ROYAL MESSAGE. (Hansard, 5 April 1921)

§ The PRIME MINISTER
(standing at the Bar of the House): A Message from the King, signed by his own hand.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
read the Royal Message which was as followeth:

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House)
I beg to move, "That His Majesty's Most Gracious Message be taken into consideration upon Monday next." [HON. MEMBERS: "To-morrow!"] It will be the first Order of the Day.

§ Mr. CLYNES
I want to express a two-fold regret at the statement which we have heard from the Prime Minister. I deeply regret the failure of the efforts which have been made to establish conditions for negotiations and for the settlement of the dispute. But I equally regret that the Prime Minister has thought proper to import into his announcement imputations against the miners' leaders as to their motives and their objects, which it is impossible for us at this moment to discuss. The Prime Minister began by reading a letter indicating to the House the fact that the Labour Members have taken part in a discussion, and that a certain suggestion was made. He read in part of a letter that a suggestion of a two-fold character had been made. The fact is that two separate suggestions were made. No Labour Member suggested that the Conference should be contingent upon discussing, and deciding first, the issue in regard to the pumping. [HON. MEMBERS: "Thomas!"] That is the point.
I think the Prime Minister, like every other Member, will simply desire the facts as to what was stated. I have the Report before me, and from it I can see only the suggestion made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas) that this question of returning to work the pumps should be taken as the first subject of discussion. My right hon. Friend made the suggestion to that extent, as far as I know to that extent only. It was the Prime Minister who made the suggestion, and who has since repeated the statement that that question must be disposed of by any conference, before any other subject was entered into. [HON. MEMBEES: "Why not?"] Why not? That is a matter for debate. So far as I am concerned, it is not a matter for de- 700 bate—I am speaking now of the attitude of the Miners' Federation.
The point I want to put, after having tried to make that matter clear is that as far as information is to hand, the damage to the mines, so often referred to, and which I deplore as much as anybody can, is comparatively slight. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Well, now, hon. Members may murmur and dissent, but I am sure they are doing that in ignorance of the facts. For I am assured that, in the great majority of cases, the mines are taking no hurt at all, and it is only in a comparatively small number of cases where any damage is being done. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not agree then?] I am impressing upon the House the fact that this degree of loss of property is not so great as to be made the cause of interfering with the immediate establishment of the conditions of negotiation which might lead to a settlement. The only point that I wish to put to the Prime Minister is this: That such use is being made of this difficulty of the pumping, and the safety of the property in the mines, that it is now clear that, had no such condition been laid down and insisted upon and pressed, even now I say to the House, it seems clear to me that a conference in the early part of this week might have been begun, continued, and by this time have settled the question.

Lieut-Colonel Sir F. HALL
Are you going to govern, or is the Government?

§ Mr. CLYNES
The House has received, evidently with approval, this announcement—which for the moment I am not calling into question—as to the elaborate precautions to be taken—

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I must point out that, by the Standing Orders of the House, it being half-past five, I am bound to bring the discussion to an end. I am sure, however, that the House will be ready to waive the rule, in order to hear the right hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. CLYNES
I have only one other sentence with which to conclude my remarks. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that these precautions, which the House may justly deem to be 701 necessary, are costly precautions, and that they are going to involve the country, quite apart from who is to blame, in an expenditure of millions of money. The mere fact of cost cannot be underrated. As we understand the objection offered to our appeal to continue control for a reasonably short time, in order that in that time we might have a settlement, and in order that some gradual reduction of wages might be arranged on a par with the decrease in the cost of living, it is that money cannot be found, and that subsidies can no longer be tolerated. The House is now facing a further problem of expenditure from a wrong standpoint, and it would be better to spend your State money in the way I have suggested. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] This is not a matter of giving in. I think you may say that in the end it will be found that few men can be discovered, with all your precautions, to go down into the pits to take the place of the miners.
That, however, is not the spirit in which I have approached this question. Whatever else might be said of our attempt to do some little justice to the case of the miners, we have, at any rate, used every possible effort we could to establish 702 conditions of negotiation, and to prevent the calamity of an extension of this dispute. All I can do now is to ask the Prime Minister to reconsider the situation from the point of view of removing the only obstacle which he himself was the first to establish, and leave the miners' leaders free, with the mine-owners, to go into a conference and consider whether they can, first of all, settle this question.
I reject the idea that there is any intention to destroy the mines, and I repeat that in the great majority of cases the mines are suffering no danger. I appeal to the Prime Minister to turn his thoughts, not in the direction of a certain extension of the dispute, but in the direction of composing our differences, by removing the only obstacle that stands in the way.