Commons Sitting of 9 July 1914

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Brentford Gas Bill [Lords],
Chelmsford Gas Bill [Lords],
Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
City of London (Various Powers) Bill,
Hayward's Heath Gas Bill,
Read the third time, and passed.
Hull and Barnsley Railway Bill [Lords],
North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Bill [Lords],
Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Motherwell Water and Sewage Purification Bill [Lords],
As amended, to be considered Tomorrow.
London County Council (Money) Bill (by Order),
Consideration, as amended, deferred till Monday next, at a quarter-past Eight of the clock.
Wesleyan and General Assurance Society Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Consideration, as amended, deferred till Tuesday next, at a quarter-past Eight of the clock.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.

NEW WRITS.
For Borough of Birmingham (West Division) in the room of the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain (deceased).—[Lord Edmund Talbot.]
For County of Worcester (Eastern Division) in the room of the Right Hon. Joseph Austen Chamberlain (Chiltern Hundreds).—[Lord Edmund Talbot.]

BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.
Copy presented of Annual Report of Proceedings under the Salmon and Freshwater Acts, etc., for the year 1913 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
DOMINIONS (ROYAL COMMISSION).
Copy presented of Third Interim Report of the Royal Commission on the Natural Resources, Trade, and Legislation of certain portions of His Majesty's Dominions [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
Copies presented of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 5327 and 5329–5341 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

SHOPS ACT, 1912.
Copies presented of Orders made by the undermentioned authorities and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department:—
Council of the county of Monmouth (Ynysddu and Cwmfelinfach districts);
Councils of the boroughs of Manchester, Bradford, Barnstaple (two), Workington, and Huddersfield
[by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

AERONAUTICS.
Copy presented of Report of the Advisory Committee for Aeronuatics for the year 1913–14 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1887.
Copy presented of Treasury Minute, dated 6th July, 1914, granting a Retired Allowance to Mr. William Fellows Sedgwick, Junior Examiner, Board of Education, under the Act [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

MAGISTRATES (IRELAND).
Return ordered "showing the names, addresses, occupations, or descriptions of the persons appointed to the commission of the peace in Ireland since the 30th day of November, 1912, the date of the last

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Return (Parliamentary Paper, No. 396, of Session 1912–13), including all appointments to the end of 1913."—[Mr. Staveley Hill]

MALICIOUS INJURIES (IRELAND).
Return ordered, "showing the number of persons who have made claims under the Malicious Injuries Acts in Ireland and the amounts claimed and awarded in each county, respectively, from 1906 to date."—[Mr. Rupert Gwynne.]

EAST INDIA (PRESS ACT, 1910).
Mr. MORRELL: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. May I move the Address standing in my name? [East India (Press Act, 1910). Address for Return of Statements showing the action taken by local governments and administrations under certain Sections of the Indian Press Act, 1910 (I. of 1910), since the passing of the Act (in continuation of Cd. 5269, of Session 1910).]
Mr. SPEAKER: As soon as we receive a letter from the Department concerned stating that they agree to it. No such letter has been received.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Lisbon (Murder of Scottish Mill Foreman).
  Mr. STAVELEY-HILLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether William Macdonald, who was employed at a cotton factory of Messrs. Graham Brothers, near Lisbon, was recently killed by a Portuguese fellow-work man; whether this man has been brought to justice; and, if so, what sentence has been passed upon him, and upon what charge?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. Grey): I have this morning received a dispatch from His Majesty's Minister at Lisbon reporting that he has drawn the attention of the Portuguese authorities to the murder of a Scottish foreman in a mill near Lisbon, which is presumably the case referred to by the hon. Member. His Majesty's Minister received an assurance that proper justice will be done, and I am in communication with him with regard to the case.

  POST OFFICE.

    HOUSING POSTMEN (HINDHEAD).
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the postmen at Hindhead find great difficulty in obtaining houses; that one of them cannot get a house nearer than five miles away; that another was compelled to keep two homes going for ten weeks before he could obtain permanent accommodation, and then had to take two rooms a mile away from the office; whether he is aware that the rents payable by these men vary from 5s. to 8s. a week, and that the postmen at Hindhead are paid on the lowest provincial scale for postmen; and whether he will take steps to secure better housing for them, and will also place them on a higher scale of pay in consideration of the high cost of living at Hindhead?
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Hobhouse): I am informed that difficulty is experienced in obtaining houses at Hindhead of the kind usually occupied by postmen, but it is thought that the first man mentioned could have obtained suitable accommodation at a much less distance than five miles at some increased cost. With regard to the second part of the question, I believe the facts are as stated, but I understand the postman has been able to make very satisfactory arrangements. The question whether it is feasible to place the postmen attached to this office on a higher scale of pay will be considered in connection with the general question of classification of outdoor force arising out of the Holt Committee's recommendations.

  ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENTS, CLASS II.

    (ANNUAL LEAVE).
    Mr. GREENEasked the Postmaster General whether, seeing that third-class clerks are allowed one month's annual leave in addition to bank holidays, etc., he will favourably consider the suggestion of granting similar privileges to the assistant superintendents, Class II.?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: A month's annual leave is granted to male officers of supervising rank only if they are on a scale of pay rising above £300 a year. The maximum salary for assistant superintendents, Class II., does not reach this limit, and I do not see my way to extend the privilege in question to them.

    WAGES AND CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT (CONSTITUTION OF COMMITTEE).
    Mr. GREENEasked the Postmaster-General whether he can see his way to select a supervising officer to serve on the new Committee which is to consider the Holt Committee's Report, having regard to the fact that no representative of the manipulative staff has experience of the duties of the supervisory staff?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: The two representatives of the staff to serve on the Committee referred to have already been nominated, and more than one of the associations representing supervising classes has acquiesced in those nominations. I regret that I cannot agree to the appointment of an additional staff representative.
    Mr. GOULDING: Will the reference to the Committee which is to inquire into the question of the wages and conditions of emploment of Post Office servants include such issues as those raised in the recent two days' Debate on the Holt Report?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): Yes.
    Mr. EDGAR JONES: Is it a fact, as stated by the hon. Member for Worcester yesterday, that the Postmaster-General did make a promise that the House was to give its approval to the terms of reference before the Committee was set up?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I believe that is not the case.
    Mr. GOULDING: I have been in communication with the Prime Minister, and the statement which the Postmaster-General made was in regard to the promise of a larger inquiry in regard to Government employés generally.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: To put our minds at rest, may I ask have the terms of reference been drawn in such a way that the statements made by the Postmaster-General on the 10th of June and the 15th of June are included in those terms of reference?
    The PRIME MINISTERindicated assent.

    ADVERTISEMENT POSTMARKS.
    Mr. DU PREasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the Canadian postal authorities permit certain announcements of exhibitions and shows and charitable appeals to appear on
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    the postmark cancelling the letter stamp; whether they derive any revenue from this source; and, if so, whether he will authorise the use of such postmarks in this country?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: I have no official information on this subject, but I believe the answer to the hon. Member's first question to be in the affirmative. The second point I cannot answer. As to the third, I think the objections to such a system decidedly outweigh any advantages.

    TELEPHONE SERVICE.
    Mr. GOLDMANasked the Postmaster-General what questions were addressed to telephone subscribers in the course of his recent inquiry; how many forms were sent out and how many returned; upon what principle subscribers were selected for the inquiry; and will he lay the details of the replies upon the Table of the House?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: About the end of last year personal visits were made by the managers of telephone exchanges in London to a number of the principal subscribers in order to obtain expressions of opinion as to the service. It soon became apparent, however, that the general extension of this system would occupy a very long period, and it was therefore arranged that exchange superintendents should ring up subscribers to make inquiry. The number of subscribers thus rung up was about 133,500, which practically represents the whole body of subscribers in London. Replies were obtained from 128,100 subscribers, of whom about 112,000, or 87 per cent., expressed themselves as satisfied; about 10,200, or 8 per cent., gave indefinite answers; and about 5,900, or 4.6 per cent., expressed themselves as dissatisfied.
    Mr. GOLDMAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what guarantee he has got that the reply was given by responsible people and not by housemaids and messenger boys?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: I understand that housemaids are not usually employed in business offices.
    Mr. LEE: Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange to have me rung up by the superviser so that I can express my view?
    Sir G. PARKER: How many replies were received from Members of this House?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: I dare say I could find out, but I am afraid that I cannot say offhand the exact number.
    Mr. ALAN SYKES: Will the right hon. Gentleman have the same or a similar inquiry made in the provinces?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: I do not know that I should mind, but it would take a very long time. There are a large number of subscribers, some 400,000, from whom to collect information.
    Mr. ALAN SYKES: Is it not the fact that in the provinces the telephone has not been brought as much up to date as in London and that, therefore, it is giving an unduly unfavourable appearance to the whole telephone system?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: I cannot admit that for a moment.
    Captain MURRAY: Is not the telephone much better anywhere than it is in London?

    VACCINATION.
    Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the Postmaster-General whether the rule of his Department and of the Civil Service Commissioners that conscientious objection to vaccination shall be respected applies also to the telephone service; and, if so, why it is stated on the Regulations issued to candidates for situations as female telephonists in the London area that no exemption is allowed in respect of primary vaccination?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: The rule to which the hon. Member refers applies also to the telephone service and is included in the printed Regulations. Owing to a misunderstanding an obsolete copy of the Regulations has, I find, been issued in certain cases, but this has now been withdrawn.

    STAFF PAT (PENARTH).
    Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that officers of His Majesty's Customs and of the Board of Trade stationed in Penarth are given the same rates of pay as obtain in similar services in Cardiff; and whether he will favourably consider the inclusion of the Penarth Post Office within the Cardiff area and the granting to the staff at that office scales of pay equal to those obtaining in the Cardiff Post Office?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: This matter is already under consideration. Inquiries are being made, and I will communicate with the hon. Member when they have been completed.

    TELEPHONE SERVICE (CLOCK FACE).
    Viscount WOLMERasked the Post master-General whether an application has been received from Bold Parish Council, Lancashire, for the installation of a telephone call office in Clock Face, near St. Helens; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: No application from the Bold Parish Council has yet reached me, but I will have inquiry made in the matter.

  INDIA.

    MAIL CONTRACT.
    Mr. HICKS BEACHasked the Postmaster-General when the contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company for the carriage of the Indian mails expires?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: The contract is now terminable at any time by either party on twenty-four calendar months' notice. It has been arranged that such notice shall not be given before the 31st of January, 1915.
    Colonel YATE: Is it contemplated to have a mail to India twice weekly at the termination of the present contract?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That hardly arises out of the question.
    Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that no Member of the present Ministry is a director of this company?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That, too, does not arise out of the question.

    BOOKBINDING CONTRACT (FAIR-WAGES CLAUSE).
    Mr. GEORGE ROBERTSasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the firm of Macmillan and Company have a contract under the Director of Public Instruction, India; whether he has received a complaint that books supplied by the firm are bound by another firm, Messrs. Burn and Company, under conditions that do not apply with the Fair-Wages Clause; whether he is aware that Messrs. Burn and Company are not observing the working agreement prevailing in the trade and refuse to employ trade unionists; whether he will have inquiries made into the matter; and, in the event of Messrs. Burn and Company being subject to the Fair-Wages Clause, if he will take steps to have the Clause enforced?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. C. Roberts): The Secretary of State has ascertained that the books supplied by the firm of Macmillan and Company to the Director of Public Instruction, Bombay, are not bound by Messrs. Burn and Company. The books in question are printed and bound in India, with the exception of one book which is printed and bound in Edinburgh under fair-wages terms. In these circumstances the question of the conditions of employment in Messrs. Burn and Company's shops does not arise.

    Land Purchase (Ireland).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland the number of holdings on Captain Smyth's Coole estate, Westmeath, excluded from the sale, with their aggregate area, Poor Law valuation, and rent, and the rate this is per acre; how much this exceeds the average rent per acre on the estate; the amount the Estates Commissioners were willing to advance for the purchase of these holdings; whether the Commissioners attempted or suggested, or are willing to consider, an arrangement by insurance or otherwise that would enable these holdings to pass to the occupants like the rest of the estate; whether there is any non-residential land in the vicinity that could be attached to them to render them purchasable; whether the Commissioners, having rejected these tenants' purchase agreements, will take immediate steps to secure or recover for them the same rights of turbary they enjoyed before signing those agreements, and which are now denied them; and, relief of congestion being one of the objects of land purchase, if he will say what the Government propose to do for these tenants who, and whose landlord, want to sever their connection, but who, because of congestion, are said to be outside both the rent-fixing laws and the purchase laws?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): The number of holdings on this estate not included in the lands sold under the Irish Land Act, 1903, appears to be twenty-eight, in respect of seven of which purchase agreements were not entered into. Agreements in respect of the remaining twenty-one holdings, which consist of houses and plots in the village of Coole, were entered into between the vendor and the tenants, but the Estates Commissioners did not consider them security for the total amount
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    of the advances applied for, and as the parties did not come to an arrangement as to the balance to be paid in cash the purchase agreements were dismissed. The amount the Commissioners were prepared to advance in respect of these twenty-one holdings was £585. The aggregate area of the twenty-eight holdings is 58 acres, the rental £70 3s. 6d., equal to £1 4s. 2d. per acre. The Commissioners are not in a position to state the Poor Law valuation. The average rent per acre of the holdings on the estate is 14s. 3d. The advances applied for having been refused, the purchase agreements entered into are null and void, and the tenants revert to their former position as if the purchase agreements had not been entered into. The Commissioners do not propose to take any further action in these cases.
    Mr. DORISasked whether the Sale of the estate of Mr. D. G. FitzGerald, Turlough, county Mayo, to the Congested Districts Board has yet been completed, or the cause of the delay in completion of the sale?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Congested Districts Board inform me that the sale of this estate has not yet been completed; but it is believed that the difficulties which arose in completing the sale have now been removed, and that the agreement for purchase will be entered into at an early date.
    Mr. DORISasked whether kelp gatherers along the West Mayo coast have recently been requested to pay the usual royalties to the Marquess of Sligo for this year; and whether they are now liable for such charges, having regard to the estate purchase agreement between the Congested Districts Board and Lord Sligo?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Congested Districts Board inform me that the persons who have arranged to purchase the seaweed from Lord Sligo this year are liable for the payment to him of the usual charges.
    Mr. DORISasked whether the sale of the estate of the Marquess of Sligo to the Congested Districts Board has yet been completed or when, approximately, it will be completed; and what is the cause of the delay?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Congested Districts Board inform me that the difficulties which arose in connection with the proposal for the purchase of this estate have recently been disposed of, and the Board's offer has now been finally accepted.

    Old Age Pensions.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland the particulars of the means alleged by the pension officer to be possessed by Mrs. Anne Reilly, of Fermore Street, Westmeath, to whom the local sub-committee have granted an old age pension; and whether the Local Government Board will have the estimate revised by a competent person before adjudicating on the inspector's report?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board are unable to trace that any appeal has been received in this case.
    Mr. BARNESasked the Secretary for Scotland if the Local Government Board have sustained an appeal by the pension officer of Dairy, Ayrshire, against the granting of a pension to Mrs. Janet Fairns by the sub-committee at Barkip, Dairy; that Mr. Fairns has a daughter over fifty-three years of age; that there are many in the district who can testify to her being at least seventy years old; and if he will cause further inquiry to be made and so prevent injustice being done on mere technical grounds to this woman?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): The Local Government Board sustained the appeal in question on the documentary evidence of the Census Returns of 1851 and of the claimant's marriage certificate, both of which indicate that she has not yet attained the age of seventy. No information as to the age of her daughter was furnished to the Board. The decision of the Board on an appeal is final. Accordingly, if the claimant desires to bring forward any further evidence, her only course is to lodge a new claim.
    Mr. ALBERT SMITHasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can see his way to advise the pension officer at Colne, Lancashire, to supply the pension committee of the borough of Colne with the following information which has hitherto been supplied to them, and to which they attach importance, namely, the number of deaths of pensioners in the borough during the year ending 31st March last, and the number of removals of pensioners into and out of the borough, together with the number of pensions payable on the 31st March, 1914?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Montagu): There are no Regulations or statutory obli-
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    gations imposing on pension officers the considerable labour which would be entailed by compliance with requests from pension committees for the information asked for in the question, but my right hon. Friend is considering the matter.

    Evicted Tenants (Ireland).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he has received from genuine evicted tenants, provided for in the Land Conference Report but on technical grounds denied the benefit of the resulting legislation, a memorial praying for relief in the forthcoming Land Bill, and putting their claim in a non-contentious form; and whether he will accede to this request?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I have received various communications from persons claiming reinstatement as evicted tenants or representatives of evicted tenants. The Estates Commissioners consider that the evicted tenants who have already been reinstated or who have been provisionally noted for consideration in the allotment of untenanted land include all persons whose claims deserve consideration, and who are suitable to work land; and I do not think that any case has been made for the extension of the classes of persons for whom the Estates Commissioners may provide holdings under the Evicted Tenants Act, 1907, and the Land Purchase Acts.

    Mackerel Curing (Ireland).
    Mr. BOLANDasked whether the Congested Districts Board has circulated leaflets in the fishing centres containing the information about mackerel curing, set forth in their last annual Report, in accordance with the undertaking given to the hon. Member for South Kerry?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Congested Districts Board inform me that the leaflet has not yet been circulated. It is in course of preparation and will be circulated shortly.

    Peat Industry (Ireland).
    Mr. GINNELLasked whether the Return of Peat Bogs, of which notice appears on the Order Paper, will be granted; and, if there is any difficulty, with what modification would it be granted?
    Mr. BIRRELL: Any Return on the lines suggested would involve a great deal of labour and much expense, and would take

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    a long time to prepare. I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by the compilation of such a Return. The Department of Agriculture are always ready to afford all available information to any person or company interested in the question of peat deposits in Ireland.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland), whether he has made himself acquainted with the opinions of peat fuel experts in Russia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Canada that Irish peat is superior to theirs for the manufacture of fuel, seeing that this manufacture, nevertheless, pays in those countries; whether there is any reason known to the Department why it should not do so in Ireland; whether he will procure and make available in Ireland a statement of the process of pulping, whereby peat is, without pressure, rendered harder than oak; at whose instance and at what expense has the Department procured a Dutch instructor for the manufacture of peat litter; and whether the Department is prepared to procure a competent instructor in the manufacture of peat fuel, on being satisfied with a practical scheme for that purpose?
    Mr. T. W. RUSSELL (Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture, Ireland): The Department are not at present prepared to express an opinion as to whether or not a peat fuel industry could be successfully established in Ireland, the conditions there being very different from those of the countries referred to by the hon. Member. If the hon. Gentleman will supply further particulars as to the process of pulping to which he refers the Department will make inquiries about it. At the instance of two firms engaged in the manufacture of peat moss litter in Ireland, the Department made in each case a Grant of £50 towards the cost of obtaining the services of a Dutch peat, worker to give instructions to the people employed in these works. The Department are prepared to consider similar applications from other firms engaged in industries of this kind who desire technical instruction for their workers.
    Mr. GINNELL: Have the right hon. Gentleman or the Department seen specimens of this peat from Sweden?
    Mr. RUSSELL: Yes, Sir. We have had a great deal of experience of this peat industry, and the result has not been such as to tempt us to go any further.

  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.

    VOLUNTEER FORCES.
    Mr. LYNCHasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland the date of the starting of the Ulster Volunteer movement; the date of the starting of the National Volunteer movement; and the date of the Arms Proclamation?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Ulster Volunteer movement was started early in January, 1913, the Irish Volunteers on the 25th November, 1913. The date of the Proclamation against the importation of Arms was 4th December, 1913.
    Mr. LYNCH: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that these dates show an unfair discrimination against the Nationalist force?
    Mr. BIRRELL: No, I do not agree with that.
    Mr. LYNCHasked the Chief Secretary whether he has had his attention called to the fact that a great many public bodies in Ireland have protested against the Arms Proclamation; and whether he will advise the withdrawal of the Proclamation?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I have received a number of resolutions on this subject. As I have already stated the validity of the Proclamation prohibiting the importation of military arms and ammunition into-Ireland has been recently called into question in the Courts, and the matter is still sub judice.
    Earl WINTERTON: Does it make the slightest difference as regards getting arms into Ireland, whether there is a Proclamation or not?
    Mr. BIRRELL: Yes, it does.
    Mr. LYNCH: Does not the right hon. Gentleman regard it as inconsistent to maintain this Proclamation, and yet not to consider gun-running an infringement of the law?
    Mr. BIRRELL: We do consider gun-running an infringement of the law.
    Mr. LYNCH: What action does the right hon. Gentleman propose to take against it?
    Mr. BIRRELL: Action has been taken against the ships employed in gun-running.
    Mr. CROOKS: Have you captured any body?
    Mr. LYNCH: Has any action been taken against men employed in gun-running?
    Mr. NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to the field state of the Irish National Volunteer force, as published on 7th instant, giving as on the 3rd instant 891 drill centres and 153,500 men drilling, as against 630 drill centres and 114,900 members of the force drilling on the 10th ultimo; whether he has been able to verify the field-state figures given above; and will he say how the numbers returned compare with the latest information he has relative to the strength of the Ulster Volunteer Force?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I have seen the statement referred to. The latest information supplied to me by the police gives the total membership of the Irish National Volunteers and of the Ulster Volunteers as approximately 132,000 and 85,000 respectively.
    Mr. KILBRIDE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many soldiers and ex-soldiers belong to either of these forces?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I cannot give the exact figures, but there are a considerable number of Reservists in both forces, and I believe there are rather more in the National Volunteers than in the others.
    Mr. KILBRIDE: There are 38,000 ex-soldiers and Reservists belonging to the Irish Volunteers.
    Mr. BIRRELL: Then the hon. Member has the information.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: He wants to give it to you.
    Mr. KELLYasked the Chief Secretary on what grounds were two of the Irish National Volunteer Force arrested in Stranorlar on Monday last, hurried before a resident magistrate, and returned for trial without being allowed an opportunity of instructing a solicitor; and can he explain how the solicitor for the Ulster Volunteers was the only individual outside the authorities who had knowledge of the time and character of the proceedings?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I am informed that the two men referred to were returned for trial for affray and assault and that they were defended by a solicitor. No application for an adjournment was made to the magistrate who returned the parties for trial. I presume the solicitor
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    who appeared for the assaulted parties had been communicated with by them. The case is sub judice, and I am not prepared to make any further statement on the subject.
    Mr. KELLY: Can the right hon. Gentleman state why the adjournment was opposed by the Crown Solicitor in view of the fact that the resident magistrate who returned the accused for trial remarked that no riot had taken place, and that the whole case is very flimsy. And can the right hon. Gentleman also explain why a mere Petty Session outrage is magnified into a coercion trial?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I must have notice of that question.
    Mr. KILBRIDE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the sergeant who was prosecuting gave his name as Bonar, and that the Ulster Conservative party considered that an insult to the Conservative party in this House?

    Pacific Phosphate Company.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many persons in the Colonial Office service are connected financially or otherwise with the Pacific Phosphate Company or with any of its directors; and whether he will explain the absence of the usual ministerial signature or authentication from documents presumably issued by him to a Member of this House?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt): I am not aware that any Colonial Office official is connected financially or otherwise with the Pacific Phosphate Company or with any of its directors. I do not understand the second part of the hon. Member's question.
    Mr. GINNELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why communications apparently emanating from his office are not authenticated in any way whatever?
    Mr. HARCOURT: If the hon. Member will send me the communications to which he refers I will make inquiries.

    Somaliland.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary for the Colonies whether the Mullah, commonly called mad, of Somaliland, is advancing upon Burao; and whether he can give the House any information on this subject?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I have seen a statement in the Press to this effect, but I have not received any confirmation of it from the Commissioner of Somaliland.
    Mr. DILLON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether his attention has been called to a manufactory of false news which exists in Aden, and from which telegrams are constantly sent to this country with a view of provoking the Government of Somaliland?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I think the House and the public have been equally inconvenienced by inaccurate news received from that locality.
    Sir GILBERT PARKER: Will it be convenient for the right hon. Gentleman to say how many troops are now stationed at Burao?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I would rather not do that.

    Elementary Schools (Physical Instruction).
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education whether physical exercises are a compulsory part of the curriculum in public elementary schools; and whether he will cease to recognise any school which fails to provide for physical instruction in accordance with the code?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): Physical training is one of the subjects mentioned In Article 2 of the Code. That Article states, however, that it is not necessary that all the subjects mentioned shall be taught in every school or class. The importance which the Board attach to instruction in this subject is shown in the introduction to the Syllabus of Physical Exercises. In view of what is said there I think it would be very difficult to satisfy the Board that at any particular school physical training is not required by the needs of the scholars. I am not aware of Any school in which physical training is not now included in the curriculum, though its efficiency and adequacy vary considerably.
    Mr. KING: In view of the great importance of this subject to the health of these people, will this policy be pursued at all hazards by the Department?
    Mr. PEASE: As every school is now including physical exercises in its curriculum I do not think there is any
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    necessity for me to interfere with the discretion of the local education authorities. I am anxious that it should be as efficient as it can possibly be made.

    Voluntary Schools.
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education (1) whether 124 voluntary schools in London have been included in the Survey Report of the Board on unsatisfactory voluntary school premises; how many children are now in average attendance in these 124 schools; what steps are being taken to make sufficient satisfactory accommodation for these children; (2) whether the St. Michael's non-provided school, Paddington, has been condemned by the Board of Education both in regard to the playground, ventilation and heating, and that the general accommodation falls below the standard; whether the managers have been warned that this school cannot be recognised unless improvements are made; whether a date has been or will be fixed for the completion of the necessary work; (3) whether the St. Peter's Church of England school in St. George's, Hanover Square, has been condemned in respect of the playground, which is in the basement; whether the lighting, heating and ventilating arrangements have been scheduled for improvement; whether the managers have undertaken to bring the school up to the requirements of the Board; and (4) whether the premises of the St. Mark's, Hamilton Terrace, Mary-lebone, school, which are recognised for 483 children, have been condemned; that the boys have no playground but spend the recreation intervals in a narrow passage; in what year were the managers first informed that their buildings required improvement; and what action is being taken to ensure improvement within a reasonable time?
    Mr. PEASE: I am, of course, aware of the number of schools mentioned in the schedules and appendix of our letter to the London County Council. The total average attendance in these schools for the statistical year ended 31st July, 1913, was 47,654. I can say generally that whilst the matters referred to are the subject of correspondence between the authority, the managers, and the Board, I am not in a position to say what action may be taken in each case to secure improvement.
    Mr. KING: Does the right lion. Gentleman realise that he is the trustee for the health and good education of these 47,000 children; and will he use these new Grants as a lever for putting these schools in order at once?
    Mr. PEASE: I have not got them yet. When I have them, I shall put such pressure on the authorities as seems to me prudent.
    Mr. HOARE: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that any useful purpose is served by the hon. Member for North Somerset (Mr. King) asking these detailed questions on subjects which are now—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman is not responsible for the questions.

    Board of Education (Sick Leave).
    Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the President of the Board of Education the name and rank of each officer of the Board who has, during the last ten years, had more than one month's continuous sick leave in any one year, specifying in each case the total period of absence, the nature of the illness, whether the officer eventually returned to duty, resigned, or was called upon to resign, and on what terms the resignation took effect?
    Mr. PEASE: I do not think it is desirable that I should, without the consent of the officers concerned, publish either the length or nature of their illnesses, or give the names of those who have resigned or been retired on grounds of ill-health, and I do not think that cause can be shown to justify the labour involved in going through the records of sick leave of over 1,800 past and present officers of the Board for ten years. I would, however, if desired, be prepared to give the number of officers who have resigned or been retired on grounds of ill-health, and the periods of sick leave preceding retirement or resignation in those cases.

    Ocean Island.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been directed to the value of guano phosphate deposits in Ocean Island, Western Pacific, estimated at £80,000,000 in situ, the use of which for a short term was obtained by a British company from the inexperienced natives for a trifle; whether he is aware that the Colonial Office, without the concurrence of the native owners, so extended
    1220
    the term in favour of ex-Colonial officials as to make it in effect permanent alienation, in consequence of which the necessary revenues for administration are drawn mainly from the food of the natives; whether he is aware that foodstuffs to satisfy this food tax have been seized and exported from the island while some natives were dying of starvation and others forced to surrender their lands and enter forced labour for Government or company; and, if an independent public inquiry into these matters be instituted, whether he will give to natives, and to missionaries and other Europeans giving; evidence, a guarantee of indemnity and a right to reside unmolested on the island afterwards?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I am informed that none of the facts are as stated in the first part of the hon. Member's question. I see no reason for instituting an inquiry into the matter.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    CONTRIBUTION CARDS.
    Mr. MURRAY MACDONALDasked the hon. Member for St. George's-in-the-East, as representing the Insurance Commissioners, whether the insurance cards for the second half of the year have not yet been fully issued to the approved societies; and, if not, what is the cause of the delay?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN (Lord of the Treasury): My right hon. Friend is informed that the distribution of the contribution cards for the second half of the year has already been completed, and that any supplementary demands for cards are being immediately dealt with.
    Mr. HUNTasked, in view of the late decision of the Scottish High Court, what is the difference in the position of employers in Scotland as to their liability to stamp the cards of their employés and the employers in the rest of the United Kingdom?
    Mr. BENN: There is no difference between the position of employers in Scotland and in the rest of the United Kingdom in regard to their liability under the National Insurance Acts.
    Mr. HUNT: I thought that there was a decision that employers in Scotland had not the same liability?
    Mr. BENN: There is no difference. The position of employers in both countries is the same.

    MEDICAL PANEL (TRANSFER).
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the hon. Member for St. George's-in-the-East, as representing the Insurance Commissioners, whether the hon. Member for Devonport has not yet been furnished with any statement by the London Insurance Committee as to why that body found it necessary to go over the case of Miss Deborah Hart a second time after a letter had been written by the Chief Insurance Commissioner on the 3rd June to the hon. Member for Devonport, stating that the formalities of transferring the insured person with the requisite consents, from the list of the one doctor to the other, had been completed, and that the case was finally and satisfactorily disposed of; and will he explain how, if the facts were as stated by the Chief Commissioner of the Insurance Committee on the 3rd June, the London Insurance Committee should write to him on the 26th June stating that the transfer of the insured person had only that day been completed?
    Mr. BENN: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply of the 1st July. As stated therein the person concerned has at no time during the period in question been deprived of the services of a doctor.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will the hon. Gentleman kindly answer the question I have asked?
    Mr. BENN: I think I have dealt with the points raised in the hon. Member's question.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his answer has no foundation either in substance or in fact?
    Mr. BENN: The answer is accurate in every particular.

    SICKNESS BENEFIT.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the hon. Member for St. George's-in-the-East, as representing the Insurance Commissioners, whether he is aware that George Mulles, of 27, Cyril Avenue, Nottingham, who was under care of his own medical attendant, suffering from bronchitis and empydema, and is a member of the National Amalgamated Approved Society, was examined on 3rd July by that society's medical referee and found not fit to work for a month; that the sick visitor nevertheless reported him fit for work and his sick pay was stopped; whether the opinion of the medical man should prevail over that of the
    1222
    sick visitor; whether this is typical of numerous other cases: and what steps the Government propose to take in, pursuance of its policy of compulsory insurance and supersession of voluntary agency?
    Mr. BENN: The Commissioners have communicated with the approved society, who state that after consideration of the referee's report they authorised payment of benefit on 7th July. The remainder of the question does not, therefore, arise.

    ADMINISTRATION OF ACT (REPORT 1913–14).
    Mr. NEWMANasked the hon. Member for St. George's-in-the-East, as representing the Insurance Commissioners, whether, in view of the fact that the Report of the administration of National Health Insurance for 1913–14 is a volume of 582 pages, costing the public 2s. 5d. to purchase, he will issue a handier, less costly, and more popularly edited edition which, while more generally available to the public, will bring out the statements made by the National Health Commissioners with regard to the sickness claims on approved societies that have been made during the year in question, and will emphasise the fact that the payment of sickness and certain other benefits is not guaranteed by the State, but is under the Act dependent on the solvency of the approved society?
    Mr. BENN: My right hon. Friend will consider whether there is any sufficient demand to justify issuing the Report in sections.

    WALESWOOD COLLIERIES, SHEFFIELD.
    Major BOWDENasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the proprietors of the Waleswood Collieries, near Sheffield, have been compelled by the Insurance Commmissioners to pay arrears of contributions under Part II. of the National Insurance Act in respect to surface workmen and engineering staff at the Waleswood Colliery; if so, were such contributions not paid at the time they became payable by reason of the staff having at that time been incorrectly informed by the Insurance Commissioners that they were not insurable under Part II. of the National Insurance Act; if not; why were such contributions not paid at the time they became payable; and are the proprietors of the colliery now entitled to deduct from current and future wages of the

    1223
    men any and, if so, what sums in respect of such arrears which the proprietors have been compelled to pay?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Burns): The employers in this case have been required to pay arrears of contributions in accordance with the Umpire's decisions. So far as I am aware, the question whether these contributions were payable was not previously raised, either by the employer or by the workmen, and no statement that the contributions were not payable was made by or on behalf of the Board of Trade. As regards the last part of the question, so far as I am aware, an employer on paying up arrears of contributions is entitled to recover the workman's share thereof by deductions in reasonable instalments from the workman's wages. I should mention that this right of recovery will be considerably limited by the amending Bill now before Parliament.
    Major BOWDEN: If that is so, does the right hon. Gentleman realise that these men may be relieved from this pressure under the amending Bill, and can he take any steps to relieve the men at present from having to pay 39s. 2d.?
    Mr. BURNS: I have my doubts as to whether I have power, but I will look into it.

    Kilmuir Estates (Skye).
    Sir SAMUEL SCOTTasked the Secretary for Scotland what is the amount of arrears of rent upon the Kilmuir estates in the Island of Skye, and what is the annual rental?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The arrears of rent upon the Kilmuir estate as at 31st March, 1914, amounted to £3,765, and the rental for the year ending on that date was £4,031.

    Mercantile Marine (Sight Test).
    Mr. LYNCHasked the Home Secretary how many of those rejected for colour blindness, as indicated in the last Report, failed with the lantern but passed the wool test, and vice versa; and whether he will consider the advisability of giving this information in the Reports in future?
    Mr. BURNS: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question, which, I assume, refers to the sight tests used in the mercantile marine. One hun-
    1224
    dred and thirty-eight candidates passed the wool test and failed in the lantern test. Of these, twenty-four subsequently passed on appeal, and thus 114 finally failed. One hundred and one candidates passed the wool test, and in the lantern test were "referred" for further examination. At the latter examination seventy-six passed and twenty-five failed. No candidates failed in the wool test and passed in the lantern test. Three candidates were "referred" in the wool test and passed the lantern test, all three subsequently passing a special examination. The number of candidates who pass, fail, or are "referred" in the lantern and wool tests, respectively, will be given in the next Return as suggested.
    NOTE.—"Referred" means that the candidate was not definitely passed or rejected, but was referred to London for a special examination.
    Mr. LYNCH: Will the right hon. Gentleman bring his scientific spirit to bear on this question so that the wool test may be altogether eliminated?
    Mr. BURNS: The hon. Gentleman is rather belated in his suggestion. The old form of wool test has been abandoned. I had the pleasure of taking the objectors to, and critics of, the wool test, and the critics of the lantern test down to Shoe-buryness, and, after a pleasant night on the marshes, the objectors Were silenced and the critics satisfied.

    Metropolitan Police.
    Mr. WILESasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can now state the revised scale of pay for the Metropolitan Police, and when it will come into effect?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): I am not yet in a position to make any final statement either as to the new scale or as to the date when it can be brought into effect. In order to enable me to make the necessary provision for the increased cost, I must lay on the Paper of the House the Minute required by Section 1 (6) of the Metropolitan Police Act, 1912, and before doing so I will make a full statement of what I propose.
    Mr. WILES: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the approximate date when he will be able to give this increase?
    Mr. McKENNA: I am sorry I cannot. There is a great deal of matter in the question.
    Mr. GLANVILLEasked the Home Secretary whether, having regard to the practice in most callings to pay extra money for Sunday work, he will arrange for a sufficient staff of relief men to act on Sundays as shall enable each constable doing Sunday day-work duty to have a half-hour interval to enable him to get a square meal on that day, such interval to be between the hours of his Sunday labour, thus reducing his labour on that day to seven and a half hours net?
    Mr. McKENNA: It has always been the aim of the Metropolitan Police authorities to reduce the number of men on Sunday duty to the minimum. The suggestion of my hon. Friend would add considerably to the number of police employed on Sunday, and would on that account be unpopular, I believe, with the majority of the men.
    Earl WINTERTON: Is it not a fact that, in view of the additional police protection required for high personages, Ministers, and also meetings in the parks, the hours of Sunday duty have considerably increased recently?
    Mr. McKENNA: I am not aware of that. I will inquire.
    Earl WINTERTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire whether the total amount of duty done by each individual constable during the present summer is not very much greater than it was three years ago?
    Mr. McKENNA: That is the exact point on which I will make inquiry.

    Autumn Session.
    Lord ROBERT CECILasked whether the Government contemplate proposing that this House shall sit in the autumn?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I will make a definite statement on this subject on Monday next.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Why has it been impossible, in accordance with anticipation, to make a statement this week?
    The PRIME MINISTER: It is a very complicated matter.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Does the difficulty arise from a difference of opinion in the Cabinet?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, not at all.
    Mr. NEWMANasked whether, in the event of the Government deciding to
    1226
    summon Parliament for an Autumn Session, it will be competent for the Government and will be their intention to postpone, under the terms of the Parliament Act, the placing on the Statute Book of both the Established Church (Wales) Bill and the Government of Ireland Bill, or either, to the limit of time prescribed by Clause 2 of the said Act?
    The PRIME MINISTER: This is a hypothetical question which I am not prepared to answer.

    National Food Supplies.
    Mr. HUNTasked how many weeks' supply of wheat and wheat flour can be depended on to be in the country during the months of May, June and July in the case of sudden war; and whether the Admiralty can guarantee that sufficient wheat and wheat flour could be imported to prevent bread rising to a price at which the poor would be unable to buy it?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The question of the food supply of this country in times of emergency is kept under continuous observation by the Government. I do not think that it would be in the public interest that the information asked for by the hon. Member in the first part of his question should be given.
    Mr. HUNT: Are we to understand that the right hon. Gentleman cannot give us a definite assurance that the country will be safe from starvation in time of war and is calmly leaving the country exposed to this disaster at any time.
    The PRIME MINISTER: The matter is kept under continuous observation, and every possible precaution is taken.
    Mr. HUNT: But the right hon. Gentleman can give no assurance?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I can give the assurance that everything which can humanly be done is being done.
    Mr. STANIER: Could not some figures be collected by the Board of Agriculture when they publish their Return of stock on 4th June in any year?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Perhaps the hon. Member will give me notice.

    Navy Estimates.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the Prime Minister whether the general discussion on the Navy, for which he has promised to give a whole day, will in any

    1227
    way interfere with the general practice of setting apart a whole day for the discussion of Vote 8 of the Naval Estimates?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir; two separate days will be given.

    Committee of Imperial Defence (Report).
    Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked the Prime Minister when he intends to issue the Report of the Committee of Defence?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I would refer the Noble Lord to the reply which I gave on this subject to the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight on 11th June last.

    Board of Agriculture.
    Mr. MILDMAYasked the Prime Minister whether he will give another opportunity for discussion of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries Vote, in view especially of the fact that discussion was so curtailed when the Vote was last discussed that no opportunity was afforded for discussion of fishery matters?
    The PRIME MINISTER: This is a matter for arrangement through the usual channels.

    Old Age Pensions Act and National Insurance Act (Administration).
    Mr. HICKS BEACHasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the expressed opinions from both sides of the House that the administration of the Old Age Pensions Act and the National Insurance Act should be transferred to another Department of State, he will transfer the expenditure under these Acts to the Local Government Board, and take steps to ensure the Treasury resuming its normal function of control over national expenditure?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. Member's suggestion will be borne in mind.

  BRITISH ARMY.

    TERRITORIAL FORCE (REGULATIONS).
    Major BOWDENasked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that paragraphs 109 and 515 of the Territorial Force Regulations, directing that service on the unattached list, Class A, and published on 12th June, 1912, are retrospective in effect, and that officers who joined the unattached list after the date of 31st March, 1911, and before the
    1228
    date of 12th June, 1912, were acting on the Regulation then in existence, and that officers went on the unattached list who would not have done so could they have foreseen that a Regulation might have been published retrospective in effect and which prevented their service on that list counting for the Territorial decoration as in the past; and will he consider the desirability of removing this grievance from officers who left the active list for the unattached list between the above dates?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY Of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant): The regulation referred to as having been published on the 12th June, 1912, was in fact published on 20th March, 1911, and came into force on 1st April, 1911. The hon. and gallant Member's question is therefore based upon a misapprehension.
    Major BOWDENasked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that many Territorial commanding officers are bound, on completion of their term of command, either to retire or go on the Territorial Force Reserve before having had an opportunity of completing their twenty years' service on the active list, and that no officer is placed on the unattached list or can be appointed to the Territorial Force Reserve unless certified as being efficient and fully qualified for his substantive rank, and that under such service officers are subject to military law and liable for active service in the same degree as officers on the Territorial Force active list; and will he consider the desirability of amending the regulations so as to enable such officers to count service on the unattached list and the Territorial Force Reserve as qualifying service for the Territorial Force decoration?
    Mr. TENNANT: If the hon. and gallant Member has any particular case of hardship in mind, perhaps he will furnish me with the particulars and I will look into them. It would, however, be unfair to officers on the active list that service on the unattached list or in the Territorial Reserve, which involves no duty, should count upon the same footing. Moreover, I am not aware that cases frequently arise of officers reaching the end of the eight years' tenure contemplated by the Regulations without having completed twenty years' service.
    Major BOWDEN: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this is indeed a grievance, and it will go a long way to

    1229
    make the force more popular than it is to-day if that could be done and officers could have the Territorial decoration for that service?
    Mr. TENNANT: I will bear the suggestion in mind.

    SHORTAGE.
    Mr. HUNTasked what was the total shortage in the Regular Army on the 1st of June last; what was the shortage amongst the Regular British troops stationed in India on the 1st June last; what was the shortage in the Regular Army stationed at Home on the same date; and how much of this shortage occurred in the infantry of the line?
    Mr. TENNANT: In answer to the first three parts of the question the figures are respectively as follows:—
    11,084, 675, and 10,425.
    Of these total deficiencies the shortage in the Infantry of the Line was in each case respectively:—
    8,743, 117, and 8,564.

    REGIMENTAL STRENGTH.
    Mr. BENNETT-GOLDNEYasked the Secretary of State for War (1) if he can now give the numbers for June of officers and of non-commissioned officers and men in the Regular Army, the Special Reserve, and the Territorial Force, respectively; and (2) how many officers, non-commissioned officers, and men, respectively, there are now fewer than the establishments in the different branches of the Regular Army, the Special Reserve, and the Territorial Force?
    Mr. TENNANT: The regimental strengths of the Regular Army and Special Reserve in officers on 1st June were, respectively, 10,439 and 2,512, and in non-commissioned officers and men, 222,873 and 62,559 respectively. I stated the deficiencies in reply to the hon. and gallant Member for the Bodmin Division on the 23rd ultimo. Figures later than for the 1st June are not yet available. The strength of the Territorial Force in officers on the 1st April was 9,465, and the deficiency 1,768; the strength of non-commissioned officers and men on the same date was 251,838, and the deficiency 49,329. The 1st July figures for the Territorial Force will not be ready for some days.

    BULFORD CAMP (HOUSE RENT).
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that, whereas most of the soldiers stationed at Bulford Camp who are married on the strength have houses in the immediate neighbourhood at a rent of from 1s. 6d. to 2s. per week, many of those married off the strength are compelled to pay out of their Army pay as much as 6s. 6d. a week for one roughly-furnished room, and in some cases more, and that many of the wives of such men have consequently insufficient money to provide food for themselves and their children and are tempted to increase its amount by incorrect habits of life; and whether the Government will take steps to provide accommodation for their less fortunate employés in this isolated locality and so put a stop to what is a deterrent to enlistment in His Majesty's Army?
    Mr. TENNANT: I was not aware that houseletters drew any distinction between soldiers married off the strength and those married on the strength. The inadequacy of the available housing accommodation is, however, recognised to be serious, and the Army Council, in addition to providing further married quarters at the cost of Army funds, are also anxious to encourage the construction of additional houses by private enterprise.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in this particular district the housing of Government employés is nothing short of a national scandal, and do the Government propose to take any definite and early steps to remedy the unfortunate state of affairs which exist there?
    Mr. TENNANT: I have already acknowledged that the Army Council admit that this is a serious matter, and are taking the most active steps they possibly can.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: What are the steps?
    Mr. TENNANT: I will tell the hon. Member later.

    Railway Servants (Earnings).
    Mr. ROWNTREEasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) the number of adult men working on railways in the United Kingdom who are paid less than 24s. a week; if such information is not in his possession, whether he will communicate with all the railways in question

    1231
    with a view to ascertaining what are the numbers of adult men in regular employment receiving a less sum than 24s. a week at the present time; and (2) the latest official information with regard to the wages and hours of railway servants either in Great Britain or the United Kingdom; and whether, in the event of the information now in his possession proving to be unreliable as regards present day wages and hours, he will grant a Return which will give full and up to date particulars of the wages and hours of all grades of labour, specifying in each case the minimum wage paid on the several railways?
    Mr. BURNS: I regret I am unable to give the information asked for in my hon. Friend's first question, nor do I think a return on this basis would be useful in view of the great varieties of conditions, localities and other circumstances. The latest detailed return showing the rates of wages and actual earnings of railway servants relates to 1907. It is not practicable to repeat such elaborate inquiries at frequent intervals, but figures are given in the Annual Report on Changes in Rates of Wages showing the average weekly earnings of about 90 per cent. of the total number employed. According to these returns the average rise between December, 1907, and December, 1913, was a little over 2s. per week or 8 per cent.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are many skilled labourers employed in the Royal dockyards receiving 23s. a week?
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Have the bulk of the increases been in the lower paid grades of workmen?
    Mr. BURNS: I cannot answer definitely, but I will supply the hon. Member with the information.

    Steamship "County of Devon."
    Major ARCHER-SHEEasked whether the Board of Trade have yet come to any decision as to proceeding against the managing owner or owners of the steamship "County of Devon"?
    Mr. BURNS: I am obtaining the opinion of counsel on the question of instituting proceedings in this case.

    Deck-Loads.
    Major ARCHER-SHEEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can furnish a record of cases which have
    1232
    been reported to the Board of Trade of structural or other damage due to the carriage of deck-loads of all descriptions from ports in the United Kingdom during the last twelve months?
    Mr. BURNS: A statement giving the information desired by the hon. and gallant Member, so far as it is available, will be prepared and forwarded to him, but the preparation of the statement involves considerable labour, and will take some time.
    Mr. JOWETT: Will the right hon. Gentleman give other Members of the House copies of the same information?
    Mr. BURNS: That information is accessible to all inquirers.

    Trade Dispute, Trusham, Devon.
    Captain MORRISON-BELLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is the policy of the Chief Industrial Commissioner's Department to make inquiries in a trade dispute before being asked to intervene by both sides; whether he will explain why the Department, with a view to obtaining information as regards the existing dispute at Trusham, in the county of Devon, entirely ignored the chief company affected; and whether, with the view of retaining the confidence of the employers in the impartiality of the Department, he will see that such intervention in industrial disputes is not repeated?
    Mr. BURNS: The Chief Industrial Commissioner's Department exercise, when they think it expedient, the powers conferred on the Board of Trade by Section 2 (1) of the Conciliation Act of 1896, and I see no reason for limiting the discretion conferred by these statutory powers. With regard to the second part of the question, the Department were unaware until the inquiry had been made that the company to which the question presumably refers was the chief company affected by the dispute.
    Captain MORRISON-BELL: Where does the Industrial Commissioner get his information from?
    Mr. BURNS: As a rule they are very careful and accurate in their investigations. In this particular case, the smaller firm was appealed to first, and immediately inquiries were prosecuted and the larger firm was communicated with.
    Captain MORRISON-BELLasked a question which was not heard in the Reporters' Gallery.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the company mentioned in this question have offered their men one farthing per hour on condition that they will sign this agreement terminating in November?
    Mr. BURNS: No, I am not aware of that.

  FINANCE BILL.

    INCOME TAX.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that charges are sometimes made by solicitors and others for issuing certificates of deduction of Income Tax; whether the Treasury propose to repay the cost of certificates where the same are necessary to prove a person's title to repayment of the excess tax; and whether the Government intend to put down an Amendment to the Finance Bill to provide for this?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I am aware that charges are sometimes made by solicitors and others for issuing certificates required in connection with claims from the revenue for repayment of Income Tax on the ground of exemption or abatement, but in the cases contemplated in the question the adjustment of any tax deducted in excess of the rate ultimately sanctioned is one for arrangement between the parties, and I do not see that any certificate is necessary to ensure that adjustment.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether any expense incurred by the taxpayers owing to the mistake made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be made good?
    Mr. MONTAGU: That is a very general question and I would require notice of it. Every kind of arrangement which can be made will be made to facilitate repayment of the Income Tax deductions necessitated by the change in the rate.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSONasked what is the total amount of the Income Tax repayments and the number of claims made under Section 69 of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, to date in respect of additional allowance for maintenance, etc., of property?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The total amount of Income Tax repaid under Section 69 of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, up to 30th June, 1914, is £210,727. The total number of claims is 7,208, some of which cover more than one year.
    Mr. MOUNT: Can the hon. Gentleman say how much has been repaid in the last year?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I cannot say without notice. These are the only figures which I have brought down.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer from whom will the mortgagee claim the excess tax when a mortgagor in paying interest has deducted Income Tax at 1s. 4d. in the £ and the mortgage is now repaid so that the mortgagee cannot adjust the tax on a future payment?
    Mr. MONTAGU: Any deduction in excess of the rate of tax ultimately sanctioned will fall to be repaid or made good by the mortgagor.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has made any estimate of the profit which will accrue to the Treasury owing to many persons not reclaiming the excess between 1s. 3d. and 1s. 4d. Income Tax owing to the trouble and expense involved in many cases in such reclaim?
    Mr. MONTAGU: In view of the facilities for adjustment contemplated in the recently issued circular letter of the Board of Inland Revenue, it does not appear the Exchequer will receive any appreciable amount of tax beyond that properly leviable.
    Sir ARCHIBALD WILLIAMSONasked the Prime Minister if it is the intention of the Government to appoint a Committee to investigate the condition and effect of the Income Tax laws, including their effect upon British trade and industry outside the United Kingdom as well as within it; and whether, on such Committee, he will appoint representatives of the merchants and bankers engaged in overseas commerce and finance?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I can at present add nothing to what I said yesterday on this subject.
    Sir A. WILLIAMSON: Can we hope that the Committee will report in time for action to be taken on the next Budget?
    Mr. HARRY LAWSON: Will the terms of reference cover the practice and principles of making allowances for depreciation in buildings and machinery?
    The PRIME MINISTER: That will certainly fall within their scope.

    ADDITIONAL TAXATION (IRELAND).
    Mr. MAURICE HEALYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the estimated amount of the additional taxation which will become payable by Ireland under the Finance Bill, as now proposed to be amended, for the year 1914–15, and the amount of the additional Grants proposed to be made to Ireland during that year?
    May I be permitted to say that I put down this as an unstarred question on Tuesday week, and that I was not honoured with a reply?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I am circulating a statement with the Votes. My right hon. Friend regrets that there has been delay in supplying the hon. Member with this information.—[See Written Answers this date.]
    Mr. MAURICE HEALY: May 1 point out to the hon. Gentleman that the Finance Bill has now reached the Committee stage? Surely at this stage the Irish Members are entitled to know how the latest proposals affect their country!
    Mr. MONTAGU: The hon. Member will get the information to-day. I will give him an advance copy of the answer immediately after questions.

    ACT (DATE or PASSING).
    Mr. CASSELasked whether the Law Officers of the Crown were consulted as to whether the Finance Bill should be passed into law by the 5th September and not the 5th August?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I would refer the hon. and learned Member to the statement which my right hon. Friend made yesterday on the subject.
    Mr. CASSEL: Is that an answer in the negative or in the affirmative?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I have nothing to add to the statement made yesterday.
    Mr. CASSEL: Is the hon. Member aware that the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman is no sort of an answer?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I have just read it, and I think that it is a very full answer.
    Mr. JAMES HOPE: Under whose advice was it that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said formerly that 5th September was the date?
    Mr. MONTAGU: All the circumstances were explainted in Debate yesterday.

    Public Works Loan Commissioners.
    Mr. LANE-FOXasked when the recent Report of the Public Works Loan Commissioners will be available to Members of this House, in view of the fact that the last Report is out of print?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I am informed that copies of the Report for 1912–13 are still available, and can be obtained from the Stationery Office. The Report for 1913–14, which was presented to Parliament on the 26th ult., is now in the hands of the printers, and I hope that it will be available in August.

    Housing.
    Mr. LANE-FOXasked the President of the Local Government Board whether any particular Department or particular official of the Board is employed mainly or entirely in dealing with the housing question?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Herbert Samuel): There is a special Department of the Local Government Board which deals exclusively with housing and town-planning questions. The Department consists of twenty-three officials, in addition to a staff of eight inspectors, whose time is wholly devoted to this work. The services of the Board's technical officers in the medical, engineering, and architectural staffs are also partly given to housing questions.
    Mr. LANE-FOXasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware of the cases in which district councils in rural districts are having to make provision for new cottages to take the place of those condemned under the Housing Act; and whether the Government intend to propose any Grants in aid of such building schemes?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am aware that in some of the cases in which rural district councils have provided or are providing houses under Part III. of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, the houses are required in consequence of others being closed and demolished under Part II. of that Act. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.
    Mr. LANE-FOX: Is there any prospect of these local authorities getting any assistance under the terms of the provisions of the Bill introduced yesterday?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The local authorities have full power to borrow money now.
    Mr. LANE-FOX: Yes, Sir, but will no further advances be given to them under the proposed housing scheme of the Government?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend yesterday does not deal with housing by local authorities but by the Government. The local authorities will, of course, get largely increased subventions under the Public Health and General Purposes Grant proposed in this year's Finance Bill.
    Mr. LANE-FOX: Is it the intention of the Government to build in those districts where there is a shortage?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Certainly, in those districts where there is a shortage.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    SICK-BERTH STAFF (LEAVE).
    Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that the sick-berth staff employed on His Majesty's ship "Powerful" are placed at a disadvantage in comparison with similar staffs on other ships with regard to leave; that there appears to be some misapprehension as to the regulations governing the wearing of plain clothes when on shore by the sick-berth staff on His Majesty's ship "Powerful"; and will he cause inquiries to be made into these matters?
    Mr. LAMBERT (Civil Lord of the Admiralty): Inquiry shall be made, but no report had been received on this subject. The Regulations provide for the procedure to be adopted should any petty officer or man consider that he has been unjustly treated.

    SEAMEN'S KIT.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked when he expects to be in a position to make an allowance to seamen in the Royal Navy for the maintenance of their kit; and what will be the extra cost of maintaining the seamen's kit?
    Mr. LAMBERT: If the hon. Gentleman will refer to what was said by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary in Debate on the 25th June, 1913, he will see that the cost was estimated at £370,000 a year. It is not intended to make this allowance.

    ROSYTH DOCKS.
    Mr. RUPERT GWYNNEasked what wages are being paid to the British captains and crews and the Dutch captains and crews, respectively, at present engaged in carrying out the dredging at Rosyth?
    Mr. LAMBERT: I shall be pleased to show the hon. Member the particulars privately.
    Mr. RUPERT GWYNNEasked the reason of employing Dutch instead of British captains and crews for dredging at Rosyth docks; and whether this policy was adopted for reasons of economy or efficiency?
    Mr. LAMBERT: Permission to employ Dutch plant was only given after very exhaustive inquiries had proved that there was no alternative by which the work could be carried out so satisfactorily and economically having regard both to cost and time of completion.
    Mr. JOHN WARD: Has the hon. Gentleman's Department taken any notice of the fact that it is undesirable to employ foreign firms on works of this description, especially in view of the precautions they take to keep Englishmen from looking at the job?
    Mr. LAMBERT: My reply covered that. Permission was only given after very exhaustive inquiries. It was found that we had to employ this firm unless the works were to be seriously delayed. We made full inquiries.
    Mr. ROWLAND HUNT: Do we understand from the reply that the Government gives a preference to foreign companies?
    Mr. LAMBERT: No, Sir.
    Mr. WARD: Would the hon. Gentleman state what firms he made inquiries about, and also whether we are to take his reply as meaning that there are no dredging firms in this country capable of doing the work?
    Mr. LAMBERT: We made very exhaustive inquiries at the time, and I can assure my hon. Friend that it was proved that great delay would take place unless this procedure was adopted.

    Milk and Dairies (Scotland) Bill.
    Major HOPEasked the Lord Advocate whether, under Clause 3 of the Milk and Dairies (Scotland) Bill, as

    1239
    amended in the Standing Committee, it will be competent for a local authority to retain the services of two or more veterinary inspectors, each carrying out their duties in different areas?
    The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Munro): The effect of the Clause in so far as it relates to the matter referred to by the hon. and gallant Member is not entirely free from doubt, but the point can conveniently be dealt with on the Report stage of the Bill.
    Major HOPE: Can the right hon. Gentleman not say whether the local authorities will be able to retain the services of two or more?
    Mr. MUNRO: The matter is not free from doubt, but as I have said, the matter can be dealt with on the Report stage.
    Major HOPE: Will the Government bring forward an Amendment?

    Imperial Conference.
    Mr. DOUGLAS HALLasked the Prime Minister whether an Imperial Conference of the representatives of the self-governing Colonies will be held in London in May next; and, if so, whether he will afford the House an opportunity of discussing the subjects which shall be considered at that Conference before the agenda is finally settled?
    The PRIME MINISTER: According to the constitution of the Imperial Conference a meeting should be held next year, being four years from the last Conference. No doubt opportunities will arise for considering any suggestions which may be made.
    Sir GILBERT PARKER: To whom should questions be addressed concerning the agenda?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I must have notice of that.

    Derbyshire Miners (Arrest).
    Major BOWDEN: In the absence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I would ask the hon. Member has he received information that four Derbyshire miners were taken to Derby Gaol for the non-payment of claims for Income Tax? Is he aware that these men, probably owing to the fact that they did not understand the complicated forms which have to be filled in were assessed as stallholders and con-
    1240
    tractors at the full amount paid them by the proprietors of the collieries, no allowance being made by the Commissioners for wages paid to assistants and other expenses connected with their work? Will he have full inquiry made into the matter without delay? Meanwhile, will he cause such action to be taken that the men may be released from prison, if that has not been already done, and relieved of those unfair claims?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The hon. Member's notice only reached me as I came into the House. I telephoned to the Inland Revenue at once. They knew nothing of the matter at the moment. Inquiries are being made, and I will communicate with the hon. Member later in the day.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. BONAR LAW: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what business he proposes to take next week?
The PRIME MINISTER: On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the Committee stage of the Finance Bill.
As to Friday, I will make a statement.

EAST INDIA (PRESS ACT, 1910).
Address for "Return of Statements Showing the action taken by local Governments and Administrations under certain Sections of the Indian Press Act, 1910 (I of 1910), since the passing of the Act (in continuation of Cd. 5269, of Session 1910)."—[Mr. Morrell.]

EXPORTATION OF HORSES BILL.
Reported, with Amendments [Title amended], from Standing Committee A.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 345.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 345.]
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 317.]

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
Sir Daniel Goddard reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee C (in respect of the Merchant Shipping (Convention) Bill): Mr. Ellis Griffith; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the said Bill): Mr. Robertson.
Sir Daniel Goddard further reported from the Committee; That they had added to Standing Committee C the following Thirteen Members (in respect of the Merchant Shipping (Convention) Bill): Mr. Barnes, Mr. Daniel Boyle, Mr. Evelyn Cecil, Mr. Ffrench, Mr. Gladstone, Sir George Croydon Marks, Sir Henry Norman, Sir Gilbert Parker, Mr. Walter Rea, Mr. Sandys, Mr. Stewart, Sir Archibald Williamson, and Colonel Yate.
Reports to lie upon the Table.

PRIVATE BILLS.
Railway Bills (Group 5),
Mr. Rupert Gwynne reported from the Committee on Group 5 of Railway Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Monday next, at Twelve of the clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.
Message from the Lords.—That they have agreed to,
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,
Gas and Water Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill,
Gas and Water Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,
Pier and Harbour Provisional Order (No. 1) Bill,
Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill,
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill,
Sea Fisheries (Emsworth) Provisional Order Bill,
Land Drainage (Tillingham Valley) Provisional Order Bill, without Amendment.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled "An Act to establish Commissioners to maintain Flood Defences in the parish of Hesketh-with-Becconsall, in the county of Lancaster; and to transfer certain lands and works to and to confer powers on such Commissioners; and for other purposes." [Hesketh Estate (Flood Defences) Bill [Lords.]
Hesketh Estate (Flood Defences) Bill [Lords],
Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  SUPPLY.— [14TH ALLOTTED DAY.]

    CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1914–15.
    Considered in Committee.
    [Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

    BOARD OF TRADE.—Class II.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £232,550, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1915, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade and Subordinate Departments." [Note.—£150,000 has been voted on account.]
    Mr. SANDYS: I beg to move, "That Item A be reduced by the sum of £100."

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    There are one or two matters in connection with the British mercantile marine to which I wish to draw attention. As the right hon. Gentleman has informed us, another International Conference of various maritime nations is shortly to be assembled. As I understand at present, the deliberations of this Conference are to be restricted to the question of deck-loads. As a Conference of this kind can only be got together with very great difficulty I would urge upon the right hon. Gentleman that the scope of this Conference should be somewhat enlarged, and I would suggest one or two matters which might well be dealt with by the Conference in, the course of their deliberations. I know that other Members have other questions in connection with the merchant service to which they wish to allude, but I wish especially to draw attention to two matters, one connected with the officers of the service and the other connected with the men. The first question which might be deal with at this International Conference is a question which has frequently been raised before in these discussions, and on which I do not want to detain the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee very long, the question of the hours of labour of the mercantile marine. The right hon. Gentleman must know from what has frequently occurred in this House that the position of many officers of the mercantile marine with regard to their hours of labour is extremely unsatisfactory. In the great majority of merchant vessels there are only two officers carried in addition to the master, and this necessitates the two-watch system—that is to say, four hours on and four hours off. This brings the officers' hours of work up to about fifteen hours a day—in all about 100 hours a week. As the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor admitted, this is an unsatisfactory state of affairs. The officer on many occasions gets no proper rest, and, in a large number of instances, owing to various other duties which he has to perform, when he goes on the bridge he is so physically fatigued that he is not able to give that concentrated attention to the navigation of the vessel which is absolutely essential to security. I am not going further into this matter, because the right hon. Gentleman is well acquainted with these points. Then there is also the question of Sunday labour, which is a very serious grievance to a great many officers of the British marine service. Mr. Buxton admitted last year that
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    the situation with regard to this matter was very unsatisfactory, and in the course of his reply at the conclusion of the Debate he made these remarks:—
    "The hon. Member for Devizes raised the question of the long hours which, unfortunately, many officers have to work. …. When the Merchant Shipping Bill is introduced, and undoubtedly nest Session such a Bill will have to be introduced for several purposes, I certainly propose to include some provision as to the number of mates and engineers required in foreign-going ships. I cannot say more on the subject at present because it is a matter for legislation. It very much affects the question of hours."
    The remarks of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor attracted a great deal of attention amongst the officers of the mercantile marine, and they were satisfied at that time that something was going to be done. But now, when the Merchant Shipping Bill has been introduced, I need hardly say that they regard this as a promise which has not been, fulfilled in any way at all. The Merchant Shipping Bill is an exceedingly truncated and very inadequate measure, and does not fulfil in any way the promise made last year; and because it does not deal with this question and with a great many other questions at all, therefore legislation, for some reason or other, has failed in this respect. I would urge on the right hon. Gentleman that this is a matter which might well be referred to this International Conference so that the views of the representatives of other nations on this question might be obtained. So far as Sunday labour is concerned, we are getting left behind in our regulations. Other nations are going ahead of us. For instance, in France they have regulations in operation restricting Sunday labour on French merchant vessels. In Germany, on Sundays and holidays, so long as a vessel remains in harbour, only work which is absolutely essential can be carried out, and the ship's crew cannot be employed in any case for loading or unloading cargo within the Imperial territory, not even with their own consent. In Norway, no work except what is absolutely essential may be imposed on the crew on Sundays and holidays. In Sweden, much the same rule applies. In Denmark, where, in cases of urgency, it is necessary to employ the crew in loading or discharging cargoes on Sundays or holidays, any member of it participating in that work receives extra pay. Therefore, in view of the fact that other nations are not content with our standards, but go rather beyond them, so far as Sundays and holidays are concerned, it certainly would be satisfac-

    1259
    tory if this whole question could be referred to the International Conference, so that some general agreement might be arrived at.
    There is another matter which might be dealt with in the same way, and that is the question of the accommodation of officers and men on board merchant vessels. Anybody who has had any experience of mercantile ships, and has examined the conditions under which the men live, knows that in a large number of cases the accommodation of the men—the sleeping accommodation, the messing accommodation and the sanitary accommodation—on those vessels is extremely unsatisfactory. I would venture to suggest that this is a matter upon which, at the Conference, the views of the representatives of other nations might well be obtained, because in this respect, also, other nations are going rather ahead of us. For instance, the Norwegian Government has recently issued regulations showing that they do not regard our minimum crew space as in any way adequate. Under the Merchant Shipping Acts the crew space per head required is 120 cubic feet of space and 15 square feet of floor area. The regulation, as I understand, recently issued by the Norwegian Government, is 140 cubic feet and 18 square feet. Australia also has gone ahead of us in this matter, and has adopted the same standard as the Norwegian Government, and these, as I understand it, are the minimum requirements for sleeping accommodation only. The space that is provided for washing or messing, and so forth, is regarded as extra, whereas in the British regulations the whole of the available space is counted into the minimum requirements.
    4.0 P.M.
    As our minimum berthing requirements under the Merchant Shipping Act are 72 cubic feet and 12 square feet of floor space, in order to make a proper comparison between the position of the British seamen and the Norwegian seamen we should compare 72 cubic feet and 12 square feet with 140 cubic feet and 18 square feet, which shows, I think, that other nations are in advance of us in the care which they are taking as to the accommodation of the crews on board their merchant vessels. Then, again, the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor last year referred to the improvement of the sanitary arrangements of merchant vessels as being urgently required. In
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    regard to all these matters, the legal minimum laid down by Statute becomes, in effect, the practical maximum. What an unsatisfactory state of affairs exists in many merchant vessels, and what the results of the conditions are is very clearly shown by the comprehensive and interesting report issued by the medical officer of the Port of London. He dealt with the question of crew space, and he also gave us a table recording the deaths of seamen from various diseases. I do not want to deal with the table, but I will just take from the medical officer's report a summary of the situation. He says:—
    "Excluding diseases of the heart it will be seen that the number of deaths attributed to tuberculosis is larger than that of any other disease, pneumonia coming next with 113, while the total deaths from diseases of the respiratory system were 265, or 24 per cent. of the total deaths from disease. This proportion of deaths in a class of men who are leading an open-air life is striking, and the prevalence of such diseases among them is no doubt largely encouraged by the want of ventilation in the quarters in which many of them are compelled to sleep and live when actually not on deck."
    Those are very weighty words coming from a medical officer who has such experience as the medical officer of the Port of London. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor last year stated in the course of the Debate that in his opinion matters were not satisfactory in many vessels with regard to the accommodation provided for the crew. I do urge that something should be done. It is quite obvious that other seafaring nationalities are taking the lead of us in these questions, and I think that this is a matter which might well be discussed at this International Conference. Indeed, in the medical officer's report to which I have referred, that gentleman specially suggests that the whole question of the accommodation for crews on board merchant ships should be regarded from an international point of view, and should be dealt with at the forthcoming International Conference. I think, probably, when he issued that report he had in view the first International Conference which had already taken place. In view of the fact that we are going to have another International Conference, I think it would be a great pity to restrict it to those matters to which it is intended at present to confine its deliberation, and I do think that these two questions, namely, the hours which the officers have to work, and the accommodation for the crew of merchant vessels are subjects which might

    1261
    well be discussed at this forthcoming Conference. There are many other questions to which I need not refer, as my hon. Friends desire to deal with them, but I venture to bring forward these two matters which are of very great importance, and which constitute a very real grievance for the sympathetic consideration of the right hon. Gentleman. I venture to urge them, on behalf of a body of men whose work we all know is particularly arduous, hazardous and responsible. They follow a calling which traditionally and historically, I think more than any other, is associated with the development of our national character, and with the political and commercial progress of our race. These men, from the very circumstances and conditions of their calling, cannot be a highly organised body, they cannot command that political influence to which, from the national importance of their industry, they are really entitled, and for this very reason, because their political influence is small in comparison with the important part which they play in our national life, I certainly regard it as the especial duty of Parliament to protect in every possible way the interests and the welfare of the seafaring community, upon whom we so largely depend for the development of our Empire, and for the commercial progress of our country. I do hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give his consideration to these two matters which I have ventured to bring forward on behalf of the officers and men of the British merchant service.
    Mr. BARNES: I desire to support the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken in his plea on behalf of the sailors for better manning and for better sanitary conveniences. As he has said, the sailor is a man who suffers a disadvantage as compared with other men among us, because he is away from home a good deal, and is not in a position to employ that pressure which the men in the industrial ranks living at home can employ. Therefore, for that reason I think, it is all the more incumbent upon us to do what we can without pressure and as a matter of duty to make the lives of those who go to sea in ships as pleasant and as safe as possible. With the hon. Gentleman opposite I agree, and I really do not think that we have done all that we ought to have done in that direction, and on the contrary, we have sometimes done the reverse, as in the case of the alteration of the load
    1262
    line in the year 1906, which has been the cause, I should say, of a good many lives being lost in the mercantile marine. In regard to the health of the sailor, it is a curious and very significant fact that the sailorman, although living in the open air a good deal, and although following an occupation that ought to be a good deal more healthy than that of men at home, yet by comparison with the men at home when you come to consider the figures of health and longevity of the sailor, you find that the sailor suffers more from ill-health and lives a shorter life than the average man living on shore. That indicates that there must be something seriously wrong with the sanitary conveniences and the amount of air space in the ships, and as we all know there is something seriously wrong, and the sailor does not get the cubic space to live in which he ought to have, nor the sanitary conveniences which he ought to have. He is harried and bullied nearly out of his life by all sorts of people over him, and that applies more especially I think to the stokers than to the ordinary A.B. or ordinary seaman. I join with the hon. Member opposite in the expression of a desire and a willingness on my part to co-operate with him or with anybody else in bringing pressure to bear on my right hon. Friend to do the needful.
    In regard to manning, I would also back him up in his request that the Bill which we have been promised so often should be produced as speedily as possible, I mean the Bill in regard to the officering of ships. We had a little Bill last night, a very small thing, which is all right so far as it goes, and which has for its object to put examiners on a national instead of a local basis, and which provides some means by which those men can be more efficient, because there will be better chance of promotion, and therefore a better type of men probably will be attracted to the merchant service in the capacity of examiner. But we have been promised a Bill in regard to the officers, engineers, and others, and in fact such a Bill was introduced last year, and then dropped. I hope and trust that we shall have that Bill this year, and that it will be as it was when first introduced into the House of Lords. The House of Lords last year mauled and mutilated the Bill and made it altogether a different Bill from that sent to them. It provided that every ship of a 100 horse-power should have certificated officers on board, engineers, as well as men on deck. There is a

    1263
    large number of very large steamers in this country—I had the list a little while ago—of a little less than 100 horse-power and slow steamers, and therefore steamers of very large capacity that are going round our coast and to the near foreign ports without that qualified officer on board which every ship ought to have. I hope and trust that that will be rectified by the introduction of a Bill in the near future. I desire to say a word or two about a much more modest thing, but one which is just as pressing as the other—I refer to the scales of wages in the Board of Trade offices. I raised the question on the Civil Service Estimate some two or three months ago, but the occasion was rather unfortunate, because we had an exciting debate on Rosyth, and I only got in at the last moment. I would like to refer to the wages and the methods of adjusting wages in the lower ranks of the Board of Trade service. First of all, I would like to refer to the Board of Trade delay in dealing with matters of wages brought before them and having reference to other Departments.
    As I gather the Board of Trade is to some extent responsible now for the wages in all the Government Departments, because there is a body at the Board of Trade known as the Labour Statistics Department, and I believe that a, great deal of the dissatisfaction in the Government Departments arises from the fact of delay and procrastination in dealing with the application made by the men in the Government service, and which delay and procrastination is caused by this body, which is one of the Departments of the Board of Trade. To write to them or send anything to them is like dropping letters or dropping something into a deep well—you never hear any more about them unless you press them very hard a month or two later, and you may then hear that the matter is under consideration. Let me give an instance which had a bearing upon the strike at Woolwich which has just terminated to-day. It so happened that I brought a question about wages before the War Department, I should say nearly eighteen months ago, on the ground that the obligation rested upon them of paying good wages and wages according to the scale of good employers, being the usual phrase in the clause in Government contracts. We were asked to supply evidence, and we did so. That evidence was submitted to the
    1264
    Department of the Board of Trade which I have mentioned, and after some months we had it back with an adverse reply from that body. It was submitted again to the War Department, and they referred it to us and said that the evidence was not sufficient, and we were called upon to get more. We got more, and that evidence was submitted. I am not now going to commit myself to the exact date, but I should say that it is just about three months ago—it may be a little more or less—since that evidence was submitted by us to the Parliamentary Secretary to the War Office, and sent by him to the Labour Statistics Department of the Board of Trade, since which I have heard nothing about it except evasive replies from the Secretary of the War Office, and probably he is just as helpless in the matter as I am. He tells me that he passed the statement on to the Department of the Board of Trade, who are still considering it for anything that I know; and I can assure my right hon. Friend that the fact of the delay in regard to the wages of these men in Woolwich Arsenal has had a good deal to do in putting them into that frame of mind which eventuated in them leaving their work last week, and in other incidents. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will put some dynamite under this Department, or, in some other way stoke it up to give prompt replies to anything that is sent to it, whether the replies are satisfactory or otherwise. I want to refer to the question of wages in the Labour Exchanges. I think there is a case here for readjustment. There was no scale until a few months ago. The Labour Exchanges were set up some little time ago, and the men were simply paid at rates of wages adjusted, I think, locally—at all events, exhibiting great variations. At the beginning of this year a scale was introduced and, speaking generally, that scale means—
    The CHAIRMAN: There is for that purpose a separate Vote, which is down for later on to-day; therefore that subject ought to be dealt with when we reach that Vote, and not on the present Vote.
    Mr. BARNES: Then I will raise the matter later on. I think I have said sufficient on the question of the delay of this Department—which I believe has a great deal to do with the dissatisfaction in Government Departments generally—to justify the Minister in charge in applying

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    a little pressure to the officials to deal with matters a little more promptly than they have done.
    Mr. GERSHOM STEWART: I wish to raise the question of the number of alien officers and men in our mercantile marine. From reports which have been sent to me I find that, exclusive of our fishing fleet, there are 87 officers and 310 alien officers commanding British vessels. It would be a very delicate position for us in certain eventualities to have our ships under the command of foreign officers. That the Government recognise that is proved by the fact that when they ask for ships for Government transports one of their conditions is that they shall be under the control of British officers. In view of the fact that when three miles out of port the captain of a ship exercises magisterial functions, and has practically supreme authority over his crew, we ought to consider whether it is a very suitable thing that bodies of Englishmen should be in that position, when perhaps our country may be in trouble with a foreign Power. In view of the network of communications scattered widespread over the ocean, and seeing that merchant ships are more or less the eyes of our Fleet in the event of any trouble, we ought seriously to bear in mind the desirability of having men of our own people in command of our ships. We recognise that in the amendment of the Pilotage Bill, and I recommend the Board of Trade to consider it in regard to the ordinary merchant tramp steamer. We have also to consider the question of crews other than British. I recognise fully that in certain climates, and in view of the competition that we have to face from the Japanese and other nations, who run their ships very cheaply, it is necessary for us to avail ourselves of the services of lascars and others who may claim to be British subjects. But it is a disquieting fact, given to the House not long ago by the President of the Board of Trade, that between the years 1911–13 there has been an increase in the number of Chinese seamen carried by our merchant ships from 5,366 to 9,286, an increase of something over 70 per cent. Our officers have had trouble with these Chinese crews. I presume that the Chinese all claim to be born under the British Flag at Hong Kong and other places, but I hope the Board of Trade will exercise close supervision in regard to the claim of Chinamen to be British subjects.
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    Another matter in regard to this alien invasion of our mercantile marine is that very often ships carrying the British Flag and enjoying all that that means, are absolutely out of the control of our authority; they are commanded and manned in every way by foreigners, and we have no supervision over them at all. As far as I know, nothing was ever done to prove our authority over the ship "Calvados," which went ashore two years ago in the Mediterranean, when many people lost their lives, and where, upon investigation, it was found that the Board of Trade Regulations had been put on one side and disregarded, that the captain was a Turk, and that there was not a single Englishman on board. The Board of Trade ought to keep its eye very closely on that point, because when countries are on the point of hostilities it would very often pay a country to buy a few old British steamers and run them under the British Flag. I hope the Board of Trade will also watch closely the granting of provisional certificates which Consuls in outlying ports now give, sometimes, perhaps, after inquiries which are not as close as they ought to be. There was a case brought before the House last year in which four steamers were trading in the Levant when hostilities were on between Turkey and the Balkan States, and those ships were flying the British Flag without proper authority to do so—the "Tasso," the "Bodo," and two others. It would be an awkward thing for a British naval officer to see a ship of that sort fastened upon by one of the belligerents and perhaps sunk, and then, having interfered, find that the ship was in no sense a British ship at all. The presence of this alien element in our mercantile marine will, I believe, induce the Board of Trade to do what they can to make the life of the British seaman as attractive as possible, so that Englishmen may be induced to go afloat more than they seem to be doing at the present moment, and to feel that their representatives in Parliament do not forget them in their absence, but do their best to make life at sea as safe and comfortable as possible, knowing that that is a wise thing to do from the point of view of our maritime supremacy and of the safety of this country at all times.
    Major ARCHER-SHEE: I wish to refer to one or two other points in connection with the mercantile marine. The first is the inspection of the life-saving and navigation equipment of ships. Since the

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    "Titanic" disaster the Board of Trade have issued amended Regulations greatly increasing the amount of life-saving equipment to be carried by merchant ships. There has also been the normal increase in the number of ships. At the time of the "Titanic" inquiry it was pointed out that there were in this country only twenty-seven nautical surveyors of the Board of Trade. These men have the duty of inspecting the life-saving and navigation equipment of the whole of our merchant shipping, which amounts to some think like 13,000,000 tons. Although the surveyors' duties have been enormously increased since the "Titanic" disaster the Board of Trade, in spite of the assurance to the House that they would increase the number of nautical surveyors, have only increased them by five. I understand that there are now only thirty-two surveyors of the first and second classes. There have been several cases where it has been proved before the Courts of Inquiry into disasters that the ships had not been properly inspected by nautical surveyors before going to sea. In the case of the loss of the "Oceana," which was run into by the "Pisagua," some of the boats were found to be leaky, and the Court found that the inspection had not been carried out properly before the "Oceana" left London. This is an extract from their Report:—
    "At Tilbury, before the voyage commenced, the boats were inspected by two Board of Trade surveyors, one of one whom was an engineéer surveyor and the other a ship and engineer surveyor; neither of them, by profession, was acquainted with the practical handling of boats. The Court does not consider the inspection was adequate."
    In the case of the "Delhi," which was lost off the coast of Morocco, the Court found that the vessel was not supplied with proper and sufficient charts and sailing directions, and that although the charts had been corrected up to 1911, the chart actually supplied and used on the occasion of the disaster was dated 1905. That, in view of the alteration of the lights upon that coast, was a very important matter indeed, and it could not have happened if the Board of Trade surveyors had properly investigated the equipment of the ship before she left harbour. At Newcastle and Shields—in fact, on the whole of the Tyne—where over 7,500,000 tons of shipping cleared last year, there are only two of these nautical surveyors. At Glasgow, where there are over 2,000,000 tons of shipping entered, and nearly
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    3,000,000 cleared, there is only one nautical surveyor. At Belfast, where over 490,000 tons entered, there is no nautical surveyor at all, and the same applies to Dublin. These figures, I think, show that it is quite impossible for the surveyors at present properly to inspect the ships before they leave harbour, and of course no attempt is made at inspection in many of the harbours round the United Kingdom. The other day I asked the President of the Board of Trade a question in reference to the inspection of ships carrying deck-loads, and I was informed that no inspection of that kind was carried out by the Board of Trade That is a matter which ought to be attended to. Ships carrying deck-loads ought to be inspected by a nautical surveyor before leaving any port in the United Kingdom. In order for that to be done, and in order to have a proper and thorough inspection of the navigational equipment it is absolutely necessary for the first steps to be taken, namely, to increase the number of nautical surveyors who are situated in the different parts of the Kingdom.
    One other question which I wish to bring forward is that of our representation at the next Maritime Conference. At the last Maritime Conference the representation of this country was supported by two members who have had nautical experience, Sir Herbert Acton-Blake, Deputy-Master of Trinity House, and Captain Young, Nautical Adviser of the Board of Trade. They were assisted by two other men who have had great experience at sea, Captain Charles, of the "Lusitania," and Mr. Havelock Wilson. But several of these gentlemen, although they have had experience at sea, had not been at sea for some years. The Conference dealt mainly with the question of passenger steamers. The next Conference will deal mainly with the question of cargo steamers. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that if not representatives, at least advisers to representatives, should be appointed from the captains of cargo vessels aboard tramp steamers who have had recent experience at sea, and especially experience in connection with the carrying of deck-loads. The other day I asked a question of the President of the Board of Trade as to whether he would not include in the agenda for this International Marine Conference the question of deck-loads other than timber deck-loads. I received a reply that he could not do it, as he thought it

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    was sufficient to bring before the conference the question only of timber deck-loads. The question of timber deck-loads is an exceedingly important one, and we on this side of the House are all very glad—those of us who are interested in the question of the mercantile marine—that this question is really going to be thrashed out at the next Conference. But I cannot see why the whole question of deck-loads should not be considered. There are many cases of ships which are sent to sea at the present time with deck-loads of threshing machines, launches, barrels of oil, and all sorts of miscellaneous heavy goods, which are in themselves very dangerous deck-loads, and which are often more dangerous than timber to the life and limb of those on board the ship itself, even if they are not so dangerous to the actual seaworthiness of the ship.
    That question is not going to be put before the Conference, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman when he replies to give us some more adequate reason for it than he was able to give in the short reply to the question the other day. The question of these threshing machines and this sort of deck-load is one of extreme importance. I have a photograph—which I believe the right hon. Gentleman is for the moment looking at—showing seven large threshing machines absolutely taking up the whole of the upper part of the fore-deck of a ship. This sort of deck-load cannot be described by anyone except as being absolutely dangerous, and causing the ship to be unseaworthy. There is another matter in connection with the question of deck-loads to which I would like to call attention—that is the question of the responsibility of owners who send ships to sea in an unseaworthy condition. Last year there was a very bad case, the case of the "Mount Oswald." The matter was not raised in the House until late in the Session, as the matter was not settled by the Courts until, I think, some time in July. The "Mount Oswald" was sent to sea and was lost with all hands in February, 1912. The ship was carrying a very heavy deck-load indeed. She was also in an unseaworthy condition, owing to taking water into her forehold. The captain of the ship had written to his wife a most pathetic letter—as it turned out afterwards—telling her that he did not expect to arrive home again, and that he had asked the owner of the ship to allow him to dry-dock the ship at New York and
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    the owner had refused to do so. The captain asked his wife to keep the letter. This is an extract from it:—
    "I want you to keep this letter as evidence in case anything happens to the ship. I wanted the ship to be-dry-docked at New York, but the owners would not allow it."
    That ship left Baltimore with this very deck-load and was not heard of again. The Court found that owing to the fact that the ship was totally lost that is was impossible to say whether it was due to the deck-load or not, and they could not, therefore, definitely attribute the disaster to a wrongful act on the part of the owners. But they considered there was an error of judgment in not having had the ship dry-docked at New York. The Court could not bring home the fault, seeing that practically everybody who knew about the-ship had gone to the bottom.
    An HON. MEMBER: Who were the owners?
    Major ARCHER-SHEE: Messrs. Lunn and McCoy, of Newcastle. There was another case the other day, which I asked a question about this afternoon. That was the case of the "County of Devon." From the reply of the right hon. Gentleman I understand that he is still considering and taking counsel's opinion as to whether or not it is possible to bring an action against, the owners of this ship. The "County of Devon" left an American port last February. She was abandoned in the Atlantic in a sinking condition. By the mercy of Providence one of the German liners, the "Deutschland," happened to come near the ship and took off all the crew, and no lives were lost, though the ship was abandoned. But the crew lost all their belongings, and received not one penny compensation—at least, so it was stated in the newspaper accounts. The owners of the ship were fully insured. They apparently lost nothing. The only person who was prosecuted in this matter, or who was made a party to it by the Board of Trade, was the captain of the ship. The Court dealt with him. He was the man who had been practically compelled to take this ship to sea in an unseaworthy condition. He broke his ribs, dislocated his shoulder, lost all his kit, and was punished by the Court. The owners lost nothing, the crew lost everything, very nearly losing their lives.
    This was a particularly bad case, because the owners of this ship had been told—it came out in evidence—by the previous captain, Mr. Moore, that the ship with

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    a similar deck-load to this had been top-heavy, and that the ship was in an unseaworthy condition. The owners dispensed with the services of the captain who gave them that information. After they had received that information they gave explicit instructions to the new captain that the ship had carried this deck-load amounting to 223 standards of logs, and that was what he was expected to carry. The vessel started out from an American port in the middle of February. Anybody who has ever been at sea on the Atlantic in February knows what the Atlantic gales about that time are, and what sort of seas are likely to be encountered. Yet this ship was sent to sea with this enormous deck-load. The stipendiary magistrate stated in the course of his remarks that this deck-load, on a rough computation, would probably weigh about 1,000 tons. The whole of the dead-weight capacity of this ship was only 4,800 tons. That will give a pretty good idea of the tremendous deck-cargo which this ship was carrying. If it is impossible under our present law to proceed against owners such as this, then the law requires very considerably strengthening. Our present law, as laid down in Section 457 of the Merchant Shipping Act, says:—
    If any person sends, or attempts to send, or is a party to sending or attempting to send, a British ship to sea in such an unseaworthy state that the life of any person is likely to be thereby endangered, he shall in respect of such offence be guilty of misdemeanour.…
    I suggest that it is not a misdemeanour knowingly to send ships to sea in an unseaworthy condition. I suggest that the law should be strengthened, and that instead of the offence being a misdemeanour it should be made a criminal offence, the whole essence of which is whether the offence is committed knowingly or not. What would be thought of a railway company which knowing that a railway bridge was unsafe deliberately ordered their trains to be run over that bridge? Public opinion would insist that the directors, whoever they were, should be prosecuted for a criminal offence. Men who are bad enough to send ships to sea at the risk of the lives of their men, where it is clearly proved that they had previous knowledge, should be punished by being sent to gaol for a long term of imprisonment at the very least. Therefore I urge
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    upon the right hon. Gentleman to give us some assurance that he will look into the matter, and bring to bear upon it the strong common sense for which he has established a reputation, that he will see that something is done to prevent men's lives being jeopadised by persons who can only be described as murderous. In that description I do not, of course wish to include the average shipowner, because the vast majority of shipowners are men of sensibility and humanity who would not dream of such actions as I have been describing. But there are men against whom the law should be strengthened, and I therefore urge the right hon. Gentleman to strengthen it as soon as possible.
    Mr. J. M. HOGGE: One disadvantage of discussing the Estimates of the Board of Trade is that necessarily we have to leave some topic which has been started. I do not want to continue in the line of the criticisms of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, except to say this: that I have long been convinced that the Board of Trade has got control of too many separate Departments. It does seem to me that as our country depends so much upon the shipping industry it might be quite worth our while to separate that definitely from the Board of Trade, and to create a Department which would devote its time and attention to shipping alone. That, of course, is a question of policy which does not arise in this Debate. There are three points which I want to raise. The first point is in connection with an appeal or petition which was presented to the Board of Trade dealing with the wages of the lighthouse-keepers. The President of the Board of Trade has given very special consideration to that petition, and, as a matter of fact, I think has agreed to a total increase being awarded to these men of some £3,340, for which naturally they are grateful. But I want to emphasise the distribution of this money, and to make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to say whether or not in the distribution of this money the men who are at the lower end of the scale should receive some more recognition than they have received at present. Obviously I know the facts about the Scottish lighthouses better than those about the lighthouses of the rest of the United Kingdom. More lighthouses are necessary in the Northern part of the country than in any other. There are something between eighty-two and ninety lighthouses around the coast of Scotland. There are 250 men I engaged in that particular work. It

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    requires, therefore, between eighty and ninety principal lighthouse-keepers to be appointed in these lighthouses. There are 133 assistants, and in the distribution of these increases all the increases apparently have gone either to the principal lighthouse-keepers or to those assistants who have over fifteen years' service.
    I have here two statements as to recent increases in the wages of these men. The previous one was in 1909, and if I read to the House the wages that are paid to these men I think they will agree that the men whose case I am bringing before the House are entitled to some consideration. An assistant light-keeper on appointment gets 3s. per day. When he has been there for five years he gets 3s. 3d. per pay, and after ten years he gets 3s. 6d. per day, and after fifteen years he gets 4s. per day. Now, in the new scale which has been issued, the only difference made is that after fifteen years' service the lighthouse-keeper gets an addition of 3d. per day, whereas the principal lighthouse-keepers, who are not too well paid generally, receive every six years 5d. per day increase in their wages. I should like the Committee to understand exactly what these wages amount to. They mean that an assistant light-keeper, when he begins, is paid 21s. per week, after five years 22s. 9d., after ten years 24s. 6d., and after another five years' service 26s. 3d. I do not need to remind the House what the life of a lighthouse-keeper is. Any hon. Member who ever read Rudyard Kipling's description of the lighthouse-keeper in the Eastern Straits has some idea of the monotony of that kind of service and the effect it has upon these men. These lighthouse-keepers also ask for other advantages. They ask, for example, that they should have certain medical expenses. I find that the reply of the Department is that it has not been found possible to accede to the request for medical expenses in case of childbirth and attendant illnesses, but in future an allowance is to be given in case of lighthouse-keepers' wives to the amount of the maternity benefit under the National Insurance Act. That means that had it not been for the Insurance Act that would not have been conceded to those lighthouse-keepers. I do urge upon my right hon. Friend to see whether he could not go a little further than what has been laid down. After all, they have only given £3,340, and that only applies to men with fifteen years' service or over, or men who
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    are principal lighthouse-keepers. The other men are getting 21s really a week. Hon. Members will recollect there have been a series of questions on the Order Paper asking for the number of men in the employment of Government Departments who have less than 22s. a week.
    Mr. BARNES: You will never get that return.
    Mr. HOGGE: My hon. Friend reminds me that we will never get that return, but his party ought to be able to get it.
    Mr. PETO: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us why the lighthouse-keepers are not insured persons?
    Mr. HOGGE: I do not know how that may be, or whether they would be affected in the ordinary way, seeing the amount of time they are in shore stations. But it is not material to my argument, which is for an increase in the wages of the men. The second point I wish to bring to the attention of the right hon. Gentleman is the treatment of the fisher girls in Scotland by the railway company and some of the steamboat companies. Hon. Members do not need to be reminded of the state of the fishing industry in Scotland. There are ordinarily 700 boats which follow the herring fishing all the season. That means a floating population of roughly 5,000 people—about seven men to each boat. These boats are followed from fishing ground to fishing grounds by girls collected from the villages and the various counties and highlands in Scotland, who do the gutting of the herrings when landed. These girls are treated in a very shabby fashion by the railway companies and the steamship companies in Scotland. For instance, I received information only a few weeks ago of a party of girls who were going to Lerwick in the North-East of Scotland. They were picked up by one to Messrs. McBrayne's steamers, which are the only steamers in that kind of trade, and have a monopoly of that kind of traffic, and although these girls had their luggage on the pierhead, the steamer refused to take any of their luggage and only took the girls. There is no sleeping accommodation on these steamers for the girls, and they have got to sleep on the deck exposed to all kinds of weather. There is no catering arrangements, and when they arrived, as they did in this instance at Lerwick, they have to live in huts which are erected for this particular industry and which are shut up when the industry

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    in that particular place is not in operation. These girls carry not only a change of clothing but their bedding, and the bedding is used in these huts while they are employed in gutting the fish. The result of that action of Messrs. McBrayne was that not only had these girls to sleep on the deck of the ship but they were deprived for a whole week of their bedding, and they lost a week's work because they had not their implements with them to carry on the work.
    I ask my right hon. Friend if he cannot make some kind of representation to the steamship company and the railway companies to avoid this kind of thing. The railway companies take these girls long distances in trains without corridors, and hon. Members can imagine the state of fatigue in which these girls arrive at their work. There is another point I would press upon the right hon. Gentleman, which is this: He has considerable power in dealing with the by-laws in the various towns where these girls work. They work exposed to all kinds of weather, ankle deep in the brine which comes from the fish they are gutting, and without sufficient drainage to remove the refuse. I should be very glad if he would look into these matters, and see if these conditions can be improved. There is only one other point, and it is a domestic point. I do not know whether hon. Members in examining the figures of these Estimates ever compare the wages paid to the various servants of the Board of Trade. We are discussing the right hon. Gentleman's own salary, which is £5,000 a year. None of us begrudge him that at all, but if hon. Members look further down they will find that the charwomen are getting only 14s. per week. I raised the question of the charwomen on the Board of Agriculture Estimates, and as a result of raising that question the wages of these poor women were increased by the Board of Agriculture—
    The CHAIRMAN: The Amendment we are now discussing is to reduce the salary of the President of the Board of Trade by £100. We must deal with that, and later on with the other servants of the Board of Trade.
    Mr. HOGGE: That being so, I will not mention the charwomen any further now, as we shall reach the charwomen after we have disposed of the President, and I will reserve the few remarks I have to make in regard to them until we come to that
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    point. The other points I have raised are the only two I want to raise now.
    5.0 P.M.
    Mr. HAMILTON BENN: I wish to support the remarks that have fallen from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Finsbury on the subject of deck-loads. I think it is a matter for congratulation that the Board of Trade have arranged to bring the question of deck-loads up at the next International Conference on Shipping. It is undoubtedly a matter that requires to be dealt with at the International Conference. All the experience of many years has gone to prove that it is quite impossible for one country to do anything really effective itself in the matter of deck-loads by legislation. The effect of the restriction placed upon deck-loads coming into this country has only been to raise the cost of timber in this country, and the legislation we have in force in England is no protection whatever for the persons whom it was intended to benefit. Every ship crossing the North Sea or the Atlantic in the winter months with timber takes in its cargo for England and then loads a deck-load of timber for foreign ports, which it first delivers at the foreign ports and then proceeds to England. This is no doubt complying with the strict letter of the law, but it defeats the whole purpose of the law. I am very far from believing that a timber deck-load is in itself a dangerous thing. It is not the deck-load, but the excess of deck load, which has to be provided against. Ship captains and experts on this subject will tell you that in the case of many vessels—in fact, the majority of modern steamers—the deck-load is, if anything, a benefit. The modern tramp steamer is square-built and is a very stiff vessel. She is what seafaring men describe as "sea-kindly," but it is quite another matter when you come to pile on an excessive deck-load on a vessel crossing the Atlantic in winter months. The recent and disgraceful instance quoted by my hon. Friend, namely, that of the "County of Devon," is an instance of the kind. That vessel appears to have been loaded without sense or reason. She appears to have got a deck-load some 200 tons more than she obviously should carry, and she foundered in the first gale. I think the Board of Trade have to take a certain amount of blame for not having made the managing owner a party to the inquiry. We have not yet heard whether they can see their way to take action

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    against the owner. The point I want to enforce is, if there is an International Convention upon the subject, we should be able to get at the foreign charterer, who, in this instance, may be found to be the real culprit. If I have read the report of the inquiry aright, it was chartered to a company in the Southern States of America, who paid a certain amount of money per ton for the net register of the vessel, and therefore it was their interest and desire to cram on to her every stick of timber she could possible carry. If there was an international agreement upon this question I think that charterer could be made responsible, for neither the managing owner nor the charterer have suffered in any respect through the loss of the vessel, and the whole loss has fallen upon the unfortunate master and crew. It seems to me most unfortunate that only timber deck-loads are to be dealt with by the International Convention. It is extraordinary that this should be so, because shipmasters are strong in their opinion that there are other deck-loads much more dangerous than timber. I believe the Board of Trade have ample information in their possession in regard to this matter.
    I will quote one or two instances. There was the case of the loss of the Great Eastern Railway Company's steamer "Yarmouth" in 1909. That vessel frequently carried very heavy deck-loads across the Channel, and on her ill-fated voyage she had three large furniture vans on board, each weighing about three tons. The Court found that the ship was not properly loaded and had too much top weight. Then there was the loss of the vessel "Axim," belonging to Messrs. Elder, Dempster, and Company, and though the vessel was lost with all hands, and it was not possible to find out what actually did happen, it was found on inquiry that she had a heavy steam launch on deck weighing some 16 tons which was probably the cause of the disaster. Then there was the case of the ss. "Guillemot," referred to by the hon. Member for Finsbury, and in that instance there were some 55 tons of oil and lard in barrels on deck, and the trouble arose through the breaking adrift of those barrels of oil and lard, which made it impossible for the seamen to keep a footing on deck. Then there was the ss. "Come," belonging to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, in which case the casualty was caused by the heavy seas sweeping over the deck, and moving the deck cargo in such a manner as to make it impossible to
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    work the steering gear. I would like to press upon the President of the Board of Trade another important question. I would like him to consider whether it is not possible for him to include all deck-loads in the inquiry when this question comes before the Conference.
    The hon. Member for Wirral (Mr. Gershom Stewart) referred to ships sailing under the British Flag with alien captains and crews. I believe that this is a matter which does not apply only to the British Flag, and there are some other countries which permit vessels to be registered under their flag without insisting upon having native officers and crews. If some other countries permit that to be done, I do not see that that is any reason why we should permit it. I believe, for instance, that the Belgians rather encourage this practice than otherwise, but Belgium has no navigation laws, and she is not an important country from a maritime point of view. What I think we have to look at is that no ships should carry the British Flag which are not officered by British seamen. We have to protect the honour of our Flag, and very serious international complications may arise under certain circumstances, if vessels have not got British officers on board. It seems to me an extraordinary thing that there should be eighty-seven alien masters on British ships at the present time. This is not a new matter. Far away back we heard a great deal of this kind of thing going on. I believe the Greeks in days gone by used to be very much given to putting their ships under the British Flag. I remember reading of the time of Byron when he went down to Greece to assist the patriots of that country. In that instance some British men-of-war interfered with him and took away his British Flag. I do not know whether they are so active to-day that they would interfere with a ship which is obviously not British flying the British Flag. Then there is the important case of the company which has eighteen steamers carrying the British Flag, and to a large extent they are officered and commanded by foreigners, including Italians, Austrians, Turks, and Greeks.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Maclean): The matter which the hon. Member complains of is one which is not within the competence of the Board of Trade to cure by administration. I rather gather that the matter requires legislation. If that is so, then it is not a matter which the hon. Member can discuss now.
    Mr. PETO: On a point of Order. May I draw attention to the fact that a question was asked, on the 29th of April last, by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, in which he asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, "Is it not a fact that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade can deal with this matter without legislation," and the Parliamentary Secretary replied, "Possibly that is so." As a matter of fact it is dealt with under one particular Section of the Merchant Shipping Act, and it is purely a question as to how far that Section of the Act bears on this point.
    Mr. G. STEWART: Is it not a fact that the Board of Trade have to issue a Certificate to the ship that flies the British Flag.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I should like to hear the representative of the Board of Trade on this point.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. J. M. Robertson): A certain matter might possibly be dealt with in that way.
    Mr. PETO: There was the case of a ship which sailed from Constantinople carrying 120 passengers, most of whom lost their lives, and what I have quoted was the Deputy-Chairman's ruling upon a supplementary question.
    Mr. H. BENN: In looking after the interests of British commerce and British trade, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider how he can protect British trade from this objectionable practice. It surely is a very objectionable thing that foreigners should be able to transfer their vessels in the circumstances which have been mentioned under the British Flag, and thus interfere with the natural commerce which would otherwise be carried on by British ships.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That seems to me to be a matter which can only be remedied by legislation. I think the hon. Member will admit that I have allowed him some latitude on the point, and I must ask him to pass from it.
    Mr. H. BENN: I only wish to ask the President of the Board of Trade to introduce legislation on this subject if it is required. I wish to mention a question which deals with the International Convention in regard to safety at sea. I apprehend that that question will come up
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    when the Bill dealing with that subject comes before the House. But there is a point in connection with it which the Board of Trade have to deal with promptly, and that is to make provision for the examination of lifeboatmen, which is made compulsory under Clause 54 of the Convention. The question I want to put is whether any steps are now being taken to provide for the examination of lifeboatmen, in order to obtain the certificate which the Board of Trade issues. It affects British shipping in this way: Passenger steamers will have to have a certain number of lifeboatmen on board when the Act comes into force—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That question is not within the administrative competence of the Board of Trade at the present moment, and therefore it is not a matter which the hon. Member can deal with on the Vote before the Committee.
    Mr. NEWTON: I wish to deal with the question of deck-loads. I do not know whether the President of the Board of Trade has had any personal experience of deck-loads. I may inform him of an experience I had once on board ship when one evening the whole of the deck-load was swept away. Anyone who has seen an actual occurrence of that kind must be anxious that every possible precaution should be taken to make life less hazardous to those employed on ships which carry timber deck-loads. If it is dangerous to carry loads of timber in that way, I think it is much more dangerous to carry other cargoes which may not be so snugly stored and securely fastened as timber coming from the Bosnian ports and from the American ports. Therefore, I join with my hon. Friends who have already urged that the right hon. Gentleman should bring the question of deck-loads generally before the International Conference. The right hon. Gentleman may answer that he could not venture to hope that he would succeed in any representations that he might make to the Conference, but you have to prepare the ground in all these matters, and, if you talk about a thing this year, you may be able to secure the fulfilment of your object at a later period. I do, therefore, most earnestly say that the opportunity should be taken to make as large a case as possible before the Conference.
    The only other matter of which I have any personal experience is the question of crew space. I am strongly in agreement

    1281
    with those who hold that there is great need for improvement in the cubic space and the floor space available in the forecastle for our seamen in the mercantile marine. Anybody who has had any practical experience must be aware that the quarters are cramped, and that the conditions of the men's lives make it all the more necessary why the amount of space that might be sufficient for others should in their case be a great deal further increased than it is at present. It cannot be satisfactory to any of us to find that other countries are going ahead in this matter faster than we are. The right hon. Gentleman will have behind him, as a matter of national pride, every Member of the Committee in any efforts he makes to improve the conditions under which these men are bound to work. The right hon. Gentleman may really feel that this afternoon the whole House has sympathised with each speaker in turn. Take, for example, the question of lascars. Although one must recognise that in certain waters the conditions make it very difficult to avoid employing men whose country of origin makes them particularly suited to be employed in such waters, yet the very great increase in the number of lascars must fill us with some apprehension, and we, therefore, unite in every quarter of the House in urging upon the right hon. Gentleman, while bearing in mind the legitimate interests of shipowners, not to lose sight of the fact that we are none of us glad to see this large increase in the number of lascars and Chinamen employed on our merchant ships.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I am afraid that I do not know very much about the circumstances of merchant shipping or what the right hon. Gentleman has done, or has not done, with regard to deck-loads and matters of that description, but I trust that he will see that every possible precaution is taken to ensure that when these vessels go to sea they are so loaded and so managed that the risk of the loss of life at sea is considerably minimised. My hon. Friend talked about the employment of British crews. I do not know, but I am rather inclined to think that might need legislation. I do not know that the right hon. Gentleman, great as is his power, has the power to go to a shipowner and say he must employ a certain class of men and no other. I should rather have thought that would have required legislation, and, being an individualist, that class of legis-
    1282
    lation would not appeal to me. Unless I am very much mistaken, a good number of these men who are employed, though they may not happen to have been born in Great Britain, are British subjects, and we must be very careful, not only in the remarks we make in this House, but in any request that is made to the right hon. Gentleman not to distinguish too closely between British subjects in different parts of the Empire. We are a great Empire, composed of a variety of races, and equal treatment should be given to every subject within it whatever colour his skin may happen to be. I am, therefore, a little bit inclined to think that it will not be too wise to talk too much about the preference given either to lascars or to other people. They are all subjects of the King, and are equally entitled to the protection which is given to them by the President of the Board of Trade. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman one or two questions on other matters. If he will turn to Item Y, he will see "London traffic branch,£2,595—"
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I would remind the hon. Baronet that the question before the Committee is the reduction of Item A.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I presume Item A includes the right hon. Gentleman's salary, and a reduction has been moved because of the alleged incompetence, or the alleged want of action of the right hon. Gentleman. I shall be inclined to vote for a reduction unless I get some satisfactory answer on some of the other items. I was going to show the reason—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I cannot allow that, as the hon. Baronet must know.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I was not aware that the discussion was always confined to a particular item, but no doubt there are several questions on Item A which I should like to ask. I am glad to see that there is a decrease of £1,808. There were originally 436 on the staff, and they have now increased to 445. The cost of their salaries and wages have decreased. I think that is an excellent thing in the management of the office for which the right hon. Gentleman ought to be congratulated. May I ask whether, if it is in order to discuss the duties of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the marine service, it is not in order also to discuss the duties of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the traffic

    1283
    branch? The salaries of the traffic branch must, I think, come under this item, or, at any rate, the right hon. Gentleman is responsible for the branch, and it must therefore be in order to discuss something for which he is responsible.
    Mr. HOGGE: On that point of Order. May I remind you that earlier in the Debate I was precluded from discussing the wages of charwomen, which occur on page 48, which the hon. Baronet is now quoting with regard to officials.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I do not know the circumstances under which that ruling was given, but, as far as my observation goes, the wages of charwomen come under Item A. With regard to the hon. Baronet's point, if he will look at Item Y he will find that the wages and salaries of the traffic branch are set out there. It was the hon. Baronet who drew my attention to Item Y.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I presume I should be in order in asking the right hon. Gentleman what he proposes to do with regard to the inspection of the traffic of London, that being part of his duty?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Of course, I could not allow the hon. Baronet to go into details.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I will not touch the details. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman to inform the Committee what steps he has taken to deal with the question of the London traffic. It comes in the right hon. Gentleman's Department, and it is a very important question. The right hon. Gentleman is peculiarly suited to undertake the superintendence of this traffic, because he goes about a good deal on foot, and this gives him an opportunity of observing the traffic and of understanding the conditions of it such as those hon. Members who go about in luxurious motor cars driven by somebody else cannot have. The right hon. Gentleman is something of the same character as myself. I walk about London a great deal, and I also drive myself, and, if you drive or walk about, the dangers and difficulties of the traffic come before your mind. One of the chief difficulties of London traffic is the refusal of slow-moving vehicles to keep to the side of the road. Another difficulty, of course, is the enormous increase in refuges. They are a great advantage in many ways, but they do, to a very con-
    1284
    siderable extent, tend to create the block which exists in many places. I wondered whether the right hon. Gentleman could suggest to the various people concerned that they should not dot them down here and there, generally in narrow places where they are not required, but that they should put them in wide places where people are in the habit of crossing. Another difficulty is the great speed at which many motor carriages, and especially taxi-cabs, are driven. When you go round the corner you are very likely to find a motor cab on top of you, it having come round the corner without sounding its horn. If it has sounded its horn you probably go the wrong way, frightened by the noise. Only the other night I was very nearly run over by a taxi-cab, and, if it had not been for the Noble Lord the-Chief Whip of our party (Lord E. Talbot), who pulled me out of danger, I should not have the honour of addressing the right hon. Gentleman at the present moment. Therefore, something of that sort ought t" be done. I do not know whether it is in the power of the right hon. Gentleman to lay down Regulations as to the speed limit?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Burns): No. That is within the jurisdiction of the Local Government Board at the instance of the county council.
    Sir F. BANBURY: The right hon. Gentleman, I know, is not 10th to take on extra work and I think the question of the speed limit should be entrusted to the Traffic Department, which is under the right hon. Gentleman.
    Major DALRYMPLE WHITE: I should like to support what has been said on the subject of deck-loads, but as that has been thoroughly dealt with I will not go further into it. The right hon. Gentleman has scope for improving the hygienic conditions on board ship. There is no doubt that on many of our merchant ships the conditions are far from being sanitary, and the health of the crews and officers must suffer in consequence. There is a persistent demand in the merchant service that there should, if possible, be hospitals provided on board ship. There is a large number of ships where they can very well be provided where no accommodation of the sort exists, and as life at sea is liable to many accidents, quite apart from sickness, there should be some

    1285
    place where a man could be attended to. Another point is the question of Sunday labour on board ship.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That must require legislation. The hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot go into that.
    Major DALRYMPLE WHITE: Another point I want to put is with regard to discipline on board ship. There is not the slightest doubt that there is a great deal of insubordination, desertion, and failure to join. If it was only a matter affecting shipowners it would not be so serious, but it affects the whole question of life at sea, because I am informed that in every many cases the men, especially the firemen, refuse absolutely to go through boat drill. Under the Merchant Shipping Convention Bill the penalties have been strengthened against masters of ships. I believe they are liable to a penalty of £50 if their men are not properly trained in boat drill and other matters, and yet at the same time apparently the men have a perfect right, if they wish, to refuse to go through these boat drills. It is true that the shipowners have some power in prosecuting, but as a general rule they do not care to prosecute for the simple reason that if they do they are likely to have great difficulty in future in getting a crew, and if the men are brought before a magistrate, very often the punishment is so slight that instead of being a deterrent it is really almost an encouragement to go and do the same another time. I certainly think a crew should be under some distinct legal obligation to perfect themselves in these life-saving methods. It is not only their own lives, but the lives of all on board that they have to think of.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is again a matter for legislation. The hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot deal with these points, however interesting they may be. They are under the proposed Convention and require legislation. We are dealing here with administration in matters within the competence of the Board to administer.
    Mr. PETO: On the point of Order. All these vessels when they go to sea have to be inspected by nautical or other surveyors, who are under the control of the right hon. Gentleman, and what is suggested is that if they are responsible for inspecting the life-saving apparatus they might very easily be invested with some authority from the Board of Trade to see that their life-saving apparatus is properly
    1286
    tested by practical use before the voyage commences.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is outside the competence of the Board of Trade, because legislation is proposed in connection with it. It is not a matter which can be dealt with in this Committee.
    Mr. PETO: I wish first of all on broad grounds to reinforce the appeal which has been made to the President of the Board of Trade not to let slip this opportunity of bringing a very considerable number of matters concerning the merchant service before the International Convention proposed to be held. I think we have a very good precedent and a very good parallel for that. When the "Titanic" was lost, it was felt that something must be done to deal with life-saving apparatus and the protection of large passenger vesesls, and the International Convention was summoned which has recently reported, and on whose report there is a Bill now before this House. The scope of that inquiry was intentionally made to cover every sort of thing which would be likely to cause danger to life at sea. The President of the Board of Trade, under pressure from all parts of this House, made the reference to the Convention as wide as possible. Derelicts were included, icebergs, wireless telegraphy, lifeboats and lifebelts and the methods of launching them, bulkheads and the construction of ships themselves, were all matters which were considered, and therefore now that we are to have another Convention, and I am very glad to hear it, I ask that all reasonable questions which have been not only before the House, but have been the subject in many cases of Committee and special Commissions, legislation to carry out which has been again and again said to be impossible, should be referred, so far as the right hon. Gentleman's power goes, to this International Convention, so that his whole excuse for doing nothing, which has been thrown at us again and again, should no longer be available. I take it broadly that that is the reason that we are specially bringing this to his attention on this Vote. It is not that we ask him to introduce legislation with regard to any one of these subjects. We know the answer that we should be given if we were able to raise such a point. We should be told at once that this is a question which has been considered again and again by the Department and has been settled, and it is impossible to deal with it except internationally.

    1287
    I have several more points to raise, some of which have been already dwelt upon. The first I want to refer to is the question of ships' hospitals, quite apart from the accommodation for seamen and officers generally. In the question of the provision of ships' hospitals, the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor did take certain action himself, and an official recommendation was sent out to shipowners in January, 1912. It was not worded in a mandatory form, but stated that it was very desirable in the opinion of the Board of Trade that hospitals should be provided on all the larger vessels. The result is that about 112 ships have been provided with ships' hospitals out of a total of 9,214. That is a little over 1 per cent. in two and a quarter years. There is not the slightest question that they could send a recommendation calling attention to the fact that very little has been done hitherto, and fairly warning shipowners that either legislation would have to be undertaken, and the matter made compulsory, or that they should in the interests of the men, whose safety ought really to be one of their primary considerations, voluntarily under a more strongly worded recommendation from the Board of Trade establish ships' hospitals in every case. What is the other alternative? We have this Convention, and it is not very creditable to this country to find that in this very matter of ships' hospitals we are behind two other countries, one a foreign Power and the other Australia, where they have shipping rules already in force which require the provision of ships' hospitals by law. In the case of the Commonwealth of Australia, the rule is that where any vessel carries more than 100 persons on board it shall be provided with hospital accommodation of such a character and so placed and arranged as to afford proper means of isolation for cases of communicable disease which may arise during the voyage.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member has made it quite clear to me that the only way in which the Board of Trade can deal with the grievance which he is now raising is by getting further powers by legislation. I must ask him not to pursue that.
    Mr. PETO: I am sorry I have been so extraordinarily the opposite of clear in what I have said, because my whole point is that I do not ask for any legislation at
    1288
    all, but I ask the President of the Board of Trade to do two things which he is competent to do. One is to bring pressure to bear on the shipowners themselves, as his predecessor has already done, and the other is that this should be a matter which should be referred to the International Convention.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: In that case any hon. Member could discuss any subject he desired by simply suggesting that the President of the Board of Trade should communicate with shipowners. All that an hon. Member has to do who wishes to discuss a whole range of things for which he desires legislation is to suggest that the President of the Board of Trade should circularise shipowners and other bodies in connection with them. That would be an obvious evasion of the Rules of the House.
    Mr. NEWTON: Is it not possible to regard this, not as an attempt to evade but as a legitimate desire to ask the President of the Board of Trade to use his administrative power in a certain direction? I very respectfully suggest that it is possible to ask him to take certain steps without being open to the reproach of having attempted to evade your ruling.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I do not desire to reproach anyone, because any hon. Member is entitled to get his point in without being unfair to the Chair, if he exercises his ingenuity in that respect. I have no grievance whatever on that point. It is for me to look out and see that that is not carried too far. I again say, with much regret, I do not desire to be pedantic on the point, but I cannot allow the discussion to proceed on those lines.
    Major ARCHER-SHEE: Is it not the fact that the Board of Trade are empowered to make Regulations dealing with these matters? That does not require fresh legislation.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I take it clearly from the President of the Board of Trade that that is not so. If he has power to make those Regulations that is obviously a question which can be discussed.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Might we have it from the Board of Trade whether they have power or not?
    Mr. BURNS: On the particular point referred to by the hon. Member, No.
    Mr. PETO: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that he has no power of bringing pressure to bear with regard to the provision of ships' hospitals?
    Mr. BURNS: I am very glad to say that a Minister in this country has great persuasive power, but as to whether it is legal or even ministerial is a moot point. I have not the power in the sense that the hon. Member means.
    Mr. PETO: The next point I wish to call attention to is the fact that, with regard to accommodation generally, the inspection by the surveyors employed by the right hon. Gentleman's Department is wholly inadequate. The medical and sanitary surveyors are only supplied at four ports—London, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Queenstown. These ports are obviously selected because they are the great ports through which emigrants mainly go, and as there are very few of the inspectors it is very natural that their whole attention should be devoted to these four parts and the inspection of the accommodation provided for emigrants and others, while the inspection of the quarters provided for the crew is generally practically omitted altogether. We have had two reports quite recently from medical officers of health. In the report of the medical officer for the Port of London, he says that he considers that the question partakes of an international character and is worthy of consideration by an official International Convention. Only yesterday the report of the medical officer for the Port of Liverpool came out and it confirmed all the views put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Sandys) with regard to the rate of mortality of the different diseases. What is more, he ascribes practically all the insanitary conditions that prevail on board ship to faulty construction. Undoubtedly the President of the Board of Trade has power to do a great deal in regulating the kind of construction which would make suitable quarters a possibility. We have in our rules proceeded always on the basis that as long as there is a certain cubic area to satisfy the surveyor he has nothing more to say. That is not the correct basis upon which to deal with the question. What is called the volumetric basis—that is to say, the volume of air passing through the quarters, is a much better method. The question of ventilation on ship-board has been dealt with in Australia on the basis that for every man there should be
    1290
    3,000 cubic feet of air passing through in a certain period. If that were done and we had properly ventilated quarters, the great mortality from consumption, pneumonia and other diseases of that kind would become a thing of the past. It has already been pointed out that we are behind at least two other countries in this matter. That is a very good reason why we should not proced on the plan hitherto adopted of doing nothing, but that we should seize the present opportunity of discussing this subject with other countries and arranging to proceed on one uniform method.
    Another question which has been raised in this House for the last two or three years—it has been a thorny question in Board of Trade administration—is the question of sight tests for officers of all grades. Since the right hon. Gentleman assumed his present office we have had an example of his method of practically dealing with this question. I frankly admit that the practical sight test he was good enough to allow me to inspect, which was held at Shoebury two or three months ago, did more to clear up this question than any amount of speeches from both sides of the House and a great deal of writing by experts of various opinions, because we found that, as usual, the expert opinion was divided on the matter. The merchant service generally has taken the view that before a man lost his certificate it was only reasonable that he should have a practical test under seafaring conditions. That sounded so reasonable and sensible that I frankly admit I was very much taken with it myself, and thought it was a fair proposal. I went to see the test, which was not actually carried out under seafaring conditions, but under practical conditions, when red and green lights were exposed at a distance of a mile, and I saw that, whereas the tests went on for a couple of hours, even in those two hours the conditions were entirely different during the middle period from those that prevailed at the beginning or at the end of the test. Light vapours came over the low-lying land, the moon rose up to a different position, the clouds cleared away, and what was comparatively easy at 9.30 in the evening was almost an impossible task for anybody, no matter how good their sight might be, only an hour later. That, I consider, knocked the bottom out of the practical test, so far as I was concerned. I ask the right hon. Gentleman, he having abandoned what

    1291
    is called the single-eye test, and having made the test for form vision much more reasonable than was proposed, to seriously consider whether it is a fair thing to ask men, whose vision is required for the navigation of ships under seafaring conditions, to let the whole question of whether or not they are to have a certificate depend upon whether they can read certain letters at a distance of 16 feet.
    6.0 P.M.
    I submit to the Committee that this matter cannot be dealt with en purely scientific lines. It is well known that after a man has been at sea all his life he develops what is called sea vision. He might not be able to pass the oculist's test, with which we are all familiar, but at the same lime he might put us, who consider that we have good vision, to shame by picking out objects at sea under seafaring conditions at distances at which we should see nothing at all. There is room in that respect for an improvement in the vision tests so as to make them more reasonably agree—I am not speaking of colour tests, but of form-vision tests—with what people really have to see. They have not got to read letters on a card; they have to detect all kinds of objects and appearances at sea, under all conditions, both by night and day. With regard to colour-vision, if reasonable time were given, if the candidates were in no way hurried, and if the right hon. Gentleman could see his way to use his powers to make the actual form of lantern, or rather what is exhibited in the lantern used for the test conform in one particular to seafaring conditions, namely, if he would have the images which are shown representing the port and starboard lights at the distance of a mile, if he would have these miniature images resemble what would be a ship's light on a ship with a 50-foot beam instead of 25, he would make the test a reasonable one. At present the candidate has to distinguish these red and green lights, or the miniature representations of them, on what is supposed to be a vessel with a 25-foot beam and a mile away. I submit that vessels with a 25-foot beam to-day are practically barges, and that 50 feet would be a great deal under the ordinary average of the beam of vessels which it would be important for them to detect at the distance of a mile. There is another point on these Regulations which is much more important even than that. I have here the Regulations issued by the Board of Trade for prevent-
    1292
    ing collisions at sea. Article 2 commences:—
    "A steam vessel when under way shall carry:—(a) On or in front of the foremast, or if a vessel without a foremast, then in the fore part of the vessel, at a height above the hull of not less than 20 feet, and if the breadth of the vessel exceeds 20 feet, then at a height above the hull not less than such breadth, so, however, that the light need not be carried at a greater height above the hull than 40 feet, a bright white light, so constructed as to show an unbroken light over an are of the horizon of 20 points of the compass, so fixed as to throw the light ten points on each side of the vessel, viz., from right ahead to two points abaft the beam on either side, and of such a character as to be visible at a distance of at least five miles."
    Paragraphs (b), (c), (d), deal with sidelights. Paragraph (e) says:—
    "A steam vessel when under way may carry an additional white light similar in construction to the light mentioned in sub-division (a). These two lights shall be so placed in line with the keel that one shall be at least lo feet higher than the other, and in such a position with reference to each other that the lower light shall be forward of the upper one."
    That means that a vessel may carry two mast headlights, one 15 feet above the other, and that if she does carry two mast headights one should be 15 feet higher than the other, and the lower one shall be the forward one of the two. I recently had a conversation on the bridge of a passenger vessel with one of the best captains we have among the many able seamen engaged in the merchant service. His emphatic opinion was that the sidelights did not matter for all practical purposes, provided that the vessel he was meeting carried two mast headlights. He showed me that, provided there were two mast headlights, he knew from five to seven miles off everything that the other vessel was doing and every change in her course, and that it was not necessary to consider what sidelights were shown, or even trouble to look for them. That being so, and as the object of sight-test is the safety of life at sea and the prevention of collisions, I suggest that you should provide simply for the carrying of two mast headlights. I am informed that this captain's opinion is confirmed by practically all the masters in the marine service, and that the two mast headlights are infinitely more important than the sidelights. If it were made compulsory under paragraph (e) of this article that every vessel should carry two mast headlights, or, where there is no mast, under the conditions specified in paragraph (a)—if it were made compulsory instead of optional, it would do more than the sight-tests and the colour-vision tests to make nagivation easy, simple and safe, and, indeed, than anything else the right hon. Gentleman could do. I want to deal with another point, which is purely

    1293
    of an administrative character, namely, the costs of Board of Trade inquiries. On the 16th April I asked a question relating to a ship called the "Scotsdyke." The question is a very important one from the point of view of merchant captains and officers who are unfortunate enough to have to appear before these Board of Trade inquiries. The question was:
    "To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the nature of a case where at a Board of Trade inquiry into a shipping casualty the Board of Trade would feel warranted in not opposing applications for costs or for a fixed sum towards costs by captains or officers made parties to such cases but exonerated from blame; whether the case of the master of the 'Scotsdyke' has been brought to his notice where, though the questions put by the Board of Trade to the Court might have involved the suspension of his certificate and though the Court exonerated him from blame, the solicitor to the Board of Trade, at Glasgow, opposed the application made for the costs of the master, and this was upheld by the Court; and whether the Board of Trade have issued instructions to their legal representatives in the different seaports that they shall oppose similar applications for costs in all case?"
    The right hon. Gentleman replied in these words:—
    "As the hon. Member was informed on 23rd March, I am afraid that it is not possible to give an undertaking that could be universally applicable in these cases. The case of the 'Scotsdyke,' however, appears to have been one in which the Board of Trade might properly have refrained from opposing an application for payment of a sum for costs. I regret that, by an oversight, the solicitor who represented the Board in this case was not instructed in this sense, and in the circumstances, while I cannot say what attitude the Court would have taken up if the matter had been left, without comment, to its discretion, the Board are prepared to consider an application from the master for payment of a sum towards his legal costs."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th April, 1914, col. 318, Vol. LXI.]
    6.0 P.M.
    I will not make any point at all of the fact that I got an admission that there had been an oversight. On the contrary, I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the candour with which he made that admission and on the firmness with which this matter has been dealt with. I understand that application has since been made by the master, and a sum of ten guineas has been paid towards his costs. It is quite clear, as this is one of an almost innumerable number of cases I have raised by question in the House on this burning question of costs of Board of Trade inquiries, and as this is the first time we have got an admission of the principle, it would be only fair, in certain cases, that the costs, or at any rate part of the legal costs of an officer defending his certificate, should be defrayed by the Board of Trade. I therefore ask for two things. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to frankly admit that these inquiries are not criminal proceedings
    1294
    at all; that they are not prosecutions, but that they are inquiries held in the interest of the public, and to promote safety of life at sea. When they are held obviously the captain and officers concerned must be made parties to the case. It is in the interest of the public that they should be made parties, not only when a primâ facie case is made against them, but when their evidence is necessary to elucidate the whole matter. That being so, we want a more generous principle brought into the matter altogether. These are public inquiries held for the public benefit. They are not prosecutions at all, and I suggest where an officer is exonerated from all blame for either the loss of a ship or for stranding, collision, or burning, it should be the rule, and not the exception, that the Board of Trade solicitors should be instructed not only not to oppose payment of costs, but to propose to the Courts, on behalf of the Board of Trade, that they should pay costs in such a case.
    I also ask for another thing, which I think arises out of the first. I ask that in these cases the Board of Trade should be more careful than they have been in the past in needlessly making captains and officers parties to an inquiry when there is really no question of blame at all. I am quite aware that some maintenance money is paid, and something done to minimise the loss and inconvenience, but it really does not meet the case, as the right hon. Gentleman will see in a moment. No doubt he has already considered it. But my point is this: If a captain or officer loses a voyage, to be merely paid lodging allowance while on shore waiting for the inquiry to be held does not nearly meet the case at all, and I suggest really there should be more generous treatment in all cases, at any rate where the officer's attendance is merely required Of the protection of the public, and where the result of the inquiry is that he is exonerated from all blame. There have been cases referred home from Colonial Courts of Inquiry, to which I have especially drawn the attention of the President of the Board of Trade. I see that the hon. and learned Member for York (Mr. Butcher) is in his place, and as this is a legal matter I think it can be much better left in his able hands to deal with. I will, therefore, only say in regard to it that I hope, both in the cases of ordinary inquiries held under the Board of Trade here and in cases of appeal from the Dominions where the Board of Trade are made parties to the inquiry, the

    1295
    officers and men concerned should be dealt with in the same spirit of liberality and justice.
    A good deal has been said about the hours of work of seamen and officers. I would like to point out that the Board of Trade have in the past taken action—not legislative action—in this matter. They did some few years ago make representations to the shipowners with regard especially to Sunday labour, and they received a reply from the Shipping Federation, which is, of course, a representative body of shipowners, to the effect that it is well understood that a maritime wage covers seven days' work a week. So far as I can make out nothing has been done since, and although there have been rumours of legislation to deal with the matter those rumours have never materialised, beyond the First or Second Reading of a Bill, either in this or in the other House. I do not want to go into details of this question involving, as it does, the provision of an adequate number of officers and men, and obviously bringing in the point whether our ships are to be handicapped by having to pay a greater amount in salaries than would be required in foreign ships. But this is precisely one of those questions where international agreement is desirable, and it could, at any rate, be threshed out in an International Convention if the right hon. Gentleman chose to take that course. I should only like to remind the Committee that this is a very burning question, and one which we have very seldom an opportunity of raising. We know that on occasions the question of the number of hours worked by Government employâs, and by others on shore, have been raised in this House, and that that action has directely resulted in improving the condition and state of affairs. Here we have a great national service where officers and men have, in some cases for a whole year, workd continuously an average of seventeen hours in every twenty-four, not for a week or a month, but for a whole year. I can also show that in the Mediterranean trade officers have worked—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is a point which requires legislation.
    Mr. PETO: There are two methods of dealing with this question, and one is by an International Convention. But I will not go into details. I do, however, wish to protest that on this, the only opportunity we are likely to have in the whole
    1296
    year, of raising this question on the floor of the House of Commons, it should be held to be impossible to do so, although we have been waiting for it for twenty years with a view to doing something effective. We have now that opportunity, if only the right hon. Gentleman will take the proper course. I regret that we are not allowed now to discuss the question, but of course I am in the hands of the Chair, and I suppose I must leave it to some other occasion when we may be more fortunate in finding ourselves less restricted in the matter of Debate.
    Sir F. BANBURY: May I suggest to my hon. Friend that his proper course would be to bring in a Bill under the Ten-minute Rule?
    Mr. PETO: I think the hon. Baronet is really—if I may use a vulgar expression—chaffing me.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Oh, no!
    Mr. PETO: The hon. Baronet, with his experience of the House, surely cannot suggest it is possible to deal with a twenty-years' old grievance affecting 200,000 or 300,000 people in a private Bill under the Ten-minute Rule? Surely the suggestion is meant to be humorous? I will now pass from the sea to the land. I want to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to a very important matter, namely, the statistics for agricultural wages. I asked him the other day whether his Department had any information with regard to agricultural wages. The Committee know that this is a burning question, and I wanted information more recent than that which is dated 1907. The right hon. Gentleman, in his reply, said:—
    "Since the issue of the report referred to by the hon. Member, information with regard to agricultural wages has been given in each of the Annual Reports dealing with changes in rates of wages in the Annual Abstracts of the Labour Statistics of the United Kingdom. As this information only refers to cash rates, it is desirable the figures given in the 1907 report, covering all extra payments and allowances, should be brought up to date, and I am proposing to take steps for this purpose during the coming autumn."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th July, 1914, col. 812.]
    I want to know, considering that this is a question on which it is essential that we should have up-to-date statistics, why no steps were taken at least a year ago. Fifteen months ago I raised this question in the House, on the 26th March, 1913, when I asked the right hon. Gentleman
    "Whether the right hon. Gentleman has, or can obtain, any information as to the average nominal money wage of agricultural labourers in England

    1297
    Scotland, and Ireland in 1911, 1901, and 1891; whether he can state the average real wages in each case of agricultural labourers in England, Scotland, and Ireland; and, if not, whether he has taken, or will take, steps to ensure such information being available to his Department as regards agriculture, as well as all the other principal industries of the United Kingdom?"
    I had not intended to trouble the Committee with the reply, as I only read the question in order to show that I raised it fifteen months ago. However, as it is better perhaps not to leave the matter in an incomplete form, I will read the answer of the Parliamentary Secretary. It is as follows:—
    "As a part of the recent general inquiry into wages and hours of labour in all industries, a Report (Cd. 5400) on agricultural labour was published in 1910 in continuation of Cd. 2370 of 1905 and Cd. 340 of 1900. This Report gives detailed information as to the total earnings, including harvest money and all allowances in kind of the principal classes of adult workers in each county of England and Wales. Scotland, and Ireland. The general course of agricultural wages since 1880 is shown by index numbers in a Table on page 70 of the fiteenth Abstract of Labour Statistics (Cd. 6228), and the subject is also dealt with in the Annual Reports on Changes in "Wages issued by the Board of Trade."
    I further asked:—
    "Am I to understand that there is no information which the hon. Member can give relating to the year 1911 or to the other principal industries besides agriculture?"
    To this the hon. Gentleman answered:—
    "I take it that there is nothing later. If the hon. Member will give me specifically what he wants I will try to supply the information."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March, 1913, col. 1642, Vol. L.]
    I do not complain of any lack of courtesy on the part of the hon. Gentleman. On the contrary, he sent me a copy of the Abstract of Labour Statistics, and I found on reference to it that it gave no information later than 1907 as to the inclusive wage of agricultural labourers in any part of the country. It did give in the form of index numbers the wages up to 1913, the index number in 1900 was taken as 100, and it showed that in 1913 ordinary agricultural labourers were in receipt of wages represented by the figures 103.7. The upshot of the whole of that is that, although the question of agricultural wages is a burning one, and although the Government propose to make it one of the main features of their coming legislation which is to include the principle of a minimum wage, yet the House and the country are deprived of the information which is absolutely essential to form any just conclusion even on the main principle of the proposal as to whether compulsion is necessary or not. How are we to decide that if we do not know what has been the effect of the voluntary negotiations which have no doubt taken place all over the country, and of the natural action of give-
    1298
    and-take which operates in connection with every trade? Seven years have elapsed since 1907. There have been great changes in the wages of agricultural labourers—greater in some localities than in others—and I think if we had the figures up to date, if my request which was made more than a year ago had been complied with, and if the forms had been issued to farmers, we might have had statistics with respect to the years since 1907 so as to be able to compare county with county, and we might be saved a great deal of foolish talk arising from the circumstance that we have no up-to date facts to go upon. If we had these statistics, we should know how much of a case there is for taking stronger measures to raise agricultural wages. I am bound to infer that, since the Board of Trade have done practically nothing to get the information since 1907, although there has been a secret inquiry into the conditions of labour, and although they have taken no steps to give us any official inquiry on which we can rely—I am bound to infer that the Government do not want us to know how great has been the effect of voluntary negotiations, and how poor a case there is for any compulsion in the matter.
    We are entitled to know the facts. I think it is very significant that on the verge of a General Election which cannot be delayed for more than a few months, it may be weeks, when this question of agricultural wages is discussed in every parish in the country, we have not got later statistics. The right hon. Gentleman's attention was called to it fifteen months ago. He told us the other day that, although he proposed to issue the schedules shortly, you cannot expect farmers to fill them up until after the farm operations of the autumn are over. He said we could not expect them to fill up elaborate forms earlier. But the information to be obtained should be in our possession earlier in view of the fact that a General Election is approaching. It may be autumn next year before we get any reliable information. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the countless thousands of inaccurate statements that will be made all over the country owing to the absence of figures which he could have obtained. I ask him to consider the waste of money and the waste of breath in talking of subjects which we are utterly unable to deal with properly, simply because this Department would not take the trouble to

    1299
    get the information more than twelve months ago, and to turn round and say, "Surely, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks it necessary to have a secret inquiry into the matter, it must be one of sufficient importance for the Board of Trade to take up and to get official statistics!" We have not got official statistics but we have got another kind of statistics which, in my opinion, looking to the nature of the inquiry which was held, are not worth the paper they are written on.
    In regard to the merchant service, I hope that the President of the Board of Trade will deal with the questions which arise in the same spirit as his predecessor, and that, perhaps, he may even be able to do more. I wish to say of his predecessor (Viscount Buxton), speaking with a knowledge of the merchant service, that we are grateful to him for the kindly consideration which for the first time for many years the Board of Trade gave to their grievances and difficulties when questions were brought to his notice, I know the patient way in which he read volumes of statistics of all kinds in relation to matters to which I have not been permitted to allude. I am sorry all that knowledge is lost to us at the present time. I cannot expect the right hon. Gentleman to master the whole subject in a few months, but I do know that he will bring a practical mind to bear upon it. I hope he will bring to these matters the same spirit of consideration which ruled at the Board of Trade for the last year or two. We have had no result, so far, in the form of any practical alleviation with respect to the lot of the officers and men of the merchant service at sea. I hope that by hook or crook the right hon. Gentleman will find the means to give kindly consideration to the question, even during the short time before the next General Election, and that some practical result which we have been long waiting for will be produced.
    Sir A. WILLIAMSON: This is one of the days when one is filled with admiration for the President of the Board of Trade, who, it seems to me, must be an encyclopædia in order to be able to answer the questions put to him by the last speaker. I wish to ask information as to what he has done, or if he has done anything at all, with respect to the representations made to the Board of Trade on behalf of the fisher girls, many of whom dwell in my Constituency, and from whom complaints
    1300
    have been received as to the accommodation provided on the steamers conveying them to their work from their homes. Those representations seem to suggest that the conditions on board the steamers, especially en those going to Orkney and Shetland, are almost inhuman. The girls are alleged to have had no accommodation in the shape of beds, and that they had to lie on the hard boards of the deck, subject in bad weather to the spray driving over them. The conditions are altogether uncomfortable and unsatisfactory. Representations on the subject were made to the Board of Trade, and I hope the Department has since looked into the matter and ascertained whether there is good ground for the allegations which have been made. I wish to know whether the Board can do anything to alleviate the conditions of which the girls complain. After all, they are a respectable, reputable, and well-behaved class of the community, and they do deserve our consideration, because they have practically no means of making their grievance known, except by the exceptional measures they took this year when some of them came to London and interviewed Members of this House. It is not often that representations are put forward in this reasonable way, and I do hope that the President of the Board of Trade has done what is possible in the circumstances. This is not a question between employers and employed. I believe I am correct in saying that the sympathy of the employers will be with these girls if the conditions are such as are alleged. The employers would gladly see the conditions improved. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to assure us that the conditions, if they were as alleged, will not occur again.
    Mr. BURNS: It is a great tribute to the general character of the work of the Board of Trade that the administration has been subjected to the little amount of criticism which has come from all quarters of the House. I am sorry indeed that there is only a small number of Members in the House at present. I am grateful to those who have spoken for the kindly spirit they have shown, and I am not at all surprised that the speakers have dealt with practically the same subjects during the three hours the discussion has been going on. I rise to reply to the various points which have been submitted. The first I will deal with is that mentioned by the last speaker. My hon. Friend very properly directed the attention of the

    1301
    House to the conditions of the fisher girls and fisher women—a very fine body of our fellow countrywomen, who carry on their very hard and labourious occupations under very severe conditions. They deserve the thanks of the community, and I think that if there are any industrial conditions from which they suffer, and which can be improved, or if we can do anything which will tend to the mitigation of their hardships, it is the duty of the House of Commons, and of every Minister, to do what they can to ameliorate their lot. I have had brought before me by the hon. Member who represents one of the Divisions of Edinburgh, and by my hon. Friend (Sir A. Williamson) not only on this occasion, but on other occasions, the conditions in relation to these girls, and the way which they are treated on the steamers which ply from the islands to the mainland, and also on the railways and in the waiting-rooms. I have received deputations on the subject, and it is sufficient for me to say that I have made representations to those responsible for the treatment which these girls receive while being conveyed both by sea and land. I sincerely trust that the result will be to remove some of the hardships and to mitigate the lot of this worthy class of people.
    The next point I have to deal with is that raised by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Peto). If he will allow me to say so, two-thirds of his request on the matter of wages has been disposed of by the fact that only a day or two ago I promised to bring the 1907 returns up to date. In October next we are issuing forms of inquiry and schedules to the responsible people who can give us information in the agricultural districts. The hon. Member's complaint was that October will be too late, because of the next General Election being so near.
    Mr. PETO: Hear, hear.
    Mr. BURNS: The hon. Member says, "Hear, hear," but I would point out that there has hardly been a year since I have been in office when there have not been similar predictions. The election is not coming in October. It will be sufficiently late for use to be made of the real facts and figures in regard to the rural controversy which too often is dealt with by persons of great imagination who only use the figures as illustrations, and who avoid understanding the real facts which mere figures do not always disclose
    Sir F. BANBURY: How long does the right hon. Gentleman think it will take to prepare the Return?
    Mr. BURNS: Not very long. We have some experience of this, and we intend to accelerate the inquiry and we trust to have it ready not later than January. The reason for delay is this: The farmers very sensibly state to the Board of Trade, through the usual channels, that they do not want to be worried with either forms of inquiry or schedules, or other demands for information, either during the hay, fruit, or the wheat harvest, and they ask specifically that the inquiry should not be begun before October. If the hon. Member will allow me, I prefer the solid, practical suggestion of a British farmer to the suggestions of politicians who are under the impression that they know more about farming than farmers themselves.
    Mr. PETO: If the right hon. Gentleman would allow me to make a few remarks—
    Mr. BURNS: The hon. Member has spoken already.
    Mr. PETO: Am I not in order to replying to the hon. Gentleman when he states that I am a politician and not a farmer?
    The CHAIRMAN: When I rise the hon. Member must sit down. The hon. Member has occupied forty-seven minutes, and must now allow the right hon. Gentleman to proceed with his reply.
    Mr. BURNS: I have a right to speak, as I intend to speak, on this subject. The hon. Member, representing a number of views from outside, took up precisely the same attitude as to the sight tests imposed on officers of ships by the Board of Trade, and he now admits that the test is correct. The facts are roughly these: We cannot talk about providing for safety at sea, for the lives of passengers and crews, and be at the same time indifferent to the vision test that should be applied to the captains and officers in charge of vessels. The hon. Member and a few others were under the impression that the sight test adopted by the Board of Trade was unfair to the officers and needlessly stringent. I did what I hope Ministers will do increasingly—that is, when confronted with a practical difficulty and there is a doubt about it in the minds of practical men, subject the question at issue between the two sections to a practical test. I am grateful to the hon. Member for admitting so frankly as he

    1303
    did to-day, and as it has been admitted by outside critics, that the Board of Trade sight test under the material conditions came out of the demonstration with flying colours. The Board of Trade were justified in the present form of test, and to that test we intend to adhere. It is not that we want to be severe on the seaman. On the contrary, the seaman properly evokes the human sympathy of everybody by virtue of the peculiar nature of his calling. We do not want to be unjust to the officers, because it is not the business of any Department to have such an absurdly high standard of examination for anything as to prevent men coming into a particular service such as the mercantile marine. But we have a duty towards the public, and towards the officers and men themselves, and we have a right to say that where a man cannot comply with a reasonable, fair and just sight test such as now operates, his place is not on the deck of the sailing or steam vessel. His place is in an occupation where his defective vision, if put to the test, would not be the danger to the general communities and himself which it would be upon the bridge or upon the deck of either a sailing or a steam vessel. I am satisfied after a practical demonstration, at which our critics had the opportunity of seeing how the Board of Trade test was conducted, that we have done the right thing, not only in the interests of the community, but in the interests of the officers, the owners, and the men themselves. It is very satisfactory to know that that view is endorsed now by men who were critics and opponents of the Board of Trade test.
    The hon. Member also said that the Board ought to be more generous in their lodging allowance to officers and men who are called in for inquiry. The short answer to that is that we are looking into this with a view to making some improvement in that direction. The hon. Member did not suggest in so many words, but he implied, that the Board of Trade should, irrespective of particular cases, grant a general allowance of costs to all the people to whom they make no allowance at present. My answer to that is that someone must protect the taxpayer, and we have no right to create any temptation to have needless costs mounting up, which would happen if we were to withdraw the discretion that the Board of Trade now very properly exercise through their solicitors of
    1304
    saying where costs shall be and where they shall not be allowed. And to that system we must adhere. Other questions have been raised which I will deal with, not as raised by individual Members, but in reference to the subjects themselves. The first was as to the sanitary condition of ship accommodation, hospitals on ships, crew space, and similar things. I have had the advantage, thanks to the House of Commons, of being for eight years Minister of Health at the Local Government Board, and by virtue of that experience I was able to take a general view of the conditions of health, not only of the communities in the municipalities, but also in relation to the various aspects of industrial life, and on going to the Board of Trade I was struck by one very remarkable fact. On looking at the figures of our industrial population I found that from 1891 to 1911 the death-rate, from disease, of men in the Royal Navy between certain ages had diminished from 4.7 per thousand to 2.2 per thousand, which is a very considerable and creditable decline. The total death-rate in the Army had diminished in a more remarkable way. It had gone down from 8.9 per thousand to 3.4 per thousand in the same period. Among the civil population of similar ages there had been a decline in the rate for all causes from 7.9 per thousand to 4.7 per thousand. So, speaking generally, the death-rate for the men and boys in the Royal Navy, the Army, and the male civil population, of similar ages, had shown a tremendous and gratifying decline. Then it struck me that we ought to see how poor "Jack" fared in the same period, and I found, to my disagreeable surprise, that the death-rate from disease in the mercantile marine during the same period was practically stationary, and that there had been a decline only of from 4.9 to 4.7 per thousand. Knowing the circumstances, for I have been to sea and I know a great deal of the seaport population, the question arises: Are we drawing from a poorer class of population for the mercantile marine as compared to that from which we were drawing many years ago, or are we drawing from classes inferior to those from which we are drawing for the Army, the Royal Navy, and the industrial civil population of the same ages?
    Major ARCHER-SHEE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what are the ages?
    Mr. BURNS: I can get the hon. Member the ages. But I thought if that be so, then

    1305
    there is something about the mercantile marine that prevents men of similar ages, of a certain class and type of physique, going into it, as compared with the Army, the Royal Navy, and civil life. If that be so, then short of legislation and pending legislation, it is really up to shipowners and those responsible for conducting the mercantile marine to see that, by every means within their power, it shall be possible no longer to say that the mortality from disease in the mercantile marine does not show the same decline as is shown in the other three grades of the population. I ventured to direct the attention of a great meeting of shipowners in the Hotel Metropole to this point two years ago and a year ago, and here from my place in the House as President of the Board of Trade I appeal to both owners of ships and holders of shares in ships, and the leaders of all the sections, to do everything in their power, by voluntary, or personal, or business action, to bring the health and the hygienic and sanitary conditions of our sailors on board ship, so far as their accommodation, their food and their treatment are concerned, abreast of all other sections of the population, so that, speaking generally, we should rather have the mercantile marine conditions superior to those of the other three grades, because it is on the sea that Britain has its supremacy; it is on the sea that we depend, and if there is one branch of our social, industrial, and commercial life in which wages ought to be good, food excellent, and sanitary conditions of the highest possible standard, it is for and among those men who go down to the sea in ships. Hon. Members may say, "That is very good so far as sentiment is concerned, but what did you do?" I appointed at once a Committee, not of the House of Lords or of the House of Commons, but a small Committee of specialists with medical officers, statistical experts, and others, to find out why it is that during the period which I have mentioned, in three classes of the population the death-rate from disease has declined remarkably, while it has been practically stationary in the mercantile marine. That Committee has been instructed to get to work to examine the whole subject, and I hope soon to have from them a practical and suggestive Report. But in the meantime we have no right to wait for that Committee's Report, if in the interval we can find out anything which can be done.
    I am glad to say that on the subject of hospital accommodation for the crews much
    1306
    has been done, and more than the hon. Member for a division of Wiltshire has suggested. For instance, in regard to crew hospital accommodation on cargo steamers, in January, 1912, the Board of Trade issued a notice to shipowners that in cargo vessels suitable hospital accommodation should be provided for sick and disabled seamen. What has been done? Of 150 large vessels built in 1902, there were only ten with crew hospitals, or 7 per cent.; of 160 built in 1912, twenty-eight, or 17 per cent., had crew hospitals provided; of 213 built in 1913, sixty-eight, or 32 per cent., were provided with crew hospitals. We intend by every means within our power to accelerate the provision of hospitals, not only on emigrant ships and large steamers, but on a large number of tramp steamers, where the men, perhaps, require hospital accommodation even more than on the great liners. That is only one of many things that is being done. With regard to crew space, the Merchant Shipping Acts laid down certain conditions, and I do not agree with the hon. Member who said that practically nothing has been done in this matter. I have only to state the facts to disprove that suggestion. In 1906, 120 cubic feet were substituted for 72 cubic feet, which was prevailing the year before. This increase from 72 cubic feet and 12 square feet to 120 cubic feet and 15 square feet per man we consider was a considerable advance. But, if I may be allowed to say so, the stereotyping of certain provisions in Acts of Parliament do not make for comfort or decency in any way. My own view, and I have always held it and I still adhere to it, is that good administration is much better than bad legislation, and so far as administration is concerned we intend to use administration up to the topmost limit, and if that should fail to bring about the requisite standard of sanitation, comfort and decency, then we will apply for new legislation, but we will not do that until the existing Acts are proved to be defective.
    May I say a word or two—and I think I have a right to say them—on this point: Some owners of ships have told me that they have provided good cabins, bathrooms, good mess-rooms, and good accommodation in the forecastle, and good rooms near the stokehold, but that they have not been so well appreciated as they ought to be. But that is no reason for not continuing these improvements. On the contrary, in my judgment it is a reason

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    for accelerating the provision of all these comforts, because in the past many of the men have been so badly treated, have been subjected to such a low standard of comfort and decency, and have become so inured to hard and brutal conditions of life, that it has induced loss of self-respect, owing to the low conditions in which they have been compelled to live, work, and have their being. Before you can make men self-respecting you must find them decent environment and good physical surroudings; and my suggestion to the shipowners who are making this experiment, and who are rather disappointed in a few instances because they have not been reciprocated by the men, is to press on with their good work. My advice to the men and to their leaders is that they might do a great deal of good if they co-operated with the shipowners who have made this provision on board their vessels, and by means of lectures and meetings held at a number of the ports the leaders might bring home to the sailors the advisability of living up to a good standard and to get the old standard away from them as quickly as they can. If there were large meetings held with this object, say, in London, Cardiff, Glasgow, or Liverpool during my holidays, I would not be indisposed to take the chair, as I did when I was President of the Local Government Board in regard to tuberculosis and infant mortality. That is a suggestion or hint I make to shipowners and sailors, and I should be ready to take the chair at any of those meetings, having one of each body on either hand, and I hope I should be able to keep them both in order.
    Mr. BARNES: On the question of the increase of space for sailors, I should like to know if you have power to revise the air space on old ships previous to 1906, and, if so, whether you have used that power?
    Mr. BURNS: Unfortunately, it is impossible, in the case of old ships, to have this rule enforced. Everybody knows, and my hon. Friend knows, that the wastage of mercantile ships is so rapid that, if you decide upon a reform in connection with the mercatile marine, within some ten years your reform is able to be carried out by reason of vessels being off the register, transferred, or destroyed, or broken up, or substituted by newer ships, in which later and better conditions can be instituted. It is impossible for us to make Regulations retrospectively applicable to
    1308
    old vessels. But where it can be done it is being done. I think myself that the House has a right to know, in connection with the inspectors and ship surveyors—I am not complaining of it—that, in my judgment, the inspection of saloons is not really necessary to the extent that some people think. The mere fact that people are able to pay extravagant prices—say anything from £10 up to £800—for quarters on board a liner, implies and presupposes that the best possible accommodation that. can be procured will be provided for that price. It seems to me that we ought to give, and increasingly give, closer and more continuous inspection of the stokehold, the forecastle, the mess room, the stewards' quarters, and the emigrants' accommodation, and I am glad to say that there has been over the last few years a considerable improvement in that direction.
    The other point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackfriars had reference to the question of the War Office and the Board of Trade. The Board of Trade very properly supplies other Departments with statistical information; it is their duty, and it is their function; but I must not allow my hon. Friend to put upon the Board of Trade responsibility if the information is not used. The hon. Member knows very well that Blue Books and statistics of the Board of Trade are models and exemplars for every country in the world in regard to the reliability of the information which they accumulate as quickly as possible, and, if there was delay I do not want to shirk my responsibility; but it is our business to provide the facts and information, and it is for the other Departments to use them when we have provided them at their resquest. Another point which has been raised is in reference to the survey staff. The hon. Member for one of the Finsbury Divisions said what was needed was a large increase in the survey staff. I am not so sure that a mere increase of officials and functionaries is the best or most efficient means of getting economic information. It sometimes happens that the more you multiply your officials the more wasteful and more inefficient is the service obtained. I believe in treating and paying men well and sufficiently, and if they do not do their work we ought to get rid of them.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Will the right hon. Gentleman draw the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what he has said.
    Mr. BURNS: I draw the attention of every Member of the House of Commons, including the hon. Baronet, to it. The great difficulty that confronts every Minister, however much he may desire to be economical in any branch of his Department is that when any Member gets up to speak in the House to do his duty—and I think he sometimes panders to this unnecessarily, especially in the matter of offices—the suggestion made to every Minister is to keep multiplying the number of officials. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] That is so. After all the reduction of my salary by £100 has been moved on purpose to add, say, £15,000 to £20,000 in respect of additional officials and surveyors. I am going to do my best to earn my salary by preventing if possible £15,000 or £20,000 from being spent on this work. What is the fact as to numbers? The total survey staff has been increased from about 144 in 1912 to 198 in 1914, or an increase of about 25 per cent.
    Major ARCHER-SHEE: I referred to the nautical surveyors.
    Mr. BURNS: After all, the Minister should be responsible for selecting where the increases shall take place, and the twenty this year are fairly divided between the three grades—six, seven, and seven. We thought that was the best way and we so decided, and however anxious some people may be to provide officials, still I cannot satisfy all the applicants, and, what is more, I do not intend to try. The other point raised was in reference to deck-loads, and the hon. Member for Finsbury said it was regrettable that there was no inspection of deck-loads, quoting me as a partial authority for that statement. My answer to that is that he is wrong. On the contrary, a special look-out has been kept, and is being kept, by the Board of Trade officers and Customs officers on deck-loads, and it is within the power both of the Board of Trade surveyors and the Customs men to take the necessary steps to prevent those bad cases of overloading which sometimes occur, and which, when they are known, the Board of Trade does everything in its power to prevent.
    7.0 P.M.
    He also raised another point, namely, as to the "County of Devon." He will pardon me if I do not give him a lengthy reply to his remarks on that question. He knows it is a very difficult case. I have sent the papers to counsel for guidance as to whether a prosecution can be instituted,
    1310
    and it seems to me it would be unfair toad the parties affected if I were to deal with the "County of Devon" at greater length than to mention that fact. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. J. Hogge) raised the question of the lighthouse-keepers.
    Mr. BUTCHER: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is going to deal with the question of deck-loads?
    Mr. BURNS: Yes, I am going to deal with that a little later. As to the question of lighthouse-keepers, I can only answer him that in the last few weeks Trinity House, which is mainly responsible for the administration and payment of lighthouse-keepers, has given a rise of wages amounting to £3,340. My hon. Friend says that that is unfair in its distribution, because the men with fifteen years' service get the bulk of it. My answer to that is that it is a regular job, and every one of the men who has less than fifteen years' service will come to that rise in proper order. But, if my hon. Friend thinks that the allocation of the wages was disproportionately unfair on the men with lower wages, I am quite prepared to make some representations to the right quarter so that, in the event of any further rise of wages being considered, the men who have come worst off in the distribution of the increase that has been given shall get some benefit from any future rise that may occur. My hon. Friend then raised the question of the charwomen at the Board of Trade. I think of all people in the world who ought to be properly treated it is that decent body of struggling women who clean out and tidy up the Government and private offices in this great City of ours. In fact, I know no body of people who evoke my sympathy more than those women, because anybody who knows them, especially in Government offices, knows that almost invariably they are. widows, sometimes with large families, and where they are not widows they are wives who are struggling bravely to help to maintain a family under very difficult conditions, with possibly the husband sick or often out of work. I will communicate to the Treasury the short and simple annals of the poor charwomen as put by my hon. Friend, and so far as I am concerned, if the Treasury will give them a considerable rise, no one will be happier than myself.
    The other point that was raised was as to the question of deck-loads. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Major Archer-Shee)

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    and two or three others are angry with the Board of Trade, for reasons I cannot altogether appreciate, because the Board of Trade is calling an International Conference which will deal with timber deck-loads. The convening of that Conference was started some months ago. The preparation of the agenda has been a matter of laborious application. The Conference, we trust, may be held soon, and I hope that all the maritime nations that attended the Conference on the safety of life at sea will see their way to attend this International Conference at which timber deck-loads will be considered. All the hon. Members who have spoken know very well that of all deck-loads the most dangerous and that which most urgently calls for attention is the question of timber deck-loads. The hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Hamilton Benn), who has a technical and continuous knowledge of this subject, pointed out that deck-loads are not inherently bad in themselves, which will be of interest to those hon. Members who do not know quite as well the question of timber deck-loads. We are hopeful that we will be able to secure an international agreement pretty soon for a uniform maximum standard for timber deck-loads which will induce safety under all conditions of weather. But I am certain of this, if we mix up with that Conference any other question of which the Continental countries have not received previous notice, and as to which they would say they had not been sufficiently warned, and therefore were not prepared to discuss such a question, then I am sure that instead of securing the object which we have in view, namely, a short Conference and the international acceptance of a uniform standard of safety for timber deck-loads, if we overload the agenda by extraneous subjects such as those which have been suggested, the object of providing against excessive deck-loads, which ought to be desired by all of us, will be defeated, and probably delayed for years. I said the other day in answer to a question that one at a time was very good fishing in this matter. And it is very good indeed that the Board of Trade should have been able to assemble a successful International Conference on safety of life at sea, and before the end of the year have a Bill before Parliament to carry out the decisions of that Conference.
    We trust before long to call together a Conference which will deal with
    1312
    timber deck-loads. If it is within the power of the Conference to suggest another conference later on to deal with some of the other subjects suggested by hon. Members and others; I am not indisposed to consider the summoning of another conference. But this Conference has been organised and prepared and warned of what subjects will be for discussion, and therefore it seems to me I should not be keeping faith with the other countries if I were to accept the suggestion of hon. Members. The last point was that mentioned by the hon. Baronet. If he will allow me to say so, he was on the verge of being out of order during the whole of the time he was making his speech, but being a charitable man I did not direct the attention of the Chairman to it, and he was, under the circumstances I thought, indulgently lenient to the hon. Baronet, who thought that I was responsible for the regulation and control of London traffic. At the Board of Trade my only connection with London traffic is to be responsible for what is known as the Traffic Branch of the Board of Trade. The object of that traffic branch is purely statistical and historical. It simply collects the facts for hon. Members to read with regard to London traffic. It has not any ministerial responsibility or executive or adminitrative control over London traffic, which the hon. Baronet probably thought it had. The control of London traffic from the police point of view rests entirely with the Home Office. Speed limits rest with the county councils, supervised by the Local Government Board. The question of refuges is divided between the county councils and the borough councils and the police, while the Traffic Branch of the Board of Trade has comparatively little to do with the traffic as suggested by the hon. Baronet. The Board of Trade has no control over speed limits. The only thing that the Board of Trade has to do other than statistical is the passing of the safety or otherwise of tramway lines for tramways. But my own view is that the condition of London traffic cannot remain in its present condition much longer. A regiment of 600 people are killed every year in the streets of London, and 20,000 people are injured every year, more or less.
    The CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman has just informed us that this does not come within his Department.
    Mr. BURNS: The points raised, even including the Traffic Branch of the Board of Trade, came before a Special Committee of the House of Commons, which considered this subject in all its aspects. They made, in my judgment, some very sensible recommendations, which they urged that the Government should adopt. I will convey to the Prime Minister and to the various Departments to whom the Committee's Report has been remitted the suggestion of the hon. Baronet, and I couple with his suggestions the general view of the House of Commons, which is that whether the Board of Trade is responsible, partly or otherwise, the condition of London traffic ought to be improved and ought to be better controlled, and people ought not to be killed and injured as they now are. I will convey those representations to the Prime Minister, so that he can ask my own Department where it is affected, and the other Departments to bring their minds to bear on the subject.
    Major DALRYMPLE WHITE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman how far the Board of Trade can enforce orders upon firemen who refuse to do boat drill?
    Mr. BURNS: There are no existing powers, and I have no power, either executive or administrative, to penalise the men as suggested.
    Mr. STEWART: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can give any reason for the increase of 4,000 Chinese seamen, and if it is the fact that alien masters are increasing in numbers?
    Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: I desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it will be possible in the new International Conference, which he says is about to take place, to have brought before it the question of amending the agreement with regard to having wireless apparatus only on ships carrying fifty people or more, because there is a strong feeling that in the interests of everybody at sea there is no reason in fixing the figure of fifty persons, because a wireless signal might be the means of saving life if a ship had only quarter or half that number of persons on board.
    Mr. ASTOR: I am sure we have all listened with great interest to the right hon. Gentleman's survey of his new Department, and particularly as to what he had to say about sanitation on ships. I agree with the line he took about legislation and good and efficient ad-
    1314
    ministration. Legislation, of course, is necessary, but you also want good administration, and in that good and efficient administration I was pleased to hear him include what I may call health lectures. As we are now learning to make children healthy by teaching them the elementary principles of hygiene, so it is necessary also to teach adults whether on ships or on land. But the point I wish to raise is as to the payment of light dues. They are collected to find funds for lighthouses and lightships. They are collected now by tonnage and not by the amount of business done. It brings about a real hardship that light dues should be collected from shipowners on this basis. The same light dues are charged whether the ship comes and unloads the whole cargo or whether it unloads only a few passengers, or whether it discharges passengers, cargo, and specie, or whether it calls at a particular port, discharges passengers, and goes away to another country to discharge its cargo there. I wish to call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to this circumstance, and to ask if he can see his way to remedy the grievance, as it is in his power to do, so as to make the dues payable in accordance with the amount of business done. The hardship arises especially in connection with big ocean liners and passenger ships. Owing to their size they have to pay very heavy light dues, while in some cases the amount of business done is infinitesimal. You may have a liner coming to a port, perhaps not even coming into the harbour but discharging a few passengers by means of a tender, and yet paying as much as any other ship which discharges the whole of its cargo. Some of these liners call at English ports and discharge passengers, and then go to Cherbourg or Germany and there discharge the rest of their passengers or cargo. These liners call merely to oblige the passengers—to make it easier for them to come here, instead of having to travel back from Boulogne or Calais by a small ship.
    There was a case brought to my notice recently of a ship which had to pay light dues at the rate of £13 per head of the passengers landed. That is probably more than the passengers had to pay for their accommodation crossing the Atlantic. It seems to me unfair on shipowners and all concerned that they should have to make this heavy payment in such circumstances. I have in my mind the case of another ship

    1315
    which had to pay £120 in light dues merely for calling for a few hours at a port and then going on to Germany to discharge the rest of the cargo. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will remedy this grievance, because it certainly discourages trade. He knows as well as I do that a large number of countries do not make any charge whatever upon owners of ships using their harbours and ports for the maintenance of lighthouses and lightships. Germany, France, Denmark, and other countries themselves pay all the expenses connected with their lighthouses and lightships, while this country makes ships using our harbours and ports pay these light dues.
    Sir F. BANBURY: A very good thing too!
    Mr. ASTOR: That may be, but there is no reason why they should not be charged according to the business done. There is a precedent for making this alteration. Formerly ships which called at ports like Plymouth, Falmouth, or Queenstown for orders—for instance, ships which put in to find out where the cargo should be discharged—used to have to pay full light dues. Very often the cargo had been disposed of while the ship was crossing the Atlantic, and was not even discharged in this country. The authorities realised that that was unfair, and they remitted the light dues in such cases. The right hon. Gentleman has, by Act of Parliament, the right, either generally or in respect of particular classes of cases, to alter the scale or the rules and exemptions there from. I suggest that he should make a considerable reduction in light dues where only passengers are landed, a smaller reduction where passengers and mails are landed, and perhaps not quite such a large reduction where passengers, mails, and specie are landed; and that he should bear in mind the fact that these ships require special consideration when they do not discharge the whole of their cargo either at one port or even in England. By so doing he will remedy a real injustice, and will not seriously deplete the fund necessary to maintain the lighthouses and lightships.
    Mr. BUTCHER: I propose to refer to one or two points which have been somewhat lightly touched on by the President of the Board of Trade. The first is the question of costs of captains and other officers at Board of Trade inquiries. I
    1316
    admit that the practice has somewhat improved in the last two years. Formerly you might have had this great hardship upon an officer of the mercantile marine; he might have been summoned to appear at a Board of Trade inquiry into a shipping casualty, and, although entirely exonerated from all blame of any sort or kind, put to serious expense in clearing himself, and he would have had to bear the whole of his costs. I understand that the Board of Trade have recently accepted the principle that in such cases the officers, who have been exonerated from all blame should be reimbursed the whole or some part of their costs. That has been done in one case, I know, and I think it would be a reasonable rule, which I would press the Board of Trade to adopt, that when a man has been brought before such an inquiry and entirely exonerated the Board of Trade should pay a reasonable sum towards the costs which he has had necessarily to incur. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to go a little further than he has done, and not leave the matter in the vague region of discretion as he seems inclined to do.
    There is also the question of officers' costs in successful appeals to this country from Colonial Courts. The practice is that if an officer in the mercantile marine, who has had his certificate cancelled or suspended by a Colonial Court, appeals to this country and is successful, no part of his costs is repaid him. That is a great hardship. I will give a concrete instance* There were two cases occurred only last year. Two steamships stranded in the St. Lawrence River. Inquiries were held in the Canadian Courts pursuant to the powers given by the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894. In both cases the certificates of the masters—which, mark you, were Board of Trade certificates, granted in this country—were suspended. In the usual course reports of the cases and prints of the evidence were sent over to the Board of Trade in this country. It was a very serious matter for these captains, as regards both their present and their future employment, and it was absolutely incumbent upon them, conceiving as they did that their certificates had been wrongfully suspended, to appeal to this country. The appeals were presented, and they were entirely successful. Counsel representing the Board of Trade did not even attempt to justify the action of the Canadian Courts, and these men had their certificates restored. But when they asked for

    1317
    the repayment of some of their costs their application was opposed by the Board of Trade counsel, and when they subsequently applied ex gratia to the Board of Trade first, and afterwards to the Canadian Minister of Marine, they were told that they could not get any part of their costs. I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree that that is very hard. These men had their certificates wrongfully suspended; they lost their employment for some time; they were put to heavy costs in getting that wrongful dismissal put right.
    It may be said that the Government in this country are not responsible. This case could never have occurred but for the legislation of this House. It was under Section 478 of the Merchant Shipuing Act that the hearing of the Canadian Courts was possible. That Section provides that in certain circumstances, where an accident occurs in Colonial waters, the Canadian legislature are authorised to instruct their own Courts to hold an inquiry of this sort. By the same Section, the Colonial Courts in such a case are empowered to cancel or to suspend a British Board of Trade certificate. Therefore the power of the Colonial Court to suspend the certificates was entirely derived from British legislation. What happened? Owing to that power given by the British legislature the Colonial Courts wrongfully suspended these certificates, and the captains had to bring their appeals here to get their certificates restored. I submit that in such a case it is only reasonable that the British Government should reimburse the costs, to which these men ought never to have been put. It must be remembered that mercantile marine officers are not rich men; they cannot afford to pay heavy costs. It is a very heavy penalty upon them when they have been wrongfully deprived of their certificates that they should have to bring appeals in this country to get matters put right. The Board of Trade might, at any rate, exercise a discretion in the repayment of such costs. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider the two cases to which I have referred. Why could not a similar practice be established in these appeals from Colonial Courts, to that which the right hon. Gentleman has introduced partially, in the case of Board of Trade inquiries? At present, I understand, in successful appeals these men are never given their costs. If the right hon. Gentleman cannot lay down a universal rule
    1318
    that successful appellants shall get their costs, will he give favourable consideration to such cases as those to which I have referred, so that, as far as the Board of Trade can, they will relieve the hardship under which these men labour? It may be said that these cases are not of frequent occurrence. I grant that. I believe that is so. But is that not all the more reason why such cases as do occur should be favourably considered, and the sufferers relieved? Even though it be that they are infrequent, the hardship still falls upon those concerned.
    There is only one other point to which I should like to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman, and that is the question of deck-loads other than timber. We understand that the question of timber deck-loads is to be submitted to the Imperial Maritime Conference that is to sit shortly. That, of course, is not the only question to be submitted, but as regards deck-loads I understand that the question is to be confined to timber deck-loads. I think the right hon. Gentleman said that it would not be fair now to foreign countries to ask them to consider deck-loads of other kinds. Surely, no foreign country that sends its experts to the Imperial Maritime Conference to consider the question of safety at sea can object to the whole question of deck-loads being raised! Is there really such an essential difference between timber deck-loads and all other deck-loads? If these experts come prepared to deal with deck-loads of timber, will they not be quite prepared to consider as well deck-loads of other articles. I do not, I need hardly say, speak on this matter as an expert, but I do know something about mechanics, machinery, and the laws of hydrostatics, and it is perfectly obvious, that deck-loads consisting of heavy articles such as machinery, locomotives, and so on, which cannot be secured as well as timber in the first place, and which, in the second place, are far heavier as a top load than of timber, ought to be considered if timber is considered. Surely there must at least be a great danger to-life at sea in these loads as in timber deck-loads? Might I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman to intimate to the foreign countries that the question will be raised by our experts, and to suggest that the foreign experts should consider this urgent matter? He cannot go further than that, but I think he can go that far.
    Mr. ROWNTREE: There is one question which I wish to bring before my right

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    hon. Friend to which I would ask him to give his most careful consideration. It is well known that the railway servants of this country have taken action which may mean a serious conflict in the autumn of this year. That action refers to the question of their wages and their hours of labour. It is of the utmost importance in the interests of the public of this country that they should have the facts before them upon which to form a proper judgment. The other day I asked the right hon. Gentleman a question as to the latest Returns in regard to the wages of railway-men. He told me that the latest detailed Return was for 1907. I am sure it is of the utmost importance that the Board of Trade should secure the figures with regard to this matter, so that we in this House and the public outside can form a proper judgment on it. I appeal to my right hon. Friend to take action in this matter. He referred me to the Report of last year of the Changes in Rates of Wages. That Report just tells us the number of railway employés and the average wage. It is practically useless in helping us to form a judgment on the question which is before the country. We want to know the number of men on our railways who are receiving, let us say, a wage below that which Members of this House would consider a reasonable living wage. The House has not that information. It is a question which needs the careful consideration of my right hon. Friend. No one is more insistent than he that on questions like this we should not be swayed by sentiment, but should be guided by reason and by an appeal to facts. I submit that neither the House nor the country have the facts. The railway companies must have them. If they have not got them, they ought to have them, because without them they themselves cannot give a proper decision in regard to this matter. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to see that at an early date the House and the country is put in possession of facts which, I submit, are absolutely necessary for the House and the country to give a right decision upon in regard to questions which are to come before them.
    Mr. MONTAGUE BARLOW: There are one or two points which I should like to lay before the Committee. Some topics, I must honestly say, have already been dealt with by the President in his speech, which we listened to, if he will allow me to say so, with
    1320
    pleasure. I hope he will not think I am putting flattery too high when I say that to many of us it seemed to be an excellent Tory speech, especially when the right hon. Gentleman enunciated the principle that good administration was to be preferred to bad legislation. To that, I am sure, there was a ready echo in all our hearts on this side. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that the hygienic conditions of ships was a matter which lay very near his heart, and that he was willing to take the chair at lectures which might be given at one or two of the leading ports in the country, which he named. He did not name one leading port, which I happen to be connected with—that is Manchester and Salford. I trust he will be good enough to extend his offer to that distinguished port—because it is a port, though an inland port—and I believe that something might be done in the matter of making adequate arrangements.
    I want to raise two points. One has been touched upon in the course of this discussion; the other has not. The one is in connection with the railway men, their rates of pay and accidents, and in particular their hours of labour. I want also to say only one or two words—because the matter has been dealt with at some considerable length—with regard to merchant seamen and their interests and conditions generally. With regard to the question of the railway men, who come under the jurisdiction of the Board of Trade, there is no doubt that the safety conditions is a matter about which the House, generally speaking, is convinced is not satisfactory. We all remember the Amendment to the Address. While that Amendment was under full discussion there was a sudden and mysterious adjustment arrived at, the Amendment was withdrawn, and a Departmental Committee appointed. That Committee is sitting. It did not sit with very great promptness. The Amendment to the Address was on February 14th. Two days' evidence of the Committee has now been published. The first day's evidence was on 6th June, so that there does not seem to have been any unnecessary hurry in the matter. Still they are sitting, and I hope will in due course report. Some of us know the definition of Convocation as a noun of multitude which signifies "many," but does not signify "much"; and a Departmental Committee seems to be rather of the same character—that is to say, it stands for a

    1321
    good deal of evidence, but it is a different question as to whether or not that evidence will ever be translated into fact, I hope that in any case the proceedings of that Committee will be pressed on because the matter is urgent.
    The question of the safety of railway servants is often treated as if it were only a matter affecting them and their daily lives. What many forget is that the safety of the railway servants is only one side of the question of the safety of the public, and that if the conditions of railway servants are from the point of view of accidents and injury improved you are improving the security of the travelling public. Another thing we are apt to forget is that the amount of work done by the railway is very rapidly and very largely increasing. I do not want to weary the House with statistics. It is common ground that within the last twelve or thirteen years the number of passengers carried by the railway has enormously increased—by something like 3,000,000. The amount of tonnage carried, minerals, etc., has increased by 130,000,000, whilst the amount of ordinary merchandise has increased by 20,000,000. There has been a very rapid increase in the amount of work to be done. We all know the tendency of modern conditions of "speeding up," and the general increase in the pace with which everything is done. It is a perfectly right and a perfectly proper tendency, provided always that it is not done at the cost or the sacrifice of individuals. It is unfortunately clear that this increase of work, and increased speed of working, has coincided with a decrease of the number of men employed on the railway. We have often heard this stated in the House of Commons, but it was not until I came to look at the figures, that I realised how large that decrease had been.
    Between 1907 and 1910—the only years for which figures are available—and here I would like to join in the appeal made by the last speaker to the Board of Trade to give us fuller, more complete, and more up-to-date figures—there was an actual decrease of employés on the railway of 22,000 persons, out of 600,000. Take the signalmen and the shunters branches on which falls a large portion of the burdens of the question of safe travelling for the public. Although it is true that the members of these two branches have not decreased, still it is true that they have not increased in spite of the general increases in traffic, and the amount
    1322
    of goods carried by the railway. Taking the standard of railway men's pay and hours as compared with similar conditions in other industries, drawing on the same classes of the community, railwaymen's conditions as to hours and pay are low. I do not think there can be any question about that. In the engineering, the printing, or the boot and shoe trade, the average wage runs from about 30s. to 46s. and their hours are about 48 to 52, whereas in the case of railway servants the average wage in 1907 was 25s. 9d. It is true that in 1912 it had risen to 27s. 4d., but still it is below the average in the trades I have mentioned, and the average hours are very much longer, being 59 or 60. We have had mentioned in the course of the Debate on the Address what the figures were with regard to fatal and non-fatal accidents. It is true that the figures with regard to fatal accidents have shown satisfactory diminution. In 1900 there were 631 killed, in 1909, 372, and in 1912 403 were killed, but with regard to nonfatal accidents the figures have risen to a most alarming extent. In 1900 these were 15,698, in 1907, 21,514, in 1908, 24,181, in 1910, 25,137, in 1911, 27,848, and in 1912, 28,200. That is a very alarming increase, and it is a persistent increase. You do not find the figures varying as you do in the case of the killed, but you find a steady increase year by year. I turn with great interest to the evidence given by the expert, Lieutenant-Colonel von Donop, to see what is the explanation. He said the increase was partly due to greater accuracy of detail as the result of the new Board of Trade form, and was partly due to the increase f tonnage, and the increase of passengers carried by the railways already mentioned. But he had to admit that that did not account for all the increase, and he had no explanation to offer apart from those two with regard to the matter. When one examines this question of wages and of hours with regard to the railways, what one finds is this. That the accident rate is high where the wages and the hours are long. For instance, take the carmen. They have not got a particularly risky occupation.
    The CHAIRMAN: How can the hon. Member make this relevant to the Board of Trade. I do not think they control this matter. At any rate there is no existing power that I am aware of.
    Mr. M. BARLOW: What I am endeavouring to do is this. I want to make out

    1323
    a case for urgency, a case for pressing this Report as rapidly as possible. I am using figures already given in evidence before the Committee, and I am asking the right hon. Gentleman to press the matter on so as to get a speedy report. I will cut the matter as short as I possibly can, but I am entitled to make out a case for extreme urgency. I do not want to labour the point unnecessarily, but I may be allowed just to say in conclusion, that the accident rate is extremely high, even amongst the carmen, where it is one in twenty-five. Amongst the shunters it is one in ten, and amongst the porters it is one in eight, and in both these cases, the shunters and the porters, the hours are long and the wages are low.
    There are two other matters that seem to me to call for very urgent attention relating to this question of safety for railway servants, namely, the use of better mechanical appliances to prevent accidents, and the first of these is the question of automatic couplings. I know the question of automatic couplings is a thorny one. One of the first things I looked for in Colonel von Donop's evidence is to see whether he could give any information to show what the Board of Trade Appliances Committee was doing with regard to automatic couplings. There was, I am quite aware, a Report by this Committee in 1907, showing that a universal form of automatic coupling was impracticable, and Colonel von Donop, when asked if he had been able to make any progress since then, said that no progress had been made. The suggestion I would venture to make to the President of the Board of Trade is this: Whether the time has not now come to take the matter up again, or whether definite progress could not be made by offering a sum, and I do not hesitate to say a large sum, by way of premium or reward, to an inventor who could present to the Government an invention which would be of a satisfactory character for an automatic coupling. After all, large sums are offered by the Government for premiums to inventors of engines of destruction, and I do not consider it unreasonable that a considerable sum should be offered as premiums to inventors for engines of safety. The other matter I wish to touch on is the question of handbrakes on both sides. I understood from the evidence of Colonel von Donop and Mr. Main that a letter was issued to the railway companies in 1911
    1324
    requiring the use not of separate brakes on both sides, but of levers on both sides, and I should like to know what progress that movement has made. All experts dealing with accidents on railways have said for some time that if you can have brakes available on both sides, it would materially diminish the risks of accidents to shunters.
    We all know shunting is a very dangerous occupation, and Colonel von Donop prepared a special table showing how high the percentage of these accidents were. If these brakes were on both sides, then by being able to apply the brake on either side the present dangerous practice of going under the waggon to apply the brake would disappear. It is quite clear that the Board of Trade ought to have machinery at their command to secure that such brakes are universally adopted by railways. So much for the question of railways. Now as to the seamen. I was going to say a word or two about the question of space for crews and safety of ships, but after what the President of the Board of Trade has said, some of the remarks I was going to address to him have become unnecessary. He has made out a not unfair case for the Board of Trade that they have been using their power, and have pressed upon the owners the necessity of increasing both the cubic space and the floor area for crews on board their vessels. It was very much smaller some years ago than it is now under the Merchant Shipping Act—120 cubic feet air space, and 15 square feet floor area. But there has recently been published a report of the sanitary authority and it is very significant. The point brought out very clearly in that report is that while we, the mistress of the seas, the greatest maritime country in the world are content with 120 cubic feet and 15 square feet of floor area, the Commonwealth of Australia require 140 cubic feet space, and 18 feet floor space, and Norway requires the same.
    The CHAIRMAN: I must remind the hon. Member this was all given to the Committee earlier in the Debate. I think he was not present at the time.
    Mr. M. BARLOW: I must apologise, I did not know the figures were given, because the President of the Board of Trade did not refer to them in his reply. The other question I wanted to deal with is that of hospital ships, but it has probably been fully dealt with, and I do not want to

    1325
    say anything more in regard to it, except that here again we find a nation which is considered to be rather enterprising in the interest of navigation lagging behind Norway and the Commonwealth of Australia. I join in urging on the Board of Trade that the restriction with regard to fifty should, at any rate for British ships, be removed when it is a question of requiring Marconi apparatus. I remember some years ago coming back from the Cape in a sailing vessel. There was nothing like fifty on board, but had an accident of any serious kind happened we who valued our lives rather highly, should have valued the presence of a Marconi apparatus every greatly. I should have thought that in a country like ours, and a rich mercantile marine like ours, we should be able to arrange for a Marconi apparatus not necessarily of the highest power, but of good power to be installed on all ships—other than those engaged in the coasting trade.
    While on this question of safety, may I make a suggestion with regard not only to the safety of the crews, but also of the passengers? The right hon. Gentleman referred to those who go down to the sea in ships. It is almost impossible for many of us to avoid that perilous undertaking. Most of us have travelled in the small, cribbed, cabined and confined spaces allotted to us by the steamship companies even if we cannot have the magnificent state-rooms of the millionaires. One sees about one's head the machinery provided for saving life if a dire accident arises. Crossing recently from America, I had the curiosity to try and fit on the life-saving appliances in my cabin. It took me the "best part of half an hour to adjust it properly. It seemed to me that if the necessity should arise many lives would be lost which might otherwise be saved through the passengers being unaccustomed to fit on lifebelts and life-saving apparatus. I ask the President of the Board of Trade if it would not be possible to require on the first day when out on sea going vessels that passengers as well as crew should have a boat and belt drill?
    The CHAIRMAN: That would require legislation and a new law.
    Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: And a very good new law!
    Mr. M. BARLOW: I ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has not now the power to make such Regulations
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    for steamers leaving our shores? I believe such Regulations would carry a great sense of security to passengers on board ship, if, as a matter of course, on the first day out they were all required to put on life-saving appliances and allotted to various boats, so as to realise what should be done if an accident occurred. With these few words I commend the points which I have suggested to the President of the Board of Trade for his friendly consideration, and I am encouraged to do so all the more by the courteous and kindly way in which he has dealt with the speeches made by other hon. Members on similar points.
    8.0 P.M.
    Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: I should like once again to ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider a point which I have raised before. There is no doubt that among seafaring people, as well as passengers, there is a good deal of unrest in regard to fixing the figure of fifty as being necessary to ensure that a ship shall be fitted with wireless apparatus. It is not so much a question of the safety of the people on the ship, but it is a question of the safety of the people within the radius that may be covered by wireless telegraphy. I think it is absurd to say that because there are forty-nine, forty-eight, thirty, or twenty-five people on a ship that therefore there should be no wireless arrangements. A great disaster may happen which might be avoided if ships with a small number of people on board were fitted with wireless apparatus. The right hon. Gentleman will probably tell me that the number was fixed by international agreement. That is so, and therefore for the time being that number must stand. I understand there is to be another International Conference shortly to deal with some other subjects, and I submit with great respect to the right hon. Gentleman that it might be possible, as far as other nations are concerned, to come to some agreement on this subject.
    Already this Session I have asked a question about this matter. I have become very much interested in the subject, and on every possible occasion I shall raise it until this absurd rule, fixing fifty on board ship as a condition, is done away with, and at least until wireless apparatus is fixed to every ship that goes in the track of great liners. There is nothing that has done more to save life at sea and give security to ocean-going people than wireless telegraphy. It is the first means we have of securing safety at

    1327
    sea. I only repeat this point because I feel very strongly upon it, and I know that I am voicing the feelings of quite a large number of people who will be heard on this subject in the immediate future. With reference to the speech made by the hon. Member for South Salford, I am afraid he was straying slightly out of order. I consider that it is a pity, not only on the point he raised, but on everything connected with merchant shipping, that the crews, the officers, the men, their conditions, and everything else connected with them, we cannot follow the example which has been set us by the Continent of Australia. It is entirely a different thing to be a sailor on a British ship and an Australian ship. In the case of Australian ships the Government see that the men who form the crew are properly treated, and the result is greater efficiency and content. I ask the right hon. Gentleman, before he introduces the legislation which is necessary, to look up what is done in these matters in Australia, and I am sure it will interest him very much.
    Mr. MORTON: I desire to draw attention to the Return for which I have been asking with regard to railway sleeping carriages. I understand that the Board of Trade are interested in this matter, but, as far as I am informed, they object to my Return. The Return asked for is as follows:—
    "Return showing the practice as to the provision of sleeping carriages on railways in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Belgium, the United States of America, India, Canada, and Australasia, and whether sleeping carriages are provided for all classes, and on what conditions and at what rates."
    I have been told that the Board of Trade consider that it would be some trouble to get this information. Even if it were, I think it worth getting. I do not think it would be much trouble, because our British Consuls would be able to give the information required at once. Railway companies, in answer to speeches which I have made in connection with this matter, say that my suggestion cannot be carried out, and I want to show them by this Return that other countries are carrying it out. I want this information officially, so that some attention may be given to the matter. I think if we had information of that sort it would be very useful. I am sorry that apparently the Board of Trade is against it. The President of the Board of Trade promised me that he would look into the matter, and his way of doing this is apparently to
    1328
    prevent me getting the Return I want. I am sorry the Board of Trade do not take more interest in this matter. I am told that even if the Board of Trade got this information they could not act upon it in the same way. My opinion is that if the Board of Trade like to do it they have plenty of power to get third-class sleeping carriages.
    It is the law of this country that railway companies must not show a preference when supplying sleeping carriages. If that is a correct view of the law, then they ought to supply sleeping carriages to all classes in the same way as they supply them to first-class passengers. I am certain that if the Board of Trade took an interest in this matter, and insisted upon all classes being treated alike with regard to railway accommodation, we should soon get the matter settled. I do not want to worry the right hon. Gentleman unnecessarily, but this is a matter of very great interest to the people in the North, more especially in Scotland, where they are very anxious that something should be done to provide that accommodation. I shall put down again the Motion for my Return next week, so as to give the right hon. Gentleman another opportunity, and I hope he will allow me to get officially the information I am asking for. I am very pleased to inform the right hon. Gentleman that the statistical part of the traffic branch in connection with the new regulations made in the City of London, show that both in regard to non-fatal and fatal accidents there has been a great reduction in the number. I took care to see that the Corporation of the City sent those returns to the Home Office, and I hope some use will be made of them.
    Major ARCHER-SHEE: The President of the Board of Trade, in one of those flashes of epigrammatical wisdom with which the right hon. Gentleman occasionally illumines the gloom of our Debates, said that he came into the world with a struggle, that he was struggling now, and saw every prospect of continuing to struggle. It seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman has struggled very cleverly indeed against the criticisms which have been directed to his Department, but I do not think his answers have been very satisfactory. As regards the nautical surveyors, the right hon. Gentleman made great play of the fact that I suggested that he should largely increase the staff of officials. I pointed out that there were only thirty nautical surveyors

    1329
    to deal with the inspection of the whole of the merchant shipping of the United Kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman did not allude in his reply to the fact to which I drew attention, namely, that at a time when there was over 7,000,000 tons of shipping annually, in three important ports, namely, Newcastle, and North and South Shields, only one inspector is allotted to them to look after not only life saving and navigation, but immigration as well. As regards the question of deck-loads the right hon. Gentleman apparently ignored the fact that his successor said that the Board of Trade was considering the question of other than timber deck-loads. I should like to say once more that I cannot see that he has given any reason why the question of heavy deck-loads, other than timber, should not be considered by the International Conference. I believe that question is being considered by the United States. I understand from the Merchant Service Guild that this matter may very possibly be brought forward by the United States, if it is not brought forward by us. With reference to the inspection of deck-loads, the right hon. Gentleman said that the Customs officers may inspect them as they leave the harbours of the United Kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman might just as well say that the policemen also saw the ships as they left the harbour, for they are just as well qualified to inspect deck-loads as Customs officers. There is no practical inspection of deck-loads, and I hope this subject will receive more attention from the right hon. Gentleman.
    With reference to the question of mortality amongst merchant seamen, the Navy, Army and the Civil Service were compared, I should like to know what ages the right hon. Gentleman took and between what ages the statistics were derived from, because it is obvious that the Army cannot be compared with these other services. The men of the Army are very young men between eighteen and twenty-five years of age, and they cannot be compared with merchant seamen who serve up to the age of sixty years. The Navy has a long service as compared with the Army, which has a short service. And therefore I do not think the statistics which have been furnished us are very pertinent. As regards the question of sanitation the right hon. Gentleman said that the Committee had been appointed by him to look into the matter. As far as six out of the eight
    1330
    members of that Committee are concerned they are officials of the Board of Trade, one of them is an official of the Local Government Board, and the other is from the-General Registry Office. Amongst those officials from the Board of Trade there is only one who is a nautical advisor to the Board, and they do not comprise ins their number any ex-ship doctors or ex-masters of merchant ships, and therefore I would suggest that the opinion of these people is not of much value in coming to a decision on an important matter like this.
    It being a Quarter-past Eight of the clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

  PRIVATE BUSINESS.

    LIVERPOOL UNITED GASLIGHT COMPANY BILL [Lords] (By Order).
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    Mr. CLYNES: I beg to move to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."
    I rise to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill, not because, taking the Bill as a whole, I have any strong objection to its many proposals, though there are in the Bill some few features that are objectionable from the standpoint of those who sib on these benches. There is one proposal, the effect of which would be to raise the salaries of the directors of this gas company by about £2 per head per annum In these days of increased cost of living we consider that even directors of gas companies are entitled to their share of any improvement that may be conceded, and we only hope that as soon as the directors receive even a little addition to their present store they will not forget the manual workers who, it is admitted, even by them to some extent, are not paid as well as workmen doing similar work in different parts of the county of Lancashire. I oppose this Bill mainly because of the company's action in denying to its men the right of

    1331
    organisation and of collective bargaining commonly enjoyed, not only by men in different gasworks throughout the county of Lancashire and the country at large, but also by men in almost all trades and occupations in the land. The company is now seeking to impose, and indeed has imposed, upon its men conditions of service which amount to servitude, conditions which belong to a former age, and conditions which are not approved by the great majority of Members of this House at the present time.
    We should not be taken as objecting to the action of the company in instituting, apart from the form in which it was instituted a scheme of co-partnership. It is rather on the ground what the company did following on that scheme that our objection is urged. It seems to me that the company are claiming a form of personal property in the persons of their servants. They say, "Our men are satisfied; they have no grievances; and, if they have, we can arrange them between ourselves." They deny in effect to the men the service which they secure and enjoy for themselves. The position of the shareholders of this gas company corresponds to the position of the workmen. The directors act for the shareholders, and the managers and agents and heads of departments, secretaries and servants of various kinds, represent the interests of the shareholders in the conduct of the business. The workmen supply the energy in that business of gas manufacture, and the workmen claim a right corresponding to the right of the shareholders. The shareholders periodically meet together, receive reports of results, and, I suppose, give instructions to those who act in their interest. We claim that the men should be allowed to act together and meet together for the purpose of collective action, and have the right of choosing persons whom they consider suitable to represent their interests, and to act for them in regard to their work and wage affairs. The financial interests of the shareholders are surely no more important than the wage, industrial and economic concerns of the average servant employed by the company, and the system that operates for the benefit of the shareholders should not be denied by the directors for the masses of the manual labourers employed.
    I repudiate this right of any sense of personal property in the workmen
    1332
    employed. I maintain that those men who go to the works to earn their daily bread should, outside their working time, have freedom to meet, freedom to act, and full liberty to choose delegates and trade union servants who have some experience and perhaps some skill to act for them and to pursue their interests. That claim is so elementary that I must almost apologise to the House for so frequently 'offering it as part of our case in dealing with this matter. The methods of the company are exposed in the fact that in the course of one year as many strikes were caused in these gasworks as have occurred in twenty-three years throughout the whole of the county of Lancashire in similar branches of labour so far as the Gasworkers' and General Labourers' Union is concerned. I understand that the company take up this position: "We treat our men well, and they are satisfied." The answer to those assertions is that men do not strike against kindnesses; they do not repudiate the good things if they exist. Further, however well-meaning a body of directors may be, they are not after all in close touch with the men. Gas manufacture is a business subject to recurring changes due to seasonal causes and to repeated alterations in systems of production. It is in that very class of work that men are most exposed to the chances of grievances arising. The man immediately above them—the foreman or retort-house manager—is the man who disposes of the daily action of the gasworkers. Experience has shown us that the Liverpool men have had, and still have, as great causes of complaint as any other sections of gasworkers in any part of the country.
    In the course of twenty-three years in the organisation I have named, which has covered a very large number of men employed by gas companies and by gas committees acting for municipal bodies, there have been but two strikes. These have been quite recent, and in neither case was the strike authorised or advised by the responsible officers of the union. It cannot therefore be said that we are strike-seekers. It is no part of our business to cause quarrels between employer and employés. We cannot, of course, help quarrels arising out, it may be said, of a sense of injustice due to want of payment for overwork, but our business is rather to allay strikes, and to mediate so as to bring the quarrel to an end when, unhappily, one

    1333
    arises. These men, up to 1910, were not members of the National Gasworkers' and General Labourers' Union. They asked us to organise them. They appealed to us to arrange meetings, and to put them on the books of our union. It was done, and, substantially, the whole of the manual workers became members of the union. I claim that nothing can be shown to the discredit of the union in regard to what it did, or tried to do, on behalf of the men during the two years that followed. Indeed, I may tell the House that in 1911, when Liverpool was seething with discontent, and thousands of men were on the streets, the Liverpool Gasworkers at that time were prepared to cease work in sympathy with thousands of other men, and would have done so but for the counsel given by the union, and the appeals it placed before the men to restrain themselves. That, and that alone, prevented the company suffering loss by a strike at that time. Therefore we have saved the company from strikes which the men desired us to authorise, and we have never been the cause of promoting one by any action which officially we have been allowed to take.
    The company declares that the men are satisfied, and have expressed satisfaction with the terms of the co-partnership scheme. We have never opposed, either in substance or in principle, the scheme of co-partnership at the instance of the local gas workers. But I should imagine, however, that co-partnership means a free and mutual coming together of two parties prepared to make an arrangement on friendly terms, on a contractual basis that will give mutual advantages to both. What was done in this instance was this. One partner—the working man—was not informed that any scheme was in preparation for him. His representatives were kept in the dark, and that is confessed in the publications of the company itself relating to the scheme. It is admitted that the directors planned the scheme, and, having completed it, it was in substance forced on the men, and in the nature of the conditions of their service they had to follow the lead given them, or risk the displeasure of their chiefs, with the possibility of dismissal for not conforming to the company's desires. As I have already said, at the time it was under discussion, we were not opposed to co-partnership if the employers and workers could be said to be real partners. But we
    1334
    object to co-partnership by way of force. We object to one side being asked to accept a scheme without being allowed an opportunity of improving, changing, or modifying the terms secretly decided upon by the other party. Working men are too badly off in these days to discard any methods that will give them improvements, and if they can, by a system of co-partnership, secure monetary advantages and better conditions of labour, then I admit on the other hand the other partner—the employer—is entitled to the yield of any greater attention to business, and even greater exertion of service that may naturally follow on the part of the workmen. But the benefits should be mutual. One side should not have virtually the whole say in arranging the details, and it should not be in a position to enforce its conditions on the other side.
    Apart, however, from the terms of the co-partnership, our complaint against the company is that in the rules and terms of the scheme the company so arranged that the men would have to sign documents binding them to work for the company for such a period as the company itself might determine. They were to have no say as to the duration of their service, and the intention was apparently that the men should bind themselves in such a manner as to deprive themselves entirely of any possibility of acting collectively or of securing the services of the organisation. There are six different gas stations under the control of this company in Liverpool, and men working apart in six places are already under a disadvantage that does not apply in the case of ordinary bodies of men in any one establishment. But, in addition to that form of sectionalism imposed on the men, the company secured that different sets of men should bind themselves, respectively, for three months, for four months, for six months, and for eight months, fixing different periods, so as to make it impossible for the men so tied to act collectively. We do not desire that the men should be free merely in order that at any time they wish to they should be able to strike. Strikes are what we desire to avoid, but every Member of this House will know that the absence of a condition of that kind makes men feel a larger sense of freedom, while its presence imposes a restraint on the men and does not permit them to act as freely as bodies of workmen should be in a position to act. That is my principal objection to the general terms of the scheme.

    1335
    Another objection which I have touches the honour of the gentlemen at the head of this company. Not one word is there in the rules of the scheme, or in any literature issued in relation to it, telling the men that when they bound themselves to be partners under the scheme they were also consenting to entirely abolish any trade-union intervention or service on their behalf. What it means, in practice, is that a co-partnership committee has emerged from the scheme. It is composed jointly of workmen elected by a process of ballot and of representatives of the directors. As to the process of ballot, so far as it affects the manual workers for whom we are speaking, I need only remind the House what it is like when men whose wages vary from 3s. 6d., to 3s. 7d., to 5s. 4d., or 5s. 6d. per day—men largely unskilled, able-bodied, manual workers, not accustomed to dealing with the nicer points of negotiation—are deprived of any advice or counsel of any kind whatever from their leaders or repesentatives even in regard to the process of the ballot. The ballot in use is a mere business whereby the company can arrange to secure from its manual workers almost any terms it chooses, and even the selection of any men it likes for the co-partnership committee. Not one word is there in the rules or in the literature connected with the scheme, telling the men that in future their wage questions and grievances, would be dealt with, not by the directors, who are their real employers, and who formerly did deal with these matters, but by a co-partnership committee.
    What has happened is this. After the scheme was put into operation, such claims and grievances as we have caused to be put before the directors were at once shunted on to the co-partnership committee. We were not able to get to that committee, and more than that, that committee has no power, either expressed or in practice, in respect of deciding what should be done with the claims. The directors are the final court, judge and jury of the whole question, and we are unable to approach them because they remove these claims. and grievances to the co-partnership committee as soon as they are advanced. I deny that the men are satisfied. If they were, the company would have no fear of collective bargaining. If it were true that the men had conditions which contented them, that were fair in comparison
    1336
    with the conditions elsewhere, this company would welcome organisation, it would welcome collective bargaining and such skilled or intelligent expression of representative action as we might be able to place at the service of the men. But evidently the purpose of the company is to secure for themselves conditions in regard to their employés that do not prevail in any other gas service in the country, either in respect to a private company or a corporation. There is not a single co-partnership scheme or any relationship between employer and employed in any part of the country as that which exists in the case of Liverpool. The spokesmen of the company, as I gather, say—I believe they have said it in communications to Members of this House—that they had no objection to their men being members of a tirade union, and do not even inquire whether they are members or not. Incidentally, it is revealed to us that they can tell us that not many men are members of a union, so that they have ways and means of securing or receiving the information in one form or another.
    The right to be in a trade union was finally settled by this House many years ago. It was fought for, and men suffered banishment and punishments of many kinds for it. I appeal to Members of this House not now to allow even so big a company as the Liverpool Gas Company to take from its low-paid manual workers the liberties that were given by this House to most of the workers forty years ago. What is the good of paying homage to the mere shadow of trade unionism and denying its substance to the men who wish to be trade unionists? Directors who refuse to deal with trade union agents are denying to their workmen the substance and value of trade union action. To say that the men are free to pay to an organisation if they wish, and at the same time to tell the men that they must have nothing out of that payment is only denying to the men that to which they are honestly entitled. As to what we have proposed, may I try to show the House how extremely moderate we have been in seeking to discuss the question in this Assembly. An Imperial Parliament of this sort is to some extent degraded by having to listen to these details of wrong, and to the demand on the part of the men that the wrong should be wiped out. I dislike having to seriously pursue this method of resisting a Bill, which in the main I do not oppose,

    1337
    but which I am using in order to ventilate grievances which cannot be expressed in any other form. How far have we sought terms for the men which reasonable men cannot concede? There are three brief heads that we put before the company within the last few days or hours. We have sought, in effect, to see whether peace could be made, and opposition to this Bill withdrawn on the moderate terms that the company should consent to methods that are commonly advocated in this House in the interests of peace and progress in the general business of the land.
    Firstly, we have said that the co-partnership committee in Liverpool should confine itself to matters set forth in the rules of the co-partnership scheme, meaning thereby that other uses to which the company has recently put the scheme should no longer be within the power of the company. I need not question the intelligence of the Members of this House by saying that an appeal, merely to limit orders to what is clearly set down in the terms of the scheme, is unreasonable. We merely ask that they should keep within the law, that the Act of Parliament only should be the limit of any action they should take, and that what they call the co-partnership scheme should be used for the express purposes of that scheme and no more. As to the possibility of quarrels, claims, and grievances arising, I have already told the House that this is a class of work more subject to the risk of recurring causes of complaint than most other occupations where a man is throughout the year doing substantially the same thing week after week and month after month. Here you have ever changing conditions of labour. One month there is a larger number of men employed than another. What are called gas beds are let up or let down according to the volume of the demand for gas. All these conditions give rise to recurring grievances. It is, perhaps, some tribute to the practice of trade unionism generally in the country that there are so few cases of strikes and stoppages in spite of the fact that causes of quarrel are constantly recurring in regard to the work of these men. In order to deal with such troubles and in order to deal with working conditions, wage questions and other grievances which may arise, we have said that a board should be created to consist in equal parts of representatives of the
    1338
    company and persons freely chosen by the workmen from their trade unions. Conciliation boards for the peaceful settlement of troubles are now commonly supported by Members of this House. We say that such a board should be created before such things start, so that when a grievance is presented that machinery should be there for dealing with and settling it. Inasmuch as the company does not admit that we may have a direct method of approach as we have in all other cases of gas manufactories in Lancashire, we have suggested the creation of this board on which may sit representatives freely chosen by the men, who could act through their trade union.
    As to a chairman or any deciding character in the decisions of such a body, we should, of course, be quite ready to follow the usual practice of mutually agreeing to appoint some judicially-minded man, in whose impartiality and fairness both sides could have confidence. As is well known, boards of this kind do most of their work and come to most of their decisions without the intervention of any judicially-minded man, but we are ready to agree to any such person presiding over a body of this kind. We have put forward as our third proposal that no duration of service should be imposed upon workmen, unless it be a short term fixed to terminate at one time, and unless this condition be hereafter accepted by the workmen by a ballot vote jointly conducted by the parties concerned. The third proposal relates to the condition by which now the company can engage men for varying terms at their own sweet will and keep them just as long as they choose, depriving them absolutely of any possibility of collective action. This company is entitled to no privilege, and will ask for none. We merely appeal to the House to take such action in regard to this Bill as will secure to us neither more nor less than is commonly enjoyed by similar workmen throughout the land. No one who can speak for the company to-night can name any instance comparable to this of the Liverpool Gas Company, or can cite a case where a scheme of co-partnership has been imposed upon the men in this form or is worked in this way, and on that account I appeal to the House to refuse to give a Second Reading to this Bill.
    Mr. W. THORNE: I beg to second the Amendment.

    1339
    I wish to thank hon. Members for what they have done during the last two or three days, because we have made every possible effort for the purpose of trying to agree upon reasonably fair conditions. During the last few weeks Bills have been rejected upon less grounds than are involved here. The Great Eastern Railway Bill was not rejected because the company refused recognition, or because they refused the right of the representatives of the railway servants to interview the directors, but in consequence of the arbitrary attitude taken up in connection with the dismissal of one particular individual. Again, last night and one day last week a Bill was adjourned in consequence of the arbitrary manner in which the Great Northern Railway Company was dealing with the men in connection with a superannuation scheme. There is a great question involved in this case, and I cannot understand how it is that the Liverpool Gas Light and Coke Company are taking up this hostile attitude. For two and a half years Ave had the right of going into that office. Negotiations were carried on between my hon. Friend (Mr. Clynes), myself, and other representatives of the organisation with the engineers. Petitions were presented and everything went off very favourably until, for some reason or other best known to the company, they brought forward this co-partnership scheme, which very many of us will not object to. I am not quite sure whether I take up the attitude of my hon. Friend in regard to the principle of the thing, because for a number of years I have taken a keen interest in regard to co-partnership matters, and on principle as a Socialist, of course, I object to that, but that is not the question we are considering here I know there are a number of men in the House who agree with co-partnership principles. The Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) and one or two of my hon. Friends on this side believe in it, but I do not think there is any co-partnership scheme in existence where you have the same rules and regulations that you have in this scheme.
    It is quite true to say that the Gas Light and Coke Company have had a scheme for many years, and the South Metropolitan Company, the Commercial Gas Company, and a number of gas companies in different parts of the country have these schemes. In one of the rules of this particular scheme, it says that
    1340
    there are twenty-four men supposed to represent the co-partnership committee. Twelve of the workmen are elected by ballot by the men themselves; the company have a right to nominate eleven, and the chairman of the company is ex-officio chairman. He has two votes. He has one vote in the ordinary way as a member of the committee, and he has a casting vote. Therefore it is evident, from the workman's standpoint, that they do not have very much chance of getting anything like reasonable terms in regard to hours or wages from a committee of that kind. Again, the workmen who are elected to this particular committee must have worked for the company for five years, and they must have £25 worth of stock invested in the company. Therefore the men who are elected, from the workmen's standpoint, are in a very privileged position, and I do not think my hon. Friend and myself are in a position to know the men who sit upon the committee for the time being, but I am certain that, as far as the men who do the heavy work, the men in the carbonising department, and those who are working at other employment, and yard labourers are concerned, very few of them will be on the committee.
    There is another point. One of the rules says that if the men want to withdraw their bonus they can withdraw half of it in cash, but if they do they have to forfeit the other half. You can therefore see that the scheme gives something with one hand and takes it back with the other. I do not know that any principle governs such a system as this or that there is any such system in connection with the companies that I have mentioned. Many years ago I had the privilege of working under the late Sir George Livesey when he was chief of the South Metropolitan Gas Company, and there was one thing which may be said to his credit, though he was somewhat hostile to trade unions in the latter-part of his life: Whenever a foreman dismissed a man the man always had a right to appeal to him as managing director, and if the dismissal was unjustified the man was reinstated on more than one occasion. When he was trying to persuade the workmen of the Commercial Gas Company he held a meeting of the men of the three stations—Wapping, Stepney, and Poplar—and he said to them, "If you think that this or any other company is going to give you something for nothing, you are very much mistaken."

    1341
    It is perfectly evident that when these co-partnership schemes are promoted it is done to a very great extent, in the first place, with a view to trying to entice the men from the union, and, in the second place, to a great extent for the purpose of speeding the men up, and persuading them to do a great deal more work than they would do under the ordinary system. Therefore, it is a greater benefit to the company than it is to the men. These schemes have been in operation in the Gas Light and Coke Company, the Commercial Company, and all other companies that I know of, with the exception of the firm my hon. Friend (Mr. Clynes) represents, and he has told me that there were practically no rules or regulations at all. There is some reason in co-partnership of that kind, but where you had rules and regulations that bind the men down, there is something to be said against a scheme of that kind. Under these regulations, if a foreman comes along and orders a man to do a particular class of work, if the man is at all insolent and refuses, he may be dismissed without notice, and lose all the money he has invested in this particular scheme. Then, as a matter of fact, the engineer has power to refuse to let a man leave if he wishes to better himself.
    It seems to me that these rules and regulations are lop-sided, and if you wish a co-partnership scheme with proper rules and regulations the representatives of the workmen should be on one side and the representatives of the company on the other side of a common table, drawing up and agreeing upon the rules and regulations. In this case the rules and regulations were sent down to the men for their acceptance. I hope that on this occasion we shall get the same amount of support as was given in the case of the Great Eastern Railway Bill. As a matter of fact, there is a greater principle involved in the question now before the House than in the Railway Bill which was rejected within the last few weeks. I understand that the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) is going to speak to-night. I wish to thank him again for what he has done in this matter. I know that he has done his best to try to persuade the directors to make reasonable conditions. Is there any man who would not refuse to accept conditions of the sort proposed? We do not altogether object to this co-partnership being in existence,
    1342
    but we do say it is absolutely unfair that if petitions are sent along for alterations of wages or hours, they should be relegated to the co-partnership committee consisting of twenty-four members, twelve of whom are elected by the workmen, eleven nominated by the company, with the chairman of the company on the committee ex officio, the chairman having a casting vote. It is perfectly evident that, under a system of that kind fair and. reasonable conditions cannot prevail at all.
    The hon. Member will make a statement in regard to the wages paid to the men. It is a well-known fact that the wages paid, by the Liverpool Gas Company are lower than the wages paid in other parts of the country. The directors have pledged themselves to rectify that at the earliest opportunity. The men are not going to-gain a great deal by the particular scheme which is proposed. It is a sliding scale, and if a man is receiving 35s. a week, and if the price of the gas is 2s. 1d. per 1,000, the amount of bonus which the man will receive is 1s. 10d. a week. If the selling price is higher, of course the percentage of the bonus is reduced. I admit that is to the interest of the company to sell gas as cheap as they possibly can, because the cheaper the gas is the more the dividend will be. That is the system in operation in connection with many gas companies in the country. I hope the House will reject the Bill until the directors are willing to concede to the men what my hon. Friend describes as fair and reasonable conditions.
    9.0 P.M.
    Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: It is with very great regret that I find my Ron. Friends and myself have been unable to persuade; the company to come to an agreement in regard to this Bill. As my hon. Friend has been kind enough to say, that is not due to any want of zeal on my part in the negotiations which have taken place. I am not going to raise any complaint, because I do not think any complaint can be raised against my hon. Friends for the position they have taken up on this very important question. At the same time, I think it is fair for me to call the attention of the House to the fact that in this measure of many Clauses there is only one Clause which refers to the co-partnership, and that Clause refers rather incidentally to that particular fact. I think I have a right to point out that this Bill has gone through a searching examination before a Committee of the

    1343
    other House. When it was first brought forward it met with the almost united opposition of the local governing bodies of the districts served. Under the Statutes which formerly existed the company was entitled to charge up to 4s. 6d. per 1,000, and at the same time to do that without reducing their dividend; and the local governing bodies asked that there should be a sliding scale by which the company should be enabled to increase its dividend on the reduction of its costs. I will come to the result of that presently. The company met the local governing bodies in the frankest and fairest manner on this point, and arranged a sliding scale under which a reduction of price brings benefit to the consumers in cheaper gas, to the shareholders in larger dividends, and to the workmen in a larger bonus. Since the company met the views of the local governing bodies on this question, they have not only withdrawn all opposition to the Bill, but they have urged every Member of the House to support it in its new shape. Therefore, in asking the House to pass the Second Reading of the Bill, I represent all the governing bodies in the districts concerned.
    As to the illuminating standard, the company seeks power to maintain the gas at an equally efficient level, and at the same time to considerably reduce the cost of the gas to the consumers. The Bill further asks the House to permit the company to raise something like £600,000 of capital to be spent in the erection of works. This £600,000 is made necessary by the demand of the districts which are not yet served by this company to have the company serving them. I believe I may say with the assent of my hon. Friends opposite that this is regarded as a good, efficient, and fair company. I am not talking now of the question raised by my hon. Friends. The price of 2s. 1d. per 1,000 I believe compares favourably with the price at which gas is sold by almost every other gas company in the country. In fact it is as low, if not the lowest, in its charges. My hon. Friends have, however, in this Debate, opposed the Bill mainly on the question of the co-partnership. The co-partnership committee is, it is quite true, composed of twelve representatives of the working men and, I think, six men nominated by the board. The statement made to me by the representatives of the board, and I have no reason to
    1344
    doubt their reasonableness and good faith, is that the first twelve men are the twelve men who are elected by the workmen themselves under the ballot. I believe that the qualification of the five years' service in the co-partnership scheme is in abeyance at the present moment, as is also the provision with reference to the £25. Certain other members are nominated by the board. That might suggest that the board picked and chose among the workmen who were put upon the co-partnership committee those who, they thought, would be inclined to act in the interest of the company rather than in those of the men. But that would be an unfair inference, because the workmen representatives who are nominated on the committee by the board are the men who stand next on the ballot-paper and who have just narrowly escaped being elected. To that extent I think I may say that all the workmen members of the co-partnership committee are members selected by the workmen themselves. Given that this ballot is carried out fairly, I think that that is a fairly democratic body to deal with such matters.
    My hon. Friend objects that this co-partnership board, in addition to dealing with questions of co-partnership, also deals with wages and conditions of labour, and he contends that this is not the kind of body to deal with such questions. My information on that subject is this: that this extension of the sphere of the co-partnership committee was more or less an evolution from the original purpose of the committee, and I think that this is not an unnatural result to follow. Here is a body of men meeting frequently the members of the board in the discussion of co-partnership, and certainly it is very natural, and I would say almost inevitable, that these men brought face to face with the board would raise any grievances that occurred to them with regard to wages and conditions. The board of the company strenuously deny that this extension of the functions of the co-partnership committee has been anything but the natural and voluntary growth of the sphere of that committee. My difficulty in this matter is that I am rather more in sympathy with my hon. Friend in some respects than with the directors of the company. My hon. Friends demand recognition of the union and the right of audience by the representatives of the Unionists. I have no sympathy with the directors on that point. In fact, I was

    1345
    bound in candour to state to them that I thought the refusal to recognise a trade union and to give audience to trade union officials was a lost cause, which is now left to the most reactionary bodies. My opinion is that as the directors, when they come in contact with anyone, are entitled to the assistance of the most trained expert minds in the shape of solicitors and counsel, so also a body of workmen have the full right, which ought never even be brought into question, to the benefit of the expert knowledge of their union officials, and the more independent position that an official must always have as compared with an employé. So far as I am concerned, I will use every exertion I can, not merely with the board of directors, but with the men themselves, to insist upon that right. I will even go the length of saying that if only a comparative minority of the men in the works belonged to the union and the majority were outside the union I would still think that the body of unionists have a right to demand that their trade union officials shall have the right of audience with the directors.
    Furthermore, I am in thorough sympathy with the suggestion of my hon. Friends that they should have a board of conciliation. I think that in a great and difficult business like this it is foolish of any board of directors not to put between themselves and any disturbance, above all a strike, the protection both to themselves and the workmen of a fairly constituted board of conciliation. So far as my small influence may go I will urge the directors and the men that a board of conciliation should be formed on proper and just lines, namely, equal and fair representation both to employers and workmen in this concern, with the right in case of failure to agree to call in an independent arbitrator. I have not yet succeeded in carrying out that project, but I will certainly not desist in my efforts to bring about that result. What is the difficulty of the present position? Three of the works of this great company are in my own Constituency. A large number, I am not sure that I should not be entitled to say the majority, of the workers in these gasworks, are my own countrymen. At the moment, for reasons into which I do not think I am called upon to go, the Union is not strong in these works. I am strongly in favour of the principle of Trades Unionism and its full recognition, but I have been receiving from all my countrymen in this company who have addressed me at all, and from all the representatives of
    1346
    my own people in Liverpool, the strongest and even the most vehement appeal to oppose my hon. Friends opposite, and to support this Bill. I do not want to trouble the House with a lengthy speech, but I think that I am bound to prove that statement. I have here, for instance, a letter from Mr. Austin Harford, who has been elected an alderman of the City of Liverpool. He is the Chairman of the Irish party—because they have an Irish party there—in the Liverpool Corporation, and he writes me strongly, begging, me not only in his own name, but in the name of his friends and of mine, to support this Bill. He says:—
    "The people are anxious that you should prevail of Messrs. Clynes and Crooks"—
    that is a mistake—
    "to stay their hand and to allow the Bill through. Quite a large number of the employés are members of branches of oar organisation, and many of them called here this morning to see me and ask me to communicate with you to try to secure the passage of this Bill."
    I have a similar letter from Mr. Thomas Burke, who is also a member of the Irish party in the Liverpool City Council, of which he is a very important and influential member, and he says:—
    "As a member of the Gas Lighting Committee of the Council, may I know that we have made a satisfactory bargain as to reducing the price of gas, and it is proved that the calorific quality is not reduced by reducing the candle-power? With the incandescent mantle the lighting power is not lessened."
    I read that part of the letter to show that if this Bill is rejected you will deprive the citizens of Liverpool, and all the other districts which are served by this company, of a very important improvement in their condition, both from the industrial and domestic point of view. Hence they are not opposing the Bill at this stage. There can be no doubt about it that the workmen wish to see the Bill through, and, as there is a large number of the workpeople benefited by the co-partnership scheme, you will see that they do not want to lose the increased bonus, which will probably be 30s. per cent. Of course, the House realises that the rejection of this Bill will seriously affect the bonus of the workmen too. I understand that the principle is that the reduction of the cost per thousand feet of gas will be followed not merely by a reduction of the price to the consumer, but also in an increase of the bonus to the worker. Therefore, the destruction of this Bill, and of the means by which the price of gas can at once be reduced and the bonus of the men be increased; would be a loss to that community and to the workmen. I have

    1347
    several other letters, one from Dr. T. W. Byrne, a well-known Irish gentleman in Liverpool, and I believe a member of the City Council:—
    "A deputation of the workers of the Liverpool United Gas Company waited upon me on Saturday, and asked me, in the absence of Mr. Austin Harford, if I would write you to ask for your support in the Bill which the Liverpool Gas Company are promoting. They told me the Labour party are opposing the Bill, but they, as workmen, are fully satisfied with the co-partnership scheme which the gas company has adopted, that they are fairly paid, and that on old age or disablement they are given 10s. per week for life."
    I do not think I need elaborate that. I think my hon. Friends may take it from me that so far as my own countrymen are concerned, and from the representations which have been made to me—which is the only information at my disposal—they are strongly in favour of the passage of this Bill. In addition to that, though I am afraid my hon. Friends will not attach much importance to their opinions—the co-partnership committee have discussed this Bill, and have unanimously by resolution agreed to it. The difficulty is as to the directors. I have expressed my opinion that they ought to have a conciliation committee. I believe they are prepared to have a conciliation committee, though they lay down certain conditions, but I believe that in principle they are in favour of a conciliation committee, and when occasion arises they will be prepared to constitute it. In my opinion, the only fair demand that can be made on any body of employers, is that they should preserve a neutral attitude as to the question of their men joining or refusing to join a trade union.
    The directors of the company assure me that they have brought no pressure whatever on the men not to join the union. They go further and say, that if the time comes when the majority of the men have joined a union, they will accept the situation, as of course they are bound to do, and will be quite ready to receive the official representatives of the men. But I go further than that, for I think that the company ought to be ready even now to receive the trade union representatives of any body of men in their works who join a union. Those are the facts of the case. The majority of the workmen, so far as I know, do not take the view of my hon. Friends opposite as to the conditions of the co-partnership. They believe that they are fairly treated, that they are dealing with a reasonable company, and when they change their mind, and
    1348
    want to have a union, then I think the directors are ready to recognise the union at the request of the men. I do not think it is fair to ask the company to force a union on their men, and for those reasons I think I have made it clear that I must resist the proposal of my hon. Friends opposite.
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER(who was indistinctly heard): The statement of the hon. Member who has just spoken had reference to those who are working at the north end, and I have a communication from those at the south end, which deals, with the whole matter. I will read from it the following passage:—
    "We can assure you, Sir, as the men's representatives that the action of the Labour members does not meet with the slightest support of the men at the works, and they look with regret, mingled with indignation, upon their attitude, and therefore we, Sir, on behalf of the workmen, respectfully assure you of their loyalty to the company, the co-partnership scheme, and their unbounded satisfaction in the working of the elected Committee, who are ever willing to discuss any grievance or other subject relative to the workers' benefit."
    I think it will be acknowledged that this is a strong endorsement of what the hon. Member below the Gangway has said regarding the spirit of the men. I need hardly emphasise the fact that the Bill is a very great measure in the interests of the City of Liverpool. I have a letter from the Town Clerk, who opposed the Bill in the House of Lords, but who now writes to say that the corporation have had negotiations with the company, with whom they will be able to arrange the adoption of a very valuable sliding scale. He points out that if the Bill is lost it would be a great disadvantage to the people of Liverpool, who of course desire that the price of gas should be lowered. In regard to the Bill, it is now entirely unopposed. It has gone through in such a way that if it passes this House to night it becomes an unopposed measure and will get through Committee with art adjustment of Clauses and will be ready for decision in a very short time. So far as the co-partnership scheme is concerned, there is only one Clause—Clause 25—which could possibly in any way refer to the co-partnership scheme, and that Clause is in favour of the workers, while it is of advantage to the ordinary holder of the stock of the company; so that as regards the Bill itself it is thoroughly acceptable to the consumer and everybody concerned. Therefore it is hard to believe that this House will reject the Bill on a question which, however important the interests

    1349
    may be which it affects, is still under discussion, and I do not think anyone can say that trade unions have hitherto suffered by the action of this Liverpool Gas Company. One or two statements have been made by hon. Members opposite which I think are open to question. I do not say that my figures are more correct than theirs, but I have a comparative statement of the wages paid in this and in other undertakings which shows that Liverpool bears very favourable comparisons in this respect with all other big gas undertakings in the Kingdom. In the course of the discussion about this question, I think it was pointed out that there was only one class of men who were receiving a less rate of pay, and the company promised that they would look into that at once, and see that it was considered. I think we are all interested in co-partnership, and I am of opinion that co-partnership should not be used for the reduction of wages, but should be an addition to the full wages which the men ought to receive, and I think co-partnership should not be taken as a means of trying to get men to accept an inferior position by giving them the temptation of co-partnership. We have many Members in favour of co-partnership, and we believe you must pay your men the equivalent to everyone else before you bring co-partnership into existence, and that undoubtedly is the case here. As regards what hon. Members opposite have said, at first there were six points mentioned, and in a letter to the company it was stated:—
    "Unless on all these points there is a satisfactory change, we must meet the hostility of the company by opposing the Bill."
    Those six points have now come down to three, so that something has been gained in the considerations which have taken place. The company make no difference whatever in engaging their men as to whether they are trade unionists or not. The trade unionist is received into the Liverpool Gas Company's work just as freely as the non-unionist. As hon. Members opposite know there is no question of the kind, and it is never raised. There may be a majority of trade unionists or there may be a majority of the others. The company does not know, and is taking no steps to ascertain. It is quite clear that the co-partnership scheme which the company have submitted has pleased the men, and as shown by the evidence they are quite satisfied with the position which they now occupy. If a
    1350
    majority of trade unionists come into the works there is nothing whatever to prevent them appointing their own committee. They can appoint the eleven men or the sixteen men on this committee.
    Mr. W. THORNE: The qualification prevents them.
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: Both the qualification and the term of years are in abeyance and not acted upon.
    Mr. W. THORNE: They are in the rules.
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: They are in abeyance and not acted on. Therefore there is nothing whatever to prevent trade unionists joining and taking such steps as they think fit to carry out regulations of which they approve. I have never been against trade unions, and I have found it an advantage as a large employer of labour to treat with them; but still I think it is a very arbitrary exercise of the power that you should come to this House and say as to a Bill that everybody wants, and that gives the men the fullest wages the men can earn in addition to the co-partnership scheme, and gives the people of Liverpool advantages as to gas, and the men advantages in the price of gas, and the men want it and every one approves of it, that we in this House are to go to the local gas company and say to them we will not allow your Bill to go through because of what has been said. The directors to my knowledge are reasonable men and I am sure do not wish to go behind this Committee. The Committee is there, the men have accepted it, and I venture to hope that this House will not override the expressed approval of the men who are employed in the Liverpool Gas Company and throw out this Bill, which will be of immense advantage to them.
    Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMS: My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Mr. W. Thorne) referred very kindly to some exertions which several of us have been making in the last few days to try and bring the two parties concerned in this agreement to one mind. Perhaps I may say, for my part, my reason for taking a small part in these negotiations is that I have been for the last twenty-two years very actively connected with the Co-partnership Association, which has during that period had no little success in calling public attention to co-partnership as a great improvement upon our present industrial system. That association has

    1351
    never during all that time taken sides in any dispute between capital and labour. It is not its business. Individuals may form their opinion as to the rights being on this side or on that side in any par ticular dispute. Co-partnership exists to preach not the victory of one side or the other in a particular dispute, but to put forward a better way, a better system between the two necessary factors in industry and in the production of wealth and well-being in this country. I am glad to have heard to-night from my hon. Friend who moved the rejection the declaration that he was no opponent of co-partnership and that he recognised, therefore, no inconsistency between co-partnership and trade unionism, with which he is so prominently and honour ably connected. As a matter of fact, there is no quarrel between the two, and that is what I desire to say, and say very strongly in this House to-night, that there is no quarrel between co-partnership and trade unionism—
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Maclean): Under the practice of the House there is a very wide range allowed in Second Reading Debates on Bills of this kind, and matters are discussed which are really not in the Bill, but I think I must protect the Chair by suggesting to the hon. Member that speeches and remarks on general principles however interesting, unless they are distinctly relevant to the matter which is raised are out of order.
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: I bow to your ruling, but perhaps I may be allowed to say, as this is the Bill of a gas company, that there are more than thirty gas companies in this country practising the co-partnership principle, and the united capital of those gas companies exceeds fifty million pounds, and the bonus they have paid to their workers under co-partnership exceeds £1,000,000, and a very large sum of that is now the property of the workers and invested in shares and loans in those companies. This, therefore, is no small system. It is a great system, which has spread immensely in this and other industries of the country. To us who have advocated that system it is a lamentable thing to see the appearance of conflict between trade unions and a co-partnership company. But as we have never taken part in any such contest, so to-night I shall take no part, and I shall not vote on this Bill.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: But for the concluding observation of the hon. Member opposite, I should not have taken part in this Debate. I am a little at a loss to understand how the hon. Member can divest himself of his character as a Member of Parliament, even though he is an advocate of co-partnership. It appears to me to be my duty to make up my mind on the merits of this particular discussion, quite irrespective of any general opinion that I may hold on the question of co-partnership. I do not propose to make a controversial speech. I rose principally to make two observations. In the first place, it seems to me that the right of this. House to reject a private Bill on Second Reading ought to be carefully watched. This is a Bill which the representatives of Liverpool tell us is very much desired by the people of Liverpool, and, as far as we know, by the working men themselves. The Bill is of great importance, undoubtedly, to the gas company. It is of a perfectly ordinary character, to extend the limits of the gas company and to raise additional capital. It is a dangerous precedent to establish that in order to enforce some principle quite extraneous to the Bill, it is right to reject a Bill of this character on Second Reading. It is not as though there was a great dispute in progress or some great wrong being done. That is not alleged. It is a question of principle apart from the Bill, and it seems to me to be a very dangerous course to take to ask the House to reject the Bill on that ground. In the second place, I wish to support as strongly as I can without infringing the Rules of Order the statement of the hon. Member opposite, that those who advocate co-partnership are in no degree hostile to the principle of trade unionism. Whatever hon. Members opposite may think of me—and I know that some of them are tempted to think rather harshly of any opinions on political matters—I trust they will accept my assurance that I have no hostility whatever to trade unions, and never have had.
    May I deal very shortly with the three points put forward by the hon. Member opposite? He complains that the co-partnership committee discuss wages. I do not pretend to be familiar with the way in which this company transacts its business, but I think the hon. Member will see that it is almost impossible for a co-partnership committee to avoid discussing wages. They have to discuss questions

    1353
    arising from the working of the co-partnership scheme, and that scheme must involve, from time to time, questions as to whether the co-partners are getting a fair share of the profits from the undertaking. That must in itself raise questions as to whether the men's wages, apart from the bonus, are fair. It is almost inevitable that these questions of wages and hours should become matters of discussion. Is the committee a very unfair body to discuss such questions? It is representative both of the men and of the employers. It is quite true, as the hon. Member pointed out, that in case of a difference of opinion, with the employers on one side and the men on the other, the chairman would have a casting vote. But the hon. Member did not give any instance where that has occurred. As far as my information goes, there has never been a case where the chairman by his casting vote overruled the votes of the men. The hon. Member wishes to put in the place of the committee an elected board. So far there is no distinction between that and the copartnership committee. But the men are to act through their trade union. As I have said, I have no hostility to trade unions, but surely it is rather unfair to say that a body of some 2,000 men, of whom not more than fifty or a hundred may be members of a trade union, shall necessarily act through their trade union in appointing members of the board! That is surely a very harsh and I should have thought an unjust condition to lay down. As to the duration of the agreements, if there is anything unfair or underhand or deceptive about the way in which the agreements were entered into, that is a very fair subject of complaint. But, as far as I know, no such accusation has ever been made. All the agreements were entered into quite freely. No pressure was used. The men entered into the agreements because they thought they were to their advantage. They now tell us through their representatives that they still think that they are to their advantage. I submit, therefore, that to ask the House, on the ground that there are objections to details of the scheme, not substantiated by any specific instances, but resting purely on general considerations, to reject a Bill admittedly of great public utility, admittedly desired by the people of Liverpool, admittedly supported in this House by the whole of the representatives of Liverpool and the
    1354
    surrounding districts, is to make a demand which surely cannot be persisted in by hon. Members opposite.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: The last sentence of the Noble Lord's speech is one which would have considerable weight with the House, and not least with us who sit on these benches. But there is something else which this House must consider. I can very well conceive a Bill complying with the standard which the Noble Lord has laid down, but in connection with which the advantages might be gained at the expense of the workers. I am perfectly certain that the Noble Lord will agree that that would be an important consideration. That is where we take our stand to-night. The view we have taken all through about these Bills on Second Reading, is that this House having granted certain powers, we are bound, when granting new powers, to express our opinion as to whether the directors have worthily used the powers that have been given them before. That is the whole question. Therefore it is perfectly germane to the Second Reading of these Bills to raise questions of general conduct, because the general conduct we have experienced on the part of the directors in days gone by will, we must assume, be continued in the days to come under the new powers. As my hon. Friend made it perfectly clear, we do not desire to defeat these proposals or to put the companies to any unnecessary expense, but if these directors are unreasonable they must be prepared to defend themselves. That is the position in regard to this company. I asked my hon. Friends when my hon. Friend opposite, the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, was reading those very interesting letters, how many letters of protest they had received. They have received no letters of protest. There has, so far as I have been able to gather, been no communication received by any of my colleagues from any of the workmen or anybody representing the workmen in these gas undertakings. That is a singular affair. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Well, I can assure hon. Members opposite that on occasions like this previously, workmen who have not been members of trade unions, workmen who have not been sympathetic with us, have written to us; but in this case we have received no such letters.
    Mr. W. RUTHERFORD: Neither have we.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: My hon. Friend opposite had received a sheaf of letters from certain political friends—
    Mr. W. RUTHERFORD: In support of the Bill?
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Certainly. The hon. Gentleman has not followed me, probably it was my difficulty in expressing myself. What I said was that we have received no letters of protest against our action.
    Mr. W. RUTHERFORD: I thought you meant aginst the Bill.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: My hon. Friend opposite tells us that a workman——I suppose in his own time, and not during working hours—went to his friends and got up a petition of workmen protesting against the Labour party in opposing this Bill. The hon. Member who followed him read a letter from the gasworks. All I can say about it is that if you will put me in communication with the gasworker who wrote that letter, I shall be very glad to appoint him as my private secretary. Without in any way casting unfair discredit upon those communications we have had them before in other connections, and we know perfectly well how these things are procured. I tell the House candidly that if one of the work men employed in these gasworks had him self written a letter of protest it would have weighed with us ten thousand times more than those communications which have come through second persons, and which have evidently been written by people who are, I suspect—
    Mr. W. RUTHERFORD: That is not fair at all.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I am bound to say that that is how the letter struck me. It seemed to be a letter written by one who, like the hon. Member or myself, uses a pen much more frequently than a gasworker does. I am perfectly certain the House must concur in that. The letter was a very admirably written and exceedingly well-phrased letter.
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: The letter was handed to me.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I never suggested that the hon. Member got it in any other way. What I do suggest is that whoever wrote the letter, it was not a gasworker. It is perfectly well known that
    1356
    letters of this sort are not written by workmen, and letters written on the promptings of workmen are, let me put it, not of the same value as letters written by the workmen themselves.
    Mr. W. RUTHERFORD: You have forgotten the school board.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: No, I have not, nor have I forgotten the effect of hard manual labour upon the gas workers. But the point that I want to make is simply this: If this strong feeling upon the action of my hon. Friends here really does exist on the part of the workpeople, and the men employed in the gasworks, it is a most extraordinary thing that its only medium of expression has been the letters written by second parties, and read by my hon. Friends opposite, and that no single communication, either directly or indirectly, has been received by any of us from the workmen themselves.
    Mr. W. RUTHERFORD: Why should they send any?
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: They should, surely! There are organisations in Liverpool that do take charge of these things. What is more, even if it is true, is it not an extraordinary thing that all the letters have been written by second people, and have been communicated, not by working men themselves directly, but from somebody who says they have—
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: That is not so.
    Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: I have received several letters from countrymen of mine who are engaged in the works.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: That is, of course, a new fact. The hon. Member will do me the justice to remember that he did not state that in his speech. The letters he did quote, and the letters to which he referred, were letters written by members of the city council, and not from workmen. Still the fact remains, that although we have direct communication with Liverpool labour, we have received no complaint from any workmen, or any organisation of workmen, or anybody authorised to speak for the workmen during all the days the negotiations were carried on.
    Mr. W. RUTHERFORD: Because you did not represent them!
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Yes, we did. The only point I want to emphasise is this: In this co-partnership scheme, when the men were active members of a trade union, the directors refused to recognise the union and to allow negotiations between themselves and the workmen to be conducted by the agents of the union.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: How many of the men were members of the union?
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: The majority at the time. The numbers have been published. I do not think any hon. Member will deny that at the time the majority of the workmen employed in these works were members of the union. When they asked the directors to conduct the negotiations in the ordinary trade union way, the directors refused to do it, and the co-partnership scheme was started immediately afterwards. In reference to the point of the Noble Lord referring to the naturalness of the wages question being referred to this committee, I think he is a little bit mistaken. The co-partnership committee deals with the profits of the company after the wages have been paid. I think the Noble Lord, if he will consider the situation will see that the question of wages consist fundamentally of the first payment for labour, is not the same question, even in its nature, which the co-partnership committee have got to decide in reference to profits, and that the election of the committee is a totally different thing. The election of the committee is formed within the works of those holding a certain stake in the company, and a certain length of service; although of course this rule has been kept in abeyance. Yet from the very nature of the circumstances, from the economic position of the business, the co-partnership committee represents the workers' interests as profit-sharers, and not as wage receivers merely.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: It is really of more academic interest, but the point is this: Suppose the question arises as to whether the profits, the rate of profits, is fair or not to the workers, or whether they should have, it may be another 1 per cent., on their wages, immediately the question arises as to whether that is fair considering the amount of wages that they are being paid. That would be brought immediately into consideration? In that way I do not say that theoretically and logically, the hon. Member may not
    1358
    be right, and that there is an absolutely necessary connection, but I think the hon. Member will in fairness see that it is very natural that a discussion which began on a question of profit should go on and deal with the whole position of the workmen.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I would not resist that for a single moment. If it was a question of how the profits were to be distributed, then the question of the wages paid comes into consideration, and the authority for considering it may be the co-partnership committee. But when it is a question of what the wages are to be, quite apart from profits and before the profits are struck, then it is combined labour acting in a different capacity from the co-partnership committee and the company that should handle the question of wages. The company elected specifically for the determination of the distribution of profits—I do not think—is fulfilling its duty, and this House should be very careful in giving this company more power than it still has
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: The company is still responsible and retains its power about wages, so I understand. As a matter of fact, they do consider any representations made to the committee. Perhaps I may be permitted to remind the hon. Member that 95 or 97 per cent. of the workmen employed in these works are copartners.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: That is perfectly true, but I do not pursue this point because of the ruling of the Chair.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I think the discussion has travelled some distance from the question before the House.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I followed this very interesting Debate, but the point we were dealing with was this: that is this company, instead of dealing with the wages question by the directors, and allowing the workpeople to approach the directors, transferred the responsibility for dealing with wages to this other committee, and the consequence is that the workpeople never can protect themselves by making representation to the directors, except in this very indirect way. And our claim is that from our experience of low paid wages, this method of dealing with wages is always bound to lead to low wages and unsatisfactory labour conditions. We have resisted this and made

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    this Motion simply to see whether it would not be possible for this House, as this is a public company, deriving its authority from this House, to make its will known to those directing a public company, which would have no existence at all and no power at all if we did not give it to them, and compelled the directors to do the same sort of thing that we are constantly getting out of our own public Departments, for which we are responsible, to do. That is all we want, and it is perfectly legitimate. I do not believe there is any hon. Member of this House who has heard the case who could possibly say that the workpeople of this company have got any such guarantee as they would have if they were allowed to combine in a trade union.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: They are a trade union.
    10.0 P.M.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Nominally, yes; but actually, no. The thing works in such a way that trade unionism is impossible. It is like planting seed upon a soil without sustenance. You may say if the workers were members of a trade union the directors pursue a certain policy, and now that the business is worked in a certain way through co-partnership, even if a man does join as a trade unionist he finds it is absolutely useless. This condition produces a state of things in the Liverpool gasworks which makes it quite impossible for a body of workmen to get into such a combination as to increase their wages and improve their labour conditions. On these grounds we ask the House to reject this Bill.
    Mr. T. M. HEALY: I was sorry to hear the hon. Member cast doubts upon the documents read by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, in which I have no doubt he enjoys some musical copyright. I would suggest to the Labour party—they are a young party in this House, that they would be well advised to follow another plan in their operations. Naturally, in a matter like this, they think they must state their views in public, existing as they do on the public opinion of their views. If they would be guided a little bit by me, they would allow this Bill to be read a second time without a Division, and then conduct their process secretly.
    Mr. CLYNES: I may inform the hon. and learned Member that we have been trying that for weeks.
    Mr. T. M. HEALY: But the secrecy I mean is different. I do not mean by going to private meetings with directors, or any other matter of that kind. I mean this: first square the Board of Trade, then square the Committees of this House. Nothing is easier. Let them do what was done, for instance, on the Kingstown Bill. Square your Committee. Go to the Committee of Selection, get additional men put on. Pack the jury!
    Mr. W. THORNE: That is what we object to.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I must remind the hon. and learned Member he is now reflecting on the bona fides of Committees of this House, and that is not in order.
    Mr. T. M. HEALY: I will not reflect upon the Committees of this House, I will only suggest to Members of the Labour party that they should so construct the Committee as to have a majority and in chairman of their own. And then my suggestion would be this: Let them get a Bill, called the Compulsory Co-partnership Bill, which was brought in by a very prominent Member of the Irish party, Mr. O'Shee, on the 4th May, 1914, and they might allow one Member of that party on the Committee—and in Committee on the Liverpool Gas Bill let them insert the provisions of the Compulsory Co-Partnership Bill, whereby, instead of allowing the modest proposal of the Labour party to-secure the co-partnership which they desire, they would find it laid down in this Bill that every company, including municipal undertakings, is at the instance of the Board of Trade to be dissolved; that an arbitrator is to be appointed, and that he is to divide two-thirds of the profits of the company amongst the workers engaged in it. That is a Bill which has been prepared, introduced, and approved of on behalf of the Irish party as to how they would deal with the working classes. I am somewhat surprised when this modest Gas Bill is brought in that hon. Members opposite should be prepared at this stage to stop this measure on its Second Reading, instead of allowing the Bill to proceed in the normal way to Committee, and then in Committee demand from those who so largely control private legislation the O'Shee minimum for the Gas Workers' Union. That is the respectful suggestion which I make to this House, and I hope it will be the means of composing the temporary difficulties between the Labour

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    party and the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool.
    Mr. PETO: I thought that the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) would have given us some real reasons against the manifold advantages of this Bill, which have been so clearly put forward. We have heard from the hon. Member for Leicester that, although it might be a very good policy to give a Second Reading to a Bill which is approved by all the workmen and the representatives of the districts concerned, yet it would not be good policy if these manifold advantages were gained at the expense of the workpeople. I thought we were going to hear something interesting on that point, but the hon. Member for Leicester did not attempt to make any case against those advantages to the public, among which I would include the peaceable operation of a great industry, with a steady rise in the wages and a steady diminution in the cost of the articles supplied. We did not hear the slightest word in support of the allegations that it was against the interests of the workmen. The hon. Member told us that he and his party had not received a single protest from any workmen concerned. We know that out of the 1,744 workmen employed in this concern, 1,726 are co-partners and desire the continuance of the scheme.
    I think it is obvious why the members of the Labour party have not received any complaints. Why should the workers complain. The hon. Member for Leicester complains of the form in which they put forward their support of this Bill, and it has been said that the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) has only quoted second-hand support for this measure. I thought that what the hon. Member for Leicester said about the speech of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division was hardly candid or fair. He said that a great number of these workmen had called on their way to work. What simpler method of communication could any workmen proceed by than to call on a fellow countryman on their way to work on a man in their own town whom they knew understood all the circumstances of the case, and who was a member of the town council! When letters are read we are told that they are too great a literary effort, and are not genuine. Was ever a more flimsy case put up? The fact is that the hon. Member for Leicester and the Labour party have not got a finger in the pie at
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    all. This happens to be one of the few matters which are going on smoothly and simply. This company wants to raise fresh capital to enable it to confer greater benefits upon its workpeople and the people it serves, and that is entirely distasteful to the hon. Member for Leicester and his party, and although they are not immediately connected with this concern, although they have received no complaints, they interrupt the course of this Bill and occupy the time of the House in preventing useful social legislation being-promoted by a private company.
    One of the principle points of the hon. Member who started this Debate is that the directors do not directly deal with questions of wages, but that wages questions are allowed to be discussed and almost settled by a committee which is composed mainly of the workpeople themselves. I ask the House to consider what would have been the case if the directors, had taken exactly the opposite course. Suppose the directors had said, "We have a co-partnership in which we give the fairest possible representation to the workmen, and we only claim a certain proportion on this joint board ourselves. We feel, however, that this vital question of wages is one that we will not allow this co-partnership committee to have anything-to do with." If that had been the attitude-I could have understood the speech of the hon. Member for Leicester, but when the workmen are given a fair share and a voice in all these vital matters which are concentrated in the question of a daily or weekly wage, then hon. Members opposite are not satisfied because an autocratic board of directors do not take this matter entirely into their own hands. The Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord Robert-Cecil), in answering the Member for Leicester, very properly pointed out that it is perfectly impossible under any co-partnership scheme, or even under any industrial scheme, whether on a co-partnership basis or not, to decide exactly-where profits begin and where wages end. I do not want to go into any general question, but this is germane to the particular point.
    The main objection to the Bill is that the wages question is settled in the way it is. I say that the whole basis of the scheme under which this gas company is, working peacefully, is that capital on the one side and labour on the other, are each paid their fair minimum wage, and above that wage profits commence. How can we settle not only the distribution of profits,

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    but when they begin, and how great they are, if the same body that settles the question of profits and their distribution is not given any voice in the matter of what constitutes the wage which must be paid, and which ought to be paid, before any question of profits arises, or their distribution comes in. It is impossible to dissociate the weekly wage, which is merely maintenance money, from the other question. I did not intend saying anything upon this subject, but I feel very strongly on the co-partnership question, and I was tempted to say these few words because of the speech of the hon. Member for Leicester. After hearing that speech I could not help calling attention to the fact that that was all they had got to say in opposition to this Bill, and that opposition has occupied the time of the House for two hours already.
    Mr. BARNES: It seems to me the whole question which has emerged from this Debate is whether we are going to have a co-partnership scheme here or whether we are going to have trade unionism. We cannot have both—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I think that is a fact which emerges, not only from this Debate, but from all the incidents leading up to the Debate. From what I can gather there had been a strong trade union in these particular works, and the great bulk of the men were members of that trade union. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] That has been stated.
    Mr. W. RUTHERFORD: It was only in one of the works out of six.
    Mr. W. THORNE: It was in all the works. What do you know about it? [HON. MEMBERS: "Order!" We know, and he does not know—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"] Order yourself!
    Mr. BARNES: There were, at all events, a considerable number of trade unionists working for this gas company prior to three years ago.
    Mr. W. RUTHERFORD: There were.
    Mr. BARNES: Then there were some labour troubles in Liverpool, and the union, of which two of my hon. Friends are members, did to a considerable extent save and protect the interests of the men while they were trade unionists. I take it that it was that fact which was the determining feature in getting set up this particular scheme of co-partnership. It is one of the most singular schemes of co-
    1364
    partnership of which we have heard. We have no love for co-partnership schemes at all, except those schemes which are carried on co-operatively by the workmen who themselves hold the capital. We have invariably found that they have been started by gas companies and other companies for the express, and very often the very obvious purpose of breaking up trade unionism. If a little additional money is given to the workmen for a time it is only to buy them off. [HON. MEMBERS: "Question!"] That has been our experience. It may be that hon. Gentlemen opposite think that the schemes are put forward quite honestly in order to increase the earnings of labour. Some are put forward with that view, but—
    Mr. W. RUTHERFORD: On a point of Order. Is the question as between co-partnership and trade unionism in order? It is a very large question which has nothing to do with this Bill.
    Mr. HODGE: Might I direct you attention to the fact that the question of co-partnership is dealt with in Clause 25 of the Bill.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I have already on two or three occasions directed attention to the Motion which is before the House. The discussion must have direct relation to the proceedings of this company. It must be directly relative to the conduct of the company in its business.
    Mr. BARNES: I come back to the actual terms submitted to and, as I gather, imposed by the gas company on every man entering their service. The Clause, into which I will put a name, reads:—
    "The said Liverpool United Gas Company agrees to employ the said John Smith for the period of—months from the day of the date hereof, at one or other of the stations, works or premises of the said Company, if he shall remain sober, honest and industrious, and loyally and faithfully perform the work allotted to him to the best of his skill and ability."
    There is a further provision that the said John Smith shall agree to serve the company for a period of—months. What is the object of that provision? It must be obvious to anyone of ordinary intelligence that the object is to break up any possible organisation these workmen may join, or, if they should form an organisation of their own, to make sure that it shall do no harm to the company. The directors, of course, fill in the blanks. They may engage John Smith for six months, and Tom Robinson, who comes along a month later, may also be engaged for

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    six months, while others may be engaged for lesser or longer periods, and the result is that, although the men may have a union of their own, that union by this process is rendered absolutely helpless, and is able to do nothing for them. My hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) stated he believed the gas company would offer no objection to the men in the service of the company joining a union, and he hoped there would be such an organisation. But there can be no union, at all events none of any service to the men under these conditions. That is the simple reason why we object to the Second Reading of the Bill. We believe that the company, in exercising the franchise already granted it, have taken a mean advantage of the men, and we are not going to give them further powers until we have some assurance that the powers they already possess will be exercised with due regard, not only to the interests of the consumer at Liverpool, but to the interests also of the labour in their employ, and to the maintenance of the rights of these men to associate themselves with their fellow workers in a union if they think fit.
    Mr. MARSHALL HALL: We have been told we must be very careful not to sacrifice the interests of the men to the interests of the public. It sees to me, that if the full effect of this Bill were known, that the hon. Member is attempting to sacrifice the interests of the men to the interests of trade unionism. He bas stated a proposition, but he does not in any way prove it. What I want to know, and what the House wants to know, is whether this scheme is approved by the men engaged in this particular industry? The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) has told my hon. Friends who represent Liverpool, and who believe the scheme has the undivided support of the men, that the letters they had read to prove that are not genuine, and has stated that he is willing to provide a post as secretary for the writer of one of the letters. What evidence will the hon. Member accept as conclusive that this Bill has the undivided support of the workmen in this great undertaking? I should like to call his attention to a resolution passed at a meeting of the co-partnership committee. Before doing so, I will specially allude to the constitution of that committee. It includes five officials: the chairman of the directors (who was in the chair), the deputy-chairman, the engineer, the trea-
    1366
    surer, and the superintendent of the works, while eighteen members of the working body constituted the rest of that committee. I am informed that at this meeting the chairman referred to the company's Parliamentary Bill, and announced that it had been blocked on the Second Reading by the Labour party in the House of Commons, the alleged reason being the co-partnership provision. The committee were invited to express their views on the matter, and after free and exhaustive discussion, they unanimously agreed that the scheme of co-partnership had given general satisfaction, and, as had been previously recorded, there was no compulsion used in signing the agreement. The men were anxious to join, and the directors would rely upon the support of all the co-partners in protecting the scheme.
    May I call the attention of the hon. Member for Leicester, and others, to the fact that this agitation was started by the Mover and Seconder of the Motion to read the Bill a second time three months hence. The hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. William Thorne) and the hon. Member for North-East Manchester (Mr. dynes), as early as 1911, as soon as ever this co-partnership scheme was mooted and put into operation by the directors of this gas company, came down to Liverpool and commenced to agitate, by meeting and otherwise, against the scheme. They had every opportunity of addressing the workers who attended the meetings, and they failed entirely to dissuade the workmen connected with this industry from joining and taking advantage of the co-partnership scheme. From that time forward, as the correspondence shows, no effort whatever has been spared upon the part of those two hon. Members to induce the working men connected with this industry to give up the co-partnership scheme, the sole reason being that they would not toe the line at the request of the members of the Gasworkers' Union. The resolution I have just read was followed by a second resolution passed as late as 29th June. There, again, the chairman of the directors, the deputy-chairman, the engineer, the treasurer and the superintendent were the only officials present, all the rest were men who, as I think the House thoroughly understands, are elected by ballot. Although the directors have the power of nominating further members after the ballot has been exhausted, as a matter of actual practice the next names

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    appearing on the ballot are selected by the directors to fill the other posts on the committee. Any question of a £25 qualification, or of five years' service, has long ago been left in abeyance.
    At the meeting on 29th June, after a free and full discussion, in which fourteen of the workmen's representatives took part, and a unanimous and emphatic opinion having been expressed that the employés were perfectly satisfied with the fair, complete and courteous manner in which all questions were met by the directors, that they greatly appreciated the democratic construction of the co-partnership committee and the freedom of speech encouraged therein, and that they therefore did not desire the intervention of the trade union officials, it was unanimously resolved that the directors should be informed accordingly. The chairman expressed his gratification at such unanimous testimony, and said the company had not at any time inquired whether the employés were members of any trade union or not, and now, having been assured that it was the general wish of the co-partners that the Bill should pass the House of Commons, he would report accordingly to the board of directors. I will ask the hon. Member for Leicester if he trusts his own men when they get into a position of authority like that of a co-partnership committee, or whether he believes they lose their sense of responsibility. I am sure he will not make any such charge. The best evidence you can get has been afforded in this House that there is a conclusive expression of opinion on the part of these men and of the workmen they represent that they approve of this co-partnership scheme, and I ask the House not to say that this legislation shall not be passed merely because members of a trade union do not approve of the co-partnership scheme as a whole.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: In my humble judgment it is a perfect outrage that the House of Commons should have been engaged two and a quarter hours in discussing a question which ought to have been sent to a Committee and dealt with upstairs. The hon. Member for West Ham has been very prominent in this matter on the question of the Gas Union. I should have thought that he had had enough of that business at Leeds, where he brought the whole town to a stoppage.
    Mr. W. THORNE: That is entirely wrong.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: At all events, the hon. Member's influence and efforts have been entirely unsuccessful.
    Mr. CLYNES: My hon. Friend did everything he could to stop—
    Sir A. MARKHAM: Other Members of this House, besides the Labour party, have a right to speak. They cannot all talk at once like you do. It has always been the practice of the House to give a Second Reading to all Bills unless a great principle is involved. We see that 2,000 men employed in these works are unanimously in favour of the measure, and the representatives from Liverpool are unanimously in favour of it, but the Labour party say the House is not to pass it because they themselves think it is not in the interest of the enlightened citizens of Liverpool. I always thought the people of Liverpool prided themselves on their intelligence and advancement of thought, and I have always had a very high regard for the people of Liverpool, which the Labour party do not seem to have. When the hon. Member (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) says that the working men cannot write an educated letter he takes the standard of the Labour party, and not the standard of intelligence that working men are able to display on this simple question, which they are just as well able to discuss as any Member of the House. There is no question of sweated wages. There has not been in the whole course of the Debate any statement made that the wages paid in those works are not tradeunion rates of wages.
    Mr. W. THORNEmade an observation which was not heard in the Reporters' Gallery.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: If the wages were not a fair rate, surely 2,000 workmen would be able to express an opinion on that question, and the representatives for Liverpool in that case would not be supporting the Bill. It is a perfect outrage that in this Session, when so much wrok has to be done, the Labour party should take up two and a quarter hours of the time of the House in passing a measure which ought to have had a Second Reading without debate and been sent to a Committee.
    Mr. W. RUTHERFORD:I have generally found myself on matters between employers and employed which have arisen in this House on the side of the men, and on several occasions I have been almost the only man of my party to support those

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    views. In supporting this Bill I am again entirely on the side of the men and am opposed to the Labour party who are attempting to force a trade union upon an unwilling body of men. A very small proportion of the men employed belong to the trade union. Hon. Members opposite would like to be the party who arranged the wages, and so on. My object in getting up at this stage is to say, that as one of the Members for Liverpool, I consider I was one of the proper persons to be addressed by any constituent as to whether he supported or objected to this Bill. I have received a number of letters, and I am prepared to show them to the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald). He can form his own opinion as to whether they were the product of literary gentleman of ability, both in regard to grammar, the writing, and so on. I have every reason to believe these letters to be genuine. They come from my own Constituency, and every one. of the writers beg me to be in my place to-night to support this Bill. They are from men in the employment of the gas company.
    I did not at first quite understand the hon. Member for Leicester—I am sure it was my fault—when he said that they had received no complaints. I gathered that what he meant was that they had received no complaints against the Bill, but it was evident later on that what he meant was that they had received no complaints against the astonishing conduct of the Labour party. The point is not the conduct of the Labour party. The point we are debating is the merits of the Bill, and, therefore, if anybody has any complaint to make against the measure, the proper persons to send complaints to would be the Members for Liverpool, who are naturally the people to receive communications from their own constituents. Out of the 1,700 men in the employment of this gas company I do not believe that half a dozen have written to anybody against the Bill. I myself have not seen or heard of a single letter objecting to the Bill on the part of the men or anybody else. Under these circumstances the opposition that we have had to-night to the Bill is merely on the part of organised trade unionism which has taken fright at the success of the co-partnership movement in Liverpool, which has been introduced by this company, and which has been quite satisfactory. When the company comes here for powers to get extra facilities for the consumers of gas, the
    1370
    opponents of the Bill are seeking to avail themselves of this opportunity to try and force the House of Commons to do something which will improve the position, not of the men, but of the trade union. I am on the side of the men and also on the side of the consumers, and the whole of the bodies affected by the Bill who are in favour of it. I think it is very unfair that we should have been subjected to-night to the loss of so many hours of Parliamentary time. It is also unfair that this Bill should have been opposed in this manner by speakers who have endeavoured to give everybody the idea that the labour affected is against the Bill when such is not the case. One of the Members who spoke on behalf of the Labour party made the assertion that the men in the employment of this gas company were paid a very poor wage.
    Mr. W. THORNE: What I said was that they were paid less than in Lancashire towns and in other towns.
    Mr. W. RUTHERFORD: I have seen a comparative statement of the wages paid in the different gasworks of Lancashire and other places, and all I can say is that the figures show that the workers are paid a comparatively high rate of wages by the Liverpool Gas Company. I think it is an unfair thing to state anything to the contrary without giving figures, and without showing that such a statement has any foundation.
    Mr. EDMUND HARVEY: I rise merely to ask one question of the promoters of the Bill. I am very reluctant to vote against the Bill, which is for a purpose of which, on the whole, I approve, and which I feel to be of great public utility. But I do feel that there is serious substance in the objection raised to the particular form of co-partnership involved in this case. I want to ask whether it is possible to meet one part of the objection to this Bill by an amendment of Clause 25 providing for some alteration in the particular form of the method by which the committee of management is chosen? At present I gather that a large part of the objection to the scheme is that the employers always, through the appointment of the chairman, have control and direction. I would like to know if it is possible by having a neutral chairman to avoid the party bias which is given by its constitution to the committee. If that can be done I shall vote for the Bill. If not then I shall with the greatest reluctance vote against it.
    Sir GEORGE TOULMIN: There is more sympathy than would appear from the course which the Debate has taken with the opinion of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division in criticising the action of the directors. I am not alone in that attitude that if the Bill is read a second time to-night it by no means follows that it will not be opposed on the Third Reading, unless some agreement is arrived at. I understood the hon. Member for the Scotland Division to say that he was not without hope that there would be some further concession made, or some agreement come to. We shall look forward to that when the Bill comes down from Committee before making up our minds upon it.
    Mr. T. C. TAYLOR: Perhaps I may have two claims to say a word on this, because I have endeavoured along with other Members to reconcile the two sides to this question, and I have taken a great interest in the question which has inevitably cropped up in the course of this discussion, the question of co-partnership. In reply to the hon. Member for Leeds, Clause 25 is not capable of such amendment as he wishes. It has simply relation to the method of purchasing the stock to be allotted to the co-partners. But I quite agree with the hon. Member for Bury that this thing, whichever way it goes, will not be settled to-night, that is to say, unless the two parties are prepared to meet each other; and I would very strongly urge at this, the eleventh hour, in the interests not only of this Bill, of Liverpool, and of the company and its workers, and other workers as well, but in the interest of general peace and good harmony, and the success of the principle of co-partnership, that this should be done.
    The hon. Member for Blackfriars said that he had no love for co-partnership. I do not wonder that trade unionism has no love for co-partnership if co-partnership is used as a means of injuring trade unionism. It is inevitable that that principle must be discussed to-night. My position is very difficult. I would have liked to vote for the Bill, and I should be very glad to vote yet for it, and I have no doubt that we could get the Bill through quite easily if the directors would recognise trade unionism. As to the question that employers should be called upon to recognise trade unions, I have been an employer myself for forty years, and I have never asked the repre-
    1372
    sentative of a trade union how many men he represented, I do not think that a wise question to ask. If the directors of the company will admit the right of their employés, whether many or few, to be represented by trade union officials, and if those employés desire to be so represented, then I can see that something might be done. The principle of recognising trade unionism is pretty generally recognised in this House, and if the directors say they will not do that, then they will have to reckon with opposition in every quarter of the House, more or less. It is an antiquated idea that trade unionism can be ignored; it cannot be anything of the sort. I do hope at the eleventh hour, those who speak for the directors will accept the proposal made to them, and say they are willing to recognise a committee appointed for the express purpose of regulating wages—not the co-partnership committee, but an elected committee consisting half of directors and half of representatives of the men, elected by ballot, to settle wages questions in future. This is a very serious question. The Member for North-East Manchester (Mr. Clynes) made a number of charges which have not been answered by the Friends of the Bill. The hon. Member referred to the fact that the company made agreements on different terms with their men, so that when those agreements terminated they do not terminate at one time. If it be alleged, in this particular case, that there are several reasons why the men should not be allowed to strike at all, let it be said so plainly. I think my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division, on behalf of the directors, said they would rectify inequalities in the wages of the gasworkers as compared with similar workers.
    Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: I am not sure that I said so, but I say so now.
    Mr. T. C. TAYLOR: I hardly know what I have heard inside or outside the House. I would strongly urge upon the promotors of the Bill at the eleventh hour to authorise someone on their behalf to say something which will enable us to go home with the comfortable reflection that they have recognised trade unionism and preserved undamaged the principle of co-partnership. I am quite sure that co-partnership is a blessing to workmen, but only on condition that it is not such as a means to damage trade unionism; and I am convinced that trade unionism and

    1373
    co-partnership can work together—neither being hostile to the other—to the benefit of the public, as well as of the workmen.
    Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
    The House divided: Ayes, 168; Noes, 68.

    Division No. 162.]

    AYES.

    [10.50 p.m.

    Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

    Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

    Peto, Basil Edward

    Baird, John Lawrence

    Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

    Pollock, Ernest Murray

    Baldwin, Stanley

    Gulland, John William

    Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

    Banbury, Sir Frederick George

    Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

    Pringle, William M. R.

    Baring, Maj. Hon. Guy V. (Winchester)

    Hackett, John

    Prothero, Rowland Edmund

    Barnston, Harry

    Hall, Marshall (L'pool, E. Toxteth)

    Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

    Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick Burghs)

    Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham)

    Randles, Sir John S.

    Bathurst, C. (Wilts, Wilton)

    Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

    Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

    Beck, Arhur Cecil

    Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

    Reddy, Michael

    Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George)

    Hayden, John Patrick

    Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

    Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish

    Helme, Sir Norval Watson

    Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

    Blair, Reginald

    Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)

    Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

    Boland, John Plus

    Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)

    Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

    Booth, Frederick Handel

    Hinds, John

    Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

    Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith

    Hoare, S. J. G.

    Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

    Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

    Hohler, G. F.

    Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

    Brady, Patrick Joseph

    Hope, John Deans (Haddington)

    Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)

    Bridgeman, William Clive

    Houston, Robert Paterson

    Salter, Arthur Clavell

    Brunner, J. F. L.

    Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

    Sanders, Robert Arthur

    Bryce, J. Annan

    Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)

    Sanderson, Lancelot

    Burn, Colonel C. R.

    Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

    Seely, Rt. Hon. Colonel J. E. B.

    Campion, W. R.

    Joyce, Michael

    Sheehy, David

    Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

    Kilbride, Denis

    Shortt, Edward

    Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    King, Joseph

    Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

    Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)

    Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

    Smith, Harold (Warrington)

    Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.

    Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)

    Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

    Clough, William

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Spear, Sir John Ward

    Collins, Sir Stephen (Lambeth)

    Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.)

    Stanier, Beville

    Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

    Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

    Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk)

    Cotton, William Francis

    Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)

    Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

    Cowan, W. H.

    Lundon, Thomas

    Steel-Maitland, A. D.

    Crumley, Patrick

    MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South)

    Stewart, Gershom

    Cullinan, John

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

    Dalrymple, Viscount

    M'Callum, Sir John M.

    Swift, Rigby

    Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

    M'Micking, Major Gilbert

    Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford).

    Davies, David (Montgomery Co.)

    Markham, Sir Arthur Basil

    Talbot, Lord Edmund

    Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth)

    Marks, Sir George Croydon

    Thomas-Stanford, Charles

    Delany, William

    Meagher, Michael

    Tickler, T. G.

    Dillon, John

    Molloy, Michael

    Tobin, Alfred Aspinall

    Doris, William

    Molteno, Percy Alport

    Verney, Sir Harry

    Duffy, William J.

    Morison, Hector

    Walker, Col. William Hall

    Elverston, Sir Harold

    Morton, Alpbeus Cleophas

    Weston, Colonel J. W.

    Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

    Muldoon, John

    White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport)

    Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

    Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

    White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E.R.)

    Essex, Sir Richard Walter

    Neville, Reginald J. N.

    Whitley, Rt. Hon. J. H.

    Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

    Newdegate, F. A.

    Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

    Farrell, James Patrick

    Newton, Harry Kottingham

    Williamson, Sir Archibald

    Ffrench, Peter

    Nolan, Joseph

    Wills, Sir Gilbert

    Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson

    Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

    Wood, John (Stalybridge)

    Gelder, Sir William Alfred

    Nuttall, Harry

    Worthington Evans, L.

    Gibbs, George Abraham

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

    Yate, Colonel Charles Edward

    Gladstone, W. G. C.

    O'Dowd, John

    Young, William (Perthshire, East)

    Glazebrook, Captain Philip K.

    O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

    Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

    O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

    Goldsmith, Frank

    Palmer, Godfrey Mark

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Greig, Colonel J. W.

    Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

    Mr. T. P. O'Connor and Sir John Harmood

    Gretton, John

    Pearce, William (Llmehouse)

    Banner.

    Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke)

    Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

    NOES.

    Adamson, William

    Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H.

    Holmes, Daniel Turner

    Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

    Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

    John, Edward Thomas

    Arnold, Sydney

    Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

    Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

    Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

    Flavin, Michael Joseph

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

    Barnes, George N.

    Glanville, Harold James

    Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)

    Bentham, George Jackson

    Hancock, John George

    Jowett, Frederick William

    Bowerman, Charles W.

    Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

    Kenyon, Barnet

    Clynes, John R.

    Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

    Lynch, Arthur Alfred

    Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

    Hayward, Evan

    Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

    Crean, Eugene

    Healy, Timothy Michael (Cork, N.E.)

    McGhee, Richard

    Crooks, William

    Higham, John Sharp

    Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

    Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

    Hodge, John

    Meehan, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix)

    Dawes, James Arthur

    Hogge, James Myles

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    O'Malley, William

    Roe, Sir Thomas

    Webb, H.

    O'Sullivan, Timothy

    Rowlands, James

    White, Patrick (Meath, North)

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    Rowntree, Arnold

    Wiles, Thomas

    Parry, Thomas H.

    Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

    Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

    Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

    Sutherland, John E.

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

    Sutton, John E.

    Yeo, Alfred William

    Pratt, J. W.

    Thomas, James Henry

    Yoxall, Sir James Henry

    Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

    Thorne, William (West Ham)

    Rendall, Athelstan

    Toulmin, Sir George

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

    Roberts, George II. (Norwich)

    Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

    Arthur Henderson and Mr. Goldstone.

    Robinson, Sidney

    Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay T.

    Bill read a second time, and committed.

SUPPLY.

  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1914–15.
  Postponed Proceeding resumed on Amendment to Question, "That a sum, not exceeding £232,550, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1915, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade and Subordinate Departments." [Note.—£150,000 has been voted on account.]
  Which Amendment was "That Item A (Salaries, Wages, and Allowances) be reduced by £100."—[Mr. Sandys.]
  Question again proposed.
  It being after Eleven of the clock, and objection being taken to further Proceeding, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow (Friday).

AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS BILL.
Read the third time, and passed.

MIDWIVES (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords.]
Read a Second time, and Committed to a Standing Committee.
The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
Adjourned at Five minutes after Eleven o'clock.