HC Deb 21 October 1912 vol 42 cc1880-8

Motion made and Question proposed "That this House do now adjourn." —[Mr. Gulland.]

Mr. JOHN WARD

I gave notice that I intended to call for some explanation which has so far been impossible to obtain at question time, with reference to the attitude of the Board of Trade relating to the dispute at Rosyth. The contract for Rosyth was signed on 1st March, 1909, and for some little time it proceeded in the ordinary way. But some two years ago a dispute arose between the men and the Government as to what was the interpretation to be placed upon the contract with reference to the wages to be paid to the navvies and eventually the men and, I assume, the employers practically submitted the case to the Admiralty to decide what were fair wages under the terms of the contract. The Government, after considering the subject, gave a decision which was announced on 6th April, 1911, as follows: — Mr. McKenna: I have made inquiry into the matter and I have no reason to doubt that the contractors for Rosyth are paying a fair wage." — [OFFICIAL REPORT, April 6th, 1911, Vol. XXIII., col. 2570.] The rate that they were paying was 5d. an hour and the contractor definitely, without qualification, had the word of a Member of the Cabinet that in paying 5d. an hour to the navvies he was paying a fair rate. There were some explanations later on as to what was meant by a fair rate but never by the right hon. Gentleman. The Financial Secretary to the Admiralty did to some extent explain what was intended by a fair rate, but the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. McKenna) never made any statement on the subject though I gave him two opportunities, and right to the end of his office as First Lord of the Admiralty he held to the opinion that 5d. an hour was a fair rate to pay to the navvies.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara)

Under the contract.

Mr. J. WARD

He never said that. That was the only observation made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Camberwell. Since he said that, see what a difficult position they have been in. The contractor himself shields himself in the present negotiations, as he has always done, behind the statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty that after the fullest inquiry he was satisfied that five-pence an hour was a fair wage. Having got Government sanction for that rate as a fair wage, the contractor tried manfully to carry out the work at that wage. He did everything he possibly could to get men at the price. Nobody else in the locality could get men at that rate. I call attention to the fact that no one was competing for men at that rate in the early part of last year. The contractors in the locality, some of whom were Government contractors, were advertising for navvies at 5½ an hour. [AN HON. MEMBER: "For tunneling"]. No, not for tunneling. I asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the following question on 15th May, 1911:— Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the Government contractors has advertised in the 'Dumfermline Courier' for navvies, stating wages to be 5½d. an hour, and does he still insist that 5d. an hour is the proper rate to he paid? Again I got the same answer that in the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman 5d. an hour was the proper price for the contractor to pay. In a supplementary question I asked: — Is it the right hon. Gentleman who decides after all whether a contractor is paying fair wages in accordance with the terms of his contract, and if there are contractors advertising for men at 5½d. an hour in the locality, would not that indicate what was considered the fair rate of wages for that class of workmen? I could get no further. The then First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. McKenna) said if I could prove that everybody in the locality was paying 5½d. an hour, it certainly would be strong evidence on the point. Others were paying 5½d. an hour, but the Admiralty never offered to do anything, and seething discontent continued. Every effort was made by the contractor to find men at the price which nobody else in the district paid, and he was on his beam ends, so to speak, to get people to work. One of the contractors has in private conversations expressed doubts as to whether the Government were right, and whether it has not cost him more for the class of men he has been obliged to rely upon at the rate he has been paying. I know what he says to me when I go to see him. When I ask an advance of pay for the men and tell him that everybody else is paying 5½d. an hour he says "You know very well that we submitted the case to the Admiralty, and that they declared 5d. an hour was the proper rate. Why should we pay more?" Finding that it was impossible in the ordinary way to get men at 5d. an hour, the President of the Board of Trade is brought on the scene with the Labour Department and the labour exchanges. They advertised all over the country. I have a copy of the advertisement which was exhibited at the office at Folkestone. These advertisements asked for navvies for Scotland at the Government rate of 5d. an hour. They found it utterly impossible to get men at that rate. Then apparently the same application must have been made by the contractors in similar terms, although I dare say we shall never know what the terms were. "It is impossible to get this work done at 5d. an hour, but you have fixed that price and you must help to get men at that price." Having got that request I suppose that the right hon. Gentleman decided to do the best he could to assist his colleague the First Lord of the Admiralty, and he not merely used the labour exchanges for this purpose but on the most feeble excuse sent a man over to Dublin to secure a supply of cheap labour. The right hon. Gentleman, when I was absent from the House, I saw reported in a Scotch paper, shrugged his shoulders at a statement which he regretted to see made by myself in a leaflet which I circulated. I am not prepared to make any statement which I will not justify or, if I find I have made a mistake, withdraw at once. My statement was that the Government under the auspices of the right hon. Gentleman sent Mr. Gemmell, manager of the labour exchange at Rosyth, to the labour exchange in Dublin, to secure a supply of cheap labour. The right hon. Gentleman does not deny that his object was to get a supply of cheap labour in Rosyth for the Government contractor at a price at which it could not be got without his assistance. I continue: — One such cargo has already been brought over under the direction of Mr. Buxton's local labour exchange manager, but this system for supplying Government blacklegs has broken down, the Irish navvies declaring that they had been grossly misled and deceived and they have returned to their native land. How much of that is untrue. When a contractor knows there is likely to be a strike to secure decent wages he tries to get all the labour he possibly can to the spot to enable him to dispense with the labour that is in contest with him. These men were brought over from Dublin not only to supply cheap labour but also to supply blacklegs in case the other men came out for what they believed to be a fair wage. I have always supported labour exchanges because I believe they save a great deal of unnecessary trouble to workmen seeking work, but if they are to be used by a private firm in contest with its workmen about wages as a recruiting agency all over the country to get labour at a minimum price labour exchanges will present an entirely different aspect to me from what they have done hitherto. Instead of being a benefit to the worker it is merely a machine for enslaving labour, the conditions of which at the present time are infinitely worse. The right hon. Gentleman has never done in any other case what he has done in this, but for some reason or other he did not Tinderstand that this was not an ordinary case. This was a case where the Government had pledged their word to the contractor to get men at 5d. an hour, and it was the object of the right hon. Gentleman to carry out the wish of the Government. That is the construction I put upon the whole thing. I do not say that I am taking exactly the right view, but I put these things together, namely, two years' contest between the workmen and the contractor as to whether they were to be paid 5d., 5½d. or 6d. an hour, the contractor unable to get men at 5d. an hour, and then the sending to another country for men at 5d. an hour. I say that is a position which requires some explanation from the right hon. Gentleman, and I am pleased to afford him an opportunity to explain his conduct.

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton)

With regard to the last part of the speech of my hon. Friend, he expressed the view that it was not a proper attitude for the labour exchange to take with regard to this question. He labours under an entire misapprehension as to the attitude, feeling and desire of the manager of the Rosyth Labour Exchange. If I believed that the manager of any labour exchange acted in the way indicated by my hon. Friend, I undertake to say that he would not retain his position a minute longer after it came to my knowledge. I have gone very carefully into this question of the manager of the Rosyth Labour Exchange, who carried out his duty of supplying labour under proper conditions and under the ordinary circumstances. One word with regard to my hon. Friend's attack upon me in reference to an answer to a question put to me by the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury). My hon. Friend read his leaflet, of which I have a copy, and in which he said the question he was dealing with is the question of "supplying labour in order to break a strike that has taken place," and that when "one cargo had been brought over this system of supplying blacklegs broke down." Everybody knows that the term "blacklegs" means men brought in, after the strike has begun, to break that strike. My hon. Friend has put a different construction on the words, but that is not the construction I thought he was dealing with in the leaflet. However, I was asked by the Member for Bow and Bromley the following question: — I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the navvies employed on the Government works at Kosyth are on strike; that Mr. Gemmell, manager of the Labour Exchange, has attempted to recruit men to blackleg the navvies by himself visiting Ireland in order to obtain a supply of men; and that as a result of his visit a number responded and came over, but returned on learning the true condition of affairs." —[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 8th October 1912, col. 157. I would ask any reasonable-minded man whether that question did not imply or impute that the manager of the labour exchange brought men over from Ireland after a strike had broken out in order, if possible, to break that strike. In regard to the question of supplying workers after a strike, as the hon. Member knows, there is not a word of truth in the statement that I have supplied labour after a strike has taken place.

That brings me to the other point of my hon. Friend. I want to show the House, and I believe it is absolutely patent, that all that was done at the labour exchange was in the ordinary course of business; that there was no ulterior motive whatever, and that they only acted in conformity with the general proper regulations issued to the managers of the labour exchanges. The strike took place about the 21st or 22nd September. On 4th September the manager of the contractors came to the labour exchange and said that the Admiralty were anxious that extensions in the work should take place, that is to say, that they should get on with the new work as rapidly as possible, and therefore they required not men to supersede the existing men but two or three hundred men to carry out some additional extensions at the work. The manager of the exchange had already for a long time supplied the contractors. My hon. Friend seemed to imply that the exchange came into this matter at the eleventh hour before the strike. I have figures to show that we have been supplying through our Rosyth Labour Exchange week by week a large number of navvies and labourers, dating back to March, 1911.

Mr. TYSON WILSON

Had the manager been over to Ireland before?

Mr. BUXTON

I will deal with that. What my hon. Friend implied was that we had suddenly come in in order to supply those men. As the records show, we were asked in the ordinary way for a large number of men through the labour exchange for the various contracts there. When this new application came we had then barely sufficient men to supply the ordinary leakage that takes place. The labour exchange manager had to make special efforts to obtain them. He first notified Scotland and the northeast of England and other places contiguous in order to see if he could obtain local labour. That was insufficient for the purpose and he then notified the various exchanges though out the country and asked to see how far the labour would be forthcoming. The result was the information he obtained was that the only available supply of any quantity could be obtained from Dublin and the Dublin manager said that he would be able to supply a considerable number of men if on selection they were found suitable. The Divisional Officer thereupon arranged for Mr. Gemmell to go over to Ireland. I am bound to say I think in that respect he took exactly the right action. Here were men to be brought from a distance. I think it was right with his special know- ledge not only of the whole position of affairs but with special knowledge as to the requirements of Rosyth and it would seen to me to be his duty and most desirable that he himself should go to see the men available and select from them the most suitable, knowing the exact qualifications, instead of bringing over men who when they had been brought that distance might have been found unsuitable and left stranded at Rosyth having been brought all the way from Ireland.

This leads to my hon. Friend's point about wages. Before starting he was supplied with a statement of the rates of wages which are paid at Rosyth, and from that it would appear that about 780 were receiving 5d. and 383 were receiving 5½d., and others rather higher, the average rate of wages being 5.3d. He went over with, that information to interview a suitable number of men, and, this is the real point, to explain to them the conditions of employment there. He stated he was authorised by the contractor that he could not guarantee more than 5d., but if they proved good men they would receive more than 5d. The contractor himself stated to the men, "You must understand that we really do not want fivepenny men. We want good men and are prepared to pay for them." Under these circumstances he selected fifty-two men who he thought would be suitable and likely to stay some time. They would obviously not be "fivepenny men," but men who would receive considerably more than that. What really caused the strike was not these men coming in to work at 5d. Through some misunderstanding the men already there were under the impression that these men were to be paid 6d., and those who were receiving 5d. and 5½d. were not at all satisfied that those who were brought in should receive 6d. The strike was not because the labour exchange brought in men at a sweating wage.

Mr. J. WARD

Is it not the fact that these men returned because the contractor insisted that he had only offered 5d. an hour?

Mr. BUXTON

No. There was some misunderstanding, but the contractor was prepared to pay them a good deal more than 5d. That was not the reason the strike originally took place. The question of 5d. really never arose. As; regards the manager of the labour exchange, I think he took proper precautions to ascertain that these men were going to receive proper rates and, before advancing fares, to secure that only suitable men were sent over. As regards the strike itself, we had no part nor lot in it. It took place subsequent to the arrival of these men on the scene. I say most emphatically that it is of the essence of the labour exchange that they shall not take part in these disputes, and certainly not bring men from a distance at a low rate because a contractor asks for men at a low rate. That was not the case here, and I hope it never will be the case. I am glad to have had the opportunity of making this explanation as to the attitude of the manager, and also of putting on record the view that I hold as affecting the part to be taken by labour exchanges.

Whereupon, Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 14th October, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

Adjourned accordingly at Five minutes after Twelve o'clock.