HC Deb 15 April 1921 vol 140 cc1476-96
The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Lloyd George)

I beg to move, "That this House do now adjourn."

I would ask the permission of the House to make a short statement on a most important communication which I have just received. Before I read the communication, it would be better that I should make a short statement, which will explain exactly the full meaning and import of the letter that has just come to my hand.

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir R. Horne) and I have repeatedly, both in this House and at the Conferences, made it quite clear that the Government were not committed to support any scale of wages put forward by the mine owners—that our minds upon that subject were perfectly open. That does not mean that there were not certain items upon which we had not very grave doubts, but it does mean that we wanted to preserve a clear and an open mind when any Conference took place upon wages between the miners and the mine-owners, in order to preside over the proceedings. We have constantly invited discussions upon wages. We made suggestions as to the best methods of arriving at a decision on wages. We invited both the miners and the mine owners to discuss the actual figures with a view to attempting to arrive at a decision.

Unfortunately, the Miners' Federation have taken the line, and taken it very firmly, that they cannot discuss any question of the amount of wages until first of all two fundamental issues are settled, and settled in their favour. One is a National settlement of wages, and the other is the National Pool. Upon the question of the national settlement of wages we have already pressed a favourable opinion. To the proposal for a national pool we have declined to assent, because it involves a re-establishment of control, which we regarded as deleterious to the industry, and as injurious to the whole country. In order to show that that is the line we have taken, I hope the House will bear with me while I read a short extract from the proceedings at the last Conference which took place between miners and mine owners at the Board of Trade—a Conference over which I presided. This is what I said in winding up the proceedings, after the parties had failed to come to an agreement on the question of a national pool. Mr. Herbert Smith had said that our proposals were purely the owners' proposals.

"MR. HERBERT SMITH

I said 'practically.'"

"THE PRIME MINISTER

I think I must correct that, Mr. Herbert Smith, because it is much too important a matter, when there are so many millions of people involved, to run the risk of misunderstanding. The figures which the owners have put forward we have neither accepted nor rejected. The question of whether it is going to be 10 per cent, or 17 per cent.—the question of the actual amount of the wages which they have set forth in their scale—these are all subjects for consideration. They are questions which we are prepared to examine and to investigate, and if the industry can bear more, then the industry ought to pay more. That we will examine. We are prepared to examine it with the miners' leaders and with the mine-owners and with such information as we have at our disposal, but I would not like the struggle to continue upon the assumption that the Government have simply accepted the owners' figures in respect either of wages or of profits. Those are still subjects of investigation. They are subject to examination; they are subject to conference between us. I made that clear on the face of the document, and I shall be very sorry if this very unhappy struggle were to continue without a full knowledge of that very essential fact in the minds of the people of this country. We are prepared to see that the industry pays all it can bear for people who risk their lives in order to produce coal.'

It is of vital importance, therefore, if the struggle is to continue, that it should be thoroughly realised by everyone that it is not a struggle in order to support any list or scale or schedule of figures put forward by the mine owners.

Last night there was a very remarkable gathering upstairs, in the course of which the miners' secretary, a man of singular ability, placed the case of the miners with his well-known skill and lucidity before a very large body of the Members of this House. After the meeting had proceeded for about two hours, I hear that he submitted a proposal which on the face of it—[HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"]—I am only saying what I heard, and just giving a narrative as I heard it. I am not in the least seeking to commit Mr. Frank Hodges. I know his difficulties, and I should be the last man in the world 10 add to them. I heard very late last night that he had submitted a proposal which looked on the face of it as if the Miners' Federation were now prepared to examine the scale of wages for a temporary settlement, whilst suspending without prejudice the question of a National Pool.

A number of Members of Parliament who were present at the meeting, including the Chairman of the meeting, were good enough to come over to Downing Street about midnight, and explain to me what was said. Unfortunately there was no shorthand note taken of the proceedings, and they had to rely upon their memory. I could not get a very exact account of the precise words used—and in a matter of this magnitude the precise words count a good deal. However I thought it sufficiently important, having regard to the impression left on the minds of so many Members of Parliament, to clear it up. If the Miners' Federation were prepared to proceed to an examination of the actual figures, I thought it exceedingly desirable that, without any loss of time, a meeting should be sum- moned for that purpose this morning. I know the letter has been read already; but if the House will bear with me, I think it is rather important that I should read it again, because it is essential to the narrative. I sent this letter about 9.30 this morning:

"DEAR ME. HODGES, Several Members who were present at your House of Commons meeting last night have conveyed to me the purport of your concluding offer. They have not taken down the actual words you used, but the general impression made on their minds was that you were now prepared to discuss with the owners the question of wages, without raising the controversial issue of the pool, provided the arrangements to be made were of a temporary character, and without prejudice to a further discussion of proposals for a National Pool, when a permanent settlement comes to be dealt with— That was the impression left on my mind by what Members told me. [HON. MEMBERS: "Quite right!"] If this is a fair representation of your suggestion, I invite you and your fellow-delegates to meet the owners at the Board of Trade at eleven o'clock this morning, to consider the best method of examining the question of wages. I went to the Board of Trade at eleven o'clock. I had sent the owners a copy of the letter, and they were present. We waited for about three-quarters of an hour, but there was no communication from the Miners' Federation. I am not complaining of that; I am not putting it that there was any act of discourtesy. They were discussing the matter at the time, and were not in a position to give an answer. Later on they did communicate, and said that an answer would be forthcoming in about an hour's time. As a matter of fact it has only just arrived, and I will now read it to the House— DEAR PRIME MINISTER, My Executive Committee have fully considered your letter, and ask me to state that the only condition upon which a temporary settlement can be arrived at is one that must follow the concession of the two principles already make known to you, namely, a National Wages Board and a National Pool. In these circumstances, my Committee feel that no good purpose would be served in meeting the owners to-day on the basis suggested in your letter. [An HON. MEMBER: "They went back on it."] I trust that if there be a discussion, the House will permit me to take part in it, later on, should it be necessary to do so. I only want to state at this moment that I do not wish to say a single word that will cause any bitterness or exasperation.

Mr. MARSHALL STEVENS

Who signed the letter?

The PRIME MINISTER

It is signed, "Yours faithfully, Frank Hodges." All I have to say at the present moment is that there was no doubt in the mind of the Government, after what passed at various conferences, that the Miners' Federation regarded this as an essential preliminary to any discussion of wages. There was a good deal of doubt in the minds of Members of the House after what passed yesterday, and I think a good deal of justifiable doubt. Whether they misunderstood what Mr. Frank Hodges said, it is not for me to say, but there is no doubt that there was a good deal of honest misunderstanding last night upon the subject. There can be no doubt now at all as to what is the issue, and upon that issue we are firmly of opinion that a surrender on the question of Control would be disastrous to the interests of the State.

Mr. ASQUITH

I am sure the House has listened in every quarter with profound regret to the announcement which has been made by the Prime Minister. Many of us—indeed, I think all of us—this morning had entertained hopeful, if not sanguine, anticipation that, at any rate, a temporary way of escape might be provided which might ultimately lead to the road of permanent peace. There is a good deal, of course, naturally and necessarily which, in the present state of our information, must be left to conjecture and doubt. Knowing, as we do, that Mr. Hodges is not only a man of great ability and extremely skilled in expression, as well as of unimpeachable integrity, one would certainly gather from the consentient reports of what he said last night that, speaking as he did with an authority which nobody else could question or rival on behalf of the Executive of the Miners' Federation, that they were prepared to enter, without prejudice to their main contention—that, of course, ought not to be prejudiced—into a provisional and transitional arrangement, if such could be arrived at, on the question of wages.

My own gratification, when I read that in the newspapers, was increased, when in another column I read a statement purporting to come from the mine owners, that they were prepared to discuss, also without prejudice, provisionally, at any rate, the question of wages. The suggestion, which I should certainly have been disposed to make, under more favourable conditions, to the House is that, if both parties were in that frame of mind—neither of them abandoning in any way, or compromising in any way, their view as to the lines on which an ultimate settlement might be arrived at—it would be a very desirable thing that the mine owners should present some concrete and intelligent alternative to the scale of reduction of wages which is the only one of which we now know as proceeding from them. If that could have been put upon the Table, to form the subject of debate and conference, possibly some conclusion might have been arrived at, and, at any rate, the time would not have been fruitlessly spent. I do not know—none of us know—what has happened to darken the sky, and to becloud what seemed a few hours ago a most favourable prospect.

The letter which the Prime Minister has just read, coming from the Executive of the Miners' Federation, seems to render for the moment the possibility of such an unprejudiced and provisional discussion of a temporary arrangement impossible, for they make it a condition of entering upon any such discussion that the two main contentious points of dispute shall, in advance, be conceded in their favour. I speak, as we all must, with a sense of responsibility, and with great constraint and restraint, in the use of anything that might appear to be provocative language. I confess for myself that I have very great sympathy, and have had from the beginning of this dispute, with some—I will not say all—of the main contentions which have been put forward on behalf of the miners. I have thought it, from the first, a great mistake in policy to attempt in a very delicate and difficult matter of this kind—I will not go into the question of figures, because I do not know enough to express any opinion about that—but I think it was a mistake in tactics and in policy. I should have been very glad myself, as I said addressing the House more than a week ago, if one could have eased over the time in which what I have always believed to be a not unbridgeable gap between the two positions, might have been surveyed, and possibly circumvented, by some provisional arrangement—to which the Government, of course, would have had to be parties—and in which the sudden descent from one scale of wages to another might have been eased off, protracted in duration, and lessened in degree.

I do not know, of course, but I think the Government would have been well advised, having adopted the policy of decontrol—and I myself am strongly against control in any shape or form in this or any other industry—a policy involving, as it did, the abandonment of a continuing subsidy—I think it might have been a useful expedient, and it would not have been in the long run an expensive thing to the State, to expend, at any rate, some part of what would otherwise have been paid in subsidies in easing down this necessary process of temporary adjustment in wages. I am not saying that in a controversial spirit at all. Indeed, I believe the Government were prepared to do it.

The PRIME MINISTER

I think this is rather important. We have actually proposed that. We have gone to the extent of saying that we would recommend the House of Commons to come to the aid of an arrangement of that sort, and that was part of the written proposals which we submitted to the miners. [HON. MEMBERS: "How long?"] As long as we knew it was part of the settlement, and we came to an end of our liability at a definite period.

Mr. ASQUITH

Perhaps it might have been better to have been a little more specific on the duration of that term, and possibly as to the amount of the subsidy. In those ways, I think, with time and with good will, a provisional arrangement might have been arrived at. I agree there are enormous difficulties, not in the constitution of a National Board, or in the national minimum—those, I think, are comparatively simple—nor again in the adjustment under the auspices and control of such a National Board of the necessary adaptations of the National minimum to the special conditions and requirements of a particular district. That, I do not think, would have proved an insuperable obstacle.

The National Pool, I agree, gives rise to far more difficult considerations. I do not think this is quite sufficiently recognised, or, at least, not openly avowed, by either of the actual parties to the dispute. But there are two dangers. One danger is that of keeping artificially alive coalfields and mines which economically ought not to be worked. There is no good in having a kind of parasitic output, artificially fostered by State aid in a great industry of this kind. The other danger, which was universally recognised on all sides, is the danger of diminishing or curtailing the incentive to enterprise and adventure, and the commercially productive extension of the coalfields, upon whose productivity the real interests and industry of the country depend, if they were to be compelled to subsidise out of their pockets to an undue extent their less fortunate competitors. Those are just the sort of difficulties which I believe, in a Conference round a table with good temper, and with a desire to accommodate things, might have been ultimately settled. And it is for that reason—because I do not believe the problem, difficult as it is, would be insoluble—that I deplore more than any words can describe, that we should be deprived now of the opportunity of a brief interval in which, wages for the moment being provisionally adjusted—and, among other things, these enormous reductions prevented from coming into effect—there might then have been calm, dispassionate and detailed discussion of the larger question.

The situation is one of immense gravity. I cannot offer for the moment any practical suggestion. But I should like to say to those who are engaged in other industries—the members of the Triple Alliance and the other organisations of labour who have actually announced, countenanced, or approved, the general stoppage of work—that it will inflict immeasureable injury upon themselves primarily, and still more, in the long run, upon their fellow citizens.

I should like to appeal to them even at this fiftieth minute of the eleventh hour, to discharge a duty which history will certainly lay upon them, quite as much in the interests of organised labour as in the general interests of the community, for the miners know they are bound together with them in the intimate solidarity which we all recognise in these days is a natural and a necessary bond between labour all the world over. Let them even at this moment go into council together, take a large view, see the situation in its real perspective, think not of particular interests or of a momentary victory, but of the larger, longer and permanent interests of the community and the country as a whole. We do not want to go to war—which of us does? We have seen enough of war; we long to be at peace. I believe there to be no irreconcilable differences which will not yield to reflection, conference, deliberation and common sense, and I appeal to them whether, even now, they cannot meet round a table in a conference for common deliberation. Our history shows that in the past—without undue, self-complacency, we can say it—that this nation has been distinguished above all other nations of the world by the sense of a common interest over-riding, superseding, dominating our people, whatever be their task or their calling, of bringing all to the common stock, and presenting a really united front to the world.

Mr. CLYNES

I can assure my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) that most, if not all, of the great considerations which he has just described have been ever present before the minds of all those who have had the great responsibility of reaching, or influencing, or governing the decisions relating to the conduct of the organised workers in connection with this unhappy dispute. They have not been lost sight of. The House of Commons, by common consent, on several occasions this week has deliberately refrained from discussing aspects of this question, in the hope thereby of assisting in the continuance and in the success of negotiations. I feel very doubtful whether now resumption of discussion at this moment can be of any great service in restoring the condition of things or assisting to a settlement. I cannot avoid making a few comments on two points in order, if for no other reason, that hon. Gentlemen should not entirely lose sight of one matter which has never yet been mentioned.

First, let me say that I do not feel qualified to enter into any defence of the decision covered in the letter which the Prime Minister has read. My hon. Friend the Member for the Hamilton Divi- sion (Mr. D. Graham) is a member of the Executive of the Miners' Federation, and is not, I believe, present in the House of Commons, in order to give, as no doubt he would, some explanation and defence of the decision which has just been reached, but, in his absence, I cannot refrain from offering a few comments on two points. First, there is the assumption—I think an entirely wrong assumption, and in no way warranted by events and recent industrial history—that if the Miners' Executive or if Mr. Hodges chooses to decide a certain course, that is an end. I know a very large number of the members of the Miners' Federation Executive, and with very, very few exceptions I know them to be men who take a moderate, sane view of these questions, uninfluenced by political or broad social or economic considerations, but influenced solely by the desire to secure the best wages they can for the men whom they represent, and, of course, the best general life conditions, and I am satisfied that such men must have had before them considerations of the greatest weight and influence in reaching the decision which, for the moment, has terminated negotiations.

The point I want to put to Members of the House is this: that they ought not to expect the leaders of the Miners' Federation to reach a decision which those leaders know very well will not be accepted or respected by the men whom they represent. Let me recall to the minds of hon. Members the fact that on previous occasions decisions have been rejected after having been approved, and even recommended, by the leaders of the organisations. I can recall a case quite recently in industrial disputes where, on three occasions, the accredited leaders of the men—I refer now to the long and lamentable dispute in the moulding industry—reached decisions and recommended terms of settlement to their men which, on a ballot of the men, were rejected by a large majority. That is the position of many trade union leaders. The political party leader, placed in the possession and exercise of personal power, usually amounting to a form of individual autocracy, can decide anything, confident in the assurance that his decision will be respected and obeyed. Not so the trade union leader! There is no leader in any activity or walk of life compelled more to follow than is the leader of a trade union.—[An HON. MEMBER: "Do not try to be funny."]—This is really not a funny matter.

Mr. W. THORNE

You have all condemned the old system, have you not?

Mr. CLYNES

I am putting the facts of the case.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

Hear, hear!

Mr. CLYNES

I am trying to point out the realities with which we have been faced on more than one occasion. The seriousness and the kernel of this fact is this: that at this moment, it may be, that the leaders of the Miners' Federation might be willing to confirm what is understood to be the provisional suggestion of Mr. Hodges last night for a temporary settlement if those leaders could feel confident that the million men whose interests are in their keeping could be brought up to the position to follow their recommendation. Let us then not too severely censure, in the absence of evidence, knowledge, and reasons at this moment what the leaders may have done, for it may well be that they have been influenced by the honest conviction that to seek a temporary settlement on this basis would be seeking in vain something which the rank and file of their following would not approve. In the absence of a statement on the part of any member of the miners' executive I do not feel empowered further to discuss that aspect of the case. The Prime Minister began his statement by again, at some length, explaining to the House that the Government have not taken sides on the question of wages, and that these were matters of debate—

The PRIME MINISTER

Or conference.

4.0 P. M.

Mr. CLYNES

—Or conference. With all respect I express the view that it would have been a greater act of statesmanship on the part of the Government if they had kept their eye upon the action of the mineowners in regard to wages in the two or three weeks before the date of the stoppage. The posting up of the notices announcing amongst so many men that they were to be subjected to reductions amounting in some cases to 50 per cent., in a large number of cases to 30 per cent., in a very large number of cases 25 per cent.—

Mr. W. THORNE

We have already had 3s. 6d. off.

Mr. CLYNES

That announcement created an atmosphere which made negotiations towards a peaceful settlement and compromise almost impossible. As a matter of fact, I do not accept the statement of the Prime Minister that the Government has not taken sides on the question of wages—for the reason that the Pool is part of the wage question. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Let us by a little examination see how this stands. The Prime Minister's case is that he has not taken sides on the wages question. He confesses he has taken sides on the question of the Pool. My point is that the Pool is inseparable from the general question of wages. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!" and "No!" and "It never was before!"] As I understand the Pool, it is a plan for enabling wages and profits of such standards as may be agreed upon to be paid in the poorer pits. What is the good, then, of the Prime Minister saying that he has not taken sides on the wages question when, as a fact, he has rejected the plan of a Pool, and when as a fact the miners firmly believe that the payment of fair rates of wages in the less profitable pits is impossible without a Pool? Indeed, I understand the Prime Minister to go a long way in meeting that argument. He has already explained to the House that the Government would be prepared, at least for some period, and to a financial extent that he has not revealed, to assist in providing public money, in order that certain rates of wages and certain levels of profits to repay. In principle, how does that differ from a Pool? Only to the extent to which it goes. The Prime Minister himself stated the position in one of his recent speeches during the course of these conferences. He said: I want to make it clear that on no vital question have we accepted the owners' position except on pooling. Seeing that the only real difficulty in the settlement of this great question is the question of pooling, it is clear that the Prime Minister has gone a long way to take sides in the substance of the dispute. I can assure the Prime Minister and also my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is present, that for one reason or another they both have been suspected of having put themselves in the position of mineowners' advocates in connection with this matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I do not wish to press that point too far. The plan of a pool is a plan to assist uneconomic pits to pay their way in respect of wages and profits. It is a plan at the same time capable of being carried out under conditions which would prevent what I understand is greatly feared, malingering on the part of mine managers. It is said that if they are assisted from some extra public source they will be indifferent as to the working of their mines. I refuse to believe that there is a single mine-manager in connection with the least profitable pit who, because of his difficulties and because of receiving temporary assistance, would degenerate into a malingerer or not do his best to get the best out of his pit.

Mr. Hodges has, in the case of these other uneconomical pits, never claimed a sort of perpetual subsidy or State aid for them, and he has made it clear that the Board ought to be empowered in disbursing whatever was in the pool at any time to withhold support, or cause the closing up of any pit where there was the slightest evidence that malingering was going on. I have only one other remark to make. It has been hinted during the course of this week that other organised workers have been influenced in the action they have taken, by political considerations, by a desire to force the nationalisation of the mines, and to get by action in the street what they might not be able to get in the House of Commons. In connection with these deliberations, I have had the advantage of being on a number of occasions a close spectator, and I have been able to reach safely the conclusion that there is not an atom of political influence determining the action of the responsible men who have had to reach these decisions. This is no method of getting the mines nationalised by direct action. It is solely a wage issue.

Let hon. Members who have not heard the facts before allow me in a sentence to repeat the fact with regard to wages again. I have said what the reductions are to be. There is not a man in this House who dares to get up and defend the scale of reductions proposed by the mine-owners. If there is a single hon. Member out of the hundreds present who feels that the mineowners were in the right, or that these reductions ought to be imposed, let him have the courage of his opinion. Let me give what the miners said on the question of amounts. They did not meet the mineowners' demand for reductions by saying that they would submit to none. They have handsomely recognised the difficulties of the industry. If the Government had as handsomely and wisely recognised the financial position of the mines a month ago as the miners' leaders recognised those difficulties now, this trouble might well have been averted. The miners' leaders are prepared to recommend the men to submit to a daily reduction of 2s. per man, amounting to a possible reduction of between 10s. and 12s. per week.

Let any hon. Member look at the list of wages as now paid for a full week's labour and let him knock off 10s., and he will see how enormous is the sacrifice which the miners' leaders are prepared to ask the men to make. This reduction of 2s. per man per day would be equal to a wage forfeiture of at least £30,000,000 a year. How can it be said that the workmen are not ready to make a substantial sacrifice, even before they have the assurance of the promised reductions in the cost of living? Furthermore, other re-arrangements or variations in the wages might well be made in degree with the decreased cost of living, as that decrease occurred.

I say, therefore, on the point of wages that the miners have the strongest possible case. It is the Government which, by its legislative action, hastened and hurried the industry to the impossible and ruinous point which it has now reached, and I say it is for the Government, even in face of this refusal, to accept or negotiate a temporary settlement without the condition of the pool, further to pursue the case by resuming discussions and seeing how far even at this late hour it is possible before the dispute has extended to satisfy the working class even outside the mining world that the demand of the miners is an extravagant or unfair one. I can assure the House, as a spectator of the decisions reached by the other organised workers, that the feeling of the leaders is a feeling of loyalty amounting to a sense of compulsion to assist great bodies of their wage-earning fellows who have been so unjustly treated. I have never known a strike decision reached with greater reluctance or with a fuller consequence of how much the national interests would be affected. It was a decision reached by men who felt that any other act than that of assisting the miners actively, even to the extent of a strike, would have been an act of desertion of which they could not as organised workers be guilty. That is the fact as to the extension of the dispute, and, as the Government is the responsible party for having provoked this dispute in not having provided means for this industry gradually to escape from the difficulties which grew around it during the War, it is the responsibility and immediate duty of the Government to provide a way of escape even at this late hour.

Mr. MARRIOTT

I had not intended to intervene in this Debate, and I shall do so very briefly now. The whole House heard, I believe, with profound disappointment the words which have fallen from my right hon. Friend the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes). I believe that all parties in the House ardently desire to find an avenue of peace. I desire, as chairman of the meetings which were held yesterday, and to which allusion has been made by the Prime Minister, to say only one or two words. For this reason the object of those meetings has been in some quarters very gravely misunderstood, and I think I shall best clear away misunderstandings if I give to the House a very brief narrative of what actually occurred. Those meetings were not called by Members of the House. Late yesterday afternoon, I and two or three other Members of the House were approached by the representatives of the Coalowners' Association, who desired an opportunity of laying before hon. Members the conclusions at which they had arrived, and of giving any explanation which might be demanded from them. That meeting occupied some hours. At the close of it, it was suggested that, having heard the case of the coal-owners, it was only fair and reasonable that the House or the Members of the House should hear the case of the miners put by the miners for themselves. With that object a meeting was held in the evening, addressed, as the Prime Minister has told us, by Mr. Hodges, who was subjected to a very severe cross-examination. I desire to say—and here I am in the recollection of all Members who were present—and there was a very large number at those meetings—that the account given by the Prime Minister represents precisely what occurred. I want further to make it clear that those meetings were not held with any sort of idea of weakening the hand of the Government in the very difficult and delicate negotiations in which they were engaged—not at all. But members of the House having been asked to listen to the case on the one side and the case on the other, felt that it would be a criminal act to refuse to listen to those representations. When I was deputed very late last night to carry to the Prime Minister a brief account of what had taken place, I was profoundly hopeful that some way of escape might possibly have been opened, and I, with all the other Members of the House, have heard with the deepest regret that by the action of the Miners' Federation that avenue has been definitely closed this afternoon. I am not going into the merits of the dispute. I have no right to do so, but I do desire to say very briefly this, speaking, I believe, for the vast majority of those who were present at those large meetings last night, that having heard the explanation of the Government, we are wholeheartedly behind them in their resolve to see this thing through, if necessary, to a finish.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN

Might I ask the Leader of the House whether he has seen an announcement on the tape that to-night's strike has been officially declared off—[An HON. MEMBER: "By whom?"]—it simply says, "Officially declared off"; whether he is in possession of that information; and whether, in these circumstances, he proposes to ask the House to sit to-morrow?

The PRIME MINISTER

I have only just heard exactly the same information as my hon. and gallant Friend—that something has appeared on the tape to that effect. We have had no official communication, but we are making inquiry on the subject, and if we have any further information we will give it to the House. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Chamberlain) will inform the House as to the course of business.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

When I announced the business for next week, I said the Government must reserve the right, if occasion arose, to take Supplementary Estimates, and I desire to inform the House, in consequence of what has taken place, that we shall put the Army, Navy, and Air Force Supplementary Estimates down as the first Order on Monday. That will, of course, give an opportunity for the resumption of this discussion, if such discussion be desired.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"]—I do sot know if the interruption on my catch- ing Mr. Speaker's eye means that this discussion is supposed to be entirely over.

Captain STANLEY WILSON

We do not want to hear you.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

Perhaps the hon. and gallant Member does not want to hear me, but it is possible that I may have a suggestion to make, which may be hopeful and useful, and I assure the House that it is only for that purpose that I have risen. We have been burked of any discussion—willingly burked, perhaps—of this subject during the whole week. Endless discussions have been going on everywhere but inside this House. We have had these big meetings upstairs, which have been addressed by experts; we have had the long discussions in Downing Street between the Prime Minister, the owners, and the men's leaders—everywhere but in this House has there been discussion. At the meeting last night an appeal was made by Mr. Frank Hodges to those hon. Members who were present, and it was received sympathetically, to endeavour to find some way out; and I do not think that the reply sent by the Miners' Executive in any way relieves us of that responsibility. We heard the case for the men put last night, as has been declared on both sides, with great ability, and we know the position from the miners' point of view in a way in which we have not known it previously. I think it will be agreed that to have had the privilege of hearing Mr. Hodges state the miners' case for well over an hour puts us in a position to discuss this matter in which we have not been until to-day, and I think there is a responsibility on any hon. Member, who feels that he has a suggestion to offer, to offer it at this moment.

I am going to repeat, with a small modification, a suggestion that I made last week. Last week we did have an abortive discussion of this question, and since then a great deal has happened. The Government are as anxious as ever to prevent the catastrophe with which the country is threatened at the present, moment, and I take it that every hon. Member of this House is anxious to find any way out. Has the last word really been spoken? It seems to me that there is one step that the Government might still take. Would it not be possible for the Government, in the exercise of their powers, and as a last resource in the few hours that are left, to propose to both parties to this dispute that, for 30 days, the same conditions of work which prevailed last month should be continued? Has that idea been explored in any way by the Government? If this suggestion could be accepted and carried out, and if it were well received by the men, it would be possible even now to—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is off!"]—Hon. Members say it is "off," and it is possible that the intimation on the tape about the transport workers is—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is off!"]—A paper has just been handed to me stating that the strike of the transport workers is off, but I am now trying to find a way out. [Interruption.] I have only another word to say on this. We do not know yet that there will not be dislocation and disorder in the country. I want to avoid that if possible. While the miners are on strike, the situation is dangerous. The mining strike might be settled in a way I have not yet heard put forward in other quarters, namely, by offering 30 days on the old basis, during which the work of the mines may be resumed, and negotiations continued under much more favourable conditions. Any hon. Member is entitled to make any suggestion that appears to him of any value at all. I thank the House for permitting me to make these observations.

Lord R. CECIL

I understand there is no doubt at all that the strike has been postponed as far as the railway and transport men are concerned.

The PRIME MINISTER

It is off for to-night.

Lord R. CECIL

I would ask the Government whether they do not think, under these circumstances, that the House ought to meet to-morrow. If the Government are quite clear that it ought not to take place I do not want to press it, but I want to present it because it seems to me the situation changes so rapidly from hour to hour that a situation may well arise when it would be desirable to have a discussion in this House. I do not think discussion in the House have been other than helpful during the crisis. They have caused a certain amount of anxiety to the Government before they have taken place, but I do not think anyone on the Treasury Bench will doubt that on the whole they have been useful and helpful during the crisis. I should have thought even if there were nothing to be said, it would be worth the House meeting, and then possibly adjourning directly afterwards. I think it would be desirable, both because it might be useful, and because of its calming effect on the public mind. For those reasons I suggest a meeting at 12 o'clock to-morrow.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-seven minutes after Four o'clock till Monday next (18th April).