HC Deb 20 March 1918 vol 104 cc1107-30

Again considered in Committee.

Postponed Proceeding resumed on Question proposed in consideration of Question, "That a sum, not exceeding £1,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Contract Work for Shipbuilding, Repairs, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919."

Question again proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £900, be granted for the said service."

Sir T. WALTERS

With very great regret I am compelled to say that the Debate to-day, and, in particular, the speech, of the First Lord of the Admiralty has filled me with grave disquietude of mind. I think I may venture to say, without disrespect to the First Lord, that I think the attitude he assumes is a most unfortunate one. He takes up the position, which would be perfectly justifiable on the part of a chairman or managing director of a railway company who is dealing with his subordinates—men who are his servants and men who are acting entirely under his orders. Now that is not the position in which the great directors of shipbuilding stand to-day. I believe that the matter of supremest importance is that the attitude of the Government, particularly the First Lord of the Admiralty, should be one of conciliation and persuasion, and that, instead of issuing orders as an autocrat, instead of dealing out praise and blame indiscriminately to masters and men, he should rather seek to secure the effective cooperation of all those concerned in the shipbuilding programme. I am very much afraid that until he has altered the attitude to those engaged in this great industry, we shall never secure that effective co-operation which is essential to the production of the ships that we need.

I pass, however, from the attitude of the First Lord to the policy he suggests. Now what is that policy that is before the House and the country to-day? It is that the Admiralty still remains in supreme command. The Board of Admiralty—or the First Lord of the Admiralty, to be technically correct—is to continue to control both naval shipbuilding and mercantile shipbuilding. I believe that is a policy that is doomed from the very commence- ment to disaster. It means that we shall not get the ships that we need. It falls to my lot, in connection with my work in my Constituency, to know something about the relative position of Admiralty officials and engineers' workshops. I should be the last man to pass any unfair criticism upon Admiralty officials, but it is common knowledge that in any engineers' shop in the country where engineering work is being done, if anybody representing the Admiralty comes in that to which he always first directs his attention is the provision of various articles required for naval shipbuilding. No engineer and no engineers' workshop will attempt for a moment to defend any work that is being carried out for mercantile shipbuilding if an Admiralty official desires that time should be spent and machines occupied in work directly for the Navy, and I contend that the work of mercantile shipbuilding will always necessarily occupy a subordinate place in comparison with the requirements of the Admiralty officials. There is one Department, and one Department only, that is specially interested in and specially qualified to deal with mercantile ship building, and that is the Board of Trade. They have the mercantile Department, the men who have special qualifications, men of very large experience, who under stand this work and who would fight jealously for the interests of mercantile shipbuilding, and I do not believe you will ever succeed in carrying through an adequate programme of mercantile ship building until you withdraw the control altogether from the Admiralty and place it under the Board of Trade. If the Government had come down to the House and suggested that a Controller of Mercantile Shipbuilding was to be appointed, working in the Department of the Board of Trade and with powers which would be at least co-equal with the Admiralty powers I believe then you would have the possibility of carrying out an adequate mercantile programme, but so long as the First Lord of the Admiralty is the con trolling power I am entirely satisfied that we will never get the mercantile ships we need.

The Prime Minister in his speech, this evening indicated to us many of the difficulties with which we are all familiar of obtaining the necessary men and materials for mercantile shipbuilding, but if the information given to me is correct there is no shortage of men in the shipyards, and there is no shortage of material in the shipyards. What, then, is the matter? The matter is that there is an entire lack of the proper kind of organisation. You have not only steel, but you have all the various equipments of the ship. You have the engineering parts of the ship, the electrical installations of the ship. All that is really the matter is just this, that just at the very moment when the various parts of a ship are required in order to bring the whole together and get a complete ship these particular materials, and these particular men are withdrawn from mercantile shipbuilding and put on Admiralty work, and so you get a hindrance in the completion of the work, and you get a block right in the most important time, and so the ships are not completed. I venture respectfully to suggest to the Committee that when the Prime Minister tells us that it is a case of difficulties in labour and difficulties in material, the Prime Minister has not been correctly advised of the facts of the situation. The real difficulty is that there is no effective organisation, no proper priority of the various engineering and electrical requirements, in order to complete merchant ships, and all the time confusion arises because of the interference of Admiralty experts and officials. So long as that state of things continues you can never get an adequate supply of ships.

I pass on to another defect of the Prime Minister. He said we could only get as many merchant ships as circumstances allow. I join issue entirely with that statement. We must override circumstances; we must have the ships, and whatever stands in the way must go. I have in my possession a gramophone record of a speech delivered by the present Prime Minister during his land campaign. I have turned it on at various times, and it says we must have these land taxes, we must have these great reforms, and then it drops into a note of pathos which is very touching, and says, "We will have these things, whoever stands in the way." That is exactly my position with regard to mercantile shipbuilding. These merchant ships are so indispensable that we must have them whoever stands in the way. Whoever stands in the way, even a First Lord of the Admiralty, no matter who it is, that person must be removed out of the way and we must have the ships. I could not gather from the speech of the First Lord precisely what was the year in which the crisis arose, but I think it was really the year1917 in which the great crisis arose. I am informed by men of experience who have carefully collated the figures that we lost in 1917 3,500,000 tons of shipping, and that during that year we turned out of our yards 2,500,000 tons—that is to say, 1,000,000 tons against us. It is futile to talk about building 40,000 tons a month when we are losing at that rate. The very least possible programme is 2,000,000 tons a year. If it is indispenable to turn out 2,000,000 tons a year, the thing is to devise a programme in which everything else is subordinated to that, under which improvements and alterations in other directions must be suspended or abandoned, and all the energies of men and materials devoted to that production.

Sir F. FLANNERY

Even at the expense of warship building?

Sir T. WALTERS

Yes; even at the expense of warship building. I take up that interruption of the hon. Baronet. What is the use of building ships of war to be used twelve months hence if we are to starve in six months? Let us take these things in their proper perspective. It is no use attempting to enlarge the Navy unless we can feed our troops in France and feed our troops in training at home, and keep our civil population alive for the purpose of carrying out the work in the various Departments. I do not think the Government is taking the proper perspective in this matter—collating all the facts of the case and putting them in their proper order. I am satisfied that so long as the Admiralty has supreme control of mercantile shipbuilding, nothing but disaster and misfortune will attend that course. I respectfully suggest to the Committee that the proper thing to do is to hand over the work of mercantile shipbuilding to the Department of the Board of Trade, that understands these matters, and that a Controller of Shipbuilding shall be appointed in a responsible and authoritative position, reporting directly to the Cabinet and taking his orders from them, and that the officials working under him shall have superior priority to the Admiralty for this purpose. By building merchant ships in this way we would meet the first call on our resources, and if the people are brought into effective co-operation we could then solve the problem.

I finish as I commenced, by saying that it is no use hectoring the people of this country, it is no use lecturing the people of this country, it is no use attempting to order them about as if they were rail- way porters or guards. The people of this country must be conciliated. I remember that the First Lord of the Admiralty on a previous occasion said he was not a politician. If he had said he was not a party politician I should have thought his statement was commendable, but I do not believe that the admission of the lack of political sagacity is a thing for a member of the Government to be proud of. I believe the political aspect of this case—using the word "politics" in its best sense—is of the supremest importance, and those of us who have spent our lives in dealing with the free and independent people of this country have discovered this, that when you cannot drive you can persuade, and when you cannot demand you can reason, and put facts which will elicit the support of the people. I say this in conclusion, that I believe the first thing we must do is to win the confidence of the people, to persuade them the policy we adopt is a wise one, and then by persuasion, by reason, by argument, win their co-operation; and if we have their effective co-operation and use a little common judgment in organisation, we can solve this problem, and can build the ships that are needed, if this Empire is to be saved and this War is to be won.

Sir WALTER RUNCIMAN

I would rather speak from a hundred platforms than stand up to speak to this audience, not because I fear its criticisms, but because of the necessity for observing forms to which I have not been accustomed elsewhere. First of all, I am against the Government. I am against the appointment that has been announced of Lord Pirrie as Controller of Shipbuilding. I think we are wasting one of the finest brains there is in the United Kingdom by putting him into that position. You could have got men equally qualified, brainy men who have constantly, throughout their long lives, been accustomed to the class of vessel that I have built and owned—nearly all cargo boats. Lord Pirrie ought to be in a higher position, and the Government would have served the country better if they had given him one. It is for that reason I object to his appointment. The Government is responsible for the complete and wholly disastrous breakdown in their shipping policy. There were men on the North-East Coast and on the Clyde who were available and could have filled this position, and they would have saved us from that terrible chaos which has been created by appointing all sorts of people to do work which they do not understand. I could name four men now who would have filled the position admirably. They would have had no trouble with the men, and you would have got the vessels turned out as quickly as they were in pre-war days. It is not too late now for you to reflect on the position in which you find yourselves. You may save the country from great disaster by adopting the plan which I suggest. There is no well-regulated management to stand up against what I would call blustering, chaotic quackery, which is what we have been accustomed to in the different evolutions of the Government during the last eighteen months.

10.0 P.M.

The Prime Minister, when he delivered his speech, stated that the First Lord deliberately made his statement on the 5th March with regard to the masters and men not turning out the work they ought to have done. Evidently the right hon. Gentleman wished to give an impression to the House that that is the method by which it is possible to get more work out of the men. I venture to suggest that if you adopt such methods the men will tell you and the masters to go to blazes, or some other place of worship. Let me deal with one or two things to show the chaos into which we have drifted. First of all, there is nothing special in what are called standardised boats. I have been building standardised boats for the last thirty years, and I say you will not got a better boat afloat than the class of vessel which the men who are associated with me have been accustomed to build. The other day there was a standardised ship building on the Tyne. She had to go somewhere else to get her funnel in. There was some genius appointed by the Admiralty to put the funnel into her, and he found it was not perpendicular; he, therefore, decided to take it out. Another funnel was put in, and smoke began to team out of the fiddles. The captain said: "Good God I Where is all that smoke coining from?" The chief officer replied, "The funnel is shipped wrong." A great many other things are shipped wrong, and that is why we are in this dirty mess just now. The vessel proceeded to the Tyne, and is now having another funnel put into her. I have another instance of muddle. There is a firm of engine builders which was given orders to build standardised engines, but all at once the Admiralty, or whoever had the thing under control, realised that that was not the proper policy to carry out, and decided to take to the standardised engines which we build. They, therefore, told the engine builders to dispense with the engines originally ordered. All the patterns were scrapped, and I was told only yesterday that that alone involved a loss of £10,000. Is that the proper kind of control and administration? The fact is there is no organisation—it is the lack of organisation which is to blame for these things. I would like to give still another case. It is a smaller matter, but yet a very important one. It is a side-light. I remember the speech made by the First Lord on the 5th March, advising sailor men to darken their ships. I thought to myself at the time that the right hon. Gentleman really could not realise what he was advocating. Why, you might lose two ships by doing that, whereas only one might be put down by the submarine. Ask any captain you like what he is going to do about his lights. If he is a practical man he will tell you to leave him to do his own job and he will also suggest that you should mind your own business. Talking about lights, scores of galvanised lamps were ordered, but, owing to a sudden inspiration, someone said, "These galvanised lamps won't do, and we must have iron lamps caulked." Then they said, "But the water will get through the caulk and spoil the lamp," and they went back to the galvanised lamps, and all those were scrapped. There is another very important matter, and I want the First Lord to listen to me about this. They are now engaged on a safety device, a watertight sea-connection compartment I think it is, but they are doing it in such an inefficient way that the whole effect would be destroyed. I want to bring that before the Admiralty officials, so that they may know that they may endanger the safety of the vessel by doing that. I only know one that is constructed, and I am connected with that myself. There is another case. The experts proposed derricks in lieu of masts. After they had begun to realise and take their bearings they said, "These derricks will not do," and now they have proposed hinged masts in preference to derricks. All that is scrapped. There is a beautiful record for you. Then they first demanded a patent rudder arrangement, and now they assert that it is superfluous. No one but a faddist would dream of wasting time and money in adopting it.

Again, they originally proposed accommodation for only two apprentices. I would like the right hon. Gentleman to listen to this, because my hon. Friend has referred to it, and I think there was nothing more important in his speech. They originally proposed accommodation, for only two apprentices, whereas every well-conducted firm who have at the head patriotic men construct accommodation for six apprentices—that is to say, they have constantly in their service the training of six boys in every vessel. That is a very important thing, but here the Government act in this way, although they have been advocating the whole thing through the Board of Trade, to my knowledge, for very many years. I have been training boys for the last thirty years in this way, and when we went into a larger class of vessel I extended the accommodation from four to six berths. These boys live entirely apart from the crew. That is one of the things in which I do think the officials of the Government have been negligent, if not incompetent, in not judging the fitness of things. In the boats you are building in the States and Canada there is not a single berth for a boy; and we are calling out all the time for sailors! The Admiralty have done less than nothing to encourage the training of the men that we are so much in need of for our merchant service. Another case is in connection with the construction, of these vessels out in Canada and America. Just fancy, you have to carry about half a dozen more men in the stokeholds than you would on an up-to-date shipowner's vessel. The reason is that the men have as far as from here to the Front Government Bench there to heave their coals into the furnaces, and that involves the employment of a vast number of men in taking over the vessels that you are building out there. I do think that if the Government can do it they should make arrangements so that these berths can be fitted in these vessels for the purpose of training these lads and making them seamen. You can get any amount of boys. You have no need to advertise for them. The vessels that are being lost now are throwing a lot of young fellows out of employment, and there is no place in which to put them except with the crew. I say that is very wrong, and you can remedy it if you like. I have spoken at some length in a very disconnected way, and I hope I have made one or two impressions upon the House, and one or two points that the Government will think worthy of notice. What you want is ships, but you want organisation first of all to carry out the production of the ships. Get on to that ground, and there will be no lack of ships, so far as the men and the masters are concerned. If anything goes wrong with the production of ships the fault will lie on the part of the Government, and not on the masters or the men.

Mr. ANDERSON

The real crux of this matter is the labour situation, and that might not be fully gathered from the speech that we have heard from the First Lord this afternoon. Nobody who understands the whole situation at present, however, including the food situation, will question for a moment the gravity of this shipbuilding question. There are not only the U-boat sinkings—probably not far short of a thousand British vessels have been sunk in that way—but there are ships that are damaged and laid up for long periods, and the losses due to the absence of lights, to collision, mines, and so on. It is very important that you should have the right spirit amongst the men in the shipyards, and I am bound to say that a good many of the speeches which are made on behalf of the Government do not seem to me to be the kind of speeches that are going to call the best out of the men. There is too much lecturing of them. They are tired of being lectured; they are tired of being told after four years of hard work that they do not yet realise and are not working as if they realise what is at stake, as the First Lord told them in a speech the other day. In point of fact—and I have many letters from workmen and have had many talks with workmen and their officials—what they do say is this: "We have had far too many high promises about what was going to be done, and when performance falls short of the promise a scapegoat has to be found, and that scapegoat is invariably found in the British workman." When things go well, they say, the Government appropriates all the credit to itself. "We did this and we did that." You would never imagine a workman had anything to do with the work so long as it is going well. You are only reminded of these masses of men when something goes wrong, and the actual production falls, off. We have had very, very extreme statements as to the amount turned out. If I had time I could read extracts from some of the speeches made by the Prime Minister as to what would be done. The Prime Minister said, in August, 1917, that in the next six months of the year: —this will include some ships purchased abroad—the new shipping acquired by this country will be 1,420,000 tons in six months. A little over 1,000,000 tons—nearly 1,100,000 tons—will be built in this country, and 330,000 tons will be acquired abroad, so that this year the tonnage which we shall acquire will be l.900,000 tons. That is a very fine achievement. What we want is that these fine achievements shall be retrospective. The same thing is true in regard to the kind of speeches which have been made. Take the question of the submarine itself. We were told by the Prime Minister, as far back as last November, that he had no further fear of the submarine, and the First Lord has told us about the submarines being held. Everybody is protesting now against that kind of speech. On this point, I would like to read an extract from a leading article in the "Times" of 28th February, which says: The February figures, as a whole, are by no means reassuring. They reveal a steady average of losses, and are considerably higher than the January records. These facts must be faced and not put aside or slurred over or covered up by bold prophecies of which we have had more than enough. Let us take the plain truth, and soberly draw the right lessons from it. If the people are going to be impressed by the actual facts in regard to food and so on, we must have less of that kind of speeches. Only the other day, the Prime Minister, speaking at the City Temple to the Free Church Council, said: There is no lack of abundant food to sustain the strength of the people. There is, I am glad to be able to tell you, no prospect of such a deficiency. [Loud cheers.] The men who are doing hard work and being upset with food difficulties are amazed when they read speeches of that kind, which are bound to create discontent. If there is no lack of abundant food, as the Prime Minister stated, there are certainly a great many people who are not getting their share, and in many districts there must be a breakdown in regard to distribution. Many of the workers wish to know whether the Government knows its own mind in regard to the shipbuilding business. One experiment is rushed into after another, only to be abandoned. We get, first of all, a Department of Shipping, with a Shipping Controller, in December, 1916, and he brings in certain new ideas involving a certain amount of upset and rearrangement.

Mr. PRINGLE

It is his statutory duty to look after the building of merchant shipping.

Mr. ANDERSON

In November this plan is upset again, and an entirely new scheme is brought about with fresh readjustments in the yards, and we are going to have another set of changes, with all the dislocation which will be caused by those changes. You have no sooner planted a flower than you pull it up by the roots just to see how it is getting on, and it is not in that way that this shipbuilding business can be built up. What is it that these much-abused shipbuilding workers have been doing for the last three or four years? If the facts were fully known there is no doubt that they have been working at very high pressure, working long hours of overtime. If you are going to ask what they have done, it is not only a question of mercantile shipbuilding. There is the urgent naval work, there is the heavy programme of repairs, there is the mercantile tonnage, and there is the special munitions work. This has had to be done in spite of the dilution of labour, which must in the very nature of things interfere with the efficiency of the yards. If some men who are skilled are taken out in order that others less skilled may be brought in, it is bound to affect, and does affect, the efficiency of the yards. There has been a shortage of labour, and from time to time, at any rate, there have been difficulties about material. There have been conflicting Departmental orders, and altogether there has been too much unintelligent interference. In view of all that, the work surely is a very fine achievement, but I heard from the First Lord of the Admiralty no word of appreciation of the work that has been done by these men and of the long hours of over time that they have worked. They feel that their work is not appreciated. There was not one word of generous appreciation, but only censure and blame. I believe that blame is attributed to them without proper examination and investigation.

Where do the Admiralty get their information about these shipyard workers? I know where the Prime Minister, when he was making charges about the slacking and about the drinking of some of them in 1915, got his information. He got it from the secretary of the Employers Federation, and when the facts were investigated it was found that the so-called lose of time took no account at all of the loss of time through bad weather or through sickness. The facts were altogther fallacious. There is no doubt that dilution of labour in many of these yards has been carried to very great lengths. If you take a well-known union like the National Amalgamated Union of Labour, which has 120,000 members, you find that 30,000 of them are with the Colours. They are called semiskilled or unskilled men, but in point of fact they have a real measure of skill in regard to various phases of shipbuilding work. When they are taken out of the yards and other men brought in there is bound to be, and there is, a deterioration of workmanship in quantity and quality. It may be necessary that it should be done, but the real facts ought to be faced and the blame ought not to be placed upon those who are in no way worthy of blame. Many of these workers are getting a little stale after three or four years of work under the present conditions. Some of them are exhausted. Many of them work under very bad housing conditions. In some cases there is overcrowding, and sometimes men have to travel a long distance to and from their work. I know of cases at Barrhead, near Glasgow, where men cannot get to their work at six o'clock in the morning, although they want to do so, owing to the lack of travelling facilities. There are no houses near their work. These men, who do not understand the situation, have been asking the railway companies for the last two months to give them an extra train in order that they may get to their work at six o'clock in the morning. They cannot get there, and they are losing from 6s. to 8s. in wages. If they are losing that in wages, how much is the nation losing in shipbuilding as the result of holding back this small change? The other day I read of a meeting of Portsmouth workers that was held on Sunday, 10th March. There were 116 delegates present, representing 14,000 organised workers. Mr. A. G. Gaurd, the president of the Trades Council, said: Slacking was due to the Government Departments. They had an instance of this in the Portsmouth yard at present. Orders were given for the construction of a ship, the designs were produced, and the material was obtained, and a ship started shortly after the King's visit. The labour was withdrawn from other work and the partly constructed ship and material were rusting on the only available slip. … The men offered to meet the accredited representative of the Admiralty and arrange to do their work on a piece-work basis, but were informed by the Admiralty, in reply to repeated applications, that their application could not be acceded to. It would be for the public to decide to whom to attach the blame. The men were willing, but were not allowed to give of their best.

Dr. MACNAMARA

May I say that I saw that report. It is quite incorrect, because we have always been most ready to meet the men in the Royal dockyards. The point is that the Admiralty did not agree to the proposals of the men. The speaker was incorrect in saying that they refused to meet them.

Mr. ANDERSON

But if the men made an offer to fix up the work on payment by results, surely the Admiralty ought to have made every effort to meet the men and to see that an arrangement was made which would probably have given you the very best results?

Dr. MACNAMARA

If the speaker used the phrase "meet the men" in the sense that we discussed it with them and could not agree to the view they held, that is true, but I read the report as meaning that we refused to see them at all. That is not so. My hon. Friend knows that we are only too ready always to hear the men's views.

Mr. ANDERSON

I do not gather now whether there was a meeting between the Admiralty and these men?

Dr. MACNAMARA

Oh, yes!

Mr. ANDERSON

There was actually a meeting?

Dr. MACNAMARA

Yes.

Mr. ANDERSON

On this question?

Dr. MACNAMARA

Yes.

Mr. ANDERSON

But no agreement was reached?

Dr. MACNAMARA

That is it.

Mr. ANDERSON

Very well. At the same meeting a speech was made by a member of the Director of Works Department of His Majesty's dockyard. The report says, It was simply scandalous the way the men were compelled, against their wish, to idle their time. In some departments it was deemed necessary to keep a surplus of labour over the actual requirements of the department. Ships could be built, and the bulk of the men were anxious to do all they could, but they were hindered by official etiquette. The report also says that numerous delegates spoke at the same meeting in the same strain, all giving the same experience. Certainly, in face of that, it does not make them more genial when they read a speech by the First Lord who says that the men were not working as if the life of the country depended upon their exertions, and when that is backed up by the suggestion in one of the Government organs the next day that some of these men ought to be shot. This point has been elaborated, and the point of whether the best use is being made of the men has been brought out even in a leading article in the "Times." This is an article which appeared a week or two ago in the "Times," which says, Is the best use being made of the available men? We have received a letter from a boiler-maker in the Army about the arrangements for utilising men's services in the shipyards, and his experience is not encouraging. He is a Class A man with seventeen years' shipyard experience, and he has been back from France since 22nd December; but instead of being sent into the yards to do his proper work, which is most urgently needed, he is being trained to a new job in field works, which he does not understand. It may be an isolated case, but he says there are others, and that the thing is being mismanaged. In view of the extreme urgency of the shipbuilding problem we draw the attention of the Government to this complaint. In regard to this I myself read a letter which was sent the other day by Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth and Company in reply to an application that a man made that he might be taken back. He was a skilled riveter. I want to know whether in such cases employers are encouraging the return of skilled shipyard workers. I quite understand there may sometimes be Army difficulties, but this does not appear to be such a case. In any case an application from an employer would have to go to the Army authorities or the Admiralty in order that this might be arranged. This is the reply, only received on the 19th February, since all the trouble arose: With reference to your letter addressed to Mr. Cummings asking that we should make application for your release from the Colours to enable you to return to your employment as a riveter here, we beg to inform you that as we have no urgent demand for men of your trade it is not possible for us to do as you ask. We have, however, noted your name and regimental particulars for further reference. So the matter rests there. That does not give very much encouragement—indeed, when men get to know that that is the situation you cannot persuade them of the urgency of the matter to anything like the degree which would otherwise obtain. I have received letters from trade union officers, some of whom have great knowledge of the condition in the engineering trade, the shipbuilding trade, and so on. They complain, first of all, that the men's time is wasted. They say it is wasted by means of the various Priority Departments. The Admiralty has a method of priority, giving preference to certain work for the supply of labour and material. Considerable bodies of workmen are registered as unemployed, but Exchanges must not transfer their services until assured that all priority claims for labour have been met. The workmen are out of work for many days until all conflicting Departments dealing with labour questions are assured that priority claims have been met. Surely that is the very worst way to deal with priority claims, to keep men actually from doing work. I can easily understand that there is urgent work and men must be transferred, but keeping them idle is the worst way to meet or adjust these claims.

Then my hon. Friend (Mr. Wilkie) referred to the constant calling up of these skilled men that you have no intention of taking into the Army for purposes of medical examination. There are actually three Departments each able to call up a skilled workman for medical examination. One is the National Service Department, the second is the Munitions Area Department, and the third is the Military Recruiting Department. Workmen get calling-up notices from more than one of these. It means a day's work to get there, and it is not only the man's labour that is lost, but you very often break up the work of his squad as well, because when one man is called out from a squad the whole of the combined labour of the squad suffers. That is constantly happening in the shipyards, and these men are summoned for examination, although there is really no intention of taking them into account. The other night the hon. Member (Mr. Watt) spoke as a strong supporter of the Government, and said he did not want to criticise or blame them, yet this is how he summed up his speech. Speaking of the mood and feelings of the men, he said: "It has taken months, but at last you have worked your industry into such a state of mind that they have no confidence in you." That is really a very striking statement coming from that particular quarter. These charges that are made again and again against the men do infinite harm. We had a case in regard to Woolwich. Some months ago wild charges against the Woolwich workmen were published in the "Times." The charges were investigated, and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions stated yesterday that on investigation they had found the charges either wholly untrue or grossly exaggerated. But the official mind was revealed in a further remark which the hon. Member made. He was asked, what about the mischief done by these charges, and he replied, "I do not think that any mischief has been done by the correspondence." That is to say, that no mischief is done by slandering workmen in this way.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. Kellaway)

I said that no harm was done by this correspondence. As a matter of fact, the "Times" published two very powerful letters in reply, which in my opinion entirely demolished the original charge.

Mr. ANDERSON

I know that a great deal of harm was done and a great deal of very bad feeling created so far as Woolwich is concerned. I want to read a few suggestions which I have received from the secretary of the Boilermakers and Iron and Steel Shipbuilders, Mr. John Hill, ex-president of the Trade Union Congress. Mr. Hill has knowledge of naval architecture, and holds an advanced Government certificate for this. He spent many years of his life as a practical iron shipbuilder, in the highest practical branches of the work. These are the suggestions which he puts forward for the consideration of the Admiralty. I do not suppose they will get much more. He suggests, first, the appointment of a Minister of Ship Construction and Repairs; and, secondly, that Tonnage Committees should be established, such committees to consist of three employers and three workmen in each district, the three employers to have the confidence of the employers and be elected by them, and the three workmen to be elected by the trade union in each district. He further suggests that the aim should be to turn out 1,000,000 tons in four months, or 3,000,000 tons per annum, that the increase should be progressive; that repairs should be 50 per cent. quicker in four months, and must also be progressive; that the work must be suitable to each yard, and that material and labour must be adequate. In regard to labour disputes he suggests that all yard questions should be settled in the yard within twenty-four hours by a small yard committee of men and employers of that yard, with a chairman alternately appointed by each side. All district questions to be settled in the district within one week by a joint committee of employers and workmen, and a neutral chairman appointed by the Ministry of Labour. There must be no arbitrary alterations of wages or conditions of labour, and no stoppage of work. The workmen to be supplied with comparative figures of output of their own and other works, employers and workmen in yards giving biggest comparative results to have some kind of public acknowledgment.

These are suggestions from a man who is skilled in the industry. This matter cannot be discussed apart from the hardships and difficulties, strain and exhaustion involved on the part of the men. There ought to be in dealing with them insight, wisdom, understanding, and fair dealing, and if that is done the best results will be obtained.

Mr. BRADY

I desire to express the feeling of regret which obtains among my colleagues that the Government has all along not chosen to set up a national shipbuilding yard in Ireland. I am not without hope that they have not said their last word even now on the subject, and I am emboldened to renew the request, in view of the fact that Lord Pirrie has been appointed Shipping Controller. Lord Pirrie is an Irish shipbuilder of whom Ireland is very proud, and we have every confidence, now that he is preparing to assume the duties of that responsible office, that this question of a national shipyard in Ireland will be considered. It has been pressed on the Government since the right hon. Gentleman came into office, and certainly before he took office it was pressed on the Government by the late Mr. John Redmond, and I do most urgently press upon the Government the desirability of doing this small measure of justice by establishing an Irish national shipyard.

But, alternatively, might I make this suggestion. It may not be within the personal knowledge of the right hon. Gentleman, but it is known to some of those who are associated with him at the Admiralty, that an effort is being made to establish another private yard in Dublin. In this matter the Committee will be very glad to hear that Ireland is not asking for any money from the Imperial Treasury. There are some gentlemen in Dublin who are prepared to put their own money into the venture, and they have already succeeded in getting a very eligible site from the Dublin Port and Docks Board. All they ask the Government to do is to facilitate this undertaking by providing the necessary machinery. As far back as last October I was privileged to get into communication with the hon. Member for East Northamptonshire, and he then emphasised that the great difficulty of a private yard on these lines would be the question of labour. Yesterday the Shipping Controller was good enough to see some of my colleagues and myself, and we were accompanied by the accredited representatives of shipping labour in Ireland, and I think that I may go so far as to suggest that the Shipping Controller was satisfied that a certain nucleus of skilled labour would be forthcoming for this undertaking. If this be so, I press very strongly on the right hon. Gentleman the desirability of enabling us to obtain the necessary moderate supply of machinery to start this yard. We recognise, of course, that we cannot start on very ambitious lines, but, I understand, that there un-ambitious lines on which this business could be begun. The right hon. Gentleman this afternoon referred to what are called fabricated ships. I only heard of fabricated ships yesterday. I heard of them from a very authoritative source, and I think it possible that this Dublin enterprise could be begun on the lines of fabricated ships. I earnestly hope that the right hon. Gentleman will consider favourably this matter of the Dublin private yard.

Mr. HOLT

I must say that I do not think that the statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty was at all re- assuring. In the first place, his figures were given in a very peculiar way. Obviously they were given to the Committee in order to make the best possible impression. The First Lord of the Admiralty told us that the British loss up to date was 3,500,000 tons, and that the Allies' and the world's loss, leaving out enemy countries, was 2,500,000 tons. From that the conclusion is that our Allies and the neutrals have increased by 1,000,000 tons. From one point of view that may be very satisfactory, but from the point of view of the position of this country when the War is over it is a very serious matter indeed, and I think that we ought to have something like an analysis of how that 1,000,000 tons is arrived at. I find it difficult to believe that 1,000,000 tons increase has taken place amongst those other nations who have been actively engaged in the War. I think probably the increase, has taken place amongst fleets which are not in the least likely to take any part in the War. I think we ought to press for something more than the figures given. We ought to be told who are the people who have got an increase of 1,000,000 tonnage, how they got it, and how far it is at the disposal of the Allies for the purposes of the War. There is another rather more alarming feature of these figures than anything which the First Lord of the Admiralty has thought fit to tell us. The net British loss is 3,500,000 since the beginning of the War. That is almost exactly the total last year, in round figures 3,700,000 tons, against which there is a set off of rather more than 1,000,000 tons. In 1917 this country lost 2,500,000 out of a total loss of 3,000,000. In other words last year accounts for five-sevenths of the total loss. Everybody knows that must be so, because in the earlier stages of the War we were actually gaining ground. There was no loss during the first year. Therefore, the whole of this loss has taken place during the late stages of the War. That is a very alarming fact, and at the present rate of loss things will be very much worse, if the loss is spread anything like evenly over the three and a-half years of the War. During the same period of time the Allies have lost 1,250,000 tons, and neutrals 1,200,000 tons, and the total loss is 6,000,000 tons. In the previous year they lost 2,250,000 tons. I think those figures might just as well have been given to the Committee as the other figures. I think the Committee will realise that the position is more serious than the Government think fit to represent, and that it will realise how much more serious the loss has become since the present Government came into office. I do not think the First Lord of the Admiralty has dealt in a satisfactory manner with the execution of repairs. I do not know whether or not the Government desire to represent to the country that the repairs are conducted in a satisfactory manner, because the repairs are going on badly. For instance, a vessel in which I am interested has been ready to commence repairs since the end of December and the beginning of the year, and she had not been able to get into dry dock up to the end of last week. That is not a satisfactory position in which to have repairs. A ship lying out of repairs for two and a half months is not satisfactory. The First Lord did convey the impression to the Committee that repairs were going on in a very satisfactory way indeed. They are not going on in a satisfactory way.

It has also to be noted that, whereas a comparison is made between the number of ships lost and the number of ships built and replaced, not one word was said as to the number of ships disabled and not sunk. It is a most unfair way of trying to convey to the people of this country an accurate impression of this matter that you should suppress all the information as to ships very seriously damaged, which can only mislead, and that you should have ships treated for statistical purposes as if they had never been damaged, whereas you know perfectly well that some of those ships for half a year are out of commission and that a very large amount of repairs have to be carried out on them. That really is a very misleading way of dealing with figures. I do think when we are asking the Government to take the country into their confidence that we are entitled to complain that very material misstatements, which may be described as half-truths, have been given to the House and the country. This shipbuilding position is no very great surprise. There is nothing that has happened with regard to it that sensible people did not foresee long ago. I think I am entitled to take some credit to myself that I gave a warning to the House as to what would happen in February, 1915. If you are going to concern yourselves with a shortage of shipping, the time to think about it is a year or eighteen months before it happens and not when the emergency is upon you. In February, 1915, we were discussing the question, of the way in which merchant ships were being used, and I then said: In this connection may I point out a danger which I think may be threatening the country in the matter of shipping at a somewhat more distant date? Undoubtedly the requirements of the Admiralty, which it has been necessary to comply with, have almost brought to a stoppage the building of merchant vessels for private firms, a development which may raise a very difficult position, for the supply of tonnage in the future is not likely to be anything like as large as it has been in the past. I would like to suggest, if there is going to be any attempt to look into what the Admiralty have done with regard to the use of merchant shipping, that there should also be some sort of inquiry in regard to what the Admiralty have done in reference to the use of shipyards."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th February, 1915, col. 1216, Vol. 69.] I think I may take credit for having made a fairly accurate prophecy of what was going to happen. Anybody could see that was exactly what was going to happen. The reasons that the ships are not there now is that the Admiralty prevented them from being built. It was not that private persons were not building, or prepared to build, but that the Admiralty interfered and stopped them, because they thought that other things were more important. When we are contrasting the responsibilities of various Governments, let it be noted that both the right hon. Gentlemen who were First Lords of the Admiralty at the time during which merchant shipbuilding was stopped are now members of the Government, and that the persons in the late Government, who were specially responsible for preventing the construction of merchant ships, are now in the Government, while the right hon. Gentlemen, who did their best to promote merchant shipbuilding, are sitting on these benches on this side. Let us know who are really responsible. This trouble is all directly due to the attempt to turn this country into a gigantic military Power, and the weakening of your position in respect to sea power, which is your great asset. You are going to pay the penalty for doing so until you make up your mind to retrace your steps. There is no failure to provide ships on the part of the private shipbuilders, and it is due to the misjudgment and to the erroneous policy of the Government.

The present Government are taking credit to themselves unjustly for shipbuilding during the past year. They have reaped where they have not sown. The ships put into the water last year were ships the construction of which was in the concluding stages, and I think you will find, if the figures are disclosed, that when the year 1917 was started there was a large number of ships on the stocks in a fairly advanced stage. All through this time we have had endless interference. That interference has been dwelt on over and over again during the Debate—interference of every description. First, you had control in the Ministry of Shipping, then in the Admiralty, and now we are told that we are to have another Controller in the Admiralty. Why on earth the Admiralty should have the final say on the question of merchant shipping when we all know perfectly well that the Admiralty are the people who, in the interest of naval shipbuilding, have stopped merchant shipbuilding in the past, I really do not understand! Nobody can suppose that, when we are trying to strike a balance between what it is necessary to do in respect of the building of warships and what ought to be done in respect of the building of merchant ships, the Admiralty is likely to hold the balance fairly. Nor, indeed, if we are going to discuss this failure of merchant shipping and how to cure it, can we discuss that advantageously unless we know what the Admiralty have been doing in respect of warships. I understand the total output of tonnage during the past year is estimated at being approximately equivalent to 2,000,000 tons. That means that the amount of warship construction is approximately equal to the amount of merchant ship construction. During the past year there has been added to the Royal Navy, for naval purposes purely, a tonnage as nearly as can be equal in amount to the tonnage that has been added to the mercantile marine. I think the Committee ought to take some steps, to inform themselves as to what has happened in that respect, for it does seem, from all one knows, that there cannot be any great need for a large number of great and important vessels, and certainly one can hardly believe that the whole of these 1,000,000 tons of naval shipbuilding have been put into the form of torpedo-destroyers, submarines, sloops, and suchlike. The fact is, this Committee really ought to insist upon having a full and complete investigation into what has been going on. Unless we know that, we are not in a position to say what ought to have been done. All we have before us is that there is very grave ground for anxiety, and that nothing that has so far happened will give us any reason to trust the word of the Government. I am afraid I cannot conclude the remarks I hoped to offer the Committee before 11 o'clock, but I understand, or I hope, the Vote is going to be put down again.

Mr. BONAR LAW

I think it is too much to ask that we shall definitely say that the Vote shall be put down again. What I do undertake is that we will not ask for the Vote to be passed now, and if there is any general desire I shall be glad to give an opportunity for discussing it further.

Mr. PETO

Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to give the Committee what the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. J. Mason) asked for?

Mr. BONAR LAW

It is impossible to give reasons against that without making a speech, but we are not prepared to do that at present.

Mr. G. LAMBERT

Do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman will give us, if there is a general desire, an opportunity of re-discussing this Vote?

Mr. BONAR LAW

I can put that right absolutely. There is no question whatever about any difference of opinion if there is a general desire. If it is asked for by the Whip on the Bench opposite it will at once be given.

It being Eleven of the Clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

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