SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES ACT.

HC Deb 12 April 1922 vol 153 cc463-6

Mr. ASQUITH

The House, in the course of ten minutes, and in a holiday mood, has already taken the first step towards the abolition of the House of Lords. I think it may not be inappropriate if I take advantage of this Motion to bring it down to a much humbler level, and to pass in a very brief review some of the features of the working and administration of an Act which has now been in operation for six months, and which has the statutory title of "The Safeguarding of Industries Act." It has been, I think, a luckless Measure both in its origin and in its later history. It was stamped from the beginning with the marks of pre-natal or, at any rate, congenital infirmity. It had a dubious pedigree. It was, we all remember, the nursling of a rather stony-hearted foster-mother, and it struggled with great difficulty over the threshold of Parliamentary life. Now it has come into the outer world it is encountering even greater difficulties in getting on its legs. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, who has had the ostensible responsibility for this piece of legislation throughout, and who is now actually responsible for its administra- tion, when he comes to write his memoirs may, I suggest to him, say of this Act what Grattan once said of the Independent Irish Parliament, I rocked its cradle; I followed its hearse. No Measure so recently carried, by such large majorities in Parliament, has ever been so forlorn of friends. It is equally scouted by Free Traders and Protectionists, and, what is still more important, by the business community at large.

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL

No.

Mr. ASQUITH

The hon. Member will forgive me if I express that as my opinion. I had the honour recently of attending a very large and representative gathering in the heart of the City of London of bankers, merchants, producers and many business firms——

Mr. SAMUEL

Not manufacturers.

Mr. ASQUITH

Yes and manufacturers, and these were in no sense party men, while of those who profess my own political opinions a comparatively small minority were present. The meeting passed with complete unanimity a resolution demanding the immediate disappearance of this Measure from the Statute Book. That example has been followed by not a few of the most important Chambers of Commerce in Manchester and other great towns—non-political bodies. I read a day or two ago, in a very able organ in the Press which represents the Die-hard Protectionists, this remarkable passage, which I think is well worth quoting: What has the Government done to secure the home market for the British manufacturer? What was the answer given to that? It was: It has given us the Safeguarding of Industries Act, which we venture to describe as the worst Measure ever devised in a good cause. That is the opinion of a Protectionist organ. It is almost a work of supererogation to attack with severity, and I shall not do so at any length, this friendless, attenuated, meagre, but all the same, mischievous instalment of protective legislation. I wish, however, to call attention, to some extent for the purpose of getting information from the right hon. Gentleman, to one or two of its features—features which have become clear since the Act was put into practical operation. I will refer first to Part I, the part which deals with what are supposed to be key industries. As the House is aware, there is a Schedule enumerating in general terms the categories of industries which fall under that denomination, and a discretionary power is given to the Board of Trade to issue lists, not to extend the Schedule, but to define with particularity the commodities which come within it. The Board of Trade has used its discretion, and it has issued a Schedule, which is one of the most formidable documents I have even seen. It enumerates some 6,000 commodities, or thereabouts, no less than 2,000 of which, or thereabouts, belong to various processes and products in the chemical trade. It is a monument of painstaking and misdirected research.

I have not the necessary technical knowledge to speak with first-hand authority, but I am told that the diligence of the right hon Gentleman's Department has unearthed quite a considerable number of strange products which have for years languished in subterranean obscurity. Some of them—indeed, I believe, a considerable number—are not being, and never have been, produced in this country; yet they are to be clothed, by the statutory list published by the Board of Trade, for the first time with the character of key industries. I am not surprised to hear that there are already some 400 or 500 appeals to the referees under the Act against various items in this list, and, of these 400 or 500 appeals, I think that up to the present moment—my right hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong—not more than 10 or 11 have been heard and decided. The list, I believe, was issued in December last, so that nearly four months have elapsed, and that is the amount of business that has been done. I need not point out, in passing, what a tremendous obstacle that is to the free course of business in the trades which are, or may be, affected by the application of this list. It is, perhaps, more interesting as showing the practical impossibility of administering legislation of this kind. I am not questioning in the least either the ability, the patience or the knowledge of the right hon. Gentleman's Department, but it is essential that the House and the country should realise how impracticable is the task that has been placed upon them. I will give two illustrations.