Commons Sitting of 23 July 1924

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Southern Railway Bill (by Order),
Consideration of Lords Amendments deferred till Friday.
London, Midland, and Scottish Railway (Dock Charges, Scotland) Order Confirmation Bill,
Considered; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES LOANS (SCOTLAND) BILL,
"to amend the Local Authorities Loans (Scotland) Acts, 1891 and 1893," presented by Mr. WILLIAM ADAMSON; supported by Mr. James Stewart; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 221.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  NORWAY (STRIKE LEGISLATION).
  Mr. HARMSWORTHasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the Norwegian Government are introducing legislation for the punishment of persons inciting workers to strike and preventing others from working; and will he instruct the British Minister at Christiania to watch its effect, if and when passed into law, with a view to considering whether similar legislation should be passed in this country?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Ponsonby): I have received from His Majesty's Charge d'Affaires at Christiania particulars of the proposed legislation to which the hon. Member refers, and will ask him to report on further developments.

  LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

    FOREIGN OFFICE DEPARTMENTS.
    Mr. LANSBURYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the increasing importance of the work carried out by the League of Nations, the Government have in contemplation any further extension of the provision made for such work; and whether the Government will consider the necessity of establishing a special Department at the Foreign Office to deal with the important questions which now come before the League of Nations?
    Mr. PONSONBY: Alter most careful consideration of all the factors involved the conclusion has been reached that the establishment of a special Department at the Foreign Office would not be the most satisfactory way of dealing with League of Nations work. Under the present system all questions of a general nature are dealt with by the same Department, while questions affecting individual countries are divided geographically among the Departments responsible for those countries, thus ensuring full knowledge of the points at issue. The Lord President of the Council, who is the permanent representative of His Majesty's Government on the Council of the League, has a room at the Foreign Office, and the services of two officials on the permanent staff are at his disposal. I do not think that any better arrangement could be devised at present, but consideration will be given from time to time to the whole question.
    Mr. J. HARRIS: Does the work of the International Labour Office come within the Department of the hon. Gentleman?
    Mr. PONSONBY: No, Sir.
    Mr. LANSBURYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is now in a position to state whether any nations have special Departments connected with their Foreign Offices for work connected with the League of Nations?
    Mr. PONSONBY: A communication has been addressed to His Majesty's representatives abroad, but information on the subject is still being awaited.

    HOUSE OF COMMONS REPRESENTATIVE.
    Mr. LANSBURYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the

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    Government will consider the appointment of a representative to take charge in the House of Commons of important questions which now come before the League of Nations, in addition to the representative of the Government who, deals with these matters in another place?
    Mr. PONSONBY: The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, besides the Prime Minister, speaks for the Government in this House on such matters. It is not considered necessary that there should be any other special representative.

    BRITISH DELEGATION.
    Sir ELLIS HUME-WILLIAMSasked the Prime Minister who will be the principal delegates and the delegates' substitute, representing Great Britain at the forthcoming Assembly of the League of Nations; and whether he has yet been informed of the names of those who will represent the Dominions and India?
    The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Mr. Clynes): My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister intends to-morrow to give as full a reply as possible to similar questions already standing on the Paper.

  ABYSSINIA (SLAVE TRADING DECREE).
  Mr. J. HARRISasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the Government of Abyssinia has issued a decree forbidding provincial governors and officials and subjects from engaging in slave-trading, and threatening them with certain penalties if they engage in the traffic; and whether a copy of this decree has been forwarded to His Majesty's Government?
  Mr. PONSONBY: The reply to both parts of the question is in the affirmative.

  IRISH FREE STATE.

    REPRESENTATIVE AT WASHINGTON.
    Mr. HARRISONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can now put the House in possession of the terms of the despatch from His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington conveying the announcement that the Govern-
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    ment of the United States of America had agreed to receive a Minister of the Irish Free State at Washington?
    Mr. PONSONBY: It is hoped to lay before Parliament at an early date the texts of the Note addressed by His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington to the State Department and of the State Department's reply.

    PASSPORTS AND VISAS.
    Colonel GRETTONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the British Ambassador at Washington is advised or consulted by the Irish Free State envoy as to passports for travellers from the United States of America to the Irish Free State; and, if not, what steps, if any, are taken by the British Government to ascertain the qualifications of aliens passing through the Trish Free State to enter Great Britain?
    Mr. PONSONBY: As I have already explained, the question of passports has not yet arisen. With regard to the question of visas to be issued by the Irish Free State passport control officer, I would refer to the reply returned to the hon. and gallant Member for Bilston on the I0th instant. His Majesty's Ambassador is not immediately concerned with the control of the issue of visas, but there is no reason to doubt that the Irish Free State passport control officer will loyally co-operate with his British colleague to ensure a proper control over aliens proceeding to either destination.
    Colonel GRETTON: Am I to understand that the control officer mentioned in the reply will be stationed at Washington, and will he in consultation with the British Ambassador at Washington before passports are issued?
    Mr. PONSONBY: I think that is so, but I cannot give a quite definite reply.
    Colonel GRETTON: Are not these matters of great importance? If not properly regulated and controlled, are not the whole passport Regulations of this country liable to be set at defiance at any time as regards the aliens that enter the Irish Free State?
    Mr. PONSONBY: Yes, Sir; they are of the greatest importance, but I think the control is quite effective.
    Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: In view of the jealousy with which the Free State Government looks upon any interference, how would it be possible to bring any pressure to bear upon them in regard to these visas?
    Mr. BECKER: The hon. Gentleman in his reply said that the question of passports did not arise; can he state what is the situation as regards passports in the Irish Free State?
    Mr. PONSONBY: My reply dealt with visas, and not with passports.

  RUSSIA.

    BRITISH FIRMS.
    Sir VICTOR WARRENDERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can give the House any information regarding the present position of the other British firms, excluding the Russo-Caucasian Company, that have been ordered to liquidate their businesses in Russia; and whether he can now state the reasons given by the Soviet Government for such action?
    Mr. PONSONBY: So far as I am aware, no other British firms have been ordered to liquidate their businesses in the Soviet Union. As to the second part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the written reply given to the hon. Member for the City of London on the 16th July.
    Sir V. WARRENDER: Can the hon. Gentleman say that there are no other British firms, excluding the Russo-Caucasian Company, affected?
    Mr. PONSONBY: We have no information of any other instances.
    Sir V. WARRENDER: Would the hon. Gentleman receive any information on the subject?
    Mr. PONSONBY: Any information the hon. Gentleman can give me I shall be glad to receive.
    Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is it not the policy of the Soviet Government to prevent private firms trading with Russia at the present time?

    DEATH OF CAPTAIN CROMIE.
    Colonel GRETTONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has pressed upon the representatives of the Soviet Government during the present negotiations the necessity of full satisfaction being given to the British Government and the British subjects aggrieved for the murder of Captain Cromie at Petrograd and numerous outrages inflicted on British subjects in Russia since the overthrow of the late Imperial Government of the Czar; and, if so, whether the Soviet representatives in London or the Russian Soviet Government has agreed to make amends or to give any indemnities?
    Mr. PONSONBY: As I stated in reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Handsworth on the 14th February, this ease is not being taken up with the Soviet Government. The second part of the question does not, therefore, arise.
    Colonel GRETTON: Does the British Government attach any importance to the protection of its rights in Petrograd, and of the rights of British subjects; and will they take up this question, and press it?
    Mr. W. THORNE: How old is this case?
    Mr. PONSONBY: The case was before the previous Government. I have nothing to add to the reply already given.
    Colonel GRETTON: Are the British Government going to leave the question where it stands, and make no effort to obtain redress?
    Sir V. WARRENDER: Are we to understand that the Soviet Government disclaim all responsibility for the murder of Captain Cromie?
    Mr. PONSONBY: The case has not been taken up. Therefore the attitude of the Soviet Government is not known.

    GRAIN EXPORTS.
    Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD - BURYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he has ally information as to the amount of grain exported from Russia in 1923 and the amount set aside to be exported this year?
    Mr. LUNN (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): According to the Russian official journal "Economic Life" of the

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    31st May, 1924, the amount of grain exported during the agricultural year 1923–24 was 175,000,000 poods, or 2,822,580 tons. Other estimates give a lower figure of some 2,400,000 tons. As regards the exportable surplus of grain for this year, I am not in possession of sufficiently reliable information to form an accurate estimate, but the indications would appear to point to a diminished harvest.
    Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the figures which have appeared in the papers as to there having been greatly increased exports, are reliable, in view of the fact that the crops have failed throughout Southern Russia?
    Mr. LUNN: I cannot say what is the real position until I get more information.
    Sir FREDRIC WISE: Can the hon. Gentleman say what percentage of this grain came to Britain?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I think the hon. Member should put that question down.

  PERSIA (REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT).
  Captain EDENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is yet in possession of information with reference to the recent attempt to set up a republican form of government in Persia; and whether he can make any statement on the subject?
  Mr. PONSONBY: The reports which His Majesty's Government have received show that the republican movement in Persia encountered strong opposition on the part of the Shiah clergy. At the beginning of April a proclamation was issued by the Persian Prime Minister enjoining the Persian people to cease discussing the proposed introduction of a republican régime, and the injunction appears to have been obeyed.

  TANGIER CONVENTION.
  Commander BELLAIRSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is now in a position to state the nature of the reply of the United States Government to the invitation of the three signatory Powers to accede to the Tangier Convention?
  Mr. PONSONBY: As the hon. and gallant Member was informed on the 21st July, the text of the reply of the United States Government has not yet reached this country. It is not possible to make a statement on the subject until the reply has been examined and considered.

  VENEZUELA (DIFFERENTIAL DUTY).
  Commander BELLAIRSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when the 30 per cent. differential duty in Venezuela on produce and merchandise of the British West Indies came into force; and whether he can state the attitude of Venezuela in the matter?
  Mr. PONSONBY: This tax was introduced in 1882, and has been in force ever since. His Majesty's Minister at Caracas has recently been requested to furnish a report on the subject-matter of the second part of the question.
  Commander BELLAIRS: Has the hon. Gentleman received a number of communications from the West Indies protesting against this long-continued tax?
  Mr. PONSONBY: I should prefer to have notice of that question.

  LIBERIA (LABOUR TRAFFIC).
  Mr. J. HARRISasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the representations made to the Liberian Government upon the question of the labour traffic from that territory through the territory under the control of the British Government will be laid upon the Table of the House; and whether he will say to what port this labour has been or is being sent?
  Mr. PONSONBY: So far as I am aware, no labour traffic from Liberia passes through territory under the control of His Majesty's Government; the second part of the question does not, therefore, arise.
  Mr. HARRIS: Cannot we have a little more light upon this subject? I understand that communications have taken place with the Liberian Government upon the question of labour traffic from Liberia

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  to a foreign port; cannot the hon. Gentleman tell the House something about it? Can he say whether representations have taken place, and to what port this labour is going—that is in my question?
  Mr. PONSONBY: If the hon. Gentleman has any information that he would like to let me have, I shall be glad to receive it.
  Mr. HARRIS: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the only information I have is the information given to me, in reply to previous questions, by the hon. Gentleman himself?

  SLAVE TRAFFIC (RED SEA AND PERSIAN GULF).
  Mr. J. HARRISasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is yet in a position to say whether the reports from units of the Navy upon their efforts to put down slave traffic in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf will be made public?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Ammon): It has been decided not to make these reports public as, apart from information regarding actual captures which has already been given, they contain nothing of general interest and give particulars of places visited and waters actually patrolled which it is not considered desirable to make public.
  Mr. HARRIS: If there is nothing of general interest, there may be of very particular and important interest to certain of our British Dependencies that are affected by this traffic. I would, there fore, ask the hon. Gentleman whether it is not the case that previous Governments have always published this information, and that a committee has been set up to deal with it by the League of Nations, and why cannot the House have this information?
  Mr. AMMON: Previous Governments have given no more information than has been given on this occasion. As to the particular point, may I direct the attention of the hon. Gentleman to my answer, that it is not desirable, for various reasons, to go into the matter.
  Mr. HARRIS: May I appeal to the hon. Gentleman to promise to reconsider his decision.

  MR. DAS.
  Lieut. - Colonel HOWARD - BURYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Mr. Das has applied for a passport to come to this country; whether a passport has been granted; and whether his proposed visit is on official business?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Richards): I have been asked to answer this question. I have no official information on the subject.
  Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the Secretary of State for India has not written another letter on this subject, or was this proposed visit due to the telegram from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster the other day to Mr. Das, in which he said that the present time was a very suitable time from the Swarajist point of view for Mr. Das to come over?
  Mr. RICHARDS: As I have said, I have no information.

  MONTENEGRO (BRITISH CONSUL).
  Mr. MORELasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if a British Consul has yet been appointed to reside in Montenegro?
  Mr. LUNN: Mr. G. Monck-Mason has been appointed Vice-Consul at Cettinge, and has been instructed to proceed there at an early date.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    SKILLED MEN.
    Major HORE-BELISHAasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty why the Admiralty is adopting the practice of degrading skilled men to the status and pay of unskilled labourers in the Government establishments?
    Mr. AMMON: I cannot accept the hon. Member's description of Admiralty practice. Work as skilled labourers has been offered to and accepted by certain craftsmen who would otherwise have to be discharged. It seems to me a beneficent arrangement.
    Major HORE-BELISHA: Will the Parliamentary Secretary undertake to see that men of peculiar aptitude are not degraded in this way, because the country is hound to suffer in the end?
    Mr. AMMON: I am anxious to see that men of peculiar aptitude are not placed amongst the unemployed.
    Mr. W. THORNE: If these men are put on unskilled work, are the unskilled men to be discharged?
    Mr. AMMON: The hon. Member must give me notice of that question.
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: Does the hon. Member not consider it more important to keep skilled men on rather than unskilled men?

    TORPEDOES AND CORDITE.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what proportions of the torpedoes and cordite for the Royal Navy are manufactured at the Royal Naval Torpedo Factory and the Royal Naval Cordite Factory, respectively; whether these factories are capable of suplying all the needs of the Fleet; and whether, as a step towards the abolition of the private manufacture and traffic in arms, he will consider manufacturing all torpedoes and cordite in the Royal factories or, alternatively, of enlarging them so that this can be done?
    Mr. AMMON: The whole of the present needs of the Fleet for torpedoes and cordite are met by manufacture at Government factories.

    CRUISER CONSTRUCTION.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty why tenders have been accepted allowing for the completion of the five additional cruisers in three years instead of having them built in a shorter time, in view of the Admiralty's statement that these vessels are urgently required?
    Mr. AMMON: Three years is the usual and reasonable period to build ships of this size and type in peace time. The period can be somewhat shortened in war time or other emergency, but only at enhanced cost.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: Is the Department taking any steps to bring forward the
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    work on these cruisers in order to try to ease the situation with regard to unemployment in the district?
    Mr. AMMON: Yes, that is being done.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether there is any Clause in the contracts for the additional five new cruisers allowing for the cancellation of the contracts in the event of a further agreement being reached with the principal naval Powers, limiting the construction of those types of warships which are excluded from the last Washington Agreement; and, if so, what is the nature of the Clause?
    Mr. AMMON: The contracts for the new cruisers do not contain a cancellation Clause.
    Mr. J. HARRIS: Does not the hon. Gentleman contemplate taking any action with regard to another Naval Conference for the limiting of ships outside the Washington Convention?
    Mr. AMMON: Oh, yes. At the Conference other questions will be considered as and when they arise.
    Captain BENN: In the event of restriction being agreed upon, have the Government committed themselves to going on with this programme in any case?
    Major Sir BERTRAM FALLE: Would not such a proviso in the contract largely increase the price of the cruisers?
    Mr. AMMON: That is the reason. It would increase the price, and it is an unbusinesslike arrangement.
    Captain BENN: Are the Government bound to go on building these ships whether there is a general disarmament agreement or not?
    Mr. THURTLE: Is it not customary in such cases for such a Clause to be inserted in the contract?
    Mr. AMMON: No, it is not customary, and it is bad business. It would create great unsettlement and would considerably enhance prices. In answer to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, he forgets that it is not an increase of armaments but simply replacement.
    Captain BENN: Will the hon. Gentleman be so kind as to give a specific reply to my question—are the Government bound to go on building these ships whether disarmament is agreed upon or not?
    Mr. AMMON: That, of course, will be considered when disarmament is agreed upon.

    OFFICERS' RETIRED PAY.
    Commander BELLAIRSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Committee to inquire into the withheld retired pay of naval officers has as yet reported; if so, what are its recommendations; and do the Government intend to adopt them?
    Mr. AMMON: The Committee has not yet reported.

    FOREMAN OF WORKS CLERKS.
    Major HORE-BELISHAasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to the position of foremen of works clerks who were not allowed to compete in the recent examination for Departmental clerical class appointments at the Admiralty, and particularly in regard to the case of ex-service men who have been discharged as a result of wounds received in the Great War, and seeing that the Admiralty decided that these men were not to be allowed to compete in the aforementioned examination, upon the ground that, although they are styled clerks, they are an industrial class, although previous to the assimilation the most efficient of foremen of the works clerks were considered for the post of accountant clerk as vacancies occurred, and although there are men now serving as established clerks at the Admiralty and in Devon-port who were foremen of works clerks; and, seeing that these men are in receipt of 12 days' annual leave and of 10 weeks' sick leave during the year, and that for Whitley Council purposes they are on the administrative side, and that they perform work which is definitely clerical, such as accountancy and the keeping of wages books, if he can see his way to allow such men to take the forthcoming examination in October, presuming that there is to be one in the autumn?
    Mr. AMMON: The eligibilty of foremen of works clerks for any examination which
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    may be held in the future for ex-service men under the terms of the South-Borough Report, will depend on the scope of the regulations laid down for Government Departments generally. Foremen of works clerks would not be regarded as eligible to compete if the examination is limited to temporary clerks in the Civil Service, as in the case of previous similar examinations. The factors to which the hon. Member refers do not determine eligibility for examination purposes, and I might mention that the allowance of annual leave to foremen of works clerks who are, and will probably continue to be, retained on an industrial basis is less than that for temporary clerks in the Civil Service generally, and the 10 weeks' sick leave granted them during a year is also given to other industrial classes who are not employed wholly on industrial duties.
    Major HORE-BELISHA: Is the hon Gentleman aware that in answer to previous question he said these men were disqualified from taking the examination because they were considered as industrials, and why, if that is so, are they considered administrative officers in all other respects?
    Mr. AMMON: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will compare the answer I have just given with the answer to which he refers, he will see that there is no contradiction.

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    MIDDLESBROUGH EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE.
    Colonel PENRY WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Labour whether, owing to complaints he has received from the unemployed in Middlesbrough, he has scat any instructions to the rota or advisory committees making alterations in the administration the insurance benefit; and, if so, what instructions has he sent?
    Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSONasked the Minister of Labour whether, is view of the recent representations which he has received with regard to the administration of unemployed benefit through the Middlesbrough Employment Exchange, he has sent any communication to the Middlesbrough Local Employment Committee; and, if so, will he give particulars of the same?
    The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. Shaw): I have not yet received the result of the inquiry referred to in my reply of the 16th July to the question asked by the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) on the subject of claims to benefit in the Middlesbrough area. As soon as this inquiry is completed I will let the hon. Members know the result, and, if it proves to be necessary, I will, of course, communicate with the local committee concerned.

    SCOTTISH COLLIERIES.
    Mr. CLARKEasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that in certain districts of the Scottish coalfield, where a number of collieries have been on short time for several weeks past, intimation was made that work would be suspended for from six to 10 days as holidays, whereas three days have been the customary holidays for several years past; and whether, as this will deprive toe workmen of from three to six days' unemployment insurance benefit, he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. SHAW: I am having inquiry made into this matter, and will communicate the result to the hon. Member.

    RELIEF WORKS, NOTTINGHAM.
    Lord HENRY CAVENDISHBENTINCKasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the Corporation of Nottingham has incurred expenditure in setting up relief works for the unemployed to the amount of £1,250,000 and that towards this sum they have received 23 per cent. in grant only; and whether he will consider the advisability of contributing more generously to local authorities towards their relief works for the unemployed?
    The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Wheatley): The Government have not seen their way to increase the present rates of grant. I may acid that in the case of substantial works, when the loan is for 30 years, the present grants, amount to 44 per cent. of the cost for non-revenue-producing, and nearly 26 per cent. for revenue-producing schemes.
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that of the £1,250,000 expended by the City of
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    Nottingham, the Government have only contributed 23 per cent., and is that the measure of their sympathy with the unemployed?
    Mr. WHEATLEY: I have no reason to deny the accuracy of the figures.
    Lord H. CAVEND1SH-BENTINCK: Does not the right hon. Gentleman admit that the contribution of the Government is an extremely mean one?

  VACCINATION.
  Mr. BLACKasked the Minister of Health what proportion of the £162,400 expended by boards of guardians on vaccination during the year ending 30th September, 1922, was incurred in the actual operation of vaccination; and how much was spent on the machinery for securing exemption to those who desired it from vaccination?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave on this subject on the 3rd July. The returns received from boards of guardians do not enable me to supply any details of the sum of £162,400 mentioned in the question.
  Mr. BLACK: Is it not a fact that the cost of each vaccinated person amounts to 15s. out of the taxes?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: I am very sorry that I have not the information asked for.
  Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what the cost of an outbreak of smallpox would be?

  LIQUOR TRAFFIC (UNITED STATES).
  Mr. BLACKasked the Prime Minister whether any representation or protest has been received from the United States Government with respect to the sending from the United Kingdom of liquors which ultimately reach, although they are prohibited from sale in, the United States?
  Mr. PONSONBY: Friendly representations have been received from time to time from the United States Government on various aspects of this question.

  DEATH RATE.
  Mr. BLACKasked the Minister of Health whether he can account for the large variations given in the figures supplied by him on 1st July in the deaths in urban areas, namely, fluctuations from 7·2 to 16 5 per 1,000, and in rural areas fluctuations from 7·0 to 19·7 per 1,000; whether the higher rates apply to areas where sanitary conditions are the worst and the public medical and maternity services are least efficient; and whether he proposes any measures to bring down the high incidence of mortality in certain areas to that of the lower?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: I am advised that the considerable variations in the death rate for 1923 as between area and area cannot be assigned to specific causes, and, moreover, that it is hazardous to attempt to draw inferences from the mortality rates for a single year. It is, however, the fact that, in the case of both the urban and the rural area with the highest rates for 1923, the sanitary conditions are not satisfactory and my Department is giving attention to these conditions.

  ICE CREAM AND MINERAL WATER SALES BILL.
  Mr. BECKERasked the Prime Minister if he can give special consideration to the Ice Cream and Mineral Water Sales Bill so that it may be passed during this Session; and if, in considering this request, he will take into consideration the high climatic temperature during this summer?
  Mr. CLYNES: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative; the second part does not therefore arise.
  Mr. BECKER: Could not the right hon. Gentleman give some measure of support to this purely temperance Measure?
  Mr. CLYNES: I am afraid that even this Bill would arouse greater controversy than the hon. Member contemplates.

  CATHOLICS (CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS RIGHTS.)
  Mr. BLUNDELLasked the Prime Minister whether he is prepared to give
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  facilities for a Bill which, while leaving undisturbed the provisions of the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement, and consequently the succession of the Crown in the Protestant line, will in other respects place His Majesty's Catholic subjects on a footing of civil and religious equality with the rest of His Majesty's subjects?
  Mr. CLYNES: So far as this Session is concerned, the answer is in the negative. As regards the future, I cannot give any undertaking without knowing more of the disabilities the hon. Member has in mind.
  Mr. BLUNDELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his answer denies the proposition that all sections of His Majesty's subjects should be on a footing of equality?
  Mr. CLYNES: I am certainly not aware of that.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: Seeing that all this has arisen out of an action in Scotland where Catholics have been denied certain rights, will the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration that this is creating among a minority of people who are, on the whole, as good subjects as others, a good deal of apprehension, and will he give us an opportunity of discussing the whole question?
  Mr. MOREL: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the incident to which allusion has been made is causing very great indignation in many parts of Scotland, and many Scottish Members have been literally bombarded by representations on the subject?
  Mr. CLYNES: If it be true that, for the reasons stated, disabilities are being suffered, I shall be glad to have information on the subject.

  EX-SERVICE MEN (SOUTH BOROUGH COMNIITTEE REPORT).
  Lieut. - Commander FLETCHERasked the Prime Minister if he proposes to take any steps to remove the dissatisfaction existing amongst ex-service civil servants with regard to the final Report of the Southborough Committee, to which they object on the grounds that it offers no final solution of the problem of resettlement of ex-service men in the Civil

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  Service, makes no reference to, or special provision for, disabled men, and no reference whatever to the messenger class?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. William Graham): The recommendations of the Southborough Committee, which contained a majority of Members of this House, representing all parties, were framed after full consideration and inquiry with a view to a final settlement of the problem of ex-service men serving in the Civil Service. As I have already stated, the Report has been accepted by the Government, and I am not prepared to modify its recommendations.

  EX-RANKER OFFICERS.
  Rear-Admiral SUETERasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that nearly 100 Members have asked that the House may be allowed to discuss and determine the question of whether or not, some addition should be made to the pensions of certain ranker officers in respect of their period of commissioned service, and in view of the fact that, when a proposal was made to set up a Committee to look into the claims of these men, it was agreed to on the distinct understanding that the House would have an opportunity of expressing its opinion, he will now say when the House will be given this opportunity?
  Mr. CLYNES: I cannot accept the hon. and gallant Member's interpretation of the remarks made in the course of the Debate on this subject, and I regret that I can hold out no hope of facilities being given for a discussion of the Report.
  Rear-Admiral SUETER: You had better read the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Mr. CLYNES: I have already done so.
  Rear-Admiral SUETER: You cannot have read it correctly.
  Mr. LORIMER: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that the Prime Minister has kept his election promises on this question?
  Major HORE-BELISHA: What steps have the Government taken to find employment for ex-ranker officers?
  Mr. BECKER: Will the ex-ranker officer now have to consider that his case is entirely closed, and that there is no hope of anything further being done for him?
  Mr. CLYNES: That is the interpretation given by the Government to the conclusion stated in the Report.
  Mr. J. HARRIS: Is it not a fact that during the speech of the Prime Minister he repeatedly stated that this House would have a chance of discussing this matter?
  Mr. CLYNES: I do not think the Report implies that.
  Mr. HARRIS: No, not the Report, but the speech of the Prime Minister.
  Major HORE-BELISHA: Why is the right hon. Gentleman afraid of having this matter discussed?

  ADVERTISEMENT HOARDINGS.
  Mr. ROBERT WILSONasked the Minister of Health if he proposes to introduce legislation to make it illegal to erect hoardings for billposting without the consent of the local authorities, and also to give these local bodies power to request the removal of existing hoardings deemed to be undesirable?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: There is already a Bill before the House to give local authorities greater power in regard to hoardings, and I cannot undertake to introduce any further legislation on this subject at the present time

  LUNATICS (MAINTENANCE GRANT).
  Lieut. - Commander FLETCHERasked the Minister of Health if, in view of the increase in the cost of lunatic patients maintained in lunatic asylums now chargeable to boards of guardians, and the inadequacy of the sum of 4s. per head repaid to the various unions under the Local Government Act, 1888, he will introduce legislation amending the Act so as to provide for repayment to boards of guardians of at least one-half the cost of all such patients?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply given on the 17th July, in answer to a similar question by the hon. Member for Bedwelty (Mr. C. Edwards).

  HOUSING.

    RENTS, MANCHESTER.
    Mr. E. SIMONasked the Minister of Health at what rent a house built under the provisions of the Housing (Financial Provisions) Bill in Manchester could be let, assuming that the cost of the house was £500; that the rate of interest was 5 per cent.; that the estimate of the treasurer's committees of the local authorities that repairs, insurance and management will cost £6 10s. per annum is correct; that the rates charged would be those charged at present on similar houses in Manchester; will he show the different items in his calculation separately; and also show what the difference in the rent would be if the subsidy were that at present in force under the 1923 Act, under the assumption that the local authority was contributing a further £6 per annum for 20 years in addition to the Government contribution?
    Mr. WHEATLEY: On the hon. Member's assumptions and on certain other assumptions as regards repayment of loans which it is necessary to make, it is estimated that the rents, exclusive of, rates, chargeable on the basis of annual deficits of £13 10s. for 40 years and £12 for 20 years would be 7s. 9c1. and 9s. 4d. a week respectively. But I would remind the hon. Member that local authorities are under no obligation under the 1923 Act to make any contribution at all out of the rates, and few, in fact, contribute the equivalent of £6 a year for 20 years. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the calculations.
    Mr. SIMON: Does that mean that the maximum reduction in rent that can be made, if the full subsidy is given under the present Housing Bill, is 1s. 6d., as against the rent charged under the 1923 Act?
    Mr. WHEATLEY: No, the hon. Gentleman is not justified in making such an assumption, because it is based on the tenants getting benefits under the 1923 Act which they do not at present get.
    Mr. SIMON: In cases in which the full benefit is being given under the 1923 Act, as is the case in Manchester, would it be correct to say that the maximum reduction that can be made is 1s. 6d.?
    Mr. WHEATLEY: There is, as I have already stated, no obligation on local authorities to make a contribution of £6 a year. It is quite true that, if local authorities were generous enough to make a sufficiently large contribution, then it might actually be that the rents under the 1923 Act would be less than under the proposed Bill.
    Mr. SIMON: That would, in fact, be the case in Manchester.

    PREVENTION OF EVICTIONS ACT.
    Mr. HARCOURT JOHNSTONEasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to the numerous evictions which are still taking place in London and the suburbs owing to the fact that the Prevention of Evictions Act, which received the Royal Assent on 14th July, is not yet available in printed form for the use of the Courts; and whether, in view of the fact that the Courts will shortly be rising, he will take steps to see that the Act is immediately made available.
    Mr. CLYNES: I have looked into this matter and am glad to be able to state that it has been arranged to post copies of this Act to the Courts to-night.
    Sir K. WOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman send copies to the First Commissioner of Works?

  TELEPHONE SERVICE, PLYMOUTH AND EXETER.
  Sir A. SHIRLEY BENNasked the Postmaster-General (1) in connection with the proposed amalgamation of the Plymouth and Exeter telephone districts, whether, in view of the advantages from a progressive business out-look, he will consider making Plymouth the headquarters;
  (2) how many lines are connected with the Plymouth Telephone Exchange and how many with the Exeter Exchange; and whether the growth and importance from a commercial aspect is greater at Plymouth or Exeter;

  1309
  (3) how many of the telephone staff at Plymouth will be removed to Exeter if the headquarters should be made in Exeter; and whether, since Plymouth is the geographical centre of the proposed fusion, the question has been considered whether it would be more economical that the manager, the surveyor, and the super-intending engineer should reside at Plymouth?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Hartshorn): I have come to the conclusion that the balance of advantage lies in the administration of the combined area from headquarters at Exeter, which is a more convenient centre for the district as a whole. The numbers of lines connected with the exchanges are

  Plymouth

  …

  …

  …

  2,215

  Exeter

  …

  …

  …

  1,253

  but the numbers of exchanges are: in the Plymouth telephone district, 65; in the Exeter district, 103; and the numbers of telephones: in the Plymouth district, 9,816; and in the Exeter district, 11,644.
  It is not expected that more than 25 of the telephone office staff in Plymouth will be transferred to Exeter; and the operating staff, numbering 32, will not be affected.
  The transfer to Plymouth of the office of the Post Office surveyor for the Western district, together with the telephone district manager, would involve many more removals and would not be attended by any increase of efficiency.
  Sir A. BENN: Has the right hon. Gentleman borne in mind the fact that Plymouth is between three and four times larger than Exeter, that it is a progressive town and the only seaport of any importance in Devon, and that it is the great south-western head of our naval and dockyard system? Surely, in these circumstances, it is hardly good business to put it under Exeter for its telephone service?
  Mr. HARTSHORN: I am sure my hon. Friend will realise that, in fixing the administrative areas for the telephone service in this country, something other than a town has to be taken. The Plymouth district is, as the figures show, very much smaller than the Exeter district, and I am assured by my advisers that this projected change will certainly add considerably to the efficiency of the administration and improve the service.
  Major HORE-BELISHA: Has the right hon. Gentleman borne in mind what an important naval and military centre Plymouth and Devonport are, and does he not consider that that is the chief factor? Are not the Army and Navy far more important than the fact that Exeter has a few more exchanges?
  Mr. HOPE SIMPSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that Exeter is a cathedral town, and is also the capital of Devon?
  Mr. FOOT: Will he also consider that, were it not for what Plymouth did in past years, this country would probably now be under the Spanish flag?
  Sir A. BENN: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, as one who has been interested in the telephone service in the past, why, if Plymouth has more lines entering it, should Exeter, with half the number of lines entering it, be considered more important, seeing that it is for the lines that enter that the telephone service is wanted?
  Mr. HARTSHORN: I think I can only add to the statement I have already made that all relevant considerations have been taken into account.

  TAXES (ARREARS).
  Mr. W. THORNEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the arrears of the Super-tax, Corporation Profits Tax and the Excess Profits Duty at the end of the financial year 1924; whether any of the arrears have been paid since the end of the financial year; and what action is being taken to get all the arrears paid?
  Mr. GRAHAM: The estimated amount of Super-tax which had become payable and been demanded by 31st March, 1024, but which remained unpaid at that date, was approximately £26,000,000. Analogous figures are not available for Corporation Profits Tax or Excess Profits Duty, but the approximate amounts of these duties in assessment (less arrears shown due to be given up) at 31st March, 1924, were as follow:

  Corporation Profits Tax

  £15,000,000

  Excess Profits Duty (including Munitions Levy)

  £161,000,000

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  At any moment of time there are always arrears of taxes awaiting payment, and the collection of such arrears is continually proceeding as part of the normal administration of the Department. About half of the Super-tax arrears of £26,000,000 is now paid. Some £5,000,000 of the arrears of Corporation Profits Tax has been collected, and a rather smaller sum of Excess Profits Duty. As I have explained on more than one occasion, a large part of the Excess Profits Duty arrear will ultimately prove not due or not recoverable.
  Mr. W. GREENWOOD: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the payment of these arrears has already resulted in concerns having to close down, and is causing considerable anxiety?
  Mr. THORNE: Is it not the case that if an ordinary workman does not pay his Income Tax he goes to prison? [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] He goes to the police court, anyhow.

  ALTONA (ENGLISH SAILORS FINED).
  Commander BELLAIRSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to the experience of the Aberdeen trawler "Rosetta" in Altona harbour; whether he is aware that members of the crew were fined for swimming in the harbour, while German seamen were unmolested while doing the same thing; and whether he has any statement to make?
  Mr. PONSONBY: I am informed that three members of the crew of the steam trawler "Rosetta," were fined the sum of 10 marks each for bathing in Altona harbour on the 27th ultimo. I understand that a German sailor from a neighbouring vessel was bathing at the same time, but left the water as soon as the police boat appeared. It is not certain whether the German police saw this German sailor. Although the German authorities appear to have been within their legal rights in taking the action reported, His Majesty's Consul-General at Hamburg has been instructed to make inquiries into the case and to point out that any infraction of the local regulations was committed through ignorance.
  Mr. SIMPSON: Was the fine in gold marks or paper marks?
  Mr. PONSONBY: I should require notice.

  BOARDS OF GUARDIANS (SURCHARGES).
  Sir KINGSLEY WOODasked the Minister of Health whether the district auditor who is now examining the accounts of the Poplar Guardians has completed his inquiry; whether he can state the amount of any surcharges or proposed surcharges; and what action he is taking in the matter?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: The adjourned audits were completed about a fortnight ago, and the auditor has reported surcharges of sums amounting to £3,699. I have not yet received any appeals against these surcharges.
  Sir K. WOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose proceeding in the matter and firmly administering the law?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: I have no knowledge that the law is not being firmly administered now.
  Mr. BECKER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that premiums are being offered for rooms and houses so that foreigners can get under the Poplar Guardians?
  Mr. W. THORNE: Have all other boards of guardians a clean sheet against surcharges?
  Sir K. WOODasked the Minister of Health whether he can gate the present position relating to the surcharges made by the district auditors in the cases of certain London boards of guardians; whether he has received any appeals; what is the nature of the same; and whether he can now announce his decisions?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: I have received appeals in certain of these cases from the guardians surcharged, the ground of appeal being either that the auditor's decision is not supported by law or that it is equitable that the expenditure should be allowed. I am not at present in a position to announce my decision on the appeals.
  Sir K. WOOD: When is the right hon. Gentleman going to come to a decision? Is he aware that there has been continued delay, and does he forget all the promises he made to be expeditious?
  Mr. BUCHANAN: Will not my right hon. Friend consider taking all the surcharges at the one time and deciding them, thereby preventing any confusion between one borough and another?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: I can only take the appeals as they reach me.
  Sir K. WOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman announce his decision on the matter before the House rises?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: I will announce my decision as soon as it is made.

  INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES.
  Sir K. WOODasked the Prime Minister whether he has given consideration to the suggestion of the appointment of a permanent Commission to collect facts about industry and to offer its services in industrial disputes; and whether he can make any statement of the Government's policy in this connection?
  Mr. CLYNES: I regret that I can add nothing at present to answers to previous questions on this subject.
  Sir K. WOOD: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that with all the various industrial troubles with which the country is still threatened this is a very valuable suggestion and well worth consideration?
  Mr. CLYNES: It is a question which gives rise to very different views. I cannot say there is any intention to establish a permanent Commission, but the whole subject is under consideration.
  Sir K. WOOD: Does not the right hon. Gentleman see that there is a good deal to be said for this, because courts of inquiry are often set up too late, while this suggests a tribunal which might intervene at an early stage.

  SOLICITOR-GENERAL.
  Major WHELERasked the Prime Minister whether it is proposed to find a
  1314
  seat for the Solicitor-General in the House of Commons; and, if so, when it is proposed to carry this out?
  Mr. CLYNES: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answer which I gave on the 8th July in reply to a question by the hon. and gallant Member for West Dorset.
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: Have the Government come to a decision on the matter?

  NURSES (REGISTRATION).
  Dr. CHAPPLEasked the Minister of Health whether he has yet consulted the Law Officers of the Crown as to the plight of existing nurses who, notwithstanding an order of this House giving them access to the State register of nurses, have been denied this right by reason of the fact that the interpretation of the Act by the Nursing Council gave them only one week within which to apply for registration?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: Yes, Sir. I am advised by the Law Officers that the view adopted by the General Nursing Council was the correct construction of the Statute.
  Dr. CHAPPLE: Does that mean that these nurses have no resource but to go to law, and, if that be so, will the Minister recompense them for any loss providing they prove themselves to be right?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: I am afraid I do not understand the implication of the question.
  Dr. CHAPPLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that a large number of nurses are excluded from the register because of a decision given by the Nursing Council. The Law Officers advise that the decision of the Nursing Council is correct. Does that mean that a nurse must go to law if she thinks she is in the right and the Nursing Council in the wrong, and if she takes it to the Court will the right hon. Gentleman indemnify the nurse if she proves to be right?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: I do not think there is any obligation on the nurses to go to law.
  Dr. CHAPPLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the nurse has no redress unless she goes to law. If she goes to law because of this decision by the Nursing Council, will the right hon. Gentleman indemnify the nurse if she proves to be right?
  Mr. WHEATLEY: The question referred to nurses who do not make application within the time. I am sure my hon. Friend must realise that if I announce that I would indemnify all nurses against any loss incurred in litigation the Courts would be kept busy for some considerable time.
  Dr. CHAPPLE rose—
  Mr. SPEAKER: Further questions must be put on the Paper.

  CATTLE BREEDERS' CONFERENCE.
  The following question stood on the Paper in, the name of Major CHURCH:
  "79. To ask the Minister of Agriculture why his Department was not directly officially represented at the conference of cattle breeders held at Edinburgh from 7th to 12th July, at which many important matters, including the future of the pedigree cattle export trade, were discussed, and in view of the fact that the conference was considered of sufficient importance by the United States of America Department of Agriculture, the Scottish Board of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Agriculture for Northern Ireland for these bodies to send official representatives?"
  Mr. BLUNDELL: May I put this question, on behalf of my hon. and gallant Friend?
  Mr. SPEAKER: Has the hon. Member the permission of the hon. and gallant Member to put the question?
  Mr. BLUNDELL: No, Sir.

  TREATY OF MUTUAL GUARANTEE.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINasked the Deputy-Leader of the House whether his attention has been called to the fact that the reply of the British Government to the Council of the League of Nations on the subject of the pact of mutual guarantee has already been published in certain enterprising newspapers, whether his attention
  1316
  has been called to the fact that the reply has not yet been made available to Members of this House and when we may expect it, and how does it come about that before it has been laid on the table of this House it has been published in the press.
  Mr. CLYNES: My right hon. Friend was able to give me notice of this question only 20 minutes ago and I regret that, although I have endeavoured to obtain information, I have not been able to secure the material to enable me to answer, but I will at once inquire into the matter and see that the House is supplied with it.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman in a position now to say definitely whether the Government will publish the reply of the Dominion Governments at the same time. I observe that the reply of the Canadian Government appears in the same organs of the Press and I think we ought to have it.
  Mr. CLYNES: I understand that on that point the Prime Minister has made a statement, and I can only represent to the Prime Minister the views expressed to me in the right hon. Gentleman's question.
  Mr. BECKER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether this information leaks out from any known sources? Does it come from the Overseas Trade Department?
  Mr. J. HARRIS: Is it not a fact that Sir Eric Drummond gave it out in Geneva, last week?

  IMPERIAL WIRELESS SERVICE.

    GOVERNMENT DECISION.
    Sir LAMING WORTHINGTON-EVANSasked the Postmaster-General whether the Government has yet come to a decision on the recommendations of the Donald Committee, and what steps have been taken to establish an Imperial wireless service?
    Mr. HARTSHORN: The Government have decided to adopt the main recommendations of the Donald Committee in regard to the Empire wireless service, which were as follows:

    (1) That the State, through the Post Office, should own all wireless

    1317
    stations in Great Britain for communication with the Overseas Dominions, Colonies, Protectorates and Territories; and

    (2) That the Post Office should operate directly, under an improved business organisation, all the Empire stations in Great Britain.

    In the meantime, the Marconi Company have put forward proposals respecting the use of short-wave directive stations (the so-called "beam" stations) for communication between this country and the Dominions and India, and they have made definite arrangements for the erection of a beam station in Canada for communication with this country. The Government are prepared to co-operate in the trial of this new system, and in the course of a few days art agreement will be submitted for the approval of the House of Commons whereby the Marconi Company will erect, as contractors, a beam station here, adapted for communication with Canada, and capable of extension so as to provide for beam communication with South Africa, India and Australia, the station to be completed within 26 weeks of the site being placed at the company's disposal. It is a condition of the contract that the installations shall only be accepted and paid for by the Government if they fulfil certain minimum guarantees, which are as follow:
    Communication at 100 five-letter words per minute (exclusive of any repetitions necessary to ensure accuracy) for the following average number of hours daily throughout the year:

    Hours.

    Between Great Britain and Canada

    18

    Between Great Britain and South Africa

    11

    Between Great Britain and India

    12

    Between Great Britain and Australia

    7

    Communication is only possible when the average altitude of the sun between the terminal points is below a certain maximum—in other words, communication can only take place during the hours of darkness and during one or two hours before and after twilight.
    1318
    The hours of communication being outside the ordinary business day, stations of this type will as a rule only be suitable for deferred traffic. For long distance communication at all hours, and for simultaneous long distance transmission in all directions at all hours (conditions which the Government regard as essential both for strategic and for other reasons), high power stations of the type of that being erected at Rugby w ill still be necessary.
    The Government have been in communication with the Dominions and India on the subject. The Governments of India and New Zealand have stated that a station of the new type will not meet their requirements, and the Government of India are awaiting replies to an invitation which they have issued for the formation of an Indian company to erect high-power stations in India. The Governments of Australia and South Africa have not reached a final decision, but I understand they are disposed to allow beam stations to be erected in Australia and South Africa for communication with this country in order to give the new system a trial. His Majesty's Government have undertaken, in the event of these stations being erected, to provide corresponding installations in this country as extensions of the station to be used for the Canadian service. The Marconi Company have agreed to co-operate whether the decision of the Dominions is in favour of beam stations or high power stations. It is at present proposed to extend the Rugby station from 12 to 16 masts, as recommended in the Donald Report, but this decision will he subject to reconsideration if, in view of policy adopted by the Dominions, the extension should prove to be unnecessary.
    The question of an improved business organisation for the working of the stations in this country is being considered by a further Committee under the Chairmanship of Sir Robert Donald. This Committee is expected to report very shortly.
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Does that mean that Australia and South Africa are abandoning the intention to erect high-power stations?
    Mr. HARTSHORN: That appears to be their general attitude at the moment. At any rate, until they have given this system a trial.
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON - EVANS: Generally they will be content with communications after dark?
    Mr. HARTSHORN: I have said that they have not yet reached a definite decision, but they are disposed in that direction at the present moment.
    Mr. P. HARRIS: Is it not daylight in New Zealand and Australia when it is dark here? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer!"]
    Sir F. WISE: What will be the cost with regard to this?
    Mr. HARTSHORN: I would prefer that my hon. Friend should wait until the agreement is before the House. Hon. Members will have it in a few days. It will be better for them to see all the details then.
    Sir F. WISE: Surely you would look into the cost before you make an agreement.
    Commander BELLAIRS: Will this involve any fresh Supplementary Estimate?
    Mr. HARTSHORN: No.
    Mr. BECKER: Will the House have an opportunity of discussing this agreement, and can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that in any agreement there is no question of any monopoly of any kind being given to the Marconi Company?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: Is there any estimate of the cost which the Department of the right hon. Gentleman can give to the House?
    Mr. HARTSHORN: I thought that it would be better to have the agreement before the House rather than to answer questions on matters of detail. The contract provides that the Marconi Company shall erect a station for the Government at cost price plus 10 per cent. contractors' profits. We cannot say the exact price, but the maximum is to be £58,000. Should additional units be required for Australia or South Africa, the additional units will cost a maximum of £36,000.
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Is this experiment in beam transmission,
    1320
    therefore, to be carried out at the expense of the Government? From the original statement of the right hon. Gentleman, I gathered that the Marconi Company were to bear the expense, and that the Government were going to take it over only if it were successful. Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman now to say that the Government propose to pay £58,000 for the experiment?
    Mr. HARTSHORN: No, the position is this. There is a guaranteed service in the contract. When the station is erected there will be a seven days' test. If that test gives the service which is guaranteed, then 50 per cent. of the price of the station will be paid. There will then be a further six months' test, and if, during these six months, the results are satisfactory, a further 25 per cent. will be paid. There will then be another six months' test, and if, at the end of that period, a final decision is given by the engineers that it is in satisfactory working order, the final portion will be paid.
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Then nothing has to be spent by the Government unless these tests are satisfactory?
    Mr. HARTSHORN: Yes, and even if, after the first and second payments are made, and before the final test is given, it does not comply with that test, the money paid has to be refunded.
    Mr. STURROCK: In view of—
    Mr. SPEAKER: I understand that this contract must be laid before the House, and will not be valid until the House has approved. There will, therefore, be an opportunity for discussing it.
    Mr. STURROCK: In view of the express undertaking of the Government that we should have ample opportunity to discuss the whole question I would like to know what procedure the Government propose to adopt with reference to the agreement, and how long will it be before the House has an opportunity of considering it?
    Mr. CLYNES: That is a matter to be arranged between the usual channels. The House is assured of an opportunity of considering the matter.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. BALDWIN: May I ask the Deputy-Leader of the House what Orders the Government propose to take to-night?
Mr. CLYNES: After consultation, it has been agreed, through the usual channels, that after disposing of the Third Reading of the Finance Bill we shall take the following Orders to-night:

Old Age Pensions Bill, Report.

Pensions (Increase) Bill, Report.

Agricultural Wages [Regulation], Report thereupon.

Ordered,
"That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted at this day's Sitting from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[Mr. Clynes.]

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

  STANDING COMMITTEE D.
  Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee D: Mr. Richards.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  FINANCE BILL.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
  Mr. J. HOPE: When any Budget comes before this House there are two questions, one of which it is usual to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer. One is "How will he get it?" and the other is " What will he do with it?" Happy is the Chancellor of the Exchequer who has only the latter question to answer—what will he do with the surplus? I think this House will recognise that both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury are men of great ability, but I cannot say that in this Budget their ability has been very hardly tried. There is nothing easier than to spend a legacy which the wisdom of others has bequeathed; and there is nothing pleasanter than to distribute lawfully money which you have not earned. However, I do not grudge the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the satisfaction which they must have felt during the last two or three months. I know that it must have been very pleasant for them to have realised that at the gatherings of the faithful throughout the country their followers were told to open their mouths and enjoy the extra sweets which a good Chancellor and a kind Financial Secretary to the Treasury had given them. I do not grudge them that satisfaction, hut I would ask them what of the immediate future? There is a fog which lies in the future that no question to the Chancellor or to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has yet dispersed. According to the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he budgeted for a surplus on the working of the present year, on the present basis, of £4,000,000, and I observe to-day that Supplementary Estimates have been presented to the amount of some £3,000,000. I think that I must ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to say whether he regards that as the limit of extra commitments of the Government during the present financial year, or whether he
  1344
  has revised the estimate which the Chancellor submitted at the end of April?
  Further, I would ask him with regard to the next financial year. The Chancellor estimated, on the present basis of yield, that when the effect of his reductions was fully apparent there would be a loss of revenue of not merely the £4,000,000, but of some, I think it was, £12,000,000 or £13,000,000 more next year. I would ask him there again whether, in view of the further commitments of the Government, that figure can be adhered to, or whether, as many have thought, allowing for the present yield of taxes and making such an estimate as we can of the commitments which the Government are entering into in this year's programme, there would be a deficit in the year 1025–26 of something nearer £40,000,000 than £17,000,000. Incidentally I would ask this question: In the revenue up to now there has been a considerable item from the German Export Duties. They have been reduced from 26 per cent. to 5 per cent. Does the Financial Secretary to the Treasury consider that that 5 per cent, will be a permanent source of revenue or does he hope for more, because it must he remembered that a miscellaneous revenue, which is largely the result of the sale of War stores, will probably come to an end this financial year, or that a very small remnant is likely to be realised in the following year?
  In view of the doubtful character of next year's Balance-sheet, some sinister surmises have been cast about as to the intentions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Some think he is prudently discounting the estimates of his advisers, and is really counting on a larger surplus in order to present to the House a more popular Budget next year. Others think he is deliberately working for a deficit in order to justify some new and drastic plan of taxation. I thank it is true that most men prefer to he thought more wicked and more clever than they really are—I am sorry the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not here to listen to the kind things I wish to say about him, but I know he is engaged elsewhere—and I have no doubt the right hon. Gentleman would be glad if we were to consider him as a sort of blend of Macchiavel and Bobespierre. I, personally, do not regard him in that

  1345
  light, because I have seen in the Chancellor of the Exchequer symptoms of a latent humour which, as a rule, is alien to real malice, and I suspect his design is simply this: he has seen his way, owing to what we have left him, to produce a popular Budget this year and he is letting next year take care of itself. But as long as the answers of the Treasury are so vague as to the probable course of events next year, he need not be surprised if these rumours go forth, and should they continue, I am afraid they are likely to shake that confidence the maintenance of which I am sure the Chancellor has quite sincerely at heart. A good deal has been said in the course of the Budget discussions as to the proportion between direct and indirect taxation. I do not propose to elaborate that point at length; I am rather disposed to agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) that its importance has been exaggerated, and that for two reasons. [HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up!"]
  Mr. FERGUSON: We cannot hear a word.
  Mr. HOPE: I would ask the hon. Gentleman to come nearer to me, The first reason is because it is difficult sometimes to distinguish between the two and the second is because direct taxation percolates just as much to others, besides those on whom it is first levied, as does indirect taxation. There is a current fallacy that while indirect taxation percolates to the consumer, direct taxation affects only those who are subject to the immediate assessment. I hardly think that view can be very widely held within this House, and, in a sense, I am almost ashamed of arguing the point, but it is very widely held outside. Many think that when they have put taxation on the rich direct taxpayer they have done something which is good in itself by relieving him of some of his superfluous wealth and that they have hurt nobody else. Nothing could be more fallacious. Direct taxation must and does pass on, so long as men do not hoard their wealth. If they spend it, those who are the subjects of direct taxation reduce their expenditure and that reduced expenditure is passed on to some producer, somehow.
  Let me give an example of how this works. I do not know whether hon. Members realise what the position was
  1346
  immediately after the War, and to illustrate it I will take the instance of a man with a large nominal income, which we will call £20,000 a year. That man before the War had something over £18,000 year to spend. During the last years of the War and in the two years immediately afterwards he had not £18,000 but £10,000 to spend, and that £10,000 had only the same purchasing power as £4,000 had before the War. So that this man, who was accounted rich, suddenly found his purchasing power reduced to less than a quarter of what it had been before. The result was that somebody besides himself suffered. He was inconvenienced, but others suffered. It may have been his charities which suffered; it may have been that he reduced his outside staff or the number of his indoor servants; it may have been that he ceased to buy the car which he was accustomed to buy before, but in each of these cases, while he may have been inconvenienced, somebody else suffered. Can hon. Members who think about it dispassionately deny that the high taxation which is at present prevailing is responsible, at any rate in some degree, for the unemployment from which we now suffer so seriously?
  There is another class of rich men. I need not say I am very far from that class myself—I wish I belonged to it—but I know for instance a man with a very large nominal income, an income of well over £50,000. That man was accustomed to put a very considerable sum, £10,000 or £15,000, into new speculative enterprises. If he lost he shrugged his shoulders: if in the end the money fructified, naturally, he was pleased, but in any case employment was created. That man—and there were many like him—is able to do so no longer and therefore I would beg of hon. Members to realise that even the idlest and most selfish rich do involuntarily give employment and if they are hit by direct taxation, as I say they may be inconvenienced, but it often means taking away the livelihood of others. I say, "Tax, if you will, those superfluities which give profit outside this country." Probably it is impracticable, but I should like to see an absentee or passport tax, to catch some of the wealth which goes annually to the Riviera and Egypt. Probably it would not work can see great difficulties in the way, but I should he glad to see such a plan carried out if it

  1347
  were possible. If it be not possible, then I say, "Tax those luxuries and superfluities which come in from abroad."
  4.0 P.M.
  I know the argument that it matters not whether money is spent within a country or not. Economists argue that it all comes back in some form or another against exports or services. It may come back, but when it comes back, how it comes back and who benefits by it if it does comes back, nobody can say. If a man loses £1,000 at a gaming table abroad, that £1,000 presumably goes to the management of that gaming table. They do something with it, and in the end some debt due in England may be paid with it, but, whatever economists may say, I am quite certain no man of common sense would say it is the same thing to lose £1,000 at Monte Carlo as to spend £1,000 in Coventry or in Glasgow. What is certain is that the money does not fructify in this country in the meantime. Therefore I would say, "Tax luxury imports." I think the sparkling wines tax is a very good case in point. That is a perfectly just tax, and if money is to be raised I prefer that Epernay and Coblenz should feel the burden of the tax rather than Burton or Glenlivet. I would go further; I would say that there should be a tax upon such things as imported lace and silks, because if money is to be raised it is better the effect of the tax should be felt at Lyons than at. Nottingham would say the same as to ladies' ready-made clothes. I am no authority on this subject, but I would rather, if such a tax were put on, that the Rue de la Paix suffered than Bond Street. So would I go through the whole list of luxury taxes. I think they are defensible on revenue grounds and on sumptuary grounds, and, if they have incidentally a protective effect, I do not think that they are in any way the worse for that. I would, therefore, by this indirect taxation, rather than by direct taxation, as far as opportunity and practicability allow, make the luxuries of the rich subserve the employment of the poor of this country. What does this Bill do for unemployment? As far as the remission of the Tea Duty is concerned, nothing in this country. The remission of the Sugar Duty, I suppose, does something with regard to confectionery, and, perhaps, some manufactured mineral waters.
  1348
  The remission of the Corporation Profits Tax may, perhaps, do a little.
  But there are two serious matters in which the working of this Finance Bill will be dead against employment. First of all, it imperils our Dominion markets. I do not know whether hon. Members realise how important they are in the present condition of the world. This is the kind of thing that I hear in my own constituency: "Trade is bad. Some of our old customers cannot buy, because their money is so depreciated that it is impossible for them to pay in English sterling. Others will not buy. There are tariffs in America against us. But we have always hitherto been able to depend upon our Dominions and especially on the Australian preference. That has saved us up till now, and that we look to in the future whatever the condition of Europe may be." But are we to take always and give nothing? Can we rely on these markets if we make no overtures to our own people beyond the seas? I cannot conceive a more calamitous thing for the trade and the revenue of this country than that any of our Dominions should be tempted to enter into fiscal agreements with ether parts of the world, and yet, if we persistently slam the door and refuse to give them anything in return for what they give us, sooner or later, in spite or all patriotic sentiment, that must be the natural effect of what we are now doing.
  Then with regard to the New Import Duties. It is very difficult to understand the mentality of those who have so lightly struck them off it is not as if we get anything in return. When Cobden negotiated his treaty of 1860, it is true that he dealt a deadly blow to the silk industry, but, looked at from a purely materialistic point of view of the whole of the trade of the country, undoubtedly for several years afterwards he did obtain a valuable entrance into French markets as a consequence. But here you are sacrificing revenue and industry without gaining anything whatever. In the same way, it has sometimes been held that the result of protective duties was to force up prices and admit of the creation of rings Nothing of the kind can be alleged here. Competition has gone on freely, production has increased and prices diminished, and a valuable industry has not only been saved, but benefited through the worst of times. Yet, for no business reason, the

  1349
  whole tax and all the profit which it brought to the industry are swept away simply for the sake of theory and nothing else.
  I can only explain it on this theory. It has not been done as a matter of business, but in consequence of what I can only desribe as a, perverted religious dogma. The time was when, in this country and you may say throughout the world, religious uniformity was enforced by the most terrible sanctions, and in the 16th century in this country all who did not conform were liable either to combustion or vivisection according to the Government that was in power. If a heresy appeared harmless in its fruits, that was no reason whatever why it should be spared, because the more harmless it appeared, the greater mischief might be thought to be latent within it. Those times have changed, but the spirit has not changed, and it found new embodiments in the. 19th century. In the 19th century many men got somewhat indefinite about their religious dogma, but, as dogma is a necessity to most men, they embrace the new creed of economic dogma instead. Personally, my religion supplies me with dogma enough not to have to run to economists for more. But that was not so with many men in the 19th century, and is not so now, and they embrace the new faith with keeness and fanaticism. All the characteristics of their predecessors in the religious field have been repeated and are repeated now, and I think I can see such characters as Torquemada, Topcliffe and Praise-God Barebones all rolled up together under the genial personality of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) or the more austere embodiment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They rival, and, although their methods are not quite the same, they, if anything, exceed the enthusiasm and fanaticism of the past. No inquisitor, no zealot of the Synod of Dort, no supra-lapsarian Cameronian Minister has shown more fury in defence of orthodoxy, and, with regard to these particular taxes, they used a ruthless syllogism, "The Import Duties are heterodox; heterodoxy has to be put down; therefore these taxes must be put down." And considerations of trade, considerations of revenue, and considerations of the men they displaced are nothing, because this dogma bears them down.
  1350
  Nay, I will go further, I think they act in the spirit of a privileged theocracy. Hon. Members may have heard of one test of religious orthodoxy being
  "quod semper, quod ubique quod ab omnibus."
  That cannot apply to the dogma of free imports. It is not held everywhere; it is not held by all; it was not always held. According to its votaries, Britain is a land of promise, Britain alone has the true faith. All the outer world lies in the shadow of darkness, unless they admit Holland with its 5 per cent, tariff as a kind of Samaria. But, for the rest, we and we alone are the fortunate people. We and we alone are the Chosen Land. Manchester is the Holy City, and Deans-gate is a Via Sacra, and I suppose the Temple is to be found in St. Anne's Square. They copy ancient precedents in all but one thing, and that is this: Whereas the worship of the God of Israel did not demand human sacrifice, the worship of the god of Cobdcn does. Now I would ask the Government; how long; they are going to adhere to this theory? They are not bound to it by their own principles; they are not bound to it by the practice of their Labour friends overseas. There is nothing in Collectivism that lends itself to free imports, and, if we can imagine that the moans of production in whole or in part were taken into the bands of the State, I am certain that the. Government would have to see that the produce of the State had the same reasonable protection that we demand for it now. They are not justified by the practice, as I see it, of any of their Labour friends abroad. Is the Labour party in Australia in favour of free imports? Is the Labour party in any country abroad in favour of free imports? Here and here alone hon. Members who call themselves Socialists are traditionalists and bound by an antiquated tradition of the worst kind.
  This dogma of free imports was allied to other dogmas—the dogma of free trade in labour, the dogma of laissez faire all round. Those dogmas have gone, and no party now denies that the interference of the State, wisely conducted to force specific objects, may be justified, even if it interferes with the unlimited liberty of the subject. Nobody now clings to the old theories that were rampant about the year 1835, and of which, perhaps, this is the sole survivor. This theory of free

  1351
  imports was born of Benthamism out of Whiggery, like the Poor Law. Hon. Members who profess modern Collectivist theories must realise the origin of that to which they still adhere. Not only are the theories of those times gone, but the illusions of those times have gone too. At the time when these principles were at their heyday, at the time of the Exhibition of 1850, men cherished the generous illusion that Free Trade would produce universal brotherhood and universal peace. They held, what seems to us now the strange view, that scientific progress meant moral improvement. What do we see now? Poison gas, tanks, machine guns, and bombing aeroplanes—these are the fruits of science, and no man can look on the twentieth century and think that any of those things on which our grandfathers built their theories have a place in the world as we see it now.
  Hon. Members have dropped the other parts of these theories. How long will they remain wedded to this? Goods come into the country and take the living from our people's mouths and they do not intervene. Those goods may be the result of long hours of labour, and still they do not intervene. Those goods may be the result of sweated labour, and still they do not intervene. If they did intervene, I personally would go far with them on some items of their programme; and such intervention on their part would he not only not against their principles but would be in accordance with the logical sequence of the principles which they profess. I am inclined to think that I see some stirrings of conscience on their part, but I do not know how far conscience will prevail over tradition and party uniformity. But be that as it may, I am quite certain that the problem of our day, the problem of unemployment, is to be solved on these lines and on no other, and, if hon. Members cannot repudiate their present theories, the country will repudiate them.
  Mr. G. LAMBERT: The right hon. Gentleman has dressed up the old Protectionist doctrine with a great deal of humour in a very effective speech. Personally, I hope he will forgive me if I do not follow him, because I thought the party opposite had given up the doctrine
  1352
  of Protection—that they were going to turn over a new leaf, and lead a better life. Apparently that expectation is to be disappointed, and the lesson which it was thought had been taught them has been forgotten.
  Mr. HOPE: I said nothing about a general tariff.
  Mr. LAMBERT: My right hon. Friend will excuse me if I decline to follow him into that question. I will simply say it is very difficult to impose import taxation without a tariff. I did not quite follow my right hon. Friend in his suggestion as to increased taxation. I am one who wants to take off taxes, and not put them on. That is the mainspring of my political dogma. I want to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, following on the lines of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, what effect taxation is having on employment. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he introduced his Budget, suggested that our trade, with all its fluctuations, showed hopeful signs of recovery. Is that so? I would like to ask the Financial Secretary how far the Treasury believe that heavy taxation—and I may say I do not want to increase the taxes—is impeding the recovery of the working man's productivity? I would like an answer to that question. Is the iron and steel trade in a flourishing condition? How far does taxation and local rating affect it? I extracted from the "Board of Trade Journal" just now the production of pig iron in this country. In 1913 our production was 1,550,000 tons monthly. In 1924 it was only 632,000 tons. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the imports?"] Really the hon. Gentleman must let me proceed with my speech. I would deal with foreign imports if it were in order. I am asking what effect the present taxation has on the iron and steel trade, not what effect future taxation which may be imposed by hon. Gentlemen opposite may have on that important industry. Again, I observe in the current issue of the "Board of Trade Journal" that blast furnaces have decreased in number, there are 185 in operation—the lowest number since January, 1923. How far have heavy rates and taxes caused this reduction in the number of blast furnaces, thereby crippling a key industry like the iron and steel trade? I should like an answer to that. It must

  1353
  be apparent that a foreign trade is essential to this country. We must export manufactured goods if we are to import food and raw material, but if taxes and rates so increase the cost of our manufactured articles that the foreign consumer cannot buy them surely that must be a factor in unemployment.
  The right hon. Gentleman talked about the Motor Car Duties. If hon. Members will again look at the Board of Trade returns they will find that the repeal of the Motor Car Duties has induced the motor-car industry to pull its weight in the national boat. Before the War we had a considerable export trade in motor cars. Since the announcement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the duties are to be repealed our export trade in motor cars has sprung up amazingly. The exports for 1922 represented a value of £1,204,000. In the first six months of this year that total has been more than reached. That shows that we are on the look-out for markets abroad. We must do that. One cannot argue that we can get goods from abroad for nothing. The motor-car industry is to-day creating an export trade which was lamentably wanting while the industry was protected by this 33⅓ per cent. duty. I would ask the hon. Gentleman if that is not the case We see great signs or apparently great signs of prosperity all around us. There is enormous expenditure and great consumption by all classes in the community on amusements, horse racing and cinema entertainments. Every place is crowded. Are we really prospering, or is all this fictitious? The largest fortunes to-day are apparently made from the sale of whisky and tobacco.
  I want to ask the Government seriously whether our export trade is not affected to-day by our taxation. I do not think it is in a satisfactory condition, judging by the "Board of Trade Journal," a very admirable production, which gives as information, facts and not opinions. If we could get more facts and less opinions probably we should do much better than we do. It will be seen from this Journal that the volume of our export trade in 1920 was 29 per cent. less than in 1913. In 1921 it was 50 per cent. less. In 1922 it was 31 per cent. less, and last year it was 25 per cent. less than in 1913. What
  1354
  is the reason of that? Is it that our goods are too dear and that in consequence the foreign consumer cannot buy them? Are they made too dear by the present crushing burden of taxation levied in this country? An hon. Member opposite some time ago asked a question about this, and was informed that last year taxation in this country was £16 7s. 2d. per head, while rates represented another £3 14s. 7d. per head, making a total of £20 1s. 9d. per head for rates and taxes. Is not that a very serious handicap on industry? I am asking that question not to make any political point, but it really seems to me that all parties in the. House have forgotten the word "economy," and that almost every question now put asks for more Government expenditure. I really think it would be a very wise suggestion if questions suggesting additional expenditure of Government money were printed in red on the Order Paper as a danger signal. If we are to judge our prosperity by the amount of taxes we pay we should be the most prosperous people in the world, because there is no country taxed and rated so heavily as we are.
  If you have Protection you will have more taxation. That cannot be denied, and I want to ask the Labour Ministry who have now been in power for something like six months what they are doing to increase the productivity of the country. I observe that following a rather bad example they propose to give employment again by spending more public money. I have read in the papers—I do not know how far it is accurate—that one of their schemes for providing employment is to build a great road from Inverness to Nairn at a cost of £500,000. Such a road would be very convenient for gentlemen who want to get to their grouse moors, but would it increase the productivity of the country? That is a question I would like to put to the Secretary to the Treasury. Every shopkeeper when he wants to sell his goods advertises a reduction in prices. I do not want to engage in any election cry, but I do want most earnestly to ask what is the Government's reasoned view at the present time, what is the view of their expert officials at the Treasury, as to how far taxation is causing unemployment., by adding such a burden to the cost of producing our goods that foreign consumers cannot buy them. So far as I am concerned, I have stood

  1355

  here for some years advocating a reduction of taxation. We can only have that reduction of taxation by securing a reduction of expenditure. The House of Commons is the most extravagant assembly in the world, and until we can change the present sentiment of the country, that hon. Members can win popularity by advocating expenditure of public money, we shall not have that economy without which no country can prosper.
  The price of the loaf is going up. Will not this continued heavy taxation increase the cost of living? Can we go on with last year's exports, 25 per cent. less, as compared with 1913? We have a greater population. Our exports are falling in volume. How are we going to get the raw material which we require? I observe that our ships—and British shipbuilders are amongst the best in the world—are being sent to Holland for repairs because there the work can done cheaper. Is that because of our heavy public burdens? I had recently an interesting and very illuminating conversation with a great Australian importer of food, who said he had the greatest possible difficulty in getting remittances to Australia.
  Sir F. WISE: That will be altered by the Commonwealth bank now.
  Mr. LAMBERT: I do not believe that the banks can permanently make or mar prosperity.
  Sir F. WISE: They can deal with this question of remittances.
  Mr. LAMBERT: In the long run the remittances must depend on exports and imports, and unless our exports and services to Australia balance our imports from Australia the exchange is bound to go against us. This is the absolute fact, that this Australian importer of food is to-day paying over and above all the bank charges 3 per cent. extra to get his remittances forwarded. That must be changed. I want to say one other thing the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us in his opening speech—and I make no apology for referring to this as he referred essentially to the industry which I represent and in which I am concerned—that he proposed to strengthen the Land Valuation Department, and that he also proposed to bring in some Measure for the taxation of land
  1356
  values. Well, I warn him very earnestly to keep his taxing hand off agricultural land. The agriculturists to-day are not in a position of great prosperity, and I would point out that, though there seems to be such an enormous wealth of money being spent, especially around the City of London, in the agricultural districts the country houses are being shut up. There are no new farmhouses being built, no new farmsteadings, and no new farm cottages, and I say to the Treasury, let them be very careful, indeed, as to whether they destroy further confidence in the investment of capital in agricultural land
  At the present moment, I assure the Treasury and the House, that we who are engaged in agriculture cannot do any building. We cannot do it because the building trade is a sheltered industry and is able to impose its terms upon us. We agriculturists are exposed to the full blast of the competition of the world. We are at a double disadvantage, because we have to employ in the maintenance of our buildings men engaged in a sheltered, and, therefore, a highly-paid industry, while we have to sell our products in competition in free markets. I would say, therefore, to my hon. Friend, that I hope he will impress upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be very careful, indeed, how he lays any fresh taxes on agricultural land. Urban land is an entirely different problem. That is a problem by itself, but I ask the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues earnestly to consider before increasing the burden on those of us who are engaged in the cultivation of land
  Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: I do not propose to follow the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken into the merits or demerits of Free Trade or Protection, but there is one point which I tried to raise on the Committee stage and on the Report stage, and that is with regard to double taxation as far as it affects Income Tax and Super-tax in its relation to the Irish Free State, Northern Ireland, and this country. I find it almost more than difficult to raise any question in regard to the Irish Free State. It is easier almost, I may say, for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than to be able to bring forward in this House any question in regard to the Free State. I tried to get the Finan-

  1357
  cial Secretary interested in taking up the question of the Irish Land Stock, but that question has been put off, I may say almost to the Greek Kalends. I know, however, that he is anxious to go into the question, and I know the Irish Free State is also equally anxious to go into the question of double Income Tax as it affects us to-day. The Royal Commission on Income Tax sat in 1920, and at that time the Irish Free State was part of Great Britain and Ireland. Section 27 of the Finance Act, 1920, treated the Free State and Great Britain as one, and the recommendations that it made in regard to double Income Tax referred only to the Dominions over the seas. It had no idea at the time that the Free State was eventually going to become a Dominion. The rules and regulations that were laid down applicable to Dominions several thousands of miles away, would not have been applicable in the same way to a country that is our next-door neighbour, and that has a land frontier with us. I think if they had understood that that would be the case, those recommendations would have been very different from what they are to-day.
  The present position is that Income Tax is deducted by both countries, with the result that people find themselves mulcted of 9s. 6d. in the £, and then it is up to the individual to recover this amount from the Irish Treasury and the English Treasury. With regard to the English Treasury, recovery is comparatively simple within two or three months, but in many cases in regard to the Irish Treasury, people who applied in April, 1923, have still not got the rebate that is due to them. I think it is unfair, and I am not altogether certain that the legal position is quite tenable by which more than the amount due can be taken by Governments from an individual. In this case you are taking 4s. 6d. from the individual, and then forcing him to reclaim the 4s. 6d. back from the two Governments. Let me read part of a letter from the chairman of a large Irish company. The company has a capital of, roughly, £1,500,000 ordinary stock and £500,000 debenture stock, and most of the shareholders are English people, resident on this side of the water. The letter proceeds:—
  "We have some thousands of shareholders, many of them being women, who
  1358
  have not large holdings, the inferenee being, that this money has been invested for them in the past, as affording a secure, income.
  "You are no doubt aware what the practice is as regards dividends did interest paid by my company. We ate compelled to deduct the Irish rate of tax, namely, 5s. in the £ at the source, and then, when the dividend warrant; is paid into the English bank, a further 4s. 6d. is deducted, making 9s. 6d. in all. I am, sure you will realise what a great hardship it is to the class of shareholder mentioned, to have practically half their gross income taken from them, especially as the procedure as regards recovery is very intricate, and I know of many instances where the tax deducted from dividends paid in April, 1923, has not yet been refunded.
  "I have interviewed the Irish Revenue Commissioners, and they appear to be quite amenable to reason, and they gave me to understand the obstacle in arriving at an arrangement lies with the English Treasury. The suggestion that I have made to the Irish Commissioners is, that when we send out the dividend warrants, we shall deduct the 5s. at the source, and out of the 5s. hand the respective proportion to each Government, namely, 2s. 9d. to the Irish Free State and 2s. 3d. to the English Government. That is manifestly a very simple way to deal with it, and it would then be a question afterwards between the stockholder and each of the Governments concerned. I trust you will be successful in having your amendment carried."
  That is a suggestion, and that is one possible way of dealing with it. The letter continues:
  "If the English Treasury can only be made to realise the fact, they are standing in their own light by not adopting some such arrangement as I have outlined. I find that many of our stockholders open an Irish banking account into which they pay their dividend warrants, which means that in those cases the Irish Government gets the whole of the 5s. and the English Government loses its proportion, and there is no liability on the tax holder, for ho has suffered the deduction of 5s. and there is no claim beyond it. Other stockholders send cheques across to Ireland in payment of accounts, and I was informed by one of the managers of a large. Irish hotel that the dividend warrants of the Alliance and Dublin Consumers' Gas Company were commonly offered in payment of an hotel bill."
  These are all matters of trying to avoid tax, because it is felt to be unjust. It would be to the advantage of the English Exchequer as well as to the advantage of the Irish Exchequer to prevent this. This company goes on to say that they are
  "…so sick of the worry and bother that this double taxation question has caused, that when we send our next dividends to our English stockholders, I have decided to send the money over to an English paying agent, who will issue a

  1359
  plain cheque, which will not bear any indication that it is a dividend warrant, so that when the stockholder pays the said warrant into his bank in England, he will not suffer the penalty of a further 4s. 6d. as at present, but the voucher certifying the deduction of the 5s. tax will be a separate slip."
  These are all methods forced upon people because they cannot afford the deduction of 9s. 6d. in the £. In many cases it means that nearly half the income is taken away; it is even worse in the case of Super-tax. At the present time a man is assessed for the full amounts in both countries. A man had paid here Super-tax to the extent of several thousand pounds, but got an assessment again in Ireland for the same amount, and with a reminder that unless he paid this second amount of Super-tax—although he had already paid once—they were going to seize his cattle and land in part payment of that. They do that in the Free State now, because they have more drastic methods in the South than we have here. That man had already paid once here. He draws one-thirtieth part of his income from the Free State, and yet they have demanded the full amount. That is a position into which it was never intended that people should be put. I think it would be possible, either by the arrangement I suggested that the larger of the two amounts should only be paid once, or that all income derived from Ireland, from Irish securities or from Irish land, should be subject only to the Irish Free State tax, and all investments in English companies over here should only be liable to English Income Tax.
  I am sure no legislation is necessary to pass this. It is purely a question of arrangement between the Irish Free State and the Treasury here. I know the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has been in consultation with the Irish Free State, and I know both sides are anxious to come to an agreement, because they realise that this hardship is driving a number of people out of the country to the Dominions. They are getting tired of the trouble of trying to get back this money which has been deducted unfairly. I know the Treasury is most anxious to guard against any loss. You are both of you so afraid of giving away, or allowing the other Treasury to gain some small advantage, that you to-day make the unfortunate taxpayer the scapegoat of both
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  of you. But surely you can come, and I would ask you to try to come, to some arrangement by which this could be obviated—that a tax should only be paid once, that it should be a question of arrangement between the two Treasuries whether you would like to have two separate assessments and only the one assessment to be paid, and then a note from the Free State Government, or from this Government, to say that the amount had been paid. But there are so many different ways in which this could be easily worked by departmental arrangements and I think it would be to the advantage of people in this country and in Ireland if you could see your way to do something on these lines, and not make the unfortunate taxpayer the milch cow of both Treasuries.
  Mr. REID: I speak from the point of view of the people in Northern Ireland. A great many people there have investments in Irish securities, made before the creation of the Free State. I wish to support what has been stated by the hon. and gallant Member for Bilston (Lieut.-Colonel Howard-Bury) in regard to double Income Tax. I speak more particularly for people in the North of Ireland who have investments in the Free State. The Secretary for the Treasury may say that their position is similar to that of people who have Colonial investments, but in the case of Colonial investments people have made them with a knowledge of the circumstances. In the case of the people for whom I speak, the greater part of the investments were made before the Irish Free State was set up, and the result has been to place them in a very much worse position than they were in when the investments were made, for not only have they the inconvenience of having a very large proportion of their income deducted owing to the 5s. Income Tax deducted in the Free State and the 4s. 6d. Income Tax deducted in this country, but they have seen considerable capital depreciation. When this Government first began to deduct the 4s. 6d., I have been told that the Great Northern Railway Company of Ireland ordinary stock fell about 8 points, and that is a very serious matter, which is having a very injurious effect. Some people are inclined to talk of us in Northern Ireland as if we were ill

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  disposed towards the Free State, but we want to see the Free State prosper. We want to be able to do business with them. Southern Ireland has always been hampered in its development for want of capital, and the result of this arrangement is to prevent money being invested in Southern Ireland. The tendency is to sell any Southern Irish stock, and not to invest the money in other stock in the Free State, the result being that there is no investment of capital in the Free State from outside. I was talking the other day to a business man from Southern Ireland, and he told me it was having a serious effect on trade there.
  I can justify what the hon. and gallant Member has said about the loss of revenue to the British Treasury, as I know myself cases of people who, after having the 4s. 6d. deducted, have not taken any more dividend warrants to their bankers. If they are large holders, they have opened a banking account in Dublin, and small holders have sent their dividend warrants to friends in Dublin, who cash the warrants and send on the money. In that way this Government are losing a considerable amount of revenue. I would ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to approach this question with an open mind, because it seems to me that it ought to be possible to come to some arrangement between the two Treasuries by which the proper amounts due to each could be obtained without, putting this heavy burden on the taxpayer. Take a case like the Great Northern of Ireland Railway Company, which operates both in Northern Ireland and the Free State. I believe that in that case it has been agreed what proportion of the earnings are earned in Northern Ireland and what proportion are earned in the Free State. Surely it would be possible in that case, instead of throwing the burden on the shareholders, for the two Governments to have some stakeholder who would hand over to the Imperial Government the amount due to them and to the Free State Government the amount clue to them.
  It ought to be possible to make some arrangement which would suit the altered circumstances. To take practically half a person's income in order to secure the 2s. 9d. due to the Free State, with their 5s. tax, and the 2s. 3d. due to the British Government, with their
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  4s. 6d. tax, is rather like burning down a house to roast a pig. It seems unreasonable for the Imperial Government to deduct 4s. 6d., and after putting the taxpayer to the trouble of making a claim, to repay to him 2s. 3d. The Secretary to the Treasury will perhaps say that this is only part of a, larger question, and that it involves the reconsideration of double Income Tax and allowances with regard to the Colonies. After all, Ireland is in a somewhat different position from the ordinary Colony. I do not mean to say anything derogatory about the legal position of the Free State, but it is in fact close to England, and there are numerous transactions between the two countries. Negotiations could easily be carried on, for the course of post does not require weeks or months for an answer to be received. If any arrangement can be worked out, even if it were not applicable to a distant Colony, there is no reason why it should not be put in operation between this country and the Irish Free State. I have had some communication with the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on this matter, and I want to acknowledge that ho has taken a great interest in it, although we have not succeeded in coming to any arrangement, but I would ask him to look into this matter afresh, and not be guided too much by the opinion of people who have become so accustomed to working the existing machinery. People who are immersed in the working of an existing system occasionally seem to mistake the means for the end. They are unwilling to strike out a new line. The problem is a new one and the result of recent political changes, and an effort should be made to deal with it. Cannot he work out some system which would remove the very great hardship on the people for whom I speak?
  Sir GODFREY COLLINS: As hon. Members know, the problem of double taxation, which has been referred to by the two previous speakers, has always been difficult of solution, and in addition the problems of finance which have gathered round the Irish Free State during recent months may make it more difficult for the Chancellor of the Exchequer in considering this particular question. Nevertheless, I feel sure that any unfairness which is brought forward

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  by hon. Members will receive the careful consideration of the right hon. Gentleman. Having sat through all the stages of this Bill, I desire to congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on having piloted the Measure safely through the House of Commons. I think I am accurate when I say that no Finance Bill during recent years has undergone fewer changes. The Bill, which we all hope will receive its Third Reading to-night, remains in very much the same state as that in which it was introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer a few months ago, and I think it is largely due to the Chancellor and the Financial Secretary for their readiness to argue every case which has been put before them. In saying that, let me remind the Chancellor that many hon. Friends associated with me have refrained from placing Amendments on the Order Paper, not because we had weakened in any shape or form on certain questions of taxation, but because we were not anxious to jeopardise the passage of this Budget into law, and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will readily admit that, without our consistent support, the Bill would not have received the Third Reading in the form in which it will receive it this evening. Let me say quite frankly, on that point, that it has not been easy on some occasions to invite hon. Members associated with me to support the Government on the Amendments which have been moved from the other side, but with that loyalty which has distinguished my colleagues, they have been prepared to face difficulties in the constituencies, and have, broadly speaking, given loyal and consistent support to the Finance Bill in all its stages.
  A Budget, to my mind, always reflects the policy of a Government. A Government keen on social reform, keen on granting old age pensions, is bound to make provision in the Finance Bill for increased taxation. A Government pledged to make large provision for our fighting forces is bound also to ask the people of this country to make provision in their Finance Bill. This Bill, it seems to me, marks a distinct change in the policy of the Labour party. Instead of increasing taxation, or even maintaining taxation at the level which existed last
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  year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has chosen another course, namely, to lower taxation, and to give the benefit of a lower rate of taxation to the people of this country. The policy of the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, as revealed in the Finance Bill presently before the House, marks, to my mind, a distinct change, a distinct break, in the policy of the Labour party which they have advocated on hundreds of platforms during the last few years, the policy of old age pensions at 60, and large schemes of social reform involving the expenditure of many millions in future years. In one other aspect also the policy contained in this Bill cuts right across the policy of the Labour party which they have advocated in the constituencies. This Bill makes provision for a large increase in the expenditure on our fighting forces. On every platform during recent years the Labour party have stood for reduced expenditure on armaments, but in this Bill the Labour party, in their first year of office, are asking the taxpayer to make heavier sacrifices and to spend a larger sum of money than was spent last year on our fighting forces. Therefore, I think I am entitled to draw the attention of the House to the distinct change, the sharp break, in the policy of the Labour party outlined in this Bill, as compared with their policy which is so well known throughout the country.
  5.0 P.M.
  On the Third Reading of the Finance Bill last year, the late Prime Minister was asked what was his policy towards the Cunliffe Report, and I intend to address that question, which I think is one of some consequence and o which has not yet been answered, to this Government. What is their policy towards the Cunliffe Report? As hon. Members will know, there are three schools of thought regarding that Report. There are some who prefer the policy of inflation. Reading in the "Times" this morning, in the column written by the City Editor, in that able article which he so often writes, I find "No one disputes that the gold standard is the best." Is it the intention of the Government to revert to the gold standard at the very earliest possible moment? The Financial Secretary will remember that last year the late Prime Minister enunciated a new policy. He said be was neither an

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  inflationist nor a deflationist, but he favoured stabilising trade. Let me remind the House of the ex-Prime Minister's exact words. On 4th July last year he said:
  "I think that the right policy for this country at the present moment is to do all in our power to keep prices steady and on a level."
  Later in his speech he said:
  "I should set myself strongly against any policy that would tend to disturb that feeling."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th July, 1923; col. 576, Vol. 166.]
  He was anxious to keep prices steady. I can understand a policy of inflation, which tends to keep up prices, or a policy of deflation, but to my mind any policy which is not an inflationist policy must be a deflationist policy, and vice versa. The ex-Prime Minister argued in favour of keeping prices steady; in other words, in favour of prices not being allowed to fall. What is the policy of the present Government on this point? The House is entitled to know. Speaking for myself, I favour a policy of deflation, a steady policy directed towards deflation, towards restoring the gold standard. I know well that it is said, "Look at France, where a policy of deflation has not been followed." The argument is that to-day in France there are no unemployed, that there is an air of prosperity throughout the length and breadth of France, and that if we followed that policy here there would be a similar result and our people would not be unemployed. The advocates of that policy overlook a very vital fact, namely, that, to-day, France is spending millions of borrowed money on the repair of her devastated areas. I have heard it stated, on good authority, that there are to-day, and have been for years past, as many as 2,000,000 employed in repairing the damages of war in France. The total number of people who are able to work in France being about 12,000,000, these figures mean that from 16 to 20 per cent. of the total population of France is being employed in repairing the damages of war, and that they are being paid their weekly wages with money borrowed by the State. Such a policy must have an evil result, and it is bound to come to an end.
  Although to-day we see in France apparent signs of prosperity, yet-the teaching of every country reveals a
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  similar fact—a country which year by year maintains its people with the proceeds of borrowed money, is bound in the long run to pay heavily for that policy. I know also that it is said that the War has altered economic facts and changed economic laws. I am one of those who think that if you kick out an economic law from the front door it will jump in through the window and hit you in the back. You cannot, year by year, go against an economic law without producing evil results. Therefore, I not only plead that the Government should state their policy, but I would urge that the best policy for this country is to return to the gold standard at the earliest possible moment. Recall the experience after the Napoleonic War. The Bullion Report of 1818 advocated a return to the gold standard. Three years later, and six years after Waterloo, Great Britain returned to the gold standard. Has not the time arrived when Great Britain should follow the example of those who went before? This little island is dependent on purchasing from abroad, at the very lowest prices, the foodstuffs and raw materials for her industries. Any policy which will enable our manufacturers, say, of cotton, to buy raw cotton from America at a low price and to sell cotton goods in India and in China at a low price, any policy which would enable London to remain the financial centre of the world, should commend itself to the Government.
  I, therefore, ask that the House and the country may know exactly whether the policy of the Government coincides with the policy of the late late Government. The late Government favoured a policy of stabilising prices and checking deflation. Is that the policy of the present Government? My hon. Friends around me are often twitted with being patient oxen. It is a gibe which we do not mind, because on this occasion, after having shown patience, we shall, through our support of this Bill in the Division Lobbies, bring to countless millions the benefit of a lower rate of taxation, and we hope that in the coming months the Government may so bend their energies as to curtail expenditure, and thus make a still lower rate of taxation possible in the future.
  Major G. F. DAVIES: Since the Chancellor of the Exchequer opened his

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  Budget we have listened to a series of speeches, many of them congratulating and many of them criticising the proposals in the Budget. It is not my intention to praise Ceasar, if I may allude disrespectfully to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or at any rate at this moment to bury him, but, rather, I appeal unto Ceasar, and those for whom I appeal are those whose case has been eloquently put forward by two speakers from this side of the House to-day, namely, those who have to meet the incidence of double taxation. But I would like to make that appeal a little wider than to confine it merely to Ireland and the Irish Free State The right hon. Member for Rusholme (Mr. Masterman), in a speech immediately after the Chancellor of the Exchequer opened his Budget, brought forward so much butter in so lordly a dish and laid it on with so generous a trowel that I could not help feeling that it must have brought a blush even to so case hardened a cheek as that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the course of that speech the right hon. Gentleman said that any criticism of the Budget would be merely the give-and-take of party politics I could not help thinking that the expression "give and take" very aptly summarised the attitude of those unfortunate taxpayers whose case I wish to present, who have to listen to the incessant voices of those daughters of the horse leech, the collectors and inspectors of taxes.
  In the same Debate the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), with that suave unction which is so characteristic of him, deplored the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not doubled the death duties and steepened the Super-tax, and at the same time he shed crocodiles' tears over the complete absence of birth-control exercised by millionaires. I was not quite clear whether he meant that millionaires should have no children or that the children of millionaires should have no parents. I suppose that some reople are born millionaires, some achieve millions, and some have millions thrust upon them, but I must express my regret that I have not been able to qualify for any of these three classes. Those whose claims I wish to present to the Chancellor of the Exchequer this afternoon are not by any
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  means those who can be included in the class of millionaires or their children, but are a much humbler proportion of the taxpayers. I, of course, admit, like anyone else, that the broadest backs should, bear the heaviest burdens. That thought was not present to the Prime Minister when he was looking for suitable long-suffering draught animals to attach to his chariot of State. Be that as it may, I wish to put forward a case of very real difficulty and unfairness in the incidence of taxation.
  Hon. Members opposite may possibly, and with some justification, say that if anyone is fortunate enough to be a payer of Income Tax and Super-tax he has nothing of which to complain. But a moment's reflection will make them realise that the question of the payment of direct taxation is very closely allied to having a tooth drawn by a dentist, and is the most trying personal experience that any form of taxation can give to the taxpayer. When a taxpayer finds that out of every pound of his income he is paying in direct taxation something like 15s. in many cases, it does become—to use a classical phrase—a bit thick. Whatever we may think of the question of a capitalist system, it is certain that under conditions as we have them to-day the payer of Income Tax and Super-tax is "a very present help in time of trouble" to any Chancellor of the Exchequer. From that point of view, if from no other, it is obviously desirable that measure should be taken to attract and to keep in this country possible contributors on a large or comparatively large scale to the revenue, rather than to drive them out. It may be said that people living here who have investments abroad, on which they have to pay taxation in the country of origin and then double taxation in this country, should sell out such investments and replace them with purchases in this country. It is quite obvious, however, that in very many cases it is not easy to do that; there are many conditions operating to make this impossible.
  Again, it may be said that the Treasury here are not particularly interested in what other countries choose to levy by way of taxation on their citizens and on the incomes arising within their own boundaries, but that the principle of double taxation needs to be considered has been admitted by this and previous

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  Governments in connection, for instance, with the rebates arising from investments in the Dominions, and in connection with the further consideration that has been foreshadowed with regard to shipping companies and State trading, and so forth. It will commend itself to the sense of equity of this House that if double taxation is an unfairness in the case of shipping companies and corporations, it applies in just the same way to the individual in his private capacity. This question bristles with difficulties, I know, but it is all part and parcel of the same point of view that has been brought forward in connection, for instance, with the curious situation that has arisen in connection with iron and international shipping.
  I may for one moment speak in a little detail. Take the question, which is a very common one here, of the taxpayer who has an investment in the United States. The United States levies a very heavy, what they call a normal or Supertax, which corresponds to some extent with our Income and Super-taxes, although there is, as to Part 1, a sliding scale. Under present conditions, the taxpayer here is allowed to deduct from his total taxable income the amount which he has paid in the country of origin, that is the United. States, by way of Income and Super-tax. The difficulty arises here, that the American Treasury in their wisdom have decided that a realised capital appreciation is to be regarded as income. That is to say, if in the case of an investment which has cost £1,000 the investor is lucky enough to sell it for £1,100 the £100 is regarded in America as income, while if he has to sell the same investment for £900 he is allowed to deduct the £100 loss from his taxable income. When it comes to deduct the tax paid in the United States the Treasury authorities say that some of that tax was paid on capital in the United States, and that therefore, they cannot allow the deduction here.
  Therefore, the taxpayer has to make a hypothetical American Income Tax return based on what the British Treasury chooses to think the American Income Tax law provision should be. It is possible to argue in favour of this procedure so far, but when the taxpayer makes loss on realised capital in the United States he pays a correspondingly smaller tax. But the Treasury here will not allow a man to
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  readjust his American Income Tax when it would be in his favour, but only when it would go against him. That is an additional unfairness in this question of the incidence of double taxation, and I should like to know that that is one of the problems that the Financial Secretary will seek to look into, to see if some further adjustment cannot be made to meet what is a serious grievance. I feel in this matter a somewhat different attitude might be taken, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer might show some of that quality of mercy to-day to which the double taxpayer is entirely unaccustomed, because not only, unlike Shakespeare's definition, is he considerably strained in paying these taxes, hut he is unable to admire the gentle dews that drop from Heaven, because he is so occupied with the earthly ones that he has to pay to the Treasury.
  Finally, he is not twice blessed, he is twice cursed, once by the taxing authorities in the country of origin and secondly in the country of residence. If that could be adjusted by a wave of the wand of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his capacity of the Fairy Godmother of the country, it would be a step forward in the adjustment of what is a legitimate grievance and unfair incidence which was not contemplated when the great increase of Income and Super-tax took place both in this country, in the United. States, and in many other countries.
  Mr. RATHBONE: I make no apology to the House for making some observations upon the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hope), and which, I presume, was made for the benefit of hon. Members above the Gangway. I think I heard him distinctly, and, though I certainly cannot quote his words—for some of us at this end of the House found it rather difficult to follow all he did say—I did gather that he spoke either for himself, or possibly for Sheffield, or possibly for the Front Opposition Bench, when he suggested to the Labour party the terms he vas willing to make for what seemed to be come sort of bargain on a tariff. Was it nationalisation of the coal mines? Was that the offer to the gentlemen who come from the Clyde from the gentleman from Sheffield? I do not know, but clearly the Front Opposition Bench have a chance to discuss the subject as

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  to whether or not this shall be the new programme of the Tory party. I think that many Liberals in the last election did think that such a thing might happen. Although the Labour party then remained, and I hope still, and I trust for the sake of England will always remain true to Free Trade as a whole, there were among certain members of the party some very doubtful supporters of Free Trade.
  If that is to be the suggestion: "That if you will support us in a general tariff we will give you something that you want"—and I suggest it may be the Capital Levy or the nationalisation of the coal mines—well then I should like to suggest to the Labour party that they should be very careful how they accept such a suggestion. If they listened attentively to the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Yeovil Division of Somerset (Major G. Davies), who has just sat down, they will note that the cloven foot has appeared. True there is a suggestion that the Labour party should agree to a tax. True, there is the suggestion of certain terms from the Conservative party that will give them sonic measure of relief in some directions that they wish—
  Mr. DEPUTY - SPEAKER (Mr. Entwistle): I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is travelling rather wide of the subject of the Debate. We are discussing the Third Reading of the Finance Bill, and I cannot see that his remarks are relevant to anything in the Bill.
  Mr. RATHBONE: I was traversing what had been said previously by a right hon. Gentleman opposite, and I thought that was in order.
  Mr. VIVIAN: On a point of Order. In view of the speech made from the Front Opposition Bench, and which seemed absolutely to cover the ground, is not my hon. Friend in order in dealing with the points made by that previous speaker?
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I was not here, and did not hear the speech to which the hon. Member refers. I can only judge the speech of the hon. Gentleman who is speaking.
  Mr. RATHBONE: I will not go any further on the point, Mr. Deputy-Speaker,
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  as I have already said all I wanted to say. Without traversing the ground which has already been traversed too much, may I just suggest, as I think I did on a previous occasion, that what has been referred to ought not to be the attitude of those who have the power? I do not want to labour the point, but surely we have got to raise taxes in some form or other, and I think it is generally admitted by, everyone—and they are quite sincere—that taxes must be levied to a large extent on those who have the best means to pay. But I want to ask my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he will hunt in the archives of the Treasury for documents which have been referred to on a previous occasion. I am all for postponing the evil day in some of these matters, and I am all against taxing wealth while in the making. I think, too, it is a very, very great mistake to tax people in such a way that they will not save, because I am old-fashioned enough to think that saving is absolutely necessary to the welfare of the nation.
  Suggestions have been made by Lord Maclay which seem to be well worth looking into. The Financial Secretary when he replies will probably make some reference to the matter, but I would like to put it into a very concrete form, because I want to confine my remarks within a very few minutes. The House perhaps will pardon me if I go into rather more detail with respect to Lord Maclay's suggestions. He held that you must never tax wealth in the making, because by doing so you destroy the motive of saving which is what you want to encourage. Perhaps the Financial Secretary will kindly look into this question. If he cannot find a document I shall be happy to ask Lord Maclay to send another copy, for I think the suggestions are worthy of consideration. Lord Maclay put it, for example, that in the case of a man who, after all debts and expenses had been met, left the sum of £100.000, say, the procedure that should be followed should be this: It is assumed that there are two children, and that each get £50,000. The Somerset House authorities step in and say to one of them, "You are going to have the equity on £50,000," and it may be to the trustees of the other, "You are going to have the equity on £50,000, but," they add " We

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  are going to make an exchange with you; we are going to leave you £25,000 each to dispose of as you wish, and in exchange for the balance we are going to give you annuities on the basis of that balance so that when you die the State will receive half of what has been left to you." Lord Maclay's view was that we should not mind about the third generation, particularly as nobody ever saved for the third generation. Of course time, reasonable time and notice should be given to carry this out. Care will have to be taken that unnecessary hardship is not caused to the child, or the trustees, who still have to make a considerable sacrifice, but the matter could be arranged.
  Lord Maclay's contention as to the third generation was possibly to impose a heavy levy of 50 per cent. By this means the whole of the National Debt, which has been considerably reduced since the time he spoke, 1919, will be paid off in 37 years. I do not ask that we should do anything quite so drastic as that, but I should like the Financial Secretary to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to look into the matter, and see whether, in the next Budget, if he and his colleagues are still on the Front Bench, it would not be possible to alter the Estate Duties which now come down on the individual very, very heavily, in the way suggested. A good deal has been said to-night about the unsatisfactory state of trade. Very little reference has been made to one aspect of it, and I am going to make some. I think one hon. Member on this side of the House referred to the heavy taxation as impeding trade and commerce. Figures are very deceiving, I admit, but as a member of the Mersey Dock and Harbour Board, may I say that in our accounts, which are made up to the end of June, the figures are very much more satisfactory than any person could have imagined. We have known that there has been an improvement in trade going on for some considerable time. We know that the docks have been more occupied with steel and other goods, that imports have been very considerable, although the imports of cotton are still most unsatisfactory as well as the price. We did not think that the improvement had been so marked. After, however, taking the receipts for dock dues, etc. for the two years ending June, 1912/13—generally supposed to be
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  the boom year in English trade—and comparing them with the figures for 1923/24, after bringing down the rates for 1923/24 to the same rates as we levied in 1912/13, the reduction in the imports and exports of the port is only 7 per cent. less than during the year 1912/13. I am hopeful that we are going to adopt a financial policy which will not be liable to chops and changes, alterations here and there, or reductions here and there, but that we are going to have steady progress, leaving the business world satisfied, and though taxes are high that they are not going to be altered and new programmes started; and though we should have as much reduction of taxation as possible, that no radical change in the incidence of taxation is anticipated. So we shall see a steady improvement in trade.
  Mr. W. GREENWOOD: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Liverpool has imported 1,600,000 less bales of cotton than in the year he mentioned?
  Mr. RATHBONE: I have already stated that the imports of cotton are very much below the total imported in the year I mentioned, but the result in other respects is as I have stated.
  Mr. W. GREENWOOD: Is the hon. Member also aware that other countries have imported considerably more cotton in proportion?
  Sir F. WISE: I congratulate the hon. Member who has just sat down upon his speech, and I hope he will produce more schemes, which will be well worth looking into. The hon. Member for Greenock (Sir G. Collins) raised the question of the Cunliffe Committee Report. That is a most difficult financial Report to discuss across the Floor of the House, and I do not propose to follow the hon. Member very far except in regard to what he stated about the gold standard. The hon. Member referred to the gold standard and to what happened 100 years ago. He said that a report was made in 1819, and the gold standard came into existence in 1821. It is quite true, but he forgot to state the fact that in those days we had no external debt, and that makes all the difference as to whether a gold standard should come in at the present time or not.
  As the House knows, we purchase gold and ship it abroad, which goes towards paying our debt to the United States of

  1375
  America, and the loan really becomes an internal instead of an external debt, which is met out of the sinking fund. I contend that unless we have this gold it would be almost impossible to continue our payments to the United States of America, especially on account of the Fordney Tariff. Here I would like to thank the Leader of the Opposition for the arrangement in regard to our debt that he made with the United States of America. I know there is a little controversy going on between my right hon. Friend the Member for Bewdley (Mr. Baldwin) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), but the latter does not seem to realise how this arrangement affected our trade and improved the credit of this country. The Member for Greenock also stated with regard to the gold standard that it would stabilise matters, and so it would. He also said that there were only two ways of doing this, and you had either to deflate or inflate. I contend stability at the moment is much more important. I contend that if you got back to the gold standard as in the old days you would get your currency varying to a very small degree.
  To-day currency has run away from gold. Under gold the dollar in the old days only varied between 4·89 and 4·82, and if it went below or above this figure the Cambist shipped gold or took gold. The franc only varied between 25·33 and 25·12, and the same result occurred if you got a little increase or decrease in the price. I hope the Financial Secretary will seriously consider what is mentioned in the Cunliffe Report about the amalgamation of the currency. The Report recommends that when once the reserve of £150,000,000 has been reached—and it has already been reached—there might be considered the amalgamation of the currency notes and the Bank of England notes. I contend that will be the first move, and essentially the first move with regard to getting back to the gold standard. I feel, as I stated just now, that it is not quite time to consider the gold standard, especially with regard to the external debt, which we have to continue to pay.
  As hon. Members know, if we lost control of the export of gold it might very seriously affect our payments to the
  1376
  United States. The nations who buy the gold at the present time are the United States and India. They are the only two countries who take it, and although I welcome the raising of this question by the hon. Member for Greenock, and the reply of the Financial Secretary, I do not think it is quite time, if we look at it from various points of view, to consider a, return to the gold standard. The right hon. Member for Central Sheffield (Mr. Hope) stated that Britain was a land of promise. So it is as far as finance is concerned. As hon. Members know, we have probably the cheapest money market in the world. The United States has a half per cent. less bank rate, but if you take the money market or the bills of exchange market or the acceptance market or the regular financial market, I think you will find throughout the world that our market is the cheapest. It is the cheapest in the world because we balance our Budget, and we reduce our debt by excess of revenue over expenditure, and as I stated just now, we are paying our debt to the United States of America. These are the reasons why we have this fine financial position. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, in a Debate on the 9th June, stated that he would like to have an inquiry into the effect of a free money market, and he went on to say:
  "Whether it is desirable that we should have a free money market or whether we should do what every other country in the world does with the possible exception of America—and I believe to a certain extent America does it—have a certain amount of Government control or direction which will Prevent the surplus money of this country from going into quarters undesirable."
  As far as I know the money market, it will be fatal to have anything but a free market. Anyone who realises what the London money market is must admit that they can almost buy or sell anything from an elephant to a toothbrush, and I contend that it would be very dangerous to interfere with that free money market. For instance a short time ago the City of Amsterdam issued a loan here which was rather criticised, and it was said that the City of Amsterdam should not come to London for their loan. Two or three days after that the City of Rotterdam started negotiations for floating a loan in the City of London, and the issuing house which had the

  1377
  matter in hand refused the City of Rotterdam loan because they were not satisfied with the criticism that had been made about the City of Amsterdam loan, with the result that the Rotterdam loan was floated in New York. What happened? British investors invested in the City of Rotterdam loan in New York, and anyone who refers to this matter will find that there was a fall in the rate of exchange owing to the large investments made in the City of Rotterdam loan in America.
  It would be quite fatal for a country like ourselves to have any interference with the free money market that we have at the present time. We have had various public issues lately—I mean the public subscription for loans or shares excluding Government or any conversion loans—and the amount was £106,000,000 for the half year, of which 37·4 went into British investments in Great Britain and 62·6 to overseas. What does that mean? It means trade. The more you can save the more you have for investment either in this country or overseas. I am sorry to say that the amount of £106,000,000 which has been invested for the half year is not so much as during the previous half year from January to June, 1923. In that year it was £123,000,000 or a difference of £17,000,000. Those who consider this question will find that this £17,000,000 is probably the amount we have to pay to the United States of America, and therefore our savings are taken in that way and handed to the United States instead of being invested and providing trade in this country. Undoubtedly last year we over-lent. A country like ours should be most careful that we do not over-lend, because if you do you get your currency against you, and your commodities will cost you more.
  There is one point I would like to mention to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury with regard to the stamp duties. Last year I raised the question of the stamp duties on foreign loans. The stamp duty at the present time is 2 per cent., and it brings in about £1,150,000 a year in revenue. I contend that it might be reduced in the next Budget to what it was in pre-War days, that is 1 per cent. when it brought in about £800,000 a year. That will encourage flotations here, and I feel that the more we can encourage foreign issues the better it is
  1378
  for us as long as we do not over-invest. The only other competitor with us in these issues is the United States of America, and they do not understand international finance, or their investors do not understand international investments like we do. Therefore it is essential that we should keep the best issues in this country. In the United States of America there is no stamp duty at all.
  There is one suggestion I would like to make to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in reference to the financial statement leaflet issued just previous to the Budget. I suggest that there should be included in that statement all the liabilities of the Government. There should be in it the trade facilities, export credits, local loans and all the liabilities, so that anybody who looks at that financial statement realises the total liabilities of the British nation, imperially and otherwise. I would also like to refer to another matter which was raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill. We are indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for what he has done in the past; he raised the question of a voluntary capital levy. That is a very important point. We all want to see our big National Debt reduced, but I cannot help thinking that there are many objections to a voluntary capital levy. In the first place, I do not think we shall obtain a considerable number of holders who will take up the attitude of paying to the Government voluntarily part of their taxation on a capital basis. They would receive, I suppose, a certificate for it, but the point is that, unless a considerable amount was raised and reduction on a large scale carried out with regard to the National Debt, it would not be worth while having a scheme of that sort. There is one other point in regard to it, and that is that it would have to be made very attractive. It would probably appeal to the young and not to the old, and to make it very attractive would probably be against any scheme at the present time, because it would be preferable to keep the Debt at its present figure.I now want to bring specially to the notice of the Financial Secretary the conversion of loans. It is essential that the conversion of the 5 Per Cent. Debt into a longer-

  1379
  term Debt should be carried out on every possible occasion. I have criticised before in this House the matter of this conversion of old Debt into new Debt. I cannot quite congratulate the Treasury on what has happened in the past. I see my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) here. He started the conversion of 3½ Per Cent. Loan, and, if he will forgive me for saying so—I think he probably realises it now—he started too soon. He shakes his head, but I do not agree with him. I think it a good thing and a benefit to the investor, but I am looking at it from a national point of view, and I feel that the time when the conversion of that 3½ Per Cent. Loan was started, at about 64 or 66 for £100 stock, was not the time to attempt to start conversion. I think the money market has shown that it was the wrong time to carry that out.
  I want to make one reference to the question of double taxation, which has been referred to by the hon. and gallant Member for Bilston (Lieut.-Colonel Howard-Bury) and by one or two other speakers. I expect that no one in this House knows more about that question than the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. He was a member of the Royal Commission, and, as he knows, the League of Nations recently took the matter up, but I want, specially to draw attention to the case of Ireland. I have here a letter signed by Lord Dunraven, which was published on 23rd May, 1924, in regard to the effect of double Income Tax on a holder of Free State securities. He says:
  "It is scarcely reasonable to collect a tax of 9s. 6d. in the £, even though the excess deduction of 4s. 6d. will be refunded later. In order to obtain the refund, the taxpayer has to wrestle with complicated forms and procedure, and a considerable time is bound to elapse before he can hope to secure the repdyment, during which he is deprived of the use of his money. I question the justice of the State demanding from the taxpayer a sum of money to which they are not entitled, and repaying it at their convenience and without any interest. Some arrangement should be made to meet these people."
  I am sure, after the speeches that were made on the question of double Income Tax with regard to the Irish Free State, the Financial Secretary, difficult as it is, will look into it from the point of view of justice. In conclusion, I must just appeal
  1380
  again for the necessity for economy. It is essential, if we are going to exist, that we should have economy, and the only way in which we can obtain the reduction of taxation which has been referred to by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Molton (Mr. Lambert) is by economy. I feel certain the Financial Sceretaiy mill see to it that in the future it is one of the main foundations of our finance. If he will see to that and carry it out, I feel confident that, not only the country, but the taxpayer, will be pleased.
  Mr. KEENS: The last speaker referred to the fact that in this country, in spite of everything, we have been able to balance our Budget and show a surplus. That must be a matter of the greatest possible satisfaction; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is also to be complimented upon the manlier in which his estimated surplus is being dealt with, subject to the condition that he is satisfied that the small surplus which he anticipates will be sufficient to cover his demands in other directions. I think that he is particularly to be congratulated upon his stroke of genius in abolishing the Inhabited House Duty, such abolition being undoubtedly equivalent to a considerable remission of Income Tax to that class of salaried man living in an urban district who has to take a larger house than he actually requires and probably to let apartments.
  The points, however, to which I particularly want to call attention are not the strong points of the Budget. I consider that an otherwise excellent Budget is vitiated by two rather important things, to which I have called attention before in this House. One of them is that Clause 28 of the Bill introduces in a very special and vicious manner the principle of retrospective taxation, to which I have previously called attention. There is, however, another matter which is not actually in the Budget, but which has arisen by the refusal of an Amendment. It is a matter of great seriousness, and I think, if I may say so, that it has arisen under a misapprehension. The hon. Member for Wavertree (Mr. Rathbone) called attention to the fact that the records of the Port of Liverpool show that there has been a very considerable improvement in the volume of trade

  1381
  coming into and going out of that port. The operation of the matter to which I propose to refer has undoubtedly had the effect of diverting a very large proportion of trade from these islands. I refer to the action of the Inland Revenue Department with regard to the taxation of agents.
  The position is that the law on the subject has been tested, and the Crown have not succeeded. They are appealing, but for the moment the Crown are proceeding as though they had succeeded in their case in the lower Court. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in the course of these Debates, has stated very distinctly that general commission agents and brokers were protected by Rule 10 of the General Income Tax Rules, 1918. I appeal to him to carry his investigations further, when he will find that, notwithstanding what has taken place in the Courts, assessments have been and are being made upon general commission agents and brokers in the various ports of this country. In one particular case an assessment of estimated profit of £50,000 per annum has been made upon a firm of general brokers who act for hundreds of firms abroad, and similar assessments of various amounts have also been made upon those brokers in respect of other firms with whom they have to deal.
  I ought, perhaps, to say that, in the course of Debate in this House, the Attorney-General laid it down that a general agent was not to be liable to taxation, but that, if there were any special arrangements by way of retainer or commission, then the men or the firms ceased to be general agents and became a kind of special agents, and were, therefore, liable to assessment in this country for an assumed amount of profits made by their principals. What are the facts? In the course of the action in the case of Pinto, which was decided against the Crown and is now the subject of appeal, Mr. Justice Rowlatt laid it down that the whole question was where the contract was signed. If the contract was signed in this country, then there was profit within this country and they were assessable to tax. I have the authority of important firms to state that, since that intimation was given during that action, a large volume of trade, which was pre-
  1382
  viously conducted in this country, has erased to be conducted in this country at all. Not a single contract for the material or merchandise concerned has been signed in this country, and the loss to the City of London and to the trade of this country has been enormous.
  I believe it is the desire and intention of the Financial Secretary that this should not operate harshly, but in the meantime his Department is conducting these proceedings, and is harassing men who are in this position, although the correspondence distinctly states that his Department admits that these particular firms are general commission agents and brokers, and that there are no special conditions attaching to them which make them special agents and bring them within the Section. I may be told that the Courts are open, and, in fact, the correspondence says, "If you object to the assessment, then appeal against it and take it into the Courts"; but that is the things to which we object. It means that 150,000 people within the City of London alone do not know whether they are or are not liable for an assessment of six years' Income Tax on the assumed profit of foreign principals in respect of trade which may be held to be done within this country. I do appeal to the Financial Secretary to go further into this matter and to give an assurance that there is no intention to tax these people in these circumstances.
  Take, for instance, the case of sugar, The sugar crop of Java is sold through this country, by firms in this country, to all parts of the world. Hardly one fraction of that sugar crop actually comes into this country, but the transactions are conducted from this country. That means an enormous amount of revenue to this country, and the attraction to this country of an enormous volume of business. All of that is in jeopardy. It is not, and never was, the intention of the framers of the Section in 1915 to endeavour to attack the vast entrepot trade which is carried on in this country, but the fact is that that entrepot trade is being attacked, and trade is being diverted from this country, which must inevitably mean loss of revenue.
  One is, of course, aware that when this was introduced we were attempting, very properly, to get at the operation of international trusts which were carrying on

  1383
  business abroad, with branches in this country, and so arranging the prices for purchases and sales that they avoided taxation. That, we admit, is a thing which must be done, but Rule 10 was undouhteclly put into the Act of 1918, carrying on the Act of 1915, with the intention of letting alone and saving from any possibility of attack the very well defined agency and commission business carried on in the City of London and in the great ports of this country. Now, by the action—and this is what I want to repeat and insist upon seriously—by the action of the Inland Revenue Department, these men are being assessed in cases where it is admitted that there are no special conditions, but that they are general brokers. The whole point is whether or not a contract signed within this country shall bring them within the assessment to Income Tax in this country, and on that they are proceeding, in spite of any litigation which has been decided otherwise.
  6.0 P.M.
  I would also remind the hon. Gentleman that, in the course of this particular action, it was laid down by Mr. Justice Rowlatt that, if the Treasury were right in their reading of the law, there was not a single transaction in Covent Garden which could not be included day by day, and every salesman in Covent Garden would be liable to the Crown for Income Tax on the profits of the growers who sent their stuff to that market. In this case, knowing, as I do, that it is having the most disturbing effect on the City of London and in the other ports where this trade has been carried on for many years, and where it has meant an enormous accession of wealth to this country, which means binding trade to this country, and which has meant an enormous amount of revenue to the country, the greatest care should be exercised that it is not damaged. Surely we, as the largest exporting nation in the world, are the most vulnerable in this point. When we were discussing this in Committee the Financial Secretary to the Treasury seemed to imagine it a very simple thing to quote Rule 10 and say it disposed of the question. It does not. As the largest exporting nation in the world we are the most vulnerable. We are going to call for reprisals in this matter. If we do, we are likely to suffer more than any other nation. I therefore
  1384
  appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to give such assurance as he can that it is not the intention of the Department to go on harrying these unfortunate individuals who, it is admitted, are carrying on a bona fide agency and commission business, but that the attentions of the Department will be devoted to those cases, which are very well known, where in the past evasion has been attempted, and I am afraid in some cases successfully carried out. I am sure in doing that he will ease the mind of a number of men of importance in the City of London and elsewhere who are now carrying on their business under the greatest possible difficulties, who are afraid to make a contract in the United Kingdom, and I know that a large volume of business previously done by and with this country has been diverted from this country to the permanent loss of the country.
  Mr. REMER: I should like to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member in both the minor but nevertheless important points he has raised, as regards retrospective legislation, which I think is one of the most distasteful portions of the Budget, and also the question of the taxation of agents in respect of the profits made by their principals. I am a member of the timber trade and friends of mine in the City of London are being put into a very serious positition by the assessment which has been placed upon them for profits made by principals who are hardly known to them and whom they have only casually met, and the Treasury say these people have to pay Income Tax on the profits of their principals. It is doing considerable injury to our trade. Several of these brokers are personal friends of mine and transact this kind of business where they buy timber in Constantinople and sell it in New York. They shin timber of a different kind from New York and send it back to Constantinople, and of course they sell timber between this country and the United States. I am sure the attitude of the Government on this subject can have only one effect, that the profits of this entrepot trade, which are most valuable in bringing revenue to the country, will be driven away and these firms will be driven to the state of having their offices outside the United Kingdom altogether, which is one of the ways in which this taxation will be evaded.

  1385
  I wish next to deal with a great major defect of the Budget, namely the discontinuance of the New Import Duties. I want to raise a point which I think has not been raised before, but which ought to be raised, because the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Molton (Mr. Lambert) said we on this side seemed to think that goods from abroad came here for nothing. I suppose he was going to develop that old argument which has so often been used, that if motor cars or gramophones or any articles under the McKenna Duties come into this country we perforce have to send goods over to America. Anyone who knows anything about purchasing goods from America under present conditions knows that that does not happen. What happens is that the rate of our exchange falls, with the result that every commodity that we buy, whether it is timber, which I buy, or cotton, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. W. Greenwood) buys, or necessary foodstuffs, increases the cost of living to every man and woman in this country. I want to show how this works. During the last 12 months the rate of exchange on New York has varied between $4.10 and $4.60. If the price of timber was 100 dollars per 1,000 feet, at $4.10 it would be 5s. 10d. per cubic foot, and if it is $4.60 the price would be only 5s. 2½d. There is a saving during the 12 months on the rate of exchange alone of as much as 7½d. per cubic foot. We are in this position, that if we import motor cars or any other luxuries, under the position in which we are placed, we tend to depreciate our own exchange and therefore make the cost of our essential raw materials and foodstuffs high. I could not help thinking, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Molton spoke about the export trade in motor ears, that he had overlooked that the taxes on motor cars and other goods have not yet been removed. They are not removed until next week, and therefore the great increase of motor cars during the present six months to which he referred was made during the period when the McKenna Duties were still being retained. Why is it that Henry Ford, in a protected market, can pay the highest wages in the world and sell his motor cars at the lowest price? For exactly the same reason why our export of motor cars has been increasing during these six
  1386
  months, because by getting certain protection in their own market they have been able to increase their turnover and to reduce their standing charges to a minimum, and to sell their goods at the lowest price. I am convinced that, in the case of all manufactured articles, if the market is protected it means not higher but lower prices. I am sure it is possible for the manufacturer to pay higher wages and to sell his goods at a lower price.
  Mr. DARBISHIRE: Why have you dropped Protection?
  Mr. REMER: I have not dropped it. I support the policy which is, I understand, the official policy of my party.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I do not think we can go into that.
  Mr. REMER: I should like to have done so, but I am sure I should have been out of Order. I feel that in the two major matters, the turning down of the Economic Conference proposals of last year, and the repeal of the McKenna Duties, taking a long view, there will be a condemnation of the Budget which I am sure will be proved by experience after it has been passed into law.
  Mr. HINDLE: In view of your ruling earlier on, I shall not attempt to bring in the question of Protection in the skilful manner adopted by hon. Members opposite. I want simply to raise the point of the extension of the retrospective legislation contained in Clause 28. I agree that is an obnoxious excrescence on an otherwise fair body, and as there seems to be a perfect orgy of retrospective legislation it becomes all the more necessary, seeing that the appetite grows with what it feeds on, that a strong protest should be made at each stage of the Bill against this growing tendency, even though our protest may be futile. One can quite understand that the Executive welcomes and encourages retrospective legislation. It enables a Minister or a Law Officer for hide up his mistakes, and encourages also careless draftsmanship. Therefore, in these days of hurry and scurry, retrospective legislation has no terrors to the type of mind which governs the Executive. It has been con tended that this is not retrospective legislation because—the argument is an extraordinary one to my mind—it is said the subjects of the Crown who were

  1387
  affected did not know of their rights when those rights accrued. Few laymen do know their rights. They do not always know them after they have consulted their lawyers, and they certainly very rarely know them before. It is also used as an argument that if this legislation be not passed the Crown will be asked to pay an enormous sum of money. I think that sum—I believe it is £8,000,000—is enormously exaggerated. Even if that be true, it is right to say that the greater the amount that has to be paid the greater the injustice that the subject is suffering. Surely we are entitled to ask from the Crown almost a higher standard of ordinary equity and morality than we demand from other people, and especially when the Crown is dealing with its own servants. I hold no brief for the particular class of men concerned, but I am anxious that the Crown should be in such a position that no one can cast any stones at it.
  I am sorry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is prevented by other important duties from being present, because I would have liked to appeal to him to put himself in the position of these men. In years long gone by, the right hon. Gentleman, before he attained to the distinguished position he now holds, was, I believe, a civil servant, and I would like him to ask himself what his own feelings would have been if, believing that he had a right, or having a right, the Legislature came over his head and said, "Whether you have a right or not we will not even allow you to go to the Courts to test it. We will take it away at once." The rafters of this Chamber would have rung with indignation and eloquence from the right hon. Gentleman Apparently, the chains of office have tamed down that enthusiasm of which we had so many eloquent examples in years gone by. This seems to me to be a very important point, which cuts at the root and sanctity of legislation and at the root of the influence which this House holds, because if it once becomes the practice of this House to say that if a man has a right that right is to be taken away, there will be an end to trust and confidence in the Measures passed by this House from time to time.
  Sir ROBERT HORNE: I should like to take this opportunity of congratulating
  1388
  the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on reaching the last stage of the Finance Bill. As one who has had the arduous duty of piloting a Finance Bill through the House of Commons I cannot help having a fellow feeling for one who has had that duty to perform in this Session, although I agree that the task has not been made unduly difficult by the criticism which has been levelled at the provisions of the Finance Bill. I am sure the whole House is very conscious of the admirable qualities which have been displayed by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in getting his Bill through.
  In this afternoon's Debate many interesting points have been raised. One of the most important is the question of the taxation of the profits of foreign firms who have agents in this country. I am perfectly certain that this is a question which it behoves the Treasury to look at with much greater scrutiny than in the past. From personal knowledge of a considerable number of transactions which are struck at, I am sure that in future the country will tend to lose in revenue rather than gain if it keeps up the rigid attitude which has been adopted towards this class of business. I am closely acquainted with businesses in which I know that a large volume of trade will be lost to this country if that principle is to be acted upon. There are many people who, at the present time, are looking for a change of policy on the part of the Government of this country, and I fear very greatly that if that change of policy does not come about a considerable proportion of very lucrative business, which brings in its train an immensity of other contracts, will disappear from the City of London. Accordingly, I will net do more at the present time than urge upon the Financial Secretary and his advisers carefully to review the whole position which has been disclosed by the very admirable speeches which have been made on this subject.
  Other interesting topics were raised by the hon. Member foe Ilford (Sir F. Wise). His speeches upon financial problems are always very interesting. There was a personal reference to myself in connection with the 3½ per cent. Conversion Loan, to which I entirely dissent. I am sure that when this matter is looked at

  1389
  carefully by those who study the finance of this country, they will agree that a start had to be made in regard to converting the obligations of this country, and that, having done it at that time, it acted with enormous benefit to our financial position. The hon. Member well knows how, immediately following upon that conversion scheme, we were able at successive stages to get our conversion at a cheap rate. We had to make a start, and if it had not been made at that time we should have lost rather than have gained by the delay. That is my personal conviction. The hon. Member also raised the question of the gold standard. I entirely agree with what I understood to be the general drift of his speech on that subject. I do not wish on this occasion to enter into any discussion as to whether a policy of deflation or inflation was better or worse for this country, or whether the policy which we actively pursued has enured to our benefit, because there are, as the House knows, considerations at the present time, especially in connection with the Commission which has been appointed, which make it inexpedient that the Financial Secretary, for example, should be called upon to express an official opinion upon that subject.
  I should only like to say this, as a person who has been connected with the finances of this country and who also knows something about the effect of our financial policy upon business, that you could not have any policy which would be more adverse to industries in this country than one which would depreciate our financial stability. The confidence which the world feels in our financial position and the trust which induces them to leave large sums of money lying in the City of London—we do not let the money lie; we turn it over and invest it and make commissions upon it, and from it we derive large revenue—is a priceless asset, and anything which shook that confidence and which depreciated the value of the pound sterling would inevitably react upon every industry in the country. If I were asked what is the most important factor in our industrial prosperity, I should not hesitate to announce it to be the preeminence which the country enjoys in finance.
  Among other subjects raised this afternoon there was an interesting aside in
  1390
  the speech of the right hon. Member for South Molton (Mr. Lambert), to which I should like to draw attention. He dealt with the decline in one of our most important industries, namely, the iron and steel industry, and ascribed it to the burden of taxation which at present rests upon the industries of this country. That leads me to say that the Budget which we have had in the present year cannot be described as anything other than a normal Budget. It is the kind of Budget that you would have put through the House in normal times. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had a surplus to deal with, and he dealt with it, in the main, by the remission of duties upon sugar and tea. A remark made by the right hon. Member for South Molton brings vividly before the House the fact that while this is a normal Budget, it has been passed in very abnormal times. I would venture to follow up the line which the right hon. Gentleman took and direct the attention of the House to the very serious conditions of the industry of this country at the present time.
  Many people are deceived by the outward appearance of spending and the display of wealth, but, my conviction is that there are a great many people spending to-day because they think it is hardly worth while saving. The State takes so much of their savings when they are alive, and still more when they are dead, that they are induced to embark upon a course of expenditure which wise and reasonable people would not otherwise adopt. That certainly also greatly checks investments. We can readily understand that when a business man is asked to make a large expenditure upon some new venture he says to himself, "If I succeed I shall only he allowed 10s. of each pound that I earn, and if I fail I shall lose the whole pound." Anybody can see that that has a very remarkable deterrent effect upon enterprise, and accordingly, on broad grounds, I think it will be acknowledged that high taxation is one of the greatest burdens from which we suffer at the present time, and that it really tends to create the very unemployment which we are endeavouring to cure.
  Let me point out some ways in which business is affected. If you take the local rates which are paid by the employers, it is quite obvious that those go straight on to

  1391
  the cost of every article that is produced. If you may take what I may describe as industrial charges, what the employer has to pay in the way of Workmen's Compensation, Health Insurance and Unemployment Insurance, all these things go straight on to the cost of the article. With regard to Income Tax, the position is not so clear, because you only pay Income Tax upon your profits. Nevertheless, Income Tax vitally affects business and leads to an increase in the cost of the article, in that it takes away a proportion of everything which the employer saves and puts to reserve. It takes away 4s. 6d. out of every pound. That has two effects. In the first place, it tempts people to distribute more than they ought, because they say that the State is taking such a large proportion of what they make. In the secondary aspect it deprives the employer of those very funds which he sets aside for the purpose of purchasing new equipment, of reorganising his business and of cheapening his production, and leaves him in a situation in which he is not able to compete with those people who are enabled to spend larger sums upon these activities. In all these ways, rates and taxes affect the cost of the articles and, therefore, affect our ability to compete with people from other countries in the external markets of the world.
  Everyone realises that unless we can sell our goods outside these shores we cannot possibly live. Therefore, everything that tends to increase the cost of our products and puts us in a disadvantageous position in relation to our competitors is harmful and hurtful to our industries and our employment. To-day we are the most highly taxed and most highly rated country in the world. We are under a perpetual handicap in every market in which we seek to find an entrance. You will find the results of it in many concrete examples. Take one of our greatest industries—shipbuilding. One knows of course that the shipbuilding industry is in a state of great depression at the present time, because for one reason there are more ships than there ever were before. But still people are building ships, yet not half of the berths in this country are full, though we
  1392
  are the greatest shipbuilders in the world, and, I think it will be acknowledged, the most efficient shipbuilders.
  Only the other day a Rotterdam firm received nine order for ships, four of them from shipowners in Glasgow, four from shipowners in Newcastle and one from a large British line. Just imagine the situation. People on the two greatest shipbuilding rivers in the world actually buying their ships in Holland! Why? Because the cost of these ships to-day is 20 per cent. less in Holland than it is here. Take another instance. There are the repairs which have constantly to be done to ships. The President of the Board of Trade in answer to a question the other day admitted that in the course of four months last year there were 12 British ships under repair in Amsterdam and 42 under repair in Rotterdam. He qualified that last statement by pointing out that nine probably were taking advantage of their being there but with regard to the other 33 they had deliberately gone to Botterham for repairs because they found it cheaper to do that than to have the repairs made in British yards. That is a very serious situation to which I direct the attention of the House, because I am sure that if we are to come through our difficulties we shall do it not by evading the facts but by facing the facts.
  I ask the attention of the House also to another great trade of this country, the iron and steel trade. I ask it not merely because, as it happens, I have got a very intimate knowledge of its conditions, which, on the whole, I think makes me more qualified to speak about it, but also because the House will recognise that the iron and steel trade is one of the basic trades of this country, and no great industrial country can really survive if it be deprived of its position in iron and steel production. Our experience there frankly is that in competition with Belgium and Germany at present they can always undersell us by something like 30s. to £2 a ton. We got a large number of orders from the railway companies last year in this country for steel rails, but we got those orders at something like 30s. a ton dearer than the price at which the same rails could have been purchasrd abroad. We got them through the urgency of His Majesty's Government, who begged the

  1393
  railway companies to help employment of the country by placing these orders in Britain, but I have also to acknowledge that, in the main, these orders, at the price at which they were taken, did not yield a penny of profit to the steel makers of this country.
  If you look at the figures you will find that the imports of iron and steel into this country during the first five months of this year are greater by 20,000 tons per month than they were before the War. Contrasting that with the export figures you will find that our export now is not within 75,000 tons a month of what it was before the War. That is our position even now when Germany has not yet begun to make her new effort. At present Germany is only exporting one-fifth of the steel which she exported before the War, but when Germany begins to give to the world the full extent of the exports which she is capable of producing, in the great new works which she has contrived since the Armistice, what is going to be the position of this country especially in relation to the prices competition which we shall have to endure? I beg the House to think of these facts. Of course, there are many factors in these prices. There is the question of hours of labour, for example. They are working longer hours on the Continent. They are Working for lower wages on the Continent.
  Mr. MARCH: Not much!
  Sir R. HORNE: I have gone into these figures carefully. I do not wish to detain the House at present in giving meticulous examples, but anybody who has gone into the figures knows that the wages there are less and that the hours are longer. Another factor is that our railway rates are much higher. Again that comes back to the question of wages to a considerable extent. Then there is the cost of transport, not inland but by sea, and in that connection, by reason of the number of shifts which are worked at ports abroad, ships get a much quicker discharge than at our ports. I may give a personal illustration. Only the other day I was dealing with the representative of a very large French firm in connection with some contracts, and he told me frankly that he could not make terms with me unless I could expedite the discharge of the ships in our ports. He gave me some examples
  1394
  of the same ship carrying goods of the same character to Rotterdam and to South Wales ports, and the disparity of the rate of discharge was quite appalling. That accounts for a very large addition to the cost of everything which we import or export.
  These are all factors which enter into the matter, but I do not suppose that any one of them is such as the Financial Secretary to the Treasury would be able to deal at the present time. The question of taxation, however, is particularly within his charge, and there is no doubt that high taxation and high rating are responsible for a very considerable portion of the increase in the cost in this country. I figured it out in one particular case, and I found that, leaving aside Income Tax altogether, the difference between the cost of rates and taxes before the War and now on the ton of finished steel was this: Whereas before the War, 2s. 9d. represented rates and taxes, to-day something like 21s. 4d. represents the rates and taxes on a finished ton of steel. I have figures for some of the Sheffield firms and the amount of difference in some cases is actually as much as £2 per ton.
  I ask the House as a body of business men how they think it possible for us to compete in conditions so difficult as these? That is the problem which we have got to face. The burden of rates and taxes in Germany to-day represents only something like one-third of what is borne by similar products in this country. I had hoped that in the present year the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, would have been prepared to accept an Amendment to the Finance Bill doing something to mitigate the heavy taxation that is now put upon the reserves which firms put away for the purpose of new adventures or re-equipment or re-organisation. I have no doubt he will say that it will cost a great deal of money. It is my firm conviction that this money would come back greatly increased in the future. Something must be done. If the cost cannot be reduced with regard to any of the factors to which I have referred something has got to be done in regard to rates and taxes. I ask the House to consider seriously what is to be our future policy on this matter because I cannot disguise the fact that in my view

  1395
  the situation is very grave. This makes me all the more surprised that it should have been thought necessary to disturb simple things like the McKenna Duties, which did nobody any harm, and of which no person who was a consumer ever complained, and that the Government should have been willing to risk the possible unfriendliness of our Dominions in regard to their relation to Imperial Preference.
  Every industrialist in this country at present realises the immense benefits he gets from being secured by preference in the markets of our Dominions and Colonies. I do not believe that any Government could face the storm of protest both from employers and employee] in this country which would arise if the Dominions were to say, as a result of our policy, "We propose to withdraw all our preference," and I do not know what my hon. Friend's answer would be if a Dominion Prime Minister said, "We will take off that preference unless you give us some return." I regret that my hon. Friend and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have signalised their advent to the Treasury by two such great blots on their Budget as the two to which I have referred. If they were followed, as their natural sequence, by a change of policy on the part of our Dominions, then this Budget would come to be known as the most disastrous ever presented to this House, and would overwhelm in obloquy the memories of the men who produced it, but their reputations are saved only by the generous sentiment towards the Mother Country of those people whom they have never understood, and by the devotion to the Empire of men whose loyalty they have never appreciated.
  Mr. BLACK: I listened with great interest to the speech which has just been delivered, though I cannot follow the arguments to their logical conclusion. I cannot agree with the statement that the people in this country are not as well off as they were before the War. Have we not this year an estimate of £265,000,000 as the amount of the Income Tax that is going to he paid on an income of £1,400,000,000 by Income Tax payers? These figures are largely in excess of any figures returned prior to the War. At the same time a question put to the
  1396
  Chancellor of the Exchequer a few weeks ago was answered to the effect that the gross income of the whole nation stood at about the figure of £4,000,000,000, which I understand to be about £1,800,000,000 more than the pre-War estimate of the national income. Under these conditions it seems to be straining the position to state to the House that the general condition of the people of the country is not as satisfactory as it was before the War. I know there are about 1,000,000 people unemployed, but with regard to the other 13,000,000 of the working classes who are employed, apart from the agricultural industry, they are not earning unsatisfactory wages at the present time—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"]—with the exception perhaps of the engineers and the miners in some districts. I am speaking of the general incomes of the larger portion of those in employment at the present time.
  The right hon. Gentleman has just brought forward a point with regard to ships being built at Rotterdam and ship repairs being carried out more cheaply abroad than at home. What solution has the right hon. Gentleman to offer? If we were to put protective duties upon steel, would it prevent the shipbuilders of Rotterdam from continuing to produce ships at their present prices? Would it prevent the ship repairers in Rotterdam from continuing to repair at the prices they are now charging? Unless you pass a law in this country that people are not to be allowed to buy ships outside this country, I do not see that you can do anything to prevent the shipbuilders and ship repairers of Rotterdam from serving those people in this country who are inclined to deal with them, at the lowest possible price. Supposing you put a duty upon steel and iron produced abroad, it comes in here at a higher price and you thereby increase the cost of production of the goods made here. I have it on the best authority that the Coventry motor-car makers at the present time do not scruple to buy the Belgian steel of which the right hon. Gentleman has just been complaining. Here you have the peculiar position that the motor-car makers in Coventry, Birmingham and elsewhere, who protest against the removal of the MeKenna Duties are, at the same time, taking advantage of the Free Trade situation to buy their materials and accessories abroad, wherever they can buy them cheaper

  1397
  than at home What is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander, and if those manufacturers desire to buy raw materials and accessories at the lowest possible price they ought to allow the consumers in this country to buy the produced article also at the lowest possible price. Their position seems to be inconsistent.
  I should like to refer to the arguments put forward by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hope) who initiated this Debate and also by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer) regarding the influence of the McKenna Duties upon employment. It is a remarkable fact that the hon. Member for Macclesfield did not call attention to the fact that in America under the Fordney Tariff, which is a very much enlarged tariff, they have been compelled to take 50 per cent. more imports than they took before the operation of that tariff. I have attended throughout the Debates on the McKenna Duties, and I wish to put some points in relation to them which I think have not been put before as showing the bearing of these duties upon the subject of unemployment. We are all desirous of seeing the finances of his country so administered and manipulated that employment shall be as large as possible, and with that object in mind I ask how is it that in this country there is only one motor car to every 110 people whereas in America there is one motor car to every 11 people?
  Mr. ERSKINE: Protection. [HON. MEMBERS: "Higher wages."]
  Mr. BLACK: Protection has nothing to do with it. As far as the importation of motor cars into America is concerned, there are no cars going in except the Rolls-Royce, a very expensive car. They have a huge number of cars in operation and, owing to the huge number and the organisation of mass production, no doubt the price has been very much reduced, and that is the reason why such a large number is being sold. Now I ask hon. Members to consider the fact that, in spite of unemployment last year in this country, 383,000 licences for motor cars were taken out, and this figure does not inclue lorries or motor omnibuses but represents ordinary pleasure motor cars. At least one out of five of the owners of these 383,000 cars employs a chauffeur, and that would be 75,000 chauffeurs. I am told by experts that the figure would
  1398
  more likely be one in four, but, for the sake of argument, I am taking it at one in five. In the garages of this country at least 50,000 man are engaged in cleaning, repairing and keeping in running order these motor cars, which makes a total of 127,000 men employed in dealing with these motor cars after they are built and put upon the road. The figures given in these Debates up to the present show that in the actual construction of these cars not mere than 90,000 to 100,000 men are employed, and, therefore, there are to-day employed in keeping up the condition of motor cars throughout the country 27,000 men more than are employed in the actual production of the cars. If you double the use of motor cars in this country, whether they come from abroad or whether they are made at, home, you thereby double the number of chauffeurs employed and double the number of men engaged in garages. [Interruption.] Well, I shall be very pleased to hear what answer hon. Members have to make to that argument.
  Mr. ERSKINE: The only answer to it is that the moon is made of green cheese.
  Mr. BLACK: That may be satisfactory to the intelligence of the hon. Gentleman opposite, but I do not think it will satisfy the House. I submit that, with a population of 45,000,000 in this country, if the cars were reduced to a cost which would enable a larger number of people to purchase them, it would be easy to double the number of cars on the road. Are we for ever to take it for granted that only one person in 100 in this country can own a car as against one person in 10 in America? The Ford Company are starting big works in the East of London in spite of the removal of the McKenna Duties.
  Mr. W. GREENWOOD: And leaving Manchester.
  Mr. BLACK: That may be so, but I understand they are acquiring a tremendous acreage in the East of London where they propose to employ 10,000 men, and to manufacture an all-British car. If cars at a cheap price were put upon the market, we might have cars available for the ordinary workers of this country. Why should not the workers have them? I should like to see every hon. Member above the Gangway, and every man who is a worker having his own little motor-

  1399
  car. It could be done if cars were available as they are in America. The only point is that the Ford car is 23 horsepower, but, if you could buy a small car here of 10 or 12 horse-power for £70 or £80, you would find that the utilisation of motor-cars in this country would increase by leaps and bounds, and from that circumstance many benefits would accrue. First, every one of those cars would pay £1 per horse-power to the taxation of the country, and instead of £15,000,000 coming into the Exchequer from motor licences, you would bring in £30,000,000. We should get the rural roads attended to, and we should have work for the unemployed—in fact, one might say the financial millennium would be in sight. Take the case of a doctor or a surveyor, or any man who requires a small car in his profession or business. If he were enabled to buy at a lower price, the number of professional men using cars would be multiplied enormously, and the people of this country would be supplied with the cars which they require.
  7.0 P.M.
  If you can give the motor car industry by competition an incentive to put themselves in a position to increase production you will have done something which will very much benefit the trade and the public at large. I am not speaking without the book, because I have investigated this matter, and I have some acquaintance with the trade. If the industry of this country could institute a system of mass production such as they have in America, I think we have as good engineers as any in America, and under the system of Free Trade we should be able to purchase materials at the lowest price. I believe the finances of this country would be put upon a better basis altogether if we could increase the utilisation of cars, and the revenue certainly would be enhanced to a large extent. I should like to compliment the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury upon the Budget, but, before concluding, I wish to call attention to one other subject. I was very surprised, and I am sure the whole country has viewed with astonishment, the position in which the Labour Government, which has always stood for peace and international brotherhood among the nations, in the first years of its ex-
  1400
  perience has come forward and proposed to this House to spend £9,500,000 more upon armaments than the Tory Government did last year. Cannot I go on discussing that, Sir? I thought it was included in the Finance Bill?
  Mr. SPEAKER: We are not in Committee of Supply.
  Mr. BLACK: If the Chancellor of the Exchequer, instead of spending money in that way, could spend it on reducing the postage to one penny, he would have done a very fine work indeed in the interests of the business of this country. Chambers of Commerce throughout the country, business associations, and the Federation of British Industries—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—they know something about business—and all those large associations know very well that if the penny post were once more in operation it would tend very largely to the benefit of trade throughout the country and the Empire. I thank the House for the opportunity that I have had, and I hope that the remarks I have made will receive some attention from the other side.
  Sir JOHN MARRIOTT: I do not want to follow the hon. Member in his very ingenious and flattering anticipations of the financial and social millennium. I, like him, look forward to that millennium, but I do not propose to reach it by the same route. I want to say one word with regard to a point raised by my hon. Friend with regard to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne). The hon. Member opposite put a question to the House, how we are to retrieve the position which was revealed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead in regard to shipbuilding in this country. I want to say just one word with regard to that point One of the main points I wish to deal with was raised by the hon. Member for Wavertrce (Mr. Rathbone). The whole burden of the speech of the right hon. Member for Hillhead was that the trade of this country was being absolutely strangled by the weight and burden of taxation which is laid upon it. When my hon. Friend opposite, the Member for Harborough (Mr. Black), asks how we are going to retrieve the position, I say there is one way of doing it, and that in by relieving-the burden of taxation which rests on British industry.

  1401
  My hon. Friend the Member for Waver-tree said taxation had to be raised. That surely depends on the expenditure which we are proposing. I am very well aware that I should be out of order if I were to discuss the question of estimates or of expenditure but it has been my duty as Chairman of the Estimates Committee to scrutinise carefully the pre-suppositions of expenditure which underlie this Finance Bill. I know I should not be permitted to discuss that here and now, but may I say to the President of the Board of Trade, if he will be good enough to communicate with the Leader of the House on this matter, that, although I should not be permitted to raise that question now, it will be my duty at a later stage of the Session to ask His Majesty's Government, and particularly the Leader of the House, to give us time according to the unbroken practice of recent years for the discussion of reports which as an Estimates Committee we have to make to the House of Commons.
  For the moment, I desire to make only one or two observations on the Finance Bill. It seems to me that the first outstanding feature of the Bill is that it does possess certain virtues, but those virtues, I venture to suggest, are inherited virtues. I am very glad indeed that the Labour Government in the first Budget they introduce should have the advantage of inherited virtues. The main lines of the Budget, so far as the revenue side is concerned, are due, I respectfully submit, to the financial wisdom and the fiscal virtues of the immediate predecessors of the present Government. Virtues it possesses, but in the main—I do not want to be offensive, and I shall not be deemed offensive when I say—this is a cowardly Budget. I am not imputing any blame at all on this point to the immediate authors of the Budget. They are cowards, like Falstaff, under compulsion, and the compulsion to cowardice has come from those who, with some apparent inconsistency, are alternately described as tyrannical masters and patient beasts of burden. But whatever the source, the result is as I suggested. The Budget is conceived on cowardly lines. What I mean is this. It is cowardly, in the first place, in its refusal to face the facts of the industrial situation. Those facts haw; been admirably brought out in the Debate this afternoon by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead. The facts of
  1402
  the industrial situation are far more disquieting than most people in this House are prepared to admit.
  Then I suggest that this Budget is cowardly in another sense—in its failure to provide for the financial responsibilities which are implicit in the legislative programme of the Government themselves. For example, we have already had published yesterday a very substantial volume of Supplementary Estimates. I know that that is a point which I am not entitled to pursue in this Debate, but I may remind the House that those Supplementary Estimates already reach a total of over £3,000,000, including, as they do, two token Votes as against an estimated surplus in the Budget of £4,000,000. That reveals a very serious financial state of affairs. That brings me to the main point on which I want to say a word or two. I cannot help feeling that this Budget, whatever its virtues, and whatever its vices, is in the main a doctrinaire Budget. I am not going to embark on those larger issues of the fiscal problem, some discussion of which has nevertheless been permitted this afternoon. I want to put this question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer or to the Financial Secretary as a Scot. Does the Financial Secretary really desire to be a better Free Trader than the father of Free Trade himself? Does the Financial Secretary want to be a better Free Trader than the greatest of his compatriots in economic science? Does he want to be a better Free Trader than Adam Smith? I suggest to the Financial Secretary, whose knowledge of these matters is far greater than my own, that with that great master of economic science the question of Free Trade and Protection was in no sense at all a matter of principle; it was wholly a matter of expediency. I respectfully suggest to the Financial Secretary that he will find in that great master of economic science, his own compatriot, ample justification for those two sets of fiscal imposts which have been deliberately omitted from the present Measure. I refer, of course, to the preferential rates on Imperial produce and to the new duties which are associated with the name of Mr. McKenna.
  In regard to Imperial Preference, does the Financial Secretary suggest that on that matter he can shelter himself or the

  1403
  Government or their proposals behind the great authority of Adam Smith. I suggest that he will find it exceedingly difficult to do so. As a matter of fact, Adam Smith was always prepared to admit that in the last resort an economic consideration must give way to a political consideration. If these preferential duties are to be condemned—and I am not prepared to condemn them—from the economic point of view, is there behind them any large political issue which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead said this afternoon, is of supereminent importance to the future prosperity in the large sense of This country and the Empire? In regard to the justification for dropping the McKenna Duties, again I appeal to the great authority of the hon. Gentleman's compatriot and master—I am sure I may so describe him—and he will find there a maxim which completely cover the case of those duties. Great emphasis has been laid in the Debate this afternoon on the terrible burden of taxation in this country. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead gave to the House some exceedingly interesting figures in regard to the extent to which rates and taxes enter into the cost of our manufactured products to-day, more particularly in the steel industry, and make it exceedingly difficult for those products to compete in neutral or, indeed, any markets of the world. It has always been an aphorism that where you are laying a heavy burden on the products of native industry you are entitled to lay by every rule of fiscal science a corresponding duty on similar products in competition with them which come to this country from abroad.
  I referred just now to the terrible burden which we are laying upon production in this country. The hon. Member for Wavertree laid great stress on the necessity for encouraging accumulations of capital. My right hon. Friend the Member for the Central Division of Sheffield (Mr. Hope) laid great stress also upon the restriction of personal expenditure necessitated by taxation. Well, I am concerned with the burden of taxation far less from the point of view of the individual taxpayer than from the
  1404
  point of view of national production. This burden, to-day, arises not only from the aggregate amount of taxation, which is very heavy, but from the disproportion between the direct and indirect taxpayers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield made some allusion to that point—to the percolation, as he called it, of the incidence of direct taxation, which is not to be- measured only by the assessment of the individual taxpayer. I entirely agree with those remarks. I associate myself, if I may respectfully say so, with them, but I think I look at the matter from a slightly different angle. He was, as I understood him, laying special stress upon the restriction of personal expenditure in consequence of the burden of direct taxation.
  I am not so greatly concerned about that. I do not very much mind about the reduction of personal expenditure. I am far more concerned with the effect of direct taxation on the depletion of our national capital. The whole future trade of this country very largely depends on the ability of individuals in this country to accumulate capital for the replenish ment of industry, and so long as this heavy burden rests on industry, such, replenishment of capital is rendered impossible. I am obliged to the House for listening to these few remarks. I take leave of the Budget of this year with this remark. I think it might be worse. I think it would have been worse but for the very rich legacy which the Government inherited from their prudent predecessor. I think if might have been worse but for the peculiar disposition of political forces in this House. I ventured to say once before that the virtue of this Budget approximates to the virtue of the plain woman, who is not exposed to overwhelming temptation. I think it would be ungracious if, as I have taken some part in Budget Debates for many years in this House, I did not say one word of great appreciation of the courtesy with which all parties in the Trouse have been treated by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The passage of this Budget has, I am certain, been greatly facilitated by the courtesy of my hon. Friend opposite, and I desire, on

  1405
  behalf of those who sit on these benches, to thank him for it.
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Graham): I ought, in the first instance, to apologise to the House for the absence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a reason which I am sure every hon. Member will appreciate. If he had been present on this occasion he himself would be the first to have thanked hon. Members in all parts of the House for the spirit in which those Debates have been conducted. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Sheffield (Mr. Hope), who introduced the Debate, and to the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken and to other hon. Members for the tribute which they have paid to some of the efforts put forward from these benches. I do not intend to-night to try to cover all the points raised in the Debate, but I propose, with the permission of the House, to deal with two or three of the larger issues on which some reply may be expected from the Government on this occasion. The right hon. Gentleman, when he introduced the discussion in a speech in which, if I may respectfully say so, religion, ecclesiasticism and finance were happily blended, asked whether we would be able to overtake the commitments that were already in view. No Government can ever expect to be quite clear of the difficulties of Supplementary Estimates.
  In these times we are not back, although we are getting back to the exact estimating of the pre-War period, and hon. Members must know there are variable factors to be encountered. There may, for instance, be a large unexpected increase of revenue which eases the position of the Chancellor of Exchequer. As far as the commitments in question are concerned, I remind the House of the heavy arrears of Supertax, Excess Profits Duty and Income Tax which on a recent occasion I estimated at over £200,000,000. No doubt, in making our estimates, we calculated that a certain proportion of the £160,000,000 arrears of Excess Profits Duty might be recovered. We also estimated recovery of part of the £26,000,000 arrears of Super-tax, and of the £60,000,000 arrears of Income Tax. If I were asked to-day what the effect is likely to be of the collection of those arrears in the year which lies ahead, I should say that in a
  1406
  time of partial recovery of trade, and making all allowances for the difficulties of the situation, we should recover a very fair amount, and to that extent the position will be eased. The right hon. Gentleman also raised the problem of direct and indirect taxation—
  Mr. HOPE: There was one question I asked. It was how far the existing commitments of the Government when they matured next year will affect the Budget?
  Mr. GRAHAM: I am afraid I cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman off-hand. As regards old age pensions expenditure, we have indicated that it will increase by an amount rising from £4,000,000 to £7,000,000, but all the rest is in the realm of speculation. On the question of direct and indirect taxation, I indicated in an earlier Debate that the theory was very widely held a year or two ago that there should be some kind of allocation, it might be on a fifty-fifty basis, as between direct and indirect taxation. In any event, whatever view we take of the allocation of taxation of that kind, I think the House will agree that the situation was bound to be very largely altered by the changed social conditions brought about by the War and more particularly by the strain of recent years, and it would be the business of any Government to try to give as much relief as possible in the sphere of indirect taxation, even if it departed from the fifty-fifty theory.
  The underlying difficulty is the people of ability to pay. There is not the least doubt that, in the case of direct taxation we are nearer to that principle of ability to pay than we could ever be with taxation on the necessaries of life, because ability to pay largely disappears in the consumption of articles on which every member of the community depends. The right hon. Gentleman also raised what has been for many years an interesting problem—the problem of the taxation of luxuries. The House is familiar with the great difficulty of defining what is a luxury article. I have always felt that especially in times of financial stringency luxury articles are a legitimate sphere not merely for ordinary but even for very heavy taxation, because we do not want to discourage expenditure on admittedly luxury articles and to encourage expenditure on necessaries and on articles the production of which provides work for our people and adds to our financial strength.

  1407
  So much by way of general argument in reply to the points put by my right hon. Friend.
  I come now to some of the more concrete issues of the Budget discussion, and I propose to say a word or two regarding the taxation of agents, more particularly from the standpoint adopted by several hon. Members to-night. While the Bill was in Committee, we resisted Clauses which were calculated, as we thought, to interfere unduly with the collection of taxation on business done by agents for foreign principals. Hon. Members agreed that we had no jurisdiction as regards the non-resident principal, but they said at the same time it was rather hard that the agents in this country should become liable for taxation on the trade done, although they themselves admitted that the trade should be taxed. In the long run a proposal for giving notice to the agent and only taxing him after that notice had been served was discussed. At the time I pointed out the obvious difficulty of such a proposal. A very large volume of trade might have been transacted before the notice was served, and, in the terms of the last Amendment before the House, the authorities were only to have recourse against the agent for the purposes of taxation of such trade as was done after the serving of the notice. That would mean giving a preference to an amount of trade conducted in this country in direct competition with British traders who were paying taxation. It would in fact be a preference to the foreign principal. This, I think, on any analysis of taxation, would not be justified. Accordingly, we felt bound to resist the proposals which were made. At the same time there is a feeling in regard to those exceptions which I quoted from the rules of the Act of 1918—namely, the exemption of entrepot trade which does not touch these shores, and also the exemption of the occasional and general agents—there is some criticism that the Inland Revenue authorities are proceeding against these people. The probable explanation is this, that many of the people who might be regarded as occasional, or casual, or general agents, may at the same time be engaged in a more binding agency, and become more or less permanent agents, and it must be in practice very difficult to disentangle that permanent branch of
  1408
  business on the one hand from the temporary, casual, or general business on the other. I am advised that every effort is being made to draw that distinction, which is clearly a distinction intended by the rules in the Act of 1918. No one could stand at this Box and take steps designed to penalise agency business in this country, or to expose these agents to an unfair hardship in taxation. That would be a method of destroying an important branch of British trade, on which a great number of people depend for employment. At the same time, we must protect the Exchequer on the one hand, and we have to protect the masses of other British taxpayers engaged in corresponding trade on the other. Subject to that very definite rule, I undertake to-night to watch that during the coming year, as we undertook during the Committee stage of the Bill, and if hardships are revealed, no doubt they will be duly considered when another Finance Bill comes round.
  I come, in the second place, to a rather intricate problem of double taxation, raised by the hon. and gallant Member the Member for Bilston (Lieut.-Colonel C. Howard-Bury), and supported from a rather wider point of view by the hon. and gallant Member for Yeovil (Major G. F. Davies). As regards the Irish arrangement intimated to this House some years ago, that is largely an arrangement by which the taxpayer is liable at the, higher of the two rates imposed, but no more. Hon. Members have suggested that in the case of Ireland there is very great delay in getting repayment, and that the present system amounts to double taxation over a considerable period. Let me say at once that the remedies which hon. Member:, have suggested would not meet these cases, because it is a perfectly fair argument on our part to say that now that Southern Ireland has the status of a Dominion, it must be treated for the purpose of Income Tax on a Dominion basis. The Royal Commission which investigated the general problem in 1919 was very clear and definite on the point that there should be no mingling of funds and that there could be no system of interpayments, and that the fullest autonomy, as between the Dominions and this country, must be observed. If any other view were adopted, there would be an invasion, from the point of view of fiscal autonomy, of the Irish Free State, and any adjustment of

  1409
  the balances would involve intricate legislation in the. Parliament of the Irish Free State, and corresponding legislation here. At the moment, with the very brief experience at our disposal, the House would hardly expect legislation of that kind. If I were able to suggest some administrative method by which the difficulty might be either partly or, at all events, largely removed—
  Sir F. WISE: I understand that Australia and South Africa have come to terms with the Irish Free State—I do not know whether it is true—in regard to double taxation.
  Mr. GRAHAM: I have no information on that point, but even if it were true, I do not think it would modify, in any way, what I am about to say, because all these arrangements are the subject of rather long negotiations, and, in any case, as regards Ireland, I am rather hopeful that some administrative device will overcome the difficulty. There are three classes of taxpayers who are really affected—people who are directly assessed in both countries; people directly assessed in one, but by way of deduction in the other, and the third class consists of people who pay by way of deduction in both countries. Where the taxpayer is directly assessed, the allowance of relief against the assessment largely meets the case. As regards the third class, I think that a system of paying agents would go a long way to meet the difficulty. At the moment there is a very definite effort to that end. The hon. Member for Down (Mr. D. D. Reid) referred to steps taken by a railway company in the North of Ireland. That is an illustration, of course, but I am advised that there are many legal and other difficulties which, as far as I am aware, have not, been completely overcome. The second administrative proposal is that we might make immediate repayment to the taxpayer, without waiting for that full statement of his income on which the final adjustment of a tax is made. As hon. Members have been kind enough to say, I am very anxious, indeed, to try to arrive at an arrangement, because there is not the least doubt, at the moment, that there is hardship up to a point, although I cannot help feeling that some difficulty has arisen from the fact that Ireland is a new State,
  1410
  and it always takes time for taxpayers to become accustomed to new proposals. The House will recognise also, that any proposal which sought to weaken the deduction of the tax at the source would require legislation, and a matter of that kind would be reviewed, I have no doubt, with very great care by this Assembly, because it is one of the great safeguards of our Income Tax collection in Great Britain that such a large proportion, amounting, I believe, to more than 70 per cent., is obtained at the source.
  On the general question I undertake to keep in consultation with hon. Members, to see whether, along the two lines I have mentioned, we could remove the difficulty; but if we cannot remove these difficulties in that way, then this Government, or some other Government, would no doubt have to consider other and larger steps. The hon. and gallant Member for Somerset (Major G. F. Davies) went beyond that, into the sphere of double taxation. Certain preliminary steps have been taken by our predecessors in office. For example, in the Finance Bill a year or two ago, a proposal was introduced in the case of shipping, as applied to foreign countries. I recall what I now regard as a somewhat unguarded speech of mine which suggested that there were certain dangers in beginning in one sphere, like shipping, in that it might confer a benefit on one class of industry to the detriment of others. I am not now so sure that that difficulty is real, but in any case, we had to get experience, and in this Bill we make an extension to the Colonies, and we are pursuing investigations regarding other countries. I am hopeful that in due course we will arrive at some kind of international programme in the matter of double taxation. Quite clearly we cannot embark on a one-sided arrangement which would involve the sacrifice of revenue here, unless we come to corresponding arrangements with the other countries of the world. It must proceed largely, if not wholly, upon a basis of reciprocal arrangements, and that accounts for the delay in dealing with this problem.
  I come now, in conclusion, to two points which hon. Members raise—my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford (Sir F. Wise), and my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Sir Godfrey Collin), and others. The first point is in regard to

  1411
  our attitude towards the problem of deflation and kindred issues. I ought to say at once to the House, that it is very difficult to make any statement on this question at the present time. The whole issue, directly or indirectly, is under the consideration of influential bodies. But speaking quite for myself, I cannot believe that this country will ever embark on a policy of inflation, or if I may put it otherwise, would seek to do other than move steadily towards the gold standard by means of healthy and sound deflation. I am well aware of the controversy which this question has raised, but weighing up the disadvantages and advantages of the situation, I think clearly, the duty of this country is to work gradually and safely along the lines of deflation, and to make the best contribution we can towards the re-establishment of the gold standard. That would seem to be a sound and healthy monetary policy, but the House will recall that the Cunliffe Committee, in one of its reports, outlined a programme of a more general character, to which I dare say the majority of hon. Members would subscribe. In most of these Debates on currency, I cannot help thinking that, almost in spite of ourselves, we get the cart in front of the horse. We are apt to think that currency is the dominating and ruling consideration. I agree that when currency becomes more or less diseased it may, to a corresponding degree, exercise a profound influence upon industry and commerce, and it may, for the time being, become a kind of dominating factor, but, of course, in the last resort, our currency, credit, and everything else are really the servants of the trade we are doing, or can do, and they ought to minister, as we all know, to the free interchange of commodities. The Cunliffe Committee recommended a policy of free interchange, they advised all countries to get back to a sound system of currency at the earliest possible moment, they recommended the cessation of Government borrowing, and they further pointed out the advantages of economy and of the increase of productive capacity. In short, they laid clown an economic programme, which, I think, would be supported by every sane and reasonable individual at the present day, and it is one of our hoped that the outcome of the Conference which is now pro-
  1412
  ceeding will be to give us a Europe in which that kind of policy can once again become practical politics.
  Sir F. WISE: What about the amalgamation of currency and bank notes which I contend is one of the first steps?
  Mr. GRAHAM: It was just on that point, to be perfectly candid with the House, that I proposed to say nothing at all. I wonder if the hon. Member will excuse me to-night. because it is under consideration elsewhere, and I am afraid that any statement would be liable to misconstruction.
  Sir F. WISE: I am sorry, I did not know.
  Mr. GRAHAM: The last point with which I ask leave to deal, but only very briefly, was raised by the right hon. Member for South Molton (Mr. Lambert), supported by the right hon. Member for Hillhead (Sir H. Horne). What both of them asked was, in effect, what view we took of heavy taxation in this country and of its effect on British industry and commerce. There can only be one view of heavy taxation, that is, that it is a hindrance to trade and progress, and my right hon. Friend made it perfectly plain that, while this high rate of Income Tax and Super-tax is necessary at the present time, he himself did not take the view that a 4s. 6d. rate could always be justified in this country. But may I remind the House that, whether we like it or not, a very large part of our Budget is more or less automatically fixed from year to year. If we take it that we have to raise rather more than £800,000,000 by taxation, the House will remember that £330,000,000 or thereabouts are earmarked for the service of the National Debt, and then we can add to that.£70,000,000 or £80,000,000 to which we are committed for war pensions and allowances, so that under two heads we have £400,000,000 of money to raise right off, and that sum, of course, is equal to two times the whole of our pre-War revenue, that is, before August, 1914. To that extent we are committed, and then, quite clearly, I am afraid, we are bound also to certain classes of other expenditure in the interests of economic and social reconstruction. For my part, I should like to see that expenditure as far as possible such as would minister to an increase in the productive capacity

  1413
  of Great Britain, and I should include under that head provision which we are making for roads and improved communications, in fact, everything that would minister within this country to better facilities for our trade.
  The right hon. Gentleman, on that subject, made a suggestion that we should give some preferential treatment to the reserves of public companies, by way, I take it, of an Income Tax concession. There are very great practical difficulties in a proposal of that kind. When it was put forward in the course of the Committee stage of the Bill the right hon. Member did not make it plain whether he wanted exemption at the full or standard rate or something lower. If it were confined to public companies and at the full rate, it would involve this country in a sacrifice of anything between £25,000,000 and £50,000,000 a year, but hon. Members have since made it clear that they do not make any proposal of that kind. What they have in mind is a reduced rate of tax upon those funds put to reserve by public companies for the purpose, very largely, of development. There again the concession could not be confined to a public company. We should, in ordinary logic and common sense, have to extend it to all forms of business which made any provision at all in reserves for development, and I think we should also have to extend the concession to large numbers of individual people, who could quite easily show that, by saving, they were making a provision in the interests of future social or economic progress, so that even on a restricted basis as regards rate of tax we should be committed to a sacrifice of revenue of many millions per annum. In this Budget we could not contemplate a step of that kind, and I am not sure that it could ever be contemplated in this country without very careful consideration, because the House will realise at once that in a departure of that kind from Income Tax custom, we should then look not to the income which would come from any business or commercial or industrial undertaking, but to its destination, and we should give a concession from that point of view. That is a principle which can only be admitted with the very greatest caution and under very definite safeguards, because if we once go out into the sphere of what I might call here beneficial destination, we should speedily
  1414
  have a case for exempting practically every member of the community, up to a point, who is subject to income Tax at the present time. Perhaps the House will not expect a longer reply on this occasion.
  May I add one or two general words in conclusion? In common with every Member of the House, I was impressed by the rather gloomy picture which was drawn by the right hon. Member for Hillhead regarding our trade prospects. On that point, let me say that no one can be at the Treasury for even a very few months without recognising the enormous difficulties under which much of our trade and commerce is being conducted. I feel that our best contribution is to proceed on lines of sound finance, which is not necessarily undemocratic finance, to maintain our credit at home and abroad, and, by doing so, to make a substantial contribution to international recovery.
  Mr DENNIS HERBERT: I want to ask the attention of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to one or two observations on the question of the taxation of foreign firms through agents in this country. I realise, of course, from what the hon. Gentleman said, that he is only too anxious that the policy of the Inland Revenue shall not be such as unnecessarily to drive business away from this country, but I am very sorry to say that the reply of the Financial Secretary will not by any means allay those fears, which are already working and causing a tremendous disappearance of trade from the City of London, and I rise particularly to ask him—I realise that this is a very complicated subject, on which he could hardly have been expected to make such a declaration this evening as might have been satisfactory to us—whether he will meet a few of us before the House rises, and consider whether ho cannot produce some kind of statement which may assist to allay these fears. He has referred in his reply, and I would refer to one passage which he used also in the Debate before, to the necessity or advisability of taking care not to give a preference to foreign traders, but what I want to point out to him is that the business which is rapidly being driven away from the City at the present time is business which does not compete in the very slightest degree with home trade.

  1415
  A particular kind of concern that I am more than ever anxious about is that business, such as the Mincing Lane and Baltic business, of making contracts for the sale of enormous quantities of foreign products, a great deal of which is contracted for sale for a destination outside this country, so that it is not only not produced here, but it never comes to us. It is only that market operation of a contract for sale which is carried out here. That is the enormous and valuable business which is really going away at the present time under the fear of the action which the Inland Revenue is taking. I should like to read to the House a few lines of a letter which was written by a big firm of merchants, only the other day, to myself and their legal adviser in this connection. I should explain that this firm sells to a broker on the Mincing Lane market the entire crop of a number of very large foreign or colonial producing concerns, and the particular words of the letter that I want to quote are these:
  "As regards such business as we do which the Government might wish to bring in under the term of agency, I should personally like your opinion as to whether one ought to take action to seek such business. A foreign firm gains no advantage by using Us as sellers of their material and can very easily put their business elsewhere."
  That question was raised by this firm as the result of a direct communication from the Inland Revenue, stating that they were going into the question of making them o liable to pay, and in my own view, as I think I said on the Report stage, is that in law these particular foreign producing companies are not chargeable to tax. I am perfectly sure that, if they are, it is a wrong principle, because it is making chargeable to tax something which you will immediately drive away, from this country, and you will lessen the profits made in other directions, and you will lessen the tax which comes from those profits.
  8.0 P.M.
  Therefore, in the interests of the revenue of this country and of the very large trade in the City from which that revenue is derived, I hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Financial Secretary to the Treasury may be able, in consultation with some of us, to arrive at some method of allaying this fear which, from my own personal knowledge
  1416
  and experience, I, can assure the Government is at the present moment driving this business away from the City of London. Since the Debate on the Committee and Report stages, several of us have gone into this matter rather more fully. We have met a number of merchants and business men in the City, who have been concerned in the matter, and we have realised—I can speak for several hon. Members opposite—to a greater extent than ever before the disastrous effect of the recent action of the Inland Revenue in regard to this matter. But we also realise the great difficulty which the Government will have in dealing with it. There will be great difficulty in discriminating between those cases which are both properly and profitably chargeable with tax, and those which are not properly chargeable with tax, and those to try to tax whom would be suicidal from the revenue point of view. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Financial Secretary will be so good as to meet some of us and have a slight discussion on the subject. I hope that we nine arrive together at the object which we both have in view—trying to prevent the disappearance of some of these businesses from the City of London.
  The CHANCELLOF of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Snowden): Without going into the general question, I can assure the hon. Member that we shall be very pleased indeed to meet him and other of his friends who are interested in this matter.
  Mr. H. H. SPENCER: I want to protest as strongly as I can against the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Home), in which he brought up the stale insinuation that the loyalty of our Dominions depends in any way on Colonial Preference. I would not have intervened in the Debate but for his statement, his assumption that no Government in this country could stand the wave of popular indignation if the Colonies were to take away Preference. Probably he does not know what taking away Preference would mean. He is probably quite unaware that already, with preference, the Australian people are charged 30 per cent tariff en their woollen clothing. If Australia were to abolish the preference which we now enjoy, the Australian people would have to pay

  1417
  45 per cent. on their woollen clothing, and the Australian Government would be swept out of existence by the indignation of the consumer in Australia. I want to speak shortly on the weight of taxation for which the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Hillhead, was responsible. I agree with every word that he said as to the damage which excessive taxation does to business. But it ill befits the right hon. Gentleman to make his complaint. Of all the men in this country, without at all intending it, the right hon. Gentleman, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, caused more unemployment than any other Chancellor of the Exchequer who has existed in this country. He was the Chancellor of the Exchequer who under-estimated his revenue to such an extent that he had a surplus of something like £140,000,000. It is bad enough for employment to take £800,000,000 or £900,000,000 from the taxpayer and from the production of the country, but it is much worse for employment if you take in taxation a huge amount more than you spend.
  Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: Half of that surplus was due to the fact that we did not expend as much as we thought would he expended.
  Mr. SPENCER: To spend less was an extremely good thing, but it was extremely foolish to make so low an estimate of the revenue. Take the case of the collier. We know that in 1921, in a time of bad trade, it was impossible materially to increase the wages of the collier; until trade improved and the price of coal went up the collier could not be paid much more in money wages. We all know that he had a wretchedly small wage, hardly lifting him above the bare necessities of existence. The right hon. Member for Hillhead was the Chancellor who took on the average 12s. from every cottage and family in taxing food, milk and tobacco. Of that money, £140,000,000 did not come back into circulation. There is often a great deal of talk about want of capital. I never had any capital worth talking about, but I had a little credit. What you want is customers, customers, customers. You can get the capital you want if you have a profitable trade and customers. I can remember the time when the colliery fields in England were the best markets for the goods which I make.
  1418
  The wives of the colliers had money to buy in sufficient quantity clothes for their children and their husbands, and, if the collier had an extra good week, perhaps a new dress for themselves. Was the burden of taxation on the necessaries of life which the right hon. Member for Hillhead levied on these colliers that converted the coalfields from the best into almost the worst market for textiles in the country. Therefore, it ill lies in the mouth of the right hon. Member for Hillhead to reproach the present Chancellor for his Budget. On the question Protection let me give the candid opinion of a Prime Minister of Victoria who was a friend of mine 32 years ago. He was engaged in increasing the protective taxation of Victoria. He said to me in conversation:
  "I know that Protection is a rotten bad thing, but it is the only way in which von can make those damned working, Men pay taxes."
  That is as true to-day as it was 30 years ago. I congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer on having swept away those taxes which are intended to transfer a greater share of the nation's production into the pockets of the rich and a lesser share into the pockets of the poor.
  Mr. SAMUEL: Is it not the fact that in Australia at the present time they have Labour Governments? Have they taken off the protective duties?
  Mr. SPENCER: I do not think that they have done so, and on another occasion I will discuss the matter at greater length with the hon. Gentleman opposite. I want now to say a word of criticism of this Budget. It is an excellent Budget and I am proud to be an enthusiastic supporter of it. I think, however, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could have reduced taxation still further. The fault of our finance during the last few years has been the underestimating of revenue. It is one of the greatest evils of all to leave the burden of taxation so high. I am going to be a prophet for once. I have calculated the arrears of Income Tax, Super Tax and Excess Profits Duty, and I believe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to have a pretty big surplus this year, if he does not let the Minister of Health make holes in it. I am very sorry to make that prophecy. I do not like Chancellors of the Exchequer

  1419
  to have surpluses. What the country wants financially is a Chancellor of the Exchequer who goes very near the bone. We shall never see the trade revival that we want unless taxation goes down, and taxation will not go down unless expenditure goes down. I regret that with all the great energy that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has shown, he has not put the knife sufficiently deep to make the country's expenditure, this year at any rate, lower than it was last year. That is the one blot on his Budget. I hope that if he is still in office next year he will resist gallantly all the raids on the hen-roost which his colleagues wish to make.
  Question, "That the Bill be now read the Third time," put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the Third time, and passed.

  OLD AGE PENSIONS BILL.
  As amended, considered.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The New Clause—(Calculation of means limit of o totally disabled pensioner)—on the Paper, standing in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Dorset West (Major Colfox) and other hon. Members, would involve a charge, and is out of order.

  OLD AGE PENSIONS BILL.

    CLAUSE 1.—(Amendment of statutory condition as to means.)
    Mr. SNOWDEN: I beg to move, in page 1, line 15, at the end, to insert
    "(2) In this Act the expression earnings ' moans money or money's worth which a person receives or acquires as a result of work presently performed by him."
    This Amendment would insert in the Bill a definition of earnings. During the discussions in the Committee stage of the Bill it was stated that in the existing Old Age Pensions Act there was no definition of "earnings." Hitherto it has been left to the various bodies which are responsible for the administration of the Old Age Pensions Act to define what is meant by "earnings." There were two suggestions made during the Debate in the Committee stage. The hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain W. Benn) suggested that we might issue a statement of the rules and regulations which have been framed by the authorities
    1420
    responsible for the administration of the Act. A further suggestion was that in this Bill there should be some definition of "earnings." I promised to give consideration to the two proposals. The first proposal, in so far as it was not practicable, was not desirable. I am, therefore, proposing to adopt the second suggestion and to include in the present Bill a definition of "earnings." It was stated in our discussion that a High Court Judge had recently said that it was almost impossible to get a precise and actual definition of "earnings," that for some purposes a very generous interpretation was placed upon the word "earnings," as, for instance, in the case of the Workmen's Compensation Act, and that in other eases there was a different interpretation. I submit that the Amendment will he generous towards the applicant for an old age pension. It will not permit income which is not earnings within the definition which I propose to be included—
    It being Quarter-past Eight of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

  CLYDE VALLEY ELECTRICAL POWER BILL [Lord] (By Order).
  Order for Second Beading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  Mr. WESTWOOD: On a point of Order. May I ask whether there is not one or other hon. Member in this House in favour of this particular Hill who has not something to say on it? would suggest that those who are promoting the Bill ought to have some representative here to explain this scheme for giving certain powers to a private company. May I ask your ruling?
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Robert Young): Hon. Members have put down an Amendment to defer the Second Reading for three months. I presume that, having done so, they know what is in the Bill?
  Mr. HANNON: On a point of Order. May I say for the benefit of hon. Members opposite that they might have had access to the proceedings of the House of Lords, and so made themselves acquainted with the text of the Bill?
  Mr. WESTWOOD: I did not suggest that I do not know what is in the Bill. I do know, and that is the reason I am opposing it.
  Mr. MAXTON: May I point out that those of us who are in favour of the rejection of this Bill might not be prepared to push our opposition to the Bill to the extreme limit if we could hear from hon. Members in favour of it some justification for supporting it—for supporting what scorns to us the absolutely impossible demands of a private company as contained in the Bill. What hon. Members might say might have some weight with us, and we might not push our Amendment.
  Mr. WESTWOOD: We know what is in the Bill. We also know the proceedings that have taken place in another place, and of the negotiations outside, which absolutely compel us to pursue our opposition to the Bill to its final conclusion.
  Mr. STEPHEN: I beg to move to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."
  In moving this Amendment, which stands in my name and that of several of my colleagues, may I say that there is a statement by those in favour of the Bill which says that they believe that the only opposition is coming from those who believe that this Bill, in some way or other, is going to affect the question of the nationalisation of all electrical undertakings. They contest that belief. Personally, I have read the Bill. I have also read the petition of the Glasgow Corporation. I have also gone to the trouble to read the proceedings in another place in connection with this Measure, and I want to say right away that I believe the House of Commons, in giving these new powers to this company to extend their capital and the area of their undertakings, which the company promise are going to do something contrary to the interests of the people of Scotland. I want to state that in my belief it is becoming more and more
  1422
  apparent every day that this question of the development of electrical power throughout the country is going to become more and more an urgent question.
  There has been a Committee sitting at the instance of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), and its members have gone into this question. Those concerned have been good enough to send to Members of this House a little book in which they state their conclusions in regard to the important part which electricity is going to play in the industrial development of the future. Hon. Members who have considered this matter agree on that point. But every day it is becoming more and more apparent that this is a matter which calls for national treatment and not for sporadic treatment by this other company. One of the people interested in this Measure in a conversation with me suggested that, after all, this company had invested a good deal of capital and had carried on a great deal of work in order to provide for the needs of manufacturers and for the needs of industrial undertakings. I suggested to him that they had not invested capital to confer benefit upon manufacturers or on any section of the community, but that they had gone into a concern which seemed to them to offer prospects of a good profit—that they did not come into this business from a philanthropic point of view.
  Mr. BALFOUR: On a point of Order. Are we discussing the additional powers which it is proposed to confer upon this company or the general principle? Is the hon. Gentleman entitled to discuss the matter so widely?
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: This is the Second Reading of the Bill.
  Mr. STEPHEN: It was suggested that this company was conferring a very big public advantage by virtue of the capital they had invested in their company. I suggested in return to my friend that it was not a question of public advantage, it was a question of the amount of profit that could be obtained. Therefore I suggest—
  Mr. HANNON: On a point of Order. I am exceedingly sorry to interrupt—
  Mr. STEPHEN: It looks like it!
  Mr. HANNON: But is it not the custom of this House in relation to Bills of this character that bon. Members dealing with it are confined to the precise scope of the Bill itself, and cannot go outside that on Second Reading?
  Mr. STEPHEN: On a point Order—
  Mr. HANNON: I have not finished my point yet. 1 would respectfully call your attention, Sir, to this fact, that only a few weeks ago Mr. Speaker was in the Chair, and an hon. Member on the other side, speaking in relation to another private company Bill, promoted in the interests of a private corporation, was called to order for travelling outside the range of the Bill, and in dealing with subjects apart from the Bill itself. I ask whether hon. Members who are opposing this Bill should he allowed to proceed in this indiscriminate way in dealing with the general subject?
  Mr. WESTWOOD: Is it not a fact that this Bill deals with principles being applied to a new area in which the principles of private ownership are not operative at present, and the hon. Member is consequently quite in order.
  Mr. STEPHEN: Is it not the case that the hon. Member opposite who raised this point, and who seems so specially interested in this company which proposes to mulct the public, has got an opportunity of stating the various matters concerned in the Bill? I submit that the questions I am dealing with are all contained in this Bill, and I am suggesting that this House should not give powers to this company to make extortionate profits at the expense of he poor.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: With regard to the point which has been raised, and which was dealt with by Mr. Speaker, I believe it was ruled out because it dealt with some extraneous matter. As long as the hon. Member deals with the principles of this Bill, he is quite in order.
  Mr. STEPHEN: The principle of this Bill proposes to increase the capital, and also the area within which this company is able to operate. It deals with electrical undertakings in those areas. I am suggesting that those undertakings and the extension of the powers to undertake
  1424
  electrical work in those areas are not going to be to the public advantage, but that the result will be simply to increase the opportunities of those individuals for making profit. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] I am rather surprised that hon. Members opposite are so distressed, and they are evidently determined not to give me an opportunity of putting to the House a connected ease against this Bill. It seems to me that they have not a good case, or they would not try to throw me off my argument like they have been doing to-night. I will now come to the statement of a promoter of the Bill in which he pointed to the big advantages which would accrue to manufacturers and other people within the area if this Bill were passed. I suggested to those manufacturers that I was not at all convinced that those advantages were going to accrue to those manufacturing interests through the passage of this Bill. I also asserted that in tins connection, to my mind, the one way in which those interests could get full protection, as well as the other people within the area, was by a very different treatment to that which was suggested in this Measure.
  I want to refer to what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs said on the general question of electrical supply, and how he deprecated this sort of sporadie handling of this great need of the people. It is the business of this House, when a Measure like this comes before us to look into all the Clauses and into the question of the area which is going to he served, to make sure that we are not going to entrench deeper a company which will be able to obstruct and block the developments which ought to follow in this connection in the no distant future. On the ground that this Clyde Valley Electrical Power Bill is going to act in the way of obstructing the natural electrical developments within that area which can be far more suitably undertaken by local authorities such as the Glasgow Corporation, 1 ask the House to support my Amendment for the rejection of this Bill.
  I want to describe the proposals which are contained in this Bill. First of all, there is a desire on the part of the company to obtain powers to increase its capital. This Measure also contemplates the alteration of the terms under which the shares are held in

  1425
  the company. I do not wish to place any objection in the way of the company getting the opportunity of obtaining inure money from the investing public. That is a matter for the investing public themselves, but I object to what comes afterwards in the later Clauses of the Bill. There has been a certain amount of contention with regard to those Clauses. This Measure affects various areas. It affects interests in the area of the counties of Renfrew, Dumbarton and Lanarkshire, and within those areas various boroughs and local authorities are concerned, and those areas take exception to some of the proposals contained in this Measure. Clauses 25 to 29 directly affect the interests and the powers of the local authorities contained within those areas. Owing to the fact that the local authorities in those parts were putting up an opposition to this Measure, certain concessions were made. All those authorities under the 1901 Act, under which this company was constituted, have obtained certain powers by which they are protected against the various actions of the undertakings with which this company is concerned. In consequence of that opposition all those authorities within the area have now got the former protection Clauses which they enjoyed under the original Act, and this protection is given to them under the Measure now proposed.
  I would like to point out some of the suggestions contained within those various Clauses because, to my mind, the cardinal feature of this Measure is contained within those Clauses, and the position in which they are going to place their great competitor, namely, the Glasgow Corporation, is an important matter. For example, in Clause 25 it is proposed to enact as follows:
  "The powers of the company under the existing Acts shall be extended to include the following additional powers videlicit:

  (1) The company may with the consent of the Electricity Commissioners and subject to such conditions as these Commissioners may impose enter into arrangements for working or managing any undertaking for generating or distributing electricity within or adjacent to the area of supply; and

  (2) The company may take a transfer of the rights powers and liabilities of any authorised undertakers adjacent to the area of supply and Section (Transfer of undertakings of local authorities and others to company) of the Act of 1904 shall apply to any such transfer."

  1426
  I want the House especially to note the importance of Sub-section (2), which I have just read. The company may take a transfer of the rights, powers and liabilities of any authorised undertakers adjacent to the area of supply. Again, in Clause 26 of the Bill it is proposed to enact, inter alia, as follows:
  "(1) in addition to their existing powers the company may subject to the provisions of this Section and with the consent of the county council or other local authority having jurisdiction supply electricity for lighting purposes to any premises within the area of supply to which the company have power to supply electricity for other purposes Provided that the company shall not give any such supply to any premises within the area of supply of any authorised distributor without the consent of such authorised distributor.''
  This Sub-section, also, is one of very great importance to those who are opposed to this Measure. Then we find that in Clause 27 of the Bill it is proposed to enact, inter alia, as follows:
  "(1) The provisions of the existing Acts and the Acts incorporated therewith shall so far as these are applicable to the purposes of this Section and subject to the necessary modifications apply to the construction laying down erection and maintenance in any streets or roads of any telephone or telegraph posts wires conductors or apparatus which the company may and which they are hereby authorised to erect or lay down for the purposes of their undertaking but no posts shall be erected in any street or road without the consent of the local authority which shall not be unreasonably withheld and any question whether or not such consent has been unreasonably withheld shall be determined by the Electricity Commissioners."
  That, also, is one of the Clauses in this proposed Measure which is of very great importance to those who are in opposition to it., in view of the possibility of the various developments which this company may undertake. Again, in Clause 28 it is proposed to enact as follows:
  "The company may subject to the provisions of the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922. and of the Schedule to the Electric Lighting (Clauses) Act, 1899 and of the existing Acts construct and maintain in or under any street within the area of supply transforming stations section boxes and other works in connection with their electricity undertaking and may in any such street provide and maintain all such means of access and approach to such transforming stations section boxes and works as may be necessary or convenient."
  This also, as hon. Gentlemen opposite are aware, is one of the Clauses which, with

  1427
  regard to future possibilities, is viewed with a certain measure of apprehension unless certain concessions are made.
  Mr. HANNON: Tell us why.
  Mr. STEPHEN: I will tell the hon. Member why, directly. I want the House to understand how important it is to the great City of Glasgow and its electrical undertakings, and to the development of the City, with regard to these various Clauses—
  Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: As the hon. Member is referring to the City of Glasgow, will he inform the House that Clause 33 of the Bill deals with the protection of the City of Glasgow on all these points to which he has referred?
  Mr. STEPHEN: I simply desire, at this stage, to say to the hon. and learned Gentleman that. I am quite aware that Clause 33 affords a certain amount of protection to the City of Glasgow and its undertakings, but what I propose to show is that Clause 33 does not give any- thing like adequate protection to the interests of electrical development in the West of Scotland, and especially to the interests of the Glasgow Corporation and of the people in the area served by the City of Glasgow. Then we come to Clause 29 of the Bill, in which it is pro- posed to enact as follows:
  "The company may within the area of supply for the purpose of supplying any premises with electricity lay down take up alter relay or renew in across or along any street not repairable by the local authority such mains wires and apparatus as may be requisite or proper for furnishing a supply in such street or in the neighbourhood thereof and the provisions of the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and of the Schedule to the Electric Lighting (Clauses) Act, 1899, and of the existing Acts so far as they are applicable for the purposes of this Section shall extend and apply mututis mutandis to and for the purposes of this Section as if all such streets had been specified in this Act."
  These Clauses 25 to 29 contain, then, many of the matters which have aroused the opposition of hon. Members of this House, and concerning which they wanted more adequate protection than has been applied to them, and we feel that they constitute so great a danger that we are prepared to press this matter to a Division unless we get what l propose to put before the House. This company, which was given
  1428
  certain powers, in 1901, which powers were extended in 1904, 1912, 1918 and 1919, comes to the House now with this new Measure, seeking for an extension of its powers and a larger area in which it proposes to operate; and, while it has been operating, there have also been developing alongside it the great municipal electrical undertakings of the City of Glasgow. The city has had to extend its boundaries. In 1905 there was a small extension, and in 1912 there was a larger extension. Those extensions brought within the area of the, City of Glasgow part of the area which was served by the company concerned, and Glasgow, in order to serve its people, has had to spread out its undertakings in every direction beyond the city. For example, it has had to take over other tramway undertakings within the area with which this Bill deals. It has had to undertake a great development of its electrical tramway system. Again we find that the streets, both within and without the city, within the area of supply, are at present occupied by an extensive underground system of sewers, gas and water mains, pipes and electrical lines, the property of the City of Glasgow. So that you have this company asking for certain powers over an area in which there has been, as a result of the Corporation of Glasgow seeking to serve the people, of its city, seeking to serve the people in the area round about it, the great commercial centre of the whole of the West of Scotland—you have all this property of the City of Glasgow out of the area of the city, and the streets in all these districts occupied by this extensive underground system of sewers, gas and water mains, pipes, electrical lines and tramways. Since that is the case, it seems to me that it cannot be contested that the corporation has every right for its interests to be fully conserved in connection with the development of the undertaking suggested in this Measure of this private company.
  The other local authorities outside Glasgow, who also have their interests affected, demanded that the protection which was secured to them by the 1901 Act should be secured to them under this Measure, and what did the promoters of the Bill do They provided Clauses 30, 31 and 32, whereby there was given to all those authorities the same

  1429
  power of protection that they had previously enjoyed. The Glasgow Corporation said, "Yes, we also have got a cause under the Act of 1901." under that Act it was manifest that Glasgow had a great interest in what the developments of this company might produce, and under Section 66 of that Act there were various protections put in so that the interests of the Glasgow Corporation should be fully conserved. But the promoters of the Bill will not give us the introduction of Section 66 now. Instead they offer Clause 33, which states:
  "The company shall not, under the powers conferred by the Sections of this Act of which the marginal notes are repectively, Additional powers, Supply for lighting purposes, 'Power to erect telephones etc.," Power to construct transforming stations etc. in streets,' and Power to lay electric mains in private streets,' interfere except with the consent of the Corporation of the City of Glasgow with any statutory or other works or property of that Corporation within or without the City of Glasgow and shall not except with such consent exercise within the City of Glasgow any of the powers conferred by the said Sections."
  I can quite well understand that the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Millar), not having gone into the question of the proceedings in the House of Lords, not having gone fully into this question, looking at that Clause would be inclined to say, "Here is an adequate protection for everything that concerns the Glasgow Corporation." I am quite willing to admit at the outset that this Clause looks as if it were an adequate protection for any other interest, but if it were an adequate protection, why was it necessary to give to the other authorities the protection which they formerly enjoyed? Why was it necessary to give them something other than this Clause? They insisted that they must have the former protection—this Clause did not give enough—because they knew that while on the face of it this seemed all right, it does not at all meet the case. Under this Clause they say to the Corporation, "There you are. We will not go on with anything where you are directly interested, where you have property, where your interests are concerned, unless we get your consent. What could be fairer that that?" But if the come with a reasonable proposition to the corporation the corporation cannot refuse their consent. They cannot
  1430
  say, "We refuse our consent to a certain development which seems reasonable,'' and none of us in any part of the House would say Glasgow had any right to object to give its consent to a reasonable proposition. So this provision really means that if the proposed development by this company is reasonable, Glasgow must give its consent.
  But when Glasgow gave its consent previously, or when this company came into the area in which Glasgow interests were more directly concerned, Glasgow had more protection than this. They had the protection which would accrue to them if any damage was done to the works that they had in that area, to all this underground mass of materials belonging to the city. When the company set to work its works might interfere with some of those sewers or mains of the corporation, and they became financially responsible for the damage that was done. Clause 33 of this Bill does not give to Glasgow the protection it formerly enjoyed under Section 66 of the Act of 1901. That Section certainly applied to the area formerly covered' as concerning Glasgow interests in 1901 but Glasgow interests since 1901 have extended in every way in those areas. They have become ever so much greater than they were then, and what Glasgow is seeking is that this company should give them Section 06 of the 1901 Art with regard to their various undertakings within the area concerned. I put it to hon. Members, is that an unreasonable demand on the part of the corporation? The power of protection, the power of obtaining from the company the financial damages which the company might do to the various works under the ground in the areas concerned, the powers that the House believed in 1901 should belong to the corporation surely at this time of day are not going to be taken from this representative institution of the people in the West of Scotland in the interests of any private company. Hon. Members below the Gangway will agree with me that Glasgow Corporation in this connection are putting forward a very reasonable demand. The Glasgow Corporation might have put forward an opposition to this Bill in view of the large electrical equipment in Glasgow, the great generating stations and the great electrical mains laid down by the corporation. They might have

  1431
  pressed their opposition to this Measure and have said that this company should not be given these powers, because they would cut athwart the development of the electrical power supplied by Glasgow to the whole of the West of Scotland.
  One of the Glasgow councillors told me to-day that Glasgow Corporation, in the development of electrical power on behalf of the people, seeking to give the people electrical power at the cheapest possible price, without handing out profits to anybody, had found themselves thwarted again and again by the workings of this company in the adjoining areas. Notwithstanding, the Glasgow Corporation, the natural centre for the development of electrical power, the natural centre in every way for the developments that we agree are absolutely necessary in connection with electrical power, do not seek to oppose this company getting this wider area and these wider powers. All that the Glasgow Corporation say is simply this, that they should enjoy the protection that was given to them by the House of Commons in 1901. I do not know whether I have made myself clear in connection with Section 33, that it does not secure the Glasgow interests, that a new undertaking cannot go on unless Glasgow gives its consent. If Glasgow does give its consent, and if as a result damage is inflicted upon the property of the Glasgow Corporation within that area, then the Glasgow Corporation cannot get financial damages which they would have got under the Act of 1901.
  9 P. M.
  We are not asking too much from hon. Members opposite who are interested in the proposition contained within this Bill. I do not want to be fractious or factious in my opposition to this Measure, and my colleagues on this side do not want to put anything in the way of the development which this company is proposing for itself. We do not like it; we frankly admit that. We believe that in future we shall have to pay heavily for the development of this company, but we are willing to put that aside, and not to fight that issue on those grounds, which we believe are the very best grounds; but we do ask of hon. Members opposite that they shall deal fairly with the representatives of the people of Glasgow, and with the people of the West of Scotland generally, and that they should give the
  1432
  protecting Clause 66 to the Glasgow Corporation. The point will be made that in the other areas they are obtaining compulsory powers arid that they are not obtaining compulsory powers within the Glasgow area. They say that, because they are not able to come into the Glasgow area with the same compulsory powers they are getting in these other areas—the areas concerned are the county councils of Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire and Dumbarton—then there should be this difference made in regard to Glasgow. I ask hon. Members opposite who are interested in the promotion of the Bill whether they are willing to accept the compromise that is offered, and whether they are willing on behalf of those who are interested in the Measure to give to us what we have been fighting for, namely, this full protective Clause, and to give to Glasgow the powers that the House of Commons gave to Glasgow in 1901 when the company was first given its power. We ask for that protection, and if damage is done, and if the company are responsible for the damage, it is only fair that they should pay for it. The interests of the masses of the people are of paramount importance compared with the interests of any small section of the investing public, and so it is with companies. Unless we can get agreement to our proposals by those who are supporting the Measure, I ask the House to refuse to give this Bill a Second Reading.
  Captain Viscount CURZON: The hon. Member has referred to the possible damage that may be done to the property of the Corporation of Glasgow. Will he amplify that a little, and say what damage he anticipates?
  Mr. STEPHEN: L am sorry that the Noble Lord was not in the House when dealt with that matter. I said that Glasgow had certain powers given to it in connection with electricity development before this company came into the field. I also pointed out that, as a great city in the West of Scotland, the centre of the great shipbuilding industry, a great population has gathered around the City of Glasgow.
  Mr, STURROCK: On a point of Order. Is it in order for the Noble Lord to come into the House now and to ask my hon.

  1433
  Friend to repeat the first part of his speech, in view of the limited time we have for this discussion?
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I cannot control the time when the Noble Lord comes into the House.
  Mr. STEPHEN: Glasgow is the centre of a great many other towns, and Glasgow's municipal undertakings have branched out in many directions. There was a private tramway company, for instance, which used to run in Paisley, and the Glasgow trams extended to Paisley. Ultimately, the Glasgow Corporation bought up the Paisley tramway system. This development has gone on in various directions. There have been developments in connection with sewers electrical cables, etc., extending around this part of the West of Scotland. The consequence is that in part of the areas covered by this Measure there is all this underground property belonging to the Corporation of Glasgow, and the corporation say that if this company damage this municipal property they should be indemnified against the loss.
  Mr. WESTWOOD: I beg to Second the Amendment. I do so, not because I am interested in granting to Glasgow certain privileges connected with some Act passed long ago. I do so, because this Bill seeks to grant certain monopolistic powers over a certain area in Lanarkshire to a private company whose interest is not in supplying electricity for heat, light or power, but to exploit the users of electricity in that area. I feel sure that, when we come to deal with the great problem of the national supply of electricity, if we-grant a Second Beading to-night and this Bill is passed, those to whom we had granted the powers now asked for would he asking the nation to compensate them for these powers in these circumstances I can never in this House support the granting of further powers to private enterprise to deal with what should be a national problem. I find that this company are seeking to get new powers granted for practically the whole County of Lanark. It is a remarkable thing that to-night, when a private Bill which seeks to interfere with the rights of the Glasgow Corporation and deals with the question of electricity and its supply to various parts of Lanarkshire comes up, many hon. Members opposite who have expressed themselves as being -anxious to carry out
  1434
  the will of Glasgow are not present to defend the interests of Glasgow. I feel sure that, before we come to a Division on this Bill, it will not be the Members for Glasgow who will be defending this particular Bill, but that it will be outside individuals who do not come from Scotland, individuals who in all probability come from Birmingham, and we shall find that they are not interested in what would benefit the Clyde Valley.
  Mr. HANNON: Why not?
  Mr. WESTWOOD: But that they are merely interested in private enterprise. What is the reason why I am unable to support the Bill? I believe that the electricity supply of this country ought to be under national control. It is the only way in which you can deal with the natural resources of this country in relation to power, light and heat. I am going to oppose every Bill which seeks to give monopolistic powers in these matters to private enterprise. I expect that in the Division to-night we shall have the vote of every hon. Member below the Gangway, particularly after having read that strange hybrid production, "Power and Coal," not the produce of the red tiger, but the produce of the black elephant, and even of the patient oxen, and l have no doubt that when it comes to a vote on this Bill the patient oxen and the impatient asses will be in the same Lobby.
  Sir SAMUEL CHAPMAN: A very short, plain statement is the best way to meet the speeches, which have lasted nearly an hour, of the two hon. Members opposite. The matter divides itself into two portions; first, the Bill itself, and, second, the question of nationalisation. The. Minister of Transport gave a lead to this louse—the only time, so far as I know, on which he has expressed any opinion on the extension of electricity—on the 12th March. This is the advice which he gave:
  "I agree that every stimulus should he given to the development of electricity in all quarters."
  Then he went on to give the statistics with regard to the development of electricity by corporations and by private companies. He did not condemn the extension of private companies, because he had prefaced his remarks by saying that a stimulus ought to be given in all quarters. This Bill is not different in principle from

  1435
  any other Private Bill which has been brought into this House from time immemorial. This House in its wisdom has made certain procedure necessary for the promotion of Private Bills. Notice is given in the ordinary way some time in November. The Minister of Transport gets to know all about it. He gives his opinion on the various questions of principle if it is necessary that he should do so. Then a Select Committee of either House is appointed by the Chairman of Committees and the Bill is sent to it. This particular Bill was sent to a Select Committee of the House of Lords by the ordinary procedure. One particular point as regards Clause 33 was discussed for a whole day by the Select Committee. I will not be so foolish as to be drawn into an argument as to whether Clause 33 is right or wrong. It was discussed by local authorities, by counsel—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh !"] Let hon. Gentlemen listen to me. I never interrupted a single sentence of those who have spoken. Why should not they listen to me? Edinburgh has set a good example to Scotland on that particular point. These questions of detail were argued in the ordinary way in which they have been argued for generations past before the Select Committee, and then the four Commissioners, men of ability, gave their opinion in a judicial manner as to which counsel was right—the counsel acting on behalf of the Corporation or the counsel for the promoters of the Bill. The Select Committee gave its decision, and the Bill is now presented for Second Reading.
  Hon. Members know that this Bill will be sent to a Select Committee of the House of Commons in the ordinary course of procedure, and hon Gentlemen opposite can go before that Select Committee and make speeches such as we have heard to-night. Four Members of this House will judicially consider the matter in detail, decide as to whether hon. Gentlemen opposite are right or wrong and give their judgment, just as hundreds of Select Committees have clone in the past with regard to similar Measures. One or two statements have been made to-night which it is necessary I should refute. I only mention one matter in order to avoid any misunderstanding. I do not think that when an hon. Member opposite referred to hon. Members on this
  1436
  side as being interested in the promotion of the Bill, that he meant that we were financially interested. [HON. MEMBERS: "No !"] I only refer to the point to obviate any misunderstanding, because I am not in any shape or form financially interested in the Bill.
  Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM: Will the hon. Member say whether he is morally interested if he is not financially interested? In what respect is the hon. Member interested?
  Sir S. CHAPMAN: That is the point to which I was coming. I am here representing a constituency the same as other hon. Gentlemen in this House.
  Mr. DICKSON: With a special weakness for electricity.
  Sir S. CHAPMAN: I have a special weakness for providing employment for the unemployed people of this country and this company proposes to spend £500,000 in the next two years in employing people who presumably at the present time are not employed and in giving additional employment to many thousands. If hon. Gentlemen ask me whether I am morally interested in this question or not, I reply that every Member of this House should be morally interested in the situation of the unemployed people of this country. This is the second occasion on which hon. Members opposite have opposed Bills which would give employment to many thousands and it will go against them in the country. They can, if they like, seek to make out a case for nationalisation, but this is not the time to make out such a case. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport have appealed to private enterprise and have asked employers to put their backs into the work of providing employment. Is the rejection of this Bill an example to set before men who have capital and who wish to employ their capital in this country? I would remind hon Members that in the promotion of a Bill of this kind a tremendous amount of time and money is involved, and all sorts of questions have to be considered before an important Measure like this is laid on the Table of the House. Is it any encouragement to men to invest money in giving employment to allow them to come forward in November with these carefully prepared

  1437
  plans and then, in the following July, to tell them they have no business to bring a Bill of this kind before the House at all, and that the whole system is going to be altered?
  If we are going to alter our national system, then let the people of the country have duo warning. Let us discuss this question fairly and squarely with the Prime Minister and the whole Cabinet on the Front Bench, and not the Chancellor of the Exchequer in sole occupation, as at present. Are we to debate a question of this kind on a private Bill and alter the basis on which this legislation has been carried out in the past? That must not he done behind the back of the country but in the face of the country. It limy be right or it may be wrong to do so. I am not going to be led into an argument of that kind, hut if hon. Members opposite think their view is right they should get the country to back them up, and then let them come on with their nationalisation if they can and when they like. To promote nationalisation on a Bill of this kind is to destroy the confidence of men of capital in this House and is cutting at the very root of industry. It is one way of destroying industry and promoting unemployment. I am in favour of this Bill because it is going to promote immediate employment, and I, for one, support it with all my heart.
  Viscount CURZON: I am glad to have an Opportunity of intervening in this Debate. This is the second Debate of a similar character to which I have had the opportunity of listening and all these discussions spring from the same source. The Mover of the rejection of this Bill referred to possible damage to Corporation property as the basis of his objection. I asked him if he could elaborate that point and I must apologise to him for not having been here in time for his opening remarks, but I think he has amplified that point in his second speech, and so far as I have been able to gather there are no substantial reasons for supposing there will be any damage to Corporation undertakings other than reasons of a very elementary and dog - in - the - manger character. I think the hon. Member's principal point was that the Corporation might wish to expand in the future, and might find a private company in the way and therefore, he said: "Away with
  1438
  private enterprise and let us have a municipal undertaking." I did not hear him give any figures to show that the municipal undertaking was a huge success. It may be or it may not be but he did not give us any tangible reason other than his mere ipse dixit that this Bill might possibly cause damage. He did not say it was going to damage, but that it might damage the Corporation in the future. The Seconder of the Motion was much more to the point and came down to the bedrock of the opposition to the Bill. He spoke of a national supply of electricity, and pointed to the fact that there was the possibility of compensation becoming payable to those who are promoting the Bill. It is quite obvious that the opponents of the Bill have only one object and that is to secure nationalisation piecemeal. They want a system of nationalisation secured by local option.
  Another hon. Member inquired what interest my hon. Friend the Member for South Edinburgh (Sir S. Chapman) had in this Bill. I submit no hon. Member has any right to ask another hon. Member what interest he represents in speaking for or against any Measure. The only interest of any hon. Member is his interest as a Member of this House, and the only thing which the hon. Member opposite is entitled to question is whether or not my hon. Friend speaks as a Member of this House. He has just as much right as any hon. Member from Clydeside to voice his opinions and to be heard. Hon. Members opposite claim to be a party of the workers. They claim to be interested, above all things, in Measures which might promote work. At the last General Election they tried to delude the country into the idea that they were the only people who had a cure for unemployment. We knew them perfectly well. We heard them say it in this House, and I heard them say it plenty of times outside. We also know the country is beginning to see through them and their promises. Hon. Members opposite are Socialists. Socialism is the policy of misery and discontent.
  Mr. MAXTON: On a point of Order. Do you not think, Sir, it is rather going somewhat beyond the bounds of the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Bill to have a general discussion on the question of Socialism and the sins of the Government, a matter on which I am quite

  1439
  prepared to debate with the hon. Member and perhaps find points of agreement?
  Viscount CURZON: On that point of Order. One hon. Member has questioned my hon. Friend's right to support this Bill. Another hon. Member—
  Mr. SULLIVAN: On a point of Order—
  Viscount CURZON: Another hon. Member—
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: We cannot have two points of Order at the same time.
  Viscount CURZON: Another hon. Member—
  Mr. STEPHEN: I rise to a point of Order.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The Noble Lord has risen to a point of Order, and I cannot have another point of Order.
  Viscount CURZON: Another hon. Member has opposed this Bill on the grounds of nationalisation. Nationalisation—
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The Noble Lord must not take advantage of the point of Order.
  Viscount CURZON: I am not.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: When the point of Order was raised by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), I was almost on the point of drawing the attention of the Noble Lord to the fact that he was getting out of order.
  Mr. D. GRAHAM: May I be allowed to correct the Noble Lord?
  Viscount CURZON: On the same point of Order. The hen. Gentleman who seconded the rejection of the Bill based his grounds on the question of nationalisation. I want to submit that that has nothing to do with this particular Bill any more than has the question of Socialism.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The question of nationalisation is raised by the hon. Member as against allowing a particular company power to control others in applying its schemes, and is certainly debatable under this Bill. The question of Socialism is not.
  Mr. GRAHAM: On a point of correction, may I point out to the noble Lord that I did not impute any motive whatever to the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir S. Chapman) but he himself made the statement that he had no financial interest in the question, and I rose to ask what his interest was.
  Viscount CURZON: I would submit that the hon. Gentleman has no right to ask what interest we have. We are Members of this House. That is our interest in this particular question. I will tell the hon. Member why I am interested. This is a proposition designed to expand, as I understand it, a private undertaking in the Clyde area, just outside Glasgow. If it does that it will lead to more work for people at present unemployed. Hon. Members opposite have gone up and down the country protesting their interest in the unemployed and trying to make the country believe that they want to get more back to work. Here is a chance for them to carry out their precepts, but they are the first people we find opposing this and another Bill of a similar character. They opposed it simply because they want to bring about nationalisation, I submit, by underhand means. Instead of doing the right and proper thing and going to the country about it, they want to block Private Bills in this House and put private undertakings to great expense in order to secure their own theory of nationalisation—a theory which the country rejected just as much as it rejected Protection at the last Election. I would submit that instead of going into nice points which have already been discussed by a Committee of the House of Lords we might more usefully employ ourselves by assisting to pass a Measure which will go before a Committee of this House. We might pass this Bill to-night which, if it passes, will not only expand this particular undertaking, but so increase the resources of this undertaking as to enable it to cope with the increased demand of industry on Clydeside. Hon. Members opposite pretend to represent the workers of Clydeside. Are we to understand that the workers of Clyde-side would rather remain walking the streets and drawing the dole than being in work and earning good wages? We know perfectly well that hon. Members opposite misrepresent Clydeside. The

  1441
  real workers of Clydeside want work. It is hon. Members opposite who are busy trying to stop them. If they could put more of them on the streets to-morrow they would not hesitate in doing so.
  Mr. MAXTON: Do not get right down into the gutter.
  Viscount CURZON: That is how some Members who do not come from Clyde-side look on this. We see merely a factious and irrelevant opposition to private undertakings to secure a political theory. That is my interest in this Bill, and that is why I shall support it. I hope that it will secure the support of all sections of this House not so desperately interested in political theories and nostrums as hon. Members opposite.
  Mr. E. SIMON: The opposition to this Bill consists of two parts; first, opposition on the part of the City of Glasgow, which is quite clearly a Committee point. The City of Glasgow does not object to the principle but simply wants more compensation and more protection for sewers and drains and things of that sort. That is quite clearly a point which cannot be dealt with on Second Reading. The real point on Second Reading is that hon. Members above the Gangway are in favour of nationalisation and the Seconder of the Amendment said he would never support an extension of power to private enterprise. Two Members above the Gangway pointed out that a Liberal book had been issued on coal and electrical power, pointing out how essential it was to have a properly co-ordinated scheme, and they argued that because we believed in that we should object to extend the powers of this company. That is one of the most illogical things which have ever been suggested. The object of the national scheme is to help to accelerate the development of power, not to obstruct and impede it. I suggest that the method adopted of objecting to these Bills is the worst possible way of forwarding the cause of nationalisation. Nationalisation may be desirable, any way partly, as regards electrical development. Our own electrical undertaking in. Manchester is municipal and is second to none in the whole country. It is developing at the rate of 20 per cent per annum. I do not know whether the Clyde has developed at the same rate. If the industry on the Clyde
  1442
  can command an increased amount of electricity every year, this company are the only people who can provide this fur them. If they will stop these people from expanding by turning down this Bill, they are preventing the industries in the area from extending. If there were an alternative scheme, a better scheme, a nationalised scheme before us, and if we were holding up this scheme for the nationalised scheme, there might he something to be said for it. If the scheme were going to interfere with any scheme likely to be forthcoming in the future, there might be reason again for holding it up; but there is nothing of that kind here. These extensions if granted to-day could not possibly interfere with any national scheme that might be developed later, and to hold it up now would only impede the development of industry in the area and prevent the company giving employment to a very large number of people.
  Mr. MAXTON: I do not want to enter into any acrimonious discussion on the points raised by hon. Members. The type of speech made by the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir S. Chapman), whose home is in a delightful part of Perth, and by the Noble Lord the Member for South Battersea (Viscount Curzon), whose home is also, I believe, in a delightful district—[An HON. MEMBER: "Not in Battersea! "]—
  Viscount CURZON: It is next door but one to the home of the Attorney-General.
  Mr. MAXTON: If the Attorney-General were to speak to-night on this question I would regard it as an unnecessary interference on his part. The speeches we have listened to are exactly the type of speeches we get in this House from people who feel they have a duty to make a speech, but have absolutely no knowledge of the subject they are talking about. The Noble Lord the Member for South Battersea has not even read the Bill which he supports and he knows absolutely nothing of the area affected by it. The hon. Member for South Edinburgh has, I think, only read a few portions of the Bill and has only seen a few parts of the area concerned by it. The fact that this Bill has passed through the House of Lords and will go to a Committee of the House of Commons ultimately does not seem to me to present a

  1443
  good argument why this elected House of Commons should not express a very definite opinion upon it. I, for one, am not going to discuss the different points put forward by the Glasgow Corporation or the general question of the nationalisation of the electricity supply. I am going to discuss the Bill and the company promoting it.
  May I say this, in reply to the Noble Lord, who adopted a somewhat abusive and offensive attitude towards us on unemployment: If the attitude which we are taking here is against the interests of the unemployed workers of the city of Glasgow, then that attitude is the one which is being taken by the Conservative Corporation of the city of Glasgow. Glasgow is represented in this House in the proportion of two Socialists to one Conservative Member. In the Glasgow Corporation the proportions are exactly the reverse. We are in this extraordinary position, that the Socialist Members of Parliament for the city of Glasgow are trying to force through this House the policy of the Conservative Glasgow Corportion. I am glad to say that the Conservative Members for the city of Glasgow are either absent from this Debate or are maintaining silence and making no attempt to speak. The one who makes no attempt to speak knows something of the position. The hon. Member who defends the Bill knows absolutely nothing about it. Here is a company asking this House, not for the ordinary rights of private enterprise, but for certain special powers and privileges. There are only certain types of undertakings which have to come to this House for these special powers, and in return for granting such special powers to a private profit-making company this House has the right to know whether this company is capable of performing the service which the House of Commons is conferring upon it the privilege to perform.
  For 21 years this company has been operating in this area of the Clyde Valley and this House has a right to be satisfied on certain points. We want to be satisfied that the people in the employ of the company are working under the best possible conditions. We have also a right to ask whether the public who are receiving the products of the company are
  1444
  getting the best article at the best price. We further have the right to ask if the company is developing the needs of the area to the fullest possible extent, having regard to the future development of the economic and social life of the people living in that area. We have also a right to ask whether this company is having due regard to the amenities of the district in the development of this particular scheme. I am not going to say anything that is not absolutely fair in talking about the company. As far as the conditions of its employes are concerned, I hold that they reasonably approximate to the conditions of workmen employed in private enterprises doing a similar class of work, but they do not compare favourably with the conditions of the employés employed in electricity undertakings under the Corporation of the City of Glasgow. They fall short of the standard that obtains in the West of Scotland, a standard which is deemed to be necessary for the working classes generally. Secondly, in so far as the price of their commodity is concerned, they are on a lower level than the Corporation.
  Mr. W. GREENWOOD: May I ask in what sense the men are working on a lower standard?
  Mr. MAXTON: Their hours are not so good, neither are the conditions generally, as those enjoyed by the electricity employee of the Glasgow Corporation, and the prices at which they offer their commodities are on the whole not so good. In one or two particular items they are quite favourable as compared with the Glasgow Corporation. Generally speaking, however, they do not give their customers the same value for money as is given by the Glasgow Corporation Electricity Department. On the third point, they stand to be condemned more than on any other point. They have, for 23 years, had the right to develop electricity, both for power, lighting and heating in this area of the West of Scotland, which comprises large parts of Dumbartonshire and Lanarkshire. They have had these powers for 23 years. It is a most productive part of the country, both agriculturally and industrially. We do there an immense amount of dairy work, shipbuilding, engineering, textile work and cotton spinning, and yet the extent to which electrical power, light and heat are

  1445
  used in that area compares unfavourably with any other similar area in the whole of Scotland.
  The right attitude for this House to adopt towards the claim of this company for a wider area of operation is to say, "No, gentlemen. You go away back. You are very lucky to be left with the powers you have had for the last 23 years. Go away back and use them, and show us at the end of five years that you have used the powers you have to develop electricity supply, to improve the conditions of your workers, to provide a better commodity at a cheaper price for your customers, and then we will consider trusting you with a wider area."
  Fourthly, I want to deal with the question of the amenities connected with the development of the district. Here, perhaps, I shall get on to sentimental and patriotic grounds which are rather the preserve of my Friend the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood). I think it is possible for big business to develop itself even in the Black Country without making that country absolutely black and ugly. The industry could develop itself in Glasgow, in Manchester, in Staffordshire and in all the Black Country, and yet have some regard to preserving the beauty of the area; profits should not be the only consideration. This company placed down right by the river side—it was probably a convenient place—about five or six miles from the centre of the city, at a place called Yoker, where thousands of people are crossing every day, one of the ugliest buildings that could possibly be seen. Everyone who sails tip and down the Clyde on business or pleasure has to see this great ugly factory. You have heard talk here about the history of the Clyde. We are very proud of the Clyde, whatever you people think.
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: And of the Clyde Members, too.
  Mr. MAXTON: If that had come from further up the same Bench I would have regarded it as sarcasm, but I thank the Noble Lord. This company has no regard whatever to the attempts to retain the beauty of the district that we have made up to now and to remove the ugliness that has crept in. We have got in Renfrew-shire the Gleniffer Braes. Nobody outside the West of Scotland knows of the
  1446
  Gleniffer Braes, but one of our Scotch poets wrote some very beautiful poetry associated with the Gleniffer Braes, the Glen where he wandered and wrote his poems amongst the rocks and hills. This company chose this, which all the people of this area regard as something in the nature of a, poetic shrine, as the very place to erect a great, ugly, overhead electric cable right up the hillside, over the Braes.
  Captain D. HOWARD: What would Harry Lauder say?
  Mr. MAXTON: He is a member of your party. Perhaps he will provide you with the national policy for which you are looking. I oppose this Bill, not on the general principle of nationalisation, not on the general principle of Socialism, nor on the claims of Glasgow Corporation for special rights against this company, but on the general ground that this company has not used to the best advantage: of the people of the West of Scotland the powers it has already, and that it should have no more granted until it can prove itself worthy of the powers it has already.
  Sir CHARLES WILSON: I have listened with the greatest possible interest to the hon. Member who has just spoken and to what he said with reference to the power-house, because if he himself were a director or an officer acting for this House under a nationalisation scheme and had to build a power-station he would not put up an elaborate building like the one we are at present in. If he did, he would never make any profits on his production of electricity. I support this Bill, and I wish as far as possible to prevent hon. Members opposite damaging the men they are here to represent, and that is what they are doing. There is a national scheme of electricity, and that scheme is to attack the country in sections. The great municipalities are requisitioned. I am a representative of one municipality, and I want to point out to hon. Members opposite that there are difficulties in dealing with this question. I am not prepared, when I am in Leeds, to recommend the Municipality of Leeds to take on to its shoulders miles of barren area from which there is no possible chance of making a penny profit. If I did, the people there, who know me, would think I had been bereft of my senses. The Glasgow Corporation does

  1447
  not propose to deal with this area; probably if it did propose to do so it could not, because the area is already under statutory powers belonging to this company. This company has to take the rough with the smooth. That is the point I wish to make to this House as strongly as I can. I will assume for the sake of my argument that the whole country wants electricity. You cannot nationalise the supply in sufficient time for it to be of any benefit to present-day users. What may happen in the future does not very much interest me; I want something of practical use to-day. What is the Government faced with? Through its representatives, the Electricity Commissioners, schemes brought forward have been approved. Why are they not to be put into operation? Because of the absence of the necessary capital. I want to point out to hon. Members opposite that it is not sense to oppose these schemes the House has already sanctioned; it is sense to help them in every possible way. The municipalities can only do a limited portion of the work. Private enterprise is necessary to supplement what they are doing, for the very reason I have given, that the great municipalities cannot cover the whole country.
  Hon. Members opposite who talk about capital really do not know very much about it. I wish they knew a little more, because they would alter their tactics. They must be all interested in trade unions, in friendly societies, in building societies and in savings banks where capital is taken in; it is small capital, but it becomes great capital in the aggregate, amounting to millions. What is this money used for? The very sort of thing this Bill proposes to use it for. Why should you interfere with the investment of your own capital? That is what you are proposing to do by your opposition to this Bill. Because of some fallacy, they would cut off their noses to spite their own faces, and that is absolutely wanting in common sense. Even the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom I am glad to see opposite, wants profits to enable him to carry on the Government of the country. I want to put another line altogether to hon. Members opposite. Let capital come along, let it operate, and if it makes any profits, tax the profits, and then you are on right
  1448
  lines, but every time you propose to check the use of capital, you sadly interfere with employment.
  Hon. Members opposite come here and argue that they are in favour of such and such things, but their actions do not fit their words. I have had years of experience in connection with this matter, and I say that you want all the capital that the country can provide if you are to have a full user of electricity. Take the question that the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) referred to, with regard to the ugliness of the country. The greater the user of electricity, the less the smoke evil operates in all the great "black" towns. We have it in Leeds, and other places are not free from it. The more you bring electricity into use, the better it will be for all parties. Conditions in various power stations, at any rate, do not vary very much; they are very similar all over. As to wages, there may be a division, and it is no use pointing to Glasgow. Glasgow has a fine paying area, and it can afford to do well and probably set a high standard. I have nothing against that, but you cannot get more out of a concern than there is in it, and these other areas can only produce a certain return on their capital. The various Committees dealing with this Bill have gone into most of the questions raised by hon. Members opposite, and it is no use our setting up Committees to do this work, and to go into it in immense detail, and then to attempt to go over the same ground ourselves. If we did, there is scarcely a point which you could advance that I, personally, could not answer, only we have not time to do it.
  I want to go on the broad lines of letting capital be used, no matter where it comes from. Other countries have seen the difficulties about that, and have altered their opinions, and if you interfere with the flow of capital in this country, you will be the first to suffer. You cannot have the wages anywhere unless there is the work, and here is a proposal to increase the good work of the country, which will be of benefit not merely to the company, which is merely an instrument. I do not consider it for a moment, but I consider the men affected and the area affected, and this is only one of many schemes. The whole country is to be covered with electricity, but you cannot

  1449
  get the county councils to take the schemes on, because there is no profit in them. You are bound to fall back on private enterprise to supplement what is proposed to be done, as it is in this connection. It is the wrong way to proceed by attacking private Bills of this sort, that are obviously necessary for the good of the country, and to increase employment. If you deliberately do so for the sake of making it impossible for private enterprise to succeed, in order that your own foolish political opinions may prevail, you are, in my opinion, heading for disaster.
  10.0 P.M.
  Mr. STURROCK: I was much interested in the speech of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), who pointed out that he and his colleagues, the political representatives of Glasgow, were here in the House of Commons representing the views of a somewhat conservative party in the Glasgow Town Council. That seems to me to explain the illogicality of the various arguments which we have heard advanced to-night by those hon. Members against the Bill. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) devoted himself almost exclusively to points which should have been in the first instance referred to the Committee which sat on the Bill or which, on the other hand, might well go before the Committee which will subsequently consider the Bill if it obtains a Second Reading to-night. In spite of the poetic references of the hon. Member for Bridgeton, I submit that it was the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Westwood) who explained most clearly the mainspring of the opposition to the Bill, which is that this is a scheme of private enterprise, which cuts right across the views held by certain Members above the Gangway. I submit to hon. Members on the back Ministerial benches that it is unfair of them to take up this attitude towards the Bill, because their quarrel is not with the House of Commons or with the promoters of the Bill, but with the representatives of their own Government on the Treasury Bench. We know that only the other day there was a delegation of Labour Members to inspect Gretna, and they presented a, Report to the Government, suggesting that the Government should immediately proceed to indulge in a scheme of nationalisation at Gretna. They wished to run Gretna as
  1450
  a great nationalised concern under the Government, and the Government, so far as I can gather, will not touch the idea with a barber's pole.
  What is the good of the hon. Member for Camlachie pressing us to reject this Bill in favour of a great scheme of nationalisation in regard to the production of electrical power, when he knows that even in the small case of Gretna the Government are quite unprepared to act? It is very unfair of hon. Members to hold up this Bill, as they are doing, and I am sure that they would do well to consider the points that have been put by the hon. Member for Central Leeds (Sir C. Wilson), in regard to the great desirability of this question being looked at as a scheme for the development of power in the West Country, which would undoubtedly employ many thousands of men over a long period of time. This scheme for Clydeside and similar schemes in other parts of Scotland should be pressed ahead without delay, and certainly not delayed in their passage through this House owing to some idea that they will interfere with some future Socialist millenium.
  Mr. HANNON: The House listened to-night with the usual delight to the speech of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton). I am sorry he is not in his place now, because I want to direct to him the few observations which I wish to make on his criticism of the Bill. The hon. Member for Bridgeton always takes care to keep to the point, and this evening he kept entirely to the Bill itself, or mainly to the Bill itself, plus a few flourishes and embellishments, which one always expects from the hon. Member for Bridgeton. He gave a series of specific objections to this Bill, on the ground that the company responsible for its promotion have not discharged their public functions in the area within their purview as they ought to have done during the past 23 years. I think that that would be a perfectly legitimate objection, if it were justified by the facts. I have no shred of interest at all in this Bill, of any sort or kind, but I am interested in the protection and promotion of private enterprise and industry in this country, and I make no secret of it, and I am particularly interested in providing at every possible moment further opportunities for the employment of our people.

  1451
  On these grounds, and these grounds alone, I am supporting the Bill. The hon. Member for Bridgeton said that this Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company had not justified is existence in four respects during the past 23 years. The first was in relation to the conditions of employment, that is to say, the wages and hours and so forth of its workmen. He compared the conditions under which the employés of this company have to carry on their daily work with the conditions of the employes of the Corporation of Glasgow in its electricity department. But I noticed a certain amount of hesitation, even in so concise an expression as that of the hon. Member, in making the comparison. The House will judge for itself whether he established any case at all that the employés of this company have not had just as excellent conditions of service during the past 23 years as the employés of the City of Glasgow. The second point he mentioned was the price at which the service was rendered by this company in its own area. My information with regard to the service rendered is entirely on the side of the company. I am informed that the Clyde Valley Power Company receipts, over all, work out at 1˙013d. per unit sold. That is a penny and thirteen-thousandths of a penny.
  Mr. NICHOL: Would the hon. Member say what are the prices for lighting in the area?
  Mr. HANNON: I am taking the average on light and power. I will give the figure in the same terms in respect of the City of Glasgow. Therefore no real objection can arise. The receipts, over all, of the City of Glasgow Electricity Department work out at 1.723d. per unit, or nearly 1¾d. I ask hon. Members opposite who oppose this Bill whether they seriously ask the House to reject the Bill because the efficiency of administration in the case of the company has been shown be so much superior to the administration in the City of Glasgow? There are the figures, and I challenge the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) to disprove them.
  Mr. HARDIE: Will the hon. Member explain the difference between the quality supplied by the Glasgow Corporation and that supplied by the Clyde Power Company?
  Mr. HANNON: I confess at once that I am wholly incompetent to do so. It is impossible for me to differentiate between the qualities of the two concerns. On the merits the Glasgow Corporation has been far behind the company in the price which it charges for its electricity, and, therefore, the contention of the hon. Member for Bridgeton, that the company had not justified its existence, falls to the ground. The hon. Member said also that the company had not had regard to the social and economic needs of the district in which it operates. How far can a company of this kind, doing its best to develop electric supplies against, many difficulties and not, receiving much encouragement or friendly co-operation from the local authorities, go in the direction of having special regard to the social and economic needs of a locality?
  Mr. MACLEAN: Give us Home Rule, and we will tell you.
  Mr. HANNON: The hon. Member charged the company with not having regard to the social and economic needs of the area, but he did not give one illustration of the way in which it disregards its duty in that connection. Then the hon. Member went on in his delightful way to what he called the patriotic, or the poetic, or the aesthetic, or whatever-it-might-be situation, in relation to the work of this company. He charged the company with having put up an exceedingly ugly power house on the side of one of those beautiful and translucent streams which are so common now in the industrial areas of Scotland. Has the Glasgow Corporation always taken special care to preserve the amenities of an area?
  Mr. HARDIE: Yes. Come to Glasgow, and we will show you.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: There is an hon. Member sitting next to the hon. Member who is addressing the House, whose duty it was to see that the Glasgow Corporation did so.
  Mr. HANNON: This company, like every other company, is doing the best it can in regard to this particular power station. I am certain that the company responsible for this Bill be very glad to consult with the hon. Member for Bridgeton, and other hon. Members opposite, with regard to the next power station they put up, so that its design may be in

  1453
  artistic relationship to the surrounding district. The hon. Member further charged the company with putting up, in a delightful district, from which a large volume of poetry in Scotland drew its inspiration, an ugly overhead cable. I am informed that this atrocious overhead cable, which on all grounds is a very objectionable thing, was not put up by this company at all but by the Ayrshire Electricity Authority, which is one of the local authorities of the County of Ayrshire.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: May I correct the hon. Gentleman? When he is talking about these matters, he ought to know something about Scotland. This place is miles away from Ayrshire.
  Mr. HANNON: I have not had an opportunity, since we began to consider this Bill this evening, of studying the geography of the area. The information has been conveyed to me that the atrocity to which the hon. Member for Bridgeton drew particular attention is not to be attributed at all to the company promoting this Bill, but is attributable to the exercise of its powers by the County of Ayr Electricity Authority.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: No.
  Mr. HANNON: That is my information. The hon. Member who moved the rejection of this Bill read a whole series of Clauses which, he said, would be prejudicial in one way or another to the expansion of industry in the places he named. I submit that if the electrical industry is to be built on those lines which those of us on this side of the. House support, and hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway wish to support, the passage of this Bill will not interfere in the very slightest degree with enterprises of the kind developed either on the one principle or the other.
  But attention was particularly called to the fact of the interests of the City of Glasgow being likely to be prejudiced by the passage of this Bill. It is not desirable in a Second Reading Debate to go into details of specific Clauses and to endeavour to establish the relationship between the company and the local authorities. Clause 33, however, provides, in the most comprehensive way, for the safety of the future interests of the undertakings in the City of Glasgow. There is not one
  1454
  point of possibility of injury to Glasgow that, in my judgment, is not covered by the terms of Clause 33. In this House in these days we are particularly concerned for the improvement of the social and economic conditions of the people. No one on this side, I think, would ever charge hon. Friends across the Floor with insincerity. I believe my hon. Friends from Glasgow are honestly seeking a solution of the great economic and social problems of this country, and with great sincerity and earnestness. I would not criticise or attack them for the attitude they take up. But I believe, in trying to strike at private enterprise, they are making a profound mistake. They are taking a step which will re-echo to the injury of the people whose interests they are so much concerned about. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] I say that this company, getting these powers to place these contracts and to undertake this work, to develop further in the Clyde Valley, and to create better facilities for industrial expansion will prove an immense field for the relief of unemployment. Hon. Friends would not like to see this Bill get a Second Reading. There is really not a single proposition in the Bill which will inflict a moment's temporary injury on the City of Glasgow. The hon. Member opposite, in an eloquent speech, invited the House to reject the Bill. He was emphatic in calling attention to Glasgow's position. But he knows perfectly well that in another place Glasgow was very competent to take care of herself. He also knows that when the Bill comes before the Private Bill Committee upstairs, Glasgow will be there in all the fullness of her intelligence, and in all the fulness of her wisdom to take care of the interest of that great city in relation to this Bill.
  I sincerely hope, first on the ground of maintaining the continuity of opportunity for this company that has done so much in its own district for the promotion of the welfare of that part of Scotland for such a number of years, that the House will give a Second Reading to the Bill. Secondly, I ask it because the Bill will enable this company, together with the municipalities, to offer cheap power for a great variety of industrial enter prises in the district. Thirdly—and this is the most immediate effect—it will afford opportunity for an immense effort in the provision of em-

  1455
  ployment in Scotland. On these grounds, and in spite of all that has been said, and in spite of all the kindly chaff that came from the other side of the House, I sincerely hope that we shall unanimously give a Second Reading to this Bill.
  Mr. NICHOL: I should like to intervene for a little while, particularly as no hon. Member in any part of the House, I think, actually represents the whole area that is under consideration in connection with the projected operations of this particular company. I agree with very much of the peroration of the hon. Member for Moseley (Mr. Hannon). After all, however, we have got to recollect that that peroration was built up on such a statement, as for instance, that the Ayr County Council were responsible for the disfiguring standards which, he admitted, were erected at Gleniffer Braes. I can assure him on the two points mentioned Gleniffer Braes are 25 miles from the nearest part of Ayrshire, and in the second place, I may say that the Ayr County Council never erected any of these electrical standards in Renfrewshire, nor in their own County of Ayrshire. The Ayr County Council have no electrical undertakings whatsoever. I think that is a measure of the type of argument on which these perorations and appeals which have been made, and upon which all these fallacies and stupid mistakes have been founded. I am entirely in favour of the regional development of electricity. I feel that the whole of the Clyde area and the Clyde Valley is naturally one area, and could all be under one power company, or under one electrical authority. In the area in Renfrewshire the optimistic remarks about the price paid by the consumer are not borne out by the figures of the hon. Member for Moseley. The figures which he gave were carefully selected, and they were simply the figures for light and power. The figures which he gave for Glasgow were also for light and power, but living in the area supplied by this company, I know that it is next to impossible to get a light supply from this company, which is an 80 per cent. power company, and instead of supplying electricity at the price stated by the hon. Member, the smaller types of power which
  1456
  this company are now supplying are supplied by the Glasgow Corporation at 625 of a penny.
  Not long ago a gentleman in a small office in the main street of Renfrew asked this company to quote for a supply of electric light, and he was informed that the minimum charge would be £5 per annum. The cost for the supply of gas already installed in this gentleman's office was only £2 per annum, and yet this company has a monopoly of light and power supply. In the 23 years of its existence this particular company has laid down cables and supplied power, but it has put a hopelessly high financial barrier in the way of supplying electricity for lighting. That was why I interjected and asked the hon. Member opposite to give the figures for light and power users.
  I will give one or two comparative figures. The lighting charges made by the Glasgow Corporation are 4d. for the first 11 units in the summer period, and 1d. per unit beyond that, and that applies to anyone who has light and also all electric iron, which practically every housewife who has an electric supply has. The account, therefore, in the summer months comes in for a matter of 4s. or 5s., covering the whole of a four- or five-apartment house for lighting during the summer months. What is the position as far as this company is concerned? It puts up a hopeless harrier by demanding £5 a year as an initial charge, and I notice in the Schedule to this very Bill—
  Mr. HANNON: May I ask whether that £5 includes the cost of making the connections to the mains and putting in the installation?
  Mr. NICHOL: That was the annual charge that was going to he made as a minimum. They had to guarantee that amount. I may say that, so far as mains are concerned, the mains in that instance for power purposes are laid within three yards of the door of that particular office. If one refers to the Schedule one discovers that, while in the statement which the company has sent out to all Members of the House to-day, and which was quoted by the hon. Gentleman, to the effect that they are supplying at a little over 1d. per unit, they are asking the House of Commons, in paragraph (A) of the Schedule, to give them power, in

  1457
  respect of the quarters ending on 31st March and 31st December, for any amount up to 15 units, to make a minimum charge of 10s., even if only one or two units are used, and, for each unit over 15, to charge 8d. What is the use of coming and telling the House that the company is a very economical and efficiently working company if it is going to ask for statutory power to charge 8d. per unit, when, on its own showing and on the showing of its advocates, it can supply power at 1˙013d. per unit? That is enough to show the whole fallacy of the proposal which is put forward.
  Mr. HANNON: That only means that a charge up to 8d. may be made.
  Mr. NICHOL: The company has had these powers for 23 years, and if the hon. Gentleman refers to the old Bill he will see what the schedule price was then. What happens? If they get a large industrial works in the area, which will probably take millions of units, they lay the cables and supply them at a small charge, a reasonable charge; but, if a small consumer asks for a supply, he is quoted something near the limit. That has been the regular practice of this company. I am in favour of the company developing, and if it would develop on honest lines I should be prepared to support the Bill; but the proposal that is now put forward is a matter of downright and sheer robbery.
  I want the House to notice one other specific point about the Bill. The hon.:Member for Central Leeds (Sir C. Wilson), who ought, I think, to have known very much better, said that there was very little difference between the various power stations, but what is the actual position in Glasgow? We have power stations 15 years old that are out of date, and can only produce a supply at something like 2d. per unit, as compared with the modern station, erected a few years ago, which can supply at ½d. per unit. Not a single one of the power stations of this company is in any way up to date. The future development of the area will very largely depend on the electrical development, but the electrical development on the basis of this Bill is going to be at an absurdly high price. If one looks at Clause 7 one can recognise quite easily why the cost is going to be heavy. The company is proposing a dividend on
  1458
  its debenture shares of 8 per cent. If the Glasgow Corporation was going to erect its power station and to borrow money at 8 per cent., it would have to charge a high price for its electricity, but the Glasgow Corporation for similar developments can get its money at 4½ per cent. to 5 per cent., and this difference of 3 per cent. to 3½ per cent. on £1,000,000 is an enormous saving which results finally in a cheaper supply. The hon. Member who twitted us ought to have known, if he had read the recent pamphlet published by a Committee of his own party, that this question of electrical development depends very largely on the cost of capital. The capital will be absolutely necessary, but why give power to develop to a company who in their Bill lay down an 8 per cent. debenture interest when the municipality can develop the same area at a 4½ to 5 per cent. capital cost?
  Mr. W. GREENWOOD: I should be glad if the hon. Member would give us a real comparison between the prices charged by the corporation and by the company. We have heard the 625 as being the lowest price charged by the corporation and we have heard the maximum charge for light by the company. Can we have a comparison of the two things?
  Mr. NICHOL: I will come back to that. I am dealing with the question of the capital cost. We have had an appeal from the opposite benches that this development is necessary, and that the capital will be needed, but when we are going to ask for capital I see no reason for offering 8 per cent. when the municipality can get the same capital for 4½ per cent., as it has done in the past. If one looks at the accounts of the Glasgow Corporation and the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company, which are very comparable in size, one discovers that during the last 23 years of the existence of the company the electricity department of the corporation has erected its new stations very largely out of its accumulated surpluses and it has paid off its loan capital, with the result that the Glasgow tramway undertaking at a certain period will become entirely free from interest. In the same period of 23 years the Clyde Valley Electrical Company has paid back nothing of its capital. It did not set out

  1459
  to do it. It set out to charge the highest rates it could and at the end of the year to distribute the surplus to its shareholders. The whole financial situation, comparing the two undertakings, is entirely in favour of the municipality.
  The hon. Member for Central Leeds gave as his plea for the Bill that we should give power to this and other private companies and then tax the profits. Are we going to assume that it is part of the looking onward policy of hon. Members opposite that they are going to reimpose the Corporation Profits Tax? That was his plea—the reimposition of the Corporation Profits Duty. Are we to take that as a policy backed up by hon. Members opposite? He said it Was a foolish notion that we should cut off our noses to spite our faces in this instance. We are not exactly doing that. Our noses have been cut off by somebody else in this area, and we want them stuck on and patched up. It is not a very elegant metaphor to use, but it explains the position, My plea, as a representative of the whole of this area, is that, while the gas undertakings in the area, which have been developed by the town councils for the most part, or extended from Glasgow, are carried on at a reasonable cost, the whole area has been starved as far as electrical development is concerned during the 23 years' existence of this company.
  I will not go into the points dealt with by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), who, although he represents Bridgeton, was born and has lived all his life in this area. If he wanted a supply of electricity to his house in Barrhead he would discover that the nearest mains of this company were probably half a mile away and that no attempt has been made to lay mains in the streets or elsewhere for the development of the area. We have been told that the company's cost may have been big because they have to take the rough with the smooth. During the 23 years of this company's existence its policy has been, quite clearly and definitely, to take the smooth and leave the rough. Those who are a little out of the way, and the whole farming community, have been absolutely starved as far as electrical supply is concerned. The small power user and the small villages
  1460
  Within this company's area have been entirely neglected.
  The company have made large profits in a simple way by getting a monopoly for the whole area and then selecting their supply and only supplying in bulk to the very large users. Certainly, the small users could demand that they should do certain things, but the limits which are again to be put into the Schedule of the Bill effectively give a lever to the company to say, "We will use the Statutory powers that Parliament gave us, and you will have to pay the Statutory price of 8d. per unit." That is what they have done in the past.
  Major CAYZER: The hon. Member has twice mentioned Gleniffer Braes, stating that they are 25 miles from nearest point of Ayrshire boundary and referred to stupidity of Members on this side of the House in not knowing the Ayrshire boundaries. Perhaps the hon. Member (Mr. Nichol) is not aware of the fact that Kilmarnock, which is well inside the Ayrshire boundary, is only 18 miles from Glasgow and the Ayrshire boundary is very much nearer to Gleniffer Braes, being only about half that distance away.
  Mr. NICHOL: The bon. Member has not got over my second argument that the Ayr County Council have never erected an electric standard anywhere. My plea is on behalf of the consumers in the area. We in this House are asked to take the responsibility of handing over to this company a monopoly, and we consider that with that monopoly and privilege there ought to go certain duties. We contend that this is not a new company, that in the 23 years of its existence it has systematically carried on a policy which has no reference to the duties of an electricity supply company but has reference to the question of making profits. That is the chief end of private enterprise. But this is more than private enterprise. We are not here as private enterprisers, we are here as a body with a national trust, and we have to consider whether, when we hand over this large franchise to a particular company, the company has done its duty to the public in the area which it is supposed to supply, and whether we are justified in giving it additional powers, not only within the old area, but also by an extension of the boundaries of the area. For that reason

  1461
  I hope that this Bill will be postponed for another three months. As far as employment is concerned, the Bill will not mean anything in the meantime. I know the area. I know that with the undertaking as it is this is not going to give any extra employment. As far as this Bill is concerned you have another 18 months before anything can be produced by the Bill. If we have this postponement and the Company is forced, as it ought to be forced, to look into its own record, and if it comes forward with some decent record of its stewardship, I will support the Bill in future.
  Mr. G. BALFOUR: The hon. Member for East Renfrew (Mr. Nichol), in common with other Members, has made reference to this company being in control of this territory for 23 years. I happen to remember the earlier years of the company, and, if my memory serves me, for the first five or seven years, or even for a longer period, the company was looked upon as a rather ridiculous undertaking, for building a large power station, which it was thought at that time was far beyond the requirements, and for pushing this transmission line through an open territory in which nobody would build. For the first five or seven years any hon. Member who looks up the records of the company would find that not a penny of profit was earned, and the undertaking had to be maintained and carried on as a pioneer work of teaching the people of this country that these widespread areas could be developed and an electricity supply given outside the confines of our cities and the immediate environment of a narrow municipal area. That is according to my knowledge the true position of the beginning of the Clyde Valley Company.
  That company to-day is not seeking powers for the first time. As I understand this Bill—and my knowledge of this is no more and no less than that of any hon. Member of this House—it simply seeks to add a small corner, and I am informed that there is no opposition to that extension. The position with which we have to deal is this: I always understood, with regard to private Bill promotion, that, provided the necessary procedure was adopted, proper notices were served in proper time, petitions were lodged, the examiner was passed and Standing Orders were complied with, the
  1462
  usual practice, without party or political bias, was to give a Second Reading to a Bill in order that the petition might be properly heard before the Committee. That has been the generally accepted procedure in this House, whether hon. Members individually or as a party were in favour of or against a Bill. In this particular case we have a Bill of the simplest possible character. It seeks to divide £10 shares into shares of different denominations, namely, £l shares, and it has the usual schedule as to limit of price. I would remind the last speaker that in connection with all electric light undertakings he will find a similar schedule. The limit may be 6d. or 8d. or l0d.
  Mr. NICHOL: Is the hon. Member prepared to put 4d. instead of 8d. in the schedule?
  Mr. BALFOUR: I am sorry the hon. Member should make an appeal to me. I am only speaking as a Member of this House and I have nothing to do with this matter otherwise.
  Mr. NICHOL: I wish to protect my constituents and I am prepared to consider supporting the Bill of a limit of 4d. be fixed instead of 8d.
  Mr. BALFOUR: I quite understand the hon. Member's difficulty, but I should like him to accept it from me that it is the usual procedure in connection with lighting orders, whether of municipalities or companies, to have in the schedule a limit of price which is a protection. If the hon. Member looks at the records of companies and municipalities leaving out the War period, which was exceptional, he will find that scarcely ever is the maximum charge made. I have no knowledge of what charge the Clyde Valley Company is making, but I question very much, if, unless in one of the rural areas where it is very expensive to tap the supply, they are charging the maximum.
  Mr. NICHOL: The instance which I gave as to the £5—which, I think, went outside their own schedule—was not in a rural area but in the middle of the Borough of Renfrew and within half a mile of the power station.
  Mr. BALFOUR: I have no knowledge of what the hon. Member speaks of, and I was dealing with the question which was raised as to having a schedule with

  1463
  a limit of 8d. As a result of the bad example set me, I fear I have travelled wide of the real point at issue, which is that a Bill, with only one petition against it, and that petition which is not against the principle of the Bill but is admitted to be on a Committee point, has a right to a Second Reading, so that the Committee point and the one petition may be disposed of upstairs.
  Mr. LEIF JONES: I rise to ask whether we are to have any guidance from the Government. I presume this Bill has not reached its present stage without heaving been before the Electricity Commissioners. The Minister of Transport is in his place, and the Electricity Commissioners are under his Department, and the House has a right to ask the Minister how we are to vote upon this Bill. In accordance with old practice, we ought to vote for the Second Reading of an Electricity Bill. Most of the points which have been raised are points which would be dealt with before a Committee, and hon. Members would have the opportunity of voting against the Bill on the Third Reading if they were not satisfied.
  Mr. STEPHEN: How does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that these points will be dealt with in Committee upstairs, in view of the fact that the Bill has been through a similar Committee in the other House, and that these points were not dealt with?
  Mr. JONES: I would trust to a Committee of this House to hear all relevant evidence. This is a Bill which prima facie will provide employment, and develop electricity, and very good reason would require to be shown against it. How can we judge between the conflicting statements made if we have no guidance from the Government? Naturally and ordinarily we should vote for the Second Reading unless strongly advised against it by the Government. Otherwise it ought to go to a Committee, where objections could be raised and met. The Bill could be altered to meet the views of Members, and the Bill come here on the Third Reading, when we shall vote for or against it. I ask the Minister of Transport for his guidance.
  The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Gosling): The only word I should like to
  1464
  say on this Bill is that the Commission has reported in its favour; that it has gone through the usual forms in the other House, and that the usual thing is for a Bill of this kind to get a Second Reading here. The corporation, or anybody who wants to put up a case against it, will have an opportunity of doing so. The Government prefer to leave it to the judgment of this House.
  Mr. SULLIVAN: I want to say a word or two on behalf of the county of Lanark. There is a mistake usually made in this House that when the Scottish Members speak only Glasgow is affected. I want to assure hon. Members on the other side that we have no objection whatever to a Clydeside supply, but we want it to be done in such a way that it will benefit the people concerned. This Company has had power for a long time. Their method is this. They go to an area, and if they get a request they put down the capital sum to the county affected and the county council pays the money for that purpose and not the company. There is another thing I want to put before hon. Members who are interested in business. I represent North Lanark, and there was a colliery there burned down a short time ago. The employer is not a wealthy man by any means, and when he was rebuilding the colliery and giving employment to 300 men, he wanted to introduce electrical power for his coal-cutting machine. He approached this company and this company was quite willing to allow him to build a sub-station at a cost of £5,000. They are allowing him to pay £5,000, and he has difficulty in finding that money. The men are drawing the dole, and nobody seems to be willing to help. I would appeal to hon. Members to think this proposal fairly well over. It is a remarkable thing that there is no Member from the area affected supporting this Bill.
  Mr. FERGUSON: On a point of Order. As representing the most industrial part of Lanarkshire, I am supporting it. It is absolutely in the interests of the working classes in the County of Lanark.
  Mr. SULLIVAN: I am astonished at the interruption. I understood that the Corporation of the Burgh the hon. Member represents is opposed to the Bill.
  Mr. FERGUSON: That is not true. They are not opposed to it.
  Mr. SULLIVAN: The party who made the statement to me is the hon. Member himself.
  Mr. FERGUSON: I say that is a deliberate lie.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That is an expression which is never allowed in Debate in this House.
  Mr. FERGUSON: When an hon. Member makes an accusation which has no foundation—[Interruption.] Very well, I will withdraw, and say it is a deliberate mis-statement.
  Mr. SULLIVAN: If the hon. Member denies it, I am quite willing to withdraw what I said.
  Mr. MACLEAN: Is it in order to withdraw the words "deliberate lie", and to substitute for them the words "deliberate mis-statement"?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I hope hon. Members will observe the usual courtesies of debate. The proper phrase to use is "inaccurate statement."
  Mr. FERGUSON: Has any hon. Member the right, without proof, to accuse another hon. Member of what I was accused? It was his own bare statement.
  Mr. SULLIVAN: I do not mind the interruption. I should be very sorry if I made any wrong statement about the hon. Member. It may be that my memory is at fault, lout time will show. We want power in this area. We want the company to give that power in order to serve the needs of the people. I appeal to Members of this House to hold back this Bill. If they come to the conclusion that the Company are willing to meet the wishes of the people then, it can go through, but, so far, it has failed in that respect.
  Several hon. Members having risen,—
  Mr. GOSLING rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Mr. MACLEAN: I rise to a point of Order—
  Mr. SPEAKER: I cannot now take a point of Order.
  Question put accordingly, "That the word now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 188; Noes, 131.

  Division No. 182.]

  AYES.

  [11.3 p.m.

  Ackroyd, T. R.

  Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.

  Harvey, C. M. B.(Aberd'n & Kincardne)

  Alexander, Brg.-Gen. Sir W. (Glas. C.)

  Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)

  Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)

  Aske, Sir Robert William

  Curzon, Captain Viscount

  Henn, Sir Sydney H.

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Darbishire, C. W.

  Hennessy, Major J. R. G.

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

  Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)

  Hindle, F.

  Balfour, George (Hampstead)

  Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)

  Hobhouse, A. L.

  Barclay, R. Noton

  Dawson, Sir Philip

  Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy

  Barnett, Major Richard W.

  Deans, Richard Storry

  Hood, Sir Joseph

  Barnston, Major Sir Harry

  Dickie, Captain J. P.

  Hope, Rt. Hon. J. F. (Sheffield, C.)

  Beamish, Captain T. P. H.

  Dodds, S. R.

  Hore-Belisha, Major Leslie

  Becker, Harry

  Duckworth, John

  Howard, Hn. D, (Cumberland,Northrn.)

  Beckett, Sir Gervase

  Dudgeon, Major C. R.

  Howard, Hon. G. (Bedford, Luton)

  Bellaire, Commander Carlyon W.

  Dunn, J. Freeman

  Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer

  Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

  Illffe, Sir Edward M.

  Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-

  Elliot, Walter E.

  Jenkins, W. A. (Brecon and Radnor)

  Birchall, Major J. Dearman

  Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bt. Hon. B. M.

  Jephcott, A. R.

  Birkett, W. N.

  Falconer, J.

  Jones, C. Sydney (Liverpool,W.Derby)

  Black, J. W.

  Ferguson, H.

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  Blades, Sir George Rowland

  FitzRoy, Captain Rt. Hon. Edward A.

  Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)

  Bonwick, A.

  Foot, Isaac

  Jowitt, W. A. (The Hartlepools)

  Bourne, Robert Croft

  Forestier-Walker, L.

  Kay, Sir R. Newbald

  Brassey, Sir Leonard

  Franklin, L. B.

  Kedward, R. M.

  Brown, A. E. (Warwick, Rugby)

  Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.

  Keens, T.

  Brunner, Sir J.

  Galbraith, J. F. W.

  Kenyon, Barnet

  Burman, J. B.

  George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)

  King, Captain Henry Douglas

  Burnle, Major J. (Bootle)

  Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham

  Lamb, J. Q.

  Butler, Sir Geoffrey

  Gilmour, Colonel Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Lane-Fox, George R.

  Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.)

  Gorman, William

  Laverack, F. J.

  Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)

  Gosling, Harry

  Lessing, E.

  Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

  Greene, W. P. Crawford

  Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)

  Chapple, Dr. William A.

  Greenwood, William (Stockport)

  Lloyd Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip

  Clayton, G. C.

  Grigg, Lieut.-Col. Sir Edward W. M.

  Loverseed, J. F,

  Cobb, Sir Cyril

  Guest, Dr. L. Haden (Southwark, N.)

  McCrae, Sir George

  Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.

  Hacking, Captain Douglas H.

  Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)

  Conway, Sir W. Martin

  Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

  MacDonald, R.

  Cope, Major William

  Harland, A.

  McLean, Major A.

  Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn, N.)

  Hartington, Marquess of

  Makins, Brigadier-General E.

  Marks, Sir George Croydon

  Remer, J. R.

  Thompson, piers G. (Torquay)

  Marriott, Sir J. A. R.

  Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir P. (Chertsey)

  Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)

  Meller, R. J.

  Robertson, T. A.

  Thomson, Sir W.Mitchell-(Croydon,S.)

  Millar, J. D.

  Robinson, S. W. (Essex, Cheimsford)

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)

  Milne, J. S. Wardlaw

  Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)

  Thornton, Maxwell R.

  Mitchell, R.M.(Perth & Kinross, Perth)

  Robinson, W. E. (Burslem)

  Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

  Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)

  Roundell, Colonel R. F.

  Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.

  Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

  Royle, C.

  Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L.(Kingston on-Hull)

  Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.

  Rudkin, Lieut.-Colonel C. M. C.

  Warrender, Sir Victor

  Morse, W. E.

  Russell, Alexander West- (Tynemouth)

  Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)

  Moulton, Major Fletcher

  Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

  Weston, John Wakefield

  Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph

  Sandeman, A. Stewart

  Wheler, Lieut-Col. Granville C. H.

  Newman, Sir H. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)

  Shepperson, E. W.

  Williams, A. (York, W. R., Sowerby)

  Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)

  Oman, Sir Charles William C.

  Somerville, Daniel (Barrow-In-Furness)

  Williams, Maj. A. S.(Kent.Sevenoaks)

  Owen, Major G.

  Spero, Dr. G. E.

  Willison, H.

  Pease, William Edwin

  Stanley, Lord

  Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)

  Pennefather, Sir John

  Starmer, Sir Charles

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Penny, Frederick George

  Stewart, Maj. R. S. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Wise, Sir Fredric

  Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Wood, Major Rt. Hon. Edward F. L,

  Phillipps, Vivian

  Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-

  Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)

  Raffety, F. W.

  Sturrock, J. Leng

  Wragg, Herbert

  Ralne, W.

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser

  Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.

  Rankin, James S.

  Sutherland, Rt. Hon. Sir William

  Rea, W. Russell

  Tattersail, J. L.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Rees, Capt. J. T. (Devon, Barnstaple)

  Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)

  Mr. E. D. Simon and Sir Samuel

  Reid, D. D. (County Down)

  Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)

  Chapman.

  NOES.

  Adamson, Rt. Hon. William

  Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon

  Potts, John S.

  Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)

  Hastings, Somerville (Reading)

  Raynes, W. R.

  Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hilisbro')

  Hayday, Arthur

  Richards, R.

  Ayles, W. H.

  Hayes, John Henry

  Richardson, R (Houghton-le-Spring)

  Baker, Walter

  Henderson, A. (Cardiff, South)

  Ritson, J.

  Banton, G.

  Henderson, T. (Glasgow)

  Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)

  Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertiltery)

  Henderson, W. W. (Middlesex, Enfld.)

  Romeril, H. G.

  Barnes, A.

  Hirst, G. H.

  Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)

  Batey, Joseph

  Hoffman, P. C.

  Scrymgeour, E.

  Bondfield, Margaret

  Hudson, J. H.

  Scurr, John

  Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

  Jackson, R. F. (Ipswich)

  Seely, H. M. (Norfolk, Eastern)

  Broad, F. A.

  Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

  Sherwood, George Henry

  Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

  Jewson, Dorothea

  Smillie, Robert

  Buchanan, G.

  John, William (Rhondda, West)

  Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)

  Buckle, J.

  Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)

  Smith, T. (Pontefract)

  Cape, Thomas

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Smith, W. R. (Norwich)

  Charleton, H. C.

  Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

  Snell, Harry

  Church, Major A. G.

  Lansbury, George

  Spence, R.

  Clarke, A.

  Lawrence, Susan (East Ham, North)

  Stamford, T. W.

  Climle, R.

  Leach, W.

  Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

  Cluse, W. S.

  Lowth, T.

  Sullivan, J.

  Compton, Joseph

  Lunn, William

  Thurtle, E.

  Davies, Ellis (Denbigh, Denbigh)

  McEntee, V. L.

  Tillett, Benjamin

  Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)

  Macklnder, W.

  Tinker, John Joseph

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)

  Tout, W. J.

  Dickson, T.

  March, S.

  Turner, Ben

  Dukes, C.

  Marley, James

  Viant, S. P.

  Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)

  Martin, W. H. (Dumbarton)

  Wallhead, Richard C.

  Egan, W. H.

  Middleton, G.

  Warne, G. H.

  Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)

  Mills, J. E.

  Watson, W. M. (Dunfermilne)

  Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)

  Montague, Frederick

  Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)

  Gibbins, Joseph

  Morel, E. D.

  Westwood, J.

  Gillett, George M.

  Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)

  Whiteley, W.

  Gould, Frederick (Somerset, Frome)

  Murray, Robert

  Williams, David (Swansea, E.)

  Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

  Naylor, T. E.

  Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)

  Greenall, T.

  Nichol, Robert

  Williams, Lt.-Col. T.S.B.(Kennington)

  Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

  O'Grady, Captain James

  Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

  Groves, T,

  Oliver, George Harold

  Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

  Grundy, T. W.

  Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)

  Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

  Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)

  Paling, W.

  Windsor, Walter

  Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)

  Palmer, E. T.

  Wright, W.

  Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Parkinson, John Allen (Wlgan)

  Harbord, Arthur

  Perry, S. F.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Hardle, George D.

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Mr. Stephen and Mr. Maxton.

  Resolution agreed to.

  London Electricity Supply (No. 1) Bill [Lords] (By Order.)
  County of London Electric Supply Company Bill [Lords]. (By Order.)
  Second Reading deferred until Monday next (28th July).

  OLD AGE PENSIONS BILL.
  Postponed Proceeding resumed on Consideration of Bill, as amended.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: When the proceedings on this Bill were interrupted by Private Business, I was on the point of concluding the observations on my Amendment., in page 1, line 15, at the end, to insert
  " (2) In this Act the expression "earnings" means money or money's worth which a person receives or acquires as a result of work presently performed by him."
  The definition which I propose is a very generous one and has been framed so that, if there is any chance of giving an advantage, the advantage shall be on the side of the applicant for a pension. I find, on reference to the Oxford Dictionary, that "earnings" is defined as
  "The amount of money which a person acquires or becomes entitled to by his labour."
  That definition would not do for the Amendment, because it might include as earnings the pension which was the reward of labour or interest upon savings which also would be the reward of labour. The Amendment is so drafted that only the current earnings of an applicant for old age pension will be regarded as earnings within the meaning of the Bill. It may be said by some hon. Members that the use of the word "presently" is rather exceptional, but I am certain that that objection will not be taken by the Scottish Members sitting behind me. That term is in very common use north of the Tweed, and it is still occasionally used in this country. There can he no doubt that the use of the word will carry out the purpose that we have in view. It will include only earnings which are being currently earned or received.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I have a manuscript Amendment handed in by the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Edmund Harvey). It is out of Order, as it goes beyond the Money Resolution.
  Mr. EDMUND HARVEY: Had I been in Order, I should have wished to omit from the Chancellor's Amendment the words "or money's worth." It is, therefore, only possible for those of us who take the view that I do to plead with the right hon. Gentleman not to press his definition; that he should, in-
  1470
  deed, withdraw it. If he does not, this Amendment will have a harsh effect in certain cases. For the first time the earnings of these men will be defined in such a way as to include all the casual gains that may come in their way—of gifts in kind in return for their labour generally.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: Gifts are not earnings!
  Mr. HARVEY: If the Chancellor cannot understand the general position, I will give him details. What about the old woman who goes to her next door neighbour to look after the child, and at the end of a few hours' work is rewarded by a meal? Is that case covered by this Amendment? Would that be a reason for the deduction from the pension of the old lady? I ask the Chancellor to answer.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: Casual earnings would most certainly have to be deducted if they amounted to 10s. per week. If they amounted to that, the recipient would certainly not be entitled to a full pension.
  Mr. HARVEY: I think my case is proved from the reply of the right hon. Gentleman. I could give him other cases. For instance, there is that of the old man who works for an hour or two in a neighbour's allotment, and does not get money for it, but potatoes it may be, or other of the produce of the allotment. It is partly a friendly gift, and it is a most unfortunate thing that by this definition of earnings, such little gains should be liable for deduction from the pension of the old age pensioner. I would appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to go to the Oxford Dictionary for a definition, but to consult his own heart, and I am quite convinced he will find a better definition there. If he cannot revise the definition, and there is reason for it in the cases I have mentioned—I appeal to him in the interests of the old age pensioners to withdraw the Amendment.
  Mr. FOOT: As I understand the Chancellor of the Exchequer's definition of earnings, it would include not only what the old age pensioner receives from an employer, but any advantage he may gain because of work done by himself. Take the illustration which I submitted when

  1471
  considering the money Resolution of the Bill. I had in mind a case very similar to those of which other hon. Members have had experience. It was an inquiry made in the case of an old man or woman in the country who keeps a couple of pigs. That is taken into consideration in the present circumstances. It is a very general circumstance for such people to have a couple of pigs, but the value received from the keeping of those pigs is taken into consideration for the calculation of the pension. Tinder the new arrangement whatever the old age pensioner got in that way would be "money's worth." Then there is the work a man does upon his own garden or allotment. It would be the business of the old age pensions officer to inquire as to what advantage is secured by the pensioner in this way, and his duty will not be properly discharged unless that is taken into account in the calculation. I do not know whether that is the intention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it would be very unfortunate if that construction were placed upon this Amendment. I do not see how the pensions officer could avoid this in making his calculation. I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman said with regard to the old age pensioner who goes into his neighbour's house to look after a child not being likely to earn 10s a week, but this pensioner may be receiving some other income from investments and this is added to the rest of the income and may bring it above the limit. It will be a very great pity if we cannot find such a definition as will exempt the little things picked up as the result of a man's own labour upon his own holding or the few shillings he may earn by keeping a cow or a pig.
  I know a case in which a man over 70 years of age was able to keep a couple of cows. It was very little work for him but what he got in that respect has been taken into the calculation. He is a crippled old age pensioner and because of earning that small amount in that way his pension has been cut down. Where a man can earn a few shilling—seven if it is 10s.—I want the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be in a position to say to the old age pensioner, "We are not giving you much and the old age pension is not enough to keep body and soul together; if you have health and strength to do a little work and add
  1472
  some happiness to your old age, well go on, and good luck to you." If, even now, before the Bill passes, that concession can be made, the Chancellor would add to the gratitude which will be felt to him for the work he has done, and I think it is a great pity that this substantial extension of the Old Age Pensions Acts should have been marred in this way.
  I think that other Members will have had the came experience that I have had during the last week, when old age pensioners have been writing to ask how they would come in. One hon. Member showed me this morning a letter similar to those that I have had, to which he has to reply, as I have, saying that although this Bill as been brought in which they have been looking for for a long time, and upon which they have built their expectations, they must go on, and that the Bill holds out no advantage to them. If the Chancellor can, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. E. Harvey) has said, consult his own heart in this matter, he will not only consult his own heart but will receive approval from all quarters of the House.
  Mr. W. GREENWOOD: May I suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that a form of words which would meet the sense of the House would be to add at the end of the proposed Amendment the words
  "work performed under weekly contract."
  That would, at any rate, do away with many of the difficulties.
  Major BURNIE: I do not propose to follow my two hon. Friends in their eloquent appeal, because they have made the case far better than I can make it, but the words about which I am not clear—and this is a Bill on which we shall be questioned when we return to our constituencies—are the words
  "presently performed by him."
  I am not a lawyer, but. I have read the three principal Acts concerned, and it is there laid down clearly that, in calculating the means of the old age pensioner, if there is no standard, the past year shall be taken. We are now going to construe "earnings." and it seems to me that a man who is going to take advantage of this increase in pension will probably work until he is 70 and then cease working: and, as I understood the right hon. Gentleman—I may be wrong, and if so I shall be glad to be enlightened—he

  1473
  said that it was only current earnings that would be affected; but it appears to me that, according to the Acts as I read them, the earnings have to be strictly construed as the earnings of the previous year. I am sure the House will be glad to be enlightened on that point.
  Major MOULTON: When the Chancellor of the Exchequer got up to announce this Amendment, he stated that he had tried to make a narrow definition of "earnings" which would not oppress the poor very much. I very much doubt, however, if he could have got a much wider definition. I am acquainted with some of the definitions of "earnings" in Acts of Parliament, and I know of none so wide as this. The examples given by my hon. Friends have shown that to be absolutely the case, and there are many others that could be given. There is, for instance, the old man who works in his garden, or the old woman who knits stockings for herself, and acquires money's worth as the result of work done. There is talk of removing inquisitions, but may I just mention one case—that of an old mother who is kept by a son or daughter, who receives house room and all her meals, certainly to the value of 10s. a week? The pension officer has to decide how much of that is due to filial affection, and how much to the fact that she probably helps with the children. Is that the sort of thing we want to see throughout the country?
  I cannot imagine a much wider definition, or a more troublesome one, than that given here, and I think the Chancellor was, possibly unconsciously, imposing upon the House when he said that it was a narrow definition and one that would be kind to the pensioner. Of course I quite agree that all these people are doing useful work. They are all doing what the Labour party now seems to regard as one of the great sins—working in their spare time. I am glad to see, for the sake of the country, that they do not seem to impose the same rule entirely on their own Cabinet. They seem to have a Lord President of the Council who, according to modern views, must be imbued with all the best canons of Labour. But they are going to impose it on the old age pensioner as powerfully as they can. I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Bill would not be
  1474
  better and kinder to the old age pensioners without this distinction.
  Mr. WILLISON: I am quite confident that the Chancellor desires to assist the old age pensioner in adding this Amendment to the Bill, but I feel that it makes confusion worse confounded. The difficulty here seems to me to be that the House, instead of bringing forward what I may call a clear Act of Parliament, seeks by adding one Act after another to endeavour to explain the position. We have to remember that the people who will want to understand this Act are not only the administrators, but the people of 70 years of age. To enable them to do it now, first of all it seems to me they will have to purchase the Acts of 1908, 1911 and 1919 and now the present Act and then I understand the Chancellor proposes to issue a White Paper to further assist him or to make the position, as I think it will, more difficult still, and then I think if these words are added, the position becomes more obscure rather than clearer because, there is no question whatever, in the later Acts one is referred back to the original Act to ascertain in what way the calculation is made. The Act of 1908 says:
  "Income in the absence of other means for ascertaining the income being taken to be the income actually received during the preceding year."
  How the words proposed by the Chancellor dealing with the word "earnings" are to help that I absolutely fail to understand, because, supposing the old age pensioner has earned certain money during the preceding year, which is the way in which the calculation is to he made, and is not earning any money during the current year, although that word "presently" may deal with the current year, still if we are to go back to the Act of 1908, it is to be calculated on what he earned during the preceding year if there is no possibility of his earning anything during the year that is going on. I therefore submit that the words proposed by the Chancellor really make the Bill more difficult to understand than even it was before.
  Major HORE-BELISHA: There can be no doubt that this retrograde and capitalistic Amendment has been deliberately devised from the point of view of excluding everyone possible from the Old Age Pensions Acts. The Chancellor himself said he thought it wrong that people over 70 should do any work.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: I never said that.
  Major HORE-BELISHA: On the Second Reading.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: I never said it.
  Major HORE-BELISHA: I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say he considered that people over 70 should be discouraged from working. I have read it many times since. I have not got it with me. If he did not say that or anything approximate to it. [An HON. MEMBER: "He did say it!"] I am in the recollection of the House, and I do not in the slightest desire to do an injustice to the right hon. Gentleman. I thought I was doing him complete justice by giving him the credit of holding a point of view of which I thought he was proud. If he does not hold that point of view, I withdraw in the most unqualified manner. Perhaps he will explain it later. Whether or not that was his point of view, this Amendment has been devised from the point of view of discouraging in the most emphatic way earnings of any kind. It bears evidence of its Caledonian origin in the word "presently." I suggest that the intention in introducing the word "presently" was that the money should be received first and the work should be done later on. I cannot conceive any other explanation of the introduction of a word of that kind into the Bill. Why is the word "acquires" introduced? Is not the word "receives" quite sufficient? If the Chancellor of the Exchequer wanted to cover himself in every possible particular, why did not he add a large number of other words such as "obtains" or "gets," and make a whole rigmarole of it so as to tie as many ropes as possible round the neck of the old age pensioner? Before the Amendment was introduced, the crucial question under the Old Age Pensions Act was what were earnings. Now the crucial question is, "What is work? "We have got out of one difficulty in order to discover another.
  I have been amusing myself in the Library going through Acts of Parliament which endeavour to define "work." I challenge hon. Members of the Socialist party to define what work is. I find that the most contrary and inconsistent definitions of the occupation known as work
  1476
  exist in Acts of Parliament. In the Employers' Liability Act, that which "tests the muscles and sinews" is defined as work. Therefore, if an old age pensioner was so gifted as to write poems containing paeans of praise of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and earned money thereby, he would not be doing work within the meaning of this Act. Every Act that includes the word "work" has defined it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has endeavoured to define "earnings," but has not endeavoured to define "work." That will cause great complications. If the old age pensioners were, rich enough to go to law, this lack of definition would create a perfect harvest of litigation. Under the Factory and Workshops Act, 1901, a boy was considered to have committed an offence because he amused himself during the dinner hour. In a case under the Act he was summoned for oiling some spindles during the dinner hour, and it was submitted by counsel that this offence of working was wantonly committed by the boy himself. The learned judge held that it was none the less work because it was done for self-amusement. That is the kind of difficulty that you will create by an Amendment of the kind. Under the Employers and Workmen's Act of 1875, a person who works is a labourer, or servant in husbandry, a handicraftsman, a miner, and various other clearly defined types of workman. The right hon. Gentleman makes no effort to define whether or not a man who owns an allotment and grows potatoes is going to be penalised because the potatoes are worth 15s. It is of foe greatest importance to those who desire to benefit, to make it clear and to specify exactly what is meant by this Act of Parliament which is going to mean so much or so little to so many people. There is another word which is most dangerous, and that is the word "person." Why cannot the Chancellor of the Exchequer use the word " pensioner." Suppose a pensioner of 70 years of age—
  Mr. MARCH: He will not be a pensioner until he gets his pension.
  Major HORE-BELISHA: Supposing a pensioner of 70 years marries a woman of 50 years, and that woman is working and earning 30s. a week. Under this Bill, 15s. of that. 30s. will be counted against the man in respect of pension. If that

  1477
  woman is a bloated capitalist, deriving 30s. a week for investments in a shipbuilding company or some other iniquitous enterprise, she will be entitled to be exempt, and will have the full benefit of the 30s. coming into the household, plus 5s. old age pension, but if she is industrious and is actually working—[HON. MEMBERS: "Have you any objection?"] No. I want to extend it. I thought that I had made that perfectly plain. If she has an income which she has got by plundering the people, or by inheritance from her capitalist father, she win get 5s. a week more than the woman who is industrious.
  I am in favour of giving anybody who reaches the age of 70 the fullest benefit possible. If the Chancellor wants, as I understand he does, to discourage persons of 70 from working he must bear the full implications of his theory, and make the old age pension a sum of money which can keep the man of 70. There is no good in saying that the man of 70 should not work, if you are not going to make it possible for him to remain idle. I do not want to force any old age pensioner to work, but what this definition does is definitely to forbid him to work even if he should so desire, which is going to have a very sinister moral effect on the whole community. I would like to support the suggestion of my hon. Friend opposite, and wish that he would move it as an Amendment or an Amendment to an Amendment. It would have the effect of excluding casual earnings such as might be obtained by sweeping roads and so on.
  If you are going to discourage these old people from earning as the Chancellor wants to do what is to become of the oldest inhabitant of a village who by exhibiting himself in a top hat frequently gets sums of money from charitable persons. Are such sums as the oldest inhabitant of the village obtains by the mere fact of being the oldest inhabitant, and therefore interesting to visitors to the place in which he lives, to be considered as earnings? There is no question of the oldest inhabitant being replaced by a younger man. He is therefore not keeping a younger man out of a job. One has to face the full significance of an Amendment of this kind. Not only does it now penalise the oldest inhabitant, but it would have made the Premiership of Gladstone almost a penal offence; it would have excluded Sarah
  1478
  Bernhardt from the stage in her later years as doing something which was positively obscene and immoral, and it would have caused Ellen Terry to retire many years earlier than she did. According to this principle, Methuselah would have been expurgated from the Bible as an undesirable character, and Homer's works would have been destroyed. A large number of other examples could be given, including Lord Parmoor, who is the worst blackleg of the lot. He certainly should never be employed by a Chancellor who does not believe in persons of over seventy years earning money. This proposal sins against every category of morality and of Socialist doctrine, because it definitely places the capitalist in a better position than the industrious person. Anyone who is so misguided as to work is to be penalised; anyone who is so villainous as to save money and put it into institutions which maintain an undesirable capitalist system is to have a benefit of 5s. a week. These are the implications of the Amendment. To take another case—supposing an old man desired to enrich posterity by sitting for a portrait. He would not be depriving anybody else of a job; yet under this proposal he would be deprived of the Old Age Pension if he earned more than 15s. a week as a model.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer reproached the Liberal party with having introduced the means limit in the first instance. Although we introduced the means limit it roust not be forgotten that the Socialist Government is not abolishing it, but is making the inquiry and the inquisition ten thousand times worse. Under the old system you merely had to discover and decide the income of a person. Now you have to discover whether that income is earned or unearned or whether it is in respect of work "presently performed by" these unfortunate persons, and the inquisition becomes far more iniquitous and far more severe than it has ever been under any Government before. The whole tendency of modern legislation has been to tax the man who does not earn his income; to give the man who earns his income an advantage ever the man who derives his income from investment. That principle was introduced in the Liberal Budget of 1908, and I thought it was a principle which met with commendation from the Socialist party, because it definitely

  1479
  penalised the idle capitalist and put him at a disadvantage in comparison with the man who works. This proposal is a reversal of that principle; it puts a penalty on the persons who are earning their incomes and exempts the persons who are not earning their incomes. One thing the Chancellor of the Exchequer must do, if he believes in discouraging earnings in this way, is to give old age pensions which shall provide complete maintenance for old people in the declining years of their lives.
  Captain BENN: On a point of Order. I wanted to move as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the words "or money's worth." and I submit certain grounds on which, I suggest, such an Amendment would be in order. The original Money Resolution simply said "earnings," and my submission is that by this definition the Chancellor of the Exchequer has restricted expenditure. Therefore, I ask you, Sir, whether an Amendment to leave out the words "or money's worth" would not be within the terms of the Money Resolution.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: I submit that if you were to leave out the words "or money's worth," you would be going outside the scope of the Financial Resolution. Money's worth, for instance, might include what is derived from an allotment which might produce sufficient to maintain a man and his wife.
  Mr. SPEAKER: Dealing with the point of Order, I am not concerned on the Report stage with the Money Resolution. I am concerned to see that on the Report stage no extra charge is put on the Exchequer, which is another matter. Clearly, if certain kinds of earnings are not to be earnings, it would increase the charge. For that reason, I informed the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. E. Harvey) that his Amendment could not be accepted.
  Captain BENN: My submission is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is attempting to reduce the charge on Report, and that the Amendment we desire to move would merely leave the charge where it was.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think that is so. It is not for me to say what is the effect of the Chancellor's Amendment,
  1480
  except that I have to satisfy myself that it would not increase the charge. That was my duty. It is clear that the Amendment suggested by the hon. Member for Dewsbury would increase the charge as compared with leaving the Bill as it came from Committee. That is the point with which I have to deal.
  Major BARNETT: I desire to support the appeal made by Members from below the Gangway opposite, I am quite sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer desires to extend the benefits to these old people, but I am sure that, in its working, it would mean an extension of the inquisitorial system. We want to reduce that sort of thing and not to increase it. From my correspondence of this morning I am able to reinforce the case of the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport (Major Hore-Belisha). It is the case of an old man of 70, whose wife is a cook 60 years of age. She gets £1 a week and lodging, but not board. The old man, who is allowed to live with her, has a small pension that conies to an end when he is 70. The pensions officer this week has declined to recommend him for a pension on the ground that he is too well off, as his wife has £1 a week and he has the benefit of living with her. I submit that the effect of this Amendment will be an enormous increase in the inquisitorial examination into the means of these old people. Every little trifling benefit they will get will be looked into. I appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to withdraw this definition of earnings.
  Dr. CHAPPLE: I think the Bill would be better without the proposed alteration, because the change involves stricter definitions, more inquiry and more investigation, and indeed to give effect to it may necessitate an increased staff. One of the principal objections I have to the proposal is that it will discourage these people from taking on little jobs. It will be bad for both their health and their happiness. These are better secured by constant occupation of mind and body. It is a false conception to look on the old age pension as a substitute for earnings. It should only be an addition to casual earnings and should stimulate occupation rather than be a substitute for it. But the effect of this proposal would be to compel the old age pensioner to stop all work—casual and otherwise—lest by taking on any occupation he might

  1481
  prejudice his pension rights. That will be a very serious thing indeed for, if he drops all occupation, he will become miserable and even unhealthy. There is nothing better for old age and declining years than constant occupation of mind and body, of course in proportion to physical capacity. Without it the health and happiness of these people disappear. The Bill is much better without this definition, and I think the right hon. Gentleman will be well advised to adandon this proposal altogether.
  12 M.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: If I may be permitted I should like to remind the House that this Amendment is not brought forward by me on my own initiative, but has been proposed in response to a suggestion by the hon. and gallant Member far Leith Burghs (Captain W. Benn). I have provided a definition which will, I believe, not prove a hardship to any old age pensioner. As a matter of fact, if this Amendment is withdrawn, it will not alter the administration of the Old Age Pensions Act in the slightest degree, and the inquiries that have had to be made hitherto will continue to be made. I should like to remind the House that the object of this Bill is to deal with the thrift disqualification. Yet all the speeches that had been made from below the Gangway have been in the direction of trying to extend the character and scope of the allowances for thrift proposed under the Bill. Therefore, they have been quite outside what is the purpose and intention of this Bill. I have no doubt, when the party now below the Gangway come into power, they will have a very generous Old Age Pensions Bill. I have no doubt they will not wait, as they did when they came into power in 1906, for three years before they make an attempt to deal with this matter, but that one of their first legislative proposals will be to sweep away every one of the limitations on a full old-age pension to-day, and I have no doubt they will also increase the amount of the pension. But I have at the present time no such ambitious proposal as that to offer to the House of Commons.
  Major HORE-BELISHA: You had at the General Election.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: I wish the hon. Member for Devonport (Major Hore-Belisha) would pay a little more respect
  1482
  to veracity, not only in the statements he makes in his speeches, but in his interjections. I gave no such promise.
  Major HORE-BELISHA: You did not, but the Government did.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: I said, when I began to speak, that it was not at my desire that this Amendment was put down on the Paper. If this Amendment be withdrawn, it certainly will not be to the advantage of the old age pensioner. It may not be to his disadvantage. I really do not think it will make very much difference. If the House is not prepared to accept it, I will not press it. But I hope that, if the Amendment be withdrawn, hon. Members below the Gangway will not be under the mistaken impression that they have done some good to the old age pensioner by preventing this definition of earnings from being in the Bill. If it be the wish of the House that the Amendment should be withdrawn, I will withdraw it.
  Captain BENN: It is perfectly true, as the Chancellor says, that this Amendment was put down in response to a suggestion from these benches by myself. Our intention in asking for such an Amendment was to give him an opportunity to extend the limit of this definition. We did not want a narrow definition of earnings which would exclude, as this does, every possible source of revenue coming front effort on the part of the old age pensioner. The purpose we had in mind was to get this definition loosened a little—we knew that we could not do it, on account of the Financial Resolution—in the interest of the old age pensioner. I am quite sure that many of my hon. Friends think with me that this Amendment is not worth having. If the Chancellor cares to withdraw it, or if it is negatived, it makes no difference. But I want to say a Word about some of the taunts the right hon. Gentleman has been pleased to fling at us. I want to remind him of the position of some hon. Members on these benches, of whom I am one. I was asked at the General Election whether I was in favour of the abolition of the means limit, not the thrift disqualification. Basing myself on the statement of all parties, I said "Yes"; and I said more than that. I said, "This will cost £13,000,000, and this is the only promise involving expenditure I will make at this

  1483
  Election, because it is a very heavy strain." Not no the representative of the right hon. Gentleman and his party. He promised everything.
  Mr. SNOWDEN indicated dissent.
  Captain BENN: I am speaking of the representative of the right hon. Gentleman's party in my constituency, and in many others. He promised everything, and the result was that people said to me "Other people are prepared to do far more than you." I said: "I cannot help it. I do not think the Exchequer can stand it." That is the crime that we lay at the door of the Government, that they made reckless promises, and that they lowered the standard of political morality in doing so.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think this Amendment is peculiarly appropriate to such remarks as the hon. and gallant Member is making.
  Captain BENN: I am confining myself to the point of the means limit. Three times in Parliament have responsible representatives of the Government moved Resolutions on this subject, which I have supported on every occasion, and every time—once it was the Home Secretary, another time it was Mr. Myers, and the third time it was the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton)—they have said: "The production of the birth certificate, that is what we want."
  Mr. SPEAKER: We are simply dealing now with the question of whether or not we should put in a definition, and we must confine ourselves to that question.
  Captain BENN: I submit, with respect, that in dealing with earnings we axe dealing with means, and I am anxious not to go beyond what is proper on this occasion. As far as we are concerned, we would desire the definition of earnings to be so narrow that it would be come almost imperceptible, in order that the means limit might altogether disappear.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That is the very thing that I have said would be out of order. The only question before us is whether we shall define the word "earnings", or leave it undefined.
  Captain BENN: I submit that, while an Amendment moved by me might be out of order, remarks suggesting an Amend-
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  meat which I may not move might conceivably be in order. I recognise very fully that this Bill is an advance, and a great advance. I only wish it had gone further, and let me say, in conclusion, that I wish it had fulfilled the following Labour pledge, officially issued by the Labour party for the purpose of securing the return of their candidates. This was issued from Eceleston Square, and it reads:
  "A Labour Govern Wilt would increase the old ago pensions and sweep away all the penalties—"
  Mr. SPEAKER: This would be more appropriate for the Third Reading of the Bill. It is impossible to have a Third Reading Debate on this small Amendment.
  Mr. CLIMIE: On a point of Order. May I ask how many times you will call a Member to order before asking him to resume his seat?
  Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter for me to decide. If the hon. Member himself would give me a little more assistance, I should be obliged.
  Captain BENN: This is the only thing I wish to add, which seems to be entirely hostile to the spirit of this Amendment. This circular says:
  "A Labour Government would increase the old age pensions and sweep away all the penalties on thrift, the mean, miserly reductions imposed by the Liberals, and maintained by the Tories."
  Major HORE-BELISHA rose—
  Mr. SPEAKER: Does the hon. and gallant Member rise to a point of Order?
  Major HORE-BELISHA: Perhaps you will allow me to make a personal explanation. In the course of the discussion I quoted a statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which he denied. I have since refreshed my memory, and I find that the statement is this:
  "I do not think it right to encourage earnings by individuals over 70 years of age."
  If I have attributed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer anything beyond that statement, I withdraw it.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: What the hon. Member did say in the first instance was that I regarded it as a crime.
  Sir ROBERT KAY: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, in line 2, to leave out the word "person" and to insert instead thereof

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  the word "pensioner." We are dealing with the question of earnings, and if the substitution I suggest is made it will do away with some of the hardships mentioned in this Debate. I have an illustration which I received only a few days ago. An old man of 70 married a much younger wife, and as she is earning something the pension of the old man is reduced. If we can have "pensioner" substituted for "person" the old man will not be prejudiced by any slight earnings that his wife may make.
  Mr. SPEAKER: It is quite clear that if the Amendment would have that effect, it would be out of order. It would be amending the principal Act in such a way as to bring persons within the Act who are now excluded, and it involves a new charge on the Exchequer. Therefore, it is out of order. It remains for the House to decide whether it will insert this new Sub-section (2) in Clause 1.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: I really do not take the least interest in it. I do not want to press it on the House. If it be the wish of the House that the Amendment should be withdrawn, I withdraw it.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  OLD AGE PENSIONS BILL.

    CLAUSE 2.—(Short Title.)
    Amendment made: In page 1, line 19, at the end, insert the words
    "(3) This Act shall not extend to Northern Ireland."—[Mr. Snowden.]
    Bill to be read the Third time Tomorrow.

  PENSIONS (INCREASE) BILL.
  As amended, considered.
  PENSIONS (INCREASE) BILL.

    CLAUSE 3.—(Pensions granted by public authorities to be increased.)
    Mr. W. GRAHAM: I beg to move, in page 2, line 40, after the word "authority," to insert the words "in Great Britain."
    This is a purely drafting Amendment. In the Committee stage some doubt arose as to the position in Northern Ireland, and the Amendment makes it clear.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Bill to be read the Third time Tomorrow.

  AGRICULTURAL WAGES [REGULATION.]
  Resolution reported,
  "That, for carrying out the provisions of any Act of the present Session to provide for the regulation of wages of workers in agriculture and for purposes incidental thereto, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of the expenses of the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries under the said Act, and any expenses which are sanctioned by him of any agricultural wages board, or agricultural wages committee, or sub-committee established under the said Act, including any expenses incurred with such sanction by members of any such board, committee, or sub-committee in the performance of their duties, and any sums paid with such sanction to any such members by way of compensation for loss of time, in each case up to an amount approved by the Treasury, but not exceeding in the aggregate the sum of seventy thousand pounds in any one year."

  ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) ACTS.
  Resolved,
  "That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban districts of Knutsford, Middlewich, and Winsford and parts of the rural districts of Northwich and Bucklow, all in the county of Chester, which was presented on the 28th day of May, 1924, be approved."
  Resolved,
  "That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of part of the rural district of Horsham, in the administrative county of West Sussex, parts of the rural districts of Cuckfield and East Grinstead, in the administrative county of East Sussex, and part of the rural district of Reigate, in the county of Surrey, which was presented on the 300 day of June, 1924, be approved."—[Mr. Gosling.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  It being after half-past Eleven of the clock upon Wednesday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Eighteen Minutes after Twelve o'Clock.