Commons Sitting of 23 July 1915

Preamble
The House met at Twelve of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Lincoln Corporation Bill,
London County Council (Parks, etc.) Bill (changed from "London County Council (General Powers) Bill"),
Lords Amendments considered, pursuant to the Order of the House of 20th July, and agreed to.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill,
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.

CRIMINAL AND JUDICIAL STATISTICS (IRELAND).
Copy presented of Criminal and Judicial Statistics of Ireland for the year 1914. Part II. Civil Statistics [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
IRISH LAND COMMISSION.
Copy presented of Return of Advances made under the Irish Land Purchase Acts during the month of December, 1914 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION (IRELAND).
Copy presented of the Report of the Intermediate Education Board for Ireland for the year 1914 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
BOARD OF EDUCATION.
Copy presented of scheme for the Organisation and Development of-scientific and Industrial Research [by command]; to lie upon the Table.
NATIONAL PHYSICAL LABORATORY.
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 22nd July; Mr. Montagu]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 307.]
IMPERIAL REVENUE (COLLECTION AND EXPENDITURE) (GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND).
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 29th June; Mr. Joseph Pease]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 308.]
REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE (ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND).
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 1st July; Mr, John O'Connor]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 309.]
PACIFIC CABLE ACT, 1901.
Account presented showing the Money issued from the Consolidated Fund under the provisions of The Pacific Cable Act, 1901, and of the Money received, expended and borrowed, and Securities created under the said Act, to the 31st March, 1915, together with a Copy of the Report of the Chairman of the Pacific Cable Board [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 310.]
PAUPERISM (ENGLAND AND WALES).
Copy ordered, "of Statement of the number of paupers relieved on the 1st day of January, 1915 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 278, of Session 1914–15)."—[Mr. Hayes Fisher.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    IRISH VOLUNTEERS.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland (1) if the Irish Volunteer officers, who have been under the

    1815
    special observation of the police during the last six months, were during that time reported to have committed any breach of the law or any word or act objectionable except on political grounds; will he explain why they were not prosecuted by the civil authorities; at whose instance the military authorities have been resorted to for the punishment of political opinion without trial or accusation; and (2) asked the Prime Minister, having regard to the fact that the covenant of the Ulster Volunteers is to resist by force the Government of Ireland Act, 1914, while the object of the Irish Volunteers is to secure and maintain the rights and liberties of all the people of Ireland without distinction, whether the encouragement of the former and the banishment of the latter without accusation or trial constitute the condition on which the present Ministry was formed?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): I will answer Question No 2 and the question addressed to the Prime Minister (No. 9) together.
    Mr. GINNELL: No. I will postpone No. 9 until Monday.
    Mr. BIRRELL: Very well. I have nothing to add to the previous replies on this subject.
    Mr. GINNELL: Am I not entitled to an answer to the first clause of this question. If these men have been under the supervision of the police for six months have the police reported any criminal offence against them?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has got the best answer that can be given.
    Mr. KING: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware of the speech made on this subject by the hon. and learned Member for Cork (Mr. T. M. Healy) last night.
    Mr. BIRRELL: No, Sir.

  DUBLIN POST OFFICE (OPENING OF LETTERS.)
  Mr. GINNELLasked under what Statute letters are tampered with in the Dublin post office in cases of which the Postmaster-General says he has no knowledge; whether the letter addressed to a
  1816
  Member at the House of Commons, posted in Dublin on the 12th instant, opened and noted in red ink there, bearing the Dublin postmark of the 13th and 15th instant, and not delivered here until the 16th instant, was found to contain anything criminal; and, if so, whether the guilty person will be dealt with by the civil or by the military authorities?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have no more knowledge of the letter referred to than has my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General.
  Mr. GINNELL: Are not Government officials in some sense under the control of the Chief Secretary, and this letter, bearing the Dublin postmark of the 13tli and 15th instant, is proof that it was properly dated?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have nothing whatever to do with the Post Office.

  Irish Egg Industry (Damage in Transit).
  Mr. SCANLANasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the attention of his Department has been repeatedly called to the loss to the Irish egg industry occasioned through breakages caused by improper handling by the railway and steamship companies in the course of transit from Ireland to the markets of England and Scotland; and whether he will undertake to make-representations to the railway and other traffic companies involved with a view to the avoidance of the consequent loss and the protection of this important industry?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Pretyman): I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which my right hon. Friend gave yesterday to a similar question asked by the hon. Member for North Westmeath.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Government Business be not interrupted this day at Five or half-past Five of the clock, and may be entered upon at any hour though opposed."—[Mr. Long.]
  Mr. RAWLINSON: I wish to utter a word of protest against this Resolution. We had very little notice that there was to be any sitting at all to-day, although I am aware that it was suggested last Tuesday that there might be a Friday sitting. We have all been brought here to-day and next week we are supposed to adjourn. I wish to know if there is any necessity for a sitting to-day after five o'clock. The only result of such a course will be that the work will not be properly done. Everybody knows that after five o'clock on Fridays it is difficult to keep hon. Members here, because they have made their arrangements to go away. The amount of work put down on the Order Paper to-day is very much larger than was anticipated, and is certainly more than can be conveniently done in the time. We have to deal with a number of Rills of a highly contentious nature. With regard to the Price of Coal (Limitation) Bill no one suggested that yesterday there was any undue waste of time, or I should say any organised waste of time. I appeal to the Government to remember that those who are in the habit of attending here regularly feel a severe strain when questions are brought on after five o'clock on Friday. This week no less than five amending Bills have been brought in by the Government amending legislation passed during the last few months and passed in a hurry. I think the Bills passed this week have not been known to three Members of the Government, and certainly they have not been read by more than four or five Members. That is not the way to pass legislation. As a lawyer I see the great injustice done by hasty legislation in the Courts by Emergency Bills, and so forth, which turn out to mean something totally different from what the few hon. Members in the House at the moment thought. Therefore, I appeal to the Government that they should keep the recognised hour for sitting when there is no sort of hurry, and I urge
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  that we should not be kept here after eleven o'clock on ordinary days, or five o'clock on Fridays.
  Mr. KING: I appeal to the Government to tell us how late we shall sit to-night. This sitting may be continued to twelve o'clock noon to-morrow, and if some of the questions we have before us are to be adequately discussed, it is highly probable that we may have such a sitting. I appeal to the Government to see that we shall get away definitely by five or six o'clock.
  The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Long): I quite understand the appeal which has been made by my hon. Friends opposite. I know the grave inconvenience inflicted upon Members of Parliament who are called upon to stay here beyond the normal hours. I can assure the House that there is no intention on the part of the Government to ask the House to sit late to-day. The President of the Board of Trade promised last night that he would take the Committee stage of the Price of Coal (Limitation) Bill to-day.
  We certainly hope that the first two Bills on the Paper will not occupy a long period of time. Any difficulties which arise in connection with the second Order will obviously be difficulties for the Committee stage and not for the Second Beading. With regard to the remaining Orders, if my hon. Friends will look at them, they will see that they are, I think, of a non-contentious character. I hope that the House will be willing to accept the Motion which stands in the name of the Prime Minister, on the clear understanding, which I give with the fullest assurance of my hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Gulland), that the convenience of the House will be consulted to the fullest possible extent, and that there is no intention whatever to keep the House sitting beyond a reasonable time.
  Mr. PRINGLE: I desire to associate myself with what has been said by the hon. and learned Gentleman, the member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson). The conditions in which the House is being asked to conduct business at this-stage of the Session are positively scandalous. Last night we sat after twelve o'clock to take such an important Order as the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill. There were on that occasion a number of very important matters raised, and they were discussed in

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  an empty House, a House which could have been counted out, and which would have been counted out but for the fact that the hon. Members did not desire to cause any inconvenience to the Government. We had, in the circumstances, to be content with a totally inadequate discussion. I know, for example, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, the Member for Kingston (Mr. Cave) was very anxious to take part in the discussion raised by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge), but, owing to the lateness of the hour at which the matter was brought forward, it was impossible for him to be present. My hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh yesterday asked the Prime Minister whether the House to-day would sit after five o'clock, and the right hon. Gentleman said that there was no intention of doing so. I am in the recollection of the few Members who pay attention to what is going on, and ho said that he thought it would be over long before five o'clock. We now learn for the first time that we are to be asked to suspend the Five o'Clock Rule.
  The second Order on the Paper is a much more important one than the right hon. Gentleman would lead the Committee to believe. It was only two days ago that this Bill was introduced. It has not been circulated with the Votes yet. I expected to find it with my papers this morning. I had to go to the Vote Office to secure a copy, and then I found that there were only about a dozen copies available for Members. This is a most extraordinary procedure in reference to so important a Bill. I do not wish to go into the details or the merits of the Bill, but it is one establishing the continuance of the existing Parliamentary Register and putting off all local elections. That is a matter which should be discussed under better conditions in the House, and the decision at which we are asked to arrive should be known to the country. Large public interests are concerned, and I think in the circumstances that the House is not being treated with the fairness which it deserves. A large number of Members do not take the trouble to take any interest in what is going on, but some attention should be paid to those who do take the trouble to read the Bills, and who are concerned that the legislation which is to be passed should be in the interests of the country, and should be carefully considered. I protest
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  against this Motion, and I hope the Government will take note of what has occurred and do better in future.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I was not aware that the Prime Minister, yesterday, stated that the House would not sit after five o'clock. That seems to me to be an important statement.
  Mr. BECK (Vice-Chamberlain of the Household): He said that he hoped it would not sit after five o'clock.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I do not know what he said, because I was not here, but if the Prime Minister gave the House to under stand—
  Mr. PRINGLE: Perhaps the hon. Baronet will allow me to explain. The question by my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh, as reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT, is inaccurate, but I will read it as it appears:—
  "Mr. Hogge: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether we shall rise at five o'clock or at eleven o'clock to-morrow?"
  As a matter of fact, the question was, "Will the Five o'Clock Rule be suspended?"
  "The Prime Minister: I hope we shall rise before five o'clock."—[OFFICIAL RKPORT, 22nd July. 1915, col. 1673.]
  Sir F. BANBURY: It is not quite as the hon. Gentleman says; it is not a distinct pledge that the House will not sit after five o'clock, but it is very nearly that. It is a statement of hope that we shall not sit after five o'clock, and I think a great many Members would consider that to be very nearly a pledge that the House would not sit after five o'clock. I should not have said anything if it had not been for that statement, but, if I might appeal to my right hon. Friend who is in charge of the House, I would say that I think he would probably get on quicker with the business if he acceded to the request now. It looks as if there would probably be a discussion on the suspension of the Five o'Clock Rule, and some Members if they were irritated might make their speeches longer than they intended. I am not a Front Bencher, but if I were in charge of the House, after the statement by the Prime Minister, I should accede to the request not to sit after five o'clock.
  Mr. WATT: I wish to join in the protest that has been made by the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson). I was unaware that

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  the suspension of the Five o'Clock Rule was to be proposed until I arrived here. I am interested in a measure which is fairly far down the list, but relying on the fact that the Five o'Clock Rule would not be suspended I have made arrangements to leave the House at five o'clock. I have not the slightest doubt that in the rush which takes place in passing measures after five o'clock this Bill in which I am interested will be one of the number. If the right hon. Gentleman would give us an indication how far down the list he proposes to go, it might meet the wishes of the House. He has indicated that there will not be much of a rush after the three first Orders of the Day are passed, but is he aware what takes place during the last ten minutes of a sitting? If he would indicate how far he would go, and if it were not excessive, it would satisfy me.
  Mr. PETO: I want to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to at any rate give us some assurance that he will not go as far as the fifth order on the Paper. That Bill raises a very serious question, which has already been debated in this House as far back as 16th February. Those interested in the merchant service certainly hold very strong views as to the efficient carrying out of their duties by the officers in charge of our transports, and it is certainly something on which I personally shall not be silent. I have put down Amendments to the Bill, and if it is attempted to pass it with perhaps no one on the Front Bench, practically sub silentio, I should regard it as an outrage.
  Sir HENRY DALZIEL: I hope the Government will consider the various views which have been expressed in opposition to this proposal. I am sure that no hon. Member wishes in any way to obstruct any of the measures before the House. I would therefore suggest that this is an occasion when the Government might pay some respect to the wishes of hon. Members. I agree with the hon. Baronet, the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), that it may help them to gee their measures through more speedily than might otherwise be the case. It is useless to deny that the Government really are pursuing a high-handed policy. For instance, in taking the Second Beading of the Appropriation Bill last night, at a very late hour, when Members had bad very few opportunities of discussing matters of very great public interest, their action was,
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  in my opinion, entirely unjustifiable. We have to remember, too, that although Fridays have been taken away from private Members—and, indeed, from the House—yet when it is proposed we shall have a Friday sitting the hours of sitting are proposed to be extended.
  Incidentally may I express the hope that the Government will put the Third Reading of the Appropriation Bill down if possible as a first Order, and certainly at an hour at which it can be discussed. They ought not by pursuing this policy to prevent Members raising matters which they wish to have discussed, and which certainly would have been debated had the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill been proposed at a reasonable hour. It is entirely opposed to the traditions of Parliament that a Bill of the importance of the Elections and Registration Bills should not have been circulated on the morning of the day on which it is proposed to take it. We have only had mention of it in the last few days; it goes further than many of us had any expectation it would. I do not say it is an opposed measure, but it is certainly one which ought to be fully discussed, and hon. Members ought to have time to consult local authorities by letter instead of having to do so by telegram. It is quite impossible for us to express the views of the local authorities on the Bill, seeing that it has only just come into our hands. I would seriously appeal to the President of the Local Government Board to consider whether, after a short debate on the Bill, he cannot see his way to adjourn it to another day. It would certainly facilitate its progress. No one desires to keep the House sitting longer than is really necessary, but I would point out that this Government has the faults of all Governments: it brings in a lot of new Bills within the last few days of the Session. There is absolutely no reason why all those Bills should not have been brought in earlier in the Session, and some might very well go over until after the Adjournment. I hope the Government will make this small concession to private Members.
  Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS: May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should take the Committee stage of the Coal Bill first. The contentious part is really over, and I do not think we need be very long in dealing with the remainder. Once that is cleared out of the way the right hon. Gentleman would see exactly what the situation is.
  Mr. LYNCH: After listening to the various speeches which have been delivered, I have become mere than ever impressed with the futility of our parliamentary system, and I am convinced that if the Government have their way the verdict of the country will be one of "found wanting." Evidently it is thought that the best service the House of Commons could render would be to entirely efface itself. On many important measures involving most serious issues to the whole country the House of Commons is almost commanded to keep silent, and what deliberation is possible in the way of a business-like examination of the Government Bills has been reduced almost to a farce.
  Mr. JOHN O CONNOR: I rise to back up the suggestion of the hon. Member for Sheffield. We have here at the present moment most of the doughty champions who fought yesterday's battles, and they, I am sure, while their minds are fresh and refreshed by a night's sleep, are quite prepared to go on and finish the Bill. If the Government interpose another very contentious measure it will probably induce their energies to flag somewhat, and the chances of the Coal Bill passing may suffer thereby. Again, if it is only brought on late in the evening I am sure the measure would suffer because the minds of hon. Members would be by then somewhat fatigued. I therefore hope that the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the second Order will allow it to lapse for a few moments and thus enable us to go on and finish the Bill upon which there was such an interesting discussion last evening.
  Mr. LONG: I do not propose now to discuss the various propositions which have been made with regard to the bills on the Paper. It would be impossible for the Government to adopt the suggestion of the hon. Member for Sheffield to change the order of those bills. That is a system which is unknown to our practice, except at the cost of the Bill standing in the earlier place, and to that I cannot assent. With regard to the suggestion that the second Order on the Paper has been taken too hastily and that the opinions of local authorities ought to be obtained, may I remind the House very respectfully that this Bill has been produced largely in response to appeals which have been made to us repeatedly by Members of this House during the last few weeks, on behalf of the local authorities, and that one of its main objects is to save to the local authorities
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  a great outlay on work which would be of no practical value. It is not as if we were proposing to interfere with the powers of local authorities. We are not doing that. I will not, however, discuss that point because it will be a matter for debate on the Second Reading.
  What I rise to state to the House is this. The Government put this Motion on the Paper certainly, not with any intention of trampling on the feelings of hon. Members or of making an unfair demand on their time, but in what they believe to be the general interests of the House of Commons and of our business. I may say at once, in answer to the hon. Member for East Wilts (Mr. Peto), that if the Motion of the Government is adopted, it is not our intention to proceed with Order No. 5 (Naval Disciplne No. 2 Bill), should it not have been reached before the ordinary limits of a Friday's Sitting. We would not proceed with it at a later hour. Under these circumstances I should have thought it would have been for the convenience of the House to have voted this Motion on the clear understanding that after the ordinary time we do not take any Order after the first four. I put that in the general convenience. On the other hand we have been reminded of the language which was used by the Prime Minister yesterday, when he certainly was under the impression that our business to-day would not last very long. He expressed a hope it would not, but I am sure hon. Members will admit that there was no undertaking and no definite statement that the House would not sit after five o'clock. Speaking as Prime Minister and Leader of the House, the right hon. Gentleman expressed a very strong hope. But he is not here, and it falls upon my unworthy shoulders to be responsible in his absence. I can only say that I cannot ask the House to pass this Resolution if any hon. Members believe it to be in contravention of what the Prime Minister said yesterday. But I still hope that the suggestion I have made will meet the general view of the House. If, however, it does not do so, the Government will not press this Motion.
  Mr. BOOTH: I would make an appeal to my right hon. Friend in regard to the Elections and Registration Bill. I do not quite agree with some of my hon. Friends, with whom I usually find myself associated in asserting the rights of private Members, in urging that that Bill should not be taken for Second Reading to-day. My reason is

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  this: That if we want the opinion, as we do, perhaps, from our friends and the local authorities in the country, I would sooner they gave it after they had heard the statement of the President of the Local Government Board. If the Bill had been introduced under the Ten Minutes' Rule, or if an explanatory statement had been made to guide us, the difficulty would have been avoided. But we have not had that. I want to hear the statement the right hon. Gentleman has to make on behalf of the Local Government Board. Then our friends in the country can consider it over the week-end. I would point out that we do not lose our grip on the Bill, and that if we find we do not like it we can make representations on Monday.
  Mr. CHAPLIN: I am sure that everybody will agree, whatever views he may take upon individual Bills, that my right hon. Friend has done everything in his power to meet the requests of all hon. Members. I rise to suggest, that, my right hon. Friend having taken that course, it would not be unreasonable to proceed with business as soon as we can. With reference to the expression which fell from the Prime Minister last night, I suppose that all of us have the hope, which was held by the Government, that the business would be over before five o'clock. In the circumstances I think we might now proceed with the business.
  Sir GEORGE YOUNGER: I wish to say a single word of appeal to the right hon. Gentleman in connection with the Elections and Registration Bill—that is, to ask him to do nothing whatever, and to agree to nothing whatever, that will prejudice that Bill and cause delay in its being considered. I do so in the interests of Scotland. There are no difficulties whatever in Scotland in connection with the Bill, and I believe that every Scottish Member is agreed that it ought to apply at once to Scotland.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I would point out that if the hon. Baronet enters into the merits of the Bill, he will at once be met with opposition.
  Mr. LAURENCE HARDY: I did not quite understand the right hon. Gentlemen's statement as to how far we were to go to-night. I understood that he desired that we should go as far as the fourth Order. Does he really mean that, supposing we come to the Price of Coal
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  (Limitation) Bill, he intends to force the whole of the Committee stage through in any circumstances?
  Mr. LONG: No.
  Mr. HARDY: It would not be fair in regard to a Bill of that importance.
  Mr. LONG: I thought I had made it quite clear that in no circumstances do the Government propose to take advantage of this Resolution, if it is passed, to keep the House sitting beyond a reasonable hour this evening. The sole object the Government had in view was to facilitate business by preventing the stroke of the clock automatically stopping something which the whole House wished to see passed. We nave no intention, if the House is good enough to pass this and proceeds to business, to keep the House beyond the normal hour mentioned by the hon. Member for North Somerset (Mr. King). We have no intention whatever of using this exceptional power to force business against the wish of the House.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Ordered, "That the Government business be not interrupted this day, at Five or half-past Five of the clock, and may be entered upon at any hour though opposed."

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.
  Considered in Committee
  [Mr. MACLEAN in the Chair.]
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be reported, without Amendment, to the House."
  Mr. KING: On that question I desire to ask the Patronage Secretary to give us an assurance that the Third Reading will be taken at a reasonable time. I was present last night, and desired to raise a matter with the representative of the Board of Education, who had a staff under the Gallery to assist him to answer the point I wished to put. I dare say there were other Members with other questions in the same position. May we have a clear assurance that the Third Reading of the Bill will be taken at a reasonable time?
  Mr. LONG: Yes, Sir, certainly. In the clearest possible manner I say that the Bill will be taken on Monday at a time which will give full opportunity to the hon. Gentleman and his Friends.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill reported without Amendment; to be read the third time upon Monday next (26th July).

  ELECTIONS AND REGISTRATION BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. LONG: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  I very much regret, in the first place, that the Bill, as I understand it, has not reached the hands of Members this morning. I am an old enough Member of the House to remember that this kind of difficulty has frequently arisen. It is one of those peculiar Parliamentary difficulties as to which nobody seems to have any definite information.
  Mr. MAURICE HEALY: I obtained four copies of the Bill last night.
  Mr. LONG: I would point out that if every hon. Member is as greedy as the hon. Member, they are apt to deplete the supply. That is due to the fact that there were certain advance copies in the Bill Office last night. In my anxiety that Members should have the Bill in their hands yesterday, I gave instructions that the Bill should be printed immediately after the Order sanctioning its printing had been received, and that copies should be placed in the Bill Office in the hope that they would be available for use, and I assumed that the Bill would be circulated in the ordinary way this morning as it certainly ought to have been. I am not responsible, so far as I know, for the actual circulation of the Bill. If I am, it is a new duty of which I was not aware before, and I express my regret, but I do not think it rests with me. I have done my best to find out how the mistake occurred, but I have not succeeded. I can only express my regret to the House that my efforts, which were quite honest in the matter, failed so completely. As regards the second objection that has been advanced, namely, that this Bill is taken now when the House has had so little opportunity of being aware of its provisions and that it would have been better if I had introduced it under the Ten Minutes' Rule yesterday, I can only say that if it had occurred to me to make that suggestion to the Prime Minister, I am sure that he would have given me the necessary permission and I should have been very glad to take advantage of it. To be quite
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  frank with the House, as I hoped that the Bill would be available for Members in the Vote Office within a very few minutes, or at any rate an hour or two after I obtained permission to print it, I did not think the statement would be necessary.
  Sir WILLIAM BYLES: It was in the Bill Office.
  Mr. LONG: Yes, I know. The Bill really, whatever view hon. Members may take of it, is a very simple one. I would remind the House that if ever a Bill was deserving of discussion, it is this one, because it is an answer to an insistent demand made upon me from all quarters of the House since I had the honour to take my present office. The criticism then which may be addressed to me and the Government is, Why so late1? My only answer to that is that I do not believe in the cry we hear so often now that it is too late to do it. It ought to have been done before. The one which appeals more to me is that it is never to late to mend. I had a good deal to do when I took over my new office, both inside the office and in connection with Government work outside, and at first I did not realise the extreme urgency of the question. I take full blame for this upon myself.
  The object of the Bill is really very simple. It is, in the first place, to postpone for a year all municipal and local elections. The Government hope to deal later on with the question of Parliamentary elections and the provisions which will have to be made for them. This Bill deals only with municipal and local elections, provides for their postponement for a year and provides that where casual vacancies arise they shall be filled by co-option, and further that the same law shall apply to certain other elective bodies which you cannot specify in a Bill but which may possibly find some difficulty arising in consequence of this measure, and may desire their election, when it becomes due, to be postponed. The Bill also deals with the register, and on that it is my duty to say rather more than I think is necessary to say in regard to the first part. Everyone, I think, will agree that in a moment like this it is desirable that no elections should take place. This is the view of the representatives of our various local bodies. They have communicated it to me at the Local Government Board and have pressed it upon me. It is quite possible that had there been no legislation there would have been no elections, because public opinion

  1835
  unquestionably points in that direction. But we all know that a minority may for some reasons of their own be able to upset the general conclusion which has been arrived at informally, and we all felt that it ought to be enacted that during the War, or the period during which we are as we are, the elections should be postponed, and therefore we postpone them for a year in order that there may be no possibility of anyone upsetting this general arrangement. With regard to the register, I am told that this ought to have been done a long time before, and that unnecessary expenditure has already been incurred. I do not speak as an expert on this very difficult question of- registration, but, getting the best information I can, I entirely disagree with that view. The work which has been already done, I am informed, is the work done by the overseers, who compare the claims of the new voters in their own particular area. That work is done, and the date taken in the Bill is 31st July as the period at which registration work is to cease. Therefore it means that all these overseers' lists will be available as the foundation of the new register upon which any future election will have to take place, and therefore not only do I deny that this work has been wasted, but, on the contrary, I think it is very valuable and necessary work which has been done. I shall be asked, why the not hold your Revision Courts? I think everyone knows, who is familiar with our electoral system, that the Revision Courts really depend very much for their work upon the conflict which takes place in them as between the parties, and certainly we felt that this was not an occasion when it ought to be possible to have any of those disagreeable conflicts which are frequently waged before the revising barristers. On the contrary, the general peace ought to be maintained not only in Parliament, but in the Revision Courts and in connection with the register.
  There is language in the Bill which offends the susceptibilities of some of my hon. Friends on both sides of the House who attach great importance to anything connected with contracts. I quite share their views, and I have frequently expressed them in this House, and I think if they look at the Bill they will see that we have taken power to deal in what is an absolutely fair and right manner with these contracts—that is to say, we
  1836
  authorise all expenditure incurred in connection with this work up to 31st July to be paid, and it will be paid, and I need hardly say that the Government will be responsible for the settlement which will have to be made if the Bill passes, and will do all in their power to see that these cases are fairly, justly, and properly dealt with. So that I really think the breaking of the contracts is not quite as serious as some of my hon. Friends think, because these contracts are in regard to work which is not now going to be done after 31st July, and it surely would not have been wise legislation to say that the work was not necessary, that therefore it was not to be done, and yet was to be paid for because contracts have been made in regard to it in the early part of the year. That is what I would say in defence of that part of the Bill. Of course, it involves a certain amount of sacrifice on the part of individuals. I do not suppose it is possible to pass any Bill of this kind which does not involve sacrifice. I suppose there is no one in the country who is not called upon to bear some personal sacrifice, and forego what he has looked upon as some legitimate advantage which comes to him. We have proposed the Bill in answer to what has been an almost unanimous demand, both from Members of Parliament and outside. We desire that it shall take effect so as to put an end to elections and to registration for the reasons we have given, but also incidentally this Bill, if it passes in anything like its present form, will result in a saving to the taxpayers and ratepayers of the country of at least £100,000, possibly more—not a very vast sum, as sums are talked about nowadays, but still one of sufficient importance, I think, to have made it obligatory upon the Government to take steps to secure this saving if it could be justly and properly done. These are the provisions of the Bill. These are the reasons why we have introduced it. It applies to Scotland and Ireland in somewhat different form because the Scottish system is different from ours, and the Irish system is different from ours. So far as I know, there is no objection to them in principle. The objections are rather to details, and I hope the House will be willing to consider it to-day in a businesslike spirit, and enable us to place it on the Statute book before we separate.
  Colonel YATE: Will the overseers' registers include the absentee soldiers?
  Mr. LONG: No, I have not thought it necessary to go into the whole details of registration, but that is one of the reasons why a register made this year must be absolutely valueless, because all the soldiers and the sailors, all the men engaged in mine-sweeping, all the men who are doing heroic service to the country, in addition to the men who are now engaged in munition work, who have been moved, not of their own will, from one part of the world to another to serve their country, and all the men who have been moved from their homes to different parts of the country, will be left out of the register, besides a great many others. Therefore it would be utterly useless.
  Mr. RAWLINSON: This Bill, which will probably come into the hands of some hon. Members now for the first time, is in two totally distinct parts. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that he introduced the Bill very largely because he was asked to. In regard to one part of the Bill, that is a correct statement, but in regard to the other it is absolutely incorrect.
  Mr. LONG: The hon. and learned Gentleman is making a mistake, the force of which I am sure he does not realise. He charges me with making a wholly inaccurate statement. Does he mean that?
  1.0 p.m.
  Mr. RAWLINSON: I mean what I say. The right hon. Gentleman was absolutely accurate in saying that there had been a general request for some considerable period for one part of the Bill, but he was inaccurate in saying that there was a general request for the second part of the Bill. I will show him very clearly that that is not so. As regards the first part of the Bill, it deals with the postponement of municipal elections. No doubt there has been a demand for that part of the Bill, but whether or not this Bill carries out the full nature of the demand I am not in a position to say, because I have not read the Bill sufficiently carefully. I do hope the right hon. Gentleman will give the House an opportunity of considering the Second Beading, not to-day, but on Monday, so that people who are skilled in municipal elections may have an opportunity of seeing whether the Bill carries out their intentions or not. As regards the second part of the Bill, which is to stop the work of registration from the 31st July, that stands on a totally different basis. Questions have been
  1838
  asked as to what the policy of the Government was upon that particular point, and the Prime Minister has given an answer on two separate occasions. That is what I meant when I said that the right hon. Gentleman was inaccurate in saying that there had been a universal demand for the second part of the Bill. On the 21st June the following question was put to the Prime Minister:—
  "Mr. Lough: Is the Prime Minister now in a position to announce whether the usual Courts for the registration of electors will sit this year, or new registers be prepared; and, if not, what arrangements the Government propose to make with regard to this matter and the postponement of elections?"
  The House will see that two different matters are mentioned, namely, the postponement of elections, and the sitting of the Registration Courts. The Prime Minister gave the following answer:—
  "A good deal of the work in compiling the registers of electors in the present year has already been done, and I do not think that it is desirable that the ordinary procedure should be suspended. I anticipate, however, that the activities of the political parties will be in general stayed. A Bill to postpone elections for a year, and to provide for a register for the future, will be introduced forthwith." [OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st June, 1915, cols. 932–933.]
  It will be noted that the Prime Minister said that as regards the sitting of the Registration Courts, he thought it was undesirable that the ordinary procedure should be suspended. I challenge the President of the Local Government Board that at that, time there was not the slightest intention on the part of the Government to suspend the work of the Registration Courts in September, or to suspend the work of registration. A second question was asked on the 30th June:
  "Mr. Lough asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the work of the local authorities in England and Wales in preparing the annual register of voters involves an expenditure of £300,000 per annum and does not commence until the 25th July, so that an opportunity could be given to the House of saving a great proportion, if not the whole, of this sum by enabling it to consider the Bill for postponing elections without further delay; and whether, under these circumstances, he will endeavour to introduce the Bill at once and expedite it at all stages?
  The Prime Minister: Some considerable part of the expense of this year's registration has been already incurred. Notwithstanding the postponement of elections, I do not think it would be for the general convenience to discontinue the registration now in progress. The Bill to which my right hon. Friend refers will be introduced as soon as possible."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th June, 1916, col. 1805.]
  That is a definite statement by the Prime Minister that despite the postponement of elections he did not consider it desirable to stop the registration then in progress. What has been the result? Contracts were entered into, to be performed after 31st July, not only with the printers and so

  1839
  forth, but, amongst other things, the appointment by the judges of revising barristers took place. These contracts were entered into and completed. If the second part of this Bill does not pass, these contracts will be enforceable in the ordinary way. That is how the position stands. Up to the end of July a considerable amount of work has been done; that is admitted. Anybody who knows anything about registration will know that the right hon. Gentleman has certainly been misinformed when he suggested that the work is not exceedingly expensive up to 31st July. The whole of the voters' lists have been prepared up to 31st July and printed. That expense has been incurred.
  Mr. LONG: I said so.
  Mr. RAWLINSON: That is a very heavy-expense.
  Mr. LONG: I said so.
  Mr. RAWLINSON: When we come to the figures the right hon. Gentleman will find that this is by far the most expensive part of the work. I have got the figures for certain boroughs, and I can say that by far the most expensive part of the work has been done. He said the work would be useful on some other occasion. I can assure him that that really is not so. Some of us, I suppose, have had experience in these matters. The list prepared by the overseers will have to be redone next year. I speak of what I know, and I maintain that when you have left over the work of revision—I remember in one particular county there was no revision for some years—the difficulties of getting the lists into order again are very great indeed. It is clear, from the answer that was given by the Prime Minister in June, that the Government admitted that while it might be desirable to postpone elections it would not be in the public interest to postpone the registration; because the tangle the register gets into, if it is not dealt with year after year, is an exceedingly difficult one to unravel. You have got, therefore, to this position, that the bulk of the expenditure has been incurred, and that the rest of the expenditure to be incurred, though large, is considerably less than the amount which has been incurred already.
  Mr. LONG: One-third. I said so.
  Mr. RAWLINSON: I did not understand that.
  Mr. LONG: Surely I said that the amount we thought we should save would be about £100,000. That statement, following upon the information I gave that the total cost would be about £300,000, meant that we should save one-third, or £100,000.
  Mr. RAWLINSON: I quite agree. I did not understand that the right hon. Gentleman gave that figure. At any rate the Department that he is responsible for brought in a Bill last week which will involve us in expense to the amount of this identical figure of £100,000 which the right hon. Gentleman expects to save under this Bill. The matter, however, stands upon a bigger basis than that. The Prime Minister stated definitely in June that registration was to go on although elections were to be postponed. People altered their arrangements owing to that. Appointments were made and contracts were entered into. I speak particularly of one form of contract, which is, perhaps, the least popular, and that is the contract with the revising barristers. After all, even a lawyer is entitled to fair play up to a certain point. These people got their appointments and they have taken houses in the districts where they are to revise the lists, in order that they may be able to perform their work under their contracts. It is a popular thing to say that a contract with a poor person is much more important than a contract with a rich person. Well, some of these revising barristers are not exceedingly rich, and it is a matter of great importance to them when they alter their summer arrangements and make contracts, as many of them have done, which they cannot get out of, for the taking of houses in their respective districts, so that they might be able to carry out their duties under their contract. The right hon. Gentleman comes down and says that the contract has not been performed, and therefore it would save money to break it. The Government are gong to stick to the contracts which have been performed and for which they have got full value. But as respects the other contracts, they have changed their mind, for the Prime Minister having stated one thing in June, the Government are saying another thing to-day, and these contracts are to be treated as a scrap of paper.
  The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): No.
  Mr. RAWLINSON: The Secretary for Scotland does not like that. Can he

  1841
  answer it? There was admittedly a contract which is binding; why should it be torn up?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: My point of view is that that is purely a Committee point. It has nothing to do with the Second Reading of this Bill. If the hon. and learned Member considers that the case of the revising barristers should be specially dealt with, the matter can be put right in Committee. Does he suggest that we should give up a great saving, not merely in England, but in Scotland and Ireland as well, simply because of a small matter which could easily, be adjusted?
  Mr. RAWLINSON: I am very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, who says that these contracts are practically a Committee point. I was only following the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill, and was differing from what he said. I am only too glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland that this is a Committee point, and I shall certainly take the hint from him, for I understand it amounts to that, in dealing with the matter. But while the question of contract may be a Committee point, it is very important on the Second Reading of the Bill, for the principle remains the same. I was kept here last night by a Bill which did not interest me, so that I might be able to vote at the proper time in favour of contracts being entered into, and I feel very deeply upon this and consider that I am entitled to speak more strongly on the question of the sanctity of contracts than I should be if I had not stayed here last night. There are two sides to this Bill. There is no possible objection to the first side, but with regard to the second part of the Bill, possibly I may be wrong in not regarding it as the right hon. Gentleman does, as entirely a Committee point. I look upon it as more than a Committee point. The second part of the Bill is in contradiction with what the Prime Minister said in June. I think it most important that the Government should not change their policy now, and that whatever contracts they have entered into should be rigidly adhered to.
  Mr. PRINGLE: I have some doubt about the value of Clause 1 of this Bill, but I do not think that the question of its desirability is of sufficient importance to enter into a controversy with the Government about it. I have some doubt as to
  1842
  whether it is really advisable by Statute to postpone all the elections. Last year there was no statutory postponement, yet the good sense and good feeling which prevailed almost everywhere prevented these local contests from being held, and it was only in a few cases where some local question required to be settled that any election took place. And I really do not see why the people in any municipality should be deprived of their right of turning out their representative this year, where they think that they are not acting in accordance with the public interests. I can understand perfectly well the point of view of the existing councils. The right hon. Gentleman has told the House that the existing councils do not want to have elections. Of course, naturally, they desire to continue by Statute and have another year, and be saved the necessity of submitting themselves to the judgment of the electors. But questions may arise in any locality as to whether local schemes should be continued or not, and under this Bill the local authority can do what it likes, subject to some supervision by the Local Government Board, altogether unchecked by public opinion, because they are under no necessity of consulting the localities. I do not think that this is advisable in the interests of economy, but I do not desire seriously to challenge that part of the Bill, because I understand that there is no serious opposition to it. On the second Clause, however, I am completely at issue with the Government. I was amazed when I heard the hon. Baronet the Member for Ayr Burghs say that there was only one opinion among Scottish Members. It is the first time on record.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: They always agree when they want money.
  Mr. PRINGLE: Not even then, because the hon. Baronet was against the Board of Agriculture getting its usual Grant this year, and in reference to the Grouse Bill the hon. Baronet was not entitled to speak for all the Scotch Members. Personally, I do not believe that the right hon. Gentleman has made out any case for suspending the new register. As the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite has pointed out, almost everything has been done for the purpose of making the new register. The overseers in England have completed the lists of the claims which have to be in by the 20th July, and consequently their work and that of the agents has been entirely done. In Scotland we know that the

  1843
  work there is not done by overseers but by public officials and their assistants. These gentlemen have made their surveys in all constituencies, partly for making up the valuation rolls and partly for making up the Parliamentary register. All that work is done. Why should it not be used? We are told indeed that the result will be to keep many soldiers and sailors off the register. In some cases it will have that effect, but in the majority of cases, where the soldier or sailor was a householder and the house is still in his name, the assessor in Scotland will automatically put his name on the list, and his name will remain on the list unless some person takes objection on account of the want of reference. I do not believe that there is a single agent in Scotland who would take objection as regards the coming register to a single soldier or sailor whose name would appear on that register as a householder. Therefore I do not believe that the case of the soldiers and sailors would affect the new register.
  On the other hand, the new register would clear off all those who had removed and all those who were dead. You would therefore have the register brought up to date, which is a very valuable matter. Certainly in Scotland the cost for the rest of the work would be a very small matter. We have no revising barristers in Scotland and no vested interests and no sub-contracts have been entered into. The Registration Courts there are conducted by the sheriffs, who do the work as part of their ordinary administrative and judicial duties. Consequently, the cost would be a trifling matter. You have already done a large part of the work in connection with the register.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: Not a bit of it, in Scotland.
  Mr. PRINGLE: I am certain of this, that practically all the investigations have been made.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: No, they have not.
  Mr. PRINGLE: It is a minor point, and I am quite prepared to admit that the hon. Baronet is right. As to the cost that will be incurred in making the new register, my point is that the new register will be better than the old register, and that its superiority will justify this extra cost. We know also that this trifling cost may turn out to be a small matter even in England. We have been assured by the right hon.
  1844
  Gentleman that this question of the contracts with revising barristers is a Committee point. If that is so, I hope that the Government will not put on the Government Whips, but that it will be left to hon. Members whether these contracts are to be broken or not. That is the fair way of treating this Committee point on which the free judgment of the House should be taken. If in the exercise of the judgment of Members it should be decided that these contracts are not to be broken, then the saving of expenditure would be comparatively trifling, so that even on this point there is very little to be said. What is the effect of Clause 2 of the Bill? That is a point which has not been considered at all. The Clause says:—
  "The Parliamentary and local government register of electors in force at the time of the passing of this Act shall remain in force until Parliament provides for special registers being made or otherwise directs."
  That means that the existing register is made permanent until Parliament has passed a new Statute. You are proposing to set up a permanent register. It is quite true that we have the present Government in power just now, but we do not know how long that combination will continue. We may have readjustments, and it might be to the interest of the new combination who take the place of these gentlemen to have a general election; they might be able to pass a measure through both Houses of Parliament for the purpose of that election; or, it might not be to their interest to, pass such a Statute, but to have an election on the old register, so as to obtain a House of Commons, to their mind. I say that the House of Commons has no right to put that weapon into the hands of any Government. I think that on constitutional grounds there is absolutely the strongest objection to any such course. You have no right to make the existing Parliamentary voters the settled electorate of the country. After all, it is not in the power of this House to decide it. There are two Houses of Parliament. You have in future to consider this, that the Government might think one kind of register the best, and if that kind of register were agreed upon you might find that the other place would disagree with it and reject the Bill. So that the effect of this is, as I think I have established, that Clause 1 means a permanent register, and I do not think that this House should

  1845
  assent to that; and that Clause 2 is for the purpose of breaking contracts with revising barristers.
  I wish to make a few observations on the point of these contracts. Who are the men you are going to break contracts with? A few junior barristers. I am a junior barrister myself, but I have never been a revising barrister. I have either been in Parliament or a Parliamentary candidate, so that I was disabled from becoming a revising barrister. After all, these revising barristers are men making comparatively small incomes. They are poor men; they are uninfluential; their case will not be popular with the country; they have no influence in this House; they are men who are not making war profits—indeed, their profession is depressed. Last night we had the case of the coal owners, who have been making inflated profits, waxing fat on the plunder of the poor. Contracts with them are to be maintained in order that they may earn the extra few shillings, but the poor revising barrister is to have his contract broken. I do not believe that if the case is put to the House they will assent to that course. If you are to have sanctity of contract in the case of the rich coal owner, there should be sanctity of contract for the revising barrister. I am in favour of economy. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Yes, but economy at the expense of people who can afford it. I submit that it is really a contemptible proposal to suggest that in order to save a few thousand pounds you are going to break contracts deliberately entered into, after an express statement of Government policy by the Prime Minister. I think I have made a case in support of the point that, as a matter of public policy, it is better to have a new register. In the second place, I think economy can be effected only at the expense of a breach of contract with the revising barristers, and that breach of contract, if assented to by the House, would be a contemptible proceeding, having regard to the past action of this House in respect to contracts with other people.
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: My hon. Friend has spoken more from the point of view of the English barrister, but in his argument in regard to revising barristers he entirely forgot the case of Scotland and of Ireland. The House surely must be aware that even if we paid the revising barristers for not doing the work we would still be in
  1846
  pocket, and save many thousands of pounds. A week or two ago I went down to Scotland, on behalf of the Government, and addressed meetings on the subject of national economy, and the Scottish people, at least, are a literal and a consistent people, and if they start on the path of economy they are not going to waste money for nothing. That is what my hon. Friend wants us to do.
  Mr. PRINGLE: No, no!
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: My right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board told the House what would be the saving in England, but we would almost double the saving in the case of Scotland. I am not in a position to fix the amount, but I should not wonder if we saved in public and private money together £60,000. The question as to the revising barristers' fees is a Committee point. I have known my right hon. Friend for some twenty years, though I have been associated with him in a different way, and I am sure he is the last man to do injustice to anybody, and I am sure he will not do injustice to anybody. When I went down to Scotland to talk about economy, I received a very remarkable deputation from the City of Glasgow. It consisted of the chief Unionist agent, the chief Liberal agent, the Nationalist agent, and the Labour agent, and the assessor. They came to say to me, and were absolutely unanimous in pressing me, to get this Bill through for Scotland. What was the ground they took? They said, this would be a sheer and absolute waste of public money, and that the Glasgow ratepayers would have to spend £6,000, and there would be worse than nothing to show for it. The assessor said, "I am engaged, and my staff is depleted. I am looking after the Belgian refugees and recruiting work." The agents said, "We are all engaged in recruiting work or thrift work, and we do not want to make a useless register this year." They said this also to me, that this register would be worse than the last one, and would be of no advantage, and would be a thoroughly bad register, for the reasons which my right hon. Friend has given, and which are familiar to everybody in the House. What is the question of the revising barristers, and the pay of the revising barristers?
  Mr. LONGmade an observation which was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I never saw a measure of economy opposed on such trivial, unfair and insincere grounds as those.
  Mr. PRINGLE: Not insincere.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Withdraw!
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I withdraw "insincere" if it offends anybody. Surely the whole point as to the revising barristers is not the way to argue the matter. We had some very offensive remarks about the head of the Government, and scraps of paper. I think the sooner those political quotations are dropped in domestic controversy the better. It is a very unfortunate way of carrying on domestic controversies on matters though they may be opposed. We are all friends, and brother Englishmen, and I think those phrases should be dropped. I think I am entitled to speak a little warmly when phrases of that kind are used. As my hon. Friend is very well aware there are no revising barristers in Scotland. The sheriffs do the work, and I do not know why the sheriffs should object to having less work to do this year.
  Mr. PRINGLE: They have their salaries.
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: Is the suggestion that the sheriffs' salaries should be reduced?
  Mr. PRINGLE: On the basis of the Bill, yes.
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: That really is an argument not worthy to put before the House. The assessors have not started on this work. The House is being asked to waste probably some £60,000 in Scotland and £100,000 in England, and another sum in Ireland, for no reason at all. Can we prate about economy, and take this line? It is the most inconsistent opposition I have ever heard. Does the House really realise that there is a necessity for economy? Here is money that will be saved, and cost nothing, and we will be none the worse for saving it, and yet that is a contentious matter in the House of Commons. I am sure hon. Members will feel that it is their duty to support this Bill on Second Reading, whatever points they may wish to raise on the Committee stage.
  Colonel YATE: The hon. Member for North-West Lanarkshire (Mr. Pringle) treated the question of the Revision
  1848
  Courts as a trivial matter. We saw recently an estimate of £250,000 for Revision Courts, and surely we all must acknowledge that to waste £250,000 on the Revision Courts under present circumstances would be a thing that would be intolerable to the whole country. The hon. Member also said that no one would ever make any objections to an absentee soldier or sailor. Whatever his belief may be in that respect, I think it is the duty of us here to see that nobody will have the opportunity of making any objection to our brave soldiers and sailors and to the mine-sweepers who have been referred to, and all of whom are absolutely giving their lives in our behalf. It rests with us, one and all, to see that the interests of those men are perfectly protected, and I hope we will do so.
  Mr. GLYN-JONES: I desire to express the hope that the Government will proceed with both parts of this Bill. As to the first part, there appears to be more or less general consent. As to the second, namely, the removal of any necessity for the completion of registration work this year, I cannot understand anyone who has practical knowledge of the work of registration not agreeing at such a time as this to forego the work entirely. It is suggested that the Government have changed their mind, and that there was a time in June when they thought that the work of registration should go on. If that is so, all I have got to say is that I think they were wrong in June and they are certainly right now. Then there is the suggestion that there will be some difficulty about contracts. From my experience of London registration I am bound to say that if the revising barristers got every penny which they got last year without doing anything it would be well even then that the work should not be done. We are right, of course, in saving all the money we can, and it is perfectly fair to put forward that as an argument-There are other ways in which expenses can be saved. The printing of the register is an enormous expense, and for myself I cannot help thinking that it would be quite possible for the Government to make suitable arrangements to equitably deal with contracts which have been made and which cannot be carried out. My hon. Friend (Mr. Pringle) says that we are going to freeze the register. If there is going to be an election of any kind before the War comes to an end the present register is the best register you

  1849
  could have and is the one which is likely to do least injustice. An hon. Member asks why? First of all, take the lodgers who are at the front. Unless you have some change in registration law everybody knows that those old lodgers cannot go on new lodger lists unless they sign claims. It is now suggested to me that they could not vote. I am not at all sure that an arrangement would not be made whereby they would be enabled to vote. I am speaking as to the register being the guide as to those who are entitled to vote. I say if the present registration goes on, unless you have some change in registration law, all the old lodgers who are at the front will be removed from the register and not entitled to vote.
  There is another matter which has not been touched upon. We have been dealing with this as a matter of expense and as involving work on public officials. What does it mean in the constituencies where the registration work is done, and often fought with the keenness of an election? In some constituencies where the margin is small there is as much political animosity brought into the work of Registration Courts as there is at an election. Is this the right time to have that done? What of the work of the political agents during the next two or three months making objection to people on the list or putting in fresh claims for people whom they think will support their cause? What cause? Speaking as a Member of Parliament, I cannot help thinking that we are attaching now a great deal too much importance to what we may consider to be the political views of the people we are putting on or keeping off the register. I do not know what my own views will be on the issues of the next General Election. No one knows. No one knows who will lead us or what his views will be. If that is so, how can political agents know whether, from their point of view, they are keeping the right people off or putting the right people on? If you could guarantee that no political agent would take any part at all in the next registration work, my objection on this point would be met. But you cannot give that guarantee at all. If that is so, we had better frankly face the realities and say that it is perfectly ridiculous to speak about preparing a register at this time. Whether we do or do not save money by not going on, I think, in the interests of all parties, and certainly in the interests of the most useful work which political agents and their organisa-
  1850
  tions are at present doing throughout the country, they should not be saddled with the duty, because it would be a duty, involved in the preparation of the register. We know what it means. Political agents would not trust each other not to put in objections and political animosities would be aroused, with the result that much greater injustice would be done to voters entitled to be on the register. We are not dealing with normal times. I hope the House will not allow the point with regard to existing contracts to prevent their doing away with the work of registration this year. In Committee or in some other way we can be left to make due provision to meet any real grievance which anybody who has entered into a contract for registration work may suffer.
  Sir W. BYLES: We are merely asked to give a Second Reading to the Bill, and that, I think, is a reasonable request. I attach considerable weight to the criticisms and objections raised in the early part of the Debate by my hon. Friends, and if we were in normal times I would be with them. I would suggest, however, that both the important points raised by them can be very well dealt with in Committee. I read the Bill yesterday: I thought that, on the whole, it was a reasonable proposal, and I think so still, that the elections should be postponed and the register not proceeded with. The Government have a great deal to do, and it is the business of the House of Commons to assist them as far as possible. These are exceptional times. In normal times one would be much more ready to join in the criticisms which have been urged. But these are exceptional times, and it seems to me that in these discussions we are forgetting the primary duty laid upon the Government, Parliament, and the country, of prosecuting the War. We have to prosecute the War, to end it, and to win it. I do not think we ought to put any obstacles in the way of the men who have that vast responsibility upon their shoulders.
  Mr. ROBERT PEARCE: I should like to ask whether the City of London and other cities and county boroughs are included in the Bill? As I read it, it does not at all affect the City of London.
  Mr. LONG: Every municipality, so far as I know, is included in the Bill.
  Mr. PRINGLE: No.
  Mr. LONG: If the hon. Gentleman is right and I am wrong, I will put that right in Committee.
  Mr. PEARCE: That is sufficient on that point. As to registration, the work of the overseers, which is more important than the work of the political agents, has already been done, and is provided for in the Bill. It is very desirable that work which has already been done should be preserved in the way proposed by the Bill. The revision of these lists, which is a mere examination of objections, is a comparatively small matter, and can very easily be done next year, when another list is prepared. It seems to me that the framing of the registration part of the Bill is sufficient for the purpose of preserving the register in its best condition in readiness for a further correction next year, or whenever the General Election comes.
  Mr. HOGGE: I think my right hon. Friend will find that the City of London is not included in the scope of the Bill. An exception is made on behalf of the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir F. Banbury). He has slipped out of the Bill, but we will get him in in Committee. I wish to address myself to the Scottish aspects of the case. I am sorry the Scottish Secretary has gone away, after the very conciliatory speech which he addressed to us, without hearing what any Scottish Member had to say about the preparation of the register. In Scotland our voting roll is constructed from a roll which is got together after a survey by the assessor for the purposes of the valuation roll. That survey is an intimate one, involving a considerable amount of work, and falls within the duty of the office—that is to say, the official responsible is paid a salary which includes his work in this capacity. If that official is not to do the work this year for which he is paid, it is an obvious economy to effect in his salary.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: The valuation work is being done as usual.
  Mr. HOGGE: But not the register, which is also part of the work. Nor is the sheriff doing his part of the work, although he is paid for it as part of his duties. A great deal has been said in this discusion about political agents being concerned in the making of these rolls. The House seemed to agree when it was suggested that political agents sought to get on to the register voters of their own political colour, and to keep off, by all the
  1852
  devious means open to them, voters who were against them politically. That is a very wrong way to construct any register of voters. It is very wrong for any political party to attempt to keep any man off the register who has a right to be there. [Laughter.] That seems to be taken as a joke. But I do submit that it is worth while for once in our lives to get an absolutely honest register of voters, a thing we have never been able to get before. All of us know we are in this conspiracy to try to doctor the voting roll. Our various agents in our constituencies meet before the roll is finally decided, and with a system of give-and-take, giving and taking so many lodgers, an so on, adjust the roll before it actually comes before the final authority. Here is an opportunity to have a perfectly clean register, with nobody on that register but the people who are entitled to be put there without the assistance of political agents. A great many people die during the year, and everybody who knows the work in connection with the roll and the tracing of voters, knows that a large number of voters go off the roll because there are dead or because they have removed out of the district and no longer have the qualifications. A suggestion has been made that we might have a General Election. I suppose we will have a General Election sometime. If some of the newspapers in London had their way some of us would have to go before our constituents at once in order that we might be dealt with; some of us would be very pleased so to do, to have the opportunity of meeting our constituents at the very earliest possible moment.
  Sir G. YOUNGERmade an observation which was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.
  Mr. HOGGE: That is not necessary until we have completed the task for which the electors sent us here. But I am greatly in favour of every locality having that opportunity and right at any moment. Take the municipal elections. Why should any electorate in any municipality be deprived of the opportunity of expressing its municipal opinion on things which are not at all concerned with the War? Everybody who has been on a municipal corporation—as many of us in this House have—know the questions that arise. We know many of the municipalities throughout the country where no question of politics arises, and where great public

  1853
  questions are decided. I give my right hon. Friend notice on this point, that I may put down an Amendment for the Committee suggesting that the difficulty could be got over in the way I indicate. I think it is a fair point to put. I myself deprecate elections in municipalities where the man who forces a contest gets only a miserable amount of support. For instance, in Edinburgh recently, one or two contests were forced in which the man who was beaten did not get more, at the outside, than twenty votes. I do not think any man is entitled to force a municipal contest and put the municipality to the expense of a contest unless he is able to produce behind him a sufficient public support to warrant his candidature.
  I therefore want to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that that might be met by amendment which would seek to penalise a candidate who forces a contest unless he gets a certain minimum of support from the electors. That would leave it open for our municipalities to have their elections, if they wished to have them. It would also prevent anybody forcing a contest for some peculiar fad or notion of their own. I trust that suggestion—as I am sure it will—will receive consideration. The hon. Baronet opposite mentioned the question of expense. All of us know that every printer in every locality keeps the register in type from year to year. [An HON. MEMBER: "NO."] Well, those who do not are foolish. We do in Scotland. But we are an economical people. We waste no money in printing the register afresh. We keep the register in type, and the only expense is the printing. In Scotland the printing trade is one of the most depressed trades on account of the War. In Edinburgh, the whole of the printing industry has been absolutely destroyed by the circumstances attending this War. The printing of these registers is a valuable piece of work which would in many of the localities in Scotland keep those printers for a time. That is a side argument which I think is quite worth considering. My right hon. Friend took £50,000 in the Estimates the other day to deal with matters under the Unemployed Workmen's Act. Some of this public money might be devoted to helping the industry that is very depressed. Supplied with a piece of public work like this, you would be helping the printing industry in Scotland, and this in addition to the fact that you will get an
  1854
  up-to-date register which could be kept up to date at very little expense. I submit that these are reasonable considerations for the House in respect to the Scottish register. With regard to the English and Irish registers, they are in the hands of the English and Irish Members. So far, however, as the Scottish Members are concerned Scottish opinion is in favour of bringing the register up to date, and keeping it up to date for the reasons which I have given.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: I am sorry I do not altogether agree with my hon. Friend opposite. Certainly he will admit that I am in a position to know, at all events, a good deal of the opinion of my own side, and I can only say that there is a perfectly unanimous opinion on this matter. I have also had many conversations with Mr. Webster, the head of the Liberal organisation. He is quite thoroughly agreed as to the necessity of some measure of this kind. He said so in my presence some months ago. I, myself, having perfect confidence in the common sense of the Government, believed that they would be sure to do something like this, and told my Unionist friends in Scotland not to spend a shilling over our register. The register as it stands now is infinitely better than any register we could prepare, certainly in Scotland. Our agents on both sides have been engaged—and the country owes them a debt of thanks for it—for many months in recruiting work. This applies to the headquarters of the Unionist party in Edinburgh and the headquarters of the Liberal party in Glasgow. They have done admirable work in every kind of way for the country. We still have demands for men to do their very best to fulfil their obligations in that respect, and I think it will be a disaster if they were taken from most necessary national work to engage in the petty squabbles we have every year over our registers.
  It is perfectly true, as the hon. Member said a moment ago, that the printers in Scotland usually keep our electoral rolls in being. They keep the type standing both for our valuation rolls and for our electoral rolls. All the same there is a very heavy expenditure each year in connection with changes and alterations in these rolls. Every one understands these are very considerable, and particularly in connection with the new Act which was passed a year or two ago. In places like Glasgow, where removals are very fre-

  1855
  quent, and many alterations are necessary, nowadays it is practically almost necessary to print an entirely new roll. Be that as it may, we should certainly save a large amount of public money, and also we should keep the roll as at present. No Government will take advantage of the position to retain that roll permanently. I do not think that any Government in power, or that may come into power in this country, will do anything in the slightest degree to prejudice the electoral position. The hon. Gentleman opposite suggests that that might be done?
  Mr. PRINGLE: If I may interrupt—
  Mr. SPEAKER: Perhaps the hon. Member had better wait till the hon. Baronet has finished and then make his speech. I think we may assume that whatever the hon. Baronet says will be opposed by the hon. Member, and whatever the hon. Member says will be opposed by the hon. Baronet; so that we know where we are.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: I do not know whether the hon. Member is willing to accept that position, Mr. Speaker, but so far as I am concerned it quite expresses my position. The hon. Member knows, and so does the right hon. Gentleman—whom I am sorry was not here when I made my preliminary remarks—that the general opinion is what I have stated. If the right hon. Gentleman does not object to my saying it, something like a week ago we both agreed that if delay was to occur in connection with this matter in stereotyping the English and Irish rules, we, at all events, agreed we should make an effort, and he would make an effort, to get the Prime Minister to assist about the lists for Scotland. Therefore, I merely rise to say I agree entirely with the line the right hon. Gentleman took in the matter of Scotland, and hope the Bill will be read a second time.
  Sir WILLIAM BEALE: As a representative of a Scottish constituency, the information which has reached me makes me agree entirely with the observations of the last speaker, and mainly with those of the Secretary for Scotland—at all events to this extent, that the Second Beading of this Bill ought to pass without any delay—and I am, therefore, very reluctant even to get up except to say a word upon the question of revising barristers in England. I know it is a Committee point, but, with the object of saving time, I think it is well
  1856
  we should be at one as to the view we should take as to the rights, if any, of people who are injured to any extent by this Act, as those gentlemen will be. I entirely agree in the main with the ideas of the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson), but I do not think I can quite put it in the way he did. I do not think it is exactly on the footing of a breach of contract. I do not know whether they have already been appointed.
  Mr. RAWLINSON: They have been appointed in writing since the statement of the Prime Minister.
  Sir W. BEALE: Practically that is a reappointment of the men who acted last year. Even so, I think it is a case where gentlemen have been induced to make their arrangements and to put themselves to disadvantage in an expectation. I should like to put the case, not precisely in terms of a breach of contract, but as a case in which you disappoint people who arrange their lives in an expectation, and I hope we shall be able to find an Amendment on which we shall be at one, and which will, at all events, save these gentlemen from loss. Not only have these gentlemen generally had a comparatively small practice at the Bar, but they are men very often who could not keep up the rent of their chambers without the certainty of this little position they hold, and, incidentally, they are the class of men who do a great deal of service indeed in acting as arbitrators in small matters, and who are a very useful class of barristers. I hope that will be borne in mind.
  2.0 P.M.
  Mr. HUME-WILLIAMS: I only desire to intervene for only a few minutes in this Debate, because I have no doubt the House will wish to proceed with the Second Reading, and anything I do say is intended to be helpful, although it may or may not bear that aspect. I doubt whether the part of this Bill which deals with the postponement of the Registration Courts will really carry out the object which I am sure those who support it would wish. If it had been suggested at an earlier period that all the work in connection with the preparation of the registers and the checking of the lists should be postponed altogether it might have been a good proposition or it might have been a bad proposition. But, at the point which we have reached now, I do submit to the House that it is very doubt-

  1857
  ful whether you would not be better carrying out the objects of your Bill if you allowed the registration work to be completed, seeing that it has gone so far. I presume, of course, that there will be no General Election until some kind of new register has been set up. It would be unthinkable that a General Election should take place some time next year, let us say, on the register which had been settled last September. I could not think of an election upon an old register which would then be two years old—perhaps more. Therefore you have got in view the preparation at a future period of the register upon which the election is going to take place, and I take it the sole object you have is, how best to fix it. It seems to me that the barrister who is going ultimately to settle that register, be it next year or the year after when the election takes place, must have something to go upon, and so must the overseer. Is it not better that he should have something for this year absolutely settled and up to date than that he should have now a mere list prepared by the overseers?
  Mr. LONG: The hon. and learned Gentleman says, Would it not be better to have something up to date? That is exactly what I am assured by the most competent authorities could not be more up to date.
  Mr. HUME-WILLIAMS: I am quite sure my phrase to that extent is correct. No register could be prepared now up to date for a year hence; you can only get it as near as you can. My point is that, having got so far, having got your overseers to prepare the lists, having got them in print, having appointed your revising barristers, having engaged the Courts, would it not be simpler for your own purposes to complete the scheme, which has gone so far, by holding your Registration Courts, subject of course to the arrangement, which I understand was carried out in the greater part of the districts last year, namely, that there should be no political controversies between the agents of either side? It is within the knowledge of every man in the House, I think, that all the Registration Courts last year proceeded upon the most amicable arrangements. There were no contests, and in consequence you have got a register which does represent the electorate of that time. Now you are looking forward two years, and I cannot help thinking that, having proceeded so far as you have, it would be a wise thing to take the really small final step.
  1858
  As to the revising barristers, I quite agree with the point which will be raised at a subsequent stage, but I do venture to press it very strongly upon the attention of the Government. These gentlemen are appointed every year, and the appointments have taken place. The Courts have been engaged and all the necessary work has been done for carrying out their work. Their arrangements are made. There is a sort of popular fallacy to be found sometimes even in this House that the leaders of the Bar are people making very large incomes. I only wish it were so. At any rate, those members of the Bar who are appointed revising barristers cannot be said by the wildest flight of imagination to belong to that class. I could give instances to the House in my own personal knowledge of more than one man who depends on the small salary he gets from this appointment to sustain himself and his family, and who has made his arrangements and is entitled to look to that source of income in the coming year. You are compensating everybody nowadays for every injury done. If an aircraft comes across a town and drops bombs on it, one might have thought that is an ordinary incident of war. You compensate those who are injured. Everybody is out for compensation, and yet it is commonly suggested that these gentlemen are not to receive any consideration. I observe that the President of the Local Government Board lends this suggestion a sympathetic ear, and I hope it will be dealt with in Committee.
  Sir HARRY SAMUEL: I quite agree that this year there ought not to be any register prepared. No register that can be taken this year could by any possibility whatever be truly representative of any constituency, and I am perfectly certain that any register we might have taken now would be infinitely less reliable and less of a guide for the future than the register which exists at the present moment. There are many other reasons which I might put forward, but there is one reason which comes to me perhaps with stronger force than in the case of most hon. Members. I have been engaged ever since the War broke out, by kind permission of those in authority, in endeavouring to see that we get a sufficient number of men for our Army. In this work our political agents have been to us an absolute stand-by, and we never could have done the work as we have done it had it not been for the fact that the political agents of all parties,

  1859
  Conservative, Liberal, and Labour, have worked hand in hand all through the country with the most splendid results as far as the securing of recruits is concerned.
  In addition to this the political agents have been asked to endeavour to help us to put before the people the absolute necessity of doing their best to be economical and to save. If the agents are to do all that, how on earth can they take part in this campaign for recruits and war savings, and other things as well, if in addition they have to take on the work of creating the ordinary register of the year? For that reason I ask the House to approve of this measure. The only fault I have to find with it is that it has been delayed so long, and it would have been an infinite advantage to many of us if this Bill had been introduced a little earlier. This measure is conceived on right lines. It is impossible to think that we can now have party warfare, because there are no parties at the present moment of any kind or distinction except the one great national party that stands for the absolute destruction of our common enemy. I only wish that some hon. Members of this House would take that view a little more instead of introducing in the discussion of such measures as this all kinds of minor and petty points which are not in keeping with a grave situation like the present. It is difficult to ask us to go about pleading for economy unless we can say that the Government are taking the lead in this matter. This Bill is conceived on lines of strict economy, and I am certain it will help us if we are able to put forward the Government as model economists. I think the House is now prepared to give this Bill a Second Reading. I am sure it is conceived on proper lines, and I am perfectly certain that it will be welcomed in all the constituencies of this country.
  Mr. M. HEALY: After looking at this measure I concluded that if then was one Bill that it was likely every Member of Parliament would be agreed upon it is this measure. Nevertheless there has been a good deal of criticism upon it. Why is it desirable to have no revision this year? The answer is that there can be no effective revision. Why is that? This matter has been discussed as if the work was done by officials, but that is not so, and to suppose that is to mix up the process of preparing the lists and the revising of them. The officials prepare the lists
  1860
  and they are then distributed to the political parties. Why is it necessary to revise them? Because everybody knows that no matter how careful you are, or how well the work is done, when the lists are issued to the public there will be hundreds of names on them which should have been omitted and there will be hundreds omitted which should have been included. The revision of the lists consists of striking out the names which the officials have erroneously inserted and putting into the lists those which the officials have erroneously omitted. That work is done not by the officials but by the political parties, and the reason why the revision is impossible under present conditions is that political parties have all agreed that at the present moment that is a class of work in which they ought not to engage when the country is at war.
  I have been engaged in Revision Courts, I am sorry to say, for nearly thirty years. In Ireland I suppose we are a little more pugnacious in these matters than the rest of the Kingdom, but we fight our revision contest with a great desire to gain an advantage over the other party. In a hotly contested Irish Revision Court very often five weeks is spent every year in a contest between the political agent of each side as to who shall be on the lists and who shall not. I have spent five weeks on two occasions in the constituency of West Belfast conducting a Revision Court, and I have also spent five weeks in a constituency in Derry conducting a revision. I have in my time been in nearly every constituency in Ulster, and for the past three years I have had very considerable experience in my own district, where for three years past it has taken two revising barristers, specially appointed, a period extending over a month to revise the lists. I do not pretend to be acquainted with the Scottish law, but I have had occasion to read a great many Scottish revision cases.
  I remember reading in the public newspapers some three years ago of an extraordinary scene which took place in one of the Revision Courts in Glasgow. One of the great questions which arises in Revision Courts concerns lodgers, and the agents of each side are at their wits end to know how to settle whether lodgers are entitled to the franchise or not. In that particular Glasgow constituency it happened that there were 5,000 lodger claims that year, and the political agents decided that they could not possibly settle the question without having the

  1861
  whole 5,000 of them brought into Court. Accordingly, on some particular day subpoenas were procured. The Court was filled, the passages were filled, and all the adjoining streets were thronged with masses of lodgers coming up to prove their claims and to assert their rights. It is said, "Oh, yes; but that will not go on under the present conditions. Last year everything was lovely. The agents ton each side agreed that there would be no contention." Yes; but that is to say the agents agreed that there should be no revision. Revision involves contention; it involves conflict; it involves fierce fighting. You can have no revision without it. An innocent Member from Edinburgh said what an intolerable thing it was that the agents on each side should strike off persons who were entitled to be on the list and should try to get on persons who were not entitled to be on. That is the business of revision. That is what the agents are for. It has been said of the English system of jurisprudence that cases are conducted by each barrister putting his case in the unfairest manner possible in order that the judge in the end may come to a perfectly fair conclusion. Accordingly, correct and accurate lists can only be prepared by each political party doing its best to get the better of the other party; and, assuming that each party employs equal skill, you get a perfectly correct list, and you get it in no other way. All that goes to show that contention, fighting, and conflict are the very breath and life of the Revision Courts. You cannot have a Revision Court without it, and a Revision Court without it is a sham.
  I was told that last year it was only possible to conduct the revision in the English Courts in the cases of lodgers by all the agents agreeing to do that which was illegal. The lodger must sign his claim with his own name. An enormous number of lodgers were at the front, and could not sign their names. Each party got round the law by agreeing to permit the claims to be signed otherwise than by the lodger. You cannot conduct the revision if you have to have it on these lines. You might as well not have it at all, because that means that you are accepting the lists as the officials have prepared them, and that you consider revision unnecessary. The real defence of this proposal to have no revision is that the political parties last year themselves decided that they would have no effective revision.
  1862
  This only carries out in legal form that which last year the political agents agreed to do in an illegal manner. What is the objection to it? "Oh," says the hon. Member for Lanark (Mr. Pringle), "you have a stereotyped register; you have a frozen register." It is quite true that you have a frozen register, but why you should you not in the existing circumstances? What is the register for? It serves two purposes. It is either to provide for the case of a General Election or for the case of a by-election. Everybody is agreed that on the register as now prepared there is to be no General Election. That being so, you do not want a register for a General Election. The hon. Member shakes his head. Does he want a General Election on a register from which the soldiers at the front are excluded?
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Can you guarantee that there will be no General Election?
  Mr. M. HEALY: I can only say what the hon. Member who preceded me said. The holding of an election on the register which is now being prepared is unthinkable. I, at any rate, refuse to think it possible. I believe that it is entirely out of the question that any Government should be guilty of it. It would be an infamy to hold an election on a register from which some hundreds of thousands of soldiers are necessarily excluded because they are at the front. An hon. Member said that we could get over that because the agents would not object. It is not a question of whether the agents object. The official cannot put them on the lists without breaking the law. The official is sworn to do his work properly. It is one case where we have preserved, at any rate in Ireland, that form of making people do right. The official cannot put on the list any man who ought not to be there without breaking the law. It is not, therefore, a question of the agents agreeing not to object. It is a question of the official not being entitled to put them on. Accordingly, in the lists which are now being prepared, these men who are at the front are of necessity excluded. I think we may assume that for the purposes of a General Election there is no great harm in having the existing register. Is the case any worse when you take a by-election? We have all seen in the past twelve months, with some exceptions—one in Scotland and two in Ireland—that the

  1863
  political parties have agreed that there should be no elections. Take the case in which there was an election. Will anyone suggest that in the election at Glasgow the other day the result would have been any different, no matter what kind of register you had? It is perfectly plain that neither for a by-election nor for a General Election is a new register necessary.
  Finally, it is said, "Oh, but all the expenditure has been incurred!" No, all the expenditure has not been incurred. The expenses of revision are divided into three parts. There is, first, that part which is the expense to which the officials or the public are put, and that has been incurred. I quite agree that has been thrown away. The lists which have been printed might as well be torn up. They will be useful for no purpose. I quite agree that it would have been better if the Bill had been produced a month earlier. There remains the other half of the official expenses. They consist in attending the Revision Courts and printing the register as finally settled. Finally, there is that portion of the expenses in which I profess to be greatly more interested than in the public expenses. There are the private expenses of the Members interested in the constituencies. Revision is conducted by the agents of political parties. It is a most expensive process. The bulk of the work still remains to be done, and the proposal is, forsooth, that the political parties and individual Members of this House are to continue to put their hands into their pockets and spend large sums in conducting these revisions merely in order to have a register which will not be enforced, or, it may be, in order to secure that some revising barristers in England shall get their salaries. I am not going to attack barristers. I am not one myself, but I have no desire to say a harsh word against them, but is it to be said that if there is a strong case on public grounds for this Bill we are not to pass it because these Gentlemen will rot get their salaries? I never heard such an argument advanced in this House before. I do not say a word against compensating them, if it is desirable, but certainly it cannot be suggested that we should hold Revision Courts merely for the gratification of paying these gentlemen to preside over them; that is an intolerable and grotesque proposition.
  1864
  That brings me to my last point. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary why he takes power under this Bill to appoint revising barristers for the purpose of revising jurors' lists in Ireland? Wherever there are prolonged revision contests in the Revision Courts it is the practice to appoint barristers sufficient for the purpose, but, so far as I know, this particular work could be done by County Court judges, and I do not think—Dublin probably is the only exception—that there are gentlemen appointed for these positions who hold permanent statutory posts. Accordingly it appears to me that if under the operation of this Bill, with which I quite agree, it should be necessary to hold Revision Courts for the purpose of revising the jurors' lists, in that case surely that could be done by the County Court judges.
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): I will consider the point whether the words "revising barristers" can be struck out. They were only inserted for safety, and in order to secure the revision of the jurors' lists. There are, no doubt, three permanent revising barristers appointed for the purpose, but I will consider the point raised by the hon. and learned Member.
  Mr. PRATT: I am quite sure that on this occasion the hon. Baronet the Member for the Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) is more actually representative of public opinion in Scotland than ray hon. Friend who sits near me. I support the Bill in the hope that when we come to the Committee stage there may be at least two Amendments of it: one to meet the point raised by the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University, and I think that a House which refuses to break contracts with coal masters should be very chary and very slow indeed about breaking contracts with those gentlemen who have been appointed for this year to the office of revising barrister. In the second place, I hope, if the Bill is so amended, it will not be left standing until Parliament provides a special register, but that the present register may be continued for another year, and then it will leave the whole question open for the House of Commons to deal with at the end of that time.
  With regard to the Bill itself, one can hardly anticipate carrying on the ordinary work of making up the register and of revising it, with all the other elements that enter into the process of making up a

  1865
  new register, in the circumstances in which the country finds itself to-day. The hon. and learned Member for Cork (Mr. Maurice Healy) quite rightly said that one of two things is bound to happen, either you will have the process of revision going on with all its concomitants of party feeling, or else you will have the agents entering into a more or less legal compact to make such a new register as may seem to them most fit. What would happen, for instance, in the city of Glasgow if the registration is to go forward this year as in former years? It means that almost immediately the party agents and a large staff of canvassers—the largest that could be obtained—would be scouring the streets, closes, and tenements of Glasgow to find out old lodgers, new lodgers, and possible lodgers. I say that at this time the agents of the two parties are doing much better work, work which is much more needed, and which is of the highest national value. In the next few weeks or so there will be a great deal of pressure on many of the public officials, the assessors and their staffs all over Scotland. These staffs have been depleted on account of the War, and, in addition to that, many public officials are devoting themselves, night and day, to other purposes more directly concerned with the prosecution of the first and foremost task before the nation. It would be a misfortune if all these energies, or even any part of them, were to be deflected from the purposes to which they are at present harnessed, merely to provide a new register, which could not conceivably be such a true and accurate register as the one which is at present in being.
  One of my hon. Friends said that the new register would be an absolutely honest register of voters. I cannot conceive how a new register made in the circumstances which obtain just now can be as representative as the register that at present holds the field. I know cases, myself, in different parts of Scotland, where families, the male members of which have gone to the front, either as soldiers or sailors, have removed into smaller houses, and in many cases those houses have been taken in the name of the wife, rather than in the name of the husband. You would have many difficulties, of which that is only one illustration, which would make it impossible for the new register to be anything like as representative as the register at present existing. I am certain, like the hon. Gentleman who last
  1866
  spoke, that no Government would play with the House and with the country in this manner. If there is to be an election, I am perfectly sure, whatever Government may be in power will take care to see that a register of voters is made which will be fully and truly representative of those who are entitled to possess the right to vote. I heartily welcome this Bill. I believe it will prove most welcome in Scotland, and that the people there will rejoice that the energies which would be necessary for carrying out the revision are not to be deflected, or drawn away from those channels in which they are doing very much better work.
  Mr. DENNISS: I desire to call the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board to what I think is an omission from the first Clause of the Bill. I believe that some officials are elected yearly and others are elected triennially, but they are not included in this Bill. Their offices may be vacant, and there will be no means of electing others to fill them. The Bill provides for county and borough councillors, district councillors, guardians, parish councillors, members of committees, and so on, but not for any officials. I believe that auditors of municipal corporations are elected annually, and there are other officers elected annually or triennially whose offices may come to an end during the year if this Bill does not deal with them. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will make a note of the point and, if necessary, put in an Amendment.
  With regard to the second Clause, the question of the register is not such a simple one as it looks. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to look at the matter from a little practical point of view. Perhaps the House will pardon me if I refer to my personal experience, which, I think, illustrates the point better than anything else. Some time ago my agent wrote to me asking what should be done about the preparation of the register. I was unwilling that it should be prepared, because it is a great expense to the constituency and myself personally. I thought it would not be necessary, because the Government were going to bring in a Bill, but when the Prime Minister made his statement we had to make arrangements for the register. My agent's remuneration does not depend upon the register, because he receives it annually, and he gets nothing extra for the register and is perfectly impartial in the matter. He said it would be better to have

  1867
  one made up, because you would get into an awful tangle if you pretermit it for one year. In my Constituency the number of removals which had to be traced was no less than 11,000 last year. Imagine what the tangle will be if next year or the year after, should the War last two years, you have to rectify that register! I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board appreciates that point.
  It would be far better in the present circumstances to complete the register. It must be valuable, because the President of the Local Government Board told us just now that the overseers' lists would not be wasted and that they would be the basis of a future register. I quite agree, but it would be very incomplete and almost useless. That could be prevented by perfecting the register, for, if the overseers' list is useful, the effective list must be useful. The President of the Local Government Board, who has just come in, did not hear me say that in my Constituency last year we had to trace no less than 11,000 removals, and my agent said that if we did not continue the registration this year the tangle would be such that it would be almost impossible to get a complete register a year or two hence. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider that most carefully. Of course in a small constituency it is a small matter, but in a big constituency with 40,000 voters, and with removals on our side alone which we traced of 11,000, it is clear that the overseers' lists are of very little use indeed.
  Again, what about the expense of £100,000? At the present moment it will be made up of two chief items, the revising barristers' fees and the printing of the register. If we take the case of the London boroughs, Fulham, for instance, the constituency represented by the right hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board, the preparation of the lists cost £93, while the printing costs £229, out of a total of £369. That fairly represents the proportion, for the printing costs about twice as much at least, if not more. Part of that printing cost is already incurred for the printing of notices, claims, objections, and so on. If you complete your register there is no necessity whatever to print it. In every constituency you could have a completed register, partly in print and partly in manuscript, revised by the revising barrister, which could be printed for any con-
  1868
  stituency if ever it should be necessary. I think we might fairly deduct from the £100,000 the whole expense of printing the register, leaving only the revising barristers' fees for all practical purposes, putting on one side the expenses of private individuals. That being so, what sort of register would you get if the revision is held as usual? I hope the President of the Local Government Board will do me the favour of thinking that I am sincere in this matter when I point out to him what a really small matter it is. He would get value for his money. I should be the last person in the world to suggest that revising barristers should get nothing. I think you would get full value from this register. Imagine that we are to have a General Election to-morrow on the present register. Nobody who was not in occupation of his present premises or a lodger before the 20th July, 1913, would have a vote. If the election is put off for another year, instead of being two years' old the register would be three years' old.
  Mr. LONG: My hon. Friend is losing sight of the fact that the foundation of the Bill is that the existing register is not to be used, therefore the whole of his argument that the register would be a bad one falls to the ground. One of our objects is to prevent the present register being used.
  Mr. DENNISS: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman and I appreciate that point. You do not want to use it and ought not to use it, but you may have to-use it.
  Mr. LONG: No, no!
  Mr. DENNISS: You never can tell when there will be an unexpected Parliamentary General Election, and you would have to use it for every by-election.
  Mr. LONG: No. The hon. Gentleman mentioned an unexpected General Election. Surely he knows that General Elections now only take place upon a Dissolution of Parliament on the advice of Ministers. That is an event controlled by Ministers. All that we are able to do is to take care that before the time of the General Election arrived we should have taken steps to prepare the ad hoc register. That will be done. In regard to by-elections, my hon. Friend knows that it is the universal opinion in the House of Commons and, so far as I know, of everybody outside the House of Commons, with the exception of a very small minority, that

  1869
  according to the full agreement at which we have arrived, vacancies should be filled by a representative of the same party to which the late representative belonged. In these circumstances the only elections that can take place are elections like the one the other day which, I believe, was held against the will or she vast majority of the people concerned.
  Mr. DENNISS: I appreciate what my right hon. Friend says, but I am saying that I do not believe the Ministry of the day may be in a position to avoid it. If a General Election comes as a surprise, as it may do at any time, they will not be able to prepare a special register until after many months elapse, and it may be absolutely necessary in the interests of the country that the election should take place at short notice and without sufficient time to prepare a special register. There is a distinct danger that we may have forced upon us a General Election on an old register. At all events, I may be allowed to contend that that is a possibility which I hope will not occur, and one which we ought to provide against. A new register now would be very much better than an old one. That has been questioned to-day, and I will endeavour to show how it may be made as good as possible. If my right hon. Friend would put into the Bill a very short Clause to the effect that absence is not to invalidate any qualification that any person registered at present possesses, or prevent anyone claiming a new qualification or an altered one, this register would be able to be made as perfect as possible. I am only throwing out these suggestions for my right hon. Friend's consideration before next Monday. He will find it is not a question of much expense if he will consult with some of the heads of the department who know the technical working of this register, and at the stage at which they have arrived already of the work that has been done two-thirds at least of it has been thrown away, and with the small portion of the £100,000 which still remains it would be well worth while to go on with this register with an absence Clause such as that which I have suggested. I shall hope to have an opportunity in Committee of considering an Amendment to the Clause annulling contracts. It will facilitate matters very much. The right hon. Gentleman will discover whether in reality he has not thrown away four-fifths of the cost of the register, present and future, for nothing
  1870
  at all, whereas by expending one-fifth more he could get a comparatively accurate register with such people as alien enemies knocked off, and dead persons who might be personated, and so on, and get a register which would, in default of a better, be a safeguard for us in case a General Election is sprung upon us at an inopportune moment.
  Mr. SHAW: In rising to address the House for the first time, I hope I shall receive that indulgent consideration which the House always accords to a new Member. I am here as one of the very few Coalition Members of Parliament. At my election both parties co-operated, and I was not merely the nominee of one party but the accepted candidate of both. Both parties, to quite an unprecedented extent, associated themselves with the election. It was rather a unique experience, because the chairman of what used to be the Liberal party proposed the health of the chairman of what used to be the Conservative party, and in all points touched upon they seemed to be agreed. But if there was any question upon which both parties were agreed more than another, it was the question which is raised by this Bill, and speaking as a Coalition Member, as a barrister, and as a Scotsman, in all three capacities I desire to support the Second Beading of this Bill. I have been somewhat uneasy in my mind since hearing the observations which have been made by the hon. Member (Mr. Pringle). He is a barrister, but I cannot think that in what he said about the attitude of the revising barristers he represented the opinion of the English Bar, because I am quite sure that any attitude which in any way could be construed as that of a small party of interested people in opposition to a national measure would be resented very much by the great profession to which I belong. In this, as in other things, at a time like this, we want to put some trust and confidence in the Government. Throughout all the negotiations which have been necessary in the present crisis for making adjustments in relation to private interests the Government have shown themselves most fair and most indulgent, and I trust that those who oppose the Second Reading of the Bill because of their fear that a most deserving class will be injured will repose that confidence in the Government which has hitherto been fully justified. I speak also as a Scotsman. With regard to the Scottish register

  1871
  the position is somewhat different from the position in England, because little or nothing has as yet been done. I will tell the House what has been my experience in the two constituencies with which I have been connected. An altogether new spirit has entered into the political life of Scotland. Both political parties are co-operating and have since August been co-operating together in national work. The entire energies of the organisations of both parties have been directed to one common object, and it has been my privilege, and, I am sure, that of the hon. Baronet (Sir G. Younger) and other Scottish Members, to speak on public platforms with their opponents either in the chair or as other speakers. All that is most relevant to this measure, because if this measure fails to pass two things follow. You have inevitably that spirit of comradeship in the common cause temporarily, at any rate, impaired. You have, in the second place, all these energies which have been devoted to a national object turned aside into the old party channels, and you have the party organisers hunting out removals and spending the vast amount of energy and time which is requisite for that purpose. Therefore, as a Scotsman, I support this Bill. I should like to read two letters which I received only this morning. One is from one of the most astute political organisers in Scotland, a man who, although of the Liberal party, has thrown his lot into the common stock and has been working and travelling all over the country with Unionist organisers and others in the national interest. He says:—
  "I am strongly of opinion that it w ill be almost criminal to waste time, energy and money in the compilation of a register under existing circumstances. If the existing register remains in force until Parliament determines otherwise, I am certain that would meet? with the approval of the bulk of right-thinking people, not only in Midlothian, hut in Scotland. I know that view was held very strongly in the city of Edinburgh, and wherever I have travelled in a recruiting capacity I heard the same views given expression to."
  That is the view of both parties in that constituency. Then, from my own Constituency, I have this morning another letter on the subject:—
  "With reference to the question of the voters' register, I think it may he taken that there is general agreement and that it would be a wise thing to suspend operations for a year. The memorial forwarded to the Secretary for Scotland by the Glasgow Corporation seems to me to meet the situation."
  I appeal on two grounds to my hon. Friends who oppose this Bill; first on the ground that no personal interests, however well justified in ordinary times,
  1872
  should stand in the way of this concentration of national effort upon national need. In the second place I would appeal to them as Scotsmen that a measure which eminently appeals to Scotland, which is pressingly required in Scotland, and which is enthusiastically supported by all sections of Scottish opinion, should receive the emphatic endorsement of Scottish representatives in this House.
  Mr. KING: I am sure the House will have listened with great pleasure to, and with hopes of future speeches from, the hon. Member, after the maiden speech of which he has given us such a good example. His manner is as attractive as his arguments are sound, and personally I would like to thank him for putting so clearly and emphatically the case for this Bill. If there is to be a speech from the Treasury Bench before the Second Beading is taken, I hope the Government will give some indication that in some way or other the disappointment and loss to the revising barristers will be considered. I hope, also, that they will realise that they have been a great deal too late in bringing in this Bill. The whole question of the claims of the revising barristers, and other expenses which have already been undertaken, would have been met if they had introduced this Bill earlier. I myself asked the Prime Minister a question three months ago upon this point, and I received the usual answer from him that the matter was receiving his careful consideration. It has taken three months to produce this Bill, which anybody who had really set his mind to thinking it out and making some inquiries, might have produced in a week, not more. I appeal to the Government that if they have any other measures of this kind not to bring them in so as to inconvenience and irritate people who, otherwise, if they had brought their Bills in in good time would have been enthusiastic in their support.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.

  PRICE OF COAL (LIMITATION) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  [Mr. MACLEAN in the Chair.]

  PRICE OF COAL (LIMITATION) BILL.

    CLAUSE 1.—(Limitation of Price of Coal at the Pit's Mouth.)
    (1) Coal at the pit's mouth shall not be sold or offered for sale by the owner

    1873
    of the coal or on his behalf at a price exceeding by more than the standard amount per ton the price of coal of the same description, sold in similar quantities (and under similar conditions) at the pit's mouth at the same coal mine on the corresponding date (or as near thereto as, having regard to the course of business, may be practicable) in the twelve months ended the thirtieth day of June, nineteen hundred and fourteen (in this Act referred to as the corresponding price).
    (2) The standard amount shall be four shillings: provided that the Board of Trade may, by order, if they are satisfied, as respects any class of coal mines specified in the order or the coal mines in any district so specified, that owing to special circumstances affecting those mines the standard amount of four shillings should be increased, substitute for that amount such higher sum as they may think just in the circumstances; and as respects those mines this Act shall have effect as if the higher sum so substituted were the standard amount.
    (3) If any person sells or offers for sale any coal in contravention of this Section he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds or, at the discretion of the Court, to a fine not exceeding treble the amount by which the sum paid or payable for any coal sold by him in contravention of this Section exceeds the maximum sum which would have been paid or payable for the coal if there had been no contravention of this Section.
    (4) This Section shall apply to a case where the owner of coal at the pit's mouth has sold or offered to sell that coal at a price which includes the cost of railway or other incidental services besides the actual value of the coal at the pit's mouth, as if he had sold or offered to sell it at the pit's mouth at a price reduced by an amount representing the cost of those services.
    Amendment proposed [22nd July], at the end of Sub-section (3), to insert the words,
    "Provided that a person shall not be liable to a fine under this provision if he shows that he had reasonable grounds to believe that he was not committing an offence."—[Mr. Samuel Roberts.]
    Question again proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    Mr. S. ROBERTS: This Amendment was accepted immediately by the President of
    1874
    the Board of Trade last night, but I had no opportunity of saying a word about it, because some Members on the other side of the House raised objections. Those of us on this side have no intention of delaying this Bill; on the contrary, we would like to see it get through this afternoon if possible, and we shall do our best to assist the Government to get it through. It is a very simple Amendment. This Statute is a penal one, and the coal owner who infringes the Bill is liable, on conviction, to be heavily fined. A penal Statute like this presumes a guilty' mind, and the object of this Amendment is to protect the owner who is innocent, where error has been made on his part, or on the part of his agent or sub-agent, or in any other way which has not come to his own knowledge. I think it is a perfectly fair Amendment, and I cannot see why there should be the slightest objection to it. Surely nobody wishes that a man should be convicted if he is really innocent and has not a guilty mind.
    Mr. ANDERSON: I was very sorry when the Government last night decided to accept this Amendment. It seems to me that it is a very extraordinary addition to make to a Bill of this sort. The penalties are going to be subject to this proviso, that the owner can show that he had reasonable ground to believe that he was not committing an offence. That seems to me in itself to give any amount of room for evasion and legal argument. Who is going to prove whether a coal owner had "reasonable grounds" for imagining that he was not committing an offence? I think this Amendment will add enormously to the difficulties of administering the Act. It will give room to any amount of legal argument and possibly legal expense, because there is nothing more vague than a term like "reasonable grounds." The thing is bad in itself, and it will weaken the Bill. I am very much surprised that the Front Bench should have refused most reasonable Amendments and that they should accept an Amendment of this kind, which will add enormously to the difficulties of the Act. If the Bill were one dealing with workmen, such as the Munitions Bill, there would be no question of allowing the workman to make up his mind whether he had "reasonable grounds" or not in not abiding by the Statute. Either you mean to enforce this measure or you do not. If you mean to enforce it, presumably the coal owners know what the provisions of the law are, and if they break

    1875
    the law they ought to be punished the same as they would be in any other direction. Unless you do that you weaken the Bill, and make it even worse than it now is, and that is saying a good deal.
    3.0 P.M.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Pretyman): This is the ordinary form, which was unwittingly omitted. The word "knowingly" is commonly inserted, but it is quite obvious that where a man unwittingly commits an offence he certainly ought not to be severely punished. I think there will be general agreement on that point. The difficulty about the word "knowingly" is that by putting in that word it places the onus upon the prosecution to prove that the man knew that he was doing wrong. That is a very difficult thing to prove. The word "knowingly," therefore, goes too far. It has been the custom in Bills of this sort, instead of using the word "knowingly," which is difficult to enforce, to substitute two or three other terms which have practically the same meaning. I have several Acts here from which I might quote examples. In effect you substitute for the word "knowingly" a provision that if a man can show "reasonable grounds" for believing that he was not committing an offence, and that he could not be expected to know, he shall not be liable. That really is comparatively simple, and it is the nearest we can get in these Bills to a fair compromise between punishing a man for an offence which he has quite unwittingly committed, and which he could show was unwittingly committed, but which the Act does not allow to be any defence at all, or that a man who is really guilty should be able to get off simply because you cannot prove that he "knew" he was doing wrong. This Amendment is really a compromise between the two, and I hope the Committee will accept it.
    Mr. M. HEALY: With great respect I do not think the Government have realised the scope and importance of this Amendment. It raises the whole question of whether what lawyers call mens rea has to be established in every case. It seems to me that Parliament has in a number of Statutes deliberately omitted the word "knowingly," because in cases of this kind it is impossible to establish proof of knowledge. It is so in the case of the Food
    1876
    and Drugs Act. It is possible for a man to act perfectly innocently, and without being in the least guilty of any fraud, and the Legislature most wisely said, "We will not insert any such word as 'knowingly.'" The matter is especially important, because most coal owners will be companies to whom you cannot attribute any guilty knowledge. Nine-tenths of the collieries now are the properties of corporations. If a corporation is to be prosecuted, how are you to establish that the corporation, acted with this knowledge? You cannot do it. Or how are you to find out that the corporation had reasonable grounds for knowing that it was doing wrong? This Amendment adds greatly to the extraordinary complexity of this Clause. A man comes forward and says, "I did not know what I was doing. I thought that the coal was not of the same description or was not sold in similar quantities or under similar conditions." If persons are to be allowed to escape responsibility by saying that this Act is very difficult to understand, that they did not know what similar conditions were, that they thought bonâ fide that the conditions were perfectly similar, that there was room for doubt, honest doubt, though it was true that they made a mistake, if that is to be a defence to a charge under this Act in the case of an individual, and above all in the case of a company, I do say that no criminal prosecution instituted under this Act will ever succeed.
    Mr. DENNISS: I think that the reasons given by the hon. Member for the city of Cork are conclusive in favour of this Amendment. I am no friend of the colliers and I have no interest in coal, but I should like the Bill to be a success. But consider the position of a coal owner who has got to determine the price for a particular quality of coal on a corresponding date in the year 1913–14, of similar coal sold in similar circumstances and in similar quantities. If he makes a blunder, an excusable blunder, a miscalculation, even a misconception as to the particular kind of coal, then under this Section he has to be prosecuted and must be convicted whether he knew he was doing wrong or not, and he must be fixed for the rest of his life as a man convicted in a Court of Summary Jurisdiction. It is a principle of legislation that you must be very careful how you create a new crime. This Section creates a new crime. Never before in the history of the coal trade or any other trade was it

    1877
    made a crime to sell a thing for what price you could get for it. That is what this Section does. Take the case of a respectable person, say the hon. Member for Mansfield (Sir A. Markham), who could not commit a crime in any circumstances. He may be hauled up in the Police Court, and I think that it is probable that he will be if this Bill passes without this Amendment. He goes through all the indignity of being charged with crime. He proves his innocence perfectly to the magistrate. The magistrate says, "I am extremely sorry to have to convict. The only discretion which I have with regard to you is as to the amount of the fine. The fine is either £100 or three times the amount of the profit which you have made out of this. The Government mean the penalty to be a substantial one or they would not have said £100. Therefore I must fine you a substantial sum." I submit to the Committee that this is an Amendment which is not only reasonable, but that it is one which is following precedent, and to do otherwise than carry it would be to create a very dangerous state of things which might be followed with regard to other trades—persons selling bread, wheat, or flour. It may come to that later on when we have legislation restricting those prices. So we have a crime for all kinds of tradesmen created by Act of Parliament—for selling things at the price which they could obtain for them—for which they would be liable to be convicted, though they may be trading perfectly honestly and perfectly innocently.
    Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: After the word "apply," insert the words "(both as respects the price at which coal is sold or offered for sale and as respects the correponding price)".—[Mr. Runciman.]
    Sir A. MARKHAM: I beg to move, after the word "railway," to insert the words "canal, inland waterway."
    I do not know whether the phrase "other incidental services" includes carriage by canal. I have a colliery in Warwickshire from which I sell considerable quantities of coal which are delivered in London by canal, and I would like to know whether coal delivered by canal at practically the same rates as coal delivered by railway—I think that it is about sixpence cheaper—is covered by the Bill as it now stands?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD Of TRADE (Mr. Runciman): I am advised that if these words were inserted they would have a limiting effect. The words in the Bill, "incidental services," are of very wide application, and would cover the object to which my hon. Friend refers.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: I should say that coal can be carried only by land, water, or railway. You have got the three services. Why put in railway at all and not put in the other?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The railways are much more used for the purpose of carrying coal, especially to our great populous centres. I do not think that the hon. Baronet need press the matter, as it is covered by the words of the Clause.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Further Amendment made: Leave out the word "a" ["a price reduced"], and insert instead thereof the word "that."—[Mr. Runciman.]
    Mr. S. ROBERTS: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (4), to add,
    "(5) It is hereby declared that nothing in this Section shall affect the rights or obligations of any person under any contract or agreement for the sale of coal except, in cases where the sale is in contravention of this Section, as respects so much of the price as exceeds the maximum price which could have been charged for the coal if there had been no contravention of this Section."
    The words of Clause 1 are that a contract which goes beyond the price proposed in this Bill will void the contract. My Amendment would make it only void as to the excess price of the coal over the standard price. Unless some provision of this kind is put in, very great inconvenience might arise, because the coal might possibly have been passed on to-somebody else. This proposal would make the contract valid so far as the legal price goes, and only invalid for the excess-over that price. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to accept my Amendment.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The object, I take it, of this Amendment is to make it clear that where any contract price has been charged above the price provided for in this Bill, the whole contract shall not be invalidated; but, so far as the contract is concerned, the only change that could be

    1879
    made would be in the matter of price: otherwise the contract is to continue. That is not altogether an unreasonable request, I agree; but I think if the price is above that provided for in the Act of Parliament, the customer ought to have the right to say whether he will or will not go on with his contract. It is quite? clear that the buyer ought to have the chance of declaring his contract void. Indeed, if he had not the right of declaring his contract void, it would diminish to some extent the liability which applies to the coal owner for putting a higher price in the contract. I hope the hon. Gentleman will not press his Amendment for that reason, and I could not accept it unless some other reason can be given.
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: The question arises, where the contract is declared void, whether the owner who supplied the coal would be able to collect payment for it, and whether the contract, being void, the man who received the coal would be able to stick to it without paying anything for it. I want to know where we are in that respect.
    Mr. M. HEALY: This Amendment meets a point which I endeavoured to raise last night. It does appear to me that the? Government ought to consider whether or not they will put something in the Clause which will settle once for all whether a contract in breach of the charge provided in the Bill is a void contract or not. Undoubtedly to the extent of the excess price it is void. Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that the person who has sold coal under contract in breach of this provision is to have no remedy as to any portion of the price? That would be undoubtedly the effect. It would not trouble me if that was the effect, except for the incidental consequence that contracts made void by reason of the breach of this provision might be constantly used by dishonest or insolvent persons as a means of avoiding payment under the contract. Any insolvent or dishonest person would undoubtedly be tempted to set up under this Act that the contract was void because it made a charge which was illegal by reason of its being in excess of the charge provided by the Act. I do not think that any lawyer would deny that. There are hundreds of decided cases in all branches of the law where Parliament by Statute provides that the doing of a thing under the contract is to void that contract.
    1880
    Unless some Amendment of the kind proposed is inserted in the Bill, I think the coal owners who have insolvent customers will have a very unhappy time of it within the next six months. Everybody knows that it is a very common thing for a customer, where he seeks to avoid payment, to take objection to the quality of the coal, or that the coal was delivered short, or that he had got one kind of coal and not another kind of coal; all which allegations find their origin in his real reason that he will not pay for it. Consequently, if the temptation to which the insolvent purchaser is subjected at present is augmented by the effect of this Bill, he will be enabled in every case of excess over the charge provided for to set up that defence. The right hon. Gentleman has not made any provision in this Bill as to how the facts are to be ascertained. I do not know whether he intends to amend the Bill, but as it stands I apprehend that there will be no reason in the world why the person purchasing the coal should not set up the defence that it had been sold in breach of the Statute, and so endeavour to escape payment. In addition to providing a penalty, I think the right hon. Gentleman ought to go a little further by consenting to this Amendment that the contract shall not be considered in breach of the Statute save to the extent of the excess price over the charge provided for in the Bill.
    Sir C. CORY: It would, I submit, be a great hardship if the seller was not permitted to recover the legal value of the coal supplied and that he should have that penalty imposed on him in addition to that in the Bill. I therefore think it would only be fair to accept the Amendment.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: I think the Amendment ought to be accepted for this reason. If the system of average prices had been adopted as I proposed the coal owner would have no difficulty in knowing the price, but under the system of the Bill, it is extremely difficult to know. The price might possibly be varied by the Board of Trade by twopence or threepence, and I should like to know whether that would invalidate the whole contract and affect the coal that had not been paid for.
    Mr. PETO: In response to the request of the right hon. Gentleman for reasons why this Amendment should be accepted, may I point out one which is really paramount. In passing legislation of this kind

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    it cannot be desirable to upset the course of trade more than is necessary. The penalties under the Bill would not be affected if this Amendment were accepted, and it would make an enormous difference to the interference in the carrying out of contracts and with the course of trade generally. I think the Amendment will undoubtedly make the Bill far less of an interference with the ordinary course of trade and with the delivery of goods, often of an enormous quantity and over a long period. Without this Amendment the buyer would be able to refuse to accept delivery, which would really create hardship, which I do not think it ought to be in his power to create.
    Mr. GLYN-JONES: There does not appear to be anything in the Clause which declares the contract void, but if the effect is to make the contract invalid, then I think there is something to be said for some such provision as the Amendment. It might well be to the interest of the consumer that he should be able to call upon the coal proprietor to fulfil his contract at the legal price. In the interests of the buyer, I think something of this sort is necessary.
    Sir W. BEALE: The Bill imposes a penalty, and there is high authority for stating that where a Statute imposes a penalty there is no other remedy. All the Bill says is that the coal shall not be sold beyond a certain price. You cannot take action against the coal, it must be against a man. The Bill does not say that the contract is void, but I do not doubt if this came before a Court the Court would somehow or other try to find some way of saying that the contract was void. These words will inferentially make the point quite clear. If the Government can accept an Amendment substantially to this effect, I think it will make the position a great deal clearer in law and more equitable.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: After what has been said on the point raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. S. Roberts), and after what has been said by my hon. Friend who has just sat down, I think there is something to be said for inserting an Amendment similar to this. I do not think it would be advisable for us to take it exactly in this form, and I propose as the most convenient course to accept this Amendment now and I shall put down Amendments to it on the Report stage.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Sir C. CORY: I beg to move, at the end of the Clause, to insert the words,
    "Provided that nothing in this Section shall prejudice any owner of coat at the pit's mouth in the sale of coal by him elsewhere than at the pit's mouth as a merchant in competition with other coal merchants."
    Unless an Amendment of this kind is passed, the owner at the pit's mouth who also acts as a coal merchant would be in a very unfair position as compared with the coal merchant. He would have his office in London or elsewhere, with an agent or salaried man or perhaps paid on commission, and while the merchant might get 5s., the man to whom I refer could only ask for 4s. It seems to me that in that case he would try and sell at a higher price or export his coal, or do something else with it. I think from every point of view we ought to put the coal owner on the same basis as the competing coal merchant. It seems to me that there is no reason why a man who happens to be a coal owner should not, when he acts as a coal merchant as well, have a sufficient price to cover the extra expenses which he incurs as a coal merchant.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The object which the hon. Baronet has in view is quite obvious, and I think it is covered by the phrase "under similar conditions," which has now been given a further value by the insertion of words making the Sub-section read, "this Section shall apply (both as regards the price at which coal is sold or offered for sale and as respects the corresponding price), etc." These phrases-taken in conjunction provide for the point raised by the hon. Baronet and will make the comparison a fair one.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 2.—(Decision of Question by the Board of Trade.)
    (1) If in any proceedings for the recovery of a fine under this Act any question is raised as to the corresponding price of any coal (including any question as to the cost of railway or other incidental services), the Court shall refer the question for determination by the Board of Trade, and the decision of the Board shall be final and conclusive for all purposes.
    (2) If for any reason there are not adequate data at any coal mine from which to ascertain, in accordance with the

    1883
    foregoing provisions of this Act, the corresponding price at that mine, the Board of Trade may fix that price having regard to data afforded from sales of coal at other mines.
    (3) The Board of Trade may require the owner of any coal mine to furnish such information as appears to them necessary for the purpose of carrying into effect this Act; and if any person refuses to furnish any such information when so required, or furnishes information which is false in any material particular, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds.
    (4) The Board of Trade Arbitrations, etc., Act, 1874, shall apply as if this Act were a special Act within the meaning of the first-mentioned Act.
    Amendments made: In Sub-section (l) to leave out the words "for the recovery of a fine."—[Mr. M. Healy.]
    Leave out the words "including any question," and insert instead thereof the? word "or."—[Mr. Runciman.]
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 3.—(Application, Short Title, and Duration.)
    (1) This Act shall not apply to any sale of coal for export, or to any sale of coal for the manufacture of patent fuel for export, or to any sale of coal to be used on any ship.
    (2) This Act shall not apply to the sale of coal supplied in pursuance of a contract made before the commencement of this Act.
    (3) This Act may be cited as the Price of Coal (Limitation) Act, 1915.
    (4) This Act shall have effect during the continuance of the present War and a period of six months thereafter.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "export" ["coal for export"], to insert the words "other than for the use and purposes of the Allies of Great Britain and Ireland in the present War."
    The object of this Amendment is to give the Allies of this country the benefit of the provisions of this Bill—that is to say, that the Allies shall have coal for the use of their countries at the same price as the people of this country. I understand that my right hon. Friend is going to make a statement which will in fact give to our
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    Allies substantially what I propose by this Amendment. I will therefore say no more until I have heard what he has had to say. I am sure the Committee will agree that we ought to make some such provision, particularly at a time when the enemy are in possession of a large part of the French coal-fields.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity of making a statement on this subject. I have the authority of the Department for announcing that the Admiralty is giving to the French Navy and the French State railways the full advantage of the arrangements which exist now between the Admiralty and the Welsh coal owners. That is to say, the full benefit of the prices which we have secured for ourselves we have also secured for the French Admiralty and the French railways. They get their coal on exactly the same terms also as regards shipment. With regard to Russia and Italy, no question has yet arisen. I understand that the Governments of both these countries have contracts running on terms favourable to them, and on which they are for the present satisfied to rely. When those eon-tracts expire the question will probably arise, and I need hardly say that the Admiralty will be prepared to treat those Governments in exactly the same way as the French Government is now treated. Under these circumstances my hon. Friend will sec that the States which are allied to us during the present War are getting the advantage of the arrangements which we have ourselves made with regard to shipping Welsh coal, and such other coal as the Admiralty requires, and to that extent we are doing for them all that we should do even if his Amendment were included in the Bill.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his statement. The arrangement which he mentioned refers only to the Welsh coal owners. I do not know whether he is aware that Admiralty buyers have been cutting into the market and buying at high rates. There have been no arrangements made with the South Yorkshire, Nottingham, and Derbyshire owners as to any particular rate which the Admiralty shall pay. But what my right hon. Friend says in respect of coal for the Navy and for the Allies entirely meets my point.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. PETO: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words, "or to any sale of coal to be used on any ship."
    My object in moving this Amendment is to point out that this Bill is not limited, as the right hon. Gentleman himself mentioned yesterday, to the sale of coal only? for domestic purposes, but realises, and takes into consideration, the fact that coal used in factories and for the transport of goods have an indirect effect on the cost of living, almost as much as the coal which is used for the manufacture of goods, cooking, and other purposes. If the Bill expressly states it is leaving out coal for export and coal for manufacture, but includes everything else, with the solitary exception of coal to be used on any ship, we ought to have some explanation as to why that omission is made. Yesterday in dealing, I think, with the first Amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Barnsley, which limited very much the scope of this Bill, the right hon. Gentleman said that in fact he thought the Bill was in some respects a limited Bill. I wonder whether he had in mind this exception of Clause 3, as to the sale of coal to be used on any ship, which is left out of the Bill? I cannot myself see any distinction in principle between the coal that is consumed in the transport of goods in carrying the export trade of this country from point to point, and the coal that is used in the transport of precisely similar goods by land—by the railway—which may be removed a very few miles at any point from the course the ship would take. There must be some reason. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will tell us what it is. I shall still be better pleased after he has told us that this Bill is not a very substantial Bill, if in order to make the Bill more logical and watertight he is prepared to accept this Amendment.
    I have often, in dealings with the Board of Trade, had to complain on behalf of the shipping community that the influence of the shipowner at the Board of Trade was very strong, and the influence of merchants, captains, and seamen was nothing like as powerful. I do not suggest for a moment that it is modesty on the part of the right hon. Gentleman that he wished to offer the great shipowners as a kind of sacrifice: to say when passing the Bill, which is in his charge, that he was not going to take the benefit of it for them. But I would point out that some of us have very good reason to complain of the Board of Trade, having control of a large
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    amount of tonnage which was badly needed, particularly for the transport of coal coastwise, rates of freight were fixed which were three or even four times as great as those which were in force before the commencement of hostilities. If there is far greater need for transport in the winter and for the use of vessels for the conveyance of coastwise coal, we do not want to be told, in excuse for enormous rates of freights, "Oh, you must remember that when the House of Commons passed the Price of Coal (Limitation) Bill, bunker coal was expressly exempted, and therefore it is not the shipowners, but the greedy coal owners who cause this enormous freight rate to be necessary for the transport of the necessity for heating and lighting in this city and others." Therefore, I think it would be very much better to pursue a policy in regard to this Bill which is least intelligible. If it is not to apply to coal for export, but to every kind of coal, and for all purposes for which coal is used, including transport, we should have the email Amendment I ask for. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will explain the origin of this exception. In the interests of consistency I should be very glad if he sees his way to accept my Amendment.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The reason why we have not thought it well to include coal to be used as bunker coal, or with bunker coal—because in the case of foreign-going ships, those which are making what are called three-cornered voyages—really a portion of our normal export trade—is that we have regarded it as necessary that the export trade should be kept up to as high a value as possible. There is every reason for that both nationally and commercially, but particularly nationally. If we take our foreign exchanges it is, quite obvious that such a thing as our invisible exports should be maintained, as well as the actual material which is sent abroad, at as high a value as possible. A great many of these three-cornered voyages, including one trip at least in the carriage of goods into foreign countries, are in the nature of invisible exports. This extra cost of coal for bunkers is one of the items. In any case if you had limited the price of the coal to be purchased by the shipowners for the vessel it would have been meeting the shipowner, whereas there is no limitation of the amount which he can earn in the foreign trade. Nor did we wish to put any limit on the amount to be earned in

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    the foreign trade. Any limitation would have been a limitation of the value of our invisible exports. If the hon. Gentleman knows what I mean by referring to invisible exports he will know that the freights earned from foreigners are just as good for the purpose of equalising our exchanges as though we had exported commodities from this country.
    It cannot be in the national interest to limit what is earned by shipowners in carrying the foreign trade. It is obvious that artificially to reduce the price of the coal which they are paying for their business would merely mean that a present would be given to them without a corresponding advantage, although it might be very small in amount just now. We therefore felt it desirable to exclude shipping from the beneficiaries in this Bill. The hon. Member draws a distinction between a foreign-going ship and a coastwise ship. There is a great difficulty in deciding exactly how far the coals which go into the bunkers of a vessel are to be used partly for coastwise purposes. A vessel, for instance, may have loaded her cargo at Copenhagen and discharged a portion of it at Newcastle. She may take in at Newcastle coal for the Thames, or she may bunker at Newcastle, may take enough coal at Newcastle to carry her either the whole of her round voyage — it may be to South America,—or part of her voyage out to the East. It would be impossible to earmark or label the coal which went into the bunkers, partly for the trip from Newcastle to London. It is very much better to leave the whole of the coastwise bunkers in the same position. When the hon. Member put the point he did as to the coastwise freights, he must have omitted to make a calculation as to the amount of bunkers used in a coastwise ship. Take the case of a North country collier. It burns twelve tons a day. It takes thirty-six hours to come from Newcastle to the Thames. Therefore the amount of coal affected on her trip from North to South would be eighteen tons, and eighteen tons back, or thirty-six tons altogether. The difference of two or three shillings on thirty-six tons could not be calculated when we have the freight charged on many thousands of tons of cargo to consider.
    Mr. PETO: It is an excuse for high freights!
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: As an excuse we can dismiss it along with many other excuses which are made for charging high prices.
    Mr. DENNISS: I quite appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman has said. One can quite see under present circumstances we want to get as much money into this country from our exports as possible, and if we can include in the price we get from exports the higher price we get for coal all the better. I should have thought it was a pity there were not some means to take goods out to the Argentine and bring back food from the Argentine with cheaper bunker coal, so as to make its wheat cheaper. One of the greatest pleas shipowners have put forward most consistently for high freights is the cost of bunker coal, and no matter how small the price of bunker coal may be, it always figures very largely in their arguments. Coastwise steamers carry about 20,000,000 tons of coal a year, and surely the difference on the aggregate sum by cheaper bunker coal must be very considerable. Goods carried coastwise from one part of the country to another are also of enormous value, and the extra freight through the higher price of bunker coal must be a considerable item. What I am sorry for is that the right hon. Gentleman often gives it up as a bad job because a thing is not so very simple. Surely it is within his Department's ken and that of the merchant shipping trade and merchants in London to devise some scheme by which bunker coal for ships for the Home trade as well as our Allies could be made as cheap as possible, and thus relieve the public of this country of the high price of coal and the high prices of other commodities carried by coastwise ships.
    Amendment negatived.
    The next Amendment on the Paper, standing in the name of Sir E. Cornwall, was, at the end of Sub-section (1), to insert the words, "except for the purpose of determining the proportion of the coal from any coal mine consigned or sold for consignment to places within the United Kingdom."
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Maclean): This Amendment is outside the scope of the Bill.
    Sir E. CORNWALL: Might I, on that point of Order, submit that the question raised is to enable arrangements to be made to give some security in London and

    1889
    other large centres that a supply available in the country should not be kept from those centres at a time of great scarcity. If, therefore, you rule that that subject is outside the scope of the Bill, and we are unable to discuss it, one of the most important questions which arises out of this Bill is kept from the consideration of the House. I do not know, Sir, whether you have fully considered how important that is to London and other places.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I have given very full consideration to the point of Order. While I quite realise the importance of the Amendment, I must adhere to my decision that it is outside the scope of the Bill.
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), to leave out the words, "the sale of." I think this Amendment makes the Sub-section clearer.
    4.0 P.M.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: It really does not matter, I am advised, whether the words are in or out. The words in the Bill, however, are, on the whole, better, because the Bill applies to the sale of coal.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), after the word "contract" ["in pursuance of a contract"], to insert the words "or agreement."
    My Amendment has the object of including verbal agreements. A large amount of business of coal owners, especially with regular customers year in and year out, is done by verbal agreement, each side being willing to trust the other without any written contract.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am afraid the object of the hon. Gentleman is still a little obscure to me. Either an agreement is a contract or it is not a contract. If it is a contract, obviously it comes under the Bill; if it is not, I am afraid I do not know the object of his Amendment.
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: If the coal is sold by verbal agreement, is it a contract?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I should say that it is perfectly clearly a contract. I do not think there is any doubt about that, and, therefore, I suggest that the hon. Member's Amendment is unnecessary.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    The next Amendment, standing in the name of Mr. Dickinson, was in Sub-section (2), to leave out the words "commencement of this Act," and to insert instead thereof the words "twenty-fourth day of March, nineteen hundred and fifteen. Provided that in any contract made between the twenty-fourth day of March, nineteen hundred and fifteen, and the passing of this Act, it shall be lawful for any party thereto to give notice to the other party that he desires to have the contract to be revised with respect to coal to be supplied after the date of the application, and thereupon he may apply to a judge of a County Count who may revise the contract and may fix the price or prices to be paid for the coal to be supplied thereunder so as to make such price or prices equal to the price or prices which in the judge's opinion would have been inserted in the contract had it been concluded on the basis of the price or prices of the coal at the pit's mouth as fixed under the provisions of this Act."
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I have doubts whether, in view of the Debate which we had on this question yesterday—when the Committee negatived the Amendment on which the discussion took place—I can allow this Amendment to be moved. The hon. Member has, however, made some slight alteration in the Amendment, and I am quite willing to hear what he has to say on the Amendment before giving a decision.
    Mr. DICKINSON: I am obliged to you, Mr. Maclean, for putting it that way. The circumstances last night were these: The Amendment was moved by the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Goldstone) with reference to contracts, and during that discussion I pointed out that I could suggest an alternative for dealing with the question. It was proposed to withdraw that Amendment with the idea of giving the Committee an opportunity to consider the alternative, and, unfortunately, the hon. Member who moved the Amendment not being in his place, the Chairman ruled, no doubt quite rightly, that nobody else could withdraw it for him, and therefore it had to be put and decided upon. I would venture to submit that the Amendment I have on the Paper is an alternative Amendment, which is so different from the Amendment discussed last night that the mere fact of a decision having been arrived at on the first Amendment should not withhold from this Committee the right of

    1891
    considering the alternative. The Amendment which was before us last night was that—
    "In every contract for the sale of coal at the pit's mouth under which such coal has been sold but not delivered at the time of the passing of this Act it shall be an implied term that the price of such coal shall not exceed the lawful price as determined by this Act."
    That not only referred to all contracts, but it also definitely stated that the new price was to be in all contracts. The method I suggest is in the Amendment on the Paper, and in it I propose to say in reference to all contracts made between the
    "twenty-fourth day of March, nineteen hundred and fifteen. Provided that in any contract made between the twenty-fourth day of March, nineteen hundred and fifteen, and the passing of this Act, it shall be lawful for any party thereto to give notice to the other party that he desires the contract to be revised with respect to coal to be supplied after the date of the notice, and thereupon he may apply to a judge of a County Court who may revise the contract and may fix the price or prices to be paid for the coal to be supplied thereunder so as to make such price or prices equal to the price or prices which in the judge's opinion would have been inserted in the contract had it been concluded on the basis of the price or prices of the coal at the pit's mouth as fixed under the provisions of this Act."
    Therefore my Amendment not only limits the contracts to which they can apply, but it also definitely points out that it is only in reference to coal supplied after notice is given, and it provides for an application to the Court and enables the judge to deal with the case as ho thinks fit. The County Court judge will be left with a discretion to put in the price or not as he thinks the justice of the case requires. Therefore, I would submit that there is a very wide difference between the proposals contained in my Amendment and those which we discussed last night.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: On a point of Order. May I point out that the discussion last night ranged over very wide ground, and anybody who heard it from first to last I think would hold the opinion that the proposals of my right hon. Friend in the Amendment now before us, although not in the same phraseology, certainly come within the purview of the Amendment discussed yesterday. I would suggest that
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    the Committee having negatived the Amendment yesterday in the absence of its Mover, the Committee did actually negative any proposal for the tearing up of all contracts. While impressing that upon you, Mr. Maclean, I would like to add the suggestion which I made last night, that this subject must of necessity be dealt with and reviewed by the Board of Trade before we come to the Report stage. I hope then to be able to make proposals which will remove some of the difficulties raised by this Amendment. I submit that the negativing of the Amendment last night makes it unnecessary for us to go into a smaller proposal which was more than covered by the other discussion.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: My difficulty is that in what the President of the Board of Trade suggested last night he was prepared to consider the tearing up of contracts with regard to specific bodies, and therefore I am left in a rather difficult position owing to the fact that technically the Amendment was negatived. Taking it as a whole, however, this point is a matter upon which I can exercise my discretion either way, and I must decide the point now. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to permit this Amendment to be discussed on the understanding that the general grounds discussed yesterday at such great length and with so much thoroughness should not be gone into again, but that the discussion should be confined to the specific suggestion in dispute relating to the County Court judge's decision. If the discussion is kept to that point it will be in order, but if it goes beyond that point I am afraid I shall have to intervene.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: Will it not be in order on the Question "That Clause 3 stand part of the Bill" for any hon. Member to review the whole Question?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for making that suggestion. After what the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill has said, that between now and the Report stage the whole thing is going to be very carefully considered, I would respectfully suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East St. Pancras (Mr. Dickinson) that it would be better not to press the Amendment now, but to take the discussion on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," and then the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill will be in full possession of the views of all

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    the Members of the Committee who wish to take part in the Debate, and will be fully armed to meet his advisers without troubling the Committee again.
    Mr. DICKINSON: I am quite willing to follow your advice, but I do not understand that the right hon. Gentleman has held out much hope that he is open to consider this question. If I felt that his mind was still open to consider between now and the Report stage the general question raised by my Amendment I should be content. I agree that we should get a better discussion on the Report stage than now, but I understand that the right hon. Gentleman has simply stated that he is going to introduce some Amendment which will deal with public utility requirements of coal. If I had any sort of notion that he is still considering the general question raised in the discussion last night I would certainly fall in with his suggestion. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman will say anything in that respect at this moment or not.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I think that the course which I suggested would meet the wishes of all concerned.
    Mr. DICKINSON: I bow to your judgment.
    Mr. J. O'CONNOR: I beg to move, in Clause 3, after Sub-section (2), to add,
    "(3) This Act shall not apply to Ireland."
    I have the knowledge that the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to accept my Amendment, but Members of the Committee may wish to know why I ask for this exemption. It will be observed that the whole operation of the Act depends on the existence of coal being produced under similar conditions and in similar quantities to those conditions and quantities which prevailed at a previous date. There is no data whatever in existence in Ireland in order to ascertain whether the quantities or the conditions are similar. The collieries to which this Act will apply if Ireland is not exempted are very small collieries; indeed some of them are only resuscitated old workings, and do not supply any of the data from the past that would enable the Act to be put into operation in the present. It is an easy matter here in Great Britain to ascertain what are the similar conditions and similar quantities, because you have collieries which have been in working over
    1894
    long periods of time under similar conditions, and producing year after year probably similar quantities. These conditions do not exist in Ireland, and therefore it would be found very difficult there to put the Act into operation.
    There are other conditions also that should be taken into account. In Great Britain you have a large output from almost all collieries and, as we know, in every undertaking the cost, when distributed over a large production, becomes smaller and smaller as you increase the amount of that production. But in Ireland the quantities are small and the costs therefore are very-great. They are great also for this reason, that the collieries are remote from rail heads, from canals, and from all means of distribution, and therefore you have not only a small output but an increased expenditure by reason of the fact that you have to carry to the collieries at great expense all the requirements necessary for working them. Coal is therefore raised in these small collieries at very expensive rates.
    In my observations on the Second Reading I pointed out that these were mostly infant industries, and I submit this to the Committee with confidence, because I know what I am saying. The people of the district who carry the coal from the pit's mouth by their own carts are perfectly prepared to pay some slight, additional cost in order that these collieries may continue to exist in their midst, for they derive, indirectly, other benefits from the existence and growth of these infant industries. The people who live near the collieries and use their output will have the benefit of the restrictions that you are now imposing on the collieries in this country, and therefore it will be impossible for any colliery owner in Ireland to put an extravagant price on his output, because he will have to meet the competition of the collieries on which you are putting these restrictions. I am, of course, aware that there is a provision in this Bill whereby circumstances will be taken into account, and that an appeal can be made to the Board of Trade in order to have the standard raised where, in the opinion of the Board of Trade, it will be just to do so.
    I would point this out to the Committee with regard to that provision that it can scarcely be worth while to include collieries in Ireland within the scope of the Bill, even though those collieries may have the protection of that Section of the Act.

    1895
    They are so small. What would happen would be this. When the Act comes into operation, supposing Ireland were not exempted, each of these small collieries knowing well that they conduct their business under the circumstances that would affect the mind of the Board of Trade—if such an impersonal body can have a mind—they would have to make application and a commission would have to be appointed to go down to the colliery and ascertain whether the circumstances do exist. I submit to the Committee and to the Government that it really would not be worth while to put the machinery provided by this Bill into operation in order to bring about this equitable condition of things. With these few observations I propose my Amendment. I believe that it will be sympathetically entertained and considered by all the Members of the Committee. I have reason to know that it is sympathetically entertained by those who are in charge of the Bill, and I am thankful to the Committee for having allowed me to state shortly what were the reasons that induced me and my colleagues to propose that Ireland be exempted from the operation of this Bill. We did so because we believe it to be equitable and just to do so.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: I have handed in a manuscript Amendment to the Amendment just moved from below the Gangway, which I hope the Government will be willing to accept. My Amendment is, after the word "Ireland"—
    Mr. M. HEALY: On a point of Order. Before the hon. Member moves that Amendment, I desire to propose to amend the Amendment by making it read, "This Act shall not apply to coal raised in Ireland." It is quite plain that the Bill as a whole must apply to Ireland. In so far as we buy coal from England we must have the protection of this Bill. The contract might be made for the sale of English coal, and a contract made in Ireland could be brought before the Irish Courts. But that could not be done if it is said that the Bill shall not apply to Ireland.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I will point out that I called on the hon. Member for St. Augustine's Division (Mr. R. McNeill) to move his Amendment, and he is in possession of the Committee. It is for him to say whether he will give way.
    Mr. M. HEALY: On a point of Order. If the hon. Gentleman's Amendment is added to the proposed Amendment subsequent to the point at which I wish to insert my Amendment, it upsets the practice of this House.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Fortunately it is also the practice that when hon. Members have Amendments they are good enough to send them to the Table.
    Mr. M. HEALY: Neither of us has done so, therefore the irregularity is equal.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: As a matter of fact, the hon. Member for St. Augustine's Division did send in his to the Table, and it is entirely a matter for him to say whether he will withdraw it.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: As a matter of courtesy to the hon. Member, I have not the least wish to shut out his Amendment, provided that it in no way prejudices my Amendment. On that understanding I will give way.
    Mr. M. HEALY: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, after the word "to," to insert the words "coal raised in."
    Mr. J. O'CONNOR: I submit to the Committee that these words are absolutely unnecessary. Let me point, out that the first words of the first Clause of the Bill are:
    "Coal at the pit's mouth shall not be sold or offered for sale."
    The whole Bill is governed by those words. The hon. Member for Cork (Mr. M. Healy) says that we want the whole Bill for Ireland. You have the whole Bill for Ireland, but the whole Bill devolves round those governing words—
    "Coal at the pit's mouth shall not be sold or offered for sale."
    Therefore the Bill governs only coal that is raised at the pit's mouth, and the proposed words are words of supererogation. They occurred to my mind in conversation with the hon. Baronet who sits below me (Sir C. Cory), and he pointed out that my Amendment was not comprehensive enough or that it excluded portions of the Bill. I then suggested that the words now proposed to be inserted might cover the case. But, on considering the Bill carefully, I found that the words I have proposed were adequately sufficient and covered the whole scope of the Bill, and that the words that occurred to my own mind, and which I mentioned to the hon. Baronet, were absolutely unnecessary.

    1897
    The words that I have proposed are words that occur in every Act of Parliament where either Ireland or Scotland are excluded from the operation of an Act of Parliament. Those are the simple words that have always been used. But the words that are now proposed are unusual, and, I submit to the Committee, absolutely unnecessary.
    Mr. M. HEALY(indistinctly heard): The words of the Bill apply only to coal sold at the pit's mouth. It is not necessary that the contract should be made at the pit's mouth. It is the coal at the pit's mouth. You may make a contract in Ireland for the sale of coal at the pit's mouth in England, and if that was done and the price of the coal was greater than it is in this Bill and a man bought in Ireland on a contract for the sale of the coal, the Act would not apply to Ireland, and consequently the Irish consumer is not and cannot be entitled to the benefit of the Act, It is not clear at any rate.
    Amendment to the proposed Amendment negatived.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: I beg to move, at end of the proposed Amendment, to add the words "or Kent."
    The effect of the Amendment would be that the Act should not apply to two areas within the United Kingdom, one being Ireland and the other being Kent.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Before the hon. and learned Gentleman proceeds with his argument I should be glad if he would inform me whether his Amendment is based upon the differentiation of Kent as a coal area from the rest of the United Kingdom, or simply Kent as a county being part of England?
    Mr. R. McNEILL: It is based certainly on the differentiation as a coal-field.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: One other question. Was not that discussed on a previous Amendment?
    Mr. R. McNEILL: I was going to explain that. I proposed an Amendment yesterday to exclude from the operation of the Bill pits the average output of which was less than 500 tons a day. It was resisted expressly and exclusively upon the ground that that would apply to a number of coal-fields in other parts of England. The right hon. Gentleman made no reply to the case that I made for the coal-fields in Kent owing to their special conditions, but he objected to my Amendment on the ground that it would
    1898
    include other coal-fields to which I had intended it to apply. I have listened, though I do not know that the right hon. Gentleman did, to the hon. Member below the Gangway, who used the most convincing arguments for the exclusion of Ireland from the operation of this Bill. Every word that he used is equally applicable to the pits in Kent. There are only three mines, the hon. Member says, in Ireland, and they are subject to very different conditions from the ordinary colliery in England, and exactly the same applies to Kent, except that there there are only two. I hope, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman, remembering the reasons for objecting to my Amendment yesterday, will accept my Amendment along with that of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. J. O'Connor). I am afraid I do not feel any great confidence that he is going to treat me with the same kindness as the hon Member. I do not know why there is that differentiation either.
    An HON. MEMBER: Irish votes.
    Mr. McNEILL: An hon. Friend opposite gives a reason which, under existing circumstances, I should have been very sorry to suggest. I would like to have asked the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway (Mr. J. Q'Connor) to take me under his protection, and to carry me along with him in the pressure which he has brought to bear upon the Government. He belongs to a group in this House which can always bring pressure to bear upon the Government, and I am sorry that he has not taken my Amendment along with his. I am very sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is going to accept the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend because, if he was going to resist it, I should have arranged a logrolling deal with the hon. Member and have arranged that if he would accept my Amendment I would accept his, and together we could have combined and beaten the Government. I do not see, under the circumstances, much hope from the Treasury Bench, but I do make a last appeal—I will not say ad miserecordiam—to the right hon. Gentleman's sense of justice that he should accept my Amendment.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. McNeill) will rely on Sub-section (2) of Clause 1 of the Bill. If Kent can make out a sufficiently good case to the Board of Trade under that Sub-section, then Kent will receive full justice at the hands of the Board of Trade.
    Amendment to proposed Amendment negatived.
    Amendment made:
    After Sub-section (2) add as a new Subsection:—
    (3) "This Act shall not apply to Ireland."
    Mr. LAURENCE HARDY: I beg to move, in Sub-section (4), after the word "Act" ["This Act shall have effect"], to insert the words "shall come into operation on the first day of August, nineteen hundred and fifteen, and."
    I hope the Government will accept this Amendment. It is a very small matter. At the time I put it down I thought probably the Royal Assent might be given to the Bill at any earlier date than it may be given. It would be of very considerable convenience in bringing this Act into operation if we started at the beginning of a month, because all accounts are made up at the end of the month, and it would be possible for coal owners to prepare together to bring the Act into operation. Until we discussed the Bill last night, it was quite uncertain what lines the Act would follow, whether we should take average prices or the procedure of the Bill, and also whether all contracts were to be included or not. There is a good deal of arrangement to be made, and it will be difficult to get things in order, even in he very few days extra which I ask for in this Amendment. I hope the Government will give even this small measure of relief.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I hope the hon. Gentleman will not think it necessary to press this Amendment. It is true that we are not very far from the 1st of August now, but if in the course of next week if any consumers wish to make contracts with collieries, I think they ought to have the advantage of the Act. If, as I trust we shall, we get it through the House on Monday, any consumer who wishes to do business next week ought to have the full advantage of its provisions.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill"
    Sir A. MARKHAM: The second Subsection of Clause 3 provides:—
    "This Act shall not apply to the sale of coal supplied in pursuance of a contract made before the commencement of this Act."
    1900
    I want to point out to the Committee that even the most conservative journals in the United Kingdom, both of Conservative and Liberal opinion, take the line that the view of the House of Commons in regarding contracts as a sacred obligation which ought not to be disturbed, is a view entirely contrary to that which they hold in times of national danger. We must try once more to impress on my right hon. Friend the necessity of making this Bill a real living Bill. It is not going to be a real living Bill if it only deals with 20 per cent. of the output. In that case this Bill will be, as my right hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras said last night, a sham and a fraud, and the people of this country ought to know it. My right hon. Friend is a very moderate man and never uses strong language. The great industrial population of this country believe that under this Bill, brought in by the Coalition Government, they are going to get cheap coal. Let the people of the country remember that under this Bill, if the Government on Report persist in their action, there is not going to be the smallest benefit to the great industrial community. No attempt is being made to deal with the question of the sale of coal after it leaves the collieries. It would not be in order on this Clause to deal with the number of hands through which the coal passes before it reaches the consumer. I will only say that if the consumer is going to have the advantage of only 20 per cent. of the output of house coal in the country—the amount is rather less—to which this Bill applies—for the great industrial concerns are well able to look after themselves—he will receive no benefit if the Bill passes in its present form, because the contracts have been entered into at prices greatly exceeding the prices provided for in the Bill.
    Through the fault of the Government alone the Bill has only been introduced at the last moment and it is not right that the country should be penalised in consequence of that fact. The right hon. Gentleman has been dealing in time of war with an office which probably ought to have had half a dozen Presidents of the Board of Trade. I am told that he has been working at his office day and night. Therefore I do not blame him for not introducing this Bill before, but if he had not time to do it, as the hon. Member on the other side said last night, why did they not appoint some other Under-Secretary—

    1901
    there are plenty of them on these benches above the Gangway only too willing to have undertaken a Bill of this kind—and he could have had plenty of time in the short sittings which we have had in this House to deal with this question. If the Government definitely settle that they are not going to deal with contracts, all we can do on Report stage is to take the Government to a Division. Last night they kept the telephone going to get people to come up to vote for this Clause when they had not heard a word of the discussion. If the Government are disposed to persist in this Clause, if the President is not inclined to vary it, then hon. Members from this side of the House, from the other side, from the Labour and from the Irish Benches unanimously appeal to the President not to be stubborn in this matter—I do not know why he should be—and ask him carefully to think it over on Sunday and reflect on the evils which will accrue to the industrial population of this country if he persists in this action. I hope that he will come down on Monday and tell us that the Government will meet with the views of the House of Commons. I trust the Coalition Government will not be used as a party instrument, but that the House of Commons will be allowed to exercise its own judgment. I make this last appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to continue his present attitude in regard to this matter, and I hope that on Monday, when he comes down here, he will let us have some enlightenment and will allow the House of Commons to settle this question.
    Sir C. CORY: It has been pointed out by the hon. Member for Glasgow that the corporation of that city have made contracts in respect of the gas and electric light undertakings. That is perfectly true. But I think, so far as England is concerned, that before anyone takes a contract into Court for revision there should be power to obtain a consideration of the whole of the circumstances of the case on the one side and the other before the price is brought down. I have in mind some cases of contracts made on the East Coast. As we know, when the War started, prices went down to an extremely low level, far lower than what the price had been before the War broke out. This made it difficult for the coal owners to keep their collieries going. It will be in the recollection of my right hon. Friend that they endeavoured to induce shippers to send orders in order that they might keep
    1902
    the pits going and the men in employment. I believe that state of affairs lasted until the end of the year and into the commencement of the succeeding year. The consequence is that coal owners who entered into contracts at extremely low prices to keep the pits going are still carrying them out. The contracts were made for the whole of the year, and in regard to the coal owners who are parties to them it would appear to be only right that they should now have the benefit of higher prices and should not be limited in this way. If my right hon. Friend's proposal is not modified, those circumstances which I have stated will not be taken into consideration by the County Court judge, and if the matter goes before the County Court there will be different decisions all over the country. In such cases as I have described, the Board of Trade should deal with them, and go into the whole of the circumstances, due weight and consideration being given to them by the Department in making a revision. I therefore trust if the right hon. Gentleman deals with the point that he will take the matter into the hands of the Board of Trade instead of leaving it to the County Court judge.
    Mr. ANDERSON: One sometimes gets tired of hearing this interest and that interest apologising and explaining while all the time these costs are going on and prices are going up. Unless action is taken on the lines suggested with regard to contracts there will be a feeling of real disappointment among the great cooperative societies and the working-class organisations, and especially of real disappointment among the working people. The President of the Board of Trade bases opposition to this on the sanctity of contracts. If he is going to interfere with the contracts in that regard to the big municipalities, and as I think he should do, he destroys his own case in regard to the sanctity of contracts. If he is prepared to modify contracts in regard to coal going to the municipalities, why not modify contracts in regard to coal going to be supplied to working-class households? I do submit the case is as strong in one instance as the other, and also in regard to manufacturers. In regard to this talk about the sanctity of contracts, many of the coal owners themselves have set aside their contracts since the War began and have imposed new contracts, which people could not resist, upon various manufacturers. That is well within the knowledge of those

    1903
    who are carrying on manufacturing businesses. It is only when the Government propose to take action that we hear so much about the sanctity of contracts, and the coal owners do not respect those things to any great extent themselves. As so large an amount of coal has been contracted for twelve months ahead, this Bill will be absolutely useless, so far as the poor people are concerned, unless it goes further. If the right hon. Gentleman will read the leading article in to-day's "Westminster Gazette," an organ of not very extreme Radical opinion, he will see that there he is encouraged to take the step that we are pressing. Unless that is done there will be a feeling that this legislation is not a piece of genuine legislation. If it is intended to affect the price, I do not believe it will do anything in the right direction unless something is done. I would strongly urge that between now and the Report stage a very important step should be taken by the President, and in taking that step he will have the support of the country as a whole.
    Mr. SHIRLEY BENN: I understand that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade is expected to spend a certain portion of Sunday in deciding whether or not existing contracts should be brought into this Bill. May I remind the Committee that this Bill does not force any coal owner to sell coal in any specific quantity? Would it not be better if the right hon. Gentleman is going to deal with existing contracts to give the seller and the buyer the option of cancelling the existing contract and let them make a fresh deal?
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: I want to support the appeal of the hon. Member for the Mansfield Division. I make no apology for detaining the Committee a few minutes, as I am one of the representatives of a district which is particularly affected by this matter—the Potteries. The other representatives of the stable industry of that district are engaged in military duties; therefore it rather falls on me to present the case for the district. Coal enters considerably into the cost of the manufacture of pottery because of the large amount of coal used in the ovens; therefore, as far as they are concerned, the attitude taken up by the Board of Trade is particularly unfortunate. We are at a time of devastating war, when the object of the Government ought to be to
    1904
    prevent undue hardship falling on the people, and to maintain as far as possible the stable industries of the country. We know that the rise in the price of coal does inflict great hardship on the poor and hampers the carrying on of industry at a time of great difficulty. Look at the question from the point of view of industry. The Board of Trade have more than once I think—certainly once—held exhibitions of foreign glass-ware and pottery. They went to Stoke, established an exhibition there, and invited the manufacturers to see German and Austrian-made goods, so that they might undersell them in neutral markets. Then, when we ask the Board of Trade to do a simple thing for the manufacturers—that is, to see that the price of coal is not raised extortionately—the right hon. Gentleman says he cannot do it, not so much because of the sanctity of contracts, as because it would occupy too much of the time of the officials of the Board.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Oh!
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: The officials of the Board would be better occupied in accepting and carrying out this proposal than in running about with shows and exhibitions and letting the price of coal run up against the manufacturers. The right hon. Gentleman said that the manufacturers should have been shrewd and not made contracts. No doubt he has received a letter from the borough of Stoke-on-Trent dealing with this matter as far as they are concerned. The hon. Member for St. Ives rather threw doubt on the suggestion that the Glasgow Corporation had been squeezed.
    Sir C. CORY: I did not cast doubt; I merely said that before judgment was given, both sides should be heard.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: I will show what happened in regard to Stoke. In the letter which I have received from the borough council they say:—?
    "For instance, take the case of ibis corporation. By Section 3 it it is proposed that the terms of the Act shall not apply to contracts already entered into. Just lately we have had to renew for a further twelve months many coal contracts of considerable tonnage, chiefly for gas and electricity purposes, in accordance with our usual custom at this time of the year. None of the collieries were prepared to renew for a short period; they all asked and insisted upon an increase of 6s. or thereabouts, the result being that, having no coal to go on with, we have had, whether we liked it or not, to agree to their terms, and any benefit to be derived from the Bill will not apparently apply to these contracts."
    These people were as shrewd as the right hon. Gentleman himself, but they are in

    1905
    the hands of a combine. All the collieries there are in the combine, and the corporation had to submit to this pressure. They say:—
    "Can anything be done at this stage to remove, at any rate partially, the very heavy burden which the colliery proprietors have, by their determined attitude, cast upon large consumers under contracts recently entered into, with knowledge apparently of impending action on the part of His Majesty's Government?"
    As a matter of fact, the colliery proprietors get ahead of the Government. They knew that this Bill was coming, and they took advantage of the fact to compel under duress the corporation and individual manufacturers to take long contracts at high prices. If this happens to corporations, what must be happening to individual manufacturers in the Potteries and elsewhere? Undoubtedly they are under the same squeezing, the same pressure. This Bill, therefore, has been correctly described as a fraud—and a very pitiful kind of fraud, too, considering the conditions under which it is being perpetrated. The people, the manufacturers, and the corporations expected that the Government would take action, and, having taken action, they have presented something which it is absolutely fallacious to suppose will put an end to this matter. At such a time the Government should not consider any sanctity of contract or anything else save justice to the country and the condition of the people.
    Mr. DICKINSON: I do not rise to discuss the general point that was discussed last night, but I do want once more to appeal very seriously to my right hon. Friend to consider the position between now and the Report stage. It is not a question of our hitting upon any particular scheme to put forward. It is, in my opinion, a question of grave public danger in the course of the next winter. When my right hon. Friend has considered the danger of destroying contracts he has also to consider a far greater danger of so exciting the poorer people in our crowded centres that the price of coal may really bring about a crisis. My right hon. Friend has been so concerned, I venture to say, with his ordinary business that he has probably not been able to meet his constituents. I have; and no one who has gone amongst his constituents in London, or elsewhere, during the last few months could avoid being convinced that this question of the increase in the price of coal, and the neglect of the Government to deal with it at the proper time, has assumed very serious proportions.
    1906
    5.0 P.M.
    The Government, of course, can flout the House of Commons. They can, as the hon. Baronet said last night, send for their supporters to come from dinners and outside, and without having heard a word of the Debate, vote down those who have spoken. But not one who listened to last night's Debate could come to any other conclusion than that had those who had been engaged to that discussion divided, there is no question but that the Government proposal would have been thrown out. I mention that not by way of recrimination, but because I really believe that the House of Commons last night reflected the state of public opinion far more accurately than do the Government. If the right hon. Gentleman insists on sticking to his Bill as it stands in regard to these contracts, he will be going against the wishes of nine out of every ten people in the country. That is not a safe position either for him or for the Government to occupy at the present time. The Government is not altogether viewed with satisfaction by everybody. On this question of coal its attitude has been cavilled at and criticised with the very greatest force during the last few months. I would like the right hon. Gentleman to look at the question from this point of view, and to see whether between now and the Report stage he and his able draftsmen cannot devise some scheme which will meet what undoubtedly the House last night wanted to provide for—that is, some system whereby all contracts made during the last two or three months will be revised—fairly revised—by some competent authority. My hon. Friend mentioned what was undoubtedly a flaw in my Amendment on the Paper yesterday. That has been altered; for I quite recognise that our object should be to give the opportunity for both sides to be heard, and for a discretion to be given to a County Court judge, or what other responsible authority you like, to settle what shall be the price of coal in particular contracts, bearing in mind all the circumstances. If that is done, I do not see why coal owners or anyone else should object. It is perfectly clear that what we all want to get at is that the price of coal at the pit's mouth should be sold at a definite price representing a definite increase over the prices of 1913. I feel certain it can be done, either by the words of my Amendment or by some other method, which I have no doubt will occur to the advisers of the Government; but I do believe that, unless some attempt

    1907
    is made to meet this question, the Government will find they have placed themselves in a position which will be severely criticised when the Bill comes into operation.
    Sir E. CORNWALL: I should think by this time the President of the Board of Trade has realised that there is a very strong feeling in favour of applying this Bill to contracts, and, at all events, he would be able to justify his action by taking up the line that it is the view of the House of Commons. When the right hon. Gentleman suggests he might meet this matter half way I am more concerned than ever, because I can understand the Bill not applying to contracts or applying to contracts, but when he says he hopes to get over the difficulty by exempting contracts entered into by corporations and gas companies it seems to me he rather makes matters worse than better. Under all the circumstances I really think that, as the right hon. Gentleman has decided to reconsider this question between now and Report, he had better grasp the nettle boldly and apply this Bill to contracts.
    But, having said as much as that, I do not think it is quite fair for hon. Members to say that the Bill, even if it does not apply to contracts, is a fraud and a failure and a window-dressing Bill with no purpose and no object in it. From those remarks I dissent altogether, because the Bill, even if it exempts contracts, does achieve a great deal. It does standardise the price to an extent. It is known at what price contracts are made, and it also makes it clear that any coal bought outside contracts may not be at a greater price than that laid down in the Bill, and any fresh contract entered into for a certain period cannot be above the price ruling between 1913 and 1914 and an addition of 4s That may not be as much as we should get if the Bill applied to contracts, but to say that it does nothing is, I think, not fair to the Bill. Everybody admits that there is a very grave danger of a scarcity and a shortage of coal whether we have the Bill or not. With the scarcity and shortage of coal which we know would exist if we had a very cold winter in London, with fog and long frost, without this Bill there would be no holding the price at all, not through the fault of anyone, but the famine would lead to famine prices. This Bill does prevent famine prices.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: May I point out there is nothing to prevent the price of coal under this Bill going to £5 a ton?
    Sir E. CORNWALL: There is a very great deal in this Bill to prevent coal going to £5 a ton, because this Hill makes it perfectly plain that the whole world will know what the price of coal at the pit is. There would be a knowledge of the actual cost at the pit. There is an understanding come to by the coal merchants of London and the South of England that they will work in harmony and co-operation with the Board of Trade to control the price and limit the profits of those traders in London and the South of England. This Bill, based on 1914 prices, makes it quite clear that if there is only a variation of 2s. 6d. between the summer and winter prices in that year under the arrangements the coal merchants have made with the Board of Trade the price cannot go up more than 2s. 6d. per ton whatever the scarcity may be, and not necessarily so much as that. I rose to urge the President to include contracts in his Bill, but, at the same time, I thought it was only fair to dissociate myself from those who say that the Bill is worthless without the inclusion of contracts.
    Mr. WALTER ROCH: The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken forgets that this Bill does not apply to merchants, who are left absolutely free. He has also forgotten that the Bill affects other places in the country besides London. I have some sympathy with the President of the Board of Trade with regard to the position in which he finds himself. I think everybody must appreciate what a tremendous and difficult problem he has to face in tearing up contracts. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman improved his speech last night by saying that he is prepared to tear up a part of those contracts. The tragedy of this Bill is that it has come too late, and the complaint which comes from all quarters is that the suggestions hon. Members have made week after week and month after month have been disregarded. For months the right hon. Gentleman has received the deputations and suggestions pointing out what would happen with regard to the price of coal, and urging that contracts were being made and that he would be placed in the very difficult position in which he now finds himself. I think we have some ground for complaint that when these suggestions were made again and again really

    1909
    very little regard was paid to them. That is the lesson which we learn from this Bill. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give this subject his very serious consideration. The difficulty which the President of the Board of Trade finds himself in is entirely occasioned by the fact that he is only doing now what he should have done many weeks ago. We have been living in a vicious circle formed by an unholy combination of the coal owners and the miners, and the result is that the right hon. Gentleman is powerless in their hands. One argument which the President of the Board of Trade used with apparent force in regard to the exclusion of existing contracts was that wages arrangements were being made in the coalfields. That was occasioned entirely by the fact that the price of coal had not been previously regulated, and so, owing entirely to the question of delay, we find ourselves powerless in the hands of this unholy combination. I appreciate the difficulties of the right hon. Gentleman, but while we have been discussing here so much the sanctity of contracts we really have in our mind the coal consumers of the country. Their case is the genesis of this Bill, but their case, I am afraid, is most inadequately met by this Bill on account of the fact that existing contracts have been respected. Something will have to be done in the months to come, and I hope that when the right hon. Gentleman comes to give the matter further consideration the primary considerations which will weigh in his mind will be the householders who have to use coal and the great consumers of coal.
    Mr. WATT: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has made any advance since last night on the question of the sanctity of contracts with corporations, particularly with regard to the contract which has been made with the city of Glasgow. The Glasgow Corporation has been squeezed in the placing of contracts for 1,000,000 tons of coal during June, and the advance which they have been forced to pay is over £250,000. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will tell us in his reply that he proposes to deal with a situation such as that, because it affects other corporations. If my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield divides the Committee, on this Clause, the reply of the right hon. Gentleman will have some effect on my vote. If he can assure us that corporations who have been squeezed will be
    1910
    considered, and that the sanctity of their contracts will not be preserved, I shall have the pleasure of voting with him.
    Mr. WING: How would this affect the ordinary agent of a colliery who has made a contract, and who is informed by the colliery that they can only deliver 50 per cent. of his coal?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I do not think we can go into that question.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Mr. Watt) asks me whether I will do anything for his squeezed constituency. I can add nothing to what I said last night. I do not know whether he heard the earlier part of the discussion on the question that this Clause should stand part of the Bill, but if he did he will have observed that one of the charges brought against me this afternoon has been that last night I said that I would do something to help the local authorities, who in another aspect are really the State.
    Mr. WATT: That gets my vote.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    NEW CLAUSE.—(Limitation of Charge for Wagon, Hire.)
    (1) Where coal is conveyed from the pit's mouth over any railway in trucks not belonging to a railway company the seller of such coal shall not be entitled to charge for the use of the trucks any sum exceeding by more than fifty per cent. the sum which the railway company conveying the coal was actually charging for the provision of trucks at the commencement of this Act.
    (2) If any person charges or attempts to charge for the use of any trucks in contravention of this Section he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds.
    Clause brought up, and read the first time.
    Sir E. CORNWALL: I beg to move, "That the Clause be now read a second time."
    This Clause provides for the limitation of the charge for wagon hire. The President of the Board of Trade will realise, without any argument or long speech, that a colliery supplying coal under the Bill should not charge 5s. per ton for wagon hire in addition to the coal. The present

    1911
    rate is 1s. to London or 1s. 3d. to South London, and in some cases during the War already about 30 per cent. extra has been charged. This Clause is to provide that a colliery who are owners of wagons as well as of the coal, in supplying coal under this Bill, shall not be entitled to charge more than 50 per cent. above what the railway companies are now charging for their railway wagons. It fixes the price. I think this is a very reasonable Amendment, and I hope the President of the Board of Trade will accept it.
    Mr. DENNISS: Why put it at 50 per cent.?
    Sir E. CORNWALL: The London rate is 1s. and the 50 per cent. would make it 1s. 6d., which in view of the delays on the railways and other circumstances appears to be fair.
    Sir C. CORY: Will it mean also 50 per cent. on demurrage?
    Sir E. CORNWALL: I am not talking about demurrage. The railway charge is 1s., whether there is demurrage or not.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: It is essential that this Clause should be inserted, although there are certain words in it with which I do not agree. If this provision is not included the colliery owners would charge what they liked for the use of their wagons, and they would be able to set the Act at defiance, and what little good it is going to effect will be lost altogether. They could easily say they would charge 2s. per ton for the use of the wagons, and if there was a shortage of coal they would easily get the extra sum. The new Clause would prevent that. I am not quite sure whether the main Act itself does not cover the point, but I should like to have the opinion of the President of the Board of Trade. Certainly if it does not there will be an easy way of evading the Act, because the railway companies have nothing like a sufficient number of coal wagons, bearing in mind the total amount of coal carried. The hon. Member who moved the Clause referred to the case of London. But there are other places the rates for which vary considerably from 3d. upward.
    Sir E. CORNWALL: I only used London as an illustration.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: London, of course, is a big place, but there are other places besides—Mansfield, for instance. Again, it should be borne in mind that in fixing the
    1912
    toll the railway companies do not include the charge for the use of the wagons, as some people have their own wagons. It is essential there should be some limit, and if the Clause is read a second time I shall move to amend it by leaving out the words "by more than 50 per cent." There is no reason why the owners of colliery wagons should get more than 1s.; they are getting quite enough. Wagons are a very profitable form of investment. If we leave out the words "by more than 50 per cent.," the charge will be the same as for the conveyance of coal in private wagons.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: It is true that this proposal may to some extent be covered by Sub-section (4) of Clause 1, but in the event of there being any doubt about it I think we might, for the present at all events, accept the Clause moved by my hon. Friend, as it is quite clear that if there is no limitation it will leave the way open for a practical evasion of the Act by increasing the charges for wagon hire. I propose, therefore, to accept the proposal as made by my hon. Friend. It is true that he has been good enough to give us illustrations drawn from London, but I must say this in commendation of him, that he has the good sense to talk about things of which he knows a good deal, and his illustrations drawn from London have certainly been of value to the Committee.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause read a second time.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "by more than 50 per cent."
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I do not know what my hon. Friend proposes to put in place of these words. As a matter of fact, 50 per cent. is a very small margin in some cases, although it may appear large in others. It might be well to leave a certain amount of elasticity. I do not see my hon. Friend's special object in taking out the 50 per cent. If he has a special object, perhaps he will explain it to us.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: The words are not necessary. If my Amendment is accepted, the owner of wagons would not be enabled by the Clause to charge a rate exceeding that which is fixed under the railway regulations, which provide for specific charges for specific distances. There have been very few cases where colliery people have raised the rates for wagon hire above those of the railway companies. I admit that the price of wagons has risen

    1913
    considerably within the last six months, but the bulk of the wagons in this country have been purchased at prices not extending, in the biggest colliery companies, beyond £60 or £70. I am not going into the much debated question of the earnings of railway wagons. Perhaps we had better leave the matter until the Report stage, when we can have a talk after the right hon. Gentleman has had an opportunity of consulting his people at the Board of Trade. I think they will tell him that the wagons yield a substantial profit. I am a large wagon owner. I provide wagons and charge the same rate as the railway companies, and deduct the amount the railway companies get. One of the most profitable businesses I have is that of supplying wagons. I do not see why we should put the extra cost on the consumer, which we shall do if we give the owner 50 per cent.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: My hon. Friend suggests that this is giving a profit of 50 per cent. for wagon hire all round. That is a misreading of the new Clause. The cost of wagons at the present moment has undoubtedly gone up. One of my hon. Friends made the point, in reference to the increased cost of wagons, that at the present moment it is extremely difficult to add to the supply of wagons, because the wagons are largely taken for other purposes. It is doubtful whether there can be a replenishing of the supply of wagons all over the country, and especially in the Midlands, at the present time. We must leave some margin above the rates now charged by the railway companies. We are bound to take into account depreciation and the difficulty of replacement. In these circumstances, perhaps, we had better leave the words in for the present.
    Mr. BOOTH: There is another consideration, namely, the increased cost of repairs. At the present time it costs considerably more to repair these wagons. I do not think there would be the same objection to lowering the 50 per cent. a little if the Clause did not say
    "at the commencement of this Act."
    I gather that the hon Baronet's (Sir A. Markham) point is that he does not want private colliery firms to charge more than the railway companies charge. If you go back to the "commencement of the Act," and do not allow any margin, you may be doing a grave injustice, because railway companies will be charging more for wagons, and they may in the course
    1914
    of this Act at any time, because the cost of repairs in particular has been going up and the colliery owner may be in such a position that he can charge what the railway companies actually are charging in the future.
    Sir C. CORY: I do not think it is quite such a simple question as appears on the face of it. My hon. Friend (Sir A. Markham) says there are statutory charges on all the railway companies. I do not think that applies to South Wales.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: No, it does not.
    Sir C. CORY: I do not think the railway companies supply the wagons. I do not believe it obtains on the Lancashire and Yorkshire or the London and Northwestern. On the North-Eastern I think it does.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: It does on the North-Western.
    Sir C. CORY: I do not know how you are going to arrive at it. Then my hon. Friend (Sir E. Cornwall) suggested that the rate should be 1s. a ton for both wagon hire and demurrage. It is very easy for anyone to understand that in these days when wagons are away four, five, six, seven, or eight weeks on a journey which at other times they would have done within a week, 1s. would be an inadequate sum to charge for demurrage. Further, the railway company I have to do with charge demurrage on other goods over the couple of days they allow for unloading. If this is to cover demurrage the wagon business will be a very unprofitable one.
    Sir W. BEALE: I should like to say a word to avoid possible confusion which may arise. Under Sub-section (4) of Clause 1, if a man now makes a contract for delivery, including the use of his wagons, he is only entitled to charge the actual cost to him of the delivery. That is what I understand my hon. Friend (Sir A. Markham) means. They do not want to charge any more than the actual ordinary cost of carriage. But the object of the Amendment appears to be to prevent that being evaded by the people making two contracts, one for the sale of the coal and the other for delivery, and the use of his own wagons for delivery of the contract to the purchaser. The same principle should be applied to both. If you are going to allow 50 per cent. addition in one case you should allow it in the other. I should have thought the whole thing would

    1915
    be better met by saying if there was a separate contract for delivery and the use of wagons the whole thing should be lumped together and come under Subsection (4) of Clause 1. I merely wished to offer a word of caution to prevent inconsistency arising for applying a difference and having a percentage in the one ease which, according to the strict construction of the Act, you will not be entitled to in the other.
    Mr. GLYN-JONES: I wish to emphasise the danger of inserting these words unless my right hon. Friend is quite clear that they will not whittle down the words, "or other incidental services," in Sub-section (4). I should have thought surely "railway or other incidental services" would include the hire of wagons used on the railway. I am anxious lest by accepting this Amendment we should whittle down the effect of these words.
    Mr. DENNISS: In my Constituency there are a good many companies which do not supply wagons, and I am particularly anxious that this should be cleared up, whether the hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Cornwall) means that the shilling which he mentioned includes demurrage or not, because if we are going to have demurrage in addition to the shilling and 50 per cent. of the shilling and of the open money it would be a great deal too much. I do ask the President of the Board of Trade to consider on the Report stage whether that 50 per cent. is not too much and whether it does or does not include demurrage.
    Sir E. CORNWALL: The reason I proposed any increase at all was because there is much greater delay on the railways now than there was before the War. Otherwise I would have proposed a new Clause, keeping the charge down to the present companies' charges of 1s. in one place, 3d. in another, and so on. If I had proposed it in that form there would have been no elasticity. It would not be fair to the collieries, whose wagons are delayed much longer, not in the form of demurrage, but on the railways. It is nobody's fault. What we do say is that they shall not be entitled, at all events, to charge more than 6d. per ton for wagons if it is London, 1½d. if it is on the 3d. rate, or 3d. if it is on the 6d. rate.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: We must make it quite clear about demurrage. The demurrage on some of the railway companies is
    1916
    3s. I understand that demurrage has nothing to do with this question.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Question, "That the Clause be added to the Bill," put, and agreed to.
    Clause added to the Bill as Clause 2.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The next new Clause [Consignment of Coal—Sir E. Cornwall] is outside the scope of the Bill. The Clause Definitions (Sir E. Cornwall) has been dealt with.

    NEW CLAUSE.—(Limitation of Retail Price of Coal in London.)
    (1) Coal shall not be sold, or offered for sale, at any place within the Metropolitan police district and the City of London at a price exceeding the London maximum price.
    (2) The London maximum of any coal shall be a sum equal to the price of that coal at the pit's mouth as fixed under this Act, together with the addition of fifteen shillings per ton or such greater amount per ton as the Board of Trade may allow in view of any proved increase in the cost of freight or distribution.
    Clause brought up, and read the first time.
    Mr. DICKINSON: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    This is the first time I have had an opportunity of laying before the Committee the special case of London, and particularly of the poorer classes. My Clause lays down a maximum price beyond which no coal is to be sold in London. The reason why I put in this maximum figure is that in London, especially amongst the poor, whenever there is a shortage of coal, the people are compelled to pay exorbitant prices. Unless something is put into the Bill that will prevent that occurring next winter I think very serious results may occur. I pointed out on the Second Reading that last winter, whilst the increase in the price of coal, as delivered to the ordinary householder, between November and February, was 7s., the increase in the price of coal bought from hawkers by the poor people in London was 11s. 8d. That is not the price of the coal, but the increase in the price. Therefore the poor had to pay at a much greater rate of increase in those few months than the ordinary consumer had to pay. I will not say whether that increased price went to the mines or to the coal merchants. That does not matter to me

    1917
    at the moment. At any rate the increased price was charged, and it was not due entirely, or by any means entirely, to the conditions of freight. If the same thing takes place next winter, if there is a shortage, what will happen? I understand that the right hon. Gentleman has provided for the cost in London, or he thinks he has provided for it, by a series of agreements with certain leading coal merchants. I hope that will be successful as regards the merchants. I am told, however, that a very large number of London coal merchants have not had any communication with the right hon. Gentleman in regard to these agreements. I think they have only been made with the Coal Merchants' Association.
    That does not meet my point. Even if the coal merchants adhere to the agreement and do not charge more than a certain additional price regulated by the Board of Trade, beyond the price of coal as got at the depot, it will have no effect upon the hawkers. We shall find that if the coal gets short the hawkers will be able to hawk coal at a very large profit. In my opinion if there is a shortage of coal the coal merchants will not produce the coal to the poor people. They did not do it last year. There are certain coal merchants who undertook to provide coal for philanthropic societies at a certain price, I believe 26s. 6d. a ton. When colliery-sold coal went up to 38s. 2d. some of those coal merchants refused to carry out their contract. They said that they had not got the coal to fill the orders. That is exactly what will happen, I believe, in the coming year unless some limit is put to the maximum price at which coal may be sold in London. I do not see any reason why you should not limit the price. It is possible that you cannot exactly know what price you should fix as the maximum, especially the price at which it is sold by hawkers. I have put in my Amendment a price of 15s. over the price at the pit-mouth, or any greater price which the Board of Trade may allow in view of the proved increase in the cost of freight or distribution. I have arrived at that 15s. in this way: Taking the last three years and taking the price of Derby brights I find that in 1913 they sold at a price of 11s. a ton at the pit-mouth. They were delivered to the consumer in London at 25s. 9d. That was 14s. 9d. more than the pit-mouth price. In 1914, before the winter, the same quality was selling for 12s. 6d. at the pit-mouth and was
    1918
    delivered at 27s. 3d., that being 14s. 9d. above the pit-mouth price. In the winter of 1914, when coal had rushed up to the figure which it reached then it was sold at the pit-mouth at 19s., and delivered at 35s., which was an increase of 16s., and in 1915 there was an increase of 15s. Therefore in those four years 15s. would make up the difference with regard to that particular kind of coal. I quite agree that that may not apply to all coals no matter where they come from. That is why I put in the final words of this Clause, which leave it to the Board of Trade to say that they may charge more for coal when they prove an increase in the cost of freight or distribution. I am perfectly certain that the right hon. Gentleman has nothing more keenly at heart than to secure the interests of the poor consumers in London, but the Bill will not solve this question and I believe that it will be solved only on the lines suggested.
    Sir E. CORNWALL: I sympathise with my right hon. Friend who moved this Clause, but the Committee will agree that the one place in the country where satisfactory arrangements were made, before this Bill was introduced, and irrespective of whether it applied to contracts or not, to prevent any undue or improper advance of coal was London; and why the right hon. Gentleman should pick out London as the one place which should be specially dealt with under this Bill and exclude all other places where arrangements have not been made I do not quite understand. My right hon. Friend says that the arrangements made with the coal merchants of London did not include all the merchants. That might have been the case in the early days of the negotiations. It was complained that the arrangement had been made with the Board of Trade by a limited number of coal merchants, but there was no substance in that complaint. A large meeting of coal merchants was held at the St. Pancras Hotel a month ago, when 200 merchants attended. All the arrangements made by the Board of Trade were reported to that meeting, which unanimously approved of those arrangements between themselves and the Board of Trade. I submit therefore that there is now no reason why, in this Bill, London should be particularly picked out, while all the other parts of the country are not referred to. My right hon. Friend referred to the price of coal sold by hawkers, and there were some very unsatisfactory circumstances last winter. It was pretty well known that

    1919
    coal was sent up by responsible traders to be sold in London at a fixed and definite price, and it was reported in a good many directions that when there was a very severe shortage of coal these hawkers were not content with the price at which the coal was to be sold by the merchant, and they charged and obtained a higher price. There was a very justifiable complaint about this, but since last winter, with the co-operation of the coal merchants, the London County Council have passed a very useful by-law making it a duty on the part of all those who hawk coal to place a permanent board on their cart on which to mark conspicuously the price of the coal they hawk. The by-law makes it an offence for hawkers to demand a higher price than is indicated on the board. My right hon. Friend will sec, therefore, that circumstances have changed since last winter, and that, having regard to the arrangements between the coal merchants and the Board of Trade, and the powers and regulations under the by-laws of the London County Council, everything is being done that can be done, and if anything more can be suggested by the county council or the Board of Trade the coal merchants will be only too glad to give their full cooperation to safeguard the interests of the poor in connection with the distribution of coal in London.
    I think my right hon. Friend may rest assured, in these circumstances, that everything possible is already being done to meet the object he has in view. It is not easy at a time like this to carry on business at all, owing to shortage of labour, of horses, and even of supplies of coal coming along. This is not a time when you should put extra obligations upon the merchants, who have given assurance of their earnest determination to do all they can in co-operation with the Board of Trade and the county council, and who, with their responsibilities and the exciting condition of things, might break down under the present abnormal circumstances. My right hon. Friend suggests a flat rate of 15s. In some of his figures he was quite correct, but may I point out to him that the London rate varies. When I say London rate, I am referring to the lowest London rate. For Yorkshire, for instance, the lowest London rate is 7s. 2d., for Derbyshire 6s., and for Warwickshire 5s. 3d. The London rate is 6s. to King's
    1920
    Cross. It varies from 3d. to 3s. 4d. in different parts of the Metropolitan area. Then you have different qualities of coal and different rates from the pit to London. My right hon. Friend would make it absolutely impossible to carry on the coal trade in London if his Clause were carried. We undertake to sit round a table with him or the representatives of the Board of Trade at any time, and we are prepared during the War to place our full service and experience at the disposal of the Board of Trade. We cannot foresee what the circumstances will be. They may be what my right hon. Friend thinks or what I think, or they may differ entirely from what either of us think. You cannot tell. What you want is a genuine willingness to co-operate and to conduct business in London in the public interest and under the control of a responsible body like the Board of Trade. I think I have shown, on the general argument, that my right hon. Friend would be acting wisely and correctly if he did not press this Clause. With regard to the actual working out on the basis of 15s., I can assure him it is not workable, and no one could carry it out even if it were put into the Act of Parliament. As the Bill is a Bill dealing with the price of coal at the pit's mouth, and has not so far gone beyond that, I think it is rather late in the day, in a thin House, and as it was not in the original Bill, to begin to introduce the very complicated and difficult question of saying what the maximum price of coal should be on delivery. It opens up a very large question, which would require many Clauses to deal with and a very full House, and which would want very long consideration by the Government and Government officials before justice was done to the problem, because they ought to advise and guide the House as to how best it ought to be done if it were to be done. Under all the circumstances, I hope my right hon. Friend will not press this new Clause.
    Mr. BOYTON: I was one of the three Members of this House who served on the Departmental Committee on Retail Prices, and I can only regret the absence of my two colleagues. If the hon. Member for Woolwich were here he would be able to bring tears to the eyes of hon. Members by recounting the misery which the poor suffered last year through the excessive price of coal. I am perfectly aware that this Bill so far has had nothing to do with retail prices. But we on the Depart-

    1921
    mental Committee had all to do with retail prices, and I cannot see what the Government have been at in attempting to regulate only wholesale prices when the crying need was to regulate retail prices. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Sir E. Cornwall) to say that the London merchants have given, or will give, an undertaking to the Board of Trade. He may say that in perfectly good faith, but when the winter comes and coal is being sold to the poor at very high prices the hon. Member and his friends will probably have to say that they cannot control everything. They do not represent all the coal merchants; they represent only a section, and I cannot believe that it will be in their power to regulate the price or to say how it can be regulated. I would like to see something in black and white in the Act of Parliament. The labours of the Departmental Committee, which extended over fifteen days, will be thrown away and the Report published last March will be so much waste paper, unless you accept in some tangible and reasonable manner the principle of the Amendment.
    I cannot understand why the President of the Board of Trade has not attempted to grapple with the question submitted to the Departmental Committee. He has ignored the real point—the cost to the consumer. He may say that when he has regulated the price at the pit-month he will automatically be able to put his finger on the weak spot; but I do not think it is in his power or in that of the Coal Association in London really to say what the cure shall be when the need presses. We were told in evidence that the lorry trade was fast disappearing. We know that owing to the different class of houses the poor cannot take in such quantities of coal as they once did. I do not think the hon. Member or the Coal Association can control the hawker. It is excellent to say, "We will put '1s. 10d. per cwt.,' or whatever the price may be, on an enamelled iron plate on the cart of the hawker," but that is not a remedy. The coal will be 1s. 10d. or 2s., and the poor will say that that is the regulation price. I want to see, in black and white in the Bill, that prices are going to be regulated, and that extortion from the poor is to be stopped. It was clearly laid down by the Committee that the poor had a good case, but we did not know on whom to put the blame—whether on the colliery owner, the factor, or the merchant. Surely it should be within
    1922
    the power of the Board of Trade, having had a most careful and exhaustive inquiry into the whole question of the distribution of coal by retail in the Metropolis and throughout England, to put their wits to work, and bring in some sort of reasonable and tangible Act of Parliament to deal with the real trouble.
    Mr. MORTON: I do not pretend to say that the proposals of my right hon. Friend are the best way out of the difficulty; but I do know that there is a very strong feeling in London that the Government and Parliament ought to do something to protect the poor people in regard to the price of coal. On Wednesday I, as representing the Corporation of the City of London, attended a conference of the representatives of the Metropolitan boroughs, and the unanimous opinion there was that something should be done for the relief of the poor. We are all aware that last winter the poor people were charged about 45s. per ton for coal—a monstrous price. It is a scandal if no remedy can be found for that. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will consider the matter in the interests of the poor people, who cannot very well help themselves.
    Sir H. CRAIK: I find myself in agreement with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Marylebone, and I shall have great difficulty in voting against this Amendment. It may be doubtful whether these sumptuary laws are possible, and whether the elementary laws of political economy, which regulate supply and demand, will not operate in spite of your settlement. But if you do this, what good is it to talk about prices at the pit-head. The real pressure is in the prices paid by the poor in London. If you cannot remedy this, the whole thing falls to the ground. What good will it do to the poor people in London, whom we know quite well are paying these exorbitant prices for small quantities, to tell them that you are regulating the prices at the pit-head? We know that there is going on a struggle between the coal owner, the middleman, the railway companies, and the corporations; but what does the poor man care for all these points of political economy? I have doubts and difficulties in regard to the operation of these sumptuary laws, for the laws of political economy have a very unfortunate habit of reasserting themselves. But if you do attempt any sumptuary law of this sort in fixing prices, for God's sake let it be in fixing the prices

    1923
    where the shoe pinches, and not some vague fixing of prices to regulate at the pit-head the commercial relations between great corporations, great owners, and little men!
    6.0 P.M.
    Mr. BOOTH: I do not at all challenge the remarks that have just been made, and I sympathise entirely with the views put forward. Unfortunately for the purposes of this Debate they have nothing to do with this particular new Clause, which seeks to enact that one maximum price shall be charged for the whole of London. That is all very well to come from the representative of North St. Pancras. His constituency is near a coal depot. Suppose there is a shortage of coal in the winter. The people who will suffer will be the people on the south side of the Thames, for the people near the coal depot will supply themselves first and the south side will suffer My only interest in this is for the consumers who buy coal. I cannot understand, seeing that London is such a huge place, that anyone can defend a Clause like this. I challenge those who have studied history to point to any country in the world that was ever able, by passing a law, to control retail prices. It has been tried over and over again in the history of the world and has always broken down. If I thought that the passing of this Clause would enable the poor of London to get their coal cheaper, of course I would support it, but it does nothing of the kind. [An HON. MEMBER: "What is the use of the Bill?"] That is another question. I have not brought the Bill in. I am talking of this particular Clause, and not talking at large. It simply enacts a flat rate for the whole of London, whether a place is far away or adjoining a coal siding. That cannot be fair.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: On this new Clause I think we have had very definite guidance from the Committee which dealt with Retail Coal Prices, the Report of which was signed on 24th March, 1015. Now the suggestion which has been made by my hon. and learned Friend behind me, which was endorsed by the hon. Member for Marylebone (Mr. Boyton) was that the proper way to proceed was by way of fixing maximum prices, and he quoted in support of that view the action of the Retail Coal Prices Committee. I observe at the end of their Report the signature of Mr. J. Boyton, who I take to be the hon. Member for Maryle-
    1924
    bone, and I find that he attached his name to this paragraph:—
    "We have considered the question whether the adoption of maximum prices, cither by legal enactment or by the method of 'recommended prices,' which was applied to provisions in August last, would be calculated to solve the problems before us. In view of the difficulties incident to fixing pit-head and retail prices for all parts of the country, and for all kinds of coal, and of securing an even and adequate distribution of coal supplies under such a system, we prefer to turn to remedies which in our opinion are at once simpler and more immediately practicable."
    I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman should have abandoned his colleagues on the Committee, and should now repudiate the very Report to which he put his signature. Let us turn to the other recommendations to which he also put his signature. The first was:—
    "Exports to neutral countries should be restricted."
    Within a few days of receiving this Report those exports were restricted. The next was:—
    "Steps should at once be taken to consider, in consultation with the public bodies concerned, the question of the accumulation by such bodies of reserves of coal in or near London, for the use of small consumers during nest winter."
    That was done immediately. The next recommendation was:—
    "The rates of freight on the interned steamers should be further reduced."
    That also was done. The fourth recommendation was:—
    "Suitable enemy ships condemned by the Prize Court should be taken over by the Government and used for coal transport."
    That was also done. The final suggestion was:—
    "If prices do not shortly return to a reasonable level, the Government should consider a scheme for assuming control of the output of collieries during the continuance of the War,"
    All those recommendations were adopted, except the last, and the first proposal was discarded by the Committee as being futile under the circumstances. I quite understand the feelings of the hon. Gentleman opposite and his colleague near him. I know the interests of the poor have no warmer advocate unless it is on the Back Benches on this side. I know my right hon. Friend has put forward this proposal with one object, namely, the interests of the consumer, and he has no other object. There have been many discussions on this question, but they have all turned on deliveries in London, and if the proposal of my right hon. Friend were adopted it is quite clear that some portions of London would be left entirely without coal, and nothing could be more painful than that we should find some distant parts without any coal at all. It would not then

    1925
    be a matter of price, but of no coal at all. My right hon. Friend has adopted 15s. as the marginal price, but any flat rate for all London is bound to be a failure and prove disastrous, and 15s. would be absolutely out of the question for very large areas away from the Midland and Northern railway depôts. It would mean that to deliver coal at that price would be a dead loss and that the coal would not be delivered. Moreover, any attempt to fix one maximum rate which did not take into account the great fluctuations in trade and all the difficulties which have come about owing to the conditions of the War, through taking carts and lorries—if all these things are not taken into account the people in London will be in a constant state of anxiety.
    I think it will be much better to leave j the further consideration of the distribution of coal in London to the constant activities and attention of the Board of Trade, who, by co-operation with the merchants who are mainly responsible, I hope will be able to keep prices below the level of last winter, and thus make altogether impossible the fulfilment of the prophecy of panic prices which in almost I every direction was freely made until it was known that we were likely to intervene. I hope that on this Clause we shall not keep the House very long. There is a little more Parliamentary business to do before the House rises, and an undertaking was given earlier in the afternoon that we should not be kept much longer than the present hour. I hope the Committee will allow us to bring this stage of the Bill to a conclusion now and leave us to deal with outstanding matters on Report.
    Mr. DICKINSON: I do not intend to ask the House to continue this discussion now, and I shall withdraw my Clause, What the right hon. Gentleman has said is rather misleading the House. My proposal was not to fix a single price, but 15s. or any greater amount the Board of Trade might allow. I am quite aware that a proposal like this cannot be carried nut in opposition to the President of the Board of Trade, but I hope he will give
    1926
    more consideration to another proposal I should like to bring before the House; otherwise the interests of the poor consumer will suffer.
    Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The next Clause, in the name of the hon. Member for North St. Pancras (Mr. Dickinson)—[Sale of Coal in London in Small Quantities]—is outside the scope of the Bill, and the following Clause, in the name of the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Denniss)—[Publication of Fair Prices]—is quite unnecessary.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill, as amended, be reported to the House."
    Mr. GLYN-JONES: I am extremely sorry that the second of my right hon. Friend's proposals cannot be discussed on this Bill. I represent one of the poorest constituencies in London—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The Question before the Committee is that I report this Bill to the House.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill, as amended, reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 142.]

  POLICE MAGISTRATES (SUPERANNUATION) BILL.
  Considered in Committee, and reported without Amendment; to be read the third time upon Monday next.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 3rd February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Thirteen minutes after Six o'clock, till Monday next.