HC Deb 17 November 1919 vol 121 cc667-80

Order for Third Heading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."

4.0 p.m.

Mr. A. HENDERSON

Before parting with this measure, I think it right to make one or two observations. During the last eight or ten days I have presided over two conferences of representative trade union leaders with regard to this Bill, and I can assure the House that the Bill is going to pass out of our hands with a great deal of suspicion associated with it. I am quite prepared to admit that it is a different measure from that which was first submitted to our trade union conference, and that during the several stages it has been very much improved. So far as I have been able to gather, the suspicion that exists regarding the Bill arises from two factors. One is the mistake of having tacked on to a Bill of purely temporary character new and permanent machinery of arbitration. I do not dispute that the time has arrived when some form of arbitration machinery may have become necessary, but it would have been very much better if the Minister of Labour could have seen his way to deal with that in a separate Bill. It is a mistake to create unnecessary prejudice against all forms of arbitration by arousing an unnecessary amount of suspicion, as has been done in this particular instance. Another factor that has assisted to create a bad atmosphere for this Bill was that owing to the Wages (Temporary Regulation) Act expiring on the 21st of the present month the Minister found it necessary to proceed with this Bill with what I may call undue haste. The Minister, I know, will be prepared to say that the undue haste was occasioned to some extent, at any rate, by trade union leaders coming to him at a late date, or that when they came they came with a half-hearted invitation for him to extend the Wages (Temporary Regulation) Act; but I would remind him that, even though we have to admit that this is correct, yet, if he had proceeded with the Wages (Temporary Regulation) Act, as it had existed from the beginning, then the difficulty of time would not have arisen, and I think that he probably could have obtained all the stages of his Bill at once.

Having made this criticism, I want to say how much we welcome so many of the changes made in the Bill during the Committee and the Report stage. Labour especially welcomes the alternative form of arbitration which the Bill now provides, and which makes it possible for a dispute or difficulty to be referred either to the Industrial Courts, to a single arbitrator, or to a board of arbitrators consisting of an independent chairman, a representative nominated by the employers, and a third representative nominated by the employés. Then the decision to substitute panels, which are to include women, is an improvement in the Bill that has given a great amount of satisfaction. It has been felt, especially as the number of women in industry has increased so considerably during the period of the War, and is likely to continue on a much larger scale than has obtained in pre-war days, that it is not quite fair to leave all the cases affecting women to be arbitrated on by a Court upon which there is no woman representative. So we welcome very much the proposal to give women a chance, not only to have their own arbitrators appointed, but to permit women assessors to be appointed for the respective Courts of Arbitration. The right hon. Gentleman is going to set up his panels and to prepare a code of rules for the guidance of the Court. I would like to suggest that before finally fixing either his panels or the rules he should consult with all the parties concerned—not one or the other, but all. An hon. Friend says that the Minister has already made that promise. I have no recollection of it, but if he has made that promise I am merely asking what he will be prepared to repeat in connection with this stage of the Bill. Then there is the proviso to permit the fullest use of the existing Conciliation Boards before any difference has been referred to Courts of Arbitration. That, I am convinced, is a step in the right direction. After some thirty-five years' association with industrial matters, I am more than ever convinced that the more encouragement we give to methods of conciliation before attempting any form of arbitration the better.

Then the elimination from the Bill of all reference to the Arbitration Act of 1899 is a considerable improvement. This was one part of the Bill of which trade union leaders were more suspicious than any other, for they realised—or they had the suspicion—that to introduce the Arbitration Act of 1899 was a roundabout way of getting at the very thing they thought the Minister was endeavouring to get at by his original Clause 3, which was withdrawn from the Bill, and they also suspected that it was an attempt to make arbitration decisions subject to civil Courts, and that was pointed out in the Committee stage. I believe that all previous industrial legislation laid it down very definitely that no part of the Arbitration Act, 1899, would apply to industrial cases. The elimination of the penalty Clause has also made it very much easier for Labour to support the Third Heading of the Bill. So far as I know, the trade union leaders of the country have no desire to see their men do otherwise than remain loyal to awards that are given. We are strongly opposed to their going into Courts of Arbitration, and then, on the slightest pretext, seeking to rid themselves of their responsibility merely because the award that has been given may be disappointing to one class of workmen or another. I have had the opportunity in conference of letting the Minister knew where we have stood, so far as my own union was concerned, in the dispute that now obtains, and in that case, as in every other case, I am very strongly opposed to their going to an Arbitration Court and then refusing to accept the award that has been given.

But there is a wider aspect of the industrial situation which should not be overlooked on an occasion like this. This measure doubtless has been promoted by the Government in consequence of that phase of the Labour unrest that has found expression in one or two of the more prominent trade disputes that have taken place during recent weeks. May I remind the House that when it is brought face to face with such experiences as we have gone through during months of the present year, when probably unrest has been more general and more acute than we have known it for many years past, it is not sufficient for us to pass legislation such as is aimed at in this Bill and then lose sight of the more, serious aspects of the case. This Bill, in our judgment, however useful it may be, provides no remedy for the more permanent aspects of the situation to which I have referred. We should seek to remove the causes of unrest rather than arbitrate on differences that may arise in the several trades that have become subject to this unrest. The experiences of the War have influenced the workers, not only of this country, but of every country throughout the world, to demand fundamental, changes in the working of industry. The workers will never again—and the sooner we realise it the better—settle down to the conditions that obtained in pre-war days. They demand changes in the organisation of industry, and a much larger control of industry and the wage earners, on whose efforts production so much depends, consider that they are fully entitled to claim a definite elevation in the status which they have hitherto enjoyed in connection with the organisation of industry in this country.

There is no doubt the workers have come to the conclusion that far too long their labour has been looked upon merely as a commodity to be bought and sold just as one would buy and sell any form of raw material. Those who are brought into closest touch with the working classes, especially with the organised workers, realise that they are no longer going to tolerate that view of the workers' position. They are not convinced that even arbitrators have yet recognised, as they ought to recognise, that skill, strength, capacity, training to produce by a given, process, are things into which personality enters, and through which personality is expressed. The workers fed that they have the human right to an equal partnership in the control of industry, and that they cannot longer be regarded merely as part of the factory equipment. What we want to do—and the sooner the Government and the House realise it the better—is to humanise industry and to cease to regard the producers, upon whom the national interest so much depends, merely as "hands," merely as profit-producing machines, and to remember that they are living souls with personalities that must be recognised and cared for. What we require is the establishment of an industrial system which will give greater satisfaction to the working class as a whole; what we want to recognise is that we should make them more than ever responsible as partners in the well being and in promoting the success of industry. This, in my judgment, will never be brought about until we give them a greater share in the management of industry. By all means, let us encourage conciliation and arbitration. Let us join together—whether it be this Government or any other Government—let us join together in seeking to improve the worker's condition and to remove his legitimate grievances. Both employers and the Government must also realise the pressing need there is for a comprehensive, economic, and industrial programme. That is absolutely essential if we are to secure the permanent removal of widespread industrial unrest.

Until these greater changes take effect, there are two things that the Government ought to strive their uttermost to accomplish. First, they should try to secure a reduction in the cost of the necessaries of life. What are we experiencing? We saw it throughout the War and we have seen it since the signing of the Armistice. Immediately an advance of wages is given, up go the prices. When the prices have gone up the workers very properly come along and say, "We must have another advance to meet the increased cost of living." So we continue in a vicious circle. It causes unrest and it affects production. The Government should strive to its uttermost, not merely to secure a stay in the increasing cost of the necessaries of life, but to secure a reduction in that cost, for until that is done we shall never be able to allay the unrest. The second thing the Government ought to do—I was delighted to hear that there is to be a statement made on the point on Wednesday next—is to deal with the question of unemployment. It is not very long since the Prime Minister told us that the spectre of unemployment was one of the most serious things that haunted the individual workers in this country. So it is. There is nothing that affects the workers or that affects production so much as the constant dread of unemployment. When the employer goes to the workman and asks him to work on payment by results, the workman says, "No, I must view this, not from the standpoint of to-day but of to-morrow, for if I go on payment by result I am merely curtailing the period when work will be at my disposal." Those of us who know anything about unemployment know that we had far better keep the whole of the workmen on shorter hours than expose a percentage of the workers to working no hours at all, because of the demoralising consequences inevitably associated with enforced idleness. I hope, therefore, that the Government will do more than has been done since it came into office to deal with this question of unemployment, for we may depend upon it that no form of arbitration or of conciliation will keep us out of our difficulties if we allow the numbers of unemployed to increase as they have been increasing during recent months.

Finally, I want the Government to reconsider its position with regard to the entire cessation of the unemployment donation. We could make no greater mistake than to think that Courts of Arbitration or machinery for arbitration are going to remove the sources of unrest, so long as we permit the percentage of unemployment to go on increasing. I can remember the days when the unemployed percentage rose to 14 per cent:, and when there was very serious evidence of unrest—that was long before the prewar days. In those days we used to ask the House to deal with this problem, but the House turned a deaf ear. Now we are face to face with the problem, as we were before the War. If the Government thinks that it can carry out the policy it has announced of withdrawing or terminating the payment of unemployment donation, and thereby save money but increase unrest, I answer that they may save money while increasing unrest, but the time may come when it will be necessary to spend considerably more money than now on unemployment donations. We do not want unemployment donations if we can get work. What we prefer is that our men and women should be provided with the means of earning their own livelihoods and selling their labour. But we say to the House, as we say to the Minister of Labour, that until the emergency for which the unemployment donation was created is clearly demonstrated to be at an end, we should not increase our difficulties by removing the payment of the donation now allowed. Do let us see what we can do to provide the work, and thereby we shall be doing what we can to allay that unrest which has proved so dangerous to the interest of the country. With these observations, I again say that we welcome the passing of the Bill, and we hope it may do something to find a way out of the difficulties between employers and employed.

Rear-Admiral ADAIR

I should like to associate myself with the greater part—the earlier part—of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. I wish to refer for the moment to a Motion brought forward by the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. dynes) before the Committee stage of this Bill. It was a Motion to divide the Bill into two parts—Part III., an urgent part which required immediate attention, and Parts I. and II., as to which there was no urgency, and which required far more deliberate consideration than has been given to it. The Second Reading was brought on, I think, the day after the Bill had been sent out to Members. It was quite impossible to give the Bill any proper consideration between receipt and Second Beading. Had there been time, I should have drawn attention to what I consider a most important point, and that is that a distinction should be made between private concerns and concerns which are controlled by the State in the interest of a third party. We have heard the third party referred to during the debates. In my opinion this Bill does not provide sufficient defence for the third party. I consider that in regard to these Courts of Inquiry, particularly in reference to the control of concerns, there should be no word '"may" but the Minister "should" at once hold a Court of Inquiry—not a voluntary inquiry, but one which is compulsory on all parties concerned—in order that the third party may know as soon as possible the rights and wrongs of the case. If, as a consequence of such inquiry, any injustice is discovered on the one hand or the other, then the public would be able to decide which was eight, and which wrong, and if the injustice was not removed at once by either party concerned, then there should be further legal provision for the Government to remove the injustice compulsorily. There is nothing in the Bill to provide for that. As a rule, public opinion is aroused only when the interest of the public is affected, as occurred in the railway strike recently. It should be in the power of the Minister and the Government to take such action before injury is done as to prevent its being done.

Mr. CLYNES

In view of the several important questions still to be dealt with, I trust that hon. Members will not regard us as unnecessarily taking up time in suggesting that a measure like this ought not to be considered as only of secondary interest. All will agree that we are more likely to have peace abroad if we can have a greater measure of peace at home. We are all equally anxious to do whatever we can to establish the fullest measure of industrial harmony that can be established by any effects which this House can make. If in the House we have appeared to criticise my right hon. Friend (Sir R. Horne), I am sure he will agree that elsewhere in conferences and in meetings we have endeavoured to do some measure of justice to his intentions and proposals by discussions with our friends. The fact that the last conference we held only on Friday last, relating to this Bill showed a very considerable minority opposed to any support being given to the Third Reading, bears out what we stated in our previous discussions, namely, that a good deal of distrust and dissatisfaction has been aroused by the fact that the Government thought proper to use the opportunity of legislation in regard to the temporary matter of wartime wages to press forward proposals to set up permanently machinery relating to inquiries into threatened disputes, or to arbitration on disputes actually pending. In principle we were not opposed to inquiries nor to arbitration, and in this House, as outside, I have spoken in favour of both of those objects, but we felt that those two very important matters should not be the subject of hasty legislation, and certain blemishes in this Bill, as it now exists, are due to the haste with which those two very important branches have necessarily had to be handled. But all the same, I can assure my right hon. Friend that, defective as we regard this Bill to be, it is our earnest desire that employers and employed should make the fullest and wisest use of its provisions. We admit certainly that in its Committee stage the Bill has from the Labour and trade union standpoint at least been very materially improved.

I desire to make two or three suggestions to the Minister of Labour, on which hereafter perhaps my right hon. Friend may see fit to act. The machinery which we have had so far in regard to arbitration is machinery of which on the whole I do not complain. I have watched its working, and, to some extent, have been in close personal touch with the men who have had to do with it. I myself at times have had to act as arbitrator. But this, legislation we are now setting up is very different and far-reaching. It is permanent machinery to which we are all anxious that those who quarrel in industry should bring their cases for settlement. It is highly probable that great big well-organised divisions of labour, in mines, railways, transport services, and, to a great extent, engineering and shipbuilding, will seldom feel that there is cause to go to Courts to settle their cases. They have already most of them well-developed methods, and they have, on their two sides, organisation so strong as to feel that they can settle their own differences. I hope, however, that where necessary, and where they can utilise this machinery, that even those great big powerful bodies will not feel that this legislation is beneath their notice, and I trust they will make the fullest use of it. In the main it will be found that the provisions for arbitration will be used by the less organised trades and industries, in which, by the way, most of the wage-earning population is employed. Big as are those divisions of which I have spoken, the greater number of our wage-earners are employed in the general trades, and we are pleased now, I am sure, to recognise that about 3,000,000 of those workers, employed in many hundreds of different occupations, have been brought into contact with their employers of labour and different associations of employers through the medium of what we term the Whitley Councils. I am certain that the work of those councils, when they have had more experience in their work and more time to settle down into the spirit in which that scheme is conceived, will result in those different organised bodies not having occasion to go so frequently to other assistance. But even in connection with those bodies I would say where disputes or difficulties arise, it would, perhaps, on the whole, be better for them to avail themselves of this State machinery than to resort too frequently to the weapon of the strike or the weapon of the lockout.

On that account I, would suggest the advisability of having due regard to the claims of the women, already referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. Henderson), and the claims of the large body of general workers and of unskilled and, as they are sometimes called, the semi-skilled employés in all these different industries. So far as I know, women and the less skilled and semi-skilled workers have not through their representatives had any place previously on these panels or in these Courts of Arbitration to settle differences. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour wishes to impress a sense of fairness and of equal dealing in the minds of all those different trades and occupations, and I think in order to do that he will see the advisability of not overlooking representation to this very large number of workers who have not previously had their place in any of these Courts. I would suggest also to him that very many of the differences which have arisen have resulted in the end in strikes or stoppages because of the long delay in getting a settlement. During the War we found ourselves able and the Government found itself able, in the early stages at any rate, of this experience of arbitration, to get questions settled quickly. Although I am not in favour of undue haste, there are definite instances where it is unwise to lose time. Only those of us who are inside trade unions and who have had to manage, or try to manage, large masses of men know what ill-effects grow from a sense of disgust which possesses men's minds when they feel that they are being trifled with and ignored on account of the long delays in settling their claims when they are properly presented. Another suggestion I would make is as to a cause of trouble which the Minister of Labour might help to remove. That trouble is due to there being still in this country a type of employer, happily growing less in number from day to day, who is yet unwilling to meet in any spirit of business dealing with the organised bodies of workmen through their trade unions. I often, in former years, had the experience of finding the door of the employer shut in my face, or finding that I could get no further than the gates, or that the most courteous letters remained unanswered, and that the right of the men as an organised body to act through their accredited representatives was persistently denied by some employers of labour. That experience is now seldom the case, but it is the experience even to-day of some of my colleagues who are trade union leaders. Wherever it does occur I think the Minister of Labour would not be unduly interfering in the industries of this country if he endeavoured to compel by any kind of Departmental pressure which could be exorcised such employers of labour to recognise not merely the wisdom, but the necessity and the great importance of the men having their claims dealt with in an associated way through their accredited representatives.

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Widnes in respect to the substance of his closing remarks, as to the need for removing the causes instead of merely dealing with the consequences and the results, which necessitate the settling of cases of this kind by arbitration. This is no time or place to deal with the underlying and fundamental causes of trade and industrial difficulties, but I join with my right hon. Friend in repeating what we think is the necessity of formulating and putting into practice an effective industrial and economic programme, which would go far to completely remove, at any rate, most of this industrial unrest which is so disturbing a factor in the trades and businesses of this country. I would say to hon. Members if they would reflect upon the conditions of millions of wage earners in this country in respect of their life standards and housing conditions, low wages, a mere subsistence, and the sense of insecurity from dread of unemployment and the domestic difficulties relating to illnesses and accidents, as well as the economic burdens which press upon them, if hon. Members would reflect upon those everyday incidents in the lives of millions of people, I am sure they would agree that if they had to suffer those conditions they would be the first to rebel against them. Accordingly, we ought not to be surprised at the discontent which manifests itself in so many disagreeable forms. We were informed in the House this afternoon by the Leader of the House that it is proposed to continue the unemployment benefit. My right hon. Friend who preceded me has already expressed our views on that question, and I shall not repeat them, but let me say I hope the Government will be able to give us something more substantial and reassuring than the statement we had from the. Leader of the House, that they propose to deal with the unemployment problem by some insurance proposal. Insurance for accidents or preventable sickness, or for any one of those other ills that arise, are things that we can well understand, and we ourselves have practised that form of insurance in our societies. But we regard unemployment not as a thing that can be cured by insurance, but as a thing that can only be cured by finding people work. We fear the plan suggested is no plan worthy of the consideration of the statesmen of our day. We organised ourselves during the period of the War for war purposes, in a manner which, I think, commanded the admiration of every section of the community, and, indeed, the admiration of other nations outside our own. If we could organise so well for the purpose of war and for our safely, surely it is not beyond our competence in days of peace to organise ourselves in order to prevent one of the most lamentable spectacles that can be seen in any civilised community, namely, the spectacle of a willing and able workman going about living upon somebody else's labour and somebody else's money and remaining totally unprofitable to the State and to himself! We, therefore, hope, when those large measures are brought before the House, that we shall have some more consoling proposals than merely insurance for the purpose of unemployment benefit. Pending the development of those larger considerations, I can assure my right hon. Friend that all of us on this side who have been endeavouring in these conferences to discuss these matters on their merits, and to give to our colleagues what we thought was in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman, pending these greater economic and industrial changes, without which we are confident there will not be harmony in industrial Britain, we shall hope that you will get the full fruits of this measure in a more composed condition of industry and that the quarrelling parties will use to the full the provisions for arbitration which are set out in this Bill.

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir R. Horne)

In the last portion of my right hon. Friend's speech he divagated into topics which I think might be more relevantly raised in the discussion which is promised for Wednesday of this week, and accordingly I hope he will forgive me if at the present time I do not treat these matters as very relevant to the immediate subject of discussion. In the earlier part of his speech, my right hon. Friend made many suggestions which I am sure I shall find exceedingly helpful. He made certain proposals with regard to the way in which the panel system could be dealt with which I am very ready now to accept He made other suggestions which will certainly have my most ready consideration, and I do not think we shall have any difficulty in arriving at almost complete agreement upon these various topics. I agree entirely with what my right hon. Friend said, and- what, indeed, was said before him by the right hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. A. Henderson), that the great object that we should have in view is to get rid of the causes of difference rather than to rely entirely upon a means of settlement when they have arisen. That undoubtedly must be the aim of all our achievements, but in the meantime we have got to recognise that causes of difference do occur and that unfortunate controversies and disputes afflict the community from time to time. I do not make any very great claim for the measure which I am now asking the House to read for a third time. It is in no sense an epoch-making measure. I am not going to reply now to some of the criticisms which my right hon. Friend the Member for Widnes passed upon the details of this measure. I sufficiently dealt with these in the course of the previous stages of discussion. I prefer rather to rely upon the good will and the desire to cooperate which have been shown by my right hon. Friends opposite, and I should indeed like to express to them my personal gratitude for the assistance which they have given to me in shaping this measure finally into a series of provisions which they have succeeded in inducing by far the greater portion of their colleagues to accept. That, I think, is what I should like most to rely upon at the present time, because I recognise that the good will and co-operation of the trade union movement are absolutely essential to the success not only of this measure, but of any other measure of a similar character. But I should like to demur once more to any suggestion that what is proposed in this measure is in any sense novel. There is not anything in this Bill which is new; there is not a single provision which has not been before the country for at least the last two years; there is not anything in it which was not recommended by my right hon. Friend opposite two years ago when he sat as a member of the Whitley Commission. But I gain a great deal more encouragement from the benches opposite even than that.

I read on Saturday in the newspaper a most eloquent appeal to the whole Labour movement in this country to support the League of Nations. It started with a statement by my right hon. Friend the Member for Widnes that the League of Nations is the keystone to the new social structure which Labour wants to build, and it proceeded to set forth the reasons why we should support the League of Nations. It gave, first of all, an account of the waste that occurred owing to strike, it deplored strike itself, it lamented the destruction of industry caused by strike, it said that means must be found to prevent such occurrences in the future; and then there occurred a very notable and significant phrase. It said the League of Nations is essential at the present time of day to do—what? To enforce peace. When I read that phrase from the leaders of the Labour movement I rubbed my eyes in the reflection of the very modest and very simple provisions which I had put into the Industrial Courts Bill not to enforce peace, but to secure peace. It occurred to me that I could have paraphrased every article of this appeal which the Labour leaders made to their followers in this country. I could have pointed to the great waste that strikes cause, I could have pointed to the hardships and sufferings which they inflict upon our people, I could have suggested that the destruction of industry under such conditions was deplorable, and I think I could have with confidence asked the same electorate that was appealed to by my right hon. Friend to declare that we had now arrived at a point in our industrial history when, if we were to follow the ordinary rules of the civilisation to which we have attained, we should at least be taking some means in order to secure peace in the trade of our country. I cannot believe, if this spirit is abroad with regard to matters which are international, that the conscience of the nation is long going to suffer anything in the shape of internecine strife. I am sure we have all arrived at the stage when we want to settle these matters by some more humane, some more reasonable method, and it is in the belief that this Bill, slight as it is, and modest as it is, will do something to foster and encourage the spirit of arbitration rather than the spirit of controversy, that I ask the House now to read it for a third time.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed.