FABRIC GLOVES. (Hansard, 20 March 1922)

§ Captain W. BENN

I rise to call attention to the very extraordinary position in which the Government find themselves in 197 reference to the duty upon fabric gloves. Some hon. Members may remember that there is on the Statute Book an Act called the Safeguarding of Industries Act, an Act from which very much good was expected by its promoters and supporters. Some called it an umbrella, some called it a dose of strychnine, the President of the Board of Trade called it a little kitten. It was passed amid acclamation by this House, and we waited with impatience the good work which it was to perform. Part II of this Act is specially operative against the flood of manufactures which will come in under the shelter of the depreciated exchange from Continental countries.

The House will, perhaps, remember the machinery which was proposed. Certain facts were to be ascertained. We protested at the outset that no Order should be made by the Board of Trade, that it should not be the function of a Government Department to impose a duty, but that it should be done after inquiry by the House. Accordingly, it was provided that a Committee should be set up which should investigate all the facts set out to be investigated by the Act, that they should then Report, and if it were found from the Report that the protection of the Act was desirable, an Order should be made. The House was anxious to retain its own power and right to make this Order. I myself introduced a short Bill, which was received without any opposition, for preserving to this House its undoubted rights over the taxation of the subject. The Minister of Health, who is not present at the moment, but who was one of the champions of the Act, said if a complaint were well founded an Order would be made. Everybody who supported the Act imagined that if these committees 198 investigated the facts and found them to be of the character to which the Act was intended to apply, an Order would be made and the employers and the workpeople would receive the benefit of this remarkable Measure.

Such a case has now occurred. Five or six inquiries have been made in the case of fabric gloves. The Committee; found, as far as we can learn, that all the conditions set out in the Act had in fact occurred. We believe that the Committee agreed to recommend that the duty should be imposed, and the benefit of this beneficent Act should come into operation. It was on the 26th January when the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade received that report. Now we are nearing the 26th March, and still he refuses to administer the dose of strychnine, or to let loose the little kitten, or even to erect the umbrella on behalf of the poor people who are claiming the support and protection which he himself promised. The House did not even pass over this small case of gloves without debating it in the course of the passage of this Act. The late hon. Member for Louth gave the case of gloves as an illustration, and the Leader of the House, in replying, said he did not think that, supposing an Order were not made, it very much mattered to the manufacturer, but it mattered profoundly to the workman; and he led us to believe that, if the case were proved in respect of this very article, protection would be afforded.