§ In determining the rent to be paid by small holders on such colonies there shall not be taken into account such portion of the cost of erecting buildings on and otherwise equipping the holdings (including the higher rate of interest payable for money) as is attributable to the War.—[Mr. C. Harmsworth.]
§ Clause brought up, and read the first time.
§ Mr. CECIL HARMSWORTHI beg to move, "That the Clause be read a second time."
The experience of many Members of this House is that there has been a tendency to overload small holdings with expenses of one kind or another. That is not always avoidable, but I think that we should always avoid it whenever it is possible to do so. The expenses of building, according to such authorities as I have consulted, are at present at least 25 per cent, over the rates prevailing before the outbreak of war. I think that the Committee would desire that these small holdings would start under the most favourable auspices. I move the Amendment in the hope that those extra charges in establishing these colonies which may be attributable to the War should not be placed on the small 1560 holdings, but should be discharged by the Department concerned, whether by accepting this Amendment or, perhaps, administratively, if it can be done. I am afraid that I have no very practical suggestion to make to my right hon. Friend, but it appears to me that it is possible that these charges might be debited to the Small Holdings Account of the Act of 1908. However, my desire is at the moment merely to elicit from my right hon. Friend a sympathetic response, because I am sure he agrees with me and those who have tabled this Amendment in our desire that small holding cultivation should not be debited with greater charges than can possibly be avoided.
Mr. WHITEThis Clause raises a very important point. We hoped there would be a chance of establishing these small holdings colonies on a self-supporting basis, and that the system could be extended. My hon. Friend, and various other Members, will recognise that this proposal practically means that these holdings are really to be on a charitable basis.
§ Mr. CECIL HARMSWORTHI hope my hon. Friend does not attribute any sentiment of that kind to me. All I wish is that the extra and abnormal expenditure due to the War should not be charged against the small holder.
Mr. WHITEI am perfectly familiar with the terms of the Clause, and I have given very considerable attention to it. I am not speaking of intention, I am speaking of the result of doing the thing in a certain way. If you run this on the basis that you borrow money at 5 per cent., and then charge only 3 per cent, for it, then it is not on a commercial but on a charity basis. Those who are supporting this Bill most strongly must recognise that if you get money at present prices, and you have to charge less, there will be a dead loss, and the difference will come upon the taxpayer. That is what this Clause means, if it means anything. It is very remarkable the way this is limited: "In determining the rent to be paid by small holders on such colonies there shall not be taken into account such portion of the cost of erecting buildings on and otherwise equipping the holding (including the higher rate of interest payable for money) as is attributable to the war." Another point is that the hon. Member, and another hon. Gentleman who has the same new Clause 1561 upon the Paper, appear to have overlooked the fact that agricultural prices have risen very much, and so have the profits of agriculturists. In many cases the prices of agricultural produce have gone up steadily. When my right hon. Friend goes into the market to buy agricultural land for this purpose, he will have to purchase on a commercial basis, and not only will there be increased prices for buildings and equipment of the farm, but he will have to pay a war price for the land. I rather wonder that those hon. Members who have put forward this Clause, while so very careful to make this limitation in respect of those other charges have not made it in respect of the land. I would say if they were to adopt this principle at all the first thing they should do would be in the case of land, which after all is the fundamental matter of the whole thing. I do not say I would be in favour of that. I would not be in favour of it. My views on the land question in various respects are fairly well known, and I do not think that this setting up of small holdings for the benefit of our countrymen should be used either to exploit the taxpayer whose calls are pretty heavy, and above all, should not be used to exploit the taxpayer in order to give the landlord a little more price for the land we are using. I would really have liked, if my hon. Friend, who I know takes so keen an interest in these matters, had dealt with that and with the war price of land as well as the war price of equipment. It seems to me, therefore, that the whole thing is on an unsound basis. The fact is that owing to land monopoly and the land being held back we have got to pay too high prices even for poor land and that is what has wrecked a great many small-holding schemes. If we once go on this principle, and there is nothing in the Bill to prevent it being done if those administering it like to do it, and charge allowances to the ratepayers' pockets, I see no end to it and to the burden of the taxpayer for these experiments we are hearing about and the more impossible they will become. In fact, it would be of very much greater importance if, instead of trying experiments of one kind and of another, we should really go to the root of the difficulty and deal with the fundamental conditions which up to now have made all such experiments unfortunate.
§ Mr. ACLANDI am not able, on behalf of the Government, to accept the Amend- 1562 ment. I am glad it has been raised because the principle which it seeks to give expression to is an important one in the administration of the Bill. I think really it ought to be left for the administration of the Bill to be worked out between the responsible Departments and the Treasury rather than put in a very hard and fast way, as is here proposed. I do not think anyone would really take the extreme view that it is necessary, especially if you want to try whether these colonies will succeed as an experiment and to give them a fair start as an experiment, that that experiment should be from the beginning burdened with the price of everything at tiptop war prices. There are a great many things which have been done with the consent of the Treasury during the War. Local building schemes have been started and buildings erected, and the authorities have been able to make their case to the Treasury that the special increase of price owing to the high cost of everything during the War should to a greater or lesser extent be borne by the Treasury, and that the locality should only be called upon to repay the cost which would ordinarily be attributable to building as in normal times. I think that sort of principle applies to the Bill, and I think it is due to the House, which has been very kind to me in agreeing, at any rate in putting up with the fact that the scope of the Bill is not to be extended, that with regard to the small amount of work which I hope will be allowed to the Government under the Bill, that that work should be capable of being tried under reasonable possible conditions and that the holders should not be burdened from the first with an impossibly high rent.
11.0 P.M.
But, if I may say so, I approach the matter from an entirely different point of view, not primarily from the point of view of whether or not the rents ought to be calculated and regulated on the cost of this or that charge, but simply from the point of view that the rents charged shall not be higher than the tenants can properly afford to pay, and shall not be lower than the tenants can properly afford to pay. I think it is as important that the rent shall be the full proper rent which ought to be charged to a man who has a thoroughly good bit of land to cultivate, as this land will be, as that they shall not be too high for the man to be able to afford. There is probably in England to-day much more 1563 land badly cultivated because it is under-rented than because it is over-rented. Under-renting would be just as great a mistake as over-renting in these colonies. It is possible that some landowners will be patriotic enough to present a piece of land suitable for a colony in England. It would be right that for such a piece of land the tenants should be charged a proper rent, and that the rents should be calculated without any consideration of the fact that the land or housing had been presented. Would it then be reasonable to act on this Clause and say that the rent shall in no case take into account such cost of erecting the buildings, assuming the land had been presented? The rent in that case would be bound to be higher than the rent due to the cost of erecting the buildings, because it would have to cover something for the fair value of the land. This Clause, if it were carried, would make impossible the proper carrying out of the work of the Bill, which is really an experiment to see whether colonies of holders cannot be established, paying fair rents for the land they occupy and making a thoroughly good living as colonists associated together. I do not think this matter should be one to be discussed before the Lords of the Treasury from that point of view. I hope I shall have no difficulty in satisfying the Treasury that the schemes will be fair to the tenants, and if they are fair to the tenants they ought to be such as would be accepted by the Treasury, whether or not they carry sufficient to cover these costs taken on a war basis. We cannot tell, until we come to consider particular prices of land, whether or not in each case fair rents will produce a full return in these war expenses. I think it is much better that the question should be approached simply from the point of view of seeing that the rents are not too high and not too low rather than that the rent should be fixed with regard to any particular point as to the cost of the land itself, or of the buildings, or of materials, or anything of that kind. It is only by looking at these holdings from the agricultural point of view of what is fair to the holder rather than from the point of view of the cost, that the holdings are likely to have the success which I believe the whole Committee would like them to have.
§ Mr. PETOI would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the arrangements he so vaguely foreshadows as being likely to be made with the Treasury in regard to the rents to be charged the soldiers in these experimental colonies are to be applied also to the question of the price to be charged in the case of sale? In view of the fact that, the Government have amended Clause 1 to make it quite clear that they take power under this Bill to transfer what, I think, the lawyers call the "fee simple" of the holding to the cultivator, I hope the right hon. Gentleman is also confident; if he is making arrangements for charging the fair rent, then he will be able to make similar arrangements with the Treasury for charging a fair price for sale. I should prefer to see something fairly and clearly put in the Bill. In starting this experiment we ought not to put upon the men who take advantage of the Act a grave hardship as compared with the men who have been established for a few years prior to the War on similar holdings and carrying on the same industry. If you have not got such a principle as that clearly in the Bill, you really may say that the Bill is worthless. I think it will meet with general acceptance in the Committee when I say that it will be a very poor kind of thing to propose that these men who, having borne the brunt of the War, if they desire to settle down, not in Australia, or Canada, or some other portion of the British Empire—but upon land in their own country—if you are going to say to them, as compared with their absent brother or cousin who has been in a similar business for some years before the War, that they are to have the opportunity of a special Act of Parliament debated here for days in order to confer this boon upon them, and that because money will be 5 per cent, or 6 per cent., and the cost, of building perhaps 30 per cent, higher than before the War, that handicap shall be placed upon them as a privilege for having fought for their country? I do not want to put it higher than that. I only say that so far as I am concerned—I speak with no disrespect of the right hon. Gentleman—I place very small reliance upon the picture of a complacent squeezable Treasury with whom the right hon. Gentleman is going to deal and arrange fair rent. The Treasury, presumably, is going to say: "This is an excellent object for which you are asking the money; we will find the money"—I do not know from where— 1565 from the Secret Service Fund or the Development Fund, which are really not applicable to this particular Bill—"we will find it from some source; go along, go ahead! Charge what you consider a fair rent." Will the Bill provide that the cultivating tenants may become cultivating owners, and will the conditions applying to the rent, apply equally to the price to be charged for the freehold—and where the ownership of the holding and the buildings erected thereon, are kept in the hands of the Government? If the right hon. Gentleman can reassure me on these points, I shall not trouble the Committee with the Amendments standing in my name.
§ Sir F. BANBURYThere seems to me to be two questions before the Committee. One is: is this Bill intended to make a present to certain people who have fought for their country, and to put them into an advantageous position at the expense of the taxpayer? That is one question which is apparently in the mind or my hon. Friend. The other question is: is this Bill supposed to be an experiment to see whether people who have taken, under the State, small holdings can make a living out of them? If the latter is the idea of the Bill, then all this questioning does not arise. Either this is to be a charity, or it is not. If it is to be a charity then there may be something to be said for it, but then do not let us talk about it as being business, and as being something to show whether or not you can put people on small holdings, and they can make a living. All people who are put into a business and financed by the State can make a living out of the business provided the assistance of the State is large enough, but do not let us say we are putting these people into the business to see if they can make a living out of it in an ordinary commercial way.
The statement which the right hon. Gentleman made a short time ago, which I confess I did not understand, did not seem to have very much to do with the Bill. What I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say was that the Treasury had already given money to local authorities where the local authorities had incurred a greater expense owing to the fact that prices had risen during the War. That is quite news to me. I do not know, if it is true, for what reason the Treasury had to do that, and as the right hon. Gentleman has let the cat out of the bag, I hope he will tell me, supposing I under- 1566 stood him correctly, under what authority the Treasury has done that and when they have done that. It is a most important statement to make that the Treasury has been handing the taxpayers' money over to the local authorities where the local authorities have built a town hall which, in the ordinary state of things, would have cost £20,000, but which now, owing to the increased cost of materials and wages, costs £30,000, and the Treasury have—
§ Mr. ACLANDIt is towards the cost of munition factories.
§ Sir F. BANBURYThat is not quite what I understood the right hon. Gentleman said, and if it is so, and as it remains the property of the local authorities I do not quite see what right the Treasury have to interfere and make a present to the local authorities out of the taxpayers' money without the consent of this House. With regard to the Amendment, I am sorry to differ from the hon. Gentleman who proposed it, but how would you ever find out how much increase in the rate of interest was attributable to the War? The rate of interest has risen, and it is attributable to all sorts of things. In my view the rate of interest will remain higher for 20, 30 or 40 years, and I suppose primarily that is attributable to the War. This would be a great opportunity for the legal profession to argue how far the increase in the rate of interest was, or was not, attributable to the War. I believe some members of the legal profession are not doing well at the present moment. If we put in an Amendment of this sort they would all be making fortunes, and the Excess Profits Tax should then certainly apply to them. I do not think we should be doing anything which would render the working of the Bill easier, although we should no doubt be doing estimable work in assisting the legal profession to make a large profit.
§ Commander WEDGWOODI understood this Bill was put forward on the same lines as other Bills are put forward, namely, on the ground that the man was to pay a rent based on the expenditure of the Government, and there was to be no charge on the Government except the ordinary expense of administering the Act. Now we are told that a fair rent is to be charged, and by a fair rent is meant all that the small holder can pay. The rent is not to be determined by the cost of the land or the buildings, but the small holder 1567 has to analyse with the Board of Agriculture what a fair rent should be. Our experience of that leads us to believe that it will be a loss to the British taxpayers and the tenant will pay a smaller sum, and he will justify this on the ground that the men have been fighting at the front and are entitled to have land at charity rates. There will be favouritism, and the granting to specific members of the fighting force of land on cheap terms will rouse more indignation amongst all those who do not get small holdings than it will create blessings amongst the few who do get them. 'The scheme deals with about 600 men out of the 6,000,000 who have been fighting, and who are going to be benefited by having small holdings on specifically economical terms. They are to be put into a favoured position. How will they be selected? That is the first question. Is it going to be by nomination or competitive examination? Under what system are you going to pick out 600 out of 6,000,000 of men?
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANHow does that apply to the Clause we are discussing?
§ Commander WEDGWOODI will bring my remarks in order. Directly you accept this Amendment, that people should be granted small holdings at rents which are not economical and not based upon the cost of the land and buildings which are a loss to the ratepayer, you are presenting them with money down and making them a cash present from the British taxpayer. What right have you to hand over to the Board of Agriculture the privilege of making 600 favourites amongst so many applicants. You know perfectly well if you make the terms attractive enough you will get any number of people to apply for them. You will be overwhelmed with applications, and Members of Parliament who have busied themselves with these things will see that their own particular friends get the allotments. That is one of the worst results of this bureaucratic administration of the land. You are bound to have favouritism, and you will have far more heart-burning from those who do not get holdings than satisfaction from those who do. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to be guided by the good old Liberal lines. We are not now governed by a Conservative Government but by a Coalition Government with a Liberal element in it. One of the tenets of Liberalism is sound finance, and when I hear that the Treasury 1568 is prepared to lend money to bolster up an industry which is not financially sound I am bound to enter my protest. Let all the soldiers share in this: See that their pensions are sufficient and the allowances for widows and orphans adequate, but do not squander your money on specific individuals, who, how worthy they may be, are not more worthy than the hundreds of thousands of others who have done equally good work.
§ Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMSThere is a misapprehension with regard to the experiment proposed to be mace under this Bill. After all, it is an experiment to show what can be done by a colony of small holdings placed together and worked together, and it is in the national interest that the experiment should be made, and made as soon as possible. It is not in the national interest that we should wait until the War is over, and that is the justification of this Clause. If we thought that the War rates of interest, and the War cost of buildings were going to be permanent, then clearly they would have to be taken into account as part of the conditions in asking ourselves whether a colony of small holdings could be made a successful experiment; but, if we are right in believing that the cost of building certainly will go down, and that the rates of interest will also go down after the War, then we are not learning very much if we charge the experiment with perfectly exceptional expenses. It has been suggested that this Amendment would make a present to a very small number of specially chosen soldiers among all the soldiers for whom we hope to do something after this War. I put it the other way. If you charge these 600 men with the War cost of building and the War rates of interest in order to make an experiment, which it is in the national interest should be made, then so far from giving them a benefit you are going to put a very heavy burden upon them. If they are to be the instruments of making this experiment in the interests of the nation, it is only fair to them that they should not be charged with the excessive cost of building and the high rate of interest which are due to the War, and which we hope will be transitory, certainly so far as the cost of building is concerned, and I hope the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) was a little pessimistic when he talked of the high rate of interest continuing twenty or thirty years. Therefore, in essence and spirit, the Amendment is an excellent one, but I am not sure, after 1569 the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, if it would be wise to press it.
§ Mr. RAFFANThe speech made by the hon. Member (Mr. A. Williams), raises a point of extreme importance upon which we ought to have some explanation. My hon. Friend has used a phrase so often used during this Debate. He has said that this is an experiment; but in his view you are experimenting with this 600, and, apparently you are not going to experiment with any more than 600 until the War is over. If the experiment is successful, apparently in his mind extending over a period of three or four years, then, when the War is over, when the resettlement and reconstruction after the War has all taken place, when the men who have come back from the front have all had to find employment and a living for themselves—then, if the experiment is successful, it may be of some use in considering future small holdings policy in this country. I should like to ask the representative of the Government whether it is his view of the nature of the experiment. The figures given in the Report upon which this Bill is based, show that it is not required to provide for 600 men coming back from the trenches, but that as a result of enquiries made by the Commanding Officer at the front there are something like a quarter of a million men, I believe—I speak under correction, and my hon. Friend on the Front Bench was a Member of the Committee—who have expressed their willingness to take up land when they come back. In addition to that there are something like a quarter of a million men more who have been agricultural labourers at 9s., 10s., 11s., and 12s. a week who are out there, and for whom it is eminently desirable to make better provision when they come back. If you are to have any policy which is to find room, occupation, and livelihood for the men who are fighting for their country, you need to provide not for 600 but for 600,000 men, and not after a series of years be shown whether this experiment succeeds or not, but when demobilisation takes place and these men are faced with the question of how they are to make a living in the future, and whether the land which they want is to be open for them. If that is the nature of the experiment, if we are to have the experiment now before the War is over, say, for twelve months, with this measure, with the 600 men for the purpose of ascertain- 1570 ing at the end of the year, before demobilisation takes place, whether this experiment with 600 men would be equally successful with regard to 600,000. Surely we are entitled to ask for something more, definite than the statement the right hon. Gentleman made to-night as to whether he hopes to put that experiment on a self-supporting basis. I should not have supported this Amendment if it had been pressed to a Division. I do not want to dispute that, but I would infinitely rather the Amendment had been pressed to a Division and carried by this House than that we had been told: "We cannot accept your Amendment. The House of Commons and Parliament will have no opportunity of judging on it or of saying whether they approve of it or not. Whether the House of Commons approves of it or does not approve of it, we propose to carry it through by administration. Whether the House of Commons desires it or does not desire it, this Bill ceases to be a Bill which will be a self-supporting Bill."
While this Government has not courage to face the land question, and to break up the land monopoly in this country by the only methods that can break it up, methods which the right hon. Gentleman himself has advocated in many speeches, they have the courage, apparently, to throw on the taxpayers of this country a burden, which will be a continuous burden. This Amendment is represented as if it only means that some payment which had been a little heavier during the first two or three years upon the small holder has to be lightened and thrown upon the taxpayer, but that those two or three years over, then it is withdrawn, the burden on the taxpayer ceases, and therefore it is a small trifle to higgle about. The amount being these few pounds for a year or two, let the taxpayer pay it for the year or two. It is not so. If it is not to be an economic scheme in the first few years, it will never be an economic scheme. The increase in the cost of building which is making the cost of your buildings dearer is a cost which you are going to spread over the whole period during which this experiment is going to exist. It is not a question of this year, next year, or the year after. For the whole period of the existence of this scheme the man pays his rent and the State pays its subsidy. It is not a question of a year or two. It does mean that this scheme is not meant to be a self-supporting scheme. It is meant to be a charity scheme.
1571 That would be of comparatively small importance if this scheme stood by itself and if it meant that we were to subsidise these 600 men. I do not think it would be worth doing. The argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Commander Wedgwood) was quite effective with regard to that. Probably, also, it would not be worth fighting about. If the Government have any real scheme in their minds for resettling people on the land after the War is over, if there is any intention, after demobilisation takes place, of effectively settling people on the land, does it come to this? That the Government, having settled the 600 men upon this charity basis, with this continuous burden upon the Treasury, mean, to go on to provide for the 600,000 in the same way? Does it mean that the annual deficit on this scheme is to be multiplied a thousandfold, and that that is the method by which the Government hope to settle the land question? I can only say that I regard the statement of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to this matter as a deplorable one. Until now we have always been told that it was intended the scheme should be self-supporting, that even if it were an experiment it was one that would show, rents and prices being what they are, that it was possible, without any subsidy or assistance, for a man to make a decent livelihood on the land. Now we are told that all that is to be torn up and abandoned. That is to be done not upon a decision of this Committee upon the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. C. Harmsworth), and not upon a decision which shows it is desired by the House of Commons that it should be done. It is to be done without the consent of the House of Commons and without the House of Commons having any opportunity to decide the matter. It is to be done administratively. I submit that when a decision of that importance is taken it should not be taken in that way, but that it should be taken in some way which enables the House of Commons to record its judgment in a proper manner.
§ Mr. OUTHWAITEThose of us who all through have been opposed to this Bill as being a futile, foolish, and fraudulent measure, have been fully justified by the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, because now we see that it is not a self-supporting measure but a measure that can only continue when the representative of the Board of Agri- 1572 culture runs round to the Treasury and gets sufficient money to make up the deficit both on the absurd methods they have adopted in securing land and putting buildings upon it, and possible also to cover the foolish and costly administrative methods of the Board of Agriculture itself. I, with my hon. Friends, have been protesting all along against this Bill because of the pitiable fraud it perpetrates upon these hundreds of thousands of these unfortunate men whom—
§ The CHAIRMANThis really seems to be the Third Reading of the Bill. We have not quite reached there yet. We must avoid a Third Reading Debate until we reach that stage.
§ Commander WEDGWOODOn a point of Order. Has not the Minister in charge of the Bill introduced a new principle, namely, that this should be done upon charity lines rather than on self-supporting lines?
§ The CHAIRMANThe hon. and gallant Member himself and the hon. Member who followed him were permitted to make some reference to that, but there are limits. We cannot, upon a simple statement of a Minister upon an Amendment, have a review of the whole Bill. We should never get any work done if we proceeded upon those lines.
§ Mr. OUTHWAITEI am speaking to the Amendment, which virtually sets forth that the scheme is not a workable one in itself and can only be carried out by means of a State subsidy. The Minister in charge of the Bill has told us that a State subsidy will be granted. Therefore one is able to argue that this measure is not one that will stand by itself and that every extension of it will mean an increase of the subsidy. I will devote myself more closely to the principle of the Amendment. If the intention of the Amendment is to subsidise these small holdings and regard them as summarily uneconomic, and to levy upon the taxpayer for purpose of the support of the small holder to enable him by State subsidy to earn a living, he will not be doing what we intend to provide. He will not be living by way of the land. He will be living partly on the general taxpayer. Therefore, if it is essential to the maintenance of this scheme to include this Amendment, and it seems to be suggested now that it is necessary, the whole Bill is in itself condemned, and if the Government find that the small holder 1573 will not be able to make a living off the land acquired at the rate the landowner is demanding, the right method is not to go to the Treasury to subsidise the landlord, and that is what is virtually announced, but to reduce the demand made by the landowners. Therefore, this Amendment really also supports the view that many of us have been contending for all along, that on the present high prices ruling for land, due to the artificial prices ruling for commodities produced from the land, this is the very worst time possible to start a scheme of small holdings. It is the artificial price ruling to-day for commodities that is creating the artificial price of the land, and creates a seeming necessity for the introduction of the proposal in this Amendment, and for the system of subsidy which the Minister in charge of the Bill says surreptitiously he will carry out. For the purpose of meeting the difficulty which is in the mind of the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment, we should not go by way of subsidy to the Treasury. We should not get the Chancellor of the Exchequer to provide a subsidy which would go into the pockets of the landlord. We should ask the Chancellor to introduce methods of taxation throwing the burden on the land which will compel the landowner to let his land go at a cheaper rate, and that will solve the whole difficulty.
Mr. WALSHI should like to say a few words on this point, because I have had great difficulty in squaring the statements made by hon. Members with whom I usually agree. I thought there was unanimity of opinion as to the desirability of getting the men who had volunteered their lives for our sakes on to an occupation which would develop pride in their own ability as well as do good to the country. I suppose if there is anything we need it is that there should be a greater amount of food produced in this country, and that if anything it should be produced by people who have sustained wounds in our service, but who yet have retained sufficient physical capacity to carry on this kind of work on the land. I thought there was agreement upon that and I believe there is. Then, it is suggested, if these men are put upon the land at all it must be under conditions which make their labour entirely economic. We have heard a great deal of logic and economics. If there were two things which I thought should have been banished to Saturn in the case of men of 1574 this character, they were logic and economics. When the hon. Gentleman on the other side asks that the men shall be placed under conditions which shall not burden them with the present abnormal conditions, he said you are asking that they shall be supported on a charity basis. The whole thing is contemptible. Every one of these men will have to work for his living. They will have to produce, I take it, the greatest possible amount from the earth in return for their labour, and can there, under such circumstances, be any charge of pauperism? Are we to place these people simply as veterans upon the land, paying them so much a week and seeing that their families are supported until the end of their days? They have to toil; they have to produce food from the land; they have to labour every day of the week; and they will have to labour under exceedingly difficult conditions. Are we justified then in perpetuating the difficulty of the conditions? They have gone out to fight; they have come back wounded; they are prepared to give their service in the best way possible, and it is the duty of the State to say that that service shall be rendered in the best way possible, and to help them without, however, pauperising them. Is there any pauperism in saying "We shall charge you the same rent as would have been paid had the War not occurred?" and, of course, under the other conditions as to payment for buildings and so on. To say that is pauperism, to say that that is an unfair thing to do for men who have come back after serving their country in the most noble way possible is in my view an absolute misuse of terms. If the hon. Gentleman had taken his Amendment to a Division I should very gladly have supported him. If there is one thing that all parties are agreed upon, including even the most rabid land nationalisers, it is that the resources of our country shall be developed to the greatest possible extent, and here, when the Government say "We will before the War is ended and before this awful onrush of people comes, we will now, when there is a chance of a proper experiment, do this thing to show the possibilities of the land," the hon. Gentleman says—it is not for 600 people you should do it; you will require to do it for 600,000." Is it suggested then that we should do-nothing till the 600,000 come back?
§ Commander WEDGWOODNot on these lines.
Mr. WALSHI suppose you mean we must nationalise the land in the midst of the greatest war the country has ever known?
§ Commander WEDGWOODTax them.
§ Mr. RAFFANMy hon. friend knows that land nationalization—
§ The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Whitley)As I anticipated, this is diverging really into a discussion on the whole object of the Bill.
Mr. WALSHObjection is taken to the fact that the Minister responsible for the Bill says he believes in the principle embodied in the Amendment. So do I; so does every decent hearted man who has given consideration to the conditions under which these men will have to return. While I am in perfect conformity with my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Raffan), and would rather see it embodied in the Bill as the expressed will of the House of Commons, yet, believing that the Treasury is a perfectly capable custodian of the finance—money is not easily got out of the Treasury—believing that, I think, short of the Amendment being carried by the House, the principle ought to be recognised that we have an obligation to these men not to saddle them with a burden at the very beginning that will drive the heart out of them. We have a duty to them, and that is to make the conditions easy to start, and not place upon them burdens which will destroy the experiment at the very beginning and damp all other experiments. We are bound in the future to put very many tens of thousands of people on the land. Our own needs as a nation will compel us to do it, and surely we ought to see to it that the conditions laid down at the beginning are not such as to damp the enterprise from the very start. That is the reason why, if the hon. Gentleman had pressed his Amendment, I would have gone into the Lobby with him. But I am satisfied, short of the Amendment being submitted to the judgment of the House, to refuse faith in the Minister in charge of the Bill.
§ Mr. C. HARMSWORTHIt may lighten matters if I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment. My hon. Friend who has just resumed his seat, and my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Durham (Mr. Aneurin Williams) have completely disposed of the very pedantic arguments advanced from the other side of the House, 1576 and, after the explanation of my right hon. Friend on the Treasury Bench, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
Mr. WHITEOn this question I want to say this: When this Clause was proposed I suggested what I regarded as a grave objection to it. But now, in a sense, we have got behind the Clause, because we have had a statement from my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to the Board of Agriculture that puts this in a new light. The proposal of my hon. Friend was that certain deductions should be made in the charges that were made to the small holders. I will pay this tribute to my hon. Friend, that it was a perfectly honest proposal for the House to consider on its merits. I did not agree with it, but it was honest and straightforward. But now we see from what the Under-Secretary says that what is proposed is in effect that though we do not want the Clause there would be expenditure which we need not take into account, such as expenses for cost of material, and interest, that we will just charge the man what we think is fair and that the Treasury will make up the deficit. That throws an entirely new light on this question and shows how this Bill is going to be conducted. We have had this Bill as an experiment, a useful experiment. An experiment on a commercial basis, I say frankly, is a useful experiment, and is a guide. Now we find that it is to be on a totally different basis. I sympathise, in many ways, with my hon. Friend who has just spoken. If, for instance, you mean to say that when we get wounded men back we mean to let them have land, and equip it, below the market value, then if we like to do that let us do it with our eyes open, and let us recognise that that is really a subsidising of this work, a justifiable; subsidising it may be, but these conditions are subsidised conditions, and let us drop this nonsense about this being an economic experiment. I simply put in a plea for fair dealing. Let us see how we stand, in regard to the difficulty of these uneconomic experiments. My hon. Friend said that he would like to see economics banished to Saturn. I wonder if he would like the multiplication table to go as well. After all we must have some principles of action in this world.
Mr. WHITEI do not know any difference between war-logic and peace-logic. Either propositions hang together or they do not. Let me put this point. It is not merely that we say that this is an experiment which is not good as an experiment, and the further you push it the more burdensome it will be to the taxpayer. If we opened up the land to the people, so as to make available the natural opportunities, so that they can—
§ The CHAIRMANI must put a stop to this. I have heard the hon. Member make the same speech on a different Amendment. It is really an abuse of our procedure, and I should fail in my duty if I permitted that. The hon. Member must be conscious of it himself.
Mr. WHITEI do not want to evade your ruling, but my hon. Friend (Mr. Walsh) has put the matter on the lines of a development of land on a basis that was not paying. We want a development on a basis that is paying. I do not want to put it any higher than that. My real point, if you will permit me to make it—it has not been made before—is that if you have a subsidised experiment you prevent others going on.
§ The CHAIRMANThat is exactly what has been said by three other hon. Members.
§ Question, "That the Clause be read a second time," put, and negatived.