the securities. At a period of trade depression outside securities, such as good railway securities, are most likely to be depressed, but it does not follow that Government securities are necessarily depressed when there is not a large demand for capital for trade purposes. The really important point is this: If you did this you would have a very costly way of dealing with a fluctuating fund, and that I think is the real answer to my hon. Friend's Amendment. If you allow these powers the question of depreciation of the Fund would seriously arise. There would be a question, too, of periodical valuations of the Fund, and I do not think my hon. Friend gains as much as he loses by his proposal. I think he would lose more than he could possibly gain from any increase in the rate of interest, and therefore the Government is unable to accept his suggestion.
Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSI am very sorry the Government is not able to accept this proposal. I am surprised that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury should have put forward what, without wishing to be discourteous, are to my mind arguments which equally apply to the Investment Clause the Government themselves have inserted. He told us that the facts were different in regard to the money to be invested under Part II. as compared with that dealt with in Part I. One admits that it is so. There is not a large accumulating fund in Part II.; you have a reserve more or less temporary—a fund which may 1808 be drawn upon quickly or not. When I have made that admission I have admitted all that there was in the right hon. Gentleman's argument. The Amendment does not propose that it shall be compulsory upon the Insurance Commissioners to make a non-marketable form of investment. On the contrary, it proposes that power to earn a larger rate of interest should be given to the Commissioners over the surplus funds. That part of the argument of the right hon. Gentleman was beside the point. The other argument was that the Insurance Commissioners would in that case have to take the chance of the market. If they invested in Consols, would they not have to take the chance of the market? Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that if this Bill had been in force for the last five or ten years, they would not have been prepared to take the chance of the markets if they had invested in Consols, instead of in loans on local rates.
§ Mr. McKINNON WOODThe hon. Gentleman need not be so contemptuous of the argument, because the Government is the owner of Consols, and what it may lose in one way, it may gain in another.
Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSThat is a still more extraordinary argument. The right hon. Gentlemen says that the Government, as the owner of Consols, make a profit out of the rise or fall of Consols. Is it the business of the Government, where they can, to make a profit, to reduce the price of Consols? I do not know whether they have done it in order to redeem them at a cheaper rate. That is an extraordinary argument for the Secretary of the Treasury to advance. If this argument were carried to its logical conclusion it would be the duty of the Government to depreciate the value of Consols in order that they might redeem them at a merely nominal value for less cash under the Sinking Fund.
§ Mr. McKINNON WOODI really must interrupt the hon. Member. There are the Commissioners of the National Debt. What is to prevent them from borrowing balances from another Department or the Savings Bank Department? Then there could be no cost of realisation and no loss on realisation. There is one other point—
Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSI have not finished with your first argument yet. The right hon. Gentleman points out that there is nothing to prevent the Insurance 1809 Commissioners from borrowing from another Department. That knocks the bottom out of his previous argument, that they would be landed with unmarketable securities, because they could borrow from another Department, and so avoid the very difficulty the right hon. Gentleman pointed out.
§ Mr. McKINNON WOODDoes the hon. Member suggest that they can borrow from the Savings Bank on outside securities? That is his suggestion.
Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSThat is not my suggestion at all. The right hon. Gentleman has made the suggestion that they could borrow from some other Department, and if they could in any case do it, they could do it still, if they judiciously exercised the widened powers of investment this Clause proposes to give one. I hear the Secretary of the Treasury say they could not borrow, but it was his proposition that they could borrow, and not mine. The Secretary of the Treasury said that in time of depression securities like railway securities would be reduced. I do not anticipate that under the Amendment the Insurance Commissioners are going to invest in the ordinary stocks of railway companies. Was that the Secretary to the Treasury's fear? If so, I do not think he apprehended the scope of the Amendment that is actually before the Committee. If he did not mean that, and if he meant railway securities, both Debenture Bonds or any other class of money securties, he must know that in time of depression money securities, as a rule, have rather a good price and not a bad price, because in times of depression money is not required for trade to the same extent, and it flows back again into money securities, and the prices are likely to be better rather than worse. I hope the Committee will not pass over this Amendment. I do not think it goes nearly far enough, and I shall ask the Government to consider whether they cannot make the powers of investment under Part II. of the Bill precisely similar to the powers of investment under Part I. That is the effect of the Amendment as it now stands.
We have other Amendments down to Part I. to enlarge the sphere of investment; for instance, we want to provide that moneys may under Part I. be invested, as they are now commonly invested by friendly societies, in loans on local rates. If that Amendment is accepted in the latter part of Part I., 1810 whatever Amendment is made to Part II., I hope the enlarged powers given under Part I. will be given under Part II. If the hon. Member presses the point to a division, I shall certainly support him.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWI think we ought to hear something from the Board of Trade about this, apart from the Treasury point of view. It is obviously to the interest of this Fund that the money should be invested in such funds as are compatible with security. The whole point of the argument of the Secretary to the Treasury amounted to this, that the concession which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made in Part I. is not financially sound.
§ Mr. McKINNON WOODI did not say so.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWBecause the argument he used was this, that this is a fluctuating security; that it differs from the Part I. investment. That does not amount to anything if the Commissioners have common sense. All that we ask is, that they should have the power to invest in precisely the same class of security which the House of Commons has already permitted them to invest in under Part I. This is really a matter which any Government ought to look at from the point of view of common-sense. I cannot see any sense whatever in the Government accepting downstairs one principle, and refusing to accept the same principle upstairs. I hope that for once, if the Government do insist upon this, that Gentlemen on the opposite side will recognise that there is no party question involved in it.
Mr. BUXTONThere is a considerable difference between the position of the unemployed fund, for which the Government and the State ultimately is responsible, and the position of the fund of the friendly societies in respect of Part I. This is a Treasury matter, and I have to be very careful in what I may propose in regard to it. I understand that this particular point is to be further discussed on Part I., and I would ask the Committee, therefore, not to press me now to say how far we may be able to meet the suggestion made. Let us see what is eventually decided in regard to this point under Part I., and what the Treasury agree to, and then I, in consultation with the Treasury, will see how far we are able to meet the desires expressed in various quarters of the Committee to bring it into form with Part I. I hope the Committee will not press me further in 1811 regard to it for the moment. I cannot promise things on behalf of the Treasury to which they do not agree.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWI do not want to press the right hon. Gentleman unduly, but this is a matter which should be decided now. What is there to hinder this Committee from going so far as this Amendment, and then, if it is found later on that the House has gone further, the right hon. Gentleman can go further on the Report stage. This is a thing we understand, and there is no reason for postponing a decision.
§ Mr. HOLTI wished to raise this point on Part I. last night, but I was prevented by the guillotine Closure from doing so. [Laughter.] I would ask the hon. Gentlemen opposite who laugh to remember that I voted against guillotine Closure. We have lost our opportunity of discussing this point in Committee downstairs. That has gone, except as regards the new Clause which is going to be moved by the Chancellor of the Exchequer referring only to a part of the Fund. I therefore suggest, that in these circumstances, the Committee are fairly entitled to take their own line, because they have no security whatever that they will have an opportunity of discussing it later.
§ Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENI hope that the Government, after the appeal of the hon. Member, will agree to this Amendment. As he said, the opportunity for discussing it under Part I. has gone. Fortunately we are not guillotined here, and we now have an opportunity of discussing it. After all, the principle is a simple one. The Amendment simply gives permissive power to the Commissioners. If the Commissioners are worth anything they are not likely to invest in securities which are securities which ought not to be invested in. The President of the Board of Trade used a most extraordinary argument. He said there was a difference between the two funds, that one was the Government's own fund and the other was the fund of the friendly societies, and that even if there was more latitude allowed in the case of the fund of the friendly societies the Government must take very good care of their own fund. Surely the Government does not really pretend that they are to be less careful of the funds committed to them by friendly societies than they would be in the case of their own funds. I do not think 1812 that that argument can really stand. I hope the hon. Member will press the matter to a division.
§ Mr. GOLDSTONEI want to support the Amendment. It seems to me that the effect of investing the money from the Unemployed Fund in Consols will be to increase the price of Consols by creating, as it were, a greater competition for this security. If that be so there will be a less return because the competition will increase the price. In the first stages of the operation of the Teachers' Superannuation Act the Government were restricted to Consols as the security in which the money should be placed. An appeal was made and there was a variation which helped to improve the fund, from the point of view of the contributor, by widening the area in which the money might be invested. For the same reason it seems to me that those who are in the fund would be assisted by widening the area of gilt-edged securities in which their money might be placed. I strongly support the Amendment.
§ Sir E. CORNWALLI think there is something to be said for the case put forward by the Mover of the Amendment in regard to giving as wide a scope as possible for the investment of funds. On the other hand I do not agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen) that this is a simple point. It seems to me a very serious point to ask that we should give the Insurance Commissioners absolute power to invest the funds in any security which may suit them.
§ Sir E. CORNWALLIf that is so my argument loses force.
§ Mr. McKINNON WOODThis is altering the whole structure of this Clause. The proposal is that the National Debt Commissioners should have control of this money. Of course, if you give them power to invest in outside securities you take the matter out of the hands of the National Debt Commissioners, who could not do that. The National Debt Commissioners can only deal with Government money. As there has been a good deal of misunderstanding about what I said, which perhaps I put rather too briefly, I want to point out, in the first place, that this is not a large question, but a very small question. It is a question in which 1813 the nature of the fund renders the question of the amount of interest much less important than the question of the cost of realisation. At certain periods of the year there will be a great demand for money for the unemployed. In other periods there will be a less demand. It is therefore from the business point of view that I oppose the Amendment. A business man wanting to have money for a short time, which he would not require at other periods of the year, would take an easily realisable security. He would not look for high interest, but for a thing to deal with quickly and cheaply. In drafting this Bill it was considered that the National Debt Commissioners were the proper people to deal wtih the fund. They can only deal with Government securities. They can deal with Government securities economically, and, really, the business point in this is that you should keep the thing to these securities and not squander it over a number of other securities for the purpose of obtaining interest, which is the least important point in this case. Under these circumstances I am afraid, on behalf of the Treasury, I cannot give way. I hope the Committee will appreciate that to make this alteration alters the whole basis of the Clause, and it is rather a serious alteration in the Bill. The case of the friendly societies, who are allowed to invest in these securities funds which are contributed by their own members is quite a different case from this, where the Government, for example, under Clause 79, takes a considerable and a real responsibility in regard to the funds.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWI do not think the right hon. Gentleman has made the case a bit better. His whole speech has been on the assumption that the Commissioners were compelled to invest the money in unsuitable funds. He talked of squandering it over all kinds of investments; but surely they are going to be people of ordinary common sense. They are going to take into account the circumstances of the funds; not only the rate of interest which they will get, but the probability of their having to realise it at a given time. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken—and I speak with a considerable amount of experience, having been connected with a trust company for a good many years—in supposing that you will invest in Consols on a given day and sell three months later with more certainty of not losing by the transaction than by investing in anything else. This really is a very simple point, and it amounts to this: 1814 What is good enough for the Insurance Commissioners downstairs in regard to Part I. ought to be good enough for the Insurance Commissioners upstairs in regard to Part II. I hope the Government will give way, and accept the Amendment without the necessity of a Division in regard to it.
§ Sir ALFRED MONDI would not waste more time, after the Debate we have had, but for the speech of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. A good many of us are not in the least convinced by the arguments we have heard. We are starting a new Fund, the size of which we do not know and the amount of which is unascertained, and although the Fund will fluctuate no one can tell at what amount the reserve will be left. I do not think that Fund will naturally and automatically go up and down every year, because in a year of good trade there may be considerable accumulations. All we are asking is that this thing should be treated in a businesslike way—that is to say, that the Insurance Commissioners should be allowed to obtain as good an investment as they possibly can in a reasonable manner. The National Debt Commissioners, I understand, can only invest in Consols. No prudent business man of to-day would look on that as any great security. The only thing that my firm ever lost any money in was an investment in Consols. On the other hand, when you talk about realising quickly, surely it will not be contended that there are not other gilt-edged securities as good as Consols which are quite as realisable in large quantities on the Stock Exchange in London as Consols—London County Council securities and London Water Board Stock. Surely, except for a very technical kind of opposition I have heard no argument to induce me not to support the Amendment. The promise made by the President of the Board of Trade scarcely carries us far enough. If he will give us an undertaking that the Government will insert in this Clause a similar provision to what is in Part I. we shall be satisfied, but it is extremely unlikely that we shall have another opportunity of discussing the matter after to-day. I shall reluctantly feel compelled to vote for the Amendment failing an undertaking of the kind.
§ Sir J. SIMONI do not desire to keep up the discussion, especially as the matter is one on which I am not particularly well qualified to speak. My hon. Friend's 1815 Amendment would have this consequence, which I cannot believe he really desires. He suggests that approval by the Insurance Commissioners should determine the availability of the particular form of security chosen for investment by the National Debt Commissioners. Now, the Insurance Commissioners have nothing to do with Part II. of the Bill. You can search Part II. from one end to the other, and they are not to be found. What this Amendment asks the Committee to do is to show ourselves so excessively businesslike that we should, as the result of this discussion, introduce into Part II. of the Bill the approval of the Insurance Commissioners who have nothing to do with that Part. That is the first difficulty. [An HON. MEMBER: "Let somebody do it."] My hon. Friend says "Let somebody do it." I agree that it is a matter that requires consideration, but is it fair to say to the Government here that this matter has been so clearly understood by the Members of the Committee when it appears after half-an-hour's discussion, and after business gentlemen have given the Committee the benefit of their business experience, that many of us do not realise that we are introducing the approval of a body that has nothing to do with Part II.? I would ask the Members of the Committee to consider whether or not the course which has been suggested is not open to this objection. Amendment is easy enough. One is glad to reflect, in view of the amicable way in which our proceedings are carried on, and the way in which we are getting through so rapidly, that there is no reason to suppose that with the considerable time we are to have on Report, there should not be time for this topic to be discussed. I suggest that it is in the highest degree undesirable that the Treasury should foe asked now to accept this Amendment, or that we should be prepared to move another Amendment to give effect to it. We are dealing with this matter, not important in some ways, but very important in others, without really all of us having understood what are the pros and cons of the proposal. I do suggest that it is not wise that the National Debt Commissioners should have put upon them the direction that they are to submit their suggested investments to the Insurance Commissioners, and I suggest that this question involves considerably deeper 1816 consequences which require consideration in view of the discussion which has taken place.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWThe hon. and learned Gentleman has a good deal depreciated his own ability when he said that he was not able to deal with this matter. He has put before the Committee the only possible case for the Government, but it is a very bad case. His point is that the Amendment as it stands alters the framework of the Bill, and brings in new people. Our point is that in some way this fund should be invested in such a manner as will be most profitable to the fund. Will the President of the Board of Trade get up now and undertake that in some way or another he will enable people to control the Fund and to invest it in the same kind of securities which can be invested in under Part I. of the Bill? If he is not willing to do that, then I think there is no alternative but to vote for the Amendment before the Committee, and if that is carried, then I guarantee that the hon. and learned Solicitor-General, with his technical advisers, will very quickly find words which will make it applicable.
Mr. BUXTONI venture to say to the Committee that if they would be good enough to give me the opportunity of considering this proposal in consultation with the Treasury I would endeavour to meet the point. The real difficulty in connection with my hon. Friend's Amendment is that it does alter the framework of the Bill. If the Committee will allow it to stand in that way I will undertake, with the Treasury, to see how far we can adopt the principle which is in Part I. and extend the powers of investment of the Fund.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWWhy not do it now?
Mr. BUXTONI am afraid I cannot go further than that. That is an undertaking which I really think the Committee might be satisfied with.
§ Mr. FRANCEI am afraid what the President of the Board of Trade has said does not satisfy those who look with favour on the Amendment of my hon. Friend. If we look to the Report stage to see whether the President of the Board of Trade and the Treasury will be able to discover some way of agreement on this matter, we may find that they have not been able to come to an agreement, and we may have thrown upon us the responsibility 1817 of voting against the Bill, and thereby destroying a great measure. I agree entirely with what fell from the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Bonar Law), that we should have some definite assurance that those who will have charge of the Fund will have the widest
| Division No. 4.] | AYES. | |
| Barnes, Mr. | Hackett, Mr. | Nugent, Sir Walter |
| Brady, Mr. | Harmsworth, Mr. Cecil | Nuttall, Mr. |
| Burke, Mr. Haviland- | Jones, Mr. William | Scanlan, Mr. |
| Buxton, Mr. Sydney | Joyce, Mr. | Solicitor-General, Mr. |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin | Leach, Mr. | Wilson, Mr. Tyson |
| Ferens, Mr. | Macdonald, Mr. Ramsay | Wood, Mr. M'Kinnon |
| NOES. | ||
| Baird, Mr. | Goldstone, Mr. | Lawson, Mr. |
| Baldwin, Mr. | Harris, Mr. | Mond, Sir Alfred |
| Benn, Mr. Hamilton | Harvey, Mr. Thomas Edmund | Primrose, Mr. |
| Boscawen, Sir Arthur Griffith- | Hoare, Mr. | Ward, Mr. John |
| France, Mr. | Holt, Mr. | Worthington-Evans, Mr. |
| Goldman, Mr. | Law, Mr. Bonar |
§ Motion made and question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSI want to know from the President of the Board of Trade if he will kindly inform the Committee whether it is intended to create one fund or more than one fund as the Unemployment Fund under the Act, because there seem to be very obvious objections to creating one fund. Unless it has been definitely decided to create one fund, and if it is not too late, I would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the Government's decision upon that point. Under Part I. of the Bill, they are creating at least two funds, and probably three. There is to be a male fund and a female fund, and possibly there may be another for Ireland. In this Bill we have two different and distinct sections of trade included, and I suggest that there ought to be a fund created for each of the two broad sections of trade. That the incidence of unemployment in these trades is different is apparently admitted, and some sort of equalisation has been attempted by limiting the benefit in the building trades to 6s., whereas the benefit in the engineering trade is 7s. Apparently, this last measure of safety which the Government thought was necessary to introduce into the Bill is to be put on one side, and therefore it is all the more important that each of these large sections should have separate funds. I have no doubt that the Government have made up their mind, but I wish to put on record a short protest against dealing with this matter in this hotch-potch fashion. The
§ discretion in investing it in the most profitable way.
§ Question put, "That the words 'savings banks' moneys' stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 18; Noes, 17.
§ only compulsory scheme that ever existed failed largely because of the dissatisfaction which was felt in the case of people who were charged an equal premium for unequal risks. If you keep both groups of trade in one fund, and it is found that there is a considerable difference as the Act goes on working, between the risks, you will have prevented yourself from giving bonuses, or reduced contributions, or increased benefit, to that section of trade which ultimately proves it has the least risks. If you do keep them separate, you will be able to deal with the trade which has the least risks by apportioning part of the surplus of its own fund back among the people in that trade. If you do not keep them separate, then I say you are going to run the risk of great dissatisfaction through one trade having to pay for a large portion of the other trade's risks. I should like to have from the Government a statement of policy, because this is all a question of policy which was not dealt with on the Second Reading of the Bill. It is really a point of fundamental importance in considering the whole question of unemployment insurance.
Mr. BUXTONI think it is clear in the Bill that we are to have one fund for the whole of the unemployment contribution. This matter was very carefully considered, and it was certainly thought that in a matter of this sort, based upon the principle of insurance, it would be very much more effective, more solvent, and in every way more simple, to have one fund instead of several funds side by side. The hon. 1819 Gentleman really founded his suggestion on the idea that in the various sections of trade, and groups of trades, it might be that in one case there would be a greater amount of benefit to be paid than in others. As the Bill was originally introduced, we did have different benefits, but after careful consideration of the representations which were made to us by both groups of trades, we came to the conclusion that the benefits and the contributions in those two great branches should be the same. I am glad to say that the financial position will be able to bear the additional charge. The hon. Gentleman overlooked the provision under Clause 76. There will be an opportunity every five years of considering as between the trades the contributions and the benefits whether the contributions and the benefits shall vary, and I think it is quite clear in the experimental stage that they ought to be put, so far as possible, on terms of equality, and that there should be one fund. I believe it will be found by experience that whatever may be done in future, one fund will be best in the first instance. The difficulties and possible hardships to which the hon. Gentleman alluded will be dealt with by Clause 76.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWI am not going to press this matter, and I certainly have no intention of moving an Amendment, but if, as was pointed out, the programme of my hon. Friend has not sufficiently taken into account this suggestion. I am not at all sure that the Government may not be right, but the point I have in my mind, which would have made me on the face of it favour the suggestion of my hon. Friend, is this: this part of the Bill is obviously experimental. We were told in the House of Commons we should get from our experience under this part of the Bill information and assistance that would enable us to extend the scope to other classes. It seems to me that if we have one fund only you will have much less opportunity of getting the experience which is desirable.
Mr. BUXTONI should have said that, although we have only one fund, it is intended—I do not know whether it is expressed in the Bill—to keep separate accounts as between the various trades so as to get the information which we shall require for the quinquennial alteration.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWThat completely answers the point I was putting, but I think 1820 it ought to have been put in in some shape or form.
§ Mr. HOAREThere is another point I would like to put to the Chairman. Several hon. Members of this Committee on both sides, including myself, have amendments down that would bring young persons between the ages of fourteen and sixteen within the scope of this Bill. I do not know what is the position of the Government with reference to such a proposal.
§ The CHAIRMANThat question does not arise on any possible construction of Clause 68.
§ Mr. HOAREWhat I was going to ask was whether, in the event of these young persons being included, the President of the Board of Trade would consider the advisability of having a fund specially for them?
§ Sir J. SIMONThat is rather hypothetical.
§ Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.