§ Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMSI beg to move, "That this House is of opinion that the recent industrial disturbances show the necessity of a thorough and authoritative investigation into the causes of the present industrial unrest and into possible 488 remedies therefor, and, in view of the prospective recurrence of such disturbances, calls upon the Government to prosecute such investigation by all appropriate means and in the speediest manner compatible with adequate inquiry into the issues involved."
The Motion which I have on the Paper deals with a subject which may be considered no less important than that which the House has just been discussing. Indeed, I predict that when the Irish question has been settled and when old feuds are forgotten and when a new nation has been formed, or perhaps I should say when the old nation has been reformed, this industrial question will still be found to be with us. But the question of industrial unrest differs from the Irish question in one way. It has not yet been crystallised and hardened so greatly into a party subject, and that may be accounted somewhat an advantage. I trust the Debate which I am now commencing will not partake too much of a party character. It is true, of course, that each party may differ as to the remedies which are to be applied to this industrial unrest. That is in the nature of party politics. But we are here confronted with national ills upon the very diagnosis of which it is no shame to say we are more or less in the dark, and it may be that professional etiquette will allow of rival physicians consulting together on the nature of the case and at all events we can make an effort to bring to bear on this great subject as long as possible calm and dispassionate judgment. There is no need to emphasise the serious nature of the subject we are going to deal with to-night. It has already been under discussion in two special Debates, and, of course, was involved in the series of Debates which were held on the Coal Mines Bill. Perhaps this Debate to-night may not be held to be superfluous, because when the Debate on the Address was in progress matters had not moved forward as they have since, and when the Coal Mines Bill was under discussion we were in the midst of a fierce industrial conflict. It will be of advantage to be able to discuss this question when there is no longer a turmoil in the industrial world.
The subject of industrial unrest has long and increasingly held public attention. The history of the last months and the last year is fresh in everyone's memory. The year 1911 began with a great strike of miners. We next saw a strike of an inter- 489 national character of seamen and transit workers. Then came a strike unprecedented in the history of this country, the railway strike of last year, which involved directly something like 370,000 men, and last year closed with a lock-out in the great cotton trade of Lancashire. This year we have had the coal strike, in which millions of workpeople were directly or indirectly involved, which cost this country millions of pounds and involved not only discomfort but suffering and misery. We ought not, either, to forget another incident which has some connection with this question of industrial unrest, and that is the Syndicalist prosecutions. It would be a great mistake to imagine that the arrest of the brothers Buck, of Bowman, and Mr. Tom Mann are incidents entirely unconnected with the subject of industrial unrest. They are part of the evidence and symptoms of that unrest, and they must be taken as such. Burke once told us that particular punishments are a cure for incidental distempers in the State, but they increase rather than allay the heat which arises from a natural indisposition in the people. I believe these incidents have arisen from what Burke would have called a national indisposition in the people, and that we must consider them in connection with this subject of industrial unrest. To conclude the history of the last months, during these few days which have passed we have seen the latest outcome of industrial unrest, that is a strike which, perhaps, affects many Members of the House more acutely than even the railway strike or the coal strike, and that is the strike of the tailors. Nor has this unrest been confined to this country. Wherever we look over the civilised world we find a state of uneasiness existing in the labour world. Every day we hear tidings from America, or France, or Germany, of new tumults in industry, and this unrest is not only unprecedented but it is ubiquitous. There is no danger of any save the most stupid and narrow-minded and short-sighted of persons not recognising the great gravity of the situation that lies before us.
But though the situation is serious, I think this unrest is not in itself a bad thing. It is part of a struggle for better conditions on the part of the workers of this country. It is part of a struggle for what I think has become known as a place in the sun. It is part of a long developing movement which began with the first Factory Act, and which has gained force and effect ever since. From being a blind 490 and groping movement it has become a conscious and connected effort. Not only has labour learnt its power, but labour has obtained an ethical conviction of the rights of its cause. This unrest is part of a deliberate revolt against the untrammelled nature of wealth getting, and this in itself is not bad. It is only the symptoms which we consider bad, and we must remember that the strikes are not the unrest; they are only the symptoms of the unrest. Moreover, strikes may be held to be better than riots, and one of the matters on which we may congratulate ourselves is that the recent industrial revolts have been conducted in an orderly manner. We must all deplore these symptoms, but if we cure the disease the symptoms will cease. As Burke said, the people have no interest in disorder. That is perfectly true. None suffer more than the poor themselves by the disorder of industrial strife. During the coal strike and the railway strike it was not the rich, not the small classes of the people that suffered; it was the great masses of the people who were reduced to misery and sometimes destitution. What we have set before us to-day is to find out how to give labour its due without these upheavals of industry. That is the problem. I know, of course, there is a school of thought which denies that any new situation has arisen, and which says this is only a matter of the old strike again, and which goes on to say that to-day labour is crushed and the coffers of labour are empty. In my opinion this is a profound mistake. It shows a lack of what I may call historic perspective.
It has always been difficult to realise when we have been in the midst of a fundamental change. It was the case when England passed from being an agricultural country to an industrial country. No foresight was shown during that transition, and we had to pay very bitterly afterwards. I believe to-day we are in the midst of another fundamental change. I believe it is no good trying blindly to fight it. If we try we are condemned, not only to more strikes, which are costly and inflict hardships on everyone, more particularly on the poorer classes, but we are condemned to failure in the end. We can avoid future trouble, but only by rational action instead of what I may call muddling on. In every voyage, especially on un-travelled seas, the time may come when the course has to be altered. We have had a good many warning breakers to tell 491 us that our course may perhaps have to be changed. It is surely time that we surveyed our charts, shortened sail, and heaved the log. I say more. If we do merely muddle on, if we do not see that this problem is faced, and if we do not show that our resources are adequate to deal with the problem, then not only we, as the Liberal party, but all of us as an assembly, have failed in our duty, and we have earned a great deal of that abuse which is showered at present, perhaps unjustly, on our heads. What form is that action to take if action we are to take? My Resolution asks merely for an inquiry. That is not because I think definite action and definite legislation are unnecessary. It is because I can conceive that too hasty and ill-considered legislation may perhaps do more harm than good. And, after all, we have been moving fairly fast lately. The Coal Mines Act was a novel, perhaps a revolutionary departure. It was an experiment, and we are now in process of seeing how it works. We shall learn a good deal from the operation of the Coal Mines Act. I think, perhaps, it may be well not to move too hastily until we can see what the definite results of the experiment of the minimum wage will be. Without sure knowledge of our ground, and without thorough consideration of practical details, I believe it would be folly to move.
I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) has given notice of an Amendment to the Resolution. That Amendment expresses ideas with many of which I am in complete sympathy. While I am in complete sympathy with the hon. Member's ideas, I wish to know how the details of these ideas are to be worked out. Are they in a condition in which they can be translated into action of a definite and practical kind? Do we know that if they are carried out, they will cure this labour unrest. If my hon. Friend can show that it is so, then I am certainly with him, and I should be perfectly prepared to assent to his Amendment. I presume the details are worked out; otherwise why do we find it laid down that eight hours should be a working day? Why not seven hours or six hours? There must be some statistics to show that eight is a practical maximum. No doubt we shall be told why he proposes eight hours. I should like to be told at the same 492 time what the minimum wage suggested is, because, if we are to take this action we must know what it is. We must not pass a Resolution vaguely in favour of a minimum wage without knowing the method by which it is to be brought into operation, or the exact amount it is to be. I should like to know how the minimum wage is to be fixed, and to have some financial details as to the cost of the nationalisation of railways, mines, and other monopolies, because, if these matters are in a fit state for action, we ought to have practical details. Unless they are in a fit state for immediate action, there is no good pretending for a moment we can take that action. In respect of all these things I am waiting for details. I should also like to know my hon. Friend's reason for thinking that the passage of these measures would cure and put an end to the present state of unrest. I say that in theory a good many of them have my heartiest sympathy. If the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil can give the practical details I have spoken about I admit that would save the inquiry I am asking for, and I am sure that no one will be more glad than myself to see the necessity for an inquiry done away with.
But I say that an inquiry should be the first step. If that is the best course, what should be the scope of the inquiry, and what form should it take? I think it is the best course, and I am glad to find that in this view I am supported by the Government, because in a Debate in this House a short time ago, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Hobhouse) said:—
The Government are prepared—indeed, have already begun—to make some limited inquiries as to the rise in prices and as to the cost of living in this country; but I think it would be much more satisfactory if we could get a far wider inquiry than that which has been carried out in other countries, and we should be prepared to assent to some far wider inquiry than is going on at the present moment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th March, 1912, col. 556.]That is entirely satisfactory. But one of the qualifications which I think should be laid down for any inquiry is that it should be a speedy inquiry, and that it should not take too long in its operations. We are threatened with further industrial unrest—another railway strike, another coal strike, and difficulties in the cotton trade. How far this will be realised I do not know, but it is quite obvious that the sooner we come to a conclusion on this matter, the safer and better it will be for the country. For many reasons I think that now is a suitable time for such an inquiry. We are in a state of comparative tranquillity in the 493 industrial world. It is good policy not to conduct operations in a time of stress. Sometimes, as in the case of the Coal Mines Act, it is impossible not to do so. But there are manifest advantages in dealing with cases when they are not in the acute stage. Moreover, all sides of the question will be calmly considered. There are more sides to the question than those of the employers and the employed. No one has stated that more accurately than the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald). He stated that there are three sides to the question. He used these words:—We cannot possibly allow capital and labour simply to fight out their own battles, we, standing on one side, looking on. We are too fond of imagining there are two sides only to a dispute. There are three sides to every dispute; there is the side of capital, there is the side of labour, and there is the side of the general community; and the general community has no business to allow capital and labour, righting their battles themselves, to elbow them out of consideration. We are bound to take upon ourselves our responsibility; and, if capital is wrong, we must enforce right upon it. At the same time, and I do not hesitate to say, if labour is wrong, then we must do the same."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February, 1912, col. 53.]Now is the time, when there is no great industrial conflict in progress, to try to work out the three sides of this question. For these reasons I conceive that now is the best time for a searching inquiry into industrial unrest.What should be the scope of the inquiry? In the Resolution it is suggested that it should inquire into the causes and remedies of industrial unrest. It is a very large field. Since the Resolution appeared on the Paper I have received a great many letters on the subject giving various persons' opinions as to the causes and remedies. They cover a large area. The causes cover an area extending from the National Insurance Act, which has not yet come into operation, to the grievance of a local fire brigade. The remedies suggested extend from a tax on land to the teaching of tidiness to maid-servants. All these different proposals seem to me to show the absolute necessity for an inquiry of some kind. I do not pretend that others may not be more in a position to judge of the causes and remedies than my correspondents, but I think that even in the highest quarters we may surmise there is doubt as to the causes and remedies of industrial unrest. Far be it from me to usurp the functions of the inquiry, but I think it may be useful if I touch on some of the points which fall within the scope of such an inquiry.
494 First, as to the causes. There is one section which seems to be in a state of pessimism as to industrial unrest. It says that the cause of it all is civilisation itself; that it is an irremediable evil, which the power of money causes; that the old order is gone, there is no humanity in industry, there are no bonds between workmen and employers, the old bonds will never return, and the future of industry is a future which cannot be looked upon with any anticipation except one of misery. I remember an article in the "Westminster Review," which breathed a profound pessimism. Probably it was written by a very young person. It said that these things were the cause of industrial unrest, and it wound up by saying that the only remedies were to be found in free intracranial circulation and a diet free from poison. I do not pretend to understand what "free intracranial circulation" means, but it shows the type of surmise which has been appearing on the subject in quite respectable papers and magazines. I do not share the pessimism exhibited in these quarters. The whole system may be indeed at fault, but if it will not work we shall simply have to scrap it, if necessary. I refuse absolutely to believe that the resources of humanity at present are exhausted. Another reason which is given very often has to be taken much more seriously. It is that the greatest cause of industrial unrest is the general feeling on the part of labour that it is not getting its due share of the world's goods. That is a reason which we have got to take very seriously indeed. Since the time of the Factory Acts synthetic reason has come to labour's assistance. It is said, "Why should we not have our fair share?" This is partly economic reasoning. It is also partly ethical, that is to say, the worker realises he has a right to demand a chance in life. It is also partly scientific. He realises that if he is given a chance he is as good as any. No doubt he is sometimes rash in his assumptions, and sometimes a little crude in his reasoning. He overestimates the extent and the value of great riches, but in the main he is right. The balance to-day is on the wrong side, and the worker has now become well aware of it.
What is this new recognition, this fresh inspiration, this increasing force due to? I conceive it is due very largely to education, and education which is still insufficient, but which is sufficient to carry the 495 worker far beyond his ancestors in this matter of reasoning on his place in the world. Moreover, we have seen during the last few years a great influx of cheap literature of the very best quality, and workmen are able to read and study a great deal more than they have ever been able to before. Another thing which has an effect is what he has seen and heard during the last ten years. We have seen all over the world riches exhibiting themselves, if I may put it in that way, more flamboyantly than they have ever done in the past. I believe that the motor car itself has been responsible for a great deal. At this very time, when the poor man's cottage has been dusted by motor cars and his hedge has been whitened, he has been given an increasingly efficient education and a larger area of thought, and he is beginning to say to himself, "why have some people all the good things in this world and why have I so little share in them? I do not want to make any party points in this Debate, but at the same time I do think that the attitude of one section of the rich on matters of taxation has had no little effect on the poorer classes of this country. I think that if we had not heard so much outcry over the Budget, we should not have had quite so much industrial unrest as that with which we are faced to-day. The result of all this has been the awakening of the people to what I might call a sense of their birthright. It is an idealism; it may be crude idealism; it may be also blind idealism; but it is an idealism, and the cruder and blinder it is, the more it needs our guidance and assistance. But in the main, and on the whole, it is a right idealism, for it is founded on facts and on right assumptions.
I believe there is another cause of industrial unrest though perhaps it is not so often referred to. I believe that a large section of the working classes have a feeling of dissatisfaction at the results of political action. They began with false dreams. When they saw the advent of the Labour party in this House they expected miracles. I hope that my hon. Friends on the Labour benches will not think it impertinent or patronising for me to say that that is entirely unjustified, as they have done all they could, and a great deal of thanks is due to them from the working classes. But they cannot do miracles, and miracles were expected of them. I believe that that 496 feeling on the part of the working classes, that distrust of political action, will pass. Industrial power is not complete without political power, and leaders will always be wanted for the workers. I say this in spite of the Syndicalist doctrine that leaders must be done away with—the motto of Syndicalists being, as far as I can make out "Do not follow my leader." More, everything depends in future on what leaders the Labour party will get in this country. A fourth cause of labour unrest, and one which is generally appreciated, is the rise in the cost of the necessaries of life. Undoubtedly there has been a stoppage, or at all events a slackening, in the material progress of the working classes. The fact is that things have been moving in a circle. Increased wages have been met with by increased prices, and the consumer pays an increased price on the article on which the wage has been increased. And just as all trades, and so far as all trades, tend to this situation, so all consumers tend to pay on all the necessaries of life. In this way increased wages have been neutralised to some extent at all events by increased prices, and I do not see in what way at the present moment it is going to be stopped. The final outcome of increased wages is that prices are raised, and if you raise prices you to a certain extent neutralise the effect of increased wages. This cessation of economic progress has a great deal to do with unrest. Those to my mind are the chief causes which lie at the root of the present industrial situation.
I now come to the question of remedies. There have been many suggestions, and in the articles and letters which I have read lately there has been a vast field of possible remedies exhibited. Here, again, we have the pessimist, who says that economic law will prevent any remedy at all, that industry will be crushed if labour asks for more. If that is so it must be demonstrated to labour. It can be demonstrated in two ways if it is true, which I do not believe. It can be demonstrated by the empirical method, by strikes and breaking industries, or it can be demonstrated by reason and by bringing the actual facts of the situation to the eyes and ears of the people. I think that would be the better way, and to that extent I consider an inquiry will serve a useful purpose. The truth is there is no panacea and no one remedy 497 for industrial unrest. Any remedies to be effective must necessarily touch the causes and deal with genuine grievances as to wages, and so on, and they must carry conviction to the people at large as well as bring to them a sense of co-operation instead of a sense of strife. No one remedy can completely fulfil all those conditions, and many remedies do not deserve inquiry. For instance, there is the doctrine of meeting strikes by mere force, which merely says "put down strikes," and which has been illustrated by Sir Henry Seton-Karr in the April number of "The Fortnightly." It has been also illustrated in another paper by Mr. Sichel, who prescribes, as far as I can make out, national service as an excellent remedy for all industrial unrest. Those remedies, to my mind, are all short-sighted, and they do not even deserve inquiry. We have got to oppose industrial unrest not by brute force, but by reason and justice. Another remedy we have heard a great deal discussed of late in this House is that of Syndicalism. It is a new and interesting development, but as it has been dealt with quite recently, I do not propose to go into it. It is not only interesting, but in some ways I think it must prove extremely attractive to a certain class of mind. One thing I may say about Syndicalism is that it is not of the slightest use "shrieking" against it. Mr. Benjamin Kidd, in the "Times," the other day, wrote:—
Syndicalism must be dealt with in the same manner as the classes that have preceded it have been dealt with. Its opponents must meet the demands of labour with a truer conception of the interests of the community than Syndicalism has got.I am not one of those who think that labour is incapable of managing a concern any more than are shareholders of managing a concern; at the same time I think that the Syndicalist ideal is impossible and undesirable in its aim; and that its methods would not only be fraught with evil consequences, but would not even tend to the accomplishment of the object which they set out to attain. We next come to the remedy—and here I am afraid I approach a party question—advanced by some persons for industrial unrest which has received a certain amount of attention in the columns of the "Times," and that remedy is Tariff Reform. I should be very glad to see an inquiry on that subject in regard to the effect of Protection upon real wages. I should not dread inquiry at all; I should be very glad to see it instituted, but 498 I am perfectly certain that it would prove that in the matter of real wages Protection has no good effect at all, and that it would do harm to the workers and not good. As I understand the Tariff Reform argument, prices must be artificially raised, so that the workers can get more wages. We say that the increased prices would probably go elsewhere than into the workers' pockets. We deny that experience or reason show that the effect of Protection is to raise wages. Our principle is to see wages raised first, as by the Minimum Wage Bill. We say—and I think it is what we shall see proved—that the idea that if you raise wages you are going to ruin industry is an idea which will be very largely exploded. At all events, I think this would be proved, that nowhere in the world do the workers get a greater share of the fruits of industry than they do in this country—that is to say, there is no place where real wages bear so large a proportion to the total profit as they do in this country. If it can be shown that there are places where that is not the case, if it can be shown that there are places where the better condition of labour is due to Protection, then I am perfectly willing to reconsider my position on this question. The next remedy was suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour), who thinks that the hopes of the future lie in education. That certainly is to a very large extent true, and I think there, again, is another point which may be usefully submitted to inquiry. Next there is a suggested remedy, which deserves very serious consideration, and that is compulsory arbitration. I think on that point, especially, some form of inquiry would prove very useful indeed. On the whole, I am inclined to agree with my hon. Friend (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) that compulsory arbitration in the end must fail. I think we have seen instances in Wellington, New Zealand, and in Australia that, if compulsory arbitration is pushed to its limits, it must fail. Men strike in spite of the law, and before they come back they demand an amnesty; and I fail to see how you can prevent that. But although I confess that it seems to me that ultimately compulsory arbitration must fail, I do feel that weight attaches to the view of Mr. Sidney Low, who recently wrote an interesting article in the "Fortnightly" on Anti-Strike-Legislation in Australia. He said:—Though it is true that the Arbitration Acts have not abolished the strike, they have, at any rate, 499 effected a great deal. The law has created an atmosphere which is completely adverse to the strikes on a great scale.At all events, a great deal can be done, short of compulsory arbitration, by strengthening the machinery of arbitration to create, as far as possible, an atmosphere of conciliation. But I do think that the whole of this subject needs further elucidation, and this is one of the points I should be inclined to think an inquiry would elucidate better than almost any other plan. Next we come to the chief remedy advocated by my hon. Friends below the Gangway—the remedy of nationalisation. Nationalisation, as I understand it to-day, is restricted to monopolies in the Labour party's programme; and fiscally I am entirely in accordance with the theory of nationalising monopolies. I do not pretend to say that it is a possible thing in all cases to do; I think it is possible in regard to railways, but it is not possible with regard to mines at present. At all events, it is a question which demands serious consideration. This question is not a fiscal, but an industrial one. I do not think that nationalisation of monopolies would cure industrial unrest; in fact, I think that experience shows that it does not; but I believe it may help and assist, and that you may be able to get more wages under the State than from an employer. But I do not think it matters twopence to the workman whether he gets his wages from the State or from a private employer. What he wants is to get as much wages as he can, and he has as much desire to strike against the State as against an ordinary employer when he wants more wages. Nationalisation, therefore, does not cure industrial unrest. In Continental countries some of the worst strikes we have had have been in connection with State railways. New Zealand and Australia are other cases in point. When we turn from the nationalisation of railways to the nationalisation of other things the subject becomes a very much more complex one. We are to be asked by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) to adopt a policy which has never been considered seriously in detail. We must have some details as to the nationalisation even of railways before contemplating a policy to be carried in the next months or the next years. As soon as we have definite financial details, then perhaps will be the time to consider the adoption of a policy. I should like to see one part of this inquiry directed to finding out how 500 far nationalisation has stopped strikes where it has been tried. I rather fancy it would be found that the idea of nationalisation in reference to its effect upon industrial unrest is, at all events to a certain extent, a fallacious one.9.0 P.M.
There is one other remedy suggested for industrial unrest, and that is a remedy too, which, to my mind, deserves the most careful and thorough consideration. It is the idea of extending the minimum wage to all industries. By that I conceive it is not meant to introduce a flat minimum for the whole of this country. Certainly I do not mean to suggest any such thing. I think the index figures of prices in different parts of the Kingdom would absolutely put an end to the idea of any flat minimum which would be equitable. But, if it is meant by that that we are to apply in other industries the same principle which has been applied by the Coal Mines Act, then I think it deserves the most serious consideration. After all, we have entered upon this principle of a minimum wage. We have entered on this idea of a low-water line in one great industry, and before that we had Boards dealing with other industries of an entirely opposite character. I conceive it is too late to go back. I believe we have begun a policy which will have to be considered as to its extension to other industries besides the Coal Mines. I am glad to see that even Sir Henry Seton Karr supports this idea, because he says in the "Fortnightly" that if the principle is applicable to the coal trade it is, a fortiori, even more applicable to most other industries. That is another subject which I conceive to be one into which inquiry should be made. Lastly, there is the question of co-operation and co-partnership. That is a solution which has been very much favoured, both inside this House and outside, and very deservedly so, but we have not yet had any real consideration of the practical details as to co-partnership and cooperation in different industries. There, again, it seems to me we need further information and inquiry into the subjects of co-partnership and co-operation as regards different trades. It is, when you come to think of it, a peaceful form of Syndicalism on a small scale. It is allowing men to take over an industry and manage it themselves. Syndicalists say that the men are capable of managing industry and co-partnership says the same thing. The essential difference of Syndicalism is, first of all, the scale on which it is proposed to be carried out, and 501 the methods by which it is proposed to be introduced. Those are fallacious and impossible. The idea that industries could be run and could be managed by a society of the workers I think is a perfectly sane and sound idea. That idea is, as I say, co-partnership and nothing more. I read the same thing in so respectable a paper as the "Times" the other day, that it is Syndicalism on a small scale attained by peaceful means. One thing is perfectly certain, the more you can manage to connect the workers with the profit and management of great industrial concerns, the more likelihood you have of peace in the industrial world. Mazzini said:—
From slave to serf, from serf to wage-servant, from wage-servant to partner.We are carrying through that programme to a certain extent. I believe it will be carried through to the end. There, again, I say there is ample field for inquiry. So there are certain subjects into which inquiry should be made. First as to the causes of industrial unrest, and then as to remedies, and more especially what I may call certain specific, solid remedies. There is, first of all, compulsory arbitration, and next there is the effect of nationalisation in preventing strikes, and there is the minimum wage and how far that is capable of extension to other industries, and there is co-partnership and co-operation, and, lastly, there is education. All those subjects seem to me to be worthy of authoritative and careful and searching inquiry.Now I come to the last section of what I have to say. I apologise to the House, but this is really a very complex and difficult question, and I have been trying to go into it as thoroughly as I have been able, because I conceive that nothing but a thorough and exhaustive inquiry would be of real use. The last section of my speech shall be as to the form of the inquiry. I confess it is a very difficult subject. I found it so when I was trying to frame a Resolution. On the one hand you have issues so grave and complex that they need very deep and searching inquiry. On the other hand it is quite obvious that your procedure must not be too long delayed. That is why I have taken refuge to-day in the phrase "appropriate methods of inquiry." I confess it is difficult to think of any form of procedure which is alike speedy and which would definitely and properly inquire into the causes of industrial unrest. The conditions of such an 502 inquiry are that it must be thorough, that it must employ the highest authorities and the best brains in the Kingdom, and that it must get as far as possible facts, not opinions. It must be an open and unprejudiced inquiry. It seemed at first that a Royal Commission would be the most appropriate method, except for its length. I confess that the precedent of the Labour Commission of 1891 does not offer any encouragement as to a Royal Commission, but it has occurred to me that it might be possible to institute a small series of Special Commissions or Special Committees, on the various heads, such as compulsory arbitration, the effect of nationalisation on strikes, and so on. This small number of Committees could sit simultaneously, work quite fast, and could produce a mass of evidence under various heads as to industrial unrest, the causes, and the remedies. No doubt there are arguments against this course, but there are arguments against any course. We should have at all events much further light thrown on many of the great factors in this industrial unrest. If necessary, the Chairmen of those small Committees might afterwards sit together to form some sort of general Report.
§ Mr. COOPERWould you say on what basis those Committees should be formed?
§ Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMSThat, of course, is a matter for consideration. As long as you got the most widely representative persons and had at their back the assistance of the Government Departments, I think they could usefully conduct the inquiries. You would have to have the members pertinent to the subject considered. Thus in co-partnership you would have those with a knowledge of that subject and of its effects on labour and industry, and also representatives of industries not run as co-partnerships at present, and so on. I think that could be arranged. I have seen reports in the newspapers that a Cabinet Committee is sitting on the matter of industrial unrest. I do hope that is not to be all. After all, the public are concerned in this matter. The public have a right to see this matter investigated. It concerns them very deeply. After all, it is good that the public should know and learn all the details and all the questions involved in this industrial unrest. And I think it is good for us that they should know and learn these things, because, although we as a House of Commons are supposed to rule 503 in this land, in the ultimate instance the people are the authority. Not only will inquiry not carry conviction unless its proceedings and processes are made patent, but probably action founded on any other than open inquiry will run far greater risk of being called into question and of being called party action than action founded on inquiry conducted in an open way. I therefore trust that if the Cabinet Committee finds this subject deserving of thorough investigation and of far-reaching inquiry, it will arrange that an inquiry of a public nature shall be made. I fear that I have occupied a very long time, but, as I say, this is a very complex subject, involving vast and vital issues. We are in a period of change, and unless we recognise that we are in a period of fundamental change, unless we take the matter in hand to-day, not only we, but those who come after us, will rue it. I believe that the spirit behind this unrest is a right spirit, and that it will prevail; I believe that labour will get, and rightly get, a larger share of this world's goods; and I conceive it to be our duty, as the ruling body in this great nation, to see to it that labour gets its due without the miseries and calamities of industrial strife.
§ Mr. A. F. WHYTEI beg to second the Motion.
The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Crawshay-Williams) has travelled over a wide field in laying his Resolution before the House. I will not venture to go over the whole of that field, but will devote myself to one corner of it. I conceive that an evening obtained under the private Members' ballot is most usefully employed in ventilating a subject rather than in endeavouring to arrive at definite conclusions. I readily admit that that is why I am here to second this Motion. But in this case we can combine the ventilation of probably the most important social question of the day with a direct demand upon the Government that it should make full inquiry into the matter. As to what that inquiry should be, I hope to say a word before I sit down. In the meanwhile, the plain fact before us in discussing this question is that industrial unrest in this country is only part of a world-wide movement that has been disturbing populations both east and west. It has taken various forms in various countries, and though in some senses it has come in recent months to a more acute point in this country, it has none the less shown symptoms of a 504 similar character in other countries. Whence does that world-wide movement arise? There are certain persons in this country who tell us that it is merely the work of agitators, that if you got rid, for instance—if he will forgive my saying so—of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie), or of Mr. Vernon Hartshorn, you would get rid of the whole trouble. That is, I think, a very profound mistake. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester reminds me that the agitators are not all on one side, but that they are to be found on both sides in any industrial dispute. He is quite right. But even if you got rid of the extremists on both sides, the main question would still be with us. After all, the sparks from a passing engine will light no grass unless the grass is dry already. In this case the grass undoubtedly was, and is, dry.
I would remind those who suggest that this is merely the work of agitators, of the different kind of treatment which they mete out to those who happen to express exactly the same opinions as these agitators, except that they express them in what I may call the language of the University rather than the language of the mill and the factory. For instance, when my hon. Friend the Member for the Stirling Burghs (Mr. Ponsonby) publishes a. book entitled "The Camel and the Needle," he is told by the "Spectator" that the book contains the amiable aspirations of a sentimental Radical. But when the very facts and the conclusions drawn from those facts to be found in that book are expressed in somewhat rougher language by the miners of South Wales, we are immediately told to call out the police and the troops and shoot them down. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Surely if the opinions expressed by the hon. Member for the Stirling Burghs—opinions which he supported by calling in evidence the vast accumulated wealth of this country and comparing it with the dire poverty in which many people live—if that evidence is sufficient to support the conclusions and the "amiable aspirations of a sentimental Radical," and if those opinions are to be passed over with a gentle pat on the back in that way, surely we may be allowed to say that those who use the same arguments and adduce the same evidence in support of practically the same conclusions in another sphere, ought to be entitled to the sympathetic ear of this House.
I take it that the present industrial unrest, of which I do not believe we have 505 yet seen the end, is mainly the outcome of the conjunction of two forces which had their origin in the nineteenth century; first of all, the great accumulation of wealth during the nineteenth century, on a scale and at a pace absolutely unprecedented in the history of the world, and, taken along with that, the education of the people of this country, which gave them access to all kinds of economic doctrines, good, bad and indifferent, and which now enables them to come forward and place their arguments before the people of this country and before this House in a manner in which they have never been able to do so before. You have, by educating them, given them the means of examining their own economic position; you have equally given them the means of examining the economic position of those who are at all events financially above them. I think no one ought to be surprised that, with the conjunction of these two phenomena of the nineteenth century, there should be now, at the beginning of the twentieth century, something of a conflagration. These various facts have been known to social inquirers for many years. They have driven men of reforming instincts to investigate the conditions of life in different localities, with the result that we have the monumental example of the excellent work which has been done and can yet be done, in the volumes of Mr. Booth on "Life and Labour in London." We have another example in the inquiry of Mr. Rowntree into the conditions of life in York. All over the country persons whose consciences have been awakened by the inequality of wealth have endeavoured to probe to the bottom the origin of those inequalities. Therefore we cannot say now that we have not had a great deal of inquiry. What we do say is that we have had inquiries devoted to specific points and directed to specific areas. The revelations which those inquiries have brought to light have been the common property of Members of Parliament and of social reformers of all classes for many years.
But those revelations have been brought home to the general community only by the general uprising of the working classes during the last few years. The facts with regard to life and labour in London, and the facts regarding conditions of life in York, well known to Mr. Rowntree and others, are only now becoming the common property of the people in general. As 506 they have become the common property of those who possess both industrial and political power, you have immediately had a demand arising out of their new knowledge. I am not going to attempt to describe exactly what that demand has been. Members of this House know it very well, and it would be only a waste of time if I endeavoured to traverse that ground again. I will give one small quotation, or voice, out of the prevailing unrest, taken from an interesting journal called the "Railway Clerk." I am sorry the hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) is not present, because this happens to have reference to him. I am sure he will forgive me for quoting it in his absence. The extract is entitled "Dogs and Men." It runs as follows:—
The tender-hearted Sir Frederick Banbury has introduced a Bill for the protection of dogs. But many clerks and station masters on the Great Northern Railway protest that they have a prior claim upon the hon. Member's consideration, and contend that he ought to see that justice is done to the salaried staff of his company.I think that is a pertinent inquiry, but there is even a more pertinent inquiry to follow in the rest of the quotation:—The Company has recently issued a new edition of its booklet 'Where to Live.' The clerical staff maintain that the more urgent question is 'How to Live1 on the meagre salary meted out to them by Sir Frederick and his colleagues.As I have said, I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman is not here to defend his position and that of his railway. I do not think that he will quarrel with me for giving the quotation I have, for the last few lines of it are pertinent to this inquiry for which we are asking. The whole question that presents itself to the working classes is, "How to Live?" They see that other classes of the community are enabled to live, I do not say on a lavish scale, but on a modest scale of comfort which they themselves have not been able to reach, and they ask, "Is it not right that the world should be so organised, and that industries should be so carried on, that those who are engaged in their thousands and millions in those industries should be able to live the same sort of life as those above them?" I said that this was a pertinent question, and the reason why it is pertinent is that it raises the whole economic position of the working classes of this country. It raises the question of the relation between rent and wages, and of the relation between real wages and the prices of necessaries, both of which were dealt with at some length by my hon. Friend. The prevailing unrest is simply an unanswerable answer 507 to that question of "How to Live?" If we grant that, what have we to say to the prevailing unrest? If I in any sense have carried the House with me so far, I think hon. Members will admit, judging on the basis of what I have said, that the prevailing industrial unrest is in no sense a culpable movement, but is the inevitable product of forces which I have attempted to describe. It is a natural outcome of the position in which thousands, nay millions, of human beings live in this country; conditions which if they were known—and perhaps I should add "experienced"—would not be tolerated by this House or indeed by those who have sent us here.We are asking for an inquiry into this question, and it may be asked if the inquiry must deal with the whole question. I think not, for in the whole question is embraced not only the origins of the industrial unrest, and questions of wages, into which I believe inquiry must be held, but questions of housing, the remedial principles of which we have already admitted, and the question of sweated labour. I name only these questions to show that this House can press forward on lines already laid down while the inquiry is going forward into matters that lie beyond. There is abundant material, but it needs collation, amalgamation, and examination—a sifting of the chaff from the wheat. So far as the greater questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester are concerned, I think these, on the contrary do need a thorough, exhaustive, and searching inquiry, which would enlist public confidence. I am not going to pursue the general question any further, but I should like to add one word in relation to the position of many hon. Members of the House, especially on this side. Those hon. Members have come into this House wearing party colours admittedly, come into this House as partisans, but they have come into this House as partisans not simply because of any love for party politics pure and simple, but because they saw in the Liberal party the most representative engine of progressive Government that exists in this country at the present time, and because they wished as speedily as possible to enlist their own energies to carrying forward the objects, which are in the mind of the Liberal Government. Hon. Gentlemen opposite will, no doubt, tell me that after all it makes very little difference what motives bring men to this House, for their behaviour in this House 508 is very much the same. I think I am entitled to deny that, and to say at all events so far as I am concerned, and a good many other Members on these benches, that the moment the Liberal party deviates from the path of what they consider to be true social reform that moment they will leave the Liberal party.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILThe speeches we have listened to have impressed upon, the House one fact, and that is that the time at our disposal this evening for discussing this question is ridiculously insufficient. The hon. Member who introduced the Resolution spoke for fifty minutes. I do not blame him for it. I quite agree, if he wished to traverse all the subjects that he apparently did wish to traverse, that it was quite impossible for him to have taken less time. I do think that if we do want really seriously to consider this question the Government must find us further time. The hon. Member who has just sat down said that he came into the House a Liberal, he believes that the Liberals are the party of social reform, and if they show any sort of deviation from social reform he and others will leave the Liberal party. I have always immensely admired that curious superstition which enables Members of the Liberal party to believe in the usefulness of the party to which they belong. I do not desire on the present occasion to make in any sense a party attack. I desire, if possible, to compress my observations into a very short space of time. I agree that the unrest is widespread, and that it extends far beyond this country. I was very much interested in the discussion which occupied a good deal of the time of the Mover and Seconder as to how far the unrest was morally justifiable. I think that is a matter which is really not for us to consider at all. I am not certainly going to say that the unrest is not morally justifiable, but that aspect of the case does not come within our purview.
The question asked is as to the cause of the unrest and what can be done to remedy it. The cause is, I quite agree, an attempt to get better terms for labour. That is the chief cause. No one can doubt it. It may well be that the cause has been increased and exasperated by the improved education which we have, fortunately and properly, been able to afford to our people, and by other circumstances to which other Members have alluded. But the essential thing is the demand for higher wages. Hon. Members believe that that demand 509 can be met by the grant of the minimum wage, and so on. I do not believe in that remedy myself in the least bit, and I should not be acting truthfully to the House if I said I did. I believe your system at the present is based upon a system of bargaining, and that rash and violent interference with the bargaining by either side is not going to be of any advantage to the working classes or to the employers. I do not believe it will obtain ultimately any better terms for the working classes; I do believe it will operate as a discouragement to enterprise and energy with the employers. Therefore I prefer to say that what is really necessary is not essentially higher wages, but it may be a better division of the profits of industry, and I shall have a word or two to say about that later on, but I wish to say this further, that I do not believe it is a fundamental difficulty in the present situation. I believe the fundamental difficulty is this, that we have outgrown our industrial system. It was taken over, as one hon. Member said very justly, from days when the greater part of this country was agricultural, and it rested essentially upon this, that there was a personal relationship between the employed and the employer.
I do not myself take the harsh view which hon. Members opposite do of our present agricultural system. I believe, on the whole, that it works far better than any other part of our industrial system, because you have largely preserved there the personal relation which you have destroyed elsewhere in your industrial system. I am not complaining of anybody; I think it was an essential and inevitable result of two things. In the first place it was due to the introduction of the factory system, because you had there a great sub-division of labour and the great monotonisation of labour, if I may coin a word, which ensued, and the fact that one man is constantly employed to do the same thing not seeing the result of his labour and having no human relation with the result. I am very sorry to have to put these matters so crudely and dogmatically, but I am doing it in the interests of time. The other great fact has been the introduction of the company system, again the fault of no one. As industries became larger, and, in my view, that was inevitable with the advance of what we call civilisation you had the factory system on the one hand, which produced the division of labour, and the company system on the other hand, which produced 510 the aggregation of capital. Both had this common effect, that they destroyed all human element in industry. In the great companies you cannot have personal relationship between the shareholders and the workmen. It is impossible. Shareholders are organised through agents who are not themselves the owners and managers of businesses, and the workman feels this, or sees it in the papers constantly, and knows there is no means of getting any human feeling in the machine which, as flesh and blood, he forms a working part. I believe these two causes are quite as much at the bottom of the whole trouble as the actual want in wages or the actual glaring divergence between riches and poverty at the present time.
I assure hon. Members I am not attempting to minimise the tremendous contrast that exists between wealth and poverty, but it is not in that either the difficulty lies. Do not let us deceive ourselves by thinking it is. This contrast between wealth and poverty has always been there, in a way, perhaps, that is less than it now was. It is not only that that is at the bottom of this unrest. It is that we have outgrown our industrial system to a large extent, and we must construct something fresh and new if we are to carry on our industries in this country. It would be quite impossible for me to attempt to deaf with the remedies proposed by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) and his friends—I am not sure whether I am right in calling the "Syndicalists" his friends—but proposed in what I may venture to call the revolution. I do not think they are practical; I do not myself think, if he will allow me to say so, that they have been worked out, and that he really knows, in pounds, shillings, and pence, the effect of what he proposes to do, and I am confident that the attempt to adopt them would cause such frightful misery to the class he represents that they would be the very first to condemn any such experiment. I think these demands of Socialism and Syndicalism do show profoundly that, consciously or unconsciously, the working classes, in my opinion, know that there is something wrong in the very organisation of industry at the present moment, and that they feel that and feel another thing also.
If I do not mistake the symptoms, I think they feel at present a distrust in the machinery of government. I am not going to repeat what I have often said in this House, the great danger I see is their 511 distrust of this House and its efficiency; but I say this, that what I and others have preached in this House for many years past is producing an effect which we always said it must produce outside, namely, that people are more and more growing to distrust the Legislature and to think that they have not a chance of obtaining justice from the legislative machine. You see it from passive resistance on the one hand—I take examples from both sides. What was the cause of that? The Chancellor of the Exchequer will not contradict me when I say the cause of passive resistance was a feeling, right or wrong, among the Nonconformists that they had not been fairly represented in this House; that the House had done something which it had no authority to do. I do not say that they are right. I am merely showing what their feeling was. It was not so much the provisions of the Act of 1902 as that they were dissatisfied with the authority of the Legislature. So it is with the suffragettes. Many hon. Members are very angry, and among them the hon. Member who moved this Resolution, with the action of these women; but utlimately what is it that moved the women to do these things? They complained that they were not fairly treated by this House; that they were treated with chicanery and trickery, and that this House has no real authority to do what it does. I take another example, namely, the example of Ulster. It is the same complaint. I do not say if it is right or wrong; I do not wish to get into party controversy. Ulster says this House is going to do something which it has no authority to do in the name of the people of this country. So it is with industrial unrest.
What are the remedies for these two great difficulties? The hon. Members who have spoken have sought inquiry. Seriously, I do not think that inquiry offers any real or adequate remedy. Let me read the subjects into which inquiry should be made as they suggest—Tariff Reform, education, compulsory arbitration, nationalisation of railways and land, a minimum wage, co-partnership, and the hon. Member who spoke last, added, housing. If this is their remedy, I confess I have great sympathy with the concluding words of the Amendment on the Paper, that
this House is, therefore, adverse to the delays of further inquiries, which only 512 allow the public to forget the pressing nature of the unrest.If that is the remedy of the official Liberal party, all I can say is they will find it very difficult to answer their Socialist friends.
§ Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMSI suggested that before action be taken we had better consider very carefully such proposals as can be elucidated by inquiry.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILI do not follow that proposition—nothing should be done until after inquiry, but the hon. Member knows that inquiry is not a remedy. I do not think that inquiry should take the place of action. Let me point out that some of us on this side asked for an inquiry into one particular branch of that subject. Our first request was made last November. I do not say it was treated with anything but the utmost courtesy by the Government, but we have not yet got that inquiry set on foot, and the Government are still considering whether they will inquire or not. I am not complaining that the delay is unreasonable, because I know that Government is carried on under great difficulties, and that Ministers who have been in office for six years have been very much over-worked. I think if your only remedy is by way of inquiries you will find it very difficult to resist that part of my criticism. I believe this is a crisis of enormous importance and tremendous seriousness. At any minute we might find ourselves in an industrial war quite as serious as the recent coal strike or the railway strike. We have in this crisis to consider the actual difficulties of putting out the fire if a crisis should arise, because it must be an administrative matter which must be left to the Government of the day. It would be folly on the part of anybody who is not a Member of the Government even to suggest how an urgent crisis of that kind can be dealt with, because nobody but the Government can possibly have the knowledge as to its extent and nature. I say that this question must be dealt with courageously and with impartiality. There must be no shrinking even from the strongest measure if they are necessary to preserve order. That is the only contribution I can make to the settlement of this urgent crisis.
There is the chronic side of the question which must be dealt with. As to the 513 industrial side of it, in my judgment the only hopeful remedy suggested is co-partnership. I cannot now develop the whole arguments in favour of co-partnership, but I am convinced that unless co-partnership is the remedy adopted, there is no other remedy for the present condition of affairs. If you cannot induce capital and labour to work more closely together than it does at the present time, then your whole industrial system will be in serious danger. With regard to the other matter of giving the public greater confidence in this House, personally I have no doubt that you must bring the electorate into closer relationship with this House, and that is the only way in which this object can be achieved. I have always been a strong supporter of the policy of the Referendum for that reason. I believe you must have a direct appeal from this House to the people to be carried out when there is any danger of injustice to one class or another, so that there will be no idea that this House, at the bidding of the bureaucracy, is carrying out a policy which has no authorisation from the people. Those are the two remedies which I suggest, and they have both this in common, that they bring into closer relationship the Government and the governed. On the industrial side you are going to give a share of the profits to those employed, and on the political side closer authority and control to the electorate. I believe that that is the only way out of the difficulty. I am sometimes accused of not being a democrat, but I venture to say that I am a truer democrat than a great many of those who have made democracy into a kind of fetish. When it comes to really setting up democratic authority, then hon. Members opposite tire the very first to draw back. I believe democracy to be not a fetish, but a fact. If we are to solve this industrial question it must be by a full and frank recognition that our Government is government of the people by the people for the people, both in industrial and in political matters.
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIEI beg to move as an Amendment to leave out from the word "disturbances," to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words "are caused by a deplorable insufficiency of wages, which has persisted notwithstanding a great expansion of national wealth and a considerable increase in the cost of living, and shows the necessity for preventing the continuance of such unequal division of the fruits of 514 industry by legislation securing the right to work, a maximum eight-hours' working day, a minimum living wage, and the nationalisation of railways, mines, land, and other monopolies; this House is therefore adverse to the delays of further inquiries which only allow the public to forget the pressing nature of the unrest, and calls upon the Government to introduce legislation with the least possible delay."
I do not intend to follow the Noble Lord opposite in his very interesting disquisition, but it occurred to me whilst he was speaking that if his faith in co-partnership is so great as it appears to be he and his Friends have a very excellent opportunity of giving it practical effect. I entirely agree with him in regard to what he said about the days that are gone when there was a more intimate relationship between employer and employed. Unquestionably much of the present trouble is due to bad relations between employer and employed. Hon. Members are aware of the condition of labour in the agricultural industry, and, if co-partnership is going to be a remedy, I know of no better field of operation than the land. If the landowners, the farmers, and the labourers came forward on those lines it might throw some light on the subject. With regard to co-partnership, I do not accept it as a remedy for strikes or industrial unrest. When this question was last mooted, I made a reference to the case of a mill in Yorkshire where co-partnership was in operation and where they had a strike. The end of that strike was that the trade union members were dismissed.
§ Mr. THEODORE TAYLORI do not wish to interrupt the hon. Member, but those men were not dismissed. I regret that I am obliged to introduce a personal matter of this kind. Very few of these men left. As a matter of fact, they dismissed themselves, and they were not dismissed. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil alluded to this matter at Question Time, and I have seen the representative of the men since, and he says dismissed is not the word that should be used.
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIEAt any rate, they were not taken back again after the strike. I am not casting any reflection upon the hon. Member. All I wish to point out is that co-partnership does not prevent strikes. The inquiry, according to the Mover and Seconder, would be conducted by men who do not understand the 515 problem and who are incapable of appreciating the point of view of the working classes. It would simply be another of those academic inquiries of which nothing conies. The Mover of the Resolution said the matters he enumerated would all require to be inquired into, and I understood him to say they had not been inquired into. I am afraid his memory is somewhat short, though he is much younger than I am. Let me remind the House of the subjects to which he refers as needing inquiry which have already been inquired into in recent years either by Royal Commission, or Special Committee, or Departmental Committee. There was, first, the question of the Irish Railways, and the Committee reported in favour of nationalisation. That has been inquired into.
§ Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMSI beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. Has an inquiry been made into the question whether nationalisation would prevent strikes? That is the point.
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIEThe point was in regard to nationalisation. That has been inquired into, and no amount of theorising by a small Committee can forecast what is going to happen under nationalisation. The nationalisation of canals has been inquired into and approved of. The question of the minimum wage, apart from the matter of strikes altogether, has been inquired into in the sweated industries, and the outcome has been the Minimum Wages Board for sweated industries now in existence. Some years ago there was a Royal Commission on Labour, which sat for years and took evidence from all sorts and conditions of people, with the usual result, of course—that nothing was done. In 1894–5 a Special Committee, of which I was a Member, sat to inquire into unemployment and the remedies for unemployment, but nothing came of it. There have been several inquiries during recent years in regard to afforestation, but practically nothing has been done. There was a Royal Commission on the Poor Law, which presented two very elaborate Reports some three years ago, but beyond that nothing has happened. We have had inquiries into the housing, and there is no social subject where the law is stronger or where the local authorities have better or more complete powers than in regard to housing. So I submit there have been inquiries galore in the past. The time for inquiry is past; 516 action is now required. It is all very well for us to discuss here academically what should be done, and to appoint nice respectable Committees; but outside there is seething unrest, and the appointment of these Committees will simply accentuate it and add to it. There have been several expressions of opinion as to the causes of unrest. The poverty cause is well known. The late Leader of the Liberal party (Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman) at the General Election of 1906 put his imprimatur upon the statement that one-third of the population of Great Britain—he founded his opinion on Reports prepared by Mr. Charles Booth and Mr. Seebohm Rowntree—were living either in poverty or on the poverty line. The last ten years have accentuated every evil that then existed. Let me give the House these figures. During those ten years, the first ten years of this century, the cost of living, according to the Board of Trade returns, has increased by 12½ per cent., or 2s. 6d. in the £, but the increase in wages obtained by the working classes comes on an average to only 1d. per week.
§ Mr. BIGLANDIs that for trade unionists only?
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIENo, that is from the Board of Trade returns.
§ Mr. PETOThe hon. Member is understating his case. The increase in the cost of living is 3s. in the £.
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIEI am speaking of the first ten years of this century, and during those years this House has practically done nothing. The workers have been crying out for a fuller share of life. Education has been growing, and the demand for more of the advantages of civilisation has been increasing; but, whilst there has been this increase in the demand, there has been a lessening of the power to satisfy the demand. Parliament has been looked to for help in this matter, and we have "bidden him eat the east wind." Various reforms have been proposed, but all these things have been tinkering with effects without touching causes. Let me enumerate very briefly what has been done. Pensions have been given to the aged over seventy, but the need for pensions is due to the poverty-stricken life, owing to low wages, which the workers have to endure until they are seventy. Insurance! There is attached to it irritating conditions and a burdensome payment 517 for which there was not the slightest necessity, since a small addition to the Income Tax or to the Tax on Land Values would have found all the money necessary to pay for the cost of insurance. I came now to the reform most referred to to-night, the miners' minimum wage, and I cite this as a sample of the way the House plays with this question. Take the two figures the men asked to be inserted in that Bill, 5s. per day for men and 2s. per day for boys, 5s. per day for men who go down into the pit risking their lives in winning coal. The House refused to put the figures in the Bill. What has happened? The independent chairman of of the South Wales district—a former Member of this House, a gentleman who is highly respected, and whose impartiality and sense of fair play will not be questioned for a moment, Lord St. Aldwyn—has given a decision under the Act that the minimum wage for a labourer in a coal pit is to be 3s. a day, plus whatever percentage may be current. At the present time the percentage is just over 50. Fifty per cent. on 3s. makes 4s. 6d. per day, but the percentage varies with the rise and fall in the price of coal. The minimum percentage to which wages can fall is 35, and the maximum to which it may rise is 60 per cent. So this underground labourer for whom Parliament has legislated can have a maximum wage of 4s. 9d. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] If hon. Members will allow me to finish, they will find I am right. His minimum wage is 3s. On that he has at the present time 50 per cent.; that makes his present wage 4s. 6d. The percentage may go up to 60; that would make his minimum wage 4s. 9d. It may also go down to 35, and bring the minimum wage down to 4s.
That is the outcome of this House legislating for the working classes. And that is not all. The Government, afraid lest the chairmen should be a little more generous than it deemed they should be, have by means of letters to the "Times," written by the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Sydney Buxton) and by Sir George Askwith, practically given an instruction to the chairmen not to take the average earnings of the men into account when fixing the wage, but to take the actual daily rate being paid. I hold that to be responsible for the decision Lord St. Aldwyn has given. Remember that the workers who conducted this agitation are not the sweated workers, they are not the unskilled men, but they are really the better paid class of workmen, who are sick 518 and tired of all this piffling. They want something done, and they look to this House, not to agree to a Resolution appointing a Committee with a mass of work which may occupy it for years to come, but to proceed at once not merely to mitigate the effects of poverty but to root out the causes of the poverty which obtains in their midst.
10.0 P.M.
There is one other aspect of the subject which must not be overlooked. The Noble Lord opposite asked in what way the nationalisation of our industries would remedy unrest and produce peace in our industrial areas. My answer is, it can be done in this way. At the present time every improvement in the condition of the workers is made a fresh pretext by the capitalist class for enriching themselves. Let me give one or two illustrations. The Minimum Wage Act passed this House a few weeks ago. It meant an increase in the cost of getting coal of 2d. and, in some districts, 3d. per ton. At the very worst the increase might be 6d., but that would only be in very exceptional cases. What has happened? Already here in the city of London the consumer is told that, because of the increase in the cost of getting the coal, due to the Minimum Wage Act, there is to be a permanent increase of 2s. 6d. per ton in the price charged to the consumer! So, although that Act was passed ostensibly for the benefit of the miner, it will be the mine owner who will be enriched. [An HON. MEMBER: "The middleman."] Yes, perhaps mainly the middleman. Again, take the case of the railways. There is an attempt being made to increase the wages of railway men, and the Government is bringing in a Bill giving the railway companies power to increase their rates. That is to say, they desire to take from the public not only all that the rise in wages will cost them, but as much more as they can squeeze out of it. The same thing occurs with regard to all rises of wage in the matter of rent. Every time a rise takes place rents go up. The only remedy for this is to nationalise the mines, the railways, and the land. The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Crawshay-Williams) was very much concerned about the cost. He wanted me to tell him what these things were going to cost. But the cost is a matter of no consequence. It does not concern us in any way whatever. By nationalisation these things would be added to the national wealth. If you issue Government 519 stock to the railway shareholders you will have as an asset the railways, and the profits now going into the pockets of the shareholders will go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The same would be the case with the mines and the land. Cost, therefore, is a matter of no consequence, the only thing to be feared is that the Government might be called upon to pay too much for them. That is one danger which was foreseen by the late Mr. Gladstone in the middle of the last century when he set forth in an Act of Parliament the terms upon which railways are to be nationalised.
We can see no solution of the industrial problem short of Socialism. There is no good giving working men rises in wages if the landlords, the colliery owners, and the middlemen are going to take it for themselves and for their own benefit. That is not helping anyone or anything. The only remedy for that is to have the mines, the land, and industries generally the property of the community as a whole, so that the whole of the wealth created will belong to the community, and the present order would be reversed by which those who do really useful and hard work receive the smallest portion of that which their labour produces. The Members of the Labour party object to any special Committee or Royal Commission being set up to inquire into the labour question. We on these benches are here to speak for the Labour party. [An HON. MEMBER: "And for Socialism."] Some of us are Socialists I am proud to say, and many more are going to be Socialists. So long as capitalism continues, with all its heartlessness and tyranny, there is no hope for the common people. They will be Socialists. I rejoice at the fact that the working classes are becoming more and more socialistic. The more socialistic they become, the more unrest we are going to have. The socialist leaders and the trade union leaders object to a blacklegging committee being set up to do the work which we have been sent here specially to perform. I give this House and the Government this warning—if any of these make-believe committees are set up no single working class organisation in the country will appear before it and give evidence. I have been through Commissions both as a Member and as a witness, and there are very few things more irritating than to see some poor, simple-minded, honest workman brought from his trade and 520 placed in the midst of a number of trained, skilled, legal and business men, to be plucked very much as a bird of prey plucks a pigeon. The working classes will give no evidence. They have formulated their demands. If this House does not satisfy the demands, so much the worse for the House. Syndicalism is the direct outcome of the apathy and the indifference of this House towards working class questions, and I rejoice at the growth of Syndicalism. The more Syndicalism we have outside, the quicker will be the pace at which this Chamber will move. Parliament never moves except in response to pressure, and the more pressure the more likelihood there will be of real drastic reforms being passed, and of the conditions of the workmen being improved.
§ Mr. J. H. THOMASI beg to second the Amendment.
I will limit my remarks to one particular industry, and I have no hesitation in saying that I do know the real cause of the unrest in the railway service at this moment. It is because in 1907 we stated as an organisation that there were 100,000 railway men getting less than £1 per week. That statement was contradicted in this House, it was contradicted before the Royal Commission, and a pamphlet has been issued for distribution among railway shareholders denouncing trade unionists in general, and myself in particular, for making such a statement, and suggesting that it was a deliberate untruth. Two months ago the Board of Trade issued their Returns. They are Returns from an impartial investigation. Look at the Returns, and you will find that it is there clearly stated that 97,000 railway men, excluding boys, are in receipt of less than £1 a week. That is the cause of the unrest in the railway service. We say that labour should be the first charge on industry. One other point only. Last year the railway companies of this country carried 40,000,000 tons more merchandise than they carried in 1900. Last year the railway companies carried 56,250,000 more passengers than they carried in 1900, and last year the railways ran 23,000,000 train miles less than they did in 1900. That means that when I myself was an engine-driver, less than six years ago, I was working trains carrying a certain load, and that to-day engine-drivers are working trains carrying double the load that I was carrying six years ago. That, in a few words, is the 521 cause of the unrest in the railway service. When you remember that in ten years, according to the Government Returns, the increase in wages for railway men has only been a halfpenny, you can well understand that the railway men at this moment are in revolt against these miserable conditions. I hope, as a result of this Debate, that employers will realise that if they want to stop the unrest and stop the growth of Syndicalism, they can do it by giving more humane consideration to those they employ.
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley)Before putting this Amendment, I think I ought to state to the House that I have had some doubt as to whether or not it was permissible, owing to the fact that the early part of it is almost verbally identical with a Motion previously moved as an Amendment to the Address. Therefore it is only by keeping my main eye on the latter part that I am able to admit it.
§ The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George)We have had a very interesting discussion upon a question which interests the whole population of this country. It is very rarely that topics can be raised of such general interest to all sections and classes of the community. I agree with the Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) that it would be desirable if we could have from time to time opportunities of reviewing subjects of this character in this House, even if we reviewed them in connection with Resolutions which might be of an academic character. I cannot help noting that even on a subject of this kind the House of Commons need not be apprehensive of any immediate trouble and any labour unrest. I take into account its condition at the present moment. I think the reason for that is that the House of Commons realises that it is not a new problem. One might imagine, from the discussions which have taken place, and even from the observations which have been made in the course of this Debate, that labour unrest was a new symptom. Anyone who reads the history of the last century will realise that it is a problem that we have had with us for at any rate 100 years. As a matter of fact it is an old problem, and the only difference which the last 100 years made was that you had it more continuously during those 100 years than during any previous period in the history of this country. I think it is due to causes which are in themselves quite wholesome. My hon. Friend 522 (Mr. Crawshay-Williams), in the able speech he made in moving this Resolution, and the Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil), in his very interesting contribution to the Debate, indicated what it meant. It is simply the vary natural desire on the part of the men to improve their conditions, and the only reason why we have had more social unrest, more economic unrest, during the past 100 years than we had during any previous period in our history, is that the wealth of the world has increased at a greater ratio during the last 100 years than probably during any period in our history, and there is a feeling on the part of the working classes that probably they are not getting their fair share of that great increase.
I think the constant succession of labour struggles we have had for at least a century is attributable to that fact in a very large degree. It is true, perhaps, that during the last year or two we have had more serious strikes than during any previous period for some years. I think that is due to the fact that when you have a certain accession of prosperity, and the profits of trade increase very rapidly, the working classes are apt to complain, and I think often with a good deal of reason, that there is a tardiness in allocating to them their share of the increased profits. That is why you probably get more serious strikes during periods of increasing prosperity. But it is by no means confined to this country. The symptoms are manifested in all the industrial countries in the world. There have been serious strikes in Germany. The result of the last general election there is an indication of very deep social and economic unrest on the part of the working classes. You had, I believe, four or five millions of electors who recorded their votes for the party for which the hon. Gentleman spoke a moment ago. What was the cause of that? It was not merely that they were converted by Socialistic theories. It was that there was a deep-rooted dissatisfaction, first of all with the increased cost of living, and that the workmen there feel that although Germany has undoubtedly made great strides in industrial prosperity during the last twenty or thirty years, they have not had their fair share of it, and that has been accentuated by the enormous increase during the last few years in the price of the necessaries of life. All that reacted upon the working classes, and their method of protesting against it was not so much by strikes as by returning an 523 unprecedented number of Socialist deputies. In the United States anyone who reads the papers, in the last few days, especially the financial papers, will find that the finance of America is disturbed very largely through the fear of great labour troubles. In France we have had outbreaks which have bordered on revolution once or twice, and the same thing applies to Austria and Italy. You find this unrest in every part of the industrial world. What is it attributable to?
I have been very struck with the fact that there has been no difference of opinion in the premises between the Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) and the hon. Member {Mr. Keir Hardie). They both agree that it is dissatisfaction with the conditions of life amongst the working classes, the feeling that they are not getting a fair share of the general prosperity, and the only difference between them is not in the causes of the unrest, but with regard to the remedies. I was also struck by the very slight difference, in general principle, of the remedies. The Noble Lord said his remedy was to give the workman a fairer share of the profits. That is coming pretty near the Syndicalist doctrine in principle and in essence. I am not dealing with co-partnership. I am simply now dealing with the agreement in what I call the essentials in the method of approaching the question. There is agreement in all essentials. The cause of the unrest is the feeling amongst the workmen that they are not getting a fair share of the profits. I am not sure that the Noble Lord did not go further and say he thought there was some justification for that.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILI did not say that.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEVery well, I will not press that.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILI did not happen to say anything about it.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEI do not wish to attribute to the Noble Lord any statement which he did not make. The second remedy suggested was that the workers should get a fair share of the profits. That carries him very far in agreement with others. I am not sure that it does not carry us further than the Noble Lord realises. I was rather surprised to hear him say that in his judgment the conditions 524 of labour in the agricultural districts of this country were on the whole more favourable than those in the industrial districts. I think he will find that it is quite the reverse, and that a good deal of the trouble in the industrial districts is due to the fact that the conditions of labour in the agricultural districts are so unfair to the workers. I wonder if he has ever thought of this side of the problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas) says that there are 97,000 men in the railway world earning less than £1 per week. The Noble Lord will find that unskilled labour, not merely on railways but in the transport world generally, produces conditions of the same kind. Is he quite sure that that is not very largely due to the fact that agricultural labourers, who constitute the reservoir from which railway labour, carters, dockers, and others are supplied, are very much underpaid in the country. That undoubtedly is a matter which ought to be inquired into, and I am certain that it does have a very serious effect in depressing wages in the labour market in the industrial districts and towns of this country. After all, the Noble Lord, I think, would go to the extent of saying that in matters of this kind he would interfere by Act of Parliament with free bargain. If you have got a supply of sturdy, healthy, strong men, who are now paid 12s. and 13s. a week—
§ Lord ROBERT CECILindicated dissent.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEThat is so. If the Noble Lord will look at the agricultural returns and reports upon the condition of agricultural labourers in this country he will find that there are counties where they are paid 13s. a week.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILIn estimating the wages of the agricultural labourer, which I think are rather low—I do not dispute it—you must take into account the hay harvest money and things of that kind, which go to increase the average.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEAt any rate, the Noble Lord admits that the wages are very low. That is the only point I wish to make. I do not wish to enter into a dispute about figures. It is not essential. The only case I wish to make is this: I think it will be agreed that the wages of agricultural labourers in some parts of England are exceedingly low, and much too low for what they do.
§ Mr. W. L. BOYLEThey are in Norfolk, certainly.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEI had Norfolk in my mind when I referred to 13s. a week. In addition, there are some perquisites which I cannot value for the moment. But if you add both together I should be very much surprised if they come to more than 15s. a week. As long as you have got a supply of labour of the kind which you can get for 15s. a week for very hard work, for very long hours of continuous work—labour which is called unskilled, but which very often is really skilled labour, because to make a good agricultural labourer you have got to start a boy at twelve, and he has to go on to twenty before he is fit to do the sort of work that an agricultural labourer is called upon to discharge—you are bound to depress the labour market all round in the matter of wages. Those are problems that ought to be looked into. I am not sure that low paid agricultural labour is really profitable. I am very doubtful about it. I know parts of the country not very fertile, which are far removed from any great "markets where the agricultural labourer is paid £1 a week and more, and I am sure that it is a good thing for the farmer as well as the labourer. He gets a better class of man, a more contented and a more intelligent class of man, and what I have never been able to solve is why counties which I know myself and counties which other hon. Members know, say in Scotland—[An HON. MEMBER: "Lancashire."] Yes, but I am not thinking so much of Lancashire where the market is at their doors. I am thinking of districts where there is no market at their doors, where the next great market is 100 miles or more from the farm, and still wages of £1 a week are paid in those districts, and farmers are doing fairly well, while if you go to other districts where you have got great markets—Norfolk is a case in point, and some of the home counties are cases of the same kind—you find that the agricultural labourer is only paid, say, 15s. a week, or I do not care what, but it is less than £1 a week. There must be something radically wrong in the whole system which works in that way. It is not an economic wage. It must be clear that if they can pay £1 a week in the other districts they ought to be able to pay more than that in districts where they have great markets at their doors, and where the land is fertile. These are things that lie really at the root of all 526 these questions, more especially questions of agricultural labour; and you cannot consider them surely as problems in which the agricultural labourers stand alone, the carters stand alone, the dockers stand alone, the unskilled labourers in the mines stand alone. It is part and parcel of the whole problem that has got to be looked at in all its parts. This unrest is not entirely due to wages. The hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Keir Hardie) said that if you give men good wages they do not want pensions. I do not quite agree with that; The Civil Service proves that that is not the case. There they have the inducement of good wages, but the greatest inducement of all is the guarantee of a pension.
However, that is by the way. There are other conditions than the conditions of wages which affect these problems, and which produce this feverish state of unrest. If hon. Members would only just think of the labour quarrels we have had in the last few years, the most formidable were those which have been engineered, conducted, and supported by people who, according to the present scale of wages, were paid good wages. Some of the best paid men were the most formidable men to deal with in the last strike which we had.
§ Mr. J. H. THOMASThey came out to support the others.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEI quite agree; at the same time, it was because they felt the same sympathy, and not only that, but the same general conditions of unrest, which affected them as well. There are questions like housing which have a very great deal to do with it. Take the South Wales collieries, which, in many respects, are a hotbed of social and economic unrest. It is not altogether a wages question. The conditions of housing there are such as to make decent living almost impossible.
§ Mr. MALCOLMWages are good.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEThat is exactly the point which I am making. My point is that it is not merely wages. You have conditions there with regard to housing which produce this state of feverishness, which produce that unhealthy condition of mind that makes people discontented with their lot. I feel sure that if hon. Members were acquainted with some of the conditions in the mining districts of South Wales they would not be surprised in the least at the 527 bitterness of the labour troubles which we have had in the South Wales district in the last few years. It is not merely wages, then, but also very largely the conditions under which people live. Then, of course, there are questions like the question of men feeling that they are not treated as if they were men. The very worst struggle we ever had in North Wales was a struggle which did not arise out of wages at all—the great Penrhyn quarry strike. I am not sure that wages entered into it at all; I do not recollect that the question of hours entered into it. It was a sort of feeling that they were not treated as if they were men possessing a mind of their own, but as if they were mere creatures of the managers. That was the feeling they had. They were not allowed to present their grievances, certainly not collectively. When they came before the managers they were treated roughly and rudely. That was the complaint. I am not entering into the question whether it was well-founded or not. We very nearly had a railway strike the other day in London—I am not going into the merits of the question—in consequence of men having been dismissed, not because the management dispensed with their services, but purely and simply because they were supposed to be labour leaders.
§ Mr. J. H. THOMASThe management admitted it.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEI am not entering into the merits at all. After all, you cannot ignore these things. I speak with a little experience of labour troubles, having tried to settle them. These things are the things which embitter labour quarrels. There are three things, I am perfectly certain, which contribute to these labour troubles. First of all, of course, is the question of wages. Secondly, and I am not sure that it is not almost as large a cause for unrest, there is the feeling that the conditions of life are not worthy of the dignity of the men who are clamouring for improvement. And, thirdly, there is the feeling that they are not treated, under certain conditions, as if they were men possessing a mind of their own, but as if they were purely the creatures of the particular management and were to take their orders without question or complaint on their part, especially if it were presented collectively to the management, when it would not be accepted or considered. Those are the sort of things which produce 528 this labour unrest. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) has got his remedies. What are the remedies he suggested. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. Crawshay-Williams) did not suggest any particular remedy, and the only particular remedies we have had to-day are, first of all, a minimum wage; secondly, nationalisation of the railways and other sources of production; and the third is the one suggested by the Noble Lord—co-partnership. Is my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr quite sure that the nationalisation of railways, for instance, would put an end to strikes on railways. I am not opposing nationalisation of railways. I think there is a good deal to be said for it. There is a good deal to be said for it from the traders' point of view, from the point of view of saving an enormous amount of waste in the management of railways, and waste which I think is inevitable as long as you get a system of competition amongst five or six leading lines for exactly the same traffic. It is a condition which is recognised even by the railway companies themselves, and they are seeking to remedy it by means of amalgamation and co-operation, and understandings amongst themselves. There is no doubt at all that anyone who inquires into the railway system of this country will recognise that the waste attributable to unlimited competition amongst themselves is costing the country millions of money per year. Empty trains run, three trains run where one would do just as well—they are trying even to take advantage of the coal strike with a view to correcting a good deal of that waste. I am therefore not combatting from any point of view the question of nationalisation, but my hon. Friend is very sanguine if he thinks it will put an end to labour troubles. My hon. Friend (Mr. Keir Hardie) says it depends on how much you pay them. I do not agree, because after all whatever you pay them there will be disputes between the men who give their labour and the men who adjust the payment for it in which they will take different points of view in regard to the value of it. They will take different points of view with regard to the amount which the railways could bear, and I have no doubt at all that the workmen will suggest under certain conditions you should pass it on to the consumer. The man who will adjust the wages, the official, is the one who represents both consumer and worker.
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIEThe wages dispute would be settled in the same way as Post Office disputes are settled now.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEI do not know whether that is quite encouraging.
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIENo strikes.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEI am afraid it is not a very encouraging analogy. I think if my hon. Friend were Chancellor of the Exchequer he would not be as ready with that analogy as he is now. Take the case of Australia. I think one of the greatest strikes took place on the State Railways there. [HON. MEMBEBS: "France."] I did not think the great strike there took place on State railways, but on railways that were not nationalised. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] If that is so, then that bears out still further the truth of what I am saying. Where you have got nationalisation in Germany, I do not think the wages are as good as they are here. On the contrary, my recollection is that they are very low there. The figures that I have show that the wages on the State railways in Germany are much lower than in this country.
§ Mr. WARDLEThat is only partly true. There are two classes of employés in Germany.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEPerhaps my hon. Friend will give the exact figures. If it is true that the men are very much better paid on the State railways in Germany, I agree that that is a considerable argument from the workmen's point of view in favour of nationalisation. The Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) suggests co-partnership. He will be able to present his views on that subject before the Cabinet Committee which is inquiring into this matter. I have approached the Noble Lord on the subject, and he has been good enough to say that he will do so. But let me point this out to my hon. Friends on the Labour Benches. One thing which amongst others has struck me when we have been trying to settle some of these labour disputes is the feeling with which the workmen themselves regard the interference of the State. They will not have compulsory arbitration: that is, interference by the State. Even in social efforts, under a system of nationalisation, you must have some system of that kind. But the workmen resent State interference. A great deal of the trouble in the mining world was due to the fact that the Govern- 530 ment could not, without doing a great deal of mischief, interfere until it was perfectly obvious that the parties had failed to settle matters themselves. Even then the miners were more resentful of anything in the nature of compulsory interference on the part of the State than the mine owners were.
§ Mr. J. H. THOMASOut of at least thirty cases in which appeals have been made to the Board of Trade to my knowledge only one has ever been decided in favour of the men. That is why they are so suspicious.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEDoes my hon. Friend see what that implies? After all, the Board of Trade, whether under a Liberal or a Conservative Government, for the time being represents the State. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who are they?"] I do not follow that. What does nationalisation mean if it does not mean the control of the State?
§ Mr. LANSBURYThe only difference is that from our point of view if the railways were managed not for the purpose of producing profit for individuals, arbitration by the State would be in favour of the whole community. At present we contend that the result of compulsory arbitration would be to fix the amount of wages and the dividends to be received by the private owners. It is just there that we part company.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEI think the hon. Member ought to adjust his views to those of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil. What did he say? He said that he would have nationalisation regardless of expense.
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIEI said cost.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEWhat does that mean? It means that you have to pay somebody for it. When you pay anybody for their property—and my hon. Friend does not suggest that property should be taken away without being paid for—
§ Mr. LANSBURYThe telephones.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEThe telephones are a very good case in point. We paid the telephone company the market value of their undertaking. Surely you have to pay the interest—
§ Mr. LANSBURYYou fixed the interest.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEIf you pay the interest is not that exactly the samething?
§ Mr. LANSBURYNo.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEIf you buy you must buy on the basis of the dividend that they are earning, or confiscate it. You must take that into account when you are fixing your wages or you must pass on the loss to the community.
§ Mr. LANSBURYYou have not done that with the London tramways?
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEThen that means that they are able to make a profit on the tramways that they were unable to make before. By amalgamation you may save much wasteful expenditure. But you must take into account the dividend and interest on your capital whether you nationalise or whether you do not, unless you make somebody else pay, and that somebody else is after all the community. Nationalisation is a question that ought to be considered on its merits and as a business proposition. I think it is worth consideration and examination as a business proposition. In fact, I think it might be well worth while the railway companies considering it, instead of going on with the present wasteful system which does not do them any good, and imposes a heavy burden upon the community. Undoubtedly it gives all sorts of conveniences to the travelling public which I think they are paying too much for. My hon. Friend wants to commit the country to what after all is a gigantic transaction. It may be a sound one from a commercial point of view, but surely it ought to be examined very carefully, and if it is examined I cannot imagine why labour should refuse to assist in its examination.
So much for the question of nationalisation. On the general question of unrest the Cabinet have come to the conclusion that it ought to be examined, and they are conducting an inquiry into it. Whether it will be necessary to have an inquiry in another form, or a more searching inquiry, is a matter upon which we shall have to come to a conclusion, and I think we will come to a conclusion pretty rapidly. In the meantime we are looking into the matter, and making inquiry with a view to informing ourselves on a matter of vital moment affecting good government. We are looking into the matter as rapidly as we can. What conclusions we may come to I am not prepared to indicate 532 now. I have only to say we are looking into the question, but you cannot deal with it until all the facts are in your possession. Co-partnership is in a very experimental stage. There are cases where on the face of it it has been attended with a very considerable measure of success; there are cases which indicate it has been a failure. We want to find out why it is a success in one case and a failure in another. Whether the difficulty is a fundamental difficulty or whether it is remedial. These are things upon which we ought not to come to a hasty conclusion, and in the meantime we should apply such remedies as it is in the power of the Government to apply to the economic conditions of the present time.
§ Mr. PETOI rise to call attention to the fact that upon this most important question concerning both employers and employed more than anybody else in this House or outside it nobody representing the employers of labour had any opportunity of making any contribution to the Debate. I agree entirely with the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord Robert Cecil) that we have a right to demand that there should be some reasonable time for discussing this subject. This House has been engaged for years past in considering all kinds of other subjects, and this great question, except when pressed momentarily upon the attention of the House by some upheaval of labour and some combination of panic, has never had any consideration. The hon. Member for Merthyr said he protested altogether against academic discussions in this House, and said that in his opinion the labour world outside is in a state of seething unrest. I ask the House to remember what his contribution to the Debate on the question of co-partnership was. He began with the case of the hon. Member for the Rad-cliffe Division of Lancashire (Mr. Theodore Taylor) who, for twenty-five years practised what he preached, not in an academic sense, and he pointed the finger of scorn at a scheme which keeps 1,500 workers employed because twenty-three employés, who were paid infinitely better wages than were current in the trade, had decided to strike. If that is the spirit in which he meets co-partnership, we cannot expect any great advance to be made from the point of view of the reconciliation of the interests of capital and labour. The Chancellor indicated in his speech that some inquiry was 533 going to be made by some Committee of the Cabinet, and said the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin was going to represent his views on the subject of co-partnership. I want to point out, with all submission, that no Committee of the Cabinet can possibly deal with this question, for three very obvious reasons. First of all, it will be admitted that, apart from their arduous labours, it is obvious that with the enormous legislative programme every single member of the Government is charged with some part of this great hotchpotch of ill-digested legislation flung at the House, they will not have time to conduct an impartial inquiry, to hear the evidence of employers and employed, members of associations, traders in the foreign trade, the home and colonial trade, and to consider this question from every point of view. Secondly it would be perfectly ridiculous to have any inquiry into the labour conditions which lie behind the question of labour unrest, and leave out the great factor of our fiscal system, the alteration of which is believed by a vast majority of the working classes, taking our Empire as a whole, to be at the root of the matter. To leave that out of consideration you are once more playing Hamlet without the Prince. In the same way as the Government are doing in the inquiry they have set on foot into Empire trade where they bar the one question of vital moment to the trade of the Empire. The Government is composed of convinced Free Traders, and if we have a Committee—whether it is a, Committee of both Houses or whatever court is set up, we want it to be unprejudiced and to be impartial to investigate and judge in this matter. Beyond that there is a third reason why no Committee of the Government should go into this question. They would be asked in the very possible result to constitute themselves into a jury to find a true bill against themselves. There is not the slightest doubt that one of the things which would have to be looked into among the causes of the present industrial unrest would be the doctrines which underlie the legislative programme of the Government during the last five years. I have only to recall such legislation as the Coal Miners (Eight Hours) Act, the Miners (Minimum Wage) Act, the Budget of 1909, the Parliament Act, and practically every single great Act passed by the Government during the last five years. I would remind the House of the principle underlying the Budget of 1909. I do not 534 want to go into matters of detail, but I ask if anybody will deny that the main underlying basis of the Budget was that the poverty and misery of the poorest classes was mainly due to the wealth of the richer classes, and would only be cured and could only be cured by increased taxation upon the wealthy classes.
§ Mr. LANSBURYAbolish the rich.
§ Mr. PETOThere we have the underlying evils of the Budget of 1909. I ask whether those speeches do not undoubtedly promote class hatred. In my opinion, they are undoubtedly a factor. Apart from anything which was said in any particular place on this subject, that is the root basis—that the poor can only be benefited at the expense of the rich, and that the interests of the rich and the poor are opposed to one another.
§ And, it being Eleven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned.
§ Debate to be resumed upon Thursday, 6th June.
§ Adjourned at Three minutes after Eleven o'clock.