§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1918, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Shipping."
§ Mr. HOLTI want to get a little more information upon this Vote. If one looks at it as it appeal's on the Paper one may well feel mystified and astonished at the way in which the financial business of this country is conducted. The Vote purports to ask for a sum of £100, whereas it is, in fact, asking for a sum of £95,000,000, and it informs us that that sum, less exactly £100, has been collected from some person or other, but the method of its collection and the person from whom it has been obtained is left to our imagination. The Vote deals with a sum of £100, and says nothing about the way in which the 95 millions has been spent, although there is a footnote which tells us that the Vote will be accounted for by the Ministry of Shipping as far as possible under the sub-heads contained in the original Estimate. That seems to intimate that a certain amount of money included in this Vote is going to be dealt with in a way absolutely unknown. This does 567 seem a peculiar way of doing business, and I want to get a little bit more information from the Minister in charge. First of all, I should like to ask precisely what is being paid for out of the £95,000,000 Does it include the cost of supplying transports for the purposes of the Army and Navy, or is the expense of hiring these vessels included in the Army and Navy Estimates? I want to know, further, whether the £95,000,000 includes the hire of vessels which have been employed in the service of our Allies? I want to know, if it includes all the vessels which are being used by the British Government for various purposes? I want to be told quite clearly from which the Appropriations in Aid have come? What is the source from which this £95,000,000 Appropriation in Aid has been derived? I suppose it is the freights which have been charged by Government Departments for the carriage of goods by vessels which have been requisitioned by the Ministry of Shipping, and I presume also it includes money paid to us for the same purpose by our Allies. At any rate, for the purposes of my remarks, I shall assume these subjects are included in these charges and receipts.
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Anybody who had these accounts put before them would, looking at them, be inclined to ask whether the business of the nation with respect to shipping is being properly conducted. This Vote tells us absolutely nothing. I suppose at some future date we shall be given a fuller account; but I would like to ask this, will the amounts which have been spent on these different services be shown separately, and will the money which has been received from these different sources also be shown separately? Will, in fact, the accounts for the different lines of steamships that the Government are now running be shown separately? One interesting point to be noticed is the way in which freights have been raised since the Government took control of the shipping of this country. Before that event took place the ears of the public were filled with denunciation of shipowners as profiteers and extortioners, and one might have supposed that when the Government got control of the shipping it was going to prevent any further extortionate charges being made on the public. But the reverse has been proved to be the case. I have here a Report published by the Liverpool Steam- 568 ship Owners' Association—a very careful authority—showing what the difference in freights is. It compares those charged by the shipowners a year ago with those charged by the Government to-day. I find, for instance, that for homeward cargoes, freights from New York have been raised from 78s. to 108s.; from the River Plate, from 110s. to 200s.; from Calcutta the rates are stationary, 240s. From the North Pacific they have been raised from 200s. to 500s., but I do not imagine that these are other than purely nominal figures, in view of the small amount of traffic. From Cape ports from 120s. to 220s; the Mediterranean, from 100s. to 150s.; China, from 112s. to 160s.; and when you get to cotton I am told the freight on North American cotton has risen some 2.30 cents to 6.35 cents, roughly speaking, 2d., and on Egyptian cotton from 2.66 to 4.56, again roughly an increase of 2d. per lb. It seems to me that the House ought to be informed by what authority these additional charges have been made. Take this question of cotton. If you raise the freight on cotton by 2d. a pound, that represents, roughly speaking, though not quite, £20 a ton. That approximates not very far from the total value of the ship. It would not be the total value of the ship now, but very near it; and that for a voyage lasting only a comparatively small amount of time—something from three to five weeks, I suppose, at the outside. That seems a very high charge, and I want to know why it is made, and why the consumers of cotton in this country should, by the Government, and by the decree of the Government alone, be made to pay something like 2d. more a pound for the goods than when they got their freight through, as we were given to understand, the extortionate shipowner. As far as I can understand this account—and, as I have said, it shows little or nothing—it appears to indicate that the Government having taken over the shipping trade are carrying it on at something like a loss. I do not know whether that is true or not, but it appears to be something like a loss. Again I refer to the Report of the steamship owners, and they tell me this:
Definite figures are not yet available, but the probabilities are that the Exchequer is getting substantially less from the receipts of the whole of the earnings of the shipowners" businesses under State control than it would have received from shipowners in Income Tax and Excess Profits Duty if these businesses had remained under their own control.569 As far as my own personal experience in the matter goes, I believe that is correct. I believe that what the Government have done in taking over the shipping will put the country in a worse position than it would have been in—and I am speaking purely from a financial point of view—if they had left the shipowners alone, and had taken the taxation authorised by Parliament from them. I think we ought to have that point made clear, so. that the House should know whether the nation is making, financially, a profit or loss on this transaction. If I am right in thinking that the accounts are not coming out very much more than square, I think we are entitled to say that either the Ministry of Shipping have mismanaged this business or else that considerable misrepresentations have been made to the public as to the character of the profits that the shipowners were making. One or the other appears to me to be necessarily true, and I think we ought to get information on that subject. I will remind the Committee the hon. Gentleman (Sir L. Chiozza Money), in answer to a question, said that it was not the intention of the Ministry of Shipping to make a profit out of the running of the steamers, and I believe that assurance is being kept to. If so, that would seem to indicate again that the Government are losing by it. Another thing I want to know about is whether the money we are asked for includes payments for all the ships that have been lost by enemy action, and for the repairing of war damages? I want to know whether the £95,000,000 which we are being asked to vote includes payments for war risks, loss by enemy action, and payments for repairs? Of course the hon. Gentleman understands, but the House may not understand, that by requisitioning the steamers the Government has taken over the liability of damage by the enemy, and I think to that extent the steamship owners will find themselves very considerable gainers. The matter of repairs is a very important one from the point of view of the Government, because all the time that ships are being repaired hire is going on. Repairs, so far as I know at the present time, are going on very badly indeed. They are being conducted with nothing like the dispatch they ought to receive, and I hope we shall get some assurance from the Minister that the Government are going to take very 570 serious steps to see that the repair of ships is carried on with much more expedition than it is at present.I also want to know by what authority freights are settled and on what basis? Here, I think, we come to a question of rather serious constitutional importance, for if the Government could requisition all the shipping of the country—or, indeed, all the goods in any other trade—and proceed to charge for the use of that property whatever they like, they are then in a position to levy taxes without the authority of Parliament, and, as I have tried to point out to the Committee, the Government have raised the freight on cotton by 2d. a pound, which appears to me to be substantially the same thing as placing an Import Duty on raw cotton of 2d. in the pound. They could not have established an Import Duty without coming to this House for authority to do so, and I confess to finding it difficult to understand what constitutional right the Government has to raise freights in such a manner as, in fact, to place an Import Duty upon a certain article. When we come to another public service which the Government conduct in the matter of trade—that is to say, the Post Office—we find that the charges which the Post Office make are regulated by an Act of Parliament. It was necessary, in order to raise the rates of postage, as was done for war purposes, to get an Act of Parliament for that purpose, and, therefore, I cannot help thinking that there ought to be an Act of Parliament of some sort or other to enable the Government to levy any charges whatever for the use of ships which they are hiring out to the general public. Of course, the same remark applies really to the whole policy of buying and selling goods, but i must confine myself to the matter raised by this particular Vote. Who settles these freights? Are they settled by the mere ipse dixit of the Ministry of Shipping, or is there any sort of consultative body? What is the principle on which freights are being settled? I have talked to people about it, and I have heard people say, "Well, why should not the Government make a large profit out of this carrying trade? After all the working classes do not pay taxation as they should do, and this is a very easy way of rendering indirect taxation without anybody knowing anything about it." I am not saying that is a remark that has been made to me by any official of the Ministry of 571 Shipping, but I have had it made to me by people trying to defend the conduct of the Government in making a large profit out of this business. I have heard it suggested as a means of making foreigners pay.
Then I want to know who decides what goods are going to be shipped? For instance, who is the person who decides that we are not to be allowed to have China tea, but that we are only to be allowed to have India or Ceylon tea? Is that a decision taken in the Ministry of Shipping, or is it a decision taken in the Ministry of Food? I have heard it defended on the ground that it was due to the shortage of tonnage. That, of course, could not be a defence at all, because a very considerable quantity of China tea could be brought into this country with precisely the same amount of tonnage as is used to bring Colombian tea, because the ships come empty from China to Ceylon in order to load Ceylon tea. I want to know why it is that when we are short of tonnage and food, a large amount of shipping under Government control is being used to bring tobacco to this country. It seems to me rather a monstrous thing that tobacco should be brought hero when people are short of food. It is quite as bad, at any rate, as bringing alcohol. Those are points on which I should like to have some information from the Ministry. I want also to know something about our relations to our Allies in the question of putting ships at their disposal. I want to know on what basis our Allies pay hire. Are the Allies paying to the Government the same hire which the shipowners receive? We have had some reason to think that in a good many cases the Allies are being charged freights very considerably in excess of what is afterwards paid to the British shipowners. There were some very interesting questions put to the hon. Gentleman a little time ago by the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Sir W. Runciman) as to certain deficiencies between the rate of freights on the bill of lading and the rates paid to the shipowners, and we rather got the impression that the reason was that the same rates of freight were being charged to everybody, and in order to do that and make a profit out of the Allies it was necessary to make the figure very much higher than the amount paid over to the shipowners. I should also like the hon. Gentleman to tell me, if he can, what 572 are the rates of hire paid by our principal Allies, France, Italy, and America, for their own ships. What is the rate of hire paid by the French Government to the French ship, by the Italian Government to the Italian ship, or by the American Government to the American ship, and is that rate of hire the same as that paid by the French Government for a British ship? I think we ought to know that.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI have allowed the hon. Member an amount of latitude which I am sure he will appreciate, but he is now really dealing with this as though it were absolutely the original Estimate. I should imagine from what I have already heard that he has. covered all the possible ground, and I must ask him to recollect now that this is a Supplementary Estimate, and that we cannot go back on the position on which the original Estimate was based.
§ Mr. HOLTI do not want to go into the original Estimate if I can help it, but the Supplementary Estimate is in such a form that I really do not know what is in it and what is not. I trust, therefore, you will excuse me, Sir Donald, if I go, inadvertently, too far.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI would point out that it is obviously based, as the note states, on the sub-heads shown in the original Estimate, and although I do not know how far this increase goes— because the original Estimate was a Token Vote—how far the sum now asked for by the Ministry exceeds what they had in mind when the Committee and the House passed the Token Vote. There was a discussion on the Token Vote on the general position which is now being dealt with by the hon. Gentleman. He will now quite understand what I mean. I do not want to take any pedantic position, but I am sure he will not go into any unnecessary detail.
§ Mr. HOLTI certainly will not go into it any further. I quite appreciate the way in which you, Sir, have treated the matter. I admit frankly that I am in difficulties through not being able to realise, from the form of the Vote, when I am inside and when I am outside the lines of order. That being so, I will not pursue that line of argument. Perhaps I may assure the Parliamentary Secretary that I do not ask these questions in any spirit of hostility to himself or his Department at all. My personal relations 573 with them have always been most friendly, and I have very great respect for the work they have done and the spirit in which they have done it, although I personally entirely disbelieve in a great deal of their policy. I have asked for this information because I think that the whole Committee ought to be put in possession of what is going on with this very large sum of money and these very large interests, some of which, I believe, were not in the original service. I cannot state definitely whether they were or not. Perhaps my hon. Friend will give me some information on the subject.
§ Mr. MILLARI am anxious to put one question to the Parliamentary Secretary with regard to the tonnage policy of the Ministry of Shipping in dealing with imports. We are aware that a large number of very important industries have been very hard hit already owing to the restriction of imports and I should like to know from my hon. Friend whether the Ministry of Shipping has powers which it can exercise directly to distinguish the classes of goods for which tonnage may be provided, and also whether the Ministry of Shipping has made any special recommendations to the Government with regard to the essential classes of goods for which tonnage ought to be provided in the first instance as against other classes of imports which are not essential or necessary to the life of the nation. I put the question to my hon. Friend because of an answer he gave in this House a week or so ago to a question which I put to him with regard to the output of beer, when he informed the House that if this was stopped it would mean something like 575,000 tons that would otherwise be available for the carriage of foodstuffs, which amounted to twenty-nine ships, each of 5,000 tons cargo capacity, making four voyages in a year. The question I should like to put to the Parliamentary Secretary is whether, having made that statement in the House, and having also stated that the matter has been placed by the Ministry of Shipping repeatedly before the Cabinet, the Ministry of Shipping have any distinct policy upon the question which they are prepared to carry further? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to put this point to him, whether in this matter they have made definite estimates of the saving which could and ought to be accomplished 574 in their judgment as far as tonnage is at their charge, as I understand it is, and what steps they have taken to bring the necessities of the case before the Government? On an Amendment to the Address the other evening we were informed by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food that besides the carriage of materials for brewing, there was at the present time a great deal of importation and exportation of many other things of an extremely costly and ornamental character. He said:
How many ships, say working men, are engaged in carrying costly ornaments and materials for costly and expensive dress."—When reminded by a right hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Front Opposition Bench that all those articles had been prohibited for a very long time, and could only now be admitted by Government licence, the Parliamentary Secretary continued:Exactly, but licences go a long way. The figures covering oar transactions of importations and exportations show that there is a wide range covered by those licences." —[OFFICIAL REPORT,. 14th February, 1918, col. 421.]And he said that a great many ships were taken up by carrying that class of goods. The question I put to the hon. Gentleman to-night is: "Is it the case that there is any real comparison at all to be drawn between this class of goods— ornaments and dresses—in regard to tonnage as compared with the actual 575,000 tons which can be saved to this country by the stoppage of brewing? I submit that that statement, whether well founded or not, in no way relieves the Government from the duty of providing essential tonnage by stopping a trade which is a non-essential trade, and which is regarded by the great majority of the people of this country as a purely luxury trade. Perhaps my hon. Friend will indicate whether the Ministry of Shipping has defined its attitude on this question and how far the carriage of such articles as ornaments and expensive dresses take up any tonnage at all.
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of SHIPPING (Sir Leo Chiozza Money)I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend who has just sat down for raising the question of the imports, for there are such imports into this country of certain luxury materials at this time, of which, perhaps, I may instance silk as a prominent example. It 575 is not uncommon for those who look at our current trade returns, and see in them evidence that we are bringing certain materials into the country, to ask why do they come at such a time when, as everybody knows, we are short of certain essential cargoes. The fact is that if my hon. Friend, or anyone else who is interested in this question, will examine the sources of those imports, he would find they come almost entirely from our neighbour and near Ally, France. They come, in the first place, because they occupy no shipping space which could be better occupied, for France no longer is in a position to sell us food or war materials, and, in the second place, because it is the only means by which France can liquidate any part of her indebtedness to us.
§ Mr. MILLARDo they occupy any extent of tonnage as compared with such other materials as grain, and so forth?
§ Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEYNo, Sir; it is perfectly plain that no comparison can justly be made between the two orders of importation. I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend for mentioning that, because I have often seen in newspapers, letters and articles written by persons who have not reflected upon the sources of the particular imports, and who quite honestly have come to the conclusion that the Shipping Controller or the War Cabinet was permitting the importation into this country of goods that ought not to be here. The other point is also perfectly plain. There is no comparison between the two orders of imports to which my hon. Friend has referred. It is quite impossible for anyone occupying the position of Shipping Controller to do otherwise than to look with a very jealous eye indeed upon every ton of import which comes into this country, and which is not absolutely essential, either to the food of the country or for carrying on the War. That is his general attitude. Anyone who knows the opinions of my right hon. Friend knows well that his attitude with regard to the import of materials for brewing is a very strong one indeed. He never disguises it. I might go further and say I do not think there is a man at the Ministry of Shipping who would not become a teetotaler for the duration if he could be sure that no more material was to come into the country for brewing during the rest of 576 the War. I cannot say more than that. So far as the figures and the facts of the case axe concerned, we have published them again and again. Of course, there may be very great differences of opinion, as a matter of judgment, as to whether or not any or all of this material ought to come in for this particular purpose.
§ Mr. MILLARWill you take any action yourself at the Ministry of Shipping?
§ Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEYI hope my hon. Friend will not press me to go further than I have gone already in that direction. At any rate, there is no doubt whatever that my right hon. Friend has put all the facts very clearly indeed before those responsible for making a final judgment. My hon. Friend raised the question of tonnage priority. That, of course, is a question of the very deepest importance to the Ministry of Shipping, and from the initiation of the operations of the Ministry we have given it the very gravest attention. The final judgment in matters of imports must rest with a high authority. It is not the business of the Minister of Shipping primarily to decide what cargoes should come in, but the Ministry of Shipping is, nevertheless, a very convenient centre for the gathering together and co-ordination of opinion on the subject, and I am glad to think that from the very early days of last year we have given a very great deal of attention to this subject. It was one of the first acts of the Shipping Controller to bring prominently to the attention of the War Cabinet the possibilities and probabilities with regard to the tonnage situation during the year that has just closed. He pointed out that, the expectation of tonnage capacity being such-and-such a figure, it was necessary for the Government not to restrict imports, because that is not the real truth of the matter, but to choose just which imports should come in. The restriction of imports is performed by the enemy and not by the Government. What the Government does is, when the enemy has restricted imports, to choose which imports shall come in—whether A or B. It is very necessary that that should be clearly understood because I have so often heard it said as a criticism that the Government keep out imports. What the Ministry of Shipping has set itself to do from its very early days is to lend itself to the choosing of the right imports—those most essential to the War. In this connection we are performing the very useful process of co- 577 ordination. The whole of the Departments of State responsible for imports send to the Ministry of Shipping representatives who form a Committee and who study this question from month to month. We have their demand figures for imports. We put them together and compare them with the estimate of tonnage which will be available to carry the imports. We then get a figure—plus or minus. The Department then, by process of coordination, endeavours to reduce their import demands to fit the ships which we have available to carry them. If they are unable to come to a decision, the matter has to go to a higher authority—in some cases to the War Cabinet. So that the answer to my hon. Friend, when he asks who chooses what imports shall come into the country, is that the final choice rests with the War Cabinet, but that in the ordinary administration of affairs it is usually possible so to co-ordinate and select imports as to make it unnecessary to perform that final operation of coordination. If you take the first six months of the year 1918, this process, not of restriction but of selection of imports has resulted so far in this, that 94 per cent. of the selected imports consisted either of food or war materials and only 6 per cent. of civilian requirements.
§ Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEYYes. With regard to the form of this Supplementary Estimate, of course there is only one purpose which it is designed to serve. It is to secure the authority of Parliament to expend money received by the Ministry of Shipping. The form of the return is a common form in the Paper which is before us. Of course I have a good deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend when he looks at this big sum and not unnaturally asks what it is made of and where it came from. I hope he will forgive me if I do not go very greatly into detail. The £95,000,000 limit by no means represents the estimated total expenditure of the Ministry of Shipping in the current financial year. It is very far short of it. It merely represents as nearly as possible our estimate of what will be received by the Ministry of Shipping from various sources. It consists mainly of the following items: Payments by the Allied and Colonial Governments, payments to us by the Wheat and Sugar Commissions for the carriage of commodities, receipts under the liner requisition scheme, receipts of such things, for example, as sub-charters 578 in respect of commercial cargoes carried in transports, and certain repayments and other details which my hon. Friend will forgive me for not going into in detail.
§ Mr. HOLTAm I right in understanding that the £95,000,000 expended is in substance another Token Estimate?
§ Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEYYes; it is in effect, but it really corresponds to what the Department understands to be the gross receipts by the Ministry to be applied as Appropriations-in-Aid during the current financial year. My hon. Friend has said something to-night, as he has done before, with regard to the charges made by the Government for the carriage of goods. The plain fact of the matter is that we carry as far as possible goods for the nation at cost price. But if we extended that principle to the carriage of goods for private merchants we should certainly not be carrying at cost price for the nation. We should be doing it for private individuals. We should be merely putting into the pockets of private individuals, sometimes merchants here, and sometimes foreign producers or foreign merchants, sums which properly belong to the nation and which could only be secured by their being taken by the Ministry of Shipping. The whole of such sums—as for example the undoubted profits as in the case of cotton —where there is profit—are, as far as possible, taken into account in the bookkeeping of the Ministry of Shipping in the endeavour to carry Government stores at cost price. That is to say, whatever outward cargoes there are or wherever the profits are made we endeavour, so far as may be, to square accounts. In the Estimate for the forthcoming financial year we put on the one side exactly the same sum as we put on the other side, because that is our honest endeavour to arrive at that figure. Whether or not we shall arrive at it we cannot tell. We shall not be able to say for some months yet until we receive the accounts of the liner requisition scheme and compare them with the charges actually made. The hon. Member compared the question of freights charged by the Ministry of Shipping with the freights charged by private shipowners as though he was comparing like with like. You cannot deal with a matter of this kind from what he calls the purely financial standpoint. If it were merely the object of the Ministry of Shipping, and if it were merely the object of 579 the Government, to secure excess profits, then obviously the best thing would be to throw the ships open to the free competition of the world, to allow British shipowners to get the highest freights they could in any market by carrying the cargoes which seemed best, and then get the profit for the nation in the form of Excess Profits Duty. What would be the result? The result would be that we should not get the most essential cargoes. The result most certainly would be that ships which are now trading to this country would not be trading to it at all—
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe hon. Member will forgive me when I point out that we are dealing with the Supplementary Estimate and that he is dealing with a purely general question, for which I had to stop the hon. Gentleman who opened the discussion.
§ Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEYI must obey your ruling, Sir Donald Maclean, as my hon. Friend did, and I hope I shall be excused for dealing with these very interesting subjects. I will only refer in a few words to what he said in regard to our Allies. He will understand how difficult it is for me to deal with that quite frankly here, but if he will be good enough on another occasion to put a specific question on the subject I shall be very pleased to give him the information.
§ Mr. ROCHI understand we are going to adjourn very shortly, and I hope that this Vote will not be put now, as I know there are many Members who wish to take a further part in the Debate.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI am bound to put it.
§ Question put, and agreed to.