Mr. FRED HALL (Dulwich)asked the amount of extra expenditure incurred by local authorities in the year 1911 for sick pay, compensation, and pensions in respect of the police under their control owing to injuries received in preserving order in trade disputes; whether such injuries in a number of cases were the result of the practice known as peaceful picketing by trade unionists; and whether he would take the necessary steps to ensure that the whole or some part of the extra cost to which the local authorities have been put in this matter should be a charge upon the Imperial Exchequer?
§ Mr. McKENNAI could not ask the police authorities to undertake the laborious task of examining all cases of sick pay, compensation, and pensions, and preparing the return suggested in the first part of the question; and I do not think the return if obtained would serve any useful purpose. In no case could the in juries in question result from the picketing if the picketing were peaceful. The Government already makes a large contribution to the pension funds, and any increase of that contribution could only be made (if at all) as part of a general re adjustment of the relations between local and Imperial taxation.